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Round Table Deep Dive Exploring the E4A Principles - Panel 2
14 Plays2 years ago
In Episode 99 of The Sportlight Podcast, your hosts Dustin Smith and Shad Martin dive deep into the foundational principles of Especially for Athletes alongside a lineup of remarkable guests. Joining the conversation are Elsie Murphy, Administrative Assistant to the Utah State Football Coaching Staff; Allie Bills, Former Pro Basketball player and coach; Eli Ballsteadt, who spent 4 years at UofU Basketball; and Coach Ballsteadt, former coach of Wasatch High School and the driving force behind Utah's Elite League.
With a dynamic panel representing various perspectives in the world of sports, this episode delves into the core principles that shape athletes into exceptional individuals. Starting from the concept of the spotlight, the discussion navigates through the significance of principles like Win the Hour, Resiliency, Compete Without Contempt, and Seek to Bless not impress. Join us for an enlightening exploration of these principles that go beyond the game and contribute to personal growth, character development, and fostering a positive sports culture.
Especially for Athletes:
Website: https://especialyforathletes.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EspeciallyForAthletes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/E4Afamily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/especiallyforathletes/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmbWc7diAvstLMfjBL-bMMQ
Credits:
Hosted by Dustin Smith
Produced by IMAGINATE STUDIO
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Support the show: https://especiallyforathletes.com/podcast/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sportlight Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Sportlight Podcast for parents, coaches, and athletes.
00:00:04
Speaker
The Sportlight refers to the time in an athlete's life when they have increased ability to affect the culture around them and the increased opportunity to learn life's lessons through sports.
00:00:14
Speaker
This podcast aims to help parents and coaches capitalize on their athletes' precious time in the Sportlight.
Welcome to E4A Roundtable
00:00:19
Speaker
The Sportlight Podcast is brought to you by Especially for Athletes program.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the E4A Roundtable.
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm Dustin Smith.
00:00:29
Speaker
I'm joined here with a group of athletes, coaches, former coaches as of a couple of weeks ago, I guess, at the high school level, but still a coach.
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Speaker
And we're going to jump into a bunch of different topics and ask each other some different questions.
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We've assembled a group with various backgrounds and ages.
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Speaker
And we're excited to discuss some things.
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So I want to start by introducing a panel.
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I've got LC Murphy here, who's been a member of especially for athletes for seven years, started a sophomore in high school.
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She's currently the we have more.
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Speaker
You're more than just the manager.
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Speaker
What's your official?
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Because you're administrative.
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I work as administrative assistant for the Utah State football coaching staff.
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Speaker
Okay, that's a lot.
00:01:11
Speaker
They put that all on one business card?
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Speaker
All on one business card.
00:01:14
Speaker
Basically, she's the head coach of Utah State football.
Winning the Hour: Maximizing Productivity
00:01:19
Speaker
Allie Bills, who's been, I've known Allie for 30 plus years.
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Allie is a former college division one basketball coach, as well as a division one basketball player, and had some time as a professional basketball player as well overseas.
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Speaker
Shad Martin, who is the co-founder of Especially for Athletes, college teammate of mine, again, 20 plus years ago.
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Speaker
Eli Ballstead has been a member of Especially for Athletes for about the same, right?
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Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
Maybe a little longer?
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Speaker
Probably about 10 years.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, about 10 years.
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Again, about your sophomore, junior year of high school, right?
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Speaker
Yeah, maybe even freshman.
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Okay.
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That's a long time ago.
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Eli went to Wasatch High School, which is up in Heber, Utah, and then went and played four years at the University of Utah.
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Just wrapped up his senior year at the University of Utah as a basketball player.
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And then Coach James Ballstead, who was the basketball coach at Wasatch High School and also runs Utah's top
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Speaker
Elite League, which is for the 50 top high school basketball players in the state.
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Been a basketball coach for a lot of years and one of the best coaches in the state.
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So we've got a panel, like I said, coaches, former college athletes, current administrative assistants, and we want to jump in.
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I want to start off by talking about the first...
00:02:33
Speaker
Principle of especially for athletes, but I want to try to summarize it first with the idea of the sport light.
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Speaker
So for those that, you know, don't know, we refer to the sport light as that time in your life when you have an extra attention given to you because you're an athlete in the spotlight.
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Athletes playing sports nowadays are watched, they're recognized and they're talked about and social media even makes them more so that.
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So when we talk about our first principle of winning the hour, which is our first core principle of especially for athletes, to me, and then I'll pass that on maybe to you coach, secondly, to answer this.
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To me, winning the hour is very simple.
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Try to win every hour of the day that you're awake and make sure you're sleeping for eight hours of the day.
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If you do that, you're awake for 16 hours.
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We refer to that as going 16 and 0.
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We ask everybody to win all 16
Focus and Distractions in Practice
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hours they're awake.
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And you win the hour by doing more than just participating in the hour.
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You make sure that this hour is the most important hour of the day.
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Speaker
And once that hour is done, you move on to the next thing.
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When you're in math class, you're in math class.
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When you're home with your mom and dad, that's your focus.
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Speaker
When you're lifting weights, it's 100% lifting weights, you make that the focus.
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In other words, be where your feet are, be in the moment, be present, and make that the most important.
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So coach, as a high school basketball coach and in running a elite basketball league, you see some of the best basketball players in the state of Utah.
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Speaker
You've also worked with athletes at the high school level who have probably had come to practice, I'm guessing, with distractions occasionally.
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Why is this principle of winning the hour important?
00:04:11
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Not only, I mean, obviously it's important now, but maybe more so now because of all the distractions that kids have.
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I zoned out.
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I was trying to remember the last time I got eight hours of sleep.
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Oh, yeah, right.
Balancing Life and Sports
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I go, I gotta be 18 and I over 20.
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So important.
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One of the things we would talk about with our players all the time is when you walk into practice, you gotta leave everything off the court.
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And it's a constant battle.
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Kids, you know, they get to practice, they've had a bad day in school,
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upset at their girlfriend or had a bad grade, mad at their parents, maybe haven't eaten enough, whatever it is.
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There's so many distractions, there's social issues going on and you can see it in their performance.
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For me, when you're trying to accomplish something,
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When you're focused on that thing in that moment, be where your feet are, you're so much further ahead.
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You get more out of the practice, more out of becoming whatever you're trying to become.
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So that was something we talked about a lot with the players.
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Sometimes we'd meet in the hallway.
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beginning of the season we would do that a lot more.
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Meet in the hallway outside of the gym and get everybody in there.
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Are you guys ready to go?
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Because when we walk in that door and we step across that line, we're going.
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This is what we're doing.
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You're in practice.
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Nothing else matters right now.
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And some of the kids we would talk to,
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the kids that were struggling with some bigger problems, problems at home or whatever, I would take a side and talk about the opportunity to use this as a respite from those things, those worries.
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Just come in here and play and work your butt off and have a great time doing that.
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And I think when players can see it that way a little bit too, it helps focus on that.
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So very important.
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That's great.
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Eli is a college athlete and
Living Life by Design
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student.
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Speaker
um you had a lot on your plate you had to manage your day really probably down to the really down to the hour maybe down to the minute in some days how did you manage make that jump from high school to now your college you have a credit you know a load of credits whatever you had practice weight room gotta eat everything how did you manage that and what tips do you have to kids to actually it's easy to say be where your feet are but how do they do that
00:06:30
Speaker
No, that's a great question.
00:06:32
Speaker
I think for me what I really focused on in high school was figuring out what my priorities were and I really tried to carry that with me in college.
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Speaker
And so first things first was getting done what was most important.
00:06:44
Speaker
And for me that's different for everybody, but for me that was waking up at a certain time and doing a little study in the Word of God.
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And then from there, everything else in my day was kind of planned out with classes and with school.
00:06:58
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But if I got the most important things done first, everything else went a little bit smoother for me.
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And so I think it's important for all of us to determine what's most important for us and then really put those things first in our life and make them a priority.
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And everything else seems to fall into place.
00:07:15
Speaker
Chad, I know where you're going to go with that, right?
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Go ahead.
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I know right what you're going to say.
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Speaker
You're going to talk about scheduling priorities, right?
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I love it.
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I love it.
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There's two quotes that Dustin and I have talked about a lot.
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First of all, we love the word intentional.
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I think sometimes we're just unintentional with our day.
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We kind of wake up and we let the day happen to us instead of, like you said, Stephen R. Covey, he made the comment that we do not...
00:07:41
Speaker
we do not prioritize our schedule, we schedule our priorities.
00:07:47
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And that's a great example of what's most important to me.
00:07:50
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I'm gonna put those things first in my life, I'm gonna make sure those things happen.
00:07:54
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I think what's increased over
Importance of Saying No
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Speaker
the last 10, 15 years is the amount of things we have
00:08:00
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to fill our life.
00:08:02
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If we aren't intentional, our schedule could get filled up really quickly with hours of scrolling, right?
00:08:10
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And then the other one is, the bad news is time flies.
00:08:14
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The good news is you're the pilot.
00:08:17
Speaker
So you could look at your day, decide where you want your destination to be, both long-term and short-term with each hour, and then make sure you map out a plan that...
00:08:30
Speaker
that schedules your priorities, not just look at your day and prioritize your schedule.
00:08:35
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Those who do that are going to accomplish more of what they want to accomplish in life because
00:08:40
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They're happening to life.
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They're not letting life happen to us.
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One of our favorite quotes was Justin Sua when he joined our podcast.
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He said, we need to live a life by design and not by default.
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I think too much, too many of us are living a life by default right now.
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We let life happen to us.
00:09:00
Speaker
A business that tries
Competing with Respect
00:09:02
Speaker
to bake the culture of the business or a team that tries to make the culture of the team a team by default.
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throws five guys out on the basketball court in hopes they mesh and hopes that they get along.
00:09:13
Speaker
A coach who has a design, this is the culture.
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If you watch basketball, you heard a lot recently about the Miami Heat, the Heat culture, that if you come here, there's certain things that are expected of you.
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Speaker
They don't just throw guys out there.
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Speaker
They had a culture and you either buy into it or you're off.
00:09:31
Speaker
And that idea of prioritizing your day would look something like
00:09:37
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All right, I want to study, as you said, the word of God.
00:09:40
Speaker
That's a priority to you.
00:09:43
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You had to lift.
00:09:44
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I guess that would work out.
00:09:45
Speaker
That was a priority, right?
00:09:47
Speaker
You had to have, yeah, you can see you're just, you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger over there.
00:09:51
Speaker
You have to, you have your schoolwork.
00:09:54
Speaker
Priority, once you practice, there's a certain time of day, that's a priority.
00:09:59
Speaker
Once you list those priorities, let's say you have six or seven just core priorities.
00:10:04
Speaker
What, Shad, correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is, okay, if I have 16 hours of the day, I gotta look at these priorities and put those down first.
00:10:13
Speaker
I am doing this at this time
Motivation: Love vs. Hate
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Speaker
and this at that time.
00:10:16
Speaker
Now, if the day something happens,
00:10:19
Speaker
It's not always, it doesn't always go perfectly.
00:10:22
Speaker
Then I got to move it to another time, but I got to be willing to bump out something else because these are priorities that have to get done today.
00:10:29
Speaker
If we don't do that, it's very easy to fill our day with stuff and our intentions were always good.
00:10:36
Speaker
We've talked about before, someday, the imaginary eighth day of the week where dreams go to die someday, right?
00:10:42
Speaker
Someday, eventually I'll get to that.
00:10:44
Speaker
I'll get to it again.
00:10:45
Speaker
All of a sudden it's midnight.
00:10:47
Speaker
and I didn't get to it.
00:10:48
Speaker
Well, if it was really a priority, and if you're focused, if you're really winning the hour, you would have gotten to it.
00:10:54
Speaker
And that's hard, but the habit of becoming somebody who's driven by positive habits is how we become elite.
00:11:01
Speaker
I've mentioned this before.
00:11:03
Speaker
For those of you that heard us talk, we talk about the very first hour of the day being critical.
00:11:08
Speaker
Obviously, you can't go undefeated if you lose the first game of the season.
00:11:11
Speaker
You can't go 16-0 if you lose that first day.
00:11:15
Speaker
Every single day, we start the day off
00:11:17
Speaker
making a winning or a losing decision.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's usually whether or not we hit the snooze
Benefits of Competition
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Speaker
button on our alarm clock or not.
00:11:23
Speaker
It's the battle with the goal we set the night before to wake up at a certain time.
00:11:28
Speaker
And if waking up and getting going and getting active is a priority to us, we're not gonna fiddle around with our snooze button.
00:11:34
Speaker
I always ask this, do you envision the most successful people in the world?
00:11:37
Speaker
Think of whoever that is, in sports or in business, whatever.
00:11:41
Speaker
The most successful person
00:11:43
Speaker
I don't envision that person hitting their snooze button four or five times every morning.
00:11:48
Speaker
I don't see that happening.
00:11:49
Speaker
That person's hitting, getting up and getting at it.
00:11:51
Speaker
They had a plan.
00:11:53
Speaker
As an athlete who played big time Division I and coached eight years at BYU, played at Utah, coached at BYU and played at some professional, how important to you is this idea of being efficient with your day and being present?
00:12:09
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I think that balance is one of those things that doesn't fully exist.
00:12:13
Speaker
So I think being present is really important because you're going to have times in your life where you dedicate a lot more time to something you're trying to be improved and become better.
00:12:22
Speaker
But when you talk about elite and people that want to be successful, what kind of separates them?
00:12:27
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And it's in winning this hour, it's not the person that says, I can do it.
Embracing Failure for Growth
00:12:31
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You know, I got this, I can do it coach.
00:12:33
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It's the one that says I can't and then I will.
00:12:36
Speaker
And will you, will you do it?
00:12:38
Speaker
And that separates, there is a huge gap and
00:12:43
Speaker
whether you will or not is dictated by your why.
00:12:47
Speaker
And why are you doing it?
00:12:48
Speaker
There's things that you're going to have to do in your day as an athlete, business person, parent, that is not what you want to do.
00:12:57
Speaker
But why do I want to be successful in this area?
00:13:00
Speaker
Why do I want it improved?
00:13:01
Speaker
Why do I want to grow as a person, be better as a parent or an athlete?
00:13:06
Speaker
And why am I doing this?
00:13:07
Speaker
If you can answer that question, you won't say I can, you'll say I will.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I think in competing and being around
00:13:16
Speaker
kind of the best of the best, that's the difference is it's not the I can, it's the I will and I am.
00:13:21
Speaker
And I think it just goes a step further from just not just being present, but it's just you have a why behind it as well.
00:13:30
Speaker
What do you think about this, Allie?
00:13:31
Speaker
I want to follow up with the question.
00:13:32
Speaker
When you were saying that, I thought of something.
00:13:35
Speaker
I don't know if we've discussed this before, Shad.
00:13:37
Speaker
Maybe it's something we should.
00:13:40
Speaker
Part of winning the hour, winning the day, therefore, is...
00:13:44
Speaker
It's the ability sometimes to say no to certain things, right?
00:13:48
Speaker
That I can't do everything.
00:13:50
Speaker
You can't say yes to everybody's expectations and demands.
00:13:54
Speaker
And especially, we have a podcast on this, an episode on this, especially to the drains in our life.
00:14:00
Speaker
We need fountains in our life, not drains.
00:14:02
Speaker
And if something's a drain in our life or a drain in our
Parental Support and Resilience
00:14:05
Speaker
day, we've got to...
00:14:06
Speaker
not do that thing.
00:14:07
Speaker
So Ali, again, I want to come back to you on that.
00:14:10
Speaker
Do you believe that that's, I mean, I know you have a super busy life.
00:14:13
Speaker
You have to say no sometimes to things, right?
00:14:16
Speaker
You can't do everything.
00:14:18
Speaker
Saying no is a lot harder than saying yes, but I think kind of goes back to what Eli said of having a priority in your life, knowing where I want to go, things that are important to me, being here,
00:14:29
Speaker
You ask me to do something, the answer is yes.
00:14:31
Speaker
I will be here.
00:14:32
Speaker
I believe in this.
00:14:33
Speaker
This is important to me.
00:14:34
Speaker
The messages are important.
00:14:35
Speaker
And you just have to figure out who you want to be, who you want to become, and is that taking you closer to it or further from it?
00:14:44
Speaker
And saying no can be your greatest decision of growth in your life.
00:14:50
Speaker
We always say be a yes person and have these extraordinary experiences and do these crazy things, but no can also get you into the same.
00:15:00
Speaker
I heard a...oh go ahead.
00:15:02
Speaker
I just heard recently something like that.
00:15:05
Speaker
When you're trying to learn from successful people, like athletes, businessmen, whatever, sometimes it's easier to look at what they're not doing than what they are.
00:15:13
Speaker
And that can tell a stronger story sometimes.
00:15:17
Speaker
Just for that, what they're...I mean...
00:15:20
Speaker
That's great.
00:15:21
Speaker
You know, Dustin, we spent a time as we've been doing this.
00:15:24
Speaker
I see your wristband there.
00:15:26
Speaker
Both the eyes up do the work that's beautiful.
00:15:28
Speaker
And then the one that says be different.
00:15:30
Speaker
Right.
00:15:31
Speaker
I'd love to know why that's important to you, because we spend a lot of time in our book on the word.
00:15:37
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Sometimes it rolls off the tongue.
00:15:39
Speaker
Extraordinary.
00:15:41
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Have you ever looked at that word really close?
00:15:44
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It's the combination of two words.
00:15:46
Speaker
Extraordinary.
00:15:48
Speaker
And I think oftentimes people want to give ordinary effort and get extraordinary results.
00:15:56
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They want to be different without being different.
00:16:00
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They just want it to magically happen.
00:16:03
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And I really think that if you're intentional,
00:16:07
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We know the things.
00:16:08
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If not, you can learn the things that will make you extraordinary in your line of work, in a sport, in a relationship.
00:16:18
Speaker
If you will take time and invest, what does it take for me to be extraordinary?
00:16:23
Speaker
And then take extraordinary measures, meaning it's not just going to be ordinary.
00:16:28
Speaker
If you want to be an incredible parent, find out what incredible parents do and
00:16:34
Speaker
And be extraordinary.
00:16:36
Speaker
Don't just try to be ordinary.
00:16:37
Speaker
And I love when we wrote about that and did many drafts and thought about that.
00:16:43
Speaker
It revealed to me many areas of my life where I wanted extraordinary results, but I just wanted to give ordinary effort.
00:16:51
Speaker
But going to your point of saying no...
00:16:54
Speaker
You can't be extraordinary at everything.
00:16:58
Speaker
It's impossible.
00:16:59
Speaker
We have limited resources.
00:17:01
Speaker
So then we need to find out those key areas of our life that we really want to be extraordinary at.
00:17:08
Speaker
and then put our time and effort toward those things.
00:17:10
Speaker
That's why being intentional and being the pilot, bad news is time flies, good news is you're the pilot, steering your time toward those things that mean the most to you, as you illustrated with how you spend the first part of your day, I think that's what helps us be extraordinary in the areas that are important to us.
00:17:28
Speaker
Have you heard that song?
00:17:29
Speaker
Tim McGraw has a song, Live Like
Competing Without Contempt
00:17:33
Speaker
You.
00:17:33
Speaker
You've never heard it.
00:17:34
Speaker
If you live in Hebrew, you have to heard it.
00:17:36
Speaker
Come on.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah, he says, live like you are dying.
00:17:42
Speaker
I rethought about that or thought differently on that about a week or so ago.
00:17:47
Speaker
I don't like that.
00:17:48
Speaker
I think we need to live like we're living.
00:17:51
Speaker
Like live life, right?
00:17:52
Speaker
We gotta live more like we're living.
00:17:54
Speaker
I get it, I get this song, and if you listen to the words in that song, but I think we gotta realize we're living and live it.
00:18:01
Speaker
Like live life, do everything with all you got.
00:18:03
Speaker
If you're playing basketball, play like it's the last time you're ever gonna put on the lace, put on the shoes and get after it.
00:18:10
Speaker
If you're with your kids,
00:18:12
Speaker
laugh it up, make a mess, wrestle with your sons, get after it, be a dad.
00:18:18
Speaker
We've got to live life like we're living and not just go through life.
00:18:21
Speaker
Be extraordinary in life and doing things.
00:18:24
Speaker
Allie, you talk a lot about making experiences.
00:18:26
Speaker
You've told me that.
00:18:27
Speaker
We went to lunch and Allie said, you need to have more experiences.
00:18:30
Speaker
You need to do stuff.
00:18:31
Speaker
And she was right.
00:18:32
Speaker
We have to be more intentional in living life and live life
00:18:37
Speaker
large, be big, be extraordinary in living life.
00:18:40
Speaker
That's what eyes up, do the work is partly what it means.
00:18:43
Speaker
Be different.
00:18:44
Speaker
You know, Elsie, we got to hear Elsie speak at Utah State.
00:18:49
Speaker
Elsie, can I just ask you a question?
00:18:51
Speaker
How good of an athlete were you in high school?
00:18:54
Speaker
I was not good enough to make a team.
00:18:57
Speaker
And here's the thing that I think is so amazing about Elsie.
00:19:01
Speaker
She gave one of the finest speeches I've ever heard to a leadership council or to a bunch of leadership people.
00:19:07
Speaker
And acted like you've done it before.
00:19:09
Speaker
That was a lot.
00:19:10
Speaker
It was intimidating.
00:19:11
Speaker
You had a couple hundred, 150, 200 people out there.
00:19:13
Speaker
It was a little intimidating.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:15
Speaker
With a coach of a Division I school that was going to speak right after you coach.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, the one that hired me.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, your boss.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:22
Speaker
At Utah State, right?
00:19:24
Speaker
And Elsie, the reason why you're so inspiring to us is, you know, sometimes we think, oh, this is a sports podcast, right?
00:19:33
Speaker
And we're talking to a bunch of athletes and these principals, you know, are going to help you become this amazing athlete.
00:19:40
Speaker
As you talked about the principles and how they inspired you and to see the way your coach talked about you, you could tell when he spoke about you after he stood up and spoke after you how much they value you there at Utah State and the huge contribution you're making to the football program.
00:20:00
Speaker
And it's interesting to me, I love taking you as a case study because as you apply these principles, you eventually find the things, not only that you could give extraordinary effort to, but that you're extraordinary at.
00:20:17
Speaker
And it's not always going to be those things that we hope initially, but you seem pretty happy in your assignment right now.
00:20:25
Speaker
You love it.
00:20:26
Speaker
It's my happy place.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:27
Speaker
So tell us about how you've learned to direct your effort toward those things that are bringing you this extraordinary amount of success.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:20:39
Speaker
It was kind of a big mind shift.
00:20:40
Speaker
You know, I played sports for 12 years.
00:20:42
Speaker
That was my life.
00:20:43
Speaker
That's what I wanted to do.
00:20:44
Speaker
That's what my family did.
00:20:46
Speaker
And getting told no four years in a row that I couldn't do something was really discouraging.
00:20:51
Speaker
And I was a part of this program and I thought, I can't do this anymore.
00:20:55
Speaker
I'm not an athlete.
00:20:56
Speaker
I don't.
00:20:57
Speaker
I don't relate to these people.
00:20:58
Speaker
I don't have anything to talk about.
00:21:00
Speaker
I'm not on a team.
00:21:00
Speaker
I don't wear a jersey.
00:21:02
Speaker
And it kind of fell perfectly into place.
00:21:05
Speaker
I ran into the football coach in high school and he said, look, I know you work hard.
00:21:11
Speaker
I know you work hard.
00:21:12
Speaker
in the weight room, why don't you come be the COVID manager?
00:21:15
Speaker
I said yes, I had nothing else to do with my time.
00:21:18
Speaker
I wasn't doing anything else and so I just decided to focus in on it.
00:21:23
Speaker
If I was going to do something, I was going to do it 110%.
00:21:25
Speaker
I was going to give everything I had and I did and it snowballed into what I'm doing now.
00:21:31
Speaker
It turned into a four-year scholarship, it turned into a career and it was just because I
00:21:37
Speaker
I made the decision I was going to work hard no matter what it looked like.
00:21:41
Speaker
And it had taught me a lot that at some point you're going to hang up your shoes, whether it's now, whether it's 10 years from now, after the pros, whatever it is, at some point you're going to hang up the shoes.
00:21:52
Speaker
I just hung mine up a lot sooner, but I can still be part of athletics and make a difference in a different way.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, and you did.
00:22:02
Speaker
I think it's awesome.
00:22:03
Speaker
You found out what your role was and turned it into paid scholarship in college and now a job where you're getting paid.
College Sports Experiences
00:22:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:09
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:22:11
Speaker
Second principle, especially for athletes, compete without contempt.
00:22:16
Speaker
We emphasize in this, that principle in the chapter of the book and every podcast episode we do both words, but I start off every time we talk about it, I do not want to shy away from the word compete.
00:22:29
Speaker
I think sometimes competition or being competitive comes as some sort of a bad,
00:22:35
Speaker
It's a bad thing if you're too competitive.
00:22:37
Speaker
And I, you know, heads up to any kids listening to this, life's competitive.
00:22:41
Speaker
So either get run over or compete back.
00:22:43
Speaker
Like that's your choice.
00:22:45
Speaker
Coach, what does competition mean to you?
00:22:49
Speaker
You like coaching somebody that's not competitive?
00:22:51
Speaker
No, no.
00:22:52
Speaker
I hate it.
00:22:53
Speaker
I hate it.
00:22:53
Speaker
It's the worst.
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, we struggle with that.
00:22:57
Speaker
You see it all the time.
00:23:00
Speaker
Last year, we would do open gyms.
00:23:04
Speaker
And we would have two gyms going, kids would play, and I'd watch it.
00:23:08
Speaker
We had 20-some kids there, and they were just kind of screwing around.
00:23:12
Speaker
So I blew the whistle.
00:23:13
Speaker
We came into one gym, and I said, shoot for teams.
00:23:16
Speaker
First five, first team, next five, the next team.
00:23:18
Speaker
And then the other guys started going to the other gym.
00:23:20
Speaker
I said, where are you guys going?
00:23:22
Speaker
He said, we're going to go play.
00:23:23
Speaker
I said, no, you're not.
00:23:24
Speaker
You're going to stay in here until you make a foul shot.
00:23:27
Speaker
or stay on the court and win a game.
00:23:30
Speaker
So we spent an hour and a half and it got competitive.
00:23:33
Speaker
It was awesome.
00:23:34
Speaker
There were people, I mean, kids were playing harder.
00:23:36
Speaker
They had to play for something.
00:23:37
Speaker
It wasn't just out there just screwing around playing basketball.
00:23:41
Speaker
There's a time for that.
00:23:42
Speaker
But competing is so critical.
00:23:45
Speaker
I don't think you, you know, going back to the compete,
00:23:48
Speaker
Without contempt.
00:23:50
Speaker
When I learned about E4A 10, 15 years ago, whenever I first met you, that was the one that I wasn't sold on until I learned.
00:24:01
Speaker
And because I mean, man, if I'm on the court with you, I'm going to destroy you.
00:24:08
Speaker
And it doesn't mean you can't think that way.
00:24:11
Speaker
And I've heard you use the quote, the GK Chesterton.
00:24:15
Speaker
And now I can't even say you can't.
00:24:18
Speaker
What is it you...
00:24:18
Speaker
The true soldier fights not because he hates what's in front of him, but because he loves what's behind him.
00:24:24
Speaker
So I get that.
00:24:25
Speaker
I learned that now.
00:24:25
Speaker
But that competitive edge, and I would teach the players, like, man, you go out and you rip his face off, or you knock him on his butt, you reach down, pick him up, and then you do it again.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:35
Speaker
and then reach down and pick them up and at the end of the game we're gonna hug say good job but when you are out there you are competing to
Supporting Children's Sports Development
00:24:41
Speaker
destroy them not because you hate them but because you love the guys that you're doing this for so you come to our house on a Sunday night when we're playing board games I mean it is you can't be there very nice hard and my wife Eli's brothers it is like it gets funny Eli
00:24:58
Speaker
Can't like we've how many we got in a fight a couple weeks ago over uno I got mad because they're I'm losing and they're all giving me draw fours and I'm like ready to punch somebody so Competition is good, but you Anyway, but I love competition I remember watching Kobe Bryant play the jazz years ago and there was some
00:25:21
Speaker
player on the Jazz that Kobe was just cooking him.
00:25:24
Speaker
And they were up by like 20.
00:25:26
Speaker
And he kept going at this guy.
00:25:28
Speaker
I can't remember who the player was for the Jazz, but he wasn't great.
00:25:31
Speaker
And Kobe kept going at him.
00:25:32
Speaker
And he would talk to him on the way up the court.
00:25:34
Speaker
And he'd go at him again.
00:25:35
Speaker
And he'd talk to him again.
00:25:36
Speaker
He'd D him up at half court.
00:25:37
Speaker
This guard couldn't breathe.
00:25:39
Speaker
He was just smothering him.
00:25:41
Speaker
over and over and over and I watched it and thought, I kind of kept my eye on Kobe Bryant when the ball was on the other side of the court and how he was just attacking this poor like rookie.
00:25:50
Speaker
Like he was probably scared to death to be having Kobe as idol and Kobe just, and I started thinking, you know why?
00:25:57
Speaker
Kobe wants that guy to think you never have a chance to ever beat me.
00:26:01
Speaker
I'm gonna make sure you know it right now.
00:26:02
Speaker
For as long as you're in this league, you're not getting me ever.
00:26:05
Speaker
And that's fine.
00:26:06
Speaker
Like that's competition.
00:26:08
Speaker
That's the game.
00:26:08
Speaker
It's hard.
00:26:09
Speaker
If you don't want the competition, you can't be part of it.
00:26:12
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:26:14
Speaker
Coaches don't want to coach you if you don't care.
00:26:16
Speaker
If you cry after a loss, I want you on my team.
00:26:19
Speaker
I want you to care.
00:26:20
Speaker
But contempt...
00:26:22
Speaker
Contempt, once you start doing it because you hate your opponent, you want to embarrass them, or you think that they're lesser than you and you want to make sure that you ruin them, that's when that might lead to cheap shots and cheating and playing outside of the rules.
00:26:40
Speaker
And in life, outside of sports, there are things we do to compete in business and to compete in other areas of our life, and when we do it with contempt,
00:26:49
Speaker
We might lie or cheat on our taxes or do a dirty business deal with somebody and that's competing without contempt.
00:26:56
Speaker
And so when we say compete without contempt, Shad, right, we're meaning,
00:27:03
Speaker
you can love or respect your opponent because they're giving you the opportunity
Handling Setbacks in Sports
00:27:08
Speaker
to do what you love.
00:27:08
Speaker
If they're not there, it's not a lot of fun playing against nobody.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, and I've thought a lot about that GK Chesterton quote because when I think, okay, I want love to be my motivator, not hate.
00:27:20
Speaker
I don't have to, it doesn't matter who I'm playing.
00:27:22
Speaker
And quite frankly, I think that's how you really know someone's truly competitive is if it doesn't matter who they're playing.
00:27:30
Speaker
They want to win, right?
00:27:32
Speaker
They love winning.
00:27:33
Speaker
I'm guilty.
00:27:34
Speaker
My girls make fun of me all the time.
00:27:37
Speaker
I want to win.
00:27:38
Speaker
I have three daughters, even when they were little kids growing up.
00:27:43
Speaker
Why play a board game if you're not trying to win the board game?
00:27:46
Speaker
I don't get the concept of having fun.
00:27:49
Speaker
The fun is trying to win, right?
00:27:50
Speaker
But love...
00:27:57
Speaker
for me is just way more of a sustainable fuel than hate.
00:28:01
Speaker
And I've watched as some coaches, like high school coaches, or even some people, they try to like create, manufacture hate for other people, and you know that it's just all facade, right?
00:28:19
Speaker
But love doesn't have to be manufactured.
00:28:23
Speaker
Like you can love Utah State and therefore you want the fans, you want the coaches, you want the players to experience the exhilaration of winning.
00:28:33
Speaker
And that is way better of a fuel.
00:28:36
Speaker
Like for me, the name on the back of my jersey was always as important as the name on the front.
00:28:41
Speaker
And I love my, my mom and dad made huge sacrifices for me to play.
00:28:46
Speaker
I wanted my mom to feel the way that she felt when I won.
00:28:53
Speaker
Those are things, if we'll be intentional, going back to that word, to think about what are the things that are motivating me?
00:28:59
Speaker
If it's hate, I just don't think it's as good of a fuel, and I don't think it's as sustainable.
00:29:06
Speaker
But those things, like there wasn't one day that I didn't love my mom, love my dad, love my school, love my teammates, love my coach, love the people who would come out and cheer for us.
00:29:16
Speaker
That was constant.
00:29:18
Speaker
I often didn't hate my opponent, right?
00:29:20
Speaker
And so I didn't want to have to manufacture that.
00:29:22
Speaker
And so I just think it's way healthier.
00:29:24
Speaker
And then as you move forward in life, if love is your motivator,
00:29:29
Speaker
I think you're going to get a lot further in life than if you're motivated by having depression.
00:29:33
Speaker
You can hate the idea of losing.
00:29:35
Speaker
You hate losing.
00:29:37
Speaker
But you're not going to do it if it means selling out on your integrity.
00:29:40
Speaker
You know, your honor.
00:29:41
Speaker
I'm not going to.
00:29:43
Speaker
It doesn't mean enough to me to sell my integrity by cheating.
00:29:47
Speaker
I remember watching a kid catch a touchdown pass against his rival school, this was 15 years ago, in the back of the end zone.
00:29:54
Speaker
But he dropped it.
00:29:55
Speaker
He went through his arms, he landed on the ball.
00:29:58
Speaker
This was like last play of the game.
00:30:00
Speaker
He landed on it, he knew he dropped it.
00:30:02
Speaker
He rolled over with the ball in his hands, the ref didn't have a good angle and the ref said touchdown.
00:30:07
Speaker
So the ref gave him credit for it.
00:30:08
Speaker
He stood up and ran off the field with the ball, they all mobbed him and I thought,
00:30:12
Speaker
He didn't catch that ball.
00:30:13
Speaker
And somebody had it on video and you could see he dropped the ball.
00:30:17
Speaker
The ref gave it to him.
Balancing Competition and Personal Growth
00:30:19
Speaker
At the time, I'm sure he thought, hey, man, that's how sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.
00:30:25
Speaker
My guess is if that were my hope, if that were me, I would hope that years later I would think that doesn't sit well with me.
00:30:31
Speaker
I didn't catch it.
00:30:32
Speaker
I don't want the win unless I really got it.
00:30:36
Speaker
And so I hate the idea of people thinking that it shouldn't be given to you.
00:30:43
Speaker
You should earn a win.
00:30:44
Speaker
Any win you get, coach, I'm sure you've had this before.
00:30:47
Speaker
I tell the kids I coach,
00:30:48
Speaker
Soak it up.
00:30:49
Speaker
If you win a game, soak it up, because it's hard.
00:30:52
Speaker
Winning's hard, and it should be hard.
00:30:53
Speaker
So compete.
00:30:55
Speaker
But we're never gonna do it.
00:30:56
Speaker
Never gonna feel good about it if we did it the wrong way.
00:30:58
Speaker
If we cheated to get the win, I don't want it.
00:31:01
Speaker
You know, we didn't earn it.
00:31:02
Speaker
Third principle, especially for athletes, resiliency.
00:31:05
Speaker
Now, we could talk about this quite a bit, but I want to start over with Ali on this, because
00:31:09
Speaker
Allie, I know you've done a lot of hard things.
00:31:11
Speaker
You've run up hills, you've sat in ice cold water, Wisconsin, wherever you went.
00:31:17
Speaker
Like you, you pride yourself on doing hard things.
00:31:20
Speaker
You're one of the most resilient people I know.
00:31:23
Speaker
Why?
00:31:24
Speaker
Why is resiliency so important?
00:31:26
Speaker
I know things you've dealt with with your life.
00:31:28
Speaker
You've had to be resilient.
00:31:30
Speaker
Why is that so important that we're teaching kids resiliency?
00:31:35
Speaker
Well, I think it goes back to the word intentional that we keep using.
00:31:38
Speaker
And if we intentionally do things that are uncomfortable, we're going to be more prepared for what life throws at us.
00:31:45
Speaker
I think right now, too often, we're trying to find comfort in everything that we do.
00:31:50
Speaker
Our parents are protecting us from failure.
00:31:53
Speaker
They're protecting us from hurt and pain.
00:31:56
Speaker
And that's just part of life.
00:31:58
Speaker
And if we can intentionally put ourselves in ice water, I don't care how many times you do it, it's never enjoyable.
Building Resilience through Challenges
00:32:05
Speaker
If you can do things that are uncomfortable and stretch yourself, I mean, ultimately our goal is to grow as much as we can as people so that we can give back and contribute.
00:32:17
Speaker
And if everything we're doing is to avoid that growth, that pain, then what do we have to offer?
00:32:24
Speaker
Ultimately, I mean, how do we give back?
00:32:28
Speaker
Resiliency is so much just about...
00:32:33
Speaker
being able to handle and look at life and say, look what life did for me, not to me.
00:32:39
Speaker
And I love that about sports because it's, it is just a fast forward or expedited express train on, on life, on life.
00:32:50
Speaker
And, and that resiliency comes, um, you know, obviously through failure and through hard things, but,
00:32:56
Speaker
we need to embrace that and not shy away or protect ourselves from it and recognize that things that happen are really for us, not to us.
00:33:09
Speaker
One of the things I think is important is that we do not fear failure, but we actually view failure as how we know we're pushing ourself enough.
00:33:20
Speaker
You know, that if we haven't failed, then we haven't hit
00:33:26
Speaker
our limit yet.
00:33:27
Speaker
So if you never fail, if you're always staying in the safety zone, then you don't know what you could have done.
00:33:33
Speaker
And I've shared this story many times, Dustin, but one of the greatest things that a coach did for me my freshman year of college was he took away the fear of failure.
00:33:43
Speaker
The way he did that, I had struck out three times the night before, and the next day I was taking batting practice, and I asked him for some advice.
00:33:52
Speaker
And I turned to him and said, hey, coach, well-known coach, College Coaches Hall of Fame.
00:33:59
Speaker
And I thought, this is my moment.
00:34:00
Speaker
This is where I get to learn from my coach.
00:34:02
Speaker
And so I turned to him and said, Coach Herbold, what am I doing wrong?
00:34:06
Speaker
And he looked at me and said, shut up.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I was like, okay.
00:34:14
Speaker
And then he said it three more times, shut up, shut up.
00:34:19
Speaker
And then he asked me a question, do you think I'm stupid?
00:34:24
Speaker
And at this point, I had no clue what he was talking about, or I thought I was doing a good thing by being humble, asking for advice.
00:34:32
Speaker
But then what he did is he completely eliminated the fear of failure by saying, do you think I'm stupid enough to offer a scholarship to someone who can't hit a ball?
00:34:43
Speaker
And I was like, I hope not.
00:34:45
Speaker
And he said, I'm not that stupid.
00:34:47
Speaker
And then he, kind of condescendingly, but he said, this is baseball, as though he used to be listening to it.
00:34:56
Speaker
This is baseball.
00:34:58
Speaker
Most of the time you're going to fail.
00:35:00
Speaker
If you can't get used to that, you should get out of it.
Parental Influence on Resilience
00:35:04
Speaker
But you're going to win more than you should.
00:35:06
Speaker
And then he walked away.
00:35:08
Speaker
What do you give me license to do is to fail.
00:35:10
Speaker
Right?
00:35:11
Speaker
And we all know the statistics in baseball.
00:35:13
Speaker
That you can fail 70% of the time, make the Hall of Fame.
00:35:17
Speaker
But I was like so afraid that he was labeling me as someone who couldn't hit a ball.
00:35:24
Speaker
And he, one of his brilliance as a coach is he would look at us and be like, sometimes you're going to have bad games.
00:35:31
Speaker
Sometimes the pitcher's going to win.
00:35:32
Speaker
Most of the time the pitcher's going to win.
00:35:35
Speaker
That liberated me to be able to go and take it at bat.
00:35:39
Speaker
And when I struck out, I tipped my hat to the pitcher.
00:35:43
Speaker
He beat me this time.
00:35:44
Speaker
I was going to beat him more than I should, according to my coach.
00:35:47
Speaker
I played for other coaches that it wasn't necessarily like that, right?
00:35:50
Speaker
Where you were labeled by your worst moments.
00:35:53
Speaker
If we do that as parents or as coaches, if we start labeling people by their worst moments, we start to
00:36:02
Speaker
dampen resiliency, I believe, in their life.
00:36:04
Speaker
We need to make it okay to fail and actually encourage pushing ourselves until we get cut.
00:36:11
Speaker
Pushing ourselves until we fail.
00:36:13
Speaker
Pushing ourselves until we're out of our league.
00:36:16
Speaker
And I think that's a healthy, to embrace failure brings resilience.
00:36:22
Speaker
Well, that's Elsie, what I was going to ask you with your parents.
00:36:25
Speaker
You got cut four times from the high school basketball team, all four years.
00:36:29
Speaker
All four years.
00:36:30
Speaker
Obviously you came back a fourth time in your senior year and got cut.
00:36:33
Speaker
During that process, what was mom and dad's advice to you or comments or just conversations that you feel, what were their thoughts on everything?
00:36:43
Speaker
Freshman year, so there was 12 of us that tried out.
00:36:45
Speaker
They took 11, so I was the one that got cut.
00:36:47
Speaker
And I went in and told my dad, and he goes to every practice, everything.
00:36:51
Speaker
He was the creepy dad in the corner.
00:36:52
Speaker
Never said anything, but he was the creepy dad in the corner.
00:36:55
Speaker
Bless his heart.
00:36:56
Speaker
But he was like, okay, we're going to go to the gym.
00:36:57
Speaker
So the moment I got cut, we went to the gym.
00:36:59
Speaker
I spent a whole year, went in sophomore year.
00:37:01
Speaker
There was 12 girls.
00:37:03
Speaker
They took 11.
00:37:04
Speaker
Went out.
00:37:05
Speaker
My dad was, you can tell my dad was a little discouraged.
00:37:08
Speaker
Same thing.
00:37:08
Speaker
We went to the gym right after.
00:37:09
Speaker
Did a whole year.
00:37:10
Speaker
My dad spent multiple hours.
00:37:12
Speaker
My mom went with us.
00:37:14
Speaker
I went in.
00:37:15
Speaker
We had a big school split.
00:37:17
Speaker
So I went into the coaches and was like, oh, hey, I want to try out again.
00:37:20
Speaker
And they said, yeah, your chances should be good.
00:37:22
Speaker
We're splitting.
00:37:23
Speaker
You do this, this, this, this.
00:37:24
Speaker
Texted mom and dad.
00:37:25
Speaker
This, this, this needs to happen.
00:37:27
Speaker
And they were in the gym with me.
00:37:29
Speaker
All, every step of the way, junior year there was eight of us, they took seven.
00:37:35
Speaker
And then I went in my senior year and my mom and dad just said, I love you.
00:37:40
Speaker
I just, I love you, just leave it all on the line.
00:37:42
Speaker
Whatever happens, it's gonna be okay.
00:37:45
Speaker
There was eight girls.
00:37:46
Speaker
They took seven.
00:37:47
Speaker
And I left that tryout.
00:37:49
Speaker
I was so discouraged.
00:37:50
Speaker
I was so upset.
00:37:52
Speaker
My parents just had tears in their eyes and they just said, I'm proud of you.
00:37:54
Speaker
That was it.
00:37:55
Speaker
That's all I needed.
00:37:56
Speaker
That my parents were proud of me.
00:37:58
Speaker
I did all that I could.
00:37:59
Speaker
And...
00:38:01
Speaker
We weren't, I didn't fail.
00:38:03
Speaker
They said I didn't fail.
00:38:04
Speaker
We were just closing one book and we were opening another one.
00:38:07
Speaker
We were just changing directions.
00:38:09
Speaker
And I think if my parents were not there every step of the way, encouraging me and telling me it was okay to fail, but then holding my hand when I was upset, I don't think I would be where I am today without them.
00:38:21
Speaker
Well, that's pretty dang cool.
00:38:23
Speaker
We could stop right now with that story.
00:38:25
Speaker
Dang it.
00:38:26
Speaker
See, I asked you that question not knowing, I maybe have met your parents, I don't remember, maybe at a banquet or something that we've honored you at, but I know we gave you an award your senior or junior year?
00:38:36
Speaker
Senior year.
00:38:37
Speaker
Senior year, yes.
00:38:39
Speaker
But I kind of guessed because of how I know you that they were probably like that.
00:38:43
Speaker
So I felt safe asking you that question.
00:38:45
Speaker
What I was curious to see what you would say and you didn't, which is what I thought.
00:38:51
Speaker
Your parents didn't say,
00:38:53
Speaker
Well, quit basketball.
00:38:55
Speaker
Your parents didn't say your coach is an idiot and it's just their fault.
00:38:59
Speaker
Your dad said, let's go get in the gym.
00:39:02
Speaker
You must need to get better at something, right?
00:39:04
Speaker
Your coach must have not felt like you have what it takes.
00:39:07
Speaker
So let's go get what it takes.
00:39:09
Speaker
And then again, and then what you said there the fourth year was, that was awesome that they just, you know,
00:39:16
Speaker
They just said they were, sometimes we need to coach and sometimes we just need to be dad and we just need to be mom.
00:39:22
Speaker
And that's what they became for you.
00:39:25
Speaker
But they didn't blame everybody.
00:39:26
Speaker
They told you to...
00:39:28
Speaker
And that's something I think as parents, we have to be willing to do sometimes.
00:39:31
Speaker
Coach, I'm asking you, because I can, you and Allie, I can see where you're going.
00:39:37
Speaker
As a coach, I know what you're thinking.
00:39:38
Speaker
I will tell kids, maybe this is rude.
00:39:40
Speaker
I just say it to parents and kids all the time.
00:39:44
Speaker
You can tell me, I know you're going to agree with this, but sometimes, believe it or not, your son gets cut because he's not fast enough.
00:39:52
Speaker
And he's not as good a shooter as you think he is.
00:39:54
Speaker
And he's not as strong.
00:39:55
Speaker
And he doesn't remember the plays.
00:39:56
Speaker
And he doesn't work as hard as you think he does.
00:39:59
Speaker
There are reasons.
00:40:00
Speaker
It's not just because coach hates you.
00:40:02
Speaker
It's not just because coach is playing politics with some other parent.
00:40:05
Speaker
It's because sometimes we all... I remember the day I got a home run hit off of me in college when I knew I'm not good enough to do this at the next level.
00:40:14
Speaker
A guy hit a ball that is still...
00:40:17
Speaker
It's still in space.
00:40:18
Speaker
Like he hit it so far that I just knew that's the best pitch I had.
00:40:22
Speaker
And you hit it 800 feet.
00:40:24
Speaker
Like I can't go any further than this.
00:40:27
Speaker
Like, you know, it happens to all of us.
00:40:29
Speaker
But coach, how do we.
00:40:30
Speaker
How do we get parents to understand that?
00:40:34
Speaker
I get emotional when I think about that stuff because I'm the guy making those decisions.
00:40:40
Speaker
I've cut kids that I know worked harder than the kids that made it, and they're still not there.
00:40:45
Speaker
That's a hard decision to make.
00:40:47
Speaker
But the resiliency side of that, what your parents were teaching you,
00:40:52
Speaker
It's okay if they thought the coach was an idiot.
00:40:54
Speaker
It's okay.
00:40:55
Speaker
As long as they weren't talking to you about that, right?
00:40:57
Speaker
Like that's the critical piece so that you learn that resiliency.
00:41:02
Speaker
And so many of our kids, I used to joke about this when I would make decisions, we would not keep a kid and there were parents who would come home and put their arms around the kid and say, I am so sorry.
00:41:12
Speaker
what can we do?
00:41:13
Speaker
Can we get in the gym?
00:41:14
Speaker
Just keep working.
00:41:15
Speaker
We love you."
00:41:16
Speaker
And then there are parents like, what?
00:41:17
Speaker
Get out of the way.
00:41:18
Speaker
I'm sending an email.
00:41:20
Speaker
We got to go solve this.
00:41:21
Speaker
And so many times parents are too concerned about clearing the path for their kid as opposed to preparing their kid for the path.
00:41:30
Speaker
And so that, like that experience is awesome.
00:41:33
Speaker
I mean, I had a young man come and talk to me a while back, not long ago, and a while back not long ago, and
00:41:43
Speaker
He's been struggling with my decision to cut him a few years back.
00:41:46
Speaker
And it's
Life Lessons from Sports
00:41:48
Speaker
stewed with him.
00:41:48
Speaker
And we had this beautiful conversation.
00:41:52
Speaker
And I've watched, I mean, it was...
00:41:55
Speaker
I feel like I take it really seriously to make those decisions.
00:42:00
Speaker
I guarantee you another coach might have kept a kid.
00:42:04
Speaker
No matter if I'm wrong or right, I'm right because it's my decision to make.
00:42:10
Speaker
When we're not in control of those things, that's what resiliency is.
00:42:13
Speaker
It doesn't happen our way.
00:42:14
Speaker
How am I going to dust myself off and get back up?
00:42:17
Speaker
I hear your story about what you're doing now.
00:42:20
Speaker
That is so awesome what your parents have done to teach you that.
00:42:24
Speaker
I mean, they've taught you that, but you've done it, right?
00:42:26
Speaker
You've gone out and handled that.
00:42:28
Speaker
So, yeah, that's a... As parents, we've got to be able to support them, let them fail.
00:42:35
Speaker
You mentioned that before.
00:42:37
Speaker
Help them be prepared.
00:42:38
Speaker
It's going to happen in work.
00:42:39
Speaker
They're not going to get the promotion.
00:42:40
Speaker
They're not going to get the job.
00:42:41
Speaker
They're not going to...
00:42:44
Speaker
a bad roommate, a bad boss, a bad teacher, whatever it is, let them deal with it and help maneuver them through those as opposed to trying to fix it for them.
00:42:53
Speaker
And when they do have those issues, those real life adult issues, we can't solve it for them.
00:42:58
Speaker
You can't go email the boss and say, wait, she deserved that promotion, give it to her.
00:43:04
Speaker
You can email the coach and talk to the coach, but you're not emailing your daughter's
00:43:10
Speaker
employer at 25 years old and saying, wait, can I meet with you?
00:43:13
Speaker
How come you didn't give her the job?
00:43:15
Speaker
Eli, excuse me, so I had a college coach tell me not long ago, he suspended a kid because the kid's mom called the coach and said, hey, why is he not playing?
00:43:26
Speaker
He talked to her about it and then called the kid in his office and said, you're suspended for two weeks.
00:43:30
Speaker
Why?
00:43:30
Speaker
Because your mom called me and told me.
00:43:34
Speaker
I might be old school, but I love that.
00:43:36
Speaker
I love that.
00:43:38
Speaker
Something you said there was so profound.
00:43:41
Speaker
I just wanted to reiterate it.
00:43:43
Speaker
Instead of clearing the path for the child, prepare the child for the path.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
I don't have any more to add to that.
00:43:51
Speaker
That's what we're calling the snowplow parents, right?
00:43:54
Speaker
They're clearing the path and everything out of the way.
00:43:56
Speaker
It's different than helicopter.
00:43:58
Speaker
They're trying to solve everything for them, but we need to
00:44:00
Speaker
coach them through and get through.
00:44:02
Speaker
I love that you're, I don't love that your dad was there at the practices.
00:44:06
Speaker
He's still outside, outside the door.
00:44:09
Speaker
He wasn't in the gym, outside.
00:44:11
Speaker
I think redefining failure is important too because failure is not trying.
00:44:16
Speaker
Failure is not getting, reaching the goal.
00:44:18
Speaker
You set the goal high enough that you actually end up here instead of here.
00:44:22
Speaker
You set it high and it's who we become in the process of trying to reach these goals.
00:44:28
Speaker
That's not failure.
00:44:29
Speaker
It's not trying.
00:44:29
Speaker
If that's what you wanted, then you keep trying.
00:44:32
Speaker
And I had this player, we had to have our point guards run a seven-minute mile.
00:44:39
Speaker
No reason for that.
00:44:40
Speaker
Like, who cares if they can run a seven-minute mile?
00:44:42
Speaker
Not fully even applicable to basketball, you know?
00:44:45
Speaker
had a mom call me and say, this is the dumbest thing.
00:44:48
Speaker
It doesn't prove how good she is.
00:44:50
Speaker
And I just said, you know, isn't it sad that I believe your daughter is capable of doing something more than you do as her mother?
00:44:57
Speaker
The point isn't whether or not she can do it, but you're taking away an opportunity for her to be better and to push herself in ways that, whether it's relevant or not, I mean, you just took that off the table for her to grow.
00:45:13
Speaker
And I think that was, you know, the friend parent instead of the parent that was thinking of the child, you know.
00:45:21
Speaker
You didn't give her that not, you gave her that believing she could get it.
00:45:27
Speaker
You weren't setting her up to fail.
00:45:29
Speaker
You were setting her up to do something hard and succeed.
00:45:32
Speaker
Yeah, but you gotta dig.
00:45:34
Speaker
But like, mom, I'm not, I don't want her not to do this.
00:45:39
Speaker
I think she can do it.
00:45:40
Speaker
Help me, support me in this so she can have that feeling of accomplishment.
00:45:44
Speaker
Eli, I watched you in a basketball game at a high school, at an opposing high school.
00:45:49
Speaker
I think I've told you this.
00:45:50
Speaker
story, but you were playing at another high school where my kids go.
00:45:55
Speaker
I watched you before the game.
00:45:56
Speaker
The reason I know the story is because I watched it and then I had the principal come over and tell me what had happened.
00:46:01
Speaker
You went over to the principal of the school and shook his hand and said something about was pleasure to play in that gym or something about thanks for having us or hosting us.
Seek to Bless, Not Impress
00:46:12
Speaker
He came over to me and he had a wristband on just like you did.
00:46:15
Speaker
And I think that's what you saw.
00:46:16
Speaker
I think you saw his wristband.
00:46:17
Speaker
and he had an eyes up, do the work wristband, he was part of especially for athletes.
00:46:21
Speaker
He came over to me and said, who's that?
00:46:23
Speaker
That's that Ballstead.
00:46:25
Speaker
And he's an old, he had been a principal, he just retired not too long ago.
00:46:28
Speaker
He'd been a principal a long time.
00:46:30
Speaker
And all my years of sports as a coach and as a principal, I've never had an opposing player come over to me before a game like that and be that kind.
00:46:38
Speaker
And I said, well, watch out because this kid's going to drop.
00:46:41
Speaker
He's going to drop 30 on you now, which you did.
00:46:44
Speaker
You then went out and had, you know, you scored like 25 or 30 points on him.
00:46:47
Speaker
But you that guy became a fan of yours forever.
00:46:50
Speaker
I watched it and I already knew what kind of kid you were.
00:46:53
Speaker
But then I'm going somewhere with this.
00:46:56
Speaker
You then got a scholarship to the University of Utah.
00:46:59
Speaker
You go up and play basketball.
00:47:00
Speaker
Did you start?
00:47:01
Speaker
No, well, I didn't get a scholarship.
00:47:03
Speaker
You walked on it.
00:47:04
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that.
00:47:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:06
Speaker
So you had to walk on.
00:47:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:08
Speaker
They asked me to come play on the team, and I felt like that was the best decision for me.
00:47:12
Speaker
But in high school, you scored, right?
00:47:14
Speaker
You played.
00:47:15
Speaker
You were a dude in high school.
00:47:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:17
Speaker
You got to the University of Utah, fought for every second you got on.
00:47:22
Speaker
How did you handle now not being the guy out there scoring 20?
00:47:24
Speaker
Um...
00:47:28
Speaker
How did I handle that?
00:47:30
Speaker
I went in with the mentality that I wasn't going to be given anything.
00:47:34
Speaker
And ultimately, that was one of the reasons I made that decision, is because I knew it was going to be tough.
00:47:41
Speaker
And I wanted something that was going to challenge me and that was going to really push me to grow within basketball and outside of basketball.
00:47:50
Speaker
And I knew going somewhere where I could just play 40 minutes a game and have fun, that's not the experience that I exactly wanted.
00:47:57
Speaker
You couldn't transfer.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:59
Speaker
You could have gone and played somewhere else.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:01
Speaker
And so and and ultimately what I what I'm grateful for is I think the coaches saw that is I was just grateful for any occasion I had to actually play and I would just play my my guts out just because I loved it.
00:48:16
Speaker
And that's the only thing that really set me apart was how hard I played.
00:48:21
Speaker
And so I was given a few opportunities my freshman year, sophomore year.
00:48:26
Speaker
I was injured, didn't go as well as I thought.
00:48:28
Speaker
But eventually my junior and senior year, because of just playing hard and really trying to win the hour and play as hard as I could every second, I did earn a scholarship to play for my junior and senior year.
00:48:43
Speaker
You earned it though, man, yeah.
00:48:47
Speaker
oh i was definitely um i i worked as hard as i could but i was definitely given that chance i don't know if i would say i earned it but someone was was kind enough to give you that stop it you earned it don't you dare say i didn't earn it you earned it man you don't earn a scholarship as a preferred walk-on at a school like utah unless you're busting your tail i know you're busting your tail i've talked to you about this coach balstead before but
00:49:13
Speaker
and Shad and I played together.
00:49:16
Speaker
We played college baseball together.
00:49:18
Speaker
And so I can say this too, Shad and I know the guys that we would put on each side of the paper.
00:49:24
Speaker
If I take a piece of paper and I draw a line down the middle of it and I write participators on one side and competitors on the other side, if you go back,
00:49:33
Speaker
you know, 20, 30 years after, what, 25 years or so since we played college baseball together.
00:49:40
Speaker
I don't remember what our shortstop or our first baseman's batting average was.
00:49:45
Speaker
I don't remember who had four hits down in Riverside, California, and won us the game.
00:49:50
Speaker
I don't remember that.
00:49:51
Speaker
I could tell you who their competitors were and who the participators were.
00:49:55
Speaker
And if I saw them today and they were a participator,
00:49:59
Speaker
I don't want to be around him.
00:50:00
Speaker
Like, I don't, I don't, I don't want to talk to you.
00:50:02
Speaker
Did you compete?
00:50:03
Speaker
Did you fight?
00:50:03
Speaker
Did you have our, were you in right?
00:50:05
Speaker
Were you, did you, could I count on you?
00:50:08
Speaker
Um, I guess my point to that is that in years and years from now, our son or daughters and, and if athletes actually kids are listening to this, people will forget what your average was, how much you scored or, or, you know, uh,
00:50:23
Speaker
they are gonna remember if you were just somebody who wanted a jersey and just were kinda out there and going through the motions, or if you were somebody that was willing to compete, that you were gonna go to battle for your teammates.
00:50:34
Speaker
And that's gonna make you a,
00:50:36
Speaker
legendary forever, right?
00:50:37
Speaker
You're gonna be, there are certain guys we played with that if I see them in our 70s, I'm gonna wanna go and love them because I knew they fought, they were competitive.
00:50:46
Speaker
And I think that's the greatest compliment you can have as an athlete.
00:50:49
Speaker
I hope, I want somebody to look at me and say, I don't know if you were good or not.
00:50:53
Speaker
I don't remember, but I know you fought.
00:50:55
Speaker
I know you cared.
00:50:56
Speaker
I know you were all in.
00:50:58
Speaker
And those are the guys that as coaches, the men and women as coaches, right?
00:51:01
Speaker
For those of us that coach that we wish we had, whether they can shoot or not, man, give me those guys or girls that want to compete and we'll figure it out, right?
00:51:09
Speaker
Particularly in high school sports.
00:51:10
Speaker
I mean you see it all the time the disparity in skill and athleticism in teams and the teams that play together and just compete and fight to get there.
00:51:22
Speaker
They win a lot of games.
00:51:23
Speaker
I mean so much of it is mental that way.
00:51:25
Speaker
But we had a system, we would do winner points we call them.
00:51:29
Speaker
In every practice we would have drills.
00:51:32
Speaker
I didn't make this up.
00:51:33
Speaker
I saw Coach Pope was doing it and I've seen it a few different places.
00:51:36
Speaker
He told me he learned it from someone else but
00:51:38
Speaker
But we would have different drills that you would get points for winter points three on three or five on five whoever won those drills We would keep track of it every practice all year long and I would list the top ten winter points I'd write it on the board every day and kids would come over and see the kids that like the non-competitors They didn't care they were and whatever like but you I watched kids
00:52:00
Speaker
Like they were going to work because they wanted to win and compete and get after it.
00:52:04
Speaker
And so that, to your point, you could draw it right down the line.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I can tell you over the years, the kids that love to compete and they weren't always the best players.
00:52:13
Speaker
They were tough though.
00:52:14
Speaker
And they, and they were kids you wanted on your team because they would fight to go win and play.
00:52:19
Speaker
So one thing too, I just want to say how proud I am of Eli and Elsie because both of their examples is so rare that kids,
00:52:28
Speaker
intentionally put themselves in positions where they are trying to build that resilience.
00:52:33
Speaker
If someone tells you no once, twice, three times, I can't think of very many kids that will go back a fourth time.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:40
Speaker
You know, that says so much about who you are and who you'll become and have become.
00:52:46
Speaker
And I think that Eli is going to do great things because that's who he is.
00:52:53
Speaker
And I think if more
00:52:55
Speaker
athletes, parents can learn from these examples of, they're okay.
00:53:00
Speaker
They survived it.
00:53:02
Speaker
It wasn't the end of the world.
00:53:03
Speaker
And they didn't take that easy path or be handed something.
00:53:07
Speaker
They chose hard.
00:53:08
Speaker
And that's what resilience is all about.
00:53:10
Speaker
Life is hard.
00:53:13
Speaker
People are struggling, but it's making these choices that help us handle life.
00:53:19
Speaker
And you guys are awesome.
00:53:22
Speaker
I love what you said earlier, you said you have to have the mentality that life happens for you and life doesn't happen to you and I think that's so crucial for us to understand inside athletics, outside of athletics to really understand and it's up to us we can take that whatever happens we can take it either way but if we make that choice that this is an opportunity to learn and to grow then your possibilities are endless
00:53:50
Speaker
You win or you learn.
00:53:52
Speaker
And you can win and learn too, but if parents reacted to losses or kids getting cut as a learning opportunity, just think of that mindset, right?
00:54:02
Speaker
Instead of failure, a learning opportunity, it creates a discussion.
00:54:08
Speaker
It creates some goal setting.
00:54:10
Speaker
It creates some let's make some changes, right?
00:54:13
Speaker
And so I love just that.
00:54:14
Speaker
You win, you win.
00:54:16
Speaker
or you learn and and that's been helpful for me as a parent when my kids feel disappointment in sports maybe it's because I've just been so many conversations that I'm kinda intentionally looking for it but I if I take a step back instead of you know make excuses or anything else and just say okay what can they learn and how can I make the most out of this situation whether it was fair or unfair
00:54:42
Speaker
Here we are.
00:54:43
Speaker
So let's make the most out of this.
00:54:46
Speaker
I just love that thought.
00:54:48
Speaker
You win or you learn.
00:54:51
Speaker
Sorry.
00:54:52
Speaker
I think there is a balance with that.
00:54:54
Speaker
I love that mentality of you win or you learn.
00:54:57
Speaker
But I do find...
00:54:59
Speaker
And I see even at the college level that there's, you still have to hate losing.
00:55:05
Speaker
I think we just talked about competing.
00:55:07
Speaker
And I think there's so often I see my teammates, I see others that when we lose, oh man, bummer.
00:55:14
Speaker
Like move on, we'll practice tomorrow, life goes on.
00:55:18
Speaker
But you have to, there's got to be a point, it's got to sting.
00:55:22
Speaker
And I don't think you can learn as much if losing isn't that important to you and then you're not going to learn as much as you can.
00:55:28
Speaker
You didn't learn how to lose if it doesn't sting.
00:55:32
Speaker
So don't try to take away the sting of losses because isn't it cool that our kids could care about something so unimportant in the grand scheme of things enough to be devastated and learn to deal with devastation.
00:55:45
Speaker
There's very few things as unimportant as sports that could devastate a kid
00:55:52
Speaker
But that's the only way to build that muscle of resilience is to be devastated and respond, right?
00:55:57
Speaker
And I'm grateful that, yeah, if you take away the sting of losing, you take away the lessons of losing as well.
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:56:04
Speaker
That's a great point.
00:56:05
Speaker
Parents and a psychologist might, I might be dead wrong here, but maybe the way to go approach it is if somebody loses, if a kid loses,
00:56:16
Speaker
young kid and they maybe throw a temper tantrum or they cry or they whatever.
00:56:21
Speaker
Instead of saying, you know, stop being a baby, stop crying, that's not how we act.
00:56:26
Speaker
I'm okay with that.
00:56:27
Speaker
Now, I'm not okay with you throwing bats and throwing helmets and breaking stuff.
00:56:32
Speaker
It's how you react.
00:56:33
Speaker
But the fact that you're feeling something, I prefer that over the kid that just can't wait to go home and, you know, get the snow cone and leave.
00:56:41
Speaker
But now I got to have a conversation with you about how you show your emotion.
00:56:46
Speaker
Let's talk about that.
00:56:47
Speaker
We can't, we don't throw things.
00:56:49
Speaker
We don't, you know, but the fact that you're upset and you react in a little bit, there's some anger behind it.
00:56:55
Speaker
Well, what do you want to do about it?
00:56:57
Speaker
let's take that same energy right now.
00:56:58
Speaker
And where do you want to go?
00:56:59
Speaker
And I want to hear you say, let's go to the gym, right?
00:57:02
Speaker
Let's get back in the batting cage.
00:57:03
Speaker
Let's do something with that.
00:57:04
Speaker
But the fact that you care, it's not a bad thing.
00:57:08
Speaker
Well, I think it takes it to the next step with the parent is I think the first question is, what are you the most upset about?
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
Were you embarrassed?
00:57:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:18
Speaker
Do you feel like you're not as good as other kids?
00:57:21
Speaker
Are you mad you didn't play?
00:57:23
Speaker
You know, are you mad at yourself?
00:57:24
Speaker
Are you mad at a teammate?
00:57:26
Speaker
And then from there, you know, handle that emotion because some people, when they lose, it has nothing to do with performance or things that are in their control at all.
00:57:36
Speaker
That's the key, I think.
00:57:37
Speaker
Is it, are you mad about things that are in your control?
00:57:40
Speaker
Then what do you want to do about it?
00:57:42
Speaker
But the things that are out of your control?
00:57:44
Speaker
Let's not worry about it.
00:57:45
Speaker
You can't control it anyway.
00:57:48
Speaker
And I think I draw the line.
00:57:49
Speaker
I've had this discussion with my kids.
00:57:52
Speaker
When it goes to treating others poorly, to me, that's where I draw the line.
00:57:58
Speaker
For example, you're bad to a teammate after a loss.
00:58:02
Speaker
Or you're not going to slap hands with the team that just beat you.
00:58:06
Speaker
Like when you begin to treat others bad because you're upset, that's where I'm like, nope, you're going to shake their hand or no, you're not going to talk to your mom that way.
00:58:18
Speaker
I don't care how upset you are.
00:58:20
Speaker
It doesn't give you an excuse to be bad to other people.
00:58:22
Speaker
So there's like these lines, you know, but I love what you're saying, Dustin.
00:58:27
Speaker
it's okay to validate how devastated they are.
00:58:31
Speaker
Like, gosh, I'm so glad you care so much about this that you're in tears.
00:58:37
Speaker
Now we can use that as fuel or just frustration, right?
00:58:41
Speaker
How can we use this feeling you're having to be fuel and motivation to help you accomplish more versus just anger and treating others poorly?
00:58:53
Speaker
I love that.
00:58:54
Speaker
Kobe Bryant, if you want, there's a little video that he made.
00:59:00
Speaker
It's geared towards children, but it's somewhat cheesy.
00:59:03
Speaker
But if you look up Kobe Bryant, Dark Muse Cage, he talks about this aspect of using kind of negative emotions to fuel you.
00:59:12
Speaker
to become better and to make them a positive thing rather than dwelling on these negative things.
00:59:18
Speaker
And Ali just talked about pointing out why are you disappointed?
00:59:22
Speaker
Why do you feel this way?
00:59:23
Speaker
Where are these negative emotions coming from?
00:59:26
Speaker
Figuring those out and then using that, like you said, as a fuel to make you better.
00:59:30
Speaker
And again, going back to the fuel to make you better and the things that are in your control.
00:59:36
Speaker
I haven't done that, but that's something that I would think.
00:59:40
Speaker
I wish I had done more of that with my older kids.
00:59:42
Speaker
I'm going to with my younger.
00:59:44
Speaker
Is that I'm okay if you're upset about things that are in your control.
00:59:49
Speaker
I'm gonna be really okay with it if you have a plan to do something about it.
00:59:52
Speaker
If you're just gonna come home and complain about it, and if it's in your control, then show me what you're gonna do now, right?
00:59:58
Speaker
Like what are you gonna do, like what you did.
01:00:01
Speaker
You had some things that were in your control, and so you addressed those, you tried harder, you went back to the gym, that was in your control.
01:00:08
Speaker
If you just miss the shot, you strike out like you did.
01:00:11
Speaker
It happens sometimes.
01:00:12
Speaker
You can go work on it, but sometimes you're gonna lose.
01:00:13
Speaker
You're gonna miss shots.
01:00:15
Speaker
They're not all gonna go in.
01:00:16
Speaker
Most of them don't go in in basketball.
01:00:19
Speaker
Most putts don't go in in golf.
01:00:21
Speaker
Most of the time, you don't score on the drive.
01:00:24
Speaker
You punt.
01:00:25
Speaker
You don't score every time.
01:00:27
Speaker
And that's what's in your control.
01:00:30
Speaker
If they're faster than you,
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, you have a choice.
01:00:33
Speaker
You can try to get faster or you can just sit and complain about it, right?
01:00:37
Speaker
But sometimes the ref makes a bad call.
01:00:39
Speaker
That's out of your control.
01:00:40
Speaker
So don't be mad about that.
01:00:42
Speaker
You might be a little frustrated for a minute, but it's not going to do any good.
01:00:44
Speaker
It's over.
01:00:45
Speaker
It's a great delineation with our kids.
01:00:49
Speaker
Doing what you did.
01:00:51
Speaker
What are you frustrated about?
01:00:52
Speaker
And then if it's beyond their control, so you just got to let that stuff go.
01:00:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:56
Speaker
Let's move our, it goes back to that E plus R equals O. Yeah.
01:01:01
Speaker
That event happened.
01:01:02
Speaker
All you have control of is the response that will affect the outcome.
01:01:08
Speaker
You don't have control over that.
01:01:09
Speaker
Let's not talk about the event.
01:01:10
Speaker
Let's not talk about the outcome.
01:01:11
Speaker
Let's talk about your response to it.
01:01:13
Speaker
That's within your control.
01:01:14
Speaker
And that just gets a lot more done.
01:01:16
Speaker
Which is effort and attitude, right?
01:01:18
Speaker
And those are, those are within your control.
01:01:21
Speaker
Last principle of especially for athletes seek to bless, not impress.
01:01:24
Speaker
Let's just go around the table here and maybe in a,
01:01:28
Speaker
you know, one minute answer.
01:01:30
Speaker
What does that mean to you, Eli?
01:01:32
Speaker
Seek to bless, not impress.
01:01:33
Speaker
It goes back to these intentions that we're talking about and why are we doing what we're doing.
01:01:40
Speaker
And thinking about playing college basketball was super motivating for me.
01:01:45
Speaker
And one of the most motivating factors was knowing what I felt as a little kid, watching my idols play and watching college basketball players play.
01:01:55
Speaker
and understanding those feelings.
01:01:57
Speaker
And so when I stepped out on the court, I understood that people watched me and that I could inspire younger kids.
01:02:04
Speaker
And that was a huge fueling factor for me whenever I played.
01:02:09
Speaker
And so that's one of the main reasons that I played was to try to inspire a little kid like me that they could do just what I was doing.
01:02:18
Speaker
Shad, what a seek to bless, not impress me.
01:02:20
Speaker
Do you mind if I share a quick experience?
01:02:21
Speaker
You talk a lot about it.
01:02:22
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
01:02:24
Speaker
So my mother just died, right?
01:02:27
Speaker
And I'm sharing this for a very specific purpose, but it was hard for our family.
01:02:34
Speaker
It was unexpected.
01:02:36
Speaker
And kind of family trickled away from the funeral, and I stayed with my dad for a little while.
01:02:40
Speaker
My dad's been my coach.
01:02:43
Speaker
all growing up, loved being my coach in baseball.
01:02:47
Speaker
There came this moment where both of us, you know, guys do things a little differently, I think, but I was like, we're just gonna rip off this bandaid, I gotta go home.
01:02:54
Speaker
So I came and sat next to
Personal Growth through Sports
01:02:56
Speaker
him and said, Dad, I gotta go home.
01:03:00
Speaker
And, you know, my dad kind of put his head down, and this would be the moment where my dad was kind of alone in his house for the first time after my mom passed away.
01:03:09
Speaker
And when I was
01:03:12
Speaker
doing that, taking stuff out to my car, getting ready to leave, a flower truck drives up to our driveway.
01:03:20
Speaker
And, um, and the girl gets out.
01:03:23
Speaker
She says, sorry, this was sent to the funeral home, but it didn't make it in time for the funeral.
01:03:29
Speaker
And, uh, and so I took it and I said, oh, thank you so much.
01:03:32
Speaker
And I took it into my dad and I sat it down.
01:03:34
Speaker
He's like, that's beautiful.
01:03:35
Speaker
And, and he said, who's it from?
01:03:38
Speaker
And I opened it up and sometimes these things, you know, just happened perfectly, but it was from all my college baseball teammates, right?
01:03:45
Speaker
It came at the perfect time.
01:03:49
Speaker
I read this card, they're all just like, hey, we're with you.
01:03:52
Speaker
It was the perfect thing for me and my dad who had coached me my whole life got at a very tender moment.
01:04:00
Speaker
And I'm grateful for me, eyes up, do the word, seek to bless, not to impress.
01:04:08
Speaker
There was no post about that.
01:04:10
Speaker
There was no...
01:04:11
Speaker
But the impact that had on me and my father, like I will remember it for the rest of my life because my college teammates got together, a bunch of dudes, and got flowers that ended up being delivered to two other guys.
01:04:26
Speaker
Flowers usually aren't the thing, but it was just the work they did.
01:04:30
Speaker
It wasn't what they did.
01:04:31
Speaker
It could have been everything, anything.
01:04:34
Speaker
And having experienced that over the last couple of weeks with the kindness that people give, I just honestly believe if we will live our life seeking to bless whoever comes within our path, it is an incredible way to live.
01:04:53
Speaker
It's an incredible way to live.
01:04:55
Speaker
And I think it's good for other people.
01:05:01
Speaker
I think it's incredible for the person who lives their life that way.
01:05:05
Speaker
And so the mantra of eyes up, do the work.
01:05:08
Speaker
Just keep your eyes up looking for anyone you can lift, anyone you can lift.
01:05:13
Speaker
And then seek to bless, not to be noticed, not to impress people.
01:05:17
Speaker
Just seek to bless whoever comes in your path any day, every day.
01:05:24
Speaker
And you will have a fulfilling life.
01:05:28
Speaker
And so that's my thoughts on it.
01:05:30
Speaker
I was so grateful for that.
01:05:31
Speaker
My dad and I were able to sit there.
01:05:34
Speaker
Whatever reason, that hit us.
01:05:35
Speaker
We just sat there and wept in the kitchen for five, ten minutes, said our goodbyes and left.
01:05:43
Speaker
But I share that for one other reason, if that's okay, Dustin.
01:05:46
Speaker
Just don't forget those on your own team.
01:05:50
Speaker
Don't forget those kids who want to be part of your team
01:05:53
Speaker
in any way but were cut.
01:05:55
Speaker
Just try to lift everyone around you and those who are around you the most sometimes need the lifting the most.
01:06:01
Speaker
So, concentrate on your own team.
01:06:03
Speaker
Awesome.
01:06:04
Speaker
Awesome.
01:06:06
Speaker
When I finished playing personally, I just thought, gosh, how am I ever going to experience this again?
01:06:12
Speaker
Competing and what that felt like.
01:06:15
Speaker
I had no idea that coaching would be more fulfilling.
01:06:20
Speaker
that running these training programs for kids that had autism, it didn't matter the level, just watching them grow and instill that confidence and giving back, what that would do for me and how fulfilling that was.
01:06:33
Speaker
There's a competitive side that's really hard to satisfy, but that, that, but the, I don't even know, the camaraderie that comes through athletics,
01:06:43
Speaker
and just the whole fulfillment in giving back.
01:06:48
Speaker
And I learned a while ago, when I was coaching, I learned of two things that I'll share really quick that really helped me as a coach.
01:06:56
Speaker
I wish I would have known sooner as a player, but there's seven things that drive us in life, six things, sorry, and we're motivated by.
01:07:04
Speaker
And one of them is certainty, just having that certainty in our lives, and that's a lot of, you know,
01:07:10
Speaker
right now of the youth really want that certainty.
01:07:14
Speaker
The second thing is uncertainty, adventure and excitement really drives people.
01:07:19
Speaker
The third thing is significance and feeling significant.
01:07:22
Speaker
And that's usually things that we're missing in our life as to why we want those.
01:07:27
Speaker
The fourth thing is love.
01:07:29
Speaker
And you sometimes can see as far as the significance or love is have a conversation.
01:07:33
Speaker
Someone says, well, I did this or, you know, and just feeling accepted and loved.
01:07:38
Speaker
Maybe they're not getting that at home.
01:07:40
Speaker
The fifth thing is personal growth.
01:07:43
Speaker
And then the last thing is contribution.
01:07:46
Speaker
And we're all going to have one of those needs or two or three of those.
01:07:50
Speaker
But ultimately, we want to grow and continue to be the best version of ourselves.
01:07:55
Speaker
So ultimately, we can contribute and give back because that is the greatest blessing we can receive.
01:08:02
Speaker
It's a selfish thing because we are so blessed by that action.
01:08:08
Speaker
And then...
01:08:10
Speaker
The gift of the three C's is something I've tried to apply and it's a big part of seeking to bless.
01:08:16
Speaker
It really makes you think and it's every day you're going to do the three C's.
01:08:21
Speaker
You're going to either console, congratulate or compliment somebody.
01:08:26
Speaker
And the idea of seeking that we really emphasize in that sentence is so powerful because when you really are looking to do those three things each day, you're looking for opportunity.
01:08:39
Speaker
to bless a life.
01:08:42
Speaker
And it's the littlest thing and it doesn't come on a holiday.
01:08:46
Speaker
It's just out of the blue and the people you think about all of a sudden that come to mind because you're seeking those opportunities.
01:08:55
Speaker
But I think if I would have understood younger the power of really, you always think you're good to people.
01:09:06
Speaker
You always think you're doing your best to serve.
01:09:08
Speaker
And as you get older,
01:09:09
Speaker
that part of those experiences and doing those different things of growing is I want to stay relevant.
01:09:14
Speaker
You know, I come and talk to these youth and they're like, who the heck is she?
01:09:17
Speaker
She's a has-been athlete.
01:09:19
Speaker
She's a coach.
01:09:19
Speaker
No one knows who she is.
01:09:20
Speaker
I'm like, well, I climbed a tall mountain and I got in cold water and I stay relevant so that I can have influence.
01:09:29
Speaker
And honestly, that's why I do it because that's the only way to give back and impact is you have to have some form of relevance.
01:09:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:37
Speaker
And so doing those things that help me continue to grow and be better and stay relevant so I can ultimately give back.
01:09:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:45
Speaker
Thanks, Sally.
01:09:48
Speaker
I was actually super excited about this one.
01:09:49
Speaker
This is like my favorite like core value you have, but I actually had a super fun experience over the weekend.
01:09:55
Speaker
So with this kind of being the one I really like, I felt like I had a really hard time finding good experiences with it, kind of especially in like now moving into the job and the position I am.
01:10:03
Speaker
Because when you go to football games, you want to see the football player, right?
01:10:06
Speaker
You want to see the coaches and you don't want to see the girl in the background running
Applying Sports Principles to Life
01:10:10
Speaker
anything.
01:10:10
Speaker
So like I had a really hard time trying to find
01:10:14
Speaker
this in my day to day.
01:10:16
Speaker
But Utah State was doing like a flag football competition over the weekend.
01:10:20
Speaker
We invite all the kids up and whatnot.
01:10:22
Speaker
Anyways, we have kind of our older group of kids in and we have some like dad helpers.
01:10:27
Speaker
And they were all kind of talking with some of our coaches like, hey, Elsie, come here, come here.
01:10:31
Speaker
I walked over and they said, there is a little girl up in the stands and she's too scared to come down to play with the boys.
01:10:36
Speaker
Will you go talk to her?
01:10:38
Speaker
We've tried talking to her.
01:10:40
Speaker
She won't come down.
01:10:41
Speaker
I was like, sure, yeah, I guess I'll wander up there.
01:10:44
Speaker
So I did, and she was up there with mom and dad.
01:10:46
Speaker
She was in fourth grade.
01:10:48
Speaker
Biggest alligator tears I've ever seen.
01:10:50
Speaker
She was crying, and I kind of got down at her level, and I was like, what's your name?
01:10:53
Speaker
And she told me.
01:10:54
Speaker
We were kind of chit-chatting, and I was like, are you here to play football?
01:10:57
Speaker
She was like, no.
01:10:58
Speaker
And I was like, what do you mean you're not here to play football?
01:11:00
Speaker
And she was too scared.
01:11:01
Speaker
She didn't want to go down and play with the boys.
01:11:03
Speaker
She was worried about the football size.
01:11:04
Speaker
And I just said, look, I'm the only one down there.
01:11:07
Speaker
I'm the only girl.
01:11:08
Speaker
You got to come down and help me out.
01:11:09
Speaker
And after a little conversation, she decided to come down with me.
01:11:14
Speaker
got her a lot more comfortable and anyways she had those boys in a tizzy by the end of the day she was pulling flags and she was running around and it was awesome and she came up to me afterwards and she's like i'm coming back next week and i was like okay good you better come back next week and it was just super cool because i've never had that experience where i wanted to be that i wanted to be the i grew up watching people play and i wanted to be that for somebody and i couldn't in that type of aspect but
01:11:38
Speaker
But all of a sudden, I had this really cool experience where I could do that for somebody.
01:11:42
Speaker
And as a woman in a male-dominant sport,
01:11:46
Speaker
And to show this girl that she's probably never going to put on pads, she's never going to wear a helmet, but she can still do something she loves.
01:11:52
Speaker
She can pursue something.
01:11:53
Speaker
If she loves it enough, she can do it.
01:11:56
Speaker
And I've never had the opportunity where I thought I was in a good enough position to, I just, I was there because I loved it.
01:12:01
Speaker
I do what I do because I love what I do.
Inspiring Passion Beyond Sports
01:12:04
Speaker
And I never thought I could potentially influence somebody to pursue something that they love to do.
Changing Culture through Sports
01:12:10
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be
01:12:12
Speaker
wearing a jersey at the end of the day and so it was super fun and it was a great experience called home and told my mom about it that's awesome lc well guys thank you for joining us um you know eyes up do the works our motto but we want to be more than just a program that has a cool catchphrase um
01:12:33
Speaker
You know, the key words in that are probably the last word, it's work.
01:12:37
Speaker
Everything that we do requires work in order for this program or this vision that we have of trying to change culture by the avenue of athletics and sports, it requires people that want to work.
01:12:49
Speaker
that wanna take the hard easy path and not the easy hard path.
01:12:53
Speaker
So parents, athletes, we need your help in that.
01:12:56
Speaker
We need everybody to have their eyes up, whether you're
Handling Attention Positively
01:12:58
Speaker
an athlete or not.
01:12:58
Speaker
The phrase eyes up, do the work is not unique to athletes.
01:13:01
Speaker
We only say it's especially for the athletes because of the sport light.
01:13:05
Speaker
They do have an extra level of attention given to them.
01:13:08
Speaker
people are watching them, if we can teach them to handle that in a way that lifts and inspires other people, they can do a lot of good and
Future Coaches and Cultural Impact
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change culture.
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And our hope is that in 20 years from now, the thousands of athletes that we work with will be coaches someday themselves,
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And they'll be teaching similar principles.
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And if we can do that, we've changed the culture.
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We've changed the next generation.
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It's, you know, sports is synonymous with winning the hour, competing without contempt, being resilient and seeking to bless, not impress.
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And you do that by living with your eyes up and doing the work.
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So we appreciate you.
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Thank you for joining us.
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Eyes up, do the work.
Promotion and Resources
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This has been the Sportlight Podcast from Especially for Athletes, sponsored by Coca-Cola.
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You can learn more about Especially for Athletes by visiting the website at especiallyforathletes.org.
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You can also learn more about the book, The Sportlight, by Shad Martin and Dustin Smith at especiallyforathletes.org.