How to Upgrade Coaching Skills with Timothy DiFrancesco

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 148. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Tim DeFrancesco and we're talking all about how to upgrade your coaching skills. 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 joining me on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson and today we have a very special treat. I'm sitting down with Dr. Tim DeFrancisco who is the President and founder of TD Athletes Edge. He graduated from Endicott College in 2003 with his BS in Exercise Science and athletic training. He went to the University of Massachusetts where he earned his doctorate of physical therapy in 2006. Upon graduation, Tim spent three years working as a physical therapist in the outpatient sport medicines clinic setting. From 2009 to 2011, he held the position of head athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach with the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA Development League. And In December of 2011, he was named the head strength and conditioning coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA. While traveling with the Lakers for over six seasons from 2011 to 2017, he built the TD Athletes Edge. And it all started as a series of online channels for top fitness and health guidance. After leaving the Lakers in 2017, he dedicated his full time efforts to building the TD Athletes Athletes Edge with his team, which is nationally renowned for its evidence based and scientific approach to training, nutrition and recovery for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. And we break down the method and his journey in today's episode. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview.

What's up Tim? Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I'm great. Thanks for having me, Beverly.

Oh, I'm super pumped to dive into today. So for those of you who haven't heard of you before, I'd love for you to share please, a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Great. So in terms of how I got here and who I am, I am a doctor of physical therapy and strength and conditioning coach who I took the route of first in undergrad Going towards becoming a licensed and certified athletic trainer. That athletic training side is a little bit more of the acute injury response. You're on the field, you're on the court, you're taping ankles, maybe before the game, but you're responding to injuries that happen in, in game situation or in competition and then dealing with them afterwards. But that was my undergrad. And then from there I really felt like I wanted to be able to begin to build out further than just that acute response ability and skill set for athletes. So I fell wholeheartedly into the physical therapy realm. And it felt like if I understood the rehab side plus the acute side could be a nice combination. And I think with that there was some aspect of it where having some injuries myself and then working with people that were great for me, but also feeling like there was a gap in terms of what was being help, what was what people were helping me with that could get me to resolving symptoms or pain. And then there's a next step of how do we get somebody back to sport level or back to competition or back to activity that they love to do. So there's two different things and I felt like understanding that rehab side and becoming a doctor of physical therapy, which is exactly what I then did, would really help to round things out. And then somewhere after that, as I was starting to work as a full time physical therapy physical therapist in a physical therapy clinic, normal outpatient setting and just kind of getting my feet wet as a, as a young professional, I started to feel like I was now not able to kind of finish the piece that I mentioned earlier there of how do I help people though when they leave this clinic and we've done 22 PT visits and it's time for them to go back to their sport, their activity or what they want to do and do that in a way where we can finish the job for them. And so you kind of have these three parts, right? So you have this athletic trainer part which is that acute injury happens and you could be on, literally on the field when it happens and respond to the person and get them where they need to go in the first moments and days of the injury. You have this, then what happens rehab side that a physical therapist would then see somebody in a clinic setting or work with them in a team sports setting after that injury is acute. And but then there's this piece of return to play and return to play at the level that the person wants to do. And I would just clarify, return to play can mean a lot of things. It doesn't have to mean for a rostered high performance sport athlete, return to play can be a lot of things for a lot of people. And it could mean return to play, could mean return to play on the floor and be able to crawl around and get back up on your feet really quickly with your, your grandkids. It's something like that. So that return to play piece to me is where I dove into really, really aggressively to understand the strength and conditioning side of it and be able to blend that rehab into the strength and conditioning side. So we could really be helping people to get strong the right way, but the long game way and in a sustainable way. And that's the piece that I really fell in love with the most. That was sort of what I say now is the seat on the bus that I wanted to just stay on and own and use my other backgrounds as an athletic trainer, as a, as a physical therapist to be better in that seat. But yeah, so from there it was like, okay, this is what I want to do. And I started TD Athletes Edge, which was while I was working as a full time physical therapist. I rented, basically rented a back of a batting cage. We had a blue tarp that was defending us from baseballs getting hit into my personal training clients. And we, I used to tell them it was like an agility challenge. If they made it through the workout without getting hit with a ball through the tarp, then we're just working on your agility. And I would buy dumbbells on Craigslist sometimes one at a time to make a pair. And, and some of them would be rusted and some of them would be nice. And we put together basically a gym and training facility out of that, out of, out of that. And my brother and I were operating that together. He is also a licensed and certified athletic trainer and had worked in the Yankees farm system for some time. And so we were running that together. And somewhere in that realm of time, as I'm working as a physical therapist full time and then working in my off time of full time running this new business and getting clients into TD Athletes Edge, I got a call from my former high school basketball coach and he took a job with the Bakersfield Jam, which don't even exist anymore, but they were in the NBA D League, now it's the G League. And he was an assistant basketball coach. And he was thinking, hey, we're looking for an athletic trainer and a strength coach and do you either think your brother would do it or know anybody? And he's thinking, look, he, this Guy me, for me, he didn't even think to really bring it to my attention because he's thinking, I'm running a new business, I'm working full time as a pt. But I was kind of like, well actually I want to do that. And I was able to leave the job as a pt. I was able to let my brother sort of alternate on months that I was then going to take this job and go out to big Bakersfield, California as he was running the business. And then he would go off to spring training with the Yankees. We would flip flop for a little while and I was like, let's do it, why not? And so I went out to Bakersfield and if you've ever been to Bakersfield, it's farm country and oil and that's all it is. It's not the California that people think. So I was sort of thinking, what did I get into here? And I was really thinking that when I first took that job, I took that job when I first got there and I kind of really first understood what it was. Minor league sports. The last thing I was was the athletic trainer and the strength coach. I was the laundry guy, I was the equipment manager, I was the travel coordinator, I was everything else. I'll, I'll tell a story about my first road trip in a bit, but love that. Yeah. So that really kind of though got me in a position where I was around team sport, I was around basketball players, which was, I played basketball in undergrad. I've always loved basketball. So preparing my own body for it and then learning how to apply now my new craft to helping others do it was really where I would want it to be and was loving it. It put me in a position where Gary Vedi, the legendary athletic trainer for the LA Lakers, was sending a couple players, they were sending a couple players down to us as their minor league squad and was liking what he was seeing and hearing. And he wanted a physical therapist that could run his weight room with the LA Lakers. And so that basically led to Gary saying, hey, do you want a job? Do you want to run my weight room? And can you do that in a way where you're going to be running the weight room even though you're a physical therapist? Are you going to be okay being the strength coach? And I said, that's exactly what I want to do. And when the Lakers call, you kind of put things down and you, you start, you start heading in that direction. And so I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't a hard sell to Go from Bakersfield to Manhattan Beach. So that was pretty. That was pret. Pretty easy. So that's kind of the back of my baseball card right there. And that. That gets you an idea of what got me to that point. But I'll fill in any gaps. What did I leave out?

Well, what are you doing now? How long were you with the Lakers and what are you doing now?

Great. So I was with the Lakers for six seasons. My first four seasons were Kobe's final four seasons. So there was just a lot of incredible experiences that I had just within that. Because obviously, and unfortunately he was. And rip, obviously to Kobe and Gigi and the souls that were on that helicopter. But, you know, those four seasons of his final four seasons were rough ones for him. I mean, he was going through a lot of injuries at that time. He had. It was the twilight of a long and really grueling NBA career and successful NBA career, obviously, but a lot of miles on that body. So we had a lot of time together on family vacations. We had a lot of time together to work through injury rehab, and we did. And so that was. There was a lot within that. And we can get into some fun Kobe stories in a bit, but they're just the experience of being within the Lakers organization and parts of it, just like anything else I explain to people, look, they're even on a pinnacle level job like that one. There's what I call a lot of shit sandwiches. And so I learned really quickly that there's good and bad. No matter what level you're at, there's things that you have to be willing and able to recognize are not going to be all glamorous, even at. Even at a type of position like that. But I think as I went on in that position, what I realized was I had a bigger need. There's some people that take a position like that and they're intoxicated by wearing that logo, and that's their identity. To say I'm the Lakers strength and conditioning coach, for me, that never really was the case. I was thrilled and honored and grateful to be there. And I do believe I look back and I soaked up every bit of opportunity that was there, and I gave them my all. But I also knew that I wanted to. When I took that job, I had to put TD athlete's edge of that sort of. That started in the back of that baseball batting cage on hold because there just wasn't. There wasn't something where I could kind of fly back for the off season. That was a full time Gig, obviously as the Lakers strength coach. So I really had to kind of put that on hold and really only just put air into it from a online perspective, maybe sharing content and things like that through the brand. But in terms of helping people and empowering people directly, it was something I had to put on hold. And I was. It was really an itch that I wanted to be able to get back to that. So by year six, it was time for me to kind of figure out with the new ownership at that time, with Magic Johnson coming into play, Rob Pelinka becoming my new boss. Whereas Mitch Kupchak and Jimmy Buss had originally been my direct reports and ownership report, management reports. And so new people, new ideas. And although the opportunity was there for me to stay, I kind of had. It was very clear to me that they wanted something different out of their strength and conditioning and performance side of their department than what I was willing to compromise toward or go in the direction of. And so I basically said, look, I think we just agree to disagree here. I think that this is a good chance for me to go toward this other thing that's I'm really dying to do with TD Athletes Edge. And so, yeah, my wife and my one year old and I, we packed up and we drove back across country, back to the east coast where I came from, to head to California originally and struck up TD Athletes Edge in its current form. So TD Athletes Edge now is a. At its hub is a 6,000 square foot in person training and rehab facility outside of Boston. And we use a physical therapy based lens to apply to strength and conditioning and getting strong the right way for people. So we do a full assessment and evaluation for anybody that trains with us within our membership. And we have just a uniform methodology and system of how we work with people that many of the people that we work with. It is sort of through our niche of what we do best, which is nobody is driving around with a brand new car off the lot for a body. And so we recognize that really well. We dial in on areas that have just not been able to get either fixed or resolved and then help you to build this foundation in ways where we coach you, we program for you in a customized way, we coach you in a very customized way every workout that you do with us and do it in both in person and online formats. So we reach a lot of people. And that was really one of my things is I just, I got to the point with the Lakers where I was just sort of like, I want to reach more people than these 15 high paid basketball players on this roster and I couldn't and honestly do a good job with them and then also scratch that itch. So that's what I'm doing now.

Amazing, Amazing. I love that. So you know, one of the things I heard you say you talked a lot. It sounds like that you're working on preventative care. And it's interesting because one of my clients is a registered dietitian and she said to me that the only way to cure some of these diseases that she's seeing in her clinic is to not get them. And I think that, I think that when we are in preventative care it's much harder to sell essentially the hope and the dream as opposed to. Because we're just innately for better, for worse. We are reactive more so than we are proactive. So I curious how you have, you know, as you're building your practice and building your, your program, how have you created the buy in for your clients?

Yeah, I think that's tricky, right, Because a lot of people want this 30 day body composition change or they want this, hey, a dad is saying I want my son to Throw an extra 10 miles an hour on his fastball by the end of the summer or I want my daughter to be have the quickest feet on the team by after a couple weeks of you showing her just a couple of good exerc sizes for it or whatever it is and those types of things. What I try to lead people toward is what you alluded to there is those will become byproducts of doing this the right way over time. If we're doing our job, and I promise you we will but first and foremost the lens of what we are going to and I usually have a good leverage point on this because I'm usually sitting there with somebody who's coming to us from the sideline. They've been put on the sideline of what they love to do, whether it's a rostered sport or not. They've, they've been in pain, they've been in understood what it's like to not be able to do that thing either very recently at that moment or in the past. And that is sort of, I, I utilize that as, as the leverage that I need to kind of convince them of. I'm gonna, we're going to coach you, program for you and guide you from a durability lens. If that isn't done for us by you, for by us, then we, it won't matter what we try to do when those other Performance or body composition change areas because you're going to be hurt and injured and you're not going to be able to do the things that will allow you to make those changes anyways. So if we start with that and we never lose sight of that, then you're suddenly in the game again. And whatever that means for you, you're in the game again. And when you're in the game, you can make things happen, you can get these things done, you can accomplish these other things totally fine. More aesthetic or body composition or performance based goals. But if you're not in the game, those don't matter because you can't do anything until that happens. And so let's get you in the game first. And usually there's a good amount of buy in with that because it's like a lot of people are being sold on. Well, we'll help you lose 5% body fat in the first two months. If you want to join our membership, we'll help you. It's 30 days and you know, big changes or it's. We promise you a vertical. This program is all about vertical jumping and we'll get your vertical jump up, up by five inches. And that's appealing and intoxicating for a lot of people on the outset, but they then usually have experienced what happens with the setback. And very few people are willing to sort of put their anchor on to the non sexy stuff of durability and just let's get you back in the game or keep you in the game. But to me I don't see any other way. And so that's how I kind of leverage that and start that conversation and then it's a matter of are you willing to trust the process? Are you willing to play the long game? Because what's happened for you, how has it worked for you when you haven't done that? How has it worked for you when you've tried to fast forward some steps and you tried to do what might have been okay for you when you were in your 20s, but now you're not, or you are in your teens or twenties and you're playing tons of AAU games or something like that. And how does that work for you when you haven't built things up from a durability standpoint? When you get people to sort of shift their mindset to those things like oh yeah, not so good has been if you really now that you make me think about it, it had a couple of crashes and burns and actually that's why I'm sitting here right now. So I think that's a nice way to kind of just make that avenue very open for them to start to just slide into and then follow, follow along.

I love that. So, you know, just out of curiosity, you had started your career and started your journey in really helping people, you know, go from pain to performance, Is that still part of your practice?

Yeah, big time. And I think there's a lot of people in our. My field, in this field where they're not either really, really skillful or they're just not that. It's not always that fun to, to sort of be dealing with and man, helping people to manage pain, helping people to get out of it, helping people to put that in the rearview mirror. It can be very, very. If you're not. If you're not really experienced at it or, or skilled at it and, and knowledgeable with how to do those things, both from the anatomy and physiology side, but also the pain science and, and the language that you're using, it could be really hard because you feel like you're beating your head against the wall really fast with somebody that's like, well, this is my second session and I'm still feeling pain, actually, I think it might have flared up. And then you're like, oh no, am I hurting this person? Like, and they're like, I don't know, I'm not trusting you already. And I mean, look, I got to this point of being good in that moment by being not good in that moment for a while and saying like, okay, that's not working. Try this. Okay, go learn this. Wait a minute. That person is really good at understanding pain science. I need to go learn from that person now. We need to apply things. So, so I lean into it. We lean into it. You know, at TD Athletes edge, like, come to us. You're on this sort of vicious cycle of going to a personal trainer, going to a Cairo, going to a pt, going to this person, going to that person, trying orange theory, whatever it is, and it always ends up with you sort of with this nagging injury of one area or another, one creeps up after you fix this one and that kind of thing. Come on in. This is. We're. We're looking for you and we want to help you. We're waiting for you and we will help you. And there's a way to kind of unravel things and help things to kind of get back together in the right direction. If you'll trust us a little bit, if you'll follow us. And it's Going to be a little bit of a squiggly line, but we'll, we'll make some progress and we'll, as I tell people, our assessment never ends. So the moment you walk in our door, you're getting the first moment in. You're getting a true formal assessment and evaluation by myself or a physical therapist. But that never ends. Our coaches on the floor, our coaches in our online formats, they're just gathering information from you with every workout that you do, what they're seeing, what they're hearing, and it's both. And we're going to always do that in a way where the lens is what are your nagging injuries? What are your big traumatic injuries you've had? How are we directing toward making sure that the durability is being created in those areas but across the board and that again, we're getting you off the sideline, we're getting you back in the game.

So I'm curious your perspective on why there seems to be such a gap between pain science and performance.

I just think that it's not necessary. It's not in the curriculum of what happens through a traditional strength and conditioning coach or a traditional, what many people are now calling themselves performance coaches. The rehab part is to sort of understand that and get a really strong foundation for that is sort of this three year graduate program through physical therapy. A lot of people are not going to put the time and the money into that, but they're more than happy to kind of go the traditional route of becoming a strength and conditioning coach or a performance coach. And I think that you, then if that's fine, but you, if you don't have that rehab foundation, you can still operate as a really high level, but you do have to be a really good communicator and have no ego. When it's time to talk to a really good rehab professional and work as equals, as you are just doing it for one reason, which is to make the experience better for the end user. Now that's why a lot of times it doesn't happen is because a lot of people are not willing to put their ego aside and say, I don't know that side of it. I need to have somebody who's helping me understand it better and to work with them. And the communication piece does. It's just hard. Right? Not a lot of people are great communicators.

So true. And I would argue, I mean, or I would be curious your opinion on the rehab side because I also think there's a gap there that some people are so focused on the rehab that there's not a, there's, there's not a place for them to really fully understand the performance side of.

Goes both ways. And this is why when Gary Veti said to me, are you going to be good if I, I'm going to call it, you're my strength coach. I'm not hiring you to be my physical therapist. Are you going to be good with that? Because most physical therapists, to your point come out of school. They're like, well, I just went four years of undergrad, I just went three years of grad school. I spent seven years to become a physical therapist. Why would I ever look at myself as anything different than that? And I'm also so tapped out in terms of like, I just spent seven years building this knowledge set. I don't really have the energy or the bandwidth. I got to go apply it and call myself a physical therapist. I'm not going to go now learn how to do the performance side. So that's where not a lack of just not being willing for a lot of PTs to say, like, I was very, I was thrilled to put, not call myself a physical therapist, call myself a strength Coach who's a PT, by the way, most PTs are saying, no, no, I'm a physical, I'm a doctor of physical therapy. And by way, I do, I did the CSCS certification or by the way, I know, I know some strength and conditioning too. But you don't really. Not if you haven't run a weight room, if you haven't run an operation in a private sector that is a gym and training session operation, then you don't really, you, you, you pass the exam and you might do some workouts of your own and you might, you know, for time to time prescribe them here and there. But unless you've done that full time for something, it's very hard to be really good at it. Just like a strength coach coach could probably understand a little bit enough to say a PT is out for the day. I'm going to be a strength coach. I'm going to walk in and obviously legally this wouldn't be kosher, but let me go try to be a PT for the day. Like, they could probably pull that off, but they're not going to have the nuances and the tricks of the trade and the knowledge sets that would allow that to happen. So it totally goes both ways. And I just think that the biggest part is anybody could go do the time and learn the knowledge of each of them. But are you willing to then first off get the ego aside and me sit there and say, I'm not, It's okay. You don't need to look at me as a pt. You can look at me as a strength coach, who's a PT, by the way. But also then are you willing to do that in the trenches and go train athletes? Go train general population clients and go in there, coach them in a strength and conditioning realm of things a lot of people aren't because they're like, why would I do that? I just spent seven years and a lot of money and time and energy on becoming a physical therapist. I'm a physical therapist. I'm supposed to be in a clinic with people on a table.

Yeah. You know, you also talked about something I think is really important and is, I think undervalued or under talked about is the idea of integration. Right. We all know that information is abundant and that studying. But the only way to really. There's a difference between understanding something from reading from it and then having the knowing which comes from integrating and actually doing the hours, which I just feel like we don't talk about a lot.

That's. That's exactly right. I mean, I look at it this way. I. The best. The three years of PT school were intensive. I learned a ton about, about neurology, anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, all these things. And it was a great sort of extension, deeper than the 101 versions of those things that I learned in athletic training in undergrad. But that was just barely that. That's what I tell people is that was my passport into actually learning. And so I get done with seven years and then I learned, I learned when I then went out to local basketball players in the area and I said, I'll train you for free. I just need to become good at this. I don't, I've never done this before, but I, I have a background and I have a really strong academic background. Let me put a program together for you. I won't even charge you. And let's see how this goes, how you like it. I also look back at. In that in undergrad I got an opportunity to sort of like some of the Malcolm Gladwell stuff is not Only obviously the 10,000 hour thing is being a little bit debunked to some extent, but what is true from what he talks about is a lot of those people that had then the ability to put. That he did show, they did 10,000 hours of. The thing that is interesting and I think is more powerful is they were In a place where they got the opportunity to just be doing this thing that the environment and the people around them were doing that thing and they were immersed in that thing for a long time. Whether it's 10,000 hours, that's the secret or not. It's just were you in an environment where this thing can happen and you can be immersed in it? And that's me in undergrad. I was basically my coach at my coaches at Endicott College, a small D3 school outside of Boston were saying hey, like many small D3 schools, we don't have like a full time strength and conditioning coach. Why don't you who has a basic understanding and are in heading in this field put together our team strength and conditioning program. I can remember laying out papers and trying to think about seven days a week what I am going to have our team do. And I'm an undergrad student for my own teammates writing the program and no idea what I'm doing and would hate to go back and look at some of those programs but they were me learning to lay out a program for high performance and for, for that strength and conditioning side of it. And that was as early as that moment. And then just doing it over and over and over again. How many bad programs did I write and not help people with before I got to the point where our methodology and what we do at TD Athlete's Edge is really crisp, really on point and never perfect by the way we still this is a level of trial and error of anything you do to prescribe to the human because it's, that's, that's what it is. Even a medical doctor, if they're being honest is going to tell you I do trial and error a lot. And so but being willing to do that and being willing I tell this story a lot about my favorite. One of my favorite books is by Ann La Motte and Ann is an incredible writer and the book is Bird by Bird. And what she talks about is the best way to become a good writer and what she does with every good amazing piece that she finishes. It all all starts with willingness to put yourself out there and write a shitty first draft and so then you just write it again. And the premise of the book is this moment when she's growing up and she's procrastinated big time to leave her book report that's due at the end of the year. It's going to like dictate the end of the year grade for her elementary school year for that. And she's looking this thing in the eye and, and crying on the kitchen table because she's not even started in chest to hand it in tomorrow. And it's a book reported on birds and, and she's got all these encyclopedias and these books and there's a million birds and how many going to get this done? She asks her dad and she's just at a point of desperation and he just calmly says, she says how am I going to do this? And he just says bird by bird. And so there she goes, she sits there and she. Bird by bird. She wrote her book report and she, you know, and she used that lesson. But, but that's the thing about it is you have to go in. I had to write shitty first drafts of programs all for years and years and years and then get them better. With every phase and every opportunity I had to write another program for another person and learn things along the way, get better at things. And were they perfect then? Certainly not. Are they perfect now? Nope. But they're. There's a great improvement there. And I've weeded things out that I know will not end well because I learned at the of heart hard way.

So it is so good, so powerful. And I always tell my, my clients to live in the. And that you, you are enough now as well as you're always going to be continuing to grow and evolve. So I'm curious, you know, always. Right. But I think that we, you know, we. I think that especially for high achievers, I'll say this for high achievers is that we tend to always move the goal post and we're always looking for the next level which just insinuates that there's something that's outside of you when the truth is that you have to just remember that you're enough now and remember how far you've come and you get right in the end.

Yeah, that's such, that's such a key point. That is such a key point.

Yeah. So I, you know, I. Along these lines. I'm curious for someone who has been in the, in the field for so many years, how do you tend. How do you a stay motivated to learn more about your craft and how do you learn more about your craft as you as someone who's been in the field for so long.

I think in terms of what drives me to continue to learn more and get better as we go. So is the same reason why this field is fascinating for me is because the human body, the human brain, us as beings and souls, we have this really, really amazing ability to adapt and grow. What a shame to not double down on that and continue to just, hey, we're all going to get knocked to the mat on stuff. And we're all going to hit these points where what I thought was going to work, it didn't. And there's a. Whatever you want to call it didn't work. Or you want to call it a failure, whatever you want to call it, but that's going to happen. But the cool part is like, what happens when your response to that is the key to your whole existence? When you respond repeatedly to things that don't work as like, let me, okay, I licked my wounds and I'm going to debrief on that and I'm going to learn the things I can learn from it and then I'm going to figure out how to do it better or how to move what things I need to move on to next. That this isn't even the right path for me. And so that piece for me is just. I think it's so. I think it's more of a. I'm a driven person, a motivated person, self motivated. But I also am fascinated and I think it's a curiosity and a fascination with that aspect of humans that I am one of. And I get to take advantage of that ability that we have. And I love doing that. And I also, I think so the other part of the question, how do I do that? One of the ways I do that is the traditional route. And it's identifying really skilled and experienced practitioners and clinicians and strength coaches who have been doing it for a while. And that really fit into my philosophy and my approach. And that's one thing I would just sort of highlight as I'm talking about this is over time, you need to be able to say, what is your camp of thinking? Where are you putting your flag in the sand? And why is that what you think? Why do you not necessarily think that you would do it that way over there? And it's not that that's bad. It's just I've decided this is the best way for me in my personality and what I want to do and what my objectives are. It's important because you can learn from anybody that's not in your camp and that's. That's really key. But you also need to have a camp. You can't be in every camp or else you're just sort of floating around and nobody knows you for anything and nobody understands, like, what's your philosophy and why are you doing what you're doing because you can't even define it yourself, so it's really important. And, and then once you have that though, you can find like minded people. You can find both personality wise, both work ethic wise, and then skill and knowledge wise, you can find those like minded people. Those are the people that I'm attracted to and try to learn from. And I tell people a lot that what I did growing up was go or growing up as an entry level career person in this field was go to the buffet. I went to as many people and said, well, can I be a fly on the wall on your wall as you do what you do really well? A really great strength coach like Brijesh Patel at Quinnipiac University. I went to Steve Smith, who was at Exos. He ultimately went to work with the Dodgers and then the Washington Wizards. And I said, can I just, can I come either if you offer a paid opportunity to do this, I'll pay for it, or can I just come and watch you do what you do for a day or an hour or whatever it is and you just soak this stuff up? But when I was doing that, I was equally saying, I want to learn from the best and see what I would take into my toolbox and into my filter. But I also was prepared to say, interesting. I don't think I would do that. And here's why. Because I had this other experience or because I have this other knowledge set from another person and I have a reason to counter that, but I have a system that I actually have the ability to say, I'll hold on, that I'll take some of that and I'll make it my own or whatever it is. There's nothing wrong with everybody who's doing anything that seems novel or spectacular or super successful at a certain level was. Has just taken things that they saw from either their industry or other industries of people doing things, and then they said they've just sort of made a better Xerox of it or their own version of it. And sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not, but, but that's fine. But you can't just do that blindly across the whole profession. You have to know like, well, that doesn't fit in what my philosophy is. And that's okay. It doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means for me and what I'm trying to do and for the audience that I'm serving, that wouldn't fit in mine. And that's why I don't do it. I mean, an example of that is Olympic lifting for basketball athletes, when I was coming up was very, very big. That was as I was learning the trades. If you weren't doing Olympic lifting with basketball athletes, you're leaving something on the table. You're not hitting their power output as optimally as you could if you were. You have to do that is what I was basically sort of recognizing and, or being told or taught in many cases. But I just never. I think there was a gut instinct, I think there was then a knowledge instinct of saying, if I added up and I'm look at this as a risk reward factor of what I apply this stimulus into the things, I don't see a big enough reward for the amount of risk that this thing produces or provides and creates. And so you know what? In my methodology of working with basketball athletes, I. I never use Olympic lifts. I have other ways of helping them to derive and produce and develop power. But. And I can prove through evidence and through anecdote that it can do it as just as a very, very close to, if not in some cases, even better output level without the risk. So that's an example of people that I respected and I learned from and I would be a fly on the wall with. They loved Olympic lifting for basketball athletes. I have a reason and I have evidence to show why I don't use that in my methodology. I think it's really important. And so, yeah, I also surround myself with people that bring an energy and are enjoyable to be around and enjoyable to learn alongside and learn, learn with. And I think that's really, really crit because I love doing stuff with a team of people and it's harder to do. It's hard to crack the code of doing something on a team because there's multiple personalities. People are tricky. Managing people is even trickier. And I love that puzzle. I love that challenge. Don't get me wrong, I'll hit the mat once in a while and say, gosh, this is so hard. Why am I doing it this way? But the fruit of accomplishing something with a team is so much more beautiful and wonderful than anything you could ever accomplish individually by yourself, in my opinion. And that's. That's just one of the things that I always rely on is learning and getting better and growing with people around me is just way more fun for me.

I love it. And you're running a business too, so I'm curious how many of your hours are spent in the clinic and how many are running the facility?

Yeah, I would say majority at this stage are the Hours are running the operation are managing, people are seeing ahead for any icebergs, are seeing ahead for where we're going and why we're going to go there and inspiring people that are on this team to do it and to want to do it. I would say majority are that right now, now I don't do a ton of coaching on the floor now today I do a lot more of coaching our coaches. I do a lot more of does developing our methodology and our systems of why we do what we do from both a technical standpoint but also a communications and interaction standpoint with our members that we work with. So those pieces are the majority of what I do now. That was a tough transition for me. I mean I went from being the soldier on the, on the floor, in the trenches, doing the thing and doing it eventually at a very high level to then not and, and, and that, and I would, you know, when you're, when you're getting good at something and you're doing it and it's on you, you just have to learn how to get better and you improve yourself and have your own standards and expect yourself to hit them and keep going and going, going. When you, you aren't doing that anymore and now suddenly you're helping other people to do that, it's a lot harder. It's, I think a lot of times why a lot of pro athletes that become head coaches don't last very long because it's really way harder. You don't just sort of be a good player, that means you're a good coach. It just doesn't work that way. And so I've definitely, I've told my team many times in our sort of four, four and a half, five year existence here in this version of TD Athletes edge. I'm a rough, a rookie. I'm a rookie at being a leader, at being a manager of people. You got to bear with me, I'm going to make some mistakes, think about me, I'm going to go get better at it. And I do want to be in this role. So that's the other part is I think a lot of players become coaches because they either feel like what else would I do? Or it's about the same. It's not the same. And you got to want to do that leadership management role and really relish it if you're going to be really good at it. And so I'm certainly at the early stages of anywhere close to being really good at it, but I'm getting better every day.

I mean that what you said is so powerful. And it's so powerful for a lot of reasons, because people have this. I don't know why we were conditioned to believe that those who can't do teach, because it's just absolutely insane. There's a reason why Steven Spielberg is a director and not the actor.

Right, right.

I mean, that. That's just so insane to me. But people have this operation, this subconscious conditioning that they operate from, and it ends up either hurting them if they want to be a really good coach and a really good facilitator and team builder, because they think, oh, I didn't do it. I didn't play professionally. I wasn't the Lakers coach, so I guess that means I shouldn't do it, which is just so crazy. Or they start to think, you know, oh, oh, you know, or they're. They're deciding who their coach should be based on whether or not they can do. And I'm just like, right, that's just backwards.

Yeah.

Why. But.

Right. No, you're. It's so true. And I think that there's. There's so many cases and examples of, of people that actually didn't do that thing at the highest level, but they're exceptional at leading and coaching and managing. Managing it. And so they don't have to go hand in hand. Many times they don't. But what does have to happen? I mean, regardless of your avenue into the. Eric Spoelstra is a great example in the NBA. He, he didn't. I don't even. Personally, I know a lot about the details of basketball and people and the nitty gritty stuff, but I don't even know what his playing history and career was like. He came up through as a video coordinator and basically Pat Riley identified him as. There's something about him that he, he leads well. He has a way of interacting and connecting and inspiring people around him. If you have these things, you can then develop the skill. And that's the thing. I think that because people think they were a captain of a team or they being a leader as a whole skill set, it's something that there's. I don't know that there's as many natural leaders as people think there are. I think people have to. There's some personality traits that lend well to somebody becoming a good leader. But if you're saying, if we're saying that there's natural leaders, that means that you have to be a natural leader or else. And, and, and, and this is the piece where, well, you could lead from any Seat on the bus. You can improve your leadership skills, goals. Yes. Those personality traits that, that tend to lend well to great leaders. There's some common denominators and then there's some really different ones. And, and so there's to say that there's these traits, these things, it's natural, blah blah, blah. That's baloney. Because that means if that's the case, then if I don't have these traits that everybody says is a leadership trait and if I, if, if it's a natural thing that is sort of somebody was born as a leader, then I guess I can't be one because I don't think I have those traits. And I wasn't told as a kid that I was born as a leader. So I guess I can't be one. And that's terrible. That's wrong. It's a skill set. If you want to learn anything, if you want to improve at anything, if you're willing to put in the reps and the time and the knowledge kind of acquisition of that thing and then be shitty at it for a while, you can get good at it.

Yeah. Yes you can. I think that one of the things that you're also alluding to, which I think is a really important distinction is that you, you, you still have to be in the game whether and what that means is you have to be playing. You don't have to have a 12 pack to be a good trainer. In fact, I know many people who are born with 12 pack and that doesn't make them a great trainer. But you have to be in the game either.

No doubt.

Because, because you're, that's how you get the knowing you have to put in the reps. No one learns how to swim by reading a book on swimming.

Exactly.

Gotta get in the water.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. And that's, that's the piece where I think it's, it's so much more powerful and credible when you have that person that's guiding you that has been down the this path before.

Yeah.

And fumbled and bumbled and stumbled and bounced back up and shares those things with you. Hey, I wasn't awesome at this. Guess what? You know me for being awesome at it. Because you saw me in the last. I talk to people about this. We produce a ton of video content and I've been in front of the camera for many years building our video content at TD Athletes Edge and, and speaking on it. Not just sort of doing demonstrations of exercise, but instruction excerpt based exercise videos. And I love looking Back at some of the archived, early, early YouTube videos of me in front of the camera when I had never done that before. It's a disaster. It's. It's horrifying. But it's awesome because I get to look back and say, like, look at how far I came. I could literally. There's a story I tell and it's. I had to write an article for Stack magazine and I. We had a Lakers game on a Thursday night and I had written the article. I hadn't had a chance to do the videos yet. The week was crazy. And I was like, okay, I got to hand this in tomorrow, but I haven't done these four videos. How long could this possibly take? Whatever. I'll get done with the game. The game gets out at 11pm I'll drive back to the practice facility. Nobody will be there. I'll put the camera up. I'll knock out these videos in 30 minutes. Whatever. Tops. Whatever. How long can four videos take? I think I got there at 11:30 at night and at 3:00 clock in the morning, I look up at the clock and I'm not even done with the fourth video. And so that's. Those reps were so powerful and beneficial for me to do it. It's just I was willing to do the reps and do them over and over and over again for these really basic videos, and now I could literally rip those videos off in probably four minutes. But then I needed reps on reps on rep for it to be really shitty a bunch of times and I just had to be willing to do it that way for a long time before I could get good at it. It's like anything else. It's the same thing, gets applied to everything and anything else. And right now we're 15 episodes into this really great passion project that I'm so fortunate to be able to do called the Basketball Strong Podcast. And I'm learning podcasting as I go. But we're putting out really cool exc content in the basketball space of things and high performance and telling people's human stories. But I'm not an expert podcaster today, but guess what? I can look from already episode 1 to episode 15 and see the progress that I've made, my co host has made and me as an editor of the episodes and all this other stuff. Like it's cool to me. I don't worry about it. I would hate to be doing something where I was awesome at it and not be falling into something that and doing something that I wasn't awesome at sometime soon because when am I going to grow if I'm just doing only things that I'm awesome at?

So true. And so I want to be really mindful of your time. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your insight and pouring into us today. So for those of you who want to learn more about you, come hang out with you. Where are some of the best places I should Great.

So as @tdathletes edge on Instagram, on Twitter, you can obviously come to our website www.tdathletesedge.com and I'm very active on Instagram, pretty active on Twitter as well. If you DM me and and check in on Instagram, I'll definitely get back with you. I post a lot over there on nagging injury solutions on on performance pro tips on the 23 hours of the day that you're not working out, what to do, sleeping training, nutrition recovery things. And it's just a really great platform for me to put a lot of that stuff out. And then please do come over and visit us on the Basketball Strong podcast. And we're on Apple Podcasts and Spotify there and it's certainly got this tip of the spear that's basketball and a basketball lens. But it's really about about Wednesdays we do episodes that are longer form and these are where we have our guests on and we talk about human stories, setbacks and comebacks and things that we could apply to anything that we do. And Mondays we use a chance to do sort of shorter form pro tip discussion on things like why it's important to understand acute to chronic workload ratio, what the heck that even means and how somebody could apply that who has no access to technology and how, you know, can really get back into or return to an activity or stave off injuries by understanding that and, and know it at a level where we're not I'm not talking to other scientists necessarily and, and apply it to anything. Yes, basketball, but any activity. And so that that piece has been something that I'm really excited about and it's been a lot of fun. So definitely check us out on on Apple Podcasts and Spotify the Basketball Strong podcast.

Okay, amazing. And we'll be sure to link all of that up in the show notes as well.

Thank you. Thank you, Beverly. This has been so cool.

This is amazing. Thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it.

So good.

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