Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - What Makes a Great Coach? | Hall of Fame Softball Coach, Sue Enquist

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Sue Enquist, UCLA Softball’s first All-American, National Champion, and Hall of Famer.In 2006, Sue concluded her storied 27-year career as head coach of the UCLA Bruins with a 887-175-1 (.835) record, making her the winningest softball coach among all active coaches.She is the only person in NCAA Softball history to win a championship as a head coach and a player.During her career, Sue produced 65 All-Americans and 15 Olympians.She has been inducted into six Hall of Fames including UCLA, Women’s Sport Foundation, USA Softball Hall of Fame, and National Fastpitch Coaches Association..Sue is also the recipient of multiple National Coach of the Year and Pac-10 Coach of the Year honors.This conversation is all about coaching – in any setting.Sue shares her insights on how to connect, inspire, and get the most out of those around you._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Most people that are overthinkers have done the work already. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais by trade and training, a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. And the whole idea behind this conversation, behind these podcasts, is to learn from people who have dedicated their life efforts towards understanding the nuances of their craft. And the crafts that we get to explore are as wide-ranging as the imagination for humans are. And so the idea is not to necessarily be deeply attuned to the craft that the person on the interview is about, but to understand,

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and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay, this week's conversation is with Sue Enquist, UCLA's softball first all-American national champion and Hall of Famer. In 2006, Sue concluded her storied 27-year career as a head coach of UCLA Bruins. And her record is outrageous. It's 887 wins, 175 losses, and one tie. And that's a 0.835 percentage winning record. And that makes

her the winningest softball coach among all active coaches. And she's the only person in NCAA softball history to win a championship as a head coach and a player. And then during her career, she supported 65 All-Americans and 15 Olympians. So to say the least, she understands the process of becoming and exploring potential. And she also knows the language of high performance. She knows the smells of it, the way it sounds, the nuances of it. And in this conversation, we dive into not only that stuff, but we dive into like, how, how do you create an environment, a condition that allows people to flourish and supports them and challenges them to do just that. And we also get into obviously the mental skills that she was working on building.

And this conversation is about coaching in any setting, independent of softball, sport, whatever. It does not matter. And Sue shares her insights on how to connect, how to inspire others, how to get the most of others around you. And this isn't a pushing mechanism. This is about creating incredible standards with high regard for the human, the person that you're working with. And so I love these conversations. I love them because I think about the good that you will do with them and the good that the people that you work with, what they'll feel about themselves and what they're capable of. And I just think about the ripple effect across the planet that we get

to have as a community. It's a pebble in the pond where you are the pebble and those outer circles that you get to affect so many people through that. And one last thing, if you love this podcast, you can definitely do two things to help us out. One is to tell, I don't know, two friends, four friends, whatever it is, but tell at least two friends about Finding Mastery. Show them where to listen, show them how to subscribe, and then even maybe nudge them to make a comment on the feedback on iTunes or whatever.

But definitely show them how to listen and how to subscribe. And the other way is to support our sponsors. And you can find all the info and discounts that we've curated for you. They're all available at findingmastery.net forward slash partners. And we feel really good about that resource. If you have any trouble remembering any of the info provided during the episodes, you just punch over to findingmastery.net forward slash partners, and all the links are there for you. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Sue Enquist. Coach, Coach Sue, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Okay. So this is a treat because much of our staff is from USC. One of our business partners is a legend at USC.

And we get to understand the insights from one of the most modern success programs at UCLA from you. And I'm super excited to do this. And we also have Troll Subban in the house. What's up, Troll? Good morning. Yeah. So this is going to be fun. All right. So before we get into your storied history of success at UCLA for softball, let's start quickly. Like, where'd you grow up? What was it like? What was the context? Brothers and sisters, what was family life like? Just to give some structure to where we're about to go. I lived a charmed life growing up in a small, sleepy surf town of San Clemente. I'm the daughter of a military father and a mother who was a nurse. So I had this amazing balance of discipline and love and empathy.

And I'm the youngest of three. I have a four-year-old sister. She's four years older than I am. So she was always like a second mother. And a brother that's 11 months older than me that taught me everything about competing. And so I had this amazing upbringing because I'm a beneficiary of Title IX. And I was raised in a time when it wasn't popular to be a female athlete, but I lived in this community where gender was not a factor.

And so when I was growing up and meeting other people from other areas and heard their stories around discrimination and all those kinds of things, I never really experienced that. I did have a tipping point opportunity when Title IX became formalized in this country. It affected me directly because it gave an opportunity for girls to play in boys' sports. And so I elected to play girls'ball and boys baseball in high school at the same time. And that was a tipping point for me and gave me exposure. I never planned on going to UCLA. So, okay. So that, okay. Let's go, let's use that as a moment, meaning that you've got an option or maybe you didn't have an option and you shoehorned your way in there. You know, like

what, what age are we talking about? What grade? Regarding the opportunity to play both. Yeah. Well, I was in high school, so I was a junior. Junior. Okay. So before that, were you the talent on the block in the neighborhood? Were you the talent in Southern California? Or was it just talent in your family? Or were you just not very good, scrappy, competitive, having a good time? How would you characterize before you kind of captured this moment of playing two sports? The awareness was really around, I knew I was athletic. I knew I could keep up and was raised to be competitive because I just hung out with my brother. I knew that I, when I got to high school, I knew that

I was, um, athletic because of the ability to play a lot of different sports, because this was back when the seasons were all very short. So you could play a lot of sports in one season. Was your identity around being an athlete, being a mover? What was your identity around? Cause it's too, it's not fair to ask at that age, what was your identity? But that's what our job is at that age to try to sort out, like, am I punk rock? Am I rock and roll? Am I country or R&B? Like, who am I? I, I think for me, when I look back, I was an inquest. I identified with being an inquest. I wanted to be Bill's younger sister. I'm the girl that has a dad that was in World War II. My mom's a nurse. She can fix anybody.

I never identified myself as the athlete. I never, I knew who to hang out with. I knew who I was interested in hanging out with, but I never winning and losing wasn't my identity or putting the uniform on wasn't my identity. If you speak in those terms, I could go down that road in surfing. I completely identified with that community, that spirit, completely. So I had these two conflicting- You and me both. Yeah. That was my first sport growing up as well. I shouldn't say my first sport.

It was the sport that I connected and resonated most deeply with. And so you, but would you call yourself a surfer or were you an inquest who happened to surf? I'm an inquest that happens to surf. Yeah. That loves surfing even. Yeah. Okay. I had a hard time growing up. I think you and I are going to have a similarity here. I had a hard time growing up. People would say like, they call me a surfer as I, I would, my hair would stand up because it felt confining because there was yes. And fill in the blank and fill in the blank and fill in the blank. And I don't think I really identified with being my family name is a Gervais. I didn't really feel like, no, I'm part of the Gervais clan, but I just knew there was more, but the Enquist family was important for you being a member in that family. And can you tell me about what was the, what was the mission? How did you fit into

the purpose of that community, the family? My, my parents had such, my mom's influence was so collaborative and she had so much joy that my desire was to make her proud and to do the things that will make her peaceful and not worry about me. From my dad's perspective, it was to be my best and to not be distracted by the bad things in town. And imagine how this was a challenge for my father because I was a surfer. So they're doing the drugs too. So my mom had this great spirit about her and just said, Susie, you can go and serve. You can do all those things you want to do. I'm just going to ask you to make one commitment to me. And I was very young.

I'm going to ask you to make one commitment to me is don't do the drugs. And I said, I'm in. I commit to you. I will never do drugs. Wow. Look at that. And to this day, I've lived that. Yeah. Is mom still alive? No, she got called up. Like. Called up. Is that what you called it? Yeah. That's what we say. She got called up. Oh, that is funny.

She's in the best seat of the house right now. Oh my goodness. How long ago? Three years. Oh, is it still something you're sorting through or do you feel like you've got some arms around it? No, I feel good about it, but it comes in waves where there'll be times where you're like, oh, I can totally feel her. Like I can feel her right there or she'll be my conscience when I want to just be a complete, you know, idiot doing something. Okay. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're going to say you're an idiot.

Like you've got this esteemed reputation and, and, and, and even, even you find yourself like being a nincompoop. Oh, it goes beyond that. I think at the end of the day, you know, my father always was about a body of work, a pattern, you know, good habits that hold hands, create these patterns that you can live by. But when it came to coaching, I learned very quickly that who I was as a person and as an athlete and now becoming someone that is going to espouse a leadership philosophy, I learned very quickly that that wasn't going to come naturally. And Papa Wooden taught me this. Papa Wooden? Yeah. Coach Wooden was a mentor. Is that what you call him? Papa Whitten. Yeah. Because he was my guy. Wow. But I learned, I had a turning point in my career where you talk about being an income goes beyond that, that I exercised super bad judgment.

It's actually a pretty long story, but it involves getting caught looking at the shirts in the other dugout, not having my pitcher warmed up, losing a game, getting a consolation trophy, throwing it in the trash can, getting caught prior to social media. It hits the wires. And so now the idiot head coach at UCLA has thrown away a trophy and it hit the wires throughout the country. And it was a turning point in my career for sure. Okay. So what was the crisis for you? Because you were about that point, it sounds like you were about other focused and winning, right? You're over-focused on them and all you really wanted was the main trophy. Yeah, it was really when I became this, I went to school at UCLA, played there,

was an assistant coach, a co-head coach and head coach. And when I had taken over as the head coach, when you win, it takes an incredible amount of awareness and discipline to remain curious. So when you lose your discipline, you're winning, you're winning. I'm a good coach. We're winning. I'm a bad coach. We're winning, but we're winning. And you lose the discipline to stay curious about how you can build the gap between where you are and what the ultimate team could look like.

If you remain curious on closing that gap, you end up continuing to build this excellence. And at that point in my career, I, I was absorbing it. And if you're a really good leader, you never really absorb it. You're more of an orchestrator. And at that point in my career, I was absorbing it. I was just a glutton for our winning. And when we got that consolation trophy, I'm like, toss it in the trash can. And coaching is like being in the police force, both on good and bad ways, that there's kind of like a code. You don't expose your other coaches, but it was actually a fellow opponent coach that actually turned me in. And it went viral.

It hit the newspapers. So that became part of who Sue Enquist is, is that you have this body of great work, but you had a moment that you can't unring the bell. Like if there's like potency per moment or potency per minute and depth and weight per minute, like you just hit a bunch of them. And so I'm not sure exactly where to take this, but I hear, let me go try to go in reverse order and then see what thread you want to pull on. You had a moment of crisis, identity crisis, a moment of pain, public almost embarrassment, like, ooh, that's unbecoming. I don't like how this story, I can't believe I did that. This is, I'm using my words, right?

Like, I'm imagining your thoughtfulness was going, this is, what am I doing? And then rewind it back a bit. It's that you became absorbed, the glutton for almost the glory and the celebration of the win as opposed to the gap, right? And you said to stay in that gap between who I am and who we are matched up against the vision of what I believe or we believe we could be. Yeah. The excellence, what we call the excellence of the game. The excellence of the game. Okay. And does that change per team? Absolutely. Okay. And then, so you wanted to stay curious. No, you're saying there's a discipline

to stay curious about how to close that gap. Yes. Okay. And so what gets in the way of that, let me just see if I can decode this a little bit. What gets in the way of it? What got in the way for you was, um, ego was, um, thinking that, well, let me stop there. I don't know. What were the main things that got in the way? And then I want to double click on how you stay curious and how you create the vision and how you work that gap. That the, it is ego. It's about the, we've got all the answers. We're, you know, and I always, when I coached it, we were so collaborative, my coaching staff and our team, it was a glutton of no one has what we have. We're just so on a different level, which is so ego. That's so, instead of being servants to the excellence of the game, if we can remain servants, it takes you to a whole

nother level. But there I was in that moment, not consciously, but when you go back, you're like, oh my goodness, come on. And what was so powerful about that experience. And, you know, if the listeners are like, I mean, how bad could it be? I mean, you just Google Enquist trophy and trash and have a day with it. Right. And this is a time where, you know, softball's trying to get, we're trying to get exposure. We're trying to get on the front page. It's not like it is now. I mean, this was back in 2000 and we're trying to get media exposure. Great.

Well, you got it. I got it. Yeah. And then it carries with you, right? Because when you have a football like that as a coach in sports, the fandom is unrelenting. So the next weekend we go and you know, the frat boys, they're always there. And you know, the frat boys, they're there and they're, they're always pretty well hydrated, if you know what I mean. And now every park I go to, there they are holding the

trash cans. It's like they all met and said, okay, when UCLA softball comes to the, our facilities, let's all get our trash. So they. So there they are holding the trash cans. And yet it was like my penance. That's what I took it as. That's my penance. That's my little reminder that you got off course. You got self-absorbed. You lost your curiosity. You lost your discipline. You weren't keeping an eye on the gap of what we need to be. You were sitting in it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's felixgray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. What was the driving principle or philosophy when, when you threw away the trophy, what did that scratch or itch or what was that? I don't, I don't want to be near that. Second place. Consolation.

Consolation. Doesn't anything beyond. Was coach Wooden in your life at that time? Not, not as much as he was after that. Okay. So does he reach out to you? No, no, no, no, no, no. I was always reaching out. You were reaching out to him, right? And you said, okay, I need help. No, it wasn't really like that because it wasn't, and this sounds cocky even, it wasn't like I need help.

I just literally took my eyes off the prize. The big prize. What's the big prize? That the prize is to be constantly striving to close the gap of excellence. Because I believe the game is perfect. The game is perfect. It doesn't matter if your game is sales or your game is softball that is perfect it's going to present certain things at certain times every single year of

your life and it's perfect and your job and your passion and um your calling if you are a professional, is to create clarity for those that are following you around how to close that gap. Because we never do get to perfection. And you're saying that's the path of excellence. That's the commitment to excellence. Yeah. So it wasn't like I was lost. It was like, oh, you went off the, you went off the rail. You got drunk on it.

Yeah. Just literally. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, and this, this storyline sprung from me wanting to understand what was it like when you were making that leap into playing boys baseball and girls softball. Right.

And so you call it in high school, we call it girls and boys. We don't call it men and women's right. Right. At that point. Yeah. Girls softball and boys baseball. And in college, is it men's and women? Is it women's it's women's softball and men's baseball, men's baseball. Right. So that's, that's the change. Okay. So go back to that moment where you had a choice to go play boys baseball. Yeah. There was an, there was an announcement at school that, and remember there's no social media, that girls now have an opportunity to play either men's or women's. It's an equal opportunity. And all I remember is talking to my best friend, Debbie Reynolds, because I said, let's do this. Because I felt really safe if I could do it with somebody else.

Because now there's a celebration around women in sports, women that are strong. Back then, not so much. And I didn't realize that until this tipping point of going out for boys' baseball. Even though I grew up with all those guys, we did everything to death. We went to the beach together. We went junior lifeguards together.

You throw the ball around. I played, you know, I've got a great story around why I fell in love with diamond sports was through my brother's little league coach. But let me stay focused on this opportunity to, to take advantage of title nine. So I met with Debbie. I can picture what she had on. Like it was so specific. I said, Debbie, we got to do this. We're going to do it together. I knew that she was good enough to make it. I mean, she was really, she was a better athlete than I was. And I thought this was going to be great. And she opted out. Long story short, she opted out. And I remember talking to my

brother and my brother was kind of big man on campus. He played football. I played baseball and he was super, my brother's more wired like my father. My father's an engineer. And, um, my brother is more like my father, um, brain smart, book smart man of not a lot of words, very matter of fact. And my brother was like, yeah, you should do it. And I'm like, am I good enough? And he's like, of course you're good enough. And that's all I needed from my brother because everything he said was gospel. And that gave me the confidence. And, um, but I didn't know the firestorm that was going to happen in the media. Um, I had my inner circle of friends at the school, all great. The controversy was with the opponents and traveling and being a girl on a boy's team. Cause I started, I played left field.

I batted number two and led the team and getting beamed. I didn't care because I got on base. Right. I mean, it was, it was a crazy time, right? It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life because JV baseball, I tried out for varsity. I didn't make varsity and made JV, but JV and varsity practiced together. So I got to practice every day with my brother, who was the starting catcher for the varsity team. Okay. During that time, looking back now, and if there's folks that are struggling with, do I take the step in my life that feels like I have the capabilities, but I'm not sure I have the permission, either the internal permission, the family permission,

the narrative of the country's position, whatever, right? The community, if they don't feel like they have the permission or they're a bit afraid to take that step. And they're not quite sure. No one knows if they have the capabilities to do the thing that they're called for. But if there's, in my experience, it's like, I think I got, I think I can figure this out. That's the kind of folk that I like to be around. And that's the state I like to be in, like excited by this vision or opportunity and go, God, can I, I think I could. And then backfill some of the skills necessary to do it. What would you want to install or gift or baton to somebody who wants to take that step, but is not quite sure that they have it?

I would tell that person to place a higher value on your curiosity and not your talent. That if you have a curiosity around leaping, that is enough juice to get you to that next step. And whether you win or- But I'm afraid. I'm afraid if I take the step- Yeah, be afraid. I'm going to look bad. I'm going to like maybe risk a lot of money.

I might get pushed out of an industry that I love. You know, like I'm afraid it's not going to work out right now. Yeah, and you can respect your fear, but I'm saying give curiosity more of a value to push yourself to this place because in general, our internal voice doesn't give ourselves enough credit. And keep going on this. And, and if, if people in general, it doesn't matter if you're the smartest person in the room or the best athlete in the room, if we did a better job of understanding how we can control our strong and our weak voice internally, we can end up doing more, enjoying more. But most importantly, stop putting so much value on

taking the step based on whether I'm going to be successful. Take the step because you're curious and you've done the work. Most people that are overthinkers have done the work already. High performers are overthinker. To be honest with you, that's where most of my experience is, is dealing with high performers. And so I feel very confident speaking about them overall. Cause I, I've only did one thing. I, I, you know, don't, don't ask me about a job interview. I've never had a job interview. You know, I went to school and never left. It's just coached there for 27 years and became an administrator. And so one thing I know about high performers is they have a heightened sense of all the things they're not because that's also

drives them to be very, very good. Okay. This brilliant. I don't think I've heard somebody talk about strong voice and weak voice. Is that how you said it? Oh yeah. Cause that's what it is. Yeah. Beautifully said. So simple and clear, but I want to, I want to try to tie something together. Two things. One is, I don't know if you know the science around curiosity, but it is actually an inoculation to anxiety. It's an inoculation to overthinking. And it, um, when you are curious about what could be, you've got to fill in a little tonal note, which is what could be amazing to kind of follow that. Right. There's another tonal note that's a heavier dissonance, which is what could be curious about what could be wrong or disastrous.

That's anxiety. Right. So there's a little tonal note to go the direction you're talking about. All that being said is that when you're helping people get through that phase, you're saying be curious, stay in the process about it, be aware of your inner dialogue. And I'm not sure that people recognize the talent that's already there because of the weak narrative, the weak self-talk. you, you put that up against high performers are, let's call it a bit OCD, a bit anxious, a bit perfectionistic, a bit, bit, bit narcissistic, right? There's an unsettled, scratchy, neurotic, again, note, maybe not spilling over where they're incredibly unhealthy because the environment that they're in a high performing environment, it facil, it's facilitative. Yep.

Like it works for those environments. Okay. Put a pin in that for a minute. Cause I think there's lots we can talk about there, but you're saying that they're aware of what they're not. Yes. And then you're also saying early in our conversation, you're saying that I want to hold pure what I'm not perfection, excellence, the thing that we could become. So it's the very thing that actually is creating the suffering that also is creating that drive to close the gap. And if you indulge in me one more level, if I go one more under this, is that here's what I get confused. And I get confused about my, like the deep humanistic, um, purpose-driven approach to

life that my job and your job is to be here and to be here eloquently as best we possibly can. And to, um, fit in this moment as large as we possibly can. And there's a very, there's very much a spiritual tone to that. Like I don't need to be anything other than here. And then on this high performance train, treadmill, passion, life effort that I'm on, I'm, I'm straining and striving towards this vision that I have. And it's compelling, but it means that I've got to change dramatically in some ways and small ways and other facets of it. So I get, I get confused here a little bit and I wonder if you could

just coach me up on it. I don't know if I can coach you up, but I can share with you how I try to simplify that. Good. Thank you. I think that's what my greatest talent was when I was coaching, was actually simplifying. Brilliant. Because when you can simplify something, it brings great clarity and a high performer gets calm when something feels really clear. And so I'm going to try to simplify it a little bit here on this everyday thing of

making moments matter. And then on the other side, you say, I've got all these things that need to get done that I'm capable of doing. I hope that friction never goes away because you're alive. The minute you go, it's all on sync, then you're some sort of farce. So what I try to do every day is did I have some good little drips and did I close the gap on this big stuff that I'm trying to fix? I'm just like you. I, I have these moments of really filling my soul, but I have this other stuff that's still not done in retirement that I could stick a pencil in my eye. I get so competitive about it. So as proud as I am. Your whole face just changed. Yeah. That's that dark side. I'm a dark side. Like I have a dark side that if I tip over,

I could grab all these tripods and slam them through that window. How often do you lose that rage? I think it's only happened like less than a handful of times. What do you do to manage that thin space between uber competitive, ambitious, nearly frustrated state because it's not lining up the way that you hoped it would. And that other space, which is like, like emotional spilling over. I go to the next step. Now the window's broken and you're an inquest. And you're an inquest back to the family. You're an inquest. An inquest would never do that. What is your purpose in life? I think it's to, I love that you, as I love that you pause here because I'm listening to the thoughtfulness of your words and you are precise

and you are lasered in on finding just the right word to articulate what's inside. And people struggle with purpose. And maybe it was clear for you when you're coaching, but now on the other side of it. My purpose when I was coaching, when I reached a point where I felt the greatest amount of clarity, which would be probably the last 10 years, was to convince people they have it all to reach their best self. I'm going to just really hard to convince you, you already have everything you need to be great here. You are at the end of your career. You're 18.

You're at the end of your career. So we at UCLA, I flipped the script. So the mystery, we took it, not you're going to the next level. It's UCLA. We're a perennial champion. I took it the other way. I said, you worked your whole career to get here. We're going to work really hard having a blast.

Because this is what you got to remember. We built this program to the point where the pressure they could put on themselves knowing no athlete ever left without a championship ring so there's a very small margin for error so that was my purpose was to convince them they already possess everything they need to reach their best self okay i say this you and i are lockstep on this philosophical approach i will say if anyone like that knows me well would say, oh yeah, I recognize that, which is you, everything you need is already inside you. Right. Okay. Now this, but I'm okay. Now here's that agitation for me.

The internal agitation is that, but I need to grow. I need to acquire new skills. I don't need a trophy, but I need to grow. Right. And the growth is for what aim to win more? No, the growth is to play more, to have more moments of awe, to express and to be, have a wider range of expressive tones, emotionally, physically, whatever. I don't want to have a muted experience, like somewhere between, you know, three emotions. I want to have 300. But you don't exactly, but everything emanates from inside. And then I create the conditions because I also brought 17 teammates here that are also with you in this whole journey. Let's talk about the conditions because I also brought 17 teammates here that are also with you in this whole journey. Let's talk about the conditions because they're not easy.

You're not creating, I hope, you're not creating. No, it's not easy. It's not easy, right? No. Okay, so you're creating conditions for people to realize or to express what they're capable of expressing. Both. Both. Okay.

We're doing both. I love this. By the way, I don't know if you, do you know Coach Carroll for the Seahawks? I've heard of him. Yeah. Oh yeah, UCLA, USC. Look at the Trojan fans.

Yeah, I know. Boo! Boo! Okay, so he approaches the Seahawks in a very similar way which is let's have a great time like listen you've worked your ass off to your point you to be here and it's really hard to to explore your best to be your best to figure that whole thing out let's have a great time doing it and so you guys have a similar note there you probably don't want to figure that whole thing out, let's have a great time doing it. And so you guys have a similar note there. You probably don't want to know that, but. No, I, I, I know a lot about him and have a tremendous amount of respect for him. I've never been one that's really gets caught up

in, uh, the colors, right. In general. Um, I want to share with you the standards that we would carry every day. If those innately didn't work for you. Whoa. Oh, interesting. I love the word standards. Okay. And it scares people. And I got to be careful when I talk about them. I want to know your standards. And when you talk about them, how do you not scare people? I want to know who I'm going to scare. I don't want to sugarcoat anything because I need to know who could be scared because I want them to know they can be scared here. Very cool. I want them to know this is the safest two hours of their day.

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they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Okay, let's go standards and conditions. There are athletes that will say I struggled with coach Enquist because I just felt like I didn't get to breathe for four years.

Oh, you're intense. Right. But then you talk to the other ones. They'll say it was a snap. Just own your mistakes, hustle and stay positive and you own her. So are those standards? Yep. Own your mistake. This is a coach. Wouldn't no whining, no complaining, no excuses, right? Yep.

Okay. On your mistakes, effort, coach and attitude. Those three. How did you put them? You said on your mistakes, hustle and what we would say is I need a hundred percent effort every day. I need a positive attitude need 100% effort every day. I need a positive attitude on your best and worst day. And you need to master failure recovery.

Failure what? Failure recovery. You're going to master that. Wait, what is it? Fail to recovery? Failure recovery. You're going to master that. Failure recovery.

Oh, failure recovery. Oh, I got it. Okay, you're going to master that. Failure recovery. Oh, failure recovery. Oh, I got it. Okay. You're going to master getting over the moment. You are not going to sit in your junk in this program. And athletes that struggled with any one of those where they have 100% control in those three areas. Yeah. So that locus of control.

Zero tolerance. Zero tolerance. Zero. Zero. Okay. I can't wait to get into the art of how you do this. All three of those, as you would easily recognize, are psychological. Yes. So when you're coaching X's and O's in strategy and physical whatever, are you more interested in the psychology or is it all kind of fit together?

Oh, they're gears because my background's in kinesiology. So I love the science of movement. I love this. Our game is very, there's lots of technology around hitting. So my poor team, because I'm innovative.

I have an innovative spirit. I always wanted to be on the edge of all the technology. So I was helping companies all the time, try to push things and I'd use the kids, right? I'm like, Oh coach, no, not another tool. But for me, the student athlete that came in and you can imagine you've got 18 number one kids. So I'm a number one kid on my team coming to now a team of 17 other number one kids. And how you stir that up with women is a daily challenge and an attention to detail and a zero tolerance because the wheels can come off the cart. If you just start to give a little bit on one kid, oh, they're having a tough day,

or she just failed her history exam. And so kids that struggled with it, it's because I had a zero tolerance. Okay. So let's say, um, line drive coming through ball skips and it bounces off their glove and they've got a bad frame, right? Like it's kind of over the shoulder type of thing. And they're not, they're not in front of the ball. Okay. Basic kind of mistake. And what do you do at that moment? Do you, do you, do you, we had a full, we had a full system around failure recovery. So it's a station. So they got to practice it Monday through Friday. So on game day, it's just execute what we worked on Monday through Friday. My bad, two outs, look at a teammate, point your glove. Okay. My bad. So you own it. I'm owning it. I'm letting the team know I'm in the moment. I'm owning it. I get to,

ooh, poor me. Yeah. Okay. I give the outs. I'm back the team know I'm in the moment. I'm owning it. I get to, ooh, poor me. Yeah. Okay. I give the outs. I'm back. I've already. What's the, what's the outs? Give the outs.

It's two outs. Oh, so you go back to, you go to like situational awareness. We've got two outs. Yep. So my head is now focused. It's out of the internal into the external. Yep. Okay.

And then I go ahead and point to my lateral teammate. And do what? I got you. I'm here. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. Okay. And let's say they go through the motions.

I did women's volleyball indoor for four years, the Olympic team. And one of the narratives that we spun around was, by the way, it was a great experience. Karch Karai. Holy moly. San Clemente. Come on. What's up, Karch? And so I- It's a Bruin. Yeah's up, Karch? You know, and so I.

It's a Bruin. Yeah. Oh, I know. I mean, legendary. And I learned so much from Karch in those four years. Yeah, he's amazing. So much from the women that were, you know, world-class. And, but there was a narrative that we had, which is, so after a play, after something

goes well, it's a natural huddle, right? So you imagine the women on the side huddling. Yeah. And they're like slapping each other. Like, yeah. Okay, cool. And then after a miss ball, a mistake, something that maybe two mistakes in a row, they still want to come together and huddle and hug and be in it. And there was a narrative like, is that okay? Like, let's call it, let's be ridiculous. Three mistakes in a row. We're still, are we still hugging? Because there's a falseness to this. Like it ain't okay. Like this might cost us fill in the blank. And this is not our best self. But then the alternative is not hugging, not coming together, which feels icy. Well, I think what you have to do if you're a leader is

every team has their way. That's air quotes, has their way. So I'm not here to say what model works and doesn't got this model where my bad and you feel it and then you check external, you get the score and then you check in with your teammates and then you go back to yourself and you're like, oh, screwed up, man. This is a mistake. Like I'm off. And so you go back internal. Well, of course, there are athletes that do that. And so what you're trying to do is create a behavior that helps them slip the chain back on the correct positive gear,

right? Like, let me get that chain back up on that higher gear. And so we know for a fact, and I've always believed this and I've evidence to prove it, that the impact visually, when it appears someone is attempting to go through their failure recovery, even when inside the teammate may think, oh, I know she's still struggling with it. There's a unity that's happening that we're putting the game first. At UCLA, we always talked about, I was just always said, I'm a messenger of excellence. I'm a messenger of excellence. I'm not even saying I'm the answer. I'm a messenger of excellence. I'm a messenger of excellence. I'm not even saying I'm the answer.

I'm a messenger of what the game, the perfect game is asking. The game is asking every player to stay in the current moment. That's the next moment after the failure. The game doesn't say sit in that failure. The game is saying you must be ready for the next pitch. That's what the game is asking. And so for us, everything was always about the game. I know you did this and you didn't get a hit.

I would simply say you put your investments into the game though. Wait, say that again. You put your investments? Into the game. So a lot of times they're going to do things and they're like, hey, it didn't work. Hey, you said if we have great failure recovery, very few teams are going to be able to beat us. We just got beat. Yep, we put one in.

We did it right, and we put investments in for the game. And I promise you it'll pay us back in the end. Because at the end of the day, what I found, I've never heard a kid say, oh, I couldn't stand Coach Enkler. She believed in us too much. You did believe in them. Oh, I believed in them so much. Yeah, this is— To a fault. Like I just,

the days we didn't come back in the bottom of the seventh, I sat in the dugout. Like, I can't believe we didn't do it. Like I just believed in them so much. And my job was to catch them doing it right every day. What I got from my brother was things that are black and white. Like my brother was just black and white on stuff. He wasn't like, hey, I think you can make it. Right? So I know I got that from my brother. The second thing I got from my brother was loyalty.

Loyalty. My brother had my back on my best days and worst days when I was playing baseball. Like he claimed me when I was 0 for 12. He claimed me. Like I'm picking you. I learned that from my brother. That idea of being loyal. I always say be loyal to their potential. As a head coach, be loyal to their potential. Like be the one every day that says, I saw you do it on Tuesday. I saw you do it on Thursday. I know you can do it in the bottom of the seventh. I know you can. I saw you do it on Tuesday and Thursday. That's I love it because that that skill and art. Here's the art of being able to imagine what's possible for somebody. But the

skill is to be so present that you catch it. Yep. Right. Yep. And so you've got to use your imagination a bit. But as a coach, it's required, the game requires you to also be present, to learn, to see, to observe, to be able to share and convey back to somebody what you've seen in them. If you create the right conditions as a leader with your group, and we know team sports, anybody, any coach that says, oh, all the kids are the same. All the kids are equal. They're not. I was going to ask you that. Like you're treating them equally or equally different. I'm treating everybody fairly is what I like to say, but I fell off track with that too. And if you create the conditions where everyone feels valued, when you fall off the track and you're not taking care

of the specialists. I call them specialists. Those are the people that don't start. So at UCLA, I used to always say, I have starters, I have rotators, I have specialists. So rotators, I'm the backup shortstop. I'm still rotating in, or I'm a specialist. I'm here just to hit. I'm here just to pinch run. I'm here just to do the stats. If I'm doing a good job every day, they feel valued that they have a voice. And I, one of my favorite stories, once again, what I didn't do is I started getting sloppy on the specialists when I did my practice plan. And so I had two specialists want to sit, sit down and have a conversation. I'm like, sure. I had no idea what they wanted to talk about. And Amanda Simpson and Julie Hoshizaki sat down and said, we believe you are completely focused on this practice minute by minute every single day,

except when it comes to the specialists. And we feel like you're mailing it in. Mike, I'm telling you, it was a stopping moment. And earlier in my career, I probably would have said, shut up, get out of here and mind your own business and be happy that you're even in here on this team. But it was at a point in my career where I realized I'm just the facilitator. I just need to ask them how to create the conditions. And so I simply said to them, you guys know what you need better than I do. I want you to every single day to work up the pinch running segment for practice. And they're like, we're in. And so Julie and Amanda, that was their deal to participate in the development of our practice. And I think that's the key today. Kids need to know their voice matters and give them an opportunity to be heard.

Let's do that. Let's pull on that thread a little bit where you uniquely seen generations of young kids come through. Gen this, gen that, millennials, you've seen it. Okay. So what insights do you have for the millennials? Like coaching the millennials, not for them, but those that are hiring them, putting them positions of leader that are potentially working for them? There's, there's a few key things that I think all, if you're over 45, we're all going to have to own that. We're capable of doing this. We're going to ask everybody that's hitting middle age. We're espousing that great talent is flexible. We've got to walk the walk. So we're going to have to change it a little bit. And, and this is all those kids want. They want to be heard. Now I know many of my colleagues are like, I never got to be heard. And so you're

going to go nowhere fast with that attitude. Like, please, let's not talk about when you played. Like that's like to all my friends that are 45 years old and older, please stop saying when I was your age, just, you're going to become so irrelevant so fast. Simply create the conditions every single week with your team to say, how can I make this environment better for you? Here are your index cards. I call it a JOT. A JOT is an acronym. Just one thing. Just give me a JOT once a week. Just one thing. And then what I'm going to do is each day, I'm going to try to implement that, whatever I'm doing. If I'm in sales, if I'm in marketing, if I'm in athletics, I'm going to do a jot once a week to prove to my young employees,

my young players, that I'm working with you to try to create the conditions for you to enjoy this experience. What do you do when you don't? Okay. So that's getting, using their voice, getting their voice in so that you can appropriately apply the insights that they have, but also valuing the human. Wait, but there's a little bit of a negotiation. Okay. So if I'm going to let you have a voice.

Ah, here we go. Okay. I want you to know there's something in return that I need from you that is timeless around. And that's when you get to espouse what your traditional standards are. So for me, it would be, I need, like, I'm going to go softball mode. Yeah. I need you to understand the traditional importance for me of how you prepare to prepare. And that involves how you dress, how you hustle, how you fail recover, and how you have a positive attitude with your teammates.

I need those things in return that may not resonate with you, but they're extremely important to excellence in the game. So clear. Like you said, you make it clear. It's really clear. When, when you, let's say, let's go back to a pitcher for just a moment. Um, linchpin position, right? On a team. What, what happens when your pitcher, good person, hard worker, but doesn't really have it, doesn't have the talent. You made a mistake or they're put there by default. I don't know, something's not quite right. And let's say you're a third way through the season and there is no backup. Let me just create that scenario for whatever reason. There's always a backup, but like, let's say there isn't.

I need you to be more specific. Is it a physical issue? Is it a mental issue? Mental. Okay. Cause I wanted to, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm trying to create a scenario also for business where the, you know, that someone's not able to pull their weight? You, we recognize fairly early when we have somebody that what I call has a, has a little bit of a kink in their mental wiring. Right. Um, and, and I'm really respectful not to say break because I believe, and I have witnessed it at UCLA, that once they understand how to unkink that and how that flow is so freeing, most high performers that have a kink have a gap on their mental and what everyone uses different words, their mental toughness, their mental efficiency, their flow, their focus, whatever you want to call it. Verbiage varies. It all comes down to their inability to stay in that moment. They're actually jumping ahead.

And the standard is so high on our results at UCLA, they can't possibly ascend to that every single day. I have to win every game because we're supposed to win every game because we're UCLA. We're ranked one, two, or three in the country. That's all we knew. So what we simply did is we put so much celebration, so much focus, so much reward

around them going through the process that they needed to go through, whether it be their, their, their physical triggers, their, their pace on the mound, their, when they go through the routine, there's a, there, we know there's a pace to all of that. We put so much attention on the preparation to prepare part of their, we're talking pitching right now, that they put a new value in that. And then what happened is the focus on I have to win starts to actually get quiet. Got it. So that's how you dampen the anxiety of later. And the majority of the time we were successful, but I need you to know, I need you to know this. Not, not, not all the time. There were kids that

we literally carried through the world series. There were, there were champions that had anxiety and, and that's where you, I have so many, I'm, I'm that person. have been so much better. And if I, if I infused grace as much as I infused effort and attitude and failure recovery, I know our teams would have enjoyed it more and we would have been more successful. What does grace mean to you now? Like, and how would you apply it? Grace means unmerited acceptance. Yeah. So I'm going to ask a team of 17 individuals.

We have somebody that has a kink. And I'm going to, Michael, we have a teammate here that has a kink. And her kink is she cannot throw the ball overhand to first base. It's called the yips. And she's one of the best in the history of this program. And she cannot throw the ball overhand to first base. And I'm going to ask everybody in this infield, we're going to get her back and we're going to switch our defense. And we're going to ask everybody in this infield, we're going to get her back and we're going to switch our defense and we're going to do some things different outside of our standards. I'm going against my rules. The standards are not negotiable. And I'm asking you to give her and me grace. I wish I did that more. I think I could have solved more problems.

Would you have added the fourth dimension? Yes. Grace? Yes. Yeah. How do you finish this thought stem? Coach Wooden taught me. Coach Wooden taught me to love the game unconditionally on my best and my worst day. All the women I coach taught me. I don't have it all together. What I wish parents would understand. It's not about them.

Oh, that's cool. It's not about them. If we could create a society where, and this is where my passion lies now in retirement. I've dedicated the last 14 years in this area of youth sport. If we could create a society where parents knew that they would have to go to parents of performing children camp first, and then they drop their kid off into rec ball. But the parent has to go to parents of performing children camp. And they're going to learn that youth sport is a movie that they're supposed to go to and watch.

And so I tell parents all the time, think of it like a theater. You're going to the theater. And when you watch a movie, I hope you're not standing up in the movie theater and yelling at the movie theater. I've never heard this analogy. This is great. But can you imagine if parents, if we flipped the script and said, this is a movie and you're not in it. This is a movie. You're at the movie. You're not in the movie. Get out of the movie. Please get out because she's tired. She's anxious. She's sad. And she gets out when she's 12. Over 65% of our young girls are getting out by age 12 because their parents are overly involved. The car ride home is the scariest thing for most of these kids. My experience.

To and from. To and from. And so if you could shape it for all car rides with young performing athletes, whatever the performance is, what would you want the parents to do or not do or say or not say? Oh, I would want them to ask one question. Carl's Jr. or Starbucks. You know, like one of my favorite, um, and I love the levity in it because it's not about ball,

you know? And one of my favorite things, I've got 11 year old and one of my favorite things to say after he's doing whatever is, and I just say this, I go, God, Grayson, I just love watching you do your thing. Yeah. And, um, thanks dad. And it just goes on to talk about whatever, you know? And sometimes, you know, there's some, there'll be some questions that come up like, Hey, what'd you figure out, you know, uh, during that part of the game or whatever. And I don't want to talk about that. Okay. You know, like, you know, but oftentimes like just saying, I love watching you do your thing. I love watching you figure it out. Um, creates, so I feel like it's creating space. And, and, and, and also remember today

with today's youth, there is no escape. And then they just got to escape. And someone now wants you to break it down for them. That's not an escape. That's a nightmare. So now I don't even want to go to the game because they're going to want me to break it down after the game. It's not an escape. So we've removed the word P-L-A-Y. Because I know when I grew up, no one was asking me what I thought about the game or, you know, I was out all day playing. My mom wasn't like, oh, let's break it down. Right. It was my space. And if we gave this space back, especially to our women, our women are hurting by the lack of leadership and the over controlling parents were suffocating our young girls. And I'm going to give you some insight. I started an online community called one softball. It's

a free community for parents, players, and coaches. And we interview. O-N-E? Yes. O-N-E softball.com? Yes. And I wanted to, that's why I got out of coaching. I wanted, I got out of coaching because I was, I was more curious about helping those coming into the sport than just continuing to just be gluttonous. Like when I was at UCLA, I just received gifts every year. Like here's the best athletes. Here we go to the end. It's all about

UCLA. I received for 27 years and it started to weigh on me that Sue, this voice in the back of my head, Sue, it's your time to step up now and go help where no one's helping. And I was, I was completely curious about this idea. What if I grabbed all my subject matter experts that I know and put them right access to every single parent. So that's what we've done. But I first spent three years interviewing kids and parents and players to find out what their pain points were. Cause I needed to know. I didn't know I was at UCLA. What'd you find out? This is awesome. I found out that the parents are completely disorganized because no one is teaching them how to navigate rec ball to travel ball to path to college. The coach, now remember the poor coach, he's the dad that's a

banker that raised his hand and said, I'll coach volleyball. He knows nothing about volleyball or even leadership. No one is preparing him how to communicate effectively, how to deal with women, how to understand the power of your voice when you're dealing with women. And the girls, it's no longer fun. And when we got all that feedback, I was devastated. I felt guilty because I felt like we should have been helping this sooner. a tall mountain that we're climbing to help parents navigate this path to college, to help coaches understand the few basic things you need to learn. At the end of the day, if it's rec ball, you have one job, dad. For the moms and dads in rec ball, you have one job. At the end of the season, she raises her hand and she says, I want to sign up next year. That's all

you need to do, rec people. That's your job. So your job is to make it F-U-N every single day. We don't need to break down the biomechanics and the kinetic chain when she's eight. Thank you. When does that start for you? When you are you using the um long-term athletic development the canadian model or do you have a different model that you're using no i'm a huge fan of ltad i'm a huge fan of all the work that dr greg rose is doing with tpi and mobility and So because our country does not philosophically believe in mandating standardization, our country will, in 50 years, we're going to look different because we're not providing the most important group, rec ball, the proper foundation in making people understand there's a six-year developmental gap in age-based sports. So you get eight and under soccer,

that means there's an 11-year-old developmentally and a five-year-old developmentally. Dads and moms need to know that. And it's okay. It doesn't mean you're bad. It just means you do a different set of drills. There's coaches and friends and folks that are in my community that say, Mike, you don't understand now. Cause I'm very much following LTA, LTA D model. And, and they're saying, you don't understand. Like if you don't have your kid in like high competitive ball at whatever age, like 12, train's already gone. You know, good luck. And if you looked at all 25 sports, the evidence doesn't bear out. There are a few minority sports where it does because of... This is basketball. My son's not in basketball, but this is the basketball community I hear it most. Yeah. It's just, it's just not true. It's not true. And what

people need to understand, people need to spend two hours and get the accurate, objective information on a path to college and understand the percentage of people out there that are trying to get scholarships. I have to understand that 80% of the athletic scholarships are in division two and below. So parents don't understand. They're only as smart as the know-it-all within their town. That's a bad model. It's a bad model. I want you to think about this. You have these parents. They're super discerning. Monday through Friday, they spend time, Google and research on health insurance and car insurance and life insurance, and they know everything. And then on Saturday, they just turn their brain off and drop their kid off

with no discernment about what is this coach's background? What makes him authority? Why are you dropping $150 on this 1v1 training session? And yet this is your most prized possession, your child. So you're more in favor of like a coach certification, a European model of coach certification? Yeah. And I think people get nervous about certification because then you know that's going to become very litigious because then if something goes wrong- Bureaucracy involved too.

Right. But I honestly believe you want to know who I think the answer is in all of this. I think the colleges are the answer. The colleges run the summer camps. The colleges are located in every town in America almost. And if we could do a better job of our local municipalities having partnerships with the colleges to, they have all the sports to just say, it's cool insight. Yeah. It's a really cool insight because, um, your coaches for let's just use UCLA softball. They're great. They're really good. And they could teach the local mom and pops

that want to help their kids with a couple of frameworks, like a standards framework, language framework, a car ride home framework, and an overhand throwing mechanical type, you know, whatever. Exactly. The resources are there. So that's really what onesoftball.com. It's a.com. Yeah. So that's really what you're sorting out there. Yeah. And then I'm super proud of the fact that every single legacy person in our sport of softball is in onesoftball. They said, Sue, because I said, you guys, listen, I'm doing this by myself. I'm a one man show. Will you come in volunteer time? We're going to interview you. I'm going to ask all these questions based on what the parents and the

coaches and the players want to know. So we really, the foundation of it is around competitive character. It's around standards. It's around the mental part. And now we're just starting to get into the technical stuff. But what we're doing is we're trying to traffic cop people to say, hey, here are trusted sources. Because the other thing parents don't know is they don't know who to trust. They don't know what questions to ask. Did you build this like with sponsorship or on your self-funded? No, I just took my own.

I just self-funded it. I said, I'm going to do this. And I've got 1100 two minute videos in our library. No way. Yes. I'm super proud of it. And, uh, we're just dripping them out there. And, and it is this, there's a paywall. No, that was another thing. I didn't want them to have to pay for it. So what a gift to the community. I mean, unbelievable gift. I just, I think that's where my peace of mind comes from. You know, pop always says that's the ultimate, the pinnacle of coaching, anything leading anything is to have peace of mind. So we all know the better you get at what you do, the harder it is to have peace of mind. Because the more you know, the more you know.

The good news is the more you know. The bad news is the more you know. And so the peacefulness becomes a higher value. That is my greatest peace of mind is saying, this is complete. And no one is going to get between it. Like no one is going to come. I've had people come in and we want to buy you. Well, we can. And I'm like, no, I want it to be free, like old school. Like there's no, there's no agenda. So we have these videos from the greats, right? Like Patty Gasso from Oklahoma and Mike Candrea from Arizona and Joe Evans from

Texas A&M and Tim Walton from Florida and Kelly Inouye from UCLA, all these great icons that are sharing insight directly to that parent. Awesome. I can't wait to share this. I can't wait to, I'm super proud of it, you know, to amplify what you're doing there. I mean, my colleagues think I'm crazy. They're like, Sue, you're supposed to be doing margaritas. You're a beach girl. You're retired. I know I'm different.

I knew I was never going to leave the game because I knew my work wasn't done. I've loved every moment of this conversation. Awesome. I mean, really feels like, um, what a treat to share your insights and pain points and stuff that you've been figuring out and your philosophies. And, you know, before we wrap, I want to ask you, how do you define or articulate or think about the concept of mastery? That's a great question for me. It, first of all, I want to full disclosure, I am a work in progress to this day. So I think you reach a level of mastery when you look at people that look at their industry or they look at their craft, they

are humbled by the daunting task to continually work better to close that gap. I'll probably end the conversation the way we started it. They have a clear sense there's always more, but there's a peace of mind that they're doing it the best that they're capable of doing it. So they get both. They don't get to rest, but they get peace of mind. And to me, I've been there. I visited that place, but I don't live there. I'm still striving for that level of mastery every day. Let me double click. Are you more interested in mastery of craft or mastery of self? It's interesting. Right now in retirement, I'm going to say craft because I feel like there's so much work in our sport that needs to be done.

We have no standards in softball, meaning we don't have a national throw average ball exit. So a parent doesn't in football. So it has right now, my work is more around the craft of the sport. And then when it comes to me, that's will forever be my, my work. And then would there be one or two habits? This is my triple click. Is there one or two habits that you would hope people could, that have been useful to you that you would hope that they could employ to figure out and pursue and express their very best? Are there a couple habits in there that you found to be really useful? I think for me, and to those people

that don't know me and you look at my bio, I want to remind people that I'm actually very ordinary. When they cut me open, when all is done, they're going to go, wow, her brain kind of average, her neuro kind of average, her muscle girth kind of average. I'm actually very ordinary that lived an extraordinary life because I tried to pay attention to the great influences around me. So for those of you that think you're just average or ordinary, if you wake up every day, I always call it the toe test. When your toes hit the floor, if you give yourself 30 seconds and say, give yourself permission to be okay not being okay. And can I always say, can I get 1% better today? And can I drip 1% better on somebody else? That's it. That's all we got to do when your toes hit the floor.

And then from there, buckle in because we know life is crazy. But at the end of the day, when your head hits the pillow, you can say, did I get 1% better? And did I drip 1% better on somebody else? It's a good day. Do you know Virginia Satir? Sorry? Do you know Virginia Satir's poem, I Am Okay?

No. Oh, I'm going to send it to you. Okay. I mean, it's easy to look up, but describes much of what you're talking about. It's a radical. She's a psychologist, wrote this radical poem. Thank you for all of this. And where can we find you?

Where can folks that are as inspired as Joel and I are here, like, how can we follow? You can reach me on Sue Enquist, S-U-E-E-N-Q-U-I-S-T on Twitter and Facebook. And I'm not much on Instagram. I'm over there. I think it's, you know, I do very little, so I'm not going to claim it. Right. Mainly, I'm pretty much on Twitter. And I try to do a good job at answering my fans that reach out.

That's what's up. And onesoftball.com. Onesoftball.com. Yes. Awesome. Thank you. You can reach me at onesoftball too. So we have an info at softball. You can reach me there. Or Sue at onesoftball. Either way.. Awesome. Thank you. You can reach me at Onesoftball too. So we have an info at Softball.

You can reach me there. Or Sue at Onesoftball. Either way. Thank you. I'm easy to find. Thank you for having me. Congratulations on your career. Oh.

Talk about closing the gap. Yeah. You are raging. I mean, come on. Just trying to figure it out too. Exactly. Every day. Awesome.

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