Challenging Yourself Through Uncomfortability

I'm Kristjana Hillberg, and this is I Fucking Knew, a show where we break down life's unexplainable moments, the times when you knew something was off but couldn't put your finger on it, and when your gut feeling was just too loud to ignore. Each episode features a guest who shares how their intuition showed up for them. These are the moments that change our lives forever. Ready to strengthen your intuition?

Other coaches are more popular with players, so like players will like text or call them more often, but like when they need something, that's when they call Gussie.

Mm-hmm.

Like when something goes wrong or they need answers, that's when they call me. So other people can be more buddy-buddy, but like when it's more serious or they need some like guidance or answers, so like all through these years, it doesn't even matter where I knew them from, Like that's when they pop up. They're like, hey Gussy, can we talk? Yeah, I got you. So I take on that mentor role.

Oh yeah, well, and I'm even just trying to learn those questions in my personal life because I think that all of us usually have the answers already within us. It's what people ask us, how to like, that pulls it out of us, right? So instead of people just like talking at you and telling you what you need to do or how you could change, Instead, it takes one question that could change your whole perspective.

Yep.

So I'm trying to learn how to ask the right questions, not just on the podcast, but as a remote worker with my clients and stuff. I'm like, how can I ask the right questions instead of just giving information that's just here and over there?

I always— I've been trying to talk to Claire about this because Um, oh, I'm sorry, we have some different, uh, personalities around us. And I was like, you have to ask the right questions to guide them. You know what answer you want them to get to, you know what the final point is, but you can't walk in and tell them the answer because then they don't want to hear it or they're not owning it. So honestly, the last time Braddock and I talked One of my best things for him was I said, ask Allie questions. You know what you want her to say or where you want to get her to, but you can't walk in and just put that on the table. So just kind of ask the right questions, guide her, and then now she feels like she's controlling things, she's empowered, but the answers are what— or the discussion that you want to get to is now more easily digestible, you know? So, yes.

No, I love that. What about, would you say that over the years, how many years have you been coaching and teaching?

Uh, coaching might even be a little longer because I probably got into coaching like as I was, you know, becoming a teacher. Uh, so coaching pretty much pushing on 20 years or so now. Wow. I know, I'm old.

Old. How old were you when you lived in our tiny little town.

That's just it. Like, so I think I mentioned to you, when you mentioned you were 30 or pushing up on 30, I was like, wow, that's my time. Like, I was 30.

You were 30?

Yeah. And so a little time frame here. So I, I get my undergrad degree in philosophy with a minor in psychology, right? And here's the, here's the basics. When you get a degree in philosophy, what do you do with that? You either stand on street corners and spew your like rhetoric, right, and get quarters thrown at you, or you go and become a professor, right? Well, becoming a professor was not in the, uh, financial plan at that time, even though I loved education. Like, I loved being in college, right? So then after about 6 months or a year, I was actually coaching some guys And one of my former teachers said, you have a great rapport, these kids respond to you. And she was like, you should look into teaching, like, you don't have a career right now, like, it could be a really good opening for you. And so I got a teach— in my teaching degree right after that. And then this is one of those crazy ones. Washington was just not in a hiring pool, like, everyone who teaches in Washington teaches forever. So I started applying up and down the West Coast and in Arizona. Got a random call to a place in the middle of nowhere, right? And I was like, you know what, I'm like, you know, mid-20s, I need a teaching— I need a job. Um, let's go try it, right?

Yeah.

And I have no idea where I'm going to, right? And so they hired me for that. Joe City was my first head coaching job.

Really?

Yep.

Wow, that's so crazy. Okay, because the people love you and they love you, like everything about you. Were you—

Danger, dangerous right now. We're in a danger zone right now. Okay.

Oh my gosh. Were you super open with the boys that you were coaching? Like, did they ask you personal questions? Was it pretty like Very, uh, teacher-student, like, don't know, you know, we don't talk about my personal life.

Uh, I'm gonna say two sides of the same coin. So first of all, and I still do this, you know, I teach AP Human Geography, and so we talk a lot about culture and religion in that class. And there's, there's some, I'll say, highly motivated, highly intelligent young students. So we talk about like the same things we're talking about now. We're We're talking about it in an AP Human Geography class, which is great, right? But then when they ask me, "Hey, Gussie, you know, what do you believe?" Or they'll come out and say, "What religion are you?" That's still an off topic. I still don't open that can of worms in my classroom. So pretty much the same thing I would have said to you like 10, 12 years ago is after you graduate or after you go to college, come back, we'll have a cup of coffee. So my basic thing in the classroom is I don't want my kids to ever know what I believe because then I'm not doing my job teaching the course. So if they don't, if they don't know, I'm actually doing my job. So when it comes to politics, religion, I keep all that very personal. That's not something that is part of the equation for me and my students or my players. But on the flip side, I think you remember this, you know, I welcomed my players into my house. Like, they see my family, they see me in a personal way. I spent a lot of time with my players. Like, that's really one thing that I'm hard on them for 2 hours at that practice time, but hopefully they also saw me in a lot of other ways so that they knew me in a personal way. Because that was a big thing I always talked about. If I feel like I'm gonna have the right to really be hard on a player and push them to their limits, they have to know me and trust me, and that comes from off the court. So yeah, I wanted my players to come talk to me during school, to stop in when I'm done doing my teaching lesson. We'll chat, we'll talk about their classes, their mom and dad, their girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever it might be. Thank you. And so I wanted them to know me in a personal way because You really can't— like, almost like, like with Brandon, like a brother. You can't push somebody if they don't know you care about them. Yeah, like they have to know that if you're really getting on them for something, they've got to trust it's coming from the right spot. So, um, you know, I tried to always have an open door where they could stop by and hang out. Um, not like buddy-buddy, but I guess a team come over for like a barbecue or different things. So So it's kind of both sides. Would they know some of the, like, deeper things? Probably not. But would they know me in a personal way? Yeah, definitely.

I mean, you were married before. Like, you were married to somebody different living in Joseph City. Have you ever, like, opened up about that and your experience? Did any of your former students who were super close to you, like, want to know about that?

So I always tell people, my first marriage failed. I failed. There's no like emotional part of it. It's a matter of like truth, you know, like realistically, we got married, it didn't work. I failed at that part. Many of my former players looked at me in like a role model mentor role. Yeah, like that was a major thing. And so it was tough for me because now I had to look them in the eye and say, I didn't do a good enough job in this phase of my life. Like, you know, many of them did not have strong male role models to look at. So I always took it very seriously. Like, we can just joke about, like, I try to be— have, like, my own moral code. I tried to live a certain way. I didn't drink, I didn't curse. Like, I tried to set the example, ate right, worked out, read, like, did all the self-development stuff so that, like if they were looking around and they wanted like an image or somebody to look to, that hopefully I was fitting all those like check marks, you know?

Yeah.

So, so to have to look at them and say I failed at something that's pretty vitally important to in our society, you know, it was, it was a tough one. It was a tough call or a tough communication to have to say to some people, um, because I didn't want that, that to like, I don't know, break our trust. Or change how they perceive me. But yeah, I had to be very open and honest.

Makes you human though, because I even just from like my lens, you were that person. Like you were very on the outside, like you didn't ever cuss or like you were always put together in like every aspect, you know what I mean? You always like had your cool And I mean, I had teachers who like threw books across the room and it was like, oh shit, like that person's mad, which I don't ever remember. Like you were always just very like consistent and with everything. And so I think that that part almost was the real and the raw that like brought you back to being human because I think that it could have been or at least it seemed that it was like, here's Gussy, like this role model, upstanding citizen. Not saying that if you get divorced now, all of a sudden you're like a shit citizen. That's not what I'm saying. But do you know what I mean?

I do. And here's what I also realized at that same time period. My marriage did fail. Gussy, right? And I had actually like internalized unconsciously that I couldn't let it down. Like I couldn't make mistakes. Like it was expected that Gussy got up at 4:30 and was already sending out like motivational messages by 5:00.

Right.

And no coach outworked me. Like nobody worked longer hours than I did. And all of a sudden I was like realizing I'm doing this not because I think it's the right thing, it's because I think I'm expected to do it. And that puts a lot of pressure. So I realized that I wasn't just grinding because I enjoyed it. I was grinding just to grind. And that was, that was a tough one. And during that time period, and hopefully this will get in there, I had to like take a step back and I joked to myself that I was like a country song. Like my marriage failed, my coaching job got taken away. I actually did not have a teaching job at that time. My friends lost my dog. Um, like, there's one— there's one of those moments where you're like, I don't know what else could go wrong right now. I think I've hit bottom. I think— I, I think I'm at ground zero. So if you talk about starting fresh, uh, here we are.

Yeah.

So, um, and I can joke about it now, but at the time, I remember sitting in— again, a former student athletes, like their guest house, a family that like really cared about me. And I was sitting on the bed in their guest house and I looked around and I was like, is this where I'm supposed to be? Like, I was just turning, or I was like 36, and I was like, I looked around and I was like, is this where my path has like supposed to put me, you know? It is, it's one of those where, I mean You gotta get smacked in the mouth sometimes to figure some stuff out. It was an eye-opener, you know. A lot, you know, you feel like things are going well for you for a long time, and, um, you know, going back to the Joe City, if you think about it, I went from being a small school 1A coach, and then I was fortunate, I jumped all the way up to a 4A coach, and then I got a junior college job, and I got a junior college head job. And, you know, you look at it from a professional way, you're just thinking to yourself, hey, I'm just climbing and everything's going positive, like I'm not saying we're going undefeated, but like the path is where I'm supposed to be going. And then all of a sudden, you know, and on a personal life, I thought things were going in a similar way, like growing, growing, growing, and everything's going the right direction. So it's, uh, it's powerful when you get smacked in the mouth, you know. And yeah, I said this even back then. It's one thing when like a professional hit gets you. Okay, I got fired as a head coach. Okay, I'm not the first guy to get fired, I'm not the last one, I'm gonna find a new job. But the personal one was definitely a different gut punch. It was a different affect inside of me. And that one took me some time to digest and to see I remember thinking to myself, I send out all these quotes to all my players to remind them of all these like key core essentials, and I said, I have to flat out live this. Like I thought I was, but now it's like, okay, now I need to go back and reread all these same things I've been telling my players to do and to think about and hopefully get them in the right mind frame. And I was like, I have to do the exact same thing, you know. And unfortunately, I've said— I've used analogy before, you know. When does an alcoholic or an addict oftentimes make changes? It's not till they really hit rock bottom. If they can get away with things or slide by, or it's good enough, or they're the quote-unquote functional, they're not gonna make changes. It's when, like, some things powerful happen in their life, um, that makes them like open their eyes. And I'm, I'm giving the extreme examples, but I think that happens to a lot of people where it's easy when you can kind of ride the wave, right? When the wave is kind of smooth, yeah, it's a little— it's not, it's not perfectly calm, but you're riding the wave and their momentum's going good and you can just keep riding the wave. And then all of a sudden when that tidal wave hits you, then all of a sudden things change. And you have to really see, have you been doing the work you were always talking about when that tidal wave hits?

So our last convo, you were talking about teaching your girls how to ask questions always and like not even have a box. But as you're talking now, it almost seems like you were putting yourself into a box of like, this is how I am. I get up at 4:30. I will not accept failure kind of thing. So How did— do you say that, or do you think that you kind of hitting rock bottom was your, like, oh, I— like, I mean, failure is inevitable. We all fail. We have to fail to learn. I mean, at least from my perspective, my first marriage was a failure, and I knew getting into my second one exactly what I was not gonna do. And so it was like I needed to have that because honestly, I probably could have married anybody and would have still made the same shit mistakes and the same— like, I would have failed no matter what because I didn't know what I didn't know. And so getting into my second marriage and people were like, oh gosh, that was quick. I'm like, well, when you fuck up so much, you just know, you know? Like, I was like, we both knew what we wanted so that it was, it was like not really— it wasn't a learning experience. We didn't need years to like try it out. We had already done all of that, figured it out, knew what our faults and failures were, that stepping in, it was like, oh, it was like a new light.

But yeah, going back to your first one, I can say I had definitely put myself in a box. That's no question. The expectations of myself were so high. I had— and the box had gotten smaller and smaller, I think, over the years. And so here's this again. I keep trying to put little like tidbits about me. I remember being in 5th grade and I was Gabe the basketball player.

Hmm.

Like that's what I was known as.

Yeah. Already given a label.

And I know that I always felt like there was like the, uh, kind of the Tupac, all eyes on me type thing. Like, I always felt like wherever I went, um, people were like looking over their shoulder. Like, so making mistakes was just not an option. And so I really limited myself and my experiences, I believe, because I didn't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or make a mistake. And so I probably limited myself in a lot of ways in my own growth, probably. So then that leads into your question with basically with my girls. Yeah, I figure it's probably why I've almost like flipped like a 180 to make sure that does not happen to them. Like, I keep coming back to the fact that we should all be like that 3 or 4-year-old that we're like, we're half annoyed by. They ask why, why, why, but honestly, deep down, you're so like heartfully joyous that they're asking those questions, right? Like, yeah, don't get me wrong, it can get a little tedious at some point, but isn't that what we all should be doing? And then you said a lot of your viewers or people who commented to you, that was kind of their thing, is that they, you know, they want to be encouraged to ask questions. And that, that'd be one thing that I will encourage my daughters to challenge things, not in a disrespectful way, but just keep asking, keep asking, make people give you like their best answer. I'm not saying it's gonna be concrete and like scientifically proven, but if things are unclear, like don't just like take it for granted and accept it because somebody said it. So yeah, I want them to go wherever their passion goes when it comes to their interests, and I don't want there to be boxes about basically— I mean, and we see a lot of growth right now, but just, you know, being a female in America right now. And I just want them to have every open door possible. And I want them to be thinkers. And that's one thing I will always encourage them. Like, to me, being a thinker means that you're asking the tough questions. And so that's what I want them to be, is just to be very— I want them to be open-minded, that not everyone is going to agree with their ideas. And that's not the purpose of asking questions, but it is to understand as much as possible.

What do you think are some really important questions as an adult, 30 and older, who is just starting to question and maybe hasn't before? What do you think are some really good questions to ask yourself? Or how do you even know that the questions you're asking are going to give you the answer that you want?

So there was two questions there. Let's go to the second one. I joke in my classroom because, you know, some people are like, there are no dumb questions. Actually, there are. Let's not joke around. There are some really bad questions, but you have to start somewhere. And so asking a lot of questions but being patient enough to hear all the answers. Some people are not patient enough to really listen. And that, that's one thing that I really will harp on is if you're going to ask questions, don't be jumping in to try to comment or put your own take on things. Really allow the other people or the other sources to give you their full answer. So if you're going to ask questions, be patient to listen and try to digest what, what's being offered to you. And then hopefully each of their Answers or solutions will guide you to more— we'll call it in-depth questions. So it might start out with a kind of maybe basic or superficial questions, but it might lead you to the more complex, the more complicated, and obviously the deeper-rooted questions you're trying to get to. Now, to your first question, in, in college— and this is a big one— I studied existentialism. So existentialism sounds like a big fancy word, but it's this thing about existence. What's the meaning and the purpose of our existence? And so there's been philosophers throughout many years now who've been just trying to figure out what's the meaning of our lives, what's the purpose for why we're here. So if you're gonna— if you, if you ask me to get down to the basic questions, those are the ones you're going to ask yourself. What's the meaning of my life? And if you're really not sure, then that means we have to do some searching. What's the purpose? What guides me every day in my behaviors and my attitudes? And so existentialism asks those tough questions. What guides people along their path? What is the meaning? And so I'll just throw out some different topics that a lot of people will talk about. One's gonna be your kids for sure. The meaning of your life is to guide and raise and protect your kids to the nth degree. For some, it's family in general. For some, it is going to be religion and faith. But you have to go and step back and ask that question, like, what's the meaning of my life? What's my purpose? And then it's going to be, do my actions and my words match up with what I now say is my purpose? And going back to the spirituality, the way I've looked at it for a long time, and I teach this in my class, why did religion start? And again, and we have to admit, it's, it's probably the most powerful thing in our world. It's Think about how many people believe in a faith of some sort, and many of them are willing to live and to die for it. So if it's that powerful, why did it start that way? Like, what was its— what was its purpose to start with? And for me, it comes down to two simple ones. Number one, people wanted answers. So if you go back historically, you don't have science, so you want to explain these natural phenomenons. Why did that— where'd lightning come from? How'd that hurricane happen? Like, you want answers that now we have science, but back then they didn't. So they were able to use spirituality or their religion, say the gods did this, the gods control these different powers. The second one, I know it sounds so simple, is hope. People want hope. They want hope that there's something better for themselves in this life, possibly hope that there's maybe an afterlife. But the word hope is really, for me, the reason that religion was so essential. If you're living in a really desolate time period and think about why or how religions, um, grow, it's because oftentimes they connect and they're open doors to outcasts. So for some time periods, it would be like the poor or maybe women. Yeah, it grows because people are struggling in their life and they want something to hold on to. They want hope.

Yeah.

Now think to yourself, now it becomes, what's my purpose? Well, my purpose is to follow these teachings because that gives me hope that there's something better out there for me. And so there becomes some of the questions that you want to guide yourself is How do I connect with my spirituality to help guide myself along this path? And am I really living with purpose? Like, how many people are just floating by? How many people don't know what their meaning is every day? And being on autopilot is probably one of the worst things you can probably say. If you wake up one day and you're like, where'd the last 10 years of my life go? I've been just floating by. It's probably not the best answer you want to give.

And I think too, maybe a good question is, if you are a part of a religion and there you're following this guide— these guidelines that have been given to you, are what you're choosing to follow, does it feel in alignment with you? Because I think that one thing that religion does is kind of do like an umbrella of like, this is what you should do to be a good person. You have to do this, this, this, and this. Boom, everybody falls under this umbrella. But as humans, we know that we aren't all the same and can't fit under one umbrella. So I think that asking that question, are these guidelines that I'm choosing to follow, are they, is it in alignment?

Many people unfortunately try to choose a religion, I'll say choose in quotes, intellectually. Well, my family believes this, so I should also, or my community, um, or I mean, being honest, like if you're in America, the predominant one is Christianity or some form of Christianity. So maybe you want to kind of like intellectually say, well, I want to fit in, or these are what most people believe around me, so I'm going to intellectually like connect with it. And that's where I talked about how I believe a spirituality should come where it finds you, like it literally like grabs inside of you. So like it connects with you on a higher level that you probably can't put into words, honestly. And then from that point, you're able to use those teachings and guide yourself, but when you're looking for something, that's probably when you're not going to find the right answers. Almost like when you're looking for that person to marry, you're probably not going to find the right one.

No, you find all the wrong ones and you're like, what's happening?

Why? Why? Why? So that's where I talk about it's almost like you want that spirituality, those teachings to like connect with you and resonate with you so deeply that you've kind of taken away the intellectual part and it's all all just this like innate connection that you probably can't put into the best words. And then I believe then you're, you're finding something very deep and very insightful, uh, and very powerful, honestly. And that's where you talk about like monotheism and what are called like Western religions versus like Eastern philosophies. Many of them would just talk to you as that they are guidelines on your path. So they're not trying to like force-feed you all kinds of like restrictions. It's more of, here are some ideas and philosophies that may help you on your path to your own enlightenment. And that seems like there's less of that like internal struggle that's being forced upon you, right, where you have to believe all these things there's these teachings that just open doors for you. And a lot of times they would also guide you and say, don't believe it because I said it. Don't believe because it's our teachings. Only believe it based on your experience. Only believe it if it resonates with you. Don't— like many of them will tell you, like Siddhartha the Buddha would say, don't believe it because it happened for me. Believe it because it happened for you. Believe it because you've seen it be true versus just believe it blindly. So I think there's a lot of layers, but I think that intellectual one is definitely one of them where people want to believe in something and they intellectually almost force it when it's not the right fit.

I'm almost wondering too if it has a little to do with like mindset and self-love, self-acceptance. Learning how to trust your intuition because I think, and just speaking from my experience, when I didn't have a lot of like self-love, I was seeking for that, like a community to feel whole outside validation. Whereas once I developed, you know, self-love, respect, boundaries, my mindset shifted and I no longer was seeking outside validation, and then it almost triggered those questions to just naturally come up, like, "Why did I think that this was okay?" or "Why did I follow those guidelines?" Whereas before, when I was just wanting to be accepted into a community, and I think that when you're raised in a really tiny community where everyone's the same, of course you want to feel accepted, because if you're not, you're judged, you could be ridiculed, You're basically wearing, you know, the Scarlet Letter on your shirt if you do anything that's outside of the quote-unquote norm. And so I really wonder if the masses follow that because really their mindset is, is not where it needs to be to even be ready to question. Like, they just want to be accepted and want to be kind of told what's right and have that be that.

So those were some super insightful comments. So I have a handful. So I told you the last time I had my church search during college, right?

Yeah.

Let's say I went to 10 different churches, all some form of Christianity, all a different denomination. Like I said, some were held in a high school auditorium and some were in this big cathedral. And you use the word seeking. I was seeking community. I was seeking to fit in. I was seeking, um, like-minded people. Unfortunately, like I said, it was a round peg in a square hole. Like, I walked out every time thinking, oh, that— I got something from it, don't get me wrong. Like, I got a positive message, but I— it wasn't resonating deep within me. It wasn't on that deeper level. Your next one is completely accurate in my opinion. People want to be accepted and they would rather be accepted and not be open and truthful than to be open and truthful and pushed to the outside. They want to be included, not excluded. And so they would rather believe something that maybe they don't deeply believe They don't disbelieve, but it's not like the most passionate thing, but they'd rather just fit in with the norm, with the community, because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

Yep.

Everyone's doing it, so it's an easy answer. And then that leads me into the bigger one. I challenge athletes, but it goes for everyone in every aspect. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. If all you ever do is stay in your comfort zone, in that little bubble, you never push your own maximum boundaries. So pretend whatever sport it is, like you're a track star or whatever. If you know you can run a 10-second flat 100 meters and every time you just go out there and just get 10 flat because you don't want to train harder and train different or try anything to push yourself to a 9.9 or 9.8 You get the exact same results. You're being comfortable in that comfort zone, and that's probably the worst thing we can do for ourselves individually. And that can be in every different facet. Yeah, think whether it's a job that you just stay comfortable, and so it's like, hey, it's safe, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to push the envelope. Whether it's physically, whether it's, uh, in our relationships, whether it's obviously spiritually. If you stay in that same bubble you don't get any new results. And so you have to choose to be uncomfortable. You have to ask the tough questions again, and it comes back to those same things, right? If you don't ask the tough questions, you don't hear new answers. You don't hear answers you don't want to hear. Yeah, like the only way you can really grow is by popping that bubble and seeing what opens up from that. Um, but many people are not going to choose that that route. They would much rather stay the safe one. I was told this, I'm comfortable, this is safe. I mean, how many people are in a contented zone work-wise? Okay, it pays okay, hours are okay. It's not really satisfying, but they're contented. You know, how many are in a relationship that you— and I'm sure you're going to smirk in a second— they're It's not the worst relationship. They're not unhappy. They're not going to rock the boat, right? But is it a fully developed one? Has it really maximized what both people are looking for? And, and then spiritually, it can be scary though. I mean, think about it, it can be scary to, to go that route. And especially if religion is as powerful as I'm saying it is around the world, when so many millions/billions of people believe in something, it can be scary to throw doubt into something that you've put your life into.

Yeah, that's a big one. Comfortability is way more— like, it has a tighter grasp than the unknown. And I think that that's where we as a society are stuck, not just talking about it every now and then. So I think that this goes to everything— spirituality, relationships, all of it— where we just get so comfortable and we're only surrounding ourselves with the people who believe the same thing as us. That when, when is it ever going to change if we're constantly surrounding ourselves with white Christians. Why would we ever choose to think differently? And so I think that making sure that I'm like filling my feed with people who don't look like me, people who don't have the same views as me, like radically different views, so that I can learn and grow, and those questions just start to naturally pop into my head instead of having to like seek them. They just naturally come because I'm, I'm open to that. Like, my energy is, is open. I'm putting that out into the universe that I'm ready to learn and unlearn all of the shit that I was just taught was like the way to be. Like, that was a huge statement. I don't even— I just talked for like 10 minutes straight.

Nope, I liked it. And I like the part about being open to learning which some people, they really don't want to learn something new. Yeah, they wanted— they want to just keep seeing the same old thing. So like, and you said it, if you surround yourself with a certain bubble and essentially everyone looks the same, thinks the same, and makes you feel better about yourself, you never have any growth. Yeah, you're comfortable, but you're never going to see any changes. I keep going back to the risk versus reward, and sometimes people think about, oh, that's like a business thing. How much am I going to risk for the reward? Well, honestly Risk-reward is like on an everyday basis. Like, are you going to risk being the outcast? Are you going to risk being uncomfortable? Are you going to risk pissing somebody off by being honest and truthful? Or do you want to like just go with the flow and like just glide down the stream? And like, people don't want to be uncomfortable. Like You had so many different thoughts here, and it's like I'm jumping around here, right? When I first got to Joe City, this is how it ties back together, I was warned about a certain student athlete. This student athlete was like a ticking time bomb, a volcano, just always flew off the hook, just watch out, right? Uh-huh. And the like ingrained thing was that the other 9, we'll say, so out of 10 players, the other 9 were kind of like you just said, it was the— they're the good kids, as in they were polite and they followed directions and you could— you like, they fit the norm, right?

Yeah.

Honestly, for a coach, I need that volcano. Yeah, I can aim that volcano. That's what I do. I actually don't trust the 9 that all look the same. I don't know, are they motivated? Are they working hard? Do they care? I don't know.

Yeah.

So it's funny because Gussy being Gussy, hey, give me the outcast. I'm gonna work with their positive-negative flow and I'm gonna use what you guys think is negative and I'm gonna channel it. I'm gonna get out of it and it's gonna like do something you don't expect. Yeah. I also am really big on, I laugh because Some people go to what they call like liberal schools, or they go to a part of the country that's supposed to be a little more open-minded, right? Have you ever noticed that open-minded people only want other open-minded people who think like they do?

Totally, yes.

Being open-minded means that you actually embrace, okay, there are conservatives out there, there are people who think radically different than your open-mindedness. Like, oh yeah, no right and wrong, but don't judge because like you didn't want to be judged because you were open-minded, and now what are you doing? You're like, oh, they're so close-minded. Am I missing something here? Did I miss the hypocrisy?

Right.

And I, I use the word ownership too, and I use it for my athletes. I say competitive ownership. If you make a mistake Own it.

Mm-hmm.

Saying my bad is not owning it.

I hate that. I hate when people say my bad. I'm like, I fucking saw that you dropped the ball. You don't need to say my bad. Everyone saw it.

Okay, right? So here's what competitive ownership is. When you miss 3 straight shots, you admit, I just missed 3 horrible shots. I will fix it. My turnover was horrible. I will fix it. I got beat on defense. I will fix it. People who know me too know that Gussie doesn't really care about apologies. You know what an apology is? Honestly, nothing.

Yeah.

Unless you change the next time it happened, like the next situation, your apology was like, cool, thanks. That's like saying my bad. I'm sorry. Okay, thanks. Now the next time this happens, show me that you want to make a change.

Yeah.

Competitive ownership though is really about you personally. Are you competitively owning your path? Are you owning your mistakes? Are you owning your decisions? If I'm going to challenge a 7th grader in my classroom to have competitive ownership, I sure think a 25 or 35-year-old who should be mature enough, they shouldn't be deflecting or be defensive. Own what you believe. Now I can discuss with you about— actually, I'll probably ask more questions like, tell me more, explain to me what you're thinking. Here's what I'm observing. Here's what I'm feeling. But as a competitive ownership, like, and I, and I try to like take a lot of my motivational stuff into every facet, but like, it's easy for me to tell a kid on a basketball court or, you know, win the day, like today, like have your best practice, have your best weight room session, like get better.

Yeah.

But I take that to the classroom and I'm like, hey, that homework may not be exciting, but like beat it. Take it as a challenge to like engage it, embrace it, grow from it. If you do that every, every day, by the end of the semester, end of the school year, like the results will come. You'll be better. Now let's go back to the spirituality. Can people take competitive ownership essentially with their beliefs? Can you own that some of your religion, spirituality may have some flaws to it? Can you own that some of the believers have made huge mistakes. Like, can you say it out loud or do you like pretend and skirt around it? And I feel like this, if there was a perfect basketball offense, every team would run that exact offense. That'd be a no-brainer, right?

Yeah.

But there are hundreds or thousands of offenses because what works for one coach and one team and one athlete is going to be different across the board. Well, isn't that exactly what spirituality is too? Like, if there's one perfect one that had all the answers and that we knew was right, we wouldn't have a debate. But that's where that open-mindedness comes into, where you're like, I'm gonna respect if that makes you a better person. So I go back to our full circle about asking the questions, right? Talk about existentialism. What's my meaning and what's my purpose? I don't care if somebody holds up a cross around their neck or they have a little statue of the Buddha, or it's Ganesh from Hinduism, or it's a rock, or I don't care what that object is. If it makes you a better person and gives you more purpose every day, and your moral code, whatever that might be, to like treat others well and to love people and be generous and compassionate, like I don't care what you label it., and I'm gonna tell you there's a lot more similarities between some of these teachings than people realize. Yeah, but they don't realize because reading a different spirituality would go out of their comfort zone.

Well, yeah, you just want to be right. Like, people want to be good and they want to be right. And so I think that it's really just getting down to, I mean, uncomfortability breaks down all of those barriers because if you're uncomfortable, hopefully then you've stepped into like a new space to where now you're kind of open to being told maybe that's not right or maybe that way of thinking isn't right for me or whatever. But I think that that's what like stunts a lot of people from reaching their full potential is being scared. Like, I mean, really, it all is based— it all comes down to being fearful. Like, we're fearful of being uncomfortable, we're fearful of looking a certain way. And for me, and maybe you can give me a little bit of outside perspective because, I mean, you knew me as a 17-year-old where now I'm gonna be 31, but I'm like I have felt that I've always liked to live my life being transparent, like basically what you see is what you get. But I also think that I've still been almost like sugarcoating my life. Like, sure, people know that I was, you know, that I experienced or went through a divorce and now I co-parent and, you know, like all the basic stuff, but I've never actually shared like my journey. And I think that the journey is actually like the juicy part in the sense that like all of the things that I've been through in my life, leaving the church, leaving my marriage, all of the things, quitting my job to now run a freelancing business, like all of that shit was scary and uncomfortable and I failed, but yet like here I am now. So instead of just showing like my result and where I am, I feel like sharing my journey and through all the scared stuff and being super transparent about it all is really where I can help people like realize that, sure, in the, in the moment it is super scary. But look what's after that. Like now I'm a way healthier version of myself. I'm trying to break free of the labels of like being good and what good means and just like just being.

It's funny that you brought that topic up because the reason I reached out to do this podcast and more is actually I think, and it hit me, I've been such a private introverted person for all these years this actually can give me a way of possibly opening up. So if people listen to this, whether they knew me before or not, and they want to ask you questions to ask me, and I told, and I told you, and hopefully everybody hears me, I said no questions are off the board. Let's go ahead and be as real as possible because that's what people are going to gain from. Yeah, so there, there becomes that risk factor and opening up. Um, I think that I always kept things very like close to the vest, or however you want to say it, because possibly being afraid to get hurt. I believe I've had, you know, a good amount of, we'll say, daggers thrown at my back type thing, and I think that made me a very like reserved person. I was already an introvert, I think. Yeah, and naturally a quiet person in general. And I think though that when you get enough negativity from outside, or at least you sense that, it just makes you honestly pull within even more. So this becomes my way of like, if any of my like former athletes who are in their early mid-20s, if I happen to say something from my personal experience that they can gain from, then hopefully that one thing, then I've done my job. Honestly, right here, here's how I look at a variety of things. My marriage failed, and that's a fact. And if anybody could see my face or hear my voice, like, I don't, I don't think you see any like emotional— like, I'm not upset by the fact— because I probably should call her up and thank her, because by her making those decisions, it opened up a floodgate of blessings that I would have never imagined.

Yep.

Was it absolutely a powerful thing?

Yes.

The one thing that I'm not gonna— like, I'm not big on saying that I was scared, and I'm not big on saying I have regrets. It's about me making new or better or improved choices. And what I'll say is, as soon as that phase, we call it a phase, ended. Then I started a new phase and I started to like, we'll say, live a whole new Gussy life in Phoenix, Arizona.

Yeah.

I had like put down a lot of my barriers. Actually, this is great that you're bringing some stuff up. One of my tightest best friends who saw me at my lowest points and somebody who knows me on a different level, he said, You're like Batman. All anybody's ever seen is you with the mask on.

Yeah.

And essentially after that phase, I like took the hammer and smashed the mask. Like the Gussy that was like, had all those expectations in that box, I smashed. I wasn't Gussy the perfect role model or Gussy the coach. I was just I was just Gabriel. I was no— a teacher.

I was—

all the things that had been built up and like wrapped into this big like ball, yeah, were gone. And then if, if that time period wasn't the most powerful time period, then my father passes away. And if anybody who's ever known me knows, like, that was my guy. Like, if you want to meet the best man you've ever met, like, that's him. Like, give the shirt off his back, sacrifice for anybody around him that he cared about. Like, all my players, if I asked for 3 letters, everyone's gonna say FIP. Like, everybody knows that. My dad never said that acronym, but that's where I got it from. My dad was focused 24/7. Intense. I joke he turned red in the face and it was an intense little bulldog. And he was passionate about the thing, the people he loved, people he cared about. Anything he did, he did it with like the utmost like fire.

Yeah.

With him passing then became a new gut punch where I'm restarting my life in Phoenix and things are going pretty well in my mind, but now like my guy is gone. And my mom needs something. And I had to like debate in this like apples or oranges— it wasn't like apple versus apple comparison, it was do I keep living my life and keep developing what I'm doing here, or do I go back to close to my mom to help her? It's a completely different like scenario. And she said don't do it, of course. She said she'd be fine and different things. So all of a sudden I make the Decision that I need to come back to Washington State to be close to her, to do what I can to help her. And then from that point forward— and I came up here with no job, like no place to live, like I had zero in my bank account because it cost everything I could to move up here. So again, we're at ground zero. Nothing's promised, nothing's guaranteed. But the reason I say I never use the word scared is like I had confidence in myself that I was gonna create open doors.

Yeah.

And I was going to, like, again, my dad's phrase, make it happen. That was something he always said, make it happen. Like, it's one of those, like, no excuses. You want something to happen, make it happen. So now we are 6 years later, and when I moved up here, if you would have painted the picture I have now with the 2 most beautiful little girls imaginable, and a great wife and great job, and just you paint the picture. There's no way I could have predicted that at the time if I rewind everything. Yeah, but the risk to come back here for the right reasons, I believe, led to the right— well, whether you want to use like karma or however, like it led to certain dominoes. And because I would do my personal self-development, it also when the, the right woman or the right situation presented itself, I had done the self-development that I was ready for the opportunity.

Oh yeah, totally.

So many people, because they go back to existential— they have not figured out their purpose or their meaning, and they haven't asked those tough questions, or they haven't— in psychology, I remember a good analogy, it's Picture each of us is like an onion, and we have all these layers that we've built up over the years. And most people leave those layers, but to be honest, you have to peel away all those layers and get down to your core. But finding out what your true core is can be scary. You've been covering it up for many years, a lot of defense mechanisms, a lot of different rationalizations. You've been hurt a lot of times. All these things cover up your core. It was not a conscious thing, but they from like kindergarten on. Some kid kicked dirt on you, like somebody threw a rock at you, you missed a word in a spelling bee. I don't know what it is, but you have all these layers, right? Now I'm making some sarcastic, like funny ones, but all these like hits to our ego make us uncomfortable because going back to what you said, it's like we want to be right, we want to fit in, we want to have the answers. Well, we've made mistakes over all these years. All these layers keep covering up our true core. When you can peel away your— all those layers and be super vulnerable, maybe not always to everybody else, but vulnerable to yourself, being open. Because we oftentimes— our biggest lies are our lies to ourselves about who we want to tell ourselves we are.

Oh yeah.

When you can peel away the layers and be honest with yourself about your flaws and your mistakes and a variety of things, it can guide you again to what your true meaning and purpose is. Like, now you can— we'll call it like take off those glasses, those that were blinding you, and you can see clearly. Now, it was always in front of you. You said it early, early on, the answers we're searching for are oftentimes already inside of us, but we're just not aware of them. We haven't opened our eyes to either see, or we haven't— we're not listening, we're not hearing that when the, the voice tells us the right answer. So by coming back to Washington, it was a huge risk. I had no guarantees, no guarantees. And if you would have said in 5 years you're gonna have X, Y, and Z and have this whole picture, I would have— first of all, I would have called BS and said whatever. But second, I would have been like, that's too much to ask for. That's too much. Yeah, but using the analogy of risk and using like the, the player, the athlete, you know, some athletes can look good just going to the gym and doing their casual and shooting the exact same shot, and they can look good making the same shot over and over again. But which guy is actually going to like embrace like a new coach who just tells them, no, that's not good enough? No, you do this, not that. Like, a lot of young players don't want to hear that. They want to hear how good they are.

I was reading this blog, and I usually don't read blogs because I feel like I'm totally a part of the society that just wants to like digest little bits of information. And so taking time to like actually read through a really long thing, other than a book, like I love to indulge in a book, but if I'm just gonna read I want it to be like quick digestible, like 200 words. But I was reading this blog and it totally stood out to me because the woman that was writing it was also an aerialist. And so she was talking about being an acrobat and the training that goes into it and how she likened it to being a mom. And she was like, when you're an athlete, there's always like an end result or something that you're working towards, right? Whether it's the big game, or a performance or whatever it is. And so you train and you train and you train and then you get to your big game, you win, yay! And then there's like that feeling of like accomplishment and then you're ready to like set your next goal. When you're a mom, there's like never an end result. So you're like, you work and you work and you work and you work and it's just continuous working. Like there's never like, I mean, maybe once your kid goes to sleep, you're like, oh my God, now I can, I don't know, do what I want. And then you're just tired yourself and then end up going to bed. But I was like, yes, I totally feel that as, as an acrobat or whatever athlete myself. I can totally lose myself in like the training stage of just like going and going and going and wanting to be like, there's always more. There's always, okay, great, I've now mastered the silks, what's next? Like, okay, now it's time to learn lyra or trapeze or whatever it is. But when it comes to being a mom, there's no— I don't even know how to describe it. There's no like, ha, like I've now done my job because I think even when they reach 18, right? Like, now it's just a whole other set of things that you have to teach them or be there for them for. That was a mouthful.

Alright, so let me give a couple personal takes on this. The first is my wife is way more impressive than I am. She runs a marathon, she can like powerlift, whatever she wants to do, she will get done. She's had far more experiences, like, because she never lived inside the box. She literally was that person who was like, I'm gonna try something, I'm gonna try this. And once in a while I'd ask her, like, after we met, I was like, hey, why? Well, she never really asked that before. It was just, why not, right? Yeah, I was like, uh, any reason? And oftentimes be like, no, just because. Okay, but here's my point I was getting to. She needs a goal. Like, there has to be this carrot or trophy or whatever you want to use as she's working towards this date and this competition. And what I have always talked about And I still say it with all of my students and all my athletes, and I'm sure my guys get so tired of it. We have certain phrases, and one of my biggest ones, and I didn't originate, but it's trust the process. Like being a parent, no, there's no end date. There's no deadline. There's no— because if you think about it, before you're a parent, a lot of times I believe people are like, hey, they're so cute when they're a baby. Or then it's like, oh, they're so difficult when they're 1 to 3, or they're so challenging when they're da da da da. In my opinion, every phase is its own positive blessing. And this, I was gonna mention this earlier, me being an old parent, like I turned 45 in May.. And I'm gonna— so like when my baby girl graduates high school, I'll be like the grandpa at like 63 up in the stands. But am I a different parent than I would have been at 25? Guaranteed.

Oh yeah.

35? Absolutely. Now what this allows me to do is, again, we're jumping around here, is I see every phase as like its own challenge but its own blessing. Like I haven't like When some people like warn you, "Eh, this is gonna be so hard." You know what? If anything's worthwhile, it's gonna be difficult. Parenting or otherwise. So I just look at everything as like, okay, you lose more sleep during this time period, okay. And then later on, you have more like verbal battles or something, you know, like, there's different phases and they all offer like their positive, negative, and so I just see them all as like part of my process. As being a good parent. But the trust the process— I mean, think about spirituality again. Is there really an end line? Like, for some beliefs, it's going to be like basically, do you get into, you know, your quote-unquote heaven or your afterlife or something?

Yeah.

But if it's not that answer, like, is there really an end line on a day-to-day of like your spiritual growth? I would sure hope not. Like, you should be spiritually growing every single day. Like, it's a process of learning and improving and understanding better and just gaining new insights. You may read the exact same proverb 10 times and all of a sudden it means something different to you. It's a process of like a depth of understanding. So I always talk about trust the process. Like if, if you are satisfied at a certain point, like if you're an athlete and also you get to a certain level, you're like, oh, I'm satisfied, I'm good, I'm out. Well, I'm guessing you probably limited how great you could be then, most likely.

Yeah.

Love him or hate him or whatever your opinion is, but like a Kobe Bryant mentality of like, every day my mentality is to work harder than the other person and get better than I was yesterday. And if you keep doing that every single day, the rewards and the results all come. But that goes back to again, being uncomfortable, taking risks. Like you have to do things you're not good at. Practice the things you're already kind of a failure at, that you don't like, aren't considered to be your strengths. But some people need that external reward versus the internal motivation, that it's like a matter of just— and I think it was like maybe just last night when I was thinking this, like, I want every person to think about growth, improvement, development. Like, if every day you grow a little, improve a little, and develop a little. If after 1 month, after 6 months, if each one was like a little brick on your road, right, and you look behind you all of a sudden, like, how many bricks would you have on your path? But I think too often people want this like instantaneous reward, right? They want this like major explosion of like an epiphany, right? When really oftentimes it's just the gradual growth It's gradual change that actually leads over time to some very impactful understanding and growth, you know. People have to embrace and engage and endure the long grind. And I use those terms a lot with my athletes, like embrace what it is, engage it, and then endure. And if these are some things that you like incorporate into your mentality every single day, yeah, you're like, each moment becomes even like more beneficial. Like you gain more. Like if you embrace whatever you're doing right now, if you really embrace it as in like, this is where I'm at in my life, this is what I should be doing, I embrace where I'm at, then you engage it like It's easy to picture a student, a student in my classroom, and they're not engaged. Well, are they learning? Are they gaining anything? The obvious answer is no. But how many, how many of us are engaged with every little thing we're doing on a day-to-day basis? We autopilot, we fly by. Engage whatever it is and then endure. Like, is every practice exciting and fun for an athlete? Heck no. You got to endure some of those real challenging things because then that leads you to some of that major growth. So I just feel like there's these concepts that we have to like embrace because they can lead us in the right direction. And you said earlier, and I'm going to paraphrase, people like to be right. And in Zen, they talk about have a beginner's mind. In a beginner's mind, what are you trying to do? You're just trying to absorb and gain and learn, and your eyes are always open, your ears are always open. When you're considered like the quote-unquote expert, you've closed off all kinds of those mentality. To maintain a beginner's mind in whatever we're doing, I feel like becomes a benefit. So if we're always trying to learn how to begin as a parent, like how a beginner's mind that, hey, I need to learn and change and improve, and what can I try to do a better job as, and in our professional life and as a teacher and as a coach, like if I think my way is the only way, I'm not doing my best job. So having that beginner's mind, and that ties into spirituality, right? Like when you're 4 years old, why, why, why, why? Like have that open mind so that you can just see as like a sponge what you can absorb from all the answers you're getting. Some may not be the best answers, and some of those you want to like discard, or you know they're not the right ones. But like, the more you can gain, the more you can kind of decipher for yourself what those like true beliefs are and what, what impacts you.