Tom Bates: When we scratch beneath the surface and delve into the biographical histories of the most successful, in quote, successful, people in business and music and sport and art, we tend to find constant everyday battle between building confidence and responding and coping to the setbacks that we experience. But it's the response that we adopt, it's the mindset that we adopt to how we choose to respond to the setbacks which defines and separates, actually, some of the most talented sportsmen and women, but also most successful and determined sportsmen and women that I've been privileged to work with.
Dr Rupy: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast, the show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. My name is Dr Rupy. I'm a medical doctor, I also study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me on this podcast where we explore multiple determinants of what allows you to live your best life. And remember, you can sign up to the doctorskitchen.com for the newsletter where we give weekly recipes plus tips and hacks on how to improve your lifestyle today. My guest is Tom Bates. He's a performance psychologist and a UEFA A license coach. He's been practising for 15 years and creating and applying fast, easy and accessible performance enhancing techniques to elite sportsmen and women based on the science of psychology. His work has extended into other professional sports as well and works with GB athletes like basketball and swimming. He's also due to work with athletes in the postponed 2021 Olympics too. His work has also extended into psychology across business and healthcare and he uses exercises that are designed to stimulate and inspire thought-provoking leadership skills through focusing exclusively on the management of self. He's currently in the final year of his professional doctorate and is engaged in a study inquiring into the nature of human potential and the causal variables associated with elite sporting performance. I.e. what helps human beings flourish in elite sport. And I think today's podcast is really about what we can learn from elite sportsmen and women, i.e. those who are at the top of their game trying to squeeze out another one or two percent of performance. And how can we apply that to our own lives as well? We talk about a lot of different subjects today, self-awareness, perception, being optimistic in the face of negativity, building self-belief and having this bulletproof nature despite the insecurity that surrounds us and how to be authentic as well. I talk a lot about what things I've tried to conjure over the last couple of years that have allowed me to be successful in certain areas as well. And what skills and practices to foster these features of a positive psychology. So, visualisation exercises and the law of attraction, I think are two powerful, powerful concepts that Tom Bates is a huge fan of as well. I think you're really going to enjoy this podcast. If you're struggling to maintain motivation or you want to make small steps towards something that could have profound changes to your life going forward, then this podcast is really for you. I highly recommend you check out Tom's socials and links. I've put them on the podcast page myself. And do subscribe to the newsletter. We're going to put loads of this kind of content going out forward. I think it really will help you live healthy, happy lives as well as the recipes that we put on the newsletter too. So, I'm going to stop waffling. This is my conversation with Tom Bates. I really hope you enjoy it. Because I want to talk about a bit about your mission, about how you got started in this, where you're taking it. But why don't we just start, as I'm sure you've repeated yourself many a time, but how you got started, what your, what your upbringing was like, just introduce me to you, because obviously this is the first time we're chatting, so I just want to know a bit more about you, I guess.
Tom Bates: Yeah, sure. So, well, so I guess if we, let's go freeze frame of where we're at right now. My job, my job is that I'm a professional performance psychologist. I work with Team GB, British Olympic athletes, swimming, in swimming, preparing to go to the games, the 2021 now games in Tokyo, Japan next year. A host of Premier League, Championship and lower division footballers, teams, coaches, managers. And as we were speaking about previously, that involves quite a lot of travel. So, I really, I guess it was and is and will be international, internationally based. So it's a pretty privileged position to be in. I'm a, I'm an author of the book The Future Coach. And I speak also at different events and conferences around the world in lots of different countries. So that's, I guess that's a snapshot of of of right now. And if we go all the way back to the start, I grew up in a little place called Arbury in Cambridge. I'm one of two children, have an older sister. And I fell in love with the game of football or soccer as the Americans would say. And I have to be careful. This is in Britain, right? We're going to do this. It's largely a British audience. Good to know. Good to know. So I can say football. Yeah, so then fell in love with the game of football and I guess got pretty good at it and was selected to play for the academy at Cambridge United. And developed and excelled and but essentially wasn't good enough to break into the first team. And so, I played a little bit of semi-professional football, but continued my education in Cambridge at Long Road and studied PE and psychology. And then it was whilst I was studying PE that I was introduced to sports psychology for the first time. And I was really interested in coaching as well. And so I was searching for courses around the country that could combine coaching and this aspect of psychology to improve mindset, to improve the mental and emotional sides of performance that I was starting to understand became defining factors for players and for teams. And from my own experiences, I was always interested how, you know, I wasn't naturally, I wouldn't say I was naturally blessed with talent, but I would say that I maximized the talent that I had due to the mindset that I adopted and the work rate that I had. And then I would see other players that were really gifted around me, you know, teammates that went on to play first team football, but didn't necessarily maximize that talent because of their attitude. And so that whole aspect of, I wonder if it's possible to improve mindset. I wonder if we can train ourselves to become more confident, to deal with anxiety, to get the very best from ourselves under pressure. Is that possible? So the early curiosity sort of came from my playing days and then I guess you could say that the passion and intention to coach later on, ignited that that flame and I went to Bournemouth. I ended up choosing a course in Bournemouth, which was the only course at the time that combined coaching and psychology. And the course was entitled sports psychology and coaching sciences. And so, in the third year was a placement year. So I went to AFC Bournemouth to apply what I thought that I knew from the textbooks and and figured out that actually I didn't know anywhere near as much as I thought I knew. And really that year in industry in in the professional football world, I worked with a guy called Joe Roach, who was the head of youth and Eddie Howe, who now is the first team manager. So I was around really good people, good football people from an early early age. And the green shoots of of sports psychology really started there and ended up flourishing into the career that I went on to have and ended up here in the Midlands.
Dr Rupy: That there's so many things there that I really want to pick up on. So when you started, I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm assuming that sports psychology really wasn't a thing. It wasn't like, oh, if you change your mindset, you're going to improve or get that extra 5, 10% of performance. You know, I'm assuming it was still of the mindset of like, you know, if they've got good legs, if they've got good stamina, if they've got good strength, then they're going to be a good player. And that's it. You either got it or you don't. You can work on it, strength-wise, but mental, not not really a thing. So was that was that something you had to come up against?
Tom Bates: Absolutely. In fact, I had to, you know, back then, what it what it was, what is sports psychology? What is it? We don't have one. We've never had one. I've never used one. So why do I need one now? And so I had to work for free for the first three months. I got paid as a coach to work in the centre of excellence, coaching out on the grass, but I had to work for free to to convince and persuade the coaches and the directors of the football club that it was a worthwhile investment. And you're absolutely dead right. There was this perception of not not only what is it, but but then you meet the other side of the challenge, which is you can't be seen to be weak or talk about emotions in football because you can't show weakness. And the ones that actually had some kind of experience of working with a psychologist had different perceptions of what that is because it's a very global, there are lots of different types of practitioners within, you know, psychology or the work of psychology. So, it was a challenge in the early days. And in fact, I say the early days, but I guess it was something that kept coming up in every football club that I worked in. And, you know, you only go and see a psychologist when you have a problem. And so defining that what what it is that I do early, I learned that lesson really early. You know, I'm not a shrink, I'm a stretch. I stretch performance. Come and see me when you want to be the very best you can be. And of course, you know, after a period of time, everybody gets used to that. And then I leave that football club and I have to start again at a new football club. And the process repeats itself, you know. I remember coming to Birmingham City. I a funny story. I I moved up from AFC Bournemouth and I I signed for Birmingham City Football Club and I'd had the interview with the first team manager and the academy director. And they loved the idea of of so I got the job and so now I'm thinking fantastic. Now this is a big club, it's a good opportunity. And I and I come first day at the football club. It's um, it's team photograph day. So all of the academy players and the first team and we all stand together. I'm walking across the indoor dome and this guy walks across into the middle and greets me. Um, long gray hair, mustache, you know, elderly guy. He'd been at the club for years, head of recruitment. And he walks over and he says, oh, you're, you're the new, you're the new psychologist, aren't you? And you know, I'm I'm so happy to be. It's my first day. I'm like, every this is fantastic. So I say, yeah, how are you doing? Yeah, nice to see you. And hold my hand up to shake his hand like this. And he looked, I can't actually say exactly what he said on this podcast, but he looked at me and he said, what a load of fill in the blank. You know, and he left me, he left me with my hand out like this. Oh, it's your first day. You know, and then I thought to myself, this, I might not have convinced everybody here that this is. So, baptism of fire.
Dr Rupy: How long were you there at that club for then?
Tom Bates: Well, I stayed, I I ended up probably about three and a half years, yeah, three seasons with Birmingham and ended up starting with the academy, but then worked as it became more popular and, you know, honestly, the players started to talk and say how valuable it was to them and that it was helping them improve their performance. So then the senior players became involved and it became more popular and of course, I ended up working with the senior players too. And um, and essentially from from then, the reason I've moved from so many different football clubs is because honestly, better offers come in and um, I've been privileged to to have accepted some fantastic opportunities.
Dr Rupy: That's amazing. And so and so when it comes to sports psychology, because from my understanding, you know, you started with football, that was your first love essentially, and that's where you wanted to to see what what kind of benefits you can have. And now you've stretched out into different sports modalities, GB swimming, etc. I'm trying to get across to listeners that it's not just about sports performance. I think you're privileged to work with a selection of people that are already motivated enough to reach the top of their game. And to get to the top of the game, they've probably got to have those inherent qualities of drive, of purpose, of mission. So perhaps there are some nuggets of your experience that would be relevant to the person that struggles to start habits or to make those changes consistently throughout their lives, whether it be eating better or perhaps just taking control of stress levels. This is something that, you know, from a purely selfish point of view, I think I'm interested in as well, to learn. I'm always learning new little tips and tricks and stuff like that to, you know, from from people such as yourself. So what kind of things that have you been able to instill into clubs, into individuals that perhaps other people could learn from?
Tom Bates: Mhm. Well, it's a it's a fascinating, it's a really good question. Um, and I think you're you're absolutely correct when you say that the principles from high performance sport can be applied and learned from across contexts. You know, the the things that the athletes are doing every day. In fact, I'll tell you a quick story. There's um, I was invited to give a talk to the England senior rugby team at Pennyhill Park when Stuart Lancaster was the manager. And um, it was part of a series of guests that came in to to deliver some talks and I spoke a little bit about mindset and spoke addressed the players and the staff and uh, just before I came in, Sir Bradley Wiggins also gave a talk to the to the rugby team. And part of his talk uh, was he told a story and I'll share it with you now. He said, you know, every day, so this is Sir Bradley Wiggins speaking to the England senior rugby team, males, senior side. He says, every day, boys, I go on this ride when I'm not training at the velodrome. And um, I get to this roundabout on this ride. And when I get to this roundabout, I have two choices. I can go left and it'll be six more miles, two more hill climbs and I'll get back to my house 20 minutes later. If I go straight over, six less miles, plateau, and I get back 20 minutes earlier. He says, boys, which one do you think I choose? And the lads obviously say, well, that's easy. You're you're the Olympic gold champion. You obviously choose to go left. Choose the hard choice. He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. I do. And and the rugby lads are like, but what's the point of the story then? And he says, he says, you see, the thing is, I do always choose to go left, but here's the bit that most people don't know. Every single time I get to this roundabout, there's two voices that pop up, one on my left shoulder and one on my right. And the one on the left says, just go straight over. No one's watching. You're the Olympic gold champion. You deserve a break. Put your feet up, have a cup of tea with the misses, get back, relax. And then he says, but the other voice comes in on the right and says, don't you dare. Don't you dare even think about it. Now you've won the gold medal, you think you can just relax and take your foot off the gas. You know, and he says, he says, the thing is, boys, what I really want to share with you is that most people think that Olympic gold champions, they perform in the absence of fear or doubt or worry or stress or fill in the negative blank, right? Can you still hear me?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I can hear you. Don't worry.
Tom Bates: It's one of my Premier League footballers that are trying to call me right now.
Dr Rupy: Go for it. You can pick it up. We were just getting to the good part of the story.
Tom Bates: I love how this is like to I got you to record just so it doesn't stop your flow. It's just live. It's just live. It's all good.
Dr Rupy: Exactly, yeah.
Tom Bates: Oh well, people will know this is real. At least at least they'll know it's real. Exactly, yeah. So there you go. So actually I do really work as what I said I work as. They've just been reintroduced to training. So they're in training now, fours and fives for the first time. Gotcha. Yeah. So it's in and around the some of their team team members as they gradual slow return to training. So. Amazing. Amazing. Um, so Bradley Wiggins. So the last part of the story is that he says, you know, boys, every time I get to the roundabout, there's a fight. Most people think that we we become the best in the absence of any negativity or any conflict, inner conflict. He says that I I always feel that feeling, that fight always happens, but I've just learned how to listen to the right voice. I've just learned how to listen to the right voice. And that's the reason why I love that story is because so many of us can relate to that, right? At some sort of level, whoever we are, wherever we are, working. Um, becoming this journey and quest for self-improvement is, as we know, not a linear thing. We don't live in an X-Factor culture. You know that graph that just starts off down here and there's a straight line and here's success up here. It's tempting to think because of, you know, social media and the influences of the media and uh modern instant gratification and all sorts of societal influences that we can sometimes think that it's very glossy and shiny and nice. You know, I have a a nine-year-old daughter and there was a a fantastic uh on a billboard the other day, I saw an advertisement and it said, um, don't worry if you don't look like the girl on the front of the magazine because the girl on the front of the magazine doesn't even look like the girl on the front of the magazine. Yeah, exactly. And so when we when we scratch beneath the surface and delve into the biographical histories of the most successful, in quote, successful, you know, people in business and music and sport and art, we tend to find constant everyday battle between building confidence and responding and coping to the setbacks that we experience. But it's the response that we adopt, it's the mindset that we adopt to how we choose to respond to the setbacks which defines and separates, actually, some of the most talented sportsmen and women, but also most successful and determined sportsmen and women that I've been privileged to work with.
Dr Rupy: I I love that story and the context around it because I think so many people can relate with that. I mean, I personally relate with that on a daily basis, those two voices. You know, something as trivial as it's 6:30 in the morning, you're meant to wake up, you're meant to go and do your workout before you start your day. And there's that voice saying, no, I'm too tired. I don't want to get up. I just can't be bothered. I'll do it tomorrow or I'll put that off. Or, you know, you're in a work environment and something irritates you and you can either just throw everything out the water and just, you know, react in that moment and then it'll ruin the rest of your day or you can listen to that quieter voice and actually say, just be introspective for a second, listen to your feelings, accept that you're angry and then move on and actually channel that energy into something that's going to be a lot more productive for you. And I think those those binary choices, it's quite a nice way of thinking about it. Um, and I I just wonder if there are like perhaps ways in which you've um been able to conjure a bit more of that mindset. Maybe, you know, some things that you practice on on a daily basis. I know I certainly have a few things I've I've shared in the past with with the community and and stuff. But but perhaps things that you do in your personal life and things that you've noticed that have worked for even the most motivated of people.
Tom Bates: Mhm. Mhm. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I mean, there's a few things. Um, I always remember discovering how important um it is to start and end the day uh in a particular way. And I and I learned that lesson through working with an international footballer, a client of mine. His name is Sam Vokes. He uh, he plays for Wales, um, and has had a career in the Premier League. But we met at Bournemouth and he was 17 years of age. Um, again, forgive the football story.
Dr Rupy: No, that's all right. I mean, I love talking about football, so.
Tom Bates: Good stuff. Um, we'd be in trouble if you didn't. There was so I met Sam when he was 17 and he was um selected by the first team manager at the time, Kevin Bond, to play in the first team after they had a series of injuries. And Sam had only played a few games in the reserves. So he called me up and he said, Tom, I've been selected to play in Saturday's game for the first team. I've only played three games in the reserves. I don't know if I'm ready. You know, he was nervous. So I said, I'll tell you what, let's get together. Consequently, I finished that conversation with Sam and then the manager of Bournemouth called me and he said, Tom, I know you've been working with Sam. I'm a little bit concerned. I'm thinking of putting him in the team. Is he ready? I said, gaffer, no problems. He's fully ready to go. He's super confident. Just give him the chance and he'll do the rest. So, he said, great, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow. So I met with Sam and um, you know, I asked him to think about something that is true and powerful for him, something about himself that's true, that he believes in, uh, and that is that is a powerful um thing to to think about. And he came up with the phrase, anything is possible when I truly believe in myself. Anything is possible when I truly believe in myself. And I asked him to put that phrase that he came up with um up on his bedside wall, by his bedside cabinet. So every time in the morning he woke up, it would be the first thing that he saw. And I asked him to read it three times. And you know, spend the time absorbing what it meant. Last thing at night, he would read it three times before he went to bed. So it was the first thing that he saw in the morning and the last thing he saw before he went to bed. Long story short, he he played in that game, he scored in that game. The affirmation wasn't the reason why he scored in the game, of course, but it absolutely had an impact on his um attitude and mindset going into the game. So it went from negative to positive. He shifted because what we focus on, we feel. So starting the day, creating the mood. That's the key thing. We are the creators of our emotional states. If we're not the creators, we end up being the consequence. In other words, we're going to respond to events that happen in the day, right? And there's going to be some bumps in the road. We all get bumped along the way. But critically, starting the day with something very powerful, very positive and true. And you know, when he was doing this exercise, he said to me, after a while, I started to see myself scoring goals from all different sorts of areas on the pitch, not because he was watching a video, but because he was really absorbed and immersed in this exercise and feeding from that positive energy. And you know, he he ended up getting sold for 250,000 pounds to Wolverhampton the season later, had a career in the Premier League. And around eight months ago, um, he sent me a picture on WhatsApp of this brown old crumpled piece of paper that had been framed from about 12, 13, 14 years ago.
Dr Rupy: No way.
Tom Bates: And he has it up on his mantelpiece now in his mansion because he's a Premier League footballer. He's got millions, you know. So, but you know, he still uses it to this day, that exercise as a reminder of how important we can train ourselves. You know, Dr. Wayne Dyer, one of my one of my favorites, he says, when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. When we change the way we look at things, the things that we look at change. You see, what we focus on, we feel. But the other thing is, what we focus on, we tend to get more of. Right? So if I start my day like Sam did with something that is powerfully empowering for me, to focus my thinking on some internal resource that's inside me, then that's very different from getting up and seeing, you know, thinking about how it's another gray and drizzly wet day in Birmingham.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Tom Bates: A lot of days like that in Birmingham, by the way. You see, so so so I would say to everybody who who just wants something very simple to pick up and use straight away, affirmations, written affirmations, quotes, phrases, not not just wallflowers, I'm not just talking about buying something that, you know, sounds quite cool. I'm talking about actually doing the internal work and finding something inside which is true for you. Because, you know, Nietzsche teaches us, doesn't he? And all of the, you know, philosophers, the great philosophers of the past, if you have a strong enough why, you can endure almost any how. He who has a strong enough why can endure almost any how. If we're able to focus on purpose, on the meaning, on the reason why we are doing what we do. You know, when I listen to you at the start of this conversation, I've got so much admiration for you and respect and gratitude for doing what you do. Um, and that's a I can't, you know, that I've got to praise you because that is such a powerful reason why. I mean, it's incredible. I'm, you know, and that's why I'm privileged to be speaking with you too.
Dr Rupy: I appreciate that, Tom. No, that's really, really kind of you. And there's so many things that resonate with me so much there, like the affirmations, the mantras in the morning. And and one thing you said there, I just wanted to repeat for listeners is that you are the creator of your own emotional state. And I think just that realization gives so much more control. Just the psychology around that just gives you so much more control of how powerful controlling your emotions can be. Um, you put a whole bunch of quotes on on your on your Instagram as well that I I like troll through as well and I just I love picking up on them and I was snap them. But I think the other thing and it it pertains to the story that you just told is rather than just getting anyone else's quote or anyone else's mantra, really try and personalize it for yourself. Do that body of work, whether it's, you know, half an hour or an hour, really think about how do you want, what does a perfect day start feel like to you? And I mean, I I I have my mantra. I've been doing it now for, I don't know, three or four years. And it's uh, in the morning, it's the world is beautiful, uh, the environment is incredible and I am loved. And that's it. And I start every single day and I have and I write it down. I started doing this a year ago with my left hand, writing down my left hand because it takes a lot more energy and focus to write with your non-dominant hand. So you have to really think, okay, how do I do this? And then you read it and you're like, okay. So it it it forced me to do that because otherwise you just do it with your dominant hand, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. All right, start the day. Um, and then my gratitude practice as well. I've I've been practicing, um, I still do think of three things every single day at the end of my day that was positive. It could be the fact that it started off gray this morning and now it's beautifully sunny. Uh, I got a whole bunch of food sent to me today from a company I'm collaborating with. And uh, I'm going to speak to my parents a bit later as well. You know, those those little things that otherwise you don't realize just how lucky we are. We won the lottery here. We are so privileged in our world to, you know, to have all these opportunities. So, I really love that. And and the fact that it can relate to a Premiership footballer who seems like so far removed from perhaps some of the listeners that, you know, listening right now. Um, I I think that's so wonderful. That's brilliant.
Tom Bates: Oh, the reason why I love um, I love what you're doing and I've listened in to a few of your your shows and and podcasts and obviously, of course, follow you on Instagram as well. Um, is um, is this idea, there's that phrase, you are what you eat. Um, and and I love that and I've used that previously to and actually it's a bit out of context, doesn't quite fit, but it's not about food, but it's also about um the influences that we surround ourselves with, the people around us, who we choose to associate with. You know, social psychology suggests that you start to think after a period of about 30 days, you start to think and behave, if you spend enough time around a certain number of people regularly enough, you start to think and behave in the ways that they do. So, you know, we pick up on mannerisms and um, you know, when you study the whole social psychology of this, it also extends itself into beliefs, internal beliefs and of course mindset and perspective and perceptions. So if I'm teaming up with you and I'm working alongside you and you're practicing gratitude, then soon enough, I'm going to also get involved in some of that and take that habit on, right? Start thinking new and positive ways. So, something that I would really encourage um everybody listening to do is think about who who is your energy team? Who inspires you? Who uplifts you? Who has who have the most positive impact on you in your life right now? And there'll be some people out there that, you know, are energy vampires, energy sappers. You know, I asked the client the other day, you got anyone that you know, is taking your energy at the minute? They went, yeah, I didn't even finish the question. They were like, and I exactly. But like sometimes they go, so what you're telling me is I've just got to cut that person out, right? I've just got to cut them out. I was like, well, I can't do that. I can't cut them out. I've got I'm forced to work. I have to be in the office with them, you know? So I was like, well, if you can't change something, change the way you think about it. If you can't change something, change the way that we think about it. And of course, we're always in control to change the way that we think. And if we change the way we think, then we can change the way that we feel because the emotional states that we create for ourselves end up defining in a sporting context performance, but in a, you know, in a life perspective, most of if not all of the defining behaviors that um in work, you know, in leisure, with our family members. And so, that's a really simple thing to do when we think about it like that. Who tops up the energy tank for me? What are the things that I do that give me energy that I love doing? You know, when I'm kind to myself, I I really love to um to play golf and go for a run. And I know that if I haven't done those things for a long enough period of time, I start to get, you know, cramped up, a little bit tense. I my mood changes. So that's another thing to do. What do you do? What do you love doing? And can you do more of that?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I there's so many things that I've over the last couple of years, and this is me personally, have have realized that I absolutely love doing. One of the things is meditation for sure. The other thing is just taking myself outside of an environment, even if it is for five or 10 minutes. So I started doing this thing because I don't have time for a bath. I love baths, but I don't have time for baths. Um, and in the morning when you're going to work or or even if you just come back from work, it's quite hard sometimes for for people to even get that 10-minute break where they can do a full meditation. And so I started doing this thing where in the shower, I would literally just put a little bit of essential oil, whether it be lavender, whether it be, I don't know, one of the the lang lang or something like that, and just put it in the shower and just whilst the shower is just running for about six seconds, just breathe, just breathe through my nose. And that is just like my version of a meditation. And honestly, it instantly reduces my stress levels. And even if you can just do that as a habit, 60 seconds every single day, it's incredible the benefits it can happen that can happen over an extended period of time. And and to your point that you were making about earlier about, you know, if you can't change the external factors around you, like your boss or the people you work with or, you know, your your current environment, the one thing you do have the ability to change is your perception. Is your perception of the of the environment around you. And it's not something you can just click and then flip, you know, oh, suddenly I'm happy. And I think that would be the skeptical remark in myself that would say, you know, it's you can't trivialize things, you can't just rationalize these things. It just takes practice. It takes so much practice to get that perception. And so when you're working with with footballers to to try and get them to change their mindset, I can imagine you must have you must have come up against a few brick walls along the way, right? And how did you overcome those?
Tom Bates: Yeah, most definitely. Um, so, you know, when I guess when when I start to in a football club, probably if I was to this is definitely live, you can hear the siren. We uh, normally 30% of the of of the players buy in straight away. 30% are like, you know, I'm not really buying in, but I'm definitely not opting out. I'm not sure, so I'm open, let's try it, let's see how it goes. And then 30% are like, definitely not for me. No, thanks. But I'm just going to keep an eye on what you're doing anyway, just in case. Right? So, so, you know, there's there's all sorts of different barriers, but normally, you know, the great thing about what we just said is you have the power to reframe, to change your perception, to create a different outlook, to think about something in a different way. And if you if we do that enough and we reinforce it enough, it becomes a different story. It becomes, we start to see different things. So if you can't change your boss and you you have to work with them, well, you can't change that, but what you can do is think about what what am I, what can I learn from this situation right now? So the question, we can change our lives by asking ourselves better questions. What's the great thing about this situation? Well, there's no great things, Tom. I'm frustrated, I'm continually frustrated by this man or this woman who's my boss. And they do not understand me and they will not give me, I don't know, the breaks that I need and they just won't, they just don't listen to me. They just don't, whatever, fill in the blank, right? Great stuff. So why is that such a great thing for you? What do you mean? It's not a great thing. You're not listening to what I'm saying. It's a terrible thing. My boss is awful. And I so I will come back and continue to challenge until somebody finds something. If I had a million pounds right now and I was going to offer you this million pounds to find one good thing about the situation, I'm pretty sure you'd find one good thing to get this million pounds, right? And obviously, it's just a little bit of a game and you get to you get to break down these barriers with in fun ways. But um, I mean, I think the key thing here is that we can um always choose to look at things in a different way. And as you said, if we do that regularly enough, the picture changes and we create different outcomes for ourselves. It might be that, you know, I am learning how to be patient. I'm learning patience. Or here's a classic one, right? I used to do a lot of work outside of sport and I'd have clients that come to me and say, he made me angry when he said, or she upset me when she did, or, you know, they really made me annoyed. And if we study the the sort of the structure of that of that sentence, if we dig deeper, what you find in that phrase is somebody who is giving away their emotional power to something or someone external to them. The truth is, nothing, and this is a tough one, by the way, for anybody listening, this is this is definitely not click your fingers, tomorrow you're a changed person. This is the constant everyday practice of thinking and working, doing the internal work. Nothing outside of us, no one or no thing has the power to change our emotional state unless we choose to give it power over us through the way that we think. And that's a pretty powerful thing to reflect on and consider. You know, my boss can call me all of the names under the sun. He doesn't give me the opportunities. What there's a great book called um, what you think of me is none of my business. It's one of the best titles. What you think of me is none of my business. I forget the author, but I love the title of the book because the author understands the concept very well. Yes. In a humorous way. No one or no thing can control our emotional states unless we give it the power to do so through the way that we think. And I never have to own it. I never have to own somebody else's behavior or something that happens or a past experience. Sometimes it's something that's happened in the past, right? And we just somewhere in the subconscious is buried in there and we we keep going back to it and um, it's difficult for us to get over. And we keep going back and we come. So we have to do that inner, I keep saying this internal work, this internal work, this process of understanding ourselves, understanding what what has blocked us in the past. Sometimes we have to forgive ourselves for mistakes that we've made. Sometimes we have to go back and reflect on some of the the painful things that have happened in order to to really learn the lessons that were intended from those experiences. And that is it's a difficult thing because it takes a certain amount of vulnerability, right? We said at the start of this call that this isn't a quick fix. Success doesn't happen overnight. And along the way, there's lots of different setbacks and bumps in the road. And that's the same internally. We have to be vulnerable enough, but actually to be vulnerable is the greatest form of courage of all, right?
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, as I've learned a lot more through my clinical experience, so I I've been a in in medicine now, what I've been a doctor for over 10 years, which in the grand scheme of things is a very short amount of time considering my senior colleagues. Um, and when I first went to medical school over 15 years ago, um, I didn't think I would have thought about the emotional journeys of patients from birth to adulthood as having that much of an impact on the physical manifestations of illness. But it and and physical manifestations aside, it certainly has a huge, huge impact on the emotional development of people, which can lead to holding on to negative energy and allowing exactly what you were saying at the start of people being able to be influenced by other people's uh reactions and other people's words or other people's opinions. And as soon as you not only listen to and appreciate that other people don't have the power to affect your emotional state unless you give them power to do so. And you start practicing that on a daily basis, it's incredibly liberating. And for me, you know, I'm still, I'm still practicing every single day. It's a constant, constant process. Um, and I think with social media, I think it's it's like a mirror. It it's, you know, it or a magnifying glass, it accentuates that vulnerability for certain people, which is why it's a really, really um difficult tool to use for some people and it can be very negative, I find. And I've certainly been on the receiving end of of negative energy and it's really affected me in a way. It's like, you know, why does that person think that of me? You know, and and as a people pleaser, a typical people pleaser, um, it's uh, it's something I've had to work through and continue to work through. But I think, I think just the knowledge that you have the ability to change your emotional state yourselves by training your own sort of filters, um, I think that's that's incredibly powerful and liberating as I said, yeah.
Tom Bates: I I absolutely, I can completely relate to that. And I love what you just said because um, when I was out in Chicago speaking at a convention two years ago, maybe, the um, the hosts, they introduced me, they gave me this great big long biography and there was about 600 people in the room and they called me an expert. And I just immediately, I can't, just like, no, that's the wrong word. Don't, do not, whatever you do. So I just said, I'm really sorry, but my opening line to the audience was, I'm not an expert. If you're here to listen to me as an expert, we're all in big trouble because I am learning so much and I've got so much to learn. So I love what you just said because I'm right in that boat with you. This this internal work is an everyday thing. It's an everyday thing. Um, so I love what you just said, yeah.
Dr Rupy: I think, you know, particularly coming out of this um, this lockdown, uh, a lot of people are going to be insecure, um, and I think there's going to be a lot of like a a what it's going to be a difficult time for the next few months at least. Um, I'm wondering if you have any sort of like some words that could help manifest like a a bulletproof nature, something that like, you know, every elite sports person aims to achieve, particularly, you know, in football with all the negative comments that you get from the press and uh the fans and you know, all the attention. I mean, it must be so, so heavy to hear, like such a weight of responsibility. How how do you teach them and what can we learn from from that experience of elite professionals that can help us through this period going going forward and beyond?
Tom Bates: Yeah, no, it's it's a really good question. I think straight away, um, and I did this yesterday with a client, it's such a simple exercise. If we were to imagine ourselves um with um little weights attached to us on a on a string, right? And there are certain influences or things that weigh us down. And we know what they would be if we were to think about those. And for example, social media is generally more increasingly, I mean, there's a lot of great stuff. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of great stuff and if you if we use it in the right way, there's some great sources of inspiration. Um I'm not putting it down. Uh it's the reason how we found each other, one of the reasons that we found each other. So there's a lot of great things about it. I think generally, there's a lot there's also big dangers associated with comparing ourselves to other people's filtered perfect lives, which actually don't exist. Um, this constant stream of instant gratification, this constant searching, being glued to a device, first of all, for so long, psychologically, physically, is absolutely not healthy if it's an extended period of time. So if I was imagining one of the weights being social media, then then metaphorically, can I just take the scissors and just snip it off? And all of a sudden, I become a little bit lighter. And so we did that in an exercise yesterday and um, because of that, there were some really good detailed specific actions, you know, that physical changes that we can create in our lives immediately. The one thing I would say about coming out of this um, this phase of of of in all of our lives is that um, there we come back to asking ourselves better questions. What have we had the opportunity to do in this period of time? For me as a father, I've spent some great time telling my kids stories about growing up, friends and family members, checking in on FaceTime and and connecting more and communicating more with people, even speaking to the neighbors. I've washed my own car for the first time in like, I don't know, however many, however many years. But even the act of just washing the car and seeing the neighbors out in the front drive and having a chat with them, you see, where did that go? We we kind of lost all of that because life is so fast and so busy. It's a we get into this business of constantly striving, of constantly striving and never arriving, constantly striving, never arriving. It's like this this hamster wheel that we're on that goes round and round and round and we never really arrive. So one thing I would love to for for other people to consider is there's a there's a DVD called The Shift, there's a book called The Shift by Dr. Wayne Dyer from ambition to meaning, the shift by Dr. Wayne Dyer from ambition to meaning. And that's what I really think personally, I've had the opportunity to do, reflect on not just the professional ambitions or academic ambitions that I that I have, you know, but also to think about, am I living my life on purpose? Am I am I living a life helping other people to improve the quality of their lives? Um, I can't think of a for me personally, I can't think of a greater joy than to be able to. It's why I'm so alive in this in this podcast with you because we're aligned, we share that energy. We plug in and there's an amplification of energy going on, you know? I'm plugged into you, you're plugged into me and out of that, something is something is growing. There's an energy here. And that's a real energy. I hope anybody listening to this can pick up on that too. And I'd ask them to think about, you know, who are the people that you plug into that that amplify your energy? Can you find a playlist? What's the music? Can you go to the place that that you love to go to? Can you do some of the things that you love to go to? And you know, if people are listening going, well, that doesn't really address the question of what about you just said about being insecure when we come out of this? And there are some real challenges, financial challenges, economic challenges, of course, health health-driven challenges. I'm not saying, I'm not pretending for one minute that those aren't real challenges at all. I'm saying that we have the power inside of us, each and every one of us, to respond and be a better version of ourselves than we were before because of this situation. Is that even possible? Can we be even better versions of ourselves after this? And of course, you know, I'd love to see you smiling. You know the answer is yes.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, 100%, 100%. I mean, I I think like when you speak to people who have faced adversity and been able to come out of that, you know, and it can be it doesn't have to be a huge life-changing event. I mean, my personal event was when I was ill 10 years ago and I had atrial fibrillation and I felt vulnerable and I knew what it was like to be a patient and I was able to overcome that. That led to everything that I'm doing right now, the very inception of this podcast is because of that point where I felt so low and so vulnerable myself and so scared and embarrassed actually that as a 24-year-old, I had an illness and I was quote unquote healthy. Um, you know, that that's just like an example of how we can grow from adversity. Um, and I think one of one of the best things I I've come across in in terms of your work on on YouTube and stuff is is your TED talk in in Bournemouth and that energy that you've just displayed there, that that sort of that knowledge base as well, that excitement really comes through in the visualization exercise that you lead this whole audience and I encourage everyone to to go and watch it and listen to it and do the exercise as well. We get everyone to stand up and you talk them through everything because I think that's such a powerful tool and we can all do that. I've done visualize visualization exercises over the last couple of years myself, probably not as often as I should do, but every time I do it, I just feel refreshed. I feel like, yes, I can do it. And I think if if anyone is feeling insecure out there and they do that visualization exercise like, what do you actually want to feel like? It it may in some ways over time manifest itself. Um, and I'm a firm believer in that, you know, whether you call it the law of attraction or or, you know, whatever it is, I I I really think that people can can benefit from those things.
Tom Bates: Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. You know, this when we when we talk about this thinking or thoughts, we're we're actually speaking at a metaphysical level. Scientifically now, the research is so well corroborated that it undisputedly proves that thoughts contain energy. Every thought that we have contains energy. If we think about stress, for example, where does that come from? You know, the definition is um a perceived inability to respond. The the the underlying part in that definition is perceived perception, perception. That is a thought which causes my shoulders to feel cramped. And that's thought energy. So imagine if we are able to reverse that and think about the things, you said it earlier, the things I feel grateful to have. Gratitude, the that power of gratitude in energy terms is incredible for creating a life, a happier, healthier life. And it doesn't cost any money. We don't have to download any apps. We don't have to follow a certain program to do this. You can do it right now. Right now, we can just get thankful for the things, make a list, you know, three things, five things, 10 things you're grateful for. Um, simple, the answers are basically so fundamentally simple. And one of the problems is that we're looking for complex ways to be happy. And we we're being programmed all the time about what to buy in order to be back into striving. How do I become? Well, if I get this product, you know, then my I'll definitely get this these abs that I'm that I've been, you know, the gym program's been telling me, which costs 400 pounds a month, I'll get them. I'm sure I'll get them. You know, actually, actually, you know, there's other ways, there's other ways. So, but but you know, I think that's a big thing, thinking simply, thinking clearly, um, to to refine the way, that's a good word perhaps, to refine the way that we think about ourselves. There's a great quote by Henry Ford says, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you'll be right. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you'll be right. So that must be true then.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I see. Yeah. I I want people, I want that to sit with people for sure. That's, yeah, that that I think sums up our entire conversation right there. Tom, honestly, it's been a pleasure chatting to you. Um, this has been really insightful for me. It's kind of reignited an excitement for me doing a lot more sort of internal work, um, being a lot more present with my thoughts, I think, for sure. And I think it's definitely going to help a lot of people. Um, you're you're involved in a a couple of projects, um, so the GB 2021, if it's going to be 2021. Um, and obviously the Premiership footballers that keep on calling you during this podcast, which is good to see you're in demand. What uh, what what what are your future ambitions? Turning the turning the lens on you now. What are your future ambitions going forward over the next like year or a couple of years, five years?
Tom Bates: This is going to be a very deep philosophical way to end this, but uh, I'll try to I'll try to.
Dr Rupy: No, no, go for it. Go as deep as you like.
Tom Bates: Yeah, well, okay, so, so what I've started to realize as I've come out of this phase of striving to live on purpose, to to live with meaning, is that things, people, opportunities, projects that I would have never have possibly conceived of before or or even imagined, find me. It's almost like as a result of working on myself and getting my energy right, the more the more these opportunities to have a greater influence in people's lives tend to present themselves. I mean, that sounds very abstract and and very sort of wishy-washy, but I so I'm completing my professional doctorate. I'm in the last year of that. Um, I would really, my marker of success is others that I work with succeeding. I really, really, really am passionate about seeing them succeed in what they do. And um, so for all of the sportsmen and women, for all the businesses, for all the schools and children and teachers and parents and everybody that I'm associated to, I really feed from their success. And it's funny thing, isn't it? It's less, it's become less about me and and more about the the joy that I get in seeing others succeed. And um, what about you? What does the next 12 months look like for you?
Dr Rupy: I I just want to echo that actually, mate, because I think the more over the last few years, the and it's never like you said at the start, it's never been that trajectory. It's always been like, you go down, you go up, you go down, you go up, but you you trend towards where you kind of want to go. And you just need to be able to celebrate the wins and not read too much into the into the lows or the knocks. Um, and I I I'm quite I get uh a little bit nervous or I I don't take compliments very well and that's why I don't really tend to celebrate my successes perhaps as much as I should. And that's been a criticism of a few of my mates as well like, you know, you need to start being so hard on yourself. And I think we're all really hard on ourselves these days. You know, we we don't really appreciate just how lucky we are or what we've done or or whatever. But the more I work on myself, yes, I think the better outcomes I get. And the more authentic you are with yourself in terms of, you know, your your genuine passion where that comes from. And for you, you know, your metric is performance of someone else. And for me, I I tell you, someone was asking me this actually, a good friend of mine, um, just yesterday was like, what what actually makes you tick? And I was like, honestly, when I see someone has made one of my recipes and they enjoyed it, that for me makes everything worthwhile. Honestly, it just lights up my day, lights up my day so much that someone's tagged me in a picture or just said, this is great or like, got this book the other day and this is all right. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, honestly, it just it lights up my whole day. And if I could just do more of that, that would be wonderful. Um, but the bigger vision, I guess, and it's why, you know, I started the nonprofit with culinary medicine to try and teach doctors how to, you know, utilize nutrition a lot better in in medicine. Um, for me, it's, you know, to to help people eat Doctor's Kitchen meals every day with the view of helping everyone live healthier, happier lives and trying to eradicate the conditions that are in a large part preventable. Um, which dominate the current healthcare landscape and it's just for me, it just seems really inequitable and really unfair that we should be living in this in this time with such technology and so much, you know, wealth that we shouldn't, we shouldn't have these conditions. So, yeah, it's it's around that and education and working on myself, obviously.
Tom Bates: It's amazing. I knew we were aligned. We had to do this.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, definitely, definitely. This is, yeah, this has been, this has been a bit of a a session for myself if I'm honest, Tom.
Tom Bates: Oh, well, you know, the thing is, it seems quite selfless of me to come on here with you, but I knew you were inspiring and uh so I knew that I'd be uplifted and inspired myself through doing this with you. That's what we're doing, you see, this is the art, this is the actual evidence of practicing what we're talking about. We're doing that which we're asking other people to think about right now. I'm definitely amplified by your energy. It's been a great pleasure to be with you here.
Dr Rupy: Remember, you can find my guest, Tom Bates, on the podcast show notes at thedoctorskitchen.com. Whilst you're there, do subscribe to the newsletter. To summarize our conversation, we talked about self-awareness, perception, being optimistic, and building belief and that bulletproof nature despite insecurity and negativity around you, as well as how to conjure being your authentic self. And that is very individual for everyone. Creating mantras that are for you, creating quotes that are personalized to you. I think these things, even though they might sound a bit woo and a bit silly, actually do have tangible benefits down the line. So, practice visualization. It's one of the best things I've ever done. Um, and and really engage in that law of attraction. It really does help you achieve whatever your goals are, however little or however big and unrealistic. Just practice it and you'll be amazed to see what can actually happen. It really is the secret for one of a better word. Make sure you check out my my guest uh on the podcast show notes and I will catch you here next week.
