Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Timely Encouragement: Empowering Young Athletes to Reach New Heights with Greg Gurenlian

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Unleash the Beast: Lacrosse legend Greg Gurenlian ignites young athletes' fire by crushing doubt and empowering them to overcome adversity on their quest for greatness. My special guest is Greg Gurenlian Greg Gurenlian is a highly accomplished lacrosse player and respected figure in the sport. With a career spanning 14 years as a professional lacrosse player, Greg has made a significant impact on the game. As the owner of the Face Off Academy, he has established himself as a leading authority in face-off training. Greg's success is evident in his achievement as the all-time leader in face-off wins in major league lacrosse. In 2011, he overcame a career-ending knee injury and turned it into an opportunity to create a groundbreaking training program focused on biomechanics. This program has garnered immense success, producing numerous top-level athletes and earning international recognition. Greg's dedication and passion for lacrosse, coupled with his ability to overcome adversity, make him an invaluable guest on The Determined Society podcast. His insights and experiences will undoubtedly inspire and motivate young athletes and their parents seeking guidance in supporting their athletic journeys. It's always the right time to say the right thing. - Greg Gurenlian In this episode, you will be able to: Discover the inspiring lacrosse journey of Greg Gurenlian and learn valuable lessons from his experiences. Uncover the secrets of the Face Off Academy training program and take your young athlete's performance to the next level. Understand the importance of developing mental toughness in young athletes and how it can positively impact their performance. Find out how timely encouragement can be a game-changer for young athletes, boosting their motivation and confidence. Learn valuable strategies for building resilience in young athletes, helping them overcome setbacks and achieve success. Master Face-offs with Training Mastering face-offs in lacrosse requires rigorous training and a deep understanding of the game. Greg Gurenlian, a well-respected face-off specialist, shared his expertise, highlighting the importance of adopting proper techniques to prevent injuries during play. According to Greg, success in face-offs stems from balancing repetitive practice with proper rest, underlining the need for strategic training to maintain athlete’s physical health. The resources mentioned in this episode are: Contact Legacy Luxury Builders: If you are thinking of moving to Florida or within the state, reach out to Legacy Luxury Builders for your big, beautiful luxury home. Contact them to unlock your true potential on the field and court with The Determined Society for athletes. They believe in building legacies and will help you achieve unparalleled success. Visit their website or contact them directly for more information. Join The Determined Society: Elevate your game to new heights by joining The Determined Society. Their expert coaches will guide you through personalized techniques to enhance concentration, resilience, and confidence. Imagine outperforming your rivals and achieving victory like never before. Email Shawn French at [e-mail] to join today. Listen to The Determined Society Podcast: Tune in to The Determined Society podcast hosted by Shawn French. In this episode, he interviews lacrosse legend Greg Gurenlian. They discuss Greg's journey, mental toughness, and determination. Don't miss out on this inspiring conversation. Check out The Face Off Academy: If you're a lacrosse player looking to improve your face-off skills, check out The Face Off Academy. They are the biggest entity when it comes to training face-off guys. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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I went to practice that day. And this was at the end of the season. We ran sprints. We were doing hills and stuff. We get done. And one of the assistant coaches, Rick Johnson comes over and he puts his arm around me, completely out of the blue, unbeknownst that I was planning on telling him I was quitting. And said, I know this has been a rough year for you, but I swear to God, if you stick to this sport,

you're going to light the world off. And I remember when he said it. I remember where I was standing. I went back in the car that day and I told my parents, I'm like, this guy really believes in me. Like, there's no way I can let this man down now, right? So at that moment, I learned the power of, yeah, will, but also the power of the fact that it's always the right time to say the right thing. So when I'm a coach now, if I see something or if I feel like a kid is struggling or I see any kind of emotion on his face that might be negative, I never resist the temptation to go over and say something to that kid because I have no idea.

if it's going to impact them in the right way or not, right? Southwest Florida is one of the most beautiful places on the planet to live. For those of you that are thinking of moving from other states to come to Florida, or even just moving to a different part of the state, I want you to think of a big, beautiful, luxury home. Contact legacy luxury builders. They are a family-owned and operated luxury residential construction company. As a family-owned business, they believe in the power of building,

not just homes, but legacies. Contact legacy luxury builders. Unlock your true potential on the field and court with our peak mental performance program for athletes. Train your mind to conquer challenges, stay focused under pressure, and achieve unparalleled success. Our expert coaches will guide you through personalized techniques, enhancing concentration, resilience, and confidence.

Picture yourself outperforming your rivals, making split-second decisions with clarity and achieving victory. never before. Join us today and elevate your game to new heights. Peak mental performance program where champions are forged in the mine. email me today, Sean.com at the Determinedsociety.com for more information. See you inside. What is up everybody? Welcome back to another show of the Determine Society podcast. I am your host and mental performance coach Sean French. And with me today, guys, I have a lacrosse legend. My buddy Greg Grinlian, as a 14-year career as a professional lacrosse player.

He's a husband, a father, still an athlete, and he is the owner of the face-off academy. Welcome my boy to the show. What's up, man? Sean, what's up, man. Pump to be on here, brother. Love what you doing. Dude, it's been a long time coming, bro.

It's been a long time coming. But we got it figured out, didn't we? Yeah, we got it. We got it figured out easy. Oh, dude. It's so funny because, like, I always, you know, find ways to connect with people on this amazing social platform. And you're one of those guys.

I can just tell how real you are and how much you care about athletes and in the sport of lacrosse. Walk us through your journey a little bit. Like, you know, because lacrosse to me, dude, growing up, like I didn't see a whole bunch of it in California. So walk the audience through your journey for those that might not know you. Sure, yeah. I mean, like a quick, just like a real quick rundown. I grew up in Philadelphia. I started playing lacrosse my freshman year of high school because I just wanted everybody in Springfield in Delaware County.

The cool kids played lacrosse. and I was a baseball guy up until I. So I started playing lacrosse my freshman year, which was probably almost eight years later than most kids. Got made fun of, got bullied about it, was really tough to get going, got my feet underneath me, worked my ass off. And then, you know, eventually out of nowhere,

right before my senior year, school started calling. And Penn State was my dream school. I grew up watching Penn State football. I could probably tell you every quarterback at Penn State from like 1988 on. And half of my dad's side of the family all went there. So when I started getting recruiting letters from Penn State, it was a rap.

I knew nothing about Penn State lacrosse. I just wanted to go to the school. And I also wanted to be a kinesiology major. And they have one of the best programs in the world. So it was a layup, went there, had a great career. I ended up getting drafted into what used to be called Major League lacrosse. And played from 2006 until 2000. 2017. And then amongst the same time at a team USA, I played from about 2012 till 2018.

Retired in 2017 for Major League Lacrosse as the league's all-time leader and face-off wins and a bunch of other stuff had, you know, got a championship, was a league MVP once. And then the premier lacrosse league, started by Paul Ravel and his brother. Paul is like a huge star in the sport of lacrosse. They decided to start their own league, and they basically swallowed up the major league lacrosse, absorbed them, and I came back out of retirement for one year to play in the PLL in 2019,

and then I hung it up. During that time, in 2011, I blew my knee out, thought it was a career-ending injury. While I was, at that point, I was a full-time strength coach. I had a company called Braulik Strength in New York City, and I decided that summer to write a program, a training program on face-offs based strictly on biomechanics. And when I came back from my injury, I had a career year.

And every kid I started teaching this system to started crushing it, going Division I, setting records, being all-Americans. So we built an entire website out of it, the faceoff academy.com. And now it were, you know, by far the biggest entity when it comes to training face-off guys worldwide. So international teams, first, second, third team, All-Americans in college.

Every year we have 30, 40, 50 guys that go and play Division I lacrosse that get recruited from our system. We have our national showcase this December every year. This will be the 11th year we've done it. We get a 250 of the best face-off guys in the country. So it's become my full-time gig. I sold my strength training business in 2014 after things really took off. So yeah, that's, that's been my, my story.

And ever since, I've just been full time in Faceoff Academy. And I also do that. You and I had met on Instagram, and I do a lot of strength conditioning stuff still now. I call it the official B-slab. And I do remote string training for specifically lacrosse players for the most part as well. That's amazing. Guys, you can't see him unless you're watching this, but like this dude looks like Brock Lesnar.

Like, he's built like that, dude. He's massive. It's funny. like one of the first post that I saw of him was him in his garage lifting and it was raining outside. I'm like, do that guy from the profile. Is that Brock Lesnar? Absolutely ginormous. And it's almost more baffling the fact that you said you got bullied in high school.

I bet you those bullies are scared of shit to kind of run into you now. Well, you know, it's funny, Sean. Like I have this nickname, Beast. And a lot of people who don't know me well, oh, this guy walks around calling himself Beast, like, you know, because he thinks, It's actually, I got that nickname when I was a freshman in high school, playing lacrosse, and I was terrible. I couldn't catch and throw, but it was the first sport. I was never allowed to play football. So it was the first team sport that I was allowed to hit people in.

So I just ran around trying to earhole everybody. So the seniors would stand around the field, watch the JV games, and they'd all be making fun of me. They'd be yelling, boost, because I was this skinny little kid. And I went to Penn State at 170, and they put me on 10,000 calories a day when I was there. And I left it. Yeah, I left at 210. So now when people are, oh, he thinks she's so big. He calls himself Beast.

And like, no, Beast is actually like an endearing, like making fun of me name. It's like Lil John. You know, like that's what I look at it. Like I had one back in the day. I don't think I've ever said this on air, but like in my first year of college, I was very soft. Like I was a fat kid. And dude, they called me Squishy, bro. Squish.

Squish. Dude, that's what I call my, that's what I call my two year old. I call my two year old squish. Dude, squint. I was eight. Come on, squish, I'll squish. Now, it was mortifying. But now when I see those, and I hope you guys are listening, because now I got you guys,

you know, we're 45, I've turned 45 tomorrow, and they're the squishy ones. Happy birthday, dude. That's awesome. Thanks, man. Yeah, dude. Tomorrow, October 28th of Foh, 5. It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help.

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you to suspicious uses of your personal information. LifeLock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed, or your money back. Stay smart, safe, and protected with a 30-day free trial at lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. Listen, man, I want to give the audience some major value in one of those things that you said and you're talking about your background because there's a lot to impact there right a lot of things point to your mental toughness and your determination but there's one thing that i really want to focus on in 2011 you blew out your knee career ending injury and out of that was born a whole lifetime of impact that you're making to the cross like talk about that man like you created something there man like that's to me i got goosebumps because that is taking

an adverse situation in really creating something out of it. Let's spend some time on it. As you know, there are pivotal moments in your life where, and I made a post about this, I do that Monday mindset post. And I said, like, I'm self-made, but I didn't do it myself. And what I meant by that was there are two pivotal moments in my life where my whole path could have gone two different ways. So like I said, I got made fun of relentlessly my freshman year.

of high school for playing lacrosse at practice and all that stuff. I was not used to that. Like, I was a born athlete. I was good at soccer, basketball. I would play the sport during the season and then throw those cleats in the closet and play a different sport and be good at it. Lacrosse, what I actually appreciate about it is it doesn't matter how athletic you are. You can't fake lacrosse because if you can't catch and throw and make the stick like one with your body, then you're completely useless. You know, I mean, we can put. put Aaron Donald out there in a lacrosse field and he'd be completely useless if he couldn't catch and throw, which is wild to think about. So I remember telling my parents, I'm going to,

you know, this first year, it was awful. I'm just going to like, I'm going to tell the coach, thank you for everything. I went to practice that day. And this was at the end of the season. We ran sprints. We were doing hills and stuff. We get done. And one of the assistant coaches, Rick Johnson comes over and he puts his arm around me, completely out of the blue, unbeknownst that I was planning on telling him I was quitting and said, I know this has been a rough year for you. but I swear to God, if you stick to this sport, you're going to light the world on fire. And I remember when he said it. I remember where I was standing.

I went back in the car that day and I told my parents, I'm like, this guy really believes in me. Like, there's no way I can let this man down now. Right. So at that moment, I learned the power of, yeah, will, but also the power of the fact that it's always the right time to say the right thing. So when I'm a coach now, if I see something or if I feel like a kid is struggling or I see any kind of emotion on his face that might be negative,

I never resist the temptation to go over and say something to that kid because I have no idea if it's going to impact him in the right way or not, right? And then my knee blew out. I remember in 2011, I blew my knee out. Up until that point, for people who understand the sport of lacrosse, you already get this, but people who don't. I did one very specific position, which was face-offs. So before every quarter and after every goal,

the teams line up and they have a designated guy on the middle of the field whose job is to fight for the ball, get it, get it to your team, and then run off. You play for like 15 to 30 seconds at a time, and you do it 30 times a game. And if you can win a large majority of those, you give your team a very massive majority of the possessions. So it helps you a ton. So it's become the most valuable position in the sport. But there weren't really specialists at it when I was coming up in high school. So I played offensive midfield in college.

I did all this stuff. But I started taking the face off. My junior year at Penn State, I started taking all of them. And I excelled. And I became all conference in that. And that's when I went to the pros, that was the first time they told me, you're only going to face off here. So I was still just doing it as an athlete. I didn't have a rhyme or reason for the techniques I was using. I was just kind of like, you know, if somebody was really good, I'd copy them. When I blew my knee out, that was the first time of my life that being an athlete was snatched away for me for a while.

Because I had had injuries before. I've broken so many bones, but like this was scary, right? So you're sitting there like, what am I doing? Like, I don't do anything halfway in my life. Why did I take this gift where I'm playing in professional lacrosse, which is like 0.000 of the population that makes it to this? And I took it for granted by just going out there and winging it as an athlete. So I was kind of embarrassed.

So, you know, I started writing this programming because a couple of my friends, Jerry Raggedy's and Chris Mattis, who were also professional lacrosse players, wanted to do a series of clinics during the summer, which I was like, that's great. Because I'm a strength coach, but during the summer, a lot of my clients, they go to the Hamptons. So this would be like a cool thing to do during the summer. And when I wrote the program and came back to training camp and started smashing people,

my buddy with Jerry was like, dude, like, we got to teach everybody this. And it was literally just lining up correctly, having the, you know, playing the angles and stuff. But I remember when I talk to kids, because as you know, child ACL injuries have become so massively prevalent compared to when we were growing up. No kids blew their ACL out when we were growing up. Dude, there's so many injuries going on right now. And it's all specialization. It's because kids do one thing 700 times a day year round. We'll get there. We'll get there. We're going to get there today. So for me, I tell the kids, I go, look, when a kid tells me he has an injury like this, it's devastating.

So you have to be sensitive to that. So I tell them, I go, look, this is the plan. Because everyone right now is just telling you how you should feel. I'm going to tell you what you're going to do. you're going to spend the next 24 hours feeling sorry for yourself. Get it all out. Because after that, you need to wake up and you need to start working on what you're going to do to fix it. So you can either sulk for 48 hours, 72 hours, feel sorry for you. Or you can accept the fact that this happened to you. What are you going to do about it? If you're analytical, you can't be emotional.

So if you're focused every day on your rehab, if you're focused on your surgery date, if you're focused on your comebacks, every single step you go in there and do it. you don't have time to sit around and feel sorry for yourself. So that's what I tell the kids. And they come back stronger because, you know, look, my left ACL, that's a tendon. My right ACL is a ligament. So I actually have a stronger left knee now. So yeah, that's the way I looked at it.

And it paid off because if I didn't do that, then I just, you know, who knows what would have happened to me? I certainly want to be right here right now, for sure. No, for sure. Do you have people in your life at that time that helped you down that road? Because, I mean, you do that for others now. But who helped you get through those emotional moments? Unequivocally, my wife. I tell people all the time, the realization that I wanted to marry this woman was when she had started working for Michael Coors.

She was young trying to do her thing. And here she was filling my ice bucket, helping me get to the bathroom the first two days after my surgery, taking me, driving me to Midtown, like taking a cab with me to Midtown, getting me out of the cab, watching me scream for an hour in pain, bring me back home, get my ice set up, go back to work. And the next, as soon as I recovered,

the next spring, I proposed to her. Because this woman is a winner. Yeah. So, you know, absolutely her. Of course, my parents, my parents,

you know, you see a lot of different sports parents, types of sports parents, right? Good and bad. Yeah. I had the perfect sports parents. I never heard anything after any game

other than you were great, I love you. That's it. I didn't get, oh, you know, next time you should try this or, you know, your coach was doing the wrong thing. None of that stuff. My parents stood by themselves under the scoreboard and always gave me a hug. And that was that. So they were always there for me no matter what. And my wife was there for me.

And that got me through it, man. Because, you know, look, I'll be honest, John. There's, I'm not good at surface level friendships. I'm terrible at that. Like, either you and I are dogs. or and I'll, and I will drive anywhere at any time of the day to help you in a situation. Or we're just, hey, that's it, right? Like, so I know for me, if like I've had a lot of people that, you know, they blew their

knee out or where, like, I'm there for them. Not that many people were there for me. Just the ones that really, you can really count on. So I dug my heels in and I got it done, you know. That's awesome, dude. And, you know, we talked a lot about where you just touched on. You know, you have the perfect sports parents, right? You have the perfect parents.

They just come to you and say, I love you, you are great. You know, I try to tell my kids, I really love watching you work hard today. Yeah. That's it. And dude, in baseball, like I'm, I coach my son. And, you know, I talked about this, I think on another show that hasn't aired yet. So with the people listen to this one, then listen to the last one. I'm sorry, but you're going to hear it again.

Spoiler! I failed the other day. Yeah. I failed the other day with my son. He, he's at this, this, this time where he likes to fake an injury

if he messes up on the baseball field. Oh, yeah. So how old is he? He's nine. Okay. Triggers me, Greg.

Triggers the absolute, you know what out of me, bro. I can't effing handle it, man. And so I say to him, he, you know,

fills the ball at shortstop, okay, plenty of time. He came through the baseball. He's ready to make a play. There's nobody on. I literally, just got done telling him hey beat-offs ground ball to you you're going one gives me that little head shake

yeah dad got coach you know gets baseball ready you know because that's i guess what we say to kids hey baseball ready next pitch dude where's it hit right to bobby doster french dude what's he do when he gets the ball looks at home looks at second looks at third didn't throw it the first nope ended up over gets upset because I'm like one one throws it back to the pitcher but over his head so he throws the ball in the shitter like catcher's chasing it now the guy's running from first to second they throw the ball to second base after I'm yelling eat it don't throw it he got stepped on and for those you listening not watching I'm throwing up air quotes he he is his glove hand you know index finger got stepped on by the second basement crying you know i have to put him on the bench because he just

can't can't continue everybody's getting him ice and so i said to him this is where i failed look man why is it every time you don't make a play something hurts and i don't know if i failed like i felt like it i felt like i failed because the look in his eyes I'm like, oh shit, right? But like, I kept going. I'm like, no, seriously, answer me the question. Like, why is it that when you don't make a play, you're hurt? I would much rather you be like, get him next time, coach.

I don't care if he messes up. Well, like, I mean, the mental thing. What would you, if you think you failed, what would you have said differently? Because I don't think there's anything innately wrong with what you said. No, but everybody was looking at me, dude. like, French is about to lose a shit, right? But to me, in the heat of the moment, there could have been much worse things that I could have said.

Like, that was garbage. Don't cry after you don't make a play. Right? I could have said that. But I said, why is it every single time? You don't make a play. You act like you're hurt. Yeah.

You know, I think I could, I think tone and delivery is everything, especially for a nine-year-old. And so, you know, I pulled him aside and talked to him. I said, hey, look, man. you know, I apologize if I came off, you know, like I was getting on to you. I just, I'm really curious. Like, why, why does this always happen? Yeah.

And he's just like, I got stepped on. I was like, okay. Okay. You know, we're going to go to, we're going to go to the grave with it, dad. And I, and so I'm like, all right, cool. I was like, awesome. So what you're saying is you want to do J-Jitsu in the off season. Well, I mean, that's, I think there's also something to be said, though, for,

look, this is part of a learning experience. in team sports, right? You have a duty to the guys that are on your team. Look, it's just kids baseball, but it's important. The whole reason we play team sports is so we can learn life lessons, right? The wins and losses will happen. That's great. But so like as a kid, when you're at, when you're at work and you don't get your job done when you're a grown up, you can't just pretend like your ankle hurts because you didn't get your report done. Right. So it's important for all the other kids on the team and the parents to see that you're going to hold him accountable. because you're like, look, they depend on you.

But yeah, I mean, look, as dads, it's always tough. That's why, you know, I got asked when Jacks wanted to play lacrosse in our town league, the LMIL league here is phenomenal. They keep it fun. They, you know, inject knowledge into it. And they asked me immediately because they recognize his last name. Like, hey, Greg, like, do you want to come coach here? I was like, look, I love you guys and I appreciate what you're doing.

I coach six days a week. All I want to do is be dad for an hour. And I don't want to, I don't want Jacks to have any pressure because I respect. the hell out of the fact that you're coaching your son because I don't know if I can do that. Like I would be thinking the whole time of what is the right thing to say and how to say it. So it doesn't look like I'm favoriting him and I don't want him to think that I'm being harder on him. So yeah, I've always said like unless like a coach has a heart attack on the sidelines and I have to hop in, I'm sitting over here at my wife just like smiling and waving.

But it is. It's tough. You never know what's exactly the right thing to say. you know i think i think for me it's it's one of those things where i i sat for so many years right i i've i've been an assistant for him the whole time you know i never wanted to be the main guy and after last year i was like no no more no more like i'm going to develop him i'm going to develop others like it is what it is like do i miss just being dad hell yeah man like i just you know i don't ever get to watch a game and just be satisfied to watch my son. I'm moving him around. I'm moving somebody else around. You know, I'm on him about acting like

he's hurt. But he probably might have hurt a little bit, but I think his, I think his pride was hurt mostly. And he was embarrassed, you know, so he's going to get better. But do coaching your own kid is is a blessing, but also it's very, very difficult. And granted, as he gets older, I'm not doing it. Yeah. I'm, no, somebody else. It's like a lose lose when you're older, especially like in high school, like varsity. It's like, oh, his son's only playing. because he's, oh, you know, it's like, well, his son just hit a home run. Yeah, well, you know, my son would hit home. Okay, man.

Of course, sure. Your son can't even tie his cleats. Yeah. We touched on, you know, and I want to get to this. Sorry, audience, we got sidetracked into parenting, but, you know, don't judge us. Specializing too soon in injuries, man. I got to tell you as, excuse me, as I get older, I'm. seeing more baseball players, like more young kids, have Tommy John surgery, have arm injuries, right?

because I could speak to baseball. How is it in lacrosse, man? Because it's, dude, it's like these kids are not playing other sports anymore. Yeah, you know, it's tough because it's a total catch 22. You'll have every college division one lacrosse coach will say, I like three sport athletes. I like three sport. Make sure you're playing three sports. But then they're, they're on the sidelines in the fall, watching fall ball tournaments for recruiting. It's like this three star, this three sport athlete isn't can't put is missing because he's playing football. Oh, I really wanted to watch them. So you're recruiting kids year round, but you're also saying that they have to be three sport athletes. So what you really mean is if I recruit a kid that I really like on the field and he just so happens to play three sports, that's a, that's a home run. Yeah, I get that. So it's tough because also as a coach,

you're like, I'm not going to not recruit. Yeah. But these kids fall behind, man. So like, look, my business model is totally based on the fact that kids want to face off from the time they're in fifth grade up. Right. And I am actively telling kids every single year, please, we have different styles of training. Right. If I'm a Muay Thai fighter, I'm not going to fight somebody every single night for an hour and a half.

Right. I'm going to work on my striking. I'm going to have recovery days. I'm going to work on my technical stuff. Then I'm going to spar. We're going to have specific things we focus on when we're sparring. Like these kids, when they face off, the problem with face-offs is it is repetitively to the same spot.

It's always a right-handed face-off, regardless of what hand you are. So it's your right labrum and your right wrist that suffers the most because not only are you doing something, but there's somebody on the other side creating impact. So there's an impact to your labor on every rep. And I beg these kids. I'm like, dude, please, I did it for 20 years. I'm telling you right now, your body can't handle you doing this. This year alone, my 2023 class, the kids who went in as freshman,

I got a freshman. I went to Notre Dame, Penn State, and Ohio State. All three had shoulder surgery at the end of this summer. And those three guys in particular, I was begging for three years. I'm like, please stop going over Andrew's house and taking face off. for two hours every night. And, you know, I've always said this. Coaching prepared me for being a father

because every day, kids aren't listening to me, right? I'm like, what else do I have to accomplish in this sport for you to believe that I know everything you need to know? Go be a kid for a day and play Nintendo. You don't have to take face off for two hours tonight. But it's peer pressure, man. These kids, you know, when you and I were growing up, up, I had to outwork the kids that were in my class. Now, these kids are on Instagram all day,

every day. And they see a kid from Europe who's playing soccer six hours a day. And his dad keeps posting about how awesome he is when he's, you know, six years old. So now my son's waking up and he's looking at these YouTube's going, wow, I can't do that yet. I should be able to do that. Dad, I want to be on the advanced travel team. Dad, I want to do. So, I mean, the pressure is greater than ever. and the parents, the parents are worse than ever, man. It's worse than ever. I'm sitting here and I'm lighting up because like every single talking point I'm thinking when you're talking, you're bringing it up before me.

This is a truly aligned episode. And I don't mean, and I don't want to say like parents are worse as in they're terrible people. I mean, they're making the biggest mistakes I've ever seen in the largest amount of numbers. Yeah. You have the different things. totally dude and like you know you're talking about like i lit up when you start talking about these kids are on instagram the pressure is different dude like when we when we when we put when we were playing like i dude we didn't even have my space when i was at ls you playing baseball no like i mean

facebook wasn't around yet man like that was like the year or two after i left so just imagine like if you're one of these lacrosse athletes you're in seventh or eighth grader and you're on Twitter or you're on Instagram and you're following all these travel organizations for lacrosse and all these big lacrosse players locally and you start seeing official visits dude commitment season you start seeing committed committed season bro like I have a friend that his son is one hell of a quarterback here locally it's not a dig on anything like he's a stud he's been going on visits for years. It's like Florida State, LSU, UF, Miami,

Penn State, Ohio State, Kentucky, like dude, everywhere. Like that becomes the measuring stick for these other kids. Yeah. And so naturally to your point, when Jacks goes, I can't do this yet, I'm watching this YouTube, and now they over-trained. Now they're

focusing on something and they end up getting hurt. But more than that, I think what really hurts is the mental side of this. Let's talk about that because I think there's a lot of pressure there. Well, I played sports growing up because I liked the sport. I enjoyed it. I started karate when I was six, did that for 10 years.

And then when I didn't like it anymore, when I didn't want to do it because it got in the way of my sports, my parents like, okay, I did wrestling for years. I loved the individual stuff. The team sports, man, I played soccer, I played basketball, I played baseball, and I did it year-round. And then I started playing the cross literally because I wanted to make friends. I didn't think about college until the first day I get this letter from Towson University. And I'm like, what the hell? I can go to play in college doing this. It's amazing.

So, but now every dad, oh, you know, my son is, you know, he's going to join this club team. What's the best way to get him exposure for colleges? Well, how old is your son? Well, he's eight. Jesus. Holy shit. Like, you need to check up from the neck up. But all the kids are, all the kids are playing lacrosse because they want to play in college.

They're not playing lacrosse because they love playing lacrosse. So I've always said the same thing. My son, man, the only thing he hears after a game is, did you have fun? He'll come, Dad, I scored two goals and we beat that team. Did you have a good time? Yeah. That's all I care about. Don't care about anything else.

If at some point he becomes this superstar and he's obsessed and he, then sure, I'll foster whatever he wants. Sure. But, you know, it's interesting. I think people like you and I, what I get a lot of is because I'm the way I am, people have an assumption, right? So they're like, you know, is Jack's going to play lacrosse? I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, he can do it as long as, as long as he works as hard as he can, right? Not really. If he wants to play soccer just because he wants to make the team because he has friends on the team and he doesn't care about sitting on the bench and he only practices at practice, great. That's actually less pressure for me. But he just can't come home one day and complain to me he's not playing because he's not practicing enough. That's where he'll get the talk of what you put into it correlates exactly to what you get out of it. But I'm not one of those dads or coaches that is like you better give 110% and all the time because that's not reality, man. That's not life. You know, like think about college. Was there a class that you didn't give it? you're all in. I know there were class like 200, dude. See you. A class. A class. Shit. A lot of them. I mean, algebra, college algebra, nope. I'm changing my major because I don't want to do this. That's right. But in your major, you went out and you focused because it was something you're actually interested in because college is a scam.

Right. Like, oh, you got to take, you have to take geosides. Like, dude, I want to study anatomy. What are we doing here? But like for me, neuroanatomy, crush it. Stat 200. I'm just going to get. that C so I can stay eligible, you know, like, so funny. You know, that's like, that's real life, man. Well, dude, it's funny because you, how old Jacks? So, Jacks is going to be seven this December. Okay, so young, man. So, yeah, so everybody talks to me about Bobby, you know, like, hey, is he playing

fall ball ball this year? Playing fall ball this year. This is the first year I let him play fall ball. He's almost 10. He turns 10, three days after my birthday. He's a Halloween baby, all right? Nice. And yeah, dude.

So what a cool birthday. It's a great birthday. You got so much fun when he goes to college. Yeah. God. He's going to realize his birthday is the best day of the year. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude. So, you know, what are you going to get Bobby lessons? Like, let's get him out there. You know, I'd love to work with him. I'm like, why? Well, dude, he's your kid. He's got a canon. He's got a gift. He's a natural. Have you seen a swing? Are you teaching him? Like, no, he just knows that. No, there's no way that kid knows that swing. I'm like, that's his natural move. I don't know what to tell you. oh my god he's gonna he's gonna be better than you i go i don't know yeah like i don't know if he has it in him yeah i don't know if he wants this but guess what he's nine and and dude at nine years old i mean of course i would watch a big league game and just dream

of being on tv but did i really want it yet i don't i don't know that i did yeah like i i can't remember gregg i can't remember working hard until like, started getting lessons when I was like 13 or 14. And then I still didn't do like the max effort until my freshman year in college. Yeah. Juko. Like, I think people have a disgusting and distorted version of what reality really is for these kids and their athletic development. Yeah.

It doesn't need to be right now. If your kid's peaked right now and he's nine, I'm scared for that kid. Yeah. Because everybody's going to catch up to him. Well, you have different types of distorted views. You have the dads who never played sports. And I'll be honest, actually, dads who never played sports are usually the best ones because they don't know what to expect. So they're just like, I'm, my son's athletic, amazing.

That's great. That's so cool. Scott, coach, do what you do. Yeah. Or you have the guys who were kind of athletic and now they're trying to live through their kids. Right. So I want you to go play Division I. So I can go tell my friends that you play Division I.

Dude, Sean, you'd be shocked, right? if you sit on the side of any high school lacrosse game and you sit in the stands, you would think that Division I's teams are giving away full scholarships like it's Pez. My son's getting a full ride to Princeton. Yeah, Ivy Leagues don't give scholarships, ma'am. My kid is a full ride to Penn State. No, he's not. I know the head coach.

There's 22 and a half scholarships to give over the course of an entire team. So unless your kid is the number one recruit in the entire country, he's paying for a bunch of stuff. trust me. But it's all about ego and fulfilling my ego. We have a guy out here, man, in one of the towns next to us. They bring their kids to the soccer stuff. And the soccer stuff that Jacks is doing is very foster soccer. If anybody's in the Westchester area, they foster soccer's phenomenal. They keep it fun. They really teach the kids fundamentals and they have a good time. They're doing short-sided games to see if the kids like the idea of doing travel soccer,

which is great. We have this one group come over here, man. There's one dad. He coaches one of the teams and he's you know he's yelling at the kids and he's you know everything's about grabbing shirts and slide tackles and then if his kid gets elbowed he goes on social media and tells everybody about it and you're just like oh my god dude I'm just here to like watch my kid get tired so he goes to bed at night like I'm just here to talk to other dads and hang out man like but you know there's all different types of dads who you've I've never seen a youth sporting event get ruined by the kids let's just put it that never never Dude, there's, there's a bunch of stuff going on right now, man.

Like, you know, I've seen parents, y'alled umpires. I've seen, you know, I posted something last week about a coach, I mean, you saw it, a coach chasing down an umpire and like, you know, jumping at him. It's like, wait a second. And he whiffed, too. It was embarrassing. Oh, dude, he ate shit, didn't he? He got hit with karma right away.

I'm like, dude, if you're going to, if you're going to do that, you better connect. Make it worth it. Because now everybody knows, one, you're slow, too, you can't fight. Yeah. Well, we have a crisis right now across the board in sports in this country right now of getting officials. No one wants to put it with the shit. I know in lacrosse. You know, we live in Westchester, New York, and our guys play in Section 1.

We had two Section 1 games canceled last spring because we couldn't find officials for them. Wow. That's never happened. Wow. So, you know, refs are like, dude, I'm not getting paid this tiny amount of money. to sit here and get screamed at by a bunch of parents for two hours every day, no way. And they don't want the abuse, bro. They don't want the abuse.

Yeah, I can tell you that. But they shouldn't. No, I agree with you. And, and I'm sitting there the other night coaching my son's game. And I'm watching the home plate umpire. I want to say his name so bad on me. I just want to. God, this guy.

Balls are bouncing two feet in front of the plate. He's calling him strikes. and you can't complain about it. It's a judgment call. Yeah. Then the best part is when he starts to get darker. Oh, no. And our lights are still messed up from Hurricane Ian.

They're fixing them in November finally, right? The county's finally getting out there. So he wants to shorten the game because he wants to get it over with. Doesn't care how it ends. These kids are competing to win a ball game. Yeah. My game ended in a tie because he literally on the last out of the game. play up first. Bases juiced.

Winning run on third base. Ground ball to third. The kid throws it across the diamond. After bobbling it twice, my, my batter runner hit the bag and was breaking down after the bag. The ball was caught and called him out. Oh, yeah.

He had to get home, man. What day of the week was it? What day of the week? That was a Thursday. Thursday night football, man. He's got to get home. Dude. So I looked at him.

I said, dude, are you serious? I was like he was breaking down. He goes, oh, hold on. Let me get the booth. Yeah, yeah, he's out. I'm like, dude. Okay.

That is actually impressive trolling right there. That's a whole, man. He said, let me get the booth, dude. I'm like, I said, really? I said, okay. I said, okay. I was like, it's a nine-year-old game. I get it.

You don't care about it, but they do. Yeah. You know? And so, like, I think, like, to your point, there's a shortage of officials because, you know, a lot of coaches, like, dude, another, if you would have done that to another coach that can't emotionally regulate, it would have been all over. Yeah. Well, there's another thing, too, of if you're going to do something, be accountable and be good at it.

You know, I do, I am totally on that side, too, where, you know, I had an official who's a professional lacrosse official. I was giving him a bunch of crap on Twitter like two years ago. And he came on, jumped on Twitter for two seconds to say something snarky to me. And I was like, dude, all you got to do is just do this better. And his excuse was, oh, you tried if you think it's so easy. I was like, I didn't say it was easy. But if I am a roofer and my excuse for the hole in your roof when I'm done is it's hard, I get fired and I get sued.

Right. So like, if you have a whole bunch of parents and kids that are trying to make some memories, you have a duty to at least give effort. Right. And I know, look, you're getting yelled. that, dude, I could never be an umpire. Holy crap. You get yelled after every pitch. Yeah.

But if you can't handle it, don't do it. Yeah. And that's the thing, too. It's like, you know, I'm, and here's how it goes. Well, if you, if, if you want to volunteer your time, then you can go do it. Well, first of all, you're paying them. Okay. You're, the league's paying these.

Yeah. The coaches don't get paid. The umps do. The coaches. I don't get paid. Yeah. Like, I mean, and you know, like, and so, I mean, in fact, I still pay to my kids' feet to get into a league.

I'm a coach. You know, so, I mean, I get it. Like, shortage of officials, but, like, the ones that we do have, man, you all got to be better. Like, you know, you're taking away from memories. Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing. Like, that's it, man.

Like, this kid that grounded out to end the game, he thought, like, his whole life was over. I'm like, bro, you're safe. His mom comes up to me off the game. Coach, look, I have it on camera. I'm like, I don't need to see it. Yeah. I already know he was, babe.

I don't. It's fall ball. No big deal. But dang, man. Like, to your point. like adults, like, you know, we've never seen, we don't really see kids ruin sports. We're seeing the adults, the individuals that are supposed to show these kids the way. And that's what I love, dude, like when I really started connecting with you and watching you and diving into your content, like, dude, like, I could just see the coach that you are, you know?

And I was like, dude, like, this dude is trying to help the youth. Like, he really gets it. he's just not a profile on Instagram, you know, posting workout stuff. Like get it, man. No, I appreciate it. Hell yeah, man. We have to do better for these kids. It's not that difficult.

Like, my, the co-founder, my business partner, Jerry Raganese and I, every day we have a phone call in the morning after I dropped my kids off at school. And we literally just say, what would we have wanted? How, how, what would I have wanted as an athlete? Because this didn't exist when I was a kid. I wanted somebody who felt like they were in their corner. right. We need an advocate. So I'm your advocate. But I also, you know, I am definitely not, if you like a coach that just pats you on the ass, tell you say how good you are all the time, that's not me. I'm going to tell you what you need. Now, I'm never going to say it in a snarky way or sarcastically. But I will always give you, you know, that shit sandwich where it's like, that was a really good move. What I want you to change is this because you have really good this and it'll help. But like, yeah. making sure that, you know, kids leave something. And now as a father, now I'm also on the side of like as a consumer, right?

So like I said, my son's play sport. I go watch, you know, I can notice if the coach gives a shit or not. I can tell if he's full of crap. And like you said, the Instagram profile thing, yeah, there's plenty of guys who copy what I do. They try their best. And it's all smoking mirrors, right? It's all about like, you know, they, you know, lie about who they got recruited or try to copy our, you know, business model. whatever and you know sometimes i have fallen into the like these guys suck type of thing right

but i realized a few years ago i'm like you know if you're the fastest dude on the block it doesn't matter how if how many people are running next to you right so like for me i just stay in my lane and try to beat my own 40 time every day that's the way i looked at my position when i played the game and that's the way i look at business it's like i know no one's going to outwork me i'm going to wake up every day like a psycho and I'm going to work. So everything's going to be fine. But I am so fulfilled working with these kids. Now, you know, Sean, the tough thing that I think a lot of people who might be coaches or mentors out there would can relate to, especially in a business standpoint, the one thing that I have had issues with is I have an emotional attachment to every kid that I coach.

You know, I got like 6,000 like little brothers out there. And you coach them, for six to ten years. You get to know their families. You help them with recruiting. You help them with this and that. And a kid gets in trouble at school. You get like a 9 p.m. phone call. But for nine out of 10 kids, I've had to understand that it's a transactional relationship for that. Right. I'm paying this guy money. I want to go to college. Once I get what I want, then a lot of guys kind of like, you never hear from him again. So you just have to accept that. because if you don't, that's the stuff that keeps you up at night. You know, like, oh, this kid that I really believe in, you know,

he's just not listening on this one thing. It's going to cost him his ability to go to his dream school. Dude, you shouldn't care about that more than the kid does, man. Sorry. Dude, it's on him. Yeah. And you got to let it go. So that's the thing I struggle with the most.

I don't know about you as a coach, but for me, I get so, like I said, I'm not surface level. Like, I very get, I either completely emotionally connected to you or you're just a person that I see down the street something. times. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's hard because I'm the same way, right? I think at the at the grassroots level, it's a little bit different, right? Um, the high school level, um, when I'm helping out at the high school and those types of athletes, there's more of a connection there.

Yeah. Right? Because it's, they're almost adults. Yeah. You know, like for, you know, age, age wise. Um, I can dive down deeper with them. Um, with the, with the younger kids, for me, I'm really there to show them the right. way to do things, right? The attitude and effort is the only thing that they can control. I'm going to

be a thorn on their side if they don't try their best. I can tell. Like, no, that's not the way we do it. To a point where they can, I see these young kids look at me like, dude, you're too much. Like, no, I'm going to tell you the right way. I don't care how old you are. You're going to learn, right? And you're going to, you're going to do it well. And you know why? It's because they deserve that, right? Like, that's a thing as I try to tell them, like, I'm, I'm tough on you because you deserve. somebody who's going to help you reach your potential. That's what I care about. That's my most important thing in my life. I was able to reach my potential in something. I know when I when I faced off and played, there's no way that I could have ever been any better than I personally was. It had

no idea, you know, don't compare me anybody else. I reached my potential in something. That is such an incredible feeling that I want every kid to have it. Right. So if you're here spending $100 a week, coming to my sessions, training, texting me at night about this and that. And you're invested and your parents are invested. Dude, I'm going to deliver for you. But you have to accept what I'm going to say. And like you said, like, it's not about you. It's about those kids. You're trying desperately to be like, dude, I want you to have this. I want you to be great at this. The hardest thing, the hardest thing that I struggle, it's two things. One is way off the wall that you probably won't even imagine that I would say, I'll get there. But one of the struggle

is getting the kids understand that they just need to relax a little bit. You know, I work one-on-one with a lot of, you know, college baseball players. You know, I coach them on their mental performance. I got an SEC ball player that's probably getting on the first five rounds in July.

We're getting to a point where he's just like, if this is to be, nothing's going to stop it. He's a God-fearing man, right? God-fearing family. He knows that if he works hard and whatever the path moving forward is going to be, it's going to be. He is not in control of it, right? He's only in control of what he can control, which is his attitude, his effort, his school, showing up as the best possible self he can be.

Outside of that, it's out of his control. So he's just going to, he's going to submit to the process. There's too many kids out there that are, let's say, in high school, focus, well, this person said, I can go in the draft. And all they think about from day one in January is the draft, and they lose, they completely lose sight of the team aspect. And what it says, I'm a full. of the jersey, right? That is travel ball's issue. Yes. Okay.

Like I can go, I mean, we could do another episode on travel ball of why I think it's good and why I think it's absolutely detrimental to these children and these parents. It's turned parents into psychopaths. Yes. Okay. It truly has. The biggest struggle I have as a coach at a high level is, you know what, man, I've lost too many kids. They've lost their lives.

is the hardest thing for me to deal with. It's bone crushing, right? This last July, we lost someone very close to me, you know, one of my former first baseman, you know, and that to me, being at that service and seeing him crushes me. Yeah. It makes me want to do better for everybody else. So when people sit there and say, why is Sean so intense, why is he so, you know, why is he so on it. Why is he encompass everything that a mentor should be? Because I don't want to see another one of my kids laying there. Yeah. Yeah. And I take it up. You know, when people, I take the term coach very personally. Like I tell people like, you're trusting me with the most important thing in your life, which is your kid. I don't take that

lightly at all. And I'm also not here to babysit him for an hour. Like I'm here, if he's going to be in my presence, I'm going to deliver for him. And if, and if you don't like that, like, if you don't like a guy who's going to tell your kid what he needs to hear, then that's fine. There's totally other, there's so many other options for him. Absolutely. But, you know, I take the mentorship of this very, very personally and very seriously because, look, man, that's what I would have loved that. I'm, I'm the oldest of four. I didn't have an older brother or an older figure or cousin or anybody to like, be like, dude, do this because it's going to help you a lot. Like, I had to figure everything out on my own. And my father, you know, bless him. He didn't play sports. So, you know, he'd give some, you know, he'd give

some wisdom. He'd like, yeah, dad, you absolutely don't know what you're talking about. I love you, man. I will hang life pictures with you all day, but I will not listen to you when it comes to out of a swing of baseball bat. I love it, man. We've got to land the plane here, buddy. Yeah. But let me ask you, you know, I want you to, um, a couple things. First and foremost, tell people, well, no, let's do this. Let's do this one first. If you could give these young athletes one piece of advice that's going to get them through mentally in all the adverse situations that they're going to encounter on their baseball, football, lacrosse or soccer, whatever sport they're playing on their journey, what would that be?

The first thing I would say would have been what I had mentioned earlier in learning to be analytical rather than emotional. And, you know, I mean, having a sports psychologist or a therapist in your life can help you kind of down that road. The other thing I would say, and I say this, whenever I'm interviewing somebody to bring them on to work for me, is know your worth. And I think some people take that the wrong way. Knowing your worth doesn't mean I deserve whatever I want. No, no. Literally knowing your worth as in how much did you put into it? How much are you willing to put into it? And then how much do you deserve in return? Right. And that goes for sports, the classroom, your job, your relationships. Like, if I'm not giving, if I can't expect something if I'm not giving the exact same amount, right? So if I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, coach, you know, why am I not playing over that kid? Well, that kid comes to practice every day, 15 minutes early.

And that kid practices his jump shot when I told him that's the specific thing he needs to work on. You won't do those things. So no, you're not going to play in front of him. And the direct correlation is that kid's better than you because of it. right so knowing your worth as in don't accept anything less than what you deserve but don't also think that you deserve more than what you're willing to put into it and i think that's like a really important thing for kids to understand or anybody really no absolutely man that's the hard truth right and that's why we do it the title of coach is very important transparency should be

part of that you know title or definition one more thing why don't you tell the audience a little where they can find you how they could work with you if they're on a fitness journey. They want to hire you remotely, but then also, you know, for these lacrosse individuals that can find some tutelage from you and your partner.

Sure, yeah. So on all social platforms, Greg Beast 32, I have a YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash Greg Gurenlian. If you follow me on Instagram, those links are all in my profile. I specialize in face off training,

education, and recruiting. And I also am a former strength coach and a USAW. So I have a website called the official beastlab.com where you can either, I have a bunch of different interviews with other strength coaches of different realms. I also have, you know, on that YouTube channel, there's a whole library of movements, including landmine-based stuff. I love the landmine, landmine university. I learned a lot of stuff from it. I love it. And I can also be a remote mentor, a face-off coach for an athlete that wants to learn to take things to the highest possible level. And that's all on there as well.

So yeah, that's where you can find me. That's awesome, man. I appreciate you, dude. And thank you for spending so much time on my audience. And it was just awesome to connect with you on a Friday, bud. Yeah, man. You have an awesome weekend, my brother. It's good talking to you. Thank you, bro. You too, man. Peace out, guys. Southwest Florida is one of the most beautiful places on the planet to live. For those of you that are thinking of moving from other states to come to Florida or even just moving to a different part of the state, I want you to think of a big, beautiful luxury home. Contact legacy luxury builders. They are a family-owned and operated luxury residential construction company. As a family-owned business, they believe in the power of building not just homes, but

legacies. Contact legacy luxury builders. Unlock your true potential on the field and court with our peak mental performance program for athletes. Train your mind to conquer challenges. Stay focused under pressure and achieve unparalleled success. Our expert coaches will guide you through personalized techniques, enhancing concentration, resilience, and confidence. Picture yourself outperforming your rivals, making split-second decisions with clarity and achieving victory like never before. Join us today and elevate your game to new heights.

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