The Playbook with Colin Jonov
Formerly The Athletic Fortitude Show.... Colin Jonov’s Athletic Fortitude Show has rebranded to The Playbook with Colin Jonov, evolving from a sports-centric podcast to a universal guide for mastering life’s challenges. While retaining its foundation in mindset and performance excellence, the show now expands its scope to empower everyone—athletes, entrepreneurs, professionals, and beyond—to live life to its fullest potential
The Playbook with Colin Jonov
Terry Grossetti- Faith & Athletic Excellence: How Genuine Care Transforms Athletes
Terry Grossetti shares his personal faith journey and coaching philosophy, exploring how spirituality transformed his approach to life and athletic development. He reveals powerful insights about building true buy-in with athletes through genuine care while balancing structured training with individual needs.
• The battle between temptation and faith is a daily fight requiring constant vigilance
• Genuine care for athletes as people is the foundation for effective coaching relationships
• The way athletes approach warm-ups reveals volumes about their character and potential
• Finding the balance between high expectations and realistic goals is essential for development
• Structure in training matters, but flexibility based on individual personality types is crucial
• Coaches must hold the best players to the highest standards to maintain team culture
• Spiritual growth requires giving up certain attachments but ultimately leads to greater fulfillment
• Testing athletes regularly provides visible progress metrics that increase motivation and buy-in
• CS Lewis's quote about Christianity being either "of no importance" or "of infinite importance" resonates deeply
• Character is revealed through consistent actions, not occasional good intentions
Follow Terry on social media @TerryGrissetti or visit GrissettiPerformance.com to sign up for his monthly newsletter.
You know Jordan Peterson? He's never admitted he's a Christian. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people think he's because he knows the Bible so well. I saw recently he was talking about it and they were like he's like you know what does it? Someone's like do you believe in God? He's like I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 2:It's like you know, he always like, finds a way to like over analyze, let's say over complicate things. Yeah, and like I know the exact clip, you know this I should say, I think I know they you know the dude.
Speaker 1:What's that country band? They sing uh, save a horse, ride a cow big and rich, or something like that but if you gotta listen to the podcast where that dude he's a born-again Christian.
Speaker 1:Now, one of those dudes I don't know if it's big or rich or if that's, I think it's two people, but he's on his podcast and the dude's like. He pretty much says like dude, he's like you know, you have this huge audience of Christians who follow you, you know the Bible. He's like you could be pretty much the best vessel in the last hundred years with all these young men who follow you in this world. And you won't admit this, this, this.
Speaker 1:And jordan peterson sat there and like, got tears in his eyes dude, really, yeah, he like. And he and he was like you could be. He was like like you could be doing this, you could be this, you need to do that. And he like because not too many people are going to talk to somebody like that. Yeah, right, but it's true, right, you know, I mean like he, I think, is you know, as a christian or whatever faith, if you could be an ambassador and a lot of people are willing to listen to you, I think it's partly your place to like, do that. You know what I mean. Like in your own way.
Speaker 2:And he pretty much set him straight when he when started tearing up, did he have a response?
Speaker 1:He did yeah, I forget what he said it was. That was probably like six months ago. He did that. I thought it was pretty cool, because you don't always see that with stuff, everyone wants to be like, ah, I support you. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Versus like dude, this is what I think, and I think that the world would be a lot better if you had, because you have these people who have these big voices and like just hearing them. Just, you know, and that's why Joe Rogan is so good too, cause he'll, if he doesn't agree with you, he'll just come, he'll just say it too. You know what I mean. Like PBDs, like that too, you know, and they'll just come out and say, like I disagree, and this is my perspective, and you know. I think that that's what people need to hear, because people like nowadays, people like you know you get, they think you have to be in agreement with everything somebody else does to be their friend. You know what I mean. Like you could be a Democrat, republican, muslim, christian, whatever, like you can still be best friends with somebody who doesn't have the same beliefs as you, but now everybody thinks you have to be the exact same person, and that's why, you know, I think sometimes when you see people clash like that, it's pretty good for people to see.
Speaker 2:I want to make sure I articulate my opinion on this clearly because I agree, but I also believe there has to be a sort of respect and balance that comes with it.
Speaker 2:So what I mean by that is so in my space, like when I host a podcast.
Speaker 2:Why I love these conversations is I want to give, like I've told you, you the platform to talk about what you want to talk about. And so, as an interviewer, I think it's a little bit different, right, in that same breath, wanting the conversations to be natural, where I previously stayed away from incorporating my own opinions, I now incorporate my own opinions, not from the sake of trying to explain my reasoning, but more in the sense is, if there's other people out there that resonate with my message, it's an opportunity for them to hear that. And so to say that with your point, I'm not always going to just straight up, say I disagree and here's why, but I want to ask further questions to understand, and then at that point I can just be like from my own point of view. Right, I view it this way for reasons X, y or Z, because what I don't want it to be is combative. I don't believe reasoning comes through like confrontation in the sense of we're going to argue. I believe it comes through the confrontation of having an in-depth discussion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, that's what I mean. I wasn't you know saying like I didn't. You know what I mean. That's what I mean. I wasn't you know saying like. You know what I mean, like, yeah, I think that just hearing people out and a lot of times like you said, like, why do you think that way? Because you grow up totally different from somebody, you know what I mean Like, and you don't really know why. And I think putting yourself in their position and having the empathy to do that will help out a lot and it could even change some of the things that you think and you know I a lot, and it could even change some of the things that you think and you know.
Speaker 1:I think that that's why we should always be pursuing knowledge and wisdom. And sometimes the knowledge and wisdom comes from people who you might even disagree with. I mean, in my life there's been people I've been surrounded by since I was a little kid that I learned the most from that I said to myself I don't want to be like this. I don't want to be. I don't. He makes me feel like this, or she makes me feel like this. I don't want to ever make somebody feel like this, so it was the best learning experience you could have, because you're learning something the opposite way, right? You're not saying hey, do this, it's you know you're learning and you feel the way you feel on the other end of the stick.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's one way that that would be. Have you always been spiritual or like, when did you start coming to grips with your faith?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I've always been. You know, I say religious and that's like not like the term now, it's like it is spiritual or. But yeah, I mean I grew up Catholic. My family was pretty, pretty spiritual, pretty religious. I mean I went to CCD and stuff. I mean I grew up Catholic. My family was pretty spiritual, pretty religious. I mean I went to CCD and stuff. I went to church with my mom a lot and my dad's like not super, he don't really go to church or whatever, but he's, you know, believes and stuff.
Speaker 1:But no, I think for me, my journey of faith is I've always been close, I think, to God, but I've been scared to take the next step because I knew if I did that, my life would completely change, because you always want to do things that you want to do, right, you know what I mean. And so if I pursue my faith more and I pursue my relationship with Jesus more, then I got to leave this stuff behind where, eh, you know, I don't really I like this stuff. You know what I mean. Like I like doing this, I like hanging out with them, you know, and I think that in the last couple of years my faith has grown a lot and you know I've pretty much gave everything up. Besides that, really, you know what I mean Like, and I tell everybody it's like and it's hard. Right, it's not easy and none of us will ever be perfect, and we always talk about it in my Bible study. People probably look at us like this dude used to do this and now he's studying the Bible. Come on, it's like dude. Well, you grow up, you find what's important to you as you age and you experience the world.
Speaker 1:And I tell everybody, you wake up in the morning and it's a fight. Right, you put on the armor of God and it's a fight. It ain't easy. You're surrounded by people from your past sending you memes that are probably a little bit controversial. Right, you pop on the radio and you hear a song you used to. I mean, I was leaving the gym today and I heard it. It was this dude in his old Cadillac playing. It was like I don't want to know if you know that song. Whatever, I think it's like Mario or something, but it reminded me like bang, high school, warm out summer. What are we doing tonight? Like you know, I I'm thinking man, that's a life that I used to live and my life's much better now.
Speaker 1:But, like I said, it's a war that, living in this world we live in now, you're tempted by so much.
Speaker 1:You have to have constant reminders and you have to have people around you that are going to help keep you on the same, on the right path.
Speaker 1:And I tell everybody you wake up in the morning, you sit up out of your bed and you and the devil are like this, face to face, and you're like, and he's like I want you to do this, it's what he's telling you. The devil isn't like, or evil isn't like, this big, bad devil like this. He comes to you in ways that you, they, they contempt you, that you like. You know what I mean and and and you have to put on, like I said, the armor of God to, to, to when those arrows come, to knock them off, not let them get to you. You know, and it's you know. I think we all struggle with different things and I think the things that we ultimately struggle with will determine our destiny, right, you know, like you, certain people are more susceptible to sinning in this way or feeling this way, and I think that how you react to those things are ultimately where we'll showcase where you will be for eternity.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's definitely not easy, you know, so yeah, the important piece, and at least the thing that grabs me the most, is like so yeah, the important piece, at least the thing that grabs me the most, is like I see that all the time, particularly on social media someone who was priorly not faithful that becomes faithful, regardless of the type of religion or spirituality, and that is the number one critique. People will bring up the past of things that they've done or things that they've said, and the reality is we're all, like you said, a work in progress. Things are always changing. We're evolving as people our thoughts, our beliefs and for someone who finds faith, usually it is prior people who didn't have any faith at all and they reach a pivot point or a tipping point when they realize the way that they're living is not conducive to fulfillment in life and they have this transition period. Was there a transition period for you where you either wrestled with your faith or you were like something's not right. I need to find my fulfillment in life or purpose in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say I think we're always longing for that feeling. Even though you could have everything right, I don't think you could ever be fully fulfilled until you give your life to God. I really believe that and you see that with you know, celebrities and stuff, man, like they have everything in the world and you know they give things up to become closer to God. And because you do have to give up a lot, right, you know, I listened to this one rap song. He says you had to kill me to let me live. And it's the truth. Like you cannot, I used to just sin, do things that weren't ideal, right, and then I would ask for forgiveness and I thought that that was okay. But you actually have to ask for and do repentance, and that is a lot harder than sitting there and saying, hey, god, I'm sorry about this man, and just keep continuing to do it over and over again. You're never going to have the strength to get over those things on your own. You know, but some, I don't know, some moments in my life you know my son, he spent a lot of time in the NICU and that made me, you know, you get to a point where you know you have to like it's like nothing on earth could make you feel better, right, and I mean like you see a baby born two pounds and it's like, no, nothing on earth could make you feel better, right, and I mean like you see a baby born two pounds and it's like, no, it doesn't matter. I could listen to either tiger a million times. I could talk to my parents, I could talk to my wife, I could hear people tell me, look, this is going to be okay. But it's like, dude, it's like the only thing that made me feel better was talking with God about it. And like actually like talking more, like just not praying per se, but like finding strength, you know, and I've found myself a lot more stronger than I thought I was by gaining that strength and just being in those positions.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people, like skeptics, will say too, like, oh, people, oh, they become religious because of this. Oh, they become religious because of this. What's like Jesus came to us and he came for the broken people, right, you know he didn't come. Like, if you read the Bible and stuff, like the Pharisees and Sadducees and people like that, like they thought that they're, you know, they were above the law or following all this Old Testament stuff. And he came for people like us. You know, and I think that, like when skeptics say that, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I think, at the end of the day, probably my favorite quote on Christianity is CS Lewis, when he said if Christianity is false, it is of no importance, right? So if we're right now, we pray to God, right, we believe in God. If it's false, what's the word? We lived a great life, right, we were better people because of it. If it's true, it is of infinite importance. The only thing that it isn't is moderately important. It's either nothing or it's everything. So, like you know, like, looking back, looking at it, it's like well, so you're telling me I can sign up to have a higher power. That I think is real. Be there for me and make me feel better, make me a better person, make me treat other people better, make me a better dad, make me work harder and live with a purpose. Sign me up. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like, I believe that it's true, I know that it's true, but for skeptics it's like, dude, like are you an idiot? You know what I mean, Like, so you're going to bet against it? What are you gaining from that? Just to say, oh, science or this. And to be honest with you, there's so much scientific data that has disproved so much of the old scientific data that it's not real anyway. So it's like it's such a win-win situation and all there's so much evidence.
Speaker 1:You know, we talked last time. But I mean, dude, I read like so many books on this when I was, you know, battling with God, wrestling with God, dude. I mean the evidence on stuff is dramatic, god, dude. I mean the evidence on stuff is dramatic. You know, any evidence that comes out, any new historical data that comes out, it proves it. Right, right, right, not wrong, wrong, wrong, you know. So that's always made me feel better too, because I do like history and I read a lot of history that doesn't have nothing to do with Christianity or religion in general. So I think I gravitate towards those things. So, yeah, I would think that those are some things that kind of drove home the point with me.
Speaker 2:At the lowest common denominator. I always say the same thing. If I'm wrong, so be it, but if I'm right, then like you said it's eternal At the lowest point. I don't think that's the only reason or the main reason, but a reason to get started is if you are right, you have the potential for eternal life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you surround yourself with so many good people, right? I mean you join a church and it's all a bunch of people who genuinely really care about each other, at least on that day. And there's a lot of people that go to church for probably just to check a box.
Speaker 2:Just to check a box.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, they're there. You know what I mean. Like you surround yourself with people like that and, like I said, you have a best friend who you can talk to at any time, that will make you feel better. Right, you have something in common with your family that can you can, I mean the activities, and you know, are really endless and the positives are really pretty much endless.
Speaker 2:The one critique now I never passed judgment, and there's a difference between criticism and judgment, but I'll, and I'll, as a Catholic, I'll pick on Catholics here for a moment is people who think that they can just show up on Sunday, check that box and say, oh, I'm a Catholic. Where, for me, being a Catholic is not a one-time thing, it is a lifestyle. It is in the hardest moments to be a Catholic, choosing to be a Catholic because that's what you believe to be true, because I can be a good person one day a week or go to church for an hour on Sunday Anyone can do that. But what about when I'm being tempted the most at my greatest vices, or I'm in the lowest points of my life or the greatest challenges, right? Am I turning my back on God then, or am I continuing to lean into him even when it's most difficult?
Speaker 2:And that's my criticism of Catholics and I think that's a fair criticism of Catholics. My rebuttal to that is, obviously, I believe the Catholic faith to be truth is don't let a few people distract from the religion aspect of it. And but that's my biggest critique with anyone is like when you do something in this manner, it is your lifestyle and of course we sin and make mistakes. That's why we repent. But to be all in and to submit in that manner where it is, this is what I believe and it is a lifestyle choice and I live it every single day, or aim to live it to my best abilities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I mean growing up Catholic. I completely get. I understand what you're saying. I mean my son, rocco, is he's baptized Catholic. I'll probably end up baptizing Giano Catholic too.
Speaker 2:My only thing with Catholic is um and that was less about catholicism and more just the general faith base.
Speaker 1:The thing yeah, the thing with catholic catholicism is that it's just like, growing up, I never learned the bible. All it is is all these like you go to church, and it's like these ceremonies over and over. It's like, well, what you know, I well, growing up Catholic, I could probably name five people out of the Bible. You never heard of them. You know what I mean, and to me that doesn't make a lot of sense and that's one thing that really made me question what denomination I was kind of going after and it was just I'm just, whatever it is, I don't even know. I think it's called non-denominational. I'm Bible, I'm the Word of God I don't even know.
Speaker 1:I think it's called like non-denominational. I'm Bible, I'm the word of God, that's what I believe. I don't. I like the Bible doesn't really like. I don't really like you know the Christianity or you know being Catholic. You, you say the Hail, mary and stuff like that, like I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean, do you pray or do you just like? Do you say prayers? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I say all Catholic prayers, but like I say three, I say the Our Father and I say a couple other prayers and then I just kind of talk to God, but I mean it's all like for me, like ever since I've transitioned into more of a spiritual lifestyle, I mean it's all day. I mean like you know what I mean. Like it's just it's more, it feels so good to just like I wake up in the morning. I mean I still do this, of course, because you know I'm Italian and Catholic, right, and I just start my day by just praying. God, please give me wisdom today. Whatever comes my way, please help me to be a good dad, please help me to do the best I can, and you know, whatever I go through. Thanks, man, you know what I mean. Like it's just pretty much it Like and I mean it's just, it's like that all day long man Like I, I got this going on. Please help me to deal with this situation I'm going to be going through.
Speaker 1:I have a tendency to have a short fuse and get mad really quickly. I have a tendency to swear, you know, and I don't want to do that. Please help me. Please help me articulate my words better and um, and not get so upset, you know, and when I know things are coming. So yeah, I mean I, I pray a lot.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's more like I said, it's just more like talking and growing up like being catholic. It's like pray, like I get down on my knees and it's like me and my friends are like looking at each other in church, like laughing, and it's just a little bit different now. Now we'll still still go to Catholic church and stuff. I like it. I actually like some of the ceremonies and stuff, but it's hard to study the Word of God being Catholic. You know what I mean, because it's just like there's not really, with all the sacraments and stuff, like that. It kind of takes away from, I think, so much of the Bible and for me. Like I said, I love reading, I love history and I'm very religious. The Bible is like kind of everything to me. It kind of fits a lot of boxes, it checks a lot of boxes for me, so that's why I kind of gravitate more towards that. How has this impacted the way you coach and train with?
Speaker 2:your athletes. How has this impacted the way you coach and train with your athletes?
Speaker 1:Well, I definitely swear a lot less than I did. I mean I was pretty bad. But you know, with swearing I think there are times it makes sense to swear in life. If you don't mean bad, I mean like if somebody's going for a PR on a back squat and you smack their back and you're like let's effing go. That's a little bit different than saying, man, what the eff is going on? Man, it's a totally different feel.
Speaker 2:Actually, I have a unique perspective on swear words. If you're talking about in the sense of profane language, I can use regular words as profanity and, like you said, use swear words as profanity and, like you said, use swear words as encouragement. So, like I wanted to interrupt to say, like I agree with, like that resonance, more about the purpose of the word. Yeah, I say the word itself yeah, what you know.
Speaker 1:I've talked with some people about this before, but but but the thing with that is it's like as a christ like we both are right, we should be ultimately living a life that when other people see us, they question why am I not a Christian, right? So if I'm claiming to do all this and I'm swearing like crazy a non-believer, that might actually push them away from the faith. So that's why watching your tongue, I think, is important. In the Bible references A lot of times what comes out of your mouth is in your heart too. So if I have all this anger built up, I'm probably going to swear.
Speaker 1:Letting things go and just living better will help me talk better ultimately. But yeah, I would say that, um, I would say just having like more empathy to kids and stuff, like when they're not doing like exactly what I tell them to do. I'm a pretty big stickler with stuff, but like it was like the other day, I was like this one kid came and I like was on him during this lift, like it looked like he never lifted before or whatever, and I was just like dude, like you know, like just just riding him for an hour in the weight room. Okay, and I do that for, for, for his benefit, right, it doesn't do nothing for me.
Speaker 1:I tell people as a coach, if I'm getting mad it's because I messed something up, right? I shouldn't be getting mad at anything that you're doing. You know what I mean. Like it's my job to coach you, but if I've put on the workout barbell, bent over row for a whole football team and we only when I go in the weight room and I didn't realize there were three barbells in there and we have 50 dudes, I'm going to get mad and I'm going to. But but it's my fault, right. But referencing that kid like in the next day, I like I'm getting there in the morning and he's like I'm walking in and his like grandpa's dropping them off, he gets out of the back seat and he walks into the waiter. I'm like thinking, man, this kid's like in ninth grade.
Speaker 2:Like grandpa dropping off and he's just coming in.
Speaker 1:So I thought, man, you should write, and so, but you know, I think I do a good job of when I do that with somebody. The next time I'll build them up a ton Like hey, buddy, last time, like you know, and I'll you know, and that gives sometimes me an opportunity to talk to them a little bit more too, you know. So I would say that, yeah, I would say those are probably the main things for me. You know, just becoming a little bit more spiritual and just seeing the world a little bit different, like you know. I think that you know, when you're living for a purpose that isn't your own gain, you know, you wake up happier, right? You know what I mean. It doesn't if your day doesn't go perfect, it doesn't affect you as much. You know what I mean Because, hopefully, everything I do is, you know, I always pray that I'm using the tools God given me to glorify him, right? Um, some days I think I do a better job of that. But, um, I would say those are probably the main two things for me.
Speaker 2:What is, what is the hardest part with kids or college or pro level? Because they happen at every level where they struggle to buy in and they don't necessarily realize the full value of the training that you're giving them.
Speaker 1:I think kids don't buy in when you're not fully bought into them. I think that a lot of coaches they want buy-in, they want these kids to work really hard, they want their kids to run through a wall for them but they will not do it for them. And I think human beings are really good at identifying that, especially kids. And I think human beings are really good at identifying that, especially kids. You know, I tell my kids all the time. You know, when I blow my whistle, you stop talking. It's out of respect for me. So if I blow my whistle, you're still talking. You're disrespecting me and I think that it's evident when I do that. That's a pretty good way to find out if people respect you or not. Right, if you tell them to do something and I think that just I don't know, I mean buying in, that's like the hot word, right and like how do I get?
Speaker 1:buy-in. I think you have to know your players and I think they have to know you ultimately care. You know what I mean. I think they have to, like I said I told my players the one day actually, when I was a strength coach up at Youngstown, I like walked in the weight room one day and I wore earrings. We're not allowed to wear earrings. That was one of my rules. I was like had the wrong shorts on. We were supposed to wear black. I was like wearing red and I had like a do-rag on or something like as a joke, and I like walked in a little bit late. They're like I'm like. Does it look like I care to you? Does this look like I care? I'm violating a bunch of rules, right? They're like no, I'm like. So when you do it, it's pretty obvious. I don't think you care.
Speaker 2:You know. So I think that the more you can get people to understand that, the better off you are too. I think a lot of coaches struggle with that. You know, I don't know in your experience. What do you think?
Speaker 2:So I always say, like, when you're presenting something to someone up front, it's always hard to show value right, Like you talk about mental health, physical health. You know faith and different things. At a surface level, everybody can generally understand yeah, If I do this, this is probably good for me. But I always say, with that buy-in piece, I always say spend one week with me, you're going to be bought in, You're going to understand, you're going to receive the inherent value. Now I 100% could not agree more with. People can figure out in the snap of a fingers whether or not you care about them, and I'll always say, to the day I die, that is what matters most, to truly care about someone. That's when you can coach someone hard. If someone knows that you inherently care about them the person, and not just the value that they can extract from you instantly, you're going to get some level of commitment and buy-in and that's only going to deepen and strengthen the more time you spend together because it can't be faked. You cannot fake genuine care for someone else.
Speaker 1:That's what my high school basketball coach used to say. He said until you reach into a kid's chest and grab his heart, then you can coach him. Just talking with him and giving him the basics is I just especially with. With the way it is nowadays like kids are so stimulated. I think that anything you can do with them in person to like look them in the eye and tell them like look, I think one other thing too is like just individually meeting with them, even if it's for 10 seconds, like after a lift or after practice.
Speaker 1:Hey, I noticed you've been working harder. I appreciate that. Like just little stuff like that. I mean, it goes such a long way cause they're not getting that kind of talk a lot. You know, um, but yeah, I just think it's.
Speaker 1:You know they don't care how much you know till till you know they know how much you care. Right, and it doesn't matter if you're the best strength coach, football coach, whatever in the world, if you're not willing to let get them. Let them know you and get them to know I mean. But honestly, though, there's some people who are just terrible people and are good coaches too. So you know it's it's hard to say what way is always right, but. But I do think one main point of both sides is you treat everybody the same. So if you're going to be an MF-er man, you do it to everybody. They're cool with that. But if you're only going to call out the little fat kid who can't plank, you know when your best player can't plank and his butt's in the air and you call him out, then no one's going to respect you, you know. So I think ultimately, treating everybody the same is pretty important too.
Speaker 2:Now with the treating everybody the same. Different people respond to different types of coaching. How do you cusp some of that while maintaining that same standard of expectation of? This is what we're going to do, but maybe applying the message differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think it's. You know, when you first meet kids. It's treat everybody the same, regardless, right, or teams, or it doesn't have to always be kids I keep saying that but and then it's when you get to know them. Well, first of all, you have to be aware that you have to get to know them right and constantly be working on that yourself. And you don't really work on it as much as you just pay attention to stuff, right, you pay attention to the days where you were harder, you were easier, you were more demanding, you let them freelance, right, and then seeing what athletes picked up on what.
Speaker 1:Now, if you have you're like me and you have 80, 90 football players, that's challenging, right, but you do have to try your absolute best to do it. And I think one way you can start that is by, like what I do is I always treat the best players the worst. No question, I could care less how they learn or how they like it. You know what I mean. Like it's this kid's getting called out constantly. He has a bunch of D1 offers. Okay, I'm going to make it a point to make it super hard for him, and I think that gets a lot of people's respect on the team too, before you know them, but I people's respect on the team too, before you know them. But I always try to push those people harder.
Speaker 1:you know, I think too like you know, just talking, you know, with people, other people in their life, is important too, if you have access to that. You know, hey, what motivates you know, jimmy or whatever. I think that's beneficial too, you know, but for me it's all football, so it's always hard because it's a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You know, it's a lot of people yeah, now, football is tough and in general too, like I always kind of segment football players and into really like four groups. It's like you have your, your star players, you have your people who are contributors, main contributors, you have your support backups and then guys that are just there Learning how to deal with all those personalities to get people to buy in again. Going back to that word, to one specific goal, is really challenging for any individual and it takes a team, and where I feel for either programs at the collegiate level that don't have the resources, or programs at the collegiate and professional level that don't care, or programs at the high school that don't have the resources to have everybody in place, is it makes your job and the head coach's job really really difficult to really get under one coordinated messaging. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:And when I look at player, everyone talks about like player led teams. Well, players also need to be guided and, like the leaders of a team need to be guided, and I think that there's incredible value in being the hardest on your best players so that the rest of the team knows nobody is above the standard, Cause I've been on teams where the best players can get away with things and there's absolutely an element to talent. You know, equals tolerance and the lower you fall in that totem pole, the higher your character or whatever needs to be. But for me, there is a baseline minimum where it's like there can be anything below this line. I don't care who you are, what you are on this team. It is unacceptable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a good way to go about it. Honestly, I mean, that's the thing is like it's so different from, like pro college, high school and then if you, there's probably a lot of, maybe, people that'll watch us, that are even coaching peewees, Right, you know. So it's like it's so hard, cause some of the kids don't even want to be there. You know what I mean. Like even high school kids like we have, you know, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:It's definitely not easy, you know, and I think a lot of it it comes really from the head coach of the sport too. You know what I mean. A strength coach can only do as much as what the head coach demands, you know, and you never want to like, as a strength coach, step on the head coach demands, you know, um, and you never want to like, as a strength coach, step on the head coach's toes and stuff like that. And even if you think there's different things you could do better, you know you could talk to him about it, but you're not going to talk to the team about it, right, you know. So you're always at their mercy too, but if you're fortunate to work with good ones, like I have, that's really never been an issue.
Speaker 2:From a structure standpoint, when you're organizing plans and you're really helping these athletes organize their lives as well, particularly as they progress through and get to the collegiate, the NFL level or professional sports level in general, I always say that there's this element of obsession that needs to take place for the best. Now, some guys are obviously freakishly talented, can overcome whatever to a certain extent. However, with that obsession level, usually structure follows. So when you're structuring, how much of a belief do you have around? Like just that straight, rigid, rigid I'm going to bust below the word here but making everything as rigid as possible, like, do you believe in having flexibility or does everything for you have to be? This is when you do this, this and that. Are you saying more?
Speaker 1:in terms of like, uh, like a general, like a general plan for an athlete.
Speaker 2:Yes, like a plan for an athlete.
Speaker 1:Not like a strength and conditioning program.
Speaker 2:No athlete Not like a strength and conditioning program, no general plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so much of that is their personality type. You know what I mean. Like there's I've I've had some of the hardest workers come through my facility that are just great kids that weren't like structure guys, you know what I mean. Like that they will do anything you ask for when they're there, but they're not always super on time, like or they're not always going to follow their diet specifically, but you know they'll get the majority of the work done. You know you'll have kids that are just diehard structure guys too, right, you know what I mean. So I think that that's a loaded question because I think that you have to.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, me personally, I'm a structured guy. If I could have every single thing during my weeks scheduled out, including, you know, freaking call of duty, you know what I mean Everything in my week to get my week done, that's how I would be. But I'm learning as I get older because I try to get other people to do this with me so I can. Yeah, because if you get older you don't see your friends as much anymore. So you're like, hey, let's do a, let's play video games Tuesday nights at eight o'clock and it's like no one's here, like you know. I mean, like it's like people aren't really like that man, you know. So I think putting people into an environment that may be different than what they would learn from would be I don't know if the right word is detrimental, but it might not set them up for success. I mean, but you look at things like you know the military, for instance. You know that's going to be very structured and it's going to produce results. No doubt you know. So it's like you could say that's going to be very structured and it's going to produce results. No doubt you know. So it's like you could say that it's like, well, everybody could be better with structure. But it's true, but sports are a little bit different, you know. But you know I'm all about structure. So I'm more talking about like if I was training Andrew McCutcheon than I am talking about if I was training the Pitt football team, right?
Speaker 1:So say Cutch wants to say and I'm going to make all this up, but just for the sake of this conversation, like, say, cutch, he likes waking up. He wakes up at noon every day. Why am I going to make him? Hey, no, we're going to be on a structured diet. You're going to wake up at 7 am every day and you're going to eat this and you're going to lift at this when he doesn't like doing that. You know what I mean. But no, if it's a multitude of people on a team, you have to have some sort of structure, like that right. And to have a winning culture you have to have structure. You can't just let everyone come and live wherever you want because, hey, man, it's whatever, it's whatever's best for you. That doesn't fit either. So on an individual level, if it's able to happen, I think it's an opportune time to structure it an in-structure way. But if it's a team, I think it would have to be. That's kind of the way I look at it.
Speaker 2:What about you? So I look at the excessive rigidity. I want to get the word right. Goodness gracious, rigidity, that's the right word right, I think yeah, that's above my pay grade there. I think that when it's over excessive it can be detrimental, but again it goes back to the individual right.
Speaker 1:The thing is is like I don't even know what is what's like. I don't know what over excessive is Cause like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like it's such like a vague thing, it's like is over excessive, given a person a diet to follow and setting up their training every day at a certain time, like you know what I mean. Or are you saying like cause I mean everybody needs that? But I'm just saying more like I don't know. I train, like you know, sky more this off season. It's like there's days where you know Sky, you know he'll be the first one to admit he don't go to bed really early. He would want to come in a little bit later and that's fine, but then other days he would. So it's like you know what I mean. He's a good player, so I don't want to sacrifice Sky's sleep, which is very, very important, to have a rigid schedule for him. You know what I mean. So I guess it's hard to say what's actually a rigid schedule and what's. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there's degrees of this right. And so when I look at it just from, like, a general perspective and for someone who is looking for some type of guidance of like, how habitual do I need to be, how routine do I need to be to maximize or optimize myself, I look at it from a sense of what's too much structure, what's not enough. And I, you know, I examine my own life and I look at my own diet patterns. Like, for example, before this you gave me a cookie right and normally I don't eat cookies right Because it's not a part of my diet schedule, it doesn't fit into what I want to do, like, for example, me eating this cookie right Could be-.
Speaker 1:Stressing you out.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's where I would say like that's an excessively rigid routine. If I have a cookie, I'm going to be like oh no, now I'm going to be fat it was actually a test.
Speaker 2:It was a test and you failed and I failed. So it's like you know, to that extent, it's like, okay, I had a cookie today, well, now, tomorrow I just won't have a cookie, yeah, right, and you know, just like. And so, like finding what works for you For some people they can't have any sweets, right, or they can't have a drink of alcohol, or they can't, you know, stay up past their normal bedtime, right. And because, like you, look at like different studies and where I get frustrated in the space and I used to be like this, to be honest, I'm frustrated with former self and then a lot of current people is they talk about like biohacking and all these other things where they're like you have to go to bed at the same time every day and you have to wake up at the same time every morning. And while in principle I agree right, and that helps me with my own health, sometimes it's okay, stay up an hour later and watch the Netflix episode you want to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, stay up an hour later, play the video game that you want to watch Now. Don't make it a habitual habit where you're constantly doing these things that distract from what you overall want to achieve. But having some randomness or flexibility, I do think is advantageous.
Speaker 1:And to be honest with you, man, I think the best organizers do that right. You know what I mean. Like, how many times have you seen a, a college football program randomly one day? They don't take their? They set up a really hard lift Friday is going to be real hard and they take them to a swimming pool or something like that, where you or you're like almost like the best structure is by structuring even that stuff. You know what I mean? Like structuring the randomness, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think. I think that that's for me what I mean. Structuring the randomness, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that that's for me what I would think would work best. That would work best in my life as well.
Speaker 2:Now I will say for myself, and again, this is unique to me. It may be different for other people, but it does shape the way I believe.
Speaker 2:I do believe people, for the most part, who are routine-oriented are more successful, who are routine oriented are more successful and you can control elements of those for lack of a better term vices where it's like, hey, you know, I don't go to sleep early, I stay up late, right, those people who can curve that and be like, okay, I am going to go to bed an hour later than normal and so that way I can wake up earlier and get more done.
Speaker 2:I do believe that those people end up being more successful. One of my favorite entrepreneurs always says like I've never met a loser who gets up every day and works up at 5am. Right, and not even in the sense of like success, of dollar amount, but in terms of like personal fulfillment in life. Right, and I think that that's like an important piece is like when you can be structured and routine in some sense, to where 85% of the time I'm up at 5 am working out or I follow my diet routine. 85% of the time it's a made up number, but to get the point across, when you are that person and that's part of who you are you're going to to be successful yeah, and I, and I think too that people that might not like admit they're structured and they're say they're random.
Speaker 1:Their randomness has a structure to it if they're successful, you know, I mean like it's like, yeah, maybe they do, maybe they do go to bed late and sleep in, but it's, it's consistent, right, and it's part of the routine yeah yeah, it's part of their, whatever their routine is.
Speaker 1:And I think you see a lot more of that in like you know, art musicians, people like that with like kind of like that, that need like that flowing artistic brain kind of thing, and you never know what's going to motivate you, you know kind of thing. But I, but I would just say, for me it's just like thinking it through now. It's like anybody that just doesn't have any sort of plan, that's probably not a good. But if you can reference that you don't have a plan, then you kind of have a plan. You know what I mean, if you're even thinking that way, I guess, because some people just go through life with no real rhyme or reason on why they do things or this or that, um, and I don't think that's the correct way to to accomplish what you could accomplish.
Speaker 2:Have you found that most of your best athletes have some type of like routine that they follow?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. I would say I would say anybody as successful I know is on, is on some sort of routine for sure. Um, you know, and it's like that your whole life, anybody you knew, you know had some sort of structure. They were. You would see him at the gym, you would see him at this, you'd see him at that, like it, it positive things and putting things into their life that are going to point them the right direction for sure.
Speaker 2:How quickly can you determine if a player has the it factor?
Speaker 1:What do you when you say it like are?
Speaker 2:you saying like physical or mental.
Speaker 1:Just in general, it can be both like well, physical um, watching them warm up is pretty important to me. While watching them warm up you could really check both boxes. So like you watch people warm up, are they taking the warmup dead serious? Usually, if you take the warmup dead serious, you're pretty serious. You know what I mean. So, regardless of if you suck or not at sports, if you warm up, you're good. You're probably going to be in some sort of way valuable to the team. You know what I mean. Whether it's you're good in practice, you get good grades or those are the bottom of the. I mean that's not bottom of the barrel, but when it comes to actually making you win a football game or being a valuable part of the team, I mean you know someone who could get better grades. Pick up on stuff quick. You know what I mean. Be a valuable point in practice, whatever. And then if they do that and they can move really good, right, when you watch someone do high knees, butt kicks, broad jumps, power skips, side shuffle, how they look and just how they kind of pop off the ground, and you could use that for a fifth grader, right. Or you can use that as if you go down to St Vincent and watch like the best of the best you know and they're all going to be freaks. But if you want to know who the biggest freaks are whether it's mental, mentally like locked in, or the best athlete freaks you could just do the same thing there too. I do that a lot Like when I first get around a team and I try to do a really good job of coaching them on how they should look and what they should look like when they do stuff, how quickly they pick up on stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, like I talked about Kutch earlier, I mean that dude, if you tell him to do something, he can do it good immediately. It doesn't matter what it is and you can just and I wouldn't. It was like probably four or five years ago I had him work out with our draft prep guys and it was like it was like they're all all their first days at the indoor out there and like I was teaching them how to do. I don't know, I don't know it might've been butt kicks correctly or something like that that people mess up a lot. And yeah, I told it to him. He does it and all the other guys don't do it. I'm like I brought good immediately. I said he's played.
Speaker 1:Now I don't think that point it might've been 12 years, whatever in the MLB. That's why Now, obviously he's a great baseball player and stuff, but just having the ability to do stuff like that, that's really hard to find people that can do that. And you mentioned you were that kind of guy earlier when we were talking about the wrestling. The wrestling so um, yeah, so you're on the same page. But yeah, I mean I would say watching people warm up for me I mean I think that I think that's pretty surefire way, especially just like, like I said, I mean it's when you see someone dead serious warming up. It's it's nice to see. You don't see it very often, so pay attention to that if you're, if you're a coach watching this.
Speaker 2:Why do you think he is that way? Like, do you like? Where do you think it comes from?
Speaker 1:I've been I've been going through this battle lately. The funny you brought that up because I think about this all the time and this is we're going to talk about him, but I'll talk about me for a second. I don't know why we are the way we are in anything, because I think about so. Why am I so? Why do I love reading books so much? Nobody in my life reads books. You you don't want to like. Why Like? What happened to make that happen Right? And for him it's like I really just think it's like a God's gift kind of thing. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Because you, just now, you could like, you could say with Kutch, like his, his dad played football in college, actually for a little bit, and is close with his dad. I'm sure he's had a lot of great baseball coaches, that you might say he's been around some great coaches or he had some great teammates we learned off of him. You could ask him too and maybe he would have a different answer. But for me it's like he's probably just like that. He's smart. His son, steel, was smart. He's like a little guy. He smart Like you know, like he's he can. He's like a little guy. He puts stuff together really quickly and it just picks up. I just think it's just. I don't know man. I mean what do you think? I mean, you know like what, why are you like?
Speaker 2:I can't state enough how much genetics plays a role in everything.
Speaker 1:But, but. But to say that is like I don't have anybody in my family that thinks like I do. I don't think, or maybe they just have never pursued that.
Speaker 2:I'll unpack it here, so I'm going to go off on a little tangent. I'm going to do my best to articulate this as clearly as possible. So when I say, like genetics, right, there's an inheritance component, right, but that inheritance goes on like generational lineage, okay, but there's also, just like the genetics of we never know at what point in time something's going to peak our interest and drive our curiosity. And so there was a psychologist that I had on here, dr Julie Gerner. You would love her stuff, you should check her out, she's phenomenal.
Speaker 2:But one of the questions I asked her was like that like obsessive component of, like super success elite people, like where does it come from? Right, and a lot of that just is like in their nature, right, they're born with this just drive to figure things out, and it may only show itself in one domain of life. It is not necessarily that it transitions into other areas, but how you find out oh, I love reading or how things change, right, is like the receptors of when I have an experience, the type of gratification it gives me, both immediately and in the long term. So, whether or not that you had readers in your family, you likely had people who had some type of addictive personality where they experienced something and they loved it and they kept doing it. And so for you, it may have just been that learning element that you then become obsessed with. Learning Like holy smokes, like this really grabbed my attention, this pulled me into it, it sucked me in. I liked the way that that felt. I liked not only the immediate gratification but the long-term benefit of it. And then it works and comes together, and that's like through a life of experiences, right, both taught and untaught, just experienced learning, right, we're able to kind of form and shape these different components of ourselves.
Speaker 2:And then what I ultimately love to do with athletes, right, is to intentionally build these things, and so we're talking about engineering that identity, or engineering who you want to be, right, it's first, most of us go through life without the intentionality of knowing what we want to do or have any concept of who we want to be, both from a value character perspective or from an achievement-based perspective. And so to actually spend time in that space, asking yourself questions, reflecting, viewing people that you aspire to be or who have influenced you in a positive way, and really extracting from that those key things that are important to you right, and that's like one of the first things I do is like think of someone who's impacted you, either, you know, from a faith-based or from like a mentor space, or from just like hey, from afar, like I really really value what that person did or their impact on me, and then try and define it and then that way you can begin to look in your own life and attract yourself to things in your life and your day-to-day that are going to pull you to that, and genetically we're going to be wired and attracted to different things, and so I think all the time about even differences in my life. So, like when I was a competitive athlete, the last thing I ever wanted to do was go on a walk or go on a hike. If I wasn't training or practicing, I wanted to be chilling.
Speaker 2:But now that my career is over, I cannot wait to go on a walk.
Speaker 2:I love going on hikes, I love sightseeing, and so, like the transitional phase for me was, now that I have the energy, I'm going to be attracted to physical activities where now I also get the aesthetics of it. It puts me in a state of nature where I can be calm and really we talk about vices or demons and Satanists facing when we wake up in the morning. One thing for me is I always had just a nasty temper, but when I'm out in nature and I'm on a walk or I'm walking with my wife, or on the phone talking to someone or listening to a podcast while I walk, it's an opportunity for me to really just settle my heart rate down and relax while I'm still getting physical activity. And so I wouldn't know that without asking myself questions, reflecting and then going out and trying and experiencing new things. And so I think we're constantly in this evolution of self and what I say it's either dynamic or fluid. It's either dynamic I'm making the active changes or fluid people are changing my experiences.
Speaker 1:For me, yeah, that's really interesting stuff, Because I always wonder that. You know, it's just the same. It's like same thing. It's like you could see people who were just they become losers and they're surrounded by winners. It's like, you know, maybe they picked up on something that a winner was doing that was a loser tendency and gravitated towards that, or like you know what I mean, it's just, it's so, it's so crazy, man, you know what, what? What makes us become who we are, and all that. And I think a big, big determinant is the people you surround yourself with.
Speaker 2:I mean, everybody knows that, you know, um, I look at someone like cuts, though, and realistically, at a perfect point in time, did his genetics and skillset align with a time period that highly value sports?
Speaker 2:and 150 to a thousand years, if sports are no longer valued, everyone who has that genetic gift that can be really good at a sport just may not be perceived as valuable right and so I think that's an extremely important component for someone who may not be an athlete or isn't the most athletic, when they look at something right and view perceived successful people is understand that we're in a point in time in history where sports are just super prevalent and valued. That's a good point and it's like their skill set just perfectly aligned at this point in time where it's like, hey, this person's like super successful, but people who have that obsessive trait, they just have to figure out now where their physical tool set lies.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You would think a lot of them, you know guys with that you know kind of thing might you know, even gravitated towards like being like warriors or samurais or like just in different things in the history of the world. That kind of like embodied both of those things being important to you know if it was in their culture, you know. And that's things being important too, you know if it was in their culture, you know.
Speaker 2:And that's where I say like you know, again like understanding those values, traits, characteristics that you want to embody. The reality is you can pick those up and apply them intentionally to different areas in life.
Speaker 2:It's not always going to be 100% successful. But when something becomes a function of who you are, it's going to apply in other ways. I'd be willing to bet Andrew McCutcheon post-career, is going to be awesome at whatever he chooses, because that's become a part of who he is. And that's where I love that discipline, motivation conversation, because I don't care what anyone says.
Speaker 2:And again, this is a tack on my former self as well. Where I've evolved is without motivation, nothing will ever get done. There has to be some higher pulling power that's driving you to do something.
Speaker 2:You cannot just straight willpower, grit your way to everything. There has to be something that pulls you hard. I do not care. There is no way I would be able to grit and will my way to playing an instrument. I have no desire. I do not care to play an instrument. I do not have fun doing it. So like my motivation isn't there, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's what I said earlier about, like, just whatever gifts you are given and I tell young athletes all the time too like the earlier you can find out these things in your life, imagine how much more you can accomplish, man. You know what I mean. Like, imagine if you knew what you knew now and you're 15 years old. Now that's rare, right Cause I mean you're so smart. But, like you know, there are certain circumstances where you know that happens and that's why those you know dudes are certain circumstances where you know that happens and that's why those you know dudes end up probably like a Mark Zuckerberg and people like that just think beyond their years and understand maybe their talents and what they're really good at and their success. Some people think it's lucky, but it's just not. It's just learning things earlier in life and applying, like you said, some of the main gifts you were given, finding that area where you can use them and just putting your foot down. I think that that's ultimately what everybody's goal should be.
Speaker 2:I think the challenge with young people? Not, I think. What I know is a challenge one of the many with younger people is the ability to have complex thought. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg at 15 knew that he was gonna start Facebook, right, but what he did know or ran into was I'm pretty smart, I figure things out really quickly, I'm drawn to solving whatever type of solutions and I know at some point and then also I'm sure through some type of mentorship or education or teaching, he learned I could create solutions for problems and turn that into a business.
Speaker 2:And so that's where there's that perfect storm of mixing between genetics, between maturity and self-realization. I mean, think about the number of people that could have been super successful if they just had a sense of maturity. Like think about. One thing I start with is like thinking about the stories of all the people who made a bad decision out of immaturity that ruined their future, that the future of CEOs, the future professional athletes, that made one bad decision that resulted in, you know, a death, that resulted in them permanently disabling themselves or in that scenario, but that's where it's like.
Speaker 2:It's so complex, and part of the reason I went with this. The rebrand to the playbook is at any stage in life, to give you the playbook, the resources at any stage in life, to give you the playbook, the resources, the accessibility, the stories to understand. At any point in life, you can pick up and start to find and create your playbook for your own life. Oh yeah, and the hard part with the young guys, though, too is you got to. It's got to be simpler questions.
Speaker 1:What do?
Speaker 2:you like doing, and it can't just be sitting around, do nothing, play video games, right, right, and just like asking questions that pique their interest, and you know some athletes that don't talk as much. It's a little bit more challenging, right, and that's where coaching comes in, but it's not easy. There's got to be a self-reflect, there's got to be a self-awareness, self-actualization piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to it. You know, from a coaching perspective, how many opportunities do you?
Speaker 2:get to change them to. Oh, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And that's, that's the hard thing you know.
Speaker 2:So think about the number of dumb athletes that have walked in and you're like, oh yeah it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's definitely a lot of dumb. I mean, I was a dumb one and that's why I like to think that I'm good at my job is because I can talk to the idiots, I can motivate them. Well, I mean dumb. I don't mean like intellectually dumb, more like I just thought like, oh, this isn't really that important, like I'm going to be good regardless. Does every rep matter Not really? Like you know what I mean. Like, and I just have different things I can say to to that demographic Cause, you know, and what I do. I don't hang my hat on all the kids that are already love the weight room, getting stronger. Like you have to hang your hat on getting people who wouldn't have gotten stronger without you. Um, and it's sometimes challenging, but that's the challenge, you know it's. It's getting to know, getting to motivate those kids and finding ways to do it. We referenced a little bit of that earlier, but that's definitely where the money's at, and the best people in any career can do that within a leadership position, you know.
Speaker 2:Talk to me a little bit about that piece where you talk about hey, like, does every rep matter? No, I'm going to be good regardless. How do you reason with those people?
Speaker 1:I always say, well, what rep matters and what rep doesn't matter. So you don't know, right, you don't know what rep is going to matter. So it's like if you have to do eight reps and you do seven, the eighth rep could have been the rep that you got stronger on right. And I think that's always a funny way to get them to understand. And me personally, one way I get kids to train hard is I'm a big believer in testing them. So we test a lot. But I tell everybody, like all the kids, like we test a lot because I want to give you the opportunity to showcase every month how much all the work that you're putting in and I want the coaches to be able to see that. Right, you know, and it's it's also used as a way to get them to come, because if you don't, if you test, no one wants to test worse the next month. Right, you know what I mean Month after month, if you're going to be going. So I think that that's another way that I like to use, Because you know, when you have success, you're going to want to have more success.
Speaker 1:I think one way you could fail as a strength coach sports performance coaches is by never showcasing that what you do is good and it actually makes people better. Because we referenced buy-in earlier. I mean, what better buy-in is there than that? Right, that when they come, they get better, but it's hard to test them out all the time. It's a challenge, right, you have to have a lot of moving parts and a lot of logistics have to work out in your favor and everything. But I think that that's one way to definitely get by it and get the people like how I used to be to understand things better.
Speaker 1:Like for me, like to. I didn't really understand that if I squatted more and my dad was a bodybuilder, right, so I grew up lifting weights, but I didn't really like to because, right, my dad was a bodybuilder and he was my dad and he told me to lift, so I didn't want to. You know, that's just how it works, right? Um, but, like you know now, when you explain to a young, skinny, really good athlete look, you want to jump higher, right, they all do. You want to run faster. You want to score more touchdowns? Like hell, yeah, I want to score more touchdowns. Well, if you squat more, say it's January and say you max squat and you do 225 and you squat 315, in the summer, you have a better chance of scoring more touchdowns.
Speaker 1:There's no doubt you will jump higher. There's no doubt. That's nice to hear, rather than just some big strength coach that I don't even know. Strength coach, a guy who just runs the lifting program telling you hey, you got to lift Grissetti, you ain't going to get. You got to get strong. But if you have somebody who's like built more like an athlete, saying like look, buddy, this is how this works. You want to play college football, right? Yeah, well, you're going to have to squat, then you better do it now. You know it's pretty important. These are all the benefits. And talking to a kid that way, I think you're going to get a lot, a lot of a lot better response from him.
Speaker 2:You know do you ever get like multiple box with an athlete, to the point where you just get super direct like hey you're, you're missing the beat x, y or z, like what is your breaking point when you're conversing with an athlete?
Speaker 1:I would say yeah, I mean, sometimes with draft prep, you'll get that. You know, draft prep's hard because you get a bunch of guys who they think they're going to do better than they are Right. And when you come in and you pre-test them, and it's my job to get them better than they were right, when you come in and you, you pre-test them, uh, and and it's my job to get them better than they were right when they come in. But some, some, you know it's very unrealistic If somebody comes in and broad jumps eight foot two in their pre-test and they think they're going to run a four, four, it's just. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But people believe that, you know, um, a lot of people believe that unfortunately, um, well, unfortunately for me, uh, but um, but you know you, you you'll have that a little bit with them. You know, it's like, you know you have to do this, wow, you know, and it's like, well, this is what you did, this is how you got to get there. You know, like, if this is what you want to to do, like this isn't going to be easy, you know, and some people don't understand that and I think a lot of a lot of the guys that don't understand it, just like they. They probably never understood it even in college, cause you got to think a lot of them are coming from good colleges and their strength coaches are all good guys and motivators and know know what they're talking about in terms of programming and getting guys, you know, to generate more power and run faster.
Speaker 1:Like you know it's, but it's, it's. That's probably the hardest thing you know. So you have people come back and be like why, I don't think I'm going to do that. And then you know you get in the point where it's like well, you want to the point where it's like, whoa, you want to just run a 40 right now, buddy, I'll show you what you can run Like you know.
Speaker 2:Like you don't want to do that, but you know you could get to that point, I guess, if it gets real bad. We talked about this last podcast, but I think it's really prevalent with what you just said there Enabling athletes too much and the athletes who, because of talent we can probably think of one specific person, we'll name this person who was in our last session, who just was not never there on time, Didn't work hard, Didn't do what he was supposed to do, but because they are naturally talented or gifted their coaches, just let them play anyway. Where do you feel that that talent tolerance needs to have that line drawn and I know we talked about this a little bit earlier today too but like where you can't just let an athlete get away with whatever because they're talented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you never can. You know what I mean, like, I think that I mean I don't want to say I don't want to talk in absolutes right, never. I mean, if you have, you know there's some freaks out there, right, you know what I mean. If you have, you know there's some freaks out there, right, you know what I mean. But, but, like most people, I mean, yeah, I get, I get a lot of guys during draft prep and this is this will kind of reference.
Speaker 1:What you're talking about is they're just terrible, like they, they, they don't know how to, they don't know how to lift, they don't know how to run they, they, they're, they don't know how to lift, they don't know how to run they, they, they're, they don't know how to come on time, they don't eat, right, like, and it's like who was your coach? Like you know what I mean Like, like who? Well, it's and it's hard to say that their coach. It's not like a knock on the coach, cause I don't really it's. It's not like a knock on the coach, because I don't really, it's just a weird situation.
Speaker 1:It's like I don't know how people could come in like that sometimes and then they think they're going to play in the NFL. It's like what. You know what I mean Like. No, I've had some guys come in like that, but you know they're monster freaks and it's a have those traits and some sort of structure like we referenced earlier. I mean, you don't got much of a shot man. You know what I mean Like, and it's just the facts you know. So did I answer the question there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did.
Speaker 1:It's, it's, it's hard. It's hard from what I do, because you get guys and I can try to motivate you for a couple months, but it's like I mean, dude, there's you. This is their whole life, like we said before, like you, you know, you're only you're a coach. You didn't, you didn't, they didn't. They grew up watching their their dad wake up and eat Froot Loops, and you know what I mean. Like every morning. So like why would you eat healthy? Right? You know what I mean. Like every morning. So like why would you eat healthy? Right? You know what I mean. So, and you're just going to, just because I train NFL guys, I tell you to eat healthy. You're going to do it Like it's something you saw and it's ingrained in you and you kind of talked about that earlier. You know it's tough, you know.
Speaker 2:I always come back to this athlete in referencing him because it aligns perfectly with the enablement. I look at a guy like Johnny Manziel and I keep thinking back to his untold Netflix story and how certain coaches there enabled his behavior because Johnny Manziel came off like a three-day drinking and drug bender. Goes into Tuscaloosa and beats number one ranked Alabama Not watching film, practicing drunk drinking the night before a game, but just comes in essentially hungover and lights up Alabama. You could argue, though long term of his life, you failed him because you didn't. You know, and I think there's deeper level things that he goes through that contributed to that. But, like the coaches of that staff, because it gave them wins in the record column Right Enabled that behavior to the point where it became self-destructive, to the point where his rest of his professional career is now gone.
Speaker 2:And I think about and now you obviously don't know how many people tried to reach them. So, like I'm speaking without fully knowing, with some ignorance in this, but to just let's like to let someone play and I think about, like the people I with, and if I were to run a team at some point, if you're a coach, and if you're a coach listening to this you have to think about the player goes back to caring about the person right and where you have to put your foot down and say this can't keep going because future you is going to hate your current self for your current behavior. And not everyone can do that and it's hard for certain people if the athlete doesn't respect you. But that line has to be drawn somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are hard situations, man, like I've been in those, not with Manziel, but with people. It's so much easier said than done. You know what I mean. Like it's and I'm not saying I I've been in exact situations like that, but it's it's. It's. It's tough, man, right, you know what I mean. Like especially.
Speaker 1:It's like you know you, you do so much for people and like you get to the point where you're like I can't't do anymore, kind of too. But like I have a belief on that. Like somebody told me before you know, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink. But you could sit there with him for as long as it takes till he understands how important it is to drink the water. You know what I mean Like. So in the patience that you have in those situations ultimately determines quite a bit about you as a person. I don't know how much it determines you as a coach, because it is your job. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying it's right what they did, obviously. I mean you don't let your quarterback go out and get wasted and come play. I mean I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that, but maybe they were doing a lot behind the scenes, right, maybe they were, maybe he was, just didn't even. I mean it. Probably he probably didn't care. To be honest with you, I don't even know if Johnny Manziel do you think he even regrets half of that stuff. You know what I mean. So if he doesn't regret it now, I mean he might. I mean I don't know Johnny Manziel, but if he don't regret it now, you think he was listening back. Then he could have cared less. You know what I mean. He was probably smoking a cigarette on the sideline, like Johnny Unitas.
Speaker 1:Remember that picture. But yeah, you know what I mean. I don't know. I mean that's a tough situation to be in man. Now, of course, if it's like a high school kid and they're drinking, I mean that's totally different than a Johnny Manzawa. What was he? 22 years old or something like that. You know what I mean. It's just like people live their own life, you know. And if it's not in like a direct violation with a team role that you had, it's such a gray area, your job is depending on it, but you want to be a good coach, but you want to win, but it's just you know what I mean. Like it's.
Speaker 2:And that's the real life scenarios people have to go through.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's hard and I think that and I say this all the time you know you, so many people get scrutinized for things like like that, like. So we're referencing these coaches, so I don't even know who they are, but I always say this about myself you could say Terry, someone might say Grissetti Performance, they don't even this, doesn't this, this doesn't that, and they could say something negative about me, right? But let me tell you something. I started a business because I was good at strength and conditioning. I'm not a master businessman, I'm not a master marketer, I'm a strength coach man and I was good at it. So people wanted to train with me. The business became really big. I trained a lot of people. I have a lot of people that work for me. I don't know how to manage the people that work for me that good. I don't know how freaking taxes really work that good. I mean, we have an account. I don't know my heating and cooling. I'm not a master of my machine breaks, I don't know how to fit. So it's like sometimes you judge people for things that you think they know how to do when I never wanted or thought I would ever do that.
Speaker 1:So, like these coaches that coach these people? They were football coaches. So, like, how would we're talking about like in-depth, like psychology of a person? How did how would they know how to react to him? You know what I mean. Like how would they know the right way? I think about that all the time.
Speaker 1:People oh well, terry, he never, you know, he's never a GP in Newcastle, he doesn't train. I'm like, well, dude, I'm doing other stuff. Like sorry, I didn't know this was going to happen. I, you know what I mean. I don't, I don't know. Well, you know, you're not one of my employees will meet with me. Hey, I think I deserve this. Or I'm like I don't know, do you? I'm just going about my life. I was a good strength and conditioning coach. I'm very fortunate. I learned from very, very good strength coaches. That's what I like doing. I like training people. I love to train people, I love to be there for athletes.
Speaker 1:But if you were to ask me something to do with business, like I mean, my business is successful because we're good at strength and conditioning, but like dude, I'm sorry, like I don't know some of this stuff, like you know what I mean, like I don't know how you're supposed to like it's just like, how does health insurance work? I don't know, you know, and it's so funny. And like, yeah, the funniest thing is like in my industry too. It's like you have all these like other gyms, like they hate you or this or that. It's like dude, like we're all in the same thing here. Dude, like what's there to hate? You know what I mean. Like, I always say like anybody in my field that is a real guy, I'm friends with them, right, because it just it is what it is like dude, if I don't, if I don't know you, or you don't like me cause I train a lot of people, or whatever, dude, you're, you're an idiot because I don't, I we're doing the same thing. And like, like I think so many people like look at business, like it's like this war, it's like it's like dude, we're all just trying to make money and get out of it and just get this thing done. You know what I mean. Like and work as little as we possibly can and make the most money as you can. So it's like it's just, it's funny.
Speaker 1:I went on a little bit of a tangent there, but it's, it's just. It just got me walk into a good restaurant and, uh, you know they have a really good chef, but you go in and in the food and the service is terrible, right, or it's dirty, the bathrooms are dirty and you're like I'll never go back there. Meanwhile, the chef made you the best meal of his life and that's all he knows how to do. It ain't his fault, man. You went there because of him. It's funny, man, you know, I still know.
Speaker 1:If a lot of people think, think that through, that's why I'm a big believer in and it's never happened to me. Like no one's ever left like a bad, like review or whatever, but like I would never leave a bad review anywhere, dude, it's like, dude, these people were freaking small business. You kidding me, dude? Like I'm on like part of this like, so I live in Zealy and Opal, and it's like I'm on like the Facebook page. These people are like bombing these restaurants. I'm like, dude, like these people are like trying their best. Like they have a high school kid waiting cleaning the dishes. Sorry, it took him longer for you to get your. You know what I mean. It's like, dude, give him a break, man, you know. But maybe that's one way I became coming closer to the, I think, helped me there too, because something that I used to like think was so dumb became like funny to me. You know what I mean. It's like this really ain't that serious man.
Speaker 2:In order for me to leave a bad review for anything, it would have to be egregious. Like it would have to be like over-the-top egregious. But for the most part I 100% agree with everything that you just said.
Speaker 1:There's this good restaurant up in Mercer. It's called Talbot's. I don't know the dude, but the dude seems like a rock star. There's a yin-yang, or not yin-yang Wu-Tang Clan pitchers everywhere. He's like this white dude. He has this cool menu or whatever, and on the menu it says if, if you had. It says something like this this isn't exact, but if you had a bad meal, tell me. If you had a good meal, tell everybody. Yeah, what a great quote you know I mean like that's exactly how it should be.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I remember during draft prep phase. We were talking while the guys were warming up or whatever before, almost before they even got there, and someone asked me about a player I had played with who turned out to bust or whatever. And I was just saying, you know like, hey, I mean like he, he was always a good guy, like you know, good to me, never would have expected him to run into. You know like, hey, I mean like he was always a good guy, like you know, good to me, never would have expected him to run into you know this kind of trouble. And then, like you know, you asked me like a question about, like, his practice and daily habits. I was like, well, he was, you know, routinely late, didn't really try that hard, like all these different things. And you're like, you're like Colin, you're like I do the same thing. Like I'll try and say people are good people, he's like, but some people are just not good people. Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I think well, yeah, that's a good way to look at things. I mean, if you do a bunch of bad things, you're not a good person, right. And that brings me back to faith. A lot we talked about that in my Bible study before. And it's like faith a lot. We talked about that in my Bible study before. And it's like people will say, you know, like, oh, he's a good person, or he's a he, but he's a good. It's like is he a good person? You know what I mean? Like it's just like what is a good person right? Like if you like cheat on your wife or something like that. I'm not saying you're a bad person, but at that point you weren't a very good person, right. And it takes a lot to get back from something like that. Right, there's so many different scenarios like that. It's like, dude, if you have traits that have been negative over and over and over again, the writing is on the wall, man.
Speaker 2:You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean and we've all done bad things right. I mean I'm I'm the first one to admit I've made a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people, and those are things I apologize with them to, to them personally or to God about, and I fight every day to be a better person. But you know, if you're not doing that and you're continuing to do that, I mean what kind of guy are you? You know what I mean. It's like come on, man. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:One thing I want to go back to in a more serious note is you dealt with this again. Every year. You deal with this with the training right, the draft, draft prep guys, and battling that unrealistic expectations of like a 40 yard dash Right. And so for you, when you're training some of these guys right, how do you work with that unrealistic expectations versus hey, wanting to have super high goals? Right, like, how do you reason in that space Cause that's one of the more challenging things that you're going to have to deal with is like, hey, these are my unrealistic goals that I want to achieve. And you, as the trainer, is like, hey, I'm not going to take you from a four seven to a four three. Like, that's just like not going to happen. So it's like, where do you balance that space of, hey, we want to have really high goals, but in that same breath, like, we do have to be realistic breath, like we do have to be realistic.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that I've I've changed in the last couple of years is when people I have people write down their goals prior, you know, and I'll look through them and then I'll have conversations with them about what they wrote, you know. Okay, say, you know, you have a wide receiver and he comes in and he, we don't test them on a. I mean to be honest with you, dude, I should test them on a 40 when they come in. But I know in my heart of hearts it's not the right thing to do because they're not going to run fast and it's going to actually put them in a position to potentially get injured. Right, they play a whole college football season. Half of them only sprint on game days. They take a week off, or a month off in some cases, where they're definitely not sprinting or running fast or lifting hard, and then I would bring them in and if they were to get injured at that point, that would be devastating for their training. Now, if I did that, that would be a great, that would be great to be able to say, hey, well, yeah, dude, what you wrote down you were going, wrote down, you wanted to run a 4.5 and you ran a 5 flat. So that's hard for me, but I know it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:You know, when it comes to like a linear speed progression, I mean, who in their right mind would ever run someone on a 40? That's untrained, you know what I mean. You'd have to be insane. But there's people who would do it for that reason, right. And then you could just say, well, I brought him in and I. You know what I mean. Then you're going to fight that battle, but that would that would help you in that argument.
Speaker 1:But what I've done in recent years has, like, just shown guys traditional data. You know we do. We do test them on like a flying 10, which we can kind of predict. Sometimes based off that right, we test them on a broad jump, a vertical jump. Usually, if you're a receiver and your vertical jump is 24 inches, you're probably not going to run super fast. Now, if you come in and you vert off, rip, you know 35 or something like that. That's a little bit different, you know. So you can show guys traditional data, where guys started and where they finished, and just having very realistic conversations with them and getting to understand that how fast you are doesn't make you a good football player. You know it's okay if you're a running back and you run a 4.8. There's really good ones out there that have done that. I think a lot of people think that your times indicate the kind of player that you are. Your times more indicate the potential of what you could be if used correctly and just general explosiveness.
Speaker 1:You're not going to really find many people in the NFL that did not test really good for their position unless they played at a very high major and were very, very productive. Someone like Geno Stone, who I think the world of a Newcastle kid. We've trained Geno since he was in high school. Geno's not the fastest guy in the world he ran like a 4.6 at his pro day but Gino's a very, very, very good football player. You know what I mean. He was a very good football player in high school. He was of all conference, two-time, all Big Ten safety. So, gino, running a 4. Six isn't as concerning as if you played it. You know, robert Morris and you and you ran a four, six right and I mean the production at that high level was. It means a lot. So you're not going to see many people in the NFL that didn't, that didn't test great. You know most people in the NFL are going to be that last in the NFL are going to be guys that tested great and played great.
Speaker 1:Now you will have certain circumstances at times where guys are just off-the-chart testers that make it. Because of that. They call them height, weight, speed guys. Just big, strong, fast Guys can run it on special teams for 10 years, but usually teams don't want a guy that's just going to run it on special teams for 10 years, but usually teams don't want a guy that's just going to run it on special teams. You want a guy that can actually provide, as your fifth, sixth receiver play, some sort of. I mean, every position is different, right, but I'm just saying skill guys. You want to have skill guys that actually have a little bit of value on offense and defense. Now there's some guys who make have a little bit of value on offense and defense. Now there's some guys who make it in the NFL and never play offense and defense. I don't think Slater ever played.
Speaker 1:It's just special teams guys. There's guys like that, but that's pretty rare. Even Ross, he played some defense at times for New England and Pittsburgh. Those are you know, even those are guys you think are just special teams guys. But like you got to be able to play football, man, you know, what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like and those guys are freaks. You know like there's, those guys are freaks. You know, like guys like Ross, and I mean those guys are freaks and people don't realize that. You know what I mean. Like they just see like a I got under six foot white guy or a skinny. These dudes can go, man. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's like that in all sports, but football, unfortunately is Fortunately for me because it's my area of expertise and I make money from it but other sports don't put as much weight. I mean, when have you ever heard about how high somebody's vertical is going in the NBA draft? Like, what if somebody's vertical wasn't as high as I thought it was going to be? It's like that doesn't happen. They just watch them play basketball. But in football, say last year I don't know, say Shador Sanders ran a 5-2. That would have been national news. It's like, what does it matter? You saw him play football for a year. It doesn't.
Speaker 1:And I think, to be honest with you, the way things are going, you would have to think that they would be getting rid of I don't want them to get rid of testing, because obviously it's a big part of my life and I love doing it and I think it's beneficial and it's fun. But you would think they would just use the data from their GPSs now at game speed. I mean, why does it matter? But then you go. Then traditionally you wouldn't be able to compare guys in the draft, which is, I think, what they like. You can compare two people year after year, what they did and stuff a lot easier. But who's to say you can't do that with the same data off of a GPS? It's just you haven't had it forever, you know, but I think it'll probably transition to that. I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 2:Probably I always say cause I used to be a guy that cared so much about testing just because you know, I predominantly tested well, but then as I got older and got more into like evaluation and understanding players and looking at the whole encompass of what makes a good football player right, I'm a big like minimum threshold guy.
Speaker 2:Like if you're a defensive lineman, you have to be a minimum size for to be a viable NFL player and then we can make, like, the other pieces work. And just given what I like to do and everything that I work in, I probably overvalue character in terms of, you know, or intangible traits that are hard to measure with a stopwatch or, you know, a bench press. But in general I'm like a big minimum threshold guy. Now, you can't be minimum in everything, yeah Right. But like if you are a skill player, you have to be a minimum level of speed. Once you're above that, I'm not going to knock you Right. Or if I'm a you know, like I said, offensive defense lineman, you have to be a minimum level size for me to consider you. Once you check that minimum box and it's like, okay, now let's take the full evaluation in the place of what matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of teams have that. I would say, you know, just from the scouts that I work with, you know, and you could, I mean you know, when I have guys come in for draft prep, I could tell you their chances of playing in the NFL based off what they look like with their shirt off, literally. I mean you could just just see, you know what I mean. Like what is what does the guy's pecs look like? What does his back look like? Like, what is his structure like? I mean you could tell, like when you saw jamarcus weston last year, I mean like this cat's gonna play in the nfl, you know, I mean, like he's he. You just can just tell funny story about that. I've, uh, I won't mention his name, but there was a, an nfl guy from, or a college guy from. He's actually from, he lives in pittsburgh now but he, he went to play, he went to a college football camp, uh, and he ran like a four.9. And the college said look, if you come back here, we want to offer you, but our coach only offers guys at your position who run 4.6s. He's like, okay, he's like I'm going to come back to camp, I'm going to train all summer long and I'm going to come back. He did the same thing. He went home trained, came back Coach timed him. You ran a 4.6, man. Good job, that was a position, coach. He's like you did great. I'm going to talk to coach. Talk to coach. Coach offered him. He ended up going there. He ended up going there being an All-American and he ended up going for the draft potentially getting picked up During training.
Speaker 1:His trainer kept being like man, you're running, what did you run in high school? Kind of like the situation we were just talking about. He's like I have you at a 4.8, man. He's like dude, I ran a 4.6 in high school. He's like there's no way, after all the training I got and everything. And so he called his college coach and was like just talking to him. He's like hey, he's like you know, I'm all this training is. I thought I was going to run faster. He's like well, what are you running? He's like I'm running like a four eight. And he's like he's like the funny thing is is I made up that you ran a four six when to come here. So our head coach would offer you you ran a four nine, or you ran a four, nine, when you were here, and I told him you, you ended up going there getting offered being an all-american and then that's what his 40 time was, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's like, you know, it's kind of the other side of that. It's like, well, he didn't check that box, but, man, he was a good player, you know what I mean. So, like, like you said, maybe if you don't check that box, if you check a bunch of other ones, how much does that one really matter? Right, it's almost like as a recruiter in colleges or as a scout in the NFL, you should have weighted boxes, like maybe 10. Like you said, if you're a team who values character, that's maybe a point system or something like that where then you can and I'm sure they have this stuff.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've looked at I have some friends who coach in the NFL and I've looked into the books and the reports they have on people. They're so in-depth, they know every single thing about you. But you would think there'd be some sort of credential for that. A lot of it would probably be like the GM sets it up like I like tall corners, I want my corners to be 6'1 or above, and then a position coach is like okay, then I like these corners. And then he tells the head coach these, you know what I mean. Like that kind of thing. You would think there'd be some sort of and I'm sure there is, I'm sure it probably goes exactly like that really you know.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you had this quote about speed that had me laughing hysterically because it was during that point in training where people were probably wanting to run faster times and what they're actually capable of. You know, people having those unrealistic expectations of running a four four. In reality they probably run like a four seven. And he were talking to Ross and I and you're like, you know this, like four four. You're like if you were a guy in high school where you know you're maybe one of the faster guys, and then you go to college and you're still kind of fast, but maybe one of the faster guys, and then you get to the pros and you're like, all of a sudden I want to run a 4-4. You're like, yeah, you're not running a 4-4.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was laughing hysterically. I mean, you can only say things in the way that you do, but you're like, where is like the disconnect in these people's heads where they think that?
Speaker 1:all of a sudden they're just going to wake up one day and run a four, four, and they've run four eights their whole life. Well, to be honest with you, bro, they don't know that they ran. That, though, cause they get, and it's not like I hate to. I don't want to knock the coaches, but it's they're not getting told the times they run, or like they're not running the times they're running, and then a lot of it is to do with. So, if I'm a strength coach and I train my team all summer long and I want them to run fast and we prioritize speed, I'm hitting the clock early, man, like I'm and I don't I'm not lying to them but man, do I want these guys to run fast? Like, so you know what I mean. Like I'm, I'm dude, you ran. Do I want these guys to run fast? Like, so you know what I mean. Like I'm, I'm dude, you ran. Like I want to. I want them to make progress as their college strength coach. Right, I want my guys to believe in me. If my guys, you know, broad jump or not broad jump, if they, if they ran a 40 at the beginning of the summer, they better have run faster by the end of the summer, or what do I look like? And it's not like I said, it's not like I'm lying, but you know what I mean. You, you're just going to have a quicker finger right and you go to a high school camp. It's the same kind of thing. You have people that never time their football coaches. They're not timers. It's a big difference, you know, um, yeah, and then you you get guys and they think they're, they're really fast and I don't know why. Like you know, it's like if you could put on somebody's film and what scouts do is they'll give you an estimated 40. And usually their estimated 40 is really accurate, right?
Speaker 1:If you see a kid in the open field, like, say, it's a running back, he gets the ball and he bursts and nobody's even coming close to that guy. He's pretty fast, right. You would think he's like a 4'4", 4'5 guy. If he bursts through the hole, runs 20 yards and gets caught, he's like probably a 4'6 guy. You know what I mean. And it's kind of like if he gets caught immediately. You know what I mean, that's all it is. It's like you can see it clear as day people's closing speed especially know, especially, like with receivers, how they're. I mean they run full speed all the time. You know, sometimes DBs it's hard because they're not really running a straight line a lot, but special teams is a pretty good indicator of it. But yeah, man, like I don't know People, if you're not like, even when you're a little kid, like if you're not really fast, like it's okay, you're not really fast, it's okay, you're not that fast, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:For me it's like I was once this guy and that's why I'm so brutally honest sometimes with people, and black and white with people, because I did not have anybody do that to me. I was like oblivious and like me, I love when someone tells me you're wrong and I'm like, well, why? What did I do? I didn't even know. Like, tell me and I'll change. Like you know, like I was like living this lie. Like I'm like training, you know for, uh, you know I didn't have a pro day but I worked out for a bunch of teams when I graduated. And like I'm like thinking I'm like a four or five and like I'm not. Like you know what I mean. Like I was like a definitely a four, six, probably, a mid four, six, four, seven guy maybe, and I, I mean I went to freaking Liberty out of high school, which isn't Alabama you know what I mean I left, I played at Slippery Rock.
Speaker 1:I wasn't burning people. I'm like why would I ever have thought that? You know what I mean, I wasn't running by every DB we played. I'm like they're side by side with me. So why did I ever think that? And I just kind of lived. And the reason why I'm saying this because had I known that I could have gotten better at it. Right, I was living this.
Speaker 1:I'm fast, you know what I mean. Like I could jump really high but I just wasn't that fast, for whatever reason. And in knowing my body now and what I could have done athletically, I probably could have been a lot better of a football player if I had I known I wasn't that fast in a straight line, but I thought that I was, you know, because I could jump so high. I mean I could hit my head on the backboard. But you know what I mean. Usually when you have that trait, especially as a one-legged jumper, you can run pretty fast. Man, you know what I mean, like, and that's what one thing, when you guys like that's why they test in the NBA draft they do a single leg jump, a double leg jump, it's just power outputs. You know what I mean. Usually, if you see a guy jump really high, they can run fast, but I didn't have anybody tell me that. That's why I'm not in the NFL, as well as politics.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate you, man, man, I appreciate your coming on today. If you uh, if people want to reach out to you, if you have anything to promote, you know uh what? What can we expect from you going forward?
Speaker 1:I don't have much, you know. Uh, um, just, you know, I, I try, I try to tweet a decent amount or put stuff on x. You know, um, that's really me. The other stuff, you know it, I try to tweet a decent amount or put stuff on X. You know, that's really me. The other stuff, you know, is just kind of like business marketing stuff. But I found it funny, on Twitter or whatever it's like, I used to post all this like borderline controversial stuff and I used to get all these people like liking it and like comment on it. And now I just post like all like religious stuff and I get like 300 views, no likes.
Speaker 1:I'm like, like, damn this is kind of crazy, but you know that's what people don't like, that stuff, you know um. So yeah, I would say that what's your handle?
Speaker 1:just terry. Terry grissetti, yeah, and just business stuff. Is grissetti performance? Um should have some business stuff. Is Grissetti performance? Um should have some good stuff coming up soon. We have a cool newsletter. It's on our website If you want to sign up for that. Um, I post that once a month and it's kind of funny, informative, nice pictures. You know how, about you? What do you have coming out, man?
Speaker 2:Uh, I mean same stuff. You know, I got got, got this going on, got the newsletter, uh, and then, yeah, everything else is on athleticfortitudecom, but yeah, nothing necessarily particularly new, just continuing to get get after with what we've been doing. But nice.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for having me on, brother. I appreciate it. Man, appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2:It's always a blast and uh listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Uh tuneune in next week. Check us out at athleticfortitudecom. Sign up for the newsletter. Download the pod. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Five stars only, baby. See you guys next week, thanks.