Sean Light: Rolling with Brandon Ingram, Randy Johnson’s Championship Ring, and Rewiring Your Brain for High Performance
Phil White 00:02
usually a good sign recording in progress better than not, I suppose. And I just give us a quick 321 countdown in a second say we're live and then I'll let TD jump in with the first question. After that, all right, you're okay on the Wi Fi TD on the right, one?
00:18
Golden. All right.
Phil White 00:22
Okay, so 321 and we alive.
Tim DiFrancesco 00:29
Shawn, before I put the ball on the tee and let you rock it the ball over the fence on the topic of neuroscience of success, and how the heck you plan to weave that into basketball, which I cannot wait for you to untangle for me. And for us. I do want you to talk us through a little bit of your journey because it included going through the ranks of pro baseball strength and conditioning going all the way into the NBA strength and conditioning, maybe some of the differences you noted in the two sports in the two environments and what that process was like for you.
Sean Light 01:07
Sure. Well, first of all, guys, thanks for having me. I'm legitimately not the same as a longtime listener. I've listened to a ton of these podcasts when I'm just cranking away in the gym. So it's cool, man. It's it really is cool to be here. So
Tim DiFrancesco 01:19
we appreciate that. Yeah.
Sean Light 01:22
Man, my journey has been a wild one lot of I mean, it's been a roller coaster been all over the place. Ya know, I went to I'm representing my Quinnipiac Bobcats here on the basketball strong podcast. I was I, I picked when I went to Quinnipiac, I picked journalism as my major. Because I was 100% positive that I would be playing in the NBA. And yeah, like I was like I was frickin I felt like I was the man like I really had it. And as it turns out, I did not have to, for those for those pieces to come together, man. But unfortunately, I selected journalism because it was the easiest possible thing. And I was just, I was just going to fit that role of being an NBA player, like just cool, casual going to class going into class. I really, I really played that role up. And after college, I really just was out of luck. I felt like I don't want to be a journalist. I tried being a history teacher for a little bit at a high school in New Haven, Connecticut. And that was just the worst experience. And I just kind of stumbled into strength and conditioning on a whim and my coach, my college strength coach at Quinnipiac Brijesh Patel, he, he was cool enough to just like, say, like, hey, like, Absolutely, let's give it a shot, we'll give you an internship for an entire year, which was like, super awkward for me. Because like, the year before, like, these were my friends, these are my peers and people I was with, you know, like full disclosure, you know, I would be like training the women's lacrosse team who the year before I was at the club with them, you know, by and now it's like, I'm in this like, weird, like, awkward role of being an authority figure. And it was it was very uncomfortable for me. But my brother at the time was was like a big time baseball prospect. And he ended up connecting me with somebody who was a strength coach for the for the New York Yankees. And I had he just got me this like, unofficial internship with the team. And that's where I really started to get the sense that strengthing auditioning was cool. Like, it was really fun and like being around the guys and it's just such a different especially Pro is much different in college and I really like I caught the bug. And, and like I was I was ready to rock and you know, I went through like a really like weird, like, you know, interview process trying to find a job. I ended up getting a job in the minor leagues. My first job was in Missoula, Montana, for the single a affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Missoula Osprey I was making $23,500 per day, and yeah, just just just crushing it rolling. But, but the big thing for me was, like, I when I got there as a journalism major, they, they were like, way smarter than me, everybody on staff. They're all dual certified PTS AGCs. lmts. Like the whole nine. And I was like, I was a journalism degree and some basketball experience. And I was like, I was like, operating under the CrossFit model, like, more is better. And they were just, they were just, like, just blasting me like, she made me feel like this small. I mean, in like meetings, they would, they would like call on me and say like, Sean, like, you know, you know, like, what's, where's the biceps for Morris? And I was like, right here, boys. I just got so embarrassed, that it really led me into like studying, like, insanely aggressively and, you know, I just, you know, it rolled into four years with the Diamondbacks into the Lakers with UTD, which was amazing. And, you know, as far as like baseball goes, the big thing was always shoulder, shoulder elbow. That was the bit that was like the main thing that we were always always focused on. It was the grind Spend 162 game season and trying to just manage that load. I honestly there wasn't a significant difference between the NBA and the MLB season. Full disclosure, I don't know how much the NBA guys going to take this significantly easier the NBA season like, it really felt like a break to me coming off of the the professional baseball grind of having like being done at noon, the next day, you know, on a practice day and stuff like that. So as far as like, you know, the training goes, I didn't see much much of a difference. You know, I was picked up a lot from UTD of like, I remember asking you about like the Achilles stuff and the calf raise and stuff. Like I didn't really see that when I came over. I was this thick headed science nerd. And I just started to pick those things up. And I think one of the other big changes was working with the guys who weren't playing. I think that was something that was kind of new to me when I moved over, but incredible experience all around. And it's led me to all these different places. And here I am now,
Tim DiFrancesco 05:59
hold on a second. You're not. There's no way you got out of Missoula without some classic minor league story or two or three along the way. Is there one that you could share on air that depicts the minor league sadness of that situation?
Sean Light 06:17
A man I mean, the amount I mean, I spent a year in Montana. It's been a year in Oregon, Illinois and Mobile, Alabama, and I have more stories than you can imagine. up in Montana. It was cool to actually had this up actually had the stuff float to the park night. And there was there was a river behind the the stadium and the fans would like float down the river from miles up and they would like they would like pull them out of the river and they'd come into this dance. The only time we got a standing ovation all year was when an actual Osprey flew over the stands with a bird and its talents. There was a there was like a nest in centerfield. It was it was pretty, it was pretty wild. You know, but you know, in terms of there was a crazy stories, you know, what I remember is like just being in the clubhouse with like the guys in and like just like just being there after hours, like praying for rain outs. Like when when you I mean, listen, you go on news channel for and you see whatever their weather is, if you want the real scoop on the weather, you gotta go into a professional baseball clubhouse. If there's a cloud, that clubhouse turns into a Doppler Doppler weather center. Everyone's like you got Weather Channel, you got AccuWeather we're gonna compare results. We need to know if we're gonna be playing this game later. I think the best story that I probably tell is we had Randy Johnson, the big unit, he was a special assistant to the GM when I was with when I was with the Diamondbacks. Yeah, and I was in my fourth year I was like really comfortable. I was like, you know, the man or whatever. And so ever like what they would do when I was in Alabama is like they would send like the the executives, the front office people out to just make see how things were going, you know, check in on the prospects, see who was doing really well and so on, so forth. So Randy would come out, we rarely would come out to Alabama and our manager was the guy who was the catcher for his perfect game. So they were tight. And we ever he called him unit. So we just started calling him unit. And what my thing was for every person who came out we were going to have a biceps measuring contest to see who had the biggest biceps in the Diamondbacks organization. And why wouldn't Randy Yeah, big Yeah. And he's a skinny dude. So he comes, he comes out, he's out there for like three days. The first day I'm like, listen, unit, I gotta look we're doing this thing. We measure everybody's bicep. You know, we just got to, you know, it's just what we're doing and he's like scowls at me. He's just like, well, I'm, I'm not doing that. And I was just like, all right, whatever. Like, okay, big unit says, You're not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. Right. So next couple nights, we're like crushing beers in the clubhouse afterwards. And I'm like, unit man, we got to get your bicep. Nobody leaves here without measuring his bicep, and I'm just hounding him for three days. And on our last day there, we're in the club. We're in like the coach's office after the game. Like, this is like we're just like in our like, sliding shorts and like tees, and I'm just like unit. So last day, we have to get we have to measure your bicep. And he goes, and he's just like, dammit, he's like, you're just not going to leave me alone with this thing. I was like, everybody else like everybody. Here I am talking back to the big unit. I'm like, yeah, like, I'm like, everybody who comes through here gets their biceps measured. He goes, he says, he goes, Is that how it's gonna be? And I was like, I was like, we gotta get it. And he goes, You know what? I think you can measure this. And he reaches into his pocket and he slams on the table, his Hall of Fame ring. And he goes, he goes measure that. And I go, all right, Randy Johnson just won the bicep contest.
Phil White 09:37
Where we're good, man. We're good. It's over. Yeah. Oh, that's
Tim DiFrancesco 09:45
a classic minor league. Oh, man. That's that's a beautiful thing. You did mention one thing in there. Just in passing of the how much of a grind baseball felt like to you versus it was almost like a country club. as you alluded to there in your comment, what the NBA was, and take us through like a little snapshot of why you feel that way of what it's like to be in minor league baseball or even pro baseball at any level, day to day and the in and out of it versus what happens in a basketball environment over the course of a season.
Sean Light 10:22
Sure. So I mean, the big thing, like the one that stands out to me the most is like, we would like play our first game and like really early April and like the games, I remember this vividly every baseball like, yeah, baseball, when we get slapped fives at the end of the game, and you sit there and you like, have this thought in your head were like, I got 161 more of these. That's crazy. And in minor leagues in particular, I think one of the big things that probably made me feel that disparity was the fact that minor leagues versus the NBA, and the Lakers being one of them, like we're staying in Ritz Carlton's and four seasons, like, like, I was staying at a Red Roof Inn in Burlington, Iowa. Literally before I was having dinner with UTP. So like, I felt like I was in Buckingham Palace made for real, you know, we always clean it snakes out of the drain and in, in Mobile, Alabama, I mean, just it was just like that you don't have the resources. Like it's just you're really kind of, you're really out there on an island. But you know, like 162 games, like you'd start, you'd start a game you play. And it would be like, Okay, our next off day is 36 days from now. You know, like for the guys like, it's, it's, it's so tough because the guys are looking at it from like, I need to get to the next level, I need to get promoted. And you're saying like, Dude, your shoulder, you've been, you've hit seven innings in the last two days, you're used to, you know, your usual volume is like three. And like, it's getting a little funky that we want to pull you down and take you off the active list for the day. But they're like, I can't end up on the injury report, because then I can't get called up to the big leagues. So So those guys will end up not telling you. And it gets like, again, it becomes like a really muddy area. And as a strength coach was cool, because we were kind of like the in between where I could do some stuff. So I got my massage license, so I could do some stuff to kind of help them but prevent them from going on the injury list. And it's just like just the total volume of games. Being in these just absolute horrendous, like horrendous facilities. We're talking like dirt floors in the clubhouse in Clinton, Iowa, Clinton, Iowa has the like the it's like the Purina dog food capital of the world. And so like during working hours, nine to five during the week, it smells like dog food. You have a you have you have a dirt floor, everyone's changing on a dirt floor. And like you're just out there, there's bugs. Oh, gross, and yeah, and then you got to get on the bus and go 12 hours to the next stop overnight. I mean, that's, it's like, it's like the baseball is the best part. Like, we love that. Right? It's like everything else that comes around it. But then when I get to the NBA, you know, it's it's game. And, and, you know, then next thing is practice and you know, it's you know, whatever, that's cool. And I remember I remember of her loves being like, man, we got this for gains of five days, like Man, this, we grind it out here, and you don't have any idea what a grind. First year dude, so I'm just agreeing with them. But in my head, I was like, bro, I was like magical. 36 days with the game, you get to the park at 11am Every day, you're not leaving till 11:30pm midnight, like every single day the entire summer. So that like it's that kind of stuff. That's that's different, obviously in the big leagues when the amenities are kind of very similar to the NBA. It's an issue. Yeah, it's much more doable. But in the NBA, like I'd get back in like 1pm to my apartment and be like, I remember think TV. I remember being like you're going to make friends out here. I don't know what I was like I was I was gonna go down on one of these basketball courts down in Hermosa Beach and just be like, Hi, I'm Sean, everyone that went wrong.
Tim DiFrancesco 14:01
Oh, man hit finally you hit Easy Street. Oh, man.
Phil White 14:05
That's crazy. I'm kind of going back to something. TD mentioned the first couple of minutes that we'll dive into a bit more later. Despite the grind, what are some, some pathways for success that some of these guys that do end up making it are on in the minor league system, just the way it's set up that they don't even recognize anything other than the grind, but it's actually setting themselves up for success in the future and to transition and make that jump to the next level? Or the next level? And then the next level?
Sean Light 14:39
Yeah, well, you know, one of the unfortunate things about professional baseball is that the minor league system is gigantic. And the reality is that there's very few people in there that that matter to the organization. You know, there'll be a guy who was drafted in the 38th round, and he's signed for $1,000 and They're the organization's not even looking at not they don't care in the world, we had a guy. And he was Mitch haniger is an MLB all star right now. And he was just kind of like a forgotten figure in the organization. And he was like, nobody was really looking at him. And he got like, a, he got like a random call up to triple A, they're just kind of like working his way through. And he ended up just hitting like 700. And like, like a 20 game stretch, and it just got became like, to the point where it was, like, undeniable that they were like, should we like, bring this guy up. And they eventually did. And he's like, he's been in super success in the big leagues now, but for the most part, like, these guys get, like, pegged and identified and like, I'll get the list, I'll get the list of the guys who, who really matter. And then and then and like these other guys, like I'll have to decide at some points like I'm going to work with him and he's got to just go on his own. So like to start like there's this like hierarchy of of prospects that matter. And then you know, it's it's, it's, you know, in the minors, it's such a it's, it's tough, because you have you have a you have guys who are like hyper talented but don't work that hard. The guys got here guys in the middle who kind of do a little bit of both and you got to pull the teeth to get them in the weight room. They've got like work habits. And then you got people on the bottom who will usually work really hard, but they're always the guys who are you know, on the on the outs in the organization. And what you find is that the people who have like really good day to day routines like Mitch came to me every day with the same stretch on the field before the game, no question. He came in, he did workouts, not as clearly the workouts that I really want him to do. But he didn't miss like he came in he squatted he didn't deadlifts. You know, we did just core stuff, little correctives here and there. I mean, never missed, ever missed, super consistent. And what happens is like the guys who mix that with talent, and are able to manage the load of that 162 game season, keep it super consistent over that over a course of that amount of time. That's always who who who rises to the top in an organization. Every once in awhile, you have an outlier in those lower tiers. But it's it's it's a really interesting dynamic.
Tim DiFrancesco 17:00
Yeah, I think you're sorry.
Phil White 17:03
I was just gonna say TD what, what do you see there in terms of parallels between now G league than D league? And your experience? Is there on that system? Just what what's that bringing up when Sean's talking there may be some parallels and some differences.
Tim DiFrancesco 17:19
Yeah, I mean, I think that's what you look at. And if you start from the end, and then we go back to the entry level person, but the end result or the sort of other end of the spectrum, I should say is the person that is knocking on the door of the Hall of Fame, literally, Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, those players that they all were had very different personalities, very different approaches to work, very different approaches to their craft. But the one thing was exactly what Shawn said is they they didn't miss if it wasn't like he had to go babysit them. It wasn't like he had to go remind them like, Hey, come on in when he this is why this work is important, is going to help you all that stuff. They may question what is happening, they may say I'd rather do it this way. They may have some pushback at times. But they weren't going to be hiding in the bathroom opening, hoping you couldn't find them so that they could skip out on the workout. And so So I think that that is one of the major common denominators. Like Sean said, there's these outliers that some that are just so physically gifted or Uber talented at the game that they could miss and cheat their way up the system aways. But then eventually, it just gets to it like, look, let's look at Dwight Howard. Right. So Dwight is a player that you would think, has all the tools and the physical gifts to be able to be a surefire, he was he was headed for Springfield, from the from the jump, and he may very well be a Hall of Fame player at this point. But he's not going to end up on Mount Rushmore. And I just think that there's these differences of eventually his physical gifts did not outweigh at the very, very top of the top, the amount of time the compounding interest that somebody who just goes a career just never missing, and just doing the stuff that is fundamental or basic or really monotonous. And eventually that sort of separates people.
Phil White 19:30
Pretty interesting, Shawn as TD is talking now, what are some other things that you started to observe, whether it was players or whether it was just within the organization both at the Yankees and the D backs with regard to patterns of success or commonalities around different people, different backgrounds, but again, some some lines of best fit or some red threads throughout this, this narrative of success?
Sean Light 19:56
So one of the things I'm glad you asked that question, it's, it's it's Talking about the LSU. You know, coming as a journalism degree, I knew I was always gonna get questions about that, like as I tried to climb in the ranks. And what I started to notice, like I had no no like for knowledge of like what was supposed to happen and what are the good exercise was classic was taught in school. And I started noticing certain things that like were classic strength and conditioning techniques that I was like, these don't think these are not working. And the thing that always stands out to me is like ankle mobility, ankle mobility exercise, like you've guys seen that where you just like jam your knee forward, like 10 times, whatever. And we do that stuff all the time from the classic FMS test. And I was like, I've never in all my time ever seen anybody get more ankle mobility from doing this? I was like, What's going on here? And I just started to like, observe these things of like, what's going on in these players? And I started trying to find out, like, what were the things that actually moved the needle? What made the dent what was making this guy successful? What wasn't. And ironically, in the minor leagues, especially, you start to see that like, the guys that are super talented, but don't work hard, are the guys who are finding success and moving up. But it's the guys who were like, always grinding and crushing and like doing everything that I say, that ended up like getting released at the end of the day. And I was like, Well, why is that happening? Like, I don't get like, I'm over here saying like, you've got to do all this. And then the guys who don't do it are the guys who went up on SportsCenter like making these plays. I was like, What's going on here? Like, what's the difference here? Like, like, if you're existentially, I'm like, do I matter? Right? And so like, I'm looking at these things, and I, that's when I started to look at the brain. Because I started to like, do these like, like, manual tests on guys and posture exams. And what I was noticing was that the guys who were like really loose and free and would absolutely, you know, flipped me the bird and say, I'm not doing this exercise. Those guys were always like, like, really like postural Lee outstanding, like all their diaphragms were like, really lining up, lining up really well. They had more hamstring more glute than anybody else. My brother is the perfect example of brother playing the big leagues, you throw 102 miles an hour, and he hates working out, he plays video games. He's actually out there playing video games right now. As we spent Yeah. And like but and he just was like his, all his tests were incredible. And what I started to realize was that, like, just certain things were happening inside of their brains. And as you get up, like TD like in the NBA, like I look at, I look at the guys that we were working with, and I'm like, this funky bunch of dudes here. You know what I mean? Like, they got their work in, you know, like, sometimes the stuff I say, makes it seem like, like, people aren't like working hard. It's not that they're not doing their work, but it's they're doing it different than I had ever anticipated. You know, as a kid, I always thought I was gonna be like, trying to grind like these guys would be there to uh, to ball dribbling. Looking at this way, look at this way tennis ball, tennis ball tennis ball. And it just wasn't that at all. And when it came down to as I just I dove aggressively into neuroscience, what I found was that it came down to their perceived their perception of threat in the environment that they are in, like, they all have the talent, they all have the ability to, you know, perform at that level at the NBA. Like are you going to get i mis seminars, I use Brandon Ingram as example time, six foot eight, six foot nine runs like a deer jumps 40 inches in the air, it's like, I'm not it's gonna be so difficult, it's gonna be so much work that I have to do for this person to get him to jump 41 inches in the air, I was like, there has to be an easier way for me to get in, in an improvement in this person. And what I was realizing was that this perceived threat inside of the brain, it's like a key like you can have all of this talent inside of you. But if your brain perceives threat in the environment, it closes you it does not give you access to your to your explosiveness, your quickness it your you know, free thought on the on the court or on the field. And it eliminates the ability for you quite literally for you to have access to your time, you'd be really talented. You see guys who are awesome in practice, but terrible in the game. It's because this perceived threat in the game situation. And the higher I got in professional sports, the less the less I could see perceived threat on these guys. And those ended up being the things that then when you bring the other stuff into it like hard work, focus Film Study, that's when it really becomes insane. And so for me, I just dove headfirst into neuroscience, because I saw this was making the biggest difference. I can keep them consistent over the course of 162 game season or an 82 game season and allow them to be at their best longer versus trying to give them marginal increases who are already at the peak of human capacity anyway.
Tim DiFrancesco 24:32
So for example, paint a traditional, maybe you want to call it old school or standard kind of approach in an MBA weight room, and then paint an approach that maybe you would take to be able to optimize or tap into that aspect of how would you ever I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how would you as a strength coach, for instance, Let's be able to have an impact on their neurology their software, if you will, versus just their hardware as often it gets thought of.
Sean Light 25:11
Yeah. So I mean, the big thing in, in pro sports in the NBA was relationships and building that bond with somebody. And look, I think that you're the classic workout is gonna be the usual right squat, deadlift, split squat, dead bugs, that whole thing. The brain like we're not like, I it's not much I can do inside of the weight. And like, I think there's a thing where it's like, I feel like I've got my work and I feel like I don't know this, but I feel like Kobe was probably that guy where he's like, like, the reps and getting the volume of doing that made him feel like a monster. And that contributed to his like, Mamba mentality on the court. Is that fair to say? I don't, I've never met the guy.
Tim DiFrancesco 25:52
Yeah, 100%. I mean, he would say to me, Look, I just know, I've done triple the amount of anybody that's even close to me. And it just, I'm just I already know that I haven't beat because of it. And that's something he decided it wasn't that he had the exact metrics on it. He painted this picture where he figured there was no way somebody else is out doing the 6am, the noon and the 6pm workouts, I did all three. And then I got up at 2am and did some more push ups. So in his mind, there was this sort of landslide of, he had just done more reps, like you said, it was the reps that he assumed that he had done so far in advance, so far above anybody else that gave him that sort of I'm a monster and I can't be touched.
Sean Light 26:37
Yeah. So you know, one of the things like for from the neuroscience perspective, it's, it's about like keeping them loose. Like having a good relationship, a fun environment, because of like your if like they come in the weight room, they hate being in the weight room. They're like, they're that that key gets locked in now, like felt their hamstrings won't be as flexible because they're quite literally in an extended pattern. What I was trying to do in the weight room was like, like, if you if you're if you have perceived threat in the environment, you go fight or flight. So ribs come up, pelvis comes forward. But what I found is that you can actually like hedge against that. So if I'll my hamstrings are like crazy strong, when I like my body will physically be resisting getting into that extension fight or flight pattern, as those moments are coming. So. So like we would do things like they would target hamstrings and obliques aggressively. But the biggest bang for your buck is always recovery. It's always you know, it's like really like detailed understanding the brain what the one, the one that I always pops into my brain is the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is in charge of the social engagement system. So for example, Julius Julius Randle was one of our guys like, he was like, really awesome came in every day, it was a fun guy to be around, he's gonna make us do the ridiculous Hill thing, thank God, that never happened. And like, it's just a cool guy. But like if he came in one day, and he's like, quiet, he's little, like, just kind of, it's not himself, like, we have that we have that ability as a human to recognize that and the vagus nerve controls the facial expressions, and it controls your social engagement system. So what I'm getting there is likely not like a, you know, like, just, he's just different today, what I'm probably getting there as some sort of vagal tone, I'm probably getting that there's something going on underneath the surface that I can't see your I can't tell that is making you act that way. And so in that instance, like that's like an HRV test, it's a readiness test. And I can see that and say, like, manage his load on top of that, so that his central nervous system is firing. Well, when he when he has to have it firing. Well, you know, come come gametime the next night. So what I for me, it's always been about, like really having a strong understanding of the scope of what's happening here. hedging against it in the weight room, and then providing a really awesome environment for guys to feel confident enjoy being in the weight room, you know, and you know, that was a hallmark for us was you know, making this a place where people wanted to come rewarding place for them to be enjoyable. And when you do those things, you the there's no perceived threat. And then when they get out into the court, that's a little bit of a different animal with 20,000 people in stance and yes, it's tough is honestly tough for somebody you get somebody who's 22 years old, 2322 years of life experience to really manipulate and neurology if you get the younger you get them the easier it is.
Tim DiFrancesco 29:30
Right and you but you brought that into you introduced that to me and I was just like you said I was able to maybe bring to the surface for you some of the importance of focus on some of the hardware and some of the just carpentry of look these are some of the load bearing tendons. We can't ignore those we can't just do maybe some software stuff if we want to just it's probably an oversimplification for me to be saying hardware software but neural neural neuro versus kind of the muscles and tendons. That's Let's call it so the musculoskeletal system versus the neuromuscular and so but, so maybe I brought some of that hardware stuff to the surface for you have that you get it like that could be pretty helpful, pretty useful and to have loaded the Achilles tendon, the hamstrings, those adductors and those tendons and ligaments and muscles that are load bearing for a basketball athlete, but then you brought to the surface big time, for me stuff like to really give listeners an idea of, of not only your ability to have rapport and this kind of decreased threat relationship with because that happens in strength and conditioning, where it's, it's sort of, especially in college settings, but where the strength coaches role almost is to be the governor of the situation. And it's the heart a who's just, you know, that's the the expectation there, they're screaming and yelling all the time. And it's it's always this sort of, like you said, fight or flight, it's the fight based interaction almost half or if not more of the time, and a lot of those environments. And that's just kind of part of the culture. But it's also it to your ability to kind of bring in this decrease threat, relationship environment and easygoing and then literally reading people's vagus nerve with in terms of that's what you were doing come to find out but but not necessarily doing it in any way that people would know. You're just being a chill dude that they look forward to had no threat, feeling of, but also to give listeners some input and insight into what it looks like in a weight room session, when you get to kind of play around with that, because what you brought to the surface for me were things like the, and I'll have you talk us through it, the ball roll one leg RDL, like, we roll it, you roll a ball to them, they have to bend over on one leg and try to catch it with their eyes closed. Or I'll let you talk us through why that was something that you introduced or not just because all it's harder balance for somebody to try to close your eyes and catch a ball. But you brought in flexion versus the new talks about this, this sort of fight versus flight posture of people when you can tell they're just as popped in their erector spinae muscles or their back or just really on toned and, you know, really on fire and they're like puffing their chest out, you kind of picture that athlete who's like, walking through the weight room or the locker room, and they're all kind of puffed out. And it's cocky looking as they're walking. And that sometimes get thought of as Oh, that's their swagger. But let what you're trying to say as I'm hearing it is that's not necessarily the case, that could be this fight moment of how their body is dealing with all the stuff going on that may not be good for them to be in all the time. So you brought in this idea of like, let's do the crouched breathing strategies where let's get into flexion. Let's round that low back out. And that spine out, tell us why tell us about some of those drills, like specifically breathing, the crouch breathing, the tennis ball, one leg eyes closed deal and what you were getting at with those things versus just this looks like a cool thing that would get a bunch of clicks on Instagram, because it would do that too.
Sean Light 33:19
Well, he asked if he's a zoo boss, and he will tell you, none of it is cool. You know, for the the reflection stuff, you know, rightfully so strength conditioning, like this, like extension, ribs, you know, shoulders back, ribs up, like that is power, and it is power. But what happens is, is over time, when you just do that repeatedly over and over again, you kind of get stuck there, right? That's just the nature of the game, the tissue, and you get there. And the way that explosiveness works in the body is it's like a rubber band, right? So it's like, you know, you start at neutral, and then it's just like, boom, you, you know, you you can snap into it, right. But the point is, like I say you have zero to 10 in terms of extension power. If you start here, you're starting at like eight. So while you might have all of this power, you can only go from eight 910 as opposed to starting at zero. But when you start neutrally, you get all you know, you get your pelvic diaphragm aligned with your thoracic diaphragm. You get this like really good pumping mechanism with your, you know, with with your core and your ribs and your hamstrings and your glutes, you have way more access to everything else. So we're really just trying to do is balance it out. I've never not I never it's not like people, you know, think that we're trying to get them to be flexible. I'm just trying to split the difference and get them back to neutral because they spent so much time in flexion. So that was that was the genesis behind all of that. And then you talked about
Tim DiFrancesco 34:41
so much time in extension. Yeah, so much timing. Yeah, right. Right. Okay,
Sean Light 34:46
exactly. So all we were trying to do was just, you know, get them back to zero, so that they had right access to their power. Now,
Tim DiFrancesco 34:55
so sorry, sorry, this is fascinating. So from an anecdotal standpoint from just that I I test standpoint is this the pitcher who you say, I don't know what it is he just has a whip. Like, it just looks like easy. Versus the player that is always like, bearing down and putting everything into everything. And it looks like it's so hard for that person and they perform very well but it's like all their might to do it. 100% It's funny. Same with basketball, it's like the bouncy, the guy that's like super bouncy, super easy. And then the guy that's like, looks like they're trying to run through a brick wall all the time.
Sean Light 35:27
Yes, you get a guy who's just like, I don't know what to tell you, man. My chin just gets above the rim. You know, like, whatever I just How do you do that? I just jump in. I do it. For all these guys who would like be like, yeah, like these guys don't like 86 miles an hour. And then you get a guy, right? This guy barely throws look at the gunners like 102 You're like, Oh my God. They just they just have everything functioning baseball is a really cool one. Golf is really going to if you watch like slow most of the frames, you'll be able to see them like a baseball pitcher will stand tall and one right on his right foot. And then be able to transition all the way to completely over on his left foot transferring from one right from right stance to left stance. And, and somebody so what you're saying
Tim DiFrancesco 36:09
is that, yeah, go go, go, go, go go.
Sean Light 36:11
So anybody who's an extension, tension at that point is not going to be there. They're stuck. You can't you're in need. Yeah, so yours, there's no transfer of power, there's is no power. So these guys who are like giving it everything they've got, they are, they've got nothing. I run it. Yeah,
Tim DiFrancesco 36:28
their rubber band was already taught there, their rubber bands has already taught before this other group that you just can't figure out how they do it and make it look so easy. They're able to go to a almost slack state to almost zero on the rubber band to then get the wind up and the momentum that gets created. Going one to 10 is a lot more and a lot more efficient than the one that starts at seven and tries to go to 10
Sean Light 36:52
Yep. They're able to access all of their power as opposed to the past fascinating you know, has it but can't use it.
Tim DiFrancesco 37:01
Wow, that is really cool. So talk us specifically take us through the the ball when I remember you doing the ball exercise with Brandon Ingram paint the picture of how you do that and what you're getting at by tapping into eyes closed and whatnot.
Sean Light 37:18
Right? So here's the best high end is we look at that we look at the guys who are already in that extension pattern. So the natural thought is how do I get out of that extension pattern? Well, the typical strength coach is going to say okay, look, hamstrings, we're going to tighten them, you know, obliques we're going to tighten them like I'm gonna look at the mechanical things that I can see here. And I'm just going to attack the the imbalance Well, what I found was that too that doesn't work right because the brain holds the master key if the brain says you're not getting it then you're not getting it under any circumstance you're not going to overpower the brain it's it's the king of the castle. So when I found was that if I can't like what I started doing I started doing this test in baseball. Well actually I'll tell you Mom I'm gonna fare baseball stories of all time. We had this guy who came in to me one day and all he was super extension based guy and like he just couldn't couldn't get used to be a really good player he started to be like really fall off he's about to get released. And he came to me one day and he said like my clenching my jaw at night. Now we go down a rabbit hole with that but I know that's an error. I understand. I know a clenching your jaw and you're like grinding your teeth at night is so I on the spot I made I made up an exercise for him. tested him first really stiff. I'm immobile, like all his joints were really tight. Classic strength coach is gonna give him like pails and rails and capsule stretching. I said, let me try something. So I gave him a sawed off broomstick. And I told him to walk through the weight room like pretending like he was a blind person. And I threw like foam rollers and med balls throughout the weight room. And he went through the weight room, like literally like a blind person down and back took him a long time to do it came back to the table. He was completely like 100% flexible, like Max flexibility on everything, Matt, like his posture was instantly changed. And what it showed me was that it's not the capsule, it's not the it's not the fashio it's not the length of these things. That is the problem is that the brain is saying I got threatened my environment I have to I can't do anything. And I won't let you do anything until I've eliminated that threat. So when I became good at was eliminating that threat with the with the with the with Brandon and those and those exercises. I studied the visual system a lot. And what I found was anytime you're focusing on something that is your your eyes telling your brain that we're focusing on a threat, whether you like it or not, that's just just how the brain perceives it. So if I look at my phone all the time, I know with 100% certainty that while you're looking at that phone, your brain is perceiving a threat and you want to add the blue light on top of it Be my guest. So he came comes in one day and he's you know, complaining of whatever it was, and I had remembered You know, go into the bathroom on the team plane, and I watched it, I would like somebody's in the bathroom. So I'm just kind of chilling there. And I see him like, you know, for hours on,
Tim DiFrancesco 40:10
hold it over scrolling on his phone. Yeah.
Sean Light 40:12
So in my head, I was just like, alright, like, Where can I find some low hanging fruit here, I know how dominant the visual system is. And the brain has an extra layer in the neocortex. It's just the thing. It's the ultimate compensator. And I remember he also had trouble just just bending down and touching his toe with his eyes closed. So I knew his visual system was way oversold. So I knew, so when I try, so we say get on one, one leg, destabilize. Right. So now we put you in a position to find your stability muscles. And by rolling the ball at him from various directions, he couldn't focus on something a lot of you know, your PE teacher in third grade says Santa one, like focus on the spot on the ground. When you're training this visual focus, and now you're stabilizing with your eyes and not your you know, your, your your calves or your gastroc 's or you know, whatever it is like you're stabilizing with the wrong thing. So I was just trying to unlock that for him so that he could find those other muscles that he was supposed to find. And as soon as we start rolling, he starts to wobble and I love the way he hates the wobble. I love the wobble, right, oh, I know, he's going to find those new those muscles that he's supposed to find. And now we can retrain his system to not new no longer use his eyes to to, you know, be his source of stability. So now when he's out on the court, he has more action when he's at home, like he can recover more, because now his eyes aren't the sole force source of his stability. Repeat when people close their eyes at night in their eyes of their sole source of stability, you better find another way, your body's not going to be stable. And that's why people grind their teeth.
Tim DiFrancesco 41:43
So that that's, that's incredible. So the eyes were the crutch that he was compensating with and making up for and then using some of the wrong things for the wrong things. Basically, you were finding a way to take that crutch out make you use the pieces. And then from that you get the extension compensators that pull you back into that extension all the time and keep you there all the time of the 789 10 on the elastic that you if you stay there all the time, you can never tap into the earlier numbers on that power meter. And you shut them off versus saying word on a jest strengthen you're the opposite muscles, or we're going to do more things that make you do more extension and hope that it somehow works and that kind of thing. Almost like a cheat code.
Sean Light 42:36
Yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, it's literally what it was. And I I'm grateful for having my journalism background there. Because you used to go on TV, you've been to these seminars where they go up and do the table test in front of everybody, like well look at this immediate change, I go back to my I go back to my mic guys, I'm like, there ain't nothing happened and my man and I just had to I was like, I got to find the thing. Otherwise, I'm not going to like I'm not going to make it I'll always be weighed down by my journalism degree. So I just was searching for the thing that that actually worked.
Phil White 43:08
It's really interesting. So we just talked about and examples that you were able to do off court in the weight room, but earlier on, you mentioned someone gets in the arena, maybe a 22 year old and for every one of those years they've been on the planet there's 1000 screaming fans now half of whom or more may hate them, depending on whether it's home or away. So now we're in another threatening environment or a high pressure environment. So was there anything that you were able to do or suggest once the heat is on it's game day? It's game time?
Sean Light 43:43
Yeah. So like you said like the the easiest thing is like they haven't the dominoes fall in your favor you know as you you know as you grow up and as the brain is forming, so those things get fused the right way and we see that with a lot of the guys and you know who get to those levels where you know, just things have their freaks of course, but you know, there's a lot of freaks out there who the dominoes didn't fall right or this you know, it just it just didn't work for them. So having the dominoes fall, right that's that's first and foremost. But then when you get to that level and you're saying like okay, well how can I? How can I perceive this threat differently? I use my brother's example again. He goes out played for the Red Sox he goes out Fenway Park for 45,000 50,000 people pepper in the glove, right? Like, oh, I can't do that I throw the ball into the dugout like I will be completely rattled. And it's like that was just like my when I'm out there I'm like, Oh my God, all these people are watching like, oh my god, like these girls are out here and my girlfriend's watching. Can't stop thinking about it. And he told me one time he was out on the mound thinking of Sal volcano from Impractical Jokers and just like cool, nothing he was doing in the big leagues. I'm like this guy, like and so like, so like, I'm like something happened neurologically for him to perceive that environment as non threatening and for me to be like, this is such a big deal. You know, so once you get there if you if you like, have that, like, I'm a good practice player, but I get nervous in these games and I'm like, I get nervous shooting the ball and stuff like that, I know I can make it, but I can't do it, what you have to do, there's really only one option. And it's you have to tune up the frontal lobe of your brain. But the frontal lobe of your brain is conditioning is designed to do is it's to quiet all the other circuits in the brain that pop up. So if you if you sit down, you close your eyes and you start thinking, and you're like, I'm going to clear my mind, people people says all the time, Shawna can meditate. So you close your eyes, you sit there for a second, you're like, I'm gonna clear my head, I'm gonna clear my head, clear my head, and you're like, I'm gonna have pasta for dinner tonight. And then two seconds later, you're like, I don't like shrimp. Shrimp is in the sea. Maybe I'll go down to the beach. And then it's like the beach, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go here, then we go down to this case at a shop. And then I'm gonna go work out the next thing, you know, you're thinking about like, the most random thing in the world. And you're like, Oh, my God, I have to clear my head and then go back in the new start this whole thing over again? Well, all those circuits are happening or you know, in your neocortex throughout your brain, you're the new the frontal lobe is designed to shut those off, right. And what most people have is a completely unfunctional frontal lobe that does not do that even a little bit. And it's aggressively happening because of social media. You know, you go from you go from, you know, TDS awesome post to my god knows what I'm talking about to, you know, an ad about something. And you're just like circuit circuit circuit, and you're just conditioning yourself to be a pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop pop up all over the place. And the way that a human being learns the way that the brain learns, you think about a net. And in that net, you have like, all of these things that are technically can the, you know, the net part of the wiring up here, and hardware down here are technically connected. So if I say the way that a person learns, is, if I tell you, you know that, I don't know, ATP is, you know, the energy source of the body. It's like food for the cell. That's associative learning. So now you think you think ATP, you think food. Next thing you're doing is you're thinking about the shrimp pasta, you're thinking about the next thing, and like the whole neural circuit will light up when you think of ATP, everything underneath that lights up. And it's the reason that you just go all over the place when you start thinking, and you're like, how the heck am I on this thing? So with a frontal lobe does is it it will program your brain, you can identify like, what's the thing that you want to be thinking about. So if I say if I'm on the court, and I think about like, I just want to think about like, being happy, let's just let's just say that's the thing you want to think of, that's the thing when you're shooting, I always make it if I'm happy, if I'm feeling good. So if you just constantly, like repeat happy things in your thoughts, keep like bringing that to your attention, like to talk about affirmations and stuff like that. This isn't woowoo stuff, this is biology, this is neuroscience is programs, the reticular activating system inside of your brain, to Tet to intentionally tell your brain what is important and what I should be focusing on. And the more I bring that to my awareness, the more the frontal lobe is going to say, shut the hell up back here. Okay, these is this is the thing that's most important. If you've ever bought a car, and all of a sudden, you now see that car all over the place. It's because you're you have now programmed the reticular activating system, the frontal lobe of your brain to say this thing is important. Now it brings it to your awareness, those cars were always there. But now you notice it. So the more you repeat something, the more you like, bring this into your world, curate your environment to get that stimulus all the time, the more your frontal lobe will say that's important. And we'll shut everything else off. Because you have the left, this is now the loudest voice inside of your brain.
Tim DiFrancesco 48:25
So is this? Is this why the to put it really, in elementary terms? Is this why you see the player who just doesn't seem to give a shit do really well in those spots?
Sean Light 48:41
Yes, bar? None, bar none? Like, unequivocally. That is, that is exactly what happens.
Tim DiFrancesco 48:47
Wow. So in what you're saying is you can go through this practice, too. And I know you've because we've had so many great conversations about this, you've detailed your kind of process as a player is you cared so much that you couldn't, you couldn't shut that off. You couldn't not you couldn't get to the point where you're just letting it flow, letting it go free because you were just so hyper focused on is it right is everything this am I in and you're going through that over and over and over again, versus just letting it flow? And almost letting yourself get to the because I think a lot of people you brought up you know, Shawn, I can't meditate or that I think but when in the practice of mindfulness at the very sort of fingernail that I've understood it at and practice it myself. There's this early stage process that people go through where it's like, oh, I just failed at it like my mind started going everywhere. And you're fighting that because you're like, No, no, I'm supposed to be in in like a gray. I'm supposed to be focusing on nothing right now. But I'm focusing on the banana bread I had yesterday and I'm thinking about what I I have to pick up at the grocery store tomorrow. And I just failed that whole mindfulness session, but that is mindfulness is letting yourself be in those spots and letting those things happen.
Sean Light 50:09
Yeah, you know, for me, I try to get out of that mind for I think there is value in just being clear minded, no doubt, yeah. But what I call it and with the people we work with, we call it we call it neural reconstruction, is what we try to we try to show them that like those thoughts, those like things that are happening, these are all just connections that are existing inside your brain. Like when if like, Guys, the the, the first person ever get pulled over for speeding was clocked at seven miles an hour. Okay, so like, you guys are like what a stupid fact that was. But that just when I said that, like that connector, like a new neural connection was formed inside of your brain. Now if I wanted to, like, if you were like, if you were like, oh my god, that was amazing. And you're like, I can't believe I got to research his new research, like, this is the most amazing fact I've ever seen, I got to write a book on this thing, start writing a book about it, now you're gonna like, I'm gonna make a blog about it, your Twitter account is going to be dedicated to it, I'm gonna go on this national speaking tour talking about this fact, the more you do that the brains like okay, or weirdo. Like if this is the thing you're gonna focus on, we're gonna myelinate that pathway. So it builds this fatty sheath around the around the neuron, because you've promoted it so much. And now you've got this superhighway connection that speeds this conduction straight across, anytime you want to do it. So now it's the path of least resistance. So when I wake up in the morning, I got nothing to do. The first thing I'm thinking about is this fact, because it's the most, it's the most prioritize neuron in my world. So when I start teaching people like this is how this these connections exist. Like if you if you're nervous on a free throw line at a game, like I want to have 40 something percent from the line, I'll go out in front of the with in front of nobody and drill 10 in a row, like it was nothing. But in front of all these people with the magnitude of the game, like I felt that pressure and my everything was blocked off. Well, those things are just those simple connections inside of the brain. So what I tell somebody is like, Look, if you want to, if you want to be focused, that's connections in your brain, what do you want to focus on, just pick anything, Pick anything you want. Okay, now we have that now we'll go through the process of mildly myelinating, that neuron tuning up the frontal lobe tuning up the reticular activating system, to prioritize that in the brain, and eventually the scales tip, where it's the, it's the top thing on your mind. So you stand in front of the you stand in front of the, you know, in the free throw line in front of everybody else, and you're not like your brain just is going to go for whatever is the easiest route to go for in this situation based on the input that it's getting. And if you've already given it the input, you can choose whatever you want to focus on. Focus on cheeseburgers, while you're at the free throw line, I'll show you how to do it. But once you understand the biology of it, and how these things work, and how it connects, and how the operations go inside of the brain, you know, the world is your oyster, you can do anything with it. And literally anything you say, as stupid as you want, or as important as you want.
Phil White 52:49
That's amazing. Talk about a term that you've used, I've seen you use before auto suggestion, where where that fits into this.
Sean Light 52:58
So auto suggestion is kind of a hippie dippie woowoo term that I've picked up from Napoleon Hill, who's like a old school 1800s Thinking grow rich, you know, self help writer, I tried to stay away from it, it's why go to neural reconstruction. auto suggestion is just like repeating something over and over and over and over and over and over again to yourself, it's, it's the act of you can call it affirmations, you can call it repetition, you can call it whatever you want. But it's just for me, like I am my mission, I can't, I can't just say like, you know, sense, you know, manifest this into the world and repeat it over and over to your mind. Like to me it has to, you have to know why you're doing it. Otherwise, I don't think you're going to continue to do it. So it's it's repetition, it is having like a goal, you know, whatever it is that you want to focus on. Having that as your phone background, it's about having like a, you know, a no card in your pocket that has your goal on it. And when you sit down, you reach in your pocket for something you got you, you know, you feel that's going to trigger the same network inside of the brain, setting up your environment to constantly feed you that stimulus. So it's really the repetition of it, it is building, you know, we talked about muscle memory a lot. But this is, you know, neural memory neuron neural neural connection memory for you to just be able to get it over and over and over again. And it's it's truly simple repetition.
Tim DiFrancesco 54:19
And it's the equivalent when you're doing that repetition of what Randy Johnson should have been doing to build up his bicep curl to do a lot of bicep curls to build up his bicep and not have to use this hall of fame ring to win that competition. But it is the equivalent of hypertrophy eating or, as you said, myelinating the neural pathways of the aspect of of what you're repeating.
Sean Light 54:45
Yeah, I mean, period, it is it actually is hypertrophy, like you actually describe,
Tim DiFrancesco 54:49
describe myelinating what do we mean by that?
Sean Light 54:53
So any neural connection like, you know, like, I don't know, it's just like a like a long line. It's like a highway with neural synapses on the end, and basically just picture like a long wire, because probably this was stupid with the help was my description there before. So, right, so I was like this wire, and myelin is just like fat that just they put on it, the brain will just start laying it around that around that wire, like a tube. And the, the purpose of the myelin is to make the conduction, the electrical signal go faster through it, because they're saying like, this is the thing that you need the most like, like, I play basketball and I know my shot, it happens the same way every single time. I don't have to think about it. Because when I get that ball like I just go right to that myelin pathos, I've done so many reps on it, it's it's really, really myelinated. So when you get when it's a really fast conduction, I think of it like a superhighway versus like a dirt road. You know, if you have like, the superhighway is the thing that the bad habit that you're trying to kick, it's, you know, it's the path of least resistance for the brain. But if you say like, you know, I, you know, I want to, I need to tuck my elbow in a little bit more when I shoot, let's the dirt road, when you make that when you first make that connection, and eventually, you got to make that road more appealing to the electrical signal than that road takes some time. But eventually the scales tip and now you become the path of least resistance. It's it's and it really comes down to the stuff that we all talk about consistency, showing up every day doing the right things, you just have to you just, it's just different things, I always tell people you were I'm going to show you the steps on how to get to where you want to be. It's just not the steps that you thought I was gonna show you.
Tim DiFrancesco 56:36
Well, I think Steph Curry, right, if we wanted to kind of put what you just said into what happens if you put it all together as you just said, if you if you are the person that never misses, and you are dotting your I's and crossing your T's on all the things, and you care a lot, but you also can know when to toggle on and off the care meter in different environments. It's why Steph in the finals can shoot a three that could win the NBA finals and turn around before it even has reached the rim in something that I wouldn't even dare to do in a pickup game. That he has that ability and he also has this ability to literally have so much myelin on and bet around surrounding those encapsulating those neural pathways because he's just taken more reps than anybody else in that way in that shape in that form. That it is just it is just autopilot for him like it just once the cascade of the movement starts it just like his body can't not do it.
Sean Light 57:42
Yep, I was I when I was in college, one of our one of our college coaches was best friends with Ray Allen. And right now it would come up and and he would like he would hook with us every once in a while. And I was just like mouse just enamored by me at the time was the all time leading three point shooter and I was just like, I was trying to like figure like, get inside of his brain. And like, we were like chat a little bit. And one time I asked him I was like, when you shoot the ball, like, do you ever like Do you ever think like, like, this isn't going in? He like he was like, Absolutely not. He's like, every time I shoot the ball, I don't think it's gonna go, I'm 100% positive, it's gonna go in the whole time I'm on the court. I'm thinking if I can just get the ball out of my hands, it's gonna go in the hoop. And like, talk about coming full circle. It was like the next year, we're gonna hit that shot from Miami, where he just like, he just got it out of his hands like it just like in a split second. Just give me the ball, boom, pop it out of my hands. And I'm like, like, to me, I was just like, there, there's something about your brain that is different than my brain because I'm against Cornell, you know, breaking free throws, and you're out here against the Celtics like Drilon like fade away back up threes. Like, something's different. Like, I know, I can make those shots not like that. But like, I know that I'm capable of these shots. But what's what's different about the way that you're doing it, versus the way that I am an every time I searched every time I looked, it was always something happening in here. And eventually I said, I got to figure out what's going on in there.
Phil White 59:09
Yeah, it's up to you, sir. Something else I found fascinating that you've you've posted about and written about and talked about is making focus your default rather than what you said the social media, infinite scroll brain. Yeah, you know, and just, you know, put different parts of the brain stem on which levels we reach or don't reach. And just another way to condition. So what are some ways you know, based on what we've already talked about where someone can start to make on the court or just in life in business, whatever it is, in family life, be more present, start to make focus the default more so than the alternative? Yeah,
Sean Light 59:49
so at some point, you have to manually turn off the switches. You know, there's a lot of outside noise happening. A lot of people like I go on Twitter, and every When she's telling me what to do, that's just what Twitter is, like, everyone's just telling me what to do. If you say the same thing, it's like you in order to have success in life, you must do this right? And everyone's like one guy saying, This guy's saying the complete opposite thing is like, What the hell do I do? At some point, you have to turn those switches off. Like we all have, like our unique gifts, we all have our unique talents, like we all have a special road to travel. Great story on that was my brother was playing pro baseball in the minor leagues with the Red Sox. And he has the his, his, you know, hitting coach was a nobody. And one day a young fella comes through his system, he gives the same crappy advice to everybody. He gives the same crappy advice to this one kid goes on to be the best player in Major League Baseball was Mookie Betts. And now this guy telling the same crappy advice is still everybody. But he's like, now this is what Mookie Betts did to hit that next level, everyone's just telling you the thing that worked for them. And at some point, you got to realize that there's value in a lot of this, but I don't need any more information to get to where it wherever it is that I want to get all the information I need, I don't need to read any more books, I only take one more course. And I need to follow any more people on social media, I've got, I've got the information. So at that point, when if you're aware enough to make that call, you've got to you've got to turn off the faucets, you can't you can't you've got it, you have to be a producer of information, and no longer a consumer of information, period, it has to happen. The next thing you got to do with 100% Certainty is you have to, you have to you have to find your thing. If you don't like basketball, I'm not gonna work for you. If you don't love running a business or whatever your mission in your businesses, it's not, you'll always be like, intrinsically moved to that next thing. So like, even when I hire staff, I was just on a call earlier today with somebody I'm trying to work with potentially become one of our salespeople. And I said to him, Look, if I need to know from you what you really want to do, don't, you know, don't be asked me and tell me you want to be you know, grow in this company and stay here forever. If you want to go to this company over here, that's great. I want to help you get there I wants to be a ladder to wherever it is that you want to go. And I'll work on the systems to bring in the next guy after you so that I can train them to be just as good and then move them on. But if you're the whole time you're, you know, behind my back trying to apply for jobs over here, I'm not going to get everything that I need out of you. So you know, productivity and performance, you got to turn the faucet off and you have to, it has to be like what you really genuinely enjoy and want to do. So we'd have to find that that's hard for a lot of people to figure out what it is that like really drives them and, and motivates them intrinsically every single day. And then the last thing is we go through that neuroscience man, we we figure out what it is that you need to be focused on do you need to be focused on selling this thing, you need to be focused on producing this webinar, that's going to be your conversion vehicle to sell do you need to be focused on you know, if your follow through a full follow through on the cord, like whatever it is, you just choose, you pick that you get to decide. And then you've got to set up a plan and consistently follow that plan over and over and over and over and over again. And what I've found is that pretty much any plan will work if you've met the other two criteria may not be the best plan in the world may not work to the fullest to maximum extent. But pretty much anybody who sticks to any plan whatsoever. It works. So if you follow those steps like that's those are usually fail proof. And the challenge is is getting people to stay consistent. The challenge is getting somebody to search their soul enough to really tell me what it is that it is that you want to do. And, you know, that's that's leadership that's developing the relationships that's being authentic and vulnerable with somebody else. You know, there's just there's so many caveats to it. But you know, I think those are the main things.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:03:34
You know, what I love about that, though, is it is the aspect of, as long as you've kind of identified those three things, and can say yes to those, that you've sort of thought that through that this is the place you want to be that you're not dreaming of where you are thinking you want to be all the time while you're here, just using this as a leverage point and all this other stuff that as you've explained, you can literally rewire and improve. It's not like your wiring as it is today is where it's going to be forever if you don't want it to be.
Sean Light 1:04:10
Yeah, absolutely. You know, a cool example of that is they did the defense experiment years ago with blind folks who have never seen in their entire life. And they fashion Don't ask me how but they fashion this device that takes visual input threads, sends it into some signal and places it on the receptors in their tongue. And wham bam, thank you, man. I don't know how it happened. But they made those people able to see through the sensors in their tongue by using just a different area of their brain. I mean, neuroplasticity, it's it's it's like the really sexy thing for people to say now but it's real and it works and you know if you're just and that's the thing, like it does take repetition, it does take time, so if you don't love it, we're gonna find out really soon. And if you're able to like stick with it over time, like You can, you can, if you stick with it over time, you can see with your tongue.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:05:09
And I think if you put this into sort of, and you did a great job of this, as you were explaining, you know, for instance, if your thing is you've identified with a coach, so let's say your follow through is just if it, we've, we've found every time you're hitting those shots, your follow through is here and then for you to kind of get up and ring the bell with that follow through, then we can repeat that repeat that repeat that. But from a basket, if we're talking about a sort of basketball term standpoint, or putting this into basketball, if you're a coach, if you're a young player, this is the thing that you and I saw when we worked with those elite athletes that people think they were just either born with a gift, and they just had something that you'll never have, or there's no way you can get that or this is them. And you're here. And that's as far as you go is, right. But when you look at what they did, they just, it wasn't that they all had the same plan. They all didn't go the Steph Curry plan, they all didn't go the Steve Nash way of shooting or they didn't all but they all were very different as far as what their plan was. But they just trusted the plan. They were in the place that was their mission on this earth. And they just kept on putting pennies into the piggy bank over and over and over and over again until it became automatic until it became so dominant as to how an automatic as to what they were doing that they end up making it look effortless, they end up making it look. But it wasn't that way from the beginning. For them. It was there was moments of having to change their shot, or there was moments of you know what this isn't working, we have to maybe adjust the plan and that kind of thing. And it's not always this linear process. But it's just that you. Like, I love how you said that. Because I think in today's world to a player has to be and I don't know, but I didn't have a million Instagram accounts that I could follow to get a million different shooting drills that maybe I should be trying tomorrow. I didn't have I mean, maybe I got a VHS with some old guy showing me some pivot moves and and then I could just go try the pivot moves. I didn't know until I got another VHS with another thing. But it wasn't like being bombarded with a million. Eventually you have to shut off the Fosse it's like, look, I've got what I need here, I am going to pick these three things that I've identified. And this is what those great players did. They just began over the years, they tried a bunch of stuff at first, and then they were like, That's not important. That's not important. That's not important might work for that person doesn't work for me. I don't play like that. I don't need that. But I need these two things. And these things I'm going to do every single day, like clockwork, or whatever the plan is every third day or whatever it is. And I'm not going to miss and I'm just going to repeat it over and over and over again, until it's this compounding interest to be like, How'd that person accumulate so much skill? Well, they just, they just stuck to the really, really important things. And they were also really smart to at some point early on, be able to identify what were those key things for them, instead of trying to do everything with all the facets of information always on and then what happens there, I think to your point is you just end up going to try this new information fosse it. And then let me let me try some of this. And then you realize a year later, and you haven't ever done that thing that you started with in the beginning of the year that you actually had said, Well, that's important to me.
Sean Light 1:08:24
Yeah, I always say that strategy, at some point strategy becomes a way to off put, like, put off the responsibility of doing the hard work, which is consistent. You think that like if I do this, if I you know, pull my elbow in just a little bit, I don't have to do the consistency. And that's just a that's like, that's Charles Darwin man, that's, that's just, you know, trying the path of path of least resistance, you're pre wired to do that. So everyone's out there trying to, you know, release the burden of the hard work of becoming a greater basketball player becoming a better, you know, more focused basketball player or somebody who just puts in the work. You know, I see that all the time in business, where somebody's like, if I just you know, if I do SEO instead of Facebook marketing, maybe that will allow me to not have to become a great entrepreneur, it'll just make me the money. And it works as 0% of the time. So I say like everything really has the all these plans can really work. But you have you have to do the thing. If you do the thing, you'll get the result.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:09:27
Yeah, and it's this idea of the F when you become rewarded by the effort, not by the result. I think that becomes a big thing is so like when you can train your brain to be rewarded by the effort of whatever results you're headed for and not get feel like I get rewarded or I get this sense of joy when I get the reward of the swish happening. It's like I don't care what happens once it leaves my hand I get I'm getting I'm getting to 1000 shots up every day. And will that's the reward for you when you truly can say and part of that is to your point, that also gets really easy to do when you have found your passion in life and your mission in life and you're like it, whatever it is, I just, I can't picture myself doing anything different than this. And that's easy to do then, but when I think for for many people, you don't always just find your passion and your mission really early. And you still have to be able to find the reward in the effort instead of the result. Even if you haven't quite found your, your mission or your passion.
Sean Light 1:10:35
Let me let me give you a really amazing way to do that. Because even for people who find stuff that they love, like the grind, just the grind period, this is like this is like some sick neuroscience here. So when you have an experience, so like if I like if, if I'm like going through my Basketball Drills in the backyard, like I remember I used to do these like to I would do like alternating dribbling shooting a drill and then it back up a little bit, then go forward and then back up a little bit for some guy who played at Rutgers taught me that one, right. So like, I hate it, but I was like, I just got to do that. And I didn't like I didn't find that like a joy in the process. If you like if like that when you have like, when you feel like really happy at a moment. What that's the death feeling is a chemical inside of your body that's trying to reinforce that action saying let's keep doing this. When you when you feel something like negative like, like, I hate this, this is the worst, that chemical reaction that emotion that feeling is saying don't do that thing again. And it imprinted in your brain. It's just trying to reinforce the action. This is awesome. This is crazy. Okay, so if you if I sit down, and I think about something I think about that co worker I hate and also I get that negative response, am I gonna hate that guy, right? And like, so that is saying, like, don't think about that guy, don't be around that guy reinforced that action. But if I think about the work, I think about the work that it is that I need to do, I know I gotta do it, I know I gotta do it. I don't really feel that but I need to feel I need to feel happy about that. Because if if I feel that feeling while that events happening, then it reinforces the action will be something that I actually want to do. The scores, the movie soundtracks, the movie sound, the movie, like the like, like the tones and like the Pirates of the Caribbean, that, that, that that that that, like those that those composers are experts at pulling emotion out of somebody at a particular point in a movie using music. So if I sit down, and I am thinking about, you know, the stupid machine gun dribbling, and I just want to enjoy the hell out of it. Right. And I'm thinking about I'm thinking about thinking about and then I put my headphones in, and I take Pirates of the Caribbean and I start putting it in my ears, you're getting that input into your brain that's specifically designed for a particular emotion just got to pick the emotion. So I'm listen to this while thinking about me doing these drills. And all of a sudden, like I'm combining these two things in the emotion. When I'm with like the movie screen in my head is putting this and it's like pasting this emotion on top, and it's going to reinforce that result. And it's like candy, you're gonna want to go back to it. So if you repeat that over and over again, you'll get to the point where your brain is like machine gun dribbling makes me so happy. Because you've now you've intentionally reinforced that using some using some sick neuroscience and pirates. Wow began to get you there?
Tim DiFrancesco 1:13:20
Well, I mean, what that is, to me is, sometimes I think it can be one of the most frustrating things in the world to have a mentor or a coach, somebody that you're looking for leadership or advice on to say, Look, you just have to change your mindset. You have a bad mindset about this. Just change your mindset, okay? Just like the two ball dribbling, okay, just do it. And and what you've just done is said, no, no, let's not pretend like that's as easy as what many people make it out to be. And also like it is have any chance of being productive. And let's use our own neurology, our own biology, in the attributes that it offers us in what we now know about it to actually adjust our mindset in a way that works. Yeah,
Sean Light 1:14:09
like you think I think like guys like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, like these guys. Like they're like it was automatic for them. Like they were just going to do this thing. It wasn't like a grind was a hustle. Like I'm compelled to do this every single day. And it's like, if I woke up with that same motivation, if I woke up with that same drive and hunger to do those things, it wouldn't even be hard to do that. But in my current state, I don't feel that, well. Those are just connections happening inside of your brain. If you want to feel that you can go feel that you just have to understand that the way the body works. And when you understand the way that the body works. It's not that hard. You just have to be consistent. Organize the plan and just and just build those connections. myelinated those connections, tune up those parts of your brain. You just have to understand how it works and you can real it's like you can become that person who's like jumping out of bed in the morning. I want to work I want to do these drills. I want to get these things done. I want to bury you on the court. Like you can become that person. It's just actions in the brain.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:14:59
Shot This has just been it's been fascinating and I it's much of it is way over my head. I had no idea what the hell you were doing to Brandon Ingram, but he seemed to like it and he was catching the the tennis ball and closing his eyes and doing the doing the stuff. And now Now I get it. And I'm sold. I mean, this is I'm joking, but I'm not. I mean, it's, it's it. It really is so cool to think about how we can tap into the different aspects of way beyond just the hardware of let's talk about how we get bigger quads. And we fend off Achilles tendinitis with some calf raises, right? So those things have their place but there's, there's more than meets the eye with the body. Thank you for opening that curtain for us and delving in because it was it was it is just fascinating. There's there's one final question. It's the famous last question. This is the basketball strong podcast, you can answer with a more emotional and your your gut, your heart, your it can be technical in your answer whatever you want. But the question is, what does it mean to you to be basketball strong? All right.
Sean Light 1:16:18
So I guess I kind of cheated because I knew it was coming. I want to listen, I listen to the I listen to the podcast. I like
Tim DiFrancesco 1:16:24
it good. I like a good study. Okay. You know,
Sean Light 1:16:27
honestly, to me, it is it is being actually mentally tough. Because and here's and this neuroscience stuff is cool. Like I love it. But it's really more about the perspective to me, like, if you look at 99% of the basketball players in the world, they're not going to play in the NBA, they're not going to play professionally, right. And what the vast majority of the people tell you to do is, you know, the two ball dribbling this stuff, whatever this is the stuff that's gonna get you to the NBA, which you have to understand is the majority is wrong. It's the 1% that gets there. So whatever everybody else is doing is probably not the thing that's going to get you to that level. It's the different things that when we watch the guys in the NBA, when we see what they're doing, it is the different things I can confirm that, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt behind the closed doors for an NBA weight room. Those are the things that are that are getting there. And when I talk to athletes, I say like you have to do these things, right? And this tip was like, What the hell's this guy talking about? Right? Well, the Mental Toughness they found is like you have to be mentally tough to get this done. They're there. Their definition of mental toughness is you know, the Gatorade commercial, running the stadiums and doing power cleans when nobody's watching and getting really sweaty and doing more reps. Well the real mental toughness is to understand what really moves the needle and what really works and to go against the majority to go against you know what everybody else is doing what everybody else thinks is cool what everybody else thinks is gonna get them to the next level and have the understanding of what what it is that it is that actually moves the needle what actually is going to produce results in your in your world. And again, like brains wired for conformity to follow the herd. You have to be mentally tough enough to see that and go in the other direction swim upstream. That's basketball straw.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:18:14
Love that put it in the vault Phil it's locked. Amazing Shawn where can people follow learn more see what you're doing and just keep keep tapping into that that brain.
Sean Light 1:18:28
So I would say the best place to really do is go to my website, weight room wealth.com We put out a newsletter every every week about this stuff. It is we do a lot of stuff business related, but it's highly performance. It's neurology and Exercise Science. We have a lot of programs all sorts of cool stuff that you can check out. You can follow me on Twitter, it's where I'm most active at slight s light to zero. That's where I'm most active. I bounce around I got some tick tock stuff going on. I'm not really on Instagram that much anymore, but I'm bouncing around before I go I just want to say TD like you know my guy dude, you've helped me out so much you undersell those, those those you know ISOs on the on the Achilles tendon and stuff but that that was It was eye opening to me man like I remember you said to me, I really never forget this. Because I thought you know, I was I was coming in I thought I was a hotshot, you know. And I remember you said to me, I was like, why? Like just I was I was being nice about it, but I was like, why why do we do this? He said let's you said listen, when the best player in the world tears his Achilles you start loading up the tendons. We're gonna start doing this and I was like, oh, say no more my friend. Duly noted. Yeah, you really really showed me the ropes dude. And you know even my one year with with the Lakers has resonated so far and so wide. Like it's helped me in business. You know, I always tell people when I didn't know what I was doing in business, the only people that would show up to my seminars were Laker fans. If I really do I owe you a lot man and I want you to know I'm very grateful for everything that you've done for me and along the way and just just being being my guy.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:20:10
Hey, it means a ton and I spent five seasons with no co pilot in the process of being a strength coach in the NBA and I got one season with a co pilot it was it was a pleasure it was an honor you approached it as open minded and as just willing to help ready to help in a three point stance as anybody would have. So it goes both ways. And how cool is it that we get to sit on this end of it and and just kind of learn continue to learn from each other?
Sean Light 1:20:43
No doubt, man. No, nobody made better call best coffee in the NBA.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:20:48
Oh my gosh, that'd be a whole other app but that'll be its own. Bags show Shawn This is great.
Sean Light 1:20:56
You got it. Thanks, guys.
Phil White 1:21:00
That's the Tim cut finger.
Tim DiFrancesco 1:21:03
Wow, wow.
