Never Quit: Turning Adversity Into Your Edge

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 podcast. AI podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome back to another episode. And as I mentioned, I'm going to be doing some episodes right through my iPhone in the car. I want to make sure I get these out as I'm doing some traveling here. We usually would take the summer off, but we're not going to do that this year. We're going to answer some questions and bring out some mindset tips for everybody. So the question is from a friend from Selly Salt, Lou Cannon. I've known Lou for quite a while. We have a mutual friend who was a hockey player in Detroit, and I've known their— our mutual friend Doug Tucker since he was probably 9 or 10 years old. So the question is, Mike, in a small world where so many people try to create an image online, how important is it to stay authentic and trust the process when building a business? Well, that's a great question. You have to have that mindset of trusting the process. You're exactly right. But be authentic, be real. Authenticity builds trust. We see it so often online that what the fake it till you make it method, people always tell people who they are and what they've done and you can't find them anywhere online. Where are they? Usually things are, you know, the internet's a very valuable resource that has been before 1997, right around 1997 became very popular. So you could really see and read and do your research, do your due diligence and say, hey, is this person for real? So you can't fool anybody nowadays. So I believe on focusing just on building that trust, being extremely authentic, and also let your actions speak louder than your words. Your actions mean so much. I used to tell this story a lot. I remember Marc Messier would walk into a room and it was pretty much like, "Hello everybody, there you are," instead of, "Hello everybody, here I am, look at me everybody, look what I did." And people could read right through that. So be careful of that. That's just my opinion. And the things that you put online can't be erased sometimes. So be careful. Of what you do and just be real, be authentic, and let the chips fall where they may. So today I'm going to go into this story. It's called Never Quit: Turning Adversity into Your Edge. And I want to do this story on— he's a friend. I don't even look at him as a client. I had a really close friend who's an attorney here in Charlotte. His name is Jay Goldstein. And he mentioned to me that he has a nephew that is a young tennis player and up and coming. And I said, oh great.

I go, Jay, how old is he?

And at that time, I think I started working with him, he was around 14 years old. So he was very young and got to know this player and his dream was to play Division I. So the first thing I said is, "That's a great dream." Now that, like I said in one of our podcasts, that's dream it. His name is Andrew Levine. Andrew, that is fantastic, but let's focus not on the outcome, let's focus on what we could do right now. And it took a while to work with Andrew and it took a while for him to open up to me, but eventually when he did, we became very close and I watched how he just grew over the years. And it wasn't from me and my coaching, nothing to do with me. It was him. He chose to take his game and his life to another level. So, as a young I want to play Division I. He kept telling me that all the time. And he grew up around the sport of tennis. In fact, his grandfather owned a tennis academy. And he became so passionate about it. But all Andrew wanted to do was talk about the dream all the time. I'm going to be redundant here. He says, Mike, Division I was always my goal. This is what I wanted to do. And I said, Andrew, that's great. But it's—

Yeah.

He goes, "Mike, it's not just a wish. This is what I want so bad." I said, "Andrew, you have to commit to it." And he did. He did. He continued to do it. But all of us go through different things in life. And one thing Andrew had is he had some setbacks. He had adversity hit him. He moved to a new city. He had to go to a different school, meet different kids. He was unfamiliar with that. He felt left behind in the tennis world. He didn't think his future was going in the right direction. And at that time, his mother became seriously ill. You know, his family tried to protect him from the reality, he told me. And I said, Andrew, that's the reality, but we could use it in our favor. And I never, you know, for me, I can't talk about somebody's emotions or how they feel when they go through what they do. I mean, Andrew was very young. It's devastating news, the passing of your mother. Everything changes. And, you know, as we were doing the coaching together, I said we could use that as if your mother's always there for you, or what can we do to help us get that little bit of an edge, you know, finding that purpose through pain. And that's one thing that, you know, we learn through adversity, especially in life and athletics. Like, what is that thing that can motivate us? Not everything should be motivating, but what can we do to get us through that pain? Yeah. And not hide it. Because the worst thing you want to do is hide it. So, started working with Andrew over the years. I've been working with Andrew for quite a while. You know, he learned all this different mindset coaching and that's why I always said that it's more of the information and not just giving trans— you know, it's more of the transformation and not just giving information. But I gave Andrew a lot of great information and tools to work towards but he had to actually do it himself. And it was important that he stayed the course and he kept plugging away and he developed that why and how I'm gonna do it. Not just, hey, I have a dream. And if I had a dollar for every person that told me, Boy, I wish I knew in college what I knew now. I wish when I was young at 14, what would that— What would my inner voice say today? Well, of course, the easiest thing to do is to look back. I know the first thing that, you know, for me is making it to the NHL seemed like impossible. And I finally realized that maybe it's impossible for other people, but I realized that it has to be possible for me. And I believe that could be for everybody. You have to see those possibilities. You have to limit those doubts. Yeah. And it could help, it could hurt our confidence. It really can. It could set us back with our confidence and it could, you feel behind when you have adversity. You're always fighting to get ahead. And I always say, keep fighting, keep going. So as we're working with Andrew, as he's getting older, he's starting to win more tournaments. He would tell me about his great wins. And I said, Andrew, that's great. And I'm, yeah, I was proud of that, but it went beyond the wins. It went beyond. And then when he lost, he really took it personal. And I said, well, what did you do well today? What did you get out of what you did on the court? And I'm not a tennis player. I'm a struggling pickleball player. So what did you do out there that was good today? Let's look at the stronger points of things that we did. So he was looking more at the positive things. I realized I heard—

Uh-huh.

You know, a lot of negativity at times, you know, now I'm playing some of the top players in Texas and it's going to be tough. And I said, Andrew, it doesn't matter. Compete. The one thing you could do is outwork everybody. That's the one control you have. So you have to work on what you can control. It doesn't matter who you're playing against. You can only control what you can control. There's certain things we can't control. And, but the things that you can control, you could definitely take to the next level. So, as he kept growing and he kept getting a little bit older, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. He called me one day and he said he's gonna play Division I college tennis. I was so proud of him. Like, that's everything he wanted. And I said, Andrew, I'm beyond proud of you. I said, this was something that you worked for. But one thing I learned as an athlete, they used to tell me this, this was like a, Lindy Ruff told me, he's now the coach of the Sabres, he was coach in the NHL for a long time and was with the Sabres and now he, then he, you know, wasn't with the Sabres for a lot of years and he's back. And one day I had a pretty good game and he said to me to keep me grounded, like great leadership, he said, I wanna teach you something. I said, what's that? He says, how many miles is it "From Buffalo to Rochester?" I said, "60 miles." He says, "Yeah, but you know what? It's 120 to come back." So it's 60 miles to Buffalo, so, and it's 120 to come back. So never get too high. Celebrate your wins. Never get too low. And I remember I scored, it was opening night, I scored 2 goals. And he says, "Wow, you're off to 160 goal a year," joking around, 'cause that's one thing Lindy loved to do is joke around. Around. But he really taught— I always thought about that, like 60 miles down, 120 back. He says, once you start getting too comfortable, and if you're getting comfortable in your ways, it's going to be harder to get back. So if they send you to Rochester, it's a long way back because now you're down there, you're not forgotten, but you're put on the back burner a little bit. I told the same thing to Andrew. I said, Andrew, that's fantastic. You are on your way. Up. But remember, every day you have to do something different that nobody else is doing. So when I hear a lot of these athletes today, and I could probably call it the Frustrated Athlete— I think I got that domain name years ago— because all I hear is, "Boy, if I didn't get hurt," or, "I should have done this," "If I only had this," "If I used my mental toughness when I was young." And you don't want to— you don't want to do that. And for those, I hope I'm not picking on anybody, I'm just being direct, but those are, you have to use certain tools and you have to work with whatever it is that you have. So you wanna keep showing up, you wanna keep improving, you wanna keep moving forward. You never let the setbacks define who you are because you're gonna, everybody fails, but it doesn't make you a failure. I remember we did the Learn to Play program as a young hockey player in Oak Park, Michigan. Which is so sad. They tore down the rink that we grew up in. I don't want to get off track, but I remember our great coaches we had there, Marshall Schenkopf and Steve Woodburg. We called him Woody. And a great little community. And you fall, you get right back up. And that's what they taught us. My 5th grade teacher, Mr. McPhillips, said, okay, never give up. Just keep going. And if you're struggling here, then You just have to work hard in that area, work harder, do something different that nobody else is doing. So these are things that, that I've learned at a real young age. And just to fast forward, Andrew, now he's, uh, on his way, made the decision to transfer to the University of New Mexico. And I'm going to give him the same message as I always said. Andrew, what do we have to do? We have to be— We have to be balanced. We have to be level-headed. You have to approach it like Okay, don't worry about the outcome. Let's— okay, you're gonna be on a new team, new players, new situation, and what you have to do is adapt. And you wanna be like— and I said it earlier, thanks, Lou Cannon— you wanna be authentic. So when you go to the team, don't hide behind a mask. Don't pretend to be somebody you're not. Be yourself and just be who you are. And everything you do, you do it 100%.

Yeah.

And one of my favorite lines is— a lot of clichés today. And I think my father told me this. He said, sometimes you feel that you only have 50%. You have a cold, you don't feel well, something is wrong with you. Andrew, your tennis racket might not be— someone did the stringing of it. I hope I'm even saying that right. And maybe they did it too tight and you're gonna go out and play and it's a different feel. Or different hockey stick, doesn't matter what it is, but you still have to give 100% of the 50% you have. So if you don't feel good, something is off, you still have to give 100% of that. I remember my father always told that to me. He says, "Okay." I said, "Dad, I don't feel great today." 'Cause he always asked, "Hey, how do you think you played today?" Well, I did okay. I just didn't feel great. My skate, didn't feel completely nice. I didn't have my skates sharpened the way I wanted it to. Maybe they, you know, I like to get my skates at 5/8 and maybe it was done at a half. And I can make all the excuses in the world, except I realize it doesn't matter. You still have to give everything you have. And Lou, I'm going to bring it back to you again. You know, thanks again so much. My, like I said, I told you this and I mentioned this, that My son wanted, you know, for his birthday, he said, "Dad, you know what I want this year? I want some Sally's salt that you were talking about 'cause I love to cook." I said, "I can make that happen, no problem." So that is the story today. And I'm gonna say it again, Andrew, I hope you listen to this. I'm gonna send this to you, but I want, I'm really proud of who you are. And I'm not proud of what you, I am proud, that's great. You lived your dream to play Division I, but I always love the person who you are. That's who it is. I work with a lot of young athletes. We work with different groups, business professionals, and I'm proud of the person you are, the character, you know, you are. That's who I'm proud of. Hey, everything else is a bonus. Yes, you played Division I, you lived your dream. We have players that played at every level in the NHL, Major League Baseball. It doesn't matter. I want to know the kind of person you are, and that's really what it's about. So, Lou, again, from Sally Salt here, just keep doing what you're doing. I know that people all over are using your product. I took it to one of the speaking engagements that I did in New York last year, and the pro guys loved it. As you saw, we took pictures from it. So a lot of the NHL players, I said, here, try the salt, and I was like, I should be your salesperson, Lou. But anyways, fantastic question and looking forward to next time. Have a great day.

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.