Less = More

Welcome to the Healthy Mindset AI podcast, where host Mike Hartman, a performance coach and former professional athlete, brings his passion to help athletes and workplace athletes achieve their dreams and goals while being mindful of everything else in life. Mike also uses this platform to share his targeted assessment applications, Healthy Mindset course, meditation, and goal-setting technique for the athlete and workplace athlete. We're glad you're here. Now let's dive headfirst into this episode of the Healthy Mindset AI AI podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome back to another episode. And it was the holiday weekend, and I was walking into Target, and I see a very nice family ahead of me. And as I'm walking in, she mentioned to her— maybe her husband and her son— that less is more. And I said, I like that. And then she mentioned it again. So I was thinking, I'm gonna do this podcast on less is more. So I want to thank the very nice lady. I believe her name is Erin. I approached her and I asked her, "Hey, can I use your line today, 'less is more,' in one of my podcasts?" She said, "Sure." So, here we go today. Less is more. And I've also learned this way over the years. I mentioned before that one of my closest friends was the assistant general manager of a major league baseball team. And he would tell me a lot of young athletes would go in the batting cage for hours. But what they were doing is they were hurting themselves because they were doing too much. Sometimes too much wears you out. You develop bad habits. Your swing changes and you just do things that you typically would not do. Same in corporate America. Sometimes I've worked with people and they say, "I want to be in the office at 7 AM. I'm going to get so much more done." And really, they might not even get as much done. Sometimes they put more on their plate. So, I'm going to give 10 reasons why I believe less is more and I want to thank the very nice lady that was walking into Target, so I appreciate that. And one of the things that really, I believe, helped me why I always believed less was more, it was more focus. So I was in the coaching business for 20 years doing the assessments, working with people, but I would use so many different assessments. Now I use, instead of 20 assessments that we did years ago, we use 2 because I want to have more of a focus. So I use one for athletes and I use one for the workplace professional. I believe when I have fewer things that I have to worry about and fewer things that I have to explain, it's much better for me. So you could think of maybe ways that you could focus on different things. Uh, one thing we knew as a professional athlete, I was told this by Jimmy Devellano, who was the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings when I was 18 years old. He said in order to make it to the highest level You have to do a lot of things really well, but you have to do one thing exceptionally well. So I learned that from him. It was something I learned at 18 years old. You can't be the best at everything. You have to do something really well, unless you're Bo Jackson back in the day, and he played baseball and football, and there's a few outliers out there for sure. But for the most part, focusing on that that one thing that you do really well and be the best at it. The next thing is less overwhelmed. I felt when I was overwhelmed with things, it would set me back. Too many goals, too many notes. In the old days, they would talk about journaling, and I would write on a full piece of paper. Back 20 years ago when I started journaling, I was writing all of these different things down. Didn't even cover— I mean, it wasn't even like I was getting a third of them completed. So sometimes when we overwhelm ourselves with so many things, we're actually setting ourselves back. And I— that's one thing that I've always taken to heart is don't do too much. Don't get overwhelmed. Do what you could do and do the best at it, like I mentioned earlier. Better execution is another one. Success comes from constantly applying different things or even being consistent with things like better execution. So, as an athlete, I remember when I was young and I would work on, let's say, pucks around the boards because a big part of my job was to play defensive hockey. And that puck would come around the boards, I had to get it out not 9 out of 10 times, I had to get it out 10 out of 10 times. And I once had a coach, Bob Hartley, who I really thought is one of the best development coaches I've ever had. And I heard him say back in many years ago, he was telling our team in Hershey, Pennsylvania, he said, "You do whatever you can to stop that puck and make sure it gets out." I think it bounced over a player's stick and the player said, "Well, it took a bounce." Well, did you put your body in front of the puck? What did you do to make sure that puck, that, you know, you control that puck and you make a good play, you make a good second pass, or you get it out? So, that's another example to me of you know, having this consistency in what you're doing and doing it well. So, the other thing I want to talk about here is better decisions. Making really good choices, choosing to make good choices in what you're doing, whether it's a business choice, whether it's something as an athlete, making good choices is extremely important because one bad choice could set you back. Now, Initially, it looks like, wow, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get ahead right now, but what happens later? I've seen a lot of players do that over time. They overtrain or overuse and they think they're making good decisions, but they're not. They're really setting themselves back. And the same within the corporate, the corporate world. It seems like sometimes that, well, I'm not going to start trying to create better habits for myself today. I think I'll start next week. I have a big week. I got to get this done. But what happens is you end up getting tired. You get exhausted and you end up setting yourself back. So, making better decisions to me is extremely important. And another one I'll talk about is greater confidence. Small wins builds momentum. I've mentioned that on so many of our podcasts here that little wins are important. Think, think about doing these little wins and trying to get ahead by doing it. The win of the day even. It could be something small. Hey, I had a win. What was your win of the day today? What did you do that was a win? And you can celebrate that win, but then you get ready next time. All the clichés, and even in sports, you never get too high, you never get too low, you stay neutral. But I still believe you could celebrate your wins. And I recently had a win. I recently mentioned to many people before that my story, which was in a couple of the most recent podcasts about having sepsis and Now I feel myself. I could exercise again. I could do things that I was doing before where I was struggling. And what I did though, I'd be the first to admit it, and because we all make mistakes, coaches need a coach. And what I did initially was I came out of the gate and I went a little bit too hard the first day I was allowed to start exercising, where I should have done it very slow. And what did I do? I started going a little bit more than I should have done. And I could look myself in the mirror and I would say, why did I do that? And those are things that we could work on. So now I have a little small win. I'm going slowly with it. I'm ready to get back. So to me, those are high wins. So, and the other thing is, is having really more meaningful progress. Like, like they call it mastery. They call it repetition. I once heard repetition is your best coach, continuously doing it. But then I mentioned earlier too, too much could set you back. But when you do a lot of things and you practice it and you continuously practice it, you're gonna get better. And another thing what we don't want to do is the, the mastery is great, but always comparing. So one thing is, okay, I'm gonna compare myself to the next person. We don't want to do that. I mentioned earlier that less is more. That doesn't mean we have to always compare ourselves to the the person next to us. Like, oh, what are they doing? How can I do it better? Work on yourself. Work on for the betterment of you. Getting yourself better every day. And more meaningful progress is, to me, important. So, it has to be for a reason. I was talking to a young athlete, a hockey player, and they told me they're going to shoot 2,000 pucks. And I said, well, I love your attitude, great attitude, but I don't think 2,000 pucks, like you can't just put a number on it. You have to sometimes have that ability. So I mentioned before is recover, because one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to develop bad habits. And high performers don't try to do everything. Some of the best people I know, my friend from Wells Fargo that I think he had over 700 people report to him. Obviously, he had people that were below him and where he was, but he was one of the highest performers I've ever met, and he would always try not to do too much. They identified what mattered most. So I would ask him, I said, "Wait, how do you manage all this?" He says, "Well, I have a good team of people, and I have to identify what's really important and really focus in on that." And the other thing is commit to doing it. So if you're an athlete, that commitment is so important. And you don't have to do so many different things. So if I would ask you, uh, what is your summer plan as an athlete? And you list off about 30 different things, uh, you know, I love your enthusiasm, I love your drive, your determination, except that's not gonna cut it. Do something very well. Do something to the best of your ability. And keep practicing at it and keep practicing. That doesn't mean you don't work on other things. I don't want to send the wrong message, but what can you do well? There's been so many great players in the NHL that I played with that did things really, really well. I could think of players like Dean Kennedy, and most people are going to say, "Who?" I had a friend, Dean Kennedy, for the Buffalo Sabres, and I played in Winnipeg with him. We were actually traded together. And he made sure— I asked him like, "What do you focus on?" You know, I was a young player at the time and he was talking to me like a mentor, a big farmer, a mentor-type guy. And he says, "Listen, do something very well. Don't go out of your way to make a hit. Make sure, you know, when you're going to be physical, make sure you line up the player. Don't go out of your way because you're going to put us more in a jam." What happens is now you go out of your way and you might make the hit. Now they're coming back 3-on-2 on us because you did something that you shouldn't have done. So focus on doing a little bit less, which is going to be more. Like I said, less is more. Uh, one thing I loved about Dean was he was a great steady defenseman and he told me his plan. So we talk about having a plan through this. I'm going to throw Dean into the equation here. So Dean Kennedy would tell me years, like when I was playing with him, he says, I'm only going to play in the NHL for 10 years if I last. And I think he played 10 or 11 years. I said, why do you put a limit on it? He says, because Mike, uh, I think he was a first-round pick to the New York Rangers and then got traded to LA, uh, then he went to Buffalo, and I think he even gone back to LA. He was in Winnipeg. He bounced around. He says, I'm going to be— my goal is to be the best steady defenseman block shots, do everything I can to help the team play physical, but I'm gonna go back and work on the farm. I said, Dean, what if you could play 20 years? He says, I don't want to. I'm gonna play, my plan is I'm gonna give everything I have and I'm going to play 10 years. That's my plan no matter what happens and I'm going on the farm. And he did, that's exactly what he did. I never forgot that. In fact, I recently talked to him on a very sad occasion, and I don't want to get into it too, his wife passed away, and it's his wife Tammy who I really respected that family, and I told him, I said, "Dean, you put an impact on me that you said something years ago that I even use in my own coaching." He says, "Oh, what did I do?" I said, "You told me you're going to go back to Alberta and you're going to work on the farm no matter what after 10 years." And he was even the captain of the Winnipeg Jets. He even went to his hometown in Edmonton. And what did he do? He did exactly what he said. So a big part of it was he says, you know, Hardy, that was my nickname, I only need— it's the same thing, less is more. I'm only going to play 10 years. That's all I need. And I'm going to go back to doing what I'm doing. So I thought I would throw that little story in at the end. I hope this has helped you. Any question, please feel free to reach out. Go to our website, ask any questions, and Have a great day until next time and looking forward to doing more of these little tips. I'll be doing them from the car. And I want to thank the very nice family that was walking into Target because you made this episode a lot easier. You had me thinking about something. So thanks again.

We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset AI podcast with your host, Mike Hartman. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. To dive deeper and learn more about the Healthy Mindset program, or to get in touch with Mike, please visit our website, healthymindset.ai. Thanks again for listening, and we hope you'll join us again on the next episode of the Healthy Mindset AI podcast. Until then, be well.