Angie Lion on Emotional Intelligence, Team Culture, and Raising Resilient Hockey Players

SPEAKER_05 0:07

Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. Leah Lyas here with Mike Vinelli and 50 Cash Yal over my broadcasting team. I just love using the word broadcasting. It's my favorite thing. Anyway, today's guest is someone who's helping athletes, parents, and leaders develop something every hockey family needs: emotional and transitional intelligence. If you aren't familiar with one or both of these terms, stay tuned because our guest is an expert in both of them. Angie Leon is the author of Emerge, Rise from the Depth, Realign Your Soul and Reclaim What Matters, and the co-founder and chief soul officer of Black River Performance Management, who helped to optimize organizations through the optimization of its people. I love how they put that. Our work blends science-backed leadership. They only bring on people who know what they're talking about, but the humanity behind it, again, only bring on people who know what they're talking about, helping people to learn and adapt and lead and grow through change. And as many of you know, think about this adapting, leading, and growing through change are aspects that our young athletes face every single time they step on the ice, step in the school, step on the bus, whatever they're doing. So, Angie, we are really excited for this conversation. Welcome to our kids play hockey.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here and get to know a little bit more about you all and all the work that you're doing as well. And this is so great that you shared this kind of information with your audience. I love this.

SPEAKER_05 1:36

Yeah, I think it's imperative. You know, when you think about youth sports, we don't even have to keep this to hockey. I think a lot of the focus is on the skill sets and the journey and where you're going to end up. And we always say that the ROI on youth sports is the life lessons. And I think that the mental side of the game is not just valuable, it's as valuable, potentially more valuable than the skill side. Because as I'm finding out, uh over 40, those skills are going away. It doesn't matter how good you are, your body's gonna tell you that you can't do it. But the the emotional intelligence or the other stuff that actually continues to pay off. So let's start there, real quick, Angie. For for the parents and coaches who hear the words emotional intelligence, right? And they think that's a soft skill. Can you explain why? You know, it's called EQ also, yeah, is actually a performance advantage for athletes, for teams, and for people.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Well, first of all, the one thing that I love about is we're talking about skills, and emotional intelligence is a buildable skill, it's not something that you have to be born with. In fact, I'm the perfect example of somebody who had very low EQ, and we can get into that here in a minute. But it's a it's a skill that you can train and learn and integrate, and it's not a personality trait, so it's not fixed. It's and that's why I love this work, is because you get to see people get better in these skills that will help them in everyday life long past their hockey careers, right? Into the workplace, into their relationships, into their lifelong. So if you're talking about a lifelong skill that you want to impart on these kids, you're you're doing such a service to them at a younger age because it's really hard to start learning this stuff in your 40s and 50s. But usually we like to learn the hard way and wait till something falls apart in our life and we have a life quake or we have some pain and then we need to change.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

I love the way you just just described that a little bit, and I think Lee's lead-in too on you know what this uh emotional intelligence is and how it like helps our kids across like all facets of their life, because I think as you know, in our case, right, as hockey coaches, uh, we only get the kids for an hour, you know, three hours a week. We see them at games, we see their we see the highs and lows of of during the game. But can you just talk a little bit about like how this this soft skill, like the you know, we're not working on the pet, you know, uh power skating, we're not working on the shooting, but the but the how like like if I teach a kid how to be a really good shot, that skill does not help them in the classroom. Can you talk a bit a little bit about like the soft skills that we're learning here as athletes? That's actually how much it does help them in all the other aspects of their life.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah. Can we just talk about the term soft skill? Because I hate I hate that term. And I think it's more of a hard skill because if it was soft, if it if it's hard because not everybody really wants to do that work or um is willing to do the work. And it actually comes from the military, um, the US military, soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills have to do with human skills, and the hard skills have to do with the tactical, the guns, the maneuvering, the the skills of the the craft, whether it's sports or whether it's the um the sport or the craft, let's say. So the shooting, all that stuff, those are technical skills, but the human skills are these soft skills, um, or life skills or human skills that we can call them. Um these are the skills that we kind of pick up along the way, um, and from our parents, from our coaches, from the world around us, and how we navigate our emotions. And there's different cultures, you know, hockey has a culture, uh, certain hockey teams have cultures uh in general, right? There's cult there's microcultures and there's cultures. So each culture has its own, what it what is how is this available? What can I do? What's allowed? How do I manage my emotions? What's my mindset around emotions, right? Because if if we have a mindset about our emotions being a bad thing, um, that's gonna set us up for not as much areas for growth and opportunity. So thinking about your mindset about emotions is really important because they're really they're gonna be happening to all of us, and anger's emotion, an emotion, and it's the one that is most allowed. Um, and so it shows up more often in behaviors, but really it's it's learning that to deal with rejection and disappointment and sadness and anxieties that they all face and and becoming able to name them and understand where they're coming from, that they're they're signals, they're not facts. We don't need to, they're not a fact that we have to follow, but they are telling us something. And so oftentimes, if we dive deeper, we find out that they tell us what we really value. Um, anxiety tells you that you let's say it's social anxiety, um, it tells you you really value what people think about you and how you're gonna show up and how you're gonna be perceived. So it tells you about what you care about, so it's not a bad thing, it's an it's a signal, but it's not a directive, it's data, it's not a directive.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

And Angie, coming from a parent perspective, all the things that you just said rejection, disappointment, uh dealing with that, that's all a part of hockey as our kids go through it. They deal with every single one of those. Um and I'm thinking back to my own kids. Boy, there are times where I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to help them through it. They figured it out, but wouldn't it have been great if they had something else like a nice cushion, uh a skill set that they could just lean into? So, how do we get our kids there?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, you could start by little, little tactics that you could start. Well, first of all, having a coach that's open and sees this as valuable and important, and uh, and families, because you know that kids aren't going to come from all families that have really emotionally intelligent people. Like I didn't come from a family that had that. And so consequently, I wasn't the best in my parenting, but I'm getting better all the time. So these skills are getting better all the time. But I will tell you, it's one of the biggest regrets I had is I wish I had some of the skills I have now that when I was raising my kids, but I was kind of building the plane as I was flying it then too. Plus, we didn't have YouTube podcasts, all the audio, but we didn't have a lot of the information we have now. So there's a lot of things that people could do. But I would like to start with a Muda meter or having them be that's from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, having them be start to really get a vocabulary around their emotions and what they actually mean. Like there's a difference between jealousy and envy. Envy and people get those messed up a lot. Like jealousy is is um wanting what somebody else has like it involves a relationship, it it involves losing someone to another relationship, like a friend to another person, or it involves maybe uh somebody that you like, somebody else liking that person or whatever. It it's loss, it's fearing loss of a relationship, whereas envy is wanting what someone else has. But oftentimes people get those mixed up, and so even knowing the definitions, knowing what they are, so you can name them to tame them, right? We have to be able to call them out. What is this emotion? Where is it coming? And what's it telling me? Doesn't mean you need to follow it and say, Well, I'm anxious, I don't need to go, I'm not going to practice today because I'm I'm feeling anxious. No, what is that emotion telling you? Right. What can we do? Let's work through that anxiety.

SPEAKER_05 9:27

You know, Angie, what I love about these answers is that we're echoing things we've said on the show, which is perfect because you're the expert, right? About how emotions are hard. What I love is what for the people listening to the show, we often listen in the context of like for our kids, right? It's our kids play hockey. All of this is true for us as adults as well, right? Emotions are hard. That's why when our kids are having these big emotional outbreaks, it's easier just to kind of push it away or be like, don't feel that way. I don't want to deal with it, because it's it's invoking emotions in you. But the truth is what Angie just said is have those kids have yourself call out the emotions. One of the things I say all the time, Angie, you talked about um like being like anxiety before. I tell the kids I coach, if you're feeling anxious, great, that means you care. That's what that emotion means, right? The other thing I wrote down here is is that again, emotions are hard, all right? And and and you got to find a way to express them. That is modern coaching, and to back up, Angie. And I want the parents uh who grew up in the 80s and before to understand this. I get to work with a lot of Division I NCAA programs, okay? And one of the things, the constants that I see from those coaches is when practice starts, a lot of the times they will start by asking, hey, thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs in the middle, how are you feeling today? They'll start with that to get a gauge on the emotion of the team, right? And they may change their practice if a lot of the athletes show up and they're not feeling it for whatever reason that day. They understand. People again might look at that and you we said, Oh, that's soft. That they're they're like, No, that's smart. Like you, you need to know where they're coming from. That is modern coaching, that is modern athletes. Again, every athlete responds a little differently. We're not all the same, but I say all the time if you don't have that gauge, you're not gonna be able to do as good of a job. And again, the NCAA athletes understand the purpose behind this. It's not it's not a pity party in any way, right? It it's no, I'm in touch with this. I need to know where I'm at to figure out my output. Um, so I just think that's that's brilliant. Um, I also want to bring this up to you. You you oh one second, you you talked about data before, right? We had a question here about uh emotions are data. You wrote that. So I'm I'm curious about we're talking about this, how hockey players can use that idea during games, right? Especially when the adrenaline and the frustrations are high. Like, what what what do we mean by it's data?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Well, first the thing you could do is start to track some of the things. So, what triggers you?

unknown 11:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

That's a good place to start. What if your teams had a trigger journal? And that was like, Man, yeah, we all have triggers. We're we're we're human beings, we're having emotions, and some things are triggering me. So you could start with a trigger journal and say, What are the things that trigger me when somebody talks down to me, when somebody says this, when somebody tries to, and then also recognizing that people learn your triggers and then they try to push them, right?

SPEAKER_05 12:21

If you have a sibling, you know that one.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah, no, we know how to push buttons. If you have a sibling, you've been bullied and you know how to push buttons, right? So so keeping a trigger journal will help you create some data about the things that you need to work on. Because if you don't work on your triggers, everybody else will control you with your triggers. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

That's a great statement. It's so funny. We have so we have uh this is a I don't I don't think the player will mind me bringing this up, but we so we have a player I'm working with right now, and the kids know what his triggers are. I mean, they they everyone knows it, right? And and I'll get a kick out, and if they're not, I don't, you know, I don't know. I look at it two different ways because I I I I just I like the fact that the kid is I like the fact that the kids are pushing him at his age right now because I think he's learning how to I can help monitor the trigger, like I know it's coming, right? And I know the dig, but then I can help manage him through the trigger in real time. Like not in like going back and saying, Oh, remember that happened five hours ago? Like right there on the bench, like and I can turn in. So could you maybe like some real practical advice on you know, when are you when are you attacking these triggers and when and what can we do as coaches to support? We know our players. I think a lot of you know, like really good coaches like Lee's talking about, they know their players, they know they know what sets them off. They hopefully they know what motivates them, they know what gets them in like in bad moods or or negative spaces. Like, what could we do in real time uh with our athletes in training, you know, to help them manage those triggers?

SPEAKER_00 13:58

I love that question. Um and it's gonna depend on different kids, and but I think setting up expectations kind of in the locker room things, like we are gonna be in it, we are emotional beings, we're emotional creatures, our brains always trying to keep us alive and keep us safe, and it's not always correct and it's not always accurate. And I'm here to help you navigate it. And so, are you open to me giving you a code word or or giving you a hand signal or something like you're you're losing your shit or whatever? You know what I mean? Like you're going. Sorry, I should probably shouldn't fuss on this one. You're good, you're fine, they can handle it.

SPEAKER_05 14:34

They can hear worse in the locker rooms, that's all yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

So it's one of those things where like you're noticing it. Um, I'm seeing it, I'm seeing, and if they're open to a hand signal, if they're open to a code word, that you know, this is this is it's happening. Because the key is we might know all this stuff, just like you could teach a bunch of plays, you know, on the board and teach the stuff, but it's all integration that is where it matters, is when you catch them and help them, when you help them on the field or on the field, on the ice, and you're you're helping them in the moment because that's it. It's when you have to have a difficult conversation with somebody on the team, it's when you need to talk to your coach, it's when your parent is yelling or whatever is happening. How am I going to navigate this space? And how am I going to help this kid understand that this is a trigger? And what how can you help them reframe it? So there's a lot of different ways to reframe it. So maybe some of that stuff happens off the ice and having them talk about what their strategies are because what it's they need strategies, and different strategies are going to work for different kids. You know how they're all different, your kids are different. One strategy won't what that would work for me, it won't work for you.

unknown 15:48

All right.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

So I'll can I hijack this for a second, Lee? And Christy. So the one so one of the things I love about the podcast is like this is like three, you know, free therapy for me, but it's also it's also the ability like to have experts like this, like we normally wouldn't get. Like, I can't sit in a ring and say, Oh, let me talk to an expert on this. But let's so let me bring you to like a real, like, and this is and and and again, I'd love to know, you know, just a little feedback. Just so this player knows, I know they're on the ice. I go, I you know what the trigger is to this player? When I pull them off the ice and they think it's a short shift, they lose their minds. Like, literally, like the player's on the ice, they're out there for five minutes in hockey. It should be like 40 seconds, 60 seconds. This player's out there for two and a half minutes. And I'm all on the bench because I'm trying to manage like little kids, like like these are these are 12 and 13 year olds, right? So I'm trying to manage them, and I what I try to do is bring it into like a little, like I try to bring a little like levity to it. Like, okay, I'm gonna call so-and-so off right now, watch him lose his mind right now. He's gonna lose his mind. And everybody on the bench knows it, and I say, okay, change it up. And he loses his mind. It's like George Jeff, the hands are off, the you know, he's he's stamping, but then I can get I can turn it into a like kind of you know, I can make it a little funny and say, oh, well, we knew that was gonna happen. Like, so let me explain why we did it. But guess what? Guess get a better reaction would have been this. And you know, and and just understand why I'm trying to help you with this. Because I think if you don't, you just said it, if you don't appro if you don't address it ever, and I just ignore it, right? And then it just gets worse and worse and worse, and the player doesn't even know that you're aware of their of their of their own.

SPEAKER_05 17:25

And it's hard, Mike. It's it's like like for the coaches, parents, it's not easy to do this. And you know, another big word that comes up when I think about this gang is patience, right? I'm thinking of a real world uh right now. I have a player who has wild emotional outbursts um during the game, young player. I I should preface this. This is a younger player, all right. And uh it's it's annoying, I'm not gonna lie to you, all right. But I have to calm myself down, and I I tell me you have to be patient and find a way to talk to this player, right? And I'm and I I remember last season constantly trying different things, and you know, around the 10th thing, we figured out kind of how to communicate, but there had to be patience, and I think what happens a lot of time with those kids, um, you know, is that they get a little written off of oh, they're they're just a problem, they're annoying, they're problem child, yeah. Yeah, they have oh, they have all these letters after they're they're you know, like like they've got no if you're coaching, if you're the coach, it is your responsibility to try and work and figure this out, and I'm not guaranteeing that you will. And and just to give you an idea how crazy this got, um, I remember, I remember like and when I say try things, I try different voices, I try different ways of explaining, I try different techniques, and I did a funny foreign accent on the bench, and this player just started laughing uncontrollably, and that's their thing, and that's the out of no out of nowhere. And when when I need no, I need to get through to this player, I flip on this fake, horrible accent that I would never say the country's name because I don't want anybody to hear how bad the accent is. All right, and and it gets through to them, but it took the half the season, not the whole season, half the season to figure this out, but there was the patience there and there was the understanding there, and their children deserve this. Also, for the adults listening, we're not much better at it. Okay, we justify it by saying, Well, I've lived and I've gone through a lot of stuff, but we're I've seen we we're hockey families, we see them in the stands, these triggered parents can't handle themselves, they start fighting. This is not just a skill for kids. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

That's what I'd like to actually say. Um, the hardest part is most of these kids have gotten their emotional regulation skills from their parents, right? And so, and and including myself, which means that as parents, there are our kids aren't learning what we tell them, they're learning what we do, right? We're they're what we're we're modeling the behaviors. So, as parents, even if you've messed up before, it's never too late to start. I mean, I'm still working on it. I'm now a grandma, and I'm working on these things and and trying to do better. Um, but it's a it's a lifelong skill that we always continue to work on, and um, it's never too late to start. And what you can start with is wow, that was really inappropriate behavior. I don't want to do that again. Um, I'm gonna acknowledge it, I'm gonna own it, be accountable. But you know, it's embarrassing to be accountable. But one of the things I even see in organizations right now is the biggest challenge is accountability. People don't like being accountable, they like to blame other people and things. And so this stuff is skills that if we could teach it earlier in life, that you don't just get to pass on, pass it on. You you own it. Your behaviors are your responsibility, your emotions are your responsibility, your triggers are your responsibility. Um, I can give you tools, we can give you, but they need tools, they need to the skill building. And Mike, like what you said. How can I do this? How can I practice it? I would start with a mood-meter in your locker room, checking in with people. How are you doing? I've seen even in organizations with grown adults where they print one off and they put their face on a magnet and they walk in and they put their face on where they're feeling, you know, and so like the emotions are allowed here, but certain behaviors aren't.

SPEAKER_05 21:12

Well, and how about this, Angel? How often, how often for everybody here, like talking about adults, how trained we are to not be this way. If you can sense one of your friends is not doing great, and you go, hey, is everything okay? What's the common response? I'm fine. I'm fine, yeah. It's like it's like you're not, and and again, look, it's not easy to come out and say, you know what, I'm really not okay. And here's the seven things that are bothering me. That's not easy either. But I'm just bringing that up as a show. Like, we're we were all taught to bury this stuff, bury your feelings. I remember hearing uh from from a lot of different people going up, hey, don't feel that way, don't do that, don't be angry, don't be like don't be embarrassed. Yeah, yeah, don't be embarrassed. We're telling people that, like, like don't don't feel your emotions. Like that, we were all raised that way, especially boys.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Especially boys. And there's a lot of research from Hugh. And in fact, there's a podcast everybody should listen to after this. More homework if you want to build these skills. Is um Andrew Huberman recently had one with um the Mark Brackett, who's the head lead, the lead of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. And there's some research on the difference between boys and girls and what societal pressures are. And then there's some skill building in that as well. But you know what happens when you hold a beach ball underwater, right? How long can you hold it?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Right, not very long. It's gonna pop up.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

It's gonna pop up and it's gonna be at the most inopportune time. It's gonna be at somebody, it's gonna embarrass you because you're gonna do it to us. You're gonna blow up on somebody. Um, and you're it's gonna be for something little.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

Right. We've all seen it. We've all seen it. Well, it's like beach ball. Don't go up, don't go up beach ball. That's what it's like. Don't feel your emotions, don't go up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

And I'm just curious. Oh, go ahead, Angie. One more thing I was gonna say is you know, in hockey or any sports, you're concerned about health and wellness and you know, well-being, and and suppressing emotions. I have a whole section on the book too about what suppressing your emotions does, but it is not good for your body, it's actually worse. Have not working through these emotions and letting them surface or crying them out or doing whatever and suppressing them is actually worse on our health than what we eat and lack of exercise. So it's it's a well-being thing as well. The body keeps the score, and the research is in that book. If you if you want to uh know what happens in the body and why where the root cause of a lot of autoimmune disease comes from, it comes from dysregulated and not regulated emotions and suppressing.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

I didn't care. I wanted to go back to the uh trigger journal that you mentioned, which just fascinates me. I think that's such a great idea to have a journal write down your triggers. Once you have that journal, then what do you do with it? How do you match the skill set properly? You can what do you do? What's the next step?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

And that is where I think it's important to bring the kid, whoever the group is, if it's a kids group, if it's a workplace group, what are some of the strategies and skills that work for you? Because you know people that navigate these things well. You're a coach, you can say, okay, when I get triggered by this, you be vulnerable and you share when I'm triggered by somebody saying something, or let's say getting, let's go back to the taking the kid off the ice, right? So there's a deeper problem, there's a deeper issue there that's more of a root cause. Um, the behavior is all we're seeing, the tip of the iceberg. There's there's a root cause, and that root cause, if you can get to that, you're gonna help that kid. And that kid, you might be the one who flips that kid from actually being the trouble kid. You might be the one who actually sees that kid. That kid might be struggling with most likely their worth. Sure. Um, most likely they're struggling with their worth and not feeling enough. And when you pull them off the ice, they feel like they're not as good as or whatever. So they're feeling insecure, but they're not gonna say, I'm feeling insecure. Well, they might eventually, but they are feeling fearful that they're not good, that they're not wanted, that so their brain is hyper, you know, aware to all of that stuff. So the behavior you see is you know, all they know to do, it's reactive. Our behaviors are more like habits that we create. So if you can stop those habits earlier um and and create a space for them to choose something more helpful, choose a mother helpful response. And when they do make a mistake, it's like the same as the technical skills. You're not gonna hit every slap shot, right? You're going to make some mistakes, you got to practice these skills, and when you do, we will re will revisit it. And remember, we talked about this that you're not gonna throw your hands up, you're gonna reframe. So, reframing is like seeing it from a different perspective. So they probably only have one perspective. When I get pulled off the ice, it means I'm not enough, I'm not good, I suck. Whatever the story is, find out what the story is in their head that they're telling themselves, and then see if you can help them reframe the story. What if you saw it like this is a team and you need rest? You're one of my best players, and I need you to get rested, I need you to be ready, and I need you in the in the headspace so that when I put you out next time, you're gonna go full board. Like you got to help them be able to see it in a different way that it's not they suck, and that's what their little minds are thinking.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Right, you gotta shift their perspective, yeah. Yeah, gotcha. Cool.

SPEAKER_05 26:39

Yeah, you know, and I love it. I I want to bring this up too, and I always love talking about these topics because you know, I think a lot of coaches go like, Well, I don't know how to do this, or that you know, the kids are soft. Here's the deal, all right? In the world our kids are growing up in, they're insanely aware that emotions exist, right? They're they're in environments where they're not being told to bury it all the time. So while we may have been told that, and you might think that that approach really helped you succeed, I'm not judging you. Um, it's it behooves you to understand that they don't see the world the same way we did growing up, they're aware of their emotions. They're taught this in school, all right, which is good. All right. So if you want to be a great leader, a great coach, you've got to do some time in understanding this. And a lot of it, a lot of it, this is what you're not gonna love to hear, is also introspective. Like you have to look at yourself a little bit too and understand your own emotions, all right. But I will say this too it gives you a significant, significant advantage as a leader, as a coach, to dedicate some time to this and understanding. I always say to my friends, Angie, that that are having um issues, because you know, I we we get a lot of asks for advice. I say focus on the behavior, not so much the outcome. If you focus on the behavior, you'll start to uncover things. And then, like you said, I love you brought up like the root cause, right? Because um we sometimes can't open up our own minds enough to see like what you just said, oh, that that kid feels that this is uh an assignment of their worth by pulling them off the ice. And there's a million scenarios like that where we get lost in our own head, a little bit of ego involved in that, yeah, right, and we can't see the other perspective. I always talk about this like with fourth lines in the NHL who do not get a lot of ice time, they are clear on their role. My role is to support the team with the five shifts I get each night. It's not about me getting ice time. I'm not worthless. I have a job, I have a role, and the coach believes in that. Well, that role was communicated to them very clearly, all right. And if it's not, you are going to have a problem. Now, in youth hockey, where we get in trouble, is you should not have a fourth line that's not getting ice time at 10U hockey, right? Everyone should play, all right. That that's the way it is, even even in big situations, some sometimes. Okay, I'm I'm not talking about the 2-1 game where you got 20 seconds left. I understand the decisions that are made in that time, all right. But we've got to learn how to to develop the emotional side of these kids as much as the physical side. And I'm gonna say this coaches, that is part of your responsibility. All right, takes a village, parents play a massive role in this. Sometimes they will fight you on this, but if you want to be an effective coach, you have to take the time and learn this.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

I I I think that's why, Angie, like I like that's why we have to like at the youth level, right? I mean, I I get a little bit of at the college level and the pro level, you're dealing with agents and and and advisors and things like that. But at the youth level, you know, we see this, we see this all the time on our show, is your advisor, your advocate is your parent, right? So if you talk about like you know, I see this in you know, this this emotional up and down happening like it just happened in a couple of games ago where a player didn't play almost a whole game, or you know, you know, at least a period and a half, and the mother was very uh very upset at the end of the game. I go, I go, Well, you haven't even talked to your son yet. He's a he took his skates off because his speed out outgrew his skates. Like that has nothing to do with me. So their emo, I mean, I can and I can only imagine what their emotions were doing up in the stands during that whole period of time. Like, I don't have the ability to say, hey, time out, stop the clock, give me the microphone, just want to let you know that your son, you know, I can't do those kinds of things. So can we talk a little bit about like the tie-in between a coach and the relationship with the parent and the player and how important it is to do those workshops or you know this stuff together? Because the at the end of the day, no matter what I say to the player, it's the game of telephone, right? By the time it leaves the locker room, like that's not the same conversation with the parent. And how we do a really good job of tying them in.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

You're dealing with a lot of emotion contagion. We know that those emotions are contagious, right? Um, and so and it happens in in hockey, it happens in workplaces, and somebody gets something in their head and they start ruminating on it, and you know, it so it's becoming aware of it. I think it's a language where this is where something, if your kid's gonna play on my team, we're gonna work on emotion management. We're gonna look learn, we are gonna become more self-aware. We're gonna be an we're gonna relay raise the collective EQ of our team and our and our and our parents because we want them to be, we want to give them skills that they can use beyond hockey. And these are the skills that will help them be past hockey and into their relationships in their lives, and it's gonna help them become. We know the research is there that people who have higher EQ um are more successful in life. It is not an IQ thing, and it is not a technical skill thing. It's not a skill thing, it's an EQ, it's a and all that data's out there.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

Yeah, and I'll say this too, and then I want to I want to dive into transitional uh intelligence because I think that's important. I had a great example over the weekend with my own daughter, um, where she came to me and she said that you know, there's one of my teammates, and they're they're good friends, they care about each other, that is asking me to do something on the ice, and I just don't like the way she's asking, right? And she actually asked me, like, how do I deal with that? And we had a great conversation. I said, Well, what do you think is motivating her? What do you think she wants? And it's well, I think she wants to score, right? So that's how you start that conversation. I know that you want to score, all right, and I want to help you score more goals, all right. And then you can go into, but it's tough to pass the puck to you in these situations because this is what's happening. What can we do to do that better? This girl's nine years old, all right, not 19, not 29, not 49, nine. And she grasped this concept of oh, okay, I I didn't, I didn't realize that there's something she wants there. I thought she just is telling me that I need to move the puck, right? That's emotional intelligence. Start to understand like what's her perspective, why is she doing this? And she's your friend, right? She'll listen to you, and it's again, I also too might not be the most comfortable conversation, but it's one that needs to happen, right? Yeah, it's it's just I think people go, I wrote this down too. Well, you know, they're young, they're better at it than we are.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

All right, they don't have the ego, they're not listening with our son. Our son said this the other day, and we wrote this one down. Listen with your listening ears, not your ego ears. Right.

SPEAKER_05 33:07

Oh, that's a good point. It's so true. Because when you think about it, it and again, I'm thinking a good point. I know. Like, like I'll use the word baggage as we get older, we we get more weight, all right. And I think the kids don't have that, so they're way more open to learn this stuff, and they will learn it, and you'll have a massive impact on their lives as parents, as coaches, as friends, to do this. But just the concept of hey, that person wants something, yeah, right? All right, you got to figure focus on the behavior. What is it that they want? Then you can motivate anyway. Christy, go ahead. Yeah, I want to get it.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Transitional hockey, you mentioned it, and our kids go through this all the time in hockey, they face transitions constantly, as we all know, new levels, new coaches, new roles. So, how can families teach their kids to see changes as a skill rather than a setback? That's so important, especially in hockey, as we see it every season.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah, it's such an important skill. Transitional intelligence is like EQ's older sister, right? It's like you you're how you handle your emotions or handle how you handle change and transitions. So there's a whole skill set that goes with that as well. But it's understanding that every transition begins with an end. Um, you're no longer on that team, you're no longer dating that person. I mean, you got personal, let's you got hockey, but that person is a whole person. So let's say they are teenagers, right? And they have relationships, but you know, their their relationships are transitioning, they're physically transitioning into puberty, more hormones. So they're having physical transitions, they're having um personal transitions in their relationships with their friends, then they're having uh and and then they're hockey. So there's so many things going on at once that those many that many transitions bring really a lot of uncertainty and a lot of fear and a lot of grief because they've left something, they've left a team, they've left this, they've had a breakup, they've who knows what's even going on in their home life. So they have a lot of stacking emotions. This is why the emotional intelligence piece fits with the transitions because you really do need to parse out, you know, that you're grieving or that you're, you know, and and know that grief has its own process.

SPEAKER_05 35:24

Well, I I'll say this too. When you get to teenagers, like I and I was reading, I was fascinated by this that their defense mechanisms in their brain are off because they're changing so fast, the teenage brain actually turns some of those off so they can kind of expand, right? So that's why you're getting such intense, insane uh you know, emotional outbreaks, because the change is devastating at that age. You you don't have the brain stopping you from hey, listen, calm down. There's none of that, right? In fact, if you tell a teenager to calm down, God bless you. Good luck with that. Yeah, right. You know, that's a trigger. That's a trigger. Would you say money?

SPEAKER_04 36:04

Tell your wife to calm down.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

Yeah, no, just telling everybody to calm down.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

I can see you're upset. That would help. That would help. I can see you're upset. What's got you know, see them and meet them more there. I can see you're upset. Yeah, what yeah, you know, what what's going on? What's what's happening under the surface? Talk to me. Well, tell me sometimes.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

I'll say, Angie, who am I talking to right now? And that kind of snaps them, you know. I'm like, Am I talking like like the anger side of you? Because I don't I'll say I don't think this is really you, and it's kind of a shocking statement. And so a lot of times when I say that, there's just a kind of I get a stare, but hey, something something's flipped in their mind. I'll tell you this too about transitional intelligence, where I had to learn this was my wife was in the military, and every year or every three years, we had to pick up our entire life, all of it, and move to another country, another state, another situation. And you know, in the beginning, it's really hard, and you assign so much pressure to it, but honestly, by the fifth time, and we moved about 11 times. I'm not kidding. Um, you start to understand what's important. Like none of the stuff you have is really that important, it's the people, all right. And then you also realize you can say goodbye to people and you'll talk to them. We live in a wonderful time where we can talk to people and you move on quickly, right? And you understand not to sign assign too much emotion. There is some to any of the situations, right? And I think part of it is with kids with transitional intelligence is understanding that process. I love that you said it starts with an end. That's not fun, right? And again, go ahead. You said there's there's three stages, right? Why don't we dive through it?

SPEAKER_00 37:33

So it starts with an end, and then you have a messy middle that uncertainty. You're not who you are, what who you are going to be yet. You're in this liminal space. Um, but we can help them reframe that yes, it's while it might feel scary and uncertain and and messy and gooey and icky and lonely and dark, um, there's it's also fertile ground for the new version of you, for the new for the new opportunities that will be coming on the new team, in a new relationship, in a new city, whatever the thing is, the new health diagnosis, right? So there's there's three stages to any transition, and each of them have their own set of emotions that go with them. And so knowing that you're not lost or messed up or crazy, this is normal part of it, but it's building different skills to help you navigate it and have language to actually articulate oh, yeah, I that I'm really struggling with letting go. I want things to stay the same, and okay, well, so that what are those feelings and work through some of those things.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

Yeah, I'd say everyone I know feels that way during change. And again, again, one of my favorite sports quotes is it's not that life gets easier, it's you get better at doing life, like you get more experience, right? Because man, if there's anything we've realized as hosts on the show over the last few years, things are gonna change, things are gonna dramatically change, you know what I mean? Uh, and in hockey, again, just from the skill sets of hockey, the game, there is so much change in one game that these kids have to work through. Imagine parents, imagine teaching your kids this concept of transitional intelligence, which Angie coined at that age when they're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

I'm giving it to you.

SPEAKER_05 39:18

Okay, I'll give it no no, it that's fine. You can you can give somebody credit. But but my point is this, Angie, is that that there's such opportunity because these kids are going through so much transition in a game that they're they're getting the reps in, so when they're adults, they can deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Yep, you're building resiliency by teaching these kids emotional intelligence, they're gonna be able to handle setbacks, they're gonna be able to move to a new town, they're going to be able to go up and not and go ask for a job, walk in and not apply online.

SPEAKER_05 39:48

No, I'm gonna say this too. I have to say this. Yeah, parents, parents listening. This is and Mike Christie, this is like my biggest gripe as a coach. You've gotta let your kids go through those uncomfortable moments without helicoptering them all the time because of what Angie just said. If you don't let them build up that resilience, it's not gonna do much for them. In fact, it's probably gonna have an opposite effect.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Overparenting your kids fail.

SPEAKER_05 40:15

Yeah, let them fail. You have to let it's hard, it sucks. But that's the power of being a parent, is we can take it for them and be there for them. The power is not in I'll protect you. I mean, obviously, sometimes, but you know what I'm saying in these situations.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Anyway, sorry, I'm gonna so overparenting is just as bad as underparenting, right? Not doing anything for your kids or managing everything and managing their emotions, and you gotta find the messy middle. What was that?

SPEAKER_05 40:41

Is it gonna find the messy middle of parenting, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah, you do, and it is messy, and it's and it even gets weirder when they grow up and they're adult kids. There's that whole you better hope you had worked on their emotional intelligence skills at a younger age, because that is a whole nother another thing.

SPEAKER_05 40:57

All right, for those of you listening at home, we had to let Christy go because she is on assignment. She actually has to go read the news now. Continues to put her day job ahead of us. God bless you, Christy. Uh, but we're gonna keep going here, Mike and I with Angie. So go ahead, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 41:10

Yeah, life keeps going on in Syracuse, New York. So that Angie, just I mean, you you we talked about like the transitions, right? And that no one um no one really in in a team sport transitions in isolation. Like as a player's transitioning, it's not one individual. Like it, you know, it could be, but really it's the it's sometimes it's the flow of the room, right? And it's the uh the emotions that go along with I mean, we see it every day. We see it in a you know, goal is scored and the emotions are here, and then all of a sudden, boom, we get scored against, and the emotions are here, and all of that and then the parents are crazy, the kids are crazy, the coach is losing his mind. Um can you just talk about the role um that we have for you know to navigate these, you know, like you said earlier, these messy moments, like like these moments between these transitions, you know, how can we all work together and and maybe some better strategies that we can use uh to and train uh to prepare for those messy moments?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Yeah, um I think bringing uh the the team together, talking to the parents and the kids in the beginning of the season and talking to them about the expectations. This is what I'm here to do, this is what what I'm what I want to work on. I want to work on EQ skills, TQ skills because they're gonna help you become a stronger, better human in society. They're gonna help you with your hockey too. Um and so these are the skills that we're gonna work on. I got to get your commitment as from parents and from players that you are willing to do this. And we might do, we might send some team podcasts out, we might send, um, we might have a team read, we might have some exercises that come home with you, a trigger journal. These are things that we are going to do in our culture, in our team, because we know the value. And we're not expecting you to be perfect, we're expecting you to be open and willing to change a little bit as it relates to your behaviors, right?

SPEAKER_04 43:05

And I love what you just again. So really for anybody listening, right? If it's if you're a coach or a team manager or a parent that wants to help bring this into your organization, the ability to define what you're doing and then giving the blueprint and the roadmap. We talk about it from the hockey perspective, like like good coaches have a seasoned syllabus, they have a plan, they have a we're gonna start here, we're gonna we're gonna be doing this, and we're gonna finish here. Like there's there's goals and there's expectations. I think in this is definitely I mean, outside of mental fitness, physical off-ice fitness, and then transitions and emotional fitness, yeah, these are like the most lacking things we do in the sport because a lot of us are not trained for any of this except for how do you skate and how do you shoot, and you know, when do you pull the goal, right? So that's the kind of stuff that we work on all the time. Is something I think you need to define, uh, you need to get the roadmap to, and you just said it, you have to give the tools to be able to actually do these things. You can't just say, I have a bunch of exercises in my book.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

So that's exactly what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

I mean, it's like it's like you're giving us the answers to the test. Like, here, here, use this as your blueprint, and then use it to depending on who your your teams are. And what one of the things like I would say is like this is where that that one parent that always wants to help and is not a coach, never wants to do the clock, doesn't want to do the tournament scheduling. Maybe this is an assignment they can do. Like, this is something they can take ownership in because, like you said, it helps my team, it helps my kids, it helps our us out of out of the sport, and it really is an added value to our program because we're all together anyway. Like we have to be together anyway.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

So why don't we? Now you're talking engagement, and I can't I got a whole model for that too. So we could talk engagement, but you you have the components down that it is what are you good at that you could bring to this because we need everybody here to be active. And none of you have to be experts. There are experts in the field of this kind of stuff. There's enough materials, there's exercises, there's things, but somebody would own it. Who would be willing to own it? Now, as the coach, I'm gonna be called, we're gonna be using a mood-meter, we're gonna be checking in with your team, we're gonna find out where they are, we're gonna learn, we're gonna increase our vocabulary, we're gonna start naming things and we're gonna talk about things, we're gonna learn to reframe. So, those are some of the tools that you could do. We're gonna keep a trigger journal, we're gonna so that we learn how to improve. That's it. Like those could be a few things that you could just start with and and and then see what the group notices and how they start to want to add their val the value. This is working for me because they all are having their own experiences. And when you start to bring them in and then they start to become engaged, yeah, I've noticed that I don't freak out as often, or I'm not snapping at you know my parents when I get home because I'm tired and cranky or whatever, or I'm hangry, or maybe I'm not getting enough sleep. And I notice that I get I behave a whole lot differently when I don't have sleep because that is a huge indicator. Sleep will help you nav, will help you in your emotions a ton.

SPEAKER_05 46:14

Well, I'm gonna echo something you said earlier, Angie, too, is that you have to set these standards right from the start, right? The amount of coaches that wait too long to set their standards, I mean, you're in an uphill battle immediately. Great example. Again, we're recording this in May, and my uh my kids' team just had their parody tournament in the middle of May, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Um, but I was asked, you know, well, are you gonna loosen up on the standards? I said, Are you are you crazy? No, this I'm gonna set them. You're gonna be here an hour before the game. First game was at 7 a.m. Yeah, we're coming here at six. First game, you're setting the standard. We're gonna have these meetings at this time, we're gonna talk about this at this time. You set the standard. You know what? It was a great weekend. The only groaner was having to get up early. That was it. But now the standard has been set for the season. When they come back to me in late July, they'll have experienced this. Now, if I started with, oh no, it's just a parody tournament, show up half an hour before. Well, that's the standard I'm setting. All right, keep in mind, this was my first time with the team, right? So it's the same thing with EQ, TQ, emotional stuff. Set the standard. I told the parents we're gonna work on this stuff this year. This is part of your kids' development as a person, as a player, and it's our responsibility. That's the conversation you have to have, parents, I mean coaches, excuse me. And you've got to be pretty poignant when you're having these conversations that this is what we're doing. If you're in charge, own it, own it. And I'll I'll make this statement too. Um, because I think sometimes you can be in a locker room, 15, 20 kids, and it can be like, oh man, some of them aren't paying attention. If one of them is paying attention, if one of them is buying into this, you're making a massive impact on that kid's lives or life. Okay. And and just so you know, I'd say most of them are paying attention. Someone sent me a picture of this team I'm talking about in the locker room. I'm talking, and uh every single one of them is looking directly at me. And it's I actually made a joke in the text of wow, they really do listen. You know what I mean? So um, that's just something I think is important, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:10

And they listen to their coaches more than they listen to their parents now. Once they get past like about 10, 18 years of age, you coaches have so much more influence than parents. Parents think that they're, I mean, they're around them more, but kids start to listen to their peers and their coaches and their mentors and their support systems a lot more than they do their parents after they get you know out of their out of their youngest years, their formative years.

SPEAKER_05 48:35

Well, we actually, Angie, it's funny you said that because we joke as coaches that a lot of, especially in the younger ages, it's a lot of parent coaches, and we joke that my kid will listen to every other coach on the ice but me before they listen to me. And we actually tag team the kids sometimes with that of like, hey, I need to show my kid this, I'll show your kid this because they're gonna listen to you over me. And it's it's so true.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Um use those and know your influence as the coach, that you teaching and modeling this and saying it's important, even if their parents think it's bullshit, like it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

You say this is important and I'm working on it, and I want you to be better, I'm gonna become better too. I know that these are and these are things that I'm working on. You know what some of my triggers are, blah blah blah. I'm doing this, and here's what my strategies are. This is what's worked for me. All of a sudden, you just showed that you have emotions, eh? Yeah, you're working on getting them better, you're you're willing to improve, you have openness and willingness. You can't do anything with closed off, closed mindset, fixed mindset.

SPEAKER_05 49:34

That you can be vulnerable too, and that there's a skill set in that. Um, Angie, I do want you to share some stuff, uh, tactics, maybe a sneak peek of the book in a minute, but I do want to ask you this too. I think it's important. We're talking about a lot of things we can do to get our teams there. What are some signs that a team does not have EQ, that this is a red flag, keeping in mind that uh you know the leadership might not be super aware, they might know something's wrong, but they can't put their finger on it. So, what are some signs that a team is not where they need to be from an emotional standpoint?

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Yeah, there's a lot of talking about people, um, not talking to each other. There, you see a lot of that, you see a lot of outbursts, you see a lot of um blaming, um, you're gonna see a lot of uh just negative behaviors, and you're gonna see a lot of attitude problems. Yeah, um, because they don't really have the tools. It's kind of like teaching somebody to fish, nice to do, but if you don't give them a fishing pole, it's hard to fish.

unknown 50:35

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_05 50:36

That's a really good analogy. So give them there, the fish are in there, just get them.

SPEAKER_04 50:41

We just had a great example in the Stanley Cup playoffs of uh of the Minnesota Wild moving on and and and uh and you know, timely that you had the conversation just about, like you you can hear the cues, you know, from the players and the coaches. And you know, a clip that I shared with my team uh and some of the group groups that I work with was this, you know, that the the coaches they said, well, what's the difference? Like, what do you think is the difference between this team and other teams, or why did you advance and another team didn't? And it was because, you know, and and the exact the quote was, you know, because I think our players were playing for each other and talking to each other as opposed to playing with each other and and then and looking for what are you doing wrong and what am I doing right? It was more the conversation about what are we doing wrong and what can we do right, and we're playing and we're we're we're we have the same common core of of what we're trying to do out here, but that doesn't take place without something in place to make it happen, right? That doesn't normally organically happen. Like that's something that takes great leadership, great direction, great blueprints, and the ability to use these tools that are available to us to grab and use. And I'm sure there's I'm sure if we went to the back end of this at the beginning of the season, we would see all of those things in place prior to them thinking about going to the Stanley Cup finals. Right. So I think that's like that's just that that that that piece that we miss. Lee said it earlier. This is not something you go halfway through the season when your seasons are wrecked saying, Oh, I should just institute this now.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Like it's a lot easier to fix the roof when it's not raining, right? Right, and so I think one of the things that people could do is their season is coming to a close. This is what we do with our business, and I do this within strategic planning, all these things, but literally, what do you need to start, stop, and continue and get everybody's input? Um even parents, what do we need to start? What do we need to stop? What do we need to continue? Uh kids, what do we need to start? What do we need to stop? What do we need to continue? And then you and you put it all on the wall, and then really start to see, and so you kind of debrief after the season what went well, where we're gonna keep doing, what do we definitely need to stop because this is not helping our team, and what do we want to continue doing? And put those all out there, and then when you do start to go move move forward too, you'll find a lot of your stops um have to do with some of this stuff, and and that's and that's why you're right, we're gonna start doing this.

SPEAKER_05 53:03

I love that, Angie. And again, for the coaches listening, like because I've heard this before of like, well, the kids just don't get along. Well, coach them up. That's your that's your job. I mean, that's just what you're hearing. I I I I that's one of the most unaccountable statements I hear from coaches. Sometimes I just they don't get along. That's your job, that's part of your job. Okay, and and it's also an opportunity. I'm being a little mean in the way I'm saying that. It's an opportunity if if you're seeing that to learn and understand. I love what you just said. I never thought of that. What are we gonna start? Say the three things again with start, stop, and continue and continue. That's brilliant, all right. And the kids or your work team will be accountable to that if they come up with those ideas, and and your whole family could use that as a tool at dinner.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

What do we need to start, stop, and continue as a family? We need to stop interrupting each other, okay?

SPEAKER_05 53:52

You know, right, we need well, it's communal too, like like the coach or the or the person in charge, I guess, could lead that discussion, but you have to have the input from everybody in the room, and the answers might shock you, yeah. They might shock you, like you know, with that. So, Angie, I also want to say this too again. You showed your book a minute ago, Emerge. We talked about it at the top of the show. You said that there's a ton of ton of tips there. You want to give us a sneak peek so that the audience can uh go grab that right away.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

Yeah, it's uh I don't know if you can see it here on this camera, it's Emerge, it's got this beautiful like water, um, like a river analogy, and then a butterfly, because I think about water as like flowing and continually moving and growing and changing and not becoming stagnant, never really step in the same river twice. Then I think of a butterfly where it turns from a caterpillar and then it goes, it ends its life as a caterpillar and then it goes to the chrysalis, that messy metal, and um, and then it has it imma has those imaginal cells that actually turn it into something new. So it's really an opportunity for growth, and then there's a change. Um, and so really I I learned a lot of this stuff the hard way, and that's why I wrote the book. And then in fact, I had to I had to get past my ego. Somebody actually said to me, um, you should write a book because I I was raised with eight out of ten adverse childhood experiences, which means I didn't have the kind of parenting that would make me, I should literally be in jail based on the statistics with somebody with those kinds of um adverse childhood experiences. So what it's told me is that I've become very resilient and I've learned I've turned a lot of my lessons into fuel and into resilience. And we can teach people these skills. And the reason I wrote the book is it could help one person. And if you are somebody that's like embarrassed or thinking you don't want to look into that mirror because you know that you do these things, look into the mirror and really just go, this is a skill. I'm not a bad person because I haven't developed these skills, they weren't taught to me. Um, and they're eat they're they're out there now, and there's people that are teaching them, there's books on them. There's I would be love to talk to anybody who wants to improve these. I love to shout it from the rooftops. And I love that you're doing this with younger kids because if we learn this stuff, it's like learning to play the guitar. I'm trying to learn it over here now. Um it's not that easy. And if you learn it earlier on, it's much easier to navigate uh transitions and hard emotions because there's no bad emotions, there's hard ones, but they're they're they're giving you data and they're important and they actually tell you what what you care about and what matters, which actually helps you kind of find your purpose and and why you're on this planet and what you want to do while you're here. Your emotions are signals, and but they're you know, like I said, they're not directives, and and we got to talk about them and we got to give people skills. And so for coaches that are worried, like, oh, I don't know how to teach this, you don't have to teach it. You're a facilitator. Um, you can facilitate, you can ask the group what they'd like to do if they know of any podcasts, if they know of any books, you could share this podcast and say, There's some ideas on here. What resonates with you? Because it can't be your idea, or it's not gonna be you, you're not gonna create as much engagement. You need to let it be the team's idea. You can set the expectations of this is what we're gonna do, something we're doing something in EQ and TQ, but you get to decide how you know what some of those things are and be part of uh bringing our collective group up, uh, our collective TQ and EQ up in our group and in our culture.

SPEAKER_05 57:40

Well, Angie, I'll say this. I've seen you speak about this, it's very powerful. And and I don't think there's many things on the planet more powerful than someone that has had the hardships that you've had and you have turned that into a force for good to help other people. I think that's one of the most uh not just transformable, but but magical things when someone can can take that that that I'll say it again, hardship and turn it into a positive for other people. I mean, that's that's God's work or whatever word they use, right? So we appreciate you coming on and sharing some of that wisdom with us. And again, we're gonna have her on quickly a ride to the rink episode, parents. So um we'll we'll we'll bottle this up for your kids in that short episode as well. But Angie, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for being here today. This was a fantastic discussion.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Thank you. You you got me talking about all the stuff I love, and I got a lot of goosebumps, which is a sign of awe. When you get goosebumps, it's a sign of awe, which is a very powerful emotion as well.

SPEAKER_05 58:37

So yeah, we will make sure that we put the quote out. This show gave me goosebumps. You just said it. That's gonna be one of our next marketing machines. I I appreciate you saying that.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

It gave me goosebumps, which means I'm seeing moral beauty in the work that you're doing as well, because you're elevating not only hockey but humanity.

SPEAKER_05 58:56

Oh, we appreciate that. And that that look, that is one of our goals because the game is so much bigger than just goals and saving pucks. So hopefully we're establishing that today. But that's gonna do it for this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey for Angie Leon. Again, her website, Angie Leon, that's spelled Lion A-N-G-I-E-L-I-O-N.com. And Angie, you said there was the other website as well.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

It's BlackRiverPm.com.

SPEAKER_05 59:20

There you go. Go check her out. We'll put it in the show notes as well for you to get quick access for all you executives out there that need this talking to you. But for Mike Benelli, I'm Leah Lias. We'll see you on the next Our Kids Play Hockey, everybody. Remember, email us team at our kidsplayhockey.com if you have any questions, comments, episode ideas, or click the link accompanying the episode in the description. You can text right to us. Uh, we love getting your thoughts and feedback on all these episodes. With that said, we'll see you next time. Enjoy your hockey, enjoy your day. We take care, everybody. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey. Make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value wherever you're listening, whether it's a podcast network, a social media network, or our website, our kidsplayhockey.com. Also, make sure to check out our children's book, When Hockey Stops, at When Hockey Stops.com. It's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life. We're very proud of it. But thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey, and we'll see you on the next episode.