What Makes Us Great: A Conversation with Gloria Park, PhD

In this, the final interview in our special issue on mindset and performance, Gloria Park, PhD (C’05) and I met for one of the best conversations I’ve had in a long time. Dr. Park is Director of Performance Psychology with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, a Certified Mental Performance Coach, and *fun fact,* the first Assistant Instructor in the University of Pennsylvania Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program. In this rich and inspiring exchange, she shares her take on the nuances of the “A” in PERMA, Martin Seligman’s model of well-being, as well as strategies to leverage the best within us. Whatever the details, depth, and dimension of the challenges we face, she contends, we’re not only equipped but optimized to face them.

We hope you enjoy.

MAPP Magazine (MM): Will you please share a bit about yourself, your story, and its intersection with positive psychology?

Gloria Park (GP): I was a student in MAPP.1, back in 2005, which feels like forever ago. I came to the MAPP program because I had just done a year of my doctorate at Temple in Kinesiology, with an emphasis on sports and performance psychology.

At the time, there was a lot of debate among people in the field of sports psychology about who was qualified to do what. Very much like in positive psychology, there were people from clinical backgrounds and licensed psychologists who were territorial about what they did.

There were clinicians saying, “you can't do sports psychology because you don't have a clinical psychology degree.” And then there were people who were saying, “Well, we're not doing clinical work. We're doing performance enhancement.” When I think back to 2004, it was a tough time in the field of sports psychology where there wasn't a whole lot of clarity on who was qualified to do what.

At the time, I was also working full time at the Children's Hospital with a research group. I went to my advisor and said, “I don't know if this is the right program for me.” I was disappointed in the state of the field of sports psychology, and I really wanted to work with kids.

My passion for working with youth started the year after I graduated from college. I worked at Columbia University in a youth suicide and depression research unit. And I learned that there was a program called Figure Skating in Harlem (FSH) just down the street from my office. I called the executive director and asked to volunteer for the program.

“I'll come tie skates. I'll do whatever,” I said. “But I love what your program does. I work 20 blocks away on the Upper West Side. Can I come and help out?” I ended up coaching for that program.

I got to see the sport that I grew up competing in in a very different light. FSH was offered to young girls in Harlem. It had educational components and leadership components as well as skating instruction. I got to see how learning how to do hard things on ice skates translated to their confidence and sense of self-efficacy (i.e., their belief that they had what it takes to accomplish a goal or task). And I became excited about understanding the role of sport in positive youth development. That’s how I ended up at Temple.

After the first year of my PhD, I wasn’t sure if it was the right program for me. “Maybe I need to go more into a developmental psych program. Or maybe I need to go the clinical route, because it seems like that's the only way that I'll have any sort of respect in the field.”

I withdrew from the program, and my advisor, Dr. Michael Sachs, told me about this new MAPP program at Penn. I submitted an application, interviewed, and got into MAPP. And that was a pivotal point in my whole professional and educational journey.

I remember talking with Chris Peterson and Marty about what to do after MAPP: “It's not the school or the degree that you get. It's the experience you have. And as long as you don't want to go and see patients, we don't see any reason why you should have to go back and do a clinical degree.”

I took a break and ended up back at Temple to finish my PhD, working in a social and behavioral health interventions lab and taking coursework in public health as well. Since then, I’ve been working at the intersections of health, well-being, and performance. And I find that it's a really interesting intersection to work in.

I am still involved with MAPP. I still do resiliency trainings with Karen Reivich and her team, and still review capstones with Judy Saltzberg. Then my full-time position is in performance work, primarily with the military. I also do a lot of volunteer work in the community, work individually with athletes and clients from high performance settings, as well as speaking and consulting whenever I have a chance.

I’m still trying, both from an academic and an applied standpoint, to reconcile the two worlds of performance and well-being.

MM: It’s always a thrill for me to get to hear people’s stories. Already, there’s so much you’ve shared that I find compelling. And after knowing your name for several years, what a delight to get more context into your story and the path you’re forging.

So, in your work, you draw from and in your words, you straddle the fields of performance psychology and positive psychology. As you see it, how are these two fields similar, and how are they different?

GP: Sometimes I joke that positive psychology is the better-looking sibling. And then sport and performance psychology is the more muscular sibling. There are lots of overlaps, I think. First, both fields don’t simply focus on fixing what's wrong with people. I'm not saying that this is not important; I think it's really important. And I see it all the time across all of the different domains that I work in: military, medical, business, high performance, athletics . . . Everybody goes through a period of time when things might break, they experience illness and setbacks, and they don't feel their best. Or they experience deep trauma or crises. And finding support through those times is so important and critical.

But I think the similarities in performance and positive psychology have to do more with the emphasis of above-baseline: What are those capabilities that we can better understand that have helped people manage challenges and adversity better? What are the things that help them put their best foot forward every day? What are the psychological components of being able to do your absolute best work wherever you are in life, whether that's parenting or at work or in your relationships? I think the biggest similarity is the emphasis on moving above zero.

MM: Yes, that makes sense. Zooming out a bit, can you speak about the relationship between mindset and that optimal, above-zero kind of performance?

GP: Mindset is the set of beliefs that influence how you view and engage with the world. It’s that underlying value and belief structure that influences your perceptions and how you interpret things that happen to you. And I believe mindset plays a critical role in performance. A lot of the work I do as a performance-psychology consultant is around helping people raise awareness of, clarify, and shift their mindsets toward frameworks that are more helpful to them in facilitating performance.

In non-performance settings, I also coach people on understanding mindsets that might be undermining their resilience, that might be wearing away at their sense of well-being, or that may be slowly eating away at flourishing in general. I think a lot of this is subconscious until somebody helps you to bring it to the surface and think about it. So yes, I think mindset is at the core of a lot of the work that we do as performance consultants.

MM: Gotcha. So, on a related note, let’s talk about stress. There are many ways we can perceive stress, and there are all manner of stories we can tell ourselves about what it is and how we should respond to it. For example, one might believe that stress is detrimental, and one might believe that it's not only normal but can also be helpful.

Building on what you’ve just shared about mindset, will you please say more about stress?

GP: I talk about stress mindsets a lot. Kelly McGonigal’s work, Jamieson's work on reinterpreting physiology. Those are some of my go-to concepts, because you can see how that shows up in performance, right?

I think we forget sometimes that as human beings, we are made to do hard things. We are anti-fragile. We need stressors and adversities to grow and evolve as human beings, and our hearts, our brains, our bodies, are built for those challenges. We’ve managed to survive and evolve as a species because of these capacities. But somehow, I think in modern-day society, where so many things are easy, instant gratification, and at our fingertips—I see this in particular with young people—we have worn away at our belief that we're capable of doing hard things.

When you look at any story of anybody who has accomplished big things, their successes have not been in spite of the struggle. They’ve often been because of the struggle. It's been because of what people have learned about themselves, their capacity to navigate challenges and tough relationships, about how to overcome socioeconomic circumstances and hardships, that they have accomplished those things. In the long term, those experiences, challenges, and stressors are the things that help us cement and hone who we are, what we're made of, and our inner strength.

In the short term, understanding and leveraging stress can facilitate performance. We have these conversations a lot when we are talking with those who are trying to do really hard things under really difficult circumstances, like in the military, medicine, or athletics.

Stress education begins with acceptance: Helping others understand that being human means that no matter how talented and skilled you are, in moments that matter, you may not feel your very best. Also, there are aspects of that stress that can help you actually do the job better if leveraged intentionally.

I’m not advocating that we create stress or not take care of ourselves. There’s nuance to this message that sometimes gets lost. I don't want to shame people into feeling that if they’re really suffering because of stress or they haven’t been able to leverage it, that there's something wrong with them.

No, some stressors are really hard, and they require the help of a clinician or community support. These are not things that you can muddle through on your own. But I would say, both from a performance and a positive psychology standpoint, we often don't value stress for the goodness that it can potentially bring. We just need to learn skills to use stress productively and discern when we can leverage it versus when we need support. And we need to rely on each other or our communities or professional help to really help manage that.

MM: I love that answer, Gloria. Thank you. As you spoke, my kids were coming up for me. They’re both athletes, and I think they get the concept of channeling their stress. They’ve each been through and have leveraged hard things. But I’m not sure about that reframing—that we’re actually optimized to endure hard things. I think that’s a different message than the one they often hear. As I was taking notes, I kept thinking, I want my kids to read this. I really hope my kids will read this.

GP: I'm going to write a book one day. Look, I have a teenager at home and I feel like we are doing this generation a disservice and leaving them unprepared for the future. For example, I hear lots of parents who try to make the world easier and more comfortable for their kids instead of taking the time to teach the skills and competencies to muddle through.

We try to remove stress or do whatever we can to minimize negative emotions and anxiety. We think there’s something wrong if kids feel nervous before a test or angry after a poor performance. And again, I recognize that there are kids who genuinely struggle with mental health. But generally, I think kids are pretty tough and resilient if they are given the chance to understand themselves and acquire a few key skills.

If you're a student who values getting good grades in school or you care deeply about doing well at your sport, you attach all of these contingencies to it as a person. Of course you're going to feel nervous when you're in those situations. The stakes are high, and you want to do well. There are consequences if you don’t do well. Of course they’re going to feel anxious!

Here’s what we should be teaching in these moments: “Yes, you're going to feel nervous because of all those things, but you can take some deep breaths. Or here are some ways to reframe. Here are some things you can do to kind of calm your body.” Instead of giving kids the skills and saying, “You feel this way because you care, and this is important to you and because you're a human being. Here are some skills that you can try to lower that anxiety until you've gotten into the groove of the test.”

Instead, as a society, I think we are teaching kids that if it feels yucky, it's not good. We are teaching them that if they don’t like something, someone's going to come to the rescue and provide them with an out. I've had kids who have been moved out of classes because they don't like the teacher, quit teams because they just don’t like the coach, or walk away from things without seeing their full potential because it felt hard. We have to do a better job of helping young people understand that this is all a part of humanity. We’re built for this stuff. Our ancestors have muddled through a lot worse, with fewer resources. And we can do it too.

I just got on a soapbox there for a minute! But I'm so passionate about this because I think that we've not only made kids afraid of challenging themselves and [stretching] outside of their comfort zone. We've also made them averse to negative emotions. As if everyone's supposed to be happy all the time, which is creating a whole other set of issues. In our society, we equate discomfort and negative emotions with something bad, right? Something bad about ourselves, something bad about the world around us.

MM: Gloria, this is so, so good. Thank you. You already spoke a bit about reframing. You also spoke about embracing and leveraging our natural stress responses. What are some additional ways that someone can lean into stress and use it rather than bracing against it?

GP: I think one is just becoming aware of it.

One of my young clients described his stress responses as feeling like the train pulling into the station, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. I think we help people understand that these things are automatic, primitive responses. Even if you wanted to prevent them from happening, they’re going to happen.

Then, you can teach skills like reframing. I'm a big fan of anything that helps you better understand the physiological side. There are breathing exercises and biofeedback tools. You see immediately what that strategy is doing for you in terms of bringing down your physiological arousal and helping you feel more calm.

There’s Jamiesons’ work on reframing physiology. For example, my armpits are sweaty right now, because this interview is very important to me, and I want to do a good job. Instead of saying my armpits are sweaty right now because I don't have my life together, and I'm a mess. I can reinterpret my physiology. I think this is another great strategy that people can try.

Barbara Fredrickson's work on positive emotion is another good antidote in a moment when you're feeling all of that yuckiness to help bring your physiology and some of the negative effects of negative emotion back to baseline. What can you do to help elicit positive emotion in those stressful situations? I think all of these are good strategies that people can try out.

MM: Excellent. These are great. Let’s shift gears a bit.

Many readers will already be familiar with PERMA, Martin Seligman’s model of well-being. Let’s talk about the A. I've heard it defined as achievement, and I’ve also heard it defined as accomplishment. Sometimes people use them interchangeably. But you distinguish between the two and contend that they are neither the same nor interchangeable. Will you please expound on this?

GP: Yes, absolutely! I am drawing solely on my own opinion and my own experiences in working with people who have an achievement focus. I think the other components of PERMA (i.e., positive emotions, engagement, relationships, and meaning) are valuable in their own right. They contribute to well-being, and although I think sometimes achievement does, I have a laundry list of examples of how it hasn't for a lot of people who are intensely competitive and achievement driven. Once they get the thing that they've been working toward, oftentimes they experience depression or a loss of a compass in their life. A loss of identity.

There are many things people don’t often see that happen after achievement. And in my experiences working with people and performers, it’s often focused on outcome. Do I get the gold medal, or do I not? Do I make it to nationals, or do I not? There's a sense of contingent self-worth, like I'm only as good as my last performance.

So, something I've proposed is the difference between achievement and accomplishment. [For example], to me, achievement is focused on the outcome, on winning. Oftentimes those achievements are externally motivated. They're driven by a desire for fame or recognition, or

like in my life, approval from parents.

Sometimes people think that you have to strive for that achievement at the cost of everything else in your life—for all of those other components of PERMA. Sometimes you’ve got to step on people to get to the top, right? You’ve got to sacrifice and suffer to achieve something. To me, achievement signals all of those things.

But accomplishment feels a little different to me, like qualitatively different. When I think of the word accomplishment, I think of all the little steps in between. To me, it's more of a focus on the journey and the process. It can be measured in much smaller quantities than an achievement.

Some people might say, I'm mincing words here, and that this is just a matter of vocabulary. That's fine. I'm picky about the words used to describe things. [Accomplishment] speaks to me more. It is about mastery. And rooted in integrated identity rather than contingent self-worth. It’s also about harmonious passion: Accomplishments are things that people can strive for while also pursuing goals that contribute to their well-being. I don't have to give up my whole life to strive for accomplishment––I can do it alongside other things that matter to me. In my mind, it’s just a very different approach.

Learning how to bake sourdough bread during Covid is the example that comes to mind. It was the hardest thing that I've done in my adult life! It was so hard, but learning how to do something I’ve never done before, re-learning that failure doesn’t define who I am as a person, and that it’s okay if I suck at it was strangely healing and nurturing. I'm not going to become the bread lady, but battling water, flour, salt, and starter, and learning that I can emerge triumphant contributed greatly to my [belief] that I'm a capable human being.

The other facet I've been thinking about is that achievement is more about my own goals and glory, whereas accomplishment is more about building community, what I can give back, what I can contribute to the world, and what I can leave behind as a legacy.

Does that make sense?

MM: It does. I'm very much a words person, and I love the nuance of your descriptions. As you were describing accomplishment, I was noticing how my body responded. Accomplishment felt expansive. My heart felt open, and I felt warm. Achievement felt different. It felt constrictive. The quality of those two words feels different. So, yes, for me your descriptions of the distinction between the two definitely resonated.

GP: Yeah, I think some of it is also driven from my Asian American identity. I'm the child of first-generation immigrants from Korea. Korea is a very achievement-focused culture. And growing up, I distinctly remember hearing my mom talking about the daughter of a friend who got into Yale, or won first place at a competition. These stories were regular fixtures in our household dialogue, and I remember how heavy that felt to me—that if I didn't achieve the same things, I was not good enough of a person.

And at the end of my journey with figure skating, many of the mental health struggles were about identity––I didn’t know who I was or who I could be since I couldn’t skate anymore. I never achieved the goal that I set out for. Therefore I was a failure, and therefore I was not good enough to do anything else. It took so long to wade through that. So, I totally hear what you're saying. For me, the weight of achievement and its impacts is probably derived from personal experience and also the ways I've heard people talk about their own struggles and their own journeys.

MM: Ah yes. My parents and I are first-generation immigrants from a Nigerian culture. The details are different, but the culture piece also resonates. Yeah, who are we apart from what we do? And what happens when we can't do anymore?

GP: Exactly.

MM: So, wrapping things up, what guidance can you offer to readers about tapping into the potential within us, optimizing performance, or living as better versions of ourselves?

GP: I think now more than ever, if we don't start to remember and tap into and connect with our humanity, we are going to lose so much as individuals. As a country. As a society.

I started my career in the field of performance psychology during a time when people believed that we had to strip ourselves of our humanity to be great. And I'd say, over the past five or ten years, my tune has changed a lot. The way I approach performance is not about turning humans into machines, which is a lot of the way that people in the military talk about it. But it's very reductionist, right? That we just have to take away all of the things that make human beings unpredictable, and we just need to put out like machines—consistently and at a high level. I think that's where we got lost. So, I've spent a lot of time advocating in these spaces that we can do well because of our humanity if we just give ourselves the opportunity to remember that what makes us human are potentially the most important things in preserving our own well-being and contributing to the well-being and flourishing of others.

Hopefully, at some point, we'll return to a society that's able to see different viewpoints, have productive conversations, and be equally as driven to take care of each other as we are to take care of ourselves. Somewhere along the way we've forgotten our humanness and our humanity. And it's really heartbreaking, you know? Our humanity is what makes us great, and that is what will return us to greatness.

MM: This is gorgeous, Gloria. What beautiful words to end on. Thank you so much.

To learn more about Gloria and her work, visit www.performpositive.com.

About the expert | Gloria H. Park, Ph.D., MAPP, CMPC (C’05) serves as the Director Performance Psychology with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, in support of the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) and an Assistant Professor in Military and Emergency Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. She oversees the psychological, social, and spiritual fitness domains across CHAMP’s leadership, education, operational support, and research initiatives. Dr. Park is a Certified Mental Performance Coach and leverages her expertise in sport, performance, and positive psychology to be a passionate advocate for re-humanizing Human Performance Optimization, and bringing the best of science to helping individuals and organizations thrive.