From Professional Athlete to Executive Coach: How to Master The Mental Game

of the most valuable lessons in table tennis, it's, it's, you have a millisecond to react, to understand your opponent, to know your strengths, you know, to understand what, where to put, you know, the emphasis and the focus on, and you have to do that so fast, and to do that is a real skill. Most valuable lessons were actually the mental game, you know, and the same psychological tools

that create champion athletes can transform good leaders into exceptional ones. Whether you're an athlete or not, resilience isn't something that we wake up with, and today we're resilient, it's something we develop and we work at. Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast. Today we're going to be talking with Tanya Friedlander. Welcome, Tanya. Hi, thank you so much for having me. So nice to be here. Now you've had an incredible journey transitioning from law and now an executive, high performing

coach for some of the biggest names and the business. Let's start with hearing a little bit about what inspired the shift and why you do executive coaching now. Thank you. Yes, so my journey started many, many years ago. So I had different careers in my lifetime. So I started as an athlete in table tennis. I had a big passion for table tennis, competed national and international wide was Vienna champion and one of the top Austrian players.

And also competed internationally. And then I transitioned into law, some a lawyer by training. And I'm from Austria, I also lived in England. And when I moved to this country to the US, I transitioned into coaching. And initially I combined my two passions of law and coaching. And so I was coaching a lot of lawyers. And then I started working with more leaders. And that is when I discovered my passion for leadership development. And I've been doing this

work for almost a decade now. And the way that I discovered it was more about that I was always always fascinated by the mind and what makes people great. And I wanted to learn more about it. And so I discovered the field of positive psychology. And when I found it, I said, yeah, that's it. This is what I want to do. And I want help people to get clear on their goals, achieve their goals and move forward. And so I combined that with leadership development, helping leaders step up

that game and get to where they want to go. I love that. I think that makes you such a unique coach, having law and all the frameworks that go into being attorney. And then the leadership side of being an athlete, an athlete, especially in a high-stake environment. So I want to talk a little bit about high-performing teams and how companies can really bring that out in their employees now.

And maybe share a little bit about some of the methodologies you use that has helped some of your clients transform their performance in the office and outside the office. Yeah. So the number one step is to really be clear on what it is that we actually want to achieve. And I think a lot of times when I initially speak to someone, it would always be extremely unclear. It's like, I want to be a more impactful leader. I want to be a better leader.

Right? What does that mean? Let's break things down and say, what do you want to achieve in a year from now, in three years from now, in five years from now? Right? So being really clear of what that would actually look like for you? How do you want your team to transform? You know, what kind of changes do you want to see within, you know, as an individual, as a leader, and as a, you know, as a company,

and as an organization? What kind of changes do you want to see within your team? So that is to be from the get-go really, be clearly defined. And that is when this journey really starts. It's getting really, I use a very customized approach to really identifying the core of the issue. And for some organizations, it's trust, not having psychological safety, not being able to speak up because

they might be afraid of repercussions. For some people, it's not having clarity of their role, you know, not really understanding where they belong and where they make the biggest difference. Because there needs to be both from, from the organization and from, you know, your team, there needs to be

maximum satisfaction and maximum value, right? Like the employee, right, has to feel like they give that satisfied, but on the other side, they also need to feel the company needs to feel like they're getting the most value as well. So to bridge the two is where you really start to thrive. Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely. And I know you've done coaching for large companies like Salesforce and Google, and I'm curious, what are some of common challenges that executive leaders

are facing today? And how can you help them overcome these challenges? So I, one of the biggest challenges is, you know, the market is constantly changing. It's working on the pressure. It's that agility and being able to adapt on the pressure, you know, when certain conditions are changing and the goal posts are changing, right? And that is what I learned actually, one of the most valuable

lessons in table tennis. It's, it's, you have a millisecond to react, to understand your opponent, to know your strengths, you know, to understand what, where to put, you know, the emphasis and the focus on and you have to do that so fast and to do that is a real skill. And that it really translates directly to leadership and how to adapt quickly within the change in circumstances. Yeah, I love that you said that. I think athletics has, I agree. I think athletics has helped me come,

you know, a corporate athlete because I think in today's world, athletics translate, right? If you're executive, high stress, high pressure, constant changing, and a lot of the executives, I know right now, Tanya, are traveling across countries, internationally, different time zones. And a lot of times we forget that it's not just eight to five. It's, you know, we're, some executives are, have jobs

that are not only physical and emotional and mental. So we're, we're juggling all of our senses all the time plus sleep deprivation. And so really getting your head in the game and like you were saying,

getting a plan of what are we trying to accomplish? I think a lot of times, you know, in corporate America, we set so many goals. We need to sell while creating new systems, while delivering, oh wait, we want to sell it before we have it, you know, baked and ready to deliver. And so you really have to navigate all of this while you're developing products while you're selling to clients and

managing teams, right? So there's a lot of emotions that go into that. So I want to kind of fill back those layers and take a little bit deeper approach to kind of what that looks like today. Yes, yes. And that is really, you know, when, when we think of high performance, right, we,

especially high performance athletics, we think of the physical capabilities. But what you are describing and what I've also learned throughout, you know, my athletic years and being a champion athlete was the most valuable lessons were actually the mental game, you know, and the same psychological tools that create champion athletes can transform good leaders into exceptional ones. And so we really have to work much more on the end on that resilience. The resilience that we need to build up to

manage all of those different things that you just mentioned, right? There's so many moving parts. How do we step, you know, how do we stay on top of the game when there is just so much demand, right? Yeah. And I think resilience and whether you're an athlete or not, resilience isn't something that

we wake up with. And today we're resilient. It's something we develop and we work at, right? If you end your day and you're really stressed out and you stay up night late at night trying to get caught up at work and you, you wake up in the morning, you're, you know, you're sleep deprived, you're stressed out, you're strong out. It's really hard over time to stay resilient. So it's really like you were

saying at the beginning, what is the goal? What is the mission? If you have 10 things that you're focusing on, it's really hard to accomplish the mission. And like you said, same thing with a mindset, right? Like you might have one thing you're focusing on at your corporate job and you can't deliver it

until the product team finishes the product, right? And your job might be dependent on other people doing their job. And so really getting your head in the game, I love what you're saying. I think is so important not to lose hope, not to lose faith and to continue to persevere. I think we see this in sports. We saw this during the Olympics, we see this in football. We've seen this with college football this year underdogs winning, but it's all this sudden they could be up by a lot. And then

in no time, there, you know, how many points behind and where did their mental mind game go? So I want to talk a little bit about like you were saying the mental mind game in resilience as it pertains to corporate America and what executives can do to be resilient and have that strong mental mind game. Absolutely. I mean, the first step is really to understand what are, you know, there are external expectations and internal expectations, right? External expectations of what the company,

the organization is expecting of you as a leader. And then what are you expecting of yourself? And when we set so many different goals, we become so scattered, we can't really measure progress. And when we can't measure progress, it's kind of like really makes us feel like we're not good enough because we can't really see the, you know, how we are making progress. We have nothing to measure, right? Especially in that waiting period, like you said, you're waiting for a product to be,

you know, delivered, right? That waiting game, right? The insecurities also we want to be, we are creatures

of control, we are control-freex, right? We want to be in control when we have to delegate, when we have to wait on something, we get nervous, we get tense, right? It's that insecurity and uncertainty, right? So it really goes back to that mental game of how do I stay in the game when I'm not in control, right? When things are not in my control anymore, how can I work in my life

and in my work and I look for control, right? What can I control? And so, you know, when you're setting so many different goals, it's like reflecting back and saying, okay, I have so many, you know, in order to not be so scattered, that is where being an athlete comes in so handy, I mean, the principles, because there is such a thing as called deliberate practice, right? Deliberate practice is the concept of taking one thing, one skill and always applying it and really making sure that you

are constantly working on that one thing instead of 10 different things, right? You're going to a practice session, you're focusing on developing that one skill and that is your measuring, that's how you measure that is your goal. So you start practicing that one skill until you master it, right? And so I think so many times when we have this goal and that goal, you don't feel like you're

making progress because you don't feel like you're actually mastering anything. So we can take this concept of deliberate practice and really apply it to how are we executing, how we applying this, to what we're doing right now. Yeah, and I think of it like kind of like a hamster wheel, you could be running at your goal and you're running on the hamster wheel, running and you're just

kind of running in circles. And I think I also look at resiliency like productivity too and in my world because you know, back to the athletics, when I would have practices late in the evening, I

wasn't as fast of a runner as good as weightlifting as I was in the morning. So the other side of resilience is to understand when you're the best. When are you the best focused? When are you the best all in? So sometimes it may take you an hour to get focused and get productive if it's in the evening. And I have people I work with that they're so productive in the evening and that's when

they do their best work. So going back to resiliency, I think you need to understand you what works best for you because there's no like perfect, you know, who's resilient best when I think you really got to unpack when you work the best and how you work the best. Is it late at night?

Is it in the morning? Exactly. Getting your mental mind game in that game. Exactly. And building off of that is that you know, so many times when we think of productivity, we think of time management, but more than time management, I say energy management because when you know what fills you, what energizes you and what drains you, you can position yourself. Like you said, where do I, where do I function at my best? Is it in the morning? Is it under afternoon? You know, it's not

just time management. We all have limited amounts of time, right? We all have the same amount of time, but energy is a whole different ball game. It's like a it's like a phone that you charge, right? Like most people, they, you know, charge their phone. It's almost like when the battery is running out, you know?

And that is what we do with our life. We go on vacation or we we need to take a break when our batteries run out, but really energy management is is preserving the battery, is charging it. And understanding what charges me, you know, what do I need a little bit to do more of? Then,

you know, what do I need to let go of and really lean in into so that I can feel more energized? And a lot of times people think that they're overwhelmed and burned out because they do too much, but actually it's they do too little of the things that energize them. Oh, let's unpack that. I love that because burnout, you can't, you know, find a scroll or anything anymore where we're not talking about burnout and, you know, a lot of

companies now are really focusing on that with their staff and their team. So I know that you offer programs dedicated to burnout. And I want to hear a little bit about what are some of the early warning signs for burnout as that leaders can pay attention to. Disengagement, disengagement, demotivation, when you feel disconnected, when you're just like going through, you know, the trenches, but it's like it nothing excites you. So just kind of like this sense of disconnection and disengagement,

lack of motivation. And those are early signs when you are like, okay, you know, this is, you know, I'm having a hard time getting out of bed. I'm just constantly in the cycle of exhaustion because burnout is a more of a, there is overwhelming, there's burnout, right? We can often feel overwhelmed, but burnout is over a longer period of time when it becomes a new way of being, when you're just constantly running on such low energy that that is burnout. And it's, it's really also

understanding that, you know, there's some people that are just more prone to burnout. And many people don't know that. So some people are just more prone to burnout, like type A personalities, people that are having a hard time asking for help, perfectionists, you know, so there is people that identify with the biggest part of who they are with their job. So yeah, and I also think for

burnout for me too, I notice it's also correlates to food, right? When I'm tired or stressed, I greet for things I would not otherwise ever reach for, you know, the kids food that I shouldn't be eating. So also, I think it's, it's what you're picking up to eat and what you're putting in your body to eat and drink is it more alcohol is it, you know, high sugary, high fat foods is it fast food, are you not having the energy to put a nice meal together or healthy snacks as well? Absolutely.

Yes, I'm getting enough sleep, right? Those are like, you know, essentials, those are essentials. What I'm, those are essentials, what I'm transitioning into is that mental aspect, because how many times have people gone on vacation or taken a break and still can't switch off their constant on feeling, right? You might get a massage, you might get your nails done, you might go on vacation, but you still feel on. That's the mental game, that's the internal expectations of yourself,

the internal pressure that you're feeling, right? That needs to be addressed, because you can take all of the things that are being suggested, self-care, right? All of those things, but people still

struggle with switching off. Yeah, and I love that you said that, because that I was one of those people was, yes, tense, and I've really leaned in last year to really focusing on taking the time off and putting the phone away and really getting right in myself and my, and, and what I need to do, like you said, a massage, get my nails done, those things, and it's amazing how much energy and how much easier it is to come back to something when you're rested, you have had the sleep, you're, you've

ate healthy. I mean, what might have taken eight hours could take half the time if you're well-rested and well-organized with your thoughts versus really erratic with your thinking, taking time to get focused and then refocusing and I know another thing I've been doing is shrinking my email, like turning my teams off, turning my email down so I can focus on what I need to focus, otherwise it's email pop-up, teams pop-up, calls coming in and really manage my desk versus the day managing me.

Yes, exactly, you being in control and you kind of setting the boundaries, setting boundaries of what do you want to protect, right? You want to protect your focus, you want to protect your mental capacities, right? Like that, that needs to be addressed, so we need to understand where do I need to set the boundaries? Maybe it's like you said the emails, the team meetings, like all of those, all of those different tools that we have and these days with the constant things popping up,

it's like endless, right? Like it's hard to switch off, there's so much information being fed to us, right? So a lot of times what I do with with my clients is like the start of the day, what do we typically do when we wake up? We look at our phone, we turn on the news, we read the papers, right? That's information being unloaded, right? Like really it's feeding into you and whether you are aware of it or

not, subconsciously, it impacts you. So you might see that post first thing in the morning that makes you feel like not good enough. Oh, or you see something that somebody has achieved that you wanted to achieve? The impact already, the energy of your day, or maybe you read a news of what is going on in the world and you're like, this is the end, you know? So it can really feed into that anxiety

and really impact your productivity for the rest of the day. So instead of, you know, the world influencing you, it's you being in charge and you saying, I'm going to start the day with something that fills me, right? Whether it's meditating, whether it's journaling, whether it's praying, whether it's going for a run, right? Like whatever that is, it's you starting the day you being in control and you influencing your mental mindset rather than the world influencing you.

Yeah, I love that. I also love Tonya, one of your taglines. I find it very inspirational as someone who has been a lifelong goalsetter. I love your tagline. And she big goals effortly, it really resonates with me because I've had big goals my whole life. Can you unpack a little bit about what effort effort, effort, growth means and really how that all works? Yes. So a lot of times people are very intrigued by the tagline because we always assume

it needs to be hard, right? Like achieving big goals is hard. And he is the difference. I'm not saying don't work hard, right? We work hard, we play hard. But when you tap into your strengths and I use a strength based approach, everything changes, right? When you access your strengths and you have first of all understand what have a clear picture of what your strengths are, you really claim them, you don't, we take our strengths for granted, we don't see them as anything special.

So we don't appreciate the nurture our own strengths because it's like, oh yeah, of course that's what you do. It's like, no, some for some people, those things are really hard, but we take our own strengths for granted. So we really need to reclaim our strengths and say, yes, that's me. And then apply them to our goals, the whole journey looks different. And so it becomes effortless because then all you do is what you do best every day, you know? And so that is how you can change

the way you work when you really understand and I have a, you know, kind of like a process. It's called name it, claim it, aim it, name it, what is it? Identify it. To claim it, make it your own, right? And number three, aim it, aim it to a specific goal. And when you do that, the journey becomes effortless.

I love that. That's really good, a really good analogy. Name it, aim it, name it, claim it, aim it. Claim it. There we go. Name it, claim it, aim it. I love that. I know right now, I think there's a sense of a lot of people are feeling stuck. They don't want to leave their company. They don't want to go. They feel like they want something else. They, they're unsure, they're like analysis, paralysis, unsure how to move forward in their career. What advice would you give those people?

Well, first of all, understand what you really grade at, you know? And if you're stuck in analysis, paralysis, that might be your greatest strength, but analyze the right things, you know? We can get stuck, you know, a lot of times our biggest, you know, our biggest strengths can seem like our biggest weakness, like a lot of times people can come to me and they say, everything that's wrong with me, right? Ask them, what's, what's right with them that you will give you really mediocre answers,

ask them what's wrong with them. They will give you an entire list, you know? So I really understand, you know, what that looks like. And then as you start seeing, as you're going through this journey, oftentimes what you think is your biggest weakness is actually your biggest strength. It's just a strength is only a strength when you productively apply it. And most of the time, people just don't productively apply their strengths. So they look like weaknesses, just like analysis,

paralysis, you can overthink things, right? But take a step back and say, what kind of things do I like to analyze? Where is it help serving me? And where is it not serving me? And then, you know, taking that understanding, what are your strengths? You know, what excites you? What is of interest to you?

What, where do you find meaning and purpose? Right? And then connecting, you know, those different, you know, types of like what you excited about, what your purpose is, what you mean, where you find meaning with your strengths combined will give you more than answer of what it is that you want to do. I love that. And I think for me, a lot of times, my strengths are the same personally and professionally.

I use them the same way when I set personal goals versus professional roles because they all really tie together. And how do you encourage people to really set these kind of goals? Because like you were saying, you don't want to have a bunch of different goals and then we're not accomplishing anything. So how do you work with clients to set not only just professional goals for their, their jobs and their professional career, but also personal goals and how those kind of work together?

I would really zoom out. I like to call it the balcony view when you're like on the balcony and you kind of like see an overview. It's almost like a movie of your life, right? And if you, you know, what would a fulfilling and meaningful life look like for you? Right? It's almost like if you wrote a book, you know, what kind of chapters would be in that book? What would you include in that book? Right? What do you want to write about? What is it something that you're missing in your life that

you'd like to have more of? So that will really give you a good idea of, you know, what kind of goals to set, whether it's professional or personal. Like for example, I didn't play table tennis in so many years, but I really started noticing that this was such a big part of who I am and what I

thrive in and what fills my cup that became part of my personal goal to play again. That's great advice. I think a lot of times we, we forget that, right? We forget kind of the fun of living. Yes. It's not just, um, constant achieving and constant goals. It's, it's really life just is passing all of us by so fast and really like you were saying, setting these big goals and effortlessly achieving them. And like you mentioned, I absolutely agree with the battery. Looking at your day, you

have so much, you know, you have 168 hours in a day. How are you spending it? Are you spending it on things that zap that battery? Or are you spending it on things that really move you and you're passionate about doing? I think your your mindset will be much different if you're doing things that that

make you feel energetic versus not. Exactly. Exactly. And often I have like some sort of an audit, you know, an audit where you can really go through your day and kind of like analyze what just drained me. Why do I feel drained? And there are different different things that can drain us, you know, when it comes to burnout, there are different types of burnout. There is a mental burnout. There is emotional burnout. There is physical burnout, right? So, you know, physical burnout or some of the

things that we talked about in terms of sleep and eating, exercising, right? Those are physical, but then there is a mental, right? Focus, resilience, like those kind of things. And then there is emotional. Are we are we feel, you know, are we feeling our cup? Do we have a time and space to express our emotions? Right? Or are they just being kind of like suppressed? So we also need to take care of

our emotional well-being and then the respiratory, right? Do we feel connected? Do we feel like we have a purpose and meaning in our life? Yeah, I love that. I think that's a really great analogy. Tony, I love everything that you shared today. Is there anything that we may have missed that you

want to share with our listeners today? I think one thing that I would love to add is, you know, sometimes we can feel burned out because one thing that we often have to reassess and ask ourselves so that we feel good enough, so that we feel like we're accomplishing is when my life to feel that I can contribute the most, you know? And that often fills our cup because we all have a way to

contribute. So for those seeking either and trying to understand their next steps and kind of like going through reflection and thinking about where to go next in their life is to ask themselves, where do I want to contribute the most? And that will often reveal a lot of insight for yourself.

Let's and then take action, right? I think that's another really important part of goal setting is if, you know, you're setting goals and you're not moving and taking action to achieve those goals, you can spend a lot of time hoping, wishing, praying, meditating on your goals, but go out and make mistakes, be messy with it, learn from it, and you might find that the goals you set are not something you want to do. You might reset new goals. I know, it's a whole ton of that flash,

right when the pandemic happened, they were let go from their career in 2020. They decided, there's a perfect time to start a business. They had already wanted to start a business. They did it and then they decided business ownership wasn't for them. And it made them really appreciate being a corporate employee and a W2 person in a different way of looking at things. And so they reset different goals and nothing finite and definite set it and then take action. Exactly.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's the only way for you to build that resilience and also, you know, to understand like all the actions that you're taking are feedback, you know, and that is what we learn in being an athlete, right? Like you know, by default, that you're going to lose games. You're not always going to win, but you take all of that as information, as data points and you always just

improve. What are you going to do? This time. So when people are afraid to make mistakes, it's like, take that as information, take this as data points to learn from, to understand what's working and what's not as feedback so that you can always improve your game, you know, the same goes in our professional personal life. It's always going to help you. Yeah, I love that. That's really great advice. I want to thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your time today

with our listeners. And that's the Executive Connect podcast.