🤽‍♂️ Game Changer: Adding Value to Sports and Life with David Carrasco

• (Fredi) How are you, David?

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• (David) Hello, Fredi. Very good. How are you?

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• (Fredi) I'm fine. Thanks for asking. I feel great now that you are here, because normally you are in the United States and unfortunately, distance is not so easy to communicate. Come on, that finally shows. It's very noticeable, Yes. So I'm going to tell you a little bit that you already know more or less. But so that the people who listen to us know why you are here, apart from the fact that I already told you the other day that I admire you a lot. Okay, We know each other from the water polo part. I'll take you, right? I don't know if one or two generations ahead, but for me you say it, I have to guess the age. Well, yes I guessed it. To me already. I have already overcome that. Me, but come on, it has been a pride for me to share, even if it was just a few games with you, me being more senior than you. But you already started with the first team in some ruby swimming and there you eat. Well, you started, yes. Not in itself. Ruby swimming and I already tell you that I admire you a lot in this aspect for how you have been weathering. Well, in the world of water polo there are many things and there is a lot of effort that has to be put into it and such. And you have demonstrated or I have observed different attributes in your person, apart from effort, discipline, leadership that are not common to see in most people. And that, well, I wanted at the level of talking about mental models and these things, but at the level of things, how you see it, how, how you apply it and how it comes out even naturally. I think it's interesting for people to know a little bit about your perspective and I'm silent. I mean, I wanted to hear a little more from you. Well that's it, an intro from you. How did you start? I don't know. Count, count a little.

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• Well, I started in the club as a result of courses at school that we were going to do and a swimming instructor that we all know. Eloy suggested that I do water polo swimming. Well, I entered sports school and started from there. Then I trained in the club categories when I was a cadet. I managed to make my debut in the first team, which was the first game we played in Nacional, in Metropol and in the youth team among the Spanish pre-selection. Not at all. The first year I went to the European team and the following year I played in Sabadell for two years. The first year we qualified for the final round of the Champions League, which is the first time in history that Sabadell qualified for the Champions League when they are now playing very well in the Champions League. And then I got the opportunity to go to the United States and I have been a player in the United States for three years and now I am the assistant coach at the same university where that was at the sporting level. That has been my trajectory.

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• (Fredi) You have concentrated everything in thirty seconds, your pitch is great, but in between there have been many stories. If you had to say what has helped you the most at a mental level, to reach those milestones that are not easy, what would they be? Which one would you highlight?

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• (David) Let's say discipline and not letting others change your story or be interesting, because right now I was thinking that I spoke in my introduction only about water polo, but a very, very, very important part of my career as water polo player was that I was a swimmer and I remember that in the club, when we changed from children's fry from twelve to thirteen years old, we could stop doing one of the two disciplines. We were obliged to do both disciplines up to second year juniors and in infants we could only do one discipline and I liked swimming a lot and there was a conflict in the coach change club in which people spoke out in favor of the coach who was there before. and there was Yes, there was a change and I decided to quit because it was what most people were going to do when I liked swimming and my mother didn't let me quit because she already knew that I liked swimming and in the end it was The best decision my mother made me make. Basically, I was clearly not forced. I wanted to continue swimming, but here I see the first time that I can apply what I just told you about others not dictating what you have to do and that if you like something, because others are not going to do it. do, you stop doing it. And in the end, having done swimming has given me other values and I have been able to live other experiences that have helped me a lot on both a personal and sporting level, in water polo and in my life.

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• (Fredi) In other words, at twelve and thirteen there is a concept that there are many people who I think we don't quite grasp even at older ages. The thing is that we are conditioned, the conditions do not come to us and we have to weather it, adapt to what is presented to us. And you realized that at twelve or thirteen maybe you can change that path, that it doesn't have to be marked, but listen, and why can't I do this? I mean, that's how your mother helped you, right?

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• (David) Let's see this, yes. My mother helped me to see that because my friends or my teammates decided not to continue swimming, because in the end swimming is a much more sacrificial sport than water polo because it is an individual sport and in the end the only thing you do is like that. In his own way, swim above the line that my companions, that my companions' decisions will not affect. What I like will not affect my future at the level of I am going to stop doing something that I like because others have decided that they do not want to do it. And that is the first example that thanks to this, I just saw that you don't think about it. It's there, in your subconscious. Let's say you have it, but you don't think about it, You don't have it as a clear example. And now, as it has refreshed me, whether to continue in what I was not very good at swimming in the Catalan Championships, I was fifth or sixth and the children's team with the change of coach. Well, I did make an exponential leap from being fifth or sixth to becoming champion of Catalonia, runner-up in Spain at my age. And it wouldn't have been possible if I had followed the trend of my classmates by leaving swimming because he didn't like swimming.

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• (Fredi) What percentage do you attribute? Well, if a percentage can be applied or what relative importance do you attribute to your mental strength versus your physical ability to focus on this aspect of swimming in water polo? If you had to apply a percentage or an importance, both equally, one more than the other.

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• (David) I don't know what to tell you well, well, because it is true that in terms of physical ability, although I am not very tall, my athletic ability, let's say, is very high because I have always been good at any sport and no matter what I do. . On a sporting level I have always been able to remove basketball. I have always defended myself very well and I have always been above average in school and everything at a sporting level was always above average.

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• (Fredi) And now here is a parenthesis, because here it is a sport of water polo, for example, there are people who can calmly weigh twice as much as you and people who are two meters tall and you are in...

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• (David) about sixty-six seven.

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• (Fredi) That for me is Estiarte and then you come. Come on, your ability to adapt has also allowed you to be faster and you have known how to adapt to that, but it is not the skills of spatial movement, but also of knowledge of the game, of being smart. That is, the non-mental part. It is important. I mean, so that people also position themselves a little to see this. It's impressive what you can do in the water too.

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• (David) Yes, I would say it's a mix, because what you just mentioned, the proprioception that I have in the water, not all players have it. I know, I believe. Come on, my coaches can say it or they can't deny it, but I know how to change my mistakes technically much faster than others, let's say if I, without seeing the position of my foot, know where my foot is and it seems silly. And as a coach I know how it works, which is very difficult. This perception. Not everyone has it because I have trained children and you are telling them that their right hand is touching the water and they think that the right hand is in the air when it is touching the water. So it is something that we can attribute, that my physical abilities have helped on a mental level. Also why train four hours when you are fifteen years old, fourteen years old, when my teammates did not train four hours. They trained two and I, as I did both disciplines, did swimming. And right after swimming, I trained Water Polo. Maybe it was three and a half or four hours straight. My colleagues didn't do that. So, on a mental level there was a burden and discipline, sacrifice. I don't know what definition it would have, but if I define it as if you are going to do something, you do it one hundred percent and you are not half measures, let's say if you do swimming, do swimming, all the training. And if you do water polo, do water polo every practice. Not because I swim. He already stopped swimming, which was the case because he didn't need anything, but he had already swum. But I didn't skip training. During that hour of training when my teammates were swimming, I did other things and that helped. Tremendous, incredibly. It was incredible how being able to swim helped me improve as a water polo player. Because in that hour that I was swimming before a training hour and a half that they swam from water polo training, when I went to water polo training and my water polo teammates were swimming, I was shooting at the goalkeepers. So the repetitions that when I was fifteen or sixteen years old I was doing shots, my teammates were not doing them because I had been doing shots for an hour more than that. I noticed it a lot in the cadet category, then youth I do know by strength level and everything is equalized a little, but in cadet, mainly that right in cadet I was the best player in Catalonia of the category in the Catalan Championship every day I I spent an hour shooting when my teammates were swimming, because I had already swam two hours before. So, I know that and at that moment I don't.

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• (Fredi) How do you prepare your mind? Also at the end there are certain sacrifices and at those ages, because there are many people, because we have other interests, perhaps. And distractions we can have too. It was natural for you to have that focus on what you had or had distractions and you had to make an extra effort to keep that focus where you needed to have it.

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• (David) I think, from my point of view, my mother could say it better because I have already seen her from the outside and so has my father. But on a personal level it was very natural, for example, my classmates did when they were sixteen and started going to parties in the evenings in Sabadell and such puzzles, things like that, and that was something that had never interested me. I was very focused on what I told you before. If I do it, I do it one hundred percent and I was very focused on what I wanted to do and I trained, I swam, I played games and I didn't care about getting lost, partying or getting lost My best friends from school were going to play soccer, they were going to play soccer. the Parker to the bike skate season and I didn't care about the power, skipping that or losing that experience, because what I did filled me up and it was something that gladly doesn't sting. I was training four hours just before, when I said that the best Water Polo player in Catalonia became champion, it is an anecdote that, well, I will always remember it, because that same day the Catalan Swimming Championships coincided with the Catalan Championships. Water polo and on Sunday my swimming modality was butterfly, the one hundred and two hundred butterfly. On Sunday, which was the water polo final, the two hundred butterfly test was swum in the Catalan champion and it was in the CNB, in the Barcelona Swimming Club and the Catalonia water polo championship. It was in Las Picornell. In the morning I went swimming. The qualifying of the two hundred butterfly at twelve or so. I had to go up to Montjuic, to Picornell, to play in the final, which we went to Barceloneta and lost, but more than five goals before I had warmed up swimming. I had done the two hundred butterfly test and then I went to play. We talk about ruby.

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• (Fredi) We talk about the Rubi Swimming Club so that people who are not familiar with water polo, El Rubí had never before been at those levels of qualification for Spanish championships. That is, you also equipped with another. A staff that has helped a lot with the coaches in history. But come on, to put it in context it was very difficult to have reached those levels.

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• (David) Yes, our generation was the first to qualify for a Spanish cadet championship in Rubí. So you were there on the same day, the same day was the final of the two hundred butterfly test. I swam in the morning, went to play and just finished the game. After the medal presentation, all my water polo teammates went to celebrate and I went to swim in the final. Two hundred butterfly and I was third, third from Catalina, two hundred butterfly after having done a match after having done the qualification in the morning and the match. And of course, in those categories you played the entire game because there were four or five of us of the age who played better. So there wasn't that much. We didn't play that much Rot. So that's something that never affected me. As you said before, that others were doing one thing and I stopped doing things or that I lost experiences due to the decisions I had made to do both disciplines. I didn't do it with pleasure and I loved being able to swim in the morning, play and swim at the end of the afternoon was something that I liked and I wouldn't have changed it for the world. I wouldn't have changed anything in the final in the afternoon, to go and celebrate, that we came second and that I would be the best player in Catalonia. I wouldn't have changed it.
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• (Fredi) You were in your element. They don't call it when you're in Flow, you're long and there you are. Was Are you happy? And there is nothing else outside of that. Exact. I was going to train swimming and well, swimming is a very hard sport because there are many hours, many meters on a physical level, it is very demanding and at the level of water polo, the majority of water polo players do not like swimming.

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• (Fredi) And I am I am aware. I am one of these.

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• (David) It is very difficult to find a Tripoli man who likes the swimming part of training. I think no one. I am one of the few who liked to swim in training. So that's something that helped if I liked swimming and lived it that way. Of course, it helped so that I didn't, I didn't think, I didn't have those second thoughts of what if I were doing this and instead of going to swim training at six in the morning and then going to school and then going to train again at three leaving school and then training again at seven for water polo, what will my day be? No, no, I never considered quitting because others were doing something else that I might like or I already liked what I was doing.

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• (Fredi) And in perspective, you can tell me what has been a challenge that you have already seen and it does not have to be within the water polo of sport in life, the biggest challenge that you have ever had to go through.

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• (David) Well, I think I'm going through it right now. The biggest challenge that is. Well, what I've been through so far is As I mentioned before, I'm in the United States. Leaving your family for a professional career is worth it. It is not worth it on a financial level, it is worth earning more there and losing what I am losing from here, from my family is here. My friends are here, Here I can do things I like. I'm comfortable. Oh, betting on my professional career a little and for me it is also on a financial level, because the salaries are very different. Sacrificing these years of working there, losing what I just mentioned for peace of mind in the future is worth it. Me. And it is, let's say it's the worst, the worst stage I've ever gone through on a personal level, apart from sports, making decisions, leaving the family to stay there is the worst, yes.

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• (Fredi) And now that you mention this it is also interesting if you can explain a little the change of perspective that has been for you, because now well, you go from a phase where you are a very good player, where you contribute a lot to the team and now you You see from a perspective as a coach, can you tell me a little about how you are handling the transition and what is perhaps what you are learning more about now? Things that maybe you didn't know before.

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• (David) What I have learned the most, let's say, is team management, team management. And what I have noticed most is the difference in perspective that the players have and that the coaches have at the training level. As a player, if you do the training, aren't you tired? Of course, you don't plan the training, you don't decide what you are going to do tomorrow, because the coach imposes it on you. Now, as a coach I do think much more about the issue of loads, the issue of what exercises we are going to do to achieve the objectives we need or to improve what the team lacks. And yes, I have seen or noticed. What do I lose that feeling of physical burden when I trained as I experienced it firsthand? Sure, you know if you're loaded, if you're not loaded, but now,...

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• (Fredi) loaded you mean the physical fatigue of sports people, of athletes.

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• (David) Exactly. As a coach, by not doing the training in person, I can make the decision that this week will be heavier in terms of training, intensity, volume and then my perception is different from what the players have. And that is what I am learning the most and managing the bench, managing the training, managing the directions you give them, being able to get the most out of the players when in certain situations. When a player is on a day when nothing is going for him and there are external factors that also come into play, knowing how to handle it, knowing how to talk to them, being able to make them forget what has happened so that they continue to trust and they do something that they have done. always. It's the beautiful part, let's say.

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• (Fredi) It is very interesting that you say this because I also saw you in some situations as a player, taking actions, but in a quite natural way, because you were quite young leading a group leading some situations that were complex. Well, that is in the finals of the Spanish championships, etc. Where people, I believe, followed you as a leader and this empathy that you demonstrate now in some way you continue to project as a coach. Well, you did it in one. Now you press it as a coach and you speak in a way that without having been, I think, if you don't correct me, more management assignments, because in the end companies are also about taking teams of people where they have good days, bad days. You have to know how to lead people and at some point you are also learning from this part, even if it is not a more corporate environment, more of people management or a team of I don't know what a more common company may be, but it You are doing and learning from a sports team that is still a team, right? And it's very interesting how you're approaching it.

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• (David) yes. I think it's good to continue with the topic now, but speaking of my brother, my brother is now doing his master's degree to be a physical education teacher. He did INEF and is now doing the master's degree to be a teacher and one of the benefits. He is also a coach of the benefits that we have by having trained children and by running teams, I think it is much easier or well, easier. It also depends on the person, but we have experienced some things that there are managers or teachers who reach those positions and not having experienced those things previously or not having previous experience in carrying equipment, it is very difficult for them to carry equipment. And my brother was just talking about it last week with him, that his classmates say, they ask some questions that I don't understand and it's because they haven't brought, they haven't brought any equipment and they don't know how to manage a team. . There are situations that are beyond them. The teacher presents them with a situation and most students overcome that situation. And my brother sees it as natural because he has already experienced them since he was sixteen. I started as a coach when I was fifteen, helping Alex Ortiz. And we have experienced those situations both of taking children, taking the players as well as managing the parents, we were lucky that the sports director Dani was in charge of managing the parents because we were young, but you have managed them anyway. and the games you see the parents in training, you talk to the parents you meet the parents, you have to know how to manage both the team and what is behind the team and behind the children. And they are families; each family has a different situation, different conflicts. So that at the corporate level and at the level of a normal company, let's say, is noticeable. I think it is noticeable and is a plus point that athletes can add to the companies and athletes who have been coaches. They carry emotional baggage at the level of group management that another person, no matter how many studies they have, may not know how to apply and do not know how to manage them in the same way. And I do believe that athletes have the values of sport, adding the values of sport as in the role of coach. I think they help a lot on a professional level. Once the sport is over and that would be the case, I think it should be valued more and it would have to be advocated for the athletes who in the end have been sacrificing their entire career for a sport. They have sacrificed studying, getting a degree in four years. Maybe they got it in eight, they don't have work experience, but they have sports experience and society doesn't give importance to that in companies, sports experience is not given importance, only work experience .

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• (Fredi) Well, perhaps in more areas, let's say in the United States. There maybe more if it also depends on the high manager you may have if they come from sports and know that it is good to connect the discipline with the athlete and such and in other countries perhaps there is not as much culture that you are a high level athlete. Everything that goes behind the discipline of whether it is a team, has been working or doing a team sport issue. All empathy teamwork, all leadership cap. That comes with the pack. Let's go Sure. Okay, so have we talked or have I asked you about your biggest challenge in life? I would like if you can share, what is the achievement that you see as most significant or achievements in your career, career or life or however you want to focus on it, I will leave it open to you.

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• (David) Well, on a sporting level, such a tangible achievement is finishing third in the European Championship on an intangible level. The achievement for me is being able to get a degree in the United States and a master's degree as well. And that has opened the doors for me to be able to stay there

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• (Fredi) And well deserved, because they have paid your scholarship one hundred percent. I want to say that no, it is not because you have had someone who has sponsored you and paid for your race, because anyone can do this. If they have bet on you and have said this kid okay, and let's go and we want him on the team and that's why we're going. You deserved it yourself.

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• (David) Yes, I went with the scholarship in the second year of my degree, but I started Inés here in Sports Sciences, here for two years while I was in Sabadell and then they validated me for a year, I did psychology and then a master's degree in business management and yes at the level, so it is not tangible, it is not a medal, it is that on a personal level. And I realize it when I come home here. The greatest achievement for me is going to the club and seeing that the parents are happy to see you, that the first thing the children do is give you a hug. The first year I left when I came back and I get excited because I am very excited to see that the children who have not trained for a year remember you with that enthusiasm and that the parents see you and smile because their children have been very happy with you . It is the greatest achievement on a personal and professional level as a coach, yes. It is the greatest achievement I have achieved, well, yes and it excites me.

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• (Fredi) Yes, yes, that's good, damn, aren't you exciting me too. Well lets see. Not to touch the nose, but I'm going to continue touching the nerve a little now to finish a little. Well, I know that you value this a lot. The issue of family and such within these achievements that you see on a personal level, how much weight do you see that your parents and your family have had in it?

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• (David) Well, very much. Well, as I said before, the first, the decision, the first decision I had to make was to continue swimming. My mother helped me a lot in future decisions that I made in childhood, cadet, and youth. My mother has always been there and all the values that I have at the personal level, of course, are that sport has given me or helped reinforce some values, but if you are from home they do not instill them in you, they do not reinforce them and they do not They make you see that that is what you have to do or that that is the right way to act. I wouldn't have gotten it either. So my parents Well, my close environment, my family, my close environment, have helped me a lot. My mother, especially my mother, was an athlete, she was a gymnast and she had to leave due to a double elbow injury. She was also going to a European championship and had to leave because she had to have surgery on both elbows. So she knew what sacrifice was in a sport. It was like gymnastics, which is an individual sport that requires many hours. It's super demanding. She knew that if I wanted to achieve something, I had to go through a lot of things and I had to train many hours to maybe not achieve anything. So, that she supported, that they supported both me and my brother and that they instilled those values of discipline in us. Sacrifice Yes, it is super important. And they had a super important role in that. It wasn't just me who achieved it. Nor has it been for water polo or swimming. Was it because of my parents?

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• (Fredi) Yes, very good. Look, to finish, I may take you from one side, but when we talk about mental models like this, conceptually, when we talk about mental model issues, which ones do you think have led you to make the best decisions in your life? How do you see things to make good decisions? And what has happened when you have made bad decisions, they may have been either due to lack of this or due to having an erroneous mental model at some point.

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• (David) My way of operating in decision-making is always to try to see it from different perspectives and in the long term. I also give an example so it is also easier to, For example, right now the decision I have to make. One of the most uncomfortable moments in my life is deciding whether to stay in the United States or not. It is a super important decision. I see it, I put everything on a scale, the pros and cons. And what can I get? What do I lose? What could I lose? What could I get? Because of course, one thing is what you are going to get and another is what you could get. One thing is what you lose currently, and another thing is what you will lose in the future and put that on the table. And of course, it is impossible to put everything on the table because many things are left to you and in the end life is life and unexpected things come up that you had not taken into account and they come to you suddenly but you can imagine, most of them. The things that can happen have a greater capacity for adaptation because you already took them into account. So that's one of the things I do when I have to make a decision. And now, for example, in this decision to stay in the United States or not? Of course, I'm thinking about my children, I neither have children nor am I going to be a father in the next year, two years. But I'm already thinking about that, because that's what I could win, what they could win. They could stop earning something. They could lose something because of my decision. So my decision would also affect them or I would stop losing by having my children, this example of having by being a parent in the United States, my parents would miss out on my children, well, they would miss out on my children's growth in the first years. So all of this has to be balanced and that is my way of seeing the way of making decisions, not just seeing it as what I want to do, of course, what my partner wants to do also comes into play here and there are times when yes I am a bit square and I have things very clear. And if I want, continuing with the theme of having to be a parent in the United States, if I want my children to be born in the United States, because that way they have citizenship and it is much easier in the future, they have many more opportunities to study there without student visa, being able to work there much more flexibility. Of course, that my partner is also within that and I can adapt to what she wants, what she believes is best and that she adapts to what I think is best and that is to put everything on a scale and discuss it, argue it and make the decision clearly, by consensus.

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• (Fredi) I'm going to tell you wherever it is, in Spain or in the United States, you're going to do very well, so I think you have impressive maturity and capacity and you're going to do very well and I wish you the best always. . If it is in the United States, we love you a lot and we will always have your spirit here. But we know it. I also say it in a way so that you don't feel guilty, I don't want to condition you. Well, I know you have your pressures, but come on, let it be wherever it is. Well, if you're not around, we'll go see you there. That is sure. And if you stay here, we can enjoy your company, which is always super pleasant. I don't know if you want to comment anything else,

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• (David) not only thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, for being able to share my experience. And I hope well, that if someone can use it or can see themselves reflected in some way or benefit

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• (Fredi) well of course, the thanks go from us to you, the people who listen to you, especially me, who has kidnapped you a little bit not kidnapped, you know that we had a lot of fun. In the end, you and I have already made several podcasts, which we had not yet recorded on very interesting topics. Yes, it is always a pleasure to talk to you. And I also wanted to share this with people who might be interested and hey, the interest is great. And if not, then nothing. There are a lot of things out there to do. I mean, thank you very much, David.

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• (David) Thanks to you, Fredi. Thank you so much."