034: Parent Workshop: How to Build Your Daughter's Confidence with Coach AB

This week's episode is a re-airing of a popular parent workshop called Conversations to Create Confidence. This is normally a $200 workshop, but today you can get it for free on the Fearless Warrior Podcast! During this training, Coach AB talks about how you can connect with your daughter and help to give her the tools to build lasting confidence that will not only help her on the softball field, but in all areas of her life.

Episode Highlights:

• 3 P method
• How to communicate effectively with your athlete
• How to empower your daughter to diffuse her own triggers
• How to categorize your daughter's fears

Conversations to Create Confidence Parent Guide:
https://www.fearlesswarriorprogram.com/ctcc

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, 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 2: 0:38

I wanted to bring back a really powerful parent workshop that we ran and it's so powerful that this is actually inside one of our parent resources, our parent program that we normally charge $200 for. It's on our website what we teach inside this video I'm going to be giving you guys for free. On the podcast, you get to listen to the parent workshop. It is so powerful. I created the 3P method. So not only if you listen to this podcast episode you'll get to hear the 3P method, but so many other tangible tips and takeaways, especially if you are an alumni that's been through our program and you need a refresher. Or you're a new parent and you're curious about how to speak with your athlete to build confidence. You're a new parent and you're curious about how to speak with your athlete to build confidence. The PDF that also accompanies this is our Conversations to Create Confidence Guide. It's all over our social media but, just in case, we will also link it below in the show notes. So if you want to download that worksheet, it's the Conversations to Create Confidence Parent Guide and it accompanies this training. So without further ado, let's dive in. Welcome to the parent workshop. I'm coach AB. We are super excited to kick off round two of the parent workshop hosted by fearless fast pitch, and we teach softball athletes how to leverage the power of mental skills. Training things like confidence and worrying about self doubt can absolutely be trained and overcome. That is what we do, and we are so excited to teach you guys, kind of behind the scenes, of how we work with athletes in more of a parent role. So let's get started. So you guys are probably wondering okay, I'm a softball parent. You are absolutely in the right place If you're desiring to connect more with your softball athlete. We're. We want her to reach her full potential and the fact that you guys are here right now says a lot. Um, and I know that a lot of successful softball parents that we've worked with they understand what it takes to go from just the physical side to the mental side. So our mission is so much bigger. It is so much more than softball.

Speaker 2: 2:52

So one of the things that we talk about is when your daughter is hard on herself, she's going to make mistakes. It's not a matter of if she makes mistakes, it's a matter of when. But maybe you don't know what to say or you're afraid you're going to say the wrong thing If you have a teen, maybe you get the eye roll and we get that. You guys get the but mom, but dad, and so our whole goal is to teach you guys what it is that we do, so you can go from but mom to hey mom and really get that, that connection. She wants to come to you, she wants to break down game film with you, she wants your advice, um, and so that's what we're going to teach you guys here tonight and with our step-by-step process. So with that we get a lot of feedback from parents too, of I don't want to say the wrong thing or I've said the wrong thing in the past, I don't know when to say it and what. Like what do I say? And so I get it. You guys are just trying to help. If some of you guys are not from a softball background, my mom was not an athlete. Growing up she couldn't really connect to me on that level, but I knew that she could connect on me from a relationship perspective. My dad was very much the one that was hard on me. So whichever role you fill as a parent, if this is a shift that you want for your daughter, you're not alone. I think oftentimes we feel alone. There is a whole bunch of parents that we've worked with on this call tonight, from the call on Sunday.

Speaker 2: 4:24

My promise to you is that if you commit to this workshop, walk away from this workshop, you'll know what to say, how to say it and when to say it. And if you'd like to take the next step with us, we will have opportunities to work with our team to give your daughter the step-by-step as well. And as a bonus because you guys showed up tonight, if you haven't already, we have a brand new guide that literally lays it out for you. So a lot of the stuff that we're going to be talking about tonight is in this PDF. It's called Conversations to Create Confidence. We actually give you guys journal prompts to give you exactly what to ask her Obviously not something that you're going to sit down and knock out in one night. It's kind of your guide for season or when you want to bring it and and try having that deeper conversation. There's five journal prompts for each section. If you guys have questions about that, we'd be happy to answer.

Speaker 2: 5:19

But really this is about conversation starters, really to start that awareness. So if you're not aware of what your daughter's mental game is, you can't effectively help her. So how do we get her to develop these empowering thoughts? This is where we start. I'm going to close my window and we'll keep going, but as you guys are tuning in, if you guys give me like a scale of one to 10, of like man, my daughter comes to me with everything. We're at a 10. If you're like middle of the road, maybe give me a five. If you're like man, I get the instant eye rolls. When it comes to softball, where do you guys fall on the one to 10 spectrum? I think part of the reason that we do these in the chat is because I want you guys not so much to tell us as the coaching staff, where you fall, but more so so you can see oh my gosh, I'm not the only parent, or, yeah, my relationship is amazing with my daughter, but when it comes to softball, so, um, I can't actually see the chat while I'm sharing. So, becca, did we get some some numbers in there? Yeah, we got a couple coming in. Okay, awesome, very cool.

Speaker 2: 6:33

One of the other things that we wanted to give you guys an opportunity tonight is we will be unveiling a special surprise If you guys stay till the end. Um, we are just super passionate about helping your daughters with whatever it is that they need. We're literally going to be peeling back the curtain and giving you guys our step-by-step process. So what's in store for the next 30 minutes? These are the three things that we're going to be talking about, so you guys kind of have the ability to take notes, ask questions. These are the three sections. They're color-coded. We're going to teach you our parent conversation framework, or the three Ps. We're going to tell you how to figure out what your daughter is actually thinking and how she views her mental game and what we've seen in the athletes that we've trained. And then, finally, our step-by-step process. We're literally going to lay it out for you guys on how you can empower her with her mental game. So with that, um, what is the challenge? Right, we are faced with this challenge all the time. Um, I'm guessing you guys are here because you want your daughter to succeed.

Speaker 2: 7:36

I've seen it in softball groups. Um, you know, we just need the latest bat or the mantra. I think that's like the new ghost bat, um, or the ghost bat itself, um, but why is it? Have you guys ever noticed there are some girls that their parents buy them a new bat. They hardly ever go to the batting cages and she's just like crushing it. You're like she's literally the laziest girl on the team. What is it about that girl? And yet my daughter is in the cages. She's spending hours. We buy hitting lessons and yet she struggles.

Speaker 2: 8:08

And I wanted to show you guys that it's. If it's everything mental or just everything physical, the chart tipping happens and she starts to think well, something's wrong with me. And no matter how much physical training you get her, if she's not equipped to deal with her emotions, to deal with her thoughts, to deal with her mental game, that's just even more proof of well, geez, mom buys me all of these hitting lessons and dad takes me to the cages every other day and I'm still not successful. So we're just reiterating that proof when really we just need to take a step back and say who are you as a person, what is your mental game, and give you some tools to work through that. So the biggest thing that we want to kind of tell you guys is that through this messiness, through the challenges, there are opportunities. We just have to be willing to set the bat down, set the glove down and just ask these questions and everyone hears it all the time.

Speaker 2: 9:09

I sound like a broken record, but you'll always hear me say mastering the mental side of softball is the most crucial ingredient for your daughter's success. So my question for you guys is if your daughter fully trusted your advice and you felt connected, how would that feel for you as a parent? You know, regardless of her performance on the field, what that's going to take is how she wants to be engaged. May not be how we engage her. I can say that a different way. Oftentimes we want to give her the advice, but she's perceiving the advice in a completely wrong manner, not because of what you're saying, but because of the internal dialogue and the stories that she's telling inside of her head. So we're going to show you guys how to flip that script. So I can't talk about this without telling you guys a little bit about my story. That's me underneath the little yellow arrow.

Speaker 2: 10:06

I was having a blast my senior year of high school. I was on one of the most competitive teams in our area. We traveled gosh all over the Midwest. We even stayed in hotels. My parents couldn't afford to go, so my sister and I we actually. They purchased our hotel room and we rode with coach and I'm pretty sure that's illegal, but I come from a blue collar family. My mom was a teacher, my dad was a truck driver and my whole goal was to play college softball and I made that happen. I was on top of the world Physically. I was dominating, I was a pitcher, but it didn't come without challenges. I did accomplish my dream, but part of my story is this was one of the worst years of my life.

Speaker 2: 10:51

I actually signed to play at Dana College and, as you can see, my jersey does not say Dana, it says Concordia. The college that I signed to play at had actually closed down. They were trying to get accredited. I had to start the recruiting process all over again. Two weeks after I had signed at Concordia, the head coach left for another job. We got a new coach and then he ended up getting fired because it was shady and we were overworked. We put in gosh over 20 to 30 hours a week as pitchers at weightlifting, at conditioning at practice. The extra time that we put in gosh over 20 to 30 hours a week as pitchers at weightlifting, at conditioning at practice the extra time that we put in.

Speaker 2: 11:28

So what was it about that season that really tested me mentally is I went from being a really big fish in a little pond to a really tiny fish in a huge pond of college and my freshman year. I struggled because I thought that I could just dominate physically and it wasn't happening for me. And then, to make matters worse, you can see the ice pack on my shoulder. After my freshman year, I've gone to have shoulder surgery and have to relearn how to pitch. I could have easily thrown in the towel and in those moments I had teammates that said why are you still doing this? We have a horrible coach, this program is not going anywhere, you can't pitch. Why are you still doing this? And it was in that moment that I realized it was my mental game that got me through. And now, looking back, I had all of these skills that I was using, like visualization, like self-talk, that I was telling myself I was the greatest. I was visualizing my success and my senior year. We ended up going to nationals and making it. We beat one of the top NAIA teams in the nation, and so my whole goal in telling this story is that, yes, my challenges are really unique.

Speaker 2: 12:43

Your daughter's college may not close down, she may never have shoulder surgery, but it's those moments in life that it is so much bigger than softball. It has nothing to do with their ERA or their batting average, it's can she handle life when it happens Right? And we've talked through girls on coaching calls that oftentimes their biggest struggles have nothing to do with softball. It's divorces, it's virtual learning in the pandemic, it's dealing with coaches dealing with drama trying to please one parent or the other, and then how that manifests itself on the softball field. It absolutely affects their performance. That manifests itself on the softball field. It absolutely affects their performance.

Speaker 2: 13:32

So, again, when I say this is so much bigger than softball, looking back as we tap into the mental side of the game and researching this, I want your daughters to be able to handle anything life throws their way. And this is what's possible when you have those conversations of okay, why am I? Why am I learning about the mental side of the game? Or why am I paying for these hitting lessons? That's what it can do for your daughter. So I'm passionate about this. Um, we'll keep going on the training.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Um, it's going to get a little cheesy, but I think oftentimes, as parents, we we want so bad of. Okay, this is bigger than softball. Maybe you guys are like, yes, coach AB, we get this. It is bigger. And so how many of you guys have heard of the Oreo method? It's? It's basically saying like if you have a criticism or you want to coach somebody through something, you sandwich it between praise. So you're like, oh my gosh, becca, that was awesome Way to throw to first, but you should have thrown a second. You need to do this differently next time. But that's okay, you got this. That has always felt really cheesy and gross to me. Um, corny, if you will.

Speaker 2: 14:33

And so what I want to give you guys is the ability for your daughter to take it as not false praise, but genuine, real praise, praise and we'll talk you guys through that on how we do that. But more specifically is these terms like trust the process or just breathe, or the Oreo method. It's not mental skills training. So the first thing that we teach is the three P's of parent conversation. You guys will get the replay of this. So if you want to take a screenshot conversation, you guys will get the replay of this. So if you want to take a screenshot, you're more than welcome to, or you can take notes. This is also in the parent guide.

Speaker 2: 15:10

So one of the things that we've researched and that I've researched is withholding is a term in psychology where parents are withholding praise, withholding love, and it starts to affect their cognitive development. So if you guys can think back, I'm very much in the parenting stage where I have a three-year-old and he's getting a cookie if he goes potty or picks up his toys, and so when we think about those relationships, your daughter is used to that praise from you. And I think oftentimes we look at the, the ability to praise our daughter. If we withhold that it's, she's longing for that, but we we don't want to give it to her because we're afraid of the participation trophy or we're afraid of, you know, creating snowflake daughters.

Speaker 2: 15:56

And what I want to remind you guys is you can praise her attitude, you can praise her effort, you can see when she's cheering in the dugout, and oftentimes that needs to be where you guys start. I think so often we start at the very top in our perspective. So how many times have we gotten in the car and I've done this as a coach where I've I've immediately done a post game where I started saying you should have done this better. You guys needed to do this. I saw this and they immediately shut down because we're leading with our perspective. Really, what we need to do is we need to work them up the stair step. So when we start with praise, we're giving them that I see you, I recognize you and I love you, regardless of your performance on the softball field.

Speaker 2: 16:43

And then what you can start to ask them is what's their perspective? What are they seeing, what are they thinking, what are they feeling? And if you want your daughter's eyes to bug out, the one of the first things that you could do when she gets in the car is hey, how did that feel? What did you experience? And then she's looking at you, like, wait, you want me to tell you what I like, what I think, and maybe you'll hear things that you never even realized were happening.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Um, she may go into the negative and she may go into the positive, but you get to let her start the conversation and guide it, and then, from there, the greatest line that you can say is would you like to know what I think? The greatest line that you can say is would you like to know what I think. Write that down, guys. It's huge. Would you like to know what I think? And she can say yeah, and then you give her your perspective or your advice. If she says no, okay, great, and see what happens. See what reaction you get from your daughter. Um, and again, just to reiterate, you may not, you may not work up this linearly. You may not go one, two, three every single time.

Speaker 2: 17:52

If you're struggling to connect with your daughter right now, you may be in phase one. Um, if you do have a really good connection with your daughter, you may bump up to phase two right away. So the biggest thing is living through this. You know the three P's of parent conversation. The fourth P is play the parent card. So I think so often, especially if you feel like your daughter really wants to take ownership, or she's saying you know excuses that you know aren't valid, or you know why aren't you practicing, you can pull the parent card only after you've reached the other three Ps.

Speaker 2: 18:29

So oftentimes we want to be our daughter's best friend, we want to connect with our daughter, but one of the best ways to pull the parent card is if she shuts you down. She gives you the eye roll. Maybe she had a bad game. You can say, great, I get it. Maybe you don't want to talk right now, but I really am interested in talking about this later, when would be a good time. And maybe she says, mom tomorrow, okay, great, I'm going to bring it up tomorrow. And then she knows okay, I'm not off the hook, I still need to talk about it. Mom wants to know what my thoughts are. And then you work through this conversation framework again. Sound good. Let coach Becca know if you guys have any questions. How are we doing on the chat? Coach Becca doing good, okay, awesome. So the next piece of this is the timing.

Speaker 2: 19:16

So one of the things that I want you guys to think about is when we immediately come off of a game, we have all of these thoughts that we don't want to forget. One of your best resources is the note app on your phone or a blank email. If you're having these things that you notice and you don't want to forget as a parent, you can easily take notes. I think so often we take advantage of the fact that our daughters are there's an age gap there and we do pull the parent card and we say you know X, y Z. We should have done this, but if we start to understand that these young women they're not fully developed in their brains yet they're rageaholics just as much as a toddler that we immediately respond to our emotions. And so one of the things that I would encourage you to think about is how do you react with your partner or spouse when they're fuming, if they, if, if they had a bad day at work and they come in and they walk in the door and you can just tell that they are mad, do you poke the bear or do you give them space? And so, if we can do that to a peer or an adult, give that space and time for your daughter and just let them know hey, we can talk about this tomorrow. Same thing that you would do when you approach a high pressure situation at work. You know what notes would you take, what information do you need and what space would you need to allow. And then, more specifically, you could open up a conversation with your daughter of how you like to be approached.

Speaker 2: 20:46

I think sometimes, as parents, we forget, they don't know what we experience. So you can bring in anecdotes or experiences that you've had where you can say, hey, when I've had a bad day at work, I don't want to talk about it. Or maybe you could say man, when I do have a bad day at work, I don't want to talk about it. Or maybe you could say, man, when I do have a bad day at work, like I just want somebody to talk through it Is that? Are we similar or are we different? And then you're not talking about her performance, you're talking about how she likes to be communicated with, and again she's feeling validated, she's feeling heard, and then you're sneakily setting up your own process for how she wants to be communicated with. I'm good, awesome. So the next part is where it gets really fun.

Speaker 2: 21:32

This is the second section that we wanted to teach you guys is her vision of how she views her mental game. Um, I think for some of you guys, mental toughness and the mental game may seem like a bit of a buzzword. It's a relatively new. It is my dream and my hope that five years from now, there will be mental skills coaches, just like there are hitting coaches. Coach Becca can probably attest to this too. 10 years ago, hitting coaches weren't a thing, and now everybody has a hitting coach. This is my goal for the mental side of the game. So the first step is awareness.

Speaker 2: 22:12

So one of the ways I like to think about this is a bomb. Your daughter's mental game is like a ticking time bomb. It's not a matter of if it's going to explode. We know that it's going to explode. It's trying to figure out what those triggers are. We cannot diffuse this bomb for her. You've probably tried and it just explodes it faster. She has to unlock the codes to her bomb. So if you guys can think about this ticking time bomb pressure right, how many times in the movies where there's like three seconds left on the clock and you know this bomb is going to explode and only one that can defuse it is her. The mental side of the game and mental skills can help give her. How do I defuse this bomb before it even counts down to three seconds?

Speaker 2: 22:55

And again, the one thing I want to reiterate is we can't do this even as mental skills coaches. We are equipping them, we're empowering them with the plans, we're empowering them with the toolboxes to diffuse their own bombs. So it's kind of it's frustrating because it's we can't control the fight or flight response. We can't control emotions, but we can control how we respond to them. So, um, cbt theory, you know psychology, counseling the worst thing that we could say to a kid is don't feel emotions. You're not supposed to be emotional or how dare you have those thoughts? No, these thoughts are normal, you're human. It's what you do with them that matters. So I hope, if that makes sense, can you guys give me like a yes or like a thumbs up in the chat? Um, I think that's the biggest mistake. That makes sense. Can you guys give me like a yes or like a thumbs up in the chat? I think that's the biggest mistake that I see in the coaching world is when we tell our daughters to just relax, or you know it's calm down. It almost makes it worse because you're you're basically saying that her feelings and her thoughts are invalid. So what does this look like for your daughter? And Coach Becca, you're watching the chat for me. So if we have any questions come up.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Um, confidence is a big deal to girls. I don't know if you guys have noticed this, men and boys, they are already confident, overconfident, and then the results happen. Women and girls are flipped. So they need to feel confident, act confident, look confident in order to get the results. So one of the things that we talk about is as they become more self-aware. Yes, they are maturing and, yes, they're going through preteen and teen years, but their confidence drops. So this is something that we want to address and softball is the vehicle to do that. So, as we talk about it, the flip side of this is okay, great, softball is the vehicle to do that. So, as we talk about it, the flip side of this is okay, great. Softball is this vehicle to increase her confidence. But if it's no longer fun for her, because it's just not fun, this stat is crazy to me.

Speaker 2: 24:54

70% of kids in the US stop playing organized sports by the age of 13. Now, another way to look at this stat is it probably also pertains to specialization. So if your daughter's a multi-sport athlete, eventually she's going to start to choose hey, what's worth my time and what's worth my mental STEM stamina to continue. Oftentimes they're going to choose softball or they're going to choose basketball and drop the other sports. So that also plays into the factor.

Speaker 2: 25:21

But talking about confidence and opening up those conversations and saying, hey, I get it, you want to feel confident, let's get you there that's kind of what she's thinking is. I have to feel confident first. So when you instill these conversations with her, again using that guide, you're giving her that tool ahead of time. So on the flip side of that, we talk about triggers and coach Becca loves this we always talk about we coach our athletes. We have to get to the root of what it is that's causing these fears. So I'm going to outline the three fears that we talk about and, through all the athletes that we've worked with, we've boiled it down to three fears.

Speaker 2: 26:01

And the first one is external fears. So these are fears like performing for a coach or, um, you know high school and game changer and trophies. All of these external fears of can I perform? Can I perform to mom's expectations? Can I perform to coach's expectations? Can I perform to coach's expectations? We hear this one a lot. This is like Buku. We hear this more than any other comment. They do not want to let their teammates down. They're more concerned about letting their peers down. So that's our external fear. The internal fear is everything to do with their identity and themselves. So I'm not good enough, I'm never going gonna get this. Carol Dweck talks about growth mindset. The people with internal fears are constantly comparing themselves to their peers. They're saying who am I to do this? I suck, and they don't believe in themselves. This can manifest itself a lot in school and identity as well. So, again, if it's happening on the softball field, it's happening elsewhere. And then the final fear this one we get a lot too is physical fears.

Speaker 2: 27:12

My daughter's afraid of getting hit by a ball, or my daughter's afraid of sliding, she's afraid of an injury or a reoccurring injury, and that's very valid too and can absolutely affect her performance. So when you guys talk with your daughters, you can pop it in the chat. You guys probably already have a pretty good idea. Just pop it in the chat. Is your daughter an E, an I or a P? Maybe she's a combo, maybe she's an IP, maybe she's an EP. But if you're looking at this, going, oh my gosh, I actually really don't know what is causing, what is triggering my daughter's fear, you can start to have those conversations to see. Okay, so she's afraid of letting her coaches down, and then you're going to know how to navigate that conversation. But if you don't know why she's tensing up, um, some of your daughters may tense in moments of pressure. Um, some of them may get overly emotional, some of them may pull back their athletic ability, they may not try as hard on some really big plays.

Speaker 2: 28:13

Finding those triggers and getting to the root of those fears can do a lot in those moments and in those conversations. So, coach Becca, what? What do we have in the chat? Do we have lots of E's? I's P's? Uh, we have a couple. We have a lot of P's. We have all across the board. We got a little bit of everything coming in. Yeah, and that's fun too, because then you guys can start to see okay, there's this doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with your daughter Plenty of our athletes that we've worked with deal with all of these fears.

Speaker 2: 28:46

They'll move through fears and then, as they get into different levels, especially the high school level, um, external fears really start to ramp up, especially as they move up to. You know, like, if your daughter's going from 10, you to 12, you or she's going from class B to class A, external fears are huge, huge, huge, huge. Let me check my notes. We're doing okay, on time. I do want to leave time for Q&A, but what I want you guys to think about is okay, yes, we're starting to see the power of the mental game. What could it do for your daughter if you realized, okay, maybe we just need to set the glove down and have this conversation.

Speaker 2: 29:31

It is really tempting to go through this webinar, to go through this workshop and learn all of these amazing nuggets for your daughter, but if you don't do anything with it, where's she going to be three months from now? Versus, if you guys commit to this, you could do the conversation guides you could commit to. You know, maybe once a week you just kind of sneak in some of those conversation starters. Hey, I have a question for you Boom, hit them with a conversation starter and just see if you can address what their triggers are. So, if you guys can commit to this today of just growing the mental game this is why we do what we do. Give me a C in the chat or committed to working on the mental game.

Speaker 2: 30:13

This is huge for us, especially because we know that there are so many parents out there that it's easy to blame outside factors. We get politics a lot, we get drama a lot, or man, maybe my daughter's just not cut out for it. Yes, she is absolutely cut out for it. She just needs to see that it's fun and that she's totally capable. So we do this because we care so much more about who she is outside of softball, um, but that can't happen if we're constantly in the cages.

Speaker 2: 30:47

So it's going to take putting the glove down, which is kind of polarizing. It's opposite of what is going to happen and like literally what I could tell you guys to try is, the next time that you're trying to get her to practice and she gives you the eye roll or maybe she's like I don't really feel like practicing she comes to you with her glove and you say, hey, for today's practice, grab her glove, set it on the kitchen counter. We're just going to talk. Let's go get smoothies. Take her to Starbucks, take her to you know, jumbo juice or whatever juice place she likes, and you can say, hey, we're just going to talk mental game. Would that be something you'd want to talk about? And then you could show her hey, I really care about what it is that you think, um. And then that pressure is also relieved for her to physically perform again. It doesn't have to be an everyday thing, but even 15 minutes on the mental side of the game can do far more than hours in a cage.

Speaker 2: 31:44

So the last part of this is showing you guys how we teach mental skills training and using it as a vehicle to have them see. Okay, I'm not alone. Other people struggle with self-doubt how do I start seeing success? So these are some of our warriors that we meet with on Zooms. It cracks me up. On Sunday I think we even had Ashlyn's dad on. So, and you guys may recognize some of these people as well when we start to talk about, okay, how do we teach this and why do we teach this. When we teach this, this isn't just motivational quotes, this isn't just feel good patting them on the back. I'm NPM certified by Brian Kane. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Brian Kane. He's one of the most renowned mental skills coaches in the baseball and softball world. He was actually trained by Ken Reviza. So, again, this is backed by research. Coach Becca is also getting her master's in counseling as well. So, again, the reason why we do this is because this goes so much more beyond them just being athletes and this is going to carry them through life.

Speaker 2: 32:55

So, again, one of the things that I wanted to talk about is you're probably thinking, okay, great coach, my daughter is actually pretty confident and the reason that I show these pictures is Jordan is holding the district championship trophy. Jordan is actually one of the girls that I first started teaching this to, and her mom thought well, jordan is great like super crazy confident, she's super athletically talented and she was coming up on her freshman year of high school softball and what we found out was Jordan was secretly the most negative to herself. Some of the self-talk that she was telling herself would literally break your heart. I think her mom even called me one night and said oh my gosh, amanda, I had no idea. You know you've been giving her lessons for years. I had no idea either. And and it was just on the softball field she was fine when she was in gymnastics again two completely different, competing arenas but she didn't feel like she measured up in softball. So again, just by looking at your daughter, you may think that she's confident again.

Speaker 2: 34:01

Having these conversations can be really powerful. Some of these other girls Mia's in the yellow helmet. She's out of New York. One of the things that I talk about with her is when she first came to me, her mom said she's small, she's never going to get recruited, she doesn't think she's ever going to major up to her teammates, and it absolutely transformed her and her daughter's relationship and the way that she viewed softball. Um, she's actually in the middle of the recruiting process right now and just switched to a showcase team. So and I show Reagan with the red headband she is, she just turned 10. And so, and coach Becca's on this call we talked about this on Sunday's call.

Speaker 2: 34:39

One of the questions that I get all the time, too, is well, when do I start talking to my daughter about this? And the question that coach Becca brought to me when we started this two years ago was well, okay, you teach pitching. When would you teach a young girl how to pitch? When would you start? Would you wait until they're 12? No, we would never wait to teach a girl how to hit, run, pitch, and so if we can teach them these mental tools, these mental skills now, there's really no wrong time to start having these conversations with your daughter. So we've worked with over 209 fearless warriors in 32 states, which blows my mind.

Speaker 2: 35:20

This is Chloe. She just went through team seven, and the reason that we talk about this is because when she plugs into our mental skills training, when she plugs into this community. What you'll find is the greatest takeaway that these girls come away with is I had no idea that somebody else had the same thoughts that I did. They think that they're alone in their thoughts. They think that they're the only one that struggles, or or has a little voice inside their head that says I suck, um and it. It's so far from the truth and I'm so glad that you guys are here. If you guys are not in the Facebook group, we have a bunch of parents in that Facebook group as well that are constantly sharing their stories. Um, and this community is growing, so I'm so excited for these girls.

Speaker 2: 36:07

When we talk about the alternative, one of the things that I like to share is whether it's mental skills training for your daughter, whether it's you walking her through this process. We're going to show you the skills that we teach inside of our program. Is it worth seeing her continue to struggle? And I hope that you guys would say no, it's not worth it. What? What is it going to take? What can we teach her? And oftentimes we don't want to throw everything at her. So when we talk about hitting, you would never send your daughter to a hitting coach, or pitching is probably a better analogy where we say, okay, we're going to teach her a curve ball, a drop ball, a screw ball, a rise ball, a rise screw slinger. Blah, blah, blah. Right, she would get extremely overwhelmed. So the beautiful thing about mental skills training is we don't know what is going to be most effective for your daughter. She may really latch on to visualization, or she may love self-talk or a grounding technique. All of these techniques. When we start learning them and you start teaching them to your daughter or you work with us inside our programs, they're going to start to see what works best for them, and we don't even know that until we start working with athletes.

Speaker 2: 37:25

So when you guys think about this, if I'm going to focus on the physical side of the game versus the mental side of the game, the key thing is is it doesn't have to be this big, monumental hey, there's something wrong with you. Let's talk this out. It's hey, I would go to a lifting coach to get stronger. I would go to a hitting coach to be a better hitter. I would go to a pitching coach to pitch better. But on the flip side of that, there are plenty of mental skills coaches out there that I'm going to teach you the big six and we'll talk about this here.

Speaker 2: 37:54

What sets us apart from other resources out there and we want you guys to know this too is we could immediately go into phase two, which is game strategies. Where we like to start is who is she as a person, what is her support system, what are her goals and why does she play softball? And so if we look at defining her identity, she knows okay, this is so much more than softball. The way that I describe that is this is kind of like her armor. So if we're thinking a warrior and we posted to Facebook to kind of describing this, this is her armor. So if she's fully geared up in her warrior armor, things like negative comments from coaches, drama from teammates um, just bounce off of her because she knows and can stand with full authority in who she is as a person. She knows that you love her as her parents, she knows why she plays and she has goals that she's going after. Once we address who she is, then we can absolutely move into game strategies. And then phase three we teach living a warrior mindset. So how do we actually apply this? Remember it, continue to grow that confidence, because it's not a quick fix. So even if she does have the tools, she has to be able to use them. So again, you guys have access to this as a replay as well. This is everything that we teach inside of our program. So it's how fast do you wanna go? Go? We lay this out step by step. So we teach support system and how she has relationships with you as her parents. So just as much as we're training you on tonight's call of the parent to daughter relationship, we're teaching her the daughter to parent relationship, daughter relationship. We're teaching her the daughter to parent relationship.

Speaker 2: 39:40

Then we talk about identity who she is as a person outside of softball. What does that identity pie look like? You know who is she. Is she a daughter? Is she a Christian? Is she a Husker nut, right? Does she like to bake? Is she an artist? And taking that pressure off of softball alone. Then we talk about her why Simon Sinek always talks about you know, finding that why and what fuels you. And then, obviously, we talk about goal setting.

Speaker 2: 40:05

So this is phase one of what we teach. This is relatively unique in that not a lot of mental skills coaches will teach this. They'll go immediately into phase two, which is what we call the big six. So if you guys are familiar with the mental skills world, you've probably heard things like self-talk and breathing and visualization absolutely routines. We talk about marching butterflies, failure recovery huge for softball, just because our sport is so cruel. We talk about basketball, we talk about volleyball, we talk about tennis. It's a volley sport, so they're getting multiple chances. Your daughter could be playing left field and maybe get one chance all game. What happens when she blows that one chance?

Speaker 2: 40:52

So, and then module 10, we talk about grounding. Again, you could start teaching this to your daughter. You guys can absolutely start building these routines. We teach this step by step inside of our programs as well. But these are what we call game activation skills tire.

Speaker 2: 41:19

If her bomb starts going off, does she have the codes, does she have the tools to fix the flat tire? That's what these are going to give her. So when the pressure rises, self-talk is huge, but you can't wait until that pressure happens to prep that. She has to know how. Again, if there were more dads on the call they would probably be laughing. Please teach your daughters how to change a tire before she needs to change a tire. Don't that happened to me. My dad had to talk me through how to change a tire on the interstate um on a on a crazy weekend. So again, it's about equipping them before the big moment.

Speaker 2: 41:52

And then, lastly, what does it look like to keep this confidence? What does it look like to keep these skills, giving her problem solving and giving her leadership? Because if she can't apply this to other areas of her life, this confidence can help her in the classroom. It can help her with relationships and again, one day she's going to hang up her cleats, is she going to be able to use what she's learned in the sport for her own good? And that's what the mental side can give your daughter. This is literally step-by-step, everything that we teach inside of our program. It's basically how fast you guys want to go. If you want to delegate that to us, this is the exciting opportunity that we give for you guys. And again, you guys can use everything that we taught you today with your daughter.

Speaker 2: 42:39

If mental skills training is not a good fit right now for your daughter, totally understandable. This is something that may be new for you. We are happy to answer questions, so if you guys want to reach out to us on social media after this training or you want to email us. You can email us at hello at fearlessfastpitchcom. You can email us at hello at fearlessfastpitchcom. So everything that's in our program is included in that enrollment link.

Speaker 2: 43:05

We didn't feel like it would be fair to equip you guys as parents with all of this amazing information and then not give you a resource to continue on. And so if you feel like this is something that would be a really good fit for your daughter, we would love to have her on board. So as soon as you enroll in the Fearless Warrior program, your daughter would literally be able to log in tonight and start working on this. We're getting everyone onboarded and into the portal. Sunday's parent workshop and we're so excited. And again it's how fast do you want to go?

Speaker 2: 43:41

And if it's not a good fit with us, we do really encourage you guys to continue to talk about the mental side of the game.

Speaker 2: 43:48

But the main thing is that that parent framework conversation knowing that she's going to have those thoughts and it doesn't mean that anything's wrong with her, how she's viewing her mental game, and then how do we build that plan for her is really what we do, and we even have some parents on here that are fearless warrior parents.

Speaker 2: 44:07

So if you guys have comments about the program as well, you're more than welcome to share your experience. All right, so because we dug this out of the archives, part of this training is that we did open up access to the Fearless Warrior program and because this will live on the podcast forever, we open enrollment into the Fearless Warrior program only three times a year. But because you have listened to this whole episode and you've made it to the end, I have a very special surprise for you. If this is something you are serious about for your athlete and you want to get them started right away, I have a very special link and, without waiting, you can get started right away with your athlete. Send me a DM, send me an email, hello at fearlesswarriorprogramcom with the word warrior and that you want to get started, and I will send you all the information, including price times of the next cohort, when we're starting and how to access the program. You can get immediate access.

Speaker 1: 45:07

All you have to do is request the info to sign up and I will send you the link. All you have to give me is the word warrior.

Speaker 2: 45:15

Kind of a secret message, but it's my way of saying thank you for listening to this parent training and this podcast. I appreciate you and I'm excited to work with your athlete.