Saturday Blueprint With Hannah Huesman

The player was struggling — and wanted to speak to the team’s head of mental performance.

But he was paranoid coaches and management might eavesdrop, so when he stepped into Hannah Huesman’s office, he immediately began pacing.

“He just started looking around to see if there were bugs, microphones in the room,” Huesman said.

For Huesman, currently the mental performance coordinator for the Texas Rangers, the episode was a critical snapshot into the importance of building a deep rapport with athletes before trying to assist them.

The Daily Coach caught up with Huesman recently to discuss the “slow burn” of earning trust, balancing serving players vs. serving management, and the importance of having a detailed plan for failure.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Hannah, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us a little about your childhood and some key lessons from it.

I grew up in Nashville, Tenn. From the get-go, I was pretty competitive. My first word was actually “ball.” My mom is a trained clinical psychologist. Now she’s a high-level executive assistant at a firm. We’re both pretty similar in how we build relationships and in our passion and growth mentality.

My dad was an entrepreneur and owned his own RV dealership. Now he’s doing business executive coaching, so we get to talk shop a lot. He was a big believer in “Do the best you can do and do the right thing. Everything else will take care of itself.”

You played several sports growing up before going to UT-Chattanooga for basketball. Then, you gave that up to play softball. How difficult was that pivot and what would you advise someone at a similar crossroads?

It was incredibly difficult and one of the most challenging decisions of my life. I went in my freshman year thinking I was really good at softball and pretty solid at basketball, but I knew there was so much room for growth and I found a real challenge in basketball. I worked my tail off and did everything I could, but I think a part of it was still not good enough. Our team was really good, so I talked to our coach at the end of freshman year about what I was going to do. I also spoke to the softball coach, who I’d gotten to know in high school, and he said, “We’d love to have you. Come on over.”

There was a transitional year where I had to go from basketball shape to softball shape, which are two different shapes, cardiovascular to strength. I didn’t know what the right decision was at the time. I think the main questions I was asking were “Why do I want?” and “What’s going to make me happy and fulfill me?” Looking back, I think it was the right approach.

You went to Tennessee for grad school, then eventually get a job as a mental performance coach with the Philadelphia Phillies a few years later. What stands out to you most from that period and did you find any skeptics to your work?

I was with the Phillies for four years. I started as a mental performance coach, then my last two years I was the mental performance coordinator. When you’re the mental performance coordinator, you’re kind of running the Minor Leagues.

I think first and foremost, there are skeptics for everything. Even when I was talking to a dietician, she was like, “There are people who hate eating healthy and think vegetables are overrated” and you talk to the strength-and-conditioning coaches and there are guys who don’t lift weights and only believe in stretching and yoga. So, the answer is yes. Some people were brought up in tough, resilient environments and needed these skills from the get-go and have them and they’re set. Others never had to use them before and don’t really see the value in it because they never needed it. And that’s O.K.

I think the worst thing we can do as mental performance coaches is to force it on people. The more you force, the farther they run away. It’s really just having the human-to-human connection and letting them know you’re not scary, you’re not sitting in a white coat judging them. You’re here as another resource for help, and whenever they need it, you’re there.

What’s been the key for you to earning trust and building a rapport with players?

It takes time. It does not come overnight. I think sometimes if we play the short game — I want to create this relationship and build it really fast — we actually do long-term damage. I always in my head was thinking “Play the long game.” When I played sports in college, I was a harsh critic and judged a lot of people and was very protective of who I let into my inner circle. Whether I’m going into a presentation or a one-on-one conversation, I always consider, “What would I as a harsh critic and judgmental person think of myself in this situation?” Maybe it’s so boring I’d be asleep 10 minutes in. You have to really remember what it was like being a player and not let that slip too far away.

As a mental-performance coach, you’re not here to fix. “I know what’s wrong with you! I’ve watched your film and have watched you play!” You can’t take that approach with most guys. The higher levels you get, often the more protective they are because there are people out there who want to ride their coattails for the wrong reasons, and you as the mental performance coach cannot be that person.

Is it ever difficult for you balancing between the coach side and the player side? Players probably want to open up privately, but it would seem like the coaches also want to know what’s going on with their players.

I think you have to be very, very careful. I think if you’re 100 percent in with the players, the coaches are like, “What are you doing? How are you supporting us? Why aren’t you telling us things?”

If you’re 100 percent in with the coaches or front office, the players are like, “You’re not here to help us. You’re here for them.” It’s this beautiful balance of how do you create trust with everyone? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.

I think it has to be a slow, steady burn on both sides simultaneously. If you’re too embedded with the players, not a great look. If you’re too embedded with the coaches, not a great look. It’s how do you bounce back and forth and keep building trust?

People will test you too. “I’m going to watch this on TV tonight.” If that gets around, someone tells them, “Heard you’re going to watch this tonight,” they know the only person they told was you. How did this get out? They’re constantly testing, and the more you’re around, the more you can build it, but it definitely has to be a balance. Optics are real, trust is real, and the bottom line is are you there for the right reasons? Are you there to help everybody?

Sometimes you get information that other people need to know, and you’re the only person who knows it. You have to find ways like how can I encourage this player to talk to this coach about what’s going on or how can I help this coach better message to this player what he’s trying to get across? You can’t just blatantly break confidentiality because the minute you do, you’re done. But you have this valuable information. Now, what do you do with it?

You’re a big believer in having a specific plan for handling failure. Where did that come from and what does a good failure plan look like?

I heard about contingency planning from a former military officer. They don’t plan to hit a land mine, but if they do, every single person in the vehicle knows what they’re doing. I thought that was so fascinating and it basically breaks down to are we being proactive or reactive?

We’re all guaranteed to hit land mines, whether it’s family, travel, exhaustion, injury, bad performance, fans, somebody gets promoted and you don’t. The list is endless. How are we going to handle that?

If you have tools in your toolbox to handle high-stress situations, low-stress situations, really successful situations, then when we’re faced with these, we can go straight to our toolbox instead of going through the process of what I experienced, accepting it, trying to find a solution. We’re a month in instead of doing it in a day when we could’ve been proactive. We don’t want to fail, but if you’re playing baseball and think you’re not going to fail, you’re being delusional. It’s all a matter of who can get over the failure quickest. If we already have a plan before the failure happens, I like our odds.

Acceptance is also big. A lot of times, when guys are dwelling on something or going down that negative spiral, it’s because they almost don’t want to accept they’re not performing to their highest standard versus, “I accept I’m not, I’m not happy about it, but I realize it and am willing to do something about it.”

If you’re in a state of denial in the beginning, it can take you forever to start making adjustments. Accepting you’re not where you want to be is a huge separator. If we can eliminate the time between the stimulus of what happened and the acceptance of our reaction, then we’re going to be as close as we can be to what’s happening.

Do you have any unconventional leadership beliefs?

I don’t necessarily think you have to be super confident to be incredible. I think leaders need to be confident, but I think we can act a certain way, exude certain energies while inside not being 100 percent sure of what we’re doing.

I was just listening to a talk where general managers of professional organizations were discussing not knowing how to do their jobs. There are so many questions they had about what they were doing. Being vulnerable and not being the one who’s like “I know everything. Follow me,” but instead saying, “I know I don’t know everything, but I’m going to do my damndest to figure it out. I’m going to be in the trenches with you. Give me honest feedback. I’m open to this.”

Confidence doesn’t necessarily correlate to better performance.

Q&A Resources

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