Bend into Balance: Nathaniel Perullo & John O'Sullivan - The Source

Bend is not short of incredible athletes, nor amazing coaches and transformational leaders. Nathaniel Perullo, 2025 Under 19 National Boulder Champion of the U.S., and John O’Sullivan, founder of Changing the Game project, are two top examples. Both shared profound reflections on the role of youth sports, intrinsic motivation and the value of a “multi-movement childhood.”

Excerpts from the podcast with Nathaniel Perullo (quotes are abridged for print version):

Adriana Mariño: When you’re not climbing, how much are you thinking about it?

Nathaniel Perullo: All the time. That’s the last thought, and the first thought in the morning. Even in class sometimes, I’ll doze off and I’m thinking about climbing, what my climb is going to look like, what my round’s going to look like, how I want to feel after. And it’s constant. I’ll dream about it most nights. It’s a huge part of my life. And I feel like that to be good at something, you’ve got to be obsessed with it. I think that the reason I have had a lot of success in this is because I’m so obsessed with climbing, thinking about every little detail about a comp.

AM: How do you find that balance between academics, your social life, and your athletic performance?

NP: It’s definitely hard a lot of nights where I’ll have homework and it’s like, do I do it or do I wake up really early and do it? It is not super hard for me to balance the school. But the social aspect for sure, where it’s like, oh, there’s a party happening. Obviously, I can’t drink or do anything because of my climbing. If you’re going to be this high-level athlete, you can’t be doing all that. I think that the social aspect is definitely hard for me. Especially training so much on the school nights. I have one night off, but it’s mainly just climbing. That’s it. I go alone to the gym, I train most nights and it’s definitely lonely. Sometimes I’ll find myself missing all my friends and thinking what are they doing tonight? The social life is mentally hard. I love hanging out with my friends all the time. And as much as I’d love to be doing that, it’s just not worth it to me to give up something that I’ve worked so hard on.

AM: I can tell by listening to you that this motivation is all coming within; it’s not your coaches, it’s not your parents. Am I wrong or is it all intrinsic?

NP: It’s definitely pretty much all internal. My coaches have never been like, you have to win nationals this year, you have to go win worlds, or you have to podium. My coaches have always asked me what do you want to do? What is your goal? My coach, Mike Rougeux [Bend Endurance Academy], told me that I was 14 when he heard me vocalize my goals for the first time, and I said I want to do world cup, and he’s like, “OK, I’ll help you get there.” He’s never been hard on me, like “you have to do this or I want you to do get this result at this comp.” It’s always been internal for me. And same with my parents. Obviously, they want me to win nationals, win worlds, but there’s never been that pressure of having someone else decide where I need to be. I think that’s been super important. I’m the only one that has control over whether I train hard or not. All my motivation comes from within, and I don’t need that external motivation.

However, Nathaniel Perullo’s intrinsic motivation is not always the norm among youth athletes. John O’ Sullivan saw early the risks when it is the parents who are pressuring their children into unhealthy competition.

John O’Sullivan: There was this 10-year-old competitive boys’ game, and the coaches are yelling and screaming, and the parents are too, and everyone’s yelling at the ref who is 12. And I’m like, “oh my god, what is happening here?” And that’s when I decide maybe I can contribute to making the environment better. And that was how the idea was born.

AM: Why do you think there was a shift between your generation and your children’s generation, what has happened?

JS: OK, right. When I was growing up, you walked out on your block and your parents knew you were at one of five houses and you were gone and be home for dinner. But that wasn’t happening anymore. And more women entered the workplace that weren’t watching kids, we needed someone to watch the kids. And now, as soon as that was organized, why not hire someone to be in charge of it and all sorts of stuff? So, I think that was part of it. And then you had this mythology, the Tiger Woods hitting a golf club at two and a half years old, and the Williams sisters, right? Great athletes and fantastic. But everyone said, well, I want to do that with my kid. And as college entry has gotten more competitive and colleges have gotten more expensive, people say, I’ll just get my kid a scholarship to pay for college, which is very unrealistic in terms of the percentage, in terms of the amount of money people spend hoping that they might get this. I think all these factors came together. Then businesses of sport shifted from town teams and volunteer board of directors and volunteer coaches to more professionalized. And that has driven much better levels of coaching and coach education, but it’s also driven costs up and commitments up. And I think all these things came together, and then we have the opportunity to compare our kids to everyone else their age in the world and be like, “oh my god, what’s wrong with my DNA?” And let me try to fix that.

AM: What are the risks for the kids of having parents that are pressuring them too much?

John O’Sullivan, founder of the Changing the Game project. Credit: John O'Sullivan

JS: What we know is what’s called the three critical ingredients of doing any achievement activity. You need to enjoy what you do. Enjoyment needs ownership, and those two things breed intrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation is the fuel. But what happens is well-intentioned parents are like, “but if you just did this, you’d be great.” They take away ownership a lot. The question I get a ton at parent talks is people ask, “when is it supposed to stop being fun and start being competitive?” And the answer to that is never. A lot of parents think that “we’ve got to stop [making] this being fun and we’ve got to be serious.” And they feel all this outside pressure to do it. So, you’re still seeing a high desertion in youth sports because of this pressure.

AM: What does healthy parenting look in terms of sports? Or maybe we should take it take a step back. Why do sports as a kid? What’s the value of team sports?

JS: It’s such a great question. And it seems like an obvious question, right? But I think what people should realize is that sports are neither good nor bad. In my first book, I had this great quote, Rainier Martins said sports is like a double-edged sword, and swung in the right direction, it can be incredibly positive and swung in the wrong direction, it can be incredibly damaging physically, mentally, emotionally. And that sword is swung by the adults.

What’s the purpose of sports in our children’s life? And no one’s going to say, oh, well, “I hope they tear their ACL twice, and get two concussions and get bullied and abused.” Because we know that when kids drop out of sports and adolescence, a lot of times they don’t ever come back to it. They become inactive for life. And if the goal is I want my kids to be active for life, I want them to be healthy adults, healthy human beings, then if that’s what I want at 24, how do I work that back to my eight-year-old? Well, I want them to have a multi-movement childhood and not just pick one activity. And then once they have that multi-movement childhood, I want to find organizations and coaches as much as I can that match the values of our family and what’s important to us. And I want to teach my kids things through sport. I want them to learn resilience, I want them to learn discipline, I want them to learn to do hard things because in life you do hard things and it doesn’t get easier. You know that, I know that. And then, what’s my role in it? Well, I’m the guide. I’ve been through life. I can give perspective, but it’s not my journey. And my kids get one childhood. Let that belong to them. It’s not mine.

Listen to the complete podcast with Nathaniel Perullo here:

Listen to the complete podcast with John O’Sullivan here:

Adriana Mariño is the producer and host of Bend into Balance. She is a board-certified functional medicine health & wellness coach and a graduate of the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Namaspa and loves to swim, ski, hike, bike, and travel. Adriana can be reached at adrimarino@hotmail.com.