Podcast #912: The Science of Getting Psyched Up

If you’re an athlete, you know that it can be helpful to get psyched up before a big game. But getting in the right mindset is important in any kind of high-stakes scenario, whether you want to perform your best in a big meeting, presentation, interview, audition, or conversation.

My guest has some tips he gleaned from interviewing athletes, soldiers, entertainers, and executives on how to find that mindset. His name is Daniel McGinn, and he’s the author of Psyched Up: How the Science of Mental Preparation Can Help You Succeed. The first step to getting into an optimal mindset is managing negative emotions, so we begin our conversation with what works in mitigating stress and anxiety. From there we talk about how to get others psyched up with an effective pep talk and why the leaders who came out of WWII used the classic rah-rah style more than leaders do today. We then discuss the role of music in getting yourself psyched up and what Daniel learned from the DJ for the Red Sox about crafting the perfect pump-up playlist. Daniel shares how visualization and having a personal highlight reel can put you in a positive headspace, and whether or not anger, competition, and trash talk improve performance.