Out of the Cage

Hey TAH Titans,

How has your past year been?

Does it feel like you’ve been running the rat race in a wheel inside a cage, or have you been summiting the mountain of your goals?

This one is especially for the parents and coaches as well as the athletes.

Week Theme:

Building a High-Performance Ecosystem to Scale The Athletes Health™ and Help Athletes & Teams Level Up

Weekly Info:

Is youth sports turning into a hamster wheel, a cycle of constant motion but no true progress?

Just over a year ago, TAH went from being a "maybe-it’s-a-blog / yoga / health coaching idea" to a "let’s send it full-speed into the mental side of athletics" to help athletes handle pressure and stress.

And during that time, I was also working in a lab studying stress, rats on wheels, and human health parallels.

It made me think...

There are two paths an athlete can take:

1. Stuck on the wheel, endlessly chasing validation while mentally wearing down, even as they age up year by year.

2. Climbing the mountain, breaking out of the cage, and rising in mindset and performance at the same time.

This week’s Deep Dive is all about how we’ve used the same mental performance exercises to build our business as we have to help athletes and teams grow.

And we sat down with Jaron Lathrop, a newly turned pro MMA fighter, to hear how he’s not trapped in the wheel, he’s climbing his own mountain.

Exclusive Exercise: Break Out of the Lab

I saw a sign at the zoo yesterday:

“Bred in captivity.”

And it hit me, if we’re born into something, we often don’t even realize the walls we’re in.

Exclusive Action Tools:

1. Find the Cage:

   Identify what’s boxing you in. Is it a coach with toxic tactics? A team with a broken culture? A parent who yells instead of supports? Somewhere there’s invisible glass, find it.

2. Go Through It:

   The hardest part is taking that first step, but the early movers always find the way out. Over it, under it, around it, or through it, once the path is made, others will follow.

3. Connect and Climb:

   The best part about escaping the wheel? You find others who did too. You’ll see parents, coaches, and athletes who chose the mountain path, not the cage. And together, it becomes not just a chase for success, but a journey worth enjoying.

In Action:

This theme came up recently with two parents I was talking to:

• One realized rather late, after her kids were out of sports, how easy it is to live vicariously through their performance, even if you don’t mean to.

• Another constantly heard that her child should be playing better at a new sport simply because he is good at other sports, but the people saying this had no idea all the support and work the athlete receives and puts in during the times its just him and his family.

Closing:

Let’s stop testing our kids inside a cage, pushing limits on the rat wheel of performance.

Let’s test them on the mountain, with a clear view, freedom to grow, and the tools to rise.

Athletics is a long journey. It would be a shame to look back and realize the mindset was chipped away by prodding and pressure instead of built through belief and support.

Keep leveling up,

Gabe

P.S. I really love these conversations. When someone reaches out and says, "Hey, I saw you mentioned this… I’ve been noticing x, y, z…" and we get into it, I’m all in. Every convo opens new opportunities, more ways to connect, and more ways to help this next generation of athletes and teams thrive.