Reclaiming Your Hue: A Podcast for Women Rediscovering Themselves in Motherhood & Entrepreneurship

Ep. 100 with Jaime Chapman & Becky Beaulieu | Championship Culture At Home

• Kelly Kirk • Season 1 • Episode 100

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Championship Culture At Home

Your kid strikes out, double-faults, falls in a routine, or melts down after a mistake and suddenly your whole body feels it too. We get it and we go there, honestly. Kelly sits down with Becky Beaulieu of Championship Culture Coach and Jaime Gaard Chapman of Gaard Performance Academy to talk about the messy middle of raising young athletes while also running a business, managing a marriage, and trying to stay steady in your own skin. 

Becky shares the turning point that made “culture” impossible to ignore and why winning is often the byproduct of habits you cannot see on a stat sheet: body language, standards, team-first behavior, and the courage to address conflict instead of sweeping it away. Jaime adds what she’s learned coaching across generations, why youth sports feel more professionalized than when we grew up, and how Gen Z athletes respond to autonomy, ownership, and leadership that listens. 

We also dig into sports parenting pressure, identity, and the car ride home. How do you hold high standards without tying your mood to their score? When does opportunity become overload for the whole family? What are practical ways to manage time and energy as a working mom, including batching, deliberate communication, and scheduling joy before tournaments take over the calendar? You’ll leave with mindset tools, language that protects your child’s confidence, and a clearer definition of what a healthy “championship culture” can look like at home. 

If this hits close to home, subscribe, share it with a sports parent friend, and leave a review so more families can find the support they need. What part of sports parenting feels hardest for you right now?

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Jaime & Becky:

Contact the Host, Kelly Kirk:

  • Email: info.ryh7@gmail.com

Get Connected/Follow:

Credits:

  • Editor: Joseph Kirk
  • Music: Kristofer Tanke 


Thanks for listening & cheers to Reclaiming Your Hue! 

Welcome And The 100th Episode

Kelly

Good morning, ladies. Good morning, Kelly. Good morning. This is very exciting. I'm so thrilled to have the two of you on here. And I do want to just take a moment so that our listeners perhaps can gauge by voices who we have on. I think by now most of my listeners know my voice. This is Kelly. But I'd like for you, Becky, to just say hi. Hi, Becky Bolio. And what's your business? Yeah, so I own Championship Culture Coach, is the name of the business, but I'm a consultant and I help coaches and teams win more. And I help athletes improve their stats. I love this. And we have another familiar face here, Jamie. Can you go ahead and introduce yourself and then name of your business also? Yes, so excited to be returning to the podcast, Kelly. This is Jamie Guard Chapman. I'm the owner of Guard Performance Academy, which is a total student athlete development business. In addition to that, I coach the local girls' high school tennis team, and I'm the uh assistant director of racket sports for Interlock and Country Club. You got a lot of moving parts. Do you sleep? I know. A little bit working on it. Yeah, I know. It's it's so funny because Jamie and I, and I think this is a nice little segue too into sharing. This is the hundredth episode, and I had not had a game plan in place. And Jamie and I sat down for coffee a while back. It feels like a while back now. And I'm like, I'm coming up on my hundredth episode. And you're like, oh, that's exciting. And I'm like, yeah, I have no idea what I'm gonna do yet. But and then we were just talking, and then naturally we started to just have conversations about like the season of life I'm in as a mom and as an entrepreneur. There's a lot of commonalities with you. And then Becky's name came up, and I was like, light bulb moment. This would be so amazing to have the three of us on and talk about seasons of life for mothers who are entrepreneurs, parents, and how you move through that and how it impacts our kids too, because it does. Absolutely. And vice versa. And so here we are. It's so exciting to like, because of the seasonality, I'm like, it's very applicable. But I'm really excited to actually hear more about your journey and your story, Becky, and just how you got to where you are. So I think that this is a nice little segue into learning a little bit more about you so that our listeners have a better understanding.

Motherhood First And Becky’s Background

Kelly

So I always like to ask the question what came first for you? Was it entrepreneurship or was it motherhood? Uh motherhood was first. Had my first baby at 29. So I have two boys, uh, almost 17 and 12. Look at you. Yeah. So you are in a different season than Jamie and I are, but I should say, and you also I'm I'm assuming that they're in sports, right? Yes. Okay. Heavily. Yes. The older one is baseball. Oh, okay. Big time. Yeah. You know, travel, Blizzard Baseball Academy locally, and then you made varsity as a sophomore on Hudson's team. And they're the number one team in the state of Wisconsin right now. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And then the younger one, baseball and swimming. But they've done all the things from hockey, soccer, baseball. Yeah. The older one now wants to do football. Sample the waters. I've tested the waters, I should say. Um so motherhood came first for you. How did the transition, what were you doing previous to what your business is now? So I used to be a licensed psychologist and a former school psychologist, is what I went to graduate school for. And then I spent 18 years in the athletic department at the University of Wisconsin Stout. My goodness. So both as a head women's gymnastics coach, and then the last three years I was the mental health liaison for the whole athletic department. So that's when I started getting into mindset, leadership, culture, all those good things. This is really cool. This is so cool. When she says this, this is this is my wheelhouse and my passion point. So I could just hang out with Becky for like five straight days. Let's I want to sit here for just a moment. How did the two of you meet? I think that this is important for the listeners to understand kind of interconnectedness here and how this really came to fruition. Yes, so I am on uh the local chapter of the Racket Sports Professionals Association. And a few months ago, we hosted here in Minnesota a conference for close to 150 Racquet Sport professionals and high school coaches. And we were fortunate enough to have Becky as one of the presenters at the conference, and I was the one who introduced her. So she gave a really small version of her biography. She's a super accomplished woman with great experience on the psychology side, and it's been cool to see this evolution for her to bringing it into an entrepreneurial space. So we met at the conference, and uh yeah, Kelly, then when we were speaking at coffee and just talking about um being mothers and having our kids involved in so many things, and how do we know when to push, when to back off, when to let them lead, when to get competitive, when to keep it recreational. And um it just was Becky was very top of mind around all of that of how do we navigate this when we're putting a lot of financial resources behind sport. Yeah. And that is precisely what we want to talk through, right? Is some of these intricacies that we face as parents and as mothers specifically, um, with our children as they enter into the activity world and what that means and the dynamics of it as well. And so, Becky, question. We're gonna come back, we're gonna swing this back to you.

What Championship Culture Really Means

Kelly

You you talk a lot about championship, right? And so, one of the questions that I wanted to ask is what championship culture really means beyond sports. Yeah. And maybe I can tell you a little bit of like the background story of how I got here. I think it's helpful, and then I'll answer that. Um, so when I was the college women's gymnastics coach, 2018, and you've heard the story, um, our team didn't get along. A lot of headbutting going on within the team, and unfortunately, as the coach, I like swept it under the rug, right? So not awesome call. Um, and that year we were ranked fourth, top three go on to nationals, right? But we had a junior on the team that told her teammates, go ahead and book your spring break flights because we're not going to nationals. Ouch. Yeah. So sure enough, we went in and we finished dead last in the WIAC, eighth of eighth. And so that next year, I decided to make the culture of the team the most important thing. And so, like, did we have things like a clear vision and core values and how aligned was our staff and our systems? And were we celebrating each other's success, right? Women celebrating each other's success. And were we choosing like team-oriented body language and all those good things? And we went from eighth in the conference to 2019 first in the school's first ever conference championship in the sport of gymnastics and second in the country in one year. So from there, I just continued studying, observing, documenting culture. And on a you know, women's tennis team, when they go to put their hands in the huddle, but a couple of them have their hand like half down and they're looking out of the circle. Does it matter? And the answer is yes, it does, right? Or on a men's basketball team, there's a semi-injured player standing under the basket during the pregame warm-up, but he's checking his phone. Does it matter? And the answer is yes, it does. Yeah, so why is to inspire and improve the culture in athletics one team at a time. Winning is the byproduct, in my opinion. Um, and just to let more athletes know that they're worthy of the spotlight and worthy of greatness, and tips to like step into that next level that most don't know about. I literally feel like I'm having like just this hit and dose of nostalgia. I am like tapping back to experiences when I was growing up, volleyball, basketball, track, we were talking a little bit about this before we hit record. And the moments where our team actually shined, to your point, was when we were all in together. Yes. All in together. And the moments where we were not shining, I'm literally having these like reflections back of like, oh my god, I'm like getting flashbacks of these moments, like the team huddles or the you know, after warmups when we are putting all of our fists in the center, and it's like who was or wasn't? Yeah. Oh my word. Yeah, yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And the cool thing about everything that Becky says is she didn't once mention any kind of technical gymnastics skill. Of course, you're practicing that, and that is your that's your craft, that's what you're working at. But she's talking about human behavior and how do we treat one another, how do we show up for other people? How do I sacrifice maybe being in a smaller role so that someone else can shine in a role? Um, and it it clearly paid off in that example with the gymnastics team. And in my experience in you know, 19 years of coaching high school sports, um, yeah, culture, culture is the currency. Okay. Yeah. I wanna I wanna go a little bit deeper with this because part of that question was beyond sports. And I'm sure that just in what you are doing specifically now plays a plays a role in what the family culture and the dynamic looks like too. For sure.

When Parent Pressure Sneaks In

Kelly

Yeah, so you can definitely apply championship culture to corporate or to families, right? Um, and I told my husband, like coming here today, I would be lying if I said, I think that we always, the four of us, like have a championship culture at home, right? Like, and it starts with me. So having high standards at home, you know, I I get up lately at 5 15 and get my workout on or my walk, but today I slept in, right? Yeah, or if I'm scrolling on my phone for an hour, right? Like, am I holding myself to high standards? Ah yeah, and just like being aligned, you know, with an almost 17-year-old, that's been a little bit more challenging. Yeah, if I'm being honest. But yes, the the themes very much apply to families too. How do you talk through that and coach through that for the families that you're working with? Um I don't really with families. Uh with one-on-one mental performance, it's more one-on-one with the athlete. Sure. Yeah, like I've got, you know, in the last couple days. A tennis player, baseball, basketball, soccer. Yeah. Um, so I wouldn't say that I tap into their family culture. That's more mental performance, confidence, body language, mindset, thriving in the big moments, learning how to fail and turn the page quickly. And what's interesting is as the children are modeling it, I'm sure that the other family members are picking up on it too. Yeah. And I do meet with the parents the last 15 minutes of every other call because they very much can reiterate this stuff at home and either support it or not. Yeah. Um, I think that that's a nice little segue into the next question, which is what do you think? Where do you feel like families are getting it right currently? And where can pressure unintentionally creep in? I think families are getting it right when it's more led by their son or daughter or their athlete. And I'd be lying if I said we always did that, right? So this is like we have an almost 17-year-old, and he's gotten six letters from Division I colleges, you know. So we're very much in that season of okay, is this his dream or is this more our dream? So we reflect on it too ourselves. So I don't claim to be perfect in this either. Yeah, where families I think are getting it wrong. I had this like epiphany a couple years ago, is that no part of my vibe as a mom for the day should be based on my son's output on the tennis court, on the basketball court, on the baseball field, right? No part of my vibe. So like in the morning, I like to meditate, set an intention for the day because it's not their job to make me happy, right? Let that yeah, let that one. This is hard, and it and I think it comes from a place of love. Like parents just genuinely are invested and they care so much, right? But no part of our vibe as mothers or fathers should be based on their output, and it's literally like I just think of like tearing that apart as an adult, you know, that has children. Like, how do you tear that apart and go, okay, I am not tied to this outcome over here, and I shouldn't be. No, I shouldn't be. No, and so how then I just think of like moments in watching over the last couple of years, each one of the respective boys in their activities and how parents show up, right? And how they interact with other parents if things aren't going the way that they feel that game should be going, or how their child is playing. You know what I mean? Yeah. Does that make sense? I'm trying to like be very cautious about how I approach that. Yeah, I mean, I think Becky, there's honestly probably a huge business opportunity to culture coach the parents. So again, from my lens, you know, working with high school athletes, it high achiev in high achieving programs. So everybody's got a lot invested in it. And to your point about um parents detaching from their child's performance, hard to do. Hard to do when parents are, you know, dealing with their own identities of you know what what makes me who I am and how is my kid a reflection of my parenting. So it's it's super challenging. Uh, but makes healthiest cultures, the the three points of the triangle are all in alignment the coach, the player, and the parents. And so it's it's huge for um parents have such a huge role in their kids' mindset in that if the coach is talking about one thing and the child's coming home in the car ride home, and mom and dad are saying this, that, and the other thing, um, it puts the child and the athlete in a place of conflict of not knowing what to do, who to do right by. They also want to do right by their teammates as well. And so I think there's a big opportunity, and it's sort of been a passion project of mine just in my own coaching of really educating the parents around giving that space for the athlete to experience all the emotions of sport, up, down, high, low. I wish we had video. I wish we had video because Becky is snapping right now. Like, yes, yes, yes. Because really at the end of all of this, like the ball will stop bouncing eventually. What have we taken away from this? What have we given to our kids, given them that space to navigate all of that? That was really beautiful, Jamie. It was so beautiful. One thought, I just want to take what like that beginning component of what you were talking through is like how parents are showing up, right? Like perhaps we're having conversations in the car after a basketball game or a dance competition. I'm speaking on behalf of myself, right? Literally just had this happen yesterday. And as an entrepreneur, so I'm before you ladies showed up, I was re-listening to the episode that is going to be dropping this upcoming Tuesday. And a part of that conversation was about growth as an entrepreneur. When you step into this entrepreneurial space, you best be ready for like peeling back the onion layers and growing of self, right? And how you grow through that as well. So I think about what you were just speaking to, like how we're showing up for our kids, like how we are having the conversations with them when we ourselves are still like kind of like peeling back the onion layers, like I said, and and just repeating myself and growing and transforming as as selves as well. Little tough. It's a little tough. Like I think about how how to actually show up in those moments authentically, right? I want to be authentic and I want to be raw. My husband is gonna make fun of me for saying that again on this podcast, but I just wanted to like set that out there for a moment because I think that there are true realities we as adults are going through. We're still finding ourselves. Yeah. Like I'm still trying to figure myself out. 40 years old. And I'm also trying to like have these really in in-depth conversations with an 11-year-old. That's fun. Right. No, I have a funny. I love, well, yeah, I do. Um, because I'm always in I'm constantly self-reflecting. That's just sort of how I'm wired. But imagine a world in which we all give everybody the most generous interpretation of what's going on. And so, you know, whether that's with our athletes, you know, they make a bad play, they make a mistake, they break a rule. What if we approach it rather than, you know, going to the negative right away? What if we give the most generous interpretation of why that could have happened? It's a growing moment. How do we step in and help that athlete in that moment? Same thing with adults. Like, let's give each other the grace and the space to continue to evolve. Like, we are all human. Yeah. And if we are shooting high for something, like we should be making a lot of mistakes and we should be reflecting and evolving and having different drafts of ourselves. And so I like to look at it that way of like, you know, whenever I go into a space, it's just like, what can I learn from this? And you know, how can I look at this person and see the good in what they're doing? Um, and if there's something that I can do to help that person, like even better. That's we're not meant to go through this alone. And just to show up imperfectly. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I feel like I totally did that the other day. But but good, right? Yeah, shut up. The soul isn't to be perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And mistakes are part of success. I mean, I can think of a conversation with our almost 17-year-old recently where, you know, we just told them like uh there's not like a rule book that comes with parenting a 16 to 17-year-old, and you know, how do we hold you to high standards yet let this be yours? And yeah, and so I'm sorry if we're we've got that wrong in a in one area. Right, and I think that's great modeling for them as well, of like nobody has it all figured out, and you're working with lots of different people with different personalities, and so going back to your showing up like raw and authentic, I think it's great to model that to our kids that I made this really big mistake today at work, or I didn't handle that conversation right, or maybe it is personally you had a really bad moment with your kid, and you give it a little bit of space, but you circle back and say, Oh, yeah, mom didn't mom didn't do that right. I I yelled, and in our family, like yelling as if you're you hurt yourself, you know, things like that. So um, yeah, I love the showing up in perfect because it's like you showed up. A lot of people are sitting on the couch, but you showed up. Yeah. Or and you had made note of this metaphor, like taking the rug and just sort of sweeping it underneath and and going, it's not there, it's not there. Like that didn't happen. I don't need to address it. Actually, I think the beautiful things that actually come from growth, whether it's intentionally as an individual or with your husband or with your wife or with your children, is when you actually do talk through those moments that were really tough. And you can come out on the other side and go, okay, we're moving forward. And how do we how do we get it better next time? Just a little bit, even if it's one percent, right? I think about that often when it comes to sports and just like how can you show up the next day 1% better than it was yesterday? Even one percent, right? Even one percent, you're gonna go a little bit further.

The Leap Into Entrepreneurship

Kelly

Becky, I wanna I wanna come back because we haven't quite finished your story about coming into entrepreneurship. Can you tell me when that happened? Yeah, so I'm in year three of owning the business. Now I did do a little bit of this on the side when I was still at the university. But you know how it all came to be, I guess, you know, I had this idea that just kept like popping up in my heart, in my gut. And so I actually sent one email to John Gordon. Have either of you heard of us? Yes. Yeah. Who's John Gordon? So he is a public speaker, New York Times best-selling author of I think 28 books. He's paid $50,000 per speaking event to NFL, SEC. And so I sent one email and it said something like, read me all capital letters, profound business idea for John Gordon. And then I went on to describe it, you know, would any of the teams that you speak to and serve three to four weeks later, after the spark settles, would they benefit from a culture coach and a former licensed psychologist trained in observation to come in and do like a minute-by-minute team culture observation of words, standards, body language actions of a team at any given time, make culture recommendations with winning as the byproduct, right? Blah blah blah blah blah. Send. And within 12 hours, his uh vice president and another uh Marlowe, and then another person within the company responded and they loved the idea. And we had a call like the next day. Um and the best advice that he gave me was to do a pilot of it with three teams. So I did. The first was uh UW Stout Men's Basketball. Okay. The second was University of Illinois Women's Gymnastics, and then uh the St. Paul Saints was the third, right here in our own backyard. And so, like since then, teams that have used this have seen an increase to their winning percentage of 23%.

unknown

Okay.

Kelly

It's the first of its kind, like minute by minute team culture observation in athletics, to our knowledge. Yeah. So nobody else is doing that yet. So, you know, the baseball coaches, for example, they observe the game as they should. Whereas at the St. Paul Saints, I sit and observe the dugout for six hours. Yeah. And just like moments of okay, how many times did one player speak up to three or more athletes and call them up out of love? How many moments of poor body language was there? And just documenting everything. Okay, 702 athlete comes in the dugout and throws his glove. 703, there's eight athletes standing up at the fence cheering on their teammates at bat, right? So that was really the journey to the city. You're lighting me up right now. You're lighting me up. That was the journey to it. Um, and as those pilots played out, I just knew that um, like I had been talking to my athletes about, you know, growth occurs at the edge of our comfort zone, but I wasn't really stepping into that, the edge. And I just knew it was time. And we were at a place financially where you know we could do this, and yeah, it's been great. It's but there's for sure hard moments, you know, too. Like our systems need to get better. We're just getting a CRM, our automations, you know. But it's been awesome too, and now have gotten to work with, you know, teams like Long Island University, Winona State University, I love this, University of Illinois. Yeah. This is incredible, and you are lighting me up in the most profound way. Again, I I literally feel like I am having this start-stop thing happen in my brain where I'm I'm having flashbacks to these moments where whether I was the person who had the bad attitude, because it did happen. That was me. Two for the record, I didn't have good body language. Five until college. Yeah, really until college is when I figured it out. But that's my hope is that many of them can help figure it out before then. Yeah. Off of what we initially had talked about with like what we were gonna go through here for this podcast. But do you in the three years now that you have been doing this, are you starting to sense like maybe this should be happening in the younger years to sort of groom so that they're prepared if they're ready to go from um middle school to high school athletics and then high school athletics or um competition to collegiate level and then collegiate and beyond. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I work with as young as 10-year-olds, okay, you know, up through college and beyond. Yeah, yeah. You know, a 10-year-old soccer player right now who gets emotional every game, right? Tears every game. And it's almost like we expect them to go out and know how to turn the page quickly on a mistake, but they don't know that skill. I didn't know it till college. And it's hard, yeah. It's hard, right? So just helping them learn and grasp that skill, yeah. Yeah, and practice failing and recovering and creating a snapback plan. Yeah, right. Like breathe in confidence, breathe out stress and nerves. Next point, every guy. Oh my gosh. Yep. Jamie and I, when we had coffee, I was talking her through. And Landon, when you listen to this, just know how much I love and adore you and how competitive you are. But we were talking about this with him and how competitive like his nature is, right? It's so competitive that he will have very similar emotions and reactions when it he has he has worked a lot through, and we've we've sort of helped to massage that through as well for him. And there's still these kind of weird one-off moments where it's like, oh my gosh, I can I've like felt myself getting emotional as you were talking through this about with this kiddle that's in soccer, and going, Oh the intentionality that you evidently have with working with them is is so cool and very profound. And I am I'm intrigued for us to continue to like move through this conversation so that women who are listening, and there's there's husbands that are listening too, obviously. I'm sure Jamie, your husband listened to yours, and Becky, I'm sure your husband will listen too. But just to be able to give insight in how to like love on our children more and love on ourselves more as well as we go through this season when they're getting into athletics and getting into more of that competitive nature. So um before we move on to Jamie, one of my final um things that I want to talk through with you, Jamie, is since you have leaped into entrepreneurship and done this, and what a cool story as you entered into entrepreneurship. It's so cool that it started with John Gordon, who now I feel like I feel like I probably do know who this is just growing up as an athlete. Um but what are some of the what are some of the parallels that you are starting to see with entrepreneurship and motherhood? And in entering into this space, what are some of the challenges that you've experienced with this? I would say both are hard at most. Entrepreneurship and motherhood. Motherhood, I don't know that I left being a mom when they're like zero to nine months old. If I'm being honest, I think it's was hard and nobody prepares you for it, and you don't realize like you never get to punch off the clock. And so, of course, there's some similarities to entrepreneurship, both are hard, especially that first year. Same with entrepreneurship, you know, like you just think it's gonna take off, right? Yeah, yeah, and it does eventually. Um yeah, so I would say they're both hard. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now, now let's dive into when you started the business and the season of life that you were in with your kids at that given moment and the challenges that you have experienced and how you have grown through those in the past three years. Yeah. So when I resigned, retired at the university, um, I was going to University of Wisconsin Stow, which is 45 minutes from where I live in Hudson, Wisconsin. So actually to get to be home when they would get off the bus was such a gift and something that I hadn't experienced. You know, they were 15 and 11 at the time. And I hadn't experienced it really almost at all. Um, so to get to be home more has been a gift. Yeah. You're not the first woman to share testaments of that sort where you're just you're you're there to like watch them off to school or coming back from school, and it really is a gift. Yeah, it truly is. And there were times at the university, and I'm I love working hard. Um, you know, I would work 50 to during the camp weeks. We had like 270 overnight campers in a couple of weeks. And so those weeks I would work 75, 80 hours even. Um, and now, granted, the last couple weeks I've been working like a good six days a week, sometimes seven. Yeah. Um but it's you can schedule it around, you know, my son's games, and you know, you just like shut those times off, and yeah, yeah, that it's um less demanding. Yeah. How do you feel like you've moved through that then? Being less demanding? Um moving through some of those challenges to where you're at now in the business. And I think how do I put this? I think of like those challenges that we experience, right? And we learn and we grow from them, and how we grow through them is kind of the where I want to sit and just have some conversations with you about. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think just like having grace for yourself. Amen, sister. Yeah, amen. And having the courage to do the hard thing and put yourself out there. Like I used to get nervous public speaking, and now I do it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. And I just look at it as serving. So I think having grace making mistakes, um, and like be okay putting yourself out there.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Kelly

I mean, even on social media, like we've had a few posts go viral with 2.8 million views and 1.7 million views, and you know, we have like 10,000 followers. Yeah. But I remember when you start doing it, friends and family ask, like, why are you posting so much? You know, and it's like, because I knew I was supposed to, and I knew I had something to serve and share, and I don't gatekeep, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that little tip there too, about like continu sort of like a innate, like, hey, keep going, keep going, sister, especially as it pertains to social media, which can be an episode all in itself. So I Jamie, I felt like you had something that you wanted to piggyback off of that. Just from an observer point of view of Becky's work, it's it's been very cool to see your evolution on social media. And I think you even had a call out to yourself of that story of maybe people were giving you a hard time when you were just getting going. Um, you know, oh, you don't even have that many followers, you didn't get that many likes. And but I love and I'm inspired that you you planted the seed and you knew you had a lot to give, and you do have a lot to give. And regardless of how many millions watch the video, I think like you being in alignment and true to your values of that, like that's the win. Thank you for that. Well, you spoke to it earlier, it's getting clear on what your vision is, right? And if you know what your vision is, you can I think of an arrow, right? Like just pointing in that direction, and nothing can really stop the arrow once it's been pulled back and going forward. So yeah, I'm sure more is gonna come up. But I want to take this opportunity to have the listeners um get a little re refresher from you, Jamie.

Jamie’s Business Path And Seasonality

Kelly

Um, so we've had you on the podcast. Can you recap? I know that you mentioned like what you do for business, but how you evolutionized into that. Yes. So for me, entrepreneurship came first before being a mother. And you had kind of talked about Becky, you know, being a consultant on the side. I had done a lot of my work um as a tennis coach and a basketball coach. It started from the ground up doing private lessons in my own community. So it, yeah, it really grew from a profitable side hobby to sort of having an inflection point of, you know, wanting to either go in one direction and work for someone else or invest in myself and go all in and start a business. And so in 2015, I started Guard Performance Academy. I gave myself that date to secure a website and have a website up on um on March 15th. And uh yeah, since then it's um it's been a wonderful, you know, you talked to Kelly about like how do we move through the different seasons of life with being an entrepreneur. And Becky, you also alluded to having more control of your time, even though it may not be a conventional nine to five anymore. Um, that has been a real blessing for me to be able to scale the business up and down based on the season of life. And once I became a mom, I took myself kind of out of the driver's seat of being the be-all end-all of the business from being the admin and the encore and the marketer and the email answerer to surrounding myself with a few people that I loved and trusted that were in alignment with my vision. And yeah, so as Guard Performance Academy stands today, we're we're really focused on the summer seasonality of working with young student athletes and really trying to make our biggest impact when they are out of school. And during the school year, my primary job is as the director of Racquet Sports over at Interlock and Country Club. But I, you know, am able to work in partnership and harmonize being a business owner during that time. And um, yeah, it's it's just been a true blessing. Well, and I do feel like since you had been on the podcast last, and then even from the podcast anniversary event last year, this was when we sat down. I you probably saw my eyes, I was like, I feel like this is a new development, Jamie. Like, when did this happen? And so I loved, and that was one of my questions. Like, do you is there any sort of tension points with you working at interlocking and then what you're doing with um guard performance? And you're like, no, actually, it it kind of it's beautiful how it harmonizes together and just the conversations and the communication that's happening. And I think, wow, that's that's so cool. Well, I'm very fortunate to work with and work for really great people. Just again, go uh you're gonna hear me say values all the time, and maybe the listeners roll their eyes at that. But I when you are in a space where there's values alignment, there's a just a different energy. Thank you, Becky. That is the word. There's a different energy. You you can show up fully and have the confidence to do your best work because the people around you are just your supporters and you're all working in the same direction. And so, yeah, I have the support of my colleagues at Interlock, and they know that it's important that I am the Eudina Girls varsity tennis coach because that's it's a huge position in this city that's got a lot of legacy and history and third in the state, um, fourth in the state last year. A few state championships along the way um as a player. And so, yeah, just just a great um partnership to be involved with both of those. And then yeah, to be a to be a small business owner as well, I think has only enhanced my relationships with members that are in my community. I want

How Youth Sports Changed Since We Grew Up

Kelly

to go off script. Let's do it. So all of us were athletes growing up and then college, college, college athletes. Let's go. Let's go. I want to talk through the difference of like where athletics was at that point for us as we may I ask how old you are? 46. 46. Okay. So, I mean, really around the same time. Yeah. Within a couple of years, okay. The difference that you see now versus how it was when we were growing up and we were in athletics. What do you think the shifts have been? It's a loaded question. Um, I think there are so many things at play, um, especially on the girls and women's side, I think, in the last 20, 25 years, particularly. I guess where to start? Um, youth sports in general, I think, is getting very professionalized at an early age. We talked about the technology, too. So there's there's pressures with that. There's pressures to feel like you have to get on the on-ramp and stay on the on-ramp and keep up and do all the skills training and be a year-round athlete in all three of your sports that you do. Um, I did not feel that pressure when I was growing up. I was a multi-sport athlete, playing tennis and basketball, captain of both sports all the way through, decided I wanted to continue with tennis. Uh so I think I think there's that element of um somebody found that there was money to be made in youth sports, and it's kind of flipped the scripts on what it initially was supposed to be, which was developing young people and giving them an opportunity to move their body, follow directions, and make friends. That's kind of you know what it boils down to. Um, and then I think on the girls and women's side, as a positive, there has just been more positive energy, more money, um, more credibility put behind those sports and more eyeballs on them. I mean, girls' sports have always been great. I don't think there were enough eyeballs on it, and there was not enough attention given to it. And so now we're seeing, you know, we just you watch the NCAA women's basketball tournament and you see UCLA, like all the first-round draft picks that are coming from that school. I mean, that's just insanity and so cool to see. So um, certainly from a positive viewpoint, um, there are girls and women that are advancing to the highest levels, and maybe because they're getting more opportunity than we did 20 years ago. Yeah. Okay, I would add two more things, and that those were awesome, agree fully. Um, is that I think our generation of parents parent our athletes differently than our parents did 20 years ago and 25 years ago. And so you're right, there come that comes with different pressures and investment and yeah, identity, you know, just a lot of identity wrapped up into that athlete, and we can talk about that in a minute. Um, I would add that I think Gen Z wants to be coached differently than the athletes of five years ago, even and ten years ago. And I was just in Arizona at the NCAA Women's Basketball Convention and had a lot of conversations with collegiate coaches in that. And so, in my opinion, Gen Z wants more of a say in it than five years ago.

unknown

Okay.

Kelly

And when coaches give it to them, they go harder in a direction that the coach supports than if it's the coach demanding all of it. And so things like uh the last 30 minutes of practice, do you think option A is better or option B? Right? Should we watch film or do this drill? And when they vote on it, it's theirs then. So they go harder in a direction that the coach supports. Fascinating. Yeah, and even allowing your players, ask a couple of your leaders, right, to lead a practice once a month, during season, even. You know, and on a Friday, will you lead practice on Monday? Like you have a great background in the sport, and I trust you. And so holy moly. I wonder like what you'll do with that. And if anybody you're doing sprints or conditioning and somebody stops short of the line, will you say anything about it? Or will you watch and observe and do nothing? If somebody shows up, and you know what? I'm gonna sit at the top of the bleachers today and just silently support. If you have a question, come ask. But when coaches can sit at the top of the bleachers, you see it very differently, and then you know how to show up for them. So I would say I would add those two things to a team. Yes, and I've loved that. Jamie, I know. I'm like, so I I feel like our our conversation is making this nice little shift where I mean, you ladies are the experts, you're in it. You are either you are coaching a child through it or a soon-to-be teenager, right? You're coaching them through it, and you're getting uh many different lens and viewpoints from them, and then probably insight into how parents are with them too. Same with you, Jamie. You're coaching them, and you have gone through these different generations of coaching too. I'm on This side as a parent, but also having been in athletics and then collegiate athletics as well. And I'm like, I'm hearing what you're saying, Becky, and going, What? I can't even imagine. When I was in college, our my best coach was Sean. And shout out Sean if you ever listened to this, like he was the one of the best basketball coaches I've ever had, ever, ever, ever. I could never imagine seeing him do something like that. Yet I can see the perspective of how that might be so empowering, both to the person that he's he or she is handing the baton off to. And then even for the other the other team players. They're watching this and going, oh, how are they gonna respond? How is my coach gonna respond? Are they going to respond? Oh, they're not responding. And this, it's it's on this person over here, and we're peers. Oh my gosh, this is so fascinating. Well, I think as you say that too, the thing that comes up is as a leader, do you want to be right or do you want to be effective in your leadership? And I think that goes to our parenting as well. I think of my two kids, and there are certain different pain points where if I approach my son this way, I'll I'll get the quote desired result that I want as a parent. If I apply that same tactic or approach with my daughter, emotions fly off the walls. And so, in my role in leadership as a parent, I have to, I have to give a little bit and take into consideration giving my kids a little autonomy over the situation. Um, otherwise, we're just kind of coming off as being authoritative, and you know, the culture of your home, the culture of your team is only gonna be as high as the people who respect that type of leadership. Becky is nodding her head right now, and I would love to hear the thoughts that are going through your head. No, I mean just agree fully, like all good, just agree fully. I

Support Standards And Identity In Sports

Kelly

had written down talking through the difference between support, expectation, and identity. And I'll let you ladies answer how you feel best to answer through that. Do you want that from the lens of a parent? And how do we support and give expectations? Or how do you see it? Both. Athlete, parent, coach, mother. Go with go with your gut on this one. Yeah, so I I'll take the if I were coaching a parent, I'll I'll take that approach. So Becky talked really beautifully about her kind of working through how do I detach from my child's performance? How do I not give off the vibe that what my child is doing is a direct reflection of me or my parenting or my influence. And so the more that we can again give the kids and athletes the space to go do their thing and recognize that, like, although I am a coach by trade and training, like when I'm watching my daughter at basketball, like that's not my job to be dissecting everything that she's doing, or really to be commenting on her performance because that's hers and that's her team's and her coach's experience. And so the more that we can give that space, and if the athlete wants to talk about it, be a safe space. I think sometimes a good technique is just repeating back what they're saying to you. I played really awful. You felt like you played awful. That gives them a space to like open up and maybe talk more, and maybe they just want to get it out of their bodies and say, I like they know, like a kid knows when they played poorly. They don't need a loving adult to hammer that into them and relive and and really honestly like imprint into their brains the negative aspects of their performance. So it's like listen, respond with love, and give space that, like, regardless of whether you win your match 6060 or lose a match to someone that you were better than and you didn't have it today, like it's unconditional love that is detached from performance. I love that so much. So good. It's so good. Again, I wish that we had video because seeing Becky Snap is the cutest thing ever. Um, I can jump in and add so support is more athlete driven, and I'd be lying if as a mother, if I said we always did that with our older son who's almost 17. Um, yeah, the next thing that you had talked about a little bit is like expectations or standards. And this is um, I guess what what I believe in or what we believe in is it's okay to hold our children to high standards, right? So, for example, if um my son grounds out at first base and jogs from home to first base, right? On a Sunday, that next weekend we're in we're in a good place, we might stop by the baseball field like after church and do family, you know, sprints. And I race my 12-year-old and my husband races the 16-year-old, and we just sprint from home to first base and we try to make it a positive thing. And not that he always thinks it is, but yeah, you know, something like that. I think it's good to hold them to high standards out of love with effort, right? Rather than they should be allowed to make mistakes. Mistakes are part of success, and if you have an athlete who's afraid of making mistakes, afraid of letting their teammates down, their parents down, their coach down, all very normal. Um, but then they're playing tight. So mistakes are part of success. Yeah. Yeah. There's a study of a hundred athletes what they want from mom and dad after a game or a match. Any guesses at what they want? Tell me, please. Food. That's all they want is food.

unknown

Yeah.

Kelly

So most of them tracks, right? Most of them don't want to talk on the way. Yeah. So, you know, there's times like as a mother, well, we'll just like do you want to talk about the game or not? If they don't, then respect that. Um, I brought the basketball out for the part that is on a video, and I'll try to explain it for those who aren't watching it. Um, but I think their identity. Here, I'm gonna hold this for you. Okay, it's okay. I got it. You sure? Yeah, okay. That our identity shouldn't be attached to what we do. So, like with our tennis athletes, there's nothing you're gonna do for the boys who are playing now or your girls that have spring matches. There's nothing you're gonna do in Saturday's match that makes you more worthy of the spotlight, more enough or less. And when our athletes can come to their sport from that wholehearted place, that's a pretty awesome thing. So, um, and actually, I got this from so my cousins are Krista and William Humphreys, and um William's son is Chris Humphreys, who spent 13 years at the NBA, right? And lives in Minnetonka here. So this is theirs, but I now use it with my athletes. Is you have your athletes hold a basketball or a tennis ball, right? And you ask them, Who are you? Right. And most of them will say, like, I'm a high school student, I'm a basketball player, I'm a point guard, whatever that is. And then you tell them, you take the basketball or the tennis ball or the baseball away from them, and you ask them, Who are you? And so just like encouraging them to define who they are without that, yeah, and basketball, tennis, baseball is something that they do. Yes, yeah, but and again, when they can come to their sport from that place, that's pretty great. Yeah. And they're gonna shine. They're gonna shine. Yeah. That was a pretty powerful moment right there. Wow. Part of the reason that I wanted to have this conversation initially, and what I love is just how many different like avenues we can go down and have already gone down. And I also want to talk through preparation, like for parents, mothers to prepare their hearts as they are entering into these seasons with their children, preparing them for schedules, managing schedules, um the dynamic shifts that happen with those schedules. And as the years continue on, I mean, Jamie and I are sort of in similar time frames right now. And so I know that I'm probably gonna have a lot to learn through you, Becky, and my mistakes. And I just want to talk through this what you see, Becky, because I'm sure that you have a lot of insight, and same for you, Jamie. And maybe this is just for me selfishly. But when when this all started really was within the past year for us personally. You know, the boys are 11 and 9 right now, so I'll call it 10 and 8 when they were really starting to hone in on crafts, so to speak. The oldest is very gifted in that dance realm. The middle child is very gifted in the what I what I said is like the traditional sports, and um Maddie TBD. We'll see. I just didn't realize how uh challenging it would be to navigate being a mom, navigate owning a business, working on a podcast. Though it's nice to be able to do this throughout the day because typically you don't have stuff that's happening throughout the day, though with dance competitions, we do. We do like literally yesterday, middle of the day, we were down at Ames Center for a dance competition. Kid gets pulled out of school too, so like not even in school for it, right? So these are things that I wasn't prepared for personally, and now it's like okay, I'm like gearing up, geared up for it. And at there were moments where I was like, I'm I think that we're gonna have to prepare a little bit better for this, and then you forget. It's like, oh, okay, we managed through today, and so we're just gonna we're gonna factor that into tomorrow, and it'll probably be similar. No, no, no, no, no. So this is a very long-winded um ask of me for you ladies to just talk through, like have this kind of open dialogue between the three of us of maybe what you've navigated through yourself, Becky, how you've seen it with um the different age groups that you've worked through, and same with you, Jamie. And go. Who wants to go first? Go ahead. Okay,

Energy Management Batching And Scheduling Joy

Kelly

I will actually share three strategies that I'm personally working on now. Gets her pen out, gets ready to write. So my challenge right now in this season is what I call energy management. So there's time management, which I think is a little bit more around like having a calendar and being organized and blocking your time. I have a work meeting from eight to ten, I have a lunch from noon to one, I pick up my kids at four. I think that's great time management. Energy management for me is spending the day in my performance self, out coaching, directing, leading, giving energy, presenting, you know, in my small business and in my work at Interlock and Country Club, and giving my all to that, and then coming home being a natural introvert, how do I not coast on fumes during what's arguably the most important part of my day, which is being with my husband and showing up well for my kids? And so it's, you know, it's really through the winter has been a challenge for me to how do I manage my energy better and be a star in all of my roles throughout the day. So my three things that I have been working on, number one is being deliberate in my lesson planning and being deliberate in our communication at home as husband and wife. So when I wake up in the morning and let's say I have four or five hours worth of tennis instruction and tennis lessons, I am being very deliberate about thinking during that bright-eyed 8 a.m. moment where my energy is high, the distractions of the day haven't hijacked my brain. And I'm being really thoughtful about how I'm going to approach and teach each of the unique groups that I'm going to have throughout the day, from little kids all the way up through adult tennis. And that has helped me to be able to show up in the work and not have to come up with what I want to do and use that energy in the moment. I've already pre-decided, I've pre-planned, and then I use my improv skills to make it right when something doesn't go exactly according to plan. So on a professional level, I'm really deliberate about that. Deliberate communication at home, that really deals with the second half of the day. So my husband and I will spend every day a moment of our time, whether a phone call or if we get to have breakfast together, of what's on the schedule? Are there any outliers? So, like if he has a youth association board meeting at 7 p.m. and I've got to do bedtime on my own, that's something that I need to prepare my mindset and my energy for because that needs more gas in the tank than when we can divide and conquer and be in routine. So we're very deliberate about communicating about the kids' schedules and our different things that happen with work, and that allows us to show up and conquer it as a team. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. But at least from an energy management perspective, I can kind of gauge you know what's needed of me when I get home. Yeah. The second thing I've been doing, which I highly recommend, um, because a lot of the women listening are gonna be like type A doers and they're gonna bulldoze through their day, and any nook and cranny that they have, they're gonna fill it with something to be productive. So I have been doing what I call batching my work. Okay. So I take like itemed things and I group them. So let's say, you know, I get a text from a client who wants to reschedule a lesson, and then I also have an email from someone who wants to sign up for a summer programming. In the past, I have just answered those as one-offs. In the moment, I get it, I reply. I get it, I reply. I'm talking to my daughter, I get a text, I disengage from her, I reply. Now, what I'm trying to be mindful of is when I wake up again in the morning, I look at all those different things and I say, okay, I've got six emails to answer. At nine o'clock, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna hammer up all of those emails and texts at the same time. And then something that's more physical, I'm gonna put that together and do all of those things in time. And what that does for me, kind of in my own orientation, is I can stay in the same lane and almost get into a state of flow with my work versus ping ponging all around in my day. And then that contributes to my exhaustion. So batching has been a really huge kind of method for me to take the work that I know is there and has to get done, but I do it more categorically. Okay. That's brilliant. I wouldn't, I need to go ahead, finish the colour. The last one, I'll keep it short. I know I've spoken a lot, is schedule joy on your calendar. And my husband and I, we are so blessed. We have amazing different groups of friends or couples that like just fill our cup, and they are the people that we want to be around. We want our kids to be around, we want our kids to be like their kids. But if you don't schedule it, like it won't happen, you know, the baseball tournament, the basketball tournament, the dance competition, like that will hijack your life. And so we try to have some kind of like non-negotiable times on the calendar where we're going to drive to Rochester to see our friends from college, or I'm not going to schedule lessons this particular weekend in June because we're going up north. And so that also to have that on your calendar when you're maybe in a burner week, like Becky said, of 65, 70 hours, like you have that shining light at the end that's like, I can work hard and I can do this because I know I've got this awesome weekend ahead of me. That's good. I need this. I need these two. I literally, all I was gonna say, Jamie, is literally yesterday, I felt like I was like this. And in reflection, it was not being intentional about batching my work. Um probably there was probably deliberate communication that was happening between Joe and I. I mean, it's it's tough not to do that. We also work together. And it was going, well, had we had we talked about how we were gonna have like those pause joy moments as well, because I think you can do that even on a daily basis, right? An email comes through, oh, okay, and a text message comes through, oh, okay, and then it's like and and not, but then I think about how other days have gone when I have been intentional about going, okay, I'm gonna time block. Like I think of batching or and or time blocking, and no disruptions, right? Like phone is on DD, I am focusing on this specific project, or it's something with the real estate business or something with the podcast. And I am intentional about that time, and no other disruptions are happening. And then I'm in a flow, and then I can come out of that flow and into the next thing. Becky, your turn. Yeah, um, I think you had asked, you know, what about when women feel or moms feel exhausted? And I think it's okay to feel exhausted and give yourself permission for that. Um, I know one of the things that's been a life changer for me, and it also happened like at the start of entrepreneurship, is just auditing my inner circle and being observant of people whose words and actions aren't supportive of you. And how do you feel before you go see someone and after? And sometimes that might be a friend, sometimes it might be an immediate family member. And um doesn't mean I am better than anyone else, but maybe just um no longer aligned. And again, all out of love and no judgment. But that has been a game changer for me and my energy and my mental health, which has always been pretty good, but um, I would say even better since I've done that. Yeah. Um, what was the other question that you had asked? Preparing our hearts as mothers, as parents, for entering into activity season for our children. So, this is something else that we've done is saying no at times. So we have said no, for example, to a basketball tournament to go on a family case vacation. Good. And and we didn't go, right? Yeah, yeah. And granted, you can't do that when you're in a varsity high school sport, right? That's not the time to do it. But you know, if they're in elementary school, middle school, you can choose to put your family as a priority occasionally and say yes to that, but it also means saying no to something else. And so our example of it um is our son, our oldest, has done this blizzard baseball. Um, and I've consulted with them, super big fan of the program. They're out of Arden Hills, right? Club baseball. To be honest with you, we spend about $12,000 a year on club baseball, including travel and all the things, right? Iowa, Kansas City, Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah. Um, but this summer we chose not to do the summer blizzard base. It's six weeks after the high school season. Um, and we chose not to do it for one six-week summer. And we booked a family vacation, and um, yeah, we just decided to put the funding elsewhere, meaning, like, you know, he has a personal trainer now, he's seen a registered dietitian, a sprint coach, so like a little bit more skill development. Sure. Then tournament game, game, game, game, game. But it also means for those six weeks that we can take time for us and like do a trip that doesn't revolve around a sport. And so I think it's okay at times to choose to say. No, because you're saying yes to something else. That's huge. That is huge. Ladies, we haven't even gotten to the core convos yet. This is a super sized episode. It really cut it down. I know, I know. Um, oh my gosh. What I love about how we are moving through these conversations, though, is that it's it's sort of like, all right, this is this is coming up. And so it's important to be able to talk through that as well, right? Like these are real life and real-time things that are happening. And I know without a shadow of a doubt, that there are women who are listening right now that are feeling the feels with pressure to be there for everything and do it all. And also, how do you show up for your kid when they're feeling the feels about how up how their performance was or how their game went or how it didn't go? And it's important to to be able to talk about sort of the nitty-gritty things because we're not all the time. We're not, especially in a like a um in a group setting, it's a little bit more challenging, especially if you're flying off to Forest Lake or heading down to Burnsville, or you know, I'm just speaking again um candidly about what my experiences are. So figuring out which direction I want to go here, I think let's let's start at the top and we'll we'll move through these as as quickly as humanly possible while also diving in. When does opportunity for kids become overload for the families? I feel like we've kind of talked through this. And I think that we can dive a little bit deeper as well. If you are a parent and you're in the youth level still, you're in, you know, second, third, fourth, fifth grade. I think there's a little bit of a panic button that gets pushed to do all the things and be in three sports seriously in the same season all at once. And I think Becky can probably attest to this working at the highest levels, you know, national championship contending teams. Like this is still the development phase, and this is about exposing them to sport, and really they should be kind of in the driver's seat with sort of deciding, you know, what they're liking, what they're not liking. Do I want to sign up for this again, or do I want to try something new? Um, and going back to the youth sport, getting a little bit professionalized, like in my opinion, I think it's okay that you're not on the elite eight and under soccer team. Becky. I don't like using the word elite with eight-year-olds who some of them don't know how to tie their own shoe. Um I think as you're as you're in, as you're in this season of like trying to get involved in a lot of sports, I would recommend pick something and go all in on that. And we pick one sport and go all in on that. And then maybe they can keep training in that sport, but let them try something else and go all in and experience that team and not feel like a third or fourth grader has to necessarily choose between two teams in the same season. Um there's so many factors at play. You know, if you are meant to be a higher level athlete, there's there are just going to be different things that come along the way. How tall will you be? Do you have the mental mindset to be a high performing athlete? Do you love the sport so much that you want to be playing it five or six days a week? So if you're in that youth level, like bring it back to like I the things that I think are important are like connection, commitment, learning to you know show up and be there for other teams, impact and fun. How do you feel about this, Becky? I think that was well said. Yeah, great. Um, I did have just a little spin-off of this that I wanted to ask. So you had mentioned Jamie, pick a sport and go all in on it. What do you feel like the time to spend in that? Is it like a season to understand, like, okay, this is the sport for my child, and it's very evident based off of how they're responding to it, how they're responding to engagement with their um play their their teammates, um, or they're not as engaged as I thought that they might be, even though this is a something that they expressed they wanted to do. I do does that make sense? Yeah, so I'll actually I'll speak a little anecdotally from personal experience with my son. So twofold here. I think in observing the hundreds and thousands of athletes that I've worked with over the two decades, it's really not around until fifth or sixth grade that I'm truly seeing kids start to see what their sport is, what their primary sport is. And with my son, you Becky talked about like, well, we're not always as perfect as we sound on the microphone. We tried soccer with him, and we were on more of a recreational pathway. He was five years old at the time. Should be a recreational pathway. He's five years old. But there was an option to join more of a club type tournament team. And he was loving it so much. He couldn't wait to go. He would wear his soccer gear at like 8 a.m. to church when he had practice at 3 p.m. on Sunday. It was all in. So my husband and I thought, like, he loves this. Let's let's go the club route, let's play twice a week and get some tournaments in. We flash forward to sleepy kindergartner at the end of the day, taking him to Tuesday, 5 p.m. and Thursday, 5 p.m. practice. He throws asleep in the car every day. And go to the tournaments, and he's not loving it because it's like there's all these rules, and this whistle is stopping him all the time. And he's like not with his friends that he was in the Sunday class with. And he really he fell out of love with soccer. Um, and you know, we never really thought that soccer was maybe gonna be his thing, but we we felt a little bit of that pressure to like, well, if there is a bigger opportunity and he can be pushed more, why shouldn't we do it? And so we learned from that, and we're we are trying now as parents to be a little bit more um letting them guide us into what they're interested in, and we'll help provide the resources. And the more and more that they say they want to do it, we'll we'll keep investing in that. But coming from a place of this brings joy to my child, and we see them having fun and success versus going for some kind of outcome from our own vantage point. Thank you so much. That's exactly what I was looking for. Do you want to piggyback off of that, Becky? I think just that it's okay for them to pivot and that these shouldn't be lifelong decisions of what their sport is, and it's okay. And that doesn't mean that it's easy as a parent, right? So um working with a gymnast and have been for a couple years, um, who is now and she did gymnastics and hockey, but she's deciding to be done with gymnastics and go all in at hockey as a soon-to-be freshman, and that was really hard on mom, right? Those are her relationships and her social circle, and and so that makes sense. Like it would be hard on me too. Yeah, and it's okay, yeah, but doesn't make it easy. No, it doesn't. Wow. Well, and and one of the things that I had sent over too is just talking about separating a child's performance from their identity, but you just spoke to like the identity that we as parents have when it comes to like, okay, my child has gone in on this, these maybe one or two specific sports. And I've started to surround myself with these other parents and have become friends, and then all of a sudden they're making a shift, and you're going, Well, wait a second. Wait a second. Yep. So let's talk through that actually about. Yeah, as you say that, I mean, I just think that parallels life, right? There are there are people that come into our lives at certain points. You can, you know, point back to being in college and what that experience was and those friends and the person that you were in that moment, and um, you know, going into adulthood, becoming a new mother. Maybe you took a baby in me class, and that became your crew for the first early years of of being a mom. And um, if the relationship is important to you, like you will you will make it work outside of the context of you know being a soccer mom with these players or these parents? And um, yeah, there are so many parallels to life and sports. I think that adults can also recognize we want those lessons for our kids, but everybody involved in it, yeah, there there are parallels to real life. Becky? No, I yeah, that was well put. How how does being in this particular season impact marriage and family dynamics? You're the one who says that you scream loudly into your husband's ears at the baseball games, so you take this one. I mean, I think it ebbs and flows, right? That's the truth. And there's times where as a family or as a husband wife that we're just super on the same page and you know, that it's awesome. Yeah, we've been married now 22 years, I think. Yeah, 22. And there's times where you're not on the same page, right? And that's the reality of it. And um, you know, one thing that we're talking about in our home is just like bringing support to each other's goals and our kids' goals, and rather than bringing friction. And I know one of the things like I'm just less interested in, I don't know why it took till my mid-40s to figure it out, but like I'm not really interested in complaining, gossiping, or arguing. Yes, you know, and so even you know, if one of my sons wants to argue well, I very much want to hear them and like you say, repeat back, summarize what they're saying, but in terms of like back and forth and argue, I'm I'm not really interested in it. Yeah. So at times I'll just kind of politely walk away. It's funny, I mean, as somebody's not so politely, as somebody who uh you're you're talking about culture, right? And you've been doing this for a very long time, and now you've decided I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna take this a step further and build a business from it. You just know that culture is so important, and whether it's within an athletic stance or it's within the family dynamic, culture is important, and those things can really put a damper on what the culture looks like if you're constantly screaming, fighting, shouting. So same with being a part of a team or you're you know doing stuff within the tennis realm. Literally, I have to just giggle for a hot second because I know my husband is listening to this podcast and he's gonna go, it's not realm, Kelly. You're saying it wrong. I always say it wrong. Um but even within within tennis, that's you are singles and doubles, right? But if you're singles, it's it's you against that other person. And so it's how are you showing up? How are you showing up and being a good team player for yourself? But then also just uh what's the word I'm looking for? Um approaching like going up against somebody else. I cannot even think right now.

unknown

Why can't I think?

Kelly

This is the brain of me right now. Just competing against somebody else. Competing against somebody else and and how you show up to that other person as well. Does that make sense? I can't even think of the word right now, but it's okay.

Saying No To Protect Family Culture

Kelly

Um we talked about what you're saying yes to and what are we unintentionally saying no to. Becky, you had a really great um thought on this and how saying no to six weeks after the season finishes up going into summer, I'm saying no to that because I want to say yes to spending more time with my family. Can you give a couple other examples of where that might have been the case or examples that you have seen in individuals that are coaching as well? I think most just say yes to everything, you know, and then exhaustion becomes like is kind of the outcome of that. We feel like we have to say yes to everything. Yeah, yeah. I've I've gotten really good at no. Yeah. Do you feel like those no's have come more prominently since starting your business? I would say in the last five years. Okay. Yeah, and even if it's a social thing, but like if you say yes to everything, then you are saying no to sometimes yourself, your family, yeah. So just like in alignment with your values, and yeah, I'm laughing because I was about to pull the values card again on this one. But I I like to think of it as like a vote for something. So if I if my values are I want to be, I want to show up each day and be very present. Well, if I spend the night before scrolling on my phone for an hour, that's a vote for being a tired, crabby, frazzled, professional, and mom, right? So we we have all these like opportunities each day to make these little decisions that's either a vote for the person that we want to be or a vote against it. And that can be hard for high achievers because you equate yes and opportunity with more, more, more, more, more, which means achieving higher. But really, there are oftentimes things that are working against the person that you're supposed to be becoming. And so you do have to be intentional about um, you know, how is that going to impact the bigger picture? It's interesting. I think that many women say no more than they think they they do. You know, I'm just consciously thinking through like I know when I became a mom, saying no was more challenging at that given point because I was so used to people pleasing. People pleasing, yes. And just, oh, if I don't, I am losing out on an opportunity, right? Whether it's to go deeper with a friend friend and that friendship or um an opportunity in business when I was in the mortgage industry, because that's when I had Maddie, I was in the mortgage industry and then made the transition. And so it felt like I was gonna lose out on something. When the reality is it just took a little bit of like refining what the values are and that value set, and then going, does that fit? Is it gonna fit that narrative? No, it's not going to. I loved your example about staying up and scrolling. Because I think most of us can empathize to having done that and and just like the next day going, why? Why, why, why, why, why? Yeah, and I think Kelly, to add on to that, like sometimes it won't show up in alignment right away. Like sometimes this is a vote for your future self six months from now. Like, I think all of us can probably attest with building our businesses that like one right decision didn't just all of a sudden make us these huge successes in our fields, but we said yes to something that was part of a bigger plan to create something of greatness. And so I think we can we can do that as individuals and how we show up as parents or coaches or leaders in our businesses of you know, it's we are the sum of all of our small decisions, and we're not gonna get it right all the time. And there are times when the poor decisions are gonna win out because we simply want to do that at that time, and that's okay too. That's part of the human experience. Or guilty pleasures, yes. Um but yeah, just recognizing that like sometimes the instant gratification, we have to fight against that to dive into something that's gonna be better for us in the long term. On the heels of this, um, Becky, do you have, as we're talking through this, any sort of framework or non-negotiab for building a healthy family culture? Um the non-negotiables are, like I said, just only allowing people in our lives that are supportive of my husband and I and the four of us. And that's something I've gotten really good at lately, and it's been a game changer. Yeah, and I would say we're still like working to build a championship culture in our own family. So, like 11% of teams are there, yeah and we're working at it. Yeah. So, like, for example, we sat down a couple weeks ago, we all got takeout, and the boys picked what they wanted, and we wrote down goals. Right? It was fun, yeah. Um, so to see each of us and us adults included, we wrote down our goals, but we need to recreate a vision and values for our family. And while I have that for the company, we need to do that for our family. Yeah, and like I said, holding ourselves, each other to high standards, and it needs to start with me. Yeah, getting my workout in, putting my phone away. Yes. Yeah, I put an Opal app on my phone so that I stay off social media more. It's been great. Fascinating. Yeah, share just a little bit more about what that is. The Opal app, uh, it's wonderful, but you have to watch like a five-minute video or do a math problem to go into Instagram, Facebook, and so it's been really good for me. Do you have to get it right in order to be able to move forward? They're pretty simple. I don't even know. Oh, okay. Yeah, but it just makes you like pause and reflect on. And granted, part of the business is on social media, yeah. But I'm I can be on it too much at times. So holding high standards has to start with me. If I want my boys to pick up their clothes in the bathroom, then I probably need to pick up mine more. Yeah. Yeah. There was an individual that um has has been on the podcast, and her name might ring a bell, Laura King, um was she's not formally, she still is is in the recruiting world. And I mean, she has interviewed hundreds upon thousands of just individuals to get them into a working space, right? And now she's coaching people through who um are high achievers. Anyways, okay, so I pre-having her on the podcast, we had a Zoom and she was talking about how she's intentional. She spends a lot of time on LinkedIn, like that's sort of the space that she navigates a lot on. But she was like, I'm very intentional, but like when I get on to LinkedIn, I'm either posting or I am commenting on three people's like platforms, and then I'm off. And I was like, that was such a huge takeaway for me. Um, have I implemented it to my best capability? No, I haven't.

unknown

I'm there.

Kelly

But I'm a work in progress. I don't have it all figured out. Yeah, especially if you know the you use the platforms for business, for business purposes, it you're responding and you're figuring out how do you navigate through like what this being deliberate about what that post is, right? So there's a lot of strategy behind it too. I

Rapid Fire Lessons And Overwhelm Advice

Kelly

think we're ready to start landing the plane, ladies. This has been a lot of fun. It has. Hopefully, we it before I start to land the plane, are there any testaments that you feel we've missed in this conversation? We've covered a lot of ground. Let's do a rapid fire then. Becky, hardest part of this season for you right now. Go. I would say being in alignment and making sure we're bringing support rather than friction in our household into the four of us and their goals. Jamie. Feeling like I have enough time with the kids as they're changing rapidly. I feel sometimes like I blink and I've I've missed an era or I've missed an opportunity. And that's Maybe more of a just a mindset, but yeah, feeling like I could use another few hours with just the kids. I've got one more. Go ahead. Uh, with our almost 17-year-old, just connecting more. You know, he's at the age where he doesn't really want to be parented or coached much. So we know it's just really like leading through us doing and him maybe observing some of that, but just like connecting. Sure. More he goes in his room, you know, he's got a girlfriend. Yeah. So connecting. Lots of layers there. Yeah. Yeah, lots of layers. Um, I will say personally, communication. And I think communication across the board. So the communication that that needs to happen with my husband, and starting off with like on a weekly basis, like on the front end, going, what does the week look like? It's hit or miss, just to be really vulnerable in that respect. And then working through like how do you effectively communicate with a three-year-old, a nine-year-old, an 11-year-old, and what their respective journeys are in this game called Life. Something you've had to let go of. Yeah. Yeah, this is this is a and so whether that's you know, a college teammate or an immediate family member or a friend, and for whatever reason, if you get like icky vibes, yeah, or just feel like their words and actions aren't supportive of you. Yeah. That's really good. That could be an episode all in itself. Jamie. I've had to let go of recently. I've experienced some injuries and just the body getting older, and I'm in a really physical profession. So I've had to let go of my older version of myself and comparing, you know, how I felt and what I could do to appreciating the body that I do have and all the things that I still have left to do with it. Um, yeah, so letting go of the former self. I will piggyback off of that. Old narratives, old scripts for myself personally. Um, funny enough that you mentioned that, Jamie. I'm like just turned for 40 this past September. And I hit that marker with like this like major ambition. Like, I'm not letting the scripts of other people determine how I approach my 40s. And yet here we are with like little weird things creeping in. And so it's going, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna prescribe to what other people say about turning 40, right? But then there are realities too. It's like kind of this weird, like juxtaposition that I'm in right now, if that makes sense. Okay, my uh my rapid fire here, the next one. A recent shift that's made a difference for you. I have leaned in a little bit more. Um my master's degree is in positive coaching, and we talked a lot about leadership and culture and things like that. So I I've really leaned into um my leadership more than my coaching in the last few months. And so, kind of going back to Becky's idea around coaching Gen Z and giving them a little bit more autonomy. Um, I've stepped back a little bit from always being the one that's saying and doing and knowing and reading the room a little bit more and seeing how I can be a more effective leader. How about you, Becky? I would say in um sales per se, and I I look at sales as just serving, you know, but um just being curious, yeah, and asking questions and making it about them. Yes, has been a shift for me. That's been good. I love this because mine is somewhat similar. I have always been a very relational person, and then also have had this like uh sometimes sales comes naturally for me, but then I also feel the ick, right? That comes along with the word sales. And earlier this week, my husband and I talked about how sales is just really solving a problem for the person on the other side. Yes, and that I wrote it down and like triple circled it because I was like, yes, that was sort of a pivotal moment for me. So thank you, Joe. Um, a moment you felt you got it wrong, and then on the heels of that moment you felt you got it right. I would say got it wrong as a mother. Um a few years ago, our boys were arguing and they weren't getting along, and the older one tripped the younger one, and I was just like at my wit's end, and I said something like um to the older one, you're not being a very good person right now. And so I apologized for that, but that was like a very eye-opening moment for me that we speak identity into our kids, and so instead of it being like a behavior, like the you are's, and actually the pastor at our church said this, this isn't mine, it's Pastor Jeremy's. Um, but the you are's when they're young become the I ams as they get older, and so um just like very being mindful to not never do that again. Yep, so that's where I got it wrong, Jamie. But it sounds like you circled back and got it right. You totally did, yes. Yeah, thinking back in the last couple of years professionally, um, I've gotten into some friction sometimes with colleagues when I am maybe trying to imprint my framework and my strengths onto what I think they should be doing. And um like when you're meeting somebody where they aren't, they're also going to be fighting equally for where their set point is. And so I've been very intentional within the last year of trying to show up as myself, but also holding space for how that person operates and looking for ways that we can collaborate on that rather than approaching friction with friction. Mine is that's good, being prescriptive and stepping back and going, is this actually gonna be helping? Even though I I can see the answer very clearly. Sometimes you can have the bird's eye view of things for other people. And rather than being prescriptive, it's holding the space for them and going, what do they actually need in this moment? And me telling them, like, oh, I know what your health journey could actually look like versus what it is, and just going, maybe they're not in a mindset to be fully ready to receive the information that probably is right for them, but they're just not ready. So that's good. All right, advice. Okay, so if a mom's feeling overwhelmed, they're listening to this right now, what would you tell her that it's okay to feel overwhelmed? And I have and would too, and give yourself yourself space to feel what you feel and a time to feel that, you know, whether that's uh an hour, uh couple hours a day, um, and then at some point turn the page and get back to the present moment, but allow yourself to feel how you feel because then you can move through it, and those things um they don't grip you, yeah. Yeah, and if you're feeling overwhelmed, it probably means you're bringing a lot of yourself and a lot of your energy to good a lot of good things. And so commend yourself for wanting to be an involved person, an engaged citizen, an engaged parent. You want to do right by your kids and your family. Um, and I'll also say, like, in that time that you're taking, kind of to evaluate, like, get back to the why of why are we doing all this? You know, what how is this serving our family? How is this serving me as a professional? Um, and write it down, and you like you'd be amazed, kind of like what comes up, you know. Well, I've been doing this just because this is what we always do. That might be the reason. Um, and it might be, you know, a point for you to exit out of that or or evolve or transition from that. And then I'd also add, like, who's on your team? So we're not meant to do all of this alone, and we're not meant to carry the flag for our family alone. Like, you know, how is your partner involved? How are you know the parents within the teams that your kids are on, how can they be a part of helping to raise and shape and carpool and feed and drive your child around? Um, and tap into those because if you want to, you know, maintain that extraordinary schedule, you need you need help, and and it's okay to ask for it. I remember you saying that on our podcast interview. I

Reclaiming Your Hue And Letting Kids Shine

Kelly

did not put this in the questions ahead of time. So if you need to take a minute to answer it, that's okay. The name of this podcast is called Reclaiming Your Hue. And so if you're are you familiar with the concept of what happens to flamingos? No, tell me about it. Okay, so when flamingos have their babies, moms have their babies, they lose all of their really beautiful pink coloring. There's actually a science behind it. We don't have to delve into that. Let's just think metaphorically here. Um, I came across this, and that this is part of the reason I started the podcast, is because I felt that loss of identity, like that coloring just kind of go away. And how was I gonna find this new version of who I was, this new identity? And um there's been a lot of different shifts in coloring for me, even since starting the podcast and having these incredible conversations with other mothers who are in this space of entrepreneurship as well. And so I am curious what hue you ladies feel like you are in right now, and give like a shade of pink that you feel like it is, and maybe an explanation as well. Uh, I mean, I would go with like bright pink. Cool. I think there's been times in my life where I felt like I needed to shrink my light, and I think a lot of women go through that, a lot of people even, but like, what if we could all let our light shine brightly and celebrate the light of others? And so there's been even a few women, um, like sports mom clients that have asked, like, well, we want our children to be humble, and I'm like, but do we? You know, I think a lot of times humble is like shrinking your light. Totally. So let your light shine bright and celebrate the bright light of others. Yeah. That was so good. I think my light just changed listening to Becky. I love it. Well, because I was gonna be more of a blush, which was gonna be like emerging from the dark winter and kind of just this soft awakening of spring. But like, I too, Becky, am working on like just celebrating myself and celebrating that like I have a lot to offer and I have a lot of experience and I can serve others through this experience. So, like, I'm gonna go with neon pink and just like notice me and come talk to me and let's like I want to be that warm, like person that attracts other warm giving people. Yeah, that's great. I'm gonna say I'm like right in between the two of you right now. It's so funny. I just feel like blush, this blushy color is like one of my favorites. And I'm like, why do I why am I gravitating towards that? And I I I don't have like an answer for you at this given moment. It's funny, I'll re-listen to this and I will have an answer. Um, but I do feel like it's kind of in between the bright pink and the neon pink. There's so I know I have so much more to give. And I also want to acknowledge how far I've come to. And it's been very far in the last two years. But again, I just am, I can like see out here like how this podcast can grow, how the real estate business can fold into it, and vice versa. And then just setting that that out there and going, all right, let's plant the flag and what the growth is gonna look like. And it's so fun to think about, but then it also scares the ever-living daylights out of me as well. I think about faith. Like I've heard you mention church, Jamie. I've heard you mention church. We go to church as well, and I think about how God has given us these amazing skills, right? And it is up to us to be able to tap, tap into that, tap into those skills as mothers, and then also allow that to happen with our children as well. And then how do we support our spouses? Like, yes, we could continue to go down all of this, right? And we've been given the opportunity to go tap, tap, tap. And how far do we want to continue to tap that? Oh, I just get so many chills thinking about it. Okay,

How To Connect And Closing

Kelly

so, ladies, this has been so fun. I'm a woman, I'm a woman listening right now. Becky, I want to get connected to you because I've got a child who is in this season where they are ready to like dive further or they need a little bit more support in how they approach the team environment or individually, you know, solo as an athlete. How can I connect with you? Yeah, so our website is championshipculturecoach.com or on Instagram at championshipculture coach. Email Becky at championshipculturecoach.com. I'll make sure to put all of that into the show notes for you listeners. Jamie, how about for you? Yeah, the simple spot is Instagram at guardacademy, g-a-a-r-d. And um, yeah, come to our summer camps this summer and get your kids involved in basketball and tennis. I love it. Ladies, thank you for carving out the time. I appreciate it so much, and I'm so grateful that we could come together and do this and talk through the nuances and the ins and outs of motherhood and and parenting our athletes and you know how it how it coaches us as well. Thank you for having us, Kelly. You're so welcome. I hope you ladies have a great rest of the day. Thank you. You too. Thanks. Yay, go, guys.

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Kelly Kirk

Host