Being an athlete does not stop life outside of the field from happening. They have to contend with family time as well as their finances. This episode’s guest is the “uncle” to these athletes, providing them with psychological support off the court. Dr. Patty Ann Tublin sits with Dr. Corey Yeager (@drcoreyyeager), a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist at the Doctoral level, to talk about the psychology of sports as an athlete and what it really means to be a life coach. They touch on the elements of teamwork, life visions, therapy, and more! Tune in to learn the psychology and perspective that Corey earned as an athlete and how he still applies these golden nuggets now as a therapist to clients and as an adult dealing with real life.
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Providing Psychological Support To Athletes Off The Court With Dr. Corey Yeager
In this episode, I have an incredible guest that is going to knock your socks off. Before we go any further since I know you are going to love this episode, I would appreciate it if you would like, comment, share and subscribe to the show. What do Oprah, the Detroit Pistons and the penal system all have in common? They have our guest. Put on your seat belts because Corey Yeager is about to take us for a ride.
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Welcome to the show, Corey. Thank you so much for being a guest.
Patty Ann, it is a pleasure to join you. I look forward to the conversation.
This will be so much fun. I got a little baffled before, even though I’d read you a bio because I’m like, “This man is a marriage and family therapist, a licensed psychotherapist and a life coach and currently is working with the Detroit Pistons, the best professional basketball team.” How did you get here?
It’s been a circuitous route. There’s been a lot of stumbles. I oftentimes say I’ve stumbled into magical spaces throughout my entire life. Maybe that’s the mitzvah of my world. I grew up in a small farming community and ended up playing football at Long Beach State.
Was it in Ohio?
No. Long Beach, California. Right outside of LA. The other center of the universe as some would say.
For the readers, Corey, I was speaking before we came on and he asked me where I was from and I said, “The center of the universe.” He’s a smart guy but he said, “LA.” I’m like, “LA? No, I’m from New York.” That’s the inside joke.
It’s been a circuitous route. I moved to Minneapolis after playing football. I had a stint in the pros and met my wife.
Whom did you play for?
The Rams and the Cowboys briefly. I like to say I had a cup of coffee with them. I got to both of those teams, had a cup of coffee and they said, “Get out of here.” I say it was a great experience even though it wasn’t for me. I thought I was going to be a multimillionaire playing football. That’s what I thought I was going to be but there were other plans for me and then I found my way to this professional sports world doing the work in the psychological realm anyway, which to me is even better.
How did you get from being a player to being a consultant, an advisor and a guru in the, I would imagine, mindset aspect of the psycho side of sports?
The journey from being a player to the work that I’m doing, to give credit, my wife had a lot to do with it. She stayed with me. When I was in college, I didn’t go to class because I thought I was going to be a millionaire. Why would you go to class if you’re going to make millions of dollars playing football? You stay eligible and don’t worry about graduation. It’s the exploitation of the athlete. You support the athlete because we don’t care if they graduate as long as they play for us. I moved to Minneapolis and I met my wife. As we got married and started having kids, she said, “The boys need to know that we both have our degrees.”
I got to know how did you meet your wife. Give me her first name.
My wife’s name is Carrie. We met working in the social service field in Minneapolis. I moved to Minneapolis and got a job. She worked in the same organization as a social worker. I hadn’t graduated yet. She was a social worker. I was coming in and working with kids doing that bottom-line level of work trying to pay the bills.
We meet, hang out, start dating, get married and have children. I start working at Ford Motor Company. She’s still working in that social service realm then she stays with me, “You got to go back to school. The boys need to know that we both have our degrees.” All along I’m saying, “I’m working at Ford. I’m working a UAW job. I’m making good money.” This is the late ‘90s. I have great benefits. I’m making six figures in the late ‘90s working for Ford. It’s manual labor.
Jamaican six figures and not too much dress. Truth be told.
That’s exactly right. She stayed with me and I appreciate that more and more every day. I ended up saying to her, “If you go round up all of my transcripts and if you apply and get me into a university and go through all this stuff, I’ll go back to school.” My wife is so persistent. I didn’t want to do it. Who wants to go back to school? I had never been successful in school so why would I want to go back to school? I’m an athlete. They made sure I was eligible. Truth be told, I was probably scared I’d fall at it. If I go back to school, I go in here, I’ve never taken this seriously and I start to fail at it, then I’m going to look bad. Why would I do that?
I’m going to set myself up for failure but she stayed with me. I got me back in and fell in love with Psychology very quickly. I realized this is not complex. This is not hard. I hadn’t come to understand the academic side and thinking side of Corey. I didn’t know that side of me. My wife saw something in me that I had not seen. I fell in love with it. I ended up going back. I got my BA in Psychology. I went back and got my MA in Psychotherapy and then went to the University of Minnesota and got my PhD. In that journey, I ended up connecting.
Your PhD is in Psychology?
My PhD is in Social Science engaging with families and how the intricacies of families work. You can see that connects deeply with teams. How teams work is very similar to how families work. When I started my Master’s program, my grandmother is the wisest person ever to walk the face of the Earth that I’ve known. Somebody else can argue that they know someone out. For me, it’s my grandmother who was 96 and had a sixth-grade education.
How teams work is very similar to how families work.
The daughter of sharecroppers was in the fields in Mississippi picking cotton. This is the woman that has the most wisdom. I call my grandmother and say, “Granny, I’m going to start a Master’s program.” She said, “Baby, I don’t even know what that means but I have something for you to do. If you’re going to start a Master’s program, you figure out whatever that means to you. Before the program starts, write your dream down for that Master’s and tuck it in a Bible.”
Many years ago and I still read this, I wrote down that day after my grandmother told me that because I didn’t even know I’d get a PhD at that point, “I want to find a way to use this Master’s degree to work in the NBA or the NFL.” I wrote that down, put it away and went about my work every day. I’ve been in the NBA for a couple of years as a team therapist. Dreams can come true.
My mother was not a highly educated woman at all but she had what I call mastery wisdom. Mastery is wisdom applied to life like your grandmother. Don’t confuse wisdom with formal education. We both know how an idiot PhD but let’s be honest. I call it piled high and deep. It’s what you do with it. What were you doing years ago? Where were you? What was your life like?
Before I began the PhD, I began some work in the Minneapolis Public School system and started with a partner of mine. The second country-focused office within the school system in Minneapolis is called The Office of Black Male Student Achievement. What it was doing is saying, how will we close the perceived achievement gap for Black?
You said perceived. Does it mean the numbers aren’t there?
You can make numbers there. PhD statistics tell you you can make numbers however you want them to look. The fact is if it was an achievement gap, everybody would quit tomorrow. Teachers wouldn’t come to work if they didn’t think that kids could achieve. It’s not an achievement gap. It’s a relationship and opportunity gap.
We can do something about those things but this achievement is something that people throw out there. We started this office and began to work with African-American boys. For the first time, these young boys were seeing men that look like them that had Doctorates that were saying, “We’re going to become uncles in your life.”
All of the indicators positively in their academic arena went up. All the negative indicators fell back. Why was it? It’s because we were showing up for them and letting them know, “We love you. We care about you.” It wasn’t anything special. A few years ago, I was doing that work and coaching my sons. I have four sons. They all are football players. Two of them are playing division and one football currently.
Whom are they playing for?
I have one that is playing for the University of Northern Iowa. He’s a running back and then I have one that plays for North Carolina A&T. A historical Black college and university. He is a quarterback. I have been coaching my son since they were young. I was using this psychological aspect and support mechanism while I was coaching my sons with the team. The coaches kept saying, “The team responds to this. We were being successful. The team was finding huge levels of success.” Players were saying, “I love it when your dad talks to me and pulls me to the side.” I was doing therapy.
You can’t do anything. You can’t coach, do therapy and build a relationship without a connection. You created a connection.
What I would say is my version of therapy is conversation. What we’re doing is full therapy. We’re both doing therapy with one another because we’re in conversation. If I’ll walk away from this conversation, therapeutically, better than I entered. You’ll ask me some questions that make me ponder and we’ll both move through some things. We’ll be better when we leave the conversation. That’s my version of a therapy conversation.
What you’re saying is that we’re asking questions, connecting and then engaging from a place of curiosity. Help me understand it. These boys didn’t have anybody that cared enough to even ask them.
I would challenge that they didn’t have anyone that cared enough. They had people that cared but they were so busy and struggling with life that they didn’t have the ability to be as curious as they should have been. I would challenge that they care deeply. I could care deeply but if I’m working three jobs, your dad is not in the home and you don’t know him, I’m struggling.
I may not know how to be curious. I may not have the time to sit down and say, “Tell me more about you.” “I got to go to work. You got to do your homework or not, I got to go.” We were filling a void that was created somehow. These young men ended up using that void to help them and it was usually beneficial. That’s what I was doing five years ago before I started working with the Pistons.
How did the Pistons come knocking on your door?
The Pistons came knocking because I sought them out. I was sending portfolio packages across the NBA and the NFL, “This is my work. This is how I can be helpful to your organization.” One thing that I told them was, “I’m not looking for any financial support. Give me an opportunity to come in and show you how I can be helpful. If it works out and you think it’s helpful, then we’ll talk about finances down the line.”
How did you know to get to the decision-maker?
I didn’t know. I took a guess. I started emailing assistant GMs and head coaches, all of them. I flooded their emails. I would send that initial email but if I didn’t hear anything. I waited a few weeks, I’d email them again, “I reached out to you before. I wanted to make sure that you got it and reiterate my interest.” I did a number of those with the Pistons.
One day, the Pistons were coming to Minnesota where home was. I got a call, “This is Coach Casey’s assistant. We’re going to be in Minnesota. Are you around?” “I’ll be around.” “I love to leave you tickets after the game. We’ll come to your seats and bring you down. Coach Casey would love to meet.” As soon as that happened, I thought, “This is the bio. I got my shot here.” I’m a believer that life is filled with every conversation you have in an interview. I see it in every conversation as an interviewer. Patty Ann, you may go off and do something and think about me when you’re working with a company and say, “I got somebody that you should talk to.”
Life is filled with every conversation you have as an interview.
Quite frankly, a lot of these sports officers need a woman to help them with issues.
Most assuredly. I was talking to my coaching staff about the importance of women and the voice that a woman would bring to the table that our players don’t get in a male-dominated organization. Having that conversation for us to be more thoughtful about that. Before we can do anything, let’s think through this. What does it mean for us, as men, to be in a male-dominated space and not have a lot of voices that sound like women?
We could even take that to a community or the global level. That’s a real conversation. I do a lot of work empowering women as well. I’ve gone to Saudi Arabia and Dubai, all over. I’ll go into companies and create programs. I’d like to think it’s because I’m qualified and all that good stuff but most people that are hiring me are male CEOs. I’m from a place of we’re not against each other.
Males and females complement each other and it’s beautiful. If you think about your marriage, your wife sees a situation, especially with kids from one perspective and you’re like, “I never looked at it that way. I thought of it that way.” The same is true in business and sports. You celebrate the difference. The difference needs to be celebrated, not walked away.
I agree it needs to be celebrated but what we’re taught is, in this country, the concept is from an early age. Even we’re taught about how this country started, the concept of rugged individualism. This is not necessarily a good thing as time ticks on. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this. One of the struggles that we had is the individualistic stand in this country when all of a sudden, we have a pandemic and everyone is individualistic. There’s not a collectivistic bone in our bodies. That’s what we’ve been taught. It is to be individuals and compete with one another. That’s what capitalism is.
Honestly, I don’t want to get into the politics of this but let’s go with what you said. Coronavirus hits. The first time in a long time in the history of the world that the whole world goes into crisis. It’s insane when you think about it. You are working with the Detroit Pistons. All of a sudden, the platform under which these athletes have worked and strive to work and their whole life changes. How do you play at your highest level in an empty arena? How do you feel about that?
We had tons of conversations about that. I dove into the research about having an audience, how actors utilize the energy of an audience and how athletes utilize the energy.
That’s why there’s a home-team advantage.
Part of the reason that you have a home team advantage and I did research on this, is that the referees hear the home crowd. As they blow the whistle and they’re going to call it one way or the other and they know they’re in a home crowd, they’re more prone to call it for the home team’s advantage. If you take that crowd away, the referee bias evens itself out so games are different.
I talked to our players about the psychology behind all of that and our coaching staff. The players did a pretty good job. We also talked about saying, “You can’t depend on the energy of the crowd to push you through those moments in the game. We’re going to have to do it within ourselves. It’s going to have to be within our team that we find that energy, which was a different world.”
You’re talking about peak performance. The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler. The difference between motivation and inspiration. Motivation and inspiration come from within. There’s the NBA and the women’s, WNBA. It’s different. These male athletes have been applauded their whole life long after the game is over. The women, maybe before people showed up, forget about it after the game is over. That’s a whole different dynamic. Now you’re asking them to perform not need the crowd. What did you do with them for them to help them rise to the occasion? Did they enjoy it as much?
They figured out ways in which to go within themselves and enjoy it. They also always knew they were professionals. You’re a professional and you get paid very well to do the work you do. There are moments that you may remind them and I did. The coaching staff did. These guys are so professional and their ability is so high.
There are 450 MBA jobs in the entire world. That’s an extremely elite space that they play within. Not everyone can do it. That’s why they’re paid so well so they all understand that. That’s not new territory for them. The change was all of a sudden, I’m used to crowds roaring and the crowds aren’t roaring. Going within the south to recognize, “It’s important for me to play well so I look good and my team does well.”
How do we stay connected as a team? It’s an ecological framework within individuals and then between teammates. You can go broader societal, what level and which would be, not societal but it’d be organizational. The Detroit Pistons, the team members and then the individual is the ecological framework.
I’m curious about your perspectives because you might not know but I would imagine you probably know more about these people’s hearts than anybody else on the team. Did they enjoy it as much? Was the pleasure there?
They found pleasure because they were playing the game that they love. The game didn’t change. It’s the same game. The regulation is a 10-foot rim, the boundaries are exact and everything is the same. They missed the enthusiasm that they drew from the crowd. Players talked about that. “We missed that. There’s high energy.”
They went into that bubble. If you recall, the NBA went into a bubble and played within the bubble. That’s a different weird space. They couldn’t engage with family. All of a sudden, they were closed off from the entire world but they played at a very high level. If you go back and look at the numbers when they were in the bubble, they played at a very high level relative to the years previous.
They were able to acclimate.
They did. That’s the sign of a mentally sharp athlete that if they get challenged, they’re going to figure out a way. Someone would say, “Shut up and dribble. Why do they talk about all these other things?” These guys are sharp outside of the court. When they got challenged and things changed, they figured out ways to adjust.
A mentally sharp athlete will figure out a way if they get challenged.
I don’t know if all athletes are sharp or outside of their sport. They’re incredibly athletic but they have a mindset and determination second to none.
I challenge that because I believe that sport so happens to be where they shine and everyone sees their ability to be a genius in whatever version that looks like. That guy may be a big-time athlete and we say, “That’s all he is.” He then goes out, looks at a car, pops a hood and can work on a car in a way. That’s genius. There’s genius outside of the sport that he may not even see as a genius.
There’s a very famous entrepreneurial coach called Dan Sullivan and he talks about your unique ability. We only have so many unique abilities. For these athletes, their athleticism is their unique ability. To your point, how many of them have to choose between baseball and football? They’re athletic. Wherever you put them on the field, they’re going to shine. Let’s bring this back to you. You are helping them while they’re on the roster. Who then helps them when they’re not on the roster, either they’re retired, injured or their career comes to a screeching halt for whatever reason? Their identity is wrapped up in being a professional athlete. My experience has been and I’ve worked with Olympians more than pros, when that spotlight receipts, there’s very much a sense of, “Who am I?”
Let me say this. This is where I’m probably different than most in my field because I am a believer that if I connect with you, I become an uncle to you. That’s my job. I’m the therapist. I have psychological chops but I’m going to be coming to use my relational ability. I’m going to genuinely become an uncle in your life.
If you move on to go to another team and you’re no longer with the Pistons, this doesn’t change the fact that I’m still your uncle. I’m still going to stay connected with you as you move on. I have players across the league that aren’t with the Pistons but I still am connected with them. They still reach out. We still Zoom and talk about, “How’s the family? What’s going on? I know last time we talked fill in the blanks,” because I see it as important to stay connected.
It’s disingenuous for me to say, “I’m going to be your uncle now. That’s how I see it and then when you move on, I don’t talk to you anymore.” A player would say, “That’s how people work in my life. They are around because I’m playing but then when I leave and move on, they don’t care about me. They don’t talk to me anymore. They could care less.”
Let’s talk about that for a minute. I was talking to somebody else about this. There’s a whole thing about women and money and being paid what you’re worth and stuff. I don’t know too many people would know what to do when they got a $50 million contract. Some people think they have a 401(k). All of a sudden, you give them that amount of money and take them to 21 years old. Where do you see or do you see a role? You’re not a financial advisor.
You don’t want to get in trouble for that. I can see people with a lot of money, smart in many areas of their life, very much taken advantage of. I guess the person that comes to mind and I don’t know any insight info, is Mike Tyson. Didn’t he go bankrupt or something like that? Do you see that coming? How can you, as an uncle, I don’t want to use the word protect but guide them to stay away? You’re not buying the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s not a real investment.
I’m not a financial advisor but my job is to be curious with them about how they’re handling the financial world or the frameworks. Do you have people? How do you figure out whom to trust in terms of investment? What does your vetting process look like? I can talk to them about that. When I’m being curious about them, I’m making them think through it, “He said the vetting process but I didn’t vet. Maybe I need to go back and re-look at this.” My job is to continuously be curious with them in a way that pushes them to be deeper in terms of their understanding of how financially astute they are and where they’re headed financially. How many more years in the league do they have? The average person in the league is 3 to 4 years.
Most of them don’t make the money in the top country.
No.
What would the average salary be?
There are a number of them. Our rookies get a three-year deal. That it’s usually slotted based on where you get drafted. It may be, on average, $1.5-ish million for rookies. If you stay in the league four years and you’re a vet, you’re going to get the vet minimum, which is probably $4 million to $6 million-ish in that range. You could imagine, you could give a 3-year contract and make $6 million to $8 million and then be done.
You can blow that easily. It sounds like a lot of money but 50% goes to taxes. You buy a watch and a car.
You can blow but you can also make it for the rest of your life. You’re smart with it. One rookie contract is $8 million in your bank. You can only get $4.4 million of that. You could take $4.4 million and live a hell of a life forever if you invest it or you’re smart with it. You can blow it and buy cars, it’s all gone and you’re looking for a job.
I see this in the work that I do with entrepreneurs and corporate. The performance on the court, they’re not living up to their potential or they go into a slump. Many times what I find is that there are personal issues that are getting in the way. How do you handle that?
My work more than anything is to talk about personally how you are doing. You could imagine when Coach Casey hired me, he said, “Doc, how will we judge that things are going well?” I said, “We can put some things in place or some ways in which to engage the players to see if they like what I’m up to and all that. The bottom line will be if you see that I’ve become an uncle to these players, that’s probably working well.”
My job again is the psychological support to ask them and engage with them about things off the court, “How is life? How are things? Your mom found out she has breast cancer. How is she doing? What treatment is she on?” “This is the fourth chemo round that she’s had.” “How’s she’s been with that? How are you doing with that?” He’s got a space where he can get some of that off his chest. We know therapy often is not about giving you the answers. It’s about allowing you the opportunity to relieve pressure around your struggles. If I can relieve pressure around my struggles, things will be a little bit better. The work that I do is about that support off the court.
Therapy often is not about giving you the answers; it’s about allowing you the opportunity to relieve pressure around your struggles.
I do coaching because there are so many more guides and rules. You can have a personship. You’re not going to meet them for dinner. There are boundaries and legal issues. It sounds like you’re being a coach.
That’s what it is. My title is Life Coach. I’m the life coach for the Detroit Pistons.
What metrics did you put into place? Businesses always want metrics. I’m their uncle but what are the metrics? It’s not rebounding, passing or assisting.
We can look at some of those things when I’m working with a player. We can look at some of the metrics that are already in place. How’s the Frito percentage? Part of my work is to say, “Do you have a mantra? When you step to the Frito line, what are you saying to yourself?” “Doc, I don’t know.” “Let’s work on that. Let’s work to slow our heart rate down and here are some ways in which we can do it. Let’s focus on our breathing. Let’s create a mantra that suits and settles us and then we step to the line.” We do that every time. Let’s bring a heart rate down, mantra and step to the line.
I did some studies, research, follow-up and metrics work. Some of the guys that I was working with had a 5% to 7% increase in free throw percentage. When I started working with them on slow and heart rate, down, mantra, step to the line and a process that they started to follow, they had an increase. That is one way in which we do it. I use the SRS, Session Rating Skill, to ask.
If I do a session, I ask my players, “Make sure you fill out the scale so you can give me an idea of, ‘Are we touching on things that you’re interested in? Is this relationship helping you? Is it starting to form in a way that you can draw benefit from?’” We’ve got some parameters and some metrics in place that will give us some good feedback. The best feedback and hoping to avoid social desirability is to hear the player tell you, “This guy helps me. This guy is beneficial to me. He wants things for me, not from me.” When I listen to interviews and they bring my name up and say, “It’s been helpful for me to have doc around so I can talk and get things off my chest.”
Are all the players have access to you? Not the coaches and the staff. Theat can be overwhelming.
All of them.
In the course of a week, how much are you working?
That’s all I do. I support the players, the coaching staff and the front office. I’m working with everybody.
Do you travel with them all the time?
I travel with the team.
How does that play on your family life?
It’s busy as hell. That’s how it plays.
Do you have an off-season at home?
Yes, there’s off-season but we’re prepping and getting ready for the draft. I’m interviewing potential draft picks. I’m flying back and forth and the Pistons have done a great job. They fly me home whenever I want so I go home a lot. I’ve not missed any of my son’s football games. The Pistons are like, “Doc flies to go to Iowa to watch one son,” and the Pistons take care of all this. “He flies to North Carolina to watch his other son then he flies to Minneapolis to see his family and watch his other son.” I’m living on planes and working a lot but I love it.
What would be next for you?
My book is out, How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations To Have With Yourself. That’s been a new venture as an author. It’s been an actual huge whirlwind.
Can people find it on Amazon?
Amazon. You can go to Barnes and Noble, Dr. Corey Yeager. You Google it and you can find it all over. That’s been fun as a new realm to be an author. I don’t know what’s next. It’ll find me. Whatever’s next will find me. I don’t have to look for it. I believe that.
What has been the most surprising challenge with the work that you’re doing that you never saw it coming?
I probably didn’t see that I would end up working with the entire organization. When I was reaching out to coaches and GMs, I was thinking only about working with players. I wasn’t thinking about the coaching staff or the front office. The biggest surprise has been I’m working with the entire organization and you can’t turn that faucet off. If they know I’m there and they come into my office, I can’t say, “I only talk to players.”
I hope you renegotiate your contract.
We’re doing all right. That would be the biggest surprise.
I know we don’t have that much time and I want to respect your time. I have a couple more questions for you. What do you want to tell the audience that’s important for them to know that I didn’t ask you about?
The focus of the book is that we have got to do a better job of individually knowing who we are. “Patty Ann, how are you? Tell more about the family. That must be tough.” We do a great job of engaging other humans. We do a horrible job of engaging ourselves, being curious about ourselves, getting to know and being graceful with ourselves. One thing that we should do is get to know who we are. Be curious and imagine that with yourself as it opens up so many opportunities and spaces. We’re not great at that. That’s one thing I would leave with folks. Do more of that engagement work.
I can see that. If you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall for anything. What’s the last book you reread and why?
Probably The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
You’ve reread it. Why?
Multiple times because his story reminds me of myself quite a bit.
You weren’t a violent guy, were you?
No. Neither was Malcolm. That’s a misconception. If you go back and read everything you can read about Malcolm, I’d challenge you to find one moment when he was violent. You won’t find it but the story about Malcolm was about he was violent. Right. Why? It’s because he was doing something that he was standing in a way that most people didn’t like. They’re very uncomfortable. Let’s be clear that anytime we’re uncomfortable or discomfort sets in, we’re probably about to grow but we’ll lean away from it. Malcolm had a story that was two different lifetimes. He had a life where he had a lot of chaos growing up. His parents had a lot of struggles. He was almost a self-made genius.
Did he convert to Islam?
He did.
Was that part of his transformation?
It’s part of what he did at the end of his life. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King almost began to converge because Malcolm X went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. From that, he said, “I didn’t realize that people in my religion are White as well. I was only in America and they only look like me. That’s all I knew. I go on this pilgrimage and I look around and they’re White folks that are my same religion.” He said at the end of his life, “I’ve made a mistake with that. That’s not right.” People don’t usually know that part of the story.
Do you know that most people don’t read the whole book?
Most people don’t read any books. I found a lot of parallel spaces with that. That’s the last book that I’ve reread.
My last question to you is, what is the one song you can’t live without?
Lovely Day by Bill Withers. It’s the most fabulous song ever produced. It’s blowing my mind what the exact words are. Every day, every morning, I listen to the same song, Lovely Day. I tell myself, “It’s a lovely day because of who I am. I don’t need to be dependent on anyone else to have a lovely day. I’m enough for myself.”
I love what you said because we’re going to use the punt on love. Lovely day and love because we know from psychology that what you tell yourself, you can create within reason. If you tell yourself you’re going to have a lovely day, you will see the loveliness in the day. If you tell yourself you’re going to have a miserable day, you will see the miserableness. I’ll go back to Dan Sullivan. I’m sure this will resonate with you and your athletes. He says, “Your eyes only see and your ears only hear what your brain is looking for.” If players are looking for a win, if they’re looking to be defeated, if you’re looking for the day to be miserable, the neuroscience behind all that is fascinating.
You can have two people that had an experience very similar. Nothing’s ever the same. “Horrible. It rained. I got into a fender bender. The boss was a pain.” If you ask one of them, “How was your day?” “It was the worst day ever.” You ask the other one, “It was great.” “Why? What was it great?” “Somebody bought me a great cup of coffee.” The other person might have had a great cup of coffee too but they’re not focused on that. Your attention and growth go where your energy flows.
It’s manifestation work.
Where else can people find out more about you?
@DrCoreyYeager. If you Google that, if you Instagram, TikTok or Facebook, you’ll find me. I’m everywhere.
On the sidelines with the Detroit Pistons.
You will find me on at any Detroit Pistons game on the sideline. You’ll see me.
Thank you so much for this interview. This is so fun and different from any other interview I had. I hope you had a good time. Thank you so much for sharing your mastery and wisdom of life.
Thank you.
You’re welcome. That concludes this episode. As I promised, Corey Yeager was phenomenal. Follow him, check out his book and make sure you like, comment, share and subscribe to this show. Until next time. Be well.
Important Links
- Corey Yeager
- The Office of Black Male Student Achievement
- The Art of Impossible
- How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations To Have With Yourself
- Amazon – How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself
- Barnes and Noble – How Am I Doing?: 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- @DrCoreyYeager – Instagram
- TikTok – Dr. Corey Yeager
- Facebook – Dr. Corey Yeager
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/Dr-Corey-Yeager-629696a9/
- [email protected]
About Corey Yaeger
Dr. Corey Yeager is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist at the Doctoral level, focusing his therapeutic practice primarily serving the African American Community. Dr. Yeager holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Metropolitan State University, a Master of Arts degree in Psychotherapy from Argosy University and a PhD in Family Social Science from The University of Minnesota.
His research emphasis centers on better understanding the plight of African American relationships, while educating service organizations to utilize the family system context while facilitating meaningful change in both their personal and professional lives. In his current role as the Psychotherapist for the Detroit Pistons, Corey is working within the merging of his two passions, athletics and therapy. In this role, Dr. Yeager supports the overall organization from a systemic and contextual stance.
Dr. Yeager supports players, coaching staff and front office leadership in his conscientious, relational fashion. Dr. Yeager employs the conceptualization of role clarity in his organizational endeavors as a way to build cohesiveness in a deep and intentional way. Dr. Yeager works diligently to facilitate the advancement of meaningful dialogue surrounding the subject of race and racism. It is in this culminating work that he finds another of his passions.
Dr. Yeager has done a vast array of facilitating these “courageous conversations” across the country, working within organizational systems to assess and address the climate and culture of these large systemic spaces. Outside of the NBA, some of his clients include The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), The Smithsonian Institute, The Gersh Agency and Lola Red.
Dr. Yeager is also a part of the Engage Speakers Bureau based in Los Angeles.Bullets: Currently: Life Coach/Psychotherapist for Detroit prison system. Speaker on race and racism. Licensed marriage and family therapist – primarily with African American community His research centers on better understanding the plight of African American relationships. Mission: To facilitate the advancement of meaningful dialogue surrounding race and racism Clients include NBA, The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), The Smithsonian Institute, The Gersh Agency and Lola Red.
