Forged Youth | Legacy Within
Forged Youth: Legacy Within
What if the conversations you needed most as a teen athlete were finally being had, openly, honestly, and with purpose?
Forged Youth: Legacy Within is the podcast that equips youth athletes (ages 12–24), their parents, and coaches with the mental tools, emotional resilience, and life insight to rise above the noise and grow into strong, intentional human beings.
Each episode features real, raw conversations with professional athletes, CEOs, and cultural leaders sharing what they wish they knew when they were younger. We unpack topics like mental grit, overcoming adversity, identity beyond sport, and building a life of purpose, even when things fall apart.
Hosted by former elite athlete and mental health advocate Mariel Nichole Anderson, this podcast is your companion through the messy middle of chasing big dreams, and becoming someone even bigger in the process.
Because you weren’t born to just survive sport. You were made to be forged by it.
Forged Youth | Legacy Within
Ep. 32 - Raising Confident Athletes in a Results-Obsessed World with Nate Last
What if the biggest thing holding young athletes back isn’t effort, talent, or motivation, but where their attention lives?
In this episode, Mariel sits down with Nathan Last, founder of Mental Grit, to unpack the mental skills that create better athletes and stronger humans.
Nate shares how discovering sports psychology completely changed the trajectory of his life, and why presence is the foundation of mental toughness.
In this conversation, you’ll learn:
- Why most goal-setting creates stress, anxiety, and burnout in youth athletes
- How being stuck in the future or the past pulls athletes out of performance
- Why the body can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality, and how this backfires when athletes only dream instead of execute
- The difference between what athletes need to focus on vs. what spectators and coaches focus on
- How coaches can measure values and behaviours, not just stats and outcomes
- How parents unintentionally steal confidence by “protecting” their kids
- Why struggle, failure, and hard conversations are essential for building self-belief
Mental toughness isn’t something you achieve one day, it’s something you practice in the moment, every day.
Nate is the CEO of a premier mental performance training firm, dedicated to helping individuals, teams, and organizations unlock their highest potential. With over a decade of experience in performance psychology, leadership development, and organizational transformation, he now specializes in creating customized strategies that drive measurable results for teen athletes and their families. As a contributing author of the Amazon Best Seller, Deliberate Discomfort, and a former Chief Engagement Officer at Mission 6 Zero, I’ve seen firsthand how a focus on mindset, culture, and people operations can revolutionize outcomes whether on the athletic field, battlefield, school house or in the boardroom.
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