Tom Mitchell - The Values That Shape Driven Kids (From a Coach and Dad of Two Daughters)

Your kids will teach you leadership faster than any book, if you let them. I sit down with Tom Mitchell, a coach, author, and performance psychologist who has spent decades helping athletes and leaders master the inner game, and we keep the spotlight where it belongs: on Tom as a husband and dad. We start with gratitude and what “success” looks like at home, from healthy adult children to the simple joy of being present for recovery, routines, and the moments you never want to take for granted. 

Tom takes us back to the beginning, including an Oktoberfest story that is equal parts hilarious and honest, and then into the day-to-day choices that helped his two daughters grow into professional performers. We talk parenting values, discipline, and boundaries that protect confidence: limiting negative media, building structure around training, and showing up for the early mornings and long seasons. Along the way, Tom’s childhood stories about loyalty, work ethic, and a family that traveled any distance to support a game add depth to what it means to lead with steadiness. 

The conversation turns into a powerful sports psychology and mindset coaching lesson when Tom shares how his father’s heart attack pushed him into depression and a lifelong search for meaning. That journey shaped his work in leadership development and his latest book, Embrace Your Inner Coach, a message that lands for dads, even if it was not written only for dads: stop outsourcing your strength, trust your inner voice, and pay attention to what your kids reveal about you.  You can also check other books that Tom wrote with famous pro athletes, Chris Mullin and Joe Montana!

If you’re into fatherhood, parenting, leadership, resilience, and the mental side of performance, this one sticks. Subscribe, share this with a dad who’s trying to lead well, and leave a review with the value you most want to pass on to your kids.

Transcript

Welcome To Season Seven

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hi, I'm Riley.

Gratitude And Small Dad Wins

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And I'm Ryder. And this is my dad's show. Hey everybody, it's Casey J. Cox with the Quarterback Dadcast. Welcome to season seven. Can't wait for this season as there's a lot of great guests ahead. If you're new to this podcast, really it's simple. It's a podcast where we we interview dads, we learn about how they were raised, we learn about the life lessons that were important to them, we learn about the values that are important to them, and really we learn about how we can work hard to become a better quarterback or leader of our home. So let's sit back, relax, and listen to today's episode on the Quarterback Deckcast. Well, hey everybody, it is KCJ Cox with the Quarterback Dadcast. We are in season seven. The guests continue to uh amaze me that they're gonna spend some time with us. And this next gentleman is one I think you're really gonna enjoy uh listening to his story. His name is Tom Mitchell. He's a coach, he's an author, he's a speaker. Uh for decades he's been working on a performance uh for leaders. I even co-authored um some amazing books. One, you might have heard of this gentleman, a guy named Joe Montana. Uh the book's called The Winning Spirit. He also co-authored a book, NBA Hall of Famer Chris Mullen. I remember him, the lefty, just Ding up and hitting threes against my beloved Seattle Sonics. Um, but that's not why we're having Tom on today. We're having Tom on to learn about Tom the Dad, how he's continually working hard to be that ultimate quarterback or leader of his household. So without further ado, Mr. Mitchell, welcome to the quarterback deadcast. Hey, Casey, thanks for being here. Yeah, I appreciate you inviting me. You bet, man. Well, I'm grateful our paths have crossed. Um, we always start out each episode with gratitude. So tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

I'm grateful that my children that are adults, um, young women in their 30s are healthy and passionate about the the pursuit that they're uh on. They're they're both been professional, they both are professional uh performers, athletes, uh, and I'm I'm really happy that they're happy. I'm grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

What a what a fantastic uh measurement of success is happiness. Um it's funny, I I've been talking to my son about that, um, who he plays golf in college. And I said, I don't, I obviously I want you to play well, but my number one goal is for you to be happy. And the game of golf doesn't define you, um, but just be happy. And so it's it's fun ironically, you're serendipitous, serendipitally, you're you mentioned that. I'd say what I'm grateful for though is um for those that have followed this podcast and my and my journey as a dad, my daughter is in recovery right now from a uh torn ACL. And just in the last few weeks, she's been weight-bearing a little bit. And uh we were able to uh get back out on the court very lightly and just to do form shots. Um, made a hundred around the hoop, and um just rebounding again for her is like one of my favorite things. So I'm I'm grateful that uh she and I can spend that time together and I can rebound for her again.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

That's beautiful. Yeah, I I know the the rebounding drill.

The Oktoberfest Meet Cute

SPEAKER_00 3:09

I've done thousands of hours of rebounding. Yeah. Well, bring me inside the uh the huddle. You're you're playing quarterback. Tell me how you and your wife met, and then a little bit about both your uh both your daughters.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Okay. So uh and it's sports related. I was a college basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown on a full basketball scholarship. After I graduated, my coach had been fired uh that recruited me and gave me my scholarship, my freshman year, and he moved to California and became the head basketball coach at Sonoma State University. After I graduated, I tried a quick stint in Spain to play professionally. It didn't work out for very long, and I came back to the States and ended up coming out to California to visit my coach who I loved. And he uh it's kind of a funny story. I'll make it quick. It was October, it was an Oktoberfest party, and he was a coach, and all the coaches were having this wild bash. And um, he said that you gotta get dressed up and like it's a German Oktoberfest thing. So I found some boots and high socks and a hat with a feather in it and suspenders. And while he tricked me, no one else was coming dressed except me. So I was the only person, and my wife was there, she was the assistant cross-country coach, she was a full-time school teacher, but she was the assistant cross-country coach, so she was one of the coaches, and she felt sorry for this nerd dude that came dressed up in leader hosen or whatever it's called, and so we headed off at the party dancing a little bit, and uh, I think three months later we were married. Um yeah, I was 25 or six years old. She was a few years older than me, and we met and we've been married 45 years. So it was like one of those quick uh love at first sight things. So that's how I met my wife.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Wow. Now, do you still um during Oktoberfest bring that outfit out just to relive that moment?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

No, I I suppressed that deep in my I was so embarrassed because these were like the football coaches, you know, a lot of a lot of the staff was there and the wrestling coach and every you know, soccer coach. And so they were all jocks there, and and I was new. I had only been in California for six weeks, so they hardly knew me. I don't even think our uh I had I became the uh assistant women's coach uh that that season. So they maybe didn't even know me. So here's this guy coming in looking like a complete geek. But it worked out so good. I it's just even asking that how I met. It's the first time I've thought of that story in years and years.

Two Daughters Built For Performance

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Well, it it's you made me smile, and and I I hope you maybe when we get done recording it, you tell your wife that you get her, see if she wants you to bring it out again. Maybe it might like light a spark. Yeah. Okay, no, talk talk about your your girls. I know you're proud of them, but um tell us what they're up to right now.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Okay, well, you know what? As as you were talking because you know, I've been doing a bunch of hotcasts. I think it's my 12th in the last few weeks, and um from with my new book. And I forgot it was about being a dad. Like, how cool is that? This will be an easy one because I can talk all day about it. But I just remembered when you mentioned Joe Montana, I tell this story in our book that my wife and I now were married. I was 25 or six when I got six, I think. And nine or ten years later, we didn't have any children. She was a teacher and she was in her mid to late 30s, and we were kind of getting concerned that we couldn't have kids, you know, and got some tests done and so forth. And um, there wasn't a biological problem that one of us could we we we were capable uh from the testing, but it still wasn't happening. And then one day I during practice, my wife never came to my practice when I was a I was a head college basketball coach, and my team were in practice, and my wife walks in the gym, and it scared me because she never came to practice, and she told me that uh she was pregnant, and I started crying, and my guys lifted my guys. This is a really cool memory again. Uh, Casey bringing back some some you know 35 six years ago or so, they started like um push like getting me over their head. They were all holding me and like pushing me up in the air, and I was bouncing. Yeah, it was like a great memory. I tell that story in the book, I don't know why. Something about the the power of appreciation, like just appreciating that moment, like one of the highlights of my life.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Oh, amazing. I I can see the visual of uh of that. And um, so 30 something years ago, so um your your your daughters, you mentioned I know we did our prep, but I didn't I I I tried to held off hold off my curiosity so we could so I could be surprised on this on this episode. So um talk about them. What what are they up to right now?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Right now, um so my youngest daughter is uh now a skating coach. She was with Disney on ice for 10 years plus. I think we figured out it was something, I'm probably wrong, but close to 48 countries, six continents, um, as Moana, Bell, Jasmine, you know, all the lead uh uh characters on Disney. She performed. And um my other daughter did that for one year, but she's an actress. Um just produced a short film. She's uh studying uh studied opera last year in Florence, and so she's she's up to many different uh creative professional endeavors. She she's on Spotify, she's written and produced uh, I think five songs. Yeah. So she's uh she's an actress, singer, dancer, skater. My other my youngest was um got had a full uh or partial scholarship to Dominican College in Marin for dance, and she got the call to go with Disney and she did that. So she dropped out of college. She's just uh finishing up her uh degree with Purdue University, so that's what they're up to.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Uh so I I think I mentioned to you that I have an embarrassing Disney and ice story. Not only embarrassing, but it's it's a it's a great memory. So okay this is I might have seen your daughter perform or her so this is in Seattle, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah, they performed there for sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, so this is circa, so my kids are almost 20 and almost 18. So they would have been like six and four, seven and five, something like that. And we uh we're we're with another family and um having a few soda pops and had a few more soda pops, and we're like, you know what? We probably shouldn't drive. So me and my buddy decide to surprise the kids and and the wives, and we just order a limo.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Uh-huh.

Philly Childhood And Sports Family

SPEAKER_00 10:28

And we get last-minute tickets to Disney on ice, row one, right in the thing, and and uh it was like the kids, kids had no idea that mom and dad were, and moms and dads were having a great hell of a time and you know, parking our asses off. And we're in the front row Disney. And there's like there's this one skater. He looked, we called him Sven because he looked like I don't know what he was, but um, it was so good. Like we had an absolute blast, and um the the kids we still joke about like we can't believe you guys got a freaking limo. I'm like, well, we weren't gonna drive because we were not in shape to drive, but maybe I've seen it. Exactly. That's the way to do it. Um okay, well, bring me um, I always like rewinding the tape and and talking to my guests about what was life like growing up for you, and uh, talk about the impact mom and dad had on you now that you're a dad. Again, another story that's in the book I wrote with Joe.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

I was a basketball player, baseball player, and football player, but then I um just started focusing on basketball. And my coach said, I want you to come out for the soccer team. I had never played soccer, I couldn't dribble a ball with my feet or anything, but I had good hands because I played basketball and I had big hands. So he puts me in the goal, and I became a goalie, and I sort of started falling in love with this game of soccer. Well, I grew up outside of Philadelphia and went to a powerhouse high school called Plymouth White Marsh High School, and um we were playing Wissahicken, uh, I don't know what grade uh I was in, and it was pouring rain, and the game we it started pouring rain, it was drizzling or whatever, and but it started pouring rain. The game continued, and I didn't even know that that soccer continues when when it's raining. There was one spectator in the stands with an umbrella at an away game, Marie Mercedes Mitchell, my mother. And uh that's so that's the kind of family I grew up in. My I my parents were in Philly. I'm playing in the mountains of Pennsylvania. My dad was a prison warden. Uh they he would drive sometimes five hours, watch me play a game, drive back home and go to work. Um, not all the time, but they they they were known for doing that. So I had super, super dream come true, supportive parents. It wasn't always perfect. You know, my dad liked to drink his beer and he had quite a temper sometimes and could get mad at us and yell and stuff. But um overall, it was like an amazing upbringing. I was the youngest of two boys, uh, three boys. I was two older brothers. They all played sports, they were really successful in sports. Um, it was just a boys jock household. We had we lived in a middle class neighborhood, but we had a huge monkish yard. So we had a baseball, a wiffle ball field, uh, a football field, and a basketball. My dad uh put a basketball hoop in our driveway, and it was like the neighborhood hub. That was my upbringing. So I I I I lucked out, man. Wow. And tell me, what did mom do? Mom was um, I was raised by both both my mother and my Spanish grandmother from Barcelona. That's why I went to Spain after college to go try to become a dual citizen and play in Barcelona. And that's just the citizenship didn't think didn't work out. But um, so mom and mom and grandma were kind of it was an old school European type of, you know, they cooked, cleaned, it was old, old school. Then my mother um started working for my dad as a as a secretary in the prison. So she she she became became a like a career woman later in her life. Yeah, she was gorgeous. My had a beautiful mom. All my friends like had crushes on her.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

How does one become a prison warden?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

My dad just had a knock with people. Um, he had been a vice president of a machine metal company. He had a massive heart attack at 48 years old, and the stress of that job, like he couldn't do it anymore. So you think, oh, okay, now I'm gonna just work in a normal job. And because he was a natural born leader, he um I I don't know exactly how the connections happened, but um it was not a job uh uh of love or joy. He he hated it actually. He did it because he needed a job, he needed money. And uh remember coming home from college one one Christmas on a Christmas break, um, and he said, if I'm not out of here by next year, you'll uh you'll be burying me in the ground because um I'm not gonna uh survive this distress. One that one time I had a in a snowstorm, one of the guys hung themselves, and uh we had a walk like literally four miles from where we live to the prison. To my dad had to get in in there. Cars weren't able to go with the you know, it was like a three foot of snow kind of thing, right? Blizzard, huge blizzard. That's the kind of stuff he had to deal with. It was a drag.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

My brothers and I would go in and play basketball with the in with the inmates, you know. We would we would uh often bring I'd bring a team of guys and and we'd play. It was that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Wow. Yeah, and you guys do you feel safe when that happened, or was it less like the my dad was the warden dude? Yeah, I was safe. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Guards all around us, man. Wow. Well, was it call your own fouls? Yeah, not too many fouls, you know. And it wasn't like they yeah, they weren't like super nice to us either. It wasn't that you know, they were but there wasn't any uh danger of knives and stuff, everything was was um securely guarded. We did it like two or three times, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Wow, that could be a good little um like Netflix documentary. You know. Well um talk about the values that mom and dad taught you if you had to think of you know two or three that really come to mind that shaped you.

Loyalty, Paper Routes, And Protection

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Um protect like brothers, your brothers are are your family, and even if you don't agree with them, you protect them. And I was the baby of the so I got the residual benefit of my brothers protecting me, teaching me, defending me in our neighborhood and stuff. So so one was just family loyalty, I think. Um, we we had a paper route from I was seven, my brother was eight years older than me, so however, and we had the paper route for um I had it all the way to my senior year in high school. So I forget how many 12 or 13 years we had a paper route. So the importance of having uh some coins in your pocket, because it was basically really literally coins back then when we collected, you know, and uh working hard. And um just I had parents that all my friends would say, you know, you got the best parents, everybody wanted to be at our house. So there was a kind of a community vibe feeling that that they allowed us to be a little, you know, wild and crazy. And my dad would let us drink beer when we were underage, as long as we didn't get in the car and stuff like that. So it was like one of those type of situations.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

It was just a cool place to be. Wow. Yeah. I uh when you said paper out, man, if it brought back I we have that in common. I mean, if you've not had a paper out, it that you know you've arrived when you've had a paper. I mean, I remember the video game Paperboy. What's that? The video game, paperboy. It was like uh video game back in like the 80s.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

I uh I don't. I'm I'm uh out of touch with that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

So, but anyway, well, I that was like, oh, it's that mic wanted me to get a paper out. And I'd go to the Seattle Times in this atrocious red and yellow bike. Uh, and I remember I was trying to do see as fast as I could do it. I think I was always competitive, but I was always like, how can I get this done as fast as I can? And uh I remembered it. I would be like, I called it my mom, my mom, my buddy's mom, she she'd train me by doing it like instead of like memorizing the addresses, just it was like do skip, do skip, do do do. And uh I'd literally you memorize the route and uh you log the whole thing up, but man, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

We would have it like you know, I forget what ours, ours, ours, not ours, ours, like like up the street and and so forth. Yeah, it was it was great. Our I I um delivered the Times Herald of out of Norristown, Pennsylvania. It was I remember it being 42 cents a week, a week. And when we would collect, if somebody gave us 50 cents, it was an eight cent tip. That was like really cool. So um it's it's so weird. And then uh every week, you know, you would take all the coins, and I I guy might come when I was at school, but I put them all together, my and he would come and collect the money from us, and whatever was left over was ours.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Wow, yeah. The memories. Um protecting family, loyalty, hard work. Um, is there a story that you as you think about those values that really uh that maybe that might come to mind that really cements those values?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah, I I I think I can keep this PG version. Oh, you can keep it R if you want. But it's it's it's um I'm in uh my brother's a senior. We we played for, I think, if he wasn't the he was one of the most winningest coaches in Pennsylvania history, Hank Stafko. All my brothers played for him. He was like a legendary, a Bobby Knight type of coach, screamer, yeller, super smart. But um, but that was the kind of the style of the day. You know, it was so eighth grade, uh, activities bus. You would take the activities bus to come home. And um, my brother said, Hey, we used to wear these long socks when you played basketball. They had like like baseball socks, like your heel, it's hard to explain, like a uh your heel could slide into them, and then that you pulled them up. And that was sort of everybody wore those back in the 60s. So um my brother forgot his and he wanted me to go to his locker and get them. So I held the activity bus up like maybe five minutes. I got into the activity bus, and this senior guy pushed my head, like he yelled at me, like what and he pushed my head against the window and cut my ear, and it was bleeding. So, you know, I'm eighth grade and I'm I am the star of my eighth grade team. So I'm I'm a I'm a somebody. I'm not gonna start crying in front of this guy. But as soon as I got off the bus, I I lost it and I'm crying. I go home, and my family was eating dinner. Everybody, but I got there last. My brother said, What happened? I told him. The kid looked the guy that did it to me, the senior, lived up the street. My brother went up the street. My dad's don't go. And he's, you know, F you, I'm going anyway. And my my brother, and there was somebody there that witnessed it. My brother knocked on the door. This kid lived with his oldest, his parents were dead, and he lived with his oldest sister and their her husband. And my brother pulled him out of the, just like a movie, like The Godfather, he pulled him out of the house. He started pounding on him and said, If you ever touch my brother again, you know, you won't live to remember like something like that, right? I'm in eighth grade. That was one of many, many, many, many, many, many stories I could tell you that I had protection from any kind of stuff like that. I mean, my brother's he's let's see, I'll be 72. He's 76. He's still like that. If I go back to Philly to see him, you know, if anybody said anything bad about me, he would, you know, he'd fight him. So it was just just sort of the way it was. I I I'm not even advocating for that lifestyle. I don't think it's, you know, all ultimately always that healthy. It's definitely not spiritually forgiving, you know, but it's it's kind of old world mafia mentality.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

You know, that's what I grew up with.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Wow. Um, so you were a basketball player. What was your what what was the big sports your brothers played?

SPEAKER_02 22:58

My brother played basketball. He was my both of them played basketball. My oldest was on an undefeated Pennsylvania, 1963. I know the record. They were 24 and oh, they won the state championship. Next year they were 22 and 2. And so they were like, whatever that was. Uh they lost two games. My brother's two years, oldest, and my other brother won the championship. And so we has had this legacy of of basketball. Um, but he all they also ran track and field. Okay. I didn't I didn't run track and field. Was your dad a good athlete? No, not really. No. Was your mom? No. Just they we just had a big yard where we could play everything. And you know, it was back in the day when you're outside all the time. There were no video games, there were no ESPN. You know, somebody where the junior college I used to coach, we used to fill the place back in the 80s. Fill it. Two 2200 people. I just was at a party this weekend for one of the uh assistant coaches. I used to coach him. His name, um, his cousins are Drew and um Drew Holliday and um Aaron Holliday and Justin Holiday. And he's they're they're all an NBA players, and that he's their cousin, Maurice Thompson. And Maurice is one of the assistant coaches. And I was talking to the wife, and and she said, It's it's funny when you coach the place was full. We're lucky if we get 100 people and at the games now at this junior college, same school, same league, same everything. And I said, Yeah, because you can go on and watch 10 games at one time at any day of the week, and and all the accessibility of of social media and uh everything. We didn't have luckily, I mean, I love it. I'm I'm not a big fan, I'm not on Instagram much. I have a an account but or Facebook, but but I I access it, right? It's like I'm not shut off, but I'm really grateful that I didn't grow up in that era because the the subtraction of what you had, not the addition, was an advantage for to me for focusing.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

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SPEAKER_02 26:38

Yeah, you know, so I never call him back. I'm not trying to be one of those old guys that say, hey, back in the day, but there was an advantage of not having being the only game in town, so to speak, right? What position did you play? I was a point guard. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Shooter. I was a shooter. Uh, and you know, so I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. And I'm not good at a lot of stuff. And I'm not saying that humbly, Casey. It's the truth. I'm I I am average or below average in a lot of things, but I was, I wouldn't have made it uh hanging out with Chris Mullen, becoming one of his best friends, um, spending thousands of hours with him if I couldn't shoot the shit out of the ball. You so sorry. Yeah. And and and I was all state, uh, all Philadelphia with Kobe Bryant's dad. Uh, I was a scorer, I was a shooter. I wasn't, I thought I was like one of the best on the planet till I met Chris Mullen and he put me in my place. And I really shoot there's a whole other dimension that I didn't know about because he was, as I say in my book, he was surgical. He was remarkable. How did you and Chris meet? He wanted to send, he was sponsoring a young man from Brooklyn to come to play college basketball on the West Coast, and he found out about me somehow and made a contact for this guy. His name was Maurice Ballard, I remember, and uh to come play for for me at the at the college. Maurice ended up playing baseball and not basketball. He really wasn't good enough to play base basketball for me, or I had too much talent that year. And then Chris and I just uh first day we met, um he was signing cards, basketball cards at a local venue. And he asked me, Hey, could you look after my two my wife and two kids who were like two and four, Sean and Chris, uh, while I'm signing for these three hours. I said, Yeah, man. So I picked up Liz, never had met her, brought her to my house. We had just put in a swimming pool. I had two little kids, Carmen and Antonia, Sean and Chris, hit it off their swimming. And then Chris Mullen walks in my backyard after the signing. It was I had met him at a practice once or twice, but we played about an hour of shooting games on my court. He beat me, but I'll tell you, I hung in there for quite a long time with him. We walked to Mary's Pizza Shack, the whole family, and from there it just took off. I've I've been hanging with him for 30 some years. Yeah.

Discipline, Homeschooling, And Proud Moments

SPEAKER_00 29:11

So good. What a great story. Um, as you reflect on your when your girls were were young and you and your wife were raising them. Um you know, they obviously they're very successful what they what they do. You guys have done a great job. As you think back, what were the values that that were important to you and your wife that shaped your girls?

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Well, um, my wife's a public was a public school teacher and a very, very successful public school teacher. Um, she won some awards for stopping gangs, and she was an art teacher. And so she was cool with kids. Like she she got kids, right? I was a college teacher and I was okay, but but she was the the driving influence of our kids could watch all the videos they wanted, Disney movies, but we they didn't watch TV, like where there was real negative stuff and until they were like um you know almost 10 years old or 12 years old or something like that. So we isolated them from some of the negativity. She ended up homeschooling them for eight years. Um, she owned a ballet school after and so my my kids started ballet in the discipline of that from like two or three years old, did it all the way up into their uh early 20s. So they were highly trained in in dance and ballet, music lessons. Um, and they, of course, for 14 years, six days a week, they went to Snoopy's Home Ice, uh, Charles Schultz's Ice Arena, and where they became professional ice skaters. So they they had a they they had a structure and you know, yeah, yeah, that I of course support it, go to the the concerts or the events, and yes, and and financially supported it, right? Um but my wife was the driver, she was the core person that got him up at five in the morning to bring him to the ice arena. Not just once or twice, but every day. Wow for years, uh decade, over a decade, 14 years. So it's quite disciplined, you know. Was your wife an ice skater too? No, no, she's a uh swimmer and a runner, really, really good runner, uh athletic, but not a not an ice skater, no. And I I don't I wrote my first book called Finding Greatness Within Ice Skating, and I I can't skate to save my life, but I just thought I'd put the sports psychology principles that I was teaching basketball players and other athletes at the college into skating and make it sports specific. So that was my first my first book, I think I in the 90s I wrote.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

What what would what would you say is your most proud dad moment?

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Well, there's so many, man. Like I'm just picking uh a um, you know, what do you were those things out of the hat when you're doing a haystack? Or if you're doing a a raffle, you raffle out of the hat, you pick the number, right? Um just we we're in Scotland. I'm in Glasgow, Scotland. Disney just puts on this the new a new show, and they now have added Moana as one of the skaters, and my daughter gets picked to be Moana, and um, I fly over to Scotland to watch her with a buddy of mine, and you know, the whole all the smoke and flames and all this stuff, and then my daughter does its beautiful performance, and then she ends up on this platform at the end, and I'm gonna I'm just making it up. 10,000 people are clapping for my kid, you know, like wow, my hair stands on end right now. Another one, my other daughter um was Phantom of the Opera, if you if you're aware of plays at all, but she was she was the lead, whatever that uh person's name is. Um not Clara, I forget, but but the the lead of of the phantom and she uh had a cold or a sore throat or something, and she I could play it for you and you'd see it like she has to hit this high C note, which is could break glass kind of thing at the very end when the Phantom is, you know, and her singing. And they usually dub that, like like the the it's a real authentic sound of the of the performer, but then they they record it. So when the person turns around, they dub it and it's it's not really her singing, right? And I think they had said, Hey, let us let's dub you. You got a cold or you're sick, or she said, Nope. Cause I I think I I always would say true pro true pros play hurt, you know? And wow, and so she like said, I'm playing hurt, and she nailed it, man. Like and I and no one else knew, but few of us knew she was sick, and you know, and there were I think the auditorium hold held like 600 people, it was full every night, and she got like, you know, standing ovation and uh or or ovation, it standing at the end, but uh so proud and you know it's performance-based, of course, just who they are, just their kindness or their sensitivity to different things or their awareness of environmental situations, they're both vegetarians, they don't want to kill animals. I mean, it's like there's so many things. I could go on and on and on. And he says that's why I say just pick it out of the hat. Yeah, I'm really proud of them, like beyond belief. Like, what did I do to deserve these kids?

SPEAKER_00 34:56

You know, kind of thing. Where where do you think their love of performance came from? Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Obviously, it's instilled by by the kind of music Adele would play for them, or that she owned a ballet school and they were put into dance or voice lessons early, and all that was instilled in them, no question. But and my own philosophy, my own belief of life, and I think they were born with it. I think they were both born with that innate something, and we fostered it, but we didn't we didn't uh give it, we didn't uh instill it as much as pull it from them.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Do you remember what age do you remember what age you record? They're like, man, we got some we got some age. Early early, one two. Really? Wow. That's cool. I have videos of it. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Um, Tom, when did you talk a little bit about how you got into sports psychology?

Depression Sparks A Search For Meaning

SPEAKER_01 36:08

So I was a normal jock, all-state basketball player, didn't do very well in school, dressed well, you know, had f a lot of friends.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

I was popular, I was one of those kids. I was one of those kids in high school. Like, you know, I won Athlete of the Year, best dressed, blah, blah, blah. Like at the end of the year, you know, I was embarrassed because I was kept, they kept calling me up on stage to get these awards. That was me. But my dad had this massive heart attack, and I hadn't ever given any thought to death, life, heaven, hell, God, reincarnation, uh, philosophy, yoga, Christianity. All the questions of life came crashing down on me my senior year. And I was not prepared for it. At least I didn't think I was, and I fell into deep depression. And I started reading for the first time. I was reading Spinoza and Walt Whitman and the Transcendentalists and the Bible and like the the Taoism, and like like here I am. I'm this jock kid that's just like normal kid that didn't really like school, and I'm starting to read. So when I finally developed my own belief system and what really, really fit for me and worked for me, um, I wasn't the same guy anymore. I still liked basketball, but I didn't really love it anymore. So when I went to college on a basketball scholarship, my most passionate days for the game were over. And I probably peaked as far as I know I peaked as far as like really working on my game, but I really, really, really worked on myself and my my my inner game, you know, whatever however you want to call that. And so um I went and I I ventured out a lot of things. I quit college, got my scholarship back. I went and lived at a yoga ashram. I went and lived at a trappist monastery. Um I was dancing with the Native Americans, I was meditating with the Quakers, and and I just was like really on a search for God, for life, for truth, for meaning, for all that stuff. And I still love to play basketball. I I are I liked it a whole lot, right? And sometimes still loved it. And so I thought, how how do you blend those two? This like psychology and and and with with sports. And then when I came to California, I told you earlier, I hadn't really even heard of sports psychology. I met my mentor, ended up being one of my closest friends. He was 30-year-old my senior, Stashu Gertson, and he was an international sports psychologist, and he asked me to teach his class one day. I I I didn't I only had a BA, I didn't even have a master's at the time. He said, Teach my class, and I did. We're walking back to the locker room, and because we went outside, I taught him Ultimate Frisbee, and he said, Thomas, this is your calling. And it was like the the clouds opened up and you, you know, to be a teacher. So I just I dove in, got my master's, became a college basketball coach, started teaching sports psychology and blending, you know, eastern and western philosophy with sports and stuff like that. So that's how it, that's how it all happened.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Wow. And when did you decide to write a book and start going down that path?

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Uh, I always in college thought, because I I became a reader. I never read in high school, right? Like and I like now I started reading. Like if you could see my library there, I you know, I have lots of books. And um, I don't read so much anymore, but I uh phases of my life I've read a ton. And I always thought, eh, it'd be cool to write some kind of book about this kind of stuff, which I don't I wasn't clear on. So when I was getting my doctorate, my uh provost then, uh Melvin Sudd, who wrote Carl Rogers' biography, the famous uh humanistic psychologist, um he said, Why don't you for your dissertation write your write your daughters a book? And that's your dissertation. And so I was traveling with the Golden State Warriors full-time. I was on the plane, you know, we were in Seattle playing the supersonics and playing before when they were there and all around the country. And I was kind of bored and you know, wasn't that nearly as hard of work as being a college coach? And so I had a lot of free time on my hands. So I started handwriting the my first book. And I got it, it was my dissertation. I wrote a book and a journal workbook that accompanies it called Finding Greatness Within Ice Skating. And that's how I started. I and he told me, he said, You're gonna write many books. And I'm like, Do you even know me? What are you joking? I'm gonna write a bunch of books. I could barely spell sometimes. And and and I I have quite a few now out there. Wow. How many have you written? Well, I I repurposed the the skating one for basketball, for baseball, for football, for soccer, for softball. I wrote a business book, wrote one with Chris Mullen and a couple journals associated with it, and then this new one called Embrace Your Inner Coach.

unknown 41:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

So I don't know how many that is.

Finding Your Inner Coach As A Parent

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Over a dozen. Is that your latest one you just published? Yeah. Talk about that. And maybe talk about that. And and maybe if you can, um talk, tell us why would a dad want to be interested in this?

SPEAKER_02 42:09

A dad. I didn't write it for dads, uh, just to be frank and transparent. I I wrote it for me. I the other the other books I've always like look concerned about the audience. You know, obviously I'm co-authoring with Joe or I'm co-authoring with Chris Mullen. I I want to be mindful of their needs and and and and speak in a certain language. But I like I tell some stories in there that I probably wouldn't have told in the other books because they're a little bit too vulnerable, right? And um so it was more of just like for the art, like just expressing it. Yeah, hopefully people will like it. I didn't write it to sell it like and make a bunch of money or anything like that, or you know, hopefully maybe get some clients out of it. So I didn't really write it for moms or dads or kids, or like because I've written wrote the other books, some of them for kids. Um, but why a dad may get something out of it is um because I well, I dedicate the book. I said, uh, this book is dedicated to my daughters, Carmen and Antonia. You have been my greatest joys and most uh profound teachers. So if you know a dad would write, take his time to dedicate a book to I didn't do it to any, I didn't do it to my wife or my parents or my brothers or my best friends or great coaches I've had, I did it to my daughters because you know that's the closest thing to you know, the core of my heart, right? Is my kids.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Well, what what's the biggest? So you you wrote that you now the first I'm super curious, as you can maybe find Tom. Uh what what would be the one there like you said profound teachers, if I heard you right? Like what would what would be the one of the biggest lessons? they taught you.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

I was really gone through a uh I had a physical uh issue with my back. I couldn't I I thought I was gonna be uh not able to walk anymore. I had to play them with the playing with professional athletes with the warriors, I tweaked my back and I thought I was gonna be crippled. And I couldn't walk for about a month. And the pain was excruciating and I couldn't go away and I don't like to take drugs and I was trying to take some stuff and it made me sleepy or um uh like I couldn't function and so then I stopped and then I couldn't sleep so I had insomnia and I had never had had that before and I was just a wreck. And I was like you know my kids were Antonia might say was 10 and I remember um I just was like everything that I thought I knew was up just my mind was a wreck. I was I was in a bad bad space space and um I said Antonia I've read so I've read so many books about um healing and all this stuff that I do and I'm still not there and I've never read one book on how to be a dad and I think I'm a pretty good dad to you like so what's what's happening here like I read all this stuff and it's not helping and I don't read anything and I'm I'm pretty darn good and she said dad why don't we go back and give all your books away so we went back to my our garage and I got these bins and I didn't give them all away but I probably gave 200 books to the uh free free to the library that I just and and it was like wow out of the mouth of babes like you know and like find your own inner coach quit looking always for help from outside you know there's and I healed I I healed my back you know I don't know how it all that's why it happened but so that was a profound moment with my daughter that's let's let's give away all your books. She might not even remember that but I remember it um just Carmen uh that's Antonia Carmen just her relentless pursuit of excellence to a point can it can drive you crazy because she's relentless like the word relentless if you really embrace the word and it's relentless and so sometimes you just want mediocre or you want just it's okay it's average and she just doesn't settle you know so that's been that's been a a great lesson for me because I have a tendency I can be lazy I can settle I can I can get complacent and she she does not go it does not go well with her when she sees that in me.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Wow it's always there's always another gear out there and that's one thing that I've um I've loved about um you know I was a corporate guy for 20 years um uh I I I can resonate with when I decided to write my book I the a lot of the proof was just I just want to prove that I could prove that football guys could put sentences together that we're not all idiots.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Yeah so I was uh my sister-in-law passed away last uh January and I went back to the service and and I saw a young woman of a young young woman she's my age um that that I have known that I've known for 52 years and uh she was like best friends with my high school girlfriend and she was at the service or came see me or whatever and I gave her a copy of the book I wrote with Joe Montana and she calls me Tommy and she said Tommy I hope this doesn't come off as as rude or mean but I didn't even know you knew how to read and I it was Jackie I said Jackie you don't offend me like I didn't I didn't really know either because I didn't study I didn't I didn't read I just cruised I cruised through school you know so I'm like living proof that anybody can publish and if you hook up with a legend like Joe Montana you could become an Amazon bestseller which we were trust me without his beautiful face on the picture on the cover I don't think that would have happened no it's but I I I think yeah to to your point though I think I I mean there's a gentleman buddy of mine I met him Chris Mater Chris Mater he played almost major league I think he was a triple A guy he got called up for the for the back then the Indians briefly and um a couple years ago he's like hey man I got introduced to you we had this call he goes I think I think I want to write a book you you got any advice from me I go yeah F and write it yeah he's like what I go start start don't let the start stop you right just write it yeah he's like I go dude if I can do it you can do it yeah it just happened I remember Lily I I don't know about you but like for me I this was when I left corporate so I was like on a on a little hiatus not knowing what I was gonna do and I literally just wrote in my calendar I put 9 to 1130.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

I came in here and just wrote some days I'd be like freaking awful I didn't know what I was writing and some days I was like oh just like just like came out. Yeah yeah and just the habit of writing and then the next thing you know four months later I wrote a book.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

I um before all the apps and everything this is in the 80s but you have the little cassette players that you you know you press play and so forth with the the tapes um I started doing some I didn't write a book this way but I started recording like if I had a a large 40 page paper I had to write and I would just start stream of consciousness I I I remember I did this big thing called the the confessions of a first year coach and I talked about all the mistakes I made my first year of coaching college basketball at 30 years old and the lessons I learned and stuff and it was like and I I'm not a I I peck right so I can't type like this and and handwriting I've done a bunch bunch of it but it it's tedious. So I just started I'd laid down actually and I'd have the recorder and I'd start talking then I would go and pay whatever it was an hour back then$10 an hour to have somebody transcribe it. And that's how I started the process and I didn't feel like I was cheating. I you don't have to handwrite or type right I was I was speaking my my message you know so that's that's another way I encourage people sometimes just just get a recorder and start going and then you know put put put it in a word document and you'll you'll have 20 pages before you know it. Yeah and then you you know then you can play around with I I love editing it it's that blows my mind I had no idea I would like taking something and wordsmithing it and wordsmithing it I I just that would that's probably the biggest surprise of anything of being a writer because I even consider my even though I've written a bunch I don't consider myself a writer because Mike I know people that really are great writers. You know that's not me I just maybe have some cool stories that it that I'm able to get out there right so I love it.

What Tom Does Now

SPEAKER_00 51:41

What um bring us up to speed on what is what is Tom doing now and and how can people learn more about you?

SPEAKER_02 51:49

What I'm doing now which I'm gonna have to go in a minute I'm gonna go give a speech to 40 real estate agents on mindset on vision on presence um and uh I've been coaching this company for like 10 years and they asked me to just come and I live in the wine country in Northern California so it's it's in a beautiful zone. I'm gonna go I think it might be at a winery I don't know. So you know that's what I'm doing now. But what I work um with companies with businesses um teaching some of the principles that are in the in our book is as far the inner game, you know, thinking differently pivoting attitude trust communication you know resilience um that type of stuff and and it's not like it's a formula it's more of a conversation it's more of coaching practices where each each person if I'm working individually is is different. And so it it shows up differently as far as how they uh you know I have a website it's uh in pro it's been there for a long long time my daughter's updating it uh it's my name tom at tommitchell.com and I think if they were interested in my book it's on Amazon it's under uh embrace your inner coach I will make sure Tom this is linked in the show notes so people can can learn more about you it's it's funny how life brings you people inside your you know the universe or God or whatever people believe in but like I'm a big believer in one of my favorite words is serendipity um things I believe things happen for purpose and it's like we're we're speaking the same language we're doing a lot you got a few years of wisdom on me.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Um I I just turned 50 uh a few weeks ago and yeah I only have 22 on you that's all I got a lot of that's just a blink of an eye but I I mean I feel good at 50 and it's funny I actually have you look good at 50.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

I shade it I joke with my son yesterday because we're playing at a golf tournament at the end of uh June and I was signing us up and uh there was divisions there was like little boxes I had to check like the open with my handicap and I was like wait a minute there's a senior division yeah this is my first ever golf tournament I'm gonna be in the open division and the senior division well well I I just looked this up recently how old do you have to be to be a officially a senior it's 55 no no I'm sorry it's six it's six no if you want to get like a discount at the movie theater or something like that it's 65 that's what it is that's what it is right yeah I I'm just at this I'm in the early stages of like my ARP card came yesterday. Oh my gosh yeah my wife and so I'm 72 she's 74 for years she would not let me like if we go to the movies or someplace and you get a 10% discount for being a senior she would not she would get really mad at me with like I like no I just pay the regular price I don't want to say I'd say why don't you just you know accept who you are what you are so good. But anyway thanks for uh the invite and um appreciate it Casey you bet.

Lightning Round And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 55:04

Well the last part of the podcast this is what I call the lightning round this is where I go random I'm gonna ask you random questions I'm gonna try to show you the negative hits of taking too many hits in college not bong hits but football hits this is your job is to answer these quickly as quick as you can and my hope is to get a giggle out of you.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

All right okay one of your famous shots in a one-on-one basketball you were playing Chris Mullen you made a three-point hook shot bang true or false true seriously yeah I'm I have a great I'm I have a picture of me shooting a hook shot on Chris Mullen that I could send you and no joke.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

That's hilarious I just randomly said that in my backyard in my backyard. Let's go how about that uh favorite comedy movie ever is oh uh one with Eddie Murphy and and uh trading places trading places good one if I came to your house for dinner tonight what would we have well you would we would probably go out because uh uh my my wife is a good cook but we go out most of the time so um but if if she cooked it would be vegetarian because everybody they're all vegetarians okay so so it might be it but might be some really really good Mexican food my wife's Latina so you have some really good Mexican but you wouldn't have chorizo okay um favorite uh favorite arena you ever visited when you were coaching oh I like the old forum yeah that was cool it was old oh oh when I was coaching my favorite arena is the Palestra in Philadelphia that's where I I played there but I didn't coach there.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Okay. Um if there was to be a book written about your life tell me the title Maverick Coach okay now Tom Maverick Coach believe it or not it's it's it's putting your other books to shame it's this one sold out Amazon can't keep it's like number one in every single category out there. Airports was sold out uh so now Netflix and Hulu they're fighting over this book and they're gonna make a movie out of it. You're now the casting director it can't be you I need to know which Hollywood famous actor is gonna star Tom Mitchell in this new critically acclaimed hit movie.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Oh my God I don't know the names who do I of what actor well it'd have to be is it is it me as a young person or me at my current age you could know anything.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

You get a pick. So I would pick um Sean Penn. Okay. That's a little toughness I like that one. Okay. And then last and most important question tell me two words that would describe your wife.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

Beautifully committed boom lighting rounds complete um I did not know that hook shot story everybody that was just me being the random weirdo that I am I I literally have a picture of me shooting a hookshot on Chris Mullen in flip-flops in my backyard. So when I when I find it because I have a zillion pictures I will I have your email I'll send it to you please that'd be fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

I will make sure this is linked in the show notes everybody uh Tom Mitchell is the man we'll make sure all of his books are linked please go follow him if you're in real estate find him because ask him to come speak to your company this guy's got a lot of wisdom um I'm hopeful that we can eventually meet in person Tom I'd be grateful for your time last thing I shot that hook shot I 100% know that I'm not a hundred percent sure if it went in or not but I I did shoot it all right see ya