Podcast: How Changing Your Mindset Builds Resilience

Courtney: Welcome to Health Matters, your weekly dose of the latest in health and wellness from New York Presbyterian. I’m Courtney Allison and today we’re here for a very special episode at Citi Field. I’m joined by David Wright, former Mets third baseman and a legend here at Citi Field, and Dr. Anthony Puliafico, a psychologist at the Center for Youth Mental Health at New York Presbyterian, and we are here today to talk about developing a growth mindset and building resilience. So to start, could you share a little bit more about your work at the Center for Youth Mental Health and your work with patients?

Dr. Puliafico: Yeah, absolutely. So at the Center for Youth Mental Health is really, uh organization meant to support mental health challenges and to really bring to the forefront how to support mental health in young people and really individuals across the lifespan. So we do that by really engaging in cutting edge research to understand how to best support folks dealing with mental health challenges.

We are providing all types of treatment services, and we’re also really trying to generate and push out resources to be available for the general public in terms of: how do I manage challenges I’m dealing with and how do I support my mental health overall?

Courtney: Thank you. Yeah. Um, and David, you’re recently retired. Can you tell us what you’ve been up to? I know you’ve, um, visited pediatric patients at NewYork-Presbyterian and you participated in the prostate cancer screenings here at Citi Field. And do you also coach your kids?

David Wright: I do. I do. And that’s a full-time job right now. I have three young ones, uh, 9, 7 5. And I told each kid that I coach one of their sports. So, uh, as bad as I am as a soccer coach, I coach my oldest soccer team. My middle one, it’s more in my sweet spot: softball, uh, and then my youngest, uh, my boy, uh, I coach his baseball team. So that’s, uh, a little more, uh, up my alley.

Courtney: That’s wonderful. Today we’re here to talk about ways to build resilience, no matter your age or stage in life. And specifically, we’re honing in on the idea of a growth mindset. Dr. Puliafico, what does it mean to have a growth mindset?

Dr. Puliafico: Great question. When we’re talking about growth mindset or mindset in general, we’re really talking about beliefs related to learning. So several decades ago, a psychologist named Carol Dweck really identified these ideas and two distinct mindsets related to learning. On one side of the spectrum, there’s a growth mindset, which is this idea that we can improve our skills and our abilities, that by practicing. We can learn from our challenges and even from the mistakes that we make to improve our skills and get better.

And on the other side of the spectrum is what we call a fixed mindset. That’s the idea that we can’t really change our skills, that we are who we are, we’ve got what we got. Um, this might sound kind of simple, but if you think about it, we all go through life saying things like, oh, like I’m not a good test taker.

I can’t take tests to save my life, or I’m just not a sports person. And these are fixed mindset beliefs that can actually get in the way of us pushing ourselves and improving our abilities. So we all move through life kind of having both of these growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. But there’s a whole lot of research suggesting that when we can step into that growth mindset, it can help us improve our performance and even improve wellbeing over time.

Courtney: And David, what role did a growth mindset play in your development as an athlete or in your life?

David Wright: My, my answer is not gonna be nearly as intelligent as, uh, you know, Dr. Tony’s over here, but, um, you know, I think that that is the perfect uh, entryway to the way that I went about my entire baseball career is that, you know, if, if you walk around with that, I can’t do this attitude, then I feel like you’re already mentally defeated before you even start.

So if you accept the fact that you’re gonna have those challenges, you’re gonna have those bumps in the road, but at the end of the day, you can kind of visualize or imagine that light at the end of the tunnel or accomplishing that goal. Who doesn’t love a challenge? And I think that that was kind of my mindset throughout my career and even to this day when. You know, I don’t know anything about coaching soccer, but hey, you know, it’s a challenge. Let’s figure it out. Um, you know, so I think that that growth over time really helped not only develop me as an athlete, but also, you know, as a person in, in everyday life and, and, and overcoming some obstacles and challenges, um, you know, in just everyday life.

Courtney: Dr. Puliafico, what about resilience? What does resilience mean to you and how does that come up in your work?

Dr. Puliafico: Yeah, so I mean, resilience is, is so relevant for all of us. Whether we’re talking about sports, whether we’re talking about school work, uh, careers, life resilience is really just.

Kind of seeing ourselves through adversity and how we see ourselves through adversity. Um, I think having that growth mindset, being willing to take on challenges and push ourselves really helps us with resilience. Um, another big piece, um, of resilience is being flexible. So being able to, uh, take on challenges, shift and pivot when we face challenges or when we struggle and.

Um, you know, sticking with goals and like looking at the challenge instead of saying, why me? Like, why didn’t I make this sports team? Why did I get cut? Or why did I get fired? Or why is this relationship not working? Instead of getting stuck there seeing the opportunity for learning and for growth. Um, that’s, you know, that’s how I think about resilience. 

Another enormous piece for both resilience and for having a growth mindset is the team around you, whether that’s a teacher, a parent, a coach. Um, so that’s why we talk a lot with parents and even like sports coaches and and supervisors about how can we embrace that type of environment, um, you know, in the places that we work and play and live.

Courtney: And what does it look like to coach someone through developing a growth mindset? What specific steps?

Dr. Puliafico: A big piece is being flexible. Another piece which is talked about a lot is this idea of the word yet, um, yet matters a lot. ’cause it’s a big difference between saying I can’t hit a baseball and I can’t hit a baseball yet. 

David Wright: I love that. 

Dr. Puliafico:You know, but it’s simple. But it really almost moves you from that fixed mindset to the growth mindset. 

Courtney: And so you’re coaching kids these days. What do you do to pass on this idea of a growth mindset?

David Wright: Well, I love, um, you know, what Dr. Tony said about the, you know, the different steps and the different categories of resiliency. Um, you know, I think that baseball is a perfect example of that. Um. You’re one of the best in the world at what you do, but you fail seven outta 10 times.

That’s a .300 batting average, and that’ll get you in the hall of fame. So if you can learn to deal with failure better, and that sounds weird, but you know, a good example for us is I, we had this mini we toilet, you know, at the bottom of our stairs of our dugout right here at Citi Field. And if you had a poor at bat or if you struck out or if you made an error at third base. You know, the mindset was to go flush it and get ready for your next bat or the next play in the field. And I think that, you know. Teaching kids, especially in team sports, leaning on one another. 

Lean on your teammates to get you through those tough times. Lean on your coworkers, you know, in a, in a real world, uh, you know, experience, but also, you know, learning to not necessarily accept failure, but realize that you’re gonna have failures in baseball in life.

And it’s how you over overcome those failures and get out on the other end is what kind of molds you into the person or the teammate or the player that you are.

Courtney: I love the flushing to kind of just have a reset and move on to the next challenge. Um. Dr. Puliafico, when you’re helping someone through adversity, some kind of setback, how do you help them think about that?

Dr. Puliafico: That’s a great question. So I’m, I’m thinking a lot about what, what David’s pointing out here. ’cause so much of it is how we’re thinking in the work that we do, um, with kids, teens, even adults. So much of it starts from, um, you know, how are you interpreting and how are you taking that setback? How are you thinking about it?

Like I said before, are you caught up in like a, why is this happening to me? Place? Which can you know where you can get stuck? Or can you say, all right, I’m accepting that this is my situation. Whether it’s a batting slump or whether it’s, you know, dealing with an injury or whether it’s struggling in school.

This is my situation. How can I, how can I move from it? Um, I think we also help kids and adults notice other thinking traps they’re falling into, like fortune telling and thinking like, I just know that this horrible thing is gonna happen, so I’m not even gonna try or catastrophizing, you know, when we spiral out and we start thinking about all the horrible things that can happen.

So catching that thinking and trying to be a lot more flexible. Another piece that really seems to help folks dealing with hard situations is, um, relying on their personal values. So we work with a lot of kids who are struggling with some pretty big problems. Um, some kids who even struggle to get to school because of the challenges they’re dealing with, and a big question we’ll ask is, um, why is it important for you to move through this hard thing?

What’s important about getting to school? For example, maybe you don’t even care about your grades, but maybe you’re on the football team and it’s important for you to show up for your teammates. Or maybe you just want to be a good friend. So relying on values is something else that we really promote in terms of moving through tough situations.

Courtney: Yeah, it seems like values can help guide you through the anxiety if you’re anchored to them.

Dr. Puliafico: That’s exactly it. They’re like an anchor, so it helps say it’s the why for why do we do the hard things.

Courtney: Um, so David, in the context of a baseball career, maybe after a disappointing season, what do you do to come back prepared and recommitted for the next opening day?

David Wright: You know, I think for me, failure always kind of lit a fire under me. Um, because early on in my career I understood that failure was a part of growth.

Failure was a part of, you know, learning to overcome and, and move through and break through those obstacles. So I’m a big goal setting type person. So if I set a goal. I feel like I’ll work to try to achieve that goal or work as hard as I could to achieve that goal.

So I always set goals in the off season to try to work on the things that I thought I was substandard at the year before, and to try to next spring training come in and open the eyes of the coaches or the fan base or the organization knowing that I worked on the things that maybe I struggled with the year before.

Courtney: And I like how it’s not about beating yourself up, but about looking forward.

Dr. Puliafico: That’s so relevant because we’ll often. Really work and strive to help ourselves and also help parents think about how they’re responding when their kids are struggling.

So, you know, if a kid doesn’t do well in a class or on a test ask, saying something like, you know, it seems like you struggle with this. Why don’t we look at how you can study your, prepare better next time? Instead of just saying, oh, why didn’t you get this grade? Or, uh, you know, let’s talk to the teacher about this.

Really using it as an opportunity to learn and grow. By the way we respond to our kids in those ways. It helps build that type of mindset in our kids across all stages.

David Wright: I think that’s a great point, um, in that so many people, including myself early on, are results oriented that sometimes you forget the process. Mm-hmm. That goes into that. I’ll use in a baseball example. I could do everything right in at bat. Hit the ball hard, swing in a good pitch, do everything perfectly right, hit a hard line, drive right at the shortstop, you’re 0-for-1. So theoretically you failed that at that.

But the process was there and early on in my career that I get upset at that, you know, because I did everything I’m right and I don’t, don’t get any reward for it. Um, but towards the end of my career, I realized that if you do that more often than not, and you stick to the process and you not necessarily forget about the results, but put them on the back burner that the results. Oftentimes will come if you stick to that process.

Dr. Puliafico: You know what’s so funny if we say that so much and sometimes our kids are like, yeah, really? Now I can say, well, David Wright said it’s true, so it’s gotta be true.

Courtney: No, it’s great advice. And so you both do a lot of work with kids and families. What role can parents play in modeling and teaching resilience for their kids?

Dr. Puliafico: Great question. Um, like we said, thinking about how you’re framing challenges, framing challenges as opportunities to learn, but also framing successes. Like, it’s so great that you played well in your soccer game. My daughters play soccer as well. 

What areas do you want to kind of work on moving forward to really build that growth in, whether it’s a success or a failure.

Another piece we talk about a lot is helping parents allow their kids to make mistakes. Um, there’s a term we use called parental accommodation, which is the idea of parents almost like coming in and fixing a situation for a kid or allowing kids to not handle tough challenges. Um, we all do this sometimes.

I absolutely do this and I talk about it every day professionally. Um. Because it’s hard not to. We want to see our kids feel good. We, we don’t want our kids to feel distress, so if we could do something to make their lives a little bit easier, our instinct is to do that. Um, and if we allow our kids to make mistakes, if we allow our kids to kind of find their own way and struggle, they’re building resilience, they’re learning that they can handle tough situations and that they can see themselves through it.

So we really work on helping parents like allow their kids to do more and notice when they might be. You, you know, there are urges to step in and to try to hold back. 

Courtney: David, anything you would add to that?

David Wright: Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, this is relevant being, you know, a, a father to three younger kids, is that, um, you know, great point in that, you know, my daughter will, you know, miss a goal and she’ll be upset at herself. And it’s easy, you know, as a competitive natured person or a former athlete, you know, to, you know, why didn’t she score that goal? 

So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the competitive side of me, you know, wants my kids to, you know, do well and succeed and score goals. But when you step back and think about how hard it is to play a game, or how hard it is to make good grades or whatever the case may be, it kind of puts things in perspective that, um, you know, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

And that’s, for me, the fun of the challenge in setting those goals is that set lofty goals because, you know, they’re, they’re tougher to obtain, but the reward in obtaining them is even sweeter.

Courtney: Dr. Puliafico, would you talk about the role that community support plays in resilience?

Dr. Puliafico: I think you can’t underestimate it. So, um, and we think about community in a lot of different ways, um, but starting at like the micro community, like what is, what is building a resilient attitude or a growth mindset, what does that look like in the household?

We talk a lot with parents and families about modeling. Uh, you know, taking on challenges mm-hmm. And modeling how we handle adversity and for parents to even share with their kids sometimes when they make mistakes or sometimes when something doesn’t go so well and how they respond.

Um, because then our kids are learning, Hey, our parents and the people we look up to, they struggle too. And they don’t always get it perfect, but they, you know, they see themselves through it and it’s a really nice model to have. Um, so I think talking about it and then like living it in the house and in the family makes a lot of difference.

Um, a little wider out thinking about in schools, how are we promoting, taking, you know, taking on challenges? How are we supporting kids in terms of allowing them to challenge themselves? Making it okay to make mistakes, allowing for, you know, kids to push themselves and then to really reinforce that pushing in that learning and growing, even if it means making mistakes.

Courtney: David, anything you wanna share about overcoming adversity individually and how your team and community supported you?

David Wright: I have a, a quick story, um, so I was being scouted in high school by professional scouts. They were coming to my high school games. Um, you know, they wanted to see me hit and throw and run and do all the things to see if I was worthy of a draft pick. So I always put these high expectations on myself that if I, you know, saw scouts there, if I saw major league teams being represented at my high school games, that I had to try harder, do great.

And oftentimes in baseball, that’s not the case. You know, you may play well, sometimes you may stink sometimes. So I remember after a hard game, like I, I, I stunk that game and I remember, uh, scouts being there and I was so hard on myself. And I came home and I was beating myself up and, um, you know, went and took extra swings in my backyard off my homemade tee.

Um, and a couple weeks later I had a in-house meeting with the Mets. So, and I noticed that the Met Scout was at the game that I stunk. And, um, you know, I was thinking to myself the whole time, like, I wish they would come back out and see me when I played well, this and that. Well, I remember the Met Scout telling me that when I come to your games, like, I know what you can do physically. I know what you can do in baseball field. I want to see you fail because I wanna see how you deal with failure. I wanna see if you’re the guy that throws his helmet and goes and sits on the end of the bench and crosses his arms and sulks, or if you’re the guy that can, after striking out, can be the first one to greet his teammates when they come in.

I wanna see what kind of character you have and resiliency you have in that you might not be playing well, but do you want what’s best for your teammates and your team? And I think those are the small life lessons that you can learn and teach through team sports.

Courtney: That’s a great story. Anything you wanna comment on that? Just that’s growth mindset right there, it sounds like.

Dr. Puliafico: Absolutely. And I mean, kudos to, to you David, and kudos to the Mets for noticing that and being able to kind of promote that. Um, I think that that’s more of what we need in terms of like looking not just at the final results, but also the process. Mm-hmm. And how do we respond to setbacks matters just as much. So I think that’s super relevant for, for your story there. It’s very cool.

Courtney: Dr. Puliafico, what are some key lessons you often share with patients when it comes to developing resilience?

Dr. Puliafico: So certainly I keep coming back to flexibility and values. So the one we haven’t talked about though, is being willing to live with uncertainty.

And that’s a piece that comes up a lot with us when we’re helping folks dealing with anxiety. But really across the board. Um, none of us, many of us don’t love uncertainty. We love to know what to expect. We love to know that things are gonna work out for us, and yet all of us live with a ton of uncertainty every day. We don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen the next minute or the next hour. Um, we hold that and we just, you know, we live with it because we have to, we tolerate it because we have to. 

And so, you know, a lot of the lessons we’re teaching kids is you’re already tolerating uncertainty in so much of your life. Can you sit with some uncertainty about going to school?  About connecting with these kids where you’re not sure if they wanna, you know, if they’re, if they’re gonna say, yeah, I want to hang out with you or not? Pushing yourself to, to be, try out for a team if you don’t know you’re gonna make it, you know?

And again, applying that growth mindset to this is a challenge, instead of uh oh, if I don’t make this team, that means I’m no good and what’s the point? So tolerating uncertainty and living with that risk and not knowing is another big piece that we really try to instill in working with kids.

Courtney: Yeah. I think you’re right. It really is so hard to live in uncertainty. Mm-hmm. So could you just tell me again, what specifically would you tell a child or a person who just can’t handle the limbo?

Dr. Puliafico: Yeah. Well we talk about breaking it down. We do this a lot with, with a lot of the kids who are, who were working with on anxiety. We call it exposure. So it’s really like deliberately learning how to face your fears and taking on challenges, and we break down those challenges into doable steps and we go kind of step by step and move them through.

Where you’re never really feeling completely out of control or like you’re drowning, but at each step, you’re moving out of your comfort zone. And what we’ll say is like, that’s where the real life is happening, right? It’s like out of your comfort zone when you’re pushing yourself and challenging yourself.

’cause if you’re just living in, in this bubble where you’re not challenging yourself, you’re missing out.

Courtney: Yeah. Um, how about you, David? If a, if a kid’s nervous for a game and you’re coaching, anything you say to kind of pep them up?

David Wright: Yeah, I mean, I love the process. I love the step-by-step approach. Um, I was a firm believer when I played and I got into a big moment and, you know, you start hearing that crowd, you know, your heart starts beating fast and that’s normal, that’s life.

Um, you know, but I always tried to, to take a moment. Um, I was a big, kind of close your eyes and. Uh, like imagery, um, you know, of visualizing having success or visualizing, you know, your heartbeat and just slowing it down a little bit, taking a few deep breaths. So it was all me trying to just handle or control what I knew that I could control.

Dr. Puliafico: And that’s such a great point because there’s a, a really nice balance between controlling your physical response and learning how you can do that. Mm-hmm. And like you said, focusing on what you can control and also recognizing that when we’re pushing ourselves, we are gonna feel stressed. We, our body and our bodies are going to feel stressed. So I know personally, I get that butterfly in the stomach feeling and like the heart beating fast. And I’ve recognized like that’s normal when I’m pushing myself. Like, that’s normal. Instead of saying, oh my goodness, this is a threat, I’ve gotta stop doing this thing because I feel really rotten.

So being able to kind of remind ourselves of that and remind, you know, the kids or whoever we’re working with, um, that it’s okay to feel that stress and it’s actually a sign that like you’re pushing yourself. Um. I think that’s a great point,

David Wright: and I, I promise you that these kids’ favorite athletes or, you know, favorite role models are experiencing the same things or similar things as they’re experiencing.

Yeah. So it’s, you know, it’s, you don’t see the best athletes in the world, um, that just aren’t anxious at all, or never nervous, or, you know, never get caught up in the moment because that’s utterly false.

Dr. Puliafico: Yeah, that’s a great point. 

Courtney: I think that’s really comforting to people. Um, you’ve given us such great tips. Anything I haven’t asked you, anything else you wanna share on this topic?

Dr. Puliafico: I just think it’s wonderful to be relaying these ideas of resilience and mindset and flexibility, um, you know, both to sports. Mm-hmm. Because it’s so relevant for our kids who are playing sports and, and adults for that matter, but also to life for, you know, for kids in school, for folks at work, in life with parenting. These ideas are, uh, cross-cutting.

Courtney: Absolutely. David, anything? 

David Wright: Yeah, I mean, I really, really appreciate the conversation just because I’m going through, you know, the kind of that, that parenting phase and trying to, you know, be there to like, teach my kids the exact same things that we’re talking about right now. You know, I’ve always been a firm believer that, you know, you can teach real life through sports, especially team sports.

And, and I think this kind of puts the stamp on it that, you know, a lot of the things that we’re talking about today were things that I thought about, you know, when we played and things that I can relay to my kids when they play sports or go to school or, you know, just trying to have a, a good upbringing.

Courtney: Thank you so much. David Wright, Dr. Anthony Puliafico, thank you so much for being our guest today. It was such a pleasure to speak with you.

Dr. Puliafico: That was a lot of fun. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Yeah, this was great. Thank you. 

Courtney: Thank you.

Our many thanks to David Wright, Dr. Anthony Puliafico, and our friends at the New York Mets. I’m Courtney Allison.

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