Unlocking Mental Performance in Basketball with Jon Giesbrecht (Part 1)

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast. This is the podcast helping coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to provide the ultimate resource for making sense of applying contemporary skill acquisition ideas within basketball. Within this podcast, we unpack how an ecological dynamics framework Impacts our perspective of the game.

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Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. On today's episode, we have John Giesbrecht, founder of Play Free Basketball and current director of mental performance for the Vancouver Bandits. He's also the author of Free Your Mind: Overthinking Athletes. John started coaching as a teenager and coached at university and pro levels before moving deeper into mental performance.

Through Play Free, he helps athletes from youth to pros overcome overthinking, regulate their emotions, and truly play free. His work blends mindfulness, journaling, and practical routines that empower athletes not just on the court, but in life. John, welcome.

Yeah, thanks for having me, George. And I appreciate everything you guys are doing at Transforming Basketball and everything Alex is doing. Known Alex for a while now, and to see how everything's played out for him and the business is really inspiring. So really grateful to be here now.

Awesome to have you. So just before we get into it, you mentioned you knew Alex for a while. What made you get into the CLA? How did you get introduced to it? Yeah.

So Alex reached out to me. Ah, you know what, what happened was I met Alex in Regina, Saskatchewan in Canada, and this is when I was a university coach and we went out for dinner and we just had a really good conversation. And before we connected, I actually had been following Alex on Twitter.

So it was really cool. We just were able to kind of get a sense of where we both were with our philosophy, what was important. And from there we kind of stayed in touch and I started posting content with mindfulness and mental performance.

And it was during COVID when everybody was going a little bit loopy and I was probably going loopy myself. But Alex resonated with some of the content and he said that he was starting at college prep and he's going to be a head coach there.

And he was looking for assistant coaches and he was really intrigued by what I was doing with mental performance and mindfulness. Alex is really, you know, to give Alex, you know, all the credit. I mean, I think he really inspired me to get into mindfulness and mental performance and let go of the past role of being, you know, a basketball, you know, technical tactical, that's what that part of the game.

The opportunity I got with Alex really helped me shift out of those past roles that I'd been, you know, wearing.

And I guess that really helped. And I read something about you. It was You know, early on when you were doing clinics, you were like copy and speak like other coaches that you studied to kind of get you in the zone. And I guess, you know, and this is something I really wanted to talk and ask you about is like, what is the importance of making sure you have your own identity, but not only identity, making sure you have like your path that you're going towards and not someone else's path, the importance of that, not

only for coaches, but for players as well.

Yeah, I think when you're starting, generally you have different mentors, people either, you know, you actually get face time with or people that you're studying online. And back then for me, I was looking at, you know, DVDs and there was no basketball Twitter.

It was like trading guys on basketball forums and just getting my hands on as much information as I could. And as much as there's parts of me now that I feel A lot more at ease with. I think there was times I resented like, oh man, why did I speak like that?

Why was I like that? I'd really beat myself up for that. But now I just kind of recognize that all those early parts of me figuring it out and making sense of things is part of the journey. And it's still part of it.

Like to this day, I know there's a lot of things that I don't know and a lot of opportunities for me to grow as a coach and as a person. So I embrace it. You know, every year I get a little bit older, I'm getting a little bit wiser.

I'm coming at things with greater perspective and greater depth. So I think it's, you know, you look at those younger parts of yourself when you were trying to figure it out and just honoring those parts and thanking yourself for going into those depths of trouble and uncertain with how things were going to play out.

One of the coaches at the Transforming Camp, Marty, he has his own podcast as well, The Fosbury Flop. And he said, like, we're constantly in the process of perceiving and acting. And the information we get in our environment. So it's essentially the same thing.

It's not like we know the answers to what we're doing a lot of the time. We have to constantly see what's going on, act, and then hopefully learn from that as well. So just to pivot, I know we spoke about this a little bit, started coaching at a young age, then transitioned into mindfulness, mental performance.

How has that helped you be the best version of yourself, that whole process, as a sports psychologist? Yeah.

So, I mean, the first thing is I'm not, I wouldn't call myself a sports psychologist. I think I'm a basketball coach with sports psychology, with spirituality. I think generally, you know, we put things in silos, right? Like we're, you know, Alex does a really good job explaining that in his book, that sports psychology is its own separate thing.

And, you know, if someone has a challenge or, you know, a problem, you're going to refer them to the specialist. And I'll play that role. I do that for a lot of my private clients. So, you know, I think that's a good thing to consider is that I think going forward, how I see the game changing is not only having sports psychology be a part of the basketball program, but it's embedded into everything that we do.

Everything's connected. It's a unified approach, you know, player development. So going back to the question in terms of how have I evolved? It's interesting. I think it's at times I'm like, ah, this kind of feels selfish because I'm doing this work from a psychology perspective.

I'm really analyzing and taking myself through this process of feeling into my body, being uncomfortable, putting myself out there in different ways and just kind of being a mad scientist with what's, what's happening. I'm learning about myself and the greater I understand myself, the more I can support the athletes and meet them where they're at.

I can meet them. when they're in pain or when they're really suffering or when they're challenged, because I'm living this human experience at the same time. You know, I'm not just a basketball coach or someone that works with athletes. There's a greater depth to me.

That's great. I want to ask about the practical, how you do that practically. So from your time working with Alex, now with the Bandits, to what you do with maybe your personal clients, What are some practical tips? I was going to ask you this a little bit later on, but since we brought it up, what do you do practically with your clients?

So let's start with basketball players, like in the game, you know, like you're working with your athletes, you're a coach, like they had a bad game. How are you helping them deal with that?

Yeah. So I think where I'd like to start on this, and we can totally get into, you know, having a bad game, where I'm making the connections with mental performance And player development is understanding that state shapes perception. So if I'm dysregulated, my head's all racy.

If I'm in fight or flight, if I'm freezing up, what's going to happen is my perception is going to narrow. And now affordances aren't as available. I'm not seeing these opportunities play out in real time because I'm not able to play present. I'm not in the moment.

So for the athletes, what I'm teaching them, the first thing, you know, before we get into anything, we turn to RAID state. We start to gain awareness of sensations that we're experiencing. We're developing a greater sensitivity to sensations because if I have a sensitivity to what I'm feeling, what I'm experiencing, I'm able to refocus and come back to my center and what's around me, what's happening.

So that's the first thing. And I think generally one of the things that I learned when I worked with Alex and I was just brand new to mindfulness, I was having meetings with players. Sometimes, you know, going out for lunch or going for walk and talks or doing pregame meditations or post-practice meditation.

I think generally what I've seen again and again, working with thousands of people at this point, Is that athletes want the tools, right? They want to show me some breathwork, show me a meditation, you know, show me all this stuff. And as I had a, you know, a little section in Alex's book, I think that's the wrong approach to just jump into tools.

The first thing I need to do is I need to be aware of what I'm experiencing. And then from that place where I can slow down and feel. Then I can shift and then I can get into whatever I need. And it might be as simple, you know, I missed my first 3 shots in a game.

I get subbed out. I just might need a sip of water. Like it might be that simple, but if I'm not aware of like, man, my body's tightening, my mind is racing. I've got this monkey mind. I'm jumping all over the place. If I'm not aware of those signals, because they're signals, it's not good or bad.

These are just signals, feelings, sensations. They come and go. You know, I can have all the tools in the world. It doesn't matter. I need that awareness. That's the first part.

Right. And I saw as well, like in the EuroBasket, Sengun, he would do this thing wherever, if he made a mistake or, you know, he would do this thing or he would tap his noggin kind of thing and, and just like, okay. And then I've heard of other stories like, you know, Dirk Nowitzki used to hum a song at the free throw line to kind of get him focused.

So like all these kind of like tools that they can use. Do you have, in a nutshell, I know, like, it's a lot more robust than that, but in a nutshell, some kind of tools like that, or even explaining what those, you know, these little tricks do in terms of bringing awareness to where the athlete is?

Yeah, we can do it right now in this moment. And if the coaches are listening, they can, they can follow along because I believe, and this is why I'm so grateful to be here, because I think coaches can learn this stuff, they're going to be able to provide the environment for learning to happen.

But if I'm out of touch with myself, if I'm out of touch with my emotions and I'm really high and low, you know, the player isn't going to have the space to regulate and refocus. So something really simple that I would start with to start to build an awareness, this ability to read state, because as we said, state shapes perception.

Ideally, you're not driving when you're listening to this podcast, but what I do when you do have a, you know, a minute is find a quiet space, put your hand, and you can do this with me, George, if you, if you like, on your heart.

And then you can take your other hand and put it on your diaphragm. Your diaphragm's located just under your ribs here. Here. So I'm going to put my hand here. And as I have my hands here, I want you to close your eyes.

And feel the weight of your body being supported by the chair. And as you're doing this now, I'd like you to breathe a little bit deeper and see if you can start to extend your exhale. Just stand here for a few moments of breathing, feeling the heaviness of your body being supported, sinking deeper with every exhale.

And now, George, what I'd like you to do Is with your eyes closed, bringing to mind a snapshot of yourself when you were coaching in a game. And when you were coaching in the game, you were getting frustrated. You were getting maybe upset at the referees.

You were losing your cool. See if you can bring a memory back into your mind of that experience and then withdraw your attention and bring into your mind a snapshot of you coaching Pretty decisive, confident. Trusting your gut, trusting your instincts, having fun.

And then George, what I'd like you to do is to blink your eyes slowly back open, take your hands and put them by your sides and take a moment to just compare the snapshots. Well, the first snapshot, was there any sensations that were present compared to That can snap, but did you notice any kind of change or difference?

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think the main thing for me in the snapshots that I picked, which was like 2 games at very different points of the season last year, was the expectations attached to the games. And I think just now reflecting on it, like the first one, it was a preseason game.

There wasn't expectations. And then the last one, it was one of the late, later games in the season. So obviously, you know, a lot more expectations in terms of winning, getting playoff positioning, things like that. So that was the biggest thing.

And that's great, George, in terms of being able to bring those different expectations and different experiences. Were there any specific sensations that you experienced regarding maybe your breath? Was your breath different from one snapshot to the other?

Yeah, yeah, now that you mention it, yeah, definitely. I think I was more tense when I was thinking of the negative experience and then a bit more relaxed breathing with the positive one.

Yeah.

That's the whole game. That's what we're speaking about is just starting to notice the changes. Like, oh, well, my breath was really tight or it was really up in my chest versus maybe the second time it was a little bit lower and slower and deeper.

My shoulders dropped. So you can just start to notice that because ultimately what we're doing with this, I think what we're training, making it really practical for coaches that are listening is that I call this pendulation or pendulating. I go into activation, I go into stress.

So that could be the game or a practice or a workout. There's a moment either within a game, within a practice, or after the game or after the practice where everything slows down. And in those moments, I need to leverage those short, brief periods to see if I can relax.

So then I go into relaxation. But the problem is a lot of athletes, a lot of coaches don't know how to relax. They don't know how to let go. They don't know how to get back to playing present. So my role, why people hire me is because they're stuck.

They're stuck in activation. They're stuck in stress. So I help them find this rhythm again of being able to go into stress, into activation, and then come back The relaxation so that they can have the perspective, they can zoom out, they can be available to the information and not get stuck or fixated on the mistakes, or as you said, a bad game.

Yeah, it's interesting, you know, even thinking about it after reflecting on it, the power that that has on observing and analyzing the experience. I want to ask you, you know, as you walked me through that and hopefully other coaches following along, How did you develop this?

Because I know you have a book, right? And I believe your book, from what I know of it, and maybe you can clarify me if I'm wrong, was developed from trying to help athletes. So you have a book, Free Your Mind Journal. How did you develop this book and how are you developing your methods to help athletes?

Giving Alex credit again. So just before I got to Italy, Alex said to me, you know what, it'd be interesting if you had a journal or you had something that the athletes could reflect on. And so that was, you know, 5 years ago.

So I've been on this journey the last 5 years to figure this out and make it really simple. Like when it started, it was like this 8 by 11 massive thick books that I gave to people. And then with time, I started stripping away layers to keep it really simple and keep it consistent for athletes.

That's where the idea came from. What it shifted into, like this latest version that I just released couple of weeks ago is focused on 3 things. The first thing is nervous system mastery. So learning to master your nervous system, feel into your body, feel into the discomfort.

What we did just now.

What we did just now and doing it daily, every day, I'm able to check into my body, my breath, spotting the shift that happens within a practice or within, in a game. Like, oh, this is where I got a little bit triggered. You know, coach made a comment or, you know, I missed a few shots in a row.

So you're starting to recognize patterns so that you can disrupt patterns so that you can start to reinforce stability. So the 3 big principles that we talk about are reading state, regulating state, and reinforcing state. Throughout the journal, we're looking to reinforce stability with your game.

That's what we're focused on. So the first 30 days is nervous system mastery. Next 30 days is talking about practice design, you know, because a lot of people, as why we're in this work, have poor practice design. It's a, it's a reason why their practice doesn't transfer to the games.

It causes a lot of frustration. And then the last 30 days is developing a growth mindset because so many people get so fixed on things. They put limits on And they don't take risk. And if you don't take risk, as you know, as I know, being on this coaching journey, you're probably not going to get very far.

And in terms of helping athletes and coaches as well with the journal, is it something they can do before games, before practices, during, after? Yeah.

So I just did a workshop for a team, a college team here in Canada, and they actually bought a team set. And pretty much what they do is every, every day they meet before practice and they go through the journal together. That's been really cool to see, but I've seen players use it, you know, before they go to bed, first thing when they get up, you know, just making it really easy.

You know, when is it an easy time for me to start to implement this? What is something that I do every single day? You know, I brush my teeth, I eat breakfast that I can, you know, I'm stacking habits. So I put it before, after the thing I know I'm going to do every single day.

And I know Tony Robbins calls that net time, like no extra time. In a previous podcast, you shared some practical routines when players are subbing in and out of games. Grounding, breathing, resetting. How can coaches build those tools into everyday practices?

Yeah. So I think it's making use of the time that you have during stoppages. I remember, I think it was Doc Rivers that I was listening to. He said you have like, I can't remember the number. It was like you have 60, 90, 120 moments.

in a game to influence the game as a head coach. And I think at the same point, players have that same opportunity. So making sure that everybody's on the same page, we're using common lingo terminology. Another thing I talked with Alex about was developing trigger words.

So for us, when we say gear down, you know, so our head coach would say gear down when we're coming into a timeout, let's say. Athletes have a menu that they go through, you know, so my job is providing them a menu of tools that they can go through and play with.

So that could be an example is just having, you know, a trigger word to indicate to the players that this is your time and you have the space to read. And then ultimately, I think, you know, the best players I've ever worked with.

So one of the ones that I'm a big, big fan of, I talk about all the time on every podcast episode. He's a really great friend of mine, is Mitch Craig. Mitch played in the NBA for the Brooklyn Nets, the Minnesota Timberwolves. He got to play for Kenny Atkinson, the coach that Alex is working for now.

And Mitch is amazing because what he does is we talk about checking in. He's checking in 15 to 20 times a game. So what I said before about Doc Rivers having these moments, Mitch him with his body, with his breath, and then he resets.

So it's the players, it's giving them those opportunities initially, but ultimately players need to learn to think for themselves. They need to be able to reset without always having a coach saying, hey, here now, or, hey, you know, I need someone to wake me out of my reactivity.

So early on, if you, if you can have some of that language, that's great. But ultimately it's on the player to start to develop a system for themselves, a menu of It works. And that's how you do that. You start to get to know yourself.

That's why I made up the journal. The journal helps you get to know yourself on a deeper level.

That's great. And it builds that level of autonomy for the players to have to do that for themselves. I know for me, like, I'm thinking about myself now. So let's say I'm next season, I'm planning my practices. And I know this is what, you know, it happened last season, happened the year before and so on.

The players during the middle of a game, Like, let's say we're doing a practice game and they're in the middle of the game, they're having a bad 10-minute stretch. How can I as a coach give him support so that he can have, without me having to tell him the sugar words, for example, how can I give him the tools he already needs so that he doesn't, that he can figure this thing out by himself and positively impact the game versus Ruminating on the mistakes that he's been making in this game.

And I'm not sure if I'm answering your question fully. I want to make sure I give some like practical tools that make sense. One of the things that I felt was really effective for us, our professional team, and I think we were probably one of the most unique teams in the whole world in terms of mental performance, was microdosing it.

So before a practice, Before we do any kind of video, our athletes are learning 2, 3, 4, 5-minute practices that they can do. So I would go into our locker room and we would, you know, do box breathing for a few minutes and box breathing for anybody that doesn't know, you breathe in for 4, you hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4.

It's just something that you can do to balance your sympathetic nervous system with your parasympathetic nervous system. I go from being too high to too low, too high to too low. Box breathing helps you find that sweet spot of being present, available, engaged.

So we're prepping and priming the athletes for the video session. So I'm not necessarily using those words, but I'm giving a few minutes every day to, hey, here's a practice, play with this and see what you think. And then ultimately with time, you ideally reserve judgment.

When you say, oh, well, this is for me or this isn't for me, that's how we did it, is we would just give a little bit of time to it.

So what I'm hearing you say is the work, a lot of that work is done before practice. So it's that intervention wouldn't necessarily happen during practice, but it would be before or after, you know, but just at a different moment so that they already have the tools and they're, you know, they're being guided towards that way.

The most frustrating, not the most frustrating thing. I can, I can work with it. I can deal with it. But the thing I hear is, let's say, you know, I, last summer we'd be in a game, you know, saying we don't, for our season, we don't have a lot of time.

It's like very short season. So in terms of building trust, introducing the tools, we don't have a lot of time. So it makes everything a little bit tighter. We have to be efficient and effective, but the game would be happening. And, you know, we'd have one guy just losing his marbles, you know, like ready to fight anybody, you know, within a few feet of him and we'd have to sub them out.

And then I'd have, you know, some coach come up to me and say, hey, you should go work with him. And I'm like, well, he's kind of in outer space right now. He's in, he's in it. You know, he's totally caught in reactivity.

Now, there are things like there's something called co-regulation. So if I'm present, if I'm available, if I'm grounded and I go up to him and I just put my hand on him or give him a high five or fist bump, in a way that can start to bring him out of The reactivity.

So that's something really simple that I could do. But in terms of saying, hey, let's do some box breathing or let's do this when he's immediately in that fight or flight in that red zone, there's just going to be probably for most players too much friction unless I have a relationship.

You know, I've been with the team for 2 years, a couple of guys that I've went out for lunches. I've done all that stuff. It's a little bit different. That's something to consider. Yeah. I don't want to just go up to somebody. Like the other thing I see all the time.

Is, you know, I saw it as a player I was working with last year and they would get subbed out of the game and immediately they would have 2 or 3 coaches trying to coach them and talk to them. And they were dysregulated.

They were frustrated. They weren't centered. So if I'm not centered, as I said, if I'm not present and available, you know, there's no way I'm going to be able to receive that information. And that was probably one of my pain points that really brought me into this space is I was coaching, preparing all night, watching all the video.

My delivery, but my delivery didn't matter because the athlete wasn't ready. You know, my favorite quote of all time, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I love it.

That's great. It's like, I am going back to your point about touch, you know, just giving a high five. I remember I was at Basketball Without Borders and JB, he used to call, he was the assistant coach for the Wizards. I think he's going to a G League team now as the head coach this season.

And, you know, I'm in an environment now of NBA coaches, assistant coaches, guys that have won championships, players. So it's like, for me, like that first time being there, it's daunting, right? So I'm a bit intimidated by the whole experience. But JB, you know, he's assistant coach to Kristaps Porzingis, I think at the time.

So, you know, just a guy that's been around and knows his way. He would fist bump everybody in the room. And that really kind of just relaxed me. Like, okay, I'm here. I'm with them. I'm with everyone. It's okay to be here. To your point, I've always like taken that into, and then fast forward as well, working with Alex, that was one of the things he said, like, as soon as players walk in the gym, like, go high-five them instead of waiting for them to high-five you as a coach, you go high-five them.

Right. And that touch to me, like, it's just always been so important and integral when I am in my sessions, you know.

You're reinforcing safety, psychological safety. I can show up and be myself, try things, make some mistakes and learn and not get punished for it. Or at least I have that perception when this person's high-fiving me, communicating. That's co-regulation.

Yeah, absolutely brilliant. I have one more question here, John, before I ask you our ending question. But it's just about— I want you to talk about the importance of having this mental coach in sports. I know it's a growing field. It's becoming more popular just from your perspective.

You know, what does it mean for this space to keep growing?

Yeah, I think it's what we talked about earlier. It's having perspective, being able to zoom out, being able to pendulate into the stress, into the activation, and then into relaxation. And generally it's been something for a long time that's been ignored, right? It's always been about, you know, pushing and grinding and going harder.

And that's part of it. You know, that's part of the journey is having the discipline to stay with it. But the other part of it too is navigating all the information, all the messaging that's being blasted at us. We're being flooded with information.

It's a new time. How do you navigate the 21st century, the information age? So having somebody like myself, but more so having player development coaches that have this approach is, in my opinion, how the game continues to grow. I think I just continue to see that, you know, we need to make room in the budget to hire a specialist.

And I don't want to take anything away from that, but I think just having somebody that knows basketball, but also appreciates and integrates the psychology of the game, I think it's really critical. You're just not going to reach your potential, right? Like you can do all the basketball drills in the world, but if players are dysregulated, they can't save themselves in a heated moment.

What are we? What are we doing?

And the coaches as well.

Yeah, because one one decision can is the game. You know, the end of it. And and I need to be sharp, present. I need to trust myself, trust my preparation.

No, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. I do hope he continues to grow and keeps going towards that trend. You know, mental performance. A lot of athletes take advantage of it. You see, you know, Steph Curry doing his breathing during timeouts, things like that.

And you. You know, it looks cool and it looks really crazy as well because he's in, you know, 20,000 people and he's got his eyes closed to the whole experience. It's definitely going to give a competitive edge. So I think it's time teams adopt it.

John, I want to thank you for your time. I've had a lot of fun. I did the breathing exercise, learned a lot. So I appreciate it. I do want to ask you one final question and it's our transformative tip question. What is one piece of advice that you would give coaches to instantly improve their practice environment?

Yeah, I think it would be modeling presence, modeling their ability to be centered and communicate. And I think if they do that, if they're coming at practice with a clear mind, they can start to think for themselves. And I think that's what Transforming Basketball is all about.

It's looking at all of the data and really seeing things objectively, not taking anything away from anybody's personal experience. But let's come together, let's share ideas, let's start to make sense of what we're doing here. And ultimately, why are we doing this? Let's make the game a little bit better each year that we're here, you know, because we're only going to be here for so long.

So I think continuing to model what we're doing here, being present, seeing things for what they are, and making adjustments and asking yourself, why are you here? I'm here because I love having the conversation. But this is about mastery. You know, teaching is the highest form of learning.

So the more I can share, the more I improve and I help the world.

Wow, that's great. John, once again, thank you so much. It's been awesome talking to you.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, George.

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