Heart-Centered Coaching NBA Athletes with Mike Guevara

You are listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 124. Today I am sitting down with Coach Mike G and we are talking all about Heart Centered Coaching professional NBA athletes. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm super pumped that you're here. I am so, so excited to bring to you Coach Mike G. Honestly, this episode has been on my heart since we recorded it. Which is probably why I called it Heart Centered Coaching because he is so brilliant and he's so generous and honestly, one of the biggest takeaways I got from this conversation is just how much he loves his job, how much he loves his clients and how their best interest is always for them, and how he navigates loving the science of training. Also dealing with really high level, top of the line, top performers, how he's traveled the world for people that are just at the top of the line in their industry, and how he's now making it more accessible and reaching other people and how he is now reaching other basketball players who might not be at the pro level any longer, but still wanting to participate in the sport and how he is bringing that to to more people. We actually also talked about accessibility in this episode. It's just such a good episode. I can't wait for you to listen to it. So Mike G started coaching in the performance field in 2008 upon graduating from Cal State Northridge with a BS in Exercise Science. In 2010, he worked as a performance intern and ultimately a coach at the Factory Training for five years. He was then offered ownership and served as Director of performance at the Factory Training where he oversaw and service mult multiple NFL, NBA and MLB athletes along with youth, high school and college athletes. In late 2011-2013, Mike received an opportunity to work and travel with Victoria as her personal performance coach. After two and a half years, she captured 51 weeks of a world number one ranking and two Australian Open titles among many other career accomplishments. He was asked to return to the team in January 2016 and helped her achieve the sunshine double, which is only two other women in WTA history was able to achieve. After owning the factory, he moved on to become the true holiday of the New Orleans Pelicans. Full time performance coach and has since then worked with multiple NBA athletes including Anthony Davis, Jahil Okafor, Mike James, Spencer Dinwiddie, and more. Coach Mike G. Continues to strive daily to make people and coaches as great as they choose to be. So without further ado, let's roll that interview. What's up, Mike? Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I'm blessed. I'm so excited to join you. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. You know, I'm laughing because right before we hit record, I had to practice your last name. So let me, let me try one more time. Okay. So it is coach Mike Guevara. Oh, no, I busted it.

You're close. Guevara.

Close. Guevara.

There you go.

Guevara. All right.

That's why we just lose the last six letters and go. Just Coach Mike G. You know?

Yeah, Coach Mike G. I love it. I'm super pumped to have you on the show. So for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of working with you or knowing anything about you, I'd love for you to just jump in, share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm. I'm a young guy that's extremely interested in providing service, motivation, empowerment to people that are just trying to create the best version of themselves. I grew up playing sport. I wasn't necessarily gifted genetically as someone with great speed or size. So I developed a natural affinity to the weight room to try to close that gap of natural ability which lend itself to me fall in love with training. Whether it was on the court or in the field or in the weight room, it birthed this natural love and passion for it. And now as a professional, I do exactly that. I train people. But I try not to reduce my title as just a trainer, even though that's easy for me to kind of describe what I do for a living, you know, to just a passerby or a short elevator speech. However, it's just, it goes so much more beyond training training, as it applies to movement, as it applies to being better in your sport or even for people who no longer play sport or just trying to be better humans, trying to figure out strategies and ways for people to just Feel better and be healthy. So the reductionist standpoint of me as a trainer, that is something I coach movement, but it goes into nutrition. So we are looking at ways to give people strategy on how to eat better, to perform at a high level, to sleep better, to recover at a high level. So food can actually be manipulated to gain all those goals. Also recovery in itself, what are the things that we are doing to recover on a day to day basis so that every day when we wake up the next morning we are ready to compete or live life at a really high level. And then that goes into sleep coaching, which is a huge part of recovery and the like. So being just reduced to this term trainer I feel is a disservice to what I do because it goes well beyond movement. But more or less I like to be referred to as a performance coach. So to everyone out there listening, that's who I am. Coach Maiji, the performance coach.

Ok, I love that. So as a performance coach, you know, you mentioned a lot, you talked a lot about high level and you talked about performance. I'm curious, do you work solely with professional athletes? Are you working with general, you know, the active community? Who do you serve?

Correct, I missed that part. I was supposed to tell you who I serve. I serve. I apologize. I serve predominantly NBA basketball players. And that's not to say that I only serve NBA basketball players because that's not the case, but just the journey and kind of the path that my career has taken me has put me in front of this demographic. However, currently right now, as the season is in full swing and I'm not working with NBA guys here in la, I actually work with two young ladies who play tennis. They're not professionals. One's a mom and one's a nurse and they just love to train because they know that it's going to A, help them feel better, B, help them look better, and then C, help them play tennis better. So I'm not discriminate, discriminative to any demographic. I work with anyone that wants to really compete at a high level, whether that's in professional sport or life. And that's who I serve.

Love that. So now, just out of curiosity, when you say that you work with NBA basketball professionals, are you working with people that are aspiring as well to be NBA professionals?

Sometimes I'll get inquiries to work with high level college players. And for those who may or may not know, there's this thing called NBA draft prep. And sometimes the top college prospects will go to a specific training facility and actually prepare for the NBA draft. And before the NBA draft occurs, there's a bunch of workouts that happen. And these athletes are going to specialized facilities to prepare for these NBA workouts so that they can put themselves in the best possible position to show and tell their skills. So sometimes I get those types of inquiries, but for the most part, I'm working mainly with players that are already in the league.

Okay, so can you. Well, I'm curious about two things. I have always, you know, I always start these conversations like, oh, we're just, you know, I don't have any questions. And then once you get going, I'm like, oh, I have a million. So there was one thing that you said that really piqued my interest because I'm curious, you know, how many of you know people, especially when you're working with people in the NBA draft pick. As you said, you were trying to close the gap between natural talent for yourself and feeling like I'm in the trading. I'm trying to close the gap. I'm curious in your opinion or what, you know, what are the differences that training has done for your players versus just harnessing their natural talent? Like how big of an impact does their genetics and natural talent actually play?

Yeah, so it's, it's definitely one of those things that's really hard to quantify objectively because we don't know what's, what exactly is causing the, the potential effect of positive gain from training. It's hard to just say if you train with this person or if you train this way, this is going to happen because there's, it's a multifactorial problem, problem situation because so many factors go into the improvement of an athlete. I think that the easiest way for me to answer the question is you look at how you're able to contribute to the athlete being available. And what I mean by that is there's a saying the best ability is availability. When you are in the NBA and you're one of the 480 players on the planet that are in this special fraternity, just 480, your skill level to become a part of this fraternity is so high that even athletic ability can take a back seat to how skillful you are. What I mean by that is if you're able to put this orange basketball into this hoop at a really high level, sometimes athletic ability is not your premier skill to offer to a team because you're able to just shoot really well or you're physically bigger than everybody and you're able to dominate in that way. But what I do know is that if you're injured less and you're available more, that is something that myself and other people in this field and professional in this field can have an impact on. So for instance, we'll take an example. His name is Drew Holiday, he plays for the Milwaukee Bucks and he just won an NBA championship as well as an Olympic gold medal. Very, very high level player and one of my athletes for about eight years and was riddled and consistently bitten by the injury bug early in his career. And he asked me, hey, you know, I don't know what your plans are, but do you think you can travel with me full time and train me and work with me full time? And again, I don't want to take credit because there's so many variables that go into this. But ever since that moment, once we started to work out full time and I was able to track and I moved to New Orleans for him and we were in constant exposure with each other throughout the entire year. His injury, his injury risk has gone down exponentially. He hasn't missed five, five to 10 consecutive games since we started working full time. And I can confidently say it's because I've been able to bring injury risk down because of the training and because of the exposure that I'm available to him. So to answer your question, in, in a long winded way.

Love it. I love it.

I can't say confidently because of, because of my training, this athlete is, is this amazing or because of my training? Look how amazing he looks on the court. Athletically, I can't because it's so many different reasons of why that could be. But what I can say with confidence is because of the training, he's hurt less, way less. His injury rate has dropped significantly, he barely misses games and he's healthy all the time. That's what I can say confidently. And that's where I feel I bring a lot of value to players.

I think too, in addition, you know, in listening what you're saying, because I think this is true for all high level performers, whether they are, you know, in the executive world or they're in the, the athlete or performance world is, is the invisible, the mental games that they're, they're literally playing with themselves and having you, you know. Yeah, the invisible confidence, just the, the buy in that he was giving, knowing that you were there. I'm sure it played a huge role.

You're absolutely right. I give you lots of credit for that term, invisible traits, because it's exactly what that is. There's a sense of comfort when you have someone that you're very, very used to feeling safe around. I think there's a sense of comfort there and you know, and you have confidence in that person. Like yeah, this person takes care of me. He's always there for me. She's always there for me and I feel safe. And that allows for the mental stressors to be reduced. And as we may or may not know, mental stress is a huge contributor to physical stress. So I think that's spot on.

So true. It's so true. Now I'm curious. There's 480 players. How many are aspiring?

Oh, if you look at how many Division 1 basketball teams, colleges there are, I think there's like, I want to say like 360 D1 basketball programs in the nation, not even counting overseas because the NBA is now bringing a lot of overseas cats over. So let's not even think about them. But then you multiply 360 or 350 by let's say there's 15 players per team. Do that math. Right.

It's just, that's just the people playing, not let alone the people trying to get in.

Exactly. And those are Division 1 athletes. So you, you. I'm drawing my data points from who, who's up next? But what about the 17, 18 year olds that are really high level high school as well? Because now they're thinking about taking away the one and done rule which, which basically means you have to be one year removed from high school before you can go to the NBA. They might take that away. So now you look at all the high school seniors that are available to be in the NBA draft and remember there's only two rounds in NBA draft times 30. So only 60 kids or people are going to be drafted per year and then how many, how many are available? So it's very, very limited in terms of who gets through. Absolutely.

What would you say is the NBA difference? Like what, what would you consider to be the people that you know, the traits, the skill acquisition. And I think at this point when we're talking about skills, skill acquisition, just like you were saying earlier, it's not about skill acquisition. Everybody can play. So really what is it that separates the ones that continue?

Yeah, I think that number one is I don't believe in luck because I feel like we can create our luck being prepared with the right opportunity but just being fortunate to not get hurt. Because if you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how old you are. But I'm 37 in November. So I graduated high school in 2003. I can, I can vividly remember just a regular one hand dunk in high school. The gym went crazy. Like it was like, oh my gosh, did you see it? They just dunked in a high school game. Right now the feats of athleticism from these high school kids is phenomenal. You see between the leg dunks in game from high school kids, this used to be the dunk that used to win the dunk contest in the NBA. And now that now it's happening in game in high school. So the reason why I bring that up is because these kids, 16, 18, are so freaking athletic that injury risk and rate is going to skyrocket. Because if you're not eating properly, if you're not fueling properly, if you're not hydrating or sleeping properly, as we all know, high school kids probably don't do any of those things well, but you're so explosive, bad things can happen. Like the higher you jump, the more force and impact that you're going to put through your body, that means the more injury risk there is. So if you're able to dodge the injury bug and actually get through, that's going to be probably number one, which is going to separate the differences between who gets through and who doesn't. I think also talent, early specialization, which is, which is defined as focusing on one specific sport at a really early age and doing that the whole way through is more and more prevalent. Which means these kids are getting more and more exposure to skill acquisition and development at such an early age. They're able to read the court better, they're able to execute basketball skill better. So the talent level is getting higher and higher. So you combine that with the level of athleticism that's happening as well as the level of skill acquisition that's happening at an early age. Sheer talent is through the roof as well. So that means competition is becoming more and more aggressive. I guess there's more and more aggression, aggressive competition out there, which means that the level of play is going to be higher. So everyone's just getting out there and becoming more and more competitive in their specific environments and arenas, which is just exponentially increasing the level of play. So I think that everyone is just getting better, everyone's getting more athletic, the skill levels are getting much higher. And that's going to be the separation between who is going to get through to Division 1, College, and even beyond to the NBA level.

So I'm curious Do you think talent is given or do you think talent is something that can be learned?

Great question. And I think that I know that.

No one's going to know this. It's more, I'm just curious your opinion on this.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, you read books from Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers and you know the outliers and you know those types of books and they always talk about 10,000 rule, 10,000 hour rule and things of that nature. But I firmly believe we all are born with a genetic ceiling. Some ceilings are high, some ceilings are low. But as parents, it's your job to figure out what those characteristics are that your child is born with and put them in an enriching environment which will lend itself to tap into that genetic potential. For instance, everyone on this planet will not be trained or coached well enough to run 100 meter sprint at an Olympic level. You're born with that ability. It's literally muscular physiology that's going to dictate whether or not you'll be able to be able to be a good sprinter or not. Right. However, if you and I are born with the same genetic potential in sprinting, your parents potentially were athletes. They put you in environments where you're sprinting a lot. Maybe you have a brother and sister that you're always chasing after and I'm the only child and both of my parents are artists. Who's going to develop better? You're definitely going to be a better sprinter than me, even though we have the same genetic potential. So I do think that there is a limitation to our talent code, Daniel Coyle, by the way. But I think it's also an environment that's going to allow you to tap into that genetic potential as well, that talent code as well. So it's a bit of both, in my opinion.

And what would you say to someone. Well, I got two things to say. But what would you, you know, what are your thoughts on, on, you know, the accessibility? Right. Because to your point, you're like, hey, you know, put them in great environments and I do. And you know, there is a level of accessibility for different people. So what are some of the things that you would say to, you know, a parent that might not be as affluent as somebody else's parents. Right. What would you, what would you say to someone who, you know, has got the accessibility option they're faced with?

Yeah, that's a really good question because this is very practical. I'll answer it from the I don't have children yet. We do plan on having kids and I'll answer. From my perspective, if accessibility was preventing me from putting my children through or putting, putting them in environments that I feel they need to be in to develop what we're trying to develop, I would use something as simple as my wife and I are each other. My point is I think we have to take ownership in our kids and our ability to utilize ourselves to create that environment. And what I mean by that is, if I have a problem from a financial standpoint to not put my kid in tennis clinic or not put my kid in wrestling clinic or whatever sport that we want them to do, then you have to be the substitute and get out there on the tennis court with your kid and hit balls with them. You have to be, you know, you need to rough house with your kid and be that person. Because I think the more and more we play with our children, the better the relationship will be, the better their physical skills will be. My father played with me all the time. He would roughhouse with me, he would throw the football with me, he'd throw the baseball with me. Anything, anything that he felt would be good for me from a skill standpoint athletically, he would do with me. And I feel like that's something that less and less is happening. We're too quick to just throw our kids to trainers or throw our kids in sports and stuff like that. But from the grassroots and ground standpoint of where we start has to be with each other within the same household. So, you know, being, being your, your kids favorite playmate I think is something very important, especially if they don't have siblings, because I grew up only child for like the first 12 years of my life. So I didn't have brothers and sisters to play with, so my dad played with me.

So. Interesting. So there's two things that you. That I heard you say. You talked, you know, responsibility, right. You talked about being resourceful and also being responsible. And what I really loved about your response is that I think it's really easy for us to point fingers and to be like, but I don't have this and I don't have that. And, and it's not to take away from the fact that accessibility is a concern and is an issue. But to me, the difference between the people who are successful and the ones who continue to struggle is where their attention is. The ones that, that move forward are the ones that get resourceful and they are responsible, knowing that this is, I'm going to help my kid do this, you know, So I think that that's really powerful and it was interesting to.

Hear you talk about this, just to quickly add to that, you know, for the mothers out there, you know, that may potentially say, well, I don't know how to do this, or I don't. You know, we have the Internet, which is an unlimited, infinite resource for information, and being able to find ways to interact with your kid in that physical way is easy to find. And I think that the whole gender thing between mom and dad, well, dad is the one that does the sports and stuff. I think we need to break that barrier and figure out ways for our moms to. To play with our kids as well. Because women in sports is so powerful. It's not just empowering women to be athletic and succeed at a high level, but it's beyond that. It's a social, powerful message to be a woman in sport and to be dominant and to be powerful and to be beautiful all at once. I think that it starts with our moms. If our moms show us that that's easy for us to see and say, man, look at my mom trying to show me some, you know, how to shoot a basketball or whatever it is, that's where it starts. So we definitely need to encourage our moms to get out there and show us as well.

I laugh because it's definitely the opposite in my household. My husband tells me all the time, please pass on your athletic. Your love for athleticism to our children, to our daughters.

And that's the way it should be.

Yeah, yeah. So something else too, that, that I'm curious about, especially since we're talking about, you know, young. You know, starting young, essentially, or I forget the word you used. Early.

Early childhood. Early specialization.

Early specialization. Specialization. Okay. So I'm curious because I feel like it's a nuanced conversation between discipline and a. Children learning discipline and resilience and doing things that they don't want to do, but then doing them anyway, versus, you know, like stage parents who are like, no, you're gonna do it. So how have you had to ever. Have you ever had to navigate that? How do you decide between. No, this person just doesn't really want to. Versus, no, you gotta learn the discipline and show up when you're not. Because I always think of, like, Michael Phelps, right? We all know he got into trouble for having a good time with his friends, but he never missed a practice. And I cannot imagine that he wanted to wake up the next day and go and swim.

This is a very layered subject because I think the. As parent, again, not a parent, I'm Not a parent. So I'm not speaking from experience, but only from what I see. Sometimes parents can develop the narrative within their own mind that their kid is going to do everything that they weren't able to do. So they have this vicarious living complex which lends itself into the aggressive side of trying to show their kid the light of, look how amazing being amazing can be at whatever sport that they're talking about. And I think when it, when it, when it boils down, what it all boils down to is when you look at your. When you look at your kid, do whatever sport they're doing or train or whatever it is. Because from my perspective, it's training. Like, I see a lot of kids come in and their parent wants them to be amazing and, you know, hey, you should go do this athletic training or whatever. Are the children there on their own accord? Are they there because they want to be there? Are they having fun? Do they apply a great amount of effort into what the coach is trying to convey to them? I think it all depends on.

The.

Kid at the end of the day. And as parents, being forceful is good if you know your kid is just having a bad day, right? Because every kid has a bad day. We all have bad days. But being forceful to your kid because every day is a bad day may be a sign that potentially this isn't what they want to be doing or should be doing, even though they're good at it. Like, that's another thing is, you know, parents are, you're so amazing at this, why don't you want to do it, right? Like, you're so good at baseball. Why do I got to pull your teeth out just to get you to go to practice or go to pitching lessons? I think at the end of the day, if the kid doesn't want. And then they. And then they bribe the kid, like, okay, if you go to pitching lessons, we'll go to your favorite ice cream part, you know, place to get you an ice cream after. Or we'll go get your favorite toy or whatever it is or video game now, or download your favorite video game. This. This vicious circle or cycle is going to tend. Lend itself to burnout. And burnout is. Is the phenomenon of a kid can go through hours upon hours of training and get. Become amazing at their sport and really develop those talents that we spoke of earlier and tap into their genetic potentials. But because they do it so much and so often and against their own will, they literally just quit. At 15 years old, after 8 years of focus, constant Specific training, even though that their college scholarship is on the door or at the door, right in the mailbox. It's already been offered. I've seen it. Kids have college full rides and don't. And say, no, I don't want. I don't want to do the sport anymore because I'm burnt out. I'm mentally checked out. I don't want to do this in college anymore. And I think that it's because of the fact that parents could often be a little. Lack a little bit of empathy and just kind of are more selfish. You know, it's really all about what they didn't do, and they want their children to do what they thought they could do. And it's very sad, and it's unfortunate. I'm not telling people how to do it because I've never done it before. But this is just what I see and what I feel, so.

Sure, sure, sure. And it's interesting, right? Because I think as a parent, you know, when I became a parent, you started, I all of a sudden got a ton of more empathy from my parents and realized, you know, everyone's just doing the best that they can for the most part. Right? For the most part. Part.

For the most part.

Yeah. For the most part, they're just doing the best that they can with the resources that they have. And my sister and I, we were in. We were musical theater people, and we always said to them, why didn't you push us? If you just pushed us a little bit harder to dance than maybe things would have, you know, we wouldn't have been so clunky at dance for a while. So it's always a interesting conversation or thought. I think to myself when I'm like, should. Should we have been pushed a little bit more or was it really not in us? You know? So it's just. It's always curious. I'm always curious, especially when people who work with high level, because I'm sure comes up a lot.

Oh, man.

A lot.

I'd love to just speak on exactly what we're talking about as it applies to a high level. Once again, Jrue Holiday, I. First of all, if you guys don't know, Drew is one of three brothers. One of three brothers in the NBA. Can you believe that he has two other brothers that are in the NBA?

Oh, my gosh.

Could you imagine if you had three boys and they all made it to the NBA anyways? So it's like, how did that happen? Right? Because it really rolls perfectly into this conversation. What did Mr. And Mrs. Holiday do or not do so that A, they didn't get burned out. B, they were, they were pushed but not shoved.

Yes.

C, develop the environment to cultivate their talent, you know. D, how did they avoid injury? Like there's so many questions that you could have a full podcast with just the two of them and say, you know, what did you do? Not to mention, let's not even forget they have a daughter. There's four of them. They have a daughter who was a full ride UCLA basketball scholarship as well and would have probably went to the wnba.

Now were the parents NBA players?

One was. No, no one played professionally but they both played Pac Pac 10 basketball. So they were, they were high level as well. But sometimes, actually a lot of times, just because you were high level that doesn't mean, you know, like the, the perfect development program to get your kids into the. If anything it's very, it's a lot of pressure on the, on the kids to live up to the parents expectation. Not, I mean like, but yet. And still the four kids were, you know, they didn't pay a penny in college fund and now they, they have three sons that are both all in the NBA.

That is amazing. So that's crazy.

They definitely write a book.

Yeah. For real. And the book should be how to get your kids.

Yeah, I've done it three times.

Amazing. It's amazing. So what would you say is, you know, the number one for, for the professionals that you work with? What would you say is the number one training tool tip thing that you are always talking to them about day in and day out? That's the hardest for them to really wrap their brain around.

There's a saying in the training community. It goes something like this. I'm not worried about the one hour you're with me per day. I'm worried about the other 23.

Yeah.

I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but it's so true. Because that one hour when you're with me, I control everything. I'm not. That's easy. You know, like I'm. I got my program laid out, I got my gym stuff laid out. Every. This is going to be a walk through the park. It's how are you eating? Are you taking naps? Are you doing things that are going to cause inflammation in the body? Are you sleeping? So the main thing that, the main discussion that I have with my athletes are the human behavioral conversations strategies that put our bodies in a state of recovery at all times and not reversing that effect because at the end of the day, my job from a fundamental standpoint, is to induce stress. If you think about what I do, Beverly, I'm taking you into the gym. We're going to work out. Physiologically, at the fundamental level, I'm causing harm to your tissue in hopes for an adaptive response. Your brain is going to say, okay, there's stress on my body. What do I need to do? To lay more tissue down, to lay more fascia down, to learn coordination so that when this happens to me again, I'll bounce back, no problem. That's basically what I'm doing. So with that in mind, gentlemen, because NBA, actually, I do work with WNBA as well, ladies and gentlemen, what are you doing to recover from all of this stress that I'm placing onto your brain and your body? So that's really the conversation. How do you eat? How do you, you know, what are your recovery strategies? What are your sleep strategies? Do you have a bedtime routine? Do you have a morning time routine, etc. So those are the main points that we're talking about with everybody now.

How hard is that to do and create and implement for people who are traveling? Because these people are traveling all the time.

You know, okay, the best way to earn compliance, because you have to earn it. It's never given. I think I'm still earning compliance to this day with a lot of these guys, is to show that you have a genuine care for these athletes. You care about their failures, you care about their successes. A lot of times you just. A lot of see, a lot of times, you see a lot of these trainers care about the successes. You have to care about everything, and you earn compliance and trust. You have to do good work. You have to communicate well also. So it's something that I'm consistently chasing from those variables alone, the interpersonal communication idea. But then it's like, okay, what type of information is actually consumable? For instance, if I tell. If I said, beverly, you know what? You have to wake up and take a cold shower every morning.

Oh, hell no.

Because this, this, this, this, this, and this, right? Like, right. It's true. It. You're gonna feel amazing. But if. If. If I know you and I've spent time with you, I understand you as a human. That's not applicable information for you. Like, no, that. You just said it. Oh, hell no. Like, it takes a specific personality to consume that information and say, oh, I'll give it a try. There are people that have that. Like me. If you said to me, mike, take a cold Shower every morning, you're going to have these benefits. I'm like, I got it. I'm going to do it tomorrow. That's just me. That's my personality. You know what I mean?

I do. If you had said to me, beverly, take this cold shower and your kids will never wake up in the middle of the night again. And they're going to. How long, how long do I have to be in there?

And had I known that, I could have said that, which is that interpersonal communication piece. Like, it's that important. So just finding ways to meet people where they're at within that behavioral lifestyle piece is a gift and an art that you need to consistently work on. And that just takes like getting to know people and really just loving people. Right. Like I'm a trainer, I'm a performance coach. But I mean, I love these people. I love helping them. I want to see them succeed. I love to serve, which allows me to go deep into the social piece, the empathy piece, and just understanding humans. Right? And that's basically the answer to the question is everyone's different. You got to learn each person and you got to figure out what is going to work and what isn't and kind of throw it on the wall and see if it sticks.

I love that. Okay, so tell me a little, tell me about this app that you were starting to tell me about before we hit record perfect.

So one thing that's very difficult with, with the field that I'm in is that you don't make a lot of money. And not that it's about money. Right. Because it's not. It's, you know, the passion that I have to serve and to coach and empower and motivate people is limitless. And I hope people can hear that in my voice. But lifestyle lends itself to what you want out of this life and to impact and to serve a lot of people, you need a lot of coach Mike G's, and that just is not possible. I can't clone myself. So the long and the short of it is my wife and I have created an app to make ourselves our life work. The ability to coach and train people worldwide. Now I can touch anybody and everybody on this planet that has a smartphone via this mobile app. And it's going to contain goal specific programs that I have discovered through my experience with working with basketball players are continuous dysfunction in this special demographic. For instance, a lot of basketball players have lower leg injury. A lot of basketball players have knee injury. A lot of basketball players lack core strength. So I have programs specifically targeted for those dysfunction in physical ability. And now I can deliver that to anyone that has a smartphone. So this is what GBG hoops app is based off of.

Okay, So I love that. Well, there's two things to say on that. Number one is that it's interesting to me, you know, first of all, for a lot of trainers, their goal is I, you know, they think once I'm teach, once I'm training athletes, like, I've made it. It's like their own NDA, right? They're like, I've made it. So it's interesting to me that it's not quite as, you know, potentially lucrative as people might think.

Yeah, it's. You don't become a trainer if you want to be wealthy. You definitely don't do that. It's. And any trainer will tell you that if you look at the people that are making large amounts of money in this field, it's usually on screen talent type people. And I'm talking about like the insanities of the world. I'm talking about the peloton. The peloton, yeah, like those, you know, and I'm happy for them. But if you want like a percentage of, of those types of people that are making, that are doing really well out of the entire population of us, it's like a point of a point of a point.

And then exactly why I'm on a.

Mission to change that, you know, and, but like, and then now you have these types of platforms, the podcast platforms and the more digital platforms is getting larger and giving us more opportunity to share content and give stuff out for free and create value, which is amazing. That's growing. But again, what are the skills that are needed to be, to do that? Well, you can't just be a good trainer anymore. You got to be a good marketer. You have to be able to speak well. You got to, you got to have confidence because it's hard to get on this camera and put yourself out there and talk, you know, like, it's not easy. It's so many different types of skills needed to be successful at what you're exactly what you're doing, which is amazing in your own, in your own right. So, you know, I say all that to say it's a very. It's a field that you become a part of because you love the field, not because you love money.

Mm. Yeah, it's interesting. I love the field and love money. I love them both. And I'll tell. And they both love me back. I'll tell you that too. So, you know, it is, it's, it's also interesting too because I was just talking about this the other day with the client where, you know, a lot of people can be nervous sometimes to enter the field because they're like, oh my gosh, you know, peloton insanity. Everybody, just like you were saying, everybody's doing it and there's not enough. Right. But then I look at it from this point of view, which is, you know, Fitness is a $1.2 billion industry and yet 88, 78 to 88% of Americans, depending on which, which article and which year it is, they're metabolically inflexible. So you're never going to be able to tell me that there's not enough room or that you're not needed.

Correct.

You know, so I just think it's so powerful. And so now I'm curious as you're talking more about this app. Cause I love it. I love it. I think it's great. Is your intention to bring it to people so that they can also, you know, train like a professional, become like their own, you know, level of athletic performance? Or is it like, is it geared more to people who are like, maybe have no inclination. No. Athletic. They're sitting on the couch right now.

This is a zeroed in niche service based app. We're targeting a specific demographic. Ages 10 to 50, basketball player. And the reason why I say 50 is because we are contacted from the weekend warrior. I used to play college hoops, but I still play on the weekend and I'm 47, but my ankle is killing me and I can't sprint. So we're, we're hit up by those types of people and we have programs that they can do, but also we have programs for, you know, we get hit up from overseas. Clients a lot. Yeah, a lot. And you know, I have a few athletes that compete in Europe and people know me because of that. So you know, we're hit up from, from those. And sometimes if you're not at the higher division, competitiveness in terms of Europe basketball, their strength and conditioning programs or coaches and, or models aren't very good. So they always ask me, you know, what, what can I do? You know, do you have any programs, do you have any stuff like that for that I can do on my own. So we're just trying to attack specifically basketball players that have experience in basketball and are trying to level themselves up off the court so they can become amazing, more amazing on the court.

And I mean, we were talking about accessibility. This is. This is exactly it. Accessibility right here.

Exactly. And to speak on the accessibility piece, we have programs where you need a full gym and we have programs where you need bands and a jump rope. So it's scalable. You know, you may not have all this amazing gym equipment. That's okay. We have stuff for you to do as well. If you live on planet earth and there's gravity on earth, we have load. And if we have low, we can load tissue. If we, if we can load tissue, we can change tissue. So you have it.

So good and so true. And you know, I'm also curious when. How old do. And I'm sure it's changing, but what. How old do people usually retire from the mba?

You know what? I should know this. Wow.

Because an average and a range.

Yeah, I think so. The NFL is like three, less than three years. I think it's three point something year. 3.2 years is the average NFL career. Yeah. It's not NFL, National Football League. It's not for long. Which is crazy, right? The NBA? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Actually. That's a great question. I should, I should know that I'm going to look that up after we get off this phone.

Well, I asked mostly too, because I'm sure there are people that, you know that retire and still love the game. Still want to play.

Exactly.

You know, or, you know, I think about me as I moved to New York as to, you know, pursue Broadway. And I had this moment where I just realized I loved something else more. And I also had this moment where I was, you know, I'm just a huge component of knowing that you need to love the process more than the outcome because you're going to spend more time in the process. And so for me, I just did not want to be getting up at 3 in the morning, going to audition, singing for 10 seconds. Right. But my children have brought back the love of singing for me. So I'm still singing all the time. Just not, you know, not trying to get on a Broadway stage.

I couldn't echo your quote more on a daily basis. Fall in love with the process. It's all about the process. It's all about the beautiful struggle because those are where we really test ourselves in the fire and create the characteristics that it takes to succeed. And that's one of my life principles. It's all about the process.

I love it. I love it. All right. So for those of you who are listening and want to learn more about coach Mike G. Where Can I send them?

Please send them to, first and foremost, our website, www.gbghoops.com. and there you'll find plentiful information about what the app is, what it entails, and who we work out, who we train, which is pretty cool. And then personally, I'm really targeted on Instagram. Like, this is my main platform of content. So my Instagram handle is Mr. Do It Moving. Mr. Do It Moving.

Love that. And of course, we'll link all that up in our show notes. So thank you so much for coming, having an awesome conversation with me today and pouring into my community, I really appreciate it.

Beverly. This was one of my favorite talks, I got to say. You know, I can talk shop all day and it's not mundane, but it's like, yeah, we always do this. Well, you and I talked about really cool things, so I can't wait to hear this one. This was really cool and I appreciate from the bottom of my heart of you having me. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

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