SelfAwareness

[Music]

[Applause]

so

self-awareness is a key component to

personal growth

and success um the ability to look

inside yourself

and see the things that you are good at

the things you’re bad at your triggers

what makes you anxious

is very important so you know how to

move forward in life and

settle yourself down if needed

self-awareness is so important as the

basis of a type of therapy called

gestalt therapy

now for those who don’t know what

gestalt therapy is it’s an experiment

experimental type of therapy where

there is a agreement between the

therapist and the client

and it’s called the unconditional

agreement meaning that

the therapist allows the client come to

their own conclusions

the idea that the client finds

self-awareness they find a sense of

direction they find a sense of freedom

so they develop the tools internally

that they need

going forward now to add

context to who i am i’m a two-sport

athlete

i played basketball for a majority of my

life from elementary school into

my senior year of high school and

along basketball actually helped me find

my love for running

my freshman year of high school i wanted

to

make the team so bad and i wanted to set

a good impression to my coaches

that um i joined cross country just to

be in shape cross country is in the fall

basketball isn’t a winner i thought it

would work out turns out there’s no

correlation

it didn’t help me whatsoever but i found

a love for running

i ended up something i’m good at so from

my freshman year

of high school to my senior year of

college i ran cross country

now i’m a coach i’m coaching my own

right

i coach basketball all year round so i

wear many different hats but what i

learned is sports have the

same universal lessons right so when i

was a kid

my dad was my basketball coach for a

majority of my career

actually and one of the biggest lessons

he taught me he would always say

he loved basketball because she doesn’t

lie to you she doesn’t lie to you she

doesn’t lie to you

and when you’re younger especially

because it’s your coach and your dad you

kind of just sorry i hear you and she

doesn’t lie to you i hear you

but as i became my own athlete as i

became my own

coach i realized that sports tends to

tell you the truth

if you’re willing to listen if you shoot

20 jump shots and

miss 20 jump shots you probably have to

work on your jump shots

if you run a time or run a race and the

time afterwards

isn’t great you probably have to work on

your technique you have to work on your

endurance

the the lessons are there if you’re

willing to

listen and i take those lessons and i

apply them

to my life so in high school

i had the privilege of being a part of

an amazing

basketball program called we are one as

a travel team program

and i had the privilege of being around

d1 athletes guys who

went on to be professionals where it’d

be overseas or an mba

and you know when you’re in sports you

you make different types of friendships

so

i’m going to talk about two friends in

particular who affected my life

one guy his name is cdcada his 610

center

he went on to go to south carolina

university his freshman year

they went on a final four run actually

in march madness and

they end up upset in duke university so

he had a great college career in that

regard

another friend of mine was derek jones

jr he

is an nba right now he plays for miami

heat

so he’s chasing a title right now and

i’m super proud of those guys

and i’m just grateful that i was along

that journey but in high school

there was a ego check that i had to go

through it’s that cliche saying of

conspir comparison is the thief of joy

so when we were in high school we all

did the same workouts we had to

do to lift the same weights make sprints

at the same time

you know make the same amount of jump

shots but

at one point i know i looked at them and

was like wow should i

be doing this because i’m not doing what

they’re doing and

it sounds even silly to say it out loud

up in front of you guys but

it was a true insecure moment for me i

you know your high school kid you had

that fragile ego

and i remember at one point i questioned

playing basketball because at the time i

was a better runner

and i had the accolades there but when

it came to basketball

it wasn’t the same love but i love

basketball and i

still do did then so i had to work

through that and

that lesson taught me to play your role

put your best foot forward at all times

even everything is not for everybody you

have to play your role and i had to play

my role

just like they could do things that i

couldn’t i could do things that they

couldn’t i had to learn that

and work through that and i’m grateful

for that lesson

because fast forward we get to college

and i have tendinitis on my left knee

that’s something that

affects my running ability a lot and it

affects me to this day

um so i get to college and i’m not the

same runner that i was in high school

and i had to accept that

but this time i developed the internal

tools that i needed to deal with that

insecurity

because i already learned the lesson of

play my role

do what i can do to the best of my

ability i wasn’t in college to be the

number one runner

i was there to be the captain i was

there to be a leader i was there to be a

second coach

a voice and you know still work out and

run my hardest

but i wasn’t there to be a number one

runner

this time i accepted it way better

because i learned that lesson

back in high school to do what i do and

it changes your perception on sports

i had a great college experience i made

great teammates and

i loved doing it so i’m just grateful

that

i got to learn that lesson

um but going back to cliche statements

sometimes you have to lose something to

appreciate it so

my tendonitis and my left knee started

my senior year

of high school and during that time it

was extremely hard for me to play sports

and at the time that’s my identity

that’s who i was i was an athlete i was

a good runner i was a basketball player

so during cross country season um i lost

a lot of confidence

not only as athlete but as myself as a

person

i remember those times at practice where

my teammates were going off on five

six seven mile runs and i had to stay on

campus because if you run around

middletown high school two times that’s

a mile and i may be

able to get around to school twice maybe

four times on a good day

and i still competed in the races

now i got lucky and we were a top five

team in the state that year

and that made me feel a little better

but in the back of my head it was always

if i was the runner i was last year we

may be top four we may be top three we

maybe

have a chance at states so that

insecurity built up

goes on to basketball season we got a

new coach

things went differently and i completely

lost all confidence as an athlete in

general

so going into make my college decision

i chose not to do sports which is a new

territory for me i was a athlete my

whole life

but i lacked a lot of confidence at the

time i go to

dell tech i pick a major that i really

wasn’t interested in

but it felt right it was sports

management i’m not that great at math

but it just felt right i was like oh i

know sports let’s go sports management

um so i get to dell tech and

it was a time period where i learned

depression

i learned anxiety and i

learned panic attacks it was my first

time in my life where i would have panic

attacks there were times i would drive

to deltek and i had to pull over on the

side of the road

in order to get myself together and

because if you ever had one experience

it’s like your world is collapsing

so i’m at del tech i’m not going to

class much

my grades are slipping and

i felt like i lacked purpose at that

time period

so by the grace of god my cross country

coach in high school

he gets the job at goldie become college

and he recruits me and

lets me know that he wants me to be his

athlete again

and that conversation it felt like a 180

happened

instantly it felt like i found that

sense of belonging again that sense of

identity again

that sense of purpose so immediately i

jump at the opportunity and i

transferred to goldie become college

and what i learned is the things that i

need

for personal success i learned that i do

need routine

i learned that i do need structure i

know learned that i need a reason to

work out

i need a reason to eat healthy and these

are all things that at the time when i

wasn’t an athlete

i didn’t have to do so i didn’t know

that because it was new territory

so that was an important lesson so

getting the goldie become was huge

because i had to learn that these things

make me successful

all these things and i apply them to my

life today i’m not an athlete still

but i still make sure i work out i

should make sure i keep short-term

long-term goals i make sure i just stay

on routine because these are things that

keep me balanced and

coincidentally luck enough i learned

that from not being in sports

but as people we deal with adversity

all the time and i think sports is a

great correlation

to that you have to learn to deal with

losses

hard games hard practices injuries if

you talk to any coach during a season

they’ll say your season has up and down

your season has up and downs

and that’s life in general we all go

through things

that make us anxious we all have

triggers we all have

insecurities that are a daily challenge

so i learned a lot of

internal tools through sports to be able

to deal with these challenges and i’m

extremely grateful for that time period

but i think my biggest takeaway for

sports and what i learned

is how i personally need human

connection

so i’m a behavior interventionist at

cedar lane elementary school and i have

aspirations to be a guidance counselor

what i learned is that when you’re in

sports

you have teammates you have coaches you

have after

lag director you have so many people who

want to help

you succeed and when i look at

my job when i look at coaching that’s

what i want to do

i want to be a part of people’s journey

everybody

shares his human experience is

unavoidable

you have to deal with people nobody does

anything alone

so for me if i can be a part of

somebody’s journey just for a little bit

it might be a small interaction it might

be

a month it might be a season it might be

years but if i can

help you go forward then i did my job

because whether they know it or not they

help me go forward they give me a sense

of fulfillment

so that reciprocity is big when it comes

to my life

i need human interaction i need to grow

i need to learn

from other people and i think that’s

because for the last 18 years i’ve had a

gestalt therapist

through sports thank everybody for your

time

you