The Balanced Athlete Car Convos; About Purpose, Balance and Play!

Today’s guest is Melia Kane—known to many as “Coach Kane”—a local volleyball coach recognized for developing athletes on and off the court. With a coaching style rooted in fundamentals, confidence, and personal accountability, Melia helps players elevate their performance while also building the life skills that last far beyond the season. Parents and athletes alike appreciate her steady leadership and the way she emphasizes character, resilience, and team-first habits. This past club season, she coached my daughter and made a lasting impact—not just by helping the girls become better volleyball players, but by challenging them to become great humans.

Purpose

Balance

Play

Positive Emotion

Academics

Personal

Volleyball with Coach Melia

Week 4

Building a Life That Feels Good

 What if life wasn’t just about winning but about wanting to keep going?

Fous: Integration

Core Idea: Success isn’t just performance-it’s sustainability.

Talking Points:

Most athletes accidentally live in only one or two of these. Balance comes from intentionally hitting all four.

Identity beyond sport:

One of the biggest traps athletes fall into is identity foreclosure – when “athlete” becomes the only way they see themselves. When sport is your only identity:

So the question becomes: Who are you when you’re not playing your sport?

This doesn’t weaken performance – it strengthens it. Athletes with broader identities:

Because their whole self isn’t on the line every time they compete.

Questions to ask:

Because the goal isn’t just better athletes – it’s better people who happen to be athletes.

Action Step: Build a Balanced Week Blueprint: This isn’t rigid – it’s a framework you can adapt.

Example:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

This is what building a life that feels good looks like in practice. Not perfect, not optimized to the minute, but intentional, balanced and sustainable.

Linktree

https://linktr.ee/jessiebrodmerkel

Week 3: When Balance Feels Impossible

Focus: Obstacles

Core Idea: Burnout doesn’t come from doing too much—it comes from doing too much of what drains you.

*Check out the episode with Paul Gamble PHD, Parents are Key! His research, book and work speaks more in depth on much of what I talk about in today’s episode.

Signs of Burnout in Teen Athletes

Burnout is not just physical fatigue. Research defines athlete burnout as a combination of emotional exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment, and sport devaluation—when athletes stop caring about something they once loved. [apa.org]

Common signs parents and coaches notice first:

Studies published in Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association show burnout is one of the primary drivers of early sport dropout and can precede depressive symptoms if left unaddressed. Unfortunately, although over 60 million children and adolescents currently participate in organized sports, attrition rates remain staggeringly high, with 70% of youth athletes choosing to discontinue participation in organized sports by 13 years of age.1  Discontinuation of sports during childhood plays a role in the more than 75% of adolescents in the United States who fail to meet physical activity recommendations.2 

Injury and burnout have been suggested as two of the primary causes for attrition from sports.3 

 [publications.aap.org], [apa.org]

Key reframe for parents:

Overtraining vs. Under‑Recovery

Most families assume burnout means too much training. In reality, the problem is usually insufficient recovery for the total load placed on the athlete.

The American Academy of Pediatrics defines overtraining as a state where training demands consistently exceed the body’s ability to recover, leading to performance decline, hormonal disruption, and mental exhaustion. [publications.aap.org]

Important distinction:

External Pressure: Parents, Coaches & Social Media

Burnout risk skyrockets when external expectations replace intrinsic motivation.

Research and youth sport organizations consistently identify these pressure sources:

Articles from Positive Coaching Alliance and SafeAthlete show that perceived pressure, not actual encouragement, is strongly linked to anxiety, loss of enjoyment, and burnout in youth sports. [positivecoach.org], [safeathlete.org]

Social media adds a new layer: athletes feel they are performing for an audience, not learning a skill. Constant comparison erodes autonomy and joy, two essential buffers against burnout. [news.spreely.com]

Talking point for parents:

Losing Identity Outside of Sport

One of the most damaging—and overlooked—factors in burnout is identity foreclosure: when a young athlete’s sense of worth becomes tied almost entirely to being “the athlete.”

Research in Frontiers in Psychology shows that early specialization and intense year‑round participation increase the likelihood of a narrow athletic identity, making setbacks feel catastrophic. [pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

When sport becomes the only identity:

Research consistently links strong, exclusive athletic identity with higher stress, anxiety, and difficulty coping during transitions (injury, team changes, or season endings). [taylorfrancis.com], [frontiersin.org]

Key message:

Life Buckets Check: A Simple Awareness Tool

sport, school, social, rest, spiritual

Prompt: Which bucket feels overfilled right now? Which one is nearly empty?

That answer often explains why balance feels impossible.

Big Takeaway for Week 3

Burnout is not a failure of toughness or work ethic.

When we shift the focus from doing more to recovering better and living fuller, balance becomes possible again.

When Balance Feels Impossible

A Parent Reflection Worksheet

Designed to help parents recognize burnout early and support their athlete without adding pressure.

Start Here (A Quick Reframe)

If your athlete seems:

This does not mean they’ve lost discipline, motivation, or grit.

Often, it means their system is overloaded—not weak.

Circle any statements that have shown up more often than not in the past few weeks:

☐ My athlete is tired even after normal rest

Reflection:

Burnout doesn’t always come from “too much training.”

Consider your athlete’s full load:

Area

Low

Moderate

Heavy

Physical training

☐

☐

☐

School pressure

☐

☐

☐

Social stress

☐

☐

☐

Expectations (internal or external)

☐

☐

☐

Sleep quality

☐

☐

☐

Reflection:

Pressure doesn’t have to be negative to still be draining.

Ask yourself honestly:

Reflection:

Healthy athletes have more than one place they belong.

Answer yes or no:

☐ Yes   ☐ Sometimes   ☐ Not really

Reflection:

Burnout often appears when one bucket overflows and the others run dry.

Fill in how “full” each bucket feels right now:

Sport:

School:

Social / Connection:

Rest & Recovery:

Key Insight:

One Small Shift (This Week Only) Kaizen Moment

You don’t need a big fix—just a small one.

Choose one:

 ☐ Add intentional rest (earlier bedtime, no‑agenda evening)

What will this look like in practice?

Final Reminder for Parents

Burnout is not a parenting failure.

When adults slow down, lower the noise, and widen identity—

They remember why they love playing

Episode 2 of Finding Your Sweet Spot Series

The Power of Play (Yes Even for Athletes)

The best athletes aren’t just disciplined-they know how to play.

Focus: Application

Core Idea: Play is not a distraction from performance it fuels it.

Play is essential for a fulfilling life because it fosters joy, creativity, stress reduction, and social connection, acting as a "carefree" form of ikigai. Within the ikigai framework, play enables intrinsic motivation, allowing individuals to engage in activities for the sheer pleasure of it, leading to self-actualization and vibrant, meaningful daily life, often termed asobigai.

Talking Points:

Importance of Play in Life

Play, through the lens of ikigai, is often described as something carefree not something that feels burdensome. Nicholas Kemp (Ikigai Tribe; A Year of Ikigai) frames play as an essential part of a meaningful life, not an optional extra. The National Institute for Play also argues that incorporating play into your day is not only possible, but necessary for wellbeing and they define play not as an activity, but as a state of mind.

Ask someone to define play, and most will name an activity playing basketball, playing catch, or even gin rummy. But play isn’t actually an activity. It’s an experience that feels pleasurable a state of being. Dr. Stuart Brown says that when you’re truly playing, you’re in a state of play.

And because we’re each unique individuals, the experiences and activities that put us in a play state will look different for each of us.

As evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray writes in Free to Learn: Two people could engage in the same activity say throwing a ball or building something yet one might be playing while the other is not. To distinguish between them, we have to observe their expressions and behaviors in other words, their state of being.

Play is engaging, we don’t lose interest when we are in a state of play in fact it is usually a place where we find flow or lose track of time.

Source: National Institute for Play, What Is Play, Anyway?  (nifplay.org), Nicholas Kemp Ikigai Tribe;” A Year of Ikigai”, Peter Gray - in “Free to Learn”

Play - freely choose and enjoy, for its own sake.

Action Step: Add one No-pressure play session this week.

Find Your Sweet Spot (Series)

Over the next four weeks, we’re breaking down how athletes can find their sweet spot-where performance, purpose and actually enjoying the process all come together.

Week 1

You Don’t Need to Have it All Figured Out

 What if the pressure to figure it all out is actually what’s holding you back?

Focus: Awareness

Core Idea: Purpose isn’t one thing-it’s something you build.

The Japanese ikigai scholar is Mieko Kamiya. The author of Ikigai ni Tsuite

Commonly translated in English as On the Meaning of Life published in 1966. She is widely regarded as the founder of ikigai psychology, and her work is very different from the popular Western “ikigai Venn diagram.”

The core insight Mieko Kamiya would give a teen athlete

“Your worth is not tied to winning, titles, or future success.”

Kamiya studied ikigai through people living with extreme limitations and suffering (including patients with chronic illness), and her central finding was this:

Ikigai is the feeling that life is worth living—right now—not a goal you earn later.

For a teen athlete, this completely reframes pressure, performance, and identity.

Ikigai is found in daily life, not a single “big purpose”

Kamiya emphasized that ikigai is not about finding one grand calling or mapping out your entire future. Instead, it comes from small, meaningful moments that make life feel alive. [ikigaitribe.com]

What she might say to a teen athlete:

👉 This directly counters the pressure teens feel to figure it all out early.

A huge part of Kamiya’s work showed that meaning can exist even during pain, injury, or failure. Ikigai doesn’t disappear when circumstances change—it often deepens. [jstage.jst.go.jp]

For an injured, benched, or burned-out athlete, she’d say:

This is powerful for athletes navigating:

Kamiya explicitly did not define ikigai through career success or income. She warned against tying meaning to external rewards, something the Westernized ikigai diagram often gets wrong. [finde-zukunft.de]

For teen athletes, that means:

👉 Sport can support ikigai—but it should never be the only source of it.

Talking Points:

Growth matters more than outcomes

Kamiya identified change and growth as a core human need connected to ikigai. Feeling alive comes from learning, developing, and moving forward—not from perfection. [saltnpepper.sg]

What she’d emphasize in sports:

This aligns beautifully with:

Another key insight from Kamiya’s research is that resonance with others—feeling connected and seen—deeply supports meaning in life. [saltnpepper.sg]

For teen athletes:

This is a powerful lens for parents listening to your podcast.

If you summed up Kamiya’s message to a teen athlete in one sentence:

“You don’t need to earn your right to feel fulfilled—your ikigai is already present in how you live, grow, connect, and engage with life today.”

How this fits beautifully into The Balanced Athlete message

Mieko Kamiya’s philosophy naturally supports:

Action Steps: Energy Audit – What gives you energy vs drains it? This week pay attention to one thing: what gives you energy-and what drains it.

There is where your version of purpose starts.

“When we wake up from sleep, we are greeted by the morning. We did not create the morning; it somehow came to give us the chance to live another day. We wake up and discover the morning. The meaning of life is like the morning. “

— Mieko Kamiya

Daily Oklahoman

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Survivor.net

Cancer Survivor with 1 Lung Runs His 5th Marathon

7 on 7 in 7 The Great World Race

Unbreakable Hope 1

Unbreakable Hope 2  

Unbreakable Hope 3

The Great World Race

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Chan Hellman Hope Centered

Today’s guest is someone who embodies grit, resilience, and the absolute refusal to accept limitations. Greg Gerardy is a cancer survivor, a father, and an endurance athlete who has accomplished what most people with two lungs will never attempt. After losing the function of his right lung to a rare, aggressive tumor that wrapped around his spine and shoulder, doctors told Greg he only had a few years to live and would lose the use of his limbs. But he proved them wrong—again and again.

Greg has climbed Mnt. Kilimanjaro, completed multiple marathons, including the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, and even became one of only two people ever to finish an Ironman Triathlon with one functional lung. He has literally died on the table and was brought back to life. His story has been featured across Oklahoma media as he continues to push boundaries, most recently finishing the Great World Race with his friend Sean another 1 lunger – this race is a challenge: seven marathons, in seven days, on seven continents. 

Beyond the races, Greg shares his journey to inspire others who feel stuck, discouraged, or written off. His message is simple but powerful: you don’t have to give up hope, and you don’t have to stop chasing what lights you up. 

I’m thrilled to have him here today to talk about resilience, mindset, and what it really means to redefine what’s possible and to spread hope!

This is part one of two!

Today’s guest is someone who embodies grit, resilience, and the absolute refusal to accept limitations. Greg Gerardy is a cancer survivor, a father, and an endurance athlete who has accomplished what most people with two lungs will never attempt. After losing the function of his right lung to a rare, aggressive tumor that wrapped around his spine and shoulder, doctors told Greg he only had a few years to live and would eventually lose the use of his limbs becoming a paraplegic resulting in death after his body finally shuts down. But he proved them wrong—again and again.

Greg has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, completed multiple marathons, including the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, and even became one of only two people ever to finish an Ironman Triathlon with one functional lung. He has literally died on the table and was brought back to life.

Greg's story has been featured across Oklahoma media as he continues to push boundaries, most recently being among the first two people with one lung-alongside his friend Sean to not only try but to successfully complete and cross the finish line together-The Great World Race: seven marathons, in seven days, on seven continents. 

Beyond the races, Greg shares his journey to inspire others who feel stuck, discouraged, or written off. His message is simple but powerful: you don’t have to give up hope, and you don’t have to stop chasing what lights you up. 

I’m thrilled to have him here today to talk about resilience, mindset, and what it really means to redefine what’s possible.

Daily Oklahoman

KFOR 2Wra024

Survivor.net

Cancer Survivor with 1 Lung Runs His 5th Marathon

7 on 7 in 7

Facebook

Instagram

One Breath 

Why Not a Lung Transplant?  

Episode on Accomplishment

A — Accomplishment

“Accomplishment is about becoming someone you’re proud of, not just someone who wins.”

A — Accomplishment Check List/Journal Prompts

For Teen Athletes

For Parents

Car Convo Talking Points:

How Coaches and Parents Can Use PERMA Together

What Teen Athletes Say When PERMA Is Working

These are the outcomes that keep kids in sports longer — and healthier.

Wrap-Up Message for the Episode

“PERMA isn’t another thing to add to training — it’s the foundation that makes training meaningful. When teen athletes feel positive, engaged, connected, purposeful, and accomplished, they don’t just perform better. They become better humans.”

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Episode on Meaning

 M — Meaning

“Meaning is the anchor that keeps teens steady when performance gets shaky.”

M — Meaning Check List/Journal Prompts

For Teen Athletes

For Parents

Car Convo Talking Points:

Linktree

Episode on Relationships

R — Relationships

“Teen athletes don’t just need teammates — they need a tribe.”

R — Relationships Check List/Journal Prompts

For Teen Athletes

For Parents

Relationship Car Convo Talking Points:

Episode on Relationships

R — Relationships

“Teen athletes don’t just need teammates — they need a tribe.”

R — Relationships Check List/Journal Prompts

For Teen Athletes

For Parents

Relationship Car Convo Talking Points:

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