We recently connected with TK LaFleur and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, TK thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
If I don’t use my struggle to impact others in a positive way, then I have wasted my struggle. I was a star athlete in high school, college and professionally. I know and understand how competing and training at a high level requires mental toughness and a strong mindset to get through. When I look back on my career, there were 2 defining moments I needed to work through mentally that led me to believe Mindset 180 Academy needed to be formed. The first was my freshman year of college. College was the first time I ever truly struggled with confidence. My confidence was so low at times, I struggled to even do the basics of the sport of basketball during some practices. I couldn’t figure out why my confidence dropped after being one of the best athletes in my class across the state of Texas and the country. Working through those ups and downs required internal work and a major mindset shift. In high school, there were always people talking me up and cheering me on and talking about how great of a player I was on the court. In high school, I don’t think I processed how much of my confidence truly came from that. In college, I didn’t hear those words as frequently and as often. My freshman year is when I realized my confidence and mindset needed to shift. I needed to figure how to build my confidence from within myself. Through a lot of individual training sessions, daily routines and mantras, I was able to create and maintain confidence in myself that nobody could take away. Through this new level of work I was willing to consistently put in, I propelled myself to a successful college and professional basketball career. If I didn’t believe in myself how could I expect someone else to believe in me? Think about spaces where you rely on others to build your confidence. How can you change that so you have unbreakable confidence?
The second defining moment was when I graduated college and my basketball career ended. I desperately wanted to play professionally, but my moment had not come just yet. I was crushed because the sport I dedicated my life to was no longer giving what it needed to give. The book had been slammed shut. Mentally I struggled with defining who I was as a person outside of basketball. These internal battles became external battles. I became very angry and depressed. Nothing about my first year after college graduation was easy, I mean nothing. Having an identity beyond your respective sport is so valuable to who you are as a person, how you live and view life, and how you grow. I failed to understand that in enough time so I had to go through the hard way. It wasn’t that I didn’t have people in my corner asking me about my future beyond basketball, it was more so me believing in my dream and that I was destined to be a professional basketball player and I didn’t take the time to think of life beyond basketball. While I did eventually go on to play professionally for 5 years, getting through that one year without basketball was enough of a lesson for me to appreciate the sport more, but better understand how to prepare for life beyond sports. There is nothing wrong with being dedicated to your sports career while building your professional career at the same time. Every athletes athletic career will come to an end one day, what’s next?
Focus, discipline, dedication, confidence, resiliency, mental toughness, self-control, effort, attitude, mindset are just a few of the topics I teach and work on with teams and athletes to improve in their respective sport but also in life. I took my struggles and battles and turned them into Mindset 180 Academy because what we don’t always spend enough time training, if any, is our mindset. I know this from my own personal experience as an athlete. Our mentality, or our mindset, drives everything we do and how we respond in sports and in life. There is a strong need for the mental side of sports to be taught.
My successes, failures, and personal mental health journey combined with my passion for sports are what prompted me to create Mindset 180 Academy.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I got into mental performance training because I knew I wanted to give back to sports what sports gave to me. Training and coaching were career paths I was really good at doing, but I wanted to fill a different void. Skill and talent will get you noticed, but your mindset combined with skill and talent will set you apart.
– How many athletes have you seen with amazing skill, but they couldn’t keep their cool under pressure or they were consistently getting into trouble?
– How many athletes have you seen with the ability to be great, but they lacked confidence, grit or mental toughness?
– Have you witnessed athletes they maybe were not as talented as the 5 STAR recruit/ranked player, but you were still drawn to them as an athlete because of their hustle, resiliency, toughness, grit?
Mindset 180 Academy helps each of these athletes and everyone in between. Mindset 180 Academy develops VICTOR mindsets in athletes and the youth. Your mindset drives everything from habits to confidence to reaching your goals. Mindset 180 Academy helps you tap into the Mental Performance training you have been missing.
Mental health is a growing topic nowadays and we are also hearing a lot of athletes come forward with their journeys and stories. I was one of those athletes. When we become victims to our own thoughts and minds that is where we see declines in our performances, energy, and zest for life. Nobody is alone in their struggles, but we think we are because we don’t feel we have a safe space to express ourselves. Sometimes we just need someone to show us the path of how to get ourselves unstuck. Be a listening ear for a friend, family member, coworker. Just listening alone, without the providing solutions or opinions or comparison, can make the world of difference for most.
I am creating online self-paced courses for individuals to work through. I work with teams, schools and host workshops that touch upon specific mindset shifting topics. I am most proud of how these programs have been helping and creating immediate impact on the lives of athletes and clients that I work with. Allow Mindset 180 Academy to be part of your growth.
There once was a baby stingray, born in a tank at an aquarium.
The stingray grew up inside of a tank separated from another by a glass wall.
The glass wall was temporarily in place because at the time of the sting ray’s birth, the other side of the tank was having repairs made.
The stingray was born with a great energy and a spirit to venture out and seek new places in the world.
However, after swimming head first into the glass wall many times in his first few weeks of life, the stingray never ventured past that spot in the aquarium, even when the temporary glass wall was removed.
What temporary glass walls have you run into in the past that may no longer be there but are still holding you from venturing out into other places in the world?
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A big lesson I had to unlearn is once I felt I mastered a skill or was confident in how I was doing things, remain open. What I mean by remain open is there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task/goal/etc. While I may have figured out an amazing and efficient way to do something, remain open to other perspectives that could show me something new. Closing my mind off is the one thing that can prevent me from growing and excelling at the level I want. Closing your mind is the one thing that can prevent you from growing as well. This is something we all know and we always preach, but we still struggle to follow on a consistent basis. I came across an amazing content creator. She was very knowledgeable on how to use social media, capture photo and video content and how to draw excitement about things she had going on. I knew if she could do that for herself and her business she could truly help me with my business and my vision. Where I was open minded in that I needed help in those spaces, I was closed minded in other spaces about how she could best help grow Mindset 180 Academy. Our initial conversations went well and I was onboard and open to how she wanted to run social media and gather content. Where my closed mindedness came in was when she started providing ideas about the direction I should take Mindset 180 Academy. Where I wanted to remain focused on athletes and helping their mindsets she wanted to expand into mental health, mentoring all youth and getting into the school systems. It wasn’t a bad idea, I just wasn’t in a space to receive that information. I had just started Mindset 180 Academy and I wanted to work and do things the way I envisioned. I was very closed minded and didn’t want to entertain those conversations very much.
We continued our working relationship where she did a phenomenal job with the social media and I continued working 1 on 1 with athletes and eventually getting teams as clients. As time had passed and I continued working with these clients, I noticed there were many conversations that overlapped with the content I was teaching and mentoring the athletes. In the beginning I saw Mindset 180 Academy more like teaching life skills, but reality and experience taught me it was really guiding and mentoring them with a sprinkle of life skills.
It was in those reflection moments that I realized where, my now Vice President, was coming from. She was already 3 steps ahead, but I wasn’t remaining open to her suggestions so it took me longer to catch up. From her own experience with social media and her business, she knew I could be more effective if I did a slight pivot and opened Mindset 180 Academy to more than just mental skillsets for athletes.
Life is a series of pivots, getting outside your comfort zone and remain open to new opportunities. From there I have worked really hard to remain open. Remaining open doesn’t mean I do everything that is presented to me, but it does mean I am open to hearing an idea/thought/opinion and then making the next best decision. Change is the only constant in life. Embrace it.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Resilience – the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
When life happens, you can remain a prisoner of your mind or you can acknowledge what was and pivot to what will be.
One of my earliest lessons of resiliency came in middle school. I moved around a lot as a kid. It felt like every 2 years I was moving somewhere else. I didn’t always like it at first, especially as I started to make friends and started growing into the person I was meant to be. At the time it was the most challenging thing I had to deal with. I was living in Dallas and was ready to try out for the basketball team in middle school only to find out shortly before try outs began, we would be moving to Houston. I was frustrated and sad, of course, but knew I had to do it. In the midst of the transition to a new neighborhood and new school, I remained opened to meeting new friends and new people.
Being resilient isn’t just about being happy with everything going on around you, but it is about not allowing that unhappiness to control your perspective and mindset for extended periods of time. I moved a few more times after that and each time it got harder and harder. At some point in each of those moves, I stopped being upset about it, embraced it for what it was and made the best of those moments.
That is the approach I bring to life and bring to sports. You won’t be happy about everything, but how do you pivot and not allow one thing to derail your goals and plans. You aren’t getting the playing time you deserve, pivot and reflect on what you can do to change that. You don’t like a situation going on at work, pivot and change yourself, your mindset, and see if that changes things.
We change our situations by changing ourselves and mindsets and thoughts towards and about the situation. Resiliency is about making conscious decisions to change our perspective and mindset about a situation, that in the moment, is not working in our favor. The better we are about being resilient the better we can influence the outcomes of our life and happiness.
Onward. Forward. Always.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mindset180academy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindset180academy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindset180academy/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindset_180
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ThEqW8dcH8gsnokn0MLSQ
- Other: Amazon book link: Breaking The Silence Basketball’s Hidden Secrents – https://amzn.to/3ffG1uP