Welcome back to the raising unstoppable girl athletes podcast. My name is coach Bree. I'm an elite competitor coach for girl athletes. And I am so glad that you're here. Whether you are getting going on your sports mom journey, or you have a lot of seasons under your belt, this podcast is for you to help you know, how to bring the best out in your athlete. Get her to play to her potential. And for you to enjoy this sports journey. Now this episode is a little bit different. It's a special one. I am speaking all about how I started my dream career of becoming a mental performance coach and how to know if you should do it too. And the reason why I'm recording this episode and the reason why I'm doing a little bit of a different take on this is because I, over the years have been asked a lot of questions about how I got this business started where I got my mental performance certification from what I would recommend moms do if they are coaches do, if they're interested in it. And I've been getting those questions. More often, I suppose, over the past several months. And so I wanted to record an episode kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit. So this episode is for you, if you are just at all curious or at all interested in becoming a mental performance coach, or maybe you're just interested in seeing a little bit about my journey, you see our business and you're like, I wonder how she got started with that. It's also for any coaches out there who are interested in. Helping your team helping your athletes with this side of the game Now, before I get into the episode, I first want to let you know that I'm actually hosting a free training next week. If you're listening to this. As it's being released. So on Tuesday, June 20th, I'm actually going to be doing a training with my coach Lindsay Wilson of positive performance training. And it's called from nine to five to dream career. The five steps I took to become a certified mental performance coach. And so I'm going to be scratching the surface in this episode of how this all came about for me and kind of pulling back the curtain on my journey. But if you want to go a little more in depth with this, she's actually going to be teaching you the exact steps that I took to become a mental performance coach. And you'll also get to hear a little more about my story, how I went from a high school teacher and coach to a business owner with thousands of athletes coming through our program every year. So register for that, the link will be in the show notes and it'll be in your email and on social as well, so that you can. Make sure that if you are even just a little bit interested on, you know, what certification entails. What it looks like, how much it costs, like all of those things we'll be going over in that training. Okay. Let's get into it. How I started this whole career, this whole business of becoming a mental performance coach. First of all it started. About five years ago at this point, back in 2017, 2018 ish. And here's the thing I had always been interested. Like many of you likely in sports psychology in the mental side of the game, it played a big part in my role as an athlete in my athletic journey, those of you that know my story know that I struggled with perfectionism. I struggled with being a high achiever and a lot of pressure that was put on me and. Until I really tapped into the mental side of the game. I mean, that's really where everything changed for me. And so I was a coach or I still am a coach, but also a teacher. And, you know, I saw this huge need in my athletes that I was coaching. And I know you see this too likely in your daughter or in your daughter's Teammates in teams that you're a part of. If you're a coach. And I, especially when I first became a coach was sort of baffled because I could teach my athletes, all of the physical skills in the world, all of the you know, technical training that I could provide for them. I could do that all and they could be really great in practice. And then when they would get in a game, they would struggle. Right. They would. Miss their serve on game points, they would make a mistake and then spiral because they were putting pressure on themselves. So they thought I was going to pull them out, like all of these things that were totally tied to their mental game. And so my team that I was coaching. You know, Just kind of year after year, we actually you know, two years in a row missed qualifying for steep because we fell apart in that game that we call fitness for state. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've prepared you in. All of the ways that I knew, but I was lacking in a big way. I did not know how to mentally prepare them for those moments. And so that's kind of what first sparked this in me. Like I had a passion, I always found it fascinating. I studied sports psychology as part of my undergrad in kinesiology and was like, I know that there's something here, but I don't know. I don't know how to teach it. Right. Like I could YouTube themes. I can read books, but like, how do I put all of this information? Into a way that makes sense for athletes to digest. So that's kind of where it started. And as I started kind of looking into things, I stumbled upon that Lindsey and the certification program that I'll talk about in a little bit. And as I did that, though. I also was through taking a look at my own career and where I was in my life. So at that time I had a newborn baby. And, you know, whenever those like big changes happen in your life, like you have another kid or your kid goes off to high school or college, you know, it's kind of those like big changes for me, at least always provided an opportunity for me to like look at my life and decide where my priorities. What do I want? And at that time, and even still now, I wanted more time with my daughter and I was looking at my job as a teacher. And was getting a little burnt out. You know, it's just kind of the nature I think of the industry, but, you know, I was looking at even just from my day perspective, I would go to work at. 7:00 AM. And then I would coach and I wouldn't get home until like sometimes 10 o'clock at night. And you know, that left not a lot of time for what I wanted to prioritize in my life. And I also wanted. You know, a little more purpose to my career while teaching is very meaningful and in many ways, in many ways it also kind of left me feeling unfulfilled. And sometimes I think that's hard to talk about, you know, in your career that you've invested a lot of time and and money and energy into to admit that maybe I wasn't as fulfilled as I could be. Like, that was hard for me. I don't know if that's hard for you, but it was hard for me. And. What I knew I wanted, what I was really passionate about was developing this side of the game. It always was. You know what kind of intrigued me in coaching and, and team building and all of that. And so I was like, okay, could there be something that would provide a little more purpose? And also provide me and my family with a little more freedom and flexibility. And I didn't really know like how to go about all of that, but there was just this spark inside of me, you know, just that drew, you felt that before, like this kind of like a pole, you know, like, oh, there's something here. And then once I saw. That there was a certification program and there were other people who had experienced you know a change in their career shift in their career, or they were doing, they were working with athletes and working with teams. I was like, oh, okay. So other people are doing this. I wonder if I could. And the last thing I'll mention about this is that I just am always looking to develop as a person I am into personal development. I know a lot of the moms that listen to our podcast. R two. And I mean, it's a blessing and a curse to always have this feeling of like, how can I be a better coach? How can I be a better parent? How can I be a better person? And I saw this as an avenue to check a lot of those boxes. That I could improve as a person improve my emotional regulation and my mental skills. Just as, as a parent, as as a spouse, as just a person in general. Who always desires to learn more. And then also as a way that I could be a better coach for my athletes and then potentially I hadn't quite figured out this piece yet, but potentially. Make money and have more time, freedom and more money. Freedom. So, how did I, how did I do this? Okay. Now there's more to this than I can cover in this podcast episode. And that's how we have that training next Tuesday, the 20th that I want you to come to, we're going to go a lot more in depth with. Specifically the five steps that Lindsey lays out to becoming a mental performance coach and how that played out in my journey. So I'll really dig into that and then you'll have an opportunity to ask me specific questions. So. I'm sure you register for that. Happening next Tuesday, June 20th. No. First of all, but the first step in all of this. I was recognizing that I had a passion and I wanted to set a goal for myself. And another part of this that I. I maybe should have mentioned earlier, was that. You know, sometimes it's hard when we, as moms have some of these passions and some that, you know, a poll hard because this means that we're prioritizing something that we want and something that matters to us. And I, oh, I kind of struggled with that a little bit because it was an investment for our family, for me to go into certification and to follow this. Without really any guarantee of return other than I would be a better coach, a better person, all of that. And maybe one of the reasons that it kind of made me jump into this was thinking about my own daughter and thinking about, you know, if I want to raise a daughter who goes after her goals and. Follows her passions and listens to that whisper inside of her and, you know, listen to her gut. I mean, I tell her that now she's, five now. And you know, I always tell her like, listen to your, your gut always knows. And you know, all of these things. That I want her to embody. You know, in order for her to do that, I need to do that myself too. And I didn't want to wait years and years and years and just kind of put it off, put it off, put it off. Yeah. Tell her to go after her goals and chase her goals. And so I really wanted to set that example for her as well. And one of the ways that I could do that was, you know, just following that and taking the next step. So I needed to figure out the steps that I had to take to work towards that goal of becoming a mental performance coach of what it might take to. Make money doing this to potentially even like go down to part-time and my teaching career, or even you know, switch careers altogether. And I love figuring things out. I am a researcher. I will go down any rabbit hole. But I also really like to have a proven plan to follow. So there's less trial and error. Less wasted time, less wasted money. And so I jumped into a program that I knew was vetted because I also, you know, when I say I'm a researcher, I researched the heck out of this program too. I talked to other people that have been through it. Like I went through great lengths to make sure that my investment was going to be a smart one. So I jumped into a program that I knew would give me the steps forward. And I didn't jump in right away. Like I, I went to a lot of info sessions. Like I said, I, I talked to people who had been through it. You know, I even talked to Lindsay herself, like, you know, all these things, so. Long story short, I found a program that checked all those boxes for me. It was comprehensive, but didn't require me to go back to school to get a PhD already had. You know, two master's degrees. I didn't need to drop another $50,000 on a degree. Like this program was science backed. It taught me, like I said, all of the, how associated with how to teach these skills. So that I didn't have to like keep piecing things together to provide something for my athletes. So long story short, like I said, I'm kinda scratching the surface here. Join the, certification program. I got started working with my own team, my own athletes. So I started implementing mental training with my high school volleyball team. And immediately, I mean, I'm not even joking when I say immediately, like, Some things are too good to be true, but really they started changing the way that they just approached the game. Right. There was way less you know, spiraling after mistakes. Cause I had taught them actual skills to be able to use in those situations. We've started implementing visualization. And of course I had all the things I had imposter syndrome. When I started all this, I had all the, like, I don't even know if I can do this. I have no business background. Like how could I even create a business out of this? Like all the things. Right. Yeah, I still took that first bold, brave action to do. I started working with my team. Part of the program is becoming a visualization specialist. And so I learned how to deliver visualizations for my team. And when I did our post-season surveys at the end of that, one of their favorite parts of the season were the visualizations. And they just said how much, how much it helped them with some of this pregame nerves, pregame anxiety. All of these things that they struggle with, but really don't know how to handle. After three years of doing that with my team, we actually won our first state championship and then we won another one. And so obviously. You know, a lot goes into a state championship, but. And talked to my girls. You know, it didn't hurt us, right? The mental training that we implemented only allowed our team. Two. Reach our potential, right? We, we had the talent, but as you know, not all teams do have talent and have skill can reach the potential that they're capable of. But for us, that's what unlocked our potential there. So I started working with my team in the beginning, and then I also started working with athletes one-on-one and I just got so much joy from helping them overcome some of these limiting beliefs that they were having about themselves, give them tangible tools. Then I also started working with small groups in teams. Out of local club that was in the area. And so just kind of started all of these. Small actions. And I, my eyes were actually were open to how much opportunity was just around me. Within like 10 miles of where I live, right. There were multiple club teams, multiple high school teams. You know, thousands of athletes. And I was like, oh my gosh. Once I started to see like, wow, there's so much opportunity here where I could work with so many teams, so many athletes and it's such a needed thing. Then I was like, oh my gosh, you know, there is opportunity here to make money doing this. And so long story short, there's a lot more to, you know, what you see our business as now. But I ended up leaving teaching in 2021 to run our company full time. And because I, I did, I got to the point where I had complete time freedom. I have money freedom. Now I knew that if I could make just even $5,000 a month, I could leave my teaching career and shift to something that was. Really meaningful to me and something that I was super passionate about and I was able to do that. And so our business now is you know, a lot bigger than when I started. And so not to say that when you first get started as a mental performance coach, that you can't, you know, grow and create a business, you know, as Kristina and I have. But even if you want to just start working with your team or start working one-on-one with athletes that are in your area, start working with small groups. You know, be them into performance coach for your club. Like, those are really like, for me, that was so passion filled and so purposeful. So meaningful to me as well you know, on our pursuit to build the business that we have now. So that is kind of scratching the surface behind the scenes. I covered, you know, why I first got it, got into this. Whole. Area of mental performance coaching. I didn't even really know that it was a thing until I started researching until I started to kind of listen to this whisper. That was talking to me around. You know, the mental side of the game and mental health and seeing the struggles that my athletes were having and wanting to solve for that, which then turned into more of a, wow, this is something that I enjoy. And I wonder if I could make money doing it. And I will go a lot more in depth around all of this, at that training next week with Lindsay. So make sure you register. For that again, that's from nine to five to dream career. The five steps that I took to become a certified mental performance coach. So Lindsay Wilson of positive performance training will be on that webinar. And she'll be teaching you those five steps. And then I will also give you a behind the scenes of how those five steps looked in my journey and then give you a chance to answer any questions that you have about, you know, where I got started and also any business questions that you might have as well. So. I hope you enjoyed this episode, those of you that are even curious, or even just, just interested, like just sign up. And that's how I started, you know, it was like, I'm just interested. I'm going to go to this free training. I'm going to go to this, like. Free thing. I'm I'm just gonna learn and listen. And if it's not for me, whatever, it's not for me, that's fine. But I don't want an opportunity to pass me by. I don't want to deal with that. What if. Demon that it kind of haunts us. When we pass up opportunities that we might not even know. You know, what could come up. So go ahead. Register for that training, even if you're just a little bit curious you know, it'll be, it'll be really eye opening. All right, moms. I will see you in the next episode of the raising unstoppable girl athletes podcast.