← Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
Is Youth Sports Destroying Your Kid's Self-Identity? | Dr. Paul Conti
00:43:56
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- [00:00]
A
Youth sports in America are at a crossroads, and I'm here to help lead the conversation forward. I'm Greg Olsa. Each week we're sitting down with top athletes, coaches, and more to talk about what's working, what's broken, and what's next. Welcome to you think.
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B
Hey, Greg. What's up? It's so good to see you again.
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A
Hey, Shot. How are you?
- [00:20]
B
I'm doing so good. How was your Mother's Day?
- [00:22]
A
It was great. We had a great weekend.
- [00:24]
B
That's amazing. This past weekend, you were the commencement speaker for Miami, a place that holds such a special place in your heart. What was that experience like? I gotta ask?
- [00:33]
A
It was great. You know, I had never done a college commencement. I actually randomly, about 10 years ago, got asked. Two high schools here close by in Charlotte asked me to be their high school commencement speaker. So I did that. I actually did two in, like, the same off season, just by chance. So that was my only experience ever doing that. I always wrestle with, you know, who am I to give everyone else advice when, you know, I don't know how everyone else feels, But I always feel like I kind of just have figured things out as I went and, you know, I don't know if I wanted someone preaching to me when I sat there as a college graduate with my whole life in front of me telling me all these fancy wisdom and, you know, do this for success. I don't know. I don't know how I would feel if I was sitting on the other side. So I went into it just trying to tell my story, tell my story of not having things figured out and not always going to plan. And just, you know, sometimes the. The path that you never envisioned was the path that ultimately led to where you wanted to be. And, you know, weaving that through fun stories about my time at Miami. You know, from meeting my wife to, you know, playing ball there and all the fun times in between. It was just so cool to be back on campus, to be back and reconnect. I met one of my college professors that I hadn't seen in 20 years. So it was a really cool week. Got to spend it down there with my wife and some family and reconnect, like you said, with a school that's given us so much, a school that's such a big part of our journey. And to have a chance to stand up there in a cap and gown and have a couple minutes of the crowd and their families on such an important day was a great honor. And I'm grateful that they asked me to be a part of it.
- [02:16]
B
You really did such a great job. But I have to ask, okay, so you broadcast every weekend. Did this feel different? I mean, the crowd was intimidating. Like marine science, engineering. Did it feel different? Were you nervous for it?
- [02:28]
A
I think what's so hard about it is, you know, doing multi, you know, doing multiple different commencement speeches. So Miami breaks up their ceremonies in like small blocks based on major. So the morning session, which was like the icebreaker session, it was early in the morning. It was marine biology, engineering and the nursing school. So it was about 500 or so kids that were in that ceremony. And then the afternoon, the second ceremony was a bigger, a little bit more of a lively. Was the business school. You don't know what your audience is, right? Like things that you think are going to land and be relevant. Some audiences they do, some audiences they don't. So that's always a little bit of an unknown. But you know, I, I think the thing that everyone in there could connect on was just how special Miami was and you know, the, you know, whether it's the dorms or you know, places on campus that we'd eat and go to. So I think that that's really thread that connects everybody that went to school there. It is a very small school. I think people are surprised by that, but I think the intimacy of the school, I think is what makes it so special. And hopefully everyone walked out of there at the very least entertained, if not, you know, one or two pieces that they can carry with them.
- [03:41]
B
Did you go back to any of your old stopping grounds or no? Did you keep it light?
- [03:45]
A
Yeah, we, we, we spent the afternoon, we went to Coconut Grove, which looks a lot different than it did. Looks a lot different than used to go out there to like that was like the college bars of Miami for as college bars as we get was in Coconut Grove. But now it's turned into like a beautiful downtown and high end shops and restaurants. But we went to it went to a place for lunch that we used to frequent when we were in school and just walk around. We drove around all of our old apartments. I saw my wife's house that she lived in with her sister for a short time there, saw the final house that I lived in with a couple of the guys on the team off campus before I graduated. So we drove around the Gables and Coconut Grove and saw where we lived, where we ate, saw former coaches, spent time over at the, at the football facility. So we got a lot accomplished in just a couple of days.
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B
That's so Great. So special. I love it. Transitioning to your wife, you just spoke about her this past weekend was Mother's Day. What role does she play in your kids lives every day?
- [04:46]
A
Oh, she's, she's the driver of it all. You know, she, she's been through it all. You know, we, we met when we were first in college. She, I don't know if she knew I played on the team. We met, we lived in the same dorm room and, and just started out, you know, being friends and then to be able to go on this whole journey together, start dating our last couple years in college and then be together when I got drafted, move together with me, not engaged, not married, you know, but be willing to move from Miami to Chicago shortly after the draft and, and then that, you know, my rookie year, we got engaged, married the following. So you know, now, you know, bring our kids now raising three young kids, changing cities, changing rule. Obviously we've been through a lot, you know, some help things, some personal struggles. So we, we've been through it all together and you know, at the center of it, there she is. And I, I, you know, I joke, you know, she raises like four kids, you know, she's got our three and then she's got me and you know, keeping me in line, keeping my head on straight, not let me get out too far in front of my skis. She's a very, she can keep me humble and bring me back down to reality when need be. But we've been through a lot together and a lot of really good times and unfortunately a couple tough times. But to go through that together, to go through all the things as a team has just been so special and to have it rooted at such a young age, when we met each other at 18, 19 years old and now be here all these years later is really special. And I know every guy says this about his wife because they're trying to be nice, but I'm being genuine when I say she when she's not here. Like, I don't even know how to feed myself. I don't even know how to, like, I don't even know where to take the kids. Like she literally, we, we rely on her for virtually everything and we're very great, we're very grateful for her. Today we are joined by Dr. Paul Conti. A lot of you probably saw him for his viral episode on the Huberman pod and his book titled what's Going Right. He's at Harvard, Stanford, trained psychiatrist, founder of the Pacific Premier Group, and just one of the Top thought provokers and thought leaders in this entire space. And Dr. Conti, to have you on with us here on Youthink and be able to take a lot of your research, a lot of your. A lot of your work, and now kind of lay it over the youth sports complex, which is what we spend so much of our time talking about. We, we're just so thankful for you taking a couple minutes to join us here on Youthink.
- [07:07]
C
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.
- [07:10]
A
So I. I want to start with your book titled what's going right? You know, I think it's so fun the way you kind of phrase it, because so often, you know, when you talk about mental health and experts, they come on, they want to talk about all the things that are going wrong, right? They want to talk about where all the holes are in the processes and all the deficits and then the areas in which people can improve. But I love your framing of like, let's talk about what's going right? So, like, in the world of youth sports, in your mind, like, where are the things that we are getting right?
- [07:38]
C
Well, I think to establish team environments where a person feels part of something greater than themselves. You know, what sometimes technically gets called an affiliative defense. We feel better about ourselves because we're part of a group. And it allows us then to absorb, for example, imperfections in the self. So mistakes that we may make, things where we might otherwise feel negative about ourselves, it can be absorbed into the group in the sense that we feel supported, we feel cared about, we feel good enough even if we haven't performed on a particular day, say, to our best. It also lets us do the opposite, which is to support other people in the same setting. So what we're trying to do is model how we want life to work as we grow older, that we make affiliations. And that can be family affiliations, work affiliations, community affiliations. And to feel part of something greater than us is just extremely, extremely important. And to learn that and to have that role modeled for us and to have children guided forward that way, I think can make a huge difference to their development, including the ability to tolerate difficult things and get through difficult things later in life.
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A
How important for just like brain development? You know, you hear people talk all the time like, let your kids fail. Let them face hard things. But from a science perspective, from just like a. From a. From the way the brain develops, especially at the young age, how is early failure. How can we better use early failure in exposing our kids to hard and challenging things like from a brain development standpoint, what can we do better as parents and as coaches through sports that we can use those early failures and some of those early struggles and really reap the rewards long term?
- [09:27]
C
I think the key here is how failure is framed, right? If failure, which sometimes happens in all parts of life, if failure is framed as like, that was bad or you did something bad, which often is where it ends for people and often where it ends in our own minds, then that's where failure can be damaging, right? The person takes inside that there's a black mark on them, there's something less than them. So if that's the meaning, that's obviously not good. The other side of things is if failure is seen in the context of the whole person, right? I'm striving for difficult things, right? And when I strive for difficult things, I'm not always going to get what I want, you know, certainly not the first time. I'm not always going to get what I want. Maybe not the second time or the third time, but I know it's in me, right? I know it's in me, and I'm going to keep working, I'm going to keep trying. And even if we arrive at failure, like that thing isn't going to work, right? To recognize, okay, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, maybe this is something that isn't going to work out for me, but that's okay. I remember when I was younger, I played soccer as a kid, and the truth is I just wasn't very good at it, right? And, you know, and, and I had to kind of go through and continue to work and ultimately realize like, this isn't going to be my path and I have to feel like a good enough person and a whole person, you know, even though that's not my path. So failure can teach us resilience and that failure is part of a good, healthy, successful life. If we never have failures, then we're not trying, we're not doing enough with ourselves. So if failure helps us understand ourselves better and helps us move forward, now that's a good thing as opposed to how failure sometimes is framed in the world as that person takes away a sense of less than this. So it's night and day, the difference in that frame. And of course, healthy sports environments are framing it in the, you know, in the good way, in the healthy way that that allows the person to grow and, and, and starts to model how to be in, in bigger groups, right? In other settings and to sort of take careful Take chances right. With ourselves in a measured way.
- [11:37]
A
All right, so I'm going to frame a question to you because it, it feels very similar to what you're kind of breaking down right now, just like the scientific framework, but how we can, you know, best kind of apply it to like a real world. So one of the biggest questions that we get and, and you know, people submit questions from all over the country. It myself something very specific and as simple as, okay, how do I pick the best team for my child to play on? And there's, you know, do you put your child on the really, really good team? Or maybe they're not quite ready, but they're going to get better coaching. But maybe there's a lot more failure. Maybe their role is diminished. Maybe they're a little further down the totem pole. The other side of that coin is I put my kid on a team where he's clear, he or she is clearly the best, and it's just nothing but success. It breeds confidence. So from, from your under, you know, obviously from, from your work. As you look at those two sides of the coin, is there such thing as at a young age, through sport, too much failure, too much hard. And is there such thing as too much success, overconfidence? Like, how is we as parents, how do we find that balance between making sure we expose them to both, but both in a healthy environment?
- [12:47]
C
Yeah, I think the key here is that it's not a static state, that there's a sense of the child being in motion. Right. As the child is growing and developing, then we're looking at that particular child and say, what does that child need for forward movement? Right. So for example, a child who has a lot of resilience and gets, I can try hard things and doesn't always go well, but like, that's okay. What's the next hard thing for me to try? That's a child you can put into an environment where there is going to be failure. It's very competitive. They're not the best on the team, for example, and going to be failure. But the child can learn and grow from that. So in that situation, with that temperament in the child, then that could be a very good idea. There may be the opposite end of a child who really has trouble with confidence and feels, has a strong reflexive shame response to failure. Right. We might want to build some successes in that child before we challenge the child more. So so much of it is seeing that there's a trajectory, that the child is moving across something. And how do we want that movement to occur. We look at who is the child. Right. And how do we support the growth in that person. Those factors all together will. Will give us a really good idea of where we would place the person.
- [14:00]
A
Yeah, that's interesting because we just. We hear that from people all over the country, and I think it's something that parents really struggle with. You know, they hear. They hear both arguments towards challenging and failure is okay. And sometimes I think you can overdo that. And then on the other side, to your point. Yeah. In introducing success has a very powerful motivating factor for a lot of young kids. They. They tend to want to do things that they're good at. But then there's also a sense of, you know, is this reality and kind of overconfident. So I just think it's so interesting to hear your perspective, you know, from a scientific perspective, because parents are struggling with how to appropriately level their child's youth sports experience.
- [14:43]
C
It's not one size fits all, right? The answer to the question has to involve who is the child? Right. What does the child need to continue healthy development or for us to help that child be on a path of healthy development? And then we're, of course, assessing. Right. Because we may not always get it right. We may think that child is really resilient. We can put her or him on the team where there's going to be a lot of failure along the way. I mean, they're going to learn, they're going to grow from that. But then we have to watch the child. If the child starts to feel disheartened and starts to have a sense of not good enoughness inside, then we may want to intervene. So we allow for the idea that it's not going to be perfect. If we do it 50 times with 50 different children, we're not going to get it right 50 times. If we really think about it and we think about the team environment and the child, we'll get it right far more than we'll get it wrong. But the idea that we can all fail, that we can fail to place the child in the right place, we as adults. But that's okay as long as we're paying attention and we're tracking along with the child so much in life, if there's observation, communication, things go so much better in all sorts of settings, right? So if we just bring those principles that, hey, it's dynamic. This is a person in motion, right? And things are going on like, hey, let's do the best we can. Let's look at all the factors and let's observe and then things will be okay, whether we get it right at first blush or not.
- [16:12]
A
Yeah, that's so true. And a good lesson for all of us because we all do get so wrapped up in any given moment. This singular moment in time is the most important. And sometimes we all need to take a step back and realize that there is a large kind of journey here. I want to transit, transition to something else because one of, one of the biggest moments on your. On your segment with Huberman and, and. And how viral all that. That conversation went and spurred so many other great things like your book. I want to talk a bit about something you. You dove hard into, like the subconscious mind and anxiety and nerves and anyone who's ever been a parent or anyone who's ever coached a young child in athletics. I even remember deep into my playing days where I had played hundreds of football games and hundreds of NFL football games. Before every game, I was nervous, I was anxious. There was an unexpected outcome that is a little uncomfortable for everybody. So now I go to my son and daughter. I have two sons and a young daughter. They're all in middle school. And before every game, you know, I'll say, hey, are you guys nervous? Yes. You know, before track meet or a baseball game, give us an idea, like, what is the line between encouraging them that being nervous is okay, that's healthy, that's normal, but that it doesn't borderline on like anxiety and the anxiousness, which can be both crippling in the moment of performance, but also just a crippling kind of factor, if not controlled in just your everyday life.
- [17:38]
C
Yeah. I think the key, again, is in us just dialing the lens in a little bit closer. Right. So that we learn more about what's really going on inside of the person. So anxiety before something that he said, we don't know what the outcome is going to be. We don't know exactly how that person is going to play. There are people for whom that's really invigorating. They like, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to do my best. And of course I feel nervous, like I don't know what's going to happen, but it's part of what's exhilarating and exciting about it. And the person's getting sort of amped up from it. We say, okay, that's okay, that's okay. If there's something very different going on where now the child is fearful, as if this game is a litmus test for my value as a person, right? That's very, very different. Then we say, well, that's not a healthy kind of anxiety or if we want to use the word, say tension, right? Tension that is about I want to perform my best and this helps me be amped up. And then there' you know, there can be a release of hormones. So from the neuroendocrine perspective, right. What we may get are release of certain hormones that make us more alert, right. That help blood to be flowing to the muscles and joints and limbs. And you know, we now have a healthy situation, right? But we could say, oh, there's the same thing. This person is anxious, the other person is anxious. Reach has tension, but the quality of it can be so different, right? And if the quality is fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of stigma. Now we are, from an neuroendocrine perspective, something very different going on. Right? And something that makes it harder than to be in a flow state and to be in a performance state. So the idea of dialing into the person is so important. And I do some of this. I haven't done a lot of sports psychology, but I have across several different disciplines from Formula one to the NBA. And to look at how are people performing and what are they feeling inside? And often I'll hear the same thing. Well, the person is anxious or they're words that are, they're important words, but they're sort of generic. Until I can see that person and say what's going on in this person? I think that's part of the beauty of nurturing and shepherding children forward. From the perspective of coach of a parent is to be able to know that child well enough to see what is going on in them. And what do they need? What do they need? Some children, they don't do so well in a high pressure team environment. That may be great for some kids and not for others. Right. So we're trying to understand what helps this child. And if we want to give them some like a team feeling. Right. You know, sometimes that can be done in a less pressured setting. Right. I mean, some kids will do better with that. So it's really who is the child? And I think there's really a beauty to that. It doesn't mean that, not that there are overarching principles, it means that, hey, like there's a framework for how to nurture a child forward. But boy, in order to apply that, we want to look at the child, which I think is, is great. I think that's Part of the joy of parenting and.
- [20:43]
A
And coaching is that mentality, like, adaptable, like, can you change some of those? If I'm. If I have a very anxious child on my team, a son or daughter, even in your own house, can you. Like, what are tools that we can use that we can move them forward? Or is there an element of, like, nature? There's an element of this is the way you're hardwired and keeping them in these certain. Is there a nurture element to it? Is there a nature element to it? Or, like, is there anything we can do to push them outside of those comfort zones and challenge them healthily, that we can actually make them move a little further down the path?
- [21:21]
C
Yeah. So there's definitely a strong nurture element. Yes. The nature element is already set. So, you know, one child may have a very calm disposition and demeanor under pressure, for example. And then you see, oh, like the parents are like that, or the siblings are like that. You can see that it comes from nature. Another person may be very high strung and anxious, and we can see that they've been that way their whole life. That's coming from nature, too. So nature deals us. We get dealt some cards from nature, but from there there's a lot we can do. So the first question you'd ask about a really challenging environment where there'll be lots of failure or a less challenging environment where there's lots of success. So, for example, a child that needs to build some success. And while the child is building success, we're talking about that with the child. That's part of the purpose of building success so that we can challenge ourselves more and we can put ourselves in situations where we might not succeed. Right now we're building a narrative for the child that says, okay, this is good. I'm in this position and I'm having success. That doesn't mean I need to have success all the time, everywhere I go in order to feel good enough. Right. It means I'm building a sense of confidence. These successes feel good. Why am I doing that? I'm doing that because I want to challenge myself in life. It's telling me, do this so that I can do something that's a little more difficult, where I don't always succeed all the time. And then we follow along. If we move the child then into that realm. How does it feel when the child doesn't succeed? And often we have to deal with a reflex of shame, because there's a reflex of shame when things don't go well. And some of us have a very strong shame response to that. But we can work with that. What does that mean? Is that feeling telling us truth? Because very often if there's a reflex and we feel ashamed, we read that to, oh, that's telling me there's something I should be ashamed of, as opposed to saying, we can have a shame reflex. And all it tells us is, oh, there was a reflex in me that made me ashamed. Should I be? And maybe the person should be. If they did something where, you know, they weren't doing what was best for the team, for example, we would say, okay, there's something corrective, like, it's good not to feel this way. How do I not feel this way? Right. I'd be more of a team player, for example, in this setting. Or the shame may be coming from a place that's not healthy. Anytime something doesn't go perfectly, I feel ashamed of myself, for example, right? And then when we want to work on that feeling that no, it's okay to have that feeling, but it's not really telling you truth. It's okay to try hard things. It's okay when things don't go perfectly. Now we're trying to work against the shame response. So again, I kind of anchor to this that there are all these overarching ideas and principles like nature versus what we can do through nurture. But again, I really do think the beauty of it is taking these principles and meeting that child where the child is at, which is what I think. I think it's good parenting and I think it's what good coaches do. I've worked with some coaches too, in professionals sports. And you see the really good coaches, they know these people on the team, they know what they're susceptible to, they know their strong points and their weak points. And they're also then trying to help those players know their strong points and their weak points too, and work on both their strengths and weaknesses.
- [24:38]
A
It's fascinating, I think back to so many guys that I played with where at times I was almost envious, right? It would be after a hard game, a loss, a struggle, and, you know, I would be sitting there at my locker and I would internalize every possible negative thing that I did. Because in my mind, if I would have done one or two of those things better, maybe the outcome of the game, right? Like, I harbored all of that. It was a big part of my ability to self motivate and, you know, nothing was ever good enough. And that could be both crippling, but also very motivating. Inspiring. And then there were other guys that I played with that it didn't seem like anything ever bothered them. Them. Right. There was almost an indifference. And. And I remember I would always have such, like, conflicted opinions at some point. God, that must be so, like, freeing. It must be such a nice way to live. But then on the other side, I always think indifference. I don't know. I. I always viewed that as. I personally, I always viewed it as like, a negative. Like, I want someone to be upset that we didn't win or someone to be upset that they didn't play well. So, like, how do we take that? And again, I was at a higher, older level. But, like. Like, how do we parent and coach that? Like, do we want to encourage indifference? Do we want our children to take failures hard because it shows that they care? Like, how do we parent and coach that? Again, with young kids, I think the
- [25:58]
C
first thing it makes you want to say is for us to learn what's going on inside of the child. Because very often in children and adults, what we see on the outside may not be reflective of what's going on on the inside. There are people who will handle a failure with a very straight face, and you don't see much change in them, but they're distraught once they're behind closed doors and alone. Right. So to map is what we're seeing on the outside, is it reflective of what's going on on the inside? Right. And is the child appropriately taking what is their responsibility? Not magnifying that responsibility, but looking at themselves in a way that says, okay, I'm part of a team, saying, the team lost, but I have a role in that. So as opposed to what technically is called selective abstraction, where we take something negative about self and we make the whole story about it. So maybe the whole team played badly. So if I'm on the team, I want to be able to think it's not good that I didn't play well. I want to understand that how can I play better, that I need to get more rest, Do I need to practice more on this or that? That's helpful because I'm recognizing I had a role in this loss. Right. But it goes too far if I think the whole loss is my fault. Right. It doesn't matter if I played well. We would have won no matter how everyone else played. That's not real. That's not seeing ourselves as part of a team. So a lot of things, not everything, but a lot of things, are trying to really live in the gray of Taking responsibility, but not too much responsibility. So there is this happy medium where we recognize I'm responsible for being the best that I can be, right? And also, no matter how much I try and how hard I practice, I'm not going to be the best I can be every moment. So I have to have the grace to give myself that too. Now, in that context, how can I be the best that I can be? Recognizing if I'm on a team, no one person carries the whole team, then that's not the feeling of being on a team. So I have a lot of responsibility, but I don't have all the responsibility. Right now we're trying to engender something healthy because real life as it goes on, I mean this is part of real life. But I mean real life will evolve through all sorts of life situations and it will put this to us over and over and over again of having to decide what was my responsibility in something bigger than me. And I want to understand my responsibility and how can I be at my best and how can I still strive to be at my best even if I wasn't? Often how people get into slumps is they have a bad game and then they get down on themselves. And then by the time I may see someone other really in a slump, and I'm trying to understand where did that start? And it started with a change in self talk. Like the person had a bad game and instead of saying, hey, I'm not happy I had a bad game, like everyone has a bad game. It doesn't mean I'm not good at this, right? So let me look at why I had a bad game. But sometimes, especially if the game is really bad or there's a lot of attention, then that person is saying something very different inside, right? They're saying, I'm not good at this. They get fraud syndrome, they don't feel good enough. And now I have somebody who's in the NBA telling me that they're not good at basketball, right? And I'm saying that where did that change? When did that self talk change? And then that tells us what we have to get at inside in order to help the person get out of that slump.
- [29:19]
A
For example, how connected is that with also how the people view themselves? You've referred to it, you know, in, in passing over the last couple minutes about like identity, right? Like wrapping up that it's not what I do, but it's who I am. So like I would have to imagine the people that really see a lot of their self identity through the Outcome of the sport, the success, you know, my batting average, my three point shooting. When those things start to struggle, if it's so wrapped up in how they view themselves at a self identity is it's probably even harder for them to get through it. So like how do we continue to encourage kids that competing is good, failing is good, stressing yourself, like all these things we've covered, but at what point does it become who they are instead of what they do, which opens up a whole other challenge. Like what, what is the science of like how we again, how we can better prepare these kids to handle all of these emotions and all of these things going on inside their heads that they, we don't have, that we don't end up going down that path.
- [30:22]
C
Sports are important and of course they get a lot of attention. So what happens is it's kind of like we zoom the lens in on the sport and on the sports performance. That's okay, but we can't zoom it in to the point where we don't see anything else. So we have to maintain a perspective of our whole lives. The example here is when I was in high school, I was a runner and I was in the middle of the field and I had to realize what did that mean to me. I really grew from that. I felt like I don't have to be at the forefront of everything in order to feel good enough. Because there were other things I was very good at and then I sort of had in my head, I need to be very good at everything in order to be good enough. So it was really good for me to say, look, I'm in the middle of the pack here. It's just kind of how it is. I'm working very hard, I am contributing, I am part of this, this team. I don't have to be at the forefront all the time. So it helped to have a perspective of self that said, do things that you're not the best at too. Do those things too. You grow from those things and it helps us have a perspective of self. So I could integrate that kind of middle of the pack into the rest of my life and say, right, it's okay that you're not the best at everything. You have to feel good enough anyway. But that was a healthy environment. The people around me weren't telling me that I was a failure because I wasn't at the front. My parents were okay with that. The coaches were okay with that. They saw I'm working hard, I'm achieving something, but this isn't going to Be my route forward in life. And to feel okay about that can really create a lot of growth in us. So we need perspective. We need perspective of self. And often what we do is we dial the lens in so closely, then that's all we're seeing. And sometimes, you know, parents and coaches can fall, you know, can sort of fall for that too. It's not good for the child. So we want to make sure that we have a holistic perspective of the child. If the child's, for example, middle of the pack and not trying very hard, you know, we want to talk about that. And why is that? You could be doing better. Right. But if you see the child is trying very, very hard, right. And they're middle of the pack, that's a real achievement then. And we want them to be able to integrate that into their whole perspective of self.
- [32:40]
A
Yeah, it's like connecting the inflows and the outflows. Right. Everybody wants the outputs, everybody wants the outcomes to be what they imagine. But something we try to. Again, we got teenage kids. So as you well know, sometimes these conversations don't typically go in a straight line, but, you know, we try to point out, like, we're going to disconnect the inputs. How. What did you do from the output? If the output doesn't. Isn't what you want? Take a look back at the inflows and say, did you do everything possible to give yourself an opportunity to have success on the test, on the paper you wrote, on your baseball game, whatever it is? And then at least we, if the answer is yes, then we can live with the outcome not being the desired outcome, but where it gets frustrating. Again, this is just my house and my kids. Where it gets frustrating for me is when they're upset about the outcome. And then when we reflect on what they did leading up to it, the answer to, did you do this? No. Did you do this? No. Well, why did you expect to have success? So, like, like, what is the, like, brain wiring of these young kids? Like, is this an adult trying to get a young kid to think that way? Like, are they mentally prepared enough to start connecting these dots? Or is this just time and evolution as they grow up to start connecting inputs? Here's what I put into it. Here's what I should reasonably expect to get out of it. Oftentimes they're not always in line.
- [34:03]
C
There's a great opportunity to try and nurture that child forward. This linkage of input and output is very, very important. It's important to anything in life. And how I've tried to come at that at times. Working with teens is to come at that as if it's good news. It's really good news. You didn't get the result that you wanted. But there's good news here. You didn't put all of your effort into it, so there's more that you can do. So this idea of, hey, it's not good. You didn't put all of your effort to. Into it, right? We're not saying that's great, right? But it's not as if you did everything you could and this is the response. This is the output that you got, right? You can bring yourself to bear more. That's good news. You have more in you to give. You have more in you to contribute. And you want to feel good about that, right? So you want to feel good, feel good as you're doing all the things you're putting into it to get the output that you want. So I think how we come at it, which sometimes, and we can come at ourselves this way too, is with a reflex of the negative of, what did you expect if you didn't work hard, you're not going to get the result you want. That's not so helpful. But the idea that, look, you have more to give, there's more inside of you. This is good news. Let's take that and let's bring that to the surface. Let's not leave that in you. Let's get that out of you so that you feel better going into the next game and you're more likely to feel good about yourself on the other side of it. Now we're linking input and output, which, you know, sometimes even in adults, we, we can kind of miss that, right? Or look away from it. And certainly kids can too. But this idea that, hey, how we apply what's inside of ourselves really matters, you know, it's good to help the child see that even. Even in very young ages, if we can.
- [35:48]
A
Yeah, I mean, I, I could go on and on with you forever because I, I just find all of this so fascinating as you're describing these. I'm like going through a catalog of, of moments in my own brain where I'm like, okay, well, maybe I need to reevaluate how I react to that because I am guilty personally of saying, well, here's what you did. You just told me everything that you did leading up to it. You didn't have the outcome. You didn't get this test grade. You didn't get the, you didn't pitch you Know, whatever the gate, whatever the event is, I am guilty of saying, well, what did you expect? Like, you didn't do what was necessary, so why would you expect. I, I, I always give the example. I've said this to some people on here, actually, where, like, if I feel like there's a time where my kids, like, aren't doing the things consistently that typically result in good outcomes, I, like, don't want them to go to their game and have like an amazing weekend or everything went their way because I feel like it like reinforces. See, I don't have to put in all that work. It's gonna, like, I almost want them to fail so that they do put the two and two together. Now, whether or not that's healthy or not, I don't know. But like, that's just the way I always approached everything. But I know that's not always is the best way to approach it with kids.
- [36:58]
C
Yeah, I think we want input to match output, right. If a person doesn't work hard and things go really well, that's not the lesson. Right? That's not the lesson that we want. And look, and I'm guilty of what you said too. Like, you know, we tend to come at things through the lens of the negative, right. If you didn't put the input, what did you expect on the outside? But there is, you know, it's hard but to try and stop ourselves and say there's another way to convey that message that often is more effective. The good news is you have more in you to give so that you can feel good on the other side of the next game. Right? And it is hard to come at things that way. But often that helps the child feel encouraged and enthused and like, Right. Like that kind of like shot in the arm of like, I know I can do better, right? I can do better. As opposed to some negative self talk of I never try hard enough at anything. And, you know, there could be negative self talk as opposed to know that the positive self talk of, like, I've got it. Yeah, I do have it in me to do better and I want to do better.
- [37:57]
A
No, that's fascinating and a good lesson for all of us. Last thing, I want to leave before I let you go. Dr. Conti, this is fascinating. I could talk to you for four hours about this. But the last thing, like, I, I always want to try to leave our listeners and our followers with like, some concrete action items, right? So I'm gonna ask you to kind of mag, just really magnify way Way out overall high, high kind of arcing view here. Like parents, coaches, the adults that are listening, like give us one or two, like easy daily, you know, be able to apply them on a daily basis and apply them where we can improve. Like how kids view themselves in sports, how they talk to themselves, mental health, like their self identity, like what are some things that we can build into our routines at home, build into our routines with teams that we coach that would give kids more of a healthy mental experience through their youth sports journey.
- [38:55]
C
I think I would start with saying that what we see on the outside isn't always telling us what's going on on the inside. And the only way we learn is to inquire. So that child that lost a game and seems like as if they don't care, is that true or is that child going to go and be crying behind closed doors or what's the child saying to themselves inside? Do they seem very calm on the outside? But they're saying awful things. What is their self talk on the inside? So I think being aware that the only way any of us learns about one another is by observation and inquiry and it's that that helps us understand the child and then to use that knowledge in a very, very active way that there's no one size fits all about any of this. What we want to do is bring our best self to observing the child, bring our best self to trying to understand the child through inquiry. So how do we open up inquiry? If we're angry or frustrated with the child, it's very unlikely the child's going to open up to us. So maybe that child that didn't practice or didn't do it, maybe there's something else going on and we don't know about it, something the child's worried about or something going on at home. Right. So the openness to observe and then to inquire, I mean it is really amazing what we can learn. And I would say that that's the 30,000 foot view is observation and inquiry and then using that knowledge and communicating amongst adults sometimes can be of course very important. So we're aware there's a whole person in there and we're not necessarily getting the insight that we need, you know, by the means that we might normally use for assessment.
- [40:40]
A
Dr. Conte, I can't thank you enough. Our, our viewers, our followers, our listeners, like they are living this on a daily life. They are very similar to me. They're parents, they're coaches, they're trying to raise children in an ever changing World, especially when it comes to youth sports, their struggles. There's a lot of really good things going on again, which is very fitting. What's going right obviously the book that you authored, but there's also a lot of things that people are trying to figure out in real time. So to have experts like yourselves who have studied this field for years really have a great grasp to be able to give us tangible things that we can apply to in our own house and to the teams that our kids are on is just so valuable for you to take, you know, 30, 35 minutes to come, share a lot of your wisdom and a lot of your expertise with us here at you think is just greatly appreciated and I can't thank you enough.
- [41:28]
C
You're very, very welcome. It's a pleasure to do it.
- [41:31]
B
Now it's time for the part of the show where Greg answers questions that you, the listeners, submitted. As a reminder, DM us your questions on Instagram or email us@amaouth.in right now we're in a period of where summer is about to start. Kids are coming home from college that are athletes and middle school, high schools are about to let out. What piece of advice do you have for kids to take advantage of their summers in training, especially if they're fall sport athletes?
- [41:59]
A
Yeah, if I could leave, you know, and again, at times I probably don't even do this great within my own house. So I, I say all this like, I know for a lot of parents this is easier to say than it is to actually do. I'm just speaking athletically, like just from your athletic. I, I think it's important that kids take family vacations and go on trips and have time away and not every day has to be in the thick of like the grind and all of that. So I do believe in like summer having a chance to, to regroup. But as far as their preparation for their given sport, I think so often summer is packed with games, with competition, with travel tournaments. You're sleeping in hotels, you're eating junk food, you're sitting at the parks all day. And I know it's fun, right? Everyone loves playing games. Everyone loves going with their buddies to a hotel for a week long baseball tournament and just play, play, play. I think the biggest thing kids miss in the summer is the training, right? The focus on how do I become a bigger, faster, stronger, pure athlete and not so much about the competition of the said sport. And it's easy to get wrapped up in that. We all do it. And I think if, if I could, you know, if I could wave a magic wand and just give people the idea, like, summer is a time to focus on yourself. Summer is a time to have physical improvements, mental improvements. Go back to the fall. Whether it's a fall sport or you're just getting back into school for the following seasons, like, go back and when the coach sees you go, I don't recognize you. You're bigger, faster, stronger. The way you carry yourself, your mental approach, your confidence, all of those things are better than when we ended school back in the spring. And don't miss that summer window for self improvement while you're chasing weekend tournaments here and there because you get wrapped up into doing what everybody else is doing.
- [43:46]
B
Absolutely.
- [43:47]
C
Absolutely.
- [43:47]
B
Great answer.
- [43:48]
A
Appreciate everyone listening. Catch you again next week here on you think.