001 - Mitch Mathews - Cultivating Greatness

Hey, sweet. Well, thanks for being on, Mitch. I'm really excited to have you here. I would— I'm an avid BYU fan, especially when I was younger. And I remember probably seeing most of your games a lot. Oh, really? So, yeah, I— yeah, when it was my birth— I was like 8 years— no, when you were playing, I was probably like 12.

I'm not that old.

Come on now. But That would always be my birthday present. We lived in Idaho, but I'd always be like, Dad, um, give me tickets to go see the BYU game. So that was my childhood.

That was great, it was amazing, it was awesome.

All right, so let's just jump right into this. So high schoolers have an idea of what Division I sports, football, basketball, whatever, will be like. What was the thing that most surprised you when you got to BYU?

What shocked me is how naive I was about the whole process. You're so much smarter after coming out of an experience because you just, you know how it goes. And so if you got a second chance at something, you would do it a lot better. Unfortunately, you don't really have a second chance. So hopefully people hear my words and advice. When you're 17, you're 18, you're getting recruited to college. You have these grown men that are like pumping your head full of ego, chest bumping you, hugging and kissing mom and dad like, "Oh my gosh, your son is gonna be the next All-American. We can't wait to have him." And like, you do get this massive, massive ego. And then you get to college and you realize that was all just an act to get you in the door, just to get you there, which is fine. That's their job. Their job is to recruit you. But if I'm more aware of that's how it goes, then I just kind of go into it like, hey, thanks for the compliments, thanks for the words, thanks for being so great to me. But like, success is still on me. When I get to college, people— when I got to college, I think a lot of people assume like, well, wait, you were like obsessed with me like months ago, why aren't you obsessed with me now? And you realize they actually— a lot of times, like, you're a freshman, you're probably not gonna play. If you are playing, that means our team's not good enough, but you're probably not gonna play, and we're gonna treat you like a freshman. You're gonna be cleaning up the cash, you're gonna be the people in the back of the line. You get fed last, you get the least amount of help, least amount of attention. And so you're kind of just on your own, like you're really just on your own. And so the best advice I would give, and just my thoughts I would give, is you need to go into the next level sports, whether it's D1 or NAIA, and just say like, no coach is gonna like take me to success. It's all on— it's all on me. Like I gotta put in the extra hours, I gotta study, I gotta train. It's all on me. No coach is gonna like text me every night and check in like they do when I'm recruiting. Recruiting is not reality, but the actual experience when you're there is the coaches have to worry about keeping their job just as much as you have to worry about keeping your job. And so it is on you to be great without them, and they're going to come in and help and keep you accountable, but greatness is 100% on you.

I love that. It's like I don't know, sometimes it's the first step to growing up for kids too. They're like, oh, mom and dad's gone. I have to do this myself. My coach isn't gonna replace my dad as the father figure. Like you said, it's on you. And so I think that's really important for kids to realize it's 100% responsibility.

100% on you. And I like, and that's just a lesson I think for life in general. If you think that like it's someone else's responsibility or it's even partially someone's responsibility. It's like, think about the coach's life. Like, when you're actually at college now, you've moved on from high school, you're in college, you're at your university, your coach wakes up not thinking about you. He wakes up thinking about his own stresses, his own family, his own job. He comes to work, has to put his best foot forward so the head coach doesn't fire him, and that's like his worry. And so when he's there with you in your meetings like he's just there to make sure that you're doing a good job. He's not there to be your cheerleader. He's not there to wake you up in the morning or to make sure you're eating the right foods or to make sure your mind is like peak, peak. That's not his job. His job is to make sure that you are doing those things on your own. And so with second people, realize like, okay, business, life, as a dad, every— everything's really on your own. And you can obviously glean and find helpers, find mentors, find coaches that we can talk about that. But the reality is the basis is it is on me to be great and then use some helpers along the way.

I love that. I think that, I think if kids could understand that early in high school, that'd bring them so much farther along in their athletic career, but like past sports, just as a human being in general. So I think that's super good. Like, so let's go there. You mentioned food. You need to be making sure you're eating the right foods. Obviously, I'm a geek with that. I'm a sports nutrition coach. I help these high school athletes with this, 'cause it's not very focused on, especially in the country we live in. How did you handle nutrition in, while you were playing at BYU?

Uh, I was very dialed in. I was very dialed in with my nutrition. Um, I, I don't know if high school sports will ever have or ever be as nutritionally dialed in. It's because you're so young, you can really eat whatever, and you're typically just like good. Like, you get 2 hours of sleep, you had just as much energy. And so, um, but I think what's going to happen is as you get older, and I'm talking like in your in your 20s, you start realizing that like, I'm not eating food just to not get fat. Like, that's not the point. The point is I need to be 5% better. 5%. Like, if I got 5% faster, I would go from being— in the 40-yard dash, I'm a football player— I'd go from being a 4.45 40-yard dash guy to a 4.4. That's millions of dollars worth of value right there in that speed. That's 5% better. You know? Right. If I can have my body fat go from 7% to 6%, I mean, that's maybe 10%, but that's a big deal. And so I think when people think of nutrition, they think they have to be like bodybuilder, or they think, they're thinking on a too big of a scale. We're talking like the 5% gain. If my vertical jump can be 2 inches higher because my muscles are primed better through nutrition and hydration, that's a big freaking deal. If it's halftime and you feel kind of sluggish, but the other team doesn't, and you're 5% down, and they're— that defensive back— and I'm a wide receiver— the defensive back or the defense is 5% up, that's a 10% difference. That might cause them to win the game or make the big play in the big moment. So I just hope young people understand that, like, when you're young, yeah, you really can't eat whatever you want, But that's not the game. The game is, what do I need to eat and what does my hydration need to be like so that I'm 5 to 10% better than the competition or my teammate that wants my job? Does that make sense?

Totally. And I love that you hit on that because you're right. Young— I have a brother who's a high school athlete right now. He's a senior in high school. He can get away with eating whatever he wants. Like, I'll preach to him and stuff. I'm like, dude, you need this and this and this for— I'm like, your glycogen, your recovery, your sleep, like all of the, all of this like sciency stuff to him. And I'm like, this is what's gonna help you. And he'll do it 50% of the time, which is probably more than most athletes. But if they can learn that now. Great, great. Yeah. Like if they can learn it now and carry it over into college sports, like you said, those 5%, those 5% gains like make or break a career at times. That's a big deal.

It's very true. And here's why it's important is because when you go to college, there's 100 athletes on the college football team. I'll just talk football. We're all doing the same workouts. Like we show up together wearing the same uniform, like the same weightlifting uniform. We have the same warmup, the same stretch, the same workout. So we're all doing the same. In practice, we're all doing the same, the same amount of reps, the same, everything's same, same, same. When we're in the film room, we're watching the same. And so how can you stand out if we're all doing the same? You can't. So you have to think of ways to stand out because your coaches, they're not— they don't care enough. Like, they don't have enough time to care about every single person's nutrition and everything a single person's this. Their job is just to coach everyone the same in a massive group. Let's get everyone up to the same level. It's up to the individual to say, you know what, I don't want to be the same as all my teammates. I want to be that All-American, or I want to be that this. And I think what happens is like we think, well, well, this guy doesn't eat, so I don't have to. Well, this guy doesn't eat, so you have to know that your own makeup— this person might be a freak of nature and him eating gummy bears gets him to a different level. That might be the case for that person, but for 99.9% of the world, that's not, that's not it. And so it just comes down to the individual saying, we're all doing the same thing, what is my way to stand out? Nutrition, hydration, mental health, performance. What, what are my 5 to 10 percenters that are going to get me just barely over the hump? And nutrition was a big one for me in college at BYU and in the NFL. I, uh, always got to know the nutritionist really, really well. I was always on a nutrition regimen. The way I live my life now is different. I can explain that later, but In college, um, I had my nutritionist and he would give me what I would eat that day, and I would have to just copy and paste like the very foods he gave me. Like this many, this many crackers, this many pieces of deli meat on the sandwich, this many this, this many that. Like very, very dialed in regimen for sure. And it worked, it really, really worked. But what I realized is that it wasn't sustainable because I was— every time I wanted to go eat, I'm like, I'm not even hungry, I can't stand this. And you kind of have this burnout. Right. But when you're in college sports, if you want to stand out, you sort of have to play that game and do the things you don't want to do. Hope that was a long answer to your question.

Hopefully that was helpful. No, no. I literally, if I could, I would just drop the mic there. If I could have my athletes in front of you right now, they'd be like, this is why we're doing what we're doing. Because the ones who get it, like I'm working with, He's one of the best catchers in the country right now. He's going to Oregon State to play baseball.

Oh, he's definitely good then if he's going to Oregon State.

Yeah, he gets it. Like, he's dialed in with his training. We're getting him in the nutrition. Like, he gets it. And so those are the type of athletes, obviously, that I love to work with is because they're hungry for it. Like, they understand it's not just about the food they eat. Like, it's what that food does for them. Like, they see food as fuel. They don't see it as, like you said, something that's just going to keep them skinny or make them fat.

So it's also—

I love it.

Yeah, when you're younger too, you don't register the benefits as much. Like, when you get— let me— if you think of a 50-year-old person, they can eat poorly for a week and they'll probably be able to look at their body and be like, I can actually tell, like, I'm a little bit inflamed in the gut. I, I I could just tell. They can tell by their energy levels. They can tell if they, you know, if it was alcohol, they drank too much. Like, they can just tell. When you're a kid, you can't really tell. And so what is your instant feedback? It's by learning the science of it. Because when you feel something, you just do it. Like, I, I'm 32 now. When I was 18, I did not notice whether I was eating crappy or whether I was eating good because I was your 18, you're young, your body doesn't register it as much because you're just typically healthier, you're typically more energy, you're, you're typically just sleeping very deeply, you're just, you're just doing good, you're not as sore as much. When you're older, you get instant feedback. Like, yes, during the Super Bowl, I was on the seafood diet, just saw anything, I was eating it. That instant feedback was I had heartburn for like 24 hours. And so I'm like, okay, you're not doing that again, I'm gonna go clean for a week. When I was a kid, I would eat whatever and there was no instant feedback of heartburn.

There was no like, man, my It's crazy how fast it changes too, right?

My joints are sore and I notice— are like, man, I can look at myself and I can see my body's a little bit sloppier than I want it. You get instant feedback when you're older. When you're older, you're not an athlete anymore and it's too late. And so what, what, what— younger— the younger you are, you're gonna get less instant feedback. That's very important to remember. And so the actual study, meaning listening to Kelsey the actual coaching you get that talks about the 5 to 10% science, that is your instant feedback. You need to be able to have the— whoa, wait, I need the carbs after the workout if I'm trying to build muscle. I need this many grams of protein because what that does is it helps my muscles repair. And even though I might not feel as sore because I'm young, I'm going to be able to propel my body faster and and jump higher the next day, which will help me get that scholarship. You have to learn why it's important. When you're later in life, you feel why it's important. Does that make sense?

Oh, 100%, 1,000%. Thank you. To all my athletes out there listening to this, please pay attention to Mitch Matthews, 'cause that is what gave him success. That is so cool. So I want to kind of take that and say, okay, so fill in the sentence, Mitch. In high school, I am so glad that I blank.

Oh my gosh, man. In high school, I am so glad— I want to, I want to answer a few of these questions, but in high school, I am so glad that I played a ton of sports.

Explain on that.

In high school, I'm so glad I played a ton of sports. Um, I played football, I played baseball for the high school, I played basketball, I played a lot of tennis just for fun. Uh, I, during basketball season, I was doing football and I was doing baseball. My— your ability to recover when you're young is your gift. And so do a ton of stuff. You don't really start pulling hamstrings till you're in college and you're, you know, in the pros. Like, that stuff comes later. So you can just be a workhorse and you can just go experience and have a ton of fun. Um, that's one thing. I'm gonna keep going on these sentences.

Yeah, keep going.

Even before high school I took winning seriously. And I'm not asking parents to make life about win or lose for their kids. But when I was younger, my youth teams were typically always winning and undefeated. And then when we got to high school, we were typically winning or undefeated, and we won the state championship. And our high school had the most people go Division I. It is important to focus on winning when you're younger because it makes a sharper kid, you know. Yeah, it's not all about winning, it's about getting better, it's about having fun while you're doing it. But those principles can still be taught. And so parents, get your places— get, get your kids to places where they are winning. No, I don't mean you have to move your house and go find a, a travel team where there is winning happening, because there's something that happens when you're really young, when you're used to winning That's sort of just what you start looking for is the right people, the right coaches. You just want to be a part of a winning culture. And the lessons you learn as a leader later in life too about being on a winning culture, your value goes up. And so get to places where you're winning often and you're winning at a high level.

How did that— can I ask a follow-up question there? How do you feel like that? How do you feel like that? What's the right word, impacted your mindset as an athlete, your confidence as an athlete? Because all we know that like after, yes, you need the athletic ability, yes, you need the ability to recover and you need the skills and you need all that. But after that, like the best of the best are the ones who have the mindset to be there. How did that impact your mindset being in a winning culture?

Like, look, I just, I think of like, I played on the Cleveland Browns in the NFL and we didn't win a game. And I was also on the Kansas City Chiefs who are the new powerhouse in the NFL. When I tell stories of leadership, I talk about Andy Reid, the head coach of the Chiefs. I talk about the leaders and captains there. You don't give life lessons as much. From the, the, the, or leadership lessons as much from the losing team, if that makes any sense. So you're just putting yourselves in the right, the right ecosystem. Uh, you want coaches that really care about winning because coaches that really care about winning, man, they put extra time and effort and passion into you. Like, that's the energy that you want. You want coaches that really freaking care so that I can go be a coach that really cares for my kids and the, the the players that I coach. And I'm talking from like a really young level. If you don't feel like your, your youth teams are winning enough, well then go attend the camps where there's that winning mindset and that competition mindset. And so just surround yourself with a lot of winners at a young age. That's where you're going to glean the most lessons from. If there's winning people, that means there's winning coaches too. That means there's typically winning parents. It's just this whole ecosystem of winning, and you're going to pick out the most learnings from the winning organizations, not the cancerous losing ones, you know? Yeah, for sure. Oh, sorry to cut you off. I was just going to say, when coaches in college are recruiting, they don't go to the high school players who are 0-10 on their football season. That's very rare. They go to the perennial powerhouse winning teams and say Who are your top 10 guys? You know, people just want to be around winning culture and winning mindsets.

I love it. I, I agree with that. There's this school that we played against. So I play basketball, um, when I was in high school and college, and there's a school that we played against and they probably, I don't think they made it to state or won like conference for the last 20 years. Like they, they're just like in every single sport, they're just losers. And I don't think one athlete has ever come out of there and made it to college. And it is just interesting, like, hearing you say that and thinking about it.

Yeah. And think about, like, I, I genuinely, like, feel bad. I'm like, uh, that's just a rough ecosystem to be from. And there's, there's, there's less learnings, there's less leadership learnings, there's less— like, your, your skill set— let's say you leave football one day and you want to go start a business, you want leadership lessons if you're the leader of that business, or you're the leader of a family, you want to be around winners when you're young so when you're later in life you have a positive— you know how to handle a positive culture, you know how to create a positive culture. I'm so grateful for all the coaches I had, and I can pick out, you know, good, better, best, because I'm like, I can go take an Andy Reid style and I can bring it to my company now. But I'm so glad I was a part of a winning culture. And so finding ways to just be a part of winning culture— I'm not saying move your I'm not saying move states just to be a part of that. What I'm saying is scratch and claw and find ways to be a part of winning teams. AAU in basketball or travel baseball teams or 7-on-7 team, like whatever. Be a part of winning teams because that's where you're going to grab all the learnings from.

I love that. So you talk about, I've seen you say that the one difference you wish you would've had when you were an athlete was the competing versus the collaboration. How you, you, you talk about how you competed against other players. You saw other players as competition instead of like an opportunity to collaborate with them. Can you explain more about what you mean by that?

Totally. And I think it's important for people to understand that these are not blanket statements. They're, they're, they're, they're statements that have to be situational. When you're in the heat of battle, you are not a friend to the enemy, right? Like, that's, that's why competition's amazing and sacred, is when we're in between the spray-painted white lines in the football field, or you're in between the, the lines on, on the tennis court, or in basketball, your job is to win and to be the epitome of greatness and use all the hard work to be great. And your job is to compete at the highest level. The problem is because we celebrate competitiveness in practice and in the Games, people think that that's what you are the rest of your life and in the other parts of your life as well.

Right.

Um, and I want to give an example. Like, there is so much greatness out there that can be gleaned from. There is— if you're in Utah, you're in Idaho, you're in Oregon, you're whatever, and there is a total stud athlete that lives 2 cities away from you, the natural instinct is he's competition. Don't talk to him. Don't, don't, don't deal with him. You're supposed to hate him. As a matter of fact, talk bad about him. That's how everyone lives. Doesn't this sound normal? That guy's competition. He plays for the other team. He's got a scholarship. I don't. Let me hate on all of his abilities. Let me hate this guy. Let me, let me like, let me let it hurt me somehow that he's doing so well. That's just natural. That's how most people live their life.

Totally.

If I was to play a game with him, I'm gonna be as fierce as possible. And I'm gonna show people that I should have that scholarship or that I should have one too. But that's inside the white lines. That's inside the competition. The other 9 months of the year, hit that person up and learn from that person 'cause they have a scholarship that you want or they have an ability that you don't have. And it's less cancerous to hate on someone and say, you know, I'm actually gonna hit that person up. I'm gonna have my parents drive or I'm gonna drive myself to go do a workout once a week with that person. And actually us two together, this so-called competition who's now my friend, we're gonna get so good together that we actually separate ourselves so much that we're an inspiration to other people that actually wanna come work out with us or wanna come get better with us. Can you just like taste the difference there? It's massive.

Like, I wish someone could have told me that in high school. Like that, that could have made—

100%. And no one told me that either. That's why I'm telling it now. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so if I'm a college athlete, the natural instinct is I've been told by my coaches to dominate the competition. That the coach should have explained. That's in between the white lines. It's what you do. But the other 9 months out of the year, find ways to collaborate with people and get better together. Because the person with the courage to go collaborate— let the other people that are just doing their talking and hating on everyone, that's not them. The person has the courage to go collaborate with someone who's also really freaking good is going to separate themselves on a whole different wavelength. It's going to be magical. The problem is we just think competition is a blanket statement that says compete in everything in your life. And I'm, as one of the most competitive people people have ever met, I'm telling people that's not the way it is. It's a really good thought.

Yeah, totally. It reminds me of that quote of like, you're the average of the people, the 5 people that you spend the most time with. So if you surround yourself with winners, like you're saying, with like the best of the best, then obviously you're gonna raise yourself to that level as well.

So yeah, there is— there's not enough like time in this world to like live in a like, I hate everyone besides my teammates mindset. Like, it's really not how it is. But what's hard is when we, when we watch TV, the TV turns on, you see the game. Compete, and you see this high, high competition. I was at the Jazz game last night. They're playing the Golden State Warriors, who are unbelievable. It was fights and bickering and smack talking the whole entire time, the whole time. And so that's what people see, like, oh, two different teams, they hate each other, they compete. But in reality, you watch how those guys interact after the game, it's massive embraces, it's hugs, it's guys on the podcast together, it's guys working out together. But no one really notices that. They just notice like, oh, it's competition. I'm supposed to hate the competition. When in reality, these guys are learning from each other and they're collaborating and they're getting better together and they're working out in the off-season and that's how they raise their standards.

Interesting. That's so true. And I've never thought of that before until I saw you talk about it. So I hope that more people take note of that ability and that opportunity, cuz that, that would make such a difference in so many kids' lives. It'd be so cool to see.

It's cancerous to hate too, man. It's just, it's just not— there's no— there's literally no point. Like, it's— yeah, I do it in business now. Like, the, the people that are so-called competition, like, they're the same people at my house for dinner, and I'm getting great information from them about how they're doing things, and I'm giving great information to them, and both parties are so much better than if we would have just hated on each other. And it's so funny how um, I will be hanging out with the competition. They're over at my house for dinner or at a workout, and I'll get text messages from other people that say, why are you hanging out with them? Literally, as if it's a sin, when in reality it's like, we're going to compete when it's time to compete, and we both know that. But right now we're not competing, and so we're going to collab and both become better. And he's going to share best practices, and I'm going to share best practices, and we're both better.. And so it takes the courage for people to step out of this and say, we don't need to be competing 24/7. There's actually information or skills that I can learn from that athlete over there. I want to go glean them for myself and bring them back to my community and back to my people. It just, it just takes courage to get there.

No, I'm going to definitely be applying that to my life too, because it's so true. I've just a lot of times seen people as competition, not as opportunities to learn from. Um, let's, um, let's imagine for a second that you are, um, that you have this sophomore in high school that you, um, just this random sophomore that was going to come to live with you. And maybe they're kind of walk-on material, they're not super great yet, they're not getting looks from many people, but they want to be one of the best of the best and get a full-ride scholarship to Big 12 school. What would you do with them? How would you get them there?

So let me, let me ask, well, just to clarify questions, you're saying I have a sophomore, they're an athlete, they want to go Division I, but their— is it, you said their skill level, like physical skill level is less, or really anything?

Yeah, they're just kind of one of those average kids who might be able to have a chance of walking on somewhere, but who really is not standing out.

Yeah, cool. Gotcha. Um, I think it's a loaded question, so let me just— let me, uh, let me sort of find it as I, as I ramble on here.

Yeah, yeah, you're good. That is a loaded question.

Uh, if you weren't as fortunate— and I think it's okay to talk about luck sometimes in sports because sports takes a ton of luck. If you weren't as fortunate that you're 5% body fat and you can eat whatever you want and you're 6'5", 220 lbs. and you can jump out of the gym— if that wasn't you, you can spend most of your time saying, I'm unlucky, why did he get so lucky, why did she get all these gifts, why did— why, why, why, why, why, why? Like, just by asking those questions, you're already putting yourself in an even bigger deficit.

Okay.

Um, so that's number one is just, just recognizing that like certain people are handed certain things literally just at birth. They didn't do anything to earn them and it's fine. They've been given those gifts. But to make a great athlete that coaches want on their team, it's not just those gifts. And so if you're, if you're seeing yourself, you know what, I'm not the tallest, not the biggest, not the fastest, not the strongest. This person's been given this, this person was given this, I seem to be given a little bit less. Like God poured a little bit less into the speed category for me, or a little bit less in the height category for me. That's fine. Um, it's okay to recognize that, you know what, I'm, I'm in a little bit of a deficit from some of these other kids. But my practice is, in what other areas can I be greater than them at? And I'll go back to the— I watched Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors last night. The two best players on their team— if there's 25 athletes on the basketball court, the two best highest paid players on the team are Klay Thompson and Steph Curry. Highest paid. I watched them. They were 10 feet away from me. They were the shortest or the smallest. They weren't even the fastest, but they have a skill in their sport that's so astronomically higher. That's why they made it. And let me just give you an example. There are things you're born with, like your muscle fiber twitchiness, your height, your just overall athleticism. But unless you're in track and field where it just, just comes down to those things, Yeah, then it might be tough to beat those people. But you're probably in a sport like soccer, which there's athletic ability, which is a good baseline to have, but it comes down to skills. There's basketball where it does help to be taller, does help to jump higher, but then there's skills. In football, it does help to be bigger, it does help to be faster, it does help to be stronger, but then there's skills. So I think people think like, oh, this guy's been given height and strength and whatever, I'm always going to be below them. What people have to understand is it comes down to skills. The highest paid players on the basketball floor last night, they do not have the highest vertical jump, they're definitely not the fastest, they're definitely the biggest, but they can shoot the basketball so much better— not barely better, but so much better than everybody else. The coach says, okay, I'm sorry, really good athlete, you're just not as good of a basketball player as this person. And so here's my answer: have an obsession with the amount of skills or the greatness and depth of a skill. I'll say it again: have an obsession with the amount of skills you can accumulate or a depth at one specific skill that makes you that freak of nature. Steph Curry couldn't hang in the NFL, but he is one of the best athletes in the world and one of the best athletes of all time. Because athletes does not necessarily mean you have the highest vertical jump or you're the fastest. Tom Brady is a horrendous athlete, but he's one of the best athletes of all time. Does that make sense? And so if you feel like your predisposition is like, man, I'm just not as high, I can't jump as high as this person, I'm not as fast as this person, and that's just your mindset— first of all, you're already in a negative predisposition. I want to see that those people say, you know what, I'm not as fast as this guy, I'm not as tall as this guy, I'm not as strong as this guy, but I can control being a 70% 3-point shooter. I can control being 90% from the free throw line. I can control my shots on goal in soccer are 50% higher than everybody else. I can control in volleyball my dig rates and my defense is at this percent. I, I can control that because that's not freak of nature. That's not, that's not athletic ability, that is skills. And so have an obsession with skills. I also saw one of the leading scorers last night. I tapped my friend on the shoulder. I'm like, dude, how does this guy make it to the NBA? I saw that when he walked on the court, he was the shortest guy, and I'm like, this guy looks like he's never played a sport in his life, and he's— he couldn't miss a shot. I'm like, well, that's why he's on the court, because his skill level is so high. When I played football in the NFL, and I know this is a long answer to your question, you look at every team, there's 60 guys on a roster. Every team has this. There's like 5 guys on every 60-person NFL team that are freaks of nature. You just look at them, you're like, oh my gosh, like, you are out of this world. Well, they just got lucky. That's great. They're going to get paid their millions and millions of dollars. We're going to celebrate them. The other 90% of the team is— everyone's about the same in terms of athleticism. Great athletes, but we're all about the same in terms of athleticism. Then there's your bottom 5% where you're like, I don't even know how that guy made it here. Then you watch him play his sport and you're like, that's why he made it here, because he's so skilled. And so if you feel like you're like less of an athlete If you feel like you're a little bit behind, you are still 1 million percent in control of the amount or the depth of a skill that you have. List out the skills it takes to be great at soccer. List out the skills. And skills is not height, skills is not speed. List out the skills. How good are you at blocking in volleyball? How good are you at passing? How accurate are you at setting in volleyball? How— what is your hitting percentage in baseball? You look at some baseball players' bodies and they're legitimately overweight, but you're like, let me take a peek at that guy's hitting percentage. That's why he's in the MLB. So it's a skills game. And so have the courage and the confidence of, I might be a little bit behind in the, in the, the athlete department, but my skills game is so head and shoulders above everybody else that colleges can't pass up on me. And even if they didn't give me a scholarship because I'm not a freak of nature, just wait till they get me on the roster. I will outshoot, I will out-hustle, I will out-pass, I won't turn the ball over, and I'll be perfect in 20 categories when everyone else has 3 things they're good at. They're tall and they're fast, but I'm gonna be the best at everything else. Does that make sense?

Oh yeah, I love that because it gives them— it puts them in the driver's seat. I think a lot of kids almost use that as a cop-out. Or like an excuse to not chase after greatness or not work hard at those skills or those different things because they say, mm, kind of screwed from the beginning. I just don't have the genetic makeup to be a star, you know? And so I think it really does, like your answer just kind of took that platform that some kids stand on to make excuses and cut it out from underneath them. So I think it's great.

Um, if you have time for one more question. So just to piggyback this.

Yeah.

I have time for a few more, but I wanna answer or, uh, share this with you. We had, when I was at BYU, we had a, uh, mental performance coach. Mm-hmm. And he said that talent is simply the number of skills that you have, the number of skills that you have. And so if your obsession is, if you wanna be talented, the first inclination is like, who's the tallest, biggest, fastest, strongest, they're the most talented. Where talent is actually the number of skills that you have. Let's say I'm a B- athlete, but I have 20 skills. I can shoot, pass, dribble. I have a higher IQ. I've studied more. I'm harder working. I have just a longer list of skills but the freak athlete is just big, fast, strong.

Yeah.

I have more skill, so I am actually more talented. And so the obsession should be, how can I gather more skills that'll exalt me to actually be the most talented player?

Love it.

Little mindset shift.

So you, you mentioned the mental performance coach, um, and it just having watched you, having seen you even after you have retired from your career of being a football player, you've got a great mindset. And I remember you talking about— it's a while, maybe it was, I don't know how long it was— but I remember you talking about your mom and you saying how growing up your mom would always say, oh, Mitch is a star, he's smart, he's going to be a pro football player one day. Those external like statements that your mom would say turned into your internal beliefs. What— how did, how did that shift? How did that help your mindset to become a college football player, an NFL football player through what your mom said?

Yeah, that's a great question. I had great parents. Like, I had an amazing childhood. I had parents who were also college athletes. And so there's sort of a— I'll explain something first, then I'll get back to your question. But there's something that happens when you're exposed to knowledge. My grandpa, both my grandparents were good high school athletes. They played high school sports, right? They were probably the best on their team, but they never made it to college. And so what they do is they take their experience of being the best in their high school teams and they teach my dad how to leapfrog them. My other grandma and grandma taught my mom how to leapfrog them. And my mom and dad both played college sports at Southern Utah, which I think was Division III at the time. And so my dad and my mom, through their experience, say, well, here's all the things that I learned. Hindsight is 20/20. But guess what? I have kids that are coming, so that hindsight 20/20, I'm going to pass it on to my children. And so both my brother and I were able to take their knowledge of Division III sports and go Division I and even to be professional. And so my kids, if they wanted to— I'm not saying this is how it has to work, but if they wanted to, I have the knowledge to give them to go play professional sports. And so there's sort of like a leapfrogging effect that happens.. And so first and foremost, parents, if you have like no expertise or if you have like no background in that, make sure your kids are around people who can give insights on how to leapfrog them. That's first and foremost, you know? And so my parents had that. And so when they have the information, you freely give it. And so my parents knew mindset because they played college sports. And so from a very young age, They taught me how to overcome trials. They taught me how to have peak confidence. They would speak, and I didn't even know they were doing this, but the way that they would talk to me like on a broken record, I had no choice but to believe in myself because all I ever heard was, uh, how awesome I was at this sport, how good I did, or how much potential I had, or how if I if I kept my life in order, I could be somebody. And how, how if I didn't play the best, what to do to then become the best the next game and how to overcome that. So just, I was just bathing in this self-talk from them. I didn't know what they were doing. And a lot of times it was all, it was like cheesy or odd, like, Mom, stop. Like, Dad, just stop. Like, I get it, you know. But, and I had no idea. But then I realized when I got to college and you're put up against the fire of like coaches that are yelling in your face. You're like, that's why my parents did that. They're going to keep me above sort of the BS. They're going to keep me peak confidence even after a loss, or they're going to keep me peak confidence even after injury. They're going to keep me up there. And so that was a very young age that my parents were doing those types of things for me. And so the best thing a parent can do is just speak so highly of your kids to directly to them. And there are oblivious parents, you know, that only speak good things and that they don't know how to hold their kids accountable. And so their kids live in la-la land and they're actually not good at something, but their parents say that they are. And it's actually better to be radically honest with your kids about things.

Yeah, it seems to happen a lot.

Yeah. And the parents have an inflated mindset of their kids. All I'm saying is just talk to your kids about how awesome they can be, about reinforcing when they played really good, about how to overcome trials. But tell them how good they can be if they continue to work at it. And that's the greatest thing my parents gave me. And that's the dialogue that now that my parents don't live with me anymore, that's dialogue I have to give to myself when times are hard. This is what I can be. This is what I can do. My parents' external words were my internal words, and that's what stayed with me. And now I hope to give my kids this sort of hindsight is 20/20. I have some of that. I can't go back and play sports again, but I have the information so the people after me can, you know? Yeah, sort of create a leapfrog effect. People that are listening to me today can, can have that too.

So you, you mentioned your daughters. Um, you have two daughters, right, so far? 2 kids? Yeah. Awesome. Um, what— going off of that, piggybacking off of what you just said, what is the external dialogue you're going to be giving your 2 girls as they grow up?

Uh, yeah, my wife does an amazing job. We have daily affirmations for our girls. It's not like a military regime or like— it's like a dedicated time It's just as they're brushing their teeth, when they wake up in the morning, as they're eating, if you just remember to— hey, you know what, I feel like I need to do my affirmations today. Well, then you're in the middle of working, well then get up and just do your affirmations with your kid. Tell them how amazing they can be if they do these certain things. And, uh, yeah, not a day goes by where our kids don't feel like they can do whatever they want to do in this world, you know. And, uh, that's just from a very young age, that's what we're instilling in them. And, uh, hopefully it works. Can you go too far and everything? Yeah, you can be the, the overly egotistical parent that's naive, uh, and just believes their kid is perfect. Well, that's not true. Yeah, there also needs to be a ton of accountability too. But, uh, some parents are the opposite— it's only accountability and it's zero love. It's just, it's a harmonious balance of the two. It's telling people your kids what they can be and how awesome they can be if they continue to work at it. And so I know how powerful that's been to me. And so I definitely can't leave my kids out of the loop. I'm going to definitely tell them what they can be in this world.

Yeah, I love high expectations, right? That's how it works. I'm excited to raise— I just had a kid. I have a 1, a 7-month-old little boy. It's going to be really fun. Oh, thanks. It's gonna be really fun. I, I love that you said the leapfrog thing, just teaching him all the wealth of knowledge that I have and that I'm learning from people like you, and giving him everything that he needs to, to succeed if he wants to in his list life. So, um, one more question for you, and then I appreciate your time, and then I'll let you go. But I'm gonna quote you on this. I, I saw this, that you said this, and Recently you were walking in the mountains barefoot with what, 200 guys? I saw that post.

It was no shirt, shorts only.

Okay. It wasn't barefoot. I was thinking, okay, I get so cold. Okay. Half naked. But you quoted, it says consistent plus a little crazy. Do the same thing for a long time. You'll see results. Do the crazy thing every once in a while. And you get to see what you're made of. So my question for you is, what experience made you add the crazy in?

I just think that was radically authentic to me. I've always been a little bit out there, and whether that's in fashion or like my opinions or my views, and I'm loud about it, and I just think it's this harmonious balance of I know what consistency has done for me, like day in and day out from like 10 years old until I was 27 years old, of, of consistent hard work, uh, through middle school, high school, college, NFL. I know what that did to me, but I also know that, uh, in the hard work, in the trenches um, you sort of can lose your identity. You can sort of lose like why you're doing it. You're just kind of in this habit. And so when you sort of pull yourself out and you go for these records, you go do something crazy hard, you, you sort of, you go to your limits, uh, every once in a while, you can sort of temperature gauge like, man, I actually don't have as mental, as much mental strength as I thought I did because I actually realized I quit early on things. When other people keep going. But I would have never known that unless I would have gone for something big and tried this. Or, man, I, I went to, to find my, my max on something, and I realized that I'm not actually strong as I thought I was. So I need to tweak some things to then be consistent at to reach my full potential. So, um, when it's just consistent work day in and day out you sort of forget what you're going after. And then there's this once a year or once a quarter test yourself, see what you're made of. And it's sort of a recalibration, like, man, I, I'm actually not as close I thought I was, or man, I'm actually way farther ahead than I thought I was. And it's sort of through doing this crazy— and your crazy can be in your own way, whatever you come up with— it's sort of finding what you're made of. And then you go back to the hard working and say, you know what, I didn't love how I— who I showed there. I'm gonna fix that through my hard work and my consistent effort, you know. And then you go for a big record or challenge again, then you, you accomplish it. And it's sort of this harmonious balance of how far can I go, and then I'm going to show my hard work to be able to consistently accomplish things.

Yeah, it reminds me of— I, I'm gonna butcher the quote, but it's when someone's like, you gotta— you almost gotta check the ladder that you're climbing. If you climb the ladder, um, and you just keep climbing it, keep climbing it, not really paying attention to what you're actually doing, you're gonna like get to the top and realize you're, you're— you climbed the wrong wall, right? And so I love that you almost do check-ins with yourself and how, how would have you applied that to your 17-year-old self?

Um, yeah, it takes courage at such a young age because your life typically is pretty comfortable.

Yeah.

Um, meaning like you just go to school and people tell you what to do. You come home, people tell you what to do. You know, like you go to practice, people tell you what to do. You don't have anything that you're doing really on your own. And then what you realize is once you leave college, NFL, or sports in general, you go into a world where nobody is telling you what to do anymore. I don't have— I mean, I've created a situation where I have a lot of mentors and coaches in my life now, but most people go from being told what to do in class, at home, and in practice. You don't have to think. You just go show up and teachers, parents, and coaches will force you to do what they needed you to do. There's a point where you leave that eventually and no one's telling you what to do. And so when you're younger, the more you can stand alone and really test yourself to see what you got inside when no coach or no parents or no teacher is telling you what to do, that's a humongous sign of maturity. And I never really had that as a kid. I had different signs of things that made me more mature, but I always was just swarmed with coaches and swarmed with great parents and swarmed with teachers and like this, you know, getting the best out of me. Um, but it wasn't until I started taking accountability and saying that's going to end one day, no one's gonna be telling me what to do anymore, and I can't just I can't not be great. And then I realized, like, this whole thing is just— it's on me to figure out what's inside of me. And then I started becoming a way better athlete when I started testing myself on my own terms to find out what I was made of, instead of just being a product of a teacher, parent, a coach, you know. So it takes courage, but someone's got to go to the gym by yourself and put up the 500 shots when the coach doesn't tell you. It's nutrition and sleep. When a coach or a parent isn't forcing you to eat certain foods, like that athlete that can step out and say, I'm going to do these things on the side and on my own when no one's telling me, that's what makes someone just above and beyond great. When they're doing things on their own, on their own will, they invited themselves to the gym to put up 500 shots. They invited themselves to go to the store with their parents to find the right food, or in college to find the right food. They went and called their own nutritionist because they knew it was all in here to begin with. And so those athletes that do those things on their own are typically the ones that mature a lot faster because they're used to doing things without being told by someone to do them.

Yeah, as I've been listening to you answer all of these different questions, the biggest takeaway that I get from you is You are in charge of your own future. Like, you are, you are 1,000% responsible for your success. And I think if anyone, athlete, human being, like, who in the work workplace, anyone who's listening to that, if like we were to really take that to heart, we'd have a lot more successful people out there and a lot less victims. So, um, awesome, Mitch. Is there anything, is there anything else that you Any other nuggets? You've given us so much already. Is there anything else that was on your mind that you would like to tell my audience?

I always have a lot on my mind, Kelsey.

That's the problem.

I say too much. I would always say that if I mean, if I could leave anybody with anything, it typically is always this. It's typically Everything in your mind is created, or sorry, everything in the world is created in the mind before it's created in reality. And I mean that in a very literal sense, like a very literal sense, not like, oh, dream big or dream. Yes, but those have almost become cliché. What I'm saying is your mind is so freaking powerful. It happens, your world happens, your goals happen literally in your mind first. And then they translate to reality. And I can give a quick short story. When I was in college, I came in as the slowest freshman on the team. BYU told me I wasn't fast enough. The University of Oregon told me I wasn't fast enough. I came in, hands down, there's 12 wide receivers, I'm number 1 slowest. I mean, I knew it, everyone knew it, that wasn't a big deal. It just was what it was. I was 18, I knew I had some time. And for 4 years straight, I told myself, I'm the fastest player on this team. I'm the fastest player on this team. I'm the fastest player on this team. And so what that did is I literally created my reality in my mind. And your mind is so powerful, it can change the way you physically look. It can change your reality. Like, I'm not— this is not wooey maybe stuff. This is as real as it gets.

Yeah.

For 4 years, at class, at practice, going to bed, brushing my teeth, I'm the fastest player on this team. I'm the fastest player on this team. I'm the fastest player on this team. And my physical body began to change. I would look at myself in the mirror, and even though I was doing the same workouts as everybody else, my body changed at a very, very rapid rate. The muscles for producing linear speed grew at a very abnormal rate because you can actually change your physical body by what's happening in your mind. I didn't tell myself 3 times that I was the fastest player on this team. I told myself for 4 years straight, I'm the fastest player on this team. And I said it with confidence, even though it still wasn't true yet. I was a sophomore and it still wasn't true. In my mind, it was true. So my body, my cells, they're going to start to adapt. When I drink the protein, my body knows what to do with it. It's supposed to go to the muscles specifically responsible for being faster. When I would, when I would train, I would train a little bit more focused on that because that's where my mindset was. And I became the fastest player on the team. Everyone knew it. I went from everyone knowing I was the slowest in the receiver room to being not only the fastest in the receiver room, but the fastest on the entire team. And it was because everything was born here. I told myself since I was 10 years old I was gonna go play in the NFL. It was real in my mind, and so it became real in reality. And so I've used the word courage a lot, but it takes radical courage to be a little bit weird. Like, it's a little bit weird to, to care about nutrition because most people don't. So have the courage to do that weird thing, which is caring about the nutrition at a young age. It's a little bit weird to tell yourself all day long for 4 years that you're the fastest person on this team when it's not true at the time. It's a little bit weird to dream crazy big. It is a little bit strange, but it takes the courage to just sort of go there, and your body can radically change. Ray Lewis, one of the best football players of all time, says that when he would get injured— and he got injured a lot in his career, but he played for 20 years at the most dangerous position in the NFL, which is the middle linebacker. 20 years. He says that when he got hurt, he'd put his phone away, he'd go in his room and lock himself for months at a time. And obviously he would leave his room, but he would go into his room as his sanctuary, and he would talk to the body part that got injured. He would talk to it like it was another human and talk to his knee about how it was healing faster, about how great and how healthy it was, and how explosive that knee was that he just injured. And he would talk to himself all day long and he would recover faster and come back and play at a high level. So all these weird things that, you know, kids a lot of times think things are so weird and parents are so weird for saying that, and this is so weird and it's not cool. Those, the very things that typically aren't cool is exactly what you should be doing to become great. Yeah, that's just what it is. And so be a little bit weird with it. Tell yourself that you're great well before you even are. For 10 years, tell yourself that you're gonna go be a professional in this sport, or you're gonna be Division 1, or you're gonna go do these great things in life. Tell yourself all day— I tell myself every day a list of 50 things that, that I am as a person, and my body and my mind and my reality is changing before my eyes. It's just, it's a crazy thing, but we're all completely in control of it in our minds. So if I could leave everyone with that, that's what I'd say.

I, I love it. It's— I, I don't even think I want to add anything on to that just because it's literal truth. It's like the speaking to plants study, like people who spoke encouragement to plants time after time versus not, those plants grew better. And so that's something I'm personally applying to my own life and learning more and more about, of how literal of it— like, we have to create it, a vision in our minds, before it can ever be born into reality. And if people—

yeah, I have the courage to be weird.

Yeah. Imagine if kids could grasp that and how, how insane that they, yeah, of results they could see through that. Well, Mitch, thanks so much for being on. Thank you. Really appreciate your time. I, I got loads and loads of wealth of information from this and I'm, I'm sure so many other people will too. So I appreciate you taking your time outta your day to be here and talk to us.

Thank you. Anytime.