3 Types Of Apples

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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 back to another episode and today I'm going to share a little story with you. So the story goes back to 1995 and we had the NHL lockout. So basically they told us that we can't play. So I was saying at that time, oh boy, what am I going to do? Fortunately, I personally took classes for 10 years to get my degree. I went back to school through correspondence school. At that time they did not have online studies like they do today. So I went back. That was my only way to get my degree. I went through different schools, went through different programs. Finally I went through Penn State, Empire State College, and finally one school took all my credits and they ended up being a non accredited school called Kensington University. So I took all the credits that I earned and I ended up going to this school. But it ended up, you know, I had a piece of paper, it's something that I promised my parents. So this is 1995 and I know personally my career was not going in the direction I wanted it to. So during the lockout time, I was with a friend. His name is Bob Halkitis. In fact, Bob and I go way back. Bob Helkidis, he won the Max Kaminsky Award in the Ontario Hockey League for being the top defenseman at that time. And really steady hockey player. He was drafted by the Buffalo sabres, well around 17 years old. To make the long story short, he beat me up on national tv. He was a few years old. Now he's about a year older than me and he gave it to me. But as I got a little bit older, I got drafted by Buffalo. Things changed a little bit. I joke with Bob, I said, do you think you could take me now? And we became probably like best of friends for many years. And thanks to Bob, he actually when I retired from hockey, he was playing in Germany and he talked to the coaching staff and they said they needed a pedal, a killer and a physical player over there. And I ended up going to Germany thanks to Bob. Our kids went to kindergarten together, the whole thing. So Bob and I have this history going back. And it was at that time Bob introduced me to a gentleman in Michigan and this gentleman owned a large company he was building one of the biggest telecommunication companies in the country. There was at that time there was MCI, AT&T and Sprint. And then they had the separation and with, with how they were renting out lines and the, how the fiber optic cables were working that now other smaller companies could come around and enjoy it. At that time they were like LCI Quest Telecommunications. So I met the CEO of this big company and he was asking me, so what are you going to do now that hockey's over? I said, good question. I have no idea. I said, I'm thinking about it. Just actually I took summer classes for years and I took correspondence classes. One class while I was playing. On my off days I would do the class and worked it out with the professors at the school, but I'm not sure. He says, why don't you look into selling long distance? And I said, well, that's not for me. I don't really like it. He goes, well, let me share it with you, how it works. And he sat down and he shared this whole program with me. And you know, when you're an athlete, we don't even trust people in a suit and tie. At that time, you had your financial planner, your accountant, everybody else. At that time you were almost insecure, thinking they're going to take advantage of you. You had your agent and your attorney, but anybody else, forget it. So this guy sits me down. I'm going to say his first name is Greg because some people know him. He now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. A female fantastic guy and a really down to earth guy to this day. So Greg sits me down and he says, mike, just by listening to you, I want to teach you something. I said, hey, I'm always up for learning. I'd love to learn. He says, let me teach you a little bit about life and how this will correlate with sports. He says, mike, there's three type of apples out there. I said, okay. He said, first of all, you have the red apple. And the red apple will look at it and say, boy, this is great. I'm diving in and I'm going to do everything I can to make it work, no matter what it is. Now we're not just talking about his business, we're just talking about things in general. I'm diving in. I don't care. Show me the facts. I trust you. Let's go. That's the red apple. He says, then there's the green apple. And the green apple will look at things and say, you know what, let me think about it. I'm not sure. I'm not comfortable. It looks pretty good. Let me do my due diligence. Let me look into things and let me make a decision. I'll get back with you. So they're not as hungry and they just want to do a little bit more research. He says there's nothing wrong with that. He said in the third apple is the rotten apple, and the rotten apple is negative. They don't have the mindset to even process what we're doing. And he says, mike, one thing I could tell you, they don't even know the game is being played. So the question I have for you is, and if you could answer this honestly, what kind of apple are you? Are you the red apple? I'm just going to go for it. Like some of these athletes that I've worked with or people in business that said, I don't care, I'm going to do it. I don't care what anybody says. Are you the green apple that's going to say, you know what? Let me think about it? Or somebody says something to you, you might get a little upset, but you're going to deal with it, or are you the rotten apple that's just going to be negative? Are you just going to shut it down? Everything's bad. Oh, I had a bad experience before, and I really want you to think about that. You know, what kind of apple are you? And there's times we all have to be real, that I have been the red apple, where I said, okay, I'm in. Let's go. I talked to my financial planners. You have to trust them. I want you to look at this. Hey, I'm in. Let's go. Let's go. And then the green apple. I've been the green apple before, and the green apple, like, sometimes I would say, well, I'm not sure. I don't trust this person. But you have to be. I mean, you have to. I'm not just saying trust everybody you come in contact with, but you just have to weigh it. You weigh the good and the bad. And then I've been the rotten apple before where I've been negative. I've had pity parties for myself. I felt just like, okay, you know, it's. I don't know. Nothing's working. Through the last couple years, it's been a tough couple years for many of us. I coach several people, and I vicariously live through the people I coach because I feel their hurt and their pain. But the goal is, if you have that mindset that it's always negative. Everything is bad. It's never going to get better, you're not going to grow. You personally have to take on the responsibility yourself and make a change. You do, whether it's a change and a shift in your mindset, looking at things a lot better. And that's where even how we talk about good energy. I hear a lot of coaches and people say you need the energy, you need the energy. And we say, well, what is the energy? I mean, energy is. What happens is people say when you're down, you got to bring that energy. But that's tough. It is really tough because when you're down and you're negative, you just can't feed off of it. You can't bring that energy out because you don't have it. But when good things happen, like the littlest thing, then all of a sudden you have this extra kick, this extra energy in you and you want to do more. The first thing I share with people is assess yourself. I've said that a lot. I'm so big into assessments that I've done assessments for 17 years. I did it for a living until I don't really sell. I'm not in the assessment business. I've been in the coaching business, assessment business. Now I'm just really in the coaching business. I'm not in the assessment business, but assess yourself. Take an assessment. One coach told me, you don't need an assessment, you just have to shift their mindset. Well, if you don't know the behaviors and motivators and the values of somebody, how can you just shift their mindset? I don't get it. You have to get to know that person. A self assessment is you assess yourself. There's things online that you could do it. We have things that could help you. I promise I'm not on this show to sell you anything, but I really believe in assessing the situation, looking at it and saying, okay, where am I? Where do I want to go? How do I do it? What do I have to do? And that's what an assessment does. And there's lots of them out there. Do your research, look at different assessments. I will help you with one if you like, or if some people just don't have the funds. If you don't have the funds, reach out to me. Let's just do that. Let's just say that private message me if you can't afford the funds and I'll help you. But going forward, I want you to evaluate yourself. I want you to ask yourself these three things. Are you a red apple sometimes, but most of the time, 99% were positive. Again, there isn't a perfect red apple. I have to be clear on that. Are you a green apple? That could be. Maybe a little bit. We're all, you know, little doubt again. That first green apple is all in. But you still. It's only normal that we have a little bit of doubt then. Are you that green apple? That's okay. Yeah. I'm not sure. We'd be a little negative, too, but I'm going to evaluate it. Are you that rotten apple that this thing is just awful? It's terrible. I want nothing to do with it. And you're completely negative. Reach out if you have any questions. Hartman Academy. Love to help you. And tell me, what kind of apple are you?

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