More Than Minutes Played

Noah Cavanaugh
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When injury hits, performance drops, or the game turns on you, what do you fall back on? Former professional footballer Noah Cavanaugh explores identity, performance psychology, and life outside sport through conversations with elite athletes and sports industry experts. On the More Than Minutes Played podcast, Noah aims to uncover stories about athlete crisis moments and navigating these to maintain peak performance on and off the field. New episodes weekly.

  1. 2d ago

    The Most Important Mental Skill an Athlete Can Have | Daniel Dymond

    Daniel Dymond has spent years working at the elite level of sport, including a stretch helping an Olympic shooter climb from outside the top 20 to world number one. He and Noah dig into why attention, not positivity or confidence, is the psychological skill that actually separates performance under pressure. They talk about the language athletes use internally, and how something as small as "I am anxious" versus "I notice anxiety" can change how much power an emotion holds over them. Daniel breaks down the difference between an athlete driven by fear of failure and one driven by personal values, even when their daily behaviors look identical from the outside. He explains why some mental training accidentally teaches athletes to suppress emotions rather than tolerate them. He also gets into cognitive endurance and fatigue as one of the newest frontiers in sports psychology, what he learned coaching an athlete through the Olympics, and why he thinks high-performance behaviors work like compound interest over a career. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:04 - Self-Determination Theory 03:23 - Attention is the Most Important Mental Skill 05:07 - Why Telling Yourself “Don’t” Backfires 08:07 - Distractions vs. Threats 10:23 - Two Athlete, Same Habits, Only One Sleeps at Night 12:40 - How to Tell Perfectionism From Pursuing Excellence 14:52 - Why Failure Feels Like a Threat to Your Identity 18:59 - “You’re Speaking a Completely New Language” 21:54 - “Mindset” vs “State of Mind” 25:02 - Why Sensitive Athletes Can Thrive Now 28:03 - Why You Fade Late Even If You’re Fit 31:54 - Where Technology Can Enhance Studies 35:10 - What Makes Each Sport Mentally Hard 39:35 - Coaching an Athlete to be Number One for the Olympics 43:25 - “In Psychology, Nothing Works” 46:34 - Glimpses of Brilliance Aren’t the Same as Consistency 48:36 - Suppressing Your Emotions Leads to Anxiety About Anxiety 53:45 - What Separates Elite From Sub-Elite Athletes 55:54 - Elite in Sport Doesn’t Mean Elite in Life 58:34 - What Defines Success Working With Athletes 01:00:35 - “I Do Always look Like Leo Messi”

    The Most Important Mental Skill an Athlete Can Have | Daniel Dymond

  2. Oct 13

    From Synchronized Swimming to Entrepreneurship | Victoria Justice

    Victoria Justice spent over a decade as a synchronized swimmer, training her body to stay calm underwater while fighting through fatigue, breath control, and the constant threat of injury. She and Noah talk about the mental discipline that sport demanded, how deeply her identity got wrapped up in her performance, and what it felt like to walk away from mastery and start over as a beginner in the business world. Victoria breaks down why she believes seeking out discomfort, not avoiding it, is what actually builds confidence and meaning, and how she and her husband built a shared vision board to keep their marriage and their business aligned. She also talks about learning to separate her self-worth from the need to get everything right, why that shift has made her more competitive rather than less, and how she's come to describe herself now: as a competitive artist. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:49 - Synchronized Swimmers Are Water Gymnasts 02:00 - The Mental & Physical Regime 03:48 - “You Can’t Break or The Team Suffers” 06:23 - How a Team Throws Someone Safely 09:18 - “I Wish I Didn’t Tie My Identity to My Performance” 12:05 - Why Young Athletes Become Their Sport 13:32 - Ability to be Insanely Uncomfortable 15:05 - The Fast Track to Feeling Useless 17:29 - Why Would You Not Want To Know What You’re Made Of? 19:43 - The Levels of Competence 20:42 - My Routine of Manufacturing Discomfort 23:11 - How Do You Find The Best Version of You? 25:45 - Perfectionism Was Trapping Her in a Box 28:08 - Overcoming the Fear of Judgement 29:30 - You’ll Never Be Everyone’s Cup of Tea 31:30 - It’s Hard to be Yourself When Everything is Judged 33:50 - Is There Loss or Freedom After Sport Ends? 36:31 - Why Starting Over is Scarier For Athletes 37:32 - Lay Your Ego At The Door 39:00 - Look in Decades, Not Days 41:05 - What Would Your Ideal Future Self Do? 42:35 - The Cross in the Middle of Her Vision Board 43:30 - Marriage is a Team Sport 47:05 - Your Best is Enough 49:00 - Having Fun is a Competitive Advantage 49:58 - What Questions Would You Ask Your Future Self? 51:55 - Who Are You, Victoria?

  3. Oct 6

    My Baseball Career Ended Overnight. Here’s What I Built Next | Cole Critchfield

    Cole Critchfield walked away from a two-year mission in Cambodia and into a college baseball career, hitting .390 in his first season at Southern Virginia after being told it would be a developmental year. He and Noah trace that same mentality through his COVID-shortened senior season, which ended over three consecutive days of cancelled games with no closure, and into a career building personal brands for athletes at every stage: Alec Manoah early in his career, Jonathan David through a record transfer, and Amar'e Stoudemire heading into the Hall of Fame. Cole breaks down why commitment to the process is the single biggest driver of an athlete's growth online, why follower counts can be a misleading measure of actual value, and why building a brand matters most for players who may never make it to the top level. He and Noah also get into the mindset that's carried Cole through repeated, sudden transitions, from his mission to his playing career to building his own house by hand, and why doing the thing without attaching to the outcome tends to be where the real progress happens. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:51 - The State With No High School Baseball 02:26 - What a Mission in Cambodia Taught Him 04:51 - Always Exceed People’s Expectations 06:49 - When Someone Tells You You Can’t 09:00 - High Commitment & High Acceptance 09:41 - Athlete Personal Branding Origins 11:32 - “I Was Thrown Into the Freaking Fire” 13:49 - His Senior Season Ended Without Warning 15:30 - Told on Tuesday, Home by Wednesday 16:07 - Moving 14 Times Teaching Him to Adapt 17:41 - Change is How You Grow 19:19 - You Can’t Build a Brand If You Don’t Genuinely Care 22:03 - The Insane Trust With Alek Manoah 24:03 - Positioning Jonathan David For a Successful Brand 25:40 - The Hall of Fame Campaign 26:25 - Creating Amar’e Stoudemire’s Lasting Legacy 27:55 - Letting Basketball Speak For Itself 30:44 - “To Be Honest Dude, It’s Too Late” 33:01 - Followers Could Soon Decide Draft Picks 33:54 - Personal Brand is Just as Important as an Athlete 35:24 - Going Pro is a Dogfight 37:22 - “It Literally Doesn’t Matter” 39:12 - What If Shouhei Ohtani Showed More Into His Life 40:30 - 1.5 Million Followers That Can’t Sell 42:25 - Just Getting The Thing Done 45:30 - I Don’t Want to Look Back With Regrets 48:04 - Your Aspirations Can Be Higher 50:04 - Go Do It, You’ll Figure It Out 52:00 - Experience How Other Countries Live 53:33 - The Fantasy Nightmare Fallacy 55:40 - Let Go Of Those Expectations 57:14 - One Piece Of Advice For Young Athletes

  4. Sep 29

    The Mamba Mentality Isn't for Everyone | Zane Provenzano

    Zane Provenzano played competitively from age eight to twenty-three with a focus on football, academics, and little else. He and Noah talk about what it took to let that extreme mentality go once his path to the pro game stalled during COVID, and how he found his way back into the sport as a strength coach for a USL Championship team and, eventually, as a player in professional indoor soccer. Zane breaks down why he thinks the grind culture around athletes like Kobe and Ronaldo gets misread by young players chasing the highlight reel instead of the boring, balanced routines underneath it, and how building real relationships with teammates ended up mattering more to his career than any training block. He also gets into the differences between indoor and outdoor soccer's pace and pressure, and why publicly committing to a goal, even one that doesn't pan out the way you expect, tends to pull you toward where you actually need to go. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:58 - From Football to Entrepreneurship 03:21 - COVID Closed the Door Right as he Reached it 05:30 - You Just Need One Chance 07:05 - Not Staying Idle, Constantly Improving 08:07 - The Full Circle Moment 09:35 - Why Transferrable Skills Are So Important 11:40 - People Who Are Willing To Help You 13:39 - You Trust People You’ve Suffered With 15:56 - Football, Academics and Nothing Else 17:08 - Getting Valedictorian Because of Football 18:42 - The Cost of Obsession 20:20 - You Need to Find Discomfort for Success 23:55 - Noah’s First Frat Party Experience 25:59 - Letting Go of the Extremes 27:36 - Mamba Mentality is a Lie 28:35 - Adaptability vs. Glorified Mindsets 30:25 - Why Erling Haaland is Showing the Real Side of Pro Football 33:59 - How The Youth Are Developing 36:48 - The Risk Runs Both Ways 38:09 - “I Have No Chips Left on the Table” 39:09 - Never Fully Leaving the Game 40:55 - Four Hours a Week, Made to Count 45:30 - The Constant Chaos of Indoor Soccer 49:11 - Why Mistakes Have Stopped Mattering 52:00 - Believe It First, Then Work Backwards 55:04 - Finite vs Infinite Games 56:08 - Getting There Sideways 57:45 - Public Accountability Is Extremely Powerful 01:00:10 - What Actually Stops People Taking Risks 01:02:02 - How He Wants to Remember His Career

  5. Sep 22

    When College Recruiting Breaks Your Identity | The Whole Athlete

    Doug and Christy Sweaney Herrick built The Whole Athlete around a question they couldn't shake as former college athletes themselves: what if performance-based support isn't enough, and athletes need something more holistic? Doug, Christy and Noah walk through the stages where an athlete's identity can start to collapse into their sport alone, from parental pressure and early specialization through recruiting rejection, scholarship dependency, and the shame-based motivation that drives so many high performers. Christy shares her own experience hitting a performance plateau in running during puberty with no explanation for why, and Doug talks about what it felt like locker-room-adjacent to a star player while quietly burning out on fear-based motivation. They get into the difference between guilt and shame, why self-belief has to come before self-criticism for it to actually work, and why having a steady, regulated person in your corner matters more than almost anything else when things go wrong. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:09 - What We Wished We Had as Athletes 03:37 - The Eight Stages of Identity Foreclosure 05:39 - Parents Living Through Their Kids 07:26 - Her Dad With a Stopwatch 08:47 - “There’s So Much Out of Your Control as an Athlete” 12:15 - Optimising Until You’re Miserable 14:50 - People Will Go Far By Enjoying Their Sport 16:00 - The Implications of Specialising 18:10 - “The Pressure Was Overwhelming” 19:40 - Getting Attention For What You’re Good At 22:15 - The Puberty Plateau 26:40 - “Sports Are So Compelling” 29:15 - “Nobody Gives a Sh*t” 31:19 - Hitting the First Wall of Rejection 32:50 - The Reality of Competition in College Sports 34:54 - Not Rising to The Attention 35:54 - Why Flexibility Increases Creativity 38:10 - Finding it Difficult to Trust Non-Athletes 39:44 - “The Way We Define ‘Athletic’ is So Limiting” 42:33 - Creating Space from Athletics 43:50 - Learning to Let Go of Insane Obligations 46:07 - Scholarship Privilege in Sports 48:15 - Doing What We HAVE To Do 49:40 - Dangers of Suffering For a Better Life 51:57 - Realities of Pay in Pro Soccer 55:22 - Locker Next to Clint Dempsey 56:32 - “No One Cares How Much You Make” 57:12 - Mechanisms for Motivation 59:15 - Attaching Identity to Performance 01:01:32 - “You’re Literally Frying Your Nervous System” 01:04:17 - You Can’t Put Your Eggs in One Basket 01:06:30 - “It’s Essential to be Critical of Yourself” 01:09:08 - Having People Who Care About You No Matter What 01:11:53 - Where to Find The Whole Athlete 01:13:00 - The Last Four Stages

  6. Sep 15

    Basketball as a Vehicle, Not an Identity | Carlos Angel Jr.

    Carlos Angel Jr. grew up in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, hearing from people around him that he wasn't fast enough, tall enough, or skilled enough to play pro basketball. He and Noah talk about the mentors who changed that trajectory, including his longtime trainer, Stephen Garnett, and the coach who helped connect him to junior college and eventually Whitman. Carlos walks through his winding path through juco, a Division III program, a stint in England, and a showcase in Mexico that led to his first professional contract, plus the string of one-year deals and short-notice moves that have followed since. He gets into how his faith and a daily routine keep him grounded through that uncertainty, why he's always treated basketball as a vehicle rather than his identity, and what he's learned from his parents' immigration story about building something for the next generation. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:42 - Everyone Told Him Why He Couldn’t 04:29 - The Showcase Nobody Came to Watch Him At 08:10 - 23 Points a Game in First Pro Season 09:50 - He Didn’t Know How to Believe in Himself 13:37 - Basketball as a Vehicle, Not an Identity 15:50 - “I’m Just a Regular Dude” 18:36 - Everyone’s Just a Human 19:07 - His Parents Don’t Know The Rules. They Show Up Anyway. 23:12 - The Thing That Finally Clicked 24:51 - Staying Process-Focused in a Results-Driven World 27:01 - He Stopped Negotiating With Himself 29:21 - A Cancelled Season, and a Chance Meeting at the Gym 32:38 - Start Working Like a Pro 35:30 - The Most Influential Relationship 39:13 - Fail 100 Times. Then Fail Again. 40:24 - A Contract Pending in Mexico 41:14 - Dealing With the Uncertainty of Pro Basketball 43:30 - How He Wants to Look Back on his Career 44:49 - More Than Minutes Played

  7. Sep 8

    From 112 Games on the Bench to Banana Ball Star | Eli Paton

    Eli Paton spent his early baseball career dominating, until UCLA humbled him with a position switch, a torn meniscus, and 112 straight games on the bench. He and Noah talk through how he handled that stretch, why he ultimately transferred to GCU to find playing time, and how those two years of watching from the dugout shaped him as much as any game he started. Eli explains how a short, unpaid stint in independent ball led him to Banana Ball, what the constant travel and nonstop fan interaction demand of him physically and mentally, and how he works to stay recovered and grounded through it. He also opens up about College Prospector, the athlete-advising business he's building on the side, and what he's learned about staying at an even keel through both the highs and the lows of a career built on constant reinvention. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:47 - The Most Important Question Today 03:57 - “Great Things Come From Hard Work & Perseverance” 05:08 - The One Person Who Changed It All 06:24 - Being Inspired by an Unbiased Third-Party 07:30 - Fall in Love With Your Sport 08:22 - Living Through Your Child’s Career 10:55 - “I Got Cleated in the Head” 13:04 - Josie Was Never Meant to Survive 17:00 - How Eli Got into Banana Ball 19:14 - “I Need to Invest in Myself” 22:26 - Remembering to Soak It All In 23:25 - Your Brand Has to be Authentic 25:43 - How Are You Able to Stay Grounded? 27:29 - Celebrities Aren’t Gods 31:34 - Adapting to the Insane Schedule of Banana Ball 33:49 - “I Sat 112 Games on the Bench” 39:45 - Understanding When to Move On 41:40 - Knowing How To Regulate Your Highs & Lows 44:11 - Giving Back to the Next Generation 47:47 - Teaching Kids Has Helped Me Grow As a Player 51:05 - Life in 10 Years 53:17 - What He Tells Athletes at Every Stage of Their Career 56:58 - Where To Connect With Eli

  8. Sep 1

    Sierra Caffo on Playing in the Zone and Losing It

    Sierra Caffo grew up with a beach volleyball in her hand, following her father's love for the sport from San Diego's sand courts all the way to a six-year, Division 1 college career. She and Noah talk about what it felt like getting recruited by top programs at just 14 and 15 years old, and how her parents' hands-off approach to winning and losing gave her the space to build her own relationship with the game. Sierra opens up about her final collegiate match, a loss that came down to her court in the last set of her career, and the guilt she's carried and slowly processed in the time since. She and Noah dig into what being "in the zone" actually feels like and how the discipline and resilience she built on the court have shaped who she is now, well outside the sport. This is More Than Minutes Played, where host Noah Cavanaugh has conversations with athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists about identity, purpose, and what life looks like inside and outside of sport. New episodes weekly, subscribe if you enjoy these conversations! Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:54 - Her Dad Found Beach Volleyball & Never Let Go 04:30 - The Sport People Assume Nobody Plays 07:30 - The Rise of Social Beach Volleyball 09:20 - She Still Has to Beat Her Brothers at Everything 11:31 - When Did Volleyball Become Her Identity 14:02 - Was There Ever Parental Pressure to Excel? 17:20 - The Importance of Healthy Parenting 20:29 - Deciding Your Future at Fourteen 24:52 - Being Judged, Ranked, and Chosen at Fifteen 28:03 - The Incredible Feeling of Being in the Zone 29:59 - “Being In The Zone Means You’re Completely Free” 33:33 - The Pain of the Final Game of Her Career 37:40 - “I Felt Like a Failure” 40:36 - Emotional Impact on Noah 43:20 - “I Don’t Want to Disappoint Them” 47:50 - There’s No Perfect Science 49:20 - Sports Increase Your Ability To Adapt 51:57 - Understanding Your Role 54:06 - Resilience, Work Ethic & Constructive Feedback 58:45 - The Key To Willingness to Improve 01:00:32 - Being Proud of Her Athletic Career

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About

When injury hits, performance drops, or the game turns on you, what do you fall back on? Former professional footballer Noah Cavanaugh explores identity, performance psychology, and life outside sport through conversations with elite athletes and sports industry experts. On the More Than Minutes Played podcast, Noah aims to uncover stories about athlete crisis moments and navigating these to maintain peak performance on and off the field. New episodes weekly.

Information

  • Creator
    Noah Cavanaugh
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    16
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Noah Cavanaugh
  • Show Website
    More Than Minutes Played