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