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Hey, Sean Stringham with Game on Live studio. I'm excited to get into episode number two of Goals Highlights presented by Mental Grit. Today we're going to get into our first section with Hayden a cheater. Hayden just won the 125 pound championship last weekend at the SF Conference Championships. He had a great showing. He is in a fantastic athlete, wrestling both here collegiately as well as internationally.

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Our second segment is going to be with Joel Francisco. Joel's going to break it down. He knows every athlete in the water polo world and he's dropping bombs of knowledge. Let me tell you, we're talking about San Diego water polo. We're talking about Northern California water polo. We talked a little bit about cap seven and the stuff that's happening in there.

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So tune in if you want some insight on how super finals is going to shake out. And maybe a little bit on how GEOs is going to go as we move through the season. And then finally we wrap up with one of my great friends, Nate last. Nate is the owner of Mental Grit, and he's going to talk about what it means, the mental states of self-talk and how that's important to you as an athlete, and to help you become great, because that's our theme.

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That's what we want is for you to go be great.

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Oh.

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0000.

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Here we are on goals highlights presented by Mental Grit. My name is Sean Stringham with Game on Life Studio. I'm so excited to kind of came together last minute here a little bit, but to have Hayden and Cheddar, who is the champion of the SF 125 pound category, from the Wrestling Championship Conference championship that we had this weekend in Southern California.

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Hayden, welcome to Goals highlights. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you guys so much for having me I appreciate this. My pleasure. You, you wrestled fantastically. You had that individual championship. And I feel like you were just kind of tapping it. And you've got a great story that I would love to kind of connect with.

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But let's go back originally initially to just your initial thoughts after winning that championship. For at the SAP tournament this weekend. Yeah. Initial thoughts. Just super grateful, super blessed for the opportunity to wrestle. You know, it's just a privilege to compete. Privilege to cut way, and leading into this, whole tournament. I've never gone to a conference tournament.

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Last year, I redshirted such great year. And so I didn't really have, a taste of a conference tournament. And going into this one, I was I was just super excited. Super excited to wrestle, super excited to compete. I know what I'm capable of. And that was winning this entire winning this tournament. But dominating. And I wanted to put on a dominant performance.

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That's what I wanted to do. Obviously, in my first match, things didn't go as planned. Like before the match. Even started. And like, during warmups, I was cramping pretty bad. I think I might have just not had enough electrolytes or something. I got to look back at it, figure out, like, what went wrong in that case, because I don't want that to happen again.

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But I got tough. Got the win. Try my best not to show it on the mat. But after that, I knew going into that finals match, like, hey, they've seen 50% of what I can do. I literally couldn't move in my in my first match. And in that second match, I was just so excited to go out there and wrestle and have fun, be free, score points.

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And that's exactly what I did. And you just kind of outlined some of the piece that I wanted to talk about it in terms of the mindset of a wrestler. But let's do a quick shout out. You wrestle for San Francisco State, right? We should put that out. And we got that as a state. SF state, you've got the logo there.

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Let's go and shout out to your coach for letting you maybe skip the last ten or so minutes of practice so that we could be here on time. So it's not even that. It's not even Jason. Coach Jason, I literally got sick, like, right after the tournament. Okay, so I'm not sure if you can hear it.

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I'm super, like, congested right now. Yesterday I went to bed and I was like, you know, I'm going to wake up for lift. I got this I woke up this morning at 6 a.m. I was just like, yeah, this is not a good idea. I texted Jason, I, I texted Jason, I was like, coach, I'm going to get the guy's sick.

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If I go, like maybe take today off, see how I feel tomorrow, I'll keep you in the loop. And he's like, yeah, you should probably take today off because we have like two, three weeks left to season. I don't want it. First of all, I don't want to get the guy six second. Right. Pushing through the sickness could potentially lead to injuries or whatever, right.

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Yeah. Kind of worked out perfectly though, because now I'm on a podcast, a bit congested, but. Yeah, but you look and sound great, so it's all good. So talk a little bit about your season. You've got the conference championship, you took the dub on that. You mentioned you've got a couple of weekends, weeks left in your season.

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What's, what are what are the next steps here for you? Yeah. So this season has been great. I mean, this has been my first kind of my, my freshman year, I didn't really, I started for the team for the first, like, three fourths of it, but, I eventually got this spot taken by a, I think at the time, it was like a redshirt junior, when I was a true freshman.

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Obviously, like I told you, my sophomore year, was redshirting such great year. And he actually went to go train and, live in Japan for a whole semester, which was really cool and a great experience. But obviously that means no NCAA season. So this is my first kind of taste of a full, college wrestling season. And so far, I mean, there's just been a lot of data points.

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There's been a lot of ups, been a lot of downs. You know, I think I'm 16 and six on the season right now. And moving forward, what's next is regionals. I mean, we've got a duel against Menlo, which is kind of like our rival, and I'm super excited for that. But then I that, like the NPS, I don't know.

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Yeah. And they, they won the whole tournament. So they're a great team. I'm looking forward to that. Do me. I know what our team is capable of. Our coaching staff tells us all the time, like, we we have the capability to go out there at regionals, and really shock a lot of people because there's a lot of guys that are coming back that are dark forces, right, that maybe aren't in the rankings.

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But trust me, by the time we get to the regional tournament, we will be showing up. And then right after that, we have nationals. And that's obviously the end of season. But I just super excited for your regional stuff. Are you you've qualified for that. Everyone goes to that. For those of us who maybe don't know like what?

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Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. So our regional tournament is Super region six. We have this is obviously debatable, but I think we have the hardest region in, in the country. So, we have like, powerhouse schools like Nebraska. Kearney, we have Adam State, we have our amazing. We just have a lot of guys, like, typically the guys that qualify for nationals, out of our region, typically All-American.

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So if you, if you qualify, you win our region. You are you have a lot of confidence going into nationals because you are one of the best regions. You know what you just won, right? And you're going to go out there and make a statement at nationals. And that's kind of my mindset going to it's like, this is the best region.

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I go out there, I win this regional tournament. Like I know I'm capable of winning nationals. I know I can win nationals, right? So when we talk, we talk a lot about mindset at Game on Life studio, on goals like we want scheme to be, to go be great. So take me through some of your mental preparation and physical preparation as you get ready for regionals.

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Obviously, if you do well at regionals and I don't know the answer to this question, so educate me, then you qualify to go on to the nationals. Like how are you feeling on that process? Yeah. No, I'm just feeling so excited, so grateful. Obviously this is my first postseason. Again, didn't have the opportunity the last two years.

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So again, just super excited. Super grateful, super blessed. I know what I'm capable of doing. I'm very confident in my abilities. It's about going out there and executing. Right. And back to your point about mindset. That's what I've been working on. Just constantly positive affirmations. Constantly, positively. Like just always hyping myself up right at all times, whether that be after practice, good or bad, you know, like these are all just stepping stones to what we want eventually, right.

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So I think one thing that I've definitely changed, this season in particular, is, just the way I look about practice and, and what I'm doing in the practice room for the most part, like, before, I feel like I'm pretty hard on myself, all things considered. Like this goes through everything. Like, I'm just pretty naturally hard on myself.

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Yeah. And I feel like, one thing that I've really taken into account this year is if you're going to be great, you're going to have bad days and you're going to have great days, and you're going to have okay days, you know, and that's part of it. Having those bad days aren't a bad thing. If anything, that's a good thing, especially in the room.

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That means you're in the right room, right? Having great days. That's great. That that's a great high. And if you're having okay days, that's just part of the process. And that's something I've been telling myself a lot leading up into regionals. I'm, I'm pretty confident person. I'm pretty confident in my abilities. So going into the regional tournament, I know I can win it.

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I know I can beat anyone at that tournament. I have some ranked guys that are, like maybe top ten in the country. I know I can go toe to toe with every single one of them and beat them on my day. So I'm just excited to go out there. I'm a darkhorse. I'm ready to kind of just shot, shake up the bracket tonight.

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So yeah. Shocker. I can feel it already. Yeah. Good stuff. I'm just. I've been itching for this tournament. I've been itching to show because I've actually wrestled some of these guys. My my fresh, true freshman year. My true freshman year. I was 17 years old. I'm 20 now, right? I'm ready to make a statement. This is this is my year.

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This is my regional tournament. I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Yeah, well, tell me, talk me through. Like, from, like we were talking about mindset here a little bit and get ready. What is what is give us an insight into the self-talk. Your own self-talk. Like what are you what is it saying to Hayden? Right. Like get help, teach some younger athletes or older athletes like what someone who's dialed in thinks about when they're getting in and going into a regional tournament or a national tournament like this.

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I think it's just always like nothing negative, like always positive, like positive affirmations all the way through. I would say, constantly because anything can happen, right? Like I could be sick, right? I could have crazy, like cramps like I did in this regional or in this conference tournament. You got to be telling yourself the entire way through like I'm the best, no matter what.

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Like, even on my worst day, I can be anyone. And that's something that I really try to instill into my brain, make it a reality in my head. So then it becomes a reality on the map. And I feel like is so important for young athletes to understand. They doubt themselves and they count themselves out before the match even start.

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And if you do that, then yeah, you lost the match already. In my opinion. You got to have the confidence stepping foot on that match that you are the best wrestler you have. The best offense, you have the best heart. Right. And and that's so important for young athletes to understand. I have two siblings. I love them to death.

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And I'm really trying to instill that into them. I just I want to have a talk with them, just give them that whole spiel, because I feel like sometimes they count themselves out a bit too early. And that's just something I feel like I have worked on a lot, and that's not something people naturally will have.

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Like, if you don't naturally feel that way, that's fine. This is a this is a acquired skill. This is not something that you just have one day and then you have it forever. No, you have to work on it every single day. And you got to be feeding those positive affirmations into your head because that is part of everyone's mind.

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You just got to outrun it. You got to again, feed those positive thoughts, and have have confidence and belief in yourself and your abilities. Go tell me. So this kind of a random question, but tell me how important it is for you to have a conference like Nssf. Right? To have a championship, right. Let's have those those schools come together, have a championship experience.

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How does that help you to have that association with the PSA? I think it's just super important to have a conference championship for a sport like wrestling, period, because, I mean, I'm not sure if you know this, Shawn, but, wrestling in California is kind of like dwindling down, right? Yeah. Cal Baptist University, a D1 program in Riverside, actually, just got cut.

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Got information that they're getting cut. So that's a D1 program we're losing, right? Right. And to have a conference tournament in California like that means so much to California wrestling as a whole. I can't speak on that enough. Like we go to Colorado for our regional tournament, right? We don't have a regional tournament here in California. You know, nationals, I can't tell you.

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The last time nationals was held in California, right, right. So to have the SF conference tournament in California, that means so much to wrestlers that want to wrestle at the next level. Right? This this tournament helps us keep wrestling alive in California. In, in, what's it called? North Cal. So Cal. Yeah. Yeah. Everything like that. So it's super important.

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Honestly, I'll. And people might say like people might say like, it's like not that important. Like it's just conference. Like you've got bigger goals, like regionals, nationals, like. Yeah. Like I, I agree there's there's bigger things. But when you really look at it like people don't understand, like these things really do mean something to every program. Like for example.

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And I'm going to give my, like, obviously we want to beat Menlo. We're rivals. But you know, Menlo Melo's transitioning to D2 right now. Right. And currently they're NWC I believe. But like they won the conference tournaments. So if you look at that that's going to help them get to that next level. And that's good for everybody.

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That's good for their program. That's good for California wrestling that that's great for everybody. And I hope that this tournament continues to bring in people. I'm going to do my part. Try to hype it up as much as I can on my social media. But yeah, again, it's great. I was like, let's talk about your social media.

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I, I was impressed when I went in there. You're wrestling. You're wrestling not only for San Francisco State, but you have an opportunity to show to to make sure I get this right. The for the senior team for the Philippines as well. Right? Yes. And then I was noticing that you have your own wrestling podcast. So talk about that as well.

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Let's get some let's get some love for that. Yeah. Okay. I guess I'll start at, my international kind of career. Yeah. So I have dual citizenship with the Philippines, and I actually went down there for their national tournament, along with actually one of my teammates, Andre Dargan. And we both, ended up winning the Philippine national tournament, making us the senior world team representatives.

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Myself at 57kg and Andre at 74kg. So we actually competed at the Southeast Asian Games in December during NCAA season, which is freaking awesome. Like it was an awesome experience. I ended up, taking second. I went three and one. I beat, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand in Thailand, which is kind of crazy. I was like, I felt like a villain.

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It was kind of cool. And then I, I fell to yet I fell to Vietnam in the finals. Good guy, really nice guy. But, you know, obviously not the way I wanted to end, but, my first senior level international tournament, I just super grateful, super blessed for the opportunity. And Andre also took third. So it was just a good luck for, the Philippines.

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Like, it was just awesome to bring home a medal. It was just so cool. And then I also went to the U20 world Championships, in August, in August, of last year. And I actually made history for the Philippines, being the first, Filipino wrestler to win a match at the U20 World Championships. So that was pretty kind of I want I be Italy like 1411, I believe it was a crazy match.

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But yeah, that was that's kind of the whole just right now. That's kind of my end goal, to be honest. Yeah. Getting on that Olympic podium winning. Yeah. I was going to say, like, so being on that team, I'm assuming that put you on a trajectory to go to LA 2028. Is that the goal? That's yeah, that is 100% the goal.

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Obviously I'm super young. I'm 20 years old. But that doesn't stop me before I go to the Olympics. I mean, like that. Yeah. Like, hey, if I have a chance, if I have a chance, I'm all in 100%. And again, it goes back to that self-belief thing. People might call me crazy, like, you're not going to qualify for the Olympics.

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You're like 20. Dude, I don't care. I'm. I'm going to I'm going to do my best. I'm going to go out there. I'm going to go and qualify, I'm going to get on that podium. And I don't know, there's not much else to be said. You just got to have belief in yourself. And. Yeah, it's a it's a heavy task.

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It's a steep task. But, dude, I'm 20 years old. I have, I have so much time and I've, I've even I have great coaches around me. I have great resources. I have a great support system. I know I'm more than capable to do that, so. Right. Yeah. All right, Hayden, here we are. We're going to break this down a little bit.

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This is going into the third period. You've got a lead here 12 to 2 against Eric. As you're going into this third period what's going through your mind. Yeah. So I knew on my feet I was definitely getting the better of him. I felt pretty dominant. Felt like my movement was really good. I was moving my feet well.

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But I did know Eric was pretty good on top. He's a good leg rider. Just good on top. You can score points. This is where, he can really open up a match. So in my head, I'm thinking urgency off of bottom and you can see it right away. I'm exploding. I'm moving. I'm trying to get out.

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I don't want to settle at all. Because especially against someone that is good on top, that's where they can score points. That's where they can turn a match around. And yeah. So Eric, actually, I, we wrestled in high school. That's the last time we wrestled. And he actually beat me like five three. And he I'm pretty sure he rode me out in high school, which means, like he just stayed on top the entire time.

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I couldn't get out. So in my head, I knew, like, this is the guy that scores points on top again, straight up, he does a good job. I'm trying to. I look for, what's called, change over here, but he gets me flat. I work back up to my base. And at this point, I'm just thinking I can't give him.

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I can't give him anything like this. Is. This is, like, really important for this match. This is where he can open it up again. And he actually wrestled our 33 pounder last year. And yeah, there it is. I'm able to get out there. Let's pause here. Pause there. Yeah, yeah. So like, he wrestled our 33 pounder last year and our one, three, three pounder, like, is one of my main training partners.

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Yeah. And he's great on his feet. And he's also pretty good at getting out of bottom pretty quickly. But I remember when he wrestled Eric. Eric, like, scored I think a lot of near fall, when it got to the ground. So like, again, I knew Eric was dangerous on top and I was thinking urgency, urgency, urgency, urgency.

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I cannot let this guy, I cannot relax on bottom because if I relax, that that's all the advantage starts. Eric. And, I was able to move. I was able to get to my feet and I was able to get out. So that was something we were actually working on a lot leading up into this week. Just urgency off of bottom for me.

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And you've got a ten point lead going on here. Like obviously you want to continue to just put your foot down and go up, put the gas on so that there's not given him any room at that point. Right, exactly. And, and in my, my head space as well. I'm up I think now 13 two some wrestlers might be like right now, they might just be like, fine with getting the major, major decision.

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Like, hey, I can just fend them off for the last minute. Like, no, that's that's not how I wrestle. That's not how our coaches in the room tell us to wrestle. I wanted to go out there. I wanted to dominate. I wanted to get this, tech fall for our team and for myself, and just to just to prove that I am.

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I am the better wrestler by it. By a mile. Right. I guess a quality opponent, too. So, let's start playing this. I'm going forward here. He reaches, I think I grab his right wrist, fake one side, and then go to the other. He tries to go for a throw. Here it was. I could tell he was trying to get like he was trying to go for broke.

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He wanted to get like, the, the the home run, home run move. Because at this point, like, it's a lot of points to make up. That's kind of it's important. Right here. Jason actually told me to cut him. So this is me, kind of just cutting and shooting him out. Again, like, I'm looking to score that last takedown to end this match.

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I'm not trying to keep this match close. I'm not trying to keep it on a major decision. I want the technical fall. And like Eric, Eric is smart. Like, he knows he has to go big. So right there in that sequence, you saw it like he went for a big move there. He went for a high fly to try to put me on my back and potentially pinned me, but it didn't work.

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My that's really I mean, with just a minute or so left, like, that's really the only way he's going to beat you. Yeah. There's I, he has to pin like he's down 14 points. Right. The way he's going to win this match is getting a high flying move. Right. Something crazy. And again I'm looking to break him down.

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He gets out here. And at this point I'm like, I'm going to go here and get I'm getting the takedown. Shoot a double. He tries to go for another big move. I just roll with it. Get behind really fast. Score. Let's go to the takedown. I'm pretty excited. I'm not a big celebrator, to be honest. I try not to, to be honest, but, you know, I did do a little clap, little fist.

00:21:56:23 - 00:22:11:54

I was pretty happy. And it was a fun match. Like, I was just had a lot of fun. I felt free, felt like I wrestled. Well, I felt like I was moving my feet. Well. Low claps to Jason. Shout out coach, shout out coach. Good job coach. You did it well Hayden. That's so fun to watch it.

00:22:11:54 - 00:22:29:41

It's so it's it's fascinating. I do have one question before we go in like so you're there and you're facing off with them. You're just going in like you're popping them in the forehead. Like you're putting your hand on their forehead. Yeah. Is that you're just kind of creating space. Like what? Yeah. So. So what's that? I saw that throughout the entire tournament.

00:22:29:41 - 00:22:44:44

So like as a non wrestling guy tell me what you're doing. Yeah I guess you could think of it as like a measuring stick right. So one it's a pattern. Pattern like disruptor. Right. Like if he's moving his feet well and I can feel him starting to catch a rhythm, popping someone in the head kind of like resets that, right?

00:22:44:45 - 00:23:03:33

It also gives you a gauge of how close you are to the person, right. So you can keep your distance. I'm a pretty long guy at the way, so I can keep my distance. He it's going to be hard for him to get to my legs, but I also know the range in which I have to shoot. So if I can feel that range out and I can time it, I can hit a blast double.

00:23:03:33 - 00:23:18:35

I can hit a single, I can hit my shots because I know I'm within range. Maybe if I'm too far, then I'm not going to do it right. Yeah, but yeah, that's the reason why. Cool. Very cool. Well, Hayden, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you be here on the Girls Highlight podcast. I am a fan.

00:23:18:42 - 00:23:34:54

Like, I know, like I was before, that's awesome. Now that I know Hayden, I have I, I'm going to follow and I'm going to encourage all the other folks out there in the game on live studio world to follow as well. That makes me happy. Hayden. How do they find you on social media and just kind of go through you?

00:23:34:54 - 00:24:00:21

Yeah, a little bit about that. Like talk about your podcast, talk about your channel, how, how how do people find you. Yeah guys I'm Hayden Chatter pretty much everywhere and on Instagram. YouTube, TikTok. I post a lot on Instagram and TikTok. Just funny videos, reels, kind of just keep you guys up to date. On just my international journey, NCAA journey, fitness content, food content.

00:24:00:26 - 00:24:24:50

And then on my YouTube, I post documentaries and vlogs of my, tournaments. I will be posting one of my of all my international tournaments as well, like Southeast Asian Games, the World Championships. I have that all down on my YouTube. And something I really like look forward to making every single time I, I just, I have a big passion for making videos, creating videos, creating, just stories.

00:24:24:55 - 00:24:41:57

And honestly, it's just it's just cool. I'm just collecting dad lore right now. I'm just I'm just excited to look back at it when it's all said and done. But yeah. Hayden, everywhere. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much, John. Thank you. Chloe, behind the scenes. This was awesome. I'm happy I was able to.

00:24:41:57 - 00:24:55:40

Hop on. Cool. Thanks, man. Go get them and go San Francisco State. Right as you get it. Thank you. And good luck. I want you to qualify. I want to go to. I want to see you at nationals. I will be I'll be a national champ this year. Sounds good. Take it easy, man. Peace. Thank you. Sean.

00:24:55:47 - 00:25:13:55

Hey, Joel. It's great to see you again. Thanks for coming back on to goals highlights here presented by Mental Grit. I'm excited to talk about kind of what we're turning this segment into as of this weekend. Water polo I think we're going to talk a little bit about some 16 year futures that you saw. There are some cap seven play that happened out there.

00:25:14:00 - 00:25:41:54

And then you've got some other insights for that. Only Joel knows. So, take it away. What do you got for us? Let's talk about 16 year futures first. Yeah. It was, a couple weeks ago. I was down at, 16 futures at, Fullerton High School, and, and it was, Division one. And so the three best teams that I saw there were, San Diego Shores, Newport, La Hoya United was very good as well.

00:25:41:59 - 00:26:00:57

So Cal was there, Trojan was there. Cornell Ma was there. And, so, yeah, it was, it was really good. A ton of a ton of good games. The best game probably was. And Michigan was there as well. But missions as we talked about was that the water polo experience. So their baths, their number 116 team ended up winning that tournament.

00:26:00:57 - 00:26:29:07

So they sent their, second team down. And they still got some good player, you know, some really good talent on that team as well. The best game was, definitely Newport. It was actually the first game on, Sunday morning. Yeah, it was, Newport and San Diego Shores and, Newport jumped out to A51 lead, and then San Assu slowly but surely just chipped away and gave an outstanding team, you know, Del Mar, if you know about by Del Mar breaking up.

00:26:29:19 - 00:26:50:47

All right. And now, so Del Mar Club broke up. And so now they're called the San Diego Dons in the 18 and 16 division. So some of those kids that were not playing for you had to be playing for Cathedral Catholic. So, you know, a few kids right off the bat, you know, Aidan Shinn, who's one of the better sophomores in the country, as well as Henry Lou.

00:26:50:52 - 00:27:12:10

They've been Del Mar since, you know, ten and unders forever. Now they they've jumped over to San Diego Shores Sixteens. And so San Diego Shores got a definite, you know, talent upgrade there. So they have an outstanding team. So they got age and who's one of the best sophomore attackers in the country. He's got a great chance to possibly make the youth and cadet world teams nice.

00:27:12:15 - 00:27:31:36

Fantastic player on Henry. Lose a great 4 or 5 solid guy, right side player. They got a good, freshman. And it's also a bishop's. Liam Zarco, who's fast. Who can shoot it? Excuse me? They can shoot it. Yeah. They're just, you mark man against another center that's up and coming for bishops. He's a ninth grader, big kid.

00:27:31:36 - 00:27:53:22

He's got a chance to be very good. And, you know, it's just they're just a really good, all around team. And eventually there's, And Newport was playing without Caruso pounds on him. One of the better sophomore utility types. He was ill, but they got really good performances. Coming off the bench. You know, Mateo, this kid did a really good job, replacing Caruso.

00:27:53:27 - 00:28:16:09

Just a feisty utility type. He's a sophomore. Davis can't play very well. Another sophomore lefty. And then, Sean Anderson, Tyler Anderson's brother, was very formal in that game. Weston Muir play, this lefty freshman, that's going to be very good use. And Harvey and other good freshman my kids on that team Kerr and he played very well too.

00:28:16:09 - 00:28:33:40

He's a freshman there at Newport. So they have a very good outstanding team. They'll be one of that damn San Diego shores, another team that's very good. They went undefeated during the weekend was La Hoya United? Yeah. Okay. And, they've got some really good. Let's go to back to that San Diego though San Diego Newport.

00:28:33:40 - 00:28:49:46

Game two. Yeah. They went five one. And then who ended up. Oh yeah I'm sorry. Yeah. Newport Webb five one. And then they San Diego shores slowly. But surely just kind of just chipped in. And Newport was ahead still in the fourth. And then San Diego Shores got some really clutch plays down the stretch and ended up winning that game.

00:28:49:51 - 00:29:10:07

By they ended up winning by two. Maybe three. They threw a goal in at the end or whatever. But yeah, they just, they were they just out executed Newport down the stretch. And, they did an outstanding job in that game. We didn't really, they weren't really challenged all week because you, you had Channel Islands was there, but Channel Islands was also in that other water polo tournament.

00:29:10:18 - 00:29:24:05

Yeah. So there was there be guys, they still have some really good players that really young though. Like they they brought down an eighth grader white working to. And he's one of the best eighth graders in the country. He did really well. He's going to be a very good player. He'll be going to Dos Pueblos High School next year.

00:29:24:10 - 00:29:48:39

And so he was really good. Yeah. La Hoya has some really good players. They have this kid, Guy Watts is, he goes by, let's see. He got hurt, unfortunately hurt his knee. I'm hoping he's okay. But they got a really good player down there. Got which, Sadr office. His last name?

00:29:48:39 - 00:30:09:51

Sadr. Off a rider, but he was another Delmar kid, so a lot of these kids bounced and went to other programs. So La Hoya United, basically kind of picked up on that and got some really good players. They have a kid called, his name is, let's see, it's they got Ethan Jett from Delmar.

00:30:09:51 - 00:30:31:42

He's there now. They have another kid, Mason Appel, right? Yeah. He was a stud. He came over from Odin. So the Hoya picked up some really good guy, really good players off the, And then, Yeah. Solder. Solder. He was a kid that got hurt. Very good all around player. He's one of the better sophomores in the San Diego County.

00:30:31:42 - 00:30:47:19

Even though he's a really good player. You got hurt. I'm hoping he's out. Not too long. But he did hurt his knee. Just a real freak injury that got kicked and his knee went out of place a little bit, so I'm hoping he's okay. But, yeah, it was kind of a wild weekend. So mission, you know.

00:30:47:32 - 00:31:10:56

Yeah. Go ahead. In terms of the stuff with Delmar, like, does that strengthen those other Sandy? Obviously it does strengthen those other San Diego teams because Del Mar has been dominant and been showing has both in the younger age divisions and had a great showing. And Joe's like. Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, and like the last five years, Del Mar is really kind of dominated ten years in that group.

00:31:10:56 - 00:31:37:30

This group that is now going to be 18 years, you know, with Ray Lennox, line, Jett Taylor and all them. You got Jack Davis, de Diego Dantas, all those guys that were dominating at eight sixteens are now moving up to eighteens. And but now with this break there are four teams is still really good. But my, my my take is if you're in that 14 year program, it's kind of like with Newport Mission.

00:31:37:34 - 00:31:59:25

They know they they should know that I'm going to be going to Cathedral Catholic. Right. You know, obviously you don't want to train other people from other programs and all that. But the San Diego dance team had their 14 news, and they played them up in the 16 year division. Got it. And they took, they ended up beating Trojans 16 or 14, new team B, Trojan Sixteens and a shootout.

00:31:59:30 - 00:32:18:08

Right. Or a by one. And then they ended up, losing to Corona del Mar to see the same San Diego Dolphins 14 new team. Ended up losing to, Corona, Ma, right. In a shootout. So, yeah. Are those San Diego teams now? We should be taking a closer look at those as they progress here through the club season.

00:32:18:12 - 00:32:36:12

Yeah. I mean, like San Diego's eighteens. Yeah. San Diego is 18. Like San Diego. Sure is 18. They picked up a great player from the, from, Del Mar Ryan Fresca. He's going to be going to UC Irvine next year. He plays at Carlsbad High School. So he's with San Diego Shores. So that's really going to help their 18 year team.

00:32:36:17 - 00:32:57:22

And so and then you like The Hoya obviously picking up those guys I saw them this weekend at their sixteens. Yeah. And that 16 team and then their I saw their eighteens team this weekend and, Yeah, the caps seven tournament was really good too. There was it was really good to see la marinda.

00:32:57:22 - 00:33:17:00

It was really good to see, CC United, you know, two prominent programs up there. You know, la marina's coach now by Guy Baker. He was actually my college coach at Long Beach State. And he is an Olympic coach, for the girls teams and for sure. Yeah, yeah, UCLA. And he won national championships at UCLA with the women's team.

00:33:17:00 - 00:33:35:48

But he's coaching. They're 18 men's now la marinda and obviously and one of the best coaches in the country. Yeah. They ended up losing to CC United in the final. But ultimately NorCal final and all NorCal final. Yeah. You know, yeah. North Irvine Black was there. You know, they have really good they got some seniors.

00:33:35:48 - 00:33:56:23

Kyle Franks from Bray. Linda unsigned senior August talk of which, they got a really good sophomore center from San Juan Hills High School. William Friedman. And, you know, going down the list. So they lost. And, so, Sam, North Irvine lost to these guys. But CC United was led. They had an outstanding 16 new team.

00:33:56:23 - 00:34:15:27

And now all those kids are now up in the air, right? Yeah. So you have like, the three kapal Indo to trio of carnival Indo studs. You have, Kate O'Hare. Yeah. Just a fast attack playmaker. Wilma guy. Great shooter. And then the Cal commit, Alex Collins. And they're all going to be seniors next year at Campo Lindo.

00:34:15:31 - 00:34:35:58

They're leading the way up there. They got another the, Stanford commit, Nick Austin. He's a center defender. He'll be going to Stanford. So CC United is really loaded. Brady has it. Another kid that's going on D1 visits, he's at Mira monte. So, they got a really outstanding quad squad. So they beat Lamar in in the final.

00:34:36:03 - 00:34:59:11

Lamar and, you know, had, Evan laboratoire is a very good player. Jack elder in the cage. Their best players. Tristan Tucker played at Mia monte High School. One of the best players in Northern California is going to UCLA next year. Yeah. Yeah. Adam Wright was there with his assistant coach. There was college coaches from, you know, UCLA, USC, right.

00:34:59:16 - 00:35:19:27

Stanford was there you know Pepperdine Davis right down the line. You know Biola you know they were all there. You know all there to watch all of UC Davis and all that. So it is a loaded loaded tournament. Really good to see. Ohio United was really good too. I was hoping to see Dexter Black. He's probably the maybe the best junior in the country.

00:35:19:27 - 00:35:37:09

Six seven lefty from my high school, but apparently I guess he's playing in future. He's going to be playing, for L.A. Athletic Club. So they invited him to come up. I guess maybe he's trying out. That's what his coach told me he was at. Or he did, you know, so he wasn't there. But, you know, they got a really good kid, La Hoya High School to be very good next year.

00:35:37:09 - 00:35:53:09

You know, they won the open division in San Diego. They got to, Lavon Kevorkian, who's a Pepperdine commits, a junior. He played really well this weekend. Super fast, long moves. Really well in the water. Can shoot it. And they got one of the better scorers in the San Diego County. And he'll be a D1 guy Quinn Daniels.

00:35:53:09 - 00:36:14:07

He's another junior. Addison Calhoun and the goal and stuff. So Lahore's San Diego water polo. This is the best, at least in my humble estimation, has been the best. Well-rounded because next year they probably they might have three teams in the top five in the country next year with bishops Cathedral Catholic will probably be the number one going into next year.

00:36:14:07 - 00:36:32:09

And La Hoya High School and then Santana High School is very good as well. So, yeah, San Diego water polo, you know, it's, it's really good to see it spread out, you know, and it's not so Norco. So, Cal, you know, and I know Shaw's and, Del Mar been great, but now, with their high schools coming up, there's a lot of really good programs down there.

00:36:32:09 - 00:36:49:13

Now, how do you talk a little bit as we, as we're getting close to the end of this segment here, but like talk about some of the impact of that in the super finals for futures as well as for geos, like are you are you seeing anything establish and develop in terms of the teams and clubs at the sixteens?

00:36:49:13 - 00:37:05:43

Maybe the eighteens or maybe I think we decided we're going to talk a little bit more about eighteens next weekend. Any early favorites? We haven't talked. You haven't. You mentioned Michigan a little bit. They had success in the water polo experience. Cop right. They had that international experience. What are what are some of your early thoughts? Right.

00:37:05:48 - 00:37:24:30

For the 16 year division. It depends what Michigan does. It depends what bright orange do he does. If he lets his guys play both and they're going to bounce back and forth, they're definitely one of the favorites because they're going to be one of the top teams in an 18 years as well. Or I think in them we're doing 19 U now.

00:37:24:35 - 00:37:57:37

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, because they have a team that was dominated by sophomores and juniors last year, and they did have Connor Coleman and John Ransford. They've move on there at SoCal now to play eighteens. But if they if they have that team with Lars Kidnaper and Andy Schneider and Chris Koo and Ronan Keane and they have a number of kids, if they play sixteens, Stephan in the cage and stuff, they're going to be one of the, I would imagine, easily one of the top four.

00:37:57:51 - 00:38:16:08

Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, Newport's going to be outstanding. They'll be, I feel like they're in the top four, San Diego shores, as I mentioned before. I want to see La Hoya, La Hoya United play because they didn't really they didn't really get challenged, that first weekend. So I'm going to watch them play against stiffer competition.

00:38:16:13 - 00:38:35:01

They're going to be very good. But I haven't seen, Channel Islands Sixteens are going to be very talented too. They, they got, you know, Wolf Legault's kid, and they got a number of other, Channing y go. He's very, very good player. And they, you know, that 14 U. Team that won the Joe's a year before.

00:38:35:03 - 00:38:57:16

All those kids have moved up. Right. CoA in the cage, for two and, so they got a number of really, Hunter. Oh, no. Hunter lous now at PRI because he went to sand. He's at, Oaks Christian. But they're going to be very talented. They got a lot of guys, so Channel Islands, Newport, La Hoya, San Diego shores.

00:38:57:21 - 00:39:14:59

And, you know, the San Diego Dons are going to be very good as well because they have a group, they have a really outstanding group of seniors to be and juniors to me. And so like guys like Jack Davis, I think Diego Dantas, I don't know if he's old and he's too old or not, but that, that group I think could play 16.

00:39:14:59 - 00:39:33:36

So, but they did lose, Aidan chan and Henry Liu, and they're now at San Diego Shores. But I'm sure, you know, San Diego Dons are going to be involved in that, up north. I'm. I need to see sixteens to see how many kids are moving up and down. Because, like, Stanford could be really good.

00:39:33:40 - 00:39:57:36

They have Hunter Coleman. Lincoln bought, Adam Afar. That really good trio. But Hunter Coleman might just be playing eighteens. He's arguably one of the 2 or 3 best sophomores in the country as a big center. Six seven center out of Menlo High School. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's a stud. So it depends what Stanford does, but if they keep their guys down, they're going to be one of the best teams as well.

00:39:57:40 - 00:40:19:04

So, probably I'm trying to off the top of my head, but I think those are going to be the, the favorites thus far heading into, you know, super finals. But when you really could impact super finals and, and I think shows is, I think Youth Worlds is going to affect Joe's. Okay. So that would be 19 you 18 you.

00:40:19:04 - 00:40:44:03

So all the kids that are seniors to be and kids that are going to college, those 2008 and possibly 2007, birth year, they might not be at Joe's if they made the youth team. So that could impact on us directly. And then super finals last year, USA water polo had an event where they pulled kids out and went to, and I think they went to Croatia.

00:40:44:16 - 00:41:01:36

Right. So that affected super finals. There was like a group of 30 kids that ended up going. So I really don't know all what's going to go down with that, because this is a big year for USA water polo, because we have worlds for cadets, which is 16 new worlds and 18 new worlds. Got it. So, we will we'll see how it does.

00:41:01:40 - 00:41:20:00

Who makes the teams and how it affects those teams going forward. And as we as we kind of wrap it up on this segment, this weekend, give a shout out to the National League USA Water Polo National League kicking off down in, Southern California, I believe. And, yeah. Well goals is hopefully going to be there and do some social with that.

00:41:20:00 - 00:41:41:45

But there also have the new division with the 19 and under any and what's, what's the vibe on the National League and the down in Southern California. Yeah. I think, you know, it's something new that, you know, Tom Davis, he's the boy, the high school coach. He runs Jim Islands. He put this thing together. And so, yeah, it looks really good.

00:41:41:45 - 00:42:02:12

You know, before we've had, you know, Olympic Club and Nyack Athletic Club and, all these various other teams, Riptide, etc. and now they're bringing this high school division. And so like Newport's going to be their mission is going to be their, San Diego Dolphins is going to be their Trojan. Anyway. We said Trojan member. They did outstanding a week ago in that tournament.

00:42:02:12 - 00:42:25:10

They're very formidable. They'll be one of the favorites for Joe's, for sure. When Joe starts, or when Joe's happens in July. But yeah, they're all in that event as well. Sandy shores as well. So, yeah, it's going to be some exciting water polo. And, you know, it's, it's that time of year. There's never a whole weekend I thought, great weekend.

00:42:25:15 - 00:42:41:34

I thought this weekend I was going to be off. But then I looked at the cap seven schedule and I go, man, I need to see la Miranda. I need to see CC United. I need to see, you know, North Irvine, La Hoya United, all these teams, you know, American River's got some really good players too. Lucas Rondo's going to UC Davis.

00:42:41:34 - 00:42:56:59

They had they had a good tournament as well. They got some good players. Aiden Crabtree so yeah it was really good to get down there and watch. A lot of the teams I don't normally get to see on a consistent basis. So you get a better overall feel what's going around. Well, Joel, I love what you're doing here.

00:42:56:59 - 00:43:12:57

It's given us some good insight. You know, those kids inside and out? So if you haven't already, check out. Listen to Joel. He knows his stuff. Okay. Good stuff. And, Joel would love it when you're on the mic for goals and con those. We always, like I say, we always get great feedback as soon as you're on there.

00:43:12:57 - 00:43:32:30

So next weekend, we're going to focus, I believe, on some of the, the league structure for futures for those eight teams. We'll talk about that. I'm sure you're going to go down and, get some eyes on National League for us. This weekend will be next weekend. So Joel Francisco here with Game on Live studio Joel, thanks so much.

00:43:32:30 - 00:43:49:58

Last words. Anything else you want to share? Yeah. Hey, it's, you know, we're, we're over. Past what, the halfway mark for club water polo. It seems like it just goes by so fast, but we, you know, we're just getting to the beginnings of, like, what teams are shaping up to be. And we still have kids bouncing around and stuff to figuring out what their best feel, what to do.

00:43:50:03 - 00:44:08:16

You know, as I mentioned for real quick though, and with CIU, I didn't get to mention some of the guys like white Williamson going to Cal. Yeah, he had an outstanding weekend. They ended up being top four there and, they picked up some really good players. So this is going to be definitely involved in that 18 year division with Jack Pointer and Oliver Davis and all that them.

00:44:08:16 - 00:44:24:51

So I just want to give them a shout out really quick. Because I forgot to mention them. But yeah. Yeah. It's this time of year. You know, it's it's going to be really good to see how everything plays out. And you know, I now USA water with all these world teams and, who's getting chosen, who's not, and how it affects those teams going forward.

00:44:24:57 - 00:44:41:37

But I appreciate being on here. Love it. And I love having you on it. Thanks so much. Joel, do you have your own personal social Instagram or anything that you want him to follow or you just want him to follow goals? Yeah. I just, you know, I don't I don't even know what my name is on.

00:44:41:37 - 00:45:01:01

All right, well, next time, we'll get that look for Joel Francisco. I just want to search for Joel. That's all I need to do. I have a good coach. Joel, thanks so much. Appreciate it. See you next week. All right. Take care. Thank you. It's so great to see you. Thanks for coming back into week number two here of goals highlights presented by Mental Grit.

00:45:01:06 - 00:45:23:48

We had a fantastic week talk last week and we're back here, man. It's I've been busy since our last conversation. Went back down to Long Beach to watch the ore and help produce the maps. If you're not busy. I'm not busy here. I know I'm productive. No, winning. And so, went got down there, watched some wrestling.

00:45:23:48 - 00:45:52:20

Those wrestlers, both men and women. And they are tough like they know how to take a hit, how to get back up again. There was one we were watching where the guy literally cut his eye open. They just taped over his eye and he kept wrestling and won the match. And it was just amazing to watch. And, as we as we're getting ready to come up, like, what are what thoughts on I mean, there's mental toughness which you focus on.

00:45:52:20 - 00:46:14:54

There's physical toughness like give us some thoughts about how in sports like athletes can manage in competition strain or, you know, something doesn't go quite right. And how do they refocus? How do they reset. Well and you know, let's just make this primary and say in pain right. Like pain is one of those things that all athletes experience from time to time.

00:46:14:54 - 00:46:31:15

And, you know, whether that's in the pool, whether that's water polo, whether that's wrestling, whether that's motocross when you crash. Right. Like pain is a part of the process and you know, you got to recognize the most important thing. And that's the fact that our brain does not like pain. It wants us to survive. Right. And therefore we have this thing called the primal brain.

00:46:31:15 - 00:46:54:12

And the primal brain just wants us to survive. It's trying to keep us well in the in kind of safe. Yeah, sports is not safe. So I mean, I'll, you know, this this whole idea of primal brain, right? Like, it's it's it's kind of geared internally where it's just trying to protect us and it's going to tell us things that self-talk that we hear all the freaking time.

00:46:54:12 - 00:47:24:06

But I gotta, you know, help you everyone understand right now. Like when it comes to sports, it's not about survival. It's about greatness. Right? That's what we're trying to achieve. And in the end, in order to achieve greatness, we can't listen to our self. We've got to be able to talk to ourself rather than listen to ourself. And we got to get really fricking good at it because yes, I think every athlete out there knows and understands that when you get hurt, when you start feeling the pain, when you get that lactic acid building up in those muscles, when you feel that burn, your brain's going to start telling you things that it's going to

00:47:24:06 - 00:47:48:15

try to keep you safe. You need slow down the back off. You need to, you know, don't you? Don't go harder. But in the end, that's all survival. And this is not about survival. Sports is not about survival. It's about greatness. And so, you know, when it comes to how we can go about utilizing our brain, our mentality, in order to help us push through pain, to push into hard challenges, you got to recognize, yeah, you need to talk to yourself.

00:47:48:15 - 00:48:03:22

And if you're going to need to talk to yourself, you got to know how to talk to yourself. You got to know the statements that you're going to say to yourself when you do find that pain, so you can override that primal brain that's just trying to keep you safe. And yeah, recognize that everybody has it. And I need everyone to understand that right now.

00:48:03:22 - 00:48:23:03

Like, this is a human thing. This is not an independent. You have this capability and no one else does. Everybody has self-talk. And yeah, you got to know what to say when that self-talk comes up, when you're first in that pain. But I mean, have you ever found yourself in that situation, Sean? Like pain, trying to keep you in survival mode and that brain of yours is trying to.

00:48:23:05 - 00:48:38:59

What's the situation? What's the scenario? I'm super interested. So. So for me, like last night on my training ride. So I've been riding a lot. Right. And I, we were talking about this I've got a couple of different examples. But last night, like I had been driving like I mentioned, up from Long Beach and got on the bike and just felt terrible.

00:48:38:59 - 00:48:57:39

I was like, oh my gosh, just stop, get off. This is terrible. Like you. This is not solving anything. And it literally took my body 45 minutes to warm up right before I was like feeling like, okay, we're going to be able to go here and make this happen. But like I start, I don't want to say I started negative, but I was just out of routine.

00:48:57:39 - 00:49:14:28

I was out of my spot. I was out of where I needed to be. Right? Like of what I wanted to be doing. But I got there and finally just it finally clicked. And then once it clicked, like the the my, my own mind clicked in as well and like started, I went through that initial trigger of like, just keep going.

00:49:14:28 - 00:49:35:18

Went through my mantra like smooth and strong, just be strong, just keep moving. And I and I got me there, you know, and and that's the important bit right there is that you had something to turn to, to talk to yourself through that situation. And you knew that you were going to face it. And like y'all, you're in sports, you've been in in the situations where you know when pain is going to happen.

00:49:35:18 - 00:49:51:03

Yeah, you know, it's going to, you know, when those times are going to be when your, your brain's telling you to back off. Your brain's telling you to slow down when you're too tired and you're just sitting there internally, just like kind of crapping on yourself. You're too tired. You need to go to sleep, right? Yeah. This is not worth it.

00:49:51:03 - 00:50:16:42

This is not going to be productive. It's start saying all these things to you just to make sure that you stay safe. Right? And in the end, yeah, our brains are kind of weak sometimes. Naturally. Right. And so we do have to have that willpower to know what we're going to say when those moments do occur. And so like for everybody out there, especially those athletes out there like go identify the three points, the three points that you know, you're going to find pain and you know what you're going to like.

00:50:16:42 - 00:50:39:52

Your brain is going to start saying to you, because you've been through it thousands of times, hundreds of times I don't you've been experiencing this sport a long enough. So right now in those moments, and then write down that traditional self-talk that you start hearing out of yourself, right? Once you have that all down, I want you to then, like on the other side of the page, start writing down, like rather than listening to all that, that staysafe stuff.

00:50:39:57 - 00:51:04:44

Yeah. And then the stuff that you're going to talk to yourself about. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about like a concrete example, because last week we were talking about like, are you a spectator or are you believing what spectators were wanting to do, or are you your own self. Right. And so I think that to me is one of the key things within athletics for those individual athletes, is to be able to have that self-awareness, to be able to review and look out from the third person.

00:51:04:49 - 00:51:23:41

I was listening to a book this morning, again on my workout this morning about Michael Phelps. And I know you've been doing a ton of work in swimming. Right. And is he is he is known for his routine, right? He is for exactly what is what is warmups going to be, what he's listening to, what it's like.

00:51:23:54 - 00:51:44:18

He's done it a thousand times that when he gets to that Olympic stage, or when he did get to that Olympic stage, right. It wasn't anything new or different. Right. And so and part of that was that routine. Part of it was that self-talk. So if there's an athlete out there that's like can recognize like move out and look at Shawn Stringham themselves as the third person or whoever that athlete is.

00:51:44:18 - 00:52:02:41

The the watcher is what we like to call it. Yeah. There you go. The observer. Watch your own mind. Yep, yep. Thank you for putting where it's that exactly what? Like what is the process that they need to go through to be able to attack that like mine is smooth and strong. Like when I get into a rough situation, both like from an endurance standpoint, like that is my trigger.

00:52:02:41 - 00:52:18:46

I just say smooth and strong, smooth and strong. I probably repeated that to myself 250,000 times in the last 20 years, you know what I mean? Like that's just where I go. So how does someone build that or know what that trigger should be? Well, I'm going to tell you straight off the bat, like don't try to copy somebody else.

00:52:18:55 - 00:52:50:09

Right. Because recognize right now, like the things that athletes say to themselves, the things that athletes do, their routines are personal, powerful and meaningful to them. Right? The why they do the things they do, the why they say, the things they say comes from a lot of experience and a lot of meaning personally for them. So if you're trying to go and do something that other people are doing, like copying their routines or copying what they're saying, like, okay, these are all might sound good, but they're not powerful for you, right?

00:52:50:14 - 00:53:10:33

Right. And so go out and, you know, like as you continue like moving forward in your, in your experiences. Yes. Write down all of those like negative self-talk moments, the times that you're in those no pain points. Right. Like and ultimately the the talk that kind of comes up and then like on the other side of that page, like write down what you're going to say to yourself.

00:53:10:33 - 00:53:30:28

But if you're going to say something to yourself, make sure it's personal, powerful, and meaningful for you based on your experiences, based on what you think works best for you. And know that especially the teenage athletes out there, you're it's going to be pretty easy to go, like surface level, right? Like very generic with what you tell yourself.

00:53:30:33 - 00:53:50:54

And so like, if I were to give some advice as it relates to what to tell yourself, maybe find something that you know is like an action for you, rather than thinking, start doing more like you said, like you jumped on the bike and you just started. Yeah. And that ultimately got your brain to come around. And yeah, we got to use both mind and body together.

00:53:50:54 - 00:54:11:07

But the fact is, is that you've got to find something that's personal, powerful and meaningful for you. And if it can be an action, that's even better. If I were to like put this in like basic terms, you know, what's an action? If what you say is something that you can see in your brain, right? If you can't see it in your brain, it's you're not going to be able to do it.

00:54:11:07 - 00:54:29:07

You're not going to give your body that instruction to do the thing that you want to do. Right. And so, like I hear all the time, like, oh, like, what's your one thing? And, you know, athletes I was like, I just need to go faster. I was like, can you see it? No. Okay, well what do I do that well how do you go faster.

00:54:29:12 - 00:54:44:19

Well I need I need a kick from the hip. Okay. Can you see kicking from the hip. Yes. Okay. There's your that's what you can tell yourself. Okay. I'm going to. When I feel pain I'm going to kick for my hip period. Right. I'm going to pull the water. I'm going to you know in the wrestling match I'm going to get big.

00:54:44:19 - 00:55:02:24

I got to take up space, I'm going to shoot harder. Right? Like whatever it might be, it's going to be the thing. You just need to make sure you see it in your brain. If you don't see it, it's not good enough, right? So talk to yourself. Stop listening to yourself and know right now, everybody out there, you don't have to listen to yourself.

00:55:02:28 - 00:55:20:16

I don't know if everyone knew this before, but like, just because it comes in from inside of your brain doesn't mean you have to listen to it. You don't have to listen to yourself. As a human being, we can disconnect and like have this observer kind of like point of view or this. But talk about being an observer, right?

00:55:20:16 - 00:55:39:32

Like talk about that. How how do how do you teach your athletes to go from like, here I am, I'm in the first person to be able to go to that third eye, right to that third person. I what what is the process or the awareness or what? What do athletes need to do to be able to go there, and what are the benefits of going there?

00:55:39:37 - 00:56:03:12

Well, close your eyes and just look in, look inwards and start listening. Start listening. Just watching those thoughts like and I I'm I'm a big proponent of utilizing a lot of meditation practices in order to develop this capability. But ultimately, if you just close your eyes, you can kind of see the stream of consciousness, the stream of thoughts that are kind of passing by.

00:56:03:12 - 00:56:23:50

And it's really easy to attach, really easy to attach to, you know, whatever is passing through your mind, you don't have to attach to it. Right. And just, you know, thinking of your brain, of your thoughts as kind of like a freeway. Yeah. And ultimately recognizing that there's a lot of cars going down that freeway and you don't have to grab on to them and like, you don't have to wave at every single one of them.

00:56:23:52 - 00:56:43:00

Yeah. You can let them go by and then maybe another thought's going to come by and maybe another thought's going to come by. And a lot of those thoughts, interestingly enough, are going to be pretty stupid. I the first time I started doing this and started watching my own brain, my own mind, like there was a lot of stuff in there that was like, that's just stupid, right?

00:56:43:00 - 00:56:58:07

And I was giggling at myself. And before, when I was identifying with a lot of those thoughts, I would attach to them really hard and I'd be like, well, I am stupid. I am not enough. I do suck, right? And it's just like, well, I saw it go by and it's like, you suck, you're not good enough.

00:56:58:07 - 00:57:18:46

And I'm like, screw that. Like, look at me. Like, I did all this stuff today. Like, I great, this is phenomenal. I am amazing right now. Right. Like and so it's like you're, you're you're thoughts can really go in a thousand different directions. Let them let them go and watch them and just know that you don't have to attach to any one thing.

00:57:18:46 - 00:57:45:33

But just knowing about it is one thing. Yeah, yeah. Being able to be the watcher is one thing. But again, it it comes down to like, you don't even have to listen to all of it. You can just start talking out loud, stream of consciousness and ultimately choose what you say. Yep. My one of my favorites that I have, I have for myself that I've, I figure do a hard task or I've got a great workout in or I finish a big lift or something like that.

00:57:45:46 - 00:58:03:48

My favorite that I've been doing lately is literally just simple, like, great job, Sean. Like, yeah, good job. I'm not body like you did a good job. Like, that was hard and you did it. Congratulations. I was like, you feel silly in the moment doing it. And it's like, oh, but you know what? That was really good. Like, I it's better than not doing it, so.

00:58:03:49 - 00:58:20:01

Oh, dude, I can't even tell you how many times I did that there in my first Ironman. I was like, keep going, you've got this. Keep freaking going. And it's like up this massive hill and I'm dog tired, right? Like just gone. And it's just like, you're doing a great job. Just keep freaking going. And that's all I could talk to myself about because it was real.

00:58:20:14 - 00:58:42:25

Now let's come on down to a really important factor here. Like if you're going to say things to yourself, make sure they're true, right? Okay. Make sure they're real. Because there's this whole concept called toxic positivity that is really nasty in sports right now where everybody is just trying to make you positive, right? It's not about positive athletes, parents, coaches.

00:58:42:30 - 00:59:02:09

It's not about being positive. Because as athletes we can't go from negative. This sucks, I hate this, I just got scored on I just made a mistake. That was stupid too. I'm amazing. Let's make this happen. I've got this like I'm a unicorn. It's you can't go from negative to positive and actually believe it, right? So you have to talk to yourself about things that you can believe.

00:59:02:14 - 00:59:21:07

I'm pulling water right now. I'm I'm I'm taking up space right now. I can see things. I can hear things, I can feel things. I can know things. I can breathe like these are all things that are just true. And so again, coming down to those like actions, number one is really important to have as like what you're going to talk to yourself about.

00:59:21:12 - 00:59:38:36

Right. Well do it this way. Instruct yourself in the way that you need to do the thing that you need to do, whatever it might be for wrestlers. It's getting up. It's taking up more space. It's shooting. Right? Yeah. And yeah, I love this concept because I think it's like it's pretty visceral. If you look at like a boxer, right?

00:59:38:36 - 00:59:56:30

And you got their like their corner and they got a corner guy. Yeah. It's the job of that corner guy Shawn just to keep them going, tape them up and get him back out there to tape them up and freaking just talk at him. Right. And talk at him about things that are just very believable and that are just encouraging.

00:59:56:36 - 01:00:12:17

So he can shut down the crap that's going on in his own brain. And he could just listen. He can just hear the outside voice coming in. Right. And you can do that for yourself as well. And so, yes, write down the negative crap, write down that script that you know you're going to hear when you find that pain, right?

01:00:12:30 - 01:00:30:58

And then write down all the things you're going to say to yourself instead of listening to all that crap to help you do the thing that you need to do, whether that's push through the pain, whether that's get back into the dog fight, whether that's pushing harder through the pain threshold, right. Like whatever it might be. But yes, it comes down to talking to yourself is way more effective than listening to yourself.

01:00:30:58 - 01:00:50:24

If you're aiming for greatness, if you're not aiming for greatness and you just want to survive, you can listen. Go ahead. There's a time for that, and we need that. But there's also a time to compete and to perform and to be great. And so just know that there is going to be a time that you need to talk.

01:00:50:28 - 01:01:10:31

So just know your scripts, know what you're going to say to yourself and make sure they're personal, powerful and meaningful for you. Fantastic, Nate. Great work. Always fun to talk with you. I love I'm loving this weekly chat. It's keeping me motivated in my own training and work and all that kind of great stuff. Nate, give us your breakdown on where they find you, where they find mental grit.

01:01:10:31 - 01:01:26:48

How if people want to work with you. Yeah. Hit us up at, you know, at Mental Grit and at Instagram. I mean, I think that's going to be the best place to go. Got a whole bunch of great training on there that goes over pretty much everything. That is performance psychology and recognized right now. Like, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a clinician.

01:01:26:48 - 01:01:49:19

I'm not a therapist. I'm not here to fix disorder. I'm here to optimize your potential. I'm here to optimize your capabilities to use that head to help you rather than hurt you. So yeah, jump on Instagram. You know, you can see me and, you know, on my on my website at WW that mental grit consulting.com. And ultimately yeah, if you have questions and you need some perspective on any of this stuff, just reach out.

01:01:49:19 - 01:02:05:19

And I mean, I'm in the DMs pretty much every single day making sure that everyone's taken care of. So say something if you need something. Fantastic. Nate, great to see you. Go be great. Nate. Kobe. Great as well. Yeah. Sean and team. There you go. Game on man. Thanks man. Appreciate it.

01:02:05:19 - 01:02:22:45

Hey, this show exists because every athlete deserves to be seen. Every great play deserves to be celebrated. And every competitor deserves the mental tools to reach their potential. Whether you're a water polo player, a wrestler, a triathlete, whatever you are, we want you to go chase your own PR and we're here for you.

01:02:22:49 - 01:02:31:01

Thanks for joining us on episode number two. Next week we break down the action. Until then, go be great.

01:02:31:06 - 01:02:31:25

Five.

Episode 2 of GOLS Highlights brings together three voices shaping the future of sport through performance, insight, and mindset.

Hayden Ancheta is a championship wrestler and elite competitor, fresh off winning the 125-lb SF Conference Championship. Known for his disciplined approach and international wrestling experience, Hayden shares what it takes to prepare for regionals and nationals, emphasizing self-talk, confidence, and the ability to dominate when it matters most.

Joel Francisco is a respected analyst with a national perspective on athlete development and competition trends. In this episode, he delivers a detailed breakdown of 16U water polo futures, highlighting top clubs, shifting rosters, and the implications for Super Finals, Junior Olympics, and long-term recruiting landscapes.

Nate Last, founder of Mental Grit, is a mental performance coach focused on helping athletes perform under pressure. Through practical frameworks centered on self-talk, focus, preparation, and pain management, Nate equips athletes with tools they can apply immediately—regardless of sport.

Together, these three voices represent what GOLS Highlights stands for: championship standards, informed analysis, and the mindset required to go—and be—great.