Mental Health, Professional Athletes, and Being Best Friends with Lauren Ammon

It's not every day that you can invite your best friend to be on a podcast with you. Lauren Ammon is my daughter's future mother in law, but more importantly, she's a badass entrepreneur who's tackling mental resiliency in high performing athletes. 

Pay attention, Joe Burrow, as we rediscover Lauren's story.

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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Jesse Herron, host of Rediscover Your Story, a podcast for marketers who need a break from the everyday learning but still want to hear from like minded professionals on all things creative. Today, we're going to hear from Lauren Amann with Performance Reimagined, an organization that's focused on helping students reach their full potential. Without further ado, let's discover her story. Oh, my gosh. Thanks for being here. I was so looking forward to starting a podcast at Resolve, but then it was even more exciting when I was listing people who I thought would be great additions to bring on the podcast. And your name popped up and it was like, Oh my God, yeah, must have her on the podcast. Yeah. So that we can rediscover your story. Absolutely. And you know, I love podcasts, so I know you're the professional, so you're here to make me look good. That's your job. 200%. Okay. Yours and Steve's right. Steve, is that your job? You know what? Okay, so let's just talk real quick about what I just said. So we have already decided actually, our children have already decided that they're going to marry each other. We didn't decide that for them. No. So that's just like a nice, fun fact that we can put out there into the airwaves. But your son and my daughter have basically been betrothed by themselves. Yeah, and we're not doing anything to stop it. No, we're not. Because we're going to be future mother in law's together. And it is a well-known fact that we pretty much have decided at their wedding that the reception, while about them, is actually about us 100%, right? Yes. You know, I don't plan. That will be the one thing that I will be absolutely all over. Right. Right. Yes. Okay. You don't plan, which is a fabulous lead in to where I'm going to go with my next question. So if you don't plan, how did we get performance reimagined? Well, like everything in my life, it happened instantaneously, spontaneously and out of the blue. So part of my back story is, you know, as I was a summer for almost two decades. And when I left swimming, I had this thought of of I could have been so much more had I been able to get out of my own head. So I went into the corporate world thinking, okay, I can't do anything about my swimming career. It's behind me. I'm gonna place it in this box. That's where it's going to stay. So I spent about 15 years, 12 or 15 years in corporate America and just wasn't there. It just wasn't me. I didn't feel like I fit in. So I went and got my professional coaching certification. So as you know, I was in human resources for a while, so I was always exposed to executive coaches and I thought, Oh, that might be something I kind of like. So that's what put like I through. That's why I threw myself into it. So fast forward, I go through my yearlong coaching certification. I start my business really focused on leadership development and career transition, career development because that's what I did in human resources. So I was about 18 months into that journey and again, it was kind of like, Yeah, I kind of like this wasn't totally doing it for me. And then it was the night that Simone Biles removed herself from competition of the 2020 Olympics, which we all know was a year behind schedule. And I remember before anything, I started thinking to myself, they always had pre interviews with athletes, and I remember thinking, gosh, they just seem off. Like you already noticed that she seemed off. Yes, she seemed off. Katie Ledecky seemed off. Right. It was a hard year for all of them. I mean, how some swimmers were literally swimming in backyard pools to train. Right. So it was nice that she removed herself from competition. It was the same night that Katie Ledecky won gold in the 700 meter freestyle. But didn't have a great swim. So she was about 20 seconds off of her world record. And in that same night, Michael Phelps came on, who's always been a big proponent of mental well-being and athletes, said words that I had been thinking for 30 years but had no idea how to put into context. And he said competing at this level is really overwhelming. We just want someone to talk to. We just want someone who listens, who allows us to be vulnerable and does want to fix us. And it was in that moment that it was like, Oh my God, that yeah, it was gone for you. Yeah. That was the moment of like, wait a minute. I don't need to put my swimming career in a box. This is an opportunity for me to take that half of my life, combine it with the second half of my life of figuring out how to get out of my own head and support other athletes in doing the same. You watched the Mon. You heard from Michael Phelps. So then what really put everything into place for you as far as like getting your business plan together? Like, I mean, this is a really tough journey for anybody. Here you are kind of jumping out of like one kind of career and throwing yourself into another career. How did all the clicks kind of come together for you? Well, you know, in marketing or, you know, building a business is always like find your niche, find your niche. And I was struggling so hard, I was like, well, I could it could be that. So it could be that the minute that I have that idea of, Oh, it's athletes, everything just clicked into place. I knew how to talk to it. I knew what to talk about and I worked with a branding specialist. And what was so funny is I had this dream and I still have this dream of being the mindset coach for Team USA. And so in my mind, I saw Red, white and blue. And so going within an image specialist, she kind of found that, you know, not necessarily planned. And so as I just started going down that path, it was like, yeah, this makes total sense. And I just, you know, this I just kind of take it one step at a time and I just find myself where I'm supposed to be every time I turn a corner. Okay. Quick detour on you being at the right place at the right time. You and I, when we met, was you being at the right place at the right time? So I was in the pool with the kids at our local swim club. You and I had seen each other and known of each other, had said hi to each other in passing. But basically, this was the day that was the catapult of our friendship. And you came because you came to the side of the pool and you literally looked at me and you said, What? Can I help you? Yes. I was holding my son. So, Jack, he was grabbing at me and, you know, trying to watch my little girl, trying to hold on to him. It was super chaotic. And yeah, you were definitely at the right place at the right time. Well, you know, I always love that story because I didn't think anything about it. It was just watching another human being go through something. Being a mother myself, I know what it's like to want to literally, you know, do something to your child while you're in the water. And it was just one of those moments of she feels I feel as if she needs something. I'll just walk over and support her in that. And that's what I everything I do in my business, well, that's what I'm going to say is like I feel like that's just your your empathetic heart and your sort of like go into action mode. I guess just like personality. But I think that that's exactly right. Like, I haven't really thought about it in, in that way. On how we met and just kind of reflecting on performance reimagined and what you do with other athletes. But you really are there knowing the struggles that they go through, knowing the inner component, the inner opponent that they have and you know, how to like help them get past it. Yeah. And that was the big aha moment for me. It was like again, going back to like, who do I really serve? And when Michael Phelps said those words, it was like, duh. I mean, you know, growing up in the late nineties, early 2000, that wasn't something that was really talked about. Right. We all know that the mental part of the game is a huge component of it. But when we were growing up, it was put your head down, suck it up, you're fine. Move on, whatever. And in modern day, watching these athletes that are now in the spotlight more than they ever were to begin with. And again, I was going back to Samoan of how many people came out and were like, how could you possibly do that? And it was like, you have no idea what it's like to be on that sort of stage. I don't even know what it's like to be on that sort of stage, but I know what it's like to feel as if something is riding on your shoulders, even if that's just your reputation. And that's what it was like. Yeah. Just have an opportunity to give athletes a space just to unleash emotionally and mentally in a world where sometimes it's not welcome and oftentimes it can be looked down upon. Well, and I would have to think that given the amount of access that everybody has to people that they've never had access to before, so let me unpack that. Is that because of social media? Because every celebrity athlete, whatever category that you're in, you're on social media and everybody has access to your life. And if you don't give them access to your life, they're just going to demand it even more. So everyone has access to all of the athletes and they can say whatever they want about your performance. It's not like it just goes out into the ether and no one ever sees it. That athlete actually sees all the negative comments. If they do something wrong, someone's going to tell them about it. Yeah, but everybody's watching has 1% of the story, right? They don't know anything leading up to it. They have no idea what was going on in the moment. They have no idea what goes on after and the amount of pressure that athletes already feel to begin with, specifically at that high level, because you're just constantly pushing yourself and pushing yourself to be the best you can possibly be. Oh, by the way, being the best against everybody else. Who's the best? Right. Yeah. Yes. And so that's what you're constantly thinking. And then to have all of this extra input and when no one has any clue about who you are as a human and how you're going to respond to that, and they just say, well, you know, you put yourself in the limelight. You should be used to this. This is what you signed up for. No, it's not. Now. And have you ever done a flip right or flip turn? Exactly. Most of the people who are what do they call them, couch warriors, whatever the hell they come. Right. Probably have never done anything athletic for a specific reason, have been an athlete. And to go and to criticize someone for saying, hey, I feel like I'm going to die up there when I'm twisting and turning, you know, however many feet in the air, I don't feel comfortable. I'm out. That should be respected. Yeah, 100%. So then let's just take that into what you're doing today and who you're talking with today. And, you know, I know that you work with high school athletes. You work with different schools and work with their athletic teams. Tell me, tell me. Kind of like the favorite parts now. Now that you're like 100% in it, you have this business, it's often running like running quickly. What's it like now? It's awesome. Like, I love connecting with these athletes because not only are they still going through some of the same struggles that I went through 25 years ago, don't age ourselves anymore. So but there's also those added components. And that's the thing. It's like, you know, the human experience is timeless and universal, right? It doesn't necessarily matter what we're going through or what age. They're all the same struggles now. They have added struggles that we didn't have, i.e. social media and everyone having an opinion. But at the same time, these are they have also been through things that we could have never imagined at 16, 17 years old with the pandemic and being isolated and how that all affects them. But my favorite part is literally just allowing them space to unleash. Right? I work with somebody who a currently and he's like, you're one of the only people that I can trust I can say something to. And it's never going to go anywhere because that's that's exactly what it is. And at the simplest terms, what I do is I give athletes the space to literally unleash be themselves without judgment and that's my favorite part, is literally giving them the opportunity to be seen, be heard for exactly who they are and not try to change or fix them. Yeah, that's really important for them. They to his point, you know, the athlete's point, like they probably don't have a lot of places or spaces where they can go to just be themselves, unpack everything that's bothering them. Whether I'm sure you get more than just like this, what's bothering me on the court or the field or whatever, you get the whole gamut of the things that are bothering them, but there's oh places for them to go. There's not a lot of places for them to hide. Yeah, right. And to just have those conversations. Yeah, but that's the other thing is that, you know, we look at this as the opportunity to focus on the entire athlete. It isn't just about what's happening on the field. Oftentimes, what's happening off the field with their family, with their siblings, with their girlfriends or boyfriends or significant others, whatever affects them just as significantly as, you know, making a decision of, well, do I play football next year? And if I do, does that really mean for me? How do I connect with my coaches? Like all of these things are intertwined is just like an adult who comes to work, you know, you've got your personal life out there you go, professional life. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. You come as an entire human. And that's that's exactly that. We focus on the entire athlete, regardless of what's going on in their life. So when we think about athletes, let's talk about the ultimate dream athlete that you want to work with and just lay it out there. Yes, I'm cheating. I kind of know who it is. Go sports. That would be Mr. Joe Burrow. Why? Why would you want to work with like the Joe Shakti? Joe Burrow Well, when you look at his career, right. So he came from Athens, Ohio, which is a small town in Ohio which deals with its own things outside of any athletic field. Right. He comes from a phenomenal background. He went to Ohio State. Ohio State in some ways said you're not good enough to be starting quarterback. Yeah. So he took it upon himself to then go to LSU. If you've seen which I know you have any of his like documentaries or whatever, it's kind of like I remember all of the recruiters who said I wasn't what they wanted me to be. He goes to LSU, he wins a national championship, he becomes a Heisman Trophy winner in his second year in the NFL, he takes his very losing team to the Super Bowl and nearly wins the whole damn thing. Oh, by the way, after his rookie year, having his knee ripped out of his body and finds way to nearly make it back to the Super Bowl in year three of his full career. I mean, just to be able to sit down and talk with him, to say, how the hell do you do what you do? You know, take, for instance, the divisional game last year when he was sacked nine times and still won the damn game. Like, how do you you never once saw him scream at his O-line. He never once, you know, had these emotional outbursts. And it's okay to have an emotional I'm not sure, sure, sure. But it's how he kept his composure. Yes. It's how he collects himself and how he stays so dialed in and focused. I would literally just love to sit and listen to him walk through that. Yeah. No, I think we should just, like, put that out there. Like on this podcast, if you're listening to your fans, the Joe Burrow, number one, send him to Lauren to talk to Lauren. Number two, Abby would like his girlfriend to buy a Girl Scout cookies from her, the next Girl Scout piece, and that's what she wanted me to do, was to find her on LinkedIn and have her buy Girl Scout cookies. So those are the two minor universal assets that we have right now. Olivia will find you. Deal. Yeah, right. In a non-threatening way. Sure. Okay. Also, just let it be known as I'm going to say best friends. We're best friends. Yeah, I'm going to say that. Yeah, it's okay to say that I could not be more opposite when it comes to sports than you. So I actually should have worn my go sports sweatshirt. That's a huge fail on my part. I mean, it happens. It happens. I know. Maybe I'll just get a picture of you wearing the sweatshirt, but, like, I could not be more opposite of you. But here's what I love. I love that, like, number one, I've been taking I have taken a front row seat on this journey. That is your journey. That is the journey of performance reimagined. And it's been a pretty awesome ride, I would say. Yeah, but also you're educating me on all things and I know when there's a touchdown, I know when there's a first down. I know some of these things now. Yeah. Wasn't there something, was it during the AFC championship game you're like, Oh, there's a turnover on downs. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? Wow. Small tears in my eyes. She can be tight. Exactly. Okay, so you. You are killing it. You're bad ass. You're killing it. You're creating all of this content. How do you how do you make the space or how do you make the time in your day to create content? And, like, just walk me through even the creation of content. Like what? Sticking for you, what's working? Yeah. So, you know, Zach, it's not planned. I know I'm a marketer's nightmare, but for me, it's more about like if I'm reading a book or I'm reading an article or I see someone else's real, those are the things that are truly inspirational to me. And so either respond and add onto it or in some cases challenge it. And that's what really gets me, you know, kind of in that creative flow. And I have bursts and then I'll stop, I'll have personal stop because for me it's about feeling it. And if I'm if there are times when I've tried to just like create a calendar. Yes. It doesn't work. Yeah. Or just try to see something I think I want to talk about. And it comes off really inauthentic to me and I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm doing this today, right? Or I'll come back to it. Or oftentimes sometimes and I'm just walking. And I thought perhaps in my mind, that's what I want to talk about today. The other avenue is when I'm talking to clients, right? So I talk with four different clients a week and there are times when they're all going through somewhat of the same thing and adjusting. Yeah, it's one of those moments like, holy shit. Like this is this is really important. And so that'll be something that I talk about. But what's really it's a beautiful challenge is that I, from a marketing standpoint, talk to so many different people. Great. So the main person I'm really talking to is the athlete, right? Because it's that's who I connect with. But there's also a mom and dad, there's coach, there's athletic director, there's, you know, anybody interested or connected to an athlete. So when I say beautiful challenge, it's like, yes, I know, I want to talk to the athlete, but sometimes it is about the message to the parent or the message to the ad or the message to a coach. They can all be somewhat similar. Sure, but I've got to maneuver and manipulate them to meet that specific person. Well, you probably have to change your message depending on the medium, right? Like your athlete, your high school actually, or even your collegiate athlete probably isn't hanging out on LinkedIn. No. Right. But you have a great, I would say, dialog and content that you're putting out on LinkedIn. You've a I mean you've a great following to write, but then also if you switch gears and you think about like Instagram and Facebook, I mean, that's, you know, another avenue or another medium for you where your content is different, then LinkedIn. So it's almost like how do you, how do you choose which content goes where? It's kind of a daily thing. Again, it's like if I'm feeling it and oftentimes I will lean more towards the athlete. So it will always be from the, you know, focal point of them. But there are times when I'll use my own experi ences as a parent that from a LinkedIn standpoint, that's what I put out there. So a great example will be this past weekend when I was at my son's X track meet and he was doing the field version of the meet, which is not his forte. And he said, I got I don't remember Ace or something. I was like, Oh, buddy, that's not necessarily your strong suit. It's no big deal. You say, What's a big deal to me? And in my mind I was like, Oh my God, of course it's a big deal to you, right? It was one of those moments where it was like even in my own life, and I'm very transparent and vulnerable about that. Even as a parent, I have to work really hard to remember my place and so oftentimes that can be an inspiration when talking in appearance because it's like even if you were an athlete or not, you just want your child to feel joy and to feel confident and validated and validated. But for me saying it's not that big of a deal, he was like, Yeah, it is. 100%, buddy. 100%. I'm sorry about that. Sorry. Let me let me rewind that time a little bit and let real it up a little bit. Yeah. So yeah. So you're just kind of taking your own experiences, translating that, deciding the medium in which it goes on. And again, I have been following you since the beginning and you have a wild amount of success, like people really want to be in tune with your content. And I think it goes back to what you said earlier. You're authentic. There's no bullshit coming out of your mouth. No. Sometimes to my detriment. What are you saying here? I think, you know, I don't think we have time on this podcast to go for that cash. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is though. It's really cool to see and I mean, have you I don't know, like have you ran into I kind of know the answer to this. You have kind of run into some controversy, like because you do speak so authentically that you're not afraid of controversy at all, especially in a social not only in a social media capacity, but on a person to person, like in real life capacity. Right? So like, but how do you always stand your ground and how do you sort of like firmly place yourself in your positioning so that you can be authentically yourself? It's not always perfect, as you know. Like, you know, I have challenged some traditional thought out there, particularly in the athletic world. And there are times when I say even that's my niche, right? My niche is bucking conventional wisdom to support athletes in a very different way for them to look at performance in a very different way. But someone has to do that. I think that's the only way that changes are going to be made, right? Well, yeah. I mean, look how much mental health and mental well-being has come to the forefront within the athletic world. But you still hear people like, you know, pushing it and pushing the put your head down, suck it up. You're not you know, if you show weakness, then you're not one of the greats. And that was really the conventional wisdom that I challenged. So how do we do it? There are times when when I challenge and I got that pushback on social media, like there was a time it was like, Oh, my God, oh my God, what are people how do I deal with this? Yeah, but then I remembered through support with friends like you of like I have something to say. And there is space in this world for multiple points of view, right? There's nothing in this world that's black and white or yes or no or right or wrong. Right. There's always gray area. And that's where I feel like I have a special gift of like I always introduce the gray area. That doesn't mean you have to agree with me, doesn't mean you have to follow me. It's simply that I'm here just to say there's a different way of looking at this, because as we've seen, particularly athletic world, putting your head down, sucking it up and never showing any sort of emotion isn't the human experience. We all have emotion, regardless of your Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky, Joe Burrow, whatever the case may be, it's how you handle that and how you view yourself in that process. That is the difference, me perfectly said, I think. Yeah, and I also agree like it is the introduction of the gray area, right? Like you're never asking anybody to follow you. And I think that that's kind of like the beautiful thing about, you know, putting some of the content out that you put out, right. There are almost always soft centers. They're never like here is the only point of view. There are only five starters. And I think that's why actually, I don't know, I've been kind of thinking about it like before you came on the podcast, I was kind of thinking like and telling somebody else like, Oh yeah, I'm having Lauren, I'm having Lauren on the podcast. And one of the reasons why I think she's phenomenal, one of the many reasons why I think she's phenomenal is that you do have such a big voice with such a big site that everybody wants to join in on the conversation. You're LinkedIn gets so much engagement, specifically LinkedIn. I can't see all the comments or engagement on your other social media platforms, but I feel like there's so much engagement because you just are always creating those starters and honestly a space for other people to kind of join in and have that conversation. Yeah. What part of that is because of my story, right? I grew up in a very like dichotomous environment, whereas like right and wrong, black or white, yes or no. And I remember as I got older like that, not necessarily working for me. I mean, well, what about me or how what if you took this turn or that turn? And it wasn't until I got more secure in like, I don't necessarily have to think in black and white. What if there were these other options? And again, it's not in a space of like think this or else it's more or less what have you tried this on? That's what I talk about to the athletes all the time is that all of this is an experiment. I don't necessarily know 100% with 100% certainty what is best for you. As we talk through what comes up for you, we can figure out different ways to address what might be best for you. But it's always an experiment, and if it doesn't work, we'll try something else. Test and learn. Yes, honestly. I mean, again, coming from the marketer perspective, right, like I don't think you're necessarily like a marketer's nightmare. You're actually a marketer's dream because you're so willing to test and learn, right? Like nothing that you're doing is I mean, probably some people listening this are like, no, no, no. There's a formula. There's a formula, Jesse There's a formula. But there's so much testing and learning, like nobody actually knows the right answer. I think marketers are just like a couple steps ahead of their clients in some degree, right? Because the world is changing at such a rapid pace. So I don't know. I think that it just actually makes sense. Well, I mean, it goes back to rediscovering your story, right? It's it's that's what I had to do in swimming. So for anybody who knows what I did and swimming, I was a distance swimmer. So I was swimming the 500, the mile. Right. And I had to play around with that. It's not like a 50 where you're just like hauling ass for 20 some odd seconds. No, I was swimming for less than five, fewer than five and around 17. Right. So you had to figure out what's the best way for me to swim this. And it wasn't necessarily always the same way every single meet. It depended on on what else I was swimming or what kind of meet it was or how I felt that day. Whatever the case may be. So I was always testing, rinse and repeating literally every single day. Well, I find that really interesting that you're like really honing in on like a strategy. So no matter the platform, right? So video content marketing, working with athletes, mental health coaching, I think that no matter what, you still have to have a defined strategy in order to create any sort of action in whatever you're doing. Yeah, I don't know that I get it right every single time, but it's working so far. Right, exactly. So what's what's the next big thing? What's coming what's coming down the line for you? What is what's happening in the next phase of performance reimagined. Yeah. Well, we're starting our own podcast. Yes, it's training. Yes, it's going to be called the Peak Performance Zone. We've already recorded a couple of episodes recording a few more and we'll be launching soon. We don't have a date yet and it's really focused on it's for athletes, but parents, coaches, athletic directors can obviously tune in and it's really supporting them and understanding how to look at performance differently. So we'll have current athletes, former athletes, really anyone in the athletic space. Joe Burrow Yes, exactly. Putting that out there, maybe. Michael Phelps, maybe Katie Ledecky, whatever, but supporting them and understanding that there are so many different components to performance and that sometimes the conventional wisdom of sport isn't necessarily the most effective. And then around that, building a community. So we've been working exclusively one on one and that was very intentional one to figure out what's going on at the micro level for athletes. But then because we've worked with so many at this point, we're now starting to see macro ideas that we can bring to the masses. And so creating a community not only to bring athletes together because there is oftentimes athletes can become so ancillary and say, I'm the only one going through this fun fact. They're not even they put themselves on an island or they're so high up that they're at the Everest and there's no one else to reach their they're their peak right? I mean, you know, think about all these Olympic athletes who say, yeah, I go through depression after every Olympics because it's like, I don't know what the heck to do at this point, which makes total sense. But if you've not been at that level, you would have no clue that that exists. So building a community not only to support them, but, you know, from a podcast invite, they listen, they can come ask questions, get direct access to me, but more importantly, get direct access to one another, and then building from there some content that would allow them the opportunity to go through some training and education in a more formal way. But then also connecting not only with each other but for us at Performance Reimagined. And what's the podcast called again? Peak Performance Zone. I love it. I think that's so exciting. Again, I've had a front row seat to all of your success and I'm going to continue to be at the front of the bus cheering you on as you're like Hype girl. But I think that's amazing. I can't wait for your podcast to come out and yeah, I can't wait to to take a listen and thank you so much for coming on to my podcast, making me look better because you're amazing. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Family, friends. Yeah, I love friend. Let me do that. This. Thank you for listening. If you would like to rediscover your own story, please connect with us at any of the links below. My name is Jesse Herron. Thanks for taking a break with me.