Meet Gabe Zelico

We recently connected with Gabe Zelico and have shared our conversation below.

Gabe, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Being a mental performance coach, and training to be a therapist, it’s clear that empathy is an important skill to hone. I “flexed my empathy muscle” in an unconventional way though! Being born with symbrachydactyly – essentially just a few fingers on one of my hands – lead to insecurity. I was always scanning to see if people were looking at it, and if so, what were they thinking? When I was clearly having trouble carrying things, did people pity me? When I excelled in sports, were they impressed? As I matured and shed this insecurity, I realized it helped me naturally put myself in other people’s shoes. Sports, namely hockey, did wonders for my self-esteem as it related to my hand. Quite honestly, I was impressed with myself being able to play so well despite an obvious disadvantage, and I figured others were too. And if they weren’t, I didn’t care!

Seeing how powerfully sports impacted me, I learned about this career path where I can help others find more joy in their sport. Too many people lose this joy through debilitating amounts of pressure and burnout, and I find it meaningful every time I talk with an athlete and help them feel better about themselves and their sporting career.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Basically, I work on the mental game with athletes. Every athlete and coach readily agree that the mental side outweighs physical skills as athletes get closer to the elite level. Understanding the specific ways to train the mental side is both fascinating and effective. I help athletes boost things like confidence, motivation, and focus, while reducing others like anxiety, self-doubt, and overthinking.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Curiosity is an easy one that leads to competency – an essential trait in most fields! Fortunately, curiosity oftentimes comes naturally when coupled with another trait, passion. One way I help my athletes reconnect with their enjoyment of their sport is through values. Whether you’re an athlete or not, connecting your daily effort with your core value(s) provides numerous downstream benefits, like satisfaction, motivation, and focus. Whenever I find myself struggling, I reconnect with the joy I find in exploring the depths of the mind and helping contribute to the success and enjoyment of athletes and teams.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

Something I talk to a lot my athletes about is an objective, data-driven approach. Two perspectives clash with this. A negatively biased mindset, where one only focuses on weaknesses, flaws, and what went wrong can be difficult to shed because it’s evolutionarily influenced and culturally accepted. Second is the “toxic positivity” mindset, where one blocks out any type of negativity, even constructive feedback. Being blind to your weaknesses will surely backfire. Instead, the best approach is processing both your strengths and weaknesses.

It’s no different in life outside of sports. You owe it to yourself to bring to light the positives in your life. Optimism is an important perspective that leads to success in many aspects of life. Once again, however, you are responsible to process your shortcomings and mistakes. No one is perfect despite perfectionism running rampant among society.

I learned this lesson, and many others, in sports as a goaltender in hockey. A guarantee of this position is that you will let in goals. It’s easy to let your mind linger on what you could have done better, the negative impact it has on your team, etc. To find success in this position means learning to let go of your mistakes by understanding, objectively, what you did well and what could be done better. Any goalie would quickly learn that, if they deflect blame for every goal they let in and never take responsibility, their skills will plateau, and teams will reject them. Focusing solely on the negative will limit your gains as you detract focus from what goes well and instead fuel burnout which saps joy and motivation.

This is easier said than done, unfortunately, which is why so many people find value in having someone on their team that can help their mind work with them, not against them.

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