Three or four coaches he trusted told him not to do it. All but one said moving down to Junior A was a road you don't come back from.
Brad McKenzie is the head coach of the Halifax Mooseheads in the QMJHL. He was an instructor at 13, co-wrote a book on the psychology of hockey at 18, went to Finland at 19 as the youngest student in his class, and was coaching university players who were older than he was. Then, newly married and a month after buying a house in his hometown, he left a good QMJHL job to go be a head coach in a town of 5,000 people where nobody knew who he was. Two years later he was back, and he would not have the job he has now without it.
His 20/20 hindsight: "We're all so worried about making the right decision. Make the decision right." If you've ever been stuck on a decision because you were waiting to be sure, this one is for you.

Two Olympic golds. Six world championships. General manager of the Toronto Sceptres, and eight years running Canada's national women's program.
Gina Kingsbury has been the player fighting for a roster spot and the person deciding who gets one, and in this episode she talks honestly about both. Getting cut in 2002 and what the hardest part actually was, which wasn't the doubt. It was the phone call to her parents. Why she still feels behind after all of it. And the difference she's built her life around:
"Nice people tell you what you want to hear. Kind people tell you what you need to hear."
Plus why saying your goal out loud matters more than protecting yourself from missing it.

Nico Somerville was named a team captain in his third year of college. It turned out to be the year he got scratched the most.

Nico is going into his third season of being pro hockey player in the ECHL. This season he will be playing with Greenville after spending the past two in Wichita, and prior to that four years in the NCAA and four in the BCHL. He left home at 14. For years he handled not playing the way most athletes do, by grinding harder physically, two-a-days, first guy on and last guy off, until he admitted the part he was avoiding was the mental side. Nothing was wrong with him physically. He calls that a tough pill to swallow. The conversation that changed it was with his older brother Luc, who is sitting across from him in this episode.

Nico talks about separating who he is on the ice from who he is off it, and what he would tell the version of himself who went quiet and pulled into a shell: everything is going to be okay.

Janine "Tiger" Charron looked like the most positive person in any room. Behind closed doors, there were mornings she physically couldn't get out of bed.

A former NCAA Division I hockey player at UNH and assistant captain, Janine went on to play pro, run marathons, and win a fitness competition, all fueled by achievement and external validation. Then came the decade she never saw coming: divorce, bankruptcy, and breast cancer. Sunny on the outside, silent on the inside.

In this episode, Janine opens up about the identity crisis of losing "the athlete," the season of silence after her diagnosis, and how she slowly rebuilt from the ground up. She shares her Tiger Method for closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be, why she's grateful for the dark years, and the four words that carried her through it all: just keep showing up.

If you've ever smiled on the outside while struggling on the inside, this one's for you.

Charley Healey committed to play college hockey in Ottawa, then her mom was diagnosed with stage four cancer. A physical in her first year turned up Wolff-Parkinson-White, a rare heart condition sending her rate to 275 on the ice. She thought that was just working hard. Then came pneumonia, thirty pounds lost, heart surgery, and a transfer home to Calgary.

In this episode Charley talks openly for the first time about grief, about the relief she felt when a season finally ended, and about what she found on the other side.

"For a really long time I thought my story was about everything I had lost."

Six guests in, and we're taking a week off from interviews to talk about what we've actually learned.

Eric, CJ, Finley, Ben, Marcus, and Steve have almost nothing in common on paper. Different sports, different generations, different levels. But every single story has a struggle in it, and almost every one turned on the same moment: when they stopped explaining it away and looked at themselves instead.

In this episode we get into why saying something out loud is the scary part, because that's the moment it becomes real. Why acceptance gets mistaken for quitting when it's the opposite. The difference between fault and responsibility. And why we're all convinced everyone is judging us as harshly as we judge ourselves, when we'd never do that to anyone we love.

Luc shares the three-step process he uses with clients for working through emotions, and we come back to CJ looking at herself in a mirror three hours before a playoff start and deciding no one was coming to save her.

No guest. Just the two of us, and everything the first six taught us.

Steve Trimper spent 28 years as a Division I head baseball coach at Manhattan, Maine, and Stetson, winning more than 780 games along the way. In this episode he tells us how sitting in donor meetings early in his career completely changed what he believed about coaching, and why he came to see the relationship piece as more important than the talent piece. He opens up about the parts that cost him too: lying awake after losses, feeling like he let everyone down, and writing a book about values while quietly asking himself whether he was actually living them. He also shares the story of a waitress named Shonda at the Atlanta airport who ended up becoming an entire chapter.
Update: since this episode recording Steve has stepped down as the Head Coach at Stetson

In this episode of Mindset Stories, the hosts welcome one of their own clients: Marcus Harper II (known on the field as "Big Mark"). Marcus is a former Toronto Argonauts offensive lineman who achieved a legendary collegiate milestone at Oregon State: never allowing a single sack in over three consecutive years of college football.

But behind this jaw-dropping statistic lies a profound story about the extreme psychological cost of greatness. Marcus pulls back the curtain on the intense pressure, the dangerous trap of "potential," and the moment he realized he had sacrificed his own humanity to become bulletproof on the field.

Marcus takes the hosts through the rapid, whirlwind trajectory of his football career and the mental challenges that came with it:

• The Late Bloomer: Growing up in the South Suburbs of Chicago, Marcus was an active kid who did everything except football. From soccer and swimming to chess and a brief stint as a middle school basketball team manager. It wasn't until his freshman year of high school that his dad finally let him don a helmet and pads.

• The "Spider-Man" Moment: After a coach threatened to demote him to the "B-Team" freshman squad, a switch flipped. During a rainy game, Marcus levelled an opposing defensive end so hard the player's helmet flew off. From that single moment, the "Hulk" was born, paving the way for a dominant high school career.

• The Two-Year Whirlwind: In a staggering two-year window from the time he seriously committed to the sport, Marcus went from a raw sophomore to receiving phone calls from powerhouse college programs, eventually committing to Oregon State.

• The Dark Side of the Grind: While his freshman year brought immediate success (breaking into the starting rotation and winning a Pac-12 Championship), his sophomore year brought a steep, confidence-crushing demotion. The setback sparked an obsessive, two-year binge for answers.

• Sacrificing the Human for the Athlete: Marcus opens up about the extreme coping mechanisms he developed during his junior year, sitting in the dark alone after games and refusing to eat. In a ruthless quest to unlock his potential, he consciously chose to sacrifice relationships, family time, and his own personal life to devote every waking hour to the gridiron.

Marcus’s journey highlights a critical crossroads that almost every elite performer eventually faces: the separation of the human from the athlete. While his obsessive focus earned him historical success on the field and an undeniable streak of zero sacks allowed, it also robbed him of connection and joy. This episode is a powerful exploration of what happens when your identity becomes entirely consumed by your performance, and what it truly takes to face the "thought loops" when the lights go down.

In this episode of Mindset Stories, the hosts sit down with Ben Barr, the head coach of the University of Maine Black Bears men’s ice hockey team. Under his guidance, the Black Bears have undergone a massive cultural and competitive revival, transforming from a struggling program into back-to-back NCAA tournament contenders.

But Ben’s journey to becoming one of college hockey’s most supportive and successful coaches wasn't built on a straight line of easy victories. Instead, it was forged through the fires of early athletic adversity, high-pressure environments, and the deep resilience required to start over when life pulls the rug out from under you.

Inside the episode, Ben, Sara, and Luc take a deep dive into the moments that shaped Ben's coaching philosophy and mental framework:

• The Weight of the High-Expectations Trap

• The Devastating Reality Check

• Wiping the Slate Clean at Shattuck St. Mary’s

• History Repeating Itself

• The Business of Hockey vs. Elite Academics

This conversation tackles the modern epidemic of the "victim mindset" head-on. Ben and the hosts discuss the critical role that adversity plays in human development. In a society that constantly tries to shield young people from failure, Ben argues that experiencing tough, unfair moments is like building a psychological immune system.

Whether you are a player trying to handle a coach's tough decision, a parent navigating youth sports culture, or a leader trying to build a winning environment from the ground up, Ben’s story proves that your past setbacks don't define you, they prepare you.

In this special, altered-format episode of Mindset Stories, hosts Sara and Luc take a powerful look at resilience through the eyes of a child. Debriefing a pre-recorded interview in real time, the hosts unpack the extraordinary mindset of Finley Skiff, a 10-year-old cancer survivor who has recently entered remission after a grueling battle with anaplastic large-cell lymphoma.

Blending profound emotional maturity with pure childhood innocence, Finley uses brilliant, imaginative metaphors to describe what it takes to survive life's darkest storms.

Inside the Episode: Finley’s Mental Playbook

Together, the hosts listen to and unpack clips from their conversation with Finley, highlighting key themes that anyone facing adversity can use to guide themselves forward:

• The "Baguette Metaphor" & Realistic Optimism: Finley describes life as a baguette loaf. While you are bound to hit some "burnt bites" (like diagnoses and relapses), you can't throw away the whole loaf over one bad experience. He reflects on the human urge to just "swallow the baguette whole" to avoid the painful ups and downs—acknowledging that you can't skip the process or numb the hard stuff without a cost.

• Externalizing the Enemy: To take control of a scary situation, Finley explains his cancer as "bad aliens" invading his planet-like body. His solution? "Just nuke them, and keep going."

• The Purple Blob and Cognitive Diffusion: Through a hospital card game called Organ Attack, Finley shares how drawing cancer as a silly "purple blob" stripped it of its power to invoke fear. The hosts note how this mirrors Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) by diffusing a massive threat into something manageable and distant.

• The Lego Build Foundation: Finley visualizes a strong mindset like a Lego structure. If you put a piece in the wrong spot, it collapses. Building a resilient mind means taking it "one brick at a time," ensuring each piece is happy, sturdy, and well-fitted.

• Radical Presence over the Victim Mindset: Despite being physically depleted—describing a time he felt like a "dried-up kiwi"—Finley radiates immense gratitude for simply being alive and present.

• Finley's Trick to Keep Parents from Falling Apart: Showing emotional intelligence far beyond his years, Finley reveals his strategy for calming the adults in the hospital room: asking them what they want to do today and encouraging them to be a little more active, giving the worried caregivers something concrete in the present moment.

Key Mindset Takeaways:

"A good attitude is always the best thing." – Finley Skiff

This episode serves as a beautiful masterclass in coping planning, emotional regulation, and deep acceptance. Finley reminds us that anchoring yourself in faith and a purpose bigger than the moment is the ultimate key to resilience. Instead of playing the victim or absorbing the darkness of his situation, Finley actively chooses to return the kindness shown to him by his medical team and loved ones by bringing joy to everyone he meets.

Whether you are fighting a personal battle or just trying to navigate a bad day, Finley’s parting advice is simple: Follow your dreams, stay present, and when things get tough, try to be like a seahorse—carefree.

If you were moved by Finley's story, please subscribe to Mindset Stories, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that everything is going to be okay.