Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon (also known as KSD) is a trained counselor specializing in the psychology of behavior change, with certifications including motivational interviewing, solution-focused, DBT, CBT, and trauma counseling.
She’s the author of numerous books and accredited nutrition, sleep, stress, and recovery courses. She is our go-to performance psych and works 1-1 with many of our clients seeking to sharpen the mental and emotional skills needed to handle some of the toughest training courses in the world.
We’ve been training people for special operations selection courses around the world for almost 15 years now, and at this point the physical side of that is a predictable process. With sufficient training time, we can reliably get just about anyone to the physical performance levels needed for a given selection course.
We’ve also gotten pretty good at teaching the cognitive skills needed to do well in these kinds of high-stress situations - things like segmenting, compartmentalization, and managing self-talk.
But, there’s another piece to the puzzle that is just as important, and you can’t thinky-brain your way out of it - that’s dealing with the emotional challenges of SOF selection. These courses are not just designed to break you down physically and mentally. They also test your emotional resilience. They’ll put you in situations that make you doubt your sense of belonging or whether you deserve to be there.
Ultimately, many people who quit SOF selection courses do so not because they’re missing the physical performance standards but because, at some point, they are overwhelmed by an emotional sense that either they don’t belong there, or other people don’t think that they belong there, and they believe them.
Many of our clients work with Krista to prepare for these emotional challenges in training and bring that resiliency into their courses, just as they do with physical training. This kind of work isn’t just important for getting through selection - it also helps people to manage the stresses of their careers in special operations so that they can have long, productive careers and healthy relationships at work and at home.
To learn more about KSD or book a session with her, go to https://www.buildingtheelite.com/performance-psych-coaching/
Timestamps:
00:00:21 Intro to Dr. Krista Scott Dixon
00:03:43 Key Themes With Prospective Special Operators
00:07:57 The "Everyone Else Problem"
00:11:14 Entry Stakes
00:16.20 How the Skills for Success Can Bring Struggle
00:20:49 Bridging the Gap Between Knowing and Training
00:27:10 Replicating Environmental Stressors
00:33:41 Staying Mindful
00:40:50 Dealing With Depression After Success
00:49:16 Ways to Practice Emotional Regulation
01:02:09 Processing Rejection
01:07:23 The Gift of Fear
01:15:06 Concepts to Prepare for SOF Selection
01:19:36 Outro
Building the Elite Podcast