RTP SERIES (3) Dr. Jason Novetsky Sports Performance Psychology Coach!

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're going to change it around just a little bit. You know, we call this the Ready to Play series. And I'm super excited today. And I'll tell you why I'm really excited because we're going to have Dr. Jason Novetsky on, and he's got a wealth of knowledge that's not only going to help coaches, but help players all over the country. So a little bit about Dr. Jason Novetsky, besides being a sports performance psychology coach, he said he has his Ph.D. he has his master's clinical. I can go into all of that. He's got, like I said, a wealth of knowledge behind him. But another thing that he has, which I haven't found too often, is I've worked with a lot of sports psychologists or sports performance coaches or people in that, in that arena. And I have never found anybody that has the background of Dr. Noveski. And I'm not taking anything away. I have some great friends, people that have been on our shows. Fantastic. But this is special. We're going to get into Jason's career. You know, he played baseball. He played, he was a Division 1 pitcher for the University of Detroit. And he's got, like I said, mental toughness. And he's got this entire great background. Jason, it's so great to have you here today with us.

Well, thanks, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here and it's always good to catch up with you.

So what I do is I usually, you know, I turn it to you or to our, you know, to people that we have on our shows. Can you share just a little bit about your story? You know, how you, you know, you played baseball as a young player and you worked your way up, you played college and then, you know, you're doing the sports performance coaching psychology, worked in the schools. Can you share a few minutes with us on how all this came about?

Yeah. Well, I mean, just like any other, you know, young kid back in the day, played all different kinds of sports and played a lot of hockey like you did, as everybody knows. But it was pretty clear as I got into my middle years in high school that baseball was going to be My ticket if I was going to do anything, you know, above and beyond high school with a sport. So I really dedicated myself around my, excuse me, my sophomore junior year into baseball and was a relatively high, highly touted left handed pitcher coming out of Oak Park, Michigan and started to get some looks by scouts and colleges and things like that. And in a roundabout way, I won't go into all the details, but ended up as a red shirt player at University of Detroit by way of Southern Mississippi and spent a year in Southern Mississippi, got hurt, took a medical red shirt, decided to transfer back to our area and that's when I noticed the need for mental skills training. My red shirt freshman year was an absolute debacle when it came to results. I had a good time, had a great, great relationship with my teammates and coaches, but I was not being successful whatsoever. I actually went 2 and 8 as a starting pitcher. Mike. I set the school record for losses as a starter at the University of Detroit. And that's not obviously the record you want to have next to your name. And I was obviously very frustrated as that season was going on because I hadn't lost eight games combined in high school. I didn't know what that kind of disappointment and losing felt like because I had what I consider now called the curse of talent. Where I was good, naturally in high school, but when you get to higher levels, as you know, it's more than talent is what you need. So I started asking my teammates, my upperclassmen, my coaches, like, you know, why am I not being successful and do I need to throw harder? Do I need to add another pitch? Is something wrong with my mechanics? And all the normal things you would ask. And they said, no, everything's fine there. You throw just as hard as everybody else. You got command of two pitches with you. It's mental. Now Michael, remember It's, this is 1988, we're not really talking about these things. And right. There's no social media and there's no Internet and Google and things like that. So I was like, what do you even mean? What does that mean? Mental, like your body language and you don't look prepared and you don't manage your emotions well. And I'm like, well, how do you do that? You know, no one was around like me now to, to be coached like that. Maybe they were, but they weren't certainly accessible to a small Division 1 college. And finally somebody handed me the book called the Mental Game of Baseball by Harvey Dorfman who turns out is like the pioneer of mental skills Training in baseball and, you know, spawned a bunch of other great people in our, in our profession. And at first I didn't want to read this book because that was kind of admitting something was wrong with me. And you know, as a baseball player, your ego gets in the way and I, I didn't want to admit that. So finally I relented after another loss during that year and I said, okay, I better read this book. So sat down one weekend and I couldn't put it down. Mike. Everything Dr. Dorfman was saying in the book was spot on. So I started working on imagery, visualization, developing routines to be more mentally prepared and self talk, to be more focused and present in the moment and on and on, all the things that we'll talk about. But I worked really hard on it. I was dedicated to it. And I started to see results pretty quickly through that summer season. And then I earned my spot back on my team in terms of, in the pitching rotation and then went on to break another record at the University of Detroit, which was the win record. So I went 93 that next season and set that record in. The funny thing is I didn't change much physically. I didn't throw any harder, I didn't add a pitch, I didn't change mechanics. I was just more prepared, focused, resilient mentally, and to me that was all the difference. So I knew there was something about this thing that we call the mental game. And I decided to change my major. I got into psychology, went on to get my advanced degrees, and I work in the school systems as well as a consultant and in the school psychology field. But my passion is working with athletes to become more mentally skilled.

That's great. I mean, that's such a great. So you went through it. And sometimes the hardest thing that I would realize is as an athlete is when I would sit down with somebody and if they haven't experienced it, how do they know? And that's something that you have and nobody could take that away from you. You played at a very high level, which is hard to do. People do not realize, I tell, I tell this to families and individuals that it's so hard to play Division 1. It's not like, oh, you just get a scholarship or you play private school. It is tough no matter where you play. For a small Division 1 school came from Mississippi, red shirted. I told my, my nephew and he went to Purdue and he was a basketball player, he was a star in Florida. And my sister said, you know, he's great and I love him so Much now he's playing at a small school in Minnesota and doing very well. But I said, you know, I'd rather have him go to a small school so he could play. And he just didn't understand that. And that's somebody like, I wish that I could have talked to you earlier. He would have been a great, you know, you would have been so good for him because you lived it as a baseball player. And I think that means so much.

I agree. I, that's why I try to stay in my lane. I know sports, I know psychology. So I, I really just like you told me once, like, find out what you're good at and become the best that you can at it.

Yeah. You know what's, what's great too, that I, I've listened to some of your things as of late and I had a, a gentleman who was the director of player personnel. He played for the Sabres for many years. His name is Don Luce and he actually was with the Philadelphia Flyers as the director of player personnel. And he's just a great guy who's with the Toronto Maple Leafs. His son's now with Las Vegas. And he's one of my all time favorite people. We talk for hours and we don't have the background you do and we talk about leadership, we talk about all kinds of things. And he said something to me years ago and you said the same thing. He said, mike, what part of the game do you think is mental in sports? And I heard you say that. And I said, like everybody else, 90%. He said, no, 100%. Everything you do from time, your skates, to think about what you're doing, to going to, preparing to having your coffee, you're thinking about. Now, I heard you say that in one of your interviews that the game is mental, 100%. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Well, I agree. I mean, especially at the higher levels, obviously, as you, as you're young and you develop, you obviously have to learn the physical side of any game. But when you get to that level where everybody's good, what's going to be the separator between you and the other people that are just as talented or skilled as you are. And it's going to be your ability to handle pressure, be prepared, deal with confidence issues, be resilient, and that's all mental. And that's what's going to separate you from other people that may be good or even better than you in terms of their skills. And I often ask this question in seminars when I work with teams. Is you know, I throw out that question, what percent of this game is mental versus physical? And as you know, you get various answers, you know, 50%, all the way up to 100%. But then I'll ask them a couple more questions. Well, how many hours a week do you do physical training or strength training or practice time, you know, where you're working on those physical skills? You know, in most high school college athletes, you know, say anywhere from 10 to 20 hours a week. You know, we're always doing something. And then I'll say, okay, how many hours a week do you do any mental training? And then it gets silent, like, what are you talking about? Well, you just told me this game is 80, 90% mental, but we're not doing anything about it. And then we get on the same page and that's when we get the buy in and people really want to dig in and learn more.

That's true. So that, that is so true. Because why is it that we find a trainer or we, we find a skills coach or we look for like, you know, I don't want to pick on anybody else. You know, I'm with a dietitian in my life and she's great. But what about the sports performance coach? That. Because if you don't have that right mindset, none of that matters.

I think it's because it's those other coaches that you mentioned help an athlete produce visible results. You know, they look bigger, they run faster, they light up the stopwatch, you know, or they hit big home runs and things like that. And so it's easy to latch onto something that you can see. It's really hard to understand a person's intangibles when it comes to the mental game. And honestly, Michael, there's still a stigma associated with working with somebody like me. Whether we like it or not, I think we've evolved tremendously. But there still is a little bit of a stigma working with someone that has the term psychology in their title.

That's true. Like, there's something wrong with you. And back in our day, you Talked about in 1988, you mentioned, but I remember we were afraid to talk to the team psychologist. In fact, I did one of the shows with Glenn Healey, who's really one of the funniest. This guy has no filter, but in a good way. He's one, he's a smart guy. He's a, you know, he's, he's with the players association in the NHL, but he doesn't have a filter. And I told him, well, I talked to the sports psychologist. He goes, well, that's a direct contact, right? To the coach. Tell them everything.

Wow.

But they have to trust you. Yeah, but that's not necessarily exactly true. But we were afraid to do it, but. Yeah, but nowadays I think it's a key, essential point to have somebody like you. That's why I really want you on the show. I'm so excited that we reached out to each other. We grew up in the same area, and I'm proud to say, you know, you've done very well in the sport, and. And it's important. But I also. I'm going to need your help here with this, if that's okay.

So. Okay.

Because I really want this to be clear. We're going to send this out to an association without getting too deep into that, and they're going to listen to this. And it's really about them understanding as coaches how they could take their knowledge. I always believe the coach. The coach, but you can't teach them what you know. Is there anything on the mental side of the game that we can give to coaches who coach sports that could help them with their players?

I think the biggest issue I see is the disconnect. In generations today, there is a big gap between what you and I went through, who our age group is now, are now the coaches, and what today's players are being brought up in. And it's nobody's fault, but it's a different world. And the kids today are brought up in a world of what we call instant gratification. And everything is right now. I mean, social media, you can find out anything you want at any time. If you want to buy something, you go on Amazon, it's here the next day. If you want to watch a TV show, you go on one of the streaming things and you can watch whatever you want. You can sit there and watch 10 seasons of the same show without having to wait. Everything is right now. And what that means is there's a lack of patience in the process with young players these days. And again, not their fault. This is what they were born into. So this is what they've been socialized to. Where as coaches, that we did not grow up in that era, we understand a little bit better that things take time, and we have to be patient with the process, and we have to fall in love with that process of getting better or developing and earning a starting position or a scholarship or a pro contract. And unfortunately, what today's instant gratification society has taught these young people is that if you're not good right away, you suck and you should quit. And that's what happens. These kids will try something, and if they're not good at it right away, they will leave the sport and they'll go try something else, or they'll transfer to a different school. If they're not happy, you know, too soon, certainly transfer is a part of it, but, you know, they do it too quickly because they feel everything should happen right now. And I think you see this in the workplace, too, where younger people, they want the big money and the BMW and their first job without really earning it. And I think that's a big disconnect. But I think coaches need to understand that perspective so they can see the problems through the player's eyes, not just pound them with, well, back in the day, this is how it was. You need to understand the kind of players that you're dealing with.

I agree. And that's so important that our coaches have to understand that. And you made great points there, because everybody wants instant gratification. And I think sometimes we have a problem that coaches. And we're not going to single anybody out, but they want instant gratification. Win, win, win. And I always believe good wins comes from good development.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you really have to. You know, one of the people I admire a lot, and some people might not like him, is Nick Saban, but he is so focused on the process and developing a culture that loves the process because he teaches his players that. I want you just to focus on doing your job and trust that your teammate will do their job. We're not going to worry about the score. We're not going to worry about rankings because we can't control any of those things. But we can control what we do on each and every snap and each and every rep during practice. And that is the process.

I love it. That's exactly. We come from the same school of thought. It's exciting. And I've looked at your website. We'll go at the end. I'm going to let people know where they can even find you, because I think there's a lot of families that could definitely use your help, and I know they can't without even saying that. But you talked about the notion that talent is overemphasized. Can you get into that a little bit?

Yeah. I mean, I'm a big believer in the philosophy that was in the book grit, and Dr. Duckworth was the writer and the researcher behind that work, and she came up with this formulas, and I kind of intuitively felt the same way. But when she put it out there and in her TED talk and things like that, I thought that that was remarkable. So she basically said, look, we all are born with a certain level of talent, and then it's up to us what we do with that level of talent. So then the elite athletes or the elite people in the world take their talent and they multiply it by effort and that earns them skills. And then they don't stop there. They take those skills and they keep multiplying it by more effort until they get what they're really after. And it's a never ending cycle. And the key word there is effort. And to take it a step further than even she did, I think it's about deliberate, focused effort, like really identifying the areas down to the nitty gritty that you need to work on and then work on those hard. And the funny thing is, Mike, people won't do that because when you work on things that you're not good at, you look bad. And it goes back to this kind of generation where nobody wants to look bad. You know, everybody looks great on social media, but the real elite athletes don't care about those things. And they just say, you know what? It doesn't matter what I look like. It doesn't matter if it's no fun or if it's going to be hard or difficult. This is what's required. And that takes mental discipline. And so that's why I feel at a certain level, talent is overemphasized and overrated because you got to have those character skills to drive that process.

How many talented players did you play with in baseball that were just unbelievable, but there was something missing from them.

And I think sometimes it's they're talented early. And I think you probably remember this. There was always that one big guy or big girl that was really good because she was bigger and things came naturally. And I almost fell into that trap also. So, yeah, if you don't develop that or if you don't have a coach that kicks you in the butt and says, look, you're good now, but these other people here around you, they're going to catch up. If you don't get in the gym or if you don't start working hard or take this seriously, you're going to fizzle out. And we've all seen this in big time, you know, places we won't mention names, but the NFL are full of guys that were drafted high, highly touted, got big money, and they were gone. In a year or two.

Right, that's true. That happens. That happens all the time. You see it in every sport. And a parent would ask me, okay, so. Because I do a lot of leadership work, and when we're going to. You and I are going to. We're gonna have many conversations, and I'd love to get you involved with a lot of things that we have going on. But I focus just really now it's on performance and leadership and helping them become the best leaders they could be. But everything that you know, that you do, Dr. Novetsky, is so important because it hits that key point. And parents asked me, well, what does it take to make it? And I would say, while in hockey, you said effort. That magic word is effort. You have to have that effort. We're going to get into growth, mindset, self image, a lot of things that you stand for and what you believe in. But I would say there's a million usa or there's million or million and a half people that play hockey in the United States. There's another maybe eight, nine. There's probably double that in Canada. I'm not sure the numbers, even though it's a smaller place. What's going to make you different than all of these players in North America? Is there any tips that you give to our. There's so many players. Everybody has different skill, and there's. Is there anything that you can give us? Is there a tip that we could take for our coaches that there are so many players, and if we want to help some of these players that want to go on to college or play high school, college and beyond, is there anything that you can give us that. Like a takeaway that we could have from that?

Sure. I mean, there's obviously so many. But one of the big things that I start with, with like a new client or a team, is we. We really break down pressure and the impact it has on our performance. And so even at a young age, as young as 10, 11, 12, kids can understand what pressure is if it's explained to them and how it impacts their performance and then some strategies to help them manage it. So essentially, you know, in sports, Mike, pressure is three things. One, you're doing something you care about. Two, you can't control the outcome, so the outcomes are uncertain. And three, you're going to be judged by those outcomes that are uncertain that you care a lot about. I mean, that's the perfect storm for pressure, if you think about it. And then essentially you have two choices if you're going to Deal with that pressure. You can see it or perceive it as a threat, a threat to your ego, a threat to your reputation, your goals, things of that nature. Or, or you can look at pressure as a challenge or an opportunity. Now let me go back to threat for a moment, because when you start to see things as a threat, without getting too scientific with you, things happen in the brain when you are threatened. Certain things kick into motion and your brain produces certain neurochemicals that start cascading through your body, and those chemicals have a detrimental effect on your performance and your thinking. And so if you don't know how to manage pressure, you're going to get tight, you're going to think in a cloudy way, so to speak, and make poor decisions, and then you're going to choke. And that's essentially what choking is, is not learning how to manage the pressure in the moment. And what we do with athletes and what coaches can do with athletes is start to identify what are those pressure triggers, or I call them mental traps that each individual athlete tends to deal with. I mean, it could be, you know, worrying about what the coach is thinking. It could be you're thinking too far in the future, you're thinking too far in the past, you're worried about your teammates performances or you're threatened by a teammate that's playing better than you. Other people's expectations, who's watching the game, ice conditions, field conditions, all those kind of things are outside of your control. Now the funny part is, is everybody has these things we call mental traps. But what elite athletes tend to do is learn how to manage them better. They accept the fact that they have them, we all do. But they, they accept it and they notice it quicker. And then they can shift their focus to more productive thinking. And so the next strategy would be, what can we shift our focus to instead of the things we can't control? Well, it's pretty simple. What do you need to do in this moment to have success? So I'll often ask, like a hockey player, you know, when you have a great shift, what are you doing out there? You know, and oftentimes I'll hear, well, I'm in position, I'm moving my feet, my head's up, I'm finding open ice, I'm communicating, I'm anticipating. Great. Can we turn that into a little bit of a mantra like head up, open ice, move my feet. And every time you notice that you are shifting your focus to something you can't control, like the ref or the guy just, you know, hit you Hard in the boards and you're trying to get him back, but you notice you're off task, shift your attention back to what you need to do, and then you're back in the moment. And that's how you deal with pressure or distractions.

That was really well said and that. That is so true. They. I don't know this. I'm not even saying the correct terms. I don't like to talk about things I don't understand. But somebody once talked to me, he was a pitcher in baseball, and I made it as far as 13 years old and stopped playing base. He said they had the yips, whatever those were.

Yeah.

And. And I didn't even know what that was. He talked about the yips in baseball, and I said, it's a.

It's something we try not to talk about. It's like shanks in golf. You just don't want them. Yips in baseball is often associated with, like Steve Sachs and Rick and Keel, where guys just can't throw the ball where they, where they want to. Also on the ball feels like a foreign object. But that is probably the extreme result of not dealing with pressure. That's taken it to the, you know, the 1 percentile of people that really, really struggle with something or they've been traumatized in some way.

Yeah. Or a coach saying, come on, you can't hit the net. And all of a sudden you start believing that I'm going to shoot high. And you start, now you're overthinking the game.

That's exactly right.

Yeah. So. So you got. The mental toughness is the competitive advantage that creates champions. Like all your word choices, everything you use within helping people and. Or young players, elite athletes, pro, all levels. Explain that a little bit. How the mental toughness is the competitive advantage that creates champions.

I think it's that extra 10% that we all need to push us over the top. Because, I mean, look around any collegiate league or professional league, there's a lot of average players. And I would suggest that the top players on every team, the guys that you can't do without, are more mentally tough than the rest of the team. And I define that. You know, there's lots of definitions of mental toughness, but my go to is, you know, the ability to be in the present moment despite extreme distractions and pressure in that situation. If you are able to stay focused in the moment on what you need to do because you understand you cannot control those other outside distractions, you have the best chance of being successful. And the more you work on that skill and I believe it is a skill. You're going to be that champion that I mentioned.

I love it. I love it. That's so true. And that's, it's all about, like you said, like the, you know, focusing on some of these things that we call them the little things in details. And there's, there's a lot of coaches that have different acronyms. But that's what I want to go into next with you because this is really going to help out the player and the coach. I'm going to throw these things out because I know you're an expert at this. And then you can give me a quick definition.

Growth mindset, obviously I didn't, I didn't make that one up. That's a big book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. Best selling book. One of the preeminent psychologists in this area and she talked about the difference between growth and fixed mindset. Where, you know, and I'm just paraphrasing here, but a fixed mindset is more of a person that believes things are the way they are and that's it. Like this is who I am and this is who I'll always be. And why even try to work harder? Because it's not going to change. That's that fixed mindset, athlete or person. Whereas a growth mindset oriented person believes that hard work can pay off, there is always room for growth. Challenges are just an opportunity to get better. And it's not just a positive, you know, flowery mindset. It's a true belief that if I grit this out, I can get 1% better, which might be the difference between making it or not making it.

Now you'll laugh. I have a young kid on the show, he played baseball. And I have people that are subject matter professionals like yourself or players that I played with. It's all about stories, mindset and champions is the focus. And I brought this young athlete on because he kept talking about 1% and that 1% thing helped me trying to be 1% better. And instead of me having three chocolate chip cookies, I'm going to have just one. I don't have to have none. I'm going to have one chocolate chip cookie. So this young guy, and I don't want to talk about age as a thing, but he was so mature. His name is Colby and he's going to be on our show, actually. You'll hear him and he's got some, some great stories how he worked so hard just to get 1% better. I love It So talk about self image, because how important is self image?

So important. I'm glad you brought that up. It's one of my most favorite things to help athletes with. And so image is like your beliefs about yourself, right? It's how you see yourself. And so when we were born, we didn't know who we were or are at that point, but you start living and you get a lot of feedback. You get feedback from the world. You know, you do things, you get some feedback, you get feedback from your parents, and as you grow up, you get feedback from friends and teachers and if you play sports, coaches and things like that, and you start to develop this idea of who you are, and sometimes it's great, you get great feedback and you have a real positive self image and which gives you a lot of confidence and it's very healthy. But sometimes you develop some ideas about yourself that are not true or they're very negative, but you believe them anyway because you were told or given feedback by people in authority positions, or it's a result of repeating a lot of negative self talk to yourself. So you believe it, or you say things to yourself like, well, I'm just a slow starter, or, you know, I need to get warmed up, I need to pitch a few winnings before I really get into the game kind of a thing. And the problem with all that is you want to be right. And so if you have a negative self image, you're going to act in accordance with that self image. Because deep down inside, as human beings, we always want to be right or consistent with our beliefs or what we say about ourselves. So I try to explain that to my athletes in whatever developmentally appropriate way I can based on the age of the person. And what we do is we identify what they do, really believe about themselves. And I say, well, do you like that? Is that who you really want to be? And oftentimes there's a percentage of that image that they don't want to be. And I said, well, guess what? You can change it. And they're like, that's so true. And you got to have a growth mindset to change it, because you got to believe that things can change. And so we start brainstorming, okay, well, who do you want to be? And I just get up on my whiteboard in my office and I say, tell me the kind of athlete you want to be. You know, so if they're a baseball player, you know, and they're a pitcher, I say, well, tell me how you want to be described. Wow, powerful, Amazing. Fastball, yellow hammer, curveball, you know, all these things. And I say, great, let's keep going. We keep going. And I said, okay, let's develop a statement now, a short paragraph that describes who you are. You know, I am Mike Hartman. You know, I'm a Stanley cup champion. I'm an expert in leadership, you know, and on and on and on. And once we have that image, that statement, I say, great. Now you need to internalize this statement, which means you need to read it every day, make an audio recording and put it in your phone and listen to it while you work out in the morning, while you have breakfast, post it everywhere you can see it. Because now it becomes the filter for every decision and every behavior that you're going to make. And you have to ask yourself, when you're faced with a tough choice, what would that guy do? What would that guy do that's in that statement? Because I want to live up and be consistent with the image that I really want.

I like that. And this is a whole other show. I got to get through these, because I really. We want to hear. But a whole other statement would be the, the athlete that says, well, I am. You know, they have that identity crisis when they're done. That's a whole other part of, like, oh, I am a. No, you're not an athlete anymore. I'm. I don't have time for a quick story because I really want to get through this. But the very short of it is, I went to an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, with about 50 different professional athletes. It's called the Professional Athletes Association. Every athlete went up there and said, hey, I'm Steve. I played for the Los Angeles Rams. I played for the Carolina Panthers. Another guy says, I played basketball in the NBA. And I got to me, I got up and said, mike Hartman. I'm a leadership coach. I've helped people. And the guy said, you're supposed to tell me who you played for. I go, that's not me anymore. I, I, that's not who I am anymore. I used to be that guy. So I, I, you know, I, I was a guy that, you know, was a small piece to a big puzzle. And everyone that's kind of negative.

That's the truth.

I try to speak the truth. Yeah, but it's funny. That's a whole. We're going to talk about that in a different time. So I want to go right into mindfulness, because I love that one, that, that one of the things that you talk about a lot is mindfulness.

Yeah. So I'll ask my athletes, you know, what is mindfulness? And sometimes they don't even know what that word means. You know, like, oh, I should mind my manners and mind my behavior and no, no, no, what we're talking about here really is awareness. Being aware of your thoughts, of your feelings, of your emotions in the present moment. And here's the key part. Without judgment. So just noticing, what am I thinking about right now? How am I talking to myself? How am I feeling about this certain situation again, without attaching emotion to it or judgment and just being objective about what's going on in my head right now and then deciding to do something about it in a positive way, like, okay, you know what, I can see that I'm feeling really frustrated right now about the situation I'm in, but getting emotional or angry isn't going to solve it. What are some steps that I can do to solve that? You know, and take a breath, give yourself a minute, come up with a plan and implement that plan objectively. And one person that is no longer with us, you know, may he rest in peace. Kobe Bryant taught us all the importance of thinking tactically, not emotionally. And that was that mamba mentality that he so much was known for. And that's to me, the ascent. The essence of being mindful is noticing what's going on and thinking about tactical solutions without letting too much emotion interfere with your decision making process.

That's very well said. That, that, that's so true. Because, you know, everything we do like this, this is all part of mindset. I mean, this is everything that this is, having the proper mindset. I'm going to go into one here. Motivation.

Well, you may not like what I say, but I don't believe a lot in external motivation. I think motivation needs to come from within. And I get into some disagreements with parents about this because they always feel like they need to motivate their athletes to get out and work hard. And I'll say, look, your job as a parent is to provide opportunities. And then it's up to that child or that person to take advantage of those opportunities. And so they have to find it within themselves to motivate themselves to work hard. Certainly we can support them and help them understand what they need to do. But I think motivation really needs to come from within. That may be different from what most people say because we have a lot of people out there that are quote motivational speakers. And I, I think that's great. I get inspired too. But the problem with some of that external motivation is it doesn't last very long. And unless it's connected with something personal, I just don't think external motivation is the key to success.

I am 100% on your side. I have had disagreements. I don't like the word argument. I had so many disagreements with it because we don't. There's, there's things that could be motivating. Like we, you know, when. With our team and the New York Rangers, when Mike Keenan turned on the, the video when the Miracle Mets won the World Series and what it took to win in New York, he didn't say a word and shut it off. That was motivating. But I agree with you so much. It's like, why you go to, you know, these rah rah events. They paid these speakers to speak. And I've, I've done a lot of speaking. And I would tell people I'm not here to do rah rah because I don't believe. And I. You have to be able to motivate yourself.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of tools that could help you. A little music before a game could. But I am right on your side. And we're going to get right into the next one. Is confidence.

Yeah. Big topic. One of the most popular things that people come to see me about is confidence. And they'll come in and say, coach, help me with my confidence. I lost it. And I'll say, look, first of all, you didn't lose anything. You're just not thinking the right way. So I'll often ask them right off the get go, what is confidence? And we'll come to an agreement that obviously it's a belief about your abilities to be able to do something in that present moment. Are you confident in that ability right now? And I'll also ask them, is confidence a thought or a feeling? And most, nine times out of 10, they'll say, what's a feeling? I feel it. I say, well, okay, well, what were you doing before you were feeling? And they pause and it's, oh, well, I was thinking about how I was feeling. That's exactly. So if we can come to some common ground there, that it's a little bit easier to manage our thoughts than our feelings, then there's some things that we can do about that. And so I talk about various strategies that we can use to at least change our state of confidence. And I'll be honest with you, speaking of motivational speakers, some of these ideas I've kind of altered along the years came from Tony Robbins, who's obviously known as a great motivational speaker, but I think he's more than that, than just a motivational speaker. I think he has great, great strategies to help people be successful. But anyway, one of the. One of the big strategies we talk about a lot is body language. Because we know scientifically that if you decide to change your body language and do it for a sustained period of time, it changes you how you feel, physiology, physiologically, how you feel. So we, we. We know studies about that. Our saliva has more testosterone in it. When we sit up straighter and bust our chest out and put our shoulders back and have a stronger face, we just feel more confident. I also talk about paying attention to the pictures in your mind. You know, we all have this TV going in our mind at all times, so we got to choose to watch good tv. And if you don't like what you're seeing, change a channel. You know, go watch something else in your own mind. Another one is, of course, self talk. The importance of, you know, having a good inner coach in your mind so you're speaking to yourself in a supportive, productive way. And again, I'm not talking about rah, rah, cheerleader, positive thinking type of things. I'm talking about real productive and effective thinking. And I call that the to do mindset. My partner and I, and I always give him a shout out here. My partner that started my business with together, Dr. Jared Wood, kind of came up with this phrase that to do mindset that we talked about a lot with teams, and I think that's important to focus on what needs to be done. And when you stay focused on that task, you're going to feel more confident because you have a clear plan of what to do. And then the next one would be preparation. I think we can all agree that the more prepared you are mentally and physically, the more confident you're going to be. And then lastly, if you need it, think about your past successes. Like, what other situations like this have I been in where I've had success or even if I didn't have success, at least now I know what to expect. So I should be a little bit more confident in a similar situation. And we go through those five strategies, obviously, in a lot more detail and depth. And we decide, all right, which one do we want to attack right now that's going to help raise your state of confidence in this current situation.

Wow, this is really great stuff. And we could talk for hours. I still have a few more. I'm going to extend this show show because I think it's important just for a little bit. I'm going to extend it for our coaches. And you said something about Tony Robbins. I went to see Tony Robbins. In fact, in 1986, our first round draft pick was 18 years old, Brad May. We used to drive together. Brad played a long time in the National Hockey League, Stanley cup winner, played for the Red Wings a little bit and he was listening to Tony Robbins. But we learned. But also Tony Robbins does some transformational things as well. Oh yeah, so he's not. Yeah, so I, I, yeah, we're right on here. This is great. You talk about having a routine and you hear a lot of athletes talk about that. Okay, I have this routine. We have our pregame meal. I had the nap. I knew it. You know, even to this day I talked to some of my friends that played in the NHL and they say I take a nap from two to four. Really? You're 50 years old, what are you doing two to four? You should be out working Now I take my nap. But tell me about the routine. Tell me about having a routine.

Well, it was so instrumental in my success, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show. And this plays right into part of confidence as well, because that's part of preparation, is having a good routine. And so there's a number of different routines that I help my athletes with. One, like you mentioned just now, is that pre night or pre game routine that you need to get into? So I often tell my, ask my athletes actually, what do you do the night before a game? You know, like you got a game tomorrow, what are you going to do tonight to get ready? Well, you know, I'll have a good meal, you know, I'll get to bed on a certain time. Okay, that's good. That's part of a good routine. But wouldn't it be a good idea if you're a young athlete, like to check your equipment to make sure everything's in working order, that you have everything, that you know what time you need to leave tomorrow, that your uniform is clean and ready to go, that you do have a good meal, you get to bed at the right time, you wake up at the right time. Maybe you do some mental training tonight as well, like visualization or look at your goals, things like that, to really just start and prime the pump. So when you wake up tomorrow you feel good and ready to go. Because how many young athletes wake up on game day and don't know where their stuff is and it's the last minute or a skate lace is about to Rip and they need to hustle up early and get to the pro shop or their skates aren't sharpened and. Or they forget something. They realize when they get to the rink they forgot something because they weren't prepared. And then that anxiety kicks in and they have a terrible game. So that's one way to have a routine. Then there's obviously the pre game routine and everybody's different. And this is sometimes where I have a good discussion when I'm working with a team in the room together and I have them look around and I say, you know, everybody in here is going to prepare in a different way and we have to be okay with that. Not everybody's going to get quiet and serious and close their eyes and visualize. Some guys like to joke around and roughhouse and stuff like that, and that's how they get ready to play. And I'm sure, Mike, you've been around a lot enough. Professional athletes in locker rooms where, you know, everybody prepares differently, but as long as they're doing it in a similar way each game, it helps them get into their own, flow into their own rhythm.

I love that.

Yeah, so that's. Yeah, go ahead.

No, no, I was just gonna share with you. Muhammad Ali, going way back, he used to see himself, and I'm not a guy that loves boxing or fights, but I watched, I read somewhere years ago that Muhammad Ali saw himself winning the fight and that's how he prepared. He didn't get prepared 10 minutes before he's going to the rink or in the car, or he was prepared the night before and he saw himself winning that fight. Now, he didn't do it to a point where he thought about it all night because then you're tired by the time you get to wherever you're going as an athlete. But that, that's preparation is so important. And having a routine is, is monumental in any sports and at any sports level. I completely agree with you on that.

Right. And if I can just add, there's one more routine that I think is critical is in hockey, I call it a pre shift routine. In baseball or other sports, a pre play or a pre pitch routine is to have a little mental routine that you go through before each play or each shot or each shift. And I have a little acronym that I call bstv. It stands for Breathe Situation, Task and Visualize Success. So let's say you're a hockey player sitting on the bench, you know your shift's about to go, you're about to hop over the boards, hey, take a Deep breath. Think about the situation in the game. Think about what is your task going to be when you get on the ice, what's your job out there? And then visualize yourself doing that and then hop over the boards. Because those routines get you back in the present moment, which is where we all need to be, as I mentioned earlier. And the same thing as a pitcher or the same thing as a golfer, you know, go through those quick steps to help yourself become in that little bubble and get focused in that present moment.

Yep, really good points. And I used to try to think of little ways I would, and I don't even want to be bringing this up. I used to lie to myself that we're playing against the Philadelphia Flyers and I was sometimes scared to death. They got about six guys over, like six, five.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna go, if I run around, I know the big guys are coming. And I. Like you said, I. Everything you said, I try to have that self image, like I'm not scared. But yeah, deep down I was. I'm okay.

How you doing?

I feel great today. Yeah, right. But that's, that's so funny. You talked about setting point proper goals. I think this is what is important. Just. Can you go over that a little bit?

Sure, absolutely. I think it's important that, you know, we got to have a purpose. And, you know, some athletes say, well, I don't set goals. Well, I, I believe they do. They just maybe don't want to talk about them. But I think it's important for athletes or any successful person to set goals. I do it a little differently maybe than most coaches. I talk about what I call ultimate goals, which is long term, your dream. What do you want people to be able to say about you when it's all said and done, what long term accomplishments do you want? Then I talk about performance goals. Those are more short term. These are things you want to get better at or you want to achieve during this season, let's say the next 12 months. But then the most important goal, as we talked about earlier, is the process. The process. Goals. What are you going to do every day? What is it going to take each and every day for you to get a little bit closer to those performance goals, which if you achieve, will help you get to those ultimate goals. So they're all connected or scaffolded together. And so you have to have that process that's going to drive everything else.

You know, every. It's so funny. We are so aligned and. Come on, where were you years ago? I know, you're a few years younger than me, but where were you when I needed to be? Because I've done so, so much reading and I, I, I even, you know, for myself, I called it the measurable goal. And then I had, you know, that that was okay. What am I going to, what's the action thing I'm going to do today? And then we're going to do the short term goal. That's for the next three months. And the vision goal was the dream. But I wanted to hear everything you had. This was fantastic. Jason. Jason, it was so great to hear you here. I'm going to pass this on. This is part of our, you know, program, you know, ready to play, which I love. We talked about it on your show about the, the world. I wasn't really prepared. As funny, you talked about the world view and the self view and we're aligned a lot in, in what we do. I'm more on the leadership side. You have the incredible background between working with kids, your PhD, the real deal. You've been an athlete, you've been there, and it's so great, you know, hometown guy. I do. I want you to promote your show because you have a fantastic show with you.

Thank you.

And your partner on the show. Tell us about your show. Tell us where people could find you on your website.

Thank you very much. Yeah, it was kind of came out of the COVID thing. You know, we were all quarantined and we finally were able to get outside and play some golf. And I bumped into a gentleman named Mike Sullivan, who was a local radio personality, and another guy, his friend Kyle Bogey. We're both on the radio here in Detroit and they were breaking off and starting their own digital media company and promoting podcasts and things like that. And so I said, you know, I've been thinking about doing a podcast, but mine's a little different. I don't want to necessarily have all these famous people on because, you know, that's out there. And no offense, but that's what's out there. And I wanted to highlight young athletes and their approach to the mental game because that's what I do. I work with mostly high school and college athletes on the mental side of sports. And there's so many great stories out there of my clients or other kids that have really understood and owned the mental side. So we interview each week, usually a young athlete, and talk about their career and how the mental game has helped them be successful. And oftentimes we'll bring in coaches that are Also helping these rising athletes. And the show's called Rising Champions. And we want to interview all these rising champions and people that support them to help them win their own personal championships.

I love it. It's on Apple, it's on Spotify, everywhere. And I recommend that, you know, you young athletes, this is what it takes. If you can't just say you want to be an athlete, you have to listen to people that like. Like Dr. Novitsky that understands it. He understands the ins and outs. And tell us about your website so in case people want to find you. Where can they find you?

Yeah, absolutely. The website is champmindset.com the name of the business is Champion Mindset Group. We're here in Birmingham, Michigan. I have a small private practice where I. I see private clients in my office during the week and on the weekends if necessary. And I also do a lot of speaking and working with teams and coaches to help their teams build what we call these mental skills so they can put them in their own toolbox.

I love it. Well, it was such a pleasure to have you. This was just a nice, calm conversation and you. You said it best. I'm like you. It's funny that the guys that I bring on the show are. I didn't want this big sports show because there's a lot of them and more power to them. But I wanted players that had a really good story behind it. Not just the superstar, but just everybody else. And we have many different people. And having you was great. This is such an added bonus to what we're doing with the ready to play to our big group and in. In these organizations. And awesome. Thanks again. Thank Dr. Ovetsky. It's been awesome having you.

Thanks, Mike. I appreciate. It was a pleasure to be on. It's great spending time with you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Mike Hartman Show. If you're enjoying what you've heard so far, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.