Dr. Kevin Willis NHL XMRadio Series - Mental Assessments For Elite Level Players

A

The fastest game on ice. Siriusxm NHL network radio. Welcome to Hockey Prospect Radio, your voice for prospect news and analysis on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio. Now here's your hosts Shane Malloy and Brad Allen. We are back and brought to you by Outside Edge Hockey Hockey Player development@outsideedge CA. We're now speaking with with Dr. Kevin Willis about some mental and emotional assessments in terms of when it comes about the draft eligible players. So Kevin, I know you work with hockey players from all different types of skill sets and helping them learn and adapt when it comes to mental and emotional grit and being able to prepare themselves for the rigors of pro hockey, college hockey, junior hockey. In that respect, when you're looking at draft eligible players, you know, ages 17, 18, 19 for the most part, from your perspective, what's the importance of the emotional and mental assessments when going into an NHL draft? So the NHL teams understand what the baseline of that player is and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. Not in terms of like maybe perhaps providing red flags, but really understanding where the player is at that time in their lives.

B

Yeah, it's so difficult to sort of, sort of nutshell anybody at that age because you know, it's, they're still evolving, they're still growing, they're still maturing. And quite honestly the instrument that they use to, to do everything, their brain, it's still growing, it's still maturing. And so who they are now is not necessarily who they're going to be. And it's important to know that these aren't young adults as much as they are evolving entities. And we just have to remember that. So when it comes to sort of taking a look at their characteristics, their emotional characteristics, their competitive characteristics, I mean these are two things that can really make or break a player's success as they transition into the professional ranks. And so I like to think that if we can get a good handle on their emotional control, their self regulation, their ability to sort of manage that mental part of the game is going to help them tremendously. And then the second piece I think is that competitive drive and grit and determination to persevere when things are difficult and you're not getting results like you'd hoped. And also if we want to look at the first side of this and that's the emotional regulation side of it. But I think composure and resilience are the two big factors that I like coaches to sort of pay attention to. Right. And how do you measure it? Well, there are assessments that people can take and all that. Again, these are just, you know, even if you were to do. And these are, you know, scientifically validated assessments that, you know, they're used for all kinds of things, not just sport and all that. But at the end of the day, it's just the snapshot, right? It's just the snapshot in time of where that particular player is. And that's important to know because if you think this is sort of like written in stone, then you might pass on somebody who is otherwise going to flourish and you might grab somebody who is otherwise going to tank. And so composure and resilience, I think, are those first two things that I want to look at that tend to be a good indicator of, you know, sort of that transition into the pro ranks.

C

First of all, I'd like to say welcome back. Haven't seen you in a while, Kevin.

B

Yeah, no, it's good to talk to you, Brad.

C

And the other question I have for you is, or the question I have for you is, when looking at psychological profile, how much does obsessiveness play a factor? You mentioned self regulation. When I am attempting to recruit scouts for hockey prospect, I basically up front tell them you need to have somewhat of an obsessive component to you, but it still needs to be one that's capable, being regulated. You don't want it to be unhealthy, but you want, you want them to be totally ingrained and enveloped in that world or they're not going to make it as a scout. And I feel that's the same for a player. So my question is, is there psychological modules for seeing just how obsessive a player can be, but in almost a healthy manner as opposed to a compulsive manner.

A

Yeah.

B

And that there lies the rub. Right. So obsessive tends to carry this negative connotation as, you know, sort of going over the line, going too far, making it too big a thing. But I think you're right when it comes, especially when it comes to competitiveness. Right. There are a lot of things that I see in the most competitive players that my colleagues and would maybe look at as being, you know, reason for alarm. You know, sort of the, we don't want players to sort of take responsibility for a loss. But a lot of super ultra competitive players do, right? They, they, they do sweat the small stuff. They, they do get obsessed with learning and competing and winning and, you know, being the best and, and that's, that's sort of why they're able to evolve and get to where they are. Some of those things that we've been taught in the past are negative traits are in fact things that we need to develop and cultivate in some of our young people. You know, going back to the competitive side of it, you know, it's, it's not uncommon at all to see young, young people playing and sort of being told to tone it down, right? Don't, don't, don't play so hard. Don't, you know, come on, don't beat these guys into the ground. And this kind of, and so the, you know, they learn. Oh, oh, okay, so you don't go that far, you don't try that hard. You, you only go to a certain point and then you sort of, you know, lock it in. And that's not helpful. When you get to, you know, juniors, major, juniors, college, you know, minor pro, pro, you do something like that and you're quickly, you know, being shuffled off. So I think that it's, it's the point you made about how much is too much. And I think at the end of the day there's a lot of other sort of characteristics that you want to see in somebody to sort of manage that. There are a lot of character traits that you want to see in young people help manage what is too much. But I love that word obsessive. I want my players, I want my, my players who are driven to compete at the highest levels to have a certain amount of just absolute dedicated obsession to their sport and to their development. So I can say that for many, many things, like I said, the whole area around competition is that we have these traits that we sort of discourage when they're young, but these are things that are actually going to make them special when they're older.

A

Question about the brain development because Obviously we're assessing 17, 18, 19 year old players and the frontal lobe of a human brain generally doesn't finish developing until about 23. So when you're assessing them, how do you take a look at, okay, look, there is going to be probably, you know, draft plus four, draft plus five term in terms of allowing that development to continue. So is it best to think in the mindset of expect them to be consistently inconsistent in that respect until things finish developing, you know, from their frontal lobe, but also the rest of their, you know, their brain and how they understand how to manage the brain chemicals and how they react to their behavior?

B

Yeah, well, you hit it right on the head about being consistently inconsistent. And that's certainly from a cognitive perspective that we need to have tolerance around that poor decision making. Young people have this they sort of have this idea that they're bulletproof. Bad things aren't going to happen to them. But as they get older and they learn more about consequences and negative outcomes and stuff like that, they. That starts to mature. And you know, you get a lot of adults, you know, middle age adults who are big weenies because they've learned, you know, hey, bad things can happen. But you could never convince a teenager that anything bad is going to come from anything. That's, that's one of the things that we just got to try to keep them safe at that point. But I think the most important thing for organizations to understand is that when you are drafting a young mind, right, they are, they are continuing to evolve in cognitively and physically and all that kind of stuff. So you want to get them around people and environments that create the type of people that you want, the type of player that you want. Right. You cannot expect to throw them into a, you know, a ridiculously destructive environment thinking that that toughness is what's going to make them a great player because in fact, it could just absolutely break them. And because it happened in such a critical time, it's going to be very difficult, if even possible, to reconstruct that, to fix it, to bring it back. But if you are aware that who I'm putting in front of them, the modeling that they're doing, and I encourage that so, so much with young people is to model excellence, to model performance and stuff like that, because they literally will take on sort of the characteristics of their role models. And so you just want to make sure they're, they're amazing role models. That the hazing and all the bad things that has happened in the past, you know, you don't see it anymore as, well, not as much as any as is in the past, but that stuff was very destructive in the development of young athletes. And now that we're, we're putting them with leaders and we're putting them with high, you know, integrity, high character, role models, excellence, compete, composure, resilience, all those things that, you know, we want to develop in these players. They become, they develop in a way that is, is what, you know, organizations want from their investment.

A

We're going to take a short break on Hockey Prospect Radio, but we'll continue to talk with Dr. Kevin Willis right after these messages. Did you know you can open up. You're listening to Hockey Prospect Radio on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio. Here's Shane Malloy and Brad Allen. We are back and brought to you by Outside Edge Hockey Hockey player development@OutsideEdge CA. This is part two of four of our NHL Draft Preview show for 2022. We're speaking with Dr. Kevin Willis about the mental side of the game. Dr. Willis, I want to ask you about assessing compete level and players. And when you're looking at it, so much of that is subjective based on, you know, you're looking at a player and maybe that compete it like you're looking at. It's easier to notice the external physical compete compared to the internal mental compete and then how players are motivated, whether that's, you know, internal or external motivation, because those are two wildly different things. And actually one internally is much more valuable than what is externally. And you could have a player who is externally competing because that's what he thinks is expecting of, of him. Pressure from parents, pressure from coaches, pressure from, you know, society, professional pressure from teammates. But after a while that burns out because you just sort of get sick of it and you don't want to do it anymore. And that's where you see the burnout of players or players who just don't want to put in the extra work to be obsessive to get it done because they just, they. It's not internally motivated. So talk about how you assess the compete level of a player. Because I think it requires some investigation from a psychological, mental, emotional assessment standpoint.

B

Well, if you, if you've read my book, you see that I really make a big deal out of passion. And the reason is because every, every pro player I've ever talked to, every coach or scout or anybody in the business that I've ever talked to, they, they always sort of make that the starting point for anybody that's going to pursue a professional, you know, approach and to anything, whether it's hockey or anything, is you've got to have a, a massive passion. And passion is not external. It's just not. It's something that's, it's a fire in your belly. You may not even know why you're so obsessed with it, but you are. And it's something that you can't get enough of. Even when it gets hard, you keep doing it. Even when your situation, you're not seeing the progress that you keep doing it. That, that to me is the ultimate motivation. And you're right, it's 100% internal. It's intrinsic, it's internal, but it's driven by passion and purpose. It's just this desire to pursue something for the sake of the joy of doing it and seeing how far you can Come I think too that that purpose sort of evolves into mastery, a pursuit of mastery. You know, I want, I don't want to just be good. I want to be the best. I want to, I'm going to go all the way. And the thing about external motivation is that, you know, things that are outside of you, that feels good, right? A big paycheck to a pro or compliments to a young player, you know, positive feedback, lots of recognition for their skill and their, and their, you know, game winning goal and stuff like that. But here's the thing about external motivation. If that's the only thing that drives you and it's outside of you, what happens when it goes away, right? What then? What you know, your, your, the bus just stops. And that's the problem with external motivation. And we see a lot in young people with you, the, the like you mentioned the pressures of an expectation from parents and coaches and all that. That is a level of external motivation. I want to do it for them, I want to be good for them because they invested so much time and energy. But that, that wears off. The internal side won't and it doesn't. And it is essential when it comes to developing a compete level because compete means, you know, really putting it all out there, giving everything that you got, not holding back, wanting to win, wanting to be the best. But you know, in. So I've got a compete formula that I've developed and to be honest with you, you know, it starts with commitment and courage, competence, capability, confidence, and then comes compete, right? So if you don't have commitment, if you aren't able to master fear, if you aren't able to expand knowledge and then train in those areas to, to develop your weaknesses, which then builds confidence and then through all of that you're able to compete at the highest level. So when anybody, to understand the compete in a player, let's look at all of those areas prior to even getting to compete. And then I think that's where you can have the biggest bang for your efforts to really develop that competitive spirit in a player.

C

Are there specific on ice indicators that you use to evaluate compete and are there specific ones that you weigh more heavily than others?

B

You know, it sort of goes back to what you had asked, the obsession side of it, right? So competitors, they initiate play, right? They're the ones that sort of dictate play, they want to dominate. But those aren't necessarily things when they're young people appreciate and they sort of, sort of try to coach that out of them. Well, that's a huge mistake. The best competitors do that. The best competitors are, you know, battling harder. They're, they're lasting longer. They're, they get upset when, when they lose. They, they, they mope for a day or two when they lose, right? Because it's important and it means a lot. So you pay attention to some of those characteristics that might otherwise be frowned on and you say, okay, well, I'm not going to battle, I'm not going to punish them or I'm not going to sort of talk bad about those, those attributes because quite honestly, those are things that I want to see and I want to develop. And then as far as the on ice, it's really, you know, when, when they're competing, whether it's practice or in games, are they, are they competing at the level that they can or are they competing at the level that is sort of expected? Because the, the most competitive players play at top speed all the time. They just do. You look, guys like Ovechkin and Crosby and you know, these guys, they, they just compete at a level consistently at this game, like intensity every time they, they touch the ice. So that would be one of the first things I would look for.

A

I find that interesting because there's also, there's compete in terms of like you, you see a guy rushing, right, Skating around and banging and crashing. But there's also like internally, mentally there's a competition because hockey is not just running around. You, like, you have to process quickly. So there's competitive mentally too. And how do you differentiate between those two things?

B

Well, it's, it's sort of the, their ability to sort of manage and control their thoughts, right. So if you're competing and you're banging and you're making quick decisions, you're not going to be right, you're going to make mistakes, right? So how quickly can you process that and keep going? The mental midgets will get hung up on the mistake and they'll play it in their mind over and over. And in that time they can't compete at a high level. So they've just sort of dialed back their competitive level because they're processing what just happened, which is not helpful at all, right? So their ability to sort of manage that negative self talk, their ability to compartmentalize sort of the things that are happening so that they can focus on the right things at the right time and be able to react in the right way. Speed of decision making, I think is one of the most under appreciated skills. And I think it's going to become one of those things that, that we hopefully get the measure. Right now we can't, but someday I'd love for us to be able to measure the speed of decision making. They've got some great technology they're using in soccer where they wear these glasses that are on their eyes and they can measure when they saw something and then when they actually took an action. It's amazing stuff. Anyways, speed of decision making is a powerful, powerful skill for the. The elite player. And those that are able to make those decisions and then execute on that decision the quickest is they're going to win, even if they're not right all the time. The fact that they were able to execute with intensity and speed, the willingness to. To react and make a decision and not sort of bounce too back and forth saying, oh, this or do this. No, they, they react and they go. And then you watch pros. That's the most amazing thing about it, is that these guys are doing things at literal instinct, speed, but they made a deliberate decision to do that, and that's what allows them to stand out.

A

Well, Dr. Willis, we want to thank you very much for coming on our show. We really appreciate the insight and we look forward to speaking with you soon.

B

Absolutely. Thanks, guys.

A

That's Dr. Kevin Willis. Brad and I are going to take a short break. We'll be back right after these important messages.