S3 #7 - Understanding Effort, Attitude, And Aggression To Develop A Growth And Winning Mindset With Gene Zannetti

In a world full of turmoil, despair and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart and your attitude. And welcome to the Get Attitude podcast, the Gap. I am your host, Glenn Bill and today we have a fantastic guest. We have somebody that is going to carry the light, possibly in a little different way. I'm so excited to introduce you to the Winning Mindset coach, the Winning Mindset founder, former nationally ranked all Ivy League wrestler Gene Zanetti. Him and his brother Jeff help individuals and teams reach their full potential in sports, school and in life. So if you guys have any kids out there, you're you're going to want to share this podcast with them. Please remember to subscribe, follow on any podcast platform that we have. We are absolutely everywhere and if you want to watch the video, we are now on Spotify Video podcasting. Gene has his master's degree and did his master's degree thesis, which I found pretty cool in perfectionism and anxiety Boy, Perfectionist, anxiety ridden people. Trust me, those are our gappers. He's been published in the International Journal of Wrestling Sciences. He was a nationally ranked all Ivy League wrestler. At UPenn, Gene and Jeff have studied the best athletes, coaches, teams and experts in the world to learn the secrets of performance success. This is a one of a kind trademarked wrestling mindset program. What's so cool is if you are a coach, we have a lot of coaches that listen to us. You can actually get certified with Gene and the wrestling mindset@winningmindset.com so you can take the content you're going to hear today and take it to the masses. We'll get into that a little bit later. But winning Mindset coaches have also worked with thousands of athletes, teams and professionals and coaches throughout the nation. This includes men and women's USA Olympic team members, UFC fighters, national champions, state champions, as well as youth and rec programs throughout the country. So without further ado, it is time to get attitude with the one and only Gene Zanetti. Gene, welcome to the Gap.

Thank you very much for having me.

It's great to have you, Gene. Talk to us a little bit about. Well, let's just start here. What's your definition of attitude? After all the people that you've interviewed and who was your first attitude coach?

My parents. That'd be easy. And having an attitude, I'd look at being stubbornly positive and optimistic. You have to make a choice, are you going to be positive or negative? And the more time that goes by the more I realize that's not. That doesn't mean smiling or laughing or having a good time. Sure, that's nice. But being positive and optimistic really means decision. It's a choice to focus on what you're thankful for, and it's a choice to focus on what's the opportunity, the possibilities, the present moment.

I love it. And so when you talk about your parents, and we get that quite a bit, Gene, what did your parents instill in you? When you talk about your attitude, Coach, when you think about describing mom or pop, were they together? Was there one that was maybe a little bit more on the attitude education or not? And at its core, what did they teach you or what do they instill in you?

Really, both of them in different ways. I was very blessed to grow up in a very loving home with both my parents, my two younger brothers. My dad was always very into sports. He always exercised. He was a former athlete competing in high school, wrestling being his favorite sport. He also played baseball. And he always saved the paper clippings of top athletes and quotes and stories, and he would always share those with me. He'd say, oh, read this article, listen to this. And whenever we'd watch sporting events together, one big thing he did that I see most a lot of people don't do is he was very big on listening to the interview right after the game or right after the boxing fight. We'd watch, we'd want to talk, me and my brothers. He would say, shh, listen. Listen to what they have to say. And what you learn is that success leaves clues. And you start to see the patterns, the threads, the themes of these ultra high level performers. After their best competition, they're thinking the same thing. So he was very big with that. As well as being an example of exercise, fitness and taking us to sporting events. My mom just tough, tough Italian woman, didn't let us make excuses. She was also very into self help. So I saw my share of Tony Robbins and Dr. Phil growing up. She loved self help books. So I think putting those two together was really the perfect storm. I always say, you don't want to focus on what's going on around you. You want to focus on the things within your control. We speak about that with the difference between the predator versus prey mindset. We could never make the excuse in our house. Oh well, my friends are allowed to do this. They didn't care about. My mom never cared about that. She said, you know, you're my son. This is how we do things in our house. There Is no excuses, no comparing ourselves to other people. You're capable of doing anything, but there's a right way to do things and that morality and our Catholic faith was always stressed and it was very important to our family.

All right, fellow Catholic, I love it. That's awesome. So let's just. I want to roll back just a bit. When your dad said, hey, quite quiet, Listen. Success leaves clues. What are some of the things that really successful athletes and performance people, what are they saying in those interviews when you did listen to them? Are there one or two themes that seem to recur that are gappers, that are listeners because they weren't there listening like you were, that they can take with them today? What would just a couple of those be?

Well, the simple lesson, and everyone already knows it, is focus on the controllables. Forget about the uncontrollables. That's easy to say, but how do you get that message to stick? And that's why when we say, if you look at predator animals, lions, tigers and bears, their eyes are located on the front of their head. So we say eyes on the front, like to hunt. That becomes our analogy, our metaphor for focusing on the controllables. When you look at the prey animals, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, deer, maybe we have some hunters out there, their eyes are on the side of their head.

Wow.

Because they don't want to get eaten. So we say, eyes on the side like to hide. Eyes on the front like to hunt. And if you really wanted to summarize what you're hearing in those interviews, whether it be Olympics, Super Bowls, championship fights, anything, they're focusing on the controllables. They're staying in the present moment. And you realize that's the same thing that high level business people are saying. It's the same thing that great students, great test takers. I was a school psychologist. I heard many parents say to me, my kid's not a good standardized test taker. Well, when you look at the people who are good test takers, it's what they're focusing on. It's the same thing. They're focusing on the controllables. That sort of means when success leaves clues.

And so the, the predator with the eyes in front, he is focusing on the controllables. Is that the analogy right here?

She is focusing on the controllables. And I break that down into our preparation, our lifestyle. Right. That that's going on all the time. Our preparation and our lifestyle. And then in the present moment, we can't control that effort. And that if we're In a performance sport competition, taking a test on the sales call, giving the speech in front of thousands of people, speaking in front of an audience, you can't focus as much on the preparation and lifestyle that's already in the bank. Now it comes down to your effort, your attitude, and your aggressiveness. So those are the three things that are directly within your control the moment you're performing. Effort, attitude, and aggressiveness.

I love it. So let's break that down real quick. I have a keynote. You're a keynote speaker, is that correct? Good. So, guys, ladies and gentlemen, I'm telling you, Gene is somebody you want to get on your stage. If you're listening to this, if your company needs insight, knowledge, if they need effort, attitude, and aggression, this is somebody that probably needs to be your next keynote speaker. I have a keynote called the Secret is Effort. Talk to me about the attitude of effort, the traits of effort. What is effort, and how do you break that down?

Excellent. Yeah. So when you look at effort, we should also just clarify, when we say aggressiveness, aggression, you might look at that in sales or in school as being tactfully tenacious. It's only a metaphor because sometimes people take that metaphor the wrong way.

Yes.

So when we're looking at effort, it's making the choice, are you going to go all out or you can hold back. That's directly in your control at every moment. Whether you're in school, business, sports, doing an interview, you choose to make that decision. And only you know deep down, if you made that decision, you can fake it, you could fool a lot of people. But at the end of the day, you can't fool yourself. Or you can really, really deep down, you know you didn't give a full effort. So that's a choice. Did you go all out or did you hold back? So that's one of the ways you want to evaluate your performance in terms of the effort. And then we. On to attitude, aggressiveness, as you like.

Yeah. So let's tell me your. I know we opened with attitude, and. And if you need to restate it, that's fine, but any other thoughts on attitude that supersede what you already said?

Really? Not that would supersede it, but just as an addition to it, basically, that you are. It's not a feeling. A lot of people think being a positive thinker is a feeling. It's not a feeling. It's a decision. It's a choice. It doesn't necessarily mean you're in a good mood or smiling or laughing. It's not Rainbows and sunshine and butterflies and everyone holding hands in a circle and singing Kumbaya. Sure, that's great. But that's not what attitude being a positive thinker is. It's choosing to focus on the present moment, what's the opportunity that's in front of me, and being thankful. So we always say, you want to weaponize gratitude. Make gratitude your greatest weapon. If you look at all negative feelings, any negative. Any negatives, anger, sadness, fear, they're normal. You're going to have fear, you're going to have sadness, you're going to have anger. But if you're disproportionately angry, sad or fearful, there's probably a lack of gratitude. You can't have an attitude of gratitude and be thankful and at the same time have a disproportionate amount of those negative feelings. Which is why we see a timeless wisdom. If you look through the Bible, many of the psalms are praise and thanksgiving. It's giving thanks.

I love it. Oh, that's so good. And then let's talk about this misunderstood word called aggression. I loved tactful tenaciousness. Tell us about harnessing your tactful tenaciousness. Harnessing aggression. What are the. Look at everybody. It's so negative. It's a negative connotation. But I have a feeling you're getting ready to blow our minds. And tell us about why aggression. Aggression is awesome.

Well, so a lot of people categorize aggressiveness with effort, right? A lot of people just say effort and attitude and they just bucket aggressiveness in with effort. I like to break that out further intentionally because this is where a lot of people tend to hold back. In other words, you might have an athlete or a person who is giving the full effort, but they might not be going for it. In other words, they might be playing too much not to lose rather than playing to win. Now, it's very important. We don't want to focus on winning. That's. That's outcome, right? We could have the goal to win. We could have the goal, the championship, where if your sales, hitting a certain number, hitting a certain goal, that's great. But your day to day focus should not be on the outcome. It should be on what you can do. Making enough calls, following up, going to networking events. Same thing in sports. Are you taking chances? Are you going, Are you at least attempting to execute the techniques that you do? In practice, we see a lot of athletes, they're great in practice. They don't bring it to competition. They tend to be more cautious, conservative, Hesitant. In wrestling, we would say they're not pulling the trigger. Again, metaphorical language, that's. That's something that needs to be spoken directly to, to overcome. If you're in school, you want to be an aggressive student. What does that look like in college? You're sitting up front in any school, you're asking questions, you're volunteering, you're going in for extra help, you're staying late. You don't wait for your parents or your teacher to ask you for a tutor. You ask them for a tutor. That would be being an aggressive student, a tactfully tenacious student. Same thing in sports. You're looking to execute the technique. In business, you are one of the things we do. Making a lot of connections on LinkedIn. I could tell you, my brother Jeff, who's in charge of a lot of our social media, he's getting blocked. Regular, not blocked, but in LinkedIn will only allow you to friend a certain number of people.

Yes.

Almost every week he hits his limit because. And that's. And we want that. That's an important thing because it means you're doing work, you're taking chances, you're not holding back, you're not letting things happen, you're making things happen. And nine times out of ten, action beats inaction. That's what we mean by aggressiveness.

Yeah. I love it. And hopefully we are connected on LinkedIn. I think I sent a click to you and I'll look forward to it. I'm sure Jason's probably going to check that out, knowing Jason right now, but we'll see. I want to go back again. I can tell you're rich in faith and you're rich in family. And some of the greatest antidotes and lessons we learn after I ask this one question, and that is, what was the attitude of Grandma and Grandpa Zanetti or your mother's parents? Were you closer to one of the four? And what was that generational attitude lesson that you learned from grandparents, if you were lucky enough to be around them or know them again?

Super blessed. Super blessed with a very loving family. And I've taken a lot from my dad's side, the Zanetti's, as well as my mom's side, the Levis, both Italian, but my dad's mother was Polish. The great thing about my dad's mother is she didn't talk as much about sports and she was kind of like my break from the grind mentality. Just an unconditional, loving, supportive, easygoing, which was a tremendous balance.

Yes.

That was my grandma's Nettie now. My grandpa's Nettie we called Poppy. He was our number one fan, me and my brothers. He was at all of our competitions. And even at a young age, he would tell us. I get teary eyed thinking about it, but he would tell us, you know, you're the best five year old in the world. There's no one who could beat you. And I think. And he really meant it. And I remember even joking around, as I would get older, I'd say, you know, Papi, I could have been a good soccer player too. And he was dead serious saying, I know you could. So he just, it was, he just really made us believe that sky was the limit. And even to the point, just knowing we don't really have anything to prove, we're a champion in his mind.

Awesome. Awesome.

And then my mom's side, the Levas Leva Italian again, just tough, no excuses, no nonsense. My grandpa Leva, he was very religious. He went to mass every single day. He was the main reason why my brother became a priest. My youngest brother Greg became a priest, Father Gregory, and got, and you know, he was my sponsor for my confirmation. Just really had priorities in order to morality, there's a right way to do things and there's a wrong way to do things and you don't compromise the faith, morality for anything. That was, that was the most important. And again, my, my grandma Leva called her grandma. We still got, thank God she's still alive too. Both my grandma's still alive. We called her grandma Tough Cookie. And she just, she just didn't take any crap. And God bless her, in the time, Even in the 70s, 60s, 70s, she worked, she worked in New York City, she was a director. She was one of the women to pave the way there in the workforce. And just no fear, just believed she was capable of things and always instilled that in us. So each one of my grandparents had a huge impact on my brother's lives.

That's really cool. And Gappers, I think you know Papi Zanetti, right? That's what you called him, Papi. And you know, you felt the emotion in his breath when he was talking about him. And when we talk about attitude, number one, be nice, right? I want the challenge out of this podcast today is go look somebody in their eye and tell them that they're the best in the world at something and mean it. Because as you try to bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to become, I can tell you this, the more you help other People bridge the gap, the closer you will be to bridging the gap. So, Poppy Zanetti. I knew there was going to be a good one in there and that's really cool. I want to talk about and talk about two things that I think are attitude suckers in this thing is called perfectionism, which you obviously did your thesis on, and anxiety. So let's talk about two huge attitude busters. Let's define perfectionism and anxiety. We can take one at a time and let's maybe give our gappers a few two or three step process on how to break the curse of perfection, how to break the curse of anxiety, and what are they? Define them for me.

Right, so you have anxiety. Basically they broke anxiety down into three subscales. Cognitive anxiety, which is thoughts. Right. Thinking anxiety. Then there was physiological anxiety. In other words, sweaty palms, racing heart, feelings of butterflies in your stomach. And then the third subscale was confidence, which was taken more as the opposite of anxiety. Right. Like more of an inverse relationship. So anxiety had the three subscales on the measurement tool that I used.

Okay.

And then, and then there is perfectionism. Perfectionism had six subscales.

Wow.

Concern about mistakes, doubts about actions, organization, parental criticism, parental expectations. What's the other one?

I don't know. But you did that without a book. That's pretty damn good, bro. We'll take five. You know, six is gonna come up in your mind as you're talking about it, but go ahead.

It'll come up with. The interesting thing there was that there was helpful perfectionism and there was hurtful perfectionist. Personal standards. That's the one. So personal standards and organization tended to be positively negatively correlated with anxiety. Ah, they didn't just. It wasn't, it wasn't a simple correlation where you just look at perfectionism and anxiety. You would look at the three subscales of anxiety against the three subscales. Perfectionism. And we found that people were less anxious if they had high personal standards and if they were organized as you imagine, that that breeds confidence and less anxiety.

Interesting.

Whereas the two negative constructs of perfectionism were concern about mistakes and doubts about actions. Those tended to be more related to anxiety and inversely related to confidence. Now the two other interesting points had to do with the parents perceived parental expectations and perceived parental criticism. That was big. So if the parents seem to have. If the athlete reported that the parents seemed to have too high of expectations or was too critical, that was more positively associated with anxiety and associated with confidence. So it's more complex than just Anxiety against perfectionism. It's the subscales of anxiety versus the subscales of perfectionism.

Yeah, that's just, I mean, that's so good. Did you write a book on that or you don't have a book out, but we need to get one out for that. That is so powerful. I mean, just how you explained it. I think about the nine year old wrestler right on the side of the mat and you know if the kid's going to win or lose right now. Right. And I think when you talk about that expectation of the parent, you know a kid's beat before they start. So let's talk a little bit because I know we got parents listening to this and whether it's a kid that's on the side of the mat wrestling or on getting ready to go out on a dance floor, or getting ready to dive into a pool and swim, or getting ready to do a gymnastics or getting ready to play quarterback, like what's the best advice that and I coached for 25 years, so I'm with you on this. What's your advice to the parent that's got a kid anywhere between 5 and 15 to help those children as a parent become optimal athletes? What you're teaching to them, if you could sit a parent down and they actually said, gene, shit, I don't know what I'm doing, bro. Give me five things I should do when it comes to interacting or handling my child. Because most parents get it wrong in my experience. So lay it on us, bro, because I know you got good stuff for us.

Number one is perspective. You got to know why? Why are you doing what you're doing? And a lot of times people will say, well, you need to know your purpose. That sounds good, but it's even more important to know. If there is an objective purpose to life that's external to me, then my job is to conform to that external purpose. So I could just make up a purpose right now and then five years make up a totally different purpose, the opposite purpose, and then five years from then, just do it again. And now I'm very wishy washy. I'm not built on a solid foundation. And that's why we need to know, is there a purpose? What does it all mean? What's it all about? As a Catholic, we know the purpose of life is to know love and serve God in this life so we can be with him forever in heaven. And that's Baltimore Catechism. The very first question, knowing what the purpose of life is and so knowing that it Puts things into proper order. You look at perspective, right? We have our faith, we have our family, we have building virtue, fulfilling our vocation in life. That eventually we're going to either be, you know, husband, wife, mother, father, we're going to be supporting a family, or in the spiritual life, my brother being a priest. Yes, right. You have your vocation, you're geared towards your vocation. Sports are just recreation. It's important. I love sports. I want to see people succeed. That's very key to us. We like to see you win. We feel your pain when you lose. But we have to keep it in proper perspective. We don't have to play sports, we don't have to be a champion. We do need to prioritize our health, our wellness and our fitness for long term sustainability of our body and mind. Right? But we don't need to be a champion athlete. Same thing with our career. We love working with high performers. We work with Fortune 500 companies, we work with, you know, many managers, many advisors, many great sales reps. You don't have to be an ultra high level performer. You have to provide for your family. That's your job. But you don't be ultra high level performer. You want to be a champion athlete. You want to be a high performer in business. Why not? Right? Why not? You have to understand that you don't have to be a massive success. That's a choice. And when people forget that, that's a big problem. So as a parent, I want to keep it in perspective. Don't sacrifice the big picture for these small, almost meaningless gains. We always say our goal in sports is to use that sport as a vehicle to build virtue and mental skills for life. If you build virtue, and this goes back to Aristotle, this is bc if you build virtue, you'll be successful at anything you do.

Yes.

If you focus on a success, you might be massively successful. Look at some of the movie stars and athletes you see on tv. Great looking millionaires. How many followers on social media. Their lives are in shambles, Suicidal, depressed and hooked on drugs and moral degeneracy. That's not what we're looking at. You build virtue, you'll be successful at anything. So I know I only gave you one, but I spoke a lot about it. First is perspective.

I love it. That's good. Give us one more, if you don't mind.

We spoke about the predator prey mindset, so we'll, we'll put that, we'll put that there also. That's important. You need to make sure you're focusing on the right things, what you could control versus what you can't. Don't compare. Don't compare to other people. Look over your shoulder, you know, looking for praise, recognition, pity, or approval. Stop comparing yourself. We've already spoken about that, so that. So the one I will give you is. And this is from watching the interviews of a lot of high level performers, one thing you notice is it's different than Hollywood movies. When you watch the movie Miracle, any given Sunday, what usually happens before the big game? What does the coach usually do?

Yeah, big. Big pep talk.

Big pep talk. So what do parents usually do? They try to give a big pep talk right before they go out and compete. This is a big mistake. And I made this mistake as well. My brother before his state championship match is my brother Jeff, my business partner. I wrote being, trying to be a good brother, only two years older than him. I wrote up a pep talk for him right before the state finals. And right before he went out in Atlantic City, Boardwalk hall, where there was two WrestleManias, Mike Tyson, Michael Spinks, all the Miss America contests in front of 12,000 people. Before that, in the back, I gave him a pep talk. We were both crying. It was very emotional. And. And then he went out there and unfortunately he underperformed. Yes, that's a big difference that I noticed. If you watch the interviews of the Olympians, Super Bowl, World Series, they're not making it into a big deal. They're not making it special. Everything's important, but nothing special. They treat it the same. They tell themselves, have fun, be me. Do what you always do.

Good.

They hype the event up. So I say to the parents, as the advice, you need to get away from the fan mentality and the hype, as I call it.

Love it.

And you need to treat it as it's just another competition. Have fun. Do what you do.

Yeah. And that's so good. I coached at a Catholic High School 25 years, fortunate to be a part of 15 state championships and a lot of letters to our kids before they went into kickoff. Now, thank God we had that mindset and we told our kids, we treat everyone the same. If it's the worst team that we're ever playing or the best team in the nation, everyone gets treated the same. And what a great message, Gene, from you. Now, Gappers, as you hear, Gene is extremely gifted on the sports side. But if you own a business, if you're an entrepreneur, if you are somebody that needs an edge, that needs a mindset, that needs to change, to increase Profitability, productivity, to increase satisfaction in what you're doing, to maybe ratchet down being the superstar. You know what, being a successful business person sometimes can be enough. Gene Zanetti is somebody, him and his brother that can help you with this. So this is not just about life, not just about sports, not just about business. This is about more than that, that's for sure. So Gene, let's talk a little bit about those you have influenced with what you've been doing. I'd love to hear a story about somebody that, whether it's an eight year old kid that ended up becoming an all American wrestler, whether it was a middle manager that ended up doing something great. Give me some one or two of your greatest success stories. Give me the people that inspired you the most, the people that you're out there helping. I know as I help people, as I keynote speak, I have customers that change my life more than I change theirs. Who are some of the most inspirational people that you've worked with that you helped rise to the top? Who are some of the people that demonstrated attitude that shook you to the core and you go, God, I don't know why this client came into my life, but I ended up getting more out of this guy than maybe he got out of me. Does anybody come to mind?

I've worked with so many people over the years, and not just me, but we have great staff. We have 80 mindset coaches that work with us all across the country. So it gives us a lot of latitude with matching up a mindset coach, matching up a client with the mindset coach that's the best fit for them. Because we know from studies the relationship between the coach and the client is three times as important as the intervention strategy that's used. Wow. Have a solid relationship. That's key. We all know that intuitively. But it's nice to see the numbers behind it. But we've worked with the US Olympic teams, we've worked with about 30 UFC fighters. Andy Pettit and Lance Berkman were coaching a baseball team in Texas. We're working with them. We've worked at the number two archery team in the country, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. We spoke for the Huntington Learning Center, MassMutual, Northwestern Mutual, Fortune 500 companies. But it's exciting a lot of times working with the kids. Right? A good story. One of our wrestlers from Bergen Catholic, top team in the state of New Jersey, the kid placed in the state for the first time as a sophomore. Incredible achievement. So he was feeling great. He didn't have Any pressure on him now going into his junior year in September, his dad gives us a call. My kid's not enjoying the sport anymore. What's going on here? Not that difficult to see what's happening now. There's finally expectations on him. Before, he was able to compete free and have fun because no one expected anything of him. Now he enters the school year ranked in the state and the expectations are high. The dad told us he was not enjoying the sport. This was in September, the beginning of September. We told him, go on our mindset program, work with the mindset coach every week. So from September, October, November, December, January, February, and then first week of March is the state tournament. Six months he worked with the mindset coach and fast forward. Now he's in the state semifinals, the biggest match of this young man's life. Remember in September, six months ago, he wasn't enjoying the sport. He wasn't having fun, feeling a lot of pressure. Biggest match of his life. He's in the corner with his coach, smiling and laughing and having a good time. And I remember being in Atlantic City, nudging my brother Jeff, saying, hey, whether or not he wins this match, I'm happy. Here's a kid who's enjoying himself and all this pressure that's on him right now, he's having a good time. Well, not only did he win that match, but then he went on to pull off the biggest upset in the state finals and won the whole thing. And then he repeated again as a senior and he later went on to wrestle at Rutgers University. But that was an exciting thing for me, seeing that, seeing some of our athletes then go on to military academies, Ivy League schools, and sometimes it's not the glamorous win that people see. I've worked with an athlete who helped him. When I originally had him in seventh grade, he was struggling with an eating disorder and working with him, we didn't talk about sports for probably six, eight months. I told him, we really don't care. Let's focus more on getting you in a good place, mentally healthy and emotionally. And then finally when he was ready to speak about sports, we started talking about sports. He ended up being a three time state finalist. And that's not even the biggest accomplishment there with him. He asked me to be a sponsor for his confirmation and I flew out to Wisconsin and got to stand by his side. And then his other brother, who I worked with, I got to be their sponsors for their confirmation. Much bigger accomplishment to me than a championship. Another great example. I could think of a wrestler who took top three in the state of New York? Division one athlete. One of the things we worked on over the summer, aside from getting his mindset right, he was afraid of. He had a fear of swimming in his pool. Wow. And worked on overcoming that fear. And now after the summer was over, going in small steps, he wasn't only stepping foot in his pool, but he was swimming in his pool. Simple. But it was a mental block for him. What he accomplished as a person could be far greater than his accomplishments on the wrestling mat because it was overcoming a true fear. That's what's exciting.

Yeah. That's so cool. Let's talk your brother, the priest, is he a little brother? One of your little brothers?

Youngest brother. So it's myself. And then two and a half years later, and then four years after him, my brother, Father Greg.

And so Father Greg, probably because I was the baby. Probably the best wrestler of y'.

All. Yes, he was ranked, he was ranked up top six in the country. He was a two time academical American at Rutgers University, beat multiple national finalists. And actually while he was studying to.

Be a priest, he wrestled at Rutgers. Yeah, Rutgers is no joke. Like probably one of the toughest, meanest wrestling rooms in America. Agreed.

Oh, yeah. And so, and they wrestled at the rack, which beautiful athletic facility. Well, after, after graduating from Rutgers, the rack, he went to the Pontifical University and that's called the Knack in Rome. So he went from the rack to the knack. And while he was, while he was studying in Rome, he was trained. He would, he would take the train, travel 45 minutes to Ostia, which is the Italian Olympic Training Center. And he was actually the workout partner of Abraham Can Yeto, bronze medal in the Olympics out in Tokyo the last year. The Italian coach wanted Father Greg to be on the Italian Olympic team, but he had no desire to do that at that point. He wanted to become a priest.

It's amazing what a calling can do and what a blessing it is, I'm sure, to your family. When you think about Father Greg, and this could be a generic answer, I know, but maybe not. Maybe we'll find gold here. What was Father Greg's attitude growing up as a kid, as your little brother? And what's the attitude he possesses that you most admire today?

He is the most disciplined person that I've ever met. That's just the bottom line. When he says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. When he was in high school, my brother Jeff and I were at the University of Pennsylvania we had a weightlifting, weightlifting program the strength coach gave us. So we gave that plan to our brother. And now in high school kids miss their workouts all the time. I really don't think he might not have missed any lifts his entire high school career. And then you think about how that relates to the faith. Well then once you enter the seminary, the first thing they have you do is they link you up with the spiritual director. And one of the pieces of advice that he was given was make a holy hour. Basically pray for an hour straight every day. I never asked him about this, never wanted to put him on the spot, but I bet you he hasn't missed a holy hour in seven years. Or if he did, it was for a really good reason. So his discipline was there, but growing up he was a normal kid like anyone else. He was perfect. He had a girlfriend for three years basically. And then while he was at Rutgers he read the diary of Saint Faustina and he did a beautiful devotion, the 33 day consecration to Jesus through Mary. And that basically changed his life as my life and my brother Jeff's life now to the point where we have a ministry, an apostolate on the side called Spiritual Strength Building athletes for Christ. And there actually I run a consecration every Tuesday night at 8pm for the month of June and July. I'm running that devotion, that exact devotion that changed our lives. The consecration to Mary.

Oh, that's so fantastic. And then what parish is he a pastor or an associate pastor? Of what parish?

He's an assistant over there at. He's only a year ordained. He's coming up, it'll be one year on Father's Day, I believe. And he Baskin Ridge at St. James in New Jersey.

Alright guys, gappers, let's get some money to St. James and put Father Zanetti's name on it. He's going to go, what the hell are all these checks doing here? Hopefully it will come from the Get Attitude podcast. That's so cool. And hearing about the spiritual strength program that you're doing, I just want to touch on that. I think you've told me what it is. It sounds like you're undergoing it. You're probably in your third week. So good. Yeah, so tell us, you know, tell us what is it? If people want to get involved, if people want to look more at it, is there a website or just, you know, give us a 2 or 3 minute or 2 minute description. Who is your avatar? Who are you reaching? I know everybody can benefit from it, but just give us an overall what's going on and why it's so awesome.

Again, the importance is looking at what's the point of life. And everyone says, hey, spirit, mind and body, be the total package. Like the ancient Greeks always said, it's spirit, mind and body. And people will say be the total package. But meanwhile, people might be very strong in different areas of their life, whether it be sports, school, business. But spiritually they're weak and deep down they know it. And they haven't trained that area of their life. Not that we can do it in this. It's not like we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps like other areas. But in the spiritual life, it's cooperating with the grace that God has given us. Most people just haven't spent any amount of time. And now being in a very atheistic and really Marxist communist culture and education that we've basically been brainwashed to think like Freemasons and the like. Really, we haven't been. We've gotten brainwashed out of ultimate reality. So we need to be able to get back to who we are. Why are we here? And then how do we build that spiritual strength? So that was my attempt in our book, Spiritual Building Athletes for Christ.

That's so good. So good.

St. Paul said, we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, run the race to win the prize. We're not shadow boxing. He was just so many athlete sports analogies. So basically there, well, build an athlete for Christ. So we try to help you do that.

I love it. St. Paul is one of my favorites. Boy, St. Paul, you can't get enough of him. I can't get enough of him. We're going to go ahead and wrap up this interview with something called knowledge through the Decades, my man. And what we do is we walk through your life a decade at a time and ask you what the attitude lesson is that you learned as you go on. Now, you don't seem like a very old guy, so this probably won't take long. But when you think about birth, when you think about being born, I don't know if you have kids or not. What is the attitude lesson of birth?

Well, see, I was born in the 80s, in 1984. But the lesson from my kids, they can just really learn what it's like to truly love someone, a truly unselfish love for someone, and that I look at as really foundation. It's all built on love and family and which again, inextricably linked. There is faith.

I love it. That's good. See, that wasn't that hard. Now I want you to think back to being 10 years old. Third, fourth grade. What was the attitude lesson you learned at 10?

I guess people interacting with people, learning how to get along. I could see some leadership qualities developing even then. But really the people, great relationship with family and friends, I guess social being, getting more socialized.

I like it, I like it. Or growing up and then you're at UPenn 20 years old. Do you remember turning 20? Remember the birthday? What was the attitude lesson at 20?

Well, leading up after 10 and then once you go. But the gap between 10 and 20.

Yes.

Was really a really hardcore folk focus on crushing goals and having high expectations for yourself. Really giving your life to something. That was really what wrestling was from that period of time. And obviously that would carry me through my early 20s.

Yeah. Awesome. And then you became 30, right? You're 30, you're not 40. So this will be your last one. Tell me what the attitude Lesson was at 30 or you know, near 30. What?

What? So 20 20s to 30s. Then it became being entrepreneurial business. Really focusing on taking my love, my passion for wrestling, psychology and, and, and making a career out of a business so that the business there and then like you said there, then taking it to the end from like 29 up into 29. 30. Yeah, up and present where I'm 37, going to be 38 soon. Yes sir, that was really getting things in the right priority and understanding my faith. I don't think I've read a non Catholic book in about seven years because I'm just obsessed about learning about the faith because once, once you get a taste for the most important knowledge, everything else seems kind of flat and dry. I love it still. I still love the business, I still love psychology. But if I had to choose what I'm going to study, I'm going to learn more about the faith, I'm going to dive deeper into my prayer life and hopefully that's the end of the line. Not that my life ends, but hopefully that continues all the way through.

I love it. Now, Gene, one thing you'll want to know is just what was it? Jason, last week, maybe two weeks ago, we had the Little Sisters of the Poor on the Get Attitude podcast. And so if you want to learn from Sister Agatha and Sister Marie Cecilia, their podcast was unbelievable. So make sure you check out the Get Attitude podcast with the Little Sisters of the Poor. Those women carry the light, they carry it in a different way, but it's just so refreshing. As Catholics, we tend to get persecuted now more than ever. And people don't get it. But we'll stand strong in our faith. And you know what? As long as people have faith, no matter what it is, it's just important that you get in a good Bible based church and that you understand what love brings. With that said, Gene, what I always love to do is just have you from a global perspective. Talk to our gappers. There's somebody in their car, there's somebody walking on a beach, or somebody walking their dog, right? That is wrestling with things. That is wrestling with how do I get from where I am to where I want to go? How do I get from who I am to who I want to become? If you could just give them your pep talk, right? Your motivational speech. What is your message to them? And we will end the program with that. So your message of hope for our gappers.

Well, what do all high level performers have? What do all Olympians have in common? They have a coach. You'll never, it's safe to say you'll never optimize what you have if you don't have a coach. Almost everyone, when I ask them what percentage of your success is physical versus mental or what percentage of your success is technical versus mental, Almost everyone, without fail in any domain will say your success is 90, 95% mental. And then when you ask them about their preparation and their training, it's the opposite. They say 90 to 95% physical or technical training. So if you really want to be great, if you really want to optimize, you need to work on that mental piece. You need to put a lot more time in on your mindset, and you just will not optimize without having the help of a coach. It won't happen. So that's why we developed a winning mindset. That's why we put together a systematic program where you're developing these mental tools. You're using virtue, you're learning virtue to help you and sustain you throughout all areas of your life. So making it a point to get the coaching, getting help, it's not just mindset. Coaching is not just for people who are struggling with something. Yes, we work on your weaknesses, but we also take what is working and we make it even better. So you need to do both. You need to do both. So put, take the bull by the horns and put deliberate effort and deliberate time into your mindset. And the best way to do it is by coaching.

I love it. And so when we talk about carrying the torch, we talk about carrying the light. The light, ladies and gentlemen, is mindset coaching and we hope that you guys all visit. It's WinningMindset.com WinningMindset.com WinningMindSet.com could be the light, could be the energy that carries you to bridge the gap from what you're trying to do. Gene Zanetti that was freaking awesome. I know. I learned. I feel like I grow. God bless you. We'll pray for you. I'm a daily communicant as well, just like your grandfather. And and I know that we are going to affect some people with this podcast. So thank you so much for being with us on the Get Attitude podcast.

Thank you for having me. God bless.