Now now it's official.
What's up, dude?
You've been running around the planet, brother, been traveling, I know. Uh so, uh what what have you been doing on the on the road? Is it? Is it both work and enjoyment where you're globe trotting right now?
Yeah, that's always work. Work is every day, work never stops. But yeah, just enjoying some time. I think I believe I just moved, So I think the last couple of weeks i've been my mom was in town trying to help me move everything. So that's always I feel like we've done so much but so little.
Well, I mean I get that, especially because moving is a pain in the you know what, and you've got to figure out. Okay, So if I'm doing this, it's like you peck, you pack up your life, then you figure out, Okay, it's one of those opportunities where I maybe should hang onto this, maybe I can let this go. Maybe I can do this and then move into the new place. Is it larger or smaller? I guess is my first question.
Yeah, much bigger, much bigger. So yeah, now it's figuring out, figuring out where everything goes, needing to buy some new things, selling things, that don't fit all that kind of stuff. Man.
Okay, so then let me ask it this way. Since you since you're discussing moving, let me let me apply it to your your mentoring here when it comes to your mentors and your mentees specifically when it comes to making those big life adjustments, whether it's making it taking a change in location, a change of environment, those kinds of things. How many discussions do you get to have with your mentees about these kind of life changing things.
Where As we get older, we do get used to the idea of moving and compressing or expanding our lives, but what about young mentees having these big moments about Okay, do I make this choice to help my career? Do I stay at home? Do you have any of those conversations?
Of course, right. I think I had a great conversation with a young boy yesterday from an MLS academy and just just speaking about just speaking about the sacrifices that are needed. Right. I think sometimes whenever you're going through the academy level and when you're kind of okay, this is my dream, this is really what I want to do, This is this is I think I can get this close and then I think you come to realization like,
oh crap, this is this is a lot. And I think it takes a pretty special person to you know, I think in total, I don't know how many homes I've lived in in my career, or how many homes I've lived in my life. This has got to be this has got to be upper twenties right now. Wow, of how many homes I've lived since I was twelve years old. So, you know, I think it's it's you look at your life and I mean, finally, this will be a place to where I can call home, sweet
home for quite some time. So it feels it feels good. It definitely feels good.
Is there a greater sense of with your mentees knowing that these are things that I have to do or is there still I guess the level of comfortability from like when you were twelve and you know, I was twelve. Back in the late eighteen hundreds, the idea of leaving home it was something that we really had to grapple with. Is it easier these days for the young athlete to sit there and get that this might be something that I need to do.
Yeah, I think it's just throwing that out there and kind of helping them understand not only the discipline that goes beyond it, but just just the sacrifices, right, the things that they most likely will have to be in front of at some point if they want to take
soccer as far as they can. But I think it's not the reg dealer or the average you know, the average joe, average Joe's kind of trajectory, right, I think the trajectory of sometimes what they play in their head is completely different than what it what it can truly be.
One of the things that I wrote down as we take our first right turn of the morning, uh, from your last visit, it says coaching up and p k's'
with the with it says coaching up. P K. Garza Literally, this is the note that I have from the last time that we were that we talked about these kinds of things, and I just want to first off, I just want to take it from the idea of coaching somebody else because you moving going into someplace new, taking that next step, digging those next strides in your life and living in a big capital h house, you know, something like that. When it comes to coaching up an individual,
coaching up a mentee. Obviously, they wouldn't have knocked on your door if they weren't receptive to the idea of hopefully listening to what you have to say. But when it comes to coaching them up in a situation, in addition to understanding, yes, this is why I'm here, what do you have to do to get to that next level of encouragement? Because I get that there's probably a baseline of being a mentor, and then there's that level of comfort and then okay, I've got to go to
this next level with these individuals. So when it comes to coaching up your mentees and going to that next level, that second level with them, obviously I would think that it differs from individual to individual. But how do you, as a mentor gauge Okay, I've really got to dial it up with this person I see promise, or I need to dial it up with this person so they can see the promise. How do you figure out when to dial it up with a mentee's.
That's a great question. I think once you start to build that kind of trust, and I think I think Mike and I always say this's like personal stories telling.
I think is by far my favorite thing to do because it allows you to build that connection with each an individual, helping them understand whether it be the trajectory of the path that you took that that is so much different, but just to give them an idea of who you are and what you've been through, right, or who you are and kind of what got you to where you wanted to go. I think breaking the ice there and kind of you know, building a better bond
and relationship. In those moments are when I think I am able to pull the trigger and then say, okay, this is this is now something that we can speak about in regard to maybe building more responsibility or bettering their accountability or helping them understand, hey, this this can be something that you can look forward to for a really long time. And if you do it this way, this is how we did it, this is how I did it, and it worked for us. So you know,
each each and every individual is different. And I think that's the beauty of mentorship. And Mike and I always speak about it as well, is that some kids just want to make varsity from JV, right, and some kids want to truly aspire to become a pro. Some kids want to take the life values and the life hacks of what we what we speak about into maybe a
business they want to run one day. Right, there's there's there's so many different little nuances and things that we're able to implement and apply to all of our sessions. And each each and every kid differs. That's the beauty
of it as well. Each and every kid thinks differently, Each and every kid reacts differently, each and every kid aspires differently, Each and every kid wants wants something different, And I think kind of building them up within their own internal belief uh, and kind of helping them understand what they see in the mirror every day and what they're working with every day. That that's that's something that's you know, a massive, a massive you know benefit I think to our.
Program well, and I would imagine though that it's also a learning experience for you and trying to figure out, Okay, here's where I hit the clutch, here's where I hit the brake, Here's where I hit the gas. Because of understanding where that mentee is coming from, it's like, Okay, no, I don't want to be you know, I don't want to be messy. I just want to get to college. No, I don't want to be messy. I just want to figure out, Okay, how do I apply these life skills?
How much of a learning experience has that been for you? And cap to to gauge, Okay, I might be I don't know if I'm pushing hard enough. I don't know if I'm pushing too hard. How much of a how much of a life hack has it been for you?
It's it's been immense because you learn. I think that's the cool part. And we talked about it before you learn, you learn a lot from your mentees. You learn how they view certain things, and and you and I have gone over like the self belief, self discipline, self regulation,
self assessment. And there's been times to where I mean, obviously I have to kind of push push the envelope a little bit more with with with some of the kids, right and kind of really help them understand certain phrases or paraphrases or synonyms or things that I think of
in which how those apply to me. But there will be some kids that just absolutely blow it out of them, right, They just completely explode with amazing phrases and amazing things, and you're like, wow, this is this is how this kid views this that I want to use that, right, I'm going to use that for myself. I'm going to use that in being committed to something or finding consistency in something like sometimes they'll they'll just completely take you
by surprise. And I think that that's that's where you know, having that flexibility and just being adaptable and and and the willingness and and wanting to learn. Even for us as as adults, we're teaching kids, but we're also learning a lot from these kids as well, which is h which is a beautiful thing.
Okay, so i'll bite what are some of those phrases and descriptors that they're introducing to you that you wouldn't have necessarily thought of or applied into a situation where oh man, what the hell of a way to sit there and think of something?
Yeah, I wish, I wish I've saved. I mean, whenever I do the exercise with them, I usually I use post it notes. Ah, and I'll kind of it's really interesting, I'll be able to fit all of our phrases within
and we'll divide that. We'll divide that post it note in four right, in four sections, and we'll do the four selves, and I mean I can't really, you know, I wish I would save all of those post it notes of some of the kids to where I'm just completely blown away by some of the phrases that they come up, because it's it's ultimately what applies to them.
Right.
If I look at self belief, for me, I'm thinking about, you know, taking risks or making mistakes, or you know, just the good old confidence, right, a good old taking responsibility, or having the faith in yourself or you know, ability to take over or come into a flow state. And there'll be other kids to where they'll look at those
excuse me, niece, go for it, lost it. But there'll be other kids that that you know, you do that with, and they'll just come up with things that are completely different than what you would ever what you would ever kind of think self belief to be. You know, I can't think on the top of my head, but you know, there's there's so many interesting ones that we have gotten, whether sometimes be speaking with high schools or even middle
schools or teams. But my favorite is just the individual work because you're really diving deep into how that individual thinks about about certain qualities of themselves or you kind of look at it and I you know, one interesting thing for me is whenever we do finish like that exercise with a lot of kids, they'll they'll look at it and they'll stare at it, and they'll kind of they kind of think to themselves of like, Okay, I have some of these, but man, I really need to
focus on a lot of these that I've just written down for myself. And that's the power of writing things down. I think that's the power of putting things out into existence because they're giving themselves almost like a guideline and an accountabiit. I tell them it's an accountability list, right, It's a it's a way to hold yourself accountable and and and also kind of consistently see things towards where where you want to go, where you want to get to.
Uh.
So you know it's it's it's that it's that guideline to your personal success of it essentially.
How do you not get lost in all of the information that I And this might be something that you address both as a mentor and a men tee because of all this this flow of information that seems like it comes to you from a mente and from you as a mentor, how do you prioritize all of the information that might be coming your way, because they all might be great hints, they all might be great ideas, But how do you look at the list and prioritize and go, Okay, this needs to be number one, This
needs to be number two, instead of getting lost in the sauce and looking at it as a piece of paper that has a lot of information on it and going, man, what do I knock off first? How do you talk to a man t to sit there and go, okay, this is what you need to do first. Don't get lost in those other four here's the order that you need to attack or is there an order that you need to attack? Just hit whatever you can knock off the list.
Yeah, I think, like for example, in the foreselfs, they're all interconnected, right, and so if you're lacking in one, you can always reroute yourself to another. And I think that's the beauty of it as well. Usually, like kids, at the end of that exercise, they'll usually kind of make arrows pointing to where they can go if they are feeling a lack in one of them. And I think that's something that really helps them. And I don't meanly as a mentor. I don't try and give too
much information within every session that we do. I try and mainly focus on just one thing, right, whether it be a lot of acronym exercises that we've created or acronym exercises that I've created with my just just thinking about and looking and learning from things. I don't try and give too much information so it'll allow them to just truly focus on what that is for that day, because I feel like for me, I'm such a visual learner as well. I need to see things to kind
of understand them the best way possible. So I try and I try and teach the way that I guess I learn as well. But you know, giving them hints and giving them showing them proof, for giving them video footage of something to kind of explain more of what's needed from them, I think that's a massive point of it as well. But I don't try and jump all over the place. I think. I think having a lot
of you know, great minds alike. You know, whenever we did the ICA training for for MLS, the Inner Cultural Awareness which we have those meetings in a couple of months to kind of revamp ICA two point zero for two thousand and twenty five. So we just I just got that email a couple of days ago to be involved again and to be one of the head speakers.
So I think it's interesting because now I think now even doing that has allowed me to bring in a lot of things that I do in mentorship, uh, and I have a lot of ideas, and so I think that now building that trust with them and helping them understand from from a league standpoint, hey, this guy can speak to people, and this guy can really get a message across. Well, I have a lot of messages as well that I work with mintees that I feel like
would be fantastic to work with with professionals. So, you know, I think that's that's just another another way that we can another path that we can take. But yeah, it's it's it's interesting to to to you know, when we talk about giving so much information. Whenever we started those
ICA trainings. In that first day, we did like a seven hour workshop all day and at the end of it, I think every single one of our brains was just absolutely fried because it was just too much and they wanted us to speak for like three hours to all the players, and I was like, look, the most you're going to get out of a professional athlete is like
thirty five forty minutes, if that right. So you know, you have to find a way to interact keep them connected, and you can't just be speaking to them about certain things. You have to you have to get them on board with with what you're trying to the message that you're trying to portray. So you know, I think it's the same. It's the same with a lot of kids as well. If you really think about it, the kid's attention span.
My kids attention span is ten seconds, right, So I'm trying to think about things within my sessions that it's just one piece of information turned into a bigger exercise, but always leading back to what that initial conversation or that initial point within the exercise is.
Because there's a difference in speaking with someone then speaking to someone.
I'm always for speaking with someone rather than speaking to someone. And even when I go and speak to title I schools, or even when I go and speak to middle schools or kids who are struggling in school, or kids who are getting in trouble and iss and oss with those kids. I always start with questions first. I never do questions last. I never speak to them. And I'm like, you know, hey, now we're going to leave the last ten fifteen minutes and open up for questions. I want you to give
me the questions first. Give me the questions first, because then it opens up a great conversation to have and now I can give them proof or I can kind of dig deep and think about stories, whether they be personal or with other people that will help connect their question. And it's not just giving. Uh. That's where I think that personal storytelling becomes, you know, key and clutch to to to really giving and kind of getting that message out.
Because if you because in a situation like this, and I do want to get into your acronyms, so put you put that in the back of your head for the minute.
That's good.
But questions first versus questions last. Traditionally, if you are called up to speak, and we see this a lot, you know, even when we were growing up. You know, hey, it's a show and tell day and we have some we have an adult here. If the adult starts by or the expert of the leader, what have you starts by talking. Then by the time they have finished talking,
you just want to get out of the room. All of that momentum that the speaker or that that dignitary or that person of importance might have had coming in, all of that momentum is lost, and the interest is lost, and everybody's tie and you just want to leave. So questions last won't necessarily lend itself to a learning back and forth where questions first puts the onus on the listener to sit there and look at their own curiosity
and it's like, Okay, well, why are you here? How can I how can I play off of you and get my energy moving first, as opposed to having all of the energy dissipate and wanting to get out with questions laugh.
Most definitely, I think it just it kind of for me. It kind of softens it softens the room. It allows them to kind of feel an easier way to speak to an adult. I think sometimes it's hard for kids to have that courage and and.
Kind of confidence, and especially someone that's not family.
Especially someone that's not family, especially someone that like I look at like title win schools, or kids that I speak to that are in trouble, like they that their their level of trust is probably quite low, right because they feel like you know, anybody around them, they probably
most likely don't don't trust. So I think allowing them to kind of build that connection from the off and and and asking specific questions that might be of help to them is a huge is a huge benefit to to to lead off.
You mentioned acronyms, All right, I'll bite. What kind of acronyms are ones that you that you have or that you've created that help in your creative process?
Oh? Man, we got a lot. Obviously. We have the the four selfs. We have the three s's. Three seeds is a good one.
Uh huh.
I can't give all my secrets away.
No, no, no, but I mean three.
Seasons ago and it's confidence, consistency, and commitment. We have a lot of them. I have the three most I have three m vts. That's a good one to kind of always tell kids. Look, I like to focus on the mindset and even when I speak to to to even parents as well. I truly like to focus on the mindset. But I think that the heart has a lot to do with it as well. So heart, heart and head connection, the three three m VTS is three
most valuable things in your life. That's one of my favorite ones to do with kids because it allows them to kind of see how fortunate they are and and kind of build that internal connection of the people around them providing support, which is which is a really good thing. There's a lot, there's a lot we have, I mean a lot of three things. You have three controllable factors.
I like things that come in threes. Yeah, just just things, things that are controllable, things that can essentially help them understand how to how to process, how to process circumstances and maybe trials and tribulations that they'll they'll encounter in the future. I think that's that's the that's one of my biggest messages, is just helping these kids. It's not necessarily hey, give us a call or work with us
when crap hits the fan. Yeah, it's more so of just hey, this is this is preparation because life is going to have it's ups and downs, it's ebbs and flows, and it's it's it's hard times and good times. But you know the way that you react, the resiliency that you have within is going to be a massive It can be a massive turning point for you and in that moment of your youth soccer career, or in that moment of your professional career and whatever you choose to
do in your life. So I like to really connect it to that.
As well, because consistency is key in all of this. Where you don't want to hit somebody at a high point. You don't want to because they'll sit there and they may think that they're you know, unbeatable or what have you. You don't want to hit them at a truly low point because they might be so down on themselves that they either won't keep the information, won't listen to the information, or or just not want to be engaged in the process.
I think that the key here is to engage them and keep a level of consistency so when they have those highs, they understand why it's a high and understand why while it might be a low point, it is not a fixed low point, if that makes any sense. You want to try to you want to draw them back to the middle, as opposed to you don't want to sit there and say, well, having a high as bad or being in a low is going to get better.
You want to try to eight you want to keep the consistency and have them understand the highs of thelow that.
There are so many different ways to use the word consistency. You can talk about the emotional curve, which is probably what you're talking about right now, right, and we use I use another Chinese proverb which is great Chinese farmer, his son and the black stallion, which is a great Chinese proverb. Not sure if you've read it before, but
it's a great Chinese proverb. Tea teaches about the emotional curve and understanding how to stay closer to the baseline there there, you know, these are these are stories that I can tell, Like that story right there, I can tell a young kid, right, a very young kid who's at the age of eleven twelve, and they're there. Their emotions are just I mean, even my son emotions are all over the freaking place, right, and so it's it's helping them. Hey, can you be the Chinese farmer, right,
think about the Chinese farmer next time this happens. Just self talk Chinese farmer. And there are so many kids that I work with that are like man. The parents will be like man. After the game, I was like man, my son or my daughter didn't react a certain way, and you know, asked them, what do you tell yourself, like,
how'd you get through that moment? Oh, because I remember coach Craig we did the Chinese farmer and so you know, there's so many proverbs that you can give within especially with an Asian culture that kind of linked them, you know, teaches the essence of life, which is great. But the coolest thing for me about consistency is that any kid that I ask what consistency means on the field, and every kid will tell you that consistency means that you
always play well. And it's interesting, every single kid, nine out of ten kids that I ask, will always say consistency means that because you know, what their coaches are telling them is that you need to be a consistent player. You need to be a consistent player. You need to be a consistent player. And I'll always ask them, you know, how many games do you think you've played in your youth career so far? I mean, these kids played two games,
three games every weekend. So if they're fifteen, sixteen years old, man, they've played six hundred games in their lives so far. And so it's It's always an interesting one for me, and I always ask them, well, how many games do you think you've played really well? In those six hundred games? Maybe half right, and maybe maybe you know a quarter of them or the other half that they've they've probably
done terrible, right. And so in my mind, consistency is not playing well always, because even as a professional athlete, you're not always going to play well. But I always tell them to write things down that they do on a consistent basis whenever they play, because that's what makes you a consistent player. I knew the second that Brad Guzanne had the ball, my absolute tale was going to be on the touch line before anybody was ever going to tell me, right, And that is something that I
did consistently well. I knew that whenever the ball went up, the first thing that I thought to myself was making sure I was going to stick with my line right. So I was looking over at LGP and Parky and you know, Franco or Julian whoever was on the other side of making sure that I was in line with them. That was something that I did religiously and consistently well. So it gets them once again, it gets them to start thinking, Wow, Okay, they're probably things that I do
on a consistent basis. Do I always try and play forward? Do I always try and make sure I'm in a defensive stance?
Right?
There's little little nuances and little things that they have within their game that they've never thought about before, and so that, to me, I think is a big one to help them understand the value of what consistency truly can be. And I think it gets them away from Okay, I need to always play well. No, If I do these things, then you know I'm giving myself a chance of performing consistently.
Okay, the fourth is holding up the light board, so I know that we're gonna add a couple of minutes here. Last question for you has to do with the pressure of decision day and right now, specifically Land United. They got to win down with the Purple Team, They got to get business taken care of. How do you handle or how would you advise handling the pressure of gotta have it to have a chance.
What did I call the Purple team last year? What did what was I think?
Yeah, you do? I can't remember.
I heard somebody say it and I started cracking up, and I completely forgot it. You just said the Purple team, and I was like, man, that somebody.
Yeah, I see. But now you're thinking about it, and I know you can text me when you remember it.
Text me. I don't remember, dude. I got too many other things on my mind right now. I gotta get all these boxes out of my house and recyclement.
Recycling money.
It's Tuesday here, Tuesday here.
How do you handle the pressure of decision day knowing that you've got to have a result.
Yeah, you can't think about anything else. You just have to do what's what's in front of you. I don't know, it's it's I've been in that situation before, even in Mexico,
to where we did not qualify. We had to wait for other we were playing away in the Cosa and we had to have like two other games finish the way that we wanted to and did not go with the way that we wanted because I think we were probably already extremely disappointed with how the whole entire season had gone, and I think it was just kind of one of those things to where we just let let our guard down, or it was too much thinking about other results, and so it's it's it's a really difficult
place to be. I think you can even look at you know, even Rob's Rob's inner right, if you watched his last interview, I think pregame of maybe yesterday. You know. I think it's a very tough situation to be in. You know, you you have to focus on what's in front of you, but at the same time, you're not
too confident, you know. I think you can kind of hear that within their voices whenever they give the interviews of you know, it's it's you can only control what's in front of you and hopefully you can get a good result. I would say, in the back of my mind, the only thing I would have is just to get a good result, to leave a last impression, to finish off on a good note.
Yep.
And if for some odd reason something miraculously happens, then it's happened. I don't know if it's deservingly, but it's happened, right, And so I think that's that. That's probably that's probably my main focus, just to finish off on a good note. I wouldn't even I wouldn't even think about qualifying or getting into the playoffs, just just finish.
On a good note, because there's other things at play, like your job future, whether it's in the town that you're in currently or somebody else that might be looking at you.
Seven. There's a lot of guys having second thoughts about where they're going to be in a couple of weeks right now. So yeah, you got it. You gotta you gotta perform for who's watching you right now, or you got to perform for somebody who's watching that last game you.
Got Yeah, all right, So what's going on with beyond goals? Mentoring my friend? Other than you? Other than you moving boxes for recycle?
Same old, same old man, same old, same old, working hard, getting into that cold weather business. So high school is right around the corner. So I'm sure we'll be making some really cool connections here in a couple of months and just continuing to build a game.
Love it, go sneeze, Be good, my friend. We'll see you soon.
It's good, always good to connect it.
Take care all right, all right, you too, Greg Garza