028: What it Means to Compete Every Day With Jake Thompson

Jake Thompson is a Keynote speaker, published author, coach and owner of Compete Everyday, a company focused on helping people boost their leadership skills to create the life they want. Jake teaches that  the life we desire is closer than we think and that it’s the small shifts in our daily focus, mentally and practically, that build a winning life. 

Episode Highlights:

• How he turned selling T-shirts out of his car into a successful buisness
• How he dealt with a career altering injury
• How re-framing discomfort can fuel progress
• Why it's important to detach worth from performance

Connect With Jake:
https://jakeathompson.com/
Instagram: jakethompsonspeaks
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/competeeveryday

More ways to work with Fearless Fastpitch

• Learn about our proven Mental Skills Program, The Fearless Warrior Program
• Book a One on One Session for your Athlete
• Book a Mental Skills Workshop for your Team or Organization

Follow us on Social Media

• Facebook @fearlessfastpitchmentaltraining
• Instagram @fearlessfastpitch
• Twitter @CoachAB_

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Fearless Warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Jake Thompson is a leadership consultant and the chief encouragement officer at Compete Every Day, a brand he started in 2011 by selling t-shirts out of the trunk of his car. Jake has spent more than a decade working with leaders and organizations all over the world on how they can get better results for themselves and their teams. He's been featured in Forbes, hosts a podcast in the top 1% globally and has directly impacted get this over 80,000 ambitious leaders. I've loved following Jake's journey. He has been an incredible advocate for mental performance and has actually come and spoke to our fearless warriors back in 2022 and helped our parents understand how to praise the process, what it means to trust the process and just seeing him work on stages, work with businesses and athletes all across the country is really inspiring, and so I'm super excited to have him here. Live with us today.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Jake, welcome to the pod, thanks for having me excited to be hanging out today.

Speaker 1: 1:40

Let's go.

Speaker 2: 1:41

So let's go.

Speaker 1: 1:42

I know before we hit record, we were making plans. You're coming to Nebraska. I'm super pumped to actually grab coffee with you in person, which is crazy because we've never actually met in person that is true. Give us a look. Where are you at? What are you doing? What is life like right now?

Speaker 2: 2:00

So, as we're recording this early February, life's crazy in the best of ways. I say that not as a stressed out, but it is the busiest season. I'm going to rephrase that because I know my own language. Busy means you're not getting stuff done, productive means you are. It's the most productive start to the year I've had from a speaking standpoint now kind of in year five, of the business, to where I've been on the road pretty much every week, but one this year.

Speaker 2: 2:28

But to just came out in January and, as we laugh, book three is in the works. It's outlined. I just got to start the chunking up process of writing it. But life's good. And you know, donut went on a walk this week. For those that know me, follow me, I have three dogs, three rescues a 12 year old boxer named sugar and then two Frenchies. A two year old puppy named snacks and donut, who is the star of my social media because she hates to go on walks and literally some days she's like I'm going to walk and some days there's video of me pulling her, carrying her, doing all sorts of things through the neighborhood. So you know, she went on a walk. That's a good week.

Speaker 1: 3:06

That's awesome Is donut the baby.

Speaker 2: 3:09

No snacks is the newest one. She's the crazy, crazy donuts, the little chunk that is just the chunks, the best way to put her. But she is her own vibe and everybody says that and I agree, like she's the most unique animal I've ever had own been around and she frustrates the Dickens out of me but I love her.

Speaker 1: 3:29

That's so funny and I have to ask did you name her donut? Who named her donut?

Speaker 2: 3:33

I did. I did so we have the theme of obviously we have sugar smacks and we have. There was a Frenchie our in-laws have named biscuit, and so we were just keeping the theme and, funny enough, like her rescue name was pickles, which actually fits, I think, even better. But me being a donut connoisseur, I was like, oh, it's donut. And so I got her rescuer, gave her as a Christmas surprise a few years ago to my wife. Of course I give her to my wife and she bonds with me and she is. I mean, she's been the most frustrating animal I've ever owned, like how do you train and everything, but man, girl, is she something? So, yeah, I laugh like I could have a million Instagram followers if I just built an account out for donut. But I'm like I don't want to do that. But I love sharing her on my stories and it was like last night I played. I was like you're probably expecting to see a video of me carrying her, like I have every day this week, not today. She was walking along.

Speaker 1: 4:34

So what does she do? That's why she doesn't want to walk, because if you're busy traveling, you're gone. You know how many days out of the week are you traveling.

Speaker 2: 4:42

So it depends. Typically most engagements I'm only gone a night because usually you'll fly and you'll do the night before event do the keynote. I'm typically an opening keynote guy. I have a handful of clients. They put me at the end for the close and what they usually say afterwards is like we really wish we'd had you open, just because I can really help set the tone of the event for them. And so typically I find and do that.

Speaker 2: 5:06

The last the trip I'll see next week is two nights because I'm speaking multiple times for the client, and this past week the event it was two nights because it was just difficult getting to Dayton Ohio direct from Dallas and so timing wise, I needed to be an opening evening event and then I was the midday keynote and so there was no way to get out. So that's it. So at the most there I've had a few weeks where I'm gone all week because I'm going from Florida to Utah to back to Texas and so you have that, but that's a little more rare at this stage. I'm not at this point trying to be the speaker who's doing 120 gigs a year. Like I enjoy being home, but we're still doing, you know, 50 to 60. So I'm going to have weeks to where, hey, you're doing three and so I'm just bouncing city to city to city. But then I have a lot of weeks to where beauty of living in Dallas, fort Worth, like I'm going to be there and home in three hours.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Right, that's awesome and we have to tell the story because I think a lot of my listeners are parents and players and athletes, but the other half of the listeners, I mean, we're entrepreneurs, right, and so we have to talk about the story. Please, please, tell the fearless fan what the heck was Jake doing, selling t-shirts on the back of his car.

Speaker 2: 6:21

So I'll give you a story for both audiences, right? So the story that everybody knows is I started selling shirts out of the trunk of my car back in 2011,. Just a CED compete every day because I'd built a marketing consulting practice for a few years, was making great money, but was spending all that money as I laugh on building a sandcastle Like it was buying toys, going out on weekends, having superficial relationships. I was probably 40, 50 pounds heavier than I am now, and so the idea of competing with myself as a former athlete really started to stick. I started lifting and then I got into CrossFit, and so every day it was like me versus me. But I started applying it to other areas of life, and the more people I talked to, the more it resonated, and so eventually, after trying a ton of different stuff, I settled on shirts and just started building it, and it took off, and that ultimately, through a wild, windy road, led me here. The story most people don't know that I literally hid for God two decades almost and started telling it on stage about a year, year and a half ago, and put it in our newest book is I had a.

Speaker 2: 7:28

I had a really good high school football career. In Texas Friday night lights had some 13 all state honors had a chance to go play after college, turned down small school scholarships because I had the mentality that I could outwork anyone, I could outwork you and I could outsmart you because I'm smarter and I have more grit. And so I decided to go to TCU. I was a academic athletic walk on so I had half scholarship of each and then I got hurt the summer before my freshman year and I had to go through rehab. So the whole fall I'm not in football, I'm rehabbing. I'm also, for the first time in my life, as a kid who grew up in small Texas town, like I didn't have to study to make grades, and so some of our athletes can maybe relate to that Like it was easy making A's in high school. My mom was a teacher, so I was learning from a young age.

Speaker 2: 8:18

But when I got to college and I didn't have a clue what I was doing and I went from making straight A's in high school to making C's and D's in struggling and for the first time in my life like I completely lost all confidence. I doubted who I was. I grew up thinking I was smart. I'm suddenly not smart cause I'm failing classes. I'm struggling from a rehab standpoint because I'm by myself. I'm not with any of the other players. Like I lived in the athletic dorms but I would do my own thing rehab and I didn't have anybody to measure up with. I didn't have somebody to compete with. That Growing up like that's what we do, right, you compete with somebody on your club team or on your high school team. That's who I measure up. I just got to be better than them and I didn't have that for the first time and I really became depressed.

Speaker 2: 9:02

Flash forward to spring semester, my shoulder had healed up. In fact I was at that point of like everything was better. I went out, was in football, but because of my grades were so bad I had to change out of the business school into communications or journalism. I was at PR, and so I'm going through schedule by myself again, rehabbing, and like a month, month and a half in of like having to work out essentially by myself on these afternoon schedules.

Speaker 2: 9:28

I remember walking into the locker room on a Friday afternoon and spring football hadn't even started yet. Like this is just like off season training, and I remember walking in and catching my reflection and, for the first time in my life, just hating the person. I saw and I had that pit in my stomach that at any point the coaches were going to come ask me to leave because they'd made a mistake Like I. Actually they'd given the scholarships to the wrong kid. I didn't need to be there.

Speaker 2: 9:53

That whole imposter said what am I doing here? Feeling At the same time like I'm literally asking myself the question of what if I fade Like. What if I came here to play football and I'm not good enough to start? What if I came here and told everybody I'm going after this goal and I fail? What if all of those what ifs of it this doesn't work out? Not only what will happen with me, what will other people say about me and how big of a loser am I going to be? And I remember asking those questions while I'm just sitting there staring in the mirror, and I was terrified of the answer. I was terrified that other people could hear me asking those questions, and so I did.

Speaker 2: 10:26

The one thing I trained my whole life not to do is I quit. I turned in my stuff and walked out on my opportunity because I was too afraid of failing. And I tell people that of like that was the biggest regret I had in life and it followed me everywhere Like flash forwards, spring fall. I'm playing an intramural football. I was pretty good because I was college level, like ready, and the football guys are like, why aren't you not out playing Like? You have the like you can play with us. You should be out on the team. I'm like, ah, you know my shoulder won't hold up Like everything, because I was too afraid of failing at where my identity was so tight up in what I did versus who I was, and I didn't tell that story for years.

Speaker 2: 11:06

And I was having a conversation with a couple of speakers in like 2021. And they're like you got to tell that story and they're like what they were like like that that's the whole reason you started this company. Like, if we're honest, like when you started getting your life back on track, the reason compete everyday resonated with people is because I could see where they were letting fear, talk them out of stuff, like they were settling for what's comfortable, they were afraid of growth opportunities and so I was like I don't want to see them do that and that's kind of why I took on the title of Chief Encouragement Officer. Of like do the thing you're scared of doing, and so that decision ultimately has led me. What was the spark later to start the company? And it's funny as I tell that story.

Speaker 2: 11:49

Almost every time I tell that story, which I mean it's terrifying the first couple of times you get on stage, especially a lot of the audiences that speak to their type A's like I have sales audiences, I have construction folks and I'm pretty much getting up here of like this is the most embarrassing thing I've done in my life. Here's where I failed. You're like terrified to tell folks. And almost every time I have people that are really type A. They're like I did that same thing in college, like I could never place it.

Speaker 2: 12:14

I had a lady tell me last year she was like I struggled with this for 30 years because I thought I was the only one who'd ever done it. And the moment you said that, the moment I thought, oh my God, I'm not alone. And she was like I was suddenly at peace with it. And so like I tell that story now because, especially as athletes, like every new level requires a new level of you and because you were really good and earned your spot in middle school or in high school.

Speaker 2: 12:36

You have to start over when you get to the next level, and that's terrifying because, a you have to go earn it all over again, but, b you're gonna have a pit in your stomach of discomfort. That is not a sign to run from Like that's what I thought at 18. Listen to your gut. Everybody says that. My gut says this is terrifying, this is scary Run.

Speaker 2: 12:54

In reality, that pit in your stomach is hey, this is a growth opportunity. You're doing something you've never done before. I didn't have the skills to reframe it, which is why I love your program and your coaching and everything that you're doing for the athletes and the parents is because I didn't have any of that and so I got completely knocked off course school wise, because I suddenly didn't see myself as a student. I was a smart kid and now I'm not a smart kid. Football. I wasn't realizing, like you gotta go back through all the process all over again and so, yeah, so I start telling that story. So those are really the two catalysts for compete and then ultimately sending me down to the work we're doing now.

Speaker 1: 13:34

That's incredible, jake, and I understand why that takes a lot of guts to share that story, because it takes some vulnerability on your part to admit that. But I think your connection is worth far more than your own fears, and now you're just gonna keep telling it you can't back down now. You can't.

Speaker 2: 13:51

No, and it's funny because I laugh like even two weeks ago I'm getting ready to go into a room and I still occasionally have that do I wanna open with a different story? Cause I come out of a gate with this story and I was like, do I wanna open with a different story? And I had to sit there with myself and say why would I do that? Well, because you're worried this is a quote unquote tougher crowd. What if they think you're a sissy? What if they don't connect with you? What if?

Speaker 2: 14:12

And I say, and so then I'm like going through my head of like, well, actually, like, I know this story works, I know this story connects, and the whole goal of, for me, being on stage is teaching. It's not about how, look, how cool I am, it's like here's what I've learned, the hard way, sometimes, the easier way, other times here's how I can help you. And so, yeah, you just kind of have to own that piece of it. And so it's life. But, as the athletes know like, and parents know like, people are never influenced and inspired by perfect.

Speaker 2: 14:44

It's always the people that are dealing with imperfections and mistakes and setbacks, and they found a way to overcome it. That gives more of us hope.

Speaker 1: 14:52

But I also wanna point out as a mental performance coach you're doing self-talk even before your speeches.

Speaker 2: 14:57

You're doing oh, I have a whole routine.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:00

I have a whole routine.

Speaker 1: 15:02

So I love that quote that you said every new level requires a new level of you. I think if we could preach and stand on a soapbox and shout to the world the biggest mistake that we all face those of us that have graduated from college whether we played quit, came back, came through injuries I feel like that's more common. If we could go back and I know that this is a question that I ask at the end of the episode, let's just dig in right now. I'll ask you the time traveler question. You're a time traveler. Let's say you can go back to that Jake before. Jake saw Jake in the mirror. What would you say to yourself now?

Speaker 2: 15:41

Yeah. So it's funny because as I'm giving this talk and I tell the early stages of compete, I come down to this question and I always ask my audience is the same thing? I would have told me you can care about looking good or you can care about getting better, and when you care about looking good, you're trying to impress people that ultimately don't matter. Like I don't remember what three people were wearing to dinner last week when I went out with them. I just remembered that we have great conversation. Like we don't remember things right.

Speaker 2: 16:08

Michael Gervais says that new book of rule of mastery is not care. Stop caring what other people think. Like it's our foe that gets us. So I'm always about do you care about growing your ego or do you care about chasing excellence? Because when we grow our ego, we don't take action, we play it safe.

Speaker 2: 16:24

We never attempt to get better and improve our skills because it's messy, it's sloppy. It's why, like, if anybody listening plays a musical instrument, like day one you sucked. I don't care who you were, you sucked. Modes aren't sucked on day one, but like, with enough intentional wrap and focusing consistency, you can get really good. The problem is, nobody wants to go through the mess. Nobody wants to look sloppy because we worry what other people will say. But that's progress, like when you just put on the blinders and say, how do I get better, how do I get better, how do I get better? Then eventually you get to a point where you become great at something and successful. And the truth of the matter is when you succeed, everybody wants to know how you got there. So they can too. They just want to learn something. The problem is it goes back to I started really sloppy.

Speaker 2: 17:06

And so that's why I hate YouTube channels of famous people or whoever that looks so polished, but they don't show their videos from year one, when it was just a mess and keynote speeches. I still have my old talks and I go back and I'm like, what can I pull out of there? But that's the beauty, and that was the thing when I was so much younger. Is I worried so much about what other people said? My identity was wrapped up in winning their approval that I was terrified of the criticism, and so if I just cared about getting better, then I wouldn't have worried about anything else.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Except what am I doing today to improve my skills, to improve how I show up as a teammate, to improve how I show up as a student, knowing that that's stacking a Lego block. I got a stack. I literally have a box of them on my desk and I use one in a show, but it's a box of Legos. To remind you, a single Lego block by itself is worthless Like, unless you're barefoot walking through the house, as every parent on here probably knows. But they're done that right, it sounds familiar.

Speaker 2: 18:06

Yeah so, but if you Google world's largest Lego creations, you see things like a Singapore Airlines airplane that's 11 feet by 12 feet, weighs 225 pounds. I think there's a guy in the UK that has an entire house with a working toilet made out of Legos Like there's some fascinating things, and what that says to me is the little bitty blocks stacked with intentionality and consistency build epic things. The same applies to our playing careers, our lives as parents, our careers. Like it's teeny, tiny choices stacked every day, consistently and intentionally that build epic outcomes. And we either A get too much of a rush to get to that finish line or, b we get so distracted about worrying about what everybody else says that we don't just say what am I doing to intentionally get better, because improvement requires intentionality and we can't just go through the motions.

Speaker 1: 18:55

I think you hit on a huge piece right. There is that those little moments, those little drivers. I think so often the mistake that we make and I'm just as guilty as a coach coaching my athletes or even parents coaching their athletes is we're looking at the scoreboard, we're looking at that big moment like, ooh, I wanna post my daughter's home run ball. When is she gonna get her home run ball? And the athletes are saying, when is this gonna happen? And we wanna I wanna play varsity as a freshman. I wanna do all of these big things, but are you willing to do those everyday choices? And your whole company compete every day? So give us a look. What is that from stages, from the clients that you work with? I know you talked to our parents about this inside our parent workshop back in 2021, was it 22?

Speaker 2: 19:47

And 20, yeah, 22.

Speaker 1: 19:49

I think I said it in the bio. I just said 2022, yeah, so what is this about? We always say trust the process and I know you hit on that tremendously and we got great feedback from the parents. What is the process? What do you mean by process? What do you mean by compete, jake?

Speaker 2: 20:08

Yeah. So the idea is falling in love with the process versus the outcome, because we don't control the outcome, right, we don't control. A kid doesn't control, they hit a home run, right, they control. Do they make good contact on the swing through, like what's in their control with everything? And the problem with what we find in sports psychology and we talked about this on part of the coaching call is when parents are fixated and fascinated and praise the outcome point scored, hits made, runs driven in, games won. Kids associate mom and dads love with that, which becomes a real problem when your kid goes 0 and 3 at the plate, because then they think you don't love them as much or you're not as proud of them, even if they played their absolute butt off. On the flip side, when kids are praised for process which are things in their control, attitude, effort, actions, where they're focusing, how they're talking to theirself, how they're talking to their teammates, what kind of teammate they are, how they're coachable, they start to associate that importance long-term with success and mom and dad's proud of me. And so think about where you are as an adult. Like, you don't control if your client's ready to buy or not. Like I'm in sales, I don't control that. What do I control? How many times I'm picking up the phone and how I'm improving every time I call. I mean, actually, this is so funny.

Speaker 2: 21:23

I had a conversation this week with another speaker. She spoke at an event I'd spoken to in the past and she was like hey, will you reach out and get feedback for me? And I was like whoa, whoa, what she's like. Well, I'm like super nervous, I didn't do well and I don't wanna ask them. And I was like hold on, hold on, hold on, like I'm not gonna ask them for you. I was like I've already reached out when you got the opportunity to say, hey, congrats, you're in great hands.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Here's the problem. You are associating who you are with what you do. I said you're afraid of getting feedback because you assume feedback has a reflection on who you are as an individual, the worth you have versus how well am I doing this skill? And if you think about it so different than swinging a bat, there is a technique to swinging a softball bat correctly and when a coach gives you feedback on adjustments, all you're focused on is how am I doing that thing better? Not, am I great? Am I an awesome human? Am I good teammates? How am I swinging the bat? It's no different from speaking on stages, as I told her. I said you have to focus on the feedback, being on a skill, and a skill is always something you can develop the identity in who you are. You have to ground the fact that speaking is part of what you do. You are also a daughter, you're a friend, you're all of these other things, and I was like it's the same process I have. And so, as we think about it with parents, like we want to be able to coach and develop the skills that are in their control, that they have the ability to improve on. So when we see them get an error and then go back to the dugout and sink their head in their hands and they stop talking to their teammates and they go to the end of the bench, that's something we want to talk and ask them questions, to coach them on, because that was a choice they made. If they're the pitcher and the other batter just knocked the seams off the ball, but they threw a great pitch, there's nothing else they can do. It happens, it happens. And so what happens is if we don't focus on process and what's in our control. Then we have this idea of they call it.

Speaker 2: 23:22

I want to say it's outcome fallacy, and Annie Duke talks about it in the book Thinking in Bets. But it's essentially assuming all of the decisions off of the outcome. Here's the reality. If you've played sports, you know this for a fact. There are games you won. You played terribly and you shouldn't have won, and there's games you lost, that you played your butt off and did everything you could and you still lost. That is success fallacy. Right there, it's assuming that on the game you lost, you should have done something different, when maybe the other team was just far and away more talented and they were hot that day and you played your absolute best and there was nothing more you could do. On the flip side, if you win a game you shouldn't have won, you get success fallacy thinking well, I don't have to prepare as hard next week because we won that game. I don't have to practice this hard of hey, I got by doing this last time, and so that is what happens when we focus on the outcome. But when you become someone who falls in love with the process of here's where I'm getting better and as a parent, this is like where you come in heavy, of being able to say, hey, I loved how you responded after that mistake. I saw how you got back to the bench and you were cheering on your teammates, like that. Stuff is so key and it reminds me.

Speaker 2: 24:29

One of the stories I'm writing about in my book is there's a couple of players who I've seen become great teammates when you would expect them not to be, and one of the girls I'm gonna screw this up. I can't tell you her name, but I think she's the University of Alabama softball and this was like College World Series playoff time and she's a senior could be her last game. The team is losing, they're down two bottom of the ninth and coach replaces her. Because coach gets a gut feeling that I'm gonna stick in another batter. Now think about this. You've played the whole time. This could be your last moment to ever at bat.

Speaker 2: 25:03

It's a clutch moment. Every player wants a clutch moment and coach swaps it. That girl goes over there and starts cheering her butt off. She is celebrating and guess what? The girl she put in knocks it out of the park. The team wins and she was the first one on the field celebrate, like that's what it means. And if I'm a parent, I'm not saying congrats on the win. I'm praising her for how you handled that situation of frustration, because that's gonna pay off in 20 years. When you're not playing softball and you're in an office with the team and the manager decides to do something, you still step up and be a great teammate Like that is the key.

Speaker 1: 25:38

I love that so much and I think it is reminding me of our conversation with Rhonda Ravel, of you're in the thick of it in college softball, college world series, heightened experiences. I think when you see it, see it, and you said that, right there you're praising. What are they gonna remember? What's actually more tangible, beyond the win, is who she was in that moment. I wrote a really cool note. You said something really interesting and I wanna repeat it back. You said give feedback on the skill, not the person.

Speaker 1: 26:10

And so I think about all of the parents that are in my DMs, all the parents that are texting me, all of my one-on-one athletes how do I be a better parent? And the thing that breaks my heart the most is that I work with some pretty top performers. They're gonna go D1, they're gonna be successful. I know that they have the physical skills, but what's the one thing that their parents are constantly criticizing their skills and we forget? Right, we forget that if we're pointing out, right, here's what you did wrong. A high performer craves that feedback.

Speaker 1: 26:42

So I'm thinking of my girls that I coach. They wanna know what they're doing wrong. They wanna know hey, am I getting my hips through on this pitch. Am I working on my step? Am I loading correctly? How's my back end? All of those things they crave that we'll say constructive criticism. But they want that feedback on the skill. But how often are we giving them feedback on their attitude or even a skill that they are getting better at? If they did something correct? Are you praising the process? So, for example, I'm thinking of one of my girls that's really working hard on her backhand and her range and when she gets it, it's just expected, Like her parents just assume, yep, that's part for the course, we expect that out of you, but they're not praising that. But what would that look like if you started praising that parents? And I think like just and I'm wrapping this around my mind of how do you give feedback on the skill when they're successful? And what does that sound like? What's that conversation I think would be so impactful.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Huge, huge. And it's we the things we expect, right? I expect my kid to play hard, I expect my kid to be respectful, like just because you have those expectations doesn't mean they do Think about every conflict. If your parent and your married think about almost every conflict you've had with your spouse, it's because there's unsaid expectations and those expectations are not met.

Speaker 1: 27:59

But when they are met are you acknowledging it? Are you saying are you acknowledging it?

Speaker 2: 28:03

And that's a big one Like. I saw a video the other day of a kid who, in this crazy man, my blood boil. It was like flag football and this kid makes an incredible catch and move and the defender falls down and the kids first move is the Tyree kill piece as he goes buying. Now I would praise my kid of dude. That was an incredible play. Love how you made the adjustment, but I never want to see you do that again. You will never an embarrass an opponent, because why? The opponent is there to compete and make you better you should acknowledge them.

Speaker 2: 28:35

You should respect them. There's a reason like Barry Sanders, one of the greatest of all time looked the ball to the ref and went back and he would do the most unbelievable things because his attitude is I'm going to be back Like it was not a surprise to get in the end zone and do great things. And when we praise our athletes for how they celebrate, go wild. When you win the game, celebrate with your teammates. Don't celebrate in the face of an opponent, like that's where I get all. But those are processed things that are 100% your control, a motion of the moment. Do you let your emotions control you or not? When our emotions control us, we're a way more inconsistent. Player in person.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Mm. Hmm, I'm also looking at my notes. Do you want to know what the first bullet point was from the workshop that you did with our parents?

Speaker 2: 29:21

What.

Speaker 1: 29:21

Rewarded behavior. This is on my podcast notes. Rewarded behavior is repeated behavior. Boom 1000%, right there 1000.

Speaker 2: 29:31

And I tell adults this all the time and it's funny, I prefaced this with the sports psychology. Right, we know, with kids we have seen study after study. The studies with adults are very mixed, very mixed, and I think there's a number of factors that also play into our life as adult. However, I 1000% still believe that rewarded behavior is repeated behavior in the adult standpoint just as it is for the kids. Now, the reward sometimes vary. We know, like sales professionals, they're sometimes motivated by money. Some people won't.

Speaker 2: 30:01

Recognition there's a ton of that world, but the simple process of being praised I think about how many of our team members and I'm talking to you parents, how many people you work with go alongside when the last time somebody told them you're doing great work, you're doing a great job, even if they're not getting the outcome Like that is where I see a huge opportunity of hey, this is a lesson for our kids as much as us. Of like, where are we praising process in coworkers when we see them do things that we want other coworkers to do? Because the more we praise it, the more we establish it as a standard of importance in our culture? And I think just looking for opportunities for our kids and tell them. That's why I love the group. You know the tagline I love to watch you play that. I know those people have their own podcasts and stuff on it. It's just the idea of like. I love watching you play the game because of you do A and you do B and you do C and you do D, and it has nothing to do with you hit the ball out of the park, you strike out everybody here. You have a perfect game. So everything that's in your control.

Speaker 2: 31:00

And the more we stop assuming A the kids know we're proud of them and, b that those expectations are being met, the more we can verbalize those things with them, even if you get the. I know mom, I know dad, like, take it, take it, go Like. Because what's going to happen is this you're going to pour into them over and over and over and over again and it's going to feel like it's going in one ear and out the other. But eventually somebody like you know you're going to be like, but eventually somebody like me is going to come along, somebody outside your world. It's going to be somebody they see on social media. It's going to be somebody they hear it in advance. It's going to be a boss. They have 10 years down the line and that person's going to say something almost the same way. You did it, same message, a little bit different, and it's going to click. My parent used to say that to me all the time and that's going to be it. It's the.

Speaker 2: 31:51

It's the stone cutters credo in a different sense. Right, the stone cutters credo by Jacob Ries says when nothing else seems to help, I go and look at the stone cutter hammering away at a rock, hitting it perhaps a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet on the hundred and first blow the rock splits in two. And I know it was not the last blow that did it, but everyone that came before. We think about that when it's working, the process working the process doing the physical thing. But it's no different than when we're praising the kiddo, like eventually something's going to crack and get through to them. But you just keep pounding the stone every day, whether you see the results or not.

Speaker 1: 32:26

So, jake, are you telling parents to also have a process?

Speaker 2: 32:31

1000%.

Speaker 1: 32:32

Because, if you think about it, if parents are just praising their kids to get the outcome of oh yeah, mom, yes, mom, yes, dad, I love you, right? You're not gonna get that from your teen. You're praising them in thinking that you're gonna get something in return. But what if we started praising our teens and preteens as part of our process, right? So, here's another Do you have a?

Speaker 2: 32:52

process parents. Here's another way to think about that. So I heard a guy say this once and it really stuck out to me. He and his wife were kind of having some frustrating times and he was like I'm gonna do this and he said I cleaned. My wife went out of town with some girlfriend so when she came home he's like I cleaned the house, you could eat off the floor Like I did everything, like all this stuff, and she came in and she kind of came into the house or talking ketchup, she doesn't say anything about the house and he's starting to get really upset. He's like I did all. I spent my whole week in cleaning and doing all this, didn't say anything. And later in the night she's like is something bothering you? And he goes yeah, I spent all week in cleaning this house, getting it perfect, and you didn't say anything. And she said were you cleaning the house and doing it for us or so I would give you recognition? Was it about you or was it about doing something great for me? Because if you're doing it for me, you're not doing it for me to seek recognition from you. And so when you're lying, what you just said there I want parents to hear when we say certain things to kids, or is it because we want them to say, I love you back?

Speaker 2: 33:57

We want them to acknowledge that, hey, we saw that. Or are we saying it to them because we want it to be more impactful to them? And as a parent, it's not about us and I know I say that very loosely, as a guy who has three, four legged children. However, I do a lot of research, study, I study this stuff, because adults are no different than children. I mean, literally this book winning the psychology of competition that's on my desk is literally the whole thing about the parent ethos and the child. Like that is the whole book. So like we don't outgrow this stuff. But as adults, especially teen years, I know how frustrating that is. I know that you feel like there's a disconnect, but it's the idea of how do I just pound the stone, regardless of whether I get the outcome or the response I want. I keep planting seeds, knowing eventually a rain will come and that harvest will grow, whether I see it in that moment or not.

Speaker 1: 34:49

I love that. That is a beautiful analogy, because what do you have to lose if you're not planting seeds? Then you know there will never be a harvest.

Speaker 2: 34:58

It's like what's the hard work does not guarantee you will succeed, doesn't mean you'll make it to the next level. It doesn't mean you'll start, however, not working hard 100% will.

Speaker 1: 35:07

Absolutely, jake. This has been so fun. You kind of alluded to it and I kind of want you to sew a metaphorical seed. You're working on your third book. I know you can't you told me the title mom's the word. You can make me sign an NDA but your book that you're working on is for athletes. You're passionate about this and you want to serve athletes more. And a lot of the talks that you've gone to you've told me after every speech you have parents that come up and say, oh man, this would be great for my daughter, this would be great for my son. I think this ripple effect. It expands far beyond just corporate. Tell us about your book.

Speaker 2: 35:48

Yeah, so funny enough. So my first book, compete Every Day. Is that right? Seven key choices every one of us can make simple on the surface difficult to execute, because simple doesn't mean easy. Every time I give one of my key notes, it's like I wish I had my kid to hear this. Or do you have stuff for kids and for me?

Speaker 2: 36:06

Where I am in my career, I do a ton in corporate and associations and so I do budget some time for local clubs and groups. Or if I'm an area I have a couple of colleges I go see, but I can't scale, like that's just not something I can scale at this time. And so every time I get asked I'm like I should really do this. And I had an event last November and the group was fantastic. It was a group of lawyers and there were tons of them. They were like I need this book for my kid and I was like I'll write the book. And they're like, no, seriously, like if we bring you back next year, you have to have this book done. And I was like, oh, I love this.

Speaker 2: 36:41

I love this accountability. But it really is that, like I am super passionate because of that story I shared, right, I know what it was like being there and then walking away. So I don't know what certain things are, but I know what I wish I'd known and as an adult, looking back, I can better identify situations. And so the new book it really follows the format of kind of the first book as I laugh like the original compete everyday book. It's still kind of that format Like what are things that you need to know to stand out, and it pulls a lot of examples from athletes that your kids are watching or have seen growing up. But it's like what's the difference between an athlete and a competitor? Like those are two very different things, especially when it comes down to a mindset. What matters more than just kind of wanting to win. How do you get more playing time? Like what's the number one question how do you get more playing time? You earn it, like how do everything in the game is earned? And so how do you earn your when you're a six man on the bench? How do you become the best six man in basketball? We talked about control and the controllables being your own biggest encourager and self-talk Cause. I know that is a struggle for a lot of us of only listening to the thoughts in our head versus working with great coaches like you who are teaching us to learn and listen and talk back and reframe. And then really, I kind of wrap up the new one kind of three concepts One, elevating your teammates. You want to be a great teammate. You elevate your other teammates, even if it's the same people at your position. How do you understand that who you are is not what you play Like. You are more than just a softball player. You're more than just a basketball player. You have a whole world to you, and so I really want to emphasize that, because that was a big deal with me not getting.

Speaker 2: 38:22

And then, finally, this idea of life has no off season and so, like sports do, but life like every day, we should have this mentality of what am I doing to get better? And it's one of those Lego blocks. I tell people that on the surface seems, yeah, of course makes for a great Instagram post, but how do you actually do it? And if you become someone who's willing to do it, even if you're not perfect, you go 325 out of 365 days next year, those 325 you wake up. What am I doing to get better? Over a five to 10 year play, you're going to fall, in a way, dramatically outperform and out position yourself over everyone else, just going through the motions.

Speaker 2: 39:01

And so, really, it's the book that I wish I'd had, probably my sophomore year of high school, what I wish I'd known going into college, to better prepare me for challenges, obstacles, what to do, so that it was par for the course instead of, oh my God, what's happening to me. And so that's it. So my goal literally from an accountability standpoint I want to have it out before summer starts. So my goal is to have it out before June 1st, which means the writing is about to heavily commence, but it's for there and we'll figure out how to do some video components and an extra curriculum for it.

Speaker 2: 39:36

But I get asked by a lot of colleges hey, what else do you have besides a talk for us? And this gives me a platform to do it for them in a way that I can hopefully impact them, because I know this is not my main audience, this is not where I spend a ton of my time, but these are a lot of people I'm passionate about, because I love sports, I love the lessons it teaches us and, my God, if I'd known the things I know now, then, like every one of the parents is probably saying, like what different journey I would have been on. And so I just want to help a few of those folks even if it's five athletes change that mentality on how they show up over the next not just a year, but 10 years.

Speaker 1: 40:12

Yeah, even if it just impacts and changes one life.

Speaker 1: 40:16

More than it would be worth it. Jake, thank you so much for your time. I am so excited for you. I love watching everything that you're doing. I feel so supported and love getting to catch up with you and just have a really cool conversation that we get to hit, play and broadcast to the Fearless Fam. Where can we follow you? What's kind of your dominant? If we were to follow you anywhere, what's your dominant? We'll link all of your socials below. Where are you most active?

Speaker 2: 40:41

Most active. So the two places I hang out the most are Instagram it's Jake Thompson Speaks and then LinkedIn. Actually. So, parents, I know LinkedIn kind of sounds like the boring platform, but I put out some good content there, but those two are it. I'm working on my TikTok game. I know it's slow, but that's kind of a focus point of TikTok and YouTube over the next year, just cause I know like the younger audience really wants that video. They want the shorts, they want all of that. So we're trying to figure out how to create more of it consistently. But yeah, come say hi. If you heard about it on the show, we'd love to connect. Any questions you have on stuff we talked about, let me know or just bug me of hey, when's the next book done?

Speaker 1: 41:19

I'm pumped. Well, we have our retreat coming up and I'm about to announce I can actually say this cause I know it's certainty that by the time this podcast is aired, we will have dropped the retreat dates. So our retreat for our athletes is July 29th through August 2nd. So I think that would be an epic book. We usually try to find one book.

Speaker 2: 41:38

We go To pack in that swag box. More accountability, here we go.

Speaker 1: 41:42

Sign me up. I'll need 60 copies, please.

Speaker 2: 41:44

Ha, ha ha.

Speaker 1: 41:45

Let's go, Jake. Thank you again. This has been amazing and I'll see you next week. You will All right, thanks.