MPM Podcast

PODCAST: 2x Olympic Medalist Mindset – Cat Osterman

by Brian Cain, MPM

Cat Osterman is a 4-time NCAA All-American softball pitcher originally from The University of Texas. The Houston native is also a 2 time Olympic medalist having pitched the USA Women’s Softball Team to the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and the silver medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics. She has also graced the cover of sports illustrated on 2 occasions.

Cat is the all time leader in the Big 12 conference in wins, ERA, strikeouts and shutouts, she is also the NCAA Division I record holder for strikeout ratio (14.34), WHIP and perfect games (7). She owns numerous other records for the Longhorns and within the NCAA, where she is also one of five pitchers to strikeout 1,000 batters with 100 wins, an ERA of under 1.00, and averaging double digit strikeouts.

In this podcast Cat shares her mindset for success and breaks down how mindset, the mental game, daily habits and decisions are all critical parts of her success as an athlete.

You can engage with Cat at her website catosterman.com or on Twitter and Instragram @catosterman and with @BrianCainPeak on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

PODCAST AUDIO BELOW

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Cain: Hey everybody. This is Brian Cain with the Brian Cain Peak Performance Podcast and boy today do we have a special guest.

Cat Osterman is a four time NCAA All-American. She was a left-handed pitcher on the softball team at the University of Texas. The Houston native is also a two time Olympic medalist, having pitched the USA women’s softball team to the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics and the silver medal in the 2008 Olympics. She has also graced the cover of Sports Illustrated on not one, but two different occasions.

Osterman is the all time leader in the Big 12 Conference in wins, ERA, strikeouts, and shutouts. She is also the NCAA Division 1 record holder for the strikeout ratio of 14.3 strikeouts per every one walk. She also holds the record for whip, and the record for perfect games with 7. She owns numerous other records for the Longhorns and within the NCAA where she is one of only five pitchers ever to strike out 1,000 batters, have 100 wins, and an ERA under 1 while also averaging double digit strikeouts.

Cat, thank you so much for taking time out of your insane schedule to join us on the podcast.

Osterman: Thank you for having me.

Cain: Cat, I think our listeners know that you are one of the greatest athletes of all time. Could you give them insight into how you define success for yourself? Everyone sees the records. Everyone sees the gold medals, sees you’re still dominating in the professional softball circuit. How do you define success for yourself?

Osterman: I think the definition of success has evolved over time throughout my career. But I think the one staple has always been progress. Not necessarily progressing as in adding new pitches or fine tuning but “am I just better than yesterday.” For the longest time I’ve always lived by that. “If you look back at what you did yesterday and think it’s a big deal then you haven’t done anything today” type philosophy. So for me that is kind of how I define my success is based on if today is better than yesterday. Even at this point in my career as a professional athlete I am trying to one-up myself everyday or try to just have better control or something like that. Progress is kind of my biggest definition of success.

Cain: What about from a motivational standpoint, Cat? How do you stay motivated having done this now for so long at such a high level? How is it that you stay motivated on a daily basis?

Osterman: The chase to attain perfection in something that is almost impossible to be perfect in is what keeps me motivated. I’m a perfectionist in almost everything but in this game you can’t be perfect. It’s almost impossible. Even a perfect game usually isn’t 100% perfect. You find something. You missed one pitch here. You might have gotten away with it but you missed it. So just being able to continue to try to find ways to be as perfect as possible. It’s fun and that is kind of what motivates me.

Cain: Not only are you playing in a high level but you are also a Division 1 college softball coach. Could you talk a little bit about the balance between being a Division 1 college softball coach, having the recruiting that goes with that, then also practice planning and everything that goes with that responsibility, but also being a professional athlete at the same time?

Osterman: It takes a lot to balance it all out. Obviously in the fall it’s more of my recruiting since I’m playing during the summer. I think the hardest part of it is turning off the coaching hat and taking the player role. Usually it takes a couple weeks to be able to do that and sit back and play and not want to coach the game and over analyze what we should do in certain situations.

For me the balance part of it isn’t terrible. I was able to work out when our girls left. I conditioned before practice. Then once springtime rolled around I benefit that my catcher and a couple of my other teammates are there close by in Austin. They would drive down to San Marcos and we’d have BP then my catcher would catch my bullpen and I’d get to throw a little bit of live. So we fit it all in.

It’s not easy but it is fun to still be able to use my playing experience with my college kids. I think when they can see that we still play it helps them really grasp what we are seeing a little bit easier.

Cain: I couldn’t agree more. Cat, we’ve had numerous discussions about the importance of the mental game and sports psychology, and your work with Ken Ravizza and how you also coach the mental game and use the mental game. Could you take our listeners on your journey into the mental game; when you got started and how it’s been important for you in your career as a player?

Osterman: I think the mental part of my game started growing up a little bit. My dad was just very adamant about not showing too much emotion and taking it only one pitch at a time. Way back before I ever knew anything really about what the mental game was. We were kind of focused on that already. I felt like from a young age I had a pretty strong mental game even though it wasn’t something I was practicing.

I got into college and Coach Clark had played softball at Fullerton so she obviously knew Ken Ravizza (as you mentioned). We worked with Ken a couple times when we came out to California. I think he came to Austin once. I had the fortune to be able to talk to him aside from college. When I was with the national team sometimes we were in places that he was and he’d always want to meet up and talk about things. I got to learn from him which was really fun. I wanted to follow kind of in the footsteps you took and go get my Master’s in Sports Psych under him. But obviously coaching took me in a little bit of a different direction.

I think the biggest thing learning from him is that you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t need every pitch to go your way. Once I accepted those I was able to relax a little bit and play even better. For me a lot of times being present is the biggest thing. Obviously as a pitcher you have the ball in your hand every single pitch of the game so if you’re not present you’re not really going to do your job. After that it was just more of realizing you don’t need every call to go your way. You don’t need to throw a no-hitter every time. For me just being able to accept that (like I said) really helped me loosen up a little bit.

Cain: Is it something that you feel like with the mental game, Cat, that you kind of have it mastered now with all the success you’ve had and the experience you’ve had at Texas and with the national team? Or do you still catch yourself at this point even maybe falling back into thinking about previous pitchers or future pitchers and having to remind yourself “hey get back in the present moment here and just win this one pitch?”

Osterman: I think I’m pretty good about it about 90% of the time. There are still a couple occasions where I either look back at a pitch or if anything I am letting an error or just the fact that something is not feeling good affect my overall performance. I have to remember again that I don’t have to be perfect every day. So for me it’s almost mastered but I think we all still slip from time to time.

Cain: Cat, one of the things you talked about was you were exposed to the mental game early in your career, your dad talking about not showing any emotion and going one pitch at a time, but you said you didn’t really practice it. Are there ways that you practice the mental game now by yourself? Or are there ways that you get your pitchers to practice the mental game at Texas State?

Osterman: For me I don’t necessarily practice it on a daily basis. I mean I do actually. I have my routines. My entire pitching warm up is the same routine. Not necessarily the same number of pitches but the same order just to get myself a good feel. In between pitches it’s the same routine. I don’t necessarily have to practice it as much anymore just because it’s almost second nature now.

I’m also big on breathing. Any time there is a tough situation I’m trying to make sure I take a little bit deeper of a breath or that I make sure to breath. Sometimes I kind of get in a rush and I forget to do that. For me it’s not as much practice on a daily basis but everything that I do has been done for 21 years now almost. I know I have it and I know I have it to fall back on when I know I need to be conscious about it.

My pitchers at Texas state, we have developed a routine. I make them do it every day. Whether we’re throwing just pitches in the bullpen or if we are throwing live on the field we are going through our in between pitch routine – whether that is grabbing dirt, taking deep breaths. We do the shadow pitching (obviously) that you came in and taught us this year. They do all that. Right after you left we did it almost everyday for about a month, then once we got into spring depending on what type of workout they had that day. If they are throwing full pitches they do at least one of each pitch (if not more) and just try to stay in their routine. I feel like pitching is almost just purely routine oriented and the more we can make it second nature the easier it becomes.

Cain: Cat, let’s drill down a little bit on routine. You mentioned the shadow pitching routine. For the baseball and softball players and coaches listening to this, if they watched the College World Series they’ve seen TCU pitchers in the bullpen doing shadow routines while the game is going on. The guys in the bullpen going pitch for pitch with the pitchers in the game. What exactly is a shadow routine and what are you looking for (as a coach) in the players and while they are doing that?

Osterman: The shadow routine. Without a ball, we have our catchers pretend that they are catching a real ball as well. They’re pretending that they’re catching, framing, and throwing back. But my pitchers are without a ball. Getting on the mound like they would in a game situation they are getting set, going through their breath, their final words, and actually throwing a pitch. My catchers actually call a pitch so if I am watching them I should be able to tell what they are throwing. Their wrist should snap like a curve or snap like a drop.

Then we go through and a lot of times I’ll tell them what the pitch was – if it was a strike, if it was a ball, if it was a hit – so they can kind of gauge how their emotions feel. Even when it’s a shadow pitch they can still get frustrated sometimes when you say they gave up a hit. So we go through that.

For me I watch to see how they react when I do say they gave up a hit. I also watch to make sure I can see what their pitches are doing, what their arms are doing. A lot of times if they’re making it skid off then I can see it in shadow pitching. More than anything it’s a way to mentally play the game without playing the game.

Cain: Love it and love that. Cat, one of the things you talked about was even if you say they gave up a hit in the shadow bullpen you can still see them, their emotions kick in. We’ll talk about the analogy of signal lights – that comes right out of Ken Ravizza’s book Heads-Up Baseball where green lights are it’s things are going good, red light the game starts to speed up on you a little bit. Could you explain for our listeners signal lights and then how you recognize them yourself as an athlete?

Osterman: The signal lights are huge. That is actually probably one of the biggest things I learned when I was in college. I feel like when I did give up a hit I got to red really fast just because (as I mentioned earlier) I am a perfectionist. Signal lights are nothing different than our traffic light with red, yellow, and green.

If you’re in green you’re good to go. You are ready to roll. Nothing is really bothering you. It’s easy to stay in green if you’re performing well. Yellow is where we kind of start to tense up a little bit. Maybe we’ve gotten ourselves in a pressure situation but we’re not quite freaking out yet. Red, we shouldn’t be on the mound anymore. If we’re seeing red then we’ve gotten out of our element, we’re out of ourselves. I like to say we need to reel it back in and figure out how to get focused as fast as possible because red usually is the beginning of the downward spiral.

For me as a player when I was first in college and expecting to pitch really well I would get to red pretty quick if I gave up a hit or two. Actually Coach Clark did a really good job of expressing how to get back to green. That is kind of part of where routines came in. For me that is where breathing comes in. If I can get a deep breath and let it all go then I can usually get through yellow and back to green pretty quickly.

With our kids we talk about it all the time. We talk to them before game situations – like in practice – about what do you feel when you are in yellow, what do you feel when you are in red. Or vice-versa. We ask them to just put a situation out that was in a game. “What did you feel? Okay those are the feelings of what you are like when you are in yellow so what do we need to do to get you back to green to where you don’t spiral on your next about your seeing red.” The signal light is actually a very simple way to keep them conscious of their thoughts and how their body is feeling.

Cain: It really helps to build an awareness in the athlete and also gives you as a coach an easier way for you to be able to communicate with your athletes about their mindset and emotions and how they look and maybe how they feel. Does the signal light help you improve that communication and just streamline that process?

Osterman: Absolutely. I think when you are in a game situation it’s a lot easier to say “where are you at, green, yellow, red” instead of an in depth conversation about feeling tense or over analyzing. For us it’s a lot easier. Especially when you get players that have worked with the signal light and know their routine. You can easily shout out whatever their keyword is or “remember to breathe” or whatever it is and they know exactly what you are talking about in order to get back to green.

Cain: Cat, you have mentioned breathing on numerous occasions here. Talk a little bit about breathing and how important that is in your routine.

Osterman: Breathing is really important. I took it for granted for the longest time until you realize the affect it really has on you. For me I throw my pitch, get it back, walk to the back of the circle, take a second. I take a breath there but then I get back on the mound and I actually take a breath right before I get my sign. A deep breath I should say. I don’t take one right before I start my windup just because once I get the sign I’m ready to go.

If we are in a tough situation or I’m battling with a hitter and starting to over think my pitches or just get frustrated because they fouled off 12 of them I’ll take a deep breath right as I get on the mound. It’s usually pretty visible. For me a deep breath is kind of the “okay time to focus, okay forget everything else” and I am really able to let those kinds of thoughts go when I take my breath.

Cain: Excellent. You talk about when you get into yellow lights and red lights you have a release or something that you go to to kind of help you flush those negative emotions or negative feelings. Is there anything that you specifically do as a release to say “okay I’ll just flush that and now I’m moving on to the next pitch?”

Osterman: A lot of times if I’m really frustrated I won’t turn back to the plate from the back of the circle until I’ve flushed it. If I absolutely can’t let go of it usually I kick some dirt. Most people bend down and toss some dirt or something but I’ll just kick the dirt in the back of the circle and let go of those thoughts. If I can’t let go of them I will turn around and face my catcher until I’m ready to go. I don’t feel like I should approach the plate if I’m not in green and present and ready to throw the next pitch.

Cain: What about mental imagery, Cat? Is that something that you use as well?

Osterman: Yeah. I actually use that a lot. That is something I got from Ken a long time ago. There was a point in time in my college career where I was having a difficult time of really executing exactly where I wanted my breaking balls to end. He gave me the trick. He said “watch yourself pitch it forward and backwards.” I was like “what do you mean?” He just wanted me to have the mental imagery of not only throwing it and seeing it end where I want it but watching it in reverse. If you hit reverse on a video camera watch it arc the opposite way and come back to you. For a long time thereafter that is what I would do in the bullpen when I was practicing. I’d watch it go down, I’d watch it come back, and then I’d try to throw it. Or I’d watch a curveball break out and then break back and then come back to me before I threw it.

Now even I don’t necessarily watch it in reverse so much but I know what my pitches should do that I kind of visualize how sharp I want it to break or how far out I want it to end. I totally visualize it breaking to that point before I throw it. I think that’s huge because I think people need to know what your pitch is doing instead of just throwing it and having a catcher tell you that what you did is good or bad. You have control over it.

Cain: That’s fabulous. Love it. Cat, as a professional athlete and two time Olympic medalist talk about, obviously you are very talented and very skilled physically at what you do. Having lived in that professional athlete world and the Olympic athlete world talk about some of the challenges that you face on a daily basis that maybe you’ve been able to overcome where some of the other athletes that maybe aren’t as mentally tough as you are have been consumed by those decisions and those situations. We see it all the time on ESPN or in the news where we look at these athletes that seem to have everything going for them and they just make some poor decisions. What are some of the most difficult things that you have to deal with on a daily basis throughout your career?

Osterman: I think in the professional ranks there are two and they are kind of opposite. The first is you get to the professional ranks and a lot of things are on your own. For us lifting and conditioning, all that is pretty much done on our own Every now and then we’ll have team conditioning after practice but once we’re in season it’s kind of you have to figure out what works for you.

A lot of the younger athletes that come in don’t quite get that or they think they can get by without lifting. They don’t really realize how much our season will run down your body if you’re not finding the way to get workouts in in between games or even on game day.

Then the other thing I think is they don’t realize our schedule. Sometimes we’re playing 3, 4, 5 days a week. We’ll fly at 5:00 in the morning and play at 7:00 at night and they think they can still go out the night before and not realize that they need the rest or not realize it’s so daunting. A lot of our adversity is just figuring out how to fit everything in and still be ready to play.

I think that is sometimes where poor decisions come in because they get flustered and they don’t understand why they can’t do it the way they want to do it. You have to prioritize. A lot of times that is harder for younger athletes to really accept and figure out on their own. For us all of our kids come out of college and they’re used to being told where to be, when to be there, what weight to lift, how many reps to do, and not have to figure things out on their own.

Cain: Do you find it difficult to say no, Cat? I know there are many demands on you and your time. Is that something that you’ve ever had a challenge with? I know many athletes, that is what often leads them to get into trouble or make some of those poor decisions is just the inability to say no.

Osterman: Sometimes I have the problem with it. I think I’m pretty good knowing when I pitch and what I need to do before that that if it’s going to affect my game day then I’ll be able to say no. If I’m in the offseason a lot of times it’s hard to say no because you want to try to please everybody. You want to pass on your message to everybody or go do a clinic and try to help everybody, just get yourself into all these situations. Sometimes you run yourself down. Then the more tired you get the less clear you actually think.

It’s hard. It’s hard to please everyone. Some athletes can’t say no at all. I’m pretty good about it now. I think early on I tried to say yes as much as possible and I finally just had to realize that you can’t do everything even though you want to.

Cain: Cat, what are some of the habits that you have that you think over the course of your career have made you the success that you are?

Osterman: I think the biggest thing is that my dad instilled an incredible work ethic in me. There is not a day that I go out and just go through the motions. Every practice may not have a written down purpose but I know that once I start throwing as soon as a pitch feels off I know what my purpose is and how I have to proceed to make that practice worthwhile.

Then the other thing is the older I got the more I adapted to eating a little healthier and I really dedicated myself to working out constantly in order to physically be in good shape and ready to play. For me my habits kind of became physical and lifestyle choices in order to be healthier and be stronger. But really I think the biggest habit (so to speak) that I’ve had since a young age is my work ethic. Every day my dad’s mantra was “if you’re going to go out you’re going to give me 100% of what you’ve got whether it’s for 10 minutes or an hour we’re going to put 100% into it because we’re not going to waste your time or my time.” So that is how I approached it and I think it paid off.

Cain: Could you talk a little bit about the key elements of your mindset? I think we look at it in two ways. It was interesting, Cat, having a chance to know you now for a little bit over a year plus and having seen you pitch throughout your career you see the stoic, locked in, no emotion, cutthroat, intense competitive pitcher and then when I met you off the field it’s a warm, passionate, fun loving, high energy, almost like Clark Kent and then Superman. I think that is awesome. I think that is one of the things the the best athletes – like Georges St-Pierre, he used to always talk about “you have to be Superman in a cage but you have to be Clark Kent out of the cage.” Or Vitor Belfort, a UFC champion, talks about he is the lion in the cage, he is the lamb out of the cage. Could you talk a little bit about your mindset of Cat the pitcher and also just the mindset of Cat the person off the field?

 

Osterman: I really try to differentiate the two. I think in college I didn’t differentiate a whole lot and I was a very serious and stoic person even off the field just because I felt like I had to be in order to stay in a good mindset once season rolled around. But I’ve tried to relax a little bit off the field because it makes it more fun.

Obviously when you get on the field as soon as you get in the white lines there is a job to do. My job is to not only pitch my team to a win (hopefully) but to put on a show. We are paid to play this game at a professional level and people want to see it played to the best of its ability. That is my job every day I go out. In order to do that you have to be extremely focused. I’ve always been a competitor and I hate to lose, I hate to fail, so that is where the stoic face [comes in]. I guess I have a pretty noticeable game face. Everyone always tells me. So that face gets turned on pretty quick as soon as we get to the field.

Off the field I feel like this game is amazing and I want to share it with as many people as I can. When I’m coaching my kids I want to have fun and I want them to have fun. I want them to learn. I don’t want it to be a hostile or even threatening type of environment. I don’t want to be so serious that they can’t joke with me or so serious they feel like they have to not say a word and just abide by rules. I want it to be a fun atmosphere because I feel like that is where we get the most out of them is when they can listen, learn, but then at the same time enjoy it.

I really do differentiate the two. It used to take me a while to get out of softball mode when a game was over and now it’s pretty quick. I can go take the uniform off and realize that there is a lot more going on in life and the real world than what happened on the field just now and I can make an impact a little bit differently if I just let that go. So there are definitely two sides to it. I think any athlete has to be able to turn on the game day stuff in order to really focus in and take their game to the next level.

Cain: Is the uniform and changing those clothes, is that part of your process of being able to lock in as the athlete and then shut it off when the game is over?

Osterman: Yeah. Most definitely. Sometimes we play places where we don’t have a locker room so if we have to change beforehand it will be once we arrive at the field. But as long as we have a locker room once we get to the locker room and I put on either my cleats or my turfs (whatever it is) I’m going to go out for BP to show BP. Once I put those on it’s game time and it’s ready to go. When my final shoes get put on I’m good to go and I’m ready to be focused in.

Cain: Cat, let’s have you put your coaching shoes on here for a second and let’s go back to Texas State. Your time at Texas. Your time with the only big team maybe most recently at Texas State as a coach. We talk about core values and building a championship culture and a program. Could you talk a little bit about that process and the importance of having core values and a championship culture in a softball program?

Osterman: I’m actually both at Texas and at Texas State. I’ve been part of a core where we have core values that define our culture. When I was in school at Texas (and I think she still holds it to this day) we go by DIRT – discipline, integrity, respect, and teamwork. That was the mantra that the team had. It was ever year. We defined what discipline was, what integrity was, respect, teamwork, what was expected of us. That was the first team meeting every single year.

This past year at Texas State we did the same thing. Our core values were relentless, competitive, family, and pride. Same thing. We had our team define those and we had someone on the team explain them every single day in order to instill it in our kids. It’s huge to have core values. Not core values that change every year but core values that are the same in order for your seniors to pass it on down. When recruits come in your kids can talk about the culture that your program has.

I’m pretty sure to this day Coach Clark still uses DIRT. It’s something any time us alumni hear it we can kind of laugh in a good laugh because we can totally relate to that. We know exactly what it means and we know what is expected of that there now because it was expected of us. That is what you want. You want kids to be able to talk about it later on and you want them to be able to share what your culture means and what your culture is to other people.

Cain: As you know your teammates now in the pro ranks and all the softball that you have played and you playing with the top players from other programs in the country, do you feel like most college softball programs in the country have written down core values like DIRT or like relentless, competitive, family, and pride? Or do you feel like most programs say “yeah we have a culture” but if you asked everyone in the organization they couldn’t tell you the exact character traits that it is?

Osterman: I think the elite level teams (the teams that you see are consistent all the time) have some type of written down culture – whether it’s four key values or some mantra that they live by. I’ve heard conversations. I don’t know that anyone else has ever defined what the four values are or something like that. But you can hear my teammates talk about when they were in college and what their culture was and that there was one and what was expected. It was known and it was discussed. It wasn’t just something that came out when someone got in trouble and all of a sudden it’s like “oh well we don’t do this because it’s not part of our culture.” Well it has to be explained and defined early on and repeatedly put into their brains in order for it to be second nature.

I think the elite level teams do. I think there are some teams that probably could afford to put that and really define a culture to live by. If you are changing it every year or even every couple of years then your program is going to change every year or every couple of years. There has got to be something that is consistent. You always want that to be the center of your program – which is obviously your core, your values.

Cain: Love it. Cat, just a couple more questions here. Are there maybe any books that you’ve read that our listeners would want to pick up as a recommended book by Cat Osterman that has really had a positive impact on your life? I know for me that book was Heads-Up Baseball. One book, one day, changed my life. Are there any books that you’ve read that have had that much of an impact on you that you think are absolute reads for the athletes listening to this podcast?

Osterman: When I was younger I read The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I read that in high school and that had a huge effect on me. That would be probably the first one I would pick up. I think for quick reads I’ve read Mind Gym and I recommend that to a lot of my kids just because the chapters are so short that you can pick it up and look at it.

Actually the most recent one Coach Clark actually recommended to me two years ago. I want to say it’s The ABC’s of Pitching. I grabbed that. It’s another one where the chapters are pretty short but I can take my pitchers and if we are having problems with confidence I look up confidence in that book, have them read a couple pages on it, and we’re good to go. Or we can talk about routine. There are just different words in there that you can go and read a pitcher’s perspective on what it is, why it’s important, how to gain it, how you can lose it, that kind of thing.

Cain: Awesome. So it’s The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. For the listeners if you go to YouTube and type in “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior movie” you can actually watch the movie that was made about that book on YouTube. Mind Gym by Gary Mack. And The Mental ABC’s of Pitching by Harvey Dorfman. All three fantastic reads.

Cat, let me ask you the million dollar question. What is it that you know now that you wish you knew when you were just getting started maybe as a high school or college athlete? What do you know now you wish you knew then?

Osterman: Probably two things. One, I wish I knew healthy eating would help you feel so much better. When I was in high school and college I ate anything and everything and probably could have fueled my body a little better in order to recover better.

Two, I really wish I just knew that all the hard work would pay off. There are some days that you put in the hard work and you really start to wonder what’s going to come of it or why you struggle even though you are working really hard. Not that I ever wanted to quit. That was never the case. But there were times where it was just really hard and you get to a really low point. If you could go back to just that low point and know it’s going to pay off you probably can relax and get out of it a little bit faster. At the same time I knew that hard work was going to do something so I never stopped working hard. I never let those low points affect my practice. But just to get out of those low points would have been nice to know that it was all going to pay off.

Cain: Excellent. Cat, if you could remove the skullcap of all the coaches listening to this podcast and plant one seed in their mind about the mental game that would germinate and grow what would that one seed of success about the mental game be for coaches?

Osterman: The biggest seed would be you have to practice it, you have to preach it, you have to expect it out of them almost daily. More than anything we have to remember they’re not trying to screw up. A lot of times they’re just not equipped with the right tools to mentally get themselves through things. It takes us as coaches to really preach it and practice it in order for them to get it. We can’t just give them a book and expect them to be able to do it on their own. Like anything else they need the guidance and they need the constant coaching.

Cain: I know many of our listeners have coaches’ clinics or they run different events where there are looking for keynote speakers or people that come in and kind of tell them their story very similar to what you have done here on the podcast. Everyone who is listening to this that is going to become a huge fan of Cat Osterman, what is the best way for them to either follow you on social media or maybe to contact you if they are looking for you to come in and maybe do a speaking engagement? Is that something that you do?

Osterman: Yeah. As long as it fits into the schedule with when I have to go recruiting and stuff at Texas State I’m more than willing to do events like that. I love telling my story and I think the older I get the more I realize how my career panned out. I can look back and kind of dissect it a little bit and explain it. To contact me there is a contact link on my website which is www.CatOsterman.com. You can go there to request appearances or speaking engagements. To follow me on social media I have a fan page, www.Facebook.com/CatOsterman, and Twitter is just @CatOsterman and Instagram is @CatOsterman as well. All my social media is me. No one else is running it. So you get a pretty good insight into who I am.

Cain: Fabulous. Well, Cat, thank you so much for taking time out of your hectic schedule here and your pace of dominating the day everywhere you go and leaving a legacy behind. I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us. This was one of the best podcasts we’ve ever had. Thank you so much.

Osterman: Thank you, Brian.

 

[Thanks for listening to the Brian Cain Peak Performance Podcast. Please make sure that you visit www.briancain.com and sign up for my Monday Message where every Monday I deliver straight to your inbox videos, interviews, articles, tips, techniques, strategies that you can use to Master the Mental Game. You can also contact me through my website on our Contact Us page and see my calendar of where I am going to be in the country and when I’m coming to your area so that we can get together and that we can continue to go out there and Dominate the Day.]