Five with Fry

27: Five Mindset Shifts That Change the Game for Players

• Dr. Jen Fry • Season 1 • Episode 27

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Think elite athletes are just born different? Not so fast. In this episode of Five with Fry, Dr. Jen Fry sits down with sports psychology consultant Dan Mickle to unpack the real difference between good and great athletes—and it’s not just about talent or hustle. It’s about mindset.

Dan shares five powerful shifts that can change the game for athletes, coaches, and parents alike. From reframing nerves as a sign that you care, to understanding that focus isn’t magic—it’s a trainable skill—this conversation will challenge a lot of what you think you know about performance.

You’ll learn why your self-talk is actually your most consistent coach, and how naming your inner critic can help you take back control. Dan also shares what journaling can reveal about performance patterns, how to practice mental recovery during drills, and why being brave (not fearless) is the real key to growth.

Whether you’re a parent trying to support a young athlete, a coach rethinking how you build focus, or an athlete ready to level up, this episode is packed with insights you can use right now. Because the most important training doesn’t happen in the gym. It happens between your ears.

Ready to train your mental game? Let’s go.

Find more from Dan at danmickle.com, on social @RealDanMickle, or check out his podcast at mentalcast.com.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Friends, welcome to Five with Fry, where five is the magic number, whether it's five minutes, five questions or anything that fits in five. I dive into the big topics that matter, sometimes alone and other times with a friend. From navigating sports conflict to family dynamics, travel, tech, hard-hitting issues and even politics. Nothing and I mean nothing's off the table. This is where curiosity meets conversation and we always sit at an intersection. I'm your host, dr Jen Fry of Jen Fry Talks. Let's get into it, friends. Welcome to the newest episode of Five with Fry. I am Jen Fry.

Dr. Jen Fry:

We have our man of the hour, dan Mickle. He was on a previous podcast which, if you haven't listened to it Five Truths Every Sports Parent Should Hear, even if they don't listened to it Five Truths Every Sports Parent Should Hear, even if they don't want to. I suggest you pause this one and go back and listen to that, because it was filled with so many amazing gems and things that I hope parents really sit with and take full stock of to understand how it's affecting not only their relationship with their athlete but also the athlete's relationship with the sport and so really important thing. So Dan and I go way back to when I lost his clicker and never told him about it, and so he is my number one nemesis and arch villain in all of my stories. He is the person that harassed me through my PhD, which I will be giving him back that same response as he's doing his, and so give them a little bit about yourself, Dan.

Dan Mickle:

I would think that that by now that story would hurt less, but I still, my clicker still hurts man.

Dr. Jen Fry:

It was a great clicker too. That's the worst. It was like $60. It was an expensive one.

Dan Mickle:

It was Laser pointer and everything.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Yeah.

Dan Mickle:

Yeah, so I am a sports psychology consultant or a mental coach whichever you would prefer and I'm also a women's division three college volleyball coach and I just learned early on as a player and then as a coach that I was mediocre athletically. I was not gifted with speed, height, strength or talent, but I was really good on the mental side and I just realized that that was my passion and that's kind of what I dedicated to, and I'm working on my doctorate on health sciences and my focus is working with neurodivergent populations as it pertains to coaching and athletics.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Perfect.

Dr. Jen Fry:

I think you are really leading the work in this area.

Dr. Jen Fry:

I mean, I think now you can admit there's been this whole amount of people coming up to say that they're sports psychologists but they're missing out on so much important things I think you're hitting those on the head that we have to make sure we're talking about the spectrum of athletes, and so the first one we talked about was, for the sport parents, which is really important. I think a lot of people and please correct me if I'm wrong, Dan tend to segment out the athlete as a silo and not all the contextual stuff around it and really the true influence that the parent has on the athlete in all aspects of the game, and so it's important that we engage the parent to know what they need to know, as well as we're engaging the athlete. That's one of the reasons as a speaker, I speak to the athlete, but I also need to speak to the coaches and the staff, because we can't silo out the athlete and not talk about the things that affect them around. And so today I guess they were talking about the five mindset shifts that change the game for players. So let's get this ball rolling.

Dr. Jen Fry:

What would be your first one?

Dan Mickle:

Number one is nerves mean that you care, so stop trying to get rid of them. Okay, I think you know. One of the things that I like to tell all my athletes and people I work with is that nerves are energy. Nerves mean that there's something going on, there's a response going on in your body which is better than having no response. Right, they show that you care, and the goal isn't to feel nothing as an athlete, it's how to compete and channel those nerves. You know, if you have butterflies in your stomach, that's okay. The key is how do we get them all flap in the same way to get us better? You know, but I think too many times we try and get athletes and players to be these little emotionless robots, and we don't want that. We want the energy, we want the nerves, and we just have to figure out how to harness it.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Yeah, I think about the amount of people who will be like how do I, how do I, you know, speak and not have nerves? I'm like then you'd be dead. Like you're about to go speak in front of 500 people. I hope you have nerves, I hope that there's a feeling of nervousness and you're like Ooh, what's it? Absolutely shows you care and that's, for me, has been a big thing is like the nerves are there. When I go, when I talk really in front of any size group 10, 100, 000 I always have nerves because it means so much to me, not only because I talk about a really hard topic, but I want them to have a good experience. So there should be nerves for these athletes. Like you said is when you know these parents are like don't be nervous, don't be nervous, be nervous like you. It's a big moment absolutely yeah, like it's the.

Dan Mickle:

The nerve part is interesting because I I think I would hate myself if I was going to speak and I was just like, okay, let's just go do this. Like now there's there's a part of the pump up, that's like that, but there's definitely a part like I just I worked with a team, a local team, a local competitor team, actually another college, um, and we don't play them the next two years. So I'm like, yeah, I'll work with you, but like I I remember sitting in the parking lot getting to go in for our first session with the team and I was like I might throw up, yeah, and it and it boiled down to because, like, if I run into these players somewhere else, I want to like I don't need you to come over and be like, oh my God, hey, remember you worked with us. Like I'm fine with it, it's like a wave or a hay.

Dan Mickle:

But what I don't want is like, oh, there's that jackass. You know what I mean. So like I always have those nerves and and and it's moved from. It used to be a lot of fear of failure, and I think that's part of where a lot of the nerves come for players is they're afraid to fail. But now it's not, now it's. It's it's fear of preparation, lack of preparation, or or or? Have I done enough to be here?

Dan Mickle:

It's not not the imposter syndrome either, Like there's just it's nerves, and nerves are good.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Yeah, and I think it's also helped me in the sense of if I'm nervous cause I don't feel prepared, that's on me and I need to be better at that. That's a key thing, I think. About years ago I was talking with my friend Victoria. We did a lot of partner work and we were talking about the topic in a new way. And I remember you know usually now, whenever I prepare for a speech, I just do bullet points. I don't write stuff out. I have bullet points so I always know what I'm going to be going back to.

Dr. Jen Fry:

And I was writing like like a lot of stuff and I remember Victoria said she's like when you're writing all that down, it shows that you don't trust yourself, right, and so when you don't feel prepared, like where is that level of trust in yourself and what you need to do to prepare so that you can trust yourself, because there are so many different things that can happen during the game, the one thing I don't want is to be that I don't trust myself. Same thing with speaking so many things that I don't want it to be that I didn't prepare this topic, this crowd, my slides, whatever it is, and so really thinking about like when I'm, I think I'm nervous, like what am I nervous about? And be able to dial in.

Dan Mickle:

Right, right. Am I nervous because this is a big deal, or am I nervous Cause I failed to prepare for this?

Dan Mickle:

And and for me with this nerves and working with athletes. That's why journaling is huge for me and I know some people love journaling, some people hating. But I like it, at least at the basic level, because a journal will tell you whether you're prepared for it and you can at least check that off right Like I went to practice, I worked hard three times a week. I've done the best that I possibly could. I'm ready to go. Let's check that off.

Dan Mickle:

versus the I slacked off and I just showed up and hope, you know, hope that it went well. So yeah, nerves are a big one for me.

Dr. Jen Fry:

What's number two?

Dan Mickle:

Focus is a skill, not a mood.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay.

Dan Mickle:

Focus is something that we don't just magically have or happens on game day or day one. It's trained, just like any other physical skill or tactical skill that you do, and learning to return to focus is key. I think we don't put enough emphasis on focus and losing focus when we're training athletes. We put enough emphasis on focus and losing focus when we're training athletes. We put them a lot of times in perfect situations and then, when we lose focus, kind of all goes a little crazy. For me, an example is in volleyball.

Dan Mickle:

You know you have a team that blows the lead right. You hear the stories all the time we were up 23 to 19 and we ended up losing 25, 23. So the first thing that the coach wants to do is well, we'll just make that arbitrary score on the scoreboard and we got to back from it. The problem is, for me, it's not the score, and most of the times it's not the stress of the score that put you in that situation. It's the inability to be focused in the moment. So you need to figure out a way to get your team out of focus and then learn to train them to get back into focus, and I think too many times we just, for lack of better term, misdiagnose it as a coach that it is the nerves of maybe winning the game. But for me it's just that drip, drip, drip of watching the game, you know, kind of drift away from you that causes that lack of focus, which then fulfills the prophecy of you losing.

Dr. Jen Fry:

No, a hundred percent, and I think I mean along with your family. I am ADHD, squared times 15,000. And for me, the focus part, like you said, it's not the mood of it, it's you have to put thought and mental fortitude into focus, especially because now we have so many things going on. Even if you think about when you're at a volleyball game, you want them to focus and there are 200 courts going on. Even if you think about when you're at a volleyball game, you want them to focus and there are 200 courts going on. There are people with a speaker walking by, there are girls in the corner doing TikTok dances, there are some parents arguing in the stands over sitting down, there are people yelling at officials, the folks doing score over there with their headphones in or talking, and there's so much stuff going on in this facility. I to focus that, like you said, is such a skill.

Dan Mickle:

You forgot the biggest one. Out of all of that, though the person next to the court yelling focus at you to focus, Because that works right. Yelling focus at me is absolutely going to help me focus on the task at hand.

Dr. Jen Fry:

A hundred percent, just focus, girls Focus.

Dan Mickle:

Oh, move your feet, okay, yeah. Yeah, I never thought about that before. Maybe I should try it 100%, 100%.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay, what's number three?

Dan Mickle:

Before we move that, I just want to tell a quick story, because I had a big aha moment on this. A few years ago I was asked to help out with a high school football team and I said the only way I do. I didn't want to come in and do a talk with the team or a workshop. I said the only way I'm going to do this is you need to embed me with the team. I'll go through all the trainings, I'll get the certificate, whatever you need, just I'll do it. And I did so. I was on staff and I was there every day at prep Well, not every day, but a lot of days of practice.

Dan Mickle:

One of the things that they did that blew my mind was we would be in the middle of working on our end zone offense and all of a sudden, the coach would blow a whistle. Blow the whistle and make the whole team run to the whole other end of the field and start running the plays at the other end. And I thought and when we had our talk afterwards like oh, I thought they were just doing it. So you got used to both ends of the field. You know, like the sun all that. And he's like no, I'm literally breaking their focus and making them do something else and then I'm forcing them to refocus in the moment on the other end so that's something that I started to do this past year was in the middle of drills, just stopping drills and make them doing something completely arbitrary or something different. Or, instead of waiting till the drill was done to take a break or water break, doing that break in the middle of the drill, making them get the water in the break and then coming back and doing again.

Dan Mickle:

Or making them shag balls in the middle of the drill and still waiting till the end of the drill and shagging all the balls. Stop the drill, sh drill and still waiting until the end of the drill and shagging all the balls. Stop the drill, shag what balls are out and come back. I'm not doing it for the safety or the balls. I'm doing it because I'm breaking their focus and I'm making them refocus it back in that drill. So we have to figure out how to make those breaks.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Yeah, Well, because when people plan practice, they plan in a way that everything goes A to B to C, right, we have 10 minutes of playing and then at the end, when it's really hard now, we take our water break and I talk to the team for five minutes and we engage and then we go back and it's all in that way. But that's not how it's happening in the games and we're not, like you said, getting to understand the short that you need to break your focus and bring it back. And how do we help keeping them do that, so that and it doesn't matter what occurs that they are laser focused on what's going on?

Dan Mickle:

Yeah, and a real easy way to do that is, if you're going to do a typical practice and you're going to do 30 minutes of offense and 30 minutes of defensive work, I would suggest doing 15 minutes of offenses work, 15 minutes of defense, 15 minutes of offense, 15 minutes of defense or some, to switch that back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, versus just doing it the big chunk in the bar.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Absolutely Okay what you got for number three.

Dan Mickle:

Your self-talk is your real coach. Athletes spend most of their time with themselves, right, so the internal voice becomes your coach. So it's crucial that we train that voice to be helpful, not harmful, in how we deal with it.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Well, go on what you're saying.

Dan Mickle:

No, no, no, Go ahead.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Well, I was going to say in relation to that. I mean, the way kids talk to themselves and think about themselves is horrible, like they, the comparison that they're doing and what they're. I mean, I remember looking this, this facebook group, and the woman was like um, my daughter's 12, when am I, when is she gonna know the game? She is 12. You need to work on her being a good teammate, having fun, like, what are we talking about? And then, if she's saying this about her 12 year old, what things has she said to her 12 year old? Who is she compared her to? And now, what does the 12 year old think about themselves in relation to the game? Yeah, right.

Dan Mickle:

Like, oh, you're 12 and you haven't even figured out the rotations yet. Yeah, because I'm trying to figure out the rotations, I'm trying to figure out how to walk, I'm trying to figure out how to serve a ball. Like, nothing in volleyball is a natural motion, right? Oh, and by the way, I'm also 12. So I'm learning how to grow into puberty and I got friends and I'm going to middle school. You know what I mean. Like, yeah, you're right, I don't know the game, because I got a million other things going on in my life too, and we don't take the time. Now I will tell you.

Dan Mickle:

There's a side note. I read a study and if someone really wants me to find the citation, I'll try and find it. But there's a small percentage of the world's population that has no inner voice. They have no concept, and I was like I try to think, like what would that be? Like that you have no sense of what your voice is like? Like it's. It's a psychological condition where they have, they have no ability, like there's no internal voice. So everything they have to do, they have to talk out loud.

Dan Mickle:

But that being said, again, this goes back to one. This goes that we just don't work about it right, unless we see the kid having a bad attitude, we don't know what's going on. So a lot of times, like in a drill and I don't do it so that I don't want to become like a Pavlovian thing where I only ask them how they're feeling when they're doing bad things so I'll randomly say okay, what was going through your mind right at that moment? What were you actually thinking at that moment, whether good or bad? So then they start to get to realize like, oh, I should think about what I'm thinking about, and this, to me, goes back to the journaling what were your thoughts during that crucial play or at that moment? Why did you do that? If we get them doing it on the technical side, then it's easier than to do it on the emotional side, right? If I get them talking about, well, this is what was going through my mind and what I was saying about why I want to run this play, if we get them used to having that dialogue, then it makes it much easier for me to say, okay, but how are you feeling during that play? Because no one wants to talk about their feelings, especially to their coach, so kind of making that bridge.

Dan Mickle:

But yeah, we got to train that self-talk because, regardless of what I say as a coach, you say as a parent, you say as a teammate, ultimately whatever's being said in my mind will override that, and I start out by splitting that. I'll have players work on it Like, name it, name your critic. Here comes Brenda. Brenda's the one that's always telling me I can't do this or I'm not doing it right. All right, let's put Brenda on trial. You know, and that's what we do, so, like again, it's a skill that's so crucial. How many times do you see it on those Facebook posts my kid can't get out of their own head. Okay, how many times has your kid actually trained to get out of their own head?

Dr. Jen Fry:

That's like saying 13 year old to know how to get out of their own head Right.

Dan Mickle:

My kid can't remove an appendix Okay. Well, has your kid ever studied or learned how to do it? Well, no, but they should be able to do it. There's YouTube.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Ma'am, you don't even know how to get out of your own head what are you talking about?

Dan Mickle:

Right. So that is my number three, that we have to work on the inner dialogue, because that's your biggest influence.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Here's number four.

Dan Mickle:

Failure is feedback, not identity. Mistakes don't define you, they inform you. So the athletes grow the most are often the ones who are willing to fail and learn from it. You know, anytime you talk about failure and coming back from it, everyone inevitably talks about Michael Jordan and like not making the team and getting cut. But there's like a whole half of that story that they conveniently leave out. He got cut from the varsity team but had an amazing junior varsity season, right. So it wasn't like I just got cut and I worked hard and I came back and became the best it's. I got cut and I worked hard with purpose. I worked at what I needed to work at.

Dan Mickle:

So failure is a double-edged sword in that sense of yeah, we know it's resilience and it's grit and it teaches us. But just getting up and doing it over and over again doesn't matter. We have to have that reflection and adjust things. So failure alone isn't failure, is feedback. It's not direction, right, it's just another data point on how to get better. But we have to have reflection on it and that's remind me when we get to number five, I have a number six on it and that's remind me when we get to number five, I have a number six.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay, of course you do, dan, of course, and I think about how failure is one of the best forms of feedback. Like I man, I hate that so much. I hate it with a passion. But you're never going to learn if you're a winner. You're going to learn when you are losing, when you're figuring stuff out, when things aren't going the way that you theoretically plan that they should go is such a feedback loop. But everyone hates it as a feedback loop, everyone. You know the amount of times where um, pitch it, pitch competitions or grants. Someone hasn't won and the response is well, I'm just never gonna do it again. I'm like this you not winning this $2,000 pitch competition is going to make you never apply again. You don't need to be running a business. Then If that small thing and we see people who are so afraid of failure it will derail anything that they're doing because they're terrified of it.

Dan Mickle:

Yeah, and, and, and. There's so many different levels to failure, right, Like I used to struggle with this a lot, I'm out there working with USA volleyball and you know training coaches and education cadre and the and, and the stuff I'm doing now Humble brag that he's a big deal Right by Dan.

Dan Mickle:

But, but I always was worried, Like, if I have a bad season or a bad team, does that invalidate everything I'm doing? Like, well, why is this guy teaching me if his own team can't even do that? You know, why is this kid training me on this mental stuff If his own kid struggles mentally? You know, like that has this kid training me on this mental stuff if his own kid struggles mentally? That has always been in the back of my mind and it really has switched to becoming the driver and that will go to my number six. That we'll talk about and that's kind of why I wanted to bring that in. They kind of go hand in hand. But again, failure is feedback. It's not the answer. Failure doesn't give you the answer. It just gives you another data point to help you figure out what the answer is, as long as you accept it. If you ignore it and put it under the bed, it brings no value. Then it's just failure.

Dan Mickle:

You have to be able to accept it and look at it and how you can adjust and grow from it to use it.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Absolutely so. What's number five?

Dan Mickle:

Five is your job isn't to be fearless, it's to be brave.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay.

Dan Mickle:

Fear's normal and bravery is acting in the presence of fear. So when athletes embrace that, their whole approach changes. When you start to realize like I can show up for this even though I'm scared as hell, or it's that big game, that's when you become the elite player. Yeah, to me and I don't certainly want to start a war or a debate with anyone listening to this- oh, here's a hot take by Dan Mickle.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay, let's hear it.

Dan Mickle:

This right here and I'll say it again job isn't to be fearless, it's to be brave is what separates Michael Jordan and Kobe from LeBron James.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Oh, okay, so let's hear the reason why Yo you're about to have me blowing up. Okay, tell me more. Tell me about this.

Dan Mickle:

I respect all of them, I really do but I feel like where LeBron falls short to the other two is LeBron is so concerned about the outcome and the winning and wanting the team to win. I don't think it's a personal thing, I think it's truly him wanting the team to win that he loses that bravery, he loses that ability to step in and take the shot. I'll pass it off, I'll give it to someone else. And I think that's where Michael Jordan and Kobe were different, is they had that fear. There's no doubt in my mind that Michael Jordan had fear, had nerves, had all that. He was just able to stand in front of it and use it to propel himself.

Dr. Jen Fry:

That's where, if I get LeBron lovers beating me up, I'm going to have to fight you.

Dan Mickle:

I get it and, like I said's, it's just it's. I think that's just a difference. I I think lebron by far is a better physical and dedicated physically athlete than either of the two, but I think that's that's what separates the two auras, or the three auras around them was the ability to to jump in there and and and have that bravery. And I'm certainly, absolutely, absolutely will make this clear. I'm not calling him a coward or anything like that at all. I'm just saying, when we're looking at scales, the bravery scales a little bit higher on those two and I think that's what separates them.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Okay, so now you get a number six. What is your number six, dan?

Dan Mickle:

I do because it couples with number four, with the failure. Okay, there is absolutely no growth if you don't have reflection. If we don't take the time to look at where we've been and how we're growing, we have no chance of growing. So just going into the gym and working hard and getting that sweat may make you physically better, but it probably won't make you a better basketball player or volleyball player unless you look back and make sure why you were training. Was it towards your goals and having that reflection? And I think too many times players don't reflect. They have a bad game and they just want to forget about it.

Dan Mickle:

I'm going to turn the page. I'm not an Alabama football fan and I love Nick Saban as a coach, but one of the problems I always have is, as soon as they win a championship, we're turning the page and on to the next one. I think you're missing an opportunity to really reflect on what you just did. That's going to help you with the next one. You know I had one of my worst seasons ever this last season and I could have just been like well, we'll just do better next year and we're going to push and correct it. No, I took the time and blew it up, reflected everything how we did, from every preseason meeting to recruiting, to physical, to mental, to video, everything we did. I reflected on what we did and then figured out was this an area that I had to get better at or am I doing it completely wrong? I think we're too quick to blow things up and not reflect on how we've done them and what may be working or what needs tweaked. So my bonus number six is there is no growth without reflection.

Dr. Jen Fry:

I love this. I love this. Okay, so Dan came to us with six on the five. He came with nerves mean you care. Number two focus is a skill, not a mood. Number three self-talk is real talk. Number four failure is feedback, not identity. Number five your job isn't real talk. Number four failure is feedback, not identity. Number five your job isn't to be fearless, it's to be brave. And the last one, number six no growth without reflection. This is such great stuff. I hope that these athletes listen to it. Parents send this to their kids. Coaches have their athletes listen to it. Where can people hunt you down to get all this information?

Dan Mickle:

You can find my blogs and vlog and everything that I'll do my newsletter at danmicklecom. I'm on all social media platforms as at real Dan Mickle and my podcast is the. You can find it at mentalcastcom.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Please make sure you sign up for his blog or newsletter. It's some really good stuff, really good stuff. Well, Dan, I appreciate you coming out here for the second time and spitting all the knowledge to help the parents and the athletes. Thank you, friend.

Dan Mickle:

Thank you and I appreciate it. I love what you're doing, so keep it up.

Dr. Jen Fry:

Well, friends, that's it for this episode of Five with Fry. Your for this episode of Five with Fry, your dose of five insights, ideas and inspiration. If you love what you heard, don't forget to head over to where podcasts are played, to subscribe, share and leave a review. Got a topic you want us to tackle? Drop us a message. We love to hear from you. You can come follow me on IG, twitter, the TikTok at Jen Fry Talks, or join me on LinkedIn. Look for me at Dr Jen Fry. Until next time, stay curious, stay bold and keep the conversation going. See you on the next Five with Fry.