Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers
Welcome Masters swimmers, triathletes, and anyone striving to live well and swim well! Hear powerful interviews with world-class champions, leading experts, and everyday heroes—sharing tips, tools, and stories to boost your motivation, training, and life performance. Hosted by Kelly Palace, Masters Swimming Champion, author, and former NCAA Division I head coach. A podcast that champions you!
Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers
What If Your Dog Mirrors Your Mindset? Brian Bergford, Masters Swimming Champion, ENCORE EP 292
What if the thing you’re avoiding is the doorway to your best self? In this fan favorite encore episode: that’s the challenge Brian Bergford accepted when he took a lifelong panic response to water and turned it into masters swimming medals, national podiums, and a practical playbook for courage you can use today.
We sit down with Brian—peak performance coach, certified dog trainer, and author of Transformational Dog Training—to unpack the crucial difference between fear and phobia and the wise way to tackle both. He shares how a simple motive bigger than ego, broken down into clear milestones and daily reps, can move you from avoidance to action. You’ll hear the story arc from sloppy first laps to joining a masters team, entering races, qualifying for nationals, and aiming at a championship. The tools are surprisingly simple: stop tolerating your own excuses, stack micro wins, and get in the pool before your brain talks you out of it.
Brian also introduces “emotional visitors,” a memorable lens for mental hygiene. Don’t entertain guilt, anger, or fear; acknowledge them and leave the door open. When joy or excitement knocks, run to greet them and amplify the signal. That same energy lens explains why dog training often starts with human training. As a behavior specialist, Brian has seen how dogs read the pack’s vibe, not just commands. He shares a powerful case where unresolved family tension drove canine conflict—and how aligning the household’s structure and state calmed both people and pets.
If you’re feeling worn down, consider whether you’re actually under-inspired. This conversation blends sports psychology, canine behavior, and everyday spiritual practice into a grounded guide for taking back your attention and choosing action over anxiety. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to tell us the one fear you’re ready to face next.
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
Check out Kelly's Books at www.KellyPalace.com
The best thing to do, I think, for people that I could encourage them is inspire yourself. Do something, put yourself on the line, push yourself. And it's great to be inspired by others, but when you have an amazing performance or you push yourself, even if the performance wasn't outstanding, but you threw your heart over the bar and then you gave even more and you had like a second or third win come in, that's that's inspiring. And I think that that's what people really want to strive for sometimes when they feel like, oh, I just need a little bit of a break. It's like, are you even inspired?
SPEAKER_02:Hello, friends. This is Kelly Pallas, host of Champions Mojo, your place for better health, resilience, and master swimming. I'm taking a short break from recording new episodes of Champions Mojo for two exciting reasons. First, I'm launching my latest book, False Cure. It's a whistleblowing investigative journalism book about a denied health epidemic. If you'd like more information on that, it's in the show notes. The second and most compelling reason I'm on a break is here at Champions Mojo, we're preparing for the January 2026 reboot of powerful new weekly episodes with expert guest interviews, inspiring topics, and tips to take your mindset, health, and personal performance to the next level. We will be announcing some incredible partnerships with the show, and I guarantee what we have in store for you will empower you and keep your mojo strong in the new year. While I'm preparing some of this great stuff, we've selected some of our best shows ever for an Encore series. My hope is that if this is your second time listening to this episode, you'll take away even more insight and motivation. Or if it's your first time, you'll love this episode as much as everyone else did. So settle in and enjoy this Encore presentation in its entirety. Let's welcome Brian Bergford to the show. Welcome, Brian.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I've listened to your guys' show for quite a long time and enjoy it very much. So an honor to be with you.
SPEAKER_02:Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you. Today, I I think this, Maria and Brian, is gonna, I think this could be one of our most interesting shows. So I hope everybody will tune in because we have two topics that I find fascinating. One is conquering your fear, and the other one is dogs. But it's not the fear of dogs. This is uh well, Maria's gonna tell you about it. It could, it could be. That's true. That's a great point. Maria's gonna give you a little background on what the dog part of this is, but I am so excited to say Brian Bergford is a champion. He is not only a peak performance coach, but he's a champions, uh champion master swimmer. Despite having a debilitating phobia of having his face submerged in the water since he was in early childhood, Brian eventually decided that enough was enough. And he tackled this fear head on by taking up swimming at the age of 30. Uh, he took swimming lessons, joined a master's program, and went on to just have an incredible successful career and still going as a master's swimmer, qualifying for nationals, uh, meddling in 13 times at the national championships. He's a four-time state champion and he's got top 10 times for masters, which is very elite. We're going to talk to him. How did he overcome these fears? And uh, and there's a lot more. So, Maria, can you share that with us?
SPEAKER_01:Well, so yeah, I'm excited as a dog lover and owner to talk to Brian about one of his other talents. Um, his love of man's best friend, his knack for training and behavioral rehabilitation led to a real deep uh uh interest and education about dog behavior. Brian's a certified dog trainer with extensive experience as a practicing dog behavioral specialist. He's a former vice president and member of the board of directors for the International Association of Canine Professionals and is owner of Altitude Dog Training in Uptown Dog in Lamont, Longmont, Colorado. His expertise of the interplay between dog behavior and human psychology gave rise to his first book. And I love, love, love the title of this book: Transformational Dog Training. Bring out the best in your dog by bringing out the best in yourself. So wonderful. We're using dogs for uh for excellence. I'm really excited to have you here. Thanks for joining us, Brian.
SPEAKER_04:Uh, like I said, I I couldn't be more excited and um ready to get this party started.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So I well, we have to kick off uh with tell us how how bad was your fear truly of putting your face in the water?
SPEAKER_04:So there's and especially now having the background that I do in psychology, right? You've you've got fears and then you have phobias. And um fears are a little bit different monster, so to speak. Uh it was definitely a complete just visal reaction of of panic when I would have my head submerged underwater. It was just panic-inducing. There was nothing logical about it. It wasn't something that I could just talk myself out of or just hang in there. Just a very irrational fear at to the nth degree. And so I had that for as long as I can remember back in a childhood, and it was uh it was pretty gnarly.
SPEAKER_02:Can you describe some of like the situations that you got into, or you know, how a story that might be go with some of that?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, sure. Like swim lessons when I was a little fit. My parents took me to the please, I don't want my child to die, uh, swim lessons. And I was a wee tyke. I remember being in those swim lessons. And while the other kids at the end of the whole thing got to the point where they were actually like really swimming, I got to the point where if the swim instructor had one or both hands underneath my back and I was lying on my back in the water in the very, very shallow end, I could keep from completely panicking and crying and running out of the room. So that's that's where I got to.
SPEAKER_01:And did you stop along the because it sounds like from the story that it wasn't until much later that you actually learned to swim?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So here's the deal. I I ran a 10K here um in Colorado, the Boulder Boulder. And afterward, I got a little bit overzealous and over training, and I busted up my knee. So I took up swimming very temporarily because the bike hurt my knee and I didn't want to lose all my conditioning. So I popped in the pool, kind of taught myself a really sloppy version of uh freestyle. And as soon as I could possibly get out, I did because I realized like this fear and this phobia is still here. But one seed that eventually got planted was watching Phelps and I believe it was the Beijing Olympics, and his incredible performance there. I've just, I get um, I do, I get very reclemt when I watch people and the the the top of their game, the upper echelons, elite performers doing things where it's so magnificent that it's almost like a supernatural performance. You see something shining through that's not natural on this earth. And I remember watching that, and it planted a little seed. So a few years later, I ended up um getting sick and tired of being basically controlled by a fear because that's not the type of person who I am. I charge right at my fears, I tackle them, I assault my fears. But I had this one, and it was very inconsistent with who I am. So I decided, you know what? If I'm scared of having my face in water, the next logical step would be to take up swimming for real. So I went and got a coach whose name, interestingly, is Bob Bowman.
SPEAKER_03:No way.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, crazy. Not obviously not the same person, but he taught me all the four swim strokes. And uh at the end of one of our lessons, he goes, Brian, you're you're ready for a master's program. And I was entirely terrified when he said that to me because I was still really freaked out about the water, but I knew if I waited, I would talk myself out of it, right? Like a lot of us will do that. So the next day I went, I registered for a master's team, and kind of it's all history from there, as they say.
SPEAKER_02:But when you so the first thing that got you in the pool was an injury, and at that point, were you swimming like kind of with your head out or just jogging in the water? Or what what was the what was the ability to swim then?
SPEAKER_04:Um, the ability to swim then was I eventually got it to where I could slowly swim for, I think it was like a maybe a half a mile to a mile without completely panicking, but I definitely look like an open water swimmer because I just needed the oxygen and the feeling of having my head out of the water way too far out for proper swimming form just to keep myself mentally engaged and in check.
SPEAKER_02:And that was that, and that was like at age 30-ish.
SPEAKER_04:No, so that was like a very short time span. Um, I wouldn't say I really knew how to swim at that point. I just did my best. Um, if at 30 years old is when I went and got lessons, when I had kind of gotten fed up with being controlled by fear. When I got when I realized I was really freaked out about heights, my solution to that was to take up rock climbing. So um kind of did the same thing with swimming at 30 years old.
SPEAKER_01:So when we first started this conversation, you differentiated phobia from fear. Can you talk about that a little bit more?
SPEAKER_04:Sure. One of the main differences, I think, and I think it's important for people to recognize this, like systematic desensitization would be what psychologists would do for um fears, right? You get like you kind of dip your toe in a little bit and you desensitize to very light versions of whatever the thing is that freaks you out, whatever situation, whatever type of animal or insect, et cetera. And it's it's kind of a very gradual immersion where as um something, and that's generally used. Sometimes flooding is used, and that's when it's just full-blown, throw you into the deep end of the pool, so to speak. Um, me having the phobia, I always caution people like, be very careful messing around with phobias. I had enough of a background in psychology myself and working and helping other people that I was able to navigate that, but it can be, frankly, kind of psychologically dangerous. I think the biggest thing with the fear is um I really wanted to feed fear a sucket sandwich. I was so sick and tired of it. I'm like, I'm like, nope, this is not gonna get get me. And I would take any excuse to just move forward a little bit. So when uh Bob had said to me, You're ready to join a master's program, awesome, I'll do that. And then I got it in my head uh about you know a month later, this crazy idea. I snuck into a high school competition at the local aquatic center. I was watching these kids compete, and I was like, maybe I could compete here someday. And then I ended up doing that. And all the while I'm working through my fear, but really reaching for these things that inspired me and eventually getting to what if I qualified for Nationals Day one day? Maybe, man, doing something like that might inspire somebody else who really has a challenge with a with an ongoing fear that's been controlling them to a certain extent. If they see me do something like that, maybe that would give them hope and impetus to move forward.
SPEAKER_01:So you you again cautioned us like maybe phobia is you wouldn't handle a phobia the same way. How do we know? I would say it almost sounds like you're letting some kinds of fears off the hook.
SPEAKER_04:Um, yeah, just like phobias are they're they're trickier to deal with because it's such an elevated response in the psyche of the human being. Fears are easier to work through because you can kind of go into them and you can sort of breathe yourself out of them. But it would be some, you know, um, like uh, and and I am not putting myself in this category at all, but just to use an example, somebody who's a veteran who would have maybe like a flashback or PTSD or something like that, like that's not a fear issue. That's a straight up, you really need to get some directed help for that because it's such a serious thing. Um, but I think the steps to overcoming them can be the same, but I really think by and large, with a phobia, you almost always need outside help.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you can use outside help for anything and for fears too.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So, what are what are the steps for overcoming a fear?
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh. Um I can I can speak about it since we're talking about this particular story from my case. Um, one is a lack of tolerance for your own BS and standards that you normally hold for yourself, but you're letting yourself off the hook and you're not admitting it to yourself. At some point, you kind of have to get a little bit fed up, not mad at yourself, not beating yourself up, just saying this is BS and this is not in line with who I am as an individual. This is not part of my identity, and I'm playing small. That's a big piece of it, I think. Uh, another element to that is you have to have some type of a compelling, overarching desire and drive. And then you need a lot of little intermediate ones. So, to be honest with you, my biggest driving force, I would differentiate between motivations and motives. Um, my motive underneath it all was really to do something someday, possibly, that might inspire other people and um kind of point an arrow to the big man upstairs because it would be something too big for me to possibly take credit for as a human being, right? That was the underlying motive, but that's a very big overarching theme. And so I then had to break that down into these really huge um compelling goals to me. And those are kind of one step at a time because initially it was just joining a master's program, but then the very big thing became doing some kind of a competition, like, oh my gosh, I'm not just practicing, I would actually be competing in a place where other people are around to possibly watch me drown. Um and then eventually it became qualifying for nationals, you know, and and now my big sort of moonshot thing is I want to wish win a national championship day um in master swimming. I figure I've got till I'm about 105 years old, so I'm good to go. But then day to day, just finding any little motivator, um, touching the wall first on a set and getting the acceleration of that, and then maybe I can push it again. So um these big macros, breaking them down into the micro pieces, and probably another thing about overcoming fear, and I really think if you know who you are, and you're you're not you're not willing to let your your fears become bigger than your faith in in yourself and who you were created to be. I really think that's what a lot of it boils down to, which means you have to remind yourself of that every day, which means just like in athletics, we've got to train every single day. It goes the same way for mental training. Every time you let a fear stop you or hold you back from doing something, it starts to develop momentum. And so I got in a really good habit of every time I got to the pool, like, don't overthink it, just get in, just get in, just get in.
SPEAKER_02:That is that's all gold. It really is. Uh, we're we're hopefully gonna nail those down in the show notes because I, you know, as somebody who I, you know, I don't know if I have fears or phobias or both. I'm sure we all have both. Um, but your story inspires me, Brian. I mean, I remember seeing you on the cover of Swimmer magazine uh and your story, and that inspired me. And, you know, just anybody who has fears, if you take these, you know, things to heart, you you did this firsthand. So that is really, really inspirational. Every single one of those points, which I can't wait, Maria. You and I love these and the takeaways. So um wonderful, wonderful. We want to, I guess, move on to this. Now that we we know how to conquer our fears and phobias, Don, can can you can you tie this into uh your your dog training and the this incredibly creative and interesting and alluring title of your book? That um transformational dog training, bring out the best in your dog by bringing out the best in yourself. We we've got to hear about this.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you sure can, but just to keep some suspense, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw something out there on the tail end of that that that might tie into the overcoming fear. This is just some things that had kind of come to me as I was thinking about coming in here. And and one of the issues with people's psychology is like what kind of emotional visitors do you throw a tick or tape parade for and invite into your psychological home?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wait, wait, you gotta say that again.
SPEAKER_04:What kind of emotional visitors do you throw a ticker tape parade for and invite into your home mentally?
SPEAKER_01:What's an emotional visitor?
SPEAKER_04:An emotional visitor visitor could be something, and I think you that you would want to refuse these. Um entertaining, refuse to entertain depression, guilt, sadness, anger, and fear. Um, I think you want to allow them to be there, but then you want to leave the door wide open for them so they can leave when they're ready. But if you have something like an emotional visitor of joy, love, uh, excitement, peace, elation, any type of positive anticipation drops by for even a second. Run outside, throw your arms around that visitor, invite them inside and entertain the hell out of them, right? Like, like don't think to yourself, why are they even here? They'll probably leave soon. Because that's what you should be saying about those negative emotions. So I think a lot of it is attending to what emotions do you entertain? And this is not talking about denying if something is there. It's just like don't go over and sit there and talk to sadness and depression on the couch. If you have a little glimmer of joy outside, wrap your arms around that and magnify it because that is going to have a huge impact on how you perform and how well you're able to overcome fears. Now, tying it back into your other question. Um, I just remember when you were asking me that one of the kind of fears I had from childhood that were sort of instilled by me or instilled in my life was a fear of dogs, honestly. And just, you know, all these stories and like news stories of dogs biting and mauling children and certain people in my family constantly told me about them. Just like, uh one of the things that I have discovered is oftentimes your your absolute greatest gifts and joys in life lie on the other side of your greatest fears. For me, having my head submerged in water, dogs, right? And there's other examples I could use, but I was freaked out by dogs in the beginning. But when I graduated from yeah, yeah, when I graduated from college, I realized I had a gift for working, um, not just with humans on performance, but like actual dog training and behavior rehabilitation. Um, I built a couple businesses up in that space. And I wrote a book, uh, the one you mentioned, bring out the, well, it's transformational dog training, but bring out the best in your dog by bringing out the best in yourself, because I recognize through my work with people and their companion animals, they're coming to me with this problem, whatever the problem is, the presenting issue. And then uh I have to kind of sift down through the layers and recognize this person is asking me to fix their dog. It's constantly this barrage of complaints about the dog and what's going on. I'm like, okay, okay, and they do this and they do that, and then they want somebody to fix the dog. I'm like, dogs, they're a pack animal. They see a system, they do not see individual components, they function within an environment. And so if the environment of the mind and the energy of the people and the family members is not where it needs to be, that's going to have a downstream impact on the dog's behavior because they are responding to that energy and to the psyche. And so I wrote the book to help people not only understand that and understand dog training principles, but line up right next to it principles of human psychology, self-development, all kinds of stuff, even some a little bit on the spiritual side too, so that they could understand how to support their companion animals the best by making positive changes within themselves.
SPEAKER_01:That's such a great take. I mean, you of course I've heard that before about dogs, you know, dogs responding to the owners. You're really training the owners. And but I I love the take that hey, you can grow, and as you grow, your dogs will start behaving better. That's beautiful. Do you have some good stories around that?
SPEAKER_04:Oh gosh. Um yeah, sure. So here's one that comes to mind. I went to I got called in and I always talk to people on the phone first when I was gonna go over and do training for them. So I had this conversation with this gal and kind of had a sense I knew the two dogs were fighting in the home. Um, and they had a like it was it came out of the blue. And so I got there and I'm thinking this situation's really weird. Um, but I get into the home and I start talking, and all of a sudden, I can, you know, I could absolutely sense the tension between the mother and the daughter. It was palpable energetically in the home. Like, like, even if you don't pay attention to that kind of stuff, you would notice it was pretty obvious. And they weren't saying anything in the beginning, but I was like, what's going on with you guys? Because it was relevant because I recognized the two female dogs had started having knockdown drag out fights in the home once the daughter came back into the home, and the mom and the daughter had not resolved their previous issues. So their dogs were actually having and bearing the brunt of this emotional negativity and this just not great situation between the individuals. And so helping them see the connection and then um get them on board about like what's more important, like your opinion and being right, or like you having to re-home one of your dogs or put one of them down because they so severely injure the other one. Like, can we can we just get on board for a cause that's bigger than the bickering, please? And I and I said it with people skills. So I didn't say it quite like that, but that's that's kind of the gist of where we went with it.
SPEAKER_02:That's amazing. That is that is truly amazing. So uh let me throw out a dog situation and see if it has anything to do with uh me as the owner or how you would how we how you would fix this. So the dog of my life was a dog named Margot. She was half yellow lab, half golden retriever. She was a fellow swimmer. Like if there was water anywhere, she would charge it and just jump in. Could be a pool, could be a pond, could be a lake. Uh when we'd walk the beach, she she surfed. She just she was just an amazing dog. The only downfall of Margot was that she would surgically remove zippers from any anything in the house. Like if you left your jeans on the floor, it looked like she literally took a seam ripper and like the jeans would be perfect. The zipper was gone. The zipper on her dog bed, the zipper on like on a hoodie. Um, if if she could get her what is the Brian, I have so many things swirling in my head right now.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so there's not many things I haven't heard yet, but congratulations, Kelly. Um, that's one of them. So Wowzers. Um trousers, wowers, trousers, wowers, trousers. That's crazy. Also, I I don't know. Maybe it's her own issue. Um and it could be because dogs will have just weird quote unquote pet issues that they'll pick up, little habits, idiosyncrasies, um, just you know, quirky little things that they do. And sometimes, in all fairness, it has nothing to do with their humans at all. Um, I think generally, if you have a well-balanced, stable dog that has really great quality of life, and you know, they're in a they're in a really good space and they're gonna have their quirks, and those are the little things that we just love about them. Just like hopefully we love those same things about other people. Um, or we'll have to be careful here because I'm on your show.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, trust me, she can take it perfectly.
SPEAKER_02:I can take it. Oh, I have oh wait, I have trouble with closure.
SPEAKER_04:There you go. I was I was gonna say, you know, like honestly, I don't even know what that would be about. Like maybe um, maybe because you're a swimmer and your dog just really wanted to support you in that, and there's no zippers on tech suits.
SPEAKER_02:Uh right, right. They're not allowed. There used to be. There you go. I love it. I love that sense of humor. Brian, do you do you I want you to throw out a dog story for Brian? You've had so many great dogs.
SPEAKER_01:Great dogs, and I'm I uh I had the first dog I had was a German Shepherd, and it was a very aggressive German Shepherd. And I also had lots of little children, and so um had to get hold of that pretty quickly. And so uh I hired a dog trainer for what at the time seemed like an enormous amount of money. Um, but it was the best thing I ever did. She was because then I was able to train all the dogs after that. But um, I'm I guess our our dog that we have right now is a sweet golden doodle. Um and he really just has no I guess he likes to eat squirrel poop. Oh my gosh. The dogs like to eat poop, they're very interested in it.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my lord. How old is your doodle? Uh he's 12. He's 12? Oh yeah, wow. Yeah, that that's that's yummy. Um that's what I think. It's very that's very specific because I know a lot of dogs are like rabbit poop is really their thing or whatever, like goose poop is a big one, cats, cat fish, all that kind of stuff. But but squirrel poop, you guys are throwing some stuff at me today. I'm getting a big thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but you gotta diagnose Korea now. No, wait, you know what else? This is this is gonna be better material for you. Okay. He loves that blue stuff that diapers have. Like, so when you have when a diaper, you know, they they create diapers with this gel that when they're wet, you know, when the kid peas are, you know, it it it gets it gets um like absorbed. Absorbed, but and he's not interested in dry diaper. But once the diaper is either wet or poopy, and especially if we leave him alone, like put it in the house, he devours disgusting diapers. That is so weird.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, that is the that is the last time that Binx is gonna lick me. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01:We just don't we just don't allow diapers around the house. A lot of grandkids.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there is it's funny that you mentioned that. There's certain things about dogs that um I just really try at a certain point. Like, I'm not gonna think into that too much. Like it's such a weird thing. Um, but I I will I will say this that just like we we see, and this is part of the issue sometimes we have with dogs, is um, or the dogs have with us, is we see the world through such a different lens. Our our brains are built so much differently. The different regions that are dedicated to different sense organs and scents for dogs, the olfactory, is huge compared just in volume alone to to the human brain. And it's also just a good thing to think about where we're all built differently, even as individual people. And um just a I think appreciating the differences sometimes without needing to necessarily understand what it's all about can really help reduce a lot of the anxiety and a lot of the um, you know, just the frustration that can happen in relationships because we have to understand everything or we need things to be a certain way. And it's like, you know, like you're making yourself crazy, right? It's comes a certain point where I will have some client, and you didn't do this, but I'll have you know some clients that would drill down like, but why is that and why is that and why is that? I'm like, does it matter? Like, let's just help support them to feel better and to have a better life. It we don't need to get lost in the dark hole of but why, but why, but why, but why. Um, we just need to help them move forward. And that's a beautiful thing about dogs, is they don't hold on to the past and fall in love with their dysfunctional stories like people tend to, and we don't have to deal with the ego play. So dogs are a beautiful example of being able to just move forward. And I think that if we can take that to heart and use them as a daily reminder, it's an amazing thing because people can get caught up in again, their stories, the layers of complexity, the ego, them subconsciously holding on to problems because it serves them in some way. And they go, No, I don't. Like, I would never want, you know, to live like this. It's like, but you still are. And to be courageous enough, if if it's us and we really want to fix something, to examine that. But when we're looking at other people to just appreciate the differences, and love is the one universal thing that can absolutely heal and help and connect. And if we can just keep that in mind and like, let's fix ourselves instead of getting obsessed with what's out in the world, that's probably more a reflection of what's going on within ourselves and we see everything that we don't like. So let's work on that and let's just exude love and optimism and positivity and grace and joy and all the things, those emotional visitors that are conducive to a psychological environment that makes for good performance in relationships.
SPEAKER_01:I I'm so glad you got back to that because I did want I love, love, love the concept of these things as being visitors. Because of course we do vis get get joy at we get visited by joy, but we also get visited by grief and sadness. And the idea that you don't necessarily want to make it too comfortable, but you know, you acknowledge that they're there. That's a beautiful thing. But I one of the things that Kelly and I have talked a lot about lately is uh with the news cycle as it is, and and that it seems like they're piping depression, guilt, anger into our brains, they I mean that we are we are getting this tremendous negative visitors, you know, as you say. Now, what what would you have to say about that?
SPEAKER_04:I would say the best thing if you're honestly asking me to approach that is to me really focusing on the spiritual side of life, not this not talking about religion, just spiritually being in alignment with who you truly are and like the larger, whatever you want to call it, source, God, the universe, however people however people understand it. Because when when you truly elevate your consciousness and spirituality is very much like most anything else, it's something that you research, you read about, you discipline yourself, you have certain practices and rituals you do. Very few people just get struck with the lightning bolt of like spontaneous enlightenment. So the rest of us, we we have to, in some sense, apply ourselves to grow and develop and evolve spiritually over time. And as we do that and our consciousness comes up, um, it naturally helps us have a completely different perspective when we watch things like the news. Like, for instance, if I'm not in a great place, I and I love and honestly, like I really enjoy, which is weird, politics for some reason. I just think it's like a fascinating truth is stranger than fiction kind of a thing. So it's like massively entertaining to me in a lot of ways. But if I'm not in a good spot, I can't watch it for very long because I will get pulled down into something. But if I'm looking at it from the right perspective and I've got my spirit in alignment and my psychology, and they're all there, I absolutely have a completely different experience of it because I'm seeing it from such a different facet that all of a sudden um I can see the the actual the beauty in humanity and the little glimmers that come up, and I can see the humor in some of it and recognize, you know, like, oh my gosh, that's such a stupid thing, but oh yeah, like I'm a total hypocrite because I did that yesterday, right? And I'm getting on them about it, but that's something for me. And so I think the perspective is the biggest thing. It's it's like they say, you know, as a as a speaker, it's it's not it's not the message, it's not your performance, it's the quality of the audience. And and I want to make myself a quality audience when I'm looking out at the world, especially today, because it's not sunshine and rainbows that they're throwing at us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Well, Brian, this has been just amazing learning fears and phobias and how to overcome those, and also great stuff on on dogs, which I know we're gonna have a ton of people love that stuff. So um, is there anything that we have asked you that we have not asked you that you would like to share with our listeners?
SPEAKER_04:Uh well, yeah, I'll share this with you because when I first when we first had talked about setting up this interview, this this came to me. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna write that down. Um, this I don't know who this might be for, but I wrote down sometimes when we think we're worn down and we're really tired and we need a break, what we really need is to be inspired. Sometimes we think, gosh, I'm just so tired and this and that. It's like there's no, there's no, there's no spark sometimes. Sometimes you do need to take a break. I'm not talking about getting into burnout, but the best thing to do, I think, for people that I could encourage them is inspire yourself. Do something, put yourself on the line, push yourself. And it's great to be inspired by others, but when you have an amazing performance or you push yourself, even if the performance wasn't outstanding, but you threw your heart over the bar and then you gave even more and you had like a second or third win come in. That's that's inspiring. And I think that that's what people really want to strive for sometimes when they feel like, oh, I just need a little bit of a break. It's like, are you even inspired? Let's ask ourselves that first before we take a three-month layoff. So um that's my uh that's my uh thought.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's really wonderful. That's what a great way to interview. Thank you, Brian.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and well, we we are still gonna move on to the the speed round, the sprinter round, because you are a champion swimmer and we have to ask you. Um, and hopefully that I don't have it in the we'll get some more little wisdom. Okay, so um here we go. Are you ready to have some fun here with a few little fun questions?
SPEAKER_04:Okay, God willing. My my heart's beating faster.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, give me a moment.
SPEAKER_04:I I am you know it's it's it's not performance anxiety, it's performance arousal. Um that's how I think of it. Let's do this.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. Go by the I think I think you're gonna nail it. Cat or dog? Uh dog. Gee, that one was kind of obvious. Red or blue? Uh blue. This is not political. Okay. Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? Uh milk.
SPEAKER_04:Milk, yeah. Kickboard or no kickboard? For sure. Kickboard if I'm recovering, no kickboard if I want to do underwaters. Mountains or beach? Beach, actually. Beach.
SPEAKER_02:Football or baseball?
SPEAKER_04:Oh baseball. Um, I don't know. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna go with baseball because I played it a lot when I was younger.
SPEAKER_02:iPhone or Android? Android. Coffee or tea? Tea. Morning person or night owl.
SPEAKER_04:I've conditioned myself to be a morning person. So I'm a swimmer and I have no choice. But naturally, yes, isn't that the truth? That's all right. Naturally a night person, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I just want to point out, Kelly, that he's okay. Maria's got some he's our very first guest in 120 shows to say Android over iPhone. So we're I'm a record breaker, apparently.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. Also, I I think he might be the first to say baseball as well. That's true. I'm a baseball girl. I'm a baseball girl myself, so and we're Android. So yeah, Maria's got some for you. Uh, these are super short answers. Favorite color?
SPEAKER_01:Blue, favorite pizza topping, jalapenos, favorite vegetable.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, cream corn.
SPEAKER_01:That's a good one, and also a first. Uh favorite swim complex that you've swum in.
SPEAKER_04:Uh I actually liked uh I actually like Minnesota. University of Minnesota.
SPEAKER_02:Uh that's another commonality. I love Minnesota.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:See?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, what's your favorite music genre?
SPEAKER_04:Oh I'm gonna say that's like totally dependent on my anything from rap and RB to classical music. Okay. Shoe size. Eleven. Do you have siblings?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I have an older brother. Favorite Star Wars character.
SPEAKER_04:I don't follow Star Wars, so I'm gonna say Luke Skywalker because I mean his name.
SPEAKER_01:It's a good one. Luke's a good one. Can you cook?
SPEAKER_04:I can heat things up on the stove occasionally.
SPEAKER_01:What word comes to mind when you dive in the water?
SPEAKER_04:I love this.
SPEAKER_02:Nice, nice. Oh, gosh, that's beautiful. Well, Brian, this has been wonderful. We uh we know you have many talents. Well, yeah, one of which is is your uh peak performance coaching. And if anyone likes would like more information on Brian and that, it is at bergdorfperformance.com and we'll have it in the show notes. Bergford, sorry, saying it wrong. Sorry. Bergfordperformance.com and we'll put it in the show notes as well. So wonderful having you with us today. Thank you so much, Brian. We wish you all the best. Thanks, Brian. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:I appreciate being with you guys. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:You too. Well, Maria, what a fabulous surprise that was. I mean, you know, we've we've had Olympians, Olympic champions, Olympic coaches, uh, celebrities, all kinds of amazing people. And Brian Bergford was just amazing. Yeah, lots of wisdom. And besides, you know, his cool, cool story of having a fear of the water and then taking up swimming at age 30, taking swimming lessons, um, and then going on to start swimming at 30 and becoming kind of this master's elite swimmer on his way to being a national champion at some point here soon, I feel. Um, he's just he's really overcome his fears. And he talked to us about phobias and fears and how to do that. That's, you know, a really exciting thing in there. But um, we also talked about dogs and his dog training certification, which had some amazingly interesting talks. So there's a lot of some great stories. Tune in, but um, what of all that, Maria, what was your first takeaway?
SPEAKER_01:Well, he, as you said, he had so many great pieces of wisdom that I could one of the one of the expressions he uses, and we talked about fears, is that he he likes to assault his fears, love that idea. Yes, but that's not my takeaway. My takeaway that it the if I had to say one was that he talked about how uh he talked about emotional guests. And what he means about emotional guests are emotions that you that you have. You can have depression, guilt, anger, sadness, fear, joy, hope, you know, there's there's kind of the dark ones and then there's there's the light ones. And his his point was you're gonna experience all the whole range of emotional guests, but you don't have to make the bad ones comfortable. You know, in other words, you said, you know, if you're if you're thinking about these as guests in your home, you don't have to just sit down and chat with the president, give it a beer, or or you know, or or make uh guilt a nice pillow to lay on. Yeah. Instead, he said, when you, you know, up outside your door, you see hope and joy and um gladness, you run out the door and you embrace them and you fix them a five-course meal. So I just love this concept of yes, we have we're going to experience the whole range of emotions and emotional guests, but we can really spend our time and dwell in and think about and entertain the positive ones. I thought that was a beautiful concept.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that that was a beautiful concept.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, Kelly.
SPEAKER_02:Well, this one that this just really resonated with me because I have fears and phobias. And I loved his, let's see, his phrase was uh Zach, exactly just have a lack of tolerance for your own BS. And that goes with what you said about, you know, kind of kicking in the door and saying, you know what, I'm tired of it. And and I think there is a posture that one takes that I take. Maybe I'll just speak for myself and anybody else who has it. So once you start owning your fears or your phobias or both, then you kind of it kind of puts you in this position of uh subservience and and sadness and and vulnerability and really weakness. So we're putting ourselves in that position when we embrace our fears. We are weak. We cannot kick the door in. But if you just kind of rise up and say, you know what, I am so tired of always being that person who can't do this because of this fear. You know what? I'm tired of that BS. And like you said, you don't beat yourself up, but you just say, I'm tired of it. I'm kicking the door in. And then to give your strength is embrace what your greatest being is. Where are you at your greatest level? What is your highest, what is your highest purpose? What can you do with yourself that's not be not owning this personality of fear? We love working with personas. So you kind of become that person that doesn't have that fear. So I that one just truly hit me in my heart. I didn't need to make any notes on that. I just was like, that's the takeaway that I'm getting out of this show is is just don't tolerate your own BS.
SPEAKER_01:I I love that. And I've seen you do that, Kelly. I've seen you just say, no, I'm not gonna let this stop me. And yeah, it's it's it's wonderful, wonderful.
SPEAKER_02:I think I think I love the differentiation between fears and phobias because I can do that with my fears. I can say, you know what, that's BS. I'm gonna do this, and I can jump in and do it. But then I have phobias, which are things like, you know, really ingrained that you probably need some long-term stuff. And and, you know, he gave the example of uh the the war vets who have PTSD. You don't want to start, you know, saying setting off fire crackers and you know, and and and I know, you know, I have the long-term multiple hospitalizations when I was a little kid and lots of bad um bullying and teasing of hospitals and things that I experience. So I have a long, so I think I have a phobia of hospitals. Um, and I don't know that going into a hospital is gonna really like break that. Maybe I can find something else. It's not a fear of hospitals, it's a phobia of hospitals. So that was a little bit of a differentiation.
SPEAKER_01:So that was nice too, because it allows you, if you have a real phobia, to say, okay, this is something that I'm gonna need a little additional help.
SPEAKER_00:We appreciate you listening to Champions Mojo. If you follow us on Apple, you'll never miss an episode. If you want Kelly's takeaways from this episode, check out her blog at championsmojo.com. Thank you.
