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Featured Guests:
Dr. Kim O'Brien & Dr. Jonathan Jenkins Co-Authors, Mentality Wins Published Date: April 15, 2026 In this episode of Wisdom for Wannabes, host Jackie Morreale sits down with two leading voices in sports psychology and youth mental health: Dr. Jonathan Jenkins and Dr. Kim O’Brien, co-authors of Mentality Wins: The Athlete’s Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life. Dr. Jenkins, sports psychologist at MGH and for the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots, and Dr. O’Brien, youth mental health clinician of Unlimited Resilience and former women's hockey team captain at Harvard University, and are on a mission to reshape how we think about performance, pressure, and mental well-being. Listen to/watch the full podcast recording, or read the transcript below: |
Full Interview with Dr. Kim O'Brien & Dr. Jonathan Jenkins:
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"Feel great, play great. You have to take care of yourself as a person first, performance follows." |
More great quotes from Dr. Kim O'Brien from the interview:
- “Sport can be the best thing for your mental health, and at the same time, the hardest thing on it.”
- “Back then, mental health wasn’t talked about; it was something you hid if you were struggling.”
- “Kids today have more to manage than ever before, and that pressure is only growing.”
- “Feel great, play great. You have to take care of your whole self to perform well.”
- “Speaking positively to yourself isn’t silly, it’s self-respect.”
(More great quotes throughout the transcript in purple (Dr. Kim O'Brien) below.)
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"You can have a winning mentality even if you’re not winning on the scoreboard. Winning starts with how you show up, not just the outcome." |
Great quotes from Dr. Jonathan Jenkins from the interview:
(More great quotes throughout the transcript in light blue (Dr. Jonathan Jenkins) below.)
- “Athletes aren’t just performing; they’re living their lives in public, and that’s incredibly hard.”
- “In private moments, athletes aren’t whispering, they’re screaming that they need support.”
- “You can have a winning mentality even if you’re not winning on the scoreboard.”
- “Be where your feet are and truly experience the moment you’re in.”
- “Let go, or be dragged.”
(More great quotes throughout the transcript in light blue (Dr. Jonathan Jenkins) below.)
Mentality Wins book
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Key Takeaways:
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Meet the co-authors of Mentality Wins, Dr. Kim O'Brien and Dr. Jonathan Jenkins:
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Dr. Kim O'Brien
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Dr. Jonathan Jenkins
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Interview Transcript:
Jackie Morreale (00:00)
Hello and welcome to Wisdom for Wannabes, the podcast that seeks to find wise words in business, beauty and betterment. I am the host, Jackie Morreale. Today's episode sits at the intersection of performance and mental health. We're joined by two incredible experts who are changing the conversation around what it really means to ‘win’.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins, sports psychologist for the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots has worked with elite athletes at the highest level where mindset is everything.
Dr. Kim O'Brien, a youth mental health expert and former national champion athlete at Harvard University brings both lived experience and clinical expertise to the challenges young athletes are facing today.
Together, they co-authored, Mentality Wins, the Athletes Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life, which is a powerful guide for athletes on how their mindset impacts their performance. You can learn more at: mentalitywins.com. This is a conversation about resilience, identity, and learning how to win in life as well as in sports.
JJ, Kim, welcome to Wisdom for Wannabes! It is so great to have you both here. Thank you so much for joining today.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (01:23)
Thanks for having us.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (01:24)
Thank you for having us.
Jackie Morreale (01:25)
Absolutely. Let's dig right into the questions, and take it all the way back to the beginning. Kim, what first drew you into the world of sports and mental health?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (01:35)
I'm a social worker by training, and I only got into sports social work about 6 years ago. Finally, it comes full circle in that I am an athlete. I identify as an athlete. I spent much of my youth and young adult life as an athlete. I played Harvard hockey, and that has been such a big part of my life.
After graduating from took me a while to figure out my identity outside of sport. I was able to do so in the field of clinical social work, specifically focusing on intervention, development, and testing for suicidal teens and teens who use substances. I did spend the bulk of my career working in that area.
About seven years ago, I decided I really want to get back into the athlete space and I want to bring the knowledge I have on teen mental health and suicide prevention into the athlete space specifically. That's what drew me back into that.
Jackie Morreale (02:32)
Amazing. I'm just going to recap in a couple of words: Kim is saving the world.
JJ, can you tell us more about how you got into the world of sports psychology and mental health?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (02:43)
I'd say Kim and I got into it on pretty similar paths. We are both clinical in our background. When I work with young people, sports is always a topic of conversation. You have sports and pop culture. When you're working in an inpatient residential center, you might shoot hoops and talk, or play tic-tac-toe and talk. That competitiveness and that ability to do something while talking about something that is bigger than the game that you're actually playing has been a really cool therapeutic tool to use.
I was fortunate enough to go to University of Denver where we had an amazing sports psychology program. A lot of my classmates were doing their doctoral degree and taking classes in that master's program. I was able to see what they were doing, and it was really attractive to me.
When I got to MGH there were opportunities to work with high school and collegiate athletes. I was able apply for the with the Red Sox and the Patriots and here I am now - the opportunity to work with Kim and some of the other great athletes we have.
Jackie Morreale (03:37)
Man. MGH, meaning Massachusetts General Hospital. To be one of your patients and to be able to shoot hoops with you while you're taking care of them. My goodness, how lucky are they? Tell me more about how you guys met, and how this project started?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (03:53)
I can start with that. Surprisingly, we met initially via LinkedIn. I was looking around and trying to do some more networking in the field. I had seen that JJ was working in Foxborough, which is near where I live in Massachusetts. I was like, ‘That would be cool get to know him.’
The work he's doing is really interesting and has a lot of overlap with mine. I reached out and just said, 'Love the work you're doing. We should chat sometime.' did. We mentioned to each other that we're trying to write a book. I was like, 'What's your book about?' He's like, 'Mental health and performance book.' I go, 'Oh, me too.' We talked about the ideas that we each had for the book.
Then we're like, 'Should we write this together?' It just made sense. The rest is history.
Jackie Morreale (04:36)
The rest is history! That is amazing. And an ad for LinkedIn. The internet is this amazing place that connects us all.
So you guys were living your own lives, doing your own thing, your own paths, and somehow they cross and you found out that you had this passion together and you decided to co-write this book?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (04:42)
I know, right?
Jackie Morreale (04:58)
What’s your side of the story, JJ? How did it all start?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (05:02)
It was that, and we kept showing up at similar events. Her values aligned with mine and vice versa. The people we worked with in those events, they spoke about how dynamic Kim was in her presentations, all the resources she was giving to both teens, young people, and athletes as well. There was this almost proof-of-concept for both of us. Kim heard about me and I heard about Kim. Not only did we have these great ideas to write the book and what we'd include, but practically, we knew what we were doing as well.
It really became this great relationship where not only were we connecting on how to write the book, but also consultation. How are we connecting on how to support the athletes that we work with? How do we connect to grow our businesses and private practices?
Also, as parents, too. Sometimes you need another parent to talk to and just be able to reminisce about the successes and the failures that we all go through as we try to raise our kids as healthy as possible.
Jackie Morreale (05:55)
You guys are such a dynamic duo. I'm so excited that you found each other. I can't wait to see what becomes! This is the first of many, many books. I really can't wait to see how your impact together multiplies and impacts athletes around the world.
Next question is for Kim. How did your experience as a national champion athlete shape the way that you approach mental health today?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (06:19)
For team athletes who are pursuing the biggest successes and the highest levels of achievement: We find that sport is simultaneously the best thing for your mental health as well as the worst thing.
What I mean by that is: You love, and you care about it so much. By 'it', I mean the sport itself, your team, everything about it, the pursuit of excellence, you love it.
On the flip side of that love, there's a lot of heartache and a lot of adversity and a lot of difficulties that can take a toll on your mental health if you're not taking care of it.
I was a college athlete who didn't do the best job caring for my mental health. Back then, mental health was not worked on or talked about. It was stigmatized, and you hid it if you had a problem.
I let my performance anxiety take hold of me, get in the way of reaching my full potential as an athlete.
I love doing what I do because I want to help young athletes so they don't go through the difficulties I went through, or, if they do, have the skills to manage them and get through them. A lot of my experiences, both good and bad are what shape how I approach the athletes I work with now.
Jackie Morreale (07:32)
Wow, that is so beautiful. It's so beautiful to be able to reflect on your own experiences and now change the conversation and make the future a brighter place for these young athletes.
JJ, you've worked with teams like the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots. What's something people would be surprised to learn about the mental side of professional athletics?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (07:50)
I think the biggest thing that people don't recognize is how hard it is to do your job and to live your life out in public. We have the benefit of being able to have a bad moment in the grocery store or in the pharmacy, or to make a mistake in our work or in our families.
But when you're a professional athlete, everything gets magnified because there are so many avenues for access to you, both physically and emotionally. And you can't hide, right? I can hide. I'm 6'1 ", 200 and something pounds. But if I'm six foot seven, or if I'm Shaquille O'Neal and seven foot two, it's going to be really hard for me to hide myself in public and blend into the crowd because of my stature and my size.
Thinking about how challenging it must be to be perfect in everything that you do, perfect in your profession, perfect in your relationships, and also perfect in public. I think once the community recognizes that, we can afford a little bit more grace to athletes and celebrities, given how much they're forced to live their lives in public and how much we benefit by living our lives often in private.
Jackie Morreale (08:56)
Most of us, outside looking in, just see athletes as celebrities that we really look up to, that we admire for having this talent that we would love to have ourselves. A lot of times we don't think of them as actual humans who have put everything that they have into what they're doing. It's, I think, novel to bring this into the conversation that that they do need to have their privacy.
When did you both realize that there was a deeper issue happening here among these younger athletes? It could be college athletes who are performing at their highest level or young professional athletes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (09:31)
I think both of us have probably always realized that there are deep complicated issues in youth sports, given that we both played them and we understand it from that level. What I continue to see is that it's getting harder and harder for kids, for youth and young adults to manage. That's because kids today have more to manage than ever before.
There are higher stakes than ever before for youth and young adult sports. There are more opportunities than ever before, which is a great thing, but it also increases anxiety with so many choices to make and so much adversity to manage. There are parents who are feeling stressed out. How do I set up my kid to succeed? Then, social media is fueling the achievement-oriented society we live in. There's just so much that keeps happening now.
That's just adding on and contributing to a lot of overwhelm in kids and young adults.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (10:20)
I think it’s two things.
One, Kim and I are privileged to have these really private moments with athletes. In these quiet moments, they're not whispering; they're screaming that they need help and support. Even though we see them on the court, the ice, the field, doing these tremendous things, there can still be a lot of mental and emotional strain and stress on them.
Two, I agree with Kim. We've played sports, so we know what that feels like personally. And there is so much data in our society.
In a previous conversation, Kim and I joked like we were little kids. We were just worried about being the fastest kid in our neighborhood. We didn't know what somebody was doing in France. We didn't care what somebody was doing in California. They might as well have been the same for us in terms of distance and care and worry.
Now, you can have 10-year-olds comparing themselves against 10-year-olds internationally.
You can have adults know their body fat and how it relates, and what percentile they're in.
Although that data is important and can be helpful at times, there can be almost this paralysis because of it, and this overwhelm and this brooding that can happen when people are consumed with it to the point that it causes a negative impact.
What we really strive to provide is a sanctuary both in the private one-on-one or the group work that we do.
In the book, we really want to provide a resource. Hey, if this has been on your mind let this be a gentle introduction to some of the ways in which you can take care of your mental health and also some of the ways that you can fall deeper in love with the sport that you're playing.
Jackie Morreale (11:43)
I love that word that you used, 'sanctuary.' It really brings it all together. You're a safe place, a sanctuary, whether you're dealing one-on-one, with a group, or as co-authors for your readers. I appreciate what you're doing; thank you on behalf of all athletes out there! What you're working on, your mission, your passion is so important for anyone who calls themselves an athlete or anyone who's looking to get fit to read and learn from.
We've taken it a little bit deep up in the beginning of this chat. Let's take it a little bit lighter. Since we know each other pretty well, I'm thinking that with our quick-fire questions today, we can see how well we know our co-author. What do you think? Let's try it and see how it goes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:22)
Ha ha!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:23)
Boy, oh, boy.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:25)
Let's try it.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:26)
This might be an O-fer, but we'll try it.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:29)
I know I can't wait to learn more about this stuff. Go ahead!
Jackie Morreale (12:32)
Let's start with JJ. JJ, what is Kim's favorite food?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:37)
We probably haven't eaten together yet, as we worked remotely. I'm going to if I'm to take a guess... I'm going to have to probably say, you probably can throw down a burger and some fries.
(Continued below)
Hello and welcome to Wisdom for Wannabes, the podcast that seeks to find wise words in business, beauty and betterment. I am the host, Jackie Morreale. Today's episode sits at the intersection of performance and mental health. We're joined by two incredible experts who are changing the conversation around what it really means to ‘win’.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins, sports psychologist for the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots has worked with elite athletes at the highest level where mindset is everything.
Dr. Kim O'Brien, a youth mental health expert and former national champion athlete at Harvard University brings both lived experience and clinical expertise to the challenges young athletes are facing today.
Together, they co-authored, Mentality Wins, the Athletes Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life, which is a powerful guide for athletes on how their mindset impacts their performance. You can learn more at: mentalitywins.com. This is a conversation about resilience, identity, and learning how to win in life as well as in sports.
JJ, Kim, welcome to Wisdom for Wannabes! It is so great to have you both here. Thank you so much for joining today.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (01:23)
Thanks for having us.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (01:24)
Thank you for having us.
Jackie Morreale (01:25)
Absolutely. Let's dig right into the questions, and take it all the way back to the beginning. Kim, what first drew you into the world of sports and mental health?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (01:35)
I'm a social worker by training, and I only got into sports social work about 6 years ago. Finally, it comes full circle in that I am an athlete. I identify as an athlete. I spent much of my youth and young adult life as an athlete. I played Harvard hockey, and that has been such a big part of my life.
After graduating from took me a while to figure out my identity outside of sport. I was able to do so in the field of clinical social work, specifically focusing on intervention, development, and testing for suicidal teens and teens who use substances. I did spend the bulk of my career working in that area.
About seven years ago, I decided I really want to get back into the athlete space and I want to bring the knowledge I have on teen mental health and suicide prevention into the athlete space specifically. That's what drew me back into that.
Jackie Morreale (02:32)
Amazing. I'm just going to recap in a couple of words: Kim is saving the world.
JJ, can you tell us more about how you got into the world of sports psychology and mental health?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (02:43)
I'd say Kim and I got into it on pretty similar paths. We are both clinical in our background. When I work with young people, sports is always a topic of conversation. You have sports and pop culture. When you're working in an inpatient residential center, you might shoot hoops and talk, or play tic-tac-toe and talk. That competitiveness and that ability to do something while talking about something that is bigger than the game that you're actually playing has been a really cool therapeutic tool to use.
I was fortunate enough to go to University of Denver where we had an amazing sports psychology program. A lot of my classmates were doing their doctoral degree and taking classes in that master's program. I was able to see what they were doing, and it was really attractive to me.
When I got to MGH there were opportunities to work with high school and collegiate athletes. I was able apply for the with the Red Sox and the Patriots and here I am now - the opportunity to work with Kim and some of the other great athletes we have.
Jackie Morreale (03:37)
Man. MGH, meaning Massachusetts General Hospital. To be one of your patients and to be able to shoot hoops with you while you're taking care of them. My goodness, how lucky are they? Tell me more about how you guys met, and how this project started?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (03:53)
I can start with that. Surprisingly, we met initially via LinkedIn. I was looking around and trying to do some more networking in the field. I had seen that JJ was working in Foxborough, which is near where I live in Massachusetts. I was like, ‘That would be cool get to know him.’
The work he's doing is really interesting and has a lot of overlap with mine. I reached out and just said, 'Love the work you're doing. We should chat sometime.' did. We mentioned to each other that we're trying to write a book. I was like, 'What's your book about?' He's like, 'Mental health and performance book.' I go, 'Oh, me too.' We talked about the ideas that we each had for the book.
Then we're like, 'Should we write this together?' It just made sense. The rest is history.
Jackie Morreale (04:36)
The rest is history! That is amazing. And an ad for LinkedIn. The internet is this amazing place that connects us all.
So you guys were living your own lives, doing your own thing, your own paths, and somehow they cross and you found out that you had this passion together and you decided to co-write this book?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (04:42)
I know, right?
Jackie Morreale (04:58)
What’s your side of the story, JJ? How did it all start?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (05:02)
It was that, and we kept showing up at similar events. Her values aligned with mine and vice versa. The people we worked with in those events, they spoke about how dynamic Kim was in her presentations, all the resources she was giving to both teens, young people, and athletes as well. There was this almost proof-of-concept for both of us. Kim heard about me and I heard about Kim. Not only did we have these great ideas to write the book and what we'd include, but practically, we knew what we were doing as well.
It really became this great relationship where not only were we connecting on how to write the book, but also consultation. How are we connecting on how to support the athletes that we work with? How do we connect to grow our businesses and private practices?
Also, as parents, too. Sometimes you need another parent to talk to and just be able to reminisce about the successes and the failures that we all go through as we try to raise our kids as healthy as possible.
Jackie Morreale (05:55)
You guys are such a dynamic duo. I'm so excited that you found each other. I can't wait to see what becomes! This is the first of many, many books. I really can't wait to see how your impact together multiplies and impacts athletes around the world.
Next question is for Kim. How did your experience as a national champion athlete shape the way that you approach mental health today?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (06:19)
For team athletes who are pursuing the biggest successes and the highest levels of achievement: We find that sport is simultaneously the best thing for your mental health as well as the worst thing.
What I mean by that is: You love, and you care about it so much. By 'it', I mean the sport itself, your team, everything about it, the pursuit of excellence, you love it.
On the flip side of that love, there's a lot of heartache and a lot of adversity and a lot of difficulties that can take a toll on your mental health if you're not taking care of it.
I was a college athlete who didn't do the best job caring for my mental health. Back then, mental health was not worked on or talked about. It was stigmatized, and you hid it if you had a problem.
I let my performance anxiety take hold of me, get in the way of reaching my full potential as an athlete.
I love doing what I do because I want to help young athletes so they don't go through the difficulties I went through, or, if they do, have the skills to manage them and get through them. A lot of my experiences, both good and bad are what shape how I approach the athletes I work with now.
Jackie Morreale (07:32)
Wow, that is so beautiful. It's so beautiful to be able to reflect on your own experiences and now change the conversation and make the future a brighter place for these young athletes.
JJ, you've worked with teams like the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots. What's something people would be surprised to learn about the mental side of professional athletics?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (07:50)
I think the biggest thing that people don't recognize is how hard it is to do your job and to live your life out in public. We have the benefit of being able to have a bad moment in the grocery store or in the pharmacy, or to make a mistake in our work or in our families.
But when you're a professional athlete, everything gets magnified because there are so many avenues for access to you, both physically and emotionally. And you can't hide, right? I can hide. I'm 6'1 ", 200 and something pounds. But if I'm six foot seven, or if I'm Shaquille O'Neal and seven foot two, it's going to be really hard for me to hide myself in public and blend into the crowd because of my stature and my size.
Thinking about how challenging it must be to be perfect in everything that you do, perfect in your profession, perfect in your relationships, and also perfect in public. I think once the community recognizes that, we can afford a little bit more grace to athletes and celebrities, given how much they're forced to live their lives in public and how much we benefit by living our lives often in private.
Jackie Morreale (08:56)
Most of us, outside looking in, just see athletes as celebrities that we really look up to, that we admire for having this talent that we would love to have ourselves. A lot of times we don't think of them as actual humans who have put everything that they have into what they're doing. It's, I think, novel to bring this into the conversation that that they do need to have their privacy.
When did you both realize that there was a deeper issue happening here among these younger athletes? It could be college athletes who are performing at their highest level or young professional athletes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (09:31)
I think both of us have probably always realized that there are deep complicated issues in youth sports, given that we both played them and we understand it from that level. What I continue to see is that it's getting harder and harder for kids, for youth and young adults to manage. That's because kids today have more to manage than ever before.
There are higher stakes than ever before for youth and young adult sports. There are more opportunities than ever before, which is a great thing, but it also increases anxiety with so many choices to make and so much adversity to manage. There are parents who are feeling stressed out. How do I set up my kid to succeed? Then, social media is fueling the achievement-oriented society we live in. There's just so much that keeps happening now.
That's just adding on and contributing to a lot of overwhelm in kids and young adults.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (10:20)
I think it’s two things.
One, Kim and I are privileged to have these really private moments with athletes. In these quiet moments, they're not whispering; they're screaming that they need help and support. Even though we see them on the court, the ice, the field, doing these tremendous things, there can still be a lot of mental and emotional strain and stress on them.
Two, I agree with Kim. We've played sports, so we know what that feels like personally. And there is so much data in our society.
In a previous conversation, Kim and I joked like we were little kids. We were just worried about being the fastest kid in our neighborhood. We didn't know what somebody was doing in France. We didn't care what somebody was doing in California. They might as well have been the same for us in terms of distance and care and worry.
Now, you can have 10-year-olds comparing themselves against 10-year-olds internationally.
You can have adults know their body fat and how it relates, and what percentile they're in.
Although that data is important and can be helpful at times, there can be almost this paralysis because of it, and this overwhelm and this brooding that can happen when people are consumed with it to the point that it causes a negative impact.
What we really strive to provide is a sanctuary both in the private one-on-one or the group work that we do.
In the book, we really want to provide a resource. Hey, if this has been on your mind let this be a gentle introduction to some of the ways in which you can take care of your mental health and also some of the ways that you can fall deeper in love with the sport that you're playing.
Jackie Morreale (11:43)
I love that word that you used, 'sanctuary.' It really brings it all together. You're a safe place, a sanctuary, whether you're dealing one-on-one, with a group, or as co-authors for your readers. I appreciate what you're doing; thank you on behalf of all athletes out there! What you're working on, your mission, your passion is so important for anyone who calls themselves an athlete or anyone who's looking to get fit to read and learn from.
We've taken it a little bit deep up in the beginning of this chat. Let's take it a little bit lighter. Since we know each other pretty well, I'm thinking that with our quick-fire questions today, we can see how well we know our co-author. What do you think? Let's try it and see how it goes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:22)
Ha ha!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:23)
Boy, oh, boy.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:25)
Let's try it.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:26)
This might be an O-fer, but we'll try it.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:29)
I know I can't wait to learn more about this stuff. Go ahead!
Jackie Morreale (12:32)
Let's start with JJ. JJ, what is Kim's favorite food?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:37)
We probably haven't eaten together yet, as we worked remotely. I'm going to if I'm to take a guess... I'm going to have to probably say, you probably can throw down a burger and some fries.
(Continued below)
More on Dr. Jonathan Jenkins, competing and presenting ideas on mental health in professional sports:
JJ at the Duathlon National Championships.
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JJ presenting at a special convening on mental health and professional sports.
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(Continued)
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:43)
No... I do love that, but mine is nachos. 100%. For me, you can't go wrong with that. Nachos or buffalo wings. I think nachos have taken the edge for me.
You, JJ, I don't know what I would pick for you!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:53)
That's it. I was going to say, this might not be the best game, cause we might not know...
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:04)
You strike me as healthy; a healthier eater than me. A steak!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:07)
I do like a great steak from the Druid. Shout out to the Druid in Cambridge. They make a great Guinness steak. It's beautiful.
Jackie Morreale (13:07)
Can't go wrong with steak. Shout out to the Druid in Cambridge.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:15)
What is it? What is your favorite food, JJ?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:16)
I like steak, or my mom makes great breakfasts.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:18)
So, I won. I won?!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:19)
Okay, alright. She's not competitive at all, not at all, lol.
Jackie Morreale (13:20)
That feels like Kim got that one. One for Kim. Excellent work. Mentality Wins!
Let's start with Kim this time. What is JJ's favorite place, since you're on a roll? Okay.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:31)
I think I know this one. Martha's Vineyard. Am I right?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:34)
That is right. That is it. Martha's Vineyard.
Jackie Morreale (13:36)
My goodness, Kim, you are on it.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:37)
Well, because that's one of mine too.
Mine is more general, that can be found in a lot of places, if that makes sense.
Jackie Morreale (13:43)
JJ, do you have a thought for what Kim's would be based on that hint?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:47)
I do, so I have two thoughts. One would be she talks so lovingly about her teammates at Harvard. My first assumption would be it would be with her alumni, with her teammates that she spent those four years with. Then, just also knowing her and her family, spending time with her family, including the two dogs.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:02)
Well, those are 100% totally true. You're right. That supersedes what I was thinking for this…
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:09)
I hear 'but' coming up…
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:02)
…which if I was thinking of place, was just thinking in general, the beach.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:13)
The beach. yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:14)
Love anywhere warm on the beach.
Jackie Morreale (14:16)
Can we give him like a half a point for that? He was pretty close.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:18)
Give him a full point. You can actually give him double points because his answer was better than the one I originally thought. Give him two points. He made me better by saying that, so we're good.
Jackie Morreale (14:24)
Double points, so now we're tied.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:25)
I was pandering. Yes.
Jackie Morreale (14:31)
Next question, let's start with JJ. I have to preface this with: It can't be hockey or lacrosse. What is Kim's favorite sport if not hockey?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:42)
I don't know this, wait. I don't even know. Hockey's just such a no-brainer.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:43)
I know, it's got to be hockey.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:49)
Can we talk about playing or watching, or does it matter?
Jackie Morreale (14:52)
Favorite either playing or watching.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:54)
Favorite sport, just general how we ever reinterpret it.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:56)
Favorite sport other than hockey and other than lacrosse…
Jackie Morreale (14:58)
Let's say to watch, if that's easier.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:00)
Hockey and Lacrosse X'd out for both of us. Okay…
Jackie Morreale (15:02)
Yes, X'd out. I know you guys played those. That would be too easy.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (15:07)
Because she does love lacrosse too. So that's super tough. You don't strike me as a soccer lover. Haven't heard any March Madness conversation. I think you'd be down for a football game…
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:09)
I know, football is my second.
Jackie Morreale (15:16)
Man, I love me some soccer.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:24)
I do love a football game, but I think my favorite is platform tennis, Padel. I play it because I play it, and I just love it so much. As much as I love watching sports, I like playing them more. I'd have to pick that.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (15:29)
You do play Padel tennis, yeah. You do play tennis.
Jackie Morreale (15:36)
I actually have no idea what ‘Padel’ tennis is!
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:38)
It's awesome. It's played in cold, it's outside, it's in a cage. It's basically like a tennis court in a cage, but it's got a metal bottom. And it's a bouncy ball. You wear all winter gear, and you just go out there and play. It's doubles. It's so fun.
Jackie Morreale (15:46)
Okay. My gosh, sounds ultimate. So similar to pickleball, but in a cage?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:56)
Yes, it's kind of similar, but the ball is different, and you can hit it off the walls.
Jackie Morreale (16:02)
Sounds like a blast. And pretty crazy.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:03)
I think JJ's is football. No, it's tennis.
Jackie Morreale (16:06)
Is it tennis, JJ?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:07)
It's golf. I love golf. Big golfer. Or is it to watch? Is it to watch or to play?
Jackie Morreale (16:07)
Golf! Okay.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:08)
Is it really? I think we didn't decide.
Jackie Morreale (16:14)
We didn't decide.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:15)
Football is it to watch for you, though, isn't it?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:17)
I do like watching football, yes. Gotten to know a lot about football, it's just fun.
Jackie Morreale (16:19)
I feel like we're still tied. You both get each other! See that?
So tell me more about this golf outing, and maybe you guys need to get some food while you're there, so you can check out the steak and nachos.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:21)
We are playing golf together this summer for the first time. Poor JJ has to put up with me on the golf course.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:25)
Yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:31)
Yeah. What do you think it would be like to play golf with two sport clinicians? Tough.
Jackie Morreale (16:36)
My goodness. Is this also in a cage, in the cold?!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:39)
I'm not meeting Kim anywhere in a cage. I'm going to lose that fight. But yeah, we're both golfers. Early to medium early in our journey. It’s a cool sport to play because you have to have patience. You have to be able to be in your mind. Enjoy the people you're with and enjoy the course.
Jackie Morreale (16:55)
Love it. And I love how down-to-earth you are as an athlete, JJ, and Kim. ‘We're at the beginning to mid of our golf career.’ I would love to see you guys play and see the numbers totally defy what you just said.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:08)
No, we've got to bring a ton of balls for us to go play golf.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:11)
Yeah.
Jackie Morreale (17:15)
So, next question, favorite book? Do either of you think that you know your co-author's favorite book?
There’s this pretty good one in case you need it (Mentality Wins)… ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! This is it, Mentality Wins. Hands down.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:19)
I don't! That's a hard one.
Oh yeah, that is both of our favorite book!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:23)
Yeah. There you go. you go. Mentality Wins. Yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:28)
Love to hear yours, though, JJ. What is it? Do you have one?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:30)
What's my favorite book that I've read?
Jackie Morreale (17:34)
If not, Mentality Wins.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:35)
Hopefully you read it. If it's your favorite book, lol.
(Continued below)
Dr. Kim O’Brien (12:43)
No... I do love that, but mine is nachos. 100%. For me, you can't go wrong with that. Nachos or buffalo wings. I think nachos have taken the edge for me.
You, JJ, I don't know what I would pick for you!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (12:53)
That's it. I was going to say, this might not be the best game, cause we might not know...
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:04)
You strike me as healthy; a healthier eater than me. A steak!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:07)
I do like a great steak from the Druid. Shout out to the Druid in Cambridge. They make a great Guinness steak. It's beautiful.
Jackie Morreale (13:07)
Can't go wrong with steak. Shout out to the Druid in Cambridge.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:15)
What is it? What is your favorite food, JJ?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:16)
I like steak, or my mom makes great breakfasts.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:18)
So, I won. I won?!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:19)
Okay, alright. She's not competitive at all, not at all, lol.
Jackie Morreale (13:20)
That feels like Kim got that one. One for Kim. Excellent work. Mentality Wins!
Let's start with Kim this time. What is JJ's favorite place, since you're on a roll? Okay.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:31)
I think I know this one. Martha's Vineyard. Am I right?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:34)
That is right. That is it. Martha's Vineyard.
Jackie Morreale (13:36)
My goodness, Kim, you are on it.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (13:37)
Well, because that's one of mine too.
Mine is more general, that can be found in a lot of places, if that makes sense.
Jackie Morreale (13:43)
JJ, do you have a thought for what Kim's would be based on that hint?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (13:47)
I do, so I have two thoughts. One would be she talks so lovingly about her teammates at Harvard. My first assumption would be it would be with her alumni, with her teammates that she spent those four years with. Then, just also knowing her and her family, spending time with her family, including the two dogs.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:02)
Well, those are 100% totally true. You're right. That supersedes what I was thinking for this…
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:09)
I hear 'but' coming up…
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:02)
…which if I was thinking of place, was just thinking in general, the beach.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:13)
The beach. yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:14)
Love anywhere warm on the beach.
Jackie Morreale (14:16)
Can we give him like a half a point for that? He was pretty close.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:18)
Give him a full point. You can actually give him double points because his answer was better than the one I originally thought. Give him two points. He made me better by saying that, so we're good.
Jackie Morreale (14:24)
Double points, so now we're tied.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:25)
I was pandering. Yes.
Jackie Morreale (14:31)
Next question, let's start with JJ. I have to preface this with: It can't be hockey or lacrosse. What is Kim's favorite sport if not hockey?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:42)
I don't know this, wait. I don't even know. Hockey's just such a no-brainer.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:43)
I know, it's got to be hockey.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:49)
Can we talk about playing or watching, or does it matter?
Jackie Morreale (14:52)
Favorite either playing or watching.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (14:54)
Favorite sport, just general how we ever reinterpret it.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (14:56)
Favorite sport other than hockey and other than lacrosse…
Jackie Morreale (14:58)
Let's say to watch, if that's easier.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:00)
Hockey and Lacrosse X'd out for both of us. Okay…
Jackie Morreale (15:02)
Yes, X'd out. I know you guys played those. That would be too easy.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (15:07)
Because she does love lacrosse too. So that's super tough. You don't strike me as a soccer lover. Haven't heard any March Madness conversation. I think you'd be down for a football game…
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:09)
I know, football is my second.
Jackie Morreale (15:16)
Man, I love me some soccer.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:24)
I do love a football game, but I think my favorite is platform tennis, Padel. I play it because I play it, and I just love it so much. As much as I love watching sports, I like playing them more. I'd have to pick that.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (15:29)
You do play Padel tennis, yeah. You do play tennis.
Jackie Morreale (15:36)
I actually have no idea what ‘Padel’ tennis is!
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:38)
It's awesome. It's played in cold, it's outside, it's in a cage. It's basically like a tennis court in a cage, but it's got a metal bottom. And it's a bouncy ball. You wear all winter gear, and you just go out there and play. It's doubles. It's so fun.
Jackie Morreale (15:46)
Okay. My gosh, sounds ultimate. So similar to pickleball, but in a cage?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (15:56)
Yes, it's kind of similar, but the ball is different, and you can hit it off the walls.
Jackie Morreale (16:02)
Sounds like a blast. And pretty crazy.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:03)
I think JJ's is football. No, it's tennis.
Jackie Morreale (16:06)
Is it tennis, JJ?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:07)
It's golf. I love golf. Big golfer. Or is it to watch? Is it to watch or to play?
Jackie Morreale (16:07)
Golf! Okay.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:08)
Is it really? I think we didn't decide.
Jackie Morreale (16:14)
We didn't decide.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:15)
Football is it to watch for you, though, isn't it?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:17)
I do like watching football, yes. Gotten to know a lot about football, it's just fun.
Jackie Morreale (16:19)
I feel like we're still tied. You both get each other! See that?
So tell me more about this golf outing, and maybe you guys need to get some food while you're there, so you can check out the steak and nachos.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:21)
We are playing golf together this summer for the first time. Poor JJ has to put up with me on the golf course.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:25)
Yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (16:31)
Yeah. What do you think it would be like to play golf with two sport clinicians? Tough.
Jackie Morreale (16:36)
My goodness. Is this also in a cage, in the cold?!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (16:39)
I'm not meeting Kim anywhere in a cage. I'm going to lose that fight. But yeah, we're both golfers. Early to medium early in our journey. It’s a cool sport to play because you have to have patience. You have to be able to be in your mind. Enjoy the people you're with and enjoy the course.
Jackie Morreale (16:55)
Love it. And I love how down-to-earth you are as an athlete, JJ, and Kim. ‘We're at the beginning to mid of our golf career.’ I would love to see you guys play and see the numbers totally defy what you just said.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:08)
No, we've got to bring a ton of balls for us to go play golf.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:11)
Yeah.
Jackie Morreale (17:15)
So, next question, favorite book? Do either of you think that you know your co-author's favorite book?
There’s this pretty good one in case you need it (Mentality Wins)… ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! This is it, Mentality Wins. Hands down.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:19)
I don't! That's a hard one.
Oh yeah, that is both of our favorite book!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:23)
Yeah. There you go. you go. Mentality Wins. Yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:28)
Love to hear yours, though, JJ. What is it? Do you have one?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:30)
What's my favorite book that I've read?
Jackie Morreale (17:34)
If not, Mentality Wins.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (17:35)
Hopefully you read it. If it's your favorite book, lol.
(Continued below)
More on Dr. Kim O'Brien, playing hockey growing up and as the co-captain of the team at Harvard:
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(Continued)
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:37)
Yeah, I read it, lol.
One of my favorite books I read in college was Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie. It was about Seattle in the 1970s. There was this racial dispute at a casino, and that's this crime noir thing. It was beautifully written. I love that book.
That was one of the books that revitalized my love of reading because reading has always been hard for me. I didn't want to read the book in college. The professor said, 'I think you'll really like it. There's a murder in the beginning.' I was like, 'This is intriguing. Let me check it out.' Actually reading a murder mystery in school was fun.
Jackie Morreale (18:10)
Amazing. I'm adding that to my list. Kim, do you have a favorite book?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (18:14)
I love non-fiction. I devour non-fiction books, audio and paperback. My favorite book, which I've read multiple times at different points in my life, probably every five years, is The Catcher in the Rye. I love that book.
Jackie Morreale (18:26)
Absolutely, that's intense. So, every five years you're reading it with a totally different lens and yes, picking up different things.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (18:32)
Exactly. You pick up different things from it. You look at it differently as society changes. It's an interesting book.
Jackie Morreale (18:40)
I think the last one will have to stay separate, because knowing each other's favorite quote or mantra for life would be pretty incredible.
So let's say you both got four points, you both win, congratulations! (Yeah!)
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (18:50)
Thanks!
Dr. Kim O’Brien (18:51)
Thank you!
Jackie Morreale (18:53)
JJ, what is your favorite quote or mantra for life?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (18:57)
The Zen quote, 'Let go or be dragged.' This idea that you have to come to terms with the things that you're battling.
You have to make an effort to mourn or grieve whatever you've been dealing with. You can let it go, or it's just going to drag you through these beautiful things that you want to go through in your life.
That's been a huge thing for me. In those moments where I do want to hold on to some pain, some injustice, some stress, some beef that I may have, it just feels better to let that energy go and to be free of it, versus to white knuckle it and put a lot more value into it than there needs to be.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (19:34)
My favorite quote is the Henry Ford quote, 'Whether you think you can or can't, you're right.' I love that one so much.
I do have a mantra that I use a lot in sports that, for me, works. It's, 'Be in the shift you're in.' Or, be in the point you're in, or be in the shot you're in.
I'm someone who, my chatter gets going. I start thinking and worrying. When I start noticing I'm worrying about the outcome or how good my shot's going to be, whether I'm going to win the point, like if I'm going to score or make a mistake, I just say, 'Be in the...' whatever it is you're in. For me, that mantra works.
Jackie Morreale (20:08)
I don't remember exactly where it was in the book, but one of the things stuck with me. I think it was lacrosse practice, JJ, where somebody gave you the advice to just let the ball drop when you first get there. Then pick back up, and then you've already gotten that out of the way. I love that. Be in the shot that you're in, or be in the shift that you're in, depending on your sport.
Hidden talent?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (20:27)
I don't know if I have a hidden talent, but I do have weird stuff.
I have a pebble in my head that's been in there since kindergarten. I fell on the gymnasium monkey bar thing. Teacher cleaned my cut. I went home, told my mom. My mom looked at it, looked fine. A couple of days later it was red and infected. They did an x-ray and they were like, 'There's a pebble in here. We can either open up his head right here and pull the pebble out and there'll be a scar or we can treat it with antibiotics. The skin will close over it and it will eventually push the pebble out.' My mom's like, 'Let's do that,' because I was freaking out about the scalpel next to my face.
So they left it in and it just stayed there. It hasn't been pushed out.
Then my other thing that I usually use for 'two truths and a lie' is that I'm supposed to be a twin. My mom was pregnant, she heard two heartbeats and they thought they were going to have twins. When I was born, I was the only one that came out.
I didn't find out about this until I was 20.
There was a horror movie about a twin that was haunting the baby that was born and the person didn't know that they were a twin and my mom made a joke like, 'Oh, that could happen to you.' I was like, 'What are you talking about?' Then she went on to tell me that I was supposed to be a twin. This is not something you casually drop on somebody while we're sitting on the couch watching a trailer for a really bad horror movie.
I'd always felt like there was some weird part of me that was missing. My mom is a twin. We have tons of twins in our family. I always gravitated towards them without an explanation. That really helped prove to me that some truth had been finally unearthed.
Jackie Morreale (22:01)
They heard two heartbeats, and it was just one body. Wow.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (22:03)
That's interesting.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (22:05)
Yeah, there was something else in there. I can't remember what the other thing was found, in the afterbirth and in the delivery process, but there was some evidence, like a bigger placenta or a second placenta, but there was no evidence of it once came out. Kind of creepy.
Jackie Morreale (22:18)
I was not expecting you to say either one of those things. When you guys have done your thing with nonfiction, if you want to take it to fiction writing, I think you'd be really good at that based on your own life stories.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (22:29)
Hahaha!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (22:30)
Do a horror movie, yeah.
I do have a hidden talent. My hidden talent is that I can do some magic tricks.
When you work with kids, you have to sustain their attention a lot. I've developed or learned about two or three magic tricks that I use with young kids to get them back engaged.
I thought I would only use them for young kids, but they also work with adults. Everybody loves magic. I always encourage people to learn one or two magic tricks to keep in their back pocket so they can pull them out whenever they need them.
Jackie Morreale (22:58)
Kim, do you have any hidden talents?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (22:59)
I'll be honest, I really don't. I'm not super talented, but my husband would say, my talent is packing a beer fridge. If we're having people over and I have to take all the beer, whatever we have, and put it in, I make it look so good. I pack it to the brim and all organized. That's maybe the one thing I'd say so no, I don't really have any talents, unfortunately.
Jackie Morreale (23:22)
I bet you played Tetris really well once upon a time. Did you play that back in the 90s? Great game.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (23:25)
I do love Tetris. That's a great game. I played that a ton growing up. I like that kind of stuff.
Jackie Morreale (23:34)
Next time I pack my fridge, I'm going to think about you, Kim. And what a terrible job I'm doing, lol.
So let's talk more about your book, Mentality Wins, the Athletes Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life. The title says it all, 'Mentality Wins'. What does that actually mean to you both in practice?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (23:55)
For me, it means that in order to really fully get the most out of yourself as an athlete, it's all about finding that mental edge. Just like the physical work you do for your sport takes practice and reps, so does the mental side. That, to me, is what the title means.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (24:11)
For me, one of the things that we were focused on, was not focusing too much attention on 'winning' because winning is something that you have some control over, but it's not ultimately within your control.
You can have a 'winning mentality' and be part of a team that doesn't make it to the championship, that doesn't make it to the playoffs. But because of the way that you approach things, you are performing at a high level.
You are supporting your teammates, you are building a culture of determination and resilience that's going to help your team. Really helping people understand that, even if they're not in the most ideal situation, win or loss wise, they can still adopt a mentality or a mindset that can help them enjoy their sport, be competitive, and help the people around them.
Jackie Morreale (24:54)
You guys are sports clinicians. Obviously, your book is going to resonate with athletes, with coaches, with parents of athletes. But I would dare to say that your book is important for anyone to read because it's mentality, and a winning mentality in what you're describing and that work that you do to build that up, can apply to anyone, for their career, for their family life. It's so important to read the words that you have put together.
To further that, how are mental health and performance connected in ways that people might not fully understand before they read your book?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (25:28)
As a sports psychologist, there's Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), a big organization that does credentialing for sports psychologists and other certified mental performance consultants.
We want to teach people how to perform at a high level and thrive. That word 'thriving' is very, very important because it speaks to this life being flourished and this life being enriched due to the lessons, strategies, and routines you use with a mental skills consultant or certified mental skills performer.
This idea that we can do things to not only be able to do the job, to be the lawyer, to be the teacher, to be the accountant, but by doing it, our lives can be made better.
Our relationships can be made stronger and our connection with self can be made deeper if we approach it in a particular way.
That's the guidance and the way that we want people to approach seeing this book. Okay, I used to be an athlete or I never was, how is this going to help me improve my life, and live the life more aligned with my goals and values?
It's going to provide you with a strategy to take care of yourself mentally and emotionally so that you get to be in every great moment of your life.
It's really easy for us to be in the deepest, darkest moments of our lives, because they're very intense and our brain kind of forces us to be in that moment so we can avoid it in the future. It's really hard for us to be in the birthdays, the celebrations, the beautiful, the mundane, but those moments are really important for us to remember, too, and attach to so we can have gratitude for them.
I'm 42. One day, I'm going to hopefully be 82. I really need to be present in these moments in my 40s, 50s, or 60s so that when I am older, and I miss those moments, I can call them back with detail, with fervor, with energy, with enthusiasm so I don't feel like I wasted them. I feel like they're carried with me throughout the course of my life.
That's what we really want people to do. We want you to be grounded.
Be where your feet are and really enjoy these moments that they can be with you as you progress through life.
Jackie Morreale (27:24)
That's so beautiful. You guys are the doctors in the house. Why is that the sad reality that we can recall these deep, dark moments and some of those really happy moments, those little things that we should be celebrating in such a big way, are hard to recall in detail?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (27:39)
It's all about ‘attentional bias’, meaning as human beings, we're wired to have our attention drawn to the negative. That was, back in the day, how we survived. But now, we don't necessarily need that anymore. But because our brains are wired to be attuned to the negative, we actually have to practice turning our attention to the positives.
JJ is talking about, this idea of 'savoring' is being able to feel when something positive is happening to it with all of your senses and ‘savor’ it and have it, you know, stay, that feeling stay with you longer and have you be able to recall it later on when you need it most.
We are growing our understanding that mental health and performance are connected in such a positive way.
When I was playing, it was different. People thought you had to sacrifice your mental health for your performance. What we know now is that's not true at all.
The opposite is true. When you feel good, you're going to perform well.
That's really the whole point of this book that JJ and I wrote is, you we want to make sure athletes understand this idea, 'Feel great, play great.' You've got to take care of your whole self in order to be able to perform well. You come first as a person, athlete second. If you really take care of yourself, the performance will come more naturally.
(Continued below)
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (17:37)
Yeah, I read it, lol.
One of my favorite books I read in college was Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie. It was about Seattle in the 1970s. There was this racial dispute at a casino, and that's this crime noir thing. It was beautifully written. I love that book.
That was one of the books that revitalized my love of reading because reading has always been hard for me. I didn't want to read the book in college. The professor said, 'I think you'll really like it. There's a murder in the beginning.' I was like, 'This is intriguing. Let me check it out.' Actually reading a murder mystery in school was fun.
Jackie Morreale (18:10)
Amazing. I'm adding that to my list. Kim, do you have a favorite book?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (18:14)
I love non-fiction. I devour non-fiction books, audio and paperback. My favorite book, which I've read multiple times at different points in my life, probably every five years, is The Catcher in the Rye. I love that book.
Jackie Morreale (18:26)
Absolutely, that's intense. So, every five years you're reading it with a totally different lens and yes, picking up different things.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (18:32)
Exactly. You pick up different things from it. You look at it differently as society changes. It's an interesting book.
Jackie Morreale (18:40)
I think the last one will have to stay separate, because knowing each other's favorite quote or mantra for life would be pretty incredible.
So let's say you both got four points, you both win, congratulations! (Yeah!)
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (18:50)
Thanks!
Dr. Kim O’Brien (18:51)
Thank you!
Jackie Morreale (18:53)
JJ, what is your favorite quote or mantra for life?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (18:57)
The Zen quote, 'Let go or be dragged.' This idea that you have to come to terms with the things that you're battling.
You have to make an effort to mourn or grieve whatever you've been dealing with. You can let it go, or it's just going to drag you through these beautiful things that you want to go through in your life.
That's been a huge thing for me. In those moments where I do want to hold on to some pain, some injustice, some stress, some beef that I may have, it just feels better to let that energy go and to be free of it, versus to white knuckle it and put a lot more value into it than there needs to be.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (19:34)
My favorite quote is the Henry Ford quote, 'Whether you think you can or can't, you're right.' I love that one so much.
I do have a mantra that I use a lot in sports that, for me, works. It's, 'Be in the shift you're in.' Or, be in the point you're in, or be in the shot you're in.
I'm someone who, my chatter gets going. I start thinking and worrying. When I start noticing I'm worrying about the outcome or how good my shot's going to be, whether I'm going to win the point, like if I'm going to score or make a mistake, I just say, 'Be in the...' whatever it is you're in. For me, that mantra works.
Jackie Morreale (20:08)
I don't remember exactly where it was in the book, but one of the things stuck with me. I think it was lacrosse practice, JJ, where somebody gave you the advice to just let the ball drop when you first get there. Then pick back up, and then you've already gotten that out of the way. I love that. Be in the shot that you're in, or be in the shift that you're in, depending on your sport.
Hidden talent?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (20:27)
I don't know if I have a hidden talent, but I do have weird stuff.
I have a pebble in my head that's been in there since kindergarten. I fell on the gymnasium monkey bar thing. Teacher cleaned my cut. I went home, told my mom. My mom looked at it, looked fine. A couple of days later it was red and infected. They did an x-ray and they were like, 'There's a pebble in here. We can either open up his head right here and pull the pebble out and there'll be a scar or we can treat it with antibiotics. The skin will close over it and it will eventually push the pebble out.' My mom's like, 'Let's do that,' because I was freaking out about the scalpel next to my face.
So they left it in and it just stayed there. It hasn't been pushed out.
Then my other thing that I usually use for 'two truths and a lie' is that I'm supposed to be a twin. My mom was pregnant, she heard two heartbeats and they thought they were going to have twins. When I was born, I was the only one that came out.
I didn't find out about this until I was 20.
There was a horror movie about a twin that was haunting the baby that was born and the person didn't know that they were a twin and my mom made a joke like, 'Oh, that could happen to you.' I was like, 'What are you talking about?' Then she went on to tell me that I was supposed to be a twin. This is not something you casually drop on somebody while we're sitting on the couch watching a trailer for a really bad horror movie.
I'd always felt like there was some weird part of me that was missing. My mom is a twin. We have tons of twins in our family. I always gravitated towards them without an explanation. That really helped prove to me that some truth had been finally unearthed.
Jackie Morreale (22:01)
They heard two heartbeats, and it was just one body. Wow.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (22:03)
That's interesting.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (22:05)
Yeah, there was something else in there. I can't remember what the other thing was found, in the afterbirth and in the delivery process, but there was some evidence, like a bigger placenta or a second placenta, but there was no evidence of it once came out. Kind of creepy.
Jackie Morreale (22:18)
I was not expecting you to say either one of those things. When you guys have done your thing with nonfiction, if you want to take it to fiction writing, I think you'd be really good at that based on your own life stories.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (22:29)
Hahaha!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (22:30)
Do a horror movie, yeah.
I do have a hidden talent. My hidden talent is that I can do some magic tricks.
When you work with kids, you have to sustain their attention a lot. I've developed or learned about two or three magic tricks that I use with young kids to get them back engaged.
I thought I would only use them for young kids, but they also work with adults. Everybody loves magic. I always encourage people to learn one or two magic tricks to keep in their back pocket so they can pull them out whenever they need them.
Jackie Morreale (22:58)
Kim, do you have any hidden talents?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (22:59)
I'll be honest, I really don't. I'm not super talented, but my husband would say, my talent is packing a beer fridge. If we're having people over and I have to take all the beer, whatever we have, and put it in, I make it look so good. I pack it to the brim and all organized. That's maybe the one thing I'd say so no, I don't really have any talents, unfortunately.
Jackie Morreale (23:22)
I bet you played Tetris really well once upon a time. Did you play that back in the 90s? Great game.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (23:25)
I do love Tetris. That's a great game. I played that a ton growing up. I like that kind of stuff.
Jackie Morreale (23:34)
Next time I pack my fridge, I'm going to think about you, Kim. And what a terrible job I'm doing, lol.
So let's talk more about your book, Mentality Wins, the Athletes Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life. The title says it all, 'Mentality Wins'. What does that actually mean to you both in practice?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (23:55)
For me, it means that in order to really fully get the most out of yourself as an athlete, it's all about finding that mental edge. Just like the physical work you do for your sport takes practice and reps, so does the mental side. That, to me, is what the title means.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (24:11)
For me, one of the things that we were focused on, was not focusing too much attention on 'winning' because winning is something that you have some control over, but it's not ultimately within your control.
You can have a 'winning mentality' and be part of a team that doesn't make it to the championship, that doesn't make it to the playoffs. But because of the way that you approach things, you are performing at a high level.
You are supporting your teammates, you are building a culture of determination and resilience that's going to help your team. Really helping people understand that, even if they're not in the most ideal situation, win or loss wise, they can still adopt a mentality or a mindset that can help them enjoy their sport, be competitive, and help the people around them.
Jackie Morreale (24:54)
You guys are sports clinicians. Obviously, your book is going to resonate with athletes, with coaches, with parents of athletes. But I would dare to say that your book is important for anyone to read because it's mentality, and a winning mentality in what you're describing and that work that you do to build that up, can apply to anyone, for their career, for their family life. It's so important to read the words that you have put together.
To further that, how are mental health and performance connected in ways that people might not fully understand before they read your book?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (25:28)
As a sports psychologist, there's Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), a big organization that does credentialing for sports psychologists and other certified mental performance consultants.
We want to teach people how to perform at a high level and thrive. That word 'thriving' is very, very important because it speaks to this life being flourished and this life being enriched due to the lessons, strategies, and routines you use with a mental skills consultant or certified mental skills performer.
This idea that we can do things to not only be able to do the job, to be the lawyer, to be the teacher, to be the accountant, but by doing it, our lives can be made better.
Our relationships can be made stronger and our connection with self can be made deeper if we approach it in a particular way.
That's the guidance and the way that we want people to approach seeing this book. Okay, I used to be an athlete or I never was, how is this going to help me improve my life, and live the life more aligned with my goals and values?
It's going to provide you with a strategy to take care of yourself mentally and emotionally so that you get to be in every great moment of your life.
It's really easy for us to be in the deepest, darkest moments of our lives, because they're very intense and our brain kind of forces us to be in that moment so we can avoid it in the future. It's really hard for us to be in the birthdays, the celebrations, the beautiful, the mundane, but those moments are really important for us to remember, too, and attach to so we can have gratitude for them.
I'm 42. One day, I'm going to hopefully be 82. I really need to be present in these moments in my 40s, 50s, or 60s so that when I am older, and I miss those moments, I can call them back with detail, with fervor, with energy, with enthusiasm so I don't feel like I wasted them. I feel like they're carried with me throughout the course of my life.
That's what we really want people to do. We want you to be grounded.
Be where your feet are and really enjoy these moments that they can be with you as you progress through life.
Jackie Morreale (27:24)
That's so beautiful. You guys are the doctors in the house. Why is that the sad reality that we can recall these deep, dark moments and some of those really happy moments, those little things that we should be celebrating in such a big way, are hard to recall in detail?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (27:39)
It's all about ‘attentional bias’, meaning as human beings, we're wired to have our attention drawn to the negative. That was, back in the day, how we survived. But now, we don't necessarily need that anymore. But because our brains are wired to be attuned to the negative, we actually have to practice turning our attention to the positives.
JJ is talking about, this idea of 'savoring' is being able to feel when something positive is happening to it with all of your senses and ‘savor’ it and have it, you know, stay, that feeling stay with you longer and have you be able to recall it later on when you need it most.
We are growing our understanding that mental health and performance are connected in such a positive way.
When I was playing, it was different. People thought you had to sacrifice your mental health for your performance. What we know now is that's not true at all.
The opposite is true. When you feel good, you're going to perform well.
That's really the whole point of this book that JJ and I wrote is, you we want to make sure athletes understand this idea, 'Feel great, play great.' You've got to take care of your whole self in order to be able to perform well. You come first as a person, athlete second. If you really take care of yourself, the performance will come more naturally.
(Continued below)
Check out the website to complement the book, at: mentalitywins.com
(Continued)
Jackie Morreale (28:54)
In the flourish section, you guys wrote, 'You'll explore your values, purpose, and identity and learn to prevent and recover from injuries and burnout and build strong support systems all while maintaining the perspective that you're a human first and your sport is simply something that you do.' How beautiful is that?
Kim, can you please share one simple, actionable routine from the book that any athlete or even a non-athlete can start today?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (29:20)
Sure. One of the most underrated mental skills that young people and athletes can work on is their self-talk. Self-talk is the internal narrative you have that makes sense of yourself and your situations, shaping how you interpret them.
If you talk to yourself really negatively all the time, you're going to interpret yourself to be more negative and your environment to be more negative. But if you speak more positively about yourself and your environment, you're going to be more hopeful and have more opportunity, and you're going to feel better and perform better. One actionable routine that we talk about in the book is this self-talk tool called 'recognize and replace.'
Simply recognize what your self-talk looks like. In the book, we also talk about doing an audit of your self-talk to see how much is negative, how much is positive. Ultimately, when you start to realize that you are having some negative self-talk, you first recognize it. What is it that you're saying? Maybe you're saying, 'I can't do this.'
Once you recognize it, you can then replace it with something positive, or if positive feels too hard at first, you can replace it with something neutral. By neutral, we mean something that is directly related to the sport you're playing.
Maybe it's 'swing through the ball,' or 'ride hard,' or whatever that's related to your sport.
You focus on the thing that you need to do rather than that negative internal self-talk.
A lot of young athletes may feel it's silly at first to speak so positively to yourself. But I often ask athletes, 'What's the alternative?' You're either speaking in a way that feels silly or in a way that feels mean.
Ultimately, you're going to want to pick the silly one.
Speaking positively to yourself or using positive affirmations is not silly. It's self-respect.
It's something that we should all be speaking to each other with.
Jackie Morreale (31:07)
JJ, I don't know how you're going to follow up on that one, but is there any other one step that readers can take? One simple, actionable routine from the book that any athlete or person can take forward to improve their own mentality?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (31:20)
Beyond some of the ones that we already spoke about, play, savoring, the big one that sticks out to me, and the one that's made a huge impact on me as I've gotten older, has been the difference between a pregame ritual and a pregame routine. A lot of people are familiar with a ‘pregame routine’. It's how you get your body warm. You get your body ready for competition. A lot of people are incorporating pregame ritual without even knowing it.
For us, we really think about ‘pregame ritual’ as what do you do to feel not so isolated while you're out there, on the court, to field, the ice, wherever you're competing.
What are you going to do to ground yourself in the love?
Shield yourself with the love to yourself, the love coming from other people that's going to help you be able to be as successful as possible? A pregame ritual for me when I lift weights or if I go for a run, is, I'll blow three kisses before I start.
One will be for myself, because you have always got to put your oxygen mask on before anybody else's. One will be for my wife, and then one will be for our son.
This idea that I'm doing this in celebration and as an act of love for the three people that I love the most in this world. It grounds me and makes me feel not only that I have their protection as I'm doing a late-night training run or as I'm lifting in the gym by myself, but that it also makes the experience have an extra sense of worth and investment.
Even if I planned on doing an hour workout and I still only got 45 minutes in, wow, that's 45 minutes of investment that I made into our family to help keep our family healthier, stronger, and together, maybe for a few more hours.
Maybe that workout adds 15 more minutes to my life. That ritual embodies that ability for me to think about that in a positive way, which then allows me to push really hard. What we see sometimes when we work with athletes is they don't do the ritual.
When they're out there, they feel really isolated.
Everybody in the stands looking at them. They look at the clock and the clock is judging them or the scoreboard's judging them or their opponents or their coaches. They don't feel that interpersonal protection.
Doing more of that pregame ritual can give them a feeling that they have people in their corner, and people that have their back win or lose that are going to hug them and love them after the game.
Jackie Morreale (33:27)
Man, if we see a whole bunch of runners at the starting line of races giving kisses, we're going to know that everybody wants to be like JJ, and has read this book, heard this message, lol.
This is like finding your why, right? It's sort of similar because you're talking about identifying the core group in your life that's the most important to you, and how these next 45 minutes might add some time with those people. That's such a beautiful way to extrapolate and think big about what might seem like a small step that you're taking in that direction.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (33:59)
Think about when you win. When you win, you want to call somebody. You want to talk to somebody.
Who's the first person you want to call when you get that job?
Who's the first person you want to call when you get accepted to college or high school or whatever?
Who's the first person you want to call when you tell them that you're pregnant or something like that?
You want to have these successes, not just for yourself, but so you can share them with the people that you love.
Oftentimes when stress hits, when anxiety hits, when mental health hits and hurts us, we forget about how many people are not excited for us because we won, but excited for us because we are enjoying ourselves. We are living in the moment. We're experiencing loss and success, so really grounding yourself by staying connected to those relationships and reminding yourself that, not only am I doing this for myself so that I can be successful, but I'm also doing this in service of friends and family that are really excited about this adventure.
Jackie Morreale (34:51)
What is one take-home message you want every young athlete to take away from your book, Mentality Wins?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (34:59)
You are more important than your sport. You need to take care of yourself and become an expert on yourself and what things work for you to help yourself, your longevity, both in and out of sport.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (35:11)
Just reminding athletes and people in general, there are more people out there that love you than you think. Your reach and your breath and your depth of those relationships is probably a lot deeper than you think.
When you feel isolated, know that that feeling of isolation at times can be a lie, and that deep down there a bundle of people who are willing to go to bat for you, willing to fight for you and willing to declare how much they love and care for you.
Reminding people of that because life can get isolating, but we are members of a community, and our community fights for us.
Jackie Morreale (35:41)
What a gift you guys are to the rest of us. Thank you for coming together, putting your brain power together to make this book and get your message out there. Let's talk about that bigger group of people who you matter to and the people who helped you get to where you guys are today. Shout outs to anyone out there that you think is doing a really great job, or anyone to thank for helping you get to where you are today?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (36:05)
For me, always my most important thank you is to my family. My husband, children, extended family. I know JJ feels the same.
In terms of who's doing a great job, I want to give a shout out to the clinicians at my practice. I run a mental health practice for athletes by athletes called Unlimited Resilience.
I have 16 amazing sport clinicians who work with all different types of athletes and they've all different areas of expertise in sports. They are always putting the athletes first. By athletes first, I mean the person first and in how they're working with them. They're not just working on sport performance; it's working with the athlete as a whole person. They're amazing clinicians.
Jackie Morreale (36:44)
Wow, congratulations to you and your team, and thank you again for what you do every single day. Do you sleep? I'm just curious.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (36:51)
Yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (36:52)
I am a huge that's why. I think that's why I can do what I can do, because I sleep. You need to sleep.
Jackie Morreale (36:58)
You guys have so much going on. So important. Don't know how you find the time. You have so much amazing work going on. JJ, any shout-outs?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (37:00)
The fam for sure. Friends and family have been just so instrumental, particularly during this year.
Kim and I have been hitting the pavement, getting the word out about the book. There's been so many sacrifices that our son has made, my wife has made, I just can't thank them enough for that, and my friends.
In terms of people doing it well, I think there are several nonprofits that Kim and I both support and do a lot of work with.
The Hidden Opponent does some great things with athletes.
Katie Saves does some great things with athlete mental health and around suicide prevention and also debriefing after athlete suicide.
Kyle Cares locally here in Boston and the New England area does a great job of getting mental health services into schools so that we reduce the barrier for young people.
One of my mentors, Justin Sua, met him at the Red Sox. He's a great man and kept me in this field.
Then, a special shout-out for me would be Dr. Price, who used to be the medical director of the Patriots. He was there when I started. He unfortunately passed away due to cancer but he was just such a tremendously amazing guy. I just cherish the time that I had with him. Also, I became a dad while he was working there and gave me lot of fatherly advice that I still use today.
Jackie Morreale (38:17)
It takes a village. Dr. Price, rest in peace. Congratulations to all the folks that you shouted out. What is next for you, Dr. Jonathan Jenkins and Dr. Kim O'Brien?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (38:29)
I'm taking Kim's advice. Get me some sleep.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (38:32)
We're take some time to, reflect and relax. We're still doing a bunch of talks here and are very grateful that are getting a lot of requests to speak, which has been really fun.
This summer, I'm going to take off and just relax. I think it's really overrated, this idea of being busy all the time. Being able to unwind and spend time with people you love, at least for me, that's my point.
Jackie Morreale (38:56)
JJ, what's next?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (38:58)
Trying to get back into making some art and letting my creative side go. The creative side was really in full force while writing the book, but I like doing some visual stuff, too. Also getting my body right. I've had a few aches and pains, and am just spending more attention to the body. I think I spent last year a lot of my mind and my mental health, and I want to rebalance to make sure that my body is in a good place as well.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (39:21)
We have our course that we've created based on the book, too, that that's going to be coming up.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (39:26)
That's true.
Jackie Morreale (39:26)
Tell me about this course.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (39:27)
We've had a lot of requests from different sports academies and schools about whether you have a curriculum around the book. We have a course that can be anywhere from a short course, four weeks, all the way up to a 12-week course, that you would do in a classic high school or college.
Jackie Morreale (39:43)
I can't wait to hear all the glorious things that happen with this Mentality Wins that you put together. It'll impact so many different schools, so many different athletes, young and old, professional, casual. I really appreciate how down-to-earth you guys are, considering all the knowledge that you've imparted, and I'm grateful for the things that you've shared.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (39:57)
Thanks for having us.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (40:00)
Thanks for having us!
Jackie Morreale (40:06)
Absolutely! Thank you guys so much for being here. Go save the world!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (40:10)
We're trying, trust us. We try!
Jackie Morreale (40:12)
Thank you both again. Have a wonderful day.
To learn more about the Mentality Wins book and program, visit: www.mentalitywins.com
Jackie Morreale (28:54)
In the flourish section, you guys wrote, 'You'll explore your values, purpose, and identity and learn to prevent and recover from injuries and burnout and build strong support systems all while maintaining the perspective that you're a human first and your sport is simply something that you do.' How beautiful is that?
Kim, can you please share one simple, actionable routine from the book that any athlete or even a non-athlete can start today?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (29:20)
Sure. One of the most underrated mental skills that young people and athletes can work on is their self-talk. Self-talk is the internal narrative you have that makes sense of yourself and your situations, shaping how you interpret them.
If you talk to yourself really negatively all the time, you're going to interpret yourself to be more negative and your environment to be more negative. But if you speak more positively about yourself and your environment, you're going to be more hopeful and have more opportunity, and you're going to feel better and perform better. One actionable routine that we talk about in the book is this self-talk tool called 'recognize and replace.'
Simply recognize what your self-talk looks like. In the book, we also talk about doing an audit of your self-talk to see how much is negative, how much is positive. Ultimately, when you start to realize that you are having some negative self-talk, you first recognize it. What is it that you're saying? Maybe you're saying, 'I can't do this.'
Once you recognize it, you can then replace it with something positive, or if positive feels too hard at first, you can replace it with something neutral. By neutral, we mean something that is directly related to the sport you're playing.
Maybe it's 'swing through the ball,' or 'ride hard,' or whatever that's related to your sport.
You focus on the thing that you need to do rather than that negative internal self-talk.
A lot of young athletes may feel it's silly at first to speak so positively to yourself. But I often ask athletes, 'What's the alternative?' You're either speaking in a way that feels silly or in a way that feels mean.
Ultimately, you're going to want to pick the silly one.
Speaking positively to yourself or using positive affirmations is not silly. It's self-respect.
It's something that we should all be speaking to each other with.
Jackie Morreale (31:07)
JJ, I don't know how you're going to follow up on that one, but is there any other one step that readers can take? One simple, actionable routine from the book that any athlete or person can take forward to improve their own mentality?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (31:20)
Beyond some of the ones that we already spoke about, play, savoring, the big one that sticks out to me, and the one that's made a huge impact on me as I've gotten older, has been the difference between a pregame ritual and a pregame routine. A lot of people are familiar with a ‘pregame routine’. It's how you get your body warm. You get your body ready for competition. A lot of people are incorporating pregame ritual without even knowing it.
For us, we really think about ‘pregame ritual’ as what do you do to feel not so isolated while you're out there, on the court, to field, the ice, wherever you're competing.
What are you going to do to ground yourself in the love?
Shield yourself with the love to yourself, the love coming from other people that's going to help you be able to be as successful as possible? A pregame ritual for me when I lift weights or if I go for a run, is, I'll blow three kisses before I start.
One will be for myself, because you have always got to put your oxygen mask on before anybody else's. One will be for my wife, and then one will be for our son.
This idea that I'm doing this in celebration and as an act of love for the three people that I love the most in this world. It grounds me and makes me feel not only that I have their protection as I'm doing a late-night training run or as I'm lifting in the gym by myself, but that it also makes the experience have an extra sense of worth and investment.
Even if I planned on doing an hour workout and I still only got 45 minutes in, wow, that's 45 minutes of investment that I made into our family to help keep our family healthier, stronger, and together, maybe for a few more hours.
Maybe that workout adds 15 more minutes to my life. That ritual embodies that ability for me to think about that in a positive way, which then allows me to push really hard. What we see sometimes when we work with athletes is they don't do the ritual.
When they're out there, they feel really isolated.
Everybody in the stands looking at them. They look at the clock and the clock is judging them or the scoreboard's judging them or their opponents or their coaches. They don't feel that interpersonal protection.
Doing more of that pregame ritual can give them a feeling that they have people in their corner, and people that have their back win or lose that are going to hug them and love them after the game.
Jackie Morreale (33:27)
Man, if we see a whole bunch of runners at the starting line of races giving kisses, we're going to know that everybody wants to be like JJ, and has read this book, heard this message, lol.
This is like finding your why, right? It's sort of similar because you're talking about identifying the core group in your life that's the most important to you, and how these next 45 minutes might add some time with those people. That's such a beautiful way to extrapolate and think big about what might seem like a small step that you're taking in that direction.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (33:59)
Think about when you win. When you win, you want to call somebody. You want to talk to somebody.
Who's the first person you want to call when you get that job?
Who's the first person you want to call when you get accepted to college or high school or whatever?
Who's the first person you want to call when you tell them that you're pregnant or something like that?
You want to have these successes, not just for yourself, but so you can share them with the people that you love.
Oftentimes when stress hits, when anxiety hits, when mental health hits and hurts us, we forget about how many people are not excited for us because we won, but excited for us because we are enjoying ourselves. We are living in the moment. We're experiencing loss and success, so really grounding yourself by staying connected to those relationships and reminding yourself that, not only am I doing this for myself so that I can be successful, but I'm also doing this in service of friends and family that are really excited about this adventure.
Jackie Morreale (34:51)
What is one take-home message you want every young athlete to take away from your book, Mentality Wins?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (34:59)
You are more important than your sport. You need to take care of yourself and become an expert on yourself and what things work for you to help yourself, your longevity, both in and out of sport.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (35:11)
Just reminding athletes and people in general, there are more people out there that love you than you think. Your reach and your breath and your depth of those relationships is probably a lot deeper than you think.
When you feel isolated, know that that feeling of isolation at times can be a lie, and that deep down there a bundle of people who are willing to go to bat for you, willing to fight for you and willing to declare how much they love and care for you.
Reminding people of that because life can get isolating, but we are members of a community, and our community fights for us.
Jackie Morreale (35:41)
What a gift you guys are to the rest of us. Thank you for coming together, putting your brain power together to make this book and get your message out there. Let's talk about that bigger group of people who you matter to and the people who helped you get to where you guys are today. Shout outs to anyone out there that you think is doing a really great job, or anyone to thank for helping you get to where you are today?
Dr. Kim O’Brien (36:05)
For me, always my most important thank you is to my family. My husband, children, extended family. I know JJ feels the same.
In terms of who's doing a great job, I want to give a shout out to the clinicians at my practice. I run a mental health practice for athletes by athletes called Unlimited Resilience.
I have 16 amazing sport clinicians who work with all different types of athletes and they've all different areas of expertise in sports. They are always putting the athletes first. By athletes first, I mean the person first and in how they're working with them. They're not just working on sport performance; it's working with the athlete as a whole person. They're amazing clinicians.
Jackie Morreale (36:44)
Wow, congratulations to you and your team, and thank you again for what you do every single day. Do you sleep? I'm just curious.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (36:51)
Yes.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (36:52)
I am a huge that's why. I think that's why I can do what I can do, because I sleep. You need to sleep.
Jackie Morreale (36:58)
You guys have so much going on. So important. Don't know how you find the time. You have so much amazing work going on. JJ, any shout-outs?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (37:00)
The fam for sure. Friends and family have been just so instrumental, particularly during this year.
Kim and I have been hitting the pavement, getting the word out about the book. There's been so many sacrifices that our son has made, my wife has made, I just can't thank them enough for that, and my friends.
In terms of people doing it well, I think there are several nonprofits that Kim and I both support and do a lot of work with.
The Hidden Opponent does some great things with athletes.
Katie Saves does some great things with athlete mental health and around suicide prevention and also debriefing after athlete suicide.
Kyle Cares locally here in Boston and the New England area does a great job of getting mental health services into schools so that we reduce the barrier for young people.
One of my mentors, Justin Sua, met him at the Red Sox. He's a great man and kept me in this field.
Then, a special shout-out for me would be Dr. Price, who used to be the medical director of the Patriots. He was there when I started. He unfortunately passed away due to cancer but he was just such a tremendously amazing guy. I just cherish the time that I had with him. Also, I became a dad while he was working there and gave me lot of fatherly advice that I still use today.
Jackie Morreale (38:17)
It takes a village. Dr. Price, rest in peace. Congratulations to all the folks that you shouted out. What is next for you, Dr. Jonathan Jenkins and Dr. Kim O'Brien?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (38:29)
I'm taking Kim's advice. Get me some sleep.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (38:32)
We're take some time to, reflect and relax. We're still doing a bunch of talks here and are very grateful that are getting a lot of requests to speak, which has been really fun.
This summer, I'm going to take off and just relax. I think it's really overrated, this idea of being busy all the time. Being able to unwind and spend time with people you love, at least for me, that's my point.
Jackie Morreale (38:56)
JJ, what's next?
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (38:58)
Trying to get back into making some art and letting my creative side go. The creative side was really in full force while writing the book, but I like doing some visual stuff, too. Also getting my body right. I've had a few aches and pains, and am just spending more attention to the body. I think I spent last year a lot of my mind and my mental health, and I want to rebalance to make sure that my body is in a good place as well.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (39:21)
We have our course that we've created based on the book, too, that that's going to be coming up.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (39:26)
That's true.
Jackie Morreale (39:26)
Tell me about this course.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (39:27)
We've had a lot of requests from different sports academies and schools about whether you have a curriculum around the book. We have a course that can be anywhere from a short course, four weeks, all the way up to a 12-week course, that you would do in a classic high school or college.
Jackie Morreale (39:43)
I can't wait to hear all the glorious things that happen with this Mentality Wins that you put together. It'll impact so many different schools, so many different athletes, young and old, professional, casual. I really appreciate how down-to-earth you guys are, considering all the knowledge that you've imparted, and I'm grateful for the things that you've shared.
Dr. Kim O’Brien (39:57)
Thanks for having us.
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (40:00)
Thanks for having us!
Jackie Morreale (40:06)
Absolutely! Thank you guys so much for being here. Go save the world!
Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (40:10)
We're trying, trust us. We try!
Jackie Morreale (40:12)
Thank you both again. Have a wonderful day.
To learn more about the Mentality Wins book and program, visit: www.mentalitywins.com
Dr. Kim O'Brien is the founder of Unlimited Resilience. Click to explore the company website and therapy services, for athletes by athletes.
Continued reading, recommended by Dr. Kim O'Brien and Dr. Jonathan Jenkins:
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Mentality Wins: The Athlete's Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life Paperback. Published January 26, 2026. By Dr. Jonathan Jenkins (Author), Dr. Kimberly O'Brien (Author).
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The Catcher in the Rye. Paperback – January 30, 2001. By J. D. Salinger (Author).
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Indian Killer. Paperback – July 1, 2008. By Sherman Alexie (Author).
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