PATRICK TOUHEY – AUTHOR OF “CREATE FOREVER TEAMMATES” – EPISODE 593

Patrick Touey

Website – https://eliteperformancetoo-e.com/

Email – ptouhey24@icloud.com

Twitter – @elite_too_e

Patrick Touhey is the author of the new book, “Create Forever Teammates”.  He is president at Elite Performance Too – E, LLC. Patrick also was a high school basketball head coach for both boys’ and girls’ teams, as well as a college assistant coach.

When his brother, Hall of Fame basketball coach Kevin Touhey, was dying from lung cancer, Patrick promised him he’d continue his passionate work of athletic coaching. With Elite Performance Too-E, Patrick mentors both coaches and players to tap into their hearts and passions, pursue the spirit of team sports, and become the best version of themselves. Elite Performance Too-E emphasizes intrinsic elements rather than extrinsic metrics that sports often prioritize, such as hours of work, scholarships, and individual statistics. By teaching the value of service, leadership, and team connection, Patrick and Elite Performance Too-E help athletes to overcome the common selfish and self-absorbed mindset and use the athletic experience toward their development as people and potential leaders. Patrick has played an integral part in coaching multiple teams to win state championships and reach their highest potential.

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Have your notebook ready as you listen to this episode with Patrick Touhey, author of the new book “Create Forever Teammates”.

What We Discuss with Patrick Touhey

  • The why behind his book “Create Forever Teammates”
  • Building an experience that is more meaningful when it comes to relationships and connections between teammates
  • An over indulgence of adult activity in the learning experience results in an adult perspective on what success looks like in youth sports
  • Adult influence gives kids very little opportunity or chance to look at sports as joy and play, because it’s very much work
  • Sports as “work” and how that saps intrinsic motivation
  • “We really have to bring love into our program with some intention.”
  • “The athletes have an emotional change and an emotional energy shift around the other reasons they’re playing the sport.”
  • “I’d like my teammate to know that I care about who they are, who they are developing into as a person, how I can contribute towards making that happen and how they can do the same for me.”
  • “How do I get my kids to love this? Not preach it, not lecture it, not force my will upon it?”
  • “I don’t have time to build the intrinsic. I really can’t spend a lot of time on that. And so it’s this fear that gets in the way for us.”
  • “players can not only know that they’re going out there to achieve this goal of winning, but they’re doing it with someone that they love very much while they’re in the process of doing it.”
  • Having have a very heartfelt, honest, and sometimes very discomforting discussions
  • Competing with someone you care for at a deep level and the escalated joy when you win and the sorrow when you lose
  • One of the biggest deficits that exists in many programs is lack of trust
  • Pretending like we have it all together
  • Being vulnerable as a coach and sharing your human side
  • The first response to failure should be curiosity
  • Trying to protect our kids from having disappointment and discomfort
  • “Our goal every night is to win, but our destiny is to become the best possible version of ourselves.”
  • I made it. Is this all there is?
  • “Go out there and fail in the pursuit, because that tells me you’re growing.”
  • Why a player should feel gratitude for being on a team
  • Focus on helping your teammates succeed
  • How to get started incorporating the concepts from “Create Forever Teammates” into your basketball program

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THANKS, PATRICK TOUHEY

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TRANSCRIPT FOR PATRICK TOUHEY – AUTHOR OF “CREATE FOREVER TEAMMATES” – EPISODE 593

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s by cleansing here with my cohost Jason Sunkle, and tonight we are pleased to welcome to the podcast, the author of the new book “Create Forever Teammates”, Patrick Tuohey, Patrick, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:13] Patrick Touhey: Thanks Mike. I really appreciate it. And really am very grateful for the opportunity to be with you and your audience.

[00:00:21] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. We are excited as well. Want to thank you for taking the time. Let’s start by just letting people know what the book’s all about. Kind of the why behind it and just give us the elevator pitch for the book and why someone would want to read and learn from some of your experiences and the experiences of your brother.

I know it was a big influence on the book.

[00:00:41] Patrick Touhey: Thanks Mike. So basically from my own experience as an athlete, my involvement in doing the work that I do with many athletic teams across the country, there were some things I was noticing that were observations that were concerning to me, or at least things that I felt needed to be addressed in order to change the experience that athletes were experiencing while they were learning how to play the sport, they’re playing the environment that they were learning it in.

And the overall coaching experience based on some of the things that were doing that were being done by coaches that have. Very compelled to introduce some lessons and tenants around building an experience that was more meaningful when it comes to relationships and connections between teammates based on these challenges that I observed and from what kids were experiencing, I felt as though if we could somehow find a way to integrate these lessons and tenants, the connections or relationships would be so strong that the whole, the overall experience itself, Mike would be so much more powerful for those athletes.

It would help develop an ability to be great leaders once they leave the athletic environment, it would also equip them to be really great communicators and influencers in respect to getting the best out of others in what their full potential is, and this ability to serve in a way that would be identified as difference makers. So I put this book together to try to address that, and I’m really happy with what I’ve put together. And I do believe that it would make a very significant difference to any program. If these tenants and lessons were to be taught integrated and became part of the program.

[00:02:46] Mike Klinzing: I had an opportunity to read the book over the course of two days. So I started it yesterday and finished it today. You and I jumped on a phone call earlier this week and talk through some of the things that you felt were important that I should look for as I was reading the book. And we just hashed out some of the topics that we’re going to talk about tonight.

And certainly as we were talking, a lot of the themes that have come through on the hoop heads, pod, or themes that you and I talked about in our pre pod call. And there are certainly things that you put into the book and there are topics and issues that are very near and dear to my heart in terms of what I think we need to do to be able to make sports better for everybody involved for the players, for coaches, for parents.

And when I read the book, there were a couple things that really jumped out at me that we’re going to talk about tonight. And one of the first things that you start with is sort of the difference between the way you grew up back in the day, versus the way that kids grow up today, where they used to have a lot more free play.

They used to have a lot more autonomy. They used to have to figure things out on their own. Today is things just aren’t the same. We parent differently society as itself is different. And as a result of that, Kids typically participate in sports with an adult around to help them figure things out, to mitigate problems.

Whereas when you and I were growing up, you had to figure those things on your own. So let’s start there where there’s obviously positives to the system today, and we can talk about those as well, but let’s talk a little bit about why you feel that missing out on that free play that you and I got to participate in and enjoyed so much.

How has that impacted the youth sports landscape in your mind in a negative way?

[00:04:46] Patrick Touhey:  Yeah. And you’re right, Mike, there are some positive, obviously things about it, but where I see it to be a challenge and a struggle is it’s just human nature. When there’s an over indulgence of adult activity in the learning experience for the app, There’s going to be this adult perspective on what success looks like.

And as an adult, we tend to put a seriousness into the matter that for kids at very young ages and almost starting from the beginning, Mike they begin to internalize what is involved in the sport. And what’s expected of them from, from an adult perspective, from an adult mindset.

And so when I talk about this independent free play what, what saddens me and what I see is. Well, we were gifted with in prior generations. And what we really enjoyed about playing athletics and sports is we were able to attach our own, if I could put it in this way, our own heart and soul in an intrinsic connection to what we were doing, because it was truly independent.

And it was this idea of not only was it involving very competitive play, but there was also this fun play that was part of it. And so what would evolve for us is over time, we would have this, this connection to the sport that was full of joy and because it was full of joy. You know, we wanted to do more of it and because we wanted to do more of it, it meant that we were going to get better at our skills, not only in how we execute the fundamentals and skillsets of the game, but how we’re developing our social skills, how we’re developing, how we can disagree with someone, yet find a way to resolve it.

How we can in, in the middle of competition have, have a total different perspective about how we felt the play went or whether it was out of bounds or inbounds or all these things that we independently had this connection to the game that allowed us to identify with it in a way that not only was our own connection, but it truly was our own spirit of fun that we had.

And so. The players that I talked to today, Mike and the players that I worked with today, who do not have that opportunity, really see the game in a totally different way in what they’re being asked to focus on. And it’s very much not only an individualized experience, but it very much is about how am I getting in, how am I getting improvement in a way that I get validation and acceptance from the adults that are interjected into the experience because they’re weighing my every move.

They’re measuring my, every skillset there. They’re teaching me everything I need to know in respect to how to deal with failure. And that failure has a lot of pressure tied to it when it’s coming from an adult’s perspective. And so it gets them kind of. In this place where there’s a lot of pressure around playing the sport and there’s a lot of work around playing to score.

And I, and listen, I love the beauty of improving. I love the beauty of athletes getting to mastery in respect to what they do, but there are two different ways to go about that. And all I’m saying is because of this adult intervention and this lack of independent play that has a true spirit to it. This experience they’re going through, gives them very little opportunity or chance to look at it as joy and play, because it’s very much work.

[00:09:06] Mike Klinzing: I love that analogy of having a youth player. Playing sports as work. And it’s not one that I think people think of very often, but if you really were to look at it from the outside, let’s say a person who wasn’t involved in sports and you look at, okay, well, what is this 11 year old kid do as a basketball player?

So Monday they go to a speed strength, agility training program for an hour and a half. And then they go work with their trainer for an hour. Then the next day they have practice supervised by a coach and an assistant and dad is sitting on the sideline watching practice, and then they have tournaments on the weekend with officials and people in the stands, and everybody’s always watching them.

And there’s just all these things that when are they getting an opportunity to just play for fun. And it’s easy to see where. It could be classified very simply as working from a perspective of an 11 year old. You can see where it could certainly be perceived as work. I think back to my own experiences and I don’t know exactly how they relate to the experiences that you had, but I think they’re fairly similar in that I was a kid who I love to work at the game.

I love to try to get better, but I was a rare kid who liked that part of it. In addition to the playing, most kids enjoyed the playing. Hey, we’re going to go and play two on two in the driveway, or we’re going to go up to the courts and play basketball, or we’re going to meet in the yard and play some backyard football, or we’re gonna play a game of Sandlot baseball.

And we did that. Not because. We want it to get better at football, or we wanted to get better at baseball or basketball. We did it because it was fun. And now I think kids get this message that everything that they do has to be towards getting better towards some end goal, whatever that is. And I think we do, as you said, lose the fun.

So I think one of the things that I always think about when it comes to this issue is yes, we’re missing this, but how do we as coaches? How do we bring this piece of it back? Even though it’s never coming back in the sense of no parents are going to open up the door and just say, Hey, go hang out in the neighborhood the way that our parents did, but how as a coach or as an adult, how can we try to simulate that environment and give kids more opportunity for free plays?

Do you see any way that we can bring that free play back into our youth sporting experience?

[00:11:43] Patrick Touhey: Yeah. Great question. I believe we can. And it’s. The reason why I wrote the book and to help coaches and guide them in how they can integrate some of these lessons into their program so that we can bring that kind of atmosphere, that kind of environment, and that, that kind of experience for the kids, because I know this, Mike, it’s never going to go back to the way it used to be the, the independent free play of kids go into the, to the field and to the courts and to the places that they would even God, I remember Mike, when I was a young kid playing, we had, we had these two neighbors and their houses, their backyards backed up to each other.

When you put them together, it was almost the size of a 50 yard football fields. And 20, 30 kids would meet at that field and we picked team. And we played competitive football and we had a lot of fun doing it. And the thing that I want to and emphasize, and I’ll give you the, how we can bring it into today.

The thing I want to emphasize more than anything, Mike is what, when kids are asked to connect to each other, without adults, there’s, there’s an intimacy that occurs that creates that fire and spirit. And, and when young athletes aren’t communicating in that way, and they’re not relating to each other in that way.

And you can imagine this adult being very much a part of the equation. Yeah, one could it wouldn’t be too far fetched for one to say there’s a lot of conversations that aren’t occurring between those young athletes that would occur. If the adults weren’t there, there there’s a lot of things that would be going on besides playing the sport that were fun to do that we aren’t going to be able to do because the adults are there.

And this is, this is about learning how to do this right now. And this is about this skill and this exercise, and that’s why we’re here. And that’s what we’re going to work on. I just want to stress that that kind of interaction, that kind of connection is the spirit that I’m talking about, Mike. And that spirit is where the joy comes from.

And so it’s very important that we understand that if you were to ask a young athlete at that time, do you understand, do you, do you really consciously get that you’re building this intrinsic joy. Just by the way you’re interacting with each other and having this independent free play. There’s probably not one athlete that would say, oh yeah, very much.

Identify with that. I get, that’s why we’re doing this. I get, that’s why we’re having so much fun. And, and that’s really where it was all happening. And so I think of athletes that I work with Mike, who there are some out there, and I know you’re aware of this. There are some out there that have a passion and an intrinsic spirit who loved the process of getting better.

They love the practices, they love the games. They love everything about it. What is it about those athletes today that gives them that kind of experience around having to become a better athlete and a better player? Well, they have a different connection to the sport. They have a real love for it. And so while they’re engaged in all that work Mike internally for them, it’s fun.

It’s not work. And so when people say, well, why can’t everybody be like that? Why can’t everybody love the process like that player does have the same kind of self drive and passion that that player play well. Well, Mike, that’s an exception. They’re very much an exception and they truly have a different connection of spirit to playing that allows them to do all that and basically have fun doing it.

There are many, many, many other kids and athletes that don’t have that kind of connection. So we have to not only be concerned about it’s, it’s empty from getting it based on the environment and the structure that they’re playing in. How do we bring it in within. And when you look at building an intrinsic connection and intrinsic joy to participating, and even in the process, it truly is all about how do I take that connection that these young kids were having, that they weren’t conscious of that made it so much fun.

What were some of those things that were involved? Well, there were things like compassion. There was things like empathy. There was things that. Vulnerability, there was things like wanting something better for your friend. In other words, this, this connection to serving others and to help others become better at who they were there.

Wasn’t this, this selfishness and self-centeredness and individualism that we’re seeing a lot of today. And I could go on and on about how that’s happened. But and so we have to bring these ideas of love. Like, like we really got to bring love into our program with some intention, it, with some purpose.

I mean, what’s that all about? I mean, how do I even begin to go about doing that? Well, I mean, the book tells you some ways in which we can bring that particular experience into. Playing the game and learning how to play it and becoming better skilled at it. But why do we have to do it with intention? And when was love ever really something that in, in a, in any program that we had to bother with, well, it’s, if it doesn’t happen today, Mike, if it doesn’t get brought into the experience, they’re not learning it along the way.

So what I talk about, all those things that I’ve just identified, like those are intrinsic exercises. That when laid out in a practical way. Mike. So, so in this book, what I do is I put together very practical lessons that wouldn’t be too difficult for any program if they followed the instruction and went through the exercise, all of a sudden they’re bringing in this kind of environment, this kind of atmosphere that is also integrated in with everything else that we do.

And that’s required to become the best of who we can at whatever sport we’re playing. And you what you’re going to see Mike, when that happens, this is what happens time and time again, as I bring these lessons and tenants into any program in a relatively short period of time, all of a sudden the athletes have an emotional change and an emotional energy shift around.

What other reasons they’re playing the sport. And when they all of a sudden become awakened to the idea that there’s a bigger picture going on, that there’s a bigger purpose being served at the beauty of being part of something bigger than yourself. Is this true connection and relationship in which you are really centered around?

Mike, one of my biggest purposes here is to help my brother or my sister succeed and to really care about who they are as a person, not, not just how many points they’re going to score, not just how many rebounds are going to get, or how many steels are going to. I’d like my teammate to know that I care about who they’re, who they’re developing as, as a person, how I can contribute towards, towards making that happen and, and how they can do the same for me.

And then all of a sudden, we’re connecting at a way, Mike, that is so much different than when I hear teams. And I work with teams around saying this is a brotherhood, or this is a sisterhood or we’re best friends, but when you get down to the depth of it, Mike, it’s very surface-y. And in the reason why it’s very surfacy is because of how they’re learning, how to play it, how they’re learning to position themselves around.

Really. And again, I don’t want to, I don’t want to be overdramatic, but there’s this, there’s this overlying atmosphere of how do I get ahead? How do I get an advantage? How do I get noticed? How do I get that opportunity to maybe play at the next level? And I’m being I’m being trained that way in specialization and private lessons and in AAU travel and, and a whole bunch of different dynamics, Mike, that are, that are, and I’m, and I’m not saying it’s done maliciously, please.

It’s the environment and the culture that we’ve established. So, so I’m not necessarily blaming anybody or we’re saying anyone should feel ashamed or bad about it. It’s just a fall to this, to this thing that we’ve produced and we’ve gotten lost in the process. And so when, when, when you take all that and, and you have this athlete, can you imagine.

You have this athlete being plugged into when they’re finally part of a team. And that usually happens at the high school level, right? Some of them play on different travel teams. They’re very connected to those teams. They have, they they have a lot of games with those teams. They have a different purpose in what they’re about in what they’re trying to accomplish with those teams.

And all of a sudden, those kids walk into a high school environment where you have four or five other kids that don’t play travel ball. You know, they’re not in that same way of learning. And somehow as a head coach, you’ve got to meld that and you have to, you have to begin to try to say, okay, how do I, how do I, in some ways, undo all this and bring this kind of passion and purpose into the program so that, so that all the players can, can gain this kind of meaningful connection.

And when you do that, Mike better than anyone else being involved in sports, These players that embrace this, these teachings that I’m talking about, that truly work really hard, knowing that they’re human to be as selfless, trusting, feeling a sense of inclusion, operating in integrity, learning how to be leaders.

They run through brick walls for each other, Mike, and they love doing it. You know, here’s the thing, because it’s not rocket science, right? If I’m coaching a program, the first thing I would say to myself, Mike is how do I get my kids to love this? Not preach it, not lecture, it not force my will upon it so that they will get passionate so that they will get purposeful so that they will get energy.

That’s draining. I talked to so many coaches who feel so drained. Why, why is there a percentage of players that have such apathy about what they’re doing? Why do I have to work so hard to get them to work hard in practice? What is this all about? Well, if you could take a step back and say, where are they coming from?

What are they experiencing it? How is it different than what I experienced it? Because I can’t draw comparisons. I can draw some, but I can’t draw a lot of comparisons about trying to help these young players truly find their own spirit by my own experience. I’ve got to come where they’re at today, but if I can somehow integrate love into my program, I know this, and it’s not complicated when you love doing something.

You want to do it a lot more. And that comes from them. All of a sudden, I don’t have to work so hard as a coach to get them to find passion and purpose, to get them to find their meaning of why they’re doing all this. See Mike, the extrinsic focus, the extrinsic laser focus we have as parents and even as coaches and this laser focus that we’ve gotten to, to say winning is the only thing that matters has dominated the skill development, because that’s how you win.

You become the best skilled and who you can and you can accomplish it that way. No, you, you, you can accomplish it that way, but, but we have to spend all our time on execution on strategy on detail. I don’t have time to build the intrinsic. I know you didn’t get it as a lad, as a young player, but I have time for that.

We got to win. I really can’t. I really can’t spend a lot of time on that. And so it’s this fear that gets in the way for us, Mike, it’s this fear that if we, if we spend some time on the intrinsic development so that our players just like are, are, are so connected to each other, that they will run into a brick wall for each other and are loving the process.

We get. So hung up in the fear that that’s going to not prepare us in the way that we need to be prepared to win, because there’s too much work that needs to be done. And as a result, it backfires Mike and I do believe it’s the reason why it’s not the only reason Mike, but I do believe that it contributes to the decrease in participation in sports.

I mean, I was down in South Carolina this summer and there was a sign at the church buildings and at the YMCAs that said, please, and I mean, please, in capital letters, we need youth coaches and officials. And I thought to myself, why is that? You don’t have to look too hard when I travel around the country.

And I see the lack of participation, and I’m talking about programs that even when, and what goes through my mind when I see a sign like that, And we, and we need to wake up, like we need to wake up because I think there are great coaches, great potential coaches out there that are young coaches who are saying, I’m not, I’m not going to get into that profession.

I’m not going to put up with all that craziness. There’s no way you can, you can pay me enough as a high school coach or a junior high coach or a volunteer youth coach and officials saying this, am I going to go officiate a game with the risk to some parents coming out of the stands and punching me in the face, not going to do that no way.

And if we don’t think that’s happening, Mike, we’re fooling ourselves. We’re sticking our head in the sand and I’m not being overdramatic.  I know many of us and probably a lot of people who are listening today, you’re saying, I can give you the exact opposite things that are happening. And I would agree with that.

I’m not, I’m not disagreeing that what I’m speaking of. Exists out there, Mike, but it’s in a much smaller percentage in population. If we really don’t do something about it. And these lessons in this book, they work. Why do I know they work? Because I execute them in the programs that I work with across the country.

And I will tell you that any coach you talk to who would give you some insight on where their programs or out, whether they’re a winning program or losing program where their program was at, before the work was done. And they took the risk of saying as scary as this is, I’m gonna, I’m going to dedicate 25% of my practice over this course of the year and give it to classroom work around intrinsic development that allows connections and relationships to happen at a deeper level. So there can be so much more joy in the process and these players can not only know that they’re going out there to achieve this goal of winning, but they’re doing it with someone that they love very much while they’re in the process of doing it.

And they would tell you that fast forward to where they’re at today and these, these kids love being with each other. Can I share a quick story with you that illustrates it even better, Mike? Absolutely, please. Yeah. So my brother, Kevin taught me this work many, many years ago and I was the head coach and I’ll, I’ll be, I’ll be very honest.

I was caught up in the fear of not winning. And I was one of those. I was one of those coaches who was very focused on the extrinsic development. And there were a lot of reasons. So I do not sit here in judgment of any of this. I sit here speaking of a person who was very much engaged in what we’re, what we’re teaching culturally and the system and which, which we’re learning.

So I had a, I had a bunch of freshmen who were my most skilled players, believe it or not in the system. So this was my high school head job. And I, I brought up eight of those freshmen. And four of them started from me. Now, what I knew was this mic that we weren’t going to win a lot of games. We just didn’t have the physicality to do it, and we didn’t have the mental maturity to do it.

So I did it at a risk knowing that, okay, Patrick, even though they’re your most skilled players, will you break their confidence because you’re setting them up to fail. And how would we address that and take care of that while we were going along in the season. And I did all of these lessons that year with these young athletes and the way we did it, Mike was once a week.

We would go into the classroom and we would bring up one of these lessons and we would have a very heartfelt, honest, and sometimes very discomforting discussions around what they were experiencing in respect to failing because they were failing a lot. Okay. And so here’s what I would say to you here.

We are three quarters of the way in the season and these kids absolutely would truly do anything for each other based on, on this development. So we’re three quarters of the way into the season and we haven’t won a game yet. Like we haven’t won a game yet. And if you came into my gym and you sat down and you just observed our practice without having any idea that we had not won it.

You would have come up to me after our practice, they coach you must be having one hell of season. I mean, a way your kids are getting after it out there, the way that, the way they’re pushing each other, the way that they’re, they’re treating each other sorry, Mike, hate to disappoint you, but we haven’t won a game yet.

What the hell are they playing for? What’s the play for coach? How do you get him so passionate? Well, they’re connected to each other for a different purpose, so they love each other. Oh, and 20 going into the state tournament because in Michigan, everybody makes the state tournament and we ended up because of our record playing the number two seed in the state.

And we lost by 35, 38 points. And I go into the locker room afterwards and these players are all crying. And I say to them, why so emotional? And they say, coach. We don’t want this to be over. We want to go to practice tomorrow. So fast-forward Mike, it’s a beautiful story. Fast forward that summer, I didn’t have to call any of them to come to the gym.

I didn’t have to, I didn’t have to, I didn’t have to beg any of them to go do some weightlifting. They couldn’t wait to get back to each other with each other. They couldn’t wait to play in tournament’s sophomores. What’s going to happen to biggest turnaround in school history. They won 15 games. The following year of sophomores that made it to the district finals of the state tournament.

And they didn’t love each other any less or more. It wasn’t about any of those things. It was about competing with someone you, you care for at a deep level and the joy, the escalated joy when you win and the sorrow, when you lose and the disappointment and you, and how you console each other. It’s a big difference, Mike.

True story. True story.

[00:34:13] Mike Klinzing: That’s a powerful story for sure. Yeah,

[00:34:17] Patrick Touhey: I that’s how we, that’s how we bring it back.

[00:34:20] Mike Klinzing: When I hear you tell that story. And when I go through and I look at the book and its totality, one of the things that struck me, and it was a word that you used is the need for a coach to be intentional with what they do and the things that you’re describing.

The mini workshops that you detail in the book are things that a coach has to want to do. A coach has to be conscious of. I’m going to do these things and figure out how do I incorporate that into my program? How does that become a part of my program? How is it not just an add on how has it not just something that I do when I have an extra five minutes here, or I’m not really blocking out time in my schedule.

So I think that need to be intentional is really, really important. And then I think the other thing that as I looked at it and I started thinking about, okay, what would this look like in programs that I’ve been a part of? What would this look like? How would we go about doing this? And I think one of the things that struck me over and over and over again, and you kept coming back to it throughout the book is.

The need for the coach to be equally as open, vulnerable, willing to share putting themselves out there as you expect your players to be because you can’t expect the players to open themselves up and be vulnerable and share things about themselves. If you, as the coach are not willing to do that. So if you could maybe address just how important it is for the coach to take the lead, to be the example setter, especially early in the process where players may not be as willing to share.

Once you get this going. You’re going to get more players that are willing to go through the process of talking to each other and determining what it is about their teammates that they didn’t know before. What makes them special? How do we connect? But initially that process can be difficult because the players don’t yet trust that it’s a safe environment.

So just talk about how important it is for a coach to sort of open up the floor and be vulnerable to get the ball rolling so that these things can happen.

[00:36:54] Patrick Touhey:  Yeah. So you bring up the word trust, and it’s one of the biggest deficits that exists in many programs is this lack of trust.

And not only lack of trust between the players, but lack of trust with the coach and the players and the most powerful antidote. To addressing teams that lack trust is vulnerability. And as a coach, it takes this, this understanding that there’s a balance and it’s okay. There’s a balance between who I am as their coach and leader and who I am as a human being that I have as a coach, have this beautiful opportunity if I’m willing to put it out there and, and trust me, Mike, these young players want this so badly.

So, so it doesn’t take a lot, but if I’m a coach and I’m willing to say I have this beautiful gift of experience, I have this beautiful gift of life’s. Celebrations and life’s hardships and difficulties. And if I’m willing to show some humaness in this balance between you know, who I am as a leader, who I am as a coach and at the same time coming to their level, that if I’m willing to put it out there and share it all of a sudden there’s these walls that start coming down this armor that we put up to protect ourselves because we’re supposed to be strong.

We’re not supposed to be weak. We’re not supposed to be flawed. We’re supposed to be perfect. We’re not supposed to have mental challenges. We’re supposed to have it all together. And yet we all sit in that room, whether we’re a player and a coach, and we pretend we might not be doing it consciously.

But we pretend like we have it all together and we pretend that things shouldn’t be the way they are. And so if a coach, if a coach is willing to walk into that room and start off a session by saying, you know men or, or ladies one of the, one of the most important factors for us to be able to have any kind of excellence and success, and to prepare you as athletes and to prepare you for life, we have to learn how to trust.

And I know from my experience and background as your coach, I know this might be a little bit uncomfortable, but I will tell you that I do know that vulnerability, that this willing, this willing how about this word, Mike, this willingness as a coach to be into. Which Kevin would always say and break it down to, into me, see, intimacy into me.

See, and here I am young men and young women, and I’m willing to put myself out there and I’m willing to share something with you. That’s personal and to the depth that you want to do, that is totally up to you. And then I’ll go ahead and, and then, and then all of a sudden what happens in that instant Mike is the players begin to have a different perspective of who you are and they say, hold on.

If coach is willing to do that, maybe it’s okay for me to do that. Maybe it’s okay for me to put something out there that is less than perfect. And that some may judge as being awful and some may judges being terrible. The coaches opening up the door. He’s open it, even if it’s ever so slightly, the windows being opening up, coaches showing us a part of himself that not many coaches are willing to do.

But how about this Mike? Whether we go back to that little independent free play, if I were to ask, and I know for a fact, the teams that I work with today, they, you do, you know that this is, this exercise is the same feeling and the same experience that those young kids who had independent free play were developing intrinsically the same connection.

You’re feeling the same inner deep connection by me sharing my vulnerability. And you sizing that up as coaches showing me a different side of himself. I feel like maybe I can put something out there. Something real this coach is asking this coaches is saying to me, young man and young lady. See, I love you as a person.

I know you can shoot the hell out of the basketball. And I know you’re a fierce rebounder, and I know you’ve got, you played tenacious defense. See young people see right through coaches who are trying to get everything they can out of somebody for their own personal gain, accolades rewards. They, they know it.

Mike, they’re very intuitive, but you get a coach is saying, no. See, see, I want to know you. I want to know you much deeper than that. And my purpose here for you is to help you grow as a young person, not only to be your best basketball player, football player, whatever. And so, so there is, so-so what I’m trying to connect the dots here with Mike is, is okay, Patrick, how do you bring that experience in here? Well, that’s, what’s happening. That’s what’s happening. We’re connecting at an intrinsic level through an exercise. That was the same connection. Those little kids had empower generations in independent free play.

[00:43:35] Mike Klinzing: You talk about a phrase that I had never really heard before, but when I read it, it really crystallized with me.

Because we had actually just talked to another person who had mentioned this same idea, but in a slightly different way. So I’m curious as to how this resonates with you. And that is that a lot of the, I don’t know if issues is the right word, but a lot of the things that go on with us as individuals, whether we’re athletes, whether we’re parents, whether we’re coaches.

Is this fear of failure. If I’m an athlete, I fear not living up to my own expectations or my expectations of an outside force, whether that’s my parents whether that’s a coach, if I’m a parent, I have this fear of, I’m not keeping up with the people around me, somebody else’s, my neighbor’s son or daughter is a star athlete.

And my kids just out there marching around how come I don’t have a star athlete. And if I’m a coach, obviously I want a success. I want to have success. I want to be able to point to my one loss record. I want to be able to be known as, Hey, that guy or that girl can we, that person can really coach there they’re a winner, but yet we all suffer from this fear of failure.

And in the book you say. We should teach kids to have their first response to failure, be curiosity, and be, well, I just failed. Why did that happen? Why did I miss this shot? Why did I not do X, Y, or Z? Why did we not win this game? And so often, as you said earlier, when we’re sitting there, we tend to look outward to find somebody to blame for something that goes wrong.

And we’re, we’re not very good at being honest with ourselves about why we fail. Then if we create this situation where, Hey, things didn’t go well, I’m curious why, let me dig into figuring out. What I can do differently or how I can approach it. And we talked to mark Hendrickson on the podcast about a week and a half ago, and his episode just went up last week.

And in that mark is one of 12 people that people to have ever played in the NBA and a major league baseball. And one of the things that he said to me, which as soon as I read that statement from you, that curiosity is, should be your response to failure. He said in his experience, one of the things that sets professional athletes apart is their ability to a, be brutally honest with themselves and then be the ability to quickly make adjustments to what they’re doing in order to correct whatever failure it was that.

They came in contact with, so it’s not a matter of like the professional athlete. Doesn’t delude themselves into thinking, Hey, I’m doing a great job. When really they know that there was some flaw in their performance that they needed to fix and their ability to quickly a, be honest with themselves and then diagnose that and make a change.

He felt like that was something that he saw much more often as a professional athlete than he saw when he was a high school player or a college player or whatever it might be. And I just thought that those two statements are somewhat related. So just tell us a little bit about how or why you believe that teaching kids to be curious about why they failed.

Why is that a good way to approach looking at failure for any athlete, any person for that matter?

[00:47:18] Patrick Touhey: Mike, this is one of the most severe damaging things that we’re doing with our young athletes. When it comes to how they’re experiencing failure and adversity. And it’s also a major contributor Mike, as to why many programs struggle with having strong leaders on their team and I’ll tie the two together.

So in the culture that we’re in today, that wouldn’t be too far fetched to see or imagine that as adults, there are many cases where we protect our children from feeling disappointment. We protect our children from feeling as though they failed. We protect our children by handling very discomforting conversations.

We protect our children by maybe not having. And I know some won’t like hearing me say this, but having the highest level of integrity that their son or daughter would need to execute to pay the consequences for their actions, subliminally, subliminally what’s occurring. And what maybe we don’t understand is because you don’t want me to feel disappointment because you don’t want me to feel the, the, the, the emotions that come with failure because you’re stepping in and handling very discomforted.

Conflict and conversations. All of that must be bad. There, there there’s something wrong with me. If I experienced those things, they’re not acceptable. That’s what you’re teaching me. That it’s a bad thing. How very sad, how very sad. So when they do fail, it’s, it’s not, it’s a different depth of how they’re interpreting it when they are being confronted with conflict.

And when they are being told what they need to improve upon in a way that might be from, because sometimes that’s necessary, Mike, they have a hard time handling it once again, when we were in independent, free play and not all these adults were around doing all this for us, guess who had to figure those things out, Mike guess who had to work for those things.

Mike get, I guess you had to develop the skill set to be able to do those things. And so when I talk to these athletes about what their internal dialogue is, when they experience failure or not doing it just right, or all of these other things, they are so brutally hard on themselves. And then in the internal dialogue that goes on isn’t it interesting.

I know when I went to go play and I was in and I want to stress this Mike, cause I think it’s very important. This is not, I’m not talking about, and I even hate putting it this way because I don’t want to make judgment on this either, but I w I want everyone to know that I’m not talking about, we all need to sit around the campfire and have a kumbaya session.

These things that I teach and these things that I implement are necessary around becoming a fierce competitor and loving to compete and pursuing. I love, I love, I love Coach K when he talks about our goal every night is to win, but our destiny is to become the best possible version of ourselves.

And so when I was on that playground playing and I failed, I didn’t have a lot of intense attention to what mistake I just made or, or what, what I just failed at. I internalized it as, okay, that didn’t go real well, what can I do next? Or maybe I need to do it a different way, but it didn’t have this intense focus on making sure that failure never happened again because failure has not been acceptable.

That it’s bad to fail. And so these kids have to take that on. Mike, can you imagine having that kind of attention from everyone and protecting yourself and when you do succeed and when you do get mastery and when you do finally achieve at a level you’re, you’re very happy to get to a lot of the experience of that achievement is, is failing through fear, not through curiosity.

See, when fear is your primary motivator. I love when kids say to me, Hey, I love being angry. And I love being afraid because that pushes me. I get so angry. I mean, that pushes me an epidemic. That’s great, but it also drains you and when you make it and when you finally make it, Mike, you take a look back and if it feels so empty, because there was so much pressure and fear to the achievements, There wasn’t a lot of joy going on.

Yeah, I made it. Is this all there is. How many times have you heard that? Mike? When, when, I mean, I’ve heard it too many times when it, when a kid is this all there is to, it, is this all there is. So we need to get back to this and we need to teach him this lesson. And I talked about self-compassion in my book is the antidote to addressing failure because it allows for curiosity and other words, always we have to start teaching our athletes is this dank failure.

Thank it. Be grateful for it, because guess what? It’s time to grow and learn, man. I want to tell you that successes are beautiful. And I, and in some cases that came to you very easy. There were other cases where it didn’t come to you so easy, but yet you achieved it. But what I want you to know, son or daughter, or a young player is failure is what get failure is the catalyst.

To mastery. Thank it. Thank it. Get excited about it. Be curious. I don’t want you to play it safe. Now there are guard rails, right? In the discipline of the game. There are guard rails. So I’m not talking about being sloppy. I’m not talking about being reckless. That’s not what I’m getting at. You know, those have their, they have those have their reasonings and they have their very meaningful purpose.

But what I’m talking about is we need to shift through a sense of curiosity and through a sense of, of embracing failure as this wonderful opportunity to be this catalyst to meet mastery because right, Mike, if you’re not pushing yourself, if you’re playing it safe, you’re not reaching your best self. In any way, shape or form, whether you’re playing basketball, whether you’re your, the head of a podcast, whether you’re the CEO of a company.

So go out there and fail in that pursuit, because that tells me you’re growing. That tells me that you’re doing the hard stuff. And I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud that you’re willing to put yourself out there. Now let’s work on it. Let’s get curious about it and let’s work on it, but let’s have some fun while we’re doing it.

And then all of a sudden, Mike, this sabotaging self-destructive dialogue that occurs with these athletes get shifted. And how about this one? This is what I love about this work that I do. When you go out and pursue who you want to be in your career with this in your toolbox. Trust me, you’re going to be a difference maker.

There’s going to be people that are going to be drawn to you. You are going to be a leader that molds and shapes people who can’t get enough of you. This is the gratitude part that I talk about in my book to Mike, we have to, I talk about selling programs. Cause this idea of putting in the old days you put tryouts up on the billboard in the hallway tryouts are at three o’clock in 140 kids showed up those days are gone.

We have too much competition like it or not. We have too much competition to draw players to the game. And as coaches, we better start thinking of it. Let’s I say this all the time, like, and I think it’s so important. I have to be present in today. I have to be in their shoes. I have to be where they’re at.

And then I start from there and how do I draw conclusions and plans and actions to get some movement, to get some shifts, to get some, some attraction to my program. What do I have to do? And I think one of the, it seems simple and maybe it is simple, but it’s powerful is why should a player feel gratitude for being on a team?

Maybe I need to talk about that. Maybe I need to make them aware of that. Maybe I need to bring that to their conscience because we’re not talking about it very much along the way. There’s other things we’re making more important. Like, how am I going to get ahead? How am I going to make it, how am I going to get the scholarship?

We’re not talking about those things that they need to be very grateful for such as this unbelievable, valuable lesson about how to handle failure. I often say Mike whether it’s an orange basketball with black stripes, a brown football with, with threads, the threading to hold it together, or a yellow tennis ball, you can use whatever you want to make the analogy, but how beautiful is it that thing.

And I think if I think the pioneers and the forefathers that developed sports, that instrument has the ability to change your life and prepare your life and bring you relationships that you’re going to be in your entire life. You want some gratitude? I learned how to be in a relationship through sports.

Because we paid attention to it. We paid attention to who we were, these coaches I played for who we were being, why we were winning matters. How are we, how we were treating each other, why we were winning mattered? How are we, how we were being selfless and thinking the other player first, that when we were in that locker room and we left to go play the game, we are not only focused on what we needed to bring individually, but we were just as focused, if not more so focused on how I help my teammates succeed.

Thank you, orange ball. Thank you. Brown ball for giving me this valuable gift of being in a relationship because now I can go out and do my thing and know what it means. To be in a relationship, whether it be my future partner, whether it be my coworkers, whether I be the leader of a group in a company.

Is there any gratitude for that Mike? Are any of our players connected to that, Mike? Sorry. I keep saying your name. It’s just a habit I have, but, but do they, do they have any idea of that special gift? Are we talking to them about it? I’m sorry that I went on.

[01:00:13] Mike Klinzing: I don’t think we are. I don’t think we’re talking about that.

I don’t think that I don’t think that we as coaches often take the time to break down and help our players to understand all of the things that. They should be grateful for. I think it’s hard for coaches to do for the same reason. It’s hard for them to carve out time, to do some of the things that you’ve been talking about and things that we talked about on the podcast to be able to get to know their players better.

On and off the floor to get to know them as people to invest in them as people, that stuff is a hard to do because it takes time B it’s hard to do because you have to open up yourself in order to get them to open up. And many of us find that to be extremely challenging and difficult. And not that we don’t want to do it, but oftentimes we don’t even do it in our personal lives, probably as much as we should.

And so, right. And then, so then to go and do that in front of our team, it just doesn’t seem like it’s something that could be, can be comfortable. And I know that it’s something again that you, you have to do as a coach. It’s something that. It’s been shown over and over again, that if you have a more connected team, what do coaches always say?

I’m looking for a team that right. That has chemistry, a team. That’s fun to coach a team that gets along with one another. Well, you could sit around and maybe you have a 30 year coaching career and maybe accidentally you get that once, right? That you just have a group of kids that for whatever reason, they kind of come together on their own at all coalesces.

And you’ve got that magical team. What your book talks about. And what you’ve been sharing with us tonight is that you can make that happen and help facilitate that, where you can get something like that every single season. And you can get that on a team where your results on the scoreboard are lots and lots of wins, and you can get that same feeling when the results on the scoreboard are lots and lots of losses.

And ultimately, when you think about your own athletic experience, but when I think about my athletic experience, there are certainly some wins and losses that we remember. But mostly what we remember is. The people. We remember the relationships with teammates. We remember the relationships with coaches.

Remember the bus ride. We remember the team meals. We remember hanging out in the locker room. Like those are the stories that get told over and over and over again. Sure. Every once in a while there’s a memorable play or a memorable, memorable game that somebody will remember. But for the most part, you’re remembering the people.

And if you can give your players and let’s face it yourself, right? As a coach, as a coach, you want your own experience to be better. Wouldn’t it be better to spend time every single day with 12 kids or 15 kids or however many kids you have on your team where you know them, as you said, the word intimately where you know everything about them and you truly care about them.

Not just in the moment while they’re on the practice floor, but you care about them everywhere they go. And isn’t that really what we’re looking for. And you talked a little bit about how the ball could do so many amazing things. And I know there’s a high school coach in Arkansas has been a real great friend to the podcast and was one of our first guest, Greg White.

And Greg always says there’s magic in the ball. And it’s true. And that’s exactly what he was getting at, is that the ability as a coach to, to utilize that ball, to have an impact on the players that are in front of you to get to use something that we love you love as a coach, to be able to use that as a tool, to be able to have an impact on young people’s lives.

I mean, that’s really what it’s all about. And I think that gratitude piece, one of the things that I started doing at my youth basketball camps is, and this is a speech that I give all the time about. Being a good sport and probably four or five years ago, I added a little piece to it that hadn’t been a part of it in the first 15 years and talking about how we need to be good sports with our opponents.

But I also talked about not only do we have to be good sports, then we have to be thankful that we have somebody to play against. Imagine if I said, okay, your team Patrick is going to go over here and you’re going to play against no one. All right, good luck. Have some fun. And too often we look at, and we forget to be thankful, right.

That we have somebody to play against. Or you think about yourself as an athlete, right? Like how fun is it to play? Let’s say you’re a basketball player, a tennis player or whatever. How fun is it to play against someone who’s. A lot worse than you. And we’ve all played games where you’re, you’re way better than your opponent, those games.

Aren’t that much fun. The games that are fun are the games where somebody is there to push you to challenge you. And do you lose those games? Some sometimes. Sure. But if we don’t, if we see our opponent as the enemy, as we see him as a roadblock, instead of being thankful, look, that’s not to say I’m as competitive as the next guy.

Like I’m going to do everything I can to try to beat you. And we step in between the lines, but I’m also thankful that you’re there. And I think if you can, if you can humanize it for people, for your kids, for your players, I think it just makes things all the better and, and really. It comes down to what you said multiple times is you have to be intentional about these things.

You have to be vulnerable, you have to be open. You have to tell the truth and you have to get kids to understand and believe in who you are. Not just as a coach, but as a person, what kind of person is coach is coach tell the truth. If he says, or she says, this is going to happen, it doesn’t happen. And as soon as you don’t do that, man, you’ve lost those kids really, really quick.

And it’s, it’s easy to get away from that during the season, because you get caught up in the day-to-day you caught up in, okay, what’s the offense that we’re going to play to beat this team instead of, Hey, we need to take our 30 minutes today to do our lesson, as opposed to, we need to spend 15 more minutes going over out of bounds play.

And it’s hard. It’s really hard to do.

[01:06:55] Patrick Touhey: Yes, it is. It is. You know, the one program I work with out in New Jersey is Shawnee high school football and Coach Gushue has been coaching for over 40 years, highly successful legendary coach in Jersey. And he’s won nine state championships and was interesting in 2002, he had hired my brother, Kevin to come do this work.

And it was funny story. So he had Kevin, cause he had heard about Kevin and first night that Kevin was going to go address the team. They were walking down the hallway to go to the media center where all the players were waiting. And my brother, Kevin turned to coach Gushue and said, where do you, where do you think you’re going?

He goes, well, I’m going with you to go talk with the team. He goes, no, this is, this is between me and your players. If you really want them to get them where you would like them to be in their relationships, their passion, their purpose and their meaning. They won’t do it while you’re in the room. They won’t, they won’t reveal the hard stuff that Nate may need to be talked about.

And he’s God blessed him. So here’s a young guy that was very humble and willing to say, okay, that makes sense. I’m going to step out of the way and I’m going to let you have that meeting. And that was the beginning of a eight year relationship. And Kevin teaching these lessons.

And if you were to talk to coach Gushue today, he would say to you that up until 2022, and I’m not saying this is the reason why we do this every year in our program and why it does become 25 to 30% of what we do, because it was hard for me to do that. It was hard for me to trust that, but up until 2022, I had some great football teams that we can never get over the hump of the first or second state playoff game.

And something was missing. And something was missing. And all I can tell anybody that’s interested about this work is this, that while we implemented this program and the lessons and the tenants, and they were taught by both myself and what I learned, how to do it. And by having Kevin and now Patrick, in we’ve accumulated nine state championships.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it happened at a time when we truly began to understand how important the intrinsic development is, especially today. And I know that you’ve heard this and I’ve heard it plenty of times where I’ve gone to talk to a coach who has won a lot of games. And who said to me, I cannot wait for this season to be over.

[01:09:59] Mike Klinzing: We’ve all heard that.

[01:10:02] Patrick Touhey: So from that perspective, you’re absolutely right. It’s, it’s a challenge. It is a challenge, but I’m asking coaches to, to be open to considering it too. And once, and once they start, if they’re, if they’re willing to take that risk, once they start, it becomes easier and easier every year.

And you don’t have to roll the dice to wonder, is this the team that’s going to have that chemistry? Or is this the team that’s going to be able to have those two or three leaders that keep it all together and, and roll the dice. It becomes your culture. It becomes year after year as your younger players come up through the system, they know this is culture, or they know that this is what we really enjoy being part of and everything that it presents to us as players.

And so, and this is what coach Gushue has at Shawnee High year in and year out. He, he, he’s never called me and said, man, I, this is one of those years where I got a tough group that just doesn’t have that. You know, it factor as far as chemistry it’s, it’s, it’s embedded in the culture and it shows up every year.  It really does.

[01:11:28] Mike Klinzing: I think another theme that for me, ran through the entire book and as I read it, I kept kind of coming back to this point and it was the. If you’re building the kind of program that kids want to be a part of, regardless of the one loss record, it comes down to the fact that it has to be about the kids first.

And you have to put your own ego aside your own needs aside, and be willing to do what it takes to create the kind of atmosphere and the kind of program that is going to make kids want to be a part of it. So let’s say that I have, I’m a coach and. I hear the podcast. I go out, I pick up the book and yet I’m still a little bit nervous.

I’m still a little bit hesitant. I’m still wondering whether or not the investment of time that it’s going to take for me to implement some of these things. I’m still not sure it’s going to be worth it. What does that conversation look like when you have with them when somebody is sort of teetering on the fence of, yeah, I kind of believe this stuff, but I’m not a hundred percent sure that I want to invest the time it’s going to take to do it.

What should I do? How do you talk to, what would you say to a coach who’s kind of on the fence when it comes to some of the things we’ve been talking about tonight?

[01:13:04] Patrick Touhey: So there’s a couple of things that, that particular individual could consider. One is if they reached out to me that I would be more than willing to.

And work with them initially hand-in-hand with the coach or coaches until such time that they came accustomed to a comfort level of doing similar work independently. So it’s this, this process of coming in and being the mentor and influencer for the coaches. Until again, there they become more and more comfortable with it.

So that, so that’s one consideration. And I do that. There’s, there’s plenty of teams across the country where. I go in and, and do the, and it runs the gamut, Mike. I mean, some don’t want to do much work around it at all. And they’ll say, that’s why we have you. And so we’ll do it that way. There are, there are plenty of others who are, are afraid, little unsure, a little uncomfortable, but they want it.

There’s an inner, there’s an inner drive. There’s an inner wanting to bring that into the program and to bring that into the experience they have with their players. And so it doesn’t take much time for them to get some comfort around it and say to me, okay, I got this Patrick, thank you so much.

This is wonderful. And I’m really glad that you, you started and. And I’ve known, I’ve always wanted this and I’m ready. I’m ready to do it independently. And then there are others who are so in tune with this and so open to being vulnerable and, and sharing and, and spending the time being the mentor around the players.

And this is the thing that’s important is every one of the sessions that take place in this is happening in the corporate world to Mike, I’m a senior vice president of a fairly large corporation and what, what the what’s being required of, of us as leaders is the capacity to have what’s called emotional intelligence.

And, and so that emotional intelligence requires us to do. And learn a skillset around a lot of things that I’ve laid out in this book, those same skillsets that, that are brought to an athletic team and a leader as a coach. And you’re, you’re also beginning to develop leaders who when they leave, are going to be required to have some sense of being able to show a skillset around emotional leadership.

And so I share that only to say to you that there are, there are, there are coaches who are so ready for it, that once they read the book they’re off and running they, they don’t need any guidance from me, any assistance from me and they truly are ready to go and they do a great job of it. And if I’m going to be completely honest, there are some who just, no matter what won’t do it, they just won’t do it.

[01:16:44] Mike Klinzing: You’re correct about that. And I think that when I read the book, it just dovetailed with so many themes that have run across our conversation with coaches at all levels of the game and the direction that coaching has taken from 20 or 30 years ago, where were their coaches? Valued relationships and valued.

Some of the things that you talk about in the book 30 years ago. Sure. There were, but there certainly were not as many as there are today and the coaching profession continues to evolve the way that we reach our athletes, the way we create the kind of teams and teammates that we want to be a part of.

As I said earlier, where you not only want to create a program that is great for the players who are participating, but you as a coach, you want to create the kind of environment that it’s fun to go to work everyday. You don’t want to be that coach saying, man, we’re 18 and two, but I can’t wait for the season to be over.

And that’s just, that is a miserable feeling for anybody who’s ever had that as a coach, that is not, that is not a place that you want to be. So if you’re able to implement. Some of the things that we talked about tonight, the book is really well done. And if you are a coach out there who wants to create the type of program that is going to attract athletes to it, that is going to make those athletes, tell their friends and tell their parents until their fellow students about how special it is to be a part of this program.

Then the things that you wrote about Patrick in the book, the things that you share, the workshops, the ideas that you put forth, I think are tremendously valuable for any basketball coach out there. The book is titled create forever teammates and Patrick, before we wrap up, I want to give you one more chance to share where people can find the book, share some social media email.

How can people reach out to you? How can they find out more about what you’re doing? And then if there’s anything that. I missed or we missed in the course of the discussions, a final point, maybe that you want to make, you can go ahead and do that. And then I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:19:07] Patrick Touhey: Thanks so much, Mike.

And before we close up, I want to thank you for allowing me to be on your show and having the opportunity to talk about these lessons and the book itself. I’m very grateful. I have a very passionate purpose in respect to this idea that if I can reach out to one coach or to one player who is willing to embrace these wonderful lessons that is going to help change the young players experience around being an athlete and I’m fully, fully invested in that.

I fully believe in it. And if I could, if I could say that the pain I hear about in the rooms from the players, if there was some way that, whether it be a parent, whether it be a coach or whoever that influencer is for that young athlete, if they could be in that room, maybe a fly on the wall and they could hear what’s coming from some of these players and what they’re experiencing and the pain that they’re in.

You know, it might, it might have more meaning in its importance and what we need to do to help change some of this. The best way to get access to the book is my website. It’s the easiest way or Amazon, but my website is eliteperformancetoo-e.com  and that’s one way to get to it.

You can go to Amazon, you can go to Barnes and noble. There are also some other book outlets that you would be able to reach them on. If you Googled, “create forever teammates” it will bring up a numerous number of other. Places you can go to order and get the book. So I would suggest if you had any interest that those are the places you can go to.

The one final point that I would like to make Mike is  I failed to mention the apathy, I’m sorry, not the apathy, the empathy that I truly have for coaches and the demand that’s placed on them today and what’s required of them today is truly unprecedented compared to prior generations.

And so I just think it’s important that all of us understand the unbelievable sacrifice that coaches make and what’s required of them today in order to run a program or coach or program. And as a result of that there’s only so much room. And when you think about all of those things, the other side of the equation of this is, is what I hear from coaches in the drain that they feel when it comes to having to do what they have to do and the sacrifices that they make.

So I think it’s important that when we look at coaches, whether we’re parents in the stands or we’re, again, a follower influencer of that particular athlete, that’s playing that there’ll be some compassion and empathy and understanding of what kind of sacrifice a coach Mays. And I’m not talking about.

You know how skilled they are at teaching it and the X’s and O’s and things of that nature. Just, just this understanding that there’s, there’s a great sacrifice being made. So thank you so much again, Mike, for having me on your show and allowing the, a platform in which to bring this very valuable message.

[01:23:26] Mike Klinzing: Well, you’re very welcome. That was well said, and I think. Coaches have a very, very difficult job. And oftentimes that job is not appreciated. I know by the athletes who play for them by the parents of those athletes, by the community at large. And I think coaches are very, very under appreciated. And if you are a coach and you are looking for a way to improve your athletes experience, to improve your own experience and to create the type of program that is going to have sustainable success and by success, I mean, having a positive impact on the athletes and creating an environment that they want to be a part of, then I would highly recommend going out and picking up Patrick’s book, create for forever teammates.

Make sure you do that. Patrick, we cannot. Thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule. It was an absolute pleasure to be able to have this conversation with you. I really enjoyed the opportunity to read the book. I hope coaches, coaches go out and pick it up and to everyone out there. Thank you for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.