Welcome everyone. I'm Jonathan Kirschner and this
is a podcast about leadership. Today is a very special day.
First of all, I am wearing my All Star jersey from 25 years
ago. It was a it was one of my
moments of glory. It was an hour and and say 20
minutes of glory. Even though I got open eyes hit
and was probably the worst on the team.
I made the All Star team. And and to this day, many of you
know, I am absolutely in love with hockey and I'm in love with
hockey because I I grew up playing the sport and I think
it's the best, best game. OK, we could, we could debate
this, but I'm also fascinated with performance teaming and how
leadership plays a role in hockey.
And right now I'm actually captain of my team, the Philly
John, which is our cancer hockey team that it plays for a really
wonderful cancer charity called the RCCS Tournament.
And I'm joined here today with two incredible experts in the
field of psychology, performance and sport.
So we've got Simon Rice, who's the VP of athletic care for the
76ers. And I can't wait to hear about
what's going on with the 76ers. There's there's a really good,
good thing going on right now. We're set 7:00 and 4:00, Simon.
That's right, seven and four. 7 and 4 right now early, early in
the season, but seven and four and, and looking a lot like
looking really, really nice in general and, and, and
especially, you know, compared to to last year.
And we have Holly Benner, who is the associate director of global
talent management for Merck and it if you thought that would be
like enough to just have a day job working at the one of the
world's largest pharmaceutical companies helping empower and
inspire and, and enable leadership effectiveness.
She's also an ultra marathon runner and a a coach for both
business and, and sport professionals.
And so we're going to really immerse ourselves in leadership,
of course, but through the lens of sports psychology,
performance and what it takes to be excellent in that domain.
And that will be like fascinating.
If we could generalize that into the domain of organizational
effectiveness, that would be that would be delightful.
So with that said, welcome and and maybe we could just kick
ourselves like how did you guys get interested in this?
Maybe Holly, we can start with you.
Like how did you get interested in sport performance?
Sure, give me the journey. Yeah, I mean, and it has been a
journey, but at the same time, it's always been a part of who I
am and how I lived my life. So, you know, going way back,
got into Graduate School at Clemson, SC, I was really
interested in why and how people show up at this thing called
work. And the the concept of
retirement actually was very fascinating to me.
I studied retirement and Graduate School because it was
such an interesting way to have an identity as an employee.
So I was really fascinated by this concept and I studied a lot
of demographic differences when it comes to retirement.
But along my Graduate School, I was always a an athlete, a
student athlete ever since I was in elementary school.
I was a competitive swimmer at in the 6th grade.
I was doing double S in middle school.
So I was swimming before school, after school.
So this is a long standing habit that I've had when I've, you
know, been balancing getting the most out of myself athletically
and academically. And as I started my career after
Clemson, I really got focused in how people perform at work.
And I was really interested in the training and the environment
and what sets people up for success in whatever kind of
domain they are practicing. And I had the privilege of
working with a variety of of industries.
And the good news is that people are everywhere and some people
are kind of a little different. And I like to call those people
type A+. So along my career development,
I was also a competitive athlete.
I mentioned before swimming, swimming turned into rowing at a
very high level trying to make the 2012 team, which actually
brought me from Clemson, SC to Philadelphia, PA.
That transitioned into triathlon, which I competed at
an elite level as a professional triathlete.
And now I'm an elite marathoner and ultra marathoner.
Even though I keep getting older, I keep getting faster.
Didn't expect that to happen. But along these two
trajectories, my career and my passion, I've noticed again,
these type A+ people that like to live a big life.
And for many, many years I kept them very separate.
I was very worried that my identity as an athlete would
would conflict with my identity as a career high performer.
I didn't want to be seen like I was splitting my time and
attention in two different domains because how could I
possibly be high performing in two things?
And over time I got more comfortable with merging these
identities together because truly it was me and I was doing
both at a high level. And I had been a years ago, I
developed, you know, a coaching business.
People were coming to me. They was really organic.
People were like, hey, you do that thing I want to do, help me
do that thing you do. And so over the years I had
gotten what I call sets and reps more practice and experience as
a coach. And I recognized after 15 years
of coaching high performing athletes, multi sport athletes,
endurance athletes across the country, amateurs to
professionals, that they had something in common.
A lot of my clients were business owners, entrepreneurs,
executives, again, type A+. They want to get after it in all
works of all walks of life. So I decided to go to Brown
University and get my ICF credentialing and leadership and
performance coaching. And now I've been really
creating a space to bring these two worlds together where I can
help people uncover their best self in work, sport and life.
And I love it. Amazing.
I absolutely love that. And I love that your career
starred. I I love that the beginning of
this journey, it started in studying retirement.
And sometimes, you know, sometimes like a, a coach will
say, all right, let's start with what the end point you're trying
to reach is like. What does success look like one
year from now and then work backwards.
And it's just interesting to me that you chose to to start, you
know, this journey studying retirement, which is which is
fascinating. I love the integration.
Thank you, Holly. Folks, we have a bonus today.
We have Lindsay joining us with with sports performance
professionals, like they they come in and out like if things
are dynamic, right, team needs you, player needs you.
So I'm really, I mean, maybe you could, you know, speak to that
Lindsay, it we're just doing some introductions with Lindsay
Shaw, Director of Sports Psychology for the Cleveland
Guardians. And it's a pleasure to have you
on this call on this podcast today.
Thank you for having me, great to see you all.
I would have worn my team gear had I know.
It's not too late it. Was like a, you know, jersey
optional. Yeah.
But that is that is how it happens sometimes.
And just like in the world of business, sometimes there's a
fire drill and sometimes there's a fire and things happen.
And here we are. Well, here we are.
It's awesome to have you. Maybe, you know, just briefly,
like how did you get into this, to this field, into the role,
Give us a sense of the journey. And then and then Simon will
hear from you. And then we're going to dig into
to our topic of, of, of leadership and sport
performance. Simon, are you gone?
Sure, I can go. Sure.
So probably similar to to a lot of people as as a child I was
just active and interested in sport.
I tried to play as many as I could and that that involved.
I grew up in Australia, that was swimming, that was basketball,
it was cricket, that was OK, whatever that was.
I really enjoyed that play. It played all the way through
adolescence as well. And then then the same as
everybody, if there is a period that you have to make some
decisions about what you want to do with the rest of your life.
And for me, it was probably more of a process of things I wasn't.
I wasn't interested in doing more so than what I was
interested in doing. I knew that I was not at that
time, interested in doing something that involves sitting
down inside behind a computer. I didn't really know what I
wanted, but I had a pretty strong sense it wasn't something
like that. Certainly at that period I did a
fairly general sports science degree.
I started off working in the performance space across a lot
of different sports. That was in strength,
conditioning and and performance at an elite and professional
sports level. From there that that developed
my interest in injury rehabilitation.
I went back and studied physical therapy and then and then
subsequent master's in physical therapy.
Very focused on sport and exercise again.
Spent some time working in, in a lot of different team,
individual Olympic, Paralympic sports.
So quite a large variety. A little sabbatical there where
I actually was in London, worked on some West End shows and and
ballet. So, so performance at a very
high level in a different space. And then now this is my sixth
season in my role with the 76ers and that's a different role
again. In this one, I sit across A-Team
across a, a team of clinicians, which is physical therapists,
massage therapists, sports science, nutrition, psychology,
strength and conditioning and trying to look at the whole
athlete and human being. And then how do we, how do we
reduce illness and injury and maximize performance, which is
really, really interesting to me.
And what I, what I would say. And I think this leads into some
of the things we're going to discuss having having had the,
the privilege, I suppose, of working in different countries
and, and so many different areas and, and, and more recently
being exposed to the business side through your podcast,
through some of the stuff that you do.
Jonathan, what I'm, what I've learned and I'm continuing to
learn is there's so many more similarities and there are
differences and, and that there's so many more common
themes across sports, across business, across different
facets of performance than there are, there are differences.
And, and that's something I'm I'm really interested in.
Nice. Yeah, there's that, that common
denominator of people. I think that.
People, everything involves human beings and, and you know,
it's funny, you know, it's funny how, how that changes
everything. Yeah, no, it's, that's amazing.
I, I, I love it. Simon fascinated about how, how
you keep, you know, it seems almost probably like a balancing
act between all those different facets.
I mean, there must have been like 6 to 8 different facets of
performance and sort of injury prevention that you oversee.
And I'll be curious to know, like, how do you sort of keep
that in harmony and what do you do when it gets out of harmony?
So that that would be something. Maybe we come back to Lindsay.
How about you? How did you you know?
How did you get to where you are right now?
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to share. I guess it's just lingering in
my mind what where Simon kind of left it.
I think the, the interesting thing about coming from the
world of sport is that it's so obvious, right?
The performance is, is, is pretty obvious.
Like you're running faster, you're not, you're pitching with
precision or you're not, you know, you're injured, you're not
in the business world. There's maybe these subtleties,
but I like in my position, my background as a sports
psychologist, there's there's a, you know, what looks like maybe
simple run faster, jump higher, you know, do do this.
There's a lot of like these internal dynamics that play into
that. It's not always, I mean, I'm
sure it's similar and basketball or maybe and running Holly like
or in in hockey for you, Jonathan, it's so tempting to
say like, oh, we just, we just got to fix the guy's technique
and then everything's going to get better.
And if it was just that simple teams would only have technical
coaches. They wouldn't have all of these
other other specialists. So, so to, to my, my background,
I, you know, I was pretty interested in lots of different
sports, you know, did gymnastics at a fairly high level, competed
in college. I was always fascinated as a
gymnast. Like what, you know, why could I
do this skill 5 seconds ago I did it no problem.
I felt, you know, it wasn't that scary.
And now all the sudden I'm like, like the balance being right,
you're supposed to go like, flip, flip, flip, flip in a row.
And then I'm. I'm ready to start.
And all of a sudden, like, whoa, that like, what's going on?
I just. I always, I always found that
really interesting. I had the privilege of meeting
the sports psychologist who trained me in Graduate School
when I was a teenager. And I was like, gonna be just
like you, buddy, when I grow up. That's awesome.
Yeah. So and then, you know, and
competed sports in college and then was still kind of not
exactly sure what I wanted to do.
I was, I went to the University of Pennsylvania.
I was really influenced by Martin Seligman's work there in
positive psychology. And I think it had kind of
mapped on to sports psychology for me.
I studied sports psychology a little bit in high school.
I went to a boarding school. They let you do independent
studies. So I did some of that.
Yeah. And I just went to Graduate
School. I did my dissertation research
and psychophysiology. So sort of measuring and
training the mind, body connection, so like brain waves,
heart rate, rhythms. And I was lucky that the US
Olympic Committee was looking to start a laboratory right when I
finished grad school. I had designed a laboratory for
a sports school in Joha, Qatar. And they wanted me to design
and, you know, training staff, provide athletes.
So I got a job at the Olympic Committee and after about a
decade there, I made the jump to Major League Baseball.
That's been about five years. And it's kind of similar to what
you raised, Simon, and similar to the topic of, you know, our
panel and this podcast. I've, I mean, there's a lot that
goes into performance right now, whether it's that, I mean, it's
like business planning, conceptualizing deals, giving
presentations. I mean, we just do it in a in a
different domain. But yeah, there's a way you can
measure, assess, plan, work with the internal dynamics and
prepare someone to perform that's really similar across
domains. Wow, Wow.
Well, I do, you know, there's a common denominator as well
between you, Lindsay and Simon, both of your respective teams,
you know, have most recently or currently going through what
could arguably be called a turn around, right.
And so I'm just just really interesting, like interested in
this phenomena. Like imagine I just, you know,
I'm an alien that just came down, you know, from space and
I'm at a game and and I see a team that was stuck or
stagnating or losing and all of a sudden now it's like there's
this positive momentum. So very curious about about that
phenomenon. So when I put it in the parking
lot for a SEC, I want to just dive into the big broad question
of like individual performance. So, so Holly, like you talked
about like something we all share as athletes is this sort
of a plus mindsets. Like if we're going to do it,
we're going to do it like we're going to go sort of all out.
But then, you know, you have all these athletes that are going
all out and only a few, you know, a very select few make it
to the elite level or, or the, the, the Major League Baseball
or the NBA or the NHL or the NFL, right.
So, you know, I, I'm curious, like you mentioned sets and reps
and technique, but that only gets you so far, right?
And, and, and that's where, you know, there's a point of
divergent where excellent, you know, where good goes to
excellent, excellent then get separated from elite.
I'm curious, like how from your perspective, do people become
beyond just excellent? How did they become an elite
athlete? Like what is it that that is
what's behind that from your perspective?
And if you have a story or an anecdote or an intervention, you
know, obviously you can keep it, you know, confidential.
I'd just be very curious. I know from from my perspective,
I mean, I can easily say they're cut a little different.
They're cut from a different cloth, maybe a little
compulsive, maybe a little crazy.
So in in the nature nurture, like there is something, you
know, when I think about cloth, like there's something about.
Yeah, there's traits and they're individual.
I mean, like you can say gifted, you know it, more resilient from
an injury perspective, willing to really commit themselves to
living a monk life if needed, right, stripped down the
distractions, etcetera. But truly, over my experience
working one-on-one with athletes at a high level, I think the one
thing that differentiates a great high performer is because
they love it. They love it so much they can't
think about anything else except going to bed so they can get up
in the morning and do that thing that they love.
And I think that's the one aspect that maybe doesn't get
talked enough about. It's not.
And that's not to say that discipline isn't required and
that motivation isn't required, that there's going to be hard
days when you wake up and you'd rather stay in bed.
But more often than not, I think the best high performers are
truly those athletes that love what they're doing.
They wouldn't want to do anything else.
It's like this intense fervor. Yes.
That's. Interesting.
I don't know what you know, my colleagues here would have to
say, but in in my experience, and I'm assuming that cuts
across different sport types, but if you really don't love it,
some people could boil it down to the why.
What's your why? You have to have a compelling
reason to keep engaging and frankly, at least an endurance,
an ultra endurance sport, something that hurts for a long
time. You have to have a really strong
reason and and I believe that the strongest reason is love.
It's amazing. I I, I love that.
I your questions in my mind, like can you over index on that?
Like what happens if you love it too much?
Like is there any well, that's compulsive, you know, risk
there. Yeah, Compulsion.
Yeah. And yes, you can do things
compulsively and that's not healthy.
And I would actually say that's not love because you're loving
the behavior more than yourself. And, and truly, that's why I
named my company, one of the reasons I named my company Meta
Metta, which is Buddhist for loving kindness because I
believe truly that the route to performance is from loving it
and loving yourself, not wow, go hard or go home.
It's cultivating a sense of loving kindness for yourself.
That's beautiful. I love that.
Awesome, Simon, Lindsay, what what from your perspective, you
know, what goes into like beyond the sets and reps and and the
focus on technique, what is behind, you know, high, high
performance, I I think. I think I'm going to say
something really obvious, but it's worth mentioning.
It is really, really hard to win things.
And it's really, really hard to be the top at anything, right?
And I think we sometimes forget, you know, in my world at the
moment, I work with a professional basketball team.
We, we really want to win games of basketball, but so does the
other team, you know, they really want to win as well.
And it's difficult to do that. And, and it's difficult to do
that when things are easy. And by easy, I mean one game a
week and then you have a day off and then we get time to
practice. It's even harder when you're
doing that. You're flying to a different
city. You're getting it through
getting in at 3:00 AM, you then need to get up in a hotel room,
you need to go and get some shots up.
You need to practice, then you need to play again that night.
So I would start by saying it's very, very hard.
And that means I agree. There has to be, there has to be
some, there has to be some passion, there has to be some
enjoyment, there has to be some love and there needs to be a lot
of resilience. And, and again, I would, I think
that sounds obvious, but it's all of that multiplied by a long
period of time. And I, and for me that's one of
the differences. A lot of people can do hard
things for a short period of time and a lot of people can do
hard things when things are going well.
It's very, very difficult to do hard things very consistently
for a long period of times, a long period of time.
And I do think that's one of the biggest differentiators.
Now, I would caveat that by there is a subgroup of people in
every profession and sport is one of them that will succeed at
the highest level in spite of everything else.
They are so naturally gifted in spite of the program, in spite
of what they're doing, they will be at the top.
But that's, you know, I'll probably get these statistics
wrong, but it's going to be in the right ballpark.
In basketball, percentage of players that play at high school
that make it to college is, you know, a low percent.
The percentage of college basket play, college basketball players
that make it to a professional level is under is 1% roughly.
And then the percentage of those people that have any length of
career is obviously below 1%. So we're talking about the, you
know, the 1% of the 1% in this area.
Now there is a group of people that will that will no matter
what they do, succeed. But the vast, vast majority, in
my opinion, it is a lot of work over a long period of time where
it is very difficult to have a chance to succeed.
Wow. OK, so resilience, Lindsey, no.
I'm just going to say I, I wish I I, I reviewed these statistics
for my spring training talk. I think it was in 2024 where I
went. I mean, there's like there's
published it. It's like, I don't know, Sam,
it's like in the US at least, like 4% of high school players
going to play college and then 1% of D1 players going to pro.
And then this, you know, like, and it's like just like this
smaller and smaller. I mean, yeah.
So to that's it's just insanely hard.
Jonathan I. It's no, no, it's incredible.
And, and I think about, you know, you can, you can love it
and have this incredible passion.
You can be incredibly resilient. But then like when everything,
when all the force is, is like against you, when you know,
you're, you're losing and then you're losing and you're, you're
trying your hardest, but then you lose.
And then there's like a little bit of toxicity maybe in the
locker room or in the, in the team.
And, and, and all of a sudden, like that passion, that
unbridled passion that that brought you into the sport.
You know, you're, you're in midway into your career and
you're just not feeling it anymore.
What, what do we do there? You know, like, do we see that
and, and, and how do you, like, how do you turn that around at
the individual level? I'm curious also at the team
level, but like at the individual level.
Like how do you get through a rut?
I mean, we see this in business, right?
I almost want to throw the question back at you.
When you see a career plateau or burnout at work, what's the
solution? Yeah.
I mean, when, when times are great, it's, it's, you know,
it's, you know, performance is, is it's much easier because you
have all this, this tailwind behind your back, right?
And you're, you're operating your best.
And, and when you're under these heightened levels of stress and
pressure for a protracted period of time, then we're more
vulnerable to derailment, to depression, to different forms
of anxiety. And it's, it's really tough.
So, so from, from my perspective and, and the work that I do as
an executive coach and as ACEO exposed to these pressures on a
hourly basis, it's I, I'll tell you, I mean, I, I would concur
that with, with the importance of staying grounded in
resilience, that and resilient and, and, and engaging in these
self-care practices that help you get through the bumps and
the, and the tough times and always grounding yourself in the
North Star purpose of, of what we're doing.
But it, it's also really, really valuable to have sort of some,
some trusted advisors around you, people who can provide both
support 'cause you just can't, you just can't do it alone.
You just can't right and and feedback like, dude, are you OK?
You know, you're you're you seem a little anxious.
You've been talking really fast or what?
You know, not everything made 100% sense.
Is everything all right to be able to get that, that candid
feedback? That's not judge mental, That's
that's constructive and the support that that is, is, is
really, really valuable alongside the the, you know, I
can call it emotional fortitude, which is this combination of,
of, of being centered and always focused on on North Star.
There's also a piece to us, by the way, which is just around
believing and hope and having conviction that we're going to
get there. And I think when when I look at
leaders that are really, really successful CE OS, they've all
gone through bad years and great years and hopefully more great
years than bad years. But what makes them stand out is
they have a belief and they, they believe so strongly that
they, it's almost like they will it into existence, which is very
cool. So that's, that's a little bit
from what I see in my world. Unfortunately, I don't have a a
a trainer, chef, psychology, you know, you know, performance
psychologist and the the team of 6 to 8 that Simon manages on a
daily basis. Not always helpful, right?
Like I think. OK.
Yeah, that's not always helpful. You know if you have.
I have that on my bucket list, you're saying?
That's that. No, it more often is obviously,
you know, if you have a, if you have a series of experts in
their domain trying to help you figure something out that you
know, that you, you assume that is, that's very beneficial.
And on the whole it absolutely is.
But in that scenario where something is not not going as
well as we would like that whether that is performance
based, whether that is an injury that's taking longer than we
expected, whether that's coming back and having a second injury
or a set back or something like that.
The, the, the tendency is in a very, from a very positive
place. Every person involved in that
person's care to dive in to try and help fix it right from a
very, very good, good place. Sometimes what that can cause
very easily is a lot of different messages, a lot of
different solutions, a lot of a lot of crossover methodology,
methodology or planning and a lot of confusion.
So, so it's not uncommon for that problem to be expanded from
a lot of people diving in to try and do the right thing.
And that that's a, that's a challenge on its own because,
because a lot, and we've spoken about this before, one of the
things I certainly have found in my role here is we very rarely
miss things we do, but it's not common.
We very rarely miss things where, where we, we do tend to
have more issues is we do things two or three or four times.
And that's that's because everyone is trying to help and
that caused a different set of challenges.
So it comes with this really great place, but it can, I mean
if if left unwatched or or managed, I mean they just create
chaos I imagine. I mean a lot of redundancy at at
at at minimum. Best redundancy?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.
Wow, that's that's really interesting.
Thinking in baseball, we have the luxury of a lot of data and
to Simon's point, it, it needs to be titrated.
And so the player doesn't receive every single thing that
all of the analysts, you know, produce or that all of the
sports science and sport performance teams first Med, you
know, contribute together to like our conceptualization of
what might be going on. Something that's really
important in sport, in other performance domains is getting
the performers perspective right.
So in this scenario that you're describing, oh, it's kind of
like, I don't know, I've lost my love for the game, but I live in
the business world, you know, to really understanding like what's
going on? What else is going on?
How long has this been going on? So like having the conversation,
thinking, did you recently welcome a child and you're
really under recovered and you have more prominent negative
mood States and everything is just kind of crummy right now.
Like, is that what's going on? Is there some sort of unexamined
existential crisis that's brewing and you're trying to,
you know, I mean, it could be a lot of different things, but you
need to have the person's, you know, voice, the performers
voice. And then to the extent that you
have access to the these others, like you said, you know,
soliciting feedback from people who are in your work world, in
your other support world, if you have access to data, you know, I
mean, even if it's something, it is something like you gave a
presentation, you're feeling kind of crummy about it.
Well, why are you feeling crummy about it?
Well, I don't know, let's go look at the presentation.
Or would you rather avoid it? I mean, like in sport, there's a
whole lot of like confronting you did that 40,000 people were
watching you live. How however many other people
were watching you and, and everyone saw it like, so we,
there's a whole lot of like, it's harder to avoid sometimes
in the world of sport. That gives me the chills just
thinking about the, the stakes of that.
But I mean, how often, what, when, when you see somebody like
not living up to what many believe is their, their
potential, you know, how often is that a function of, you know,
something brewing under the hood?
And, and, and when, and you know, in those instances, like
how are you intervening? Like how does that practically
like get metabolized and and the individual get to the other side
of that? It's a hard question because
everybody's a little bit different.
You know, I focus a lot with the internal dialogue and how an
athlete talks to themselves because words are so important.
And Jonathan, you mentioned earlier talking about, you know
a business professional that is optimistic and says we will get
there. That is fundamentally different
than we have to get there. It's very different energy.
We will get there for OK. So let's unpack that.
We will get there versus we have to get there.
Yes, one's compulsive, one's optimistic.
Oh, and that's so subtle, but I'm.
I'm seeing it. Yeah, but.
Words are very powerful. So typically I, I, I work
individually, not with teams. So that's the differentiator
here. But truly I am interested and
this is where the skill of coaching is so powerful.
Regardless if we're working with an executive or an athlete, you
need to ask the right questions so that we can get insight.
How are they talking to themselves?
What are the stakes? What matters?
What do they want? So how are they leading
themselves? Are they, are they pushing, you
know, towards something and in an almost like unsustainable,
unrealistic way, like we have to get there and, and it's almost
like punishing. Or are we being inspiring and,
and leading with, with, with meta, with love of, of myself?
Like we, we will get there. Like, it may not be a straight
line, but we're going to get there.
Yes, and we know that a mindset is a skill.
You can train mindfulness and awareness.
Yeah, just like you can train coaching skills.
On the note of coaching, I just like, I want to pivot just for a
moment to like, OK, so so you all had coaches work for
coaches, our coaches in some instances, right?
Like have you seen coaches use the the will you we will get
there versus we have to get there?
And is there a pattern of like one works better than the other?
Like, you know, I was just curious because I've seen, you
know, in hockey, I've seen like really like, you know, hard ass
coaches like, you know, I'm not going to say names.
And, and in one year the team won the Stanley Cup.
And in the last four years, his team, his he he he left that
team, went to a different team. And, and they're just completely
All Star team, very unsuccessful team.
And then you have the the inspirational coach who, you
know, wins the Stanley Cup, but then also like, you know, may
not deliver in in subsequent years.
So I'm just curious if there's any like like how we're thinking
about this from from a coaching and even like say leadership
standpoint I. Think the answer is it's really
complicated, right? Because like, I mean, for a
coach, you know, you're inheriting players and staff and
I mean, there's can be ownership, there can be lots of
complicated. The context it can be extremely
complex. But but to Holly's point, so
this like have to or will have to get to, right?
I mean, what underneath that it's approach versus avoidance,
right? So when you're when you're when
there's a challenge, you can view it as like this is a
challenge as an opportunity or this is a threat, right?
So like when there's a when there's a challenge or an
opportunity, woohoo, like I can approach it when it's presented
as a threat, you know, like you might want, you might want to
avoid, you might want to run away.
I used to work with wrestling and I would make this really bad
show to wrestlers. Like you can't opt out, like you
can't hop off the mat. Like you're there, you're there
and you're doing it. There's no backing away no
matter how. I mean, yes, OK, maybe you're
you don't persist and then and the match is over.
You tap out. Yeah, yeah.
But like, you're in, you're there.
It's happening, right. So whereas other other athletes,
you know, they'll kind of like pull themselves away, like in
subtle ways, they can forego the opportunity to perform.
And fundamentally it's, you know, maybe they're injured,
maybe there's something else going on.
They have conceptualized the challenge as a threat as opposed
to an opportunity. So I mean, coaches, you can be a
challenging coach backed up by a lot of like love and care and
support you, you can be perceived as like demanding and
really supportive. And that can cause athletes like
their nervous systems to, you know, approach like I here I go.
I, I can do this as opposed to like, I'm, I'm going to go away
from this. So I think there, there is what
Holly's raising there, there is this undertone to the way we
work with ourselves, the way we work, you know, when we're
coaching another person, a team of people, but there, I mean,
there's, there's data like down to the cellular level.
We, we know this like from exposure therapy when so let's
say someone's afraid of something.
If you can get them to willingly say, I hate this, I'm afraid of
it and I'm going to approach it anyways.
They have a different kind of a stress response as opposed to
like me trying to force, like you ever try to force your kid
to get a vaccine? It's it doesn't work out.
Whereas if you can, you can like say to your kid, OK, I know you
don't want to do it and we're going to do it.
And here's all the thing you know, different things are
activated in the nervous system. Yeah, it's interesting.
Like I 'cause I came at this with more of a binary like, like
you're either like hardcore push or you're very supportive in
pull. But there is this sort of like,
you know, more nuanced approach where you're using both
strategies of push and pull and maybe adapting it.
You know, I wonder if like the best coaches are sort of
adapting it to what they think the player needs.
Like maybe somebody needs a real kick in the ass, but this one
really needs to be nurtured and coddled and and.
Yeah, you can't just be a dictator or a cheerleader.
You have to be. You got to, you got to, Yeah,
it's, I guess it's situational leadership, right?
And yeah, Simon, any, any thoughts on this one?
I mean, you've been, you've been around, you've seen a lot of
coaches. I have and I've seen a a a huge
range of everything everyone is talking about.
I would say my initial reaction is that you know, this idea that
the methods, there are many in concepts.
There are a few, you know, like these concepts of belief
conviction you mentioned, but a plan and the plan can change.
Adaptability is really important and been overarching.
You know, I've seen coaches approach that in so many
different ways. I've worked with authoritarian
coaches, I've worked with micromanaging coaches.
I've worked with really, really successful coaches of all types.
And the things that, that I, my first thought when you, when you
mentioned that where I've seen many ways be successful.
Now that's different coaches, It's also different athletes.
There's different players, there's different backgrounds,
there's different ages. It's all sorts of those things.
But the themes that jump to mind for me are they, they have some
sort of plan, they're adaptable and they have this almost
unwavering conviction or belief that, that, that we can figure
this out together. That together might be the team,
it might be the coach and the player, it might be the entire
group, it might be the organization.
But we can figure anything out and we're and we're committed to
doing that. Yeah, I think when I think about
it, so it's fascinating. And what I'm hearing is a common
theme. Is it like that, that
situational It's, it's less about the style and more about
the adaptability in the moment to what the team and what the,
the the players need. But the point around like having
that like ultra conviction, even when things are like, you know,
we're losing, we're like 5, we've lost five games straight,
but you still believe. I, I, I imagine a real turning
point for a coach is, is like when, when that belief, you
know, let let's even about the style and their approach.
But if that conviction like crosses below a certain point,
it, it's, it's like the beginning of the end, though,
because, because the team is just riding so much on that,
that they need their leader to be, to have that, that, that,
that hope and conviction that we can do it.
Can we talk for a second about turnarounds and and like the
phenomena of a turn around? I've kind of gone through it
myself as a hockey player. Like again, I mentioned four
years, 4 bad years of losing and then one year where we just like
came out of nowhere and won the cup.
I actually, you know, brought my hat.
I'm going to put it right here. So everybody knows that we won
the championship. Unfortunately, I, we can't find
the cup. My, it's, it's being passed
around and we can't find it. So once I locate that, we'll,
we'll have that on the podcast. Probably somebody's drinking
beer, somebody's dog's drinking beer out of it right now.
But but yeah, the players, the player composition on my team
didn't change, but we but, but we changed and we won.
I have some, some theories about it, but you all are the, the
experts here, so curious about turnarounds and, and how we get
at the team level out of a rut and, and you know, into, you
know, a, a, a winning dynamic well.
I think when, OK, back in those four years where you were not
getting WS, how certain were you?
Like we get really granular in sport.
Like these processes work, right?
This bat speed, this bat path, this at this launch angle, this,
you know, like we're, we have some level of certainty around
what increases our chances of success.
And I mean, at the, you know, the psychology level, it's like
I, I know I need to have like kind of my nervous system kind
of like this, or I need to be reminding myself of these cues.
Maybe I need to be in the cages like for hitters or if some
pitchers come in and like I need to do this kind of warm up to
prepare my body into my mind, you know, my mind to, you know,
increase my chances of performing well.
So how certain were you of your processes when you were losing?
Highly uncertain, but I, I honestly I think you know, OK,
so, so parallels like corporate and sports.
On the corporate side, our research on team effectiveness
would indicate that that the two primary ingredients for
successes is team productivity, right?
So how effectively efficiently we get things done, how
coordinated we are. So that's kind of like the
domain or ballpark that that you're talking about.
Like how clear are we about the technical side of what we're
doing and how we're communicating and, and, and
coordinating. And then there's team culture,
which is sort of like how it feels to be on this team, the
emotional social intelligence. Does it feel safe?
Are we taking pride? And if I was to be honest, while
in the model in our research, they're almost like equal
weighted, I actually think when I look at back at my team, part
of the reason why we were unsuccessful was because we had
deficient team culture. And so in some ways it it
doesn't even matter if we were good or not good from a, from a
technical performance standpoint, because nobody
really was like happy per SE. Nobody felt gelled.
People weren't jazzed like to be doing this together.
And well, and you're playing ice hockey, right?
You're not, you're not aggregating scores as gymnasts
competing separately. And you know, you're not doing a
relay where in my, you know, I could do my best performance and
then I don't have to really like you, but I can pass you the
time. Like there's, there's, there's
different levels of like interdependency, like how much
do you actually need to be coordinating with your teammates
and, and ice hockey really fast. And you really have to be
operating from this sort of shared mind so that you know
where you are, you know you're going to pass the puck and to
where he's not, but where he will be.
So, yeah, if you, if you do not have that groupiness with your
teammates that that will be like an an emergent negative dynamic
and take no matter how skillful you are, if you're not together
enough to work from the same sort of mental model of what's
going to happen. So yeah, correcting that
probably unleashed the this latent skill that that wasn't
showing up on the ice. I I think it really depends on
how. 100% and, and, and to now spoiler what happened was one of
the players and, and he was the only new player to the team.
He actually was a coach. You know, he coached college
hockey and he volunteered to be player coach.
So he was actually coaching us and part of his coaching was
technical, but a lot of it was just like, hey, you know, you
know like that goal went in like let's give the goalie some
support. Let's show him some love.
And our default would be like, man, you let that goal in like
or just not saying anything 'cause that'd be more, you know,
appropriate. But but it was that, that the
difference really was leadership and and that coaching that made
the difference for us. I know, I know we're going to
look close to time and I want to be respectful of that.
But Simon, anything on on your side just because you're in,
you're in it, man, you're like in a turn around.
It's, it's awesome. I know it's early.
I don't want to jinx anything, but it's, it's awesome watching
the 76ers right now. Like what do you attribute it
to? So I it's early.
First of all, I would say I've been part of, I've been part of
over performing teams, I've been part of underperforming teams.
I've been, I've been the change in one year when there's not
been much change. I've been the constant in other
years. I've been in a few different
environments. One thing I would say at the
start is every year is difference.
As much as as much as we like to think they're the same and
they're connected and they certainly there is some
consistency. Every year is different, whether
it's different players, different staff, different
culture, different philosophy, different.
Every year is is different. They are connected, they are
different. I think one of the things we're
sort of that that we're talking about, there's a constant theme
in everything we've been, we've been discussing so far is, is
decision making. And at the end of all of this,
leaders are making a series of decisions almost constantly,
right. Whether that game plan for
tonight, race strategy for the 100 mile race, the batting line
up, the the deal that we're going to do to try and buy this
business, the next employee we're going to employ all that
sort of stuff. It's a series of decisions and
we're constantly making those with the best available
information. So in my world, that is a
combination of objective, objective findings.
It's a combination of hopefully some emotional intelligence.
It's it's a combination of talking to human beings.
And we're trying to weight all of that appropriately and we're
trying to make the best decision.
Now, I also think we need to remember that that they are
never or very, very rarely 100% decisions.
We have a level of confidence in every decision we make and we
want to get it as good as possible.
And we're not going to get everyone right.
And we but we, we like to think that that we would.
But if we're making, you know, an example with, with, you know,
baseball Hall, if you're, if you're hitting 303 out of every
10 pitches, you're a, you're a Hall of Fame baseball player,
you're missing seven of them, right?
And we have this idea that we're, we're making these
decisions. We can make the right decision
and not get the outcome we want, as in we might not win the game,
right? And so there's a lot of things
that change. And I know that you cannot
separate that in the sports world from winning or losing.
But, but the point that sticks out to me with anything is we
can consistently try and make the best decisions based on the
information, but they're not always going to turn out how we
hope that they will. And, and that that sometimes can
be the difference. We can make really, really good
decisions and we can be 80% confident and the 20% happens
and that might happen 10 times in a row.
That doesn't mean those decisions were wrong and they
shouldn't impact how we make them in the future, but that can
make a difference. And then we can go on as we can
go on a streak when we're making, you know, decisions that
we're not very confident in. They pay off for us.
And sometimes that's the difference.
So I think for me it's decision making and it's, it's context
and it's the threshold of where we're prepared to, to, to make
those decisions and, and see how they play out.
I absolutely love that. I love that you're bringing
decision making and, and I love that metaphor.
I mean, it's a reality for for many, you know, that that you
could be a Hall of Famer and miss, you know, 7 out of 10,
which is just, it's, it's an incredible statistic.
I mean, usually you think of batting average, you don't
really necessarily think about that this person actually missed
more lot of failure. And, and to, you know, to that
point Holly was making earlier about, you know, what
distinguishes like excellent from elite, This notion of like
passion, but not just passion for winning.
It's it's it ultimately, what's even more important is, is like
love of one's self, presumably. Like, I don't know, am I, am I
botching that, Holly? Is that No, no, no.
That's right. It's, it's love, Love for
yourself, that confidence truly, which is I think a performance
enhancer, not arrogance, but confidence.
And then, yeah, been a love for how you're spending your time,
your effort, your energy, your teammates.
And, and I'm sure that helps like if you, if you fail like
you're, you're willing to like, you know, absorb that, forget,
learn from that, forgive yourself.
Right, the outcome might not happen, but if you're doing
everything right, like what Simon was saying, then you can
enjoy the experience and the experience, right?
We can control much more than the outcome.
But if I'm in the have to win mindset right then I'm on a
crash course. It's.
Risky, but if I'm in a in a, we will win.
It's going to be, you know, a non linear journey with some
bumps and we're not going to win every game.
We're not going to hit every pitch.
Then enjoy the ride, right? Yeah, I mean and you can develop
a matrix of of self-assessment or like like we we define like
what is what is a good at bat or what is a productive at bat.
It's not, it's not necessarily something that's helping your
batting average. It's identifying the right
pitches, you know, hit hitting in accordance with your
strengths, waiting for the pitcher to give you, you know,
like there's, there's various sub components.
So yeah, assessing yourself. If you're assessing yourself
only out of, with the outcome in mind, like only if you win, then
you're vulnerable to assessing yourself with your losses too,
right? And then your identity is like
doing this roller coaster in accordance with your
performance. Now, obviously the outcome
matters because like in my industry, if you, if you're a
really good hitter, a really good pitcher, you're going to
have, you know, you have more career on punctivity, you're
going to make more money. There's there's, there's real
tangible gains to outcomes. But there has to be this
mediating factor of like, what is the process through which you
will, you know, increase the chances of obtaining those
outcomes? And then it gives you this
healthy distance to keeping your, your identity separate
from the outcomes. And then like, to Holly's point,
you know, loving yourself or, you know, preserving your love
for the game. I mean, I, I know some athletes
who are really best in the world at what they do and they don't
happen to care for their sport that much.
Maybe it's like it's a, it's a curse a little bit, but that's
OK because you can have a really, I mean, there's, there's
people in the business world who are leading things are, you
know, very successful. And maybe that's not really
their passion. Perhaps you're just very good at
that thing. But can you have a
professionalized relationship with, with your career?
And you very much can. And then you have space to
magnify the things in your life that you really do love.
Wow, this is this is way more complicated than sets and reps
It's amazing. All right, I know we're we're at
time. If we can, we'd love to just do
bonus lightning around a, you know, either a piece of advice
that you would impart for leaders right now in, you know,
where Q 4/20/25 with so all that context or, or a a key learn
from from this year. So you get to choose either a
key learn that that you picked up and that's guiding you and,
and and inspiring you this year or a piece of advice.
What would it be? You know, I can, I can start us
off Key, key learn for me is, you know, there's, there's so
many things that we think can't change.
And we build these like sort of brittle constructs in our mind
of like what needs to be in order for, in, in order for us
to, you know, survive or, or, or even, you know, thrive.
And, and, and to take that next level of, of pressure testing
the paradigm and to pushing ourselves and thinking outside
of the box and, and being bold. That, that's been my mission
this year, being bold. And, you know, the world is very
dynamic and, and there's a lot of continuous change and, and we
need to meet that context as leaders and, and accordingly.
So that's my, that's my big, big learn from this year.
Who's next? Under one minute.
All right. I'll give you 1 under one
minute, which I'm fairly passionate about this idea of
recovery. We're very focused on recovery,
right? And I think sometimes we think
that it's just for the elite athletes and it's not and it's
not complicated and I think it helps you make better decisions.
I think it helps you quality of life.
And I think it's really important for everybody no
matter what you do. And the only other thing I would
say is there's this big focus because of social media and and
Apple Watches and all the technology that we have to focus
on these one or two little percent gains, focusing on the
85%, which is going to be getting appropriate sleep,
eating reasonably well, exercising, hydrating.
The difference that makes is is enormous and, and it's and I
think it's really important for everybody, not just people that
are that are, you know, trying to perform physically, but
people that that have to make, you know, important decisions.
And there there's a lot of science that that that impacts
it. And I think it's a really,
really important thing. Love it, Simon, love it.
Thank you, Holly. Get coached if you're looking
to. Get Coach.
Performance edge in whatever domain that may be.
Get a coach, and if your coach doesn't have a coach, get
another coach. Love it.
Simple. Great advice, Lindsay.
Something I've been playing around with quite a bit in my
mind is how to use like altered states to access your next level
performance. Like, I mean, they're called
altered states because they're not like the usual states.
So 99% of your time is spent spending like, you know, normal
consciousness or slave, but of, of creating a practice or
cultivating something about altered states.
If, if you're doing something that you know, you, you want to
take it to the next level. So that could be something like
mindfulness and meditation. We know that it kind of like
scrambles the default mode network in the brain like, just
kind of like the the usual way of functioning dreaming is an
altered state of consciousness. So like kind of planting the
seed within yourself that if there is a do I have like a
problem or a challenge or an opportunity that requires
something more than what I'm currently like generating right
now. Deliberately create a space
where you can try to use an altered state.
Wow, I love that. I mean, that this podcast is, is
putting me into an altered state.
I'm, I mean, I'm feeling like so jazzed and I, I, you know, I'm,
I'm, I'm moderating this, contributing to it, but also
like simultaneously turning myself into a sponge in my, in
my All Star jersey from 25 years ago, my moment of glory hour and
20 minutes back in Saint Louis in high school.
You guys, thank you so much. This has been enlightening and
also extremely practical. Some incredibly practical
applied Nuggets of wisdom and I'm excited for all the leaders
watching. To try out some of these
techniques and, and to experiment with some of the
mindsets and skills that we've talked about.
So, so thank you so much. And that's a wrap.