Unspoken Mentors

Welcome to the Healthy Mindset App 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 app podcast podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome back to another episode. And today I just felt like doing this episode from my car. Now we have the fancy equipment. I use it sometimes, but at the same time I also just do it from my phone. And there's a lot that's been going through my, my head and I'm just going to talk about, about that. Life is built on relationships and you may have heard me say that before. And just looking back, I'll share. I have a friend named Marty Corders. We grew up in Oak Park, Michigan. We grew up playing straight hockey. We played game seven in the NHL Stanley cup finals in our basement so many times since we were. I can't even think if it was 8, 9 years old, maybe even a little bit younger. And we grew up, you know, we're still in touch to this day. We're good friends. We live at opposite sides of the country. And, you know, one thing I want to share about Marty is, you know, how much he cared about when I was younger. So people asked me, hey, did you have a mentor when you were growing up? Well, I had a lot of great support. Great support from my family, great support from, you know, I know my brother was always there. And then Marty, I mean, not just and then Marty. Marty would actually come on the ice and put me through a ton of drills. And they were good drills. They weren't just like, okay. I would ask Marty, well, first of all, I say, hey, Marty, can you, let's, let's do some stuff. He goes, well, let me throw the puck heart around the boards because, you know, you do a lot of board work, you know, work on your hands. And then we'll, you know, give me a quick pass, I'll give it to you on your backhand. And I go, these are great. And you know, some already evolved over the years. He actually coached kids hockey in Detroit. He did a lot with AAA players and he would take kids that really were okay. They weren't the best AAA players, but guess what? Guess what happened to some of those kids. There's a kid from Clawson, Michigan named Timmy Gleason and ended up being an NHL solid defenseman, real solid. He's still in the NHL. In fact, when I went to see a game with the Hurricanes, I went down and I ran into Timmy. And what's the first thing he said? How's Marty? Marty's my favorite. I've never had anybody that cared as much as Marty. Next thing you know, it's Covid time. And I did some interviews and I had a kid named Jimmy Slater, another one that he had really a very little chance of going out and playing hockey. So Marty really helped him, long story short, coached him over the years. In fact, his dad was a pro football player. So his dad's a football player asking Marty for different advice and mentorship. And Marty says, go play junior in Cleveland. Cleveland, yeah, because you're going to play a lot, you're going to get a lot of ice time. So what happens? Who goes to Cleveland? He goes to Cleveland, gets a scholarship, plays for Michigan State, becomes a first round draft pick, played for Atlanta, which was when they were in the league, and then Winnipeg. That was all Marty's doing. So one thing, what I, you know, I always told Marty, you know, he would ask me, can you help me become an NHL scout? I said, well, I do know people, but you have the eye, a trained eye to do it. And there isn't many people I would say that about. So maybe I'm going off topic a little bit. But just going back over the years, you need people in your life and it's not always just a mentor, but it's people that have helped you. So looking back over the years, I wish I was more mature enough as we're young, because Marty would come to Buffalo, point things out about the game. He goes, oh, Mike, you played well tonight. I said, yeah. I said, I did okay. I didn't, you know, I might have played like 12 shifts in the whole game. He says, yeah, but that fourth shift you had where you, you angled the player, you got the puck, you're on the defensive side of the puck. I said, holy cow. Like Marty, Marty knew the game. And now he, you know, he works with, with kids, he helps kids, he runs organization. And I know it's, of course people say it's not the money, it's, we all want to make money because we have to survive, we have to pay our bills. But I know for a fact that what he does is out there to help others. And this isn't a self promotion. Marty Cordes day. But it hit me. I was driving, and I thought to myself, I said, you know what? Sometimes you don't really see what's happening behind the curtain. Like, you don't give credit where credit is due. And, you know, I really love this guy. We don't get to see each other that much. And, you know, I'm proud of what he's done. And there's no doubt in my eyes or in my mind that Marty should have been in the NHL. There's no doubt that he should have been there in some capacity. Yes, he was in Division 1. He was in the top junior leagues, but there's no doubt that he could have been there. So that's it. You know, sometimes we have to look back on things and reflect. You know, sometimes people would say to me, mike, always look forward. Well, no, sometimes I like to look back, and then you think about these experiences. So I'll ask you, is there anybody in your life that has helped you over the years that you could just owe a thank you to, that maybe you haven't done it, or maybe you have. It just doesn't. Again, mentors. How do you define a mentor? I've had many mentors, people I look up to. I've had roommates like Clark Gillies, who was my idol as a kid. And when I was 19 years old, I was rooming with him, with the Buffalo Sabers. Mark Messier is a hero of mine, even to this day. Mark goes out of his way to help me, even in my own business. I mean, all he does is. Wants to help others. And there's no. There's no doubt why, how, like, what? Mark Messier would write the book. It takes every. You know, it takes everybody to win. He. You know, it does. It takes everybody to win. And I gotta think like Ryan Walter, and I've never played with Ryan. Here's another example of somebody, you know, I'm just reflecting now. And I met Ryan, God, maybe like 20 years ago at a. At a hockey event in Vegas, meaning it was like a hockey show. And Ryan had his books. And Ryan Walter I knew, I played against him. He was a captain in the NHL, played for the Montreal Canadiens. And I went up to Ryan there, introduced myself, and I said, ryan, I'm trying to be a coach, because I know you're a coach. And he was an assistant coach of the Vancouver Canucks, but he was also a coach, a performance coach. And he did. Speaking. I said, I would love to learn from you. Well, what does he do? Instead of trying to compete with Me? No, he was trying to help me. So we're going to be in the same business and what, no, he's trying to help. So he sends me all of his books I just bought. Actually his other new book that just came out, I just bought it like two weeks ago. I still talk to Ryan. Ryan continuously sends me messages and there's nothing that I could really do for, for him. So the whole purpose of this podcast is, is really appreciating those relationships and looking back and I, I, I thought of Marty and there's nobody that deserves more credit than him. In fact, you know, I, you know, there's always going to be, I've always thing I always believe in. I, if someone out there, if someone's gonna badmouth you and they're gonna say something bad about you and you could do a hundred things, right, but someone's gonna say one negative thing about you and not that it's happened. I'm sure it happened in the newspaper maybe with Ryan Walter, someone talked about Clark Gillies and they were, when they, when they were winning their fourth Stanley cup, they didn't win a fifth. And, and you know, instead of looking at everything he did well, they might say, well, they didn't play that well this year. He wasn't, you know, Clarky. I'm just using these in examples. So some of these, you know, examples are true. So you could do a hundred great things and you could do one thing that somebody might say, ah, you know, he didn't play well. He's, maybe he, he's not that good. And then I always look at them and say, would you take advice from them and you look them up, look at their background. I mean, would you take advice from someone that not necessarily hasn't been there? I don't mean that just because you played at a high level or you work for a major company and you're CEO that you know, you, you have all the answers. No, but would you take advice from someone that's going to bash other people? Would you take advice from someone that's going to say bad things about, about others? And I've seen that a lot in the hockey world as of late because I would say about 90% of my business is working with small companies and 10% of it is working in the hockey world. And I work with other athletes as well. I have tennis players, I have different athletes all over the world, from California to Europe. A lot of one on one with the athletes and the companies are more company driven. And what I've learned is sometimes parents will hear something and say, well, what should we do? I heard that this person isn't that great. And I would go, well, look at the source because I know in my heart you will never have a Marty Quarters say something bad about anybody. You will never have a Ryan Walter talk bad about anybody. You will never hear Mark Messier, even on tv, even when he's doing the games, talk bad about anybody. He might say, well, we need they have to be a little stronger in the way he words it. He's not bad mouthing any. You'll never hear Eddie Oldchuck another person talk bad about anybody. Now he might say, well, they he, yeah, he didn't play well. But you know, tomorrow's another day. I just mean overall, you will never see that Mike Foligno was a leader with the Buffalo Sabres. Lindy Ruff they never ever in that pro sports, all they wanted to do is help. They never said bad things about anybody. And I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but I just. Something just caught my nerve.

We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset App 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, healthymindsetapp.com thanks again for listening and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Until then, be well.