The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
What It Takes To Be Mentally Strong
Emerging from a backdrop of familial turmoil, Bobby Sexton's tale is one of profound transformation—a narrative that will resonate with anyone striving to rewrite their own story of adversity. As your host, I'm thrilled to present a conversation that delves deep into the resilience of the human spirit, examining how self-discipline is the cornerstone of personal triumph. Our exchange offers an intimate look at the complexities of family dynamics, and how personal tribulations can shape, but not dictate, our futures.
Journey with us through heartfelt reflections on overcoming the shadows of a past marred by selective affection and the challenges of fatherhood when confronted with the inability to 'fix' it all. This episode isn't just about the struggles; it's a celebration of those who persist. And it's a nod to the tireless pursuit of growth.
From the psychological battles faced by athletes to the intricacies of instilling discipline in the young and ambitious, this dialogue underscores the critical role of mental fortitude across the spectrum of life's endeavors.
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the podcast, whatever Kevin wants to call it. It's Fuzzy Mike. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fuzzy Mike. I'm your host, kevin Kline. This episode, it's all about rewriting your story, turning adversity into achievement and unlocking your full potential. Bobby Sexton is a physical therapist and a certified mental performance coach who's worked with business leaders, athletes including seven eventual Hall of Famers during his five years with the NFL and people from all walks of life. Really, I wanted to talk with Coach Bobby about mindset and mental performance, but to get there and mental performance, but to get there we first need to learn Bobby's story and where he came from.
Speaker 2:I personally don't know the story, but I do know that Bobby says that he's lucky to even be alive. I think so. I think things could have gone very bad if I had stayed in the situation that I was in very bad. Uh, if I had stayed in the situation that I was in, um, you know, just looking at what my siblings had gone through, and you know there were multiple suicide attempts in my family, and you know gun issues, you know things. My brother was in a fight once and got hit in the head with a machete. Oh my God, just crazy stuff that, had I gone down that path, I could see myself ending up.
Speaker 2:Was this a product of the home life or was this a product of the environment where you live? Product of the home life, because we never lived in a bad area. Really, yeah, it wasn't a situation like that. My father had a good job, um, so there was never an issue. You know it wasn't like we were, you know, in the middle of, you know, an inner city that was, you know, had bad things going on. It was just the way we were raised. You know it was. It was chaos.
Speaker 1:You and I kind of have a similar background then, because my dad did commit suicide and he had a great job and he was a great provider. We never wanted for anything, but his depression was something that we dealt with on a daily basis and I inherited that gene. Um, I've been diagnosed chronic suicidality, which means that I'm always thinking about it but don't act on it. Um, but I decided that I was going to escape, that. I decided that I wasn't going to continue that cycle, and you did the same thing.
Speaker 2:Exactly, Um, you know, and first of all I'm sorry to hear that about your father.
Speaker 1:That's okay.
Speaker 2:You know, it really is a decision that you have to make. If you really want to change your circumstances, change your life, it's a decision that you have to make.
Speaker 1:So how many siblings do you have?
Speaker 2:I have four sisters and a brother.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what's the age range?
Speaker 2:I am the youngest.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:The next one closest to me is 10 years older than me. And actually my oldest sister. Uh, she was in her late seventies. She passed away about a year ago. I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1:How close were you with them?
Speaker 2:Not at all. Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 1:Is that because you were born 10 years later than the than the oldest one before you?
Speaker 2:It was, but it was also, you know, I saw the things that they were doing and they made me uncomfortable and I didn't want any part of it and I distanced myself as much as I could, even as a child. Was that a difficult decision to make? Uh, you know, growing up it really wasn't a decision that I made. It was just kind of a natural feeling that I had and I, I just kind of distanced myself. Um, you know, I wouldn't go. Most of them had moved out, you know, before I was old enough to know better. Um, but I, I kind of naturally just distanced myself. I wouldn't go to their homes and, you know, I wouldn't go places with them. Um, I did have one sister that you know. She treated me really well and you know I I still keep in touch with her today. Um, but the rest of my family, I probably haven't talked to any of them in, honestly, 25 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell my mom that all the time. I'm like you know, we we get to choose our friends. We don't get to choose our family. You know, and and uh, I spoke with one of my previous guests. Her name is a cameo deadweiler and she uh grew up in in a very toxic home environment too, and now she has kind of done the same thing as you where she escaped that, and now she's trying to help people with their own mindset and their own getting out of those kinds of situations. Is it difficult to help people?
Speaker 2:It's difficult to help people who haven't made the decision to be helped. And when I say that, you know it's one thing to say, oh yeah, well, I want to, I want to change things. But you really need to really sit down and have a heart to heart with yourself and and make the decision, because you know what what I see a lot is. You know people will say, well, I want to change, but then they go right back into the situation. You know, maybe it's a toxic mother, for example. You know you finish talking to them and they get in their car and they go over to visit mom and mom is the, you know the crux of the issue and they're putting themselves right back in that situation and I don't think they really realize how damaging that is. You know, basically every step forward, they're taking two steps back.
Speaker 1:And as a coach. How frustrating is that for you.
Speaker 2:It's very frustrating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, the good news is and I know that you're not about this, but the good news is that's a client for life, because they're not going to be helped in just one single setting, but the bad news is that they're just constantly in that cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would. I would much rather see their their life change than keep their. You know, it's not about the money for me, of course. Um, you know, I, I, I would much rather them change their lives because the way I view it, you know, with generational dysfunction, it's an ongoing thing and if they don't change their lives, they're going to pass it on to their children and I don't want to see any child go through what I went through or or you know, bad things at all. So I would much rather see them change and and fix that for themselves and for their children and their children and their children. You know, until you end that cycle, it's going to continue to perpetuate.
Speaker 1:You talk about passing that down on to children and you are a successful physical therapist, a mindset coach. You have many, many patents. How did your environment affect your learning growing up? Because you become highly successful and you can't be dumb.
Speaker 2:No, I was always inquisitive and my father, he was the kind of guy that it didn't matter what it was, he could fix it. And I adored my father. I really did. You know I I I talk about a situation where one of the one of the first memories that I have as a child was my mother waking me up in the middle of the night telling me we had to get out of the house because my father was on his way home to kill us. And you know, I was probably three or four at the time and you can imagine, as a three or four year old, what that would do to your brain. But in that case, my father had never done a single thing to give any indication that he was capable of anything like that. And when she, you know, when she said that, I'm sure in my mind as a three, four, four-year-old, five-year-old child, it made no sense whatsoever. I adored him. He was just a great guy, he was very loving. He's probably one of the biggest reasons that I was able to change, because I saw the love that he had for me and for my mother, the love that he had for me and for my mother.
Speaker 2:And, and you know, I came to the realization you know, talking about a toxic mother that she used him against me over and over and over and tried to turn me against him and and that was an ongoing thing, and that was that's what that, you know, that night was all about. You know, she was trying very hard. Ultimately, I didn't find this out until recently, it was probably five years ago now. The argument that they had and this was from one of my older siblings it was because I was not his child. Really, yeah, she had had an affair with her boss and I was the result of the affair and that's why I was born 10 years later than my siblings. You know, they hadn't intended to have any more children.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you were a surprise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and ultimately my father, he, and ultimately my father, he he had said things to me growing up that made me think that he thought that I wasn't his child, but he didn't know for sure. Uh, he knew that she had had an affair, but and that's what the argument was all about at that time, but I don't think he ever had confirmation. I got confirmation because I had a DNA test and that confirmed that I wasn't his son. So, um, but, but even even though I think he in his, you know, deep inside he knew he never treated me like anything but his son, deep inside he knew he never treated me like anything but his son. You know, he, he, I mean, he loved me and that's. You know. I always say that that's why I was able to overcome and I, I saw that love and you know I wanted my family to have that love. I didn't want them to have. You know, the other side.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, that's interesting that you say that, because the other side, you not only learn the love from your dad, but you learn what not to do from your mom. So you really had I mean, unfortunately, you did have the best of both worlds as far as teachers go.
Speaker 2:Basically yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I had the same thing. I had the same thing, you know, with my mom, was constantly the nurturer, the. She was the go-between when dad would come home from work and you know just, he never hit us. But the mental, you know, I was told at 13, I'd never amount to anything. And that he, at 22, he said my biggest regret is that I ever had you kids. So you know, that kind of stuff you know, and that'll weigh on you, that'll weigh on you. But at 13, when I was told you're never going to amount to anything, I could have taken that as a self-fulfilling prophecy. But no, you know what I said? I said fuck you, I am going to.
Speaker 1:You know, and I reached the pinnacle of my career, coach Bobby, I did 30 years in radio. The last 16 were spent in a top five market in Houston, texas, and five days after I took that job is when my dad killed himself. You know, and I don't think that has anything to do with it, but I showed him, yeah, I showed him Definitely yeah. So your life actually did change for like ever when you had your first child, right?
Speaker 2:It did.
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 2:like. When she was born, she had a serious respiratory issue. She had to be rushed to a children's hospital and she spent a week in the NICU and I can remember walking in there and seeing the tubes and you know, I mean it was just you know, things going off and tubes everywhere and and just looking at her and thinking I, I think in my heart it kind of felt like all of that chaos that was going on around her body was, was that chaos that you know of my life and you know I knew at that point I had to change, I had to get away. You know, at that point I still lived in Buffalo, new York, where my siblings and mother lived, and it was. It was ongoing. You know it was an ongoing thing.
Speaker 2:I can remember my, you know, as my daughter was growing up, asking my mother to babysit, and, and she refused to babysit my child, but she babys as my daughter was growing up, uh, asking my mother to babysit, and, and she refused to babysit my child, but she babysat my sister's children, and you know it was, and I didn't know at that time that I wasn't, you know that I was a bastard child basically, Um, but that was the result. She was she. She resented me. Wow, and you know I can. I can remember. In my life there was one time I can remember my mother putting her arm around me and you know that as a child not having that affection, you know I don't. I think the only time I remember her expressing love to me was when my father passed away, and you know, even telling me I love you, it just never happened.
Speaker 1:The love that your dad had for you then? Was that an over kind of, maybe overcompensation for the love that your mother was not projecting?
Speaker 2:Did he realize that? You know, I don't think so. It was just a genuine love. You know, I don't think he was trying to make up for anything she wasn't giving me. Um, I think it was just a genuine love. You know, they divorced when I was five years old oh okay, um.
Speaker 2:So they were, you know they, they were separated most of my life um, and I don't think he was was trying to overcompensate or anything like that. I think it was just a genuine love that he had, and he it wasn't just me, it was all of my siblings, you know I I could tell he showed love to all of them.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a heck of a guy.
Speaker 2:He was. He was amazing guy, you know, he. He grew up. He grew up in the hills of West Virginia, had a loving mother and father, nine kids in his family, most of them boys, and, you know, eighth grade education. But he went on to work at International Paper. There was a factory in the small town that we lived in, outside of Buffalo, and he started cleaning floors and worked his way up and ran that plant and it got to the point where, you know, international Paper's a massive corporation. They've got factories all over the world. They would fly a private jet to pick him up and take him wherever they had an issue and he would resolve the issue and come home. And he was just, you know, he was a resourceful guy, he, he, he would figure it out. He knew, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you said, he was the guy that could fix anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he, there wasn't anything. I've seen him when he was alive. I saw him take apart things that I, you know, most people wouldn't even consider. You know, 20 minutes later it's working here Nice.
Speaker 1:Well, just given your genes, you were destined to be a mindset coach, I believe. Because you have a, your soul has got to be the hardiest in the world. A father from West Virginia they're hard workers and then a mother from Buffalo, the winters that you had to endure up there I mean, dude, you were from Buffalo the winters that you had to endure up there.
Speaker 2:I mean, dude, you were, you were born to overcome. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was. Uh, the winter has definitely made it easier to leave there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause you're based out of Austin, texas. Now, right.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a great city that is.
Speaker 2:Oh it's, it's awesome. A lot of a lot over the years We've been here 26 years now.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, you have seen some change.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's changed a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the university has grown to about 50,000 a year. It got Dell computers there, the great medical facilities that you have around there, the Capitol. I mean, yeah, you've seen some growth. Oh, yeah, yeah. So how is your daughter today?
Speaker 2:Oh, she's fine, she's fine. She recovered fine by the time she left. Like I said, she spent a week in the NICU and by the time she left she was great. You know, the nurses nurses are just an incredible. They're incredible people to begin with, but they, you know, they really helped us through that and she's fine.
Speaker 1:She you know, I do a lot of work with pediatric cancer patients and you see a child in the hospital, you see them in the ICU and the parents are just so helpless and there's not as a father who liked to fix things. Perhaps you inherited a little bit of that gene and you can't do anything. How, how rough is that for you? Oh?
Speaker 2:it. It definitely drove me crazy at the time, you know, not being able to do anything to help her it. It was tough, it was really tough.
Speaker 1:So how did you become a mindset coach?
Speaker 2:Well, Um, my son, uh, my son is an athlete. Uh, he, you know I talk about my kids. Uh, really, when I talk about my kids, I want people to understand that had I not made the decision to change, my kids wouldn't have had the opportunities that they had. You know, my daughter went to University of Texas. She ended up going into the Navy, spent six years in the Navy, climbed the ladder very quickly. She just got out of the Navy about a year ago, just had our first granddaughter married a guy that she met in the Navy and is doing great.
Speaker 2:My son graduated from high school guy that she met in the Navy and is doing great. My son graduated from high school, won a state championship in Texas 5A football, which is not an easy thing to do Ended up with a full scholarship because of that and got his master's degree in five years and went on to play a year of professional football overseas and he's kind of at a position now. He got a great job. But he, you know, he hasn't decided whether or not he's going to go back yet to Europe for next season. But you know, when I talk about my kids, they would have never had those opportunities I don't believe they would have had those opportunities had I not made the decision to change. And that's one of the things I want people to understand is you know you're not just doing it for yourself, you know it's, it's, it's more than you and you know a lot of that. It's probably one of the reasons that I do what I do now, because I I don't want other kids to not have those kinds of opportunities.
Speaker 1:Um, I would think that if you're just doing it for yourself, the chances of you succeeding and making that transformation is probably low, because if you're not doing it for some, some bigger reason than yourself, you'll have opportunities to quit and you'll think okay, well, you know what I'm, I'm done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And you, you start. One of the big issues with dysfunction is self-sabotage. You start doing things and you think you're going along great and then all of a sudden you're going backwards and you can't figure out why. And you did it to yourself and there's a lot of people that do that. I work with a lot of athletes and I also work with business owners with a lot of athletes and I also work with business owners and they get to a point and all of a sudden they start to fall off and they can't figure out why. And it's because they sabotage themselves. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:How? So? I read one of your quotes is you got to learn how to get out of your own way?
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Um, it, you know it has a lot to do with self-sabotage. It, you know, if you don't get out of your own way and you sabotage yourself continuously, um, I'll give you an example I worked with, with a client. Um, she was a doctor, she was a uh veterinarian, she was a surgeon, she worked emergency veterinarian. She made a decision to open a boarding facility and she started the facility. In five years of owning the facility, she'd never made a penny.
Speaker 2:She was losing 60 to 70 000 a month a month a month yeah, it was a big facility and she I mean it was just pouring money out and she had borrowed a ton of money from friends and family and the bank and she was crazy in debt. And I, as I started to look at things you know, having run businesses for myself and been successful in business, I know what it looks like. And when I started looking at it, every time things would start to get on a upward trajectory for her, she would do something that brought it back down. And as I got to know her, it turned out as a child her sibling, her only sibling her brother, had been killed in a car accident and ultimately she didn't feel like she deserved to be successful.
Speaker 2:And that's where the sabotage came from. Every time she would start to get some success, the guilt would take over and it would back down. And once we got past that and realized you're doing this yourself, the success rate, I mean, it just skyrocketed. But it's just something that people do, rocket it, but that's, it's just something that people do. At the end, in most cases, I don't. I think they have, you know, deep inside they, they know they're doing it, but they just cannot help themselves.
Speaker 1:Do you think that what's stronger, the fear of success or the fear of failure? Because when you say that, uh, you know she felt she didn't deserve it. That's a fear of uh fear of success.
Speaker 2:It is. Yeah, in her case it was. It was the guilt she felt, um, that that was her reason for not wanting to succeed. Um, but it is. You know I don't know that one is stronger than the other. I think probably because if you haven't experienced true success, you really don't. You don't know what it feels like. So you know that that failure is probably a little more comfortable because it's you know, it's something you've always had. You know, one of the things I talk about. You know, the human brain is just. It's an incredible structure. It's amazing. But one of the primary functions of the human brain is to protect us, and in protecting us, what it looks like for the brain is just status quo. You know, if we left it up to the brain, we'd never get out of bed, we'd just stay covered up comfortably and never try anything, never do anything, because that's change and the brain doesn't like change. So you know, overcoming that it's a hard, hard thing to do. You basically have to rewire your brain.
Speaker 1:And I've just completed a physical therapy session. I went to 10 sessions with a performance coach because I'm an ultra endurance runner and I was always getting injured on my right leg, whether it was tendon strains or, you know, shin splints or whatever and we realized that my mind had decided that, based on my gait, that it needed to change the way that my foot hit the ground to accommodate the other deficiencies that I had.
Speaker 1:And so in 10 weeks we had to rewire my brain and reconnect my legs to my brain. What you said earlier about the brain being amazing, it is absolutely trippy what our brain does.
Speaker 2:It's incredible, and it does it without us even knowing it.
Speaker 1:I know right.
Speaker 2:And the decisions that the brain can make before you even think about it are just incredible. It's one of the things if you ever watched Top Gun and they say don't, you can't think when you're flying. That's true Because by the time you think, you know your brain is is 10 steps ahead of you already. To begin with, if you just let the brain do its thing, in most cases you're going to be, you're going to be happy with what it does. If you start thinking and start interfering with it, that's when things start to go wrong.
Speaker 2:But you know, getting back to why I brought the brain up, the brain wanting to be comfortable at all times, it also resists positive change. Oh, because even positive change is change, yes, in the brain. So you know if you've been doing something and it's uncomfortable, but your brain has gotten comfortable with it, your brain doesn't want to change that, so it says no back off, no back off. And you know what I try to help people understand is, if you're, if you're focused, you can actually use that to your advantage. You know, in tricking the brain to, to helping it understand that you know what you're trying to accomplish is not the negative, it's the positive, it's the comfortable. And once you get to a point when, when you you's the positive, it's the comfortable, and once you get to a point when you work that enough, you can be successful with it, and then the brain starts to help you change yourself and you go from that negative. You know, one of the big things is negative self-talk.
Speaker 2:A lot of people we constantly have a conversation going on in our mind, and in a lot of cases it's a negative conversation, that's all I have, Bobby. Yeah, it's always negative. Yeah, so you know, changing that is probably the biggest first step in changing your, your entire life.
Speaker 1:Quite honestly, is it a matter of semantics to do that? Because, like, for example, if I wake up and I say, oh, I got to run, then I'm not real enthused about it. But if I wake up and I say, oh, I get to run, that's Okay, so it is just as simple as that, then it is.
Speaker 2:If you're consistent with that, I mean, it becomes automatic. Wow, running doesn't become a chore anymore, running becomes a treat, and your brain sees it that way. And once you get the brain seeing it that way, your brain says no, you got to run, you have to run. If you don't run, I'm not comfortable. And that's the goal, ultimately.
Speaker 1:Uh, how much uh stock and how much truth do you put in this statement? If you think you can't you you, you're right.
Speaker 2:Uh a million percent really a million percent.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then, if you think you can, you will if you think you can, enough times you will. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't. You can't, you know today, say, well, I'm going to go run, and then take three days off and then say I'm going to go run and think that you're going to be successful. You know it's not going to change your, your thinking. You've got to be consistent with it. So are there? Are there?
Speaker 1:consistent mantras that a mindset coach like yourself gives their clients and they write them down or they commit them to memory.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I, I try. I don't want people to rely on a crutch, so I don't want to give them something that that you know in their mind this is what's changing them. I want them to use their own brain and and really think through that change, because that's when it's really going to become ingrained in the brain. You know, I don't want them to have. You know, if I don't say this, I'm I'm not going to get better. You know there's't want them to have. You know, if I don't say this, I'm not going to get better. You know there's things like that. You know it goes along with forgiveness.
Speaker 2:I'm not a big forgiveness fan, I don't. It bothers me that therapists, and you know they tell people that. You know the first step is forgiveness. Well, there are a lot of people that just can't do that. You know I, I'm one of those people.
Speaker 2:I, I, I have a very hard time forgiving. You know, when you wrong me, you wrong me and I don't want people to look at that and say, well, you know, I, I, I can't ever get over this because I can't forgive. You know that that, to me, is a it. It becomes an excuse, it becomes a crutch and it allows them to stay in that miserable state because in their mind, they can't forgive. Yeah, I, I to me, um, and actually I I listened to that podcast that you just mentioned and a lot of that it really resonated with me and you actually made something. You actually made a comment. You said I don't forgive, I don't forget, I just move on, uh-huh. And to me that's perfect, absolutely perfect, because as you move on, the more distance you put between yourself and whatever you're you're trying to distance yourself from, the more you know it time heals all wounds yes I really believe that's true.
Speaker 2:Yes, down the road, you know you think about bad situations and things that have happened in your life and at the time that they happen, it's, you know it can be the most heart-wrenching thing ever. But as you move further away from it, it, you know, it, it that lessens and lessens. And the same is true with you know the, the dysfunction situation or forgiveness. The further you get away from the situation, the easier it is for you to not think about that situation, so forgiveness becomes irrelevant. At that point, yeah, you didn't need to forgive because you'd basically forgotten for the most part. And even when you do think about it, it's not that intense feeling anymore. So it's like.
Speaker 1:It's like if you were to pass a car on the highway and you look in your rear view mirror and you're going faster than them. Eventually they're going to fade. Correct, like this, like this bad memory or whatever you know. It'll eventually just fade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's really true of any negative memory, uh, negative thoughts, anything, uh and and actually, quite honestly, people themselves. You know, one of the things that I talk to people about, you know we mentioned this if you don't get away from the the whatever is. Let me give you an example. If you got a rock in your shoe and you just keep walking, it's not going to get any better. If I take that rock out and I throw it, I walk away. Well, now I'm putting distance between myself and the rock and it doesn't hurt me anymore. You know, until you do that, you can't. You can't keep walking on the rock and expect to feel better.
Speaker 1:Very true. What a beautiful analogy too. I love that.
Speaker 2:It's, and it's true of people as well. You know, in my case, I knew I had to get away from my mother. I had to get away from my siblings Uh, my siblings, they, they in their minds. My mother could do no wrong. They were convinced that my father was the issue. I was far enough removed, I think, because of being born 10 years later. I was far enough removed that I could see, eventually, I could see that it was the opposite, and I did.
Speaker 2:You know, when I found out that I took the DNA test and found out that my father wasn't my biological father, I had a long conversation with one of my sisters and she does talk to the other siblings and you know she was one that truly believed that my mother could do no wrong. And in having those conversations, and you know telling her, look, I've got confirmation of this, I'm not. You know, I'm not. We don't have the same father. You know it started to, I think, click in her mind that, hey, maybe it was the other way around. Maybe I didn't look at this from a realistic view hard enough to understand that it wasn't him, it was really her. Yeah, you know putting him down and saying bad things about him and there are all kinds of things that you know. She told me that my mother had said about him that were just simply not true. You know, they were just totally made up, fabricated, to get them to hate him.
Speaker 1:Wow, man, she had to be a miserable person living with that, I guess, with that mentality, and us versus them.
Speaker 2:She was and looking back her parents, I can remember being I don't know probably six, seven years old and going to her parents' home in Florida, to her parents' home in Florida, and just my grandmother and grandfather. They were just miserable people. And looking back now, that's where I mean, it was her dysfunction, that's where she got it from, yeah, and feeling that as a six, seven year old kid I didn't want to go there, I didn't want anything to do with it and and that's where you know the realization, okay, it just carried on from them to her and I feel sorry for her.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah For having that in her life as a child, but she never made the decision to change and carry that on into my life, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think. I don't think the resources were there at that time, when she was growing up or when she was raising you. We've got tremendous resources now, you included.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, back, then, you know, rub some dirt on it.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, yeah for sure. And nobody really understood I mean people. I don't think really understand now what mental illness is and what having having a wrong mindset does to people. But now we have studies.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's actually a. You bring that up. I wish this study was more talked about. There was a study back in the nineties called the ACE study ACE adverse childhood event, adverse childhood event and researchers uh, it was two researchers. They talked to 17,000, over 17,000 people and they wanted to know, out of a list of 10, 10 adverse events, um abuse, physical abuse, divorce, uh, mental abuse, sexual abuse. You know there's a list of 10 different things. How many of them had experienced one or more things from that list? 80% experienced at least one adverse childhood event and most of them I think it was 75% experienced more than one. Wow, I mean, you think about that. And if you're sitting in a room with 100 people, 75 of those people went through some hell.
Speaker 1:Have had multiple traumas in their life.
Speaker 2:Exactly. That's crazy, you know. You know it's something that that I would like people to understand. You're not alone.
Speaker 1:Oh God, no, that's one of the reasons why I do the fuzzy mic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're. You're very far from alone. And one of the issues is actually Dr Phil said this, I heard him on Joe Rogan's podcast no-transcript. You know, even though they're privately, their life may be hell. We're seeing this image of them that they want to project to us and ultimately, in probably 75, 80% of the cases, it's smoke and mirrors. But we're comparing ourselves to that and saying, well, my life is terrible. That person has such a great life. No, probably not. We're just seeing what they're projecting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of one of my psychiatrists when I was living in Houston. She said 20% of the population are on some sort of mental health medication. 80% need to be. Yeah, that's what she said. So let's, uh, you've worked with professional athletes. Your son is a professional athlete. What is the difference between our mindset as what I'm going to say athletic mortals and professional athletes, athletic immortals?
Speaker 2:Um, the biggest difference is when they make a decision to do something, it's done. There's no variation, there's no going back. You know, if it's, I'm going to work out six days a week at four o'clock in the morning. They're going to work out six days a week at four o'clock in the morning. They're not going to wake up, and you know I'm too tired today. Roll back over, it's done. Their, their, their mind is so focused that, you know it, it there's no variation. Once they make their mind up to do something and that really is that's an adaptable thing that we can.
Speaker 1:We can do it ourselves.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, it's called discipline.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So then, why do and I know a lot of professional golfers have a psychologist, a sports psychologist, when you get to that level, why do you need somebody like?
Speaker 2:that, because there's always things that are going to happen. There's always things going on around you. There's always and this is true not only of athletes, this is true of anyone there's no such thing as a perfect life. There's no such thing as a perfect life. There's no such thing as, as you know, the ultimate comfortable, comfortable. You could win the powerball lottery tomorrow and you're still going to have problems. You're still going to have issues in your life. Things are still going to come up that you have to deal with. So you know, even even professional athletes, in a lot of cases these guys I've seen guys that got. I'll give you an example. We had a guy my first year in the league National Football League. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:The National Football League.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we had a guy come in. He was a linebacker. He was 5'8", maybe 5 foot nine was never supposed to be there. You know, undersized, underweight, he just he had been told his entire life there's no way, you're just not big enough, you're not fast enough, you're not strong enough. And he overcame all of it when he got there, success actually crushed him and within a year he was out of the league. And I actually looked him up a couple of years ago and he had been shot and killed in a drive-by. And you know he was was a guy that he came from a place very different than than most.
Speaker 2:And when the success came, you know, for example, the first, first road trip we took, we had a chartered, chartered plane. You know all the players on the plane in the back of the plane. There, always, there was always card games going on and they were betting. And you know all the players are on the plane in the back of the plane. There, always, there was always card games going on and they were betting. And you know those guys aren't.
Speaker 2:You know it's not penny, annie, it's a hundred dollar pots and a hundred dollar Annie's and you know more. And he got drawn into that and by the time we landed, I think we're going to Kansas city. By the time we landed in Kansas city, were going to Kansas City. By the time we landed in Kansas City, he was $25,000 in debt. Oh my God. Now he had gotten a $50,000 signing bonus and thankfully, you know the, the, the players made him think that he had to pay that until we got back to Buffalo and they told him when we got off the plane don't worry about it. You know they were never going to make him pay that money, but you know it, it success overwhelmed him and he couldn't, he couldn't deal with it and it it really, in his case, was a, was a huge negative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like, um, that he proved naysayers wrong. It almost sounds like, once he reached that level of success, what was there left to fight for? You know?
Speaker 2:so probably had a lot to do with it.
Speaker 1:so then, how do we move that goal? How do we? How do we move when we've reached like I reached the pinnacle of my career because I didn't want to work in LA or New York or Chicago? How do we? How do we move that goal to keep us motivated?
Speaker 2:That's something that professional athletes do very well Uh-huh, you know, if they set a goal to win, you know the MVP of the league or you know to make the Pro Bowl or whatever it is, and then they do that. You know, in most cases there are those guys that once they get there, they're done, they, they. You know their career falls off from there. But for the most part, because they have that mentality, when they make a decision it's going to be done, it's it's onto something else or it's you know I want to be in Pro Bowl every year and they're going to. They're going to do everything they possibly can to get there. You know it's that once they make that decision, it's for the most part done.
Speaker 2:You know, I tell I work with a lot of kids. I've coached quarterbacks for about 25 years and young youth quarterbacks, high school quarterbacks. I tell them all the time the difference between a guy that has all of the athletic ability can throw the ball a mile, run like the wind, agile, but he's flipping burgers at Burger King the difference between him and the guy that's a starting quarterback in the NFL, it's between his ears. It all comes down to what's between his ears and can he dedicate himself, can he discipline himself? They have the talent, they have the athletic ability, but they don't have the ability to, like the guys that make it, focus and make that decision and make it happen.
Speaker 1:Could you get through to a kid like that and change them? It's tough, yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 2:It's tough because they don't want it or because they don't realize it. They all say they want it. Of course they do. They all say they want it. You, they do. They all say they want it. You know they want the big paycheck, um, but when it comes time to actually do it, you know there's a lot of guys that they talk a good game, but you can't force them to do it. And and when there's nobody standing there harping on them?
Speaker 2:you know at four o'clock in the morning, come on, I'm going to drag you out of bed If there's nobody there to do that. A lot of times it becomes real easy to just roll over, and there's other factors that go into that as well. You know, in a lot of cases you know they were out until two o'clock the night before because they don't have the discipline. You know they let their buddies drag them into doing things that they shouldn't be doing, and all of it plays a role in getting to where you want to go.
Speaker 1:How long does it take to change our mindset? I had a baseball coach tell me it takes 18 days to commit something to muscle memory.
Speaker 2:baseball coach tell me it takes 18 days to commit something to muscle memory. Uh, you'll hear all all kinds of. As a physical, physical therapist, you hear all kinds of different things when it comes to that committing to muscle memory, 10 000 reps, and you know all kinds of different things, but, um, it really comes down to how bad you really want to change. Yeah, and you know you hear, well, you got to hit rock bottom. You know, if it's an alcoholic or drug addict, that's always the thing you have. Until he hits rock bottom, he's not going to change.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if it's truly hitting rock bottom or if it's mentally getting to the point where you just had enough and you are ready to make a change. You know it's whether it's it doesn't matter what it is losing weight, anything like that, until you've truly make the decision and you ask how fast truly make the decision? And and you ask how fast? Well, if you're truly ready to make the change, if that's something that is realistic and it's you just made up your mind, that's it, once you've made that decision and it's an honest, really thought out decision, and this, this isn't a thing where somebody needs to talk to a therapist or you know that's.
Speaker 2:Another thing that bothers me is you know, people get it in their head that they have to have a $200 an hour therapist to get any better, to improve their life. They don't, they don't, and a lot of people because they can't afford that. It never happens because, in their mind, unless they have that, they can't improve, they can't get better. So what do we need then? We need to make a decision.
Speaker 1:It's really based on. It's really self motivating.
Speaker 2:It has to be. It has to be because, no matter what, I tell you, if you haven't made that decision and I've had this situation with with athletes in the past where, oh, yeah, yeah, I want to, I want to do that, I want to do that, I want to do that Two days later, it's, why didn't you do that? What happened? Well, you know, my buddy came over and you know we just decided to go, you know, have a beer and one beer led to another and you know, before I knew it, it was three o'clock in the morning. Really, okay, I mean that that tells you everything, right there. Yeah, that person hasn't, really hasn't truly made the decision.
Speaker 1:That person hasn't truly made the decision to change. Once you get somebody on the right path, once you get somebody thinking the way that they want to think, do they typically stay in that frame, or do they see the success and they're like, okay, cool, I got it now. And then they regress.
Speaker 2:So in most cases, there's something that has caused that in them. There's something that has caused that in them. And if they it's like I said if they go see mom and mom is the you know she's she's the trigger they're going to they're going to fall back. If they keep focused, stay away from you know it's an alcoholic walking into a bar. After you know it's an alcoholic walking into a bar. After you know, when they're trying to change their life, it's not going to be a good thing. They're putting themselves back in the situation that caused it in the first place. If they can stay out of that situation and not deal with those things that caused it in the first place, in cases they can, they can maintain it. But when they start trying, oh, you know, I can handle, I can, I can take that drink, I can have one uh, that's a slippery slope and if you, if you can't get them back on track immediately, it's probably going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2:Wow, and you're starting over. Yeah, it's a thin line. It's probably going in the wrong direction. Wow, and you're starting over. It's a thin line. It's a very thin line. Yeah, Very thin line. It doesn't take a lot.
Speaker 1:So how do we, how do we acquire your services, sir?
Speaker 2:Uh, probably my website is the easiest. Um, you know, I I my first consultation with people. I'll spend an hour talking to people. I'm not going to charge anything. My first consultation with people. I'll spend an hour talking to people. I'm not going to charge anything. You know, I want to know that somebody is committed to change, because if they're not, they're wasting their money and they're wasting my time. Uh-huh, and I'm not just looking to. You know, pile up clients and take money. You know, I want people to be successful with their goals. What they want to change and again, for me a lot of it comes down to it's not just their life that they're changing, it's their kids' lives that they're changing, and that, to me, is more important than anything.
Speaker 1:Or if they're a boss, it's not only their life that they're changing, but maybe their managerial style, which would have an effect on all their employees.
Speaker 2:It really impacts their entire life. Yeah, relationships, children work, whatever it is, and a lot of times when they do start to change, they start to see all of those things improve and career goes up. Uh, you know, relationships, their kids start doing better, their, their kids start striving for more. You know it's it's easier to get them out of bed in the morning. All of a sudden, they're more excited about going to school because they're seeing mom or dad or who you know. They're seeing that person's life pick up and that's, that's infectious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how rewarding is it for you to see somebody make the change and commit to it.
Speaker 2:I mean that's, especially when I know that there's impact beyond them. I mean that's especially when I know that there's impact beyond them. I mean that's. It means everything. I mean that's. That's what's. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:It's what motivates you right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's no doubt. Well, hey brother, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Tell your daughter thank you for her service and tell your son congratulations on that career. Man, that's amazing, thank you. You bred some overachievers like yourself there, coach.
Speaker 1:I'm just glad they didn't have to deal with what I dealt with you know what, but you dealt with it and you realized that it didn't need to progress beyond you and you decided, as you mentioned, you made the decision to make that change and you, you've done it, so congratulations, thank you. What is the decision? To make that change? And you, you've done it, so congratulations, thank you. What is the website?
Speaker 2:uh, for the for those of us that are listening audio, uh, and not watching the youtube, I'll put it up on the youtube screen. But what is it audio? It's m as in mental, p is in performance. Mp coach bobbycom got.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you so much. Continued success to you. Keep changing lives and uh, and keep bettering society, sir.
Speaker 2:All right, I appreciate it man.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed that conversation. It was totally energizing and empowering for me anyway to learn that we can be better. We can achieve what we want, as long as we commit to it. So, whatever it is that you're dreaming of aspiring to or wanting to change in yourself, commit to it and be disciplined about it. Plus, remember, not only will you reap the rewards of your dedication, so will everyone around you. My thanks to Bobby Sexton for joining me and my thanks to you for listening. My thanks to Bobby Sexton for joining me and my thanks to you for listening. If you don't mind, please give this a rating, a like and subscribe to the channel for future episodes. I sure do appreciate that more than you'll ever know.
Speaker 1:The Fuzzy Mic is hosted and produced by Kevin Kline. Production elements by Zach Sheesh at the Radio Farm Social media. Director is Trish Kline. I'll be back next Tuesday with a new episode and don't forget, check out the Tuttle K Klein podcast with new episodes every Wednesday. Thank you again. That's it for the Fuzzy Mike. Thank you, the Fuzzy Mike with Kevin Klein.