What is Mindfulness ?

Posted December 15, 2018January 27, 2022 Glen Mulcahy1 CommentPosted in Athlete, Coach, Organization Executive, Parents

We recently hosted our second digital summit thru our digital arm, For the Love of the Game, where I had the opportunity to talk with another amazing group of sports leaders who shared tips, tricks and nuggets to help coaches shave years off their learning curves.

Each guest speaker I talked to was absolutely amazing and if you did not have a chance to sign up for our summit you can sign up here for on-demand access to it (will be uploaded by the end of December 2018), our summer summit and all of our training modules for lump sum annual or monthly membership. We now have over 40 hours of digital content and will continue to build so you have access to insight from global leaders to help you become the best coach you can be.

The last speaker that reached out to us only a few days before the summit was going live was Dr. Amy Saltzman, Holistic Physician and Mindfulness coach for several decades based in Northern California. Amy holds the record thus far of the fastest turnaround to doing the interview and the recording being edited and uploaded to our platform in less than 48 hours.

One thing that I found this winter summit that we will have to revisit for others going forward was the challenges to coordinate times, days with guest speakers as many have full plates in season, including yours truly and I was ecstatic was able to connect with Amy in time so she could share her amazing insight in our winter summit.

We talked about her most recent book I was able to read in that same 48 hour turn around time frame as she sent me the PDF version that I believe will be a go-to book for athletes and coaches, “ A still quiet place for athletes: Mindfulness skills for Achieving Peak Performance & Finding Flow in Sports and Life”.

One of the testimonials that Amy received was from one of her longtime mentors, Mindfulness coach George Mumford who was Phil Jacksons “secret weapon” when he coached the Bulls to 6 and Lakers to 5 NBA Championships.

Once I started to read the PDF version Amy sent me I could not stop turning the pages and I know it will be my go-to book going forward to help not only players but coaches and even parents understand the value of incorporating mindfulness so they can reach the highest level of performance possible.

For purposes of this post, I am going to share some of the great nuggets that Amy wrote in the last two chapters geared towards coaches and parents as many of the coaches that I interact with across the country wear both hats as parent volunteer coaches.

Amy shares in the video clip for this week’s newsletter her definition;

Mindfulness is paying attention here and now;

with kindness and curiosity,

so that we can choose our behavior

Breaking it down;

Paying attention here and now – not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future but what is happening in this

One of the examples she shares in the book is about Steph Currey, who is one of the top players in the NBA and coached by Steve Kerr whose core values for the Golden State Warriors is Mindfulness-Compassion-Competition and Joy. Steve had the opportunity to play for Phil Jackson on those Championship Chicago Bulls Teams who received mindfulness training from George Mumford.

The Golden State Warriors version of George Mumford, is the great Dr. Jerry Lynch, long-term practitioner of mindfulness and one of the top sport psychologists in the USA who has also worked with over 30 National Championship NCAA teams.

Steph has bought in into mindfulness to the extent that he and his wife have tattoos on their arms of two arrows pointing to each other, the middle being THE MOMENT, not the past or the future. Before every game, he points to that tattoo and his wife does the same.

I don’t think anyone would argue with me when Steph is in the Zone (AKA flow state) and hitting all those 3 pointers from all over the court that he is “pretty good” staying in that moment vs. worrying about the past (missed a shot) or future (worrying about the score if team is down)

“with kindness and curiosity” – in lieu of being hard on ourselves as we made a mistake or feel we screwed up or the vocal minority of coaches and parents screaming at us we did so, in order for teams to practice mindfulness they have to understand that mistakes are part of the process and if it happens continue to move forward.

The analogy that I shared with Amy was my daughter who I coached in softball for many years and was a pitcher. Above is one of my favorite pictures of her from when she was in one of the several provincials we went to. She loved inside pitches so could jam up batters and there were a couple of regular umpires in our association that would not call them strikes but give her outside pitches all day long. When she would get frustrated, in lieu adapting and staying in the flow state and throwing pitches that would be called strikes, her face would get red, could tell she was mumbling words and trying to vent so I would call blue to be able to go talk to her.

In lieu, “focus on being in the present”, “you got this” or other positive words of encouragement and VOILA … she would be back in the zone and tweak her pitch to get inside the umps strike zone.

The same held true with numerous other players I coached over the years, in particular goalies in hockey. I would work with all of them early in the season to come up with their own pre-game routines so they were in the present when the game started vs. some would still be goofing off or not focused and early in the game would let in a goal that 90% of the time would made the save when in the zone.

I would call a timeout and call them to the bench, not to pull them as I see too many coaches do and put their “favorite” in, to bring them back into the present, remind them that the goal was history and there was nothing they could do but focus and be ready for the next shot.

Then I would send them back to the net with positive phrases like you got this, we got your back, just go out there and have fun or something as simple as a thumbs up and their smile would come to their face and be in that flow state needed.

As the cliché goes, you have to be nuts to be a goalie in the NHL facing 100 MPH slap shots, so of all the positions in sports, I believe hockey goalies need to focus on mindfulness, breathing techniques so they are in the zone when they need to be. Not before, not after, but in the that moment when they are facing the shooter to make that save.

Amy then shares a great exercise for coaches to start working on developing their coaching philosophy, probably one of the biggest shortfalls I run into every I talk. It is amazing how many coaches DON’T have a philosophy, and even when they do, they don’t have it in writing.

There are three things that every parent wants to know about coaches;

Who are they, what is their background (how many years coached, what certifications do they have etc.)
Why do they coach
What is their philosophy

It amazes me in this era with all the parental behavior we see almost on a daily basis and coaches come to me all the time asking “how to deal with parents” they don’t recognize if they have the answers to the above and is in writing so they can be held accountable.

In lieu, they talk the talk, but don’t necessarily walk the walk and wonder why they lose the players and parents trust and they act up in the stands or sidelines.

This exercise alone is worth adding the book to your library.

Amy then touches on the importance of developing culture, core values, filling their emotional tanks so when have to use tough love they will do what coaches ask them without question and understanding the importance that your players are individuals with several exercises so that you can connect with your players. Connection is one of the tips that every speaker that I talked to both in the summer and winter summit stated is one of the characteristics of great coaches and Amy lays out the framework in a very practical way how you can do so.

The last chapter focuses on tips for parents to help their kids develop mindfulness practices which I will defer to another post in future but it includes summaries that you can share with your parents in terms of the reality how many high school athletes in the US go on to NCAA level as well as player and parent goal setting so in lieu of putting pressure on their kids, they truly are supporting their kids to achieve their own goals, not those of their parents.

The best part of the book is that it is supported by online audio resources and PDF’s of the various exercises for the athlete, coaches and parents.

According to Amy, you can start incorporating mindfulness with players as early as 8-9 years old with the first part of the book, then as they get older evolve to the second stages explained in the second phase much like you would do adding progressions to your drills and practices.

I highly recommend that you add it your tool basket, if you truly aspire to guide your teams to the highest level of performance possible, you must focus on developing their minds to be in the optimal flow state at the time needed, not before or after but the NOW.

Thought the best way to finish this post is the quote that Amy shares at the beginning of the coaches chapter;

A common mistake among those who work in sports is spending a disproportional amount of time on x’s and o’s as compared to time spent learning about people.

—- Mike Krzyzekski, Duke University Men’s Basketball coach (5 National NCAA champions) and Team USA Men’s Basketball Coach leading the team to Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012

There is so much to coaching that writing up the X’s and O’s on a whiteboard, mindfulness training being one of them, the sooner you add to your tool basket, the sooner you as a coach and your athletes will reach higher level of performance.

“à bientôt” (see you soon)

Posted August 24, 2018January 27, 2022 Glen MulcahyLeave a commentPosted in Athlete, Coach, Organization Executive, Parents, Uncategorized

For the last couple of months we have been going thru a move from our former office, a 2 story warehouse with office buildout that was very cold in winter, very hot in summer as we had no HVAC systems and we have now officially moved into a new 2^nd floor office space with HVAC, multiple workstations, a boardroom, a “real” lunchroom and fully wired for sound with Fibre Optic to permit us to upload and download audio and videos much faster than we were able to in prior office space.

We also will be able to host workshops in our open area for 20 or so, and the ability to rent and ultimately lease the adjacent office space to host workshops and presentations for groups up to 80 vs. having to rely on orgs to provide meeting spaces with all the A/V setup for our presentations.

Why am I doing a post this week on the subject of our move?

Because yesterday I said, “à bientôt”, ( = see you soon) to our most recent co-op student who had worked with us this summer and continued to add to the building blocks of prior students since we started a few years back.

Her name is Myla, and she was responsible for editing and uploading all of the interviews for our inaugural For the Love of the Game Youth Sports Digital Summit that we hosted mid-July. She also created the new blog thumbnails, quote templates for both PARADIGM Sports and our digital arm For the Love of the Game in addition to posting to all of our social media platforms including setting up our Instagram account.

The reason I am sharing this is when I went thru her evaluation as a part of the co-op requirements, she shared with me that her experience working with us this summer was unbelievable, mainly as we are advocates for providing a safe to fail environment for all of our staff just as I do when I coach teams. We also have a zero tolerance for ANY forms of harassment, something that many NCAA schools in particular need to implement, including the most recent at Maryland University due to prehistoric coaching practices that lead to the death of one of their football players from heat exhaustion.

She was not the first, nor will be the last co-op student that will work with us, and each time that there last day comes it is a difficult one for me as I look back on the prior 4 months and am truly amazed of everything that they have accomplished by praising their effort, encouraging them to make mistakes vs. being concerned about outcomes and the fallacy of being perfect as I learned from an executive coach I worked with there is no such thing.

This is the main issue that I see with many youth sports coaches, regardless of the sport they are coaching, until they have coached for many years and realize there is so much more to coaching than writing up a drill on a whiteboard or drawing up lines, positions for games. Particularly in today’s environment with the pay to play system and emphasis on winning at all costs that have been outlined in numerous articles and press that we have contributed to.

Prior to Myla, there were several other co-op students that were instrumental in our growth as an organization, whether developing our websites, social media platforms, graphic design, research, creating data systems, audio and video editing.

Every single one of the students has shared with me how much they enjoyed the experience, learned a ton and gained valuable work experience to prepare them for the workforce after they graduated and all have reached out to me for references or commented on posts we have done thru social media.

The first was Mitch, he worked with me as was coming up with the initial business plan and brainstorming for PARADIGM Sports in the summer of 2015.

Another former co-op student was Jordan, who worked with us last fall term, and was responsible for creating our For the Love of the Game Website on our hosting platform for online training and setting the building blocks for us to be able to host our first digital summit.

Just last week he sent me these two images of the great John Wooden, one when he was coaching Kareem Abdul Jabar at UCLA when they went on their great run of national championships, the other when Kareem was walking with John 38 years later during an event to honour him at halftime for his contributions to coaching and the development of the young men at UCLA under his watch. Some of which including Kareem went on to play in the NBA, many others became doctors, lawyers or other professionals in the workplace and have left positive legacies thanks to John’s guidance as COACH.

Another of our students, Melvin, worked with us last Spring, he created our original WordPress site and registration links for the love the game.org for our inaugural live conference where we created our first wave of training modules with some amazing speakers. He then went to China for a back to back co-op as a hockey instructor as they are aspiring to put a competitive team together for the winter Olympics they will be hosting in 2022. His partner, Chase, when we were going thru the interviews made me aware of various grant programs to help us sponsor co-op students and was instrumental in creating our new PARADIGM Sports website last spring which we continue to build on today.

Two others, Danette and Karly that worked with us a couple of years back, were key in developing the initial WordPress PARADIGM Sports Website, powerpoint decks, logo, colors, business card design and sourcing imagery for blogs.

Karly shared this with me after she completed her co-op term,

“My time working for Glen was great – not only do you learn about business practices you also learn a lot about yourself. Though his guidance and mentorship, I gained confidence in my work abilities and succeeded in areas of my job that I presumed to be impossible. For example, I never thought that I would be able to create and maintain a website with no prior training, but Glen was confident that I could figure it out, which gave me sureness in my own capabilities. This is how he treated every task that was foreign to me – he believed that it was possible for me to accomplish it and knew I would benefit from learning something new. With some dedication, encouragement, and help from Google (and Youtube) I have found a new sense of certainty in my work and what I can produce.

Glen also instills a great amount of trust and loyalty in his employees, which is reflected in the work he does. He is incredibly passionate about youth sports and making a positive change in this environment. It was great to learn from someone who is so invested in making a difference and who truly cares about this matter. His high values and business integrity were very impactful and they will be brought forward into my future career.”

Needless to say, when I read this I got weepy-eyed that I had this type of impact but as I have continued to learn more about transformational leadership, that is the effect it has. In lieu of old-school coaching/leadership that creates an environment of fear and hesitation, it provides the opportunity for people to thrive and achieve things they never thought were possible.

In the summer of 2016 I attended John O’Sullivan’s Way of Champions inaugural conference, was unable to go last year but went again this June and connected with all of my Changing the Game Projects counterparts and interacted with over 100 coaches from across the world that was looking for more insight on transformational coaching, something that still in its infancy in youth sports and is our focus to change in Canada and beyond.

The last contribution that Myla did in her last couple of weeks was developing the Love what you Play podcast platform that will permit us to host the audio-only clips of our interviews from digital summits as well as other interviews going forward.

Our first podcast launches today, my talk with James Leath, and he shares insight on his new organization he founded Unleash the Athlete and his role working in the Esports segment coaching Egamers for a team that is owned by Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys. He also talks about the importance of engaging parents on your team and many other tidbits.

Pic of coin provided to all coaches at the Way of Champions conference, this one outlining core values on the back with the first being fearlessness.

When we were at the first Way of Champions conference, I recall all too well how James reminded us all of one of the quotes from Dr. Jerry Lynch made on Friday evening as we were all wrapping up Sunday afternoon to head to the airport to return to all of our various homes.

“I don’t have a Job (this from one of the top Sport Psychologists in the USA who has guided over 30 teams to NCAA national championships and worked with Steve Kerr and the Golden State Warriors in recent years winning NBA championships and author of 13 books)

When you have a job, all you are doing is making a living, paying the bills.

In lieu, I learned long ago that my calling, purpose if you like, is to make a difference.

As coaches, our calling is to make a difference developing youth into adults.”

That was an epiphany moment for me and all the other coaches that were sitting on the gym floor in 104 degrees heat with no AC in Boulder, Colorado and as our most recent co-op student tapped the sign I finally got up from unpacking “Play like a Champion Today” and headed down the stairs for the last time it was further reinforcement that is our role as coaches, leaders, managers, teachers.

Each week we will be releasing another podcast to coincide with our newsletter and as we now have a dedicated space in our new office we are calling the “Green Room” (due to green screen and green workstation that my kids said why are you moving this Dad, it’s UGLY but it I countered back it is functional) will be sharing video clips as well as working on incremental training modules.

This fall we will have two new co-op students, Cairo and Francis, working on the podcast, our next digital summit and continuing to build our social media platforms to provide you insight from ourselves and our various allies in the space who are aspiring for the much needed change needed to reduce the attrition rates and a generation of kids missing out on what should be a “transformational” youth sports experience so it ultimately leads to being active as adults.

As I have with all prior co-op students, I am looking forward to seeing how they continue to build on the prior blocks from prior students and how they thrive in a safe to fail environment that strongly believes in the Growth Mindset “I can’t do that YET” vs. fixed mindset “I can’t do that”.

We would love to hear from you in terms of feedback on what we can do to help you as a parents of young kids involved in youth sports, help you become the best coach you can be or administrators to develop cultures of excellence so you not only recruit, but retain your players and ultimately grow your programs.

Let’s all work together to bring the game back to the kids …. where it belongs.

Please ensure that your legacy is a positive one and you recognize your role as a coach is to develop youth into adults, not just writing up X’s and O’s on a whiteboard.