This week, we had the opportunity to talk with Caleb Rogers, aka Mental Sensei. Caleb has helped quite a few top tier mma fighters mentally prepare for big fights. Caleb talks with us about his approach to working with his combat athletes. As many of you know, the mental side of mma is essential, but often overlooked. In today’s podcast, you’ll learn a few simple strategies that can help take your game to the next level.
Listening to the Athlete
What are we accomplishing?
What can we control?
Confidence is earned
Limiting beliefs
What drives the individual?
Daily mantra
and more!
J. Caleb Rogers is a CPA, the Mental Sensei, and CEO of Conquer, LLC. He has worked with 100’s of professional athletes competing in MMA, BJJ, Boxing, and Kickboxing across organizations such as the UFC, Bellator, and Invicta, preparing them to perform at there best. His athletes show up ready, focused, and with the mindset of a conqueror. His purpose is to light a fire in every individual from which stems from their core beliefs and values. He has studied, psychology, finance, religion, philosophy, strategy, and more to offer wisdom, truth, accountability, and encouragement to each individual. The results are powerful and life changing. Feel free to ask his clients.
Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Caleb Rogers:
Interviewer: Corey Beasley
Guest/Interviewee: Caleb Rogers aka Mental Sensei
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COREY: Hey guys this is Corey Beasley with Fight Camp Conditioningand today we got Caleb Rogers aka the Mental Sensei. Caleb, how re you doing?
CALEB: I m doing great, man. Thanks for having me on.
00:12
COREY: Of course, I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. So guys, many of you guys know, the sports psychology or mental side of fighting has become a pretty popular topic these days, and a lot of guys spend a ton of time in the gym, beating each other up and getting really strong and powerful, but a lot of guys lack the muscles, say between the years. So that’s why we’re wanting to talk to Caleb and figure out some things that can help us all be a little bit stronger, a little bit tougher, a little bit more intelligent, so to speak, in our preparation. So Caleb, give everybody a little two cents of who you are and what you’re doing.
00:54
CALEB: Absolutely. Thanks again, Corey for having me. My name is Caleb Rogers. I am the Mental Sensei. I started working a couple years ago with athletes because I began to notice that you would have all of these men that just had the physical — men and women had the physical, had the technique, or ready to go but would get beat before the fight even started. And I realized this is a problem. I mean, I can help with this. So I started doing an in depth dive into sports psychology, psychology, philosophy, theology, religion, work tactics and the like. And then I started doing it. I just started coaching individual athletes for free, slowly worked my way up to work with multiple athletes in the UFC Bella tour LFA, IBJJF and the like, and kept learning kept growing as they go. And my goal is ultimately to get people where they want to go in a powerful way. I kind of attribute it to I m a fire starter, I look for a fire inside each individual athlete. And then man, we get that thing burning and growing. So they’re showing up to their full potential and capability.
01:56
COREY: Very cool. So yeah, it is one of those interesting things like you were saying what will lose the fight before they even show up? You know, even I’m sure everybody, if they were completely honest has been there one time or another during their competitive career or maybe even outside of their competition, but just in training and stuff like that I’m sure there’s a lot of mental things holding people up as well. So when you do start with somebody, Caleb, like, where do you start out with these guys?
02:25
CALEB: Sure, my first start with the athlete. My goal is to understand. I’m not going to get very, very far if I begin prescribing before I’ve diagnosed right, I think you’ll get that with a lot of people, they have all the answers, but they don’t listen. So the first couple of sessions, I really listen and we get really clear on what we want to do, what we’re there to accomplish, why we’re going to accomplish it, and who we are as a person that’s going to get it done. And from that understanding, we will develop a character. And that’s really what I build, I build men and women of strong character.
There’s so much that exists outside of our control, but our personal development and growth like we absolutely can own that. And when we show up powerfully for building characters that matter, the rest falls into place. If you build a powerful person they’re going to perform powerfully. So it starts with understanding it moves toward clarity on goals, and then I encourage them through accountability and encouragement, with techniques, positive self talk, visualization things, things that you typically read about in sports psychology, and we get where we want to go so that they can show up and get the results that they want.
03:34
COREY: Right on. So basically, what you’re doing is you re just kind of sitting down and clarifying who they are, where they’re at, where they’re going.
03:40
CALEB: In the beginning, yeah.
COREY: And really just I mean, I — as many different programs that I’ve gone through just you know, being a coach and a gym owner and working with different employees and athletes and all these different people in different ways, I guess over the years. It is interesting how much it can help somebody just by sitting down and figuring out where they’re at, it blows you away. It helps [Inaudible] all avoid what we all can do.
CALEB: Yeah, it s crazy.
COREY: Yeah, we just get busy and it just kind of like you lose sight of what’s happening or what you’re doing or what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. And I think just the basics, like a lot of people might just overlook what you just said. And without being able just to sit down and really clarify and really think about where they’re at.
04:33
CALEB: Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. I mean, I think, you know, it’s the stuff that I teach most people have known or been exposed to in some form or fashion, but a lot of us don’t do the work. You know, we don’t put in that work and this is work. I don’t think, you know, there’s no getting around this, that confidence is earned. You know, whether you’re earning it in the gym or whether you’re earning it in the mind, you’ve got to put in the reps. And we make sure that we keep your mind sharp that you’re putting in those reps.
And the other thing too, is, I think this is — varies by coach. But as a sports psychologist, which I’m not, I’m a mental coach, as a mental coach, or any type of therapist or coach, they get used to seeing patterns of things, which can maybe help uncover or identify beliefs or limiting beliefs of misplaced notions that can really be holding the athlete back. And I think that’s kind of another thing that that we figure out is like, what’s really important to us? Like, yeah, I value this I value winning value I value the championship. And when you uncover that, why, why do I value these things? And what are these things giving me as a person, and when you can begin to uncover what drives the individual, it simplifies things, it has a clarity, and then we’re able to really show up, like I said, powerfully in our performances and in our training to get there.
05:48
COREY: Right on. So you work with quite a few different types of people. I mean, I would imagine, you know, sure, they’re all high level athletes and stuff like that, but they’re also individuals with very different personalities, different strengths and weaknesses and things like that. With every single one of them, you’re kind of digging in going through this initial process. And then where’s the work start? Like, how does that kind of implement? How do you work with people?
06:16
CALEB: Where does the work start? As far as — can you clarify a little bit?
COREY: Yeah, I mean, you go through that initial assessment, you know, you’re sitting down, you’re listening, you’re going through, you’re figuring out what do we want to accomplish? And why? What can we control? You know, what are some of maybe of our limiting beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, whatever you want to call it? Then you clarify that thing for that person? So as I’m imagining, that’s the first few sessions. Then you said you got to work.
CALEB: Right.
COREY: When you’re talking about working with people, what’s a typical, like, what’s the work look like? When people come and see me? It’s like, okay, cool. We’re going to warm up. We re going to do some work.
CALEB: Yeah.
COREY: That we’re going to go through the — you know, do our reps in the gym, so for you guys, what’s that work look like?
07:02
CALEB: Sure. Let me keep it brief just to lay d
