NFL Legend Greg Olsen on Helping Children Thrive

Michael Gervais (0:00)

What if the most important part of a young athlete's experience is the car ride home? Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. Today, I'm excited to share a special conversation that I had with football legend Greg Olsen on his podcast, Youth, Inc. And if you're not familiar with Greg, he's a football broadcaster on Fox Sports. He's a three-time pro bowler, tight end, who played in the NFL for 14 seasons. Now, alongside his career as a broadcaster, Greg launched a media company called Youth, Inc., which has a flagship podcast by the same name that focuses on the changing world of youth sports. And in that space of youth sports, Greg is someone to pay attention to. This was a fantastic conversation, all about fostering environments for kids to thrive. And I'm really excited to share it with you here. So with that, let's dive right into this conversation from Youth, Inc. with Greg Olsen.

Greg Olsen (1:14)

There is that moment after those games, you love getting in the car with your parents after a win, after you're the star, you score 20, you are the man, everyone's patty on the back, you get in the car, man, you were so good, Mike, let's go. Those are the dream car rides.

Michael Gervais (1:31)

Best practice according to science is to not address the game on the car ride home. And I don't know if, it sounds like you would flat out disagree with that. And the reason it's best practice is to ask the kid, give them some sort of invitation, do you want to talk about it or not, which is a deeper level of control. I know that and I don't follow that practice the way that you might think I do. So what I do when I get in the car is I say, how was it? And that's still alluding to the game. And then if there's not a whole lot of response, I'll say, any unlocks?

And so I'm just looking for the top level kind of opening that he might go into. And he says, no, no, there's nothing. And I'll say, all right, do you want to talk about now or later? Later, dad. So then I got to find my moment. He says, yeah, let's talk about it. Now, let's talk about now. Then I'm asking the same types of questions. Did you have fun? No, I got my tail handed to me. Okay. So what do you think? How can you put yourself in a better position next time? So that's back to preparation. Yeah. So it's the same thing. And I will I will recommend that well before any car ride home, the message is very clear. I love you for who you are, not what you do. But the role there is for our kids to be able to find a bit of a sanctuary.

Greg Olsen (2:58)

Yep.

Michael Gervais (2:58)

That's our role as a parent. And the car ride is such a nice little bubble. Hopefully, there's two main variables to work from. Support, then challenge. Support and challenge. And knowing which role to inhabit is really important. In a highly emotionally charged car ride home, we're talking about difficult emotions, not the easy ones that you mentioned earlier. With highly charged difficult emotions that are flowing, the way the brain works is that when we're flooded with emotions, it pulls resources from critical thinking. That's a good evolutionary design.

When I've got to really respond emotionally, I lose some of my faculty to think clearly and creatively and critically. So when we're asking our kids about what happened, they don't know. The part of their brain that's flooded with emotions don't allow them to think clearly. So when they say they don't know, they really mean it. When they say, I don't want to talk about it, they really mean they don't have the words to talk about it. So it's the right time is the place to support. And I don't know, what are the ways that you found best to support your kids in this?

Greg Olsen (4:11)

Where I find it the hardest to like have that kind of debrief and like settle down and then have like positive conversations. When I'm just the dad, I am not responsible for the team. I have not been at practices all week. I'm not living and dying. I want the team to win. I want the team to play well. I want your kid to do well. I want my kid to do well. I want the team to have success. That's just my nature. But I'm not responsible for the product on the field. I'm not responsible for the product on the court. I'm not responsible even necessarily for my own kid's performance necessarily. That's the coach's role. I'm in the stands. Yes. And when we get in the car, I'm going to give my kid my feedback. Hey, you didn't hustle. But it's always going to start with, did you prepare your most leading into this competition?