#1 Possibilities Mike Hartman 6th Grade Teacher Saying It's Impossible!

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 I'm going to kick it off. We're going to start this possibilities series, which I said earlier in the introduction. I am so excited to do this, and I'm just going to talk about why I'm doing this and I'm just going to share the story. These are all short stories to try to get to the point. So I'm going to start it off of why I want to do this. And it all started for me around sixth grade. So I was in the sixth grade. I had this, this music teacher who. His name was Mr. Novak, I believe, and he was a nice guy. There was nothing, there was nothing wrong with him. I wasn't mad at him. I hope I'm not hurting anybody's feelings when I'm talking about this. I haven't even, I don't even know much about Mr. Novak. I do remember, though, he was a very nice guy. That's all. That's. I do remember that. And I was in the class and Mr. Novak had everybody stand up that day in music. We put the instruments away. I think it was the violin. Don't ask me if I was good at it. I'm not going to tell you. Probably says enough right there. And Mr. Novak said, everybody, I want you to talk about what you want to do when you grow up. What do you want to be like? Where do you want to go? And we talked about our career. So we've had people stand up. I remember somebody stood up and they said, well, I want to be a fireman. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. I want to do whatever. I want to be a plumber or whatever their aspirations in life wanted to be. River, we're in sixth grade. I mean, you know, I talked to my son now who's, you know, he's in college and he's not even sure what he, what he wants to do. Right. You know, I. Same with my daughter. I talked to, I talked to my daughter at first. I said, what do you want to do? It's your last year of school. You're. You're going to finish at nyu and what do you want to do? Well, I don't know, dad. Well, to get to the story, sometimes we don't know what we're going to do in sixth grade, but I stood up and I said that I wanted to be a hockey player. And Mr. Novak turned to me and he says, well, you can't be a hockey player. And then I said I was a little bit of a smart aleck, and I'm not proud of it. A little bit of a smart aleck in sixth grade, maybe a little disrespectful at that time. And I said, well, what do you mean? What do you mean I can't be. I can't be a hockey player? He says, no. He said, the chances of you ever being a professional hockey player and making a living at it is one in a million. And he mentioned how, you know, we, like. I remember he mentioned that, well, we have people that might want to be a rock star, and that's tough, too. The chances are one in millions that you're going to do that. So I think it's better that you put your energy towards maybe being a fireman or doing well in school, being a doctor. You still have to do well in school to be a fireman, but you just put your energy into something that's going to give you a living. And I said, well, Mr. Novak, I don't really agree with you. And he gave me that look on his face. I remember he had a bald head, you know, bald with a little bit of, you know, dark on the side, a little bit of. A little bit of hair on the side. And. And a mustache. And he looked at me like I really disrespected him. And, And I looked at him, I said, you know, I think I'm going to be a hockey player. Me and my big mouth 6th grader. I was even playing a hockey. I was even playing double A or triple A. What did I know, right? The big mouth kid. But I told the teacher, I. I said, I. I believe I could be it. He says, you know, what the chances are of you doing that? And he tried to make. I think what he tried to do was to make. Make it like an impression in front of the class that he was really going to give it to me, but I was going to stand there. I'm a fighter, always been. So the first thing I said was, well, what do you mean? He says, well, the chances of you are one in millions. I told you that. And it's impossible. And I said, you know, Mr. Novak, it's impossible for you. Now, was that the right thing? To say, was that appropriate? That I deserve probably to go down to the principal's office? Because I really disrespected the teacher. Yes. But I truly believe that the possibility of me being an athlete was there. I had the mindset at a very young age, and I had the dream and the vision, and I really didn't want to let anybody detour me from that. And am I talking about myself? Yeah. I don't really like talking about myself. But we're going to kick off this possibility series that we're going to have a lot of great stories from many great people coming. When you see the guests that we have coming for this next month, you'll be very excited. But I said to my. I said to the teacher, I. He pulled me out in the hallway. He said, don't you ever disrespect me again. And I looked him right in the face. I said, sir, I didn't disrespect you. I said, it's not impossible. Nothing's impossible. And I always believe that. I tell that to my kids today. I tell that to people that I work with. Can we always reach our goals and our dreams? No. But if you can give it a hundred percent, if you can give it everything you have. I've said this before. Let's say you don't feel good and you only have 60%. You still have to give 100% of that 60% and try to reach your dream and your goals. And don't let anybody tell you you can't do it. It's just. I don't believe in it. I don't stand for it. And don't let anybody detour you. Hey, if I didn't make it, well, I could look at myself in the mirror and say, did I do everything I can to make it? But yes, I was in sixth grade. Did my father get mad at me? Did I get in big trouble? You better believe it. Did I get punished at a young age? Oh, I didn't. Believe me, I did not want to go home because they ended up calling my father, because we ended up having a little discussion in the hallway. But I stood my ground. And I'm looking back. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. And I want you to do the same thing. All of us have different possibilities. All of us have different dreams within our life, different aspirations, different goals. I remember I had a fifth grade teacher. Now we're going. We're reversing. When we talk backstories. Well, this is the backstory. My fifth grade teacher, he stands out in my mind, he was amazing. His name was Tom McPhillips. Mr. McPhillips. I even wrote a small book for my kids that was on Amazon. I have it on our Hartman Academy website under the. I think it's under the about us. And you click on it and the story's there. But I have a picture of him because he believed in everybody. And even. Even somebody like myself. In fifth grade, I considered myself a late bloomer. I didn't do well in School until 10th grade. That's my own fault. I took shortcuts and. Do I regret it? Well, try not to have regrets. But I'm glad that I. That I had somebody like by Tom McPhillips in my corner. This fifth grade teacher was always this. There he was. He was so nice. He listened to. He focused on us. I call that sometimes, if you want to get into listening a little bit. I called Tom McPhillips the dramatic listener because he was so interested in everything that you said. He would ask me. Hey, how was your game last night? Good. Well, it doesn't matter. I hope you're ready for your spelling test today. I said, you better be. And he would reward us by taking us to the gym. And we would play pin dodge and throw the. You know, throw the pan. And people would always try to get into Mr. McPhillips class. But I remember him because he was so positive. And I remember him. I mean, at a young age, he would say, everything is possible. Anything is possible if you want to make it that way. And it's important that we have people in our life that believe in us. Mentors, coaches, people around you. Because I. You gotta get the noise out of your life. You gotta get that noise out of your life. I. In sixth grade, can I tell Mr. Novak? I didn't want to hear that. And again, I am not out to hurt his feelings. Now, he didn't scar me in my life. I just remember that story because when I got home, without getting into some details here, I got myself in big trouble. And I always try to remember, like, just different things that happen within our life, right? Like, we go through this life and people tell us, oh, it's impossible for you, or, oh, you're gonna fail at this. It's like people try to set you up for failure, and you can't listen to people like that. Eliminate those people. Ignore them if you can. Now, sometimes we have our parents, right? You know, if any parents are listening. Realistically, you might tell your son or your daughter, oh, it's very Hard to make it. It's one in a million. But you might need something to fall back on. And I'm not telling you how to parent here. I know that my father really believed in me and my mother really believed in me. My mother didn't want me to give up, definitely did not want me to give up college. I had, I think maybe college scholarships. And I'm not even going to tell you my grade point. Well, I'll tell you my grade point. 2.5. So 2.5. That a C. Not proud of it, but I went to Canadian school in Toronto, had a 2.5. Schooling's a little bit tougher. So let's say it was 3.0. But let's not. It was a 2.5. Yeah, let's be, be real here. But I joke. I always said I was in the top three. ABCC C student. Not funny, right? But I knew that, okay? Every. My mother still said, listen, I want you to get a degree. I want you to go back to school if you play hockey. So I ended up doing that. I ended up playing junior hockey. I put all my eggs in one basket and I had that dream of playing in the national hockey league. And Mr. Novak was almost right because that basket almost broke because I got there, I wasn't prepared. I wasn't mentally prepared. I didn't have my mindset. And you're going to listen to some good mindset coaches here. I didn't properly fuel my body. I didn't have Protobite back then. People are saying, what is Protobite? Well, Protobite is this product that I take every day for energy and recovery. It's natural. It's this bioavailability liquid vitamin that absorbs through your system. And I feel great. I didn't have that back then, but. And I didn't have a lot of mentors, but I sure did have Tom McPhillops in my corner. I sure had Chris Corey, one of my old coaches, Dave LaMotta, Steve Clara felt. These are coaches that I had and influencers in my life and they were positive. They always said, hey, Mike, go full speed. Go ahead. If you fail, okay. But if you work hard, you're not a failure. If you fall, that doesn't mean you fail. Or if you didn't have a good game, that doesn't make you a failure at all. But if you don't work at 100%, you are a failure. If you don't get everything you have, those possibilities will not be there for you. I could promise no Shortcuts don't take shortcuts in life. I know I'm jumping in different directions here, but. But this topic really, really hits home with me. Was I ever a star in professional sports? No. I was an average player. I'm very realistic. I was a small piece to a big puzzle. When the team won the Stanley Cup, I was just fortunate enough to be on that team, but I always dreamed of winning the Stanley Cup. As a kid, I saw myself winning the Stanley Cup. I saw myself carrying it above my head. I saw myself winning. I used to watch Hockey Night in Canada. I watched the Edmonton Oilers, and I said, boy, I want to be just like those guys. And next thing I know, I'm playing with the Edmonton Oiler players like Mark Messier, Kevin Lowe, McTavish, Adam Graves, who's a great friend of mine before the Edmonton, but he was Edmonton, Jeff Bukaboom, you know, Essa Tekken. And I played with a lot of these great players that I watched on tv, and I saw myself doing it. The point is, you have to see yourself doing it, because if you don't see it, nobody else will. I want you to think about that, and there's not going to be any possibilities for you. And every time you get knocked down, you have to get right back up. We had one of the players, a hockey player, on our show. He made the NHL, I think, at 32 years old. Trevor Gillies, if you want to listen to him, come on. 32 years old. He never gave up. People say you're done at 32. He was somewhere around maybe 31. 32 years old. Big tough guy, great heart. He. He's. I had to have him on the podcast. Look at him. Look at a guy like Nick Krios. Never got drafted, became a Stanley cup champion and wrote the book called Undrafted. Everybody told him he's not a good enough skater. There's no chance you're going to make it. It's impossible for you to make it. Look at a guy like Ed Olch, one of my really good friends. I love him. A fabulous person. I mean, he battled through so many things and cancer and. But he was a fighter. He always fought through it. And that's what you have to do in your life. You have to fight. You have to. Don't give up. Whatever it is. Reach your goal. See yourself living your dream. I'm not a Muhammad Ali fan, but Muhammad Ali used to see himself winning the fight in his sleep the night before, he saw himself winning. But I do know one thing. He didn't dream about it all night or think about it all night because then he would have no energy. Didn't have any energy. You can see why I had a 2.5. It's very important that you see yourself being the champion, having the mindset. I hope that everybody listens to all of the guests that we have coming on and the struggles that they've had. I personally went out and I went out to and wanted to have certain people that would do this possibilities show with us. They're going to tell 15 minutes of their stories. Not every player or every person is a is a billionaire or every person did not make it to the National Hockey League. Some of them had a dream of coaching Division one college and they did that. You will hear from one of our guest of how hard she worked to be a Division 1 coach. We'll have another hockey player that was a great player in Minnesota and his dream was to play college hockey and he did. He played Division 1. You'll hear other entrepreneurs talk about how they built their business and leadership coaching again, possibilities. Everybody has a possibility of doing something well. So excited for this. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy our guests that's going to be coming on. We're going to be doing a lot of them again this coming up month, April all the way through and just, just so excited about it.

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Effort.

We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.