1:12

If your athlete daughter has ever considered walking away or quitting her sport, then this episode is for you or for her. This is a great one for both of you to listen to because I had the pleasure of sitting down with Greer, who was a collegiate cheerleader at Purdue University, so I got to get an insight into her story. What led her to collegiate athletics and then ultimately led her to walking away from her sport after her freshman season. There's a lot of insight, a lot of nuggets in here that parents can take away, but also athletes. If you're on this journey and you're like, I don't know if it's worth it to keep going or if I should walk away, you're gonna learn so much. And if I have not met you, I'm Coach Bre. I am a mental performance coach for girl athletes, and this podcast is for sports parents, but also for athletes. This episode specifically is for athletes all who have the same goal, to enjoy their sport, to get better, and to become mentally stronger and confident. Now, before I get into this episode, I wanna give a shout out to a mom in our community. This is a mom of an athlete going through our signature mental training program. The elite mental game and she posted this inside our private community. She said my daughter had a great practice and felt she was mentally stronger by not draining her battery, by being super critical of herself when she made a mistake. Now this is huge because I know a lot of you, if you're an athlete that's listening, you probably struggle with some level of perfectionism like I did as an athlete. And like so many have. And if you're a parent, you probably see this in your athlete as well. And it can be brutal. It can be hard as an athlete to feel like you're never. You are never doing as good as you wanna do. You're constantly, you know, being critical of your performance of yourself. And to be able to have a moment where this athlete is like, she felt like she was not draining her battery because she's being super critical. Like she actually had a good practice and could. Celebrate the things that were going well and not coming away, just beating herself up. Those are the types of things that athletes learn how to do inside our program, the Elite Mental Game. If you wanna learn more about that, head to train her game.com. That's our free training where we talk about our methodology, how we train the mental side of the game, and we also talk about our program, the Elite Mental Game at the training. All right, let's get into this episode with Greer. I know that you're gonna enjoy it as much as I enjoyed chatting with her.

Breanne Webinar: 3:27

All right. Welcome Greer to the Raising Elite Competitors podcast.

Greer: 3:32

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Breanne Webinar: 3:33

Yeah. I'm so excited to have you on. So I'm gonna let you do a quick intro of yourself, and then we're going to get into it right away, because I'm just so excited and thankful that you're coming on to share your story with parents and with athletes because it's so needed. So will you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Greer: 3:53

Hi, my name is Greer. I am currently a senior at Purdue University. I'm originally from Ohio, but the last couple of years I've been in Indiana. I did collegiate cheer here at Purdue, so have a lot of background to collegiate, sports, rec, sports, everything under the umbrella of sports. So I'm super excited to talk.

Breanne Webinar: 4:17

Yeah. Yeah. So Greer has an amazing story that, you're learning to own and kind of write. Your own ending to it. And I'm really excited to dive into that. But another fun fact is that Greer is interning for our company this summer. So she has been working for us, kind of behind the scenes and, helping to optimize some things in our business. And we're so thankful to have her on our team. Greer, what are you studying at Purdue?

Greer: 4:41

Psychology.

Breanne Webinar: 4:42

Right. Awesome. So this is also very much in alignment. So, yeah,

Greer: 4:46

Yep.

Breanne Webinar: 4:46

let's start with your story. Let's take us back. Obviously you are an athlete. Where did it start? How did you start to fall in love with, you know, the sport that you ended up playing? Collegiately. Let's start there.

Greer: 4:59

So ever since I was little, my parents had me in sports. I am A DHD, anxiety to the max, so keeping me busy involved with sports really helped just release a lot of. Everything. So I started out doing soccer, softball, and then I found my way to dance and cheer. I started cheering in fifth grade, just doing rec cheer so far, fifth grade basketball team. Nothing too crazy, just some chants on the side. And then I did competition dance as well. I did competition dance until my junior year of high school. All while doing that, I cheered just for my. School, so just for my local school through for football, basketball. But I never dipped my toes into competitive cheer, just wasn't my thing. I loved interacting with the crowd. Fast forward, I got to my junior year of high school and I was like, the goal was always to dance in college, and dance was something that I loved to do, but I was very hard on myself. It got to the point where I wasn't really enjoying it because I was constantly comparing myself. And it was just, I wasn't in love with it anymore. And cheer was something that I always had just the best time with. I, not to sound conceited or anything, but I knew that I, was doing a good job when I was cheering, and I knew that. I had the skills and I was getting a little more praise for cheer than I ever really got for dance. And that's something that was really big for me. So I decided, you know what? I'm gonna cheer in college. I knew for a long time I was gonna do something in college'cause I wasn't ready to give up my give up sports. I was like, I'm gonna cheer in college. And I had to learn absolutely everything. I had only done high school cheer. I didn't know how to stunt or do any of that. So I learned all of that and I was like, we're doing college cheer. So that was kinda, I knew that I felt comfortable there. It felt like home cheer felt like home. So I knew that had to be the right decision.

Breanne Webinar: 7:05

Yeah. Okay. So you decided you were going to cheer in college. How does the recruiting process work? Or how does that happen? So you ended up choosing to go to Purdue, which is, I mean, a phenomenal school. So how did that all come together? I.

Greer: 7:17

Okay, so recruiting for cheer is a little bit different. You see some bigger schools now, they started doing all recruiting process, but to get recruited you have to go to the camps or clinics that they hold. So just kind of like exactly like how basketball, you have a a u tournaments where you have coaches that come or you have shoot arounds or volleyball tournaments and there's, you always know that there's coaches coming to watch. So with cheer, yes. Your coaches, sometimes they'll like. They'll go to your big, all star tournaments and all star competitions. But the main thing for collegiate cheer is attending those camps and clinics that they hold. So when I was going through the process, Purdue wasn't a full recruiting school yet, so they still did the tryout process, but to get. The chance to try out, you still had to get a bid, so you still had to attend those clinics. They had to see you, and they're like, okay, this is worth giving this girl a tryout or this guy a tryout. And it's different for every school. Purdue has now switched to full recruiting, so it's more of just emailing those videos, getting your, getting yourself on their desk and attending those camps and clinics, seeing how you interact with the team. And all of that. So that's really what I did. I started going to camps and clinics at a bunch of different schools just'cause I was in the process of learning everything as well. And I just, I clicked really well with the team here. I loved the coaches. A big thing for me was coaches seeing the potential that I had. I wasn't perfect. I was. Far from perfect. Actually, there was a lot that I didn't know because of the fact that Ohio is a ground bound state, so I didn't know how to do any of the stunting. So I knew my game day was good. I could dance, I could do the ch I, my game day was perfect. I was super confident with my game day, but I had to learn all of the stunting. So it was a lot of coaches putting. Their trust in me that, okay, this is a, this is an athlete that's coachable, this is an athlete that wants to learn, and that I can see potential in. And I produced coaches saw that in me and I, that meant the world to me.'cause I was like, I know that I'll prove myself and they believed in me. So that was really what was the deciding factor for Purdue as well.

Breanne Webinar: 9:49

Yeah. Okay, so you go to Purdue, you cheer your freshman year and teaser spoil alert. You're not cheering right now.

Greer: 10:00

Yes.

Breanne Webinar: 10:01

Right, so talk us through your experience. I know that's a very big broad question, but how was your collegiate experience, kind of what happened?

Greer: 10:10

Yep. So, like I said, I fell in love with the team, the team dynamic, and. Coaches, they saw that potential in me. They believed in me, and that was everything to me

Breanne Webinar: 10:21

I.

Greer: 10:21

right before tryouts. Those coaches, got other opportunities and they decided to leave Purdue,

Breanne Webinar: 10:29

Mm.

Greer: 10:30

which was very, very big. It was very sad, but at that point I was already full on, I had all my eggs in Purdue's basket and I was ready to go. That's where I wanted to be and. I put my trust in Purdue Athletics to get me and my teammates a good coach. I went through the tryout process. I made the team with interim coaches. We didn't get a coach until July. Now I had amazing upperclassmen, teammates who got us all together over the summer. We had practices. We knew all the material. By the time we got into coaches for like teaching us things. And we already knew everything. We knew more than our coaches coming in. Now the second these coaches stepped on campus, it was a completely different world. The team dynamic fell apart. They were very young, and they only coached all star cheer. They both were collegiate cheerleaders and absolutely amazing athletes. Some of the top cheerleaders in the past couple of years. Amazing. But I've found that amazing athletes don't always make amazing coaches and that's okay. But when you're coming into this level of athletics and this position, they were failing us a little bit and not even a little bit, a lot of it actually, not only were they failing us, Purdue Athletics was failing us, which is. Very sad, but, it got handled eventually. So with all of that, they just, they pinned athletes against each other. It was a competition between just teammates, which isn't, that's okay at some point, and in certain things, you want to have your athletes push each other, but it wasn't in a healthy way. It wasn't done the way it should have been. So the team dynamic fell apart. They didn't really know the ins and outs, which is, is understandable. I mean, you're stepping into a new position, you're not gonna know everything. But they weren't equipped or ready to lead this big of a program with this many athletes. They wanted to push the athletes to the best of their abilities, but they didn't see the need for them to teach us. It was Upperclassmen's job to teach new skills, and It was okay for them to show up late to game days. But if we were to express our concerns or. Have exams or things that we had to get done for school, which I will always say education comes first.'Cause at the end of the day, the sad truth is our sports will end. So education is always first. As hard as that is sometimes when you have all these practices and these games and these competitions that you have to compete and wanna do well, you still have to focus on your academics, especially in college, I. it was really challenging because I'm like, I, at the end of the day, I'm still a kid, but I also am trying to be treated like an adult. But it's really hard when the adult isn't acting like an adult and you're in such a hard position because this coach is your boss.

Breanne Webinar: 13:53

Yeah.

Greer: 13:54

I am being treated like a toddler and I'm. Not even being treated as a human being, which is a lot of times what the case was. If I tried to have conversations, it was just, I was told on countless occasions that I'm your coach, I can say whatever I want to you. And in the moment you're just standing at practice in front of your entire team and you're like, well, I guess so. Like I, I mean, I was constantly put in situations of is that okay? Is it not okay? And then I really had to sit and reflect and realize was I being treated the way I should be just as a human? So there were just a lot of things that, It was a constant battle of fighting between. g etting the respect that I should as an athlete, even though my coach was my boss, I did what they told me to do because I was their employee more or less. But that's just a little bit of, there's so many other things of certain cases that were in certain situations that had happened, but. All of it boils down to, just coaching can make or break your experience and a lot of times there's absolutely nothing you can do. In my case, I got fed up with it and I was like, this is not okay. I may be 18 and I'm away from home for the first time, and I'm struggling to stay above water, but I'm not gonna allow myself to. Be treated this way anymore. So I went to the offices, I went to, I went to the head of our spirit squad. I went to Title nine. I had to start seeing Team Psych. And I, made it clear of what was happening, and they ended up getting fired after their first year. After that, it was gonna be a whole nother round of trying out and not knowing who our coach was. So I had to really, I had to make the tough decision then to decide to focus on me and my wellbeing and focus on academics. I.

Breanne Webinar: 16:13

Yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. And I mean, good for you because I think a lot of athletes do have that question in the back of their mind. They're like, is this okay or is it not? There's a power dynamic and they hear a lot from their coaches, like, you can kind of do whatever you want and. Like coaching, like they get a pass or something like that. And so for you to be able to recognize like this doesn't feel right and to take action, it's huge because it sounds like it made a difference also, for all of your teammates who are returning. So you made the decision for yourself to step away. And then tell me about how it felt after that. Because I know as athletes, our sport can become our identity. So, you know, tell me about, after.

Greer: 16:57

It was very, very challenging. I felt like a failure that I gave up because I, it's still my thing that I always say, like, I let. I always say I let little people destroy what I had worked so hard for,

Breanne Webinar: 17:13

Mm.

Greer: 17:13

and I for a while felt that I was weak and that I failed myself. I failed my town that was so proud of me for leaving a super small town and going to the Big 10. I felt like I failed my parents for all the time and effort and money they put in to get me here. It was just a lot of reflecting. I kept having to look and say, you know what? I had the most challenging and worst year of my life. I lost myself. My life fell apart. I always say I planned for the worst things to happen, so I'm not disappointed or upset, but cheer was kind of that one thing. I didn't plan to fall apart, so when it did, I called my mom every single night, 10:00 PM every night, bawling my eyes out. So I was struggling beyond even imaginable, and I was so nervous to tell my parents that I was like, I just can't do this anymore. Like, it's not healthy for me. It was affecting my mental state and I. I couldn't, I had to really tell myself that. Like I said, at the end of the day, athletics will end as terrible and as sucky as that is, we never want our sport to end because we've been doing it for so long. And like you said, that's our identity. That's what we eat, sleep, and breathe our sports. And we put all of our being and all of our energy into those sports because that's. That's what we care about the most. That's why we do it. That's, we love it. And I think especially me working so hard to get to that level and just it being done, I still carry a good amount of guilt of should I have transferred? Should I have just been a little bit tougher and said, you know what, let's give it a shot. Let's put our trust in Purdue and hope we get a good coach's time. But it's always gonna be the what ifs you're never gonna know the right decision to make in the moment. And a thing that I kind of carry with me now after all of that is, a little phrase of maybe so, maybe not. And it just reminds me that you are never gonna know the consequences of actions. But when you are tasked with making decisions that are. Gonna affect you and have a big part of your life change. Just go with what you think is gonna be best for you at the end of the day. And I really do think that it was a good decision to, to let it go and say, you know what, I'm gonna focus on me. I do miss it. I miss it. A great amount, but it's also kind of hard when I got to college cheer with collegiate cheer, it was a very different world, than what I was doing in high school. So I always say I miss it, but it's also very difficult to miss something that was so terrible like I miss being at the football games. When I go to the football games, it makes me sad not being down there because I loved interacting with fans and just little kids looking up to you as just the greatest thing in the whole world. It's a feeling that I wish to feel forever. But everything outside of that was terrible and it was a break in just everything being done with it. I could breathe, I could relax. I didn't have constant pressures of what is my coach gonna text me? What is this repercussion gonna be because I'm sick? Am I gonna get in trouble again?'cause I'm sick?

Breanne Webinar: 21:09

Right.

Greer: 21:10

that happened. You weren't allowed to be sick. I mean, I. I got sick in the beginning of the year and that's what started it all, and it wasn't something of just a cold. It was I had to go to the doctor and like, it just, yeah. So that's, yeah.

Breanne Webinar: 21:31

It sounds like it was the right, I mean, obviously that comes with anything, you know, any decision that we make. There's, there's the good and then there's the overwhelming, not good, but you know, that's part of it. And we teach athletes all the time that like the greatest skill you can have is adaptability. And I feel like that's, and resilience really, but adaptability meaning like you don't know, like you said, you don't know how this decision is going to play out, but. Your core belief about yourself is that you know, you're adaptable. You can face whatever comes and it really is gonna be okay. And so. I know that there are athletes who are listening and there's probably parents of athletes who are listening who are also stuck. And I will also say this wasn't like a rash decision that you made. It sounds like this is something you really thought through. It wasn't like, that's it, I'm quitting. It was like, you really put a lot of thought into this. So, any advice that you would give to athletes who are stuck in, maybe in a similar position? Not, maybe not at college, but maybe in high school where they're stuck between like. Either, you know, is it just pushing through? Do I just need to push through or is this something that I need to step away from? Um, yeah. Anything there that you can shed

Greer: 22:41

I, I think that's, again, that's a super difficult thing to have to go through and you're not alone. A lot of athletes go through that. But I think especially at younger and stages before you get to college, if that, if you have your goals, really take the time to say, okay, is this something that's permanent? Because a lot of the time it's not, you're not gonna have this coach forever. You're not gonna have these teammates forever. But if it is affecting you so much that you are, you don't wanna be at school. You don't wanna do anything, you don't wanna go to practice. You're upset before practice, you're upset before games. Have conversations with your parents, have conversations with friends that are outside of, this team or this sport or just. Anyone that you have a close relationship, have conversations and explain what you're going through and let them give you their insight. I know sometimes we don't wanna hear other people's opinions. Most of the time I know I don't wanna hear other people's opinion'cause I'm like, it's not your life. You don't know. But I think that is very beneficial because you can get an out of the box outside perspective, and that doesn't always make it easier. But it, a little bits of those things they say will go into your brain a little bit, whether you want them to or not, and you can kind of gain other perspectives. And like I said, it is never permanent. So if you have those dreams and goals, if sometimes you have to suffer a little bit, sometimes it's kind of that thing of chosen suffering. You, you are choosing. To get better and better to reach those goals. So you're not gonna have the greatest teammates. Sometimes you're not gonna have the greatest coaches, but I don't want my story to say, well, okay, maybe it's just something I need to step away from. I was to the point that I was like, you know what, I'm in college and I've done it for a really long time at this point, and I did all the steps to get here. And I'm choosing to be here to do this. I'm choosing to go to this school and compete for these people. And I think at this point I'm okay with just being a regular person now. And, but I don't think I would've given up those things until I reached those goals.'cause I would never have been able to. Be okay with myself just letting go at a younger stage. But I think the biggest thing is always just to remember it's not permanent. And if you have to do a little bit of chosen suffering to push through, you can do it. But you can do anything you put your mind to if that's truly what you want. But if it's not what you want, it's okay to step away. People might be a little sad, but. Everyone's still gonna love you. Your teammates are gonna understand, your parents are gonna love you. Your coaches will understand because again, at the end of the day, athletics end, and even though we think athletics is the end all, be all, we think our sport is everything in this world. We do feel that, and that's totally valid, but it's not everything. Sports are not everything, and the world's gonna keep spinning and. Your life's gonna continue to be just as great with or without your sport.

Breanne Webinar: 26:22

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's great because we do get tied up in that, like this is. This is the meaning of life and lot sports do help us develop a lot of skills and, you know, all of that. But it's not, and I'm curious how your parents responded to, were they supportive? Were, was there anything you wish they would have done through the process?

Greer: 26:44

I think it was, a lot of the issues that I had throughout the year, I kept kind of to myself. I wanted to try to handle it on my own. I didn't, which there were issues that most definitely could have. Been handled by my parents and maybe should have been handled by my parents, because they were that big of issues and things going on. But I wanted to be an adult. I wanted to handle it on my own. And I eventually, my parents kind of knew about everything and they were just, my dad was fed up with it. My dad wanted to go into the offices, and I'm like, okay, that's gonna make my situation worse. Like. We don't need that. Let me, I got this under control. If I need you guys, I will tell you, my mom at the end of it was, she understood. I mean, like I said, I called her every single night, just bawling my eyes out and I can only imagine how stressful and hard that is as a parent. And especially her being away. I'm an only child, so I'm like her, everything. So I'm away from home for the first time and. So she was really in it with me too. So I think it was a big relief on her and I, but she still, she misses it maybe a little bit more than I do. But that goes with dance too. When I stop dancing, she still misses that so much and she'll reminisce and watch videos and show me pictures. But your parents are always gonna support you. Especially when it comes to just your wellbeing. Your parents are gonna be there for you, they're gonna support you. They may not be happy. I mean, they're probably spending a lot of money. They're, they're traveling, they're going to states, they're going to tournaments. They're, I mean, they are just as involved in your sport as you are. So you kind of have to realize, okay, they're grieving this a little bit too. Which I know being young is not an easy thing to. You're like, okay, you're the parent. Like, I'm stopping the sport. Why are you upset? But they're just as involved as you are. So you kind of have to, it's another one of those. Take an outside look and look at it from the outside and say, okay, well they were taking me to every practice. They were at every game. They saw the blood, sweat, and tears. So they have to grieve that too a little bit. And we kind of have to let them, even though we're like, come on, it's my sport. But.

Breanne Webinar: 29:04

Yeah, I get that. Yeah, that's hard. And I think though parents that are listening, what I'm hearing from your parents was that they didn't automatically say like, don't quit. Don't quit. Because I think that would be, I mean, for me, because I have a similar story, where I walked away from my sport, for a bit. And like if my parents would, if I would've come to them and been like, I'm thinking about quitting, or I'm really having a hard time. And my parents were like, you can't quit. Can't, it's not an option. You know, I probably would've stopped coming to them and, I would've probably internalized a lot more and them just being open. I don't know if this is your experience too, to like, listen, because when we hear that as parents, I mean, I have kids that are playing sports too, and I think our gut reaction is like, I've invested so much time, so much money. I like this sport. You're good at it. You know, like, why would you wanna quit? Or maybe it even is a family value that like, you don't quit things in the middle of the season or whatever. And so I think we have to, as parents, like realize that our gut reaction needs to be to like put aside our initial feelings and like, listen. And just listen to what the experience is so that our kids can keep coming to us and not have to like shove everything down or things like that. So, I don't know if that was your experience too,

Greer: 30:18

Yes, definitely. And that's something that I've also just like outside of necessarily athletics or everything, like I have a really good relationship with my mom and sometimes there's instances that I'm like, mom, I just need you to sit. I need you to hear me. I need you to just sit back a little bit and hear what I'm saying. Then I need you to process it before you decide to react. And that goes with everything. But like, especially with athletics, because a lot of the times if we're coming to our parents, we're already in a frantic of like, something's not going well. So we're already stressed, we're already upset, and we really just need space to. Have your parents like, hear us out. Like just hear me out, hear what I'm going through, hear how I'm feeling. And I think that makes all of the difference.

Breanne Webinar: 31:08

Yeah, for sure. Okay. I have a couple more questions as we wrap this up. Now you are studying psychology, you're working for us, you know, so you're clearly passionate about the mental side of sports and you know, confidence in girl athletes. Are there skills that you wish you would've had, you know, as an athlete, either in high school and college, and do you think it would've made any difference? Can you just go there?

Greer: 31:33

Oh my goodness. I say to you guys all the time, I'm constantly saying to Christina, uh, I wish that I had this program when I was in my rec sports, when I was in competition sports, and when I was in college. I going through the program, as I'm working with you guys over the summer and just everything that I'm taking outta the program now and learning I am using in my day-to-day life, and I am.

Breanne Webinar: 32:04

Cool.

Greer: 32:04

Everything that I'm doing now is so much easier'cause I'm using the breath work and that was always something that I kind of had,'cause I, anxiety, A DHD, I'm always like breath in, breath in the blue skies, blow out the gray skies. But the hot cocoa breaths, the visualization, I really lost the visualization. And I started doing that again. And just the program helps in all aspects of life and. Even being out of athletics now and going through it, it's, it helps with work, it helps with class, it helps with me driving and people are not knowing how to drive. Like just absolutely everything in life it's beneficial for. And it teaches you so many skills and values that you just need as a person, as a girl, as an athlete. So I'm very grateful for that. But another thing that I think is. Really awesome is how you can continue to go through the program multiple times and as you go through them, you're always in different stages of life. You're gonna have different issues and different challenges. So when you go through the program, you're automatically gonna put your focus to that issue that you have going on at the time. So it's, it's a continual program that you can continue to do, and it's gonna help in every aspect because. Every aspect of your life, you're gonna have different challenges, which you're gonna focus those skills on, if that makes sense. So it's like an ever going program that you continue, you can continue to use because you're gonna continue to have different challenges in every aspect of life. And that goes with athletics or without?

Breanne Webinar: 33:47

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so glad then that you have the skills now and, um, you know, parents that are listening, I hope you find relief in that too. Whether you're considering the elite mental game that's our program or not, that yeah, these skills are absolutely applicable to your daughter's sport. That's why we created it. But like, the ultimate reason why we created it is because it goes well beyond sport. And, yeah, like ER said. Using it in situa. And that's almost even, that's almost like more impactful because it's like your daily life, your daily happiness, like how you view things, all of that. And yeah, I can't think of anything as a parent that I would want more for my kids. Not that it's important for them to be happy all the time, but be able to have the skills to navigate the tough stuff like that is really where it's at.

Greer: 34:34

Yeah. I think the biggest thing is life's not always gonna go your way, and that's hard. And there's things that you can't control, and I. If you have those skills and you, you don't have to have these skills perfected either. Like it's totally okay, but as long as you kind of have that toolbox of, okay, I have these skills in my back pocket, I might not be great at'em. They might not be perfected, but you still have that toolbox so you can pick parts out and you still have that skill in your head to say, okay. I can use this. I can breathe a little bit. I can visualize how I want this to play out or how I can respond to certain things playing out, and that goes to everything.

Breanne Webinar: 35:21

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, Greer, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your story, for being vulnerable. Know that. It has impacted, I mean, you came into our community and you spoke to our athletes who are going through the program, and so they were able to be inspired and encouraged by you. Same with parents. So while sometimes walking away from your sport might seem like, oh, that's tough. Like that decision now has positively impacted so many people because you've chosen to use it that way.

Greer: 35:53

I can fill my bucket in other ways now, and it's as just as fulfilling as being on the field or being in an arena. So, if you don't mind, I have my top five like advice, things that I wanted to tell on the athlete call and I completely forgot, but I have my top fives that are like my everythings.

Breanne Webinar: 36:16

I would.

Greer: 36:16

the first, the first one is find your why. Why are you doing this sport? Like I said, the little girls and the every little kid looking up to me and just thinking I was the most amazing thing in the world.'cause I was that little kid once. That was kind of my why. And always focus on your why. My second one is control the controllables. Like we said, you're, there's some things that you don't have any control over and that's hard, but. You do have control over a lot of things, so focus on those. My third one is be kind. Always be kind. If you are true to yourself, you are kind to others. At least you know that you are being your best self and whatever else happens. However else, however people react to you, is outta your control because you are being kind and you are being your best self. My fourth one is be accountable. Be accountable to your teammates. Be accountable to. If your coaches be accountable for yourself, if you make mistakes, own up to it. If your teammates make mistakes, help them. Help them improve. Another big thing is, I always say that, I don't know if it's the best thing to say, but you're only as strong as your weakest teammate, so. don't put down any of your teammates. Like help them if you see a teammate struggling, don't just push'em to the side and say, well, because they're still on your team. They're a part of your team. So help them, help them grow. And that goes with being kind. And my fifth one is never let anyone dim your light, all your sparkle, or steal your joy.

Breanne Webinar: 37:54

Oh, I love this. Do you need to like have this framed somewhere? You can write these down. Oh, good for all athletes. Um, for sure. And I mean for me too. I'm like, those are good. Those, those are good. Top five. Why know your why? Control the controllables. Be accountable or sorry. Be kind. Be accountable. Never will let anyone sparkle or dim your, dim your joy. Dim your sparkle. That right?

Greer: 38:18

Yeah. Yep. Pretty much.

Breanne Webinar: 38:22

All right, gr. Well, this has been awesome. Thank you again so much, um, for sharing your story. I know that it's inspired parents and athletes listening, so thank you.

Greer: 38:31

Thank you for having me.