From Basketball Star to Being a Better Father: Interview with TJ Void

What happens when the one thing you’ve built your entire life around—your identity as an athlete—disappears overnight?

The Summary: In this episode, Robert Poirier sits down with TJ Void: author, TEDx speaker, and basketball coach. TJ shares his raw and honest journey from being a standout player in Texas to the heartbreaking moment he walked away from Division 1 basketball, leading to a period of depression and a complete loss of self.

TJ opens up about the "superpower" of his competitive nature, the "Rudy" comment that broke him, and the terrifying night that changed his life forever. Whether you are a parent, an athlete, or someone currently navigating a massive life transition, TJ’s insights on "humanizing yourself" and finding value outside of your achievements are essential listening.

How to Find TJ Void
https://tjvoid.net/
on IG https://www.instagram.com/tjvoid/

Dad to Dads Podcast on IG www.instagram.com/dadtodads

Transcript

Robert Poirier (00:00)
TJ, welcome to the podcast.

TJ Void (00:02)
Appreciate you having me, Robert.

Robert Poirier (00:04)
Look, I found you through your Ted talk, how coaching made me a better father, which, ⁓ we're going to go through and just kind of give you a, give a quick introduction, your basketball coach, of course, a husband and father. ⁓ you are also an accomplished author as well. The book dad and me I saw as well as a, personal development coach, but I wanted to.

TJ Void (00:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Robert Poirier (00:30)
You know, we are going to go into your Ted talk, but, ⁓ what did I, what did I miss? I mean, feel like you've got a pretty full resume there.

TJ Void (00:37)
No, I think accomplished would be a stretch. I am an author. I have a, let me see, one, two, three, four published children's books and I will, yeah, and I'm working on three. Two are already completed. They just need to be formatted. And then I'll be writing another one and all three of those will be out next year. So we're getting that going, man. I've been on a little bit of a hiatus. I think it's been about a year.

Robert Poirier (00:41)
Hey.

Wow.

TJ Void (01:07)
But since I put out Dad and Me, and I was just something quick just to kind of highlight, you my son and I, do a lot of things together just based on, ⁓ you know, my schedule. I'm a little bit, I'm available. And I was in education prior to this. So, you know, he was with me during the summers ⁓ while mom was at work.

But then when she come home, you know, they have their own relationship, right? And then we have our other things that we do together as a family. But I just wanted to just highlight something quick that, you know, dads and sons just do, you know, like he watched me shave. So now he wanted to shave or, you know, I thought he had tied his first tie. And I remember learning how to tie my own tie. So was things like that. So.

Robert Poirier (01:53)
That is so cool. I actually had for a fleeting moment, I had this idea about writing a kid's book and never did it. So I'm impressed and congratulations on four. That's amazing. That is amazing. Hey, so I asked, what else did we miss? Tell me about you. How did you get to where you are now? I just want to know where did you grow up? Family life and to where you are now.

TJ Void (02:00)
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I'm originally, I was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and that's where the mass majority of my family still lives. But we moved to Texas originally when I was probably four, three or four, and then we went to Germany, and then my mom, ⁓ my sister and I went back to South Carolina.

Robert Poirier (02:25)
Okay.

TJ Void (02:43)
and lived with my grandmother for a little while. And I think we moved back to Texas, I want to say the end of 89 to beginning of 90. And I've been here pretty much ever since. So I grew up.

Robert Poirier (02:53)
So Germany was

somebody in the military.

TJ Void (02:56)
Yeah, so my mom was initially in the military, we moved to Germany. My dad was working for a company that did work with the military. So those are the years I remember. So kindergarten. ⁓

Robert Poirier (03:04)
Okay, okay.

TJ Void (03:09)
The second half of kindergarten, first grade and half a second grade were in Germany. And then we moved to Copper's Cove, Texas, which is about, so you have, no one knows, it's Central Texas and there's big Fort Hood, right? So Fort Cavazos now. And on one side is Colleen, that's a little bit more well known.

Robert Poirier (03:20)
No idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (03:34)
high schools, things of that nature. Then on the other side of Fort Hood is Copperas Cove. And we actually, we have our own little sports legacy. We have one high school, but we've had some pros, we've got some college coaches that's come out of there. We had a Heisman winner and Robert Griffin III that came out of Copperas Cove. So yeah, we have to me a Hall of Famer and Charles Tillman, Peanut Tillman that played for the Bears went to Copperas Cove. Yeah, so we got some guys, man, we got some guys.

Robert Poirier (03:39)
Okay.

I didn't realize that he was from there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

there was another, which I didn't even mention. There was another D one athlete that came out of there too, that played basketball, right?

TJ Void (04:07)
There was yeah Yeah, so

I came so yes, so I played basketball growing up. I probably played the wrong sport Being in Texas. I probably should have played football. But the two things that you got a really really Love about football. I really did so I didn't like the tackle and I didn't like to be tackled. So Probably I'll tell you a funny story though Everybody asked me who's the favorite coach ever played for us my high school coach Benny Ward ⁓ who? ⁓

I've never had a coach like him before that. I never had a coach like him after that. country guy, know, Wranglers, boots, and our team was not that at all. Right. So, but he was himself and I was going to, tell you a story. were going to, I was sitting in science class, eighth period, and I was about to go get my football pads to go play. They were already two weeks into the football season, but in Texas, you know what mean? If you want to play football, you can pretty much play football if you want to. So I was going to go play because I missed it.

Because I wasn't a solid safety because those are the same skills you use on the basketball court, right? Long as it was free safety, I didn't have to get down and you know get in there and tackle so So I was going to get my I was going to get my pads the next day and he caught wind of it And just so happened that he was in our basketball class that day and I did well And he came and said the only thing he said to me was I heard you gonna play football I'm not gonna tell you not to I'm gonna just say Hooper's hoop and that's it

And he left, he would send me back to class. And that's all I needed to hear. I played, I didn't play football, I played basketball, played Wells with freshmen, started as a sophomore for the majority of the season on varsity. And this has been kind of history ever since.

Robert Poirier (05:35)
Wow.

Tell me about your basketball story. And I know we're kind of jumping into it a little bit, but one of the things that impressed me was on your Instagram page when you were speaking to a group of young men, think it was the team. One, I loved the way you addressed them and getting their attention. But can you kind of walk me through your high school to college and all of that? And it's fine if you share that same story. I would actually love for you to.

TJ Void (06:13)
Yeah, man. Yes.

Yeah, so in high school, so growing up, I was always one of the better players in my area. ⁓ And a lot of me, if you just watched me play, like my quote unquote skill set was probably not one that jumped off the page. But I was effective because I thought I was the greatest thing playing at the time. And no matter when I was playing and...

I took it seriously, very early, right? So I took basketball seriously at a very early age. I knew it was what I wanted to do.

So I probably did things that people my age didn't do. I played every chance I got. I didn't grow up with a basketball goal because we didn't have the extra money like that. So I shot my 100 form shots in my room every day. I had my pregame routine. ⁓ Luckily, I had some older guys that kind of looked after me so they would bring me to open gym when I was in seventh and eighth grade to be with the older guys. I barely got picked up initially, but you if you get out there in eighth grade and score one point, you you're doing something serious at that time.

So fast forward man to high school, I got hurt my junior year so I didn't play well. We didn't play well either. My senior year, I had a really good senior year but we didn't go to the playoffs. And so we were kind of like.

What do you do? know, cause I could have played looking back at 42, you know, I couldn't play better obviously. But it just so happened that coach Kirby Johnson at Temple Junior College was coming to recruit another player that we were playing against. And I just had a really good game that game where like 27 points, 13 rebounds, something like that.

And so I ended up going there and playing at Temple Junior College for a couple of years. ⁓ Played okay, but I'll tell you what, man, this is a story that I like to share and I'll keep it brief here is, so my superpower.

Robert Poirier (08:03)
No, keep going to it, I want you to.

TJ Void (08:07)
in on the court was my tenacity right like again i wasn't the most skilled i didn't have the greatest handle i didn't shoot the best from three now my pull-up i would put up against anybody but the but my thing was i wanted to win so bad that i would i cried after losses probably until i was man it was not good like it's my competitive nature ⁓

was my superpower. I didn't care what anybody else did. Yeah, I just always thought I was the best, you know, so it didn't matter what you did. thought I was, my sophomore year was kind of up and down because I was young, but other than that, by the time I was a senior, I thought that you shouldn't be on the court with me. I didn't always materialize, but that's what, that was my superpower. Long story short, I didn't care how it looked. I didn't care, whatever. For some reason in my brain, when I got to college, I started to compare myself.

Robert Poirier (08:37)
You had that grit.

Yeah.

TJ Void (09:02)
So I got this, this is a funny story. I got this better basketball DVD and it was kind of like sharpening your skills, right? So I became just ultra robotic when that's never been my game. My game has always been on feel, always been on, like again, I probably didn't have the smoothest handle, but I didn't get the ball taken from me either. You know what I mean? Cause my instincts were always there. Cause that's what I relied on. ⁓

Robert Poirier (09:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yep.

TJ Void (09:30)
But then when I got that, I started being kind of robotic in my movements. I felt like had to change my game to play like a college player. And man, it killed my confidence because I wasn't comfortable. And Robert, I probably didn't regain my confidence until I was 25 years old.

So I went, yeah, I went all the way through college, second guessing everything I did, second guessing everything on the court, comparing myself to different guys. It got to the point that I would like try to talk myself out of it to my teammates, to where I became unlikable. You know what I'm saying? Because it's like, I'm, I'm, selling wolf tickets and, but I would have whole games where I would shoot maybe three times to where one of my friends, I never, you know, I never forget his name is Edwine Green, buddy. He pulled me to the side and gave me the stat sheet and was like, bro, you

Robert Poirier (09:45)
Wow.

Yeah.

TJ Void (10:15)
have to shoot more. Like you're better than this. You know what I'm saying? And I couldn't, I couldn't format it at the time in my brain, but he was really, really giving me the thing that I needed, you know? And it just never materialized. But luckily, my sophomore year, I made Honorable Mention All Conference, you know, even then, you know, average probably about 11 or something like that. But we played against this team called South Plains.

in South Plains was historically good. And again, they had a kid going to BYU and I just played really, really well that game. Even though I airballed, I still, this is how crazy I was, Robert. I can't remember anything I did good besides like four strip steals. I know I had 17 points in double digit rebounds from the guard position, but I distinctly remember two airballs that I shot. Still, right now, that was 23 years ago and I can still remember it, right?

But in the stands was Tech St. Nemecorp's Christie. And they had coaches from there and they came and saw me play twice. And they saw me play at Collin County. I had a good game. They saw me play that game. I had a good game. Both games, we won the one in South Plains. The game in Collin County, I actually missed the game winning free throws. It was a tech at the end of the game. So anyway, I had, and this is another thing I tell kids is that when somebody goes out of their way to recruit you,

you probably should consider them, right? Because where my basketball career started to, it went from a small fear to a complete left turn, was when coach from St. Edwards in Austin landed and was ready to come recruit me sight unseen. I was on the recruiting visit when his vehicle was getting delivered to the school, right? This is the guy who saw two tapes of me and said, we gotta have him.

Robert Poirier (11:42)
Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (12:05)
He was like, listen, D2, that's where I learned about the whole scholarship thing and how there's buckets and whatever, whatever. He said, we'll figure it out. Just tell me you're coming.

So I went, but I was hell bent on going Division 1, man. Hell bent. And even before then, I went to this Juco camp. I drove myself, Robert, this is how bad I wanted it. I drove my 1993 Mazda 626 with printed out maps, right? So this is 2002. So I had a printed out map quest and I drove to Tulsa, Oklahoma with a CD player with a tape adapter.

Robert Poirier (12:31)
MapQuest.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

TJ Void (12:43)
Cause I didn't even,

I drove there by myself and went to ⁓ a Mullins camp with nobody but myself. I was the only person there for my team and ⁓ I played okay. I played, I ended up being on a team that was, that was their real team. ⁓ But I was, I got recruited by Abilene Christian. I'll never forget because I broke my nose in a game and I came back and played the next game.

And he was like, you're good player, but it's your toughness that we need. I was so ignorant, Robert, that I looked at their schedule and I knew there was division two and I saw that only won like three games and I blew them off. Blew them off. So at end of my sophomore year, when I'm trying to send out tape to everybody that would, you know, would take it and I called Abilene Christian Coach, now he's blowing me off. Right? And rightfully so.

Robert Poirier (13:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Void (13:36)
Rightfully so. But anyway, I still had a chance to go Division II and play. And I was helping him go on Division I, so I ended up calling an A &M coach, he, A &M Corpus Christi coach, Coach Chuck Taylor, who I have immense respect for. And he was like, if you're coming, come on. So I went down on an unofficial visit. It took me through everything. And I ended up going there as a recruited walk-on man. And, you know, I just...

Starting in Juco, my first, what I was telling the kids that you saw, again, I've been a star my whole life. The first three games, I was red-shirtin' at first, and then the first three games that I took my red shirt off, I didn't even step on the court. Three games. I didn't even have the skillset to handle this. You know what I mean? I called my mom and said, I'm going to the Air Force. This is nonsense.

Robert Poirier (14:26)
Yeah.

TJ Void (14:26)
because

I never, not only had I not had to deal with that, nobody in my family that I knew had played college sports. I didn't have any reference. So I was just kind of going through by myself. Luckily I stuck with it enough, but I go to A Corpus, man. I go through the whole off season ⁓ and ⁓ I'm doing okay. You know, we have a midnight madness. Again, this is my crazy brain, right? So I'm already fighting through like ⁓ issues with my...

Confidence, but I'm playing okay Not great. There were guys that were better players than me for sure. They were already there, but he ⁓ We're in the circle and the coach is going down The list of who's gonna play on the blue teams gonna play on a white team and they have my real name on there So they go toro boy. He's like Who's Tyrone? And I'm standing right beside him Rob and I'm like, it's me. He's like, ⁓

So in my brain, he was slighting me, right? So I had it made up in my brain that every time I touched the ball at midnight madness, I was going to shoot. Like you're going to know who I am for better or for worse. But here's the crazy part, Robert. I actually played well on that midnight madness, you know, because that was my superpower. Growing up, I would get annoyed when my teammates would watch the other teams warm up.

Robert Poirier (15:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

TJ Void (15:46)
You know, and I would, here's how sick I was. I would get annoyed that the other team was there. And then at tip off, somebody would say, I got him. Cause why do you think you can guard me? That was, that's say it was, it was sick. It was, it was sick, but that was, that's what made me like the maniacal person I was. Long story short, man, after the midnight madness time to get ready for the season, my reps get cut short in practice. I go meet with an assistant coach. ⁓

He tells me, he shuts the door and tells me, I don't know what to tell you. You you playing well enough. You don't have some transition issues with the levels. ⁓ And he goes, just hang in there. The coach that recruited me said, I'm telling you, just stick with it. So then I meet with the head coach. The head coach calls me in and again, looking back Robert, that man didn't have to call me to his office. I was a lowly recruited walk on. He had.

Robert Poirier (16:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

TJ Void (16:42)
He didn't have to speak to me, you know, but he called me in and that's when he told me the story that you heard when he said, look, man, there's guys ahead of you. ⁓ You may play some this year. You may never play the two years that you're here. I like you as a kid. I like you as a player. ⁓ And like I said, you may help us at some point in the two years that you're here, but ⁓ you also may be the team Rudy.

Robert Poirier (16:44)
Yeah.

TJ Void (17:11)
Rudy is a cute story. No disrespect to the real Rudy. Rudy wasn't good, okay? So I'm not a Rudy, a Rudy? And I walked away from that. I stood outside of that office for about three minutes and I walked away and I walked straight to the locker room and packed my stuff, wrote a letter on the board and left.

Robert Poirier (17:15)
Right, right.

Yeah.

TJ Void (17:32)
I came back to the office. They were having a coaches meeting and you can see the tour in the two coach, the two assistants looking at me like, what? Don't do this. Don't do this. I said, you know, I'm gonna just go ahead and I'm gonna leave two weeks before we played our first season game at Florida State. Here's what you didn't hear in that part on Instagram. My whole life I wanted to play for University of North Carolina, right? It started to be a realistic when you get older. Okay, I'm not going to UNC, but they were in the ACC.

Robert Poirier (17:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

TJ Void (18:02)
My first game that year was Florida State, who is in the ACC. So I would have been playing on the same floor that I wanna be playing on my whole life. Instead, another thing that I didn't share with those kids, that night that they were playing Florida State, went out, I probably was depressed at the time, but I didn't know.

Robert Poirier (18:07)
ACC.

TJ Void (18:27)
went out with my friends, there was a bar, you know, a club fight or whatever, and I ended up getting stabbed. So while they're coming back, I'm getting calls from the team because I got like four staples in my head and five in my back because I was, that's not where I was supposed to be. My life wasn't aligned to be out there, right? And that's where it just kind of all went left. Man, I transferred from there to Division III in McMurray.

Robert Poirier (18:34)
shit.

Damn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

TJ Void (18:57)
By that time my mentality was shot. I played for a coach I didn't really care for at the time we bumped heads and then I developed rheumatoid arthritis And I didn't know what it was at the time because I was 22 so nobody would diagnose me with it So I'm going through these pains I'm a costrept throat and I lost like 14 pounds in two weeks And then I played seven more games for the rest of my life man in my career was over

Robert Poirier (19:21)
Damn.

TJ Void (19:21)
Just

that fast. So I went from the highest of highs, a man wanting to have me a part of his roster that didn't even know me, to a year and a half later, a hasbeen

Robert Poirier (19:34)
What's the biggest lesson you've learned from all of that?

TJ Void (19:37)
So the biggest lesson I learned, a couple of things, man. Number one is be who you are. Like once you're in a place, it doesn't matter how you got there. It doesn't matter why you got there. It doesn't matter anybody else's story. You're there and you're there because of what you do, right? Second, and this can go for relationships. This can go for recruiting. Go with who loves you.

Robert Poirier (19:51)
You're there.

Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Void (20:04)
If they want you to come, if they're going out of their way to recruit you to their program, they see something in you. So pay attention to it, right? It may not be the biggest name. It may not be the school of your dreams, but I can assure you that if you just shun that opportunity, you may be living a nightmare later, for sure. It took me years to...

free myself of the identity of being a basketball player. I didn't know what to do. That's all I've done my whole life. So at 22 now it's gone. And not only is it gone, but you physically can't do it anymore because I was going through my rheumatoid arthritis. I didn't know what to do. It spun me into a depression, honestly. I had no idea what to do with my life. I'd never... Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Poirier (20:49)
How did, I'm sure it did, I'm sure it did. I mean, you were wrapped

up in all of that. How did you move forward from that?

TJ Void (20:57)
Man, so I finally ended up going to a therapist ⁓ when I I moved to Atlanta at 27 and I went to a therapist and kind of unwrapped it a little bit. But also, I'll tell you what really, really, really helped me. I played in a couple of rec leagues and I played well, ⁓ but when I started coaching.

when I started coaching and you have to take yourself away as the player because you can't tell the kids when I was your age, who cares? You know, and you definitely, you have no control over what happens out there, but also you start to see things from a a different like kind of view. It's more of a 30,000 foot perspective and it helped me.

Robert Poirier (21:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (21:46)
mend my relationship with the game of basketball because when I didn't have any anymore I couldn't even watch the draft for like five years. It really messed with me.

Robert Poirier (21:57)
That's,

that's amazing.

I never was that skilled at any sport. So I can't really say that, I was good or good enough, but you know, I never did excel at anything.

TJ Void (22:02)
Ha ha ha ha.

Robert Poirier (22:09)
to even close to that level to really have my identity wrapped up in there. But I can't imagine from just a young age to, you know, through college, what you're saying and coming out of that.

TJ Void (22:14)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I'll tell you what man even more than and this is kind of again we're coaching and seeing what these young people go through kind of help with is it just the immense feeling of just failure.

Robert Poirier (22:36)
Yeah.

TJ Void (22:36)
Because your whole life, even when I would go back to visit home, I stopped going back to visit because like, oh man, I thought you'd be in the league by now. And I'm looking at him like, well, why? Because I scored 30 in a church league game? You know what I mean? It's just because I was always good for my area, right? And it just, never, as a young person, I had a lot of older people that would not necessarily speak highly of me because their son's played.

Robert Poirier (22:51)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

TJ Void (23:02)
Right?

And so I really felt like it was kind of me against the world. Then when it didn't happen, I had made up in my mind that this was my way of getting my family out of our situations. Right? I was going to take care of the family. I was going to blah, blah, blah. And I know we'll get into it later, but that's why it's just not fair for parents to do that to their kids. My mom never did that. And my dad never did that. I did it to myself. Right?

Robert Poirier (23:15)
Yep. Yep.

TJ Void (23:27)
And so when it didn't materialize, the feeling of failure was hard to shake. It was hard to shake. And I couldn't do it by myself. I had to get help to do that.

Robert Poirier (23:36)
You had that mamba mentality.

I mean, you did, and that's what coaches want. know, I mean, you had that, ⁓ so much of what you're saying, it's like, my gosh, this is like it seems like a Kobe or MJ, you know? And I think, and we will get into it, but I think it's what so many players are missing today.

TJ Void (23:39)
Yeah. Jordan was my guy.

Yeah,

Yeah, yeah and I think the great thing that my mom did, ⁓ my parents got divorced and I was you know kind of going through adolescence but my dad wasn't absent by any means right. ⁓ He introduced the game of basketball to me so I him a lot. ⁓ He was never my biggest supporter, he was never my biggest fan so he wasn't delusional at all.

So if I went and I scored two points in the eighth grade game, he'll say something like, well, you could have just stayed on with me if, you know, if was going to do that, you know? And then after that, he would say, okay, now let's look at what needs to be done to play better. My mom, she just wants to cheer, man. She don't, you know, she ain't, yeah, she not, she not going to talk to no coach. Yeah, she not going to talk to no coach. She not, she not stepping into practice. That's it.

Robert Poirier (24:45)
She was a mom, right? She was a mom.

She thought you looked cute in your uniform. She wanted

to get pictures. It didn't matter.

TJ Void (24:54)
She cheering for

everybody on the team. She ain't yelling at the refs, nothing. She just cheering, man. So it gave me the freedom to just play ball, because she never really, she never did that to me. She never said, you're going to take care of us. You're going to make it to the pros. She was like, but whatever you want to do, she just wanted me to shoot, know, shoot. Yeah, shoot, shoot. It's like you open like mom at half court. Yes, I am open. Like, shoot, you know, that's it. And so that gave me the freedom to just play, man, and really just enjoy the game.

Robert Poirier (25:02)
Yeah.

She just wants you happy. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. All right, before we go into your TED Talk. ⁓

Kobe or LeBron.

TJ Void (25:30)
Well, let's get something clear. I'm a Michael Jordan guy through and through. Perfect. Okay. Yeah, I am a... ⁓

Robert Poirier (25:33)
Okay. That's where we were going next. Okay. That's where we were going next. I was, was, was leading you on that because I was going to see who you picked. All right. So, rank

them one, two, three.

TJ Void (25:44)
I'm gonna have to go, God, this hurts me to do, Jordan 1, and I actually don't think it's that close. Jordan 1, I'm gonna have to go LeBron 2, and I'm gonna have to go Kobe 3. The only reason why I say that, here's why the only reason why I say that, because this is gonna sound insane.

Robert Poirier (25:58)
All right. So TJ, it was great having you on. I'll talk.

TJ Void (26:09)
I think LeBron is one of the greatest sports stories just because he was supposed to be the one and he turned out to be. But I think a lot of who we want to be as basketball players is probably Kobe. Because LeBron had some shortcomings early that his physicality just kind of hid. Later, he became a more skilled player to me later. ⁓

Robert Poirier (26:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Void (26:38)
But I can't, to be this great, this long, man, and that's tough. I think that speaks a lot. That's a testament to how he take care of himself. I think it really is.

Robert Poirier (26:48)
It is. And look, if, if,

if, if that had been around in Kobe's day, I don't know if Michael would have stuck around longer or not, but you know, they could have played that long too. mean.

TJ Void (27:00)
Yeah,

we'll talk ⁓ off mic about this whole, because these people make these stats look a certain way and I have to say, hold on, because Jordan. ⁓

Robert Poirier (27:04)
Ha ha ha!

Yeah, I am, I am certainly a Jordan fan and, I argue with my two sons

on that all the time. And, but I'm absolutely Jordan then Kobe and then.

TJ Void (27:20)
I won't argue with that. Yeah.

Robert Poirier (27:21)
distant third, maybe

you would say LeBron, but there's some other people I can throw in there too. And now I'm not taking anything away from LeBron. I'm not. Is he a great player? Absolutely, he is. Absolutely. I mean, what? He got 30 points last night or something, 34 or something like that when I was watching. But I just, I've never seen anything like Michael or Kobe. And that's just...

TJ Void (27:25)
I can't argue with that. I can't argue with that at all. Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (27:49)
It's just that grit. A lot

of what you were talking about with yourself too.

TJ Void (27:52)
Yeah, yeah, I had to I mean I wasn't

Again, I wasn't, I had to figure out the game early. So I had to figure out tendencies, where the angles were, how to spin the ball off the back of the board a way. know, mind you back in the day, I come from a shoe. So we're doing 400 calf raises a day, trying to get hops, which, you know, now I know that that's not what helps. But what it does is just instills sports itself, man. And this is something I try to share with parents that allowed me to speak to them is sports will teach you a lot.

just let it do it. If you don't interfere and try to put any unnecessary pressure or any unnecessary comparisons, sports are a great vehicle to learn some very, very valuable lessons you can take with you throughout the rest of your life.

Robert Poirier (28:40)
100 % agree, 100 % agree. ⁓ Team sports and also individual, I 100 % agree there. I think the kids should be involved in each of those. And you learn so much about it. So much about life and toughness and pushing through, not quitting. I know we had a talk a week or so ago or whenever it was and talking about quitting. You don't quit during in the season. Are we paid for these?

TJ Void (28:47)
For sure. For sure.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (29:09)
We pay for these lessons for the next year. You're, you're in it. And that's, yeah.

TJ Void (29:12)
You're in it. You're in it. Again, coming from somebody who quit.

I still mark that as one of the worst mistakes I ever made. You know?

Robert Poirier (29:21)
Yeah,

but you know what? look at it, TJ, I look at it this way. Okay. So it's one of the worst mistakes you've ever made, but look at what you're teaching your son. And, and so we make mistakes along the way, man, I have made, I have screwed up so many times in my life, but it's those screw ups that I try to teach my kids not to, you know, and really try to put in there. And I'm not.

TJ Void (29:31)
Absolutely

Robert Poirier (29:50)
Yeah, I'm sure you're not either and won't be as your son gets older. I'm not afraid to tell them, look, this is where your dad screwed up. Wish I had done this differently. And sometimes they're like, you know, big eyed looking at like, Whoa, you did that I'm like Yeah. That's why I don't want you to do it.

TJ Void (29:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's humanizing yourself.

100%. And I think to take that a step further, something that I've learned, again, just dealing with young people and now I try to do with my son is I can tell you my experience, right? So this is what happened when I did it. So I'm not going to tell you what to do or what not do necessarily. When you get to a certain age, now he's only eight. So yeah, I'm going tell you what to do or not do. But here's what happened when I went that route.

So now if you make the decision you make and things don't turn out, now we have to, like the parenting can't stop, right? It can't say, I told you not to it in the first place. Cool, fine. Now we're like, okay, now we have to figure out how to make the next decision a better decision, right? How can we stop digging the hole now and start to pull ourselves out of it? I think sometimes... ⁓

Man, it's another thing that just coaching has taught me is just you can't necessarily have an ego, right? You can't like being a dad, being a, it's not, I'll tell you what, was a young, I was on the panel one time and there's a younger man who came to me and said, man, I really like what you said. And I just had a one-year-old and you could just see the desperation in his face, right? He wanted to do right.

Had no idea what to do. And it's scary. mean, it be when you when you realize that you have a human that you're responsible for and you're going to be responsible for it for pretty much ever. It's holy smokes. Right. So the one thing, man, I didn't know what to say. I'm not really into giving advice like that. ⁓ I just do what I'm led to. I just do what I'm led to say. I say what I'm led to say, man.

Robert Poirier (31:16)
It is.

TJ Void (31:42)
And something led me to tell him, the only thing I can tell you brother is it's not about you. It's just not. And I went on to explain that it's not that you don't matter. It's that whatever happens, you can't take it personally. Cause you still have to be the father for from this point now moving forward. Right? So yes, they made a mistake.

Robert Poirier (32:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

TJ Void (32:10)
Cool, son, I don't like what you did, but I still love you, but these consequences have to be paid. Whatever the consequences, I don't love you any less. I don't like what you did. So what are we gonna do from here? I can't say, well, you embarrassed me. Fine, but now what? You know what I'm saying? Yes, I'm embarrassed as a dad, cool.

But how do you feel, son? Tell me what was going through your mind when you made that decision. Because to me, that's more important than just saying, I told you not to do it in the first place. What led to this? Because then it reminds me when I was a principal and I was ⁓ monitoring a teacher and observing a teacher and somebody, student raised her hand, and it was a struggling school, student raised her hand and answered the question. And she goes, no.

Robert Poirier (32:43)
Yeah.

TJ Void (33:02)
That's wrong. Like, why would you say that? And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do you want them to answer questions or do you not want them to answer questions? So I can tell you that you're wrong. However, it's the lesson comes in. How'd you get there? Like, what did you do that? Where was the left turn? Because if you show me your work, if you show me your work, if you show me your thought process, then we can talk about.

Robert Poirier (33:11)
Do you want them to ever raise their hand again?

TJ Void (33:32)
where we may have gone wrong in the thought process. And now you own the information, right? You're paying the consequences, Rob. You know you did it wrong, right? There's a big red slash on your paper. Or in life, there's a slap on the wrist, there's an arrest, there's a car wreck, there's a whatever. Me telling you, son, when you gotta stop at stop signs, what up? You know, it's like, okay, what were you doing while you were driving? I just looked down and whatever.

What? Okay, now with this we can correct. It's hard to correct, it's hard to parent from the result. You know what I'm saying? We got to go back to the calls.

Robert Poirier (34:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's, that's so good. You know, when you were talking earlier, reminded me, um, I saw a clip on YouTube the other day and it was by a guy, I think his name is Patrick bet David. And he was talking about fatherhood and raising sons. And he was talking about how hard it is to raise sons, how difficult it is raising sons and the fact that, know, and I'm, he said it.

so eloquently and I'm going to butcher it but basically the gist of it was

You know, you're raising these sons to become independent and pouring everything into them to become independent so they can one day live without you. And that's tough. And so true. Cause you are, and you're letting, you know, you're trying to guide them. You're trying to find out, okay, what was behind that? But you're also letting them screw up. You're letting them make mistakes. You're, you're knowing, Hey, if you choose that path,

TJ Void (35:08)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (35:12)
Here's what might happen and here's what probably will happen or here was my experience, but you also have to let them so they can learn, so they can learn as well, but you're also teaching them life skills, you know, all of these things so they can live without you. So they can be independent. So they can be strong, respectable men out in society as well. And, it's, it's, it's, it's not easy. It's tough.

TJ Void (35:14)
Yeah.

You do.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, because

you also have to talk to them, right? Son, what you did just ticked me off. no, listen, boys, you know, you have teenage boys. I taught and coach teenage boys and I have an 8 year old son. Sometimes they do stuff and you're just like, what? Like what? What did you, there's no possible like positive outcome from this. Why would you even, like what? Come on, man.

Robert Poirier (36:01)
My teenagers have never

been that way TJ. ⁓ It's like all the time.

TJ Void (36:06)
And it's just like,

but I'm telling you, so when I was coaching, I used to just grind up, grind up. I'm literally coaching every possession and every move in every possession. And then I had a talk with my team and they were like, we just don't want to mess up because we don't want to make you mad. And in my brain, I'm like,

First of all, that's not, that shouldn't be the reason you don't want to mess up, right? Making me mad has nothing to do with anything, right? Cause in my brain, I'm like, once the game over, it's over, but they don't feel that because they respected me enough to want me to want to make me happy. And it's like, okay, here's what I'm trying to tell you to do. Here's what I'm trying to get you to understand. But then it's, that's when I kind of learned to sit back and let them talk.

Robert Poirier (36:38)
Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (36:55)
Like I'll ask a question and I won't say anything. And in my brain, I'm like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But it's just like, do you want them to talk to you or do you not want them to talk to you? Right? And so they'll say, like, and they're just fumbling through whatever explanation it is.

But at the end of the day, they have an explanation regardless of how stupid you think it is. And so it goes back to it's not about you, because that's his thoughts. So what you think is dumb doesn't matter. He's the one that has to live this life. And so to the point of what you're saying is, I tell you what helped me, Robert And I'll say it like this. I took the pressure off of myself to say I'm raising a man. I'm not. I'm raising...

my son in every stage that he's in. And if I'm so concerned about raising a man, then there's no way I can be present at an eight year old. Cause I'm saying. So it's like, well, as a man, well, he won't be a man for a very long time. So, and I can sit back and I can sit back and say, man, when I was 25, yeah, but you was 25, 18 years ago.

Robert Poirier (37:46)
That's a good, I've never heard that. liked that a lot.

Yeah. No, I like that.

Yeah.

TJ Void (38:02)
So I hear you, there are some things that are universal, there are some things that stretch across generations, but it's more beneficial for me to teach you the lesson of doing hard things, of making tough decisions, of...

understanding there's consequences to every action. Then to try to pinpoint the one thing that you did because as parents we do the best we can but we often tread this line between like projection and protection and we're trying to protect them from all the bad things but we're just projecting our experiences onto them and so we say you know life is hard so blah blah blah blah blah and it's like yeah but we work really really hard to where their hard don't match our hard.

So sometimes as a parent as a sports parent I'll say sometimes or even just as a regular dad sometimes, especially raising boys we feel that we I gotta put you in tough situations because life is hard. No, no

Their hard is still hard to them regardless of how you view it, right? You could view it like what this is stupid Like why are you even this ain't that hard son? But to him it is and for whatever reason is hard It could be hard just because he don't want to disappoint you so he don't want to make the wrong turn So it's like their hard is still hard So it's more beneficial to teach them to do hard things and make hard decisions and live with the decisions They make than to say this is life is hard So I got to make it hard for you because that's just projection even though we're trying to protect

Robert Poirier (39:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

TJ Void (39:30)
them from the outside world.

Robert Poirier (39:32)
I like that. I like that a lot. That's, ⁓ I love that. And I probably should have taken that advice a long time ago, but, now I don't want to say I'm on the home stretch, but, ⁓ no, love that. I definitely do. Hey, let's go, let's go into your Ted talk, ⁓ how coach and made you made you a better father. Can you kind of give me an overview of that? I was really impressed with that.

TJ Void (39:56)
I

appreciate that. Yeah, the only thing I have, the only experiences I have really to pull on that have positive outcomes are sports. Like sports have taught me, and this is no slight to my dad, this is no slight to my mom. You get a certain age though, I mean, your mom fuses at you, it's like, all right, mom, you know.

That's what moms do, they fuss. Right? So it's white noise at some point. ⁓ And then my dad wasn't necessarily, he wasn't in the house and so I had built up a resentment. So I wasn't listening to him anyway. Right? So he could tell me the most sage advice in the world and I didn't want to hear it. And so I relied on...

Robert Poirier (40:15)
Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (40:35)
safe haven was basketball. The sports is where I could control the outcome, where I can control my effort and see how that affected the outcome. And so when I became a dad, I didn't really, I'll be honest Robert, I didn't really feel, I had disassociated the duty of fatherhood with the spirit of fatherhood. So I jumped straight into

I gotta change diapers, I gotta make sure everything's alright. It wasn't like a feeling of, my God, this is a precious being, my legacy. Nah, it was just like, I'm a dad now, so let's get to the checklist, right? You know, let's make sure mom is okay. I gotta get my life in order and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Until I had him during the summer by myself. And...

I was blessed to have my mother-in-law stay with us for three months and she would go home on weekends. My wife went back to work pretty soon, which is a whole different conversation ⁓ that she had to go back so soon. And so during the summer I had him and I had no idea what I was doing. Man, he ran me up and down this house. didn't know. I'm like, ⁓ this is, this is not.

Everyone's like enjoy it now. I'm like, this is not enjoyable at all. Like I didn't know how to put him down for him to go to sleep. I'm just like, oh my God, I'm keeping him in the same clothes. Anyway, the only sense of stability that I knew, that I knew what to do was coaching. I knew how to like...

get people to buy in. I knew how to get my point across. I knew how to listen and make adjustments. I know how to view things from a wider lens. I know how to take big, big, big things and pare it down to the smallest kind of step on the ladder before a scalpel didn't get to the big things. And so that's just kind of what I leaned into. And I said, I'm gonna just treat this like I'm coaching, man. it kind of, it just made this big idea of being a dad,

It took it down to day to day, minute to minute. Right? And so I'll tell you one of the biggest lessons I ever learned was I was drawing up plays, right? Because I'm just a, basketball nerd. So I would, I still draw plays and I drew up this great play and it had like eight different, uh, you know, squares and I forgot the program I used to use and I printed it out and I was going to give it to my team. And I realized, first of don't have anybody who can throw the ball in effectively.

So that kind of ends this play. Two, my point guard can't go left. My two guard can't go right. So this play seems amazing. This is not gonna work. This is not gonna work. So we're in the middle of the game.

Robert Poirier (43:29)
Just not for my team.

TJ Void (43:38)
And here's our crazy, I had to take kids and run them underneath so that they're on the side of the floor where they could go the direction they need to go. Anyway, that season we were in a tight game and I knew the play I wanted to run and I know we had worked on it and it had never worked in practice. Because again, not the greatest of basketball players, great kids. So I finally go, well, what do you feel comfortable running? And they look at me like.

Robert Poirier (43:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (44:06)
Are you sure? Just tell me, because I don't know what to call it now. And they call the play, we end up running it. We missed a shot, but we got a good shot, right? And that was just a light for me, man, as a coach, it's like, it doesn't matter what you know. Like, it only matters what you know in the sense of guiding.

But at the end of the day, all you can do is deal with the kids that you have. And that helped me as a father, because it's like, I could want him to be whatever I want him to be. But at the end of the day, I have to love and guide the kid that I have. And it's kind of a conflicting thing, because as parents, we want our kids to be their own people. But then we also want to impress upon them to be a certain way. And those two things don't go together.

Robert Poirier (44:30)
Gotta work with what you got.

TJ Void (44:53)
Right? One of the biggest things to your point, I think one of the biggest things as a coach, one of the biggest kudos I ever gave myself was I walked into practice and the guys were already warming up and saying things that we say as coaches to each other. Right? As a parent, think the biggest, they can't pay you back for raising them. I think the biggest payback that you can ever get is for them to not need you.

Robert Poirier (45:21)
Hmm. No, that's, that's, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Void (45:22)
for anything other than calling dad, yeah, saying what's up, being almost like a companion. And

then...

It's weird because again, going back to the point of a male, that's what you hope for, right? As a coach, you don't want to be coaching every play of every game. Bro, sometimes you just got to go play basketball. I don't know what to tell you, right? Coach, they fouling me. What you want me to do? I got a suit on, you know, figure it out. So as a dad, it's like, dad, just, son, I can't, what you want me to do? You know, figure it out. ⁓

Robert Poirier (45:33)
That's what you hope for.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that goes back to what I

was saying earlier, you know, that Patrick Brett David said, you you're raising them so they become independent. So they don't need you.

TJ Void (46:04)
Absolutely, Yeah, so that's what the talk ended up being about. And then it trails off, into like, anything that you encounter in life, there's something that you can lean on that's like a similar experience for you to know that you can do it. You can do it. Because, I mean, fatherhood is still scary. know, there's times that you wonder if you're doing it right. You're just like, how did I do that? I messed up there. But I think the saving grace, man, is something that

coaching taught me was if you build a good enough, if you build a positive culture, that doesn't always mean you being nice, right? You can be kind, but you don't have to be nice. Sometimes the nicest thing you could do for people is tell them the truth, no matter how ugly it sounds. But if you, that's love, expectations, expectations. And the culture,

Robert Poirier (46:54)
mean that's love though that's love yeah yeah

TJ Void (47:03)
gives you the equity to say, I'm sorry, or I may have done that wrong, or I may have done that wrong to point guard. I hear you now, I see it, okay, I can adjust that, right? And it just takes the pressure off of having to be a superhero. You know what mean? It really does, it really does.

Robert Poirier (47:20)
Yep, and that's such a

big thing too is falling on the sword with your kids when when you screw up and admitting to them that hey, I made a mistake. I was wrong. Or I you know I did this I shouldn't have. And.

TJ Void (47:32)
Yeah.

Yeah,

and our parents, you know, they did the best they could. And I think what helped me in my relationship with my parents, especially my father, was when I realized he's just a dude. He just happened to be my dad. That's right. That's right.

Robert Poirier (47:51)
It's his first time. Yeah. mean, look, it's our first time going through parenthood, right? I mean, we haven't been through

this. There's no classes. There's none of that.

TJ Void (48:01)
You just, have a baby and you know, it's all funny games and parties and celebrations. And then the actual human comes and it's like, ⁓ man. And as soon as you get used to it, you feel like you got it stride, they change. And then you change.

Robert Poirier (48:16)
⁓ do they do they ever? Yeah. And just you wait. Hey,

tell me this. So so far biggest challenges for you as a father.

TJ Void (48:24)
⁓ getting out of my own way honestly and I yeah what I mean by that is I analyze things to a pulp like is is bad ⁓ but you can't I can't do that with him

⁓ Because like you said, just like it's our first time being a dad, it's his first time being eight years old. So he's figuring it out, I'm figuring it out. My wife, his mom is figuring it out. And so I have to give myself enough grace to say that if something goes wrong, that doesn't mean you did it wrong. And it's crazy because as a principal, I used to tell teachers this.

Robert Poirier (48:49)
Being eight years old.

TJ Void (49:10)
This sometimes this student isn't a disruption until you've made it a disruption. Like if they're tapping their pencil, just take the pencil. But when you say, hey, stop tapping a pencil. Okay, well now you've made it a disruption. And so as a father, it's like, where is, where did the lectures go? And then where do I just say, all right, you knew that wasn't right. We talked about it, move on.

Robert Poirier (49:23)
Yeah, true.

TJ Void (49:38)
Right? So not preaching to them has been, not turning every little thing into a big deal has been my biggest challenge.

Robert Poirier (49:50)
That's, yeah, no, that's good. That's good. It's tell me this though. What are you most looking forward to?

TJ Void (49:57)
Ooh, that's a good question, man. I want to see how he is. I am, I am.

Robert Poirier (50:02)
You're in such a great time too, Eight years old

is so much fun and you've got a lot in front of you, right? Because I know your son's going to play sports, probably. So what are you most looking forward to?

TJ Void (50:10)
It's a lot of energy. Yeah, yep, yep.

I think I'm looking forward to figuring out what his true passion is. Right now it's basketball, but who knows? ⁓ And I'm looking forward to figuring out what his true passion is and then how he pursues that. I think that's what I'm looking the most looking forward to.

Robert Poirier (50:23)
Yeah.

And if it's not basketball.

TJ Void (50:33)
That's fine. But I think that, I think again, to the point, I think that those, lessons that I teach him now is not that you have to be good at basketball. Is that if you want to be good at anything, it's going to take work. So if you want to be in right now, eight years old, right? So he wants to be an astronaut, NBA player. And what he told me was if the NBA don't work out, he'll just play in the MLB. Mind you, only one year of T-ball is his experience.

Robert Poirier (51:02)
That's good though do not kill those dreams man do not

TJ Void (51:05)
So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so,

so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so,

Cool. Let's figure it out. In fact, Robert, my next book is called I Want to Be a Dinosaur. And it came from a conversation I had with him. And sorry to get off track here, but it came from a conversation I've had with him when he was two going on three. Because my son is the daddy did you know guy. Right. Fun facts. So one of his early like did you know things was dinosaurs. And so I say, well, what do want to be when you grow up?

Robert Poirier (51:27)
No, no, no, I love it.

Ha ha ha ha.

TJ Void (51:46)
And he goes, I want to be a dinosaur. And I'm like, that was a turning point for me because I could have just said, well, son, you can't be a dinosaur.

Robert Poirier (51:54)
Yeah,

yeah.

TJ Void (51:54)
Instead

I said, okay, well, we'll figure it out. But what it did was it created this like passion for dinosaurs to where you realize that I think I want to be a paleontologist, right? And that's what the book is. So the book is kind of goes through that whole thing. And the idea of it is as parents, this goes back to my point of treating them like an adult when they're not, you know, adults quite yet. And I think we squelched their imagination too soon.

Robert Poirier (52:23)
We do.

TJ Void (52:23)
And

imagination is a prerequisite to greatness. Like, do you know how delusional you have to be to think you're going make it to the NBA? You know what I mean? And when you're there, how crazy you have to be to think that you're actually going to be good while you're there. Like, it takes an unrealistic level of confidence. I think that confidence comes from having an imagination that you can do anything and you can be anything.

Robert Poirier (52:50)
The dreams of an eight-year-old, mean, you're so accurate in just not squelching those dreams of an eight-year-old and letting them dream.

TJ Void (53:03)
Yeah, man. That imagination, as adults, if we can just keep that hold on tight to that imagination, man, this world will be even better than it is, Just try it. Just imagine that you can do it. I don't even believe in wishing, I don't even teach my son, because it is scary raising males, right? Because there's a lot of underlying rules that nobody has even taught us to talk about.

Robert Poirier (53:23)
Yeah.

TJ Void (53:28)
You know, and so we're trying to like the unwritten laws of manhood. We're trying to pass down this invisible book to them, right? And one of the things is allowing him to explore all of his ideas without me trying to correct his ideas. Like.

you know, ⁓ don't do it like this, do it like that. And that's difficult, because I'm a coach by nature, right? But just trying to make sure that he's out in the world with enough confidence to understand when the space isn't for him and not taking it personally.

Robert Poirier (54:08)
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. I feel like you get to a certain age and we're not living for ourself and we're living for society because we're so worried about what other people will think. What other people will say how I'm supposed to perform, how I'm supposed to do this and that. And I'm not, you know, I definitely don't think you should be some dreamer. Oh, today I want to be an astronaut today. I want to, know, be a singer tomorrow. I want to be an NBA player in your

TJ Void (54:30)
Right.

Robert Poirier (54:37)
you know, 30 years old and chasing all these different things. But I do, I think that is where we fail a lot of times if squashing dreams and chasing your passion, because I think there are so many people that never really pursued their passion and they probably could have achieved it.

TJ Void (54:59)
Right.

Robert Poirier (55:01)
But we end up living for society, whether it's our parents or spouse or friends, you know, and, you know, I look at this and I'm older than you, but people are in your life for such a short period of time. You know, you think about groups of friends you have. And, you know, some might be in your life. Some might be, you know, in your life the whole time. Others.

TJ Void (55:04)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (55:29)
Might be a two year period, a four year period, six year period. That's really, really short, but we're living our, our entire life for those friends that are in our lives for four years, six years, whatever it may be and worried about what they'll think. And, ⁓ yeah, yeah, but we do. Does that make sense? What I'm saying?

TJ Void (55:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

It's crazy thing.

It does

it does because truthfully people don't We've made that up because truthfully people don't care that much like the ones like I think from what was helped me in life man, and is that I This is gonna sound a little crazy didn't probably mean it but how insignificant I truly am to the The world has kept me kind of grounded cuz it's like the people that that I mean a lot to I mean a lot to them

Robert Poirier (56:00)
Yeah, they don't.

TJ Void (56:20)
And but there's so many people in this world who don't even know I exist. And not only do they not know, they don't care whether I exist or not. So truly, but the algorithm ⁓ of social media and society has caused us to think that that everything matters more than it does, because there's this false proximity to things. And so raising a kid in this this type of society, I'm sure with you, with teenagers, it's like

Robert Poirier (56:28)
Sure.

TJ Void (56:49)
Whew, you know, it's probably a whole different deal. ⁓ But with my son now, it's like, I do think Robert that we, there's a difference between imagination, being a dreamer, ⁓ and that obviously has to then mature into being a goal setter and going after goals. But I do think it is incumbent upon the people who they trust to be honest.

And I believe that we, and I believe this to become a detriment in sports, that we don't, we've only, we've leaned into the half truths that you can do whatever you set your mind to. I don't believe that. I believe it's more important to say that even though I can't do whatever I set my mind to, I've learned from working, from pursuing that if there is something,

that needs to be done, I can set my mind to it. You see what I'm saying? And so along the way, you may not make it to the NBA, but you may have made it, basketball may have taken you further than it ever would have taken you had you not worked on it.

Robert Poirier (57:50)
Yeah. Yep.

TJ Void (58:02)
And now you played on a basketball team with the CEO of some startup tech company that wants to give you a job. And now you're the VP, original director at 28 and you would have never gotten there. Had you not put in your mind to the idea of being good at basketball. And now you take all those lessons that you took in being good at this one thing that started off at some point at six years old was your day one and now you're 26.

Robert Poirier (58:08)
True. Yep.

TJ Void (58:32)
you're a day one and you take those skills and they translate and so I think we have to stop you know teaching kids that there aren't consequences to your reactions that hey the coach is this and blah blah blah that none of that matters what matters is are you doing every single thing in your power to be as good as you say you want to be on the thing that you say you want to do and then now if it doesn't work out quote-unquote if you worked hard there is no failure every result is just data it's just data you know so

Robert Poirier (58:45)
No.

Right, I agree. Yep. Yep.

TJ Void (59:02)
Okay, this didn't happen, why didn't it? All right, cool. There's things I can't control. I'm five, six. I'm a point guard. Probably not gonna make it to the NBA, but I've made myself this finance guru to where now I'm the general manager.

Robert Poirier (59:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (59:17)
and I'm still in the NBA. Like

what difference does it make? Well, I put myself in the company and now my company is a partner with the NBA. Like, this is, I think it's more important to just say, son, hey, you may not be able to do everything you set your mind to, but you can set your mind to things and that will take you further than it will ever if you didn't.

Robert Poirier (59:39)
TJ, tell me this, where do we as parents mess up the most with our kids with sports? Or what advice would you give for parents that have kids in sports?

TJ Void (59:45)
Cool man.

be their parent. That's it. Just be their parent. That's plenty. That's all.

Robert Poirier (59:52)
And, that is, and that is being what

TJ Void (59:57)
yeah, so this is formulated from multiple levels, right? Being an athlete and having a parent in the stands, being a coach and dealing with parents, and then being a principal in dealing with parents. And on all three things, I'll say the same thing. Things outside of your control do...

If it is more helpful to just parent your child and say, okay, if the coach isn't coaching up to your standards, and you go home and you tell your athlete that the coach sucks, what does that help? Like how is that helping? It's not helping at all. It is more beneficial for you to have the conversation with your athlete and say, listen, son, daughter.

Robert Poirier (1:00:34)
Thanks, Zach.

TJ Void (1:00:45)
I know the coach isn't doing what you would like them to do. I know you're not playing as much you can do as much as you can, but how hard are we working? So when the time comes, you you'll still get to play with the coach pulls you in, pulls you out or sit you on the bench or put you in and that's that's beyond your control. So now how are you dealing with not playing as much as you want? Are you showing up early? Are you doing everything you're supposed to do? Are you showing the attitude? Are you being a good teammate? Right? Are we doing all these things that we can control? But if we take on

the attitude of dissatisfaction, of being disgruntled. How then do we expect this young person who is taking in all of our emotions, both said and unsaid, without the 20 plus years of filtration that we may have as adults, and they're taking that with them onto this team. How is that helpful? How is that helpful to them? And here's the second thing I'll say, Robert.

ask your athlete why they play the sport they play. What is it you want to get out of this? Do you want to go to college and play volleyball? No? Okay. Then you just enjoy it with your friends? Cool. That's easy for me. We can sit back and just clap it up and go home. I don't have to yell at the coach and scream at the ref, right? Or, why do you play basketball? You know, don't play as much as you...

Robert Poirier (1:02:03)
Ha ha ha!

TJ Void (1:02:09)
as you would like to, right? ⁓ you know, dad, I don't care about playing. I'm not going to college to play basketball. OK, this makes my life easy, right? But I think to your point, we put on to them what we think should be happening. And truth be told, if you're coaching them in the car to the game, you're coaching them over the coach during the game, you're coaching them after the game on the drive home.

Robert Poirier (1:02:17)
Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (1:02:36)
When are you parenting them? Like, what are you teaching them to deal with the difficulties of a difficult season? And I would tell every parent, if I had to give them any advice, this is your child, parent them first, and then let the athlete be the athlete. Because you still got to parent that kid. You don't want your relationship to revolve around the sport they play.

Robert Poirier (1:02:38)
Great, great, yeah.

Yeah.

you know, my, my thing was always just, and it still is, is just effort is I want to see the effort out there. I w I want to see that that's that's the, can miss eight shots. That's fine. You can miss eight in a row, but I want to see the effort. You know, if you're going out there and you're half ass in it, no, that's not, that's not what I want.

TJ Void (1:03:06)
That's it.

That's it.

Robert Poirier (1:03:26)
I love what you're saying about not putting down the coaches because then I think the kids lose respect for the coach and how can, how can that coach then coach them it's gone. But, and I think that's where a lot of parents really screw up, but, it is.

TJ Void (1:03:31)
Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Robert Poirier (1:03:45)
Going to the coach also saying, coach, not how can I get more play in time, but what suggestions do you have for me or what can I do to help the team? You know, that is my big thing is going to them, not, coach, I want to play more. You know, I see Tim is getting a lot more time than I am and I'm better than him, but it's no, can I do to help the team?

TJ Void (1:04:10)
Yeah, I'll give you two stories, man. One, it's a story of, I'm sharing it with you earlier. I'm gonna share it to a larger, to my base as well. But there's a story of Tyrone Basie. Tyrone Basie was a kid who came in a temple the year after I was there. So I was a sophomore, he was coming in as a freshman.

So he came in with the point guard too, they grew up together, so they went to same high school, so they both came in together. The point guard was highly recruited, he just didn't have the grades. And I heard my ankle going into a preseason tournament, so Tyrone started. Tyrone's a heck of a player, okay? Tyrone was a better basketball player than I was. And I knew that. And I said, I have to get back on that court, because I can't, this Tyrone can't let that Tyrone.

Take my place, okay? Now, here's a lesson in that. Tyrone played better with our point guard, which is the Kyron Nix, and Tyrone was a better basketball player. So as a starter, I was probably anywhere between, I was never the best, never the worst player on the floor. So I was anywhere between five and eight, right, of the 10. If I'da came off the bench.

I was better than probably 80 % of every six man we played against. So at the time, that probably would have made me look even better because I'm playing against bench guys now. And I'm a starter for all these things and purposes. So I tell that story to say, sometimes your role fits you better than you may think it does.

Robert Poirier (1:05:30)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Void (1:05:47)
Whether I was better than Tyrone or whether I wasn't better than Tyrone, didn't matter. Coming off the bench, I know for a fact I'm better than your seventh man. Not better at all times than your starting two guard and Tyrone may be, right? So not only would I have looked better, our team would have been better.

And Tyrone looked up to me and I wasn't a good enough teammate to just let him say, all right, Tyrone, hey, you go ahead. Here's what I'm seeing out there. Here's what you can do. And just propped him up, right? Story two, my son, Coach, he's heard me talk about parents, just being a parent. And so he's playing four year old soccer. He's over it, right? They're practicing twice a week for some weird reason. And then playing on Saturdays. And I'm watching him play.

Robert Poirier (1:06:04)
that, yep.

for a four year

old soccer.

TJ Void (1:06:30)
Man, he's picking daisies, bro. And I'm heated, right? And I'm like, what are we doing? So we get into the, he's coming straight from daycare. Listen, straight from daycare to basketball, to soccer practice. And I'm having like a heart to heart with him in the car. Right? Like son, you gotta play harder. Okay? You got the balls in front of you. You need to go after it. The coach is telling you, kick it this way. And you're just running in a circle. He's sitting back there. This is where.

Robert Poirier (1:06:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

TJ Void (1:07:00)
Like the parenting you out of your kid becomes difficult, He's sitting back there taking it all in and he goes, I gave my most passionate speech and I stopped and I finally go, do you hear what I'm saying? He says, daddy. I say, yeah. He said, you don't play soccer. I said, no, I don't. He says, don't coach.

I said, ⁓ well, and that was that. And I've never done it again. He told me, he said, don't coach him. He went back to drinking his little apple juice or whatever, just as clear as that. And I don't know if that was divine intervention that stepped in or what, but that knocked me right back down to he's right. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Robert Poirier (1:07:41)
Probably was.

TJ Void (1:07:47)
I'm just sitting up here yelling and being upset and I'm like, I need you to be me is what I was saying. Right? ⁓ Be aggressive, da da da. He's like, man, I don't care. Like I'm four, I've been a long day of daycare. They got me out here. This is the second practice of the week. I don't care, bro. You know, and I said, well, I just want you to be better. He goes, sometimes this is better.

Robert Poirier (1:07:54)
Yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (1:08:14)
And I said, ⁓ I a true story. And I'm like, you know what? As good as I, this is what I tell parents, as good as you think your son should be, they may be playing the best they can play. You just have to accept it. You know, also that same dude that you have to tell 10 times to put his plate in the sink.

Robert Poirier (1:08:19)
Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Void (1:08:42)
That same dude that you have to tell to get his underwear off his bedroom floor 10 times is the same dude I'm coaching. So keep that in mind when things are going haywire out there and just think I probably didn't tell him to do that. In fact, I probably told him to do something else 10 times.

Robert Poirier (1:09:03)
Yeah.

TJ Void (1:09:04)
And that usually gets them, I've heard a parent tell me, I never thought about it like that. Like, yeah, they don't change when they come to me. So just, I'm not saying that coaches should be absolved of any wrongdoing, right? But it just isn't helpful to put negativity into your athlete and expect them to go out and perform positively. That's just not in human nature.

Robert Poirier (1:09:16)
Right, right.

I, I, I agree. I agree. I totally agree there. And you know, going back to just the pressure we as parents put on the kids and, know, I think we talked about this a week or so ago was so many times I see parents running themselves crazy, taking their kids to lessons outside of the practices and they're griping about, I've got to take them to this and then to this and

You know, and he never wants to go to this and he's, and he's always late and you know, can't get his stuff together. And I'm like, Whoa, if he doesn't want to go, that's that tells you something right there. You know, especially when they're of a certain age, because then it is, it's up to them if they want to be really good, if they want to be great. I mean, that's, that's up to them. But I think we push too much as parents,

TJ Void (1:10:22)
Yeah.

Now, this one more thing, man, it just came to me. take the pressure off your kid to pay you back for supporting them. And that's in the form of if they're giving you, I know you play for AAU and they're not playing well during the season, but also just because a kid plays a sport, they don't owe you a college scholarship. They just don't.

Robert Poirier (1:10:46)
No,

TJ Void (1:10:48)
And I know that's us

Robert Poirier (1:10:48)
I love that.

TJ Void (1:10:49)
saying, better get a scholarship all this time and money we spend. No, no, this is their passion at the time. And as parents, we are called to support that. And if they happen to get a college scholarship, fine. Thank God for that, right? But that's not their, they're not obligated to get a college scholarship because they need to pay you back for the time that you spent supporting them. So take that pressure off and just have, find a way to make it fun, man.

It's a lot of pressure in sports now with the NIL and this and that and the transfer portal and the blah and the AU and the rankings and the Instagram clips. At what point do you just enjoy doing what you're doing

Robert Poirier (1:11:30)
That's it. That

is it right there. And yeah, I see it go so much from parent, the pressure from parents into the kids that it just, how can they enjoy it? Especially when you get in high school, how can you, I mean, you think back to your high school, enjoying those games and everything about it, and how can they enjoy if they've got all this pressure?

from their parents and they're put, they don't even realize that they're putting on themselves as well with that. I mean, it breaks my heart. takes kind of the love and the fun out of

TJ Void (1:11:59)
Yeah.

Yeah man, for sure.

Robert Poirier (1:12:06)
Hey, so before we wrap this up, what other advice do you have for parents?

TJ Void (1:12:10)
Man, again, I'm not one to give advice, man, but I would just say enjoy the ride You you're changing, they're changing. ⁓ Leave space for your child to be human.

Robert Poirier (1:12:25)
Yeah, that's good.

TJ Void (1:12:25)
They're just

humans. They're humans with their own thoughts, their own emotions. And despite you doing the best you can to mold them a certain way, I think give yourself the grace to know that it's probably working. And the part of them that annoys you the most probably comes directly from you.

Robert Poirier (1:12:41)
No, does it ever. ⁓ Does it ever.

TJ Void (1:12:47)
Don't be

afraid to laugh. Don't be afraid to show vulnerability. And don't be afraid to be wrong. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to try our best. And I think that we should give the kids more credit than we give them to understand that they know that we're trying the best we can.

Robert Poirier (1:12:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. Hey, so last question. If you were to suggest two or three people or two or three subjects for this podcast, who would you, I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot. Is there anybody that comes to mind?

TJ Void (1:13:15)
Yeah. ⁓

People, I don't know as much people. ⁓ I think sports dads or sports parents is always a big topic, especially now. Coming from somebody who either has been a pro or has a kid currently going through the recruiting process or whatever the case may be. Also, I would say... ⁓

Robert Poirier (1:13:22)
Or what subjects then?

Yeah.

TJ Void (1:13:40)
I think the difference between, because I don't know, I only have a son, but the difference between raising a young man and a young woman. ⁓

Robert Poirier (1:13:47)
I am. Yeah. I've had a few and

I want to, I want to dive into that even more so because I can't, you know, having two boys, I can't tell you, thank goodness I don't have girls, but I would love to know. I would love to dive into that more, especially in today's society, you know,

TJ Void (1:13:52)
Yeah.

Man.

Yeah, yeah, ⁓ absolutely.

Absolutely. And then I think I think that's where my mind goes immediately. Obviously, with that, there will be other things like, you know, social media and kids raising kids in this era, which, you know, I'm fully immersed in now with my young, but I think those who are the first two other ones that comes to mind immediately. Yeah.

Robert Poirier (1:14:29)
Those are great. Those are great.

TJ. Thank you for coming on, brother. I appreciate it. I really do. And, thank you for taking time out of your day to, come on. you bet. Hey, and thank you all for listening to the dad to dads podcast. You can find us on Spotify or Apple, as well as most platforms. can also find us on YouTube and Instagram. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes.

TJ Void (1:14:33)
Yeah, man, I appreciate it. Awesome.

Thank you for having me. I truly appreciate it.

Robert Poirier (1:14:57)
Also, leave comments. Feel free to leave a comment. I read every single one of them. I love receiving the feedback as well. And look, thank you all again, and we will talk to you next time.