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The Pressure Lab is a first-of-its-kind mental fitness podcast built specifically for competitive and youth soccer players navigating the real emotional demands of the game.
This weekly podcast from HEADFIRST, a Philadelphia Union Foundation initiative, is hosted by Keith Wilford who gets into the realities of being a young athlete today. Featuring conversations with pro athletes, coaches, mental health professionals, and youth development experts, each episode is an honest conversations about pressure, identity, confidence, failure, burnout, belonging, and the emotional weight competition can put on you.
No highlight reels. No empty hype. Just real stories, real insight, and practical tools for players and the people around them.
If you’ve ever felt the game get bigger than the field, The Pressure Lab was made for you.
About HeadFirst: HEADFIRST is a mental fitness initiative of the Philadelphia Union Foundation designed to equip young athletes with the tools, language, and mindset to perform under pressure and grow through everything sport puts them through. HEADFIRST is proudly sponsored by Independence Blue Cross and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. More information at www.myHEADFIRST.org
About the Philadelphia Union Foundation The Philadelphia Union Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, dedicated to creating opportunity, building community, and developing the next generation of athletes and leaders through soccer and education-based programming in Chester, Pennsylvania and the surrounding region. More information at www.philadelphiaunionfoundation.org
About Our Host: Keith Wilford is a Mental Health and Wellness Educator at YSC Academy and founder of The Wilford Movement. A Widener University All-American and MA in Counseling Education, Keith has spent his career at the intersection of sport, education, and youth development. He is a national leader in student development and has coached and counseled student athletes at some of the most competitive academic and athletic programs in the country.
Tag In here: https://forms.gle/VLBmyLFjVmbtZxBb6. In a few honest words, tag in with the heart of why you’re here: why you play, why you coach, why you care, why you support someone you love in sport. Share your moment and add your voice to a space that puts every player’s whole self first.
DR. SCOTT GLASSMAN: Why do we get so drawn
into negative experience when we have something
bad that happens, or we miss a shot,
or there's a problem in our lives?
Sometimes it can consume us.
ANNOUNCER: Step into the Pressure Lab,
brought to you by HeadFirst, the Philadelphia Union
Foundation's mental health initiative.
Here, we believe mental fitness is as important
as physical fitness.
You train your body every day,
this is where you train your mind.
The pressure, the doubt, the setbacks,
they're all part of the game, but what you do with it,
that's the skill.
KEITH WILFORD: I'm your host, Keith Wilford,
educator at YSC Academy.
Today, we are talking about the voice in your head,
the one that shows up after a mistake,
when the pressure is high, when things don't
go the way you planned. Because that voice matters.
It doesn't go away, but it can play
a different role.
It can help you reset, refocus, and move forward,
or it can keep you stuck, replaying the moment
and doubting yourself.
Through HeadFirst, we talk a lot
about mental fitness, and a huge part of this
is understanding your inner dialogue.
So the real question is, how do you change it?
How do you build a positive mindset that works
for you instead of against you?
I'm so fortunate to have two guests here today.
Joining us is Dr. Scott Glassman,
a licensed psychologist and Director of
the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at
the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
He's also the author of "Happier You,"
a program focused on transforming negative thinking
into resilience and positive action.
He's trained in mindfulness-based
cognitive therapy and is a member
of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.
Scott has also developed "A Happier You"
as a part of the HeadFirst initiative,
equipping athletes with tools to strengthen their inner
dialogue and build resilience on and off the field.
We're also so appreciative of having,
and we're joined here by Will Davis,
a high school sophomore and goalkeeper for FC DELCO.
As a goalkeeper, Will understands something important.
One mistake can feel louder than the next 90 minutes
of success, and learning how to respond in that
moment is mental training in real time.
I wanna welcome you both to the HeadFirst podcast.
So we first start off every episode,
all of our listeners do at the same time.
We sort of tag in, and it's a way to intentionally
show that we have a level of courage jumping into
this conversation.
Sometimes we have to have some intention to bring
into the conversation.
It's just a way to sort of lean into how we're feeling,
sort of the feeling that we're bringing into this space.
So, I sort of start off, I'm tagging myself in,
then I'll give you the space to do the same.
And I think what I'm feeling as I come in is
just obviously being back in the space and being
with you all.
I'm thankful, Will, for having the courage
to jump into this arena.
And obviously, Dr. Glassman, I think your expertise
and all that I think our listeners are trying
to hear will be amazing. So I give you the floor.
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, yeah, thank you.
And I'm feeling really grateful as well that
we're having this conversation.
You know, mental fitness, mental health
in young athletes, but youth in general,
it's such an under-addressed area.
I think that we can actually make some headway
by just talking about some different strategies
and ways that we can, you know,
make progress in this area.
So I'm excited to be here and grateful as well.
I'm interested to hear both of your perspectives.
KEITH: Yeah. WILL DAVIS: Yeah, thank you.
I'm really excited and grateful to be here.
I'm really excited to talk about stuff I go through
and what I know a lot of younger athletes go through
that they can't really find the space to talk about.
And I'm really excited to hear both of your
expertise about it.
I'm truly grateful for the opportunity.
KEITH: Yeah, for sure.
So what is having a positive mindset?
Like, what is it really?
It's something that is used a lot.
We say it a lot.
And obviously from your experience
and from your experience hearing it, what is it really?
What does it mean to you?
WILL: I think, for me, having a positive mindset
is not dwelling on every single mistake I make in a game
and in life.
Because if you don't allow yourself to make mistakes,
or if you stay hung up on the mistakes you've already made,
then it's really hard to move forward and make
better decisions, make better plays.
So, I feel like having a positive mindset is
living in the moment, not getting hung up
on mistakes you made in the past.
KEITH: Yeah.
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, I would say to understand
what a positive mindset is, I think we first have
to understand what it isn't.
And to understand what it isn't, you have to look at why
do we get so drawn into negative experience?
When we have something bad that happens,
or we miss a shot, or there's a problem in our lives,
sometimes it can consume us.
So we've go down that rabbit hole
of negative thinking and feeling and doing.
And before we know it, like an hour could have
passed before we're like, "Well, is there
anything good here?"
So how do we get out of that, kind of, negative
hurricane that can kick up with life?
And I think one of the ways to do that
is to intentionally, like you're saying,
Will, look for the good, whether that's one
good moment in the game out of maybe 20 moments
that didn't go the way you want them to,
or something good happened in school and maybe
five bad things happened with five things you
weren't happy about. What are you focusing on?
Are you focusing on the five bad things,
or are you focusing on that one good thing?
So it's really catching the good,
which is the first part of the Happier You program
that we talk about with young athletes,
is how do you shift from that negativity, sort of, trap,
it's like a sand trap, into really selectively
picking out where you're the strongest, right,
and where you're thriving?
Because that makes all the difference.
That changes the entire emotional vibration of your
entire day, of how you feel about yourself,
how you feel about others in your relationships.
KEITH: Yeah.
So Will, when you hear that, just in your own playing
experience, how does that show up for you right now
as a player?
WILL: I feel in a lot of young athletes, including myself,
it's the fear of not letting yourself down,
but letting your teammates and your coaches down.
So, I think what really helps a young athlete find
the good in his or her moments that they go
through in the match is knowing that you have that
support from your teammates and from your coaches,
which I feel like is something that's certainly there.
And I feel like there should be a lot more appreciation
for it because it really does make a difference in
giving young athletes that confidence to keep
moving on and keep moving
forward and picking out the good.
KEITH: So I'm gonna put this out to both of you.
How do we start to celebrate the idea of having
a positive mindset?
And I guess my other question would be,
how do we make it something that is attractive to do?
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah.
How do we make being strength-focused cool?
What are your thoughts about that, Will?
I'm curious.
WILL: I feel like in order to make focusing on
these strengths something that's accepted or cool
around other people, a young athlete needs
to be more willing to celebrate themselves.
And everyone tries to be humble, like, "Yeah, I made
a great play, but that's what's expected of me."
But I know when a teammate celebrates me,
that I made a good play, it really picks me up
and helps me out throughout the whole match.
I get really excited.
And I know that I do the same for them.
And I feel like just knowing that your teammates
and your coaches have your back and get really
excited for you when you make a good play
makes it a lot easier to be excited for yourself.
KEITH: Yeah.
DR. GLASSMAN: And I think that speaks to setting
emotional environment norms.
So either before a game, having some kind of ritual,
whether it's led by your team or coaches,
of identifying one piece of progress that somebody's
made in their game, or after the game,
celebrating, even with a loss, celebrating some good shots
or some good plays, something that communicates
that we're not gonna just rest on what went
wrong and trying to fix that, but we're also going to
spend equal time, if not more time,
looking at what's gone right.
And so it's kind of an environmental question
as much as it is an individual question
and a team-based question, like you're talking about.
WILL: Yeah. And going back to that pregame ritual,
something that I found really helps me is I'll sit
on the bench and take three really deep breaths
right before the game starts.
And I'll close my eyes and I'll visualize myself
making a really good play.
And I think that really helps me have just tunnel vision
of what I have to focus on and block out everything
else going on around me.
DR. GLASSMAN: Breathing is so powerful.
The idea of connecting to your breath
and the present moment, it's a way of allowing
the anxious thoughts, the worries,
the fears, just to sort of be on the sideline.
They may not go away completely, but your attention is drawn
into an object of experience, which is very settling
and very grounding.
And I imagine, Will, you probably turn
to your breath at other points, not just before a game.
WILL: Yeah, 100%.
I mean, it's part of being a kid.
It's a lot of balance between soccer, friends, school, family.
And finding that balance, I know it can be
really stressful, not just for me.
But sometimes you just need to take a second,
take three deep breaths, and then keep going.
KEITH: If someone experiences, like, real trauma in
their life in some capacity, how do you shift
the trauma that someone has experienced?
"I'm just sort of stuck in where I'm at."
How do you become unstuck?
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, and I'm sure that
happens quite often.
And we have to think about, is the passing moment,
the sideline conversation about that,
even the right place to address the effects
of that trauma?
I would recommend that someone get into therapy
and counseling with a licensed professional
on a regular basis, and that we work hard
to destigmatize seeking mental health in the
context of sports and in other areas of life.
Because if we do that, then the positive mindset
work that happens, which is sort of like
looking at, "How can we accentuate the best of who
you are and your strengths?" It's working in
complement with working on the traumatic side,
which can take some long-term therapy, deep therapy.
But the two can work together.
KEITH: Yeah.
And can you tell us more about what positive
psychology actually is? DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, absolutely.
And because there's some misunderstanding,
I think, about positive psychology,
that it's "happyology," that it's telling people,
"Just smile, just laugh, ignore what's
happening in your life."
And it's really not that at all.
Positive psychology is the science of well-being.
It's looking at research into the areas
of our most exceptional sides of ourselves,
where we're in our most flourishing states
and the highest levels of well-being,
and seeing what are the ingredients that
contribute to a happy, meaningful, connected life.
And if we can distill those ingredients,
we can figure out what the combination of either
skills or thinking habits or actions,
then we're really going to be able to create
these kinds of three-second breathing spaces
or create these kinds of environments,
social environments, in which kids are gonna
thrive and that we'll all be more productive
and more connected.
So it really is like taking the research and applying
it in that way.
But it never says that we should ignore the bad
stuff that happens, the negative experience.
We should learn from it, but not,
like you were saying, Will, not dwell in it,
not let it kind of keep us there.
WILL: Something that my club does a really good job of,
and my coaches do a really good job of,
is during the match, they don't really address
a mistake that's been made.
Really, it's all tactical and how to go about
the rest of the match.
And then if a mistake's been made,
they're not really putting you down.
They're always talking about what I could do better
from a soccer standpoint. KEITH: Yeah.
WILL: And I feel that's really helpful, especially for me,
knowing, like, "I made a mistake in a game
of soccer and the world's still on its axis,
the world's still spinning." KEITH: For sure.
WILL: And I always think to myself that, "They're
here to help me and not bring me down,"
which I feel like FC DELCO does a really good job of.
KEITH: I'm blown away by the maturity of your responses.
I think it's really unbelievable.
I am also curious, when did you decide
to move in this direction?
Did something, from a performance standpoint,
make you decide to say,
"I need to figure this out?"
WILL: Yeah, so I was 11 or 12 years old playing
in a State Cup game.
And I was really, really nervous before it
and kept thinking to myself, "What if this happens?
What if I let in this goal?"
And then we lost that game.
I remember in the car ride home, I reflected on it and I said,
"We lost the game and I'm still playing soccer.
It's still fun. Nothing changed.
It's a game."
And obviously, I feel like in a way it's good that
I get nervous before games about that kind of stuff
because if I didn't get nervous,
it would kind of show that I didn't really care.
KEITH: Yeah.
WILL: So, I feel like it's finding that
balance of caring about what you do,
but also needing to remind yourself that it's a game
and it's not the end of the world.
KEITH: Yeah.
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, it makes me think of the idea of grit,
which comes from Angela Duckworth.
She's done a lot of research in this area,
which is the combination of passion plus perseverance,
which makes us more resilient.
And you're talking very much about connecting
with your passion, why you love the game,
regardless of any one outcome of a game or performance,
that you go back to the meaning that it has for you.
And that can be really, really uplifting and help
you move forward and put those mistakes in
the proper perspective versus blowing them
out of proportion.
KEITH: Can you tell me more about that?
Like, the idea of putting it in the right place.
So for that, you know, 13, 14-year-old that's listening,
or even the parent of that 13 or 14-year-old,
what does it mean, putting it in the right place?
DR. GLASSMAN: It means it doesn't matter as much
as some of the bigger picture.
Like the fact that you can play soccer,
that you can be with your friends,
that you can have fun, and also increase your skill
level and be competitive at the same time.
It's not the world.
I like how you put it, the world isn't gonna
spin off its axis because you missed a shot.
And it's not only a lesson for soccer,
but it's such a lesson for life.
KEITH: Yeah. DR. GLASSMAN: Isn't it?
That things are gonna happen.
We're gonna make mistakes, but you pick yourself
up and you focus on your why.
Why am I here? What am I directed toward?
What is my heart saying, where I should go?
And if we follow that direction, then those mistakes
won't mean as much, they won't knock us off
track as much.
And I think that's what grit is about.
It's like really connecting with that idea of how
we can pick ourselves back up and connect with purpose.
KEITH: If we can't do it on our own, you know,
what can a parent or a coach help to sort
of redirect us to finding that purpose again?
I mean, the idea of purpose is such a large concept
for the developmental mind.
And so how does that parent or even a teammate,
how do we get them connected back to that purpose?
DR. GLASSMAN: Coaches and parents can help
by asking questions.
And the type of questions that I would recommend
are questions like, "Where do you feel like
you're most confident?
What do you care about the most?
What do you like the most?"
It could be about really anything in life.
And now we start to distill a sense of, "What
are my values and how do I live them out regardless
of the outcomes?" KEITH: Yeah.
Where does negative self-talk come from?
DR. GLASSMAN: Probably a lot of places.
It comes from your social environment.
It comes from how your family environment was growing up.
It can come from how you evaluate the future.
If you're feeling like, "Things are stacked against me
and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to reach my goals,"
whether it be in soccer or in academics or in
another part of life.
And those are the three areas that we know
contribute to depression specifically.
Like, "I'm not good enough.
I can't be effective in my life, and nothing's going
to work out the way I want it to,"
which produces a sense of hopelessness and even
a sense of worthlessness that drives depression
and changes behavior in ways that we don't want it to.
We have a lot of work to do around mental health,
but also from a preventive standpoint,
how can we not let it get to a place
where that negative self-talk is all-consuming
and leads to a diagnosable mental health disorder?
KEITH: This leads to a bigger question,
and I'm curious from, you know, what you experience
even at FC DELCO or other experiences you've had playing,
what can coaches do with their own team culture
to support the idea of building an environment that doesn't
allow for negative self-talk?
Where's the balance between being tough enough
and also breaking somebody down to the point where
now you have allowed them to spiral?
How do you find the balance?
WILL: I don't think perfectionism,
being a perfectionist, exists, and I don't think
it ever will because you just can't.
You're gonna make a mistake at some point,
and it will happen.
And what really helps the team environment
is the coaches recognizing that, which FC DELCO does
a really good job of bringing up the team culture.
Like, we all try and celebrate the little things on the field.
Like if one of the centerbacks makes a good tackle,
I'll give him a shout because I don't want those
actions to go unnoticed because I know I don't
want mine to go unnoticed.
Like, I think that really helps bring up a team environment
and that leads him giving a shout to the next guy
who makes a good play.
And I think when we kind of rally behind
each other and have each other's backs,
it leads to a lot of good moments for us.
KEITH: Yeah. What's that rally sound like?
WILL: When we score a goal, we'll all run to the corner.
I'll run to the bench because I'm a goalie,
I don't run that far.
But it just -- we all celebrate each other,
and we all get really happy for each other when we make
a great play because at the end of the day,
that's what we want other people to feel
when we make a great play.
We wanna feel excited and appreciated.
So, I think just giving your guy a shout when
he makes a good play really goes a long way.
KEITH: Absolutely. Absolutely.
DR. GLASSMAN: And that kind of tough coaching,
this idea that the critical energy is going
to drive my player or my team to greater success,
I'm not sure that that is true,
especially from what you're saying.
Like, does that create a culture where players will
want to show up at the top of their game,
or will they show up afraid, afraid to make a mistake?
WILL: Yeah, I feel like if a coach gets to
the point where it's not just critical and it's not
just for the sake of making their player better,
then I think that causes the player to be scared
to take risks and be scared to make those mistakes.
But ultimately, that just leads to more
mistakes because if you're too scared to make a mistake,
then you're never gonna do anything amazing.
And I feel like all of my coaches have a lot
of different styles, but they all recognize that
what's most important is being critical in their
feedback and being really constructive
about it and not just tearing the player down.
DR. GLASSMAN: And I think that begins with widespread education
of coaches and parents too.
Parents on the sidelines sometimes probably can
be more critical than the coaches on the field.
But educating them around the impact of positive messages,
isolating the two or three good plays and ignoring,
or really looking at the other plays as learning
experiences versus "I can't believe
that you did that," right?
Because that leads to shame and discouragement
and feelings of "I'm not good enough."
And we really want to avoid that in sports and all walks of life.
� �
- This podcast is powered by HeadFirst,
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has built a free toolkit at myheadfirst.org
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designed for athletes, parents, and coaches navigating
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And if you want something tangible,
something your athlete can carry with them
to every practice and every game,
request a HeadFirst bag tag.
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to any soccer bag and links directly to myheadfirst.org
through a QR code.
It's a symbol, a reminder, and a connector,
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Request yours at myheadfirst.org.
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� �
KEITH: I don't know if it's human nature, but,
you know, why is the brain so focused on mistakes?
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, there's a biological reason for that.
And it's one of the reasons we get stuck in
negative downward spirals.
It's because our bodies feel like it's a way
that we're able to survive by looking for the threats.
"What is gonna tear me down is going to be more
useful for us surviving in life than what's gonna
lift me up," conceptually, right?
And our bodies are really reactive.
It's almost like fight or flight.
But we have to almost retrain our bodies to understand,
and our minds to understand, that these mistakes are
not the bears chasing us in the wilderness.
We can look at the good side of what's happening,
and those little mistakes are just little mistakes.
So, I think it's recognizing that, you know, we're primed
to defend ourselves and to be self-protective.
But that's not always useful or productive or something
that's going help us achieve the highest levels
of our potential. KEITH: Hmm.
Have there things that, I mean, obviously we make mistakes,
we make mistakes in every game, we learn from them.
Are there things that coaches have said to you
to help you understand that a mistake is just
a learning opportunity, but things that have been
said to you that you have grown from,
and maybe some things that you have heard
from coaches that maybe you're like,
"Yeah, it doesn't work for me"?
WILL: Yeah, this is gonna sound really cliche,
but in the show "Ted Lasso," when Ted tells Sam
to be a goldfish because they only have a mind
of ten seconds, everyone had a reaction like,
"Oh, haha, that's a good one."
But I feel like that really stuck with me.
They only remember the last ten seconds of what happened
in their life. KEITH: Yeah.
WILL: Why shouldn't we just remember the last
ten seconds of what happened in the game?
KEITH: Yeah.
WILL: I feel like it doesn't really get anywhere
when you're gonna remember something that happened
in the first half when you're winning 2-1 and trying
to defend for the last ten minutes of a game.
KEITH: Yeah.
WILL: It doesn't get you anywhere.
DR. GLASSMAN: So be a goldfish about mistakes,
but use a process almost of, like, instant replay,
which is what we call it in our Happier You program,
of intentionally rewinding the goal that you scored
or the great save that you made and replaying that
by focusing on, "What does it mean about you that
you did that?
What contributed to your personal preparation
for that moment?" Like how hard you've worked,
the progress that you've made in the sport.
And then identifying all of the good feelings that
came from scoring that goal, winning the game.
Like joy, it could be a sense
of connection to your teammates.
And the more you focus in on that,
the more that's gonna carry over into future performances.
So it's like selective goldfish attention, right?
KEITH: Scott, you have a model, the ASCENT model in sports,
where it talks about attending, connecting, engaging,
and transcending.
How does that show up in sports these days?
DR. GLASSMAN: I think it's all of what we've
been talking about.
It really represents a new way of looking at positive mindset,
where we begin with attention, like where is
your attention falling?
Is it on the good, or is it on everything wrong?
The second step is looking at self-valuation,
that's the "S" in ASCENT What are your core strengths?
And we help young athletes identify what their wide
array of personal strengths are, both on the field
and off the field.
And so that positive sense of self,
along with attending to the good,
powerful combination for a positive emotional experience.
And then we move into this idea of connecting.
So that's your relationship with yourself and how
your attention is moving and how you are feeling
about your personal attributes.
But then how do you connect with others?
Are you kind to your teammates?
Are you expressing gratitude towards your mentors,
your teachers, your coaches?
Is that gratitude and kindness coming back to you?
So it works both ways.
And then the engagement, how immersed are you
in the activities of life that make you feel good?
Like, can you be super present when you're just
kicking the ball around and not think about anything else?
So we're rooted in that present moment.
And then the last part of this model is thinking
about transcendence.
And I know that sounds like a lofty kind
of almost spiritual word, but the way I mean it
is transcendence in the sense that you're thinking about
something greater than yourself.
Anytime you're thinking about "What can I
contribute to my team?" you're in a transcendent place.
And so picking up a teammate who may be feeling really down,
I don't know if you've had that experience of seeing
a teammate who needs help and maybe no one's helping them,
and you go over and you just say, "It's gonna be okay,"
and you make their day better.
That's transcendent work right there.
And that's a kind of love and non-self-oriented connection.
So I think all of those working in connection with each other,
attending, self-valuing, connecting to other people,
engaging in life's activities, and then transcending,
that can be taught as a model for coaches, athletes,
even before they step onto the pitch.
KEITH: The word that stands out in all of your,
in what you just said is the word "gratitude."
What role does gratitude play in a positive mindset?
DR. GLASSMAN: A huge role, a huge role.
And we look at this emerging research base around gratitude,
and it's been called the meta-strategy for happiness.
And the reason it's called the meta-strategy for happiness
is because when we get into an appreciative mindset,
it's a very powerful way of keeping all of the wrong
that's going on in your life in the proper perspective
because you're filled by the gifts that you're able
to identify in relationships, in your own progress,
in so many different things, in nature.
It doesn't have to be even within an interpersonal setting.
KEITH: Yeah.
Scott, can you tell us a little bit about, like,
just maybe the science behind what the body goes
through when it's experiencing that level of pressure?
DR. GLASSMAN: Yeah, so your body's cortisol
levels will be usually increased,
that's the body's stress hormone.
You will have increased heart rate,
you know, your breathing may be faster.
So, all the kind of physiological signs of, kind of,
that fight or flight response may be elevated.
And so how do we, kind of, bring that down in the moment?
I think the first place to go is the breath and starting
to re-regulate the body's physiological state
by taking deep breaths, trying to, like,
watch your heart rate versus having thoughts that are
negative that may continue to drive fast heart rate
and keep those cortisol levels high.
We also teach in our program something called progressive
muscle relaxation, where essentially it's
just kind of like a tension and then release exercise.
So even just if you're on the sideline and you
just make fists and then let those fists go,
open up your hands, just that difference
of feeling that tension and that pressure compared
to the release of it can result in that
more relaxed state and help you kind of move
on from that activation.
KEITH: Is confidence something that you build?
Are you born with it?
Where does confidence and having a positive mindset,
how do they work with one another?
DR. GLASSMAN: I think it's a little bit of both.
Like, when we grow up in our family environments,
confidence can be either really cultivated well
or it can be broken down.
So you've heard the term "helicopter parents,"
parents who jump in and try to solve every --
Will's smiling because you probably are familiar
with the idea of not wanting people necessarily
to do things that you know that you can do yourself.
So anytime we can help our youth approach challenges
that are within their range of being able to tackle,
that can build a lot of confidence.
And also then looking at your strengths.
We do a lot of strengths work in the Happier You program.
There's 24 strengths that we put up on a board,
and we ask our athletes to pick out at least
three to five strengths that really describe them
well and then give us examples.
KEITH: Yeah.
DR. GLASSMAN: The more you think of examples
of your personal strengths, maybe it's persistence,
and maybe not just in athletics, in another area of life.
Maybe it's the fact that you have a great sense of humor,
that you are really great at school
and are getting great grades.
Whatever that is, the more someone can talk about,
"I was able to do that," you can almost tell
the confidence level is increasing at that point.
It has to be a repetitive type of practice that
they're waking up every day and saying,
"What could I tackle today that could be a challenge
that I get past successfully?"
And at the end of the day, I don't know if you
ever do this, Will, like making a mental note
of your wins. We're big on win lists.
So just actually writing down what your accomplishments are,
writing down your wins, have a visual record
of where you're effective is incredibly powerful.
But I don't know what you think about that,
if any of that rings true.
I saw you smiling with the helicopter parent.
WILL: Well, I think my parents are obviously
very supportive of me.
It's not about how well I played,
it's about if I had fun doing it.
Kids will tell me that some of them get paid for goals.
I'll always try and have this fight with my mom,
like, "Mom, 10 bucks for a shutout, please.
Just give me $10 for a shutout."
And they'll always tell me no because that would just
add more pressure on me than I need.
KEITH: Why is it so important that the person
that you are is almost greater than
the performance sometimes?
DR. GLASSMAN: It has to be, right?
I mean, we are more than what we do in any context,
work, sports.
We are so much more in terms of being complete
human beings when we don't pigeonhole ourselves
into one area of self-evaluation.
It's incredibly hard, however, for young, talented,
elite athletes to separate their identity
from their sport.
And at the same time, that puts them at much
greater risk of mental health problems because
when your sport is over, who am I?
KEITH: Yeah.
DR. GLASSMAN: And that's really a scary place to be
if you haven't diversified your interests,
your passions, and have a sense of yourself
outside of what you do as a profession or what
you spend ten hours a day doing for however many years.
KEITH: Obviously, you know, what's put on social media
is what everybody wants to see.
Nobody sees the recovery days.
Nobody sees the days reading.
What is the first step in allowing someone
to say that it's okay to take a break?
How do we encourage them to take a break, take a rest,
to recover and reset, to gain more clarity?
DR. GLASSMAN: This is a great question for you, Will.
How do you know when you've hit the point where
you've gotta switch gears?
I'm really curious what you think about that.
WILL: Yeah, so I think that all stems from
where you're talking about social media.
My parents didn't let me have access to my
Instagram account until I was probably 14 or 15.
And looking back on it, I wish they didn't let me
for longer because all I really see on that is
people's highlights and what they want everyone
to be seeing, and not the days where
they're resting or hanging out with their friends.
All they're posting is work, work, work, work, work.
And that can lead a young athlete to think,
"Oh, why am I sitting in my house reading a book
or hanging out with my friends when this person's at the gym?"
Which obviously, like, you need to put
in that work in order to be where you wanna be.
If every time you see someone working out
or in the gym, and that makes you stop what you're doing
and go to the gym, that leads you to become
really disconnected from the rest of your life.
And that just puts so much more pressure on you
when you're playing in these games or when you're working
out because you think, "Oh, if I don't do this right,
what else am I gonna do?"
KEITH: So just wanna close with, I think, just sort
of rapid-fire questions.
And feel free to answer based off of what feels,
however it lands on you. One daily mindset habit.
WILL: I take my three breaths before,
when I wake up, before I start a game,
and when I go to bed. KEITH: Absolutely.
DR. GLASSMAN: Gratitude practice.
Waking up and thinking right from the get-go,
"What do I feel thankful for today?"
KEITH: Hmm.
One phrase to say after a mistake?
WILL: Be a goldfish. KEITH: I like that.
DR. GLASSMAN: Keep going.
KEITH: One thing coaches should stop saying.
WILL: "Do better." KEITH: Mm!
DR. GLASSMAN: "What happened there?"
KEITH: One thing parents should start saying tomorrow.
WILL: "Did you have fun?" KEITH: Love that.
DR. GLASSMAN: "What do you want?"
KEITH: Yeah. I appreciate both of you.
In any episode, we, you know, we tag in
and then we officially tag out, and it's a nice way to close
the conversation, I think obviously involves
a level of courage, jumping into a space,
getting to know each other in that space.
So much gratitude to you, Will.
I think knowing that our audience is exactly
your age and hearing your authenticity or your
transparency is remarkable.
You know, Dr. Glassman, your work is remarkable.
I think even being a parent, there's certain things
that I can take away as I, sort of, support my
own family.
So, I'm very thankful as I tag out.
So, I invite you, either one of you,
to tag out as well.
DR. GLASSMAN: Thank you so much, Keith.
I'm tagging out feeling really hopeful and excited
to have more conversations like these.
And I admire your courage and just how much
wisdom that you already carry within you,
and that's gonna take you really far.
So, I wish you the best with it.
WILL: Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
And I'm tagging out feeling really grateful
that I was able to share my thoughts and my experiences
with kids, parents, coaches that are kind
of in a similar situation.
I was really grateful to hear your perspective
and your expertise on really all the knowledge
and science behind it because it really helped it
make a lot of sense. So, thank you both.
KEITH: Yeah, appreciate y'all. DR. GLASSMAN: Thank you.
� �
ANNOUNCER: Everything we talked about today is educational,
not professional mental health advice.
If you or someone you know needs real support right now,
call or text 988.
That's the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,
free and available 24/7.
DR. SCOTT GLASSMAN: Why do
we get so drawn