1% Better Every Day With Kolbie Glionna

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode Today. My guest is Colby Gliana. Colby, it's great to have you here with us. Colby's right on the air. Colby, great to have you here.

Mike, thank you. I appreciate you having me on here.

Well, it's great. I, I really, I was introduced to you by a mutual friend and then when I got talking to you, I said, you know what, I have to have this young guy on the show. You might be the youngest. What are you, 24 years old and.

You'Re coming on the show, you know, 24. Absolutely honored, by the way.

Well, that's great. But the thing I love is that it's your attitude and it's all about attitude. And we teach people athletes this. We call it ready to play. And you have a whole different name for it. And I'm going to have you share that with everybody. But I really want to hear a little bit about you first. Tell people a little bit about your story, a little bit about who you are. I know they would love to hear it.

So my name is Colby Gliona. Yes. Like you said, I am 24 years old and you know, I grew up my whole life playing sports. Sports was my whole entire life. And as I grew older, I wanted to make that a career as well. So, you know, I played baseball all of high school, two sport athletes. I played football as well. And then I went into college and I took, you know, baseball in college. That was like my favorite sport ever. So I was doing that for a while. And then after college graduation, I got my degree in exercise, like science, and I am now a health, wellness and performance coach.

Well, fantastic. Well, tell us where you played baseball. I know where you played, but tell everybody where you played.

Yeah, so I played baseball at Utica College. It's a, you know, it's a school in central New York and it's, it's super cold there. It's tough to play baseball when it gets, when it gets cold.

Well, we've had a lot of great people on the show. I had a, recently, not too long ago, a New York Yankee. And I don't care if you played for the Yankees. I don't care if you played for the Detroit Red Wings New York Rangers. I like bringing on good people with good work ethics. And I've heard so much about you. Your caring, your enthusiasm, everything that you do. So I said, I need to have you on this show. I mean, man, you're close to my kids age, you're in between my kids age. I have a 26 year old and I have a 22 year old and I think, but you're so mature. My kids are mature too. Hey, I don't. They're listening to this, hey, dad, am I not mature? Yeah, you're mature. But, but, but yet you have that drive that, that I really find it's hard to teach. Did you tell me that baseball, did you, you said you wanted to be a baseball player. What was that drive that, what was that reason that really wanted to make you want to be a baseball player?

I just think from a very young age, I think the standard was set that, you know, not that, not that anyone made me, I just think the standard of was if you're going to, you play a sport and you're going to, you know, do something, you're gonna do anything you take on in your life with 100% effort, you're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna lollygag around, you know, if I'm gonna do this, why am I gonna do it at 75%? It's never gonna make me better. It's never gonna prove anything to me. The standard was set. If you're gonna do something, do it your hardest and try and be, you know, you don't have to be the best, but you have to try your best at what you're doing.

So you do that. So I'm gonna bring it back to one of my favorite ballplayers. He happens to be from Michigan. His name is Derek Jeter, played for the New York Yankees. He grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And people have the philosophy, as you always say, do something 1% better. He put everything he could into the game, even in the beginning. He took all these extra ground balls as a shortstop, he did all these extra things. But one thing he didn't do, like, you know, people say, oh, he stayed on the field for a long time, but no, he didn't. So in practice, as he got older, within his career, my understanding was he was the first player on the field and the first player off because he did everything he can and everything during that time to do it. So it's not how much time you do it, but it's, it's how effective and how efficient you are doing things.

Yeah, totally. So when we talk about, you know, being 1% better, it's also, it's a mindset. It's not, it's not something you do. It's a whole lifestyle. You revolve everything around that. And you bringing up Derek Jeter is probably the most perfect example you could, you know, you could use. I'm not a Yankee fan, I am from New York. But he's always a baseball player I've looked at, you know, because he's the one that did everything right. He, like you said, he was the first one on the field. He would do what he had to get done and he would do it at 100% the best effort. And when he knew, you know, his form or something was going to be off and he would create a bad habit, you know, he would, he would step away when he needed to. We talk about being 1% better. He would take the extra ground balls when he knew he needed to, he would take the extra swings when he knew he needed to, when he had to work on something. And that's what made him so great. And that 1% is what set him and will set other athletes apart from, you know, from the people that are average.

And we have to know that. But that doesn't mean there's parents out there that work with their kids. There's a, a 13 year old kid and let's say a young athlete and you put him in the batting cages. The purpose isn't to keep him there for hours. And that's not, that's not part of the 1%. In fact, my friend who was the Jet, one of the general assistant general manager in Major League Baseball worked with the Pirates, the Reds, Oakland, he played. He would say, we don't want our young players in there because what's going to happen is you're going to develop bad habits by being in the cage for a long time. But if you do it to the best of your abilities and then when you get tired then come out, does that apply to the 1% club?

Yeah. So I would say, you know, the 1% better to give a little background on the, on the 1% better. That's just the, the little slight edge mentality and lifestyle you're going to have that's going to separate the good, you know, from the average and then the greats from the good. It's, you know, taking one extra rep when you're healthy or you didn't like the way, you know, that at bat Felt, you didn't like the way that swing felt, you didn't like the way that rep felt, so you do it again. But you have, you know, 100% of the energy. When we're talking about a 13 year old, you know, in the batting cage, that's someone that is going to fatigue, you know, very quickly. So you got to make sure that they're doing the right things. Because if someone at such a young age like that starts taking, you know, 100 swings and they take 99 of those swings the wrong way, they just developed a bad habit. So them taking, you know, 50 good cuts and making, you know, 50, you know, 50, you Know, good contacts with the ball and then them knowing that they got tired. That mindset of them knowing, okay, let me back away here because it's only going to hurt me is definitely part of, you know, being 1% better. So great.

So it's not just about, okay, I'm going to work so hard like the old days, and, and I'm going to share something with you. So I know I have listeners because we have listeners all over world now. And I have people come on and they're. I always get lots of messages, hey, it was great having Adam Graves on. You know, he's Stanley cup champion. It was great having Stefan Mato. It was great having Tanya Sturts from the Yankees. And I'm gonna get a message. They're gonna say, boy, colby is just 24 years old. And I'm gonna respond, guess what? Things are going younger now. Professional sports players are younger. Coming in, general managers. There's a general manager of that. He's with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He's. He was the youngest general manager ever to come in. I think the former Phoenix Coyotes general manager was the youngest. So I don't care what people say with age. I was really impressed of your work ethic and what you do and also helping. So you help out people of all ages. I know you're working with several adults because it was somebody that told me about you, obviously about your work ethic and how you work with people and how you implement this 1% into everything they do. Tell me a little bit about that. How do you work with your clients on the 1% aspect of things?

So, yeah, a lot of people come to me with, like, you know, they're, they're not happy with where they're at right now. They're, you know, they're upset with, you know, how much weight they either gained or they can't seem to lose weight. Their life's really not in a good place. So we. It's all about, you know, small compounded changes that'll, you know, will increase over time. You put so many small things together, eventually it's going to lead to a big breakthrough. I say the small. The small things that lead to the big breakthrough. So, for example, someone who, you know, who wants to lose, let's say, you know, for example, £25, they can't figure out how to do it. You talk to them, you get them through things, and they're, you know, they're 1% better. Could be, you know, they really like sweets. But what we do is instead of them eating four cookies, they can eat one that's 1% better over time. You know, if you eat three less cookies, that's gonna be, you know, over the course of a couple weeks, that's a lot less cookies and a lot less calories that these people are intaking, ultimately leading them to where they want to be.

That's great. So I did that in my own life. I wanted to be 1% better at my business. I wanted to be 1% better with the podcast. So I. We. We've changed our equipment. You know, the first few episodes, I learned, like, boy, the sound wasn't that great. I used a system that wasn't as good as what we have today. So I wanted to get better. And so I needed to. To make a shift and a change. Not a big change, but just some sort of a shift that's going to make a difference. And we call those. You said it earlier, Colby. It's the little things in details that make a difference. Somebody asked me, what's the difference between, like, a major league who's an average player or a minor league player that's a superstar? And I used to say, not much.

I would say it's 1%.

1%, exactly. It's 1%. It's. Or it's the little things in details. It's doing the extra. It's working on things, and you're right on with this. And I. And I love. It's so great to hear that people, even from, you know, your generation that's coming out and saying, boy, I want to get better. Do you practice this in all areas of your life?

Yeah. Like I said, it's a lifestyle. That 1% is. Is so different. The. What I love about, you know, 1% better is that the little things. It's the little things that no one will notice day in and day out that you're doing that eventually will lead to Your big breakthrough. All of a sudden, it'll look like you're an overnight success, but you're not. You actually were doing the little things right the whole time to eventually lead to that big breakthrough. So, you know, a big thing with one better is waking up on your first alarm. If you wake up on your first alarm, you start your day off with a win. You're now on the path to success for the day. But if your alarm goes off at 8:00am and you hit the snooze button till 8:08, or however long the snooze lasts, you just put. You just put the snooze button, you just hit the snooze button on your life. Those five minutes, those extra eight minutes, if you do that every day over the course of a week, that's going to add up to so much extra time that you could have gotten so much more done.

Yeah, I like. I like the analogy you use just with. With the weights. We talked about it, you know, when you said that, okay, I want to do that one extra rep, but not. Not to hurt yourself, but you. You want to do that one extra rep just to push yourself a little bit without pushing yourself over the edge to injury. So there's a difference. So people should understand, okay, I'm gonna get 1% better. But we're just making these little changes in our. In our life. We're not making these big, drastic changes. It's like, it's. It's little. Like you said, hey, don't tell anybody. I'm gonna have two cookies. Cookies. But going back to the cookies, so you don't eat four, I'll eat two. And I'm going to remember that because last night I had three chocolate chip cookies. I'm going to go back, Colby, and when I'm going to be careful, I'm going to remember this. I'm going to be 1% better. I'm going to have two cookies. So tell us a little story about yourself. Give us a little background about your baseball. We'd love to hear a little bit about, more about how your career went and where did it go and how many years you played.

So, like I said, I started off and, you know, as a very young age, took it into high school. I actually got, you know, voted to the all state team in New York, which was, you know, a great accomplishment. Went to. Went to Utica College. I actually got hurt, had a knee injury, and then I actually fractured my orbital socket all in my senior year of high school going into college. So it was a little setback, but for a major comeback to just to be able to play college sports again, which was awesome. You know, I was a shortstop that eventually in my junior year converted to a pitcher. Only was coming from a 3 quarter arm slot because that's where I was throwing from the shortstop position. It kind of translated into me coming in as a closing pitcher or a relief pitcher for one to two innings with a lot of off speed pitches that had a lot of movement because that was my strength. My strength was not throwing the ball 90 miles an hour. It was, you know, keeping batters off, off balance through different pitches. Because my 1% better was I'm gonna use, you know, a slider, a curveball, a change up to strike a batter out instead of trying to blow a fastball by them. Because that wasn't, that wasn't my best option. I had to adapt to that.

That's fantastic. So we're going to talk about closers a little bit. Going way back, I had a friend. We're still friends, but we don't talk as much. He lives in San Diego. His name is Trevor Hoffman, one of the best closers in baseball. So my former spouse was best friends with Tracy Hoffman from Buffalo. And so Trevor and I were friends and we used to train together. And he always said, I want to be a little bit better so it doesn't have to be physical. But I'm going to tell you what his 1% better was. I hope he doesn't kill me when he says, this is just a private thing. Here we go. You're going to hear the old little drum roll here. Okay, so what he did was he actually slept with his baseball glove.

Done that millions of times.

Yeah, he slept with his baseball glove. And for me to say, wow, really? You slept with your glove? He says, yes, because it always reminded me what I needed to do. It got me up early. Like that alarm clock thing that you said, it made me become a little bit better. Now, he didn't use the 1% better, but he did use becoming better so we could use tools in our life to, to help us to get better. So I want to tell. So you named your business. Now, we're not promoting businesses here, but I have to say this. What's the name of your business? Because it fits in with everything you're doing.

One better performance.

One better performance. Okay, so where can people. I know you have a lot of Instagram followers. I'm still learning this. I have like 150. I don't even know what I'M doing, but I, I don't even know what I'm doing on Instagram. My kids say, dad, you know, you get, you have to promote on Instagram. You have like 13,000 followers. Where could people find you?

So you can find me at ins. On Instagram, it would be Colby underscore. Gliona. That's K O L B I E underscore. And then G L, I, O N, N A. And then my Facebook would just be Colbygliona. And then all inquires are done through Instagram and Facebook for now.

Well, I'm going to give you a little bit of. I don't like the word advice, but I'm going to give you a little bit of wisdom here from an older guy because I like to do this. This is part. But stick with it because you're good at what you do. You're so young. Stick with helping people. Stick with the enthusiasm. Keep up everything you're doing. Colby was great to have you on the show, Mike.

I appreciate it. It was an honor. And I hope that you can take this 1% better into your life from now on.

I'm going to. I'm told you I'm gonna have. I'm gonna have two cookies instead of four.

Keep me updated and I'll hold you to that. I might send you a text later tonight and ask.

Okay, talk to you soon.

All right, Mike, thank you very much.

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Sam.