J: Welcome to compete like a champion. You're here with Dr. Larry Lauer, mental skill specialist, and coach Johnny Parkes with the USTA Player Development. Today we're going to talk about chief resiliency. We're going to dive into the Superbowl. Larry?
L: Wow. The Superbowl. Why are we talking about football here on this tennis podcast?
J: American football. Let's not get confused.
L: Well, should I say real football.
J: Also, Mick's back! Mick's back from a two week vacation getting his permed. How are we doing, mate?
M: Yeah, I think I still have like six more weeks to go this year.
L: For your perm?
M: No vacation.
L: Oh cause that looks like it's not done yet.
M: It's definitely not done yet.
L: It didn't set, my friend.
J: Alright, so Larry, we're going to talk about this because it's, the Chiefs win obviously if you don't know the Superbowl result, which was couple of weeks ago, the chiefs won in pretty consistent fashions of how they've been winning most of the season. Talk about it Larry.
L: Well, I think a reason why we're talking about the Chiefs today is that, it's not that they won a Superbowl cause this is compete like a champion podcast and focuses mostly on tennis, but it's the way that they got it done, right? In each game in the playoffs, they were down 10 points or more. In the divisional round against the Texans, they were down 24 points. I mean, before I finished my nachos, they were down by four scores, or three scores, with three two-point conversions. So I mean it was like shocking. Oh Johnny, it was boom, right out of the gate. The Texans jumped all over them. And then I went, and I think I went and played hockey for a little bit in the street, I came back in and the Chiefs are winning at halftime. Like how the heck does that happen? That just doesn't happen. Right? The chiefs would literally, you know, go on and continue to do this throughout the playoffs. There was a funny actually Tyreek Hill, who's a wide receiver, funny quote with him. They asked him about scoring 41 unanswered points against the Texans. They asked him if he ever done that before, he's like, no, unless you're talking about Madden football, you know, video games. So I mean they were doing things we haven't seen before and I wondered if there were some things that we could pull from that cause we talk a lot about the psychology, the performances and coaching and all these things and I wondered if there were some things that we could pull from the Chief's victory.
J: Yeah, absolutely. I was reading up on some articles about this before we did this podcast and one stat I didn't really know, maybe I should have, but was that the Chiefs were 5-0 when trailing by double digits during the season, including 3-0 in the postseason.
L: That's insane. Do you know what their chance of victory was according to ESPN when they were down 10 in the fourth quarter against the 49ers? 3.9% chance. That's what they predicted their chances were to win that game.
J: Should've put some coin on that then.
L: Well, we're not going to.
J: Can't talk about that.
L: It's not a gambling podcast.
J: So in order to get down to that, because that is a habit, that's a habit, that's not a one off. You do it once, you might consider it luck. Do it twice, might be coincidence. But you do it three times or more, I mean that's a habit.
L: I agree. I think it's a mindset, right? They literally had a way of dealing with this that most teams don't. I think they had a way. Now, I got one quote, this came from Jason Selk, who writes for the Forbes magazine online. But he talked about coach Andy Reid and how he made it about the process. So in fact, Andy Reid went on fourth down two times during that game and they converted and they were talking about, well, you know, why not just play conservative or be concerned about the outcome and maybe play it in a conservative way. But coach Reid trusts his players and the way they would do things. And you know what he told the Chiefs when they weren't getting points on the board against the 49ers, keep going. We're going to be okay. We've done it before. There you go. We'll do it again. So once you do it, you have the luxury of knowing that you have done it, right? You can do it again.
J: Yeah.
L: What I found fascinating was how much his teammates were talking about Mahomes being a young guy, right? So when you have a dynamic on a team and you've got someone who's really young versus maybe vets that are on the team, you might have that, you know, you might feel a bit overwhelmed trying to step up as a leader, as the QB being so young. But what's fascinating is his teammates all came forward and spoke about him in a way that said that he inspires the rest of them and he inspires the rest of them because he doesn't have that, you know, he has that belief that no game is out of reach regardless of how dismal their prospects may be for victory. And this, this, I was reading this on business insider. So if you go another layer though beyond that.. So obviously Mahomes has a pretty special mindset and they, you know, Andy, Reid talked about, or maybe it was the defense end, Terell Suggs here said that the game is just too slow for him. He can make any play he wants. He never panics, never gets rattled. We're down 20-10 in the fourth quarter and he routed off 21 points. The kid is special. So they talk about how much his mindset, Mahomes' mindset inspires the rest of them. But if you go another layer past that, then who, who motivates and inspires him. And then you look at Andy Reid as the coach who saw many times during that 5-0 run when they were down, he would very often go over to Mahomes on the bench, almost put his arms around him or sit right next to him, and he'd be talking about, no game is out of reach. You can have the belief, we can still do this. And so you're starting to look at like that leadership from top down and that inspiration, that motivation. The coach is inspiring the QB off the field, who takes that directly on the field with him, who then makes a believer out of every single one of his teammates. And because of that, his belief inspires the rest of them that they're able to do anything when they're in very difficult positions. And I think that's pretty special. You know? And if we, if we go back to the Aussie Open, I think we talked about this on the previous podcast, but if we go back to the previous Aussie Open, seven match points, Fed was down against Tennys Sandgren. Seven. Well, what gives him the belief that he could do it? You know, maybe it was the round before where he was, he was in down positions, you know, in a fifth set and he was able to come back and win. Maybe it's just obviously the belief that he's probably done it before many times, you know, but you'd think after last year's results at Wimbledon where he was match point up and lost to Djokovic in the final of a grand slam, that that might affect him. But he's obviously, that belief comes from somewhere. And so that type of resiliency must start somewhere, right?
L: Well, I believe it does. There's a number of things you can factor in, but I think when you talk about the Chiefs, coach Andy Reid, he never panics and he just stays the course. He doesn't get upset on the sideline, looks confident. He talks to his guys in a confident way and so they're not panicking and they're focusing on the process of executing the next play. And in fact, when the Patriots were down 25 a few years ago to the Falcons and came back and won that Superbowl, Tom Brady talked about, instead of thinking about the totality of what you have to do in that case, being down 25 points, in the Chief's case, being down 10 points with seven minutes left, you got to focus on executing on each play. The present. That play. And you know, if you talk about Federer, you know, I'm not in his head, but in those situations I'm sure he's doing his best to be present and to just focus on whatever he wants to execute with that serve or that return, maybe serve-plus-one, return-plus-one. And he's focused in on that more so than anything else. But I do think whether it's the Chiefs or it's Roger Federer, that they have a history of being able to, they have this history of being able to come back and to find a way. And that perpetuates itself. You get that belief in yourself, that confidence. So when it, when it comes up again, you don't panic. You know that if you stay the course that you can find your way back.
J: Andy Reid goes, I always tell the guys, there's never a dead route. There's no clearing routes. Everybody's alive because of his vision. He'll shoot you and you better be ready. I like the way he goes about his business and he still has plenty of room to grow, which is exciting. Now he's talking there in reference to that massive 40 yard throw to Tareek Hill. And then that was on the, I'm not sure if it was a third down, but he threw it to, uh, that guy who had that great great game.
L: Are you talking about Watkins?
J: Watkins! Sorry. Bit of a mind blank there.
L: Sammy Watkins from Clemson.
J: Sammy Watkins. Yeah. And you know, we came up with these great plays and the one that he threw down to Tareek Hill, he was way on his back foot. Like he was getting pushed back. He was being pressured in the pocket, and he came up with a play, didn't panic, came up with the play when he needed to.
L: Well, that was the game changer, right? Because you know, I think it's third and 15 and they were in a position where they had to score and they're on their own side of the field. Third and 15, if they don't convert on that, now you're looking at fourth and 15 and basically the Superbowl. And then coach Reid has to make a decision whether to pont and play defense and hope you still get two possessions or to actually go for it and fourth and 15 and your chances of getting fourth in 15 aren't great. So it puts them in a desperate situation. But Mahomes being able to complete that throw to Tyreek Hill, gave them life. To me, that was the turning point. That fueled the, you know, certainly their momentum, their confidence. They started to feel like, Hey, we can do it again, where the 49ers kind of snuffed that out. I thought maybe that picked that the 49ers had in the fourth quarter would have been it for the chiefs. But you know, their inability to get first downs and then the chief's ability to make those big plays, I mean how many explosive plays did they make at the end of the game when there was very few of those plays were out the other three quarters by both teams. That to me were the differences. So, but that, again, that belief stems from past history. It stems from, you know, leadership that doesn't panic, that stays the course, that knows if you continue to execute that you can make your way back. You just have to make plays. I think back, there's lots of great examples from American football, but in the Eagles Superbowl victory over the new England Patriots, Malcolm Jenkins, who's a safety for the Eagles, the Patriots were going up and down the field on the Eagles scoring a ton of points, putting huge yards in them and Jenkins is saying, we gotta make one play, we gotta make one play, we got to make one play. That's it, guys, we just gotta make one play. And eventually Brandon Graham, Saks, Tom Brady, they make a defensive play. They're able to win the Superbowl. So to me, you know, in these situations, part of what makes these teams successful or these athletes, tennis players successful is that they're not leaning on perfect. They don't need for things to go their way. They're just looking to make the next play and they think at the end of the day, they'll find a way to make the last play and win the game. The big key you mentioned there is this leadership.
L: Yes, very important.
J: You know a lot of Mahhomes' teammates say he's a natural born leader. Andy Reid says sometimes that he needs to just kind of stay out of the way and let Mahomes do his thing because he's this natural leader. You've heard Belichick say a lot of the same about Brady. Now when you look at an individual sport like tennis, leadership qualities are still very important. But I don't think sometimes maybe, we as individual athletes look at, I need to be a leader because I'm not in a team, right? I'm the leader of myself. But what does that mean? So how important is it as tennis athletes, we're going out there to actually educate ourselves and practice leadership qualities and leadership skills and how can we do that in the individual setting and nature of our sport?
L: That's an interesting question and one I think about a lot. I do believe that, uh, many things that people correlate with great leadership matter in tennis with players. One is communication, the ability to communicate honestly, openly, transparently, directly, respectfully.
J: Which we'll do here shortly.
L: Yeah. Are we going to do this very respectfully though?
J: Yes.
L: Okay, good. Well, that's a bit ominous. I'm not sure what that's about everyone, but we'll get into it. So I think that the communication skills are massive. Communicating with your coach, communicating with your parents, communicating with a doubles partner or communicating, you know, with the tournament staff, the supervisor, the tournament directors. So all these things to me really do do matter and make a difference. Leaders also have a vision, right? They have a vision of what they want to achieve and I think great tennis players do as well. It's just that it's self focused, right? There's a vision of how I want to play, how I want to compete, and that vision is truly what they, what they keep coming back to. To me it's this relentless pursuit of excellence and that's that vision I have of myself at my best. That I believe is going to help me reach my, my, you know, big goals that I have, my outcome goals. So whether that's a coach who's driving that bus and there has been that situation in tennis, of course, you know, there's some really strong, you know, tennis coaches out there who've been the main driver for players or it's coming from the player, him or herself. Leadership still does matter in tennis.
J: I would say. I mean any player that's had any experience playing doubles has that an opportunity to be a leader on the court, whether they've struggled and their teammates pick them up or where they've had to pick that team may up. And how have they done it? Have they done it in a, I guess, a negative way? Like, come on mate. Like pick it up, this is terrible, or hey, come on, let's, let's just start with this first shot. Let's make some balls in court, let's make our opponents play and then let's get into a little bit more tactics. But let's pick ourselves up. Let's [inaudible]. So how much of it's maybe taking that mentality on the singles court, you know, talk to yourself like you were a very good positive doubles teammate trying to pick up your partner.
L: Yeah, and certainly this is talked about often in coaching circles with players. Sometimes the players respond well to that. They're like, yeah, I get it. I can do that. Others are like, well, it's not doubles so it doesn't count. But I think the concept, the idea is clear, right? That, why would you put yourself down? You don't put your doubles partner down hopefully. You want them to perform, so you treat them well, you talk positive to them, you encourage them, well don't you want to perform well? So why won't you talk to yourself positively, encourage yourself. So I think the message is there, you know, I think the challenge that the players experience is that because it's such an emotional game and you're responsible for everything. You look at, like Patrick Mahomes, for example, I'm sure he takes all the responsibility on his shoulders, but at the end of the day there is some diffusion of responsibility. You know, if the line doesn't block, then he's not able to make that throw on third and 15 to Tyreek Hill. Tyreek Hill doesn't get open. Maybe someone else, I didn't watch him play a second time, but there were other routes being run. Maybe they drew away the coverage from Hill and I know there were a lot of guys around Hill, so maybe not. But everybody has a role to play and there's a bit of a diffusion of responsibility, which can be dangerous. But at the same time, as an athlete, you can say, look, we are responsible for this. But in tennis it's I, it's I, it's I, unless you're playing doubles and so that makes it challenging for players. It makes it very personal, very emotional. And so you gotta be able to slow yourself down and instead of, you know, quote unquote panicking like the players like talk about, be like coach Reid, be like Patrick Mahomes, be like Roger Federer. I know these are greats, but pause, calm yourself, be clear on your, on your game, what you're planning to do. Execute one play at a time. Adversity is going to strike no matter what you do. And for the chiefs it struck in every single game and you're just going to have to roll with the punches. And they did an amazing job of not getting hung up on things not going their way. And I can't over emphasize that point that, you want to be resilient like the chiefs, then you can't expect perfect and you can't get hung up on the things that don't go your way. You've got to be able to let it flow off your back and focus on the next, the next play or the next point. And you got to keep that belief, unwavering belief, that self belief that anything is possible regardless of score.
L: Well there's nothing, you know, if you're on the side that's winning, there's nothing more dangerous than giving the other team hope, right? Because once that seed of hope is in place, then you water it and you watch it grow and suddenly that momentum kicks in, like it did for the chiefs and before you know it, the 49ers, who had kind of suffocated them and not given them much and it felt like they were grinding them out of the chiefs were on fire just making explosive plays. In tennis, what's amazing is that there's no clock. So you have all the time you need to make that comeback. It's just that you also have to win the last point in tennis, which is awesome too. So you're never out of it theoretically and you're always in it. So you always have that seed of hope. And so for tennis players and on both sides of it, when you're down, remember that, Hey, one point at a time, if I build one point in time, I can get myself back. There is no clock. And if you're on the on the side that's winning, hey, you know, that's the scary part sometimes is that I still have to seal this deal. Like I gotta win the last point. Just focus on the task at hand in the present, just keep executing like you would if you were playing in practice. Hard to say, harder to do. But that's what champions are able to do, is they're able to focus on their task and the present, really focused on executing and trusting that, doing that again and again and again, that they'll get to where they need to be even if there's a timeframe on it.
J: Yeah, that's a great point. And it's almost, you know, in tennis it's self-directed solutions, isn't it? It's just problem solving I guess. You know, in American football, you've got a coach who has the influence, but I'm sure the designed play that went 40 yards down to Tyreek Hill maybe wasn't the primary option, but he was still able to come up with a solution when the pressure was on and that's no different than when Novak came up with a play, match point down and Federer approaching him and he can come up with play. Or Federer that came up with many good plays when he was match points down against Tennys Sandgren, you know. There's the belief I can do this and then it's executing when I'm under those pressure situations because I'm calm and I've already preset myself with the belief that I can do it. So you know, that doesn't cloud my judgment when I then get put into one of those situations. You know, from my playing days just in college, you know, anytime you have those slight negative thoughts, like, ah, I'm not sure I can do this, well self-fulfilling prophecy is where it comes forward most there. If you're unsure of yourself, then the result, you're going to be on the losing end of that. Nine times out of ten, you keep positive and you keep the belief, you can make good things happen and you know, I don't know how it all works upstairs and that's from my experiences is whenever I had a, even a shred, the tiniest bit of doubts that I could come up with something, most of the time I couldn't, but when I had the belief and I never doubted myself you then I usually could come up with a play and it's usually what you see, when you hear the quotes, you see the plays and you, you look at these things, it's fairly common to see that. Yeah. You hear that and I think, you know, part of, a big part of what is going on is just believing in and focusing in on that next, I know I keep saying it, but emphasizing it that next point and knowing that if you're, if you're serving the ball wide and going to hit the ball open court, you've done that thousands of times in practice. I can do that again and that's to the level of what we're talking about here, right? It's yes, this belief that we can find a way to come back and win when we're down 10 points or I'm down match point, but it's also this commitment and belief that you feel on that to be able to execute a certain serve, a certain return. I know I can get this ball back on this guy's serve. I've got a good feel for where he's going to serve it and it's set to at that level as well. That sense of control of what's happening in the match and really focusing on what you do have control over and less on what's out of your control. Things that your opponent's doing or in this case, the Chiefs, the clock, you know, all they could do was try to manage it, right? It wasn't like they're going to put time back on the clock. So again, this ability to focus in the present on what you control, executing your process, that's the key. And that's why the chiefs were able to make that comeback when things look really bleak for them and I too, I felt, okay, the 49ers are going to get this done, and then it turned very, very quickly.
J: Okay, Larry, we're going to do an exercise.
L: Great. Okay. Yeah, now I know what you're talking about. Are you questioning me or am I questioning you? Or are we doing this together?
J: We can do both. We gotta give the listeners a little deeper look into our lives a little bit here.
L: We don't want to do it with Mick, because we're not sure what will come out.
J: Oh gosh. Yeah. Well, he can always go on vacation for another two weeks afterwards if he...
L: He wasn't on vacation, okay? He was working.
J: I know. I'm just joking. He was busting it around the country on his travels. Growing the game. That's what we love.
L: The guru.
J: All right, so we've got this exercise, I just came back from a conference early this week and we did this exercise as a way of reemphasizing the point. We had a speaker that was the mental health therapist for the Carolina Panthers and she talked about mental agility and how she spent a lot of time with the players to understand almost like their baseline behaviors. It's like her primary purpose for going to lunches with players and hanging out with them and getting to know them wasn't just, Oh, so I can help, you know, that's part of my job. Her goal was, I want to figure out what their baseline behaviors are like so that when I'm watching them and they're playing, competing on the field and I see a slight hesitation and something that looks slightly unusual to their usual approach or their preparation, I can understand that that is something that is outside their norm, their usual. That is something outside their baseline behaviors and so building on from that, the talking about this mental agility, the ability to be resilient in all different types of situations. They then put us all into different groups and we got with a partner and went through this exercise about resiliency and a lot of it was awareness and the young gentleman that I was partnered with sheds, I mean some very deep, deep stuff, but we don't have to go that deep but we can certainly provide some good examples. But all right, so we're just going to go through this. It's a series of nine questions.
L: Nine questions.
J: The first one, we don't have to answer unless you want to, but first one I would say, and this is an exercise you can do, coaches, you could do this with your players, players, you could do this with another player. You know there's many different dynamics, how you can use this exercise. So number one, name or think of a hero of yours and what you admire about them. Let's start there. People that have impacted you, inspired you. Okay? So I think a lot of people, when you ask this, usually come up with a parental figure, a first coach, which is pretty cool to hear. You know, that's what usually comes out of it, but if you want to share, you can share Larry. Otherwise we can move on to question two.
L: Yeah, no, I think it's my good friend Dan. Dr Dan Gould, who's coming to campus next week.
J: Yeah, Dr. Gould. I'm excited to get him in. And why, what'd you admire about Dr. Gould?
L: I think he's just a model. Professionalism, very positive person, finds people's strengths, builds people up. When you're with Dan, you feel good. You're, you know, you're happy. He's truly a great guy to be around and extremely knowledgeable. So, and he was the kind of professional, I wanted to be in the field of sports psychology, so I always looked up to Dan and so he's probably, I hope he doesn't listen, I do kind of hope he listens to this, but he'll probably give me a hard time about it. So.
J: Okay. Awesome. Question number two, describe a time when you've shown great resilience.
L: Beyond hanging out with you and all that you put me through?
J: That's brutal. Thanks Larry.
L: Yeah, you're welcome. Wow, when I showed great resilience? I'm going to go back to my shoulder surgery a few years ago where, you know, it really, everybody's telling me it's going to set me back a year. You know, I wouldn't be able to do much of anything and, you know, I just tried to take a really good mentality with it and maybe that's some of the next questions coming up, but, and to use it as a learning experience of, okay, I'm having surgery, now I'm going to experience what made the athletes I work with go through who, who have to have their shoulders done or elbows or wrists or whatever it may be. So great learning experience.
J: Awesome. Question number three, if you were a fly on the wall observing you at that time, what would you be seeing? I think what I would see is someone who was nervous, yeah, but confident in what was going to happen, you know, ready to have that surgery done for sure. But yeah, a little bit nervous. I think that's normal because you know you're going under anesthesia, you don't know how much pain you're going to be in. You don't know what you're going to experience when you come out. You know there's nerve block and how long are you not going to have any feeling. That was probably the thing that was the most nerve wracking for me is just not knowing when that was going to wear off and when it should. But yeah, I think hopefully the fly on the wall would have seen someone who was nervous but, but ready and calm for the most part.
J: Okay. And that sort of answers then question number four, which is how did you feel? You felt nervous and so you've basically answered that.
L: I think I answered that. Yeah.
J: Great. Okay, so when you've been resilient, question number five, what are the skills you have drawn on? So when we look at skills, you can look at the ability, an example, might be like ability to put things in perspective or use humor to deflect stress or anything like that.
L: I think it was number one was perspective taking. I remember a friend of mine who, she had a major knee surgery and a long rehab, much more longterm than my shoulder was, she talked about how, you know, she uses the opportunity to learn what her athletes were going through and she looked at it as a gift almost as something she could learn from an experience. And I tried to do the same thing. So I think perspective taking a different perspective, looking at things in a different way is important. I think really not assuming, you know, a lot of people told me, Oh you're going to be, just in extreme amounts of pain, it's going to be tough. I'm like, I'm not going to assume that. I think my recovery is going to be good. I think goal setting, do the rehab process, really focusing in on the joy of just completing certain tasks every day, you know, with my good friend Chris, who I worked with and the people there where I did my rehab, really just staying with the process. Enjoying like, Hey, I'm doing a little bit more today. Yes it hurts, but I know I'm getting stronger. I can feel that. Fourth is visualizing and visualizing the shoulder becoming stronger and you know, getting better. And then, you know, just getting out and not acting like, well, somehow flawed and maybe I don't want people to see me in this sling. I go out and I went to baseball practice and helped out. I couldn't throw, but I could stand there and talk to kids and help them. So I guess those are some of the things that I leaned on. And I think that may be is another question, what I leaned on.
J: Well, yeah. I mean, you're doing a good job of answering the next one before I ask you, but that's fine.
L: Yeah, you know, that's, yeah.
J: I mean you're just in tune. You know what's coming. Question six, what was the support that kept you upright? So when we talk about support, was it friends? Was it comforts? Was there, I mean, anything could define support really. I mean, you talked about your friends help there.
L: Yeah. Well, just very quickly. I would say my wife obviously has been very supportive, and then challenging me. A couple of days in and say, Hey, you have one arm that works there, the dishes still need to be done. So she, she's going to listen to this.
J: Boom.
L: Yeah, right? So she supported me and also challenged me. So she was, I leaned on her a lot. I still do. I mean, yeah, I lean on her a lot for a lot of things. So.
J: Nice. All right, question seven. What are the strategies that kept you moving? So under this, I mean, we could talk about, was it exercise, your hobbies, meeting with friends? Well, what did you proactively decide, this is a strategy I'm going to take while I'm going through this period of time in my life.
L: Definitely, you know, time with family, pouring into my work, enjoying the rehab and the people where I was doing my rehab. It got to a point where I just really enjoyed going there and seeing the people and doing the exercises and just feeling good about what it was doing for me, uh, in terms of how fit I felt and you know, I still see myself as an athlete and I wanted to treat it like I was an athlete and not an old guy who has an injury. That's not me at all. And I definitely wanted to look at it that way.
J: Okay, awesome. And then the last one here is what is the wisdom that gave you comfort? So I think when we talk about the wisdom we can, that helps you draw upon times of stress. It could have been in the form of poetry or inspirational quotes, books. I don't know.
L: It was a vision of your face that gave me comfort. Well, you know...
J: The horror.
L: In reality, I go back again to what my friend Dana said about her knee surgery and that helped me a lot. And then I just remember the night before and, and being nervous and being like, look, you're going to get through this. Um, you're going to be okay. And, and really going to the skills that I teach my athletes, you know, doing some mindfulness, doing some breathing, you know, really focusing on the fact that this is a momentary thing. I'll get through it, I'll be home later that night, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So all those things. But you know, just trying to stay present, not get too caught up with the future I think was one of the biggest things and embracing the situation.
J: Awesome. Well that's the exercise.
L: Is that it?
J: How'd that make you feel?
L: Ah, yeah. It made me feel good. It's good to recount that. It makes yoy also feel like, Hey, I got that in me. Right? I can be resilient again and I'm more aware of how I did it. So, you know, the next time hopefully no surgeries, but uh, something comes up, I'm a little bit more prepared to be that way.
J: Yeah. And again, I mean for the listeners here, whether you're a player, you're a coach or, you know, a parent, it's a great exercise. I think not only because you're getting your athlete or if you're an athlete yourself, you're getting yourself to think about the times where you were resilient. I just want you to all remember this is, there is no event that is too small. Everything is significant. It's your story and your story to tell and everything has significance if it's significant to you. So you know, there are stories out there of people that were resilient on like we heard about Sam a couple podcasts ago and that's obviously one extreme case of that. But there is no case too small here. And reminding yourselves at times where you felt down and out or you felt that your back was against the wall. Remind yourself how you got yourself out of that and if you look back on those times and you wish you could've changed a few things or you could've leaned on support a little bit more, you could have shared some thoughts or ideas, again, this is a great exercise to do that. Share your thoughts here and you never know what good things come from that, because like when we shared information at this conference to other professionals who we had no relationship with and they offered some really great advice, I mean, great advice from people we didn't even know. So imagine the advice that you could get from people that you care about or care about you that are invested in you. So do this exercise with friends, family, parents, coaches, fellow athletes, and give it a go. See how you feel about it, you know, raise awareness to how you are resilient because everyone is resilient and everyone has gone through resilient times at one point or another, so give it a go and let us know how it all goes and you know, maybe comment on the podcast, and let us know how it all goes.
L: Great. I love it. I like the exercise. I appreciate you bringing that back.
J: Yeah, I though it was great. So, well, that's about a wrap for this week's episode of compete like a champion. Mick's just hit the music, that means that time's up. So...
L: You're done.
J: Um, for more information about anything, we're going to put that exercise up on the show notes, so we're going to put something up there so you can, you can print that off and take it with you. But, uh, until next time, Dr. Larry and I, we're checking out.