Liz Pryor on Self-Judgment, Communication, and Healthier Relationships

This week on The Tribe, I sit down with Liz Pryor—author, relationship expert, and former Good Morning America advice guru—for a grounded, honest conversation about the relationship we have with ourselves and how it shapes every other relationship in our lives.

We talk about self-judgment, self-awareness, and why communication is often less about what we say and more about how we say it. Liz also shares insights from her work and personal experience around parenting adult children and the role competitive sports can play in shaping character, resilience, and commitment.

If you’re navigating relationships, personal growth, or the midlife recalibration that comes with both, this episode offers practical wisdom and a few powerful reframes.

Let me know what resonated with you most.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

An Award-Winning Journalist on Soccer, Parenting, and Communication

In this episode, I’m joined by David Murray, an award-winning journalist, author, and one of the most thoughtful voices on sports, parenting, and communication today.

David is the author of several books, including Soccer Dad and An Effort to Understand: Hearing One Another (and Ourselves) in a Nation Cracked in Half—works that go far beyond sports to explore identity, values, and how we show up for our kids and each other.

His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, and many other leading publications. He is also the editor and publisher of Vital Speeches of the Day, one of the world’s oldest continuously published magazines, and the founder and executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association.

In our conversation, we talked about:
  • What youth sports reveal about parenting and pressure
  • How listening—really listening—changes relationships with our kids
  • Why communication matters more than ever in a divided world
  • Lessons David learned as both a journalist and a soccer dad

David also writes daily about communication at Writing-Boots.com, bringing clarity and insight to how we speak, listen, and connect.

This episode is thoughtful, honest, and deeply relevant for parents, coaches, and anyone who cares about raising kids through sports—with perspective and purpose.

🎧 Tune in now and let me know what resonated with you most.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

Inside Youth Sports Psychology with Dr. Brenna Chirby and Dr. Virginia Jones

If you’ve ever stood on the sidelines watching your child compete and quietly asked yourself—

Are they actually enjoying this… or just pushing through it?

—you’re not alone.

Today’s episode speaks directly to that question.

We’re joined by Dr. Jones and Dr. Chirby, psychologists with over 20 years of experience and the founders of MindBalanceSPORT. Their work spans clinical psychology, university-level athletic performance, and decades of lived experience as sports parents themselves. Between them, they’ve raised six kids across youth sports, elite club teams, and collegiate athletics.

After more than 15 years on the sidelines, one thing became impossible for them to ignore:

In youth sports, we train bodies constantly—but we rarely train minds.

That missing piece shows up in ways many families recognize all too well: rising stress, emotional shutdown, fear of failure, burnout, and kids leaving sports they once loved.

In this conversation, we dig into what healthy development in sports actually looks like, why mental skills are just as trainable as physical ones, and how parents can support confidence, resilience, and joy—without adding pressure.

This is an episode for parents who care deeply, who want their kids to grow through sports rather than be worn down by them, and who believe that performance and well-being don’t have to be opposites.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

How to Keep Kids Loving the Game — Lessons from 30 Years of Coaching with Marty Schupak

A new episode is live, and this one goes straight to the heart of youth sports done right.

Today, we’re joined by Marty Schupak — a veteran youth-sports coach with more than 30 years of experience helping kids enjoy the game from their very first practice.

Marty is the author of 13 coaching books and the creator of 25+ instructional videos used by parents, coaches, and youth leagues across the country. His superpower?
Turning complex coaching ideas into simple, positive methods that build skills, confidence, and a lifelong love of sports.

In this conversation, we talk about:
  • Why fun is not a bonus — it’s the foundation
  • The most common mistakes adults make in early sports
  • How to coach (and parent) in ways kids actually respond to
  • What really matters in tee ball and beginner sports
  • How to create confidence instead of pressure

Marty also shares insights from his newest book, Tee Ball Myths & Solutions, where he breaks down what’s holding young players back — and how parents and coaches can fix it immediately.

Beyond the credentials, Marty is a father of three and a proud grandfather to plenty more, which gives him a rare, generational perspective on what kids truly need from the adults on the sidelines.

If you care about raising confident, resilient young athletes — and keeping the joy in the game — this episode is a must-listen.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

How a Mother and Son Built Structure Before Experience — with Carrie Kimmell

The latest episode of The Tribe Podcast is now live.

Today’s conversation is with Carrie Kimmell—a broker, investor, and builder who has renovated and built more than 100 homes, and a mother navigating athletic development in real time alongside her son.

Carrie brings a powerful perspective shaped by science, strategy, and long-term thinking. Her work has always focused on turning complexity into systems—and she applies that same lens to development, growth, and performance.

Together, we explore a simple but often overlooked truth:

Elite development doesn’t start with experience.
It starts with structure.

This episode walks through how small, consistent habits compound into confidence and capability, and how families can think ahead about development and NIL preparation without pressure, hype, or burnout. It’s a grounded conversation about building foundations early—so progress feels sustainable, not forced.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

From Consulting to La Liga: Patricia Rodríguez Barrios on Leading Under Pressure

🎙️ New Episode Out Now — Welcome to The Tribe

We’re excited to share the latest episode of Welcome to The Tribe, featuring Patricia Rodríguez Barrios.

Patricia is one of the most respected executives in Spanish sports and a true pioneer in football leadership. She made history as the first woman to serve as General Manager of a men’s First Division football club, leading SD Eibar at the top of La Liga.

In this conversation, we explore:
  • Leading at the highest level under constant performance pressure
  • Breaking barriers in traditionally male-dominated environments
  • Translating the consulting discipline into real-world sports operations
  • Building sustainable growth across clubs, startups, and organizations

Before football, Patricia spent nearly a decade at PwC, and today she advises organizations across Europe on strategy, operations, and transformation.

Patricia, welcome to The Tribe — and thank you for an inspiring conversation.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

Getting People Back to Tennis — A Conversation with John Davey

The new episode of The Tribe is live.

Today, I’m joined by John Davey, Founder and CEO of Fast Track Tennis.

John’s path through the game is anything but linear.

He grew up learning tennis the old-school way in Detroit, played college tennis at the University of Vermont, and had a brief run as a professional. From there, his career took a sharp turn—Wall Street, entrepreneurship, and building businesses far from the court.

Years later, tennis found its way back into his life.

Not as a comeback story, but as a second act—one shaped by perspective, parenting, and long-term thinking.

In this conversation, we talk about:
  • What changes when you return to the game later in life
  • Development over outcomes
  • Balancing ambition, family, and passion
  • Why “doing less” often leads to better results

It’s a thoughtful discussion about growth—on and off the court.

As always, thanks for being part of The Tribe.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

High Performance Without Shortcuts — with Vlado Platenik

🎙️ Now Live — Welcome to The Tribe

This week’s episode is live, and I’m joined by Vlado Platenik — Slovak tennis coach, former professional player, and Head Coach at the international EMPIRE Tennis Academy in Trnava, Slovakia.

With decades of experience at the highest levels of the game, Vlado has coached and worked with players such as Daria Kasatkina, Dominika Cibulková, and Nadia Petrova. His approach combines tour-level reality with deep technical and developmental insight.

In this conversation, we talk about:
  • What truly defines a high-performance environment
  • Why development must come before results
  • Long-term thinking in a short-term results culture
  • What really matters when building a sustainable tennis career

This episode is for coaches, parents, and players who care about doing things the right way — with patience, structure, and clarity.

👇 Full episode at

PS: If this episode resonates with you, feel free to share it with a coach or parent who’s shaping young athletes every day.

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

What 1.3 Million Students Teach Us About Confidence — with Dr. Tommy Floyd

Welcome to The Tribe,

As parents, we all want the same thing.

Not just for our kids to win…
but for them to feel confident, capable, and grounded when things get hard.

In today’s episode of The Tribe, we talk about exactly that with Dr. Tommy Floyd, President of the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP).

After more than 30 years in education, Dr. Floyd now leads a program reaching 1.3 million students every year across 10,000+ schools—using archery as a tool to help kids build focus, self-belief, and character.

This isn’t really about archery.

It’s about:
  • Giving kids a place to succeed without pressure
  • Helping them learn patience, discipline, and self-control
  • Building confidence through effort, not praise alone

For parents, it’s a powerful reminder:
confidence isn’t taught—it’s built through experience.

🎙️ The episode is live now.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for being part of The Tribe—and for showing up for your kids every day.

👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.

🎙️ New Episode Out Now — Welcome to The Tribe

The latest episode of Welcome to The Tribe is now live.

This week, I’m joined by Melissa Fortenberry, Founder and CEO of Heat Sense.

With over 25 years of experience leading Strategy, Product, and Product Marketing at companies like Expedia, VRBO, Philips Electronics, and RVshare, Melissa has helped scale companies and launch category-defining products across multiple industries.

But this conversation goes deeper than business.

Melissa is also a mother of two boys and a daughter, and that perspective has shaped her mission to make outdoor sports safer for every kid. We talk about leadership, responsibility, innovation, and how real-life experience influences the decisions founders make.

This episode is about:
  • Building products with purpose
  • Leading at scale without losing perspective
  • Turning personal motivation into meaningful impact
👇 Full episode at

🎙️ PODCAST: The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe
The only global podcast helping parents raise resilient athletes through world-class voices in sport.