Mike Hartman- Motivational Story-I Bought A Bed- Scotty Bowman

Mike Hartman Performance Mindset Strategist this is develop the Mindset of a champion with former Stanley cup champion Mike Hartman. Welcome to another episode. Today I'm going to share another Scotty Bowman story. So here we go again. And people ask me, did you like Scotty Bowman? I said absolutely. It was more than a privilege to, to play for the great Scotty Bowman. Had a great time with him. But one thing that I tell people is he always had you on your toes. You never know what was going to happen next. So I'm just going to share this story with you. It started out that I shared with everybody that he invites me to sign that contract and play with the team. So I signed a nice six figure contract at 19 years old, which was at that time great for those standards back in those days and had a really great signing bonus and very excited to, to be part of the team. So I play fairly well. I play really well the first bunch of games, but the team overall, standing wise, we didn't do that great. And I think the only reason I did well is because he was mad at some of the older players. So I end up scoring and in those days, not bad for a fourth liner, three goals, three assists, six points and my first 10 games. So I'm starting to play pretty well. But there was a, there was a rule back in those days. So if you're there and you're there for the first 10 games, you're still, I'm still living out of the hotel, so that's the purpose here. So I'm living out of the hotel. Eventually they have to tell you to get a place because you can't live in a hotel all year by NHL Players association rules. You, you are told after a certain amount of time, I can't remember how long that is, but they tell you to get a place. So I'm playing fairly well and I'll fast forward a couple days forward and we're going to Pittsburgh. So I go to play in Pittsburgh. Obviously you check out of your hotel, you keep your hotel the entire time, but you leave the hotel and you go to another hotel. So I felt like I just live in like out of a suitcase for a while. So now we're in Pittsburgh staying in this gorgeous five star hotel there. Talk a lot about hotels and we're staying in this, this gorgeous place and I get into the elevator, we're playing the Penguins. I think the next night we're on a little road trip. It was like Pittsburgh, Montreal. So I get into the elevator and there's Mr. Bowman? I said, hello, Mr. Bowman. How are you? And he ignores me. I said, okay. So I press the. Probably what, the 15th floor? I can't remember. He presses the 25th floor, maybe the big suites in the hotel. We were staying in Pittsburgh. And he. He gets out at my floor. Now I'm very uncomfortable. So now he gets off the elevator where I am, and he says, can I ask you a couple questions? I said, sure. He says, really fast question. Do you like it here? Yes. Do you? Are you happy? Do you. Who do you hang out with? What do you do every night? Are you learning? Is this too fast for you? Do you like this pace? Do you think you can handle this? Do you feel uncomfortable? Really fast questions. So you had to be ready. You had to look them right in the eye. And plus, here I am. You're a little immature at 19. You're not ready to handle this. We talk about mindset and being mentally tough, but how mentally tough can you be when you're talking to the. You know, at that time, one of the top coaches ever to coach in the National Hockey League, and he was a coach, general manager of the team. So he's asking me all these questions. I'm trying to answer them to the best of my abilities, and he finally says, I just want to share with you that it's time for you to go find a place. So I said, okay, well, thank you very much. And he walked away. So I didn't know what that meant. Now I'm able to get my own place and come on. At 19 years old. A lot of kids at my age are going to college. Their parents are checking them into college universities. Prior to that, I lived with Billets in North Bay, Ontario, with the family. So when they said, get a place, I didn't know what that meant. So, anyways, I go back to my room, and I was rooming with Dave, Andre Chuk. And I said, dave, I was just told to get a place. And he didn't get phased at all. Dave's a very, you know, modest, quiet guy for the most part. And he says, hey, before you get a place, you could live with me for a couple weeks till you get acclimated and come live in my house. So I go live with Dave Anderchuk, and what a great honor it was. One of our leaders. He's already been in the league probably five years at that point. Now he's a Hall of Famer, Stanley cup champion. Just a real gentleman, gentle giant, big guy. So I'm living with Dave Anderchuck. He invites me into his place and John Tucker was living there. And I said, wow, how cool is this? And I said, what do I owe you? He laughed. He said, nothing. And now I know why. And I would never tell you how much, but I saw my check at that time, and I remember at that time I went in Dave Anderchuck's house and he left his check on top of the refrigerator. So I said, I happen to see it on top there, like it was falling off. And I looked at it and I just said, really? And he had that up there for about five or six days, didn't cash it, or I would have jumped to the, the bank. I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. So I end up living with Dave. He invites me to stay with him, and I got to backtrack just a little bit to the story. So we play the Pittsburgh Penguins that night, for what, whatever it's worth, we lose like 7 to 1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins. And I probably played the worst game I played with the team. All of us played bad, but for me to play bad, it was like I was just told to get a place, and now I play really bad. So I play the next night in Montreal, and we're playing the Montreal Canadiens, and I take where it's two to two and there's like five minutes left in the game, and I'm out there and I'm playing really well, and I take the puck and I throw it right up the middle of the ice, and Matt's Nazilin intercepts it, comes down and scores. So there's, oh, there's two bad games, and I felt like I just cost the team the game. So now I'm feeling, my confidence went way down. So I, I, you could say I got lucky in the beginning, scored some goals, played with some good players. In fact, I think I was on Dave Anderchuk's line a little bit, playing with Gilbert Parole, being moved around as a spot player, and actually those players made me look pretty good. It wasn't that I was playing that spectacular. They wanted me as a physical player, but I ended up playing with some pretty good guys, so my stats were padded pretty good. Well, we go back, you know, we're back in Buffalo, like I said, I fast, you know, living with Dave for another couple weeks, and I go out and Adam Kraton asked me to move in with him, and I said, sure, what do I pay a month? What do I do? He, in case I don't Worry about it, but go get furniture. So I went out, bought a bed, a dresser set. I bought all these item. So fast forward the clock. About four days later I'm in this place and I'm comfortable. And Adam warned me, he says, listen, don't get too excited because when we lose here, a lot of things happen, you know, you might go down. And he was, he was trying to keep me grounded because at 19, you're really not educated. You really don't know what's going on. So turns out that five days later I go to practice and living comfortably in Buffalo and, and Scotty bought. My bags are packed. Everything's packed. So I get into the auditorium in, in Buffalo and everything's packed. My sticks are packed, my, my bag, they're taped up. And I talked to Rip Simone, who's been there to this day, I think over 45 years, maybe 50 years with the Sabers, to d talk about a special individual. And he didn't say much except, kid, I think you're going back to Junior, but you better go talk to Scotty. He didn't want to tell me too much, overstep his boundaries. So I go down and I proceed to, to walk down to the office and I wait outside for 15 minutes into the waiting room and I go into, you know, Scotty has me come in and he said, well, I just want to share with you that we have decided to send you back to Junior and you're going to play in Windsor tomorrow against the Windsor Spitfires. And yeah, you did a good job. You're not ready for this. You're, you know, he, remember I told that story earlier, he says, you know, you're, you know, one of the worst players I ever had. But I think he was, I think joking in a way, just trying to keep me on edge. Never wanted me comfortable. In fact, that same week, you know, it was just a tough week for the team as we were. We're not doing very well. So he said very nicely, hey, it's, you know, you made it. You never really should have made it out of camp. You're a seventh round pick. I really wanted to light a fire under some of these guys and we're going to be making a lot of changes and just work hard down in juniors. So I said to him, I said, okay, Mr. Bowman, thank you very much. I know when I leave. And he says, we'll send you your, your check to Buffalo. Your, the rest of your signing bonus is coming. So you're gonna make more money than any of your Junior players would ever see and just keep working down there. So I said, thank you very much. And I said, by the way, can I ask you a question? He said, sure. And I said, well, I bought a bed, I bought furniture, I bought all kinds of things. Like, what do I do? He says, wait a sec, Mike, you bought a bed? I said, yes. He says, what kind? I said, I was a queen size bed. He goes, was it comfortable? I said, yeah. Do you put a wooden board underneath the. Where the frame is to keep it strong? I said, no. He goes, you should. That's good for your back as you play a lot of games. He says, do you get good sleeps on it? I said, yeah, it's great. He goes, is it comfortable? He goes, do you have feathered pillows? I said, actually, I do. He says, what kind of comforter do you have? We talked about this, which seemed like for 20 minutes. We talked about it probably for 10 minutes. Going back, I'm thinking back many years. He says, I can't send you down. Go tell Craig Ramsey, who's running practice today, that I can't send you down because you bought a bed. And I looked at him and I said, I'm really confused. He says, go, go, go to practice. So I walk down, I go back into the dressing room auditorium, big stadium, one of my favorite buildings ever to play in. And it's silent in there. And I walk into the room and the guys are all getting dressed, and I start opening my hockey. Mike Foligno was there and Gilbert Perot and Billy Height. And a lot of the big boys are saying, what? What happened? What are you doing? And Rip says, what's going on? Why are you getting dressed? Aren't you going to play in Windsor? Because he knew. I said, no. Scotty Bowman told me to get dressed. And they said, you're the first guy ever to get sent down and get called up in five minutes. What happened? I said, well, I told him I bought a bed. If you ever wanted to hear 20 guys laugh on the floor and change the energy of the dressing room, it did. So I get dressed and I put my stuff on. I'm on the ice, and then I'm. I'm practicing with the team. And then the next morning, I know we had a game, but I wasn't dressing. They told me, and I'm. And Scotty was out there, and I did a backhand pass in my own zone on a. We were doing a two on two. Regroup. So if anybody knows what that is, if you don't play Hockey, it's you go down two on or. Sorry, the two on. Oh. You go down two on zero. You pass it to the other two guys in line. We swing, we counter the other way. Anyways, the point is I made a backhand pass in my own zone, like inside of the blue line. And he comes up to me and he quietly, he says, did you realize what you just did? I said, no. No. What did I. What did I do? He goes, you don't realize what you just did? I said, no. He goes, you made a backhand pass into your own zone. He goes, do you feel you're Wayne Gretzky? No. Do you feel you're as good as Gilbert Perrault? No. Do you think it's okay to make a backhand pass in your own zone? And it's practice, and remember, this is. It's not a game video. It's practice. I said. I said, I guess not. He goes, you guess not. Now you're guessing. You're playing guessing games with me. Are you playing games with me? I said, no. I said, I won't do that. So after practice, I get told to go back into Scotty's office. And he told me he's sending me back to Junior. He says, mike, I'm sorry about the bed, I'm sorry about your furniture, but we have to send you back now. The reason is, I found out later, and he said goodbye and shook my hand. And rip, the trainer said, listen, he didn't want you driving all the way to Windsor. There was a little bit of snow going on this time, just heading into December in Buffalo, and he didn't want me to go all the way back into. Go to Windsor, Ontario. It's a further drive than going to Guelph, which is probably two hours, three hours shorter of a drive. So the long story is he was just caring for my safety as a young guy and said it doesn't make sense to have him drive all the way to Windsor. Then after that game in Guelph, the team is heading back to North Bay. And then I was actually headed to the rural junior team to play for my country from there. So it was a little bit of a whirlwind, but he was more of a caring guy. He knew I was young. But the point is, you have to be mentally strong. So anytime your boss serves you something that you're not prepared, I tell people, always be ready. Especially with a guy like Scotty. Again, people ask me, do not like Scotty. Like I mentioned earlier, I think the world of him but he always wanted you on your toes. He never wanted you comfortable. And as good as it gets in professional sports or anything you do in life, it can get bad just as quick. So sometimes you just have to be strong. You have to be mentally strong. You have to do things with class and integrity, and you have to think. And I learned going forward that I was never going to question a coach or bring up something that's insignificant. So you could use that within your work or anything that you do in life or, or kids that, that play hockey. Stick to the topic, stick to the point. Don't go off topic. And I did that as a young guy not being fully mature and asking really about a bed. So people might think this is silly. A lot of people in sports, they may understand it a little bit more in professional sports because you do have to be mentally strong and always on your toes. So the message is for everybody to. To be as strong as you can and just be ready and be focused and always be on your game. Until next time, have a great day. And if I could help you in any way, go to imotivatorsacademy.com you could ask us any questions. A lot of our podcasts are there. And please do us a favor and Apple Podcast, please leave us a review. Apple Podcast. Love reviews. Apple loves reviews. Until then, be well.