Chris Collins Unleashed: World Beard Day Epsiode With The McKibbin Brothers

Today on Chris Collins Unleashed, we have two special guests. And this came about the fact that it is National Beard Day this coming Saturday and that These guys, the McKibben brothers, are all about performance. So we have Madison and Riley McKibben, who are two volleyball players that currently play in the AVP Beach Volleyball League. They both went to USC to play volleyball, and they grew up in Hawaii and they were three time state champions. They're. They're great guys. They're really fun. We talked about a lot of fun stuff like meditation and performance and, of course, girls stroking our beards. You shouldn't really enjoy this. And it'll be fun. Welcome to Chris Collins Unleashed.

Do it live.

I can.

I'll write it and we'll do it live.

Now I can read it.

There's no.

There's no words song.

That's tomorrow. And that is it for us today. And we will leave you with a.

I can't do it.

We'll do it live.

Okay?

We'll do it live.

Welcome, everybody, to Unleashed.

We'll do a live.

Man. We are celebrating something very fun today, which will be, coming up, National Beard Day. So we have the handsomest sons of. On the volleyball field in maybe in Southern California, the McKibben brothers. How you guys doing?

Doing good.

Thanks for having us.

Madison and Riley, and they're trying some Dos Artes Tequila. What do you guys think?

Delicious.

Probably the best tequila I've had.

Is that not the best intro song for a podcast?

I love this. I loved it. Was that Bill O'Reilly? That is.

Yes.

I like it famous. We've been working on intros. So that's our. That's the one we're testing out today. We're doing live Fires me up. I like. I like it, too. I want to yell like that at Lucas.

I want to be like, Lucas. We're doing it live.

Monitor doesn't work or something. That'd be fun. Should we. Okay, so we have a contest we're going to announce where somebody can win some. Some bitching stuff from Homer Cuts.

Okay.

Beard oil and brushes. And his. All his handmade dope stuff that's hard to get and very fun. So we'll tell you about that in a while.

What do you guys think about it being all about the beards? Is that you're more than a piece of meat, right?

We like to think so, but we made it this far with our beards.

Yeah.

How often do girls run up to you and ask you to touch your beard?

I wish it was More often than I'd say.

More often than not, they come up, but they don't ask Whatella. When I go to Coachella, people will just walk past and just brush it and just keep unlocking.

Yeah, well, Coachella is a different story, though.

Yeah, that's true. But people usually don't ask. They just come up and grab it.

Wow.

Oh, maybe I give off a vibe. You better ask.

Yeah.

To me, it happens more in airports.

It's the Chris Collins thousand yard stare. They're not going anywhere near that.

They want to ask first.

Can get a little annoying sometimes. The timing is everything. Like Coachella. That's appropriate.

Yeah, it is 100% true.

But you're like a deep thought or something, I don't know, racing somewhere.

And they're like, hey, you know, can I touch it?

No.

And then the commonalities with the beard, too, people are like, oh, you look like. So first I got Dan Blizzerian, which I look nothing like Dan Blizarian. And then that closer for the Dodgers, whatever his name was.

Oh, yeah. Fear the beard.

You probably get that a little.

I got that when my beard was a bit longer, but. Yeah, yours for sure resembles that.

Yeah. Yeah.

I like that style, though.

See, I'm more than. More than a piece of meat.

What, more than chin whiskers?

Yeah. How do you. How do you guys groom your beard? Like, we have a guy. Like, because if I did it, it would be crooked and you guys look pretty on top of it.

We got a guy, too.

Yeah, we got a guy.

Who's your guy?

This guy. Dave Venice Barber Dave on Instagram.

Call him the Beard Whisperer at Old Glory Barbershop.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, we've been with him for about two years now.

Yeah. Does a good job.

It's important.

Yeah.

Where is that?

Oh, Glory, you're ready to cheat on.

Homer just like that?

No, I'm just curious.

Like, where is that? I'll ride my electric skateboard down there.

Right around, like where the circle area.

The roundabout.

Right. Yeah, the roundabout.

Right on.

Okay.

Yeah, cool.

Well, just in case I need an emergency beard trim, I need to know where the local place is.

Yeah, he's right up the street from you.

He is.

You want to mess up my whole thing, don't you? Cuz he'll come for the both of us, and I don't think he'll come just for me. I'll have to go there, man.

You're using me. I didn't realize. No idea.

Dang it.

I'm coordinating. So Tell us. So, you know, the idea of what we do is kind of about performance and business performance, but business performance is all mental, just like sports or anything, really. There's a lot of commonalities. I was watching one of the videos of you guys on YouTube where you train and you were talking about the sports psychologists.

Oh, yeah.

There was something cool written on the wall to.

Oh, mindset development. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we. We train up this place up north called Sports Academy, and we started working with sports psych probably a couple months ago. You know, as brothers, we play. I mean, we've always played together, and a lot of time we can clash and fight, but besides being kind of a mediator and helping us out both, they've given us some tips on, you know, what we can do to get into the right mindset during a match. And so Riley posted something like two weeks ago about, like, belly breathing. Like, I talked to him about it. So.

Well, I mean, if we're going to talk about that, then for me, what's helped me a lot to kind of calm my nerves when I'm playing. I mean, even just being a pro athlete, like, we still get nervous at times. And the way I like, bring my adrenaline back down is breathing. With my belly kind of inflating my. My abs almost. It's almost ab breathing. As opposed to when you take a deep breath and you fill your chest up, that gives you kind of the sensation of panic, right? Yeah, yeah.

Of panic and anxiety because your shoulders shrug. So that's one thing, like, even, like to bring us back during a play of just taking a deep breath in. But it's tough when you're the beach because you're not wearing a shirt. And so I'm always afraid that if I'm belly breathing, somebody's gonna get that perfect shot look, like this. And then it sinks in. I'm like.

So usually lean over, let me know.

I'll come stand by next time and then you won't have a problem.

Don't get that picture. At that time.

What do they call that, G? Dad Bo. I got the dad bod. I didn't know that was a thing until G explained that to me. There's a fetish. Like, there's girls that like dad bods.

Big one. Yeah.

So the. The breathing. And then have you. Do you guys do meditation or anything like that or just the breathing?

So I've actually recently just gone to a place in. In Venice beach called Ceremony Meditation. Right up the street from you. And it's something I got introduced to. It's like 45 minute sessions. And it's funny because we learned about belly breathing through our sports psych, but that's a really big part of it. And so I've kind of brought pieces of that into developing more of my mindset while playing. So that's something I've kind of delved into. I don't do it as much as I'd like. You know, I've downloaded an app and I've tried doing it, but it's hard to kind of stick to that. But I feel like if I can keep, keep adding that into my regimen, it would be more and more helpful. So it's still a process. Ongoing process.

What, what is that kind of meditation? What do you do?

Well, right now. Cause I'm, I'm new to the, to the game, so a lot of it was visualization. Just I went there yesterday. There was a lot of. It was belly breathing, but it wasn't something I'm used to. It was quick breathe in through your stomach and then your chest and exhale. And it was really fast and it was kind of strange for me. And then we moved on to a visual vis, which I think helps the most when it comes to mindset of playing. And then finally we did some Reiki sound meditation. I might be pronouncing some of these things wrong, but I'm all kind of new to the game.

How much of volleyball is mental?

I think, I think the biggest difference between the top players, maybe like the top four teams and then the. The next eight is, is purely mental. They're all about the same physicality. But when you play against a top four team, they never make a mistake or they'll make one a set. As you play against anyone below that, you can count on them to make two or three, and then us as a team make about two or three. So all those teams are kind of interchangeable, but it's really, really difficult. You have to play your best game and be so focused mentally to be one of the top four teams.

Yeah.

So the difference is one or two mistakes.

Yeah, it really is. Literally one or two. Wow.

Yeah. It's been the difference between our past three years on the tour. You know, when we first started out, we'd lose like three points in a row. You just couldn't get over that one error and just lead to the next one. Now we've gotten better of just letting that go and just moving on to the next point.

Yeah.

What, what sort of things you guys argue about as Brothers, when that pertains to volleyball.

Oh, man.

I mean, we just pushing each other too hard.

This is only. Yeah, we only have like 20 minutes.

Our parents literally never let us even play together. Beach volleyball up until. I don't know.

Yeah, we never did play together, really.

We weren't allowed to play together on the court because we fought so much. But we've gotten better at it over the years. I mean, we still have our pretty epic blow ups and fights. You know, we've had some pay per view worthy.

But I think, yeah, the hardest thing with us is sometimes I think I'm right and he's wrong and other times he thinks he's right and I'm wrong. So like just trying to find that middle ground. We fight a lot and we get frustrated. So we've been working. We have a coach that it's nice to have a third, you know, third opinion when it comes down to it. But you know, it's those small things. It's never like the big thing. It's just compounding, just small things that you wouldn't get irritated with anyone else. I feel like we're all, we all get a little more irritable with our family, so it's easier. Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you, do you, looking back, do you think that that's the gap in winning and not winning is.

If you were both more focused. Not focused isn't the word. If winning was more the.

Mental thing, then the other thing wouldn't matter. The arguments, the little stuff.

If winning was the ultimate goal, then we wouldn't pay attention to. Yeah, I mean, I think if we could both get over how, I mean, we don't get there anymore, but how angry we are at each other at the moment and just focus on the winning, then. Yeah, I think that's what your question was.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with that.

Mm. Do you, when you look back on it, is that how you feel? Like if you look back on a time where you guys fought, the thing.

Is, is that it all changes when it's your brother. Like, yeah, I would say, yeah, I could look past it all, but still those little irksome things that just build up, you just can't get over. I mean, we've gotten way better at it like now. I mean, there's other player or other brothers that play on tour and I think we have the best relationship.

But it wasn't always like that. You know, people will come up to us and like, and we'll say, you guys look like your best friends, but I mean, it wasn't always, like, it was a struggle in the beginning. I mean, we lived together and played together. I mean, someone not doing their dishes would bleed onto the court, and then, you know, that comes back into the household and it's just a snowball explosion.

That'S got a compound things. You guys room together still?

No, we don't live together.

When Michael Jordan was in the. In the finals, think he was worried about dishes?

Well, he wasn't playing with his brother. Yeah.

Remember those dishes?

He had a wife.

We're getting better, like you said.

Like, now those dishes don't matter as much because we don't live together.

I mean, that's the thing I always say. I'm like, you know, if Michael Jordan in the finals, we talk about that around here. His wife wasn't like, why aren't you home doing homework with the kid? It just was. It was about winning, right?

Yeah.

And so, like, it's hard when. Even when you're married or relationships or anything, it's kind of having the priorities straight.

I like that with that.

That's the thing we see most in coaching businesses. Spouses affect results a lot. And so there's this, you know, when you're an entrepreneur and you're working a lot of hours, there's always this tug of warrant. You home, the kids are growing up and you aren't there, and all this guilt, and it's like you have to get on the same page because you're not going to be successful with that tug like that.

I think that would definitely help us, just having, like, that goal outline. Like, it all comes from a good place whether we fight or not on the court.

Yeah, but it's about killing the other guys.

Yeah.

Right. And I think that's like an advantage we have to, like, you know, when we play, it's like a high risk, high reward. When we lose, it's. It's really difficult for us. Like, we really get. We get really upset. But when we win, it's. It's the most exciting, elating feeling that you can imagine.

Yeah. You should get upset, right? I mean, I don't know. I hate to lose.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I'm the kind of person that won't try something because I don't.

I'm the exact, like, I'm not gonna play.

Play some new game. They're like, come play this video game. I'm like, no, I don't even play.

You don't understand.

I can't.

I can't have a hobby.

I'm all in, like, I'm gonna kill you or that's it. I had that recently. We had, we had a party here and my fiance's family was playing poker with me and I was so torn because I wanted to be so aggressive and I couldn't. Like, I didn't know what to do. I was just like frozen because, you know, I feel you. I, I don't know if I sit down and I put money in. I want to win, but at some point it's too much. You know, it's like, it's more about spending time with family, taking all their money. But I, I'm flawed with that. It's not fun for the other people at all. Yeah, they're like, it's funny. That's. So what are your, your guys' short term goals with volleyball and performance and that and then how many times a week do you guys practice?

Short term goals? Well, our final tournament is this upcoming weekend and we'd like to finish on a high note. I think we're going in the right direction. I actually broke my hand on the first tournament of the year and had been out up until the last tournament that we just played in.

Didn't you play with somebody else?

Yeah, I played with, with two other guys.

Yeah, I think I read that.

Yeah. So it was a good opportunity. It was a nice not, not breakaway. But I learned some, few, a few things when Riley was away and I think it, it just added to our, you know, our team dynamic when he came back after that, just play with someone else for a little bit.

So then you go into the off season.

Yeah, let me go into off season.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, going back to short term goals, we want to do well in Chicago and then practicing, you know, we've, we've kind of changed up our practice routine recently, but so we've practiced almost every day this past week and the week before that just to get, touch the ball as much as we can. Going into our last tournament, so weightlifting was kind of put on hold and just getting out on the beach, which isn't a bad option.

Going to the beach every day, especially right now.

I know, it's nice.

So when you show up in Chicago, what kind of things do you do to mess with the other volleyball players? Like how do you get in their head?

You know, I, we put more of the focus on our team. We try not to get too involved in the mind games of playing with other teams.

Yeah, we're more do mind games to you.

No, no, no one messes with the beers come on now.

No one, really, I respect that. I, like, don't want to mess with someone because then I get so much more, like, emotionally involved in like, the match. And I just want to, like, keep.

My cool, keep my shit all together.

Because once I, like, fucking really want to beat someone, I just kind of snap and lose it. I lose my focus.

It's hard to play with that level of adrenaline.

Yeah.

We're both the same. We just try and keep calm. Keep calm because once you hit that peak, it's.

See, I'm flawed. I'd know where their hotel room is. I'd have somebody knock on their door in the middle of the night and pull the fire alarm.

Us call.

Right. What else would we do?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I like poison their food, maybe.

Something short sheet their bed.

Yeah.

Call. Just keep calling on the phone. Right to the hotel room.

That's such a good call.

Find out what room, what else. Definitely let all the air out of their stuff.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. I don't know, but like I said, I'm flawed with that kind of stuff. That's funny. You know, the meditation that works for me is transcendental.

You know, someone just told me about that like two days ago. Is that the one where they give you a mantra?

Yeah, because I can't concentrate without a mantra. Yeah, me too.

So you get your own, or it's new every day or.

So you. There's a. There's kind of a ritual to it. So you go to a transcendental meditation place and they. There's like a ritual and then they give you a mantra and then they teach you how to use it. It's like you go every day for four days. I think I did a long time ago. Yeah, I didn't do this for a couple hours. But then they make sure you do it right and everything and.

And you still do it.

Yeah.

And what does it help with? So I'm new to the whole game.

It's everything. Like, I don't know, you start to understand why Howard Stern and Oprah and Seinfeld and all these high performing, even business guys like Ray Dalio and do it because it definitely separates your subconscious from your conscious. Like, you start to understand how it works a little bit more. You do it 20 minutes, twice a day.

20 minutes.

And so if you really visualize your goals before that, that's how I do it. I don't do. Visualize after or before. So I do it before and then you do that and then you can do a Little coming out, but it definitely gets you inside your subconscious, which is. It's a whole undiscovered area that we don't really understand. But it's very powerful, I think, too.

If you find yourself really, like, close to the action. So if you're in a game and, like, mentally you feel like you're just pushing in, you know, really hard. Like you're trying to. Like, you're trying to focus, you're trying to concentrate. You don't have enough space in your brain. Like, you need to. You have to be able to see the battle from 30,000 Foot. The only way to do that is to kind of separate your mind a little bit. And then meditation, like, gives you that space, you know, between that, so you can. You can. You can work the problem without, like, trying to have your conscious mind fix.

It for you like that.

So I. I started that, I don't know, close to probably 10 years ago. And then there was a time after that where I started going to a performance guy doc. I don't know if you've heard of him, Dr. Pratt. He's out of Scripps in San Diego, but he did. He does hypnosis and different things like that. And I don't think I would have got as much out of it if I hadn't have done TM before.

Yeah.

Because it. You go right in, you know, and you start rewiring the way you think. And just mostly it's like Gary said, it's the stress and the pressure. Because that's the hardest part. That's what makes you fold up, you know?

Yeah, that's by far, I think, the hardest part, going into some of these tournaments.

So you end up kind of elevating above everybody else where you're kind of in that other dimension and you're. You're almost out of body a lot of times, I think when the stress comes. Yeah, I experienced that a lot. Sometimes when, like, I'm speaking or something, it's almost out of body. Where before I'd get nervous. Huh. And I don't even get nervous anymore.

Yeah. Do you like to cool, you know, calm and cool in a pressure situation?

Do you tap into that mindset while you're meditating? Like that feeling of just flow almost?

Yeah. You see white light. It's weird. You lose total. Total perception of time.

Yeah.

Right.

And so it doesn't happen every time the same. And some places are better to meditate than others, but you. Yeah, you lose all perception of time. And you, you know, sometimes you just go into this white light and everything stops. And when you come out, you just feel like you took the best nap ever.

I thought there was no way when I first started doing meditation was just a couple of years ago. And I thought, there's no way I can sit in one place and breathe and say a mantra for 20 minutes. This is not going to happen. Like my, you know, I'm always moving. Like there's no way. But it's funny, like you said, like you. It just slips and then you feel like you left and you came back. Yeah. It's interesting. And that whole time period is gone. I kept telling him, I think I'm falling asleep. I think what's happening is I'm falling asleep. But then I realized I wasn't. I was like, you know, you're getting into that, that delta wave and you just, you know, you're, you're. It just changes your perception of time. Yeah.

And I don't know how the guys that do it without a mantra like that. That's real talent. I can't. I'm too add.

When you say mantra, what do you. What do you mean exactly by that?

It's a word that's too kind of two syllables. It means nothing. Like if it was ding dong or something, but you're saying it over and over again. And when thoughts come into your head, then you realize you're not saying your mantra and you just start saying it and then thoughts will come in your head and you say it and then you just kind of start going, you know, down into your subconscious. There's no right or wrong. You just do it as well as you can and it kind of works out.

So like in sports, like, we talk about having like a cue or a word. Do you think that if. Let's say we did it, you would actually say your mantra during, like the middle.