039: The Psychology of Peak Performance with Hana DeGuzman

This week, I sit down with a member of Team Fearless, Hana DeGuzman. Hana has worn many hats with Fearless, including coach, retreat leader and social media manager. She just recently graduated from Boston University with her Masters of Education in Counseling and Sports Psychology. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of Puget Sound where she played softball.
 
Episode Highlights:

• How Hana discovered mental performance
• The difference between mental health and mental performance
• Motivational self talk vs instructional self talk
• How she recovered from failure

Connect with Hana:
Instagram: @hana_deguzman

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 1: 0:38

Today's guest is a very special, near and dear guest to my heart. We have Hannah de Guzman, and she has been part of Team Fearless since 2021. She has worn many roles as a coach, social media manager and retreat leader and so many things behind the scenes that a lot of you guys probably don't even see, even this very podcast. She's pulling out amazing nuggets and quotes and just amazing all around because she's passionate about what she does. But what many of you might not know is that, as of this weekend, she is an official graduate of Boston University, with her master's of education in counseling and sports psychology. She is also going on a new endeavor as a mental performance intern with the Arizona Diamondbacks organization later this summer, and so I have her here with me. Live, hannah. Welcome to the pod.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Hey V. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:35

This is so funny. We had our team call earlier today and it's like, okay, see you later, and we just get to hop on a podcast and hit record. So okay so let's go, let's dive in, tell us where you're at, what you're doing. Obviously, you're prepping for graduation, but give us a day in the life, I guess as of this week.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yeah, yeah. So, like you said, I'm graduating soon, in just a few short days. I'm currently in Boston, massachusetts. I feel like I've just had several different places that I've gotten to call home within the last couple of years. Yeah, just really preparing for graduation just finished up my master's program, finished up classes, turned in, all the assignments, all that, all that great stuff. Yeah, and you made a typical day in the life of you know, formerly when I was in class.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Yeah, you're kind of in transition. Give us a day in the life. If I were to interview you a month ago, what?

Speaker 2: 2:31

was going on too within counseling and sports psychology. So that includes both the clinical mental health rotations and practicums as well as more of applied mental performance as it relates specifically to sport. So maybe, like a month ago, I was a full-time student taking classes in the evening and you know, turning that background, in the mornings I was at Harvard University actually working as an intern there for both the clinical mental health side and mental performance. So in the sports psychology, doing one on one sessions, team sessions with, you know, different athletic sports teams that they have their counseling, all of the good stuff, and then on the weekends I would typically work more with my applied sports psychology placements. So I had some basketball teams, I've had baseball teams, hockey teams, soccer teams, all of that. So definitely busy, busy B feels weird to be done, feels very surreal, like I should be running around from point A to point B. But yeah, nice to have a break, nice to have a night, a fresh breath, of fresh air.

Speaker 1: 3:53

I love it. And so here's kind of a question If you could choose, moving forward, I know you're really passionate about softball and baseball, but what was that like working with other sports that maybe? I mean, obviously you didn't play all of those sports, but which one was your favorite to kind of work with? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Yeah, I I have to say I think working with my basketball teams were like my favorite in terms of and my background is in softball, obviously playing softball through college and just softball and baseball being in my wheelhouse, like that's the sport IQ that I know the most, and so I was definitely really nervous going into working with all of these other teams Just because I was.

Speaker 2: 4:36

I was like I don't really know these sports, I don't know the lingo as much, I don't have that high IQ, but it really pushed me out of my comfort zone a lot in terms of working with athletes that from sports backgrounds that I just really was not familiar with and just getting to understand and like step into their world of. Yeah, how difficult is it being a collegiate basketball player or soccer player or a high school hockey player? And so I think definitely, I mean I think on the women's basketball front, I just I love women's sports and so it was awesome getting to watch my team and I think basketball is just a crazy sport where it's much more high, faster pace than softball and baseball obviously, and there's just so many inner workings with the mental game that totally go unseen and untalked about. So it's really cool to kind of use you know, my mental performance experience already into a different sport. So yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Well, and just the pace alone, right. Think about you make a mistake, or you miss a rebound, or you miss your shot. You don't really have a chance to sit in that mistake. Yeah, you have to run across the court and so it's like a volley sport, like volleyball or tennis. It's just such a when would you, I guess, as far as coaching those sports, when would you coach them to do those failure resets and self-talk and focal points and breathing? When do you have time for that in sports like that?

Speaker 2: 6:09

I think a lot of that comes down to just a lot of face-to-face time with my athletes and with the teams that I worked with. It was a lot of like going to practices or going to pregame warmups or in the mornings when they just had a shoot around prior, like a couple hours prior, to their game. A lot of that is just standing on the side, you know, as opposed to like sitting in a dugout. For baseball and softball team I was maybe sitting on the bench or at the end of the bench and so if they were getting subbed out for you know, three minutes during a game, if they had 60 seconds in between that to just take a reset, they would maybe come chat with me. Or again, just like in the middle of practice, maybe they're done with the drill.

Speaker 2: 6:52

The end of practice, you just find a lot of different pockets. That again just coming from a background of maybe a quote unquote slower paced sport like softball, you definitely have a lot more downtime to like sit and ruminate in your thoughts, so using that and thinking, okay, how can I deliver, you know, mental performance, or how can I deliver these skills in a easily digestible way and in a quick way where my athletes could understand it, take it in and be like, okay, yep, next play. Of course I'm not on the court with them and they're not going to be. You know, doing practicing these things in the moment super intentionally, but that's where I think doing things at practice in the off season, prior to games, during warm ups, all of those little times and pockets, pockets of times and those little nuggets of space that you can take up, I think is super important. So I've definitely learned a lot about different sports and the different paces of different sports and like where to find those pockets of time.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Well and I think that's something that you do exceptionally well, seeing you coach inside our programs and with one-on-one athletes, and even at the retreat. You and we talked about this before we hit record but you have such an intentional way of slowing down and connecting and holding space, whereas someone like me is go, go, go in high energy. I think that there's this ebb and this flow, and this beauty of different coaches are going to bring different things to the table. Right, talk about what we had talked about before we hit record, about how, here you are in your master's and you're learning how to build rapport, which sounds so common sense, right Of like how to build relationships with your athletes and how to do this. Can you kind of talk about that? What does that look like on the academia side?

Speaker 2: 8:42

Yeah, oh, my gosh. I think it was definitely intimidating in the academia side of week one of this program back in fall of 2022, when I was first kind of thrown into the fire thrown to the wolves, as we call it and we're just learning so much where it's like, how do I even begin to incorporate all of this into the work that I'm doing with my teams? I'm the type of person that is like I need to know everything, I need to learn everything before I can actually go apply it, and so this program has really challenged me because, with all of our placements and all of my internships, we were thrown into the fire pretty much, yeah, like week one, week two of our program. So a lot of that came with. Okay, well, we've learned X amount in the first week or so of this program. I'm not sure where this is going to think, how I'm going to incorporate this to my teams or what's going to happen next. So I really focused a lot on just when I had that face to face time with them when I was there in person, at practices, at games, weightlifting, training sessions I just made sure to make connections with them and just have them be seen, have them be heard. I love this quote of no one cares or wait, what's that quote? Yeah, no one cares about how much you know until they know about how much you care. And I, I absolutely love that and that has really gotten me through this entirety of the program.

Speaker 2: 10:11

I mean, I feel like I have a lot of imposter syndrome sometimes when it comes to you know what do I know? How many years have I been in this field? You know, I'm just an intern, quote, unquote, just an intern, or I'm, you know, just a master's student. You know, I think I know a lot more than I give myself credit for, and so I get really nervous when working with athletes or teams or coaches and I'm like I feel like I need to know everything, I need to be the textbook that they can open up and just read everything. But really it's, you know, having my athletes and my clients feel heard and feel seen. That opens them up to a whole world of possibilities of them being able to actually do the work themselves.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Time here in this program where I definitely had to let go a little bit of like my perfectionistic tendencies or my my tendencies of I need to know everything before going out and doing something, and a lot of that just comes with the fear of failure that I feel like has just been so ingrained with me and has definitely it's been some, there's been some adaptive practices to that and it's gotten me this far through this program and just in general, learning all of the things in sports, psychology and mental performance and mental health, counseling, learning while doing, is just something that I think I'll take with me forever.

Speaker 1: 11:39

I love that well, and I think that's the mistake that a lot of people make in assuming if I have the degree, I'll.

Speaker 1: 11:47

You know, and maybe I'm treading on thin ice here, but I think that there's a lot of practitioners and mental performance coaches that maybe have the degrees but have a really hard time relating to their athletes, and I think so often.

Speaker 1: 12:05

I think you know the NCAA is coming out with, you know more guidelines for this in the coming year but essentially, when you have one you know mental health resource or mental performance psychology resource for an entire athletic department and you have a coach that's working with multiple teams and they're stretched really thin, it's like how can you possibly get that, that relationship and that rapport with your athletes? And so I think you're hitting on that really, really well and that your master's program did a phenomenal job of giving you that face-to-face time, giving you that real world experience, because it's not just sitting in an office with a tissue box, you know it's. This is about becoming mentally stronger, and so there is that fine line. Can you kind of explain for those that are listening, as a parent, as coaches or even players that might be listening to this. The cool thing about your master's is that you were doing both practicums in clinical counseling and applied sports psychology, so can you kind of talk about what is the difference between mental health and mental performance in your mind?

Speaker 2: 13:12

Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think this line gets blurred very often, especially when people hear sports psychology or you just hear the word psychology, you just immediately might think mental health. And while both go hand in hand and I think both are super important for an athlete's well-being and success just in general, I think the field of mental health is more focused on generally helping people who might be struggling with mental health disorders, mental health illnesses whether that be anxiety, depression, trauma while mental performance is kind of more, I like to say, sports specific. It's not always sports specific, but it's more so. You know these tools and these strategies that you learn from confidence or performance anxiety, and of course there's that anxiety buzzword of is that performance anxiety in sport or is that anxiety on a daily basis? And so I think you know mental health is more so general well-being, maybe it's socially, maybe it's family related, maybe it's academic related.

Speaker 2: 14:19

And mental performance I like to think of it as, again, sports specific, and I think there is a lot of.

Speaker 2: 14:26

There's two different hats that I'm wearing and I'm like, okay, does this require my clinical mental health counselor hat or does this require mental performance hat? And I've had the privilege of being able to wear both hats at once and figure out what would be the dress, the best treatment plan or like intervention to use. But it's definitely been interesting to kind of see the best of both worlds of when I hear an athlete say like I feel like I've been really experiencing performance anxiety. It's like getting to the root of okay. Are they feeling performance anxiety due to a fear of failure, maybe, or a fear of, you know, consequences that might come if they strike out versus are they feeling this anxiety on a daily basis? Um, like immediately when they wake up in the morning, or when they're walking to class or they're giving a presentation? So, yeah, I think mental health and mental performance are definitely interrelated with one another, but there is oftentimes there can be a distinction between both.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Yeah, and I think, as far as knowing what route to take or what skill to use or what to help them kind of walk through is, they can be absolutely applied to both. I mean, think about the girls that have gone through the fearless warrior program. They get to the end of the program and they say, oh my gosh, I used this technique before taking a big test or I was nervous for this tryout, and obviously that's sport related.

Speaker 1: 15:56

but they kind of have this aha moment of oh well, I can use this beyond softball. It's like ding ding ding. You just discovered the greatest secret of like. Yes, these are life skills. It's going to serve you far beyond sport, but I think you make a really great point of performing better in your sport. You don't have to wait until there's something wrong to search out those resources.

Speaker 1: 16:23

And again, before we hit record, we should just hit record right away. I know your backstory a little bit of how you discovered mental performance, how we connected through that mutual love of mental performance. Talk about your college years and where that kind of self-discovery came from.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Yeah, oh, my gosh Memory lane. Walking down memory lane. I love it. So I graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 2018, or, sorry, 2022. Graduated high school in 2018. University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, washington.

Speaker 2: 16:57

I'm originally a California native, from San Jose, california, so it was definitely a jump to move out of state. But, yeah, played softball all four years there. I was a lefty slapper, I was an outfielder, and originally, going into college, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in sports or at least working with athletes, and originally I loved the idea of being a physical therapist or an athletic trainer or a sports medicine doctor anything that I could do kind of on that physical realm. So I actually studied exercise science, which is essentially kinesiology, um, back in undergrad. And then, um, I, just I just loved the biomechanics and the kinesiology behind the human body and how our bodies work and recover through sport and how to utilize that for optimal performance. Um, and then I my junior year of college um, I, I think I was looking through YouTube videos or I remember like struggling at one point in during the season and I think I just googled how to eliminate performance anxiety or how to bounce back from failure or how to be a better softball player, and so many things came up that you know so many buzzwords of like how to increase confidence or how to use different tools like visualization and self-talk, and that was kind of those are the first times that I was hearing of these, you know phrases or these, you know what I now know as tools and interventions, and so I was doing a lot of research on my own during my junior year of college just to increase my own competencies within softball and just increase my own confidence, and little did I know.

Speaker 2: 18:45

I think it was the summer going into my senior year of college where I realized oh my gosh, I have seen so much growth, I have seen so much improvement, not necessarily just on the physical side, but the way that I now think about my sport, the way that I think about making mistakes, the way that I think about setbacks and how I approach adversity, and so many aspects of the mental game that I don't think I was ever really intentionally taught throughout my softball career were coming to light. And then again doing so much more research, like sitting in front of my laptop or sitting on my phone trying to Google all these different things. And then I realized I can actually make a career out of sports, psychology and mental performance. And pretty much summer, going into my senior year of college, I was like, yes, I'm hitting the ground running. I realized I was so much more excited about sports, psychology and mental performance than I had ever been about physical therapy and athletic training. And here we are now.

Speaker 2: 19:51

And then, you know, we both met. We connected over on social media. Here we are now and then you know, we both met. We connected over on social media. The fall of my senior year of college, again, when I was Googling and searching people on Instagram trying to find, you know, experts and coaches and mental performance consultants in the field of can I network with people or can I get a day in the life of what this looks like? And the rest is history. Here we are now.

Speaker 2: 20:15

But, I just yeah, our love of sports, psychology and mental performance has totally brought us here and I'm so grateful. I just yeah. My open-mindedness, thank goodness my, my college self, yeah, here we are.

Speaker 1: 20:33

I love when you were coaching the girls. I vividly remember there was a call that you were teaching inside the fearless warriors and we were talking about grounding techniques and your technique in the outfield of tracing your glove.

Speaker 2: 20:45

Yes, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 20:47

And giving the girls a real life example of like hey guys, we're teaching you these skills, but I've actually tried them and I've actually used them and we still even use the image of you. There's like a really cool picture of you where you're looking at your bat before you're about to step into the box.

Speaker 1: 21:02

It's like you're using anything that we teach the girls or anything that you're teaching your athletes Like we've been in your shoes, and I think that also makes a difference for getting their buy-in too, because, like Hannah, we don't have. They're not our kids, we're not even their, their coach. We're not riding the lineups Like there's no pressure there. We just want to see our athletes succeed and to see them light up when you're telling them you know I used this is just a really cool full circle moment too.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Yeah, I know, and it's just that I think the mental game and all these tools that you know we teach inside our program are, unfortunately, a lot of the times, not taught by coaches or trainers and that's not their fault, right, like their jobs, as what we know of from sports and when I was younger and when you were younger is like okay, yes, we're going to build on our fundamentals, we're going to work on the physical game, because you know, in our heads, that's what wins games, that's what makes great ballplayers or just great athletes in general.

Speaker 2: 22:02

And I think you know, reflecting on my time as an athlete, reflecting on you know, coaches that I learned from you know there's always these buzzwords and phrases of you got to just, you know, get your head in the game or you know, bounce back from failure. But I never learned how to do that and so I just love, you know, resources like this, like the Fearless Warrior Program, where you're we're actually teaching and the girls get to learn tangible tools that are not groundbreaking, they're not rocket science. It's things that you can use in like 10 seconds to just ground yourself or to bounce back from failure or to think of a different perspective on how to approach setbacks and obstacles. That I think just building that from even the age of, I mean, the youngest girls that we have are what 10, right or like even eight years old, I think Well girls that we have are what 10, right or like even eight years old.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I think Well, and we say they have to be 10 to enter the program. We've definitely had.

Speaker 2: 22:59

we've had an eight-year-old sneak into the program and we've had a nine-year-old sneak into the program and the retreat.

Speaker 1: 23:04

We've had girls that young come to the retreat.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Yeah, exactly, and so I think it's just awesome to you know, hear so many different voices or just see how these tools can actually improve performance or increase confidence or whatever you know. As an individual athlete's goal is, you can get there, and I think that's an awesome part of sports, psychology and mental performance is that you have everything within you. You have all the answers inside of you. How can you capitalize on that to create the idea of success that you want to achieve?

Speaker 1: 23:41

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 23:43

And that's what it's all about.

Speaker 1: 23:45

Well and Kara even mentioned this when we did our podcast, kara mentioned this that I thought I've told this to so many people now that it feels common sense to us. But one of the things that Kara had said was if these tools can be learned by anybody, then it levels the playing field. It's not like confidence or talent is just reserved for people that just naturally have it. Everybody can use these, everybody can learn these. Therefore, it kind of levels the playing field, that's a good point.

Speaker 1: 24:14

I mean, we assume this right, you're like it kind of levels the playing field. That's a good point. I mean, we assume this. Right. You're like well, of course, why wouldn't you use mental performance? But I think there's a lot of resistance still of like. You know, if I sign my kid up for this, they're going to think something's wrong with them or I don't you know.

Speaker 1: 24:28

And I have some one-on-one clients where it's like total black ops. Like you know, maybe it's three years from now, maybe it's five years, maybe it is 10 years from now. At some point this isn't going to be taboo anymore.

Speaker 2: 24:49

I would hope Right, and that's the same. On the mental health side, yeah, for sure, and I love what you're talking about of you know you don't have to seek these services out. You don't have to seek out mental performance or sports psychology or even mental health counseling just when something is wrong. And I tell this too this is one of the first things that I told my athletes when I first started in my internships and practicums. You don't have to wait until something's wrong or wait until you're struggling, or wait until you're in an absolute slump and don't know what to do.

Speaker 2: 25:21

Of course, that is maybe a great time to seek out these services or to seek out these resources, but it's also, you know, if you're the most confident you've ever felt, how can we maintain that? How can we continue that trajectory of feeling your most confident self or feeling your best self? And that goes into my whole idea of like, a strengths-based approach, like I don't need to necessarily pick apart in session with my athletes or in workshops with my teams of like okay, let's see what's wrong here and how to fix it. Like maybe that's definitely one part of my job, but it's also like okay, it sounds like you're doing really great, sounds like you're feeling really confident. What's been working for you, what hasn't been working for you? How can we continue this really positive trajectory that you're on?

Speaker 2: 26:06

Or, when adversity does strike, how can you bounce back quicker than you ever have before? And I'm just all like failure is going to happen, mistakes are going to happen, strikeouts are going to happen. It is so inevitable. So it's more of how can you bounce back from that. Do you have the skills, are you equipped with the strategies to come back from that even stronger? And I think yeah, that's what mental performance, and we talk about mental toughness or mental strength or resilience, and like that's kind of what it's all about.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Absolutely. And doesn't it make you wish that you could just rewind the clock? And let's, let's go back to 2018, 2010. Like, let's, if we can rewind the clock. Like, let's just go back. And even on the physical side of the game, right, like if I could go back and play my career, knowing what I know now, not only on the mental performance side, but also the advances on the physical side of the game.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Yeah, but I think that's also a double-edged sword, because I think there's so many resources and so many things accessible that I think sometimes it can get blurry of like, well, who's the expert? Who do I listen to and what's founded in research? And, um, well, we just posted on on Instagram the dear athlete, the most recent dear athlete. We posted about the difference between neutral mindset and positive mindset and avoiding toxic positivity, and let's kind of talk about that. You were talking about the difference between motivational self-talk and the instructional self-talk, which is huge. Kind of talk about that eye-opening moment where you're like okay, like this is working far better than you know. You experienced this in college, but then you're also experiencing this with the athletes that you're working with. Can you kind of talk about that? Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 27:53

So with with the concept of self talk and how you were just mentioning motivational versus instructional self talk and quick definition of our listeners on here are kind of like which one's which? Motivational self-talk are basically those phrases like you got this or you know, you are such a stud, you're amazing kind of motivational and encouraging phrases to use, whereas instructional is kind of more tasks or like sports specific.

Speaker 2: 28:24

So maybe that's keep your eye on the ball or maybe you're fielding you know, a ground ball in the infield, and it's stay low or keep your glove down or find your pitch, things like that. And so I remember utilizing, of course, when I was doing my research on how to build confidence or how to be a better softball player, of course self talk came up, and so the idea of self talk that I knew was, you know, that motivational piece of, yeah, how can you say these encouraging and empowering and motivational phrases to yourself? Yes, I think that is so, so important. And then there's games like what. I had, several games probably, where this one game in particular I struck out three times in a row and my, my phrases of motivational self talk of you got this, get the next one, were things that I didn't truly believe, and it was actually more discouraging than it was motivating, Because I was like I don't think I got the next one. I just struck out three times in a row and I don't feel great right now, I don't really feel confident, I don't feel like I can do it again. And so that's where my you know, maybe instructional self talk came in of find your pitch or, you know, adjust on the inside pitch or adjust on that rise ball, or you know, just things that were more task specific, to get my head out of, or to get my struggles and things out of my head and just focus on something super external, something that's more factual, kind of what we were talking about earlier today. And so I think self-talk is a huge part of my game and I love talking about that and providing that education to my athletes, Because when I, when they hear self talk, they again hear that exact same thing of motivational and it's like there's going to be times where you're not feeling motivated, you're not feeling confident, Because, again, it's not a matter of if but a matter of when you're going to face these struggles or face this adversity.

Speaker 2: 30:26

And so, yeah, I think again to the point of, you know, talking about positive psychology that we were saying earlier, it's not adding this element of toxic positivity and just slapping a bandaid on an open wound. It's how can we actually get to the root of what's going on? How can we actually analyze and observe? Okay, this is my reality right now, these are my circumstances. I just struck out three times in a row and I don't feel great, but what can I do next?

Speaker 2: 30:55

And so it's really like being real with yourself of yep. This is how I'm feeling right now. I don't really feel great at all, or I feel like I'm really struggling right now, or I feel like I'm in a huge slump and just kind of accepting it with open arms because there's really nothing that we can do about it about the past, obviously and so it's like how can we, how can I develop and build my resilience going forward so that when this happens again, or when I'm in this place of a slump, that I feel like I can, I'm believing in myself, that I can actually come out of it, and I'm feeling confident maybe not in the moment, but I'm feeling confident in my own abilities to push forward and push through it right.

Speaker 1: 31:38

And so the brain loves proof, and so if you're focusing on the proof of I am the greatest, well, there's not a whole lot of proof there, especially after you struck out three times. And so it's this realistic approach, this, you know what's, what would a sports announcer say? What are the facts? And if you can, say okay, these are the facts, and these are also the facts. I have prepared, I have practiced.

Speaker 1: 32:05

I do know how to swing the bat, I do know how to crush the inside pitch and I love that approach because parents, if you're listening, give you a little bit of tough love. It's called self-talk for a reason because it's their self-talk, not your self-talk. And so if you're getting eye rolls because you're telling your daughter but you are good, hannah, you are a good hitter, you are a good slapper, you got this, and you're getting eye rolls because it feels opposite of what their reality is, Right, yeah, that's so, that's so true, and it's.

Speaker 2: 32:42

It's hard to believe that when you're, you know an athlete and you're struggling and you're just in the suck, yeah, in the suck, in the muck. But I think you know, obviously with self-talk and the several other tools and modules that you teach in the program, can go so far in an athlete's success or just overall, like athletes, satisfaction in their performance. You know, striking out three times in a row that one game, my satisfaction at performance was just getting the ball, putting the ball in play, and that would have been a win for me. But again, I think that's mental performance, that I wasn't aiming for a home run at that moment. It was like I I just want to improve, I just want to be better, I just want to put the ball in play and make a big play. So yeah, there's so much that I feel like goes into sports, psychology and mental performance, but it's the beauty of the complexity within it.

Speaker 1: 33:41

Yeah, absolutely. Can I throw you a ringer question? We didn't really prep this one, but I would be very curious to hear your answer and you know, we don't really edit the podcast, but if we want to edit this, we totally can. I have to ask this question because, oh, I used to ask this question on podcast interviews but, I know that you've had an experience, maybe even in your master's or even in your college experience.

Speaker 1: 34:03

When is a time that you just felt like you failed massively and how did you come on the other side of it?

Speaker 2: 34:11

Failed massively.

Speaker 2: 34:13

I think there was a time during in my college years my senior year of college we didn't have the best team dynamics. There was lots going on, lots of transitions and me as a senior kind of putting this senior captaincy or this role on a pedestal pretty much my whole life, of saying, okay, once you're a senior, you're going to be this type of leader. And I feel like and after some lots of time of reflection, I feel like not necessarily failing massively, but I feel like I didn't do my best as a leader my senior year of college and that came with, of course, like we think of captaincy, we think of being a senior and being a leader as, oh, it's not that hard At least maybe that was my personal opinion of being a leader and when I would step into my role as a senior. But I think that I think about my college experience a lot and what leadership means and what being a senior and a veteran on my team means and a lot of that in terms. I mean, of course we're all girls and we maybe have drama. There's just lots of things in college when you know we're all failing or we're not winning a lot of games and so that shed that brings a lot of light, I think, to the table of maybe things are not going well.

Speaker 2: 35:39

And so in that moment of me and my fellow other seniors, we got together and we were like, how can we improve on our leadership or what's going on right now that we can do as individuals that we have full control of? And so it was a lot of like checking ourselves, because a lot of the times, as humans, we don't necessarily want to point the fingers on us. We want to put the blame on other people or say like this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, wrong and just point the fingers elsewhere. Um, that season, I think, with a lot of pointing my the finger back of like what are we doing that is maybe impacting the trajectory of our season right now, or what are we not doing that could be better as seniors or as leaders? Um, it's a whole top-down process, right From the coaches to the senior captains and the leaders, to the underclassmen and the new teammates that are coming on board.

Speaker 2: 36:33

And so I think, yeah, a lot of that was just checking, I think, leading with compassion, with huge and I'm not a parent at all and I hope I am one day, but I know that parenting is hard and not to you know amount parenting to being a senior on a softball team, but I think that does come with that.

Speaker 2: 37:08

There's a lot of parallels that I'm seeing with parents that we work with in the program or just the messages that we want to give. A lot of times we just we want, you want the best for your athletes and you want the best for your daughters, and a lot of that does come with. As a leader, how can you model really positive behaviors for your kids and for your athletes? How can you provide communication and show them like this is how you can effectively communicate without exactly telling them? I mean, our kids and athletes are watching every single move, whether we know it or not, and so I think all that to say being a leader is hard, but that it is super doable and very manageable and that's being able to reflect is just super important. That's a really important step to even making that change that we want. It's kind of a long winded story with that.

Speaker 1: 38:05

But thank you for sharing that. Yeah, being vulnerable with your story.

Speaker 1: 38:10

Yeah for sure. I think so often we forget too and we can kind of end it with this and then we have to ask you the infamous podcast question. But I think the mistake that we make sometimes as practitioners or even as parents seeking out mental performance, is let's just do the skills, let's just visualize, let's just figure out that self-talk. And I think you alluded to that self-reflection and I know that I've shared this analogy, maybe not on the podcast, but if I haven't, here we go. You would never take your daughter to a hitting coach and have that hitting coach immediately start changing things in her swing without first watching her swing, either by video or just by taking some cuts. And so we have to watch the swing. What is that with her mindset? We have to figure out what are those thoughts that she's telling herself. We have to self-reflect what are we doing right, what are we doing wrong? What are you experiencing out there? Get curious, ask questions, even self-discovery. Right.

Speaker 1: 39:16

We've got our conversations to create confidence guide that we give out to parents, but that's also a reflection guide for athletes. You could print it out. And print these questions out and self-reflect when am I most confident? Who's affecting my confidence? What situations feel out of control and that really is that awareness piece that I think sometimes we just want to rush and skip over. But if you skip over that, you're losing that athlete's sense of self and what they're facing. And going back to the first part of this conversation of how do we build rapport if you don't know what they're struggling with or what they're facing exactly, yeah, exactly, you hit the nail right on the head.

Speaker 2: 39:52

I love that boom.

Speaker 1: 39:54

How's that for a mic drop to close out.

Speaker 2: 39:56

I love this okay.

Speaker 1: 39:58

So the question is, if you're a time traveler and you could go back in time and give your past self one message, what is Hana telling herself?

Speaker 2: 40:07

oh, so many messages, but one that really hits home with me is to be open-minded, and that sounds so cliche and it sounds so like small. I can't imagine where my life would have been if I stuck to that one path that I thought that I was passionate about, or that one idea of being an athletic trainer or wanting to go down that route of exercise science and physical therapy. Well, that is so important and I actually still am very fascinated about it. But thinking about taking the leap and just being so open minded to opportunities that are right in my lap and what I wanted to do with them, I think open-mindedness comes with so much beauty. It's scary, but you are built for this and I think, yeah, if I could just shake my 18-year-old self and be like, be open-minded, I think I mean that visual is hilarious to me. But, yeah, being open minded because you have no idea what's on the other side of that door.

Speaker 1: 41:14

So, and we are going to be having a whole nother podcast conversation on the other side of this, just oh my gosh, six months from now, just imagine where your life's going to be six months from now and we didn't even really talk about it, but you're headed to Arizona.

Speaker 1: 41:27

You're going to be working with the Diamondbacks organization. This has been a goal of yours. You've wanted to kind of make and break it into the MLB and I'm just so proud of you and so excited to see what unfolds for you. And I want to ask this same exact question in November, december of likecember, of like, what would you tell hana of today, in may, yeah, and you're gonna have, oh my gosh, so many more answers I love that.

Speaker 2: 41:54

Yes, I'm so excited to kind of talk more about that and what's to come, um, but I know time will tell we'll see.

Speaker 1: 42:03

We'll see where is the best place and obviously, if you guys didn't know this, 90% of our social media Hana curates. So Hana finds all these amazing posts and quotes and things to share and we work on a lot of things together to get information out about our enrollments, our programs, our camps, our retreats. All of that is Hana. So give give Hana some love on social media. Get send her a DM, send us a DM, tell her how much you love our social media. Where, where can we follow you personally? What's the best place to kind of stay in touch if parents or families kind of want to follow your journey through your mental performance career?

Speaker 2: 42:38

Yeah, for sure. I mean place number one, fearless, fast pitch. Um, I'll be. If you just denote that you're trying to reach on it, I'll definitely see the DMS. My personal Instagram is Hannah underscore D Guzman. If any parents or players have questions about my experience in sports psychology, my experience as an athlete, I am so open, I'm such an open book. I love talking about. You know my experiences, my struggles, my wins, my failures. So, yeah, please feel free if you have any questions. Yeah, you guys know where to reach me.

Speaker 1: 43:15

That just gave me a really good idea and I'm just going to say it while we're recording we should totally bring in guest speakers all the time for the program. We should have a meet and greet for anyone because I've had so many messages now that I can't keep track of it of girls that have graduated from our program and maybe you don't even know this, but this has inspired other like. We've had girls that have gone through our program. We've been in business now for five years. Some of these girls are getting their college degrees and some of them are choosing to pursue careers in sports psychology. So we should totally have a just like a little career path night as a guest speaker. That would be awesome. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 43:51

I love that Chills, chills are running through. I love that.

Speaker 1: 43:57

Let's go blazing.

Speaker 2: 43:58

Inspiring, empowering. We're doing all the things. Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 44:05

So good, Hannah. Thank you for your time and your expertise and your stories. I love it so much, as always. Thank you for being on the pod. Thanks for having me, Avie.

Speaker 2: 44:14

And thanks for listening. Fearless fam, I appreciate you all.