The Podolskiy Method: Parenting an athlete
There is no roadmap for parenting. No "one size fits all". Together we will learn what works and what does not work. Join and listen to doctors, coaches, athletes, parents, and many other guests of all walks of life. Lets take "parenting an athlete" to the next level and give them the right tools for the job.
The Podolskiy Method: Parenting an athlete
66: Unleashing Greatness: Leadership Lessons from Business, Sports, and Parenting
Have you ever wondered what drives the most successful leaders in business and sports to push beyond their limits? Join me, Coach Ilya Podolskiy, as I sit down with executive coach and entrepreneur Laurie Clarke to explore this fascinating intersection. We uncover the intrinsic motivations and shared goals that propel leaders and athletes alike toward greatness. Laurie shares her vast experience working with companies of all sizes, offering insights on how effective leadership in both arenas is anchored in intrinsic value and collaboration, beyond just financial gains.
Our discussion takes a heartfelt turn as we talk about parenting and coaching in youth sports. Laurie reflects on her personal journey with her athletic daughter and strategically minded son, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and nurturing each child's unique strengths and interests. We dive into the emotional nuances of youth sports, highlighting the critical role of being present and fostering open communication with young athletes. Through real-life anecdotes, we discuss managing emotions and the impact of feedback on nurturing children's growth, underscoring the essential balance between guidance and understanding.
Finally, we explore the complexities of team dynamics and the pervasive influence of ego in high-performance settings. From personal stories about volleyball games to the challenges faced by both small startups and large corporations, we dissect how communication shapes team culture and effectiveness. Laurie and I share practical strategies like visualization and meditation to promote a growth mindset and mitigate the impact of egos. This episode is packed with insights for coaches, parents, and business leaders aiming to enhance their leadership and teamwork skills.
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Thank you, we'll be right back. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the Podolsky Method Podcast. I'm your host, coach Olya Podolsky, level 5'm your host, coach elia podolsky, level five. Usa hockey master coach. Creator and host of the podolsky method podcast. Owner and operator of a ski sharply shop called sharp skate, new york. Um, I'm a usa hockey national coach developer and a cpa by trade. Um, I'd like, before we jump into our show as usual, I'd like to mention some of our sponsors.
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Speaker 1:As always, check out our Junior Rangers programming for under $300. You get full gear and 10 lessons. It's a wonderful program. We just started our winter sessions out here in Brooklyn, new York, but we're in 60 different rinks and we hope you can join us if you go to nhlcom slash rangers, slash community, slash youth dash hockey. Check out the Podolsky Method website for some blog information and other needs. And, lastly, I'd like to mention sagaciousmindsorg, which is an all-for-profit organization that I'm involved with that does a lot of great things for kids', education and sports, so give them a look. Today I have a wonderful guest with me, lori Clark, and Lori is a facilitator, a coach and an entrepreneur. Lori, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Maybe you could kick it off by you just tell folks a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am an executive coach and I work with companies to help them design better organizations, customer experiences, employee experiences so I work with teams a lot in my professional life. I'm a mom of two athletic children, so that keeps me quite busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I know before the show I noticed you worked with some really big companies.
Speaker 2:I think I saw ebay, maybe walmart and e-commerce yes, some really large companies and small companies. So the range of companies I work with would be small founders, startups all the way through to these fortune 10 companies, and the challenges are very different with the teams at the various stages, but people are people and teams are teams. So it seems to apply. It just needs a little bit more influence and leverage to make the big ones work like clockwork, as you would a small one, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm a CPA by trade and I do SOX, compliance and internal audit, but it's my day job and my second life is coaching and educating folks around, being a parent of an athlete or being a coach, and so I definitely understand the crossovers between the professional environment and the drive that comes with that and the drive that comes from sports right, and the competitive nature. Can you talk to me a little bit about your experience? When we talk about these large companies and working with CEOs or staff of these firms, how does that translate if you think about it in terms of like a sports metaphor, in the sense of you know the drive and how do you push them to achieve things that they might not think they can?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. They're very similar and the higher you go in an organization, the more I see the same mindsets and attitudes that I do with these competitive athletes. So the higher you go, it's more intrinsic motivation they want to achieve, they want to see the potential they want to achieve, they want to see the potential they want to leave a legacy, they want to do something that's bigger than themselves, it's for their team, and you see that kind of as you go further down, maybe as you kind of sports-wise, less competitive sports you see people who maybe don't have that.
Speaker 2:They need more extrinsic motivation. They do it for the money. They do it, you know, for different reasons and you see that in. I see that in sports as well. It's sort of you start seeing this separation of people who are driven to find that potential and people who are happy for someone else to direct them potential and people who are happy for someone else to direct them. So I see that definitely play out in both. But, just like in business, not all leadership styles and types are created equal, and so I see that as well, where you see coaches and parents having an influence on athletes that create a different style of what will eventually show up in a workplace as a particular type of leader.
Speaker 1:I've been in the professional industry for over 20 years now and I realized that a huge driver for me is being in this collaborative environment where I feel valued, where I have, as you said, some of that value coming in, where I know that my work actually helps progress. The company forward actually helps progress. The company forward helps the folks around me who I work with, makes their job easier in a sense, and that makes me feel better about what I do, as opposed to just getting a paycheck, for example, even though, of course, it is extremely important it does put the food on the table. Uh, it is extremely important. It does put the food on the table, yeah, but but just, you know, intrinsically, understanding and and internalizing that I think is so important. And I think we don't give a lot of credit to, um, when we talk, when we transfer that to, uh, youth athletes, um, sometimes we kind of try to impose ourselves on them as opposed to allowing them to have that intrinsic, you know, value add feeling.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and to your point. You know, you look at employee engagement in a company, and employee engagement specifically, is higher when people feel joy at work. And so you dig into what does it mean to have joy at work? And what it shows is that when people feel like they are making progress on meaningful work and meaningful work is defined by contributing to the company strategy or contributing to a customer experience directly that brings them joy they're more engaged. And so when we think about that in youth sports, often we drive an individual to be best at their position, that they're constantly being the best, which is not a bad thing, being the best, which is not a bad thing. But it sometimes takes away that joy, that meaningful aspect of working with your team. And how do I actually contribute to help somebody not in my position or not directly related to me, maybe somebody who doesn't get as much playtime as me? How is that actually contributing to that feeling and that engagement as part of a team, not just me as an athlete?
Speaker 1:awesome and so you know, maybe you could kind of switch a little bit to your kids, because I know you started kind of talk right before the show. We started talking about, uh, the different dynamics with your son and your daughter. Right, and your daughter you mentioned plays volleyball at pretty high level. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So she started playing volleyball when she was 10 in COVID and wanted to get her into something and she was willing to go play in a freezing cold warehouse here in Toronto and she ended up falling in love with it and plays club, she plays for her school, she plays indoor, she plays beach, so we don't really get a break from volleyball. And she played for Team Ontario and in the summer games last summer and she her team won gold, which was pretty exciting for her. So she plays probably as competitively as you can for her age group here in Ontario.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and I know you mentioned that your son, even though he's extremely athletic, chose not to do sports.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he had an opposite thing during COVID where he went really into gaming and he you know he is naturally athletic, picks up every sport very easily. He's lean, he's tall, everything. My daughter wishes she was for volleyball, um, and he has doesn't have that drive, that desire to play and put those skills into a game. So it creates a little bit of tension in the house where she has to work very hard for everything that she achieves in her sport. And he, um has this raw natural ability where all the people see him and say, oh, come play this sport, come play this sport, um, but he doesn't come play this sport.
Speaker 1:But he doesn't do anything with it. And I guess, if you stay with that thought for a second, did you ever have the inkling to push him into sports or maybe even like, in a sense, force him into an athletic path?
Speaker 2:so when he so, when he was really young, I made them do everything so they had they, they were that was easy though they. They were at the age where they just pretty much did what they were told. And now I encourage and I open up all the different aspects to him. He can do anything he wants from a development or a league or a house league, but I haven't forced it. I don't think you can tension on your relationship and you become the person that's fighting them every week to go to practice, fighting them every week out the door, and I just personally don't feel like I have all that much time with him where I want to expend all of this negative energy over something he's not going to do naturally and on his own volition anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a great point. That's actually why I asked you that question is because you know, forcing somebody to do something you want them to do sometimes is you know, most of the time I would say is probably a bad idea. You know, and I'm really glad you mentioned the relationships because it definitely does put a huge strain. Even when the child wants to be an athlete and wants to participate in sport, they always have moments where they're tired and and kind of, you know, grinded down and fatigued and and burnt out a little bit and they just don't want to do it anymore. And those are the moments where you kind of push them through that. But that's because you know that they intrinsically want to be an athlete, they want to continue to play the sport, and it's just a moment in time that is just tough. You're going to get to a tough moment.
Speaker 2:But if the person has no interest, and pushing them into something they don't like or something they don't want definitely creates resentment yeah, and our time with them is so little and if you're going, if I'm going to use up the influence I have, it's not going to be on that, right. Yeah, need you to be kind, I need you to be respectful. I need there's so many other things I want to be able to instill with you. I don't want you to him to look back and say, oh, remember those epic fights when you forced me to go play soccer? Um, yeah, which is, by the way, probably what he would remember.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Great point. And so let me ask you, if I may, somewhat of a personal question in terms of do you feel closer to your daughter because she's an athlete and you can connect with her that way and you don't have that with your son, or does that not really matter?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you have to meet kids where they are, and I think you the one thing I've learned about parenting and maybe it's there's two different styles I have found. There are the parents that say I'm going to shape you into who I want you to be, and there's people who say I'm going to tend to whatever you are, so that you are the most that you can be, and I've always tried to be the latter one, where she's an athlete and she's extremely driven. She's at the gym every morning before school. She plays school volleyball. She played a school volleyball game today, grabbed something to eat, did her homework and is it practice eight to 10 tonight. So she, that's just who she is. She's very disciplined, she's very uh and he's just not.
Speaker 2:And so I I feel like I can connect with them differently, but only if I meet him where he is. So do I see his gaming is very strategic. If I stop and pay attention. He's running teams, he's designing things, he's building strategies to win these games. He's bringing five or six people he may or may not even know along with him. If I can sit and look at that, then it gives me an ability to bond with him differently. You know it's do. I wish he was more physically active, for sure, but I think that's different, right? So it's harder, though I think I will add this I get a lot of car time with Olivia, so I get to spend a lot more time speaking with her about her day and her life and everything. So that does give us a lot more time speaking with her about her day and her life and everything. So that does give us a lot of closeness that I have to work harder to get with him.
Speaker 1:That's great. I'm really glad you brought that up because I think that you know that kind of resonates through all the episodes that I've done so far. You know that car rides home, car rides to the games and how important that is. And a lot of folks take that for granted and I'm guilty of that too. When you come out of a bad game, when you're frustrated and you're just venting and then you kind of remember okay, that's not what you want to do. You want to let the athlete kind of remember okay, that's, you know, that's not what you want to do. You want to let the athlete, you know, kind of drive that conversation.
Speaker 1:But you know, I think it is a critical moment in time and even now when I talk to folks who are coaches and parents themselves, they say, oh, you know, I always remember those 6 am wake-ups and games and tournaments and that's the part that kind of stays, stays in the back of your brain. And you know, I'm really glad you also mentioned um, meeting the kids where they're at, because that seems to be the theme that keeps coming up in a lot of the episodes that we have and making sure that you're meeting your kids at where they are, and I have three boys and they're all very, very different, even though they have the same roles and they all play hockey. But their personalities are just so very different and the conversation and the way I talk to them just tends to be very, very different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, it's actually one of the things Olivia says she appreciates. I don't know anything about her sport. I'm still trying to learn it. I don't know how to play it. I don't coach her on the sport. I coach her on the sport after every game.
Speaker 2:So she looks disappointed. I assess where she's at. Even if they've won, even if I think she played well, even if everyone's telling her she played well, she didn't think she played well. And so me trying to convince her oh, but it was good and you played well and you won the game, it's not helpful, right? So I see she's disappointed and I will express oh, you seem disappointed about this game. And she'll say, yeah, I wanted to practice this technique and I just couldn't do it. Even once I go oh, you know, that's really disappointing.
Speaker 2:You know, is there something you can do to change for the next game, Even though she played well? Is there something you can do to change for the next game? Even though she played well technically and they won, in her mind she set a goal. And it feeds distance with you when you negate that feeling she has, because I don't know what's going on, I don't know what she set with her coach. I don't know what she set personally, and it opens a dialogue in a way. I would have shut down if I say but you played so well, you know she would have just looked at me and gone silent and walked away, and I see that happen so many times, Right, and I don't understand. She played well, it's.
Speaker 1:They're thinking something very different when they're on the court or you know, whatever sport I'm imagining, it's the same yeah, and and I think that goes back to our credibility, right and as parents and um, we used to always. I still coach with with um a few older gentlemen who you know helped me develop throughout my coaching career, and one of them has always told me he said you know, if it wasn't a good game, why are we coming off the ice and telling kids good job? Yeah, he's like. I don't understand. Every parent right up by the door we lose like 15 to 1.
Speaker 1:We played terrible, it was, you know, just just the worst game ever. And everybody just stands the pounds because good job, good job, good job. And then, you like, they walk into the locker room, the coaches walk in and be like that was a terrible game. Guys like, yeah, you know, like. And then they, they done, they change, they come out of the locker room and again the parents come in and go good job guys yeah, I mean I, I don't think the parents should be overly critical about a bad game, but empathetic, right, could you imagine.
Speaker 2:And you wonder. They go into the workplace and they're like you know, hey, where's my good job? Well, no, you missed the deadline and you lost all this money. It's not a good job. You're not getting your bonus. It's. It's shocking for them, right, it's about reality setting to some degree.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, you're absolutely right it and you know that's exactly where you're absolutely right and you know that's exactly where we're kind of going to go in terms of you know how it translates to real life and I think the youth sports is not, is not. The purpose of youth sports is not to create professional athletes. Yes, we get professional athletes as part of the process great, but there's so far and few in between who become professional athletes. But even those that don't, they become professionals and they can.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and parent and parents and anything that will pay this forward. Right, and it's and it's um, it's fascinating to me when you see the different style of coaching and parenting and you can see the team culture. I don't know how to, I don't have to know the game I can see the team culture and one of the things with this you know good job, let's go. I call it giving Valentines. So a couple of years ago, my son said I'm not sending valentines to school, I'm just not giving them. And my immediate reaction was you're going to be the only kid. The teacher's going to ask me what's happening. You got to take valentines. Okay, that's what we're doing. And he said okay, well, I'm not giving valentines to everybody in my class. And I said so, canada, we are inclusive, a hundred percent. You have got to give a Valentine to absolutely every kid. And he said no, not doing it. And I went very I had to check my I was you have to just do this for me, because the parents and the teachers are going to give me a hard time. And then I stopped and I said why don't you want to give Valentine's? And he said because you're the best, you're so great. I like you, you're fantastic. And he said some of the people in my class aren't nice, some of them bug me every day. They pick on me for a whole lot of things and I don't want to send them something that says you're the best, you're so great. And so I stopped for a second. I went okay, fair enough. And so we ended up doing something where he could think of something he appreciated about each kid, even if he didn't want to say you're the best for this particular kid, he said. He didn't want to say you're the best for this particular kid. He said you know, you write the most amazing stories. Truth, you're not the best per se in my opinion, but you do write really good stories.
Speaker 2:And I find and I don't know if it's in all sports, but specifically in volleyball you'll hear the team say to each other nice up, great serve, you've got this, let's go this that the parents doing the same thing on the side, but what they're not getting is very specific feedback. It's actually not good communication. It's valentine's. You know, you're just throwing valentine's. Hey, the bully over there, good job, or like you missed 16 serves in a row, but that one was fantastic. Right, it's about teaching kids to give that very specific feedback, to accept it and to give it that's anchored in a reality, where you're not just throwing valentines at them. You're giving them something that's tangible, that's usable. You have to teach them how to accept it and you have to teach them how to give it in a respectful way. But I think that's a huge thing. I noticed in this sport that makes a difference between a team that connects and communicates while they're playing and one that's just throwing around valentines.
Speaker 1:And maybe you could take this step further into the professional world and talk a little bit about how that transpires in a corporate environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we see that all the time, right when, especially if you have a conflict adverse manager who's telling everyone they're doing fantastic, you end up getting the end of the year kind of results are in and nobody's getting a bonus and everyone's surprised by it. You have people who are frustrated because almost everybody wants to come to work and do a good job. I haven't met very many people who specifically come and say what ruckus can I create today? And you're doing a disservice to them if you're not very honest about their skills and where they need to develop and maybe they're not in a position that they're good at. Nobody wants to come to work every day and be terrible at it, right. So if you have these conversations where you're very specific and you give them the feedback and they're unable to take the feedback and change, finding them a spot where they're better matched to their strengths is the kind thing to do.
Speaker 2:And what we see in teams so often is people end up talking behind other people's backs about this person who's not good, or they end up just never getting their bonus and getting frustrated and trying to figure out where they went wrong. But generally people will say to them you did a great job. We see this even in customer surveys, where you know you get a 10 out of 10. Would you, would you leave this company? No, I'm, I'm unlikely to leave the company. But then when you go and you start asking the why, it's like, well, I'm not leaving the company because I can't afford to leave it, right, like it's too expensive to leave. So you start seeing that we're just when we give that glossy kind of picture the Instagram gloss, I call it. You're really not getting a high-performing team and individuals are never able to develop to their full potential and they want to Generally. They want to right.
Speaker 1:So I think it works in both very similarly yeah, no. And that's such a great crossover there, because I feel like you can't fix a problem you don't know you have yeah, and how horrifying.
Speaker 2:You're all over there talking about how incompetent I am, but nobody's willing to give me the feedback, to tell me what I need to do to fix it. Yeah, it's like I'd like to do better, it's uh, but you see that in sports. I see that in sports a lot too right, or they? Say oh, you're so amazing. No, they're not.
Speaker 1:They they can't block and they can't hit, and their whole job is to block and hit yeah, and and you know, like in sports, it's very interesting because it's exaggerated in my mind like, and one day you'll be the best player, um, you know, on the ice or in the, in the game, and then the next day you could be the worst.
Speaker 1:It's so weird. And it's weird, but it's also very good to experience it at that level, because when you're a young athlete and you go through the spectrum of, hey, I had a great game today, and then the next day I had a terrible one, and then you could be like, well, let's take a step back and let's see why was this a really good game? Why was this a bad game? What did I do here? What did I not do here? Or what did I do that caused a bad game to happen? Maybe I need to eliminate some of the things. So you're a little more consistent to eliminate some of the things, um, so you're a little more consistent. Um, but to your point, it's not to just come out and say, hoorah, you know, good job showing up, but it's actually telling them hey, you know, that was really good, but this wasn't, and yeah, specifically Like, like my daughter had a tournament on Saturday and I she served into the net four times.
Speaker 2:You can't serve into the net at this level, like what's going on, you know, and she's like my, I tweaked my back and it really hurts and I can't get that full rotation. I said, well then we need to book physio Because you can't serve into the net. But she knew partway through the tournament when she tweaked her back and she couldn't get that full rotation, she knew why. But yeah, I was like that's not a good job, that was terrible. Um, but yeah, I was like that's not a good job, that was terrible. I was in the stands going I don't know whose daughter that is. Um, yeah, but just, even that's another thing. I find that's very, um, a good crossover, if I can.
Speaker 2:It's just on the on the point of measurement. I always say in business what you focus on grows and what you measure is what gets focused on right, and so when we measure the wrong things in the workplace, we incent the wrong behavior or we incent the right behavior and if we do a win at all cost thing. We've seen a lot of that in the news. We tend to incent the wrong behavior and we do that in sports as well If we measure wins and losses, even if we measure in individual success and failure. So I know sometimes coaches in volleyball will give them pluses and minuses. If you've got more pluses, you get more court time. If you've got more minuses, you get less court time. Get more court time. If you've got more minuses, you get less court time.
Speaker 2:And I always I just I wonder what we're doing with that?
Speaker 2:Right, because we do that in the workplace and what we get are these kind of sales, toxic cultures, these kind of when we're talking about investment management kind of cultures that we've seen in the past.
Speaker 2:You're competing against each other, you're not competing against the competition, and so I think measurement's really important, and if I gave my daughter her serve percentage or her pass percentage, I think it's great that she works to increase those, but it can't be at her doing it to the expense of another teammate, because then they try to jockey for who's got the best plus, you know, in the game, instead of saying how do we elevate the entire team? And so one of the things I've seen done well is when they take those measures for each of the players, for their position, because there are different measures for the position for their team and then teams that they aspire to be like and say you have the agency individually to work on getting yourself better in your role, but until our whole team increases, we're never going to beat these teams right, and so you're making the goal combined and collaborative. So it's not like I want the defense specialist who's on the bench to be just as good as my daughter, because my daughter gets hurt and she serves in the net.
Speaker 2:I need someone else to come in. Do you know what I mean For the team to be successful. And I feel like when we get really focused on individual numbers and making them compete for court time against each other, you lose the benefit of the team culture and environment that's working together to beat the other team. Do you know what I mean? Like I see that the same in business.
Speaker 1:You know it's very similar yeah, that's such a great point that we create competition internally, um, but it's actually really hard to translate that message that you're competing against each other to make each other better because you're a team and you have to play together. So the better every single line and every single player is, the better you can come together and play. So I'm going to play hard against you because that's going to make you better right and not to make you look bad, but to make you better right, so I actually have.
Speaker 1:I have a question here for you which is from Evgenia here how do you make that communication a receivable one? So I think that's very prompt in terms of, just, you know, communicating that message. How do you do that in sports? And then maybe let's talk a little bit about how you do that in corporate culture yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think in in sports it's first of all you not being emotionally attached to the outcome, because they'll sense that, they'll see that and they'll feel like it's a criticism. So if you can feel or if you're not unattached, wait a minute but also meeting them where they're at. So I would not give that communication to my daughter when she's walking off and she's frustrated and she can't hear me. Anyway, just give her space and give her some time to process. Every kid's different. Some of them want to process right away and have that conversation. So meeting them where they are, I think it's about making sure that it's in their best interest. So it's not a criticism, it's something that the it's the same and I'm going to go into business here.
Speaker 2:As long as everybody knows that the end goal for the company is to do X or Y right. It's to fulfill the customer needs. It's to deliver an amazing customer experience. It's to do the best work possible, whatever it is in that area. As long as you anchor it on how it is linked to the outcome and the person feels agency in a way that they can make a difference and change it, the communication will be better received If it's tied to an outcome that is in the negative and if it is about seen as a criticism and they don't feel like they have any agency to make the change they're just it's going to get, it's going to be a shutdown. I mean it's got to be a combination of things meeting them where they're at, tying it to their goal as part of the broader goal and really making it about tangible things they have control over changing.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. And so when you talk a little bit more in depth of smaller companies, I mean we think about. You mentioned that you have more in depth of smaller companies. You mentioned that you have the bigger conglomerates with hundreds of people and then you have small ones with two or three. How does that change? Because I know they change the dynamic quite significantly. I've been coaching teams where you have 18 players and then the next year you have nine and you kind of have to struggle through uh, through that lack of um, you know, bench, uh, strength, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's very good point. The smaller the team, the more stretched everybody is from a resource perspective right, and the more exhausted they are, and the more tired we get, the less tolerance we have for receiving feedback and for making changes and for adding on. So in smaller teams, anytime you want to make a change, you got to take something away. You really can't add more on and you really need to be very specific about what's in it for them. So what is going to be the benefit of doing this? And here's what's going to go away by you doing this? In bigger companies, there's just always so much time and ability to get complacent, Because you know if you don't step up, if you don't change, someone else is there, right. So someone else can do it, they can pick up the slack and it's going to be okay.
Speaker 2:The challenge there is you need to create that sense of urgency and you need to be able to inspire people to be able to change how they're doing the work, to level up when there's actually really no immediate burning need to do so, Right. And so I find that with um, like if there's an injury on the team and it's all on you, I find that person really steps in, but they are definitely not open for any kind of direction or feedback in that moment. But if there is a backup, it's you see it in sports too right, as long as there's a backup I feel like I have, I don't have to maybe give it that all. So I think that's something that shows up for sure. It's such there's such different challenges. You have to change how they're working. But you need to change how they're working from a creation of a need and here from a extraction of stress yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, earlier you talked a little bit about the, the toxicity, and I don't know if you.
Speaker 1:Um, I watch some other keynote speakers and public speakers and there's a gentleman I forget his name, it escapes me right now, but he talks a little bit about maybe, seals approach to high performers and high trust.
Speaker 1:And people who have high performance and low trust are usually toxic employees because you're measuring their performance, they're great, they bring in a lot of business, but they'll sell their mother for four dollar kind of thing and and that, so they're very toxic for the corporate environment, as opposed to, uh, having a high trust and a lower performer, but that person is loyal and you know you can rely on them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're gonna go beyond. They just need to be kind of educated to get to that performer status and so, uh, you know, it's very interesting when you think about it in those terms, and and I really like the analogy because the way, like you said, the way we measure, is what we're going to focus on and that's such a great point. But I do want to ask you a little bit about how do you suggest dealing with ego, because we know that ego gets in the way, both in athletes and professional life, especially experienced people who have been doing something for many, many years, and you come in and say well, there's a better way, an easier way or a faster way, and you know how do you usually deliver that message and deal with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh and and yeah, it's, the higher you go in an organization and the higher level the competition in sports, the more you see them, right? Um, I think they're created, though I don't think very few, very few people are born with it Now, I can't remember the statistics of the number of people who have a personality disorder that are born with it but we create them and then we have to deal with them, and so my preference is to actually go backwards and stop creating them by having really amazing coaches and parents. But we all have to face them at some point. I think there's two kinds, right. There's the kind that has the high ego and they're not very good. There's the kind that has the high ego and they're not very good and they create a lot of resentment and anger on a team because you're not really helping us all that much. And then there's the kind that has the really big ego and they're phenomenal and they're undeniably good and you kind of tiptoe around them. The parents tiptoe around them, the coach tiptoes around them because they're so talented, but at the end of the day, the culture they've created in the team, if they're injured and out, the team just falls apart and it's not a team, right, and these are team sports. So what you need to do is you actually need to start measuring these people with the egos on how well are they playing the team sport and how well, if only one who can do everything and they are so phenomenal and no one can do it start measuring them and how well their succession plan is going. Start measuring them on if they stepped out of a task, does that task still get done? Did they teach the people beneath them how to do it? And you'll start seeing they'll still have an ego, but now their ego will shift to look how good I can build my team, look how amazing I am at team building, look at how phenomenal this person is now and I've seen that a little bit on teams but unfortunately, more often than not I see coaches and parents really feeding the ego from an individual standpoint without consideration of the team, and unfortunately, sometimes then they become bullies of the other kids who are too afraid to stand up to them because they see the loyalty that the parents and the teams and the clubs have developed around this player and you really miss out.
Speaker 2:Now, olivia, my daughter has been lucky to have a few Olympians coach her and there is a whole different style that the three of them use, that have, and they all coached her at different times. They all have the same coaching techniques and they will not have a player with an ego, no matter how good they are on their team period. They will take the people that get cut from everybody else's team and they will make them great and they know that they're humble and they'll work hard and they teach them visualization and meditation and everything about growth, mindset and resetting and looking at your not we don't look at, they don't look at their highlight reels. They'll put her, put together her, every bad play and they'll go through what do you learn? What do you learn?
Speaker 2:What do you learn? What do you learn? Yeah, you know what, if we keep going through these, everything will be a highlight reel. It's just they and they just don't take that attitude. They just they will not have it on a team and I think there's a reason for that. Right, it's the team sports. You need to build the team, um, but if you're faced with one and you have that and the coach is willing, start trying to get that player or on a team, try to get that team member to be measured on how well they make the other players.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I use a lot of my coaching. I use Sidney Crosby as an example. He's one of the most famous hockey players, most famous khaki players, um. But I think what I find very interesting and this is something I learned in a seminar with ushikaki when I was, you know, learning uh, a gentleman came in and he said you know, sydney crosby won the standing cup.
Speaker 1:He was the first round pick and and to the right of him was a seventh round pick and to the left was an eighth round pick, so he was number one and there was 176 and 237 and they played on the same line and won the Stanley Cup. And you know he would say how his skill made everybody around the better. Yeah, that's what these, these elite performers can do when they actually make other people better around them. So I think it's such an intricate area, you know, and, as you said, like the easiest thing I guess to do is to eliminate that situation. Do is to eliminate that situation. But I think you know, I've seen work coaches try to work through it and almost bring down the ego. You know through you know examples and stuff, but it's a battle, it feels like a battle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I imagine. I mean, I think sometimes it depends on how high up that person's self-esteem is how much it can be brought down. But there's a lot of evidence that shows that sometimes the kids that have the biggest ego and are the biggest bullies are the most troubled Right, and you don't know what their situation is outside of this sport, and what you wouldn't want to do is create any kind of add on to that. So try, I mean for my, my daughter has run into a few and we just try to have compassion. You know, just wow, that was really mean.
Speaker 2:I wonder what she hears at home all the time that has her feeling so, so mean and you know, I wonder what's going on in her life, because that's pretty brutal and you know, I don't know, she used to get really, really upset about it and now she doesn't. I think there's a lot that happens with social media. I think social media is a way, especially with something like Snapchat, where you can say something really horrible and it's gone, and she would get some things on there and either she started replying back as just I forgive you.
Speaker 1:Right, oh, I like that yeah.
Speaker 2:And then one of the girls said yeah, I don't need forgiveness. And olivia implied yes, you do right then stop, stop, never, never. Text never did anything again yeah it's just, you know, that wasn't fun, I guess I don't know. So I think at first, you know, not take it personally, but yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1:Social media is pretty brutal for these kids. Yeah, it's so interesting that people are willing to go out of their way just to whether it's corporate culture, but even family members, and sometimes they're doing that too. You know you could have, you know, folks in your immediate circle who would rather bring you down than to build themselves up to build themselves up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if you. It's. It's amazing. But the more you achieve, or if you set out a goal, no matter how small it is, the closer you get to it. It's almost like you. You hurt something in them that they're not doing the same thing. It's it's. I used to have work with this woman and she used to always say if someone comes up to you and says you have green hair on the street, what are you going to say? And I said I'm going to say no, I don't, and walk away. Right, you're never going to think about it again because you know you don't have green hair. Now someone came up to you and say, wow, you're really putting on some weight. And then you take it and you're like, oh my, why would say that? What's?
Speaker 2:going on and it's because there's a little part of you that is worried it might be true, and so you internalize it and you take it on right, and so it's sort of like just learning how to say well, I don't have green hair, that's, that's a you problem, that's not me, right, and it's very hard to do. But the more, the more you do that from a team dynamic or in a business or in sports or personal, the better. And it's the same kind of mindset you're talking about, like after you had a bad play, right, how do you just get rid of it? Like, I'm not a bad player, I had a bad play. It's very challenging to do that. It's very challenging to do that with social media, especially when people are saying everything is great and wonderful. Then they throw some jabs your way because they're so perfect and you're apparently not. But the more we can do that, I think the better. Yeah, so now I'll just say to olivia I'm like do you have green hair? And she's like no, I don't.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that comment is really irrelevant and sort of let's just delete it, move on yeah, and you know, I always tell the boys, you know, my kids and the kids I coach is that you know, acknowledge if you had a bad game, acknowledge if you had a bad point. It's okay to make a mistake. Yeah, you can't be afraid of it. You gotta know you made one. And then be like, hey, you know, guys, I, I don't know, like that's not working, what I'm doing is not working. Where do you need me to go? Like, let's, let's figure out this dynamic. Right, talk to your teammates, talk to your coach. Right, talk to your mom or dad and be like, hey, I, I, it doesn't feel right. Or yeah, every time I do it it doesn't work. I keep losing in that situation, I lose the battle in that situation. Like, how can I change that? And so. But it's kind of like goes back to the idea that you know, if you don't know you have a problem, you can't solve it. Like that's the first thing.
Speaker 2:Right, every, every change management effort in a company. If there's not awareness that the change is needed, then there's zero chance it's going to be successful. And we spend so much time being like here's the new features and here's what's in it for you, and here's all of that and not the why behind the change and the specifics of it, and it you know, 70% of 70 of change efforts fail. It's it's sort of like well, we need to start a little earlier and explaining that there actually is a problem that needs to be solved yeah, absolutely, um.
Speaker 1:and you know you made me think of this uh old seinfeld episode where um owen was leading a gentleman and he would just, every time he would break up with somebody, he would tell them something and like you know, you're gaining weight. And he told her she has a big head and all of a sudden, everything she does like she's walking through the park and a bird hits her in the head, it's like everything she does, like just this whole episode she like beats him up at the end. It's an old episode, but it just made me think of that. You know where. It's just like you just would say something when people would break up with him. I couldn't Well, fine, but you have a big head and every year she'd walk into a wall and things like that.
Speaker 2:She basically made it true. Here's all the evidence. I do have a big head, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's, I think also. You know it's comical, but it goes back to that point you were making that. You know, sometimes you start adopting that.
Speaker 2:And athletes do they 100% do right, like maybe I am not a good player or maybe I am not, this it's like no, no, that's yeah, I agree, and what you focus on grows right. So you have to be able to acknowledge you had a bad play. You have to be able to acknowledge a bad situation, but not focus on it. You need to then, as you said, turn to. So what can I do about it? So where can I go? Who can I talk to? How do I make this arrangement with my teammate? What you know, what's maybe physically changed? Right, cause these athletes, especially when they're so young, are physically changing so much as they're growing up that you know, like changing so much as they're growing up, that you know, like I, I I've, girls are kind of different. I'm finding they, they have different challenges.
Speaker 2:My son, I swear, has grown two inches in two weeks. Like I don't know. He went to bed and he wakes up. None of his clothes fit him and I just you know, she was just slow and steady. He's now he. He's not moving the same way he's. It's like he's got a whole new body and he can't figure it out right. So I'm imagining, as they play high level sports. There's times where they, their body outgrows them to some degree, right and and just.
Speaker 1:They may not even be able to articulate what's happening and how they're feeling, and you need to just sit there with them until they sort it yeah, I mean, now that I've joined the usa hockey national coach developer program, we have this seminar over the summer and you know something somebody brought up that is so obvious and I never thought about. It was puberty. And he said you know, like you teach him to skate a certain way, and then all of a sudden, you know, for girls the hips get wider and boys get taller, and all of a sudden that whole stride, that whole skating experience, the whole body feels weird, everything is off, everything is awkward, and it just happened because they're going through hormonal changes and and you know all that work. And then you're like I don't understand. We've been working on this for eight years, 10 years, how can you? You know, why do you keep falling, why? And you're like well, that's probably why you know.
Speaker 1:And you're like, yeah, it's so obvious, but it's something that not all coaches think about.
Speaker 2:Well, every so obvious, but it's something that, yeah, well, every, every male coach needs to know. That's coaching young women, that who you spend your most time with, you, your cycle sinks it is. There are some tournaments where I have to remind a coach. I'm just like, can we just be for real here for a second? This is not the tournament to give harsh feedback. They're all gonna cry like it's just. And they're all just crying. He's like why are they crying? They watched a kitten video, like just, it's just, it's phenomenally hormonal, so it, you know, it's it that. And there's 12 of them, right, so it's like it's just fascinating. But we don't actually teach that, we don't actually consider that. You know, we should never, ever make tournaments on those days. Um, but yeah. And then you, then you think about it. You've got a whole gym full of people, um, but yeah I had.
Speaker 1:I had an experience like that where I was. I had a couple girls on on the kauai team and you know we didn't have a very good game. We were sitting in the locker room. We kind of went around and said, you know, you need to do this, you need to do that, and like every player and two of the girls, one starts crying and then the other one starts crying.
Speaker 1:And then you know, obviously the parents come up. They're like why are they crying? I was like I have no idea. So then I pull one to the side. I'm like why are you crying? She's like I'm crying because the other one started crying. So I go to the other one. I was like why are you crying? She's like I don't know. Yeah, I was like did I say something to offend you? Did I say something mean? Like tell me, like I, I wasn't trying to offend you, I wasn't trying to be mean, we were just going around saying things that we each going to improve. Um, she's like no, I just felt like you know, sad, like there was no explanation.
Speaker 2:Like you know, that happened the other day we were literally a few days ago. We're coming back from the gym in the morning and she loves going to the gym in the morning and we're driving back and I look over and she's bawling and what happened? Did something happen in the gym? Did you get hurt? No, are you okay? I don't know. You're like. I said is there anything I can do? No, do you want to talk about it? No, cried like the entire morning and at lunch I said how are you feeling? And you were crying in the car. You want to talk about it? Oh, no, I don't know why. I was really sad and had no reason, reason, like just none. And I went okay and I was like fine, it's okay, but there's, there was an interesting um research done by uh gosh, I can't. I think it was denise chen.
Speaker 2:She did this research that looked at how you can sense emotions through smell and that the more you perspire and the more you're kind of like in an adrenaline or you've got cortisol or whatever or you've got you know you're feeling happy. People can smell it and it's. It's almost like contagious, right, like the energy is contagious. So it's just also something that's you know as soon as one player gets into that state, it almost it feels like it just spreads and you're not sure how you could. You can leave the huddle and come back to the huddle and be like what happened, I don't understand. But they're not even aware of it, they just smell it Like it's. It's just perceived emotional shift from a sense of scent.
Speaker 1:Right, well, that's interesting, interesting, that's really interesting, you know crazy yeah it could be some, some you know, subconscious level. I know that you know there's days when I have a tough day and you get to the rink and you're just tired and frustrated maybe, uh, but you get on the ice with, like, the little guys and, and just you know, your whole demeanor changes because they're just all happy and excited why I'd be there.
Speaker 1:You're like all right, you know you kind of like smell the youth out of them, you know, feed off their energy their energy and their, their excitement and their happiness and it's just, it's uh.
Speaker 2:You know people will always say it. You know you feel the energy when you walk in the room and you've done it. You have. I've walked into a boardroom, I'm going oh right yeah, not great news.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's happening, but something's not good, right, and you just know. And then you sit down and then you hear the news. You're like, oh yeah, that's not good news, but you can feel it before you even have a clue what the content is. So they're feeling that all of the time and they're not even sure why they're feeling what they're feeling. These teenage years are extremely difficult. They're extremely difficult to parent. They're extremely difficult when you get a team of them together and you're trying to coordinate them to do something pretty, pretty amazing. But yeah, great coaches I've've seen, just like you're saying, are very conscious of what the feeling and the general vibe is of the team right and what you need to do to shift it yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think you know I want to just go back a moment.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I know we're coming up on the hour here, but I want to talk a little bit about the frustration and how you get through it. So you mentioned instances where you're struggling, but you know you're not a bad player. You've done great things in your sport or at your job. You know you're good and you can add value. But you may be struggling at the moment, and so I had something similar with my middle kid where he was struggling a little bit over a few weeks in his game and in school, and I said I know only one way to bring up your confidence and to get back to where you are, and that is just go to work, just get to it, start start grinding. You have the skill. We know you have it because you've shown it before. It doesn't just. You know, skill doesn't just evaporate overnight.
Speaker 1:You know, um, but you know for you to kind of dig into it, you gotta get back to work. So what do you usually recommend in those instances?
Speaker 2:So I do the same thing in a business environment and with the team environment, and I don't just do this with my daughter, I do this with her team, which I just feel like it has to happen. Almost every day, we're focused on what needs to be improved and what needs to be done. Almost every day, we're focused on what needs to be improved and what needs to be done. There's a to-do list that never ends, and they're always striving for that performance enhancements, right, work home, sports. So what we get focused on is all of the gap. Here's the gap from where we are to where we need to go. The gap from where we are to what we need to get done. The gap from where we want to perform to where we are to where we need to go. The gap from where we are to what we need to get done. The gap from where we want to perform to where we're performing. And so I think it's great, because you're constantly trying to improve. You've got how do I learn from my mistakes? But you are seeing a lot of your mistakes and the correction of your mistakes. What I do in both is I create highlight reels, if you will. So in a work environment. What I'll do is I'll take pauses just not scheduled pauses, but pauses and say hang on a second. Guys, do you realize that X time ago this was what was happening? And here's where you are. That's amazing. Look at what you've done. This is phenomenal. You saved 30% efficiency.
Speaker 2:Or you've done this, or you, you, you went and changed these five things for the customers and they love it. Look at, look at what these customers are saying about it. That's amazing. Well, this list over here is 25 million things that are wrong with the customer experience. Uh-huh, but these five ones aren't on it anymore. Look what you've done. And so there's a. There's a ai assisted, um, kind of I don't know program that takes all of the plays that olivia does and all of the it says need a bad pass. You know, good up a bad pass. Then you know not great attack. And she'll go through those with the coaches to be like how can you change your platform? What you can you do blah, blah, blah. And every now and then, what I'll do is I'll put on the TV her highlight reel and I'll just and we'll do it Like we'll grab popcorn, I'll grab the brother, grab the dog. We sit down and we're like you know, we're going to watch. We're going to watch her highlight reel and really like who's playing, who's this player?
Speaker 2:look at that, look at that path. It was amazing. And she's like, okay, I get it. And then sometimes what I'll do is I'll put in one from like when she was 10 and be like now, watch this highlight reel. And she'd go, oh man, so bad. I'm like, no, look how far you've come. Look how far you've come. Look at a cute little thing over there who can't underhand serves and so excited and look at you now just acing it there with this like crazy serve, that's not receivable. And she's like I got it, okay, right? So I think we need to do that for ourselves. Is you know, we we, especially with a computers, our to-do lists don't have all those crossed off things we've done. It just has the list of undone, you know, just to remind ourselves like we've come so far, we've done so much yeah, yeah, and I love that concept like celebrating you, your wins, and celebrating yourself and your accomplishments along the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess the team to like compliment them on nice things that aren't anything volleyball related, right, like you know, when I forgot my lunch and you gave me my lunch, that was so great. Like, start showing appreciation for the things that make you a good human, not just a player we're trying to optimize on the court right or a worker we're trying to get the most out of from their nine to five worker. We're trying to get the most out of from their nine to five. Yeah, we're trying to say these people are humans and they bring these unique human characteristics to work and to the sport and to everything. And I think that well-rounded reminder is just nobody is unhappy at the end of those that I have seen so far. I mean I'm probably going to find somebody now who's like grouchy and mad at me for doing it because I'm on this podcast saying it, but in my experience it's been really great that that that that helps bring perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that. It's almost like a measurement of your progress, right, like, like you just said, like here's where you were, here's where you are today. Progress, right, like you just said, like here's where you were, here's where you are today, so you know you can get to where you're going. Yeah, because you're done here, like it's good, like you're on the way.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't easy, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Right, awesome. Well, I know we're at the top of the hour here. I just wanted to, as you, do a little rapid fire, like three quick questions for all my guests, so I'm going to start firing them off. So first one is what do you think motivates athletes?
Speaker 2:I think that there are two motivations. They're the extrinsic motivations, where there's athletes who, like the glory and the fame that comes with it whatever their parents want drives them. And I think there's intrinsic motivation where there's athletes who truly just want to see how far can I push it, how far can I hit my potential, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1:Awesome Question number two name three character traits you notice in successful athletes.
Speaker 2:Humility, I think, work ethic and kindness.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I like all those three. And then how about three that you think can hold an athlete or professional back?
Speaker 2:I think mindset, so they get in their own way. They start thinking they can't, so they can't. I think when they start believing the Valentines and I think when you lose sight of what you're in it for Awesome, wonderful and Wari.
Speaker 1:I know you go out and you work with other companies and you work with individuals as well. If folks want to find you, how do they do that?
Speaker 2:So right now, uh, they can go to uh laurie-clarkcom. It'll put you to my LinkedIn and uh you'll be able to see what I'm up to and connect if you'd like to.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I thought it was a wonderful conversation. I think you got to touch on a lot of things and and I love that you drew a lot of parallels between athletic world and the professional world, because I don't think that I do that enough on this show, and I'm really, really glad we got to do that today.
Speaker 2:Great. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course. Thank you everybody for joining us tonight and listening and please do share the show with your friends, your family Hopefully it's helpful and reach out with any questions. If you have questions for Lori, I'll be happy to pass them along. Thank you again and have a wonderful evening everyone. We'll see you next time.