Stars on Sports Intro: 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 Sport. I'm joined today by our assistant athletic director, Steven Cutter and our producer, Daedalian Lowry. And gentlemen, we're gonna today be talking about gratitude and how that fits in the world of sports and sports leadership. To be honest, I wasn't even sure really what gratitude meant. I always think of the word thankful or appreciation and I feel I'm a pretty thankful person. But when working with you, Coach Cutter, and just, you know, diving into the topic of gratitude, over recent months, I've learned how important it is in coaching and in leadership and building teams. So I've really worked hard at being better with gratitude and not just thankfulness. So gratitude is the quality of being thankful, but readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. And I think I'm pretty good at those things, but I'm not sure I'm good at showing gratitude towards others. I'm like thankful for the things that I get or have, but just again, I think of the standard of I want to be successful, I want things to go well that sometimes I take it for, you know, I don't show that. I just expect it to and I don't show it to. And the first person I think of is John Gordon, who we brought up a lot on this podcast and we'll dive into this a little later about his gratitude journal. And unfortunately I have not done that and I wish I would. And there's times I start it and we'll dive into how that happened. And I know you have a lot on that topic. It isn't just about saying thank you. It's about being intentional, which is another word we use a lot. And if you are, I believe it can transform your mindset. Again, that's where it's kind of come more home to me is during adversity. Some of the podcasts I've listened to recently that when you're dealing with adversity, one of the quickest ways to get out of it or get back to a steady ground is through gratitude is changing your mindset and using gratitude again. I try and be thankful every day for the things that have been good to me, but actually applying it to my leadership style, especially as an athletic administrator, is something I want to focus on and do better. So what do you got for me, Cutter? Because I know this is right up your alley.

I love it. I think we could talk about a lot of different things. I think when it comes to gratitude, it's definitely when you speak about trying to get a little bit better on a daily basis, trying to stack some bricks, trying to get 1% better or whatever it might be. You're just trying to get better. Gratitude comes down to not necessarily thinking that you don't have what you don't have. It's really a conscious thought of being thankful for what you do have. Because when you are trying to perform and you're trying to get better, the gratitude kind of goes away because you're looking at what's next. What's next? I achieved this goal. Maybe that goal was literally getting up when your alarm went off. And so then you're onto the next. Okay, so the next thing I want to do, my alarm goes off now. I want to start exercising in the morning. I want to take a 15 minute walk outside. The weather's still pretty decent in Michigan. I want to go for a walk, 15 minutes outside and then you just keep stacking and you forget to have that gratitude of what do I have right now? And that's truly where gratitude gets lost with most people. And then I would love to even speak on the law of the thirds because that's something we've been talking about a lot in our program and I'm hopeful that we can get to that as well.

Yes, let's do. Because you've hit on one part, but the Daedalian. I'm not leaving you out of this. What do you think? Of. Of course you're not Gratitude.

I would have to say that's something in my life that I've always had to work at. Being very conscious about thinking of. I've gotten better as I've gotten older. I suffer from. What Cut was kind of expounding on is the notion that I get very caught up in the day to day grind, focused on the next objective, trying to figure out where I'm going and what I'm doing. I will say that especially over the last few years, I've gotten really good about trying to make sure that the people I work with and the People who I collaborate with are appreciated and know that they are appreciated. I think I'm doing better. I'm not always positive, but I always feel like I could do better than I already am. And there's nothing wrong with that. It just means that I'm aware of it.

And I agree with you. And those are two points we will hit on how we show appreciation. And the first one, though, you both hit on was, especially in sports, I think we focus on the next thing or we even focus on what's wrong, what do we have to fix, or how do we improve, and then we get busy doing that, that. Some of the coaches I have studied show a way of showing gratitude through that. But, you know, I remember like Zach Sorensen and another name we came up with. You know, he. I listened to one of his podcasts recently and he said, I was struggling to, like, I think it was either getting from college to the minors or minors to majors, and he was just struggling to get to that next level. And he point blank asked his coach, what can I do better? And the coach was honest with him and he was appreciative, he was thankful, and he worked on what he. He got better and he thought, you know, the coach said, I don't, you know how we don't tell people what they have to, you know, like, we're afraid to be honest with them or afraid of it might hurt them. Where it was reciprocated that he was thankful for it because it did help him get better. And I think sometimes as leaders, we're afraid of that because of what the response would be or it's not always that comfortable conversation. But if you receive it with gratitude, which we should, because we should want to get back better, we're supposed to.

But that doesn't mean that it's easy. I know just in with the Daedalian and I, I've constantly asked him for feedback and he's given me feedback that's been helpful and I'm super thankful for it. But sometimes that's not the easiest feedback to give or sometimes receive. And so it's somewhat based upon where your mindset is, do you want to get better or are you afraid of getting better? Or what somebody might say. But the gratitude does fully go into the aspect of if you're trying to get a little bit better today or this month or this year, you're gonna need some feedback from people. And that feedback isn't always gonna be maybe in line with what your thoughts are, their opinions, and you can take that and Use it. And that's where competition comes in. You know, we talk about this on teams. It's be thankful to have competition on your team. Be thankful for your teammates because every day in practice they're providing you with competition that's going to help you get better. So instead of competing against them, be thankful to be competing with them.

And it is a change of mindset. And that was trying to be my point with that, that if we showed gratitude, I think some of those other situations would help us because even to competition, you're right. Competition is an important. We're going to do a podcast on this. We've talked about that this morning. But how competition is important to improvement in that if you don't have competition in practice or in opponents, it's hard to get better. But it's that response thing. And we've talked a lot about response on this show. But if leaders show gratitude, it starts with them. It builds trust, it improves motivation. It probably lessens burnout over time because of that grind or of that. I always feel like you're talking to a student athlete yesterday who talked about a previous coach was just hard on them, that they were tentative about making a mistake because they always felt that was what was emphasized where. And I think that was standard for us in our profession over time. And I think that's where it's changed a little bit. And I still think there's a premonition that gratitude is soft and not powerful. Where I think we're learning now that it is powerful. And more coaches at the highest levels are using gratitude and you know, especially for mental toughness and again for burnout and ways to show it, because I think we tried to be tough in the past and gratitude wasn't viewed as being tough. So again, now changing, I think into where we want to go with this is how to show gratitude.

It's one of those things that is much like a muscle. You can teach it. I know that a lot of what's spoken about is just being thankful, showing gratitude to people in really small ways. If somebody holds the door for you or holding the door for somebody else, it's just there's so many little things that you can be thankful for, which goes back into the premise of you will find what you're looking for. And if you're going around looking for things to be thankful for, you're going to find that. And if you're going around looking for things that to be mad about, you're going to find that you're going to find that too.

And you hit on that earlier where it is intentional and coaches do have to work on it. And some of the ways that I have learned through researching for this and listening to podcasts, it starts with yourself. Again, one of the ways is a gratitude journal. Leaders can't give what they don't have. So I do think it starts with coaches and we have to do better at it. And some of those ways are beginning or ending today. Recognizing student athletes, especially those ones that might not be the most talented or the highest stat people. And I've been a believer in that, of talking to every kid every day that helps you learn about kids, acknowledging them for the grind or some teams have practice players of the week, some have different kind of awards for just doing the right thing or stepping up or helping out. So gratitude in the huddle. Gratitude shout out. And then something I've learned from my previous pract principal and you know, I wasn't very good at it until actually Covid hit and now I work really hard at it, is sending thank you notes and I try and do them. I have it on my calendar to do every Friday. I'd be happy if I did it every other Friday. And I try and send four or five just to people over those last couple weeks. And you know, I did. I started during COVID and again, my principal in my previous school would, he would, he would give them to you probably once or twice a year and they're short or sweet. And it meant a lot. And I'm telling you, just like we talked about before, when you give, receive, when I send some of these notes and I try and be specific and intentional, it's amazing the response I get how much it meant to them to get that. So I really have worked hard on that. And as we lose writing as a task, texting or calling, writing a note, I think is still that one way of going further and go the long way. And that might be hard to do with your team per se, but for us to be successful, it takes a lot of support and role players to do that. I try and you know, acknowledge those, the scorekeepers or the maintenance people or you know, and just to show that they are part of this team and we are thankful and couldn't do them without it. So. And I think again, as we talk about coaches at the highest level now, some are doing more of these things, emphasizing it, sharing that it helped become more intentional, more accepted and a difference maker.

So there's also the, the hard part about the coaching aspect when you're Thinking about showing gratitude to the players, I think there's the old adage of they're going to take advantage of it. If you let them know how well they're doing, they're probably going to get a little complacent, you know. And so I think coaching in general over the years has gravitated towards more focusing on the negative aspects of what you're not doing and viewed as like, this is going to be a driver for them. If I'm constantly telling them, this is what you need to do to get better, this is what you need to do to get better. And we've lost, somewhat lost that aspect of the human being function here where like, you need to be recognized, you need to have to be able to show some appreciation for also what is happening on the positive side for people to stay driven. If it's constantly negative, whether it's you or me or anybody else, that's really tough environment to be in and it's a tough environment to want to grow in as well. And so if you think back on the coaching aspects in a lot of different ways, it's like, you know, we're focused on, you need to get better, you're not great at this, you mess up, you get yelled at, all that stuff. And I think that paradigm shift is starting to happen a little more where you, you're seeing more people show appreciation for what is actually positive. It might be a small thing, but.

I agree because I think the grind is real. And we always thought that winning at the end or that trophy at the end, with the appreciation and recognition we get for that work, but with expectations higher and more things involved to being successful and no out of season, that if you don't show gratitude along the way, you're not going to make it to that end. And so I think we've learned, especially again, we fail every day. I mean, the perfect example is in a baseball game, you know, you might get one hit out of four at bat. So three times you failed. So are you going to concentrate on those three times or, you know, promote the one time? But gratitude is very important when things aren't going well. And to your point, as we focus on that, but that's where it can really be a game changer is showing it when you know you're in a slump. Or again, it might not be for getting that hit, it might be for your approach or taking extra swings and practice. I think the good coaches now are finding ways to show gratitude and there are different approaches to it instead of to Your point of how you handle failure or adversity, finding a better approach of, like, making it instead of failure, making it a learn. You know, like I told you something, sometimes you win or sometimes you learn or being thankful for that setback, as we talked about Zach earlier, that that will help me get better. Changing what losing or failure is and, you know, showing up, too is. You know, we talked about that in a podcast, how important that is and. And being thankful just, you know, for that. It doesn't. Gratitude doesn't erase it, but hopefully it puts it in context. So you wanted to talk about the law of thirds, so let's go into that right now, because I.

Well, it definitely plays into gratitude. So the law of the thirds basically states that a third of your life, which can be broken down into months or into days, but a third of your life is you're going to have great times. A third of your life, you're going to have average times, and a third of your life, you're going to have bad times. And understanding that your. Your life is going to be broken into this. And in some days, you might have all three of those in one day, you know, and understanding what to do in those times. So in the great times, you're going to enjoy it, you're going to be thankful for it, you're going to build confidence in the average times, you're going to fall back and start building habits and processes that are going to serve you. But most importantly, in the bad times, this is where you lean into gratitude. And a lot of science out there says doing things like meditations or yoga or whatever it might be is going to help you in these times. But the greatest thing that will help you when you're in one of those bad times could be a day, could be a week, could be a month, whatever it is. The biggest thing that's been shown to help people is serving others. And when you can start serving others, it starts pulling you out of that time. So service, which is a gratitude thing.

Yes, it is.

It ties in perfectly. And understanding that we are all going to go through the law of the thirds in our life, in our days, months and years, and understanding what to do when you're in those, when everything is great, you enjoy it, you know, and when it's not, you start stacking the bricks.

And I'm a big believer in thirds, too. I mean, like, even when I talk to coaches, this is a side note. Like, a third of the people love you, a third of the people like you, and a third of the people don't like you. Or a third of the people are special athletes. A third of the athletes are athletes and third are just role models around the team. And we talked about that before with Urban Meyer, moving that middle third one way or the other. And that's true. I think even with this is that you're right. We experience all those in a minute. We can experience all those emotions and the people that struggle and like, oh, I had the worst day just because 1/3 of their day was bad, instead of understanding that 2/3 of your day was average or better that. But finding a way to address it. And gratitude is one of our best ways that we are learning. And I agree. I had listened to a podcast too that talked about service is the main way and listen to another one yesterday that how do you want to remember how you treat others? But to your point, yoga is good, but it's a temporary leave. It's an hour or less release meditation the same way. They're all good and they'll help you temporarily, but the only thing that helps you long term is service and gratitude. I believe in those constant acts of those not just one, but many. So yeah, I mean, that hit home with me too. And something we all can do better with, I think. You know, again, that's something we work hard in our program and I know you work really hard in your program is serving others. You know, you've gotten a lot of shout outs for your team helping around campus as we started back this fall, and rightfully so. You know, we have our student athletes helping out at other sports. They're doing ball chasing right now, volleyball, and it's fun to watch them learn. And at the end of the night they, they feel good about it. I mean, talking to the group last night that did it, they had fun at the end of the night. You know, they struggled at the beginning, but, you know, and I thought they run to quit. But as the night went on, you know, I talked to them afterwards and it was, it was fun for them. You know, I think they would do it again. So taking that chance to serve or show gratitude and I still feel like we have to overcome that perception that it's soft or like you said, it leads to complacency or toughness. And it's a balance. I feel I'm a positive person and I want to make sure you don't confuse positivity with gratitude because I think that's easy to do that I think I'm positive, but I got to do better. More gratitude. That Too much positivity can like make a fake picture or doesn't make it real. And the same with gratitude where there that balance of toughness and gratitude. And again, I think the pendulum in athletics has been far too long on the toughness side that now I think we're learning that gratitude is that main component of helping with the toughness and helping with that grind and helping with those thirds you talked about. Because even in practice, I mean that so typical in a season of dealing with those thirds in a practice or in one drill or specifically a game. And again, I think the main point of this podcast is gratitude is really the one way to help us overcome it. And again, one of the key components of gratitude is service. So anything else to add on that point?

I think one final thought. Good. It's when you speak about gratitude and you've covered it really well, if you can go for a gratitude walk or a gratitude sit or whatever, it's really hard. Science really shows if you can be thinking about things that you're thankful for, it's impossible to be mad at the same time.

It is. That's a great final point and I'm going to piggyback on a little bit because you're right. A walk, a gratitude walk. But even I would still recommend people out there to do it journal. I got to do better work writing it down. Back to you. Find what you're looking for. Find gratitude. Look for it. Being intentional about it will help us all because everything isn't perfect. And just because you recognize people and opportunities, even during the struggles, it helps with the journey. And that's what we've all been about at that journey. And that journey is tough. But gratitude along the way instead of just at the end for winning or accomplishing your goal is very important to being successful. So great point.

In the spirit of the conversation, I'm going to say thank you to both you guys for consistently being here and always being a part of what you're doing and showing up and making it happen.

You're the best producer in the business and you make us better and we enjoy being here and talking sports leadership every week. Consistency is big to us and that's another part of gratitude. Being consistent with gratitude is a superpower. So. But come on, let's get to the point of everyone waiting for today. Is it food? It is food. I'm going to keep going on food. It's as long as I can. And we touched on it a little bit before, but I wanted to get into it. It's Peanut butter. All right. Peanut butter and jelly, actually. Which is actually an important part of, I believe, athlete performance. You know, like, when I was at the high school level, we encouraged student athletes to eat peanut butter sandwiches at lunch and after school for that snack that. It's a nice little snack to give them some energy or momentum. So I like peanut butter. The first question is. Well, I wasn't thinking brand, but I do have a. We'll go crunchy or creamy? Creamy. Okay. I feel like we hit this one.

Did we hit this one before?

We did dive into it. We talked about it, and I think it would be even after the packet. Okay, definitely. Me, too. All right. My family likes crunchy, actually, so I gotta fight them, you know, because you can't even buy the bulk one or the other. But I prefer tears the bread and everything else tears the bread. That's true.

That is true.

No matter how delicate you are, it's gonna happen.

Yeah.

It's from experience. Do you have a specific brand you like?

No. Whatever. My wife buys.

Okay. I prefer Jif, actually.

I'm a Jif guy, but I'm okay with whatever.

Yeah, me too. Me too. Some's oily than others. Some is like. Like, thicker than others. So. Okay, so now the next part of that question is, jelly with peanut butter or just peanut butter?

Well, RDK would say just do peanut butter really good.

That's great. Really.

But I do like jelly.

Yeah. What about you, Vidalian?

Well, so I'm really, really picky when it comes to this.

Me, too.

I actually do not like jelly. I do not like jam. I only like preserves, and I only like raspberry preserves on my peanut butter and jelly.

But do you want it with. Do you want your peanut butter sandwich with raspberry preserves or do you prefer just peanut butter? I will.

If raspberry preserves are not available, I will just eat peanut butter and that's it.

Although.

Although.

If you've ever tried toasted, like, toasting your toast, the bread first. Put the peanut butter on there.

So good.

I like peanut butter toast. But let me. I like. I prefer peanut butter only, too. I'm not a jelly person, but I don't mind changing it up. It has to be grape jelly. I will not eat any other jelly. It'd have to be grape jelly, raspberry, strawberry. And I'm an uncrustable person. My first couple years here on the job, I brought uncrustable to work every day. And I know our student athletes use them, too. And it was mainly grape and peanut Butter, grape jelly, and peanut butter. Now I see they have a strawberry version out there, which disappoints me. Yeah, I don't even know the difference between jam and preserve.

Yeah, I wanted to look up. I'm like, I never actually thought about the difference between preserves versus jam, but. So maybe summarize it for us. I'll explain the preserves. It contains whole or large distinct pieces of fruit. This is according to the web search here.

That's a great.

Thicker mixture with bigger, noticeable chunks, which is true, because that's why I like it.

I don't like. That's why I don't like it. I prefer jelly. It's smashed and smooth. I don't like. I don't like stuff like fruit in my cheesecake, as we talked about, or fruit in my ice cream or salad. I want it, like, the texture to be smooth or whatever. I guess that's why I'm a jelly person and you're a preserver, and you're neither. You won't eat it regardless, or you don't mind it.

I will. But I'll lean towards really spicing it up and I'll go peanut butter and pickles.

Oh, interesting. Another interesting.

Interesting and weird.

Yeah, I might have to try. I mean, Elvis Presley was peanut butter and bananas, which is actually. Those are good. Yeah, I've never had pickles. I'm even going to try that cutter. So, again, we got the definition of jam and preserves today on this podcast and a new sandwich of pickles on it. You can't go wrong if you stay to the end of this.

There you go.

Until next time. Go Stars.

Stars on Sports Outro: 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!