November 13, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode of Youth Inc., Greg Olsen & Dr. Michael Gervais are joined by special guest Seth Davis to explore the often-overlooked side of coaching: mental fitness. Seth emphasizes that psychological skills—like breathing, self-talk, and goal setting—are just as learnable as physical ones. Together, they discuss how coaches can prioritize mental fitness, equipping athletes with tools for focus, resilience, and confidence. Join us to learn practical techniques that empower athletes both on and off the field, making mental strength an essential part of any coach’s toolkit.
Go to maxu.co to learn more, and register using code YouthInc24 for $10 off a yearly subscription.
Thank you to our partners MaxU and Players Health for presenting this season of Youth Inc.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What's up everybody, Greg Olson here and if you're just
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Think. In the world of youth sports,
(00:22):
success is so often measured in trophies by making the team
increase playing time and putting up high scores.
But beyond the medals lies something far more important,
the mental health of our young athletes.
As pressure rises, so do the challenges they face both on and
off the field. This episode delves into the
heart of what truly matters, Balance, support, and
(00:45):
resilience. From fostering positive coaching
environments to encouraging openconversations about feelings,
we'll uncover how to build a foundation where every young
athlete thrives, not just physically, but emotionally to.
Because in youth sports, it's not just about winning, it's
about growing stronger. Mental health is a big deal now,
(01:07):
of course, and we're all dealingwith something, everybody
struggling in some kind of way with something.
Long gone are the days where it's only technical skill
development. The best coaches are using the
two hours or 90 minutes of practice to skill, to teach
technical skills, where to hold your body, the shape you want to
(01:30):
put a body in, to be repeated success or have repeated
success. And what are the mental skills?
They're quite clear. Teach the kids how to breathe.
I don't know if you're doing this yet, but teach them before
or at the middle or at the end of practice.
Just get 10 breaths in, 10 long breaths.
Hey, everyone, great practice. We're going to shut her down
(01:51):
just a little bit. 3 deep breaths.
We're going to do it as a team. Then you move 3:00 to 6:00, and
then you move 6 to 9, right? And just some deep breathing
because what happens? Game time for most people as
they tighten. Up gets anxious.
And so if we're not teaching howto be calm and only technical
skills, we're running them rightinto a choke point right there.
(02:11):
There is no reason why a kid should be anxious or nervous
unless anxiety and sits underneath the surface or we
haven't taught them the skills. And the more internal work you
do and I do, the more we have togive benevolently to others.
If I'm anxious, quick to frustration, easy to, you know,
(02:33):
get pissed off about something, that's what I'm giving to
people. You're not good enough.
That's not good enough. What are we doing here?
As opposed to, oh, I see you. OK, This is great information.
If I am what's called dispositionally optimistic, if I
am an optimistic person, I get to see through the lenses of my
life opportunities as opposed toall the things that could go
(02:56):
wrong. That's a pessimistic outlook, so
I need to work up to feed my optimism to build that skill so
that I can find the good in the opportunities even when it's
difficult to do so. So mental health is a real
thing, and coaches play a significant role in supporting
or debilitating a child's sense of self.
It's it, but and again, a lot ofthat stuff that you're
(03:17):
mentioning easier said than done, right?
Like you get so caught up in theemotion of the game and the
energy of the moment and and you're living and dying with it
to to be able to take a step back if you do that is a is a
learned skill. Well.
And you have. To be very conscious of it.
I love that you just called the most important phrase out.
Which is it? The psychological skills are
(03:38):
learned. Yeah, you, you mastered them.
No, I have not mastered. Them well, you did it in the
NFL. You knew how to play calm in
just the right way. Yeah.
What you're calm was it was. Easier for me to play, yeah,
then because I was in control. Coaching and conceding that
control, especially to young kids where?
(03:59):
That is harder. Than when you're doing it
yourself. Let's do kind of a quick wash of
the basic, basic mental skills that if there's a an athlete
listening, a parent listening ora coach listening, that can be
folded into game day practice. Breathing is how you develop the
skill of being calm. So when your body feels anxious,
you got butterflies rolling and they feel like there's a little
(04:20):
too much butterflies. Butterflies are fine, no
problems. But when you got too much
activation, breathing is what settles us down.
You can teach that skill at about the 12th long exhale.
So 12 long exhales in a row. I said three earlier, then six,
then nine. We're trying to get to 12.
You start to send a signal to your brain, hey, there's no
Saber tooth here, There's no wildebeest.
(04:43):
I'm actually in control and OK, I'm starting to get into that
rest. The more, more relaxed state
that happens around 12. If we don't ask our kids to do
it under our direction, they're going to play Xbox, they're
going to play play. They're going to play a game,
something else instead of doing breathing work.
Who wants to do breathing work? The other is confidence.
That too is a trainable skill. Where does it come from?
(05:06):
You know this as good as anybody.
It comes from what you say to yourself.
So we can teach our kids how to back themselves, how to speak to
themselves like they are the greatest coach to themselves.
So that self talk needs to be credible and it needs to be
something that builds you something like this.
(05:26):
All right, look, I don't know how this is going to go, but I'm
a grinder. I don't know how this is going
to go. I love challenges.
Let's go get it. I don't know how this is going
to go, but I'm a force to be reckoned with.
When you back yourself and speakto yourself, you're building
confidence. So we just got 2 skills, you
know, calmness and confidence. And then a third skill that I
think every coach, parent and athlete would benefit from is
(05:48):
before practice, write down three goals that are 100% under
your control. My son's got a little bit like a
little field journal and before practice.
He doesn't write them down all the time.
He now says them out loud to me or he says he says them to
himself, you know, when I'm not around, who knows three goals
that are 100% under his control and one of them better be them.
(06:12):
I tell him, I say you, you got problems coming Now if I, when I
talk to your coach and I'm smiling when I say it, when you,
when I talk to your coach and there's there better be a real
good reason why you're the not the most effortful kid.
There better be a real good reason why you don't have the
most intensity, the most effort,the most enthusiasms, like that
type of vigor. There better be a real good
(06:33):
reason for it because that's totally under your control.
So what I'm saying is three goals 100% in your control.
Write them down, see them and then you can you have a backstop
to measure success from those three things.
Breathing meant self talk and goal setting are a great
mechanism for mental health, a great mechanism for high
performance. That's awesome.
(06:54):
That's super helpful. I mean I'm I'm taking mental
notes when I get home I'm like alright, make sure I have.
Three goals. I'm breathing.
I'm putting this all on my own mental but.
Our guest for this episode here on You Think is Seth Davis.
Seth is a long time CBS Sports writer and studio analyst known
for his in depth basketball coverage.
But beyond his sports expertise,Seth is also a passionate
(07:16):
advocate for kindness, using hisplatform as a quote kindness
evangelist to help inspire positive change both on and off
the court. First off, Seth, you shared just
mastering the basics. Something as simple as
breathing. It can make all the difference,
especially in these high pressure moments.
Learning to control your breath isn't just about staying calm,
(07:37):
it's really about creating like a mental anchor that athletes
can rely on. When the game gets the most
intense, you remain calm. It's really just a simple tool,
but it's one that can really shift the focus back to what
matters in the heat of the moment.
I thought Seth also did a reallygood job highlighting the
importance of learning how to manage your emotions.
I think we all, whether it's thecoaches, the parents in the
(07:59):
crowd, the players on the field or the court, managing emotions
is especially in high stressful situations, it could be a
challenge for a lot of people. Emotions are very powerful and
they can push us forward or on alot of times they can get us off
track. So learning to stay level
headed, especially when things don't necessarily go as planned,
is another key part of mental fitness.
(08:19):
It's about teaching these young athletes how they respond.
Can they respond thoughtfully instead of just reacting
impulsively? And I think that's a skill
that's going to serve them both on and off the field.
And finally, we discussed preparation for big moments.
The best athletes, they don't just show up.
They're mentally rehearsing and preparing for these moments
(08:41):
leading up to competition. So that's why when the moments
do pop up, they're ready. It doesn't catch them off guard.
It's not something they're trying to adjust to in real
time. Visualization, self talk,
setting clear, and those are just some tools that athletes
can use to build the confidence and approach big moments with a
purpose. I think today's episode reminds
us that mental fitness is just as critical as the physical
(09:05):
training. By learning to breathe, managing
emotions, and mentally preparingfor these big moments, young
athletes can gain a powerful edge over their peers.
Seth, yes, this is awesome. You, you are so astute at
understanding and following and calling what you're seeing in
(09:25):
sport. So you've got a legendary career
to be able to tell us what's happening.
So we are honored to sit down with you to better understand
how you're understanding the game inside the games for, you
know, the youth part of sports. So thank you for coming.
In coming from you and being with Greg, it's an honor to be
with you. Awesome.
So when you think about what youwould hope the next generation
(09:48):
of either athletes, parents or coaches could hydrate or
install, whatever, whatever analogy you'd like to use for
the next generation, who would you speak to 1st, The athletes,
the coaches or the parents? Parents.
Easy for me, probably because I am a parent.
I'm the father of three boys, 2018, 14.
(10:11):
Two of them are undergraduates at the University of Texas at
All at Austin. Sorry, hook em.
And my youngest is a freshman inhigh school.
We were mostly a soccer family for a long time.
My youngest is now super into baseball.
Tragically, unlike Greg Olsen's kids, they have my DNA.
So there's a ceiling, which we always knew.
(10:34):
So I had the advantage of a parent a of knowing that and
also covering sports at an elitelevel.
I'm probably a little bit of a snob in that regard compared to
other parents. Like a lot of parents are
looking out there and saying their kids and projecting that
they're going to do a BCXYZ, that they're elite athletes.
(10:55):
And I'm thinking internally, I try to say this too much out
loud, but I'm thinking, you know, I'm around just because of
what I do. It's not I'm not I'm not special
because of what I do. I'm around elite athletes all
the time. I know what an elite athlete
looks like and I'm pretty sure your kid is not that.
Now, I wouldn't limit anything because there's a million
stories and I know you've of, ofpeople, whether they were late
(11:17):
bloomers or they just worked their tails off and got there.
So I would, I would never set a ceiling on your kid, but at some
level there has to be some levelof realism.
And also plus, by the way, he's 9.
Right, that's the yes, right. So.
So why don't you just watch the game and shut the bleep up
(11:38):
right? Like I I am the quietest parent
on the sideline. This episode of You Think is
brought to you by Max UA youth sports training program focused
on mindset development in young athletes.
Instead of reading an ad to you today, I decided to sit down
with Alex Auerbach, someone who specializes in mental fitness
(11:59):
with his company Momentum Labs, to talk about the importance of
Max U. Alex, thank you so much for
being here. I'm looking forward to diving a
little deeper into your journey and just this incredibly
important area of mental health and and mental acuity and
awareness for for young athletes.
A group that we've we've talked with that you think Max, you, I
know that's a group. They have some really cool kind
(12:22):
of evaluation messages. And how they can kind.
Of help kids work through their identity and their mental health
and talk a little bit about youryour work with them and what
you've done with Max you, what you've seen from them.
What elements of their programs have you guys really connected
with? Yeah, I love what Max U is
doing. I think they are providing a
really simple but effective way to help young athletes and
(12:43):
parents understand the personality dimensions behind
their young athletes and then develop skills related to
improve whatever area seems likea limitation or something they
just want to get better at. Right.
And so the Max U tool is based on the Big 5 personality
assessment, which is, you know, a common framework for
understanding personality. It's things like openness,
conscientiousness, extroversion,agreeableness, and what people
(13:06):
might call neuroticism, but is really like your tendency to be
a little bit more anxious or very deliberate and thoughtful,
right? And what they've done is help
young athletes understand how their personality plays out in
their life context by giving them an animal that they relate
to. And it's becomes a simple
framework to grasp who you are, what makes you special and what
(13:27):
strengths that you have. And I think that strengths based
focus is really powerful. And so we use it the same way I
would use any personality assessment with a pro athlete,
honestly, or any athlete I work with, right, is I want to
understand you as a person and personality is just an enduring
pattern of behavior, right? So it's, it's not totally fixed,
but it's also not the easiest thing to change.
(13:48):
And so if we can understand who you are, what motivates you,
what makes you tick, we can get a lot more out of a one-on-one
coaching experience. And I think that's what makes
Max you so powerful is whether you're a sports coach or a
mindset coach like me, having this data allows you to best
understand, OK, what could I do with this athlete to get the
most out of them? And then they've got a platform
that allows you to teach athletes related skills to
(14:10):
whatever element of their personality needs some
development or is already a strength that you want to
enhance, right? So they can teach things like
how to practice mindfulness or learn a little bit more about
self-awareness or understand your strengths and how you
leverage them in sports or school.
I think those characteristics are really, really powerful and
allow you to get the most out ofthe athletes you're working
with. And like I said, at the pro
level, I don't know if you guys did this in Carolina.
(14:32):
I know one thing we did in Toronto was try to understand
the players that we had and thenhow do we work with them
individually? And you're talking about this
with the team you coach now, right?
Every kid is a bit different andyou can't just take A1 size fits
all. And Max U allows you to sort of
get that tailored feedback and treat each kid the way that's
going to resonate most for them and then give them the tools
they need to develop. So true.
(14:53):
I mean, until you identify the specific individual and find the
best way to connect with them, it's hard to be a good coach.
It's hard to because you know you're not going to earn their
trust. They're going to put up their
their walls. You're not going to really
connect with them at a level that just because.
It might not be the. Level that you as the coach
might function at, that doesn't matter.
What matters is identifying the individual, the athlete.
(15:15):
From my my experience with Max, you just going through some of
the assessment stuff and the kids getting their animals and
whatnot. You you take a look at him and
all of a sudden there's like this raise in self-awareness and
going, Oh my God, like I never thought about that.
But that does really describe mebetter than maybe I could have
described myself. And then, you know, the
practical tools and the follow up after that I think is super
(15:37):
cool here. You think we want to bring value
to you, the parents, coaches andthe athletes listening in
everything that we do. Check out Max U today and let
them know that you think sent you.
Now back to the episode. What programs are you seeing
from a college or high school oreven pro level that are
investing in mindfulness as partof the structure of their
(15:59):
practice? We can practice technical
skills. We can practice mental skills.
This would be an easy one to install.
What? What are you seeing out in the
world? Interesting.
I am not seeing many and franklyenough, coaches going the
mindfulness meditation route andteaching their athletes the
(16:20):
benefits of that, the competitive benefits of that,
Right. People think about meditation.
Is this a morph? Oh, that's not for me.
I don't it's. Weird.
You know what's weird is that like Phil Jackson, maybe he got
it wrong. Maybe Kobe got it wrong.
Maybe Jordan got it wrong. Like LeBron is is meditating on.
Lebron's got it wrong. Yeah.
Maybe we shouldn't be doing thisbecause it, you know, they're
different than us, right? It's.
(16:42):
It's, it's wild to see the greats point to one practice and
then it's not yet still trickling down through the, the
power that a coach holds in helping raise our children.
This is one of the greatest practices you can do 'cause it's
a commitment to become more aware.
It's a commitment to become moretuned to the present moment.
(17:03):
And when you do that, you have the ability to navigate life
just a little bit easier. And a scientist pointing, by the
way, meditation's been around like 2600 years, but science is
pointing to. It's a new thing.
A minimal quote, UN quote, minimal effective dose is around
8 minutes a day to get some realchanges.
(17:23):
And if you start moving up to 12, up to 20 minutes a day, the
the science is outrageous about the benefits.
I started with my son when he was age 3, put a little stuffed
animal on his stomach right before we go to bed.
And I say all I want you to do for the next handful of moments,
I'm going to do it with you is watch the stuffed animal go up
when you breathe and down when you breathe and just watch it.
(17:46):
That's the beginning steps for meditation, you know?
And so, but then as he's now in high school ball, he's playing
volleyball. They're not teaching that.
So I wish they would. Yeah.
So I, I, you know, I maybe. Maybe.
I'm going to point to you in anyof the team settings either and.
And you have my. Brain right now racking like I'm
thinking to myself like OK, how do you implement this in a time
(18:07):
efficient manner you have a lot of kids limited time like so I'm
like in my brain saying like where would you fit this in
because for. Football.
Yeah, or any of my. Teams, you know, any of the
teams that were around were around groups of boys, girls,
different seasons, different groups.
Just trying to think like, OK, what is that?
What does that format look like to implement those such
(18:27):
practices at a team level? Or would most of the feedback
be, hey, that's got to be done on an individual level at home?
You know, we're, we're not prepared to do that in a team
setting. I'll share where I think the
future is going. So 20 years ago when I would ask
coaches best in the world, elitecoaches in the pro ranks, how
important is the mental part of the game at this level?
What do you think they said? What percentage?
(18:49):
20 years ago, yeah. Not as important as the
physical. Actually, they would say
something like 75% at this level.
And then I'd say, well, how are you doing it?
How are you? How are you treating, you know,
and cultivating? You think 20 years ago people
had that idea about mental health?
Not mental health, about the mental part of the game.
So when I think of like mental part of the game, even when I
(19:11):
first came into the NFL, so thatwas 617 years ago, if you ask
coaches what mental part of the game, it was knowing your plays,
studying your playbook. Film Study.
Not make study the game. I think if you ask.
What's their pressure? Yeah, What's the mental part of
the game today? To modern coaches in this modern
era, they'd say mental health, confidence, you know, ability to
(19:35):
overcome adversity. Like, I think there'd be a very
different definition. I agree that IA 100% agree.
And I think to, to drive the point home is that let's say
it's in a significant part of, of doing well, especially game
day. OK, that.
And when I would ask, what are you doing for the training of
it, they would say and they kindof pause and it was they, they
(19:57):
the, the advanced one had somebody down the block that
they could refer people to. Then it moved to somebody in the
building that was kind of a bug.Then it would move to somebody
on the bus in the hallways. And now it's more part of
training. It's on training blocks.
It's in the strength and training room.
They'll do mental imagery in thesmall rooms, you know, like it's
(20:18):
just more and more part of an ecosystem.
And it hasn't made that cycle through youth sport yet.
It's coming. There will be time.
Right now, it still probably is later.
Do it on your own time. Doing it, who would be
administering the practices? What I'm asking?
I want to do it. Can I raise my hand?
Yeah, you. Want to do it?
Yeah. I want to do.
It this is where the solution isnot clear for youth because
(20:40):
you're a youth coach and you've got advanced understandings of
the value of the mental game, but you might not feel.
I don't know if I'd be comfortable.
That's right, applying it and leading the practice.
I don't know if I feel myself. Prepared to do that for.
Everyone else's kids, that's. Exactly right.
So the next iteration of coach development will be to include
not only better physical and technical skills, but how to
(21:03):
train mental skills. Not psychotherapy, not something
where you're getting into the all the complicated details, but
breathing training, self talk training, mental imagery, goal
setting and meditation are concrete and quite simple.
So who's doing it? The coach or assistant coach
that has a a connection to it, they've been practicing for a
little bit and or there's plentyof sports hikes that are well
(21:25):
trained. Bring them in.
They they would happily do this for free to get exposure to
building their young business, to get in front of the the
parents. And it's 8 minutes at the end of
practice. Start with mental imagery.
OK everyone, we had a great practice.
This is awesome. We're going to lay down, sit
down, whatever you want to do, close your eyes.
This is right at John Wooden's playbook as well.
Phil Jackson's close your eyes and I'm just going to talk you
(21:48):
through a relaxation, 2 minutes of relaxation and you're going
to see your own highlight reel for the remaining 5 minutes and
that's it. And so I could teach you and you
know how to do it and but you would need to feel comfortable
how to do it. It's not hard.
And then you expose it to them and then you make sure the
parents understand it and reinforce it.
(22:09):
And they're not going to do it at this point because there's so
many other things that kids can do that it's like a parent
asking it has to get done duringthe sport time or it won't get
done. There's no time for extra.
So you, it's interesting, I was telling you about this, this
book on meditation that I've been working on trying to sell,
working with, with my agent. It's frankly been difficult
(22:31):
because I'm not necessarily an expert in the space.
But what I have learned is you talked about the science of
this. So, you know, 30 years ago
scientists didn't want to meant who meditated.
You know, they came out of the hippie dippie 60s and they went
overseas and they, you know, didall, they took acid and they did
all the part of the Timothy Leary and did all the whole
(22:52):
thing. And then they came back and they
got neuroscience degrees and psychology degrees and
microbiology degrees, and they were, as they say, closet
meditators. Richie Davidson at the
University of Wisconsin is is the classic example.
And I give a lot of credit, belongs to the Dalai Lama, who,
as Michael said, this stuff's been around for 2000 years.
Those monks in Tibet, like they know all this.
(23:14):
But the Dalai Lama has encouraged and interface with
Western scientists to show what happens to our brains and what
happens to our bodies when we meditate, when we do certain
breathing exercises. And that has been married with
this incredible advance and technology, with fMRI
technology. And we can really, I mean, we're
(23:35):
in the top of the first inning and as Michael knows, in terms
of understanding how the brain works.
But the point is, you can, if you meditate for a certain
amount of time, your brain will literally change in ways that
will go up on an MRI. And when people understand the
science of it, now it's not thishippie dippie, whatever.
(23:56):
It's like, oh, it's like, I'm a diabetic, I need insulin.
That's what happens, right? So we're just scratching the
surface of this. And I do think that
conversations like this help to understand people, so people
understand what it is and what it isn't and how it can be
applied to so many things. I want to make sure.
Sports, I think is a great window.
It's a great. Window I'm going to make this so
(24:17):
concrete for the viewer like so we're not just talking theory
and I want to back up two points.
Meditation research has found that those who meditate respond
better with to highly stressful environments.
So they perform and respond better in high context
environments. That comes right out of studying
(24:37):
special operators in the military.
There's better parenting for those that are meditators.
They sleep better, they're better emotional regulation,
deeper concentration, focus. These are all things that come
from meditation. So here's here would be the most
simple practice for the viewer right now.
If you were to set a timer for 3minutes, we're going to do baby
(24:57):
steps. And for those 3 minutes, all you
did was focus on your inhale, breathe in through your nose for
five seconds and then notice that you've got some tension in
your body. And then just focus with all of
your essence, all of your might on a long exhale.
Maybe it's 10 seconds and you just have a nice long exhale and
your mind's going to wander. Am I doing it right?
(25:19):
No problems. Just come back to with all of
your might to focus on your inhale.
And if you did that for three minutes, you are meditating.
And if your mind wandered 500 times during those 3 minutes,
it's normal. You just gently refocus back to
the one thing. There would be a hard pressed
argument to say that yeah, refocusing, that's not an
(25:40):
important skill. For high performance, that's not
an important skill. Breathing and relaxing, that's
not an important skill. Be hard pressed.
Start with three minutes, go to four, go to five, move it up to
six. You're on the right path.
Yeah. Alex, give us a little bit of
your back story, your journey, how you founded the company and
and more importantly really. Why did you see?
(26:00):
Feel like there was such a placein the market for for this
service. So I actually started my career
as a college football coach, went and coached at A Division
One university, worked for a couple NFL teams and burnt out
myself coaching. You know, Greg, as you know,
it's a grind. Like the the NFL season is
tough. Coaches have a pretty intensive
lifestyle. And what I found that I loved
(26:20):
while I was doing that work was really spending time with
players, addressing the things that they were thinking about
off the field. So when I was in college, it was
things like, what major should Ipick or how do I navigate my
career after football? And I wanted to find an
opportunity where I could do a little bit more of that work.
And so I actually ended up goingback to school, getting my PhD
in counseling psychology. And so myself and a team of
other performance psychologists got together and started to
(26:42):
think about how do we take what we do at the highest levels of
sport and bring that earlier to an infrastructure and ecosystem
that doesn't otherwise have access to people like me.
And we thought youth sport wouldbe a great opportunity.
We're hoping that we can teach these skills to young athletes
through one-on-one coaching services and give them an
opportunity to become their bestwhen it matters most, at school,
in sports, and ultimately for. Their life.
(27:03):
Alex, I can't thank you enough. This conversation needs to be
had. We need to have more
conversations around this. I look forward to connecting
with you. Thanks for joining us here on
You Think. Thanks for having me, Greg, it
was a pleasure. Here you think we want to bring
value to you, the parents, coaches and the athletes
listening in everything that we do.
Check out Max you today and let them know that you think sent
(27:23):
you. Now back to the episode.
You brought up like John Wooden and Phil Jackson.
What do you think allowed them to be So?
I mean, especially with John Wooden, I mean, you're talking,
what do you think allowed those guys to be so ahead of the time
on a lot of these practices thatyou be curious what you know
about? Like they're obviously wrote his
biography so you should probablyknow.
Right. And I.
Concrete like what? What was his introduction like?
(27:45):
And I guess my other question is, did he get a lot of
resistance from his players? I had to imagine that because it
was so contrary to traditional norms at the time, especially in
high level competitive basketball.
People probably looked at him like he was nuts.
Well, of course the great ones are all nuts, right?
That's why we love them. Wait, wait, wait.
That statement is so true. There's so there's something so
(28:07):
important about what you just said.
I think the greats across multiple disciplines are
speaking the same language. They understand the language
that's different than the 99%. And so you're right on the money
there. And when the wild ones are on to
something, they commit to it. And then we go, oh, well,
they're, they're kind of wild and they're committed.
(28:29):
And then you get some like if you would have said to the, I
don't know, it's your college, if you were the best in the
college or like you were in the pros.
And viewer said, hey, listen, guys, in this room in the tight
end room, we're meditating. And the boys like, oh God, are
you kidding? But you're the one that's
carrying the team for the receptions and da, da, da, some
of them will be like, OK, so we need some air cover and they
(28:49):
need to really commit. You know, the crazy ones, the
wild ones, the frontier pushing ones.
They have a different language. Yeah, no, but it's also about
communication. Like the most important quality
in a leader, I think, is communication because it has to,
you have to make this accessibleto your players.
So I've obviously wrote a book about Wood and I know Phil well.
I've written about him at lengthand talked with him about this
(29:11):
stuff at length a little bit. Two different journeys.
You know, Wooden wasn't in the meditation per SE.
You know, Bill Walton was, and he was teaching all his guys TM
and they all thought that was nuts.
There's a lot of stories there. Wooden would meditate in.
I once said to to Walton, you know, did I heard that Wooden
told you it was OK to smoke marijuana?
(29:32):
That's not true. I said.
Well, people said it was true. He said.
People also said Richard Nixon was a good president, you know.
God bless his soul. But so John Wood wasn't in a
meditation, but he had them tie their shoes and socks a certain
way. That's a meditative practice.
And he distinctly never talked about winning.
(29:54):
He never used the word win. And people have tried to make
him holier than thou. Oh, it wasn't, you know, winning
wasn't important. I said yes, it was.
That's how he got his because like you were talking about the
results and if he could get his guys to not focus on the results
make each day your masterpiece was his pet saying that if he
(30:16):
could keep them in the moment, focused on the process, he would
tell them when that game starts,don't look over at me.
I'm your he was an English teacher.
I'm your teacher. I prepared you in practice.
They didn't have a playbook. He taught them how to play.
Once the game started, don't look over me, you guys play.
That's why he just yelled at therefs the whole game.
A lot of people don't know that about him.
Phil Jackson came to meditation.He was a, you know, a child of
(30:39):
the 60s. A lot of this is kind of a
faith-based journey. You know, John Wynn was a
Christian. Phil Jackson's parents were
Episcopal ministers. You know, he he grew up in sort
of no money around and in these churches and living a life of
service. There's a great story that I
often tell. Obviously, Phil has told that he
kind of came to this as a baseball pitcher.
(31:02):
He was pitching in college and sort of taking psychology.
He thought he was going to become a minister and he had an
arm injury. He had a shot.
So he's coming back from an injury.
And his brother was kind of older brother who was kind of
into this mindful of stuff a little bit.
And so his first game back from that injury, he was worried
about hurting himself again, so he couldn't throw quite as hard.
So he kind of went in there, howam I going to pitch this game
(31:24):
without throwing as hard? Best game he ever pitched.
And that kind of set the mindsetof, you know, George Mumford
says, you know, said to Kobe, well, the key to scoring is not
trying not to score. Say, what do you want to score a
lot of points? Don't try to score.
What? That's the whole ball game.
Stay in the moment. So yeah, it's, it's it's Peace
(31:45):
of Mind, it's mental health, butit's also a performance.
There are phases teach the kids how to train first, so
fundamentals, then you teach thekids how to train, then you
teach them how to compete. And then the last phase is you,
you teach them how to go out there and do their very best
under hard conditions. But right now what we're talking
about youth sport is teach them how to train, teach them how to
(32:07):
compete. And if that begins the focus,
you know, for the rest of their life, they're going to be well
suited. So look, I want to thank you
guys, Seth and a wealth of knowledge.
Really fun to be able to hang out.
With you. No.
Look, Greg knows what he's talking about.
The power that you come to the conversations with are awesome.
Thank you both. Thanks guys.
Thank you for having me. I'm honored.
(32:29):
All right, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us
today. I just wanted to wrap up with
some key takeaways from our conversation with Seth Davis.
Just working on improving mentalfitness, especially in young
athletes. First off, Seth, he shared just
mastering the basics. Something as simple as
breathing, it can make all the difference, especially in these
(32:49):
high pressure moments. Learning to control your breath
isn't just about staying calm. It's really about creating like
a mental anchor that athletes can rely on.
When the game gets the most intense, you remain calm.
It's really just a simple. Tool, but it's.
One that can really shift the focus back to what matters in
the heat of the moment. I thought Seth also did a really
(33:09):
good job highlighting the importance of learning how to
manage your emotions. I think we all, whether it's the
coaches, the parents in the crowd, the players on the field
or the court, managing emotions,especially in high stressful
situations, it could be a challenge for a lot of people.
Emotions are very powerful and they can push us forward or on a
lot of times they can get us offtrack.
So learning to stay level headed, especially when things
(33:31):
don't necessarily go as planned,is another key part of mental
fitness. It's about teaching these young
athletes how they respond. Can they respond thoughtfully
instead of just reacting impulsively?
And I think that's a skill that's going to serve them both
on and off the field. And finally, we discussed
preparation for big moments. The best athletes, they don't
(33:53):
just show up. They're mentally rehearsing and
preparing for these moments leading up to competition.
So that's why when the moments do pop up, they're ready.
It doesn't catch them off guard.It's not something they're
trying to adjust to in real time.
Visualization, self talk, setting clear and intentions,
those are just some tools that athletes can use to build the
confidence and approach big moments with a purpose.
(34:15):
I think today's episode reminds us that mental fitness is just
as critical as the physical training.
By learning to breathe, managingemotions and mentally preparing
for these big moments, young athletes can gain a powerful
edge over their peers. Here's the building resilience,
one practice at a time. Thanks for listening and we'll
see you guys next time here on You Think.
What's up everybody, Greg Olson here and if you're just
listening, you're missing half the experience.
Head over right now to You Thinkon YouTube.
Follow us on all of our social media for daily must see content
that is made specifically for parents, coaches and athletes.
Stay informed. Stay engaged with us here at You
Think. In the world of youth sports,
(00:22):
success is so often measured in trophies by making the team
increase playing time and putting up high scores.
But beyond the medals lies something far more important,
the mental health of our young athletes.
As pressure rises, so do the challenges they face both on and
off the field. This episode delves into the
heart of what truly matters, Balance, support, and
(00:45):
resilience. From fostering positive coaching
environments to encouraging openconversations about feelings,
we'll uncover how to build a foundation where every young
athlete thrives, not just physically, but emotionally to.
Because in youth sports, it's not just about winning, it's
about growing stronger. Mental health is a big deal now,
(01:07):
of course, and we're all dealingwith something, everybody
struggling in some kind of way with something.
Long gone are the days where it's only technical skill
development. The best coaches are using the
two hours or 90 minutes of practice to skill, to teach
technical skills, where to hold your body, the shape you want to
(01:30):
put a body in, to be repeated success or have repeated
success. And what are the mental skills?
They're quite clear. Teach the kids how to breathe.
I don't know if you're doing this yet, but teach them before
or at the middle or at the end of practice.
Just get 10 breaths in, 10 long breaths.
Hey, everyone, great practice. We're going to shut her down
(01:51):
just a little bit. 3 deep breaths.
We're going to do it as a team. Then you move 3:00 to 6:00, and
then you move 6 to 9, right? And just some deep breathing
because what happens? Game time for most people as
they tighten. Up gets anxious.
And so if we're not teaching howto be calm and only technical
skills, we're running them rightinto a choke point right there.
(02:11):
There is no reason why a kid should be anxious or nervous
unless anxiety and sits underneath the surface or we
haven't taught them the skills. And the more internal work you
do and I do, the more we have togive benevolently to others.
If I'm anxious, quick to frustration, easy to, you know,
(02:33):
get pissed off about something, that's what I'm giving to
people. You're not good enough.
That's not good enough. What are we doing here?
As opposed to, oh, I see you. OK, This is great information.
If I am what's called dispositionally optimistic, if I
am an optimistic person, I get to see through the lenses of my
life opportunities as opposed toall the things that could go
(02:56):
wrong. That's a pessimistic outlook, so
I need to work up to feed my optimism to build that skill so
that I can find the good in the opportunities even when it's
difficult to do so. So mental health is a real
thing, and coaches play a significant role in supporting
or debilitating a child's sense of self.
It's it, but and again, a lot ofthat stuff that you're
(03:17):
mentioning easier said than done, right?
Like you get so caught up in theemotion of the game and the
energy of the moment and and you're living and dying with it
to to be able to take a step back if you do that is a is a
learned skill. Well.
And you have. To be very conscious of it.
I love that you just called the most important phrase out.
Which is it? The psychological skills are
(03:38):
learned. Yeah, you, you mastered them.
No, I have not mastered. Them well, you did it in the
NFL. You knew how to play calm in
just the right way. Yeah.
What you're calm was it was. Easier for me to play, yeah,
then because I was in control. Coaching and conceding that
control, especially to young kids where?
(03:59):
That is harder. Than when you're doing it
yourself. Let's do kind of a quick wash of
the basic, basic mental skills that if there's a an athlete
listening, a parent listening ora coach listening, that can be
folded into game day practice. Breathing is how you develop the
skill of being calm. So when your body feels anxious,
you got butterflies rolling and they feel like there's a little
(04:20):
too much butterflies. Butterflies are fine, no
problems. But when you got too much
activation, breathing is what settles us down.
You can teach that skill at about the 12th long exhale.
So 12 long exhales in a row. I said three earlier, then six,
then nine. We're trying to get to 12.
You start to send a signal to your brain, hey, there's no
Saber tooth here, There's no wildebeest.
(04:43):
I'm actually in control and OK, I'm starting to get into that
rest. The more, more relaxed state
that happens around 12. If we don't ask our kids to do
it under our direction, they're going to play Xbox, they're
going to play play. They're going to play a game,
something else instead of doing breathing work.
Who wants to do breathing work? The other is confidence.
That too is a trainable skill. Where does it come from?
(05:06):
You know this as good as anybody.
It comes from what you say to yourself.
So we can teach our kids how to back themselves, how to speak to
themselves like they are the greatest coach to themselves.
So that self talk needs to be credible and it needs to be
something that builds you something like this.
(05:26):
All right, look, I don't know how this is going to go, but I'm
a grinder. I don't know how this is going
to go. I love challenges.
Let's go get it. I don't know how this is going
to go, but I'm a force to be reckoned with.
When you back yourself and speakto yourself, you're building
confidence. So we just got 2 skills, you
know, calmness and confidence. And then a third skill that I
think every coach, parent and athlete would benefit from is
(05:48):
before practice, write down three goals that are 100% under
your control. My son's got a little bit like a
little field journal and before practice.
He doesn't write them down all the time.
He now says them out loud to me or he says he says them to
himself, you know, when I'm not around, who knows three goals
that are 100% under his control and one of them better be them.
(06:12):
I tell him, I say you, you got problems coming Now if I, when I
talk to your coach and I'm smiling when I say it, when you,
when I talk to your coach and there's there better be a real
good reason why you're the not the most effortful kid.
There better be a real good reason why you don't have the
most intensity, the most effort,the most enthusiasms, like that
type of vigor. There better be a real good
(06:33):
reason for it because that's totally under your control.
So what I'm saying is three goals 100% in your control.
Write them down, see them and then you can you have a backstop
to measure success from those three things.
Breathing meant self talk and goal setting are a great
mechanism for mental health, a great mechanism for high
performance. That's awesome.
(06:54):
That's super helpful. I mean I'm I'm taking mental
notes when I get home I'm like alright, make sure I have.
Three goals. I'm breathing.
I'm putting this all on my own mental but.
Our guest for this episode here on You Think is Seth Davis.
Seth is a long time CBS Sports writer and studio analyst known
for his in depth basketball coverage.
But beyond his sports expertise,Seth is also a passionate
(07:16):
advocate for kindness, using hisplatform as a quote kindness
evangelist to help inspire positive change both on and off
the court. First off, Seth, you shared just
mastering the basics. Something as simple as
breathing. It can make all the difference,
especially in these high pressure moments.
Learning to control your breath isn't just about staying calm,
(07:37):
it's really about creating like a mental anchor that athletes
can rely on. When the game gets the most
intense, you remain calm. It's really just a simple tool,
but it's one that can really shift the focus back to what
matters in the heat of the moment.
I thought Seth also did a reallygood job highlighting the
importance of learning how to manage your emotions.
I think we all, whether it's thecoaches, the parents in the
(07:59):
crowd, the players on the field or the court, managing emotions
is especially in high stressful situations, it could be a
challenge for a lot of people. Emotions are very powerful and
they can push us forward or on alot of times they can get us off
track. So learning to stay level
headed, especially when things don't necessarily go as planned,
is another key part of mental fitness.
(08:19):
It's about teaching these young athletes how they respond.
Can they respond thoughtfully instead of just reacting
impulsively? And I think that's a skill
that's going to serve them both on and off the field.
And finally, we discussed preparation for big moments.
The best athletes, they don't just show up.
They're mentally rehearsing and preparing for these moments
(08:41):
leading up to competition. So that's why when the moments
do pop up, they're ready. It doesn't catch them off guard.
It's not something they're trying to adjust to in real
time. Visualization, self talk,
setting clear, and those are just some tools that athletes
can use to build the confidence and approach big moments with a
purpose. I think today's episode reminds
us that mental fitness is just as critical as the physical
(09:05):
training. By learning to breathe, managing
emotions, and mentally preparingfor these big moments, young
athletes can gain a powerful edge over their peers.
Seth, yes, this is awesome. You, you are so astute at
understanding and following and calling what you're seeing in
(09:25):
sport. So you've got a legendary career
to be able to tell us what's happening.
So we are honored to sit down with you to better understand
how you're understanding the game inside the games for, you
know, the youth part of sports. So thank you for coming.
In coming from you and being with Greg, it's an honor to be
with you. Awesome.
So when you think about what youwould hope the next generation
(09:48):
of either athletes, parents or coaches could hydrate or
install, whatever, whatever analogy you'd like to use for
the next generation, who would you speak to 1st, The athletes,
the coaches or the parents? Parents.
Easy for me, probably because I am a parent.
I'm the father of three boys, 2018, 14.
(10:11):
Two of them are undergraduates at the University of Texas at
All at Austin. Sorry, hook em.
And my youngest is a freshman inhigh school.
We were mostly a soccer family for a long time.
My youngest is now super into baseball.
Tragically, unlike Greg Olsen's kids, they have my DNA.
So there's a ceiling, which we always knew.
(10:34):
So I had the advantage of a parent a of knowing that and
also covering sports at an elitelevel.
I'm probably a little bit of a snob in that regard compared to
other parents. Like a lot of parents are
looking out there and saying their kids and projecting that
they're going to do a BCXYZ, that they're elite athletes.
(10:55):
And I'm thinking internally, I try to say this too much out
loud, but I'm thinking, you know, I'm around just because of
what I do. It's not I'm not I'm not special
because of what I do. I'm around elite athletes all
the time. I know what an elite athlete
looks like and I'm pretty sure your kid is not that.
Now, I wouldn't limit anything because there's a million
stories and I know you've of, ofpeople, whether they were late
(11:17):
bloomers or they just worked their tails off and got there.
So I would, I would never set a ceiling on your kid, but at some
level there has to be some levelof realism.
And also plus, by the way, he's 9.
Right, that's the yes, right. So.
So why don't you just watch the game and shut the bleep up
(11:38):
right? Like I I am the quietest parent
on the sideline. This episode of You Think is
brought to you by Max UA youth sports training program focused
on mindset development in young athletes.
Instead of reading an ad to you today, I decided to sit down
with Alex Auerbach, someone who specializes in mental fitness
(11:59):
with his company Momentum Labs, to talk about the importance of
Max U. Alex, thank you so much for
being here. I'm looking forward to diving a
little deeper into your journey and just this incredibly
important area of mental health and and mental acuity and
awareness for for young athletes.
A group that we've we've talked with that you think Max, you, I
know that's a group. They have some really cool kind
(12:22):
of evaluation messages. And how they can kind.
Of help kids work through their identity and their mental health
and talk a little bit about youryour work with them and what
you've done with Max you, what you've seen from them.
What elements of their programs have you guys really connected
with? Yeah, I love what Max U is
doing. I think they are providing a
really simple but effective way to help young athletes and
(12:43):
parents understand the personality dimensions behind
their young athletes and then develop skills related to
improve whatever area seems likea limitation or something they
just want to get better at. Right.
And so the Max U tool is based on the Big 5 personality
assessment, which is, you know, a common framework for
understanding personality. It's things like openness,
conscientiousness, extroversion,agreeableness, and what people
(13:06):
might call neuroticism, but is really like your tendency to be
a little bit more anxious or very deliberate and thoughtful,
right? And what they've done is help
young athletes understand how their personality plays out in
their life context by giving them an animal that they relate
to. And it's becomes a simple
framework to grasp who you are, what makes you special and what
(13:27):
strengths that you have. And I think that strengths based
focus is really powerful. And so we use it the same way I
would use any personality assessment with a pro athlete,
honestly, or any athlete I work with, right, is I want to
understand you as a person and personality is just an enduring
pattern of behavior, right? So it's, it's not totally fixed,
but it's also not the easiest thing to change.
(13:48):
And so if we can understand who you are, what motivates you,
what makes you tick, we can get a lot more out of a one-on-one
coaching experience. And I think that's what makes
Max you so powerful is whether you're a sports coach or a
mindset coach like me, having this data allows you to best
understand, OK, what could I do with this athlete to get the
most out of them? And then they've got a platform
that allows you to teach athletes related skills to
(14:10):
whatever element of their personality needs some
development or is already a strength that you want to
enhance, right? So they can teach things like
how to practice mindfulness or learn a little bit more about
self-awareness or understand your strengths and how you
leverage them in sports or school.
I think those characteristics are really, really powerful and
allow you to get the most out ofthe athletes you're working
with. And like I said, at the pro
level, I don't know if you guys did this in Carolina.
(14:32):
I know one thing we did in Toronto was try to understand
the players that we had and thenhow do we work with them
individually? And you're talking about this
with the team you coach now, right?
Every kid is a bit different andyou can't just take A1 size fits
all. And Max U allows you to sort of
get that tailored feedback and treat each kid the way that's
going to resonate most for them and then give them the tools
they need to develop. So true.
(14:53):
I mean, until you identify the specific individual and find the
best way to connect with them, it's hard to be a good coach.
It's hard to because you know you're not going to earn their
trust. They're going to put up their
their walls. You're not going to really
connect with them at a level that just because.
It might not be the. Level that you as the coach
might function at, that doesn't matter.
What matters is identifying the individual, the athlete.
(15:15):
From my my experience with Max, you just going through some of
the assessment stuff and the kids getting their animals and
whatnot. You you take a look at him and
all of a sudden there's like this raise in self-awareness and
going, Oh my God, like I never thought about that.
But that does really describe mebetter than maybe I could have
described myself. And then, you know, the
practical tools and the follow up after that I think is super
(15:37):
cool here. You think we want to bring value
to you, the parents, coaches andthe athletes listening in
everything that we do. Check out Max U today and let
them know that you think sent you.
Now back to the episode. What programs are you seeing
from a college or high school oreven pro level that are
investing in mindfulness as partof the structure of their
(15:59):
practice? We can practice technical
skills. We can practice mental skills.
This would be an easy one to install.
What? What are you seeing out in the
world? Interesting.
I am not seeing many and franklyenough, coaches going the
mindfulness meditation route andteaching their athletes the
(16:20):
benefits of that, the competitive benefits of that,
Right. People think about meditation.
Is this a morph? Oh, that's not for me.
I don't it's. Weird.
You know what's weird is that like Phil Jackson, maybe he got
it wrong. Maybe Kobe got it wrong.
Maybe Jordan got it wrong. Like LeBron is is meditating on.
Lebron's got it wrong. Yeah.
Maybe we shouldn't be doing thisbecause it, you know, they're
different than us, right? It's.
(16:42):
It's, it's wild to see the greats point to one practice and
then it's not yet still trickling down through the, the
power that a coach holds in helping raise our children.
This is one of the greatest practices you can do 'cause it's
a commitment to become more aware.
It's a commitment to become moretuned to the present moment.
(17:03):
And when you do that, you have the ability to navigate life
just a little bit easier. And a scientist pointing, by the
way, meditation's been around like 2600 years, but science is
pointing to. It's a new thing.
A minimal quote, UN quote, minimal effective dose is around
8 minutes a day to get some realchanges.
(17:23):
And if you start moving up to 12, up to 20 minutes a day, the
the science is outrageous about the benefits.
I started with my son when he was age 3, put a little stuffed
animal on his stomach right before we go to bed.
And I say all I want you to do for the next handful of moments,
I'm going to do it with you is watch the stuffed animal go up
when you breathe and down when you breathe and just watch it.
(17:46):
That's the beginning steps for meditation, you know?
And so, but then as he's now in high school ball, he's playing
volleyball. They're not teaching that.
So I wish they would. Yeah.
So I, I, you know, I maybe. Maybe.
I'm going to point to you in anyof the team settings either and.
And you have my. Brain right now racking like I'm
thinking to myself like OK, how do you implement this in a time
(18:07):
efficient manner you have a lot of kids limited time like so I'm
like in my brain saying like where would you fit this in
because for. Football.
Yeah, or any of my. Teams, you know, any of the
teams that were around were around groups of boys, girls,
different seasons, different groups.
Just trying to think like, OK, what is that?
What does that format look like to implement those such
(18:27):
practices at a team level? Or would most of the feedback
be, hey, that's got to be done on an individual level at home?
You know, we're, we're not prepared to do that in a team
setting. I'll share where I think the
future is going. So 20 years ago when I would ask
coaches best in the world, elitecoaches in the pro ranks, how
important is the mental part of the game at this level?
What do you think they said? What percentage?
(18:49):
20 years ago, yeah. Not as important as the
physical. Actually, they would say
something like 75% at this level.
And then I'd say, well, how are you doing it?
How are you? How are you treating, you know,
and cultivating? You think 20 years ago people
had that idea about mental health?
Not mental health, about the mental part of the game.
So when I think of like mental part of the game, even when I
(19:11):
first came into the NFL, so thatwas 617 years ago, if you ask
coaches what mental part of the game, it was knowing your plays,
studying your playbook. Film Study.
Not make study the game. I think if you ask.
What's their pressure? Yeah, What's the mental part of
the game today? To modern coaches in this modern
era, they'd say mental health, confidence, you know, ability to
(19:35):
overcome adversity. Like, I think there'd be a very
different definition. I agree that IA 100% agree.
And I think to, to drive the point home is that let's say
it's in a significant part of, of doing well, especially game
day. OK, that.
And when I would ask, what are you doing for the training of
it, they would say and they kindof pause and it was they, they
(19:57):
the, the advanced one had somebody down the block that
they could refer people to. Then it moved to somebody in the
building that was kind of a bug.Then it would move to somebody
on the bus in the hallways. And now it's more part of
training. It's on training blocks.
It's in the strength and training room.
They'll do mental imagery in thesmall rooms, you know, like it's
(20:18):
just more and more part of an ecosystem.
And it hasn't made that cycle through youth sport yet.
It's coming. There will be time.
Right now, it still probably is later.
Do it on your own time. Doing it, who would be
administering the practices? What I'm asking?
I want to do it. Can I raise my hand?
Yeah, you. Want to do it?
Yeah. I want to do.
It this is where the solution isnot clear for youth because
(20:40):
you're a youth coach and you've got advanced understandings of
the value of the mental game, but you might not feel.
I don't know if I'd be comfortable.
That's right, applying it and leading the practice.
I don't know if I feel myself. Prepared to do that for.
Everyone else's kids, that's. Exactly right.
So the next iteration of coach development will be to include
not only better physical and technical skills, but how to
(21:03):
train mental skills. Not psychotherapy, not something
where you're getting into the all the complicated details, but
breathing training, self talk training, mental imagery, goal
setting and meditation are concrete and quite simple.
So who's doing it? The coach or assistant coach
that has a a connection to it, they've been practicing for a
little bit and or there's plentyof sports hikes that are well
(21:25):
trained. Bring them in.
They they would happily do this for free to get exposure to
building their young business, to get in front of the the
parents. And it's 8 minutes at the end of
practice. Start with mental imagery.
OK everyone, we had a great practice.
This is awesome. We're going to lay down, sit
down, whatever you want to do, close your eyes.
This is right at John Wooden's playbook as well.
Phil Jackson's close your eyes and I'm just going to talk you
(21:48):
through a relaxation, 2 minutes of relaxation and you're going
to see your own highlight reel for the remaining 5 minutes and
that's it. And so I could teach you and you
know how to do it and but you would need to feel comfortable
how to do it. It's not hard.
And then you expose it to them and then you make sure the
parents understand it and reinforce it.
(22:09):
And they're not going to do it at this point because there's so
many other things that kids can do that it's like a parent
asking it has to get done duringthe sport time or it won't get
done. There's no time for extra.
So you, it's interesting, I was telling you about this, this
book on meditation that I've been working on trying to sell,
working with, with my agent. It's frankly been difficult
(22:31):
because I'm not necessarily an expert in the space.
But what I have learned is you talked about the science of
this. So, you know, 30 years ago
scientists didn't want to meant who meditated.
You know, they came out of the hippie dippie 60s and they went
overseas and they, you know, didall, they took acid and they did
all the part of the Timothy Leary and did all the whole
(22:52):
thing. And then they came back and they
got neuroscience degrees and psychology degrees and
microbiology degrees, and they were, as they say, closet
meditators. Richie Davidson at the
University of Wisconsin is is the classic example.
And I give a lot of credit, belongs to the Dalai Lama, who,
as Michael said, this stuff's been around for 2000 years.
Those monks in Tibet, like they know all this.
(23:14):
But the Dalai Lama has encouraged and interface with
Western scientists to show what happens to our brains and what
happens to our bodies when we meditate, when we do certain
breathing exercises. And that has been married with
this incredible advance and technology, with fMRI
technology. And we can really, I mean, we're
(23:35):
in the top of the first inning and as Michael knows, in terms
of understanding how the brain works.
But the point is, you can, if you meditate for a certain
amount of time, your brain will literally change in ways that
will go up on an MRI. And when people understand the
science of it, now it's not thishippie dippie, whatever.
(23:56):
It's like, oh, it's like, I'm a diabetic, I need insulin.
That's what happens, right? So we're just scratching the
surface of this. And I do think that
conversations like this help to understand people, so people
understand what it is and what it isn't and how it can be
applied to so many things. I want to make sure.
Sports, I think is a great window.
It's a great. Window I'm going to make this so
(24:17):
concrete for the viewer like so we're not just talking theory
and I want to back up two points.
Meditation research has found that those who meditate respond
better with to highly stressful environments.
So they perform and respond better in high context
environments. That comes right out of studying
(24:37):
special operators in the military.
There's better parenting for those that are meditators.
They sleep better, they're better emotional regulation,
deeper concentration, focus. These are all things that come
from meditation. So here's here would be the most
simple practice for the viewer right now.
If you were to set a timer for 3minutes, we're going to do baby
(24:57):
steps. And for those 3 minutes, all you
did was focus on your inhale, breathe in through your nose for
five seconds and then notice that you've got some tension in
your body. And then just focus with all of
your essence, all of your might on a long exhale.
Maybe it's 10 seconds and you just have a nice long exhale and
your mind's going to wander. Am I doing it right?
(25:19):
No problems. Just come back to with all of
your might to focus on your inhale.
And if you did that for three minutes, you are meditating.
And if your mind wandered 500 times during those 3 minutes,
it's normal. You just gently refocus back to
the one thing. There would be a hard pressed
argument to say that yeah, refocusing, that's not an
(25:40):
important skill. For high performance, that's not
an important skill. Breathing and relaxing, that's
not an important skill. Be hard pressed.
Start with three minutes, go to four, go to five, move it up to
six. You're on the right path.
Yeah. Alex, give us a little bit of
your back story, your journey, how you founded the company and
and more importantly really. Why did you see?
(26:00):
Feel like there was such a placein the market for for this
service. So I actually started my career
as a college football coach, went and coached at A Division
One university, worked for a couple NFL teams and burnt out
myself coaching. You know, Greg, as you know,
it's a grind. Like the the NFL season is
tough. Coaches have a pretty intensive
lifestyle. And what I found that I loved
(26:20):
while I was doing that work was really spending time with
players, addressing the things that they were thinking about
off the field. So when I was in college, it was
things like, what major should Ipick or how do I navigate my
career after football? And I wanted to find an
opportunity where I could do a little bit more of that work.
And so I actually ended up goingback to school, getting my PhD
in counseling psychology. And so myself and a team of
other performance psychologists got together and started to
(26:42):
think about how do we take what we do at the highest levels of
sport and bring that earlier to an infrastructure and ecosystem
that doesn't otherwise have access to people like me.
And we thought youth sport wouldbe a great opportunity.
We're hoping that we can teach these skills to young athletes
through one-on-one coaching services and give them an
opportunity to become their bestwhen it matters most, at school,
in sports, and ultimately for. Their life.
(27:03):
Alex, I can't thank you enough. This conversation needs to be
had. We need to have more
conversations around this. I look forward to connecting
with you. Thanks for joining us here on
You Think. Thanks for having me, Greg, it
was a pleasure. Here you think we want to bring
value to you, the parents, coaches and the athletes
listening in everything that we do.
Check out Max you today and let them know that you think sent
(27:23):
you. Now back to the episode.
You brought up like John Wooden and Phil Jackson.
What do you think allowed them to be So?
I mean, especially with John Wooden, I mean, you're talking,
what do you think allowed those guys to be so ahead of the time
on a lot of these practices thatyou be curious what you know
about? Like they're obviously wrote his
biography so you should probablyknow.
Right. And I.
Concrete like what? What was his introduction like?
(27:45):
And I guess my other question is, did he get a lot of
resistance from his players? I had to imagine that because it
was so contrary to traditional norms at the time, especially in
high level competitive basketball.
People probably looked at him like he was nuts.
Well, of course the great ones are all nuts, right?
That's why we love them. Wait, wait, wait.
That statement is so true. There's so there's something so
(28:07):
important about what you just said.
I think the greats across multiple disciplines are
speaking the same language. They understand the language
that's different than the 99%. And so you're right on the money
there. And when the wild ones are on to
something, they commit to it. And then we go, oh, well,
they're, they're kind of wild and they're committed.
(28:29):
And then you get some like if you would have said to the, I
don't know, it's your college, if you were the best in the
college or like you were in the pros.
And viewer said, hey, listen, guys, in this room in the tight
end room, we're meditating. And the boys like, oh God, are
you kidding? But you're the one that's
carrying the team for the receptions and da, da, da, some
of them will be like, OK, so we need some air cover and they
(28:49):
need to really commit. You know, the crazy ones, the
wild ones, the frontier pushing ones.
They have a different language. Yeah, no, but it's also about
communication. Like the most important quality
in a leader, I think, is communication because it has to,
you have to make this accessibleto your players.
So I've obviously wrote a book about Wood and I know Phil well.
I've written about him at lengthand talked with him about this
(29:11):
stuff at length a little bit. Two different journeys.
You know, Wooden wasn't in the meditation per SE.
You know, Bill Walton was, and he was teaching all his guys TM
and they all thought that was nuts.
There's a lot of stories there. Wooden would meditate in.
I once said to to Walton, you know, did I heard that Wooden
told you it was OK to smoke marijuana?
(29:32):
That's not true. I said.
Well, people said it was true. He said.
People also said Richard Nixon was a good president, you know.
God bless his soul. But so John Wood wasn't in a
meditation, but he had them tie their shoes and socks a certain
way. That's a meditative practice.
And he distinctly never talked about winning.
(29:54):
He never used the word win. And people have tried to make
him holier than thou. Oh, it wasn't, you know, winning
wasn't important. I said yes, it was.
That's how he got his because like you were talking about the
results and if he could get his guys to not focus on the results
make each day your masterpiece was his pet saying that if he
(30:16):
could keep them in the moment, focused on the process, he would
tell them when that game starts,don't look over at me.
I'm your he was an English teacher.
I'm your teacher. I prepared you in practice.
They didn't have a playbook. He taught them how to play.
Once the game started, don't look over me, you guys play.
That's why he just yelled at therefs the whole game.
A lot of people don't know that about him.
Phil Jackson came to meditation.He was a, you know, a child of
(30:39):
the 60s. A lot of this is kind of a
faith-based journey. You know, John Wynn was a
Christian. Phil Jackson's parents were
Episcopal ministers. You know, he he grew up in sort
of no money around and in these churches and living a life of
service. There's a great story that I
often tell. Obviously, Phil has told that he
kind of came to this as a baseball pitcher.
(31:02):
He was pitching in college and sort of taking psychology.
He thought he was going to become a minister and he had an
arm injury. He had a shot.
So he's coming back from an injury.
And his brother was kind of older brother who was kind of
into this mindful of stuff a little bit.
And so his first game back from that injury, he was worried
about hurting himself again, so he couldn't throw quite as hard.
So he kind of went in there, howam I going to pitch this game
(31:24):
without throwing as hard? Best game he ever pitched.
And that kind of set the mindsetof, you know, George Mumford
says, you know, said to Kobe, well, the key to scoring is not
trying not to score. Say, what do you want to score a
lot of points? Don't try to score.
What? That's the whole ball game.
Stay in the moment. So yeah, it's, it's it's Peace
(31:45):
of Mind, it's mental health, butit's also a performance.
There are phases teach the kids how to train first, so
fundamentals, then you teach thekids how to train, then you
teach them how to compete. And then the last phase is you,
you teach them how to go out there and do their very best
under hard conditions. But right now what we're talking
about youth sport is teach them how to train, teach them how to
(32:07):
compete. And if that begins the focus,
you know, for the rest of their life, they're going to be well
suited. So look, I want to thank you
guys, Seth and a wealth of knowledge.
Really fun to be able to hang out.
With you. No.
Look, Greg knows what he's talking about.
The power that you come to the conversations with are awesome.
Thank you both. Thanks guys.
Thank you for having me. I'm honored.
(32:29):
All right, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us
today. I just wanted to wrap up with
some key takeaways from our conversation with Seth Davis.
Just working on improving mentalfitness, especially in young
athletes. First off, Seth, he shared just
mastering the basics. Something as simple as
breathing, it can make all the difference, especially in these
(32:49):
high pressure moments. Learning to control your breath
isn't just about staying calm. It's really about creating like
a mental anchor that athletes can rely on.
When the game gets the most intense, you remain calm.
It's really just a simple. Tool, but it's.
One that can really shift the focus back to what matters in
the heat of the moment. I thought Seth also did a really
(33:09):
good job highlighting the importance of learning how to
manage your emotions. I think we all, whether it's the
coaches, the parents in the crowd, the players on the field
or the court, managing emotions,especially in high stressful
situations, it could be a challenge for a lot of people.
Emotions are very powerful and they can push us forward or on a
lot of times they can get us offtrack.
So learning to stay level headed, especially when things
(33:31):
don't necessarily go as planned,is another key part of mental
fitness. It's about teaching these young
athletes how they respond. Can they respond thoughtfully
instead of just reacting impulsively?
And I think that's a skill that's going to serve them both
on and off the field. And finally, we discussed
preparation for big moments. The best athletes, they don't
(33:53):
just show up. They're mentally rehearsing and
preparing for these moments leading up to competition.
So that's why when the moments do pop up, they're ready.
It doesn't catch them off guard.It's not something they're
trying to adjust to in real time.
Visualization, self talk, setting clear and intentions,
those are just some tools that athletes can use to build the
confidence and approach big moments with a purpose.
(34:15):
I think today's episode reminds us that mental fitness is just
as critical as the physical training.
By learning to breathe, managingemotions and mentally preparing
for these big moments, young athletes can gain a powerful
edge over their peers. Here's the building resilience,
one practice at a time. Thanks for listening and we'll
see you guys next time here on You Think.
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