Elite Starts In The Mind : Jaret Petras

One bad play can feel like the whole world is watching and your brain reacts like you’re in danger. That’s where the real competition starts, and it’s why we’re obsessed with the mental side of sports. We start by breaking down what we’ve seen in elite athletes across baseball and football: extreme ownership, control of the controllables, and routines that hold up even when performance doesn’t. 

Then we bring on Jared Petris, founder of NeuroFootball, to go deeper into sports psychology and mental performance training. Jared shares his path from chasing high-level soccer opportunities to building a system that helps athletes handle pressure, silence noise, and play with clarity. We get into the most common mental barriers he sees across ages and sports: performance anxiety, fragile confidence, spiraling after mistakes, and having no real direction. 

We also unpack what’s happening in the brain when mistakes occur, why automatic negative thoughts show up so fast, and how to crush them before they pile up. Jared lays out practical tools athletes can use right away: breathing, visualization, reset routines, self-talk, and body language. We talk “paralysis by overanalysis,” building a personal game face, training split-second decisions, and why youth sports pressure is hitting earlier than ever. We also hit the parenting piece: creating a home environment where results don’t determine love, so kids have the freedom to learn. 

If you want a simple next step, Jared gives it: make a plan, find the biggest gap in your game, and attack it with intent. Subscribe, share this with a coach or parent who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest mental-game struggle so we can cover it next.

Transcript

What Elite Athletes Do Differently

SPEAKER_00 0:01

So Jeff, how do you think that elite athletes separate themselves mentally from, let's say, an average athlete or your ordinary athlete out there?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Yeah, I think this is big. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to, you know, play at the highest level of college baseball around some, I mean, back on the wall here played with got 13 guys that have played the big league. So, you know, I got to really, you know, sit back as a player and, you know, watch how they went about things. And, you know, even at the highest level of the level as I was coaching at too, um, you know, the biggest thing that I noticed with all these players is is three things. They take ownership of everything, they control what they can control, and then they buy into the standards it takes to be great. Um, you know, and then when it goes back to taking ownership, you know, they own their mistakes, um, they own when they don't execute or get a job done on the field or off the field. And, you know, they own that the work that they put in. You know, maybe they hit a lot in the cage that week and it showed on the weekend or they didn't hit, it didn't show. So a lot of those guys are controlling, they're they're taking ownership of everything that they do from classroom to diet to weight room to classes to all the above. They take extreme ownership and all that. The next thing that those all all those guys do really well and at a really high level is they control what they can control. And I know that's kind of a you know, a very common um uh common term to use, but you know, their efforts always the same, whether it's in practice and their training routines, those type of things, their preparation, um, you know, their routines. That's the biggest thing is I think the biggest piece to separating yourself mentally is the sticking to your routines when the routine when you're not performing well. You got to trust your routines to perform well. And those guys trust those routines at a high level. You talk to any big league baseball player, they'll have an in-field routine, a hitting routine of stuff they do before they get it going. So, you know, I think those are big, and then you know, things that they don't do that they can't control, they can't control the umpires, they can't control the weather, they can't control the opponents. So those things are just out of their heads at that point. Um, you know, and then the biggest thing is they bind to the standards. You know, everybody says it takes what it takes. You know, you have a level of excellence and it takes what it takes to be excellent. Um, you know, and I think they show up in all circumstances, whether, you know, girlfriend dumped them or they're having a bad day, like it's not going to be their mood is not going to dictate the performance on the field. Um, you know, I heard a coach once say, when your identity equals your discipline, consistency becomes automatic. And I think that's a big piece of you know, kind of the mental game because really when everything else fails, all you have to fall back on is your discipline and your identity. And, you know, those things can go a long way in your sport.

Hesitation And Fear Of Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, I I that's solid. And I I love I love the control, what you can control, and I that's something even at a youth level I I try to coach because it's you know, you you kids especially, you know, they're they're taught by their parents what to think, and it's always the umps' fault, right? Whether it's youth baseball, foot football, it's the ref's fault, it's never their fault. But uh I I love that, you know, control control the controllables. But speaking on that specifically with with controlling, do you think number one? I guess I'm gonna ask this as a two-part question. Do you think that you know you ultimately have the ability to control your hesitation? Um and if so, yes or no, do you feel like hesitation is one of the biggest performance killers when it comes to an athlete as far as hesitating to make a decision or hesitating to make a play?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Well, I think I mean to answer the question, to answer both parts, I think, you know, uh hesitation comes from lack of preparation. And, you know, I think hesitation stems from maybe you're feeling failure or you fear you're making the wrong choice or play. You know, something that you know we always preach within inside our programs was just make the play and then we'll talk about it afterwards. We don't care what the play is, just don't hesitate, just make a play. Because when you hesitate and you pucker in that moment, you know, that's that's when you know one one mistake turns into two. Um you know, I think some other things that go into you know hesitating. When you hesitate, your timing's off, whether that's a split second decision at the plate, what you're trying to swing at for a quarterback, um uh a hesitation in the read can you know result in incompletion or a uh or an interception. Um, you know, the other thing is when you don't when you're hesitating, I don't think you're looking ahead. Um, you have to anticipate the next play. You have to anticipate what the defense is doing in football, what they're doing in in baseball. You have to kind of anticipate what the pitcher's gonna throw you. Um you know, and I think if you're trying to think in the middle of a play or when something's happening, that's when you're acting on um you're not acting on instinct anymore. So you know, I always tell our guys visualize in your head what you're gonna do before the play comes. And you know, I think all of that is rooted within your habits and your patterns.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, that's that's solid. I I I actually think that that's very important. And I I call that in as far as coaching with hesitation, you know. I I've seen athletes struggle, you know, with with the same kind of mental pattern issues where I call it I call it paralysis by over analysis, right? Where they're just they're they're thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. And you can tell in that moment that that they're that they're just overthinking, right? Like I coach, I coach the the DBs and and safeties for for my football team. And um, you know, I noticed that with them specifically, right? They're trying to make a play, they're trying to make a read on you know on the quarterback or on the receiver, and all of a sudden you can tell they're overthinking the process. And um, you know, I I think I think that's that's the one of the biggest things. And and I noticed it too, you know, with Harlow, as far as like the mental struggles go last or really two seasons ago now when they started kid pitch, right? Like the the shift in him having to understand that that baseball's different right now. You know, it's not coach wants you to hit the ball every single time and pitches it to you. So now this kid's purposely trying to strike you out, right? And and you you notice that that fear of failure that you're talking about, like the the kids, the kids would strike out looking just because they didn't want to swing, because they didn't want to strike out swinging, you know, because they in their mind that that's how they were controlling the outcome and that's how they were controlling the situation. It was, you know, it's one of those things like you don't want to teach them bad habits, but um, but you know, you you you do purposely try to push that with them and just understanding like you have to mentally prepare for every approach at the plate, right? And you've you've got to step into that, and you you you've got to have the mindset, you know, like you said, it's spot on, be thinking about what's gonna happen before it ever happens, you know, on the field.

Why Mental Training Gets Ignored

SPEAKER_01 7:01

You know, I think the the biggest piece to that too is we have to understand we're coaching people, and whether they're well, no matter what their age is, they're gonna dissect everything you say, they're gonna try to do it to a T. You always gotta realize there's a little bit of gray area in in what we're saying. You know, we don't want you to swing at, you know, swing at strikes, but like we gotta swing at the reg' strike, don't swing at balls, you know, those things. So those things get wrapped up in your head. It's almost like, you know, you yell out a picture, come on, those strikes, it's like, dude, I'm what do you think I'm doing out here? You know? So let's touch on this a little bit because this this is always interesting. And I think a lot of coaches, um, there's been a little bit of a shift, I would say, in the last eight to ten years, on you know, how training has evolved over time, you know, and I think a lot of times we focus so much on our body um over our brain. So what do you do you think we train more intentionally physically or mentally? And you know, kind of touch on that a little bit. What are your thoughts on Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I I think in my opinion, what I've seen is it's definitely taken, I agree with you, it's definitely taken a shift over the last few years. But I I would say as a whole, if we're looking at athletics as a whole, I think to my opinion would be that we probably focus on the external more than we do the internal, right? Like, you know, we're football, right? We like think about it's off season right now in football, right? So our entire football program, you know, three, four days a week is is doing strength training and speed training. Like when are we when are we going over playbooks? When are we working on you know, things like that? I don't I don't think that we necessarily spend as much time on the mental game and the mental approach than we are as we do with you know with the actual physical training. So um, and I'm I'm sure for baseball, it's probably very similar, right? You know, I mean it's like right winter workout time, and I know it's baseball season now, but you know, you're winter time, you're you know, again, you're working out, you're in the batting cages, you know, you're you're getting BP, you know, doing a lot of T work, and it's like, you know, we're not necessarily focusing on the mental approach as much as we could and should.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Um then You know, I think the big thing too, Chris, with that, I mean, just going back to what Jared said, I mean, baseball, I mean football too. You've got three and a half, four hour games um before they put time limits in baseball. Um, you've got three and a half, four-hour games, and only eight minutes of there's action. That leaves you two hours and 50 minutes for your mind to wander. You have to stay locked in for all three hours, even though there's only eight minutes of total action throughout the game. Same thing with football, maybe a little more, because the plays last 10, 12, 15 seconds, but there's a lot of downtime, and in that downtime is really when your thoughts can creep in, the negativity can creep in, and that's why it's important to train those things in certain environments.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, and and I I actually I put a note on that in this segment on my on my show notes, and and it just I've seen some of the best athletes, you know, that have you know that check all the boxes, right? The the physicality, the the uh the uh you know agility, the the athleticism and all that. They check every single one of those boxes, but they they're not able to perform when the mental game's not there, right? When they're when they're not you know able to control you know the mind, you know, and ultimately that's you know, and who it was Jeff Fry that said it, one of our guests said it, you know, that like you know the the the distance between your head and your heart, right? Like that's you know, that's that's the toughest game to play all the time. And I think that that's that's ultimately the truth. I think especially, you know, when when these kids, you know, teenagers, right? The hormones are kicking in, the emotions are are are way more dramatic and stronger. And and you know, I think that that's that's where you see those kids that really separate that are able to control, you know, control the variables, like the like their mental approach to to going out and performing.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah. I think there's a little bit of downtime in every sport that's played. You mean I mean hockey may be the only one. I mean, you got the goalies that may not just be they're not, they don't they're not, they have to stay locked in, but everyone else, they're moving all the time. But every other sport, there's a little bit of transition from play to play, pitch to pitch, and basketball, up and down the court, inbound, outbound. So, you know, I think that's why over the years this has really caught on of how do we train our brain um to be successful, and how do we do it sport specifically too? Because you've got guys that are baseball focused, football focused, soccer focused, basketball focus, basketball focused. So, you know, I think this has been a big shift in where a big shift in now you have talent that can separate players, but you also have that that mental game is also, you know, can be a sixth tool in any of these sports.

Setting Up The NeuroFootball Conversation

Jared Petris And A 39-Hour Record

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I I you know, I think that's exactly where this conversation with Jarrett is gonna transition to. And I think uh, you know what I what I kind of titled this this episode was Elite Starts in the Mind, right? To to be Elite, it starts it starts there. And so um, let's bring Jared in. Um, and uh I said Jarrett. Let me let me clarify. I said Jarrett on my uh little uh cold this episode. I apologize. We went from Jared to Jarrett in back-to-back weeks, not to confuse anybody, yeah. And then uh, you know, sorry, I have a little uh Ben Stein uh you know uh sound to me this week, uh little fighting a little bit of a cold, but let's bring Jarrett in um and uh and and let's let's hear from it. Thanks so much for being on with us this evening. Appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. Um, but uh why don't we do this? Let's start off and uh and just let you introduce yourself and kind of share your background with with everyone and and then we'll we'll go from there. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Uh gentlemen, thanks for having me. Uh really pleasure to uh chat with you guys today. But yeah, my name's Jared Petris. Uh I'm the founder of NeuroFootball. Um really my athletic story starts in Ardsley, New York. So, you know, New Yorker thrown through. And you know, kind of the quick version of it is you know, soccer was my was my life growing up. Um and that just led me to want to obviously become the best player that I could be, you know, get to the professional levels. Always saw myself as kind of like an innovator, like a sports researcher, even at that time. So I was always looking for like what's the best way to optimize my training and do something different. Because when you're from Ardsley, you know, a little place in New York, you know, top players they don't play, you know, they don't play for Real Madrid. They don't they don't go, they don't get scouted there. So I always knew I had to do something different. Um, but yeah, so I was always like researching, innovating, trying to be the next thing. And you know, kind of the the short version is you know that allowed me to you know play in the Czech Republic. So I, you know, my I come from a Czech American family. So when I was 17, I I moved there, packed my bags, you know, tried out for academies, uh, eventually made two of the top academies. It's a long story, but that propelled me to play kind of like in the like the B team for the top, top men's teams. Um, so kind of like a G League type of deal. Uh and for a 17-year-old American at that time, that was like, you know, like that was like the biggest, you know, accomplishment in the world for me. Um, that took me to, you know, and it was during that time I realized, okay, you know what, I've tested myself. You know, that's what I've always wanted to do, test myself, and I I can do it at this level. Um, but it just made more sense at that time to go translate that to you know college soccer. I just felt like I was gonna get more out of it, uh, getting a degree. So came back to New York. Uh try and I thought I was gonna have like all of these offers, but at the time I no one even knew me, right? So I uh walked on at Stony Rook University. Uh, as far as I'm concerned, I'm the first and only person to do that as a soccer player. Um and yeah, so that that was kind of my my sporting career. I wanted to go farther, of course, um, but that just as I graduated, kind of my priorities shifted a little bit, and I naturally kind of um went into coaching, transferred into that. Um, and then you know, again, I kind of had that same research type of mind. I was like, how can I innovate? How can I do something a little bit different? Uh so you know, not to don't want to drown it out too loud, but I I it gets a little bit more eclectic from there. Uh so while I was like coaching soccer, I started playing pickleball, and uh it kind of took a life of its own. So uh kind of fast forwarding to that, I you know, kind of have over a 5-0 rating, uh, which is kind of like that cusp between semi-pro and pro. Um, I managed to become the national champion of the Czech Republic. I represent the country at the pickleball world cup, and I even broke the world record for playing for 39 straight hours of pickleball.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

So that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

I saw that you had that you said you had the longest uh pickleball game. I'm thinking like, oh, he probably played for two hours, like 39?

SPEAKER_03 16:47

That's almost two days. So so my teammates actually recently broke that record. I'm not gonna lie, like the same people I played with, they did it for 49.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Wow are we is this like competition or are we just pickleballing?

SPEAKER_03 17:01

No, you gotta play. Like you have to play, but it's the same four people, 49 hours. Um we did it for 39, non-stop. Wow. Um, yeah, you don't stop. So two night like they didn't sleep for two nights, and I'm actually, you know, uh it hasn't happened yet, but I'm planning on breaking the singles record soon. So wow, yeah. That's crazy.

The Origin Story Behind NeuroFootball

SPEAKER_00 17:23

My uh my almost 12-year-old and I on our most recent cruise played pickleball for like 15 minutes straight. So I think we're like right behind you in the record in the record book. So I think that's wild, man. I that is that is true commitment. Um it was wild. So why don't Jared, why don't you share a little bit about so you have a you have a company, uh NeuroFootball. Um, why don't you share with us a little bit about the uh about that um as far as how you how you how that came to to be uh and then kind of the passion behind why you decided to start the the company?

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Absolutely. Um well a lot of it starts with my own playing experience, right? So um, like I said, I was always saw myself as like a researcher, innovator, like I was always trying to figure out like what really makes a great athlete, you know what I mean? Like you go to the NBA, all of these guys have such unbelievable like skills, but Michael Jordan was was special, right? Like he wasn't tallest, he wasn't the fastest necessarily, but what really made him different? And like I said, that's kind of been like a lifelong uh passion of mine. And when I went to Czech Republic, uh to be honest, at the age of 17, it felt like everything was just going wrong, like just nothing was working. Um, so that was kind of my first um my first experience, right? So like I tried out for some teams in in the United States, like the New York Red Bulls. Um, and I always had a very strong mindset, but at that moment, when I tried out for the Red Bulls, I just like froze one day. Like it was like I had a personal tryout, everyone wanted me to have success. My my friends were on the team, they're like, you know, and I just froze. Like I just was the moment was too big for me, I wasn't ready for it. So then when I went to the Chuck Republic, I kind of had this, you know, uh, I had kind of had this you know, X on my back that I was trying to get rid of, right? And it just wasn't working out, like it just I wasn't fitting into the academies I wanted, I wasn't making these tryouts, and the the truth of it is things were going so wrong that I called my dad one day and I was hoping, you know, uh he would give me some advice and maybe pat me on the back and just say it's gonna be all good and kind of you know, because I'm living like in terrible living conditions, I'm not playing for the team I want, I'm all the way uh in a foreign country, nobody's backing me up. And I'm like, yeah, like it's just not working. I don't know what's happening, I'm not sure if it's gonna work out. And instead of giving me a pat on the back, he he took the offensive in typical Czech fashion. And dude, it was like listen, this is your fault. You went there, you figured it out, bang! Like and kind of at that moment, I was like, something just snapped, like something inside me just snapped, and I didn't care if I played well, I didn't care if like I made any teams anymore. I just knew I was gonna give myself every possible advantage because I was just done with with that idea with that narrative. Like I'm I was like, the only way to change the narrative, the only way to solve this is if I just give myself every possible advantage and go from there. And that was kind of my first time looking into mental performance, right? Because back in the day it was kind of just like just tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. Um, and that was like, you know, there was no skill behind it, it was all just about being tough. So that was the first time I I found a YouTube video, and I just went on this like like this rabbit hole of like sports psychology and mental performance. And really that was the X factor for me, you know, all of a sudden getting contracts, making academy clubs, you know, getting agents, you know, playing the division one level. That was my X factor, you know. Um, so it changed everything for me, you know, even uh, you know, it translated even to pickleball. I don't know how that happened, but it did. And um, so yeah, so that was kind of the start. That's when I first realized how powerful mental performance is. And then later on, when I started coaching myself, uh I was coaching for the New York Red Bulls, and as I'm coaching, and you know, a lot you know, young seven to twelve year old players for the most part. Um, and almost every weekend I'm getting emails from parents about how you know this my player is struggling with this, and my you know, my player's struggling with that. But to my surprise, it was everyone on the roster. It was it was. Was the best players on the roster? Was the worst players on the roster? You know, so that's when I it kind of occurred to me. I was like, you know, if I didn't discover this until I was 17, what how am I gonna expect these 10-year-old kids to know, understand mental performance, right? And I realized that it's something everybody needs to work on and everybody uh can improve. Uh, and that was that was huge. That was like my next big step. So I had my personal experience, I had that coaching experience, realizing that there's like a gap. And then even when I started playing pickleball, and you know, I'm coaching some older, older players, and you know, I'm talking about like 50 plus and things like that, I'm seeing the same exact problems, the same exact challenges that the kids were having. So it's not something you just outgrow. And I realized at that point, I realized at that point it's doesn't matter what sex you are or you know how old you are, anything, or even what sport you're playing. It's something that's just universal.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

And that's when I realized, wow, like this is a real gap in the market, like in the sporting market. Um, and that that was just, you know, those are like the three kind of big realizations. So then I started asking myself, uh, you know, like if I'm a player, right? And I I'm having mental blocks, I'm helping having mental challenges, where do I go? Like genuinely, where would I go? You can't go to your parents because you're never gonna listen to them. That's just the reality. Yeah. Uh, you know, uh, you can't go to your coach because as a coach, they don't have the bandwidth or the skills to really help you with this. Uh, right. Uh, and it's difficult to go, you can't go to therapists because a therapist is more of mental health, you know what I mean? That's more of a clinical uh challenge. Whereas I'm working specifically with making you into a better perform better as a player. And even a sports psychologist, if you want to go see a sports psychologist, they're very few, they're usually booked out, and they're extremely expensive, right? So I kind of said to myself, okay, I'm gonna solve this gap and I'm gonna help players, you know, like basically provide a specific uh service, specifically just for so uh for soccer players, young soccer players. So that's kind of how it started. Um that was the idea. Um, but what really kind of kick start things to go uh to the next level was I was doing private training in South Carolina. I always liked working um at the individual with individual players who really wanted it. And for me, private training, there's a time and place for it, but I feel like a lot of private trainers kind of put you through this runaround where it's like you know, they don't even know specifically what the player needs to work on because they've never even seen them play, right? And I'm all about being effective with your time, with effective with your money as a as a parent. So I decide doing like video analysis with players, right? So I'm doing video analysis with my private clients, I'm taking them through, you know, decision making, game IQ, things like that. But like, and it was kind of smacked me in the face uh was a lot of my players, they needed help with game IQ for sure, but they had good technique and they had a strong uh you know physical abilities, and they actually were had a pretty good IQ, but they were so crippled with performance anxiety that it didn't even matter. So I started helping them with that side of the game first, so hitting the psychological part, flowing it into better decisions, and then if you make better decisions, uh then it's yeah, you get you're gonna amplify your hardware, amplify your other skills. So that's you know, I started working through with my first clients that way, and it kind of like exploded from there, if that makes sense.

Most Common Mental Barriers In Sports

SPEAKER_00 25:56

That that's that's that's an incredible journey. I mean, to to come to the realization of that. And uh I like what you said specifically about talking about the the mental the mental gaps and mental barriers that you know regardless of what age we all experience that because I think you know, I think we think it as we get older, sometimes wisdom comes, but it's it's uh you know, it's not necessarily true when it comes to things like that, you know, and how hard we are on ourselves. But um let's let's dive into the mental gap part a little bit deeper. And you know, I if you don't mind, I would I would like for you to share like what what are the most common mental barriers that you see, you know, across athletes. For sure.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Um, the most common one I see is definitely performance anxiety. Yeah. Without a doubt. Like that's the most common. Um, I would say the next one is just extremely fragile self-confidence. Like they have confidence, they can be extremely confident, but it's extremely fragile, right? So it breaks down quite quickly. Um, I would also say players just spiraling out of control, like they make one mistake, kind of kind of goes back to the other two, uh, but they make one mistake in like the second half, and they just cannot get out of it uh in in that from there. Um, and I would say probably the last one that I I really see is they have no sense of direction. Like, unfortunately, I think that's the biggest challenge uh kids are facing nowadays is that you know, with technology and whatnot, they're getting all of these voices from everywhere, from their phone, from YouTube, from Chat GPT, from their coach, from their parent. And they have all of this noise and no real focus. So it's like having a direction. Um, you know, having a direction is so important, and also, you know, players nowadays, um, they're just not really centered in anything. They're just told to think emotionally, so they're just kind of going wishing what back and forth, and they don't have anything to really like ground them. So no direction, no framework, performance anxiety, and and low confidence.

Fight Or Flight And Automatic Negativity

SPEAKER_01 28:10

I think that's big. I mean, emotions are huge. And I read a book, um, a great book, it's called Emotional Intelligence, and we don't realize we also have an emotional IQ. And a lot of times, if we can't control our emotions, we can't control our mental state. And that's when performance anxiety happens. That's when the fragile self-confidence comes. And you know, if you don't know how to handle those things, like those those four things that you just listed, Jarek, those don't those don't have any sports specific to them, they don't have any age specific to them. That it's across the board, it doesn't matter. So everybody is affected by those things. Let me ask you this neurologically, uh when mistakes happen, um what what happens neurologically when those mistakes do happen?

SPEAKER_03 28:59

That's a great question. And so neurologically, what happens is as humans, and this is probably the most important like hack uh of sports psychology, we're wired to, you know, we're we have just like we've evolved physically through you know uh survival of the fittest, we've also evolved psychologically, right? So we're we're wired a certain way. We're wired to survive, we're not wired to be performers, right? We're not wired to be the best athlete in the world. So because of that, the brain can't really see the difference between like a threat, like it sees us being attacked by like maybe like a lion or a burglar, it sees the same threat as like making a mistake, it cannot really distinguish the two. So as a result, when we when that happens, our brain goes into fire-flight mode, right? Um, when we make a mistake, and that's because since we sense that threat, go into that mode, and if you really think it makes sense. If you wanted to run away from a predator, what would you well what are the symptoms you would want, right? Or the the effects you would want. You would want your brain shooting at a million miles per hour, you'd want all the blood to go to your legs, right? That's why like our legs literally feel heavy, right? And you would want to be scared out of your mind to shoot that adrenaline and run away. And that's why when we, you know, let's say it's like taking a penalty kick in the last minute of the game, that making that mistake or that mistake or that threatening situation, we just like we just want to get away because we sense a threat. And that's really just a survival mechanism. Yeah, so kind of just piggyback off that real quick is like so we're in that survival fight or flight mode, and we developed these things called ants, right? Which I you know I've kind of uh borrowed from the great Dan Abrahams, uh, an inspiration of mine. And basically, what ants are are automatic negative thoughts. So we make a mistake and we get an automatic negative thought. We just our first reaction is I'm terrible. Like uh I'm an idiot, uh, what's wrong with me? That and that's it's automatic. We can't help it. Then it's negative, right? It's because again, we're perceiving threats, so we wanna our default is to be negative. Uh and the the tricky part about that is ants, when they come into our brain, if we can crush them in two seconds, then they usually don't come back. But if we wait and wait, they actually like accumulate and they they pile up, so it actually starts getting worse. So that's one of the reasons why we use like techniques to crush those ants within two seconds. Because if you do it like quick enough, it's as if it doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Jared, let me ask you this. What are some of those techniques that you've that you when you're working with the athletes and these ants come up? What are some of those techniques that you use or you teach your athletes to use? For sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Uh so the the hardest part about ants is the brain works in images. Okay. So the reason why I say that is when we make a mistake, we start saying to ourselves, stop making that mistake, stop doing that. And when we start saying don't do something, the first thing, again, our brain works in images, we see ourselves making that mistake again. And then it starts to to spiral. This is called the pink elephant effect, right? So if I tell you to not think of a pink elephant, what's the first thing you think of? Pink elephants. The pink elephant. It's the so that's why when you tell yourself stop making mistakes, it just doesn't work. Yeah. Um, so instead of outthinking our ants, right, we need to um we need to use our body to kind of like hack our minds, right? So there's that brain-body link, and how can we use our body to hack our mind into calming down, right? So, you know, when we're stressed, our brain sends signals to the body, uh, you know, it's fight or flight, and but we can like reverse those signals from the body to the brain. Okay, so uh some examples that we use again uh again, they're all based physiologically, are you know, we I think there's five main ones. Uh visualization is huge. Breathing is probably the most powerful one. And again, it's like when we are super stressed in our fight or flight, we're we want to breathe fast. But if we can slow and control our breathing, that will kind of calm our brain down. Uh, third one is our reset buttons, uh, fourth one's self-talk, and the fifth one is uh body language. And like I said, basically what all of these do is just send signals to the brain to calm down.

Five Tools To Reset Fast

SPEAKER_00 33:50

That's that's good. I I appreciate you sharing that. Um so Jared, in our our introduction segment, Jeff and I were talking a little bit about athletes overthinking, right? And that's that's kind of what we're talking about on the negative approach. But um, you know, we I I kind of use the phrase um, you know, paralysis by over analysis, right? Where a lot of times, you know, these kids are overthinking, or or I shouldn't say kids, athletes are overthinking to the point where that they don't know the direction to move, they don't know how to respond. What what do you think allows elite athletes to be able to decide quickly? That's a great question.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Um, well, kind of what I was alluding to a little before is that I believe that the most underrated skill for players, and and something that we're all struggling with, right? We're all performers, and we're all struggling with this, is that there's just too much noise and there's just not enough focus, right? The human brain is not designed to work on 10 things at the same time. Like it's not designed to listen to 10 people at the same time, right? Like you got the coach saying one thing, you have you know the you know, your teammates saying something else, your parent is saying something else. We are not designed to think that way. So I think the most underrated skills are control and clarity. If you can get clarity, then you have one half the battle. Um, so I think one method that definitely works for my athletes, and I've heard a lot of athletes talk about this too, is developing again uh from Den Abrahams something called a game fix. And essentially what we do with my with at NeuroFootball with our players is we kind of figure out okay, if I'm working with a player, I'll give them a bunch of words, like you know, just randomly assorted, and I'll say, which which words here make you feel the most powerful, like the most in control. Like when do you play your best? Look at these, and they'll give me one or two, like adjectives, and then okay, so we'll do that, and then I'll say, now let's visualize something that makes you also feel powerful, that makes you feel in the zone, and it could be an animal, it could be a player, it could be, you know, anything, but usually it's one of the two, like um, right? So uh just the method we use with that game face is you know, for one of my players, we developed that the that their game face is a focused, energetic cheetah. And now you don't have to worry necessarily about the game plan. Don't worry about what the coach is saying, don't even worry about if you're winning, don't even worry about if you're playing well. All I need from you is to be an energetic, focused cheetah for 90 minutes. If you can do that, everything else will just everything else will work out the way we want it to.

Decision Speed Through Clarity And Reps

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah, because that's the kind of that's the state of mind that they feel most comfortable in um to perform at a high level. I I like that. Um, I mean, these are all great. I mean, visually visualization, breathing, uh, I I had a feeling positive self-talk would come up. I feel like in today's day and age, that's just it's hard. Um, you know, and then a lot of kids, I mean, heck, I don't think kids these days have much can they don't feel like they have much control over anything. I mean, we talked about controlling what you can control. And, you know, a lot of times, um, if I'm picking up what you're putting down, like you can control the state of mind that your body is in when you get ready to perform. But I think you have to train that way. Um, let me ask you this. Um, I there's there's ways in in sports that you can do this, but what do you can you train your brain to make uh quick like split second decisions? Like, how do you train to make quick decisions?

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Without a doubt, without a doubt. I mean, you you know, you guys are are baseball, uh, baseball guys, and it's across all sports, really. It's like you have to make it's they're decision intensive. And again, I was no I was no good at baseball. I was freaking terrible. But I'm pretty sure when you see a ball is curving a certain way, you have to make a decision. How where how am I gonna contact this ball, right? So you gotta make decisions fast. Now, I think a lot of it is repetition, like in terms of like game IQ, but I definitely believe that it's about having giving knowing what the options are, right? That's the first thing, like, and a coach should help you out with that a little bit. Sure. Having options, then having being in the right psychological frame of mind, I scientifically proven to increase the increase the speed and the accuracy of your decision making. So I definitely believe that's a big part. Um, and then the third part is just obviously reps, right? Yeah, and I think you build confidence through reps as well. It just depends on what it is, but I think those are those are the key ways. Um, and I kind of mentioned that as well. So in soccer, it's a little bit difficult to build those decision-making reps, right? Because the the same 22 players are not going to be in the same positions no matter what. The pass is not gonna be the same, yeah. But with visualization, if you uh when you imagine something, 90% of those neurons are firing as if they're really happening. So we we can't really tell the difference, like our brain. So if you can also visualize being in certain situations over and over again, you're gonna start feeling more comfortable in them and you're gonna start trusting yourself more. So that's definitely a good stuff a good start. And then I would say from there, you have to also expose yourself to that real situation as many times as possible. As a soccer coach, um, one of the best advices you can do for you know a coach is put the player in a dis in a position where they have to make a decision, don't just tell them what the decision is.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

So another thing that I think about a lot of times with this, you know, when you when we're talking about the the mental aspect of it, you know, is is you hear the phrase like mental leakage, right? Where we're we're you know what what to you how would you define what mental leakage is for an athlete?

SPEAKER_03 40:11

That's a great question. And you know, I'm a big fan of reverse engineering, right? I that's just how I think like you understand where you played your best, and then you know, once you understand when do I play my best, and you may say, well, today I didn't play my best. So identifying what was the what was the block there, what what was causing the issue? Because we all know when we play our best, we all know when we had a terrible game. Yeah, uh, so it's kind of identifying what that is and being really like concrete with it. Um, if that makes sense, you know. Uh yeah, yeah. It's not yeah, so yeah.

Youth Sports Pressure And The Perfect Storm

SPEAKER_00 40:53

I got you. So let's let's segment a little bit, you know. Uh for me, so uh Jeff, so just to clarify, Jeff's the baseball guy. I'm I'm the I'm the football guy, the uh uh American football.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Uh yeah, we're used to a different pitch than you are, and he's used to a different football than you are.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

No, I'm just kidding. But um, but for me specifically, like I've spent the last seven years coaching youth football, and and that's you know, so youth sports specifically, you know, that's kind of my heart, you know, and so I you know, that's that's kind of the whole premise and why we started this podcast. But um specifically speaking to that, you know, with youth athletes um in general, do you feel like younger athletes are facing mental pressure earlier than like ever before? I'm so glad you asked that question.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

Because it's right now we are experiencing the perfect storm for players and parents in youth sports. It's the perfect storm. It's really um so just to kind of dive back a little bit, right? So when you play in Europe, right, it's a completely different system. And the system is essentially like clubs are subsidized by the government for the most part. Um, but when you play for a club, even if you're 10 years old, that club owns your playing rights. Now, the reason why I say that is it sounds like a bad thing that they own your playing rights, right? But you kind of get like little contracts, and but because they own your playing rights, if another team wants to come and scoop you, even if you're only 12 years old, that club needs to buy you. Okay, they need to like basically uh pay up a release cost. So, because of that, for clubs to have like a profitable business system, their the concept there is develop the player and then sell them. Like there's some players who've been s who are sold for like 250 million dollars.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

So what yeah, like the the call that NIL money in the in the States now, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

NIL, yeah, yeah. But but the thing is, unfortunately, uh from my understanding, right? It's like let's say a kid's gonna go play a Clemson, uh let's say he's playing basketball or something like that, or football for that matter, they're not gonna pay the high school club that money. Whereas in in Europe, that's the way it works.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

If there's a paying the club directly, gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

So yeah, exactly. So you're paying the club directly, so therefore, their business incentive is to develop the player as much as they can, not because they like the player, but because that's good that's how they make money. Now, the reason why I say that is that in the United States, that is not really on the table, right? They don't own the players' rights, and no one would generally buy American players for millions of dollars anyway. So, because of that, to keep the lights on as a club, where does that money come from? And sadly, that's the parents, right? That's just the truth. You know, and what does that cause? So that causes clubs to bloat the roster sizes uh and charge put parents really up front. So the reason why I say that is that it creates way more extra pressure on the parent to get to get uh the parent to get their their money worth, right? Because like at the end of the day, if I'm paying 10 grand for baseball, I want I want something out of it.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

Um and and that pressure, more often than not, kind of resonates towards the player whether they want that to happen or not. And then on top of that, because they bloated the roster sizes so much, like I've seen soccer teams with like 25 kids, so only 11 play at the time at a at one time, so you're gonna automatically have 14 kids unhappy. And it creates, you know, uh, so that's kind of the first aspect of it. Is like I don't think clubs really develop like player-centric environments for the most part, and then kind of the more societal aspect to it is you know, the the kids are living through a more digital age, they're probably less mentally skilled than they've ever been, right? Like you just you just don't see kids hanging out with the older neighbor playing basketball like he used to, and they wouldn't get that experience. Then on top of that, so they're less skilled than ever, they have more comparison than ever because they're seeing like these 15-year-olds on TikTok with millions of views, and then they're also sold by these clubs, oh, you're gonna be amazing, you're gonna be this, you're gonna be that. But in reality, the club's just selling you to you know to register you, pick up the registration fee, and now you're competing with 26 kids. And without a doubt, at least 50% of those kids are gonna feel not as good as they as they want to.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, uh, as you talk about the soccer industry, it it's the same with the travel baseball industry, it's the same as you know, the football industry as you're coming up through elementary, you're playing for high school in fifth grade, fourth grade, third grade. Like all the all that pressure is like, I gotta be good now so I can compete when I get to that level. Like, it's tough. I mean, you throw in social media and that, like the kids are watching, you know, um this doesn't happen anymore because MCA changed the rules, but you're watching 13, 14-year-olds commit to play power five baseball, football, and you know, that creates a lot of pressure. Like and the pressure that it creates, Jarrett, is like it's a subtle pressure. They see it and they're like, okay, now I have to go out and do that, or I'm gonna miss the boat. You know, and I think you know, that's where uh coaches and parents can kind of insert themselves in and you know, kind of help uh build the decision making of the player and the mental aspect of the player to hey, that's all fine and then to have those dreams, and we need to focus on here the now. So let me ask you this you know, what is the parents and coaches' role in building decision makers instead of you know um uh fear-based players?

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Yeah, I mean, uh so I before I touch the before I answer that, I just want to also say too, it's just a little bit different in the soccer space uh than other spaces from my understanding. Uh, because I don't really understand baseball and football as well as I probably should. But but the reason why I say that is because you don't get scouted from high school at all. You only get scouted from playing for like club teams. Yeah. And so because you are scouted from the club teams, the club teams, I I kid you not, I have heard of parents paying over 30 grand a year for club soccer. Like that, I've heard that. I think on average it's around 10 to 20. You know, weekends are committed, yeah. So so that's the that's the layer I'm talking about, like the extra layer as well. And it's called like the sunk cost fallacy. I don't know, uh you know, but but essentially, like the more that you you invest, the more you're gonna want to get out, and that creates the ironically, it creates that pressure, right? Like, I guess kind of in the best uh comparison would be like, you know, if you're an Olympic athlete, right, and you're training for four years, you're gonna want to perform well, you know, when you're doing that that Olympic dive. Yeah, but ironically, that training has put so much pressure on you that you're performing the worst when you need it the most. So it's just this it's totally illogical.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

So where do you like in the and that's where you come in, that's where travel coaches come in, that's where parents come in. What role this is I want you to speak to our listeners, just forget sport, baseball, football, basketball, soccer, whatever it is. Like, what's your message to players and parents to help the athlete combat that or get through it in order to kind of stay on track to what's most important?

SPEAKER_03 48:54

Yeah, sorry to to sidetrack there. Um, but what I would say, you know, it's it's a little bit harsh, right? Like the reality is we it's a competitive space, an extremely competitive space, and really no one owes you anything in this space. Like the coach is not in charge of your development. I think you guys probably can relate as much as coaches want to help players, but for the most part, they just don't have the bandwidth to help every single player with every single specific issue. We'd love to, we just can't, right? So for you to rely on the coach, uh, I think is it's just a risky proposition, number one. Like you're responsible for your own development, right? Everyone is responsible for their own development. So I would say it's great to have the coach help you, um, but again, they they have other responsibilities. Um from the parents' perspective, I can just say from my own experience, I had the best dad in the world when it came to this type of stuff. And the reason why he was the best dad in the world is because he played semi-pro hockey and he understood the levels it takes to make a career out of a sport, and that it's it's so close to zero, it might as well be zero. So he would come up to he'd uh he'd come to my games and he was so hands-off he wouldn't believe it. Like all he cared about was, and really it's the the role of the parent is to make the player feel like they're loved and valued no matter what the result is, because once they have that, then they have the freedom to make mistakes. Um, and it's really about giving them like that solid grounding, like you're good no matter what, just do your best. Yeah. Um, and then once that happens, they have the freedom to make mistakes. Because if you don't have that freedom to make mistakes, it's never gonna work out.

Multi-Sport Identity And Less Mental Fragility

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Yeah, amen. Jerry, I kind of thinking about this, like we're we're we're talking about football, baseball, soccer. Um, and it just kind of triggered a thought that I think Jeff and I ask a lot of our guests, you know, as far as you know, especially in the in the youth sport, you know, sector, you see a lot of kids specializing in in one specific sport early, right? Um, and you know, like for my approach as a parent, you know, my my oldest, he's football, baseball, basketball, whatever season it is, he's playing that. But um do you how do you feel like do you I guess let me ask you this way do you feel like a multi-sport athlete, being a multi-sport athlete helps that mental approach, or do you feel like specializing in a specific sport early is a is a better mental approach as far as you know like dealing with what we what we've discussed today?

SPEAKER_03 51:51

You know before I answer that, I made a video on that. Did you why you shouldn't specialize too early? Yeah, and it got 3.6 million views. It got like over a thousand comments because people in the the reason why I blew up is parents were fighting like tooth and nail about what you should do. Yeah, I didn't think it was that controversial, you know. Um I strongly believe that it depends on the sport too. Like, let's not get it too twisted. Um, like if you're gonna be a gymnast, right, and like your actual peak is like at 15, then you're gonna probably want to start a little bit earlier, you know?

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

And and it also depends on the technical fit, like the technical importance of a sport. Usually the more technical you are, the more you're gonna want to specialize. But in terms of the mental aspect, right? Um, you know, from the sport, I believe, like let's say you're a pitcher, right? If you start pitching at five years old, right, first of all, you're gonna develop asymmetries. Uh, and second of all, by the time you're 22 years old, you're gonna get Tommy Johnson, you're gonna throw your shoulder out because you've been doing it for like you have millions of more pitches than other people. Um, so I think that's one aspect. The second aspect is if you look at the top athletes, like most of them were multi-sport athletes. Don't I don't care what anybody thinks. Like Christian Ronaldo and Messi did play only soccer, but O'Bron played football. Djokovic was actually a monster skier. Um, same thing with Yannick Sinner, helped with their lateral movement. Um, but Nadal was uh was a soccer player. I mean, you know, there's other examples. Um uh let's see, you know, you then you yeah, so there's many examples, but they kind of um you know, they cross, they they they help each other out. And but the reason why I think mentally to kind of come back to it is what happens with athletes is when you have your entire identity wrapped up in one thing, that essentially creates like a big I call like a cliff, right? Because the higher the more you care about this one moment, the higher the the deeper the fall is gonna be. Yeah. So when your identity is in one pitch or your identity is why uh locked up in one sport or one performance, that's usually not a good thing. But if you can kind of diversify what your your identity is, and I wouldn't just keep it in sports, like you know, it could be being a brother, it could be you know being a student, it could be all these different types of things, then you don't feel as your like identity is threatened every time you make a pitch, if that makes sense.

One Thing To Start Tomorrow

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Yeah, I think the biggest thing with multi-sports is your body's trained differently. When your body's trained differently, it's challenged differently. Yeah, the mental game in baseball is different from soccer, football, basketball. So, like you're almost using that brain as a muscle and you're training different pieces of it. You're learning how to, you know, react and solve different uh you know problems equal to plays, if you will. So I think it's easy. I mean, every guest we've had on says says multi-sports. So I don't know where some people get lost in the mix over time, but um, you know, I that's a pretty common answer that we do get to that question. Let me ask you this, and we'll wrap with this, Jarrett. Um we've talked a lot about the mental side. Um, and for our listeners out there, if there's one thing that they could start tomorrow, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 55:24

For me, it's all about having a plan. Like, if I could be honest, it's like, okay, so I'm in figure out where you are in terms of A. Understand where you want to go for B, and then it's like, how do I develop the steps to build that progress? And the reason why I say that is it might be you know the missing gap in your game is the mental game, and maybe you should get a mental coach, but maybe you're physically weak, and like you need you need to start hitting the gym, my friend. So it's about understanding where where are you at, where you need to go, and what's the biggest gap, uh, and how do we how do we fix that? So um I just say that that's the quickest action item, um, just because I see so many technical players are amazing with the ball, and that's all they practice because it feels good to them, right? Yeah, guys who are strong stay in the gym because they're like, ah, well, this is you know, this is good for me. But is it truly good for your game? So figuring out what's truly good for your game, um, and and kind of like attacking that uh as quickly as you can, I I'd say that's solid.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

That's solid, man. I I I I like that. Make a plan. That's uh that's good. I I wrote that down. That's a that's a solid note. Um, Jared, where where can our guests find you? How how can they, you know, if they have questions or want to reach out to you directly, how how can they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_03 56:51

Uh they can find me uh, you know, we're all over social media. Um, but really the best place if you want to reach out is just neurofootball.com. So neuro with uh dashfootball.com. Um, you know, we're definitely um you know, there's contacts there that and you know if you would want to um, you know, just kind of wanted to mention this as well. We also have not only do we do private coaching, but we also have the NeuroFootball Academy, which you can find there too. And really what that is is just a subscription, it's basically you get three main services once you sign up. Uh, you get a community of like-minded players for like kind of like a support system, you get gamified learning, so it's essentially players get, you know, they get like profiled in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, kind of like a it's like a video game experience. So you get like your stats of like, okay, I'm low on confidence, but I'm really good at this. Um, and then it kind of takes you through like a video game experience where it's like, okay, this video module is is you know, video series is the best for you. Go through challenges, pick up, you know, like upgrades and level up. Um so that's kind of gamified um the gamified learning. And then the last part of it too is if you feel like that's not good enough for you, uh like that's just not like hitting the parts that you need, then you also get discounts with or you know get members' rates for one-on-one coaching too. So it's kind of like a way to to help me coach you or to help you be coached, even when we're not together. Like you might have three sessions a month, but when you are kind of going away from your uh going away from our like our strong habits, it kind of centers you back into that.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

That's awesome, Jerry. Well, I I greatly appreciate you uh you spending some time with us um on this episode and uh a lot of a lot of fantastic information. Um, and I I'm excited for our listeners to get to to dive into this and uh and hear everything. So thank you so much for for spending this evening with us. Guys, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 59:01

Uh really appreciate it. And uh yeah, no, it's always a pleasure.

Host Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_01 59:05

Awesome. Thanks, Jared. Well, you know, Chris, I always love the mental aspect of any sport, um, whether it's soccer, football, baseball, I think it's applicable across the board no matter what you're going through. And, you know, like we talked about, you know, throughout that interview with Jarrett, you know, it knows no age and no sport. So let's hit this. What what are a couple takeaways from from Jarrett that that really struck home with you and that you can kind of take on with you?

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Yeah, so uh for me specifically, I think kind of kind of big picture for me, one of the things that really hit home with me that he said was too much noise, not enough clarity, right? Like speaking on on athletes of all levels, right? You know, what he was talking about, there's coaches and parents and teammates, and you know, so many, so many outliers that are just constantly, you know leaving an impression mentally on the on the athlete and uh and not enough focus, right? All that all that is not allowing an athlete to to focus on on their mental you know their mental game like it should. Um I I really like that point. And then, you know, uh kind of a let's let's call it an actionable um you know takeaway that something that you know our our listeners and athletes could take away is you know was you know to make a plan, right? To figure out what your plan is as far as you want to go, but then also you know, to find your gap. Like where where do you fall short as an athlete, you know, what whatever that is, if it's if it's physical strength, if it's mental, you know, and then focus on those and and try to bridge that gap for your for your success. Those uh those two points that he he said really really resounded with me. Um what about you? What are what are two takeaways that you took from it?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

Yeah, I really, really liked um the ants, the automatic negative thoughts. And you know, those have a tendency to creep in at any time. I mean, they can creep in from pitch to pitch, play to play, um, you know, and they can creep in when you make a mistake. And I really liked where he went with the five the five keys to combat that um visualization, breathing, hitting the reset button, self-talk, positive self-talk at that. Um, and then our body language. Um, you know, and a lot of those can be controlled. And we've talked a lot about, you know, there's a lot of things in sports that we can't control, uh, but there are a few things we can. And when those automatic negative thoughts hit, you know, you've got those five um those five five ways to combat it. Um you know, and then I really liked, you know, just some things that he said about, you know, some common mental blocks across athletes in sports. And I I think it's important, you know, there was a lot of a lot of soccer talk in there, but you know, performance anxiety is a thing across all sports. Um fragile self-confidence is you know across all sports, you know, one mistake leading to another, all those things, snowball. Um you know, and I really think it's important, you know, for parents and coaches to, you know, understand that athletes that we're in contact with and that we are working with are going to go through these things. And I feel like it's our job to, you know, have a recogn a recognition of, hey, when this happens, this is what I can I can tell Harlow or Brooks eventually or the players we're we're working with, hey, visualize, breathe, hit the reset button. So, you know, I think that's a big, a big important role that we can play um in the mental game process too. Because, you know, at at their age, they're not going to think about you know, these high-level ways to combat, you know, to have an elite mental state. So if we can get them thinking down the right path, um, I think that kind of that kind of sets it off. So look, I thought it was a great episode. I thought Jared was Jared was great. And you know, I we made a joke in there that I'm used to a different pitch and you're used to a different football, but you know, it was there's a lot in there that a lot of parents can kind of parents and players can kind of pull out. So we appreciate you guys listening in um to this episode. Um hit that subscribe button if you um like what we're doing. Um follow us on social media, um, and then we will have all the links to to Jarrett's stuff in our show notes. Until next time, this is Jeff alongside Chris Mullins. See you guys next time.