Athlete CEO #034: Having a Champions Mindset | World Series Yankees Coach Dana Cavalea

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Episode Notes

What makes Derek Jeter who he is? What made him great? Coach Dana Cavalea is the former Director of Strength & Conditioning and Performance for the New York Yankees. He joins Brandon and Erik Averill of AWM Capital on Athlete CEO to discuss what goes into a “Championship Mindset” and why mental balance is a key for success regardless of business or profession.

Guest: Dana Cavalea

Dana’s book “Habits of a Champion”

Twitter: @DANACAVALEA

Instagram: @therealcoachd

Website: https://danacavalea.com/

Key Topics Covered:

• (2:12) Define what is performance and how Dana would define being a champion.

• Dana Cavalea “You need to be better tomorrow than you are today.”

• (3:01) There is no one size fits all. You have to know what works for you. You don’t enhance performance by taking a pill or vitamin once, you get better over time by doing the right things. 

• (4:40) “Performance Coach” or “Life Coach” seem to be modern buzzwords. Dana describes his journey and what led him to becoming a life coach, which starts with interning for free with the New York Yankees while in college at the University of Southern Florida.

• (6:26) After Dana figured out he wasn’t going to be a professional ballplayer, he followed his passion of training and getting ready for the season, and investigated ways he could make that into a profession.

• (9:25) When Dana learned how you can literally go from one side of the fence to the other side of the fence in 24 hours. He had to make some significant sacrifices at the age of 19 that many others that age wouldn’t be willing to make, in order to fulfill his dream of being involved with the New York Yankees.

• (11:17) How did Dana end up becoming the Yankees head performance coach at just 23 years old.

• (12:45) Dana says he didn’t really know anything about the job he had, that he was just getting started, but he did recognize the importance of truly knowing people and caring about people. 

• Dana Cavalea “Life is a bar it’s your job to tend it.”

• (14:18) Dana saw an opportunity after starting off as a trainer to become an asset manager of human capital and he came up with a “Player Profile” that became a screening process to identify risk

• (16:19) The idea of the growth mindset or a “Champions’ Mindset” and how Cavalea incorporates that into his training and evaluation. 

• Dana Cavalea: “It requires you to do things that the average person doesn't do. It encourages you and forces you to be somebody that's different than everybody else, because champions are different than everybody else. You have to act different, be different, present yourself different, and when you do those things, you get different results than everybody else, which is what champions do, which is what high performers do.”

• (19:20) The championship mentality is not just effective for athletes either, it plays big in the business and investment world as well. So many of the people Dana works with in the business world have a life changing event, like a heart attack, or something, that forces them to work on the mental and physical side of their health.

• (26:40) The idea of work/life balance from the lens of Dana’s work. Dana believes it’s important to compartmentalize your day and own their schedules.

• Dana Cavalea: “Own your schedule, own your day, own your life.” 

•  (29:40) What made Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and the Yankees legends that Cavalea was working with different? Amazingly, it’s that they weren’t “overworking.”

• (38:00) The identity crisis all professional athletes go through when they’re no longer professional athletes. What are Dana’s tips on trying to figure out the next stage of your life?

• (39:10) Don’t identify with a title, identify with a process. If you subscribe to that belief you are going to be defied by the processes you undergo everyday.

• (41:28) Dana Cavalea on the importance of values and processes.

• Dana: “When you get too attached or the title of what you do, it becomes really dangerous, because you lose the rest of you and without the rest of you, you lose your edge.”

• (44:02) As a coach you have to meet people where they are, because every person is different.

• (48:09) Dana has also written children’s books about raising championship families and how we have to understand that we are constantly growing as people. 

• (50:02) One of the most important lessons Dana learned about parenting and how to be a champion parent.

• Dana Cavalea: “You can override their difficulty through your own surrender. Don’t try to control and dominate. Release and surrender.”

• (52:31) A great story from Dana about his relationship with Mariano Rivera and what made him special in terms of elite performance in the biggest moments.

+ Read the Transcript

Erik Averill (00:00:00):
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Athlete CEO Podcast. We are excited for our guest this week. This is a podcast where we cover a lot of what it talks, what it takes to be at the top of your game, to be elite, to be a high performer, whether that's in the world of sports, it's in the world of business. It's one of those things that we know you can't just wake up overnight and be elite. You can't just wake up overnight and be a champion and so much of what goes into being elite is really not the result, but it's the process.

Erik Averill (00:00:40):
We are pumped up to have a conversation with an expert coach who has led world series champion New York Yankees, has worked with some of the best CEOs and Wall Street traders out there. So, with that introduction, let's welcome, Coach Dana Cavalea to the podcast. Dana, thanks for being on with us.

Dana Cavalea (00:01:00):
Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

Erik Averill (00:01:03):
Yeah. I'm super excited to have this conversation. One of the reasons is as a former athlete or as athletes, Brandon and I, we realize how much goes into performance beyond just the current act, whether that's hitting or pitching or throwing a football or even in the world of business of closing the deal is, it really becomes performances is multi-faceted. I would love to hear you just talk about from a very high level, we use these words of performance of champion, but a lot of times there isn't a clear definition. Can you help our audience just define before we jump into this conversation, what exactly is performance and how you define being a champion?

Dana Cavalea (00:01:50):
I define it simply as this, you need to be better tomorrow than you are today and the next day, if you take that for me and you play it out day after day, at the end of a calendar year you should be better that year than you were the year before. That's really what it is, but part of becoming better is knowing where it is that you need to be better, where are you weak? Because during times of pressure that's when weakness typically shows itself.

Dana Cavalea (00:02:23):
The word performance is definitely thrown around quite a bit today. Everybody's a performance expert, everybody says you got to meditate, you have to do gratitude exercises. There's a host of other things that you need to do as well, put butter in your coffee and all these different things that's out there. But that's not really what performance is, these are all things that people try and attempt to use to better performance, but for certain people those things don't work.

Dana Cavalea (00:02:52):
When that person adopts those things and does them over a calendar year, they're not better, they could actually be worse. You have to know what it is that works for you and what works to close your own gaps that will get you better next year by being better tomorrow. When you can do that year over year, you look back on your decade and you say, "Wow. I have truly enhanced my performance."

Dana Cavalea (00:03:20):
You don't enhance performance by taking a pill or a vitamin once, you get better over time if you're doing the right things. It's up to coaches and yourself to help you figure out what those right things are.

Erik Averill (00:03:35):
That's a very helpful definition and framework around the conversation. One of the things that you hit on there is it seems like today performance or life coach writer are these buzzwords and in an information age where we see content authority and leadership, there are a lot of opinions out there, but I would say also not a lot of true experience or practical knowledge.

Erik Averill (00:04:04):
I think it'd be great for our audience to hear a little bit about your journey of why this isn't just another example of somebody who got a life coach certification or is a high performance coach, but this is your ethos and you have years and years of experience of being exposed and helping some of the best in the world from an athletic standpoint, the CEO is, can you take us through your journey a little bit? I love really starting at you interning for free while you're a student at the University of South Florida for the New York Yankees. Can you just walk us through your journey of starting there to where you're at today?

Dana Cavalea (00:04:46):
Yeah. Absolutely. I'm a New York bred. You may be able to hear it at times with the accent, but, yeah, I was a New York kid. I decided to leave the cold weather and the Big Apple and head down to the land of palm trees and really I had a vision for myself when I… I was always a big baseball fan. I played a year at Queen's College in New York which was a D2 school and I hated every minute of it.

Dana Cavalea (00:05:10):
I didn't like the culture. I didn't like the weather. There was just a lot of things. I said, "I'm going to challenge myself and I'm going to leave New York. I'm going to go down to the University of South Florida in Tampa and I'm going to try to walk onto this team down here." I wish I had a fairy tale ending for you, but I don't. I went down there, I met with the coach and he said, "Hey, son, our team's been picked and we don't have open tryouts. We do have an intramural team you can play on if you're interested."

Dana Cavalea (00:05:36):
But I have nothing to do with that, so I made the decision at that point. I was 19 and I said, "Well, my dream of being a ballplayer quickly eroded and deep in my heart I knew I didn't have the talent to get to that next level and take that next step to go to the minors and to the pros." I made a decision I said, "What do you love to do?"

Dana Cavalea (00:05:56):
I loved training for the game. I loved practice. I loved training as sick as that may sound. I said, "Well, what can I do with that?" I actually met with an advisor, I went to school to become an athletic trainer and quickly I said, "I don't want to just deal with athletes when they're hurt, what can I do to get on the front end to help them build performance maybe so they could resist getting hurt physically?"

Dana Cavalea (00:06:23):
I remember an advisor said, "Well, you can go to school and become a strength conditioning coach." I said, "That sounds really cool." It brought me back to a memory I had, my parents are both school teachers. I remember being in eighth grade and going to a Yankee game and sitting in the nosebleed section where if you look down, you see the field and if you look straight ahead, you see aircraft.

Dana Cavalea (00:06:43):
I was that high up and I saw this guy in the outfield on the right field line and I said, "What does that guy do? Look at him, all the players are engaging with him, they're laughing. He's helping them get ready for the game. That's really cool." I left it at that.

Dana Cavalea (00:06:57):
Years later I had this conversation with the advisor and I said, "Well, what is a strength and conditioning coach?" She described to me exactly what that guy was. It was sort of this gap that was closed and from that point, I said, "Well, that's what I want to do."

Dana Cavalea (00:07:11):
So, after that meeting, I met with the head strength and conditioning coach, Ron McKeefery over at the University of South Florida, said, "Hey, I'm young, I'm raw, I know nothing about how to train athletes for performance, but I would love you to teach me." I got an internship, worked with the football team and I'm a baseball guy through and through, but I learned a lot and come February, Yankees come to town, I drive my beat up old Mazda '99 hoopty over to the ballpark, spring training complex, park a mile and a half away because I can't afford parking and walk up to the main office.

Dana Cavalea (00:07:50):
I say out, "I'm Coach Dana Cavalea…" Excuse me, I got to go back half a step. I park a mile and a half away today and I'm watching through a chain-link fence spring training. I'm watching players like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, you name it and here I am in New York kid. I'm amazed by that.

Dana Cavalea (00:08:08):
So, anyway, that day I go back to my internship after taking a bunch of pictures through the chain link fence and Ron Mckeefery, the head strength coach calls me in his office at USF and says, "Hey, I just got a call from the head strength coach with the Yankees and he's looking for a guy to basically hand out towels, clean the weight room and watch the players while he's on the field, would you have any interest in that?" I said, "Absolutely."

Dana Cavalea (00:08:30):
I got in that same hoopty I told you about, the Mazda '99, but this day I got to park real close. I had my own parking spot. Now, I walk into the office and they say, "Are you Coach Dana? Are you Dana Cavalea?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "Yeah." They said, "Well, come with us." They put a credential on my neck. C for clubhouse, F for field access. Walked me into the clubhouse, put me in Yankee gear and next thing you know, I'm in the middle of that field. I was taking pictures of a day earlier.

Dana Cavalea (00:08:57):
For me, very quickly, I learned you could be in just in 24 hours, you can go from one side of the fence to another. You can go from fan and spectator to right on that field, whatever your playing field may be, and that was really where my high performance journey started. I was a 19-year-old kid and I had to make a decision right there if I wanted to be your typical 19-year-old kid or if I wanted to seize the opportunity that I had in front of me. That came with a lot of sacrifice and a lot of choices that I had to make in order to climb that ladder.

Erik Averill (00:09:35):
Yeah. I think for our audience that aren't familiar with the inner workings of at least of how professional baseball works is, it's not glorious, right? As former minor league players, I think of the sacrifice that the strength and conditioning staff made. I was in pro ball around the time that you started and that's interesting deal on two waves is today now, you see the strength and conditioning component of professional athletes and it's front and center, but it was really an untapped area back in the early 2000s where it was still a new thing, but at the same point, the strength coach was one of the few people within the organizations that I would say was on the player's side.

Erik Averill (00:10:30):
That might sound strange, but what I want to dig into and love is I know as a player, we really trusted the strength and conditioning coaches in a different way than maybe the front office or the coaches. You really didn't feel you had to be so careful of what you said to them. You guys were really advocates for the athlete.

Erik Averill (00:10:51):
I think just that trust happened so quick. I would love to hear your accelerated pathway. So, you end up being the head performance coach at 23. How does that happen? Were you scared? Did you feel qualified? Walk us through that.

Dana Cavalea (00:11:08):
Well, a couple of things. Number one, I will definitely agree with you. The strength coach, it's our job to have the back of the players because we don't determine playing time. We have a very special relationship with players in that it's saying, "Hey, I have to meet you where you are, here's where you are today and what is getting better look like to you? What does better tomorrow look like to you today and how do we help you get there and how do I support you along your journey?"

Dana Cavalea (00:11:37):
The strength coach is one of the few coaches on a staff that is a player's coach. Truly, we're players coaches and we're there to help you maximize your performance every day, both physically and any person that's worked with a strength coach knows, there's a big mental component to that, because I got to get you in to work with me and do something that doesn't feel good which is physical training, but at the same time, I also have to let you know that I'm here for you for anything else that you need, anything that's bothering you, whether it's at home, whether it's on the field, whatever.

Dana Cavalea (00:12:09):
We are a very important part of a player's support system. That's really, again, where my journey started to accelerate again, because I realized very quickly the importance of relationships. When I first started, was I fearful? Was I nervous? Absolutely. I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything. I was just getting started in my field, but the one thing I knew is people.

Dana Cavalea (00:12:36):
It's like life is a bar. It's your job to tend to it. I just started working with players, how you doing? I didn't need anything from them or want anything from them. I got a chance, because I didn't have anything to really give them, so I had a chance to really get to know them as people and as my… This was around the time when functional training and core training was just beginning. I knew that if I got to know that material and what that was and how to teach functional training and core training better than the next guy, I would be able to gain a competitive advantage with the player.

Dana Cavalea (00:13:12):
So, a player would walk in and I'd say, "Hey, can I take you through some core?" That's where I started. A player would say, "Yeah. I'll let you take me through that." I'd give him some exercises that were unique and he hadn't used or seen before. That was it, because I had no more tools in my chest after that. Over time, core training would say, "Hey, can I show you another exercise?" It would be another exercise, functional or something different than just a squat a lunge or whatever.

Dana Cavalea (00:13:39):
Then, the trust started to build over and over again, but ultimately, I got my break when I was able to look at everything objectively as a hungry and eager college student that didn't want to leave this opportunity and get a real job. I said, "What's an angle here?" I realized that players at that point were really starting to get paid some good money and the organizations wanted as much information on these players as possible so they could protect their investment.

Dana Cavalea (00:14:08):
At that point, I became an asset manager of human capital. I said, "I got to come up with a screening process that identifies risk." That's what I did. I created what I called my player profile where we measured how much motion a player has in their shoulders and their hips, core strength. I measured if their glute was working, muscle testing, all that. It was very, very progressive at the time, nobody was doing that.

Dana Cavalea (00:14:34):
I walked it up to our GM and I said, "Cash, could I sit with you and go over something?" I relentlessly would go up to him, get his feedback and come back with something new. I was just an intern at the time, but anyway, a year later, I ended up getting hired as an assistant. Three months into the season, Phil Hughes is throwing a no-no down in Texas on a hot summer night, and in the seventh inning, he blew out a hamstring which was like the seventh hamstring of the year.

Dana Cavalea (00:15:03):
At that point, Brian Cashman calls me in his suite at the hotel the next morning and says, "Hey, I just want to let you know, I let the head guy go and would you have any interest in being the new interim head strength coach?" I said, "Well, absolutely." I sort of hold my breath. I walk out the door and I'm like, "Dad, you're not going to believe this. I'm the head guy." That was my journey. It was totally wild. That same day I remember Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada and Jeet all coming up to me and saying, "Hey, we got you. We got you. So, just do your thing and we got you."

Dana Cavalea (00:15:40):
They did. I went from interim to head guy within a couple of weeks. They all went to bat for me and that was it. The rest was history.

Erik Averill (00:15:50):
Wow. Coach, I mean what a phenomenal path to obviously get to that point and using the skills that you had. One thing that I love your terminology of really human capital. I mean we use the same internally and can't stress that enough. I can't be more struck by hearing your description of your path and the other side of human capital, right? Which is the mental side.

Erik Averill (00:16:16):
It sounds like you come very much from a growth mindset and I think we've all been around enough players to know that even at the elite level, we have those that capitalize on that growth mindset, and then some of those that just have a more kind of passive mindset. I'd love to hear if that's something that you incorporate into your training or evaluation of players and how has that evolved over time?

Dana Cavalea (00:16:42):
I call it a champion's mindset, because for me, it was always about at the end of the year winning that championship and being a part of that championship team. For me, I try to approach every day and teach those that I work with to approach life with a champion's mindset. What does that require you to do and be?

Dana Cavalea (00:17:00):
It requires you to do things that the average person doesn't do. It encourages you and forces you to be somebody that's different than everybody else, because champions are different than everybody else. You have to act different, be different, present yourself different, and when you do those things, you get different results than everybody else, which is what champions do, which is what high performers do.

Dana Cavalea (00:17:27):
The other thing is when it comes to champion's mindset, growth mindset, you can't get attached to things because attachment stimulates emotion and emotion at times, yes, it could be good, but emotion oftentimes when it comes to decision making is not that great. I'm talking about emotion where you're so biased towards something. It's emotion that's different than instinct and gut. It's emotion where your guts saying do this and the emotion is telling you to do that.

Dana Cavalea (00:18:00):
It clouds that champion's mindset. It inhibits growth. That's what I work on a lot with those that I work with. The physical is definitely heavily connected to your mindset and mentality. They go hand in hand. You could say, "Hey, I work on my mindset all the time, but I'm 25 pounds overweight." That's going to be what weighs down your growth in champion's mindset. We have to get that right in order to activate the mental side and maximize it.

Erik Averill (00:18:37):
Yeah. That's fascinating. I'd love to hear you dig into a little bit, obviously, we're hitting a lot on the athlete and we probably could all find examples of athletes that have the ability, then they combine it with the mindset, they do the extra. They do a little bit more than the average, but I think it's fascinating the other part of our audience here are CEOs, founders, investors, et cetera.

Erik Averill (00:18:59):
I know you have a significant part of your practice that deals with that clientele as well, but I think that our segment focuses so much on this mental side, trying to find the mental edge, but you just hit on it. We forget about the physical side of it and how much that impacts things. It's not just athletes that have to worry about the physical it sounds like, you're making the analogy to everybody else as well, true?

Dana Cavalea (00:19:23):
Yeah. I am because I have a stable of type-A high horsepower CEOs that are hungry, they're competitors. They're playing the most competitive sport in the world, which is business, right? The most brilliant minds are playing. There's some just very intelligent people that are willing to sacrifice that are playing that game. How are you going to win? You win as an executive, as a leader by first defining what winning means to you.

Dana Cavalea (00:19:53):
I can't tell you how many people I work with when you say, "Hey, do you want to win?" They say, "Yeah. I want to win." "Well, what does that mean to you?" There's silence. They don't know what winning truly means. They can give you the revenue targets that they're looking to hit with their company, but they forget the targets that they're trying to hit for themselves.

Dana Cavalea (00:20:11):
I can't tell you how many CEOs I work with that they wake up when they have a cardiovascular event, heart attack, they need stents, something. They work like dogs, and then they get, and they resist the physical and the mental training. Then, all of a sudden something happens. Now, all of a sudden they've changed their life. So, business today it's a 367, for some, it could be a 24/7 type game, but I work with people in a way that shows them how to maximize their performance without letting business get the best of them, but allowing them to show up each day with their best to their business.

Erik Averill (00:20:55):
It makes a lot of sense. I'm just curious, practically, if we could get even to just nuts and bolts, what's that look like? I walk into your office or we nowadays jump on a Zoom call and I'm a new coach here, right? I run a business. I've got young family, former athlete, so I've got that competitive streak, but a lot on the plate. How do you walk somebody through this? I mean what does a coaching experience look like and how should people think about this?

Dana Cavalea (00:21:26):
Well, coaching what's great about it is this. You make the decision when you start being coached, that you're not going through life on your own. That's a big thing, because think about most leaders, right? Most leaders are really control freaks. They have a hard time working with other people openly and they get to a point where they get burnt out, they get super stressed and they say, "Hey, you know what? It's probably time for me to get some help."

Dana Cavalea (00:21:55):
I become the help. For me, I make sure, one thing I make sure is I don't treat it like a psychology practice. I don't put you on the couch. We don't do that, but what I do do is the same thing that I did as a 19-year-old, is I get to know who you are. I get to know what's important to you. When you talk about performance, what does performance look like through your lens? What does winning look like through your lens? Because winning to me and winning to a client and winning to you, it's different.

Dana Cavalea (00:22:23):
So, sometimes clients can't even identify what winning means to them. Like I said, so we have to come up with that. The first part of this is building a relationship. You can't coach anybody until you have a relationship with that person. That person has to be open and honest with you and sometimes it takes a few calls to get there.

Dana Cavalea (00:22:43):
That's what I do. I allow the flower to open as it is comfortable opening, I don't force it. That's a big mistake. It's a relationship first, and then what I do is I start to help you identify right now what is the elephant in the room? What's the one thing that if you work on and improve today will help you get to that goal of winning as per your definition?

Dana Cavalea (00:23:11):
For some, it's physical. "Hey, I got to lose 25 pounds. I feel like crap." For some, it's I have to stop smoking. For some, it's hey I can't sleep at night. For others, it's I'm having difficulty with my spouse. For others, it's like today, I'm having difficulty with my kids. I was talking to somebody today. So, we have to meet people where they are and when we address things in that way, we're addressing the most important thing to them right now.

Dana Cavalea (00:23:40):
That's how you can get instant results with people, but you can't get those results until you know who these people are and you can build a relationship. It's the same thing with people and their money. I have to know what you want to do with your life before I can tell you, I'm speaking as you, what to do with your money. It's the same thing.

Dana Cavalea (00:23:57):
Then, what you do is you custom curate plans for people that they can follow. Then, once again everybody's different. I work with a guy that runs, he's got almost $15 billion under management right now and he hates structure. He doesn't want to be put in boxes. He wants to be free. But he has goals that he wants to hit.

Dana Cavalea (00:24:18):
So, you work with him very different than you would somebody that's very type-A, analytical, chart driven. It's two different people. If you treat one like the other, you lose them.

Erik Averill (00:24:33):
So, helpful. I mean it relates absolutely to the conversations we have about our clients net worth that first and foremost, it's all integrated, but money's not really the goal, right? It's what do you want your money to do for you? Which becomes clarity of mission, vision, purpose, values, those type of things, and so I agree wholeheartedly and see even our conversations with our clients who are founders or our clients who are professional athletes is, it is scary how many of them don't have clarity on defining what winning is.

Erik Averill (00:25:09):
One of the things I'd heard you mention on a previous podcast was falling into this trap of just working more, right? Whether that's as we know in the historic in the athlete world, it was the, "I've got to be the first to the field and the last to the leave" or in the office of, "I've got to be the first in and the last to leave." Can you provide some clarity on maybe where that's a breakdown? Obviously, you have to put the work in. I think that's a conversation of consistency and reps as well, but one of the things that I see a big mistake on that I know I'm guilty of, I try to change everything at once.

Erik Averill (00:25:50):
I try to be the best in all five areas of mindset of training, feeling, recovery, influence, trying to tackle too much at once. What advice would you give on where to start, amount of hours? That conversation.

Dana Cavalea (00:26:07):
Yeah. Well, I'd start with this, right? If you own your schedule, you own your life. That means you have to truly own your schedule and a lot of people have a hard time doing that. What they do is they have an open schedule, which means I'm open and available all the time. If you're open and you're available all the time, it's very difficult to perform optimally.

Dana Cavalea (00:26:32):
For me, I always say, "What are you doing with your time? Why do you keep allocating so much time to your business? Why are you allocating very little time to these other things that are really important in your life?" What you realize is, it stems from really what I feel is the origins of business years ago where it was fear driven. It's survival.

Dana Cavalea (00:26:55):
When you're an entrepreneur, it's like, man, it's either hunt or be hunted. That's the way it feels. I believe that that is within people. It just is the reason why they keep working and working and working and they're always on and they're always available. That becomes super, super dangerous over time because there's all this talk about work-life balance and most entrepreneurs that I work with, they're like, "That doesn't exist. It's BS."

Dana Cavalea (00:27:24):
In a lot of ways, you're going to sacrifice a lot being an entrepreneur. There's no doubt, but that doesn't mean you can't do other things and that doesn't mean that when you're doing those other things you have to be thinking about all the issues that you're having either at work, with personnel or with revenue and everything in between.

Dana Cavalea (00:27:43):
So, when we can get people to have a clear open and a clear close to their day, clear start, clear stop, they know what that game looks like. I start at 9:00, I ended 5:00. I'm just saying, throwing those times out, but I wake up at 5:00, so that means I have four hours of personal time to get done what I need to get done, then I go to work. I play the game hard. At 5:00, I wrap and I go to bed at 10:00.

Dana Cavalea (00:28:13):
I got another five hours on the back end. What we do is we start filling in the front end and filling in the back end, so these folks have a complete day and they don't feel like they always have to be on all of the time, because everything is compartmentalized correctly. They're nailing it much like you would if you were a student.

Dana Cavalea (00:28:33):
When you go to grade school, you're going through six subjects in a day and gym and music and think about all that you get done in such a short period of time, and you have time to play sports, et cetera. That's exactly what we do with people to help them own their schedule and help them own their life. Then, they can own their results.

Erik Averill (00:28:54):
Yeah. The practicality was very helpful there, even you talking about like a clear start, a clear stop, and having designated times within your schedule for specific things that you've proactively planned out. That's very, very helpful. Can you talk about your time with the Yankees? You had exposure to not just professional athletes, let's be honest here, right?

Erik Averill (00:29:18):
That New York Yankees team, you've got Mariano Rivera, arguably the best closer ever, from a mindset standpoint, I'd love to hear about that, but then you've got Jeter, you've got A-Rod, you've got these different individuals. Can you maybe share what was their, what made them so different as elite performers in a world where everybody's talented, right? You've got high performers and underperformers in the major leagues, what was their difference? How did they own their schedule? How did they approach their performance that we as business people and athletes should glean from that experience?

Dana Cavalea (00:29:54):
Yeah. Well, a couple of things. Number one, those names that you just mentioned and there was a host of others, they were companies in themselves. I mean 300 million, 200 million. I mean they were companies and they acted as such. The Derek Jeter brand, the Mariano Rivera Inc, they behaved like some really, really well fine-tuned companies.

Dana Cavalea (00:30:20):
What did that start with? With them, these guys had such great routines, they had such great habits, but the one thing that they did differently, they're the professionals versus the amateur players. They were not over working. It was amazing, because I come from the school or I was brought up in the school, if you're not working somebody else is. If you're not out there grinding, somebody else is. They're going to beat you.

Dana Cavalea (00:30:47):
When I got to the big leagues, I started to study the habits of these players, Jeter, A-Rod, Posada, all of them. I said these are the highest earners, they all have 10-plus years in the league, which is a very difficult league. They're successful and consistent year over year, and when the pressure rises, they get it done. They were all big situation, big time players.

Dana Cavalea (00:31:09):
I said, "How did they do that? What do they do differently than everybody else?" I started to study their behavior. I said, "Well, what time do they get to the ballpark?" I'd see rookies and I'd see guys with one to five years, they'd get to the ballpark at around 1:00 to eat free lunch. That's what they would do. Then, I'd say, "Well, what time do these guys start getting to the ballpark?"

Dana Cavalea (00:31:33):
Derek Jeter, all those guys, they would arrive between 2:45 and 3:15. Now, the younger players, the amateur players would get to the ballpark, they'd eat and they would sit around until about 2:30, 2:45, sometimes 3:00. Then, I'd watch a guy like Jeter. He walks in, he gets immediately undressed, goes and sits and soaks in hot water, moves to the training room, dries off, gets in his training gear, Monday, Wednesday, Friday comes and trains with me physically.

Dana Cavalea (00:32:07):
Gets out of that, puts on his pants, and goes and starts his tee work and his cage drills. When he got to the ballpark, when Mariano got to the ballpark, when Pettitte got to the ballpark, it's name after name. They all got there around the same time and got right to work. There wasn't too much hanging around and chit chat and all that. Its they had a plan and they executed on their plan, which is the same as when you go into your day with call it a to-do list, a kill sheet, execution list, whatever you want to call it, how good do you feel when you just go, boom, boom, boom, boom?

Dana Cavalea (00:32:45):
That's the way they approached every day, and then, bang, game time starts, same warm up routine. Everything's consistent. Same behaviors. Game ends. Post-game routine. They're out the door. Their day from wake up time to shut down and everything in between was totally structured and repetitive, which means they were consistent. They were more consistent than everybody else.

Dana Cavalea (00:33:11):
Now, you combine consistency with talent, ability, and instincts and you have a very, very, very successful player. That's what I saw over and over and over again. Here's the last part. Their identity was not that of Derek Jeter baseball player, Roger Clemens baseball player, their identity was Derek Jeter, Derek Jeter. You know what I'm saying?

Dana Cavalea (00:33:40):
I remember I was sitting on the field in 2007 with Roger Clemens and he said, "D, I want to let something." He goes, "Playing baseball, being a pitcher it's what I do, but it's not who I am." I find a lot of leaders get in trouble when their identity becomes their position or the company that they lead or they base their self-security on their revenues for the year or how they did for the quarter or if they went public or not or you know what I'm saying? Where their stock price is, that's so dangerous.

Dana Cavalea (00:34:12):
That's what creates obsessive work ethic in a dangerous way when you start allowing these externals to dictate who you are and how you go about your business. These guys went about their business the same way through good and through bad with minor adjustments.

Erik Averill (00:34:28):
There's so much gold in that that you just shared with us. I highly encourage the audience is coach has actually written a book called Habits of Champion, Nobody Becomes a Champion by Accident. That has countless of these stories and experiences. So, very practical. Obviously, we'll have show notes. We'll link a link to his book, but if you really want to dig into what are really these habits that are just so down from the best in the world, this is like a must, must, must read book.

Erik Averill (00:35:00):
One of the things that I've heard you talk about is also simplicity. Connecting it to identity. One of the mistakes I see being made by a lot of our current athletes or just even in the business world and I get caught up in it is this information overload with all the newest techniques and baseball specifically.

Erik Averill (00:35:20):
It's launch angle. It's analytics. It's all of these extra, extra, extra things. Can you talk about the fine line of being intellectually curious of trying to get better versus trying to implement the next best thing? Because I see that as a very dangerous place where you don't really become a master of anything. Can you shed some light on that?

Dana Cavalea (00:35:43):
It is. Yeah. The biggest thing is, first off, you have to trust yourself as is, right? You have to look at it and say, "Hey, without any of these tools, I'm still great at what I do. I'm still great at this. Maybe I'm not great at everything right now, but this is what I am great at. This is what comes naturally to me."

Dana Cavalea (00:36:03):
Now, who you are and you know the type of player you are. I use the word player in business and/or sport, right? You know the type of player you are. That's awesome. Now, what I believe is I'm a four-week test guy. I'm okay with you saying, "Hey, I want to try this for four weeks, and then I'm going to make a decision on it." Not four days, not four hours, and not even for four months, right? Four weeks.

Dana Cavalea (00:36:33):
You will be able to make a decision. Has this helped me or has it not helped me? The things that help you, you keep, and the things that don't, you toss. You keep going at it like that until you find that balance between where you can say, "Hey, you know what? I have my routine. This works for me. I don't need anything else." Then, that's how you build off of yourself, right?

Dana Cavalea (00:37:02):
We don't want to build off of these things that make up our routine. We want to build off of our self, because we're dynamic. People aren't static. So, knowing that we're dynamic, the things that work for us today won't work for us tomorrow, but we use them until they stop working for us, and then we can look for something else. Maybe one other thing, switch that out for something that used to work that doesn't work anymore.

Dana Cavalea (00:37:27):
It's always a four week test and when we can do that, we have four weeks. We can't take on 10 different things and test them all correctly in 4 weeks. So, over the calendar year, you may test 12 different things, which is still a lot, but you're giving everything a fair shake. You get to make a decision. How does this affect me?

Dana Cavalea (00:37:48):
Things should affect, they should work within a month. You'll know if something works for you or if it doesn't, and part of working is do I like this or do I not? I could tell you to eat kale every day, but if you hate kale, it could be a superpower for you, but you're not going to eat it if you don't like it. So, part of that four week test is, is this something that I see enough value in to where I'll be consistent and I like it enough to be consistent in it?

Dana Cavalea (00:38:19):
When you four week micro test, you could do really well and you could identify the things that work and the things that don't.

Erik Averill (00:38:30):
Coach, again, I think the thing that just keeps the constant that I keep hearing this message is you got to know yourself. I think that's what you're saying there and even circling back to the Clemens' comment, "It's what I do not who I am." I'd love to just have you dig some more into that process or how much we see this identity crisis. I think all of us probably went through it when we stopped playing sport.

Erik Averill (00:38:59):
Now, you got to figure out who you are or you got to figure out what you're going to do next. I'd just love to hear your tips, tools, tricks, whatever they might be for really taking that time to understand who you are, how to evaluate those items you just went through, whether they're going to work for you or not, and how to get your identity out of something that is so important to us, whether you're a business owner.

Erik Averill (00:39:22):
I mean let's face it. That is a significant part of your life or if you're an athlete, you've trained for this for 20 years. How do you develop that identity beyond some of those biggest things in your life?

Dana Cavalea (00:39:35):
Yeah. Well, I think identity is interesting because I look at life as a series of process. Everything's a process and at the end of the process is a result. It's like, "I want to be a great CEO." Well, I mean that's great. The CEO is just a title. What's your daily process? Everything comes down to a daily process. So, if you get that right, the result will take care of itself as we know, I'm sure many people have heard that before, but you don't have to identify with a title.

Dana Cavalea (00:40:08):
I'd rather you identify with the process and these series of different processes that you have, those processes make up who you are. You're not actually a title, you're more, you're defined by the processes that you engage in every single day. That's how I look at things. It's a different concept. It's like, "Yeah. I am a high performance coach, but these are the things I do every day that allow me to be comfortable with who I am as a person which allows me to be a benefit to you."

Dana Cavalea (00:40:44):
But I don't identify myself every day, I get up, "I'm a coach. I'm a coach. I have to do this because I'm a coach." I do this because this is what allows me to perform optimally. That's what I encourage people to do. Try not to be so focused on title and don't be so glued to the outcome, because what we do has to yield an outcome, right? Outcomes will either be positive or negative, but you could still be great at something and get a negative outcome, how do you pivot off that negative outcome and make that negative a positive?

Dana Cavalea (00:41:21):
It goes back to your process. You always have to go back to your process. You either have a winning process or a losing process. So, if you get a lot of losses and a lot of negatives, your process stinks, but if you get positive, positive, positive and an occasional negative, you probably have a pretty good process, because we can't bat a thousand in anything that we do. There's days we wake up, you could have a great process, you work out, you eat right, you get massage, you get stretched, you meditate, you take hot baths, you float, you do all these things, but you still feel like crap on Wednesday morning.

Dana Cavalea (00:41:59):
The body is dynamic. I mean we're talking about cells. We're talking about energy. We're talking about atmosphere. We're talking about humidity, climate. There's so many factors that we can't control them all. So, we have to control what we can control and that always comes back to, what are we doing between our working hours and what are we doing on our resting hours? Taking a very good look at how attached we are to number one, outcomes, and number two, title.

Dana Cavalea (00:42:32):
I know it's a little bit circular in my answer, but again, I always say, "When you get too attached to what you do or the title of what you do, it becomes really dangerous because you lose the rest of you and without the rest of you, you lose your edge. You're actually losing performance." I've seen people that become so immersed in like I mean you've seen it, in baseball, these career baseball men, they get to the point where they have no other skills in life.

Dana Cavalea (00:43:02):
They can't even communicate outside of the game, but the same in the business world with some executives that are lifers. I mean they no longer have relationships with their significant other. They're terrible parents because… But they're always at work. At the end of the day, you're going to get your little banner that says, "Hey, thanks for your 30 years." If you're an employee or eventually you'll be a CEO that turns it over and in 10 years, nobody will probably know who you are anymore, maybe 10 days.

Dana Cavalea (00:43:34):
So, you can't get attached to these things. You've got to have a great process, you have to have great core values and you stick with them through thick and thin and don't let anybody shake your values out of you

Erik Averill (00:43:49):
Yeah. I think that's huge. I'd love to maybe even add a little controversy in here, because I've heard many times. Like, "I'm just not a process person and that doesn't work for me." I view that and maybe this is wrong as you just don't understand what your process is. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, because to me, everybody has a process and you hit on it. It's just whether it's a good process or a bad process, but for those people that just claim, "Hey, I'm not a process person." What would you say to that?

Dana Cavalea (00:44:17):
I say it like this. The way you look at process is probably the issue, because a lot of people when they think of process, they think of some anal retentive operator that his whole life is in his planner and he can't adapt to anything outside of that planner. That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm looking more of it like bumper bowling where you got the bumpers, so you don't go in the gutter, but you've still got the whole lane where you can play.

Dana Cavalea (00:44:47):
You get to decide what's in that lane, but I got to put these bumpers up which is the structure and what happens within the lane is your process. You still have freedom, and for some people that I coach, I got to dial their whole process in. They like it real tight. They don't want any wiggle room, but the gentleman on the other, that oversees 15 billion, he likes to use the whole lane.

Dana Cavalea (00:45:12):
As a coach, that's what I'm saying. You got to meet people where they are. For some people, process, it scares the piss out of them. For others, it lights them up. So, you got to know who you're working with. So, if it's somebody that's freaked out by process, the last thing you're going to do is start to breathe down their neck and say, "You have to do this. You got to do it this way."

Dana Cavalea (00:45:32):
It's just giving them a little bit of structure by saying, "Hey, what are five things that you do every day that make you feel great?" Their structure may be what I call the big three or the big five. Give me three things that make you feel great that you do every day that make you feel great. Maybe it's five things that you do every day that make you feel good and feel great. Okay. We're going to do those every day. Can we do those Monday through Friday?

Dana Cavalea (00:45:57):
Boom. There's your process. There's your structure. For somebody else it's, "Well, what are those five things? Well, how do we get to those five things?" So, every person is different. A lot of visionary CEOs, you can't put them in a box. They'll hate you, but when you work with their potentially like co-founder who is probably a little more process-driven, organized, detailed, they love that stuff.

Dana Cavalea (00:46:25):
So, you got two different people and how do you figure out who the person is that you're working with? You say, "Hey, let me see your schedule." You'll see that detail-oriented person they have, everything is in that schedule. When you look at their Outlook or you look at their Google Calendar, it's lit up, it's organized, and when you find the visionary one, there's a lot of space in it. There's canceled stuff in there.

Dana Cavalea (00:46:50):
So you got to know who you're working with and that's how you help people with process. You can very quickly see who's afraid of it, maybe who's had a bad experience with process and get them working in the right way. Everybody's different. That's what makes it great. There's so many ways to build something great and become something great. It's not, there's not one trick.

Brandon Averill (00:47:18):
I mean I think that's huge. I think Erik and I both had to hit mute on our microphones there, because you just described our company and him and I to a T on the differences there. I could see his text messages coming through telling me to stop trying to put him in a box and structure him out.

Brandon Averill (00:47:39):
So, that was very, very hit home for us and resonates very much, I mean, and to go back to coaching, I think some practical advice for everybody and most people don't know this about our company, but Erik and I, we had to bring a coach in years ago, which was one of the best things, it frankly maybe even saved our company when we were getting started out because we just didn't know how to work together, because we are so different in those ways that you just mentioned, but what we found is systems that work for each individually and ultimately that work for our company.

Brandon Averill (00:48:14):
It's helped us to flourish. So, I think just a testament to the power of coaching, but also the power of understanding who you are and that people are different and the way to approach process is different as well. So, that resonates with us. I'm sure it's going to resonate with a lot of people out there.

Erik Averill (00:48:35):
Coach. Yeah. I just want to echo what Brandon said. One of the things that highlighted to me is really what you're talking about is this development of self-awareness and building new habits within how we're wired. One of the things I want to hit on that I'm so fascinated about is I'm a parent of a couple young kids or a third on the way, and you've written some books about champion kids, raising championship families.

Erik Averill (00:49:07):
I just think it's always so interesting to me is I realize is how I'm trying to help form and shape our children. We, as people, like you said is we're fluid, we're constantly changing. So, it's really we have to learn how to parent ourselves. Can you share a little bit about your raising championship families? What was the impetus of that? How does it relate?

Erik Averill (00:49:31):
We'd love to hear that because I think for a lot of people hearing on this is we struggle through how do we instill so much of what we're talking about? We wish we would have had a program when we were young so we're not trying to undo bad habits and put new habits in. Talk to us a little bit about what this raising championship families is.

Dana Cavalea (00:49:49):
Yeah. I started a book series called Champion Kids, which is a really personal development for kids, but using sports as the teacher, lessons from sports as the teacher, because I work with a lot of parents and I see that their kids can drive them crazy at times. They frustrate them. The parent has so much going on, and then they go home and they got another full-time job.

Dana Cavalea (00:50:12):
What I always say is like if you're an entrepreneur, you're running your own business, again, you have this natural instinct to solve problems and control things. Then, you go home and you see these kids and you're like, "I got to control them and I got to solve the problem." What I say is, "Listen, they'll grow out of the problem, but it's your job to give them good lessons and also give them encouragement. It's also your job to teach them about real things in life that they're going to face." Because that's what I see.

Dana Cavalea (00:50:47):
I don't want to pick up with people on like the 50 yard line when they're 40 or 50 years old and they're still dealing with things that could have been corrected when they were kids or at least they could have been taught how to handle things when they're kids. So, Champion Kids was really born out of trying to help the clientele that I work with with their children and packaging the education in a kid's book, but there's also there's two sides to it.

Dana Cavalea (00:51:13):
I wrote it for the kids, but I also wrote it for the parents. I haven't told anybody that until now, but really that's what I did, because parents when they read the book, they're like, "Yeah. I probably should have a better outlook on my day. I get up hungry, but I also get up pissed off every day. Let me change my tune a bit." That's why I wrote these books and, listen, parenting is difficult.

Dana Cavalea (00:51:39):
I work with a lot of kids over the years and I've seen how difficult that they could be with certain things, but what I've also learned is you can override their difficulty through your own surrender. So, don't try to control and dominate. Actually, go the other way, release, and surrender, and sort of let them open up and evolve in front of you.

Dana Cavalea (00:52:06):
I was working with a CMO for a company here in Westport, Connecticut and he was telling me about his son and how he's starting to golf now and he has this desire to constantly correct his son's swing. I said, "Listen, don't say anything. You go and swing, hit your balls, and when you can get your son to the point where he says, 'Hey, dad, what do you think I should do for this? What do you think I should do for that? Am I holding the club right?'"

Dana Cavalea (00:52:36):
That's when you're a champion parent, because your child is coming to you and asking for your advice. You're the hero in his story, but if you start choking the kid out in terms of his freedom and thoughts and everything else or her thoughts, you're no longer going to be the hero, you're going to be the villain. That's what we don't want to have happened, right?

Dana Cavalea (00:52:55):
We always want the parent to be in that hero, champion's position. That's what I teach. Again, I always say there's always that elephant in the room. For some people it's, "Hey, I need help dealing with my kid. What do you think?" So, everybody enters the coaching process through a different stream. Like I said, some it's weight loss, relationships, family, business, you name it. It's all connected.

Erik Averill (00:53:22):
Yeah. This was number one, convicting, helpful, and it's interesting for Brandon and I from our company perspective. We take the same approach on financial education. The reality is we know this, right? Our education system doesn't set us up for success of business fundamentals or let alone personal finance. So, it's really helping provide the tools to kids starting at the age of three to five years old. A lot of the research says it's from five to eight when our financial architecture is set, but what you learn through it is you're actually teaching the parents just as well on financial acumen.

Erik Averill (00:54:03):
So, love the approach. Want to be super sensitive to your time. This has been jam-packed full of just incredible information and practical insight. For the audience once, again, this stuff, all of this will be in the show notes. We'll link to coach's website. We'll link to his book. There are incredible resources that you guys need to take, and then, of course, I don't know that he's got bandwidth to bring on any coaching clients, but obviously when his schedule or availability opens up, I'd highly encourage you guys to reach out.

Erik Averill (00:54:38):
One thing I think it's fitting as we close out this conversation is to bring back up Mariano Rivera and he is a legend as far as having just this uncanny ability to be cool, calm, collected in the biggest pressure situations, right? I mean this is you're in New York, 27 championship World Series and Mariano Rivera just seemed to think it was a walk in a park. Can you talk about these high pressure situations how he continued to just be so dominant time and time again?

Erik Averill (00:55:13):
I know you had a unique relationship with him that you got to spend time with him every day prepping, can you share a little bit about that, just relationship and what it takes to be elite in the most difficult situations?

Dana Cavalea (00:55:29):
Yeah. No. I always share the story whenever I speak about… Mo and I, we have a tight relationship through the years and he's one of the most amazing people. Just how he approaches life, everything is done professionally. It reminds me of a story I always tell. Back in 1995, I was a young guy. I was still in high school and this guy comes up from the minor leagues to Yankee stadium and he lean, skinny kid from Panama. He leans back and he throws 95 to 97 miles an hour before it was a thing.

Dana Cavalea (00:56:08):
He was very unassuming and you watch him throw and you're like, "Wow." That caught my attention. That caught my eye as a young guy trying to figure out life and who he is, that caught my attention, and year after year, he just kept getting better and better, right? He's the definition of a high performer, better and better over time year after year.

Dana Cavalea (00:56:30):
I remember just watching him over and over again and it was a couple of years ago, I was at his house in West Chester. We live around the corner from each other and I said, "Mo, I got to ask you a question." We were in his basement and I was stretching him out. I said, "I have to ask you a question." He goes, "What's that, buddy?"

Dana Cavalea (00:56:47):
I said, "How do you do it, man? How do you do it? How do you get it done in the biggest of situations?" He says, "Buddy, I do three things." He goes, "Number one, I slow everything down. Number two, I quiet the noise, and number three, I throw one pitch at a time." Quiet the noise, slow it down, one pitch at a time. That's wow. That's cool, but like, "What about the big situations?"

Dana Cavalea (00:57:12):
He goes, "Buddy, there are no big situations. Every situation is the same. We decide what's a big situation. We decide what we give life to, but everything is exactly the same." He says, "I control the way I feel. I control the volume. I control what I hear. I control what I see. I control what I focus on, but everything is exactly the same."

Dana Cavalea (00:57:39):
That was like profound advice for me because how many times do we try to adapt to situation and it's like, "What if you don't adapt to the situation and you just stay true to who you are and you allow who you are to almost to sort of blossom within that situation and you approach situations with truly who you are and you don't try to adapt to things, become so transient to your own self?"

Dana Cavalea (00:58:09):
That's what a guy like Mo does better than anyone is when he walks in a room, he's owning that room, because he's not trying to please the people in the room. He's just going into the room with what he has, with his genuine nature, with his skills, his abilities, his talents and he's saying, "Here I am." It's amazing too how the room adapts to him rather than he having to adapt to the room.

Dana Cavalea (00:58:37):
That was really special. My relationship during the season, every game right around the sixth inning to the seventh, mid-seventh, we would spend a good 35 minutes together stretching, but mostly talking. It was all about mindset, but never talking about mindset. It was always about life and approach to things.

Erik Averill (00:59:02):
Wow. Very powerful and just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing all of this incredible insight today. It truly is a gift. It's severely needed. I know personally Brandon and I value coaching in the business world and our personal life, and so much value here. Once, again, audience, please, please reach out to coach. Highly encourage you to read his book Habits of a Champion. It is an incredible investment that will show dividends right away.

Erik Averill (00:59:36):
Coach, just want to say thank you once again for your time and just before we sign off, if there's one last imparting words of wisdom that you could leave with everybody here, one coaching tip, what would it be?

Dana Cavalea (00:59:55):
I would simply say trust yourself and know that there's a champion inside of you. It's your job to bring that champion to life every single day. There's days when you're going to question whether that champion is even in there, but it's your job to bring that champion to life and when you look in the mirror and that's what you see, that's how you'll act and that's how you'll behave and over time, you will get the champion outcomes that you want, but that all starts when you trust yourself.

Erik Averill (01:00:24):
Well, thank you so much. For the audience, hopefully, you guys have enjoyed this as much as we did and until next time, stay humble, stay hungry, and always be a pro.

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