The reason I write and deadlift is because Elon Musk can’t design a robot that can feel this way for me. Maybe the robot can write more elegantly or lift more weight. But it can’t make me feel the aliveness of a great idea. It can’t make me feel the rhythm of a great sentence. It can’t make me feel the heavy-ass weight starting to move. This feeling is what makes us human. Find it in your own life. Protect it. Cherish it.

(Read this on the Growth EQ website here.)

Houston, 2024—Burroughs Park Soccer Complex: The score was tied. The head referee was glancing at his watch, whistle in his mouth, ready to call the game at any moment. Coaches from both sides anxiously paced the sidelines, issuing last-second commands to press forward. The fans were energized, encouraging their respective teams' star players.

As the clock wound down and fatigue rose, play on the field became increasingly desperate and chaotic. A speedy blond-haired kid suddenly broke free, the ball on his feet. With only one defender to beat, he cut to his left as the opposing player lunged for the ball. Their legs intertwined and down to the ground they went. A loud whistle belted and the referee yelled, “Foul! Free kick!”

On the sidelines, boos roared. “That wasn’t a foul! He got all ball! Horrible call, Ref! You just gave the game away!"

The free kick sailed past the goalie and into the net. One team went wild in celebration. The other team walked toward the sideline completely dejected. The game was over. More adults jeered at the ref telling him he should be fired. A few players sank to the ground, heads drooping in shame, as if they’d let everyone down. One athlete broke down crying and, as he left the field, told his family, “I don’t want to play anymore. We should have won.”

Other players were met by consoling coaches and family. From the sidelines, Steve heard multiple versions of, “Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. The ref blew it... This never would have happened if we had our best defender in there... You were robbed.”

Steve wasn’t attending a professional game, an elite club match, or even a high school game. He was standing on the sidelines of a youth soccer game. The players were eight years old.

It's not an uncommon story. In a recent game of the first and second-grade youth basketball league in which Brad coaches, a player fouled out in the third quarter. The opposing team's parents cheered when he was taken to the sidelines. At that point, the kid turned to the parents and told them to "GO FUCK YOUR FACES." He was then called for a technical foul. The same kid's Dad proceeded to lay into the official, and he, too, was called for a technical. They lost by two. Parents were yelling at each other in the parking lot—all in a town that had just come together to survive a once-in-a-generation hurricane that cost countless lives and hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy.

Welcome to youth sports.

For chapter two of Win the Inside Game, Steve explored the world of youth sports as a way to understand our relationship with striving and achievement. He spent time at local soccer fields talking to parents, watching kids melt down, and witnessing teenage referees getting berated. Before that, he spent a decade of his life helping high school and college athletes (and their parents) navigate sport. Brad's in the thick of it, volunteer-coaching his first-grader for the past two seasons in basketball and baseball. He's witnessed parental ejections, parking lot confrontations, and countless kids crying and getting roasted.

Meanwhile, childhood obesity is through the roof. There is a legitimate teen mental health crisis. Screen time is increasing. Outdoor play is diminishing. The truth is that we need youth sports more than ever. But not the current version.

Sports are a great way to establish basic psychological needs: autonomy; mastery and skill development; mattering and belonging

Nobody remembers (or cares) if you won your first-grade league championship. Youth sports should be about having a space for kids to challenge themselves healthily and explore their interests and limits. Youth sports should be a place where kids can learn how to be good teammates, navigate conflict, and develop tools to regulate their emotions. Perhaps most of all, youth sports should be about developing a positive relationship with physical health and fitness.

But that's not the prevailing model, at least not in the United States. A recent study found that seventy percent of kids drop out of youth sports by the age of 13, leading the Human Kinetics Journal to call the current situation a "crisis." Instead of feeling energized and excited for the next season, kids are burned out before they reach their teens. They've become terrified of failure and feel immense pressure. It's why nine-year-olds lose it in the parking lot before a game; the pressure to perform is unbearable. Many of those boys and girls who quit before 13 missed out on a great opportunity to develop their health, fitness, confidence, and character. Some would have been all-stars.

Research suggests the following factors drive kids to quit sports: loss of joy and fun; an excessive focus on winning; perceived parental pressure; fear of failure instilled by a parent or coach; and comparison, such as "I wasn't as good as other people my age."

In Win the Inside Game, Steve uses the example of Norway—a country that has phenomenal success at the highest levels, with some of the world's best athletes in track and field, triathlon, soccer, tennis, golf, and of course, the winter Olympic sports—as a counter-example. In their youth sports programs, Norway doesn't allow for official scorekeeping until the age of thirteen. Norwegians dissuade national travel teams in favor of local leagues until at least middle school. Coaches are fined for posting the results of youth competitions online. Norway doesn’t allow trophies unless everyone gets one. (Something over which many American adults would shit their pants.) Norway's motto for youth sports: "Joy of sport for all."
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We're not expecting American parents to become as radical as Norwegians. But we can nudge ourselves in that direction. Even if the entire point of youth sports was to create future champions (which it's not), we'd still adopt something similar to the Norwegian model. An analysis of over 6,000 athletes explored what separates athletes who reached world class and those who came up short.

Those who reached world-class had during their youth:

• More multi-sport than specialized practice
• Started their primary sport later
• Accumulated less overall formal practice
• Initially progressed slower than national class peers

Those who performed well when young, but didn't progress:

• Started their primary sport earlier
• Specialized, engaging in more practice in one sport
• Made quicker initial progress

In other words, the whole point of youth sports should be for kids to learn, develop, have fun, and want to come back and play again next season! The best chance of developing a D1 scholarship athlete is essentially to do the exact opposite of what our current youth sports fiasco promotes. Even the poster child for early specialization, Tiger Woods, acknowledged it's not a good thing for parents to push their kids too hard: “Don’t force your kids into sports," he says. "I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters, not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Keep it fun.”
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Now that we've outlined what is broken in youth sports, here's our manifesto for how to improve it, written wearing our hats as parents, coaches, and experts on performance.

1. The fire has to come from within:

If you look at research on prodigies who eventually become standout adult performers, a deep intrinsic drive is paramount. The problem is that early success often pulls young people away from this inner drive. Kids start playing soccer (or violin or chess—this isn't just about sports) because it is exciting and fun. As they improve, they gain accolades and praise from their parents, coaches, and teachers. They start winning trophies or seeing their names in online commentary. Without even realizing it, their intrinsic drive gets replaced by external validation and a need to please and impress others.

The best way to create and maintain intrinsic motivation is to let kids dabble, explore, and find something with which their interests and talents align. Then, let them enjoy it without an undue emphasis on success. Praise effort, character, and teamwork, not results.
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This is easy to talk about but hard to do. Find ways to reward and incentivize the values you want to instill. That means not taking the easy road and talking about who set a new mile best or scored the most points, but instead highlighting who hustled during the fourth quarter, rallied after it seemed like the match was over, or displayed exemplary sportsmanship.

After every game—win or loss, great performance or zoned out performance—go over what was most fun, what your child did well, what they learned, and what they are excited to try next time.

2. Being a hard-ass backfires:

Decades of research show that an authoritarian parenting style, where there are high demands combined with low support, leads to more misbehavior, worse discipline, lower levels of motivation, an inability to regulate emotions, and diminished resilience.

Authoritarian parenting internalizes for a child that the only reason they are showing up to baseball practice or trying hard in the spelling bee is because Mom, Dad, or Coach will yell at them if they don't.

If you want your child to be resilient, you must let them figure out how to navigate difficult situations and muster their own courage and drive, and give them the support and tools to do so.

​Research on elite handball players found that over-controlling adults led to decreased motivation and increased burnout. Other studies show that excessive parental control predicts increased fear of failure and reduced performance.
​
The coach's job is to coach. The parent's job is to cheer and support.

3. Make sure your kids play because they enjoy it, not because they see you enjoying it, and thus want your attention and love:

Kids often see that they can get Mom or Dad's undivided attention, love, and support when pursuing a specific activity. Little Johnny would not have wanted to play football if Dad wasn't all about football. We often confuse young kids doing an activity they like with doing an activity because they know Mom and Dad like that they are doing it.

Kids want to be loved, supported, and cared about. If the only way to receive it is through a sport, they'll play that sport. It's great to connect with your kids over shared interests. But like most things in life, there's a healthy balance to strike.

Lindsay Gallo, a former NCAA champion, explains, “My sense is that [former elite athletes] are relatively more laid back about their young kids’ athletic endeavors.” Why? Because they've been there before. They know what it takes. And they've seen when parents get in the way.

Of course, we want our kids to succeed, and we get excited when they are interested in the same things we are. But that should be a sign to step back, not to aggressively lean in. It's not about repressing that excitement. It's about making sure that the same level of excitement and attention is there for other activities as well, even if you don't enjoy them as much. It's your child's journey, not yours.

One of Brad's parenting mantras is: "Love your kid, not what they are doing."

4. The car ride home is the most important part:

Critiquing, berating, or even coaching your kid after the game is unnecessary. That's not your role. If you're constantly obsessing about the game after a win or loss, what message does the child receive? It's easy to turn a child's passion into something they dread by ending every activity with a lecture on what they could do better.

In psychology, there's a concept called the peak-end rule. It's a heuristic for how we remember past events: We remember the peak of an emotional experience (e.g., when you scored the game-winning goal) and the end of an experience (e.g., the car ride home). Be there to support your child, no matter the outcome. Make sure the car ride home is supportive, encouraging, and energizing, not a dry or tense lecture.​
​
5. Teach your kid to lose well:

Sports are great for teaching life lessons. A tough loss forces us to deal with our competitiveness and negative emotions. The message shouldn't be that we should ignore the experience, or that we should learn to hate losing. It should be that losing is a part of life. If we won every time, there would be no point in playing the game. Everything would be boring.

The earlier someone learns how to process, learn, and grow from failure, the better. If you see your child freaking out or unable to handle a tough loss, consider it a sign they need support and perspective. (The same goes for the parents!)

When we lose, the stress hormone cortisol rises, and we increasingly see every little thing as a sign that we aren't good enough or worthy. Learning how to lose well is about processing the inner turmoil, getting out of stress and protection mode, and finding hope or a path forward. Parents can either help or hinder this process. For instance, they can let their kids socialize or grab some pizza or ice cream after the game with their teammates to help their kids calm down. Once you're on the other side of the immediate turmoil, offer support and perspective instead of critique. For the coaches out there, end with hope, a path forward, and action your kids can take as you recenter their focus on what's next.

Brad had a kid on his basketball team who was a fierce competitor. He played his heart out and was always one of the better players on the court. After losses, he usually cried. Whereas some parents told him "Stop crying" or "Hey, you don't have to cry," Brad would intervene and, in front of the entire team, remind him, "Hey, the reason you are crying is because you played so hard and you care so much about giving it your best out there. Losing is hard. Losing hurts. It hurts to try your hardest and come up short. But that's also what makes the game so fun. We give it our best effort and do not know what will happen. And you can come back next week and try again. It's okay to cry! It means you care! And it's good to care! But did you also have fun?" The answer to the last question was always yes, and the kids would proceed to hug afterwards.

6. If your kid is going to be good, or even great, they'll figure it out:

Private coaching and travel teams aren't going to make or break your kid. If your kid is going to be an elite athlete, they'll wind up there on their own.

Avoid spending your life obsessing over how to give your kid a leg up. We often overemphasize minor items, blowing them up as if they are what matters most. Sure, extra help and support are sometimes needed. But what often happens is people take advantage of a parent's desire for their child to make it, whatever "make it" means. Next thing you know, you are paying $5000 for a travel team and sacrificing your entire family weekend to shuttle across the state at age nine.

Be wary of anyone promising specific results or scholarships. Be cautious of anyone telling you that your child needs to quit their rec-league team in favor of a private coach or a particular organization. There is a cottage industry of youth gurus promising performance, scholarships, and more. But what actually leads to elite performance is good genetics and loving the game. If anything, the professionalization of youth sports works against kids getting to the next level because it runs a high risk of burnout and quitting.

There is inordinate pressure to play travel ball and spend loads on private coaching. In many geographies, this starts as early as age six. We are here to tell you that you aren't a bad parent if you opt-out, or at least opt to hold off for a bit. If your kid is above average and wants to play more often and with higher-level kids, that's great! But be aware of the tradeoffs you are making when signing up for a more competitive team. Consider setting some basic boundaries, such as "we won't travel more than an hour." And be sure that even if they do play on a competitive team, it is still a fun-first environment. Once that is no longer the case, you are more likely to be hurting rather than helping your child's performance trajectory. You can't force greatness, but you can easily burn a kid out before their greatness ever has the chance to flourish.

Remember the value of play and unstructured time, which matters even if you want to make it to the top. For instance, researchers found elite German soccer players spent more time in non-organized soccer play than their sub-elite peers. This is increasingly becoming a collective action problem. If all the kids play travel sports starting at an early age, then there will be nobody around the neighborhood to play freely on the weekends. That's why it's worth having these discussions in community forums too.

7. Your support should be unconditional:

This is a simple but worthwhile reminder. Win or lose, be there.

That's it. It's that simple. And it's true even at higher levels. Countless studies on high school, college, and professional sports teams demonstrate that environments where athletes feel supported and cared for lead to increased motivation, happiness, and even enhanced performance.

8. Resist the urge to step in:

Always support your kid, but also let them figure out how to independently navigate the challenges that come with sport. Yes, there will be times when you need to intervene, such as bullying or a serious risk of severe physical harm. But don't be the overbearing parent who goes to the coach or teacher every time your child underperforms. Research shows a driving force behind the youth mental-health crisis is helicopter parents who refuse to let their kids take risks and work through tough situations on their own.

Parents want the best for their kids. They want them to succeed. In our current society of constant comparison (and often a real financial need to chase scholarships) it's hard to resist the urge to step in.

But if you are the parent who always steps in, who debates and questions the coach, it will either make your kid embarrassed and worried about what Mom or Dad will say or do this time, or it will generate fear of failure, because they see how much Mom or Dad is obsessed.

On more than one occasion, Steve had high school and college athletes ask him if he could talk to their parents about not being at a competition. Why? Because it was overwhelming, and their performance suffered. These parents were good people who cared about their children. But sometimes, often unknowingly, we are putting the weight of the world on our kid's shoulders when we are constantly stepping in, even if the intention is to help. People perform best when they are free to explore their potential.
​
Don't transmit your anxiety to your kid. Be there to support—no more, no less.

9. Bad vibes are contagious:

​Research shows that if a parent or coach is anxious or angry on the sidelines, players on the field are more likely to be anxious or angry. Your emotions are contagious. If mom or dad is losing their minds in the stands, little Johnny is likely distracted on the field.
​
What message are you sending? Support and love or anxiety and stress.

10. Don't micromanage your child's performance trajectory:

A right of passage as a college coach is receiving messages from worried parents that their young children aren't measuring up or progressing as fast as their peers. These parents then proceed to suggest drastic interventions. Their desperation is palpable.

Here's the bottom line: don't move across the state or country chasing athletics. Your kid probably isn't that good, and if he or she is, they'll make it regardless of where they are.

You may think going all-in to help your child is a good thing. But the more invested you are, the more pressure and expectations fall on your child's lap. You want to support your child's journey, not obsess over it. If you obsess, it will end up backfiring. If a child chooses to be a bit obsessive about their sport, it should be entirely their decision, not the parents.

​Research shows choking in sports is partially due to performing in front of an audience and feeling judged. It's not that audiences are a requirement for choking, it's just that they can activate a fight-flight-freeze response.

When researchers studied a variety of ways to increase anxiety (and the impact each had on performance), it wasn't punishment or playing for money that caused anxiety to increase and performance to decline. It was performing in front of teammates or coaches. The same holds true for parents.

People want to perform their best in front of others who matter to them. Your kid doesn't want to feel like they let you down. This occurs even if you are the kindest, most loving parent in the world. It's human nature. You can think of the above principles as ways not to exacerbate this tendency, and not to put your child into threat mode. You want your child to perform from a place of fun and freedom—practice being a reminder of those qualities, not of pressure and fear.

***

We can either instill a love of sport in our youth, or we can turn sport into a burden where kids are exhausted, stressed, and scared. We've seen this go both ways, and the results couldn't be more different. One leads to happy, healthy, and better young athletes. The other leads to burnout, family tension, mental health challenges, and quitting. As parents, volunteers, coaches, and community members, let's all do what we can to minimize the latter and champion the former.

-- Steve and Brad

P.s., These ideas and insights come from Chapter Two of Win the Inside Game, in which Steve argues that while nothing is wrong with striving for achievement, in many cases, we've gone too far. Too many adults have become like the young athlete who feels overwhelmed by pressure and starts to live with chronic fear of failure. We need to balance achievement with the ability to be content; striving with the ability to let go; and caring about what we're doing without being defined by it. The crux of performing at the highest level is balancing these opposing forces.

• “The wrestling champion Bernarr Macfadden loved raw milk and cold plunges. He hated vaccines and despised white flour, which he called “dead food. His greatest enemy after white flour was the American Medical Association. He thought that the sedentary weakness of the American people was a crime and that overeating was wicked, writing, Hardly a home exists that is not made unhappy, to a greater or lesser- extent, by this habit, in a book called Strength From Eating. Strength From Eating features a photograph of the muscleman flexing his veiny, highly articulated arm right before the preface, with the phrase yours for health, written in Macfadden’s distinctive cursive underneath the photo. Mr. Macfadden was a genius of self-promotion—he understood that flooding the zone with his ideas and his scantily clad body via tabloids, magazines and radio was key to spreading his gospel. Mr. Macfadden’s ideas are served to millions of people every day via social media health influencers in the year 2025, but he is not of the internet era. He was born in 1868."
• Cal Newport recently wrote about productivity rain dances. "What separates grounded productivity efforts from productivity rain dances is that they’re not symbolic, nor are they exercises in busyness for the sake of busyness. Their success is instead measured by the concrete results they produce. As a result, they’re not flashy, high-tech, or even all that exciting to deploy. But they work."
• For athletes and exercisers: Five key training principles for fitness. A video deep dive on what actually matters in training.
• The key to performing well? Balancing competitiveness with the ability to let go. What we can learn from Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson's partnership.

Here are two mindset strategies that this week's guest on FAREWELL, performance psychologist Alex Auerbach, has used in his work with NBA players to help them improve their mental strength and resilience.

1. After you've made a mistake or suffered a setback, use the quick but effective three-step "RELEASE --> RESET --> REFOCUS" routine to get yourself back on track before self-doubt starts to creep in.

RELEASE: Use a physical action, like a yell or clap, to release the tension of the mistake.

RESET: Use another physiological cue (a deep breath, a snap of your fingers) to center your attention on the present.

REFOCUS: Ask yourself, what's the next best thing I can do to get myself back on the path towards what I need to accomplish?

2. Don't think of effort with an all-or-nothing mentality. You're rarely going to want to (or even have the ability to) give 100% every day. That doesn't mean you should do nothing, or procrastinate until you feel completely energized. " You have to work really hard with pro athletes to get them to that mentality," says Dr. Auerbach. "But once you do, it's pretty liberating because now the goal isn't to give something you can't, the goal is to do your best. And when people are asked to do their best, they actually do quite well and push themselves farther than they ever would have imagined."

To get more of Alex's great tips on mastering your mental performance—including how to manage pressure, eliminate self-limiting beliefs, and set better goals—listen to FAREWELL on Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Thank you for reading this week's edition of The Growth Equation newsletter. We hope you found it valuable.

P.S., if someone forwarded this email to you, you can sign up to get our weekly email here.

People perform best when they:

• Enjoy what they do
• Feel secure in the environment
• They can make progress
• Feel they belong
• Are doing meaningful work

Nowhere in that list is excessive control, micromanaged, being motivated with fear, or driven by insecurity.

To perform and live well, we need clarity on who we are, where we are going, and where we belong.
​
That's the essence of Win the Inside Game. It's how we live a meaningful life and how we reach our potential. Put people in a position to have a shot, support them, and see what happens.

Amazon just discounted it to 20% Off. Get your copy today!​

To learn more and go deeper, check out our books:

• ​Win the Inside Game​
• ​Master of Change​
• ​Do Hard Things​
• ​The Practice of Groundedness​
• ​Peak Performance ​

For daily insights, ideas, and practices, be sure to follow us online:

Twitter: @Bstulberg and @Stevemagness​
​Instagram: Steve Magness, Brad Stulberg, Clay Skipper, and The Growth Eq Instagram​

Youtube: Steve Magness​

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