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That's BetterHELP.com slash positive. It's just, you just learn to deal with it, you know what I mean? available. People can pick it up. They are already reading it, of course, because your spirit and your wisdom and experience shine through. How does it feel to have your first book launch this week? Oh, it's surreal. It's a dream come true. And to be able to actually start and finish a book is a huge feat in itself. But truly to see this now in people's hands and people giving me feedback on how it's helping them.
That is why all the hours have paid off or are paying off. What was it like the first time you held the book in your hands? That was surreal. That's because you see it on the computer for so long and then paper as you print it to try to make edits. To see the book in hardcover in your hands is it's just one of those moments where you're like, wow, we did it.
We did it. The book is called The Art of Bouncing Back. What would you say are the one or two main hurdles in your life that you've had to bounce back from? I wish I could only tell you one, but the biggest hurdle that I've had to bounce back from was having multiple strokes. I've had three strokes in my life and the first one came at the age of 25.
Right when I was married and ready to start a family and that got turned upside down. When I'd gone to see a chiropractor and they manipulated my neck and when they did, it's a fluke thing. When they did, it ripped my vertebral artery and I bled into my brain and so it left me with a blood clot. I had to overcome that. Thankfully, I did and went on. I've had two more after that and the third one that I just had about three years ago, that truly was the worst one. I had to do all my own rehab.
I will tell you though that by that point, the third stroke, all of the tools that I wrote in the book, I used. It was one of those things that I actually saw at work in action where I did bounce back faster. It was not easy, it was hard, but I did everything that I wrote in that book to get myself back physically, mentally, and spiritually back. Those are the hardest things that I've had to bounce back from. Then truly losing both my parents most recently, that was another hit. I lost my father while I was writing this book and lost my mom when I was on the journey of just starting the book and then lost my dad right when I was finishing the book. I thought, isn't that ironic that I have to work on these principles in the middle of both coming back from a stroke and then grief?
When I tell you I know these work, not only because my clients get results, but I use them personally and it has helped me tremendously. She goes by Coach Dar. Darlene Santore is her name. She's a brand new author and the book is called The Art of Bouncing Back. As you can hear, she has lived a lot of these principles and is now telling her story more and more.
Also, a mental skills coach for everything from top athletes to CEOs in business. These principles have helped many people. I'm a testament to that, to being able to share your story a little bit.
We're glad to have you again after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Where were the seeds of this book planted from what you went through or does it go back farther than that? Originally, when I started and I felt called to write a book, I started with Awakening Greatness because that's my mission and helping people step into their greatness. As I was in the process of starting that, that's when I had my third stroke and everything flipped upside down and then my mom passed away and then COVID hit. I then quickly shifted gears because my agent and then publisher said, Dar, you literally have bounced back.
You've been able to do things and help people where they feel a difference. What is the formula? Amy was saying, I don't really have a formula. I just know what to do. It's innately, after being a therapist for 26 years and working with people, it's experience.
They said, no, there's definitely a formula used. You could see the difference and in you. When I sat down to think about this quickly, what was supposed to be just a chapter bouncing back became the whole book.
And it just came to me. I was like, wow, this is exactly what I do. And the principles came right to fruition. I created the outline and then I started filling out the chapters and it became clear. But I never thought about it because I just naturally knew what to do to help people myself. But these became the very principles that I've used for years now.
I don't want you to give too much away because the book is valuable for people to read. However, is there, say, one step or two steps that you can share or maybe a couple of steps that you share with athletes? I know you've worked with the Phoenix Suns and other NBA players in the past. So maybe clients that come to you and need to pick themselves up off the proverbial floor and figure out how to move forward again. Absolutely. And, you know, even these steps, I just want to say is they help you bounce back. But you don't even have to be in the middle of something to read this, because what this does is gives you mental foundation, a strong mental foundation. So when the hits come, you will bounce back faster. It builds mental fortitude. So going to like a principle that I start out with, which is embrace the suck, the military term. I start with it only because when you are going through something really hard or life hits, business hits, the pandemic hit. Maybe you've just been laid off, whatever it may be.
There's no way I would come alongside and say, OK, let's just pick up and move on tomorrow. You have to sit and embrace it. What is it?
What happened? What's the hit that we just took? What do we need to feel, see and think about this? Because we need to embrace it. We cannot just brush it under the rug, under the table. So I help people realize that whatever it is, this pain, we could turn to purpose, but we've got to embrace what is it?
What really just happened? Because if we don't identify what it is, it's really hard to then tackle it. So once we identify it, embrace it, embrace it meaning acknowledgement, acknowledging it, then we move to I love this second part because it's understanding your hard wiring. So in sports, there's the scouting card that everyone gets scouted off of their scouting card.
And it's kind of all the things that they're good at and maybe what their challenges are. But I take this and shift it to a confidence card. I have people start to understand you were hardwired with these great gifts. So if we're in the middle of a recession or a pandemic or you lose your job or heartache, divorce, whatever, you could lose a lot of different things in those manners. But you did not lose how you were created. You did not lose your gifts. You didn't lose your talents or your education or knowledge. So when I went through my strokes, everything in a lot of ways got shifted for me. But I still had all the education, all the knowledge, all the tools and my skill set. No one took that away from me. So I just had to find a different way to put that out there in the world. I didn't lose anything I gained. And when I get people to start to see that, listen, you could build your whole emotional foundation on the knowledge that is you. You're hard wiring. You could create a confidence card that you start writing all these things down on. That becomes your top scouting card.
You could always go back to that. This is why she goes by Coach Dar, again, a mental skills coach and works with athletes and CEOs and now has a brand new book called The Art of Bouncing Back. Proud of you.
So excited for you. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. Because of your work with athletes and you and I have talked about this before, we know more and more that mental health is a very real part of sports and that athletes are more open about it. Coaches are more open to it. A lot of teams have either psychologists that they work with or skills coaches like yourself. How have you seen that change in your industry over the past, say, 10, 15 years? Well, you know, when I started out on this and created my own practice, I mean, I've been a therapist since, well, 26 years. But 2008 is when I started my own practice on this and everyone thought I had like three heads on, like, what are you talking about mental skills?
And why do we need to work in this in sports and business? And I thought, because it's everything. It's your mental edge. So I have to say to you, I've been paving a way that probably everyone thought was nuts. But what I'm so grateful for is now so many people are embracing it. And I don't think we would have embraced it if we didn't go through a lot of heartache.
Now people are realizing we have to pay attention to this. And it's not just when things go wrong, but we want to work on our mental fitness, our mental edge all the time so that when something happens, we're already stronger. And I equate this no different to you want to keep up your cardiac health, your physical health.
So should something happen to you and you have to go in for treatment or the hospital? Yes, it will still be hard, but you will be able to bounce back faster because you took care of your body, took care of your health. Your body is going to work for you in that situation. I want people to know all of the mental work we do, mental fitness, skills coaching, creating a mental edge, both business and in sports.
This is everyone everywhere. When you work on this, you will be set up so that you're healthier and better and you'll take the hits better. You won't sink as fast or you won't stay down as long. What's the reaction when you see people go through these steps and you work with them? They bounce back or they're able to dig into a real mental toughness and mental health that helps them to perform better.
Are people amazed at this? Oh, yeah, it's literally like a light switch goes off their lips from within. So I love seeing it because all of a sudden after they work with me and they've gone through it, they now start watching other sports or other events and they'll go, oh, look at their mindset, look at how it's affecting them.
And I'll go, oh, you're picking it up now. And then when they go through something, they will literally call me and say, Dar, I can't believe how much faster I moved through something that normally would have taken me down. And it's probably one of the best calls because I know they're stronger and I know that they're building this mental strength now that's going to serve them for the rest of their life. Hashtag raise the bar. What does it mean to raise the bar in your life, in anyone's life? Oh, this is one that you've definitely seen me talk about and I get excited because raise the bar is not about doing more. It's about raising the bar in your standards and your level of excellence. So what you do, you do really well.
You don't have to do more. You just have to do what you do well, what you do really well. So how you do anything, how you do everything, your level of excellence, your level of how you show up, your standard of integrity. We need people to raise their standards so that I know, Amy, when we walk in a room, if you're in the room, we're winning because of how you show up. The energy, the joy, the light, your effort, everything is always a standard of excellence. We want more people to be walking that out. So what they do is an example that others would follow. Kobe Bryant says it best that greatness is not what you accomplish, but it's how you live your life to inspire others to want to live a better life to greatness.
It's a ripple effect. So I'm on people all the time that we need our backstage to meet our front stage that when they see us, it all makes sense. And that we're leading people so that honestly, if our movie was played out right now, we'd be proud of what people saw.
And if you are not, you can make the change right now. So raising the bars, raising your standard, raising how you show up, raising the level of excellence. I don't know how you do it with everything that you have on your plate. What happens when you get tired, Dar? Well, I sleep when I can. You know, I, what happens is I sometimes like in season, you know, when we're on a cadence sometimes like the athletes, we have back to back nights.
Same with us in life and in business. I know when I'm going to be able to catch up and all I need, I set my life up. So I'm like, okay, I could go, go, go. Then this is my catch up day. Somehow I was made where I need more micro moments.
I know I'm not getting big breaks, but I could take the small breaks. And I know enough and biohacking and mindset that there's a lot of stuff that you could do for 20 minutes that gives you the equation of the equivalent of two hours of sleep. So I lean into all the brain fitness tools I can to get my body to get what it needs. I will say, though, that if you're goal oriented or you're finish line oriented, which is similar to me, too, if you can see that finish line and you know it's out there sometimes, even running a half marathon, I can keep dragging my butt as tired as I am, as long as I can see that finish line in front of me. Though sometimes the finish line moves, Dar, sometimes it moves. It's moved a lot with this book. Every time I thought I was getting the finish line, it moved a little.
I thought, oh, boy, but it's you know what? Here's the thing. Any time we've ever gotten anywhere where it's gotten hard or you don't know if you can make it and you stick it through, when the day comes where you get to be at that finish line of it, you sit there and go, I'm so glad I didn't give up. So that's a hope and a prayer that I have for everyone all the time is just you have 100% bounce back rate, whatever was hard for in your life, you got to the other side, whatever project you're working on that's taking a lot out of you. When you get to the finish line of it, you're going to be so glad you didn't give up.
So don't give up. You've got your launch party coming up tomorrow. I know you've used the word surreal a couple of times. I can imagine that is going to be surreal as you not only have the book out and available now, but you're going to have a party to celebrate it. What's the feedback so far as people have a chance to read the book?
I've already gotten calls from people saying that they couldn't put it down, that they've read it from front to back, that it was the tools that they needed. And someone just said, I was having a really bad day and your book came right on time. And I read it and it helped me feel better, changed my whole state.
And I showed up better by the time the end of the day was when I had to be with my family. I thought then that's why the book was written. I just want people to have the tools, Amy, because we could get an MBA, we could learn a language, but we were never taught how to handle life mentally.
We just weren't. So I created it. This is the people's book.
This is for the people so that we could all have the tools to know how to show up at life, even when adversity is hitting us. And yes, tomorrow is a day that will be very surreal because it's a world of people from business and sports that will be in the room. And probably if I was to get married, who would be in the room? But they would come to my book watch before the wedding. All in good time. But it's going to be surreal. And I think what's overwhelming is, you know, over the years pouring into so many people, I keep just hearing, let us just come support you.
So that feels overwhelmingly beautiful. How far back in your life did you think that you would write a book? Because you've been in this career as a mental skills coach and working with people and applying these principles for decades. But what about seeds planted for a book? When did that start? When I was little, I was in first grade. And second, I actually had a hard time reading.
I couldn't process fast enough. So I pulled out of class, so I could go with a teacher who would teach me how to read at a higher speed. And she changed my life because she helped me get back on track to the point where I would be the kid in the library all the time reading.
I went from having a hard time to loving it. And my mom worked in this little town in Connecticut on the shore, and there was an independent bookstore, R.J. Julia's. And she would say to me, because I would spend summers there, I would literally spend summers in this bookstore while she was working. And she would say, someday, Dar, your book's going to be here. And I thought, oh, sure. And 2012, when I started to get this itch to say I'm going to start writing because I had enough experience helping so many people now.
And that's when I started the process that obviously didn't finish till now. And she said, someday I'll be the first person to buy your book. And while she's not here, this is for her. She knew. She saw it all the way back then when you were in first grade. She did. Wow. I'm sure that you wish that you could share this with her and with your dad. But man, everything they poured into you is also now coming out in this book.
It's called The Art of Bouncing Back. And just a few minutes with Dar and you're already inspired. You already pick up on the energy and you recognize that the book is just a tool to try to unlock some of what she's talking about. So where can people find the book now that it's available? It's available.
You get it at bookstores nationwide and go online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, coachdar.com. You can go on there if you want to buy multiple orders. And I'm doing something where if you want to buy some, give some.
You could buy some and then we're going to be donating some to charities of people across the nation that would benefit from having this. So reach out at coachdar.com or follow on Instagram at the coachdar. We have stuff that goes up every day about the book and life to give you mental fuel every day. She is a mental skills specialist. She works with top athletes.
She works with CEOs. They'll be both worlds colliding at her big launch party coming up on Thursday in Phoenix. I'm so excited for you.
I hope there's some photos out there that we can see. The book is The Art of Bouncing Back. And my goodness, I'm so beaming with pride right now over your book and over this opportunity for you. Thank you, friend. It's so good to talk to you. And I'm so proud of you. Congratulations. Amy, thanks so much. I appreciate you more than you know.
