Danielle Martin - Founder, True Mindsets

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the abca's podcast. I'm your host, ryan brownlee. If you run a baseball facility, Swift is the only piece of software you need to manage and grow your business. From scheduling and payments to memberships and retail, Swift takes care of it all. Your coaches can use the app to manage their schedule on the go, and your customers have a sleek and fast way to book online lessons, rentals, camps, packages and more all in one spot. That's why hundreds of the best baseball facilities across the country rely on Swift. And now, with their upcoming AI front desk, you can literally put your business on autopilot. Get started in minutes at Run Swift app. That's runswiftapp.com ABCA spend less time behind the Screen and more time on the field this episode is sponsored by Netting Pros. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. Netting Professionals specializes in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for backstops, batting cages, dugouts, BP screens and ball carts. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, dugout cubbies, and more. Netting Professionals is an official partner of the ABCA and continues to provide quality products and services to many high school, college and professional fields, facilities and stadiums throughout the country. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 627 oh7 or infoettingpros.com Visit them online at www.nettingpros.com or check out NettingPros on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Make sure to let CEO Will Minor know that the ABCA sent you. Now on to the podcast. Daniel Martin is an elite mental performance coach, speaker and founder of True Mindsets, premier mindset coaching platform for top athletes and competitors. Martin works with the world's highest performing individuals including mlb, NFL, NBA, NHL, mls, mlr, Olympic athletes, NCAA players and elite high school competitors to weaponize their minds for peak performance under pressure. Martin's philosophy is simple but powerful. Weaponize, Drill, Train, Compete. Martin's proven system helps athletes develop elite mental habits, handle adversity, and consistently perform at the highest levels when it matters most. Through True Mindsets, Martin delivers tactical mindset training designed to transform how athletes approach competition, pressure, failure and success. Her work isn't motivational fluff, it's rigorous mental skills development ground in real world application. Martin's approach bridges the gap between talent and execution. She works closely with professional organizations, teams and individual athletes to sharpen mental acuity, break through psychological barriers and embed winning behaviors for life, not just game day. Her message resonates far beyond sports businesses, teams and leaders across industries have adopted her mental performance strategies to elevate focus, drive and resilience in high pressure, high stakes settings. Let's welcome Danielle Martin to the podcast, all right here with Daniel Martin, founder of True Mindsets, but now author of Martial Mentality. And Danielle, we go back a couple years here now, so thanks for jumping on with me. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Of course. Thank you for having me. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I always like doing these in January. I think it's a, it's a good kind of reset where we get with peak performance people. And yeah, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, but I think this is the right time preseason for a lot of people to get their minds right coming into the season. [00:04:20] Speaker B: Agreed. And same I think New Year's resolutions are more about just this quick zap of motivation and it's not a long carried out. It's not like taking the ball and running it down the 100 yards to the 100 yards. So yeah, I getting the mind right is kind of everything. [00:04:39] Speaker A: I think a lot about re engaging. Do you have any tips for people that maybe once they lose motivation to reengage. [00:04:48] Speaker B: A good question to sit with yourself is what do I want? It's a difficult question when you ask somebody and you just confront them with, hey, what do you want? They freeze, they get stunned. Actually, it seems like such a simple question, but it's not an easy answer to that. But getting clear with that, it bypasses motivation and it gives you an idea and a direction. And therefore if you reverse engineer, you're going to have a path to get to what you want and your actions and your game plan lives in that path. And that's a great reset because there's your motivation is okay, there's the, there's the carrot and I'm going to go get it and what do I need to do and how will I do it? So what, how? And you start taking action and that's every single day. I think number one is health. No matter what it is you want. Good luck getting it if you're not healthy. [00:05:48] Speaker A: I love that you talk about weaponize, drill, train and compete because I don't think a lot of people view it as weaponizing. And I love the fact that you use the term weaponize. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Now when did that come to you as far as using that term? [00:06:07] Speaker B: So two years ago, almost exactly like today, I was still laying in an icu. I had a traumatic brain Injury. I had a stroke caused by an external injury to me by a chiropractor, and the person is not a chiropractor, not licensed. So, interesting enough, he adjusted my neck, damaged my vertebral vessels, and I suffered an ischemic stroke. So in the hospital, many different times, I did die and come back. And then they told me I might not make it. And they said, they kept saying something to me. If you weren't as fit or strong as you are, if you weren't an athlete, there's no way you would be here. And I use a term with my athletes a lot, being fit to fight, because getting ready for a fight is grueling. But I realized that it's not just about the competition. It's about being fit to fight in life, because you never know what fight is going to come to your door. And I had no idea that something like that would have come upon me and I would really be in the fight of my life for my life. And weaponizing. Being weaponized is being able to be prepared for absolutely anything, physically, mentally, emotionally. And that takes work. And it's about what you're willing to do to do it. And weaponizing athletes with the tools to go out into these. You know, if it's baseball and you're a hitter, you're in a mini battle with that pitcher. And so being weaponized with the tools to take into that mini battle is going to be do or die type of thing. Obviously, it's a different consequence. You know, a surgeon who's weaponized with the knowledge, with the sleep, with the training, with whatever it is that weaponizes them to go in and be successful or, you know, a seal, an operator, you know, they have their team on the line. There's a lot of different things that we could be weaponized for. You could be weaponized to go work in a bank. I mean, it's. To me, it's. It's just really being prepared. It's. It's learning, it's drilling what it take, what it's going to take, training it, then competing with it. There's different levels when you're in a real fight of training for it, and that's kind of the. The process. So I started taking that process and applying it to a baseball player or a rugby player or a football, basketball, and it fits in to all of it. And it's really being weaponized in life and choosing that. My health is going to be. My mindset is going to be primary. And, you know, Ryan, you. You talked a lot about that. You said some things to me in our conversations about the meditation. And so you, for me, if somebody said, how does Ryan weaponize? What does he weaponize? I would say Ryan weaponizes his meditation. He's devout to it. He doesn't cut corners on it there. You know, you were really clear. It came across to me when we spoke and you sent me some stuff and shared some stuff with me. So, you know, you could be. It could be anything. It's not, you know, it could be real weapons too. So. But this really fits into all things. You're. What you're being weaponized. Because life, a lot of times can be a battle. It's not easy. [00:09:16] Speaker A: Did you have a chance to dive into the audios at all that I sent you? Did you have a chance to dive into those audios? [00:09:22] Speaker B: I have listened. I didn't listen to all of them. [00:09:24] Speaker A: Yep. [00:09:25] Speaker B: But, yeah, I think they're. They're phenomenal. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just, you know, for me and everybody, I think it's such a personal journey with all of that, and you really have to find what works. And, you know, there is so much good stuff out there, but you really do have to kind of distill all of that information out there and really find what works for you individually because it is such an individual path with all of that. [00:09:48] Speaker B: It is. It's not a one size fits all. But what you sent, I think it can land for anyone and everyone. I think it can if you're willing to sit still with it and let it land for you. You know, people walk around with so much resistance. They don't realize that they're not really open to learning something. And, you know, I always say, like, be open to learning and have that white belt mentality because a black belt is just a white belt who didn't quit. And they just kept learning. They kept showing up, learning, drilling, training, competing, if they compete. But like, what you sent. I think people are scared sometimes when they start listening to something like that, what's going to come up? And now they gotta face off with it. So they just, oh, I don't have time, or whatever their excuse is. [00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, they're gonna put walls up. And, you know, and the way that I explain it, you know, especially as Americans, you have so much chatter going on in between your ears, and it's really hard to. And I think people think they're doing it wrong because there is that chatter. But that chatter is actually really good in the beginning. You just have to practice and, and sit with it and eventually you're going to be able to redirect those thoughts back to whatever you're using in that quiet time. And, and that's why I do actually use the mantra. I think the mantra is the best place for that to bring your brain back to that one singular thing. And my mantra is charing. I got that from a former player of mine at Iowa. So I use charing. That's my mantra. And it's a Sanskrit word. And when you dive into the kind of the science part of meditation, the mantra really does help bring back to that one either sound or frequency to where. Now that's what I'm focusing on because that does allow you to get down into that subconscious area where if you don't have that, I think it's really hard to get down in there because that monkey chatter is going to be going pretty crazy for a lot of people when they first sit. [00:11:51] Speaker B: That's true. And I think a lot of people will describe that as overthinking. And we are the only creatures on the planet that can actually choose our thoughts over our feelings. And thoughts elicit the feelings. So when you're having all that chatter or overthinking and it keeps going and going and going, your emotions are like flip flopping, flip flopping. And that feeling to people becomes very uncomfortable. So they just eh, that's not for me that I don't like it or whatever their comment is. But we are the only creatures that can choose our thoughts. And once you cut through the emotions of whatever that previous thought, it could have been seconds, that emotion's gonna linger and have a physical reaction even to your body. Cause we feel emotions. But when you choose a thought, it will actually collide with the emotions heavier than you think and it'll reset. It actually starts to kind of play with the nervous system anatomically. And you can calm yourself down just by taking control of the thought that you're choosing next despite the feelings. [00:13:00] Speaker A: And you talk a lot about training for pressure. You know, how do you help people kind of get into that headspace and in that adversity? And I don't really view it as adversity, I view it as opportunities. You know, how do we help people kind of retrain to really embrace enjoying the pressure piece of it? [00:13:24] Speaker B: It's a good question. Everybody, everybody sees pressure differently. What makes me confident might be different for you and what stresses you out might be different for me. And pressure is a lot the same because what's pressure to me, some people may be like, oh, My gosh, there's no way I could do that. And there's all different kinds of pressure. There's the emotional pressure, there's the mental pressure where maybe I don't know what to do in this exact moment. And then there's the physical pressure that people might have because of an injury or something else. So if you go through life trying to dodge and resist anything that involves pressure, you're not gonna. Someone has to understand pressure, Ryan, before I can support them to deal with it. So it's inevitable. And if that's all they know, then they're going to have a higher tolerance. And now when something comes and as it actually registers as a pressure to them now that's where I can step in and support somebody in that space because I have something to say like, hey, you look, you made it through this. So breath is number one. Breath is number one because when we come under any type of pressure or duress, our body is going to shoot over to the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight. They're either going to run from it or they're going to turn and face off with it. So to get somebody to understand that space and how to get to that space is number one. Because now they're in a space where they can actually hear me and think clear. And then when I'm not there, let's say this is a picture or somebody and they're feeling this pressure every single day in that specific environment. Now they have a way to at least think clear and go, okay, I'm aware she did mention this. She said this would happen. And now they start creating a flow space or their own zone where pressure exists. And it just takes. It takes some practice. But the number one thing from my experience personally, but also working with so many athletes that they come back and say to me is the breath was. The breath was a game changer. So I would say that would be. Number one is really learning the right kind of breath at the right time to use. We're taking breaths because we breathe involuntarily. So a lot of people think, why was breathing? But it's specific breath, it's training, it's learning, drilling, training, and then competing with it. Once you move through it, you start recognizing pressure and instead of running from it, you're like, eh, let's see how. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Many of your athletes have never really focused on nasal breathing. [00:16:12] Speaker B: I've had athletes train nasal breathing where I had a catcher who said he could nasal breathe the whole game, which is beyond impressive. But that Was. That's just where he took it and utilized it. That's. That was for him a very calming thing. It's difficult, it's very anaerobic to, to do that. But I mean, good for him. Whatever works for someone is going to work for someone maybe different than someone else. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah, you've been very vocal about coaches kind of getting in players way from an external pressure standpoint. And obviously a majority of our listeners are coaches. What advice would you have for them to really do try to get out of your athlete's way to allow to have some peak performance? [00:17:00] Speaker B: What kind of pressure are we talking about? [00:17:04] Speaker A: You and I had some really good conversations about this and I am very vocal about it too. And that pressure, yeah, that type of pressure that doesn't need to be there. I mean, obviously there's a competitive pressure that's going to be there, but then there's outside influence pressure that probably doesn't need to be there. [00:17:24] Speaker B: So I'll, I'll frame it this way. There's the pressure that reflects the coach and maybe some of his insecurities and his own pressures and it's funneling through the wrong funnel to a young athlete and, and it's not being received in a way that's for them, supports them, encourages empowers or elevates them. That's the one I have a problem with. And I'm all about pressure, believe it. I mean, I trained for 20 years in a class with mostly men and there's a lot of pressure because they're heavier than me, they're stronger than me and understanding how to deal with that pressure technically and leveraging and figuring out my leverage points and pieces. But that's the physical pressure and that happens in baseball. And that can happen from coaches too. Misguided pressure that maybe I've talked to you about this runs them into the ground just because they can. I can't speak to all these, all the instances and things we've, we've talked about. You're either for these guys or you're not. And your legacy will be told by these guys many times. And if that's what you want, maybe you don't care, but I think there's some of us who are going to start calling the spades spades and confronting them to their faces, maybe show up to the field. I don't know. It's inappropriate. It's getting old. It's not supporting kids, it's really hurting kids. And for these kids in these times, sometimes a lot of things are life and Death. And I think we've seen that. And there's no place for that. This should be. This is, this is a space they have worked relentlessly to get to. Regardless. It is not easy to play sports in college and even high school. Some of these high schools are. It's crazy. But sports are such a positive, healthy channel and we should want more. The more kids playing that we can have play is to play. I'm not saying coaches have to be perfect. Every one of us has our flaws. We're all here to learn. And that's why this is such a great environment, because it brings people together. And I think in these spaces, there's nothing wrong with accountability. There's nothing wrong with saying, hey, enough, enough, and, and hey, want to talk? You want to have a conversation? You know, I'm pretty gentle, but I'm also equally firm on this. On this. But it's hard to have compassion for a grown adult who takes on a, gets a position like that and abuses it over and over. Some. A lot of people are looking around going, how in the heck does this person still have a job? But they do and some of them don't. But I'm not a fan of that. And that to me is not pressure. Pressure is a positive thing. I think, Ryan, you and I kind of agree, agree with that. I don't see that as a pressure. I see it as an abuse tactic. It's. It's not okay. [00:20:33] Speaker A: I mean, how much of it is ego and fear driven? [00:20:37] Speaker B: It's a lot of insecurity. [00:20:38] Speaker A: It is, isn't it? It's ego and fear driven. [00:20:41] Speaker B: It's ugly. And I'm, yeah, I am vocal about it. I'm not a fan. And I mean, Flips the switch on the fighter in me because my instincts are to protect. I worked in very high level protection and with a lot of serious training behind that. Psychological, physical, tactical, combative training with that. So immediately my. And I've had different feels about this over the last two years since my. Even my own brain injury. And there's a part of me that just wants to go down there and be like, hey, if you think you're tough, pick on me. Pick on someone who can really take it and humble them. And the other piece of me wants to go over and say, hey, let's take a walk. No different than I would with an athlete and be like, hey, let's take a walk and what's going on and support them, because if they're going to uphold that position, then let's just let's find out. I mean, they're still a human. There's still a little person in each of us. You know, there's a little girl in me that fell down and I've had to go and pick her up and it's, it's painful. It's a painful process. I don't pretend to know what's going on. I try to assess Ryan quicker than I'll judge. But when this is years and years and years and years of accumulated beat up kids, kids that don't want to play anymore. I mean, it's just enough's enough and I will, I have stepped in and. [00:22:18] Speaker A: It'S a fine line, has to, I mean, eventually somebody has to step in. [00:22:22] Speaker B: It's a fine line. And I don't want to come out and be like this, you know, just hey, what, you know, what's going on. But I have skills to step in and I, I'm not going to sit silent. I'm also not going to go, you know, face the world with iron fists. But some of these guys are getting physical with these kids. They're putting hands on the kids and it's not okay. You want to put hands on someone, let's, let's step in a space to do it. Yep. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Love it. Love it. You talk a lot about focus, flow and finish. And we hear the term flow a lot. And I think people know or have that feeling. It doesn't happen a lot. But how do we kind of train to get into flow state? [00:23:12] Speaker B: You 100% can create your zone or your flow state every single time you perform. And I, I train this with every single athlete I deal with. I do it through breath, I do it for balance. A lot of times a pitcher doesn't realize he's never even grounded himself on the mound, on the rubber, in the box, in the on deck circle, even center field at shortstop. There is no awareness to my balance, my starting point to the ball. And that awareness, subconscious, consciously, and that energetic frequency of creating your own flow space or your own zone allows you to get into a place of alignment. So every swing I take is coming from a place of alignment. Every pitch I execute, every, every ball I'm hunting, they're hunting it in the outfield, they're, they're jump stepping. A lot of my players will, even a catcher, his balance is going to allow him to execute a pitch and if there's a runner on already, be going after him, whether it's behind him or in front of you, in front of him. But that balance that one point set of balance, the body will do it. They just have to even know that they can. And there's so many things we don't know, we don't even know. And I've had a lot of big leaguers say, well, how come my pitching coach doesn't say that? Or how come this, or how come this? And it's just the difference in knowledge. And that's why I always say there's so many things we don't know, we don't know. And when these coaches come in and think they know everything because it's work for one kid, or this kid or that kid, or this athlete from the big leagues down, there's always something to learn. And you know, my experience personally is 22 years in a sport where technique and leverage 100 out of 100 times beats strength. So when everything I hear harder, harder, it's this, it's more, it's stronger, it's as hard as you can. And this, it pushes them over an edge of understanding what was even on the edge and where their best point was and so understanding the technical piece. Because if I'm the pitcher, I'm the mechanic. How I do what I do is not my mechanics. You don't mechanic the mechanic, the mechanic, how he does something. If I'm fixing a car, I'm going to have technique how I do it. So technical adjustments are usually so small when you talk about mechanics, it, it's like I got to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And we're not doing that. So if you back up and you look at the technical pieces, I look at it from the ground up. A pitcher, his balance, the hitter, the swing, even how they're standing. And I've done this a lot with players. I'm like, get in front of me and you're hitting stance or like you're on the mound and one finger, I'll just barely put pressure and they'll, they'll move. And I'm like, is that your hitting stance? Well, yeah. I'm like, okay, now get in front of me like you're gonna fight me. Take a swing at me. And they're like, what? I'm all, take a swing at me and I will show them the counter. When there's balance involved, how fast and how I can read exactly where they're gonna take a swing. In 1/2 second, I'll be behind them. And they can't, they don't understand. But that plays in baseball more than we realize. All these things when I look At a pitcher, I see a martial artist and I train my big league pitchers like they're martial artists, like they're fighters. And when you do that, they have a real ground game. And when they have that ground game now, they add breath, balance, execute and a few other things. And now they're in this alignment and they're like, oh my gosh. Because their body's working for them, not against them. So is the energy, whether it's the fans, the coaches, the energy of a game. Pitchers come in, base is loaded, the reliever comes in. Everyone in a pitching rotation has a different job, same job to execute, but it's different and it's got different demands and things to adjust. And when you have everybody understanding what that is, now you have all the sums of the whole moving cohesively and now you have a team in a flow state and that's, that's a very different thing. It's not easy to get it done, but it's very simple. [00:27:49] Speaker A: When you talk about from going from good to great and I view that as, you know, if you can get your entire team into flow state, I think that's the good going to great piece of it because it's really hard to get everybody on the same page with that. [00:28:04] Speaker B: But everybody does it through words. They don't teach them how, they command it, they demand it. They come out and their emotions get in front of their words and then come through the words. I mean, the words come through the emotions and they're not going to hear you the same. There's a difference between listening and hearing. Huge difference. So when you teach them how to hear and you hold a space for them to feel comfortable enough to do that, and you teach individually, you pull the position positions in and you explain to them what it's going to take. You weaponize them with exactly what they're going to need to do their job. A breacher is different than a sniper. And you know, when you're working with operators, you don't talk to them all the same. When you're teaching combatives to somebody, you don't teach it the same. Because some people might be carrying different equipment already. They can't do what I just asked them to do. So I'm not going to get mad at that. The capability is not there, nor does it need to be. That's being on a team and everywhere else. Teams are coached very different from in the elite team settings. It's not coached the way I see most of this stuff coached. There's a few coaches that get it. And if they want to get it, they're like, oh, Dee, come in. Let's go over this. This is kind of cool. Yeah, let me come bring in what I teach operators to do. To save lives, to take lives and save lives, or surgeons. They're performing surgery, they need to be in an alignment that's cohesive to what they need to be doing, and it's predictable that they're going to come out on top. The frame of failure is how this game has been played for hundreds of years. It's played through the frame of failure. I got to try not to mess up. I got to try not to strike out. I got to try not to walk. This guy. Try doesn't belong in the game of baseball. It's way too technical. I either have to do it or not do it. And what do I need to be doing? The failure frame is all about want and feelings. Baseball does not care about what you want or your feelings. It's. It steamrolls them. It breaks our hearts. Baseball hurts. Fine. Fair. We're choosing it. Oh, I'm struggling. No, you're not. Baseball 100% will challenge you. You are being challenged. You are not struggling. Coaches. Yeah, we're really struggling with this. Okay, so go yell more. Go make them run. Run them into the ground. That sounds like a great solution. How about ask. Oh, I'm sorry. You can't. You know, everything. So there's a lot of really amazing perspectives and lenses I would love to hand to coaches, because I don't want their jobs. Their jobs are not easy, by the way. Being a head coach is very difficult. But that should make you even more inspired and motivated to bring people in that are the best at what they do. Called delegate. A pitcher's not playing right, center, and left field at the same time as he's pitching for a reason. Okay, the coaching's. The coaching situation is the same. You got to delegate. But you. You still have to. If I'm. If I'm teaching fighters and I'm a black belt and I'm bringing those fighters up to be a black belt, that's what they want. I've got to stay ahead of them. Otherwise, I'm just gonna let one of them take over and teach, because why would I need to be there if I'm not constantly learning and I'm not bringing something to them that's challenging them? They don't need me. They don't need me. So, I mean, I'm addicted to learning. I'm addicted to seeing how they're doing it to learning even from what I shouldn't do. I see that a lot, and I've talked to really brilliant people where I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool. I might call Kelly Slater and ask him something about baseball. He doesn't know baseball, but something, some brilliance in his competitive, elite mind. His brain is constantly operating in an alpha gamma brainwave, which is brilliant. Or Tom Brady, they're masters, all these Michael Jordans and all these things. Their brain, they're operating in a specific area in their brain. That's where they're operating from. I teach athletes how to get to that place in their brain. And now once they do that, they build new neural pathways. So neuroscience plays into performance in our sports more than mental skills. Mental skills is the Little League level of any performance. And a lot of times it's being taught from a book. Page 12 does not sum up anxiety for an athlete who's behind, who's fighting for a position, who's about to be fired or lose their job. There's so many layers, Ryan, but it's fascinating, it's amazing. And the community that we have here needs to just lean in a little more and share and not be so threatened, be assuming someone you know. Yeah, it's competitive. There's people out there that want your job. I'm sure I'm not one of them, but I'm a support. I don't help anybody. I'm nobody to help anybody. I'm just a support. And by the way, every single one of us needs it. I've been an elite athlete in my life. I've won world championships and I've eaten absolute shit in some of them. Okay? Had my shit handed to me, okay? But in all those moments, I still needed support. When I was down, when I was up, when I was in between, I couldn't have gotten there without training partners. I couldn't have gotten there without my mentors, you know, and the humility it takes to be a leader, to be a front runner, to be somebody who's out there having a voice or speaking up or doing something. You are going to have the people that love you, and you're going to have a lot of people that hate you, that are taking shots at you. So what? That's why you weaponize yourself. That's why you stay strong, you stay healthy, and you lean in and you have your support. You have the right people to lean into. This community is full of those people. We just don't lean in enough how. [00:34:30] Speaker A: Are you able to block out that outside noise? Or how are you helping. How are you helping your athletes? You know, it's easy to kind of let that outside noise come in sometimes as a human. It's just. It's human nature to allow that noise in sometimes. How are you helping your athletes? Because it's gonna be out there. I mean, if you're in a. If you're in the public space and you're the public setting, there's going to be outside noise. How do you help people develop some of that resilience to not even focus on it? [00:35:06] Speaker B: I have them choosing their thoughts to what it is that's right in front of them. It's no different than teaching a hitter to reset before that very next pitch. It's asking them what they want. It's asking them what are they doing to get there. It's. It's moving forward. It's action forward. And there's lots of ways. I mean, I can feel anxious and get up and take a walk and kind of walk it off and walk this energy out of me. Sometimes you got to cry it out. I mean, I've been healing from a traumatic brain injury that it's difficult to pass away and come back, because what you see when you pass away and come back, it's difficult to come back. Healing hurts. I always thought healing was a happy word, actually. Really difficult word. And I'm tough as nails, but there's times I'm just throttled. I sit, I get rattled. I'll cry. I might not know the solution. Like, something might really bother me, and it feels like such a big fight, almost bigger than me. How will I get through that? Moments. I mean, all of us have doubt. All of us had the thoughts of, like, what if I just don't want to be here? It gets dark, and a lot of people, athletes especially, they go down rabbit holes and they're there. I kind of. I'm a pit walker. I'll get in the pit with you, and I will find a way out, because it just takes a spark of light and I'll see. I'll find a way because I won't quit, Ryan. That's the biggest thing. I don't quit. I spent a month out in the British Columbian wilderness on a TV show, and I never thought, what's this going to serve me in Whistler? In the whole month of October, 10 degrees with the clothes on my back, I lost 27 pounds and my body was dying. It hurt. It physically hurt. And there's so many Things in life just that we've already been through that are still teaching you. When you actually sit in that discomfort and you don't grab your cell phone to try to escape it, and you just sit with it, and if it brings you to tears, it brings you to tears. I'm an emotional person. I mean, I face the world with a lot of armor and a lot of times because I've had to my background, that's how I was conditioned and forged. But through all my own humility and through other people's, I get to walk alongside some of the greatest athletes. And I'm in these moments with them. And they fall down, they fall hard. When you're that high up, you fall really hard and it hurts. And every, you know, not a lot of people have compassion for those people because they're like, oh, well, they have this and they have that. Or why is he striking out? He shouldn't be. He's getting 300 million. Why is he doing this? And why is he the other? Everybody's so quick to judge. But if we sat back and we just assessed for a minute and go look in the mirror and start there, assess there and assess other things, tap into. Let those emotions come. There's no pill I could give. There's nothing, not one thing I could say. Being a human is really bright sometimes, and sometimes it's really dark. There's a lot of doubt and it hurts. And being resilient, I can't be resilient if I never fall down. A lot of parents, kids, I mean, not kids, but parents and coaches, like these guys need to communicate. They need to be accountable, they need to be resilient. I want my kids to be resilient, but you never let them fall. Give them a safe space to fall. Communicate. Coaches, after the game, instead of talking for a half hour, 45 minutes about the game, let them talk or say nothing. Ask them to communicate. I mean, human humans were messy. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Perfect. I don't know. [00:38:57] Speaker B: I don't know what to say. [00:38:58] Speaker A: I mean, your guys that make it to the big leagues, what are their biggest challenges? 11 Getting there, but then also staying. [00:39:05] Speaker B: There, sustaining being in the big leagues. [00:39:09] Speaker A: Yes. [00:39:11] Speaker B: What was the question about those guys? [00:39:12] Speaker A: Their challenges of one may be getting there because I think that's. That when you talk about the good to great, you know, you talk about a minor league and anybody that gets an opportunity to play professionally, like you're, you're good. But then to get to that great part, that's obviously there's a Lot of luck to getting to the big leagues. There's, there's a lot of obstacles in their path to get there. But what are the things that kind of help them get through those challenges or what are their challenges to one get there but then also sustain some sort of a career at that level because it very rarely happens good to great. [00:39:47] Speaker B: Talent. You, you can have talent and be good and get there. Being great is about what you're willing to do consistently to stay there. Weaponizing yourself consistently. Just because you know you have a good game doesn't mean that tomorrow is going to be the same. Baseball is a very difficult sport in that, in that sense. I asked Barry Bonds one time, like what's some of the hardest times you had? Like what's, what's so hard about baseball? If you could see what was so hard about it and thank you. And he said when you have a nine game hitting streak, that's when it gets hard because the pressure's there. And to stay. The pressure is that he was talking about was the comfort that nine games can give you. Oh, I'm good now. Yeah, I'm nine game hitting straight go into the 10th game. And when you're comfortable, complacency strikes. So staying hungry. And that was something he said that stuck with me is staying hungry, staying as fierce the next day and the next day that same fierceness you have when you haven't gotten a hit, that feeling of like I really have to do this or I could be out of the lineup or lose my opportunity. And that's such a fine balance because you don't want to get into tri zone or play DOH and press zone. So staying hungry. And what are you willing to do? What are you willing to do when you've gotten your contract? Maybe you're in your arbitration year. You can't just really go in extra that year. What are you willing to do to sustain? That's up to each individual player. I think they need support from the beginning to the end. The big leagues are they, they're difficult. Yes, it's, it's difficult. The minor leagues are grueling. I feel the pressure. When I have players that I'm working with in the minor leagues, I feel their pressure. I mean I have a kid in the minor leagues now and knowing what he's going to be up against, it's grueling and it's really grueling. The most I see when they get to about AAA and they're teeter tottering, they get brought up, they get sent down, they get brought up, they get sent down and finding what they need. And for me, watching and kind of trying to read the situation and what's the vibe? What do the coaches say? What are they? What's the feedback they're giving you? And not just watching the results, but doing what I can to weaponize with something compelling. Where coaches have this guy around and they're like, I know he's gonna fall down, but I love this guy, trust this guy. This guy's dependable. I know this guy's gonna come in and he's gonna fight every day, and I want him around. That could be your greatest weapon, is the frequency you move through a space with that is huge. The kids that are wanting to be recruited at a high school or the college kids, where the scouts are showing up your infield, outfield, that frequency you bring out into that space, the way you hustle when you don't have to because it's just infield, outfield, or whatever. The willingness to stay hungry for the knowledge, for the things that add to your feel, not your feelings, your feel very different. The willingness and what you're willing to do to be great is the biggest difference for me between being good and great. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Let's get into the book a little bit here. I love the title, Marshall Mentality. It's a great title. [00:44:02] Speaker B: Thank you, man. [00:44:04] Speaker A: And this has been building for you. You know, how difficult, especially with everything that you've been through the last two years, to really get your thoughts down on paper. [00:44:17] Speaker B: Ryan, that's a deep question that I wrote another book in front of that one. It's just waiting on someone to finish their chapter. It's going to be a pretty big deal for this person to come out and share the things he's about to share. He never has. And I won't. I won't say that yet until that's done and it's on its way. Then we'll talk about that one. Maybe. Maybe if we can, I'll try to bring him in. I'll try to reel them into this podcast. I'll do one of these. But Marshall mentality, I was really inspired because when I go out to college teams and I'm working with some of the younger guys, and even some of the big leaguers are like, d, do you have a book or anything? And I'm like, I do, but I don't. You know, when I came out of the hospital, I had to learn to walk and talk and do everything again. I had to learn to use my left hand Again. And so I just. I started doing things that would. Like a guitar making my fingers move. Just this. I mean, such simple stuff. But the whole right side of my brain, you know, I have parts of a lot of parts of my brain that'll never come back. So in all essence, I shouldn't walk or talk. So doing this took me a lot of drilling and training, believe it or not. Typing. So I just started typing and the inhibitors in my brain, gone. So I started seeing so many things and simplifying even more and martial mentality. I told you, I see some of these athletes as fighters. They're just fighters and they're out there fighting their battles and doing their thing and using technique to do it. They're the mechanics. And I started seeing a lot of clarity between offense and defense and. And what got me, what allowed me to survive, what has allowed me to come back and. And work my way back to being great or good at anything or even just break even, and what was I willing to do? So the Marshall mentality and the Marshall mindset is just. It's about discipline. It's about that willingness to. To even dare, to want to be great and to put yourself out there to be vulnerable. And then the alignment piece of our heart and our mind, and bringing those two things together is a big deal. And now we're talking about some of the vulnerabilities and frailties and strengths and the power of a human being, and diving in a little bit about what that is and what that takes and then how to do that was my goal for this. It's such. It was such a technical kind of project I was looking at, and I put together an outline and some things, but then I just backed off and I just sat down and I just was like, when it comes, it'll come. And then all of a sudden, in the last, I would say five months, it was every day, and I'm like, thank you, God, this is amazing. And I just started. I just started being willing to whatever it took. If I was sitting here all day, all night, in between all my calls, I did not move. And I. And I wrapped it up. And then I was like, well, how do I publish this? And what's going to be on the COVID And the COVID I talked a little bit about in the beginning, what that cover is. So I did a TV show for Discovery Channel, Ultimate Ninja Challenge. It's on the Discovery app. But I spent a month out in the British Columbian wilderness. I got asked first to come host the show, and it would be Hosted with the last surviving ninja. Because I used to work for Fox Sports, and I used to. I used to be a TV host. And I was like, yeah, I would love to do that. I get to meet the ninja. And so then discovery. Too many chiefs, not enough endings. Indians. And they changed their mind. We don't want to host. So the producer was like, danielle, will you do the show? I'm like, no, I'm not a survival like that. That's not my thing. So I had to learn how to make a fire. I mean, it was the hardest thing I've ever done, aside of laying in an ICU and fight my way out of that, too. Okay. The ICU was a little colder. Even though it was about 10 degrees. It got up to 26 degrees. The whole entire month I was out there, my clothes on my back. Bears, elk, wolves, you name it. So starving hurts. But the ninja. I got to meet the last surviving ninja. And the COVID of that book is actually. Actually a real scroll that was painted to me. And I was sitting here probably four weeks ago, and the publisher calls, and they go, what do you want to do for the COVID And I said. And I looked over right here on my desk, and there's this little tube, and it had the scroll wrapped up in it. And I was like, let me look at that again. And I pulled it out and I laid it on the floor. I took a picture. I threw it in a chat gpd and says, what does this mean? Because it's a Japanese sanji or kokoro is what it's called. And it meant heart and mindset. And then I remembered the ninja painting it right in front of me, his signatures on it. And he said, for me, he watched the whole show. Back he goes, we didn't have female ninjas or samurai. We used females as, like, to decoy and do all these things. He goes, but for me, your willingness and your heart and mindset, you were the heart. You were the heart out there. That. That's what got you through all of that and your. And your mind. Because they had a. They had some pretty serious challenges along with it. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this book is about that. That's got to be the COVID So it's kind of cool because I got to use my own, like, piece of art that was given to me for the COVID and really share that with everybody. And so that's what's on the COVID And I hand wrote, like, heart and mind right below it so people would look at the scroll and know what it meant. And the book talks a lot about gratitude. Gratitude is the number one thing we can collide with being anxious or anxiety. It smashes anxiety. Talks a lot about the breath work. It talks about ways to align your heart and mind to get to places for your own personal best performance, alignment, playing through the frame of success rather than the frame of failure. It introduces that in the book. And quite frankly, Ryan, I'd have to look at it myself because that's how my brain works. I don't have a ton of recall immediately. I'd have to just kind of page through it and then I could explain things. [00:51:11] Speaker A: So how does someone get into being a ninja? [00:51:15] Speaker B: Okay. I went to the birthplace of the ninja. When they flew me to Japan, I spent a week with the last surviving ninja. Why is he the ninja? He's government appointed. He is the last one that has the scrolls for thousand, like a thousand years. And he's going to get, he's going to take them with them, I guess. I went to the oldest dojo, I think it was built in 1841 and it's the oldest one in the world. The ninja and the samurai, they were not messing around. Their tools, their weapons are no joke. They were farmers by day. You would walk right by, you would not know you're walking by one. They were some of the hardest working people. Hardest working people. Smart, very smart, very discreet, no ego. I, I, I. It's hard to even put across in words what that was like and what learning that. So you're driving down the street in IGA city, which is the birthplace of the ninja. Everything's kind of ninja there and there's schools and you know how we drive by a school in the blacktop and they're playing basketball or they're playing, you know, dodgeball or something. These kids are out there with these wooden swords and they're doing kata's. Samurai schools are still there right now. So it's, it was amazing. Definitely impacted me. I thought, wow, there's a lot more to, to the world than I thought we're capable of. More than I thought. Starving for a month. I had 2,000 calories in a month. And then being able to keep your brain thinking under such pressure and duress that was meant to break you or kill you. And then having to take on challenges and use the parts of my brain that were working out there. Between the freezing cold and the pressure of wanting to compete, not quitting in the worst situations, pouring rain, water, the cold, the water, the dirt, the ground can break you Mother Nature is no joke. It's the most beautiful. I would look up and be like, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen with my eyes. And it can kill me. Talk about your mind being like, what? And baseball, If I. If I hold those two together, there's so many layers through my experience with all these athletes from the top down, including myself. It's. There's so many parallels. It's such an incredible, powerful sport. It's the most difficult sport. And I'm not taking away from any other athletes. Rugby I've worked on as a mental performance for a rugby team. They are tough, son of a guns. They're pretty amazing. Baseball is so technical. It's so much like jiu jitsu. It's technique and leverage beats strength a lot of the time. And when you are so understanding of technique and leverage and you add your strength and you put on weight and your VLO and all your stuff, it starts to work for you, not against you. And I'll tell you, we have not even scratched the surface of what an athlete is capable between those white lines for a fact. We are not. We have not. [00:54:42] Speaker A: All right, everybody has to answer. Fail forward moment is your accident. Is that a fail forward moment for you? Something you thought was going to set you back, but looking back now, it helps you move forward. Because I feel like you're a different person in a lot of respects now than you were two years ago. [00:54:58] Speaker B: I agree. Fail forward. Ryan, What was taken a big chunk of my brain, like my music. I don't hear music the same. There's. There's been a lot of challenges with this. I've never been so scared. Aside of my oldest, he had a heart surgery. He passed and came back to at one point in his life. But I'm so grateful it was me, not my kids, not one of my family members or friends. I feel like I'm not built for this. Because I'm tough doesn't mean I deserve something like this to happen. It's awful. But at the same time, yes. There's been so many gifts, including, I don't know where that book came from. I shouldn't even be here. So to write a book, even my doctors are like, this is a miracle. I don't know what's going on. Ryan. Is it fail forward? Yes, I guess so. I'm not a victim. I can't complain. I feel so blessed, so grateful. I want to be able to give and share whatever I've brought back to everyone and anyone. I can just to make them better and especially the coaches, because their influence is so powerful. I wrote a letter to the coaches in that book. Is it Fail Forward? Yes. By God's grace, yes. [00:56:46] Speaker A: And two years ago, you were supposed to come speak at the convention. I mean, that was right. That was literally right before you were supposed to come to the convention. [00:56:55] Speaker B: I was in the er. I remember speaking about it. My sister's like, you were so worried, like, I have to get on a plane, you know, and. And she goes, I was so. I felt so bad. I don't say I'm going to do something and not do it. So that was devastating for me and the amount of energy and prayer and, I mean, my sister had my phone. She goes, you won't believe how many people are. Are praying for you. And so much so on Twitter that Elon Musk introduced himself, like, was asking, who are you? Like, how do you have this much love coming your way? By a big handful of a community I had never met and. And gave. It put wind in my sails. It definitely did. And I was walking. I wasn't supposed to walk. They told me, you can't walk. And I unplugged the alarm off the bed, and I was finding ways to walk and move my body. And, yeah, it hurt. It hurt to miss out on that. But I also felt the support, and I got to be there one year later, which was my first flight that I was even allowed to fly. [00:58:13] Speaker A: What are you looking forward to? The leadership Hot stove this year? [00:58:19] Speaker B: I'm looking forward to hearing the other speakers and watching people's reaction to them and watching how it lands for them and hoping that they just take one little chunk of gold that hopefully they drop and take it with them and hand it off to a group of kids that it impacts and it just keeps spreading. I think the ripple effect of that whole convention can be really powerful if people choose to step through the doors and leave their egos at the doors and go in to give rather than to get something. So I'm looking forward to seeing. Seeing where that happens. I'm looking forward to. I called a couple people out this year. I never heard from them. I think I would hope that they would confront me if they saw me and say, hey, what was that about? And have a conversation and walk away a little surprised and think and be impacted in a positive way. [00:59:26] Speaker A: All right, what are some final thoughts or hopes for 2026? [00:59:31] Speaker B: Just to keep healing and. And allowing my impact to scale this year. I'm not going to just work real quietly with one roster, there's a chance I'll be scaling to a bigger position, so we'll see. I'm just, I'm grateful for every day and I know that sounds like fluffy and tacky. [00:59:59] Speaker A: Gratitude is the best place to be. [01:00:01] Speaker B: I am, I'm grateful for every day and I'm open to where some of these things take me. I'm. I'm putting it out there and I think that's gonna adjust things, shift things, and keep doing a lot of what I've been doing and just keep learning and seeing what comes through and capturing it and putting it down in places that I can send it off and share it. [01:00:27] Speaker A: Where can people find you? [01:00:30] Speaker B: They can find [email protected] that's my email. They can find me at True Mindsets on Instagram or official Danielle Martin. That's my personal one on Instagram. And then Twitter, it's Danielle1 38252 I think. I don't know where my phone is. So Danielle 13, 8252 I think is the, the Twitter. I usually use that just for kind of baseball and checking out other coaches teams, baseball stuff and. Yeah, but my email, that's my personal email. You can contact me. Ryan, what are you looking forward to for 2026? [01:01:24] Speaker A: Oh, buddy. My word for this year is peace. So I always in the direction of peace, peace. And, and for me, peace has multiple meanings. One, obviously that, that inner peace, I think people want to try to get to. But peace is also a goodbye too. Like in my generation, Generette, she told somebody peace, it meant goodbye. So I think it's a two. [01:01:51] Speaker B: Oh yeah, like peace out. [01:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. So, so, so yes, there's two. That's the Gen X and me. I, I think there's two meanings to that word. So, you know, I, I've used gratitude quite a bit. Gratitude's been a one word for me. I've used that a lot. You know, going back to some of the Buddhism stuff. Non harm, I think is a big one that I've used in the past too. We're trying to treat people right, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it. But I try not to look too far down the road. You know, I think you get into that trap of looking too far down to the road. I do really try to stay in the present moment at all times. I'm, I'm a huge Bill Murray fan and I've mentioned this before, the Bill Murray stories, if anybody's never watched it go watch it. Bill Murray's. He's also a Buddhist, but he does try to live in the present moment at all times. And I think that's the best place to live and be in that type of head space of really taking what each day brings to you and not overthinking any of that and really enjoying where you're at and the people that you're with and wherever that is. I really do try to enjoy being in the present moment with the people that I'm with at that time, and then you move on to the next instance when you move on to it. But I appreciate you asking that. Appreciate it. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I was. I was curious. [01:03:11] Speaker A: Yes. All right, Danielle, thanks for your time. See you here soon. I appreciate it. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for having me. [01:03:18] Speaker A: Danielle's a tremendous example of resiliency. Excited to dive into her book this month. Thanks to her for being on our leadership panel at the convention the last two years. Great addition to the convention. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, and Matt west in the ABC office for all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email rbrownleeabca.org, twitter, Instagram or TikTok coachbabca or direct message me via the MyBCA app. This is Ryan Brownlee signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks. And leave it better for those behind you. And you know that way Yep. Wait for another day and the world will always return as your love is never for your name and you know that place. [01:04:25] Speaker B: Wait for another. D.