Finding balance between the pursuit for success in life and drive for peace of mind.
The speaker greets viewers, encourages getting outside and grounding (standing barefoot in grass), and frames the talk around pursuing success while maintaining peace of mind instead of chasing perfection.
He recounts how mental health first appeared in high school and junior hockey, explains an old back injury and being misled about a tryout, and shares how being cut and overlooked created emotional strain and doubt.
After landing with a new team and performing excellently, he admits to creating intense pressure on himself to reach Division I hockey, which robbed him of enjoyment and balance despite strong play.
He describes stress-related physical symptoms, recruiting frustrations, a trade to the USHL, illness that cost playing time, becoming a healthy scratch, and ultimately suffering an ACL tear that stemmed from being mentally unbalanced and overfocused.
After surgery he intentionally adds balance—connection, play, and self-care—enjoys his season more, connects with a billet family, and regains recruitment attention that validates the new approach.
In a tournament he tears his ACL again, loses the chance to play for Boston University, and describes the start of a prolonged depressive period and the difficult choices and moves that followed.
He emphasizes the need for balance between grind and wellbeing, encourages celebrating small wins, urges viewers to reach out if struggling, and closes with a final reminder to get outside and ground oneself.
Good morning, Cadre. Another beautiful little Wednesday here. Yesterday was kind of a rainy dumper, and that can always be tricky when it comes to mental health for a day. But the sun is shining, so I would encourage you to Start your day, get outside, feel the sun, take your shoes off, stand in the grass, get some good grounding, feel the earth, let it recharge yourself and get going on your day. But what I want to chat about here is really that pursuit of, the pursuit of success in relation to maintaining peace of mind or even achieving peace of mind.
As we can get really caught up, it's easy to get caught up in that grind for perfection, right? But we're not, we should never be striving for perfection. We should just be, we should really be striving for balance. And you know, one of, I'm 42 years old and I was introduced to mental health Gosh, it was in high school. And then it picked up when I was playing junior hockey. So just after high school, when I was 18, 19 years old, that's when that was like the very beginning stages of a multi-year depression for myself.
And I was playing junior hockey up in Canada to start my first junior season. This was early 2002. So man, like 24 years ago. That's crazy to think about. But I was dealing with a different type of mental health because I was a really good hockey player and I got screwed over because of an injury that I had from when I was 11 when I was checked from behind the boards and broke my back unknowingly. And I was drafted by this team and we were going through tryouts and I told the scout who was part of drafting me that I was like I cannot skate in this tryout.
You know my back is too bad right now. I can't even really walk. I can't hold my hockey bag. So I can't get out here and compete at a high level. And he assured me, oh, don't even worry about it. You know, you're on the team. It's just a formality. Just go out there and do what you can. So I was like, okay, if you say so. And I went out there and I labored through this tryout, did not do well. And Then afterwards, I was informed that I was cut. They didn't want me on the team. And I explained to them, like, what do you mean?
I shouldn't even have been playing, but I just, I did this because you asked me to, and you said everything was going to be fine. So that was a serious blow, because I had a few other instances earlier in the summer where I tried out for other teams that I wasn't drafted for but were teams in a better league in the USHL, and I would dominate those tryouts, but I wasn't drafted. So they didn't take me because they protected their draft picks. So I let that same concept apply to me where I was like, well, I'm drafted to this team.
It's not a big deal. I'm going to get taken. But I did get screwed and they didn't take me. So now I'm at the end of summer scrambling to find a team and I was lucky to get connected with a team in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. And I came in with a chip on my shoulder because I was just angry at the situations that happened to me earlier in the season and my back issue It stopped flaring up at this point, so I was ready to go. And I just absolutely dominated. It was awesome. I was scoring goals left and right and just having a blast.
So this is still in that early stages of internet. So there wasn't all the social pressure of what people are doing. So I was comfortable not being in school. I was comfortable playing junior hockey while everybody else was doing school. But I was able to, like Messenger was still a thing. So I was still chatting with my friends. I was still staying in communication. And I was creating this unnecessary pressure on myself that I needed to achieve my goals, which was to play Division I hockey. And I was putting so much pressure on myself that I wasn't enjoying myself.
I was so caught up in this pursuit of what I need to do that I wasn't allowing myself the balance of connection with others, of adventures in the form of play, And I was focusing on my wellness because I needed to stay in shape to play good hockey, but it was still all in this pursuit. And I was just not allowing myself to have fun. And I don't know how it happened, but then all of a sudden my face started just breaking out. It was like it was reacting to this relentless pursuit of perfection I was putting on myself.
And then when my face broke out, it created more problems. And I was frustrated with how I was feeling and how I was looking. And I was fortunate to still be able to play really well through this, but I didn't let my mind recharge. I was just Like I said, caught up in that pursuit. I had the blinders on and I wasn't, hanging out with my team. I wasn't reflecting on the joy that I was experiencing from having a successful season. And ultimately, and there was one tournament where I, we were, my team went down to Detroit to play in a tournament.
And we did really, we did, we did decent in a tournament, but I did really well. I was one of the leading scorers in a tournament and Boston University started recruiting me and I was so excited about this. It was everything that I could have hoped for. And Boston, the scout that was talking to me was like, you know, we don't have it in our budget to come up to your area in Canada and watch you play anymore. And that really frustrated me because I was like, I want to, I need to go, I need to hurry, I need to do this.
I need to get to college hockey. And I ended up allowing my mindset of pursuit to get in the way of of the good things that were actually happening and some of the good things that I was avoiding. I had a great team of great guys. I had a great season going, but it wasn't good enough for me. So I requested a trade into the USHL, which was the premier junior hockey league in the United States and between Canada and the US. At the time, It was the top tier one league, so the top feeder program into college hockey.
And I just, I was so caught up in doing something more, doing something better that I wasn't allowing myself to be present. And it just created so much unnecessary stress. And that's really what my top, my whole conversation is about here today is finding that balance amidst the pursuit of success or pursuit of peace of mind, whatever it may be. Maybe you're chasing a job or a dream or a goal. And if you are doing that, it's so important to celebrate the little wins or build time in to enjoy life that's outside of the grind.
I just did that this past weekend here with my wife. We have a lot going on here, but we took this weekend to celebrate some wins, to go and just have some quality time with each other, to hang out intentionally and We left the weekend feeling really good. Going back to my story, I ended up, I got traded into the USHL. I was really excited about it. And when I got to the team, I started playing really well. At my first game, we tied 1 to 1 and I had the loan assist. In the next game, we tied 3 to three I had a goal and an assist.
So I started out on fire. And then my third game, I got sick and this didn't play very well. And on our bus ride home from Chicago to Kearney, Nebraska, I was just deathly ill. Didn't feel good at all. And I kind of justified why I played so crappy. But that game opened up the door for someone else to take my position. And all of a sudden I went from being a top player scoring goals in my team in Canada to coming to my new team in the USHL, scoring goals, doing well, but then one ounce of mediocrity due to not feeling well.
And now I'm getting healthy scratched. So this pursuit to try to get better put me in a position where I now was going to the games where I might not be playing. And that was the first time in my life I was ever a healthy scratch. And that created more mental issues for me because I was hell bent on this pursuit. And now my pursuit has put me in a position where I can't even, I can't even get on the ice to control my own fate. And it really soured my relationship with hockey at the time where I didn't even, I didn't know if I wanted to keep playing.
And I didn't know, yeah, I didn't know why I was playing. And then, you know, I talked myself into continue to play because I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna quit. And it's like end of February now towards the end of the season. We're in a playoff push. And I remember being in a game and I was going to check somebody and then I might have left ACL tears. And it was the same type of injury I had when I was 13 when my right ACL tore. I was just going to check somebody, non-contact injury and tore my knee up.
And I was so upset when this happened because I was, my relentless pursuit of perfection was souring my love for the game. And now I'm here I am driving home on my 19th birthday on March 1st to have my second ACL surgery as a result of just I don't know, not being present. Like why did my knee tear or why did that have to happen? I was having such a good season. There's no indication that my knee was not doing well. And now here I am going under the knife and not even knowing if I'm going to be playing hockey again.
Ultimately, you know, I had this surgery and I talked myself into continuing to play. So I went back to Canada and this time in Canada, my second year around, I focused a little bit more on the wellness side, the play side of life. It wasn't all about the pursuit. The pursuit was there. I knew what I needed to do, but I also knew that I needed to instill good times in my life. So I went from my previous season to being really a mental grind that was solely focused on the pursuit to now I'm focused on the pursuit, but I've introduced balance into my life.
I'm enjoying time with my teammates. I am taking time to just enjoy myself, listening to music. I had a great billet family, a billet family, essentially like a host family when you're playing sports at a different place other than your home and you're not staying in a dorm. And they had a hot tub. And I remember sitting in the hot tub at night, listening to atmosphere and feeling that connection of home, but embracing this drive to achieve the goals that I set out to achieve. And I had a much more enjoyable season.
And I ended up being recruited by Boston University again. I ended up getting accepted into Boston University as a recruited walk-on. So I had a place to play. And I went into this final tournament that we had. with the goal of, well, maybe if I play even better, I'll get another offer from someone else. And ultimately, I did well in this tournament, but in the second game, I tore my ACL again and essentially ended my career. And I went into the next game the day afterwards barely able to walk, but I wanted to help my team out.
And I went into that game not knowing that it was the last game of my career, that I wasn't going to be able to play hockey again because of the damage done to my knee and the damage that had already been done to my body over the course of injuries throughout years. So, you know, I was grateful that My second junior hockey season was a lot more fun. I can only imagine the mental pain I would have felt had I not had an enjoyable season and it would have ended with just that injury because when I tore my ACL for that second time two years in a row and then when I had to tell Boston University that I wasn't going to be able to go and play for them and that They needed to fill my spot.
That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And it was the beginning of a multi-year depression that I really struggled with. And that's hard. I mean, at that point, depression and anxiety were in my life. And I was struggling. I didn't know what to do. I was running all around. I moved down to Florida after not being able to stand watching people I grew up playing hockey with have success in the college hockey ranks. So I left. I had to just leave altogether. I went down there by myself and then I came back because I'm just toiling in that depression trying to figure out what's good for me, exploring new things.
trying to take myself out of the focus of the pursuit and enjoying life, but it was a pretty dark time for me. So, I could go on and on and on about this and I think I'll resume this next week or maybe I'll jump on another live stream to keep this story going. because I feel it's really important to just show how necessary it is to find that balance in the pursuit of peace of mind, mental clarity. It can't always be about the grind. You have to, whether it might feel like work, just going for a walk or doing something for yourself, connecting with others, calling someone else might feel hard.
but it's so necessary. You got to do it. So if you're out there, that's if you're someone who is struggling right now, and you don't have anybody to reach out to reach out to me, reach out to somebody in this cadre community. We're here for you. We've been through it. And we're all in this together. You know, my days, I'm I'm happy where I'm at in life. But that's not to say that there still aren't tough days. Last week, last week I was having a tough day. Last week exactly at this time. So it just goes to show that life is about, is not a straight line.
It's got peaks and valleys. And we just got to take the good with the bad Try to find that balance and just know that everything's going to be all right, especially when you have community and people to talk to and good habits to build into your life. So as I said earlier, get outside today, feel that sunshine, take your shoes and socks off, stand bare feet in the grass. Let our bodies that are electrical feed into the earth and get charged up from the grounding that is standing barefoot in the earth.
So, all right, I'll leave it at that for today. I'll continue this story about, you know, my depression that is over 20 years old. So we'll talk about that. Yeah, share how I got out of that. But if there's anything I can take with you today and the rest of this week, it's just to find some balance in your life, build some wellness, build some connection, build some play into your life, even if you don't feel like you deserve it, because you do. All right, cadre. Enjoy the rest of your day. I'll talk to you soon.
