World Series Yankees Coach Dana Cavalea on Having a Champion's Mindset | Dana Cavalea | Athlete CEO with Brandon and Erik Averill

Athlete CEO Podcast 

How to Coach and How to Be Coached

What makes Derek Jeter who he is? What made him great? Coach Dana Cavalea is the former Director of Strength & Conditioning and Performance for the New York Yankees. He joins Brandon and Erik Averill on Athlete CEO to discuss what goes into a “Championship Mindset” and why mental balance is a key for success regardless of business or profession.

Guest: Dana Cavalea

“Habits of a Champion”

Twitter

https://danacavalea.com/

2:12

Define what is performance and how Dana would define being a champion.

Dana Cavalea “You need to be better tomorrow than you are today.”

3:01

There is no one size fits all. You have to know what works for you. You don’t enhance performance by taking a pill or vitamin once, you get better over time by doing the right things. 

4:40

“Performance Coach” or “Life Coach” seem to be modern buzzwords. Dana describes his journey and what led him to becoming a life coach, which starts with interning for free with the New York Yankees while in college at the University of Southern Florida.

6:26

After Dana figured out he wasn’t going to be a professional ballplayer, he followed his passion of training and getting ready for the season, and investigated ways he could make that into a profession.

9:25

When Dana learned how you can literally go from one side of the fence to the other side of the fence in 24 hours. He had to make some significant sacrifices at the age of 19 that many others that age wouldn’t be willing to make, in order to fulfill his dream of being involved with the New York Yankees.

11:17

How did Dana end up becoming the Yankees head performance coach at just 23 years old.

12:45

Dana says he didn’t really know anything about the job he had, that he was just getting started, but he did recognize the importance of truly knowing people and caring about people. 

Dana Cavalea “Life is bar it’s your job to tend it.”

14:18

Dana saw an opportunity after starting off as a trainer to become an asset manager of human capital and he came up with a “Player Profile” that became a screening process to identify risk

16:19

The idea of the growth mindset or a “Champions’ Mindset” and how Cavalea incorporates that into his training and evaluation. 

Dana Cavalea: “It requires you to do things that the average person doesn't do. It encourages you and forces you to be somebody that's different than everybody else, because champions are different than everybody else. You have to act different, be different, present yourself different, and when you do those things, you get different results than everybody else, which is what champions do, which is what high performers do.”

19:20

The championship mentality is not just effective for athletes either, it plays big in the business and investment world as well. So many of the people Dana works with in the business world have a life changing event, like a heart attack, or something, that forces them to work on the mental and physical side of their health.

26:40

The idea of work/life balance from the lens of Dana’s work. Dana believes it’s important to compartmentalize your day and own their schedules.

Dana Cavalea: “Own your schedule, own your day, own your life.” 

 29:40

What made Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and the Yankees legends that Cavalea was working with different? Amazingly, it’s that they weren’t “overworking.”

38:00 

The identity crisis all professional athletes go through when they’re no longer professional athletes. What are Dana’s tips on trying to figure out the next stage of your life?

39:10

Don’t identify with a title, identify with a process. If you subscribe to that belief you are going to be defied by the processes you undergo everyday.

41:28

Dana Cavalea on the importance of values and processes.

Dana: “When you get too attached or the title of what you do, it becomes really dangerous, because you lose the rest of you and without the rest of you, you lose your edge.”

44:02

As a coach you have to meet people where they are, because every person is different.

48:09

Dana has also written children’s books about raising championship families and how we have to understand that we are constantly growing as people. 

50:02

One of the most important lessons Dana learned about parenting and how to be a champion parent.

Dana Cavalea: “You can override their difficulty through your own surrender. Don’t try to control and dominate. Release and surrender.”

52:31

A great story from Dana about his relationship with Mariano Rivera and what made him special in terms of elite performance in the biggest moments.

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