How To Train Your Mind Like The World’s Best Athletes | 115

[00:00:00] Justin: In the zero sum sport of professional athletics, there is one winner and one loser. But what I’ve learned from the greatest is

[00:00:07] Nathan: you’re never really taught how to handle critical decisions under pressure. My guest, Justin UA, knows exactly how to handle situations like these.

[00:00:15] Justin: What separates these pros from the amateurs now?

[00:00:18] So there are five things. So the first one is they are willing to learn from failure. Number two is they are constantly embracing obstacles. Number three, they’re willing to give their best effort no matter what. The fourth one, they seek critical feedback. And then last but not least. Is

[00:00:35] Nathan: he’s worked for the military and companies like Lululemon, Google and WE, along with athletes in MLB, the NFL and the PGA.

[00:00:43] Justin: There is something called tuckman’s Law of Team Development.

[00:00:45] Nathan: Okay.

[00:00:46] Justin: There’s forming, storming, norming, and, and that changes the entire culture of the team.

[00:00:53] Nathan: I absolutely love that. In today’s episode, he shares practical tips that help you stay focused, maintain confidence, and navigate hard conversations.

[00:01:01] Justin: These great leaders and coaches and players do as they work to stabilize these personal systems and team systems to be able to navigate the storms because the storms are coming.

[00:01:14] Nathan: Justin, welcome to the show.

[00:01:15] Justin: I’m so happy to be here.

[00:01:16] Nathan: All right, so you are in some of the highest performance environments ever.

[00:01:20] You have both a front row seat and you’re trying to help and coach these teams and coaches and, uh, build them up so that they can tackle these incredibly difficult times. I wanna start with what’s the time where you showed up to one of these environments and. Oh, wait, do I belong here?

[00:01:35] Justin: Oh my goodness. I feel like I’ve had those experiences a lot.

[00:01:38] Um, but I’ll never forget one in particular, before I started working with professional athletes in professional sports, I was working with the US Army and there was a unit in particular, I was tasked to be their performance enhancement specialist around performance, psychology, focus, emotional control.

[00:01:57] And I was supposed to teach them sessions about once a week and tools on how to do that. But their commander, the captain, would not let me near the soldiers. And I just thought to myself, oh, okay, just timing’s not right or whatever. Then as one month passed, two months passed, I realize, oh, this guy doesn’t, this guy doesn’t want me to, uh, even speak to them.

[00:02:18] So I go to his office and I said, Hey, um, captain is, is there a way I can speak to the soldiers? And he goes, I would never let you speak to the soldiers. And I said, why is that? He goes. This is the army. We don’t need fluffy positivity. Smiles on your face, kind of lessons you teach and there’s no way I’m gonna let you teach them.

[00:02:39] And I asked him, I said, what do you think I do? He goes, that’s exactly what you do. I said, that’s not what I do. He goes, then what do you do? I said, well, do you have five minutes? He goes, yes. I said, okay. How long have you been a leader in the military? He goes, 20 years. Talked about all of his deployments and everything he’s accomplished.

[00:02:56] And I said, okay, what do you stink at as a leader? And he looked at me and he’s like kind of taken aback. He’s like, what? I was like, well, what You have strengths and weaknesses? Gimme one of your weaknesses. And he was kind of scuffling a little bit and he says, well, I’m not a very good listener. I said, who told you that?

[00:03:15] He goes, well, I get feedback sometimes. I said, okay, what are you doing to work on it? And I can tell he didn’t have an answer for me. And he goes, well, uh, uh, I, I don’t know. I said, do you mind if I give you a suggestion, a tool on how to improve your ability to listen? He goes, yes. I said, well, it was called active listening.

[00:03:32] When somebody tells you something, ask them a que a follow-up question to double down on it. It could be simple. If someone says, Hey, I went to dinner last night. Just say, where did you go? What did you eat? Simple things to show your present. Mm-hmm. And then I said, who can you practice that with? He goes, my lieutenant.

[00:03:48] I said, okay. I’ll be back in three days to, to tell me, for you to tell me how it goes. Is that okay? He goes, yeah. So we finished a little exercise. That’s as long as it was. Yeah.

[00:03:56] Nathan: You actually took five

[00:03:57] Justin: minutes this time. Yes. And he goes. That’s what you do. I was like, yes. What do you think I do? He goes, I had no idea.

[00:04:03] And so from that moment on, he allowed me in to talk to the soldiers about different topics. And so, um, that’s just one moment of many where, um, I kind of have to show that, uh, what I do because sometimes people don’t have no clue what a leadership performance advisor does.

[00:04:20] Nathan: Yeah. Okay. That’s fascinating of just like being that mirror reflecting it back.

[00:04:24] And I can also see his stance of like, one, I don’t really like you and I don’t really, you know, need what you’re offering.

[00:04:32] Justin: Right.

[00:04:33] Nathan: But as a leader, you know, he’s been a leader for multiple decades and so he knows he should always be working on himself. And that like the person’s development is very important.

[00:04:42] So when he asks those questions, I could see it like challenging two sides of him. Like, I don’t like you, but. Alright, I’ll give you an answer and I’ll make it genuine because I am trying to improve.

[00:04:51] Justin: You’re absolutely right. And that’s what I appreciate and that a lot of people don’t understand. These top performers, those who wanna be the best in the world, they have this knack about them that they do want to improve.

[00:05:04] Mm-hmm. They do wanna get better. However, they don’t wanna be challenged too much. And when I go in, I must, I must respect the experience, right. And the expertise of the person who I’m working with. These are some of the best people, athletes, coaches, because

[00:05:19] Nathan: to his point, like, you haven’t jumped outta a plane under fire, you know, whatever other situations.

[00:05:24] And so you, if you come in and acknowledge that and disarm that of like, no, you are the one who has done this. You’re the one who’s led the unit, all of that, I’m just here to support you.

[00:05:35] Justin: You are absolutely right. It’s one of those things where I don’t come in with the answers. Mm-hmm. I don’t make both statements.

[00:05:41] I come in to ask both questions I, I ask. Mm-hmm. The gold is within. The athlete, the coach, the leader that I work with, they have the gold.

[00:05:49] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:49] Justin: I’m not here to tell anyone what to do, but however, maybe we can create a safe space together where with the right question and the right conversation, the answer that the coach or the player or the executive is looking for emerges to the top.

[00:06:03] And so they, they turn into wonderful, wonderful conversations.

[00:06:07] Nathan: Oh, I love that. Okay. Let’s bring that into the world of sports, because that’s where, I mean, you spent time in the Army with all these organizations. Yeah. But the world of sports is where you’re heavily invested. What, what’s an example of that playing out in the sports world?

[00:06:19] Justin: Oh, I’ll give you, I’ll, I’ll give you, there’s so many examples. It’s so what you say to an NFL quarterback, and I’ve never been a quarterback. I’ve had multiple conversations with a, a world series champion baseball player, and I’ve never stepped foot in a batterer’s box. I’ve been at NFL or PGA golf tournaments, and so there are a lot of examples and experiences where I.

[00:06:41] Need to be able to provide a space where they can think out loud. I’ll never forget one in particular, there was a coach who wanted to give very difficult feedback to a player who was underperforming. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t just underperforming. The effort wasn’t there, the focus wasn’t there. And so that’s where you need to have a very hard conversation.

[00:07:01] And so he comes into the coach’s office and he just says, this is what I’m gonna say to the player. I’m gonna blast him with this. I’m gonna tell him he needs to do this and this and this, and all that was fair. Mm-hmm. Absolutely fair. You could definitely, that could definitely do that. Or you could take a different approach.

[00:07:20] And so I go to the coach’s office and I said, everything you were saying is absolutely correct. Right? 100%. I had a very close relationship with the player and I know he’s not one to back down. And if you, it’s like the, um. For every, uh, action. There’s an equal and opposite reaction.

[00:07:39] Nathan: You’re

[00:07:39] Justin: coming

[00:07:40] Nathan: hot, you’re

[00:07:40] Justin: gonna get hot right back.

[00:07:41] What? He’s exactly right. When you’re dealing with an elite type, a professional athlete who’s been in the game for a long time, he’s not gonna take this too lightly. He, he’s gonna come back with some heat of his own. And so to account for that, the only recommendation, which is simply a recommendation a coach does not have to do this was before you tell him what’s wrong, ask him what’s wrong.

[00:08:03] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:05] Justin: And the coach goes, why the heck would I do that? I don’t care what is wrong. And I said, just try it with him in particular, because we never know. He might say the things. That you are going to say, but he’s in a coach himself. And he goes, okay, like I’ll give it a shot. So I leave the room, they have their conversation, conversation ends.

[00:08:26] The coach comes up to me, he goes, how did you know that was gonna happen? I said, what happened? And he said, he said everything that I wanted him to say that I was going to tell him, but it came out of his own mouth. He said that he’s been distracted. He said he’s lost focus. He said that he hasn’t been given his best.

[00:08:46] And uh, that was the moment, uh, one moment where a suggestion happened to turn out the way we wanted. There were a lot that didn’t. But, um, that is an example of, of some of my work where it’s just come and offering suggestions. But ultimately the coach has the decision on what he does. But, uh, that’s one of many examples.

[00:09:06] Nathan: I think that works really well when the person you’re talking to has self-awareness, right? And so you’re saying, Hey, this isn’t going well. Can you tell me what’s going on? And they’re like. I noticed that, you know, and like, here’s actually what’s going on. They sort of let their guard down instead of showing up to fight you back.

[00:09:20] They’re like, yeah, let’s talk about it. What do you do in the circumstances where you’re dealing with high performers who don’t have that self-awareness or they’re like, yeah, it’s not going well. Like, let me tell you, you know, Joe’s not doing his thing. You know, whoever’s not open for their routes, like all of these things.

[00:09:37] If the, uh, offensive line would actually protect me as a quarterback, then maybe

[00:09:41] Justin: that’s a such a great point. A concept that we talk about very often is feel versus real. Okay? So athletes will talk about that, that it feels bad, but when you look at it on tape. The real, like it looks actually good or vice versa.

[00:09:55] It it, it feels great. But then you look and the technique is actually terrible. And so the same holds true for performance and optimizing performance. The athletes might think, oh, I’m doing awesome. And the coach is like, you’re terrible. You’re not doing awesome at all. And so to, to understand, to help someone with that self-awareness, it comes down to a lot of open dialogue and open exchanges.

[00:10:21] So first of all, when someone lacks self-awareness, it’s helping them understand, do they understand what’s expected of them? Do we have data points and metrics to be able to. To say whether they are doing well or doing poorly, really understand, okay, what makes you think you’re doing well? Mm-hmm. And then if it lines up, and maybe they are in one aspect, but in other aspects, in other parts of the system, it’s not, well, something we talk about often is the map is not the territory.

[00:10:50] Meaning that just because the numbers say this, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. And so to have these hard conversations and to be able to hold up a mirror to the player and say, Hey, this is what I expect, and this is what it looks like in the pro sports world. Things happen at breakneck speed, next speed.

[00:11:10] And so the information is fast. It’s to the point. And some people they don’t like that. It’s, it’s very hard. You gotta kind of dance around the feedback you give to them. But for someone with who lacks self-awareness, being very direct with them and saying, this is what I want, this is how it looks, um, and also knowing that it’s going to be uncomfortable, what people often say is not only is it hard to receive critical feedback, but what a lot of people don’t talk about is how hard it’s to give critical feedback.

[00:11:42] A lot of the coaches that I work with, they are so empathetic. They are so kind, they do not wanna hurt feelings at all. And so. It becomes tough to give critical feedback. I know a coach who told me, he said, he said that he’s creating more problems in his organization because he’s afraid to give critical feedback.

[00:12:03] And it’s interesting what great self-awareness he has there. And he’s like, I’m working on having those hard conversations because by not saying something, negativity, doubt and fear fill the void. And then all of a sudden word gets around and then you create even more problems. And so I think as much clarity as you as a leader or the coach or whoever is giving that advice as much as you can have is the best.

[00:12:30] Knowing that some emotions might arise, it might get a little spiky. Um, yeah. But as long as, um, they can see that it’s coming from a good place.

[00:12:38] Nathan: Well, I could see that example of someone saying like, what are you talking about? It’s going really well, or I’m doing my part. What about everyone else?

[00:12:44] Justin: Right.

[00:12:45] Nathan: You could.

[00:12:46] I am, I’m curious how this would land for you. My tendency would be say like, great, let’s dive in. Let’s get specific what is going really well. And then, you know, in the sports world, maybe we’re at like passing, like completion ratio, you know, all these things, right. The, the metrics that we’re tracking and then you start to go, okay, great.

[00:13:03] And what about like, leadership on the team? What about how you’re developing the younger players? What about, you know, you get into all of the categories. I’m doing this. Great. Okay. So maybe that’s one thing that I’m not, you know, or Yes. And like, like even going to a whiteboard and say like, let’s make the whole matrix of what does it look like to be great in this role?

[00:13:21] And just talk through it and really celebrate like, yes, that is you and I agree that part is going really, really well. And like, map out the whole picture. Is that helpful?

[00:13:30] Justin: What I love that you said is you’re, you’re, you’re acknowledging that it’s a system. Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s an entire system. And in pro sports, what we talk about is things that are necessary but not sufficient.

[00:13:41] Mm-hmm. Hard work is necessary. It’s not sufficient, necessarily, not re focus is necessary. Yes, you need to be focused to be, to win, to be great, but it’s not sufficient. You have to be gritty and have resilience that is necessary to e the ebbs and flows of winning and losing, but it’s not sufficient. You need to be prepared.

[00:13:58] And so there are things that we’re doing well at and things that we’re not doing well at. And the one thing that these athletes and these coaches know is because we are all complex adaptive human systems, we’re gonna have holes in the boat sometimes. Mm-hmm. We’re gonna go through storms, we’re gonna have peaks and valleys.

[00:14:15] We’re going to have moments where we’re gonna try our best and play terribly. It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. We’re giving our best, we’re gonna coach you up. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad human being. Just tighten up. Let’s get better. Let’s work on it. And as we do the optimize this part and let’s do small, let’s not try to optimize everything.

[00:14:35] Let’s get better in this little thing and measure it. Okay, let’s get better in this little thing and measure it. And this’s is constant ebb and flow. And I love what you’re saying. It’s highlighting the good and then being able to focus on the di inefficiencies and not just as tell a player, oh, you stink at this.

[00:14:52] Mm-hmm. But we also have a plan and how you can get better. I think that is a huge piece of it as well.

[00:14:57] Nathan: Yeah. As we talk through it, I’m, I’m keep thinking of parallels to, you know, building my organization of scaling kit to a hundred people and, and we have substantially changed the performance expectations of the team.

[00:15:08] And as a result of that, probably exited more than 25 people and, you know, hired replacements in the last 18 months. And that’s been a lot to go through. And I’m looking at all of the times that we didn’t have a shared scorecard of what success looks like. And sometimes people knew like, this isn’t working.

[00:15:28] And we’re like, yeah, it’s not working. And like, let’s part ways. Other times it was very, very difficult because they’re like, what are you talking about within what’s in my control? Or whatever else. Like, this is going great and there’s a huge disconnect. And those are the times that, um, it goes poorly for everyone.

[00:15:42] And like as a leader, that’s on me. But like not having that shared understanding and that shared scorecard, uh, results in this mismatch every time

[00:15:51] Justin: there is something called tuckman’s Law of Team Development. Okay. And, and I’m gonna simplify it and take out an entire phase, uh, for the sake of this example, but there’s forming, storming, mm-hmm.

[00:16:03] Norming and performing. Mm-hmm. And every team has that. They go through the phases. And what’s interesting about this is the critical piece is the storming phase. The forming phase is when you hire someone or fire someone. Mm-hmm. Anytime you add a new person to the system mm-hmm. It alters the system, like what you’re describing will have rosters that are completely changed, will have, and that changes the entire culture of the team.

[00:16:32] One year it’s the rebuild year with a whole bunch of young rookies and it’s player development. Literally the next year it’s win the championship mm-hmm. From one year to the next. And so the messaging needs to be different. The, the systems need to be different, and so the head coaches deal with that all the time.

[00:16:49] But the forming stage is like, okay, we’re, we’re a new team, we’re a new unit. Then we go to the storming phase. The storming phase is you’re kind of, oh, that person’s kind of annoying. Or, oh, like, why are we doing it this way? We used to do it that way. Wait a minute, wait. We have new language around things that happens all the time in sport.

[00:17:07] Mm-hmm. All the time. And you’re just going through this storming phase. And then once you are together for a while, you create some systems, you create some shared mental models, some shared language. The leader has the north star, the vision of where he or she wants to take it, how we’re gonna do things, and it’s modeled through the actions.

[00:17:27] Then you hit into the perfor, the norming stays. Now you’re normalizing. You are like, okay, now we got our systems down. Mm-hmm. This is how we do what we do. And then the magic comes. Then you click into the performing stage where all of a sudden your combined efforts compound and now all of a sudden you’re running on all cylinders.

[00:17:48] You kind of know what you’re doing. You know, the right amount of communication, you know, the right type of communication. You all know how people like to be talked to. People don’t get offended. Um, as, as much, obviously we’re humans. We’re gonna have good days and bad days. You give each other people benefit of the doubt.

[00:18:06] You can have like psychological safety, which is their, they feel safe to share their opinions. And so, but then what happens? People tend to leave. People come in and then you go back to the forming stage, and then how fast can you get through those, those, um, the storming phase in particular.

[00:18:22] Nathan: So what I’m noticing is that you immediately acknowledge that as it’s not linear in that like it is achieved, performance is achieved and maintained.

[00:18:32] You’re, you’re coming in with an expectation of. You will go back to

[00:18:37] Justin: Yes.

[00:18:37] Nathan: The, the beginning.

[00:18:39] Justin: Yes.

[00:18:39] Nathan: And to expect it.

[00:18:41] Justin: Absolutely.

[00:18:41] Nathan: And I guess like in college sports, that’s expected because these players are going to lose eligibility, like reach the end of their eligibility. And like you, you have to do it on a tighter cycle.

[00:18:51] Justin: Right.

[00:18:51] Nathan: But it happens in every team. Your top players are gonna get recruited to another team. Uh, you know, all of those things. In, in business, people are going to retire or take an exec role at another company. Like all of this, I find myself in the trap of being like, okay, we’ll go through all this. We’ll get to performing and then we’ll stay there.

[00:19:10] Justin: Hmm.

[00:19:10] Nathan: And then it’s so discouraging when you are like, oh. We didn’t stay here and we’re back to the beginning again.

[00:19:16] Justin: Right. And that’s such a great point. There’s a term that we use often it derived from the military, but it’s called a VUCA environment.

[00:19:23] Nathan: Okay.

[00:19:23] Justin: Volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. And the best leaders understand that they’re operating in a VUCA environment.

[00:19:32] It is not linear. It is not binary. It is not, if I do this, then this, then this, then we stay there. It is this volatile, uncertain, complex, chaotic, ambiguous environments. Mm-hmm. And. We need to build a team and an, and a mindset and an approach to our business into winning that will sustain that and accommodate that.

[00:19:54] We often say in pro sports that a storm will reveal two things, things that are stable and things that are not. Mm. And the things that are stable in any organizations are relationships. You want an athlete whose skillset is stable under pressure. Uh, you want relationships that are so strong that can bear the weight of truth during adversity.

[00:20:14] You want the communications to be so tight that when something happens that, okay, we’re good. Like we’re still gonna be able to get information out. And so that’s something that these great leaders and coaches and players do is they work to stabilize these personal systems and team systems to be able to navigate the storms because the storms are coming.

[00:20:35] Nathan: You said a line of relationships that are stable enough to bear the weight of truth. Did I get that right?

[00:20:41] Justin: Yes.

[00:20:41] Nathan: So. That’s so important because going back to the coach who wouldn’t give feedback, right? They’re fully living in, in Kim Scott’s radical candor framework, they’re fully living in ruinous empathy

[00:20:53] Justin: mm-hmm.

[00:20:53] Nathan: Of this, like, I care about you too much to hurt your feelings. And so I’m not gonna give you the feedback. And we’re like, way too empathetic and I’m actually just harming this entirely. And so this idea of like, Hey, I wanna, between you and I, I wanna build a relationship that’s so strong, the bridge between us, that we can load it up with all of the hard truth possible and it’s not gonna break.

[00:21:12] Is that right?

[00:21:13] Justin: Yes. Absolutely. Right. I have a funny story about that, by the way. So we were talking about that, that uh, that four by four model. Mm-hmm. The ruinous empathy, the radical candor. Yeah. So to speak, not so to speak. It’s radical gander. Yeah. And so we’re talking to the coaches about it, and I’m sitting in the coach’s office and I’m with next to a coach, and we’re looking at the four quadrants, the four boxes, and.

[00:21:36] He’s talking about his experience with a certain player. Mm-hmm. And it’s essentially, for those of you that aren’t familiar with this, it’s essentially the relationship between challenging challenge and warmth. Mm-hmm. Like being care, care, being care. Mm-hmm. Ideally, you want to care high and challenge high, and that’s radical candor.

[00:21:54] And so we’re looking at the box and I change just for the, I change the names of them, but the bottom right box, according to Kim Scott is uh, uh, obnoxious. Um,

[00:22:05] Nathan: aggression,

[00:22:06] Justin: aggression, obnoxious aggression. So actually I do have it in the bottom right. I have it there, obnoxious aggression. And he looks at me and he goes with this player, which box am I in?

[00:22:17] And I’m sitting there in my mind, I’m like, okay, do I really, okay, I do, I want to say what I wanna say. Is our relationship strong enough to bear the weight of truth? I’m not gonna lie to him.

[00:22:27] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:22:28] Justin: And so I look, I look at it based on my observation, I said. To me, you’re asking me, I think it’s the bottom, right?

[00:22:37] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:38] Justin: And so essentially, I’m saying you cha, this coach is incredible at challenging people. Mm-hmm. He challenged ’em, but at least to me, it doesn’t seem like he’s as warm. He doesn’t have the strong relationship with him, but he constantly challenges the player. So I said, the bottom right. And he stares at it, and he looks at me and goes, are you calling me obnoxious?

[00:22:58] I’m like, no. No. Like, take the word out. No, I’m just saying I don’t, I You challenge him, which is great. One of your skill sets. I don’t think he realizes how much you care.

[00:23:07] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:08] Justin: And then I just get ripped. You, you are not in our conversations. You don’t even know, you know how much I text him. You don’t know how much we talk.

[00:23:17] And I said, coach. You’re absolutely right. You just asked me based on my limited, my li limited knowledge. That’s what I thought. I think I know I could be wrong. One person’s opinion, and let’s just say it got really awkward and we didn’t talk for the next few moments, so now we’re getting dressed and we’re the only ones in the room and just awkward.

[00:23:39] So I go to the food room to go eat lunch and there’s no one in there. I’m like, okay. I’m sitting there thinking, wow, I just got destroyed and okay, but I’m, I, I was, I did tell the truth and, um, I’m not gonna go back on that. I’m gonna have to go back and follow up with the conversation. Next thing you know, he comes in and so he’s sitting on one end of the cafeteria.

[00:23:58] I’m sitting on the other end. I’m like, there’s so many people here. Of all the, what are the chances that him and I are by ourselves and I’m just trying not to make eye contact. I’m like, okay, our friendship is probably, uh, just rocked right now. Next thing you know, he stands up and he comes, he sits right next to me and he goes, Sue, Sue is my last name.

[00:24:16] They call me Sue. And he goes, Sue. He goes, I think you’re right. He goes, what can I do to strengthen my relationship with him? And then we had this amazing conversation. And so that’s just a little, like, we talk about radical candor often. Mm-hmm. And I just think it is very important to build those strong connections that can bear the way to truth.

[00:24:35] Nathan: I love that.

[00:24:36] Justin: Yeah.

[00:24:36] Nathan: And just thinking about all of the relationships that you have and which ones, if you imagine a bridge between you and every person in your organization, which ones can you put this huge weight of truth on? And they would, you know, stay totally strong. It might, you know, the person might get angry, walk away, and then come back Yes.

[00:24:53] An hour later or a day later and be like, okay, thank you. Now let’s talk about it. And which ones would totally crumble under that pressure.

[00:24:59] Justin: That’s a great point. One thing that we do often is we’ll have coaches. Have this every player and every staff member, and give themselves a score on a scale of one to five, on the strength of the relationship with that player, five being the highest.

[00:25:14] Just doing that exercise and looking and saying, oh wow, I actually don’t have a strong relationship with this person at all, or this person. And then the goal is do something this week to take that. Just to bump that number up. Yeah. Just by a percentage.

[00:25:28] Nathan: We’re

[00:25:28] Justin: not trying to

[00:25:29] Nathan: go from one

[00:25:29] Justin: to five in a single move.

[00:25:30] Exactly, exactly. That’s gonna come

[00:25:31] Nathan: off so

[00:25:32] Justin: weird. Exactly right. Even if it’s something so small, you don’t have to do it all the time, but as long as you’re aware, like, oh, okay, maybe what can I do to build a relationship with this person now? Mm-hmm. I will say you have some coaches who have. 56 players and 26 staff.

[00:25:48] Mm-hmm. That’s where you’ll look at Pareto’s effect, uh, the Pato principle or 20% get 80% of the results just who are the most important relationships. Mm-hmm. Not that they’re anyone’s less important, but the ones that you really need to be close in order to run the organization. Mm-hmm. We talk about that often.

[00:26:05] Nathan: Yeah. That’s what I was thinking about with, uh, you know, I, I run a 98 person organization and so thinking about you, I would still do that across, since you’re talking about it across the entire company.

[00:26:16] Justin: Mm.

[00:26:16] Nathan: But then really look at, okay, what can I do at scale?

[00:26:20] Justin: Yes.

[00:26:20] Nathan: You know, across, and that might be the, the all team presentations that I do, uh, these other things, but then also what are the relationships that, uh, are the leverage points that I need to invest in.

[00:26:31] Justin: Right. That’s great. That’s a great point. Great.

[00:26:33] Nathan: Well, let’s, let’s go to mindset because something that a lot of creators I see them struggle with is they’ve had a level of success on a public stage, and now they’re expected to keep performing. It might be the author who has come out with a book that did 10 times better than was ever expected.

[00:26:50] And they’re like, how do I publish another thing after this that I know will be worse? Or it could be, I dunno, the YouTuber who has built a, an amazing channel and all of that. And now I. They, they built their business to the point where it’s millions in revenue and they have a team depending on them, and they’re like, oh man, if I don’t keep showing up and performing in front of the camera and in front of hundreds of thousands or millions of people, like not only do I fail publicly, but like I’m not going to be able to continue to employ.

[00:27:19] My team. And then there’s so many more things like this, of the career pivots that people wanna make and all of that. And I think there’s a lot of parallels between that world and athletes.

[00:27:28] Justin: Until you just described that, you are literally describing professional athlete, I never thought made that co correlation and connection before.

[00:27:35] You’re absolutely right. These athletes are only as good as their last game. Mm-hmm. And you’ll see athletes have a, a banner year one season, and now it’s like we talk about the, the stress that comes with failure. There’s stress that comes with success.

[00:27:50] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:27:50] Justin: And the stress of cont Okay, there’s the bar now there’s the standard.

[00:27:54] Now, now you have to keep performing.

[00:27:56] Nathan: You’re gonna win the Super Bowl years in a

[00:27:57] Justin: room. Right. Exactly right. I just, right. We were

[00:27:59] Nathan: so happy

[00:28:00] Justin: about winning it. Exactly right. And then the media will just destroy these athletes and these coaches giving their best and they’re having, they’re having a bad year.

[00:28:08] Or they just will have some athletes who are just also say like, ah, I, I don’t know if I want to keep doing this. I don’t know if I can keep doing this. And there’s a lot of that, that, that. That they go through. So you’re describing it perfectly. And so one thing that I’ve learned that these athletes do, I often get asked a question, is what separates these pros from the A amateurs?

[00:28:30] Mm-hmm. The elite, the best in the world from everybody else. And I think it relates to that question that you just asked. And so there are five things, and this comes from Stanford, Carol Dweck, the growth mindset and implicit theories personality. But there are five of ’em. So the first one is these pros, these pro athletes, they are willing to learn from failure.

[00:28:50] They are. Unbelievably great because it happens all the time. They’re competing against the best in the world. And what’s fascinating is they dominate a little league, dominate high school, dominate college, and a lot of times the first time they failed is in the NBA, right in the NFL, and they have to learn how to deal with failure.

[00:29:07] And so I’d imagine a creator sometimes, like you might be stacking wins early on, and then you all of a sudden that video doesn’t pop, or all of a sudden that article doesn’t get the hit or whatever it may be. That’s very similar to these athletes. But then they ask themselves, okay, what can I learn from this?

[00:29:24] How can I get better from this? Number two is they are constantly embracing obstacles. Athletes don’t ask, what’s the easiest way I can do to get an A? Like these elite performers, they’re willing to embrace the boredom of consistency. Literally, they’re willing to do what it takes to be the best in the world because they know.

[00:29:43] If I’m willing to pay the price, excellence comes at a cost and I’m willing to pay the price of what it costs. And they’re always thinking, they’re not looking for greener grass. They’re looking for harder obstacles to climb.

[00:29:55] Nathan: What’s an example of that that comes to mind?

[00:29:57] Justin: I’ll give you a perfect example.

[00:29:59] I’m with a baseball team with the Tampa Bay race, and this is the year we’re going to, we end up making it to the World Series plot. Like spoiler alert, we lose to the Dodgers in the 20 20 20 World Series. But I’ll never forget, we had one of our star players go into the batting cages, and usually in batting cages in the cage, you want coaches to throw lollipops up there.

[00:30:19] So you just just hammer the ball. And what he does is he ramped up the machine to a hundred and something plus miles an hour. He made his practice as hard as he possibly could so that the game would actually be easier.

[00:30:36] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:37] Justin: Now, mind you, a lot of people gather around a plate around the cages to watch and practice.

[00:30:43] He failed. He did terribly, but he was willing to look like a fool. He was willing to be cringey. He was willing to just fail over and over and over again to do the hard thing so that he can do, be successful out on the field. And so that’s just a little example. So they’re willing to, they’re willing to ship it and to do things.

[00:31:04] Even if they, they look dumb. Mm-hmm. Even if it looks like, oh, I’m gonna get made fun of. They’re willing to try these different things. So they’re willing to embrace the hard thing. Number three goes along with what you said, is they’re willing to give their best effort no matter what, knowing that their best effort is going to look different from day to day.

[00:31:22] So if they have 70% in the tank, they focus on the 70 they have and not the 30% that they don’t have. And we, we’ve ever, if you’ve ever played board games against somebody who’s losing by a lot and they quit on you or you’re playing video games, those are people who take their foot off the gas pedal when they’re losing by a lot.

[00:31:40] The best in the world. They give their best, even if on the wall is like, oh, I’m not gonna hit my goals. They still give their best. They give their best when they’re winning by a lot. And so that’s another thing when you wake up. I don’t have a lot today. Just give the best of what you have that day.

[00:31:56] Mm-hmm. The fourth one is they seek critical feedback. Don’t just ask for it. They seek for it. I’m with a, a football team and I’m watching the, the receivers do a drill and the coach is telling him, Hey, great job. Awesome, wonderful. He just said, giving these little, um, cues of congratulatory cues. And one of the players takes his helmet off.

[00:32:16] He is an NFL player. He’s, and he was one of the best in the game at the, at the time, this was about four or five years ago, and he says, are you gonna, are you gonna do your job or what? And he’s like, whatcha talking? He’s like, are you gonna, are you gonna do your job? Are you gonna coach us or what? He’s like, are you talking about, he goes, you’re just telling us what we’re doing.

[00:32:32] Good. Help us get better. He’s like, okay, okay. Player puts his helmet back on and then the coach is like, Hey, put your hands up. Hey, we need better feet there. Mm-hmm. And the players were like, yes, that’s what we want. Mm-hmm. I think if you wanna get great at your craft is who can shine a light on your blind spots and not just your negative blind spots.

[00:32:53] You may have some creators, you may know some creators. ’cause I know some athletes who are very hard on themselves. Mm-hmm. Some of these athletes are more, harder, harder on themselves than anyone else could be. And they need a different kind of light on a different blind spot. Not just the broccoli on your teeth blind spot, but they sometimes need to be reminded that you’re doing great.

[00:33:14] Mm-hmm. There are some athletes who they think they’re doing terrible and they need to be saying, they need to be told, Hey, your effort is awesome. You’re an example to the team. Mm-hmm. You have, you’re, you’re doing well. This is part of the process and that means the world to them. So if you’re a creator out there and.

[00:33:30] And you are just beating up on yourself. Sometimes it is good to have someone around you that just shine a light on your positive blind spots. And then last but not least, is learning from the success of others. In the zero sum sport of professional athletics, there is one winner and one loser. Mm-hmm.

[00:33:49] And we hate to lose. And you have some players who just love to win. But what I’ve learned from the greatest is whenever somebody wins, the best athletes are studying them. They’re learning from them rather than getting jealous, rather getting, rather than getting threatened. They’re like, what are they doing that I’m not doing that.

[00:34:08] I may or not adopt myself, but I wanna examine them. I wanna study their moves. I wanna see, ’cause maybe I can learn from them. And so those are the five things that I would recommend that a creator can take in. Number one, learn from failure. Embrace obstacles. Always give your best effort, seek critical feedback, and learn from the success of others.

[00:34:28] Nathan: There’s so much that I wanna dive into there, but going to seeking critical feedback. An example of this is a software company that I was an early customer of is called Gumroad. And they were a, a platform for selling digital products. And my friend Ryan was their head of growth and he and I would be at a conference together and someone would come up to him and be like, oh, you’re Ryan from Gumroad.

[00:34:47] Like, I, I just used your product to make $20,000. I love everything you guys are doing. And he’d be like, that’s amazing. Thank you so much. Hey, if you don’t mind, what’s one thing that we could do better as a product or a platform? People always be like, oh. Okay. Um, well actually, and they would give him this feedback and I’d just watched him do it over and over again when I was actually, you know, I was building kid at the time when we were early on, this is probably 20 15, 20 16, and there were so many things that were bad about our product at the time.

[00:35:15] Then I was like, I think I’d be scared to ask that question. And he is like, yeah, but if you don’t ask it, you won’t get better. And so just watching that play out and so such a different, like someone comes to you with a compliment and he is like, look, he fully accepted that. He is also like, and you’ve used our product that much.

[00:35:31] Like I bet you have some constructive feedback for me as well.

[00:35:33] Justin: That is outstanding. That that’s wonderful. And I know a coach who is very similar, where sometimes if you’re in a position of power. People are hesitant to give you critical feedback. They don’t wanna lose your job. They don’t want, they don’t know how close you’re, they don’t wanna rougher your feathers.

[00:35:50] And so I’ll have coaches being like, nobody gives me feedback. No one’s telling me Yeah. What I can do to improve. And so one thing that he does to, to solicit feedback is he goes first. So he will go up to somebody he trusts and he will say, Hey, I, I messed up on this decision, or I’m not doing very good on this thing.

[00:36:09] An authentic thing that he feels he needs to get better at.

[00:36:12] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:12] Justin: And then he says, what else would you add to that?

[00:36:15] Nathan: Hmm.

[00:36:16] Justin: You literally make the person either add to it or, or, or they can disagree with him or her. Mm-hmm. And say, well, actually no, but, but it’s, what else would you add to? And it’s really fascinating to see, um, to see how that plays out.

[00:36:31] I know another coach who goes up to people and he says, I’m gonna give you 48 hours to think about this. I really value your opinion a lot. I want, I’m gonna come back to you in two days and I want you to tell me something that. I want you to tell me one of your private victories, something you’re doing that, that nobody notices, and I want you to gimme some feedback on how I can help you do your job better.

[00:36:54] Nathan: Hmm.

[00:36:54] Justin: I’m gonna come to you in two, in two days to give them some time to think about and chew on. And so, two different ways to get feedback, but, um, and they work for both of ’em.

[00:37:04] Nathan: I mean, I, I absolutely love that. I’m thinking about, like, in my company, I feel like I don’t have the level of relationship that I want with a lot of our managers, right.

[00:37:13] As we’ve rebuilt that team to being able to go to that team and, you know, go to an individual on that team and say that and then, you know, follow up with like, and what else are you noticing? That would go really a long ways. Yeah. And you know, and, and that’s gonna go back to building a relationship that’s strong enough to bear the weight of truth, right?

[00:37:31] Yes. It all comes full circle.

[00:37:33] Justin: Yes. And to your point too, like someone might be listening to this and they can say, that’s not gonna work in my situation. You’re absolutely right. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t work. That’s why I don’t believe in these strategies, working in every situation. It’s all right. We’re not going

[00:37:48] Nathan: through a

[00:37:48] Justin: flow chart.

[00:37:48] Exactly. It’s not, it’s all contextual. Yes.

[00:37:51] Nathan: Okay. You said one other thing about getting to a certain level of success and people no longer give you feedback. I was reading Ryan Holiday’s book Wisdom Takes Work, and he talks about Elon Musk, and I think he has probably the best nuanced take on Elon that I’ve read.

[00:38:05] ’cause people either love him and think that he’s like invented all this incredible technology that’s changing the world, or they absolutely hate him for everything else going on. Right. And Ryan does a really great job of straddling the line of both of those and. Owning or like talking about the life changing accomplishments where like I know of, um, you know, medic teams in the Civil War in Myanmar who are performing surgeries or like medical care under fire while calling a doctor in Singapore to get an answer to the thing that they need because they have a Starling Mini in their backpack, right?

[00:38:43] So it’s like world changing technology, like all of this stuff. Forget the fact that our wifi on our planes is now fast. And then the other side you see like just incredibly damaging things that Elon does, like absolute lies. They shares all of that. And one of Ryan’s points when he talks about this is that Elon has gotten to a level of success and is so volatile of like, turning over people that pe he does not have people around him who tell him the truth.

[00:39:08] And so as you build up this. Level of success as a creator. It might be the million subscribers on YouTube or the New York Times bestselling book. Like, do you get further down this path of like diminishing groups of people who will tell you the truth? And how do you deliberately seek that out? What would you say to an athlete of like, how do you seek out people who will tell you the truth?

[00:39:32] Justin: You literally described it to the T because these men and women have millions of people either singing their praises or sending them terrible, sending them terrible things that you would never send a person because they lost their bet because this guy missed a putt or because she missed a couple of shots or whatever it may be.

[00:39:53] It’s, it’s terrible. And so they learn to, they learn very well very quickly. Uh. To have your inner circle of people who you trust. Mm-hmm. Uh, we call ’em, we call ’em fountains. So, so you have fountains and drains. Fountains are people who, it could be a fountain of their best character trait. So we all have fountains of, of peace.

[00:40:14] A person you go to for peace, they could be fountain of humor. Someone, if you need a good laugh, you’re gonna call this person up and they’re, you’re gonna hang around them. Mm-hmm. You have fountains of insight, fountains of perspective, fountains of spirituality, whatever it may be. And here’s another thing.

[00:40:28] Fountains could be in the form of musicians, writers, creators. It could be a podcast host that they don’t even know their fountains. And so one thing we identify with these athletes is who are your fountains? And then we have drains. We have drains. These people who constantly complaining, constantly making you feel bad.

[00:40:50] Now, you don’t have to go to these drains and say you’re a drain. Because here’s the thing, players will tell me, they’re like, what if I’m related to a drain? What if I, I’ve had players literally tell me on the sideline or in the dugout af they went, oh, for fourth four strikeouts. And they said, you know what the worst part about today is?

[00:41:06] I said, what’s that? My dad is gonna send me terrible texts and tell me how terrible I am. This is a 34-year-old grown man with a wife and kids who’s not looking forward to the text from dad that he’s gonna get after the game. Um, obviously he’s not gonna say, dad, you’re a drain for me. But it’s, it’s, he now learns to lean into his fountain, who happens to be his wife at the moment.

[00:41:27] Mm-hmm. And he’ll get to his dad’s text later. And so that’s what I would say is be very aware and mindful of having people around you who you trust to tell you the truth, who, who care about you strip everything away from you. And that’s how it usually who it usually is. I’ll often ask coaches and players, who are these people?

[00:41:47] And it’s the family members or the people who do not care that they’re a celebrity, they don’t care that they have millions, they don’t care that they’re a professional athletes. They, you can take everything away and these people still be there for them. Those tend to be the people who give the best kinds of feedback.

[00:42:03] And, um, and yeah, I love, I love hearing those stories.

[00:42:06] Nathan: The other one that I want to go to is in your fifth point of just you, you mentioned like this zero sum aspect of sports where, you know, two teams come head to head and they might both congratulate each other on, hey, great game. There’s a lot of fun to compete, all of that.

[00:42:22] But only one of them walked away with the win. Right? And in the world of business and, and the creator world, for the most part, it’s a positive sum game, right? For me to win, someone else doesn’t have to lose. Like the pie is big enough. We do have competitors, right? Whether it’s a, someone else that, you know, you’re competing for mindshare, uh, in a, you know, or views within a niche.

[00:42:46] Category of content or software companies going head to head or whatever, but like we can all, we can all win. And there is not one crowning achievement of like the World Series. Um, how do you think about mindset in those two worlds? Because I could see people saying like, look, we’re all winners and so I’m going to show up in this way.

[00:43:10] Or I could see people like falling off the rails into a like zero sum, you know, you must lose and just getting stuck in either of those traps.

[00:43:20] Justin: Yes. That’s a really good point. There’s a concept out there called the gold gradient effect, which essentially states that our intensity, our focus and our effort increases to the degree that we can see the finish line.

[00:43:33] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:34] Justin: So that effect helps pro sports out a lot. Um, obviously the, the best example is running like the you, if you think about running a mile, you’re running a mile. When you see you’re about to finish, you get a hundred feet closer, 90 feet closer, 80 feet closer, you tend to quote unquote sprint through the finish line.

[00:43:52] That’s what we tend to do. Mm-hmm. And same thing happens in, in zero sum games, like when you see a finish line, you tend to give enhanced efforts. My recommendation is I would take and use that mental model, uh, to, to create some. Some finish lines or goalposts for people that gets, that’s just how to enhance motivation, enhance focus.

[00:44:15] You’re just kind of leveraging that principle. And so if I’m a content creator or if I’m somebody understanding which race is the best one, the sweet spot for our team. So some people are better, they like to run marathons. Some people like to run 800 meters, some people like to 400. Are you a 200 or are you a sprinter?

[00:44:35] And so you can do that as a company or even individually. And so there are presidents on the team. They’re thinking their time horizons are years. Mm-hmm. Five years, 10 years. In some cases, coaches, time horizons are more like month to month. A player only cares about this very moment right here. Mm-hmm.

[00:44:57] And so it’s understanding what are the time horizons people are working with and operating under, and then building systems and routines around it. What I love about sports. Your, it’s a, the cyclical nature of sport is baked into the environment. You have a preseason, you have an off season. You if it’s football, Sunday is, tell the truth.

[00:45:19] You have a game on Sunday, every Sunday, unless it’s Monday night football, Thursday, every Sunday. Tell the truth. Monday, Tuesday off Wednesday, install Thursday third down Friday travel, and to every day has its moment. And so players know how to prepare for the crown jewel, the, the game, and then the season and so forth.

[00:45:39] In the creator world, I would recommend what are your goalposts and then creating some kind of cyclical nature for yourself, for your mind to be able to wrap its head around a goal, peace, time, and war time, so to speak. And okay, we’re working towards this and, uh, this is the goal. This is, and then these are the systems and the processes.

[00:46:02] If we accomplish these things, which we can control. It will increase the probability of achieving that goal doesn’t guarantee it, but it, and so then you go back and re-engineer. And so I can talk for days about that, but that’s, that’s how I would recommend it. I would embrace the goal gradient effect.

[00:46:18] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:18] Justin: Yeah.

[00:46:18] Nathan: I like that. Okay. Now I’m thinking about, we, we touched on a little bit, but the weight and all the pressure of this, like performing under pressure, which is something that every high performer in every industry has. Um, what are some systems that you take people through or the questions that you ask them to like build up their confidence or the, and their ability to perform under pressure?

[00:46:40] Justin: Yes. Two examples. So example number one is we talk about, so in the United States on the highway, you’re driving down, you’re on the far left. All of a sudden you start to get distracted or tired, and you start veering to the left, and all of a sudden your car starts vibrating. That is a rumble strip.

[00:47:00] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:01] Justin: The US Highway has put that in there as a subtle, maybe not so subtle reminder that you’re losing focus, you’re getting off track, get back into your lane. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad driver, it doesn’t mean you’re gonna get your license revoked. It doesn’t mean you’re going to jail just means wake up and get back into the lane.

[00:47:20] Mm-hmm. The reason I share that is because when the pressure is on World Series, super Bowl, US Open, whatever it may be, our thoughts start to go all over the place. Hmm. We start to think, worst case scenario, we start to veer off and we cre we run into mental rumble strips. All of a sudden we start having these thoughts that we normally don’t have.

[00:47:47] What if I fail and we start to spiral? What, what if that means I can’t, I, I, I, we don’t make money. It’s gonna affect my family, it’s gonna affect my career, and then all of a sudden, and then we just end up. In this, in the, in the ditch somewhere like, um, like those old, uh, those old commercials that just kind of spiral.

[00:48:05] And so what we do is we lean into them. And so I’ll hand a player a, a sheet of paper and we will literally write down his or her rumbles strip thoughts. And I’ll literally say, put it all down. Any thoughts, negative thoughts you have Literally write it on the sheet so you can look at your thoughts instead of through your thoughts.

[00:48:25] And I’ve had athletes literally look at their words that they say to themselves, irrational the words that they ineffective, unproductive. And they’ll laugh and they’ll say, I can’t believe I’m saying this to myself. Mm-hmm. It’s like, okay, now that we know it, okay, there they are. Then step number two, these thoughts doesn’t mean that you’re mentally weak.

[00:48:46] It doesn’t mean that you lack confidence. All it means is that you’re losing focus, you’re allowing your attention to drift to things that are ineffective, get back in the lane. Step number two is to create an anchor. Their anchors are productive thoughts. Some, some players, it’s a word, it’s a trigger. Uh, a trigger phrase.

[00:49:09] Some, it’s a music. Some players, it’s a breath. And once they have their mental rumble strip, all they do is, oh, I’m losing focus. Let me redirect on where I want to put my mind. And now here’s a cool thing. Now they’re not afraid of these negative thoughts. Mm-hmm. Now, they’re not afraid of these unproductive thoughts.

[00:49:27] The things that you resist persist. They used to try to push these thoughts down. Don’t think like that. Don’t think like that. Now they’re like, oh, it’s just a rumble trip thought.

[00:49:36] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:37] Justin: Doesn’t mean I’m mentally weak. Hey, it, it’s a signal that I’m losing focus. Let me bring my focus to my anchor. So that, so that’s number one.

[00:49:44] Mm-hmm. The second one takes place in the World Series 2020 World Series. I’m walking around the outfield, checking in with players, and I come to this one player. I said, how you doing buddy? And he goes, he goes, not very good. In my mind, I’m thinking, what do you mean not very good? This is the World Series.

[00:50:00] This player in particular had a great season, one of our best players, but he’s not doing very good. I said, what’s up? And he said, what if I suck? What if I ruin it for the team?

[00:50:13] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:14] Justin: What if I take my entire season? Which was great, and I throw it all down the drain here at the World Series in front for the world to see.

[00:50:23] And I said, Ooh, yeah, that would stink. And I said, it’s possible that can happen. And he starts laughing. He is like, are you allowed to tell me that? I’m like, no. I’m a, I’m a real, like probably probability wise, like it could happen. It could happen. I said, but what about thi? What about this? What if you’re the MVP?

[00:50:44] What if you are so good that now you’re on the cover of MLB, the show next year and you dominate, and now you can get a hundred million, do multimillion dollar contract as a result of this? And he goes, I see what you did. I said, what are you talking about? And then he says, what we always talk about, if you want better answers, ask better questions.

[00:51:07] And so step number two, what I would recommend for anyone feeling pressure is to ask yourself more effective questions instead of asking yourself. The question is, oh no, what’s gonna happen? How am I gonna do this? A better question is, okay, what systems do I need to put in place during this pressure?

[00:51:25] What can I do to make sure I’m getting enough rest and sleep and take care of my body for this? Who are the people in my life that I need to stay close to during this time? Who do I need to communicate with? Now, all of a sudden, your brain is not in fight or flight mode. The, the, the amygdala effect bottom up.

[00:51:42] Now you’re activating a prefrontal cortex and you’re in decision making mode. Now your brain is answering better questions, which will give you better answers to help you feel like you’re in the driver’s seat, to focus on what you can control. So those are the two things that I would recommend if, uh, someone is stressed out.

[00:51:58] There. There are so many other things I, that there are so many other things, but those are the first two that popped into my mind.

[00:52:03] Nathan: Okay. One of the last things I want to go to is. Uh, this idea of communication and what to say to the team in the right times, like something that I know that you do is you help these coaches understand the moment that they have in front of them, the opportunity and how to, you know, like what are they gonna get up in front of the, the, the team and, and share as a speech and, and all of that.

[00:52:26] And I think anyone who has a team is in that position where they’re realizing like, oh, everyone is looking to me for how do we lead through this moment? Whether it’s at a team retreat or a conference presentation, or even just like a, a loom video that you’ve record and send out to the team. Like that communication matters and your words matter.

[00:52:44] And like, again, there’s a, you could either say the right thing that’s gonna catch people in a certain way and rally the whole team, or you could say the wrong thing and alienate a bunch of people. And like, how do you think about crafting those messages?

[00:52:57] Justin: What’s. I love about what you asked is it reminds me of a story again.

[00:53:01] It could be apocryphal story. I don’t know if it’s real or not, but it’s a great analogy or a illustration. There’s a CEO of a company and he brings out this cake and he brings out this beautiful knife, and he cuts the cuts the cake, puts it on a beautiful glass dish with a beautiful cloth napkin, and he asked anyone who would like this, all the hands go up.

[00:53:22] He hands it to somebody right there in the front row, and he goes, does anybody else want a piece? All the hands goes up and he sees somebody over there. He reaches into the cake, grabs a handful of cake and splats it all over his suit, and then he hits them with a message. It doesn’t matter what you sell, it’s how you sell it.

[00:53:42] And that’s exactly what you’re saying. A lot of times we have the best intentions. Mm-hmm. And we think, okay, it’s, it’s the cake. It doesn’t matter how it’s delivered. Right. No, it really does matter. And in my world, I’ll hear it all the time, where a player will watch a press conference from a coach, and then he, I primarily, 98% of my athletes are, are male.

[00:54:03] He or she will get some type of way. Why did the coach say that? What do they mean here? What do they mean there? I’ve seen a coach deliberate message, a beautiful message, a well-intentioned message. It wasn’t received well, it just wasn’t received by a certain group. And that group let the rest know. And then what turned into a beautiful, wonderful uniting message actually created tumult and traver adversity.

[00:54:26] Now he or she has to come back and explain themselves. So I will say number one. Really understand the context, deeply understand the context of your situation. I had a president of a of an NFL football team call recently, and their team was going through some tough times and we crafted a message that you don’t wanna undermine the players, you don’t wanna undermine the coach.

[00:54:49] So it was a very universal message that was very simple. Now, but you might think it’s universal, but people still might get offended by it sometimes. I will say this here is a key. So I spoke to one of the key leaders of a TED Talks. Mm-hmm. And he was somebody who studied the virality of, of a TED talk.

[00:55:09] What makes them go? And he looked at the analytics, he ran a qualitative, an analysis on it, and he gave me some key character traits of powerful messages. He goes, the speaker needs these things in order for a message to land universally. Number one, it has to be perceived as being authentic. Like people can smell a fraud.

[00:55:32] Number two, you have to be vulnerable. Like they want to see some, a sense of vulnerability. Again, there’s context and nuance to that. Mm-hmm. And there, there, there’s nuance to that. And number one is openness, being open and not looking like, okay, you’re, what, what do you not, uh, what are you holding back again?

[00:55:50] And then the next one is a sense of transparency and then passion behind what you’re saying. And he says that the best talks, the best messages have elements of all of those that you, you have, it’s, it’s, it’s evidence. Now, again, what we don’t know is we don’t know how it’s going to be received. And I’ve had coaches say One way to combat that is literally to say that in the message is to say, Hey, I don’t know.

[00:56:22] How this is going to be received. Mm-hmm. What I don’t want, what I, what I’m not saying is we’re not doing good enough. Mm-hmm. What I’m not saying is, okay now, um, almost saying what you do not mean explicitly. Um, I do what I don’t want people feeling is I don’t want people feeling that I think you’re doing a terrible job and that I don’t trust you.

[00:56:45] No, that is not what I’m saying. What we are saying is, Hey, let’s focus on this and take what we’re doing to the next level, and you’re doing awesome. Now let’s go from good to great and I’m just making something up on the spots. And so a lot of coaches are becoming very overt now with adding a little element of this is what I’m not saying as well, just to quell some, just in case some of people, some people who might not.

[00:57:15] Um, understand the message, what they are saying. ’cause they’re focused on what they’re not saying instead of what they are saying.

[00:57:20] Nathan: Well, those elements of the vulnerability and then some, some like extreme ownership of, right. If you’re delivering a hard message, the more you say like, this is on me, the more people in your organization will rise and be like, well, it’s not all on you.

[00:57:34] It’s actually partially, but if you’re like, this is on you, they’re like, oh yeah. You know, like, let’s fight about it. Let’s,

[00:57:40] Justin: that’s a great point. One of the things where I get really nervous about what I struggle with is when I go into rooms that I have no business being like, I’ve never done what they do.

[00:57:52] Right. I’ll give you a very specific example. I went to a special operations unit last season and we were talking about feedback. I was terrified. Mm-hmm. It was the most intimidating group I’ve ever spoken to because these are a group of Rambos. Like literally they are, the missions they’ve done are historic, historic missions that we all in the world know about.

[00:58:15] The men were in this room who were part of that unit. And I literally came in and I said, I feel this big speaking to this room. Who am I to come in? Mm-hmm. And to assume that you can learn anything from me. I respect your experience, I respect your expertise. There are people in this room who can literally speak on this topic way better than me.

[00:58:40] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:40] Justin: I acknowledge that. My hope is that we can create an environment where we can learn together. Mm-hmm. And that’s how I kicked it off. Somebody came up to me afterwards and that’s essentially how I kick off any speech that I give to, to these high performing rooms. Somebody came up to me after that meeting and they said, he said, I was out on you coming in.

[00:59:02] Like, I did not want a civilian coming in to tell us how to do our job. We’re the best in the world. And he said, but the way you opened up. I almost felt bad for you. I said, he goes, I know you’ve done it, but he is like, oh my goodness, how can we help this guy? Right. And how can we, okay. Like, okay, now I wanna participate and share.

[00:59:21] And, um, and again, it’s authentic and real because I have not done that. And so that’s something where it’s like, okay to, to model some vulnerability. ’cause I’ve been in rooms early in my career where I’m like, okay, I’ve done this and they threw me outta there so fast. Like, get outta here.

[00:59:37] Nathan: Well, it’s like in, uh, eight Mile with Eminem, right?

[00:59:41] Let me just say all, anything you’d say to make fun of me or to, to dis on me. I’m gonna say it first. And it’s like, what do you, what, what ammunition do you have now?

[00:59:50] Justin: Exactly. Right. Exactly right.

[00:59:51] Nathan: But I, I love that. Even like, that’s the extreme example, right? Where you’re going into a hostile environment or something else.

[00:59:56] But going back to that messaging, to, to the team, to the media, to whoever of, of just saying like, look, I don’t know how this is going to be received, but I want you to know my intention. I want you to know very clearly. I’m not saying you are underperforming or it’s a lack of effort. Right. Or that sort of thing.

[01:00:13] You know, and then you can, so I’m not saying these things and what I am saying is this, and everyone who’s like wants to go. Yeah. And you’re, oh, you specifically said, you’re not saying I may not believe you, but I can’t attack you for it and I can’t like hold that over you because you specifically said, I’m not saying that.

[01:00:30] Justin: That’s such a great point. You’re essentially starting off with conveying, you’re trying to help them understand that if you can somehow get them to nod in the beginning, like, okay, he understands us. Mm-hmm. People want to know that they’re understood, being understood, or at least you’re trying to understand them.

[01:00:48] And so if you could say, Hey, we’re in a difficult situation. You’re working extremely hard. We are, we are working our tails off and we’re not getting the results that we want. There’s a lot of new situations, things happening at home, things happening in your department, things happening on the team that are outside of our con our, our comfort level and control.

[01:01:08] It’s incredibly hard. All of a sudden you’re like, okay, he gets us. Yes. It’s like, yes, and here’s some thoughts. That’s all valid. That is all. And so coaches are constantly doing that. It’s very difficult to address a team when you’ve, in an NFL when you’ve lost 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 games in a row. Like, what else can you possibly say?

[01:01:34] You lead with empathy and conveying that, Hey, I, I get, this is hard. You’re not gonna want to hear me. Come up here and speak to you. I recently spoke to an A team, a group, and I told them, I was like, you’ve never seen me before. You don’t know who I am. You’re probably thinking, who is this guy coming in trying to talk to us, trying to motivate us guys?

[01:01:57] I’m not a motivational speaker. I’m not a rah rah guy. Here’s a story that you might like. Mm-hmm. And I opened up with that and the players came up afterward. They’re like, thanks for saying that. Yeah. Because we were, we were like, why are we bringing in some motivational speaker to speak to us? Right. We, we don’t need that.

[01:02:14] Nathan: He’s never been in my

[01:02:14] Justin: shoes. Exactly right. Exactly right.

[01:02:16] Nathan: Okay. Two things that I want to, uh, end on. First is actually a big topic, but it’s how do you reinvent yourself as a top performer? You get to these phases where maybe it’s transitioning teams, maybe it’s you’re launching a new career, maybe you’re retiring.

[01:02:31] All of these things, right? Like how do you think about reinventing yourself?

[01:02:35] Justin: Yes. I think that is something that’s constantly. It’s kind of baked into the system in pro sports. Mm-hmm. You almost have to reinvent yourself because your opponent is trying to poke holes in your weaknesses at all time. Yeah.

[01:02:48] So you have to plug it up and you have to, like,

[01:02:52] Nathan: right there is someone who has watched a hundred hours or more of you and they’re just taking notes. Oh, you messed up there. Okay. Interesting. You know,

[01:03:00] Justin: literally they’re watching how you breathe. I, I’m telling you, they’re watching your tongue. They’re watching your facial expressions.

[01:03:07] There are entire departments in some sports where they like stare you. You’re you, they’re staring at you. You looking for some kind of tell, for you to give something away so that they can use it and then use it to be able to predict what you’re about to do. Mm-hmm. Tiny things and it’s, it’s fascinating.

[01:03:24] It could be like a deep breath or anything, and so that, that they’re looking for behavior. So in sports, you’re constantly trying to reinvent yourself. I think in just in general. I think it is pausing and even asking yourself the question. I think just asking the question, where do I need to reinvent myself?

[01:03:45] Nathan: Hmm.

[01:03:46] Justin: You could even look at your energy level if you end up looking at your systems and you’re like, you know what? I don’t enjoy this anymore, or This doesn’t lighten me up anymore. Or you might notice that your curiosity is pulling you something somewhere completely different, and you’re like, I actually want to go do this.

[01:04:04] I see this with players all the time. I’ve had players who’ve come up to me and they’re like, is it bad that I’m looking forward to fishing after the game more than actually the game? And it’s like, look, the coach won’t like to hear that. Uh, the, the, the, the owners won’t like to hear that. But it’s a part of a human, it’s part of your, just your human nature.

[01:04:24] Mm-hmm. I’m a big fan of testing things. Huge fan. Okay, let’s test it. Like, let’s, let’s, let’s just notice it. Maybe there’s nothing you can do, but just what would it look like to go into that a little bit more? What would that give? And now, now here’s another thing is it starts with like, not making yourself feel bad for even feeling that way.

[01:04:44] Right. I’ve had a player who he longed to be at home with his family, like it was near the end of the season. He, he’s, and he felt terrible. He’s like, I should be focusing on the game. I said, well, it’s a low leverage thing. Not a lot of people know about it. Just embrace that feeling. Just maybe allow yourself to feel it because making himself feel bad for feeling that was actually creating more of a problem.

[01:05:06] Yeah. And that’s vicious cycle. Yes. The vicious cycle. Exactly. So I would say that, I would say ask yourself, where do I need to reinvent myself? And then if I don’t reinvent myself, what are the consequences? Mm-hmm. Could something happen? Um, where is my curiosity going now? What would that look like? Do a thought experiment, what would that look like if I leaned into that?

[01:05:28] That new curiosity, just embrace it and watch what happens. It might take a little bit more time, it might take a little more energy, but

[01:05:37] Nathan: mm-hmm.

[01:05:38] Justin: Does it liven you up? Does it make you feel more alive? Okay. Now, do you have any decisions that you need to make now? Now if all of a sudden you’re between a rock and a hard place, where do you need to kind of pull back on other parts?

[01:05:52] Is that worth it? What’s gonna be the trade off? And so it is a series of questions, but I, those are the questions that I would ask somebody. I would say, in some cases it’s needed. In some cases, you need to allow yourself to reinvent yourself. There’s someone watching this and they, their, their curiosity is telling them to reinvent themselves just naturally, but they almost are scared.

[01:06:15] Mm-hmm. Because it’s a whole new territory and they don’t wanna let go of, of who they used to be. Yeah. And who they, who, what they’re known by.

[01:06:23] Nathan: And then seeking out that feedback is going to be so important.

[01:06:26] Justin: Yes.

[01:06:26] Nathan: For all of that. Absolutely. Okay. The last topic. You’re the guy who’s behind the scenes. You’re the, the ghost in the system helping to pull all this together, helping the coaches to say the right thing to reflect and grow in all of these things.

[01:06:41] And now you have this relatively newly discovered passion for the world of content creation. And you have a podcast, you have a newsletter. You’re telling us all last night about how excited you are about your newsletter and growing this and all of that. Like what does this version of reinventing yourself look like and going into this creator world and like stepping out there.

[01:07:02] Justin: It’s amazing. So started with last night. I will be last night. My wor my job is to help people turn on the faucet.

[01:07:11] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:11] Justin: For dirty water. Let the dirty water come out, keep talking until the clear water comes. Mm. That’s it. Through the use of questions, I don’t tell people what to do, so I ask questions, and if you look at the analytics of my conversations, I’m usually a 20, 80 20 per where I’m speaking 20% of the time, and the person I’m working with is speaking 80% of the time.

[01:07:32] Mm-hmm. Yesterday I had a table full of coaches and. And for me, it’s like, there’s that quote quote that says, if you chase two rabbits, you catch none. Mm-hmm. I’m chasing five. Mm-hmm. And I need to be coached. And I think having some clarity on how to take these lessons I’m learning from the best athletes and coaches in the world, and give it to an audience

[01:07:55] Nathan: mm-hmm.

[01:07:55] Justin: Who is driven and passionate and wants to be better that is outside of pro sports. And that’s the, that’s what I’m excited to find that group, uh, to share some really cool principles and frameworks and stories with.

[01:08:08] Nathan: Yeah. It was really fun At dinner, you know, we’re sitting down at our creator dinner related to, uh, this podcast recording series that we’re doing.

[01:08:14] And, and, uh. Everybody was just fascinated with your stories and then also like, okay, how are you getting this out there? You know, what? What niche are you going after? Are you trying to go too broad? There were lots of questions people ask. People just threw a lot of opinions at you too, which was also good.

[01:08:29] It was fun, like seeing you just soak it all up and go from there.

[01:08:32] Justin: You’re absolutely right, and that’s one of the things where it’s like having a coach or having someone guide me onto. Know where to look. Mm-hmm. Uh, one of the things I, I love to do about in my advisory work is tell people where to look, but not what to see.

[01:08:46] Oh, in my role now as I’m reinventing myself, I, I need training wheel tell me where to look and what to see. I need direction. And so that’s something that, uh, that I was really excited and, um, I still have some decisions to make, but, um, but it was so helpful. I’m excited to re to reinvent myself as well.

[01:09:04] Nathan: I love that.

[01:09:05] Okay. Justin, where should people go if they wanna follow, like, hear more of your stories, follow more of your work?

[01:09:09] Justin: Yes. I’m very easy to find on social media, uh, at Justin soa, um, LinkedIn, all my social media cha, uh, channels and the link to my newsletter will be in there. Uh, perfect. Yeah, it is a link to newsletter and that’s, I’m really excited about that.

[01:09:23] Sounds good. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so much. Grateful for you.

[01:09:26] Nathan: If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search the Nathan Berry Show. Then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else do you think we should have on the show.

[01:09:40] Thank you so much for listening.