The Fearless Warrior Podcast

06 How to Build Your Child's Confidence as a Parent - Featured on The Mindset Advantage Podcast with DJ Hillier

• Amanda Schaefer

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Today's episode is an interview I did with DJ Hillier on his podcast, The Mindset Advantage Podcast. In our conversation, we talk all about how to have conversations with young athletes that will help them increase in confidence. We talk about real-life advice for how to navigate conversations with teenagers, from the car ride home to coaching in the dugout. 

Episode Highlights:

  • How and why to start with the belief before the skills
  • How to overcome limiting beliefs
  • 3 P framework for coaching and the car ride home
  • Advice to help teens overcome low self-esteem
  • Advice to help teens overcome loss of identity outside of sport
  • Advice to helps teens overcome perfectionism
  • Advice to help teens overcome the comparison trap


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Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-advantage/id1420211275

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the fearless warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success, so if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode.

Speaker 1:

Dj Hillier is a mental performance coach and host of the Mindset Advantage podcast, where he interviews world-leading experts in the fields of leadership, mindset and fitness, with over five years of interviews, hundreds of thousands of downloads and millions of views on social media. I love the Mindset Advantage podcast because DJ does a phenomenal job of bringing you mental performance nuggets that are actionable and highly interesting. I loved being on the other side of the mic for his show, which is why we're re-airing it for you here on the Fearless Warrior podcast. We talked about shifting those limiting beliefs. We talked about my 3P method for parents and coaches. We talked about perfectionism and comparison with teens all the topics that might feel all too real, especially if you're a parent. This was a great interview, so let's get it started for today's episode.

Speaker 2:

Coach AB. Welcome to the Mindset Advantage podcast. I'm stoked to have you here today.

Speaker 2:

Hey, hey, happy to be here I want to start with a quote of yours that really drew me in. It goes like this quote no amount of self-talk is going to overcome a limiting belief. You have to address the root cause. It's like having a stinky Jersey and spraying it with Febreze it's still dirty and it's going to smell better for a bit, but you didn't do anything to truly clean and wash it. This would be a great place for us to start today. What does that quote mean to you?

Speaker 1:

I love it so much and it comes from my love of analogy.

Speaker 1:

So, if you think about mental performance, I think the mistake that we make, and a lot of coaches make, is that we assume the person on the other end knows what we're talking about and they don't.

Speaker 1:

Whether it's a parent, an athlete, a coach that's been coaching forever, you can't assume that people understand what mental performance is of all the research and all the positive psychology that came about in the nineties that's not that long ago. And so assuming that people understand, when we break it down into an analogy that they can understand, it really makes it tangible, it makes it funny, it makes it relatable. And so we can all go to a parent and say, hey, we have a stinky Jersey. If you spray Febreze on it, you're not actually doing anything with it. And so, yeah, there's a lot of fluff out there, there's a lot of Febreze out there. If we just give our athletes I am statements or we just make them visualize success that they am, that's meant to performance and it's just not the truth. So we educate as much as we can on what is mental performance and how we teach it, and we go deeper as to wash the jersey.

Speaker 2:

I love this concept and ever since I've been researching the last few months here and getting to know you a little bit more just through online and through our mentor, brian Kane here, it's really stopped me in my tracks of my own coaching, because I found myself kind of being guilty in that route as well of you know, we got these skills, we're doing all this stuff and sometimes it works. But other times there's a deeper root cause, like you say in your quote. So teach me and my listeners, parents out there, how do we address the root cause? Because I think the flashy thing is to go to the skills and go to the drills and that might work sometimes. But what does it look like A, b to dive deeper and go to a root cause of something? What does it look like for a coach? What does it look like for a parent? Teach me.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. One of the beliefs that is pretty common is I'm never going to get this or I suck at hitting. And if we were to look at surface level and we said, oh okay, well, the example I used earlier, visualize success. Well, giving an athlete that drill. I'll even use another analogy. As a hitting coach, I coach a lot in softball, so we'll use a softball analogy. If I was a hitting coach and I agreed to coach your daughter and you paid me for a hitting lesson and you showed up and the very first drill I had your daughter do was paid me for a hitting lesson and you showed up and the very first drill I had your daughter do was go into the cage. We're going to crank the machine up to 60 miles an hour and we're just going to have her start hacking at her swing. Oh, and, by the way, I'm going to give her some tweaks. I'm going to change her swing right away. You would run so fast out of that facility you would think that I'm a crazy hitting coach. You have no idea what we're talking about, because the very first step is we have to look at the swing. And so, on the mental side, how am I even going to give a kid a mental skill, a drill, a technique like visualization or self-talk, if I don't understand where they're starting from? So we challenge it, we look at that belief and we say, okay, the first step is awareness. Is this athlete even aware that this is a belief, right? And so then we have a conversation and we get really curious. And you don't even need a mental performance coach to do this step. You can do this with your as a parent.

Speaker 1:

Relationship is oh, I just heard you say that you suck at hitting. Tell me more about that. What? Why do you think that? And sometimes they'll realize oh well, I was just saying that. Well, if your thoughts have power, why are you saying that? Do you really believe it? And then we start to dig a little bit deeper. A little bit deeper and you can start to uncover. Well, it's based on my last game. I struck out twice in my last game, right. And then we can start to dig a little bit deeper. Well, what's causing those strikeouts? Well, I'm worried about striking out. My negative thoughts are telling me. You know what are your negative thoughts? What are you, hey? What are you thinking when you're in the box?

Speaker 1:

And that first step of. I can't even begin to tell you how many one-on-one sessions I've had with an athlete is. I'm not going to begin to recommend anything until I understand what are you telling yourself and where's your focus? Um, so again, like really breaking it down into. The first step is awareness. Then we can start to shift those beliefs. So what are those thoughts that's contributing to that belief system? What are those past circumstances that have happened in order for you to believe that belief? So I mean, in a 30 minute session to an hour long session, 90% of our conversation could be dissecting those thought patterns, those past experiences, and simply challenging them as a coach. Now, from there, obviously, it becomes a triage and a you know what's it called? What are those diagrams called that? If yes, go here. If no, what are those called?

Speaker 2:

I don't know, but I know what you're talking about though.

Speaker 1:

Decision tree. I think it's a decision tree.

Speaker 1:

It becomes a very complex tree and so. But the first step is awareness. Then we can start to shift and then finally we have to have a tool to shift. So maybe a kid really does need visualization, Maybe they really do need a reset routine. Keener teaches stoplights, maybe it's the three R's. There are so many tools available, but notice, that's the last thing, that's the final. You know the bottom of the tree. And then you can even take it one step further and say, okay, some skills don't resonate with athletes, and so they have to go try it, they have to go put it into their game, and so they could say hey, coach, I tried this thing called visualization. It was kind of hard for me, it didn't really work. Great, let's try something different. It's not a one size fits all approach.

Speaker 2:

So when a coach like yourself takes on a brand new client, instead of going shoving it down their throat the skills or whatever the drills, what are some of your first initial questions when you first meet a client or a?

Speaker 1:

student athlete, or maybe one of the people that you coach. I love this question. It's actually the same question whether I'm working with a parent or whether I'm working with an athlete, and it's the magic wand question and it's super powerful because it helps me identify a lot of different ways to take the conversation and it gets them to open up. I'll say to an athlete or a parent all right, here you go, dj, you now have the magic wand.

Speaker 1:

If you could make anything possible in your athletic journey or what you're dealing with right now, what would you wish for? And they kind of look at you like I can ask for anything. And it kind of gets them to start to think about. Either it's something that they really want, it's a desire, or it's to get over a hurdle or a struggle that they've been facing. And they'll ask me things like Coach AB, if you could just help me to not get so frustrated. Or some of them will even say I just want to stop striking up. Great, now we have a conversation. Right, it's the top of that tree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's so cool. So walk me through that, because it sounds like what it could be is. It turns into a lot of therapy really with this approach, where it could just be some conversations about really digging into somebody's past and asking why several times, and maybe you don't even get to some of the skills that maybe we're so passionate about, but yet we need to first do first things first before we get to the more fun stuff. So so what's the advice? What's the advice to coaches and mental performance coaches out there to make sure that they're not skipping that? That first step? Is it a is it a preseason question? Is it? Is it talking to your athletes one-on-one more often? Is it something else? What's the advice? You're deep in the trenches in softball. What do you recommend?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I had some amazing mentors that have coached me through this, and I've done a lot of research on Gen Z and I don't know if Alpha is the same thing as Gen Z or the generation after Gen Z but they're finding that they really care a lot more about relationships and decision-making, whereas, you know, you and I may have had coaches that said this is my decision, this who's playing. I don't have to explain this to you. We didn't have drills explained to us and they really crave the why. And so, as a coach, as a mental performance coach, anyone that's leading a team if you can really create that relationship and help them to understand why you're making the decisions that you're making and it's not that you're giving up your authority. I made this mistake. I'll never forget this. This is a great example of this.

Speaker 1:

When I was coaching as a head coach, I was very young and I felt like, in order to get my athletes to listen to me, I had to distance myself from them, kind of as a friend Right, and so something very simple that we were deciding on is should we do armbands or face signals, like you know, when you need, like the signal to bunch or the signal to steal. Very old school I was so against armbands. It's like, no, they slow the game down, it's dumb, it's technology, it's all the things. Now I have to come up with the armbands, all the things, and they go, yeah, but coach, we won't miss a sign. We won't miss a sign If you give us armbands, we won't miss a sign. And I thought to myself, why is this so important to them? It's because they want to be a part of the process, and the literal cards is about decision-making. And so if they can see, you know why are you calling the signal? When are you calling the signal? The rest of the team knows, everybody knows what the pitcher's throwing, not just the pitcher and the catcher. And so when you take a step back and I removed my ego from that on their travel teams and the other teams that they're playing on, they're already using wristbands. And so if I could set my ego aside and help them feel like they're making that decision with me, that actually did increase a lot of our decision-making. They felt bought in, and so I'm thinking about, like other examples of other sports, what can you do to help incorporate them into the decision-making? So if you have a really athletic kid.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes giving them the ability to choose, even if it's the illusion of choice, gives them confidence. So if you have a really speedy athlete, why hold them back on the bases? You can give them choices of hey. If you think you can steal in these situations, you have the green light. If you have a really great small ball kid, if you think you can slap or drag, bunt or push the ball through a gap, you have the green light. Now you obviously have to put parameters on that, but that can do a lot for their confidence, knowing that they're having that conversation with you.

Speaker 1:

Um, another thing that you could do that it really means nothing to you as a coach is the last five to 10 minutes of practice put in competition and let them choose. So give them choices. Do we want to do tic-tac-toe races? Do we want to do race to the base? There's lots of drills for different sports as well. It could be something as simple as rock paper scissors. But if you're giving them that buy-in and that choice, the only metric that you're you're kind of putting on your practice plan is I just want them to compete and then they get to choose what they want to do as a team. So I know that's a really long winded answer, but remind me what your question was. Did we stay on that topic?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're all. We're all good there. I want to go back to the wand. So bring me back to. That was a great answer. Bring me back to you, hand that wand over and you ask them the question of if you had the magic wand and you got to wave it, what would you get rid of? Walk me through a time when you use that AB and walk me through how you shift a belief. If you have a specific example, keep the names out, but walk me through what that looked like and what that process looked like, cause I think it we. It sounds great. Okay, I got the question. Hand the pen, it's the wand. What? What are the next couple steps after that? Can you walk me through that?

Speaker 1:

Ooh, I can think of some like really heavy hitters Sometimes. Um, sometimes you'll get superficial beliefs like I'm not a good hitter or I'm a common one is I'm never going to get this or I'm never going to be good enough. That typically happens with pitchers. Um, I'll give you a pretty common one, but I'm thinking of an athlete in particular that this will really make sense. So you mentioned asking why five times? That's a technique to get deeper to an athlete's root of their fears, their insecurities, their limiting beliefs. So if an athlete is struggling with something I'll create, I call this the drill down method. And so you're asking and what does that mean? Five times or seven or 10 times, and what does that mean? And what does that mean? And when you do that, you're getting into the subconscious and your athlete will probably look at you and roll their eyes because you're going to repeat yourself a lot, but what you're listening for is a theme. So I really want to pull out my notebook and find a recent athlete where I've done the drill down method with them.

Speaker 1:

But one of the examples is, let's say, um, it's a middle infielder and they're just really nervous to field the ball. They feel like they're fumbling. They don't want to make errors. So say, okay, great, you're out at shortstop and you're afraid of fumbling the ball. Where does that come from? Well, I don't want to let my team down, great. Well, what does that mean If you let your team down and then we actually forecast that worst case scenario and you keep repeating what does that mean?

Speaker 1:

What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? And the craziest answers will start to surface and it doesn't make sense to them. But what you're doing as a coach is you're writing it down and you're starting to see those themes. So they might start to repeat themselves. So they'll say, well, I don't want to let my team down because they're counting on me. What happens if they can't count on you? Well then, I won't get more playing time, I'll get pulled. Well, what does it mean if you get pulled? It means that I suck. What does it mean if you don't ever get more playing time? Well then, it was all for nothing.

Speaker 1:

I wasted all my time playing, playing the sport and putting in the time, and we get to some really deep subconscious thoughts. We're talking about childhood, we're talking about parent expectations, and so when you get to the bottom of that rope. Seven out of 10 times I'll have an athlete cry during this. But once we can identify that kind of bottom of the rope belief, what you do is you take out everything in the middle. So if you take out everything in the middle, I'm afraid to miss a ball at shortstop. And we take out everything in the middle and, let's say, their final belief is is that my parents will be disappointed in me and I'm never going to get to play in college. You would never equal those on the softball field. But guess what the subconscious is telling you If I boot a ball, I'm going to miss my shot in college and my parents are going to disown me.

Speaker 1:

Does it now make sense why your subconscious mind, your body, your nerves, everything is sabotaging you because you believe that this is true. But when we bring that to the surface, it's obviously not true. So now again, that's where we go back to. Okay, what mental skills? How can we shift that belief? I know you wanted to get into that today, dj. So this is a perfect example. But their subconscious is telling them the most wild things and if you can just get them to see it, boom. That's. That's the starting point. You just have to start there.

Speaker 2:

And I've been in those sessions before where it comes down into tears and it's kind of that turning moment, that light bulb moment where the girl or the guy in front of you is like, oh wow, that's really what it is. So once you get to that, that rock bottom there, maybe. What's? What do you do right after that? What's kind of your, I mean, we, we sit there for a moment and there's probably some tears. We kind of, hey, this, we're staring at the face. This is what it is what's next at the face. This is what it is what's next?

Speaker 1:

Well, the first thing you want to do is acknowledge and this is something I will tell you, DJ, that I have learned. This does not come innate to me because I'm type A. I want to solve those problems. The first thing is you just have to sit with that emotion and acknowledge and hold space and all of my coaches on staff they know Coach AB has really worked hard on holding space. So of course you would say something like, yeah, I understand why you would feel that way. That makes sense. Or even I would feel that way too.

Speaker 1:

If you want to go one step further, yes, as a parent, you could say man, that kind of reminds me of the time I XYZ and you empathize with them and you relate on a, not as a parent, child or a coach child, but on their level, Right, and just acknowledge, Um, and then obviously, the next thing you go into is okay, they have this belief. We can't keep that belief. So you have to ask them do you want to keep this belief? Is this helping you? And it's kind of rhetorical, because it's not. They realize that now and so we have to shift that I can't get that belief to go away. That belief will always be there.

Speaker 1:

But what are you going to shift to when that belief does pop up, Because now it's no longer in your subconscious, You're aware of it, Great. So how do we shift a belief? And I sent you some information on this, but that's the point of this podcast. Let's talk about how the heck do I get an athlete to realize oh well, if I mess up, my parents actually aren't going to disown me. Or if I mess up, college is still an option. So how do we dismantle that belief? You want to go into it on different ways to shift a belief.

Speaker 2:

Please.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I have my notes and this is something that I'll use my notes. In a session. There's different ways that we can shift a belief, so I will actually even pull up, which I wish I would have done this sooner. I have a master coaching doc that I pull up with an athlete to reference, and so when I'm pulling up this coaching doc, this actually doesn't come from me. This comes from a lot of different resources on psychology. Now I'm under pressure and I got to pull it up fast.

Speaker 1:

So, when we shift a belief, one of the things we can do is we can chunk up or we can chunk down so we can say is this true 100% of the time?

Speaker 1:

So an example would be has there ever been a time where you did something stupid and your parents didn't disown you? Oh well, this one time I did this and my parents laughed about it. Or, yeah, my parents have been leaning about a lot of other things. And then you have a conversation about oh okay, well, your parents are just really strict with you when it comes to sport. Why do you think that is? We just kind of start to question, pick and prod and challenge that like, well, man, they just really want me to to be successful. So that's chunking up to a hundred percent of the time. Chunking down would be more of. Was there ever a time that your parents were disappointed in you? That maybe didn't turn out the way that you thought it did? Right Of, like you thought you were in the right, but your parents were disappointed in you. They just wanted more out of you. And so what we're doing is we're kind of saying this does not equal this and now we can't go back right, so another way you could do that is think of a famous athlete in your position. So if you're working with a quarterback, name a famous quarterback, well, does Drew Brees throw interceptions? Yeah, does Patrick Mahomes throw interceptions? Does he make stupid? Like all those things? I'm using football. But that's a way to also discredit, of like. Think about it this way. I'm trying to. It's hard Cause I'm not in it with an athlete.

Speaker 1:

Another example would be um, this is kind of a funny story. This just happened yesterday. I have a six-year-old. He's losing his teeth left and right, so it's hard for him to eat. He didn't want to eat. Uh, what did he have for breakfast? He had hard boiled eggs. And he had his hard boiled egg on the table and he didn't want to eat it. And I said hey, buddy, why aren't you eating your breakfast? And he said oh, mom, I'm missing all of my teeth. And I said well, wait a minute. Just last night you had a big old burrito. So if you could eat a big old chewy burrito with your teeth missing, oh, and I think you also had an apple for snack. You can't eat a hard boiled egg. And he's six, like DJ, he's six. He picked up on it and he just kind of looked at me in the kitchen. He's like, oh, she got me Right.

Speaker 1:

And so when you start to shift beliefs, the mistake that we make as parents was we're like eat your, eat your eggs, eat your hard-boiled eggs, or go out there and pitch, go out there and perform at your best. Why aren't you doing it? This is easy, you can do it. You can do it and you're probably going to get eye rolls. But if you can make it their idea, they have those realization. You're not holding it over your head, you're just shifting that belief and making them realize oh yeah, mom's right, she got me. I ate an apple yesterday. Therefore I can eat the hard-boiled egg. So I know it's a non-sport analogy, but no, this is great.

Speaker 2:

So chunk up, chunk down. Is there a second strategy?

Speaker 1:

Let me this is something that I just recently incorporated, probably about a year ago One of my coaches um, this can be used in business. This can be used to self coach. Another outcome would be another one. So is this really about letting your team down or is it more about not getting into college? That's kind of one of the examples they used of if you hold onto this belief and we create this identity of I'm never going to get into college, well then you're actually going to self-actualize and you're not going to get into college because you're holding onto this negative belief. What's another one Consequences would be another great example.

Speaker 1:

So, if you hold onto this belief, have you ever considered what happens if you continue to believe that you suck at hitting, or if you continue to not get your extra reps in? What are the consequences of that? Well, I won't get better and I won't get the playing time and I won't get the college looks and I won't get into college. So that would be one. It could also be a flip of consequences, right Of. Well, what are the consequences if, or what are the results of your actions If, you choose to believe that you are good at hitting? We, like forecast the best case scenario, because if you can forecast the worst case scenario, you can also forecast the best case scenario. Man, there are like so many good ones. The hard thing is, like how do I make this tangible? What's something that your athletes struggle with? What would be like a common thing?

Speaker 2:

that that pops up as a belief Confidence, right? I'm just not. I'm just not a confident individual. It doesn't matter where I am, I'm just not confident. It doesn't matter if I'm on the soccer field or if I'm at home, I'm just not confident, right.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that one would be kind of like their model of the world. This is a model of the world belief. So you're giving them a different perspective from the one that they're currently using. And so am I hearing you say, athlete X, y, z, that you really believe that you don't have confidence. And so do you believe that somebody else has access to confidence? Yeah Well, what gives them confidence? And then you kind of figure out where's that belief? And again, to get to the root of the belief, maybe their belief would be well, other people have confidence, but I don't. Yes, so to shoot holes in that belief, maybe their belief would be well, other people have confidence, but I don't.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So to shoot holes in that belief, you would have to say, okay, great, fine, You're right, DJ. So if other people have confidence, then what makes them? Where do they get their confidence from? Or where do you think they get their confidence from? What would you say?

Speaker 2:

How they play. It's probably what I'd hear the most. They play well.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So if somebody else plays well, is it also true that you have the ability to play well?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So do you have access to confidence?

Speaker 2:

I think I do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I mean like. And then another one could be like well, they're just born confident or they're just born extroverted. You say, okay, well, so if somebody's extroverted, does that automatically mean that they're confident? Can you think of somebody that is extroverted that isn't confident? I could think of lots of people that are like super cocky and confident but our head cases on the mound, or that they're not confident or they're secretly bullies and they're trying to tear other people down. Great, you just also dismantled that belief. It's not a hundred percent true for a hundred percent of the people. Then it also means that it could be possible for you, even if you're an introvert or even if you didn't feel like you were born with confidence. You could find somebody who is super introverted and super shy and say, okay, can you think of somebody that's really, really quiet on one of your teams that is really confident? Yeah, well, if it's possible for them, could it also be possible for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love it. These are great conversations. I want to dig in a little bit further. Sometimes what can happen too is you get down to that root and it comes down to you. Know, I don't want to let my, my teammates down or my teammates it's. It's kind of pointing the finger, like they're putting some of their ownership and other people it's the parents or the or the other kids on the team. Sometimes I think a good result could be maybe we need to have a conversation, maybe we need to have a conversation with you and your parents and just say, hey, this is how she feels. Do you guys do? What do you think? And and sometimes, just having opening the door of having the conversation between the teammate and the person struggling, or the kid and the parents, hey, we don't feel that way, like I don't want you to feel, and it's like, oh God, I just needed to hear that. I mean, how often does that happen to? Right?

Speaker 1:

All the time, all the time. I think my biggest piece of advice for having those conversations is um, this may be a little bit backwards but um, I've purchased a lot of parenting courses, but I have young ins. I have three kids, six and under Um, so I'm like, definitely in the toddler stage, but everything that I've read and learned about parenting is meeting them at their level and acknowledging that. So if you're trying to foster that conversation as a coach or just if you're a parent, listening to this is get on the same eye contact as not eye contact looking at each other, but looking at the same focal point together. So great opportunities for that are in the car, where and not front seat, back seat look in the rear view mirror. I'm talking like you're both in the front seat. You're driving, she's driving, and you're both looking forward at the road. She doesn't have to make eye contact with you, but you're both looking in the same direction.

Speaker 1:

A park bench, going for a walk, going for a walk, whether you're sitting, going to a movie? Obviously you can't talk during the movie. The golden hour, whatever they call it, the five to 10 minutes before they go to bed just lay down and stare at the ceiling together and what that does is that takes the pressure off. So if you're having a conversation with your athlete and getting them to open up to you, sometimes the first step really is just getting their guard down. The second piece of advice is lean into curiosity. So a lot of the times we'll come at it from I'm up here, you're down here, we're not seeing eye to eye On the conversation. They can sense that where you're coming at them and you're just waiting to chomp at the bit, give them your advice, give them your perspective. So I actually created what I call the 3P method, and the 3P method arose from the fact that I hate the Oreo method. Have you heard of the Oreo method?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think I know it as like the sandwich method, the compliment sandwich.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, compliment sandwich, oreo, whatever. I just to me, as a coach, I hated that because, as someone who's in the heat of the moment, I always felt like, let's say, a kid, you know, bobbled a play and they ended up throwing it to two and we just needed to get the out at one. In that moment, like what, what am I supposed to say to you? I just need to let you know you made the wrong throw. We got to get out of this inning. That's not really a time to have a sandwich or an Oreo. It just felt really fake and cheesy. And teens can sense that, I mean, they can see right through it, especially if the praise is fake. So the three P method actually flips it. So the first P is praise, but it's praising them for either a process or something that you're noticing that they authentically are in control of. So we're not praising outcome. We're not praising their home run. We're not praising how good run. We're not praising how good of an athlete they are. You're praising something like hey, I noticed that you took charge and you made that decision. Awesome, I love that you did that. I love that you were aggressive. True, authentic praise. Now it's going to take a little bit of work on your end as a parent or a coach to see that right, but it's not fake. And then the next P is their perspective, and this is what a lot of people skip altogether. You have to get them to talk. You're not going to get them to talk if you come at it with heightened emotions, with your body language. You really have to regulate yourself. This sounds like hey, I just want to know your perspective. What were you seeing out there? I've had so many athletes and I wish I could go back and relive my head coaching career. I've had so many athletes that I came at it from what are you doing? Or what did you do, what did you do out there? And immediately they get defensive. So if you come at it from they just made a mistake, you praise them first hey, you were really aggressive on that, I just know what you saw. And they'll say, hey, like the first baseman wasn't in position, or I knew that she was a really speedy runner, and so that tells me immediately this kid is actually thinking strategically about the game. Right, they're thinking. And then they're like wow, coach actually cares. Going back to the Gen Z, the Gen Alpha coach actually cares Coach wants to know why I made that decision. Immediate connection as a parent. You could say also you know like, hey, what were you feeling out there or how did that feel? Or what's going on out there? I'm just curious. It looked like you were not normally yourself. What was going on? And you just give them the floor If they don't want to share with you and they try to shut the conversation down. You could say something like you know, I, I really do care about what you have to say and we can have like I'll wait to have this conversation until you're ready, but I don't want to give you my advice until I know where you're coming from and I'll follow up later. Can I follow up with you later? And they're like yeah, and I'll follow up later. Can I follow up with you later? And they're like yeah, follow up with me later.

Speaker 1:

The final P, after you get their perspective, is then your perspective. So if they shut down the conversation, you also have to shut it down. You can't skip to the third P without getting to the second P. So the third P is your perspective. So it goes praise, their perspective, your perspective. So then what this sounds like is well, you know, again, very curious, very playful CJ. Well, you know, again, very curious, very playful DJ. Do you know? Do you want to know what I think or do you want to know what I saw? And again, this is the key If they say, no great, let's have this conversation later, I still want to follow up with this conversation.

Speaker 1:

If you don't want to have this now, we're going to talk about it later. I understand you don't want to talk about it right now and understand you don't want to talk about it right now. And you don't give that advice. You don't give the unsolicited advice, you wait until they're receptive to it. And then again, when you go back to that conversation, you're going to restart those three P's.

Speaker 1:

So let's say the three P's are working and they say, yeah, I do want to know what you saw. And then you break it down and you say again like I love that you were aggressive, but we really just needed that final out at one, and next time let's just go for that. And then they're like okay, I've said my piece. I know what coach wants. The communication is clear. She's not mad, she's just telling me her perspective, right, I'm? You know, we're not calling them. You're an idiot. You should have done this. It's like, hey, next time try this, or next time I'd really prefer this and you're sharing your perspective. What this would look like as a, as a parent.

Speaker 1:

Uh, let's say, your athlete is, um, struggling with strikeouts or something. Maybe your perspective could be man, I, I can't help but notice like you are a really good hitter, but when you don't lay off those rise balls, like it's going to continue to produce strikeouts. Do you have you noticed that? Again, asking questions, have you noticed that? Cause I've noticed that not every time you swing at the rice ball, you know. Have you noticed? Have you thought about, want to know what I see? See the patterns, help them to see the patterns, help them make them realize. Oh well, mom and dad just want what's best for me. Again, going through it, authentic praise, trying to notice attitude, effort, process, things that are within their control. Ask them their perspective, get them talking, play, curious and then offer your perspective. And again, we talked about this earlier in the episode. Sometimes your perspective could be and I get it. I understand why you'd be frustrated. I would too. It could be that simple.

Speaker 2:

I love this framework. It sounds like this could be a great framework for the car ride home. We hear a lot of statistics about how many kids quit sports because of the car ride home. Parents, if you're struggling out there, I don't know what to say to my kid, or I want to give feedback, or, you know, I'm really, I'm really aware, because I listened to this episode and I'm aware of it. What can I say? What can I do on the ride home home? I mean, ab, would you say this is what? This is a go-to on your car ride home, because tensions can still be hot. You can still be hot on the ride home, right? We can still be frustrated, we can still. So it's still not the right time and it's still a great time to go through these three P's. Is that something that you would sign off on as well?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely yeah. And again asking them and your athlete doesn't need to know that you're doing the three P's, three piece. I've had parents that they're like oh man, I tried this out when she flunked the test or I tried this out when she got in trouble with this. It's like it's not just sports. I think we forget that too is that we have to praise our kids in non-sports ways. We have to express our love. They are preteens and teens. They don't like you can't assume that they know, because they don't. You have to praise them.

Speaker 1:

That's another thing that I would probably change a lot in my coaching career is you cannot. I think our generation and the generation before us would argue this generation is soft. You don't want to over-praise them, you don't want to spoil them. Right, and it's like you. You can't that. No amount of praise is going to go to their head. If anything, 99% of the athletes that I work with are working with me because they doubt, they wonder. John Gordon says this in the absence of communication, negativity will always fill the void, and so if you're not communicating your praises as a parent or as a coach, negativity will fill that void every single time.

Speaker 2:

That's a great quote. Okay, I'm eager to learn a little bit more. So you're, you're. You're in the trenches right now. You're, you're working with parents, you're working with athletes. What else have you been learning deep in the trenches, working with, uh, uh, young women and coaches? What are people struggling with? Now more than ever? You talk about, uh, gen Z and Gen Alpha. What are some other things that you're finding time after time, and how are you overcoming some of the stuff?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think a huge one right now is identity. I don't know how many games we played in a season, but it was not 90 to a hundred. I mean, like the seasons are bleeding into each other. Did you play baseball, DJ?

Speaker 2:

I did.

Speaker 1:

Did you have a hitting coach?

Speaker 2:

Nope.

Speaker 1:

I didn't either. But if you ask these kids, now everybody has a hitting coach. More and more kids are having a mental performance coach. Did you go to lifting outside of high school?

Speaker 1:

I did because more is more for football yeah, I mean as far as like a in female sports. Like you didn't hit the weight room until you were a freshman in high school and even then it was just kind of an afterthought. Now I see kids in lifting programs as early as eight, nine, 10, they're doing agility workouts and it's like, think about your identity as a child. They just don't have the ability to be a child Even. I'm not even talking to you just about children. I'm talking about high school athletes and college athletes. It is not healthy to spend a hundred percent of your time in your sport. Who just recently posted? It was somebody that recently graduated. Oh, it was, um, it was Kinsey Hanson of Oklahoma, the catcher for Oklahoma. She posted on Instagram and said when you realize that you were doing 75 hard, she just recently started 75 hard as a postgraduate. She goes when you were realizing that you were already doing 75 hard in college. And it's true, hard in college. And it's true, it's like we are creating jobs for our children. Obviously, like division one, college is is different, but when your identity is so wrapped up into softball is the only thing you do, I think we're going to reach a tipping point, we're going to reach crisis. So what do we do about it? One of the things that I'll recommend to athletes is a bucket filler. Um, so what do we do about it? One of the things that I'll recommend to athletes is a bucket filler, and the analogy that I use for this is you have to fill your bucket, and we've all heard this you can't pour from an empty bucket If you're not taking time outside of your sport. Another analogy I'll use identity pie, which is what we use in the fearless warrior program, and you and I talked about this.

Speaker 1:

You were very curious about the identity pie. And so if your entire pie let's say it's a cherry pie, your entire cherry pie, every single slice, is softball. You eat that pie day in, day out, day in, day out. You're going to get really sick of eating cherry pie. By the time you get to college, you are ready to throw that cherry pie in the trash. You want nothing to do with softball. And so if we don't start mixing in ooh, I'll have some rhubarb pie, I'll have some chocolate silk pie, I'll have some whatever pie. Maybe I don't want pie today, maybe I'm not eating any pie. Then, when you get back to that cherry pie, you're like, hmm, I'm kind of craving some cherry pie.

Speaker 1:

And so when you have softball seasons and then you have off seasons there to serve a purpose, so that she can be reinvigorated and come back to that sport with some bigger and excitement. So Jordi Ball, great example she always talks about. When she transitioned to Nebraska, one of the things that she really wanted to start doing more of is the things that brought her joy going for rides in the truck, going fishing. They are baking bread. Everyone's baking bread, post-pandemic, so it's things like that.

Speaker 1:

That's like is is it a useful of my time right now, in the middle of my day, when I should be studying? I just got done with practice. Is it really a good use of my time to bake a loaf of bread or to go fishing? Society will tell us no. But for your identity sake, for your mental health sake, yeah, it serves a purpose. It's self-care. Self-care doesn't have to be bubble baths. But how are you going to pour into your bucket? What are you going to fill your bucket with? That's not softball, and if we can't figure out how to teach our athletes this, we're not going to have college athletics, especially not with the pressures of NIL and scholarships and all the things we're. We're kind of heading down a scary, scary route with that, I think.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't agree more. So what would you say to the parent out there who they're listening and they're going you're? You know I'm in hockey. You know hockey is a big sport up here. We're in hockey all year round. It's the summertime, we're still doing two a days and it's a lot, but that's kind of what everybody's doing AB and so that's kind of what we do.

Speaker 1:

Parents out there who might be thinking, okay, my kid might be kind of in this identity trap. What's the advice there to the parent? If you, as an adult, and you as the parent, are not enjoying your weekends because you're at hockey all the time, you don't even have to guess. Your kid's probably sick of it. Yeah, but they love their sport and they love hockey. Well, have a conversation and lead from hey, I'm feeling, and that, okay, there's a fine line to this. You don't want to guilt trip your kid of like I'm sick of going to sitting and freezing my butt off in a hockey rink every weekend, but it's like I'm feeling a little burnt out. I just wanted to check in how are you feeling? And and just have that conversation. I think so often kids are just terrified to they don't know what they don't know and so they feel guilty. Oh, all of my other teammates love softball and secretly, we're all hating cherry pie, right, like whatever that is. So I think, just having that conversation for sure.

Speaker 2:

So we have identity, we have shifting beliefs. I love there's the rule of threes here. What? What's another issue that you're seeing in the deep in the trenches working with softball athletes, parents and and young girls? What's another issue that you're finding yourself having to tackle?

Speaker 1:

I think a big one is comparison. Again, like I keep using softball examples and I know you guys all have different sports that are listening but we have game changer, which is stats. Stats are broadcasted constantly. We have Twitter, we have Instagram, kids have recruiting profiles and so they can't help but compare because it's out there. And if the kid has access to the Game Changer app, why wouldn't you go look at your batting average? Why wouldn't you go look at your walks and strikeouts and your whip and all those stats? I think it's hilarious because when I was in college, we had an SID, a sports information director, and their job. I don't, I don't do colleges still have SIDs. Surely they would.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure that where, if you have, if you had a game and you pitch good or bad let's say you pitch like crap and you were embarrassed. I mean, I had some pretty bad games my freshman year of college where my ERA was probably like a 12th and I gave up back-to-back home runs. Nobody in their dog would know about it because you had to wait for the sports information director to sit on his laptop and write the article for the next day and then they tweet about it. But if that happens now, it's it's live, like college coaches are seeing it live. People are tweeting about it. It's on game changer game changers getting posted. Parents are posting to social media. Oh, got to post this to a recruiting profile. So if I just pitch like dog crap and then I open up Instagram and I see my best friend just pitched a no hitter, of course that's going to make me feel like crap because there's real time data constantly being shoved in their faces constantly.

Speaker 1:

So again going back to like, what do we do about it? I think you have the honest conversation with your athlete of look, if you're constantly comparing yourself to other people's highlights, people don't post about the dog crap moments. Nobody's going to go post on their recruiting profile that they gave up four home runs and their ERA jumped up to 12. Nobody's going to post about that. And having that honest conversation, I think, is hard for us sometimes, because you and I's generation we kind of like were the beginning that grew up with social media.

Speaker 1:

And so again, just having that conversation and saying, man, like, I don't always understand social media either, but I understand why you're comparing yourself to your teammates yeah, I understand, it makes sense. We don't always have to have the answer either. I think that's the mistake that you know as a mental performance coach, we're like oh, we got to figure out the answer. What if we just acknowledge, like, yeah, you know, if I was playing and I was in your shoes, I'd be comparing myself to make sense. So then you know, I don't know what would your recommendation be for comparison, because that's one that I? I have a couple of things that I coach on, but I haven't quite cracked that yet. I don't think.

Speaker 2:

I see it.

Speaker 2:

I see it now more than ever. For me, it's the. It's the Instagram story of posting. I got an offer from XYZ, like colleges make like cool stories that they post, right, and so everybody wants to be able to post that on their story. So a lot of it comes back to social media we collaborating. So, instead of trying to compete against this person, can we reach out to this person? Hey, how can? How can we collaborate? How can we work together? Maybe, maybe, uh, maybe, we can go shoot hoops together. How can we? You know, compete versus collaborate and then try to teach. Also, you know, comparison is the thief of joy, so you doing that is literally robbing you. It's stealing joy from you.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that I've learned from a podcast that I did several years ago was you know, you think of yourself like on an airplane. There's 150 people on an airplane, or whatever You're, you're going to find someone in an airplane that's taller than you, better looking than you, faster than you. I mean you'll find everybody that is something better than you on that airplane. So you're going to. You can choose to go through your life like that and always look for people that are better than you, or you can just be you, because, no matter what, we'll always find somebody that's better at softball than us. I don't care where you go, you'll find somebody that's better than you, right. And so just trying to get that thought through your mind of it's not just right now, for the rest of your life you'll find people that are better than you at X, y or Z. So those are some of the conversations. The social media thing, it's like dang, I get it, and maybe it means getting off social media right, like, if you are you brave enough to do that, like, is that, is that what it takes? What's the skill, what's the drill? What do we have to do to make sure that this doesn't happen? So that's a big one.

Speaker 2:

Another big one that I've found is that the, the, the gals and the guys that I'm working with is they. They take it seriously, they're very committed to their sport. They have a very high standard. I love it. I love it. High standard. They work hard. I mean it's great Cause there's a lot of people on the of the spectrum. However, what comes with that is a sprinkle of perfectionism. Talk about this a few times in your podcast and your in your Instagram as well. By the way, if you guys are listening, still, go over and follow fearless, fast, pitch ton of great wisdom in there. What's the advice to parents or mental performance coaches who are working with kids, student athletes, who have that perfectionism in them? The standard is high. I love that you have a high standard, but there's a line between standard and perfectionism. What are your thoughts on that? Cause we work with some, you and I. We work with some driven kids.

Speaker 1:

They want to be the best.

Speaker 2:

I love it, I want you to be the best, but where's that line of perfectionism? What's the uh, what's the strategy there, coach?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean you could go back to the Gallup strength finder, perfectionism and the desire. Perfectionism is actually rooted in competitive athletic qualities. It's not necessary we don't want to squash. If you squash the perfectionism, you're going to squash other things with it, like competitiveness. So I love that you're bringing this up because this could also apply to comparison. This is kind of jogging my memory. So, whether it's perfectionism, comparison, look at this thing right. Let's use perfectionism.

Speaker 1:

Perfectionism has a balcony and a basement, and this comes from Gallup Strength Finders.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, perfectionism is not a Gallup strength, but the idea is is that every strength has a shining on display, valued, positive light to it that we want to put on our balcony and put on display for everybody else.

Speaker 1:

It's the things that people compliment us on, and so this would be like man, like DJ you're so driven, you're so motivated and you're just, you're in the gym at 4am and you're shooting hoops and in your mind you're thinking, yeah, but I'm, I'm not doing that because it's a balcony, I'm doing that because I'm terrified to not be perfect. And so there's a basement to it. So the basement is the negative qualities or the dark sides or the shadows of like man. If only they knew the thoughts that were running through my head when I'm up there shooting a free throw or, um, you know what are those tendencies of perfectionism that aren't as shiny right Of like. Well, if I'm taking reps at practice, I will not leave the cage until I end on a good rep. We don't have to do that, but a perfectionistic mentality says we have to. Can you think of some, what would be some like basements or shadows with perfectionism that you could think of?

Speaker 2:

Try to think of like basketball. I work with a lot of basketball players, right?

Speaker 2:

So um you know, like something's. Like the perfectionist I work with it's almost sometimes like they expect to make every shot and they're like I know it's not, you know that's that's. That's pretty unrealistic, but I just have the expectation that that's just who I am and there's some you know, identity stuff in there. I, I, they view themselves I am a perfectionist. Well, let's dive into that. I am statement a little bit where you know where's that coming from, but something, something like that in the basketball room.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, is it realistic to to hit every shot? It's not. So is that belief helping or hurting you? That's belief that goes back to belief shifting of like do you really believe that that's attainable? Well, no Great, that is a perfectionism belief. Do we want to shift that? How do we start to shift that? And then you poke holes in it, right, like does LeBron James, does Kobe, does Michael Jordan? You're testing my other sport knowledge. You just have to start to poke holes in that belief. Yeah, having to get every rep right or this is common for softball is coach.

Speaker 1:

Before every call, I asked them to share a win, and sometimes their wins. I'm like, girl, that is not a win. I do, I could care less. One of the things that they come to me is I didn't strike out all weekend. It's like I could care less if you did strike out. That's not a win. A win is like when you followed your process. Or a win is if you did have a result, that you've been working really hard for your process, or a win is if you did have a result that you've been working really hard for. It's almost like they're avoiding failure. It's like avoiding failure is not a win for me. So I want you to strike out, I want you to fail, I want you to push your limits. So yeah, perfectionist would try to avoid failure.

Speaker 2:

Well, if you're avoiding failure, that also means you're avoiding success. Bingo, cool. A lot of this comes back to that shifting belief. I mean, really that's what this whole, this whole field comes back to. And you could spend and I've done it. I spend a lot of time going through the skills, going through the drills and, yeah, it works a little bit and yeah, we see some results, but nothing really changes until you shift that belief.

Speaker 2:

So I'm so glad we got into that, because I've been doing, you know, almost 400 episodes and we haven't really touched on that, and that's what. That's what needs to happen first. So question for you then if, if, if we're working with athletes and we're working on shifting beliefs and we see them for, you know, 30 minutes a week, an hour a week, and we do a good job, they're great what does it look like for athletes to continue to shift beliefs on their own? Is it, is it a journal? Is it a skill drill? Is it? How do we do this? So it's not just hey, I see AB once a month and we do a good job shifting stuff, but then 29 days, I'm like yeah.

Speaker 1:

I love, love, love that you brought this question up and it goes back to you know, faith, right Of do you want to give them the fishing pole to fish on their own, or are you going to catch the fish for them every single month, week after week? And so how do we give them the fishing pole? I think for sure, self-talk is a huge skill, right? I teach the POP method. We have to reframe. You can use I am statements, you can teach them how to shift that belief on their own.

Speaker 1:

Self-talk is just really huge in that the analogy I use for this is it's a radio station, and so it's not that I'm getting rid of that negative radio station. That will always exist. Those beliefs, those negative thoughts, they are always going to come back. It's what do you have to go to? Again, negativity will fill any void. So if you're telling yourself, stop thinking negatively, stop worrying about my last at bat, stop, stop If you don't have anything to go to, I think having those prepared, If you don't have anything to go to, I think having those prepared, you know, motivational self-talk, instructional self-talk, is more towards the keywords keywords on the technical side, you know. So like I could tell you some of my keywords still from playing. If I had rise ball back leg under, If I had drop ball, push front side strong right, Like whatever those keywords are, you're just actively self-talking and filling that void so that you're switching. And you're just actively self-talking and filling that void so that you're switching and you're shifting.

Speaker 1:

So I guess your question is like what skills? Self-talk is something to shift to focal points. You know we could think of stoplights is a method. Visualization not for everybody but you could go to visualization, especially for pitchers, somebody who's like actively like tennis, volleyball, serving when you're in control. Visualization is a really great skill for the in control sports. But when it's a volley sport or you're on defense and football, sometimes that's hard because you there's like 20 different possibilities. So think of like the mental skills where you could actively prepare, do the reps outside so that it's ready for in game. Can you think of any other ones besides self-talk, focal points? Now you're testing, testing my knowledge.

Speaker 2:

Oh good.

Speaker 1:

What else?

Speaker 2:

I was going to say, I think, journaling.

Speaker 1:

Concentration can be really big too, yeah, journaling.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just having them, you know, dial in every single day. On writing it down, I heard the statistic. I don't know how much much, how true it is, but every time we go pen to paper it sits seven times deeper in the brain. So instead of just saying it out loud, writing it down. Has this connection? 7x, I'll take 7x every day of the week and so being able to write that down.

Speaker 2:

Dr jim lair is a one of the most famous sports psychologist of all time, pioneer in this in the field, and he teaches something that's pretty cool. It's uh, you put out. Well, first, open a paper, you write down the story that you want to tell yourself, or the story that defines who you are. Write it down several times, like every day. Write it down. It's a long script. Then, after you've written it for several days, then you grab your phone and you speak into your phone and you're reading it out loud. And then from there now it goes into your car and now that's what you're listening to every single day on your way to practice. Because his thing is like we are our best coach. We will listen to ourselves more than we'll listen to a coach or a parent. So if you're hearing yourself giving you day after day this is who you are, or whatever you know is on your sheet of paper. That's super powerful. I just recently heard, too, that Aaron Rodgers actually does that when he drives to the New York.

Speaker 1:

Jets stadium.

Speaker 2:

That's what he does every single day. He listens to himself giving himself mantras through an app on his phone. So, again, it's one tool, but I think there's something about listening to your own voice.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's an identity shift, right? So if you are, you know, you could say I'm an award-winning author, I'm an award-winning author and I'm not that yet. But hey, dj, you got your book right. And so what proof do you have that you're on your way to that identity? And how do you create those confidence conditioning statements that do match with that? You bring up a really great point, and I did want to talk about this today, so I'm so glad that you jogged my memory on this is I am.

Speaker 1:

Statements and affirmations are very tricky because if they're taught the wrong way, it could be like the Febreze. And so if you're Aaron Rogers and you're telling yourself you know what are you listening to Whatever? Well, he has proof to back it up. And so if you don't have that proof yet, what proof do you have? That's a long way right. So you know, let's say an athlete wants to reach a goal of you know, getting into a division one college and getting a scholarship. Maybe they don't know where they're going to college, but they could say you know, I am a division one athlete and I've made it, I've made my dreams come true. Well, what proof do you have that you're on your way to that. Well, I go to camps, I go to hitting lessons, I put in the work, I'm seeing a mental performance coach, I'm doing all of these things. Those identities match with the game that you're playing. So, um, I even use this in my own business. Like, what game am I playing? Um, I love this Like one of the very first goals that I had when I was coaching full-time.

Speaker 1:

I was working a day job, I was giving pitching lessons and I was even coaching a travel team. I wasn't married yet, didn't have kids yet. None of that would be possible. I had this goal that I wanted to work in mental performance full-time and I said, okay, if I can just impact 365 girls, that's my goal, that's my benchmark. And I told myself that day in, day out, this, this is what I want to pursue. If I could just impact one girl a day and kind of work towards that, that then became the game that I was playing. So I was playing the 365 game.

Speaker 1:

So if I said, all right, what game am I playing today when I put everything against that identity? If I have a decision, I say, hey, dj asked me to come on his podcast. I'm going to say yes to the opportunity because it gets me closer to that identity. Well, what would this full-time mental performance coach? What decisions would they make? And I've made some like really scary decisions about like hiring, expansion ideas, clinics, things that I've hosted. I've lost money on different avenues, but it all comes back to like what's that identity and what's that goal. So, if you want to be a division one athlete or you want to be, you know, a mental performance coach that does this full time, who is that person and what game would they be playing? And that's your identity benchmark.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's so cool, that's so top of mind. We'll have to talk off air on stuff. Okay, so I'm going to close down with, I'm going to put you on the spot here. I like closing down with advice, questions, and it's advice, or you know, it's an action item and I'm going to. I'm going to give you three different characters, three different avatars here. Pick what order you want to go into, but I want you to give advice to a young softball player, I want you to give advice to a parent of a youth athlete and I want you to give advice to a coach that's coaching young athletes. So this is your world here. If you were to give a chance to just shout from the rooftops or just give one piece of advice to each of those people three different pieces of advice really curious what you'd say.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'm writing this down because I don't want to mess this up, but it all falls into the theme of Christ. I don't know the right word to say that, but I'm going to butcher that quote, but you guys will get what I mean. So for a softball athlete, or any athlete, I would say celebrate your wins. I think we dampen our own confidence because we're. We don't want to appear to others as cocky, and so if you could start doing one thing a day, I would just pick when you go to bed at night, pick one win. My one win that I'm really proud of myself today is I did this right now. When is a win is a win? We start all of our calls with wins. It doesn't even have to be softball related, um, so I would just say, as an athlete, celebrate the wins.

Speaker 1:

As a parent this one, there's no strings attached. Tell them, don't assume. Tell them you're proud of them. And this actually comes from my dad, who has since passed. But his advice to me always was did you tell him you were proud of them? When I was coaching, he always wanted to find out. You know, did you tell him you were proud of him? He didn't care about the wins and the losses. He said dear girls know that you're proud of them. So that's kind of twofold for coaches as well. And if I could go back and I made a lot of mistakes as a young coach, praise in public, criticize in private that would have transformed everything for me.

Speaker 2:

I love it. What a great place to end AB. This was awesome. How can my listeners follow you and kind of be on the fearless fast pitch journey?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, come on over, fearless fan. We are on Instagram at fearless fast pitch. If you want to find us on Facebook, we have a Facebook group for parents as well, and our Facebook page, my Twitter X, is coach AB underscore, but you can find us at any of those three places and we'd love to have a conversation there. We always respond to our DMs. If I don't respond to the DMs, my team will respond to the DMs. We love kind of coaching and educating as many people as possible.

Speaker 2:

So maybe this is long overdue and it was a lot of fun. Thanks for taking time today.

Speaker 1:

So awesome. Thank you, DJ.

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Amanda Schaefer

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