Athletes RTP Little Things

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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 to another episode. Today we are on the Ready to Play series. So if you haven't listened to all of the other episodes, please go back and listen before you actually listen to this one. We are on what is called the little things in details as you may have heard that so many times. So I'm going to get this out in five minutes because there is so much to talk to. I'll use an example like Derek Jeter. If you watch him, it looks like he's always on his game. But what he did prior to that growing up in Michigan, he worked on his skills, took thousands of ground balls. Thousands of ground balls they call it. I don't know if that if they read if anyone's read the book the Outliers, I'm not so much sure. You have to do things 10,000 times. I don't know how accurate that is. Could be. What do I know, right? But it's so important that you do the littlest things to get better. I used to watch athletes do the right thing like a hockey player. There were so many players that I knew that always knew how to get the pucks out when it came around the boards, did the littlest things and that's what helped them within their game. We had great free throw shooters in basketball and they practiced and practiced and they did those little things right. Or being a team player, I played with so many leaders that were just team players. That's doing a little thing. There's so many tangibles and intangible things that we could talk about by doing the little things in details. And we can get into that. You can read right on our website. We're going to have more articles about this in the resource section of Hartman Academy no.com, i've said that in every one by now we should have it. But and then also it's the littlest thing like knowing your body, knowing your mindset. We use that through through our elearning course and our assessment. So doing the little things in details is everything that you can to make yourself different. I remember that I talked to Jimmy Devilano who was the president of Detroit Red Wings at the time. I wasn't Drafted and I met him down. It's in one of my stories, actually, on my podcast. And he, he invited me down to Jolos arena to have lunch with him. And I said, wow, this is great. I thought he was inviting me down because I did not get drafted. I thought he was going to bring me to training camp. But I'm not going to get into that whole story. It's about the little things and details. He just sat down and he sat down with me. We had lunch. He said, you know, Mike, the one thing you're not doing are the little things in details. Doing the little plays, making the smart choices, the smart decisions, focusing on an area. Like, don't go after a big guy all the time. I don't mean physically. I'm not talking physically or fight, but when you go right at him, you're gonna bounce right at him, angle him, go for his hands. That's the weakest part of the human body. I want you to shoot from everywhere. Just don't shoot right in front of the slot. I want you to shoot from the side of the net, but make sure it doesn't go all the way around. That's a little thing in detail. Shoot for the near side. If anyone's in hockey, they may understand you could apply this to your sport. My point is, I had to have somebody tell me what I needed to do. As soon as I listened to that, back When I was 19 years, 18 years old, I understood the little things and details and how important they were. It can make a difference in helping you with your game. Even a weekend warrior, even training properly, you know, you over train, you're not doing the little things right. You're doing them wrong. Actually, you're over training your body. Your body's going to break down. Your body's like a machine not properly taken care of. You're going to hurt yourself. So many of these things, you need to, I say, become the athlete you want to be. Again. I've said this in many episodes. We're not breeding athletes. You could be a house league player, amateur basketball player, play a sport in a men's league. It doesn't matter. We still want to get better. And if you do the little things, the littlest things, that can make a difference, like in hockey, if you're in the men's league, go to the far post and put your stick on the ice. Now, we do a lot of the kid work here, but hey, dads, moms, if you play hockey, go to the far post with your stick on the ice. And stop. Don't skate by the net. That's a little thing a lot of players watch. Go to a practice next time and watch a hockey practice if you're a hockey parent and watch what happens. The kid's going to skate by the net. The boy or the girl is going to not stop in front where you don't really want to do that. Now, it's a fast game today. You're not necessarily going to have to stop on a dime. There's always different circumstances. I know people are saying, well, I had to skate by the net to get the puck. Well, sometimes you stop in front, you keep your stick near the ice and that puck's going to come to you. It's the simplest thing. It's a little thing in detail. My friend, he works with with baseball players. Leland Maddox, director of player personnel for the Cincinnati Reds for years, Pirates, several organizations. He says, mike, I look at the little things. I go, like what? I'm not a big baseball guy. I played amateur baseball. I just look how they look me straight in the eye. When I meet somebody, I want to know their character. That's a little thing. I talk to an athlete. Are they listening to me? I go, ooh, wow. Never thought about that. I'm thinking all the physical part on the field. I watch how as a player, are they bending their knees properly? Are they baseball ready? Even at a young age, we develop these habits that we talked about earlier on. That's a little thing. So we can get into the little things in details for a long time. Don Luce drafted me by the Buffalo Sabres. I love him. He's a mindset coach. Does mindset work? He's fabulous. I love. Don't we talk all the time? Our conversations would go an hour on the phone or longer. And just a fabulous human being. I can't get into that enough. But he asked me, Mike, what? He asked me one time, mike, what percent of hockey is mental? I don't know. This is like 10 years ago, 12 years ago. And I've been doing mindset coaching for about 16 years. I said, I don't know, Don, maybe 80%, 90. He goes, no, 100%. It's the littlest things that make a difference. You have to think about taping your stick. You have to think about, you know, getting in the car as a professional athlete and driving to the stadium. You have to think about what you're going to do in warm ups and how you're going to prepare yourself. So you're always using your mind. Somebody once asked Me? Well, if it's 100%, how much is physical? I don't know. Can't get into these percentages, but I think you know what I mean. You do the littlest things and you do whatever you can so you can get the edge no matter what level you play. I would love to help you go to Hartman Academy and you go into the programs area. I have a 50% discount code. The ready to play assessment is there for you. I know we're talking about it a lot. This is the one passion I've had. I've done a hundred episodes and we haven't done any advertising and somebody said, can you please? This is from a major organization. Why don't you share what you do with people? I said, sure. Willing to do it. We also have free nutrition for kids, so parents can ask me that in the Hartman Academy website. Just ask if anything. Please don't feel obligated if I'm going to say this. If you can't afford the course, no questions asked. If you're having tough times, families, I'll give it to you for free. I'll give you the course if you message me and say, mike, my family would really love to have this course. Done. Done deal. Let's do that. Let's do that. Say, hey, I listened to your episode about little things and details. Can you please send me the course? Okay. No questions asked. Done deal. Hey, thank you, everybody. Love doing this. You can hear it. My voice. Maybe somebody said on one of the last episodes, man, you sound like you love doing this. I said, hey, I love interviewing athletes, people, people. But when it comes to helping our young athletes and people that want to get ahead, it's just. It's my passion. Thank you, everybody.

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