“What if we could practice for those most difficult moments that we will face in competition, for those moments when your mind begins to unravel, and self-doubt starts to creep in? How could this type of practice change our lives? Not only for sport, but for anything that requires mental toughness?” Sun Sachs, Rewire Fitness

Watch the interview on YouTube here. https://youtu.be/vJf_avKW5g4

Download the Rewire Fitness App FREE TRIAL here.

www.rewirefitness.app/360  

Stay tuned for today’s episode #179 with Sun Sachs, CEO and Co-Founder of Rewire Fitness[i] who will explore this very important question with a human performance platform that he created, combining his passion with endurance sports and software development, to create an app that many of us have been looking for, providing evidence-based solutions for tracking your readiness to perform, building mental resilience, and improving your mind/body recovery.

For those new, or returning guests, welcome! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments.

I can’t even tell you how excited I am to share this new platform with you. At a time when mental resilience is crucial for the entire world, not just those who know the importance of mental toughness for sport, but for every one of us, myself included, this is a skill that requires daily practice. Every athlete knows the importance of mental resilience in sport and would tell you that at least 50-90% is mental when it comes to the focus and precision needed for their performance, but if you ask them “how much time do you spend training your mind?” most will not have a solid answer for you.

I receive many emails from people around the world with different ideas and suggestions from the podcast, and I’m laser focused with the direction we are going and the speakers we are looking for, but every once in awhile, someone comes in front of me, and if I had read the email quickly, or not taken the time to understand exactly what their product is, it would have been a missed opportunity.

This was the case when I was saw the email from Rizala Carrington from Rewire Fitness that came in just a few days before the end of October.  The heading of her email said “First to Market Neuro Performance for Athletes” and in the body of the email I saw something about an app that “unlocks human performance” with major investments from Under Armour and elite athletes such as NBA All-Star Kyle Korver. 

On this episode you will learn:

- Sun Sach’s journey as an athlete and why he founded Rewire

(would love to know this!)

- Why cognitive fatigue is a blind spot for most athletes

(I wonder what solution he has?)

- Why most readiness trackers are using an incomplete data set (YES! As a fitness tracker user, I’ve noticed this and I wonder what they see is missing/the solution).

- Tips for accelerating mind/body recovery (YES! What do they suggest?)

- Why the traditional way of building mental resilience is flawed (exactly! I don’t have all the answers but know there must be a better way than just pounding the pavement).

This began my conversation with Rewire Fitness, and I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this app. I signed up right away, so that I could experience the product before creating their questions, and each day, kept emailing Rizala with how impressed I was. If you are an athlete, or a regular person like me, looking to take your performance to new heights, sit back, and listen to this interview and when it’s over, I highly recommend going to their site, Rewire Fitness,[ii] and starting your own journey with the FREE trial they offer.

Let’s meet Sun Sachs, the CEO and co-founder of Rewire Fitness, and explore this app together.

Welcome Sun Sachs, it’s incredible to see you again. Thank you for joining me today.

INTRO Q: Sun, it’s been just a couple of weeks since Rizala Carrington sent me the email introducing me to your work, and I feel like we’ve known each other for much longer. Maybe It’s because I spent the weekend listening to your podcasts,[iii] on the edge of my seat on your Alpine hike one, but it wasn’t difficult for me to see that what you have created fills a need I noticed when I started tracking HRV to measure performance, but can you start out with when you saw this need and what it took to create this app to fill it?

Q1: We don’t need to be a pro athlete to know that when it comes to sport, we all know how to train the body, but can you explain what happens if we are missing out on cognitive training? Why is cognitive fatigue a blind spot for athletes or anyone looking to improve their mental toughness?

Q2: I know you dive deep into this on your podcast, but for someone new listening, can we walk through each of the 3 PARTS of the APP? I’ll introduce each part, and then could you provide the research behind the training we are doing as we are using the app?

READINESS/MINDSET RECOVERY/NEURO TRAINING

PART ONE: READINESS ASSESSMENT: Wake up, same time every morning, before I grab my coffee and do my readiness assessment. Consistency. Tracks lapses and misses, cognitive fatigue and readiness. What’s the science behind this part of the program, that I know you mention came from the military? PART TWO: MINDSET RECOVERY: I can do the Mindset Recovery pre workout (to put me in the right mindset) for competition mindset, or even before I have a big presentation to calm me down and reduce my stress. I love the affirmations and binaural beats (and my headphones for this part). Can you explain the science behind the Mindset Recovery, and how it reduces stress or preparing me for competition? I like hearing how you used this on your Alpine hike when you didn’t get enough sleep (or had to wake up at midnight, so how could you?) and used this part of the program to mimic the audio, calming your brain? This could be extremely useful for people in many different situations. PART THREE: NEURO-TRAINING: That is the part of the program that builds my resilience, prepares me for those difficult times that we all must face. With daily practice, I’m working my willpower muscles and strengthening this part of my brain. Can you explain this part, and how this is a better approach than the method I told you I was using, (the hammer approach) that just takes up too much time to build resiliency and strength?

Q3: As someone who measures everything, I noticed that there was a data set that was missing, and even wearing 3 trackers consistently, I was fully aware that something was being left off the table. Can you tell me when you noticed this and was it intentional to not have something else that we wear? I was so was glad to see this skillset can be accomplished through an app that’s stand alone.

Q4: I listened to your podcast with your cyclist study, and how brain training improved their results by 120%! WOW. Can you revisit these results and any other outstanding stats like this?

Q5: What I loved the most about this app, coming from someone who worked 6 years with a motivational speaker whose focus was on training your mind to be in control of all of those outside forces that will inevitably come our way, is that not everyone has the chance to have this training, and if you have, there are still moments in life that will happen that will stop us in our tracks, and if we are not prepared for them, could catch us off guard. How does this app prepare us for life in general, and why is it not just for athletes?

Q6: Of course, I had to listen to your hike up Mount Rainier and its comparison you made to Mount Everest. I interviewed Dalip Shekhawat on EPISODE #45[iv] of our podcast and heard the preparation that went into his climb, making me think how your app could have helped him during his training and climb. Can you explain how the app helps us to deal with the mental strength we must generate to prevent something from unraveling (and causing death if you are hiking up a mountain like Ranier or Everest) or losing a game (might as well be a death if you are a pro athlete) or preventing a life situation from getting worse? Can you take us through this experience?

Q7: I’ve heard you mention a BETA program where you were already working with endurance athletes, winners of triathlons, and coaches from different sports. I know that ALL athletes are looking for new ways to improve performance, but what are you doing with this BETA program? Are you tailoring any of the exercises to certain sports and what is your vision for the future of the app?

Q8: Anything I’ve missed that’s important?

Thank you, Sun, for those who are listening who want to try out the app, I will put the link in the show notes that they can click on to access the app for a FREE Trial. I want to thank you very much for your time today, and like I mentioned to you when we first spoke, I will be a lifetime member of this app, and will continue to follow your vision. Thank you for all you are doing to help build mental toughness and resilience in those who have been looking for a new way to accomplish this. Best of luck with the future of this app, and all you are doing to prepare the world for mental and physical toughness.

FREE TRIAL OF REWIRE FITNESS APP

www.rewirefitness.app/360  

FOLLOW SUN SACHS

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunsachs/

FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI: 

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi  

Website https://www.achieveit360.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/ 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com  

Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/ 

Best of luck.

RESOURCES:

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #125 on “What is HRV and Why is it Important for Tracking Health, Recovery and Resilience?” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/what-is-hrv-and-why-is-it-important-for-tracking-health-recovery-and-resilience-with-andrea-samadi/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #134 with Kristen Holmes from Whoop.com on “Unlocking a Better You: Measuring Sleep, Recovery and Strain.” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/kristen-holmes-from-whoopcom-on-unlocking-a-better-you-measuring-sleep-recovery-and-strain/

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #134 BRAIN FACT FRIDAY on “Using Recovery to Become Resilient to Physical, Mental and Emotional Stressors.” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-using-recovery-to-become-resilient-to-physical-mental-and-emotional-stressors/

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda ublished April 22, 2014   https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Self-Realization-Fellowship-Paramahansa-Yogananda-ebook/dp/B00JW44IAI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

REFERENCES:

[i] EPISODE 2 https://rewirefitness.app/podcast/

[ii] www.rewirefitness.app/360  

[iii] https://rewirefitness.app/podcast/

[iv] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #45 with Dalip Shekhawat on “Lessons Learned from Summiting Mount Everest” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/manitoba-canada-educator-dalip-shekhawat-on-life-lessons-learned-from-summiting-mount-everest/