It's time for Stars on Sports! A podcast-radio show dedicated to sharing stories about our athletic program at Lansing Community College. LCC athletics has a strong tradition. 25 national championship wins! Over 190 All-Americans! 19 MCCAA All Sports trophies! Stars on Sports will introduce you to individuals that have contributed to our program success and give you the backstory on what it takes to develop it. We'll also dive into and break down the topics and issues facing athletic departments across the nation and right here at LCC. This is Stars on Sports!

Hello and welcome to another episode of Stars on Sports. I'm joined by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter, and our producer, Daedalian Lowry. And today, gentlemen, we're going to be talking about discipline. I've listened to.

There it is.

Funny guy. Funny guy. We've prepped him. We prepped him. But right. When most people think of discipline in sport, they think of a negative connotation. But what made me think of it is one of our previous podcasts, you had mentioned that discipline leads to consistency, which leads to success. And I really wanted to hit that harder because. I agree. But when people think of discipline, even as a parent or in sports, you think of punishment, you think of sprints, you think of being late and having to do this or not playing well and having to do this consequence. As a parent, you always said, I'm going to discipline my kid. The interesting thing to me is in athletics, discipline has a big connotation. But when you really break it down, as you did with that statement, is athletes are some of the most disciplined.

People, and everybody that has success in anything that they do are some of the most disciplined people.

So again, you already took a little air out of the tires. But I mean, you have a strong background in discipline and the other side of it. But do you still, when you first hear it, have a negative connotation?

I don't think anymore. I think the negative comes from discipline is about making bad choices, and that's where that comes from. So if you make a bad choice, there's going to be. You're going to be disciplined for it. And I believe that discipline is about making great choices, and it's not about what you say, but it's about what you do. And it truly separates the uncommon from the average. And it's a special, special thing.

The Dalian you were going to.

Well, when you came in and when we were off Mike. And the very first thing you said today, we're going to be talking about discipline. The very first thing that went to my brain and always does. Anytime I hear the word is Pink Floyd's another brick in the wall. I always think of the end, the outro, where he's, you can't have your meat without any of your pudding and all that. But knowing that I was talking to you guys then, I was able to reshape my mind and think about it in the terms of sticking to a good regimen to make yourself a better athlete, which makes sense.

Man, sounds like we prepped him. But how do we get past that first night? I mean, again, you teaching.

Yeah, teaching is where it is and really defining discipline and what it looks like and showing examples of that through that process. And the more that you teach that discipline is an extremely positive avenue in your life, the more it gets recognized as a positive thing versus a negative thing.

How often does the word discipline come up in your program per se, or the just more the process.

You have to have communication. You have to be able to have a language. And based off your language, you might not always be using the discipline word, but there are other words that are keyed into that discipline word. But it's constantly teaching that that's not something that you just hit on one time and then hope everybody remembers. It's like learning how to play the guitar. You're not going to just get one lesson and be amazing at it. At that point, you need to have that hammered home time and time again.

And I appreciate that, because my point is, I think even as coaches, we don't bring it up in the positive way of the discipline. To become a better guitar player is practice and process. We bring it up in the negative condone, you know, sprints or a tough practice today. And so I think, just like Daedalian said it, changing that mindset. And I think with mental performance and with the emphasis on punishment being a wrong way to go about things, that it can help change how discipline is important. Because, you know, we've talked before, even with Nick Saban saying you don't have a lot of choices if you want to be successful. But it comes down to discipline. It comes down to doing those things and researching for this podcast, habits, you know, developing habits.

That's the other thing I was thinking of. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

No, you're good.

But that's the other thing I was thinking about. To me, the other way I think of it is discipline. That means either dropping a bad habit or picking up a good habit. And each one requires discipline. And either one, it's A change. And people do not like change. Most people, I shouldn't say that. Some people embrace it, not me. I'm not a good changer and I.

Don'T remember this quote, but I should because one of my favorites, like drastic change creates a revolution, slow change creates an evolution. And the key to it is if you try and change something too quickly, everyone rebels. Where if you work on changing over time, it's like the frog and boiling water that if, you know, just put them in there and turn up the temperature, they don't even notice. But so, and I think good coaches and good teams do that with the discipline of habits to be successful. Because we both know habits take time to stick or form or develop. You know, I always thought it was a three week thing and I don't know where I learned that but you know, we've talked about hours before. You know, looking here, there's a 66 day thing, but having said that, it's still developing those good habits every day. And it takes discipline in a positive way to do that. Because I think that's what you were talking about, that's what leads to consistency.

Are those habits and then leads to success. And discipline really is a non negotiable and it doesn't really care about your excuses or your feelings. And if you think about in the world of sports or in our world here or anywhere else, you've got a lot of people asking how are you feeling? And you can do amazing things when you feel terrible. You can, you're still capable of that. We've seen that in the sports world. We've seen that in, in real life where you're maybe not on your best stuff but you're still able to produce, you know, special work, you're still able to show up. Then that's where discipline really, just like I said, is, is it's a non negotiable. And if you can incorporate that in your life, you're going to see more success. And it's not going to, it's not going to come out of the microwave immediately, but you start stacking those bricks, you start seeing the positive things that do happen.

And bricks are a big thing we've talked a lot about that is when learning about discipline and building habits, starting easy, the key was celebrating successes. Those are key things to help keep habits going. Because the other interesting thing is in building habits or trying to get consistency or success, you're going to handle adversity. You're not. One of the things we want talked about is morning routines I'm not a morning person, but when you read of highly successful people and not everyone gets up at 4am but many of them do talk about their morning routine. And we talk about making your bed in the morning, about getting something accomplished, building, stacking a brick, building motivation. But having said that, out of a seven day week there might be one day you didn't make your bed. And don't dwell on that, but make sure it doesn't happen the next day or building those bricks the other way.

Does it count if you make your bed in a sloppy manner? Because that's what I do. I mean I wake up and I make the bed. I just, you know, I'm like, I gotta go.

The d How you do anything is how you do everything. We've talked about that before.

I will take more care with my bed making.

I think either you control your discipline or your lack of discipline will control you.

And a perfect example when I read this is brushing your teeth. I mean you do that every day. That's a habit you do every day that you have a trigger. You do it and you feel good after it. If you can get to making your bed that same way, then you wouldn't want to miss making your bed. Like you wouldn't want to hopefully miss brushing your teeth. Every.

Those are easy wins.

Yes they are.

And that's kind of what you're looking for is to be able to start your day with some easy wins because everybody's days are going to have some heavy backpack carrying time. So you look to get those easy wins out of the way right away.

So you're saying afterwards I need to celebrate once I get done making that bed.

Yay self talk. Just a little bit like plus one. There's a great start to the day. That kind of stuff that goes a long way just because the internal stuff in your brain typically is spinning a lot of negative stuff and it's been spinning that, it spun it yesterday and it's been spinning it for a long time. So self talk is very important.

I think it's very important. I've told you before, if I ever get do something hard, I'll leave and go like this or I'll give myself high five. There's been studies out there of how in sports, how contagious, giving high fives of having contact with someone else in a positive manner, just touching in general.

There's a lot of stuff about teams in halftime speeches and stuff how impactful halftime speeches can be. If you can get a team surrounding each other arm in Arm how impactful. Just the touches.

Again, I'm not a morning person. Are either one of you morning people.

Through discipline you have?

Yeah, I would not call myself a.

Morning person, but I think when we met you probably weren't as much. But over the last couple years you've really changed your schedule to do that and so it can happen and hope things to work out well. And again, it's sad because I was on vacation last week and we would get up every morning at 6am to see the sunset and I was fine or sunrise. But why do I come back and then want to sleep in the seven? You know, I mean the motivation of, you know, getting a great picture and celebrating today. Which motivation is another thing that gets confused.

Short term.

It is short term. Yep, yep. Temporary and unreliable where extremely discipline helps overcome that. And again it's just more that sustainable method. But you know, the other interesting word that comes in with discipline that isn't probably generally associated, but we've talked about before is procrastination and how that can lead to a lack of discipline. And we've talked about the negative connotation of procrastination before and how it even can be a positive thing in regards to discipline. You're pushing off that task or habit that you need to do. So understanding that and knowing that I thought was also an important part of discipline. Because again we've talked about procrastination in a positive way in the past before, you know, mental toughness is another big thing that helps with discipline. The other interesting thing I thought that was telling was when most people think of positive discipline in athletic they think of fitness like a fitness routine or working out on a regular basis. And you know, I thought that too. One that led up to me that yeah, that's again having the discipline to work out every day or going to a gym in the mornings. But that is discipline. That is, you know, that's one aspect of being a successful student athlete is working out and being disciplined. The time management another important part of that. But back to motivation, self control. There are some interesting stuff on delayed gratification and I know you just talked about this and how it's moving away, but the problem with discipline sometimes is there isn't that immediate gratification. You just talked about the microwave thing like making your bed one day, it's great. What do you get rewarded for it. But over time it becomes your habit and you do feel good and reward about it. One of the things that's in there, cold showers, which I do take now from a podcast that we listen to that I get mad when I don't take one. I get mad that I'm a wimp or something because I, you know, chickened out of taking it that day or something. But there's positive things to it. But it took time to get that. I mean, the first week or two, it was like, this is stupid. This is crazy, you know, but you get to a point. But that delayed gratification, also that it.

Builds confidence, and delayed gratification in general is what sports are about. You watch people work and work and work until the lights come on, and they can hopefully get some positive stuff out of it. So it definitely applies to athletes, but it applies to everybody in life, too.

It does. There was a thing about a marshmallow test where kids had a marshmallow in front of them, and the test was if they waited 15 minutes, they would get two. And I don't remember the percentage of many ate it right away, but the one that did wait, it showed that they did better academically, they did better with relationship because it was that delayed gratification. I think that again, back to huge in discipline, because it's. One of the reasons I think I have the negative count tone is because it takes time to build it, and you don't have that immediate reward of running a mile one day. We're running it over time, or even that 1% better.

It's a form of respect in a lot of ways, and it shows how much you respect yourself. And that's what it. It's not total respect, but it is definitely a form of respect when you think about it like that.

Yeah. And so then the last thing that I wanted to hit. Well, there are two things, actually. Time management is, again, something I've shared, that I wanted to be more productive and learn to by scheduling things every day. But I think that really helps with discipline, too, is when you plan, when you. You know, when you prepare and eliminate distractions. Even like that morning routine, if you plan for it or like we've talked about doing it the night before, it gives you more control, which gives you more time, which gives you more things to do, which leads to discipline. So I just thought time management was an integral part of discipline.

I think the early mornings kind of show the distractions are way less in the early mornings. And it can be as simple as just traffic on the highway. Mm. It's just different. So you don't. You don't. When you talk about discipline and eliminating distractions, there's some really Low hanging fruit there with just getting up early because there's less people that are up early and there's less traffic. And so you don't have those distractions of, of what you might have in a normal day. And therefore you're able to do whatever it is that you want to do to help yourself get a little bit better. Whether that's just preparing for your day, preparing for the time that you're going to be in the office or whatever it might be. That's stacking bricks. That's what it looks like.

And I think that's a great point. Not discipline wise, but one of the things I always try to teach my kids and my family and my teams was take the high road. You know, the load, less travel, that not as many people are on the high road as they are on the low road. It's easy to sit back and chime in or something, but be professional, take the high road. And I think that the same thing as you mentioned, being a morning person, there are just not as many people that do it. So that opens up the getting things done. And I remember a colleague of mine that after his kids got older and he had more time on his hand, he would go to the office an hour earlier and that first hour he got more done than he did, you know, the rest of the day because of just no one else was there and there weren't as many distractions.

The roads, it's harder for us in Lansing because all the roads are kind of a mess right now. So whether you take the back roads, the high roads, the low roads, whatever, it just takes a lot longer to get anywhere.

But I will say that it's a lot more peaceful to drive early, early in the morning as opposed to the stressful 8 o' clock commute. Seven, eight o' clock, absolutely.

And that's a plus one right there. When you recognize that and you're like.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of a sudden a stressful drive becomes a peaceful drive. Yeah.

And it is stressful. I mean, and then again, they're working hard and it's amazing how much work they get done in a week. But even our parking ramp, I mean.

You learn, I was gonna say to that point, Greg, you would have less people to park around. So you'd, I just go up to.

A higher floor and then there's not as many cars, people want to walk. So.

Oh, so you circumvent everything and just pretend you can park that way.

I wasn't thinking this, but today even I went up to the fourth floor and someone took my spot. So I was a little upset because I up on the fourth floor, there's usually two cars.

So next week's title of the podcast is going to be entitlement.

Or Greg doesn't like change.

No. So anyway, I was gonna park just across from it and settle, but no, I backed up and parked to my spot, not in between two cars. And I backed up into it and actually did a pretty good. I was in between the lines. I need that reaffirmation for my discipline. Thank you. Thank you, entitlement man. Nope, I adjusted. That was my point. And I still, back then when I was gonna just settle for pulling up in the middle spot, but which leads to another part of discipline is accountability. And I've talked about this before, and I believe what helps with discipline, too, is having others help you. And that I think the best part of athletics and being part of a team is we've seen it even in the negative kind of tones of sprints, of other people cheering for them to try and make a certain time, but even on staying on task. And you two update on me about my parking. And I really wasn't thinking it was Wednesday and parking there today, I was just trying to overcome a challenge. But I truly believe in accountability partners in life. But I also believe it's a big part of discipline, too, that it really helps if you have someone holding you accountable, yet also being positive and encouraging you to continue, like, come on, Daedalian, make your bed tomorrow, or a significant other that helps you. So I think that's also an important part of discipline. And not all of us have accountability partners. That's why I think athletics, it helped because that team format naturally lends into being that. And we know on unsuccessful team, they're probably not on the page and they're arguing or divided more than working together to help build those habits, build those process, which again leads to consistency, which leads to success. Success, which you talked about earlier about teaching that. But when you put everything aside, having someone help you stay on track, I think is one of the important tasks of having successful discipline in a positive way. So anything else to add?

All right, you said it all, Greg.

Well, I say too much most of the time, but I need you to keep me in line.

Discipline. That's what it's all about.

Yeah, right. True. In a negative way. So I was on vacation last week, and on that vacation, I didn't try anything big like some of our group did, But I have in the past. But there were duck Tacos. Octopus tacos. There was something else, too. Oh, grasshoppers.

Where were you at?

I was in Mexico.

Okay.

Our daughter's a senior, so a group of students and their families went on spring break.

Interesting dishes.

Very interesting. And my wife had gone there before, and I did try a cricket. Didn't taste too bad. These grasshoppers, like, cook grasshopper. So my question is, what the most bizarre food you have ever.

I wondered if we were gonna go there.

I don't think I could even remotely come close to anything like a grasshopper or anything else. I think mainly because I've learned about discipline and basically the ability to say no.

Right. Hey, some of these are delicacies in these countries.

That's fine.

Right. But our stomach. And again, some of them, people didn't respond well to eating these.

But you did or didn't try?

I didn't try them on this trip.

You didn't try any of this?

Not those three, but I had before. I had a cricket before on one of our previous trip. That'd probably be the most bizarre. I'm pretty strict, too, on my food regimen and keeping things.

So nothing super bizarre for you, Steve. All right, well, the bizarrest, and I wouldn't call it bizarre. Is alligator.

Okay. Yeah, that would be good.

Alligator bites.

I wasn't impressed. I would never eat it again. It was very rubbery and kind of gross.

I didn't think duck was that extravagant. I think American society has eaten duck. The octopus, they thought that was pretty fishy from the people I talked. And the grasshoppers tasted like grass, they said, and weren't real.

So you didn't try any of it, and you've never tried any of it before?

I had a cricket before.

Oh, you did try a cricket before.

With my wife on a previous trip. That would be the most bizarre.

Like chocolate covered.

I'm not even a calamari guy, you know?

Yeah. I'm not a fan.

So. So.

So chocolate covered cricket.

What kind of cricket it was. It was a breaded cricket.

It was bread.

It didn't really taste, you know, I mean, the bread drowned it out.

It was crunchy crunch, no matter what. Yeah, that's what I heard. And that's what I'll always hear, because I'll never try it.

Cutter's saying I didn't have discipline. Thanks, Cutter. Thanks, my accountability partner. So, okay, you need to do a.

Grasshopper pizza for him sometime. And then there you go.

Yeah, good cause. Yep. Grasshoppers on our pizza. That sounds great. But until next time, go Stars.

Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studios. Engineering and production assistance are provided by Daedalian Lowry. You can listen to this episode and other episodes of Stars on Sports on demand at LCCconnect.org to find more information about our athletic program, visit LCCstars.com thanks for listening. Go Stars!