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065 - The Science of Selling Yourself Short
133 Plays8 days ago
In this deeply personal episode, host Tex explores how self-image shapes athletic performance and coaching effectiveness—sparked by a painful realization about his own self-deprecating behavior and a recent loss that brought these lessons into sharp focus.
Key Topics:
- Why your performance will never rise higher than your self-image
- The coach expectation cycle and how first impressions shape outcomes
- Understanding the athlete's mind: self-discrepancy theory (actual self vs. ideal self vs. ought self)
- Warning signs of low self-esteem: negative self-talk, perfectionism, and body language cues
- The difference between guilt (a feeling) and shame (a belief)—and why it matters
- Practical coaching tools: managing expectations, building mastery-focused environments, and applying self-determination theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness)
- How belief drives behavior, which drives performance
Tex shares vulnerable insights from his college athletic career, failed opportunities where he talked himself down, and the coaching wisdom gained from years of studying esteem and athlete psychology.
The episode culminates with a heartfelt tribute to his late friend and former teammate Drew—a fearless competitor who embodied unwavering self-belief.
For coaches: Learn to read the gaps between who your athletes are and who they think they should be, and discover how instruction beats criticism every time.
#SportsCoaching #AthleteMindset #SportsLeadership #CoachingPsychology #SelfEsteem #AthleticPerformance #MentalToughness #CoachDevelopment #SportsConfidence #YouthSports
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Transcript
Introduction to Leadership through Athletics
00:00:00
Speaker
You can't outperform your own self-image. Confidence drives performance. When belief breaks down, your own mind becomes the opponent. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast where explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond.
Personal Story: Remembering Drew
00:00:15
Speaker
I'm your host, Texan Quilkin, and today is all about self-esteem.
00:00:20
Speaker
To lead off with this, and i lost a dear friend ah a week ago. He was my neighbor across the street and he was a high school lacrosse teammate.
00:00:32
Speaker
And eventually, he was a couple years younger than me, he followed me to Marymount to play. So he was my teammate again in college, and then he became my athlete in that that first run that I had a sport coach. So i've I've had a lot of conversations ah this week, and I'm going to come back to my boy Drew to to finish out the show.
00:00:53
Speaker
But um one one of those conversations, a lot of people reaching out, including a friend that was on the the podcast, and he wanted to – ah to to share some gratitude for being on the show. And his text message, it was, thank you for allowing me to ah to appear smarter than I feel.
00:01:15
Speaker
So he was he was putting himself down. And... i i' I didn't like it. like ah i I was in a ah rush of emotions from thinking about my i mean my my life with my boy. And then this coach was putting himself down and I didn't want to have it.
Encouraging Self-Worth in Others
00:01:34
Speaker
I left him a voice message. Voice memos have become a thing of mine so i can I can coach through the phone, right? Deliver some passion through through my voice, through the message to the people that I want to talk to. This has become a good habit of mine.
00:01:50
Speaker
I'll allow Brett Bartholomew, Coach Cav, they do the same thing with me. So grateful for those guys. um But – Yeah, i I let it have it. I dug in. Like, you are smart. I enjoy every conversation that we have so much so that I go and visit and make it a point for us to go out to dinner and and converse and bring your wife into it and let let the like the conversation flow and really strengthen each other ah through that.
00:02:18
Speaker
Either we're on different sides of things, but we can have we can break bread and have great conversation. Like, you are smart. I value you. So, Let them have it, man. And it it brought me back to a lot of the job interviews that I've had this past summer for high school lacrosse coaching and what what went wrong. I brought that same ah self-deprecating humor into a lot of those and i got I got rejected for certain positions that I thought I was a shoo-in, going in i mean almost too humble to to it and then not getting the job.
00:02:57
Speaker
So what I would do was talk down about my Division III career or ah you know not mention different teams or venues. you know coaching all over the world or going to damn neck and working with some tip of the spear dudes, some true accomplishments as a coach.
00:03:15
Speaker
I wouldn't even talk about those things and aim to just, you know, write off my, my lacrosse careers at athlete, my, my college coaching career, and just aim to, to be humble there.
00:03:29
Speaker
When I had a lot that I could have brought to the table that would bring that team value that they didn't see. And then they went a different direction. So i i wanted i i didn't understand a lot of how those
The Impact of Self-Esteem on Coaching
00:03:43
Speaker
conversations went. So i dug back into a lot of ah previous research and experience that I have with self-esteem and trying to understand why how the brain works and why someone would not be willing to listen to you.
00:03:59
Speaker
And that was a challenge that I had early days in my career as a a public speaker and teacher where I had trouble allowing my experience, allowing my coaching and message to be listened to.
00:04:13
Speaker
And then it it was all on me. It was not on them. It was on me and how I was presenting that information. So that that led me to a lot of quality tools that I now look for in different athletes. So going be presenting those tools here today.
The Coach Expectation Cycle Explained
00:04:28
Speaker
And I want to...
00:04:30
Speaker
To understand that the there's something I'm going to dive in into in a later podcast, but I want to introduce today. It's the coach expectation cycle. So stage one, ah the expectation state expectation is set by the coach. If I use that interview as an example, I set the expectation where, you know, just Division III athletics, who cares? It sucks.
00:04:52
Speaker
And then stage two, the initial expectation drives the coach's behavior, their feedback loop, their opinion, whether they want to ah deliver harsh, critical feedback or not even engage them at all.
00:05:08
Speaker
So stage two, initial experience drives the coach's behavior versus what's in front of them. And then stage three, yeah differentiate Differentiated treatment. You're treating them different because of your initial opinion. You don't think they're going to make the team, so you're not going to waste your breath coaching them.
00:05:30
Speaker
And then stage four, their poor performance confirms all your previous stages and biases there. So that is the the coach expectation cycle. So with the interview, I set the expectation very low, poo-pooing my athletic career.
00:05:47
Speaker
What I could have framed it as, I picked up the sport when I was 16 years old. I played for 18 months and then positioned myself to go and travel to the East Coast from Texas. 20 years ago, Texas lacrosse was nothing.
00:06:03
Speaker
Now, the recruiting, they'd only highlight the top 99 guys versus all the camps and showcases they have now. So back then, it was just the top 99 guys.
00:06:15
Speaker
Then I get the opportunity to go to the East Coast and make an impact as an athlete. Was I the best player on the team? No, absolutely not. My initial coach that I had there, he did something crazy where he had 15 recruits that he brought in.
00:06:30
Speaker
and he would rank them as roommates opposite ends. So the top recruit was with number 15, me, and then vice versa all the way down to the middle recruits.
00:06:44
Speaker
Wild. I know. So then i I was with a dude from Long Island and yeah, he was clearly better than me, but I looked for opportunities for me to contribute to the team because I knew i had low confidence, low self-image, which sure we're going get in here ah in a minute, but looked for opportunities for me to contribute ah Getting guys organized, motivate motivation drill, right? Encouraging guys and being a leader, taking care of anything and everything that the team needed to succeed.
00:07:15
Speaker
But I was looking for those opportunities. And what ah was driving me was ah low belief. Like these guys were amazing. Were we good? Not necessarily, but compared to what I was playing with, the belief was these guys were amazing players.
00:07:31
Speaker
So belief drive drove my behavior. I'm going to do anything and everything. I joined the cross country team in college. I'm 5'7". I was 185 pounds at the time.
00:07:43
Speaker
I was finishing dead last in all the meets, me and another teammate, DJ. So shout out DJ. We would go to all the meets and just trot and finish last. College, we were the probably the heaviest.
00:07:55
Speaker
I was probably the strongest division three. This is a bold claim team. And I was probably the strongest division three cross country runner that fall of 2004. So, but that that drove my behavior. My low self-esteem, poor belief, ah I would call it awareness.
00:08:13
Speaker
That's me doing it again, sorry. ah Limiting belief led my behavior, but that really drove my performance. I had to work harder than everyone else to make the team.
00:08:24
Speaker
So that is a a cycle i really want establish. Belief drives behavior, which then leads to performance. My college example, it was a great example.
00:08:35
Speaker
but there are others examples where the belief is not so good, then it drives the behaviors, and then it leads to poor performance. I could reference many teammates. I'm sure all of you out there have examples yourself. So your performance will never rise higher than your self-image.
00:08:53
Speaker
So let's get into that and understanding ah the athlete's mind. And I'm going to go left brain, right brain here to help us paint the picture.
Mirror Analogy for Self-Esteem
00:09:02
Speaker
For left brain, self-image and self-esteem. Our self-esteem is is how much we value ourselves.
00:09:09
Speaker
And that will drive our self-image. The mental picture you hold for yourself. And think of it as is acting as your mind's software. Another analogy I like to give is mirrors.
00:09:22
Speaker
So a normal bathroom mirror, we're looking at ourselves. Okay, we look clean, we look great, awesome. But now imagine we're going to the the the carnival and there's those funky, weird mirrors.
00:09:36
Speaker
Sometimes they make you really short and wide and fat. Sometimes they make you really tall and skinny and long and lanky. And it's it's a great analogy,
00:09:48
Speaker
Because when we're coaching, we don't know what self-image that kid has of themselves. Are they the the short, fat, we can call that low self-esteem?
00:10:00
Speaker
Or are they the the skinny, tall, where they're they truly believe that they're taller than they really are? So they're bigger than the self-esteem that they have. ah Well, if...
00:10:12
Speaker
We're were're either of those, and we as coaches deliver level feedback. They're either thinking, okay, yeah, you're right, I do suck, instead of taking it as one thing they can get better, or they believe, coach doesn't know what he's talking about, air is cleaner up here.
00:10:29
Speaker
Okay, so we need to level set on that true self-image. So how I accomplish that is through conversations. And then I want to introduce a great book that this going back, this is the science of self-esteem, psycho cybernetics.
00:10:44
Speaker
ah so Self-esteem is just one piece of this. There's lots of good stuff in there. But the self-esteem piece, the author Maxwell Maltz, he viewed this as that software where our thoughts would drive our feelings, then that led to our actions and results, and there was just this continuous loop.
00:11:03
Speaker
So if our thoughts were positive... Then we'd be going on the straight and narrow. He references a torpedo in the book. So we're traveling straight towards our goal, our target, if our thoughts are positive.
00:11:17
Speaker
And we may have negative experience or negative thoughts here or there. So we veer off, we hit a little bumper, and then we get back on track. It's normal to have small setbacks.
00:11:29
Speaker
Think one thing negative, hear one thing negative. But then if or the overarching theme of that cycle is a positive self-image, it's easy for us to get back on track towards our target, our goal.
00:11:41
Speaker
Now if it's negative, this is where self-sabotage confirms failure. Our thoughts are negative. That then steers into negative feelings and then our actions becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and then we look at the results and it's like, I knew that would happen. I always fail. I knew I would miss. Of course I did this.
00:12:02
Speaker
And that's that negative loop. So in his book, he speaks to if it's a torpedo and then we're going off over here and truly but we lose sight of the mission and our thoughts taking us off course and Well, they've established a new aim, a new goal that they're going towards.
00:12:23
Speaker
Okay, so as a coach, I'm trying to, through conversation, establish how do these guys think about themselves. I'm also observing and looking and listening for different body language or how do they react when they miss or something goes wrong or if I ask them to do something.
00:12:43
Speaker
What do they get defenses they push back? So all these little things in conversation, in coaching and cueing, start to see what picture they're painting within their thoughts and their beliefs about themselves.
00:12:56
Speaker
The other side, we're going to go more logical, is our right brain. And this is an internal conflict and a theory that I learned from Brett Barthomio that's been around for a long time, self-discrepancy theory.
Exploring Self-Discrepancy Theory
00:13:10
Speaker
some listeners ears perked up out there so they are kind of consistently comparing themselves i'll I'll aim to make this as simple as possible so there are three selves three pictures within the self discrepancy theory number one this is your actual self who you are your physical attributes your your stats it is just who you are now your abilities current level of your abilities Then we have our ought self.
00:13:40
Speaker
So if I have three circles, I'm going to help visualize this for our listeners. Our actual self is in the middle. Underneath our actual self, this is our ought self.
00:13:52
Speaker
And there's a gap between these two. Our ought self is who we think we should be. Or our parents are telling you, hey, you ought to do this.
00:14:03
Speaker
Or coaches establish, hey, you're going to do this, even though you may not have a knack for it or enjoy that at all. So other people are trying to tell you ah what you ought to be.
00:14:15
Speaker
It's also social pressures where you feel that stress and social pressure from your group of what you ought to do and be. All right. And there's a gap between those.
00:14:27
Speaker
Then on top of that is going to be our... Ideal self. So actual self in the middle, ideal self at the top. And this is who we wish we were.
00:14:38
Speaker
For a lot of people out there, this is who the perfect social media picture they're putting out there. They're just sharing their ideal lives versus the the true representations and struggles that they have. So they're just showing you what they wish they were.
00:14:54
Speaker
Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of negative... ah aspects and emotions for us ah that are viewing these so there are gaps and i'm gonna highlight that these so from actual self down to ought self the bigger the gap the deeper and greater the guilt shame and anxiety and hopefully not but resentment starts to go in terms of guilt this is a feeling like you you made a mistake i should have done that i i man, I can't believe I did that.
00:15:27
Speaker
That's a feeling. If we have that feeling of guilt, the next time we're facing that scenario, we can redirect it. Remember how much this sucks. Redirect it and make a better decision next time.
00:15:39
Speaker
It's a feeling. Then if it is shame that fills this gap between your actual self and your ought self, that's a belief. Now you believe instead of I made a mistake, I am a mistake.
00:15:52
Speaker
I am a failure. And that's where that gi gap really starts to to widen and get big and then leads to more anxiety and ah resentment. Now for the gap between the actual and ideal self.
00:16:07
Speaker
Okay, this is where perfection perfectionism comes in. You believe you are this perfect person. So every time you make a mistake, gosh, you lose you lose your cool.
00:16:18
Speaker
You start acting in on yourself. getting angry, um maybe hitting your head or breaking your baseball bat and on your knee. So if that ideal is perfection and we allow the gap to be negative behaviors, now inevitably disappointment, frustration, all these things get in there.
00:16:39
Speaker
So as a coach, if I'm seeing that gap between ideal perfectionist and who they actually are, I need to give them tools to coach them through this. I'm not mad at an ideal, but that's an aim.
00:16:51
Speaker
That's who we are trying to be. We can aim up. Along the way, we're we going to also believe that mistakes enter into a feedback loop.
00:17:03
Speaker
There is no failure, only feedback. And we have to improve upon ourselves instead of getting frustrated for making that mistake. Now we're using that as feedback and fuel to then continue and and work hard. so aiming to understand those, that the gaps can be used for good, more often not, without the right mentor, mentor mindset to step in, they're going to really get wider and bigger.
00:17:29
Speaker
And that's why these conversations are so important. If you really have a logical, right-brained athlete, and they're going through these ideals and oughts, there's a lot of trouble storming, brewing within that brain.
00:17:43
Speaker
And they may be doing every little thing right. How are the conversations ah going for you? So coaching insight, ah which emotion shows up? Anxiety, disappointment, ah shame, guilt, after they they make a mistake, or you call them out for ah something that you they should have known better, to use should again, and they still decided to do that action.
00:18:11
Speaker
What emotions show up? How are they treating themselves, and how are they treating others? Okay, so let's continue to introduce some warning signs. I'm going to just continue to beat this dead horse to death, but negative inner tape.
00:18:27
Speaker
This is a lot of those perfectionists where they're doing every behavior right, and it's almost like we're reinforcing, telling them They're so amazing because they're they're showing up on time.
00:18:39
Speaker
They're fighting for every rep. They're doing every little thing right. But I'm curious of what drives them to to do that. Is it a negative internal tape that's going on that's pushing them to be perfect towards their are ideal?
00:18:54
Speaker
Or is it because they believe that's what's right and empowering and going to lead them team their team to the national championship? all the same actions if I'm just ticking boxes, but what's the drive behind it?
00:19:06
Speaker
So I'm listening for this. And a lot of ah negative self-talk, they were patterns or scars or labels that previous coaches, parents, family members left them.
00:19:19
Speaker
Big ones, I'm lazy. So if there is a run where a kid does not give their all out effort and I call them out towards this, What is the label? What's the excuse?
00:19:33
Speaker
What's the bark back that I get when they're being lazy that one time? Do I label them as lazy or they're telling me I'm just lazy? um And then so on and so forth. The next one's absolutes.
00:19:46
Speaker
I always, I'll never, the only absolute that is absolute is we don't use absolutes. I think that works out. I don't know. so But listen for it.
00:19:57
Speaker
and And a part of this is going to be body language, which is coming next. If there's, I always do this, you're going to see that paired with body language often. Yeah, i I failed once.
00:20:09
Speaker
Like I'm a failure. That's that shame where they believe it versus feeling it. ah Next up is the body language and behavior and I'm huge on body language, especially when it comes to the highest competition and game day.
00:20:24
Speaker
I'll do more a deep dive on that. I call it the science of the sidelines. It's my favorite thing and I often say that a lot. I got a lot of favorite stuff. Okay, but body language and if I'm speaking directly to the athlete and they start to avoid eye contact, how many of you had that?
00:20:42
Speaker
Now, That tells me one confidence issue and they're running from something. They're running from my punishment, my punishment, the being called out for their behavior that they did.
00:20:55
Speaker
So they're usually running for something if they're avoiding eye contact on our initial call out and conversation. Sometimes if they didn't even do anything wrong, I just want to go talk to them and they believe that their default is that they effed up.
00:21:11
Speaker
And they're avoiding eye contact. That's not good. i just want to go say what's up. So more investigation. um And then now during practice or during a game, they're indecisive. They freeze.
00:21:24
Speaker
Fight, fight, freeze. They can't make a decision. They cause a turnover. And guess what happens to coach's blood pressure? It goes up. You want to yell at them for making more mistakes.
00:21:35
Speaker
And it just continues this cycle. So if they're indecisive, we got to get into understanding, ah getting out of limbic brain and getting into midbrain and speaking through, what'd you see out there? How did it feel? What happened out there? Let's talk through it versus just...
00:21:52
Speaker
getting on them. If they quit early, the usually you have to teach this. So if you're working with college athletes and they quit early, have they ever done it before? Is this a continuum behavior that you're correcting or is this a new behavior where you've never seen them just give up? If they did a turnover and they just stand there or the ball goes the other way, if that's a normal behavior, okay,
00:22:21
Speaker
We can approach it. If that is a ah new behavior, they just did that for the first time, that's going to cause two different ripple effects in coach's blood pressure. But um yeah, they they they tell me two different things.
00:22:36
Speaker
So that kid may be having a bad day if it's a new behavior in a new instant. Something's going on outside of life. that He did not share and he's there our guy that shows up every single day leads by example, but doesn't tell anybody anything now his behavior starts to to help paint a picture for this and What I want you to focus on is not only what they they say and you hear but also what shows and that's gonna really that's gonna reveal what they believe about themselves so what they say
00:23:11
Speaker
with their words, how they're treating others, how they're treating themselves, what they show with their behaviors, if it's checking the boxes, doing everything that a leader should do, and then all of a sudden they step away from that leadership role, they act out, this is going to tell you how they believe and what they believe about themselves.
00:23:35
Speaker
all information that we can take in and help lead them to examples. Okay, so let's let's talk tools. ah First and foremost, I need to manage expectations.
00:23:48
Speaker
um And if if I'm leading a group, and this is practice example here, if I'm leading a group and I tell them, hey, meet me on that cone over there.
00:24:03
Speaker
You see how general that phrase is? Just meet me on that cone over there. Or I could say, meet me at the yellow cone in the south end zone. Now um I'm very direct, and if they go to the orange cone on the sidelines,
00:24:17
Speaker
We got a disconnect here. But if half the team go to the right cone that's in my mind that I'm thinking of, but poorly describing, and the other team goes to another cone that they believe is what the one I was referring to and talking about, and then I get mad at whichever group is wrong in this scenario, that's on me for poor management of expectations.
00:24:41
Speaker
So we need to be clear. To be clear is to be kind and help lead my team. So i I want to establish expectations from practice, day of, to each specific drill, and then expectations of dudes on and off the field. It's very clear, cut and dry, so they can tell if their behaviors are above that line or below that line and helping lead the team to the promised land.
00:25:09
Speaker
And this is going to, i mean, lead my coaching and avoid any judgments, going back to our earlier stages that we introduced, and prevent any judgments. My judgment is the expectation.
00:25:20
Speaker
And then my analysis is their behaviors and their skills and so on. um So that that's what I want to put down, where I use instruction. I lean into instruction versus criticism.
00:25:35
Speaker
Now, if they're not making the mark, their passes are off, I'm going to go to instruction. I'm going to try to find something in their technique to fix instead of just criticizing.
00:25:46
Speaker
So again, going back to instruction. Often I introduce the game of lacrosse to new players and they want to throw ah the ball at They have no reference of what to do here.
00:26:00
Speaker
So what I like to do is reference other sports. So it could be, hey, we're going to step with our leg like a baseball pitcher. So they have a mental model of the previous sport.
00:26:11
Speaker
Or if it's football, if they played football, I want you to step and throw like we're Tom Brady. We're going to follow through. just like Tom Brady, so and and show them. So we'll model.
00:26:22
Speaker
So giving them some mental models through instruction. I'm not criticizing them, especially if they're new. But in if they're ah super advanced in the sport and later on, I'm still leading with...
00:26:34
Speaker
instruction and technique. I don't care how good you are, even the best of the best pros that we've had on this podcast, they're still leaning into technique and and finding these nuances to the game to improve upon. So there's always room through instruction to improve versus criticism.
00:26:53
Speaker
I can also instruct and improve upon their behaviors with a lot of punishment tools. um But I just... Big picture, i want you to be clear, honest about expectations, and make sure that you've communicated it well.
00:27:07
Speaker
If it's up here in your mind and they can't repeat it back to you, you're setting them up for failure. I've seen that too many times. Okay, big picture number two here.
00:27:18
Speaker
I want you to build a mastery-focused environment, meaning we're not satisfied, We're going to make mistakes. The the old Thomas Edison quote where he's like, I didn't find one thing that worked. I found a thousand things that didn't work.
00:27:33
Speaker
Something along those lines. So that process-oriented approach to goals and hitting our mark and reaching our ah what we're aiming to accomplish or just improving in general.
00:27:45
Speaker
That way we're going to focus on instructions, techniques, leads to the process, and then everything that they're doing right, we're going to aim to to reinforce those good habits. ah In line with that, once we establish behaviors that are connected to process goals,
00:28:01
Speaker
and kids really gain an enthusiasm for the sport, and they're doing it on their own and practicing on their own, now we're going to introduce mastery goals. So i want that that that is connected to their own personal bests.
00:28:16
Speaker
If it's goals in a season or a mile per hour on a pitch or a shot, we're trying to beat their own personal bests, not get the fastest pitch of all time, just beat our personal best. That is a mastery goal.
00:28:31
Speaker
then what are the processes that are going to lead to accomplish that? Those will then be process goals and objectives. So introducing to them and I'm going to celebrate wins.
00:28:43
Speaker
Could be a small win, could be a big win, but I'm also going to help them to understand how to celebrate themselves. Far too often, it's just a lot of criticism. criticism Think about going back to our ideal self versus actual self.
00:28:58
Speaker
If a coach has only this big picture ideal in their mind and the actual self, they they succeed. They did something that they'd never done before, but it wasn't to the expectation of the coach or it wasn't to the best of the team or wasn't the best that they've ever seen of all time.
00:29:16
Speaker
then it's not good enough. And so we can start this tumble down. So find, celebrate wins, and then start to fill those gaps between ideal and actual and what we're aiming towards and working towards.
00:29:32
Speaker
Okay, now we're going to get into a little bit of an environment ah that is very important.
Building Supportive Environments with Self-Determination Theory
00:29:38
Speaker
So this is self-determination theory. The environment that I want to create is a self-determination theory-based environment where we have three basic needs.
00:29:50
Speaker
Now my environment is meeting is meeting these needs. Number one is going to be ah autonomy. I love to give autonomy to my athletes. That's not deciding what we're going to do today for the full practice plan.
00:30:03
Speaker
It's, hey, we got two drills today, that two footwork drills or two stickwork drills. Which one do you want to do? I'm handing off the autonomy to practice and that that builds buy-in.
00:30:14
Speaker
Or, hey guys, we're going to build our game day warm-up right here. We got my athletic development warm up, gets you chilly hot. Then we have an offensive stick work drill and a defensive stick work drill.
00:30:26
Speaker
We're going to choose which one did you like from practice? Which one got you up and ready to go and focused? OK, we'll put that right here. So I'm giving some ownership to them and their performance.
00:30:38
Speaker
Then we have competence. So we're we're showing them clear progress. This is easy in a weight room. It's clear progress as they're getting stronger. A stopwatch for speed.
00:30:49
Speaker
It's going to be easy early on. It's going to be tough as they they reach their ah top end speed towards later in their athletic career. So then it's it's finding tools that they can show clear progress.
00:31:02
Speaker
Eventually the mile per hours will... Tap top out. So what other forms of ah competence and progress can we go? and With pitchers, it could be stamina, lasting long pitches.
00:31:15
Speaker
So there's mile per hours, there's accuracy, there's the the total number of pitches. There's so many different metrics in baseball. What metrics within your sport can you help them get excited about and focused on and show that they're they're continuing to to master and gain competence?
00:31:31
Speaker
And the last one is going to be relatedness. I love this part of building a team and creating, helping them create that environment that is ah trustworthy. There is connection there.
00:31:44
Speaker
There's radical candor. We're teasing each other. We're having a good time. and And yeah, build building this bond that is going to last a lifetime.
00:31:55
Speaker
And you're going to be in each other's weddings. um We talked about managed expectations, building a mastery environment, and creating a support network for these three basic athlete needs that are connected to self-determination theory.
00:32:13
Speaker
look Look that one up. um Yeah, and to to to bring us home here, um yeah, the kind the confidence loop that I've I've alluded to, we introduced a ah loop from Psycho-Cybernetics earlier our show here.
00:32:37
Speaker
let me Let me just reference that. Yeah, belief, behavior, performance, and then the Psycho-Cybernetics loop, thoughts, feelings, actions, results, and that's just a ah continuous wheel ah going on there.
00:32:49
Speaker
so building and and aiming to combine all of these where belief... in ourselves, belief in our teammates, trust that leads to then be behaviors where we're, uh, we're making the appropriate choices.
00:33:06
Speaker
And that is gaining the confidence through performance. And that just creates a great cycle where we truly, truly believe in ourselves. So the the challenge I'm going to hand off to you coach for,
00:33:22
Speaker
for ah Monday practice, next day that you see your team, is give them a clear instruction You can record this to see if how you're communicating the image in your mind is being delivered to them, and it's a clear representation.
00:33:38
Speaker
ah Celebrate effort, not just outcome. If the outcome is off, how can you lead with instructions versus criticism to get with them? And then create visualization ah for them. What are the goals that they want to create?
00:33:55
Speaker
I encourage you to do this as an end individually. and then ask them to record it, write it down. You take in those journals, those notebooks, those note cards, and then really start to see what your team wants to accomplish at an individual level, and then start to make connections to the team level.
00:34:13
Speaker
But that that gets away from the ought self, because if we're just saying what we want to accomplish, my worry there in our circle is this kid didn't had no idea what he wanted to do so he just said somebody else's goal because all that sounded cool or he saw how coach reacted to that goal and then he doesn't know what he truly wants I encourage you to write it down and you can give examples however maybe that first first drill where they write it down is is not the one you stick with and hold him accountable for so um yeah bring bring it home man to to to my boy drew and in
00:34:53
Speaker
how Marymount, just our, our, our connection or bond from growing up in our high school team continued there. And he yeah, when he, when he met me, it was um in school.
00:35:10
Speaker
I had two years of athletics underneath my belt. I learned now that East coast level ball and what teams that were the number one in our conference, what teams to be afraid of. And I believe that.
00:35:22
Speaker
And, Drew, dude, I'm not tall. I'm 5'7". Drew is shorter than I was. He was also a meatball middle linebacker for our football team.
00:35:33
Speaker
And he he was he was fearless. So we forced him into goalie because he was a freshman when we started that team and his his older brother was my age. And We didn't know. we actually put our one of our offensive linemen, a bigger guy, goalie, and when we started that team um when I was 16.
00:35:54
Speaker
And then after getting hit by the ball, he quickly quit. And then we needed freaking fearless leader to step in into the cage. And we all, I mean, just looked at Drew because he was a freaking animal.
00:36:05
Speaker
And so that first year he's ever played lacrosse, he stepped into goal. And um yeah, man, we won eight games that first year, basically just beating beatating the hell out of people not knowing what we were doing.
00:36:17
Speaker
And that that attitude, that confidence, that mindset Drew then brought that to our Marymount team because he didn't know who number one whatever was.
00:36:28
Speaker
He didn't didn't have that. He just gave me the ball. I'm going to go score. At this stage, he moved to attack. So he played attack for us so and started a number of games, including that freshman year, man. So he that that attitude, that's great representation where he he had such belief. He's like, I don't i don't care who they are.
00:36:48
Speaker
Just give me the ball, go score um and take you out. um that that That was the opposite of me. i I had lost ah a lot of the confidence stepping in.
00:36:59
Speaker
and but had a great coach, uh, captains and coaches episode 25. I sat down with Reynolds, uh, for at least 90 minutes, couple hours.
00:37:11
Speaker
And we talked about that environment that we got a chance to build. So that initial coach that had, uh, effectively recruited me, brought me in. He had left.
00:37:22
Speaker
Reynolds steps in and we were able to build an environment and culture based off of 360 degree leadership. A lot of leadership books I was reading back then were business based and I was aiming to filter them for for athletics.
00:37:39
Speaker
and it we we had established that for ah couple years and then drew comes in with that that swagger that attitude and man you it it was something to admire it recharged my batteries and confidence in in myself um because we were we were just two dudes from texas on the team and um yeah he he He's great. I mean, imagine a person you know for eons so much so that you have almost different nicknames for the stages of life that you know them and in competitive sports environments.
Memories and Legacy of Drew
00:38:17
Speaker
So we, I mean, we had a number number of nicknames for each other. ah the The one that stuck post school, post college, ah King of the Hill based.
00:38:28
Speaker
So his nickname, Rusty Shackelford, ah So if you're a fan of that show, that's that's a deep cut. And then, yeah, and he would he would call me Hank. Imagine me just this you know quiet, conservative leader, just doing everything he could for the team.
00:38:46
Speaker
Very representative, not taking risks, similar to the the character Hank Hill. So throughout the the rest of our lives and... and Leading up, he he referred to me as Hank. I was ah stood stood in his wedding, part of his wedding, and then he met his wife at Marymount.
00:39:05
Speaker
So my big joke on the Friday night rehearsal dinner, that was effectively, you're welcome. Because if I don't go to Marymount to play ball, Drew just certainly doesn't go up to to Virginia to play.
00:39:19
Speaker
And yeah, i always always had fun with that. So he's he's leaving behind three boys. Man, i got I got so many fun stories ah to tell them about our shenanigans.
00:39:31
Speaker
So yeah, much, um much, much love and support for, for, for Steph and the boys. And yeah, just, I, I, this, this is helpful, man. Cause that, that attitude then and that energy ah that, that he brought to, to the team. And whenever I was feeling down, he was always, he could, he read by my body language. Great.
00:39:55
Speaker
ah read right through my words and watched my actions and and was always there for me. So i'm grateful to to him forever. um Yeah, so that's, ah that's it's directly connected to this.
00:40:12
Speaker
And um yeah, the I guess the the the final note, i i did find a team.
Closing Tribute to Drew
00:40:20
Speaker
to to coach on and the the head coach, great, great man. He was gracious enough to get our youth together to ah let me speak to them about Drew and just give us some good energy. So I'm going to end with the the break that we wrapped our ah youth practice with and send it off to to him and his family. um Yeah,
00:40:44
Speaker
I mean, here's to you and our Marymount, win or lose, you know the drill.
00:40:55
Speaker
Rios. see need it right now so we're gonna say drew on three drew on three louder than we've ever been loudder than you ever been ready ready one two three