The Sports Life: The Best Gift You Can Give Your Kid is to Teach Them to Be Uncomfortable

If there’s one skill that has shaped every goal I’ve chased down, it’s this: I know how to be uncomfortable.

Not just tolerate it—train for it.
Not just push through it—expect it.

Getting in the freezing open water at 5 a.m.? That wasn’t motivation, it was discomfort.

Running 15 miles in the thick humidity of a New York summer? That was learning how to keep going when everything in me said stop.

Dragging myself into the garage to lift weights in the dead of winter, while the couch and sweats were calling my name? That was discipline built through discomfort.

Even the professional decisions that have defined my career didn’t come from comfort. I left an easier position at the junior high to work full-time in the high school not because I had to but because I wanted the challenge professionally, and it was time to "shake things up." I created a role as a mental health and performance coach in a high school setting where it didn’t even exist. There was doubt, there were questions and many eye rolls. And there was discomfort, every step of the way.

But nothing great ever came from avoiding discomfort.

And that’s what I try to teach the athletes I work with, and my own kids.

You want confidence? Learn to stay in the room when it’s uncomfortable.

You want growth? Go toward the thing that scares you.

You want to be great? You have to be willing to feel awkward, out of your depth, and unsure.

That’s the foundation.

So as this season winds down, don’t just praise the wins. Ask your kids where they got uncomfortable. Celebrate the moments they felt the nerves and still stepped up. Teach them that courage doesn’t feel good; it feels hard. And that’s what makes it real.