The Coach U Podcast

This podcast is about being curious and learning from others. Tune in for insightful conversations with some of the brightest professionals in their field. It's my hope that you walk away from this podcast with something learned that can help you evolve in your life. Along with great conversations, I will be releasing episodes about life. We all deal with a lot and we don't often talk about things that need to be talked about. I am hoping through my explanation of experiences, you can relate. My goal is to connect with other human beings so they know they are not alone in this thing called life. I will always encourage people to create a better environment for themselves and to constantly come back to U. That's where your superpowers are. U just have to learn how to use them :) Remember, always Own U, Love U and Be U. My name is Coach U, and I welcome U to our podcast!

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The Coach U Podcast

The Game Changer - Mental Performance Matters

March 21, 2025 • Coach U

Unleashing Mental Performance: Insights with Krystina Bertolone | CoachU Podcast

In this episode of the CoachU Podcast, host Coach U dives into the realm of mental performance with Krystina Bertolone, owner and founder of Game Changers Mental Performance. They explore the importance of mental toughness, resilience, and the impact of mindset on daily life and sports performance. Key topics include:
- Definition and significance of mental performance
- Building mental resilience and overcoming challenges
- The role of curiosity in personal growth
- Addressing self-judgment and victim mentality
- Effective communication and creating positive team culture
- Practical tools and exercises for enhancing mental performance

00:00 Introduction to CoachU Podcast
00:21 Meet Krystina Bertolone: Mental Performance Expert
00:32 The Importance of Mental Performance
00:57 Personal Journey and Mental Resilience
02:00 Understanding Mental Performance
02:41 Challenges in Communication and Team Culture
03:50 Curiosity and Overcoming the Victim Role
06:21 Rapid Fire Questions with Krystina
09:42 Diving Deep into Mental Performance
18:41 Judgment vs. Curiosity
30:27 The Role of Vulnerability in Mental Performance
34:19 The Power of Feelings and Safety
35:04 Impact of Safe Environments on Performance
36:51 Mental Performance and Emotional Awareness
40:31 Turning Reactions into Responses
43:46 Proactive Mindset and Coping Strategies
46:59 Learning from Mistakes and Evolving
01:02:09 The Role of Social Media and Authenticity
01:05:15 Rediscovering the Joy of Creation
01:06:34 Humanizing the Athlete
01:08:50 Navigating Pain, Stress, and Anxiety
01:10:25 Building Habits and Coping Skills
01:15:55 Reflecting on Growth and Evolution
01:24:31 Empowering Productive Communication
01:36:58 Workshops, Presentations, and Keynotes
01:38:24 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

0:00

Hey everybody. This is the coach you podcast, and I'm your host coach. You, this podcast is about being curious, learning from others and using what we've learned to evolve every single day.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 0:18

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to the CoachU Podcast. In today's episode, we're going to be joined by Krystina Bertolone, who is the owner and founder of Game Changers Mental Performance. So, what is mental performance? We're going to cover that and we're going to cover a lot more. But before we go into that, I want to talk about what life is like and how mental performance can help you. Because it's not just about helping yourself on the field, but it's actually more so about helping yourself feel great and understanding how you can live the best version of yourself in your life. Life isn't always easy, and I can tell you that. It's full of setbacks, it's full of challenges, both mental and physical. And things, as you get older, seem to just keep getting thrown at you. And I had to build my own mental toughness and mental resilience and mental performance, if you will. It's not easy, and it's not easy to do alone, and I didn't do it alone. In fact, I went to therapy. I started meditating with the guidance. I started writing in my journal and talking to friends who I trust. I wouldn't be here in this position now if I wasn't surrounded by those who were rooting for me instead of pulling me down. One thing I want you to realize is mental performance and mental toughness and resiliency is not about avoiding it. It's actually about going through the struggle and understanding it, understanding your path and how you process it because that's so important. We're all individual. Just like I said in the open of this episode it's all about being curious and learning from others because every single one of us goes through our own journey. We go through it in our own way. And it's important that we understand how we function, how our brains function, because that's going to help you get through life. Everybody else around you isn't going to do it for you, no matter how close they are to you or how much they love you. It's up to you. So let's dive into this episode and see what we're going to cover today. First of all, it's not about suppressing emotions. Growth happens when we lean into it and when we get support for it. So being able to go through the process, go through the failures, go through the obstacles that give us, those bad feelings or maybe give us feelings of anxiety or depression because those are real. And when you play sports, especially at a higher level. You're going to have pressure on yourself. So how do you deal with it? How do you deal with it when you're not feeling great? How do you deal with it when you're really feeling great? Because the highs and lows will come and go and it's up to you to understand how you process and What goes on in your brain so that way you can function at the best highest capable possibility for yourself I love Krystina's take on teamwork, understanding how to communicate to one another because I don't think it's really taught anymore. We're not really about communication much anymore. And that's tough. It's really hard to see because I've worked with a lot of kids and a lot of these kids don't have the ability to communicate, to have conversations, to process thoughts. And it's up to us as coaches. It's up to us as leaders to help those kids to understand how to process because it can be so overwhelming. We're also going to talk about creating a positive culture around your team, because that is such a key thing when we're in the trenches, when we're in that game, when we're in the practice, and things aren't going our way. And especially if you're a student athlete, you're going to have to deal with school, you're gonna have to deal with friends, you're gonna have to deal with social media, all of those things, that doesn't even count you having to practice, you having to perform on the court, off the court, on the field, off the field, whatever you play, whatever you do. And this doesn't just go for athletes, if you're a performer in any sort, if you're an artist, if you play the piano, if you're an actor, these are huge things that we go through as well. Like you're going to have these thoughts, you're going to have these moments of brain processing. So how do you handle it in the moment? One thing we cover also is curiosity. And I think that's one of my favorite things. And it's honestly how I've gotten through life and I'm not going to say just gotten through life, but it's how I've prospered. I've been curious instead of not knowing, or instead of feeling stupid, like I used to, I used to feel dumb for not knowing something, but now it's about being curious, being open to not knowing and being okay with that. Because first of all, there's no way we can know everything. And. And that's part of the process. You learn, you're curious. My slogan is fail, learn and evolve. And if you're not curious, you're not going to be able to do that. You're just going to fail and then you're going to stay stuck and then you're going to play the victim role. We also talk about the victim role and how you can stop doing that to yourself because you're doing yourself a disservice as a human and then to others because you're holding back on what you're great at and you're holding that away from the world and the world does need to see the best version of you because that inspires other people to be great as well. And that's what we want. We want to be surrounded by greatness. Krystina also touches on reactions and being able to respond as opposed to just being reactive. Krystina also loves getting her athletes uncomfortable, and I think that's so important because the more uncomfortable you get, the more you expose yourself to uncomfortable situations or conversations, the easier it gets because you realize that it just takes practice, just like you shooting a hoop, just like you swinging a bat, just like you learning how to To snowboard, all of these things, they take practice, they take time and they take failures, but they also take that ability for you to step back and say, you know what? That's part of the process. I'm going to continue to get better. And eventually it's not as scary and you become much more efficient and comfortable with it. Okay, without further ado, we're going to hop right into this episode with Krystina Byrd Alone of Game Changers Mental Performance, and I hope you guys like this episode. If you do, please remember to subscribe. I would love to see you guys in there chatting. Please ask questions, and I will see you on the other side. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the coach you podcast today. We're being joined by Krystina Bert alone. She is a mental performance coach. She's the daughter of a football and wrestling coach, a former athlete. She's a school college scholarship pitcher. ShE played softball. You started out in the education system. You became a mental performance coach. And you're the owner of game changers, mental performance coaching, where it's about mindset, team culture, and leadership coaching. So Krystina, thank you for joining the show. Welcome.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 6:19

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 6:21

We're going to start with some really quick, rapid questions. What is your favorite TV show of all time?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 6:27

It's a toss up between the Big Bang Theory and The Office.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 6:30

What about your favorite band or musician?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 6:33

It's an eclectic of music all time favorite I'll go back to Rascal Flatts country. I could listen to them anytime, anywhere.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 6:40

What's your favorite thing about working with people in the mental performance field? I

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 6:46

I think it's definitely the conversations and it's conversations maybe with people that I never thought I'd cross paths with. It's brought me to, to, into rooms that I never thought that I'd walk into. And yeah for ever I've been, a teacher and a high school coach myself, and I never thought that I'd be able to work with some. Some sports like I do and whether it's male or female, I think those, that's been the biggest kind of like awesome moment for me is just getting in these rooms and have, and being a part of some of these conversations have been really just game changing for my own life.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 7:23

I'm excited to dive into all of those game changing moments with you. We are going to get to that real quick. I want to do the impact deck. And so if you haven't heard of the impact deck, it's this cool little deck of cards and there's different things, the impact of actions, reflections, and then the last one is affirmations. So we're going to, we're going to just draw a random one here and we're going to see what comes up. Can you commit to solving a problem that's been bugging you for a while? Give yourself a timeline and what can you give us an example of something that maybe you've been trying to problem solve for a while and how would you go about committing yourself to that timeline?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 7:57

It's funny that the universe brings you things when you know you need it. So I've been struggling for a while with like my own sense of routine. Being on the road. 24 seven. I literally live if I'm not in my Nissan Rogue, I'm in Airbnb, I'm in a hotel, I literally I'm in a hotel right now. Or I'm on someone's couch and I feel like a sense of. Like ungrounding, if that makes sense. I just feel like I have a personal foundation, like my business foundation, like that's fine. I miss having a breakfast that's not in a to go cup. I just, I miss being able to be lazy with a cup of coffee, and I understand how long it takes to build a habit. I understand, like I being in the mental performance world, I get all of that stuff. I am so much better at teaching it than I am at doing it. And yesterday was a big day of Krystina, you gotta start practicing what you preach because my, I feel like a bit chaotic right now. Yeah, committing to, setting up shop somewhere for the next two to three months and just getting back to the things that are important to me which I didn't think were important until they were taken away from me. So now I know I'm not so much a homebody, but I'm definitely somebody who values a sense of routine and I need to get, I need to get back to that.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 9:18

I think it's so important that you brought that up too with routine. It's something, even mental performance coaches, strength training coaches personal trainers, Everyone goes through the ruts and the difference ebbs and flows in their life and having that structure of the main things you can always fall back on, whatever those things are, it's so important because that helps keep you, like you said, grounded, like you felt ungrounded. And I think that's just such a clutch thing to talk about. So I'm glad you brought that up. So let's move on to mental performance. Just straight up mental performance first is a big topic obviously in a nutshell. What is it? What do you describe it as?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 9:55

So when I talk with People about mental performance. I talk about how you perform mentally, right? So literally just take the two words. Let's not make it, complicated. It's. The thoughts you think become the words you speak, the words you speak the actions you do. And it really does start in the head. I will say that in my studies over the last three years, I have realized that mental performance is so much more than just mental. Like it obviously also involves your physicality, socially and emotionally that plays such a big role into mental performance. But the gist of mental is how do you show up every single day? And how do you get through not just the hard times, but also the good times and the easy times, mental performance is not just for when you're struggling. Mental performance is all day, every day, 24, 7, 3 65. So I, a lot of athletes, when I work with some athletes one on one, I feel like sometimes I only get called when things are going wrong. And it's I want athletes to realize, because like me, I'm no longer an athlete. I was an athlete. I did that. I'm 39 and I will say mental performance. For me, it's like my number one priority in my own life as I walk through, every single day I wake up and it's I'm just very aware of my thoughts. I'm aware of my feelings. And I feel like the stuff that I get to do with athletes and, coaching staffs and athletic departments. It's stuff that I do in my everyday life. I'll probably refer this word several times today, but it's been a game changer. And that's why game changers is, that's why I named my business game changers, because I want to help athletes. I just, I want to help humans, right? Like you could be an athlete, you could be a coach and be a parent. I want some form of my content to help you realize Oh, like I could do that. And then it's like that light bulb moment. So when I work with whoever it is I'm working with, I want mental performance to be the, like the aha mental, like the light bulb moment, the, this is going to change my game, or this is a game changer. And it could be the littlest thing. It could be a routine of things. It could be a series of things, but I definitely want, I want mental performance to be something that helps people perform in their everyday lives, not just in the gym, on the field, on the court. It just for life,

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 12:15

Why is it in your opinion? And what have you seen it be to be effective? Why is it so effective?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 12:23

we're now giving people space to realize that, like what they're thinking it's what they're thinking is plausible, right? I don't know about you, but I grew up in the time where it was like a lot of like mental toughness was mental performance, right? Like you just sucked it up. And although I feel like at times that was great. Now, looking back I really wish somebody would have just, Allowed me to feel that allowed me to think that allowed me to be in it. And then allow me to move through it because, being in, in my late thirties now, it's like, there's a lot of repressed emotions, and, or a lot of thoughts where it's like, Oh, I shouldn't be thinking that. And a lot of like judgmental thoughts I like of myself. And I feel like I got into the space because I no longer wanted to be that judgmental version of myself where I was judging myself. Judging myself for having a hard day, judging myself for having a rest day, judging myself for making mistakes. Instead, I want to be More like in, in that curiosity, accepting space. And then, once you're curious about, what you're thinking or what you're feeling. And once, once you accept it, it's then you can just move through it because it's a, it's something that you experienced. It's not the be all end all. So I feel like it's effective because. It allows people to, to feel like, Oh, like I'm normal. This is normal. And let me just work through it. But I feel like the more we have conversations about it, the more people be like, Oh it's like that connective piece. It's Oh, you feel like that too? Or some of my most favorite conversations or witnessing of conversations when I work with teens, it's like kids or athletes look at each other and they're like, Oh, I didn't know you felt that way. And it's boom, we've just opened up. This whole world where it's like we can connect with each other and we can empathize and sympathize and see people for who they are, which is like free thinking, free feeling human beings. And then it allows us to, to help each other like work through those hard times and share those experiences. So I think it's, I think right now the mental performance world is like booming. Cause everyone's looking for that next thing. And I do feel like sometimes it gets that stigma of a quick fix. And I'm here to say Oh, it is not once you dive into mental performance, it is. Ever evolving every single day, you learn new things every single day. You're like, Oh my God, I didn't even realize that. And I think that it brings you on such a path of like enlightenment and like the best way possible. But it's hard. And I feel like in this space that we're in right now, a lot of people are just looking for the easy things. And don't get me wrong. I look for easy too. That's what humans do, right? The quick fix, the instant gratification. Yeah. But I feel like when mental performance training is truly effective, it's something that's practiced and preached daily.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 15:07

You mentioned the old school mentality of, that, suck it up, get it done. Let's ignore the feelings, let's ignore what's going on internally. Do you see any merit to any piece of that being a part of mental performance versus what we're doing? What's more accepted now in terms of we're, like you said, we're open we're allowing space. Do you see any benefit? versus the other.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 15:35

I feel like it's all about perspective. Like I'm never here to tell somebody that they can or cannot do something. Either they can or they can't do something. I never want to be the person that says something's right or wrong, because I feel like unless you walked in someone's shoes, like you don't really know. So for some people like suppressing it in the moment and being like, toughing, toughening it out. Maybe that works for them. But for me, I will say growing up, I wish I could have expressed my feelings a little bit more and I wish I could have explored that. And I wish I could have just been okay with being sad or being angry instead of being so judgmental about it. I always tell kids, I'm not a believer that there's good choices and bad choices out there. I think that there are choices and paths. So you're going to make a choice. You're going to walk back. If that path serves you, if you like what is going down that path, if that path is bringing you joy, then stay on that path. But if it's not, instead of getting judgmental and angry and shut down, you have to make a different choice. And that goes back to like where, when you pulled your, the action card earlier, action is so difficult for people. And I feel like mental performance gives you the pathway to make those choices, or it gives you the guidance to make those choices. It makes choices more like it makes choices appear more to you. The choices that you can make, whether you make them or not, like that's free will. Like you, you, may never, you may know the choice that you have to make, but you can never physically do it. So I feel mental toughness, like people who are like, really want to be tough about it. If that works for you, then do it. Like you're going to figure it out somewhere along the line, whether or not it helped you or hurt you. Whether it was, an asset for your athletic career or a liability for your athletic career. And only each individual person can make that call. But I will say the one thing that I love seeing nowadays is all of these professional and like these Olympian athletes coming out with mindfulness and breath work and meditation and like going to therapy and it's look at what it's doing for them. And now I'm not going to say it's, that's, it's going to do that for everybody. But as somebody who goes to therapy, as somebody who does breath work, as somebody who does engage in those activities, I know that like when I have to make really tough choices and when I'm in the thick of adversity and I feel like, the world is crumbling around me. If I could just tune into those coping mechanisms, I'm much more likely to come out on the other side. Feeling calm or feeling like empowered that I can make a choice. But before I knew all these coping skills, like I literally would just feel like the world is ending and I would be paralyzed in making a So I think, people are going to do what they want to do always at the end of the day. But if we could just put some information out there, you know, information is the key, right? So I think everybody gets to make their own choice of what they want to do. But the more information out there, the better it's going to be for athletes trying to, move through some of these, this discomfort and some of the things that they experience.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 18:43

You said about judgment of yourself. So you no longer wanted to judge yourself for having the feelings and the thoughts. When it comes to judgment of yourself, when it comes to the thoughts and the feelings that go on internally, I think it's, I go through it too because it's wow, did I really just think that? Or do I think that of myself or where that thought come from? How does it affect you? And how have you seen it help others to talk about being self judging in a, like a negative light?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 19:12

So I think this, I discovered this like early on, like when I started therapy, years ago, where I was very judgmental of myself. And it was always a question for my therapist. She's do you realize that you're so judgmental? And I'm just like, I'm not judgmental. This is just how I am. And she's Oh, Sweetie, no, this isn't how you are. This is a learned behavior. So it's like you, you then have one of those out of body experiences where you start going back and you're like, when did I become this way? And listen, I grew up in a loving home, a loving family, but yeah, I grew up in the daughter of a football and a wrestling coach. Feelings were not allowed to be felt. And no shade to my father. It just, that was, I think as an adult, I also look at like how, like my parents were brought up, and like how their parents were brought up. So it's being curious and no longer judgmental, you take the blame off of other people. And I think that we live in a world where it's being a victim is way easier than being a hero. So when you're judgmental of yourself or you're judgmental of your thoughts, or you're judgmental of your feelings. It's easy to blame what you're experiencing on external circumstances. So for me, it was like, I was unhappy and I was unhappy with my teaching career. I just wasn't in a good position. I was a teacher for 15 years. I think I started therapy like around the year of 13. I was really unhappy. In my space, I had like administrators that I didn't agree with. I had co like the normal stuff. And you just start judging yourself Krystina, you shouldn't be feeling this way. Or Oh, wow. Like maybe what they do say about me is true. And it's no, like when you become curious, you become aware of what's going on. And it's so for me, I will say, that helped me way in the beginning was when I really wanted to shift from judgment to curiosity. It was, there was three questions I would ask myself. And it was first it was like recognizing, am I being judgmental right now? And sometimes that's all the question was like, Krystina, are you being judgmental right now? Or is like a serious situation that we need to like deep dive into. And if it was a serious thing that I need to deep dive into, then I would challenge it. So if it was a thought, it was, my, my go to's were like, is this fact or fiction? Am I making this up or did somebody actually speak this to me? Is this helping me or is this hurting me? And I feel like that one is a really big one I use with athletes because just because something has helped is. Helpful or just something is true doesn't mean it's helpful in the moment, right? So it's if you're struggling, if you're like a, I don't know we'll take like a football player, if you're a quarterback, if you're struggling throwing the ball right now, yeah, that's like a fact, but is it helpful right now, like in the moment to dwell on it? No. So it's you have to be able to shift out of that. So for me and like my own feelings, my own thoughts, it's like, all right just because it's true, like the circumstances might be true. It doesn't mean that thinking this way is helping me. It's actually hurting me. So then the last was like replacing it. So replacing the thought with something that's going to be a little bit more helpful. And I am not a fan of going from negative to positive. I'm, I cannot do it. My brain is too smart. It doesn't believe me. So if I think like I suck. It, I can't just fake it till I make it and say, Oh, I'm awesome. Cause my brain's but you're not awesome right now. I've adapted early on this concept of going from negative to neutral something that I do with all my athletes is something that I do with myself, like personally, if I'm having a negative thought or I'm having a negative experience in order to shift out of that, I have to get curious about what is actually like a fact or like a neutral statement that I could stay in this moment that like my brain and body will get on board with. So instead of I suck, I could be like, I'm having a difficult time right now. And that's a neutral statement. And then from that neutral statement, what's the next neutral statement that I can say? Maybe I should seek out somebody who has done this before, or maybe I need to go journal. You know what? Maybe I'm frustrated. Krystina, are you feeling overwhelmed right now? Maybe you need to shut down the computer and go for a walk. And it's just, I will say three years ago, like those thoughts weren't even in my brain. I wasn't able to redirect myself, but now doing what I do and talking about these things that I talk about on a daily basis, I'm able to move through that. So it's if I'm able to do that at 39 years old, and I've got all these years of pre, conditioned thoughts in my brain, then a young athlete, or even like an older coach, this is possible, it's just about. Trying to get curious about, is this really like where I want to live, right? Something that today's world I don't know if, today's like world mental health day.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 23:49

Is it really today?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 23:50

today. Yep.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 23:51

That's pretty amazing that we scheduled it for today. That's

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 23:54

I know I didn't even, honestly, I opened up Instagram and like everyone's posting about it and I was like, Oh, my sweet. So it's,

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 24:00

I normally only know about National Donut Day.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 24:04

only the fun ones, right? Yeah, I get you. So with like mental health I just totally lost my thought because now I'm thinking about donuts. I'm like, wait, national donut day. I really do that day. Sorry.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 24:16

I can make a comment in while you're. You're thinking, because curiosity saved me

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 24:23

Yeah.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 24:23

hundred percent saved me. And that's what this whole podcast is about being curious and learning from others. And, I even say it in the open, like it's about using your experiences and learning from others and just realize we all go through the same thing every single day. You'll go through it in your way. I go through it in my way. We all have the traumas that we were, raised with and that were passed down from generation to generation. And that generational trauma is more prevalent than we know until you really take a step back. And like you said, it's like that curiosity really erases the judgment and the negativity around it. And I can look at things more objectively For instance, a really quick example is when I started training high school kids again, I was in a high school. I hadn't been in a high school in that setting around other kids since I was 18. And I'm 35 and I'm like, why am I feeling like I'm in high school again? Why are all these insecure thoughts coming up? Why are all these weird thoughts coming up? I had to go home and examine those things because I was like, that's weird. But I didn't judge myself for it. I didn't play that victim role or, obviously, I don't know how you would play a victim role in that scenario, but, when you play that victim role, when you continuously paint that narrative, it's, You're then taking the world and going the world's against me. Now I'm down. Now I'm down here. So you believe that self talk puts you in that position all the time. So you believe it. If you constantly are living that and you're not just taking a step back to take a breath and be curious and nonjudgmental, I think you're putting yourself in a huge disadvantage. And like you said, there's, you have the choice, you have the actual choice to change that your actions. There's not good choices and bad choices. If you're curious and you start to follow a path and you don't like it. Get off of it. Choose something else. I love that the judgmental, the victim role, like all those things. I think those are huge topics that we, our generation has, I think, started uncovering over the past couple years, over the past decade, and it's continuously growing and I just love hearing about that.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 26:14

I will say, so something that comes to my mind, once you get into this space where you're being more curious and you are judgmental, you can ask more questions than you can shut yourself down. So questions that like I naturally arise to, the helpful versus hurtful, the fact versus fiction, but also like difficult versus detrimental. And I know that we've talked about this before, allowing yourself to really look at a situation and say, is this a difficult situation? And like odds are, yeah, sports are difficult, life is difficult. You're going to go through some really uncomfortable times and you have to take that step back and say, is this. Difficult and uncomfortable or is this detrimental and I need to get out and I need to get some help But sometimes like our difficult, those difficult moments are the moments that are shaping us, right? They're the moments that are making us aware of either something needs to change We need to push through we need to power through and I think I'm really big thing Nowadays is that, I feel like less and less we are dreaming. Or like seeing the future without nowadays like you open up Instagram or you open up Tik TOK and you see everything. I feel like there's less like dreaming about Oh, what could be, because there's so much out there that like, you have all these pictures that are being painted in your head. So it's for athletes, it's like really just understanding that. You're never gonna know what's on the other side of hard unless you go through it. And that's the most uncomfortable feeling ever because nobody wants to be uncomfortable. Nobody wants to fail. Nobody wants to mess up. Nobody wants to be made fun of. But on the other side of hard is hope. And, but you have to have that hope. You have to have the hope and say, you know what, I'm gonna go through this. And whatever's on the other side is either meant for me or meant to teach me. So a lot of athletes avoid failure and we avoid the uncomfortable, but it's in the Discomfort that we find like what we're made for and what's meant for us. And I often say how do you know it's what you want unless you go and get it, or how do you know it's not what you want? How do you know that on the other side of that hard, isn't like the biggest life lesson that's gonna, launch you into something else. I'm gonna tell you right now, everything that has led me to this point right here has been so difficult. And, I often catch myself looking back because three years ago, like this wasn't my life five years ago. This was not my life. And it's, I went through some really dark, hard times. And it's it brought me here. And it's I had to go through that to learn those lessons. And those lessons sucked. I'm not saying that they were great lessons, but it's if you're open, if you're more curious, I no longer judge my past because of what happened. I'm more of Oh, yep. I can see that like that door slammed shut because I wasn't closing it. Or that happened to me because I kept on repeating the same thing. And, I tell athletes all the time if you always do what you've always done, you're always going to get what you've always got. You can't wish to get something new. If you're not going to change your actions, Everything's going to remain the same.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 29:31

I often think about it like a snake shedding skin every time I go through a hard time because like you said, it builds character. It just like with, building muscle, like if you don't put the inputs in, it's not going to grow. It's the same thing with your brain, same thing with your mindset. You can take any script and flip it and make it something that's understandable for you to take a step back and be like I said, be objective about it. It's, it takes the feelings out of it and not in a bad way where you're ignoring your feelings. Yeah. I don't think you should ignore the feelings, I love stoicism. So it's very in that stoic way of, Hey what's actually going on here? Let's just talk about it. So now I'm not in a stressed heightened mindset about making a decision or having to change everything. My heart rate's going up like crazy and then I'm worried. And then it leads into the next thing and I move faster and then I knock this over and then it breaks up. You know what I mean? Like that, that it's like a domino effect. I love everything you've talked about so far. I love this topic. I could talk about this all day. What is the biggest misconception about mental performance? Yeah.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 30:35

And I will say not to point out anybody, but I get it a lot from men. And I get it a lot from older coaches that don't coddle them. Don't baby them. And I get it because their generation, it, this was not allowed. And like it, you weren't allowed to have these conversations and it makes people super uncomfortable. And to this day, like I walk into rooms and, I. Do activities with athletes where it's like we set up for the day. And I asked them like what are their fears? And a lot of them are like talking about their emotions. And I'm just like, Ooh, you're not gonna like me today, but I'm aware of that and I'm aware that it's an uncomfortable thing for other people. But I also know that the more vulnerable and the more open that I get with athletes, The more the door opens for them to either do it in that moment, because let's be real, sometimes I'm with a team for two or four hours, right? So it's I got one shot to get in, make an impact and then I leave. So how do I do that without totally opening up and being vulnerable? So no stories are off the table. I'm very much an open book. What is what you get. And I want. To be the example that you can open up, you could pour your heart out if you want to, and that's the way you connect, like vulnerability is the way to, to gain strength growing up. Vulnerability was seen as a weakness, right? Crying was seen as a weakness, expressing your emotions in a, in a way that like, wasn't very ladylike or mature, right? Like I see, like I'll be like out shopping And I'll see like a parent be like, Oh is that a good choice or a bad choice? Or is that how you're supposed to behave? And it's I wish that we would just have more conversations about like, why are we doing, like, why is that kid acting that way? Or why is this athlete shutting down? Or why does this kid always get red carded, right? It's the emotions. We're just not allowing them to. Understand that they're normal and that we just have to work through them, but I wish people would be a little bit more. And I will say that I work with, I have worked with some amazing coaches. All over the United States, virtually and in person where there's coaches that like want this, where it's this is like the missing piece for them. And I think it's like, those are the coolest conversations. And then there's some other coaches who like, could care less. It's I'm a box that they could just check off. It's oh yeah, we brought in somebody to talk about mental performance, or like we brought somebody in to talk about mental health. And at the end of the day I'm not Like I'm not a sports psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a mental health practitioner. Like I, I'm, I know that I am not any of those. So like when a coach is just Oh yeah, we need like a mental health speaker. I'm just like, there's a million other people that you could bring in. But that's not just what I do. Like I talk about, obviously mental performance is like this huge umbrella that so many things fall, but like leadership team culture, like they fall underneath that mental performance because again, how you perform mentally leadership, how you perform mentally team culture, how you perform mentally. So I wish people would be more open into understanding that it's not just like this box. Like mental performance is just, it's literally how you show up and how you live your day to day life. But yeah the coddling and the babying I wish, and I do see it less and less, and I do know that we're moving in a direction where our athletes understand it right with every generation coming up, they have new information, so hopefully one day that misconception will be out of here. But yeah, that's probably the biggest one right now.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 34:07

I think we're on our way.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 34:10

For sure.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 34:11

So how does mental performance affect physical performance?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 34:15

There used to be a saying and I used to use it a lot and it was like, your thoughts become your words become your actions, right? It all starts in your head. I know now that the missing piece to that is it starts in your, like in your gut first, it starts with your feelings. So feelings affect thoughts, affect words, affect action. So how you feel about yourself, how you feel, whether you feel, and I chalk it up to, do you feel safe or unsafe? And not in the literal sense, right? Like you're not being chased by a lion, but do you feel safe to make mistakes? Do you feel safe to take risks? Do you feel safe that your teammates have your back? Do you feel safe that you're not, after a hard loss, you're not going to get like belittled and badgered, right? That those are like, that's like all people want to feel safe in their spaces. So I think, when we feel safe and when we feel valued and when we feel accepted, we're going to do a little bit more because we know that we've got the support that we need around us. Same thing goes for, if I, if I feel it, I think it, I speak it right. So if I'm feeling safe, then I'm going to be speaking life, like not just to myself, but like maybe to my teammates, I'm going to be lifting up other people. I'm going to be prone to be more optimistic. I'm going to have more gratitude. And then my actions are going to follow suit. So think about like unhappy people. When you see unhappy people, it's written all over their body and like body language, their facial expressions, right? Like happy people, safe people, motivated people, like you could just. Go stand at a Walmart and just go start looking at people. Unfortunately that is a little bit like judgy, but like you can see on the outside what people are feeling on the inside. So I think if somebody wants that, to be a top peak performer, it's not that you have to do all of this stuff, it's just start assessing the environments that you're walking into and assessing the people that you're surrounding yourself with. And are they people that are in your corner uplifting you? And and never to, to sure. I don't want people sugarcoating, right? Like we don't want people to be like, Oh, you got it, sweetie. Like you're great when you're really sucking. But you have people that are going to be honest with you. Do you have people that are going to say, Hey, you're not. Pulling your weight or, Hey, we need more from you. Listen, I was I was a captain. I was a pitcher and, in college, it's sometimes you get to turn around to your teammates and be like, Hey, shake it off. I need you. And like the same thing would go for me if I was having a bad game and I was like, Oh, what was me and my teammates were like suck it up. Like in this moment, we need you right now. And it's I this mental performance piece to be the thing that helps people get through the hard now. And it's something that I think, the more that we, the more that we really pay attention to the mental piece and then, go even a step further to the emotional piece, like what you're thinking and feeling on the inside, you're going to be able to push through those hard times. Or you're going to be able to acknowledge this is really hard right now, but it doesn't deserve my attention. So it's if I make a mistake, I want my men, like my mental state. I want it to be like, okay, it's not about the mistake. It's about what happens next. But people that don't feel safe in their space fear the mistake, and they might not even make the mistake, which means that I'm going to take risk or take a chance. So it's identifying that, this mental piece is really helping people push through. Or, I work with a lot of athletes who are, they don't like being emotional on the field, right? Emotions happen. We have to stop suppressing them. They come out. Same thing with like ego. A lot of young athletes I work with are like, ah, I hate when my ego comes out. And I know. That their ego is just a part of them that doesn't feel safe. What is that ego thinking? What is he feeling? What is the ego making you do? And it's if we weren't open to those conversations, that kid would consistently be frustrated by his or her ego and they would never get to. Be the athlete that like is able to take chances and take risks and not be defined by their mistakes, but be defined about their, by their bounce backs or not be defined because, maybe they're not starting or they can't get a drill or a skill. And it's like mental performance. It's like that. I think like your mindset is like that direct link to like the amount of effort you put in. So it's if you feel like you're in a safe space and you truly care about what you're doing. At the end of the day you're gonna be able to push through some hard times. Is it gonna be difficult for sure, but you're gonna be able to do it.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 38:54

you have to try, like you said, without trying, you're not going to know what it's like. And if you don't know what it's like, you're going to be scared because you don't know what it's like. And even if you quote unquote fail or whatever the heck that means, you, like you said, everything that you've done in your life has led you to this point right now. And a good friend of mine, this saying has always stuck with me, but all of your life credits transfer. It doesn't matter what you do. Your life credits will transfer. I've worked in retail sales and You know what? That's helped me talk to people. That's helped me understand communication and conversation. And I was in retail sales where customer service had to be a thing. So their stress levels and it was AT& T for phones. So you can imagine people coming in for phones and being like, Hey, I need a new one. Oh, what do you mean? I have to pay X amount of dollars. So it's you have to understand, Hey let's calm down. Let's have a conversation. You have to learn those things. And so all of the things that you do, if you don't try, if you don't move, you're never going to grow. And in order to grow, you have to go through some pains. You have to. But I'm curious about you to your thoughts on this about being able to sit with your feelings, like you said, and still be present. So if someone is benched because you really want to play, you feel like, no, you should be starting, but someone else got played over you. All right, you can be disappointed, you can be upset, you can be pissed off, but don't let that take away from your character. Don't let that take away from your decisions. So what do you, how do you help your not just athletes, but how do you help your people with that thought process?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 40:31

So it, it comes down to like, how are we gonna cope in the moment, right? Having these coping skills it's kinda having a little toolbox and you're gonna pull some tools outta your toolbox. So a lot of the tools that I recommend for those moments is, I do controlling the controllables, I do identifying your uncontrollables and creating a response for them. I do a lot about turning your reactions into responses, recognizing what are the moments that you react in that you don't love. So many athletes are like, but I like sometimes when I react like that. I never talked about I never want you to change the things that are working for you, but if you, let's say that you're notorious for talking back to refs, that's a reaction, right? That is a reaction in the moment. And you talking back to your refs is getting you carded. And if you, if that is an undesired result, then you have to recognize that this reaction is not serving me. And I need to do something different in order to a more desired result. So it's turning your reactions into responses. So it's okay, in the moment when I am disagreeing with a ref, what do I want to do instead? And I often ask athletes to do this, Off of the field in their journals, before you got to the field, like it's like a pregame ritual. Start thinking about all the things that essentially quote unquote piss you off and start creating responses. It's not, you're not just going to automatically do it, but you're training your brain to say, Hey, in this moment, This is what we want to do instead. The best story I have is to explain this is I was working with a coach once who was a very reactive coach and he was very emotional when it came to not getting calls. And he was a little bit of a clipboard thrower. So what we did, Oh, and he brought me in to work with his team and his team was reactive and he was like, I need them to be less reactive. So I went and I watched one game and I was like, Bro, they're reactive because you're reactive and didn't want to hear it. No, it's not me. And I'm just like, 100 percent they would not react that way. If you weren't doing it first. So in my head, I knew I had to encourage him to take the steps in the direction of change. So what we did was I put a post it on his clipboard. And anytime a ref made a call, that was like one that he disagreed with. He had to put it on that post it. So instead of yelling at the ref, he had to put it on the post it. And then at halftime, he would look at the post it and see the calls that we were not getting. Are there any, connections? Are there repeated calls that we're not getting? Is somebody getting a call too much? And use that as your halftime talks. And it took a few games, but the kids started like reminding him to write on his post it when they didn't get a call. And then at halftime, people were like, Hey coach, am I on your post it? So it took a life of its own, but like sometimes you have to just try things, right? So for him, it's I'm not, I don't want you to stop being reactive. I don't want you to stop being mad, but is that helping you? No. So what can we do in that moment instead? And that's what I do with athletes on a daily basis. It's just becoming curious and aware of what are you doing? Do you like it? Is it helping you? Is it serving you? And to remember that at the end of the day, life comes down to things we can and cannot control. And when we cannot control something like another human, like playing time, referees, the other team, you We can't control other humans, but we can influence other humans based on how we show up in the moment. So is my reaction influencing something to go in, in my direction or out of my direction? It, is it going to be something that is going to help me or my team, or is it going to be something that ultimately is going to hurt my team? So a lot of just planning. And I always, I'm a big fan of being proactive when, you're going to be reactive. I'm a very emotional person. I will say over the last few years, it has gotten to a point where I'm very aware of the things that I react to. And though that's the space where it's I journal about those things. I write those things down. I've got like PDFs that I give to the athletes. I use them too. And it's okay, I don't like the version of me that shows up in this moment. How do I change that? And that's all done through, obviously it's rewiring of your brain. It's, Developing new habits. It's giving your brain and your body a chance to connect. And that's what mindfulness does. That's what visualization does. Like all of these tools that we are, all these mental performance coaching tools that we're giving athletes, it's really coping skills of how to get through really tough times in the moment. And, going back to what you said about playing time, when you're benched and like being upset, 100 percent be upset. But I always ask athletes, is you being upset in that moment, helping you or hurting you? And if it's hurting you, because if coaches looking down the line and sees you pouting or sees that you're not engaged and I'm a coat, I was a coach, I looked down that line. If someone's not paying attention, they're not even on my radar anymore. Sorry. Not even going to give you the chance. So it's like in that moment, you have to make a choice and then that's the path you're walking. So there's a lot of athletes that won't make the choice to change in that moment. There are different things you could do to influence a different result. It might not change in the moment, but like it will over time. And I will say, back to the misconception of mental performance as it's an easy fix. We need to understand that like, when we are dealing with things that are uncontrollable and we only have influence over them, it's going to take time and patience to like work through these things.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 46:17

Earlier you mentioned where people can, you can go stand at a Walmart and look around and just see, yes, you're judging and to a, to an extent, but like energy is real energy that people give off is real. And so if you're an athlete, you're on the bench and you're pouty or you're Mopi or you're not showing that like true, that true passion of, cheering on for who you're surrounded by. The coaches will notice that, And it's okay to have that and use it as fire. I think that's where I flipped the switch. And it was like, when I make a mistake, when I, I'm not happy with something, how am I going to utilize that energy and turn it into a positive instead of allowing that to just continuously beat me down. And that's what I think makes a big switch. And if athletes are able, anyone is able to do that, any part of their life, it's so empowering because now you're self empowering yourself.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 47:07

Yeah. I use the quote where your attention goes, energy flows. And it's something I use with a lot of teams with individuals. It's like what you paying attention to. That's the energy that you're sitting in. So if you're pissed off at someone and you are allowing yourself to stay focused on the person you're pissed off at, whether it's a coach or a teammate, that's the energy that you're giving off. So if you're mad, if you just got subbed and you're, Focusing on, I was just subbed and that's all what you're focusing on. That's where you're gonna be sitting in. I was just, so I, obviously I worked with teams for the last three or four years. I think I'm going on four years now, but my very first team that I had ever worked with was a basketball team in Connecticut. My best friend is the coach and during COVID she's can you take my team and do some stuff with them? And I was like, yeah, sure. And long story short, I was with them for three years. And then last year I I stepped away. I'm also a big fan of, I want teams, coaches, kids to do this and feel empowered and equipped that they don't need coach K all the time. Because When I first started, I was like, yeah, I want to work with teens and I want to be like the team mental performance coach. And then shortly I realized I like, it's just like being a teacher. I don't, I want to hit, I want to impact more. So it's I want to come in, give you the tools, leave every now and then for sure. Let let's check in, but. I want you to go out and do it right. Like I, I love when athletes, message me and it's like, Hey, like we were struggling and then we used your, the PDF you left us. And it's yes that's what I want. So I was back with this team. It was at my alma mater. We were there for like homecoming weekend. So I popped in into one of their basketball sessions and a kid that was a freshman. When I first started working there, she's now a senior and she's captain. I overheard her sharing with her teammates. Hey, it's not about what we do. It's about what we do next. It's not about failing. It's about what we do after we fail. And I just was like, and I just looked at my best friend and I was like, Dude your impact is it's still here. And it's funny because the kids that I started working with on that team are no longer there. So like when it's like the bulk of the team that I worked with for three years, they're all graduating gone. So these seniors who were freshmen, who only got one or two years, like one or two seasons with me, they're now upperclassmen. And that's something that I think is really impactful and powerful. When you work with teams is how are we continuing the education? How are we, what, like, how are we leading the legacy? And it's like creating that mantra of this is what we do here, right? So we don't care like what what you used to do at your high school teams or what you do in your other teams here. This is this is how we think about, feel, About, act about it's just, it's creating that identity. And I, a big thing that I have teams do in the beginning of the season or what I recommend they do is define and dissect the words that you use on a regular basis. So what does failure mean to you? What does success mean to you? So when we get into the groove and games start happening and playing time is, it comes and it goes, if we know how we're going to define success, And it has nothing to do with wins and it has more to do with like culture and, cohesiveness and, again, responding to adversity, not reacting to adversity. Your kids are going to find more success together and then they're going to focus on those things. And then what you focus on, that's the energy, that's being, being put into it. So I just thought it was like the coolest thing to overhear, them stressing that Hey, make a mistake. But then don't make the same mistake twice. So it's not about the mistake. It's about what you do after the mistake. And it's just yeah, that's life, right? Learn from it so that you don't repeat it so that you can grow. But so many of us don't open ourselves up to learning. We just get so stuck and caught up in the, I'm not there yet. I'm not where I want to be. I keep on messing up. Nobody values me. So it's if I'm focused on that yeah. Yeah. You're going to hold yourself back immensely. But if I focus on, okay, I just failed, but what did I learn? Something I started using a few years ago was like, this isn't happening to me. This is happening for me. And I think just those little mindset shifts to I went through a divorce before I really dove into this, this mental performance world. And in the beginning it was like, he left me, I was, I was left, I'm going through a divorce. And now through like therapy, I was able to be like no. I experienced a divorce. This happened for me to teach me something. Am I learning from it? Or am I just going to stay in the victim mindset? Of I'm, sad and lonely. And so it's I feel like, mental performance has so much more to do with like with life than it does just sport. And I just want athletes and coaches and teams and whoever to realize that it's just those little mental shifts. Those mindset shifts that you can make on a daily basis, that's going to redirect your attention, therefore going to get different energy, and then you're going to be able to move through things, maybe not quicker, but you're going to move through things where it makes a little bit more sense,

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 52:16

Yeah. And you don't need to be in a rush with this stuff. I think practicing little by little is the way to go. What are some tactics that you can give to coaches or athletes? Obviously you're not working with everybody right here, but people listening, if there's a coach listening, if there's an athlete or a parent listening, what are some things that they can implement that you have found very helpful for these kinds of situations?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 52:38

I think preparing for the what ifs, right? So a lot of people don't. Take steps in the right direction. Cause we're worried. What if this happens? What if this happens? So addressing the what ifs, I like to encourage athletes to turn your what ifs into when's So what ifs is a very subconscious thought, right? It's a very unsafe thought. Like those are like the unsafe worries. So instead of what, if I make a mistake. Or what if I fail it's when I make a mistake, when I fail, because that's inevitable you're going to experience it. We have to stop pretending that if I just avoid taking chances, I'm not going to fail, like you're going to like life is a series of like ups and downs, so it's rewording it to when I fail and then filling in the blank after that. So when I fail, how do you want to show up? What's the phrase that you want to say? What's your go to phrase or what's your go to action? Maybe you're going to take some deep breaths or maybe, so it's like just giving them a plan. I encourage a lot of athletes and teams to create like routines and rituals. in place of the negative experiences that they know are going to come up. So if I know I'm going to be frustrated in this moment, what's the ritual or the routine that I'm going to do in that moment? So what ifs to when is a great one. And again, negative to neutral or what just happened? What can I do next? Just really differentiating. And, I have a lot of like different like visuals that I use with athletes where it's PDFs and it's always two columns. So it's like the, what if column, right? All your, what ifs down and then the one column shifted over into when, and then start writing, what are you going to do when this actually happens? And then recently I will say I've been encouraging athletes to think about the adding a third column to that. What if, to when, and adding the, it won't column. So instead of or or I won't column. So what if I fail when I fail or I won't fail, because if I don't think that failure is like a, is failing, then I'm not going to fail. So it's I won't fail because no matter what I'm going to learn there's the phrase that you need to embed into your brain. So it's just, it's really getting proactive with, again, going back to the responses versus the reactions reaction is very, subconscious, I don't feel safe. It's a split second. It's very emotional. If I want to change that, I have to tap into the conscious part of my brain, which is the brain that helps me respond. The brain that helps. Filter what's happening. Is this a fact or is this fiction? Is this, my emotions or is this logic? And it's just preparing yourself for when you know that things are going to get tough and things are going to get hard. I do this all the time. What if I mess up when I'm giving a speaking? What if I stumble on my words when I'm on a podcast? And I know that some of those things are the worries that I have, but I also know what I'm going to do when I go through them because of the experience that I've had. So on all the other podcasts that I've been on that I've stumbled on my words or all the other speakings that I've given that I've had to be like, wait, I lost my train of thought. And kids just people just look at you and they laugh. Yeah. If that's the worst thing that's going to happen, I'm going to survive. But like I've had to experience it to know what I'm going to do next time it happens. And I think that we avoid that so much and it's uncomfortable. I understand not saying any of this shit is easy, but the more you do it, Like the more you take risks, the more you realize that on the other side of that risk is The more you put yourself out there, right? The more you date more people like, go on dates, the more you apply for jobs, it gets easier over time, but it really doesn't get easier. You just adapt to it. And that's the thing that we want these athletes to learn is that it's not one day all of a sudden this shit gets easier. It's, Oh, like we're teaching our brain that it's not scary. And that we're actually safe. And it's just, becoming proactive with, how we want to show up in that moment.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 56:44

Yeah, I have one of my favorite slogans for my brand is fail, learn, evolve, because it is a constant evolution of ourselves. I'm not the same person I was last year or yesterday. I've learned something every single day. I try to and examine and ask myself, am I proud of how I did today? And if I say, no, it's not a, you're terrible. It's more like, all right what do you want to do better? That's going to make you feel more proud of how you're carrying yourself. There's going to be days when I'm seeing a lot of clients and there's a ton of traffic, so I'm later than I needed, I wanted to be. So I don't feel good about that. I'm like, all right, what can I do? I know I can't control the traffic. Can I maybe control scheduling them? 15 minutes later and be like, Hey, this is just the reality right now. So there's, it's, whereas before it was like I'm late all the time. I'm going to, this, I'm unprofessional. I'm not good enough. This isn't my cup of tea. So which way are you going to go with it? And I think that's, it's such a, an important lesson for people to learn. Cause it's not just sports like, yeah next play. That's, To me, that's easy when it comes to the mental performance. But when it comes to life, you're, if you don't play beyond college, or if you didn't play beyond high school, you're going to learn real fast that you need to be pliable mentally. You need to be pliable. You need to be, like you said, curious. You need to be open and you need to be able to take a step back and just understand what the world's throwing at you. Because on any given day, you can get someone's worst. You can get someone's best. You don't know. And so I think it's just it's it's just really powerful stuff that I think we overlook. And you're right, like the coddling, it's not coddling. It's, I think it's, I yeah, I go back to the stoicism. I think it's examine. Look. Take it in. What does it mean? How do you feel about it? Alright back to the drawing board. Let's move on. What'd you learn from it? Evolve now. Yeah, I love, I don't know where I, what the point I was making, but it was

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 58:35

No, I love that.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 58:36

that's where I go with it. Cause I've always enjoyed the mental side of things. And I've learned so much about myself and what I'm capable of. And you learn how to appreciate the world. I don't know if stress has just gone down significantly since I've been able to do that. Don't get me wrong. I have stressful days, but like you said, the coping of it, the, in the moment, Hey, I'm stressed. I'm not going to rush. I'm just gonna be like, take a deep breath. What do I want to do right now? Put on a podcast. Maybe I need a, there's a song that's going to help me feel better. Call your mom. I don't know. Whatever the, whatever it is that helps you. Clear up mentally and maybe just decompress a little bit.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 59:13

I think that's important too, is allowing yourself to go through that. I feel like it goes back to that judge, like being so judgmental that like you need a rest day or that you need a minute. I feel like the world that we live in, it's go. Or, everything for the gram, right? Like we have to post things, we have to always record what's going on. And that's something that has. Works for me is just taking that step back and saying do I really need to do this right now? Or okay, yeah, this is due. I really need to focus on this, but I am starting to get stressed. Like, how do I alleviate that? And I think. All humans need to have the tools in their toolbox of what they're going to do When not if take the word if out of your brain So instead of you know saying if I get frustrated It's these are the tools i'm going to use when I get frustrated and instead of saying if i'm overwhelmed or if i'm anxious When I'm overwhelmed and when I'm anxious, I just shared the other day with a team, the things I do when I feel overwhelmed and I feel overwhelmed a lot lately because there's just a lot more on my plate. And again, I'm learning to say no more. I know that that's a tool in my toolbox that I rarely use. It's so hard to say no. And it's just being. Okay. And comfortable in my skin to say no, but when I feel overwhelmed, I know the two or three things that I have to do to calm myself down. And some, this athlete was just like, but how do you know when to do it? And I just was like, Oh that's you don't even know, like when to start implementing these things. And. It's I don't have all the answers. This has been lots of trial and error. I've been overwhelmed a lot. There have been days where it's I've been consumed with the overwhelm, but now it's like through every overwhelming moment I have, I'm starting to think, okay, let me do this. Is this going to work? This didn't work. Okay. What can I do next time? And again, every single day you wake up, it's a it's a trial and error. Every single day it's try something. If it works, stick with it. If it doesn't work, then. Pick something new, but it's being okay with trying things and not getting it on the first try.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:01:17

I always think about Einstein when it comes to this, people were probably telling him he's crazy left and right. If you let the perceptions and thoughts of other people let you stop you, you will never find yourself. How many times did he probably fail and what he was doing and trying to figure out something so complex and you, we wouldn't have half of the world and technology that we do today without it. And without the people that came before him. Don't let those. Those failures, those moments stop you just continuously take in. And it's you're going back to the drawing board. If you're an experimenter, that's life is an experiment. And if you take it on like that, I think it just helps where you can, I'm an experiment today. All right, that doesn't work. I'm going to go back to the drawing board and see what does work. Oh, that worked better. Okay, let's go down that path. Make the choice to go down that path. And if it doesn't work, get off the path, do something else. I

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:02:08

think. I think too, like we live in a world where we don't see that, where, growing up, I feel like we, we just, we tried things because we didn't know what other people were doing. Cause like we didn't have social media, right? So it's I feel like we don't see the trial. We just see the perfection. And I think that is like a big. Just, it's like a big to be honest. It's these athletes, they, it's like, Oh they got it right away. Why can't I get that? Meanwhile, like they're probably on try 50, but we don't see that. I had a mentor early on. And he's a pretty famous guy. And I remember he looked at me, we were in person. I went to go see him speak. And he looked at me and he goes, do not judge your chapter one on my chapter 31. And I just was like, yeah. Because I do, right? You're on social media, you're consuming content, and you don't know what chapter they're on. You also don't know anything really about their background unless they pour everything onto social media and they're their most authentic, vulnerable selves. They're, people keep things to themselves, and I will say it's something that I personally struggle with because I a year ago, I got rid of all social media and I had a pretty good presence like on my game changers one, but my personal one, I just got rid of everything because it was so overwhelming and it was consuming my life. And to this day, I still don't have a personal one. I only have a business one because I don't want to add. To the chaos that's on social media, right? Like I always tell myself when the time is right and I'm going to know when it's right to get back on. I want to be authentic and I want to be vulnerable. And I already if you look at through my content's not curated. A lot of my videos are like first try videos, or it's I just, but I get so caught up in like that. You have to look a certain way. And I think for me, it was. Just pulling the plug and just getting out. And now it's okay, I only focus on game changers because I want to put, I want to put content out daily for athletes and coaches to go to my page and grab something, right? That's literally what I want. I want game changers, the place that's what I want it to be. But like for my own personal, it's I get so caught up in what I should be. That I knew I did to, until I figured that out, I need to take the pressure off myself of posting because I don't want to post just the post and I don't want to create just to create. And I will say last year, when I got off social media, somebody told me you're frustrated with social media because you're consuming more than you're creating, and that could not have been more true. And to this day, I find myself consuming more than I create. And like on those days or weeks or months creating is really difficult because I'm consuming too much. And I'm like thinking about Ooh, I like this. Or, Ooh, I want to do that. And it's sometimes you just have to like, shut it all down. And I feel like I can only imagine this generation who this is all they know. At least I can shut it down because I know what it's like, life is like without it. I can't imagine what it's like being on 24 seven.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:05:12

I go through it too with trying to post and trying to keep up with it. And it's you don't, I used to have so much fun with what I was doing and I stopped having fun. And that's when I was stopped posting as much. And cause you, like you said, I started, became, I started becoming a little more consumer rather than creator. And, Consuming is not fulfilling. Creating to me is very fulfilling and it's a piece of ourselves. And I do think you you're right. You get so overwhelmed with all the stimulus that you're seeing from different people and you're like they're popular. So I should be doing something like that. Or, Hey, they've got a ton of following. I should be doing more content like this.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:05:49

Yeah.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:05:50

that's not to say you can't learn from others or see what they're doing and gather information. But ultimately you got to come back to yourself.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:05:59

And I feel like that's what like really honing in on like this mental performance, like for me as an adult, like being on this side of it, like I find myself using my teachings in like my own life. And it's just, it's yeah, this goes so far beyond sport and it goes so far beyond just, getting a kid out of a rut or helping a kid make a choice or, getting a team to be more cohesive. It's. It's really like life skills. Like you're going to constantly for the rest of your life, question things and have frustrate, like that doesn't go away. Everybody experiences it. And I think with the big thing, there's like a big movement now is like human over athlete. And it's yeah, we're using that because we want to humanize people. We don't humanize people. Like we look at people, like if somebody fumbles, we make fun of them. If somebody posts something like we call them cringe, or if an athlete doesn't perform well, we're like, Oh they suck. They're terrible. But it's they're a human being like going through things. So this big movement right now of like human over athlete, you can use that phrase human over, over teacher, human over doctor, right? We've all got these roles, we've got these hats we wear, but at the end of the day, like we all take off our hats and we are all experiencing life the way that we're experiencing it, whether it's similar or it's different, we're all in, different boats, but the same storm. Some people have rowboats, some people have cruise ships, you ever hear that saying? I

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:07:26

not, but I like the

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:07:27

It's because I think about everyone's experiencing life, but we all experience it differently. So it's like I might be experiencing my life in a rowboat. You might be in a canoe. Somebody might be in a cruise ship. Somebody might be in a mega yacht. So it's yeah same water, different boat. And it's, that for me like always brought me back down to like earth. So whenever I start to idolize somebody on social media or whenever I start to think somebody has it more like together than I do, I just remind myself that like people make assumptions based on what they see, not what they know. And honestly there are days where it's I feel like I am not doing enough or like I'm failing. And then I'll get like a DM or I'll see somebody in person. They're like, Oh my God, you're killing it. And it's I have to remember that I'm living it and I'm consumed by it. But from like the outside in, like people are going to have. Their assumptions and their judgments and they're gonna, see it differently. So it's like just really Understanding that we're all like looking through life through like our different like lenses. I like to use the Concept of everybody has like different prescriptions in their eyes, right? So like what I see different than what you see So it's like remembering that and like taking a step back and remembering that we're all human And we all have different tools in our toolboxes. So it's like, what could I pull out to deal with or to use in this moment that I'm trying to deal with?

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:08:50

We talked about team leadership. We talked about leadership, especially with the coaches and like seeing how that trickled down. We didn't actually, we didn't talk about pain stress and anxiety when it comes to mental performance. Let's talk about that. So when it comes to pain, or pain, feeling pain, stress, and anxiety. How does the mental performance, how does checking in with yourself help with those things?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:09:14

I think it goes, it like connects to that whole difficult versus detrimental thing, right? It puts things into a better perspective. So if I'm feeling hurt, if I'm feeling sad, if I've got stress, if I got anxiety, it's allowing me to, first of all, feel it and acknowledge that something is brewing. And I feel like it's when you become curious and you've got this awareness starting to ask yourself questions like, where is this coming from? What is causing this? Do I need to take a step away? Do I need to come back to this? Can I push through this? Am I really, maybe am I on the wrong thing right now, and my attention is better used elsewhere? I think when you start to get these coping skills, and you start to get tools in your toolbox, It's, you're going to start to be able to pull things out, but in order to pull things out, you have to do it. So a lot of athletes, I'll give them something to do. And then the next week they'll be like, it didn't work. And it's okay. Like how may. Days. Did you focus on it? Or like, how long did you use it for? And listen, sometimes things don't work and that's great. Let's move on to plan B, right? We've got a lot of different plans, but if you want to truly create a toolbox of tools, you have to. Utilize something for a consistent period of time. And I like to teach athletes that it takes the human brain about 28 days to rewire, to start to rewire a thought, which is also to create a habit, right? So when you're creating a habit or you're learning a new tool or learning a new tip or, a new trick, you have to let your brain take its time with it and to recognize that this is something that we want to do to help us. So I link. The amount of time that it takes for an athlete to re or a human to rewire their brain to a college semester at school. So 28 days is about your first month at college, right? So the first month, think about what you're doing. You've got a syllabus, you're, starting to listen in on lectures, you're taking quizzes, you're writing papers, you're reading. So the 28 day mark is like when the brain's Oh, she or he, we've been seeing this a lot lately. They want to keep it. And what happens is from 28 days to 90 days, Your conscious part of your brain that's taking in all this new information is going to throw this information into the back of your brain, which is your subconscious part of your brain, where the subconscious is going to, it's going to start to become like habitual, right? That's where our habits, our rituals and our routines are, is our, in our subconscious part of our brain. Cause we don't have to think about it. So I think about like, when you brush your teeth every morning, like, When you're a little kid, you got to be reminded, but now as an adult, like it's something that you just do. Same thing with driving a car. I don't have to think about it anymore because I've been doing it for so long. So 28, 28 to 90 days, and then think about college semester at the end of 90 days. College expects you to take final and they expect you not to cheat on that final because they expect all that information to be in your sub notches, like in the back part of your brain. So when it comes to learning a coping skill, a habit, a tool, a trick, I like to link it to adopting a dog to kids. So are you going to adopt 12 dogs day one? Because that shit is chaos, right? You adopt 12 dogs. They don't know their names. They don't know you. You don't know them. Nobody's on a peace schedule. Everyone's eating differently, right? Like we're all, it's like rogue out here and you feel super defeated and you will probably wind up giving all of those dogs back. But if you go out and you adopt one dog and you get to know that dog and then that dog gets to know you and you get on a routine and it's like you build a relationship. Same thing with like habit. Same thing with a coping skill. You have to give yourself some time to get to know it. And to see if it really is going to work for you or am I giving up because it's too difficult? Am I giving up because it's uncomfortable? Am I giving up because I'm not getting instant gratification? And it's if the answer to those questions are yes. Then stick it out a little bit longer. But if it's truly not vibing with you, just like if you adopt a dog and the dog and you are just not vibing together, you might have to give the dog back. You might have to say this isn't for me. I made a wrong choice or Hey, this, I thought this was going to be it, but this isn't it. And it's start becoming aware. Are you doing that too often? Every time you start a new skill, do you have an excuse? Do you have, are you self sabotaging? Are you allowing your own insecurities or obstacles to get in the way of you actually implementing this habit? And for me right now, like being on the road, I could have habits on the road. And I feel like I make a lot of excuses. Cause it's Oh, I'm in a hotel or I'm an Airbnb, or, Oh, I don't know. I'm in a new town. I don't really want to look into a workout class. So sometimes we have to acknowledge that we are being our own victims. And we are making excuses and it's am I giving my brain the amount of time it needs to wrap its head, literally wrap your head around a new thing that you want to do. So the same thing goes for if you listen, if you experience pain, stress, anxiety, you got to give mental performance, like the coping skill that you're going to do. You got to give it some time. And I'm not saying give it 28 days. You will know in the first week or so, whether or not it's. It's working for you, but if you don't even give it the time, like, how do you know that it really isn't for you?

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:14:46

I still play the victim in some ways too with that. And obviously I don't know that we ever get away from it. I think you just understand how to navigate it better. And so I, like you said, like I, I moved a couple of years ago. I was, It like completely put a halt into my podcast recording and like editing. And I wasn't in the same like mindset. And I just was unhappy about it, but I was like, Oh, it's just, it's where I live now. It's the space. It's this, I don't have, and it's dude, just do it. And you're going to start to see what happens when you start to do it. And you may not love it at first. You may, in fact, you may be like, that was awful. It's fine. Move on. Do the next, do it again. Do it again. It'll get better. It's just like with practice in any sport. It's just like with school. You take a test. You failed, go back, learn the things that you didn't know. You have to have that ability to move forward and to not stop yourself. And I also think it's okay to have moments like that. And when I say moments, it can be three months of that. It can be a year of that, but don't let it defeat you.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:15:51

yeah.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:15:52

Don't let it take you out of what you want to do.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:15:55

will say, something that I think has really helped me in my own personal life, I was an educator for 15 years, and throughout those 15 years, obviously you do a lot. And I am what you would call a hoarder, where I keep everything. I no longer do, because now I'm on the road. But like, when I was a teacher, I kept everything. So like year one lesson plans and it was like a ritual that I would do in the beginning of every year is I would go through all of it. And like I was mortified the things that I did in my first year, like when I would go back and look at like when I was like year five, year six, but then I started taking on student teachers. And I started taking on like people underneath me and helping them go through and I go through their education process. And it was like, so good for them to see where I started and like where I was. Cause like they looked at me and they're like, Oh my God, I want to be just like you. And I'm like, Oh, but it took a while to get here. So now that I'm out of education and I'm in this mental performance world, like I'm only three, four years in. So I'm still in my, my, my rookie years. And I have to remember that like I was in a whole other career, like 15 years, tenured. I was a state level presenter. I was teacher of the year. My life before this was so different, but like I trialed and errored. I failed a lot. I was okay with it. I always saw it as leveling up when I would fail because I was like, Oh, I'm not going to do that again. So Now, like if I look back at some of the things that I created year one and two, I'm just like, Oh, that is terrible. And it's but if I didn't go through that, I wouldn't have the workbooks that I have now. So it's being just aware that you're going to grow and you're going to evolve. And it's okay that you didn't get it right. All the time. But I look back at some of those, like work, like those PDFs and I'm just like, wow look at how I've evolved since that little, PDF where I rolled up and did like my very first team and now it's I can just talk about this stuff all day long, but it's, you have to remember that you don't know what you don't know. And until you go through it, you don't gain that knowledge. And it's, now I get to sit on podcasts and talk about this all day long, but like when I first started, no, super scared, super worried about what I was going to say, like super unsure of myself, but knew that this was something that I wanted to do. But just because I knew. This is what I wanted to do. It doesn't mean it wasn't scary. It doesn't mean that I didn't have second. And to this day, I still have doubts and I still second guess. And it's I always have to remind myself Nope, you're still a rookie at this. You're still learning this. And you have to give yourself grace. Which I feel like a lot of us don't do is we don't just give ourselves a grace period of Hey, you're learning like good for you.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:18:35

Your first lessons plan, like the first lesson plans that you had, are you familiar with Eric Cressy? He's a strength conditioning performance coach. He's very, he's been around, he's with the Yankees now, like he's done a ton in the baseball world and he's just, he's very smart. So he created like, DVDs, back, it was back in or a thing. And he was like his first DVD, his first program that he made, he's if you look back on your first program and think that there's nothing wrong with it, You need to look again. He's like my first one. And he's it's not that it was wrong. It's just what I knew at the time and I was giving the best that I could in the moment. But it doesn't mean you can't have room for learning. And it's same thing. Like I created a mobility Academy thing and it was cool. I loved it. The process of it, it was barely sold any of them. I lost money, but I didn't really care because I proved to myself that I could do that. And I did it and I got the team together and I created something. And it was like, Oh, I would change. Now I look back and I'm like, I would change that. I would change this. I would change this, but it's okay. Cause that's part of that me learning to know that I can then get better. So it's a cool, that same thing with the lessons plan, lesson plans and just being able to stack all the things that you've taken and just keep molding and chipping away and keep molding.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:19:51

I do feel like a lot of this generation doesn't give themselves, like the ability to allow themselves to do that. Like the reflection piece and something that I do with a lot of teams I do with individuals. And then I turned it. Again, it's like a PDF that I created early on. And now it's I use it for a different thing. It's evolved with me, but I used to do past, present and future you. So it's who you were, who you are, and then who do you want to be? And really just taking three years. So if I'm a freshman in college, it's who was I? So like senior year high school. Who am I? Freshman at college. And then who do I want to be? And it's just look to sophomore you, and it's always piecing together, first of all, identifying like all of those different traits. What is it about them? Put it down on paper, but it's present. You is the only thing that you have full control over

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:20:44

Yep.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:20:45

past. You has already happened and future you, you only have influence over that version of you. Based on what you do right now. So would past you be proud of you right now? Looking at where you are and will future you be proud of you for the work that you're doing right now. So for my own life, I always do this where it's okay, one year ago, where was I? And then am I happy with where I'm at right now? Or am I frustrated because she played the pity party too much? Am I frustrated that she didn't, wasn't a go getter. And then in one year, where do I want to be? And then take the perspective from one year from now. Do I want one year from now me to be angry that I did not get off my ass and do things? Or do I want her to be like, thank you for doing what you did because look where we are now. And then I took this to the team, two teams. Now, like when I work with teams, like for team culture, it's. In order to grow and go somewhere, we have to reflect on what we did in the past, like who we were and then who are we like, what do we want to be known for? What? Maybe what are we known for? Are we proud of that? And just have these kind of discussions and then think about where do we want to be in the future? So whether it's next year, us or end of the season, us, right? Want to be national champions or do we want to, host the conference tournament? Like, wherever we want to be, we only have influence over that based on what we do right now. So through that activity, a new activity has manifested itself. And this is like why I love what I do. And like that, I document everything in these PDF workbooks is the second activity. I call it the sister activity to that is I call it like pre season prep work. So after you do past, present, and future you, or past, present, future us, it's now going to, the next activity is what deserves our attention, what needs our attention, and what no longer gets our attention. And the same thing for you as an individual. It's identifying what are the things that deserve my attention, right? Like where my attention goes, energy flows. So what are the things that like deserve it? Like I just have to continue pouring my attention into this and then what needs my attention? What have been the things I've been neglecting? What are my what are my frustrations? And then once you identify your frustrations, now you know what you need to do. And then the, what no longer gets our attention is that's the game changer. Because sometimes we just. Asked us or we harped on what we used to do, or we harp on, how I used to be, or it's even like something happened in your life, like you just harp on it. But unless you're willing to say no, like no longer, I'm going to close the door, I'm going to close this chapter. You have to say it out loud. And then when you say it out loud, especially on teams, now we get to hold each other accountable. So if we no longer want to talk about that and somebody brings it up, we have the verbiage, like we have common verbiage where it's that no longer needs our attention or that no longer deserves our attention. Shut it down. And a lot of teams when I work with them with like team culture, we talk about okay, if last year's team was terrible, let's learn from that. Let's close the door. We don't need to talk about it anymore, but what we need to talk about and what needs our attention is how are we going to move forwards? So it's like, whether you're an individual or a group, it's being brave enough to have those conversations together and then navigating those conversations with each other and saying okay. This is how we're going to move forwards here.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:24:22

So everything we've talked about has been Amazing. Mind blowing to just think about the things that we have control over and how we can, bring ourselves back to grounding. One thing I think that happens a lot is I think conversation and arguments have been we don't have conversations a lot anymore. We typically, like you said, we just, we go, we react instead of actually take a step back and have questions and have an actual conversation, whether it be a difficult conversation, cause those are the hardest to have. So how can people, how can we empower people to bypass negative reactive arguments and being more productive in communication?

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:25:03

So there's a few different avenues I go down, especially when it comes to communication. It's something that I struggle with my entire life. I don't, I will say that like communicating in adverse. situations, like I would rather, eat snakes. Like I'm out. I don't love confrontation. And I knew that like that weakness in me, I was going to have to address it if like I wanted to help other people do it. So first, I don't want people to bypass because I think we have to do the hard things, right? You have to have The hard conversations and if they are reactive and they're emotional, it's, we have to identify like, how are we going to get to common ground or how are we going to agree to disagree or compromise. But if we don't have the conversation and we don't get to a place where we're arguing, like we're never going to know that that's like the hot spot for us. So some things that I will say I like to do is I like to provide teams with prompts. So conversation starters, conversation prompts, and usually it's like a list of questions and it could be, I have ones that go from like athlete to athlete conversation starters for athletes, coaches, and then coaches to athletes, I have parents athletes, the parents, I actually have a bunch of free ones if you scroll down my Instagram feed they're like on there, they're also probably like. Underneath like the journal prompt highlight on my, like on Instagram, but I want to provide the, how how to get started. And I think the way to get started is to read a prompt and answer the prompt in a social setting. So when I do team culture and team, like foundation, I do a lot of like foundational prompts. How do we want to feel in this space? What is a core value of ours? Just. Conversations that will start getting people to understand that like we're building something together like here together and it's not like what I want. It's a little bit of what everybody wants. But like a big one is my athlete to athlete conversation starters, which I do a lot in my team workshops where it's having athletes expose themselves on. You know how they want to be supported and so I do my best when, or I feel the most supported when, or, Hey, if I'm not doing what I should be done, if I'm not doing what I should be doing, I like to be redirected by. So it's like giving kids, first of all, an opportunity to even answer those questions for themselves. Cause I don't think any kid ever has ever thought Hey, like when I'm slacking, this is how I want somebody to redirect me, right? Like we think we know what we want, but like we really don't until we start talking about it. So I engage athletes in a lot of these prompts. And then I encourage coaches to utilize these conversations that are as these prompts throughout the season. So whether it's a, how we start practice, maybe it's how we end practice. Maybe it's for, meetings. Like a lot of coaches do like mid season meetings or they do check ins and it's have a question ready to go that you can ask your athletes, but then also Reciprocate have each give the lit it's 10 questions on a PDF and have every athlete come into your office and ask you one of these questions. And you have to be willing to answer all of these questions. So I always tell coaches, if there's a question you don't like on there, on that paper, block, like black it out and then make photocopies, right? So it's, or, Is there something that you want your athletes to either ask you put it in a question form for them to ask? Or if there's something that you want to know, you have to be willing to have that conversation. This generation, whether it's Gen Z or, the next generation, gen alpha coming up, it's They live in this very inauthentic world, right? Like it's a very filtered world, AI chatty TV. We like, don't know what's real or not anymore. And the way we can combat that is by sitting down and having these uncomfortable conversations with each other, because that's as authentic as it gets, you can't hide behind it. It's you're not typing, you're not texting. There's not a screen in between you. And I will say a lot of athletes are very uncomfortable when we do these questions, so I usually save them for like the end of my workshop. Because the whole workshop is like building up to get them to open up, but sometimes we have to, if we want our athletes to have organic conversations, like we want them to start talking to each other, we have to inorganically plant the seeds and the seeds are us putting them in that situation. So a lot of times it's creating the conversations that you want to be had and then being okay with the direction that the conversations go in. But a lot of coaches, I will say, are uncomfortable with where the conversations can go. And that's like a whole other layer, right? You have to be uncomfortable being you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And sometimes for me, if a question comes up or something comes up and I don't have a response or I don't have an answer, There is nothing more beautiful than saying that to a kid being like, I have no idea, but let's figure this out together. And I will say that's something that I did. I was an elementary PE teacher for 15 years and your fifth graders come to you with a question and I had no problem saying, Ooh, I don't know the answers to that. Let's go figure that out together. Or I don't know, what would you do? And it's validating the question instead of me saying, Oh, this is how I would answer it because I'm an adult, of course, I'm gonna, my perspective of a situation is going to be different than like a 10 and 11 year old. Same thing goes for College or high school teams and their coaching staffs. Sometimes it's throw the question right back and be like, I don't know how I would solve that. Or I don't know what we could do. What do you think we could do about that situation and create conversations because through conversation, you're going to get the answer. It might not be the answer that everybody wants, but it's going to lead us in a direction of where we can go. The second thing that I do is I also leave kids with Or leave whoever I work with, I always call them kids because like in my eyes, they're still kids, but like I leave athletes with, sometimes we feel like we need to solve people's problems, but at the end of the day, most people just want to be heard. And they just want to know that like it's okay to feel or to think what they're thinking. So instead of solving problems It's just creating space to engage in the conversation or to have the conversation So I use something called sympathy support and solution I will say it goes over great with female teams. My male teams hate the word sympathy again It's just whatever society put on that word. So it's funny because they're like, oh, I hate that word But it's okay. Then just don't use that word Use a different word. What is my response is usually what word would you rather use instead of sympathy? And it's like getting them to think, right? Because if they think they come up with it, they have ownership. But basically sympathy is sympathy. Support solution was created because I was frustrated with a lot of the conversations I was having in my own personal life where people would come to me. And I would give them my advice and then it would piss them off. And I'm like why are you coming to me if you don't want my advice? And I had realized that like when I'm mad or angry and I go to somebody, do I really want their advice? No, I just want them to listen to me. I just want to be validated. So I started doing this with like my own friends and my own family. Didn't go over great with my family, but it went over great with my friends. And it's important. Whether I'm entering a conversation or someone's coming to me in the conversation, it's stating what you need from the conversation. Let's stop being passive aggressive and assuming people know what we need and just say it. So if I'm entering a conversation and I just want to vent, I'm going to say, Hey, this is a sympathy conversation. It's something that I do with all my one on one athletes. So whenever they come, on to zoom and they look like they're about to vent, I'm always like Whoa. What conversation is this? And 100 percent of the time they're like sympathy. I'm like, okay, great. So I usually just mute myself. I sit back and sympathy is just you're creating space for them to like basically word vomit. And you're just going to let them word vomit, let them get it out. And when they're done, you're going to ask questions either tell me more or, Ooh, I'm so sorry. You're feeling that way. What do you, what's next? What do you need from me? Or you're going to say, Hey, like, how do you feel now? And if they say, feel safe, feel good. It's okay. And then you pivot, like you just move on because at the end of a sympathy conversation, like if sympathy is the goal, then that's it. But then I will say from sympathy, if you give somebody space to vent, they're more likely to come back to you for either support or a solution. So then a support is, how can I support you? How can I do this with you? What do you need from me? And I leave kids with the, these questions, these prompts to ask, or it's like, Hey, Oh it really sucks that you're having a problem with so and do you want me to come with you to talk to them? Or, yeah, I would go to coach with that. Do you want me to go to coach with you? And it's like, when you're supporting, it's literally you're holding someone's hand. You're giving them a hug, right? You're guiding them with them. You're not doing it for them, but you're there with them. And then solution that's green light go. That's, they want your advice. And I will say a lot of the athletes that I work with, once I give them sympathy and then I changed the conversation, they're always like wait no. I, what would you do? And I'm like, oh, do you want my, do you want a solution right now? And it's yeah, I want the solution. So it's creating these conversation prompts and these conversation starters that I have, it's all about creating common verbiage, right? Everything that I do, everything in, in, in game changers is about creating language between kid and kid or coach and kid, or even parent and kid that we can talk about things. And it makes sense to us. So whether it's the what if to when, whether it's reacting to responding, whether it's, controlling the controllables, it's like knowing that what these words mean to us and what these words mean here. So a lot of times like this, the conversation starters are about support or about how to hold somebody accountable. Or, Hey, this is how I want to be held accountable or even sympathy support solution. It's giving people like that to walk together so that conversation isn't scary because at the end of the day. We confuse conversation with some being like really difficult. And then some people assume that just because it's difficult, it's detrimental and they avoid it. Like I do, I will say I avoid. And it's remembering that it's not detrimental to your health to have this conversation. It's difficult. It's going to be uncomfortable, but what's on the other side, if that's more important than your discomfort, you're going to want to get there. But if you don't want to get to the other side and you're constantly going to stay in the state of like fear, I'd rather avoid it. I'd rather be passive aggressive. But the thing is, if we're not communicating it, we're holding onto it. And I teach athletes about the concept of rumination. So if I'm thinking it, but I'm not speaking it, it's constantly ruminating in my brain and it's just staying in there. So like my brain's going to start to make up stories that align with whatever I'm ruminating on. And the way that you can just bypass that is by literally just speaking it. So if it starts with an argument, it starts with an argument, but if it starts with a prompt, it starts with a prompt, but we have to get it out of our head and out of our mouths and figure out if what's on the other side of that is something that we know is going to help us and we know is like something that we want because if it's not something that's going to help you or something that you want, you're going to continue to avoid it.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:36:34

Lots and lots of great information. So many things to think about. Lots of great points. This has been a great conversation. I want to make sure that people can get. In touch with you. Maybe they can, they want to work with you. How where can the fine folks find your information? I'll put all your show I'm in the show notes. I'm going to put your email down and make sure your links are on there, but let the people know what you do, what you offer.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:36:59

So I do team workshops. I do presentations. I tell people the difference between a workshop and a presentation is workshops are hands on presentation is just me presenting information. I do a lot of keynotes. I go around to a lot of universities. I am very fortunate to work alongside of some great non profit, non for profits like The Hidden Opponent, Morgan's Message where I get to like pop into universities and talk on a massive scale, but my bread and butter is working with teams or departments. Yeah. I work with a lot of coaching staffs at universities, coaching the coach to bring this stuff to their athletes or hands on with the actual team and working with athletes. You can find me on Instagram. I will say that's probably like where I'm 100 percent at right now. And through like the links in my bio, you can book all console, consultations for coaches and for team workshops are free. Athlete consultations, you do have to pay a fee. But that's just to hold those athletes accountable because I can tell you how many people sign up for a consultation when it was free and then they just bail on it. So you have to put a little price tag on it to make it something that you're going to show up for. I post two to three times a day and it's just free information, free little nuggets for people to take with them. And I do take my content very seriously because I do, I want it to be a place where people come to and they're like, Oh my God, I can use this immediately. And that's the space that I'm hoping to create.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:38:23

I love it. Mental performance is so important. I'm glad that you're fine. You found your mission and what you want to do with it. And all the roads have led you to this point now. And I really appreciate you taking the amount of time that you did to give us this information and to spread the word because I do think it's so important. And I want my audience to hear it. I want people to understand it and, break the mold. Of just being shut down, playing that victim role, take ownership of your life. And that's exactly what you helped us do today. So thank you very much for your time.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:38:54

Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. It was a great conversation and I look forward to, seeing what you do with all this information.

Coach U Audio - Coach K Interview: 1:39:01

I promise you, I won't shy from it though, that I will not do. Thanks, Krystina. I appreciate it.

Kristyna Bertolone Audio and Video: 1:39:07

Thank you.