Andy Riise

What if the toughest fight you’ll ever have is the one happening in the eight inches between your ears?Andy Riise spent twenty years in the U.S. Army — West Point, Iraq, Afghanistan — before coaching mental performance in Major League Baseball and the NFL. In this conversation he makes the case that mental fitness isn’t a personality trait you’re born with. It’s trainable, like a muscle. And it starts with a decision: step into the arena, or keep watching from the cheap seats.

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🎯 IN THIS EPISODE:

• [02:39] — The painting of the arena: Andy’s whole “human operating system”
• [05:16] — Three kinds of people: the lost, the spectators, and those in the arena
• [17:33] — Why the hardest battles weren’t overseas — they were internal
• [19:40] — West Point, imposter syndrome, and meeting Captain Carl Olsen
• [35:05] — The daily check-in: surviving, resilient, or thriving
• [44:18] — The Four C’s: confidence, control, commitment, challenge
• [47:02] — Grit’s glass ceiling: when to grit, when to quit, when to pivot
• [53:26] — When identity is tied to the scorecard — and money

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📚 ABOUT ANDY RIISE:

Andy Riise is a mental performance coach who has worked with elite military units, Major League Baseball’s Cincinnati Reds, and the NFL’s Chicago Bears. A West Point graduate and twenty-year Army veteran, he now teaches that the mind can be trained like the body and craft. He’s writing a book, working title Step Into the Arena.

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🔗 CONNECT WITH ANDY RIISE:

• Website: andyriise.com

• Podcast: Skull Sessions Podcast

• Coaching: Design to Perform

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💬 FAVORITE QUOTE FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Everybody’s fighting this war for mental fitness.”

‍#mentalfitness#mentalperformance#leadership#resilience#mindset

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