Are you training the thing that's actually getting in the way? Most coaches design practice around skill repetition. Fewer design it around the constraints that show up in competition — fatigue, pressure, anxiety, and the emotions that cloud judgment and kill decision-making. Coach Kerri Kuzbyt of Transforming Basketball has built her entire player development philosophy around that gap. And in this conversation, she makes the case that emotion isn't a sideline problem. It's a training variable. And if you're not designing it into your sessions, you're leaving your athletes unprepared for the moments that matter most.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – Why failure is an accumulation of lessons — and how athletes respond to it differently
07:00 – The Constraints-Led Approach and what authentic skill development actually looks like
10:00 – Multi-sport development, early specialization, and what diversification really builds
14:00 – Playing with boys until age 14 — and how that shaped Kerri's development and coaching
18:00 – Being coached hard versus being coddled — and what today's athletes are missing
24:00 – Redefining success beyond makes and misses 30:00 – Why decision-making is the number one skill in basketball
35:00 – Emotion as a constraint on decision-making — and how to train it 42:00 – Reset routines, journaling, and building emotional regulation into practice
50:00 – Be dangerous, be curious, be delusional — identity beyond the sport
56:00 – Outlasting everyone versus outworking everyone
01:00:00 – You don't have to lone wolf it — and why finding the right people matters
01:04:00 – "Your emotions will not be too big for me"
🧠 SHOW NOTES
In Episode 93, I sit down with Coach Kerri Kuzbyt of Transforming Basketball to talk about what player development looks like when you train the whole athlete — not just the skill.
Kerri played five years of Division I basketball in Canada and four years professionally in Australia, Spain, and Germany. She didn't encounter the Constraints-Led Approach until the final two years of her pro career. The difference it made was night and day — and it's the foundation of everything she does today.
We discuss:
Why failure is the fastest path to growth — and how the environment you create determines whether athletes use it as a catapult or a crutch.
Why context is king. Five hundred reps in an empty gym don't transfer to a contested game. Training has to be representative of the environment — including the emotional and physical constraints of competition.
Why decision-making is the number one skill in any sport — and why emotion is the primary constraint on it.
How emotional regulation is a trainable skill, not a personality trait. Reset routines, journaling, and intentional practice under pressure are the tools that build it.
The difference between outworking everyone and outlasting everyone — and why showing up at 40% capacity and giving it everything you have that day is still a win.
Why identity beyond sport is the foundation of sustainable confidence — and what it means to be dangerous.
Why you don't have to lone wolf it — and what it looks like to find people who can hold your emotions without flinching.
🤝 CONNECT WITH COACH KERRI KUZBYT
📷 Coach Kerri's Instagram
🏀 Transforming Basketball's Instagram
🌐 Transforming Basketball's Website
Michael Huber (00:01.036)
Hey, Kerry, how are you?
Kerri Kuzbyt (00:02.947)
Good, yourself Michael?
Michael Huber (00:04.486)
I am doing great. Thank you for joining me here on the podcast. So I want to jump right into it. Before we hit record, we were talking about failure. And I asked you, what's the one thing you want people to take away from this conversation? you said you want more people to fail more, to be safe in failure so that they could take it out into the world. Can you just talk about your point of view on that?
Kerri Kuzbyt (00:14.692)
Mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (00:29.901)
Yeah, I think without failure, we won't have the wins that we want. And me, I just see failure as an accumulation of lessons. And when we could learn from our lessons, we're going to find our wins a lot more. But in order to get those wins, have to we have to fail. have to I always also say like fail forward. We have to fail forward with this stuff. We're going to stumble. But
Michael Huber (00:36.923)
And...
Kerri Kuzbyt (00:57.025)
As long as we continue in the direction that we are inevitably wanting to get to, that's only going to come by experiencing those tougher times, the harder times, because you get to learn so much about yourself. And the expression even within sports is that you learn a lot more from your losses than your wins because it's, it's raw. It's, it's real. There's no hiding from it. When you win, everything could be easy. You could kind of brush it under the rug, but when you're faced with failure, you're
Michael Huber (01:26.862)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:26.915)
you're faced with reality and you're faced with deficiencies. And so now it's the response. Where are you going to go? Are you going to use it to catapult you or are you going to use it as a crutch and put it on the ceiling? And then that's where you have two different athletes evolve from depending on their approach of it.
Michael Huber (01:45.006)
100%, yeah. So in your work as a basketball coach, as a player developer, as a developer of athletes, how does that play out in your work from a practical perspective?
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:59.566)
Especially when it comes to the approach that I take in the mythology of skill acquisition, more constraints led ecological dynamics. It's all about problem solving. It's about exploratory behaviors that are authentic to you. So it's not a one size fits all. It's not a perfect way of doing things. It's going to look different for everybody. And the beautiful thing about it is that we only want to have the same stable, successful outcome.
Michael Huber (02:07.768)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (02:27.789)
But because everybody comes from so many different lived experiences where they were in the world, what they've gone through when it comes to learning context, whether you played more sports or not even more sports, but maybe coming from a different discipline, you're carrying a different lens of the world. You carry different skills, different behaviors, different ways of seeing things. And all of that is different. So when we could start to harness that.
and allow you to really unlock it. Now we start to see true authentic skill emerge. Now we get to see development, but authentic development that is safe for you and safe, mean, as in it's comfortable. You're not being squished. You're not being forced to do something with regards to body movements or you're just not quite understanding anything. It's meeting the athlete where they're at, but it's also understanding all the many parts that
make them unique and different. Like I said, where they live, how they grew up, how many brothers and sisters do they have? Like I ask certain questions when I'm first meeting an athlete for the first time, because I want to gain an idea of who they are as a person, how they see the world, how they understand, how they learn. By me asking certain questions, I get to know everything I can, which then allows me to unlock and meet them to the utmost degree.
Michael Huber (03:48.056)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (03:53.43)
Yeah, you're building trust by getting the buy in, right? So like one of the questions you'll appreciate this, one of the questions I love to ask an athlete is tell me about your strengths. Tell me what you're good at. And they struggle with that, right? Or like that ability to get them to think about, Hey, what do you, what am I good at? Right? Who am I like versus like everybody's always sort of pointing out my flaws. so like when we talk about, go ahead.
Kerri Kuzbyt (03:55.459)
Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (04:04.751)
Mm.
Mmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (04:12.206)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (04:17.231)
I also think it probably ties into identity and them not wanting to, within society, not wanting to stand out. So one of the things I always love expressing and really like pride myself is like, I want to be different. I want to stand out. I don't want to stand in. I want to stand out. And it goes the exact same thing when it comes to skill acquisition, the most skillful athletes in the world. They don't want to, you know,
Michael Huber (04:24.204)
Yes.
Kerri Kuzbyt (04:46.403)
Conform they don't want to be the same as somebody else like the exceptional and the outliers They want to be the ones that that are separate and because of that they got to do different things They got to make different sacrifices they have to do something different that allows them to stand out and I just think a lot of them just don't want to highlight their strengths mainly because they they're they're they're fearful of being different of standing out and
Because with that, what does that come? It comes failure because a lot of people, while it dealt them, you're on the wrong path, you're all this. So they don't want to do it. Versus I hear that and I say, okay, watch me. So you can have your opinion, but I'm going to keep being me. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about previously as well, authenticity, right?
Michael Huber (05:20.503)
Right? Yes.
Michael Huber (05:38.617)
Yeah, absolutely. So you said the magic word for me, which is identity, which is something I'm always thinking about, right? Like that willingness to show the world your true self. And that's where for me, that's where sustainable confidence comes from, comes from for an athlete, which is I know who I am. I know what I stand for. I know what I believe in. I know that these are the behaviors that are indicative of the kind of person and athlete I want to be. If I do those things and the result isn't what I want it to be.
Kerri Kuzbyt (05:48.878)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (06:07.948)
I'm still good, right? And what you shared, a lot of times we're afraid to show ourselves because of the reaction we're going to get from other people. That's the result versus, here's who I am. I'm going to show a T and you don't like it. I'm going to show you that the way you answer that question tells me that you were an athlete. Can you just talk about like your background as an athlete and how that's kind of informed your work as a player development coach?
Kerri Kuzbyt (06:09.154)
Yes.
Kerri Kuzbyt (06:25.046)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (06:30.978)
Yeah, so I myself played five years, division one in Canada. And then I then further played four years professionally in Australia, Spain, Germany, and even all growing up. Like I started basketball when I was four, but I also started every other sport when I was four. And I didn't stop playing every sport, even though I committed and was on scholarship. I committed actually early in my sophomore year.
Michael Huber (06:45.378)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (07:01.006)
And I didn't stop playing all those sports actually until my senior year. I see a lot of athletes now. And again, I'm not old. You're not old. I'm not old. But I do see a very generational shift of, I only want to lock in on the one thing right now early on and it's actually harming them. And it's very sad to not see so many athletes play multiple sports. It actually is proven. There's evidence with
Michael Huber (07:29.294)
Mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (07:30.382)
firing skill and becoming the most skillful is when you have diversification within your movements and you have diversification in your learning context. So for me, I was always just that athlete. And when it kind of came to player development, I myself had a player development coach when I was going overseas and he started to train me in these methods. So I didn't get exposed to these methods in my college years. I got exposed to them actually in my last two years of playing pro.
Michael Huber (07:48.481)
I'm
Kerri Kuzbyt (07:58.541)
And that's when I look night and day from my college days to my first two years of pro, I look completely different. And that's because we started to unlock different movements. We started to take advantage of all of my experiences. Like soccer was my second biggest main sport, but I played everything. And my other unique thing about myself was I played everything from the age of four to 14 with the boys.
Michael Huber (08:18.04)
you
Kerri Kuzbyt (08:26.08)
until I was forced to play with the girls at 14th. They said, you have to play with the girls. And I said, what? So that is a very unique factor, which is something that does come into play and something that I myself notice as a player development coach and practitioner with how athletes move, especially when it comes to females. I will tell and I will go up to that female and this is a hundred percent accurate. I probably asked over a hundred females this.
all the different parts of the world, if I see they're moving differently and they're moving a certain way and they have that kind of energy about them that they're kind of tougher or they have more of that, like I can just feel and sense their confidence. I'll go up to them and I'll ask them two questions. I'll say one, do you play with boys? They say yes. And I said, number two, I said, do you have an older brother? They say, yeah.
I myself play with boys and I have an older brother six years older than me. He was an American football player and he was already like six foot three and I was like four foot eleven and we would always be playing basketball and I was the sorest loser. So I was failing a lot early on and I was not responding well to it but as like a typical like growing athlete and I always still credit him to this day. Never took it lightly on me and I was learning very early on without myself.
Michael Huber (09:36.43)
And.
Kerri Kuzbyt (09:51.503)
Consciously know it subconsciously, but I was I was feeling a lot. I was getting mad But again at the end of the day it allowed me to be who I was how I started to respond to things remember I told you about how we grow up and Where we come from? That's a huge part of it. And so that kind of always allowed me to Really not fear failure as much because I was just always
failing a lot early on.
Michael Huber (10:21.838)
You learn how to attack the challenge, right? Initially, you failed and you felt bad and you got frustrated or angry or whatever the feelings were, but eventually you become sensitized to it, right? Like you just sort of like, like this is part of the deal. Right. And I talk to athletes about this all the time, whether it's a four foot 11, you know, young lady with her six foot three brother or just an athlete who's like,
Kerri Kuzbyt (10:36.674)
Yeah, that's great word. Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (10:45.101)
Mm.
Michael Huber (10:50.264)
coming up against a better, bigger, stronger, faster person. Okay, they're bigger, stronger and faster, but what are the assets that you have that you can use to your advantage to counter that? Right, versus looking at them and going, I'm gonna get beat today, that he's gonna block my shot or whatever. Like, how do I figure out how to use my strengths to win that competition? And I think that that's...
Kerri Kuzbyt (11:03.499)
Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (11:13.624)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (11:17.196)
I think we're in a world where a lot of athletes still struggle with that. They struggle with the challenge part of it. They don't embrace that. They look at the rankings, like go to a tournament, who's seated where, what are the rankings, what's this player five stars, or they get a division one commit and they get all these things and they go into it defeated versus, I want to prove myself. They're going to a division one school. I'm going to compete. I'm going to figure out a way to beat them. And if I can't, that's okay. I learned something new. That mindset is not
Kerri Kuzbyt (11:37.166)
Correct. Yes.
Kerri Kuzbyt (11:42.712)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (11:46.829)
It's not all that common. And a lot of it comes from, I think, the language, right? The communication piece, which you and I talked about a little bit before. And I want to ask you this question before I forget. what were some of your experiences as an athlete before you got to that place with a player development coach in your professional career? What were some of the coaching experiences that you had as an athlete that shaped kind of who you are today?
Kerri Kuzbyt (12:13.645)
I had my dad as my first coach. He was awesome. And I was around the boys. All I wanted to do was, don't baby me. I'd be pissed that you're not treating me the same. Even when I was with my player development coach in my 20s, I was saying, I only want to train with the guys. And especially in Canada, and those that want to play after the five years, very few females are doing it. your competition is going to be your males and your male counterparts.
I always said, and the one rule to them, and they knew it too as well, was you don't treat me different. Like I get mad if you're not gonna block my shot. I'm gonna get mad if you're not gonna like make me learn the hard way. So I think all, especially when it comes to females, males will have that too, but we're going to specifically, I think a lot more with the female culture in this sort of context is those that are like the competitors.
everybody in like Euroleague, WNBA, the high level, like they're pissed. They want to compete. They don't see, like you don't present or they don't want you to see us as a female. You see me as another athlete in front of you sharing the same court. That's it. That's all. So I think that's like a very common mindset, a very shared viewpoint that females, but I think ultimately either male or female competitors have that play at the highest level.
So for me, think just allowing like a very supportive parents that, yeah, like if I wasn't good, it was like within the household and that's how I grew up. Everything's earned. You're not gonna, no, if you're not good, you become better at it. How do you become better at it? Just work harder. And it was in healthy way. It wasn't, hey, I'm like, I'm gonna drag you out here. You're gonna do this and force me to do it. Like, no, I wanted.
to do it, but they just taught me, no, if you're not good right now, you have to find a way to be good at it and you got to do it. And so they gave me that and then I was coached by males until my college years by a female and she herself was a very different female. Again, like she was one of those like.
Michael Huber (14:18.072)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (14:36.897)
bad, bad mother effers when she played. So she also had a different type of energy that was almost like I say it and I say it as a compliment. A lot of people may say it as like, I don't agree with it. Like it's, more like a guy energy, but it's a, it's a very psychological, very like beyond basketball. It's evolutionary, certain behavior, certain like energy, like males will have versus females.
Michael Huber (14:39.16)
Hahaha!
Kerri Kuzbyt (15:06.155)
So I was really okay and comfortable with being coached harder and like how I saw it is the harder you coach me, the more you believe in me and the standard that I could become too. I didn't see it the other way around, which is what I see today. I'm pretty sure you could see it generational wise. If you come after somebody, they're going to shrink rather than expand.
Michael Huber (15:30.891)
Well, I will share my experience with you in terms of being a practitioner and also as a parent, which you know, I have a teenage daughter who plays soccer. So she's competitive and she wants to get to the next level. And a lot of the things you just said resonate in terms of just from a parent's perspective. But I think, you know, that part about being coached hard, I think kids today, at least the ones that I work with,
Kerri Kuzbyt (15:48.727)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (15:57.103)
They do want to be coached hard. They do want the information. They want to know what they can do to get better. But they want that part that you talked about before, which is they want to be seen. They want to be seen as a person first. And then once they know they can trust you because you care about them as a person, now they'll take the hard coaching because I know like you can coach me hard and you still care about me versus I don't see you as a person. I don't really care. I just I'm coaching you hard to get an outcome out of you. I think kids
Kerri Kuzbyt (16:24.973)
Mm.
Michael Huber (16:25.696)
They see through that more than any time in the past because there's just so much more information. There's so many more sources of information. They know the difference. It's like they call BS. Like you don't really give a shit about me as a player. Like I don't want you to coach me hard because you don't care about me versus if you show them they care and now you get on them and say, Hey, go do that. They're going to be like, okay, I know I can bounce back from that because my coach really likes me and they care about me as a person. Let me go do that.
Kerri Kuzbyt (16:29.356)
Yes.
Kerri Kuzbyt (16:33.357)
Mm.
Yes.
Mm.
Michael Huber (16:52.694)
And I think that's the psychological safety part that you've kind of maybe hinted at, but we certainly talked about before we started recording is I am a huge believer in that trust. If that trusted exists in the environment, there are a lot of things kids will be willing to do because they feel like they can fail safely to your point, right? how do you specifically, how do you go out of your way to create that sort of psychologically safe trusting environment for the.
Kerri Kuzbyt (16:55.927)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (17:10.605)
you
Michael Huber (17:21.068)
the basketball athletes that you're coaching so that they get the most out of the things that you're teaching them.
Kerri Kuzbyt (17:26.733)
It's simple, I don't see him as an athlete first. I see him as a person in front of me. Because eventually the game, whatever game you're playing, soccer, basketball, football, it's not going to be forever. What you're left with is the person you're becoming into. Where you're not just tied to that identity. I myself fell into that. Where it wasn't expressed to me early on, yeah, it's okay to be somebody different than
Michael Huber (17:30.766)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (17:38.114)
and
Kerri Kuzbyt (17:56.097)
Hey, Carrie, who just plays basketball? So I myself struggled for a little period of time. Wait, who, like, I knew the lessons that the game was teaching me in the vehicle, but it really wasn't expressed, you know, hey, after basketball's over, like, who do you see yourself as, kind of, right? And so for me, I like to express that early on. You could still be ruthless in your pursuit and delusional in all of your methods to become the greatest.
but you could also still have the voice at the back of your head of like reality. Hey, I'm not going to play this forever. Even like when I play professionally, I'm not playing it forever. Like most people do, but there are certain people, again, there's a little reality component of it where only a few people could play that for their life. Okay, so I think number one is understanding that and that reality, but going back to it again.
you're the athlete second to me. Like when it comes to like player development, I see it as development. And so if I could get them to understand and use basketball, the sport is our common language as the vehicle. And that's what like my university coaches really allowed me to see is that like, yeah, we got to learn time when you're a student athlete, time management. You have to work with other teammates that you may not like. Hey, that's like real, real life and work. Like you may not like
other certain people, hey, you're gonna face resilience. How are you going to respond to it? Like it, I, it clicked. I think it was in like my second year. I was like, like I'm growing as a, as a, as a young woman here, essentially. So when I look at player development, like I want you to be confident in who you are and, and instill that and allow you to find it. It's inside of you. You just need somebody to like,
Michael Huber (19:41.614)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (19:48.813)
poke at you enough and in the right ways that allows you to be like, whoa, I had that within me the entire time. And I even still have that today with like my current coach when I'm doing my strength goals and weight training. Like you lean on those people so that they could help you find what you're capable of and what's in front of you. So when it comes to psychological safety,
portion of it and you nailed it right there and I even had that like in my past lifetime as a a phys ed teacher like when you gain their trust everything else comes like nothing but why because you are communicating to them I don't care about an outcome I care about you long term for me like player development it's on a long time horizon I see so many coaches too many whether you're player development or this they're only focused on the short term wins
Michael Huber (20:31.47)
.
Kerri Kuzbyt (20:42.932)
outcomes, all that sort of stuff. Their inability to appear less successful early on is then their biggest downfall. So for the short period of time, like they only call it like growing pains. It's growing. You're going to outgrow them. Okay. It's not forever. Right. So if you could communicate to the athlete and the person in front of you, Hey,
Michael Huber (20:43.982)
Bye.
Kerri Kuzbyt (21:10.078)
I see you and you said those words because I love saying that as well as I see you because any anybody in this world remove sport, they only want to be seen and heard. And so that people could like have that sense of, I matter in this world. I carry a certain value that is different. So when you could allow them to feel it is the most powerful thing. And when you have them feel that, then it's like, walls are broken down.
you actually believe in me. So now, as you mentioned, now I could push you a little more because we've established that connection. But unless psychologically you could have that first and you don't see them as the athlete, you don't see them as the outcome, you don't see them as another name and notch on your belt to get more people, it's going to be short-lived. So for me, it's, hey, can you communicate to them?
I'm here for you long term. I accept you for who you are long term and I want to help you grow into the person and your ultimate potential that you can be. But we're going to start and we're going to do this together regardless of how messy it is. And if once they once they feel that and they see that pull it's magic. It's magic. Everything else comes.
Michael Huber (22:32.095)
And I love what you just said there. No matter how messy it is, right? And so I do want to talk about specifically some of the things you're doing in your work, right? So setting, going in running camps or clinics or however you guys do it, maybe you could talk about that. like, I would imagine the way you present basketball or present the world through the lens of basketball to young players is very different for a lot of them, right?
Kerri Kuzbyt (22:43.402)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (22:59.329)
Very.
Michael Huber (23:00.085)
in that constraints led approach, right? Setting up the environment in a very messy way so that they can do better, which is very, a lot of times, very much the opposite of the way they're coached, which is a pristine block practice, no challenges, no mess, completely, you know, layup lines and things like that where there's no mess. How do you sort of get them comfortable with that mess so that they start to embrace it and understand what you're trying?
Kerri Kuzbyt (23:14.444)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (23:25.868)
Mmm.
Michael Huber (23:29.239)
to accomplish.
Kerri Kuzbyt (23:30.784)
I express them very early on that the game is messy. It's chaotic. It's unpredictable. So we need to train in that capacity. And in order to do so, there's going to be a lot of messy reps, a lot of failure, and it's a lot of discovery. And when I express to them discovery and curiosity, so I, I
I call them up and I invite them to be curious because curiosity are your problem solvers and the most skillful are your adaptive problem solvers and creative decision makers. Well, creativity goes hand in hand with efficiency and creativity is you see the problem and you could solve the problem at the exact same time. And with that, that comes adaptability.
Michael Huber (24:23.342)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (24:23.747)
And when they understand that now their role is a problem solver, not somebody that has to do a specific one, two, three, they now kind of start to let down that guard and to see their faces when I say, Hey, I want you to explore. want you to try something extremely different. Everything here is fair game. There's no right or wrong.
It's going to be whatever is effective and least effective depending on the context, depending on the situation at certain period of time. But it's going to be our job and your job to continue to explore the environment because with exploratory learning comes functionality and functionality is efficient and effective. That skill, that's the thing that transfers. So when I communicate that to them and I say, this is what that training looks like. Now they start to really, wow, you're giving me the permission slip to like,
not do this, that I'm always like chained up by traditional coaches and traditional methods, right? It's like the weight is lifted off their shoulders. So that's the biggest thing when it comes to CLA. It's enough structure within the constraints to allow unstructured creativity to emerge. And I give this analogy, it was just something that like popped into my head and I was having a conversation with a coach.
Michael Huber (25:21.71)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (25:47.628)
And I was like, this is what I just imagined. And you know, like the kiddie pools younger, they blow up and you put like the little toddler. Yeah, I had one. It was awesome. Right. So that kiddie pool are the constraints. It's the environment that we set up for these athletes. They're boundaries. Okay. But they're safe because it's squishy. Right. So it's a safe boundary. It's a constraint. What happens when you put the kid into it?
Michael Huber (25:53.132)
Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (26:16.127)
The kid loves it. They're splashing. They're going here. They're going there. They're not going in a certain way. Like they are just exploring. They're having fun. That is the athlete inside the environment, inside the tasks that we are giving them within practices to explore. So I say that to coaches. They're exploring. They're having fun. They're just figuring it out. But we're giving them that safe environment to allow them to find the solution that is best for them.
that also allows them to be the most authentic. That's what also occurs with exploratory learning. It comes with authenticity and it comes with the most functional solutions. So when the athletes hear me express that to them and then they are now experiencing these problems that I'm giving them and the challenges, they're less resistant to them. They're less fearful for them. They actually get excited. Why? Because they know there's not one definitive answer.
Michael Huber (27:10.146)
Right. Yeah. But I think, I mean, there's so much we could talk about in that. But the last thing you said there, I think is so critical. When you're able to explain to them why we're doing this and here are the constraints, right? Like it's you go figure it out. You're giving them the autonomy to fail and you're allowing them to explore the environment. Like that's something I talk to athletes about in the work that I do, which is rather than judging that
Kerri Kuzbyt (27:16.202)
Okay.
Kerri Kuzbyt (27:37.653)
Okay.
Okay.
Michael Huber (27:40.911)
Or that thought or that feeling let's explore with curiosity like how? How do I use that to solve the puzzle, right? How do I a confident problem solver? How do I solve that puzzle and look at it with that curiosity of like I could have done that What should I do next time to get a different outcome versus? I got a bad outcome. I'm a bad person right like in this interpretation so like I love the kiddie pool analogy because
Kerri Kuzbyt (27:45.867)
Okay.
Kerri Kuzbyt (27:49.983)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (27:57.265)
and
Kerri Kuzbyt (28:06.472)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Michael Huber (28:07.694)
allowing them to go in there, you kind of set up these squishy walls and say, hey, go splash around and figure out how to use it. And I think that that's, I think it's also very, and you can, probably have a better read on this because you do it every day. I think it's also very, can be very confusing for young athletes because it's so, in a lot of ways, counterintuitive to the way that they're typically being coached.
Kerri Kuzbyt (28:29.739)
Yeah, yeah, it's almost like again I relate it back to Being a phys at high school phys ed teacher And you know you're dealing and you're your parents as well and I grew up through that phase All we want to do is be treated as an adult All we want to do is have a voice and be seen and be heard and we want to be treated as that So when you could do that to your athlete?
And when you're actually giving them that voice, they're like, wait, what do I do it now? Right? Like they're almost taken aback. Yeah. Or when I'm only bringing them in for 30 seconds and then, okay, go out. They're not waiting for five minutes, having a coach just scream at them or highlight only the negatives. And it's like, hey, make this adjustment, go play. What? And then they're almost like, they haven't latched on because they
Michael Huber (29:04.814)
Alright, I'll take that back.
Kerri Kuzbyt (29:28.043)
But typically they know, oh, I'm going to be chilling for five minutes, so I'm going relax. When I only bring them in for 30 seconds, say, go out. There's like, wait, what? Like, what just happened? And then they start to pick on. the word that you used, and it's a huge one, and it's one of the three psychological needs. I'm sure you're very aware of them of, you know, intrinsic motivation. Autonomy is the number one. Then we have the confidence.
And then we have then relatableness. So autonomy is giving them that say. Yeah. So when I step in and I ask them or I guide them, have a conversation with them. If you give them that say within their training, they become confident. Why? Because they've grabbed competence. They understand the why behind it. And then when they have that kind of sense of relatableness around them, other peers,
that are not above them. They're not judging them. Why? Because the peers are in the same boat they are. They are vulnerable right now. So, yeah, no, no, no, just to end on it, it's like the autonomy is the biggest thing, but within traditional coaching, they don't give them the voice and then they don't have the competence, then they don't have the confidence. they're like, it's as easy as that.
Michael Huber (30:34.488)
Right? Yeah, it's that... Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Michael Huber (30:54.958)
Right, exactly. that's ultimately right. play that if you play that out, ultimately it leads to athlete burnout. Right. If I don't feel like I have a sense of control, right. We're talking about self-determination theory, right. But I'm in control. I don't feel like I'm getting better or understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. And I'm not doing it in an environment that I enjoy being in. I'm not going to have intrinsic motivation. I'm going to feel forced and I want to go, why am I doing this? Right. Versus I have a sense of control in my environment within reason, right.
Kerri Kuzbyt (31:02.43)
Yes.
out. Yeah.
Michael Huber (31:24.974)
with guardrails. I'm getting better, right? Even if it means some failing, but I'm moving forward, I'm progressing, I feel like I'm getting better. And I'm in an environment where everybody's in the same boat. There's a common vocabulary. There's a common language of, hey, we're all in this together. We're all failing together. We're all learning together. We're doing it. We're operating under these common principles. So everybody's on a level playing field versus there are no principles. Or the only principle is I'm going to
Kerri Kuzbyt (31:25.204)
Yep. Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (31:31.7)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (31:54.265)
you know, the players who perform the best from an outward looking perspective are going to be rewarded and the players who don't produce the results that are desired or not. Now that's also going to limit motive, right? We're creating a system or creating an environment where logically I can go in there every day and feel like I'm getting better. I'm enjoying myself and I'm with people who kind of think about the world the same way I do.
Kerri Kuzbyt (31:59.402)
Mm-mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (32:07.71)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (32:13.747)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (32:17.672)
Yeah, I think that goes to the point of, you know, establishing a culture of error. that's psychological safety. So the culture of error is, hey, failure is good here. And if you fail, I'm going to stand by you. And when you could communicate that to them silently. So that's one of the biggest things. Coach in traditional methods, when mistake happens, brr brr brr brr.
Michael Huber (32:26.733)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (32:45.31)
Mistake happens within those that are a bit more in the contemporary approach to Whiskill acquisition. This is me. Mistake happens.
Dragon. And then even if I do say something, I'd be like, and then they'll go. And then it's, it's allowing them to understand, wow, like, they're not going to get after me. But me even just doing that, or me just like, holding off, it's silently communicating, I don't care that you just failed. I'm still here. Right?
Michael Huber (33:19.245)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (33:20.594)
So that culture of error is, again, establishing, you even mentioned it, like you come in and everyone's in that same sort of boat, right? That, I believe, truly right there is them understanding subconsciously and redefining failure to an extent, them now seeing vulnerability as a strength. It's never seen that way, right? So when you can start to see vulnerability as a strength,
everything changes.
Michael Huber (33:51.661)
Right. So I'll flip that around to what you just said. one of the things I talk about, I'm just going to sort of speak from my own perspective, I talk about redefining success. Right. So let's just use the basketball example, because that's the game we're talking about. Basketball players, they're just so conditioned to define success as outcomes versus I had a bad shooting day, but all the shots I took were makeable. They were open.
Kerri Kuzbyt (33:55.358)
Yeah, please.
Kerri Kuzbyt (34:04.618)
Sure. Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (34:20.223)
Mm.
Michael Huber (34:21.058)
They were good decision, right? They would help my team if they go down, but I can't guarantee that they're gonna go down, because once it leaves my hand, it's out of my control. And even if I'm a really good shooter, I'm still missing 60 % of the time. Can I define success that way for myself, even though the environment, the coaching environment, the constraints are that I have to generate results to be seen as successful? That's a really, that's like a big part of my job is to say, hey,
Kerri Kuzbyt (34:28.86)
Mm. Mm.
Michael Huber (34:48.994)
You're still a good player. You had a rough shooting day. Were they good shots? Yeah. Could you make them? Yeah. Did they go down? No. Okay. But you need to keep shooting them because those are the right decisions. Just because your coach says they weren't good shots doesn't mean they weren't good shots. It just means they are interpreting in a different way. Now that's a really hard thing for a high school athlete, even a college athlete to be able to do because they're still connecting that fear part of their brains going, I missed those shots.
Kerri Kuzbyt (35:03.55)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (35:15.692)
What's going to happen to me? Am I going to get benched? Am I going to play? Am I going to get recruited? Am I going to go pro? In that moment, you feel that fear, but really helping them learn for themselves to learn to be able to redefine success and go, you know what? Yeah, I'm pissed off that I missed those shots and I'm worried that I'm going to get benched, but I'm still going to keep shooting them because those shots are still good ones and I'm okay with that. That's a really hard thing to do, but I think it's really important because it's the choices, it's the controllables, it's making good decisions.
Kerri Kuzbyt (35:17.482)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (35:21.896)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (35:32.436)
Okay.
Kerri Kuzbyt (35:36.98)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (35:45.1)
That's really the thing that dictates whether or not we're successful, not the makes and misses on any given day. That's just random in a lot of ways.
Kerri Kuzbyt (35:54.076)
Yeah, I think you nailed it right there with regards to there's only one metric that people are only measuring success by and the greatest cultures, the greatest coaches and trainers, practitioners, they will communicate with their athletes. They will define what success looks like. And it's more so they're not. What is it? It's not their style of play. It's.
I forget the actual like technical terminology, but it's the way that they see the game and how they define it. for instance, okay, we're not going to measure our success based off of a successful outcome. We're going to measure our success this year based off of how many games we win by holding true to our style of play or how we win. Like they use it as a form of life.
So the way in which you do things, and they use this example from Brazil soccer. So Brazil is like culture, it's religion, it's football, right? So they get mad at winning a game that they sacrificed their style, their culture, their identity for, versus actually winning the game. So that's one metric.
Michael Huber (37:02.126)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (37:12.45)
Yes!
Michael Huber (37:15.906)
Right.
Kerri Kuzbyt (37:18.334)
The other metrics that you could go and define your season by is, hey, if we beat our percentage from last year, if we could hold teams under the 14 turnovers, like you have shared metrics that are just not individual based. Again, that goes to like your coach establishing that culture, culture of error, culture of safety, all that sort of stuff, that shared alignment across everyone.
because then it allows them not to go for, dog eat dog, there's only one scholarship. Yes, that is the reality, but no coach is going to come to you if you're, if you're only ever doing that. So like when it comes to that and you mentioned the word decision, decision is the number one skill in any sport. Yes, we're talking about basketball here, but in any discipline, it is what separates those that are the skillful and the elite versus
Michael Huber (37:46.819)
Right.
Kerri Kuzbyt (38:14.558)
than the beginners or the intermediates and the less skillful on the team. So I always like to say, and I got this from a really good mentor of mine, is I asked the athletes and I allow them to shift it to this instance because as I was growing up as well, sometimes the basketball gods just do not like you that day. I've had back-to-back games. I've gone 0 for 10. The next game, because it was a back-to-back in university, I was like, can't get much worse.
Sometimes it can, 0 for 11, next game. And I'm like, okay, it still can't get that much worse. And so like the resilience, so how I would approach it within a training context, player development is yeah, I'm gonna build in adversity, I'm gonna build in ways that I could heighten your emotions because emotions are constraint. And we have performance inhibitors of pressure, fatigue, anxiety. So if I can instill those and this is how I train them.
now they're going to be being able so much more robust to it. And I think you're you're bursting like, you're like, yes, percent percent. And so, and so this last thing is, so I say to the athletes, I asked them, do not judge your workout based off of the amount of shots you make and take. I want you to base your workouts and judge them by the amount of decisions you made. So if you make,
Michael Huber (39:17.486)
Yes. I am. Yes. Because... Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Kerri Kuzbyt (39:43.337)
50 to 100 decisions in the hour training versus making two shots and missing. And I've been there with my player development coach. I remember specifically three or four sessions and I was a good, I was a good basketball player. I went two or three sessions. I didn't make a single bucket in an hour. Like it's possible. And so if they could understand that, Hey, I made 50 decisions. I only made two shots.
that's still a great workout. So I flip that. I always say base your workouts off the amount of decisions you make versus the amount of shots that you make.
Michael Huber (40:23.064)
Yeah, when you said emotion is a constraint, like that's where I really got me, right? Because to me, right, the ability to make decisions, right, if that's the number one skill that an athlete has, which I would, would co-sign that every day, the ability to make good decisions. And this is kind of where I see myself every single day doing the work I do is in order to make the decisions, we have to stay calm, right? I have to be present. I can't be in the future.
Kerri Kuzbyt (40:29.735)
out
Kerri Kuzbyt (40:39.166)
Mm.
Michael Huber (40:51.598)
and I can't be in the past. I have to be in that moment going, okay, how can I stay as calm and present as possible to make the next right decision? If I made a bad decision or I got a bad result, get a negative outcome from that decision, what did I learn from it? So that I can myself and start from baseline of, okay, that shot didn't go down, it created emotion, that's a constraint. How do I reset myself as quickly as possible?
Kerri Kuzbyt (40:59.235)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (41:08.968)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (41:20.285)
Mm.
Michael Huber (41:20.926)
able to practice that right so as I was thinking it was listening to what you said I was thinking about a player that I've been working with for three years is a basketball player and we're working we're always working on ways to reset right and so he was like well we do this drill and practice with my school team where we're doing it's like a conditioning drill but we do shooting conditioning shooting right so we're sprinting but we're shooting right so you're creating fatigue right so I'm like okay now you want to use your resets in that drill
Kerri Kuzbyt (41:43.005)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (41:47.407)
because now you're fatigued and you're less likely to make a shot. You might get frustrated. Let's use that reset routine that we work on for games in practice so that you have it available to you in a game because you've been practicing it in the environment. Right? You're not just using it in a vacuum of, well, now today the game is important and I've got to make decisions. So now I'm going to, this is how I'm going to bounce back. We've got to be doing that all the time. Right? So like we're building in the environmental constraints, right? The ecological conditions of
Kerri Kuzbyt (42:10.515)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (42:15.763)
Yep.
Michael Huber (42:17.358)
Hey, I'm learning how to apply these mental skills all the time, every day, in every situation and creating the stress to make those decisions versus just being like, hey, practice, I'm going to go shoot 500 shots. And that was great. And now I get in a game and someone's got his hand in my face and he's up in my chest and there's, you know, a two point game on the scoreboard. And now all of a sudden, all those 500 shots, they're out the window. They don't matter because it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing.
Kerri Kuzbyt (42:25.48)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (42:33.929)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (42:42.313)
They mean nothing exactly and you said it just right then and there. This is why. Context is king and Queen. It matters because yes, you could do those 500 and this is where athletes always say or the coaches. You're the best practice player, but you like you can't transfer to the game. There's a reason why it's not transferring to the game. It's because you are not having a direct exposure, a direct learning experience within the actual thing within the actual environment of whether it.
biggest thing within ecological dynamics, environmental designing, representativeness. That could be representative within the defender, but it's also representative, as we were saying, within the performance inhibitors, pressure, fatigue, anxiety, also those emotions and heightening them up. So if you're never training in them, yeah, when you get placed in them, you're not gonna have a hot clue how to deal with them. And so it goes to, even you saying it,
Emotional regulation is a skill. It is something that I am still developing to this day, but it is Something that will really I was always told like because I was a point guard you got to have the The memory of a goldfish. It's got to go like you messed up it let it go because my coach always said if you allow it to go one mistake becomes two becomes three becomes four so you have to have the memory of a goldfish and
Michael Huber (43:45.134)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (44:10.633)
when it comes to emotional regulation and emotions as a constraint, why are emotions a constraint? Is because they inhibit and they cloud judgment, which inhibits your decision making, which ultimately is your number one skill. So I always say, you could play with an emotion. We want that. You don't want to play with emotions, plural. This is where you have all those voices. You have anger, you have like,
Michael Huber (44:21.326)
Have a good weekend.
Kerri Kuzbyt (44:40.04)
It's the stories you tell yourself about yourself, that internal dialogue, like that is, I could even speak from an athlete's perspective. It destroyed me at certain periods of time until you start to learn to harness it and change the language that you're talking to yourself with. Like you need to change that in order to then have the outcomes that you want to actually perform at the ability that you can. But
the language that you use to yourself, that's going to be the biggest thing that is going to prevent you. And I even just had this conversation with an athlete when I was in Hong Kong last week. I said, do you want to play like in the States, Canada, because they were 16, and then come back, play professionally? She said, yeah, but I said, but what? She said, well, I don't think I'm good enough. said, well, that's a reason right there. Like you're already limiting your belief. You're already capping yourself on the ceiling. So
Because you're telling yourself that story and that narrative, yes, you feed into it. So emotional regulation and like one of the greatest things that like I read and I heard and I just can't like get it out of my head is that you want to, you could sit with the emotion, but not become it. You're going to have those. So it's okay to feel anxious. It's okay to feel pressure. You don't have to become it though.
Michael Huber (45:56.611)
Right.
Michael Huber (46:03.022)
Yes. Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (46:07.814)
So just sit with them.
Michael Huber (46:10.124)
Right. But that's why I'm such a big proponent as a mental performance coach with mindfulness, because it's the same principle of I'm noticing my thoughts, I'm observing them, I'm not judging them. Right? And so when we think about curiosity versus judgment, Like that thought, if I'm aware of it and understand why it's there, it's just there to protect me, right? On those feelings, but I don't have to answer to it. I can notice it, let it go.
Kerri Kuzbyt (46:18.025)
Yep.
Awareness, yes. Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (46:27.836)
Right?
Michael Huber (46:39.278)
and be curious, like, why is that thought coming up, right? The ability to regulate emotions is about being curious about our thoughts so that we look at it and go, oh, I kind of get it, but it's not who I am versus, oh my God, my mind generated this thought, maybe I'm not good enough, or what's gonna happen next, or what if, what if, what if, what if, what if? That leads to one mistake, to two mistakes, to snowball of, I missed a layup, now I'm back on D times F speed.
Kerri Kuzbyt (46:50.984)
Mm-mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (47:02.695)
Yeah.
I even like.
Michael Huber (47:07.854)
Now I'm not communicating on defense. Now it becomes this big loop I can't get out of until I get yanked out of the game. And now I'm sitting on the sidelines beating myself up. I want players to be able to break that loop as quickly and as easily as possible so they can get back into the moment, be a goldfish and play the next play.
Kerri Kuzbyt (47:10.652)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (47:16.168)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (47:26.936)
Yeah, and I think that comes to a different tactic that I took, like in the moment you don't want to analyze, you don't want to dive deep into it. But what I picked up and I still do to this day is journaling. So when I could put the words on paper, I see it as I gain back the power from it. So I always imagine it, and I was told this once where
Michael Huber (47:43.469)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (47:55.975)
You know, all those thoughts in your head of failure, of pressure, of all this, I just made this big, all this picture like a car in an empty parking lot, just going around, donuts, drifting, all that. Those are your thoughts. The parking lot is your mind. If once you put down those words of paper and how I feel with it, I see them and I strip the power they almost have from me within the head. Now, of course, in game, you're not going to do this. This is
I think an additional strategy and method to do in addition to the tactics that we develop. And I'll even talk to the athlete as well of like a reset. You mentioned the reset. Okay. So for, for me, and there was a story, George Kittle. So George Kittle, you know, George Kale. Yeah. Tight end. So he and his performance coach at Iowa was saying, Hey, we need to reset. And so he would say a reset button.
Michael Huber (48:43.63)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (48:52.624)
And so he would go, if there was a mistake, he'd be like, the reset button. And so he would hit his forearm and he actually has it like tattooed of like a reset button on there because it would allow them to go like hit the reset, shake it off. It's the next it's just forward. It's not looking back. It's not thinking in. It's like hit reset, go. So when athletes within training sessions are very, very frustrated and one is becoming two, becoming three emotions are coming up here. I could see it. It's, it's preventing it's inhibiting them.
Michael Huber (49:01.586)
yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (49:22.48)
I bring them in, say, hey, time out. Let's hit the reset button. Let's grab water. We come back. Done. But I think they need to have the strategies, but then they need to couple it with after when you have the time. You can now explore the depths of, and you even mentioned it, why is this coming up? Why is this? Why is this? I think the missing portion of it, and I would love to hear your thoughts on it, is
Michael Huber (49:32.526)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (49:50.862)
Most of the time, those emotions that are coming up are revealing deficiencies and parts of us that we sometimes still don't want to face or fully understand. But if you could explore the depths and understand that they're coming up for a reason and you can now sit with them and start to understand them, they now stop controlling you. But it's scary, it's vulnerability, right?
Michael Huber (50:15.693)
not as scary.
Michael Huber (50:19.544)
Yes, right.
Kerri Kuzbyt (50:20.269)
It's again, it's going back to our whole main theme of like failure. Who cares though? But the more that you resist it, the more you're just going to stay still and nothing's worse.
Michael Huber (50:31.022)
And here's the thing, Like those thoughts in your mind, like they get to the journaling example of perfect, right? That's something I would suggest to an athlete. The thoughts just get big in your head. You think that the people on the outside are as familiar and they care as much as you do. You're just worried about what other people are gonna think of you. Meanwhile, no one else really cares, but you're letting that get in your head, right? Versus.
Kerri Kuzbyt (50:55.473)
Right? Yes.
Michael Huber (50:57.462)
Okay, let's get it out of our head. Now that might be talking to somebody or it might just be writing it down. So there's like sort of a few things in there that I sort of wanted to touch on because they kind of pulls a lot of things that you've said together, which is the reset, right? That re I've literally had kids draw that reset button on their hand on a hockey stick or it has to be unique to them. So like, let's take basketball. I have the basketball player that I work with for him. It's about making an impact. I don't care if I'm shooting the ball. Well, I just want to impact the game, right?
Kerri Kuzbyt (51:01.575)
Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (51:13.671)
Mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (51:26.983)
Mmm.
Michael Huber (51:27.276)
That means a lot of different things. Making an impact means getting on the floor, playing defense, being a good teammate, being a leader, passing the ball, whatever. That's his reason. Like, hey, come back to the game. You got to make an impact. You can't do it up here. You got to do it out here, right? But it has to be unique to the individual. It's got to mean something. The front end of that with a lot of athletes is setting an intention. Who do I want to be when I go into this game? Right? So if I want to come to the game and I have these intentions of who do I want to be, right? Not, want to score 25 points.
Kerri Kuzbyt (51:41.34)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (51:44.934)
Right.
Michael Huber (51:57.207)
I want to be relentless. want to make an impact. I want to be a good team. I want to be a good defender, whatever those things are, right? I'm setting them up front. Now I'm preparing my mind to go execute on them. I have a reset to bring me back to those intentions. And then when it's over, did I do it? Right? Why didn't I do it? Like what was holding me back or what did I do? Well, like, Hey, I did a really good job of resetting. Yeah. was two for 11 from the field, but I made an impact every minute I was on the floor. Good.
Let's learn about it. Let's get it out of our head. Let's reflect. Let's take the learning, move forward with that, and let's leave the emotion behind, right? Like you said, let's not sit in it. Let's sit with it and let it go and then move forward and learn. Having a process to do that consistently is really, hard because our emotions win most of those medals, you know, especially when we're doing something that's so tied to our identity as athletes. That's who I am, right? Even if it's not only who I am,
Kerri Kuzbyt (52:47.207)
So tough.
Kerri Kuzbyt (52:52.892)
Mm.
Michael Huber (52:57.066)
I identify with that as like I'm an athlete first. And when that doesn't go well, I do beat myself up. I do feel bad. I do question my existence. And now all of a sudden I get stuck in that loop. I have to have ways to get out of it. Some of that's internal, some of that's self done, and some of it's with the environment, the people I surround myself with. That's all really hard. It's a constant puzzle that we're solving for. It's not something that's ever static.
Kerri Kuzbyt (52:58.907)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (53:10.567)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (53:21.443)
It is. It is, and it's something that I've expressed to, you know, my close ones for and even to like athletes that are aspiring, especially like females that like want to play and even males to them as well. Like you want to play like professionally, not even professionally, but even like Division one in Canada or the states or anywhere is that those four years of playing professionally, I learned
the most about myself as a person because there was so much uncertainty and there was so many, you know, unknowns or just like, just, but I just kept moving. Why? Because I just kept believing like, you have to have a level of delusion. I truly believe like be so delusional that it comes true. Right. And so within those, those
Michael Huber (53:53.838)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (54:20.22)
I just learned who I wanted to become who I wanted to you know identify as as like the person that will not stop until They achieve something the one that keeps going up. No matter what the one that It is was like way back early in our conversation, but you know I say to athletes
And even to myself, I remind myself like every single day, like just be dangerous. Like when you're dangerous, you have nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, this stuff comes so much more. So I say, you gotta be dangerous. For as much as you have to be curious, you have to be dangerous. You have to be delusional. And when you could have that, okay, now you start to realize, who am I beyond the person? And all of these kind of skills and behaviors and...
Michael Huber (55:01.592)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (55:13.159)
qualities that you're starting to you know form without kind of even knowing it But without going through those Uncertain moments or you know just putting yourself out there to be vulnerable and it yeah It was tough like you would I would train all day and then I would have to mentally have the capacity to sit down and Attack my mind attack the language when I didn't want to and it goes for anything like if you don't want to work out that day in but we still have to work out
Like we still have to do the thing. so much better after doing it. But there are going to be days majority of the time and a lot of people don't even express this and it's complete BS. But the people that are the greatest like they don't want to do it all the time every time. Like it's impossible. Like there are days where like I don't want to get up. But no I want to work out. I get to work out and then once I'm working out I'm like I feel so much better. But I think it's just in those moments where yeah you
Michael Huber (55:56.184)
course.
Kerri Kuzbyt (56:10.885)
You don't want to sit with the emotion. You don't want to confront something. is the exact moment you do need to. As tough as it's going to be, you feel better a little bit afterwards for it. But if you keep, you know, avoiding it or not wanting to understand it, you remain still and stagnation kills anything, everything more than anything. But if you're at least, you know, putting yourself, you continue to show up, you'll never lose.
You never lose. You are the toughest person to beat. If you just keep showing up, how annoyed would you be of a competitor that just no matter what, it's just like Rocky, you know, in Rocky one, Apollo keeps hitting him down. It just keeps coming up. It's like, what am I going to do to get this guy off? It's exhausting, right? But I've learned to realize, and this was a phrase that like really encapsulated a lot in like the shift is that I always wanted to be
Michael Huber (56:59.811)
Right.
Kerri Kuzbyt (57:10.342)
the person that would outwork everybody. I prided myself in that. Yeah, 100 % did. I was always outworking everybody. But then I started to realize it wasn't about outworking everybody, it was about outlasting anybody, which meant I keep showing up in whatever capacity that may be that day. So even expressed to the athletes, some days ball's not going going. Some days home life is gonna kinda get in the way. Maybe something at school.
Maybe a relationship light in the way. Okay. So maybe that day you're operating at 40 % of your capacity. The goal is, is that you put a hundred percent in achieving that 40 % that day and it's still a win. And then tomorrow you're not going to be at 40 % capacity. So that's something that I personally have started to really lean into, currently. And then I love communicating and sharing that with athletes because
Ultimately, I love and I've always wanted to teach the lessons that I learned late, early. Something I wish I had. So stuff that I'm going through right now, it's like, want to tell this 16 year old this, because this 16 year old gets this versus me who's 31. Yeah, you're way ahead of me. Yeah.
Michael Huber (58:29.312)
Right. Saving them a lot of time and aggravation. Yes. Right. And that's a big part of the reason why I got into what I'm doing because of my own experiences. Right. And sharing those, knowledge and the experience and the skills that help them be better people. Right. Like you said, everyone retires. Like it's just a matter of when, right. When you walk out of sport, whenever that sometime is, is like, who am I? I'm still dangerous. I'm still resilient.
Kerri Kuzbyt (58:44.313)
Exactly.
Yeah? Correct.
Michael Huber (58:56.878)
I'm still the same person. My identity is tied to that worldview that that that identity is steeped in like that. Behate those behaviors that are way beyond sport. Yeah, exactly. Like that's why I love when you said like be dangerous, right? Because like that idea in sports psychology of like, well, you know, just, you know, don't worry about what everybody thinks that that's not easy to do. Right. Is that so?
Kerri Kuzbyt (59:00.99)
Mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (59:07.898)
Human. It's not the sport. It's the human.
Kerri Kuzbyt (59:14.191)
Hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (59:22.566)
Yeah, it's a comparison world.
Michael Huber (59:24.59)
brain actually does is designed for that. Your brain is designed to care about what other people think because it protects you from the feelings that we don't like versus no. You can care what other people think, but go be dangerous. Like let's point ourselves in that direction and create that identity of someone who acts in the world that way, even when it's uncomfortable. Right. And that's we have to train ourselves to do that. And that's not an easy thing to do. But with us, with a safe environment, with supportive
Kerri Kuzbyt (59:45.37)
Mm-hmm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (59:52.421)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (59:54.123)
adults and mentors and coaches who allow us the permission to be that way, even when we're not playing the way we want to because they see us as people. Now, of sudden, you really do have a dangerous young person because they believe they can do anything. They believe it's okay to fail. And they're going to look over and go, that person's got my back, even if I have a really crappy day, because they care about it. They want me to show up as I am. And like that's
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:00:06.662)
Mm.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:00:15.166)
and
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:00:20.133)
Hmm.
Michael Huber (01:00:23.566)
what this is all about. It's not about putting a ball in the hoop. That's great. We all want to win. It feels good. And we want to be good at what we do. But really, it's about that ability to keep going even when things aren't going well. I think that's where the secret sauce is.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:00:38.342)
Yeah, and I think the last thing to kind of add to that was you talked about, you know, mentors, coaches, parents. I think one thing that also really isn't communicated as much is that you don't have to lone wolf it. You don't have to do it alone. And I, for the longest, longest, longest time, only ever thought like, no, like I wanted to, it was just how I was built in a sense where I didn't want to burden.
Michael Huber (01:00:45.71)
I'm glad to see any of guys. I hope guys have a great day.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:01:07.66)
others. It wasn't appearing, it wasn't me not wanting to appear weak. It was, don't want to put my problems onto somebody else's. I want to figure this out myself. no, I could do this. could like, but you know, what's the exact saying? Like you could go, you could go far on your own, but you can go further with others.
Like that's 100 % true. It's why I even still have a coach right now. Like you go so much further with others. So you don't have to lone wolf it. I think that just has to be something communicated a lot more.
Michael Huber (01:01:47.055)
Yeah, and I don't want to go too far down there because it's something I could talk about for another hour. I don't think we have that much time, but you're right. But I think the challenge with that because I'm again, my personal experiences, I do everything by myself and some very significant things that have happened in my life where I've had out of necessity to get help and it was the best thing that I ever did. So I'm a full believer in that idea. However, I think the challenge with that is finding the people that you really trust, right?
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:01:52.89)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:02:08.304)
Damn.
Michael Huber (01:02:17.054)
Asking you this Yeah people that you can feel psychologically safe with right like in the sense that they understand where you're coming from they can empathize with you right and When you open your mouth and tell them what the problem is they're not gonna go You should do this or you should do that or go fix this they're gonna listen They're gonna sit with it and go. Okay. How do we solve that problem? What do you need to do?
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:02:17.4)
Or a line with. I would say a line with.
Michael Huber (01:02:45.08)
but they're there for you. They're in it with you, but they're not giving you the answers, right? Like I know that when I go to somebody for help, if they're gonna give me an answer before they understand my side of it, I'm gonna tune them out, right? Because you're not really listening to me and what I'm experiencing. You just wanna give me your answer because you think you're right. And that's a very different than, hey, I can help you, but I need to understand what you're going through first before I can help you in a way that works for you.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:02:45.508)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:02:49.594)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:03:03.417)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:03:08.772)
Yeah.
You said the word empathy and as you're just explaining, you have a small circle of friends or you keep a small circle. I do, at least. I was like one of my favorite podcasts, like the Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom. Have you ever tapped into it? my gosh, you need to. But he was explaining, he had one of the experts on and he was explaining empathy.
Michael Huber (01:03:22.253)
I do.
Michael Huber (01:03:31.406)
I have never listened to it.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:03:40.781)
and how somebody would communicate that. he said that, you know, in tough, difficult conversations, somebody who's empathetic, who's there for you, they communicated that's the best way of, they were sitting down and they said, I just want to let you know that your emotions will not be too big for me. Boom, set the stage, open up that safe environment. And like, even when like I listened to it and then I even say it out loud, it's like,
You would want nothing more in the world to have somebody say that to you impossibly a very difficult, tough, vulnerable conversation. And you feel that certain way. Just because like you, I have sought out and I have help from the past and to be with a person who could do that. it helps. It helps so much. But just think about that. If you were told, hey, Michael,
Michael Huber (01:04:33.582)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:04:38.135)
I know this is going to be tough right now, but I just want to let you know that your emotions will not be too big for me. Like it's almost like a permission slip to be like, just be at your most vulnerable.
Michael Huber (01:04:45.134)
Thank you.
Yeah!
Yeah, and it's very clear communication about what they're willing to do to help you. listen, I don't think that there are frankly that many people in the grand scheme of things who have that capability, right? And let's just put in the context of coaching. I think a lot of coaches, a lot of people generally are just uncomfortable with emotions, right? So I share my emotions that are really big with somebody who is not comfortable with them,
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:05:11.683)
Yes. Yeah.
Michael Huber (01:05:17.516)
that person's probably gonna jump in and try to cut me off, right? By just fixing, right? They don't want...
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:05:23.425)
Especially, especially if you add in the male component. Males don't really want to show as much emotion, right?
Michael Huber (01:05:30.798)
100 % listen, yes, right, which is why I think, you know, not to toot my own horn, but I am comfortable with it, which is what makes me a good coach is that I am willing to take on whatever you got emotions. There's nothing that's going to scare me. There's nothing that's going to like cause me to shut down or say, go just go do this. I'm going to listen. I don't care. Like it's real. I've been through it too. I've cried. I've vented. I've been through a lot of crap and I've talked to a lot of people about it. Like it's okay.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:05:38.885)
Yep.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:05:52.004)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (01:06:00.867)
You gotta be okay with it. Because if you're not, you're just gonna stuff it and it's gonna come back at the most inopportune time when you least want it. Those emotions are gonna come back, they're gonna rebel on you, and the thing that you wanna be able to do, it's not gonna happen because your emotions are the thing that are getting in the way of it versus facing it head on, sitting in it, accepting it, understanding what it feels like, and then being like, hey, okay, I felt that. Now I know what to do with it when it comes on me in an important situation.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:06:00.931)
Yep. Yep.
Michael Huber (01:06:29.57)
I'm gonna do this, this is my response. That needs to be trained as well too and that's not that easy for anybody because we're just not designed as humans that way, we have to practice it.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:06:31.045)
Correct.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:06:39.589)
Mm-hmm. But it's the one thing that allows people to achieve a lot more is your just ability to respond to things because you tried to control a lot of things in an uncontrollable world. And we talked about before the conversation of just like our shared interests within stoicism. You want to control your controllables. But within this uncontrollable world, like the one thing, the one thing that you could always control is your choice.
Michael Huber (01:06:52.066)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Huber (01:06:58.392)
Yeah.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:07:10.117)
and your ability to respond, how you choose to respond. So I even express that to the athletes that I share their development with, whether it is a 13 year old just starting or a college athlete that I've been with or even professionals. share the exact same thing, is how are you going to respond? You won't be able to control if the ball will go in that day, if the scout comes and sees you on a good day.
If you have a bad shooting day and you're up for a contract and extension or not, or you're in free agency, all that sort of stuff, you're not going to control that. What you can control is your ability to respond and people and the high level coaches and trainers that I've been around. That's what they focus on. That's what I focus on. Cause I know you're not going to be able to control everything on a given day, but what you could always control is your, how you choose to respond.
And I think if you could practice that, that's going to reveal so much of who you are as a person. And then that will lead to, who you're going to become for this athlete, for this program, for this coach, and all that sort of stuff, and the culture. So if there was one thing that I would tell athletes is that you have to get really, really good at that skill and start to understand that no matter what, on any given day, it doesn't matter. You just always have a choice.
Michael Huber (01:08:11.874)
Yes.
Michael Huber (01:08:39.374)
So that is really a great way to end the conversation. Normally, that would be the question that I ask at the end, is, what's the one thing you would leave the listener with? And you just answered it. Let's stop there. learning how to control the controllables, learning how you want to respond and practice that, because you always have a choice. Kerry, thank you so much. I could have talked for another hour. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I really appreciate it.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:08:51.671)
fantastic.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:09:03.857)
same. No, it definitely has been absolutely incredible just to share the space with you and the different perspectives, the different disciplines, but how they're so intertwined for the athlete, for the coach, for the parents, and just seeing how it is a very holistic thing, a very shared kind of all, my friend said it early in the space, and I can't shake it, but all boats rise with the tide. So if you could do that.
then you have a pretty remarkable thing that could be achieved. So I appreciate you for having me in the space and allowing me to kind of see it from that world as well.
Michael Huber (01:09:41.452)
Yeah, and ultimately a lot you said just before alignment, right? I like to find people that I'm aligned with and have conversations with them because it just tends to be really productive and this was absolutely that. So thank you so much for joining me and hopefully we can do it again soon.
Kerri Kuzbyt (01:09:58.381)
Absolutely, let's do it.