Joshua Lifrak is currently the Director of Coaching and Performance for the Limitless Minds Organization founded by Russel Wilson, his brother Harry Wilson, and the mental performance legend Trevor Mowaod. He also runs his own consulting business Lift Up Consulting where he has clients from all over the world and regularly delivers speeches, workshops, and consults.

Josh's career began with an internship at IMG Academy, the Hogwarts of Youth Sports where many superstar draft athletes train where all his contemporaries have gone on to work in major organizations across the MLB and more. Josh was brought in as the Director of Mental Skills for the Chicago Cubs and ended up helping them break a 108-year drought and win the World Series.

We talked about his journey, the field of mental performance, being a good human, changing culture, working with the Godfather of sports psychology Ken Ravizza, and much more!

Takeaways:

• Everyone has potential and greatness inside them; recognizing and nurturing that is vital.
• The power of mindset can lead to significant improvements in performance and life.
• You don't need to wait for a problem to seek mental performance coaching.
• Building a strong team culture enhances overall performance and individual success.
• The journey to success involves consistent effort and the willingness to learn.
• Effective communication and understanding social cues are crucial in coaching and parenting.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• IMG Academy
• Chicago Cubs
• New York Mets
• Limitless Minds

Links referenced in this episode:

• liftupconsulting.com
• limitlessminds.com
• linkedin.com
• instagram.com

There's, like, nothing more beautiful for me than somebody fulfilling the potential. And I think everybody has potential. I think everybody has greatness inside of them. And to see that greatness live, oh, what a dream, man.

What a dream. This field is about living and lifting other people up and loving other people. That's what it's about.

And when you give in and you pour into others, man, it comes back to you tenfold. You don't have to be sick to get better. That's so cool.

All I had to do was change how I thought about something, and now I'm having different results. So, man, I wonder if there's, like, a study of this anywhere, especially in the sport and performance world, right?

Where she may not know how to train the mind, but your mind is still going to affect you in whatever performance you're in. So why not? Let's go. I want that confidence from, you know, like, how do I learn that?

Welcome to the evolving potential podcast. This is episode number 20. Today I have on the show Josh Lifrak.

He also has a bachelor's in sociology and a master's in exercise science with a specialty in sports psychology.

He's currently the director of coaching and performance for Limitless Minds, a company founded by the NFL's Russell Wilson, his brother Harry Wilson, and the mental performance legend Trevor Moad.

Josh gives seminars, speeches, workshops, and coaches people on mastering energy, focus, mindset, great culture, developing good humans, being intentional, present, and gaining clarity, among many other topics. Thank you for being on the show, Josh.

Thank you, Todd. Appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity.

It's funny you're saying all that stuff, and it's just like, you and I were just talking about this 15 seconds ago about, you know, like, yesterday was just, like, rough. I was. I live in Florida. We got crushed by the hurricane. I, uh, my wife's from Israel.

You know, everything that's going on over there, elections coming up, all.

And I was just like, in this news, like, I went down the news cycle and I was just, like, all beat up, and it's like, you're listed all the things that I coach on, and I was like, geez, I kind of need a coach. One of those people that talked to me, get my head out of the sand. It was kind of fun.

That's what, that, that's what's crazy.

That's something that I've realized over time too, is how I've personally been unwilling to get help for myself or reach out to a coach or have a mentor. And those kind of things are utilized at the highest level.

And that's what's kind of cool about talking about how the fact that these professional athletes at the highest level are utilizing coaches, you know, it's, it's not just for people with problems. And that's where we kind of can get into the proactive versus reactive part of mental conditioning or mental performance versus mental health, right?

Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, we, we have a phrase that Trevor coined years and years ago. We still use it in limitless minds today.

But you don't have to be sick to get better, right? And I think that that's like, when do, when do most people seek out help?

They seek out help when there's something that feels amiss, when they're uncomfortable, when they're in times of distress, things of that nature.

But what we've seen from the elite sport world certainly is, it is often the guys or the women who are at the highest levels and are achieving the most that tend to seek out mental conditioning, mental strength coaching, mental skills coaching. They want it, right because they know it's a competitive advantage.

If this is an area that I can train, I can train my physical, right, I can get in the gym, I can lift, right, you, you do a lot of that. I can tell, right? You can, you can, you can get after that, right.

You could train your diethyde, you can make sure you're ingesting the right stuff, you can train your technique, you could train the tactics, but, and all that's great and it gives you a lot of opportunities to succeed. But now you add in, I'm training my mind as well, to stay focused, to manage my energy, to increase my confidence, all of those different things.

If I'm doing that on a consistent basis now I'm leveling all those other three as well.

So I think that that's the big thing is, is, again, it's, it's, it's a, the mental sides are part of performance, you know, as Trevor used to say all the time, right?

Like I didn't, I didn't understand the rules of gravity, you know, until I was in like, you know, 11th grade or 10th grade, but they still affected me. They were still. They were still having an influence on me, and same kind of thing.

You may not know how the mind works, you may not know how to train the mind, but your mind is still going to affect you in whatever performance you're in. So why not?

Yeah, absolutely. And so I'm curious with. Because I don't know if I've already told you this or not, but I'm getting.

I'm six months out from getting my master's degree in sociology, so I'm very interested in the social component of things. So you have a bachelor's in sociology and a master's in exercise science.

I'm kind of curious if you have any insight on how those have played into your mental performance coaching, understanding the larger picture, understanding some of the physicality, you know, some of the performance stuff behind the scenes. Cause I have a.

Also have an experience as a personal trainer, so I've been kind of curious how I can bring in my own knowledge into this field and how you might have utilized these things.

Yeah, I think it's a lot about, like, influence on a whole, on influences on groups and things of that nature and how you get an entire organization to buy into philosophy and culture and things of that nature.

So I think that that's where the social background kind of played in for me is I was able to look at a group, and I was able to kind of do some research and figure out, okay, what does this group need? Versus, like, just going in and being like, okay, here's mental skills. Do it.

Well, sometimes there's a little bit more to that, and sometimes the leaders need to be coached up a little bit. Sometimes some of the middle managers need to be coached up. It really kind of depends. But, you know, it's kind of funny.

I spent time in Chicago, and I literally just asked every single person that I could talk to a series of questions, ultimately trying to understand what the identity was of the organization. What was our identity? Who were we? Right. Identity matters a ton. You think about it was always talk about, like, identity. And the. In.

The best example of this was Kobe, right? And Kobe, when he went on the court, he was who. He was the black mamba, the back. All right. And the mamba does what the mamba does, right.

And he had that whole thing going, and it was his kind of like alter identity. It was like his superhero costume that he would put on. There was an off the field. There was an on the field.

Another good example of that is a guy named George St. Pierre from MMA, right? He was in the hall of fame of MMA, one of the best champions ever.

I believe he was middleweight, but he used to, you know, when he would go to his press conferences, he would go in a suit and a tie, because there was the fighter and then there was the businessman, and he would have these different identities that he would roll into in order to, you know, move his brand along, whatever. So, you know, it's kind of interesting. So identity was crucial.

What does it meant to be cup. When I say, hey, we're going to be cub today, what does it mean? And ultimately, there was no congruent answer. It was all over the place, right?

There was different answers for this, different answers for that. Nobody had a real understanding or had decided what it was going to be as an ethos throughout our whole organization, what it meant to be cub.

I'm with the field coordinator, Tim Cousins, who's now the bench coach with the Orioles. And Tim and I are sitting in baseball, what happens is, behind home plate, there's all these scouts, right?

So they're scouts for other organizations, and they're scouting potential players that might want to trade for or sign us free agents later on in the year, or they're scouting your team, etcetera. Right? And so we were talking to a scout who had us. He was like, one of his teams that he followed was the Cubs.

And he said he pulled Tim and I aside and he's talking to us and he goes, you know what? I've been watching you guys for a while, and I've watched you guys for about two or three years, and I got to tell you, you've done an amazing job.

Because what I see at every single level, whether it be, you know, low a, short season, high aaa, triple a, he's like major leagues said, every single team plays exactly the same way. You guys have a way about going about it.

You hold yourselves the same way, you run the same way, you react the same way when things don't go well, like every single player. It's amazing. So hats off to you guys. You did a great job.

But yeah, you had to, I had to get real serious. So talk about. So I heard in another episode, too, just to expand upon that, you talked about the reinforcement of saying that's cub.

Yeah. Right.

So, so how does that work?

Yeah, so that was a so long story short. We go around, we interview everybody, we find out, hey, there's no real common theme. Great, right?

Some people could be like, oh, no, we don't know who we are. We said great because now we get to define it. We get to decide who we want to be. Right. If we don't, we don't have to tear something down.

We can build something up easier. Right?

So, you know, we, we went into it with this kind of thought process of who we wanted to be and we had a whole thing called the Cubs indoctrination. And, you know, it was kind of the Cubs way. You know, there's a big manual, the Cubs way. And we would go through it.

We would go through it with all the players and instructs and the young guys coming into our organization. We talk about it constantly throughout the organization.

And you know, what it ended up being was we took the phrase that's cub, which had had a really negative connotation for 106 years. It was something bad's going to happen or something bad did happen. Second baseman boots the ball in the 8th inning. We lose the game by two runs.

That's cub, right? It was. That's the way it used to be. Right? Some bad luck happens.

An outfielder slips and falls and misses the, misses the, you know, the game ending out and now we extend the game and I, we lose, you know, all that. So cub of us, right. Like some bad happened. That was a little bit kind of crazy and that's the way it used to be.

But we said, no, we're going to co op that we're going to take, that's ours now and we're going to make that mean something great. We're going to say, hey, that's cub.

When the guys do stuff the right way, when they play the Cubs way, when they hustle the first base, they respect 90 when they hit the right cut off, man. When they communicate on defense, when they clean up the dugout after they're done. Because better people make better cubs.

When they volunteer at a local organization, you know, miracle league or something like that, we're going to call them out and be like, yo, man, that's super Cub. And so we just kind of instilled that and then just it took off. You know, the players loved it. They gravitated to it.

And then as soon as the players start calling each other out for not being cub, then, you know, hey man, this is going to work. And so that's the way it went.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

And so did you feel like once you did those interviews, did you sit down with some of the higher ups and figure out like, okay, this is what's cub then and kind of write out that manual?

Well, absolutely. Um, we certainly sat down, we shared all that information for, for them. Said, hey, here are some ways we can get better in terms of this.

Let's have a discussion about it. Let's get with the coordinators, let's get with the, the people that, that influence the most.

Never let the pleasure exceed the never let the pressure exceed the pleasure. All those Joe sayings come into play and they're just absolutely in line with everything we were building from the bottom up.

So it just exploded and it went fast. It was awesome.

And so what are some other ways that you would implement that type of teaching? Let's say, you know, because these guys are very busy. They have crazy schedules. They're, you know, each, each minute is almost accounted for.

Like are you, obviously you're implementing like statements like that that are very powerful.

Were you also doing like workshops or were you meeting each person one on one or kind of, how do you, how do you get that to kind of seep into everyone together?

Yeah. So the coaches, you're definitely talking with them a lot. You're spending a lot of time with them. You're definitely doing workshops with them.

That's in the instruction period during the season. It's a little bit tough to do that. Every day is a game. You know, all those types of things. We did a good job.

Our mental skills team, the, you know, the group that we had there myself, Ray Fuentes, Darnell McDonald, John Baker, and Kenny Revisa, obviously, the great, legendary Kenny. You know, we did a great job, really influencing a lot of people across the organization as fast as we could. Right.

Getting out there, being with them, talking to them, being present, being in a lot of games. You know, I was in hotels 200 days a year when I was doing that. It takes work. It takes a lot. It takes a lot of sacrifice.

Time away from your kids, time away from your wife. It's living in hotels, which doesn't. It sounds glamorous. Nothing, right.

You know, only so many fairfield in breakfast as you can scarf down without trying to puke. Right. So, you know, the whole nine yards. Right. And so it's. It's, you know, but it was work, right? And it was. It was constant. It was staying on it.

Was a disappointment. And you look at it and you go, well, wait a second. I thought our culture was really solid, and it was, but we didn't. We didn't cultivate it.

We weren't tending to that garden. We weren't watering every day. We just thought, oh, the bamboo grow. It's gonna be fine. No, you get. You got to still tend to it, man.

So part of the issue is that we, you know, we kind of let that slide a little bit, and you have to constantly, you have to keep pushing on it. So.

Yeah, that's crazy. And so for. Since you mentioned Kendra visa, we'll kind of touch on that real quick. Cause I'm very interested in that whole aspect.

So for anybody who doesn't know who Kendra Visa is, you give a quick little snippet on that and then talk about how crazy it must have been to move from IMG Academy to now being with the Cubs, and now you're basically Ken Rivers's boss.

Yeah. I mean, it's funny, I. Nobody was Ken Riviz's boss, that's the first thing. I love Kenny. I love him. I miss him.

So I was overseeing the entire thing, as well as executing and implementing a philosophy and teachings. We get a call, Joe comes on, and he's like, I want Kenny around. I need Kenny around. I need Kenny.

He and Kenny were longtime friends from the Angels days and know Kenny is a hall of Fame mental skills coach, wrote, you know, heads up baseball, which was like a Bible to players. To this day, you can go pretty much to any major league roster, and there's going to be at least one player on that team that worked with Kenny.

It's like, okay, great, awesome. Now, I know your foundation is, you know, he was legendary. And so for me, it was. It was kind of like, just get out of his way.

Kenny, what do you need to be successful? You and Joe have this great relationship. Let me know how I can support you. Here's. Here's, you know, like, here's this player coming up.

Here's how I've connected with them.

These are the types of things that really impacted him mentally, you know, and kind of handed off, like stick, you know, like in the relay races stick. So, you know, ultimately, with Kenny, it was just super easy.

It was just kind of like, I'm just gonna let you do your thing, Kenny, and if there's anything you need from me or my end, let me know. What are you teaching? Here's what we're teaching. Use some of this vernacular. Maybe when you're with the guys, they'll know what it means. Boom.

That's it. And it was, you know, got him an office in the cut in the dugout, right. Not in the dugout, in the clubhouse.

Made sure that he was taken care of and just. Just let the legend do what the legend does. Right.

And so what do you think, in your own opinion, that he specifically brought to, you know, the organization and what. And what would have been, I guess, missing if he wasn't there? Because I heard you mention in a prior podcast as well that you.

You would not have won that World Series without him. So, like, why is that? What did he bring? What did he bring that's so valuable?

He brought a mental stability to that major league team. There's so many things going on. There's so many distractions. There's so many, you know, um, people pulling on you, pressures, stress, all that stuff.

It gave the guys somebody that they could just talk to, you know, if they wanted to. And he had a really good eye. He could see when a guy was, you know, pressing a little bit too much, and he would just go grab him.

He would be proactive. He wouldn't just wait. And he was this kind of senior figure. He was 70 years old when he passed away, and, you know, he's working with us.

He was 68, 69 years old. Right. So 67. And so he's a senior kind of grandfatherly figure that was unthreatening and just.

Just was there to support and love and just brought kindness, and the guys gravitated to him. And so, you know, there's. There's, you know, times where he would saw a guy struggling, and, you know, he'd go and he talked to him.

Next day, the dude hits a frickin two run bomb in an LCS, right, and puts us over the top. So, you know, it's like. It's crazy stuff like that. But he just was a.

It was a release valve for a lot of the guys, as well as giving them and enhancing the practical tools for in game strategy. Right. And in game, in game execution. So, you know, he was really, really, really special. I miss him. Miss him still.

And so you had probably already read heads up baseball at that point, and did you already know who he was then?

Oh, yeah, of course. So, funny story rolling back on Kenny. When I was in grad school at Ithaca College, I'd read heads up baseball.

For anymore, but the ASP conference, Association of Sports psychology.

That's the one. Yeah, that's that guy. That guy. And we're in Philadelphia.

We're having a conference, and I'm standing there, I'm on the escalator with David de Silva, who's the mental skills coach now for the Cincinnati Fc. Cincinnati. Um, Angus Mugford, who's a vp for the New Jersey Devils now.

And the three of us are riding up this escalator, and we're talking about a session we had just seen.

Kenny was in front of us, like, just happened to be in front of us in the escalator turns around and he goes, you guys are going to go somewhere, man. I could tell you guys are going somewhere. And this is legend. This legend talking to us, saying that, and we're just like, oh, my God, that's awesome.

We're young. We haven't even, like, we've maybe had like 30 hours total of mental skills, you know? You know, practice. Right? I.

And it was really interesting because I hadn't read heads up baseball since I had graduated, you know, from master's degree. I would reference it here and there when I was at IMG working, working with the baseball court program, but I hadn't really dove into it.

I was like, yeah, we hired Kenny. Let me.

Let me reread it, and I'm reading it, and then I'm looking back at the Cubs way manual that I had just written for the mental side, and it was like, part and parcel. It was unbelievable. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, right? This is all the same stuff he's talking about.

We're talking about might have a little bit of different language, but everything that he preached and taught in that book was already coming out of me for the past ten years. So I was just like, it was awesome. It was kismet, right? It was kismethe.

That's crazy. So is there anything else that you feel like you could, off the top of your head, mention that was like these.

These things that you implemented that were in the book that were now in the manual that were not just like the. That's cub was there, was there like.

All kind of integral, all the breathing stuff, all the.

All the, you know, the kind of the resetting point, the routines, all that stuff, like looking up at the foul pole to release, you know, taking a breath? All that stuff mattered, man. It was just. It was just all in there that Kenny had taught, so. No doubt. That's. No doubt. That's awesome.

And then, you know, the whole point, too, about one of my favorite things that we had always used, that Kenny, I would hear him say it, man, you know, if you only got 80%, man, bring 100% of your 80%, right? It's stuff like that, you know, you having a good crappy day today, you know, like, it was awesome.

Like all that stuff when we were kind of already using that message, so.

Yeah, no, I love that. And Bill, Bill Beswick, another sports psychologist, talks a lot about that as well. Like, how. How good of a shitty day can you have?

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Because everybody's. Because everybody's gonna have them.

That's out. I had one yesterday.

So how did you.

Now that I'm on with you, Todd, come on, let's go.

You do. You're doing great today.

You're doing.

You're killing it. So how did you go from the idea of sports psychology to getting your masters in exercise science?

So I'm kind of curious why you chose that as a side note. But then also, like, how did you jump into IMG?

Yeah, so, okay, so we'll go from waiting tables in New York City at Babo, like, world class restaurant. First three star review ever for an italian restaurant in New York City. Mario Batali, you know, all these incredible celebrities.

Madonna u two, Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana, Steven Spielberg, whatever. Name it. They were there, right? So it was like a ridiculous place. Working there, grinding. Just grinding, right. You know, barely scraping by.

New York City is expensive. You're making decent money, but it's still New York City.

Wanting something a little bit different in my life, like, really enjoyed the restaurant worlds, but wanted something just a little bit. A little bit more. I don't know. I just wanted something different. Not even more anything.

Just wanted something different and didn't know what I wanted to do, but it hurt. My parents were both psychologists.

My father is a clinical psych and actually started the cadet counseling center at West Point, which is pretty cool. My mother was a neuropsych.

I wasn't drawn to psychology that much until, you know, I was an athlete. I was mountain bike ride. I told the story a million times, but I'm trying to go over this element. It was a bridge.

I've been over it a ton of times before. Then I kind of, like. I kind of had, like, the yips on it. For some reason. I just couldn't get across it that one day.

And it was because I was focused on whether I could do it or couldn't do it. And as soon as I started focusing on the process and deciding how to go about doing it, boom, I was, like, right across.

And it was in that moment that I was like, wait a second. Like, that's so cool. All I had to do was change how I thought about something, and now I'm having different results.

So, man, I wonder if there's, like, a study of this anywhere, especially in the sport and performance world, right? So, sure enough, you go back and you find out, you know, there is.

Which led me to exercise sports sciences, because at that time, there was two paths you could take. You go into psych, which is like all these, um, you know, I'm 30 at the time. I graduate, right? So I'm a little bit older when I get into grad school.

I was 27, 28 when I got into grad school. And, you know, I'm. It's like, you could do this, but then you have to get board certified and do this and do that and do the other thing.

Or you could do exercise sports science, and you could actually just start working with athletes right out of the gate without having to, you know, get. Get certified by this board or do this this many hours to be, you know, a practitioner.

So, you know, I was a little older, and I was like, I know how to talk to people. Like, I've been waiting tables for ten years. Like, I can talk to anybody. So let's make this thing happen, you know?

So that was a little bit more of my. My pull towards exercise. Sports science versus psychology.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

And then, and then, and then somehow you make it into the Hogwarts of youth sports.

Yeah. So that's a funny story, too. So I'm in Ithaca. It's like winter, right? Winter being like November there. It's like pouring snow.

And I'm watching HBO sports, and there's a expose, this place called IMG Academy down in Sarasota, Florida. And they're showing Sarasota where I live today. Bradenton, Florida. Sorry, that's. It's in Bradenton. I live in Sarasota.

But, like, they were interviewing a young tennis protege, and they were kind of doing an expose on her within the constructs of IMG. Right. Academy. And she's young, she's. She's about twelve years old. She's blonde haired, russian, same time. Anna Kournikova is massive at this time.

Internet sensation, model, supermodel, amazing tennis player, won a couple grand slams and doubles, right? This, like, so world renowned figure, highest paid female athlete in the world at the time.

And they ask this young twelve year old to say, do you want to be. She's, you know, Anna was blonde in Russian as well. So they asked her, do you want to be the next Anna Kournikova?

And she looks straight in the camera and goes, no, I'm going to be the first Marina Sharapova. And I was like, yeah, right. Let's go. I want. I want that. I want that confidence from, you know, like, how do I learn that?

So as I saw that, I'm like, man, I wonder. I wonder how I could go work there. That place looks awesome. I'd love to get down there and just spend some time there, whatever.

And literally the next day, I swear, there was an email from my professor, Doctor Greg Shelley, up in Ithaca, goes, hey, everybody, I got this email from a place called IMG Academy in Bradenton. They're looking for a interns. There's the application process. Let me know if anybody's interested. You know, I want to do an internship they had.

You had to have worked with clients already. You had to have some experience presenting. You had to prove that by videotaping one of your, one of your presentations.

That was my first year, my first semester of grad school for mental skills. I didn't have anything, right? I wasn't working with anybody. I was just going to class and learn stuff. So talked to my professors.

Okay, we're at a d three school, college. Go, bombers. Right? It's a d three school. All these coaches want free help. Anything you can provide there. They're looking for it.

Why don't you create a curriculum for the spring, for one of the spring sports, and then, you know, you and I can go through it, make sure that it's good. And then you go start talking to the coaches. Just knock on their door, set up an appointment, cold, call them, whatever.

And sure enough, I was like, well, IMG is tennis academy. I probably should work with the tennis team. So let me go talk to Bill Austin, the head coach at EThG college.

And sure enough, Bill and I sat down and talked. I laid out, like, the, you know, the six things. I would train everything from energy management to confidence to focus to routines, right.

Based on all the sports psych knowledge that I had at the time. And he was a gal. Let's do it. Sounds great. He was all in. And, you know, we won the. Whatever. Empire eight. We won the Empire that year. Let's go.

Championship, probably number one on the on the 17 that I have. Right. And so threw that in there and, you know, and we started doing it. Filmed a couple sessions with it. Like, this is.

I mean, I'm telling you, Todd, this was like. It wasn't like the fancy cameras now today, where it wasn't even like, phone. You could, you know, it was like a freaking VCR camera, right?

Like, open it up. Put the thing in there. Put the whole. The whole tape in there. Like his record. Put it on a tripod. The things like this big, you know.

Yeah.

Add that in the back. Borrowed one from the av department. Right.

Nice film that.

Filmed the session on. On energy management where we talked, that we used. We used clips of fear factor to show. To show, like, how. How people freak out.

You remember that show, fear factor?

Okay.

Like, you know, like the horse hoof or whatever. I don't even know.

They cockroaches and all kinds of stuff.

And so. Yeah, man. So we did that and sent it off and, you know, luckily enough, IMG said, hey, this sound, this guy seems all right.

Let's have him down as an intern. So.

That's crazy. So did you. You had to move yourself down there then I'm sure as an intern position, they're not going to pay for you to move down there, right?

No, sir. Drove down in my accurate vigor and packed it all up with all my stuff. I put my. Put my bike on the back of it.

You know, at that point in my life, I could pretty much get everything I owned in, you know, a couple suitcases and a couple boxes. Most biggest thing was my books, right. So headed on down. I was already engaged to be married. My wife stayed in New York City.

She, you know, lived and worked up there, so she stayed in New York. I went down and just, you know, slept in a dorm. They had us dorms for us, so we slept in a dorm like Angus at the time, right?

And so was in bunk beds. And you just grinded, man. You found a way. You just get it done. And so if you really want something, you always find a way to do it right.

And so just put my head down and just kept getting after it. We had to cold call clients to get clients, like, literally cold call them, you know, much like a cruise ship, right? You're coming on.

Here's a couple extra excursions. And the excursion is mental skills training for your son or daughter as they're here for this camp and, you know, just got after it.

So it was an invaluable experience.

I always say that anybody that works at IMG for more than five years, you should have at least three PhDs because of it, because of all the work that you're doing that's so practical, and you have to be so creative, and you have to find ways to connect with kids from 80 different countries. Imagine that 80 different countries are represented there.

So, you know, you got to talk to a kid from Seoul, Korea, and then you got to talk to a kid from Dubai, and then you got to talk to a kid from Columbia, you got to talk to somebody from Ireland, and you got to find a way to connect, you know, let alone the US.

That's crazy. Your sociology degree had to help with that. A list a little bit with 100%.

100%. Sure.

Wow.

Wow.

That's crazy. So. So how long was it, like, a couple month internship?

Yeah, it was over the summer, so it was like two and a half months.

And they obviously liked you.

Yeah, we had a good time. That was Trev. There was Chad, Kerry, and pasarella. So those.

So, Chad is the director of optimal performance for the Yankees for the past, like, 15 years.

And the Dallas Cowboys, obviously, Trav Kerry now runs, like, a whole, like, recruiting firm out in Denver, and then pastor Rollos with the Yankees, as well. So those are. Those are the four that were there and got to learn from the best man. Tell you what.

That's crazy. That's crazy. So what was. What was the big thing that you noticed at IMG Academy that you felt like maybe they had. They had things together there?

Like, the culture was good, like, or was the culture good, I guess when you got there?

Yeah, yeah, it was great. I mean, it was a little bit more down to earth than it is now. And I don't say that in a bad way.

Like, it wasn't as exquisite of a campus as it is now. If you go there, the weight room is better than probably 80% of all pro locker rooms. Like, it's that good. It's. It's. It's a special, amazing place.

You know, soccer fields for days, baseball fields for days. You know, anything you can imagine, they have it there. It wasn't that way back then. It was a little bit more mom and pop, to put it in perspective.

The baseball academy was housed at the boys and girls club, which was across the street. There was four cages there, and it was housed in an a. Like an rv trailer that was like the offices. Um, so, I mean, it's come.

Come a massive way since, you know, that was 20 years ago. Whatever. Right. So, um. But, yeah, I mean, it was, it was great. It was like, you got to impact kids, you got to impact athletes.

You got to be with these coaches, you got to be on the field all day every day if you wanted to. And it was just a special, special place for a really long time there.

And, you know, the culture will, outside of mental skills and in the sports was just great. Like, you were there to get. To win and get better. It was like the marketing, the marketing idea was we're going to win everything.

And because we're going to win everything, everybody's going to know who we are. And that's what we did, man. We just put our, we just won everything. Everything. Name and name of sport. We were winning that championship.

So it was pretty awesome. But, yeah, yeah, it was great.

And what do you think were the big, what were the things that you guessed, you noticed that were the reasons why you're winning?

I mean, obviously you're getting people from 80 different countries, you're getting people from, you know, it's part of, part of that's recruiting for sure, but, you know, obviously part of that is culture. So, like, let's just say, I guess this would be another question I was kind of curious about. Falls in line with the same thing.

But, you know, University of Georgia or Alabama or any of these schools, other than money, other than IMG having more money than another school, like what, what, what are they doing differently that's making them elite continually.

We would have kids leave there.

They would go like Stanford and Michigan to play their sport, whatever it be, tennis, basketball, soccer, whatever, and they would call back and they'd be like, yo, this isn't anything like IMG. IMG was so much more intense. We had a nickname of the world's toughest playground for a while, right?

So it was like, you know, it was, it was like, man, it was no joke. You know, everything was attended to. Everything was attended to. Physical, nutrition, recovery, ATC's mental, everything was attended to.

And as a result, we were oftentimes ahead of everybody else. And, and it was, and it was an accountable society.

It was one that, you know, if you made a mistake, you people let, you know, if you weren't doing things that we thought you could do, we, we would have a conversation about it, right? So I think it was, you know, but it was also caring. You know, they. We had this thing called IMG fam there. IMG fam was a hashtag.

IMG fan was during Twitter, like, when Twitter was blown up. IMG hash. IMG fam. And it's crazy, the amount of people that I can just pick up the phone right now.

Athletes, coaches, whoever that were there with us 20 years ago, you go, hey, man. It's lifrack. Yo, what's up? How's it going? Great to hear from you.

Like, it was, you know, because it was their high school, and it was a formative time in their, their lives now these guys go on to be professional athletes or high, elite college athletes or running their own businesses now, you know, and you just ping them, and they're so happy to hear from you.

That's insane.

Yeah, it's great.

This is a high school. This is a high school that costs, like, $100,000 a year. Right.

Apparently. Now, I'm not sure of the exact cost. I know that it's not cheap. Yeah, right?

Crazy.

But, uh, it's, uh. Yeah, it's. It's. It's a different, unique, special place.

So were you still in grad school when you went there?

So, yeah, my internship, I was still. I still had. I still to write my thesis, so my coursework was done by the time I did my internship, but then I still had to write my thesis.

So I was going to say, like, you left your. You left your grad school behind, you left your, your fancy job behind us? Like, holy shit. Like, that's it.

Yeah, exactly. No, I, uh. But the. The. So, what happened was, after I left IMG, I just went back to the city. I worked.

You know, I just grinded on my thesis, which you could, at that time, you could do anywhere, really.

You know, you didn't have to be on campus to do the thesis because there's enough resources in new York, certainly, to, you know, get the, the information. The Internet really kind of started blossoming then, and so I wrote that from the New York Public Library on 34th street. Right. I just. Boom.

Or actually, 42nd street. Sorry. 42nd street. Um, you know, right there. So Bryant park. Would go out in Bryant park, have lunch, get back in, and grind. Right?

And so, um, you know, then I'd have to go up to Ithaca, which is about three and a half, 4 hours away, and drive up there to defend my thesis, have meetings, whatever. But I lived in New York then, and I would work with. I worked with, you know, like, restaurant business again.

I started working for outward Bound, which was an amazing organization, learned a bunch from them, and then outdoor leadership school.

So I started doing some stuff with them, too, and, you know, eventually got out of the restaurants, and sooner or later, literally, it was like, I think about two weeks after I graduated, I got the call from IMG.

So nice. Were they waiting for you to graduate? You needed to have a master's degree.

They were not waiting for me to graduate. Chad took the job as the, the Yankees guy, and they needed to replace. They needed a body. So I was lucky. Right time, right place, you know?

That's crazy. And so, obviously, during your time there, you must have, it must have just, you know, pulled you in. It must have been like, holy shit, this is it.

This is great. I love this because you're still doing it today. And so what were some of the things that you witnessed?

I guess that from Trev or from any of these other guys that were just like, oh, my gosh.

Like, this is, this is what I want to do, I guess just talk about a little bit of your experience meeting some of these other mental performance coaches that had years on you.

Yeah, I think, you know, Trev was really creative. He was one of the first people to film the athletes.

Like, he would just go out and film them on court and, like, look at their body language and have conversations with them afterwards and stuff like that. So I love that. It's a little tougher to do in pro baseball, but you could do it in the minor leagues. I would go back there. I film guys all the time.

It's great.

And go over that film with them in the major leagues is virtually impossible because you're not, you know, you can't break because, because of the Houston Astros and the trash can banging. Couldn't do it. They crack down on that stuff pretty hard.

And in major league baseball, there's a lot of regulation, so, like, I couldn't even be in the dugouts when now you can't. Now the sports hikes can be in the dugouts. But when I was there, it was like, if I was in the dugout, they had to kick out an ATC.

And I'm like, well, I can't tape an ankle, so let me let these guys do. You know, it doesn't make any sense. So the question is, you know, what were some of the things that I learned being around these legends?

Number one is you always find a way. There's no excuse. You find a way. You find a way to get the work done. You find a way to connect with the athletes you find a way to help them.

You find a way to help them apply the skills. There's no excuse, period. So that was, that was number one thing.

Number two is, is the use of other voices other than your own is often more powerful. To use Kobe Bryant, to use Michael Jordan, to use Serena Williams, to use Federer. Right. Those voices will carry a lot more weight than me.

And what you can do then is as you're using those voices, you can walk alongside the athlete versus being like, over them. Right? And so we're going to watch a Federer clip. Yo, what do you think about that? Would you, what'd you pick up, man?

And they talk about the Federer clip and you go, yeah, I saw that, too. Did you see this? That was so cool. Right? And now we're in it together like we're watching a movie together versus like, okay, watch this.

These are the lessons you need to take. All right. Did you get them? No. Okay, watch it again. Watch. Get the lessons.

No, it's like we're going to do it together, you know, so that's, that's the whole thing is, you know, we always wanted to meet the athletes where they were. Right. Meet the athletes where they're at, you know, and then, and then work on what, what they need.

Right, versus in terms of tell, they're going to tell you, you're going to see some stuff.

The coach is going to tell you, coach is going to see some stuff and then, you know, you're going to work together and you're going to triangulate that data. So that was the other thing, too, is how closely you could work with the coaches. There was really special.

So let's, so let's say that there was a you and some of these gentlemen you're talking about that you used to be at IMG with these, these legends, all right?

And you guys are all sitting in a room together and there's a new guy, no experience, wants to jump on with a team, wants to jump on at IMG, you know, basically wants a position, right. Someone like myself, let's just say, what would you in that room of guys talk about? Like, he doesn't have this, he doesn't understand this.

These are the things that, you know, is he's going to struggle because he, you know, has no experience. These are the things he needs to learn if he expects to, you know, be a mental performance coach at the highest level, you know, what might you say?

Yeah. So mental agility, I would say. And what I mean by that is, is the ability to think on your feet. Be creative, be honest, be open, be quick. Right?

It was fast moving, fast moving place. So you got to be. You got to be going, man.

You got to be sharp, sense of humor, being about to laugh at themselves, taking themselves too seriously, was never going to work in that environment. So all those pieces would really be important in, are the dynamic, engaging? Do the. Can they hold the conversation?

Do you want to hear what they have to say next? Are they just PowerPoint? Bullet point. Bullet point. Bullet point. Bullet point. And they're just reading from it. Like. Like the amount of.

Amount of interns that we had apply that were like that. It was just like, oh, my God. You know, there's a thing in baseball called feel, right? You gotta feel for the situation.

You have to understand your social surroundings. And do they have that? Can they. Can they pick up on social cues? Right. Again, I was trained ten years in high level restaurants.

You pick up on social cues pretty quick, right? You have to learn that stuff. So can they do that? You know, Lauren.

Lauren Johnson, one of my favorites of all time, she was a intern with us, and that was one of the things we picked up so quick on her is, man, her social acuity, her ability to read a room, understand what was going on, create a positive place, the ability to lift others up, and also to create, like, levity while still really getting good work done. Like, she jumped off the page at us. I remember that. She ended up getting hired by Chad at the Yankees.

And after that, you know, so it was like, you know, those types of things, you just go, oh, man, that. Those are key. That's crazy, the stuff they don't teach.

Yeah, right.

It's something you never gonna find in a textbook. It's stuff when you take the ask certification exam, they don't ask about. Right. It's like, it's. But it's. It's. It's. It's what. It's. It's the art.

It's the art of this. It's the art of what we do. There's science, and then there's art. And it was the art. That's what we were always looking for.

So the art is the thing that separates the person. And so what would some of the. The science be then that you might think that a person might not quite understand yet? If they were.

If they were brand new, the moment.

Somebody came in, anybody, if they ever did a presentation and they were talking about smart goals, they were done. We were like, all right, next. You know, here are the smart goals. They're just like. Oh, God. Okay, next. Right, so that, like, stuff like that.

Like, stuff that was, like, kind of trite. I mean, I don't know how else to put it. Stuff that was really obvious and already.

Already taught for ten years that didn't have any special spin to it. It was just regurgitation of material. You can't regurgitate. You have to. You have to, like, tell the story about it, right?

So I'll give you an example. Smart goals, right? We wouldn't talk about smart goals at IMG. We would talk about going to the grocery store. Right?

Because when you go to the grocery store and you don't have a list, what do you end up doing? You go in there and you start looking at all of the things in the. Oh, my God, look at all the fruit. Look at all the vegetables.

I can't remember what I need to. Now I'm stressing out. Do I need broccoli? Do any cauliflower? Should I get apples? Now? I'm going down this aisle. Wait, do I have a cereal at home?

Do I not have cereal? Do I really even need cereal? Let me get three of these boxes that I like. The lucky charms guy looks pretty cool, right?

And you end up walking out with a ton of stuff that you don't need, and you forget all the stuff that you do need. So think about that from a sports perspective. Here I am. What do I want to accomplish? I want to accomplish. I want to get a college scholarship.

Okay, great. How are you gonna get that? Let's start writing that stuff down. What are the ingredients you need to buy and you need to put in?

Okay, now we're writing out. Okay, so here's the things I need to accomplish. Okay. How we're gonna get there. Well, I got to do this on a daily basis.

I got to hit the gym, and I got to do these three things. Boom. Okay, let's write those down. Now, I've written down my goals. There's. They're specific, they're measurable. You could. They're. They're achievable.

Right. I can, you know, whatever they are in the t where I can't remember. Right. Time based. Whatever I. Right, yeah.

Realistic time.

Realistic time. Beast. Right. So, adjustable is the a. Right. And so. Yeah, now I got it. Here they are. Boom. There's my smart goals. Did I tell a story about smart goals?

No. I told the story about going to the frickin grocery store is way more engaging, and it was more.

May roll more relatable, and so would you say that you'd kind of, as a newbie, gained some of those skills through, like, watching lots of presentations or.

Just watching the masters, watching Trev, man. Watching Trev. Learning from Trav, talking to Trav, listening to Trav. Just being a sponge.

That's awesome. All those different stories he talks about. The SAT story, one of my favorites. Absolute favorite. The sat story. That's crazy.

That's the power of identity right there.

No doubt, right?

Um, okay, so I'm curious now about some of the aspects. So, myself, I am a father of a son with autism, so I think it's kind of cool.

I follow discussion boards where people are very, very stressed out about their kids that have autism. All right, so this is kind of important to me.

So I'm going to mix this in with someone experiencing really high level stress from things not going their way in a restaurant to someone experiencing really high level stress from being a parent or someone high level stress because things are going wrong on the field.

Like, what are some of those common, you know, things that you're going to maybe start to implement if you notice someone is really underneath a lot of pressure and really struggling?

Okay, so a couple things as a mental performance coach, right. If there's something deeper going on, it's a referral, right.

If it's, like, overwhelming anxiety, depression, things to that nature can't get out of bed, all those, like, symptoms, that's that the things that we're talking about isn't what's going to solve that. So I just want to be take that as a caveat right off the top, right. You need some professional help on that. Right.

But in terms of performance type stuff, in terms of on the field type stuff, in terms of, you know, all that, I think there's a couple things. Number one, I'm always going to look at the story. So we have a formula at limitless minds.

That is, I've heard the sports psych formula, e plus r equals o, right? You've heard that one before. Event plus the response equals your outcome.

Because outcome.

Yeah. Right. But what we don't talk about in that formula is how you get to your response.

And so the real formula that is really important is e plus s equals r. The event plus the story you tell about the event equals your response. So what is that story that you're telling yourself?

And let's pull that apart a little bit. Let's look at that. What. What is the story? I'm not good enough. My parents don't love me, whatever it might be, right? Right.

So, hey, what, what is that? You know what? And then let's, let's dissect that and pull out the facts of that versus the narrative of that.

And then once we get to the facts, then we can actually start attacking those and dealing with those. And there's probably behaviors and. And. And things that you can do in order to manage those better. So that's. That's the first thing I always look at.

Um, in terms of performance stress, the meditation is a phenomenal tool. A lot of athletes aren't ready for it yet. Right.

Like, you got to build them up to it and teach them different breathing techniques and things like that to control their nerves. As a matter of fact, after I leave here, I'm going to go talk to a basketball academy here in Sarasota. Two, one, two, academy. Rise up. Let's go.

Those guys are awesome. The.

And we're going to talk today about energy and how to get your energy levels up and how to relax yourself when you're feeling a little bit anxious or a little bit tight. And so we're going to. That's exactly what we're talking about today.

And we're going to implement some of those schools, the different breathing techniques, inhaling, you know, loudly, exhaling softly, those types of things, um, you know, to try and manage those nerves. So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but I think that that's story is the number one thing. What is that story?

And then, number two, what are the practical skills I can use, you know, meditation, breathing, going for a walk outside, things like that. Right.

So, yeah, that's perfect.

And then I was going to kind of, that ties into kind of another question I had, which is around, like, obviously, visually, visualization being a very powerful tool.

I myself have struggled with visualization, being a very cognitive person, and I think that, obviously, you've experienced other people, you know, being the same way with that. And so how might you help a person who's like, I don't visualize. I can't visualize.

I struggle with that, you know, to kind of start heading down that road of developing that skill.

Yeah. So what you want to do in terms of, like, what I've found with people who say, quote, unquote, I'm not great at visualization, I don't do.

I can't do visualization is there's a couple things you kind of have to jumpstart your brain into it. So oftentimes people are, they, they don't visualize because their brain's probably going.

And they're, they're jumping from place to place with their, with their thoughts. That's my sense. So what I always do is I give them just a little bit of a breathing script to start them off, to kind of settle them.

And that breathing script has stuff that you actually have to visualize. So at the Cubs, we used in blue, out, red, right.

It was one of our mantras in terms of breathing you to breathe in through your nose, light, ice cold, blue, you'd be out through your mouth, hot, fiery red. Right.

And now what am I doing is I'm inhaling and I'm picturing ice cold blue coming into my nose, starting to visualize as I exhale, I'm picturing hot, fiery red coming out of my mouth. And I'm starting to visualize those. So I'm starting to create these pictures in my mind.

Now, as we get into the actual visualization of the performance, what you always want to do is you want to look at the process, not the outcome. Right. And so what?

So for a baseball player, for example, the first thing that I'll have them do is I'll have them visualize and picture their cleats outside the batter's box, talking about a hitter. Right. Why do I want to do that? I'm externally focusing on something. I'm seeing something that I have on.

I'm seeing something, I know I'm seeing something that has no emotional attachment to it. It's just like cleats, right? And now I'm placing those cleats with my feet in them outside the batter's box. Right.

Now I'm stepping into the batter's box, see the left foot step and see. So I'm taking them and I'm guiding them through the specific things to see. Now, as my head comes up, I'm seeing the picture out there.

He's a right handed pitcher. Picture what you know, and then you can, you name it. You know, for in the, we're in the majors, it's Chris sale out there, right.

And so whatever, right.

And so you can do that and you can have them see all the stuff that they would see from their own eyes, and it helps them start to create the picture. You want to get a lot of little details, and then you want to see going through that process and feeling it, etc. So that's how I'd help people.

Visualize is perfect. Kind of like almost grease the wheels and then get them into it and then let them roll.

Progressive process.

Yeah. Well, warm up. Right? Warm your mind up.

And so I'm going to jump back here for a second. How did you stay motivated during this, this whole thing of.

Okay, you had the mountain bike revelation, and then you decide you've got this giant dream, and now you're chasing an internship. Now you're chasing yourself into a career that's fairly small at the time, from what I know.

Maybe you saw it as bigger than I do now, but it seemed like it was fairly small at the time that you were kind of getting into all this stuff.

Sure.

And so, like, how did you stay motivated during all this? To continue going to grad school, to continue getting your stuff done, to move down to, you know, I. Bradenton and all that stuff?

Yeah. So when you become a father, things, as you know, motivation is pretty easy because I got those kids that I got to take care of. Right. And.

And I have a family that I'm a part of, so it's bigger than me. So that I think the motivation to. To, you know, keep going was never an issue. I mean, put it in perspective, Todd.

The condo that we're living in that we had bought, like, six months earlier, it's massively upside down.

My wife's business goes under because she was an event planner, and nobody's doing events anymore because nobody's got money, so they don't want to do it. I'm making about $38,000 a year at that point, and we go bankrupt and we get evicted from our house, and we, you know, like, it's. That's real. Right.

And I kept showing up every day, and the reason I kept showing up was because I loved what I did. And I knew. I knew that there wasn't anything that was going to stop me from doing what I was doing. Right. Even. Even this financial crunch.

And the other thing was like, you did have to have belief, right? You have to have belief that this is going to go somewhere. Kenny, revisit always used to say, you do great work, great work finds you, period.

And so that was always my philosophy is, like, I just have to be great at what I do. I love these kids. I love what I'm doing. I believe in the possibilities of where this career could go.

I had no clue where it could go, to be honest with you. Right. You know, like liquid assets, definitely over, you know, a couple million dollars for me right now. Right.

That's a far cry from wondering if I could pay the electric bill. Yeah. You know, so it's. It's just, you know, it's a different beast, but. But the motivation was always, take care of your family.

And I love what I do, and I know I'm having an impact where you could see the impact on the players, you could see the impact on the field. You could see the impact. And I just love doing it, man.

It's just like the days that are, like, yesterday, I struggled because I didn't have any presentations yesterday. It was in my own head the entire day. Like, I didn't have a podcast to record. I'm not, you know, running off to a basketball academy to talk to them.

I didn't have any potential new clients. It was just like. It was like a work day, and then I got caught in the stupid news, and I just started scrolling, man, and it just was. Right.

Yeah.

So you, you know, that's. But I think the motivation has got it. Like, I don't know. What's your why? What's your why is, like, I love people, and I love seeing people succeed.

There's. There's, like, nothing more beautiful for me than somebody fulfilling the potential. And I think everybody has potential.

I think everybody has greatness inside of them. And to see that greatness live. Oh, what a dream, man. What a dream. I go.

It's funny because I go to this basketball, and these kids are freaking awesome. Coach. It's John Mahoney, who was at IMG with me. He's amazing. Coach. Coached at West Virginia, coached at Michigan. Stunning, stunning, stunning place.

And, like, the kids work their butts off, man. They fly around that court. It's frickin it's October 2. They don't have another. They don't have games until, like, you know, November.

They're flying around, and it's, like, so inspiring to be around to just see, like, people giving their offer a dream. It just. How could you not be motivated? How could you not?

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and then you go, like, you know, last week, I was up in Chicago.

I was working with a top five pharma company, and, you know, they're telling us some of the stuff behind the scenes that are challenging, and we give the talk, and. And you get a standing ovation afterwards, and it's like, we got. We hit these people. We got it. You know, these.

These 500 people in this room, they got impacted, and something changed for them. And now they can see the world from a different light, and that's why we're in this business, it's not to be like, look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

That. If you're in this business for, look at me. Get the hell out because you're hurting our field. Seriously, just get the hell out.

Because that's not what this field is about. This field is about living and lifting other people up and loving other people. That's what it's about.

And when you give in and you pour into others, man, it comes back to you tenfold. And that's why I did. That's how I stay motivated, because I care about people. That's why I'm on this podcast with you, Todd.

I don't know you from a whole wall, but I like who you are, man. I can see it. I could see you're headed for great stuff. And so, yeah, I'll jump on with you. Let's go. You know, that's what it's about.

I appreciate that. I love that mindset.

Yeah.

And then. And then on a personal level, too, like, I. You know, I always touch on this. It's like, I feel like there had to have been.

For you to believe in yourself like that. There had to have been a certain amount of potential that you felt trapped. Trapped within yourself, right?

I don't know.

Did you feel that you have great potential?

Yeah, I was. It's funny. It's. It's funny. I told this story before. I was. You know, when I was waiting tables for ten years. I had no clue why I was doing it. Like, I.

You know, I wanted to eat, and it was fun, man. It was an adventure working in these restaurants. You know, the stories you could tell, which I might, one of these days, who knows?

Look out for the book. There is a book coming out sooner or later. Trust me. I just finished writing it.

But anyway, that being said, the thing is, this, for me, I always had this sense, and I really think it was from my dad and my mom. It was upbringing. My mom would tell me all the time the good stuff about me. They would catch me winning all the time.

My dad is one of the most positive people I've ever met in my life. And it was just kind of like. So there was, like, this ingrained thing that there was something big out there for me.

I watched a ton of movies as a kid.

I mean, I don't know if that plays into is like the eighties, and it was like all these overcoming, you know, like Hoosiers and everything overcoming stuff. So watch a ton of those. And I just. I don't know why I just always felt like there's something big for me out there.

I don't know if I've hit it yet or not, but I'm doing pretty good, and I really like what I do, so that's, you know, don't know. So that's probably a little bit of where the belief came from. And then also, too, I think, when you surround yourself with really good people. Right.

And really competent coaches and. And just. And just, like, professional people there, that's an innate quality of them, is there is this belief that we're gonna find a way.

Like Theo Epstein, man, there was no doubt we were gonna win the World Series. That was. That was Theo, bro. He just knew. You just had this. He has an aura about him. He just super confident and belief in what he's doing. Right.

And so that. That belief is infectious.

And so do you think. So you kind of talked about your upbringing and your parents instilling some belief in you.

Do you think that without mental performance coaching, you would be as good of a father as you are now?

Do you think that there's been things that mental performance coaching has brought into your own personal life that has made you a better father or husband?

Yeah. I mean, the ability to be present. Right. And no phones at the table when we're eating dinner. Right.

Having dinner together as much as we possibly can, talking about the good things in their lives. Yeah, yeah. All that stuff. Yeah. I think that if I hadn't studied mental skills, I definitely wouldn't be bringing that stuff into our household, so.

And then again, like I just said about the athletes, you meet them where you're at. Where they're at.

So while my kids drive me up a wall sometimes in terms of, you know, like, not doing the dishes or, like, their rooms are a mess or, like, you know, we had to evacuate for the hurricane, so, you know, we came back. What was it? On Saturday, we got back in our house, my kids stuff is still in their suitcases. Right. It's just like, come on, let's put it away. Right?

Yeah, but it's like, that's who they are. They're 17 and 13 years old. Right? Like, you know, it's okay. We're not gonna get mad at that. We're gonna. We're gonna.

Hey, guys, you got till this day to get them done, you know, whatever. And just so, yeah, you know, I don't know if I'm a great parent.

I mean, I look at a lot of other parents out there, and I'm stunned at their involvement and their.

Just their love and their commitment to, you know, get on the basketball court and shoot with their kid or get out to the diamond, throw pitches with them, and, you know, stuff like that. It's really impressive. There's a lot of incredible parents out there, so I wouldn't say I'm a. I don't know if I'm a great parent or a good parent.

I just do the best I can, and I love my kids, and I pour into them.

I love that. I love that because for me, personally, I feel like that a lot of these skills are very universal, and that's why it's so cool to talk about them.

So cool to talk about them as mental performance coaching, but it's so cool to talk to them as just life skills, just handling life stress. You got a million things coming at you.

You got a 13 or 17 year old, different practices, you got your wife telling you to do this, you got a group whenever, you know, it's just a lot of things to handle, and being able to handle it well seems like it would be a very, very solid skill to have coming from the mental performance world. You know what I mean?

Yeah. What do you use? What are the things that you use in your own life?

Um, personally, I use a lot of the language stuff, a lot of the story stuff you were talking about. You know, we're very big into language and the way the kids speak and the way the kids are telling their own personal stories. Um, we do.

We do use breasts. I literally drop off my 15 year old at school every day, and as we're coming up, we do five deep breaths together.

Nice.

Like, it's just been something we've done for, like, three years now. I want to say at least. Yeah, I get.

I give my kids lots of inputs, you know, subconscious inputs, constantly, of things that are either motivational speeches, we kind of watch some random stuff. I have them read. I've got all my books here. All my books are nonfiction. That's just all I read. I'm not a big fan.

I like watching movies and stuff, but as far as reading goes, it's all facts. I like reading facts, and so I'll have them read little snippets and stuff to make sure that those constant inputs are always being put in place.

I think a big thing, too, is. Is not understanding that the world is. The world has some issues, and obviously, we could see it either way. It's the cup at full versus the cup.

But generally, just because people act a certain way in the world doesn't mean that's how we're going to act.

Right?

You know what I mean? And so it's like, oh, some people are lazy. Some people are rude, some people are. This. It's like, that doesn't give any of us an excuse to do that.

We have our own principles within these houses. We have in our own identity of what it means to be a smith.

Yeah.

You know, and so respect, integrity, honor, kindness, you know, things like that. Compassion, always being a helping hand, things like that. Being a positive light in a room, you know, just constantly focusing on that.

So that's been huge for us.

Yeah, it's awesome, man. I love that. Yeah. And I think that that's the whole key, man, is if.

If you have stuff that helps you be effective and you want to share that with your kids, do it. You know? I think that's huge because it'll help them. Right. That's. They're like, they're. Whatever. Their.

Their self talk is basically what we're saying to them. Right. So literally the most part, you know, so make sure it's good.

That that's.

That's what a lot of people don't understand, is that that regulation factor of you being the one who helps regulate your kid when they're younger and you being the one that helps your kid develop the story of their own self and things like that. And a lot of people, you know, want to revert to punishment and things like that. And I just. It's all about teaching.

It's always about, you know, what are we trying to accomplish here, and what do we. What do we focus on? Teaching. Not on. Okay, I'm gonna. You messed up, so I'm gonna put you in timeout. I'm gonna spend here.

You know, we just, you know, I get it. I get it. Everyone has their own ways, but that's just never been the thing that helps teach, in my. In my opinion. You know, I just.

I just had this moment of, like, thinking if I ever, like, we definitely use the timeout here and there with my older son. And I was just, like, thinking about, like, I was just. Remembering him as a toddler was awesome. I mean, he's going off to college next year, right?

So it's like, he's like, oh, just. That's great. It's great.

Yeah. And I have the 15 year old that we. You know, I wasn't into all this stuff when she was younger, and so it's like, same thing.

It's like, we did the timeout. We did the isolation kind of stuff like, oh, you're being quote unquote bad, you know, go to your room type stuff. And we just.

We have nine year old with autism. It's almost the opposite. It's like we were talking things out. We're working things out. We're regulating first, you know, regulate.

Then, you know, relate to them, and then, you know, eventually you kind of use rationality and logic, you know, understanding that that has been very powerful for me.

It's different level, man. Right. It's a different level. It's just. It's interesting, though, too, because it's just, you know, we often talk about. We just talked about it.

E plus s equals R. E plus r equals o. It's like, okay, so what? How am I? How am I? It's just a different situation. It's just a different event to manage.

And these are the steps that I have to take to manage it. Not hard, not easy, just more or less. Right. Like, I have to do more things to accomplish the same thing I would.

Would accomplish with this person over here. I just have to do more of this. Right. So it's pretty awesome. Or maybe I have to do different things, but you know, that. But that's it, right?

That's it.

That's highly.

There's no story behind it. Right.

And so now you coming out of. Out of mental performance coaching for teams, how did you start to bridge the gap on starting your own consulting?

Yeah. So that happened. Really. I saw it after Covid.

And, you know, I had a lot of people from the restaurant world that I still knew started doing some consulting for the hospitality industry, was able to piece together enough hospitality industry people to, you know, kind of create an off ramp. Um, got hired by Trev's company before he passed away, unfortunately, and then, you know, and then he did pass away.

So then it was a little bit more mission driven, you know, running. Run it. Running limitless minds and making sure that we keep that message going that Trev always preached about neutral thinking and whatnot.

So, you know, I think that, you know, that's kind of how I did it. But it was like, you just worked the networks and hustle and hustle, hustle.

Create programs and, you know, get them in places and start talking to people and start working with the company. So that's. That's what I did.

And so are you doing right now a lot of one on one coaching and seminars and things? Are you kind of, like, leaning towards more. More towards.

I got about ten individual clients that I'm working with in various countries, strangely. Professional, amateur, all those different things. Right. Some youth, some college, some, like pro athletes. Ten of those. Those are individuals.

I'll have a couple of. I don't have any executive coaching clients right now. That's a little bit by choice right now.

But, you know, I'm starting to look to expand that again. So, you know, you get. You get them here and there. I've had probably about, I don't know, ten or so over the last couple of years.

So you work with them and then. Yeah, and then different companies and organizations I work with, uh, where I'm kind of on retainer for them.

You can certainly do that, which is, like, really fun because you get to help them really grow. I'm working with one group in, in Philly, and. And, you know, it's like we've been doing stuff now together for two to three years.

The most profitable they've ever been in their history, and it's awesome. Right.

And you're part of that, and you're helping them with their culture and their mindset and their performance and how they deal with the ups and downs of business. So it's been great. Yeah.

So what are a couple of the things, since I'm working in restaurants right now, I might as well ask, what are a couple of things that are on top of your mind that you would do with business consulting with restaurants that would be kind of in this wheelhouse?

Well, I mean, what do you know about restaurants? Transient. Right. So a lot of turnover. A lot of people who are there as a stopgap versus, like, career. Right.

So the people that they are there for a career, you lean into them. Right.

And work with them and help them in their own performance, management, leadership type stuff, communication styles, all those different things in terms of how we're leaning into our associates, how we're leaning into, you know, people who are on the floor in the kitchen. Right. How can we help them be successful? So all those types of things, and I think attitude, right?

I mean, how many, how many servers have you worked with that complain the entire night?

Yeah, it's horrible.

Right? So a lot of that. Getting rid of that. Getting rid of that, you know, like, helping them see, you know, there are benefits to this.

There are things that are really helping you out. There are. There are good stuff, right? This is a game, right? Hey, man, it's a performance, right?

I mean, running service at like a 300, you know, turn restaurant, man. Let's go. Right? That's a, that's a freaking. That's a, that's a, that's a game. That's a basketball game, man.

You know, you're flying, you're burning calories, you're doing good stuff. You know, it's like, you know, so I think a little bit of that too, and just kind of understanding that all of it's a performance.

So how do you help them perform?

That's huge. That's usually you're able to do that. That's so cool.

Yeah.

And insane. So love it. Glad to transition out of it. I'm so happy that you were able to change this and out of that life.

Parts of it I miss, man. No doubt, right? You know, it's game time every night. You know, literally.

He was like, oh, man, totally forgot to make that. Sorry, bro.

Yeah, we talk about flow state. That's the thing is, like, I know that, like, getting into that state is going to push me into flow. And I'm looking for it. I want it.

I love it right now. It's like, oh, give, give me too much to handle and we'll see how, you know, how I perform versus.

Yeah, like, oh, we've got four guests at the bar top. I'm bored of shit. And, oh, forgot to make this guy's drink.

Stared at you.

Oh, my God. I can't believe I forgot. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you told the story.

This will kind of wrap it up here soon, but you told the story about in one of your episodes that I watched, I loved about how you're kind of realized that the best athletes were kind of the best humans. And I know that's maybe not, you know, cut and dry, that simple, obviously, but better humans equal better athletes.

And so kind of talk about maybe realizing that or how you would help someone, obviously, along these same exact principles to become a better human.

Yeah. I think it has to deal with, like, on the field, off the field. Right. And we talked about identities and those.

Those matter, certainly, but I think there's also, like, kind of taking care of business off the field and. And. And who are you? Are you kind? Are you giving? Right. Kind and giving. It's really interesting.

You don't think about it from the world of the athlete, but every athlete is on a team. Even if they're. Even if they're, like, mma or tennis or whatever, they have a team, right? There's a bunch of people around them.

So are they that person that's lifting others up? Are they that person that's kind of leaning into others and helping others out and wanting to help out again?

We talked about it earlier on my rant that, like, when you pour into others, you're going to get poured into know ten times fold. So it's like, ten times fold. That's funny. I don't even know what that means, but, like, you know, that whole thing is, is you see that. You see that.

So it also, too, like, if you think about it, like, a selfish person, a person who's egotistical in a negative way, you know, they're often not going to learn well, right? They're going to put up these blockades and these barriers to being open, to wanting to apply new skills, to grow all those types of things. Right?

They're gonna. They're gonna wanna. Their identity sometimes is completely related to their performance. That's all it is.

And those are the ones that are a little scary. We used to ask in Chicago during our scouting visits. We would talk to the scouts afterwards and we go, okay, this kid's really good.

Do they love baseball? Do they love being good? Right? Because if you love baseball, they're going to lean into it more. You're going to learn.

You're going to go in with open eyes. You're going to. You're going to see it as a craft.

If you love being good, the moment that you're not good, it's going to be hard for you, and you're not going to be good for periods of time in the. In baseball period, your talent runs out. Sooner or later, you might be double a it might be the major leagues, right?

But sooner or later, there's going to be a period where you dip. And the guys that love baseball, they find a way through it. The guys that love being good, some, some make it through, some don't.

Wow. Yeah. That actually reminds me of, uh, something I just read the other day about how they did these. It was like a little a study.

They studied two different groups of kids. They told one group of kids after the, after the test, they were smart. You guys are so smart.

They told another group after the test, you guys worked so hard on that test is, you guys did great, huge, great effort. And then they gave them a way harder test. Both groups, the group that was told they were smart, most of them gave up, just stopped, just did poorly.

And then most of the kids that were told, hey, you gave a great effort, were just willing to continue to give a great effort. And I can only assume that, like, you youd get triggered almost by like, I guess im not smart enough for this.

You know, its like that fixed mindset coming into place, you know? I guess I wasnt as smart as I thought I was. I guess this is just above my limits, you know, as opposed to the effort. So thats like, thats huge.

Yeah, effort. Effort is everything, man. Effort and mindset. That's the keys.

And so what sorts of advice might you have to someone who is in the position you used to be in?

My position, because I'll use myself as an avatar, is either trying to become a new mental performance coach or trying to chase a big dream while they're kind of stuck doing something they don't really love.

Yeah. Little by little becomes a lot. Number one. Right. Just keep doing something every day to push the boulder forward.

Number two, and that might be reading something. It might be starting to create something.

It might be reaching out to your network and just, you know, pinging people, checking in with them, whatever it might be. So that's number one. Number two is, you know, in get reps. Get reps.

And what I mean by that is find ways to get involved with some sort of team or some sort of athletes. Sometimes you will not be able to charge, and that's okay. Right. Like sometimes you have to do it for free or very low cost.

I like when teams pay because they have skin in the game, but sometimes that's not available. Like when I started with Ithaca college, look, they didn't pay. It was free. Right.

I was just, I was there as d three and I, and I just willing to work. So anybody in your network that, you know, that's a coach, that is an athlete, whatever. I, you know, start talking to them and see. See what kind of.

See what kind of traction you can do. Again, coming from the place of this stuff helps, right. The mental side of sport, when you train it, it gives you an advantage.

And so, you know, coming from that angle that you have something of value to bring to somebody else that's going to enhance their performances. Tons of science to show it. Right. And so lean into that. But then, you know, have the artful conversation and connect with them and go from there.

But, you know, also have a plan. Right. Listen. Listen to them. Come up with a clear plan, report back. But, but, yeah, I think that's the best way to do it.

It's just got to get reps and however you.

So in that first semester or first quarter or whatever you're talking about in college, and you started working with the tennis team, right?

Mm hmm.

And so how did you. How did you overcome the feeling of, like, I'm just a grad student and I don't know much, you know, kind of leading into posture syndrome here?

Well, I made sure I didn't know much.

You studied the shit.

Done.

Okay. You're like, yeah. Prepared yourself came.

Preparation. Right. So, yeah.

And then you didn't know much that.

You were locked into them. And then, you know, also, too, you were willing to hear what was landing for them, too.

I remember doing those sessions and be like, okay, how was that for you guys? What'd you learn? What are you gonna take out of it? That kind of a thing, you know?

Hmm. That's huge.

Let them be the experts.

And did you have confidence around the knowing when to refer out as far as mental health concerns went as well? Yeah. Did you, like, work with somebody or just gonna read? How did. Where did you get that knowledge? I feel like I'm still a little.

Talking to psychologists.

No, I. Both of my parents were psychologists, so I kind of knew that.

And then the other part of it is, like, you do, like, part of my undergrad work was, like, abnormal psych was, like, all that kind of stuff you had. I had to have that stuff before I could even apply to grad school.

So I had done a couple courses on it, and you kind of get like, you know, like, one of the things I always do is like, okay, somebody talks to me about something and.

And, okay, let's just say I'm really nervous before events, and you put in all these tools in place, and it doesn't help at all, like, it's still the same or it's still the build. Any form, you go, okay, wait a second. Like, let's just not have an ego here, right? Maybe there's something else going on. Right? And then you can go.

So.

Yeah, no, that makes. That makes perfect sense. So understanding when to refer out just seems so important to me. Like, it's a scary thing. It's a scary thing.

You know, dealing with some of those. I'm sure, like, you. We talked last time when we were talking, you were like, yeah, you. There's addictions, there's suicidal tendencies.

There's all these things that you kind of have to kind of get brought to your doorstep. I feel like, as a. You know what you're dealing with. So it seems.

Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes the coaches see it first. Sometimes the trainer see it first. Right. And they'll come to you and whatnot.

And then you go, okay, we got to get this to the professionals. Right? So the. The other thing about.

About that, too, is, I always say, be a little bit, like, a little bit paranoid on that stuff in terms of, like, you. You want to act earlier than later. Right? Like, so if there's any inkling at all, like, let's. Let's have a conversation, right? Let's get. Let's get it.

And then also, too, like, one of the things I always had was a really good network of professionals to refer to, so you could call them and talk to them and see the things. Hey, this is what I'm seeing. Do you think this is a referral? Yeah, get them over here, you know? No, no, it's good. Did you try this?

Yeah, I tried that. Did it work? It's starting to work. Okay, keep going with that and then come back to me, you know? So you can. You can do that, too.

Yeah, that makes. That makes perfect sense. Okay, well, I'm gonna let you get out of here. I wanna. I wanna use your time wisely. It's been. It's been absolutely amazing.

I'm completely grateful that you've been willing to jump on the podcast. Um, is there any final notes you have, anything you wanna say to. To. As far as your field goes, and.

Just be a. I mean, there's more opportunities now than there's ever been in the history of this field. Like, they're all over the place.

Follow my buddy James Schwabach on LinkedIn. He's always, like, posting sports. James Schwabach was Ithaca College as well, and he was an intern of mine at IMG. But James.

James is always posting amazing jobs, like, the craziest stuff you like, Red Bull, like military, like this, that. The other thing. It's awesome. He's always. Manu was up there the other day, you know, so, like, he's always posting phenomenal opportunities.

Opportunities. So just follow him on. On LinkedIn, but also follow me on LinkedIn. Joshua liffrack at LinkedIn. I'm on there. I'm also on Instagram.

Please feel free to give me a follow. I'd love to create that base. I'm. My.

Instagram is a little bit more motivational and, like, uplifting and kind of fun stuff, a lot of sayings and things like that than anything else. Sometimes you'll see some of the events I'm going to and whatnot. But, you know, I think those are great, too.

And, you know, if you do, I think Todd, you know, like, put those in the notes. My Instagram and my LinkedIn. And if you do want to get in touch with me, have any questions about this field? I believe in it.

I believe it's really strong right now, probably stronger than it's ever been. I do believe AsP is a really great organization.

They do great work, and they're helping a lot of young, young practitioners get involved in the right way. And. Yeah. So reach out if you have any questions, seriously, just ping me on LinkedIn or ping me on the. On Instagram.

And I'm glad to have a conversation.

Perfect. And you have a website as well.

Make sure you lift rack.com. it's not phenomenal. It is what it is. I gotta. I gotta. I gotta revamp it. I gotta revamp it.

There we. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Joshua Fraklifrak.

And how do you spell this guy's name? Schwa. Schwabek.

I have no clue. S h c. I'll find them. W a b a c h. Something like that. Maybe schwab. Schwabs. I just call them schwabs.

Schwab. I'll find them. I'll find them. That sounds cool. I'm always interested in, you know, what's available because, yeah, there's, like. There's very.

There's a. There's a wide range of jobs within this, you know, within this skill set that is very interesting.

You know, cognitive performance trainer and mental skills, mental conditioning, mental performance, you know, all kinds of different things. And so it's kind of cool to just trying to keep my options open, have great conversations with people about it, you know, push the.

Push the industry or field forward, as well as teach people how these principles can be used in real life, you know, and so absolutely huge.

Well, keep going, brother. Keep going at all. Just. Just ping me.

All right, I will. And I appreciate your time, man. Thank you for being here.

Yes. Well, I'm gonna go. You know what I'm gonna go do? I'm gonna go win today. Let's just go win today. Todd, what do you say? Yesterday. Yesterday was a draw.

Today I'm gonna win.

I'm down. I'm down.

Yeah. No.

No more negative diet. Yeah, let's do it, man. Hey.

Hey.

Thanks again, and thank you, everybody, for watching. Thank you for being here. The evolving potential podcast. We'll see you, Josh.