The Ride to the Rink: How Mind Mapping Can Transform Your Hockey Mindset with Pete Fry

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello, hockey goalies and skaters around the world. Welcome back to another edition of The Ride to the Rink. It's Lee here with my friend Pete. And Pete is one of the best goaltending people I have ever met in my life. I purposely didn't say coach or mindset guy, which he's known for, because he's just a great person. And he has some amazing tools for goaltenders, but also for anyone who's looking to improve their game. And one of the ones we talked about on our big episode this week was called mind mapping. Now you're probably in your car or at home or watching this going, what is mind mapping? Well, that's what we're that's what we're gonna go over here today. So Pete, I'm gonna throw it to you. Let's go over what mind mapping is, why it's so important. And then you've got an example of one that everyone here is gonna want to hear about.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yes, yes. I I think I got I got a got a couple here. So the first one is basically I just got back from Cloney yesterday where where the Memorial Cup was won by Kitchener, and I worked with their goaltender. Last year I worked with the goaltender for London who won the Memorial Cup this year. It was Kitchener. And Christian Kirsch, a goalie for Kitchener Rangers, he came to our Airbnb two days before the game. We we did a pregame prep session. And what the first thing I had him do was to before we did our confidence anchoring session, I had him do a mind map. And I'm gonna show the mind map on here, then I'm gonna I'm gonna describe it. So this is what I do first. It makes the brain creative. I don't know if you can see what he's got in the middle there.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yeah, it says my powerful championship game. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

And you can see the other things on there, and I'll just read out what he's got here. So I said, Christian, write that in the middle and then write down what you want to see here and feel. So number one, he wrote, I want to feel huge in the net, right? Um, and by the way, if I could get him to do this again, I would get him to eliminate the word want on here, right? Just I feel huge in the net. So he wrote, I feel confident and powerful. My parents call and saying how proud they are in his knee because I saw him on the ice after, you know, talking to his parents crying on the game because they they they they couldn't make it from Switzerland. Uh getting announced uh MVP and best goalie of the tournament, and he did win, he's maybe the all-star game. He didn't win MVP of the tournament, he could have easily been the MVP because he stole three or four games for them. Um, hugging teammates and coaches, of course, that came true. Dominating and being the difference maker, which he was. They were out shot in the first period like 16 to 5 or something like that. Uh sticks and helmets fly, which happened. Uh smiles and people celebrate, holding the trophy. Uh, look up and see the O on the scoreboard. That didn't happen. They won, they won 6-2. Uh, and then crowd cheering. Great flight back. I I guess that's that's happening. I bet. The shout-outs and all that that key stuff there. So, some really good stuff. So I hadn't, yeah, I had them do that mind map, and that just helps you think big. And the mind map has to be done in a way where like I worked with last year, I worked at the London Knicks the night before the Memorial Cup Championship game, and I had their their whole, I worked their whole team. So I had them do a mind map. If I get out of my Memorial Cup championship game end up anyway at all, what will I see, hear, and feel? But it's gotta be the if I can have anything happen. Because remember, it starts in the brain. And where people get it wrong, they limit themselves before they don't want to look bad, they don't want to potentially fail or write something down that may not happen. You gotta write it down. You gotta act like if I don't write it down, it's not gonna happen. And by the way, when you write something down, you got like an 80% higher chance of accomplishing it. It's it's amazing the stats on that.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, and they're well-documented stats too, kids, right? Like when you write down your dreams, your goals, and the work it's gonna take to get there or accomplish them, these things tend to go that direction. Now, when it comes to mind mapping, I want to remind the kids listening. This was done before the championship game that they won. Before, right? So, Pete, why don't you walk the kids through right now, like, okay, they're they're bought in, right? I want to try this. What is the process? They got a piece of paper in front of them. What do they do next?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

What they're gonna do with that piece of paper, you think of what you have coming up, it could be a tryout. A lot of people are going into tryouts, right? So in the middle, right, my powerful tryout, my powerful tryout. And then you're gonna draw your circle in the middle of the circle, right? My powerful tryout. Then you're gonna draw a line off at one side, a line off the other side, and just let the brain flow. Like uh see myself in the team's jersey, right? Coach says you're on the team. See my name on the roster list. So, and it's always like, what are you gonna see here and feel? Get the senses in. You could add smell, but I don't know if that really is relevant to what we're you know, smell the the stinky hockey equipment or whatever. But add the senses. What I want to hear, I want to hear the coach saying, Great job, the fans cheering for me. I want to feel so confident. I want to feel like the powerful wall that I am. I want to see that black puck clearly, I want to see the play slowing down for me. I usually get to my spots. So you're you're basically creating that that picture that you're going to walk into, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

I love it, man. I'll say this too for the kids listening. And I'll ask you this, Pete. You know, there are gonna be kids who do this, they they're gonna do exactly what you said, and they're gonna write down, I I, you know, I'm a wall on the net, or I'm the fastest skater on the I am fast, right? Some of these kids will have a voice in their head that go, but you're not. But what if I don't? How do you combat the negative voice when you're doing this exercise?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Great question. Great question. Number one is a lot of thoughts that we have, we repeat daily again and again and again and again and again. And if you are new at doing this, you may have a bunch of weeds in your garden. So your mind is like a garden, so to speak. And if you don't plant good stuff in it, guess what? Weeds are gonna grow automatically. What I mean by weeds is negative thoughts. So if you get a negative thought, here's a strategy. I know you had one. I really like your strategy, Lee, of imagine it's on a piece of paper, you crumple it up, you throw it aside, right? A lot of times I'll say, Oh, you get a negative thought, you your hand comes forward, you swat it out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Similar, very good. Very, very good. So that's it, just swat it away and just go back to what you want. Think of your your your right, it's it's it's like it's Christmas time, and whatever you ask for, you're gonna get right, right? Similar to that.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, and and kids listen, look, I don't want to undersell. If you can recognize you're having a negative thought, if you can be there and say, Hey, that's a negative thought, that is huge in itself, all right. That you're aware you're having a negative thought, right? Once you call it out, you can start to control it a bit and say, I don't want that negative thought.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yes, yeah. And remember that you are not your thoughts, your thoughts are not you. Correct. Your thoughts can be part of you like an arm, but it's not you. And the more you work on this, the better you will get. And and eventually, you see, our brains, you're you're you're you're you're perfect as you are, right? You're not broken, you're perfect as you are, no matter what negative thoughts you have. We just got to change some of your strategies that you're using to get those right thoughts in there.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

And I'll say this too, kids. Uh, you know, if your parents are in the car with you, they have negative thoughts too. We all we all have to work on this, but Pete has given us such a great tool here. And that's what I want you kids to do. I want you to try this, whether no matter what time of season it is, tryouts, big games, any game, anything. And you know, it can be more than hockey. If you've got a play coming up or a music recital or big homework assignment, I want you to try and use this mind mapping. All right. And I want you to practice it and work on it because it's an incredible tool. Now, what's funny is we close this out, Pete. We say something at the end of every episode. The kids who listen to it regularly know you haven't heard this, but I think you're really gonna love it. And we tell the kids every episode, no matter where you're at on your hockey journey, we believe in you. You should too. We always add in that you should too, because while we do believe in you kids, it has to come from you as well. It's not enough for us just to tell you you can do these things. You have to say, I am these things, right? And notice what I said there, not I can do this, I am this. That is a powerful tool that separates the common from the uncommon, and you can be uncommon.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

I I love that lead. And if you go to the gold medal game, US versus Canada, right? At one point, Canada was outplaying the US, and you could hear uh Kachuk, I think it was Brady, you could hear Brady say, stay confident, we're winning this. Yeah, think of that. Stay so you know that that combats any negative thoughts or whatever guys are saying, stay confident. Think of that picture in the head. Now I'm confident, we're winning this. Boom, just keep going.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Love it. So listen, kids, we know you love practicing the skills. This is one of them. Get that mindset going too, and you'll get to where you want to be. Pete, thanks so much for joining us on the ride to the rink today.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Lee, stay powerful, my friend. Great, great being on with you.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Goes both ways. Take care, kids. You have a great day.