Alyssa Hermann: Beyond the Athlete: Redefining Life After Sports

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Brown Performance and
Rehab Podcast powered by Isofit and Firefly Recovery. Isofit is
my go to for all things isometric strength training. For
more on Isofit, be sure to check out isofit dot com.
Episodes like this are made possible by Firefly, the official
recovery provider of the bron Performance and Rehab Podcast. For

(00:22):
more on Firefly, be sure to check out Recovery firefly
dot com. This episode is powered by doctor Ray Gorman,
founder of Engage Movement. Learn how to boost your income
without relying on sessions. Get a free training on the
Blended practice model by following at Ray Gorman DPT on Instagram. ALYSSA,
Welcome to the podcast. It's always great to see you

(00:44):
that way for people who aren't familiar with you and
all the incredible work you've been doing with beyond the Athlete.
Would you mind film in a bit about who you
are and this kind of journey that you've been on
that way?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
So, I am a registered nurse and a Board certified
coach working with former athletes helping them navigate life after sports.
So whether that is developing a consistent routine redefining confidence,
setting goals that are your own. For the first time,
we kind of our one stop shop for all things
former athletes. Initially started out working in the hospital. Oh

(01:17):
played soccer, so I too, am a former athlete or
as a NARP and an athletic regular person. Started off
playing soccer, worked in the ICU, and really just copied
and pasted what worked in sports into my career, and
that absolutely did not work. I quickly got burnt out

(01:38):
in my job. I was successful on paper, but I'd
go home and nothing really was exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I wasn't investing in myself. I didn't have personal goals.
My routine had absolutely no structure, and I realized, I
don't know if I.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Was feeling that way, there was no way. It was
just me.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Went down a research rabbit hole and found no existing
support former athletes, and so that's kind of how Beyond
the Athlete was started. I've been doing it full time
for a little over two years, and it is my child.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I love that. And it sounds like this is not
something that you had planned out for a long time.
It sounds like you kind of had this kind of
direction that you thought life was going to take you,
and then at some point along the way, we decided
to take a left turn of Albuquerque for lack of
a better way to put it, and kind of embark
on this journey to provide things for former athletes that

(02:35):
they often don't get in enough of a quality or
quantity to satisfy what life demands to them, for lack
of a better way to put it. And it's so
interesting to me because I think a lot of people
go through life thinking they've got this like perfect plan
for everything, and they know exactly what's going to happen. Right,
I'm going to be married by this age, have kids
by this age, have you know this big giant house

(02:57):
in the middle of I don't know, freaking Tennessee or
something like that. And then somewhere along the line, things
kind of change a little bit and that kind of
like vision gets shaken a little bit. Not to say
that it's like deteriorated or it's kind of turned into nothing,
if you will, but it's just it looks different than
you originally thought it was. That when it certainly sounds

(03:17):
like that's the case for you, and it sounds like
that's the case for a lot of the athletes that
you work with as well.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I mean I quit my job at a coffee shop
before with like after a month of not making any
income from my business, and I you know, of course,
I try not to only talk to the lens of
a former athlete, because I obviously am so much more

(03:46):
than that, But I also know it's the easiest way
to describe it to other people who maybe athletes or
former athletes.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
The path is clear when you're an athlete.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
You know your goals are clear, your magic tips SaaS
are clear.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
There's always another level to become more elite.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
And because that is like the space you grow up
in achieving a goal, winning the game, get into college,
get a scholarship, win conference, it transposes into other.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Areas of your life.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
So I always knew what to expect when I was
playing soccer. But also every choice I ever made was
because I thought I was supposed to, not even just
in sports. Like I got my degree in nursing because
I knew it was stable. I went to University of
Florida because it was a good school.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I started working at.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
The hospital I did because it was RANTI and I
made all these choices that I thought I was supposed
to make and then all of a sudden, I was
twenty or however old, I was twenty three and I
was looking. I was standing, you know, metaphorically on the road,
looking into the horizon, and what I saw my life
would be back pain, income, caped, you know, didn't really

(04:58):
have personal goals outside of work, and I was like, whoa,
this this is not like this was the American dream.
This is what I worked so hard for and started
as and stopped a graduate program, you know, I started
seeking it. I thought the next path was education, and
for me personally, it was really stepping outside what other

(05:20):
people expected and defining what I wanted for myself, which
I had literally never done before up until I was
like twenty.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Three years old.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
A lot of athletes do have things that are predefined
for them. However, I feel like there's an element of
control to the athlete along that process as well. Right,
We've talked with so many athletes on the podcast that
on one hand, they start their sports so so early
in life, this early sports specialization, and they feel like
it's almost an expectation for them to do it. However,

(05:50):
a lot of them, by the same token, start multiple
sports early in life and they kind of have this
ability to choose between those two or three for themselves, Hey,
which one do you like the most? And some athletes
have even kind of changed their mind and gone back
and you know, maybe they go to college and they
think they're going to go into gymnastics and they take
their own kind of metaphorical left turn and then they

(06:11):
end up on the track and field pole vault team
or something along those lines.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it's interesting because it seems like there's this almost
like balance and blend, if you will, of expectations in
a pre defined direction, while also having your own free
will to make decisions along the way. If that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, absolutely, it's that ability to execute. No one's going
to make you show up day in and day out.
That is a choice you get to make for yourself,
and you get to decide how much you invest into
what it is you're doing. But again, sports are win lose,

(06:51):
so yes, you're deciding how much to invest in it,
but you also kind of know what it is you're
stepping into, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Sports have an outcome that's either a win or a loss.
I mean some sports technically, but for the most part
it's a win or a loss, and as a result,
it becomes almost binary like ones and zeros, yeses and
nos to everything that way. Do you feel like a
lot of athletes or did you yourself kind of think
about things in that binary nature a lot where everything

(07:22):
is either a yes or a no, and maybe didn't
necessarily find the middle ground in a lot of situations,
or it didn't necessarily pursue all the various shades of
gray that exist between that world of black and white.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Definitely, there is so much black and white thinking in
the sports world because it literally is, like you said it,
you in or you lose. This is something I see
really often with former athletes when we're trying to get
into a consistent workout routine. Just as an example, we
think a consistent workout routine is seven days a week,
I have moved my body every day, and then what

(07:56):
ends up happening is we don't move every day, we
don't go at all, and then it's a week where
we haven't gone to the gym, and in our brain,
instead of saying, well, you know, no big deal, it's
I am not fit, I am not consistent. It's not
even this like, well, maybe I had a week that
wasn't consistent. It was no, I am starting completely over,
I am inconsistent.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
I don't know what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
And then we flip back into the all start exercising
seven days a week, and there's this of yeah, black
and white, you're you're one hundred percent committed or you're
zero percent percent committed, and yeah, for myself, I it's
it's funny to reflect on how often I use all

(08:38):
or nothing statements, and even in my personal life my partner,
I'll say, like I'm always the one to do the dishes.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
I am not always the one to do the dishes, but.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
It's it's that that statement that I always am the
one to do X, Y and z.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
It's kind of funny, not I mean funny, but not funny.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, no, definitely. It's it's that concept of thinking that
everything is all or nothing, like you mentioned that way,
and understanding that there's a lot of different kind of
existences along that continuum for lack of that way you
put it. And I think that this is something that
is attempted to be integrated into the sports and athletic world. However,
I think a lot of the times we kind of

(09:18):
missed the mark on it, right, Like I've had so
many coaches tell me, yeah, you know, we tell them
to go sixty percent today, or we tell them to
go eighty percent at that drail, but no one ever
teaches them what eighty percent is and what it feels
like one and two. There's no consequences or repercussions. There's
nothing to discourage you from not going eighty percent. Right,
if you take that and you go one hundred percent

(09:41):
or you go ten percent, there's nothing to discourage that
type of behavior. So it's one of those things that
you almost have to as an athlete find a way
to hold yourself accountable to those objective standards that are
expected of you that way, because it's so easy to
go off track on one hand, and the other thing is,
you know, you also have this kind of rising what

(10:02):
I call questioning authority if you will, where it's like, hey,
the coach might say go eighty percent, but how does
the coach know my body? You know, how I'm feeling
today or whatever that way, and it opens up this
whole kind of concept that can we even trust what
those objective markers that are given to us are or
do we actually have to kind of rides up and
take things into our own hands, if you will.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, it brings up a term I like to use,
which is dialectical thinking, which is the idea that two
things can be true at once, and it kind of
removes that either or mentality of I have to go
one hundred percent or I am not going to be
played the next game. And you do often have coaches
like I mean, the reality is as an athlete, if

(10:47):
someone performs, if someone works harder than you and performs better,
they're going to replace you in the grand scheme of things.
And so I add in the grand schooth things because
that doesn't necessarily have to mean day today, and you
always have to go on a hundred underd percent. And
that's where dialectical thinking can come in. Giving one hundred
percent effort may allow me to perform better today, and

(11:09):
that isn't what's in my best.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Interest in the grand scheme of things.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Or pushing to eighty percent today might be best for me,
and maybe there's another day I can push a little
bit harder. So by encompassing the like both sides of
the spectrum and giving room for both, it does allow
like you said, the gray area and referring to the
authority that you mentioned. Coach doesn't always know what's best

(11:31):
for me, and there's a reason that they're here, so
maybe there's room to listen to them, or coach wants
me to push eighty percent, and I respect what they
are saying, and maybe today sixty percent is good for me,
and I have to do what's best for me, so
there can be room for both. That's so hard because
it does challenge what that like when loss black and

(11:53):
white thinking is that's ingrained into us, that like one
hundred and ten percent mentality.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
One of the things that comes up a lot when
I'm talking talking with athletes, it's the carryover from sport
to life or sport to career and the lessons that
they learn from sport that they can carry over into
the rest of their life that way. And I've had
conversations about this with a lot of different individuals where
they say, it's not the sport that teaches the lessons,

(12:19):
it's the people. It's the captains, it's the coaching staff,
it's the you know, whoever you get involved with during
that time that really teaches you those lessons. It's not
just playing the sport, it's more about the human element
that the sport opens up to for you, if you
will that way, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that.
Do you feel like it's the sport, Do you feel
like it's the people. Is it a mix of both?

(12:40):
Where do we kind of sit on that contiguum and
on top of that, what kind of things do you
feel like? Athletes often tell you they carry over to
life after sport very well, versus ones that maybe they
struggle with a bit more.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
I like to say that sport gives you an environment
to highlight your strengths, but your strengths are yours.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
They are not your athletes selves.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
And so while you may feel your most confident self
in the environment of sport and you have people around
you who are highlighting those strengths or empowering you or
motivating you, at the end of the day, that experience
is yours and you do get to carry it wherever
you want to in your life. I think it is
both though, right when we talk about right nature verse nurture, like, yes,

(13:22):
those are yours and your environment does matter. So surrounding
yourself with people that do empower you, surrounding yourself with
other people who have a growth mindset. It does challenge
you to tap your belief of what you're capable of
and push that extra mile, and so harm it. I
think the expectation is the fact that there are goals

(13:43):
and that there is structure in sports and also as
a human you have these traits that can be brought
into all areas of life. And answering the second part
of what you're asking, what do people what do I
see former athletes striving in versus where it is they struggle.
Language I really really like to use is execution versus

(14:06):
execution and implementation versus structure. The athlete mindset allows you
to have discipline, to have motivation, to be a team player,
to be a leader. These are all traits that allow
high level execution. But however, what ends up being missing
from a lot of former athletes is our ability to

(14:27):
create the structure to execute in to set the meaningful
goals that excite us when we get up in the morning.
And the reason this is is because sports already has
that in place. You already have your support network as
an athlete, you have your goals pre pre written for you.
Like we were just saying, and not only that, you
have other people depending on you, and so there is

(14:50):
this disconnect where how can we how do you bring
that athlete mindset where you are absolutely probably going to
be the hardest, hardest working person in the room. How
can we make sure it's not non directional effort where
you're burning yourself out trying to execute things that don't
bring you passion? And how do we that high level
execution with rest, with recovery, with purpose, with values.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Absolutely? And on top of that, you're being expected high
level execution, especially at some of these higher levels of
sport that way. However, one of the things that came
up in a podcast recording we were just doing yesterday was,
you know, we have these extremely high expectations of athletes,
and we're treating them like they're fully grown, fully developed adults,
when in reality, eighteen nineteen twenty year olds don't have

(15:37):
a fully developed prefrontal cortex, so we're expecting them to
make high level decisions when we have to remind ourselves
their brain is not even fully developed yet. It's not
fully developed until they're in their mid to late twenties.
A lot of cases that way, So we almost have
this mismatch, in my opinion, from a neural standpoint or
a neuroscience standpoint, where we're expecting high level execscutive type function,

(16:01):
executive type decisions under high pressure, when in reality, that
part of the brain is still developing, it's still forming,
and it's still listening to everything that's going on. So
it's kind of this weird situation where on one hand,
we know what they have to do from a sports standpoint,
on the other hand, we also have to pay attention

(16:21):
and pay respect to literally the body's own physiological development
that way and understand that, you know, we're not going
to have perfection in a nineteen year old athlete. We're
also not going to have ideal decision making one hundred
percent of the time in the nineteen to twenty year
old athlete. And that's okay. I think in my opinion,

(16:42):
more poor outcomes happen in sport when we neglect that
side of things and expect them to be at the
level of someone who's maybe a thirty five year old
professional athlete that's played the sport for longer than the
other athlete has been alive. You know, there's there's a
drastic difference there, and I think that now more than ever,
with this culture of almost treating the college athlete just

(17:05):
as comparable to a professional athlete, we have to understand
the differences that are literally in their physiological development and
then what implications that has as well, you know, like
we can't expect, you know, the eighteen year old kid
who just got paid millions of dollars on an NIL
deal to have the same level of responsibility with that

(17:26):
money compared to someone who's maybe thirty five and forty
who's got a fully developed prefrontal cortex. Now, on the
flip side, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be
bad with their money. I'm just saying that, you know,
some of them are at this point where they're still
developing and still maturing, and for some reason, we often
forget that and hold them to the same standard of
individuals who have far more developed neurological systems than they do.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, not to mention that when you're at that age,
you're still developing your identity. And if every time you've
been celebrated and told basically you're a good person or
a good job, I'm proud of you, is when you've
given one hundred percent to something or only when you've
achieved goals or been a top performer. Then the whole
identity and complex of like what it is to be

(18:13):
a person is well, I'm only of value when I
am executing at a high level, and there really isn't much.
And I know this, I'm talking like for myself, but
for so many former athletes like I have the conversation
all the time where if they don't feel like they're
executing at a high level, they don't feel like they're

(18:35):
good enough as a person, or they don't feel like
they're contributing to society, or they're not even sure where
they get their value or their confidence from if they
are not being told they're doing a good job, and
that kind of translates into every area of life, and
if we I mean nil, is a whole other world
we talk about like financial responsibility, I am and set

(18:58):
like the pressure like if anything, the one thing we
are teaching these high level athletes is they are of
value when they perform in high level, high pressure situations.
But hopefully that isn't what their life is all the time,
but they'll keep putting themselves in those situations unless we
teach them that that's not the only place where they

(19:19):
can get their worth and recognition from.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
As to your point, so many athletes feel like everything
is rooted within sports for them, And it goes back
to again what we talked about before, I think, recognizing
the human element of sport and going back to what
I mentioned before about like some individuals feel like the
value of sport is not just the sport alone, but
the people within the sport, if you will. I think

(19:43):
a lot of times it just comes to us rewiring
and changing the way we think about sport. And because
when we hear sport, we think about the sport itself.
We think about lacrosse or soccer, football, or basketball or
whatever that way, that's what we think about. We don't
think about the players that are on the team. We
don't think about the connections and relations they fore, we
don't think about the opportunities that their families got because

(20:06):
of that. We don't think about the relations they built
with coaching staff and so on that way, good, bad,
or and different. We just don't think about those things.
And it's interesting how a lot of times to your point,
and I hear this a lot talking with athletes, as well,
their identity feels like it's just rooted in sport, when
in reality, it could be rooted in the people that

(20:26):
are within the sport and rooted around the people that
they've gotten to connect with because of the sport. And
then we kind of use sport under this lens of
opportunity to express yourself and do all these things, kind
of like you mentioned before, as opposed to sport being
the end all be all one hundred percent of the time.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, There's a theory of well being called the perma
model peerma, and the theory says that by having each
component of that that model.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
You are most likely to be happy in life.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Have been other paid that sports actually fills every single
piece of the perma model, and I'm going to do
my absolute best to remember every single one. The first
one I believe is positive emotion. So are you having
moments of joy? Are you having moments of celebration? And
the answer very simply is yes. When you're an athlete,

(21:21):
you have these super high high thing games, you're celebrating,
you're cheering your teammates on, you're laughing in the locker room,
and then E is engagement. So are you fully engrossed
in what you're doing. Does your brain turn off and
you just fully immerse yourself in the sport or in
the activity. The answers, yes, R is relationships, so specifically,

(21:45):
I think meaningful relationships That might be M but I'm.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Going off of memory.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
But basically, are you surrounding yourself with people who have
who are working on things? Positive relationships. They're uplifting you,
You're uplifting them. There's a growth mindset. You're surrounded with
people who are working on things. The answers yes, when
you're an athlete, and then M I believe is meaning?
Side note might be getting these wrong. Yeah, is their meaning?

(22:11):
Is their purpose? Is their definition behind what you're doing?
And with sports, Yeah, like you know, you're participating in
something that is more than just yourself. You're contributing to
a team, You're contributing to your school pride, people are
coming and cheering you on. You are connected to something
more than just who you are as a person. Kind
of like what you're saying, you are in this environment
where you're part of something amazing when you're an athlete.

(22:35):
And then A, oh, I want to say that A
is acknowledgment. But that's accomplishment, Okay, accomplishment. So are you
able to celebrate, to win, to achieve, to work hard
and see the fruit of your labor play out and
the answers yes, and so kind of to your point,

(22:57):
sports is more than just a game, and it gives
you the foundation of what it takes to have a
happy and successful life and also to bring it outside
of sports. It's something that's replicatable and it's something that
you get to carry with yourself anywhere you go. It's
it's a great blueprint and proof of what you're capable

(23:20):
of and what life can be like if you allow
yourself to recreate it.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Absolutely, and as you outlined, the perma model from positive emotions,
engagement and relationships and meaning all the way up to
that kind of sense or feeling of accomplishment can be
very present for athletes, and it's easy to think about
how that can be applied to sport. But in the
back of my mind, I think about some of the

(23:46):
different athletes situations that have come up where those things
were actually not being yeah, and the relationships weren't quite
as positive as they wanted them to be, and the
experiences weren't quite as good as they thought that they
were going to be, and that feeling of accomplishment wasn't
there because oh, my team just won one game across

(24:07):
an entire season, and the next thing, you know, you
go from you know, playing a college sport to looking
to transfer because for some reason that team culture and
environment just didn't mesh with what you were after and
it wasn't providing all of those things that you needed
that way. And this is something I talked about at
length with Ron Sires at the start of the year

(24:28):
that way. Amazing conversation with a great mind in this space,
that way. And one of the things we talked about is,
you know, this mismatch that we see occurring at a
very high level, at least in our opinions, is not
due to the fault of the athlete or the fault
of the coach. It's due to a mismatch between cultures

(24:49):
and what they value and what they find important. Right
to one, maybe the athlete, maybe the athlete says, you
know what, for me, I need to be winning in
order to feel important and to feel likeccomplishment. And maybe
the coach is saying, hey, look, we're going to build
for the future, and we might have a rough year
or two, but we're going to get to that point.
But to the athlete that just wants to win now,

(25:10):
they don't want to build, they don't want to work
towards something. They just want what they're after right this second.
And that's just, you know, on the spot example of
mismatch of values, mismatchic cultures and beliefs. And I think
the more clearly you can articulate these things from the start,
the more likely you are to have that entire experience

(25:30):
of well being throughout your athletic career. I think a
lot of the time people don't do enough prep work
and don't do enough of their due diligence to really
tease these things out. They kind of assume a lot
and fill in the gaps on their own. I mean,
we're all guilty of it, right, Like I'm guilty of
it right now. As I'm apartment hunting, right it's like, oh, well,
you know, this one looks good, checks all these boxes,
and then I start scrolling through the thing and realize

(25:52):
they don't list air conditioning as one of their things
that they provide. So to me, that's a little concerning.
Thinking about moving south in the middle of summertime to
a building that doesn't have air conditioning. That's something that
I value and I assumed it would be there because
it's twenty twenty five, But guess.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
What, it's not.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
So understand, the more clearly you articulate these things, and
I mean everything from the start, the better you are,
the more likely you are to experience that full state
of well being and everything that you do in sport
and beyond.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, there is definitely, I mean, it brings you back
to the black and white thinking like we it either
has to be one hundred percent perfect or it's not
good enough or where my brain goes too is like
expectation and pressure. One of the biggest things that I
see hold back athletes and former athletes from enjoying themselves
is expectation and judgment of how things are going. There's

(26:48):
this voice that, oh, that wasn't enough, You're not working
hard enough. You need to be doing better. You could
have done more. Why didn't so and so't Why didn't
coach call me in that game? There must be something
wrong with me. And there's this whole complex that ends
up being tied to, like you said, fulfillment and worth
when there's that expectation and pressure and voice in our

(27:11):
head that's telling us we're not doing enough. And I
do also want to acknowledge as well that there are
not every environment is there to treat you as a
human being in sports, and it is changing, thankfully it
is changing. But you do see like some there are
some not amazing coaches out there, there are some schools.

(27:32):
I mean, let's talk about like this life after sports prep.
This isn't talked about in ninety percent of schools. Most
of these schools don't talk about what it is that
comes in life after sports, and those resources are just
now after COVID being brought to light is something that
needs to exist there. The term expectation like yeah, like

(27:52):
you're saying, like what do you truly expect of yourself,
of your team, of your coach, of your teammates, of
your school, And then all of a question, is it realistic?
Because nine times out of ten the expectations we have
of ourselves are completely unrealistic.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Absolutely no, You're spot on with that, And I realize
as we're talking about this, you've got such extensive personal
experiences for yourself with this, has there been anything thus far?
Just kind of thinking about your own sporting career that way.
Moments where hey, maybe we weren't in that full level
of well being an engagement, or maybe we experienced a
situation where kind of that long term athlete or long

(28:31):
term human mindset I should say, maybe wasn't present that way.
And if so, kind of what was your kind of
impression in all at the time, and then what would
you do differently kind of if like you were in
kind of like head position right now to kind of
change the narrative around those situations.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
I want to add, like, I don't think anything is
ever one hundred percent fulfilling. So sports for me was
probably everything I ever wanted to be seventy to eighty
percent of the time, And of course there was that
thirty twenty percent where I was not in the mood
for practice.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
I was playing like crap and my mindset was in
the toilet too.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Like that existed, and it's perfectly normal to expect something
to be one hundred percent amazing one hundred percent of
the time.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Like we were saying, is that black and white thinking?

Speaker 2 (29:15):
But to answer your question, I did not have a
great mindset playing as an athlete. It's funny now being
on the other side and having all of these this
like experience working with former athletes and working on myself
and healing my own perspective and perfectionist tendencies, the like,

(29:37):
if I had a bad game, I couldn't let it go.
I absolutely could not let it go. If I wasn't
a starter, it would eat me alive. And I remember, honestly,
as a competition got higher, my abilities got worse. I
would not be able to and it was because my
mindset would go. I'd start questioning, Okay, am I going
to be the one to get to this ball first?

Speaker 3 (29:56):
That person she's quick? Is she quicker than me?

Speaker 2 (29:58):
I would?

Speaker 3 (29:58):
I would really be.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
In my head and then I wouldn't be able to
enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
I start to question my abilities.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
And while we were in a Nationals one time, I
think we were in Arizona. So we were in Arizona
for Nationals. The first game, I played like crap, absolute crap,
and I got benched over half the game. And I'm
a starter most of the time, like I usually start
every game, or I started every game, right, this is
in like twenty whatever. In twenty eighteen, I usually started

(30:26):
every single game, and there I was riding the bench
in the biggest game that we've had all season. And
so I go to the coach's hotel after Actually I
went to his room and I said, hey.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Like, why what did I do? What was going on?

Speaker 2 (30:43):
And you know, it's interesting because he said, oh, it
was just that game, like we'll get you back in,
don't worry about it, shake it off.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
You can't take it personally.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remember
walking out of that room and thinking to myself, Okay,
I'm going to start the next game.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
And I didn't.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
And I basically and like you asked me, what I
do Differently in my mind that moment.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Where I didn't.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Play the first game, had conversation with coach, who I
don't think gave me the feedback I needed in the moment,
which would have been maybe some like conversation around mindset,
like hey, you're playing like but right now you're straight
up playing bad. Like you're playing bad. You're in your head.
You've got to get out of your head. I'd never

(31:28):
once ever had anyone say that to me.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
And then when I didn't.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Play after the conversation, I said, wow, I must suck.
It just validated all of those thoughts I had already
been having.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
That hadn't been dealt with.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
And so basically every year we went to Nationals, like
wouldn't play. I would start all season, I was captain,
We'd go to the high level competition, and I would
fold under the pressure. I wish someone would have talked
to me about performance anxiety, which I didn't even had
no concept of when I was playing. I wish I
would have been given constructive feedback on my performance and

(32:05):
not been like basically like shoot away and like positive reinforcement.
That wasn't what I needed. And I don't know, it's
interesting being on the other side. That's super long winded,
but definitely what a moment that I think about in
my experience as a player, and when it comes to
like that positive mindset and fulfillment, I was absolutely crushed.

(32:27):
I felt like it defined my abilities and who I was.
I felt embarrassed around my teammates who usually saw me
playing well, and I just wanted to.

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(33:16):
And as a listener, you get free access to the
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You bring up such an amazing point with that, and
I appreciate your transparency as well throughout that. It's this
conversation around you know, how do we provide for the
athlete not just from the physical sense, but maybe more

(33:39):
so on the psychological and physiological sense as well. Right,
because a lot of times we think, oh, well, you know,
we're a coach, We're a strength coach and at a
PT assistant coach, whatever your title is. That way, we
think our whole role in relation to sport is the
physical side. Hey, you know, we need to make them
physically better at this drill, more conditioned, or physically stronger,

(34:02):
or physically able to return to sport after this injury,
whatever it is. That way, a lot of times we
make the mistake of thinking it's so physical in nature,
when in reality, I'll argue that the neuropsychological or neurophysiological
side of things is, if not as important or more
important than that physical element to them. And this is

(34:24):
something I've had discussions at lengths with a guy named
Andrew Hauser about lately, just from how much we've missed
the mark and even misunderstood this side of sports and
athletics that way, where we think we know what's going
on from a physiological and psychological standpoint, when in reality
we're so far off. Even some of those like great

(34:47):
minds in the space are really not necessarily aligned with
what's actually going on right now, and it's concerning right
So take for example, this kind of belief that athletes
are just stressed out and mentally burnt out all the
time and they're in this kind of stuck in this
sympathetic state, if you will, that way where we are
telling them, oh, you know, your body stuck in this

(35:08):
fight or flight mode, and what you need to do
is learn how to relax and chill out and all
these different things that way on top of that, you know,
you think about some of these other things under that
umbrella and going back to that sympathetic kind of fight
or flight state. For some reason, majority of the athletes,
if not all athletes are getting overly parasympathetic at times

(35:31):
of competition, so they're actually getting too comfortable, they're relaxing
too much, and they're not in that go mode nearly
as much as they should be that way, So it
becomes this kind of like weird continuum where we're not
even able to fully agree on what the issue is
for athletes from a physiological and psychological standpoint. And I

(35:52):
think that the more we actually emphasize conversations with athletes
and getting to hear what they're going on, and then
pair it with objective measures that we should be assessing
but aren't simple things like blood oxygen and carbon dioxide buds,
simple things like hey, what was their sleep score? That day,
things that a lot of us have really neglected in

(36:13):
favor of some of these cool, new, trendy, fancy technologies.
And it's like, you know, even something as simple as
body temperature on a day to day basis can give
you a lot of indication subjectively as to how someone
is doing. And when you pair those things with those
subjectives conversations that you form because hopefully you've developed a
good relation with your athletes and hopefully your athletes have

(36:35):
learned to trust and respect you and whatever your role
is within the sport. That way, I think it opens
up the door to solve a lot of these issues.
But until then, I think ultimately we need to find
a way to get out of our own way and
admit that we don't know everything, we don't have all
the answers, and there's still a lot to figure out.
But until we do that, we're going to continue to
try and intervene and continue to try and make assumptions

(36:58):
off of a model that's relatively broken and not providing
everything the athlete needs.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Where my brain, that was long?

Speaker 2 (37:05):
That was good, I'm like, how do I how do
I what's my rebuttal just kidding over rebuttal. But as
you were talking, the word that comes to mind, and
from my experience to working with former athletes, is apathy.
There's there's almost this disconnect when when there's time to execute,

(37:25):
there's this whole mental emotion to talk about, like the
sympathetic parasympathetic. It's almost like they completely disconnect from the
process in times of high stress, where opting into it
would mean like pushing your limit and where my brain
always goes.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
And I see it with former athletes too. We see
this a lot.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
I'm unmotivated, I I can't get myself started.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
It's like, well, you don't believe you can.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
And and I know I'm not talking about literal, measurable results,
but from my my like subjective conversations, if you don't
believe you can perform to the top level, oftentimes be
just complete.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
They disconnect.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
We don't want to try, we don't want to put
our subconsciously right. This isn't like conscious behavior. But I
see that like self sabotage all the time with former
athletes who say they want a goal but don't actually
put themselves in like yeah, they can't get themselves to

(38:21):
care enough on a deeper level, to activate that like
stress response.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Does that make sense? And we're getting like very uh
high level.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Well, it's also just knowing that you have that background
working in nursing, which is also like high stakes high stress,
but also like you have an understanding of how the
body works physiologically, the underlying anatomy and so on that way,
and it's just like there is, in my opinion, a
bit of a mismatch that exists between the interventions that

(38:51):
we're providing to people and the outcomes of it. And
I mean, I don't want to steer this down like
a whole healthcare discussion that way, because that could take
many more hours, but in relation to this fot element
of it that way, like I think we ultimately have
to ask ourselves, like, are the things that we're doing,
the words that we're saying, the actions that we take,
are they truly in line with what's best for that

(39:14):
athlete on all aspects, not just the physical, which is
where our mind tends to go, but on some of
those deeper things like the physiological and the psychological element
as well, because ultimately those physiological and psychological elements will
dictate the physical. Right. I've had a number of conversations
with an individual who we've recorded a few podcasts on
that she's shared this. She talks about how the phrase

(39:37):
you know, talent beats some you know, hard work when
or hard work and talent doesn't work hard, And it's
like the dumbest thing ever, because there's some athletes that
are so gifted and so talented that they don't have
to work as hard as others and they're just much
better like they're you know, it's not to say they
didn't put in the work, but it's to say that

(39:58):
their talent is on such another level that someone who
doesn't have some of those predispositions for sport will not
be able to catch up to them in a reasonably
Maybe if given an infinite amount of time, they'll be
able to get there. But some people are just on
a completely separate level from others that way, and that's
that's okay. It's okay to have athletes amongst different levels.

(40:21):
It's okay to have different experiences and talents and backgrounds
and so on that way. But if we're not providing
for each individual athlete with what they need physiologically and
psychologically in that moment, then we're doing them a disservice
because yeah, they might not have the potential to be
that skilled physically, yeah, but maybe they can get into

(40:41):
a psychological state or psychological psychological mindset where they're able
to hang with someone like that or shut them down
for a game or something along those lines. But we
just don't think about that. We only think about physical
skill and we don't think about what's going on within
the body, if you will, totally.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And I also go into longevity and is what we're
teaching athletes going to support their overall health and wellness
in the long term. You know, there's a study that
showed athletes were not any more likely to continue physical

(41:18):
activity after sports compared to non athletes, which is kind
of crazy.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
And building off that a little bit more less in
relation to those long term outcomes and long term kind
of thoughts and mindsets that way. You mentioned finances earlier,
and I'm interested to hear your thoughts now in relation
to kind of this financial situation a lot of athletes
find themselves in, whether that's in the nil era getting
a big payout, or maybe it's on the flip side. Hey,

(41:44):
school costs eighty grand a year. Now, how am I
going to be able to afford this. I feel like
we see a little bit of a discrepancy in the
sports world and athlete world right now where some are
graduating with millions in the bank and others are graduating
with millions or not quite millions, but hundreds of thousands
in debt. If you will that way, I'm interested to

(42:05):
hear kind of your thoughts on how do you kind
of go about coaching and helping athletes to kind of
at least start setting themselves up to be in a
decent spot financially for the rest of their life.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
It's a loaded question because we can talk about the
systemic failures of our education system.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
And what I really think about.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Our structure in the university world and in the sport world,
and like what we are expecting of athletes, and what
we are expecting of humans wanting to get an education,
and what they're putting at stake in order to get one,
whether that's crazy, crazy loans or putting their bodies on
the line. I can't I can't even go down that

(42:50):
rabbit hole. But the short you know, I'll answer with
probably the answer. I'm going to give my answer, and
we can go where we want to go, but it's
going to be a lighthearted answer. But a lot of
things that we initially have to talk about with former
athletes is the difference in investing versus spending, because something

(43:13):
we often see is that the truth is that many,
many former athletes, and this isn't even just former athletes,
just people in general. We don't know how what our
net income is every month. We don't know what our
total expenses actually cost. If I asked how much you
spent last month on groceries, could you give me an
exact number? Is it calculated? Could you saying you? Not

(43:36):
literally you, but like a lot. There's this fear that
like we don't we do have loans and things are expensive,
and we kind of shut down as a society when
it comes to thinking about money. And so this is
something I see really often. And so the first piece
of advice, if I would dare give financial advice I'm
not a financial advisor, is to genuinely sit down and

(43:57):
look at what your numbers are. Where are you spend,
what is your what how much are you genuinely making
a month? How much are you investing in yourself? And
when I say investing, I don't mean in the in
the stock market. I mean, like, what are you doing
now for long term goals in your physical health, in

(44:18):
your mental health, in your financial health, in your relational health. Right, So,
spending is like maybe going out and getting some stuff
from Amazon, your subscriptions. Investing is maybe going to therapy,
or it's having a gym membership. And as a society,
it's very normalized to spend, it's not normalized to invest.

(44:39):
That was very long winded, But I don't want to
like go into the nuances, like if someone's basic needs
aren't met we talk about like Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
and they don't have food, shelter, safety, you can't even
think about this stuff, right, Like if you genuinely cannot
pay your bills, that's a whole different conversation than a
former athlete who who has student loans, they're on a

(45:01):
payment plan, they're in their first job, and they're just
kind of figuring out the world of paying.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
For things on their own. You know, that's two different conversations.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Absolutely, No, it's very different conversations. And again going back
to how each individual is unique and different that way,
I think that certainly applies financially and to your point
as well, we live in a society and culture that
seems to just prioritize and emphasize the material objects and
having things to be able to say that you have

(45:33):
things or it's almost like, yeah, I can't quite understand it.
I don't feel like this myself, but I've talked with
some people that almost feel like it's like a bragging
right to spend a lot of money on something. Oh
look at my new watch. Do you like it? I
just spent five grand on it. Oh do you like
my car? I just spent one hundred thousand dollars on it.
And for some reason, we just think that the answer

(45:53):
to everything is in the material object, or many people do.
And I just personally don't feel that same way myself
that way, And I think it comes back to your
point about everyone being different. It's like, what do you
value at the end of the day, Because if your
values are in the material thing, and that's what makes
you happy and that's what motivates you, like, you know,

(46:13):
I guess I'm technically not in a position to tell you, you know,
from a qualification standpoint, that that's the wrong way to
look at things, But you know, whatever versus like if
your values are experiences and spending time with others, or
maybe just the security of not being in a significant
amount of debt. Maybe you don't have as much as
you want, but you don't have to worry about Hey,

(46:34):
home might get foreclosed or something like that. Yeah, it
just comes back to what do you individually value and
what makes sense for you at the.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
End of the day, I think totally and something I
talk about with former athletes specifically that we don't always
realize is the things that it took to maintain a
healthy lifestyle were typically included structurally at your university, your
things you weren't paying for that you had access to,
or you weren't paying for it, but not like directly

(47:03):
from like a direct deposit. Then out right it was
either through tuition, scholarship, a gym membership, so you have
access to a facility's workout, so the schedule literally already
prioritizes moving your body. Oftentimes there's some sort of meal
plan or like stipend for food. You might have therapy

(47:25):
on on site on campus, or like mental health professional
athletic trainers who will help you when you pull the muscle,
or if like your hips are sore, your back hurts, right,
you can go to these resources. They're pre existing in
your in your life. But when you're an adult, the
only thing that is included in your life is show
up to work, leave work. Everything else you have to
manage on your own. And that does mean investing in

(47:48):
things that prioritize your health and well all this if
you want, if you want to a gym membership, sometimes
physical therapy, health insurance gear literally gear, because you were
given like you were given like practice practice jerseys you
were given. Sometimes some cool schools were given cleats. I

(48:09):
wasn't given cleats, but some schools had cleats, like your
uniform was given, drive fit was given. You have to
buy that stuff for yourself as a former athlete, and
if unless you prioritize it, it's not going to be prioritized.
You know, I had someone the other day and again,
do what you want. But she she wanted to create
some like realistic routines, wanted to work with me, and

(48:30):
she was like, oh I can't afford it, Like no worries,
totally understand this world is literally insane. Right now, post
a photo of her getting a tattoo. Five days later,
like a like a full arm tattoo. I'm like, okay,
that's fine, just be aware of the give and take.
And I don't think we're always super aware of the
give and take.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Absolutely no, I think you're spot on with that. And
it's a matter of are you getting what you want
now or giving up what you want the most in
the long run for the thing that you can get
right now, right Like, hey, I might not be able
to get the results from this program immediately, but I
can get a tattoo right now and be able to

(49:10):
show it off within a couple of days once I
feel back the wrapping, right. So it's it's certainly one
of those things that how do I want to say this?
I think again, it comes back to the individual's preference
and individual difference. However, we all also need to be
aware that there is a difference between what we want

(49:31):
the most in the long long term and the time
invested that it takes to get there, versus the things
that we can get right now and the satisfaction that
they will provide. You know, that concept of blade gratification,
And I know there's the whole study looking at that
and all that's like super famous for like throwing the
little like pretzel in front of the kids and like
seeing how long they could wait before they eat it.

(49:52):
I'm like very much paraphrasing that, but like essentially that
concept of being able to kind of hold off and
wait for the like bigger, better thing is often better
for you as a person as opposed to just getting
what you want now. And yet in sport, almost nothing
is getting immediately, Like you're almost never granted that immediate

(50:13):
satisfaction with almost anything that we do.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah, it's it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
The discrepancy that exists outside of sport with former athletes,
and I believe part of it is, like there are
so many things that play into this.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
It's it's hard to invest in yourself.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
For one, I'm let me talk about just like getting
a gym membership, Like you have to believe you're going
to go. You have to believe that you are capable
of falling through a gym membership or at the gym,
And if you don't think that you're actually going to
do it, you're going to procrastinate buying it, or maybe
your self worth is in the toilet you don't feel
worthy of it, or you're worried that you're not as

(50:54):
strong as you used to be. People are going to
judge you. Like there's so many things that play into this,
and then our society as a whole normalizes that. We're
saying that, like that quick dopamine hit. We are all
glue to our phones, we all have prime memberships, we
all have the million to one subscriptions. I mean not everyone,
but a lot of people buy from Sheian. There's this
like constant short term fulfillment that we seek alongside yet

(51:19):
and is that like belief? Like are you willing to
commit to it? One of the fun questions I like
to ask people in not just like a sales call,
but even in a conversation, like if I could stap
my fingers and the results you wanted six months, you
had them tomorrow, would you pay for them? And if
your answers yes, well you just have to follow the

(51:41):
plan for six months and you will have them. But
there's most of us don't want to wait.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Right, No, you're spot on with that, And it's that
concept of sometimes it's not the thing that you're after
that gives you the most, but that process of waiting
and getting to it, even as hard and as difficult
as that might be, I also realize this world of
sports athletics kind of the personal side of it, the
long term implications and so on, that way is so

(52:06):
deep and vast, and it's something that we can talk
about all day long and still just scratch the surface.
And that's obviously why you all have a program built
out specifically to provide all these things for athletes, because
it is difficult, it is complex, and so on. That way,
anything that we missed or anything else that you really
want to bring up that way.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
I heard a quote recently I want to I want
to share it with a quote. It was shared by
one of my someone that I work with really closely,
and she asked, who was in your who's in your
front row? Like who has front row seats to what's
going on in your life the front row of the bleachers,
because realistically, the people that are in the front row
should be the people that are inspiring you to live

(52:49):
the life that you want. You don't want those people
in like ten rows back. You don't want them in
the nosebleeds. You want them on in that front row.
And we didn't talk about that too much in the
context of the outside of sports, but ask yourself, like,
who is watching who's in your inner circle? And are
they helping you create the life you want? If they're not,

(53:10):
what can you do to surround yourself with those people?
Because it is so important to have that, not just
in sports, but in your personal life.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
So that's just like my final thought.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, I think that's such a great point because you
become like those individuals that you surround yourself with. So
if you surround yourself with the right circle, everything else
almost falls into place, as opposed to surrounding yourself with
the wrong influences. And you know, it's funny to me
because just thinking about, like the concept in this rise
of the transfer portal, if you will, you know, if
you don't have a certain situation, you can pack up

(53:44):
and move to a new one. Well, the same is
true in life afterwards, Like if you don't like where
you live, you can pack up and relocate and kind
of start anew that way. You know, it's not always
easy to do, but you can always find a way
to hit that refresh and reset button that way. So
I think it comes back to not being afraid to
take the jump, take the leap that way. Sometimes if

(54:05):
you're not in the right situation and right environment for
yourself for people who want to find out more about you,
the other Alyssa and all the amazing stuff that y'all
are doing with Beyond the Athlete. Where can I find
y'all at.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Website Beyond Theathlete dot net or come hang with us
on TikTok.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
We do love the TikTok content.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Yeah, the clock.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
App and I are becoming friends. Our handle is Beyond
the Athlete. I would say those are good places to start.
We run everything ourself, you know, so if you message,
you're talking to us.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
When I say we, I mean the.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Other Alyssa, myself and one other person a couple hours
a week.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Like we are small team, but we're mighty.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
That's what it's all about. I love that. We'll link
to that. We'll link to all of that in the
description below. That way, if you didn't quite catch it,
you can just click there and see everything Alyssa and
Alyssa and the entire Beyond the Athlete team are up to. Alyisa,
this is awesome. Thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Yeah, thanks for having me

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