Expectations are a Funny Thing….
🎤 Drop Expectations and Handle Anything
How Sports Psychology and Inner Excellence Transformed My Perspective
When I first joined Toastmasters, I had no idea how much it would change my life—not just as a speaker, but in how I view success, setbacks, and even my own expectations.
Fast forward to today, and I’ve just delivered my Icebreaker speech—a deeply personal and motivational talk that blended my love of sports psychology, my relationship with my dad, and powerful lessons from a life-changing book called Inner Excellence.
But this journey wasn’t just about giving a speech. It was about learning how expectations can hold us back—and how we can let go of them to truly handle anything life throws our way.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through:
✅ My journey of crafting and refining this speech
✅ The three life-changing takeaways from Inner Excellence
✅ Why dropping expectations unlocks your true potential
✅ How you can apply these lessons in your own life
Watch the video here:
Listen to the podcast episode here:
🏆 The Beginning: My Journey into Toastmasters
When I joined Toastmasters, my goal was simple:
To become a better public speaker.
To share my knowledge about corporate wellness, motivation, and mindset with a wider audience.
But as I started preparing my Icebreaker speech (the first official speech you give at Toastmasters), I realized that I had a much bigger story to tell.
You see, I grew up in the Houston area with a brilliant father who held a PhD in mathematics and taught graduate-level math at the University of Houston. He was a genius. But here’s the thing—math and I did not get along. At all.
Our communication was off when it came to numbers and equations. But when it came to sports? Oh, we spoke the same language fluently.
⚾️ How Sports Became My Bridge to Understanding
My dad and I bonded over college football games and watching the Houston Astros.
He taught me the strategies of the game.
He explained why players stood where they did and how they performed under pressure.
And without realizing it, he was teaching me about mental toughness, focus, and resilience.
That early love of sports eventually led me to declare psychology as my major at the University of Houston. When I told my dad, his response was:
“Psychology? What in the world are you going to do with that?”
Talk about expectations, right? But little did either of us know that psychology—and specifically sports psychology—would become my passion and something I use every single day in my work as a corporate wellness consultant, coach, and speaker.
📚 Discovering Inner Excellence: A Game-Changer
Fast forward to December of last year. I was watching a professional playoff football game when I saw something that blew my mind.
An athlete was sitting on the sidelines... reading a book during the game.
The announcers ridiculed him, asking, “Who reads a book during a playoff game?” But what caught my attention wasn’t the criticism—it was the book itself.
The book was called Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy, and I knew immediately that I had to get my hands on it.
💥 3 Life-Changing Lessons from Inner Excellence
I devoured Inner Excellence cover to cover. And what I learned transformed not only my approach to sports psychology but also how I view expectations, challenges, and success.
Here are the three powerful takeaways I want you to remember:
🧠 1. Wisdom – Recognize Your Limiting Beliefs
Wisdom in sports—and in life—means having the discernment to recognize what’s holding you back.
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What expectations are limiting you?
What beliefs do you hold about success or failure that may not be serving you?
Inner Excellence taught me that expectations often come from a place of fear—fear of not achieving, fear of falling short, fear of disappointing others. But when you release those expectations, you create space for growth and transformation.
💪 2. Courage – Show Up Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
In life, just like in sports, there are days when you don’t feel like showing up.
You’re tired.
You’re unmotivated.
You doubt yourself.
But courage means showing up anyway. It means putting in the work, trusting the process, and staying committed—even when things feel impossible.
Athletes don’t become champions by skipping practice. They show up, day after day, regardless of how they feel. And Inner Excellence reminded me that this same principle applies in all areas of life.
❤️ 3. Love – The Ultimate Game-Changer
This was the biggest surprise for me.
Love? In sports psychology?
But Jim Murphy emphasizes that love—even for your opponent—can completely shift your mindset. When you approach challenges, competitors, and even setbacks with love and respect, you free yourself from the emotional baggage of comparison, resentment, and fear.
And love doesn’t just apply to others. Love yourself enough to drop expectations and trust that you can handle anything.
🎤 Crafting My Speech: Turning These Lessons into Action
When it came time to give my Icebreaker speech at Toastmasters, I knew I had to weave these lessons into my personal story.
I opened with:
“Expectations are a funny thing. And I don’t mean funny ha-ha, I mean funny… peculiar.”
From there, I took my audience on a journey—
✅ From my dad’s PhD and our disconnect over math
✅ To our connection through sports
✅ To my discovery of Inner Excellence and its impact on my life
And the overwhelming response I received after delivering that speech was validation that I had struck a chord.
💡 Why Dropping Expectations Changes Everything
Here’s the ultimate takeaway:
When we drop expectations, we create space for possibilities we never imagined.
We stop being limited by what should happen and start embracing what could happen.
We become more adaptable, resilient, and open to growth.
And most importantly, we learn that we can handle anything.
🔥 How You Can Apply This in Your Life Today
If you’re ready to start dropping expectations and embracing your true potential, here’s what I suggest:
✅ Identify Your Limiting Beliefs: What’s holding you back?
✅ Take Consistent Action: Show up even when it’s hard.
✅ Lead with Love: Approach challenges with compassion for yourself and others.
🎥 Watch the Full Speech on My YouTube Channel!
I’ve recorded my updated version of this speech and it’s live on my YouTube channel now. In this version, I’ve refined the message, added more insights from Inner Excellence, and practiced incorporating these lessons more intentionally.
💬 What Do You Think?
I’d love to hear from you!
What expectations have held you back in the past?
How do you think dropping those expectations could change your life?
Drop a comment below or connect with me on social media—I can’t wait to hear your stories!
Kathie Owen, Corporate Wellness Consultant and Coach
✨ About the Author: Kathie Owen
Kathie Owen is a corporate wellness consultant, fitness expert, and motivational speaker with over 20 years of experience helping individuals and organizations unlock their full potential. With a degree in Psychology from the University of Houston and certifications in fitness training, sports conditioning, and older adult fitness, Kathie brings a unique blend of expertise that bridges physical wellness, mindset, and leadership development.
Kathie spent over a decade as the Fitness and Wellness Director at OCuSOFT, where she created and implemented award-winning corporate wellness programs that improved employee engagement and reduced burnout. She’s passionate about helping companies build healthier, more engaged workplaces and teaching professionals how to apply sports psychology principles to leadership, performance, and personal growth.
As a lifelong student of Inner Excellence, Reality Transurfing, and mindset transformation, Kathie believes that true success begins with mastering your inner world. Through her coaching, public speaking, and corporate programs, she empowers others to drop expectations, embrace resilience, and handle anything life throws their way.
When she’s not inspiring audiences or running wellness challenges, Kathie loves creating content for her YouTube channel and writing insightful blog posts that educate and motivate her growing community.
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Transcript from today:
Hey, Kathie Owen here and welcome to Kathie's Coaching podcast. Today, something a little bit different, because I'm actually presenting you today with my icebreaker motivational speech backed in sports psychology, and I got a lot of awesome feedback from my Toastmasters group, and in fact, this video today has some of that feedback inserted into it. So without further ado, let's get into the video.
Kathie:0:39
Expectations are a funny thing, and I don't mean funny. Ha ha. I mean, funny, peculiar. I mean, we expect to win the big game or win the big speech contest, or have our favorite team win the big game. We might even expect our children to follow certain paths, but today I invite you to look at expectations differently'cause they can actually limit you. My love of sports started many, many years ago. I grew up here in the Houston area. But there's something you must know about me. I was raised by a very intelligent man. My father possesses a PhD in mathematics. Not only that, he went on to teach math at the University of Houston, go Cougs. But he didn't just teach any math. He taught graduate mathematics. Did you know that to get a PhD in math, you have to prove a theory no one else has ever proven. Yeah, my dad graded that stuff. Communication between me and my father was kind of off. I mean, me and math, we don't get along, but there was something. I remember growing up going to college football games with my father and watching the My favorite team, the Houston Astros on television. I quickly learned the strategies of the game, why players stood, where they stood, what was going on inside the game, how the athletes were performing under such immense pressure. Communication with my father was spot on. Allow me to explain the time I decided to declare my major at the University of Houston. I decided I was going to study psychology, but when I told my father being the intellect that he was inte, he said, psychology. What in the world are you going to do with that? Talk about expectations. Little did either of us know I would go on to use that degree every single day of my life. I quickly fell in love with sports psychology. I studied the athletes, how they performed under such immense pressure. I mean, there's wins, there's losses, there's injuries, there's the off season, there's training, there's practice and practice, and more practice. And then there's expectations. I mean, you have expectations of yourself. You have expectations from your coaches and expectations from the fans. They can change at any given moment. Sounds a lot like life, don't you think? In December of last year, I came across a book called Inner Excellence. An athlete was caught reading it on the sidelines during a professional playoff football game. The announcers actually ridiculed him for reading this book on the sidelines. I mean, who did he think he was reading a book during a football game? I mean, what he's supposed to be paying attention to his teammates or the strategies that were taking place. Hmm. I had to get this book. I quickly read it and devoured it, cover to cover. It's all about sports psychology, and that lights me up like a firecracker. The author of that book actually coined the title to my speech today. He coaches professional athletes. He was a professional athlete himself, and he coaches them on handling expectations like we're talking about today. And there's three things that I want you to take away from this message today and handling your expectations. First of all, there's wisdom. I mean, we need discernment to understand our limiting beliefs and what we should be expecting. I mean, should is a dirty word. And then there's courage for, it's going to take courage to actually perform at your top notch because there's gonna be days when you just don't feel like it. And that takes courage. And then there's love. The greatest of these is love For if you can even love your opponent, you will understand that those expectations actually can limit you. Let's go back to my father. For, I learned all three of these things through him. I learned to have the wisdom and understand that psychology was everything to me. I also learned to have courage and face those obstacles that are only obstacles. They're on the way to your path to success. And then of course, there's love. Love is the greatest of all. So my friends today, I invite you to drop expectations for when you do, you might just find how you can handle anything. Like I said, expectations are a funny thing.
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