You Don't Know Jack

When was the last time you approached life with the curiosity of a child? Somewhere along the way, we become so focused on achieving, succeeding and getting things right that we forget how to play, explore and simply enjoy the experience. In this episode of You Don't Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore the power of childlike curiosity and its role in performance, happiness, lo...

What can you actually learn from watching someone who is great at what they do? Whether it’s an elite athlete, coach, speaker, or leader, we often see the finished performance—but we miss the small behaviors and patterns that make that performance possible. In this episode of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus break performance down into four dimensions: physical, emotional...

What if training for hard things isn't just about preparing for the challenge you know is coming, but preparing yourself for the challenges you don't? In this episode of You Don't Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore what happens when we intentionally train ourselves to experience discomfort, pressure, anxiety, and higher levels of arousal rather than always trying to avoid the...

We know recovery matters. So why is it so hard to actually do it? We know comparing ourselves to others can pull us out of our own experience. So why do we keep looking sideways? And if flow is supposed to be the ideal performance state, why can chasing it actually make performance harder? In Part 2 of our Real-Life Coaching series, Haley puts Jack on the spot with real challenges athletes, perfor...

Have you ever known you could make the shot... and still missed when it mattered most? Why doesn't telling yourself, "I've made this hundreds of times" always work under pressure? In this episode of You Don't Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore the thinking patterns that quietly undermine performance in sport, business, and everyday life. You'll learn how distorted thinking sh...

Have you ever known exactly what you wanted to do... but couldn't seem to take the next step? Whether it's making a decision, having a difficult conversation, competing under pressure, or chasing a goal, many of us get stuck in what psychologists call analysis paralysis. In this episode of You Don't Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore why overthinking happens, what your brain...

People hear the phrase "control the controllables" all the time. Coaches say it. Leaders say it. Psychologists say it.     But almost nobody explains how to actually train that skill.     In this episode of You Don't Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore why our minds naturally gravitate toward things we cannot control and why that's completely human. They di...

What can a baseball movie, a country song, a Disney character, and Helen Keller teach us about navigating life? In this episode of You Don't Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus share some of the quotes, lyrics, and movie lines that have stayed with them over the years—and why. These aren't just memorable words. They're reminders about resilience, purpose, courage, curiosity, relations...

This episode launches a recurring series on You Don't Know Jack . As a performance psychology coach, Dr. Haley Perlus has the privilege of working with athletes, executives, leaders, and high performers from all walks of life. While every person and situation is unique, many of the challenges they face are remarkably universal. In this episode, Haley brings a collection of anonymous real-world coa...

What is a mentor… really? In this episode of You Don’t Know Jack , Dr.  Haley Perlus and Dr.  Jack Groppel break down what mentorship actually looks like beyond the buzzword. But this conversation is different. This podcast is built on a real mentor–mentee relationship. Jack is the mentor. Haley is the mentee. Every episode is a live, unfiltered exchange of perspective, experience, and g...

Visualization is one of the most talked about mental skills in performance… and one of the most misunderstood. In this episode of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Haley Perlus and Dr. Jack Groppel break down what visualization actually is, why it works, and how to use it to improve performance, build real confidence, and manage anxiety under pressure. This is not about “seeing success” or positive thinkin...

Mistakes are unavoidable in sport, business, and life, but how you respond to them is what separates high performers from everyone else. In this episode of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Haley Perlus and Dr. Jack Groppel break down the psychology of mistakes and why striving for perfection isn’t the goal, becoming a great recoverer is. You’ll learn: √ Why mistakes don’t have to shake your confidence √ H...

How High Performers Manage Fear Under Pressure In this episode of the You Don’t Know Jack podcast, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore the psychology of fear and how it affects performance, confidence, and decision-making under pressure. They break down what fear really is, why it shows up when the stakes are high, and how it can quietly influence our thoughts and actions if we let it do...

High performance cannot exist without both stress and recovery. In this episode of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Haley Perlus and Dr. Jack Groppel explore why stress is not the enemy, but an essential part of growth, adaptation, and performance, and why recovery is what allows stress to actually work for you rather than against you. We break down the biology of stress and recovery, explain why burnout...

Pressure is unavoidable, but how you interpret it determines whether it sharpens your performance or drains your energy. In Episode 2 of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore how early pressure influences, especially from parents and authority figures, shape the way we respond to expectations later in life. Both Jack and Haley felt pressure from their fathers, but in v...

Some of the most popular success advice may actually be hurting your performance. In this episode of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus break down common mindset phrases like “fake it till you make it,” “failure is not an option,” and “get 1% better every day.” These ideas sound motivating, but are they actually helpful? Drawing from decades of experience in performance psy...

What’s the point of success if you don’t feel fulfilled? In this first episode of You Don’t Know Jack, Dr. Jack Groppel and Dr. Haley Perlus explore purpose, meaning, and why they matter for performance, happiness, and resilience. Jack shares how discovering purpose through the School of Knox helped shape his life and leadership, and Haley explains how having the right mentor saved her years (mayb...