The Fearless Warrior Podcast

085: Parent Questions Answered: Is HS ball worth it? What to do if coaches have favorites? How to help with nerves? And More!

• Amanda Schaefer

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Coach Kara and I answer burning questions from parents about mindset challenges in sports. We discussed practical strategies to tackle common issues, from balancing coaching and parenting roles to managing game-day nervousness.

• Mental skills training is preventative care, not a reactive solution
• Controlling the controllable when facing frustrating team situations
• High school and travel ball provide opportunities for growth
• Supporting athletes by praising their process rather than outcomes

Want to submit a question for our next Q&A episode? Send us a DM on Instagram or Facebook, and we might answer it on the podcast! 


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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. Hey, hey, it's Coach AB and it's Coach.

Speaker 2:

Kara.

Speaker 1:

And we are live on Zoom. We decided to record a special episode because a while back, we posted on our Instagram, we posted in our private Facebook group and we have gotten a really a few, I would say responses via email of questions that parents have been asking us and parents have submitted to us, and the really cool thing about this episode is we're just going to jump right into it. No intro needed. You know who we are we're mental skills coaches and we want to empower you with real responses and real resources. And so a lot of these questions. You might find yourself saying, yep, I have the same situation or yep, I have the same exact question. So some of these will remain anonymous, but some of them are our fearless warrior members that have some really great questions. So, without further ado, let's get cracking. What do we got?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean we got a ton of questions here and I'm sure your answers are going to be super helpful for any parents that are listening. But this, this first one, is from James. I think this is a really great question. His question is how do I balance coaching and parenting? He says I need some tips on keeping those roles separate from my daughter and me, especially during and after the activities. It's tough keeping them from mixing.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, so I think James has an issue that a lot of parents, a lot of our parents also dabble in coaching or coaches, or have been coaches Um and so how do they keep those roles separate with their daughters?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that we're doing this together, because I know that you would have just as many great answers because you coach your kids too.

Speaker 1:

I'm not at that point in my parenting journey where I've had to do that, but I can speak. Um, I'll speak first from a few of the tips that we have, um, given parents before is the hat method, and so this actually comes from a coach, duke Baxter. Shout out to coach coach Duke, uh, and so he talks about. Have a physical cue. So if you're on the field and your hat is on, obviously, james, you're a guy. Um, but if you wear a visor or you know, maybe as a mom, you wear sunglasses, maybe you don't necessarily wear a hat. Have some sort of physical cue that your daughter knows. Hey, when my hat's on, or when my sunglasses are on, or when I'm holding my clipboard, I'm coach, right.

Speaker 1:

Or it could be a time constraint of hey, you know, the hour before the game, during the game and the 15 minutes after the game, I'm coach. I'm no longer mom to you, no longer dad to you, I am coach and I play that role. And then, as soon as the game is over, or we could say leading up to the game, there's a moment where you're not coaching and you are just mom or just dad. And then giving them that conversation of in these times, I am just your dad, and setting those up from the beginning.

Speaker 1:

And so this, this is great, because you're saying it's tough keeping them from mixing, and what I'll tell you is, if you have this tackle box mentality where we have to keep them separate, I think it's going to give you clear lines of communication and it's okay to remind your daughter hey, right now I'm coach, I have to pull you because that's in the best interest of the team. It doesn't mean I don't love you, but right now I'm coach. And then afterwards in the car, you could say hey, now I'm dad, I get that. You didn't want to be pulled in that moment. I thought you did okay, I'm here to support you. I get why that would be frustrating. And and prefacing that conversation and saying, okay, right now I'm coach, or right now I'm dad, and you can't over-communicate that that's what I would say.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think, I think you hit it on the head. I think you have to be both and you can't say, well, because I'm both, I'm going to be them both all the time. Like there really does need to be that separation and they need to know. They need to know that you love them like a coach loves a player, but they also especially need to know that you love them like a parent loves a child. And I think that you really have to be really clear when you're acting as one or the other and keep those separate, just to make sure that they know that that the way you play on the field, the way a coach might, you know, feel about them on the field, has nothing to do with the love that that you feel for them at home as a parent. And I think that is super, super important. I also feel like for me and like you said, I coach my own kids in a bunch of different sports that they play. None of them are at a super high competitive level yet, but it's.

Speaker 2:

I still run into this where, like it's so easy to get in that coaching mode and you just left the field and you're amped up and and win or loss you have have a ton of thoughts about okay, what do we need to work on as a team? What do you need to work on as an individual player? And you so badly because you love them want to give that advice and, right, when it's in the forefront of your mind, you'll say, hey, I noticed this and this and this. We got to work on this and this and this. Let's do this and, like they and still trying to to to process what happened in the game, and it can be so easy to jump into that and so actually really good advice that I've tried to implement, that I saw I don't remember where I saw, maybe it was you from.

Speaker 2:

Someone said in the car, ride home in the car, the only thing you should say to them was I love watching you play, or I really enjoy what getting to watch you play.

Speaker 2:

And then that helps and for me at least, it helps to separate like, like you said, I'm mom and at the core, I love watching you play, and that's always going to be true, regardless of what happened. And then that also lets them kind of call the shots and that's what I've kind of noticed. I can say I love watching you play, and sometimes that leads to them saying, yeah, but I'm frustrated with this and this and this. And then maybe, as a mom, I saying, yeah, but I'm frustrated with this and this and this, and then maybe, as a mom, I can then, you know, try and help them reframe or think about things differently. Or a lot of times they'll just be quiet, I'll be like great, cool, I'm glad. And then I know that that's kind of like the signal of like I don't really want to talk about this, I'm not ready to to really share with you right now. And so I think, like you said, leaving that space and allowing them to kind of dictate, and then you keep it separate and then let them kind of dictate.

Speaker 2:

When your mom stopped being coached for a minute, like it, which, is so hard, you don't just because you don't have that one conversation in the car does not mean that they're never going to get that thing, that problem, fixed or come back to it. In fact, they're probably less likely to want to address things, especially in that those moments right after a game, when when they when they're still trying to process too. So giving them that space and keeping those roles separate, I think, is super vital.

Speaker 1:

Which guess what? James, you're the coach, and coaches get to make the practice plan. So if she doesn't want to talk about it, you just put it in the practice next week and then everybody gets to work on it. So good. So these are a mix. I'm looking at our. We have a sheet. We're going to keep rolling. These are a mix of athletes and parents. I forgot to mention that at the beginning, so we also had some athletes submit some really good questions.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean this first one from Reagan. This is a universal experience. What do you do if you start to feel nervous? Because my goals are to start hitting more consistently and to be able to be a reliable player, to get on base and be in the lineup. I really would like to play in college. I just feel like the work I'm putting in lessons are not translating to the game. What do you do if you're starting to feel unmotivated to get back to working? I recognize that I'm getting nervous, but the lack of success is hurting my confidence and motivation, so nerves a universal experience from every player ever.

Speaker 1:

Well, the first thing I would say is recognize it Right and and I say this on coaching calls all the time it makes sense why you're nervous. We're playing a really tough sport with a big round yellow ball. That happens to be hard hard If it hits you hard to hit, hard to field like we just play a tough sport and we want to perform. And then if you add that layer in of like Reagan, I want you to play in college. But when we start focusing on I have to perform, I have to play in college it's actually not the physical skill we just talked about this on the warrior call recently for our members is behind every emotion. The way that I want you to think about this and we're going to go a little deep here for a second, so you guys get some free coaching the way that I want you to think about this as a player and as a parent, is that we cannot reframe the emotions. It's the thought behind the emotion. So think of this as like your check engine light, when your check engine light comes on on your car. Now again, I'm probably speaking to athletes that may not be driving yet, but if you were driving, I hope you would go get your car checked out. If the check engine light goes on, we don't panic. We go to a mechanic and we can figure out what is causing that code to trigger. It could be something really simple like oh, my check engine light is on, I need to refill the washer fluid, or I have a low tire. It could be really catastrophic, like I need a whole new engine or I need a whole new transmission, but the check engine light itself is just getting us to pay attention. Then we go deeper and for us in our brains, that is our thoughts. So we must pop the hood. We have to pop the hood. Look inside that engine. That's your brain, that's your thought, that's your mindset.

Speaker 1:

And so, reagan, my question for you is if you could journal, this would be a great activity. What are all the thoughts that you're attaching to that nervousness? What are all those thoughts that you're attaching to needing to play in college? What are all those thoughts that are attached to being unmotivated or or not seeing that success on game day and without being on a coaching call with you? This really is the first step, because I can't help you until we look under the hood and I would have plenty of resources to walk you through.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you need a specific mental skill, maybe you need a coach to walk you through that thoughts, feelings, action model. And without knowing what your answer to that is, I get to leave this question back to you of go back and journal what are those thoughts that you're experiencing that are leading to those emotions which then lead to those behaviors? And so it makes sense why, if you're having those thoughts and feeling those feelings, it makes sense why it's not showing up on game day. So hear me loud and clear. This is not complete. You have more work to do, but step one really is awareness.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's, that's super key.

Speaker 2:

It's that whole idea of like you just got to know why, why it's why your brain's responding the way that it's responding, like you got to understand the cause, the root cause, and I think I would also I would also advise Reagan to remember that, no matter how great any single at-bat is, it's not going to get you to college on its own, and no, and on the flip side, we can take comfort in knowing that, no matter how bad any single at-bat is, it's not going to stop you from going to college, right?

Speaker 2:

So, just to kind of keep that perspective of this idea of be where your feet are you're not at college yet, you're not there yet, and so you need to be where you are right here, right now. And it's millions of tiny, tiny actions that are going to get you to where you want to go, as opposed to one at bat or one bad play or even one tournament or even one season, like there's so much that has to build on each other. And you start by the things you can control in this moment, right now. In this moment, right now, I can control this at bat and how I react and what I learn from the outcome, whether that was good or bad. What do I learn from it? And make sure you're constantly just focused on learning here and now, with where I'm at, and focus as opposed to like seeing that you know top of the mountain, that you want to get to someday and and it looks daunting, but you get there one step at a time, just each step.

Speaker 1:

That's some great. I echo all of that. That was amazing, which teed up perfectly. We put these together. There's another submission from another athlete who wanted to remain anonymous, which I'll put this back on you. Carol. I'll read you the question tree where at one point, 171 college coaches were watching. I'm assuming this was like a showcase. I underperformed because I think I was nervous. I'm not sure how to fix this for the next nerve wracking thing. I also need help knowing what to do with my mind after games like that where I'm frustrated and I felt like I wasn't good enough.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean this is this. Any athlete who has had opportunities to play at a high level like that, understands this feeling of falling short and and and not being good enough and even maybe being haunted by certain things that happen. And I think I think one of the things I would go back to is the first thing is when you have the opportunity to play in these high, high pressure situations I love the saying that pressure is a privilege. So just being there, just being able to lace up your cleats and step in the box at a showcase like that, where you have those opportunities, if you start from a place of gratitude, a place and understanding of I got here, I'm here like you've done something, you don't just show up there because you want to go right, you've done something to get there. People have seen something in you to get there and to show up with that gratitude of I have already accomplished something by stepping onto this field today and in a lot of ways, that like pulls off a lot of that pressure. It's like I don't necessarily have to do anything more than what I've always been doing. Just be me. What got me here will get me to where I need to go. And so just remembering that that pressure that you're feeling is a privilege, it's a, it's a. It's something that not every athlete gets to feel that what they do matters that much. And so just to keep that in perspective and and and meet it with gratitude, as opposed to just letting it, letting it stifle your play. And then the second thing I would say is, from a coach's perspective, something that is so helpful.

Speaker 2:

I have never been a college scout, but I think I could be good at it. I think I think if I was doing it, I would watch most closely what happens when a player has something go wrong. That's as for for me, a coach, I want to see that. I want to see when she strikes out, how does she treat her teammates. When she, you know, kicks a ball in the field, how does she approach her next, the next ball that comes to her.

Speaker 2:

I want to see, because it's such a high failure sport. It's such a sport that you just you're going to make mistakes Every single game. You're going to make mistakes, and I need to know that when she gets to my program and when you get that bump up, every athlete we've ever talked to about the bump between high school and college talks about how crazy that jump is, no matter what level you're playing at in high school, you get to college, it's a whole new playing field, and I want to know that when she has that bump up and failure is going to hit her and failure will be inevitable how is she going to react? And I need to know that before I welcome her into my program.

Speaker 2:

And so to realize that that coaches aren't looking for perfect players. They do not exist. They don't exist. They are looking for consistency and they're looking for how do you recover from that failure when it does happen, and so use that as your fuel, that, if you make a mistake, remind yourself what now? What do I do now? How do I respond to this mistake that I've made, as opposed to just kicking yourself because you did make a mistake?

Speaker 1:

yeah, and that you hit that right on the head, because I'm I'm thinking for whatever college exposure tournament this is at. If you have 171 coaches at this camp or exposure tournament or whatever, it is like you're already bringing a large crowd of college coaches that know what they're looking for and so really, there's already that social proof that you've been invited to play with this really top level team to showcase your skills. A lot of my one-on-one clients will talk about playing free. Well, how do you play free? You trust everything that you've already put in the bank account, and so you're just showing up on payday with a bag full of money in your account, knowing I've deposited my time, my effort. This is payday baby. Like I just get to rely on the skills that I have.

Speaker 1:

And what would it look like if I was a college coach looking for a player? I'm going to recruit the player that looks like she's having fun right Versus the player that is scared out of her shoes. Now, on the flip side of that I was going to echo something else that you said is that if I'm a college coach and I'm at the showcase, I know a hundred percent that these girls are going to be nervous, and so even more so I'm going to be looking for the kids that are playing free, because this is a nerve wracking situation. What do you think college is going to be? And so again, back to coach AB, not a college coach. I'm going to tell you it's okay to be nervous, and that's going to do a whole heck of a lot more for your nerves than saying don't be nervous, don't be nervous, don't be nervous.

Speaker 2:

Right, just trying to shove it down so you don't feel it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, so good. Yeah, embrace it and meet it with gratitude. I just being like, isn't this great? I get to step out on the field in this situation, like I mean, how awesome is that, that's super great. And then, yeah, just be you, just be you, all right.

Speaker 2:

Next question is um, from a mom again, and this is also another anonymous one. She said my daughter feels like she's not the favorite from her coaches on her travel team. This is causing some negative talk in her head. How, as a parent, do I help her through this? I tried to ask. With the feedback that was being shared from coaches that added to her negative feelings. She said coach sighs a lot gives and sounded like bad body language and while this player, which is redacted, is pitching in practice, redacted feels that this is worse when the favorite pitcher is also present. Thanks for any insight. I think she may need to approach the coach herself. So this is the insight. So if you're not the favorite or if you feel like, for whatever reason, coaches don't like you, uh, how do you deal with that?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I got this, I got I. I. I am going to show you behind the scenes of one of my biggest failures as a high school coach. I coached at the high school level for three years and you all know me now as the hype girl, the girl you got this as a head coach. Sometimes I would go into those meetings, and now I'm not talking about the size and the ums and the uhs, but sometimes when your coach gives you negative feedback, we're not sugarcoating it, and so if this is the first time that your daughter has been on a high school team versus a travel team, travel coaches don't have to give feedback, they go immediately into development. So before I became a high school coach, I was a travel coach. Well, if a girl was quote, unquote, not performing or sucking at a certain skill, I got to work with that athlete one-on-one because of the numbers. I had 12 girls, 12 to 14 girls on my travel team, and so if she was struggling with her backhands or she needed help with pitching, I could immediately help her in that moment.

Speaker 1:

High school is a little bit different because you have larger roster sizes, and I remember my first year coaching we had to cut like five players because we only had 30 jerseys. Year coaching, we had to cut like five players because we only had 30 jerseys. And so when you have 30 girls on a JV team and a varsity team, you have to have these player meetings and you have to just cut to the chase and say you're not where you need to be with pitching, you're not where you need to be with hitting, and I know this probably isn't the answer that you want to hear, but your coach isn't trying to be mean. This is where I made a huge mistake and I've talked with you about this a lot. Kara is like if I could go back, I would praise more, I would give that constructive criticism a little bit softer. Um, and I just I. I think coaches aren't educated. They don't know what they don't know. And if I could go back and coach high school, knowing what I know now about mental skills? One of the very first things we teach in the program is what bucket are you asking your support system to fill?

Speaker 1:

And I think too often we send our daughters into the high school arena hoping that their coach is going to fill their love and butterfly buckets, and it is not the case. That is not the head coach's job. The head coach's job is to put together a competitive starting nine, whether any sport right. Starting five, starting 11, starting nine. The coach's job is to look at it from an analytic goal perspective, put together the best chance of success, and there's probably not going to be a lot of sugarcoating and a lot of praise and a lot of love. I made that mistake, and so I'm going to give your coach a little bit of slack, and maybe your coach is not good at hiding her body, his or hers body language If they sigh or give us. On.

Speaker 1:

The other side of this is that we also have to recognize that our daughters are preteens and teens, and so the question I would have with your daughter is what is true now? Has your coach said you suck at pitching, you're never going to see the field right? Some high school coaches will tell you that, and so we have to play curious and say what is true? What if your coach has actually said and it sounds like you've already started that conversation, and so the more that you can kind of support your daughter and bring her back to what is true what is your coach set? What are your goals? What do you want to be true? Do you know that you're a good pitcher and can you rest on that?

Speaker 1:

Because if we're waiting for our coaches to fill that love bucket, the other mistake that we make is we're waiting for our coaches to fill our confidence bucket too, and that's not their job. Our job is to come to practice with our confidence bucket full, trusting our own abilities, and not relying on the praises of outsiders to know our worth. So I hope, I hope I answered that. I answered that from two perspectives of like your coach is just being a coach. Yes, coaches are humans. They make mistakes. They probably have side or given an UGG, but then, on the same coin, recognizing your daughter as a teenager, their mind is going to amplify that insecurity for them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you search for what you believe right, so you're looking for. So if I believe I'm a lesser picture, I'm going to search for evidence from all the people around me that confirms my suspicion or that confirms my thought, like that's what our brain does. And so if you're looking at everything through the lens of my coach thinks I'm a lesser pitcher, you're going to find evidence to support that. And if you can change the or at least reframe it at least a little bit in your mind to maybe I don't know what my coach thinks of me as a pitcher or I know I'm a good pitcher then it can kind of help sift through all of those different things. But I, I I have a preteen, I have a 12 year old boy and it shocks me that he feels grown up in a lot of situations but then at the same time he doesn't necessarily always get context and he doesn't understand necessarily adult methods of thinking. And I think that teenagers can fall into that as well, where they think that every sigh is because my coach hates me, as opposed to thinking that coach might be being hard on themselves, like I see the potential in this player and I can't get it out of them and I don't know what I'm doing, I'm messing this up, and so it's not necessarily, it's not always true that you know whatever we're we're, the feedback that we're getting is absolutely true, like you said. So I think that's so great to be like what has actually been said. And then what are the actual outcomes Like? Are you actually just sitting in the bench? Are you actually not getting the reps that you need, or is your coach just not very good at voicing, maybe, what they really truly think of you and to and to just kind of go from that. But it all has to start inside. What you believe about who you are is what you'll look for in the world, and so if you can work on what you think about yourself on the inside, it'll, it'll help a lot of that from the outside.

Speaker 2:

And then the other thing that I always thought about as a high school coach myself was I. The kids that I saw the most potential out of were the ones I coached the hardest, and I did not let those things slide. Kids that had a ton to work on, and I didn't think as high of a ceiling. It was not in my best interest to spend a million hours telling them the eight different things that they needed to change about their swing, like that's not going to help us get that much better. But the kids that like already had it and just need just a little tiny tweaks, I'm going to be on every single time and I'm not going to let them slide on those little things that I know will help them get so much better. And so you also have to keep that perspective too, that the kids that the coach sees the most in are the ones that get coached the hardest, and that's just. Whether it's right or not, I don't know, but that's. That's just typical coach thought process as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's, and I I'm looking at the question again and I realized I may have have have blubbed on that because of my situation, but this is for a travel team. But regardless, the the still, it still rings true whether it's a large roster, a small roster, a travel team, a high school team, I think, going back supporting as a parent um, to echo on on what you're saying to have like challenged them, what evidence do you have to support this? What is your evidence? And and oftentimes I think you'll get them in a uh well, they didn't actually say that. I'm just thinking that, right, so hopefully that's helpful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and also, at the end of the day, like a conversation with a coach is super scary for a kid Like I get that but like the coaches, I have never met a coach that didn't want to help their players be better. Like I don't think, I don't think you, coach if that's not what you're actually out for Like they want to help your athletes and so if you can go to them as an athlete and say, what do you want me to work on? It doesn't? You know? You don't have to talk about like the past or what you're perceived of how you feel, like the coach feels about you. You don't have to bring that up.

Speaker 2:

But if you come to the coach sincerely saying, what do you see that I need to work on? What do you see? How do you think I can get better, that might even change enough in the coach's mind of knowing how you are approaching the game and that you are serious and you want to get better can also maybe help that relationship heal a little bit if there is actual problems between you and the coach. So going one-on-one to the coach asking for feedback is also a really great way to show that you're bought in, you're ready for coaching. You want to get better and can help solve some of those problems as well.

Speaker 1:

That's, that's a great one. I how did we organize these questions, Cause these are just teeing each other up perfectly Just one after the other. Okay, so we have a coach. Coach Mallory, what is your favorite episode or resource for a 12U coach to use with her team? About choosing confidence? All the pieces are there, but they just don't trust themselves and everyone keeps saying confidence will come.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I got this, I got this one.

Speaker 2:

Amanda, this is something that I'm super passionate about and most of this is the next great revolution that's coming in our sport and in all sports, in softball and across other sports because, amanda, you know this, other sports are also very near and dear to my heart. I think every athlete, every team, ever needs our team curriculum that we have right now, and the reason I say that is because for two reasons the first is you're learning those mental performance skills that we teach in the individual program. So those are super, super important the ideas of reframing and self-talk and leadership, and those are super important. Like as an individual on a team, to know those skills is so, so important. But where the real magic happens in the team curriculum that's different from the individual curriculum is that we all know that a great team is great because they are better than the sum of their parts. So what that means is you take a great team and you put them on paper and you line each individual player up on paper and you say we calculate they should be this good, but any truly great team, there's a gap and somehow they should be this good. But any truly great team, there's a gap and somehow they should be this good, but somehow they've exceeded that expectation of what the individuals should be able to do, and that's the power of a team, of a collective coming together, bonding together and then performing beyond their previous limitations. And I think that anybody that's been a part of a team like that will tell you that there's something different, there's something extra that is binding that team together, that is putting them all on the same page. It's a lot of times it gets described as a sisterhood or a brotherhood, that they are like family, that then you go to battle with and you exceed everybody's expectations with.

Speaker 2:

And the team curriculum. What it does is it takes those individuals, teaches them mental skills individually, also, then bringing them together as a team and learning about a team as a whole. And so now not only do I know what my goals are and how I'm going to reach them, I know what my teammates goals are and what she needs to do to reach them, and I know what our team's goals are and what we all need to do to reach them. And then, as a result, we are now bonded together in this struggle. We all understand each other in a way that we didn't before, and this is these are all trainings that take place off the field.

Speaker 2:

It has nothing to do with taking grounders or taking batting practice, has nothing to do with batting order or lineups or strikeouts or any of those things that we think matter so much in softball or other sports, and instead it's moving us off the field.

Speaker 2:

So we do off the field work where we connect as a team, as human individuals, and connect together.

Speaker 2:

So then we on the field, then we can exceed even a level of our training, we can exceed what we should be doing on the field because we're connected so well off the field. And so for this 12U team and any other U team in any other sport and this is what as you look to the upper levels, the upper echelons of every sport, you'll see that this is the major change that is happening across all levels, across college, across the best high school programs, across the best national team programs, olympics. All of these people are putting more and more time into mental training outside of their sport as a tool to be able to help them perform in their sport. And so I would say this the team mental performance training that we have going right now is a super, super valuable tool for any team to use to be able to get their team that next level, that they need to really come together and to find confidence within themselves and then within each other and to play better.

Speaker 1:

Well, and you've used the analogy of puzzle pieces, right. How many times have we had conversations with coaches where they're saying the pieces are there, the pieces are there. This gives them a common language. It gives them common goals. It gives them the common culture of like this is how we talk about failure. This is how we talk about confidence, right? Instead of saying confidence will come, they know exactly what they need to do to play with confidence, and that's what you're alluding to is like we're we're demystifying it and we're we're giving coaches a system.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and it's every single module that they teach the big. There's a big emphasis on okay, we've watched this module, we've done this worksheet to try and figure out this part of our mental tool belt that we need. Now what are we going to do to take it out to the field with us? And so it's built right into the program and I don't think we mentioned this, but it's plug and play as well. So it's Amanda, who's awesome at teaching these skills, is teaching you skills.

Speaker 1:

You said they, and I'm like what do you mean?

Speaker 2:

they it's we, it's Amanda, it's you you do such a good job of teaching these skills. And then there is specific language in each lesson of saying, okay, you've done this work outside of the classroom and the last thing we want to do is have a say in the classroom. We don't want to leave it behind when we go out to the field. We need to bring it with us onto the field. And so there's specific language in each lesson about how do we take this with us.

Speaker 2:

And then, moving forward now, coach and players have a shared language. They have a shared ability, a shared experience to understand each other differently than they did before outside of the context of softball. So that way we can understand each other so much better inside the context of softball and it's such a valuable, valuable tool to be able to use. So that would be the first thing. Any team anywhere in any sport should be using our team curriculum and it goes across sports. It's not just for softball. That's one of the reasons I really love it as well. It's not softball specific, unlike our individual program, which is very softball specific. But this team curriculum would work for any team, any gender, any situation.

Speaker 1:

It would very, very much help that team and we have more podcasts on that, so we talk about it in a lot of other podcasts which Kara and Sarah shout out to you guys. You guys have been doing such a good job of managing the podcast. So, if you guys want, um, we can put some episodes in the show notes as well of, like, actual coaches that we've interviewed that have that have done mental training, either through our curriculum or through some of these skills. Um, and then we did our mindset myths busted. Um, I think you have this in here, episode 68 confidence is not a feeling. So, whether it's our curriculum, whether it's our podcast, like, there are so many resources that we have for you guys to start to talk about this with your team. So I love that, mallory.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I hear I'll ask you the next question, since I feel like I just like jabbered on forever. I'm just so excited about that team curriculum. I just can't get it again.

Speaker 1:

That's why you're in that role. I love it.

Speaker 2:

This is a question from Kimberly. She says I need to know how to teach my daughter the mental side of the game. She tends to just shut down when things get hard. She's a lot like me and because she's so talented she thinks that everything should come easy right off the bat. She's very emotional, so she takes a lot of things. Personally, I just don't want her to miss the chances I know she has. She could be so great if she could just master the mental skill of the game and life.

Speaker 1:

This is. This is so good. And, kimberly, I'm so glad you submitted this question because you're not alone and that's the first thing I'll tell you is, a lot of the times there's, um, a hesitation because the athletes will think, oh well, my mom signed me up for this that it means that something's wrong with me. And again, like Kara, you've mentioned in this episode already of like this is the upper echelon, like this is what elite teams are doing.

Speaker 1:

Um, at the time of of us recording this, the masters just finished up and Rory McIlroy literally there's like my whole algorithm is all of these amazing videos of him talking about mental skills. And like he just won the masters, he just won like $4 million and got his grand slam. Like he's won every single major us open and he's talking about these mental skills. And so is your daughter going to be jazzed about some golfer? She probably has no idea, probably not, but I could give you so many amazing examples in her sport of, you know, jenny Finch and Kat Osterman, and current players like Halo and all of the girls that have been in our mentorship calls where, like we, literally bring in a Geordie ball where've brought them in and said like what, what is your mentality?

Speaker 1:

And then mental skills just becomes another tool in her trade. And so the advice that I would give to any parent listening to this, if you're considering mental performance training, whether with us or any other resource is if you're going to invest in mental training, treat it like any other training. So you go to pitching lessons once a week, you go to hitting lessons in mental training. Treat it like any other training. So you go to pitching lessons once a week. You go to hitting lessons once a week. You go to team practice, you go to strength and conditioning. Put it on the calendar, make it a priority, and it doesn't have to be, you know, two to three hours. Inside our fearless warrior program, it's we're asking you to put aside 15 to 20 to 30 minutes, depending on which module.

Speaker 1:

We have 12 mental skills that we believe all athletes should be doing. And and, kimberly, I know you have access, your daughter has access. I think it's just time that we have this conversation and say, look, we're going to do this and we're going to set aside the time and if it takes doing it with her, you're going to learn right alongside. We actually recommend that um to a lot of parents, because then you have a common language as well as a parent, so you're not alone. This is a great question. Treat it like any other skill and then it takes the stigma away too. Right Like this is just part of our week.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that. I mean, no one thinks oh, you must think I'm a terrible pitcher If you think I need pitching lessons. They're like pumped. They. They're like my mom sees enough in me that she's willing to pay that extra money, and so if we approach it that same way and I think as parents we might be able to be like we might kind of shoot ourselves in the foot. We're like you know what? Your body language has been really bad. So I got you this program that's going to help you fix your body like, like why do we come at it from that angle?

Speaker 2:

instead of being like. You know, what I think you could be so good Like, and something every elite player has, is these mental skills. I'm going to get you mental skills lessons so that you can do it.

Speaker 1:

And like how we package it is so different.

Speaker 2:

It's so different how we package it, and that matters a lot how we package it. And then the other thing is like be proactive about it. Make it a preventative care, a preventative measure, measure as opposed to a reactive measure. So don't wait until their confidence is, don't wait until their their you know nervousness is getting in the way of their performance started early. Get it, get it in their tool belt, get them started on this, these, these skills, before they run into these issues, because they're coming, they will happen. It's not. It's not a matter of if, it's definitely a matter of when, so that earlier you can get them started on. And just, it's just reps, it's mental reps. You're getting these mental reps in. So when these issues arise, then you've got these tools to address it. Um, as opposed to like, well, now that you are striking out all the time right, we really need to do something about it.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome that you bring that up. I don't know if I've told you this, but I have mentors of mine that, uh, work with colleges One of my greatest mentors here in Nebraska. He works with like LSU gymnastics and like Olympians, and has worked with Nebraska volleyball like multi national championships, and one of the things that he always talks about is I refuse to work with a team in the middle of season. You either bring me in at the beginning or you don't bring me in at all, and I've I've kind of like pushed back on that. I'm like well, why? Anytime is great, but he really believes that it is proactive and if you are reactive, it sends the wrong message.

Speaker 2:

So it does it makes it stigmatizes it. It makes it seem like there's something wrong with you and now we're going to fix it, as opposed to let's do this to get the best out of you that we know is in there. Yeah, I think that's so good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, so these last two are very similar and for sake of time, we might have to combine them. Um, this is from a mom that emailed from an Instagram post on I had posted a semi-viral thing that apparently was very controversial, about playing high school versus club, and I love what she said about this and it's not really a question. But the next one is a question. So she says so many kids and parents are so used to having their spot set in club ball, and not even just for the season, but for years, so when they get to high school, it's like don't you know who I am? And they have to. They have five of you, so the depth chart is really steep. People really don't like it, Whereas my kids have never had a set spot on a club. So high school was a new opportunity where the field was actually more fair for once. A lot of people have been set and don't realize how hard it can be until they hit high school.

Speaker 1:

And I just had to include this in today's episode because there's so many people that complain about high school and there's one of two ways that this goes Either your high school in the area is like lower level than what your travel is, but college coaches really want to see you play on your high school team or the other is your high school is really competitive, Like this mom's situation where the high school is even more competitive than club, because now you have like three gold teams and three national teams and all the other teams that are converging for nine starting spots and it's really competitive. Again, college coaches want to see that you're willing to compete for a starting spot. So the more you can help your athlete in those environments to not allow their coaches to affect their confidence, go into it trusting their training. They're going to be so much better facing this and dealing with step charts and difficult conversations and not getting getting playing time. That is so great for their development.

Speaker 1:

Because if they want to play in college, guess what? A very large percentage of college freshmen sit the bench. Yeah, Wish somebody would have told me that Like I was like oh, I broke all the records in my high school. I'm going to march right in and be amazing. No, I got my rocked. Like my freshman year was horrible, so it it's like why not give them that exposure now?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think I think as a, as a society, we want to fast track success like we want to. We want to be like the best, now and always, and I think we lose a piece, um a piece that we can gain from sitting behind somebody and and not instead of just resenting the person that's playing in front of us, or regardless of if we think it's politics or whatever it is there's probably something we can learn from that person, and what are we losing out on learning from that person while we sit behind them? Or what are we missing out? Are we taking the reps the same way we would have if we were playing like? I think that's a great mental skill to have. If you can treat every rep like a game, knowing you're not getting game time, you're getting game reps by not and not playing the games Like. So if you just everything is an opportunity and we can learn from every situation that we face in life, including not playing and we think we should or even not playing when someone else is legitimately bettering us. We can learn something from that interaction and take things from that, and and I don't know what exactly my high school coaches did, but I felt like there was a great culture of mentorship in our, in my high school programs, where this idea of the upperclassmen mentored the underclassmen. So if you had a girl that was you were playing behind. She like wrapped her arms around you and really like showed you the ropes. And this is how we do things and this is the right way. And then it was your turn, when you got to be in that senior position, to be able to turn around and do the same thing for the underclassmen.

Speaker 2:

And I once again, not a college scout, but if I was looking at athletes in a high school, regardless it could.

Speaker 2:

I could care less how much that high school wins. Honestly, that doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is how, how those players interact with each other. And, if I see, most of the time, if a coach is coming to look at you, you're probably a junior, maybe late sophomore year, I mean, it's. It's later on when they come to start looking at you, and so by then you should have probably worked your way up. You're probably not still sitting the bench if they're coming to watch you and if I can see her mentoring girls younger than her, if I can see how she treats girls that are playing behind her and how she if she wraps her arms around her like that is super, super valuable. So sitting in the bench for a year or two to really get your grasp on how do we do things the right way and then really then trying to project that and create a program that mentors and strengthens each other, I think is super valuable and looks really good to coaches as well.

Speaker 1:

And in the recruiting process you're going to be able to speak to that right. A coach is going to say, oh hey, I see you were a three-year starter, a two-year starter, a four-year starter. You're going to be able to tell them like, hey, I had to work really hard for my starting spot. Or yeah, my high school wasn't as good, but I I mentored like you can. It's like any job interview. You can use it to your advantage, which totally relates to Aaron's email as well. Do you want to read that one?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she says. Aaron says good morning. I know you're a busy woman, but I could use your mom advice. My daughter is redacted. She came to camp this last summer so she came to our fearless warrior retreat. She goes to a small private school and and is going into it a little hesitant because the level of play is not as competitive as her travel team. It's early, which I keep telling myself, but I'm already seeing her frustration with both the older girls and coaches that are draining her enthusiasm and leaving her deflated.

Speaker 2:

I am caught between knowing she needs to be able to adjust to new players, new coaches and their style of play and the thought she's only 14, how much should she have to adjust? When do I know the difference between stop, you're being overprotective and you need to pull her out before they ruin the game for her forever? Do I just need to listen to her frustration while singing? Let I just need to listen to her frustration while singing. Let it go in my head. Help me control my mama bear and just be a background support to my daughter and not a crutch that just wants to fix it for her. Thank you for just being you.

Speaker 1:

This is so good and this is like truly best for last. So, erin, thank you for submitting this because, again, you're not alone and I guarantee you, if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're a parent, you're like, yeah, like, do I be that overprotective parent? How do I solve her problems? I don't want to have to solve her problems. It's a really fine line of letting them problem solve versus wanting to fix it for her, and I get why you guys want to fix these things, and it's tough, right, because high school is a different beast. It's different than what they're used to in travel ball and if you've heard us loud and clear, that's a good thing, right.

Speaker 1:

So the really cool thing is, this was my response to her from email. I actually copied and pasted this directly. I said word for word this frustration is all caps good. Now, while I don't have all the context, one of the things you could ask her one what is within your control, what's within her control, whether that's reps, whether that's her attitude, whether so it sounds like this is a high school team that would be on the ladder of. Maybe they're not as competitive, but there's still ways that you can leverage this to improve. Specific to her, I understand this is frustrating for you and I totally get why it would make you feel this way, and I wrote in the email as well I should have led with number three before addressing any of the other things. So when you speak to her, flip that order and emphasize first that her emotions are valid and then you can talk out with one and two together, have that conversation and really challenge her to see the opportunities.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's such such valuable advice and and the nice thing is, this is advice that will translate into other areas of her life, like, it's not just softball. But you're going to have frustrating work situations, you might have frustrating family situations, you might have frustrated I mean friendship situations, and you can use these exact same skills as a parent and then you can teach your daughter these exact same skills of like what can you control? At the end of the day, you cannot control so much of the world, but we also give up a lot of what we can control. We give it away and don't control what we can control. So, control the controllable and really just like, focus on what you can do.

Speaker 2:

And softball, specifically compared to other sports that I've played, it's really an individual team sport. It's kind of interesting in that way that, like, technically, you're on a team, you're playing together, you win as a team and lose as a team, but you're called on to make individual plays, so if the rest of your teammates are not playing well, you still can hold yourself to a different standard. You can say, regardless, I'm going to, you know, chase down every ball that comes at me, or regardless, this is how I'm going to approach my outbacks and my plate appearances and really holding yourself up to the standard that you want to set. You can do that on any team, you can do that anywhere, you can do that in your backyard when you're taking reps and you can decide this is how I want to show up and this is how I want to show up and this is what I want to do and this is what I'm working on, and you can get a long way with that.

Speaker 2:

In softball, as opposed to volleyball, it's a little harder when you really, as a setter, you really rely on somebody passing you the ball well and as a hitter, you really rely on someone setting you the ball well, but it's an individual team sport where you really can hold yourself to whatever standard you want to set for yourself, and then you can individually improve, even if the team around you is not necessarily, maybe the same standard.

Speaker 2:

So no experience is lost in that way, not to mention that you may have some opportunities that you might not have on a better team. So maybe you're going to bat in a different place in the lineup, maybe you're going to be able to play a position that you wouldn't normally get to play, maybe you're going to have a greater leadership role that you wouldn't have normally had, maybe you're going to be able to mentor more or coach more, and there's all these other opportunities that you may have that might not have been available, that you can use to your advantage. So, once again, going back to what can I control and what can I get out of it, based on what I put in it individually.

Speaker 1:

So good. And as a parent, I'll add one more thing. As a parent, affirm those. So if you see her hustling down what she you know, every ball, like she said she was, whatever goal, whatever she chooses, whatever conversation comes up, whatever she says, I'm going to commit to doing X, y, z. Rhonda Revelle always says if you see it, say it. So now, as a parent, you are like a Hawk watching for those things. You're like. I can't wait to praise her Soon as she gets back in the car. I'm going to point out you said you were going to do this. I'm so proud of you. You're doing it and the wins and losses won't matter.

Speaker 2:

Separate, separate the way she's playing from the wins and losses of the team. Like, say, instead of saying oh man, that was a tough loss, saying hey, I saw that, that at that at bat where you had swung at the rice ball twice and then you laid off of it, like I saw that, and who cares whether she hit the ball or not? Who cares? I mean, it's praising the process versus praising the outcome, which you talk about all the time. That if you as a parent can get real intentional about praising that process, then maybe she's less frustrated because they lost and she realizes the loss doesn't, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter, but I got better today and that's what matters. So praising that process can also help her as a as a parent.

Speaker 1:

Amazing, and I'll leave it with this. The final comment that has been laced throughout this whole episode is that this is so much bigger than softball. I will say that till I'm blue in the face. You're here, you're listening to this podcast, you're investing in resources, because it's not just about softball.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, If it was, it wouldn't matter.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Well, thanks, kara, for doing this episode with me. It's so much easier to have this conversation with you. I love talking about these things with you and it's making an impact. We really believe that it's making an impact. So, if this episode made an impact on you, um, we love the podcast. If you love the podcast, leave us a review. Um, shoot us a message, like we. All of these emails and messages are are in response to other podcasts and other things. So if this resonated with you, or I just thought of this, if you have a question you're like I want my question answered, send us a DM on Instagram or Facebook and maybe we'll do another one of these. If we get five or six questions together, we'll do another episode like this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Let's do it All right Until then. We'll see you guys next time.

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Amanda Schaefer

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