March 9, 2023 • 44 mins
When it comes to dialing the right mindset or getting your stuff together when things go south, sports and business have a lot in common. You can’t go far in either if you don’t grit your teeth and put in the work.
For this week’s episode, we got Lauren Ammon to help us get into the athlete’s mindset, overcome our inner opponent, and reach the ‘championship’ in business.
Links
- Champions 90 https://growth-mode.captivate.fm/champ90
- Website - https://successchampionnetworking.com/
- YouTube Video - https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowthMode
- Blog - https://successchampionnetworking.com/blog/
- Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/SuccessChampion
Mentioned in this episode:
Success Champions Networking
If you want to grow and scale your business you need to be getting into great conversations with other business owners that can help you take your business to the next level. Joining an online business peer group like Success Champions provides access to a select pool of successful business people from around the world, each having a well-established network who trust them, who want to introduce you to people that can help you build the business of your dreams. So once you get to know your fellow members and they’ve gotten to know you along with your services and ethics, the conversations you get into will multiply!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kevin Snow (00:00):
So I'm really excited about today's episode because
we get to talk about sports
. Donnie Boivin: I knew that was going.
(00:21):
Specifically we get to talk about college sports.
For most of you probably knowthat I wrestled in college, so I
actually walked on as a freshman toSouth Dakota State wrestling team.
I didn't really appreciatethe coach and the style.
So after my freshman year, Iredshirted I didn't go out again.
I was done and yeah, this isn'tall I thought it was gonna be.
(00:43):
And I actually got involved in studentgovernment for the university I was at.
So I was elected as one of mycollege's student senators.
Then I was elected to represent theuniversity at the Board of Regents
as the VP for the State Federationof Universities student associations.
I represented all the universities.
I went to all the board of regentmeetings every couple months
(01:04):
and all that type of stuff.
And then we got a new coach and I hadknown who he was and his style, and I'm
like, I actually think this is the rightperson that I could actually compete for.
So I actually resigned.
As vice President of the StudentFederation I didn't run for reelection
(01:24):
for Senate and then I went back,walked back on for wrestling for
my final two years of school.
And my president of the Student Federationwas was not happy with me cuz I resigned
midterm to go do this thing and.
And we were talking after every, all the,everything had settled down a little bit.
(01:46):
And she's I was talking to my, someof my mentors and advisors and she's
I don't understand how he couldquit being a Federation VP and then
just go out to be on a sports team.
And I don't understand, he's losing onso many opportunities in this position.
And she's my, my mentors all.
Do you realize how many CEOs and upperlevel executives in the business world
(02:09):
were varsity athletes in college?
? And she's what?
Really?
He's yeah.
And they, here's all the stuffthey get from it, and here's why
they're so successful in business.
And then she was like, Oh, now I get it.
You know that there's so manyoverlaps between sports and,
competitive sports and business.
(02:30):
A lot of it is mindsetand how you look at.
Getting where you need to be.
And then a lot of it is being reallyunderstanding what's going on in your
world and how to manage all the stuff at
Donnie Boivin (02:43):
once.
That's the first timeI've heard that story.
It's a really cool experience that Ihadn't heard you talk about before.
What's interesting for me is, a lotof my story guys haven't heard, I
didn't do the whole sport thing.
I needed a little bit in juniorhigh, but once I got into junior high
football, I couldn't keep my grades.
And because I was failingclasses, I couldn't play sports.
(03:03):
So they put me with a group ofpeople called the Flunkies, and
that's what they actually called us.
They called us like six or seven notes.
They called us flus.
And in my mind I'm like, fuck, if I'mgonna be a fluky, let me show you what
it means to be a fucking fluky andI'm gonna own the shit out of this.
And that sent me down a path ofa lot of really crazy things.
(03:24):
Now I'm extremely competitiveand when I do play sports,
you're gonna know I'm there.
I may not be the most graceful sonof a bitch on the field, but you're
gonna, you're gonna know my presence.
And like especially in the MarineCorps, I played a ton of basketball
in the Marine Corps because it wasjust easy sport that you could get
together as long as there's a hoop.
And here's what I can tell you thatsome of your most successful people in
(03:48):
the world come from a sports backgroundand even in this cool day and age that
we're living in now, if you look at youreSport guys, which are like your geeks
of the geeks, you know who that arecompeting in sports on games, virtual.
They're dominating the world nowwith the things they're doing and the
following from what not they're creating.
(04:08):
And it's amazing how much things likethe discipline of beginning good at a
sport to the mindset of you can take agood or negative of, in Kevin's case,
getting the right coach to going, okay,now I'm gonna go all in for this guy.
My.
Having coaches call me a fuckingfluky going, all right, fuck you.
(04:28):
Hold my beer and watch this shit.
It's really telling about howmuch the sports impacts or the
how much sports correlates over.
To the business world.
Yeah.
And all the things that, thathappened on both sides of that.
Kevin Snow (04:41):
One of the cool things as I, as I've gotten to reflect back
on my my sports days in, in college.
One of the really cool thingsabout sports was that you were
always focused on self-improvement.
And which is something I had reallygotten away from for a long time.
Yeah.
And so now I'm getting back into it andthat was one of the really cool things
(05:02):
cuz every time you go in the room,you are looking to improve a skill.
You are looking to improve yourconditioning, you're looking at,
improving your mental aspect of things.
You're looking to improve how yourknowledge of the competitor and
what and what you're expectingthem to do, and, but that's it.
It's always self-improvement.
(05:23):
That is literally the whole focus ofsports, and I, I think, yes, there is
a competition piece and that outcomeof, Hey, I need to win a championship.
I need to get to Super Bowl.
I need to win a national championship.
I need to do X.
But it's all focused aroundthis concept of improving.
And I, and
Donnie Boivin (05:41):
I think that's the one thing that I would really say that the
sports people do better than most isthey have that big end goal they're
trying to get to, whether it's wearingwinning a world championship, the
fucking, world Cup, anything like that.
And it's so stupid that you can't say theN F L fucking championship game anymore
(06:03):
because they copyright the fucking thing.
But.
The idea that thereafter some sort ofmassive award is a huge indicator that I
think a lot of people should lean in on.
Because if you know what that bigthing you're trying to accomplish
there's a target to aim towards.
And I think that's where a lot ofpeople screw up is they don't know
(06:24):
what they're trying to accomplish.
They're trying to just do a whole lotof things and hope shit works out.
Versus getting dialed into, what's that?
Where am I actually going?
What am I trying to accomplish?
And I love the idea also ofthat you've gotta train just
as hard as you've got to, play.
Because I always ask the question,when it came to football specifically,
(06:48):
you got the last two minute drill.
Why for that last two minutes?
Do they freaking bust their ass?
200000000000%.
But the rest of thefootball game, they don't.
And the theory has always been,if you were to play the whole game
that way, you'd win every game.
But could you keep upthat level of intensity?
Kevin Snow (07:06):
All right you're gonna suck me down a rabbit hole.
So you look at hockey.
They play that level of intensity,the whole game, but they're only on
the ice for about a minute at a time.
They keep switching out their lines.
So they'll, a team will normally havethree or four lines that they will just
rotate every minute or so as a appropriatebased on penalties icing, all that stuff.
(07:28):
But they have 12 guys thatthey rotate constantly rotate,
Life is lack a box of chocolates.
Geez.
But they would, they gotta stophanging around all the southern guys.
Oh my God.
But they rotate 'em and that's,they can, they play that level
of intensity of the entire game.
(07:49):
They are sprinting up and down the ice,whereas you don't have that ability
with football, you, you're not switchingout your team every couple plays.
If they did, impossible you couldpotentially have that intensity where
you're playing like that, but that'sa lot more coordination and you're
gonna have to have a lot more big nametalent to fill out a 11 person team.
(08:12):
Yeah,
Donnie Boivin (08:13):
that's an interesting aspect.
Which is goes back to this idea of sportsand business, is the idea of burnout.
If you were to stay at thatlevel, intensity, nons.
You would literally burnyourself the fuck out.
Yep.
If you don't take some sortof, break or anything in there.
So that's why I'm excitedto bring on Lauren Amon.
Good guys will hear me jokinglycall her Amex cause we couldn't
(08:34):
remember how to pronounce herlast name for the longest time.
The game up, the name Amex,remember how to call our Amon.
She's a stud man.
I freaking love talking to her.
I love her energy and.
And she taught us a thing or two.
So y'all enjoy this episode.
So I'm stoked for this round.
This was one of my favorite people inthe damn world and for the longest time
(08:55):
I couldn't pronounce her fricking name.
So she got a nickname that we callher Amex because that was the only way
Id come close remembering her name.
So we're bringing on LaurenAmon today, and we're gonna talk
about the inner opponent and thethings that come along with that.
Lauren, welcome on, babe.
Tell me really quick, whatis the inner opponent?
Lauren Ammon (09:14):
Your inner opponent is the, one.
First, thank you for having me.
Two, I love you too.
Secondly, the inner opponent is thatvoice inside your head, and it's the
source of all your negative self talk,your doubt, your fear, your worry, your
shame, all of those nasty, shitty emotionsthat none of us really want to feel.
But as humans is part of the package,
Donnie Boivin (09:36):
why call it the inner opponent?
, why not Like your inner friend oryour inner buddy or your inner pal?
Lauren Ammon (09:43):
That's a really good question.
Because it's not necessarilydesigned that way, right?
You're it's one of thefirst and foremost, right?
Because I work with athletes, it's anopportunity to create something that
they understand and can work with, right?
but that inner opponent really is your,so it's almost like a natural defense
mechanism that we as humans are bornwith because it's a part of our survival
(10:05):
mechanism and it's our opponent becauseit's really their it's first intention
is protection, but that's because itwas their protection against like the
elements when we were evolving as humansNow, , it's sense of fear is all the
psychological stuff we're up against.
And so it truly is an opponent.
It's source of protection, but it'smisguided protection and is now an
(10:28):
opponent to us cuz it keeps us from whatwe truly want and going after and running
after peak performance in any sense of theword and in any realm that we're trying
to be the best that we can possibly.
Kevin Snow (10:41):
yeah.
A as a recovering college athleteI think it's a fair, totally fair.
. It's, that is an accuratedescription of what we go through.
I think the opponent is really the properterm because the words that it, that you
hear, that inner appointed saying to youaren't necessarily things that you would
hear from a buddy or a p, and it might.
(11:04):
I think the inner opponent's coming froma position of where it's trying to protect
you, but it's not doing it the right way.
And I like how you really describedthat, but yeah it's not a buddy.
It's not good things thatit's normally saying to you.
At least in my experience.
. Lauren Ammon: Yeah.
And if you do have a friendlike that, perhaps you need to
reassess if you're hanging around,
no, and it's kinda like we tell business owners in Champion Sable
(11:26):
and through Success Champion networking.
It's you need to find the peoplearound you that have done what
you're doing and you can talkto them about business to them.
, but to your family and friends who havenever had that experience, you can't
have business conversations becausethey're, they, they're gonna wanna help
and make you more successful, but thethings they say aren't actually helpful.
(11:46):
Oh, why don't you just get a job?
Yeah.
There, that's, I thinkit's that same concept.
The inner opponent is just thatside of you coming forward.
It's oh, we gotta helpKevin be successful.
You should just go study anddo stuff and not go work out.
Or, don't try out for thatdifferent wait or don't do that.
It's instead of, yeah.
. I know what that's I was like thatwhen I was in college wrestling.
(12:09):
You need to do this.
Just go do it.
It's, I think it'sreally a similar concept.
Yeah.
Donnie Boivin (12:15):
Now you've got a post on LinkedIn that I went and stole a quote
from, and I want you to speak to it.
It says, the five most powerful wordsfollowing competition is, I love you.
Who's hungry?
Yes.
So why So I'm picturing a littlekid, maybe your kid at a competition
(12:36):
left it all in the field.
Why is the five mostimportant words, I love you.
Who's hungry after a competition?
Why not?
You did awesome.
You did amazing.
You sucked.
Whatever.
Lauren Ammon (12:46):
And this is my personal opinion, as a parent, your job is
simply unconditional support andalmost neutral and objective support,
which is really hard as a parentbecause they're your children.
They're your offspring.
Your you believe yourjob is to teach them.
But the inherent flaw in that is you'reteaching them from your point of.
(13:10):
, they're not you, they're notyour children, or they are your
children, but they're not you.
, they're,
Donnie Boivin (13:14):
they're there.
Hopefully they're your children, right?
Lauren Ammon (13:16):
Yeah, I look at it this way, I had parents who I
was a swimmer, can't to this day.
At 81 years old and 75,whatever they are, cannot swim.
Literally cannot swim.
Never played a sport in their life.
And that was one of the greatest partsabout our relationship growing up.
They couldn't relate to.
(13:36):
Nothing whatsoever.
And so it was often like,okay, what are you doing?
What do we need to go?
Are you hungry?
Yeah, of course you're hungry.
Let's go find something.
And back to the point of you're great,you suck it, it all of that is coming
from the parent's point of view.
I have to do it as a parent.
I literally have to keep my mouth.
Shut, because what I will dois I will project onto them.
(13:57):
I would've done that during the game.
Why didn't you do this during the game?
That's not for me as a parent to decidefor them because when it's almost like
being an inner opponent, I'm takingthat learning lesson away from them
by interjecting with what I believethey should have done on the field.
I wasn't there.
I don't know what they're actually think.
, I don't know whatthey're actually feeling.
(14:17):
It's not fair for me to say, youshould have done X, Y, and Z one.
We're not coming from the same space.
They don't think about things the sameway I do, and they are in the experience.
I'm not,
Donnie Boivin (14:27):
One thing I love about that is when I was doing sales training,
I would tell my sales manager that theworst question to ask a salesperson
after a sales call is, how'd it?
And the reason, that's a worstquestion because if they don't
come back from that sales callscreaming, it was fucking awesome.
We got it.
We won the deal, it's ever,they fucking blew it, right?
(14:51):
, because that only time we don't talkabout is when we fucked everything up.
And I think it's thesame we applied to kids.
It can be applied to sports in general,can be applied anywhere in our life
that we all should be a little bitcognizant about asking that type of
question, how to go or giving advice.
, and it's really hard not togive advice from your own head.
Dresh.
(15:11):
. , drives me nuts when you know somebodyis trying to coach somebody and they're
giving them the advice that they.
should be doing themselves, right?
. . . I, go
Kevin Snow (15:22):
ahead.
I had the same experience as you did.
My parents, when I grew up, my parentsdidn't do sports in high school.
That wasn't a thing.
They obviously never wrestled.
My mom couldn't even watch me compete.
She would go there andshe would close her.
And then, and once it was done, thenshe could open her eyes and she'd
know, based on the cheers aroundher, if I was doing really good or
if it was not such a good day for me.
(15:43):
But they didn't have the ability tobe the helicopter parents in sports.
. So it was awesome.
Cause literally I waslike, I'm proud of you.
Are you hungry?
Yes.
I'm.
Star let's, so then, the, they seethe team and all the parents would
end up at the local supper cluband having steaks and all kinds
of food and just chowing down.
Cuz in a day we had tostart cutting weight again.
But it, it was awesomecuz you didn't have that.
(16:05):
And I see that now with other kidswhere the parents are trying to
teach them, or the parents haveactually became the coach of.
I'm like, I would've hated having myparents, either my parents as a coach.
It's funny.
That was
Donnie Boivin (16:17):
My mom, everybody knew where my mom was sitting.
Any sport I played, any one of usboys, she was the loudest woman
in the entire freaking place.
And if the ref fucked up,everybody fucking knew.
, right?
And my mom, God lovers, thesweetest, the most caring.
Everybody loves being around her, but whenit gets competitive, watch the fuck out.
(16:39):
She's all in.
And even if her boys aren't good, likeI sucked at sports, even if her boys
weren't good, you would've thought wewere the best players in the fucking.
Pans down, but neitherone of them were athletes.
The interesting thing just onthe athlete side of things is
Dad made us be in a sport everyyear We were in school, period.
We had to play because his beliefwas we had to be a part of something
(17:01):
or we would leave school itself.
Yeah.
Because that was his journey.
So interesting play.
There's another.
Post I want to talk about.
So there was a video that a coachput out and the topic of the
video was, real athletes don't get
Kevin Snow (17:20):
tired.
Great athletes don't get tired.
Great athletes don't get tired.
I'm watching it right now.
I've been waiting for thetime to bring this up.
I might have a couple other posts alreadypulled up for us to talk about too.
So you.
Did a
Donnie Boivin (17:35):
video going straight at the son of a bitch for saying,
gra great athletes don't get tired.
I know for a fact that a lot of haterscame out of the fucking woodworks on it.
, on this, which I fucking love.
Because it's anytime the haters showup, you've done something right.
Talk to me about this post.
Talk to me about the emotion youhad in this and why that emotion
(17:58):
was so strong when this happened.
Lauren Ammon (18:00):
Yeah.
, fuck, how did I not know?
You're gonna bring this up.
This,
Kevin Snow (18:04):
this is awesome,
. Lauren Ammon: Yeah.
The emotion behind it is, it's not thatI personally don't believe in hard work.
It's not that I believe thatathletes shouldn't push and push
to see what they're made of.
. Where I have issue with this is that isreally the only message that is really
(18:25):
heard inside of the sports world, that inorder to be great, you never get tired.
You never show anything otherthan perfection, other than
complete and utter domination.
It's just not true.
It's not true as a human being.
We get tired.
We feel doubt.
(18:46):
We feel shame.
We feel guilt.
We feel, holy shit, I am tired.
Does that mean I'm no longer great.
That's what I'm saying.
And everybody who came out either calledme like a snowflake or I've never worked
hard in my life and I just wanted to say.
Fuck you.
I've done 12 hour practices in mylife from 7:00 PM till 7:00 AM I
(19:06):
know what it's like to push throughsomething when you feel like you're
at the brink, but what my whole pointis that if that is the only message
that athletes hear, what can happen.
I'm not saying it happenswith every athlete.
What can happen is that becomes the beliefthey adopt and the moment they get tired,
that's when the mental trash comes inbecause the belief then becomes I'm tired.
(19:30):
That must mean I'm no longer great.
And then the whole message isyou just need to keep pushing.
You need to suck it up.
You need to keep your head down,shut up and don't show weakness.
And a lot of the other commentswere MJ and Kevin Durant and Kobe
Bryant, they're the ones who pushedthrough and never said anything.
And I challenged one of theguys, I said were you an athlete?
(19:52):
Did you ever get tired?
Like you keep saying about all these.
How do you know if they wereever tired or never got tired?
He's I've heard enough of theirinterviews to say that they never
got tired, so that's enough for me.
I'm like, yeah, that makes total sense.
Thank you.
Appreciate
that.
It doesn't matter what level ofcompetitive athletics you're at
(20:16):
college world Team Pro there.
We've gotten really good, even when I wasat division two level, to be able to pick
and choose what reality we presented.
To the mass.
, just because they talk oneway, because it is a thing.
You're not going to go to an interviewif you're heading into a big game, a big
(20:41):
tournament conference, playoffs conferencetournament, national championship.
You're never gonna put outin an interview about, yeah.
I really got tired andpracticed last week.
That's not gonna ever be themessage you put publicly as an.
, but there's no way for people whohave not been in that position to
understand what they're saying.
(21:02):
What's going actually going on atthe practices, what they're saying
to their support mechanism that theyhave in place about what's happening.
And this really feeds intoanother post that you had that I
absolutely loved that I bookmarked.
Athletes are no obligation tohave their shit together, all.
Yeah.
I'm like, thank you for saying that,because that is a think because unless
(21:23):
you've competed at a competitivelevel, Where you have the pressure
of, Hey, I need to win this match,or the team is going to lose.
I need to win this match.
Or my season is done even onwithin the wrestling room.
I have to win this match.
Or I'm not the starterfor the dual this weekend.
There is all kinds of emotion andthe pressure going on, and there are
(21:44):
going to be times when it doesn't goyour way that you are gonna lose it.
And you now have to, and it isa, the best coaches will help
you figure out when that happens.
All right.
How do you handle it better the next time?
But we're human.
And the, that's a key thing that youjust said, and I think that's really
important for business owners as well.
(22:06):
For everyone that's listening, who is?
No longer a competitive athlete, butnow in business and you're trying
to hit that, we've totally stole thewhole concept that we talked about on
s scn the Badass Live Morning Show,about the five year old that's gonna
play the Super Bowl in 18 years.
, there is that big championship thingthe business owners are playing for
and at times it's not gonna go rightand you're gonna lose your shit.
(22:28):
And understanding how to handle thatand how, what the inner voices are
actually saying and being able to say,yeah, you just need to shut the fuck up.
and stop, and be able to shut that offis a key skill for business owners.
Absolutely.
Lauren Ammon (22:45):
There's so much crossover between athletics and business.
It, it's almost unreal.
Like every time I have a businesschallenge, I'm like, okay, how did I
handle that in swimming ? What did I do?
Who did I talk to?
What went on?
And the other thing too is that, goingback to that comment is, and I was
having this conversation with someonethe other day, like when someone.
References Michael Jordan or KobeBryant or Kevin Durant, right?
(23:07):
They grew up in a very differentworld than athletes or even modern day
business owners are growing up in, right?
The world of informationis at our fingertips.
Everybody has a goddamn opinion.
Everybody wants to believe they'reright, and everyone will shove that
down your throat, and it's really hard.
I don't care who you areto filter that out in any.
, right?
That's where you have tobecome very mentally strong.
(23:29):
And that's part of it too, that whatworked in the late nine, early nine,
late eighties, early nineties, latenineties, is not gonna work in 2021.
23, whatever the hell yearwe're in at this moment,
But that's the whole messageis that as the world evolved,
the way we handle it evolves.
And actually our brains can't necessarilykeep up with how we've evolved, whether
(23:49):
it's in sport, whether it's in business.
And we as humans have to be reallycognizant of how we use our minds, what
we tell ourselves in order to get throughthe shit we experience every single day.
Donnie Boivin (24:01):
One thing you told me once upon a time is you can't hold two
competing thought processes at one time.
You can't believe it's awesomeand it sucks all at the
same time, type of concept.
Can you talk to me more about thatspecifically because I think often
as we're running our companies, Wemay have big dreams, big visions, big
things we're trying to accomplish.
(24:22):
But then at the same time, there'sthe self-doubt creeping in.
So is it, do you wanna accomplishbig things or do you wanna listen
to the self-doubt and you can'thold those two thoughts at the
same time and be effective?
Can you speak to that a little bit?
. Lauren Ammon: Yeah, that's the thing is you can hold them at the same time
actually, but that's where it's noteffective, if that makes any sense.
You can want to build this huge, bigthing and have that in your mind.
(24:43):
What you can't do is hold them andactually work on them or work towards one
while they're in your mind simultaneously.
You either have.
It's like the, it's like the idea ofpositivity versus optimism, right?
Positivity is that kind of,oh, everything's just fine.
We're just gonna make it andeverything's gonna be great.
Or , there's the optimism of, Hey, Iknow I'm gonna go through some dark
(25:06):
days, but I also recognize back towhere, what we were talking about
earlier this week . I've got the SuperBowl however many years down the road.
That's what I'm working towards.
I know I'm gonna go through shitin order to actually get there.
It's not always gonna be easy.
It's not always gonna be sunshineand roses, but I have faith
that I'm gonna make it through.
That's what it's like.
That is the idea of being ableto hold onto a thought that's
(25:30):
holding onto one thought.
I know I can make it.
I just know I have to trudge throughthe jungle with a machete in order to
clear the path in order to get there.
I may walk down the wrong path atfirst and then I have to pivot,
but yeah, you cannot hold I suckand I can do this at the same time.
Like they just, they're diabolicallyor di, what's the word with Laura?
They're
Kevin Snow (25:49):
diametrically.
Lauren Ammon (25:50):
Thank you Kevin.
I knew you would get there.
Of course.
Kevin Diametrically.
I know, right?
They're diametrically opposedand to your, what You just.
You have to make the choice ofthe one you want to believe.
And the moment you make the choiceis the moment that either you stay
where you are because you believeyou suck or you keep going cuz you
know you've gotta get through shit inorder to get through the other side.
Kevin Snow (26:11):
And that kind of piggybacks on the whole concept of, The universe
will provide, and that whole ideaof, just put yourself out there and
the universe will take care of you.
It was like, oh no.
As a 14 year old kid, when Istarted wrestling, I was like,
I wanted to be at some point inmy career, an Olympic champion.
I wanted to be the gold medalist.
(26:32):
Cause that was the pinnacle of.
Olympic of wrestling was, you werea gold medalist in the Olympian.
Donnie Boivin (26:38):
Wait, they had WWF when you were a kid.
Why wasn't the guy, youcould have been the next
Kevin Snow (26:41):
talk.
Hogan and there was a, there were a pairof twins from a town about 45 minutes
from me that actually both won Golds.
And so they were like theposter boys for me growing up.
But that whole concept of.
, the, just the universalprovide does not work.
I still, if I wanted to be an Olympicchampion, I had to, just for the record,
I never actually was an Olympic champion.
(27:03):
I just need to make sure everyoneunderstands that I'm not saying that
I was, and here's how I got there.
I had to put into work.
There were things you had to do.
You couldn't just step onthe mat and be that champion.
You had to do the reps, youhave to do the hard work.
And Donnie, you posted theother day about hard work.
And someone and Icomment was just awesome.
(27:23):
It was like, yeah, another CEOtelling people they have to work hard.
I'm like, dude, you don't even fuckinghave a clue about what he's talking about.
And that mindset piece is really key cuzyou have to understand that, hey, I'm
gonna have to slog through some shit atsome point because nothing's going to be
working the way I want it to, but I stillhave to get through cuz I gotta get the
reps in and I need to do what I need todo if I wanna get to this championship.
Lauren Ammon (27:47):
Yeah, I like to find the, you guys know me, I
like to find that happy littlemedium between those two things.
So I think that concept of, justthrow it out into the universe and
the universe provide, I think it's oneof those things where it's overused
in some respects, but I do believethere's a bit of truth to that.
but only if it's backed byputting in the work to get there.
(28:10):
And the reason I say that isgoing back to athletics, right?
And Kevin, you and I have had thisconversation ask not 10 athletes what
their best performance was all aboutnine of them will say, I have no idea.
I don't remember it.
I, it just happened.
But those are those moments where youjust released to the moment, right?
You put in hours upon hours ofwork in the gym, in the pool, on
(28:33):
the map, whatever the case may be.
And you got to that momentand you just said, fuck it.
I've done what I can do in this moment.
I'm just gonna surrender towhat, I hate the word surrender
cuz I, it, it creates a.
somewhat victim mentality, butI'm gonna embrace this moment
and just let whatever happens.
That's where I think those twothoughts can come together without
(28:56):
going extreme on either one of
Donnie Boivin (28:58):
them.
Yeah I can get behind that.
I can say in, so we get coming to aclose here, but a lot of my years, the
problem I faced was I wanted it to come.
And I just wanted it to fucking happen.
And I would challenge anybody who'son the extreme side of manifest your
destiny type shit, that if you goto any, find anybody who talks about
(29:22):
you can just manifest your way there.
Go look where they're at in lifeand then backtrack how hard they
fucking worked to get to that placethat they manifested, alone, right?
. is a badass combination of both of them.
Last statement I want for from you is atthe summit, the Badass Business Summit.
I worked out every morning.
(29:42):
I watched you fucking work outevery morning, and you're a beast.
And you coined a phrase duringthat moment called workout words
because of the language that cameoutta your mouth as their, so I want
people to understand you actuallyfucking are in beast mode most times.
Fucking, I saw you punish the shitoutta yourself in that gym to a level
(30:06):
that I could not do so kudos for that.
Okay.
Why do you do all that?
Why that hard?
Because I think it's cuz you're tr you'regoing straight at your inner opponent.
That's the reason I ask it.
Lauren Ammon (30:18):
There are a couple of different reasons.
One, it's what I'm used to, right?
So anybody who knows anything abouta year round swimmer, like I swam
10,000 yards in two and a half hours.
booking it.
And it, we were forced to do it.
One, I'm used to it two it isa, an outlet for all the shit
(30:38):
that goes through my mind.
It's a way for my body to say, fuckit, you're not gonna win , quite
honestly in a way, and I just, Ilove working that hard because I.
I am so motivated by being able to tell myyesterday version, you had nothing on me.
Donnie Boivin (30:59):
I love it.
I love it.
How does everybody find you, Lauren?
Lauren Ammon (31:03):
I can go to performance reimagine.com is our website.
And then on Instagram, it'sperformance underscore reimagined
Donnie Boivin (31:09):
underscore.
And if you don't watch some of hervideos and her, some of her freaking
dancing and lip syncing and all theother craziness she does and hopefully
if you come to the Badass BusinessSummit, you might get to see your rap,
which was freaking awesome as well.
Lauren, thanks so much forhanging out with us, babe.
It's been always fun hanging out with you.
Love the way you think andthanks for always being you.
Lauren Ammon (31:32):
Oh, right back at you.
Thanks guys.
Donnie Boivin (31:35):
All right, dude.
I love hanging out with Lauren, dude.
I love the fact that we gotta go afterthat one freaking Instagram post with
that coach man, about not getting tired.
I just love getting firedup for, for anything.
But the whole idea Is all
Kevin Snow (31:48):
that, that whole concept is dumb.
The, I don't care what level ofcompetition you're at, even the most
elite athletes get tired and they,and there's a reason that rest days
are built into a workout schedule.
There's a reason aft the day aftera game N NFL players watch film.
(32:10):
They aren't practicing.
They're going and getting, Thephysical therapy and all the stuff
so that they can go back out on thefield on Tuesday and practice again.
You, your body gets tired,your mind gets tired.
And it's, that's one of thethings that l Lauren is amazing at
helping athletes figure out how toactually manage that mental aspect,
Donnie Boivin (32:35):
dude, and good on her for going down that path because she's
got a wicked battle in front of her.
Even growing up as a kid, it was kill,destroy, you'll win at all costs.
It was the mentality we grew upon from a sports side of things.
Granted, I didn't sport a whole lot, butI never saw any of the coaches sit down
and be like, okay, let's take the day offand, meditate, relax, read the playbook.
(32:57):
It was nope, five days a week,two a days, and the like.
Is, let's go when, and I
Kevin Snow (33:05):
can speak to myself.
In college we we had a scheduleand we knew basically what each
day was gonna be focused on.
And if we had a midweek dual we'd knowthat the day after the prac of that
dual if you were one of the starters forthat dual, you are gonna have a lighter.
And you were gonna do focus moretechnique and stuff cuz you just
had, you were going all out andyou had a match the night before.
(33:28):
So they let you recover a little bit andthen the next day it'll be a hard one.
It was, your body can'tperform at 110% all the time.
And in business, your mind can'tperform like that all the time.
You have to have those partsof your schedule where you get
to zone out and you recover.
For you it's the farming on Thursdays.
(33:48):
Yep.
Yep.
That is your recovery time.
That is your day.
That is your film day ifyou're a football player.
Yeah.
But you have to build those in.
And I've gotten, over the last six months,I've been much more intentional about my
weekends, not just sitting on my computer,working on stuff the entire time.
(34:09):
I'm much more intentional, allright, I'm gonna go do this.
I'm gonna get these things.
I'm going to let my eyes recover fromthe blue light , from my super giant
screens and let my brain just process.
And now that's a lot of what my weekendis I'm thinking about stuff that I want
to then write down and actually do.
(34:29):
Yeah.
Donnie Boivin (34:29):
That's huge.
Yeah.
I can tell you Kevin and I areboth under the mind of do the
work until the work's done.
That just comes from farm life and,it's fun to take another place in time
though, farm life to business, lifesports, life to business life, and how
much they correlate and overlap and, It'snot necessarily the hustle and grind,
but building a business is fucking hard.
There is a lot of hard things you'vegotta do in in to get it done.
(34:52):
And you guys are gonna hear in an upcomingepisode where I go to battle with someone
over this idea of doing the hard things.
But the whole thought process of whenat all costs or, bust your ass until.
Crawl into home plate typething is gonna destroy you.
But you still gotta get the work done.
(35:13):
So I loved hanging out with her.
You guys head over to her website,freaking go spend some time with her.
She's doing a lot of work with a lot ofuniversities and high schoolers right
now If you got your kids going throughsports or the whatnot and you're worried
about the mindset side of things,how do they keep themselves ready?
Go through it, man.
Check out Lauren, man.
She is a beast over atPerformance Reimagined.
(35:36):
And don't you just lovehanging out with that girl?
Always.
Kevin Snow (35:41):
And it's funny, going back to that, that video of the
coach saying people don't get tired.
If.
If the college programs, the athleticdepartments haven't, hadn't identified
that this was actually an issue wheremental breaks, physical, all that type of
stuff, they wouldn't be bringing peopleon staff that do what Lauren does, the
(36:02):
fact that major universities have peopleon staff that are clinical psychologists,
clinical sports psychologists, tohelp people figure out the mental game
shows you just how important it is.
Yeah.
And shows you that this is a partof your training and your regimen
that you need to pay attention to.
And it's the same in business.
There is a huge mental aspectand you need to have someone that
(36:25):
can help you with that piece.
Donnie Boivin (36:27):
Agreed.
Agreed.
So guys as always, if you gotany value out of this, any tips,
tricks, anything that'll help us,please leave us a five star review.
Wherever you listen to podcast,you're on YouTube, please subscribe.
Comment below with anything thatwe need to further clarify or any
questions you may have, and sharethis out with somebody who you think
(36:48):
would benefit from listening to us.
And as always, love you mean it.
See you.
Bye.
So I'm really excited about today's episode because
we get to talk about sports
. Donnie Boivin: I knew that was going.
(00:21):
Specifically we get to talk about college sports.
For most of you probably knowthat I wrestled in college, so I
actually walked on as a freshman toSouth Dakota State wrestling team.
I didn't really appreciatethe coach and the style.
So after my freshman year, Iredshirted I didn't go out again.
I was done and yeah, this isn'tall I thought it was gonna be.
(00:43):
And I actually got involved in studentgovernment for the university I was at.
So I was elected as one of mycollege's student senators.
Then I was elected to represent theuniversity at the Board of Regents
as the VP for the State Federationof Universities student associations.
I represented all the universities.
I went to all the board of regentmeetings every couple months
(01:04):
and all that type of stuff.
And then we got a new coach and I hadknown who he was and his style, and I'm
like, I actually think this is the rightperson that I could actually compete for.
So I actually resigned.
As vice President of the StudentFederation I didn't run for reelection
(01:24):
for Senate and then I went back,walked back on for wrestling for
my final two years of school.
And my president of the Student Federationwas was not happy with me cuz I resigned
midterm to go do this thing and.
And we were talking after every, all the,everything had settled down a little bit.
(01:46):
And she's I was talking to my, someof my mentors and advisors and she's
I don't understand how he couldquit being a Federation VP and then
just go out to be on a sports team.
And I don't understand, he's losing onso many opportunities in this position.
And she's my, my mentors all.
Do you realize how many CEOs and upperlevel executives in the business world
(02:09):
were varsity athletes in college?
? And she's what?
Really?
He's yeah.
And they, here's all the stuffthey get from it, and here's why
they're so successful in business.
And then she was like, Oh, now I get it.
You know that there's so manyoverlaps between sports and,
competitive sports and business.
(02:30):
A lot of it is mindsetand how you look at.
Getting where you need to be.
And then a lot of it is being reallyunderstanding what's going on in your
world and how to manage all the stuff at
Donnie Boivin (02:43):
once.
That's the first timeI've heard that story.
It's a really cool experience that Ihadn't heard you talk about before.
What's interesting for me is, a lotof my story guys haven't heard, I
didn't do the whole sport thing.
I needed a little bit in juniorhigh, but once I got into junior high
football, I couldn't keep my grades.
And because I was failingclasses, I couldn't play sports.
(03:03):
So they put me with a group ofpeople called the Flunkies, and
that's what they actually called us.
They called us like six or seven notes.
They called us flus.
And in my mind I'm like, fuck, if I'mgonna be a fluky, let me show you what
it means to be a fucking fluky andI'm gonna own the shit out of this.
And that sent me down a path ofa lot of really crazy things.
(03:24):
Now I'm extremely competitiveand when I do play sports,
you're gonna know I'm there.
I may not be the most graceful sonof a bitch on the field, but you're
gonna, you're gonna know my presence.
And like especially in the MarineCorps, I played a ton of basketball
in the Marine Corps because it wasjust easy sport that you could get
together as long as there's a hoop.
And here's what I can tell you thatsome of your most successful people in
(03:48):
the world come from a sports backgroundand even in this cool day and age that
we're living in now, if you look at youreSport guys, which are like your geeks
of the geeks, you know who that arecompeting in sports on games, virtual.
They're dominating the world nowwith the things they're doing and the
following from what not they're creating.
(04:08):
And it's amazing how much things likethe discipline of beginning good at a
sport to the mindset of you can take agood or negative of, in Kevin's case,
getting the right coach to going, okay,now I'm gonna go all in for this guy.
My.
Having coaches call me a fuckingfluky going, all right, fuck you.
(04:28):
Hold my beer and watch this shit.
It's really telling about howmuch the sports impacts or the
how much sports correlates over.
To the business world.
Yeah.
And all the things that, thathappened on both sides of that.
Kevin Snow (04:41):
One of the cool things as I, as I've gotten to reflect back
on my my sports days in, in college.
One of the really cool thingsabout sports was that you were
always focused on self-improvement.
And which is something I had reallygotten away from for a long time.
Yeah.
And so now I'm getting back into it andthat was one of the really cool things
(05:02):
cuz every time you go in the room,you are looking to improve a skill.
You are looking to improve yourconditioning, you're looking at,
improving your mental aspect of things.
You're looking to improve how yourknowledge of the competitor and
what and what you're expectingthem to do, and, but that's it.
It's always self-improvement.
(05:23):
That is literally the whole focus ofsports, and I, I think, yes, there is
a competition piece and that outcomeof, Hey, I need to win a championship.
I need to get to Super Bowl.
I need to win a national championship.
I need to do X.
But it's all focused aroundthis concept of improving.
And I, and
Donnie Boivin (05:41):
I think that's the one thing that I would really say that the
sports people do better than most isthey have that big end goal they're
trying to get to, whether it's wearingwinning a world championship, the
fucking, world Cup, anything like that.
And it's so stupid that you can't say theN F L fucking championship game anymore
(06:03):
because they copyright the fucking thing.
But.
The idea that thereafter some sort ofmassive award is a huge indicator that I
think a lot of people should lean in on.
Because if you know what that bigthing you're trying to accomplish
there's a target to aim towards.
And I think that's where a lot ofpeople screw up is they don't know
(06:24):
what they're trying to accomplish.
They're trying to just do a whole lotof things and hope shit works out.
Versus getting dialed into, what's that?
Where am I actually going?
What am I trying to accomplish?
And I love the idea also ofthat you've gotta train just
as hard as you've got to, play.
Because I always ask the question,when it came to football specifically,
(06:48):
you got the last two minute drill.
Why for that last two minutes?
Do they freaking bust their ass?
200000000000%.
But the rest of thefootball game, they don't.
And the theory has always been,if you were to play the whole game
that way, you'd win every game.
But could you keep upthat level of intensity?
Kevin Snow (07:06):
All right you're gonna suck me down a rabbit hole.
So you look at hockey.
They play that level of intensity,the whole game, but they're only on
the ice for about a minute at a time.
They keep switching out their lines.
So they'll, a team will normally havethree or four lines that they will just
rotate every minute or so as a appropriatebased on penalties icing, all that stuff.
(07:28):
But they have 12 guys thatthey rotate constantly rotate,
Life is lack a box of chocolates.
Geez.
But they would, they gotta stophanging around all the southern guys.
Oh my God.
But they rotate 'em and that's,they can, they play that level
of intensity of the entire game.
(07:49):
They are sprinting up and down the ice,whereas you don't have that ability
with football, you, you're not switchingout your team every couple plays.
If they did, impossible you couldpotentially have that intensity where
you're playing like that, but that'sa lot more coordination and you're
gonna have to have a lot more big nametalent to fill out a 11 person team.
(08:12):
Yeah,
Donnie Boivin (08:13):
that's an interesting aspect.
Which is goes back to this idea of sportsand business, is the idea of burnout.
If you were to stay at thatlevel, intensity, nons.
You would literally burnyourself the fuck out.
Yep.
If you don't take some sortof, break or anything in there.
So that's why I'm excitedto bring on Lauren Amon.
Good guys will hear me jokinglycall her Amex cause we couldn't
(08:34):
remember how to pronounce herlast name for the longest time.
The game up, the name Amex,remember how to call our Amon.
She's a stud man.
I freaking love talking to her.
I love her energy and.
And she taught us a thing or two.
So y'all enjoy this episode.
So I'm stoked for this round.
This was one of my favorite people inthe damn world and for the longest time
(08:55):
I couldn't pronounce her fricking name.
So she got a nickname that we callher Amex because that was the only way
Id come close remembering her name.
So we're bringing on LaurenAmon today, and we're gonna talk
about the inner opponent and thethings that come along with that.
Lauren, welcome on, babe.
Tell me really quick, whatis the inner opponent?
Lauren Ammon (09:14):
Your inner opponent is the, one.
First, thank you for having me.
Two, I love you too.
Secondly, the inner opponent is thatvoice inside your head, and it's the
source of all your negative self talk,your doubt, your fear, your worry, your
shame, all of those nasty, shitty emotionsthat none of us really want to feel.
But as humans is part of the package,
Donnie Boivin (09:36):
why call it the inner opponent?
, why not Like your inner friend oryour inner buddy or your inner pal?
Lauren Ammon (09:43):
That's a really good question.
Because it's not necessarilydesigned that way, right?
You're it's one of thefirst and foremost, right?
Because I work with athletes, it's anopportunity to create something that
they understand and can work with, right?
but that inner opponent really is your,so it's almost like a natural defense
mechanism that we as humans are bornwith because it's a part of our survival
(10:05):
mechanism and it's our opponent becauseit's really their it's first intention
is protection, but that's because itwas their protection against like the
elements when we were evolving as humansNow, , it's sense of fear is all the
psychological stuff we're up against.
And so it truly is an opponent.
It's source of protection, but it'smisguided protection and is now an
(10:28):
opponent to us cuz it keeps us from whatwe truly want and going after and running
after peak performance in any sense of theword and in any realm that we're trying
to be the best that we can possibly.
Kevin Snow (10:41):
yeah.
A as a recovering college athleteI think it's a fair, totally fair.
. It's, that is an accuratedescription of what we go through.
I think the opponent is really the properterm because the words that it, that you
hear, that inner appointed saying to youaren't necessarily things that you would
hear from a buddy or a p, and it might.
(11:04):
I think the inner opponent's coming froma position of where it's trying to protect
you, but it's not doing it the right way.
And I like how you really describedthat, but yeah it's not a buddy.
It's not good things thatit's normally saying to you.
At least in my experience.
. Lauren Ammon: Yeah.
And if you do have a friendlike that, perhaps you need to
reassess if you're hanging around,
no, and it's kinda like we tell business owners in Champion Sable
(11:26):
and through Success Champion networking.
It's you need to find the peoplearound you that have done what
you're doing and you can talkto them about business to them.
, but to your family and friends who havenever had that experience, you can't
have business conversations becausethey're, they, they're gonna wanna help
and make you more successful, but thethings they say aren't actually helpful.
(11:46):
Oh, why don't you just get a job?
Yeah.
There, that's, I thinkit's that same concept.
The inner opponent is just thatside of you coming forward.
It's oh, we gotta helpKevin be successful.
You should just go study anddo stuff and not go work out.
Or, don't try out for thatdifferent wait or don't do that.
It's instead of, yeah.
. I know what that's I was like thatwhen I was in college wrestling.
(12:09):
You need to do this.
Just go do it.
It's, I think it'sreally a similar concept.
Yeah.
Donnie Boivin (12:15):
Now you've got a post on LinkedIn that I went and stole a quote
from, and I want you to speak to it.
It says, the five most powerful wordsfollowing competition is, I love you.
Who's hungry?
Yes.
So why So I'm picturing a littlekid, maybe your kid at a competition
(12:36):
left it all in the field.
Why is the five mostimportant words, I love you.
Who's hungry after a competition?
Why not?
You did awesome.
You did amazing.
You sucked.
Whatever.
Lauren Ammon (12:46):
And this is my personal opinion, as a parent, your job is
simply unconditional support andalmost neutral and objective support,
which is really hard as a parentbecause they're your children.
They're your offspring.
Your you believe yourjob is to teach them.
But the inherent flaw in that is you'reteaching them from your point of.
(13:10):
, they're not you, they're notyour children, or they are your
children, but they're not you.
, they're,
Donnie Boivin (13:14):
they're there.
Hopefully they're your children, right?
Lauren Ammon (13:16):
Yeah, I look at it this way, I had parents who I
was a swimmer, can't to this day.
At 81 years old and 75,whatever they are, cannot swim.
Literally cannot swim.
Never played a sport in their life.
And that was one of the greatest partsabout our relationship growing up.
They couldn't relate to.
(13:36):
Nothing whatsoever.
And so it was often like,okay, what are you doing?
What do we need to go?
Are you hungry?
Yeah, of course you're hungry.
Let's go find something.
And back to the point of you're great,you suck it, it all of that is coming
from the parent's point of view.
I have to do it as a parent.
I literally have to keep my mouth.
Shut, because what I will dois I will project onto them.
(13:57):
I would've done that during the game.
Why didn't you do this during the game?
That's not for me as a parent to decidefor them because when it's almost like
being an inner opponent, I'm takingthat learning lesson away from them
by interjecting with what I believethey should have done on the field.
I wasn't there.
I don't know what they're actually think.
, I don't know whatthey're actually feeling.
(14:17):
It's not fair for me to say, youshould have done X, Y, and Z one.
We're not coming from the same space.
They don't think about things the sameway I do, and they are in the experience.
I'm not,
Donnie Boivin (14:27):
One thing I love about that is when I was doing sales training,
I would tell my sales manager that theworst question to ask a salesperson
after a sales call is, how'd it?
And the reason, that's a worstquestion because if they don't
come back from that sales callscreaming, it was fucking awesome.
We got it.
We won the deal, it's ever,they fucking blew it, right?
(14:51):
, because that only time we don't talkabout is when we fucked everything up.
And I think it's thesame we applied to kids.
It can be applied to sports in general,can be applied anywhere in our life
that we all should be a little bitcognizant about asking that type of
question, how to go or giving advice.
, and it's really hard not togive advice from your own head.
Dresh.
(15:11):
. , drives me nuts when you know somebodyis trying to coach somebody and they're
giving them the advice that they.
should be doing themselves, right?
. . . I, go
Kevin Snow (15:22):
ahead.
I had the same experience as you did.
My parents, when I grew up, my parentsdidn't do sports in high school.
That wasn't a thing.
They obviously never wrestled.
My mom couldn't even watch me compete.
She would go there andshe would close her.
And then, and once it was done, thenshe could open her eyes and she'd
know, based on the cheers aroundher, if I was doing really good or
if it was not such a good day for me.
(15:43):
But they didn't have the ability tobe the helicopter parents in sports.
. So it was awesome.
Cause literally I waslike, I'm proud of you.
Are you hungry?
Yes.
I'm.
Star let's, so then, the, they seethe team and all the parents would
end up at the local supper cluband having steaks and all kinds
of food and just chowing down.
Cuz in a day we had tostart cutting weight again.
But it, it was awesomecuz you didn't have that.
(16:05):
And I see that now with other kidswhere the parents are trying to
teach them, or the parents haveactually became the coach of.
I'm like, I would've hated having myparents, either my parents as a coach.
It's funny.
That was
Donnie Boivin (16:17):
My mom, everybody knew where my mom was sitting.
Any sport I played, any one of usboys, she was the loudest woman
in the entire freaking place.
And if the ref fucked up,everybody fucking knew.
, right?
And my mom, God lovers, thesweetest, the most caring.
Everybody loves being around her, but whenit gets competitive, watch the fuck out.
(16:39):
She's all in.
And even if her boys aren't good, likeI sucked at sports, even if her boys
weren't good, you would've thought wewere the best players in the fucking.
Pans down, but neitherone of them were athletes.
The interesting thing just onthe athlete side of things is
Dad made us be in a sport everyyear We were in school, period.
We had to play because his beliefwas we had to be a part of something
(17:01):
or we would leave school itself.
Yeah.
Because that was his journey.
So interesting play.
There's another.
Post I want to talk about.
So there was a video that a coachput out and the topic of the
video was, real athletes don't get
Kevin Snow (17:20):
tired.
Great athletes don't get tired.
Great athletes don't get tired.
I'm watching it right now.
I've been waiting for thetime to bring this up.
I might have a couple other posts alreadypulled up for us to talk about too.
So you.
Did a
Donnie Boivin (17:35):
video going straight at the son of a bitch for saying,
gra great athletes don't get tired.
I know for a fact that a lot of haterscame out of the fucking woodworks on it.
, on this, which I fucking love.
Because it's anytime the haters showup, you've done something right.
Talk to me about this post.
Talk to me about the emotion youhad in this and why that emotion
(17:58):
was so strong when this happened.
Lauren Ammon (18:00):
Yeah.
, fuck, how did I not know?
You're gonna bring this up.
This,
Kevin Snow (18:04):
this is awesome,
. Lauren Ammon: Yeah.
The emotion behind it is, it's not thatI personally don't believe in hard work.
It's not that I believe thatathletes shouldn't push and push
to see what they're made of.
. Where I have issue with this is that isreally the only message that is really
(18:25):
heard inside of the sports world, that inorder to be great, you never get tired.
You never show anything otherthan perfection, other than
complete and utter domination.
It's just not true.
It's not true as a human being.
We get tired.
We feel doubt.
(18:46):
We feel shame.
We feel guilt.
We feel, holy shit, I am tired.
Does that mean I'm no longer great.
That's what I'm saying.
And everybody who came out either calledme like a snowflake or I've never worked
hard in my life and I just wanted to say.
Fuck you.
I've done 12 hour practices in mylife from 7:00 PM till 7:00 AM I
(19:06):
know what it's like to push throughsomething when you feel like you're
at the brink, but what my whole pointis that if that is the only message
that athletes hear, what can happen.
I'm not saying it happenswith every athlete.
What can happen is that becomes the beliefthey adopt and the moment they get tired,
that's when the mental trash comes inbecause the belief then becomes I'm tired.
(19:30):
That must mean I'm no longer great.
And then the whole message isyou just need to keep pushing.
You need to suck it up.
You need to keep your head down,shut up and don't show weakness.
And a lot of the other commentswere MJ and Kevin Durant and Kobe
Bryant, they're the ones who pushedthrough and never said anything.
And I challenged one of theguys, I said were you an athlete?
(19:52):
Did you ever get tired?
Like you keep saying about all these.
How do you know if they wereever tired or never got tired?
He's I've heard enough of theirinterviews to say that they never
got tired, so that's enough for me.
I'm like, yeah, that makes total sense.
Thank you.
Appreciate
that.
It doesn't matter what level ofcompetitive athletics you're at
(20:16):
college world Team Pro there.
We've gotten really good, even when I wasat division two level, to be able to pick
and choose what reality we presented.
To the mass.
, just because they talk oneway, because it is a thing.
You're not going to go to an interviewif you're heading into a big game, a big
(20:41):
tournament conference, playoffs conferencetournament, national championship.
You're never gonna put outin an interview about, yeah.
I really got tired andpracticed last week.
That's not gonna ever be themessage you put publicly as an.
, but there's no way for people whohave not been in that position to
understand what they're saying.
(21:02):
What's going actually going on atthe practices, what they're saying
to their support mechanism that theyhave in place about what's happening.
And this really feeds intoanother post that you had that I
absolutely loved that I bookmarked.
Athletes are no obligation tohave their shit together, all.
Yeah.
I'm like, thank you for saying that,because that is a think because unless
(21:23):
you've competed at a competitivelevel, Where you have the pressure
of, Hey, I need to win this match,or the team is going to lose.
I need to win this match.
Or my season is done even onwithin the wrestling room.
I have to win this match.
Or I'm not the starterfor the dual this weekend.
There is all kinds of emotion andthe pressure going on, and there are
(21:44):
going to be times when it doesn't goyour way that you are gonna lose it.
And you now have to, and it isa, the best coaches will help
you figure out when that happens.
All right.
How do you handle it better the next time?
But we're human.
And the, that's a key thing that youjust said, and I think that's really
important for business owners as well.
(22:06):
For everyone that's listening, who is?
No longer a competitive athlete, butnow in business and you're trying
to hit that, we've totally stole thewhole concept that we talked about on
s scn the Badass Live Morning Show,about the five year old that's gonna
play the Super Bowl in 18 years.
, there is that big championship thingthe business owners are playing for
and at times it's not gonna go rightand you're gonna lose your shit.
(22:28):
And understanding how to handle thatand how, what the inner voices are
actually saying and being able to say,yeah, you just need to shut the fuck up.
and stop, and be able to shut that offis a key skill for business owners.
Absolutely.
Lauren Ammon (22:45):
There's so much crossover between athletics and business.
It, it's almost unreal.
Like every time I have a businesschallenge, I'm like, okay, how did I
handle that in swimming ? What did I do?
Who did I talk to?
What went on?
And the other thing too is that, goingback to that comment is, and I was
having this conversation with someonethe other day, like when someone.
References Michael Jordan or KobeBryant or Kevin Durant, right?
(23:07):
They grew up in a very differentworld than athletes or even modern day
business owners are growing up in, right?
The world of informationis at our fingertips.
Everybody has a goddamn opinion.
Everybody wants to believe they'reright, and everyone will shove that
down your throat, and it's really hard.
I don't care who you areto filter that out in any.
, right?
That's where you have tobecome very mentally strong.
(23:29):
And that's part of it too, that whatworked in the late nine, early nine,
late eighties, early nineties, latenineties, is not gonna work in 2021.
23, whatever the hell yearwe're in at this moment,
But that's the whole messageis that as the world evolved,
the way we handle it evolves.
And actually our brains can't necessarilykeep up with how we've evolved, whether
(23:49):
it's in sport, whether it's in business.
And we as humans have to be reallycognizant of how we use our minds, what
we tell ourselves in order to get throughthe shit we experience every single day.
Donnie Boivin (24:01):
One thing you told me once upon a time is you can't hold two
competing thought processes at one time.
You can't believe it's awesomeand it sucks all at the
same time, type of concept.
Can you talk to me more about thatspecifically because I think often
as we're running our companies, Wemay have big dreams, big visions, big
things we're trying to accomplish.
(24:22):
But then at the same time, there'sthe self-doubt creeping in.
So is it, do you wanna accomplishbig things or do you wanna listen
to the self-doubt and you can'thold those two thoughts at the
same time and be effective?
Can you speak to that a little bit?
. Lauren Ammon: Yeah, that's the thing is you can hold them at the same time
actually, but that's where it's noteffective, if that makes any sense.
You can want to build this huge, bigthing and have that in your mind.
(24:43):
What you can't do is hold them andactually work on them or work towards one
while they're in your mind simultaneously.
You either have.
It's like the, it's like the idea ofpositivity versus optimism, right?
Positivity is that kind of,oh, everything's just fine.
We're just gonna make it andeverything's gonna be great.
Or , there's the optimism of, Hey, Iknow I'm gonna go through some dark
(25:06):
days, but I also recognize back towhere, what we were talking about
earlier this week . I've got the SuperBowl however many years down the road.
That's what I'm working towards.
I know I'm gonna go through shitin order to actually get there.
It's not always gonna be easy.
It's not always gonna be sunshineand roses, but I have faith
that I'm gonna make it through.
That's what it's like.
That is the idea of being ableto hold onto a thought that's
(25:30):
holding onto one thought.
I know I can make it.
I just know I have to trudge throughthe jungle with a machete in order to
clear the path in order to get there.
I may walk down the wrong path atfirst and then I have to pivot,
but yeah, you cannot hold I suckand I can do this at the same time.
Like they just, they're diabolicallyor di, what's the word with Laura?
They're
Kevin Snow (25:49):
diametrically.
Lauren Ammon (25:50):
Thank you Kevin.
I knew you would get there.
Of course.
Kevin Diametrically.
I know, right?
They're diametrically opposedand to your, what You just.
You have to make the choice ofthe one you want to believe.
And the moment you make the choiceis the moment that either you stay
where you are because you believeyou suck or you keep going cuz you
know you've gotta get through shit inorder to get through the other side.
Kevin Snow (26:11):
And that kind of piggybacks on the whole concept of, The universe
will provide, and that whole ideaof, just put yourself out there and
the universe will take care of you.
It was like, oh no.
As a 14 year old kid, when Istarted wrestling, I was like,
I wanted to be at some point inmy career, an Olympic champion.
I wanted to be the gold medalist.
(26:32):
Cause that was the pinnacle of.
Olympic of wrestling was, you werea gold medalist in the Olympian.
Donnie Boivin (26:38):
Wait, they had WWF when you were a kid.
Why wasn't the guy, youcould have been the next
Kevin Snow (26:41):
talk.
Hogan and there was a, there were a pairof twins from a town about 45 minutes
from me that actually both won Golds.
And so they were like theposter boys for me growing up.
But that whole concept of.
, the, just the universalprovide does not work.
I still, if I wanted to be an Olympicchampion, I had to, just for the record,
I never actually was an Olympic champion.
(27:03):
I just need to make sure everyoneunderstands that I'm not saying that
I was, and here's how I got there.
I had to put into work.
There were things you had to do.
You couldn't just step onthe mat and be that champion.
You had to do the reps, youhave to do the hard work.
And Donnie, you posted theother day about hard work.
And someone and Icomment was just awesome.
(27:23):
It was like, yeah, another CEOtelling people they have to work hard.
I'm like, dude, you don't even fuckinghave a clue about what he's talking about.
And that mindset piece is really key cuzyou have to understand that, hey, I'm
gonna have to slog through some shit atsome point because nothing's going to be
working the way I want it to, but I stillhave to get through cuz I gotta get the
reps in and I need to do what I need todo if I wanna get to this championship.
Lauren Ammon (27:47):
Yeah, I like to find the, you guys know me, I
like to find that happy littlemedium between those two things.
So I think that concept of, justthrow it out into the universe and
the universe provide, I think it's oneof those things where it's overused
in some respects, but I do believethere's a bit of truth to that.
but only if it's backed byputting in the work to get there.
(28:10):
And the reason I say that isgoing back to athletics, right?
And Kevin, you and I have had thisconversation ask not 10 athletes what
their best performance was all aboutnine of them will say, I have no idea.
I don't remember it.
I, it just happened.
But those are those moments where youjust released to the moment, right?
You put in hours upon hours ofwork in the gym, in the pool, on
(28:33):
the map, whatever the case may be.
And you got to that momentand you just said, fuck it.
I've done what I can do in this moment.
I'm just gonna surrender towhat, I hate the word surrender
cuz I, it, it creates a.
somewhat victim mentality, butI'm gonna embrace this moment
and just let whatever happens.
That's where I think those twothoughts can come together without
(28:56):
going extreme on either one of
Donnie Boivin (28:58):
them.
Yeah I can get behind that.
I can say in, so we get coming to aclose here, but a lot of my years, the
problem I faced was I wanted it to come.
And I just wanted it to fucking happen.
And I would challenge anybody who'son the extreme side of manifest your
destiny type shit, that if you goto any, find anybody who talks about
(29:22):
you can just manifest your way there.
Go look where they're at in lifeand then backtrack how hard they
fucking worked to get to that placethat they manifested, alone, right?
. is a badass combination of both of them.
Last statement I want for from you is atthe summit, the Badass Business Summit.
I worked out every morning.
(29:42):
I watched you fucking work outevery morning, and you're a beast.
And you coined a phrase duringthat moment called workout words
because of the language that cameoutta your mouth as their, so I want
people to understand you actuallyfucking are in beast mode most times.
Fucking, I saw you punish the shitoutta yourself in that gym to a level
(30:06):
that I could not do so kudos for that.
Okay.
Why do you do all that?
Why that hard?
Because I think it's cuz you're tr you'regoing straight at your inner opponent.
That's the reason I ask it.
Lauren Ammon (30:18):
There are a couple of different reasons.
One, it's what I'm used to, right?
So anybody who knows anything abouta year round swimmer, like I swam
10,000 yards in two and a half hours.
booking it.
And it, we were forced to do it.
One, I'm used to it two it isa, an outlet for all the shit
(30:38):
that goes through my mind.
It's a way for my body to say, fuckit, you're not gonna win , quite
honestly in a way, and I just, Ilove working that hard because I.
I am so motivated by being able to tell myyesterday version, you had nothing on me.
Donnie Boivin (30:59):
I love it.
I love it.
How does everybody find you, Lauren?
Lauren Ammon (31:03):
I can go to performance reimagine.com is our website.
And then on Instagram, it'sperformance underscore reimagined
Donnie Boivin (31:09):
underscore.
And if you don't watch some of hervideos and her, some of her freaking
dancing and lip syncing and all theother craziness she does and hopefully
if you come to the Badass BusinessSummit, you might get to see your rap,
which was freaking awesome as well.
Lauren, thanks so much forhanging out with us, babe.
It's been always fun hanging out with you.
Love the way you think andthanks for always being you.
Lauren Ammon (31:32):
Oh, right back at you.
Thanks guys.
Donnie Boivin (31:35):
All right, dude.
I love hanging out with Lauren, dude.
I love the fact that we gotta go afterthat one freaking Instagram post with
that coach man, about not getting tired.
I just love getting firedup for, for anything.
But the whole idea Is all
Kevin Snow (31:48):
that, that whole concept is dumb.
The, I don't care what level ofcompetition you're at, even the most
elite athletes get tired and they,and there's a reason that rest days
are built into a workout schedule.
There's a reason aft the day aftera game N NFL players watch film.
(32:10):
They aren't practicing.
They're going and getting, Thephysical therapy and all the stuff
so that they can go back out on thefield on Tuesday and practice again.
You, your body gets tired,your mind gets tired.
And it's, that's one of thethings that l Lauren is amazing at
helping athletes figure out how toactually manage that mental aspect,
Donnie Boivin (32:35):
dude, and good on her for going down that path because she's
got a wicked battle in front of her.
Even growing up as a kid, it was kill,destroy, you'll win at all costs.
It was the mentality we grew upon from a sports side of things.
Granted, I didn't sport a whole lot, butI never saw any of the coaches sit down
and be like, okay, let's take the day offand, meditate, relax, read the playbook.
(32:57):
It was nope, five days a week,two a days, and the like.
Is, let's go when, and I
Kevin Snow (33:05):
can speak to myself.
In college we we had a scheduleand we knew basically what each
day was gonna be focused on.
And if we had a midweek dual we'd knowthat the day after the prac of that
dual if you were one of the starters forthat dual, you are gonna have a lighter.
And you were gonna do focus moretechnique and stuff cuz you just
had, you were going all out andyou had a match the night before.
(33:28):
So they let you recover a little bit andthen the next day it'll be a hard one.
It was, your body can'tperform at 110% all the time.
And in business, your mind can'tperform like that all the time.
You have to have those partsof your schedule where you get
to zone out and you recover.
For you it's the farming on Thursdays.
(33:48):
Yep.
Yep.
That is your recovery time.
That is your day.
That is your film day ifyou're a football player.
Yeah.
But you have to build those in.
And I've gotten, over the last six months,I've been much more intentional about my
weekends, not just sitting on my computer,working on stuff the entire time.
(34:09):
I'm much more intentional, allright, I'm gonna go do this.
I'm gonna get these things.
I'm going to let my eyes recover fromthe blue light , from my super giant
screens and let my brain just process.
And now that's a lot of what my weekendis I'm thinking about stuff that I want
to then write down and actually do.
(34:29):
Yeah.
Donnie Boivin (34:29):
That's huge.
Yeah.
I can tell you Kevin and I areboth under the mind of do the
work until the work's done.
That just comes from farm life and,it's fun to take another place in time
though, farm life to business, lifesports, life to business life, and how
much they correlate and overlap and, It'snot necessarily the hustle and grind,
but building a business is fucking hard.
There is a lot of hard things you'vegotta do in in to get it done.
(34:52):
And you guys are gonna hear in an upcomingepisode where I go to battle with someone
over this idea of doing the hard things.
But the whole thought process of whenat all costs or, bust your ass until.
Crawl into home plate typething is gonna destroy you.
But you still gotta get the work done.
(35:13):
So I loved hanging out with her.
You guys head over to her website,freaking go spend some time with her.
She's doing a lot of work with a lot ofuniversities and high schoolers right
now If you got your kids going throughsports or the whatnot and you're worried
about the mindset side of things,how do they keep themselves ready?
Go through it, man.
Check out Lauren, man.
She is a beast over atPerformance Reimagined.
(35:36):
And don't you just lovehanging out with that girl?
Always.
Kevin Snow (35:41):
And it's funny, going back to that, that video of the
coach saying people don't get tired.
If.
If the college programs, the athleticdepartments haven't, hadn't identified
that this was actually an issue wheremental breaks, physical, all that type of
stuff, they wouldn't be bringing peopleon staff that do what Lauren does, the
(36:02):
fact that major universities have peopleon staff that are clinical psychologists,
clinical sports psychologists, tohelp people figure out the mental game
shows you just how important it is.
Yeah.
And shows you that this is a partof your training and your regimen
that you need to pay attention to.
And it's the same in business.
There is a huge mental aspectand you need to have someone that
(36:25):
can help you with that piece.
Donnie Boivin (36:27):
Agreed.
Agreed.
So guys as always, if you gotany value out of this, any tips,
tricks, anything that'll help us,please leave us a five star review.
Wherever you listen to podcast,you're on YouTube, please subscribe.
Comment below with anything thatwe need to further clarify or any
questions you may have, and sharethis out with somebody who you think
(36:48):
would benefit from listening to us.
And as always, love you mean it.
See you.
Bye.
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