Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art the science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. I'm your host Texel Quilkin and today's guest, it's an honor and a privilege to welcome Tim Fletcher, founder of REACT and the LIFT program.
Speaker: helping people understand shame and recover from complex trauma. Two years ago, I found Tim's work and it really has leveled up my coaching career and more importantly, my life.
Speaker: Today we break down what shame really is, how it's misapplied in the world of sports and how coaches can build tough environments without relying on fear.
Speaker: If you found this podcast through Tim, Welcome, I encourage you to share this with a coach or an athlete in your life. If you're a coach and anything in our conversation jumps out to you and you want to learn more, I encourage you, take one of my courses on how I apply these tools to my athletes, my teams, and my coaching staff. For those, head to captainsandcoaches.com, click the education tab on top, and especially, you're really gonna enjoy my latest course. It's called, Funishment, Reframing Discipline in Athletics. With that, let's hand it off to Tim. Get your notebooks ready as he helps us raise the game.
Speaker: Ready, ready, and break. Action. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. Very excited for this episode. I welcome Tim Fletcher. Man, this is this is a ah ah long shot for me. Two years ago, I started a a focused shame journey and stumbled upon your education online.
Speaker: I dove in and naturally as ah a a leader and a institution just focusing on development i thought i could do it myself but come to realize man there was so much more to unlock and then i found the the lift program that you offer and man that is that has changed the trajectory of my coaching career and my life man so i'm i'm grateful for this opportunity and welcoming you to the the captains and coaches podcast my pleasure to be here thank you for having me awesome so the
Speaker: Shame has been the the name of the game for my career. I joke that I am a recovering Irish Catholic, and this is an opportunity for me to to tackle shame because I am in the the heart of football country in Texas.
Speaker: I used to work for an institution, an organization that was run like a professional athlete sports team. And then one of our mottos was simply that Your motivation is money, food, and shame. Those are the three tools that we're going to lead our organization and we're going to lead the people that we lead.
Speaker: And that was that was a problem. And that led to a lot of dark days for me. So I'd love to to to strike and create a foundation for us to understand what is shame and what are disasters that lead to long-term shame if it's not addressed head on.
Speaker: Yeah, it's such an important point. And I think where I would start with is clearing up a misunderstanding about shame. Because a lot of people, when they think of shame, just think of the emotion of shame. And it's basically, they grew up...
Speaker: of yourself and they understand that shame emotion. But shame really comes from a belief and it, so the emotion is triggered by a wrong belief, a core belief about my identity, identity about who I am.
Speaker: And that is I'm not good enough, that something is wrong with me, that um I'm inferior. So it's really important to me to understand where that belief comes from, because a child coming into the world naturally comes in um excuse me room when they're loved, when they can connect with parents, when they're valued, when their needs are met, they go, am I have a positive identity. I am lovable. i am valuable.
Speaker: So where does this shame belief come from? And that's the world of understanding complex trauma. And complex trauma is an important piece in understanding the trauma world and the trauma spectrum. A lot of people still think of trauma just in terms of one-time event, shock trauma, big T trauma, horrific stuff that happens to a person. And there's no denying that that's an element of trauma.
Speaker: But many people still use that very narrow definition and they go, well, I don't have that, so I guess I don't have trauma. And our understanding of trauma has grown so much in the last 20 years. And it's begun to understand that trauma Big T trauma, shock trauma is horrific stuff from the outside that happened to me.
Speaker: Whereas there's little t trauma. And that is stuff within relationships that should have happened to me but didn't. So I should have been loved unconditionally. I should have been validated. I should have had my needs met. Somebody should have connected with me, but nobody did. So it's almost like nothing bad happened to you, but it's that nothing good happened to you that should have happened. So it's invisible trauma.
Speaker: And but 90% of the world, people have that invisible trauma and it's more neglect, the results of neglect in a child's life, whereas big T trauma is results of abuse.
Speaker: And then complex trauma is what happens if a child lives with abuse and neglect every day. So now they have to do a whole bunch of adaptations. This is not just a one-time, one-off event. This is their constant.
Speaker: And so what happens in the child is they conclude it must be my fault. I must be neglected because I'm not lovable. I'm not good enough. I i don't have value.
Speaker: And so then they go into life operating off that belief, which is really based on lies. It's based on trying to connect and relate to others. people that aren't safe, that aren't healthy um in a relationship.
Speaker: And so they're believing facts that is true of their experience, but it's actually lies about them themselves that they're concluding.
Speaker: And so then they go into adult life and basically is Anybody that gets to see the authentic me is going to reject me like or neglect me or abuse me.
Speaker: And so I'm not good enough is is the core belief. But then what you have to consider is who wants to live with that core belief? i I don't want to walk around thinking and feeling I'm not good enough. So what you tend to do is bury that into a subconscious place and deny it.
Speaker: and try to prove you're better than everybody. You try to compensate for it. So this is where a person can basically find out what am I good at.
Speaker: So I might be funny, i might be good looking, i might be smart, I might be good at making money, or I might be good in sports. So now I'm going to prove everything.
Speaker: I'm better than everybody. I'm going to prove I'm superior. That then, to their mind, is a solution to their shame. That's now proving that I'm better than everybody. But the problem is, is now i always...
Speaker: have to prove it because there's always a threat. There's always the other team members, the newbies that are coming on, the freshmen that are brand new on the scene that could threaten my position. So everybody now is a threat and I have to keep proving myself over and over. And so you develop a drivenness. You develop, I am going to push myself. I am going to go hard.
Speaker: and I'm going to dig deep, and you can be super, super successful. The problem is the motivation is being driven by this place of fear, this place of lies that I'm not good enough, and you're constantly...
Speaker: in a fight against time, because eventually time will win out, and you won't be as good as the freshmen. And so shame provides this powerful motivation, but what is important for people to understand is it's fueled off a very unhealthy belief. It leads to very warped perspectives on life that lead to problems down the road that can be huge for people. um
Speaker: So hopefully that answers the question. And sets a great foundation. So one mission that I have in life is to go after the assumption that sports teach lessons.
Speaker: Sports don't teach lessons, coaches do. So coaches have this opportunity to create an environment that is competitive. And if we use that freshmen coming and joining the team as an example, well, we want that freshmen to push and improve everyone around them.
Speaker: That competitiveness in practice is gonna make our our whole team better, but then how do they treat each other? That's gonna be the focus. So now if I, as a coach, and using shame and fear, and then maybe pointing to the senior and saying, how are you letting him do this? Or he shouldn't be doing this to you.
Speaker: That's when we start to to craft an unhealthy environment on the sports side. And I've experienced it, and I've seen it far too often on the sidelines on my own teams or against opponents where coaches are leaning into this fear as this motivation just for one spark and one outs.
Speaker: but they're neglecting 10 years from now, they're neglecting 10 weeks from now, just to get this one moment, whether it's to push that kid or to deal with their own stuff.
Speaker: And i think a big opportunity for us in this episode is to look at it from those two perspectives of what's happening internally with the athlete. And then what can a ah coach potentially cause that they're unaware of because we got no idea what's happening at home. We can do our best to get to know the guys, the girls on our teams to know the parents, but at the same time, we don't know what's going on outside of our, our opportunities are two or six hours a week.
Speaker: Um, so we we've laid a good foundation here and. so can I just speak, big speak to that? text Yes, sir. Because I think as part of building a framework here for everybody, um it would this might be very helpful for them.
Speaker: So when we understand human beings now based on kind of the research around understanding our nervous system and how our nervous system operates, we're What we understand is that when a child feels safe, they're able to connect with mom and dad, they feel unconditionally loved, they're in their ventral vagal system. That's their sweet spot. That's where they feel joy. That's where they feel good feelings. That's where they're able to explore and be creative and show all their emotions and be human. And that's where they want to be the best authentic them they can be. So they're motivated to find out who they are, to pursue it. They're competitive. They want to be a football player. They want to be a doctor, a musician, whatever. But that's...
Speaker: all coming from a very healthy motivation. My cup is full of love. I feel safe. I feel secure. Now I want to explore. Now I want to be fulfill my purpose of kind of all my gifts and abilities and developing them and using them.
Speaker: That's very different from a child who can't connect, who doesn't feel safe, whose needs aren't met, who's neglected or abused. They aren't in their ventral vagal system. They then go into their sympathetic vagal system, which is your fight or flight.
Speaker: Now I am in survival mode. Now I have to be the best in order not to be defeated, in order not to be shamed, in order not to have bad things happen to me. Now I am driven.
Speaker: But when you're in your survival mode, You don't connect with people. You're not capable of true loving. Now everybody's a threat. Now everybody is dangerous.
Speaker: Now everybody's competition. So I can't allow connection. I can't allow closeness. I can't allow vulnerability. I can't allow weakness, so I have to have this new definition of strength, which isn't vulnerable connection, attachment, where you have love and motivation. Now it's like I don't show weak emotions. Now I drive myself harder.
Speaker: Now the definition of success is I'm actually less human. I am Superman because I push myself harder than anybody, but that's only in a physical dimension. You've shut down emotions. You've shut down connection. You've shut down trust. You've shut down vulnerability. You've shut down everything that makes healthy.
Speaker: And so what is happening with coaches often is If you create an environment where ah where where teammates connect and they connect with the coach, with each other, where there's openness, vulnerability, they will be motivated and they will want to be in a healthy place. You might have to help them deal with some of their personal stuff that comes out of their home and you might have to be a surrogate parent to do all of that.
Speaker: But that'll work, but it'll take time. You've got to put a lot of effort into nurturing those relationships, developing a safe environment where people can be in their ventral vagal system.
Speaker: A shortcut is put them all in their sympathetic state and use fear, cause them to feel threatened. And then you will get performance, but you lose the team camaraderie. You lose all of the things that are truly healthy.
Speaker: And then that might work for a while, but the long-term consequences will begin to pile up that will create issues for the individual and for the team. Yeah, and i've I've seen it play off just too too many different ways when coaches lean into that.
Speaker: This, both as a player and a coach in the game, when fear is their only tool or hammers their only weapon, then every problem they've got to solve is a nail.
Speaker: And it's, it's extremely unfortunate because a lot of the time in sports, we're spent teaching and learning and aiming to understand the game that we're playing. But if, if we're in fight, flight, freeze mode is our brain, are we in learning mode? Are we in receiving mode? Can they hold on to that information that we're yelling at a high volume?
Speaker: Exactly. Yeah. i remember in my high school, I was, um, big into basketball and volleyball. Um, and I had a ah coach that I look back just very grateful.
Speaker: Really. he was in his own ventral vagal state, very gentle, very safe, very, um, connected. Well, very encouraging, did a lot of teaching patient, um,
Speaker: And that was my first coach. And I really benefited a lot from that. But then I got a second coach and they were yelling. They were criticizing. They were tearing you down. They were shaming you. And it worked for some players, but for me, it shut me right down.
Speaker: I couldn't perform. I went into a freeze state, not into a fight state. I went into a freeze state because that to me was too dangerous. That to me was, if I do one thing wrong, I am going to be in big trouble. I'm going to be punished. I'm going to be shamed. I'm going to be made a public spectacle spectacle. The coach is going to get angry and yell. And I just didn't work for me.
Speaker: And so it might work for some, but it won't work for others. And, and, and I think sadly, sometimes it won't work for some really quality people.
Speaker: Yeah. And, uh, it, There's amazing athletes that have done the best. so I want to use Michael Jordan as an example where he talks about his intensity in 10 cities and his focus.
Speaker: And he was creating enemies in the locker room for his own his own motivation. So now we look at high school coaches. Yeah. Yeah. So high school coaches, they see these stories of the best of the best, the goats in all these sports, and they take that and apply it to now their teams.
Speaker: They're completely different sports, different athletes, different realms. But they assume that the greats do it. It's going to work for my guys or my guys need this because they're not listening to me.
Speaker: Exactly. Well, that disconnect. Yeah, so we we had another guy about five years ago go through Lyft, and he was the seven-time world kickboxing champion um out of London, and or England. And he asked me to go over there and do some seminars.
Speaker: And um I did. And Michael Venom Page came to it. He brought a bunch of um MMA fighters and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker: um They actually gave me an honorary black belt, um which was, there's five MMA, which is a requirement to get a black belt. You have to have five black belts there. So they gave me this honorary thing. But anyways,
Speaker: i I was talking with Ed, it was his name, and so he just actually written a book on shame. and And what he basically began to realize in doing Lyft and even prior to, like you, was how much shame he had in his own life. He started investigating, came across the material, then took Lyft.
Speaker: And what he said to me is in his world of MMA, most successful big fighters have huge complex trauma and huge shame issues.
Speaker: And they are trying to escape their pain. they are... driven to be so busy, so successful, to work so hard, to push themselves so hard, they never have to live with their internal world. They're constantly escaping by pursuing adrenaline, pursuing digging deep, um success, the rush of all of that in order to escape adrenaline.
Speaker: that and the shame drives them, the shame pushes them. And so he said, it's a perfect storm for many, many athletes. The sad part, he said to me was when you look at their private life,
Speaker: and their relationships and their internal mental health world, and you get to know them, you often find a sad world. You find very sad stories that are being covered by this image of sports and the success of sports, but their internal world and relationships are failing and struggling. And I just really appreciated his honesty, both about kind of the norm within a lot of professional sports and then the norm within so many people's private world as well. So I think to me, what ah like we've had a number of athletes reach out to us and
Speaker: It's the same story over and over again. Look super successful on the outside and in my arena of sport. But internally, I am really struggling.
Speaker: And I am looking at 10 years of a career. and then what am I going to do? Then who am i Then... when I live with all the injuries and all the pain from all the injuries, then what's my life going to be like? And, and what am I going to, what's going to happen with, you know, my kids, my, my career comes to before my family and my kids are hurting and they're rebelling and I've got trouble here. And, and so it's, it's just to me,
Speaker: There is another way of doing it, another way that works even better. It might take longer. It takes personal work. You can't just manufacture it by creating fear and putting people in their sympathetic vagal state. But If a coach sees himself as a surrogate parent that is really going to create a family, not just a successful team, and they understand the dynamics of that family, then I think a lot can happen. but
Speaker: Here's where I suspect is a a key issue. I think a lot of coaches wouldn't be capable of being surrogate healthy parents because they have so much shame themselves.
Speaker: And so their team is a reflection on them. Their team has to be successful so that they can be successful. And so there's very much an unhealthy dynamic that I need a successful team to deal with my shame.
Speaker: And so I need to drive players so that they make me look good. And so now you've got shame at multiple locations that just feed each other.
Speaker: Yeah. And that's, that's, that's my lived experience from an athlete's perspective. And then some of the darkest seasons of my coaching career, me living that and,
Speaker: Yeah, to to just speak to that, a lot to add on to it, within coaching, it's it's a sacrifice ah career path where I want to give, give, give so we don't have to work on what's going on on the back end.
Speaker: In respect to athletes where you can control the sets, the reps, the the fight, the the workouts, the drive, everything. And then outside of that, I do see a lot of recklessness within certain certain sports, especially ones in the the fighting realm, the contact realm.
Speaker: like that so it it is this opportunity if coaches know what to look for within the athletes they can be a surrogate parent or a mentor to start asking the right questions and that's one big switch that i've personally made is when kids are acting out they're trusting me to create boundaries or barriers or start to ask the right questions.
Speaker: And i've I've did my best to separate problem and kid and start identifying that and then reframe it, that that is not a bad kid that they just made a mistake.
Speaker: And this is very great lesson that you've handed off to me is separating guilt and shame. So I'd love to explore the differences there that we still want them to to understand that they did make a mistake, but that they are not a mistake.
Speaker: Exactly. So guilt is all about um action, doing something that hurts others, that violates a moral rule, that violates love. So you lie to somebody, you steal from somebody, you disrespect somebody. So you you do something that hurts somebody. and And so guilt is a built-in alarm system that is basically saying I'm going to cause you internal pain because if you continue doing this behavior, you're going to ruin relationships. You're going to hurt yourself in the long run and hurt those you love. So it's a motivator to get my behavior back to a loving behavior, to treat people with respect, honesty,
Speaker: and being trustworthy. Whereas shame is not about what I do. It's about who I am. It's about my identity. I don't have to do anything. I feel not good enough. i believe I'm not good enough.
Speaker: And so what can happen in complex trauma families is those overlapped. So a child does something that violates love and they feel guilt. And then their parent says, you're a terrible kid.
Speaker: And so that reinforces shame. So if you do something wrong, you are bad. You are not your failure. And so they don't distinguish actions from identity.
Speaker: And so a key part in helping people heal is just because I do something that violates love doesn't mean I'm a terrible person. It means I did something wrong, but I can repair that.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. Whereas shame, the child feels, I can't repair shame. I don't know how to not be not good enough. um And so they feel this is an unresolvable dilemma for them. And so I think a key part for what you're describing is coaches that really begin to under so separate the behavior from the person and go, yeah, that kid is acting in a way that is hurting others, but I think it's coming from a very hurt kid. And that kid needs to be understood. That kid needs to be helped to understand why they're using that coping strategy right now as their only tool to deal with this situation.
Speaker: Maybe they had never learned other strategies that would help repair this problem. So, yeah, there's a whole, again, parenting aspect to coaching, I think.
Speaker: if If I can add one other thing, Dex, that i I hope would be helpful for people. I think it's helpful. It's important for people to understand that often a kid coming out of complex trauma is attracted to a shame-based coach.
Speaker: And the reason why is that many kids in complex trauma had mom or dad who didn't matter what they did was never good enough. It was, oh, you got five, five A's and one B. How come you got a B? You should have got straight A's. um And it was constant little criticism. It was the bar was always at this unrealistic, unattainable, unattainable height, right?
Speaker: but they were constantly being made to believe they should be able to attain it. And so they always felt pushed. They always felt um shamed. They always were criticized, and and they were threatened that if you don't do this. So they had this kind of um drill sergeant-type parent that was...
Speaker: pushing them, driving them, shaming them, using fear, all of those different tactics to try to get their kid to be a good performer, to be successful at school, to be successful in the workforce.
Speaker: And they thought that was the right way to do it. And so a kid, that's their normal. That's their relationship template that they grew up with, their default setting.
Speaker: And they got used to that. That's just kind of what they think is normal. And then they find a coach that's very similar to how dad is. And they go, oh, okay, I i like this. I know what to do here. This feels familiar to me. So I'm attracted to it because it feels so familiar. Yeah. And they're drawn back into the very system that they grew up which is constantly feeling unsafe, constantly being in survival mode. And so I think it's just important for people to understand is that often there's an attraction to that kind of coach because it's familiar.
Speaker: Yeah. And that... They also, I mean, that that coach, and i I've had them, I've been them at certain times, so I understand how they they think and their objective is they're going to be tough on these kids because that's going to make them strong and tough.
Speaker: And you threw out an interesting word earlier, safe environment. like That's what I'm trying to help people change, that being tough is going to shut those kids down and not create and allow them to to practice the tools that do make them tough.
Speaker: Because as a coach, you know what's difficult for me is not yelling at the kid. It's having the quiet, difficult conversation about their decisions. That is hard. It's hard for me.
Speaker: It's hard for the kid. But that's true strength. So how how can we help them understand that these these interpersonal tools, these pro-social behaviors, they are difficult, but there going through them is going to make better athletes long term.
Speaker: Yeah, what i I think to me, if you look at the process of parenting and what is happening in a child's brain, what you realize that when a child is small, they basically live out of their limbic brain. That's the part of their brain that is developed.
Speaker: And the limbic brain, it tends to make decisions and think decisions are smart if it makes them feel good. Or they make decisions based on how they're feeling. So your limbic brain is your emotion center. And so...
Speaker: I want to get a puppy because getting a puppy makes me feel good. And dad, I'll feed the dog every day. I'll walk the dog. I'll pick up its poop. And they're in their limbic brain because this is giving them a fantasy of feeling good. This is going to be so wonderful.
Speaker: And so they get a puppy and then they feed the dog every day for two weeks. but then it gets boring. Then it I don't want to do, i don't feel like doing this now. Dad, will you do this? I don't feel like it. And then what do you want to eat? you want a chocolate bar or do you want broccoli? Well, i want a chocolate bar because it gives me instant gratification. It makes me, they don't think long-term consequences. They don't think healthy. Their definition of what is right is Do I feel like doing it? And does it make me feel good? And so that's where parents have to be wise out of their cortex and set boundaries for a child.
Speaker: So a child says, I don't feel like doing my chores. I don't feel like doing my homework. And so a parent has to say,
Speaker: I know you don't want to, but you need to because it's the right thing to do. And down the road, you're going to see why. um and so I am going to help you build structure, routine, healthy behaviors, healthy habits into your life until you get to your cortex brain and realize this is wise.
Speaker: And so that is healthy parenting is a child still needs kind of a kick in the pants, boundaries, that to motivate them to get them on the right track.
Speaker: But they don't need somebody to scream at them. They don't need somebody to be abusive to them. They need somebody to lovingly connect with them and help them realize we're going to do this. This is the right thing. Here's the consequences if you don't. Here's the consequences if you do. And have those conversations with the child.
Speaker: And if a child's truly connected to a loving, safe parent, okay, I want to do it because you are seeing saying it's wise. You are steering me in this direction, and I want to please you because I love you, because that's who you are, my parent. I respect you. And so it creates all the healthy dynamics to I want to live within the boundaries that you are setting,
Speaker: for the right reasons. But if you come along and go, you do this, scream at you, create fear in you, they'll do it. But you've shut them down. They can't connect now. You've hurt something in them. You've done some damage. So you might get the desired result, but you've created a whole bunch of debris from destruction that you are starting to create inside that child. And so that's where to me, as I look back as a child growing up, there were days where I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to work. I didn't want to help out at home. I didn't want to do my chore. And my dad just said, son, we're going to do this. This is important. This is right. And I did it. And within a few years, I wanted to do it. ah I saw the wisdom of doing it. And I built those boundaries into my own internal boundaries as I'm going to make this part of my daily routine. I am going to do this every day. I don't need a parent to tell me anymore. I see the wisdom of it.
Speaker: And so what I think a coach has to realize is when you get young players, they're still in their limbic brain. So you have to provide boundaries. You have to give some motivation And you can do that the right way or the wrong way.
Speaker: You can do that through love, connection, explanation, conversation, and provide the motivation and safety for the child that they want to please you because they respect you. Or you can do it through fear, through shame.
Speaker: You might get immediate results that look the same, but you've done a ton of damage.
Speaker: Yeah, it's so much gold there and sticking with the brain. a lot of the times I teach coaching lessons and I want to encourage them to train the brain, not the behavior. So when kids are acting out or they making mistakes on the field, we almost have to take over. And the lesson that I anchor that in is Piaget's stages of the brain.
Speaker: So when we're super tired, Kids are going to get into that concrete thinking. Well, now I can tell them what to do on the sidelines, cut, run, jump, whatever it is, and help them out.
Speaker: But I can't get mad at them and and pissed off if I know that they're fatigued and their brain goes to ah that that concrete thinking versus the the creative the creative freedom in there. The.
Speaker: the sticking with the brain, like what do you feel some other tools that will help coaches understand? Like, just cause I said it one time at practice X amount of weeks ago, I can't expect them to remember it now three weeks later in this specific moment in time during this game. That's not realistic.
Speaker: Yeah, so a couple things that that I would say. So when a child is in that safe place, their ventral vagal state, um there's been tons of research around this and um some really good graphs have been created. But the child in that state can use their full brain. they That's when their IQ is the highest. That's when they use their cortex the most to think stuff through. They develop critical thinking. They weigh out pros and cons. They can be creative.
Speaker: They can explore. All of that happens when they're in their ventral vagal state. When you go to your sympathetic vagal state, your IQ lessens because in your sympathetic state in fight flight, your brain releases cortisol and cortisol purposely shuts down your prefrontal cortex.
Speaker: Because basically it says in order for us to survive, we don't need to think through options. We need to act. And so your thinking gets slower, your thinking gets worse. Then if you go even to greater fear and you go into your dorsal vagal, your freeze response, your brain shuts down even more.
Speaker: um and And so your IQ gets even lower and you start to dissociate. And so I think it's really important for coaches to realize that If you want smart kids that are operating out of their cortex, the wise part of their brain, they need to be in that safe ventral state. If you put them into their sympathetic vagal state, you're actually hindering their ability to think.
Speaker: Because now they're more their their cortex is shutting down because they're going into survival state. So again, um they can learn stuff by rote, but they're not being able to be expressive and creative and explore because that part's starting to get shut down.
Speaker: The next thing that I think is important to understand is if you look at the skills in learning to ride a bicycle or learning to walk,
Speaker: A child doesn't just hear their parents say, here's how you ride a bike or here's how you walk. And the child goes, ding, ding, ding. Okay, got it Do it perfectly the first time.
Speaker: they They learn through failure. They learn through practice, through weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of falling, of skinning their knee, of crying.
Speaker: But every time they fail, You remind them, they learn from that experience, and then they develop coordination. Then they develop how to use their muscles properly. Then they develop how to get their hands to do one thing, their feet to do another thing, their eyes to look certain places. like There are so many complex different pieces to developing certain skills that your brain can't master that through one explanation.
Speaker: There has to be the realization that there's a process in learning complex skills where you've got to get repetition, practice, encouragement over and over again until you master it.
Speaker: And that's, to me, why you have... pop warner leagues that's the purpose of learning all of that stuff very gradually and allowing hey this you're learning this is what we're doing um and gradually you get better and better and better and so it's even when you get to the professional or near professional ranks you still need reminders you still need to be able to learn by all of a sudden you get somebody that you've never encountered before that pulls a new move on you that you've never had to deal with before. And now you've got to learn new skills. Now you've learn new thinking. Now you've got another set of tools to develop. So you need constant teaching and patience because you're constantly learning and growing.
Speaker: Yeah. and And that healthy environment that we're aiming to create just the term safe and healthy environment, all of these, they're getting external criticism from the wrong people.
Speaker: And then that's that's where we're we're losing sport quickly. And we're aiming to teach delayed gratification because in an essence, that is sport. If my sport is in the spring season, well, I'm going to, I need to to to motivate my guys to start doing workouts in July to prepare for the spring.
Speaker: So now that that's our opportunity. If I make this a fun learning environment, I say, if we're moving, we're learning. Fun equals focus. So that way we're tricking them into their skill development and getting better.
Speaker: They're more likely to now invest during the summer for the spring. So that's that's a big part of this. what i want to pull people away from also is perfectionism.
Speaker: This this do this or else because that everybody's athletic career ends. But if you're caught in this perfectionism loop and I'm speaking from experience, it's going to be a long path out of that till you realize, hey, there is there's there's creative and fun on the other side of this. So now from your understanding of of how can perfectionism what are some detriments long-term and signs that coaches can look for now to help ease some fun into their developmental process?
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting you ask this because just yesterday i was um watching some videos of Michael Jordan um and, and I got thinking about LeBron James, Michael Jordan debate, and Kobe Bryant in that debate of who's the GOAT, who who's the greatest. And I go, there are three unique individuals with three unique skill sets. They were all brilliant at what they did. They were all great.
Speaker: um So I have trouble kind of ranking all of that. They all um perfected their skill set. And so to me, when I can look at every single person and go, your skill set is unique, it's different than anybody else's. My goal is not to make you better than everybody or perfect. My goal is that you reach your potential in developing your skill set. And then you're going to be
Speaker: good at what you do. You might not be the GOAT, but you're going to be the best you you can be. And that's what I want. um That's what I want. That's where you're going to be fulfilled. That's where this is still going to be fun for you um and enjoyable.
Speaker: So a person, though, that comes out of shame basically begins to have the belief that the only way people will respect me because if they get to know the real me they're gonna reject me and see me as not good enough so the only way they're going to respect me and look up to me is if i'm perfect i can't have any flaws i can't do anything poorly i have to do everything perfectly so it's not good enough anymore to do my best because that might not be good enough
Speaker: um they might find a flaw. I might not be as good as somebody else. and And so I got to be perfect, which means I got to be better than everybody else. So you set the bar for yourself at an unrealistic standard, an unattainable standard.
Speaker: And so typically what comes with that is a strong internal critic, that is constantly self-criticizing that wasn't good enough. Now I've got to practice longer. I've got to work harder. I've got to drive myself.
Speaker: Now I'm neglecting my other needs. I'm neglecting relationships. I'm neglecting other pieces in life because I've got to get this perfect. And so there's no denying that an athlete has to kind of narrow their life so they can put the time and energy into perfecting their craft. But a perfectionist goes, I'm going to neglect, I'm going to narrow my life even further. And I'm going to begin to neglect key needs in my life, emotional needs, relational needs, um in order for me to be perfect. But then it's never enough. So they keep
Speaker: narrowing it even further and further and further until they get into this very almost driven, panicky, dark place where their internal critic is screaming at them that you're a failure, you're a loser, and they're pushing themselves harder, and often they start to burn out because they can't continue to push themselves any farther. And so the problem, though, is our society...
Speaker: has basically validated certain trauma responses. And so the kid that responds to trauma by becoming the hero child, the perfect child, oh, they're a wonderful kid.
Speaker: No, they're trying to survive and not get hurt again by being super responsible, by taking care of everybody else's needs and neglecting their own needs, but they get validated for that. the achiever, they get validated. they And so the people that push themselves, that achieve, our society validates that. And so they begin to think, I'm doing the right thing, I'm doing a good thing, but they're setting themselves up for some very painful long-term consequences in burnout, in relationships, in that internal critic just driving them and and being so negative on them.
Speaker: So it's its to me, it's just perfectionism. I want people to reach their potential and do the best that they can, but to distinguish that that is not doing it perfectly. And I need to learn to be able to accept who I am. And that's part of what shame has a problem with.
Speaker: I don't accept who I am. I think I should be better than everybody to be okay. That's the definition that comes out of shame. But deep inside it's, I don't accept that I have any limitations. I don't accept that I'm human.
Speaker: And so I have to be superhuman. I have to be without limitations. I remember talking with a client who was in this mindset and I said,
Speaker: What did you like to do in sports? And he was high jumping. And I go, OK, jump five feet. Oh, yeah, easily. Six feet. Yep. OK. Could you jump eight feet? No.
Speaker: OK. Can you accept that you couldn't jump to eight feet? Well, I could have probably if I just tried harder. I go, OK. How about 15 feet? Think you could jump 15 feet? Yeah, if I tried hard enough.
Speaker: How about 20 feet? He would not accept that he had a limitation, that he would reach the end of his ability. And that's a shame response is I can't accept that because then I'd be a failure. And so it's so important for people to be able to come to a point that here's my skill set.
Speaker: I accept my limitations and I'm going to be the best that I can be. um And that might not be a Michael Jordan, but I can be good at what I do. And if it that doesn't get me into professional sports, that's fine. I will find my avenue where I can be successful and be a positive force in in this world. um So that acceptance piece to me is a key part in really getting to the healing of this shame issue.
Speaker: Yeah. And I've been fortunate to talk to the world renowned leader for men's eating disorders. And he said this, this loop, this trigger that they get caught in is all of the behaviors that then you're waking up early to do extra exercise, you're watching your diet, all of these are reinforced by their coaches.
Speaker: And so then all of a sudden it it spirals into this perfectionism in this loop and then they're exercising too much and it's detrimental to their health and their performance.
Speaker: So it's, it yeah, it's it's pretty wild to me that these certain perfectionist behaviors, they are reinforced or they're made examples of, I need my team to be more like Tim.
Speaker: So then they're now praised ah exactly across the team for what they're doing. But they, like you mentioned, internally, there could be some potential going on. But it's up to us as coaches to then investigate and ask what's going on.
Speaker: And a a big part of that, if if I recognize that stuff, I start asking questions outside of sport, movies, music, stuff that is creative, personal or family based vacation, just something that is is conversation worthy. That's not only acknowledging that they're working hard, but also, hey, what are we doing after practice?
Speaker: Or what are you doing? it ah Are you going to the the basketball game? So finding other sports to enjoy that and celebrate their friends, that they are also having successes.
Speaker: That's what I hope can break through teaching these guys that are so locked into their own performance to celebrate others and their successes. So can I just add a piece to that? Because I think it's within the sports world, it's so important to understand that Basically, what has happened within the professional athlete world is
Speaker: you get great by becoming extreme. So you're an extreme exercise, extreme practice, extreme watching films. You you you don't have a balanced life. You have to have an out of balance life to be at the top.
Speaker: And so the more extreme you are, the better chance you have to rise to the top. And there's there's a certain amount of truth in that when it comes to top soldiers, top athletes, you can kind of get to the to be the best of that. But the more extreme you become, the more out of balance your life becomes. And then what do you lose is what never gets talked about. So what do you have to give up? So you give up the meaning of a lot of your own needs. You give up relationships. You give up
Speaker: pleasures and enjoyments and things that provide a balancing force and things that feed your soul, not just make you a highly efficient machine. um And so to me, we've glamorized extremism.
Speaker: And that is very attractive for people that come out of complex trauma because often to escape the internal pain they have, they're They need to be in an extreme physical active environment. That means they're pushing themselves. They got adrenaline running. They're out of balance. they They're just focusing on physical and neglecting everything else. And so they're drawn into this extreme thing. It almost gives them a rush. It gives them almost an ah an addictive element to it.
Speaker: But it creates... out of balance lives that eventually implode. And that's to me what i I think for, it's just to recognize that because of the monetary aspects often of professional sports, you have to be extreme to, to get success and get money.
Speaker: But what do you sacrifice in that extremism? Mm-hmm. I do want to cover this is almost a two-parter because this is speaking to my athletic experience and failure is inevitable in sports and I Gave everything I had as a collegiate athlete was a lacrosse player and I got caught in shame rage loops and cycles so I was not allowing myself to make a mistake, would then get mad and then redirect that onto the field, use that that rage into the the physical detriment of my teammates.
Speaker: Caused a lot of fights that, you know, best friends now are in each other's weddings. But it was it was uncontrollable. It was detrimental to myself and my team when I made simple mistakes and couldn't learn from it.
Speaker: So help us understand this this shame rage cycle that when we see athletes act out or act in physically harming themselves, breaking bats and sticks and, ah you know, trashing dugouts if they make a mistake in the baseball field.
Speaker: Yeah. So basically one way to understand shame is there's a fear element. If you get to see me, you're going to reject me, but there's also an anger element.
Speaker: I'm inferior. I'm less than I'm not good enough. So I'm angry at myself. I don't like myself. I don't accept myself. There's an anger. That's a deep, deep anger that goes with it.
Speaker: And what many people begin to find is You can use the fear and the anger as motivators. Both you can use to feed motivation. You get angry, all of a sudden you've got energy. You are motivated to do something. You have fear, you now have energy, you're motivated. And so...
Speaker: Coaches, sadly, often use the shame, fear, anger mix as extra motivation. And without even a coach involved, players often learn to do that to themselves. So I fail. That triggers my shame. Now I'm even more angry at myself. I'm feeling more shame. I'm feeling fear that I'm going to get cut from the team, whatever. I'm going to get called out. And that just creates this fury. So the volcano erupts, it explodes. And that fury gives me energy to perform, but it does a ton of damage. It hurts a lot of people.
Speaker: And it's, sadly, it's it's very short term. and it eventually destroys the host and it hurts a lot of people around them and the team. So it's again, one of those very short term looks like it's working things, but Long term, it is a a disastrous thing. And so what we the other thing we know about this that is important to understand is when a person uses this fury as as a motivator, and it happens when their shame is triggered when they fail,
Speaker: the damage it does internally to your body, the amount of cortisol that's released in your body begins to damage your immune system, your organs, your brain.
Speaker: it's It's not good for you. it might give you a huge adrenaline rush and energy to perform in the moment, but it is taking its toll on your entire body, brain, nervous system, immune system.
Speaker: Yeah, i I felt that as an athlete and took steps away from it. And the self solution that I found, or I was team captain.
Speaker: So I just stopped caring about my performance. And we just went all in on helping every single player on the team from seniors all the way down to freshmen, helping coaches.
Speaker: And so then, i mean, then I was caught in that loop for, I mean, forever. even Even now it took lift to get out of that where I just neglected all of my needs at the the the detriment now of myself to make sure my teammates were were not harmed. And now my athletes were never harmed.
Speaker: So that that was the opposite of that. I found my way out, but into this other cycle where it's, well, I don't i don't deserve or I don't need anything. What do you need?
Speaker: So let me so let me go back to, going to come to that, um but let me go back to this anger piece. um So one of the things I think is important for people to understand, and and again, research is showing this, but when you keep using the um the fear, the anger, the shame, they all release cortisol, and in the brain and cortisol gets the adrenaline pumping. It gives you the energy to fight or flight. And so that improves your performance.
Speaker: But Two things tend to happen. Initially, you you can get, if that's your daily dose of that, you get addicted to cortisol. Your brain wants cortisol. And so that's where a person gets themselves angry. They shame themselves. They beat themselves up in in their mind to try to get that cortisol pumping.
Speaker: And that gives them their shot of energy to get them performing for the day. So they it's almost the drug that they need to perform well. But what can happen from that is it does lead to burnout because you're constantly... in your sympathetic vagal state, you're not allowing your body to go into the parasympathetic rest, heal, digest place that is the healthy place that we need to be healthy.
Speaker: So they're not allowing that. And so your body's breaking down, it's wearing down. And so most end up in either kind of a physical breakdown, emotional breakdown, mental breakdown, a burnout of some kind.
Speaker: And what can happen? And so that can show up as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia. You just start to get depressed, lose motivation, start living with anxiety issues. All of that is the result of the cortisol,
Speaker: But then you almost, for some, develop an ah allergy to cortisol. So now as if you get a shot of cortisol, instead of giving you a shot of energy, it's like you got hit by a truck. You just, you feel tired. it It has the reverse effect on you after a while.
Speaker: um And so that that can happen for some people long-term is that now the very thing that used to give them energy now actually sucks energy right out of them and leaves them feeling like they need to sleep um so back to what were what was the other thing we were talking about that we were leading to here just redirect i'm not gonna get mad i'm gonna give give give it's not oh yes anymore okay so there's another ah shame response so
Speaker: Shame's one response is, I am going to try to compensate, improve, find out what I'm good at and be the best at it and drive myself and go, go, go, go. And we've talked about that. And that can lead to perfectionism, all of that. Another shame response is...
Speaker: Because what's shame is i want to get positive affirmation from other people. I can't give myself positive affirmation because I don't accept me or like me. But if I'm the best, then people will like me and respect me and validate me and give me all that affirmation. So I'm gaining my sense of value by performing, not from who I am. And if I perform, I get my needs met. I get positive validation. That's the thinking.
Speaker: Where others go is, i will get my validation from helping people. And then people go, you're so wonderful, you're so helpful, thank you, and they will validate me for...
Speaker: helping them. And so shame for some people turns into codependency. I am now going to help you so that you will validate me and like me, and that will meet my needs. And so I think for some, they end up in coaching, because I'm going to help these kids, and then the parents are going to validate me, the kids are going to look up to me. So there's very much shame-based motivation that's codependent for some that get into coaching, but others even on teams, I am going to help everybody on the team, take care of everybody on the team to the neglect of my own performance because I need everybody on the team to like me. I need everybody on the team to look up to me as the model
Speaker: player, not as the goat, but as the most loving, caring, best friend you could ever have player. And that's very much a shame-based thing.
Speaker: thing where I'm putting you liking me ahead of my own needs and I'm abandoning me to take care of you. I'm putting your needs ahead of my needs just so that you will like me. So that actually goes to kind of the fourth F. So you have fight, flight, freeze.
Speaker: But for many children, who were too little, they couldn't fight or flight, and if they froze, they couldn't meet their own needs. So they still needed somebody to take care of them. So they went to fawn. And fawning is, Mom and Dad, I'll take care of your needs. I'll be whatever you want. I'll wear all kinds of masks so that you like me. And if you like me, will you meet my needs? And will you take care of me? So I'll give to you, but hopefully you'll eventually give to me.
Speaker: And so that ends up in kind of codependency approach to relationships, which sadly many people end up with, but shame is the same route.
Speaker: Yeah, and the the the challenge I'm aiming to accomplish now is is assigning roles and responsibilities for the leader. Because you do have to sacrifice some, but you can't sacrifice all.
Speaker: So how do we accomplish that? Well, it's bringing people into your hard work. So it's not you showing up to the gym like Kobe Bryant at 4 a.m. You're telling teammates, hey, I'm going to be here at 4 a.m. I expect you to be there, too.
Speaker: So that way it's it's it's trying to. Yes, I'm still going to focus on my performance. and bring guys along because in order for them to show up at 4 a.m guess what they're not doing going out until 2 a.m so where we're we're i'm trying to help guys ah define certain roles and responsibilities and opportunities for them to get better themselves and raise the performance of their teammates and care and um Yeah, it's it is challenging.
Speaker: So this leads me to my next question, and this is something that always leaves me scratching my head, especially with the current high school group, is trying is not cool anymore.
Speaker: Why try? I'm just going to fail. Yes. um We're just playing because it's fun, but they don't want to necessarily put in the work to compete. Is that a self-defense mechanism? Like what what happened to caring about sports? Yeah. So that's, to me, there's a trauma and a shame response there. um So one way to understand complex trauma for this child who's neglected or abused, their needs aren't met, they can't connect.
Speaker: is they have all of this internal emotional pain. They're getting hurt every day. They're feeling abandoned. They're feeling betrayed. They're feeling unloved. They're feeling there's cruelty to being done to me. All of these different things. So pain, pain, pain. But they can cry about it. They can ask for help. They can point it out, but nobody's changing anything. So it's pain that you can't resolve.
Speaker: And that's really what complex trauma is. And so that pain becomes overwhelming. So the child begins to look for ways to escape the pain. So one of the ways is to be busy all the time. And that way you're distracted. You can dissociate from the pain. But another way is stop caring because the less you care about anything,
Speaker: the less it hurts if nothing happens. um So don't care about whether you pass. Don't care about whether somebody likes you. Don't care about anything.
Speaker: Don't build any connections. Don't build any secure attachments because if you lose them, it'll hurt a lot. And so that becomes the philosophy. That's a trauma response. That's a severe trauma response.
Speaker: And so that's where it becomes within a gang setting, it's cool not to care. It's cool to be indifferent to everything. That makes you kind of a superstar that you don't care about the cops, you don't care about anything. And it's basically painted as you don't have any fear.
Speaker: But the reality is you're afraid of everything. You're living by fear. You're trying to act like you nothing bothers you, but everything is bothering you. And that's how you're trying to compensate for that.
Speaker: So it's it's it's a sad, scary thing that can happen for so many kids. Um, But secondly, what happens for a lot of kids is if you grew up in a home where you fail, so you're trying to help mom make cookies and you spill some flour and mom smacks you and says, get out of here. You can't do anything right. I'll do it myself.
Speaker: That failure wasn't an opportunity to learn and grow like failure should be. That failure was a disaster that ended up in punishment, that ended up in more pain. And so what the child begins to learn is failure is not a good thing.
Speaker: Failure is always a bad thing, and it always leads to more pain. So failure is to be avoided at all costs. There's a fear of failure now.
Speaker: And so if you start something that you're not going to be instantly good at, you're going to fail. Oh, but then don't even try.
Speaker: Or go out and do kind of a half-assed job and say, ah, I don't care. This is just a big joke. try to camouflage what's really happening internally. But that fear of failure causes some kids to either not try or to act like it doesn't bother them um when they're just terribly afraid of failure. And so that's where some kids will even go that are doing well and they're about to be kind of promoted to the next level
Speaker: and they know they're going to be in the kind of so swimming in the deep end now with the big fish, and they don't feel quite ready, they'll sabotage their final games so that they don't get drafted, they don't get called up to the next level, because that fear of failure is so powerful for them. So again, it's a shame trauma response that you have going on. But I think part of what
Speaker: There's another piece here that I want to add, and that is sometimes trauma comes out of children that are spoiled rich kids.
Speaker: um So they're neglected by their parents that don't truly attach to them, but their parents just give them everything. Their parents do everything for them. Their parents take away negative consequences. They have maids that do all their chores for them so they can sit around and play video games. So they never have to learn self-discipline. They never have healthy boundaries put on them. They can basically do whatever they want.
Speaker: and get away with it. And they often become the cool kids because everybody looks, look at that kid can do whatever they want. That kid doesn't have to do all of this hard work. um And kids look up to that. And so they kind of get put on a pedestal.
Speaker: And that becomes the cool thing to emulate that you don't care about anything, that you can do whatever you want. And those kids get into sports and they haven't learned discipline. They haven't learned boundaries. They haven't learned consequences.
Speaker: And all of a sudden they just go back to, I'm going to do whatever I want. I don't care. And they expect basically every all the adults of their world to play their game.
Speaker: the The tail wants to wag the dog. And sadly, that's what they've been used to doing. So again, there's a bunch of different factors and all of kind of that behavior, but I hope it helps explain some of them.
Speaker: Yeah. And ah speaking to that experience, like one ah motivating, example is doing my best not to step back into my shame. I don't want to belittle.
Speaker: yeah I'm tempted to like help make these guys care, but I don't want to do it in a negative sense. I want to yeah remain in this the the healthy growth environment. So aiming to find ways for them to connect.
Speaker: So what are some some tools and guidance that you can hand off to me to try to keep these guys invested, to keep these guys motivated, and or to find ways to break through this big, cool wall that they've built? Because I know they care.
Speaker: It's just a matter of them getting to express that. Yeah, and I think there's ah an element here that's important to understand, and that is for many, ah to understand complex trauma, it's it's realizing that all the powers, the authorities in their life have hurt them, have not been healthy, have not been safe. And so there's a power dynamic. So they develop almost ah a rebellion against authority, ah hardness towards authority. You're not going to hurt me. um I'm not going to go along with you. i don't care about you. And so as soon as ah they come in and they perceive a power dynamic, basically it is, i am not going to give in to you. I'm going to defy you because I want to be the power around here. I want to rule.
Speaker: And so you begin to have this struggle and that's where it's really easy to use kind of power politics. Well, I'm going to trump your power with even greater power. I'm going to punish you. I'm going to give you extra laps. I'm going to talk down to you without realizing this kid is in a defense system because they've been hurt by authority so much. They're afraid of authority.
Speaker: They don't know that authority can be trusted. So it's it's trying to come to their level and patiently Let them realize that you're safe, that you are available to connect, explain stuff, say, hey, you know what?
Speaker: You have tremendous ability. I think you really care, but I can't force you to do this stuff. But if you want to be on this team, and I hope you do want to be on this team, because I would like to have you, you have to be able to do these drills. You have to be here on time. You have to put in this much effort. If you don't want to do that, then you can't be on this team. That's your choice. I'm not kicking you off this team, but you have to decide because to be on this team, this is what we we do. And so what they want to do is
Speaker: play the victim, that I'm not responsible for my behavior. You are. i don't want to take responsibility for the consequences of my behavior. I want to blame somebody else. And you're helping them say, you are responsible.
Speaker: I know that. You know that. And I'm going to hold you responsible, not in a cruel way, not in a harsh, mean way, but in a way where you have to make a choice. And then you have to live with the consequences of that choice,
Speaker: because I'm going to enforce that consequence. so that you're shifting the power dynamic in a healthy way two this is your responsibility. i believe in you. I think you can do this and I want you to do this, but you got to make some choices here.
Speaker: and And if a kid has come to see that, wow, this person treats people with respect, this person isn't cruel to people, they're not abusing their position of power, um maybe I'll trust them and give it it give it a shot.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's it will take sustained effort. Exactly. You can't just try once and then default back to it. Exactly.
Speaker: And that that leads to my next topic and a big takeaway and anchor that I got from you is humility versus humiliation. And this is a big part of sports, especially on the male side of things, where we are bringing people down in the in the the guise of trying to make them tough.
Speaker: So you make it a point to drag them down, to humiliate them, with the intention of making them humble but we're actually tearing them down versus bringing them up so i want to help us understand like the true definition of humility and how we can aim to help athletes lean into that Yeah, so I think many, you know, 50 years ago in parenting, the the kind of the mindset was you don't want your child to have a big head. You don't want your child to get too full of them themselves. So you need to not validate your child too much. You need to tear your child down a notch or two so they don't get too big for their own shoes. So that was very much kind of a parenting style that was quite common.
Speaker: And so that was defined as you're creating humility in a child. But what it was really trying to do is make the child feel they're less than they actually are. That it was not validating their strengths. It was, it was,
Speaker: tearing down their strengths. It was trying to make them always feel less than. It was basically defining shame as humility and confusing that shame is a healthy thing. It's actually humility when it is not.
Speaker: Humility, healthy humility is I'm just as valuable as you are. My needs are just as important as your needs. I matter just as much as you. i might have different skill set than you, but I have lots to offer. you have lots to offer. We're both of equal value in being a blessing to mankind. And so a child needs...
Speaker: They look to their parents to reflect back to them, who am I? What am I good at? What should I pursue in my life? They look back to their they look to their parents to validate their strengths, to help them begin to understand their gifts and abilities.
Speaker: Then a child can explore that. Then a child can begin to find fulfillment and purpose in life. That's humility. But humility is basically love your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker: Do to others what you want them to do with you. We are equal. Your needs matter just as much as mine. I'm not less than you. I'm not more than you. You might be in a higher position, but we are both human.
Speaker: That is true humility. But what happens in complex trauma where that is confused with shame is basically then shame means I have to humiliate you.
Speaker: I have to tear you down extra. You already feel inferior. Now I'm going to rub your nose in it. Now I'm going to broadcast that. Now I'm going to harp on that all the time.
Speaker: as if that's a good thing. But what that does is it hardens people. And so the goal of shame then is I need to hide.
Speaker: I can't let people see the real me. And so when they get in recovery and it's growing to become healthy and you go, well, then the path to healing shame is humility. But what is humility?
Speaker: It's open and vulnerable. It's, I don't need to hide. This is who I am. i accept it. No, if people see the real me, they will humiliate me.
Speaker: And you go, not safe people, only unsafe people will humiliate you if they see the authentic you. And so shame basically says authenticity is a no-no.
Speaker: Authenticity always leads to pain, to humiliation, to more shame. true humility with safe people is authenticity leads to acceptance it leads to validation it leads to connection it leads to all the good things in life and so to me humility is key in getting healthy it's key to healing from shame but it only works with safe people.
Speaker: Unsafe people always use authenticity against you to humiliate you. Yeah, and this this is a big lesson I aim to to help the team understand that they...
Speaker: There is candor, there is there's ball busting, there's trash talking. All of that that, that's healthy to keep us in a true true humility. They're not trying to drag us down. i call them social emotional calluses, like we get calluses on our hands for weightlifting.
Speaker: All of that, I wanna encourage that. it's It's meant so then when somebody outside of our fence, off our front porch, starts talking negative to us with the intention of bringing us down,
Speaker: No, we've we've been through it. We understand who we are. And it's like i I can talk trash to my teammate, but then somebody tries to drag him down. No, no, no. Now I'm going to step up against that person. So it it it's a sense of healthy...
Speaker: ah You know, not humiliation, it's a healthy healthy sense of candor, and that's going to help build our connection. And that that's what I feel is often lost.
Speaker: And people are more willing to listen to the Internet or the external or what somebody that truly wants to drag them down is saying about them rather than what their their true friends are trying to help them understand and see that they may be acting out of line.
Speaker: or their behaviors are not in line with their goals. Your friends need to call that out. And that peer to peer leadership, that's not easy. And it it it it takes a mentor to help cultivate that this is an environment where we do call each other out with the intention that we can progress.
Speaker: Yeah, so if I can just point out two pieces to that, because like to me, the banter on a team can be a very healthy dynamic if it's done for the right reasons, but it could be a very unhealthy dynamic if it's done for the wrong reason. So the healthy banter on a team is, so you look at Shaquille O'Neal, like you have an amazing skill set,
Speaker: um And I accept you and I respect you and we connect and we're great teammates. But now I can make fun of some of your weaknesses, not to tear you down, but you can't shoot a foul shot if your life depended on it, blah, blah, blah. And we're going to laugh about that, but it's not in a derogatory way. It's just...
Speaker: I'm going to say lots of respectful things, but once in a while I'll just kind of do that as part of that banter on a team. But it's it's in an element of acceptance and respect. That's the environment. But then there's going to be times where i'm going to call you out when you...
Speaker: were a bit slack in practice, when you didn't live up to your potential because you were out too late the night before, I'm going to say, hey, man, what's going on here? Like, I care about you. This is not me trying to tear you down. This is me trying to address the issue that's keeping you from reaching your potential.
Speaker: So that, to me, is a healthy and environment within a team atmosphere. Whereas, when you look at that tearing down stuff that comes out of that athletes in the shame cycle where i got to keep making myself better than you. So I got to keep putting you down a notch and I'm going to keep taking shots at you. i am going to keep trying to make you feel worse about yourself so that I feel better about myself.
Speaker: And that's, If other people say negative stuff, I'm actually going to join in with that because I hope you feel less about yourself. So again, it's it's ah it's a very all about me self-serving piece that I want to build myself up at the expense of tearing you down.
Speaker: Yeah. And that's I mean, coaches need to see that and then call that out. And I simplified as antisocial behaviors. So when they start to to to hear that, that's that's not what we do. Leaders lift up.
Speaker: exactly And ah one of One of my favorite stories, and I've told this on multiple podcasts, and you're bringing up basketball, so I got to pair it. Charles Barkley told this story about his rookie year. So he was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers, and on his last leg, literally, one of his teammates was Dr. J. And so Charles is a very eccentric, outgoing guy, and he would read the sports page at the towns that they would play for their review of his performance.
Speaker: And it would ruffle his feathers. He's like believing every word that they said. And Dr. J looked at him and asked him, like what about that is true? And Charles would say nothing. Why? They never play ball. They don't get it. And he's like, no, no, no.
Speaker: Look through it. What about it is true? And so Dr. J and him would then read the sports page after the performance and find the truth in it and then work on that in practice.
Speaker: And so now we see that great mentorship play out and and how Barkley is on TV right now. He's very honest with the the players performance because he wants them to succeed and he's calling them out, not for clips, but so those guys can go and practice that stuff to improve.
Speaker: So correct that that's one thing I try to instill in the team. And even with a little banter is if they if they got big calves calling out for small calves because it's not true.
Speaker: And now I can train them how to filter the messages that negative people try to say. And in that truth. And that that again comes come from a lot of your lessons.
Speaker: I'm anchor it in one of Barclays stories, but it's a valuable tool of when somebody tries to you know shame lies, you you you call it, but you need to anchor into what is true and real to then dismiss and not believe somebody that's trying to tear them down. so I'd love to define Shane lies because that's beneficial to me, man, in this this world that is so social media ridden and in clip heavy on the the world of sports.
Speaker: Yeah, so I i love in teaching shame to use the illustration of the mirrors. So a child gets kind of a picture of their, what do I look like physically by looking into a mirror.
Speaker: And so the metaphor then we grow into how do they get a picture of who they really are? in their personality, in their skills, all of that, they look into the mirror of mom and dad and mom and dad reflect back to them. This is who you are and you have value. You are lovable. You have these skills. This is your personality. And they get this picture. But what happens if And then I use the example of the house of distorted mirrors. So I use the example of, let's say a kid is six feet tall and very thin, but they've only had a distorted mirror in their house and it shows them to be four feet tall and four feet wide. And that's the mirror they've looked at every single day. And so they firmly believe they're four feet tall and four feet wide.
Speaker: But then they go to a friend's house one day and they have an accurate mirror and it shows them to be six feet tall and thin. What are they going to conclude? The mirror is lying. The mirror is wrong.
Speaker: And so what comes out of shame is, number one, you've got bunch of lies as being your original manuscript about who I am.
Speaker: But it probably was mixed with a little bit of truth. but you don't know how to separate truth from lies. And so your brain begins to go to just kind of worst case scenario.
Speaker: um So if somebody comes along and says, hey, Tex, you're really, really good at this. And your's I really like your kindness. You go,
Speaker: That doesn't match the mere message that I got growing up. So they must be lying to me. Maybe they're trying to manipulate me. Maybe they're just trying to be nice because they really don't know me.
Speaker: You have a way of discounting the message and going back to the original negative message. And so shame always will reject anything that challenges it and accept stuff that reinforces it So when a person is coming into recovery or a job or sports, whatever, and they're getting all this feedback,
Speaker: they don't know how to separate helpful feedback from unhelpful feedback, truth from error. it just is this blob to them that just gets them believing the negative parts because they reinforce the shame messages. And then they get more shame. They get more angry. They get more upset. And so a key piece for them is beginning to
Speaker: like Dr. J did, what's the truth and what's the lies, what's the errors? And having somebody help them begin to distinguish those two things becomes absolutely essential because they were never taught how to distinguish lies from truth growing up about themselves. They only got kind of one thing that was a mix of lies and truth and they leave the lie part.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that in line with that, I'd love to hear you a counterpoint to that, because at the high school level, like we're here to help them improve and go on knowing that a lot of them are not going to go play in college.
Speaker: Right. But there's a lot of private coaches that then sell and I call it fantastic lies yeah because they're not trying to bring them down. They're trying to get a check sign. So they're telling the parent how amazing their kid is.
Speaker: And here I am at the high school level getting paid less than minimum wage, just trying to, and I call it level set on skill set. I need you here so that way you can accept my constructive feedback so we can improve. what What makes them believe these fantastic lies?
Speaker: Yeah, so one of the responses of a child with shame, so I don't feel good enough, I feel less than, is they create a fantasy world where I'm the hero, where I'm the superstar, where everybody's going to love me, everybody's going to like me. And so that they can escape into, they can daydream about.
Speaker: And so as soon as you come up have somebody come around that basically says your fantasy, you're attracted to it. Because, oh, wow, somebody else sees what I think is this potential. And again, it's me without any limitations, me being perfect, me and somebody else is telling me this.
Speaker: And so all of a sudden, it's you're in this fantasy world. You're in this fantasy can become a reality. Somebody's saying it can.
Speaker: And you get confused between the fantasy and the reality. reality And you're basically, what's the fantasy? It is, if I believe these lies about my future, it takes away the pain that I'm feeling internally.
Speaker: And so I love to escape to these lies that I'm this superstar because then I don't have to feel the shame belief stuff that I have deep inside of me.
Speaker: And so now I'm chasing the lies in my reality. And so what I always want, like I remember i had a daughter that love volleyball and did well in volleyball in high school. And she was wanting to go on to a university level, but she could only jump one foot off the ground.
Speaker: And I basically said, like, you're good at a high school level. You'll never be good at a university level. You're not going to make the cut. And she was so mad at me. She was so upset.
Speaker: And she went through her own grieving process. But I got asked about that, and they go, well, shouldn't you be encouraging them and giving them hope? And I go, the greatest gift you can give to a child is to lovingly present them reality.
Speaker: You have to give them an accurate picture of themself, not a distorted mirror. And I'm doing that. And in her mind, that was where her fantasy was. That's where my dreams are gonna come true. That's where I'm gonna be somebody. But what I wanted her to say is, okay, you can always enjoy volleyball. You're never gonna be a professional athlete volleyball, but your skillset is actually, you're much better over here and you should begin to look at kind of pursuing a path outside of pure volleyball that's going to incorporate your other skillset.
Speaker: And then you're going to find fulfill fulfillment, in which which she did, and she's great at what she does. But I think to me, the challenge is if I'm truly going to love a person, I have to be an accurate mirror that reflects back to them an accurate picture of who they are.
Speaker: If I don't, yes, I might give them false hope, but I'm setting them up for future disappointment and failure. And it's going to be painful for them down the road when all of their fantasy bubble crashes and pops.
Speaker: None of us like to be that person that gives that accurate bad news to somebody that wants to kind of get drawn into a fantasy belief about themselves.
Speaker: Um, But we have to be, but there's the dangers. There's always those people that can get rich off of selling fantasy and they can do ah ton of damage down the road.
Speaker: Yeah. And we, we see it at the the club sports level and it's, it's taken over. Unfortunately, how, how I've aimed to tackle it now is deconstructing and understanding the goal. What does it take to be a college athlete?
Speaker: Well, you gotta to show up on time, you gotta do all these behaviors, and then we start to tackle the behaviors that lead to what a successful college athlete needs.
Speaker: And then more often than not, then that leads to greater success when they do code go to college, whether they play it or not. One of my favorite things is dudes come home for Easter or Thanksgiving and run into them in a coffee shop.
Speaker: And they tell me about leadership opportunities. they They took over their fraternity or studied abroad and ah were the most competent person. So they got the job and became manager.
Speaker: So it's guys are more excited about how their leadership translated to real life than a sport that they did not um make it at the college level, which is OK.
Speaker: um Yeah. And if I can add a piece to that, because I think there's another factor here outside of just coaches that self fantasy hope. Sometimes if you have a parent who has a lot of shame.
Speaker: What that parent then needs is their kid to like them, their kid to be their best buddy. They need their kid to be successful, to be a trophy that they can show off.
Speaker: And so that parent will often... resist giving honest feedback to a child to say, hey yeah, you're not really as good at that, that you hope you are, but I think you're really good over here because then their child will be mad at them and they can't stand that.
Speaker: And so they will, oh yeah, you can do whatever you want. you You can be whatever you, and they, they're already selling their child false hope. right from a young age. um Oh yeah, you're fantastic at that. you're You're really, really good. And if the child starts to fail, oh, it's because you got a terrible coach, blah, blah, blah. They always blame somebody else without ever giving a child an accurate picture. So if you got a parent like that, that's already doing it, then that child's basically having their parent feed this fantasy that a coach can come along and then
Speaker: carry on and even make it worse. So I think parents often are really kind of the originator of some of that stuff. Tim, i don't know if we have enough time to get into parents in sports. That's, ah I mean, that's that's a conversation for another time.
Speaker: um I'd love to take a moment for athletes to focus on that. Like what what are some protective mechanisms if they sense or feel the the shame coming from coaches, like I don't want them to believe these things. What are some tools to help them ah protect from the negative forces that may be coming in that are are different from the reality that they feel right in front of them with their either abilities or their teammates?
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's where you you need one safe person in your life that knows you really well, that you can debrief with, that you can talk to, that whether it's a parent or a surrogate parent, they can say, hey, what your coach said, that's not true. That's And they're being honest, as they're being accurate. um They can provide the nurture, the encouragement, the perspective, the balance to what the coach is saying. And it's important to realize, i think that
Speaker: Because of the nature of sports, the coach becomes one of the most significant, powerful voices in a child's life that carries a ton of weight. And so it can even get to the point where the coach said this, so the coach is now smarter than dad, that they carry more weight than dad. It can get to that level sometimes And so that's where that child needs a healthy connection that still carries weight that can balance the coach if the coach isn't healthy or as healthy as they should be.
Speaker: And without that, the coach then just gets re gets's all this power in the kid's head and they are only left to their own thinking to try to process through it and they just end up spinning their wheels and it becomes defeating for them.
Speaker: Sometimes you can have within kind of a team sport, a group of team players that build a good connection and they're able to honestly talk and support each other.
Speaker: and they can go a long way to kind of encourage and help each other when the coach gets very kind of negative, cruel. But bottom line is
Speaker: most of us, we need somebody to help us process evaluate messages we're getting from other powerful people about us to know whether they're accurate or not to know how personally to take it or whether water off a duck's back kind of thing um because we just can't do it on our own mm-hmm Yeah, and I'd i'd encourage ah coaches to understand the weight of their words because you don't know if you are the only voice for this kid.
Speaker: And then call these coaching scars where you may not remember it or could be it off comment that you just... throughout there, but then the kid, yeah that's the reason that the kid quits the sport or falls out of love with it. So understanding the weight of our words and the big thing I'm starting to see a trend with similar to your videos on parents where coaches are making athletes responsible for their emotions and how they're feeling.
Speaker: And they're only given love to the kids when they're performing well, but as soon as they make a mistake, the kid comes off to the sideline and the coach turns their back to them. So now if you're the kid in this scenario, what's, what's some reassurance that you can help understand that that's not their responsibility for how their coaches is feeling in those negative moments.
Speaker: Yeah. So if I can put that into an illustration, um, So shame-based parenting versus healthy parenting. um And again, I think what hopefully people are hearing from this is that coaches are surrogate parents, whether they want to believe it or not, whether they want to accept it or not.
Speaker: And so you can be a healthy parent or an unhealthy parent, but you are a parent, a surrogate parent. So in a shame-based family, so if you picture... two chairs facing each other.
Speaker: So that's two people connected. That's a good environment. So what happens if the child does something wrong? So they turn their chair and go against what the parent wants. Don't do what they're told.
Speaker: So in a healthy family, the parent keeps their chair facing the child. Their heart's still open to the child. The love is still there.
Speaker: They want the child to just turn back and then the connection's established. What happens in a complex trauma-shame-based family is the parent turns their chair as well.
Speaker: Well, you're about <unk>bel against me. Well, I'm going to close my heart to you. I'm going to punish you now. I am not going to turn my chair around until you turn your around and earn my love again and somehow make up for what you've done wrong. Then I'll turn my chair around. So now love has to be earned.
Speaker: There's always this, you got to be in the doghouse for a while after you fail because you got to pay for your crime before I can love you again. So it's very conditional.
Speaker: And so what is so important to understand to me is when a child is turned around,
Speaker: what they need right now is, I'm sorry, and there's connection. That leads to I don't want to do that again. i want to please you.
Speaker: Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for not giving up on me. But when they turn around and they find out that their parents turned around, then they got to harden their own heart.
Speaker: Well, you close your heart to me and that hurts so much that I got to close my heart so it doesn't hurt as much. And so I got to act like I don't care now. I got to, I got to get hard.
Speaker: um And so that may seem to work with athletes a little bit, but what you're doing to the internal world of a child is deeply damaging it because what they need right now is somebody they can connect to because they're sorry for what they did.
Speaker: And they need somebody that's going to forgive them and teach them and restore them and repair. So another way to put this is in every relationship that we have,
Speaker: there will be ruptures to the relationship. And so when we look at functional versus dysfunctional, a lot of misunderstandings came out of that terminology early on because what people thought was If you're not a dysfunctional family, you're a perfect family. And there's no perfect family, so everybody's dysfunctional.
Speaker: and And that's not what it means. what it The word dys comes from is a Greek word for pain. And so a functional family, yes, it goes through pain when there's a rupture, but they repair the pain. They talk about the pain. They face the pain. They address the pain. They find a solution to the pain so that the pain goes away.
Speaker: In a complex trauma family, a dysfunctional family, you don't repair the pain, you punish the pain. You don't talk about the pain. You close your heart to the pain. You withdraw love.
Speaker: um And so pain never gets resolved. Pain piles up. And so sports teams are going to have ruptures.
Speaker: The issue is, do you repair it or not? The child needs repair. That's what they long for once they acknowledge that, hey, I ruptured this.
Speaker: But then if the parent's going to punish you and not repair it, you soon have a big, big problem.
Speaker: Yeah, man, i that that that's beautifully put. And I see this in sports often and punish the pain and making kids go run after they make a behavioral mistake, that that's super challenging.
Speaker: for me because then the coaches and i my terminology for this is close the loop. We always got to close the loop. If I do punish a kid, I'm going to then close the loop and help walk them back to the fork in the road in which they made the decision.
Speaker: I'm not going to leave them abandoned up the wrong path. That's that's goes back to to guilt versus shame. We got to understand that fork in the road. I mentor walk them back. So the next time they face that behavioral decision, we know i that's painful. I don't want to run.
Speaker: I'll go this way now. um So do you repair it or not is, is the emphasis. And then in in games, things happen fast. I want to always aim to still close the loop or give them, hey, we're going to check in at halftime. We're going to check in in the next quarter or next time out.
Speaker: So that way they know i I don't neglect in that moment because we got to move quickly and sports happen fast. So dude i I want to wind it down here. And i mean, you've you've got an amazing wealth of resources out there that are free and ah courses online.
Speaker: What do you feel are solutions or directions that coaches, if they felt that one of these topics we talked about spoke to them, where can they go to, to continue down this, this growth and path and understanding shame and the weight of their words and the impact they can have with young athletes?
Speaker: Well, I wish all coaches would take our lift program. So our lift program is our online program that walks you through not just understanding complex trauma, but the ramifications, the adaptations that people develop, the basic needs of a person, how to become healthy, all the elements of all of that stuff. So it's quite an in-depth, thorough thing. And I just think every coach would benefit so much from that. in understanding that. But so you can go to our website, timfletcher.ca to find out about that. You can take that material just in a self-study course, or there's the online course where you're meeting with a ah ah group of clients that are going through it.
Speaker: Beyond that, though, there's on YouTube, just go to YouTube and put in Tim Fletcher and you'll see all the different videos and you can go to the shame videos, complex trauma videos, relationship videos, parenting videos, all kinds of different videos that are available that you can just watch on your own and begin to understand all of these different topics.
Speaker: hmm. Yeah, and i'm um I'm grateful for all the offerings that you do have. And lift, I mean, it it was a heavy lift. that I did the the version of the program where it's three days a week and lectures and the lessons, and then you're you're meeting with your cohort. um So it it was extensive, man, but it it opened up a lot of opportunity for me.
Speaker: And dirt during that time, i had I had lost. I lost friends. um I mean, my coaching staff at a previous school, we were all let go and fired. So then I had to search and go through job interviews, job interviews.
Speaker: And I was down to my my last interview and I didn't get it. It was for the lowest position in the high school. It was basically for free.
Speaker: And then the parents and the coaching staff decided decided to go a different direction. And i I couldn't believe it. I was beyond overqualified, but then felt I needed to coach. My identity was coach. I got to give, give, give.
Speaker: and not getting that job forced me to to to look into what why how what am i doing in the mission here with captains and coaches and then i had a lift session and your daughter she was stepping in to lead that group so you know you get your opportunity to speak in these and i yeah i mean she was very helpful in leading to that And then that afternoon, i get a call just through circumstance and a friend that that reached out to another coach on my behalf that didn't have to and then found a a ah great position that I'm in now that gives me the freedom and the the the investment and value and discipline and growth.
Speaker: and character based coaching versus only thinking X's and O's, which couldn't ask for any better environment, but it was almost like a like a ah hero story where I had to accept my my fate here.
Speaker: And then once I was willing to do that, all these doors opened up. so Dude, I'm i'm getting an emotional, dude, but I'm grateful for for all that you've provided and um can continue to do so, man. So still involved with the the phase three and continuing to meet more people there. And we'll sing your praises to the end of the day, man, and and helping. I hear the connections between what you're teaching in sport.
Speaker: but I wanna do my best to help others understand and and highlight that, that if you're in this position and have this responsibility of coach on your shirt, then you got a lot to give and understand that you gotta to help yourself first, which is a hard lesson than i had to learn. So just, yeah, man, appreciate you and wanna say thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Chris, for having me. It's been a real honor to be here.
Speaker: Awesome. Well, I'll put everything in the show notes and we'll we'll end it here. So thank you. See you.
