What Happens After You Mess Up

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Dear listeners, here's something no one really teaches you or us what to do in the moment after the mistake. We never thought, right? I mean we might have came into this kind of situation and we never thought like this. Not the big dramatic failure, just the ordinary visual one, the wrong call in the meeting, the error in front of the team. I mean the decision that didn't land, right? So most of us either spiral into self-criticism or perform like it didn't happen. Neither of those is uh resilience. So today's guest has spent years studying that actually happens in the mind under pressure and what it takes to stay credible, stable, and clear when things don't go to the plan. So this is the conversation all about building a mind that can hold pressure without breaking under it.

Meet Sylvia Rizo On Pressure

SPEAKER_02 1:12

So hey day listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm your host, Avek, and where we talk about the mental well-being not as a luxury, but as the foundation between uh I mean uh everything else is built on. And I'm really glad that all of you are here today. And my guest today brings expertise from the intersection of elite sport and high performance leadership, exploring how mental resilience, decision making under pressure, and honest error management shape not just the performance, but the genuine psychological health. So please welcome my guest, Sylvia Rizo. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Thank you very much for your kind invitation.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Thank you so much for joining us today. And so, Sylvia, I want to start with something a bit personal before we get into the frameworks. In your own experience, whether in sport and leadership or somewhere else, what was the mistake or the pressure moment that taught you the most about how your mind actually works under stress? So if you can share.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah,

Building A Structure You Trust

SPEAKER_00 2:23

of course. Well, there is not a specific episode that I can mention because you know we are all human and uh we can all make mistakes, and uh the work that I'm doing is uh practical everyday underpression. So I have to make decisions on depression constantly. And what I've learned in in my youth and also now still learning is that uh it's really important to have uh a stable structure to which you can rely on. So anytime we have to make a decision or anytime there is a mistake, uh the important thing is uh the reaction to it. I mean uh the I do a sport in which uh mistakes are under the eyes of everyone, and uh in business it's exactly the same. Uh if and if it's uh the same for anyone, if you do a mistake, it's under the eyes of everyone. So it's important how you react.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Okay, okay.

Resilience Is Adaptation Not Toughness

SPEAKER_02 3:38

You said something in the way you framed the conversation that I want to start with that the mental health in high performance environment is not about avoiding stress, it's all about building internal structures. So that's a very different like that the way we started, like from most wellness conversations, so which often focus on reducing pressure. So, what is the misconception about mental resilience that you think is doing the most harm to high performers right now?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Well, I think in the word resilience, that there are some misunderstandings, that's in my opinion. Because I think that some people think that resilience means going through everything despite here or challenges or whatever. But in my opinion, resilience means being able to show that you are stable and you are able to keep the clarity when a circumstances is coming out like you don't expect. Because we have to be honest, we don't know how anything can go. Anything can go well, but anything can go wrong. So the ability, in my opinion, is being able to change yourself and adapt to the new situation. So this is for me resilience.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Got it. Okay, and the difference between resilience and uh daily practice versus resilience as a motivational slogan, that's a distinction you care about clearly. So, what does the slogan version look like? Like, why does it fail people when they actually need it?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, the motivational part is being structured. Have a structure that you can rely on. So if you have a structure that is based on your values, on the way in which we are working, uh then you can always rely on. And also when you make a mistake, uh, if you have this structure, then you can just step back, go in there, reset, and then go forward.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Got it.

unknown 5:57

Okay.

Avoiding The Second Mistake

SPEAKER_02 5:59

And if you talk about the root cause, like you have worked in elite sport and leadership environments, places where standard is extremely high and mistakes are visible and consequential. So, what do you see underneath the surface in people who struggle most after a visible error?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

The important, you know, we are all human, so we all make mistakes. That's normal. Yeah, so uh the point is that we don't have to avoid mistakes, we don't have uh to avoid and to hide mistakes. We have just to accept the first mistake, but the important thing is how you react because if you start like protecting your ego or blaming someone because of the mistake, then you run into the second mistake. So here is coming into uh the error management. I mean, according to my point of view, if you make the first mistake, which is normal, then you just go back to your struggle, you say you look at the mistake, you just think about, you reset, and then you can go forward. And you don't react emotionally, then your crebidility is staying and was building. But if you react to the first mistake emotionally or giving too much as explanations or as a set that protecting your ego, then you just fall in the second state. And you know, from the second mistake, then it's really difficult to recover, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Got it, got it.

Why Perfectionism Erodes Mental Health

SPEAKER_02 7:56

And the perfectionism, you name it specifically as less healthy than error management. That's an interesting and a brave claim because perfectionism is often celebrated, especially in high perform performance cultures. So, what is perfectionism actually doing to someone's mental health over the time?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Well, uh in higher-level sport, of course, I I think that uh perfectionism there is you can't really reach perfect uh perfection, but uh you can always uh look forward to your next goal, and uh your aim uh has to be to be on this on the top level. But in the meantime, uh you don't have uh to lower your standards, and uh at the same time you don't have to be afraid, as I said, if a mistake happens, because a mistake can help you actually to grow and to change your direction. As I said, uh, we have to be able to adapt our ourselves to any new circumstances.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

And

Leading Without Blame Under Stress

SPEAKER_02 9:13

also like resilience as a daily practice, not one-time intervention. I want to ask about the maintenance of it. Like someone builds more internal structure, gets better at recovering after mistakes, starts to release the perfectionism. And then a genuinely hard session, I mean, season comes, like a significant public failure or period of sustained pressure with no relief. So, how do you help someone access what they have built when everything feels like it's being tested at once?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

So when there is uh a like a huge cowboys that we have to recover, yeah. We have to fix it, right? So in that case, uh, I mean, when I work with my team, it's really important that that first of all I adapt myself to the different people that I'm talking with. So someone needs maybe a push, someone else needs maybe a break. So it's important also to understand quickly the kind of people that you have in front of you and how you can motivate and how we can uh relax. Because for me it's important that if there is a big problem, you know, it's important that uh you don't have to blame anyone. You have just to see which is the problem, analyze it, and then they being going back, sorry, going back to hyperstructure, then you can uh just rely there, and then from there you take a break, and then you can go forward. So it's basically always the same. So also if there is uh a mistake or if there is a a new challenge situation, then uh you know, also here, you don't have to act emotionally. But you have just to stay focused and just keep on going uh in the direction you want it to go. So also when I'm relating to my team, well, first of all, I never point out uh anyone, I don't blame anyone, and I don't judge anyone, which in my opinion is something really important because you know we are all different, we can all have different reactions in our life for any situation that life is facing us. So for me, it's important that you know I don't judge anyone, I just uh see what I have in front, and from there I just go forward, but without any kind of judgment. I'm a kind of person that I don't really care about the judgment of the others. I just go for my way. And uh so what I'm doing with my team is to put them on a path that they can uh understand by themselves which is the best way to get to choose. So no pressure at all, but just um, you know, giving a direction where they can uh bring the best of themselves. And I'd really like also to, you know, not only with words, but with best to show them their abilities so that they can steal their abilities.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Ah, okay.

Reset After Failure With Breath

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Interesting, yes, and uh, this is for the listeners who is in the middle of recovering from something visible and consequential, who is being harder on themselves than the situation actually requires. So who is lying awake playing and wondering what it says about them? So, what do you want them to hear right now?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

They had to take their time, they had just uh not keep on going thinking and overthinking to the mistake or to bad uh to the bad outcome. They had just to take the time to breathe, to think about their work and the way in which they normally act. So just from the mistake, from the failure, from uh the visible mistake uh from the bad outcome, they just have to take some points to understand which is the new direction they have to go, and then from the structure in which they are normally living, they can move forward. I don't know if it is making sense, but uh as I rely a lot on the structure that I built, whenever I have to take a decision or there is an error, then I just go back to my structure and from there I move on. Because uh, as I said from the beginning, uh we don't have any kind of certainty. We have so we cannot have all the information that we would like to have because we cannot predict the future. So we have to be able to change ourselves, adapt ourselves to the new circumstances that uh the life is facing us.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, exactly.

Where To Find Sylvia And Share

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Oh so the listeners, that's really great. And Sylvia, like if someone wants to connect with you, how they can connect.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

They can connect uh and they can find me on Instagram. My account is uh reachocilia2020, otherwise they can find me on my website uh that www.hofmaraboomblog.com.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Amazing. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links and the details into the show notes for your easy reference. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Healthy Bind Healthy Life. And if Sylvia's thinking shifted something for you today, even slightly, then take that seriously. And small shifts in how we think about mistakes and pressure can change everything downstream. And as I said, Sylvia's details will be in the show notes. And if you know someone navigating a high pressure season and struggling with perfectionism or the recovery, then this episode was made for them. So, with this hope, this is your host awake, and this is Healthy Man Healthy Life. Build the structure, do the inner work, and be a little gentler with yourself when you get it wrong. So, with this hope, see you next time. Thank you so much.