Episode #34 - Lessons from the 2024/25 Season

In this episode the boys discuss what they learned from their very different seasons; Jesse playing Pro in France, Mathias Assistant Coaching at TWU, and Oog red-shirting at the UofS. We discuss the level of preparation needed in order to play at a high level, the role of a coach in player development, and the ability to learn and reflect outside of a volleyball context. We also share a plethora of insights, lessons, and mistakes from the 2024/25 season.

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Transcript

Mathias 0:05

Before we get started, I'd like to introduce our sponsor for today's episode.

Jesse 0:09

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Mathias 0:18

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Jesse 0:23

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Mathias 0:29

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Jesse 0:46

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1:04

Hello and welcome to the Pit the Pro podcast. Jesse, Matthias, and Aaron Elson. This podcast is meant to guide young athletes on their journey to high performance. Join us as we share our first hand experiences in an effort to help you reach your own valuable goals.

Mathias 1:20

What's up everyone? Welcome back to the Pits Pro podcast. Today is episode number 34, and we're gonna be running through some of our favorite lessons that we learned from the 20 24 20 25 volleyball season. So just for context, OG was at, uh, the University of Saskatchewan as a red shirt. I was coaching, uh, as an assistant coach at Trinity Western, and Jesse was overseas in France, in the city of set, playing left side in the French Pro League. Jesse, you wanna kick us off here? I can try.

Jesse 1:59

I, uh, I think the first thing I thought of about what I learned and TSU just mentioned it in the French Pro League. The French Pro League is so skilled and so deep that I really realized that having a good spiking game or a good passing game isn't enough. Really, like you have to have complete games to be competitive and to really push the field.'cause everyone can beat everyone. I remember last year in university, I would be fired up after a good spiking game or a good serving game, but that's not enough because everyone has those games, you know? Um, but then the, the, the second part of that is something I really learned and, and struggled with this year is my, my definition of success, uh, after a game. And I'm still battling with it and whether it's a win or whether, whether it's having a, a well-rounded game or whether it's helping people. And I'm still really, um, trying to figure that out. So I haven't learned that lesson yet, but I think because this league is so skilled, my definition of success has increased and I've realized what's possible So I'm really dealing with my, or struggling with my definition of success after a game.

Oog 3:40

Do you, do you use that definition of success in other parts of your life? Like

Jesse 3:45

can you kinda expand on that? Did, that's actually an interesting point. One of the things I had written down, we did not have a good year. Our team. among other things, we had some coaching changes and one of the coaches really did not work hard and it really frustrated me. And one of the things that was said in one of our team meetings was. We were already eliminated from playoffs and it was, we're not gonna do video because it's too much work for the coaching staff. And that like really irked me, like really irked me. And I thought about it for a long time and I was like, man, if that really bugs me, imagine how other people in my life feel if I don't put. A hundred percent effort into something, uh, it doesn't matter what it is. So that, that in that aspect, OG has changed the way I view certain things. Yeah.

Oog 4:59

Yeah. I think you, like, as individuals, you have a finite amount of effort that you can give, and there's some things that just aren't gonna be important to you. But if you're in a situation like that where it's like, this is your job. These men that are in this room are also, this is also their job. I feel like there's no excuse to be lazy in that moment. You can be lazy when you get home and you're like, I'm gonna have a nap instead of doing the dishes and I'll do the dishes later. Like, you can be lazy that way. Sure, yeah. Like I'm gonna doom scroll and whatever. Yeah. But like if it's your job or your relationship or whatever mm-hmm. There's no excuse to just be like, ah, that's not important as, as whatever the, your coach would've been doing instead of watching video. You know, like that's kinda, that's kinda how I see it.

Mathias 5:49

It's interesting, kind of, kind of related is, uh, this year Adam brought up this quote from Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach, a bunch where he says, roll tide. Yeah, roll tide. There's uh, there's two pains in life. There's the pain of discipline and there's the pain of disappointment. And if you can't handle the pain of discipline, then get ready for the pain of disappointment. I dunno if that's exactly it, but that's the idea. Um, and that goes, it's a volleyball thing for sure. If you can't handle the pain of, you know, um. Putting in the long hours in the video room or lifting heavy or getting the extra ups when you don't want to. All those things, if you can't handle the pain of that discipline, you'll expect the pain of the disappointment of probably not having the results that you want. But it can also be said with like, um, everyday life stuff and relationships. Um. it takes some discipline, some level of discipline, I would say, to maintain all of your relationships. And, uh, if we're not doing that, then they can be disappointing as well.

Jesse 7:02

Did you, you touched on, on two really cool things there that I, I had also learned this year. You talked about the, the weight room, uh, bit. And one of the things I wrote down is lifting or having a good lifting culture is one of the most important parts of a high performance team. And I think back to my final year at Trinity Western where every Monday there was guys pring on their clean and everyone was pushing each other. We were excited to go to lift. It was loud. We had the music blaring. And then I look at this year and. Like there were guys that would just sit there for 75% of the lift, and I just realized how, one, how important that time in the weight room when you're really struggling together, how unifying that time is and two, how important weightlifting is. Like, we haven't done a weightlifting episode yet, but I think it's on the docket, but. It's so important and we had a lot of injuries. and I'm, I'm going to a program next year, um, where I'll have a leadership position and I started writing down things that I wanted to address or implement and having a good, um. having a good lifting culture is, is one of the ones I really wanna make sure happens.

Mathias 8:42

No, that's really cool. Jess. I like, uh, what you said about the bond that, that creates as well. I was listening to a podcast quite a while ago now, maybe a year ago, and it was saying that, uh, men bond with other men through stress. And I don't know if it's the same, um, for women, but when, when guys are probably like the closest bond you can have with a man is like when you're. Maybe if you like go to war together or something. That's high stress in battle. But sports is, sports is similar and like in a smaller context, the weight room is like high stress, high pressure, um. You're like, yeah. Working through pain together, essentially. Mm-hmm. And I think that's, that's when men bond the closest. And also, um, a form of stress is like problem solving. So, I dunno, a small example, like one summer I was home, I think it was during Covid, and Dad was just asking me. To help like work on all these house projects, like every day. Like we built new stairs, we built a new fence, we repainted stuff. We're like knocking things down and putting them back up. Just like going to town around the, around the yard. I. And like that was like maybe the closest I've ever felt with him.'cause we're just like working together, problem solving, like things not going well, we're getting a little stressed and we figure it out. We work through it together. So I think like the way the Williams room's kind of just like a micro example of, of those things. And that's why I think some, some conflict and some like some not so fun times when you're losing and things aren't going well. It's probably extremely important for a team's bond.'cause then. You learn to work through things together.

Jesse 10:28

Yeah.

Mathias 10:28

Yeah. I got, okay. Well, here, here's the

Jesse 10:30

point.

Oog 10:32

I, I don't wanna get this. Who is, is

Jesse 10:33

yours better or

Oog 10:34

mine better? Mine is. Mine is way better. I can g guarantee it. Okay. You go, you go. Um, okay. So talking about that, um, like Mark pp who is Derek pps dad, he's our, our mental performance coach here at, at the University of Saskatchewan. And. We were talking about the same Nick Saban quote that Adam was talking about. Um, and then after one of our sessions with Mark, me and Derek were chatting about how if that 20, 21, 22 season team that lost in the final to Alberta had been through some adversity or had been taught how to deal with adversity when it came. The outcome would've been more likely swayed in our direction because we didn't have any adversity and we didn't have to fight at all until the third set of the final. Like that was the, the matter of the fact. And I think that just shows that like throughout a season, like even our season this year, like. The ups and downs aren't actually that, like the ups and downs are more important than they may seem in the moment. Like you might feel crushed that you just got a road or like swept on the road, but whatever, because at the end of the year, you know what it's like if you go down two nights or one night and you have to, it's a do or die on the second. Like, you know, like all of those minor. Or Yeah. All those minor lessons that you learn throughout the season when it comes down to crunch time, like are so important. Mm-hmm.

Mathias 12:16

And I think those moments, like those moments can also rack a team. Um, for sure. It's just about, um, the response to failure, like we've talked about a bunch of times before. That's kind of the defining nature of the best teams and best players is their response to failure. You can, Jesse, yours is probably better. I have

Jesse 12:39

a, uh, I don't know if it's better'cause I have a thought slash question slash brainstorming activity. Alright. Alright, let's dive in. Let's dive in. Let's unpack that. Let's talk about losers. Yeah. No, I, I gotta be really careful how I word this. It seems as though in my current situation, we have a lot of people who have gotten used to losing and, hold on. I don't really know what I'm trying to say. We had this interesting relationship with losing because when you lose doesn't mean you're a loser, quote unquote. But I got the sense this year that we had lost so much that it almost became the norm, and that is a very difficult script to flip. Hmm.

Mathias 14:05

Yeah. I don't, I don't, I, I don't, uh. I don't necessarily have a definition of what I think a loser is, but it's probably something like losing doesn't make you a loser, but as soon as you stop trying to win, that probably makes you a loser.

Jesse 14:29

Yeah, I would agree man. And like we had instances where fans or people in town or or support staff. It was like, you don't look like you wanna win. Or they would make jokes like, ah, another loss. Hey. And like, that was the accepted norm. Mm-hmm. And it blew my mind, like it was so frustrating to me, but, but we were okay with it. And I think at that point, like, yeah, we're losing and we're losers because we're not doing anything tangible to change it.

Mathias 15:13

Yeah. I think also sometimes losers will take what happened to them and use it as an excuse for why they are the way they are. Yeah. Instead of, instead of, instead of, instead of choosing, making a conscious choice about their response to the situation.

Jesse 15:36

Yeah. Well, and that, that leads into the ownership conversation. That was, that was one of the things I had written down about this year as well, is, especially in the pro volleyball world, I would have been really lucky for the people I've been around, but I need to take a lot more ownership for my professionalism and my preparedness. Is that a word? Preparedness. Preparation maybe? Yeah. My preparation and like my nutrition, like there's so many things that people aren't gonna do for you. Mm-hmm. That I really gotta step up my game. I think if I wanna be the top if echelon of players. Hmm.

Mathias 16:28

Yeah. That's. It takes an insane amount of discipline probably to uh, like shield yourself from all that stuff that's going on, but technically it would've been possible for you to, to do all that stuff during the year, no matter how difficult it was,

Jesse 16:49

dude. Okay. Here's a thought that might not make sense, but so you're saying. That it would take a lot of discipline to shield myself from those environments.

Mathias 17:07

Mm-hmm. To not let yourself be, not let your actions be swayed by the external environment. Yes. And

Jesse 17:17

I am someone who needs a lot of interactions and those interactions happen in different environments and. One of the, two of the things I wrote down had to do with being away from home, being in a different speaking or different language speaking country, and I realized that I really didn't have anyone to like boost my confidence. So either I had to do it myself or I had to go seek people that I didn't know if I believed. Or that I didn't know very well and I, and like I got caught in this middle ground of shielding off these environments and these interactions, but also like yearning for those environments and interactions, which might not be very good for my health or my performance because I just craved that human interaction. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense?

Mathias 18:23

Yeah. Yeah, it does make sense. It's like you don't want to, you don't want to be like them, but you need them.

Jesse 18:30

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's exactly like that.

Mathias 18:33

I think that's, that's why that situation is like a near impossible conundrum because um, I think, well, you know, the classic quote quote, like you are the sum of the five people you spend the most of your time with is like pretty cliche, but a hundred percent. I dunno if you'd

Jesse 18:54

call that. Classic.

Mathias 18:57

Think it's, I think that's the first time I've heard that. Oh, really?

Jesse 18:59

Yeah.

Mathias 19:01

Um, well, I, I think that it's, it's incredibly accurate because I, I think humans are so social and we all wanna fit in, no matter how much we say we want to try to not care about what people think about us, we do. Um. Mm-hmm. And, uh. Essentially it's, it's near impossible to just resist the environment you're in and not become like the people you spend the most amount of time with. So I think choosing the people that you spend your time with is the fastest way to become someone, the person you wanna become. If I surround myself by. If I surround myself with five people who are undisciplined and don't care about their work and sit on the couch all day, I'll probably end up being the sixth. If I surround myself by five billionaires, maybe I would be the sixth.

Jesse 20:02

Yeah.

Mathias 20:02

Just because of the context, the environment, the people that, that I spend my time with. Um,

Jesse 20:10

well that's really interesting and actually leads me into another one of my thoughts. because we had so many nationalities this year, I found myself. Feeling very alone at times. And we would play games and we would hang out and we would do things together, but it just wasn't that connection that like brought me, like, didn't fill my cup, you know? And, and I realized how much time you have to sit with your thoughts. In the bus, in the train, in the hotel room, in the locker room. Like there's so much time, even on days off and stuff. And like you were saying, TES, you wanna surround yourself with, with people that you want to emulate. And I really, near the end of the year, really wanted to start being, uh, content, spending time with myself. Hmm. And I was like,'cause, well, it wasn't you. You said a quote about that, right? Like, you spend 99% of your time with yourself or something like that. I don't know. I think you said something like that. Either you or Mar, maybe someone on the podcast said

Mathias 21:37

it. Right? Well, you spend all of your time with yourself. You have to live with yourself all the time. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that quote you said that, I don't know if that was a quote. Maybe just, oh. Came up with just common knowledge. it's just the truth now it's a quote.

Jesse 21:51

Yeah, it was you. Yeah. And you said that on the podcast, and I remember kind of sitting here at this table afterwards and being like, man, I need to like be okay with that because the nature of professional volleyball, is you have a lot of downtime and, and a lot of things are outta your control. And when you're fighting with. Let's say the club or your agent or your teammates, the last thing you want is to be going home and then fighting with yourself and your thoughts and your instincts and stuff like that.

Oog 22:27

Dude, you know what I realized, and this might be a little bit off topic, but like the amount of people that like can't just like sit on a park bench by themselves. Or like go to a coffee shop or go get, like, have you ever gone to get dinner at a restaurant by yourself?

Jesse 22:46

Mm-hmm.

Oog 22:47

I think it's so much fun. I, for, for whatever reason, like you just, it like not having any fear of judgment and just being like, you know what? I'm gonna do this because I can and I want to like. There's people that won't sit on whatever benches because they're worried that what other people that are walking by will think of a solo person sitting on a bench. But it's like, yeah. The reality is, is you have to be content being by yourself, because at the end of the day, the only person that's really ever gonna be there for you is, is you.

Jesse 23:24

Mm-hmm.

Oog 23:24

Or your

Jesse 23:24

mind. Dude, I went to, uh, Boston Pizza by myself when I was at the FTC in grade 12, and the waitress brought me a free wings'cause she felt bad for me. I. Got stood up. That's hilarious.

Oog 23:39

Uh, yeah, dude, it's honestly just a pleasant time. Hmm.

Mathias 23:48

Okay. Little change of topic here, but one of the things that I kind of, and maybe not a lesson, but one of the things I realized when trying to come up with lessons for this episode was that my level of reflection. Has fallen off a cliff ever since I stopped playing because I was so active every single day about making conscious improvements, conscious effort to improve. I'd come home from practice, I would evaluate what did I do well, what did I do poorly? What do I want to do tomorrow? Look at my journal before practice. This is what I'm working on today. Just like. Uh, active effort in getting better every single day. And then since I've stopped playing, I kind of just have been doing, doing life, doing the stuff that's on my schedule, um, just day in, day out. And I think, um, I would love to reflect more on. Other important areas like be as active in improvement as I was in volleyball in other areas. Like if I came home and I was like, okay, what could I have done today to be a better brother? What could I have done today to be a better roommate or coworker? just more, more conscious living, I would say. And I was thinking the problem though is that there's no practice. In those, in those things, you know, you go to practice, you try something, you screw it up, doesn't matter because it's practice and you'll have another one tomorrow. But most things, um, there's only, there's only reality essentially. Right. But I do think that there's, if you can get in the mindset where it's like, this is a practice. Argument with my girlfriend or something, or this is a, this is a practice meeting. I don't know, but just like giving myself the freedom to try things a little bit more and experiment the way I did in volleyball, in relationships, and real life stuff. I think that could be interesting,

Jesse 26:11

dude. Yeah. Liv and I just had a conversation about this. Um. Probably gonna butcher this story, but she saw this reel and it was talking about gratitude journals and how that might not, not necessarily be the best thing because it's all passive positivity. And this, this reel, this Instagram post was talking about. Instead or as well. So you write down three things you're grateful for, but then you write three things where you have impacted the world or you have impacted the people around you. So it's not like, oh, I'm grateful for Matthias's love. It's like, no, today I went out of my way to help this person. And then by doing so, you feel like you're making a difference and you'll actively look. To improve the lives of the people around you as you go about your day.

Oog 27:19

What, what I was thinking about when Tia said that, that last part was like, in life, we have goals, but they're not like strict like, okay, let's win a national championship on March 17th. It'll be over. it's like, I wanna do this. How am I gonna do this? You have 45 steps and it still just might not work out, but there's no end date to it you could still accomplish that goal two years past, you know, like there's no finite goal, so you don't really, uh, ever know what you're working towards, you know? I dunno if that made any sense, but

Mathias 28:04

that makes sense to me. I think what you were talking about there was, um. It made me think of like finite and infinite games. Do you remember when I talked about that? It was like episode two or something like that one. The colon marriage? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly what what you're talking about there, uga, like it's finite games when there's defined rules, a defined. Um, outcome that we're all seeking and both teams are know what those rules are and what the goal is. Like. It's, I would say, maybe easier to track progress towards that goal. And I. But it's, it's

Oog 28:42

also easier to reflect on what didn't go well. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What you have rules to quantify against, right?

Mathias 28:48

Yeah. There's a benchmark and a clear outline of what is supposed to happen, so you can reflect on that. But yeah, infinite games like relationships or business, um. The goal is to stay in the game. Right? And that's pretty much it. There's not really any agreed upon rules. You can, anything you need to do to keep your relationship going is okay. There's no rules in relationships. There are rules in business, but the goal is to stay in business, not to win business.'cause you can't. Um, so yeah, maybe, maybe if it's an infinite game, it's more difficult to. Make myself reflect. Maybe that was my, my realization this year. No, that's

Oog 29:31

cool. I just want to touch on like kind of our season.'cause I had a, there's a cool maybe reflection that happened this year and I think it's comes down to the, this saying here is like, you are not defined by one weekend, but by the preparation you do leading up to that weekend. So like. AF right after Can West Finals Bus Ride Home We find out that our team has viral Pink Eye. two weeks till the National Final. We got seven dudes with Pink Eye. A bunch of guys are sick. Uh, we have seven guys on one side of the curtain. We got I think 11 guys on, on the other side of the curtain, maybe less. And yeah, 10 guys, Derek and Ryan Beatson are playing with us me and me and Matt, Matthew Mytho are on Scooters with boots It's just insanity and. Like our whole goal that week was like we, we know that we worked as hard as we could. Getting up to this moment, like these two weeks of preparation are purely mental. It's like we know we're not in like the best case scenario to win nationals, but we can't rely on like these two weeks don't matter. In the grand scheme of things, the only thing that matters is that we know that we were prepared coming into this. Dude,

Jesse 31:02

that's amazing. one of the things I wrote down is preparation is a must and feeling prepared. There's no greater feeling than feeling prepared in my opinion.

Mathias 31:15

well, just U when you were speaking it, it made me think of like the Brandon team. Man, they won the national tournament with their minds. Right. Yeah. They are a good, they're a good volleyball team. A good volleyball team. But they're not the best volleyball players in the country. No, but they dominated that tournament with their minds. You could see it on their faces and the way they interacted with each other and how they would respond to points that they won, points that they didn't win, and because they didn't make playoffs, they had. Those maybe three, four weeks to prepare, like you're saying, ug. So they might have been the most prepared team and the most mentally tough team. Yeah, and I think that's why they won that tournament, dude. And just the,

Oog 32:05

the, the mental side of you're not like for guys playing in Brandon in that tournament, it was like, okay, it's 12 against 3,500 in a tiny gym. Like the, the amount of mental strength it took for Brandon to be like, whatever happens, like we're fully invested is incredible for one. But playing in that environment is also just so hard, and I think they capitalized way better than anyone else could, which was, it was cool to see, but Right. No, that's a

Mathias 32:47

good point. Yeah. Yeah. All right. How much of a player's improvement do you think the player is responsible for versus the coach?

Oog 33:00

You wanna answer that one for us, coach?

Jesse 33:05

Well, I got, I, I'll answer from a player's perspective'cause I also had a note about that from this season and I wrote, if you're not getting the feedback you want, seek it out. Hmm. So I think it's a 50 50 ish kind of thing. Like I think the coaches that wanna be there and want to help will help you. And if you truly want to get better and you're not getting the feedback you want, then go ask. Ask the questions. Ask them to or, or ask them for extra reps. Ask them for different cues. Ask them to film things. Actually, you know what? No, I changed my mind. I think it's like 70 30, dude, I was just about to say 70 30. Yeah, because yeah, I think, I think it's on the athlete. A

Oog 33:56

hundred percent.

Jesse 33:57

Yeah.

Oog 33:58

Because if they don't want to, if, if they're getting the coaching and if you're getting the same piece of feedback every day and you're not changing anything about it, like, think about how many times I got told to be on the toes and or not be late on the pipe, and how many times was I late? Like me and Derek joke about that all the time. Now it's like, he was like, you were late every single time in your first year. It took me. Whatever, eight months to figure out how to run a pipe ball. And even now it's like pretty wishy-washy. But I think I could have made a conscious effort way sooner. Like that wasn't, that's not Ben Jo's fault that I didn't change after he was giving me feedback. Like that's, that's on me. But also if he's noticing that I'm still late, just telling me that I'm late. It might not be my issue. You know, like, so there's, dude,

Jesse 34:56

that's a, that's a beautiful way to put it. that's exactly how I feel is it's, it was on me and I didn't change, and now it's March and the season's done, and there was so many opportunities for me to make changes and to implement things or to ask questions. That's one of the biggest regrets I think I have this season is the ball was in my hands or could have been in my hands and I dropped it. There's so many more things that I could have done and, and so I think you're right, dude. I think it's, it's entirely on us. Yeah.

Oog 35:42

Yeah. Okay. I was, I wanna hear what, I wanna hear what Tia says. Oh yeah, you're right.

Mathias 35:49

Yeah. I, um, when I was a player, I would've told you 90-10 on the player versus the coach. Like I, I dunno if it was just like my nature, but it's like I am responsible for me getting better. And no one else. And the things a coach says are important, but I also get to choose what to do with that information, which makes it my responsibility again. And like we've been saying, I've seen coaches say stuff to players and they don't, they don't do it. So the coach has zero influence if the player doesn't choose. To make the change. But then now that I'm on the coaching side, I feel an equal amount of responsibility for making the players better. So I don't know if my influence is as big as it was on myself when I was a player, but the responsibility I feel for when things go well or not well for a player is the same. Um, like the. The kind of dopamine rush when I tell someone to do something, they do it and it works well. It's like really similar to when I was like, I'm gonna try this. It works well, um, kind of thing. And um, I think part of coaching human beings is that we, maybe we don't change super fast all the time. So if it's gonna take, if it's gonna take like me telling ug. 50 times to be on the toes before he does it, then that makes the coach responsible for that improvement. Right. Does that make sense?

Jesse 37:42

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mathias 37:43

Because I know that eventually he will get there, but if I keep telling him every single time to be on the toes, eventually he will get there, which means that I as a coach, do have the ability. To force improvement on the players.

Oog 37:59

Right. But if, if you're telling me and I'm hearing it and not doing anything about it, and I'm still late

Jesse 38:08

mm-hmm.

Mathias 38:10

Like, yeah, I think maybe you have, you have the control in the speed of the improvement, but I have the control in the inevitability of the improvement.

Jesse 38:20

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. If, if you persist.

Mathias 38:24

Yeah, that's

Jesse 38:24

the thing, like there, there's a couple times, especially this year where my coaches had said something super helpful and, and then again, this is on me. I didn't make the change, but I wish that they had said it more often because I thought it was so helpful. But when the pressure moments hit, I didn't execute. I, uh,

Oog 38:53

yeah. Yeah, I have. I have one last kind of little section that we can do here. So I went to physio this morning and I was talking with our head physiotherapist, Ainsley, and she was saying, what would you have done or what will you do next year to this team to make you 10% better? Like we talk about being 1% better per day as an individual, but as a team, what could you have done this year that would've made you 10% better? And will you do it next year? So like we as, like, as we were talking, we said, I think that the, the education and the education of nutrition and implementation would really help the Huskies men volleyball team. Like the giving them resource, like our team resources to be like, Hey, if you're going to eat out, this is what you eat. Like this is where like, like almost like life hacks. I think that's something that would really help our team and could make us 10% better next year. So I was just wondering what you guys, what

Mathias 40:03

you guys think. I would think it would be really, really cool, and I would do this if I took my food budget for the entire year and gave it to the school, paid the school to make three meals a day for me as an athlete that I can go and pick up from a cafeteria or a restaurant, I would do that. I don't know what that number is, but I'm sure if everyone on the team did that, it'd be enough money to make that happen. Dude, that'd be cool.

Oog 40:38

Not gonna happen, but it'd be cool. Um, no, like I feel like that's such an overlooked part, especially as, as university athletes is like getting the right amount of food at the right times and the right quality. Yeah. Like, what's something that you wish that the Trinity guys did this year that if they did next year would make them 10% better?

Mathias 41:05

Um,

Jesse 41:10

I'm not sure I.

Mathias 41:12

I think it's like a, the, the tiniest improvement in everything over a long period of time. Okay. It's not a very good answer, but I think that's the best way. Like, like I don't. That. I feel like we've all had those moments where you just get super motivated for like a week and you're like, I'm getting up at six. I'm gonna lift right away. I'm eating healthy, no sugar, no phone. I'm making my bed, I'm calling my parents. And then you feel like a absolute monster for about a week, and then it just dies off. I feel like that's not how you get to elite performance. I think it's like, okay, I'm going. Get up at eight 30. I'm gonna make sure that I get three lifts in every single week this entire year. I never miss getting three lifts in. I'm going to get 15 extra setting reps after every single practice this year, not 200 once a week. Um. I think those are the kinds of improvements that lead to like this kind of compounding effect

Jesse 42:27

long-term

Mathias 42:28

growth over time change. Yeah.

Jesse 42:29

Yeah. One thing that I kind of was really made aware of this year is I didn't really know why I was doing certain things.'cause like you were saying, Tia. That was me multiple times this year. Like, I'm going to eat a salad with every lunch and dinner. I'm going to be in bed by 10. I'm gonna do all these things. But I didn't know why I was eating salad. I didn't know why I needed X amount of sleep. So I think like doing the research and finding out what actually A, what your goals are and then B, what are tangible things that will help you reach those goals Because maybe you don't need more salad. Maybe your diet's really good. But that's what popular culture is telling you and mm-hmm. And then, like you said, make them really easy, but make them very specific to you and your body and your lifestyle.'cause I just, I fully got caught in like the Instagram, like 30 situps, 30 pushups, tomato a day kind of thing. You know, not actually that, but like, yeah. Yeah. I like that.

Mathias 43:39

That's a good example. Tomato

Jesse 43:42

day. Yeah, sense. So I think just doing that sense, doing the actual reading and learning, it makes it way less of a chore too, because you understand why it's beneficial.

Mathias 43:55

Mm-hmm. Yeah. You think

Jesse 43:57

about

Mathias 43:57

highly individual as well, like a little experimentation goes a long way too. Trial by error. Um, yeah. Also I love like setting the bar low. That's a severely underutilized tool I think. Um. Just set the bar low so you can get over it. And what you gain from that is a little bit of like confidence or a little bit of self-respect. And then you can slowly kind of ramp up these things.'cause like I'm the kind of person that sticks to my goals. Even if your goal is like a salad once a week and making sure I'm outta bed before 10:00 AM every morning. You can do that. Then you build some confidence like, oh man, I'm sticking to my goals here. And then you slowly can, can make them more and more challenging. And you have the belief in yourself that you're the kind of person that sticks to, to your word.

Oog 44:47

Mm-hmm. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. That's cool. That's really cool.

Mathias 44:52

Good. Okay. Well, should

Jesse 44:53

we, should we wrap it up there? Yeah,

Mathias 44:56

sure. I just got one quote though that I wanna share because of, because I'm not playing volleyball anymore, which is kind of avol sports is like kind of this niche profession. Now. I'm like more of a working man where, you know, I get up, I sit at my desk all day doing school right now, or editing the pod or watching video, all that stuff. And it's so busy because. Um, yeah, I'm doing school full-time. I'm coaching this partners full-time. Mm-hmm. I'm coaching a club team, which takes up all my weekends, and then I'm running the pod as well, so just like. A, a typical, a normal person's busy. And, uh, I saw this quote and it was like, adulthood is just saying, but after this week, things will slow down a bit over and over until you die.

Oog 45:42

A hundred percent man,

Mathias 45:45

and I, I completely felt that. Like, I'm like, oh, I just gotta get through this week. Like I'll have most of Sunday off. Like I'll just, I'll wait, wait, get till Sunday and then I'll be good. And then, and then I'm busy all Sunday, Monday hits, things start racking up, like just busy, like from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. So shout out to my NRPs that are on that grind and, uh, well actually, okay, but this is, this is the lesson I, I, I took from that is like. Being, finding joy in the mundane is something that I really tried to work towards in volleyball. It's like it does get a little bit boring. Just going to practice every single day or gonna lift, going to video game day is always fun. But it does, like the day to day is like a practice that can be not so glamorous. And so I'm trying to find that joy in those moments because if I just keep saying, oh, it'll be over soon. It'll be over soon. It'll be over soon, and it never is. I need to find a way to live, um, in a way that's like joyful and satisfactory to me in those moments. You know how we always said like pressure is a privilege? Mm-hmm.

Oog 46:54

I think being busy is also a privilege. Like being, being more busy than you, like can handle is a privilege because it means that you have goals and you have things that, that need to get done there that are relying on you.

Mathias 47:11

Y Yeah, responsibility I think is, yeah, like how you grow up.

Jesse 47:17

A hundred percent. That's, that's one thing a, a major difference between this year and last year for me. Like I spent a lot of my free time like playing Fortnite and this year having the podcast and like talking to guests and researching and editing and stuff. Having something, having a hobby basically has been huge, and I really understand now when people used to say, oh, when you go overseas, make sure you have a hobby. It's massive for your mental health and your mental wellbeing and for balancing things. So my, the, the podcast might be a little more beneficial for me than ut, but.

Mathias 48:00

That's a Jordan Peterson quote is, uh, the adventure of life is found in responsibility. That's fantastic.

Jesse 48:09

Incredible.

Mathias 48:10

And I think, uh, I think I'm feeling that learning to love it. That's awesome. And, uh, yeah, stress is a requisite to life. If you're not stressed, you're dead. Amen. Brothers spit spitting

Jesse 48:26

facts, my guys. That's funny. Well, big, big congrats to the Spartans, to UT OG to you and the Huskies to your new toe. Big year for the boys. Big summer coming up. Yeah. And lots, lots of new guests coming

Mathias 48:44

up too. Yeah. All righty. I think that wraps up episode number 34 of the Pit to Pro Podcast. Thanks everyone for listening and signing off

48:58

Thanks everyone for listening to the Pit to Pro podcast. Give us a follow on Instagram and submit your questions to the link in our bio. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you think will like it and subscribe to our show on Spotify and Apple podcasts.