The Struggle Bubble

Chad Kutting and Craig Surgey
  • 5.0 (17)
  • Parenting
  • Updated Weekly

The Struggle Bubble is a dynamic podcast that dives deep into the real-life challenges faced by modern professionals, parents, and individuals in high-performance environments. Hosted by Chad Kutting and Craig Surgey, this show offers a raw and honest look at the juggling act of balancing career ambitions, family responsibilities, and personal well-being. Each episode features candid conversations about the pressures of living in tech-centric communities, the evolving landscape of parenting, and the constant push-pull between professional success and personal fulfillment. The hosts share their own experiences and insights, often bringing in guest experts to provide diverse perspectives on navigating life's complexities. The Struggle Bubble is more than just a podcast; it's a community where listeners can find relatable stories, practical advice, and a sense of camaraderie in facing life's everyday struggles. Whether you're a Silicon Valley techie, a busy parent, or anyone trying to find balance in a fast-paced world, this podcast offers valuable insights and a reminder that you're not alone in your journey. Join Chad and Craig as they unpack the realities of modern life, share laughs over common frustrations, and explore strategies for thriving amidst the chaos. "The Struggle Bubble" - because sometimes, the most comforting thing is knowing we're all in this together.

  1. Quiet Quitting in Youth Sports

    2d ago

    Quiet Quitting in Youth Sports

    No guest this week — just Craig and Chad back in the garage, one of them fresh off a dance audition and the other off a baseball playoff thriller. What starts as the Savannah Bananas and a $100 parking ticket at the Giants turns into the most honest money conversation the show has had all season. A few weeks ago, Congress introduced the Let Kids Play Act — a bill to force private equity out of youth sports leagues, facilities, tournaments, and tech platforms, refund the "junk fees," and hold PE investors personally liable. The headline number the sponsors are using: youth sports costs are up 46% since 2019. Every parent listening has watched their tournament-fee line item climb. So is the bill naming the right enemy? Chad and Craig don't fully agree, and they don't pretend to. The bill is the easy conversation. The hard one is the one Craig walks straight into: we built the studio. They're not outside the system pointing fingers — they're inside the economics they're critiquing, and they say so. From there it goes everywhere the real tension lives: the 501(c)(3)s sitting on millions in cash while there's no green space left to play, franchise clubs that sell structure to volunteer boards, and the simple, uncomfortable motivation test — athlete first, or dollar first? Then the money trickles down to the kids. They get into high school NIL (Chad's stat: only seven states prohibit it — 43 allow it), the Tom Brady hypothetical that shows how fast it could get corrupted, and tryout season as it's actually playing out right now: the undercurrent, the FOMO, the "you're on team one — actually, team two." Craig pulls back the curtain on what coaches are really doing behind the scenes, including the mid-season transfer that makes him pick up the phone and call your old coach. The through-line is winning vs. development — and how "development" became a marketing word that means nothing until you ask the right follow-up question. Craig on getting battered 10-0 every weekend ("I'm psychologically checked out before I even turn up"). The European academy model we keep ignoring. And the research that should change how every parent thinks about practice: the gains that actually set a kid apart happen in the backyard, not the $400 showcase. They land on the saddest trend either of them has seen in 20-plus years around youth sports: kids quiet quitting the game. "I didn't ask you to do any of that." No clean verdict — just two parents, irritated about their checking accounts, working out loud what's actually worth paying for.

    51 min
  2. Your Voice Becomes Their Inner Voice (w/ Dr. Lennie Waite)

    May 15

    Your Voice Becomes Their Inner Voice (w/ Dr. Lennie Waite)

    Ep43:Your voice becomes their inner voice (w/ Dr. Lennie Waite) is brough to you by Gaimplan Dr. Lennie Waite is the Chief Science Officer at Hite EQ and covers a range of topics related to mental performance in sports, the impact of social media on youth athletes, and the psychological aspects of elite performance. Dr. Waite shares insights on the steeplechase, athlete development, and the pressure faced by youth athletes. The discussion also delves into the role of parents in shaping a child's emotional response to sports and the challenges of social media use in the sports industry. The conversation covers the importance of parental emotional support, the impact of competitive coaching on child psychology, and the development of mental skills in youth sports. It emphasizes the need for positive reinforcement and intentional control and focus in young athletes, highlighting the challenges and opportunities in the current landscape of youth sports coaching and development. Takeaways Parental influence on a child's emotional response to sportsThe impact of social media on youth athletes Emotional SupportPositive Reinforcement Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Lennie Waite07:32 Elite Performance and Motivation13:40 Track and Field Psychology23:00 Impact of Social Media on Youth Athletes30:26 Parental Emotional Support39:05 Competitive Coaching and Child Psychology50:38 Mental Skills Development in Youth Sports

    58 min
  3. Step Up or Stay Quiet

    May 11

    Step Up or Stay Quiet

    The conversation delves into the world of youth sports and community involvement, highlighting the challenges and rewards of coaching and managing youth sports programs. It also explores the delicate balance between recreational and competitive programs, shedding light on the complexities and considerations involved in managing both aspects effectively. The conversation delves into the themes of parental involvement in youth sports, the impact of youth sports on children, and the challenges of coaching and parenting in youth sports. It explores the complexities and experiences of parents, coaches, and children in the context of youth sports, shedding light on the various dynamics and issues that arise in this domain. Takeaways Youth Sports and Community InvolvementBalancing Recreational and Competitive Programs Parental involvementImpact of youth sportsChallenges of coaching and parenting in youth sports

    1h 6m
  4. Your 8-Year-Old Is Not Being Recruited

    May 4

    Your 8-Year-Old Is Not Being Recruited

    Sometime this month, some parents will be posting an All-Star roster their kid just didn't make. Somebody else is signing a five-thousand-dollar ECNL fee. Both families are pretty sure the other families have it figured out. They don't. Craig walks through the actual soccer pyramid in plain English — what ECNL was when it started, what it became, why every club in a 30-mile radius now wants the badge, and the specific misconception being sold to parents of 8-year-olds about how this all works. (Spoiler: 11v11 is open tryouts. The kid who joined at 8 has roughly the same shot as the kid who walks in at 12.) Then Chad pivots to the other machine: All-Star selections about to drop, travel ball schedules muscling Little League games off the calendar, parents getting glazed-over eyes about their nine-year-old being on the right team. He's about to post a roster. He's been cursed out a lot. He has thoughts. The whole episode is built on one observation: the incentives at every layer of youth sports — clubs, leagues, coaches, parents — are not actually aligned with what's best for the kid. The clubs want the badge. The leagues want the participation numbers. The parents want to feel like good parents. The kids just want to play with their friends and get ice cream after. Plus: how to actually evaluate a coach when you don't have a network of soccer people. Why retention is the metric nobody asks about. The thing Michael Jordan, of all people, has to do with all of this. And why "diamonds are made of pressure" is a half-quote — and the half people leave out is the half that matters. If you're sitting in your driveway staring at a tryout schedule, an All-Star bid, a travel-ball contract, or a $5K invoice — this is for you. Not because we have it figured out. Because we don't either, and that's worth saying out loud. You're not alone in the struggle. You're just in a louder bubble than usual right now.

    54 min
  5. The Long Game with Lisa Mitchell

    Apr 27

    The Long Game with Lisa Mitchell

    Our guest this week is Lisa Mitchell. Lisa is the girls varsity head soccer coach at Los Gatos High School, a PE teacher at Fisher Middle School for the last 21 years. She's also a three-time NCAA Final Four captain at Santa Clara, a pro on the 2001 CyberRays team that won the first WUSA championship 25 years ago, and mom to three, including a set of 7-year-old twins. Few people see youth soccer the way Lisa Mitchell does. She teaches PE at Fisher Middle School, then watches those same kids move into the high school program — and she's seen firsthand the pressure club coaches put on players to skip high school soccer entirely. "We see the long game here," Craig says. "A lot of the club coaches see the today and to the end of the season."

    41 min
  6. The Takeover of Youth Sports

    Apr 20

    The Takeover of Youth Sports

    If you've got a kid in travel ball, club soccer, rec hockey, or cheer, you already know the math is getting weird. Chad and Craig spend this episode pulling on that thread — why youth sports has quietly become a $40 billion industry (about 2x the revenue of the NFL), and why that number doesn't feel like it's benefiting the kids the industry says it serves. We start where the money starts: the trickle-down from pro sports to NIL to your seven-year-old. The "crazy parent" economy — $500/month for private training, $3,500/month for a certain club with a certain logo. We get into the alphabet soup of competitive tiers (ECNL, GA, MLS Next, NPL, RL) and why a parent has zero chance of parsing which league actually matters for their 10-year-old. Spoiler: it doesn't matter yet, because nobody is scouting a 10-year-old. Craig brings the UK comparison — "jumpers for goalposts," rec as just playing, no coaches, no parent politics — and we hold it up against the US model where even rec has gotten expensive. Then we dig into the scholarship myth head-on: Chad is 5'7", was a really good athlete, and is very clear that your body type at 15 is doing more work than your travel-ball resume at 10. The athletic-scholarship math is not what you've been told. The core stat block lands around minute 29, straight from Aspen's Project Play data: the average family now spends over $1,000 per kid per sport, $2,000+ for high-income families, $10,000–$13,000 a season in travel hockey and softball, and $25,000 at the top end. 57% of surveyed parents say the cost is unreasonable. 20% say they're willing to go into debt for it anyway. That is a broken market. Then Craig drops the line of the episode: "You just read the pitch deck for a PE dude." Because if you're a private equity investor and you hear "captive flywheel of parents who will pay anything, with a constant fresh supply of new kids every year," you start buying facilities. We walk through the full flywheel — pay-to-play, private training, tiered leagues, travel tournaments, hotels, flights, gear, registration software, even streaming-your-own-kid — and why one owner controlling multiple rungs means parents lose leverage. We also try to hold both sides honestly. Capital can professionalize a fragmented industry. But the current scorecard is heavy on fee escalation and vertical integration. We close with what parents can actually do — push back on single-sport specialization before 13, volunteer-coach, ask harder questions of your club, and set the right end goal (fun, love of the game, being a good teammate) instead of the wrong one (the 0.1% pro track). We also pitch what we're building at Gaimplan — because if we're going to say this on a podcast, we ought to be putting our own skin in the game.

    42 min
  7. The Whole Ride: Youth Sports to College Drop-Off

    Apr 6

    The Whole Ride: Youth Sports to College Drop-Off

    Rob Ludeman is back. When he first came on The Struggle Bubble in Season 1, his son Matt was a two-sport senior at Los Gatos High — starting at center in football playoffs and on the mount for baseball's post season. Matt's now a freshman pitcher at University of the Pacific, and Rob stopped by to discuss what it took to get there and his takeaways as a father. The recruiting process that came down to two late-season outings and a phone call between coaches. The D1-vs-JUCO decision that almost went the other way. The summer training programs that started the day he signed. The daily grind of college baseball where every hitter in the lineup was the best player at their high school and some of your teammates are 24 years old. Rob talks about what travel ball actually contributed (zero recruiting videos watched, for the record), why multi-sport athletes have an edge, and what he'd tell himself ten years ago: put the scorebook away and just watch the game. If you're a parent in the thick of youth sports wondering what the end of this road actually looks like — this is the episode.

    51 min
  8. You Asked, We Answered

    Mar 31

    You Asked, We Answered

    No guest this week — just Chad and Craig, a stack of listener questions, and zero filter. Craig's fresh off a brutal week commuting to RSA in San Francisco ("two hours to go 55 miles"), and Chad's still processing a nail-biting state cup match in Davis that went to PKs in the final three seconds. So yeah — business as usual in the Struggle Bubble. The episode opens with a quick follow-up on Andrew McRobbie's appearance last week and the wave of listener messages it sparked — parents saying they'd never considered that any given game could be the last one. From there, Chad and Craig rip through a Q&A covering the stuff their audience actually lives with every weekend: is club soccer worth thousands a year? What do you do when you feel yourself becoming the sideline parent you swore you'd never be? Should your kid quit Little League for travel ball? And what happens when a parent tells a volunteer coach they're "ruining the sport"? The back half gets more personal. They dig into what happens when a kid's entire identity is wrapped up in their sport, how to break the cycle of negative self-talk before a game, and whether anything they've said on this podcast has actually changed their own behavior. (Spoiler: Chad doesn't know his son's baseball record for the first time in ten years. Progress.) They close with the question from the very first Q&A episode — what would you do without kids? Episode presented by Gaimplan

    44 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
17 Ratings

About

The Struggle Bubble is a dynamic podcast that dives deep into the real-life challenges faced by modern professionals, parents, and individuals in high-performance environments. Hosted by Chad Kutting and Craig Surgey, this show offers a raw and honest look at the juggling act of balancing career ambitions, family responsibilities, and personal well-being. Each episode features candid conversations about the pressures of living in tech-centric communities, the evolving landscape of parenting, and the constant push-pull between professional success and personal fulfillment. The hosts share their own experiences and insights, often bringing in guest experts to provide diverse perspectives on navigating life's complexities. The Struggle Bubble is more than just a podcast; it's a community where listeners can find relatable stories, practical advice, and a sense of camaraderie in facing life's everyday struggles. Whether you're a Silicon Valley techie, a busy parent, or anyone trying to find balance in a fast-paced world, this podcast offers valuable insights and a reminder that you're not alone in your journey. Join Chad and Craig as they unpack the realities of modern life, share laughs over common frustrations, and explore strategies for thriving amidst the chaos. "The Struggle Bubble" - because sometimes, the most comforting thing is knowing we're all in this together.

Information

  • Creator
    Chad Kutting and Craig Surgey
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Chad Kutting and Craig Surgey
  • Show Website
    The Struggle Bubble

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