The Freshman Foundation® helps young athletes BE READY for every next step in the game of life through mental performance coaching.
This episode is the first part of a two-part "Ask Me Anything" edition of the podcast. I answer commonly asked questions about my mental performance coaching work.
Some of the questions that we cover include:
What is mental performance coaching?
Why should you work with a mental performance coach?
What mental skills do I teach?
How do you regain my composure after making a mistake?
How do you get off the emotional roller coaster of my sport?
Why did I get into the sport psychology field?
To learn more about how mental performance coaching can help you BE READY for the next step in your life, visit https://michaelvhuber.com
Hey, everyone. It's Mike Eber, founder and CEO of the Freshman Foundation. Welcome to the Freshman Foundation
podcasts, where we help young athletes be ready for every next step in the game of life through mental performance
coaching. If you listen to the podcast, you know that most of my episodes are interview style, so I usually have a
guest on that I talk talk to to help them sort of help us uncover some of the issues. That are associated or the
challenges that are associated with the various transitions in a young athlete's life, whether it's from high
school to college and college to pro or transitioning out of sport. But I always try to bring on someone who's an
expert in the field to sort of shed some light on some of the issues that we have. But today I'm going to do
something a little different. I'm probably going to do my third or fourth solo podcast, kind of playing around
with something new and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to talk to you today. Today I'm going to do
it in the podcast and ask me anything format or a question and answer style. Format, really. Just trying to
uncover some of the common questions I get from young athletes and their families, from their parents coaches
about what it is that I do. So I'm just going to sort of take it from there and get started. So I'm looking
forward to sharing with you. So the first question I typically just get is simply what is mental performance
coaching? And I guess the simplest way that I could put that is I help young athletes learn how to use their minds
for them rather than against them. And so what I mean by that is that a lot of times when we get to high school,
even young athletes are what I would consider to be expert, right? They start playing their sport a lot of times
when they're five or six years old, they've been playing for ten plus years. They've got thousands and thousands
of repetitions and games and experience and hours and hours of experience under their belt. So they're really
expert by the time they get to high school, so their body knows automatically what to do, right? And a lot of them
are really high level performers because if you're not by the time you've gotten to high school and you're a
varsity competitor, in most cases you're better than the vast majority of your peers, right? So you're there for a
reason. You're really, really good. And the reason why athletes have a hard time performing the way they want to a
lot of times is because their mind is creating the roadblocks that get in the way of their body doing what it does
naturally, right? And so my job is to help them find ways to move the mind to the side so that they can go out and
be themselves, right? And so we do that in a variety of ways. But for me, the primary way I do that is through one
on one coaching, right? And so the way I usually describe it is it's sort of part counseling. I'm not a therapist,
I'm not a clinical psychologist, but there is an element of counseling in the work that I do, which means we're
going to talk about stuff, right? I'm going to ask you questions, I'm going to try to understand you, try to get
your point of view, kind of understand what you're going through. That's a big part of my work. And then once I
have a clear understanding of where you're coming from as an athlete, then I could start to devise strategies or
proposed solutions. Skills, work on skills, things that are going to help you to get better at the mental side of
your game, right? So it's really understanding and then it's also prescription and giving you things to do. But I
want to be clear in saying my form of mental performance coaching is not formulaic, it's not a system, it's not a
process in that everybody is different, right? I might employ some of the same skills with different athletes, but
it's done in a very different way. It's done to help you solve your problem uniquely. It's not meant to be a
cookie cutter, right? If you go do X, Y and Z that I'm prescribing to you, then you're going to be okay. That's
just not how it works. So it very much needs to be a trusting and a mutually engaged process. So that's why I love
the work that I do and I'll talk more about why I got into sports psychology later. But I love my work because I
get to know my clients in a very intimate way, in a trusting and unique way. And so that helps me help them and I
find a lot of fulfillment in that. So with that another question I get very similar to that or sort of an add on
is like, okay, so what kinds of mental skills do you teach? Like what am I going to learn or what am I going to be
able to take out of this? And I think to start, I would say it always depends on a, what you need and two, what
your wants are what your goals are. Right? But by and large, there are a number of skills that we can teach to get
outcomes. Like confidence. I want to be more confident, which is such a common one, right? For some athletes to be
more confident, they need to be able to have better self talk. That internal dialogue needs to be more positive or
more direct, less negative, whatever, right? Everybody's different. Everybody responds to different things. But
for some people, self talk is what resonates, right? For some people, it's the images, it's the visuals, right? So
imagery is a skill or visualization is a skill that I teach, a question I'll always ask, or I typically ask my
clients, is like, how do you like to learn new things, right? Whether it's in school or on the field or on the
court or whatever, right? And a lot of people will say, I'd like to see it and then do it, right? Well, seeing it.
Imagery is a skill that's a great one because when you learn how to see things vividly in your mind, your brain
starts to believe that you're actually doing the physical repetition when you're not. So you have the ability to
develop this skill where you're getting mental repetitions right off the field. That's really particularly useful
for injured athletes who are away from action, away from competition, but have the ability to see themselves doing
things that they want to do and creating. That what we would call a neural pathway in the brain, right? This sort
of like groove in the brain that says, like, hey, I'm actually practicing this even though I can't be out there
doing it. So that has a lot of benefits, right? It starts to give you more confidence to see yourself doing
something. It gives you more motivation to say, hey, I can do this, or I see myself doing this. I want to keep
going forward rather than feeling maybe hopeless. Right? So self talk and imagery, goal setting is a very, very
common one. And we use goal setting for a variety of reasons. Motivation is one, right? How do I get motivated?
How do I keep my focus? How do I feel? Confident. Am I moving towards something I want to achieve? Am I getting
progress? Right? So that's another one. Breathing is one that I'll teach, right? For athletes particularly, that
maybe have some sort of performance anxiety or struggle with kind of keeping their focus in high pressure
situations, breathing is a great way to regulate yourself. What I mean by that is you take a deep breath in
through the nose and out through the mouth and there are obviously different ways to breathe and practice that,
but it has the effect of reducing your heart rate, right? When your heart starts to speed up, I can slow it down.
Have control of that by managing my breathing. Managing your breathing, it relaxes your muscles and then that
muscle to mind strategy, what we would call it, right? The body to the mind is then sending a signal to the brain
to sort of relax and sort of clear itself out, right? So breathing, while very simple and maybe even obvious
because there's so much talk in sports about taking a deep breath, but a lot of times we don't explain why you
need that breath, right, to relax the muscles, to slow the heart, to clear the mind. That's a skill, right. And
probably the most common skill that I teach to young athletes, and it's my favorite and I think it's my opinion,
right? This is just how I practice my opinion. The most important foundational skill is being able to practice
mindfulness. And what do I mean by that? So mindfulness is really the skill is about being present in the current
in the moment, right? In the current moment, in the present moment, without judgment, being completely attuned to
what's happening right now. Right. What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What's happening in front of me right
now? Getting really good at putting that one pointed attention or one pointed focus on what's the most important
thing I need to do right now is be where my feet are. I need to go compete right now. Regardless of whether the
last 30 minutes of this game have been complete, a complete disaster, or whether or not the state championship is
online. Right. The way I'm going to perform the best is to be current in the moment. How do we do that? Well,
that's not natural for us as human beings because our brains are wired to protect us from threats, detect threats,
scan them. Right? Like, well, what if I go miss that shot? How am I going to feel? Well, I'm not going to take
that shot because I'm going to feel like crap if I miss it. So our brain wants to sort of pull us back from taking
risks or what did you just do on that last play? Coach is going to yank you out. Be prepared for that. Now you're
focused on something that happened in the past. You have to be able to stay in the moment to achieve what a lot of
people might term being in the zone or being in a flow state. If you're somewhere else, past or present, and
you're not focused on what you're doing right now, it's going to be really hard to get the most out of your
ability. Right? So the way I typically teach that and there are different forms of mindfulness, but the way I
typically teach that is through practicing meditation. So I suggest that my clients practice meditation. And what
that does is help them to be able to learn how to identify, label, identify and label their thoughts so that the
recognition part gets really strong. And so when we're in those stressful situations and we can recognize our
brain sending us a thought that's intended to protect us, but it's a lie or it's not accurate, we're able to
identify it and not not get caught up in it, but let it go and be like, no, that doesn't matter right now. I need
to be right here. Where I am is where my feet are. Where I am is what's in front of me, where's the ball, what's
about to happen, what do I need to do to execute the next play? Right? So practicing mindfulness and meditation is
a huge part of what I ask athletes to do, because if you're not aware, self aware and steeped in sort of what's
happening right now, it's going to be really hard to not let your mind take over. So that's something I love to
teach and that's something I will teach almost everybody. So another question I get is why should I work with you?
Why should I work with a mental performance coach? And I think it's a self serving answer for me, which everybody
can stand and work on their mind. And most young athletes, when I ask them how much time they spend in the gym or
in the weight room or whatever on their sport, it's probably 2030, 40 hours a week, right. It's like the number
one thing that they're spending time on. And then when I ask them how much time they're spending on their mind,
they basically say zero. I mean, 99.9% of the time, nobody actively works on their mind. Right. And so to me,
there's a really clear gap in helping athletes because I think even if you put one or 2 hours a week in working on
your mental game, that return on investment, which is brand new, is going to be huge to you. That being said, not
everyone's ready or believes that they need mental performance coaching, right? So I think the first thing I would
say is you should work with me if you are being honest with yourself about whether or not you need to improve your
mental game, right. If you don't believe that you need to work with somebody and that your mind is in the right
place, then you probably don't need to work with me. Right. But I think what I find is most athletes and I can
sort of draw my own experiences as an athlete, right. I know that looking back in retrospect, I probably needed
someone to help me with my mental game when I was in high school or even as an adult when I've competed. But I've
resisted it for whatever reason or I didn't know it was there. But I want to kind of do everything myself. And I
think that that's a natural default setting for all of us, right, trying to do things on our own. But if you've
gotten to the point where you're like, well, I'm really struggling with this, I've tried to solve the problem on
my own and it's not working and I can't do it on my own anymore. I need someone to help me. That would be the time
to explore working with a mental performance coach. And I think people ask about what's the right fit? What should
I look for? And there are sort of technical answers I could give. I'm a certified mental performance consultant.
I'm accredited by the association of Applied Sports Psychology. And I believe that somebody with a CMPC
designation is likely to be more qualified to work with an athlete than someone who's not. But that doesn't mean
you can't find someone without that designation to be helpful. Right? I think it's more about the connection you
see with that or you feel with that person. Right? Can I trust them? Do they understand me? Are they going to be
able to help me get to where they want to go? And I think when you're looking for someone to work with, I think
you want to understand and ask those good questions of like, hey, what are you all about? Why do you do this? How
are you going to help me? What should I expect? What's expected of me? Right. Like anything else, when you go into
a partnership, whether it's with a coach, an instructional coach, a strength and conditioning coach, a mental
performance coach, any relationship you have in your life, you want to explore that and understand, is this person
a fit for me? And I think that that's it. If you're honest with yourself that you need someone to help you, that's
the first step. And then when you explore it, I think it's then looking for the right person to fit. Because if
the connection is not there or that person doesn't understand you, or they're trying to push a system or force a
system on you that doesn't resonate with you, then it's going to be a waste of your time and potentially money. So
there are a lot of reasons to why to work with the mental performance coach, but I think those are the most
important for me. People often want to know, why did I get into sports psychology? So I'll talk a little bit about
my experience of moving into sports psychology in mid career. So I went back to school for my master's degree in
sports psychology in 2017. So six years ago at that time, I was 42, 42 years old. I just turned 42. I had been in
another field for quite some time, and about 15 or 16 years into that first career, so to speak, I really started
to question my existence. Why am I doing this? I'm really good at what I do, and I make a good living, and I could
stick with this forever and make a really good living and kind of ride it out until retirement and, you know, live
a good life. So why would I walk away from that and start over? And and the answer for me really is I knew I
wanted to do something more meaningful with my life. And to get to that conclusion completely and get to sports
psychology took me some time. It was a process. I knew that I wanted to do something different probably three or
four years before I even went back to school. But it took me some time to sort of wrap my head around a, what I
wanted to do with my next career, and B, how I was going to get there, like, how I was going to walk away from a
very good income to move to sports psychology, and ultimately the conclusion that I draw. There were three things
that I wanted to get out of my career. One is first and foremost, I wanted to help people. That was it for me. And
I worked in a career where I was helping people, but they were employed by businesses that made millions and
billions of dollars. And those people were part of that process and part of the cog in the wheel. And I wanted to
have a more meaningful impact on people's lives. And so this one to one coaching world was really appealing to me.
I tend to thrive in that environment, and I found that to be true even six years later, since the day I went to
school. Being one to one with people and really being able to connect and understand them is a strength of mine.
So that was number one, helping other people. Second was I wanted to do something in sports. I mean, I was athlete
my whole life. Growing up through adulthood, sports were always such a big part of my life. I knew even back at an
early age, even in my earlier in my career, I always had this itch to work in sports, but I just didn't know how
to get there. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't know how to find my way in. When I was younger, I
probably thought it was impractical. There were so many reasons why I never got into it. But at the point in my
life where I was in my late 30s, early forty s, I was more resourceful, so to speak. I knew it was an option, but
I had to find it, and I was willing to go look for it. But ultimately, I wanted to be in sports. Right? And then
the third factor was I wanted to be able to do something where I worked for myself, where I had more control over
my career, my destiny, what it looked like after 20 years of being an employee. And so I put those three things
together, and then I went to go look for a career that fit that criteria, and that was sports psychology, sports
helping, and then I could have my own practice. All of those things have sort of come to life because I was
intentional about it, and I've put the work in to get to this place. So I love what I do because I get to help
people. And what I say to young people, or I say to the parents of young people, is sports psychology, mental
performance coaching is sort of a conduit to asking for help in broader ways. Right? It's much easier to talk
about my challenges and my issues and my concerns and the way I feel in the sporting context than it is in a
global context of like, oh, I'm feeling crappy today, I can't get out of bed. Obviously, it's really important to
talk about those things, but sometimes we don't want to talk about it. But when we talk about it in the
performance context, now all of a sudden it's like, well, I'm talking about these things to you openly with the
goal of being a better athlete. And that just tends to make more sense to young people. And so I just view it as a
privilege to be able to serve them in that respect and be not only a mental performance coach to them and help
them with their minds, but sort of be a mentor and a guide through life. And that's why I'm so interested in
transition. So that kind of leads me to the next question a lot of people ask. What's? The freshman foundation.
How did it come to so, you know, the Freshman Foundation was born probably like five or six years ago in my mind.
I had been working at a high school, doing my internships, working with high school athletes. So I was working
with high school baseball and basketball teams, and I was working with high school athletes who were going on to
play in college. They weren't there yet, but they were committed to play. And I started to wonder what it was
going to look like for them when they got to college, right. In high school, if you're a college committed
athlete, particularly if you're a d one committed athlete, you tend to be head and shoulders above your peers. And
so that comes with a lot of pats on the back, a lot of accolades. Things may become really easy for you. You get
great results. And then it led me to wonder, like, well, what's going to happen when everybody is the same in
college? How is that person who's going from high school to college going to deal with the Adversity? How are they
going to deal with failure? How are they going to deal with maybe not being a starter? How are they going to deal
with fitting in with a new team and taking on new academic challenges? There's so many things that are unknown
when we go to college. And I experienced those things, and I wasn't even a student athlete in college. And there
are a lot of reasons why that was too. And I think that's the other thing I think just to sort of sidebar on that
is I think there are a lot of high school student athletes who are very capable of going to college to play and
choose not to or don't have the resources to, right? So just because someone doesn't go to college or doesn't want
to compete doesn't mean that they're not good. But the ones who choose to take on that challenge are taking on a
pretty significant burden, right? And so how are they going to be ready for that challenge? And so in my mind, it
was like, well, is there something we can do, I can do to help prepare them before they get there, right? And I
didn't know the answers then, and frankly, I don't really know the answers now, but I have a much better idea of
the types of things, the types of skills that might be needed to succeed when you get there and to prepare before
you get there. So in 20 17, 20, 18, 20, 19, I started to think about it. I'd sketched out a logo. I had some ideas
about what it would look like, and I started the podcast with that idea in mind, like, hey, let's explore this and
see what it takes to be really good in making that transition and talking to people who are in it either. Whether
they're athletes who have done it or are going to do it, whether they're coaches, whether they're experts who sort
of support people in the transition space. All those things sort of came to my mind and I wanted to learn more
about it. And I have. And that sort of led me to today, which is I've learned over 60 plus podcasts, through
research, through conversations, through my work with high school athletes who are going to college and college
athletes who've been there. I put that into my course, and the course was launched on August 1 of 2023, so not
almost a month ago. And I'm really proud of that, in that I was able to sort of start with a question, start with
hypothesis about, you know, what it is it takes to succeed when you get to college from high school. And I've been
able to put something together that I think is really valuable to young athletes to help them prepare. Is it
perfect? I don't know. Is it helpful? I don't know. I'm trying to find that out. But I think that I've
incorporated the expertise that I have as a mental performance coach, aggregated that with the information I've
collected from people who are smarter than me, and put it into a package to say, hey, this is something you could
do to prepare yourself before you get to college. So I'm pretty excited about that, and hopefully that's something
you'll be able to check out in the future. This is when I get all the time, you know, the the comment or the
observation is, I feel like I'm always on a roller coaster with my sport. How do I get off? Right? And so this is
something I talk to athletes about all the time, right? There's sort of these really major ups and downs, really
big swings that a lot of athletes experience, right? They sort of ride the high of I'll use baseball as an example
because I do a lot of work with baseball players. They ride sort of this hot streak of like, man, I'm seeing the
ball like a beach ball. I can't make it out right? It's great. And then all of a sudden, that turns, and then all
of a sudden, it doesn't turn to well, I'm going back to sort of normal performance. I crater completely. And I had
this experience myself as a high school baseball player where I started out my senior season extremely hot, and
then I tanked to the lowest of low that you could imagine. And then I came back up and I ended up on extremely
high note and I finished my career that way, which was nice, but I gave away the middle part of a season because I
couldn't master my mind and I was on that roller coaster and I couldn't get off. Right. So one of the things I
start by sort of painting the picture with athletes is saying, we're always going to be on a roller coaster to
some degree, right. Do we want to be on the theme park great adventure, sort of depth to flying roller coaster, or
do we want to be on a kitty roller coaster? Right. Being able to manage those ups and downs and making them bumps
in the road and small valleys and getting back to sort of a neutral, even keeled place. I feel like the way that
we do that is through to go back to what I talked about earlier in the podcast, through mindfulness, being able to
identify when we're getting too high or too low and recognizing it and then doing something to bring ourselves
back to the present moment, right? Bringing ourselves back to, okay, like I'm five for my last eight, but that
doesn't matter on the next at bat or a mo for my last ten, but that doesn't matter on the next at bat. I have to
be right here and commit to what I'm about to do. And if I go one for one on the next at bat, or I put a really
good swing on the ball, and even if I go over one, I've done my job. I've been able to master and control my
thinking so that I can lock in on what I'm supposed to do right now. And I think a lot of times when we go through
these swings, we go to a place of if we're doing really well, a place of complete unconsciousness, which is great
to a point, but we sort of get caught up in that sometimes. We're not aware when we're having negative thinking.
We're sort of pushing it to the side. And just the same, when we're in a complete slump, we're so dwelling on the
poor results that we can't really focus on what we need to do right now. And we feel bad about ourselves because
our performance is so important to us and our sport is so important to us. And what do other people think? And
what does my coach think? Am I going to get benched? And what are my parents thinking? All these things, I'm
letting my teammates down. Those things don't matter when you're in a game and you're competing right. But if
you're thinking about them, they become a distraction, right? So getting off the roller coaster, to me, or making
that roller coaster smaller, is really about getting connected to your thoughts and feelings so that you have the
choice about what to do with them rather than feeling like you're being pulled along for the ride. And this is
something I hear a lot from the clients I work with, and it's something that we work on a lot to try to get off
that roller coaster, to make everything a little bit simpler and quieter and more even keeled. Even when things
aren't necessarily going the way they want them to, they're able to maintain a poise and a calm that allows them
to compete the way they want to in the moment. So I think that that's sort of the answer in a nutshell. And this
question is tied to that to a certain extent, but it's more of a process. I'll get a little bit more into the
weeds on how I do this. The question is, how do I regain my composure when I make a mistake during a game? Right?
So, like, we've all been there, right? Strikeout. If you're a pitcher, you walk. If I'm a basketball player, I
turn the ball over. If I'm a soccer player, I miss a penalty shot. All these different things that can happen in a
game that can really throw us for a loop, right? Where I made that mistake, and I'm just sort of locked in on the
mistake and what I could have done differently and what does it mean and all these things, right? So how do I
regain my composure in those moments? And to me, it's about having a process. One of my clients now calls it a
protocol, a mental protocol, a mental process, a reset. I like to call it a reset routine, but it doesn't matter
what I like to call it. I think it's more about resonating the idea of having a repeatable process and approach so
that when I make a mistake, or even if I make a great play, how do I reset myself back to the baseline of, okay,
that's over. I need to reset and refocus and resume what I'm doing in the present moment and not letting the
future or the past get in the way of that. Right? So having a reset routine, for me, I put it into I'll call it
what I call the four R's, right? Recognize, which comes back to the mindfulness theme that I talked about earlier.
We can't recognize things if we're not really being mindful and paying attention to our thoughts and recognizing
them rather than sort of investing in them or sort of latching onto them. So to recognize without judgment, okay,
this is what's going on. Reboot. To me, reboot means taking a deep breath, right? It can mean something to
somebody else, something different. To me, it's recognize. Okay, I'm kind of going off the rails here. Take a deep
breath. Let everything sort of clear out of the system, reboot the system like a computer. Now, I want to refocus
that might be through some sort of phrase, some sort of self talk phrase like attack or next play, be here, be
where your feet are, whatever it is that resonates with you. And I think that that's important to restate on my
part. There is no magic word, magic phrase, or no magic action that I can tell one athlete. They have to sort of
do what they think is best for them. And I think the beauty of mental performance coaching is that mental
performance coaches like me, and I'd like to think that most of my peers feel this way as well. We're in a very
much at your service as coaches, where I think a lot of coaches and this is not an indictment, but just an
observation, a lot of coaches are very much about telling you what you need to do, and you going and executing
their marching orders. And that's not how mental performance coaching works. Typically, it's, hey, what do you
want to get out of this? What's your situation? US making a suggestion or giving you some guidance, but you really
figuring out what works best for you and having us help you figure that out for you. So it's a little bit
different. So anyway, it's just kind of a sidetrack there. But ultimately coming up with a phrase to refocus
yourself an image, right, whether it's internal in your brain, like, hey, seeing what you want to do next, having
that image is sort of the way to refocus yourself or even looking at something externally a flagpole, a foul pole,
your glove. I have some athletes put things, write things on their person, a phrase, a picture, to remind
yourself, hey, okay, I recognized it. I took my breath. I rebooted look at or think or do something to refocus you
about what you want the next play to be and then resume, which typically is sort of associated with the word go,
right? Once all those three first three steps happen, the word go is sort of the permission to commit to the next
play and put everything you have toward the next play. And it took me probably two or three minutes to sort of
walk you through that. But the truth is, these reset routines that I design or help athletes design for
themselves, they take 5 seconds, 7 seconds, 10 seconds, right? If I'm really good at recognizing my thoughts, I
recognize it. I take my breath, takes a couple of seconds, I say that phrase, or I look at that image. That takes
a couple of seconds, and then I go, right, we're five to 10 seconds. And depending on your sport, you can do that
on the fly, have that routine. And the beauty of that routine is it's always with you and you should be practicing
it outside of a game, right? Doing it. Every rep in a bullpen, in a practice, in a training session, use that
reset routine so it becomes second nature, so it becomes automatic. So you don't have to think about how to reset
yourself or solve a problem when something goes bad. You have it, it's automatic and you put it into place. So to
me, that's one of the greatest tools I can give any athlete. And the nuances of that tool are unique to the
individual, but the framework is the same. And having that way to do that is really just I think it's a huge
advantage because I don't think most athletes have a reset routine that they can lean on. Moving on, the next
question I get is why do I get so nervous before a game? In a game, usually before a game is what I get. And I
think the simplest answer I could give you is it's important, right? Like nerves aren't a bad thing, right? Nerves
are our brain and our body telling us that we're about to do something that means a lot to us, right? And so
embracing, trying to make friends with those nerves, saying like, hey, this is really important to me, this is
really cool. I'm about to get to go do something. I have an opportunity to go do something I love and do it well.
Rather than looking at the nerves as a sign that I'm not prepared because that's not accurate, it may be true
sometimes, right? And only you know yourself. Like if you're under prepared or you're not ready or you're not in a
good place, that does happen. And that's going to happen. And part of mental performance coaching, I think, is
being able to help athletes recognize that some days they're not going to have their best going into competition,
but can they make the most out of what they have available to them at that day? But the nerves in and of
themselves are not bad, right? One of the visuals that we talk a lot about in sports psychology is sort of this
belt inverted U or bell curve, right? And so the top of the bell curve is where our nerves are the highest, but
that's where we get peak performance because we're sort of locked into what we're about to do. So the nerves are
sort of reflective of our ability to have the energy that we need to execute. If our nerves are super low, we
might not be focused or energetic enough to execute on what we're about to do. If the nerves are too high, well,
now we're in a place where we're going to overheat or we're going to fall apart. So really managing those and
identifying it and looking at it as an opportunity and a way for you to go enjoy what you're doing and that it's
important and acknowledging it and being okay with it, not looking at it as a sign of, like, I'm not ready or
something's wrong with me, which is what I think a lot of people do. Like, why am I so nervous? But the nerves are
there for a reason. You've got to be able to understand what the reasons are and then ultimately say, like, hey,
is this serving me? And can I do something different? If I'm running too hot, if my nerves are too high, if I
really have a queasy stomach or I'm really sweating or I'm really foggy? Well, then use your breath, right? Work
on using your breath in your pregame to try to get your heart rate down. Try to get yourself to calm down. If
you're too low, you can then put in some extra warm up or even use your breathing to accelerate your heart rate.
And I won't get into how to do that, but you can accelerate your heart rate and sort of pick up your energy with
your breathing if you do it a different way. So there's a lot of different purposes that nerves serve. And they're
not all bad. They're actually good if you're able to look at it as such. So one of the things that I get a lot of
in working with young athletes is, like, I'm not having fun, right? Which is sad to me because I know nowadays
sports are much more involved. There's much more effort, there's much more energy, there's much more money. That's
all real, right? Like, when I was in high school sports, or when I was in high school age, we didn't have the same
systems and institutions in place that we do today. Super competitive travel, sports on the road, on planes, out
of state tournaments, social media, recruiting, and all those things are good for athletes, right? There's a lot
of good to be taken out of that. You get to meet new people and go to new places, and you have the opportunity to
showcase yourself outside of sort of your local area and get the attention of college coaches. That's all great,
right? That's the good side of it. The flip side of it is that a lot of times it can feel like a job, especially
if you're not performing the way you want to perform. I'm putting in all this time, but I'm not performing the way
I want to. Why the hell am I doing this? It's not fun. I'm burning out. It's a grind. How do I have more fun? And
I think for me, I'll answer that question from the perspective of a mental performance coach. I think first and
foremost, it's really thinking about why you play your sport, like, what's the purpose of you playing the sport?
Why do you get out of bed early for a practice? Or why do you get out of bed early to go to the gym? Or why do you
get up early to go to the airport, to get a plane to a tournament and to play five games in a weekend and all
these things. Why do I do it, right? And everyone's, why everyone's purpose for doing it is going to be different.
But if you don't put your finger on why you're doing it and you can't really come up with a good reason, then
you're probably more likely to be on the road to burnout. Because it's like, what's the point? Right? Why am I
doing this? Why am I working so hard? And to have that essence kind of etched inside of you, because that's going
to help you sort of endure the adversity when your performance isn't where you want it to be. And I think
ultimately we've gotten to a place where performance is the only indicator of success, right? Am I able to produce
outward external performance for people to see statistics, wins and losses? Am I making great plays? Are they
getting posted to social media? And if that's the only judgment or the only measure of success and you're not
getting it, it's going to be really hard to have fun because it's going to be a constant cycle of judgment, right?
And so having fun to me, the word I think is most appropriate is perspective. Right? I get to play my sport. Most
people don't get to do what I do. Most people aren't good enough to do what I do. Right. I love playing. I may not
love the circumstances around it all the time, but I love the game. And this is an opportunity to use my sport as
a platform for something bigger in life, right? So sort of shifting to a more of a growth mindset, the opportunity
to I get to I'm grateful for. I want to get better. I have the opportunity to grow and experience new things
versus like, oh, if I don't go out today and I don't perform, then I'm screwed. Or if I don't go out today and I
don't perform, I'm not going to put myself in a better position to get a scholarship or whatever it is or get
drafted, if that's where you're at in life, right? So I think it's the perspective of it, right. And the irony for
me and the irony for me is, and I've had seen this firsthand with clients is the ones who get back to having fun
are the ones that actually perform better. And whether the performance comes first and the fun comes second or the
fun comes first and the performance comes second, I'm not sure. Right. It's not an experiment. It's really hard to
judge. But I will say this. I find that most people who are having a good time doing what they're doing are more
likely to perform better. Right? So if I can have fun, regardless of whether I'm playing good or bad, I'm probably
going to end up playing good anyway. So why not choose to have a good time, right? Because having fun is a choice,
right? I think so much of having fun for most people is fun is based on an external circumstance. Where am I going
on vacation? Like, this is not even sport related, right? Where am I going on vacation? What am I doing? Fun is a
choice. I can have fun anywhere, right? So when I show up at the baseball field or on the soccer field or at the
basketball court or wherever on the track, if I choose to have a good time and enjoy myself and get the most out
of it and make the most of my opportunity, I'm probably going to play really good. I'm probably going to perform
really well. So fun is a choice. And I think that working on making that choice with a mental performance coach is
a lot easier because I think when we try to make those choices or solve those problems on our own, it's really
hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. So I think that's a really important one. A lot of
people have asked me about resourcefulness because it's a topic in my course and I've been pretty active in
promoting the course. And a lot of my social media posts have been about the subject of resourcefulness. So can
you explain what that means? And so if you hadn't seen some of the posts or paid attention. Resourcefulness is
about not only knowing where to look for the help that you need to get better or to solve a problem, but then
knowing how to go and get it right, how to ask someone for help, how to take that information and employ it into
your life so that things get better. There's help out there for all of us in everything that we do. There's people
who we can ask for help, whether it's professionals, whether it's friends or family. And then there's
technological resources. There is the internet, there's social media, there's Google, right? There's infinite
resources at our disposal to get help and get better at things. And a lot of know we will do that now, but think
our default setting is to do it on our own. Meaning we'll go to YouTube or we'll go to the Internet or we'll go to
Instagram or we'll go to TikTok to get answers. And there's really no guarantee that the information that we're
getting is good information, but it's more convenient. And I don't have to ask another person for help. I don't
have to show them or show vulnerability and ask them for help, right? And I think that there's a limit to the
technological resources that we have at our disposal and that we use to get better. I think one of the most
critical skills that any young athlete can learn is how to ask for help, particularly to a trusted adult, a coach,
a parent, a teacher, how do I ask for help in a way that is mature, that is thoughtful, that is self focused?
Meaning I'm asking for help from you to help me get better rather than asking for you to do something to better my
situation, because those are two different things, right? I could go ask someone to do something for me without me
actually doing anything. And I'm asking for a favor versus asking for feedback or asking for an honest assessment
or asking to understand why do I stand where I stand. I think that's a big one for young athletes is like, my
coach made a choice or a decision or is acting a certain way, and I don't know why. And that uncertainty is really
shaking me. Right. I want to understand where I fit in and what's going on. Well, okay. Well, can you go talk to
your coach? Well, I think so. How am I going to do that? Thinking through and playing out, having that
conversation with somebody else, role playing it playing out in your mind, writing it down, like, what do I want
to get out of this? What do I want to ask? What do I want to learn? And when young athletes do that in the right
way, in a respectful, mature way and ask those questions, the feeling that's almost universal that comes back to
me as their mental performance coach is they feel relief because now I know where I stand. Yeah, you know what?
I'm not happy with the answer that I got all the time, but now I know where I'm at, so I don't have to worry and
be anxious about what's going on. I know why I'm not playing. I know why coach made that choice. I know why this
is happening. Using those resources and not being afraid to advocate for yourself. And don't get me wrong. Asking
for help is hard. I've talked about this on other podcasts. I talk about it in the course. I talk about it with my
athletes. Asking for help is hard. I mean, I have one whole podcast dedicated to me talking myself like this about
why it's hard to ask for help and why I struggled to ask for help in my life. Because we don't want other people
to think that we're not capable or that we're weak or that we're not competent, all those things, right? We'd
rather keep it to ourself and pretend that we're good. But that only gets you so far, right? So practicing, asking
for help, getting better at the skill, knowing when to ask for help, you don't have to ask for people. You don't
have to ask for help for everything in every situation all the time. But knowing when something is creating an
uneasiness or an anxiety or you know you don't have an answer to a problem that's been nagging at you for so long,
now's the time to think about going to find that answer from another person and getting that relief and comfort
and information so that you can go on and be better. So I think it's really important that that's a skill that
young athletes develop. Work on asking for help and getting better, and I absolutely always help them to do that
in my work. Next question. I want to compete in college. So what do you think I should be working on now? Well,
I'll go back to just that last answer. I think you should be working on getting comfortable, asking for help,
doing it now in high school. You might not need it now in high school because you're performing above and beyond,
because you have a great relationship with your coaches, because you perceive there to be nothing to work on, or I
need to put my time into getting better at the physical act of my sport. But making time to get better at asking
for help and challenging yourself and making yourself uncomfortable. Now, before you get to college is going to
pay off huge dividends. Because when you get there, you're going to at least have some practice in going to say
like, hey, I don't have a relationship with this person yet, or My relationship is still in development, but I can
go ask. For the help that I need when I need it, rather than waiting till it's too late or the last minute or till
I'm comfortable, which may never come. So that's the one thing. Right. And I think challenging yourself in any
capacity is important. I think also making the jump to college, I think, is about having research, sort of like
preparing for that, learning about what the experience is going to be, having conversations with your coaches and
future teammates and all those things. And sort of the more information we have, the better equipped we're going
to be. I think finally, too, is really thinking about what your goals are for that experience, particularly for
that first year, right? What do I want to accomplish in my first year? And I will talk about this with athletes,
and I think it's really important is like, hey, what do I want to get out of it? Right? Most athletes look at
their goals in terms of outcomes, right? So, for example,
in that jump to college example, it's either I want to be a starter as a freshman, which, depending on the
circumstances, that might be really challenging, or I just want to get minutes, or I want to get innings, or I
want to get playing time. Okay, right. That's great. Those are important goals to have, and you need something to
shoot for. But then the question I always ask is, how are you going to get there? What are you doing right now
that you can control that's going to give you the best chance of reaching that goal? Right? There's no guarantee
because it's playing time, decisions, and all those things are out of your control and you're coming into a brand
new environment. But what can I do right now that's going to maximize my chances of success? It's not only working
on my physical game, but it's working on my mental game. Am I doing my meditation daily? Am I working on my
process goals? Meaning am I working on tracking the things I do every day and getting into good habits and
routines now before I get to college? Right. Starting to do some of the things that the college coaches are going
to expect of me when I get on campus. Start doing them now rather than waiting. Right. Getting ahead of that.
Controlling the controllables. Right. Really trying to push yourself and challenge yourself in that mental and
emotional state in that capacity and not just thinking about physical things. So really having a well balanced
approach and really putting in the work before you get there rather than just showing up and expecting everything
to work out the way you wanted to. And I hear this a lot from former athletes that I've had on my podcast, from
people I just talked to in like, a lot of people will say the work that you're doing, Mike, is important, because
I know now after having been in college x number of years ago that I probably could have used somebody like you
because I thought I knew what was going to come and I had no idea. Right. And so we never have any idea until we
get somewhere. Right. But are we preparing in the right way? And I think for me, preparing in the right way for
the transition to college is also preparing the mental and emotional side as best you can with the information
that you have at your disposal. So what's my favorite part of doing this work? What is my favorite part of mental
performance coaching? And I would say that's helping other people absolutely, 100% getting the satisfaction of
knowing that the work that I've done with somebody is helping them to achieve their goals. Whether it's a high
school athlete who's getting ready to go to college and feels prepared, whether it's a college athlete who's
getting themselves prepared for a draft or to go professional, I have had that experience. Or even working with
professional athletes who are trying to move up within their particular sport. And I've had that experience as
well. The idea that I'm helping them be better, that I'm giving them the chance to access and unlock a part of
themselves, a part of their game that they weren't previously able to do and really giving them the opportunity to
be themselves. Right. I know from my own experiences in therapy, in other settings where when I was asking for
help, one of the greatest benefits for me was and one of the greatest gifts was being able to share myself openly
without judgment, without condition, right. To truly say what I was thinking. And feeling, truly reveal who I am
as a person and not feel like that was going to be judged or used in some way, right? And unfortunately and this,
I think, is just real life relationships with parents. And I'm a parent, I have my own kids. And that relationship
is so emotionally invested, it can be or can feel conditional at times, right? And that's not something most
people like to feel like, hey, you need to do this to get that. Even if that's not real, that can be the
perception between a parent and a child, right? So if I'm a young athlete, I don't necessarily always want to go
to my parents with everything because they're going to try to fix it or they're going to try to change it, or
they're going to judge it, or they're going to do something that makes me uncomfortable. So I'm just going to keep
it to myself. Or if I'm having a struggle mentally or emotionally or in life, do I trust my coach enough to not
use that against me? Like, is he going to think twice about playing me? Is he going to hold me out? How is he
going to view that? A lot of athletes don't want to come forward with that. So for me, serving in that role as
sort of the objective third party, the confidant, the mentor, the anonymous sort of black box, I really like that
because then I feel like the people that I'm working with are able to be themselves. And I had that experience and
I know how just moving and important it is. And so being that guy is really a privilege and I'm grateful to have
that opportunity. So I guess in closing and wrap it up, I think ultimately I talk about this in the beginning of
the course, the Freshman Foundation. It's just a whole cold, hard fact that sports are about results, right? And
people want to know like, okay, so what's the result I'm going to get from working with a mental performance coach
like Mike? What am I going to get from doing this? And I think ultimately, the results are one, a greater
consciousness and awareness of what I'm thinking and feeling and what I need to do to get better, right? And so
again, for me, that starts right there. Because if I understand what I'm thinking and I understand what I'm
feeling and I understand what I'm doing, and I feel in control of that now, I have a choice to respond in the
moment when I need it versus reacting emotionally. Like so many athletes, something bad happens to them, right? A
bad call, a bad play, and they react to it emotionally. They get angry, they get upset, they get bent out of
shape, and it really, really drags their performance down, right? So building that awareness, building that
consciousness, building that giving them the choice to respond absolutely is probably the greatest result I. Can
give an athlete because the outcomes that we see on the field are uncertain. We don't control outcomes. We only
control what we put in. We don't really control what comes out, where a ball goes, where a shot goes, where a
batted ball goes, where a pitch goes, once it leaves our hand or once it leaves a bat, or once it leaves a racket
or whatever, once the gun goes off. We could push ourselves as hard as we can, but the ultimate result is really
not in our control. So feeling in control of the things you can control is going to give you the comfort and the
confidence that you're the master, right? And you're not subject to the whims of outcomes which gives people a
peace and sort of an easiness inside of them, which helps them to relax, which helps them to perform better, which
gives them perspective. It helps them to be able to sort of block out distractions like the people in the stands,
like the coach on the sideline. Having a mental process and approach that you command and control for yourself
gives athletes the ability to go and own their experience in a more meaningful way. That's the greatest result I
could give. Will it make your performance better? I can't guarantee that. Right. Will you get a college
scholarship? I can't guarantee that. Will you make it to the pros? I can't guarantee you that. Because ultimately
the mental part is only a part. The mental part is only a part, and frankly, it's a smaller part than the physical
part. Without the ability, without the skills, without the physical prowess and execution and work, you can have
the best mental game in the world. But if you don't have the ability, you're probably not going to get to the
places some other people are going to get. So let's be honest about that. But having the mental game is about
being able to get the most out of what you do, what your potential is, what your performance is, and the return on
the investment for that is huge and the result spills over into your real life. Right? One of the biggest
differences is if you go to a strength coach or you go to a technique coach, or you go and get instruction that
applies on your sport, but you can't take your deadlift to your job, or you can't take your deadlift to the
classroom. But in mental performance coaching, you could take your reset routine to a test, you could take your
reset routine to an argument that you have with a loved one. You could take your mindfulness to something you're
doing at work, a project. My mental skills apply in all these different settings. And so not only are you getting
the return as a competitor in your sport, but you're taking it to other areas of your life as you move through
different gates. And so the value of that is really great. It's more than just a one dimension, so I believe in
it. I wouldn't be in sports psychology. I wouldn't have chose this career after having a successful career if I
didn't believe in the work that I do. And I really want to be a part of that for young athletes because I feel
like that's where I add the greatest value. Just reflecting on my own personal experiences when I was 18 years old
or 17 years old and the way I felt about myself and the way I looked at my sport. My mind was a detractor from
what I was ultimately able to do from a performance standpoint, and I don't regret that now. But I want to be able
to be that person, to help someone avoid the way that I felt and having those pitfalls when I was a younger
athlete. So that's it for the podcast. I loved answering these questions. I always love talking about my
experiences and my expertise and sharing it with the audience. So hopefully you enjoyed it. If you like it, go on
Apple Spotify, leave a review, five star rating, drop comment, follow us on YouTube, all those things, and so look
forward to seeing you back for the next episode. Thanks so much. Good to go, Charles.