Chad (00:02.747)
Welcome to the struggle bubble. I'm Chad Kutting.

Craig (00:07.208)
And I'm Craig Surgey

Chad (00:08.894)
He sure is. And we're back with another episode of the Struggle Bubble. It has been a fun last couple of weeks. Getting to speak with Stanford pitching coach Thomas Eager last week. The week before with Robert Hatta. It's almost like we're doing something right, Craig. I'm not sure what it is, but had a couple of great guests last couple of weeks.

Craig (00:27.595)
Yeah, it's been two elements, right? You've gone from the sporting world into the business world. So it was all life changing family men and all the crap that comes with it. So it's

Chad (00:40.937)
And

There is a lot of crap that comes with it. the comments and conversations that have come up in the last couple of weeks have also been great and just reinforces the entire reason why we're doing the Struggle Bubble podcast. We're all living it. We're all in it together. We hear stories like Thomas, the way he grows up, the way he approaches his team and his family and his relationships. And the same thing with Robert, realizing what's most important to him every cycle of life. You made it professionally, has a family and then is

able to reassess everything going on and really identify what motivates each of them. And Thomas had brought something up in one of our breaks last week of, are we hitting on the right topics? I don't know, I'm just talking, what are people going to resonate with? And I just kind of gave the feedback. We never know.

But by sharing our story, people are then able to identify in just different pieces. You never know what's going to relate or what somebody's going through, but just sharing the story and how we're approaching life is the biggest element right now.

Craig (01:44.138)
Well, I said that's why we started this, right? Is the group of friends are all feeling the same pinch and we've got a guest coming on in a few weeks. I won't reveal his name right now, but he has a very interesting story. He's also English and transitioned over to California. But when he took one of his roles, a story he me in the past was, I didn't know what I was doing. So I held a dinner and he did know what he was doing. I should just reiterate that. He's a very intelligent person, but.

when he put in that role, it was like that, my God, imposter syndrome. And he got a group of people in the same role around a dinner table and said, okay, let's be transparent. This is where I am. This is where we wanna go. I'm kind of figuring this out as I go. And they all go, my God, thank God somebody brought this up because we're in exactly the same situation. So it would be great when he comes on in a few weeks and I ask him to tell that story a little bit about his life as well.

No, totally, I mean, I've been out in the crazy week last week. I'll go through that with you in a second, but same thing. I did a player review this week and the parents were like, hey, I love listening to it because we are absolutely living the same struggle bubble. We totally jump in from drop off to pick up to who's got this, who's got that, how we're gonna deal with that, are we going on vacation? We're going on Sunday. Did you pack this or did I? And so it was great to hear that and also,

Shout out to We Are Expanding. We are in all continents now, Chad. I think that was a both.

Chad (03:20.246)
Is that a question or statement? I actually did not look at the dashboard today. We were close. We got Australia. We ticked that one off. I don't know if we've gotten South America just yet. Did we get anybody down there?

Craig (03:29.094)
I don't know, I've not looked either, but I know we're growing. I know from the last 30 days we've had 250 plus downloads, so please keep listening, subscribing. It just helps us. And again, it helps us as in we wanna hear what you want us to talk about, who we can get to interview, and see if we can help anybody out there in that struggle bubble. I'll...

Chad (03:54.036)
Yeah. I think that number would be a little bit higher, Craig, if Thomas knew how to share on Instagram. So we're going to have to, I saw Jenna was able to post, but I'm not sure if Thomas understands the intricacies of sharing to his social media presence.

Craig (04:09.593)
Yeah, it's a little bit like, and I love Tom, he's pretty psych. Keyboard. Keyboard smash. And you know, throw a baseball, totaler.

Chad (04:22.421)
I hope he's listening and not listening at the same time. So we'll see what happens in the next 48 hours when he's able to get online. But appreciate everybody tuning in. We are growing and I think one of the biggest indicators of success or that we're on onto something, Craig, is my Instagram algorithm is now all similar content of.

moms and dads, parents going through, struggling and identifying, you know, those different memes of what it takes to raise kids, what it takes to wake up and be motivated at work. So I think our content is striking a nerve with all the right parties across our social media and listening platforms.

Craig (04:58.722)
Yeah, and just to add onto that, we did a connection this week. Somebody reached out to us to connect with Robert about the VC world. So again, same thing. you...

you wanna connect with some of the hosts, we will happily do that if it makes sense and they're okay with that. So any seven year old baseball player that wants to speak to Thomas about going to Stanford, absolutely reach out and we'll put him on blast. Actually, we may just give everyone his phone number.

Chad (05:27.922)
I think that's what we do. We just actually publish that and if you want your child to be recruited by Stanford and become a future major leaguer, here are the 25 steps necessary. It'd actually be a good test to see if anybody actually listened to what he had to say and how to approach and how we're looking at it and the kids are eight, nine, 10 years old. Let's have some fun. Don't put the pressure on them that they need to be recruited by Stanford this early.

Craig (05:54.07)
my life.

That's my life's goal, so, and we just crushed it. All right, so let's go into last week, just so everybody that's listening. This week, Chad and I are actually gonna do a review. actually on episode number nine. So we nearly made it to the 10th. So we've got some questions from people over the last eight episodes we were gonna kind of touch on and walk through. We may not get through all of them, so I apologize. But the struggle bubble, last week was a long one for me between work and soccer and everything in between.

team to Colorado to play an NPL showcase. Real struggle bubble and I'll say that with open arms of it was over a hundred. I think it was close to a hundred and five, eight, ten, something around that on one of the game days. So the kids did fantastic. Just real tough environment to play in. We went with 13 players within the first 10 minutes. One of the center back fractured a wrist and

fell on it funner. So that put us down to 12. We won that game against a team from Texas I believe they were 6 -2 they weren't great.

And then we lost the second game one nil and that's when it was, I think it was 105 or 108 degrees. It was roasting. And it was a struggle. 12 kids, rotation of one sub as much as I could every five, six, seven minutes. The facility, fantastic. They did a great job. The referees, et cetera.

Craig (07:26.335)
In those games, you're only allowed to sub once a half a player. You can't just constantly rotate like we can in regional leagues. But they opened that up so you could do as much as you wanted. They did two water breaks a half, so two breaks in a 35 -minute period. But yeah, it was a struggle. But the biggest thing, and I said this to the kids was, and the parents, this is all about experience. Don't, know, wins and losses will happen. But, you know, they finished the first game, they went to Boulder, they

ice creams, the next morning at breakfast all the kids are Colorado Boulder University sweatshirts and they bought all the swag and yeah, totally. So I think it was a really good experience for the kids to play different areas. I think we played Florida, Texas and Missouri, I think it was.

Chad (08:03.997)
Gotta get the swag.

Chad (08:16.594)
The structure of these tournaments, Craig, is it a, it's an opportunity to play the best talent from across the country? Is it a showcase? What's the age group that you're in with?

Craig (08:25.978)
Yeah.

So this was the 2010 girls. It's not my team. was helping cover another coach that was out for a few days, actually coaching another academy session. But this is, you have to win our regional league. like NorCal, it's the highest version of that age group. It's called NPL. You have to win that league to then go into this next round as such, which then incorporates the whole of the US. So it's top teams. And it's again,

we should do a session about how fragmented the US soccer platform is, but there's ECNL, there's GA, there's list goes on of acronyms. But our team is GA and they played two leagues this year. They played GA and NPL. And so they did okay in GA and then they won NPL in the regional, which then pushed them into the national. So you're playing good teams, you're not playing, potentially not playing GA teams, you're potentially not playing ECNL teams.

playing the NPL teams.

Chad (09:30.446)
And that's the, mean, in the back of my mind, it's some of the, and the baseball side, at least you have these big showcase programs where it's really just about making money for the tournament or the home club. And I was curious if there was something similar or if this is a separate, you know, well run event where it's about the soccer, it's about the kids and not just grinding people through, you know, game after game.

Craig (09:50.809)
It is, it is, yeah it is. There's college coaches there and national ID stuff and so it is a little different. The funny thing to me, I'll be honest with you, is okay, Colorado shouldn't have been that hot. kind of, I think was the hottest it's been in 25 years or something like that. But it blows my mind, like why the hell are we playing soccer tournaments in July on the West Coast? Like it's so hot.

So yeah, it is what it is. You try and fit it in when available, but it's a bit of a mind blower that we would have kids. And it's one of those things people, as I said, traveled from Florida to Colorado. It's 110 degrees in any normality, you would cancel those games because of heat. And they did do a good job. They moved some games around. They took everything off turf. So it all went to grass, which I thought was a good idea. Normally you would cancel because it's way too hot. But when people have spent thousands of dollars traveling across the

you kind of got to go with it as best you can.

Chad (10:51.829)
Yeah. And it sounds like they added some flexibility to make sure that the kid's health is front and center. Get the water breaks, get the substitutions, all that, right.

Craig (10:56.437)
Yeah, yeah, we had, when the kid broke their arm, we had a first aid tent right in the corner of the field, like there's one spot between four fields, so there was stuff there immediately. They did a really good job of making sure everything was dialed in.

Chad (11:12.275)
And you mentioned it's a new team for you and you're kind of filling in. How do you step in as a coach? You know your soccer, you know your X's and O's, all that. You don't have to worry about that, but there's a sniff test. This guy's coming in, what does he know? How does he present himself? Am I going to listen to him? How did you approach this new group of kids?

Craig (11:31.39)
Yeah, great.

Great question, actually. So initially, it's an email to the parents saying a coach is missing or the coach is doing something else and the coach that was missing, she actually, again, alphabet soup, she was one of the coaches picked to represent the GA. So what happens on that level is they choose coaches across the nation, they pick X amount of kids that go to a showcase and then coaches go in and pick those players. So that's why she couldn't make it and I stepped in.

an email who I am, resume. Then I did a couple of training sessions with the girls. And then for me, it's all about at that age, just starting high school.

and Thomas talks about it last week, it's like, you gotta get to know the kids. The X's and O's, the kids know and you know, and we put a plan together and we try and execute it. But it's more about the opinions, personalities, all those things, and we're in a tough situation. You got 13 kids that then drop to 12. I don't really know where everyone's best position is. It's just what I see at the time. So it was a very, and this is how I am anyway when I coach, it's transparency. What do you guys think? I know what I think we should do, and I've got an

of what we can do, but I've only been in a situation once with you guys, so I need some feedback, and if you're not comfortable in a position, you need to give me feedback on that. Then you take all of that, and you take, extract what you think is right, and then you push that into the game, and you're gonna put noses out sometimes, naturally.

Craig (13:08.203)
The hard one is, I find hard, is I want to listen to every single parent. They're trying to impress me immediately about certain things. Maybe it's their playing experience, their past, whatever. And then what they think's best for their kid. That's the difficult one for me because I want to encourage that high communication and transparency.

I also wanna be respectful of what they're telling me. And then I generally don't say too much back. I let them do a lot of talking, absorb, and then I do what I think's right. And you know, again, it's open conversations with the kids more than anything. At that age, as I said, getting into high school, they know. They know quite a lot. They've been playing seven, eight, nine, 10 years.

Craig (14:03.961)
Again, it's their team. I can't do it for them. you know, we poured England getting KO'd in the final.

Chad (14:11.967)
I wasn't gonna bring it up. I wasn't gonna bring it up. I was gonna stay away from it this entire time. I think let's pause on the new team that you went out to Colorado with and just vent. I'm here for you, bud. Walk me through the

Craig (14:23.79)
Jesus Christ. I, you never, oh, by myself, I do, can't, I, I'm, I have a 1966 shirt that I wear all the time and I cannot wear it because every time I wear it, we lose or we've lost. So I'm superficial.

Chad (14:27.499)
First, where were you watching? Were you by yourself? Were you pacing?

Chad (14:46.603)
Superficial, superstitious. You can be superficial too, but that's a whole separate conversation for a different podcast.

Craig (14:48.029)
Sorry, superstitious. Yeah. I'm superstitious, right? So I'm there. And then I'm just hoping we go. I'm just like, you got nothing to lose. I mean, obviously you can lose a final, you got nothing to, just get after it. And there's pockets where...

I'm super excited and seeing the future like, banning them at 21 and Palmer and you know, the list of the Youngs, but I've gone through that, right? The golden generation of Scholes, Beckham, et cetera. I've seen all of this. Dude, and then it's just, again, I go back to somebody, think it Phil Foden did an interview, he was like, at some point, we have to step up as a team.

Chad (15:33.224)
Yeah. Well, let's directly connect it though, Craig. say you are named England's coach.

Craig (15:33.75)
I can't do it for you.

Chad (15:43.057)
What's your locker room conversation after that game of where they need to improve, what they need to do? And I know it's completely unfair. It's not like they got blown out. It's a close game throughout, but you felt the momentum shift in the middle of the game. The whole crowd is now back into it. It's like, holy shit, we got a chance. We can do this. And then, I mean, a late substitution.

Craig (16:03.314)
Yeah, yeah.

that's in the heart.

Well, I'm pissed, I mean, I get it from a coaching standpoint, like you can't concede two goals on the right side. Like they've shown where they're gonna go. And you know, I see Walker going over and I'm in my own head as I'm watching it. I'm like, if he dives and goes for it, he's probably gonna get it. If he dives and misses, they're through. So I understand why he didn't. And you guys see, I actually thought the punditry was good because Walker's goal, you heard the punditry say in

this is semi -final, Watkins, not Walker. He took that first touch and he saw the defender's legs open and he drilled it in the bottom corner. Now, that's way more coaching than I think a lot of pundits have ever put into it, because normally you wouldn't recognize that the legs were open to put that ball in the bottom corner.

but that's the small things that you try and notice throughout the game, right? So for me in the changing room after that, and I'm the worst in the changing room and the best in the changing room, if we've won, I'm all in, dude. Like we are partying, we're having a great time, whatever. We lost, I'm super pissed, things are getting smashed. Like I'm

Craig (17:17.868)
What else could I have done? I'm so fucking mad. What else could I have done in the game that I go through, I analyze it, I look at it, and even with the girls, we lost that one game that I was coaching. But what else could I have done to change the game? At the end of the game, we were one -nil down in Colorado.

I ended up just throwing four players forward. I'm like, we'll play three in the back, we'll skip the midfield and we're just gonna go long. Like try and make something happen. Just get us a goal, get us through, find something. So at the end of the game, it's like, how do you analyze this? Like number one, I never analyze a game unless until 24 hours after. There's way too much emotions going on for you to really take it all in. And then I thought it was...

I've been a stickler the whole tournament of Harry Kane should you don't drop the England captain I get it he's a menace in the box I think the Starling learn a move into that isn't there anymore

Chad (18:19.052)
Yeah.

Craig (18:20.868)
I think we're a lot more flow now than he would have been amazing in Beckham's era that someone can deliver a ball like that into the box is unbelievable. And someone like him can finish with both feet in his head. But I Garry Safkin did a great job by resigning just to get to it. Like I don't think he can get anything more out of that team is what I'm trying to get to. I really don't think he can get more out of it. And so...

you're proud that you got what you got, you missed the mark, right, which is really frustrating that you've been to two finals in a row, in the Euros, and you didn't come away with a win. I'd also say Spain is probably the best team in the world right now, or close to.

Chad (19:07.227)
Yeah, taking nothing away from what Spain was able to do. mean, they put the pressure in the right spots and it's just, as you tie it up and down, right? Nobody's going to be perfect. You have the best players in a country.

playing at the top level and somebody's going to win, somebody's going to lose, but you still try and think like you just said, what could I have done differently? A foot here, a dive here, a pressure here, because it just takes one play. mean, if you look at the entire second goal that goes through, you had a little bit, I don't want to say lazy, you had a slow reacting back line and it just got in the wrong spot. Yeah.

Craig (19:42.453)
Well, and they've been battered as well, right? They're exhausted, right? They're on the back foot. And the thing is, I actually, just to analyze it a bit more, I was texting another friend.

England wants that pressure, they want him to try and deliver. I thought they contained Yamau really good. And just in a side note about everything that we talk about in struggle, bubble and coach and everything else, that kid is 16 and his footwork is unbelievable. And I his training methods the start of this week. It's two hour individual, it's one hour another day, you one day a week, then it's one hour of weak foot training. It's one hour full foot training. It's fitness, it's exercises, ABCs, it's small sided games.

like.

This for me is the core of what we're trying to train seven and eight and nine years in the US We have the best athletes in the world in this country and we're looking at winning and losing over everything not over everything but sometimes we're looking at winning and losing over development and I watch a kid it like him at 16 and I'm watching MLS next that are still playing 16 year olds in u17 u19. I'm like When are we gonna wake up and realize that this individual skill at?

six, seven, eight, nine, 10, all the way up, and then you start encouraging it into mainstream 11 v 11, these kids are good enough to go to that highest level. It just, it totally like we are missing the gap.

Chad (21:06.989)
Well, it's interesting how, I mean, we prioritize, I mean, kind of abrupt shift in topic here, but it's just relatable to everything we're going through in running these leagues. So you bring that back to how you set up a rec program in soccer, how we do little league baseball, where we're going to enter a fall ball season and have a conversation. Traditionally, you have one practice, one game. And that's how you go. And there's an element of you're going to learn so much in a game style situation.

But when you're eight, nine, 10 years old, are we better set with one to two hours focusing on the finer points of what it takes to be a great athlete and then put the bigger components, the wins and losses, the game time situations for a different time. But everyone feels, the feedback we get is it just feels good to have a game situation. The problem is there is not a lot of instruction. There shouldn't be any instruction happening on game days.

We've said this before, the practice is for the practice time. The instruction is for the practice time. The games are where the kids, the players need to actually show up and execute, right? The training's done and just finding a little bit of a balance there. So I think everything you just said kind of resonates of we've over -rotated a little bit in the States to the competition side.

Craig (22:28.271)
One is marketing, I mean, what America's really good at. Sales and marketing. Like, if your team isn't a whatever level you wanna call it, then your kid isn't gonna make college. I had this conversation this week again with a player, Eval, and I referred to Thomas, and I said, I'm gonna keep using this. If

has shifted scores, obviously back then they didn't have the, what do they call it, the NIL, yeah, they didn't have the chance, yeah. If that was available when he was playing, because he didn't start, was it the first two years or the first three years or two and a half, whatever it was, and he had the option to move score, he may never have become a professional. Because nobody knows on timing, nobody knows, you know, all these variables that kick in.

Chad (22:58.705)
the transfer portal or the NIL too, yeah.

Craig (23:22.618)
And it was super important to me to hear that from Thomas to again relate this to parents. Like, yeah, you can switch and jump and do whatever you want. It's your child. It's what you think is best for your kid. But someone like Thomas is a prime example that if he'd have done that, he probably, we never know, but he may have never made where he got to because he didn't get his chance until two and a half years in. Right, so it's.

Chad (23:49.103)
Yeah. We're just focusing on what you have in front of you and being able to execute. I mean, you want to talk about a recap of the episodes that we've done. We did a large episode on accountability. It is our responsibility as parents to provide optionality, provide exposure, provide experiences. Try every sport when you're young.

I never got into soccer as a kid. I played in the backyard or would play at school, but never got into organized soccer. And there are times that would have been great. A different, just let me know if I would have enjoyed it or not enjoyed it.

Craig (24:23.881)
Well, we also gotta talk about time, right? These kids went to Colorado, yeah.

Chad (24:28.473)
But that's what I mean, the accountability to go in and take the time necessary. We've talked about the 10 ,000 hours. It's been a little bit debunked, but it's really about the motivation, the time spent. But it's on me as a parent to be accountable, to provide the opportunities. And it's on the kid to be accountable to themselves, to have the drive to go in the backyard, get the 100 touches, to do the 100 juggles.

Craig (24:51.661)
Well, so you're totally right, right? And there's a part to that though, there needs to be a break. I think people again in this country specifically, we need to be in camp every week. You're never gonna make it unless you're at the Stanford pitching coaching session with Tom. Like, dude, Thomas is not looking at your nine year old at the Stanford baseball camp.

Give them a break and what they don't see, I shouldn't say this, and not again, not everybody, but desire. You need to take a break and to generate that desire to get better and grow again. And I think people really, me personally, I'm seeing this in dance right now, we're preparing for a competition at Tahoe.

Craig (25:45.248)
I'm like, you need a break after this. You guys are absolutely exhausted. And that then, what I'm seeing in that world is, I talk to my kids about this all the time, is if you're a natural leader, you bring the level of the room up. If people are messing around, you snap them back. That's not the coaches, yes it is the coaches role is in keeping everybody organized. But the

builds the environment that you naturally keep pushing yourself to the next level, the next level, the next level. Now you lose that when you're in a continuous loop. You need to take a break, you need to stop, you need to go do something else, you need to go swim, whatever that is, to then raise that bar again. And that's why you have pre -seasons, that's why you have players that take four weeks, whatever it is, right? So I think we miss that in this country as well because everyone's hitting me up. What camp should we do? What?

Do whatever you want. Like right now, go and enjoy it. Take some time.

Chad (26:39.375)
What's the perspective on multiple sports? As you come from England, for me, it's been about one sport works on a skill that is related to the other sport, right? There's athleticism, there's footwork, there's hand -eye coordination, there's a bunch of things, and expands the scope. And I think exactly to your point, that break then allows you to reflect on, do you miss it? Do you miss that sport when you're not playing it?

versus never having a moment to actually pull your head up and say, am I doing this because I'm being told to do this or am I doing this because I enjoy

Craig (27:16.062)
turns into a job, dude. That's the biggest thing for me is I used to love playing, but I also love just playing out in the streets with my friends. Right. And it goes from, and I also try and generate it through groups as well. Right. Like I had the guys I played football with at a certain level. And then at the guys I played football with, like kick about

then you have your school friends, whatever. But to me, the multi -sport is important, but it's also the friends group that relates to that as well. I don't, you know,

It's a tough question because I look at singularity sports like golf and swimming, for example, like it's so technique -orientated, like you have to just grind, you must love. And we talked about this, I think we talked about this in the past, like when you're an athlete, you love pain. Simple as that, you don't even feel like, I did the peloton. Yeah.

Chad (28:19.224)
Same can be said for parenting, I think.

Craig (28:22.458)
So if you love that, get kids, it. Like I went on Peloton last night, like an absolute moron. Like I rode on two days ago.

I'm like, know what, I'm just gonna max it out today. I need to feel the burn in my lungs and my legs, otherwise I feel like I've not worked out. And I read all the documents, like you should have your zone two, zone three, that's how you increase, you know, and I know this, but if I don't feel the burn, I don't feel like I've worked out. So there's something, let's say that again.

Chad (28:53.058)
Which instructor was it last night? Which instructor did you go with last night?

Craig (28:59.288)
Craig Surger.

Chad (29:01.393)
No, on the bike, on the Peloton. is your own? you're even crazier. I thought you had a power zone on in the background. You literally went, who does that?

Craig (29:02.96)
Yeah, me. I... Yeah, I did... I did a pyramid. I did... Yeah, I did... No. No.

Craig (29:16.389)
Idiot I Mean but it's

Chad (29:17.843)
Okay, well, fair enough. I mean, if the shoe fits, I guess. would love to hear if anybody, would never, I don't have the self motivation to be able to do that. And maybe that says more about me than anything and you're better than me. That's why I never made it. But it's the bar setting, but so much of this

Craig (29:33.069)
And that's why you never play pro baseball, Chad. It's on you.

Chad (29:42.01)
is mental. And I think we wrap everything we just talked about into that mental aspect. If you go into a workout and you're not able to be present in that moment and get it, it's worthless. So you need to find the keys and the triggers. And for you, you just wanted to punish yourself, I guess. For me going in, it's been about the power zone. And shout out to that entire Peloton crew that keeps me on that bike every other day. But they set a foundation.

and they set a goal and then I'm able to wrap my head around it and say, all right, I'm going to accomplish this. And I think the same thing can be said for coaching, right? You set a structure, you set the culture, you set the boundaries of your team. You have expectations and they either rise to the challenge or they need a little bit of extra motivation in coaching.

Craig (30:29.995)
Yeah, totally right, totally right. And I'm a big component that you set the tone in the room and you level up and then the level keeps increasing. Keeps going, keeps going. And people, in my opinion, and I've seen it, will keep driving towards that or they fall off. It's pretty simple. And to your point, right, that's work, that's life, that's sports, that's all of it in between, honestly.

Chad (30:54.95)
Some of that comes in Craig now that I think about it when you transition from being an athlete you're in it day to day you have a Training schedule you have practice schedules you have game schedules and you're feeding it then you enter the work world The professional world where it's not it's structured but in a completely different way You mentioned earlier the you know the contact we're gonna interview in a couple weeks of in the imposter syndrome I don't know what to do next

But being able to self -motivate, and that was one of the biggest interview questions or things that I interviewed for when I was at the last few companies, are you a self -starter? Are you a self -motivator? Do you bring everybody around you up to another level? you establish that culture? Are you able to work well as a team? So much of that comes through being an athlete.

Craig (31:43.125)
Yeah. On accountability, especially team -orientated. know, go back to England, Kyle Walker must feel like shit because two girls came down on the same side. Right? So

Chad (31:55.016)
Yeah. Well, I was the first to start texting, who is this guy? What is he doing?

Craig (31:59.528)
Yeah, this is rough. But yeah, mean, it's the whole thing. It really is. And again, this is, it's just youth, we talked about it again, this week's evaluation, I told him to listen to the podcast. I'm like, look, we talked about it with Thomas, as in, you.

your accountability in the team, I'm there to provide the environment and then you accelerate that environment moving forwards, right? Same note, hey parents, you don't remember being seven, eight, nine, 10 and doing the stuff that these kids are doing.

Just FYI, right, you gotta take that into content all the time that when you're shouting, screaming, and the parents I was speaking to, they don't do any of that. They sit way back, they watch, they clap, good job, and the minute something gets a little like, why is she playing? What's Craig doing? Why is this? They take one more step back away from that group and start clapping again and like, this is great.

Chad (33:06.484)
That self -awareness is something and I mean living, we've done, this is our ninth episode now, we've had so many good nuggets between the folks that we've talked to and just our own personal experiences. But it continues to be difficult in those moments where you're in the thick of it, something is not going the way that you had planned it. And the ability to take a step back or take a breath, take a beat to actually see and understand, acknowledge that emotion and not act on it is the hardest

Craig (33:06.736)
Bye.

Chad (33:34.76)
And I'm guilty of that just with the kids, right? Lauren and the girls had been traveling. I'm trying to get Theo, brush his teeth, go to bed on time, eat the right foods. And you know, he's a nine -year -old. He's going through his own emotions. And the thing you want to do is we're building this company, this podcast, there's things we want to be able to accomplish. And you're in that zone. That kid's not in that same zone. Right? So how do you take a step back?

Craig (33:58.812)
Yeah.

Chad (34:01.436)
Take a deep breath. It happened last night, bedtime. We thought it was bedtime. It was late. We had watched a movie. For better or worse, thought Dumb and Dumber 2 would be funny to put on. It was funny and then inappropriate and the fast forward button, the pause button. But hey, you only live once.

Craig (34:24.316)
You know what, there's two things. There's a comical part there that I'll jump onto in a minute and we'll get everyone's opinion. I'm all in Frost in Powers, PG -13, Britain Says No. I'm lying, it's one of the funniest movies ever. So people can tell me yes or no on that.

Chad (34:37.381)
but 90s humor and early 2000s humor, but the point last night is it was late, we had a fun night, everything was going well, and I thought everyone was asleep, so I start walking upstairs. And Theo heard me, heard the steps, and walks out, where are going? You're going to bed? Can you stay downstairs? And the first gut reaction is, get back in your bed, I'm tired, I wanna go to bed right now, I wanna go to sleep.

but I was able to take a breath and go and the amount of times we're be able to go and lay in his bed or lay next to his bed and have a conversation and go to bed. And then he was out in five minutes. So like I felt good and that is, that doesn't happen often with me. Usually it is a little bit of an outburst that I'm working through, but the moral of story, taking a step back.

Craig (35:12.132)
key part

Craig (35:24.725)
You know, looking at how big the kids are getting, we're not gonna have much time of that left.

There's one part you came up there regarding like the outburst and reactionary stuff is I truly still think you need a friendship group and a mentor in there to help through that process. So when I was like, come on, like, what am I doing wrong with these seven year olds, eight year olds, whatever? I'm like, how the fuck are we losing against this team? Whatever. I called a friend, Dyer Redwood, he's down in Southern California, I've coached with for years, known for 10 plus years. And he's like, search.

What are you talking about dude? Like... That 8.

you know how we coach in Europe, you know, and Dai runs, just give some history, Dai's done child psychology and stuff in Wales, in Britain, and then he is the Manchester City Development Officer in Southern California. So Man City brought out all these little pods and anyway, so him and I always talking about youth development and he's like, you know what we coach, like individual technique, foundation phase.

development phase, introduced passive movement, again, all these different variations, you know it doesn't matter until they're 13, 14, 15. And you also know that college coaches and high level coaches.

Craig (36:53.603)
we'll be looking at these kids individually, ambition, confidence at eight, nine, 10. Then we start looking at a little bit more technique and tactics and stuff as they grow. And I know, and he reaffirmed me on this or reaffirmed it to me on this is like, we know at 14, 15, 16, that we're looking at these individual players that can fit into a system that can play at the next level with us. You know the winning and losing of the team that they're actually on doesn't

at all, completely irrelevant. And I'm like, I know, and I was like, I needed that 10 seconds of slap in the face, get your shit together, pull it back down where it should be, because you know you know better. And if parents don't listen to you and they want to go somewhere else, you know just to put your hands up and go, yep, you know what, two plus two is five. You're right, take your kids somewhere else.

And he's like, you just know the cycle. So I think that mentorship, irrelevant in life, business, whatever, and call it therapy, whatever, from a family standpoint, is so key to bring us back to, know, we know where our core morals and values are and, you know, outbursts are not part of it really.

Chad (38:04.88)
Yeah. 100%. I think we've, that's what we're trying to get through in this podcast is create a system, a network to reinforce what everybody's going through and explain how we're approaching

Right or wrong, it's just a way to get more awareness out there of everything that goes into it, the ins and the outs. And I think we mentioned on the episode with Thomas, just that empathy factor. You don't know what any one person is going through. So there might be an outburst on the sideline from a parent where things are going on at home or at work. There might be an outburst from a kid who's lashing out because something else is going on in their life. And for us, nobody knows what we're going through. Stay up late, get up early, work, travel, all that stuff.

Take a minute to understand where somebody's coming from, identify some common ground and be able to react and we can go from there. As we look back Craig on, it's not a huge amount of episodes, but I'm proud of what we've been able to build here and one foot in front of the other, right? We're going to keep building out episodes. It's fun for us. We're meeting some great people, having some great commentary. What's something that has surprised you throughout this process as we've built?

Did you think we would get to nine episodes when we first started recording?

Craig (39:21.98)
Yeah, I mean, I'd say the biggest thing is the amount of people that not pro to tell me, even this morning walking echo, my mother -in -law was walking her dog in town and she was with her friend and one of her friends said, my God, I listened to you guys on the podcast. I'm like, great, thank, like that is really surprised me. Like the people I wouldn't anticipate listen to it.

Also, when we've reached out from business and sports world and stuff and people that wanna come on the podcast and talk, because again, it's that imposter syndrome and partly that, but also people actually listening and we're helping them deal with whatever they're going through, right? Whatever that may be in their life at that moment in time. But that's kinda shocked me a little bit.

Chad (40:06.345)
Yep.

Craig (40:15.866)
again, are the people that are coming up to me and then the people that wanna come on and do interviews and join the podcast and those kind of things.

Chad (40:23.467)
So you mentioned running into your mother -in -law. Can you share with our listeners the advice that your own mother gave you for this episode? What did she ask of you? And what have you done? How many F -bombs have we had today? Yeah, okay. Well, let's mark this clip right now and I'm going to play back the two F -bombs or at least one that you had maybe 10 minutes ago.

Craig (40:31.983)
yeah, told me to stop swearing.

zero

Craig (40:45.974)
She's kind of used to it at this point. You never get too old to get soap put in your mouth.

Chad (40:50.695)
Hey, you are who you are. Old dog and new tricks and all that. Well, speaking of new tricks though, I do want to, it's been so fun to learn new skills. We're building a business, building a podcast, making these videos, understanding the software behind it, what goes into a production. I mean, we spend 30 minutes each week getting lights set up, getting cameras set up.

learning the new interface. We're using Riverside right now for our podcast. It's been great to be able to use that technology and leverage it. Editing the videos, going in and using CapCut, using Adobe. There's a bunch of tools out there just trying to learn. I haven't felt that way in a long time. We've gotten into a bit of wash, rinse, repeat in our careers. This has been something that's been exciting to try and learn new tricks to bring this podcast and our business to life.

Craig (41:46.039)
Oh, for sure, and I think another angle there is the marketing side of it. We both come in the past in the sales environment, me now in the sales environment. Just how it's evolved maybe the last 20 years, maybe less, maybe 15, of the amount of people, again, that have seen Struggle Bubble on Instagram or social media.

over downloading, subscribing, YouTube, whatever, but it's amazing how if you don't have that angle and approach now, it's a real struggle. It's just changed.

Chad (42:24.582)
Yeah, even what you open the show with of our ability to reach multiple continents, you know, almost 50 countries right now, which is crazy to think about, of the ability to reach, but then just the entire community aspect. It doesn't matter if you're on the four corners of the earth. You're struggling with something.

and there are other people struggling with the same thing. And getting that message across through the marketing, being able to have a message here, we're five minutes away from one another and be able to get that out to the broader ecosystem and then learn on the other side. That's been one of the best parts on the Little League front. We're going into 2025 planning right now. We'll have a board meeting tonight to start talking about it. There are different things that you're learning through the feedback of these episodes.

Craig (42:47.929)
yeah.

Chad (43:12.372)
or of the connections that you're making to make everybody's experience even better. You know, we're sharing out, but also receiving a ton of feedback back in.

Craig (43:19.924)
Yeah, no, I know those board meetings are, yeah. It's crazy where we're gonna be in 10 years. I was gonna go down the whole AI road there real quick of like.

just totally making your life easier. If you actually know how to use some of the powerful tools in there of, you you and I use it all the time, right? ChachiBT, I use it all the time now for analyzing emails and writing things up and stuff and it's just evolving so quick. Yeah, we'll see where we'll be in 10 years.

Chad (43:52.738)
Well, that's 10 years. What are you excited about on the podcast front on the struggle bubble side over the next couple of months as we hit our stride here and go into our 10th episode next

Craig (44:02.097)
Yeah, I think the guests we've got coming on from the business world is something I'm super excited about. I've always been really interested in the VC world. understanding what they look for. And I look at the VC world a lot like coaching, right? What are you looking for today? What are you looking for tomorrow? How does that, what's the analytics around that? All those kinds of things I'm excited about. And then some of the football guests or soccer guests we've got coming up as well.

some current coaches in the NWSL coming on. We've got some private coaches coming on. They do just technical individual stuff. I've got a coach in the UK that wants to join us that was also a women's head coach and transitioned out of soccer into another line. yeah, just the guests coming on are pretty...

pretty legit in their careers and what they've done and you know, still doing. What about you?

Chad (45:05.392)
It's just, well, giving everybody a kind of a look behind the curtain. As we approach these conversations with the guests, it is always interesting to me because we have different lenses that we view, you the guests. That's what we came in. There's going to be a business side, a business angle. There'll be a sports angle. There'll be a parenting angle. Everybody that we've talked to touches on every one of the angles because it is that struggle bubble. Sure, they're focused on being a soccer coach.

They're focused on being in a VC, but they also, they're raising their kids. They're volunteering to be a soccer coach at home. They're volunteering to be a lacrosse coach and they know nothing about it. There's so much that connects all of us in every facet of our life. In one part, if you're not into learning about the VC world in California, well, stay for the parenting advice they get when they're trying to balance having East Coast hours on the West Coast with three kids at home.

Craig (45:58.276)
Yep, well and the real world stress, right? Like, you know, everyone gets a job to generate income. Well, these guys have multi -millions of dollars they're investing into certain businesses that they're putting a bet on that it's gonna be successful. So there's a different level of stress that even revolves around their day -to -day. You know, Robert, think, it up great. Like, he realized he was doing X amount of hours a day and that was taking time away from other things that were important in his life, so.

Chad (46:27.692)
Yeah. Well, just yesterday, there was a close friend that made a post on LinkedIn saying, you know, he's, he's been in the professional world for.

15, 20 years and finally just had the realization that, I'm going to take a minute for myself. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means financially, but I'm going to take a minute. I've got my kids growing up. I'm going to do that. And for some people, they're able to. For others, they think about, is this worth it? And they want to have those conversations. Maybe it's a career change. It's a vertical change. But just having the conversation and getting it out there, talking to people about it. When people have options,

they don't feel cornered. When people feel cornered, we're not our best selves. You don't want to wake up in the morning. You don't want to make that phone call. You're really just in a little bit of a spiral. Being open, having optionality is an ability for us to have a bigger look on the, and bigger perspective on the world.

Craig (47:04.816)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig (47:20.61)
Well, and as we say all the time, just keep talking to people. You never know. Open doors.

Chad (47:24.514)
Yeah. Open doors. I'm excited for the next few episodes. I'm excited to keep this going. And as always, the feedback is fantastic. Whether it's a question, a comment, a concern, what we can do better, who we can bring on the show, please find us on our Instagram page, the struggle bubble pod. We are available everywhere. Podcasts are available. the struggle bubble .com gives a list of all the different providers that we have. And with that, I think we close

We'll see you all next week.

Craig (47:54.401)
Yeah? Subscribe. We gotta get some subscribers going. Keep on going. I wanna hit that global footprint. South America. Pass it on. Bye -o.

Chad (48:02.855)
South America, if you're listening, let's go. All right, thanks for listening everybody. We'll see you next

Craig (48:08.589)
See ya.