Hannah Huesman

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. Happy Motivation Monday to you and yours. I try to do these as much as I possibly can for every episode honestly, but this episode today is going to be pretty special. We have a woman on the show. Her name is Hannah Huseman and she is from Nashville. There's your local Thai and she is the mental skills coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. So she went to UTC and went to University of Tennessee, got her degree and master's in kinesiology and sports psychology and every single week she does this really cool thing called the mental sweat Monday. She does it on our socials and it's one minute and she just does this motivational kind of a one minute thing and she's a good friend of mine's daughter and I kind of connected and said, hey, let's do a show. Let's do something super positive and let's motivate the heck out of some people on a Monday. So excited to bring her to you today.

01:33Her name is Hannah Huseman. Again, find her on social media and follow her. She is awesome. Awesome. Also want to remind you guys that our initial Nashville hot list is out. Yolan is the number one restaurant in Nashville, the best restaurant you need to go to right now. Bastion is number two and Lachlan Table is number three and I think those are all pretty much interchangeable. It's just amazing restaurants. We want to put out a list. We got 10 restaurants. Go to nashvillerestaurantradio.com or find us on the socials and check it out. See what numbers four through 10 is. They're listed on our homepage. But if you have something that you would like to share or you have a dish you want to show off or an experience you want to show off, use the hashtag Nashville hot list and I will definitely see it and I would love to have your feedback as to who needs to be on the Nashville hot list going forward. We're going to do it monthly. The next one will be out beginning of November and December and we're going to expand it to neighborhoods. We're going to do all kinds of fun stuff with it. But thank you guys for listening. We certainly appreciate everything that you do. Check us out on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel and lots of videos. You can watch the video to this episode right here. So let's jump on in.

02:55With much excitement, I want to welcome in Hannah Heusman to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Welcome Hannah. Hey, thanks for having me today. I am so excited to have you on this show on a I would you would say a mental sweat Monday. I'm going to call it a motivation Monday. For those of you who don't know Hannah, she is the mental skills coach for the Philadelphia Phillies and I know what you're thinking. Like what does that have to do with restaurants? It doesn't. I've tricked you all. I've got you here and now you have to listen to us talk. So tell me about that. Tell me about what you do as the mental skills coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. Yeah, so it's awesome because one of the things people think about mental performance coaching and mental skills coaching is it's only for high level elite athletes. And while on one hand that's super true, on the other hand, it's for high level elite performers. And I love to argue that if you are a human being and you are breathing and you are doing something, you are performing in some way, shape or form.

04:05So like if you're a parent, if you're a spouse, if you have a job, like you're performing. And so I am a firm believer that everybody can be impacted by mental performance. So I just had to say that. But what do I do? I so I have my master's in sports psychology and motor behavior, which is a really fancy way of saying how the mind and the body work together to produce optimal performance. So that's what I do. And it's mainly with athletes, but I also work with business executives and firefighters and actors and actresses and all different kinds of performers on how to make them the best they can possibly be. But instead of focusing on all the physical things and all the techniques and how to do it, we're focusing on the mental side of it and looking at everything they're doing from a performance standpoint through the mental lens. And it's it's so fun because it's typically the one thing that's neglected. And because we work so hard on all the physical things that we do, but yet we forget to check in on how we're doing mentally or how we can get stronger mentally or how we can deal with adversity better, et cetera, et cetera, all of those things. And so that's what I do. I have conversations either one on one or with a group, a big group, a small group. I do speaking engagements all about how to get your mind to work for you instead of against you in your everyday performance.

05:22Wow. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I wanted to have Hannah Houston on our show today. Because I don't know of a time in our lives where we need that more. I mean, there's a lot of people that are not working right now. I feel like your business should be booming. It is. I mean, no. And it's funny because people only think you need it when things are going wrong. Right. But now it's like, maybe we're just like thrown in a situation we don't know how to handle or we're uncomfortable or we're unsure or we're nervous about certain things. And we're just a little off. And so it's like, all of a sudden, like, let's go find something to help. And it's been awesome. I've been super, super busy. The quarantine has not slowed me down in any way, shape or form. But it's been awesome to see some people really kind of come to how important this is and how this actually can impact even working from home, especially working from home, you know, and adjusting to whatever life looks like now for everybody, which is pretty different than what it probably looked like six months ago or a year ago. So do you specifically only work with the Phillies or do you have like, do you like take clients on like, if somebody, if I needed to talk to somebody and I say, can I hire you to be my mental skills coach for X amount of time or whatever? Is that something you do also? Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's predominantly with the Phillies, like 90 to 95% of my work is with the Phillies. It's very time consuming because we have a lot of players in the minor leagues too, and staff and everything. And I love it. But I do have a few private clients who are nowhere close to the baseball world, surfers or, like I said, business executives and stuff like that. So I do, I do some freelance, I have to make sure I'm not overwhelmed with it. Because I'm also working on my balance and making sure my mental performance is at its

07:22peak. And so really, really making sure but yeah, I do, I do some freelance work for sure. So what's the story of somebody that's had to over like something that obviously no names, but like, what is a common something, somebody to call you with that you've helped somebody overcome right now? Well, most conversations right now end up being all about the things you can control and the things you can't control. Because so often people are calling now and they're like, stressed because they don't know what's gonna happen with their job or stressed because they're not like used to teaching from home and all of these things. And it's so interesting having conversations with people who are finding themselves stressed out or worried or anxious about so much. And if you really look into it, it's all about things that is completely outside of their control. And so a lot of my conversations are based around shifting that perspective of make sure the energy, the time, the effort that you're putting in because you're putting a lot in, but you're probably putting it towards the wrong things. And you're probably putting it towards the things that you can put all your time and energy and effort to and maybe it'll never change because it's really not direct, directly connected to you. And so it's really trying to channel it and make sure what you are doing and putting all of your time and energy and effort to is actually having an impact on you and your performance and your overall well being. I mean, it's like always comes down to that.

08:52And it's pretty fascinating to how much people are like, I know it, but I don't really know it. And I don't know what to do about it. And so it's very, very common, especially right now. I'm a big fan of John Miller's book, QBQ. Are you familiar with that book, the question behind the question? But I'm already loving it. Fantastic. Well, it's a book about personal accountability. And he's a friend, but he's also a brilliant, it's a short book, real easy read. And one of the statements he makes in the book is that stress is a choice. He says stress is a response that your body, that you have to external factors. And it's a choice how you respond to things. And it's a victim mentality to say, this happened to me. Look what's happened to me. This election is happening to me. This happened to me. And it's like, no, no, these are things that everybody's dealing with. It's how you're responding to it. That's creating stress. Is there truth in that?

10:01Yeah. And I'd even take it a step further. And I would say, you can control your response, but you may not be able to control your reaction. So hear me out. So right, like something happens and you have an immediate reaction, whether that's you're pissed off, whether you're laughing, whether an attractive person walks into the room and you're like googly eyed for a second, right? We, there are certain reactions that we as human beings cannot control. And that's okay. What is important and what you can control exactly is your response to that reaction. That's where you should put your power and your mindset into because, and how long that reaction lasts, right? So like, do you stay distracted for a really long time? Do you stay really pissed off for a really long time? Or do you say, okay, I'm aware of the situation happened. Now I'm aware of what my reaction was, good, bad, wrong, right, whatever it was. And now I'm going to decide how to respond to it. And I think that's absolutely what you can control. And I think the best of the best performers are able to make that reaction as minimal as possible. You're going to have it. So you'll never hear me say, Hey, just don't, don't get mad. Don't get upset. I'm like, if something bad happens or you don't perform to your top notch ability, I want you to get mad because when you're not, that means you don't care, right? The reason you're having that reaction is because you give it, you know, so, but you, it's because you care. And so I want you to care, but I want to make sure your response is productive and helping you however you reacted. Cause typically the reaction isn't helping our performance, but the response to the reaction is where we can gain that control back instead of giving our time and energy and effort to a mistake we already made. And we can do nothing about, let's figure out how to respond to that. And that's, it's such a simple concept, but it's really fricking hard. That's hard to do. Well, I just celebrated 11 months of sobriety and it's something I'm hustling on. And the thing, one of the things that's like been the most amazing thing is just

12:05the serenity prayer. You know, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. It's the most simple thing in the world, but it's so incredibly impactful if you just think about it. I can't change. I can go vote, but I can do my part and I can do, there's things I can do that I'm not going to be a hundred percent responsible for that. And I can't change it. The things I can change is where I really need to focus my energy, right? It's focusing on me and things I can do, not stuff that's external that I can't change. Like that's just wasted passion, wasted energy. Am I wrong? No, you're absolutely right. And I love that reference. And it's funny because I've always felt like I've had this mentality about me. Like I didn't really know it in school when I was playing sports, but I know it now just because I studied it. But just you saying that like my mom used to read that to us all the time. And like when I'm a kid, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. You know, but it's like, it is so true. Like, and I talk about acceptance all the time. And in order to accept something, you have to be aware that it's happening, which awareness is a huge mental skill foundation for me. Like it's one of the first things I like to talk to people about because if you aren't aware of what's going on, you can't accept it. And if you don't accept it, I don't think you can grow from it. I don't think you can go anywhere before you accept it and are aware of it. And acceptance doesn't mean complacency. It doesn't mean like I'm just folding over. It is what it is. It's like, no, I'm accepting that this is where I am now. And I'm accepting that that's not where I want to be in six months. So I'm accepting to make a change. And it's almost using it as a motivator instead of a debilitating. And I think some people are so worried about the word acceptance, like I don't accept anything, like nothing's ever good enough. And I'm like, okay, great. But you have to accept where you are right now in order to make a decision to work harder. Like by making a decision, I want to lose weight, you have to accept that you're overweight first, or that you're not happy. Or that you're an alcoholic. You know, that was my big thing is

14:10once I realized it, once I accepted the fact that this is what I am, I put a label once I accepted that fact, it made it really easy to go, well, I don't I don't want to have that burden. I want to continue to I want I have a direct correlation of decisions that I can make that can remedy that and I can start growing forward. It was like the most amazing moment, like of my life, realizing Oh, my gosh, like, I don't have to, I don't have to do that anymore. I could just accept it. And now I can move forward. It was a really cool moment. I love that. If I'm a baseball player, bring this back in a little bit. And then I want to play at one of your mental sweat Mondays that you do on LinkedIn every single Monday, I look forward to Mondays I played for my wife. I'm like, you gotta hear this. This is great. Because it's so you're so motivational, and you make so much sense. If I'm a baseball player, is there I mean, because you're talking about a different level of scrutiny, a different level of mental strength, you have to have I've been to 100 baseball games. I'm a huge baseball fan. I love and I'm an angel fan. I'm originally from Southern California. And we don't have a baseball team in Nashville. Yeah, there may be some Did you hear that? Yeah, there's definitely Justin Timberlake is on board now trying to I saw that it's official now JT is on board. Hey, it's happening now that he's on board, you know, he's got a lot of hands and stuff going on in Nashville. But, you know, you go there and I got we have a minor league team here called the Nashville sounds AAA affiliate. But we are people heckle baseball players, like nothing I've ever seen. And they don't like they don't budge. They just stand there. I mean, for the most part, they just kind of like, I got it. And I've been a sales manager for many, many, years. And the number one reference I use when it comes to sales is baseball players strike out seven of 10 times. They're an all star. Right? That's that's you have to get out seven of 10

16:16times. But if you get on three of 10 times, you're an all star. You get on four of 10 times, you're a Hall of Famer. But I mean, like, most people strike out seven to eight times out of 10. Like, how do you sit down and motivate those people? And how rampant is it how when guys come to you? Are they like, I'm in a slump? I can't get out of it? Like, where am I at? Like, what do you typically I would love to know just some of that like inside stuff? Yeah, so, so typically, I try to meet with everybody pretty proactively. So I'm hopeful that I'm equipping them with the tools that they need. So it's not just hit the panic button when we're all of a sudden in a slump or we're struggling. And so yes, that happens, of course, or when something's just not working or not feeling right, like they'll come in and we have those conversations and try to really get back to what's working for them. But it's it's funny, because it almost always comes down to what are you focusing on. And so it's also funny, because you're right, it's so much failure. But that's why they love the game. Right? And I came up with a quote, it's somewhere on my Instagram, but it's basically, it basically is talking about how the the chance of failure, the higher the chance of failure, the more exciting it is to succeed.

17:35Right? Because the odds are literally against you in baseball. And so when you do prevail, when you are successful, it's like no other feeling, because you're like, I wasn't supposed to succeed, the odds were truly against me. And they almost always are in baseball. But that's why they love it. And so when somebody comes in, and they're like, God, I'm sucking right now, or I'm not playing good. It's like, isn't that kind of why you love like, if every time you went out, you just destroyed teams, it was 30 to zero, you hit home runs every time, would you enjoy baseball? And it's like, almost instantaneously, they're like, No, that'd be boring. And I'm like, exactly. The reason we love it is because we do fail so much. So be careful. And what your perspective, your perspective of failure is, right? Because if you hate failure, then do you hate the game of baseball? Like you probably actually love failure, because you want to go head to head and compete with that as much as you can and try to win. And so it's almost like this whole shift of perspective. And so that's kind of what the failure piece is. But then again, I think it comes down to focus and my definition of mental toughness, because everyone's like, just be mentally tough, right? You always hear that you turn on the ESPN and watch for 30 minutes, and you'll probably hear some kind of mental toughness reference, because we all talk about it. Right? Yeah, part of it's vulnerability, part of it's focusing on the right thing at the right time. Yep. If you think about it, no matter what the situation is, if you are able, like if you're playing really, really well, or performing really, really well, and still able to focus on the task at hand, instead of getting too involved with the crowd, getting too confident, too arrogant, messing with your buddies, all of a sudden, you're trying to do stuff that you haven't really done, and you start performing poorly, because you weren't focusing on what you're supposed to do.

19:12And same vice versa, if you're struggling, right? If you're performing poorly, and all of a sudden, you start, like your grip gets stronger, you get a little stiffer, you start trying too hard, whatever, it's because you weren't focusing on what you know you need to be focusing on. And so a ton of my conversations come down to focus training and concentration training, and blocking, which includes blocking out the crowd and figuring out, and some of them embrace the crowd. It's so different for each person. Like, do they enjoy it? Do they enjoy the silent? Do they enjoy the heckling? Like, a lot of them do. And a lot of them play better when people are heckling them, because it makes them laugh, and kind of they can kind of loosen up. And so it's really just knowing what you need to hear, and what you need to focus on, and making sure you're able to create that concentration and that focus when you need it most. Which, again, sounds so simple, but in the heat of the moment, when the stress is on, when the pressure's on, when everything is against you, right? When odds are not in your favor, can you still do that? Can you still choose to do that? And that's really hard. Wow. That certainly puts it in perspective. I mean, you know, how important mental skills are. And I think that we can correlate a lot of that to what we're doing every single day. I have said that I started this podcast in March. March 13th was my first podcast. And I said, this quarantine that we're about to go into is March, like, you know, St. Patrick's Day, when they said, we're locking everything down. And I said, this is a really unique opportunity, especially as they closed all restaurants. I said, this is your opportunity to push a reset button. You're going to get a month or two months or whatever it is to be at home. You could start studying your wines, studying food, identifying ways to get really good at something. You could start proactively watching videos, Netflix. You can just, you can elevate your game so much. And then when you go back, when this whole thing is over

21:12and you go back, you can utilize this time to really go into the next next level at a high level and push a reset button. Let's just, let's reset, restart and go. Or you could not. And I don't know if there's a right answer. There's a wrong answer. Some people need a break. Some people don't need to hustle and do that. I'm terrible at excuses though. And I have people coming in, well, this happened. I'm like, no, you didn't allow that. Or I'm busy or I didn't get it done is one of my least favorite things. You just didn't prioritize. I ran out of time. Well, no, you prioritized other things in advance of this thing. So I don't ever say like, I didn't have time to do it. I just say, I prioritized other things ahead of that. Because that's the true answer, right? 100%. And hopefully you're prioritizing the right thing. Yeah. I mean, so somebody says, how come you didn't get done? Say, well, I prioritized other things ahead of it. What did you prioritize it? That's an easy practice you can do alone when trying to figure out what you need to do is just, how are you prioritizing things?

22:15Yeah, I love that. I've seen the entire pandemic is like this, this whole crazy time that people are making moves and doing different things. And I just, I don't know, any, any advice for people out there, restaurant workers who've been put off, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with the world, but like any words of wisdom, we're going to take a short break to tell you a little bit about Trust 20. Trust 20 is the new standard of restaurant safety and diner comfort. Trust 20 restaurants are part of a national network of restaurants that meet a high standard of cleanliness and safety, giving diners confidence in the measures you're taking to keep them safe. Trust 20 restaurants receive expert guidance, operational resources, and benefit from diner focused promotion on behalf of the Trust 20 network of participants. So how do you get certified? It's easy. Go to Trust20.co and request a certification appointment. A Trust 20 specialist will reach out and arrange a visit.

23:18The specialist conducts a 60 minute review and consultation according to Trust 20 tactics. If adjustments are needed, the Trust 20 specialist will provide guidance to assist. Now that you're certified, have peace of mind knowing that you're doing everything you can to keep your restaurant safe and start enjoying the benefits of Trust 20 certification. Remember, visit Trust, the number 20.co and request your certification appointment today. You know, I think, I think you have to really take a deep look. Like you said, like this is an opportunity that we haven't had in a long time. And you, you know, some people are like, I do need rest. Some people are like, no, I want to crush it right now. Like I want to, this is the opportunity, the moment I had to work on my home business or whatever it is. And I think you just have to know what do you need? What do you want? Does it align with your why and all of these things? Like take a step back, look at, look at your world as a whole and see if this is something you like the direction it's going, or you don't like the direction it's going. What adjustments do you need to make? What things are you doing well? What things do you need to work on? What aspects of your life are you really proud of? What aspects of your life are you not so proud of? And maybe just take that internal look, like, like I said, awareness, like knowing yourself. And maybe this can provide that moment where you can actually stop and think, where am I at? Where am I at right now in the grand scheme of life? Like, am I where I want to be? Okay, no, how do I need to get to where I want to be? Where do I actually want to be? Instead of just like going through the motions, which sometimes we do so often, just because we're like, work, kids, home, eat, sleep, work out if we have time, you know, it's like so regimen. And maybe this pandemic, this like shift of the world, tilt of the world, gives you a chance to look at your world a little differently, and shift your perspective on your world and kind of figure out what it is you want. And I'm super passionate about finding something you love. And I know this is a hard conversation to have, because I know a lot of people don't have

25:22a choice, and they're trying to make ends meet and do whatever it takes. But when you freaking enjoy what you do, you're, you're so much better at it. Like, what I love being a mental skills coach, if I hated being a mental skills coach, like, could you imagine like me being on here? I mean, like, yeah, mental skills coaching is pretty cool. Like, I can help guys every now and then, right? Like, it's like, I'm literally better at it, because I love doing it. And so you can Oh, my god, more enthusiastic, more passionate, more confident, you're more confident in your ability when you enjoy something when you're doing something you love. And so if you can find something you freaking love, and you can make it a career, like, which I'm sure is pretty common in this industry, I would imagine, like, so I just think if you can do that, and line it up as much as possible, like, that's freaking awesome. I think that's one of the biggest things that people were really feeling during this, I'm sure, and industries across the world, you know, in the hospitality business, you're sure you're familiar with the love languages, gifts, spirit of service, acts of service, is really the majority of people who choose this line of work, either Hey, they're trying to make a paycheck, it's a side job. Or if you're like a restaurant person like me, like you, you love doing things for other people, you love being around it.

26:46That's how you show your love is by doing things for other people. And when the restaurants were closed, and you couldn't do that, I think a lot of people were really, that's where it really hit a lot of people wasn't just financial or anything like that. It was the fact that, hey, we can't do what we love right now, we're stuck at home in an unable to express ourselves. I think that was really one of the biggest challenges for a lot of people for mental health wise, you know, Yeah, yeah, make sense. It's tough, and people handle it in different ways. And I said the other day, like, it's been 2020 has been hard and difficult on everybody in so many different ways. And like, I think we're all like, taking a step back and realizing we're all struggling in different ways. So just trying to figure out. Sometimes life's about hanging on, sometimes it's about making the most of the moment. And maybe right now we're hanging on, and that's okay. But if you can hang on, and still move somewhat forward to some capacity, like, maybe hanging on is moving forward, right? Maybe not letting go is is the positive. And so I think it works differently for everybody. Do you always like? Do you always like this?

28:05I mean, like, so, no, I love this question in a positive way, because nothing's getting by you. If I'm your husband, am I allowed to have a bad day? Am I come home and I'm like, traffic was a bitch today. My boss yelled at me. I'm so down. Like, do you just go, you can't be down. You have to understand that the glass is half full, and you can do it. And we've got to pull through it. And tomorrow's Saturday, we got to go hiking. And we got to get your shit together. Yeah, do you do that? No, no. So funny story. When I was first in grad school, and I was learning all this stuff, he was actually a quarterback in college. And so we would talk and he'd like start talking about practice. And I'd go right into mental skills, just like what you were saying. And like we hashed it out one night, he was, I was like, Okay, so what you're telling me is, you need like supportive, significant other and then you need supportive mental skills, coach, okay, I'm going to make sure we're on the same page from here on. And so, like every now and I'm usually I'm a lot better now. And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to be supportive, significant other and like be like, Yeah, traffic was a bitch. You're right. You know, and then there's some days where I'm like, Wow, like, we're being really negative today. And then I'm like, but no, no, I'm I am not always like this. And I actually was making my next Mental Sweat Monday video about this, because I've been getting so many comments just about, we love how enthusiastic and how positive you are. And I don't want those one minute videos to come across as like, I've got my shit together because I don't the reason I think I'm a good mental skills coach is because I suffer from everything else everybody is suffering from. Like the reason I can give a good pep talk is because I just gave myself the same pep talk 10 minutes ago. Like so many of my Mental Sweat Monday themes are directed at myself. So like the ones that are like, I don't want to do it today. It's because I didn't want to film this video today, but I'm doing it anyway. Right? Like that's the thing or when I'm just not feeling motivated, or when I'm sick of being trapped in the house, like, I'm not kidding you, probably 50% of the Mental Sweat Mondays are directed towards me.

30:09But it seems like I'm directing it towards everybody else. And so I'm not like that. I am very real. And I think that's what makes me a decent mental skills coach is because I, I'm not just like, hey, everything's fine. And sunshine or animals, I'm like, no, today's total shit. But let's try to make this shit smell good. Because that's all we can do. Right? We can't, I'm not pretending like it's not happening, which is, I think, a big misconception of what some people in my field do, like motivators and rah rah people. It's like, everything's okay, and we're going to be fine when it's like, everything's not okay. We don't know if we're going to be fine. But by God, let's make the best out of it. Let's, let's fight like hell to do whatever we can to make this great. And that's, that's where I'm, I'm very real, I'm very realistic. And I have to make sure I'm seeing it in an optimistic way instead of a pessimistic way, because my natural instinct is go straight to worst case scenario. And so it takes a lot of willpower for me to find the optimistic. But that's why I think I'm good at it. Because I work on it for myself a lot. Well, I know, you know, I thank you for saying all of that. Because I mean, that that's a big part of it. Because I'm also I'm on, right? I'm I'm six foot six, 250 pounds. And I'm I walk into a room, everybody's like, who's the giant? You know, and I'm loud. And I'm like, Hey, what's going on? And I, you know, I've been told, I can't sneak into a room, which is a thing. And you know, you run restaurants, you're walking around, you're constantly we were shaking hands, and you're just I'm just in this mode. And sometimes when I get home, I'm just like, I crash. And I'm like, I have been this on happy, like guy. And for many years, that's that was my trigger to go drink a beer. But now it's, you know, it's nice to have somebody who's just like, who, you know, my wife's to say, like, it's okay, you know, relax, take a minute. It's okay. Like, it's nice to not have to put on this. And not that it's disingenuous by any way. That's who I am. But sometimes there's a realness of I just want to have a bowl of ice

32:13cream. Yeah, your your energy is low, your battery needs to get recharged. And I'm, I'm the same way. And I'm an extrovert. But when I get home, I'm like, silence. And like when I need like, because I'm on the phone all day, I'm on Zooms all day, I'm, I'm having to be locked in and in the present moment and on all day in every conversation, even if it's just some side conversation, because it could turn into something, or they could say something that I need to remember. And I don't have my notebook in my back pocket. And so like, I am truly locked in mentally all day. And so when I come home, I have to, I have, oh my, it's incredibly exhausting. And I have to turn, I have to shut it off. Whether it's take a bath, take a walk by myself without my phone, watch binge watch mindless TV, like which like I don't recommend. But like for me, I don't have to use my brain when I'm watching that. And I get to laugh and like, just like literally just like relax the muscles in my face and my shoulders and you know, and not think and not be on. And so I think that's incredibly important to like, take care of yourself too. Because if I'm not, then when I am trying to be on in those conversations, I'm not going to be the best person of myself. I'm going to be loopy.

33:25I'm not going to be locked in. I'm going to be worrying about other things. I'm going to be yawning. I'm going to be tired. And people are going to be like, oh, you don't give a shit about me, Hannah. And I'm like, like, that's my job. I'm the person who has to care about you and pay attention and be empathetic. And I want to be. And so if I don't take care of me, I'm automatically poor and doing a worse job at my job. You have to prioritize time, you know, I talk about the prioritization of time, you have to prioritize that time for yourself. That I need this moment and recognizing that is big. And I think if you're listening to this out there, prioritizing a moment of time for yourself every day, I like, I go hiking almost every single day. I try and get to the park and I live in Nashville and there's a park, Percy Warner, you're familiar with Nashville. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I go to Percy Warner and I hit like the red trail or the white trail almost every day. And it's my time that I let my brain go. I listened to a podcaster. I just let my freely, whatever I want my brain to do. I just let it wander. And then I get back and I go, okay, where am I? It's very healthy. So I think it is. I'm glad to have you.

34:32No, it is. It definitely is. Find your healthy outlet. No doubt. I want to play a mental sweat Monday. One of my, I shared this actually on my company page. So one minute of you getting to watch yourself. I'm just going to play into the microphone here. You ready? I love it. Hey everyone and welcome back to Mental Sweat Monday. I'm Hannah Heusman and today I want to talk about how easy it is to ruminate on all the negatives of our life. We are naturally programmed to notice the negative before anything else. We also spend more time dwelling on the negative. So when you see something first and when you spend more time on it, all of a sudden, this one negative seems to outweigh all of the positives. Cue the downward spiral. For example, I put one Mental Sweat Monday video up and I get 20 comments. 19 are awesome and encouraging and one is negative. Which one do you think gets most of my attention? Naturally the one negative. Part of being mentally tough is being able to notice when we are getting stuck on the one bad thing. So my challenge for you is to one, notice the negative and see if there's something you can take away from it. Two, notice the positive and see if there's something you can take away from that. Then three, walk away. Let it go, good or bad, it's time for the next rep.

35:52I love that. I love it. That's so powerful. I mean, I think that we do dwell on so many things. How do you prepare to do something like that? Where does that come from? It comes from me always focusing on the negative and that's so real. I get probably one negative comment on every four videos once a month. It's some troll on social media who doesn't even have an account and they're like, oh God, what do you even do? Or some sly remark and it really gets to me. I'm like, why am I allowing this to happen? It's me. Like we said earlier, if I feel bad or mad or upset or get pissed off because of that comment, it's because I am letting myself do that. I have to be one, you have to be aware that you're even letting yourself do it because all of a sudden you could be in a bad mood and your spouse is like, what's wrong with you? I'm just in a bad mood. Sometimes we don't even know where it came from. So it's like creating awareness around knowing what caused it and then deciding to not let it get to you. Deciding to look at all the other things and I think it's because I have a natural tendency to want to be the best of my ability. I want to be the freaking best just like we all do in what we're doing and I think that's amazing and I think you have to want to be the best in your field in order to be the best in your field. You have to have high expectations and I say this to my players all the time, in order to get to the big leagues, you have to have the expectations of a big leaguer. So you have to be your biggest critic which is why I think we get so stuck on and ruminate on the negative or the bad or the threatening or the hurtful because that's impacting our expectations of ourselves. But at the same time, even if we have 99 good things and one bad thing, we have to freaking shift our perspective and start noticing what we're doing well too because I think that's the secret to

37:53being the best performer is being your biggest critic and being your biggest fan. So when you do something well, being able to pat yourself on the back, noticing when you do something well and like you don't have to be the arrogant guy running around saying, hey look at me, look what I did, look at flashy whatever. But I'm talking like end of the night, you're getting ready for bed, you're brushing your teeth, you look yourself in the mirror and you're like, today was a really really really good day. That's it. You just have to start acknowledging it and sometimes I tell this to guys and players and they're like, just saying that makes them uncomfortable because you're trained to just always go go go and always get better and never notice what you're actually doing well. And so a huge part of what I tried to instill in people is don't forget all of the things you're doing well too. Don't let those cloud where you need improvements but also don't let the one thing you're doing poorly cloud all the things you're doing well too. It's this weird balance that we have to find something that both humbles us and motivates us and builds our confidence at the same time and I think that's really hard.

39:02What is your view on social media? I personally do not like social media because I do think it's majority fake and majority comparison and majority like you're on there to look at all these people who have all of these wonderful things and you want all these wonderful things and you're just constantly comparing and so I think it can be very dangerous but I think it can also be powerful and use the right way and that was actually one of the reasons I started Mental Sweat Monday is like I felt like everything on there was telling us to break a physical sweat every day. We have to run, we have to do yoga, we have to hike, we have to do all these things because we have to be physically healthy and I was like does anybody care about our mental health, our mental performance and making sure we're mentally healthy and so we named it Mental Sweat, my husband and I because we wanted it to resonate with people's minds that just as important as it is to break a physical sweat every day it's just as important to break a mental sweat every day too and make sure you're checking in on your mental game and getting better mentally and so that was a big piece of why we started but social media is finicky for me and I mean we I've had guys delete social media like you think harassment is bad in person harassment is bad on social media it's insane what they hear on a daily basis and like one day somebody's saying you know you should kill yourself and then the next day they're saying you're the best thing that ever happened to the Phillies and it's like like don't it's it's crazy and so they turn off their notifications you know just trying to make sure they're allocating their time in the right ways and and and not hurting them in any way shape or form so it's it's tough social media is brutal I'm trying to think back I had a really good question for you I feel like it was a good question you said you have to allocate your your thoughts your time for social media and I was going to ask you for advice for people out there just during these times like what to do but I can't think of my question I was going to ask you

41:07I've gone blank they usually make interviews in the morning um what are some great mental sweat like mental exercises you said every day we should do a mental exercise I said I go and I hike and I listen to a podcast or I let my brain go free what are some easy things people can do at home to do mental exercises because Facebook isn't one of them Facebook is definitely not one of them um so it kind of it depends on what you need um sometimes you can listen to music and put your phone away like that's a mental exercise to just listen to the music listen to the lyrics practice mindfulness is a great one um there's a few apps out there headspace um and calm are two of my favorites um but even just like being silent being sealed going on a walk I think getting outside getting vitamin d um all of those things I think are good but like specific mental skills like even just writing out your priorities even just um journaling for a little bit about where you are how are things going and it can be performance journaling or it can be eventing journaling right performance journey journaling is more along the lines of what did I do well today what do I need to work on from today right just um and a mental check-in what did I learn today what do I want to continue doing from from today's performance etc etc but I think you have to figure out what you need and then you need to make sure you're doing it on a daily basis so if it's if it's self-talk if it's practicing imagery maybe seeing yourself performing in different ways and creating different scenarios and overcoming some of those imagery is great when you can't leave the house um just being able to see yourself perform in your mind um just just getting a rep in mentally that's really cool um again self-talk breathing exercises mindfulness goal setting um anything like that I think you just kind of got to figure out what makes you feel good what is helpful for your performance and then making sure you're doing that on the daily basis even if it's just checking in and asking yourself every day like

43:10how am I doing where am I at today am I here am I in the moment getting into the present moment is a mental skill right so just like deciding okay for the next five minutes I'm going to be wherever my feet are because I've been all over the place today I haven't stopped today probably been in the present moment but then go go go right now I'm gonna sit down or I'm gonna take a walk and I'm just gonna be wherever I am whatever thoughts pop into my head and that's pretty much what mindfulness is so you can use like an app to guide you or you can just like just sit with your thoughts don't force yourself to think about the beach or anything just be just like okay where am I at what am I thinking and do it in a non-judgmental way like if I'm thinking I'm exhausted and I should be thinking about this no it doesn't matter what you're thinking it matters that you're aware of what you're thinking and that's all I love it I love all of this like I'm I'm going um this is a this is a motivation Monday um I love it but I'm going to go into this week pumped like I'm ready like I am ready to go into this week I love Mondays I'm one of those weird people out there and I don't consider myself weird I say like I feel like I get sad around Friday because I'm like I don't get sad but like I I dwell on the things I didn't accomplish throughout the week and then I'm like okay I wonder over the weekend but I don't wonder over the weekend but then I'm like excited for Monday that I get to get back to knocking stuff out like I get really pumped like it's Monday I got the whole week ahead of me I'm gonna get so much done I'm gonna move mountains it's awesome so I love Mondays I love it and I love your mental sweat Mondays and um you have nothing to promote today do you have anything you want to promote you want to talk about no just social media follow me if you if you want to get your weekly reminders of breaking a mental sweat that's the only thing I would say so I follow you on Instagram I assume you're on and I follow you on um LinkedIn yeah you're also on Instagram and uh Facebook right

45:12yeah Twitter Twitter and um Instagram are my main um and LinkedIn are my main um avenues for here at Hannah Heusman yep that's for Instagram is at Hannah Heusman and Twitter is at Hannah underscore Heusman I think okay marvelous yeah uh last thing that I do in these interviews and I want to thank you so much for coming on today and I hope that everybody out there is just like fired up and like let's tackle this week damn it go I love it I like to give you the last word so whatever you want to say if it's anything everything for as long as you want the floor is yours go okay wow you put me on the spot um I guess my final thoughts are the most important person you are talking to on a daily basis is yourself so be careful how you're messaging yourself throughout the day right and and one of my favorite ways to talk about this is you know the golden rule of life right like treat others how you would want to be treated well um a couple years ago I made up um the platinum rule and it's talk to yourself the way you would talk to others a teammate a co-worker right so if it's a co-worker if a teamwork or a teammate or a co-worker messes up and they fail or make a mistake what are you going to say to them and you're like you know hey you got it pick it up let's go next rep like let's go yeah you made a mistake but here we go come on but if you make a mistake what are you going to say to yourself like you're pathetic what are you doing like you're lucky you even have a job you should be fired like just absolutely demoralizing yourself right and that has to stop you have to be kinder to yourself you have to treat yourself how you would treat everybody else so acknowledge you made the mistake acknowledge you messed up whatever it is but then find a way

47:14to motivate yourself find a way to pick yourself back up um and and give yourself a little break because I think everybody needs that so be careful because you're constantly messaging yourself every day so really start to pay attention and build that awareness around what it is you're saying how it's affecting your performance and then knowing the adjustments to make if it's hurting your performance so that's the three questions I always ask is what are you thinking when are you thinking it and what are the outcomes of that thinking so if you're if you're thinking something and you're thinking it during a game and it's helping then let's do it again and if you're thinking something during a game and it's hurting then let's make a note that this is this thought process isn't working isn't helping me perform my best so be careful what you're messaging yourself because you are the single most important person you talk to on a daily basis that's what I'm going to end with I love it this is so great thank you thank you thank you yes you're so welcome you have a wonderful week as well and I will thanks Brandon appreciate it you're totally gonna ask you to come back and do this again okay come on I love it I love it Hannah Huseman ladies and gentlemen all right there you go Hannah Huseman uh it is Monday whatever day you listen to this um now go out there make the rest of the week the best week you possibly can hopefully that perspective helped you put things in perspective and if it didn't it's all right keep trying we got this um you guys are amazing I loved what she said there at the very end the most important person that you talk to treat them with respect and that person is yourself so treat yourself well this week all right make it a goal I hope you guys are staying safe love you guys bye