036: I Struggled in College: What I Wish I Knew with Coach AB

Our podcast episode this week features our very own Coach AB! Amanda Schaefer is a former collegiate pitcher and founder of Fearless Fastpitch. In this episode she shares her journey through high school and college softball and how her experiences pushed her to embark on a mission to teach other athletes mental skills.

Episode Highlights:

• How Coach AB discovered mental skills
• How resiliency helped her through the death of her father
• What mental skills she used in her own softball career
• The difference between superstitions and mental skills

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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

Hi, fearless fam. This is Coach Kara. You may be used to hearing me normally on our guest speaker calls, but for today's podcast episode, we thought it would be fun for Coach AB to come and take the hot seat and that we would get the chance to interview her for a change. So I'm just going to go ahead and introduce you, just like I would, one of our guest speakers, if that's all right. Depending on how long you've been around Fearless Fast Pitch, you probably know a thing or two about our fearless leader or founder, amanda Schaefer, or Coach AB as we all call her. Amanda is from Lincoln, nebraska, and has been playing softball since she was eight years old and then played all the way up through college, where she was an outstanding pitcher. We thought it'd be fun to get to chat with her today. I'm going to ask her some questions about how her journey to finding and utilizing mental skills and then coming all the way to now where she teaches them to other athletes. So welcome to the podcast, amanda.

Speaker 1: 1:36

This is awesome. I love being able to do this with you. I feel so honored.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Your own podcast. You're a guest on your own podcast, Congratulations.

Speaker 1: 1:47

I feel like we should do this live with the girls. This should be an actual guest speaker workshop.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yeah, that would be a great idea. That'd be a lot of fun. They could. They could totally grill you, just like they grill all the other guest speakers that come on. They'd be asking you about your favorite foods. They'd be asking about your pregame pump up music. They'd be asking all those questions.

Speaker 1: 2:05

I wish that I could remember some of those, but I cannot even remember. I can remember one of my walk-up songs and I ate an orange before every game. Other than that, I probably couldn't answer those because I feel like in my mind college was just yesterday, but it has now been 10 years, which blows my mind.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Yeah, it's crazy how fast that goes. I remember in high school for some reason, but basketball every day I would come home from school before a game. I would come home from school and I would only have like an hour between school and my game. I would come home from school and I would take exactly a 22 minute nap. I would set my alarm for 22 minutes. That was like a magic number of. I would wake up feeling good and not like overtired, and then I'd be ready to play.

Speaker 1: 2:47

You know there is some science to that. There is science to napping.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Yeah, I definitely had it figured out. Well, we can go ahead and just get started and then start hearing what you have to say about mental skills and how you how you came upon them, how for you, in your own life, how did you come about discovering mental skills, like, were you overtly taught them, or do you feel like it was something you picked up along the way or what? What was your first introduction to mental skills?

Speaker 1: 3:16

I think what's interesting about this story is I've been asked this question before, so I love that we're talking about this on the podcast is I actually discovered mental skills outside of sport, so a huge part of my story that I feel like I should share more, because I think more and more people are going to have this common shared experience, whether we like it or not. I actually lost my dad to a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2017. And I just remember going through that process and everyone would come up to me. You know, at the time I was working full time and I loved my job. I had other commitments. I was coaching. I was an assistant coach of a high school team, I was giving lessons. So it's not that I wasn't in the softball world, but one of the things that kept pinging me was people would say, hey, like how are you doing? You just seem so positive. You know how's your dad doing, and I was also planning my wedding and it was just this really weird juxtaposition that people started to notice. And for years, I had given pitching lessons and I would always ask the question how can I teach this, how can I instill confidence? And the answer always was well, either the athlete has it or they don't. Either they have confidence or they don't, and so I just kind of left it at that.

Speaker 1: 4:39

It wasn't until my dad's cancer diagnosis. I'll never forget this. I was sitting on the living room floor of my childhood home and for whatever reason, I had kind of blocked it out that my dad's diagnosis was terminal. And my mom kind of looked at me and she goes Amanda, you know, he's, he's not going to make it through this, and so that was kind of my snap out of it moment where I said, okay, I now know the answer that I had not been wanting to hear. And I remember, sitting on the living room floor, I was laying on my stomach like a little kid, trying to relish being a child and what it meant for my dad's diagnosis, and I remember Googling something to the extent of how to prepare for grief before grief happens, and there was an article that came up. It was about resiliency and I thought, okay, well, this is really interesting. So essentially what the article said, the three things that stand out in my mind and the reason that this will forever be burned into my brain is the vocab stand out in my mind and the reason that this will forever be burned into my brain is the, the vocab a staunch acceptance of reality was one of the things that was listed, and so in that moment I said, oh okay, check, got that. I just have been hit with reality. And then the other two were, you know, a sense that life is meaningful, and so if, if life is meaningful, we can bounce back from it. And the third one was the ability to improvise. And so if life is meaningful, we can bounce back from it. And the third one was the ability to improvise. And so this article just opened my eyes to there are ways and methods that we can think about things, we can prepare for them.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Resiliency isn't just something that happens, it's something that is kind of prepared or taught, and if we can reinvent that wheel I know this sounds crazy, but through my dad's journey it was kind of this full circle moment of well dang, if I can apply this to my story, why can't we apply this to softball? And so I started teaching it to my athletes and it was kind of my safe haven, and so every you know I was probably coaching at that time still three to four nights a week, and so that was my little slice of heaven. We had one little cage in the corner of a bubble. It was a dome, and I had my little cage that I rented for like I don't know $7 an hour and I started teaching my softball girls this and it started working. And so then, a year later, I got the head coach position at my alma mater. Same thing said well, I'm going to start teaching these skills.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Um, you know something as simple as a breathing technique. And we made it to the district tournament and one of my athletes came up to me and she was super nervous and I said well, do a box breath. And she went in and I think we had a runner on second and third and the tying run was on second. And she ended up scoring that tying run and we had a chance to make it further into the post-season and she came back to me and she looked at me and she goes oh my gosh, coach, it worked. And even in, even in my mind, I was skeptical, right, so I feel like that's a long-winded way of discovery, but it was like these tiny little dominoes of discovery that were just falling, falling, falling. And so, yeah, I guess that answers the question of like I learned this and discovered it and kind of researched this for almost two years before I did anything with it. And here we are.

Speaker 2: 8:10

It's crazy, yeah, and I love that, like how empowering is that to say? Because I think I think you're right on when you say like our generation or generations past, it very much was a sense of like you're either confident or not. Like it's a personality, an inborn personality trait that people have Right, or even resiliency. Like you either are tough or you're not right, like there's just people that are born that way.

Speaker 2: 8:32

And I think there for sure are people that are born with different levels of those skills in in them. But, like, how empowering is that to learn that it can be taught, cause if it can be taught, taught, then everybody has access to it and everybody has the ability to do that. And I love that about the this direction for for sports in general and especially women's sports, because I think that's one of the reasons why it's not necessarily as popular for girls to play sports for as long is because the ones that had that natural toughness, that natural resiliency maybe, and bounce back, they were able to keep playing. But the ones that didn't naturally have it, you know, needed to be taught and they weren't and they, you know, kind of fall away. And so I love that that message of if it can be taught, everybody can experience it, everybody can have it, and and just that makes that opens up so many doors for so many more athletes and that's an awesome thing.

Speaker 1: 9:28

I mean, I even think about that now, of not just on the mental skill side. If I could go back and learn what I have learned now, back then, like Kara, can you imagine what our sports careers would have looked like? I mean, I just feel like, between the hitting advances, the pitching technology and the pitching mechanics for sure, the pitching mechanics, but even the mental skills, had I known more about what they were, I would have leveraged them more.

Speaker 2: 10:00

Yeah, yeah, and I think I think, like you, there were like bits and pieces that like, like I kind of knew, or like I maybe I had a few things that were a little bit more inborn in me that that helped me be able to do the things I was able to do in sports. But yeah for sure, there's definitely some skills that if I had known then, what I know now would have changed a lot. But what, what? What do you feel like? Were there skills that you were using, even maybe without even knowing that there are mental skills in high school or college? Like, do you feel like you discovered some of those on your own, without even knowing what you're doing?

Speaker 1: 10:34

Oh yeah, like I remember Googling when I found out the term mental skills because I'm prior to 2017, I had no idea what a mental skill even was. I wouldn't, and to this day, well, I think you see it too is that sometimes when we ask our college girls, or even the pros and the guest speakers that we have inside the program, when we ask them, hey, what mental skills do you use, we still kind of get a befuddled look Right, and so it's, it's growing. I would say the number one is visualization. Had I been able to harness that more when I found out?

Speaker 1: 11:08

You know what visualization was in the different methods I teach the PetLab method, which is really ingrained into the timing of it. We want to keep it true, as if you were actually performing the technique and the task and the timing and the timing, um, I would be visualizing very flash. I call them flash dreams. I would visualize, you know, like one pitch at a time. You know like I'm, I'm even envisioning on the mound If my catcher called a rise ball. I would see not always, but in those moments that I really wanted to make that ball jump. I would take one or two seconds and see the pitch before the pitch Um, but as far as like visualization the night before and having a guided prompt and mindfulness, you know some of the things that I'm teaching a lot of my one-on-one clients in our sessions, teaching them the five, five, five method and giving them intentional visualization reps to do every night, or especially before a big game man, I would have totally loved that I would have eaten that up had I known how to do it.

Speaker 2: 12:13

Yeah, I think I think what you said too about like if I had known how to leverage it more. I actually was lucky enough that in high school my volleyball coach and my softball coach actually did some of these things with us. Like we would my for volleyball. We would sit down as a team, like we would find a quiet hallway before the game would start and we would sit down with this team and my coach would give us a couple of minutes to visualize. He didn't like walk us through the visualization process, which probably would help me a lot, because as a teenager I just kind of like laid there and thought about the game for a second and then like tried not to fall asleep but like. But yeah, like if.

Speaker 2: 12:46

I had really, really used that maybe a little bit more, it probably could have helped me. And then we also did affirmations. We actually had to turn in a piece of paper every day before practice with an affirmation of I am a good volleyball player because, or I am a good softball player because, and we had to turn that into our coach every single day of practice. And they actually like kept them and gave them back to us at the end of the season, which was kind of neat. But once again, as, like a high school kid, I was like on my way to practice, like walking to the field, guys, I'm a good softball player, like what, what should I write? And like cause, you had to have a reason rooted in reality or whatever, and so like I don't think I really appreciated what they were trying to do for us in the moment.

Speaker 2: 13:29

But yeah, looking back, I definitely am like man. If I could have really like use those affirmations, like build myself up and really think about like what am I good at and why, and I think that really really could help me. So maybe that what I think what I needed as like, like I said a kid, I needed someone kind of to hit me over the head and be like dude, we're doing this to help you and this is how it's going to help you If you use it. Um, I think that would help me a lot, as opposed to just I was just jumping through these hoops that my coach was making me jump through.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Right. Well, I think that's the thing about Gen Z and and I think Gen Z gets a lot of bad rap and we've done podcast episodes on this and you think about why we're doing a drill, these younger generations? They want to know the why, and so if you're just telling them, hey, right, why you're amazing, or write an affirmation, it's not deep enough, and and then you know it's, it's not a fault of these coaches out there. You only know what you know. And so if you're waiting for your travel coach or your volleyball coach or your high school coach to teach you these mental skills, I think it's very surface level. I would love to equip more coaches with how to actually teach your players to visualize, instead of just saying visualize success, because where does your brain go? We doubt, we fear, we have insecurities totally normal. But if you don't have the proper techniques to work through a visualization and know what to focus on and how long it needs to be, I think some those are some of the technical aspects that kind of get washed away. And again, like I'm not calling out coaches, it's if you don't have time to learn this. Um, you know it's, it's going to feel cheesy, you know.

Speaker 1: 15:03

I think about affirmations. The analogy I use is you can teach affirmations, but they have to be deeper on an identity level, and the brain loves. Proof was. Okay, now tell me why you are a good softball player, but now tell me why. That's evidence-based and proof-based. You know? Same thing for positive thoughts. Think positive thoughts. Well, it's not just about thinking positive thoughts, it's what evidence does your brain have that you're a good pitcher, or what preparation have you put in to be a good pitcher? Well, I've spent hours at lessons and hours at practice and I'm working on my rise ball and I could show you my. You know there's so much data out there. But yeah, I think the conversation is kind of steering towards like, if they know why, if your athlete knows why, they're going to be more empowered to do it, and your coach kind of did that for you guys.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Well, yeah, and I think it's like totally a sliding scale type idea too, right, I don't. I don't believe for a second that the visualization and affirmations didn't help me at all or, you know, definitely didn't hurt me. I just think it could have been more effective had I understood more behind it and more of the why and, and I think I think I, I like I definitely benefited from it at the time and I think I've benefited more from it since then. Um, just looking back and seeing, okay, well, I learned those skills then and, like continually applying them to my life later on, I definitely think they were valuable, but yeah, well, I think about another one that I use.

Speaker 1: 16:41

If, if we're on that kind of topic of what mental skills we're using or not using, one of the things that I would always do is, if I was nervous or I was frustrated, I would actually grab chalk at the back of the circle and you could tell and this is where I could go back and I just give my college.

Speaker 1: 17:01

You know, hey, ab, you know like it's going to be OK Anytime I would get frustrated on the mound, I would grab chalk, and if I had a really bad game, there was like no chalk line left at the back of the circle, and if I had a really good game, there's a lot of chalk left. And so, you know, I think about the grounding techniques that we teach, the failure reset mechanisms that we teach. That's an anchor, it's getting back to the mind-body connection, and I know all this and I know the science behind it. And so doing something physical to reset you, to bring you back to a more regulated state, in those moments, yeah, I was so angry or so upset that that was kind of my comfort to grab chalk and let that chalk go. And as soon as that chalk was wiped from my fingers, then I couldn't get that batter, I couldn't get that pitch back. Now I totally know that that's a grounding technique, um.

Speaker 2: 17:59

I guess, yeah. Did you just like discover that yourself? Did you just start doing it, or did someone suggest it to you, or do you see it somewhere else? Or where'd you come from?

Speaker 1: 18:08

Nobody really suggested it to me. It was just one of those things that I started doing and then it became a comfort thing and I guess, thinking through it, you know now that we're having this conversation, one of the analogies that I use for athletes when they go through that module of the fearless warrior program is the analogy of something that gives you comfort. So, um, while we're admitting all sorts of things on the podcast, I still have my little pillow, my little comfort pillow from when I was little. It's called sunshine pillow, and if my sister listens to this podcast she's going to be laughing her butt off right now because I'm admitting this. But I will.

Speaker 1: 18:46

I'll admit it to the girls that you know how many of you guys have a stuffed animal or a pillow or a blanket that gives you a sense of comfort. Well, do you really need it? You really need that blanket? Do you really need that stuffed animal? No, but it gives you a sense of comfort, and so I guess comparing that analogy to a grounding technique is you don't need to grab chalk, you don't need to look at a focal point in center field, but it's what it does, for the mind-body connection is almost an indescribable advantage. You know we could call it dopamine, or chemicals, or flow state. I mean there are so many different scientific terms but at the core of it you're doing it because it provides your brain a sense of familiarity in an uncomfortable environment.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Yeah, something you can control, something you can touch and feel and brings you back to the moment. Do you feel?

Speaker 1: 19:39

like you did any of that in any of the sports that you played.

Speaker 2: 19:41

Now that you think about it, Um, not, I don't know about grounding specifically, that's something that I've only just recently learned about, um, but I definitely had lots of little routines that helped me feel more comfortable. I mean, every basketball player has a free throw routine that you go through. You know the number of times you dribble and, um, you know breathing in and out. I definitely had same thing for volleyball, for serving. I had a little routine before I served the ball and yeah. So I mean all those little routines that definitely helped helped get you through. Just, you know it's so unpredictable, everything is so unpredictable, but I can feel the same way right before my serve every time, even if it's you know whether it's so unpredictable, everything is so unpredictable, but I can feel the same way right before my serve every time, even if it's you know whether it's the first point or the last point, I'm serving like right.

Speaker 2: 20:28

If I, if I do this same thing, it's just like every other server I've ever made, and you know it's a varying effect.

Speaker 1: 20:34

Is that? Did anyone tell you that you had to bounce the ball three times or four times? You know?

Speaker 2: 20:40

No, no one ever told me what the routines were, but I do remember learning, fairly early on, the science behind routines, um, with respect to basketball, with free throw shooting, um, and, and I don't remember exactly where I picked it up, I used to watch sports all the time with my dad and he may have sent something to me, or I may have asked the question when I was young, but I do remember learning that very early on, that this idea of, of muscle memory which I think is a little bit been debunked, but like the idea of like doing the same thing over and over again, helps your body be able to reset and get ready for the task at hand, um, but yeah, yeah, those little things definitely helped me out a lot but once again, like I, didn't really know why I was doing them.

Speaker 2: 21:19

I just knew they made me feel good or made me feel more in control and ready to go.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Well, I think that kind of ties into and this is kind of shifting. I don't know my Milford basketball team that I coached this year they can laugh at me too, but I don't know a whole lot about basketball, but I definitely can say that softball and baseball are superstitious and so, like, as soon as we start talking about chalk lines, it's like, well, of course we don't step on chalk lines, but there are certain things that are I look back and laugh of, oh, that that was superstition. That actually wasn't a routine where I would do, and this is where I would go back and recoach myself and relive my college experience. Some of the things that I would do is, if I was in a really angsty mood, I would listen to like screamo, pump up music, and if I was in a better mood, I would listen to like nineties I love nineties jams um, pop, you know, like something upbeat, and I really noticed that my mood fluctuated based on the type of music that I was listening to. Um, that's like superstitious, um, there was no constant routine there.

Speaker 1: 22:30

One of the other things that I used to do that, thinking about it now, it's like that was so dumb was tying my shoelaces tighter or looser, depending on, like, how I felt or the level of the competition. And I had this idea in my head that if I tied my shoelaces really, really tight, it would force me to focus better. And then if we won that game or if I pitched successfully, or if I went three for three that day, guess what I was doing at the next game tying them really fricking tight and then that's clearly evidence that it's working. It's like fricking tight.

Speaker 2: 23:02

And then that's clearly evidence that it's working. It's working.

Speaker 1: 23:05

So then it's like, well then, if I played bad, then I would go back to tying my shoelaces really, really loose. It's like, oh my gosh, you're. This is like the dumbest thing ever. What was I thinking? But when you don't have any grasp of, like, what is working, or how do I stay calm, or how do I stay consistent, if you don't have tools to stay consistent with your mental game, it's always going to be a roller coaster and I totally my freshman through junior year, was a total hot mess roller coaster. I had all the physical skills. I, you know, I like broke records in high school and then I got to, you know, I became a little fish in a big pond and I was just lost mentally.

Speaker 2: 23:48

Yeah, how do you, how do you teach your, your athletes, to separate Because I think, from what I'm hearing, what you're saying like we kind of want to steer clear of superstitions, like those aren't really helpful and actually can be harmful versus mental skills how do you teach your athletes to differentiate between the two, so that they're not, you know, relying on superstitions but really relying on, like, research-based skills and actually help them?

Speaker 1: 24:12

Um, I'm actually teaching this in our um confidence camp, which, by the time that our confidence camp happens, this podcast will be airing. But one of the things that we talk about is the brain loves evidence, right, and so, using my example, my silly example of evidence, right, if you're looking for the wrong evidence or you're focused on the wrong thing when we say process over outcome, if you're looking for the evidence to be the outcome your stats, your performance, did I go three for three? How many strikeouts did I get? You're always going to be the riding the roller coaster, because it's not within our control. And so the key to confidence is consistency. Great, how do I be consistent? Well, what's within your control? My mental skills and my physical skills? It's not one or the other, it's never going to be one or the other. I could give you all the mental skills in the world, but if you're not physically putting in the consistent preparation on the physical side, sorry, I can't help you. Same could be said, you know, vice versa. And when you think about consistency of the process, well, what's something within your control? My self-talk, my routines, my focal points? Where is my focus right? Am I focused on? You know?

Speaker 1: 25:28

Let's use hitting as an example, because that's I work with. A lot of my one-on-ones on hitting is when I'm in the box I feel like I overthink well, where's your attention? Well, I have to get a hit, or I need to get a hit, or I'm going to let my team down, or the pitcher throws really fast. Well, if your focus is on things outside of your control, you're always going to be riding that roller coaster, and so we've really been working hard on three keys to keeping it simple Um, and having that thing to go to that.

Speaker 1: 25:56

No matter whether you're having an amazing game or you're having a crappy game, I need to do this and this and this, and sometimes it's a mix of mental skills and self-talk. Um, sometimes it's a physical keyword of you know, back hip through or back leg under, um, and really just giving your brain that consistency that it craves. 90% of the time, I'm working on that with athletes, and then you know, the other 10% could, could be. You know, physical skill, but, um, where am I going with this? I kind of lost my train of thought.

Speaker 2: 26:32

I feel like, yeah, well, kind of what you're saying is like one of the hard things about sport is that we, we applaud the results so often, right, so everything is result-based. Like when does the crowd cheer? Not when you, you know, like, use your routine and get yourself in the box and feel good. Like that's not when they cheer. They cheer when they see the ball go where it's supposed to. But with that said, though, you could absolutely rope a ball, you could lace the crap out of a ball and it go right to a player and all of a sudden, you are not successful with. On the other hand, you can totally miss, hit a ball, like miss the majority of it, just barely stick it and, you know, loop it over somebody's head or just dribble it somewhere, and all of a sudden you've got to hit, and now you're successful. Like is that really how?

Speaker 2: 27:14

we're measuring success Right, like how silly is that? But at the same time like that's what the, that's what we, that's when we get the applause.

Speaker 2: 27:31

But if you can take away and and if you're relying on an unreliable source for your confidence, that's when you start to think it must be the socks or it must be, you know, because I, you know, spun three times in the, in the, in the dugout, before I came out here, or whatever, whereas, like what you said, when you're using a mental skill, it's about that, those, those controllable things. Controlling the controllable things, like I'm going to get in here and I'm going to see this pitch and I'm going to, you know, take my hands to the ball, I'm going to do these things that I've been working on in practice and that you can control all of that. And then, all of a sudden, you've taken success away from. You know the outcome and put it more squarely into what I can do and what I can control, and so just thank you for for bringing that back and rejogging my memory.

Speaker 1: 28:15

That's absolutely right, and I feel like sometimes I get so close to it that it's like, well, doesn't everybody know this? And how do I articulate this in a way that not only makes sense, you know, for other athletes, but for all ages? Um, this is what this made me think of. As you were saying, that is you're, you're absolutely right. Is that, if we're waiting on the external validation, the other thing that we're going to be coaching about in confidence camp is the idea of your emotions. Emotions come and go.

Speaker 1: 28:42

So if we look at competence as an emotion, a feeling, feelings are fleeting, and so that confidence will come and go with your results. And so we really, really coach our athletes to say competence is a choice, it's a decision, it's a constant decision. And how do we choose confidence even though we don't feel confident? Well, where does that come from? Consistency of my mental skills, of my physical skills? Can I rely on something that is constant? And that's where your confidence should rest is. Did I trust my process? Did I follow my process? Am I using my mental skills?

Speaker 2: 29:24

follow my process. Am I using my mental skills? There we go, that's it, yeah Well, and how freeing is that to know, to know 100% when I leave this batter's box I can feel successful, regardless of an outcome. Right, and like that takes so much pressure off. If you're just thinking, I know a hundred, with a hundred percent certainty, I can leave this batter box feeling like I was successful, regardless of the outcome of what happens. Like that's that's so much less, oh, 100, with 100% certainty. I can leave this batter box feeling like I was successful, regardless of the outcome of what happens. Like that's, that's so much less pressure. Because you're not like, unless I hit this ball, I'm gonna feel terrible, right, no one wants that feeling. Or unless I hit this ball, I've let everybody down. Like it just takes some of that pressure off and all of a sudden, with pressure gone, your skills and your practice and your preparation can really show out and come up big for you.

Speaker 1: 30:07

Well, I think for me, like thinking about thinking through this I know a lot of our conversation is revolved around college. I think for me, where I really really, really struggled was in the box and when I was on the Mount. Minus my freshman year, I feel like my confidence kind of came back my sophomore year. But I think one of the things that I did exceptionally well on the Mount was self-talk and, more specifically, instructional self-talk, where my process wasn't striking the batter out. My process was can I make my rise ball jump? Can I make my drop ball fall off the table? Can I do a yum yum change up? And that was like my mark of success.

Speaker 1: 30:49

And so, yeah, when you look at it that way, if I am looking back and saying, okay, how do I? How do I look back with a different lens on my experiences as an athlete, I would definitely say that in the times where I was only focused on what did my body need to do and the keyword, I had a keyword for every single pitch so rise ball back leg under drop ball, front leg, strong, you know, and I wasn't worried about anything else because my brain was too busy doing my instructional keywords. That was something that I was taught by my pitching coach my instructional keywords. That was something that I was taught by my pitching coach, pitching coaches. That was really, really helpful and we teach that to the to the warriors.

Speaker 2: 31:31

That's great. You mentioned earlier about, you know, the transition from high school to college, like, and that was a little bit rough. Do you want to share a little bit more about, like, what was going on there, or what? What happened to poor Amanda from high school to college.

Speaker 1: 31:48

So this is kind of funny that I still, to this day, I still get random texts from parents who go to the school district that I that I grew up in. So they have these record boards in the hallway. And in high school we had a lot more records available. But I think for me, like I was just having fun in high school and my goal was to play in college, um, I think I got all but like three possible records for high school and it was fun for me, like there was no pressure in high school and so when I transitioned to college I just assumed, sadly, that it would be the same dominating.

Speaker 1: 32:31

Yeah, like I'm just going to go to college and I'm just going to fit right in. I think the the story. If I could tell this succinctly, this isn't a TikTok or a reel, but my college story is actually really bizarre. I committed to a small college and when I say small, we're talking like 600 people in the entire college very small college in the NAI, and it got shut down. They were trying to get reaccredited. Um, it had, uh, it didn't go through anyway.

Speaker 1: 33:05

A month or two weeks before school was supposed to start I think it was about a month they we got a letter and a phone call from our softball coach saying hey, I'm so sorry, like you're going to have to start the recruiting process all over. We don't, we're not opening in the fall. So I scrambled to find a new school and I'm really super thankful I this is a God wink, because I loved going to Concordia. I ended up committing to a new school, um, and then the crazy thing is is that once I committed to that school, two weeks later the head coach um, I don't know if she got fired or if she left, but now here I was, facing a coaching change.

Speaker 1: 33:44

So within one month I switched colleges, met my new coach and then they were hiring for another coach, um, and so, even in like a normal circumstance, I was just thrown into this conundrum of what is going on. What am I supposed to be doing? I didn't have any idea how much work it was going to take. I was also blindsided by, you know, we were working out in the weight room for one hour every day, and then we were conditioning for one hour every day, and then we would have a two hour practice and then pitchers and catchers would report for extra time. So going from high school practicing what two times, four or five days, 10 hours a week, to then 30 hours a week, was just a shock, um, and then, come spring season, I was not dominating.

Speaker 1: 34:35

So between all of that, um, I think college freshman year if I could go back and talk to myself or a lot of the college freshmen that will be going into college if you have a incoming college freshman is like, don't go in expecting things to be the same, because it's not and it's going to be really fricking hard. But if you make it through your freshman year, like congrats, because it's hard for everybody. It's just a very hard year, it's very eyeopening. Now, hopefully your, your school doesn't close down and your coach doesn't quit, but that still happens too.

Speaker 2: 35:11

Yeah, yeah, you got to kind of be ready, and that's where that resiliency piece comes in, if you can learn that early on and get that really well instilled. Like you know, that's the whole idea of resiliency is being able to kind of roll with the punches and yeah, despite what comes up?

Speaker 1: 35:26

I did not. Yeah, I did not have that freshman year. I still joke with some of my pitching lessons. I will forever remember there was one game it was windy, we were playing Peru and I remember this girl hit a home run off of me and I watched it go over my center fielder's head and it hit the yellow like plastic piece that goes on the outfield fence, hit that and went over and I was like so angry and why. That hangs in my mind, I don't know. That's one of my like scarred memories. I could not let go of getting home runs hit off of me. I mean I I probably gave up maybe one or two home runs in my entire career and I was averaging at least one to two home runs given up a game. Maybe that's dramatic, but that's what it felt like. I was just giving up bombs left and right. It was like I am. This is not dominating. It's a different experience.

Speaker 2: 36:25

Yeah, for sure. Well, do we want to hop to some of these Instagram questions that we've got? Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1: 36:35

So here's a couple of questions that I put a poll in the Facebook group. If you're not a part of our Facebook group, we have a Facebook group that's free. We should probably link that in the show notes. Whether you're part of our programs or not, we actually have a free Facebook group for parents and players to stay connected. We asked what would you want to know about mental skills and how they work or how I use them as a coach? So, Kara, you want to ask some of those. What questions came in?

Speaker 2: 37:05

Yeah, so I got a couple here from Instagram. Uh, the first one is was there a point where you didn't want to play anymore? So in high school or college, or maybe even younger, did you ever hit a point where you're like I'm done, I'm not playing anymore?

Speaker 1: 37:17

So I my dad would talk about this when I was little. I was told when I was 10 that I couldn't be a pitcher, and I don't remember this. But my dad did, and so that's when we kind of really hit pitching lessons hard because he wanted to prove them wrong. But I just had a love and a passion for the game. I think the one time in my career where I really got worried was in between my freshman and sophomore year. Um, I had a shoulder injury. It was routine, you know. Just scar tissue had built up. Um, I was told that I could continue to pitch with pain and work through it. Um, I ended up getting some cortisone shots and then I decided, between my freshman and sophomore year, to have surgery.

Speaker 1: 38:04

And there were definitely moments of like do I love this enough? Do I love this enough to go through the surgery? Am I going to be able to pitch again when I come back? Um, that was a really dark moment and I also shared this on Instagram. But, um, for the parents listening, please, please, don't freak out if you have college athletes.

Speaker 1: 38:25

But it's also a time of self-discovery. So I discovered alcohol and my grades dropped and I felt this freedom of, okay, I'm making these choices, and I think for me, looking back, it was a realization of I was hiding and avoiding, thinking about softball, and so I dove into these other things. Had I been more confident or more, I think? What do I want to say about this? I want to say that there are going to be moments where, if your athlete is not prepared to face some of these decisions or these freedoms in college, they're going to experiment, and if they have a hardship or they have a moment where they doubt themselves, I just really wish that I would have reached out to my support system, and that's what I'm finding too.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Um, I have a couple of athletes right now that I've coached for a really long time, and asking for help is a really hard thing, like it's hard to admit to somebody that you're not making good choices. And I think for me, I'm glad that I went through those experiences, because I think about those moments when I'm coaching my athletes of, like I know what it's like to doubt yourself. I know what it's like to face an injury. I know what it's like to wonder like, is this worth it? Which is another mental skill. Right, we teach your why, knowing your why and I always felt like, okay, even if I didn't know that was my why, my why was so much bigger of like I'm going to see this through. This was my goal my entire life to play college softball. And to me, in my mind, that meant, you know, four years and sticking it out, and I'm really glad that I did because it gave me some of the best years of my life.

Speaker 2: 40:17

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, those are big decisions not to be handled politely, but I think, like you said, knowing your why can really help get you through a lot. Um, so you kind of touched on this that you had an injury. But this question is how did you bounce back from an injury?

Speaker 1: 40:34

or maybe, maybe not you specifically, but how would you suggest other people bounce, bounce back yeah, I think the biggest question is the same question I face is you have this injury? The what ifs and the worries and the fears come from an unknown future. Well, everyone has an unknown future. When you face an injury, will I be able to return to sport? What will it look like when I returned to sport? And I think, going back to what we talked about earlier, is we really have to key in on the controllables. What can you control? I can control if I'm getting my PT in. I can control if I'm icing. I can control my rehab, um, and I can even control, if you can. You know if you've got an injury that prevents you from hitting but maybe you can throw, or vice versa. It's like you do have more power over the situation than you realize. Um, you know, I even think about my shoulder surgery. I knew what caused my shoulder injury and it was incorrect pitching mechanics.

Speaker 1: 41:35

I was taught very men's fast pitch. Old school, really crank the hips, really crank the arm. Um, I wanted to relearn how to pitch. So if you need to learn a safer mechanic or learn a different mechanic or modify, I totally understand. Like it's. It's scary the idea of having to change your mechanics. But it's just like any other skill If you put in the work, you have to have faith that it's all going to work out. So if you're facing an injury, control the controllables. Have a little bit of faith. Some parts of your game are like riding a bike. In some parts you might have to relearn. But how did you learn any other skill? With practice and faith.

Speaker 2: 42:17

That's awesome. Don't let perfection be the enemy of awesome. Yeah, Don't let uh, what was it? Perfection be the enemy of good.

Speaker 1: 42:24

Yes.

Speaker 2: 42:24

Even if you can't go a hundred percent, maybe you go 50 or 40 or 10 and do what you can. Um, were there any other questions from the Facebook group?

Speaker 1: 42:35

I see a love on the post, but no questions. I did only post it two hours ago, so a little late on that. But how about this? If you guys do have questions? Um, we, I love kind of talking and we should do this more often, and I don't get behind the the mic very often for the podcast. So, if there's a, a topic, a question, a concept that you're curious about, send us a DM and put the subject podcast, or send us an email to our support email. Um, cause we want to answer it for you guys. We're here.

Speaker 1: 43:09

This podcast is a free resource and, um, I just want to educate so many people that mental skills are something that you can learn. There's something that you can practice, and there's no right or wrong time to do it. And the analogy that we always use is the weight room. You're not going to the weight room because something's wrong with you. You're going to the weight room to get stronger. Well, the same thing can be applied to your mental game. Don't wait until something's wrong and invest in your mindset. There's tools that can help your athlete. If you are an athlete, I want you to feel confident. I want you to have a routine. I want you to have this consistency that your mindset can bring you.

Speaker 1: 43:51

And, yeah, I think about my senior year. If I could relive my senior year, what? What stood out about that senior year? It was just this, is it? There's no pressure here? Trusting the process. What little process I had. Senior year. It was just this, is it? There's no pressure here? Trusting the process. What little process I had. And if that was my focus then I ended on a high note. So, um, I think that's kind of like. The glaring message is like it's never too late to start and it's something that you can control. Even if it feels like a roller coaster, there are areas that you can be consistent in, just like you're practicing any other physical skill.

Speaker 2: 44:24

Yeah, I feel like that that is the total message of fearless. Is this idea of of you can do it. You can learn how to be fearless.

Speaker 1: 44:32

Like don't don't despair if you don't already feel fearless Like.

Speaker 2: 44:35

That's not a prerequisite. What is what is a prerequisite is the desire to learn how to be fearless, and it can be taught and it can be learned. And if we could, if we could have every athlete on the head and give them that, that would be, that would be the best thing we could do osmosis boom downloaded new new.

Speaker 1: 44:54

What is it called when you update your phone? Please be plugged into a power source. Yeah, so update at midnight. Yeah, all right. Well, this has been awesome.

Speaker 2: 45:06

Amanda. Thanks for taking the time to chat and to share some of your insights and some of your life experiences. I'm sure that all of the listeners will have found this really, really interesting and educating. So, as she said, follow us on the Facebook group. We're always here in the DMs. We're also here for you in the hello email or the support email that you can always shoot us an email. We're happy to direct you to resources and to answer questions. And then just look for our programs, and Confidence Camp is coming up and we got all sorts of really exciting stuff coming that you can get involved in.

Speaker 2: 45:42

If this is something that you you need in your life and really the message is, everybody needs this in their life and and it can help everyone, no matter where you are, it can help improve your gaming and give you that next level up, so sure well, and Kara, actually, if we're airing this, next Wednesday, the enrollment to fearless warriors will be open.

Speaker 1: 46:02

Our 12 week mental skills program It'll be open, so look for that. If it's not posted in cause. If you're listening to this podcast when it doesn't first air, you may have missed it, but that's okay. You can always send us a DM with the word warrior and we'll send you the information. We'll link it below on the show notes as well. Um, but we love what we do. It's fun. This has been fun today, it's been really fun.

Speaker 2: 46:24

Thanks so much, amanda. All right, bye.