Kylen brought his best friend in. Jake Landel is the head coach of the men's indoor volleyball team at UC Santa Cruz, he has been coaching for close to two decades, and he is the person Kylen calls when he has doubt or emotional anguish. Kenda had been bracing for the worst.

What she got instead is an hour about what a coach is actually building. Jake's answer to "what is the one thing you would put in a kid" is not a skill: it is redefining success so winning is the byproduct rather than the point. Kylen pushes on it with three imaginary players who train identically and want completely different things, and the three of them argue out where intrinsic motivation actually lives.

Also in here: Showtime, the one word Jake gave a high-school team that made them fearless; the time Jake snapped at Kylen for lying, and why Kylen still counts it as the moment they became friends; and the doxxing story, which ends about as badly for Kylen as it possibly could.

Jake Landel coaches at UC Santa Cruz and still plays, air quotes included.

00:00 Cold open: he is not the easiest person in the world
02:33 What Jake actually does for a living
06:29 Kylen on why a mentor is a paid internship
07:34 The time Jake snapped at him, and what it was about
11:06 Two decades of coaching, from a middle-school gym to UC Santa Cruz
12:38 Has the culture around coaching kids changed
16:34 Kenda quit a team because a coach threw her on the ground
18:08 The doxxing story
23:45 The one thing worth putting in an athlete
25:27 Why the focus on winning is the thing that breaks people
29:08 Three players, same work ethic, three different reasons
32:58 Success is not winning
35:06 Coaching a kid whose parents are teaching the opposite
41:01 Kenda's beach team at the YES Program
43:32 Showtime
45:42 Thanks for sitting through this

“No one’s looked at you and your problems and thought, I could make a show out of this. I thought I could make a show because I am a problem.”

That is how Kylen opens, and then he tells the whole thing. Number-one rated amateur volleyball player in the US. Took the government money during COVID, souped up the back of a Toyota, lived in it — they called it the fart tube — and woke at 6am to compete with other homeless people for bathroom rights before going out to compete for real.

It cost him the relationship. He says he would make the same decision again, every time.

Kenda’s counter-thread runs underneath the whole episode. She brings in the old man from Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act — the one who hauls his water up by hand and turns down the pulley, because part of the reason it tastes so good is the work he put into it. Kylen gets it instantly. Which leaves the thing he still cannot do: sit still for thirty seconds while someone says something kind about him.

Chapters

• 0:00 — "I am a problem" - why there's a show at all
• 2:20 — The credit Kenda keeps giving him
• 3:37 — "Be kind" - and what struggling actually looked like
• 5:02 — 6am, and competing for bathroom rights
• 5:36 — Half the struggle is your reaction to it
• 7:00 — Rick Rubin's old man, and why he refused the pulley
• 10:06 — "You gotta be crazier than you look"
• 11:50 — What it cost - losing the relationship
• 13:06 — "I'd make the same decision over and over again"
• 18:03 — Confidence from the simple fact that you survived
• 19:26 — Kenda: "think about your words right now"
• 21:10 — Why he cannot accept a compliment

The Kylen and Kenda Show.

Kylen has had cold sores since he was born. The only salve that ever really worked got discontinued, so Kenda went looking for it, talked her way through about twenty people until somebody finally said yes, and is now pressing him a batch herself. Along the way: gigartina and why nothing else will do, the suspicion that the things which actually work are the first ones to quietly disappear, and The Creative Act, which Kenda has been reading and Kylen needs explained to him. Then the real argument. Kenda thinks perseverance is a muscle, and that most people quit about a hundred feet from the top without ever knowing how close they were. Kylen reckons he has two good goes in him, and is honest enough to call his own version of it weak. Neither of them talks the other round. Plus the firefighter who took four years to get hired while his brother gave up after one, coaching an eleven-year-old through a hard moment without flattening him, and the night in New Orleans when the son who never complains said something hurt. 0:00 Cold open 1:04 We are exposing me 1:40 I have had cold sores since I was born 3:40 If it ain't gigartina, it ain't what you need 4:14 The one company that made it, and then it was gone 5:32 Kenda goes looking for the discontinued salve 6:03 Talking her middle son through something insurmountable 7:26 The Creative Act, and the idea that everyone is creative 8:13 Wait, the legendary producer Rick Rubin? 9:14 Cooking dinner counts as creative too 11:14 Twenty conversations before somebody finally said yes 11:50 Most people have the perseverance and do not know it 12:04 Rigidity, and what you are willing to accept 13:56 Kylen: I would call that weak 15:32 Looking in the mirror and naming what you could do better 16:05 The firefighter who took four years, and the brother who quit 17:08 A hundred feet from the top 18:41 That was a bad quit on my part 21:13 Coaching an eleven-year-old through a hard moment 23:39 Junior guards, and being careful with your language 25:10 New Orleans, and the son who never complains