Latest / The Mound Visit / Austin Merrill: Mental Performance Strategies

Transcript

Austin Merrill: Mental Performance Strategies · The Mound Visit

0:10
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. I'm super excited to have Austin
0:13
Speaker 1: here with us today. Austin and I have talked on
0:16
Speaker 1: the phone a little bit about, you know, just mental
0:19
Speaker 1: performance and how he helps athletes, and so I really
0:23
Speaker 1: just want to dive in really quick. So, Austin, what
0:26
Speaker 1: do you do currently and how do you help athletes
0:29
Speaker 1: and baseball players get better?
0:32
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on. First of all, it's a
0:35
Speaker 2: pleasure to be here. As far as what I do,
0:37
Speaker 2: I work with a variety of athletes different age groups,
0:41
Speaker 2: from professional down to youth. And the goal for me
0:44
Speaker 2: is to use a variety of different models and modes
0:48
Speaker 2: to help ask quality questions to help the athlete arrive
0:52
Speaker 2: at a perspective that helps them to play more consistently
0:56
Speaker 2: at the level that they're trying to play at. And
0:59
Speaker 2: you know, on the athlete and that's kind of the
1:01
Speaker 2: fun and the science and what we do is trying
1:04
Speaker 2: to figure out what questions to ask at the right
1:07
Speaker 2: times to try to really understand what they're doing to
1:11
Speaker 2: help them get to a space where they feel more
1:13
Speaker 2: comfortable when they play. If that makes sense, Yeah, that's
1:17
Speaker 2: that's awesome.
1:19
Speaker 1: And so, you know, with mental performance, This is something
1:23
Speaker 1: that I really wanted to dive in with you, is
1:25
Speaker 1: that it's really hard to track the improvements in mental
1:29
Speaker 1: performance because there's no like quantifiable way to do it.
1:33
Speaker 1: And so how do you guys kind of track if
1:36
Speaker 1: like the play is getting better or worse in the
1:40
Speaker 1: mental performance space.
1:42
Speaker 2: It's a really difficult thing. And I think that is
1:44
Speaker 2: one of the big disadvantages as far as how to
1:48
Speaker 2: approach players is that there isn't exactly the quantifiable piece
1:53
Speaker 2: of oh, their numbers went up X. You know, there
1:56
Speaker 2: could be a million factors and variables that go into
1:58
Speaker 2: their numbers. It could be, you know, just the ebbs
2:01
Speaker 2: and flows of their ability and the statistics and the distribution.
2:04
Speaker 2: It could be that the hitting coach gave them a
2:06
Speaker 2: good adjustment. It could be that their mom had a
2:08
Speaker 2: conversation with them and put them back in the headspace
2:10
Speaker 2: that there used to be in. It's really hard to
2:12
Speaker 2: quantify what place you or yeah, what part of the
2:17
Speaker 2: puzzle that you're you're really solving in the equation. So
2:23
Speaker 2: from my perspective, and I don't know if others think
2:24
Speaker 2: about it like this, it's not as much me trying
2:27
Speaker 2: to prove that we help more than just asking questions
2:31
Speaker 2: and allowing them to decide that piece, right, there's the
2:36
Speaker 2: measure of effectiveness is not something that, like you said,
2:41
Speaker 2: we can quantify, so that we shouldn't be trying to
2:43
Speaker 2: argue that that is exactly what we're trying to do
2:46
Speaker 2: is quantify will look how I help this player X
2:48
Speaker 2: and Y player improve their ability? Look at their average
2:52
Speaker 2: before I worked with them and after. It's that's not
2:55
Speaker 2: the goal. It's really to ask questions and to gain
2:57
Speaker 2: trust with the player. And I think that is the piece.
3:00
Speaker 2: If I gain trust with the player and the player
3:02
Speaker 2: has trusted with me, I was effective in my role,
3:04
Speaker 2: so to speak, because then what can happen is there
3:07
Speaker 2: can be direct communication and honest communication and that justin
3:12
Speaker 2: See always talks about this is a relationship that can
3:14
Speaker 2: bear the weight of truth. Is really how you can
3:17
Speaker 2: prove to be effective in my opinion.
3:20
Speaker 1: Okay, And so when you build that relationship, like how
3:27
Speaker 1: do you go and help that athlete? Once you have
3:29
Speaker 1: established that relationship.
3:32
Speaker 2: It's important to figure out what they want exactly, you know,
3:36
Speaker 2: because athletes will come to you typically when they're struggling,
3:40
Speaker 2: which is one thing, and you try to figure out
3:44
Speaker 2: as much background as you can about them, figure out
3:46
Speaker 2: why they're struggling, who they really are, who they want
3:50
Speaker 2: to be, and it's the big picture. You have to
3:53
Speaker 2: figure out a lot about them. And as I continue
3:55
Speaker 2: to do this job and learn, you want to figure
3:57
Speaker 2: out as much of the whole picture as you can,
4:00
Speaker 2: to try to zoom in on the little pieces that
4:03
Speaker 2: are going on. So when it comes to helping an athlete,
4:07
Speaker 2: it depends where they are. You know, some guys are
4:10
Speaker 2: at different stages than others. Maybe a guy wants to
4:14
Speaker 2: keep succeeding at the level that he's at right, and
4:17
Speaker 2: that takes looking at his process and looking at the
4:20
Speaker 2: little adjustments that he might need to make or maybe
4:22
Speaker 2: not make, maybe keeping things just as they are for
4:25
Speaker 2: the moment. Or another guy might have really big goals
4:28
Speaker 2: and it's a long process. You're playing the long game.
4:31
Speaker 2: So other pieces of the puzzler are important. Depends on
4:35
Speaker 2: the guy because all personalities are so different and they
4:37
Speaker 2: require different things, right. One guy might be very disorganized
4:41
Speaker 2: and maybe a little bit of organization might help him,
4:44
Speaker 2: whereas another guy might thrive being disorganized and not having
4:50
Speaker 2: a strict process. It's really trying to help them know
4:53
Speaker 2: who they are, what works and what doesn't work for
4:56
Speaker 2: them specifically, rather than making them subscribe to a cookie
4:59
Speaker 2: cutter model that exists, so to speak, m.
5:03
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome. And so, what kind of problems do the
5:08
Speaker 1: athletes come to you with. Is it usually like guys
5:14
Speaker 1: who are like have mental blocks, like have the yips,
5:17
Speaker 1: or is it like more of like a mental health issue.
5:21
Speaker 1: What kind of problems come toward your your business and
5:25
Speaker 1: like your services.
5:27
Speaker 2: Typically, in my experience, the guys that come to you
5:31
Speaker 2: are ones that feel like they're not playing to their ability.
5:36
Speaker 2: You oftentimes hear your parents or athletes say, I'm one
5:39
Speaker 2: guy in practice and in the game, I'm another guy
5:42
Speaker 2: right and there that discrepancy in their ability in one
5:48
Speaker 2: environment and the other is what really makes them seek
5:51
Speaker 2: out that type of help because they know it's not
5:53
Speaker 2: a physical thing. They might be hitting home runs all
5:56
Speaker 2: over the place in practice, but when when they get
5:58
Speaker 2: to the game not translating their ability in the same way,
6:03
Speaker 2: and it leaves them to think, what's mental And I
6:05
Speaker 2: don't even really know how to start with my mental
6:07
Speaker 2: And what you find inside of that is that guys
6:09
Speaker 2: are typically fixated on things outside of their control and
6:13
Speaker 2: putting a lot of energy into numbers, the opinions of others,
6:19
Speaker 2: and the goals that they want to reach that are
6:22
Speaker 2: like I like I said, not in their control, and
6:25
Speaker 2: that's kind of where you find the typical problem, so
6:28
Speaker 2: to speak. To start.
6:31
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so I think you hit on it a
6:33
Speaker 1: little bit. But so if you were to say, if
6:36
Speaker 1: there's like a common trend in these athletes, would you
6:40
Speaker 1: say it's that? Is that the focusing on things that
6:44
Speaker 1: they can't control. What do you think is like one
6:47
Speaker 1: of the most common issues problems that they face.
6:51
Speaker 2: A lot of guys live and die by results, and
6:53
Speaker 2: they they don't prescribe to a process long enough to
6:57
Speaker 2: see it through. A lot of times as well, they
7:00
Speaker 2: typically will stick to something because it worked in the past,
7:04
Speaker 2: and they might drive that process into the ground. There's
7:07
Speaker 2: guys like that, or there might be a guy who
7:10
Speaker 2: you know went three for three because he chewed this
7:13
Speaker 2: gum today, and he will try that and ride that
7:17
Speaker 2: to the wheels fall off, and then once he goes
7:19
Speaker 2: oh for to the next day, he'll switch that right.
7:22
Speaker 2: And there's no real commitment to any sort of process
7:25
Speaker 2: to see it through and when it comes to running
7:28
Speaker 2: an experiment, so to speak, you can't have one trial
7:31
Speaker 2: and then decide it doesn't work right. There might be
7:33
Speaker 2: minute adjustments that you make, but that's often what happens
7:36
Speaker 2: is that these guys live and die emotionally by the results,
7:39
Speaker 2: and also they're defined by them. They take them very personal.
7:43
Speaker 2: They think that if I go over three, I'm not
7:46
Speaker 2: a quality player, and that's not the case because at
7:49
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you play professional baseball, you're
7:51
Speaker 2: very aware of the failure that comes with it, and
7:55
Speaker 2: if you let it determine a bigger part of your identity,
7:59
Speaker 2: you run into problems. That creates momentum, negative momentum that
8:03
Speaker 2: keeps rolling, so to speak. So usually the results piece
8:08
Speaker 2: looking at it and letting that define a lot more
8:10
Speaker 2: than it should. Right, there's a mental model called the
8:12
Speaker 2: map is not the territory, and these guys look at
8:16
Speaker 2: the map, so to speak, and that's the numbers, the
8:19
Speaker 2: big picture, and they don't look at what's inside it.
8:21
Speaker 2: A guy might have gone over three and hit the
8:23
Speaker 2: ball hard all three times, or he might have made
8:27
Speaker 2: good swing decisions right, and the umpire might have made
8:31
Speaker 2: a bad call, so to speak three times, it doesn't
8:34
Speaker 2: tell you all the data, right, and guys don't look
8:37
Speaker 2: inside that enough.
8:38
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, that's a that's a really interesting
8:43
Speaker 1: mental model applied to baseball. And I think, you know,
8:48
Speaker 1: mental models is something that we have talked a little
8:52
Speaker 1: bit about and how he can maybe be just like
8:56
Speaker 1: another tool for baseball players. And so how do you
9:00
Speaker 1: kind of use those mental models and how did you
9:03
Speaker 1: come across them?
9:05
Speaker 2: So I actually had a conversation with Justin Sewer, which
9:09
Speaker 2: was inevitably how I found you, So shout out to
9:14
Speaker 2: him for that. But at the beginning, you know, he
9:18
Speaker 2: was explaining to me that you know, through the mental
9:23
Speaker 2: performance model that you saw when you were playing, and
9:26
Speaker 2: that I originally was prescribed to as far as teaching,
9:30
Speaker 2: was me trying to basically use one tool for all situations. Right.
9:39
Speaker 2: You can't use a screwdriver to cut a piece of
9:42
Speaker 2: wood in half. Right, you need to understand that there's
9:45
Speaker 2: more tools. And what he opened my eyes to that
9:47
Speaker 2: by saying, look, there's a whole ray, a ray of
9:51
Speaker 2: different tools and fields that can address problems with questions
9:56
Speaker 2: and different modes of thinking. And with that he kind
9:59
Speaker 2: of showed me different books in different ways to look
10:01
Speaker 2: at it, and from there I've learned that it can
10:04
Speaker 2: really inform your work. Now, what I've learned recently is
10:07
Speaker 2: that instead of trying to directly share these mental models
10:10
Speaker 2: with players, there are things that inform your decisions and
10:13
Speaker 2: help you to think of maybe potential modes of questioning
10:17
Speaker 2: that you can have towards the athlete. Rather than being
10:19
Speaker 2: explicitly like, hey, this is map is not the territory,
10:23
Speaker 2: think about this mental model because oftentimes athletes don't really
10:26
Speaker 2: care about that, right, You want to ask them questions
10:30
Speaker 2: that make them think more, that might make them arrive
10:34
Speaker 2: at a different perspective on their own. You can't force it, right.
10:38
Speaker 2: So that's what mental models have done, and I'm still
10:41
Speaker 2: learning because there's so many, right and the science of
10:45
Speaker 2: it really seems like you see a problem in real
10:47
Speaker 2: time and there's a list of mental models that you
10:50
Speaker 2: can think of on your own that can inform your
10:53
Speaker 2: line of questioning, so to speak. So that's the power
10:56
Speaker 2: of those mental models, rather than just saying, hey, this
10:58
Speaker 2: is a routine you should use red light green light.
11:02
Speaker 2: It's you know, and I think you've alluded to that
11:05
Speaker 2: an article you've written where that just didn't it didn't
11:07
Speaker 2: line up for you, right, And you explained you did
11:10
Speaker 2: a really good job of explaining a mental model that
11:12
Speaker 2: would have aligned with that same sort of thought process.
11:15
Speaker 2: And that's that's exactly how you can use it, so
11:18
Speaker 2: to speak.
11:20
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So going back to like players who struggle
11:25
Speaker 1: with being results oriented and being too focused on results,
11:32
Speaker 1: how would you address that now versus how would you
11:36
Speaker 1: have addressed it before when you were doing like more
11:40
Speaker 1: the traditional mental performance versus now when you have like
11:43
Speaker 1: the newer mental models type type perspective.
11:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think before I would have prescribed to oh, look,
11:52
Speaker 2: here's a chart. Let's write down all the things you
11:54
Speaker 2: can and can't control here it is now focus on that, right,
11:58
Speaker 2: telling them what to do, guiding them down the path
12:01
Speaker 2: that I think they should go down, right, which no
12:05
Speaker 2: knock against those charts. They've worked for a lot of guys. Right,
12:08
Speaker 2: having those things and defining them is not a bad thing. However,
12:13
Speaker 2: in informing the line of questioning and focusing on the
12:15
Speaker 2: specific things that they're focused on, Like maybe it's a
12:18
Speaker 2: coach's opinion, right, and you might help them in the
12:24
Speaker 2: line of questioning that you use to arrive of You
12:27
Speaker 2: want them to say it not you, right, You want
12:30
Speaker 2: them to be able to be the one to say, wow,
12:32
Speaker 2: that's actually out of my control, and here's maybe another
12:37
Speaker 2: way that I could think about it, right, rather than
12:40
Speaker 2: you saying, oh, look, here's a list, follow that right,
12:43
Speaker 2: because it just doesn't line up. People like to run
12:45
Speaker 2: to their own conclusions. We're all independent thinkers, so to speak.
12:50
Speaker 2: Instead of throwing a prescription at somebody, ask some questions
12:54
Speaker 2: to get them to a perspective that makes them feel
12:57
Speaker 2: more comfortable that they can run forward with, so to speak.
13:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. So basically you're trying to give
13:03
Speaker 1: them tools to be able to come up with a
13:06
Speaker 1: conclusion that makes sense in their mind. They just like
13:10
Speaker 1: a tool or something. Hey, through this and it'll get
13:13
Speaker 1: better type thing exactly. That's awesome. So can you tell
13:20
Speaker 1: me a little bit about prescription versus perspective and why
13:26
Speaker 1: perspectives are just so effective and why it might be
13:30
Speaker 1: like a superior option.
13:32
Speaker 2: Because prescriptions for me, even if you think about them
13:36
Speaker 2: with actual medicine, right, the doctor tells you you're sick,
13:41
Speaker 2: here's an antibiotic, right, and you take it, and you
13:44
Speaker 2: take it for two weeks and it works, and then
13:46
Speaker 2: you feel better. You might go back to the same
13:49
Speaker 2: lifestyle that you had before. Right, the prescription might work
13:53
Speaker 2: for when you're not doing well a perspective. If somebody
13:57
Speaker 2: really gives you that, it sticks with you. Foundation it's like, okay,
14:01
Speaker 2: you need to eat better, and then you start to
14:02
Speaker 2: eat better and you feel better and you continue to
14:05
Speaker 2: do that and you say, okay, I'm changing my lifestyle choices.
14:09
Speaker 2: This is just an example, completely unrelated, but the point
14:11
Speaker 2: is that when you give someone a prescription, it's a
14:15
Speaker 2: shallow solution. It's just okay, throwing this at you, and
14:21
Speaker 2: oh that worked. I give him a pret picturotine and
14:24
Speaker 2: now he's raking okay, great. But there's not that much
14:28
Speaker 2: depth in the understanding of why they're doing it, versus
14:31
Speaker 2: if they come to their own conclusions. It takes a
14:33
Speaker 2: little bit more deep thinking, and the deep thinking is
14:35
Speaker 2: harder to arrive to, but the conclusions stay around longer. Right,
14:40
Speaker 2: And with that deeper thinking, there's more flexibility in it,
14:44
Speaker 2: like if an athlete realizes that the goal would be
14:48
Speaker 2: okay if there's bad momentum rolling, like I'm upset about
14:52
Speaker 2: an umpire's call, and then I take a bad swing.
14:56
Speaker 2: That's bad momentum rolling. How do I learn how to
14:58
Speaker 2: stop the bad momentum right? Or slow it down with
15:01
Speaker 2: outside forces? That can happen a variety of ways. Right,
15:06
Speaker 2: The way that they use it now might not work
15:08
Speaker 2: next week, and they understand that, but the whole the
15:10
Speaker 2: goal doesn't change. Right, The goal would be to slow
15:13
Speaker 2: down my momentum, my bad momentum. So this method might work.
15:17
Speaker 2: This method might work. Versus when you give them a prescription,
15:19
Speaker 2: it's look at the foul pole, take a breath. It's like,
15:22
Speaker 2: what if that doesn't work anymore? What if that doesn't
15:26
Speaker 2: work for me? Then what do I do? Right, there's
15:28
Speaker 2: no deeper understanding of why we're doing it versus the
15:32
Speaker 2: perspective is, Okay, this is why I would do whatever
15:37
Speaker 2: I do. That thought process is informing my actions rather
15:40
Speaker 2: than the actions just being the end, the end, goal,
15:44
Speaker 2: the ends and the means, so to speak.
15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that
15:51
Speaker 1: is super powerful. And that's something that I realize as well.
15:54
Speaker 1: In my baseball career, it's like, you know, the mental
15:57
Speaker 1: breakthroughs that I had was like, you know, it might
16:01
Speaker 1: have been a conversation with a big lego, like just
16:04
Speaker 1: like I saw something in real life where it's like
16:06
Speaker 1: it changed my perspective on a perspective on things like wow,
16:10
Speaker 1: that's okay, So that's how it actually works instead of
16:13
Speaker 1: like a mental performance tool you know that never actually
16:17
Speaker 1: really worked for me. So that makes a lot of sense.
16:21
Speaker 1: I'm curious. Was there like one event or like incident
16:26
Speaker 1: that happened to where you're like, all right, maybe I
16:29
Speaker 1: need to look for better tools to be able to
16:34
Speaker 1: help my players when you're more of the traditional mental
16:39
Speaker 1: performance versus like now where you're like looking at more
16:42
Speaker 1: like the mental models and stuff like that.
16:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I didn't realize it in the time,
16:47
Speaker 2: but reflecting back when I worked with Atlanta, I would
16:51
Speaker 2: try so hard to try to push the models that
16:56
Speaker 2: we were the mentality so to speak, that we were
16:59
Speaker 2: working with as mental performance onto the guys, right, so
17:05
Speaker 2: telling them they need a pre pitch routine that they
17:07
Speaker 2: can't do X and Y right. And I would notice
17:12
Speaker 2: that it's just the majority of guys would not come
17:14
Speaker 2: towards us. Guys would have conversations with me, but it
17:18
Speaker 2: would never be about that. It would be about random
17:20
Speaker 2: things you know, unrelated to mental performance. And it made
17:23
Speaker 2: me realize, Okay, well maybe they don't look at me
17:25
Speaker 2: as somebody that they can really ask these types of
17:30
Speaker 2: questions or get this kind of conversation rolling with, so
17:35
Speaker 2: to speak. And even some of the guys that would
17:37
Speaker 2: they would come for a little bit and then walk
17:39
Speaker 2: away because all I would give them was prescriptions, right,
17:44
Speaker 2: rather than perspective, and that was looking back kind of
17:50
Speaker 2: a thing. And also working with the guys privately. I
17:53
Speaker 2: would start off and I would always start the sessions
17:56
Speaker 2: with the same session. That doesn't make any sense. Every
18:01
Speaker 2: guy would start with the exact same session. I'd ask
18:04
Speaker 2: the same questions and do the same chart, and there
18:10
Speaker 2: was it was prescribed to me like here's your first
18:12
Speaker 2: ten sessions. This is how you're supposed to do them.
18:14
Speaker 2: That doesn't make any sense. The amount of guys that
18:16
Speaker 2: don't buy into that is a very high percentage. That's alarming.
18:21
Speaker 2: We're supposed to be doing our job well. And if
18:24
Speaker 2: guys aren't coming to you, like I said, if our
18:27
Speaker 2: method of effectiveness is trust, you're not a very effective
18:34
Speaker 2: coach at that point. If you're not getting the majority
18:36
Speaker 2: of people to think that they can even talk to
18:38
Speaker 2: you about this stuff. Right, So, over the time, privately
18:42
Speaker 2: and with Atlanta, I don't think I did an effective
18:44
Speaker 2: job over there, so to speak. Maybe maybe with a
18:48
Speaker 2: few players they I left a positive impact, but overall
18:51
Speaker 2: I'm not happy with my approach. And that's why because
18:54
Speaker 2: it was I had a box I was trying to
18:57
Speaker 2: I was trying to solve every problem with a screwdriver
19:00
Speaker 2: rather than looking at a whole toolbox and asking them
19:03
Speaker 2: what tool they want to try or perspective, you know
19:07
Speaker 2: what I mean.
19:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome, And so what do you think is
19:11
Speaker 1: the what do you think contributes to the lack of
19:16
Speaker 1: buy in from a lot of these players? And you know,
19:19
Speaker 1: even when I played, it was kind of just like
19:24
Speaker 1: like when the mental performance people talk like, well we
19:28
Speaker 1: love them, we love the coaches, but like the techniques
19:31
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, like a lot of the a
19:34
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff we didn't really like buy in
19:37
Speaker 1: and we didn't really like take seriously. It wasn't like
19:40
Speaker 1: all right, guys, like today I'm going to focus on
19:42
Speaker 1: my red light. It was like all right, yeah that
19:44
Speaker 1: was nice, but like I'm just gonna go back and
19:46
Speaker 1: do my thing. Kind of thing. So what do you
19:48
Speaker 1: think is uh contributes to the lack of buy in
19:52
Speaker 1: from some of these players.
19:55
Speaker 2: I'll actually flip that question onto you first. When you
19:58
Speaker 2: had people so like spitting these skills at you or
20:06
Speaker 2: kind of trying to give you tools, what was your impression,
20:10
Speaker 2: why and why was it that way?
20:14
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so for me it might have been
20:19
Speaker 1: a little bit different, just because I struggled with the
20:22
Speaker 1: yips really bad in twenty nineteen, and so I tried
20:26
Speaker 1: all the mental performance stuff, but the yips were so
20:30
Speaker 1: severe that like none of these tools were gonna help me,
20:34
Speaker 1: Like if it all felt like a band aid fix,
20:37
Speaker 1: so like it felt like I had a d injury
20:42
Speaker 1: in my brain. And then like the mental performance was
20:45
Speaker 1: just like trying to put a band aid on it.
20:48
Speaker 1: And so I kind of recognized that a lot of
20:50
Speaker 1: these tools aren't going to help me. I needed to
20:53
Speaker 1: like really like dig deep and like learn about myself
20:57
Speaker 1: and like get all these perspectives and really changed my
21:02
Speaker 1: mindset towards everything to be able to fix the yips.
21:06
Speaker 1: And so from then on I was like, all right,
21:08
Speaker 1: like for me, I need, you know, the the self discovery,
21:14
Speaker 1: mental models, more perspective type stuff more than the tools,
21:18
Speaker 1: and so that's why my buying was quite low. I'm
21:23
Speaker 1: not too sure about the other players, though, I think,
21:29
Speaker 1: you know, like I that was one time where I
21:31
Speaker 1: asked my teammates after a mental performance meeting, like, hey, guys, like, so, like,
21:37
Speaker 1: what do you think of that meeting? And you know,
21:39
Speaker 1: like I asked all the guys in the bullpen and
21:42
Speaker 1: like them were like, I mean, it was nice, but like,
21:46
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of eyewash, you know.
21:48
Speaker 2: I think that's the words they use.
21:50
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, And I was wondering, like why is that?
21:56
Speaker 1: And I'm actually not not sure. It's just kind of
21:59
Speaker 1: like a I don't know, it's like an uncool thing.
22:03
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's like just because you can't see the
22:05
Speaker 1: results straight away, it's just not something that you work on.
22:09
Speaker 1: But uh, do you have any thoughts on why that?
22:12
Speaker 1: Why that is?
22:13
Speaker 2: I think what you just said informed because I also
22:16
Speaker 2: don't have the answer to that question. But the line
22:18
Speaker 2: of response that you just had there was interesting, the
22:22
Speaker 2: band aid part. I think a lot of guys possibly
22:26
Speaker 2: look at it like that maybe a thing. It's not
22:29
Speaker 2: getting very deep, it's not it's not helping a guy
22:34
Speaker 2: really understand. He doesn't see the purpose in it, you know,
22:39
Speaker 2: like they've they've done so well to this point to
22:44
Speaker 2: get to the big leagues or to the minor leagues
22:47
Speaker 2: the professional baseball in general, and now I'm just throwing
22:50
Speaker 2: a tool with them there. Why would I take that?
22:54
Speaker 2: Why would I why would I bother? Right, they're not
22:57
Speaker 2: understanding what's under it at all, Like why would I
23:01
Speaker 2: even bother to do that? And they don't to understand
23:06
Speaker 2: why you'd want to go into any of these things.
23:08
Speaker 2: You have to understand yourself, like you said, the self
23:11
Speaker 2: discovery part, and maybe within that self discovery you might
23:16
Speaker 2: use a tool or two along the way because it
23:19
Speaker 2: fits your personality what you need. Right. Justin told me
23:25
Speaker 2: a story once about a player that he worked with
23:28
Speaker 2: that was struggling and he said, I need a routine,
23:30
Speaker 2: any routine, And Justin was like, no, you don't. I
23:33
Speaker 2: know you, well, you don't, that's not you, right, And
23:37
Speaker 2: Justin took the time to get to know the guy
23:39
Speaker 2: and he actually was saying, don't take that prescription. Don't
23:42
Speaker 2: And the guy came back to him later and he's like,
23:45
Speaker 2: you were so right about that, thank you, Right, And
23:48
Speaker 2: it's like, that's a really interesting Nobody ever talks about that,
23:51
Speaker 2: like those type of stories where like if a general
23:55
Speaker 2: mentor performance coach, if I was in his position at
23:58
Speaker 2: that time, back when I was in Atlanta, I would
24:01
Speaker 2: have given him here, we can sit down, we can
24:04
Speaker 2: set up this routine. You can you know, swipe two
24:06
Speaker 2: times on the cleat cleaner and then take a look
24:09
Speaker 2: at at X marks the spot and take a breath
24:13
Speaker 2: and then hop back on every pitch. And that was
24:16
Speaker 2: not the right thing for that guy, right, So it's
24:21
Speaker 2: it's I think, I think inadvertently they know it's not
24:24
Speaker 2: that deep. It's just I'm throwing. It's like if you
24:29
Speaker 2: see something on Instagram, something new, you're you're you're bound
24:33
Speaker 2: to be suspect to it first. You know, new information,
24:37
Speaker 2: You're suspect to it first, right until okay, maybe maybe
24:41
Speaker 2: that does work a little bit. And mental performance, it's
24:45
Speaker 2: it's never come through to be something that, oh wow,
24:48
Speaker 2: it's really necessary. It's because there's only one screwdriver. There's
24:52
Speaker 2: only one perspective. So guys are like, Okay, the screw
24:55
Speaker 2: driver is not going to solve my problem, so why
24:57
Speaker 2: would I even bother? Right, meetings, most of these meetings.
25:03
Speaker 2: Nobody's asking for them. They're being forced, Like how many
25:08
Speaker 2: guys in Philly? Like was that an optional meeting? No?
25:13
Speaker 2: Probably not right, It wasn't optional.
25:15
Speaker 1: No, No.
25:17
Speaker 2: So that's also the fact that you're being forced into
25:19
Speaker 2: it psychologically is like Okay, I'm Martie, I'm already doing
25:24
Speaker 2: something I don't want to do. You're against my will.
25:27
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, these people are trying
25:29
Speaker 2: to tell me how to play, tell me what to
25:32
Speaker 2: do when I play. They just can't. They can't sit, right,
25:35
Speaker 2: can it?
25:38
Speaker 1: Yeah? I agree, Yeah, I think I think. I think
25:43
Speaker 1: that's one hundred percent right where it's like we just
25:47
Speaker 1: recognize that it's not that the you know, Like what
25:50
Speaker 1: I kind of have heard is like, you know, like
25:53
Speaker 1: when I'm in a high pressure situation and like, you know,
25:57
Speaker 1: I'm feeling that pressure, I'm feeling that fear like the
26:00
Speaker 1: hell's gonna what the hell is like a breath gonna do?
26:03
Speaker 1: Like I cot be thinking about that right now. It's
26:05
Speaker 1: just I'm gonna go out and compete. It's like, you know,
26:08
Speaker 1: it's like or like when I'm feeling that fear or
26:13
Speaker 1: like that anxiety, like like thinking about red lights red
26:18
Speaker 1: light green light isn't gonna like fix that, It's gonna
26:20
Speaker 1: be something deeper, something oh like a perspective like you said,
26:25
Speaker 1: And so I think you hit the nail on the
26:26
Speaker 1: head with that. Oh yeah, I think, uh yeah, that's
26:33
Speaker 1: an interesting one to dive into. I might, I might
26:36
Speaker 1: ask us some of my players.
26:39
Speaker 2: Go ahead and let me know what they say, because
26:41
Speaker 2: I don't have the answer either. And that's a very
26:43
Speaker 2: interesting question. It's what we know is it's not working.
26:47
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
26:48
Speaker 2: That's what that's at least what I know. And maybe
26:50
Speaker 2: I'll get ostracized for that by the general community, but
26:54
Speaker 2: I'm gonna speak my experience for I felt like i've
26:59
Speaker 2: until I change, changed a little bit of my perspective.
27:02
Speaker 2: I felt like I was very ineffective at my role.
27:07
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome, Well, so we talked a little bit about
27:10
Speaker 1: the mental models. I know there are like a huge
27:14
Speaker 1: range of them, and there are a ton of them.
27:16
Speaker 1: Do you have like three to five that are like
27:20
Speaker 1: your go tos, that are kind of like your favorites
27:23
Speaker 1: or is that kind of difficult?
27:25
Speaker 2: It's really hard because I'm learning so many of them
27:27
Speaker 2: at a time, and then I'll learn a new one
27:29
Speaker 2: that really that really hits, so to speak. I think
27:33
Speaker 2: momentum is a very big one. I think map is not.
27:35
Speaker 2: The territory is a very big one. I think thought
27:38
Speaker 2: experiments are a big one. First principal thinking like helping
27:42
Speaker 2: a guy kind of. I think first principle thinking and
27:46
Speaker 2: irreducibility go really close hand in hand, like getting your
27:50
Speaker 2: process down to the bare bones of stuff that are
27:54
Speaker 2: that should always be the case about Like I try
27:58
Speaker 2: to get guys to think of, okay, when I pitch,
27:59
Speaker 2: what of things that I have to do right? And
28:03
Speaker 2: some guys will say, okay, like I have to be
28:05
Speaker 2: aggressive when I pitch. That's that's the first principle for me.
28:09
Speaker 2: I I have to get into my legs right in
28:12
Speaker 2: the modes to get there. Might be different, you can
28:14
Speaker 2: put the legos together in different ways, but you try
28:17
Speaker 2: to help them realize those type of things. But yeah,
28:21
Speaker 2: first principle irreducibility go together for me a lot. The
28:26
Speaker 2: map is not the territory is a big one because
28:28
Speaker 2: guys look at results a certain way and you want
28:30
Speaker 2: to you want them to look inside of it right.
28:33
Speaker 2: Reciprocation is a big one where you want them to
28:38
Speaker 2: because a lot of a lot of what happens too,
28:40
Speaker 2: especially in these early call seasons, is these guys like
28:42
Speaker 2: size up their competition and they don't want to share.
28:47
Speaker 2: It's like if you if you're in the mode to
28:48
Speaker 2: share it, you guys can. It's like wisdom of crowds.
28:51
Speaker 2: You guys can both learn from each other if you
28:53
Speaker 2: stop looking at it like that, you know, like, oh,
28:56
Speaker 2: this guy's my enemy. I don't. I don't want to.
28:58
Speaker 2: It's like trade secrets stuff like that. But it really depends.
29:02
Speaker 2: I think as I learn more of them, I try
29:05
Speaker 2: to implement more. But sometimes it's not like you think
29:09
Speaker 2: of a specific mental model. It's more of the line
29:11
Speaker 2: of questioning that you learn from the mental model that
29:13
Speaker 2: comes into play more or less.
29:16
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome, awesome.
29:17
Speaker 2: What about you? I know you read up a lot
29:19
Speaker 2: a lot on those type of things. What do you
29:22
Speaker 2: think would have helped you a lot?
29:27
Speaker 1: So you know, I've I've written a little bit about this,
29:31
Speaker 1: and I've talked a little bit about it about my
29:33
Speaker 1: favorite one is the spotlight effect.
29:36
Speaker 2: Oh and he's a big one.
29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just to briefly explain it, it's it's just
29:44
Speaker 1: your brain thinks that other people thinking about you more
29:49
Speaker 1: than they actually are. And so how I how I
29:53
Speaker 1: explain it is like, you know, like when you make
29:57
Speaker 1: a mistake or when you make like an arrows something,
30:00
Speaker 1: it feels like all eyes are on you, and it's
30:02
Speaker 1: like everyone's looking at you. But to be honest, like
30:06
Speaker 1: everyone's just thinking about themselves. They don't, they're not worried
30:09
Speaker 1: about you. You know, they're too worried. They're too busy
30:12
Speaker 1: thinking about themselves to be worrying about you. So you know,
30:16
Speaker 1: you're not that important, Like just get over it, like
30:18
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a big deal. No one's thinking
30:21
Speaker 1: about you. So just like effort is kind of like
30:26
Speaker 1: what my thing is. It's like people aren't because people
30:30
Speaker 1: get so caught up and oh my god, I'm scared
30:33
Speaker 1: of what this guy thinks of me. Coaches, like front office,
30:37
Speaker 1: all of this. And so that was a big one
30:40
Speaker 1: for me to be like, you know, no one's actually
30:43
Speaker 1: really thinking about me, Like, so I'm just gonna do me,
30:46
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna play loose and then do me.
30:50
Speaker 1: That was a big one for me as far as
30:54
Speaker 1: other ones. You know, I actually had a hard time
30:57
Speaker 1: relating a lot of these mental models to baseball, and
31:01
Speaker 1: I only started thinking about them when I started talking
31:04
Speaker 1: to you and justin Sewer. But now that I hear it,
31:10
Speaker 1: like the map is in the territory is like a
31:14
Speaker 1: super interesting one for how you explained it. It's like,
31:18
Speaker 1: you know, here are the results, here are the stats,
31:20
Speaker 1: but what actually what's inside of it? Like a really
31:24
Speaker 1: great one is like the era of a pitcher. You know,
31:27
Speaker 1: like you might have a huge era, but you might
31:32
Speaker 1: have like a really good fit, which is which can
31:36
Speaker 1: be common. So it means that like you're doing everything
31:38
Speaker 1: you can and your control you're pitching well, it's just
31:42
Speaker 1: like like balls are finding holes. And so that's a
31:47
Speaker 1: really good one. I think First Principles would have been
31:51
Speaker 1: a really good one. I had a conversation with Alan Jaeger,
31:55
Speaker 1: and his big thing is one of the one or
32:00
Speaker 1: two things that I focus on that I know will
32:04
Speaker 1: get me a good result. And that's the only things
32:07
Speaker 1: you're focusing on. So it might be all right, things
32:12
Speaker 1: to the catcher's mint or something like that, and so
32:15
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that you focus on and everything
32:18
Speaker 1: else is irrelevant. Like that's kind of like the one
32:22
Speaker 1: thing that you're focusing on would would you say that's
32:24
Speaker 1: a good example of first principles.
32:26
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? Yeah, I think get getting down to
32:29
Speaker 2: the very bare bones. It's also kind of kind of
32:33
Speaker 2: similar to occom's razor getting like the most simple explanation
32:37
Speaker 2: of what works for you is typically the best, you know,
32:40
Speaker 2: So if you can simplify everything down to okay, the
32:45
Speaker 2: bare bones of what you just said one or two things,
32:48
Speaker 2: maybe because what's the alternative thinking about a million things
32:52
Speaker 2: which I pitched and you pitched that didn't work for me,
32:55
Speaker 2: and I don't think it probably worked for you very well,
32:58
Speaker 2: so we know that that doesn't work right, And sometimes
33:02
Speaker 2: you can even take the reverse and say, okay, we
33:05
Speaker 2: know what doesn't work, so we can almost deduce down
33:08
Speaker 2: based on what doesn't work into a process that works
33:11
Speaker 2: as well. You know, it's but the first principal's piece
33:16
Speaker 2: I think would have been important for me as well pitching,
33:18
Speaker 2: and I never thought about it like that.
33:22
Speaker 1: So I'm curious when you try to teach these athletes
33:26
Speaker 1: the mental models, do you actually tell them like the
33:29
Speaker 1: name of them, like alcmes Raisa or FoST principles thinking
33:33
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, because it can I feel like
33:35
Speaker 1: it can be a little bit intimidating. I know it
33:38
Speaker 1: would have been for me, like like what is that?
33:42
Speaker 1: Do you tell them like what it is and then
33:44
Speaker 1: explain it to them or do you kind of just
33:46
Speaker 1: give them the takeaways from that mental model.
33:51
Speaker 2: I was doing that for a while. It's almost because
33:55
Speaker 2: I was so when I was first learning it. I
33:57
Speaker 2: was so eager to put it into play that I was.
34:00
Speaker 2: I was making it part of my sessions. Is like, oh,
34:03
Speaker 2: this is the mental model we're going to be talking
34:05
Speaker 2: about now. It's like that's also now how you're supposed
34:08
Speaker 2: to use it. And I had this conversation it was
34:10
Speaker 2: super helpful, like with Justin Sua like three weeks ago,
34:13
Speaker 2: where he was I don't ever tell athletes to mental models.
34:16
Speaker 2: I just let them inform. They're more for us the
34:19
Speaker 2: practitioner to think about how to go about the session.
34:25
Speaker 1: Right.
34:25
Speaker 2: So what I started doing with myself and with him
34:28
Speaker 2: is writing down the scenarios that I have with a client,
34:32
Speaker 2: this is what's going on, and then thinking, Okay, what
34:35
Speaker 2: mental model would I use and what line of questioning
34:38
Speaker 2: would that mental model help me to arrive at? You know,
34:42
Speaker 2: and I'll juxtapose it with his kind of his thoughts
34:47
Speaker 2: on it, and it kind of helps me to learn,
34:49
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't use that right, or oh I am
34:51
Speaker 2: using that right, because it's a it's trial and error.
34:54
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, he's been doing it for fifteen years,
34:57
Speaker 2: you know, and for forgot Like me, that's just learning.
35:00
Speaker 2: I've been mental performance coaching for a few years, but
35:03
Speaker 2: this new mode of thinking is newer to me, like
35:05
Speaker 2: four or five months, so to speak, and it takes
35:09
Speaker 2: time to be able to quickly kind of think of
35:12
Speaker 2: the mental model and implement the questioning without directly explicitly
35:16
Speaker 2: stating it, because, like you said, I think it'd be intimidating.
35:18
Speaker 2: I don't think as a player, I would care about
35:21
Speaker 2: what a handlet, what a razor is. I would not care.
35:25
Speaker 2: I just want to pitch. Well the way you have,
35:27
Speaker 2: you know, what you have, That's how I would feel.
35:30
Speaker 2: I think.
35:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, So okay, So if someone's listening to this and
35:37
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, I'm interested in mental models, where
35:41
Speaker 1: would you say they should go? Because you know, with
35:46
Speaker 1: the mental models, it's very uh it's like, I haven't
35:49
Speaker 1: seen anything that's related to sport. I don't know. I
35:52
Speaker 1: don't really, I haven't really seen any resources or blogs
35:56
Speaker 1: or videos or anything about that. I've read up on
35:59
Speaker 1: the mental mental models, but it's more related to you know,
36:04
Speaker 1: like the finance world and the business world and stuff
36:06
Speaker 1: like that. For sure. Where would you direct someone who's
36:11
Speaker 1: interested in the mental models, but who is an athlete
36:14
Speaker 1: or a baseball player.
36:15
Speaker 2: I think that Shane Perrish is the best place to
36:18
Speaker 2: start because he goes for the very big general ones
36:22
Speaker 2: and with those general concepts are easier to apply to
36:26
Speaker 2: a lot of things. And what was helping me at
36:30
Speaker 2: first there. The more you read about them and the
36:32
Speaker 2: more you learn, the more you can see how they
36:34
Speaker 2: apply into different ways, you get more creative with your
36:38
Speaker 2: mode of being able to use them. But those give
36:41
Speaker 2: you the foundation. There's three volumes of fourth ones coming
36:44
Speaker 2: in October, I believe. But if you have questions, even
36:49
Speaker 2: ask chat GBT, which I tried that at a lot
36:51
Speaker 2: at first, and chat GBT would spit out stuff that
36:53
Speaker 2: wasn't very helpful. But sometimes it does it's like, oh, actually,
36:57
Speaker 2: I could see how that could relay. And in one
37:00
Speaker 2: for instance, like the other day I read about the
37:02
Speaker 2: law of diminishing returns, where you know things are good
37:06
Speaker 2: to a point like you can get returns, but those
37:09
Speaker 2: returns diminished past the point. And as an athlete, that's
37:11
Speaker 2: super important to know. Those guys can work their work
37:14
Speaker 2: themselves through the ground, you know, for a million swings
37:18
Speaker 2: or a million pitches or whatever, and those returns might diminish,
37:22
Speaker 2: but there might be another guy who's not getting to
37:24
Speaker 2: the point where he's getting the full amount of his
37:25
Speaker 2: return based on the work he's putting into. So it's
37:30
Speaker 2: like that, I guess I would encourage people to read
37:33
Speaker 2: inform themselves, and then try to actually sit down. Don't
37:36
Speaker 2: read fast. You don't need to just get through the
37:38
Speaker 2: book to say you read it, sit with the mental model,
37:41
Speaker 2: maybe read it over again and see maybe today I
37:44
Speaker 2: don't understand a perspective that this could apply to. But
37:48
Speaker 2: then tomorrow I read it again, it's oh, got it.
37:52
Speaker 2: Because there's some mental models that I read about and I
37:54
Speaker 2: did not understand point blank, did not get it. And
37:57
Speaker 2: then like three or four times after reading it, I
38:01
Speaker 2: kind of get a handle on it. And then after
38:02
Speaker 2: actually thinking about how I could use it, Oh, now
38:05
Speaker 2: I kind of get it right. So it takes time,
38:09
Speaker 2: But like you said, deep thinking takes time. You don't
38:12
Speaker 2: drill deep quickly. You don't, right, it doesn't make sense.
38:17
Speaker 2: So that's what I would encourage people to do, because
38:19
Speaker 2: I think that's not the dumb down version but the
38:21
Speaker 2: most simplified, bare bones version of mental models to start.
38:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. I think. I think just
38:29
Speaker 1: like reading in general is such a big such a
38:35
Speaker 1: good tool for players to do. You know, no no
38:38
Speaker 1: one really does these days, but just for like one
38:42
Speaker 1: thing that could enhance your like mental performance or like
38:46
Speaker 1: give you a better perspective on performance or life or whatever.
38:51
Speaker 1: I think reading is such a good exercise to do
38:55
Speaker 1: for the mind. Do you have something that's like that
38:59
Speaker 1: you'd commend athletes to do to increase their mental performance
39:03
Speaker 1: or you know, like get better perspectives on like playing.
39:11
Speaker 2: I think reading is a super big piece, but I
39:13
Speaker 2: know that's not for all guys. So it's you could
39:18
Speaker 2: ask yourself some really good questions from the mental models
39:20
Speaker 2: without reading them, you could hypothetically understand. Okay, so we
39:26
Speaker 2: they heard us talking about first principles. Thinking on here,
39:28
Speaker 2: they're like, what is that? Okay, they can google it
39:31
Speaker 2: really quick figure out what the definition of that is,
39:34
Speaker 2: and then you can even go like I said, Chad
39:36
Speaker 2: GBT plug in like and there's a list of questions
39:38
Speaker 2: that it'll say, what can first principles? What kind of
39:41
Speaker 2: questions can first principles allow me to ask in relation
39:45
Speaker 2: to my baseball performance? And maybe the questions are eyewash,
39:49
Speaker 2: but maybe one of them you like and you say,
39:52
Speaker 2: oh huh, and then you know you can kind of
39:56
Speaker 2: you can kind of go that way. It's about the questions.
39:58
Speaker 2: I think, the questions you can ask yourself and then
40:01
Speaker 2: maybe you can come up with some things that are
40:04
Speaker 2: deeper thinking. If you want to get deeper, Like you said,
40:06
Speaker 2: it takes deep work to get deep thought. So these guys,
40:12
Speaker 2: you're going to have to do that work. There's no
40:13
Speaker 2: skipping it. Just like anything else. If you want to
40:15
Speaker 2: make your slider good, it's going to take some time
40:18
Speaker 2: throwing it, understanding the shape of it, understanding how not
40:22
Speaker 2: to throw it. And it's the same. These mental models
40:25
Speaker 2: are going to inform you with questions, but you have
40:27
Speaker 2: to ask yourself those questions and be willing to answer
40:30
Speaker 2: them honestly. Right, So that's where I would say to start.
40:35
Speaker 2: It helps you with the identity part by asking yourself
40:38
Speaker 2: good questions that's how you can help yourself kind of
40:41
Speaker 2: push forward and also talk to the people around you.
40:44
Speaker 2: Wisdom of crowds is very, very big. You know that
40:47
Speaker 2: sounds like you had a really good experience with that, right,
40:50
Speaker 2: asking guys that were older that gave you good perspective.
40:53
Speaker 2: That's that's another way you can help yourself out. I
40:55
Speaker 2: know it's not like a super direct answer, but I
40:58
Speaker 2: don't have one because each guy's different.
41:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, alsome. So before we wrap up, what
41:06
Speaker 1: a kind of the responses or like the feedback you've
41:12
Speaker 1: been getting from the athletes that you've been working with
41:16
Speaker 1: when you've applied these mental models, Like have they loved it?
41:21
Speaker 1: Have they seen it translate onto the field?
41:23
Speaker 2: Like?
41:23
Speaker 1: What kind of feedback are you getting? You know?
41:26
Speaker 2: And I've loved the most about it recently that I've
41:28
Speaker 2: been getting is a lot of guys texting me like
41:30
Speaker 2: hours or days after saying something, not I loved that,
41:34
Speaker 2: Not Wow, that was amazing. It was you know what
41:39
Speaker 2: that made me think about this? And I'll give you
41:41
Speaker 2: an example. The other day, I was talking to a
41:43
Speaker 2: picture and he told me his off season plan was
41:47
Speaker 2: to try to build more confidence. And we got to
41:50
Speaker 2: this line of questioning, and he realized that his problem
41:53
Speaker 2: wasn't a lack of confidence, it was a lack of consistency.
41:56
Speaker 2: And then he texted me like two days later, He's like, really,
42:00
Speaker 2: I was kind of beating myself up for nothing. I
42:02
Speaker 2: really do believe that I can get a guy out
42:04
Speaker 2: at any professional level, but I lack the consistency and
42:07
Speaker 2: the way I go about it. And that's what I'm
42:09
Speaker 2: going to work on. And he arrived to that. I
42:12
Speaker 2: didn't say anything right, but that is what's been gratifying
42:18
Speaker 2: and showing me that my work is more effective than
42:22
Speaker 2: it was because it's making these guys think deeper and
42:26
Speaker 2: for a longer period of time, you know, and teaching
42:31
Speaker 2: them some of the line of questioning that I have.
42:34
Speaker 2: It teaches them to start asking their their own questions,
42:37
Speaker 2: and those those texts way after the sessions or what
42:40
Speaker 2: show me that.
42:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so awesome. So basically you go like to
42:46
Speaker 1: the root calls and then you try to give them
42:50
Speaker 1: perspectives to be able to deal with that or like
42:56
Speaker 1: arrive to a different conclusion. Is that like a good
42:59
Speaker 1: simplified way.
43:00
Speaker 2: Of looking Yeah, because I think before I would have
43:03
Speaker 2: just said well, confidence is a choice. Focus on your actions,
43:06
Speaker 2: big body language, and he would have say okay, he's okay, thanks,
43:12
Speaker 2: like I was. I didn't think of that already, and
43:14
Speaker 2: it's not even sometimes you know, sometimes the guys don't
43:16
Speaker 2: think of that. But what the occlusion that he the
43:20
Speaker 2: conclusion that he arrived to was a lot different and
43:24
Speaker 2: it was on his own. And that's the most gratifying
43:28
Speaker 2: part is watching a guy take his own work and
43:32
Speaker 2: figure out his own way and you just get to
43:34
Speaker 2: watch it.
43:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I want
43:40
Speaker 1: to thank you for coming on us, and that was
43:42
Speaker 1: a really good conversation. I think if someone is struggling
43:48
Speaker 1: with the mental game and you know, I haven't seen
43:51
Speaker 1: like the mental performance stuff work, I think this could
43:54
Speaker 1: really help them and this might be I believe it
43:58
Speaker 1: might be the new way of doing things. So yeah,
44:01
Speaker 1: this was super interesting, super insightful, and thank you so
44:04
Speaker 1: much for taking the time out to come on.
44:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely and great line of questioning. I think it's a
44:10
Speaker 2: very unique way that you're going about it and continue
44:13
Speaker 2: to contribute to the to the learning of this with
44:17
Speaker 2: the writing that you do, mixing your perspectives. I think
44:20
Speaker 2: it's it's really powerful, and you're doing a great job,
44:22
Speaker 2: and we'll obviously be continuing to have conversations about you.
44:26
Speaker 2: You're doing a really good job and what you're doing
44:27
Speaker 2: right now, and I encourage you to keep pushing awesome.
44:31
Speaker 1: Well, thanks Austin, thank
44:33
Speaker 2: You man, appreciate you.