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Again, Taylor Brands dot com forward slash daily and use coupon code daily at checkout to get 20% off. That is spelled T-A-I-L-O-R-B-R-A-N-D-S dot com forward slash daily. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the podcast. On today's episode, we are joined by Grant Parr.
Grant is a highly regarded mental performance coach, keynote speaker, podcast, notes, former Division II quarterback and author, whose clients are Olympians, Olympic coaches, professional athletes, collegiate athletes, and teams, business execs, and Fortune 500 to 1000 sales organizations. Grant recently released his first book, The Next One Up Mindset, how to prepare for the unknown, which is becoming highly regarded as a must read within the athletic and workplace domains. Grant has taken his unique experiences as an athlete, coach and sales leader to create the 90% mental podcast that provides a window into the broad range of athletes and coaches mental game and where they share their insight into the journeys around mental performance. We'll sit back and enjoy today's episode with Mr.
Grant Parr. We'll Grant Parr. Welcome to the Daily Grine. Thank you so much for being here.
Absolutely. I'm excited. Thanks for having me on your show. Of course, Grant, and Grant, if you want mine for some listeners out there being first introduced to who you are and what you do, just kind of speaking a little bit as to who Grant is and what it is that you do.
Well, I'm a mental performance coach and I work with athletes, teams, and coaches. I also work with executives and also corporations on mental skills training. So basically what my goal is is try to put in a process or a strategy for the individual for the team that they can use at a moment's notice so they can make the best decision for themselves, but where they can align their thoughts and their emotions and be the best version of themselves. And how long have you been doing this for?
That's a great question. I've been doing it officially for about five years, but being an athlete, I played football for about 13 years and it was a quarterback. And then I also was in the corporate America in sales and sales leadership. And so I did a lot of mental skills training even when I didn't even know I was doing it.
And it had a really cool, my dad was really involved in my sports at the age of 12 and I'm 45. So this is back in the 80s and the 90s. He's already having me doing visualization and breeding and self-taught. So I was introduced to this a long time ago.
So at what point did you go from corporate America to realizing that this could actually be a career doing what you're doing? Well, I had a career in injury in college my junior year. And so I had a compressed fracture in my hip and basically for two decades that derailed me in my life. Identity issues, I had dealt with depression, kind of just lost that whole competitive spirit that was in me.
And so after my second hip replacement, I just got my life back and I started to realize I wanted to do something different and I need to get back to who I was. And that was being that warrior, that competitor, getting back into sports. And so I took up about a year and a half of just discovery while I was in my day job, if you will. And I was sitting there listening to Desmond Howard on ESPN show and he was talking about a sports psychologist.
And I was like, what is that? And I literally went home that day. I did a ton of research. And within about two months of that day, I was enrolled at JFK University in a grad program from sports psychology.
And it's been beautiful ever since then. So I think it was just going through a lot of hardship, going through a lot of stuff I had to go through for a long time. And it made me realize when I got my body back that I needed to get back to who I was. And here I am.
This is my journey. Wow. So you end up going to university to get your degree. What was like right after that?
Did you work for someone or did you jump right in to work for yourself? So I jumped right in working for myself, but you know, it was really crazy. But the whole experience is that the moment that I committed to go back to school, I visualized everything. I mean, everything with school, because I was very busy at this time.
I was making the most money in my life. So I was very active with my sales. So I had a full time job. I was going full time school.
I had internships. I was coaching football. So I was on the go. But I was I was visualizing how this is all going to work out.
And I even visualized how I was going to exit gracefully with my company because I was with my company for seven and a half years. So when I got done with my school, I worked for one more year during my quote unquote day job. And then I just made the way that it just all happened. Everything was just beautiful.
I mean, it was a lot of hard work. But I think it all planned out and went the way it did because I took the time to visualize it and honored that process. Got you. So I mean, growing up, obviously your dad, did your dad introduce you to books growing up or was it just as you were playing sports?
He was telling you in the car before games to visualize what it is that you were doing. You know, it wasn't necessarily books, but it was funny. He was that that quintessential dad that would coach you through the TV. So no matter if it was baseball basketball football, he liked to coach me.
And that was kind of one form of visualization is that you can see your favorite player or see an incredible player see what they do and then actually emulate that in your mind and basically put your face on that person. So with Jim Kelly being my favorite quarterback, you know, he would he actually my dad introduced me to Jim through the TV when he played at University Miami. And I followed him all the way through USFL and all the way to the bills, but I would always see Jim play and I would visualize me doing what Jim did. So that was one thing that my dad did.
He also, he was very big in self talk. He had this thing with my brother and I. He would always say your number before every single game. And especially as I got into my football career the night before he get pumped up and he would be telling me like your number one.
And that was something that he'd said his whole life to us kids, but it wasn't about you had to be the best, like better than anybody said you just need to be number one. You need to be your best version of yourself. And so that was just something that I carry throughout my life is that and I lost that actually because of my injury. But when I was playing and when I was active, I always felt that was number one.
And that was just something that he embedded in me in that self talk. So that was pretty cool. And there's some other things that he did, but I was pretty grateful that my dad was so invested into the mental game. Yeah, I love that.
You know, it's funny when I was growing up playing sports to my dad introduced me to the mental game as well. He introduced me a little book. I mentioned this on another podcast called The Intergame of Tennis. It's all about self talk, self one, self two.
And it's crazy that I want to wait for me. I don't know about you. I never really stuck with it, but the times that I did stick with it, I have my best results now that I look back. Yeah, it's funny when I talk to teams, especially at a high school level, when I'm trying to get them, you know, for the most part, the buying process on mental skills training.
I always tell them that my best game that I've ever had in my career as a quarterback is because I had a mental game. And the game that my worst game in my entire life is because I didn't have a mental game. Now, from a confidence standpoint, I was a good quarterback. I was very good.
But you know what, being good and being great, being excellent is only going to get you so far because it's that moment. It's that moment is how great are you when you're going through a chaotic situation, a pressure situation. That's where the mental game, that's the edge. So when I can share that with athletes and share that with younger athletes, that I don't care how awesome you are.
But if you're paying attention and doing all this work every day, this little work every day, it's going to show up in that moment when you really need it. And that's where greatness happens. So in those moments, like I'm sure there's people listening too, right, like they need to perform at their highest level during certain moments. And there's always those little moments that you have in life.
What are some things that we can be doing to better prepare ourselves for those moments? You know, there's a lot. I think the first thing that comes to mind, especially when we're getting prepared for the moments or an unknown is have a relationship with your breath. Like literally, when I say that, people are like, what does that mean?
That means that I want you to drop into your breath. I want you to push out everything in your life for three, maybe the five seconds. That's it. It's easy to do and it's easy not to do.
But if you can do it, right, you do it. I like to get people going three, five, seven times a day where they just drop into their breath, get really prising, get where their feet out and just get back and get out, move on, let it go. And when do you do this? You do it in the shower.
You do it when you're looking at social media, when you're eating, when you're reading a book, when you're walking from class to class or from meeting to meeting, there's so many times we're going to drop into our breath and drop out of our breath. And I think that's huge. And I think the more we can have that, the more present we're going to be, the more intentional we're going to be. So I think that's one thing.
Another skill or another approach that I love is called an MVP. And I have my athletes do their daily MVPs, which is meditate, visualization, and powerful self-talk. And if you want to actually be your own most valuable player, spend that time every day connecting the mind and the body, the more that you have that mind and the body, the more grounded you're going to be. So I think it's a good strategy to do, not only to connect the mind and body, but to do it before a game, or maybe to wind down from a game.
And there's tons of other things that you can do to get prepared for the moment, get prepared for the unknown. But I think breath and connecting the mind and the body is probably where we need to start. Yeah, it's amazing how in those moments, it's almost like you're holding your breath, because things are so tense. And when you either learn that too, when you actually do breathe, a lot of it's through your belly, right?
Yeah, sure. And when you release it, you feel that tension start to go away. But so many of us, when you don't know that, you're in those moments and that's why you clench your fists and you get those clammy hands and you're breathing so heavily because you're not letting it out. Yeah.
When you hear these two words, or I think it's probably now three, calm and aggressive. Those are two opposite ends of the spectrum, right? Calm and aggressive. But we can actually live in that space.
That is where when you're playing free and you're in the zone and you're flowing, man, you're aggressive and you're getting after it, but there's a calmness. And so that's where when we talk about just getting into our breath, I mean, that allows us to be calm and aggressive. And also when you see people that are competing in sports and they want it so bad and they're just so into it and they're tense and they're losing their breath, they're basically gripping the bat. And when you grip the bat in baseball, it's really hard not only to hit the ball, but to see the ball.
So that goes for anything in life. I've seen people grip the bat in a boardroom. So we need to drop into our breath, we need to get into second gear to get us back into fifth gear, right? But it's just about loosening our grip because, hey, man, the more that we're relaxed, the more we're going to be more powerful.
We will be, but we just have to practice it. Yeah, it's so interesting. So for your business side of things, like you step out of college, you're doing something on your own, like walk us through those first few months. Like, how did you approach getting your first few clients?
How long did things take for them to really kind of kick up into gear for you? You know, it's interesting. I love JFK University where I went. It's an applied program and they were very, it's an aggressive program.
I mean, you have to do four or five internships while you're going to school. And so for me, I built great relationships with great people throughout my internships. So when I was done, I was fortunate to go back to either some of the team I worked with, some of the people that I worked with, and they became my first clients. So that kind of helped me, you know, get my first couple clients.
But as far as like, what it looked like, it was, man calling it was joy. I was like, wow, I'm finally doing what I'm doing. This is great. I get to wake up.
And it's like, I get to like literally just be just joyous. And it was just so fun. I remember like writing emails and selling myself because there was a moment or actually there was a long time in my last job. You know, with the company I worked for, they were awesome.
Like they were, they gave me tons of opportunity that the people around me and my bosses, they were great. But what I was doing, I didn't, I didn't love. And so just by noticing my emails, like selling me, selling grant power, it just felt so good versus selling a product or something else. And so the first couple months, I was just, I was just happy just to do that.
But it was just like, I was a little kid in a candy store because I was going all over the place. I was like talking to athletes and my coaches, I was going all in, and I was just going to schools and just popping up and just saying, hey, this is me. And so it was just fun. But I was a little all over the place because I was so excited about it.
But then as I started to get more clients and everything started to get a little bit more structured, if you will. Got you. So what, in terms of getting like, what was your strategy to get the clients? Was it showing up, writing emails, all that you mentioned?
You know, it's, you got to do more than just one thing. You know, with social media being a big tool, I think having a presence on social media, I think hitting every platform and creating content was good for me and showed that credibility. Yeah. And, and, but I think that when I started to get more into my role, I started to go, I got to do more than just being a mental performance coach, like just like doing the job itself.
As much as that's the core of it. I got to do other things. And so that's why I wrote a book. That's why I have a podcast, 90% mental.
I'm starting to do a lot of more video content and selling that. So I'm starting to do other things. And with that being said, I'm on top of it, I'm doing leadership training and I'm working more with corporations. So I'm just, I'm hitting all different areas of kind of my strength and, and my effectiveness.
So it's, it's a little bit of everything. It's hard to do one thing because there's so much out there. So I just, I've been maximizing it since I started. No doubt.
So you know how I can sports when you're playing or say someone who's starting a sport that they, all of a sudden they get it. They're like, I understand it. Like, I understand how to swing the club. I understand how to throw the ball now.
For you, was there a moment like that in your business where you're like, finally, like this is, this is the hump I finally got over. Yeah, you know, I think what it was is because there was so much going on in my head. I'm trying to run a business. I'm trying to make money, trying to make a living and trying to add credibility.
Like it was all these things and they were, they were stresses and pressures, but they were good ones. But it was, I don't know, I would say probably about a year and a half ago or so. I, there was just, there was this confidence that was like, it was, I don't know, I just, I had come to peace with a few things as far as my work. And I just, I don't know, I just going to work and just like, there was always a little bit of a pressure.
Like, am I, am I going to bring value? Am I going to, am I going to say the wrong things? Like all this, there was some negative self-talk that was coming in and, but now that doesn't come in because I'm controlling my thoughts because I just feel more comfortable my skin and what I do. And I think it's just over time.
You just get to that point. But what I love is I say this and I think this helps me with my confidence and help me with that, that, that turning point that you're talking about. And I say this to myself every time I work with a team, anytime I do a keynote, when I get in front of a group of people, I always say these three things. I get to do this.
They want to hear me and tap into your joy. And those three things just, they get me and they get me in a position where I'm like, it switches me on. And then, so I've learned how to do that a long time ago. And I just kind of, that helped me kind of get to that point.
It wasn't, you know, certain type of customer or client that I was working with. I think it was just more intrinsic where I just kind of clicked and started just trusting my craft. Do you feel like all people should sort of have that little mantra that you have? Like, as you're kind of going into something to be able to kind of talk to yourself, like give yourself that little bit of a boost before you do something?
A hundred percent. Even if you've been doing something for a long time, like you have a Tuesday morning meeting, like you haven't even been running it over and over and over again. It's part of your routine. Keep doing it.
It's kind of like stretching, right? I mean, you have the stretch before, for the most part. I mean, there's new studies now and stretching before you work out. But it's like a part of your routine.
So don't don't abandon it. Like just, I don't know. It's part of a best practice. It's my standard.
And sometimes I don't even need to do it, but I do it because I'm honoring my routine. Yeah. Like, I think routines are so important. You look at, like, I look at athletes and business and you look at them together, right?
Like, and you look at some of the most successful teams and athletes, they have everything in place. They have the structure in place. They have their team in place. They have their routines in place.
And then business oftentimes is where entrepreneurs, we lose that. Like, because we don't have that structure. We don't have that team. We don't have those routines.
What are your thoughts on that? You know, the more I think about it, say that again, because I have a couple thoughts on that. Restructure that question. Yeah.
So in terms of how, so the same way in which great athletes perform, I think that business people can take a page out of the athletes book. So in the same way in which, you know, oftentimes those teams have that structure in place where, you know, they do the physical training, that the mental training, that their, their health is intact. They have a pre shot routine or a pre game routine before they do something. I think that businesses oftentimes would be successful in entrepreneurs if they took that approach.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I'm going to speak from kind of my own experiences and for myself and from what I saw, like in my 17 years in the corporate, corporate place, but I saw so many people go into work every day with no intention.
They just kind of show up and just kind of everything kind of works. Yeah. And if we're performing a job, I don't want us to hope. I mean, I understand the word hope and like, if you're down your love, you don't have a place to live, no food, you know, no transportation.
Yeah. Hope. I want you to hope. But you're performing.
I don't want you to hope anything. I want you to know. And so how do we know we have to get into our, we have to be intentional. And I always believe if you know what your intention is, right, make that part of your routine, that will create a mindset.
And so, and how do we do that? Like, when we wake up in the morning, we have to actually sit with ourselves and go, what do I want to be intentional about today? And then we have to understand what it looks like and what it feels like and then connect it with our breath. Just spend a couple minutes, whether that is before you leave or it's in your car or you're in the train or sometimes transportation where you have moments with yourself connected.
As soon as you actually like, you create your intention, boom, there's a road that's your lane. It's guiding you. Now, what's going to happen is probably going to get distracted. So you have to revisit that intention in the middle of the day and then you have to actually reflect on it towards the end.
But if we're doing that every day, right, and all my athletes do this. So that's one page of the athletic book that I think that these corporate athletes could, and again, there's so many other things. If you grab a new work, meditation, you know, create their daily mantras, tons of stuff that athletes do that they can do as well. How long do you think it takes someone to develop that?
Like in the morning routine, that thing that gets them primed for the day? How long does that take to really develop? Well, to develop, I think, to make it a habit, I mean, the research is what between, I think, 21 to 30 days. But the thing about this work is, like I said earlier, it's easy to do and it's easy not to do.
So when you think about setting your intention, how long does that take? When I talked about, you know, having a relationship with your breath, I want you to get in and out for three to five seconds. How long does that take? As meditation is probably in visualization, probably takes a little bit longer.
But still, when you're literally trying to work on your spirit, your emotions, your mindset, it doesn't take that long. But it's just so easy not to do because we get so distracted. I mean, there was a research in 2000 or 2000 where the intention span was about 12 seconds before we got distracted. Now it's about six or seven seconds.
So with that being said, if we're getting so distracted because of social media and technology and all these things in our life, then we need to be more so in our routine, more so wanting to make this a part of our best practice and routine because we're getting so much distracted. So I don't know, I say, you know, do it for a month, but just spend a couple minutes a day on it. It's amazing really how people like yourself come on and this stuff works. Practice these things, these stuff works and people know it, but yet they don't implement it.
You know, it's funny, when you think about all the research, all the information, all the data, the ten ways of doing this, the seven ways of doing that, why is it that one person can do it and the other person tries to do it and fails? And it comes down to consistency. All it is, is the person who actually keeps doing it. It stays motivated and there's other dynamics involved, I get it, but it's about consistency.
It's about doing little small things every single day and just compound interest. The more we do something, just a little bit each day, man, when you started on day one, where are we going to be on day 30? Like, trust me and trust yourself that you're going to have so much more development, so much confidence, so much runway with this work. Now, let's say six months, 12 months.
So I've seen beautiful transformations with people that have committed to this work a year later, it'll come back to me or I'll see their development over a year. And I'm like, wow, man, when you started, you weren't vulnerable. You were not confident. You didn't trust yourself.
And you are this different person now because you committed to the work. What separates, and I don't know if you know, what separates people who commit and people who can't commit? Oh, man, I think there's a lot of things. I think the people that don't commit, I think that fear of failure comes in a lot.
The lack of being vulnerable, not trusting themselves. And I think a lot of it, too, is belief systems. And that's where you get into this, I think the hardcore work, when you're doing individual work with athletes and executives, is really getting to where are these belief systems coming from? What happened?
Because a lot of times there's about four or five different developmental stages that happen through our life, where certain things happen. And it totally dictates the way we view the world, how we see challenges, how we see success, and all these other things in life. And so sometimes these belief systems, they're a barrier to us to actually committing because we don't trust ourselves. I don't know if I want to do this because it's probably not going to stick.
What does that belief come from? What happened when you were eight years old, right? To me, that's the fun. That's fun because even though it can be very deep for the person, some of these belief systems or the negative belief systems, that doesn't allow them to commit to things, they're tough.
They're hard. But when you get them to crack it open, crack it open their chest and be invulnerable, and they get less in. Like, oh, this is what I mean. To be honest with you, Colin, my negative belief system that stayed with me for decades was that I wasn't smart enough.
I played one of the hardest positions in all sports, quarterback, and I still thought that I wasn't smart enough. So when I got over that, man, my life changed and I got so much more lighter, and it's just great. So I can have those breakthroughs with athletes and executives. That's just awesome.
What's next for Grant? Five years, 10 years down the future. What do you want to accomplish? A lot.
There's just a saying that I have been saying to myself ever since I started this. It's just to play a big game, play a big game with my life, with my health, with my relationships, and with my career. So I think hopefully I'll write another book. I won't even say, hopefully I'll write another book, expand my podcast and really start just expanding my brand and just doing some fun, creative things at the collegiate and professional Olympic level.
I'm excited for that. I'm open to the universe. I'm open to whatever's coming, and I'll tell you what, in the last six months, 12 months, there's been so much cool stuff that's happening to me because I've been open to it. So that's kind of just kind of open to what's going to happen in the next five to 10 years.
I love that. Well, if people wanted to reach out, learn more about you, get a copy of your book, check out your podcast. Where's the best place everyone can go? Awesome.
You can check me out on my website, which is GameFacePerformance.com. You can buy my book there. You can check out my podcast there. But you can also check out my podcast on any other platform that's out there and podcast platform.
And you can also buy my book on Amazon as well and Barnes and Noble.com. And if you want to check me out on social media, my IG and Twitter handle is GFPMindset, stands for GameFacePerformance. So it's GFPMindset. You want to follow me on Facebook.
That is GameFacePerformance. And if you want to follow me or link in with me on LinkedIn, it's just Grandpa. Amazing. Well, I'll share all these links to make it super simple grant for people to connect with you.
And the way we're on the show here, Grant, is we're going to give you the floor today and the opportunity to share with the audience a thought of the day. So one thing or one thought that we can all go home with today. I would say, man, I've been saying this almost on every podcast and I've said it earlier today. Just play a big game.
Show up every day. Be vulnerable. Know where you want to go and just play a big game. You'll be surprised on what happens to you and what the universe is going to do for you.
It's a beautiful thing. So play a big game in all aspects of your life. Awesome. Play it big, everyone.
Well, Grant, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule and sharing your wisdom on the Daily Grind here today. Thank you. I appreciate it. Everyone, hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Be sure you subscribe to the podcast. Drop us a comment. Share this out with your friends. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode until then.
Call them. We're signing off. And always remember to keep on grinding.