The Fearless Warrior Podcast

079: When Mental Skills Become Your Secret Weapon as a Coach with Lindsey Wilson

• Amanda Schaefer

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For this week's episode, I interviewed Lindsey Wilson, a former collegiate and professional basketball player turned mental performance coach! She gave us insight into her 20-year career and the impact mental skills training had on her athletics and beyond.

Episode Highlights:

• Practice concrete, actionable mental tools rather than vague concepts
• Community is crucial for both athletes and entrepreneurs facing setbacks
• The challenges in sports are essential elements of who athletes become
• Simple, consistent mental practice creates profound changes over time

Connect with Lindsey: 

Website: https://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/

Instagram: @lindsaypositiveperform 

Podcast: "The Mindset Coach Academy" 

Ready to learn the techniques that will actually increase your softball athlete's CONFIDENCE?


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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. Lindsay, welcome to the Fearless.

Speaker 2:

Warrior pod. Thanks for having me, Amanda. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

This conversation is years in the making. I am just so excited to share you with my audience and your expertise. You have been a mental performance coach and someone I have looked up to for a long long time. Can you give us a one-two punch? Where are you located? Where are you at? Who are you working with? What is your life like?

Speaker 2:

Well, thanks. It's always nice to hear that I have been doing this for a really long time. I will say I don't look that old, but I've been doing this for over 20 years, so, um, it is so nice to see like you youngins coming up, and obviously I'm. I love more women in this field too and I love the idea of moms being in it. So, like kudos to you for, like you know, forging ahead. Let's see, I am located in Seattle, washington. I have four daughters nine, six, five and two and you know I was a collegiate and professional basketball player and I really looked around from my career, from about like 15 years on and sort of had that like.

Speaker 2:

Well, first I felt like there was something wrong with me because I could not figure out how to be more consistent. I felt like I was mentally in my own way. I would play great sometimes and not others. I had these big goals to play division one basketball and it just like wasn't happening. I was worried about what my teammates thought I was passing when I should have been shooting, shooting when I should have been passing, and I was like what in the hell is wrong with me? And you know, the universe aligned. Really it was my mom. That really wasn't that much of a sports person, but she found a coach that was basically a mental performance coach I don't know that he called himself that, but and this was in 1996, you know, nobody was doing this kind of stuff and it literally made an immediate and life-changing impact on my life. I mean, the things that he taught me were very simple. I'm sure we can go into some of those later but immediately the trajectory of my life changed.

Speaker 2:

I went on to play collegiate basketball. I had a really successful career at Iowa State, by the way, tested it every step of the way, right. I mean, most mental skills had to keep developing, just as my physical skills did. Many times I was saddled with self-doubt. Many times I felt like I was going to go under, so to speak, and I kept doubling down on the mental game. I kept finding mentors. I started working with a hypnotist at some point, got really passionate about that and went on to get drafted in the WNBA. Got cut from the WNBA multiple times but kept showing up, kept going to training camps, kept getting invited, was a practice player and then had a successful overseas career for about eight seasons.

Speaker 2:

That whole time I was interested in mental performance coaching and then, when I graduated college, I was like, okay, I need to teach this. I don't know what I'm going to charge, I don't know what I'm going to teach, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even know if I can do this. But like is this? Are you this allowed? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

And I just did it a couple times with some ugly PowerPoint photocopies that I had put together in a little dinky Office Depot folder, and the immediate reaction I got from collegiate athletes was why have I not learned this before? Which was exactly my response when I learned it. Which was exactly my response when I learned it. And so I felt like, okay, I'm onto something, and I felt like the world needed more of this information. I felt really lucky that someone had sort of taught it to me and pulled me aside, and I knew what an impact it could have, not only on people's careers in their sports but on their life, and it just became my mission. I was just like I'm gonna teach this. I don't know how I'm going to do it, I don't know how to make money at it, but it's going to happen. And that was 20 years ago.

Speaker 1:

What a gift, a gift for you, but you applied it beyond. I think one of the things that I wrote down was you kept doubling down on mental skills and I think at those kind of fracture points where you had to make a decision I've made it to the pros, I am now cut. And then I made it and now I'm cut. What was that fracture point for you where you realized, no, I'm going to continue. And at this point you were probably neck and neck physically. Do you think those mental skills when you doubled down, like what did that look like at that point in your career?

Speaker 2:

I would say there's pretty much. Well, there's a couple, but one was um, I had it dialed in in high school, right, because I had learned it at about I think I just turned 16. So my last two years of high school I was talented enough with the mental stuff that I had a great rest of my high school career. And then you go to college. So that's probably the first big, big step and you've experienced this. You know, and really anybody that has played at the collegiate level, I don't really care what level of college. You go from being the best player on your team potentially to a lot of times the worst, or at least in the bottom half, you know, because there's so much coming at you, not just on the court but and everybody's good physically, and you have a whole new system to learn and you don't have your like, you're not the coach's pet anymore and you're away from home, maybe for the first time. And so I had two big injuries my freshman year. I got pneumonia, I had a stress fracture and my coach was basically like we need to redshirt her, like I was not ready and I just had to keep going back to my mental skills and it eventually it just clicked and luckily it clicked in time to not get redshirted and I went on to have a great freshman year. Like I helped us win the Big 12 championship. Like I came off the bench, we got to the Sweet 16. Like I helped with all that. As a freshman, going from almost redshirting to that was a huge jump and it was all mental. It was all mental. So that was the first test and that really set me on, you know, being the starting point guard having a great career at Iowa State.

Speaker 2:

I would say another point was my senior year. You know, after having a great career, you imagine in your mind that your senior year is going to be magical. You imagine that you are eventually going to win the national championship, or at least some championship, or you're going to like, ride off into the sunset and just have a great year. My senior year was the worst year that I had had as a team. I still think I scored a bunch of points because I had to, but our team was not that great. We were in the big 12 where at that point if you weren't great you were getting slammed every single night. I think we had the first losing record that my coach. I mean we set a lot of records that year, yeah, the wrong way, and I mean I was a mess and but that taught me a lot, you know, because your brain really wants to quit Right, not physically quit I would never would have done that but you really have to fight the urge to stop investing in winning. That's the bottom line, you know. And whether you're playing and you're losing or whether you're not getting off the bench, like to keep investing when things aren't going well, is a real big mental test. And so that was one.

Speaker 2:

And then playing professionally again, you know you have the added pressure of it being your paycheck. You have real no guarantees of staying on a team or getting picked up by a team or getting cut if you lose, getting replaced by another player. I mean it's really mental in that regard, excuse me. And then you know there was a couple of times I was a practice player in the WNBA, just getting like nailed on screens every practice and just showing up and giving my best every day. That's mental. I knew I was going to get cut. The assistant coach had told me and knowing that I still was going to be in training camp and at that point, mentally deciding that, as irritated as I was, that it wasn't about the results, it was actually about the kind of player that I wanted to be, the kind of person that I wanted to show up like. And so there was these definite points along the way.

Speaker 2:

And here's the thing, amanda, which you'll appreciate is like when I was in the middle of those moments, I couldn't see that those would end up making me, I mean, in many ways, a better human, but certainly a better mental performance coach. I mean, I remember struggling through the WNBA and thinking to myself if my mental game doesn't get me to the WNBA, who's ever going to listen to me as a mental performance coach? I mean, that was really my thought. You know that there was some level that I had to get to. Instead of the journey of trying to get to that level, I mean that's really what you are then able to teach. You're not able to teach results. Nobody can guarantee results. You can teach the mental process. Yeah, if you could, we'd be billionaires, right, yeah, exactly, bottle that up, oh, right, so it's the, it's who you get to become going through that, which is really hard to see when you're in the middle of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, which? This is I'm skipping I'm breaking all of our podcast rules the question we ask every podcast guest at the end. We're just going to ask now because it's it would be really powerful to hear your answer, and it's the past self question which we also use with our one-on-one clients as a mental skills technique to reflect. But if you could go back and take the Lindsay of today and place her at any point on your past timeline and you could go back and give one of those past Lindsays a message, if you could caress her cheeks and get her to pay attention and say, look, I have this message for you, what would you say?

Speaker 2:

I love that question. I think I would say something along the lines of this struggle is part of who you get to become. Like we don't get to the levels of success that we all dream of and we want. That path is not a fun one, like it's not. It's rewarding, it's fulfilling, but the breaks in it and the potholes and all of the downswings are part of it and they're not just a part of it to get over. They're the part of it. Like they're the things that create who you get to over. They're the part of it. Like they're the things that create who you get to become.

Speaker 2:

I mean I talk to my mindset coaching students and the entrepreneurs in my programs all the time of like we're not trying to get to some level. I mean we'd have goals, we have monetary goals, but it's about who you get to become. That's the most exciting part of all this Because, like you said, you said I mean we can't guarantee that you're going to get to the divisional level. You're not going to guarantee to play with a professional level. I mean I did a lot of that stuff, but what's really cool about it, about getting to those levels, is who I got to become on the journey, which sounds like a bumper sticker, but it's actually true yeah, everything that we thought was cheesy in the moment.

Speaker 1:

you you would hardly believe like, yeah, we're going to get through this, we're going to be on the other side. You get to help hundreds of thousands of other teams and athletes and other mental performance coaches.

Speaker 2:

I think that and what I would also. Yeah, oh, yeah. Well, to your point, the empathy piece. One of the things that I one of the exercises that I have my new entrepreneurs go through is you know, a lot of times we think our messes disqualify us and a lot of times those are the things that qualify us. Like me getting cut from the Demby MBA. At the time I thought it meant I couldn't do this work, work. And now I look back and I'm like that's the thing that makes me. Actually, one of the things that makes me really good at this is because of that empathy piece. I know what it's like to get cut. I know the mental component to thinking you're going to get cut and then knowing you're going to get cut and all the anger and victim and the blaming and all the thoughts that come up. I've been through that. I know exactly how it feels. So the empathy piece is big. I mean, you don't none of us really want leaders or coaches or anybody that haven't been through stuff. That's pretty boring.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that's the myth of mental performance is that you know, when I first started this journey, it was the attack of and I actually had, like Lindsay, this is still like scarring for me. But when I was a head high school coach and I started implementing this stuff with my players, you almost got these side looks from parents of like why aren't they on the field practicing? What are they doing over in the grassy area with their notebooks? Shouldn't they be practicing? It's almost like this, like what you're just teaching them fluff, it's just. It's just just, it's just fluffy.

Speaker 1:

And it's like right, when you start to understand that we've been through what your daughter's been through and it's not just a mode like I'm not just here to give her a motivational pep talk. Like it's mental skills, visualization, self-talk, belief shifting, like all of these things that we get to teach our athletes. If I could go back and know now and I I feel like I am broken records If you're listening to this like you mentioned this on every podcast episode if your daughter only knew what she has access to that we didn't have access to she would like take her mental training so much more seriously.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean it's the difference maker, right? I mean the higher levels you go up, as you know, it gets less physical, the differentiator. I should say it gets more physical in the sense of the training, but it gets less physical as far as who's going to do the best, who's going to be on the pitch, who's going to be on the field. That the difference between good and great at that level is entirely mental almost always yeah, which is one of the topics that we wanted to cover today.

Speaker 1:

so, if we segue to that, one of the things that we had talked about before we hit record was, you know, this idea that a mistake that parents and lovingly we love you parents is this idea that we're waiting for this mental fortitude to just magically build itself. We're waiting for other coaches to teach it to our daughters, and it's just not the reality. Can you talk about that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think you know we're at the age where a lot of parents, and even our both moms, like you, want to set your kid up for success right, and you, you believe, likely, if you're listening to this, you believe, like you and I do of like sports is, if not the best I'm biased I think it's the best, if not the best, one of the best ways for young people in particular to learn so many valuable skills, and so we invest in if you're softball, it's probably you know great bats and gloves and travel teams and like all of the things and pitching coaches and all the things which are great to a certain degree. And the one thing that can screw all of it up is the mental game, because the mind is the thing that allows athletes to be at their best period. And so I think a lot of parents are trying, but I do think that it's like when we're really talking about what we want out of sports and sure we can say we want scholarships and we can say these great results, but really we want our daughters to be strong, we want our daughters to like not take any, you know what you know, and so, like those are the things that come from sports and they come more when you've developed the mental game. And I think you were also talking about, like coaches. You know parents wanting coaches to do more of this and I think you know one of the reasons that I have a business is there's too much information out there. Yeah, you know, I think my business started because people didn't know enough, because I started 20 years ago Like people didn't know what mental performance training, and then about 10 years ago, all of them some of it was the internet, but some of it was just like the collective awareness and athletes started talking about it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, society started talking about meditation and all these sorts of things and then all of a sudden, sudden, the floodgates opened and now and this is true for a lot of things because of the internet, but like there's so much information that parents, athletes, coaches get overwhelmed, paralyzed and things get over complicated really fast and it doesn't have to be that way. Mental performance training the best mental performance training is simple, actionable and doable.

Speaker 1:

Can you key? Oh, lindsay, can you please key into actionable, because I think sometimes we just put a blank statement on it of positive self-talk and it's just this blank statement, but if you don't break it down, for that the action, how to actually reframe thoughts, how to become aware of the thoughts.

Speaker 1:

Like that is truly like. When I started doing research in this and teaching it, it was like where's the act? Like, what are the action? Steps, instead of just saying to your athlete think positive to yourself. Mantras, visualize success, like, but like. What are the actions aligned with that? You know.

Speaker 2:

I know exactly. So we have something called the mental game plan. It's a six part system. This is the system that took me 20 years to develop. We teach it to. We teach it to coaches that want to implement it with their athletes. So they don't want to start a business, they don't want a client, but they want to have this in their business or, sorry, in their on their team, because they know how important it is and they know how much time it's taking them to try to react to mental game issues. So we have a six-part system. We also teach it to our coaches that are certified, that are wanting to have a business. So they have a system and a curriculum they can take their athletes through.

Speaker 2:

I won't go into every step, but I would say the first two steps are really the education and awareness of how the brain works, how thoughts can be managed because of how they impact our results. There's a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy actually, it's a cognitive behavioral theory behind it and really actionable tools that people can implement, including visualization. That being said, we also have something within that called the athlete toolbox. Having done this for a long time, I, like I said, things need to be simple, actionable and doable right and also things that work right. That's kind of obvious, but it still is worth noting. So what we teach is we teach a pre-practice routine. I know you said you do it with your athletes on the field. It doesn't have to take long and I think the younger athletes are, the simpler it can be. But we do have a five-minute system. We call it the Braver and it has everything that an athlete needs to get their mind right for practice. I mean, practice is huge, right, and we spend a lot of time getting athletes physically warmed up for practice, which could have a mental component to it as well but actually having them with a mental warm-up that they do every single practice. The way that you get mental training in in an actionable, simple way is you do it every day or you do every single practice. The way that you get mental training in in an actionable, simple way is you do it every day or you do it every practice. It's so much easier. I always ask my whoever I'm talking to I go did you brush your teeth this morning? Probably Right, amanda. Did you brush your teeth this morning? Yeah, are you going to do it again tonight? Yeah, is it hard to remember. No, so that's like it's so much harder to do something every once in a while than it is to do it every day. That is just how the brain works, and so when we have a pre-practice mental warmup, it makes it really easy for everybody.

Speaker 2:

We also have a pre-game routine, so this can be just an important way for athletes to really understand the fight or flight response, understand how to manage their thoughts in a really simple way that is going to help them deal with the inevitable emotions, ie nerves, before competition, so they can play at their best Again. These are like five to 10 minute things. Then we have what we call the reset or mistake ritual, and you know, in softball that's going to be great. It's going to be when someone makes an error, it's going to be somebody strikes out. It's going to be in between pitches, right, having something concrete. And from a parent perspective or a coach perspective, not only can they have one of their own, but watching a game and seeing an athlete you know strike out or you know whatever, watching that and wondering if they have a tool in that moment, and then knowing that they do, is like worth all of the investment right that they, the athlete, actually has a tool in that moment is key.

Speaker 2:

And then, finally this is something that a lot of people miss is post-competition. You could also do it post-practice as well, but we basically have them journal, three different questions. It's really simple, and the goal of that is to teach athletes and I would say especially young female athletes how to critique their performance without criticizing themselves. This is a skill you can talk all day long, as you mentioned about positive self-talk be great to yourself, be nice to yourself. What happens if they had a really bad game? Yeah, that's not going to come natural for them, right, and so they have to be taught and they have to have the repetition of saying, ok, this was a bad game, what went well, what can I do better? Right, like having the ability to objectively look at their performance is like an amazing skill set far beyond the playing field. So that's what we call our athlete toolbox, and it's just simple and actionable and doable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that so much. And, again, actionable of a parent. If you're a parent that's thinking, okay, so I have a choice of buying a bat or buying a mental skills program. And when you think about that perfect anecdote, you watch your daughter strike out and you can see her. Do we call it the failure reset routine? It's like you know that she has something to go to and guess what that means for you as a parent.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yeah, you can't see me, but I'm, I'm zipping my lips, right.

Speaker 1:

Like you get to relax in the stands, relax knowing that it's not on you as a parent anymore. You've given her the tools you've given her the gift of yes, she now has those tools, just like you would send her to. You know, uh, what do you guys call it in basketball? Like a coach, like a private lesson, or a hitting lesson, or a pitching lesson?

Speaker 2:

you know, yeah I don't think I mean that right and I think that's the the again when we get back to like, what do we really want out of sports and I, in particular, female athletes? I mean, I have four daughters, so I know this well like the thing that I want them to get out of sports is, I want them to learn to trust themselves. I want them to deal with failure. I want them to be able to manage their thoughts about their teammates and about their coach and take feedback and like all of the life skills that's what excites me about them them to push themselves. That's all mental Right, and so those are the things that I think most parents are really interested in.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Well. Where do we go from here? You talked a little bit about working with other coaches that are curious about this, and we had had that conversation as moms. What do you feel like has been and this is a selfish question you've been in this. I look up to you. What do you feel like has been a driver or a driving force for you as an athlete and transfer them to your life as an entrepreneur and a mom? Right, like those don't live in containers on themselves. Like, oh yeah, I'm a mom here and I'm an entrepreneur here. Like we have to integrate it into our lives. So what mental skills do you feel like you're still using, even though it's not on a basketball court?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I think the, the, I think two things. I think thought management as an entrepreneur, as a mom, um, because it all starts with awareness, like I mean. So, for example, I have my like uh bucket, if you will, that's what my pre-k kids tell me. My bucket has been emptied lately. I had surgery on my foot. I've been like laid up, just not just. You know it's holidays.

Speaker 2:

Like a lot of moms are like maxed out right and what they call self-care is like not at the level that needs to be right. So I've been shorter with my kids. My thought awareness about that has to be first and foremost because when I am aware of my thoughts, something like my kids are crazy, they're not helping right, I can start spiraling really fast. And when I think that way, if I don't catch it and then that's where the actionable things come out, like for me I go to my front porch, I take some deep breaths, I get some fresh air, I close the door. The physical space from my kids that are like potentially screaming or what have you, really helps me reset.

Speaker 2:

So it's kind of like the mistake ritual, right, and then I come back. But it starts with the awareness of when I need it, which is like a moving target, right, because no one's like patting me on the shoulder Well, actually, my kids do. Now they go, mommy, go, take a deep breath, which again goes to like the team, like that's where a coach can help, or a teammate, you know, recognizing it in other people. But all of that starts with awareness. So I think thought management from a parenting standpoint is so, so crucial. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, it is everything.

Speaker 2:

Because if you're not able to manage your mind let's say you have a bad launch or you hear no, or whatever your brain immediately goes what I call the negative train and it thinks this is never going to work. No one makes money as a mental performance coach working from home with four kids. That doesn't exist. And that thought feels really real to me and I have to be aware that it's a thought and not fact, right, and the more that you're able to do that, the more you catch yourself going down really bad roads that waste time, that are huge, energy suck, and they start becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. They start building on themselves that negative train. If we can mix metaphors, it becomes a snowball right that really can suck you under and you basically start making it true. You know you stop investing in your business, you stop thinking creatively about ways to solve it, and I see this with my students, especially ones that are first starting. You know they about ways to solve it and I see this with my students, especially ones that are first starting. You know they hear no a couple times on sales calls or they get rejected for doing a presentation to their local swim club or whatever, and they can really easily think this is never going to work. Yeah, I can't do this, no one is ever going to pay me. And this is where community helps in our communities. They then not only can they get coached, but they look around. They're like, wait, but Julie's doing it and Brian's doing it and they're not better or worse than me. So then that helps build that belief in themselves, thought management and belief that it's going to work out.

Speaker 2:

Is work it like is the work, like you can think the work is like your email list or you know a sales process and like that stuff is important and you should absolutely learn those skills. But the skills don't actually matter if you're not able to manage your thoughts, because there is no like upward hockey stick type growth. There is ups and then there's a way low down, and if you don't manage your thoughts in the down and that's true for having a bad game, or getting rejected on a job interview like we, this is life game. Or getting rejected on a job interview Like we, this is life right.

Speaker 2:

But it's very pronounced with entrepreneurship. And it's very pronounced because most of us, at least a lot of us, especially in the coaching industry, are doing it alone, and so when they get down, there's no one there saying you got this, come on, just let's, you know, let's figure out and let's think of it differently, let's find a new solution, you know, unless you're in community which is why I have a community, because I did it alone for years and years and years and it sucked, yeah, you know, cause it's just, it's really hard.

Speaker 2:

And how many?

Speaker 1:

percent of us are former athletes who are used to that community. I mean, I'm facing that right now. Getting back to the gym, it's like am I allowed to work out by myself? I need a squat rack partner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I literally just did a podcast on this Cause I said so many people come into our certification and they're there to learn how to be a mental performance coach and they realize that they needed a team. They're like in their life, doing life, and the last team they had was the sports team that they played on, yeah, which was probably a while ago, and they didn't even realize that they missed it until they have it again and they're like things are easier, they're way more fun and and they're really easier. I mean, you think about athletes in college or whatever and it's like does anybody miss 5 30 a am workouts? No, why Is it? Because they love getting up at 5.30? No, it's because everybody else is doing it. It just makes things so much easier. So I love yeah, I love team. That's why I've created my communities, both for myself.

Speaker 1:

Well, we can link all of your resources below. You've got your athlete kind of six step for myself. Well, we can link all of your resources below. You've got your athlete um kind of six step. For coaches. You've got your certification, which is amazing because, again, thinking back to the AB of six years ago, like I hired two grad students to help me research this, and then it's this big can of worms where you realize where were these skills when I was playing?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we'll find this funny. So I was actually using visualization as a pitcher, but it wasn't like a home skill, it was just kind of like an intuitive thing for me where I realized that if I was executing a certain pitch, I was. You know, I teach pet lip. It was like I was literally following that exact model for visualization. But how much powerful would that have been, not only as a player but as a coach, if I would have known how to reteach it Right. And that's a joke too of you know you could go take pitching lessons from an amazing D one pitcher. But sometimes the greatest athletes the greatest teachers, yeah, totally.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Cause they don't know. They don't know how they got there. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know you'd only done it for six years. That's impressive. You built a business. That's fast. Yeah, I mean one of my.

Speaker 2:

So when I started this business, I was like everybody needs mental performance coaching. Every athlete needs it, right, or deserves to have access to it. And I did it for a while and I was like well, I'm only one person. And then then I was like I think there needs to be other people, but I wasn't quite sure if the world was ready. And this was like 15 years ago, right, and I was like I don't know if enough people are willing to pay for it, because it's still like I'm still trying to convince people, right. And then the tide started changing and I was like OK, and then it like, like I said, the floodgates open and I was like the world to this are seeing it in their communities, right, they're seeing their kid or they're seeing their team, and like the need is everywhere, in every kind of niche. There's not too many of us. I can tell you that it's challenging with the algorithm, because once you get into mental performance coaching, you think that they're everywhere and I will say like go to the high school next to you, like a mile from your house. Is there going to be a mental performance coach? No, and there's a million of those situations in the country and in the world. Right, it's just there's just not enough of us.

Speaker 2:

But I started, so I started my certification and then, like I said, there was so much information out there, people were getting so overwhelmed. They're like do I need to go back and get my degree? I don't want to get my degree, I don't have time or money to do that. Should I get my PhD? I don't want to do that. They just didn't know what to do. Or they were going and like getting life coaching and it didn't really apply to athletes.

Speaker 2:

And I would say I told you this earlier there's really two skills that you need to be successful in our field. One is you have to be really good at coaching. There is no way around it. Now you can learn that skill. I can teach you. I don't know if you teach people at all, but like you can learn the skill of coaching.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think there's an art to it as well, which comes with practice, lots of practice, but you can get good at that, and really what that means is you have to get results. I don't mean everybody has to get a college scholarship, those aren't the results I mean, but people have to get results. But the second skill is you have to be, you have to learn and this is again a totally learnable skill is you have to learn how to talk about those results, talk about the value of those results, and that's essentially business, that's essentially marketing and selling, pricing, packaging, all of those skills that are really intimidating if you just use those words, but really what I'm talking about is you be able to communicate the value of this great coaching that you're doing. Those are the two skills, and those are the only two skills that matter. If you're just starting at the level that we are at, if you're above that, those are the two skills that you always have to be good at and, again, the good news is they're all learnable.

Speaker 1:

Well, and how many grad students that have their masters. I think academia is also doing a massive disservice, where maybe you take one you know entrepreneurship 101 class and one class, here you go. Here's your master's in sports psychology. I think what you're doing is incredible and I think that community piece too, where it is lonely. Entrepreneurship is lonely, head coaching is lonely, like find your people, find your tribe, find your people, absolutely it makes it whatever you want to learn.

Speaker 2:

You can learn it. Yeah, absolutely, and it's. We put too much on coaches, like that's for sure. And so at the college level, totally.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so there's.

Speaker 2:

And then you're the emotional, like support system for your assistant coaches or your head coach, if you're assistant, and whoever else is involved, and the players and then the parents if they're involved. So it's a lot, and it's not the mental performance coaches, the panacea, where it makes everything better, but it kind of does, because once you start empowering your athletes with some tools, then, like you said, you get to sit there and be like okay, they are prepared for this moment, they know what to do when they strike out or when they have an error. They, we, we have a plan for that. That doesn't involve me doing something that may or may not work in that moment. Right, we're in the era where, like at least the coaches that come to me I don't know what your experience is, but like they know that the mental game is important Like there's not a lot of like the old school that were like, ah, suck it up, I don't see that so much anymore, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So now they're like this is really important, let me fix it. And it's almost I would almost say it's like it ends up being a little bit of like a codependent situation where they're like I'm gonna fix it for every person every day, whatever they need, and it's like well, that's a recipe for not only burnout, but like the kids aren't necessarily getting the skills for themselves. I mean, there's the osmosis part that they're getting. They're obviously learning from great coaches, but like how can you teach them the tools so that they have a toolbox that they rely on? Because those are the life skills that they can take with them no matter what they do in their sport.

Speaker 1:

Mic drop. I already used my last question, I guess. So anything else that you want to add or leave with, you know kind of. You know my world is a lot of softball but we have some other sports. What's what's kind of? Like your man, if you knew Lindsay Wilson like. This is my message. This is what I want you to walk away with.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think I pretty much already said it. I mean I am. I see the world through the lens of sports. I'm obsessed with sports. I think sports are the greatest training ground for people, especially young women, to like learn to be their best and go for what they want in their life. Like that's what fires me up.

Speaker 2:

And but with that I also think I mean you hear about a lot of girls quitting sports and even without that, it is not guaranteed that people are going to get these great life skills from sports.

Speaker 2:

It's not like I think they'll probably learn something, but if we can add on 10 minutes a day or five minutes a day and start teaching more of like why we are all here, like wow, that's why I'm here, because people fall through the cracks. I saw players and the higher up you go, the more mental it becomes, and if people don't have the skills to manage that, they're not going to be successful and it's not their fault, right. And so if we can give the people, young athletes in particular, these skills, like sky's the limit, they can take these and they can do whatever they want in their life. And I just think that's what excites me, because I know that sports has that capability, and I know coaches want that, and I know coaches want that, I know parents want that, and I think if we add in just a little bit more with the mental side, we're just so much more likely to be getting out of sports. What we're all here for, which is a transformational life experience.

Speaker 1:

Amen, that was a great way to end this conversation. What is the best place? If parents want to follow you? I know you're active on Instagram what's the best place to send them? Twitter, instagram, linkedin?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, instagram at lindsaypositiveperform. I also have my own podcast. It's called the Mindset Coach Academy. So people that are interested in mental performance coaching I mean, you know the ones you're Googling about it, you're reading the books, you're listening to podcasts, like that's that's our people. I like to nerd out on this stuff. So people that like to nerd out on mental performance training, come on over to Instagram. I talk about stuff in this area all the time, so it's a great way to connect.

Speaker 1:

I love it and we'll link all those below. Lindsay, thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, Amanda so.

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Amanda Schaefer

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