Two Sports Psychology Tools That Make Job Searching Easier
Episode 328 - I borrow two tools from elite sport psychology: the difference between thoughts and attention, and the difference between internal and external focus. You’ll learn how to stop fighting your nerves and start directing your attention.
Job searching can feel deeply personal, but the mechanics of it are closer to a high-performance environment than most people want to admit. You are assessed in real time. You are compared, often invisibly, against other candidates. You are expected to communicate with clarity, confidence, and restraint while navigating uncertainty, rejection, and the emotional weight of change.
For experienced corporate professionals and executives, this becomes even more complex. The stakes feel higher, the stories are longer, and the margin for error can seem smaller. Many of the people I work with are excellent at their jobs, yet they find the job search uniquely destabilising. That’s not because they are not capable. It’s because job hunting creates a different cognitive and emotional context than most leadership roles do.
To help with that, this episode draws from elite sport psychology. I was inspired by Alex Cohen, Senior Sports Psychologist at the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, who works with high-performance athletes including ski and snowboard athletes. He shares two mental tools that are practical, freeing, and highly transferable to job searching:
- The difference between thoughts and attention
- The difference between internal focus and external focus
Cohen works with athletes who drop into halfpipes and ski runs knowing a fraction of a second or a tiny error can change everything. His point is simple: you do not perform well by trying to control your thoughts. You perform well by controlling your attention.
It sounds like semantics until you see how job seekers behave in the wild.
The modern corporate job search is an attention trap. It invites rumination, self-monitoring, and second-guessing. It turns high performers into internal narrators. “Am I sounding confident?” “Did I answer that right?” “Do they think I’m too senior?” “Do they notice my gap?” “Why did they ghost me?” The mind does what minds do under uncertainty: it generates commentary.
The mistake is believing you must silence that commentary to move forward.
Two concepts from sport psychology have been especially useful for my clients and listeners, particularly experienced professionals navigating career transitions, executive interviews, restructures, and long hiring cycles.
First: thoughts versus attention.
Cohen draws a line between thinking and attention. Thinking includes thoughts, feelings, sensations, images, memories. Attention is what you hand your mind to, moment by moment. You can have a thought like “Why is this happening to me?” and still place attention on the next useful action.
This matters because many professionals are still carrying a childish myth into adulthood: that competence requires emotional cleanliness. That confidence must come before action. That you should only proceed when you feel certain.
Recruiting punishes that myth. The people who move forward are rarely the ones with the quietest minds. They are the ones who can act with a noisy mind.
I see this play out most clearly in interviews. In the minutes before an interview, thoughts show up on cue: “What if I blank?” “I really need this job.” “They’ll see I’m nervous.” If a candidate believes those thoughts must disappear, they enter a fight with their own brain. And in a fight, attention is the first casualty.
Instead, treat thoughts as passengers. Let them come along. Your job is to drive.
A practical tool I teach is what I call name it, then aim it.
Name it: I’m noticing anxiety. I’m noticing pressure. I’m noticing doubt.
Then aim it: What is the most important thing right now?
For an interview, the most important thing is rarely “sound confident.” It is usually “answer this question with one clear example and a measurable result.” For networking, it is “ask one thoughtful question and listen.” For applications, it is “match the role’s priorities in the first third of the resume.”
When a job seeker can do this consistently, they stop waiting to feel ready. They start acting ready. And, ironically, their confidence often follows.
Second: internal focus versus external focus.
Cohen’s second insight is that attention can be internal or external. Internal focus is self-focused and biomechanical. It is an instruction like “move your knees out.” External focus uses the environment as the cue: “push your knees against the band.” The shift is subtle but profound because it moves you from conscious control to natural execution.
Job seekers do the same thing in conversation. Under pressure, they turn inward. They start narrating themselves while they speak. They monitor tone, pace, facial expression, how they sound on Zoom, whether their answer is “good,” whether they look senior enough, whether they look too senior.
Some internal awareness is useful in preparation. But in performance moments, internal focus often makes people stiff. It interrupts fluency. It weakens presence. It turns a capable leader into a person trying to appear capable.
External focus flips the direction of attention outward: to the listener, the problem, the outcome, the decision being made.
It is the difference between “Do I sound impressive?” and “Did I make it easy for them to understand my value?”
It is the difference between “Am I being judged?” and “Am I helping them solve a hiring problem?”
This is where the job market context matters. In an era of restructures and AI-driven reinvention, organisations are not only hiring for skills. They are hiring for clarity, judgement, and adaptability. Companies are actively reshaping how work is done and who does it. Workday’s leadership change and AI emphasis is one example in a broader pattern: enterprise buyers want AI capability integrated into core systems, and vendors are reorganising around that reality. The resulting message to professionals is unsettling: your role is not guaranteed to remain stable, even if you perform well.
That is precisely why attention skills are now a career advantage.
Not in a trendy “mindfulness” sense. In a commercial sense.
Attention skills help you execute in uncertain environments. They help you communicate in ways that reduce decision friction for the people hiring you. They help you keep momentum when processes stall, recruiters ghost, or the market feels crowded.
If you want a practical way to implement external focus, build a short cue bank for yourself. Think of cues as a steering mechanism, not a motivational quote.
For interviews, I like cues such as:
- Make it easy to picture me in the role.
- Answer the question behind the question.
- Give one example with a clear outcome.
For networking:
- Be curious about their world.
- Ask one strong question.
- Make it easy to say yes.
For applications:
- Match their top priorities fast.
- Prove the claim with evidence.
- Make the first third skimmable.
For negotiations:
- Anchor to value and market reality.
- Create options, not conflict.
- Stay on the decision criteria.
These cues are useful because they pull attention away from self-monitoring and toward execution. They can also reduce the fatigue that so many job seekers feel right now. When the market is slow, the temptation is to interpret every pause as personal failure. Attention cues return you to what is controllable.
And job seekers need a more disciplined definition of controllable.
You cannot control whether a company restructures. You cannot control whether a hiring manager changes direction mid-process. You cannot control how an applicant tracking system filters resumes. You cannot control the volume of applicants when openings are lower than they were in prior years.
You can control how you prepare, how you communicate, how you follow up, how you maintain relationships, and how quickly you recover from setbacks.
That is why I push my clients to separate preparation from performance.
Preparation is where internal focus is useful. You practice stories. You tighten your positioning. You get feedback. You refine your resume. You calibrate your salary narrative. You set up references. You plan your search strategy.
Performance is where external focus wins. You show up. You listen. You answer. You make the decision easy for the other person.
In my work with executives, a recurring issue is that high performers treat interviews as an identity test instead of a commercial conversation. That framing guarantees internal focus. The cure is to treat the interview as a decision meeting.
Your job is not to be flawless. Your job is to make it easy to evaluate you.
The same applies to networking. The best networking messages are written with an external focus. They are specific, respectful, and easy to respond to. They do not dump a problem on the other person. They offer a clear reason for the outreach and a small request.
If you take only one external cue into your next week of job searching, make it this: make it easy to say yes.
My prediction about the future of leadership
I feel very strongly about this. Over the next few years, attention management will become a leadership differentiator, not a soft skill. The leaders who thrive will be the ones who can keep attention on outcomes amid a flood of noise: AI disruption, reorganisations, cost pressure, and faster shifts in business models. Even the public conversation around AI safety and deepfakes is a reminder that uncertainty is expanding, not shrinking.
The hiring process will reflect that reality. Interviews will continue to test judgement, communication, and adaptability. Internal candidates will remain strong competitors. Many roles will be scoped with more ambiguity. Organisations will seek people who can operate without perfect information.
In that environment, the professional who can manage attention will outperform the professional who tries to manage feelings.
You can be anxious and still be effective. You can feel disappointment and still take the next step. You can have doubts and still execute.
That is the deeper message of Episode 328. It is not a pep talk. It is a practical operating system for job searching in a market that is both competitive and emotionally demanding.
And if you are reading this as a hiring leader, there is a parallel lesson: if you want better candidates, design processes that reward clarity rather than stamina. Shorten cycles where possible. Give feedback. Reduce performative hurdles. The market is teaching people to become more polished and more cautious, not necessarily more honest or more insightful.
For job seekers, my closing advice is simple.
Stop trying to win against your mind. Start steering it.
Name what you notice. Aim your attention. Use external cues. Separate preparation from performance. Make it easy for others to understand your value.
That is how you stay in motion even when the market feels stuck.
Podcast News
Job search is not a hobby. Many of you are managing mortgage stress, family responsibilities, health, identity, and pride while doing it. That is why the tone matters. You do not need more noise. You need fewer decisions and more structure.
I’m changing my own cadence for that reason. In 2026 I’m releasing the podcast every two weeks, with a weekly newsletter that provides the prompts, playbooks, and occasional subscriber-only audio to keep the relationship and the progress moving.
If you want to stay close to this work, subscribe to my newsletter. And if you want someone to help you tighten the strategy, sharpen the message, and follow through consistently, that is where coaching fits.
About the Host, Renata Bernarde
Hello, I’m Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I’m also an executive coach, job hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach professionals (corporate, non-profit, and public) the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.
If you are an ambitious professional who is keen to develop a robust career plan, if you are looking to find your next job or promotion, or if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of the job market so that when you are ready, and an opportunity arises, you can hit the ground running, then this podcast is for you.
Timestamps to Guide Your Listening
00:00 The Competitive Nature of Job Hunting
03:26 Understanding Thoughts vs. Attention
19:27 Internal vs. External Focus in Job Search
33:02 Applying Focus Techniques in Real Scenarios
Transcript
Okay, so job hunting is a performance environment. You know that, I know that. Job seekers, when you apply for jobs, you are in competition with each other for one position. It’s a strange sport because most of the time you don’t see your competition and you feel very lonely all the time. Nevertheless, a competition is what it is.
So we can in fact learn a lot from sports psychology and to celebrate the fact that I’m watching the Winter Olympics, I’m assuming you are watching as well. We are going to discuss today two mental tools used by athletes that can make job searching feel less heavy, a lot more doable and enjoyable for you.
This episode is inspired by Alex Cohen, a senior sports psychologist who works with elite athletes that are going into the Olympics right
When I came across his short video, which I will link below, I immediately thought of you. So let’s get to it.
So if you’re following me on Instagram, if you’re not, why aren’t you? I will link below so you can go check my stories. I had said in my stories that I was going to talk to you about a whole different item today. It was about Jack Nicholson, Amy Lewis, and possibly Bad Bunny. I had somebody else that I was going to talk about as well.
And this episode is coming to you. It’s the next episode, I promise. But because the Winter Olympics is happening and I read about the sports psychologist that I’m going to mention, Alex Gowin, and I saw his video. I’m like, this is really what we need to talk about. I’m watching the Winter Olympics. I loved the Winter Olympics. I’ve always have. So, and if you were a long time listener, you know that I love sports psychology. It’s not the first time that I mentioned sports psychology.
in the context of job search. So I had to change things around and talk about this topic today. Because when you are job seeking, and especially when you are in the recruitment process, you are being assessed. You’re doing high stakes conversation. You’re putting yourself forward. Often after a setback and a long period of uncertainty, if you compare that with athletes, imagine that woman who has been ⁓
⁓ skiing with a torn ACL in the American team and the US team, that’s kind of how it feels. There’s a long period of recovery, a setback that happens in your career, uncertainty, and then you’re back and you need to be confident and brave and find a new opportunity for you. And it’s very easy to get caught in your own head.
Right? And you don’t have the benefit of having a sports psychologist. If you’re not working with a coach, you don’t have the benefit of having that support system as well with the techniques and frameworks that I usually give my clients. So today I am going to translate two of Alex, Alex Cohen’s key ideas into job search tools so that you can use them immediately
The first one is the difference between thoughts and attention. And the second one is the difference between internal focus and external focus. By the way, as I said, there’s a link to Alex’s video below. It’s a short video on Instagram. So go check it out if you’re curious. I don’t know if you’re going to understand because he talks about sports, you know, and not really career coaching. ⁓ I’ve done a lot of translation of this over the weekend so that it makes sense to you.
Now, let’s talk about the difference between thoughts and attention. If you’ve been feeling stuck, anxious, overthinking it, or you feel like you can’t show up as yourself, I want you to listen to this episode. Please don’t go away. I want you to have this question in mind. What if you don’t need to control your thoughts to perform well? Right? This matters a lot for job seekers. Before we get into the tools,
I want to say something super clear to you. Most job seekers spend a huge amount of time and effort trying to manage their thoughts. They try to force confidence, and it looks forced by the way. They try to think positively, and that requires a lot of mental energy.
They try to push away fear and frustration, which they believe is the right thing to do considering they are going into job search. They try not to feel disappointed after rejection and they try not to sound nervous and they try to stop worrying so much. It’s really exhausting to stop all these natural feelings. And frankly, it’s kind of unrealistic. We need to give ourselves permission to feel human.
to have feelings and to learn to deal with them even though we need to move forward. These feelings cannot keep you from applying for jobs. So I want you to consider a different approach. You can let your thoughts exist and still perform well. Let’s repeat that. You can let your thoughts exist. You can feel them.
and still perform in your job interview. You can feel nervous and still interview well. You can have doubts and still take consistent action forward. You can stop wasting energy trying to fix your internal experience of job search before you move forward. Right? So you can do all of these things. And that’s the promise of this framework that I’m going to convey to you.
So the idea of thoughts and attention. Let’s start with that concept. Alex Cohen says performance readiness has two main components. And the first one is understanding the difference between thinking and attention. So thinking is any thoughts and feelings, sensations, images, memories, anything that might disrupt your focus. And attention is what you hand.
your mind to, the moment by moment that you focus on something that you need to achieve. He gives a simple example. He says in his video, imagine someone throwing a water bottle at you and your brain might have the thought, why is he doing that? But the part of your mind that reaches out and catches it, that’s attention. So thoughts are the commentary, attention is the action.
Now, you all know how much I mean, you don’t, not all of you. If you are a newsletter subscriber and a long time follower of this podcast, the job hunting podcast, you know how much I love the movie Wimbledon. If you want to understand the difference of attention and focus, if you want to see how athletes do that, you can watch that movie. That movie had Pat Cash, a famous Australian. ⁓
tennis player, former tennis player as the sort of advisor to into writing the script and the script really, I think it’s lovely how they, you know, what the tennis player is thinking and what the tennis player is doing and how those two things sort of come together in that movie. I thought it was really beautifully done. Watch the movie. I’ll put a link below the other.
The that I always tell my clients to watch when they’re feeling anxious and unprepared is ⁓ Point Break, the Netflix series about tennis. You cannot so much see the inner dialogue of the tennis players, but you can see the difference that it makes the tennis players that have a coach and not just a sports coach, but a ⁓ sports psychology mentor, advisor or coach and how they deal with their
anxiety and the process of going through that competition. It’s really, really interesting and insightful. So go watch that as well if you’re interested. As a career and executive coach, that is usually a big part of my job, know, differentiating from my client attention and ⁓ thoughts. This is the work I’m doing with my clients to help them focus their attention on what matters the most.
finding, in fact finding their attention. What is it that you want to focus on? I’m currently working with a client and I’m finding that because we’ve only just started working, her attention is really scattered. And you know, I see as my goal trying to bring it in and we need to possibly have a few more sessions before that’s done. I’m even thinking about bringing those sessions closer together. I usually see clients, if they’re working with me on a retainer, I see them every two weeks.
I am considering seeing her every week just so that we can accelerate that process for her. So finding the DNA of the problem or the DNA of your career goal, what you want to achieve, your wants and desires, you know, it needs to become crisp and clear before you go into competition, before you go into high performance in those sort of high stake environments.
So that’s why I think coaching works so well. It worked really well for me when I was in the corporate world. We can build a plan and achieve it, right? If you want to work with me as a private client or part of a group coaching program, which also is a fantastic way of working together, there are links in the show notes, so please check them out. So going back to thoughts and attention, that distinction is powerful for job seekers because many people assume
They only perform well if their thoughts are right.
If you’re watching on YouTube, I’m doing the quotation marks for right, right? They think, you know, I’m if I’m confident, then I can apply. If I stop worrying, then I will network. If I feel calm, then I will interview well. But real life doesn’t work like that. You can feel nervous and still show up prepared. You can feel disappointed and still take the next step. I want you to show progress.
as you do continuous improvement on yourself, you can have a thought like, I’m not sure I’m good enough for this role and still submit a strong application. Having been the CEO of a foundation here in Australia where we would only give scholarships to prestigious organizations overseas so people could do their PhDs and master’s programs and become senior leaders in our society here in Australia.
I know that 90 % of the people that got those scholarships had that sort of mentality. I’m not sure that this is for me. You know, if I would scout them out and say, look, I think you should apply, they would, that’s usually ⁓ the first thing that they would say to me. And when they were awarded the scholarship, they were still surprised. So I know that high performing, highly capable, really intelligent people still think like that.
And I want you to know that, that’s really important. It was very rare for somebody that we would give this really prestigious high-profile scholarships to go to Oxford, to go to Harvard, to go to wherever they wanted to go, for them to think that they, yeah, I deserve this. It was very rare. It was usually the other way around. So the goal for you isn’t to eliminate those thoughts. The goal is to aim your attention.
I, my dream is to go to Harvard. I will do whatever I can in this interview process for this prestigious scholarships to show that I will put my body and soul into it. When I speak, it will be very obvious to everyone. And Alex Cohen puts it beautifully. He says, those thoughts and feelings want to go down the hill with you. Right? No, he’s talking about skiers and snowboarding athletes.
They can, you know, those thoughts and feelings that are floating in your head, thinking about what you ate that morning that might be making your stomach a little bit achy or thinking about the fact that, you know, you may have said something just a moment ago that didn’t sound quite right to you. Those things are floating in your head. But your job is to aim your attention.
So here’s how we translate this into job searching. So this is the work that I did listening to Alex Cohen and Emelie. Okay, how can I translate this? And I came up with a few examples for you and here’s an example for how you can use this for job search. So before an interview, you are about to join a video interview. That happens a lot these days. You’re waiting in this sort of virtual lobby and your thoughts might show up like, what if I blank?
Gosh, I know I had those thoughts. What if I forget all the things I need to say? I’m not as strong as the other candidates. I really need this job. My voice sounds weird on video. I always felt that, like the video also, I mean, you’re listening to me and that’s not exactly my voice. It distorts it a little bit. If you believe those thoughts must disappear before you join the video,
They won’t, they will be there with you. You will end up in a fight with your own mind that is unproductive. And that fight drains you and makes you perform not as well as you should. Instead, just treat those thoughts as the noise that exists in the room. Right? They’re coming with you. And then you can ask different questions, right? Where am I placing my attention?
and you deliberately place your attention in something useful. The question that’s being asked. Eye contact with the person that is interviewing you. The structure of your answer. The example you’re going to share. The outcome you want the interviewer to understand, which is, I really want this job. Never forget that. Never forget that that’s why you’re there. So thoughts can exist, but
attention is your steering wheel, is what will keep you moving forward. Here’s another example, it’s when you get rejected. So rejection triggers a flood of internal experiences, thinking like I’m never going to get there, ⁓ it’s true I’m too old for this, the market is impossible, I keep failing at this.
Again, you don’t need to win against those thoughts. You need to decide where the attention goes next. Attention should go to reviewing what you learned, asking for feedback, updating your next application to incorporate those learnings and reaching out to one person, taking measurable action.
updating your next application to showcase all the things that you have learned from this process and understanding that this is a competition. You are competing against, yes, very good candidates, just as good as you. And it’s up to the employer to decide which one is better suited for their team, for their project, for whatever they’re trying to achieve internally. And those are things that you may not be. ⁓
in control of, so there’s no point in you worrying about that. What we know for sure is that you have performed very well to be invited for an interview. If you think about the hundreds of applications and the fact that they will only interview 10, 5, 3, you know, some employers have systems where they will interview us.
few people as they possibly can. So think about how good you have done, you know, to be in an interview situation. And I think that’s the focus. You have already achieved that. Once you can do that again and, and learn from whatever process you went through so that you can become even better at interviewing next time. That’s how athletes perform and prepare for competitions. They go through competitions.
time and time again, and they get better and better at it. They go back to their coaches, they work on their weaknesses, they understand their strengths, they see what the opportunities are for their future careers, and they continue working on it. So I think that that is really important to understand, right? That’s how you become ready to perform in job interviews.
Another example would be networking. Networking is where thoughts can be very loud, right? I don’t want to bother people. They are too senior. It will sound awkward. I don’t know what to say. You know, so many people struggle with networking and I think it’s when the thoughts really pollute your brain. Instead of trying to get rid of these thoughts, just aim your attention.
Attention will go to curiosity, asking one good question, really listening to them, listening not to reply back, listening to understand, to empathize, right? And understanding their world means that you will be able to offer something relevant to them, right? If you can tie what you’re understanding from listening to what you have done.
will be a much better conversation in the future. So your nervous thoughts can come along for the ride, but your attention needs to stay on the task. So there will be an exercise for those that subscribe to my newsletter. So if you receive my newsletter,
go to the newsletter now for this week of this episode when the episode comes out and look at the exercise that I have designed for you so that you can start working and workshopping on how you can differentiate between thoughts and attention to perform better at your job search and job interviews coming up. Okay.
Now, once you understand thoughts versus attention, there is a second layer that Alex says makes a huge difference in performance. Attention can be internal or external. This is where flow state comes in. And I’ve spoken about flow a lot, more in a sense of getting ready for your job.
and career planning and design and how important it is to allow space within your daily, weekly, monthly calendar to put effort into your career and not just the job you have if you’re currently employed. And I think achieving that flow state so your brain can think creatively is so important. So I was really interested to listen to Alex explain this difference between internal and external ⁓ focus. And it’s so relevant.
so relevant for job searching because job seekers they often are hyper aware of themselves because they have to be when they need to communicate clearly. And this is something that some people may not have done for a long time. If they’ve been in the same organization for years, decades even, they haven’t really been communicating what they have done to others as clearly, especially because
you know, it’s the focus is on oneself rather than the team or the organization and the project at hand. So that different narrative sounds really awkward when you first start doing it for job search. And I thought it was really interesting to translate what Alex explained as the internal focus versus external focus from a job search perspective. So internal focus is a biomechanical or self
focused cues. It’s how am I moving type of attention? So in sports, this might be like how to move your body in detail, right? So that’s kind of how he was explaining it. was a little bit interesting for me to try to translate that to job search. I had to really think about it. One of the reasons why the podcast is coming out slightly late this week is because it took me a little while.
So in job searching, the way that I translated that concept is internal focus is like, am I speaking too fast? Do I look nervous? Is my answer any good? Am I coming across as smart? Am I coming across as desperate? Should I be more polished? Do I have executive presence? What should I do with my hands? Here I am doing this with my hands if you’re watching on YouTube.
So that, you know, that some internal awareness, you know, I think can be helpful in preparation, of course, but in the performance moments when you’re there in front of people, internal focus often makes people stiff and paralyzed and they might sort of lose track of their thoughts, lose concentration, forget what they have to answer, forget the question.
So in sports, Alex says that internal focus can interfere with the smooth automatic execution. And I really understood that for job seekers as well. Because you are taking the conscious control over something that works better when it’s allowed to run naturally, right? So in job searching, this will be equivalent of when someone becomes so self-monitoring that they stop being clear, like I said before.
You stop being present, you stop connecting with the room, you start narrating your performance in a more sort of rehearsed way. It looks more like a performance and less like a conversation. And this is something that I have been trying to explain to my clients time and time again, especially because my clients are usually highly experienced, more mature professionals, many of them, not all of them, in senior leadership positions.
And you cannot sound as you were performing. It has to sound organic. It needs to sound peer to peer when you’re having conversations about senior roles.
So external focus on the other hand uses some something outside of you as the cue. So again in sports Alex gives this example of squats. So if you’re focusing on doing squats using internal cues you would be pushing your knees out. If you were doing it using external cues you would say push your knees against the band.
have a band around it. So the band being the external focus. And in squat jumps, he said, the internal cues would sound more like explode with your legs, whereas external cues would sound more like push through the floor. There is research behind this that shows that external cues work better.
for that physical activity than internal cues. And I was flabbergasted. I hadn’t even thought of that. And I was fascinated by it. I had to go and look it up. And I was fascinated by all of that. And I wanted really to translate that to your environment, job seekers. The environment that gives your attention a target that is externally for you in the job search world.
external focus cues point your attention to what? The listener, the problem, you know, if they’re asking a question or if you’re including a problem as part of your answer, the impact that you’re having on people’s minds in the organization, the decision the other person needs to make, you know, remembering that.
They need to decide, they are interviewing two, three, five people and they need to decide who they want to work for them. That is external focus. ⁓ That might make you perform better and think more interestingly about how you’re gonna answer the questions for them. Instead of I need to look good, thinking they need to make a decision on who to hire. Let me answer this question.
That will hopefully make you choose the right examples and the material that you bring forward as part of your answer that proves your value for that external focus. Let’s make this practical. ⁓ External focus cues sets for job seekers.
I want you to think of external focus cues as short phrases that you can use to direct attention outward. And here are some examples. So in interview, I want you to not focus on internal things like don’t ramble, sound confident, be impressive, stop being nervous, avoid those thoughts and think about, okay, let’s make it easy for them to understand my value.
Let’s answer the question behind the question. Let’s give one clear example with a result. Let’s connect my experience to their priority. Let’s help them picture me in the role. That’s a great one. If you notice yourself spiraling internally during an interview, pick one external cue and return to it. So for example, if you’re asked, tell me about a time you led a change.
Your external focus cue could be, okay, give one clear example with a clear result. Now you’re back in action. Okay. So that is a great example in interviewing. How about networking? So networking conversations with internal focus that we want to avoid is, I need to sell myself. I need to ask for a job. I hope I sound credible.
I hope I’m not asking too much. You know, that’s the internal focus. I, I, I. The external focus would be, okay, let me just be curious about their world. Let me ask one strong question. Let’s make this conversation useful and interesting for them. Let’s learn what they value in candidates, what they would do if they were in my position. Networking goes way better.
When you stop thinking about how you look and you start thinking about what you’re learning and also about the amazing opportunity that you have, that they have given you, that which is their time. Right? So you don’t want to waste that for them, not for you, for them. You want them to think, okay, that was a great 30 minute conversation. You want that to be a great part of their day, their week, right?
So make the experience of meeting you great for them. In terms of applications and resumes, internal focus is thinking, okay, my resume is terrible. I should rewrite everything every time. A lot of people come to me when they start working with me with like dozens of versions of resumes. And that shows a really deep lack of confidence and internal monologue.
you know, sort of overthinking the whole process. It doesn’t help that there is a lot of things written out there about having to tailor your resume for every job application. Look, I get it, but there are better ways of doing it. Just work with me for one hour, book a consultation and I’ll teach you. But I feel like people spend so much of their time in this task that is really not going to
shift the needle. ⁓ And it’s really internally focused. So it’s worrying too much about that internal focus where I want you to focus externally on matching your experience with what they want. Read the job application, not thinking about your application as much, but thinking about what they need. What is it that they need? What are their top…
priorities for this role, right? And then make the top third irresistible, right? So if you have, can match the top third of their dot points with the top third of your dot points, how can they say no to you? That’s why my clients convert so well from application to job interview. We’re very particular about what we apply for. And then we…
go very technical into understanding the external focus, right? And making their application really skimmable, really easy to read and find the things that they are looking for. They, They, They, not I, I, I. So even inside the Reset Your Career which is my ⁓ six masterclass online course that you can buy and access right now if you want, it’s really inexpensive. You will learn how to do that.
just by buying that course. The final masterclass is about exactly this. Don’t jump to the final masterclass. Do one to five first. It’s designed to be watched in order, please. I beg you. So that everything makes sense, okay? It’s important.
And I’ll have a link to reset your career below. I love it. It’s really effective. And it’s a great way to start working with me because you will learn so much from it that if you decide to book a consultation, you will come with much more sophisticated questions by having done the six hours of work with me through the online course. So think about investing in that. You may not even need a consultation with me. A lot of people get jobs.
just by buying the Reset Your Career they self-correct things really quickly once they do all the master classes. So look, I will have ⁓ the salary conversations, internal focus versus external focus in the newsletter for my subscribers. So again, subscribers.
listening, go to that newsletter for 328 and you will see that I have the versions of internal and external focus cues for salary negotiations for those of you that are advanced in their ⁓ job search ⁓ journey.
And finally, Alex also talks about near external focus and far external focus. So near external is still somewhat technical, but it’s external. It’s like focusing on a target close to you. Far external is more tactical, more big picture. So for job seekers, here’s how that might translate. Near external focus.
what you do in the next 60 seconds, answer this question clearly, use the STAR format to land the result, ask the next question, whereas far external focus is what you’re trying to create in the whole conversation. It’s about building trust and likeability, create clarity about your fit in the organization, move them forward to the next step so that you progress in that recruitment process.
So make it easy for them to advocate for you. both of them are useful and the best job seekers will switch between them. And in an interview, near external keeps you focused on the execution and far external keeps you focused on the direction of the conversation. I will have an exercise in the news that are again for you to…
play around with these concepts because I know just listening to me, the coin will drop, but, you know, prepping for it is something else. need you to sort of, if you think, if you have an intuition that this is the reason why you’re stuck, go to that newsletter ⁓ and let’s work together on that. I want you to put both of these concepts together in a real scenario. So,
Combine both techniques into a realistic moment for you. Let’s say you’re about to go into an interview, you really want this job, you had a long job search, like so many people these days, you’re nervous. So your thoughts might be, I can’t mess this up, this is my chance, I’m rusty, they will notice that I’ve been out of work for a long time, I’m not sure I belong at this level. So these thoughts might be,
you know, floating in your head and instead of fighting those thoughts, you label them, okay, I’m noticing the pressure, I’m noticing my fear, I’m giving myself permission to feel them. Then you aim your attention, okay? First you choose what you will give attention to. Okay, let’s pay attention to the question, to the structure of this interview, the example that I need to provide for them, that they need, that they want.
Second, choose an external focus queue. Give one clear example with a clear result. You’re not trying to be fearless, you’re trying to be effective, and that is a much more reliable strategy for you. Another example, you are about to message someone on LinkedIn and ask for a conversation. My clients do this all the time. We have templates and we work together to make sure that those connections really do convert.
And your thoughts may show up like, they will ignore me. this will be so awkward. ⁓ I don’t know what to say. Notice that discomfort, then aim your attention. What’s the most important thing that I need to achieve here? You know, and it’s probably, you know, writing a message that is clear, that’s respectful, that’s easy to respond to. This means it needs to be short. This means it needs to be to the point.
So make it easy for them to say yes. Don’t ask for too much. That’s the easiest way to get people to reply to you. That single cue can really improve the tone of your outreach. ⁓ And before we wrap up, I want to share some common mistakes that I see when people try these ideas on their own. Right. And I, you know, I
The reason why I love what I do is because we can fix that before you go to market, before you have to use them in real life. Mistake number one is using these tools only when you feel good, right? I’m not feeling good this week or this entire month. I’m going to take a long break. There’s breaks that are necessary for rest and de-stressing following a
turbulent time in a workplace and a redundancy, et cetera. And I usually say to my clients, yes, it’s good to rest. But then there’s the rest that you take from thinking that this is too hard. Job search is really hard. You are an athlete, this is a competition. Okay. And you need to be a bit more stoic about it and create that discipline.
If you’re a client of mine, you know we have optimized job search ⁓ schedules so that we don’t fall off the wagon and I don’t want you to fall off the wagon. So this is really important. These tools exists for the moment you don’t feel good. These tools exist for the moment you don’t feel good. That’s when you activate those tools. Okay. And then mistake number two is turning external focus.
into pressure, okay? External focus is not performed perfectly. External focus is place your attention on what helps you to execute what it is that you need to execute. And mistake number three is confusing preparation with performance. Preparation is where internal focus can help, right? So I want my clients to be vulnerable with me. I don’t know if I said this before, I think I have, that I think it’s really important for
you if you’re working with me or another coach for you to be really vulnerable with your coach. Tell them exactly what’s going on. I think I remember talking about this from more of a financial perspective, but I want you to be really vulnerable with your coach. What is it that is keeping you from achieving your goals? You know, maybe you don’t know and we will workshop that together, but if you do know, let your coach know.
what you’re struggling with because then I can help you faster. Hopefully I will eventually figure it out. But if you’re able to be open and feel really comfortable and trust me with this process, I’ll be able to help you way more. So preparation is where that internal focus can really, really help. We can try to work on them ⁓ and make them work for you versus against you.
And then performance is where external focus usually helps most, know, being present, communicating, connecting. My goal when clients are working with me is for them to feel like they’re ready to perform by having done the pre-work with a coach with myself, right? So ⁓ that’s usually what we’re trying to do is the reason why so many great athletes have mindset coaches, have people like Alex go and helping them out.
So let’s recap today. You have learned two skills for job search performance readiness. There is a difference between thoughts and attention. You know that now thoughts can come along for the ride. Your job is to aim at attention and that attention can be internal and external in high-stake environments. External focus will help you more. Now, even at the gym, imagine that. So if you go to the gym and you’re a sports person, you can sort of use that.
to improve your performance in sports and the gym as well. And for job search, know, remember those cues often help you perform more smoothly and communicate more clearly if they’re externally focused. If you take one thing from this episode, let it be this, you don’t need perfect thoughts to take effective action, to be effective at your job search. If you found this useful, I would love for you to share.
this episode with a friend, with a colleague that is also job hunting right now. And if you want more structured support, I think I’ve already explained it. I work with clients, you can work with me, you can book a LinkedIn audit with me. I’ve been doing quite a few of those early in the year. A one hour consultation to sort of workshop what’s keeping you and blocking you from achieving your goals. Or you can work with me on a three month retainer.
So we can accelerate your job search or whatever is important in terms of career goals for you that you need to achieve. So go to my website. You can also subscribe to my newsletter there. It’s a weekly newsletter. And like you have noticed from this episode, I’m trying to provide very interesting content only for newsletter subscribers because I really value how amazing my subscribers are in giving me ideas for this podcast.
replying back to the newsletter to let me know how they’ve used the tools and activities that I set out for them and how I get very little on subs, which just warms my heart so much. So go to my website. It’s renatabernarde.com. That’s R-E-N-A-T-A B-E-R-N-A-R-D-E.com. It’s in the episode show notes if you need the link. Thank you so much for listening. Like I said, the next
episode will be Hollywood intense and fun and exciting and I can’t wait to share it with you so subscribe and I’ll see you then. Bye for now.