Bend Into Balance: John O’Sullivan, Founder of Changing the Game Project

John O’Sullivan is the founder of Changing the Game Project, an organization dedicated to helping coaches, parents, schools, and youth sport organizations give sports back to our kids and put a little more “play” in “play ball.” He is a former collegiate and professional soccer player and has coached for more than 30 years on the youth, high school, and collegiate levels. John has written three international best-selling books, Changing the Game, Every Moment Matters, and his newest book Captain: The Athlete's Guide to Being an Exceptional Team Leader. His work has appeared on CNN, Outside magazine, Huffpost, The Boston Globe, ESPN, NBC Sports, and numerous other media outlets. He has consulted with the USOC, U.S. Soccer, USA Swimming, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, USA Wrestling, Irish Rugby, National Rugby League of Australia, the PGA, and many other entities, including teams and coaches at Ohio State, Rutgers, Fordham, Colby, and USF. John's TedX talk "Changing the Game in Youth Sports" has been viewed over half a million times, and in December 2025, John was asked to testify to the U.S. House of Representatives as a national expert on youth sports. Connect with John at www.ChangingTheGameProject.com. 

John O'Sullivan

Founder, Changing the Game Project

Host, Way of Champions Podcast

541-977-5494

Click Here to Watch my TED Talk 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello, my name is Adriana Marino, and I am host and producer of Bend into Balance, Powered by the Source. Today I'm really excited to be accompanied by John O'Sullivan. John created Changing the Game Project in 2012. He's written six books, and he's a global speaker on youth sports, mental health, parenting, leadership, human development, and resilience. And he's been in Bend, I understand, roughly 20 years. John, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Thank you for having me on. It's so nice to uh sit down and bend and do a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, you can probably give me a few lessons of yourself having your you.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I can just tell you all the things I screwed up over the years.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah. Um impressive. You said you have almost recorded 500 episodes for your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, it's been a crazy journey. I think we started not at the beginning, but um when people were there wasn't as many as there are now. Yeah. And so it's been a really, really fun journey. Just get to talk to so many fascinating people. Like I was blogging a lot back then. So this is 2017. Uh-huh. You know, people don't really want to like talk to you for a blog, but when you're like, hey, you want to just sit down and chat for an hour or a bit, and they're like, wow, that'd that'd be lovely. Yeah. So I've gotten to interview some, just some of the most fascinating people in the sports realm and psychologists and authors and everything. It's been lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

That's awesome. Yeah, there's so much learning. That's definitely what keeps me here every week. So much.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

And sharing these incredible stories. Yeah. Well, tell us about your story. How did you get in? I mean, I know you're an athlete since a young age. You're a coach, and that is kind of what led you into creating Changing the Game Project. But why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

So I was uh I was an athlete growing up. I grew up in New York, Long Island, and I'm 54. So the you know, growing up at that time, you played lots of different sports and seasonally, and there wasn't this big hurry to like do more, more, more at younger and younger ages. So I played a lot with my friends and uh got serious in high school. I went to a big Catholic high school and I remember showing up for soccer tryouts my freshman year, and there was 90 freshmen trying out. Like, whoa. Um, maybe I need to like focus more on this one that I love the most. Um, so yeah, and played Division I college soccer at Fordham University and played a little bit of professional soccer after for about two years, and then um got into coaching um because I loved the mountains, I loved skiing, and I love soccer, and I wanted to do both, so I got a coaching job at University of Vermont where I could do it all.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

And uh did that for four years and then got into more youth coaching and moved to Bend in 2006 and helped. I was the first employee of uh the club, which is now Bend FC, and then also helped start Apex FC.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

So Club Tucker is big here in Bend.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Everything's big in Bend, I think, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

It's ironic being such a small city at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

It is. It's one of the struggles with Bend is like a lot of people come here for the reasons of outdoor and camping and all this great stuff that Ben can offer and skiing, and then they get sort of pulled into, oh well, what in Seattle or in Portland or in San Francisco or wherever I move from, this is what sports was like, which isn't really like healthy for kids. And it was always like, hey, you didn't move here to spend every weekend at some soccer tournament in Portland or Boise or whatever. Like, I hope you moved here so that you could camp on the weekend and live in the outdoors and your kids could ski or ski race or free ride or whatever. And so that's a challenge because it's very hard in the sports world, you know, to there's just not enough kids and not enough here to turn it into a big city program. And yeah, it can be a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So how did changing the game project begin? Did did the inception of this project happen through your work here in Venn through the club sport?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, I was I was running, um, I was running a club, it was rush soccer at the time, and my own kids were five and six, and they were starting to notice that dad was always at practice and never home for dinner. And uh um I was a little burnt out from what I'd been doing a long time, and so I just decided to step away and wasn't quite sure what I was gonna do. I had always wanted to write a book, and so I wrote this book called Change in the Game. And really at that time, my idea was hey, I've coached a lot of kids, I've sent kids that I've coached who have played professionally in Europe and they've gone to youth world cups and made national teams, and maybe I can share with parents what what I've seen usually works and what doesn't work. And so I I did the research and writing for this book called Changing the Game. And uh it was really interesting because the what I've learned is it's actually not that hard to write a book. It's really hard to sell a book. Get it in front of people.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

That makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

As I imagine it is with films or anything else. And so I um I, you know, the the publisher was like, uh, yeah, how are you gonna sell it? You should start a blog. And so the blog uh became and and changing the game, which is the name of the book, dot uh com.net and dot org were all taken. So I needed something else. And they said, Well, it's like a project, you want people to help you out. So that's how it changed the game project. Okay. I got it. And um the blog, because I like to research, the blog became very popular with a lot of sport governing bodies. So I had the US Olympic Committee and volleyball and ice hockey and soccer and all them sharing the writing and the research I was doing around sports specialization and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and all the sort of things that were the mythology that was kind of in this trend of ruining youth sports for kids. And so uh yeah, the blog led to TED Talk in 2014 and uh podcasts in 2017, and now yeah, we just published uh book number six. I call it book number five because one of them's really short, so it's more of a booklet. But okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So what what how how did this begin? What what made you realize that something had to change?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I was at um my daughter's like five, six-year-old soccer game, and like anyone who's been to six-year-old soccer knows it's a giant blob of kids, and they chase the ball around, and sometimes someone dribbles it too far, and everyone goes, nice pass, and it wasn't a pass, they just dribbled it too far. And um, I was I was at this thing, and it was just lovely. Like, everyone's positive. Coaches are great, the parents are great, and then right next door, there was this 10-year-old competitive boys game, and uh the coaches are yelling and screaming, and the parents are yelling at screaming, and everyone's yelling at the ref who's like 12. And I'm like, oh my I'm like, oh my god, like what is happening here? And is anyone on my field saying, oh, that's what we want in four years, right? Like, right, let's go there so that our kids can have uh less fun and we can spend more time and money. And uh that's when I decide, like, oh, maybe I can contribute to making the environment better. And so that was that was how the idea was born. And well, maybe I'll just write a book and all that. And yeah, and so yeah, that's so it's it's just crazy what it's become. Yeah, and my friends who have been friends all along are like, I remember in the beginning, you were like, I don't know what's gonna happen here, I don't know if this is gonna work. Or um, but I felt at that time that if you use the analogy of a wave, like the wave was like breaking, where people were gonna be looking for more information about how to give their kids a better experience and that maybe I could contribute to that and be one of the first people on that wave. And I kind of was.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Wow, that's what I was gonna ask you. Were you really creating this space yourself? Were you a pioneer in realizing that parents were getting way too involved in using?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I think so. And and if you think about that time, right? That was the advent of social media, 2011, 2012, 2013. And so you could write a blog post, and you know, I you know in the beginning I had like 10,000 Facebook followers, and I could write a blog post and post it, and the organic reach would be hundreds of thousands of people. And in my first blogs, you know, my mom read them. Yeah, right. And then, but then I wrote one that got like 10,000 Facebook shares, and then I got one that got 50, and I got one that got a million. You know, and it was like it was crazy. So I hit sort of the heyday of that. Got it. Um, and I was writing, I was blogging every week, and you know, did the book and then you know, started doing a lot of speaking at schools and sports clubs and things like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Why do you think your message has resonated so well, not only in the United States, but outside as well?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I think people who are raising kids now are like, this isn't what it was like when I was younger, right? And it's amazing how many professional athletes I've crossed paths with, people who played in the NHL or NFL or whatever, and they're like, this is not what it was like playing youth ice hockey for me or whatever. And so I think it's like this really interesting. Um, how can I say? Just I I felt like everyone like I never got on an airplane. And if I sat next to you and said, Oh, this is what I do, no one ever, you know, I said I go to schools and I do coach education and parent education and try to like put a little more play back in sports. No one's ever said to me, Oh, that's dumb.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Every single person's like, oh my God, you should come to my kids' school. Yeah. Everyone's crazy, right? And so I always knew that if I could get the word out there that this is what people were looking for for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Uh-huh. Why do you think there was a shift between, you know, your generation and your children's generation, for example? Like, what's happened? Why have you been?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

I mean, a couple things, right? Number one, um just the world has shifted, right? I think that I think it was I read in this uh wonderful book once that in 1994 the word play date entered the Webster's dictionary.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

A play date? Yeah, play date.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Okay, right. So when I was growing up, right, it was like you walked out on your block and your parents knew you were at one of five houses and you were gone and be home for dinner. That's how it was when I was exactly. So, so then I was like, I was like, um, you know, that wasn't happening anymore. And so, as you know, more women entered the workplace that weren't watching kids, that we needed someone to watch the kids. And now, as soon as that was organized, well, why not hire someone to be in charge of it and all sorts of stuff? So, so I think that was part of it. And then you had, you know, this mythology, you know, the Tiger Woods hitting a golf club at two and a half years old, and the Williams sisters and all this, right? Great athletes and fantastic. But everyone said, Oh, well, I want to do that with my kid, uh-huh. Right. And and then as things like college entry has gotten more competitive and colleges have gotten more expensive, people say, Oh, well, I'll just get my kid a scholarship to pay for college, which is very unrealistic in terms of the percentage, in terms of the amount of money people spend hoping that they might get this. So I think all these factors came together. Um, and then there was a lot of, you know, just businesses of sport as sports shifted from, you know, town teams and volunteer board of directors and volunteer coaches to more professionalized. And that's that's driven like much better levels of coaching and coach education and things, but it's also driven costs up and commitments up. And yeah, I build a hockey rink. Um, I can't just say, hey, play hockey for five months. I need to pay for the ice all summer long. So now I gotta run summer hockey and spring hockey and speed skating camps and all these different things. And I think all these things came together, and then you know, we we have the opportunity to compare our kids to everyone else their age in the world and and be like, oh my god, what's wrong with my DNA? And let me try to fix that. And so I think all these things come together.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And you know, I I wish, you know, people ask me a lot, like, oh, has it gotten better since you no.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

It hasn't gotten better.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

No, it's just gotten worse, sadly. I thought COVID might have made it better. I think people are more informed.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

But I think so many parents feel very helpless to do anything about it because the system just says, well, if you want to do this at 12, you have to do this at 10. If you want to do this at 10, you have to do this at 8. And it's very hard to dip in and out of the system for all but the very best athletes. And then sort of the in town leagues, people just leave them very young. And so all the good athletes move into club sports. And if you have a you're like, oh, we want multi-sport and the rec league, and then you look around and you're like, my kid's bored.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

You know, there's just all these things have come together. It's really hard.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

So, what are the risks for the kids of uh having parents that are uh pressuring them too much? What's I mean, what what uh what's at stake with your project?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah, so what we know is that like what's called the the three critical ingredients of uh uh someone doing any achievement activity. So this would be music, this would be art, this would be anything. So all talks school is that you need the the ingredients, you need to enjoy what you do, right? So enjoyment need ownership, uh and those two things breed intrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation is the fuel.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

So what happens is you know, well-intentioned parents, and I would fight this with my own kids, right? You're like, oh, but if you just did this, you'd be great. Um, you take away ownership a lot.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

The question I get a ton at parent talks is people go, uh, when's it supposed to stop being fun and start being competitive? And the answer to that's never. You talk to professional athletes, they love what they do. Yeah. And they enjoy what they do. And professional coaches like, I gotta make this enjoyable. Steve Kerr, the Golden State Warrior, has been on our podcast, and the number one core value of the Warriors is joy. Like, we have to play basketball for a living. Yeah. And so a lot of parents think that's this. We got to stop this being fun and we gotta be serious. And I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna take you on this journey. And they feel all this outside pressure to do it and a lot of fear, um, you know, fear of missing out, fear of, you know, letting my kid down, not giving him the best opportunities. And all those things really just drive this, this um, you know, decision making that's made from love. It's made from it comes from a good place.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Um, and then at 14, their kid goes, Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. Because actually you wanted me to do it. And I've missed too many birthday parties and spent too much time in the car, and I just want to be a kid. Yeah. And then I from a kid growing up in Bend, Oregon, I just want to ski in the winter, I just want to uh, you know, fish, I just want to paddle, I just want to do all these other things bike that I can do. I haven't been able to do, so now I'm gonna stop. And parents like, wait, whoa, what happened there? You know, um, because they see what you could be, kids are like, Yeah, but that's not what that's what you want me to do. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

So what you're still seeing a high desertion in youth sports because of this pressure.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah. I mean, we still have very high dropout rates and sort of that adolescence, middle school into high school for numerous reasons, right? Kids narrow down sports, they um get jobs, they get boyfriends, girlfriends, school gets harder. Yeah. So there's plenty of reasons that people move on. Um and I think it's fine when a kid moves on, they're like, but sport was this incredibly powerful positive impact in my life, and now it's not. You know, um, you know, and so too many kids leave and go, that was terrible. I got uh bullied by a coach. I terrible team dynamics, my parents spent a lot of money. I didn't get anything out of it except soccer skills or hockey skills or baseball skills, and now I'm done. And so it's you know, the dropouts are a big thing. In December, I got to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives, which was super cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Why?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Um they did their first ever hearing on youth sports and why kids are dropping out and what they can do, and and there's uh in a lot of places I don't know that it's hit bend yet or central Oregon yet. There's a lot of private equity money coming into youth sports, and so private equity um is all about shareholder value. So the a private equity company, their job is to buy into a business and extract as much value for their shareholders in a five to seven year window frame. That doesn't align with the needs of children in sports, right? The children all of a sudden become commodities, and so in a lot of places, what you have is private equity owns the club, uh-huh, the ice rink, the tournaments that the teams then have to go to, you know, stay to play hotels, things like that. And all of a sudden it just becomes this closed system. And there's been some lawsuits. There was varsity brands got uh knocked out.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Um, you know, they they basically, if you wanted to be a cheerleader, yeah, you had to join a varsity brands club to go to a varsity brands event to do all this, and they they basically became a monopoly. And so it's happening a lot in like ice hockey and stuff like that, a little bit in soccer. Yeah. Um, but the this is just what we have to, you know. So anyway, that's what the hearing was about. And it's actually very bipartisan. It was nice to testify for Congress and sure didn't matter what side of the aisle people were on, they all agreed.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

They're all like, they're all like, yeah, like why is it we making sports more expensive and harder to access for kids? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yeah, it's it sounds amazing. What you described sounded more like the professional level, not at age five to age 10, 12.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, it was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

So, what does healthy parenting look like, you know, in terms of sports? Like, what should parents be doing in order because sports can maybe we should take it take a step back. Like, why do sports as a kid? Like, what's the value of team sports?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

It's such a great question. And it seems like an obvious question, right? But I think what people should realize is that sports is neither good nor bad.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Right. And in my first book, I had this great quote, this guy Rainier Martins, he said, sports like a double-edged sword, and swung in the right direction. Um, it can be incredibly positive and swung in the wrong direction, it can be incredibly damaging physically, mentally, emotionally.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

And that sword is swung by the adults.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And so we need the adults, the parents, the coaches, the league administrators to make decisions based on the needs, values, and priorities of children. Right. And not the needs, values, and priorities of the business. And so that is I I think the biggest thing. So I think as a parent, uh-huh one of the things I advise is begin at the end. Right. So realizing that 97% of athletes don't go playing beyond high school, right? Right. Um, it's a very small percentage that play in college. And then, you know, those who play in college, it's infinitesimal who might make a living from it.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Um what's the purpose of like you should answer this for yourself and your family. What's the purpose of sports in our children's life? And no one's gonna say, oh, well, I hope they, you know, tear their ACL twice and get two concussions and get bullied and abused and whatever. Because we know that when kids drop out of sports and adolescence, a lot of times they don't ever come back to it. So they become inactive for life. Uh-huh. And so if the goal is, you know, I want my kids to be active for life, I want them to be healthy adults, healthy human beings, um, then you know, okay, well, then if that's what I want at 24, how do I work that back to my eight-year-old? Well, I want to put them, I want them to have a multi-movement childhood and not just pick one activity. And then once they have that multi-movement childhood, I want to find organizations and coaches as much as I can that match the values of our family and and what's important to us. And I want to teach my kids things through sport. I want them to learn resilience, I want them to learn discipline, I want them to learn to. Do hard things because in life you do hard things and it doesn't get easier. You know that, I know that. Um, and and then you know, what's my role in it? Right? Well, I'm the guide. I've I've been the been through life. I can give perspective, but it's not my journey. Right. And my kids get one childhood. Yeah. Like let that belong to them. Yeah. Not it's not mine.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Um, I found very powerful the message in your TED talk that I saw last night that I was surprised it has over a half a million views.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Oh, that's good. Yeah, it had a long time.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

A couple of ads came on as well. So it's it's a very widely seen um video on YouTube. And you're you talk in your podcast and in your TED talk, I love watching you play.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

And that was kind of your message to parents.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Idea worth sharing is you say.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And it's not original. Okay. You know, I even talk in the talk, I I heard a great, you know, teacher, mentor named Bruce Brown say it.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

But let's go back. I mean, Bruce Brown didn't make it up either, right? It's I think it's in the Bible. Right? Like, love your kids. Sure. Respect them. Of course. You know, honor the fact that they're out there trying something hard and competing. And so it was funny when I when I did my TED talk, um, it was about two weeks out, and I had all the information. And I recorded my voice over uh, you know, some PowerPoint slides, and I sent it to my mom. And my mom had a lovely way of telling you you were kind of full of it. And he's like, she was like, Ah, it was great, lots of information, but I don't know what you're telling me to do. Right. And then I was like, ah, darn it. Um so it was like, you know, give people something to do. And so that idea we're sharing is you know what, we have problems with early specialization, we have problems with dropout, we have kids losing ownership of the experience. We have kids, you know, finding that the ride home is their worst memory of sports or whatever. How can we change that? Like, just start with when your kids are done. Tell them, I love watching you play, I love watching you compete. And if you do that, just start there and you'll see good things happen. You'll see kids feel like their face lights up and whatever. And this is in anything, right? My my my son's a wild and firefighter here in central Oregon. And you know, he just, I mean, just this morning, right? He's today's day nine in a row of 12-hour days, right? And I was just like, man, I'm just super proud of you. Yeah, like I love what you're doing, and you're working so hard, and it just it means a ton to me. And you know, and you just like you see him light up, right? And he's 19.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah, I imagine the power of these words for a nine-year-old, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Power. And but a lot of people are like, that that's silly. It doesn't make sense. And the stories I get, you know, after someone six months after I did a talk at their school or whatever, they'll be like, you know, I thought that was kind of dumb. And, you know, or just like too simple. I like, oh my god, it's changed my relationship with my kid. And it's made my viewing more enjoyable. Yeah. It's made my kids' experience more enjoyable, and just let the car ride belong to them. And if they want to talk about it, I will. But if not, who cares? And, you know, because it goes by really fast. You have kids growing up and you blink your you blink your eyes and you're at their last game or their last practice. And it's yeah, it's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah. How can you know healthy skills in sports translate later in life in the workplace, in relationships, in communities? Like what can we learn from sports, especially, you know, how can kids, you know, hone these skills from an early age, hopefully in a healthy competition. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, how why what's the value of sports?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Right. I think number one, it's like we talked about discipline, doing hard things, uh, sticking to a task that, you know, in this age of instant gratification. Yeah. It takes a a long time to get good at something. It does. Um, and it's good to learn patience. Um, obviously, from a physical standpoint, people who are active and do that lower health care costs, they do better in school, less likely to do drugs, and also very likely to raise athletic children or active children of their own. Um, you know, things, I mean, there's so many different character traits that come from sports. I think as well, even kids who gravitate, you know, I know you've had rock climbers on here, but teams are a really important part, even in individual sports. And uh, you know, we get to be part of teams our whole life, right? We have, you know, our our family, our community, our church, our business team. We work in teams all the time. Like learn how learning how to be a great teammate and how you selflessness and uh service to others, learning how to lead, learning how to follow. I mean, sports is a microcosm for life, and it's such a great way to just learn, get I always say it's like getting reps, right? And you go to the gym and you get reps and on the weights. And um the way you get good something is getting a lot of reps.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

And as parents, sometimes our love of our kids when we see them struggling, we we steal the reps. And uh we gotta not do that. Yeah. Like, and what a great place to learn failure and disappointment. It doesn't really matter that you lost the 11-year-old soccer game. So, what did you learn from this? Why is this a good thing? Just teaching your kids that. And then they become this sort of even-keeled person who doesn't see their intrinsic value tied up in did I win?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Um, your words are reminding me of Natty Peru, who I interviewed here in this space just four days ago. And Natty is um the US national champion under 19 in bouldering, I think fourth in um in lead climbing. And he hopes to, you know, make the Olympics in 2028. And he has he won his first national at age nine. And one thing that impressed me so much about talking with him is that he has really been his own coach this entire time. I mean, he does speak about Coach Mike with great respect and admiration at Ben Endurance Academy, but he spoke so much about how he's so intrinsically fueled to be such a great climber, you know. He talked about his own obsession with climbing and that he talked about, you know, the sacrifice he makes being in the gym by himself for hours a day, five times a week, missing out on a lot of social stuff. But nobody's pressuring him to do it. It's all comes from within.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Um, and it's just really impressed me. And even he made he made he was the national champion last year, but the year before he lost. And he was so moved by his loss that just forced him to, you know, just kind of promoted him to, you know, train and train and train, and even harder, he sought he was able to kind of flip that loss as into something positive, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah. Um I've heard like lots of that uh make failure your fuel.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Right? Like that's your fuel. And if your kid isn't doing that, right, if they're just like, yeah, whatever, yeah, they're probably not going to be as good as the kid who does. Right. And I think there's a nature component to that and a nurture component to that. Um, but I mean, he's the perfect example of it's intrinsic motivation because he loves to climb and it's his journey and not his parents and not his coaches. And I know Coach Mike, and he's a wonderful guy, and he's the type of guy that I would love to coach my kids, you know, like that that sort of person who's really in it for the human being and in front of him is such a such an important quality. And so I think that's it, and again, there's nothing wrong when your kid is not that driven. Right. Like he he's a unicorn.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Right. That's not normal. Kids that I've had in my podcast, local Ben kids, Campbell McKean, Slater De Brun, right? Professional baseball player, national champion swimmer, they talk about the same thing, right? No one, you know, forced them to get up at five in the morning and go swim. No one forced them to skip the dance and go to the weight room or whatever. That was them. And their parents were not pushy, but sort of just supporters of that. Like, okay, this is your goal, this is your dream. We're gonna do our best to support you on that, but it's not, it's not our dream. And we love you no matter what. And if it doesn't work out, we still gonna love you. And I think that's a very common theme with the best of the best of that the that the motivation is extrinsic and intrinsic. And when it's not, you know, kids comply when they're young. You know this, I know this, but eventually they push push back.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

And I feel like the saddest moment in sports is when you watch like Olympic gymnastics. Uh huh. You see these incredible athletes and they pan to the crowd, and they're like, Oh, you know, her dad's not here because he's got a restraining order against him. And it's like, was that worth it that your kid made the Olympics but hates you and doesn't want to see you ever again? Like, of course not, right? And so these are the things that I think we have to like we have to understand is is just let it be your kids' journey and you know, be their supporter, let them drive the bus. You know, you're a passenger. Yeah. And yes, you have financial commitments and driving commitments and things like that, but let it be their dream and their journey. And when they pivot to something else, make sure that, well, what'd you learn from this that's gonna carry on the rest of your life if the sport's not gonna work out?

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

What has um you're speaking about coaching Coach Mike and other great coaches? Like, what does a good coach look like for these young athletes?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

So so I can't answer for you what who's your best coach or what was it about him or her? Because a lot of times this depends on a stage of life that you're in.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Right. Okay, good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

But what I will know say in in my very informal research, so I do a ton of coach education. And when I do it, and in leadership stuff too. And when I do this, you know, I'll ask people, you know, write down, I'll hand them sticky notes and I'll say, write down the five qualities of the best coach you ever had. Yeah. I'm like, if you never had a good coach, who was your best teacher?

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

And then we'll put them up on a wall. And one wall we'll put all the sticky notes that have to do with like knowledge of the sport or the subject matter. And on the other wall we'll put everything that has to do with relationships and emotional intelligence. And 90% of the sticky notes are on the relationship wall. I believe that. Because leadership and mentorship is all about relationships. And so the best coaches are masters of the relationship game. And they're not perfect, but they're constantly realizing that if I form strong relationships, you know, or as Teddy Roosevelt says, right, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

And that's that's the key. And the problem in most coach education is that we spend 90% of coach education time on the knowledge wall. Yet I've never, ever once in every sport from ice hockey to rugby to Aussie rules, football to soccer, golf, tennis, you name it, have ever had a wall that's even 50-50. It's always relationships. Wow. And so when we talk about, well, what makes a great coach? Uh-huh. It's the relationship piece. Now knowledge is the foundation. You have to know what you're talking about. Sure. Um, but effectiveness is determined by relationships.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

So, what are those attributes of a solid relationship?

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Communication skills. So good listener, good communicator, like caring, love. I mean, the key to coaching is love, right? Not weird love, but like deep care for a human being in front of you. That's every coach we've talked to, Hall of Famers, NCA champions, household names, Phil Jackson, Steve Kerr, Brad Stevens. Uh, we just had the coach in San Jose Sharks on. We've had just had the Stanford women's golf coach just won her fourth national championship. And, you know, they all talk about love.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Leading with love, right? We believe it. Um, so it's caring, it's communication. Uh, one of the ones that's really important for people to understand is a lot of people put demanding, right? Like they're hard on me. So it's not about um being easy or letting people slide by. No, they they saw something in me and they pushed me and they asked me.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Being firm.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

So this is not being soft, right? This is being firm, but firm with love.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Right. Not firm through fear.

unknown 36:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Um, so yeah, though those are really the big ones, you know? And of course, again, knowing what you're talking about is is huge. And then when you wrap it in care and love and m good communication and uh fairness and fun, god forbid, um, that's when people are like, that's the person who changed my life.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

What do you have a special coach, John, that really you know, when I think of it, um, I go back.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

I mean, the one I think of often was like one of my first coaches. Uh-huh. Uh, and he was uh wonderful, he was a teacher, he was a PE teacher, and he taught me soccer and he also taught me to play golf. And he was just a wonderful teacher, and he had this wonderful boy, his big, deep, booming voice, which could have been scary, but it wasn't scary. And he um, yeah, he just, you know, he made it fun, but he taught you things, he used the appropriate language for the age you are and things like that. And uh yeah, he was he was just yeah, his name is Tom Bright. And he's the one I think of very often and made me fall in love with sports.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

That's lovely. Yeah, it's so important to have those type of mentors in our lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Yeah, yeah. His son was on my teams, which was very common back then, right? So anyway, I remember when I wrote my first book and talked about Tom Bright as a coach, and his son read it, and he's like, Oh my god, my dad, because his dad had passed away at that point, and he was like, Oh my god, I can't believe you know. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

How has all your work to coaching, teaching others, the global speaking you're doing, the writing of the books, how has it made you reflect as a coach, as a parent, and how have you evolved as a coach? I'm sure, you know, it get tons.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Um, yeah, such a different coach um as I was when I was in my twenties. Um far from perfect, but I think um realizing how much the relationship with kids mattered and helping them, you know, the the you're coaching the person and not not the sport.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Um, as a parent, I think if I hadn't done this work and research, I would have definitely pushed my kids into things that they didn't really love to do. And so again, then both my kids grew up here in Bend. Um, they did like, you know, the Mighty Might skiing and All Mountain kids, and they learned to ski, and then at you know, 10, everyone goes to MBSCF and so it goes up every weekend and does that. My kids did not want to do that, right? And so many parties like, oh, but if you just ski raced for two years, you'd be so much better. And and I didn't do it because I was immersed in this type of research and work. I was like, no, that's not what they want. And I love to ski, and no one in my family skis. And I turned out an okay skier and and ski all over the world because I love it, and it was my journey. And I'm like, if I can just let this be my kids' journey, yeah, they'll probably be fine. And lo and behold, my daughter is now, you know, taught skiing at Mount Bachelor for three years, and you know, my son's an avid snowboarder and to University of Utah, and you know, they yeah, it's their thing. And it was like it sort of went through this lull where I really wanted them to be up there with me, but I didn't make them do it. And then all of a sudden by high school, when their friends started going, and then they wanted to be up there more, and then they were good and competent, and then all of a sudden it'd be a powder day, and they'd be like, Dad, uh, can I uh cut school today and go skiing? And yeah, I'm like, of course you can. And and so um, yeah, I think that's that's just like a perfect example of it would not have done that. I would have four, you're gonna do this and you're gonna do this, and yeah, I'm gonna make you go to the kickback wall if you want to be good at soccer. You know, my my daughter would be like, Dad, I want to play college soccer. And I'd be like, What do you think someone who's 12 or 13 and wants to play college soccer is doing right now? Oh, they would probably be practicing on their own. Great. Well, you need to go practice on your own. And I can come out there with you once in a while, but you have to do this.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

And two or three days later, she wouldn't be doing it anymore.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Uh-huh. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And then finally she's like, You, you know what? I don't think I want that. And that's great. Yeah. That's awesome. You can do all these other things. Um, but someone who's gonna go play in college, they're gonna be working on their own. And you love to surf the river and you love to do all this other stuff, which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah. It seems like you've raised very active kids.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Very, thank God. Yeah, yeah. Like they they both have their own very much outdoorsy and love to do stuff. And um my daughter loves to teach, right? She loves teaching skiing. And we just ran this big 30-person four-day retreat in the mountains of Colorado. And um, I brought my daughter along. It was coaches ranging in age from 30 to 75, NCA champions, coaches from Big Ten schools down to high school coaches and athletic directors and everything. But I brought my daughter because I'm like, someone needs to represent Gen Z.

unknown 41:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Someone needs to speak for your generation. We start talking about kids these days or whatever. And so, yeah, it was wonderful to have her there as part of my work. And yeah, she led the 6 a.m. River Coal Plunge every day.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

I was not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Yeah, it seems like you've created your own team as well within your your family teamwork.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah, yeah. And that she has her own desires and things that she wants to do in her life that have nothing to do with sports. Yeah. But but like I said, she was, you know, when I was leaving the house to come here, she was heading down to the river to surf.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Yeah, nice. I just walked by the river and there are a lot of surfers out there. It was beautiful noise.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

But like yesterday for Father's Day, we hiked uh Palina Peak and then paddle boarded at Palada, right? No, it's just a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Did you go to thermals?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

No, no, we just paddled around for a while. It's a beautiful place. It was such a beautiful place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah. Um, what do you think is the biggest lesson sports have taught you, John, in your 50-some years of playing, coaching, leading, speaking?

SPEAKER_00 42:42

I'll come back to like just do hard things and stick with it, you know. Um I mean, I had a bunch of injuries. Uh and so when I was 17, I had a really bad broken leg. And and that was sort of when sport became my journey, like my thing. Like, oh, you know what? I need to like it wasn't my parents pushing or whatever, it was me. So I I I think that's it. Like that how important it is, how much I love movement. Yes. I um I feel better emotionally, mentally, physically when I'm moving.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Ditto, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

And um, and so you know, these days, I mean, I'm a big skier, uh mountain biker, uh, I love to play golf, I love to fly fish, I love to do yoga. Yoga. I don't love to do yoga, I like to do yoga. I always love how I feel after, right? But I'm never one of the person like, yeah, get me the yoga as often as possible. I force myself there.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

We won't tell Petit Pinson if she's listening to this.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

No, no, she knows.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Yeah. So yeah, I mean, but I just think if I think about my journey as a person raising kids, starting business. Um writing books, going through family stuff, going through hard things. Like I can always draw on. I've done this before. Yeah. I did this in sports. I stuck with it. I came back from this. I got my way onto this team. I played a Division I college sport. I like I think, yeah. And obviously I made my living coaching for a long time. So I mean, sport has been at the center of my life forever. And uh yeah, I again I'm a firm believer that life it doesn't get easier. Um parenting's hard, adulting's hard, uh work is hard, and so I've never shied away from doing hard things. And I think that comes from a a lifetime in sports doing hard things.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

No, I agree. I think one th concept we haven't talked about, but for me, it has definitely been one of the biggest takeaways from ha leading an athlet athletic life, not a competitive life. I've never been too much into competition, but I do really like to move and I've done a lot of sports, is that uh pushing myself even at this age, even with relatively new sports, like um not new sports, but sports that I've begun to resume again. Yeah, like skiing, um, which I hadn't done for years, but have been doing it since I moved to Ben, it has given me a lot of self-confidence.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

I mean, just being no being able to exert myself and push myself and like get better times, you know. And I did it for myself, you know, nobody's watching me, nobody's, you know, I'm not wearing any wearables, trackables, whatever. Yeah. You know, it just the self-confidence piece, like knowing that we can do it if we just try.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

I love that. And I think what's really cool about that is is two things. Because you're doing things that maybe you did before and stopped and again. As a parent, um, we all have this curse of knowledge. And the curse of knowledge is kind of the curse of knowledge, right? Once we know how to do something, it's very hard to remember what it was like when we didn't not to know. Yes. And as adults who coach, who whatever, right, you have a picture of what it's supposed to look like in soccer or rugby or hockey or whatever. Um, but your kids don't. And it's very hard to connect with that. And so if you're always learning new things, um, it's such a wonderful thing because now you remember what it's like to learn something new. Yeah. A couple of years ago, I learned how to skate ski. Uh-huh. Right. And it's like it's like pretty good to go out there and flail for a while and you think, oh, I'm getting this. And then some 85-year-old flies by you on the uphill and you're like, I am not good at this. And you know, so I think that's a uh a a great thing, um, right out of it. Like that I'm um I'm a lifelong learner. What a great model for my young completely as well. And then I think the other point is competition, like the essence, the root of the word uh competare, I think my Latin's not great, means to strive together, right? So we've turned competition together war. But the actually the word comes from working together to push yourself, right? So you join a master swim group or a group bike ride or ski with friends, and you're you're you're getting better together. Your opponent is the person working with you to help you get better at things. And what a wonderful lesson that I think is lost. And so people who are like, no, it's about winning, winning matters. I'm like, you know, have you ever run a marathon? And people are like, well, yeah. I'm like, were you gonna win? Were you gonna beat all the Kenyans? They're like, well, no, of course not.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

But you still got this great self-confidence belief because you trained for something for a long time and you ran it in four hours.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

And the people who won already were home.

unknown 48:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

And that's okay. And it's still an incredible accomplishment. And sport can be that for people. It doesn't always have to be about like, did we win? It's really about like, did we compete? Did we give our best effort in the moment and get better and learn from this and and and move on? And and so, yeah, if I don't run anymore, but when I first moved here, I ran some dirty half marathon stuff. I was never gonna win. Yeah, I wasn't even close, but like I still felt great to train and and do it, right? And to do a long mountain bike ride or to you know go climb and ski broken time. Yeah, like there's no win or loss. But um, and this is I just want to say, sorry, I'm rambling, but like no, we have to think as adults of the of the there's type one and type two fun. Type one fun is the fooling around fun that we think all fun is, but type two fun is when you do something that's really, really hard and you train for it and you accomplish it, like you summit a mountain or you train for a marathon, or you do that. And in the moment, there's struggle, there's discomfort, there's pain, there's all these different things. And when you're done, you're like, that was awesome. Yeah, we should do that again.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

And I think of that all the time as adults when we find our exercise, we're probably doing type two fun. Go on a 50-mile bike ride, your legs hurt, your body hurts, you're tired, you're exhausted, and you're like, But it feels so what time next Saturday? Yeah, exactly. And and I think so we want sport to be type one fun sometimes, but type two fun. So they're getting better, they're competing, and it's really hard, and they can't wait to do it again.

unknown 49:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Couldn't agree more. John, lastly, what's your new book on?

SPEAKER_00 50:04

New book.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Just published a sixth or a fifth book.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

New book is called Captain, the athlete's guide to being um an exceptional team leader. The college programs we work with, the um coaches we talk to, they're always like, where have all leaders gone? Right. And that's the the way kids grow up. They don't have as much autonomy and ability to lead and solve problems and figure things out. Um, and the idea is we we had a very well-known basketball player named Shane Battier. He wrote one of the endorsements for us. And he said, we have to stop thinking of leadership as a character trait and realize it's a skill. And if it's a skill, it can be taught and developed. And so we shouldn't be saying, Where have all leaders gone? We should be saying, how can we train them? And so, yeah, so Dr. Jerry Lynch and I, we've done this our third book together, and this one was um, you know, it's it's been, you know, just over two weeks since released and Gangbusters and was number one, a few categories on Amazon and actually like crept into like the business leadership and motivation top 20. Like all these books I read. I'm like, oh my god, like wow, that's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, and and it it's just been really good. And people are like, thank you. This is what we're looking for. And a lot of high schools now do team captains training, a lot of um colleges are developing leadership groups, and so it was really fun to write. I can't imagine we write for kids, right? We write for like high school age. That's the you know, three, four-page chapters, discussion questions at the end. Uh, don't just consume knowledge or don't just consume information, like talk about it, discuss it, how does it relate? And I think my favorite part of the book, we did like a part on the qualities, a part on the responsibilities. And then the third was the challenges. Yeah. And we surveyed a lot of team captains, high school, college level, a lot of coaches, and said, What are the biggest challenges that your kids face? Um, and there were very consistent ones for Gen Z, having difficult conversations in person, um, uh, holding your friends accountable to the standard, being a bridge between coaches and parents, uh, between coaches and teammates, um leading when you're injured or not playing or you're disappointed. And so we sort of laid out these different challenges so that they can get some reps before the season starts as well. So if this is you know you're going to face this this season, let's practice it. Sure. So that when you face it, hey, we've been through this first time. So it's been really fun. I love the book, I love the cover. Um, and uh yeah, it's just been fun getting it out to the world.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Congratulations. Thank you. What's next for you? You're gonna continue with Taking the Game Project, you're gonna reach soon episode 500 on your podcast Way of Champions.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

We'll have a special guest coming up for that. But we've been it's been, you know, the as the podcast has grown and it's got a couple million downloads, and it's amazing. So we've gotten amazing guests and and now have access to really high level people, which is super cool. Not the not the highest. I'm not getting Michelle Obama on anytime. So but you know what I mean. Like it's it's been really fun to talk to some incredible pro coaches and cop college coaches and stuff like that. And uh so um, yeah, I mean, I love the podcasting, love that piece. I'm sure there'll be a new book someday, not anytime soon.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Um, I still love speaking and getting out there and and working with student athlete leaders and and doing coach education. Um, and uh yeah, and you know, I've always I when I started Change the Game Project, I wanted to build a business around my life and not my life around the business. I wanted to be able to coach my kids and watch them grow up and see their sports and do that. And so now that they're kind of a little older and doing more on their own, I'm like, well, what's next? I don't know. We'll see. I really enjoy traveling and speaking. I enjoy seeing my kids grow up and spending time with them and going to the mountains and going to the beach and doing that kind of stuff. And uh I I really feel like I have an opportunity now to influence coaches at higher levels, top college football teams, professional teams. Our new book is getting in the hands of lots of professional and high, high-level college teams right now, as well as high school teams and stuff. And so it's just really uh fun to see our influence. And we, you know, we sign off our podcast and we say your influence is never neutral. And the more aware of it you are, the more powerful it is. And so I I'm really excited that our influence is spreading. And uh, yeah, who knows what comes next.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

Thank you, John. I have no doubt, based on what you've shared today, that you will continue to make a positive influence and a lasting impact on both youth sports and healthy competition. Thank you so much for being part of Ben Into Balance today.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Thank you so much for having me on. I truly appreciate it. This was a wonderful conversation, and best of luck with the podcast. And uh thanks to everyone and Ben for listening.