Englert-Official

The Unparalleled Performance Podcast is hosted by Josh Reband and features guests who are ambitious and passionate about success. The podcast covers topics on discipline, goals, and faith. In this episode, Mason Englert, a current Detroit Tiger, shares his story and path in baseball. He talks about his experiences with injuries, including Tommy John surgery and the impact of COVID-19 on his career. Mason also discusses his struggles with anxiety and the pressure he felt to perform in baseball. He reflects on how baseball became his identity and how he used substances like weed and alcohol to cope with his anxiety. Overall, it's an inspiring story of resilience and growth. This is the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. I am your host Josh Reband. Each week we'll feature guests who are ambitious and passionate about being more than the status quo because we all know that being average is the enemy to success. We will cover topics that will help you become more disciplined and committed to your goals in life, leadership, and faith. Now on to this week's episode and remember as iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another. Enjoy the show. Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is episode number 25 today and super excited to welcome Mason Englert to the to the studio here. Mason is a current Detroit Tiger and I met him at Elite. I'm currently giving instruction at Elite Baseball and Softball here in Grand Rapids, Michigan and we crossed paths probably a couple months ago once he kind of got settled back into Grand Rapids and crossed paths there and then I've had some conversations and then just learning more and more about his story. I didn't quite know the full full details on everything. I still don't so it'll be really interesting to hear his story and his path not just in baseball and honestly we've talked like this probably won't be really applicable to just baseball. It's going to be applicable to everybody and I think it's things that we all go through to some extent and I think it's just an incredible story and then just kind of how it's brought him full circle to where he's at now and we'll just kind of break it down from there but Mason super excited to have you here on the here on the show and yeah welcome. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here man. I'm super glad we crossed paths. We met so happy to be here. Yeah awesome. To get rolling if you can just give a quick quick background on yourself anything that you want to share about yourself interest hobbies maybe a little bit about your path in baseball if you want. Yeah I was born in Alpine, Texas and then moved to the Dallas area when I was like two years old my parents so I grew up in Forty Texas with the high school there. I had a lot of fun like had a pretty solid baseball team like lost in the state finals my senior year and to this day it's still the most fun I've ever had in baseball was that like ride in my senior year. I'm like I dropped by the Rangers in the fourth round that summer and then spent the first year with them doing Tommy John rehab and then I spent the next year doing COVID just not doing anything because COVID and then I was in low A in 21 and then high A and a little bit double A in 22 like three three games in double A I think and then got Rule 5 to the Tigers so I came here and then I live here now in Grand Rapids because I met my girlfriend when I was with the Rangers and she happened to be from Grand Rapids so kind of crazy the Tigers picked me up. Yeah it's pretty pretty cool with that too because you were drafted by the Rangers which is not far from where you grew up and then now you got Rule 5 to the Tigers which is where yeah where your girlfriend's at from her home home state so pretty cool. Yeah I was living here before that so whenever we get the call I was like I couldn't believe it. Did you have any insight that it might be that Detroit might have had interest in you with you? I guess everybody's holding their cards kind of close because I reached out to my agent the day of the Rule 5 draft and like hey is there any anything I should be keeping an eye on and he's like man our feedback at the winter meetings has been that's probably not gonna work out doesn't mean it's zero percent but you know it doesn't look like it's gonna happen and then Tigers took me like right away so it was like just a shock but like super excited. That's awesome awesome so before we kind of get full into it so you had your Tommy John and COVID back-to-back years and then also to the year you got drafted if I'm not mistaken you can fill me in but you also didn't really pitch competitively in any of the affiliates after your high school season just from an organizational philosophy of kind of getting you guys deloaded and whatnot I don't you you can dive into that if that's accurate or not yeah yeah so you just you kind of had a few years there where it was kind of tough where you didn't really have a lot of opportunities to grow as a player because of injury and COVID etc. Yeah absolutely so the the Rangers and I think there are 16 high school classic their higher picks and then 18 same thing they did a deload program where basically we like shut down after high school you shut down for like kind of a weird period like two weeks to a month whatever it was and we did kind of a quick ramp up that was just a basic interval filling program that wasn't very heavy volume I kind of had my questions about at the time because it wasn't the kind of thing I was accustomed to doing it was really cookie cutter and really like like you had to do these certain things and then after let's see I how much that group I don't have exact percentage I don't like overstate anything but a large percentage of the group like well above the average population ended up having severe injuries usually UCL so and that's not talking bad about the people involved there because I think that all of it was done with the best intentions like and now that they see that that plan didn't work they've gone the other direction and it's done a lot better job and I really like the people that were involved with that plan but it's just like the fact is that that plan didn't work so I was one of the people that blew out in that program and then you know mine was kind of like a strain I was a little uncomfortable and I wasn't sure I was still in that off season and I finally said something and then when it turned out my like it had been like stretched out so it wasn't probably ever going to completely pop it just was like unusable basically and then there was other guys where they throw like one pitch in spring training after like the whole offseason I'm not and it would just explode because their UCLs weren't adapted to throw in so I missed some time from that but I will say that like that was some of the best times in my life having like 16 months of no pressure to perform hanging out with guys training and doing our rehab and being in Arizona like this is awesome time but it still missed a lot of development it's not a lot to learn and yeah yeah for sure so this will kind of take us a little bit into kind of a lot of the topics that we'll probably talk about you've been open and have talked publicly about your some of the anxiety and just some different things you've gone through on the mental side of either the game or life in general and so kind of segueing into that when did you first start kind of feeling that anxiety and was it during the injury time was it during when you were kind in that COVID lockdown was it a year after that when did you start like first kind of self diagnosing like man I'm starting to feel right really anxious I'm getting panic attacks things like that when did that first start happening man so I think if I lead not that if I back it up a little bit I've had like severe like without knowing it cuz I just grew up I get like severe anxious tendencies my whole life like I was born in like a grieving house to my parents lost two kids like nine months before I was born and I think that was part of it my mom also was like because of her grieving while I was in the womb she was like her body was like trying to reject the pregnancy I'm sure she had crazy amounts of cortisol like lack of sleep she's probably having her own mental problems because of the loss of life laws while I was in her so it was like I'm sure that that kind of had something to do it's like my brains development like natural tendencies to be like that but anyways as I like went forward I think like kind of I want to start talking about this is I feel like I've kind of if you read like the old Testament you know you see the groups of people that were in the desert and throughout the whole Testament are constantly like worshipping false idols and I feel like my entire life I've spent with a false idol or like false the wrong thing being like number one and like over everything and for most of my upbringing it was just baseball like I feel like it's easy to get attached to like that is my identity because like I've known since I was like four years old I want to play in the big leagues all that stuff so it's like baseball is everything that I was so who I was my mental health was right on like performance and you know at first it was easy when you're for the first like 12 years your young career you're like just dominating so you're always riding a high and even in high school dominating again so it's just like you ride that high and you're feeling good and then I went and had some like for the first time some performance problems when I came back from Tommy John I was throwing balls and like it hit around a little bit and it was like all sudden I just like crashed I was like holy crap I've never dealt with this I'm not sleeping I mean these are backfilled games it's like ten people in the stands and I was struggling because it was so much an attack on my identity and then kind of before that I guess when I was in Tommy John rehab and stuff I started messing around with like smoking weed a little bit doing stuff like that so I don't want me to bring that up on here but everything's fair game man it's all your story okay okay so it's just like that that quickly so first time that I did that and had some stuff to drink I like I've been doing that in high school and my first time was when I was in Tommy John rehab and I is the first time I ever felt my mind like let go and relax to like the things that are always on my mind as far as baseball and I thought it was in me a huge favor I thought it was awesome I thought it was like showing me things kind of like enlightening me let me let go and just be accepting and feel more connected and all these things that's kind of like false but it quickly became like my idol like like weed mainly always on my mind I'm like a super obsessive person anyway so it was always on the mind I was doing it quite a bit thinking about it and eventually like it started like causing me to be a little bit more anxious and then I one day in spring training in 21 took like an edible that was like supposed to not be a whole lot like but it like it tasted really strong that's weird they usually don't taste that strong and it like hit me like a truck and sent me over the edge and I had like crazy panic attacks I was up for like 72 hours straight like it completely took like my natural anxious tendencies and brought them out to like the fullest extent where it was like just crushed me man like I was puking I didn't eat for three days I was like didn't feel like I was connected to reality like I mean it was crazy man I'm sure it was like the anxiety plus sleep deprivation plus like everything but I went through this for like months where I'd have to like go to bed not sleep wake up at like 5 in the morning go up to the roof in our dorms and just try to do breathing and deep breath to calm myself down just enough to get over to the field like sit down try to have breakfast and I was like gagging up and throwing up everything in the bathroom like just freaking out and I spent like most that year in that state and quickly like everything that I ever worshipped and put first just became like shattered before me because it made me sick so I'm like I don't have an identity I'm not enjoying playing baseball I'm like just messed up and I think from that shattered place I slowly put the pieces back together and have like come to where I'm at now which is like God is my initial is my identity like oh you have any thoughts or questions before I kind of like you know keep going this is this is awesome man yeah keep rolling oh so coming out of that you would think like okay like you're shattered you turn to God like that was it was like no so I I think that correctly I started I knew and I've always known that God is a piece but that's the thing is like you think God is a piece you're missing the force to the foots you know it's like more than the piece so to calm down my depressive episodes and depressive and anxiety attacks I would like sit by candlelight and like stay up reading the Bible what you're running or start 21 and go away so I do that try to help myself fall asleep man I was I think I've been to death on this and other stuff I was just severely severely mentally ill like I'd been given some medications that were supposed to help that I thought they would have been shit at first but then they end up making it worse so I'd get off of them and then I'd have those like prescription medication withdrawals on top of what I was already dealing with like I was messed up man and so I so I started reading the Bible but it's still just a little piece and then that all I got into meditation which I still think is extremely important but like it slowly brought back things it like made me realize that I have a relationship with my thoughts I don't have to be my thoughts it made me learn the skills to observe what was going on in my body and not further the reaction like snowball it so meditation really helped me get my sleep schedule back to where it was more normal like I went from sleeping every three like three nights I would like stay awake for three days and like crash for 12 hours that was my cycle so like then I would slowly start every other night kind of and then the meditation helped it to where by the end of that year I would say I would sleep for most nights a week like decent and then have one night where I didn't sleep at all and then continuing meditating it like took me into that off season where I kept doing it and like kind of felt everything my mind start to become more aligned again but once again slippery slope and track like meditation quickly became like my idol and I like it's giving all the credit for everything that all the help that had done like I put meditation first I was like this is my identity because it was like I was lost and like wondering I just needed an identity to attach to and then that offseason I added like cold exposure into it and really got into that and I think once again that's a great tool but it like I became that guy like that's all I was and so that that next season I did well but I'm still having like depressive episodes like quite often like I was sleeping good everything is fine like that but I would just be like feel normal and then I would feel like just depressed like I hate none of this matters to me like disconnected and so my my improvement I guess kind of like stalled out and then I went and I started doing a different diet and the diet really helped so like the diet was really really like strict it was literally just meat and like fruit because like two of the things are supposed to like trigger autoimmune problems as little as possible and like I read a thing about evidence that mental health is like kind of an autoimmune problem and inflammation the brain so I went all in on that and still God wasn't in the picture like I would pray and news there but it was just like not the main thing so I saw a lot of improvement but even leading into this past season of the Tigers I kind of stayed there I stalled out was still having some episodes and then I just decided to get more involved with like with our pastor because I really hit it off with him and from there we started doing work just like with Kerry Carpenter and him I do like a Bible study like every home stand go to like Chapel every day and then Jeff is like one of those guys just our pastor and he's one of the guys that if you ask him questions about anything religious religion wise he can like pull 10 different Bible verses out and like explain it and really make you understand what it's about and so I guess I was in we were working together and I still haven't connected that God need to be the center and then we had a we had a road pastor on a that talked about he's like hey it's God like a piece of your life that you just throw in to make yourself feel okay about it or is it like it's God the center and I was like I don't even know how to make God the center or like what Jesus being center my life would be but I can feel that's the right thing and so I need to do it so I talked to Jeff about that and we started working together and I started taking like everything that I was worshiping and turning into like this is a gift from God it's not God so meditation instead of like coming back to my breath and making about myself I would like read the Bible and then find like a phrase or like something to do with God and that would be my home base I could say it with my inhale say with my exhale every time I'd leave I would tell myself come back to God instead of coming back to myself so I slowly I just started implementing little practices like that like when I would do cold exposure I would thank God for like hey thank you for this thing to help help keep our our bodies healthy like stuff like that and I would try to center everything around God and eventually I let it just like take over every part of my life and I'd meet my girlfriend let it take over our relationship and we got closer and suddenly like okay how can I let us take over baseball and I I realized like I was at a point where I thought that I wasn't supposed to care too much about what happened in baseball because I was like okay that's not eternal like it doesn't matter and then Jeff was explaining to me like your relationships with people and what God does in your life is extremely important in your like spiritual development and any platform he gives you matter what it is is like how you bring others to Christ and that's like the most important thing you can do so I took I went on I went on got him in my journal and I wrote down like I'm gonna rephrase my baseball career basically to like make it more purposeful to me and I wrote down was like I think the three steps to God's inner plant era a plan around God is like it starts with God it remains centered around God and then when success or anything comes God gets the glory so my translation that was like God has placed a burning desire in me to become the best I can be at baseball and instead of this is pretty like one of the first times instead of feeling like pushing those feelings down so my gosh didn't feel a desire towards anything other than God if it's not this is God like I've desired to come get baseball God's giving that to me I'm gonna fully embrace it the second thing that I put was I'm going to like on this path commit to being commit to maximizing my walk in Christ and I'm gonna commit myself to baseball through the lens of like it's God and while I'm gonna like visualize success I'm not gonna be married to the end result I'm gonna like go after the desire that God's placed in my heart but I'm gonna be at peace with whatever path he puts me on using that desire basically and then the third thing was like whenever success comes I'm just gonna step back and like give God all the glory so like that's the plan I'm on now and I read that every day before I train and it's like this new purpose my Holy Spirit has filled me to the point where I haven't had like depressive episodes I feel unbelievably like motivated and happy and like every step of the way I feel every step of the day I feel full of energy and full of joy and full of happiness and my connections and people are better because I feel like it's not me like I've just submitted to God and I'm like something more important work through me and I just feel like it's crazy all the stuff I've done to try to become healthy and it's like I know it's all part of the process but like man it's like it all came together whenever I made it God-centered and I never got that now that I do it's like I don't know I was the person with the ears that couldn't hear and eyes that couldn't see and now that I've like learned it's like man I really feel it it's amazing so that's like where I'm at there's a lot that's where that's awesome awesome I think that's perfect background on you and kind of how you've come full circle in your relationship with Christ and definitely gave me some questions to ask so going back to when you first started like you were like I'm gonna start using the Bible like just pick up the Bible and start reading it what what what kind of perks your interest to do that or was there somebody or did you grow up in a faith-based faith-based home like did you go to church growing up at all and then also like you talked about like the addiction with like becoming obsessive with weed or alcohol or things like that or is that also kind of at the same time you started opening up the Bible or had you already cut those things off and then open up the Bible how did that stuff correlate back in 21 yeah so the first question about growing up so I grew up in like a house I would go to church occasionally but it's like a Catholic house and like I said my parents are grieving so I think the relationships with God is weird especially with my dad and my dad's come full circle too but when you're a kid looking up to your parents and like your dad is grieving and has anger towards God it kind of made me feel weird towards all of it so I didn't really like I grew up knowing that God was a thing but not going knowing what God what it means for God to be centered so it was an easy thing for me to push aside and not like not put this in her my life and that's funny so I had a friend tell me so I was starting I was starting to like see the connectedness and and things through through weed like it really did make me feel like it connectedness stuff and how to get away I think it's obviously it's a it's a mirage but I said I remember I was talking to one of my buddies back in Dallas about religious stuff and he kind of opened up to me about it for the first time and I was like all right that's cool I get it but I don't you know but one of the things that he he told me to do is like ask God to show yourself show himself to you so I started doing that and I remember like thinking man I really need to start reading getting in the word so I was really struggling at this point is 2021 I had I had stopped all the all the addictive stuff because that's what put me in the hole and honestly if I smelled weed I would go into immediate panic attacks like it was like my body associated that with complete freaking mental illness so like I wanted nothing to do with it like never touched it since like promised God I would never touch it but I I so I had prayed to God like show yourself to me and this is pretty crazy I knew that I had this Bible from a guy that was in church gifted to me when I graduated high school but I had no idea where was that and I remember like not kidding like three days after thinking about man it would be nice if I knew where that Bible was and praying like God show yourself to me I'm driving to the stadium and I'm like kind of hauling ass I get pulled over because I'm driving too fast and when I go to pop open my glove box to find my my insurance get the cop the Bible's under my insurance and I'm like I'm like oh my gosh are you kidding me right now I'm like all right so the cop comes up and I'm probably like man I'm freaking happy you just pulled me over like you know but but anyways I'll go like 95 like a 65 so luckily knock that down to 19 under but uh but yeah so like that's kind of where I was like man that was that was weird and really cool and that's kind of how I got into like reading it every night man that's awesome so I think a lot of times when you know we start like I grew up in a Christian home my dad I grew up as a pastor's kid I've had times in my life too where you know I felt far more distant from God than I do right now or vice versa whatever I've also had a series when I first started coaching I I started coaching right after I graduated I got the head coaching job at the college I graduated from so I started coaching guys I played with and I had never really experienced a ton of anxiety or anxiousness but I kind of started that a little bit during my senior year of college I started just feeling a little bit more anxious about life because I think I had put so much into baseball and I started realizing that baseball wasn't going to be my future playing it and I think those thoughts of like man I've spent you know 20 years of my life 22 years of my life focused on this one thing and I'm not going to be able to you just kind of feel like a failure if you know if you don't progress in the athletic realm of it so I think I started feeling that anxiousness my senior year of college but then it really kind of got further along like it really ballooned up when I got the coaching job because then I started not even feeling as qualified to coach the guys that I just played with and so I think I just started having anxiety and then I had panic attacks I had a trouble sleeping at night as well I remember I had a notepad that I would just keep on my bed just to like get rid of thoughts like I would think my mind would be racing at night and I would just write a bunch of things I didn't call it journaling at that point it was just like get things out of my head so I can sleep so I started doing that and then started meeting with one of my pastors at the church pretty much as often as I wanted and he was really cool about it like he would reach out to me and see if I wanted to go to lunch or if I did I think he could probably sense that I needed somebody in my life I was living in Florida I didn't have any family down there I had some close people down there but not not a ton of it because all my college buddies were either now guys I was coaching so I couldn't be as close with them anymore or feel like I could be as close like I felt like I had to make that separation or the guys that I graduated with all of moved out of the city so it became a big struggle for me of like finding peers I guess would be the best way to put it that I could relate with with what I was going through so the pastor of my church we would get together and talk a lot and I opened up a lot to him just you know the idea of you know having panic attacks and I think I shared it with my parents as well back home in Michigan and so just kind of going through some of that stuff at that stage of my life was really difficult but I think sometimes kind of going back to your scenario I think a lot of times when people start thinking about God they start thinking about the things that they have to read out of their lives like I'm gonna you know get closer to God I have to read this which eventually I think through the way that we learn about Scripture and the people that come into our life it starts weeding that stuff out on its own like you start realizing like man this that stuff that I was doing before doesn't make me happy anymore or now God is fulfilling that now I'm waking up with more passion and more zeal I'm not waking up with that edge of where maybe you need to tap into something can you touch on that and just kind of how your spiritual journey and how you've grown in your walk with the Lord has kind of taken things away from your life maybe even unexpectedly like you didn't even realize it was doing it but all of a sudden you're like I don't have a desire for that anymore yeah I have the man it's I think even the smallest like pleasures that are like like you know Andrew Huberman talks about the effort to dopamine like kind of scale and it's like if you have something that's no effort and gives you a lot of dopamine then it like it's really bad for like your motivation and things are gonna take effort to get the dopamine to make you feel flat I've just found like I've the things that take effort and provide joy I find to be easy to do because those things are usually like more God-centered and so I have this like higher purpose to do them and like where maybe there'd be days where I felt like my body just heavy I don't work out or like it just feels like so much easier now even waking up and being like I'm gonna go on my walk I'm gonna like think about God and then I'm gonna like go to my cold exposure give a whole day going it's like it's like God is like the best energy you could possibly have your body on and little things were like I would get up and maybe just want to sit and scroll on social media like the simplest small pleasure it's like I wake up and I'm like because God is who I associate my life with and I feel like I'm filled with the Holy Spirit things that aren't serving the plan that God has placed in my heart I'm like for the purpose God's place in my heart it's so easy to not do them because it feels like I'm going against everything that I am whereas like before if I didn't have that association or that identity of who I am it was like I'm kind of just freely doing my own thing a lot of things I choose to do don't serve me I think you see that a lot in the early Bible when the people are in the desert it's like when they're following God they're actually free when they're following nobody they're not free they just fall into themselves and so I feel like when I'm actually following God I'm truly free and I have all the energy to move you know yeah but that's sweet yeah that's sweet in terms of comparison like have you was that anything for you with any anxiety or anxiousness in those years you were going through like comparing yourself to other guys that you were trying to compete against to get up to the big leagues or comparing yourself to a big leaguer and like man I I don't feel qualified to be you know up there or you know whatever the case has comparison been a part of that for you so it's weird because like I have felt anxiety from comparison like before my mental health stuff like that that initial endostroxis was before the mental health stuff I had that kind of anxiety where it's like it definitely was a mental health problem it turned into it but it wasn't triggered from something outside of that it was like very situational I was comparing myself to other people I'd do bad they do good I'd have those voices in my head wanting people to fail so I could not feel as bad as well about myself like all that stuff and then the next year when it was from taking the edible and like whether I got laced or just had a really bad reaction I don't know like that was more like it took away all my worry about comparison because I didn't care about anything other than just like getting my mind back like I was so sick that I was like I just I didn't care about anything I was so concerned that I was about to go crazy and have to go to like a mental health hospital it felt like I was hanging on to sanity like by a thread and I actually had a buddy that whenever MLB passed the weed rules like you're allowed to smoke now he he's like a manic bipolar like psychotic type and it came out in him because like weed does pull that out in some people he started smoking again and that pulled it out of him and he literally had to leave the game and like went crazy I thought he was seeing angels like stuff like that and I was terrified that that's the route I was going on so I was that's all that I consumed myself with was like obsessing over I'm going crazy I'm going crazy and so like it was weird how actually like because of that experience I was for the first time able to disconnect from like worrying about my performance in baseball because all I cared about was getting my mind healthy yeah so it kind of like broke me apart but then when I put it back together it reprioritized my what was in my life yeah yeah the reason I ask is oftentimes comparison is the thief of joy so if we're you know comparing ourselves constantly which I think we all do to some extent and for different reasons I think there's a variety of that which we could talk about for a while but yeah I'm just thinking about that in terms of it now like now that we kind of know a lot about your story and you've opened up a lot about that like thinking about steps and we can dive into each step or segment of like how this has come full circle for you but like the first thing probably is to find some people like I'm thinking for our audience like people are going through this or to just kind of validate some things that they've gone through in their life and maybe it helps them feel you know better about themselves because it's like man other people and I've gone through those same steps I think one of the first probably important parts is talk to people in your life that you really trust can you talk about that first step and just being open and sharing just somebody else knows about what you're going through yeah when you're going through it I felt like I was the only person I felt like if I expose this everybody's gonna think I'm weak like everybody's think there's something wrong with me I'm gonna be labeled and stigmatized and all that but like what I did in the hardest times I would be on FaceTime with my family for like six hours a day like anytime I had to be alone and couldn't keep my mind as fly as a bit distracted I'd be talking to my family it's like you know family or friends or anybody that's close to you and truly cares about you like I would say that's the first step is to latch on to them and I would actually encourage anybody even if you're not currently close with them anybody that you know is truly a Christian walks with God is going to care about you and lead you in the right direction like that's the people you should be connecting with yeah I think that's totally the first step like you're saying yeah yeah and I think like you said somebody that you can trust like whether it's family friend and it might even be like a brother or sister first or maybe it's your mom or dad first like you know you just but opening it up because like you said you feel like you're the only one that's ever gone through and I think I if I remember right I called my mom I think I went on a date with a girl I met her at like Panera Bread for coffee or something like that and this was during that time that I was kind of experiencing some panic attacks I remember going there and I I could not hold a conversation I like my mind was blocked from even like I felt like the biggest the biggest dummy ever and like I couldn't formulate a question couldn't formulate a response or anything like that and I'm like man something like I think that's when I realized like something's something's wrong here because I'm usually like very outgoing public speaking in high school and college those classes like I never had issues with those things but slowly but surely I kind of felt that comfort ability of speaking in public or things like that like slowly deteriorating and then I think it kind of hit the fan when I was grabbing coffee I'm like I can't even go on a date like what this is not good so I remember calling I think I called my mom after that on my way home and I'm like mom like I can't I can't even talk right now and she's like Josh it's completely normal like people go I'm like no you don't understand like this is like this is bad yeah so but just kind of going through that and you know sharing that with you know my mom somebody I really trust that I knew is going to provide encouragement in the moment as well for me and then like I said I think just sharing that with them my pastor people you trust is key I know some things that you do now still kind of help with that side of it and things that I'm really passionate about as well so nutrition cold therapy which as you mentioned before you hopped on the call you were I think in the Grand River so pretty pretty normal routine for Mason Englert but can you touch on some of those other I guess things outside of the Bible as well that people can maybe apply that can help obviously like you've mentioned scripture the Bible giving our life over to the Lord is it's the number one thing but there's other things to just humanly speaking that can help us out yeah I think you're still like included a little bit like obviously we're temples of the Holy Spirit and we're supposed to take care of ourselves and so these tools that I still use instead of thinking like I'm healing myself with my own power by doing this it's like no I'm healing the temple the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit can reside in me like fully and that's like the lens I see everything that I do through now but number one thing like just kind of go through some of the stuff I do in my day like I wake up and immediately like I you have the voice that makes you want to stay in bed and I'll sit and relax for just like five minutes like no more I immediately get up and make myself make the choice that it doesn't necessarily want to make go downstairs drink some water with electrolytes and then go outside like get some sunlight so I go walk my dog I think sunlight and the eyes in the morning is like the most important thing for sleep quality for energy levels for your brain like everything and then I take that you know like 15-20 minute walk and I go straight to the river and getting there for it's really cold right now so like I just go for like a minute and it's it's painful and you can feel the adrenaline everything releasing like it's good but I think that it's super important to make those little micro choices that you're you can feel your brain doesn't want to do but you're gonna override that and go ahead and do it anyways because like overriding it like it just it makes everything feel so much easier throughout the rest of the day and I think Andrew Huberman touched on that there's like a structure in her brain called like the ACC and every time we make a choice that her brain doesn't want to make it shrinks it and it takes the neural activity to other parts of the brain and then also if you resist a subtle impulse so like it does the same thing so throughout the day if like I hear my phone ding or maybe I'm working out I have a cellular check Instagram I like catch myself and then I sit with that feeling for a second and like literally like two seconds I sit with it and then I move on and I do something else and I've found that my willpower and there's the I was you put it like not resilience but rigor I don't but like it's increased where things that it doesn't feel like there's a shortage of energy or like brain power to get through things in the day anymore but that's how I start my day with the walk in the cold exposure come back get a good breakfast so my diet right now is our closest nutritionist so I know my macros are on point but we're talking just like food groups and things to eat like I've expanded a lot from just the meat and fruit I do I do when I eat meat I try to get like high quality like grass-fed stuff or like even just like red meat that's not grass-fed nutritionally is very similar to grass-fed and like cows stomachs can really like break down any toxins that could have been sprayed on like the corn they're eating so like that's why beef is like a really truly like low toxin like thing to eat to get your protein and I love beef like I will eat a lot like quite a bit of like lean steaks and you know occasional ribeyes and all that I cook with grass-fed butter and all that good stuff but then I do eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and I just really don't eat any like processed food that's not like something you could find in nature or easily make so it's like anything that's like a processed oil like canolas I don't mess with like even a piece of like bread like I don't eat bread because I'm like they have to do so much to this bread that to make it out is if it was like some homemade sourdough that somebody made and you knew it was in it there's like three ingredients heck yeah but when there's like 47 ingredients and stuff I'm just avoiding that I think it causes all sorts of brain inflammation and can cause problems which makes you feel crappy so yeah I just stay away from the processed stuff and then the other thing too I want to touch on I think is like supplementation because there's there's a lot of things that we can supplement that say magnesium for example if you eat a banana it might say it has like 20% of your daily value of magnesium but because it's like modern farming methods a lot of the times the soils been depleted of magnesium so it might have like 10% of what it's saying it has in it so I think magnesium is one of the most important ones like an hour for bedtime and there's only a couple types that can get through the past the stomach into the blood and then also cross the blood-brain barrier so I think magnesium glycinate and I take 100% of my daily value before bed every night to help you sleep at night oh my goodness man it is unbelievable it's like totally helps your your your nervous system just get into that like parasympathetic like relaxed state and it's supposed to like the like for the listeners that don't know like magnesium has to be paired with something you can't just take straight magnesium it'll just flush it out so glycinate glycine is like the amino acid that you're pairing it with and glycine carries it into the blood-brain barrier and it can I actually saturate your brain with the magnesium which is like one of the places that can be really deficient for it so I felt like magnesium is by far one of the best supplements for that I would start in the mornings I take basically multivitamin actually like a beef organs one but it covers like basically the nutrients in a multivitamin do Omega's Omega is a great for brain health that's really good studies on depression and that curcumin phytosome which is like the active ingredient in turmeric like it's another great one for depression anxiety stuff like that and I think like my basic collagen for baseball I'm like throwing and all that kind of stuff and then one other thing I've gotten into recently is like medicinal like mushrooms like not psychedelic mushrooms to be clear there but uh it's like lion's mane I so I either cook with or take lion's mane supplement every morning and it increases like a protein called nerve growth factor and it helps your neurons like reform and grow and helps you like take on learning faster helps your brain feel energized and it's been really it's being like in early stages of being studied for like depression anxiety and it's absolutely been one of my favorite supplements I've ever taken like that's why I can describe it after taking is like it almost feels like I'm seeing in 4k compared to what I was seen for I just feel clear-minded and really still and it's really cool yeah yeah yeah that's kind of like the basic like natural stuff that I like to do I love it I think a lot of times people hear like the supplements and the things that you're doing and your diet and they're like man that's got to cost a lot of money that's really expensive one thing that I think about is like that may cost money but also does alcohol if you if you spend a ton of money on alcohol a month and you know you're buying beer every week and you're buying beer at restaurants every week like that's expensive itself or even the processed foods that we buy that are not nutritious but like potato chips it adds up like and it's not just a potato chips it's you know everything you know around that that can really add up make a really high grocery bill if you cut out those things and I think it comes down to willpower like you have to just be willing to say like there's a lot of things that I eat during the day that I don't enjoy like my wife thinks I'm nuts I I eat spinach by the handful every day no dressing I just grab it out of the out of the carton and then just two or three handfuls a day and with carrots and every now and then I really feel like I need a little bit of taste I'll dip it in like something but like there's a lot of things that I do during the day that like I don't enjoy it but I know I feel so much better when I actually do those things so good yeah and like even just the act of like chewing through spinach you don't enjoy it but you know it's good for you then it's like that's awesome for your brain making yourself it's a micro win like you said like the micro choices that we have in our day those little things that can make make a huge difference so the reason I share that I just want like people to know that you can dive into these things and you don't have to go full go right away like just start doing a little like find a couple micro wins in a day like you said like if you have trouble getting out of bed and it's not something I do force yourself like instead of taking ten minutes the next morning just take take eight or take five and just slowly decrease those things then as you start decreasing it you start realizing like one it's micro win so you're you feel like in your mind that you're achieving something and then two at the end of it you're like I don't need that anymore like that's not a that's not gearing up my day for success to be able to do something so and I think this could tie in really well too with the cold therapy things that you've talked about like you know I think there's a ton of great benefits and I'm not super knowledgeable about it but I know I know some of the basics with it and you could kind of touch on it but you've even mentioned other people that I know that have dived into this stuff literally dived in I know like first time you do it just do it for 20 seconds 30 seconds a minute whatever and I think that's probably the most healthy way to do it to you you know you can put your body into a not very good state if you do it for the first time for five minutes or whatever start with a shower too it's like yeah yeah yeah so I'll say with all that stuff as challenging as things might feel the very first time but even just getting out of bed like your body adapts your response like as you do it more and more it gets easier and easier until it just becomes it's normal like our body doesn't stay the same it's adapting so if you want to make your body adapt the right way just do it every day and commit to it and then before you know it the things that are challenging aren't challenging anymore and it's same with the cold exposure you start with 15 seconds of a cold water at the end of a hot shower good so you like fade that to where in the morning you're doing only cold and then maybe you find access to like some 55 degree water which is uncomfortable but it's not going to kill you you know it's an untrained person you could sit there for three minutes get out and be a little cold but they're going to be totally safe you can do that like and then slowly drop the water temperatures but even if you never do anything colder than 55 degrees three to six minutes it's all the benefits of extreme cold at like one minute like it's the exact same it's it's so beneficial and like I think most people's tap water if you make a bathtub especially this time of year there's it's going to be like in the 40s you make a bathtub of cold water and maybe other times of the year you just want to empty your ice chest into it so it's a little bit cold uncomfortable like it's fine and it only takes it doesn't take very long it's anything yeah and it's you know you don't have to it's right here in your house you can do it you don't have to buy a tub that you get in your backyard or you don't have to go to the Grand River or whatever it's yeah it's right here so are there are there any other things that kind of coincide with all those things the diet nutrition obviously exercise you're a professional athlete so exercise just naturally a part of what you do right you want to touch on that side of it at all as well yeah there's um I think circadian rhythm optimization is like super super important for mental health and just well-being and people think circadian rhythm is just being sleep which you know that's part of it but circadian rhythm is the release of our hormones over a 24-hour period every single day of our life like our body synced up with the 24-hour day it is going to release certain amounts of hormones others adrenaline cortisol every day no matter what you do you can't stop it if you're to sit in a dark room and have no signals well every 24 hours your body's gonna it's gonna get confused but still going to release it so I think optimizing when your body releases these hormones to be beneficial to what you're trying to achieve out of these parts of your days is really important so like in the morning it's why it's important to get sunlight and cold because it produced like that's when your cortisol like things that your brain interprets as energy are going to be released that's gonna give you the energy to go through the day also there's a rebound effect from the cold exposure that like you get cold and then you let yourself naturally warm up on the after you've warmed up you're going to be hotter than you would have been without the cold exposure and your body when it's ready to be energized and be active is already going to be warm that earlier part of the day so you're just boosting the circadian rhythm and then in the evening so lines up with the sunlight you want to get like Sun when the Sun's up and then as soon as like Sun goes down start dimming the lights and then the last like hour to hour before bed try to just have lamps on or maybe candlelight we usually just do lamps I mean it works fine as long as there's not like an overhead light that's confusing your your brain with like the Sun and then I would encourage some type of heat the end of the night because once again the rebound effect like you to get into deep sleep you need to be cold so if you get hot before bed the rebound effect makes you colder than you would have been otherwise and so I mean that's like the best part you can go hot tubbing sit in a hot shower and relax maybe like do some hot shower of 10 minutes and do some meditating like something to get your body hot and then you know get to bed within 30 minutes after that so that's I just think circadian rhythm optimization is like one of the best things that super untapped and it's so easy it's just like live naturally and like be synced up with the stimulus the planet would give us if we weren't indoors yeah yeah and it's the way that I mean in reality that God probably I I'm not God but I would imagine you probably intended it to be that way we've turned all these things into you know the quick ways to get these things you know like caffeine which I I take I drink caffeine I drink coffee a lot do you drink caffeine as well I have so I have one like 10 ounce cup of coffee with a couple scoops of cacao powder that's just like the you know before it's turned to cocoa or chocolate it's like the raw it's just bitter and like has a lot of health benefits so I drink that like 11 o'clock every day and I always wait to be awake for two hours before I drink it and then I have one cup and I'm chilling you know and I think people don't like the benefits like you mentioned from the cold therapy like that is a caffeine replacement or can be I I haven't tapped into that side of it yet but after after getting to know you a little bit I maybe I'll dive into it so I'm all for the right type of caffeine like take it in though because I think there's huge correlations to like people populations that drink caffeine in the right range not over under in the wrong parts of the day have like huge reductions in anxiousness and depression and like overall mood boost so like that's why I drink like like probably 100 milligrams caffeine every day a couple hours after I wake up and what's cool like you're saying with the caffeine replacement with the cold exposure by the time I drink caffeine I'm already fully alert I'm ready to go like I'm motivated I feel great it's just caffeine is almost like another supplement to like help my brain be healthy you know it's it's not what I'm using to get myself going yeah for sure for sure and doing it at the right times of the day like you said to that's important a lot of times people drink coffee at 4 or 5 at night and I I actually really noticed this so just because it was kind of our coaching staff thing this was probably five years ago we just would send out our clubby to Tim Hortons which was right down the road and we would we'd have him go pick us up coffees and he would come back and we drink them at 6 o'clock at night 630 right before the game and dude I couldn't fall asleep until like 1 a.m. and I just thought it was kind of the adrenaline from the game the game management you know thinking about different things in the game I since coaching in Traverse City I think after for sure after the first year it's at least been probably four seasons maybe five years up there that I've been doing this but my last caffeine intake typically on a day like very last is like 2 p.m. but a lot of times it's even before that as well unless I'm like really dragging on a given day and I really feel like I need it but now after a game gets done at 1005 1030 at night I I can fall asleep within like once my stuff is done I go try to go to sleep I can fall asleep by 1130 like the adrenaline of the game is going off and I don't feel that caffeine I it's just really been interesting to me I'm the same way 100% on when I was a starter I would drink caffeine like you're saying before the game and I would usually I would just accept it because I don't like pitching once a week but I would fall asleep like one to two o'clock and then days I wasn't starting I wouldn't drink it or I'd only drink it in the morning I would feel I would be asleep by like 30 minutes after I get home like yeah yeah it's funny when you're in tune with your body and you like you start realizing those things and you think about them and it's like I did have this and it it takes experience and time to like figure that stuff out and I think that's again one of the issues that we all want quick fixes and things are just gonna like right now so like experience time being in tune with what our body is doing I think makes a big factor in it so yeah 100% yeah cool well the the last part of like so we talked about like kind of making sure we let other people know talk about some things nutrition cold therapy exercise etc sleeping not as much into that but I want to add one yeah go for it I heard that wasn't mine all I want to say is there's a there's like a stat where if you can get your your vo2 max to where it say it's top 2% of the population if you take 100 people from Walmart is not hard to have the best vo2 max out of like one of the best out of like 100 of them and it's not that it is the top 2% whatever that threshold is I remember the exact number but it is three times as good for you as smoking is bad for you which is crazy because we know how bad smoking is for you and it's three times as good as that so like for like avoiding premature death so like man just run a little bit work out go like have a have a distance run a couple times a week do some sprints like you weren't training for a sport like man it's not that complicated and the benefits are absolutely hey I'm just like just getting shape a little bit it's good yeah I dude I agree that's one thing that I probably haven't tapped into as much on the podcast in the past is just like overall health and fitness and things like that but this has been really cool on that on that regard I'm 100% on on board with those types of things I think it makes a huge difference like just doing a couple times a week like it's not like you have to do it every day but like you said you out for a two-mile run twice a week or you know 15 minutes 10 minutes to cardio or doing sprints for you know a little bit on your treadmill just like bump it up instead of running at six for the same pace bump it up for eight for 30 seconds and do six rounds of that like you know just anything to get the heart rate up get it down and lifting can help with that as well it doesn't have to be crazy like listen you should be able to spend 45 minutes in the gym and if you just want to like be in shape gain some muscle like all that that is so plenty if you're doing that work out I think people think you have to have this insane commitment and it's like to take less than an hour a day and you will be insanely healthy yeah absolutely my wife right now she's doing a it's actually called a 15-minute program and it's two exercises two foundational exercises a day and just for like there's different stages of life where I think you know like you may be able to commit 45 minutes to the gym you know three four times a week there may be stages of life where it's like I can only commit like 15 minutes right now but that's where like that habit is built in and that's a micro wind where it's like yeah I'm gonna utilize 15 minutes do two foundational exercises every day and then just that muscle sparing muscle maintaining of what you've already built you know I think it doesn't take a lot to maintain what you've actually built so I think you know there's value value and even like micro win do ten minutes of you know dumbbells and then as you get into you start realizing what you actually like to do and it's just becomes a process and then you start learning more about your body as well through that yeah so the last part kind of touching on it so like now in terms of impacting people like you've you've seen all this stuff come full circle in your life and not that you've arrived I know you wouldn't feel like you said that you're like that you would say that about yourself like that you are now you know perfect specimen in every facet of it there's still going to be struggles for you but like now that you've gone through it and you've gained a lot of experience and you have come a long way which is definitely something to be proud of and definitely super impressive how do you now utilize that to impact other people that you're around and that God puts in your life on a daily weekly monthly basis yeah biggest way is I I guess a facility like a little later like normally I get there like 11 hours last year I was getting there a little earlier and getting out before the high school kids come in and now I'm like I don't know why I leave early I love hanging out these kids and I want to like you know they're about to 18 to like early 20s days a lot of like stuff can crap can hit the fans I'm like I want to just plant seeds in them that is like when stuff gets hard maybe it'll be like what can I fall back on and hopefully they will fall back on the right things and plus I just love working with kids that's like the main way right now is like I try to always work in spiritual or like religious conversations to like the work with the kids that I'm doing right now at elite I've really really enjoyed that and I've loved that they're like really receptive and listening and some of them have already gone through some hard stuff and they're really tapped into it and so it's like really impressive to hear I've learned a lot from them that's like the main way I've loved working with the kids through for throwing and lifting whatever and then also trying to talk to them you know plant the seed yeah yeah did that has that come naturally have you always kind of naturally been able to do those sort of things even before God was a part of like really a part of your life or is it something that maybe had to take a little bit of courage and maybe another little micro win for you yeah I like the coaching part I feel like something I've always enjoyed as far as like actually voicing God for whatever reason like I said how I was raised with like the challenge of what my parents are going through it's almost like talking about God was such an uncomfortable topic for me forever so it did take some like courage and effort and like almost take away like I was taking away some of the awkwardness from myself that I was making up about bringing it up but I've like just from doing it over and over and like talking to kids and like going about it the right way it's been it's been really like gotten for it just feels really good it's like the right thing you know yeah well even like you said when it you know people were bringing up to you when you're in the Rangers organization and you're like yeah that's cool I don't really understand it all but like it's cool like most people will like are fine with talking about it but for like an individual decision or committing your life to Christ like it obviously takes that next step but most people are fine having conversations about it but like you said that's where those seeds are being planted and the guy that gave you a Bible you know when you graduate high school and ends up being in your glove box he planted that seed by giving you a Bible in high school and you knew you had one like it's just those little things on a on a daily weekly monthly basis that you know for looking for God to move if our eyes are open we can see God moving way more than if we're shutting our eyes off to God and saying you know why why are you doing this to me God like there's a lot of things that I question my own life like you know this this doesn't seem right like it doesn't seem what should be happening in our life right now or whatever but when you try to see things through God's lens it you know like I there's a pastor that talks about you know using the flashlight versus the floodlight and we want the floodlight because we want to see everything all the answers all the way down the road to the end of our lives but God gives us a flashlight because if we knew everything that God was going to take us through in our life then we wouldn't want to go that far so like God gives us that next step that next little thing that keeps us going sometimes discouraging but that's what builds faith and then sometimes encouraging which then enables us to give God the glory which we can obviously still give God glory through discouraging times as well oh yeah and that should be a part of it we should be giving God the glory for all of it but yeah it's just really interesting thinking about how you know God gives us little things and like you said planting seeds so yeah absolutely well this has been this has been awesome super appreciative of you hopping on and giving up your time this morning and I'll probably be seeing you later today yeah yeah I'm gonna go hunting I got I'm gonna go to fruit port I just got soft tissue and like that's right so I'm gonna go do that and go try to get deer love it love it but yeah dude no thanks for the met you and like thanks for having me on and everything man it's been really fun looking forward to continue working together for sure for sure go go get a buck today try this sir thanks for joining us on this week's episode of the unparalleled performance podcast and if you enjoyed it please share with those around you we'll see you next week and go dominate your day