The Fearless Warrior Podcast

078: How to Level Up Your Team with Mental Performance

• Amanda Schaefer

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For this week's episode, Coach Kara and I provide an overview of our first in-person mental skills camp! Mental skills training is transforming softball, giving players the tools they need to handle the mental challenges of the game without their gloves or bats. During the camp, we had stations that covered how to catch negative thoughts, develop breathing techniques, create routines, and recover from failure.

Episode Highlights:

• Why mental skills training is crucial in softball
• Mental skills can be taught during practice without sacrificing physical development
• Mental skills in a team setting help players feel less alone in their struggles
• The importance of mental reps is just as important as the physical ones

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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. All right, welcome to the podcast studio. Super swanky. Yeah, this is a first Sitting together same room.

Speaker 1:

Tara is in Nebraska.

Speaker 2:

We can reach out and touch you.

Speaker 1:

We can high five. Yeah, the cool thing about what we're doing is we didn't even have this planned. But the reason that we sat down to record this podcast is because we just got done with our first ever official. We've done these before, but not as like a staff and as a team. We just wrapped up our first mental skills camp. It was awesome. I loved it. It was so fun. I also made the mistake of giving I. Every Saturday, I give lessons, and so we. I had already given three hours of pitching lessons, so we got home.

Speaker 2:

You were a little drained, yeah, but but it was good. The energy was amazing. It was. It was so fun. The girls like loved it. They were all in, they were super psyched and did really well.

Speaker 1:

It's really great yeah, minimal gear with the tagline if you've never heard of this before, we're gonna hope to do more of these, and we thought we'd kind of recap it. It's the only softball camp where you leave your glove at home. There's no gear. No one brought a glove.

Speaker 2:

There's not a single glove.

Speaker 1:

Minus the photo shoot. We did a photo shoot Right.

Speaker 2:

But I mean as far as the camp attendees, they walked in with a notebook and a pen. Those were their tools today that they were using, no bat, no cleats, nothing else like that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so let's the topic that we thought would be really cool. Kara is the director of team performance and we got to have some really cool conversations with coaches today and, even better, the coaches got to attend this while their players were attending the camp. So while the camp was for the players, the coaches were walking around observing, and then we actually did a half hour recap with the coaches and asked them what did you notice, what did you realize, what were you seeing? And so to hear their feedback and their buy-in, what were some of the things that you, what did we? I mean, they gave us like real feedback.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I thought it was. I thought it was really great for them to see, because I think most coaches know in their brain that this would be a nice thing for their girls to have. They have this idea of mental skills are helpful for athletes and I would love it if my athletes had mental skills to help them. But then that's a lot of times, all the time they have to think about that. They're more worried about scheduling and traveling and practices and things like that, and it's just one more thing for a coach. And so I think was most valuable for coaches today was to be there, to be looking over their girls' shoulders. To number one, be able to see the girls like this. They wanted it, they um.

Speaker 2:

I got to lead the failure recovery station today and having them walk up and I was like, guys, you all have made mistakes. We're going to learn how to recover from them quickly. And I was like, do you want that? And they all wanted it. And so for a coach to be able to look over the shoulders and watch somebody teach their girls a skill that they all absolutely need, and to see how receptive they were to that, how excited they were by that, and then how seriously they took it. This is not. I think that's a big fear of coaches is am I wasting practice time by talking to them about oh, mindset and all this woo woo stuff, because you have to put?

Speaker 1:

the glove down right, that's. They don't. They're like, oh they're scared to have, especially in the Midwest. We only have a two hour time slot. If you rent this facility, you have to squeeze every physical ounce out of this practice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, they're scared for sure to put the glove down, but to just see how receptive and we only had what we do six minute stations. We had six minute stations with these girls. So six minutes obviously is not long enough to completely internalize things like failure, recovery or breathing or all those other things that we taught, but it was enough time to give them a taste and a look into what you could learn if you continued working on this type of thing. And so I think for coaches to see that that it doesn't have to eat up hours and hours of time, that you can get a lot of bang for your buck, that just a little bit of focus on things like this can have a big outcome and can really equip your girls with some really good skills that will help them.

Speaker 1:

Well, like Shelly Station we did for context, just to give you an inside look we did. My station was about how to catch your negative thoughts. So it the analogy that I told the girls was you know you have players that will come to you that if they want help with their swing, they might come to you as a coach and say, coach, can you look at my swing? Am I doing it right? Am I doing something wrong? The analogy that I told the girls was if you want to fix something in your swing, I have, as a coach, I have to look at your swing first before I can make a recommendation. And while it might feel awkward to admit your negative thoughts, I can't possibly help you until I know what those negative thoughts are and their themes.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, you know, girls will have negative thoughts that are question based. Some of them might be catastrophizing, some of them might be just a straight up mean girl, and so my station was really cool in that we just sat and talked and a couple of girls said that was their favorite, and then we sent them to Shelly's station, which was breathing, which, if you wanted to incorporate that into practice, we only taught one of the three breathing techniques that we teach and you know, have them practice. That and Shelly could give them feedback on are you actually using your diaphragm versus you know you tell a kid to take a deep breath?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what does that look?

Speaker 1:

like I. Even I'm a mental performance coach. You saw I don't know if you saw me at pitching lessons this morning one of my girls needed to take a deep breath and she refuses to exhale. It's like if I see you exhale, correctly, your mouth is open. You're not attractive.

Speaker 2:

You got to drop the cool card.

Speaker 1:

You got to exhale, so that was really cool and Carly did that routine the plate routine. Yep, which again that one's hard to go deep on and really explain, like the purpose of routines, the power of routines give you comfort. Um, and that's still good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then my station was the failure recovery and we we had them come up once again super quick and didn't have much time to practice it but come up with a failure recovery routine. So, just like you have a routine every time we go up to the plate, if you have a routine every time you make a mistake or mess up of something that allows you to take that mistake, acknowledge it, release it and move on then when you make the mistake not if, like when you make that mistake happens then you're able to move on from it quickly and not allow it to steamroll or to snowball into a bunch more mistakes, which is, you know, it's a common thing to have happen, it's not unusual.

Speaker 1:

Right. Well, and especially in softball and I'm glad I remembered to say this, the idea of softball as you get older and older you see the ball less and less. So if we have, you know, eight positions, the catcher probably doesn't see a whole lot of actual fielding. But let's say I play even a shortstop. You may get the ball six, seven, eight times in a game, but if you're playing seven innings you could get a ball and then you have to sit with that mistake. If you make a mistake you have to sit with that ball. You might not get another chance until the next inning.

Speaker 1:

Or if it's a pitcher's duel, let's say your pitcher throws like a two hitter or a one hitter, yeah, if you're the one person that gets that ball hit to you and you make a mistake, you have to fester in that mistake for an hour plus. So it's like, especially in in softball. I think what the girls don't realize is like especially multi-sport athletes I was not, you know you can speak to this more of like basketball, volleyball, tennis if you miss a shot or you make a mistake, you don't have time to wallow yeah, basketball, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Volleyball, a little bit, is in in the middle. I would put basketball on one extreme, softball on the other and volleyball is in the middle. Because you do, you don't necessarily see the ball every point, unless you're the setter, sure, but yeah, yeah, it definitely you. You it's a different and but at the same time, like every athlete needs a failure recovery in the context of their sport, and so for, for softball, we can approach it a little bit differently because you do have that minute, that, that moment that you can really, like I can breathe out, I can kick some dirt and I can say I got this. In basketball. You might not have that until, like, your timeout, but you definitely.

Speaker 2:

I coached high school basketball. You get girls that make mistakes, that they feel silly, and then you know, next time out they come over and you can see it's still bugging them. They got to be able to, in that timeout maybe shrug it off, or the next time the ball goes dead you can't jump back to. You know, oh man, I looked so silly when I fell, when I was trying to get that rebound or whatever, like whatever happened. So you do each athlete, each sport, you have to learn it in the context of your sport. But it's I, I. I dare you to name a sport where failure recovery isn't important.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Like it's just going to be a little different in the context of your own sport.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, today was really fun, really eyeopening and I think for me I have taught for the past six years virtually this is you know, we've we've done a few camps here and there and I've worked with teams, but this was the first time that we did a true, you know, planned out station oriented mental skills camp and we knew that it was going to work. It's not that we didn't think that it was going to work, but the amount of girls that signed up. I think we ended up we had more registered, but we had 49 girls rotate through and come today. So that was really cool, and not just from our area, it was, you know, lots of surrounding towns and this is definitely something that, if you've never experienced mental skills before, which great intro.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and if you're listening to this podcast and this conversation, of course you're like well, yeah, I've heard of mental skills. I think every, but I think every team. I mean, one of the things that we talked about too is like, if you don't know what mental skills are, or we don't talk about our negative thoughts, or you know not to throw out the gen xers and you know even millennials, we were raised by generations where it was expected for you to squash your emotions.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we didn't talk about our negative thoughts. We would never, ever admit them to a coach, maybe a teammate, but like we were just expected to pull ourselves up in the bootstraps, there you go, mentally tough. We talked about that and get over it. Yeah, get over it, figure it out. And so the message that we tell the girls at the beginning is everybody deals with negative thoughts, everybody has emotions, and it's not that we want to squash them and it's not that we emotions are good Emotions are feedback from our body and our mind, and they're meant to help us interact with our environment.

Speaker 2:

There's nothing wrong with them.

Speaker 1:

One of the coaches asked that question and she had a conversation with her pitcher. She mentioned that today. She said we, when we gave the coaches the advice of get curious, do you remember? I don't know if I want to say names, but you know who you are. She said she was asking her daughter about her body language and her emotions and the mom got really, really curious, curious.

Speaker 2:

Do you remember what she said? Yeah, she said. She said when I saw my daughter would just have this terrible body language and she would make a mistake. And when she asked her about it afterwards, then her daughters are, and she kind of was coming at it from the angle of like we don't really want that kind of body language. Like I hear that from coaches all the time, like they want to get rid of the body language on their team Cause it has a spreading effect, like it kind of is contagious once one person starts doing it.

Speaker 2:

Um, so when she asked her daughter after the game was over like what was that with the body language? Like what's going on there? Um, and like we don't really want that she was like yeah, but like if I don't do anything, my coach is going to think I don't care that I made a mistake. My coach is going to think that, like I think mistakes are okay and I'm just going to make another one, or you know, I don't really care enough to show that I'm upset. So it was, and that was really eyeopening for the mom and coach who was like, oh, I never I had imagined all sorts of scenarios of why she was doing this body language. You know she's grumpy or she's a teenager or she's, you know, just upset with herself. But she actually was projecting onto her coaches of what she thought her coaches wanted from her. And then you're going to come at it from a whole different angle. If you know why things are occurring that way, then you can address it from the fact of, like, I know you care, I can tell you care and we can show we care in other ways other than you know the terrible body language after you make a mistake, so that she said that was really helpful for her to like ask more questions and not assume she understood what was going on. And then you're not telling them, just knock it off with the body language. Right, you're coming at it from.

Speaker 2:

I see, I can see from your body language that you're frustrated. I can see from your body language that you're sad or disappointed or discouraged. And I mean we talk about the emotions wheel all the time and we can model that as coaches when we come at it and not just say what's wrong with you. But we can name the emotion that we think we're seeing as well, just like we asked them to name their own emotions and we can say I can see you're disappointed, which is different than being frustrated, which is different than being angry, which is different than being sad.

Speaker 2:

So try and name that emotion and come at it with this Can you help me understand what's frustrating, like why are you frustrated? And then they'll tell you well, everybody else can do it and I can't. And then it's a whole different conversation, and not of stop. The body language right, it's your body language is telling me that you need something for me, help me, help you, and then you'll notice that that takes care of the body language. And then, all of a sudden, they're going to feel like they can come to you, they'll feel like they're being supported and they'll know that you know that they do care, even when they don't slouch or even when they don't throw a helmet or whatever that you want to get rid of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that so much. I them yeah, I love that so much. I did make that mistake as a coach of like you have those kids that they look like they're on the verge of crying and it's like if I talk to that kid about, oh, she's really gonna cry or oh, I don't want to make her cry more, and it's like they just need to be validated. You know like I think about you. Know if a coach would have come up to me when we were playing and said like, hey, this is really hard. Like we play a hard sport, I got your back.

Speaker 2:

Like it unifies you with your coach on the same team, yeah, puts you on the same team as your players, and I think too often as coaches, we feel like we're fighting against our players as opposed to being on the same team with them and coming together and saying together let's, let's go forward right yeah together, everyone achieves more. Isn't that the team? The team acronym. But it's a cheesy acronym. Because it's true, it's not. Because it's not true.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah well, um, one of the other things that we kind of had slated. Uh, we're cheating if you can see us on video because we've been posting more to youtube, I suppose we. I love this because it's more conversational. If you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening to this on the podcast, shout out to Kara. Kara's been putting these on YouTube. So if you're an avid listener of the podcast and you want some video format, we're going to try to put more of these on YouTube.

Speaker 2:

I've been trying to keep up with the most recent podcast episodes and going back and starting with our most popular episodes, uploading them. So I most recent podcast episodes and going back and I'm starting with our most popular episodes, uploading them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so there's. I think there's eight or nine podcast episodes videos up on YouTube now under.

Speaker 2:

There you go we just did like a little mini commercial. Yeah, it was fast. Pitch on YouTube. We'll go. We'll put that in the show. Go ahead, like and subscribe.

Speaker 1:

Comment below smash the smash the follow button yeah so one of the other things that we wanted to talk about is I hear this all the time, especially from parents is I don't know what to say instead, but we say some of these buzzwords. So we were as parents. We get really frustrated. We say focus, breathe, just relax.

Speaker 2:

Let it go. Let it go.

Speaker 1:

Well, if you've never taught them how, as a coach or a parent, if you've never taught them how to breathe, how to regulate their emotion, what to do when their negative thoughts come up, they don't know what they don't know. I didn't know these until I started researching, and so your job is to again get curious as a coach, and now we have access to our programs and the internet and there's just so much education out there of if you can start to get curious about what are the most common things that you're telling your players, and have you actually taken the time to teach them?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and starting at the ground, I love your analogy that you've used plenty of times before, like if you're trying to teach someone to hit, you don't throw them in the cage at 60 miles an hour, like you don't just like push them off the deep end and say, hey, go hit. Like keep trying until you do it. Like you start them off. You know, outside the cage you start them off with form, you practice and you get them in at lower speeds. You might soft toss or whatever, and you have a progression that you work up through. And mental skills are exactly the same way. You can't just yell at someone to focus. That's equivalent of putting them in a cage at 60 miles an hour or like a specific skill.

Speaker 1:

So the one. I see all the time is, and we did this in the myth series, but visualize success yeah a that's really vague. And b they just struck out yeah, so they're focused on the negative. That's like flipping them. You know you're going 60 miles an hour on the interstate and you're like throw it in reverse yeah, yeah, it's really hard to do.

Speaker 2:

You're gonna wreck their car.

Speaker 1:

So it's like and we use this in the coaches workshop of like I love using visualization for the analogy that you brought up because it's like, well, if and we didn't do it at the camp today, because I feel like that's a, that's one that if we did run the camp in the future, we would have the whole group practice visualization altogether like a meditation setting where you start with something simple.

Speaker 1:

So it's like could you visualize, look down at your shoes, close your eyes and then recreate your shoes in your mind's eye. Or hey, can you think of your favorite ice cream flavor? What would that look like?

Speaker 2:

What color is it?

Speaker 1:

What does that have in it? And you know, visualizing success, it's vague. If they've never had that, or like hitting your first home run, if they've never visualized that before, they don't know what to visualize. But if again you have kind of more of these structures of like you know what we teach, then it's like, oh, I can do this, now I can start to visualize my mechanics or visualize as a mental skill.

Speaker 2:

You know what, what my body needs to be doing, yeah, and and just like any other skill, we should expect that it feels hard and weird at first. Yeah, at first it's going to feel hard and it's not going to be easy. It's not like if I just teach you this visualization, if I just teach you this breathing technique now, you will forever never have any problems. Like it's going to take practice and that's one of the reasons why we talk about in our programs, about like you've got to keep using it, you got to practice it. It's not just like because we all have those things that intellectually we know one thing but then we actually do another, and I think mental skills are no different than that. Like intellectually, we know we should breathe. Intellectually, we know that softball, in the grand scheme of things, does not matter, but it feels like it does in the moment. So we have to practice being able to work our way through those feelings. Be able to work our way through getting from this, you know, highly aroused state where we know just like feel like we're going to scream if we make another mistake and getting ourselves back into our body, back into our mind, where we feel like I know what I'm doing, I'm confident I can do it when I practice, and but it's. It takes work, just like it takes work to learn how to hit a fastball, or it takes work to learn how to, you know, do a backhand or or whatever other skill you're trying to learn. It's, it's um and it's.

Speaker 2:

It's easy for coaches to think about physical reps and how we need physical reps every day or every practice. We need to be taking those physical reps and to wrap your mind. It's a little harder to wrap your mind around the idea of, like, we also should be taking mental reps every day and you can put those together in your practices. It doesn't have to be okay, now we're just doing physical, now we're just doing mental. But how great would it be if you offered that to your players as well, that not only will I teach you these mental skills, but now we just learned about failure recovery. Now we're going to go take grounders and if you kick a ball, all right, now you're going to.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to watch you, I'm going to say what's your routine watch them, do it, watch them practice it. They feel silly at first. They laugh at each other because they're I mean in a practice. I mean in a practice. You don't feel as mad about keeping your grounder, as you do in a game. But then everybody becomes that normal on your team that you're like this is what we do, this is how we deal with failure. And then in a game when the same thing happens, when your teammates then see you make a mistake and they watch you go through that failure recovery that you've practiced before and they know what your routine is, they know she's good, she's got it Right, and they now know everybody else knows that I know I made a mistake right. If we go back to that girl who's like I'm worried that my coach will think I don't care. But as soon as that coach sees she's doing her failure recovery, you know she messed up. Like no one has to tell me when I kick a ball.

Speaker 2:

I know that happens like um, and then she can it.

Speaker 1:

Just it that that shared language and that shared experience is so valuable for a team to have to help that communication, to help that cohesiveness and then to help everybody move on together as a team yeah, well, so earlier after we had gotten home from the camp, we were hanging out in the kitchen smashing candy bars and, just like recapping, you were talking about goals and some of the goals that you had done your coach was kind of ahead of. Yeah, he was.

Speaker 2:

And he was even sorry. Coach Kerwin, he was a little old and he'd been doing it when I was at. You know, I had my high school volleyball coach is a legend, but he was an incredible coach and had an amazing record, had this legacy of teams that had come through and just done really, really great things up in the state of Washington. And, yeah, he was very much. He was very big on visualization and he would, before games, he would have us, you know, lay on the floor in the hallway, which felt so weird, and I don't know any other team that was doing that. He'd have us close our eyes and he didn't do any sort of guided meditation, but his thing was like I want you to close your eyes and I want to see yourself being successful. Now, he wasn't saying visualize success, but he would kind of talk us through.

Speaker 2:

So you, everybody has had a serve that felt good. Everybody's had a dig that felt good or everybody's had a pass that felt good. Go back to those times, kind of the highlight real idea, yeah, so, like you know what it feels like in your body when you serve receive, well, you know what it feels like in your body when you get a good swing and hit the ball really well, um, and so he would just like start us off and and he would time us. I don't, I don't remember how long it was. Sometimes it felt like forever, sometimes it felt really short, just depending on how into it you thought. But yeah, we did that all the time. It was so, so powerful to as as a younger athlete, and then we also would do the goal setting every single year. The first practice, after cuts, after tryouts, was a classroom session. We didn't touch a ball, we just went into the classroom and we did goal setting and we set goals both as a team and as individuals.

Speaker 2:

And he was very into the idea of process, like, and I had never learned about. I learned about setting goals. I had been told that goals are important, but he really broke it down of, like how you set goals and then how you achieve the goals that you set. So we set the big goal and then he made us break it down. And these are the three things I'm going to do If I want to have 15 aces this season. That means that I'm going to take 25 reps of practice of my serve. I'm going to try and perfect my top spin on my jump serve or I'm going to. So you would really break it down of, like what you're going to work on to then achieve that goal, that you have that big goal and that was so, so helpful to get that framework.

Speaker 2:

And, like I said, you're within three years in a row and every single year he taught, he stood up and he I mean by that time he'd been coaching for forever, so I'm sure it was very similar spiel that he gave every single year. But every single year I would come back and you're a different athlete, you're a different person in a different spot. And now I'm taking these and I've gotten a little better. I have gotten a little bit more clear on what I want to work on, what I how I want to be better, and maybe I achieved my goal from last year and now I'm ready to take the next step. And so it's so helpful to, year after year, to come back and to relearn those skills. They never get old. It's never a bad time to practice those things.

Speaker 1:

But the comment that you made was like I'm a different person, right, and you're a different team. So, whether you're a high school coach or a travel coach, it's a no fault of anyone's own. Like, especially in high school, like just by natural progression of like, kids quitting and kids graduating or new kids coming in as freshmen, even on travel teams, you have, you know, two to three kids that you know will decide it's not for them or move to different teams. Like you may have your core nucleus, but you have a new set of girls, a new set of personalities, a new set of of what's possible. And why wouldn't you want to set new team goals?

Speaker 1:

every year Like what's possible and even if they look similar.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think every year we had some component of what we wanted to do at state. But, like different years, we knew, based on what we'd done last year, what was possible for this year. And so now we could like, like I remember my, my, I think it was my junior year they had been to state the year before I was on varsity as a sophomore, so the year before they had been to state, but they just lost their first two games and they had been out of just from pool play. They didn't progress past pool play. So then I remember my junior year.

Speaker 2:

The big goal was we know we can make it to state to say, the similar core group of girls. We know we can get there. So now this year our goal is to make it to the second day, which means you've got out of pool play and now you're in the actual tournament and junior year. That's what happened. We made it to out of pool play, we got to the second day of state, um, and ended up, I think, place placing ninth or eighth in state like overall. So it just every year to be able to like, build on the confidence, build on the momentum of the year before and to really then okay, are we ready for that next level, are we ready for the next step, and what's it going to take to get from making it to state like we did last year and what are we going to do differently or better or more precisely to be able to get us to that next level? And that's such a valuable conversation to have and, like one of the main feedbacks we get from individuals in our program, when we ask them at the end of the program like what was most helpful to them and, without fail, almost every girl that goes to the program said the biggest thing that helped them was realizing that other people are struggling with the same things, that they are realizing that other people are struggling with the same things, that they are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and and when you teach these things as a team, you are overtly telling your girls there is nothing wrong with you. Yeah, there's nothing wrong, you're not broken because you're getting mad when you strike out Like there's nothing wrong with that and and that you, there's nothing wrong with somebody who doesn't know how to calm themselves down when they get into that super, super high state of of like anxiety and things like that and there's nothing wrong with not naturally knowing how to calm yourself down we're going to teach you that. We're going to teach you that skill. We're going to give you those tools that you can use to help yourself come back to and be your best self. And so if, as a team, we normalize that idea of of it's okay to feel bad sometimes, it's okay when you mess up, and this is how we're going to deal with it as a team each and every year, if that's your culture, not even every year, but every day it's integrated into practice integrated into game day.

Speaker 2:

It's not waiting until game day or it's not waiting, or waiting until there's a problem waiting until, all of a sudden, all the girls are fighting and they're like, okay, now we need a classroom session. I've been on teams like that before, where it wasn't, until there was a problem, that we put down the balls and got into a classroom and then we had to have the team powwow and there's tears and it's like this big emotional thing. What if we can be preventative? What if we can start those classroom sessions and open up those channels of communication well before there's an issue? What if you were a coach that as soon as a girl entered your program, they start learning these skills and they realize that this is the culture on this team. On this team, we know how to deal with emotion. On this team, we know how to recover from failure and it just becomes woven into to the culture of your team.

Speaker 2:

Talk about leveling up, like that is the next level for any team. And, as you, if you look at the levels of any sport being played right now, I think, as you watch, if you were to watch a practice or participate in an organization, as you go up each level, that one of the biggest things that would blow people's mind is how much more time they spend in the classroom, oh yeah, whether that's film study or that's having the mental performance coaches, or that's having just meetings with the coaches, meetings with other players in their same positions, um, that that was my experience, that that I had. I had watched a little bit of film and then all of a sudden, uh, when I started training in the national team pool, like we spent whole days of training just watching film, talking about mental performance, talking about goal setting.

Speaker 1:

So go back to goal setting, because one of the things that we had talked about earlier today was this idea of we don't just set our goals and then they get slid into a manila.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we never find them again.

Speaker 1:

It's like, it's integrated, it's talked about, it's not just. You know, like one of the coaches said, I think we did a coach's workshop and it was like, well, if I go to all this work, set all these goals, and then again they just they forget they let the girls forget. It's like well, do the girls forget? Or did you, as the coach, not integrate? Yeah?

Speaker 2:

because if you know that, let's say, I know my pitcher wants to work on her rise ball then now when I'm working with that pitcher, if I see that she's not working on her rise ball as much, she's like, hey, let's get back to that rise. I know you want to get that better. Or if someone wants to learn how to hit a different pitch or someone wants to, you know, take more reps doing backhands or whatever, you as a coach can then facilitate that and then be overt, like intentional I'm all about like intentionality of saying you wanted to get better at this. I'm on your team, let's get you better at this, so. So if they're doing just fine with whatever skill you're doing, how about you take this one backhand instead of everybody else is just taking it normal? Like why don't you take these grounders all backhand? Like, why don't you take these grounders all backhand? You know I mean how you can support, then, each individual player, but you have to know each individual's goals and understand what it is that they're working on and break that down.

Speaker 2:

And I just don't think we can emphasize enough how I think a lot of coaches think they just need more reps. They just need more reps. And while that can be true like I think a lot of times what's happening is between their ears, like and while that can be true like I think a lot of times what's happening is between their ears Like, it's just they just really need the reps, mixed with all of the other things that help them perform those reps well.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And then it can just like mellow out the highs and lows, like you can just kind of like take the tops off of the waves and kind of be more even keeled and just take things as they come and not be so all over the place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was a, that was a question that we got today from one of the coaches too is like, if we're facing competition, that in the girls played down, like if you play a team that's below our level and I thought it was almost more reversed of like you get more psyched out if you're playing a really tough pitcher, really tough opponent. And I think the question of like we know that we can beat this team, but why did we lose to this team? There's no way, physically, you meet with a team and you're like, physically, we know that we beat them on every level. We're better hitters, we have better pitchers. Why would you ever?

Speaker 2:

on the stat sheet on the stat sheet.

Speaker 1:

If it truly was all physical, then you should never lose to those teams. Yet it happens all the time. There would never be such a thing as underdogs.

Speaker 2:

My coach would always tell us, going into those tough games, she's like that's why we play the game. This is why we play the games, because we don't just practice against each other. There's a reason to like actually come compete, like let's see, let's put it out on the field, see who can, who can hang, yeah, yeah, otherwise we'd just all be practicing against each other that would not be fun.

Speaker 1:

No, not at all. That's like playing a. My joke is like if you're gonna make me play a board game, don't make me play a board game that I could play against myself.

Speaker 2:

So like sorry it's just like the luck of the draw of cards okay like the game.

Speaker 1:

Sorry is like a robot. I could play sorry against a robot. Yeah, there's hardly any strategy, maybe a teensy bit yeah like, give me a fellow or a Blockus or a okay strategy of it, the mental like sounds like we need to go play some board games.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, get in your opponent's mind. I'm trying to think of anything else to add to this podcast, but the main conversation, as you're hanging out with us, is just how do we bring more coaches into this? And you I loved how you kind of ended today's coaches session is like, whether you invest in our individual program, whether you come into our coaches curriculum, we have all of these tools, but you're never going to be able to get buy-in from your parents unless you just start somewhere. And so it's like we're not even. We don't want everybody to feel like you have to have our curriculum to be successful. It's like, yeah, we built this because we knew that there was a huge need but we're here to educate.

Speaker 1:

I think we take for granted, because we're so close to it, we just assume that everyone knows what mental skills are. And so if you're a, you're a parent, and you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, I would love my team to have access to this, reach out to Kara, your coach, and you're listening to this and you're like, man, I want to learn more about this. What could this just dream with us Like? What could it look like if your girls knew the mental?

Speaker 2:

skills and how could that serve your team? You don't have to teach it. No, and that's that's the. That's the beauty of this new team curriculum and I think once again, you're too close that you gloss over. I'm actually surprised at how many people still don't really know about this curriculum that you've released.

Speaker 2:

This team curriculum is amazing. Amanda did it all, so I can like brag on her because it's not mine, but like I get to be in charge of it now. It all, so I can like brag on her because it's not mine, but like I get to be in charge of it now, and I'm super pumped about it that it is exactly what coaches have been begging for. It is Amanda teaching their team the skills, so you don't have to teach it to your team. It doesn't have to seem super pointed Like now we need the classroom session because you guys are terrible with your body language, but it's Amanda, an outside voice coming in, uh, an expert in the field, helping teach these skills. She's super engaging.

Speaker 2:

You guys all have seen her teaching. Her teaching style is super engaging. It helps walk them through these different mental skills. It is combined with these worksheets that will help facilitate discussion, will help facilitate them taking what she's teaching and actually come up with their own individualized plan. So she's going to talk about failure recovery, but then they're going to spend time thinking about okay for me, when I'm in the field and I make a mistake, what am I actually going to do? What works for me? And really taking those individualized skills and making them work for themselves. And so it combines this idea of not only learning the skill but taking them out of the classroom and putting them onto the field. And it is so well done. It is such I could see it being such a huge help. Like we said, year over year, every single year, there's 10 modules in the program, which is tons of information more than you can ever actually implement in any one season.

Speaker 1:

But we do give them the implementation. Every lesson, every classroom session is paired with a plug and play. Ask this question at practice. Do a drill that forces them to you know, fail or do a drill, blah blah blah where, like, you can literally take that day's lesson of like. Here are three ways that you can integrate it into practice. Yes, it's meant to leave the classroom.

Speaker 2:

It needs to get out of the classroom. It has to to leave the classroom. It needs to get out of the classroom, it has to get out of their notebooks, it has to get out of the classroom and it has to get on the field. And it literally is taking that off your plate. And if you're a coach, it really feels like I want my girls to learn this, but I don't have the bandwidth to be able to teach it myself. This is such a great resource resource for them to be able to just turn on the video, to be able to just pass out the worksheets and then to help, just sit back and then you're in the same room with them. You hear their discussions, you hear what they talk about, and then you, as a coach, are clued in. You can understand what they're going through, you can understand what they need help with, and then you are empowered as a coach to then, like, move forward and take those out onto the field with you. You'll have a shared language that you can use to talk to each other about things like emotions and things like team identity. There's a whole lesson about like who are we as a team, what are our values and how do we show those values. And so, year over year, you can take these same 10 modules and, just like Aby said, each team even if it's mostly the same girls is going to be different every single year. And so, as you continue to roll through these modules with each new team each year, you're going to be able to really quickly, I think, especially once you get your you know your leaders really bought in and uncomfortable with the material they're going to be able to turn around and help newcomers. They're going to be able to like, really like, put their arms around the new newbies on their team and really come together so much quicker because they have a shared language, they have shared values, they understand their place on the team and that is just such a valuable thing for a team to really come together. Because the difference between a good team and a great team is not reps, it's not right it's the, the. That next level up If you want to take a good team is there's an.

Speaker 2:

Every team that you ever talked to that has achieved something great. Like you talk to Oklahoma teams or you talk to, you know, all these other teams that have done great things, made it, even if they just made it way farther in a tournament than they thought they that, anybody thought they would. Or basketball, march madness is a great example. You talk to any of those teams that go on this great March madness run and you ask them like what, why, why you guys? Why are you guys made this far?

Speaker 2:

Without a doubt, they will say there's just something about this team, there's just something different, and these are people that have been playing their sport for forever and they've taken all the reps, but they're just something different, and this could be that something different for every single team. I think that uses it just like bringing everyone together, teaching the skills they need and then allowing them to be their best selves. That's the whole idea. We're gonna get everything out of the way so that those physical reps can show up on dnd yeah, instead of the mental reps getting in the way or the lack of mental reps getting in the way yeah. So I, I love, I love this, and this is a fairly new position for me. I've been doing a lot of other behind the scenes tasks and I love, love this opportunity.

Speaker 1:

We're recording this on March 1st, so we started this project in. Well, I started recording it last fall, but you've really stepped into this role in December, so you know.

Speaker 2:

Been a couple months, yeah, and I so far. What I've really loved the most about doing this is getting to meet and work with coaches. So every time I get to jump on a zoom call and talk to a coach about their individual team and like, hey, how can we help you? Do you need podcast episodes? Do you want some of our other free resources? Would it be helpful if I got on a zoom call with you? Know some assistant coaches? Or do you need help fundraising? Like what? What can I help you to be able to help turn around and give these skills to your players? I love that.

Speaker 2:

So, like Amanda already said, if you are not interested or if you don't have the budget right now, or whatever, it's not about that for us.

Speaker 2:

It's not about that we want to provide this program to the teams that want it and that that are ready to make that investment now. Absolutely Like we're not going to stop you from buying it, but, at the same time, like if you're not quite ready to make that leap and you just need someone in your corner, someone to help you out, someone to chat with you, I can. I love brainstorming about how can we help individual people. That, to me is what really lights me up, that really like excites me to be able to meet with coaches, and so I love to do that. So if you're a coach listening to this and you want to meet with me and chat, I love, love, love that. So please, don't hesitate to reach out. Don't feel like if you reach out, it means that you're making any sort of commitment. It's all about just connecting and really helping to get these skills into the hands of more players Like that's. That's our aim for real.

Speaker 1:

Do you want to make your assessment available?

Speaker 2:

name for real. Do you want to make your assessment available? I mean, I'm open to it, so is that what you want to do?

Speaker 1:

Well, so we, we created an assessment. Okay Now, now it's my turn. Kara has been working really hard. We wanted to come up with a way to help coaches assess. The biggest question is like, okay, you know, I we're not using the term mentally tough, but like what is the mental strength, like what's our baseline, and we wanted to come up with a way to evaluate. Now, in the past, if I was evaluating a team, I don't have the bandwidth to fly across the country, but I do work with a lot of Nebraska high schools and I will travel and I'm doing evaluations based on just, you know, there's no actual like evaluation rubric. What you did is you took what we had worked on in the curriculum and put it into a team assessment that you know we will do with coaches, and it really helped them understand like what are the areas? One of the cool things that we did with coaches today is we actually had them take the assessment live.

Speaker 1:

We had five teams submit and we were looking at their results and we can immediately start to tell what areas would be most beneficial to like immediately start giving them, you know, resources or feedback on.

Speaker 1:

So, if you're up for it, I don't know how many, if you listen to this whole podcast you're probably well bought in, I I actually think it would be worth giving away some assessments of, like, you know, if you're a serious coach or, let's say, you're a parent, at half the time it's parents coming to me that will then go to battle and get the coach on board.

Speaker 2:

That's what we have right now. We have one there's a mom and on a team that she's the one that, like I don't want to say dragged but brought the head coach to come meet with me and and he said, great, let's do it, let's buy it. And she is actually in charge of once a week holding the session where they sit together and they go through the the different modules. So she as a mom on the team, she's kind of said hey, coach, don't worry about it, I got it. Girls can come meet at my house or come meet at the facility and I will lead these sessions, you don't? That's the great thing. Like it's helpful for the coach to be there, at least have a report coming back to them, but you're not doing the teaching, so you don't necessarily have to be the one to run the mental sports program If you got a parent that you feel like you can delegate this to, then that can also be a really, really great way to pass it off and not add one more thing to your plate.

Speaker 1:

Well, and Coach Jen would log in that day and take a quick look at it, and she was ready to go for practice that same day on whatever the lesson was, well, we can link it below. You've got the link for the assessment, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've got a.

Speaker 1:

QR code, so I guess we'll link that. This is so fun because we're here.

Speaker 2:

We decided like 20 minutes before we started that we were gonna do this in live, rearranged my office, yeah, for this.

Speaker 1:

So this was, this was so great. Well, uh, I'm sure by the time this podcast episode airs, there'll be lots of photos of the camp and we'll we'll throw out one more thing. We're just gonna throw this out there. We would love to start traveling. We can't travel to every city, but you know, we could do a west coast, we could do an east coast and then we could do like a, you know a couple in between yeah, something up up north.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, um, I've had a couple of fearless warrior parents that for literally three years in a row, they've begged me to come to texas so we could hit the. You know, yeah, hit the, hit the states. So if you just want to dm us and you want to start a conversation and see what this would look like to host some camps in your area, we're also open to that.

Speaker 2:

So be super fun. We want to come meet you.

Speaker 1:

Being in person is awesome yeah, super awesome, way different I person I do, I can bring that yeah, you can do it both you do it all. Well, that's a wrap.

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Amanda Schaefer

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