How does @michaelvhuber help young athletes to be their best?
I started the @freshmanfoundation podcast with the hope of shedding light on the mental and emotional challenges associated with the transition from high school to college sports through the eyes of others.
From day one, this podcast has been about learning from others in hopes of understanding the difficult transition better. However, after 30 episodes, I’ve realized that I have done a very poor job of explaining who I am and what I do to help others perform their best.
In this episode, I take the opportunity to share more about myself so that those listening can better understand my purpose and motivation as a mental performance coach.
Some of the topics I cover include:
You can learn more about me on my websites at https://michaelvhuber.com and https://freshmanfoundation.com.
You can book a free coaching strategy session using this scheduling link: https://calendly.com/michaelvhuber/mike-huber-30-minute-connection
I look forward to seeing you back for FFP30 in the new year. Thank you in advance for listening!
#mentalperformancecoaching #cmpc #sportpsychology #helpingothers #purpose
Hey everyone, its Mike Huber founder and CEO of the Freshman Foundation. Thanks for listening to the Freshman Foundation podcast. Normally, I have guests on the show, who share their experience and expertise in talking about the transition from high school to college athletics and various aspects of the mental and emotional side of sport. But, you know, in this episode, I'm going to talk to you just on my own, I haven't really shared much about myself. And I feel like it's important to do that as we sort of come to a close here in 2021. We've posted almost 30 episodes, and every episode I'm fond of, and the people who've come on and shared with the community, to help others be their best and to navigate the very bumpy transition from high school to college athletics. But I think it's maybe lost on some of the people who listen who don't know me, how I got to this point, and what I'm about what I do, and just sort of how that all ties back into the concept for the podcast? So for those of you don't know me, mental performance coaching, sports psychology is my second career. I spent almost 20 years in business consulting, working with large companies and traveling and going with a lot of very different and important people and seeing a lot of places, which is very cool. But it never really satisfied my desire to work in sports, which is always a goal of mine for many, many years that I never fulfilled up until now. But also the desire to help other people in a more fundamental way. So about 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more, I started to rethink my career, my life, what I wanted it to be, I was in started in recovery for a compulsive gambling addiction, which was over nine years ago now. And through that process, I started to realize there was something missing in my life. And, you know, the help that I got from other people, in that process of recovery inspired me to want to help others too. Because in that case, I had people help me who had no skin in the game. They didn't know me, they weren't getting paid to do it. They just wanted to see me make my life better and that really inspired me. And I've had the opportunity, you know, gratefully to help others in recovery and be a part of that process for other people. So I'm grateful for that. But it wanted it to extend to my professional life, because I felt like there was just a lot of value in that. And it took me a number of years sort of get to the point where not only did I figure out that I wanted to be in the sports psychology field, but also just work through the process of leaving a career where I had built up 20 years of equity and income and reputation and start all over was a really challenging thing to do. But I went back to school in 2017 and I got my Master's degree in Sports Psychology took me about three years and in 2020, the beginning of 2020. I graduated officially, of course, right around the start of COVID. In the lockdowns and all the stuff that is made us so I don't know, just consumed in the last year and a half, I started practice working with young athletes on one on one basis. And I'm really proud of that fact that I stepped into this new field when things were really, really challenging. It gave me the opportunity to invest in my practice and invest in my clients and I kind of tempered my expectations. But a year and a half later, I have almost 30 podcasts. I probably have almost 20 clients that I deal with on and off. And I feel like I've helped be better. And so it's been a great journey and the Freshman Foundation was born out of some of my experiences in my graduate school internship. So I had worked in a high school athletic program for a couple of years. And you know, shout out and thanks to Mike Murray, from St. Joe's High School in touch in New Jersey who brought me on sight unseen almost, to come on and be an intern in his athletic program and work with his baseball team and work with the basketball team and I've made so many have really good relationships and good friends through that experience. And I'm very grateful to St. Joe's and coach Chan who coaches basketball, everybody, there has just been really awesome to me. So, in working there, I had the opportunity to work with some really high level athletes, a number of whom have gone on to college sports, specifically baseball players. A couple of division one guys, a division three guy guys, I became very close to and who I worked with one on one. And I just watched their transition and their growth and maturity. And it got me curious about what that transition from high school to college looks like, because you've got these players in high school who are super, super talented and lauded and, you know, well above the curve in terms of their ability level. But then moving on to the next level, you know, it's not going to be the same. You know, you're going from the old big fish in a small pond to what I've had heard termed, you know, a medium sized fish in a big pond, which I think is right. Like, you just become, in a lot of ways just become average, when you go into college, especially when you go into college at that division one level where everybody's just as good as you are everybody was a high school star, everybody is highly recruited. And so you know, what's that look like? And that that made me curious. And I went through the COVID transition with those baseball players who season got canceled. And rather than working on, you know, sort of on the field stuff, we were working on the mental element of getting ready for the transition to college in a lot of cases. And so that's sort of what inspired the podcast. And I felt like in the spirit of helping others, bringing people on to interview and get their wisdom and their knowledge and their experiences about that transition was way more valuable than me talking into a microphone by myself. And I still absolutely wholeheartedly stand by that decision. I love my guests, and they bring so much to the table. And they also allow me to be curious about that process. And so, you know, I want to keep going and I thought today was a good opportunity. Again, we're in December, I'm recording in December, I'm hoping to drop this in the next couple of weeks. You know, it's a good time to reflect and let people know who listen or see my social media posts or read my blog post or see my website to kind of speak in my own words about who I am? You know, in addition to being a business person, and practice practitioner, and now a certified mental performance consultant through the applied association of applied sports psychology, I'm a father of two. I'm divorced, my kids are 13 and 11. So they're in the age range in terms of athletics and you know, things are getting harder and I see some of those things as a sport parent, and I try to apply my training and my logic and wisdom, to being a sports parent, which always doesn't always work because of the emotion involved. Like I said, I've been in recovery and that's a big part of who I am. And I have started to speak openly about that. But I'm also an athlete, I played baseball, and football and basketball in high school, and I played baseball for over 15 years in adulthood. Really learning more about the game in my 20s, 30s and 40s, and I did probably when I was in my teens, and I'm really grateful for that. And I made some great friends, and I've learned so much from guys who are way better baseball players than I was. And that's been awesome. And I've run marathons and I like to think of myself as a competitor and a learner. And I hope that comes out in these conversations, you know, what I'm asking people questions. And I think at the end of the day, I just more than anything, I believe in people. I believe in young people, I believe in older people. I I've seen myself at the depths of my sort of my character in the depths of my you know, I've just been in some really bad spots at times in my life, and I've been able to recover from that. And, you know, not that was easy. It took a lot of hard work and frankly, humility and honesty, to look in the mirror and say like, hey man, you got to get your act together. But I believe in other people and I want to see them succeed and I don't ever see any want to see anybody have to go through the things that I went through. Not that they didn't make me stronger they did and I'm grateful for all my experiences. But that doesn't mean other people need to suffer the same fate in order to be successful. So that's a little bit more about who I am. But I think at the end of the day, you know, I have a real affinity for young people and young athletes, because when I look back on my own athletic experience, it didn't turn out the way that I wanted it to, for a lot of reasons and I've made peace with that. You know, some of it was just a lack of understanding. I had a lack of understanding, my parents had a lack of understanding, lack of resources, we really didn't have the wherewithal or money to do a lot of the things that athletes do now. I had coaches who were wonderful people, but were limited in their understanding of the college process, and their willingness to sort of help athletes through that. So there are a lot of reasons why I didn't ascend to the levels of athletics that I wanted to, or that I think I could have quite frankly, looking back if I had the resources that a lot of the clients that I work with now had in terms of fitness, and individual coaching, mental skills, training, etc, technology, etc, etc. I think it would have been a very different experience for me. That being said, I want to be able to help those people get to where they want to go, to see them succeed, get those scholarships, to maybe get the chance to play professionally, to live a dream. And I think one of the things that I'm very adamant about with my athletes is that it's their experience, it's their responsibility. I'm not here to tell you what to do as a mental performance coach, I'm not here to give you my opinion, although maybe I will in certain instances, I'm here to give you tools. And you can make choices with those tools as to whether or not you want to be great. Do you want to invest in your mental game, and work on those mental and emotional strategies that will allow you to get to where you want to go? You know, and a lot of what I do, people think of confidence first and that's a big part of mental skills coaching is helping athletes build and maintain confidence, which can be fleeting. But for me, it's really more about the ability to cope with failure, and the ability to keep a neutral thinking. So Seattle Seahawks Quarterback, Russell Wilson, talks about neutral thinking, and he used to work with a mental performance coach named Trevor Moawad [inaudible 12:43], who recently passed away unexpectedly, but neutral thinking is his thing. And they talk about not necessarily being overly positive or artificially positive, but certainly not being negative. And ideally, being neutral, where we're looking at situations and look at them for what they are being mindful of what's really happening. You know, that's why I teach mindfulness to my athletes, because for me the awareness of what's going on. And the ability to be non-judgmental, in the reality of a situation allows us to act and perform as we're trained, and we don't let the emotions get the best of us. So being mindful, being present, being able to cope with adversity, and be neutral is huge, and that's the foundation of my teaching. And I think what I find for a lot of athletes is young athletes is perfectionism is rampant. Perfectionism absolutely pervades every single age group, whether it's my nine year old client, who has those tendencies, or if it's my 21 year old client, who also has those tendencies. Young athletes have this proclivity almost to a person to look at themselves and say, I should have done this, I shouldn't have made that mistake, how did I do this, there's something wrong with me. And they all have it at some volume, amplitude of some people, it's manageable, some people it's debilitating. And I don't want that perfectionism to take over. And I think giving them the skills to neutralize it and to sort of modify and sort of moderate the thinking to a more neutral place is critical. The other piece of it that's really critical for me is motivation. Because what I find is those who are most successful in mental performance practice and in athletics generally are self-motivated, intrinsically motivated, as we might say, in the sports psychology lingo. The motivation to be better, to improve, to work, to participate, to perform is all inside or mostly inside. Obviously, we're all motivated by outside stuff, you know, recognition, rewards, money, all those things. But at the end of the day, we're willing to put in the work and forego the short term sacrifices. I mean, forego the short term benefits for a long term play. And those are the athletes that are most successful. And a lot of young people don't have that down yet, and I try to help them understand the motivation. Why am I doing this? What's my purpose? You know, how do I make it sustainable? How do I make it about me, which is why I let them make their choices, and I let them know it's okay, no matter what you do, it's okay. If I ask you to work on something, and you don't do it, it's okay. But just understand there's going to be a consequence, and I think that that's really critical. And that gives them agency. And I think for a lot of adults, and this is not, and as a parent, I can say I'm guilty of this, and certainly not an indictment, because I think it's just human nature. But I think a lot of adults, whether it's coaches, or parents tend to be on the controlling side. They want to control the outcomes for their children, and they try to dictate what it is they do and don't do, because they want them to be successful. And they see the consequences in the long term, I want you to get a scholarship, I want you to have good grades, I want you to go get a job, I want you to do this and that the other thing, and I get that. I mean, we all want the best for our kids, and I want the best for my not only my own children, but the kids that I work with, they're like my children. I treat them like my children. You know, I care about them like my children. I'm invested in their success. But the difference is, is that whether they succeed or not, I'm not worried about, I just want them to be okay and happy, and wanting them to be able to look at themselves in the mirror, so that they can say they did everything they could to be successful. And if it doesn't work out, that's all right, I still got your back. But that's hard for adults. So trying to build in some of those positive motivational strategies and giving the young athlete a little bit more perspective, and giving them an outlet and unbiased outlet to express themselves. So that some of the burdens that they wear, if they're not performing the way somebody wants them to, or they're not living up to expectations, they can sort of get that off their chest and figure out in a way with somebody else who's got their back, hey, how do we work our way out of this? So, you know, in a client session where most of my work is done at the individual level, which I, I love because you really get to know somebody really well. And a big part of what we do as mental performance coaches is build trust. To build the trust, especially with a young person can be really hard. But once that trust is there, they buy in, and they understand that whatever it is that I'm asking them to do, or teaching them is for their benefit, it's not for my benefit. So what are the things that we do to help them right, I mentioned some of them, right? I usually almost always start with mindfulness, you know, as age appropriate, you know, getting used to sitting still with your thoughts and getting practice in not judging the crazy things that go through our head every day, myself included. I tell them, the human brain is, you know, thinks 50 to 60,000 thoughts every day that we can't control. But we do have control over what we do with them and learning how to manage those thoughts is critical. And I tell them that, hey, our brains are predisposed to threat. They're predisposed to danger. And everything we see as a threat, the alarm bells go off. That's just the way we're wired our amygdala, the part of the brain that senses fear. You know, some will call it the lizard brain, some will call it the chimp brain, whatever it is like that dominates, you know, in all of the executive functioning that is not fully developed for a teenager gets overwhelmed sometimes by the fear, and the emotion that comes with being an athlete that comes with being an adolescent, dealing with parents and school and friends and relationships and all those things like the adolescent brain can get overwhelmed. So teaching them to be mindful and having them practice that is so critical, because it builds the awareness, it builds that kind of insulation to say, like, hey, everything that happens is even if it's a threat, it's not a dire threat, and then we can think more clearly and logically about Okay, now, what are we going to do next to make a change, to make sure that we're not going off the deep end? But in addition to that, we're working on our goals a lot of the times to understand what it is we want to accomplish, and what are we doing on a daily basis in that process to achieve those goals? I can say I want to be an all-state player in some sport, but am I doing the things that line up with that? And if I'm not able to check those boxes every day, the likelihood that I'm going to achieve my goal is pretty slim. Unless I'm just an extraordinary athlete with God given ability that's largely out of our control. You know, we work on our routines. Do I have a routine when I wake up? Do I have a routine before the game? Do I have a routine after the game? Do I have a routine in the game? Because when we have sustainable routines that we practice, that gives our brain more bandwidth to operate, we're not getting bogged down with fears and thoughts and emotions. And we're just on, we're going our brain is operating automatically, because we have a protocol and that allows our body to do what we want it to do. Because a lot of the athletes that I work with who are 15, 16, 17, 18 are expert. They've been playing their sport, soccer, baseball, you name it for probably 10 plus years. They're experts, they've done it tens of thousands of times. They don't need to manage the physical, the mechanical, the biomechanical elements of their sport, what they need to be able to do is put those thoughts and emotions to the side, so their body can just do what it needs to do. And sometimes we have to learn how to manage that. And I can't tell you how many times I've worked with athletes who've told me, hey, like, things have slowed down for me? Or like, I'm able to manage this, like I used to snap or I used to get really wound up. And now it doesn't happen as fast like I'm able to catch myself and I have the same experience. When I started practicing mindfulness. You know, when I started in recovery, it took a while. But what I started to realize is when stuff happened to me, right outside of me, it took a lot longer for it to get under my skin. I was able to absorb it, see it for what it was and not overreact. And I think that having that skill, as a young athlete, young person in any area of our life is huge. And I really try hard to share that information and share those tools with my athletes so that when they go off on their own, and invariably they do, whether it's when they leave high school, whether they stop working with me whether they go on to a life beyond sports, they're able to operate on their own, because they have this set of tools, a toolbox, as I'll often describe it to them that they can pull from, they can take the hammer out when they need it, and they can take the screwdriver out when they need it, and they can take the pliers out when they need them and they can use all three at the same time if they need to. Because they become proficient at managing their mental game. And that's my job, you know, that's my job is to help put them out into the world and give them the resources that maybe they don't have, or they don't learn or just haven't really focused on. And I take great pride in that and I love helping all people and I've taken on an older client now somebody who's well beyond high school years and college years. And, you know, that's also a satisfaction that I have regardless of age, it doesn't matter helping people that want to get better makes me feel better about myself. It makes me feel like I have purpose makes me feel like I'm giving back. But ideally, I want to work with the 12 to 22 year old athlete. Those are really important formative years, in terms of cognitive development, in terms of emotional development, in terms of athletic development. And I feel like, if I had one of those clients on and I have actually my first episode I had a former client on I'd say he's former now he's out on his own in college pitching Division One baseball. He was on my podcast, and I can say that I got so much out of serving him, and because he wanted to be the best he could be. And I just get so much from working with the group and I want to understand them better. Because I think one of the things that I realize is that young people want to be treated with respect. They want to be seen as people and not as just athletes. And one of the things I say which is a total oversimplification, and I'm a parent, so I have sports kids. But what I say is, as soon as I or any parent judges their young person's athletic performance, the first thing the kid thinks is you don't love me, is that true? Of course not. Is it an over exaggeration maybe. But there underdeveloped brains and emotions are thinking like, all they care about is that I play well, and if I don't play well, they don't care about me. And so I think seeing young people for the, who they are in totality is really, really important, and I try to do that. And so that sort of speaks to some of my core values. Like, one of the core values that I have is intent over content, what does that mean? Content, we're focused on the efficacy of the skills. Are we doing this? Are you building these skills? Are you good at it? Are you mastering the mental game? Yeah, that matters. I mean, if we're not able to teach these skills well and help athletes implement them, they're kind of useless, that's part of it. But what's my intention in doing it? Do I show them that I care about them that I love them that I want them to be their best, regardless of how they perform on the field? If I show that they're more likely to buy into me as somebody who they trust, and then they're more likely to do the work, and they're more likely to apply it, and they're more likely to get better. So the relationship comes before the technical side of what I do. I'm a firm believer in that there are so many people, competent people in my field, who know how to deliver the education skills trainings, you know, with more experience and better than I do. But at the same time, if we can’t connect with the clients that we work with young people that we work with, nothing's ever going to get absorbed. It's really, to me just so critical. I always put the person first, and that's very similar putting the person before the performer. Not judging them, or focusing only on them as athletes, but really seeing them for who they are as people? What are the all the other elements of their lives? Is it, you know, letting them know, it's okay, that you know that they're not performing as well as they can be because stuff happens. There's so much stuff out of their control, and all of our control. And that's one of the things we do all the time, I start with, what can we control and can't control. And it's very simplistic, and I think it's very obvious in a lot of ways, but we don't really think about it. There's so much that we can't control as performers, judging ourselves so harshly for things that we can't control is just not, it's not reasonable. And it also makes us feel bad about ourselves, which also leads to bad performance. I like to think of myself as a strength space coach. So emphasizing what you do well as a performer, rather than highlighting deficiencies and trying to put a bandaid on deficiencies or fill those gaps. Obviously, there are things that we always want to work on and get better at. But I want the athlete to look at themselves and say, hey, I do these things really, really well, and I wouldn't have gotten to the point I'm at without them. So give myself some credit and taking the edge off some of the self-criticism in the perfectionism like I said, it's so rampant. At the same time, I want them to be accountable. I hold myself accountable, and I think this is something that I really believe in as an adult, the parent as a coaches. Holding myself accountable to young people, and being willing to say that I'm sorry for making a mistake. Because I think a lot of times, adults don't feel like they have to take responsibility to young people, because they're the adults. And they don't have to explain themselves, or that's the way that they learned or were coached. And I don't believe that, I believe that if I'm not living up to my end of the bargain, or I'm serving somebody in a way that's not in their best interest, then I need to take responsibility for that. And then in turn, I try to model that behavior for my clients. So I want them to be accountable, be honest. I don't care if you didn't do something, but take responsibility for it, don't blame somebody else. Because you have full control over the work you put into this process. And, you know, if you're not doing the work again, that's okay. But you need to take accountability for yourself and I'm a big believer in that and I try to be compassionate. But at the same time, if I understand, if I identify that somebody is trying to make an excuse or blame somebody else for something that was in their control, I'm going to call them out on it. And I think ultimately, it's about being authentic. Being myself, sharing myself, sharing my story, sometimes I've over shared, it's something that I struggle with a lot when I was going through my training, the idea of self-disclosing, you know, sharing my life with people sharing personal aspects of my life, can it be too much and I've had an experience recently about that. And when I was talking about being treated for generalized anxiety disorder with a client, young underage client. And, you know, the only reason I shared it with him is because I wanted to understand that there are options. But at the same time, I'm very influential and it kind of came back to bite me. And I recognize that maybe it's not something I should have shared, but I feel like the authenticity and if it's coming from a good a place of good intent, then it's worth the risk. What we would call in the field, it would be you know, a boundary, challenging a boundary versus crossing a boundary. Sometimes we challenge boundaries because, we know it might be a risky move but the benefits outweigh the costs. Sometimes we blatantly cross a boundary when we shouldn't have. And in this case, I don't think that's what I did. So I tried to be really open and honest with my clients to again, be a role model for them. So, you know, ultimately, the purpose of this episode was to share more of myself, because I think if you're listening to the podcast, you're getting little tidbits of who I am in our conversations. But I'm keeping the spotlight off myself and purposely so. But I also think it's a lot more valuable when you listen to understand where it is I'm coming from and why I'm so curious and why I ask the questions that I do, and why do I bring on the guests that I bring on? It's all with the intent of bringing value to the listener, who is struggling with some of the elements that come into transitioning from high school to college and some of the pressures that they feel and some of the pressures that they feel when they transition to college. And there's just so many angles to look at this subject matter from and I'm really invested in it. And I want it to be clear where I'm coming from, and who I am, and why I might be somebody worth listening to? So with all that said, I appreciate the opportunity to share about myself for 30 minutes or so. Hopefully, all of you found this whoever's listening, and I do have people who listen, but I don't assume that people listen, because you know, well, I can't control who listens. And two, I just never know if what I have to say is super interesting or valuable. But needless to say, I'm grateful for the opportunity to share. And I'm grateful that I have the wherewithal and confidence now to put myself out there and be vulnerable and humble. You know, not knowing what the result is going to be. And it's something I think I strive to teach my young athletes, and I try to be a role model. So hopefully, what I shared was useful and valuable. If you want to get to know more about me, you can check out my websites. It's Michael, V as in Vincent, huber.com (H-U-B-E-R), freshmanfoundation.com as well. You can reach out to me directly by email. My primary email address is michael@ftbcoaching.com. And to anybody who's interested in learning more about what I do with clients on an individual basis in terms of mental performance coaching, what I do in terms of transitioning, I'm looking to get into a little bit more coaching, consulting for parents, parent mentorship, sports, and parent mentorship, and helping them. I get a lot of questions from parents, about their children and how to talk to them and what they should be doing? What they should be asking, and how do they carry themselves? Because you know, it's a lot distress. The stress level for parents is going up. There's more competitiveness, there's more kind of fear of missing out, there's more self-consciousness and more money being spent. And I think parents are really confused sometimes by about the whole sport process, but we don't know how to back away from it. So if you're a parent who's interested in learning more for yourself, please reach out and schedule a free strategy session. You can do that through certainly through my freshmanfoundation.com website, or just reach out to me and let me know how you can do that. So this was wonderful. I'm really happy to share and I look forward to seeing you back in 2022 with more great guests and hopefully some more insight and hope everybody has a wonderful holiday. Take care.