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I don't ever want it to just be sport based mental skills.

We work on these mental skills so that they have crossover in both.

Yes, on the court I can apply these in a game situation, but also just in life.

Kat Lutz is the Head of Mental Performance at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida where she's responsible for overseeing the psychological and cognitive training of athletes to enhance their mental resilience, focus and overall performance.

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Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkel this morning, but I am pleased to be joined by Cat Lutz, the Head of Mental Performance at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

Kat, welcome to the Hoop Headspot.

Thanks Mike, thanks for having me.

Thrilled to have you on.

Always find the conversations around Mental Performance to be very interesting.

I think it's an area that we don't always put enough emphasis on, but I think obviously as you well know, it has such a big impact on the way that players perform and then consequently the way teams perform and coaches perform.

So we're going to dive into what you do day to day.

But let's start by just going through and talking a little bit about your background and how you got to the position that you're in.

Just sort of walk me through your professional life and how you've eventually ended up at img.

Yeah, of course.

So I've been really fortunate throughout my life, really, to be intertwined in sport and especially in basketball.

You know, I played it growing up.

My dad was a basketball coach, still is a basketball coach.

And I played and was really fortunate enough to start my playing career at Iona College.

I did four years there, and I got another year of eligibility and went to Liu Post and then continued and played professionally overseas for a bit.

And those years are really the years when I started to get into sports psychology and the mental side of the game.

As you can imagine, as I'm sure you know, the different obstacles and adversity that you face at those levels really puts you in a position to go, okay, well, my body's ready, but is my mind actually ready to perform?

So I got really interested in that.

And.

And as you kind of heard that progression, I was, again, really fortunate to be a student athlete for a very long time.

Did my undergraduate degree in psychology, then went and did my master, my first master's degree in clinical mental health counseling.

And then when I was overseas, kind of part of my package that I had with the professional teams was I wanted to continue my education, and I got another master's degree in applied sport and Exercise Psychology, and then was fortunate to do my PhD as well over there.

All right, let me ask you one question about you as a player.

Okay.

So clearly anybody who's played basketball at the levels that you've played at understands that having your body ready to go and doing the physical training, obviously is a necessity.

But from the mental side of it, when you think back to your time as a player, before you went through all the educational processes that you went through to become an expert in this area, what were some of the challenges that you yourself remember facing while you were a player that you're like, boy, if I would have known a little bit more about this back when I was playing, I could have maybe really made some strides in that particular area.

Is there one or two things that stand out from a mental standpoint that you remember as a player that really challenged you or maybe were something.

Some things that you struggled with?

Yeah, 100%.

So I think a lot of athletes face this when they make that jump from high school to college.

You know, they're quite a big fish and then they become a small fish.

Just the confidence aspect.

I think really believing in myself throughout that kind of journey into college would have been beneficial for me.

And I think I did have confidence in certain areas of my game, but I think there was probably a barrier there in terms of me fully believing in what I could contribute to the team, and that might have limited me a little bit.

And then unfortunately, I had to deal with quite a few injuries throughout my career.

And I'm not sure if I handled the mental side of coming back from those injuries as well as I could have.

I probably took the stance of I just gotta get back on the court and, you know, even if something's still hurting, like it doesn't matter, I just, you know, they're gonna forget about me, get back out there.

And I think if I could have taken that a little bit in better stride or understood that I needed to be mentally prepared to come back from those injuries, I think I would have been in a better position to perform at my peak a little bit more and a little bit more often.

If you could go back now and talk to yourself from that confidence piece, what would that conversation look like if you were talking to yourself back during your college or professional playing days?

Yeah, I would, I would definitely just say trust.

It's.

It's very cliche, right?

But trust the process, trust the work that you're putting in you.

You are seeing a high level performance when you're practicing.

And if you really just trust in that and believe in that and understand that it might not always 100% translate into that competitive game atmosphere like you want, that's okay.

It's.

It's something that is going to have highs and lows, but if you stay in that trust and you just keep going, everything is going to work out.

I think if I, if I had that said to me back, back when I started my first college days, I think I would have been in a much better mindset.

Did you have anybody talking to you at all about the mental side of the game?

Whether it was somebody on your coaching staff, somebody that was associated maybe with one of the professional organizations, because now, as you know, the mental performance side, although it still is probably undervalued and not always resourced the way that it should, it's certainly more common and more prevalent than it was 10 years ago.

And certainly it's way more prevalent than the long time ago when an ancient guy like me was playing college basketball, where that mental side of the game I don't think really nobody was really concerned with my mental state in any way, shape or form while I was playing.

And so it's just such a different world.

I'm just curious if there was anybody that you thought could serve as a resource in that area while you were playing.

Yeah, you know, it's not to age myself, but I was still very much in that generation where it felt a little bit taboo to express that maybe you needed a little bit of help on your mental game.

And I think that's probably what sparked that interest for me.

It's never that I felt I had a problem or felt like I had anything that necessarily needed to be fixed, but I think that just being able to have that resource available would have been a really, really beneficial thing to have in my game.

So I was still on that cusp of like, ah, but there's really no one on staff, no one's really talking about the mental performance or mental well being of the athletes.

But you know, I think what I was, I was very lucky in that I had some really great teammates along the way and you know, we kind of shared in the situations that we were experiencing and, and I was really lucky to just have that a very good support system there within my team and then also within my family.

And again, like I was taking those psychology courses and as I was learning more and more about it, I was like, oh, you know what, I think this might apply to me or this might apply to my friend.

And yeah, just over time, just then seeing that it was becoming more and more prevalent in terms of athletes either expressing their need for it or actually kind of that collegiate stage understanding that there's a lot of pressure that these athletes are going under.

We got to make sure that the support systems are in place for them.

That was great to see because it, you know, there's one side of you that's like, man, I wish that was around when I was there.

But there's also that side of, of that's awesome.

I'm a part of this growing field and we're going to make some, some big positive impact on these athletes and that's that to this day that's what makes me so excited about this field and, and helping those athletes at all stages.

Right.

I'm not even just talking elite athletes achieve their peak performance.

I'm talking every athlete that's going through something small, something big or just looking for that competitive edge.

Like that's such an exciting part of the game to be in right now.

I'm guessing that when you talk with athletes, you probably still find athletes who are in that old school camp that maybe are a little bit hesitant to talk about the mental side of it and still feel like maybe that's showing weakness.

And then I'm sure you have other players that are all about it.

Right.

And are super receptive right off the bat.

So I'm curious, just when you have somebody who is maybe a little bit more hesitant to jump into talking about this area, what are those conversations like initially to get the player to open up about what's actually going on?

Yeah, you know, I find there's two different avenues, really.

Right.

The one is just saying, you know, we don't need to have a problem to fix it.

If you're, you know, for instance, if you're a good shooter, right, you're still getting shots up.

You're not, you aren't getting to a point where you go, all right, I'll never have to practice my three point shot again.

Right.

You're still getting shots up.

And the same thing goes for your mental game.

You might feel really confident.

That's not to say that we can't still use different mental skills to maintain that confidence or boost that confidence.

And another one that I think athletes really resonate with is we talk about, what are you doing in the gym, what you're, if you're physically, you're making your body stronger, you're getting faster, you're getting quicker, why not use that mental muscle and get that stronger and get that up to a level that is going to match that physical peak that you're, that you're aiming for.

So usually those kind of conversations do open the door a little bit more.

And, and, and I think as long as it's never being framed as, hey, you've got an issue here that we need to address.

They usually don't have their guard up too much, but I've used kind of those two inroads with athletes before who are maybe a little bit hesitant to get into the mental performance side of things.

Tell me exactly how the opportunity at IMG comes to you.

I have a little bit of insight after having talk to your husband Tom on the podcast.

Anybody who wants to go back and listen to that can certainly do that.

But just give me the rundown of how the opportunity at IMG comes to you and then we'll get into the day to day what you do, how you do it, and how you're helping the athletes there.

Yeah.

Do you know what?

Just talk about fate and timing working out.

I was Coming to the conclusion of my PhD overseas and.

And I had just submitted it and I saw the role as one of the assistant heads of our mental performance here at IMG Academy pop up.

And I had spoken to Tom a little bit about it and knew I wanted to obviously pursue that career and kind of just went for it and the timing all worked out and I defended my PhD at the end of July and literally the next day I was on a flight because I had been offered the job here at IMG and came and started, started my.

So the PhD really rolled straight into my time here at the Academy and.

And I'm just so, so thankful that it all worked out because I am just enjoying my time here so, so much.

How is the division of responsibilities?

Because I know you have a big department of people that work in this space.

So how do you guys divide up who works with who and what teams and what sports and just walk me through that.

Yeah, of course.

So again, this is one of the really unique things about IMG Academy and what's so special about this place is that our mental performance team, which is situated in our athletic and personal development department, is a team of 12, 13, if you include me.

And we have nine different sports.

And really what we do is we, we try to match our coaches as well as we can.

A lot of our coaches are former athletes at various levels who have experience in the sports that they're working in.

I'm really fortunate enough that it worked out.

I'm with our girls basketball program at the moment, which is pretty fitting.

But what's great though is that the team that we have right now is just so dedicated to helping athletes and that is the foundation needed at any of those sports.

So even if they don't necessarily have the perfect background of okay, maybe they didn't play soccer, they didn't play baseball, we still are matching coaches with these sports and these athletes who just genuinely want to make a positive impact in their lives and the athletes are receptive to it.

It's so built into the culture here and ingrained that it very much is a part of the day to day for everyone involved.

How do you build the relationships with the athletes where you get to the point that obviously just from positionally, there's some trust built in there and through the programs and just a kid being there at IMG Academy, but as you start to work with teams and start to work with players, how do you build the relationship where you can get them to truly open up and share the things that they need to share so that you can help them in the best way possible.

So I guess the bottom line for the question is how do you build relationships in your role?

Yeah, 100%.

Rapport building is so big in our field, again, because while you're a part of their team, right, you're not exactly their sport coach and you're maybe not seeing them as often as their strength and conditioning coaches, just to say, as an example.

And so being able to establish first and foremost that you're there for them is such a big thing in that rapport.

You know, I also think there's a presence element, you know, that I'm not just someone who comes in and they see me once a week for 30 minutes and then that's the end of it.

I really try to make an effort.

And all of our coaches really make an effort at, you know, being at practices, checking in when there's water breaks or, you know, they're warming up.

Hey, how are you doing?

How are things going?

A lot of questions being nothing related to sport as we get to know them over time and checking in with them and hey, how's this going?

Or oh, we know they like gaming, like, what game are you playing right now?

Anything that we can do to just make that connection with them and show them that we are there to help them in any way possible, I think is a really important first step.

And then when they're in our sessions, that it is very much like relating to them.

They want to know that they're not alone in some of the things that they might be experiencing and they want to kind of have that acknowledged or have their feelings, their emotions, their, their situations acknowledged as something that is a part of the game and it's, it's normal and, and that, you know, maybe you yourself have gone through that and I think when you can balance that with, obviously it's not a, it's not about me, it's not about the coaches, but when you can let them know that you're, you're in it with them and you've been through it and you're just there to help, help them build up these mental skills to get through it on, on their own as well, I think that really does build up that rapport and you kind of just go from there, you know, and then you're on the bench at games and it's just, you become a part of their lives.

And sometimes that really clicks with some athletes and, you know, if we hold our hands up, sometimes it doesn't.

But we do the best that we can.

And, and for the, for the most part, I would say those relationships become quite strong as the season goes on.

When you're working with a particular team, what do the contact points look like?

So is it a weekly team session?

And then you may have individual sessions scheduled as needed.

I know you said you're popping into practice, you're on the bench for the games, but just what are the touch.

Points with a team?

How often are you getting a chance to interact with them and what do those interactions look like?

Yeah, for sure.

So we, we have a really nice cadence of delivery right now where weekly they get their team or group sessions.

That's really aimed at building out their education around some of the, the mental skills that we're learning.

And we do it in a, in a really fun kind of way that's engaging and gets them talking and, and you know, when you're in those group and settings, there's always that underlying kind of team building aspect as well that you want to contribute to and make sure you're fostering in a positive way.

So they get mental performance, you know, in a more formal setting.

I'll say weekly and, and then like I said, the other, the other touch points throughout the week are they see me at practices, I try to make as many games as I can.

And then the individual side of it is, is really something that we try to make sure they know the door is always open to.

And then it's kind of a little bit on them as well to meet us halfway.

So at the start of the year, I really try and check in individually with, with every athlete that I work with, even if it's just five to ten minutes.

Right.

I just want to let them know that I'm here if they need it, if anything comes up.

And then usually from those conversations, the, the athletes who identify areas of their mental game that they want to work more on, they'll kind of request those individuals and then we set those up.

You know, those could be anywhere from weekly to bi weekly to monthly and just checking in and making sure everything, everything's going well for them.

What does the curriculum planning look like for you as a department when you start putting together?

Okay, we're going to have these once a week formal mental performance meetings.

What does it look like in terms of your group sitting down and talking about?

These are the issues that we want to address.

How do you come up with those concepts and then how do you design the activity?

Just sort of talk about sort of the scaffolding behind putting this all together for sure.

So, so I would say it's, it's again, kind of twofold in that every student athlete that comes to IMG on their, their arrival day, they take what's called a mental performance assessment.

It's kind of built into their check in, check in surveys, if you will.

And what that really does is assess five main areas of mental performance.

The resilience, the ability to handle pressure, commitment, confidence and focus.

And what that does is it gives us a really nice little insight into where that athlete is.

And then we have a whole data and analytics analytics team that also allows us then to see, okay, as teams are formed in these different sports, what are some maybe like trends going on, right?

Do we have a team that's really high in resilience but really low in confidence?

Do we have, do we have a super committed team that lacks some focus?

And that helps just give us a little bit of a foundation regarding where we might go.

But the awesome part then is that because we have our coaches out at different sports and then within those sports with different teams, as they get to know their athletes, as they get to know the needs of the team, as they get to know the needs of the sport program, they really have an autonomy to create the curriculum kind of based under those five main tenants or umbrellas.

And that's, that's the awesome part to see then, right?

That's where we get creative in how we're delivering the material, where we can find different ways to connect with athletes in different sports because we know one size doesn't fit all and there's going to be different cultures.

Girls basketball is going to look very different from our boys lacrosse, and that's okay.

So we don't, you know, we don't dictate to our coaches, hey, this is what you are coaching and teaching and this is how you're going to do it.

But we do have that foundation based on data collection.

And then we actually collect data at the midway point at the end of the year as well.

So we're constantly checking in with that and seeing if we're moving the needle in any of those, those areas.

Or if I'm being honest, you know, sometimes when you have that midway point, especially if it lines up with certain seasons, like, you know, we talk about basketball in particular, is the example I can go to.

At the start of the season, confidence is high, right?

You're coming out of your, your postseason or your off season, you're feeling good, and then you get to like mid January and it's like all right, hang on, my, my body's hurting, my mind's hurting.

It's a bit of a slog.

Like what's going to happen here?

And all of a sudden you see, all right, hang on, maybe that confidence is dipping or maybe that resilience is dipping.

And we kind of have to acknowledge those key points as well.

So we are based on that foundation of data.

But then we really do use our observation and our relationship with the athletes and our coaches in the programs to build out that curriculum.

Makes sense.

Right?

You go from a knowledge base and then you take that knowledge base and you apply it to the situations that you're seeing in your experience to this point with just, just focus on the girls basketball side of it.

What are some major issues or some challenges or just some things that you frequently see that you've tried to help players and teams to be able to overcome?

Just for someone who might be listening, who maybe has a team that is going through some of the same things that you're about to share, what are some solutions to some potential issues that could arise on a basketball team?

Yeah, 100%.

I think again we think about the, the age range we're working with.

Right.

And youth athletes.

We are going, we're working with teenage girls or I'm working with teenage girls.

And regardless of, you know, I don't ever want it to just be sport based mental skills.

Right.

We work on these mental skills so that they have crossover in both.

Yes, on the court, I can apply these in a game situation, but also just in life, I mean, they're going through so much that, you know, I don't feel like I'm so far removed from them.

But they're going through so many things that I had no idea of and didn't go through myself.

And we really have to acknowledge them first and foremost as, as a human being.

And what really emerges for that group is confidence and resilience.

So the, the, the two main things over the past few months that we have been focusing on is can we build that confidence to a point where we are not relying on others to build up our self belief?

Like we can internally give ourselves the, the mental skills to be confident in our ability and then also start to build out our resilience that you know, we understand and are aware that not everything is going to be perfect.

I'm not going to go out and make 10 for 10 every single game and that's, that's okay.

But I need to be able to bounce back if I'm you know, if I've, if I've taken a few shots and it's not going my way in a game, we're okay, we keep going, we're resilient.

If I've had a few rough games or a few rough practices, whatever it may be, if I've had a tough week, just in my social life, how do we become resilient to all right, when we're stepping on the court, this is my kind of safe space.

This is the, this is the place where I get to really be, be myself and have some fun.

So I would say those are the two areas that have kind of emerged the most for, for my groups and that we've been focusing on especially this past year.

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I'm going to ask you a question for my own personal life at the moment.

Right.

So I have a daughter who's a freshman in high school and she's a hard worker, puts in time shooting the ball, puts in time working to try to get better.

But she definitely is a player who when we're in a workout and she's shooting, if things don't go perfectly and she'll miss one or two or three in a row and then I'll be standing around either rebounding four or just making sure that the shooting machine is working and she'll turn to me and be like, dad can't shoot.

And I'm like, can you just look up at the board that shows you've made like 20,000 shots in the last year.

You can still shoot, but she'll very, very easily lose.

I don't even know if it's necessarily confidence, but there's just a lot of negative self talk, which I'm sure is something that you've come across before.

So what advice would you have for me?

What are some things that I could say to her or things that we could talk about to maybe help her to work through that particular issue, to be able to.

I'm always.

My thing is always.

It's one shot at a time.

Each shot is unrelated to the last one.

So you missed the last one.

You just got to look at the next shot as a separate entity.

You made the last one.

You got to look at it as a separate entity.

And then going back to just look at all the work you've put in all the time.

So I don't know if I'm on the right track in terms of what I'm saying from a mental performance standpoint.

But what should I be saying to her?

No, you're.

You are definitely on the right track there.

And as you were setting up that.

That experience, it was definitely giving me flashbacks to my time in the gym with my dad rebounding.

And, you know, yeah, we could.

We could be getting our 300 shot up, and I'm shooting 80%.

I'm like, why am I not shooting 90?

Like, there's a lot of those thoughts that go through your head, especially as a shooter.

And you're absolutely right.

Like, there's an element of that self talk there where we tend to focus on the negative.

Right.

We're not thinking about, oh, man, I just made 75% of my shots there.

We're thinking about the 25% that we missed.

And a lot of that is being able to catch when you're actually saying those things, identify what it is you're saying, how you're saying it to yourself, and then starting to challenge it.

Right.

Like, one of the big things I say to my.

To.

To my players, that when we go through the kind of.

Our self talk curriculum is, all right, you've identified that when you miss a shot, you're like, oh, man, I'm a terrible shooter.

I should.

I shouldn't shoot the next time I'm open and the questions I really want to ask him then to challenge that thought is, well, is that actually accurate?

Like, did you magically become a terrible shooter after one mission?

No, that's not an accurate statement.

And Then the second part is going, well, is that helpful?

Is it helpful to you in a game or in practice for you to say, oh, I've just missed.

I'm a terrible shooter.

I don't want to shoot again?

No, it's not helpful.

So when we get to that stage where we've identified what we're saying, we're challenging it, and we're realizing that it's not accurate and it's not helpful, then we start to change what we're saying.

And you kind of had some of those, like, buzzwords that we use anyway, right?

It's the next shot, it's the next play.

It's bouncing back.

It's just being able to change what we're saying to ourselves in those moments to reaffirm the realistic thing about sport and about basketball and about shooting, that you're not going to make every shot.

And that's okay.

And a lot of times, too, I tie it in with real life examples.

You know, the best shooters in the world in competitive situations are shooting, what, just under 50%.

That's half the time.

Half the time they are missing their shots.

And that's the best in the world who are putting up thousands of shots a day, right?

Like, it's, it's being able to have them understand that, you know, there's, there's, it's not realistic to think you're going to make every shot all the time.

And when we start to allow ourselves to understand that, it becomes a little bit easier to identify.

All right?

What I'm saying to myself is not helpful, it's not accurate.

But I know that I can keep shooting and I know that I'm a good shooter.

And we draw on past performance, right?

So that it's not an unrealistic statement.

I'm not saying that a kid who's never hit a shot in his life should be saying, like, oh, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to rattle off the next 10 year, right?

But we are trying to base it in positive.

Past performances, those past practices where they were, they've had good, good performance in any of the skills, not even just shooting, right?

And then taking it forward and, and sometimes there's an additional step and we think, all right, well, you might catch what you're saying to yourself, it's not helpful, it's not accurate.

You're trying to replace it with something that gets you back on track, whether it's a neutral statement or a positive statement or whatever works for you.

And it's maybe still not Settling you down.

And that's then where we start to explore.

Like, hey, like, go take, go take a walk.

Go, go.

Hit the opposite baseline, take a few deep breaths and come back and let's just reset ourselves here.

Just, just to kind of control some of those emotions and so that we're not spiraling out of control.

And I mean, that stems even from something that my, my dad used to say to me, right?

We would be getting shots up and there was always that grace period.

All right, I've missed a few.

I'm, I'm starting to get frustrated, but I'm still locked in.

All right, If I miss a few more, all of a sudden, then I'm dropping my arm early or I'm just, I'm just kind of thrown at the rim.

And he would stop me right then and there and he would go, yeah, you're doing more damage than you're doing good right now.

And having that was very helpful in the moment.

I, like, I can only assume how bad my shot would have looked if he allowed me to continue.

But I think having that obviously from someone else and seeing that is helpful in those moments.

But when, but man, when we can allow our athletes to gain that kind of superpower, to identify it themselves, man, they're rocking and rolling in a good.

Direction to go along with that.

And this is something that I guess I used to think about.

I didn't think about it necessarily when I was playing, but I certainly thought about it after my playing career and I think about it now in my various roles, coaching teams and then also coaching my own kids.

Have you come across and have you talked with players about the idea that their identity is tied up in their performance as an athlete?

And sometimes we allow a performance that's maybe not at the level that we want it to impact us in our normal lives off the floor.

In other words, we're so caught up in.

I'm a basketball player and if I don't play well as a basketball player, I can't leave that at the gym and have a enjoyable night or an enjoyable two days until the next game, because everything that I am and do is about being tied up as a basketball player.

So I'm just curious, A, if you've run across that and then B, what's.

What are some ways that somebody could talk to an athlete who's going through that particular situation?

Yeah, no, a hundred percent.

We, we see that at all different levels that, you know, young athletes can really, really tie themselves and their self worth to the sport and If a performance doesn't go the way that they expect that it should or want it to go, yeah, they, they feel down about it.

They, they go and they might seclude themselves from friends and all those things.

And obviously we want to prevent that.

That's not, that's not a healthy response to performance.

So we definitely do have instances where an athlete's identity is so tied up with the sport that it can be harmful, so to say.

And for them it's really about building up their self awareness that they are more than just a basketball player or they're more than just a soccer player.

They are a human being.

And we explore with, you know, the athletes that I've had that maybe struggle in that area.

We explore what their other interests are.

What do you have fun doing outside of, of sport?

Is it reading?

Is it, is it, is it going off in.

And we're by the beach, right?

So is it going off to the beach and, and, and getting in the water or just relaxing or, or what is, what is that fun look like for you?

And we really then encourage them to engage in that reflection piece and then also set goals in those other areas of their lives.

I've, we, we've got a really strong academic focus here as well.

And you can imagine, right, if, if an athlete has that kind of self, self worth tied to sport and a game goes wrong, they can't afford then to miss three days of school in their room, right?

So we can help them reflect and reframe the situation and then start to look at other areas of their lives that they find fun and fulfilling and enjoy just to make sure that they aren't kind of digging that hole deeper and deeper as they go along with that.

And that's much more at an individual level, I would say, than a team level.

But it is something to always keep an eye out for.

I think that's one of the things that we do understand can happen and kind of the red flags start to get raised when we see some key things happening, like I said, like that seclusion or maybe just a lack of enjoyment when they show up to practice or games.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, and that's something that goes back to what we talked about earlier, right, of building the relationship and getting to know the players, both you on the mental performance side, but also their sport coach.

As you get to know the athlete and you're having conversations with them all the time, you can kind of sense maybe that something like that is, is coming and you can maybe intercept it before it becomes A real issue to kind of go along with that idea of you on the mental performance side and the sporting the sport coach.

How much collaboration or what does the collaboration look like between you and the coach of the team in terms of maybe just frame it from preseason?

How much are you talking to them in season?

How much are you talking to them?

And then what do those conversations look like?

How often do they take place so that you're on the same page that the coach might say, hey, we need this, or this is what I'm noticing, and then you can step in and provide some of that support that the team and the athletes need.

Yeah, and I will say that differs per.

Per coach.

What's great and what we're very fortunate enough to have here.

We the.

Again, I said it a little bit earlier, but the mental performance is so ingrained into the culture here that you very rarely come across major barriers with coaches not wanting to share or not wanting to ask your opinion or not wanting to include you in some way.

So the communication part, I guess, like, it's a little bit different.

Right.

If it's a coach I've worked with in previous years, that preseason, you're off to a very strong start.

Right.

You're talking about what you're seeing on court as they.

As they pick teams.

If it's a new coach, it's just.

It's exactly the same as you would with your athletes.

It's establishing that rapport, that relationship, letting them know what you can offer in terms of support for their athletes, what you can offer in terms of support for them.

You know, I.

We talk a lot about our work with the athletes, but we also have to acknowledge the mental toll that coaches go through as well.

And we never want them to feel like they're off on an island on their own, having to make these decisions or having to catch those red flags by themselves.

We are a team and we're there to help in any way that we can.

And then throughout the season, there's a lot of times when, you know, I might be at practice and I'm keeping my eye out on the athletes, that a coach just pulls me to the side and goes, hey, I don't know if you realize this happened in school or I don't know if you realize this happened on the last away trip or whatever it may be, but so and so said this or responded this way in the game, they could just use a little bit extra time with you.

And that's so important because we.

We can't see everything we we are not going to pick up everything that happens.

And when you start to have that collaboration and that holistic approach with the sport coaches where they feel confident and comfortable to signpost their athletes to you and be open and honest with what's going on, like, man, do those athletes just have an amazing opportunity to have support in place?

Absolutely.

Final two, part question, Kat.

Part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

Oh man, those are tough ones.

I think the biggest challenge, but how I want to kind of reframe that is an exciting challenge, is just continuing to find ways to impact the athletes in a really positive and effective way.

I think just as you would in the sport coach side of things, we also, we can't get stale.

Right?

I can't deliver the same thing over and over again because I have athletes who are going to be here for a couple of years.

So the fun challenge is all right.

Without reinventing the wheel here, how do I engage them in this mental skill?

How do I educate them in a new way?

How do I make them excited to see the benefits of using that mental skill and ingraining it into their day to day and then really seeing it be applied on court, you know, in a season, that's always the challenge, right?

You give them the tools, you give them the education, hey, this is why it could help.

And this is how it impacts your performance.

And then you're basically fighting that uphill battle of, okay, we gotta ingrain this daily.

And okay, you were in a situation on court where maybe you used it, that's great, and maybe you didn't.

So that's the fun challenge of, of this, of this job, I think is just finding ways to connect to those athletes in new ways over the, over the year and over time and then.

Sorry.

Biggest, biggest joy.

Oh man.

So I like, my, my husband responded to this about seeing my son in the morning, didn't he?

You better say that same thing.

And to say anything less though, just maybe seem ridiculous, right?

No, obviously getting to see my, my son grow and just learn like he's in, he's, he's two years old now and the, the new things he picks up are just amazing.

It's just so rapid right now.

Obviously that brings me so much joy.

But then to kind of open it up outside of the family life and going back to that challenge part, man, when you see an athlete have that aha moment of oh wow, when I do this and I do it repetitively and I utilize this skill, I perform better.

Like that is the ultimate joy that you can get from this.

And sometimes you don't see that for a very, very long time.

So, so when, when it does happen, you definitely have to enjoy it.

Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share.

How can people reach out to you, connect with you, whether you want to share, email, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Yeah, I mean probably my two biggest things are our email.

You can always contact me at cat.lutzmg academy.com or I am on LinkedIn and active there just under Cat Lutz and I'm always happy to answer questions or help out in any way I can.

So I appreciate you giving me that opportunity here today.

Absolutely.

Kat, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule this morning to jump on.

Really appreciate it.

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

Thanks.

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