JASON MAYS – MENTAL PERFORMANCE COACH & FOUNDER OF COGNITECTURE – EPISODE 1309

Website – https://www.coachmays.com/

Email – [email protected]

Twitter – @CoachJMays

Jason Mays is the Founder of Cognitecture, a mental performance coaching practice.  Mays coached at the high school level at both Ashland Blazer and Montgomery County High Schools in Kentucky and made 5 state tournaments in 6 seasons as a head coach.

Mays was previously an assistant coach and interim Head Coach at Kentucky Wesleyan after spending two seasons at Valdosta State University. Prior to Valdosta State, Mays spent seven years coaching alongside Head Coach Happy Osborne at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Ky.

On this episode Mike & Jason discuss how athletes and coaches can keep growing through adversity, plateaus, and success. Mays shares a four-part foundation for mental toughness: find your fuel, stack small wins, reframe adversity, and avoid becoming complacent after success. He explains why consistent routines and repetitive fundamentals matter, and how players can “do simpler better” to reach the next level. The conversation also explores defining player roles, having courageous conversations, and building meaningful relationships by investing in athletes beyond basketball. Throughout the episode, Mays emphasizes that coaching can prepare players for life beyond the court as well as help them succeed in the game.

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Grab a notebook and take down some ideas as you listen to this episode with Jason Mays, Founder of Cognitecture.

What We Discuss with Jason Mays

10 Key Takeaways for Basketball Coaches

1. Start with what fuels each player.

Before setting goals, learn what matters to the athlete. In the episode, Jason Mays recommends asking questions that uncover a player’s purpose and motivations. For a high school player, that might include competing for a college opportunity, but coaches can also connect basketball to broader goals, such as developing discipline for life after the game.

2. Make the daily process more important than the big outcome.

Mays describes success as “stacking small wins”: consistent routines that build over time. Coaches can help players choose a few daily actions, such as arriving prepared, completing skill work, or supporting a teammate, and track whether they follow through, rather than focusing only on wins, minutes, or points.

3. Teach players to reframe setbacks and find the next controllable action.

Mental toughness is not avoiding failure; it is responding constructively. When a player has a poor game or loses a role, help them identify what happened, what they can learn, and what they can do next. As Mays puts it, find “the next controllable thing.”

4. Don’t let success turn into complacency.

Mays warns that “the seduction of success” can stall growth. A winning season, a starting role, or a recruiting offer should not end the improvement process. Coaches can celebrate progress while still asking: What is the next challenge, and what standard needs to rise?

5. Be patient with plateaus, and use intensity strategically.

Mays’s image is that a plateau may be a step, not a wall. Much of a player’s growth comes from repetitive, unglamorous work; an extra burst of effort is needed when it is time to reach the next level. Coaches should reinforce consistency first, then help athletes identify when they need to stretch.

6. Help players “do simpler better.”

Improvement does not always require more plays or more complicated skills. Mays gives specific examples: a guard might improve shooting and keep opponents from penetrating from the top of the key; a big might sharpen short-roll touch or offensive rebounding. Identify the basic skill that would make the biggest difference for that player.

7. Model the courage to do uncomfortable things.

Mays’s career stories show how initiative can create opportunities: a conversation with Tom Crean about a BlackBerry led to a job recommendation, and sending an athletic director a basketball net and scissors helped him stand out for a coaching position. Coaches can apply the lesson by initiating honest conversations, asking for feedback, and pursuing opportunities directly.

8. Have honest conversations about roles.

Players may define success only as starting or playing more. Mays recommends discussing what a player’s role can be, should be, and will be, and connecting that role to development beyond basketball. He shared examples of former role players who became strong defenders and later went on to law school, showing how contributions on a team can build skills for life.

9. Build relationships by investing in players, not just checking in.

Routine questions like “How are you?” are not enough on their own. Mays says coaches should learn who players are outside basketball, ask how they can invest in them, and be available when they are vulnerable. That trust makes challenging feedback more likely to help rather than alienate.

10. Prepare players for life after basketball.

The episode repeatedly connects the game to growth beyond the court. Coaches can frame discipline, teamwork, resilience, and role acceptance as transferable skills, not just tools for winning. Mays’s examples of former players using their experiences to pursue law school illustrate how a basketball program can shape a player’s future even if their playing career ends after high school.

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THANKS, JASON MAYS

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TRANSCRIPT FOR JASON MAYS – MENTAL PERFORMANCE COACH & FOUNDER OF COGNITECTURE – EPISODE 1309

[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is presented by Head Start Basketball.

[00:00:20] Jason Mays: The better you get at something, it doesn’t get easier, it gets harder. It gets harder. But if you can get through those harder and harder times, the success is way better than you ever could have imagined when you were younger or when you were first starting out. You just have to be tough enough to get to that part where it’s hard. Hard is a privilege.

[00:00:47] Mike Klinzing: Jason Mays is the founder of Cognitecture, a mental performance coaching practice. Mays coached at the high school level at both Ashland Blazer and Montgomery County High Schools in Kentucky and made five state tournaments in six seasons as a head coach. Mays was previously an assistant coach and interim head coach at Kentucky Wesleyan after spending two seasons at Valdosta State University.

Prior to Valdosta State, Mays spent seven years coaching alongside head coach Happy Osborne at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky Ever since I founded Head Start Basketball in 1993, we’ve helped young players develop their skills, confidence, and love for the game. Now we’re partnering with coaches and athletic programs to bring the Head Start Basketball camp experience to new communities.

Our camps run for five days, three hours per day, and serve boys and girls in grades one through six. You or someone on your staff directs the on-court portion of the camp while Head Start Basketball manages registration, promotion, parent communication, T-shirts, trophies, website setup, and administration.

There are no upfront camp planning headaches, and the profits are divided 50/50 between your program and Head Start Basketball. If you want to reach more families or strengthen your youth basketball pipeline or just create additional revenue for your program, visit headstartbasketball.com to explore hosting a camp.

[00:02:05] Nick LoGalbo: Hi, this is Nick LoGalbo, head boys’ basketball coach at Lane Tech High School in Chicago, and you’re listening to the Hoop Heads podcast.

[00:02:13] Mike Klinzing: Grab a notebook and take down some ideas as you listen to this episode with Jason Mays, founder of Cognitecture. Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here tonight without my co-host Jason Sunkle.

But I am pleased to be joined by Coach Jason Mays from coachmays.com, a longtime friend of the Hoop Heads pod. Jason, welcome back in.

[00:02:37] Jason Mays: It’s a pleasure to be here, and I thank you for the consistency that you have demonstrated over these last, I don’t know, what’s it been, Mike, four years? Maybe five.

[00:02:50] Mike Klinzing: It’s been a total of eight.

Okay. So we started in June of 2018. Yeah. Which is crazy.

[00:02:56] Jason Mays: And man, you just keep plugging and, I’m a listener when I’m driving. I drive a lot now. And just your consistency. And you do it not for yourself. You do it to give back to the game, and you do it to give t- you empower your guests.

You just… You’re one of the great guys in the… in, in this industry, and I just want to thank you for what you’re doing

[00:03:17] Mike Klinzing: Well, I appreciate that, Jason. And again, I always say whenever anybody tries to throw praise at me, I always say that, again, this thing has been a labor of love, number one.

And number two, whatever value I can provide to the basketball community will always pale in comparison to what the game of basketball has given me. So there’s no way I can ever repay the game for all the great things that it’s done for me in my life. And so this podcast, I feel like, is a small piece of my ability to give back and share with the basketball community.

So again, I’m glad that you’re a part of it. I’m excited to have you back on tonight. You’ve got some new things that you’ve been doing since the last time. People who may have heard your previous episode or maybe listened to your previous podcast when you were with us on the short-lived Hooped’s Pod Network.

But just give us a quick professional update of where you’re at and what you’re doing, and then we’re going to dive into all the nitty-gritty and specifics of what you have going right now.

[00:04:14] Jason Mays: Yeah. Thank you So I’m 50 now, Mike, and but I’m getting actually into the best shape I’ve ever been in my life, which is probably not a very good testimony to where I’ve been in the last 10 years.

But been married 22 years, 22 and a half years. My wife is a district administrator. She’s like a, a deputy superintendent of a public school district here in Kentucky. So her career has flourished. This is year 25 for her in public education. And we have two children. Jace is a freshman in college.

He plays baseball at Georgetown College, NAIA school in Georgetown, Kentucky, where both his mother and I are alums, and our daughter’s a sophomore, and she is a, a hoop head … a hoops head, if you will. She’s a sophomore at Montgomery County High School, and she’s a college prospect, and she loves to play the game.

She’s very smart, works really hard. Going to be like a, a big point guard. She’s got k- got some uncanny ability, great passer. So I’m really proud of my family. And if it’s not … If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am here today. So I’ve coached Mike for 29 years, coached basketball for 29 years.

I got my first paycheck to coach this game when I was 21 years old. So back in 1998 or whenever you didn’t really do the GA thing. They had GAs, but there was one or two. Now there’s 28, on a P4 staff. But you just dove right in. That’s back when we had restricted earnings coaches.

You remember those? Oh, yeah … and- Absolutely … yeah, and so I jumped right in to being a full-time assistant basketball coach, at the very ripe age of 21. And my first job offer was at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield, Maine, under the great legendary coach Max Good. Now, I know you’re a lover of the game if you’ve ever heard of Max Good.

He’s a legend in New England, but he was the head coach at UNLV. He was the head coach at Loyola Marymount. But he, … On that team, we had Caron Butler see Avery Queen. There there was just some really great players. We had, I think, 11 Division I signees, and he left to go to UNLV, and so that fell through for me shortly thereafter, and I ended up, coaching junior college at a school that no longer exists.

So my career started way back when the, the game was totally different. We were still using VHS tapes. And, doing the double stack VH- VHS. Like you would … You had your blank tape, then you had your source tape, and you would hit, record and then pause, and then hit, it, doing a edit tape on one game was, like, three hours, right?

[00:06:53] Mike Klinzing: Yeah.

[00:06:54] Jason Mays: And so we would do four or five. So these, these guys use Synergy, and I’ve used Synergy. They’re prima donnas, man. They don’t know how we used to grind, man. But anyways just a great experience.

It was a great career. Won 79% of my games in 29 years. Most of those were as an assistant. But the latter part of my ca- career, I was the interim head coach for a year at Kentucky Wesleyan in Owensboro, Kentucky, the winningest program in Division II history. Before that, I was an assistant. Had a great assistant job at Valdosta State University down in South Georgia.

Valdosta, Georgia, it’s a unbelievable town. Diverse. Great food town. If you’re a foodie, great food town. Great climate. Beautiful tree- palm trees everywhere, sand. It’s just a perfect location. Far enough away from the hurricanes where you’ll get a dusting of one every once in a while, but it’s just great.

You’re 10 miles from Florida. And I tell people it was the most Division I job a Division II could ever be. But I was 10 hours away from my wife and kids. And so to get back into college coaching there after a hiatus of, in the financial services industry, I, took the job at Valdosta State with the blessing of my wife and two young kids at the time.

And, not many people love basketball enough to leave their wife and kids for three years. Now, I would see them every two or three weeks, but that’s, that was, this, that’s how my family operated, man. Winning’s important to us, and coaching is in our blood. And so took a lot of risk and made a lot of sacrifice, and never coached Division I, Mike.

Had some opportunities, but was probably … I regret a few of the decisions. I just really valued winning and so I turned a few of them down. Georgetown College, we were averaging 30 wins a season there for four or five years in a row. We were killing it. And playing in, competing in Final Fours every year, had pro-level players.

And we invented the transfer portal 25 years before the transfer portal even started, brother. And that’s a fact. Head coach was Happy Osborne. And if basketball, Happy Os- literally, Mike, at Christmas break when we needed an… We’re like, “Hey, we have to get somebody in.” Or somebody would’ve been hurt.

“We have to get a guy in here break,” right? We literally sent faxes, all right? No one faxes anymore. Sent faxes to every single, there’s at the time, 347 or something like that, every single Division I basketball staff in the country flat out just saying, “Hey, we need a transfer at the break.” We were sending faxes-

over Christmas break to Division I staffs asking for transfers at the break. All right? And, everybody’s, talking about how it’s changed and blah. I said, “Man, it’s been this way for m- in, in the NAIA days for 30 years. What are y’all talking about?” But it’s just been, it’s been a great ride.

And then I got into high school coaching here in Kentucky. Ashland Blazer I was there when last time I was on your show here winningest program in Kentucky high school basketball history. And okay, we’re going to argue with Indiana who has the best basketball heritage, right? But so everybody knows Kentucky basketball is important.

And it starts at the grassroots level here in this state. We’re one of the few states that still doesn’t have classifications in our high school basketball, and I love that. So literally the smallest school can beat the biggest school in the state tournament. There’s no class A, class two, class three, 4A, five, none.

There, there isn’t all the other sports in Kentucky, not basketball. It’s still classless. And so we it’s a great tradition there at Ashland. We were the first program in Kentucky history to win 2,000 games. And then went to four straight state tournaments made a final four one year and was ranked number one our second year there and had a undefeated season, Mike, 33 and 0.

And three days before we were to go to the state tournament in Rupp Arena and as a number one ranked team and seeing if we could do this thing all the way through, COVID canceled the state tournament. Big story in Kentucky. Pat Forde, did the story in Sports Illustrated and Fox News and, it was a national story for a few weeks and, on the s- the effects COVID had on high school sports, we were one of the stories that always came up.

And so just some really special times. And then I got fired after four years. A, a parent, wanted their son to transfer and, talked to him on the phone. They were recording the phone call and made a thing out of it, and I lost my job over it. Which is silly, bylaws are bylaws and, that’s– it was a violation and I was made an example out of, and rightfully I never played the role of a victim on that. I took my medicine like a big boy and took a year off and then took a job at Montgomery County High School. Mount Sterling, Kentucky 30 miles east of Lexington on Interstate 64. So we’re right there on the fringe of where Central Kentucky becomes Eastern Kentucky where, Central Kentucky morphs into Appalachia, if you will.

Great location and 4,500 seat arena, beautiful school, only school in the county about 1,350 students. Or to me, that’s a sweet spot of enrollment. And we’re 11 and 18 the first year, played really hard, just weren’t ready to win yet. Had a lot of young players, a lot of freshmen. Next year go 24 and 11, made the state tournament.

Six years as a high school coach, five of them went to state tournament, two Final Fours, had, and it was just a great run. But all things come to an end, Mike, and, I resigned in ’25, December of 20, right before we were supposed to start playing. I pulled a Dana Altman, as he resigned today, I don’t know, retired today.

And right before we were supposed to start playing, I just… when it hits you. I’d rather have bad timing of when I pull out than stay too long, and so I’m a mental performance coach now, Mike, and my business is called Cognitechture. That’s a mouthful.

My branding professional is begging me to change it, but I’m hard-headed. Cognitechture, the cognitive abil- our cognitive ability, how we think, right? And architecture. So it’s, Cognitechture is mental architecture for how we think. It’s design thinking. I believe that we can design how we think, and if that’s not important in the athletic space in 2026, I don’t know what is.

And I’ve had performance coaches in my past, actually for 11 years. You may have heard of some of these names. Dr. Kevin Elko is a sports psychologist worked a little bit with Saban and all kinds of industries. Came out of the great sports psychology d- graduate program at University of West- or West Virginia University.

Dr. Jason Selk, another sports psychologist coached me when I was in financial services for a while, then that bled over when I got back into coaching. And then most recent was Ben Newman, who’s one of the top motivational speakers. He’s not really a motivational speaker. He’s just a, he’s a on-fire guy.

He’s just, he’s a coach. He’s a speaker. He’s just the Ben… He’s– runs the Ben Newman Company. He’s out of St. Louis. He just had Tim Grover at his event this, this past weekend I think in Vegas. They all got together and was like, “Look, you have to do this. You’d be great.” They’re not dear friends.

They’re just, they were mentors at one point or time in, in my life. And so I started this from scratch. It was zero money, zero clients, 100% organic growth. My ni- my niche market now is athletes and coaches mainly in the basketball space, but not specifically in the basketball space.

It’s starting to grow outside of that and in the business world, real estate agents financial services professionals entrepreneurs that anybody that wants to be elite at what they’re doing. So I coach mindset, Mike, and that’s– I get up every morning and I fight that fight, and I’m loving every second of it

[00:14:35] Mike Klinzing: All right.

So the name Cognitechture- Yeah … when I think about that, and I think about a building being built, right? That’s what comes to my mind. And the first thing that I think about with a building is you have to start with a foundation. So as you’re putting together this idea of, “Here’s what I want to do, here’s the people that I want to try to impact,” obviously with your background as a basketball coach, I’m assuming that you kinda started there and then it’s expanded over time.

But what are the foundations of what you believe everything else is built on when it comes to mental performance? Where do you start with anybody that you work with, regardless kind of where they are or who they are or what they do?

[00:15:17] Jason Mays: Yeah. Thank you for asking the question ’cause it’s an outstanding question.

I call it your fuel. Ben Newman calls it your burn. Y- you’ll know it as your purpose or your why. What fuels you? What ignites you? What gets you going? What fuels me is, at this stage in my life is growing this business so I can provide options for my kids as they get into college, graduate college, and, get married and go on and live productive lives as adults, and then provide the retirement lifestyle that my wife deserves.

Lord knows after 25 years of public education, she deserves- … a mansion on the hill, right? And so they’ve just been so solid, and so that- that’s my fuel and that’s why I’m doing it. But so with a client, we have to find and connect to what fuels you. So if I’m working with a 17-year-old high school basketball player, that fuel is going to be limited in scope because their life up to this point has been limited in scope.

So it’s going to have to do with, goals and aspirations of recruiting and winning and, stuff like that. But we try to expand upon that a little bit. But, then I also have a partner in a CPA firm. His fuel is just giving as much of himself to others as he can, and man, he does a great job of that.

So it just depends, but we have to find out what that is. And then we reinforce that, that fuel, that, that purpose, all right, by how you start your day. And so that’s I hate the phrase I’m big on, but if I drill… Once I drill for the first two months of coaching somebody All of it. It’s redundant.

The key to mastery is repetition. We’re getting reps in on hounding them on their morning routine. Because I think one of the keys to life, Mike, is consistently doing hard things well, and getting up earlier than you’re comfortable with, and connecting to your fuel through your affirmation statements, and then through, telling yourself who you are and who you are becoming telling yourself what you will achieve in certain time fr- per- frames in the f- of the future.

Could be tomorrow, could be today, tomorrow, could be five years from now. All right? But just writing that on paper every morning and then connecting to your fuel, your why, who you are, who you’re becoming, and what really drives you. If you start every day like that, how much purpose would you live life with?

So that’s the first thing is connecting to your fuel, your purpose. Second part of your foundation, Mike, is understanding that stacking small wins is what leads to a big win. And so there has to be routines and regimen in your life. The infamous word for it, thanks to Coach Saban, is the process, right?

Ben Newman, by the way, was the mindset conditioning coach at Alabama football for five years. And Ben’s always talking about the pro- process for obvious reasons. And that’s the second part is understanding, So for example, you want to have a, a professional goal or two every day.

You want to have a per- personal goal or two every day. And then you want to have a service to others goal, where you do something for someone else that you’re intentional about doing, but you expect nothing in return. You’re focused on your professional life or, if you’re an athlete, your athletic life, then your personal life, and then giving to others, okay?

And so if we’ve started our day connecting to our why and affirming who we are becoming, and what we’re going to achieve, and we are orchestrated in getting small wins throughout our day, professionally, personally, and for other people. The third component is reframing adversity. So life I think we’re having great…

Emma, I don’t know if you’re a baseball fan. I think the playoffs right now, the, these divisional playoffs are great. Go Brewers, okay? But just every game is exciting, and, my son plays college baseball, so I’m a baseball guy. Yes, shameless plug for the Reds. But, … the-

[00:19:38] Mike Klinzing: Playoff baseball, Jason.

Yeah, you know- Regular season baseball for me, no, I cannot watch regular season baseball. Well- Playoff bas- playoff baseball, I love. The tension, the every at bat, every pitch matters. There’s, to me, the contrast between regular season baseball, again, this is just me speaking as… I don’t even know if I’d call myself a baseball fan, ’cause I probably watched zero innings of baseball during the regular season But today I laid on my couch, I watched the entire Guardians-White Sox game.

I watched two out of the three Brewers-Padres games. Throughout the entire thing, the, the tension in playoff baseball is, it’s unbelievable. And when you watch- It’s great games … regular season it doesn’t feel, a regular season game, at least to me, feels nothing like a playoff game. Even though I know it’s the same game, it’s played the exact same way, but just the importance of every at bat, every pitch, every little thing, every decision, it just all comes out in the postseason.

I’m right there with you. I love postseason baseball.

[00:20:42] Jason Mays: The reason I bring it up, Mike, is the third part of your foundation of being, a mentally tough person is you have to be able to reframe adversity. Life is not going to be fastballs down the middle every time, okay? You’re going to have to adapt.

And so reframing adversity the, the cliche line, the cliche sort of tagline is, the, the setback, is the setup for the comeback. And yeah, reframing adversity is one of the most im- important skills to mental toughness. It’s not, bench pressing 225 pounds 12 times. It’s not how hard can you hit a heavy bag.

It’s not Are you a gold medalist? It, it, in any area of life, how you respond to failure, whether it’s of your own doing or someone else’s where the consequences have bled over into your life, how you respond to that t- is everything. It’s everything. And a lot of people can’t reframe that. They can’t get past it, so they avoid it.

They redirect and go somewhere else that’s easier, and greatness is never achieved. But if you can face it, and you can reframe it until the next great opportunity, find the next controllable thing then, and you can do that over and over. And so I’m not talking like, “Hey, I got cancer. I have to be mentally tough and reframe this.”

Yes, that, that’s a big moment that needs reframing. My wife is a breast cancer survivor, but I’m talking you’re in sales, and today, you thought you had a close that was going to, be pretty lucrative, and they changed their mind because their cousin does the same thing you do in Lincoln, Nebraska, and they’re going to give him the business.

Huh. Reframe it, okay? Just all kinds of just little setbacks, that if we can learn how to reframe them to the next best opportunity… Here’s the funny thing, Mike. We’re never going to love the next best opportunity as much as we like the original opportunity until we get through it and it’s like, “Whoa, ho, this is way better.”

I- ’cause when we get on the other side of hard, usually it’s better f- a, a better reward for us. And then the last part of, foundational mental toughness is when you do a- obtain success, if you connect to your why, what fuels you, okay and you live what we call the discipline day, that process of stacking wins, and you reframe adversity along the way you will succeed.

Then you can’t, and I steal this from Ben Newman, you cannot get seduced by success. This is a great line, Mike, and I hope your listeners can hear this. We’ll take it. If they take anything, take this. S- the seduction of success has cost more people exponential growth than any failure ever did I was just listening to Al- I was listening to Alex Hormozi and, in my line of work, he’s a he’s big, marketing guy.

Dude, he had a book release a while back and he made $100 million in a day. A day. And he’s just a, he’s a genius about marketing and just he’s really smart. And had, he wasn’t handed any of it. He was living in his gym for a while as he was a gym owner, but, he said something that was that resonated with me on this the other day.

So I just said, “The seduction of success has cost more people exponential growth than any failure ever did.” And what he was talking about is the reason people, they’ll succeed, they’ll make some money they’ll hit some milestones, and then they get seduced by it and they start cruising.

When– And if they could have just doubled down on the hard work and the risk at that moment when they thought they had made it, the exponential growth, they’ll 10X that success that they thought where they made it was. They’ll 10X that if at that moment they just keep grinding and doubling down, accept a little bit m- more risk, make a little bit more investment, then that’s when true wealth can be built.

That’s when true toughness leads you to exponential growth. And a lot of people get stuck right there at that median level because it’s better than they’ve ever had it, so they get seduced by it and they miss out on the exponential growth. So sorry about being wordy, but it’s four parts. It’s what fuels you, stacking small wins by listen- l- by living the disciplined day through routines, reframing adversity, and then not being seduced by success

[00:25:21] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit more about your process for helping an athlete or a coach find their fuel.

Because again, sometimes it takes a little bit of digging, right? Somebody may not even know what drives them. They may not remember what even caused them to become a basketball player, and they may not even remember what it was like when they were a 23-year-old assistant coach, and what caused them to get into that business in the first place.

So what’s your process as a mental performance coach of helping people to get to figuring out what their fuel is? Which is obviously, as you said, where it all starts.

[00:26:02] Jason Mays: Yeah. It depends on who we’re talking to. Like I said, a 17-year-old’s going to be different than, say, you, okay? But what the common characteristics are is that we do an exercise.

And I learn about them as a person. I learn about their traits, their s- w-what their perceived strengths… Notice how I said that. Their perceived strengths, their perceived weaknesses. What I usually find out is they’re not strengths or weaknesses at all. They’re, they’re-they’ve been interpreted.

They’re interpreting their own characteristics as strengths or weaknesses when a lot of the times they’re wrong, and have been for a long time. But we do a lot of exercises, a lot of que- a lot of listening to them, a lot of questioning. But then there’s a cool exercise that I’ve been doing.

I said, So I was talking to a basketball player the other day, and he’s a new client. “What was the best game you ever played?” And he told… I said, “I want details. I want scores. I want how many points you had. I want were you home or away? When was it? Do you remember the date? What, what went on in the game?”

And I said, “Okay. How were you feeling earlier that day?” It’s always ’cause we’re talking about a great moment, it’s always, “Yeah, it was great. I was… I had energy, and I…” I say, “So what, where were you? What were you doing? Were you at school? Where, what was going on? And then after the game, what was, how was your head space?”

And so we have framed that day that was their best game of their life, and then we branched it out to that day, okay? I said, “Now, where was your head space that day, that time in your life? What stresses do you have now that you didn’t have then? How are you looking at things differently now than you did then?”

And so we take them back to their highlight reel and remind them of how they were thinking and how they were living. A lot of times we got th- there’s nutrition deficits that they’re doing, they’re dealing with now that they weren’t then. They had more discipline then. There were workout routines that they were…

we find all these little inconsistencies that have sort of death by paper cuts, if you will, that have crept in as they’ve gotten older, and it’s taken, it’s caused them to drift away from the kind of day they were living that, on the day they had the best game of their life. So we go back to their highlight reel.

Now, if it’s a business person, same thing. Or if it’s a coach, let’s talk about a coach. If it’s a coach we talk about, “Hey, what was the, what’s been the best part of your career so far?” And then we also go into the family because when I work with coaches, I really stay in tune with their family life, if they have a family, because, that, it it’s hard on coaches’ families as we all know that have done, been in the industry.

“What was the, what’s the best part of your family life? What’s been the best part of your career?” And we just take them back to those, those moments that they recall. We call, let’s call it a highlight reel. And we just analyze how they were thinking, how they were living in those moments, and then we compare it to where they are today.

And there’s always things that pop up “You know what? I have to get back to doing that. I have to get back to doing this.” And so that’s one, that’s a cool exercise that I’ve been doing with some new clients to find their fuel. And then there’s always a a, a cute little question. It, I, it’s sorta generic, but I think it’s powerful.

“Mike, if money wasn’t an option and failure did not have consequences, what is it that you would be doing?” And then hear what their answer is. Then let’s reverse engineer that,

[00:29:47] Mike Klinzing: yeah. I think that’s something that when you hear that question, it definitely puts you in a different mindset, right?

It gets you to think outside the box. It gets you to consider things that you might have as aspirations or dreams that are over here that you don’t really think that you can bring those in and make those a reality. And so I can see where that- … question elicits responses that enables you to get that person towards finding their fuel.

And then once they have that, now you can keep circling back to, “That’s my why. That’s why I’m doing the things that I do.” And then I think the other thing that I thought was interesting when you were talking about the foundational piece is where you have that success, right? And when you have the success, a lot of people tend to put it on cruise control, and I think people do that in their professional life, I think people do it in their normal life, I think people do it as athletes, I think people do it as coaches.

And I think it’s just again, it’s part of human nature that I’ve done it this way, I’ve had success, I’m going to keep doing it that way, instead of looking for that next little 1% that you might’ve been looking for as you were kinda climbing the mountain. And then once you get to that certain point, you just kinda plateau and just keep doing the same thing, and so your performance never takes that next leap.

Again, regardless of what it is, I think about myself as a teacher. At a certain point, I felt like I was pretty good as a teacher, and I’m not sure I invested a ton of time trying to learn the newest teaching technique or figuring out, “Hey, how can I teach reading a little better?” Or when I eventually became a PE teacher, I kinda had my activities that I liked to do and that the kids liked, and I was kinda good with that.

You know what I mean? ‘Cause I was pretty good at it. But I didn’t extend myself to say, “Hey, can… i’m pretty good. Could I become unbelievable?” And I just again, plateaued, and I think a lot of people reach that point. So I want to ask that question when it comes to an athlete or a coach who gets to that point where, “I’ve had success.”

How do you help them to see that the success that they’ve had, there’s another level- … to unlock? And then once you help them see it, what can you do to help them get there?

[00:32:09] Jason Mays: Mike, this is like man-to-man defense, man. This is my love language. . All right. So I’m going to use my hands here, so hopefully everybody who’s maybe listening audibly can follow me.

Consistency is more important and is more powerful than intensity. I’m going to say it again. Consistency is more important and more powerful than intensity, but both are needed Boring is beautiful. So on a player’s progression of their skillset whether they get recruited or not do they help their team win?

Are they playing more? Are they starting? What, what have you. Regardless of level, they’re going to spend a lot of time on what looks like a plateau. And while you’re on that plateau, you’re just cruising along, straight line, day after day. It’s repetition, it’s boring routine, it’s the mundane. All right?

Let’s look at who relished that. The Kobes, the MJs, the Belichicks, the Bradys, the Mannings. The Phelps, Michael Phelps. Talk about a winner. Mi- and they didn’t chase improvement. They didn’t chase 1%, 1%, 1%. They were crazy enough to fall in love with the process of discipline. And make no mistake about it, discipline is a process.

They were crazy enough to want to do what they had to do regardless how they felt when they had to do it. That’s what the greats do. They crave the discipline. It’s a fight. Discipline versus my, my, my will to not do it. I’m going to win, okay? And you- that’s what you’re doing every day on that plateau, and eventually you get to a point where it’s a stairstep.

So man, we’re just grinding. We’re consistent, day in, day out, routine driven, repetition driven. All right? And then we get to this point where boom, there’s a wall there. Guess what? It’s not a wall, it’s a step And, but we’re just looking right at it like it’s a wall. What do most people do?

“Oh, okay, I’ll go right. I’ll go left. I’ll, I’m not, I can’t go through it.” No, that’s when you need intensity. All right? And that’s when you level up and you get to the next step. And then once you get there, boring, mundane, consistent, routine, repetition, just on a higher level. And here’s what no one can ever guarantee, is how long you’re going to be on that, that consistent level.

It may be for three years, it may be for a day, and then it’s time to level up again. The key is knowing that consistency is more powerful than intensity, but you need intensity in order to get to those moments where you’ve got to scale that step to get to the next level. Here’s what’s interesting about sports.

Let’s take golf. I, I think the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit 102 mile an hour fastball. It’s debatable. I think one of the close seconds is hitting a golf ball 320 yards down the middle. Okay? And in golf, Mike, you and I could s- shoot a 90, okay? Be very novice golfers. If we play every day and we practice our putting, our short game, and we go to the range, we’re going to get to a 78 pretty quickly But when we get to that 78 and we practice the same amount with same putts, same routine, same driving range routine, same amount of days a week on the course, it’s going to take us a lot longer to get to a 75 than it did to go from a 90 to a 78.

The better we get at an endeavor, the harder it is to level up. So it’s even more important to focus on your consistent routines, those small s- those small micro wins because Mike, at the core of what we do as a mental performance coach is, this is the Jason Mays I scored a 21 on the ACT.

This is how I would describe the brain, okay? You’re going to laugh at this. Th- think Westerns, old movies, Western movies, cowboy movies, all right? They, horse and wagon, right? They w- they did- the roads weren’t paved. H- heck, they were hardly were even gravel. They were dirt roads, wagon trails, right?

When it would rain, the wagons would m- make ruts, and then the, it would dry up and those ruts would stay formed, and now that’s the rut that everybody took. They made sure their wagon wheels would get in those ruts, and it was smoother riding, right? Just keep your wheels in the ruts. That’s the way we have our…

Neuroplasticity is a, a term where we can rewire how we think. The problem is we get stuck in these ruts in our brain, these neural pathways, and we do things the way we’ve always done them because that’s the way we were taught and things of that nature. We call them habits, whatever. And we can change that.

We can break out of that rut. It’s never comfortable. It usually breaks a wheel or two. We have to stop and fix it. But then once we get out of that and form a new one, our path becomes faster, smoother, more advancing, okay? And so that’s neuroplasticity. That’s design thinking. And so that process should never, ever stop, whether we’re the 90 golfer with the 20 handicap or whatever it is, or we’re the scratch golfer.

We still have to have those consistent habits. No one can guarantee how long we’re going to be on that plateau. We’re going to have to use some intensity to level up. The better we become at something, all right, the more we have rewired those neural pathways in developing stronger, better habits, but the harder it is to improve.

So it requires more and more mental toughness, which is the beauty about what we do because the better you get at something, guess what, Mike? It doesn’t get easier. It gets harder. But if you can get through those harder and harder times, the success is way better than you ever could’ve imagined when you were younger or when you were first starting out.

You just have to be tough enough to get to tho- the– get to that part where it’s hard. Hard is a privilege. Sorry, you got me going, buddy. Do

[00:38:56] Mike Klinzing: you… No, you’re good. So here’s my question when it relates to that. So I’m just picturing, let’s say, a player or a coach, right? Early on in my career, whether I’m a player or a coach, I am doing new things.

I’m trying stuff out. I’m trying to figure out what works for me as an athlete. Maybe it’s what drills am I doing? What am I working on? What kind of game do I have? If I’m a coach, how do I want to run my program? What does my culture look like? What’s my offensive and defensive philosophy? All these different things.

And then eventually I reach a level of success, right? And then I’m on that plateau that you were talking about, and eventually I come to that step- … and I bump into it, and I bump into it, and I’ve had that consistency. I’ve had that routine. I’ve been doing all those things. So my question for you is, and again, this is just me thinking as you’re talking, is now do I need to P- in-insert a sense of novelty at that point- and do I need to try something new, something different, something that energizes me? If I’m a coach, I need to add, man, I’m listening to podcasts or I’m reading- … a book on leadership and I take an idea and now that’s fueling me with that intensity that you talked about to get up onto the next step. Or if I’m a player, I’m going to add something to my game, or maybe I’ve been doing drill X for the last two years and I’ve gotten really good at that.

Now I need to maybe work on the same skill, but do it in a different way. Am I thinking about that correctly in the way that you’re trying to frame it with clients?

[00:40:25] Jason Mays: Yes. And the simple way of putting it is do, m- make things s- do simpler better. Okay? Do simpler better. So when you get to if you’re a player and let’s say you’ve got, let’s say you’ve got, you played in the MAC b- back when the MAC was… the MAC is still a great league, but it was really good when you played there. Let’s say you’re a MAC player and you’ve got two or three MAC offers, and we won’t mention schools, but we’ll just say they’re in the, the MAC.

And then all of a sudden, Wake- Wake Forest or Clemson or South Carolina or a TCU or, a Kansas State, Washington, somebody, Rutgers, these like bottom third, depending on the year, but bottom third of these Power Four conferences. You get where I’m going? They’re like, “Yeah- Yep

This kid can play.” And you’re like, “Man, I’d really like to play in the Big East. I’d like to be in the Big 10. I’d like to be in the SEC.” It’s d- it’s different air up there, right? That player has got to do simpler better. Now how do you do simpler better? Okay, so that kid ought to be in tune with what it is that’s holding that power four offer back from him.

Is it size? Then you’ve got to be a 43% shooter with range that is nasty on ball screens, defensively and offensively. You should never get beat into the lane from top the key penetration if you’re a point guard defender, for example. One of my former players, Colin Porter, played at Liberty four years, now he’s at Marquette.

All right? I’m always on his rear end about that, because that’s the first thing I would see in a little guard. Can he keep the ball out of the lane from the top to key? Little things like that. Do simpler better. Okay? If you’re, if you’re a big it’s, “Oh, it’s my athleticism. I’m just– I don’t got great lift.”

Man, your back to the basket moves, your use of your offhand with your back to the basket needs to be next level. Your ability to hit short rolls off, off two-man game action that 12-foot jumper needs to be 72% next level. Just, how you offensive rebound the basketball. Do simpler better.

The offensive rebounding, that’s just effort. That’s just identifying the ball as it’s in flight and going and getting it. And you know what makes… You know what makes a great offensive rebounder is repetition. Repetition. So maybe offensive rebounding is something that player who’s looking to level up, they’ve come to that step.

The ra- fair- that looks like a wall right now, but it’s just a step. All right? It’s do simpler better, but whatever it is, Mike, it’s going to be harder You’re not going to level up because it’s easier. So you just have to, you have to figure out, and so it requires being self-aware. It requires humility.

No one improves with arrogance. You improve with humility. If it’s a coach, let’s say, let’s talk careers here, man. I- if it’s a coach who’s never coached at the Division I level and I’ve had opportunities, but I never have, never signed a Division I contract. Got former assistants that are Division I head coaches right now, right?

And how do I get to that next level? It’s going to involve some form of discomfort. What we, what I call it is uncomfortable, uncomfortably uncommon. So let me give you a quick s- example. Do you remember… This is my iPhone, all right? Do you remember the BlackBerry, Mike?

[00:44:05] Mike Klinzing: Oh,

[00:44:05] Jason Mays: yeah. Your…

Yeah.

[00:44:06] Mike Klinzing: Oh, yeah.

[00:44:07] Jason Mays: I was one of the first dudes to have a BlackBerry, like the day it came out, like the little roller thing on the side and, you know- Yep … it was big on email and stuff like that. I, and so I’m in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I don’t care. I don’t think he’d care if I told this story. I’m in Jonesboro, Arkansas at a junior college jamboree at Arkansas State.

And it might have been like a Mullins Roundball Review kind of deal. I don’t know. But anyways, a long time ago early 2000s And I’m sitting up there watching the game, looking at my, they always gave you, rosters and academic information, and I got my BlackBerry. I had got one in advance, and I had uploaded it into my email.

So I’m sitting here looking at this digitally on my new BlackBerry, right? Darren not Darren Horn Tom Crean comes up to me, says, “Man, is that a BlackBerry?” Tom Crean was the head coach at Marquette at the time. And I’m like, “Yeah it is.” And he’s like, “Man, I’m thinking about getting these for my staff.

How does it work and how do you use it in your job?” And so we got to talking. He knew my boss, Happy Osborne, and he said, “You know what? I’m going to recommend you for j- an assistant job at Western Kentucky. My assistant, Darren Horn, just got the head job down there.” And I got offered a job at Western Kentucky because of my BlackBerry.

All right? But here’s what it here’s what it did. If you’ve ever talked to Tom Crean, having uncomfortable conversations is nothing new to him. He likes some con- uncomfortable conversations. But, it took me saying, “Hey, that’s a, the head coach at Marquette. He’s a big-time dude,” and just saying, “Hey, how you doing?

I’m so and i’m an NAIA assistant coach at Georgetown College, I make $27,000 a year. How you doing?” And just, it’s uncomfortable. It’s much easier to avoid that conversation. But look what it got me. I was uncomfortably uncommon. I coulda just sat over there and just “That’s Tom Crean.

I’m taking a little si- the, the side selfie where you act like you’re on your phone, but you’re actually taking a picture of somebody. And then say, “Hey, that’s the next Tom…” I, coulda done something like that. But no, I, you had to be uncomfortable and uncommon.

That’s how you grow. That was a growth moment. So then two weeks later, I got offered an as- a Division I assistant job at Birmingham Southern back when they went from NAIA to Division I. Then they quickly went to Division III. But it all happened at once, and it was all because I decided to be uncomfortable.

So whatever it is, when you grow as a coach, it’s going to involve some discomfort. You’re going to have to be, do something that’s not common, we call it uncommon, and that’s uncomfortable And that’s where you’ll open up some opportunities that you couldn’t even dream of. But if you just, send out resumes and send emails and never make them personalized or never…

I, I like, So I got a, I got the job at Ashland because when I, when it became open I’d never been a high school coach. When it posted, I was like, I had a former player that played there, and he called me. He’s like, “You’d be great for this. Just, it- you could run it like a small college program.”

I went to Walmart, and I bought a net, a basketball net, and I bought some scissors, okay? And I mailed the net in the package, never opened them, and the scissors in the package to the athletic director at Ashland Paul Blazer High School, and I said, “Please interview me. If you do, we’ll be using these one day That’s uncommon, that’s uncomfortable.

But guess what? I ended up becoming the head c- I didn’t get the job in 2015, which is when I did it. But when it came open in 2018, I got the job, went to four straight state tournaments, became Kentucky Coach of the Year, had an undefeated season, went to the Final Four, had seven kids s- sign college scholarships.

It happened. And so w- as a coach, you’ve got to step out, and you’ve got to be uncomfortably uncommon if you want to advance your career. Same thing in your leadership. I’ve got a course, Mike, if you don’t mind me plugging it. It’s called, Sure … Building a Culture of Champions: The Blueprint.

It’s being released Friday, two days from now, at coachmays.com. It’ll be downloadable. It’s a, a lifetime, access. It’s self-paced, about six hours of video, all kinds of implementation tools. We’re giving so much free stuff away. Now the download itself there’s three tiers of cost.

Solo, a staff, and then, the, the high, the VIP is you get a 90-minute, Zoom call with me with your staff and then a 90-minute mental performance session with your team. And really excited about that. But, it’s all about building a culture. And one of the things that successful cultures in, in, in regardless of sport, but in sport have, is the cr- the, the ones that are doing it at the best, they’re uncommon, and their players run the other way from comfort.

They run towards discomfort, and the coaches have to be the same way. It’s it’s… What is it, the buffalo? That they run into the storm? All right, I’m going to get the pain over with early, and then on the other side of it, I’m going to be the first one to enjoy the sunshine, okay? Same kind of mantra.

And but if you want to build a great culture in your program, you’re going to have to be uncomfortably uncommon as well

[00:49:38] Mike Klinzing: How do you help someone who doesn’t feel comfortable being uncomfortable, for lack of a better way of saying it? Yeah. But we’ve all been around people, we’ve all been around coaches, we’ve all been around, maybe it’s family members, maybe it’s a colleague at work, whatever it may be, that they always want to avoid that difficult conversation.

Or the coach who always wants to say how am I doing, Coach?” “Oh, you’re doing great.” And then the player’s like I want to be starting, and I’m the ninth man, so I’m not doing as great as I want. Can you give me something?” And the coach just kinda beats around the bush, doesn’t give the player what they need.

D- is uncomfortable telling the truth and having those difficult conversations. So I’m sure you’ve worked with colleagues who’ve been that way. I’m sure you’ve worked with athletes who have been that way. How do you help somebody to see the value in, again, facing that obstacle head on, and then coming out the other side after having faced it in a better position?

How do you help somebody who’s a little bit reluctant to do that, to take that step?

[00:50:39] Jason Mays: In the NBA, the average salary of last year’s NBA All-Star player that was in the All-Star game, was between 45 and 55 million. The median salary last year in the NBA was 5.5 million. That means half the salaries were above that, half of them were below that.

So the All-Star average was between 45 and 55 million. The median in the whole league was 5.5 million. Huge discrepancy, right? So I don’t know what the percentage of NBA players make the All-Star game, but I would say it’s, what, I don’t know, 4%, 5% maybe. Okay? So that 95% fascinates me that’s not in the All-Star game, that’s making somewhere around five and a half million.

All right? The 95% of the NBA players are role players. So what I would tell that coach or that player in your question, your example, is let’s dive down deep into what your role can be, should be, and will be, not only as an athlete or as a coach, but, after those, in the next three years, five years.

Let… And that’s going to… That’s a courageous conversation. All right? We’re not going to lie to each other. We’re not going to offend each other but we’re going to be honest, and we’re going to be respectful, but we’re going to be courageous in how we talk to each other. All right? Let’s really dive this, go deep into what your role could be.

And we find out that they may not even know what their role is, and so they’re wanting to have a role that they, the outside world thinks they should have. A starter. Okay? Minutes per game. All labels, right? But if we can dig down and say, “You know what? What’s really more important? What if basketball would be one of the best catalysts for you to get into the University of Kentucky pre-law program and get into that law school?

And the discipline that you can learn in the next two years of your high school career as a basketball player helps catapult you into that.” Because I think we’ve just agreed that you’re not going to be a college player. So let’s figure out how your role can help you be more successful than all of us one day by being the attorney general of the state of Kentucky.

Okay? So we got… Now, if it’s a talented player, and he’s frustrated about, recruiting or this or that but he’s an upper echelon dude, or girl then that conversation goes a little bit differently. Usually, when you’re one of the talented ones, there’s a, a fear factor involved, and at the end of it, they’re scared of something.

They’re scared of being vulnerable in the pursuit of something that has a 50/50, at minimum, chance of failure, and then how that looks upon them as the talented player. And so they hold back, and that looks to the outside world as frustration because that’s how they mask it, when really it’s self-esteem.

It’s a confidence issue. It’s they’re scared to succeed because what they want to succeed at is hard, and what, what’s… How am I going to react if I don’t do this? And so there, those are two ways that, if it’s a kid who’s the ninth man, there’s a probably a good chance he’s not going to be a starter.

Maybe, if he’s just a freshman, who knows? But let’s really dive down and let’s see what your role can be, and let’s really define the hell out of that role. And then one of these days you’re going to look back and you’ll be like, I’m in law school because of that conversation, those two years, the hard things I learned to do well and actually fall in love with the discipline that was involved in doing hard things well.”

Or that all-star player that’s, scared to make the leap of faith to that next level that puts them into a Mr. Basketball candidate or a division one from a division two recruit, but they’re scared of that failure. Just really under- making sure that we replay all the successes that they’ve had.

This is where we get into pre-visualization exercises and breathing techniques and creating new neural pathways by them focusing on what they have done well and that there’s a bounty of more ahead of them that they just have to go take hold of. But what they’re doing is they’re focusing on what could go wrong.

That’s a scarcity mindset. But if I focus on what I’ve done so well, that’s an abundance mindset. And abund- a full basket i- is what feeds the multitudes. An empty basket, people go hungry. We’ve just have to rewire how they’re thinking, what they’re thinking. But usually, Mike, with that really good player that’s hesitant, it’s a fear factor

[00:55:56] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense.

Yeah. And I think that anybody who’s ever played the game you have what you feel are your strengths, like you talked about earlier. You have things that maybe you don’t feel like you do as well. I always come back to, Jason from a standpoint of you talked about making sure that people understand their role, regardless of whether you’re a coach on a coaching staff, whether you’re a player, to be able to have those honest conversations about here’s what your role is.

And I love the idea that you said in terms of utilizing your role, maybe you’re not going to be a college basketball player, maybe you’re not going to be a pro. So how can you take lessons from your experiences to be able to catapult you into the real world? Yeah. And I’ve never really heard anybody express it quite that way, ’cause so often we’re just focused on the game piece of it, and we don’t think about how the game…

we all talk about it, right? Life lessons and the impact. Go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:56:49] Jason Mays: Let me tell you what I did. Why… i’m, again, I’m a 21 ACT and I fell asleep during the math part. I’ve written two letters of recommendation for two of my former high school players to get into law school.

I’ve used those letters of recommendation in those actual conversations recently with kids about their roles. This kid never played college basketball, but he was the best on-the-ball defender we had. This kid played Division III basketball and one’s at Northern Kentucky Chase School of Law, one’s at University of Kentucky School of Law.

And they, neither one of them were great players, but they were great people, and they were tough. They were tough. They were winners. All right? Yeah. Don’t let a label that Instagram puts on basketball players define who you are. You’re… We’re all better than that. But I’ve used those letters of recommendation to former role players to help them get into law school to have these conversations with some of those kids.

So that’s where the idea came from

[00:58:01] Mike Klinzing: It makes complete sense to me- Yeah … when you start talking about being able to utilize player-coach conversations to be able to have a bigger impact than just on the basketball floor, which is what we all talk about. Every coach desires in some way to have an impact on their players, sure, to make them better basketball players.

But I think deep down, 99% of coaches also want to make their kids better people and help them to have success later in life while they’re also- Yeah … helping them to have success on the basketball court. And so to hear you express it that way, I think is really valuable. And I think when you start talking about Building a great culture, whether you’re talking about at the high school level, whether you’re talking about at the college level, so many coaches in the conversations that I’ve had on the podcast, Jason, inevitably come back to, “I’ve have to build a relationship with my players in order to be able to instill the kinda culture that I want to have.”

If you and I don’t have a relationship, then it’s really difficult for me to have an honest conversation with you of, “Hey, you’re the ninth man. You may not be able to live your dream of playing college basketball, but let’s see what we can do to help you to utilize your experience here in our program to jump you into whatever it is that you’re going to do next.”

And if you don’t have a good relationship with the kid guess what? We all know what that kid’s going to do, be like, “Oh, man, Coach doesn’t like me,” this, that, the other thing. And then all the good that you’re trying to do goes away. And so I think building the relationship and being able to have those kinds of difficult conversations-

[00:59:41] Jason Mays: Yeah

[00:59:41] Mike Klinzing: that’s where the growth starts, right? I can get to a plateau in my relationships with players as a coach, right? I can have the surface conversation of, “Hey, how you doing? How’s class going? Great. You ready for practice? Okay, boom.” I have that conversation every day, and sure, there’s some relationship there.

But am I taking the time to really get to know the kid? So I know the kid wants to go to law school at some point, right? That doesn’t happen by accident. That’s having real conversations with people. And I think a lot of what you’re talking about stems back to, I have to be intentional about what I’m doing when it comes to building the relationship and having those uncomfortable conversations that you were talking about.

[01:00:24] Jason Mays: Yeah. I like Kelvin Sampson, man. I think he’s the b- I think he’s one of the best right now, and he talks about you have to confront and have conflict. And that c- confrontation and conflict is not always negative. It’s just uncomfortable. Look what sand… Look, sandpaper, right?

It’s uncomfortable, but look how smooth it makes something, and so my point, too, is this: if coaches want to have we… and developing a culture of champions, a blueprint, the online course that’s coming out Friday we talk a little bit about this. Y- culture’s overused. People really haven’t defined it in their own programs.

Relationships is a term that’s overused. You want to develop meaningful relationships with your players, two things: invest Just invest in them. Don’t be interested in them, invest in them. What does that mean? I don’t know. I don’t know the kid. Invest in them. Take them to lunch and ask them, “How can I invest in you?

What- tell me what it i- what– who are you outside of basketball?” Invest in them. Second thing is being available when they’re vulnerable, and then make allowing yourself… When you’re vulnerable, your players will be available for you. Having that two-way vulnerability i- is powerful. You do those two things as a coach you’ll have meaningful relationships with your players, and you won’t even be able– you won’t even be terming it as, “I have great relationships with my players.

They’re becoming the best versions of themselves. We’re preparing them for life after basketball.” You won’t even be talking about that lip service stuff. It’ll be real. It’ll be like, “I lo- I love you.” “I love you too, Coach.” Like Colin Porter today, he’s in this, I don’t want to get into it, but he’s in that class of ’22 thing.

And he’s waiting to hear what, if he’s going to be eligible or not at Marquette. I think he’s going to be fine. But every time we talk, “I love you. Love you, CP. I love you, Coach.” Like I, I tell my daughter I love you. I tell my son I love you. I tell my wife I love you.

There’s not a whole lot of people in our lives, Mike, that we say I love you to. But Billy Graham said this, and I know we have to go here, but Billy Graham said this. And I am a man of faith but he said, “A coach will have more impact on a young person than a pastor ever will a- and coaches, if you’re saying I love you to a player and they’re saying it back to you and it’s and it’s true, it’s real, you’re, you’ve invested in them.

You’re not just interested in them, you’re invested in them. And it just makes so much more… it makes, it, it eliminates 95% of your parent issues, it eliminates most of your administration issues it eliminates. But Mike, one thing I want to leave with your listeners is you do all this stuff, you’re, you find a way to win on the court, win off the court you’re a winning coach.

You need to understand something. Winning divides people It’s separ- it’s a separator. And that’s something no one talks about. I’ve lived it, we didn’t lose a regional game when I was at Ashland and, it… To get to the point where people wanted to boycott playing us.

And you know what happens is kids- Yeah … want to transfer there and play there because you’re doing things the right way. And you’re not recruiting kids, but, a, a parent calls you and you pick up the phone, you talk to ’em, and, it’s, all the next thing you know, the Twitter universe calls it you’re recruiting, even though everybody else is doing it, but because they’re not winning, they’re not exposed. And so what I’ve learned the hard way is that winning divides people because it’s uncommon, it’s uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortably common, it’s hard, and man it’s a separator. So at times it can be lonely for players, for coaches.

So I tell you that to say this: you better have meaningful relationships with your players because if you got a winning program, you’re all each other has. Ain’t no one else outside your locker room and your, those immediate families going to like your ass. That’s a

[01:04:35] Mike Klinzing: fact. There’s, there is jealousy for winning without question- Yeah

in today’s world. There is no doubt that when you win, you have to circle the wagons and you have to keep doing things the right way. And- Yeah … I always come back to, Jason, I think it was my third episode, a guy here in Cleveland, Sean O’Toole, he was a longtime high school coach, he’s now an AD in the area.

And I just remember Sean saying to me that, I asked him something about, what’s your biggest belief around your program?” And he said something to the effect of, “When I go to bed at night, I want to be able to lay my head on the pillow and know that I made the best decision for my kids and my program.

And if I can put my head on the pillow and sleep well with it, then that’s what I base my decisions on. And sometimes that causes other people outside of our program to be upset or to be angry or to be jealous or whatever you want to do.” But ultimately, again, you’re being uncomfortable because you’re doing things that other people aren’t willing to do, and you have to face some of those difficult challenges.

And I think that when you do that, it just puts you in a position to be able to have the kind of success that you’re talking about here. Success, not only wins and losses on the court, but also success when it comes to those relationships with players and helping players to develop themselves, not just as basketball players But as people.

And then the other thing that I always say is I always feel like it’s a privilege to be able to use the game of basketball that I love, that you love, to be able to impact young people. And sometimes when we get caught up in the day-to-day, we sometimes forget about that. And I always think if I can be intentional and come back and realize when you think about what’s your why, for me, it’s being able to use a game that’s been so good to me to be able to have an impact on-

The basketball world, on the people that are a part of it. And I think that’s what you’re getting at here just is you’ve have to be able to be uncomfortable. When you do uncomfortable things, it takes you to places that most people can’t get to, and then all of a sudden It’s lonely because there’s not very many people that have gone up those steps to get to the point where you’re able to have the kind of success that you had.

So I love all, everything that you’ve been talking about. I think from a mental performance standpoint, for athletes, for coaches, I believe in what you’re doing. Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how can people find out more about what you’re doing? Talk about the website. Give us the class again.

Just walk us through- Yeah … all the different ways people can interact with you.

[01:07:08] Jason Mays: Social media, it’s Coach Jay Mays, Coach, the, the J, not J-E-Y, just Coach J M-A-Y-S. That’s all the channels Facebook, TikTok Instagram X Substack. I love Substack, by the way. I’m a big fan of Substack.

Threads, I’m on everything. So Coach Jay Mays. Coachmays.com is my website. Please check it out. It’s we’ve put a lot of work into it. I’ve I’ve authored a book. It’s called Mentally Tough: The Playbook. You can download the book, and then w- if you do that, I’ll also ship you a copy of it.

And then our online course, Building a Culture of Champions: The Blueprint, it’s specifically for middle school, high school, and small college basketball coaches on the men and women’s side. Mike, it’s hard. These what these coaches are doing now, it’s hard. It’s harder now to win than it has ever been at middle school, high school, and small college level.

It’s just, it’s getting harder every year. And they, these pe- these men and women are still grinding, and man, my new purpose is to just give them as much of what I’ve went through for three decades that I, that’s been successful, and let ’em pick and choose what they want. And this is, th- this is an opportunity for me to do that.

It’s been a, it’s been a lot of work but it’s an online course. It’s self-paced. Timing, it– The cost is worth the free implementation. We got the annual matrix is one of the tools. It’s the coolest thing. It’s one of the best planning tools a coach could use. It’s how they map out their entire year.

Not just their season, their year. Preseason, in-season, postseason, off-season one, off-season two. Whether you’re a small college, whether you’re high school, middle school, and the fundraising components, the basketball components, the strength and conditioning components, the scheduling components, all the m- all that stuff.

That in itself is worth it. It’s just all kinds of neat tools that we’re giving away as part of it. I just hope people just give it a chance. Invest in yourself as a coach. Invest in, there’s that word again, invest. I did it when I was a high school coach Dr. Kevin Elko, I spent $400 on his virtual program one year.

Kevin Eastman, spent $600 ordering up his book for every one of our players one year. Ben Newman, spent money having him be our virtual performance coach. I’ve done… I did it most of the years I was a high school coach. I invested in our kids in this. And you don’t think it ain’t coming, it is.

It’s already been at the pros. It’s now at the college level. Staffs are now, past the we’re hiring digital content creator assistant positions. Now we’re hiring mental performance coach, coaches on our staff. We’re hiring culture coaches. We’re hiring mindset coaches. It’s coming to high school.

Give it another year or two, okay? It’ll be here. A- and it should be. We work so much on the physical. Why are we not working on the mental? So Mike, thank you for the opportunity, man. You’re one of the real ones. You just, you’re consistent, man. You’re consistent, and you’re s- you’re steady.

And that’s not common these days. So I just, I appreciate who you are.

[01:10:19] Mike Klinzing: I appreciate those kind words. And again, I believe in what you’ve created. I believe in the things that we talked about tonight that you shared in terms of mental performance, in terms of trying to, again, be uncommon and overcome obstacles and keep moving up, whether you’re a player, whether you’re a coach, whether you’re a business person.

If you’re in our audience, please make sure that you go and check out coachmays.com for everything that Jason has out there. You’re not going to regret it. It’s great stuff. Hopefully, you enjoyed the conversation, Jason. This was a lot of fun for you and I- Yeah … to talk tonight. Really appreciate your time and willingness to be a part of what we’re doing here at HoopHead.

So thank you for that. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening, and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.

[01:11:08] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast, presented by Head Start Basketball.