E52 | Jesse Wright: Communicate with Hard and Soft Skills

[00:00:00] Donnie: Welcome to the team behind the team podcast. I’m your host, Donnie Maib. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to athletic performance, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, sports science, mental health and wellness, and sports nutrition.

Hello, and welcome back to the team behind the team podcast. I’m your host, Donnie Maib. And man, we are getting close to Christmas and coach Joe Krawczyk is back in the house. Coach Joe, what’s going on today?

[00:00:36] Joe: Oh, not much coach. Fall is winding down. Busy, busy fall, but, uh, it’s a great time of year. Get a little break coming up and then, uh, back at it for the spring.

So I’m excited.

[00:00:46] Donnie: Great. Great to have you back in. I know it’s just been a crazy, busy fall, but good to have you back coach. You got anything you’re looking forward to for Christmas? Any, any kind of like rituals, traditions, what you got for us coach? I

[00:01:00] Joe: think the biggest thing is, uh, my little guy, he he’s, uh, turning two and he’s just be more aware of the whole Christmas thing.

So I’m looking forward to seeing him and how he reacts with all the, you know, presents and stuff. So that’d be fun.

[00:01:14] Donnie: Yeah. We’re excited. We were a big Christmas family. So we are excited to, uh, but with that, I want to just do a brief introduction of our guests today. And we have the distinct privilege of, uh, this individual.

I want to, I want to show him some love and then I’m going to reveal and we’re gonna do a little reveal here in a second. Um, but this guy has just got a. I mean, you couldn’t ask for a better resume working in the NBA with the 76ers for 14 years. Um, best selling author. Uh, I’ll talk about his book in a minute.

Uh, strength, strength coach of the year at NBA president, National Basketball Strength and Conditioning Association, chairman, pre draft, pre draft combine, um, on and on. Training consultant. Huge star studded career coach, Jesse, right? Welcome to

[00:02:03] Jesse: the show coach. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

I’m really excited for our, for our little chat here. Yeah, this

[00:02:11] Donnie: is something, uh, coach Joe, we’ve been talking about for a while. So real quick, my first interaction and meeting coach Jesse was, I think it was at the 2017, uh, the Templo high performance symposium, I had no idea who Jesse was in like right away.

Was just so not only blown away, but impressed. Here’s a guy that’s got just, I mean, you look at his, his resume and you just, you ain’t going to find a better one on the planet in our profession. But just so like authentic and engaging and just humble and just inspired you just being around him. So coach, this is a privilege and we, we’re going to learn a lot today.

I know we’re going to be excited. So glad you’re

[00:02:53] Jesse: here. Well, thank you for all those kind words. And, uh, your, your, your check is in the Venmo. It’s on its way over. Sure. And I should say too, I love that you attached Tim’s name to that, to that high performance symposium because he was all of it. He put so much juice and energy into, into those couple of years that he did those.

And yeah, what an amazing human. And he did, he brought people together and, and, you know, I’m thankful for a bunch of reasons, but, you know, to your point to get a chance to meet you and, uh, for the very first time and just share that at that event in general.

[00:03:24] Donnie: Appreciate it, coach. That’s awesome. That’s a legendary event for sure.

Yeah. Um, so I’ll kick it off. The first question and Joe go right behind me. But, uh, this show really is all about just a high performance team within sports. Uh, the team behind the team and you’ve had a ton of experience, uh, in that field from your successful career. What is high performance to you coach?

And what have you seen that sets a high performance team environment apart? So what is it and kind of what sets it apart in your

[00:03:55] Jesse: experience? Yeah, it’s a great kickoff question and every place I’ve been, college pro, private sector and everything I think takes on a bit of a different, uh, a bit of a different look and maybe even a bit of a different definition, right?

Because it’s all rooted in people all the time. And I think when you talk about the concept of high performance, it’s not a. There’s not a hard and fast sort of like Wikipedia or, you know, dictionary definition. Everybody sort of has their own brand and their own flavor to it. Kind of like functional training or, or leadership, right?

There’s just so many different versions just depending on who you ask. So to me, it’s, it’s, it’s a unit, a group that’s definitely, that’s working together. Got to, got to be a, an assemblance of people together that outperform others. You know, consistently achieve success in their space. However, you’re going to measure it in that space.

Maybe it’s net profit. Maybe it is wins and losses or, you know, reduced injury risk or, um, you know, go, you make the best fettuccine Alfredo in a restaurant space or, you know, who knows how it’s measured, but you’re consistently out, outperforming others. And you’ve figured out a formula for, you know, sort of extraordinary success, if I could say it that way.

So then it’s like, okay, well, what does that look like? How do you, how do you get there? And to me, I, I gave some thought to this in prep for the talk here. I like the word security. Particularly as it pertains to high performance sport. If you have, and this is sort of rooted in, you know, anybody that spent time in that space and sport, like there’s a lot of insecurity in high performance sport, it’s a very prestigious world to work in and it’s difficult to get into.

For sure when you work at a very high level, so that breeds a lot of protective people. Once you get there, you want to stay there, right? And which leads to a lot of insecurity, sometimes misguided. But why say that? Because when you can sort of work through that. And find your way, navigate your way through that to, to more of a secure side.

I think it leads to so much great stuff that would lead to high performance success. It would lead to better dialogue where you feel secure enough to have a professional argument with your colleagues, right? And you don’t feel like the relationship is going to fail. You feel secure enough to maybe challenge an athlete.

Well, you know, to hold them accountable when maybe you didn’t feel like you were, you know, maybe it was your place to do that. At one point in time, you feel secure enough to push limits on innovation and not do things just the way they’ve always been done, because that’s the safe route. Um, so to me, it’s a, it’s a security which would lead you to high performance habits.

That’s sort of my, my take on it that I, uh, you know, sort of thought through and in a bit of an alternative view.

[00:06:46] Donnie: Joe, hold on. I got one question. That’s you just spurred something. Um, the book is called, uh, leaders eat last by Simon Sinek. He talks about that circle of safety because that’s kind of what I hear you saying within your team.

Coach, how have you dealt with like silos and like turf wars? Because I know you’ve you’ve run up against that 100%. Like, how do you manage and navigate? Like, what are some of the kind of like core principles or thoughts? How you dealt with that in your in your experience?

[00:07:19] Jesse: Yeah, it’s super difficult. They exist everywhere for sure.

And, you know, again, I’m going back even to like, you know, college or maybe even, you know, high school worlds when you have all those little, you know, clicks that you all, you know, that could easily apply when you talk about that word silo. Um, I, you know, the, the, the word is communication for sure. Um, finding ways to understand what it is people need to hear, to do their, to perform their role well, and being okay, passing that information along.

I think it’s the only way to break down silos that you understand that. Again, leaning on high performance sport, what we’re talking about here that it should be an athlete first mentality that the athletes are the show and everything everybody can do to support them and enhance their presence and enhance what they do on the field or the court or the ice should be the primary objective.

And if you can Sort of start with that end in mind, then you’re willing to pass along the information in the various different quote silos that exist in a high performance environment. You’re talking training room, you’re talking weight room, you’re talking sports science data, you’re talking medical, you’re talking.

Soft tissue, you’re talking mental performance and then rise into the coaching staff and you know, even over to the administrative side, all of those people are invested in the success of the logo and can benefit from hearing some version of a message to do their job better. So when you understand that and the second part of that, you’re willing to pass along that information, the, the, the, the messaging that you represent in your world, you’re willing to pass that along.

I think that’s the only solution to breaking through silos that you, you begin with that mentality and then actually act on it. And I can’t tell you that happened in all the worlds that I worked in where I worked in some really good ones. And I worked in some ones that were, you know, the, the shining definition of siloed and, um.

The, the, the latter one you walked around, there was like a weight to the day. There was like a heaviness in the hallways. And it was like, God, this sucks. Like I, I wish that person would have told me that I could have done my role better. And then, you know, when you’re in the other one, you feel like you’re in a good world where you’re getting your information and you feel communicated to and informed.

You’re like, man, like we’re doing some good stuff here, you know? And that’s just sort of the general sense. Yeah, I like how

[00:09:36] Joe: you tie, uh, you know, securities and communication together when, when it comes to like a high performance model, because I’ve, I’ve seen times in the past where insecurity breaks down communication or makes communication very, very awkward.

Um, and it’s like some of the things people say, well, the high level of insecurity is like, sometimes they didn’t realize they say something and it’s just like. What did you, what did you just say, you know, what are you, what are you doing? And then all of a sudden, uh, all of a sudden it’s kind of, you know, an awkward place for everybody.

And then you kind of started developing silos from, from that point maybe too. So I kind of like where you’re going with that, that

[00:10:13] Jesse: connection. Yeah. Yeah, I think most people can think to their, their years working and maybe identify one or two people that are more rooted in hoarding information, right?

And, and, and purposely don’t pass it along because that represents power, right? Either like, I’m going to force people to come to me and that makes me feel a little more important or it’s just never passed along. Right. And it positions them as sort of the answer person, although, you know, and the one that people need to go to for answers, even if it’s not in that space.

Um, and that sucks, you know, that, that sucks that type of environment. Um, but, you know, you hope with dialogue like this and more conversations and everything, people start to realize the other side is a, is certainly a more effective formula. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:59] Joe: Well, coach, you filled various roles over the years, uh, working, you know, what, what role do you enjoy the most

[00:11:05] Jesse: and why?

Oh, that one’s easy. I’m going to venture outside of professional. I’m going to go father. That, that, that one’s easy. Ten, ten times over. Um. And to tie the professional element into it, once I became a father, I think I became a better coach and I know I’m not the only one to say that, but you just learned so much on how to, uh, live your days each day through highs and lows and you know, the inevitable emotions that factor into, you know, having.

Kids and you know what, what they deal with in each of their days and they come to you for advice and counsel, or maybe they don’t come to you for advice and counsel. And, you know, you have to make a decision on whether you want to insert yourself to help them or not. And there are different ways to communicate different things.

Um, Again, like I, I, I used to joke about this all the time. I’ve told this story a couple of times. Like my world as a strength coach started with older individuals, right? I started at a college and pro level and then finally got down. I did work with kids in the private space, but one of the biggest challenges I had in all of coaching.

Is when I volunteered to coach my son’s six year old flag football team. And it was like, you know, you’re used to delivering cues and your coaching messages to a certain population at a certain age. And it’s like, no, man, now you got to dial it down. You get, you have to right size it for. You know, a five or six year old kid that still needs to understand.

You still need to deliver the results and execute the plays, teach the play, make sure they’re in the right spot. And, and, uh, it sort of brings to light this idea that you hear all the time too. I mean, it’s most of what we do is complex and, uh, and super, uh, involved on the backend. But you have to simplify it when you deliver it, when you get on stage, right?

The really practical, powerful coaches or teachers or educators can simplify that message, really complicated information and help people to understand it in a really impactful way. Uh, and I think, I think being a, for becoming a father helped me do that better and believe me, I’m still on a, on a big journey for that, but, um, but father is my answer to that for sure.

[00:13:11] Joe: I can’t quite echo that yet. Mine’s approaching too, but I, I hear the terrible twos is probably like a masterclass in communication. So I’m getting ready. I’m gearing up coach.

[00:13:20] Jesse: Oh, you’re good. You’re we’ll see. Five years, man. You really are getting a little personality and everything. Yeah.

[00:13:28] Donnie: Well, coach, you’re a, you’re also, you’re recently a bestselling author, your newest book.

The intent is to grow. If you have not picked that up, pause your podcast. Go put that in your Amazon bucket right now. Uh, Coach, what’s the book about and like, what inspired you? Give us a little behind the scenes.

[00:13:50] Jesse: Yeah, I’ll start with the second answer first. The real inspiration came from you know, sort of these things that I would have loved to know.

The 23 year old version of me coming out and, you know, being tasked with being a head strength coach for the first time at, you know, the ripe old age of 23 and a very fortunate opportunity I got with NFL Europe and, um, stumbled nearly daily on on the leadership elements of being a head strength coach for an NFL affiliate.

Uh, and then some of the other early, um, learning opportunities. We call those right. That’s the better word for our failures. right? Because they’re all growth opportunities, right? All the mistakes we made and everything. And and gosh, you learned so much from that transition from being an assistant or an intern or volunteer to a head person.

And it’s all it’s all drew. It’s much less about sets and reps and volume and movement patterns and progressions. And it’s so much more tied to leadership and human interaction and All of that stuff. So you look back and you’re like, man, I would have loved for some, for a resource to be able to learn a little bit about that, you know, early on, before you make a lot of those mistakes.

Um, so that was sort of the inspiration for the book and the story. Is it’s a business parable, and it’s so it’s a novel. It’s a fiction book, but it’s a professional development book told through a story, and it talks about the journey of a young strength and conditioning coach who lands his graduate assistant at a fictional division one university.

And that university recognizes that soft skills, interpersonal skills are are a powerful set of characteristics and qualities to teach in in their high performance department. So they’ve set up this week long orientation program for all of the new employees that enter the university environment, and they meet with six different mentors to teach them a different interpersonal skill, a different attribute.

So you follow the path of this young strength coach as he meets with these six mentors and, you know, learned about communication and emotional intelligence and self awareness and his leadership style and his work ethic and his professionalism, all from these mentors that have, you know, carved out their own level of success in those spaces on what’s really cool is that as I talked to you guys, and I did this purposefully purposely is that the anyone that’s worked in a team environment, um, Can identify with not only sort of the lead characters, but also the secondary characters that are in the book that there’s roles that people would know they’ve dealt with in an athletic department.

There’s a VP of academic support. There’s a retired athletic director. There’s a director of women’s basketball operations all telling these stories. These are all people that if you’ve worked in sport, you’ve interacted with these roles and these positions. And I wanted people to be able to place themselves in these situations and see themselves within the characters to be able to, to tell the story.

Uh, so that’s sort of the background behind it. Yeah, I love the,

[00:16:50] Donnie: I love not only the story of that, but it is well needed. I mean, I just Right before we hopped on this interview, I was meeting with our interns here at Texas, just talking about the exact same thing you just talked about, like what it will take to be, not only get a shot in this profession, but to be successful.

And it was back to everything you just said, the lessons you learned from the mistakes you made. Um, and I remember hearing a guy recently, I love the, that it’s, it’s a fictional book. It’s like a parable because I heard somebody say recently, don’t ever make a point without telling the story. Don’t ever tell a story without making a point.

And so many people today, uh, they need to, to not only know the stories, but hear the stories. But then that’s, again, my opinion just of, of doing this long enough. You remember so much more lessons and points. And you you remember retain more from stories and parables than you do anything else. So that’s good stuff coach

[00:17:48] Jesse: Yeah, I love that quote.

And, um, again, there, there was a bit of a sequence to, to how it ended up that way too, or, or a journey, I guess. Um, I originally started off once I committed to doing the book, I did originally start off, uh, penning it as a nonfiction sort of in text citation, you know, leadership resource that we would read from, you know, any of the other big names out there, the Brené Browns and the Adam Grants and the, you know, the Simon Sennett, you know, those types of people, and I was reading another.

business parable at the time. I talk about this in the intro of the book, uh, and it dawned on me, I think in a shower one morning or something like that. And it’s like, Hey, you know what? As I’m getting to a couple of pages of this thing, it would actually be pretty cool to teach it as a story. And rather than talk about the literature behind emotional intelligence and cite some of those high level resources, why not create an emotionally intelligent character and show her.

caring for athletes and demonstrate her caring approach to her role within an athletic department. And wouldn’t that be a really cool way to deliver the story about, you know, why and how you could be emotionally intelligent and compassion and empathic and all that stuff too. And I, I pivoted right out of it and, you know, started creating some character profiles and everything.

And, uh, yeah, I thought that would be a better way to teach the content. Yeah, and

[00:19:06] Joe: I like how, um, this kind of flows into our next question, um, because it seems like it’s aimed towards, you know, like the young strain coach up and coming and everything. You know, if you, if you were to sit down in front of our listeners right now, um, what advice would you give them for starting out their career in a, as you know, a performance professional and you know, how, how, how do they know what lane to run in?

[00:19:31] Jesse: Yeah. The. I think my one thought I think that could be most powerful that there’s a whole big list of things you’d love to be able to tell young coaches the age old advice where you’re the, you know, you become the average of the five people you surround, you know, you spend time with and everything that that I think is just so incredibly real and powerful and impactful and true and I don’t know.

And I was told that early. Right. I probably heard that maybe in high school or maybe even earlier. I don’t remember exactly when, but I do know I have heard that for a long time, but it never really dawned on me until you start, you get older, you start reflecting and you start thinking about your own personal pathway and sort of how you have arrived at where you are.

And that is, it’s so true. And I look at some of the circles that I’ve had in the various, in the various environments that I’ve been fortunate enough to be in and each one of them shaped me in the moment. For sure, you know, the people that you were around and sometimes not in a great way, you know, sometimes, you know, the, the, the average of your five brings you down, you know, and, and takes you down a road that maybe looking backwards, you would have rather not have to be on or, or choose to be on.

So it’s real. And I, that, that’s my advice to young practitioners is choose your circle wisely and, uh, and try to spend time around people, the bulk of your time around people that are roughly where you want to be. And talk about the things that you would like to know and model the type of behavior that, that those people, um, display around people and everything.

It’s inevitable, right? And we talk about this a lot with, with coaches and everything. Uh, you’ll, you’ll, you know, talk about like your coaching cues or how you would handle yourself in a weight room. You know, again, the, the, the 20 year old version of me, when I forgot my first opportunity, I spoke and cued and.

Led exactly like the gentleman that hired me for the first time. Like I just emulated what I saw him do. Cause I had no other reference points at all. Right. And, and luckily he was awesome. He was great, but he also had a personality that lent itself to that style. So as I started to get my own opportunities, it was like, Oh, it didn’t feel fake, but it didn’t feel authentic, right.

That I was just trying to replicate sort of his approach. That’s what worked for him. And then you end up sort of, you know, figuring out your own way that’s real. And, and, um, And genuine according to your personality and what you feel works, but it’s just an example where it’s like, just by osmosis or whatever work you want to use, just by being around that person, you know, you started to sort of take on those types of characteristics to some degree.

And I, I’ve gotten that same type of story from other young people who emulate, you know, early on. Uh, so it’s important who you, who you surround yourself with for sure. Coach. Yeah, real quick.

[00:22:22] Donnie: You remind me of my first couple of years here in Texas. I was a young string coach and you’re spot on. Like I ended up spending, it wasn’t like by design, but it really shaped my, my knowing philosophy as a coach, but also like the passions was a coach.

Dan path was a track coach here at the time.

[00:22:43] Jesse: Incredible, incredible

[00:22:44] Donnie: coach. And I was just able to literally be in his hip pocket constantly. And Dan had such an influence on me as a young coach. Early on that I am, I still look back and now I think that was for two years coach and I got to spend to end up moving on and going taking a job somewhere else.

But man, those couple of years to your point that will shape not only the type of coach you are, but also the role you end up playing and then the skill set you have. So that small circle. , those five people is huge. So I I love that. Yeah. I think

[00:23:17] Joe: it’s interesting too, like, I mean, we’re kind of looking at like a, like a long game perspective, right?

Like you, you surround yourself with people that are gonna help you throughout your career. I mean, I, I would challenge anyone, like try, try it out like tonight and tomorrow night, go hang out with someone who likes to, likes to be more social and go hang out with someone who’s a little more studious and see what you end up doing.

Tonight with them. You know what I mean? And it’s like it’s to me. It’s almost like an immediate impact and obviously last a long time. But you’re absolutely right. Like I remember my roommate in college was just always on something and I was always looking at him like how can I take what he’s doing and apply it to my studies and stuff like that.

So it’s it’s so true.

[00:23:58] Donnie: Well, hey, I think that bridges right to the question. Uh, this is my favorite question of the coach. Jesse, um, you have a consulting organization, right? That’s is it balanced the bar, correct?

[00:24:12] Jesse: Uh, yeah, that that’s sort of one division of the consultancy. That’s the interpersonal skill in the leadership development side.

But yeah, that that is a part of what I do, you know, sort of those those resources to grow that skill set. Um,

[00:24:26] Donnie: to that point, in your opinion and from your experience. What’s more important? Uh, soft skills like people skills or the X’s and O’s of knowledge and hard skills. What’s more important coach?

[00:24:40] Jesse: I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna give the cop out answer and I know it’s not great for media or podcast so, you know, you need to take a position and everything, but I Believe and I’ve I’ve said in many different forums that um that there doesn’t need to be a hierarchy.

I Try to stress with balance. The bar is right in the logo that they deserve equal attention. Right. Without a doubt, we all start off in the common pathways, building your technical knowledge, and we we seek out our degrees and our licenses and our certifications, and that is necessary. It always will be.

It’s the core of what we do and should always remain, you know, sort of the central piece of a really a high performing practitioner. My thing is just work on the other side as well. Balance out that skilled development where you’re not always so heavy on the technical, but you do work on the interpersonal side as well.

That said, the second answer, I do have a very sort of strong belief that where that that is the harder part to learn for sure, to answer the second piece to your question, the technical side is sort of, for the most part, mapped out for us, like we know when you leave, when you figure out what it is you want to try to learn from a secondary education standpoint, you sort of know how to do that, right?

You go to university, you go to a technical school. So, After university, maybe you, you seek out an advanced degree and you know, the core coursework is going to kind of be handed to you on some type of list. I know what classes I need to register for, right. And all of that’s building your, your technical knowledge in some degree.

And in a lot of detail in some examples, um, there isn’t as clear of an education pathway for interpersonal skills. It’s not, you know, those aren’t sexy, you know, you don’t get a degree for being a great communicator. You don’t get a certificate for being emotionally intelligent and you don’t really. How important they are until you get sort of years or maybe even decades into your career, where it’s like, you know, I’m glad I had this example that I had some really strong interpersonally, um, skilled people around me.

Cause that’s how I learned it. Um, Or I made some mistakes and I realized I need to be a lot better communicator because a lot of people came back to me and said, you know, told me the other way, like you need to pass along messages better. And, you know, maybe in, in, uh, sometimes more difficult, uh, difficult, uh, ways.

And, um, So that is, and for a long time, I mean, again, prior to the, prior to the internet, there, there probably weren’t easy ways to even learn to do that. You would probably need to go to a workshop or pay for a weekend course to be a better communicator if they even existed. Now there’s a lot more online resources and it’s become a lot more of a, of a sought out skill set to learn, which is awesome.

Uh, can’t, um, can’t agree with that more. But that is the more difficult one to learn for sure, you know, to grow interpersonally. And I should say too, because it takes a lot of self awareness to take, you know, to go back to sort of what we talked about in terms of security, humility, being humble, uh, being able to recognize where you may or may not be strong on that side.

It takes a sort of a, um, a humble individual and a self aware person to go, you know what, I, um, I don’t feel I’m a strong enough leader right now. I want to be a competent, accomplished training, conditioning coach, but I don’t feel comfortable in front of a room right now, right? I feel really good on carbohydrate nutrition and learned everything I could about velocity based training and ran.

I love my functional anatomy, but it’s my leadership that I think is my deficiency right now, and I want to seek out ways to grow that. And that’s hard. That’s that’s a hard admission. Sometimes it really is because it speaks to the human you are. Um, but it’s necessary. And I think it is the more difficult piece if you’re looking at those two sort of Con Ed development options.

I want

[00:28:37] Donnie: to jump on this real quick, Joe. I think this is so powerful. Um, and I love that Tim Elmore is a guy that I don’t even know. I’ve heard of Dr Tim Elmore. He’s based out of Atlanta. He does a ton of like research, written books on this general, this young generation of leaders we got coming up. And he says, this was recently I read in one of his blogs, he says, social research is confirmed that calculated risk accelerate maturation in a way a video or lecture In no way that a video lecture or a video or lecture can basically like the social, the soft skills, you’re not going to learn that, uh, taking a class or reading a book or watching something online, you’re going to have to get into a real live situation where there’s going to be calculated risk.

You’re going to make mistakes. And you can mature and grow more from that to your point because it’s harder to learn. And he basically says his kind of main point, Jesse, is like, uh, what did he say up here at the top? Exposure is up, but experience is down right now. Like our kids are getting a ton of.

Exposure to knowledge and information, but their experiential piece is just not there. And that gap is missing. And that is so much needed. I think Joe could probably speak to that too. Just seeing a lot of the interns that are coming in today. They’re lacking. I would say even full time staff, younger full time staff.

Lacked that emotional intelligence of soft skills of how to deal with relationships, and it’s just lacking the thing.

[00:30:06] Joe: Yeah, I agree. I think, um, like I was, I was kind of fortunate way to come in older as an intern, uh, at UT and seeing how some of the younger interns act around the athletes, things like that.

They just kind of had a long way to go. You know, they have trouble either saying the thing that they, you know, they don’t want to say like that. That hard correction or telling an athlete to stop doing something, you know, even, you know, the hard conversations, like, you know, they’re worried about hurting feelings or something like that.

And it’s like, There’s a way to still do that, not hurt someone’s feelings. And, you know, we still have to be professional and everything, but, um, it’s, it’s stuff that takes time. It takes time to have those quick little hard combos to set everything right back and, uh, and keep moving. But, um, kind of bridging into my end of the next question.

You know, we’re all trying to learn how to fill those gaps. You know, we kind of talked about it, like, like work on those soft and hard skills. Coach, what do you think is the best way to attack those? You know, is it books? Is it courses? Is it, um, seminars? You know, what, what does probably work best for you?

And what do you think is kind of something that’s going to work better

[00:31:15] Jesse: in the future? Yeah, I think coach just said it best. I think it does have to be a combination. I think there are enough resources again, whether you’re going into the research world and you’re digging into the literature, which there is a lot of, I was, I was pleasantly surprised as I, I pieced together the literature for the book and the course that I built and everything that there is a lot of research and literature from some really smart people out there about all of these topics.

Um, not all of it is angled in sports, right? Some of it is, there is some good stuff, but you reach into the sociology world, the psychology world, um, even it’s software development, a lot of case studies and everything that there’s some, some really cool ways to read about how people grow this. And the importance and the significance of it.

So I think that always remains the foundation because it’s there and you can do it on your own time. And there’s just so many resources available literally a couple clicks away that, that to, to, to click on a YouTube video or to take an online course or something. I think those are always valuable. But to, to coach’s point.

We’re talking interpersonal. It’s right in the definition. It involves more than one person, right? So you have to get your hands dirty. It’s got to be experiential learning where you actually do attempt to be, you know, to take a more empathic approach with people and attempt to improve your communication skills and conflict resolution.

And those those moments where again, as a coach, there are it. All of these countless opportunities to that of, of conflict and confrontation that you need to be comfortable with, you know, right down to approaching an athlete and, you know, and in whatever manner you choose to do it, tell them that their hip hinges off, right?

And you, you know, you know, paraphrasing a little bit today, simplifying it, but You didn’t do that, right? I’m tasked with helping you do that better. And the first thing you have to understand is you’re not doing it correctly right now. So here’s here’s the next steps to that. I’m going to help you do that.

But there’s a certain level of confrontation that you need to be comfortable with to do that well over and over and over over the course of a workout or semester or four or five year term that you’re dealing with an athlete and you get better at it as you do it more. But you wouldn’t get better at it just so.

You know, kind of taking a, you know, watching a video or learning about how to get better at it. So, um, I, I think it’s both. Uh, I’ll tell you as I again, you know, moved out of the team world and moved into this consultant space. I’ve gone through a number of different iterations of my own continuing education to stay sharp and, you know, stay up to speed with some of the.

Some of the stuff that’s out there, and I usually spend my con Ed time. You know, it’s a minimum of 30 minutes a day. Sometimes it’s more, but I bucket it into categories, and I make sure that I’m working on something technically that I want to learn more about and something interpersonally, some type of topic.

You know, again, it’s this kind of, you know, two buckets of stuff that you would want to learn. Um, but that I do segregate time out for both of them. And a lot of times, you know, the 30 minutes on interpersonal might be reading, you know, an interesting book that’s out there or something like that. And the, the technical part might be a course about, you know, data visualization or, you know, something like that, but, but to actually, because both of them are important to be a strong and impactful practitioner that you’re always seeking out ways to, to learn both of them.

[00:34:37] Donnie: Coach, just just for reference, uh, we’ll put this in the show notes, but where can our listeners find more on your app and course, how do they, how do we get them to, to, to look into that?

[00:34:48] Jesse: Yeah, the, the easiest way is going to the website, uh, balance the bar dot com. There are a number of links at the first couple of pages are just information about the, the initiative and sort of the, the rationale behind the, uh, the brand and the, and the company and everything.

But there is a, there’s an online course that you can take. It’s called the next great teammate, next great leader, uh, eight different modules that all again, you know, teach a, um, background rationale behind why you want to grow this set and then, you know, six different modules that I’ll teach a different attribute and it’s drawn right from the foundation that was laid in the book, the two are very related.

You know, the book sort of launched it to the world in the way that I thought would be helpful. And, uh, the course is, you know, doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on how to learn those attributes. Uh, so the course is there and, um, and then the, the, the most recent one and, um, I think around showtime or so, this will have been out for about a month or two.

Uh, the balance, the bar app where, uh, they’re, uh, on the Apple store and soon to be on, uh, Google play as well. Uh, a free app that is basically a resource, sort of a, a hub for interpersonal skill development in high performance sport. And it’s packed with a ton of free content and interviews with, you know, reputable names in high performance and book summaries and, you know, published research in there that can help.

Again, it’s all angled and is. in high performance sport relevance. So young practitioners for the most part can probably benefit tremendously if they haven’t sought out ways to learn this, but good resource for anybody that works in this space for sure. That’s awesome.

[00:36:25] Donnie: We’ll definitely we’ll definitely check that out.

Make sure our listeners get that info. Thank you for sharing that coach.

[00:36:31] Jesse: I appreciate the chance to speak about it. Yeah, no,

[00:36:34] Donnie: it’s great resource and we need that. I think 99. 9 percent of the coaches I’ve seen that do well, they’ve got really high level soft skills. And so we need that. We need those resources.

So thank you. Um, question here. If you were to look in your crystal ball, like As a high performance coach and leader, what are some trends? Would you say the next three to five, 10 years, even that’s coming down the pipe?

[00:37:01] Jesse: What are you seeing? Yeah, I love this question because you can take it in so many different directions.

I think all of them somehow have to involve technology, right? I mean, that’s just it, it, it, it, it has infiltrated our world and who knows where it’s going, but it’s definitely not going away. And in some ways it makes our jobs a lot easier. And in some ways it makes it more challenging. So I believe sort of the.

The pathway with technology. If you just look backwards, sort of how it’s evolved. Um, and I remember, you know, sort of listening to these types of conversations being in some rooms where it was discussed and then just understanding the landscape of the pro sports. There’s all these sort of this dialogue and some arguments about wearable technology.

Right. Athletes wearing sensors to be able to capture objective, you know, information about what it is they’re going about, whether it’s in a gym environment, a weight room environment on the field, uh, and and us, you know, high performance practitioners using that information is to to inform decision. And there’s all these sort of, um, Systems and people talking about what’s fair to put on an athlete, what’s not and all that stuff.

And, you know, the league set up different rules in and around that challenge. Well, the tech world is moving so fast that I believe we are quickly going to be in a world where nearly anything you want to capture is sensorless and markerless and we’re in that space. Almost already. Uh, and it’s quickly going there even more.

Um, you know, you just use, you know, coach, you and I would have would have had to use a, you know, if you wanted to assess bar velocity, you would have had to strap attend. Oh, unit on 25 30 years ago, right now, probably would have been the only field option to be able to do that. Uh, and then you move to, you know, VBT and Jim aware and, you know, some of the sensors, all that stuff.

Well, now you just set up an iPad or, you know, you put a computer vision camera on your rack and you can sense anything you need right now. And the athlete doesn’t need to turn anything on. It’s just a it’s a it’s a, um, Um, a monitoring environment, and you can just go about your business without even really kind of knowing you’re being monitored and you collect all the information afterward.

Um, again, you know, getting urine specific gravity or hydration status from a from an instrumented urinal and toilet, you know, and now you can capture that information without having to, you know, run it through a lab or something. And, you know, you look at computer vision and some of the GPS and some of the player tracking data that’s out there.

Again, some of the biggest arguments in pro sport five to 10 years ago was what’s fair to ask a player to put on his body to, to, to capture external loading metrics. Well, guess what the cameras can do it now, you know, artificial intelligence and pose rendering and all that stuff. You’re just taking it from the network’s camera feed and they’re getting really good at capturing that validly and reliably.

Um, so we’re moving into this world where it’s just sort of going to be a monitored world where you just go about your business and, you know, go back 40 or 50 years. You went about your business, but nothing was being captured, then you go through the sensor world. And now we’re going to arrive at this other conclusion 3, 5, 10 years from now, where you’re doing it again without having anything on.

But now it’s all being captured and we’re using that information to inform decisions. So I think that is a trend. If you look backwards recently and you look at sort of the landscape of what’s happening right in front of us, I think it’s getting there quickly.

[00:40:25] Donnie: Coach, you made me think of, uh, I’m a big, I don’t know if any of you, Joe, I don’t know if y’all are big Rocky fans.

[00:40:31] Jesse: Are you kidding me? I mean, I’m right. I’m here in Philadelphia talking to

[00:40:36] Donnie: you. That’d be like a, that’d be a mortal sin. If you don’t like Rocky, you live in Philly, but

[00:40:42] Jesse: that’s right.

[00:40:43] Donnie: Rocky four, right? When he’s training to beat Drago, he’s got Drago’s got all the. Technology, the scientist, he’s got, you know, measuring pounds per square inch on his punch, his power.

He’s taking steroids, right? Rocky’s out in the mountains, carrying logs, working in snow, in a barn and it’s like old school versus new school, right? It’s like. Do you completely just do away with the old school and just go new school? Or is there, I think there’s these, I think we’re going to see some of these old school methodologies that kind of tend to kind of come back around because they’re just so important.

I think the book, uh, Daniel Coyle talks about it in the culture code. Also like the, the Navy seals, Joe’s you’re, you’re, you’re from the military. Like you’ve been logged PT. Like there’s something about taking a log. With a group of guys and just breaking them down the bond that you just can’t do that with technology.

There’s no other way around it. So I think that’s it’s gonna be hard to get rid of that. I think down the road.

[00:41:44] Jesse: So I love the dynamic again going to rocky for training and you got Drago. He’s got that big frame around his shoulders and his back and he’s got that transverse plane rotation. You have all the metrics behind him and everything.

And then you flash to rocky. He’s got like a horse harness on his shoulder. It’s like this. That’s awesome. Comparison. Uh, I always thought that was the one that stood out the best. Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:42:11] Donnie: had a quick, I had a quick question,

[00:42:13] Joe: coach, just kind of based off the same question. You know, I’m sure over the years, your communication style has changed.

Um, How do you talk to athletes and things like that? How do you anticipate it changing into the future from, you know, from where we are now, because I think when people think of strength coaches play from the past, I think maybe like a lot of yelling, a lot of like militaristic style coaching. And I think that’s changed a lot.

Um, you know, where do you see

[00:42:38] Jesse: that going? You know, it’s, it’s, it’s unique because there’s, there’s a greater opportunity to, you know, again, what’s the word customized, personalized, individualized, uh, staffs are growing that that’s clear, right? There’s, there’s more and more teams are adding more and more resources, uh, more assistance, more intern level help, all of that stuff.

I think that I don’t know why that would. I don’t see a world where that would change. I think at some point it’s probably capped. Budgets are real, but you know, the world of having one strength coach for a team of 30 is probably gone, I would think. So what that does is give you a chance to have better communication opportunities and, and to spend more time, you know, it’s less time with the actual task of being a coach or an athletic trainer or PT and more time to spend to get to know the individual.

So I think that’s where that could go, where, where once you’re you, you recognize it’s valuable to invest that time to understand the human being behind the athlete and understand that they have values and objectives and goals and religious beliefs and family and everything, just like we do, and you actually take the time to learn that about them, that that can frame better dialogue and better conversation.

And now in all of your technical interactions, whether you’re talking about Yeah. They need to adjust their nutritional strategies. You want to introduce a new recovery strategy or you know why you want to move them from a, you know, a squat, certain squat pattern, go from bilateral unilateral, I don’t know, you know, pick pick some type of technical discussion, but you can shape that in and around the human that You that you know they are based on those other conversations, and it becomes a lot more impactful, and it becomes a and you have a much better chance of that sort of arrow hitting the bullseye and them accepting this new intervention or this something that you’re trying to present to them because you’ve presented it to them as something that can help them as an individual, the person that you know, versus just this blanket intervention or this blanket strategy that you’re throwing at everybody.

Great. Um, so I think that represents the chance to be able to have more impactful communication and, uh, and growing staffs, I think, are leading that it gives you a greater opportunity to understand, uh, athletes more as an individual. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:44:52] Joe: Um, coach, did you have anything else? Oh, well, um, one last thing, coach, where, where can our listeners connect with you?

Um, what, where’s the best place for them to reach

[00:45:05] Jesse: you or. Yep. Uh, social media wise, I’m most active on Instagram. So it’s at Jesse K. Right. Uh, always in and out of DMS for sure. I love hearing from people and people dropping me messages and everything. So, uh, I can’t, I can’t say I’m immediately responsive, but definitely within the day or so.

And so that, that’s a great way to get me on social media. I’m on LinkedIn as well. And then if you go to the balance, the bar website, all of those emails come directly to me. So anybody can email me through that site. Uh, as well. And, uh, and I welcome that, you know, certainly from the, the listenership that I believe is probably part of this community that you guys built.

I would welcome the chance to engage with any, any, any one of them. Any questions that we talked about on topic here or anything outside of it with high performance that I could, I could be of some kind of help. I welcome those chances. Awesome.

[00:45:57] Donnie: Good stuff. That’s it for today. Coach Jesse, thank you for your time.

And most importantly, thank you for giving back to the profession and helping us all get better and making all of us better leaders. And hopefully again, coach, I think your app and the courses in your book are so timely for social, uh, soft skills that we need so much today. So thank you for doing that and keep up the good work and changing the game for us.

We appreciate you, coach.

[00:46:26] Jesse: Well, thank you for saying all of that. And thank you for the opportunity to talk and engaged. I truly do appreciate it. So I appreciate the time.

[00:46:35] Donnie: That’s it. Uh, we appreciate everybody tuning in. This is Donnie Maib, coach Joe Krawczyk and coach Jesse Wright. On the team behind the team coming to you from Austin, Texas, you’ll have a great Christmas.

We’ll catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode of the team Behind the Team podcast. For future episodes, go to iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, or Stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show and great content. So if you have a moment, please go to iTunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re doing.

I’m Donnie Maib, and thanks so much for tuning in.