The Ryan Leak Podcast - The Mind is a Muscle w/Coach Ty Ellis

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Ty calls himself a HEAD coach because he's mastered what it means to coach thinking. Learn what it takes to think on another level with Coach Ty Ellis who's been a part of the coaching staff for multiple NBA teams and USA Men's Basketball. Ty is one of our new coaches on our coaching platform that you can check out here: https://www.ryanleak.com/coaching

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to followership with Ryan Leake, a podcast design, to talk about the other side of leadership, which is following. Ladies and gentlemen, I got a very special guest on here. My very good friend, Ty Ellis, some known as coached Ty Ellis. He has coached in the NBA. He is coached with USA Basketball, and he's also an executive coach. But most importantly, he's my friend. He's married.

He's got a kid who is a up-and-coming basketball NBA All-Star. We're just going to throw that out there. I just believe it's coming. And, man, we've been friends. How long have we been friends, Starr? How long is it been? I would say. Did we mean 2011, 2012?

I would say 10 plus years, easy. Yeah, yeah. 13, 14, 14. team, I believe. Yeah, yeah. We met on the basketball court in South Dallas, and, you know, I love those relationships where you're doing one thing, but then you just, you just kind of look at each other and go, there's something, there's something more here. There's a deeper connection, and so we just started connecting off the court, and Ty had just, you know what, I'm just not remembering this. You had just finished your, I think, your eight-year career and

Spain? Were you in Spain for eight years? I was in Spain for seven. Seven years. I finished in Spain. Yeah. I did 10 total in Europe. Yeah. Yeah. So you were just retiring and coming back to America. And we were just like, all right, hey, so what's life going to look like for the next 10 years that are you going to coach? And so over over the past couple of years, him and his wife have built some great businesses and Ty has just joined our coaching platform as one of our executive coaches already off, running with the horses and helping, helping add value to some of our clients already. So I say, hey, man, why don't you come on podcasts and let's just talk about coaching?

We've been doing that over the past couple of episodes. So anyways, Ty Ellis, thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule to be on followership today. Say hello to the people really fast. Hey, man. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. forward to it and I cannot wait to say something or give you guys something that you guys can take home with you. Yeah, that's awesome, man. So when you think about your executive coaching,

here's kind of a fun question. What's the difference between coaching an executive and coaching an NBA player? Believe it or not, the parallels are so similar. Really? I think we all. deal with the mental strong codes of not believing or trying to say the right thing so you can inspire the person or the employee. But what it boils down to is just, man, being yourself, and as a leader, you growing first and foremost, right? And if you put the time and energy and to be the best version of yourself, like the people who are following you will come naturally. Yeah. Now, you often refer to yourself as a head. coach. Now, I want

you to explain what you mean when you say that you are a head coach. Yeah, so it's a play on words with basketball. My last coaching job, I was a head coach of a G-League team. And a lot of my

players have moved on to go into the NBA. But people ask me, well, what did you teach them? I didn't teach them how to play basketball. They was good basketball players before. You're right. What I taught them is how to think effectively. I taught them how to control their thoughts, right? And don't let their thoughts consume them.

So I became their head coach as I pointed to my head on the podcast. So I'm the head coach. I help people think effectively. I peel back all the layers and I give solutions and not answers. And I think everybody has an answer and answers are debatable. But when you peel back enough layers, you'll find the solution. Now let's attack that. So I guarantee you there's somebody listening to this podcast right now

that is absolutely struggling with their thoughts. I mean like they, the amount of negativity that they have to deal with on a daily basis is astronomical. The a lot of the phrase I hear a lot is, man, I'm just in my head right now. How do you coach people get out of their negative thinking? Well, we have to understand that the mind is a muscle, right? Say that again.

The mind is a muscle. Okay. And that's the muscle that we neglect the most. We just let it just go, right? And so using sports as a reference, as a parallel, you have to go in the weight room and you have to work out. like if I was to show a picture of a weight room and say what words come to your mind people would say hard work pain discipline all these different things right what's the same

thing with your mind if you do not have mental strength and conditioning exercises you will be controlled by mental emergencies and so that's exactly what's happening with so many people they're getting up under the bench press putting on two 45s and life crushes them and their crush because they haven't started off with 25s. You have to work your way up, right? And so we have to really focus on our mind being the muscle and give the proper exercises. Understand what meditation is.

A lot of people don't know what meditation is. They think it's super sitting in a dark corner in the establishment of palms up. No, that's a form of it. But we meditate unknowingly. when you think and you ponder on I can't, you are meditating on what you cannot do. So what I do is I teach how to change that,

how to identify the middle stronghold and let's control it and not let it consume us. Wow. You just used a very powerful phrase that if you don't do mental exercises, you can find yourself having a mental emergency. Yeah. That is a very, very, very powerful phrase.

What is the most challenging negative thought you think people struggle with that you work with? Players, executives, teams, what's, I want us to name the thought. I think that's important. Yeah. And so I have six mental strong codes that ideally I've dealt with. or in the past or other people identify. Yeah. And the top three of four is confidence, fear of failure, overthinking and anxiety and stress. And so the overthinking, I have a thing called just do it.

Right. Like, stop running about and just do it. Yeah. You know, there's a quick story. I tell the story about me being at the PIT. And you've heard this story before. What's PIT? Oh, I'm sorry.

The PIT. is a Port Smith Invitational Tournament. Okay. And what it is, it's a tournament for seniors in college that the NBA invites seniors to attend to be noticed and to get that last-minute recognition. Yeah.

I went to an AIA school, right? And so I had first-team All-American player to year all the different accolades, but it was at the NIA level. They didn't invite me. So I babysat. I raised money by teaching, cleaning garage,

cutting grass, you name and I did it. Right. I went out there with a backpack full of tapes and bios, and I handed them out like hotcakes, right? Hi, I'm tired. I wasn't invited. Yada, yada, yada. By the end of the week, I am livid because I can play at this level.

And I walk to the local Y and Miss Cupcheck is there. So I see him. He's 16, doesn't really smell much. He's on the Lipplico. Now he's 7.2. And all my insecurities come up with my speech impediment. I see no one.

Paul, Paul's just there. Explain to people who Mitch Cupcheck is. Okay. And people didn't know that you had a speech impediment. Yeah. So at that time. Yeah.

So explain the fact that you have. I just want, I don't want people to skip over that and be like, wait a minute, who's Mitch Cupchak? And, oh, Ty had a speech impediment? Like, I want you to, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So Ms. Cupcheck at that time was the president of the late president, gender manager of the Los Angeles Lakers. Yep. This cup check now is a president and GM of the Charlotte Hornets. Yep. He's a former player, 6-10, so he's a very big guy,

but Mitch is known to not be a big smiler. So he can be intimidating if you don't know who he is. Right. And my speech impediment, I grew up stuttering really, really bad where I never spoke outside of my home.

I was like third or fourth grade until I started speaking outside of my home. And I remember asking my grandmother, why did God choose me? I feel like I'm cursed. I can't talk. I get teased. I get bullied.

Why did God choose me? And my grandmother, she loves to crochet. So imagine I'm belly aching. She's crocheting and she has her glasses on the tip of her nose just looking down at me.

And when I stop, she asks me, are you finished? I said, yes, grandma. And she says, well, everybody has something, they can just hear yours. She said, baby, are you the only person who stutters in this world?

I said, no. She said, okay, well, you're not cursed. She said, baby, every time you stutter, that's God's way of reminding you of how special you are, you're going to speak for a living. And right then, I had a mindset change.

Wow. And the most powerful thing anybody can experience in life is a mindset change. Think about babies. They go from crawling to walking to running. Right?

And we have so many mindset changes and sometimes we don't even capture it. Wow. I captured mine and I believe my grandmother when she said that. So when people ask me going forward, what do you want to do when you grow up before I said I just shrugged my shoulders?

But when they asked me after my grandmother told me that, I told them. It probably took a little while, but I told them. But I wasn't afraid anymore. Wow. That was the mental stronghold that I beat many, many, many years ago. And so, but to unpause that story real quick,

I met Mitch. Mitch took me into the gym, worked me out. Two weeks later, he invited me to play for a Lakers' Summer League team. And that's how my pro career started, but I just did it, right? And then confidence, the root world of confidence is confide. Right. So if you take the confidence, I would challenge you. I would ask you, who's your best friend?

And nine times out of ten, they would tell me somebody else besides them. And I said, well, I don't know that person, but that person is not your best friend. You are your best friend. You have to feed yourself that positive energy. If you want to stop being negative, but stop feeding it. anything you feed, you give to life, anything you do want to kill, stop feeding it. So all of my clients, the first thing I asked him,

how's the best friend? And so we're talking in third person, we're talking about themselves. Because you shouldn't give the power of your peace and happiness to anybody. Absolutely. Fear, fear, man, fear of failure is holding so many of us hostage, bro. Like we're so afraid to fail

And I tell people failure Success and failure are fraternal twins You can't tell if you want to be successful But not be willing to fail They're born on the same day They need each other You need to fail in order to be successful Absolutely

Right? Hey, right Do you remember that commercial with Jordan He missed shot I failed so many times I've missed so many baskets But that's why I succeed, right? Absolutely.

It's the same thing with people in the life, man, and we can't be afraid to fail. Or we can face it. Like you say, chasing failure. Yeah. Yeah, we talk about failure quite a bit over here. One of the things that I've always loved about you, you've always exhibited this.

You've always modeled this. And now you actually have a rubric for it and a structure for it. And it's this whole idea of having a growth mindset. Yeah. For people that are listening to this podcast, they work in an organization, they may have a good leader, may have a bad leader, they may be a leader themselves. You know, how, what does a growth mindset look like for them? Even in a, so there was a study done where people were asked to describe their work environment. I think 70% of, I don't know, 1,000 people describe their work environment.

describe their culture as toxic. And so I know more people that tolerate their job than people that enjoy their job. I would say that's probably what happens when you get the average of everyone. They're doing what they have to do more than what they get to do. For the person that finds themselves

in that sort of stuck position, they're in the, I have to do this. This is just kind of paying bills. How would you coach them with a growth mindset. Yeah, your attitude has to change immediately. You have to start understanding the word get and the word God. Right.

Well, I got to go to work. I got to do this. Or you can have an attitude and gratitude and gratitude and say, I get to go to work. I get to provide for my family. Right? That's the first, that's the foundation, is changing this attitude and stop, you know,

thinking of everything so negative. Because you can always learn and grow. And the growth mindset is understanding that Kobe said it best in his mama mentality. Right. It is a constant quest to be better today than I was yesterday and better tomorrow than I am today. And that's the impotomy of a growth mindset. I'm always growing and learning. Right.

It's the exact opposite of a fixed mindset. Right. And there's no room to grow with a fixed mindset. You know, we're the only mammals that can change on the first. planet. Well, a dog can't be a cat. A donkey can't be a horse. You know, they're born and to do what they're designed to do. But we can change. We can change drastically and go from doing this to doing that. And we shouldn't let anybody steal our growth mindset, anybody steal our peace, our happiness. And if somebody is to lead you effectively, learn how not to lead when you're in

that position. Yeah. Right? And so I have this unbelievable mindset. Like my faith is so audacious that it can be a misconstrued

by somebody else. Right? Who does the God think he is? Well, God didn't give you the vision that he gave me. He gave it to me. He didn't give it to you. Right.

Right. That's the idea of a growth mindset, man. It's like, I'm going to fail, but I'm going to fail so much excellence, I'm going to learn so much from it. And that's a growth mindset. That's awesome. Well, Coach Ty, my friend Ty, I think everything that you have shared today is really

going to help some people. I think there's a lot of people that are struggling with their thoughts. I think you gave us a lot of great stuff on that. And I think you've helped people with that growth mindset. You know, I love how you broke that down. You know, you can have a fixed mindset. I see that with so many people. I say all the time,

man, the people that change are the people that want to think they need to and will spend money to do so. Yep. And that's why I'm such a believer in executive coaching because it really separates people from average. They're going, no, like, I really want to, I really want to change.

And I think sometimes that fixed mindset, has people in a position where they're just like, I just am who I am. Yep. I'm stuck. This is just the way it is. This is just the way it's always going to be. And it's, you know, I love what you said.

Like, people can change. And I hope people are encouraged with that today. So, hey, man, once again, thank you. Thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to be on followership with Ryan Lee.