Brett Bartholomew stops by the booth to talk shop with Donnie Maib. Brett dives into a plethora of topics that expand the role of performance coaches. He revisits the intricacies and importance of building buy-in, having transparent communication, and having skin in the game. Other subjects that Brett shares his thoughts on include his influencers, the process of writing a book, the governing bodies of certification, marketing in strength & conditioning, adding value to yourself and others, and career evolution. It\u2019s imperative to note that Brett\u2019s principles can be applied far beyond strength & conditioning!<\/p>\n
Brett wears many hats as a strength & conditioning coach, best-selling author, philanthropist, and more. His experience includes coaching athletes in the private sector, collegiate field, and in the U.S. Special Forces. Altogether, Brett has coached a wide-range of athletes from youth athletes to Olympians across 23 sports. For more information, visit artofcoaching.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett Bartholomew stops by the booth to talk shop with Donnie Maib. Brett dives into a plethora of topics that expand the role of performance coaches. He revisits the intricacies and importance of building buy-in, having transparent communication, and having skin in the game. Other subjects that Brett shares his thoughts on include his influencers, […]","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2020\/04\/E6-Brett-Bartholomew.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"78.09M","filesize_raw":"81883136","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[7,6,20,4,5,11],"series":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-22","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","5":"tag-coaching","6":"tag-conditioning","7":"tag-performance","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-strength","10":"tag-training","11":"series-the-team-behind-the-team","12":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":113,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-11-04 17:27:54","post_date_gmt":"2020-11-04 22:27:54","post_content":"\n
Donnie Maib is the Head Coach for Athletic Performance for Olympic Sports since 2011.\u00a0 Maib oversees all aspects of athletic performance efforts for all sports at the University of Texas with the exception of Men\u2019s\/Women\u2019s Basketball and Football. He directly works with women\u2019s volleyball and men\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He came to the University of Texas after four years at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he worked as an assistant with all varsity sports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From 1998-2007 Maib was an assistant coach at the University of Texas working primarily with football and various other Olympic sports \u2013 Women\u2019s Track & Field, Women\u2019s Golf, Men\u2019s Golf, Men\u2019s Tennis, Soccer, & Volleyball. In 2007 He was promoted to Associate Coach for Football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maib is certified by the Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coaches Association. He was honored at 8th Annual National Conference of the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association in May 2008 with the certification of Master Strength and Conditioning Coach (MSCC), the highest honor for a coach in the strength and conditioning field.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Donnie Maib","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"donnie-maib","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-11-04 17:27:55","post_modified_gmt":"2020-11-04 22:27:55","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/?post_type=speaker&p=113","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":61,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-07-07 17:10:51","post_date_gmt":"2020-07-07 17:10:51","post_content":"\n
Brett wears many hats as a strength & conditioning coach, best-selling author, philanthropist, and more. His experience includes coaching athletes in the private sector, collegiate field, and in the U.S. Special Forces. Altogether, Brett has coached a wide range of athletes from youth athletes to Olympians across 23 sports. For more information, visit artofcoaching.com.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Brett Bartholomew","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"brett-bartholomew","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-11-04 17:58:34","post_modified_gmt":"2020-11-04 22:58:34","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/?post_type=speaker&p=61","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":"
Welcome to the team behind the team podcast. I am your host, Donny, mate. This is the monthly
\nshow focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to ethic, performance.
\nStrength, conditioning. Sports Medicine. Sports Science. Mental Health and wellness and
\nsports nutrition.
\nWelcome to the team behind the team podcast. I’m your host, Donny May. Today,
\nI am super excited about our guests. We have a very special guest. He’s a good friend of mine,
\nBrett Bartholomew. Brett, how are you doing today, coach? You’re doing awesome, Don. How are you? I’m doing OK.
\nWe have got Brad in the studio today and he is in town speaking
\nat our clinic. Coach, thank you for coming in. It’s always a pleasure. I want to talk about you just a minute. I know a
\nlot of your followers may know who you are, but if you have never met or listened
\nto or followed Brett Bartholomew, he is a guy that you need to make sure you pay attention to.
\nBrad is not only a keynote speaker. He is a performance coach and consulting
\nand a best selling author. His book, Conscious Coaching the Art and Science
\nof Building by N is a number one bestseller in sports coaching on Amazon
\nand a number one bestseller in business skewering number eight, bestseller in Business and Leadership and Amazon
\nand a top 100 best seller on Amazon. So if you’ve not read his book, you’ll need to get it. Coach,
\nwe’re excited. You’re on the show. Brad has also worked with a diverse
\nrange of athletes across 23 sports worldwide. At all levels range from youth to
\nathletes to Olympians. He’s worked with numerous Super Bowl and World Series champions
\nand other professional fighters in boxing and the UFC.
\nCoach, how are you doing? What’s going on in your life lately? A baby
\nclinic, right? And so if I’m a little bit hoarse, that’s because we just went on.
\nWe did a 90 minute talk and then some Q&A and what have you. But yeah, I would say baby business
\ncourse and get ready to start coaching back up here again in February. So wide variety. Coach, how
\nhas the whole dad life? How’s it treating these days? I mean, right now, as of while we’re
\nrecording this, I’m only four weeks and he’s a four week old little guy. Azam’s Brands Bronson.
\nYep. Not named after Missouri. I’d be in trouble. But Bronson Yeah. And it’s
\ninteresting because, you know, people tend to ask that question a lot and for good reason because being a father can change your
\nlife. But the reality my wife and I kind of feel bad saying this
\nthe main stress has just been adapting to the work side of it. Right. Especially somebody that owns
\ntheir own business trying to figure out, okay, now I’ve got even more clearly defined value or boundaries
\nand what have you. So I think what he has done, what Bronson has done is amplified
\nmy focus on refining things that I already knew to be blindspots, which for me were
\nyou know, I say yes to everything. I always try to help as many folks as I can. And
\nsometimes I’m not as good with my time management as I should be. And so he just continues
\nto make you redefine what is a priority, what’s the need for the now and what do you
\nneed to do as opposed to what would be nice to do. So I think that but other than that, I mean, four weeks
\nin right now, we’re just trying to keep the little guy alive and enjoy every moment with him. Coach, I me I tell you
\nthat as well. We have my wife, I have four daughters. And I remember our first daughter,
\nIsabelle, when she was born. You look actually very you look amazing. I mean, when my first
\ndaughter came out so sleep deprived on their trucks, you’re there. You just kind of taking it, Heidi, with my beard.
\nYou know, the lines in the face are obscured, not crooks and monsters. And no one can take
\nthe case. Well, congratulations. And Bronson and your
\nbeautiful wife. And I know that’s gonna be a join the line of work. My wife at some point. I know I’m I have to get out there.
\nAnd so for those of you listening, you don’t know this. For the last time, coach maybe came out to my neck of the woods.
\nI got big time. He made no time. I said, hey, you know, you’re not that far from us. Once you come up on, you
\ntrain the garage, gym. And he said, you know, coach, sorry. Just not on my agenda and
\nflew right on out of there. And that’s an example of why you don’t post on me.
\nBut a cool coach. I know we know you well. We love you. Maybe there’s
\nsome people that don’t know your story just to provide context as we get into the
\nshow today. Q Take a moment and just kind of go back and introduce yourself, kind of own
\nyour career. How did you get in this profession, share your journey a little bit, how it’s led
\nto where you are and what you’re doing right now? Sure. I’ll try to do that without boring everybody. Because a lot of
\nhow I got into it is detailed in my book and that was a lot that was the hardest chapter of the book to write.
\nSo guys, all I’ll keep it short here. Bottom line is I grew up Omaha, Nebraska.
\nI was a competitive athlete myself, primarily in baseball and football at that age. And, you know, I’d always
\nloved training ever since the time I saw my first Rocky movie. And, you know, you read your dad’s men at Men’s Health magazine
\nand you know, so I would do whatever I could from really that standpoint early on. It’s merely just bodybuilding,
\nright? You’re doing whatever those magazines tell you to do. And, you know, I ended up going to a high school.
\nMy parents split up. They got a divorce. We moved to a different area of town and train three times a day.
\nAnd I wasn’t feeling appropriately at that time. I was getting my advice again. I’m 14 years old. It’s not like I know
\nhow to go to pub med and there’s not as many digital resources now as there are for people that want to be
\nadvised on these things. So I’m learning from muscle magazines, right, that say eat low carb,
\neat low fat. So like any absolutists, I did both. So you can imagine somebody that’s training like
\na mad person and barely eating any calories. I mean, that was based feeding egg beaters, fat free
\nKraft singles and turkey bacon for breakfast. I’m just trying to eat as clean as possible or what they deemed clean
\nat the time through pop media. Yeah. Long story short, Danny, I was hospitalized. I was put in inpatient
\neating disorder hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a year of my life. The reason
\nfor that is I was running around the school one day and blacked out
\nand I woke up and I was in the doctor’s office and I was told that my heart, kidney and liver were all
\nexperiencing some level of failure or extreme weakness. So I had to be put into
\na cardiac arrest ward within that that eating disorder hospital.
\nThey chose that because they felt like, hey, this is the place. It’s going to get the weight back on him. And truth be
\ntold at that point. I mean, that is classified. It was technically anorexia, A.S.
\nSo not otherwise specified. So it wasn’t me not trying to eat to try to get thin or
\nbingeing and purging, which are classic eating disorder type things. A lot of it was a manifestation of
\njust OCD depression. Those things were my outlet. So I was put in a hospital
\nwhere, you know, 5:30 in the morning you are weighed in the nightgown every day. Your blood
\nis drawn every day. You have very restricted privileges. The room that we’re in now, which for
\nthose of you that can’t see this, which has all of you imagine just kind of like a smaller living room
\nor a den and you’re put into an observation room the majority of the day when you’re not eating hospital
\napproved meals, where you’re under constant surveillance and observation. And they want to make sure
\nthat you’re not fidgeting. They want to make sure that you’re not doing anything to basically burn calories through
\nnon exercise. Thermogenesis. And by the way, I’m talking about license, medical
\npractitioners, doctors, nurses, psychiatrist, psychiatrist. I mean, this is a ward that in totality
\nhelps people. Right. Very rarely do they focus on the person. You’re kind of a symptom,
\ncoach mayb-. And so you’re starting to hopefully key and on some key things that have influenced me as I started
\nto get into coaching where guys, frankly, some people lost their lives as a result
\nof this treatment. People weren’t able to reach them even though they were subject matter experts. So, you know, long
\nstory short, after I did get out of the hospital and that’s detailed in my book, I knew that I
\nwanted to learn everything I could about rebuilding the human body in the appropriate way, because the hospitals are really
\ntoxic experience. It really didn’t help that much. So got into strength and conditioning
\nwent to Kansas State for kinesiology box competitively, started training other fighters
\nin exchange for my training. Got my I got an internship at athletes performance,
\nwent back to the University of Nebraska to volunteer because I wanted team setting experience that
\nled to a masters or a graduate assistantship at Southern Illinois University S.I.U.
\nYep. Whereas in charge of about six to seven eight sports total by the end of it and then assisted with
\nbasketball and football. My master’s degree is in motor learning, specifically in attentional focus
\nand cueing, which is, you know, again, what got me more and more interested in the impact of communication
\nand the science behind coaching strategy and. Yeah. Then when worked for the pro sports
\nside of athletes performance for six years, a lot with Special Forces, military, major
\nminor league baseball, NFL, everything she read off earlier and a couple other stops in between
\nand then started my own company, Art of Coaching in 2017 and the rest is history. So I’m 33,
\ngoing on about 80 for the fifth Aizu. That’s the fastest I’ve ever
\ntried to go through about, you know, fifteen, sixteen some odd years in my life. So flat and putting. But it Asli.
\nThat’s not that’s that’s impressive. Coach, you’ve definitely you know, the thing that I definitely admire
\nrespect about you, that you’ve been across all kind of different avenues
\nof sports performance. You know, obviously we’re working in
\nthe college right now on the collegiate. You’ve worked in the collegiate. You’ve been in the private, you’ve been in the pro.
\nLooking over your resume and career. Would you like. It
\nwas a different aspect, did you like college? Would you like about college? Would you like about the private now
\nkind of speak to that a little. Yeah. One, I think that having experienced a lot of different things,
\nfirst of all, I think it’s a huge misnomer that these are all wildly different from
\none another. There are far more similarities and there are differences. You know, I and there were a lot of things
\nthat excuse me, I didn’t believe. So when I when I first transition into the private sector, it wasn’t because
\nI didn’t like college. It was because I remember applying for two jobs. One had already
\nbeen filled by the time I was leaving my GPA. They just kind of did that whole H.R.
\nthing where they posted it, even though it was filled. And another one I made it to the final rounds for. And then I think
\nthat had strength coach got fired. So then everybody got you know, I needed a job. And so there was a great
\nopportunity at athletes performance who is doing some really innovative things at the time. And there are a lot of coaches
\nat work there that had been in the team setting, and they specialize in a lot of movement oriented principles.
\nAnd I also knew that I’d get a wide range of being able to work with military youth. I mean, I
\njust wanted to make myself a weapon early. Like I wanted to get as many different, varied experiences
\nI as I could as a coach. So I didn’t have a ton of biases or so. At the
\nvery least, I could challenge those biases. But, you know, I remember people tell me, oh, when
\nyou go to the private sector, it’s just personal training. You won’t do that. I mean, coach, six to eight groups a day,
\nlarger groups, you know, like I ran at one point, Tom, an NFL program in Phenix said oftentimes there’s me
\nand one intern with 30 to 50 people, you know, and I just think that people have to be careful with what they’re
\ntelling coaches out there today because they make it sound like we’re all completely different.
\nRight. Private sector team pro, it’s like these things are gonna be only it’s just like our differences with people.
\nYou’re only going to find as many differences as you willingly go and seek out. And of course, everybody’s going to do
\ndifferent variations of red tape. And if you own a facility, you’re going to have overhead that’s expansive. And,
\nyou know, if you work in a university, you may not have to deal with that. You may have some relative security. But
\nyou also, if you don’t want a national title in a couple of years, might be out of there. The pressure. Yeah. Where you
\ncan’t be as public with some of the things that you’d like to do. Right, if you want to help other people because there’s red tape.
\nI just think that people have to be open to saying like you’d never tell your athletes to specialize early
\nin their career. I don’t understand why coaches want to do the same. I don’t think those. I’ve
\nloved them all. We were in the private sector right now. And that being said, I work a lot
\nwith a variety of teams throughout the year, both in consulting and just partnerships. And we’ve
\nhad opportunity go back to the team setting. It just hasn’t been the right fit for us. It has to be a right fit. Now, I know you
\nmade me think of the book. David EPSTEIN just came out with range and you ready?
\nBut he talks about in that book about focus on one area, whether you’re a doctor or a business person,
\ncoach, whatever, that specializing in one thing actually kind of
\nlimits your creativity and your ability to find solutions to answers. Because
\nat the end of the day, I mean, whether you’re in a private facility, college, pro,
\nwhatever, I mean, we all have problems. We all have a certain limited number of resources.
\nWe have authority structures in place that we off to report through and work through to be successful.
\nAnd so, yeah, I totally agree that you definitely want a broad range experience in
\ncoaching social in nature. And so who who right now isn’t dealing with some level of miscommunication
\nor lack of buy-in or some other kind of asymmetry within, you know, their
\nenvironment? I don’t think there’s any coaches out there that have it all figured out. And if they do, that doesn’t last long. And sadly,
\nit’s tough for me to think that we needed somebody like David EPSTEIN to write a book like that,
\nthat now so many coaches, quote, when inherently they knew this to begin with. Right. It’s something that we all espouse.
\nBut that’s another issue kind of within our field, is we’re more likely to listen to outside authorities
\nthan we are to like listen to each other and really be open about certain things and struggles and strategies.
\nAnd that’s got to change long term. I’m curious, just going back when I was listened to you
\nkind of your your resume and your career journey. You worked with a lot of sports.
\nWhat did you ever did? Any of the sport coaches? Did you learn anything from them
\nhaving the influence from them in any sports in particular, maybe that, you know, whether it was basketball
\nor track or anybody that. Sure. Yeah. I mean, you learn from all all sorts of folks.
\nI remember was somebody that taught me a fair amount of ineptitude that I had at the time was a
\ngolf coach at southern Illinois at the time, I believe his name was Leroy. But don’t quote me on that. It’s been a while.
\nBut I remember he had come down he had come down one time to the weight room and said, I don’t want my golfers unity. Then football lifts.
\nAnd I said, well, what do you mean by that? And, you know, of course, he started timeout cleans and squads and snatches and deadlifts
\nmulti joint movements that because of their the fact that some football players do those things that they’re
\nperceived to be football lifts. Right. He starts tell me that he wants them do step ups
\nand they want to run two miles several times a week and a wide variety and.
\nTime. You know, I probably didn’t have the social intelligence that I would have liked to have said that I had and I did what
\na lot of strength coaches do as a coach, you understand how these movements, you know,
\nwhether they’re dead less or cleans or what have you can actually improve golf performance. And of course, I drum
\nup a bunch of research on rate of forced development and driving distance and how it can enhance, you know,
\nphysiological outputs. Right. I thought you and I go up there and you go, son, you think I read these and takes
\nhim and throws him right in the trash, right in front of me. And I’m sitting here and I leave that office thinking he’s the problem.
\nYou know, when I realized later on like that was my approach was trash. And that’s actually why I
\ndon’t really like when people espouse that will start with why I think that’s well-intentioned. But
\nit doesn’t matter if you have the right why if you don’t understand how to navigate the what and the how, because
\nhow we. And so I always tell people like that’s fine too. I start with y but then
\nmake sure that you really look take a look at Deep Dove in the how so you know, that just taught
\nme like know your audience. That was the that was that, you know, because there are other times you’re as able to
\nbring him down and show him exactly what he really wanted to see. Let’s say we’re doing some rotary aspects
\nat Ball or Kaiser or what have you. And I’d strategically plan it out. So we came down and saw that.
\nAnd then he loved it and would let me do whatever he won in the weight room. So good. I know it sounds manipulative.
\nWe’ll get now I’ve got a question for you later on. Hopefully we’ll get to it. But I’m so kind of
\npart of this show is just the team behind the team in today’s landscape in athletics, specifically
\ncollege. I’m sure you see it in private. There’s a shift towards his team
\nbased performance model. How would you describe a team base performance?
\nWhat would be your words and what are the well, the positives of that or challenges? Yeah, I mean, a lot of this was stuff
\nthat was inculcated in me at early days of athletes performance. A team based model, whether
\nprivate, pro or anything, is just something that is seamlessly integrated where you have no
\nwalls, metaphorical or literal between what different departments are doing so that there is transparent
\ncommunication. It’s hard to be a part of a team if everybody’s really scared to share their thoughts or ideas
\nbecause of criticism and all those introspection or so. Right. And I mean, there’s some inherent
\npolitics and power dynamics in every organization. I think, again, the mistake that most people in
\nsport and in sports performance in general make is that our field is somehow unique.
\nAlmost every profession has some level of integration that they have to manage and navigate. And
\nI just think that what we have to deal with is everybody feels like there’s so much on the line with athlete,
\nplayer, health, wellness, safety, their own jobs, all that that it makes people button
\nup. And so we oftentimes pay homage to a team based approach or
\nnot being siloed. And in reality, a lot of it has been lip service. People aren’t doing as much of
\nit as they should in the way that they should. So I think it’s just transparency, not being afraid to be
\nwrong and not being afraid to give ground to gain ground and understanding that like, you know, it’s a level
\nof complexity. It’s not about one person or one department’s agenda. It’s about how it’s all got
\nto fit into really set the athlete and the individuals that we’re meant to serve out her success.
\nYeah, that’s good. I like I like the way you said that right there. I think you made me think about when I was in Australia
\na little over a year ago, and I’ve shared this before. But just seeing there, I think with the New
\nSouth Wales Institute of Sport and just kind of showing where
\nall their performance team kind of where they were, they office, they really have their own offices. There was this big open
\nspace. So they’d be collaborative and there’d be more because I think I think to to build.
\nSimon Cynic talks about that and leaders eat last about it was talk that uses the government
\nas an analogy that I forget what year it was. All the government officials moved out of D.C. So proximity
\nwise, they weren’t they weren’t having lunch together. They weren’t just having small talk. So the only time they would come
\ntogether would be to make these votes and decisions on these laws. And so there would
\nbe a lot of conflict. But they didn’t have that relational rapport and built some trust there
\non the front. And so that you could have those tough conversations. Yeah. And so I think, you know, looking
\nat the the performance model there, I think there’s going to be a shift at some point towards being
\nmore integrated and not being, like you said, silo, because I think that’s a real issue sometimes as being
\nin your little silo, there’s not communication. Yeah, without a doubt. Lip service, like you said. Right. And the issue
\nthat compounds that, though, coach made is that we can have the perfect org chart
\nand walls down and proximity and all that. But also if we don’t encourage coaches
\nto become more skilled communicators, that’s not really going to like an org chart long term,
\nis it going to solve issues and in performance? A lot of that is ego, insecurity, communication
\nand understanding how to truly bridge gaps and negotiate and find common ground. And
\nas we talked about today, right now I think there’s 285 coach development programs
\nout there and less than 6 percent focus on interpersonal skills. That’s a big part of what we’re trying to do with our
\ncoaching. Well, you go back to. Well, the thing is, I’ve gotten older not only as a coach, but as
\na as a husband and as a father. The level in the power
\nof communication, one of my favorite quotes is my head coach goes like this where communication
\nis cut off, abnormality sets in a great one. And so when you don’t if you
\nyou can communicate. But if people are not hearing you, there’s not a connection. You’re really not communicating,
\nright? Yeah. I mean, to build off that one of our kind of company log lines is more successful.
\nInterventions are the result of more successful interactions. Same thing like no matter what
\nyou’re trying to accomplish. Show me one thing that doesn’t require some level of listening and or communication. Yeah, I mean,
\nthat’s true. I think as I’ve gotten I guess have gotten over my career that I’ve learned, I just if I can to be a better
\ncommunicator, you’re more effective. Now, it doesn’t take as much in your marriage. I mean. That’s
\nright. That’s right. You’ve got to be a good communicator. There are different ways you learn to love language. Try
\nto shift gears just a little bit. If we were to come to watch you
\ntrain some of your athletes during one of your sessions. This is Coach Brant session. What would we
\nsee? Give us kind of paints a picture with your words and what would we see? Yeah, I think that. So I’ll
\npaint a picture, literally a picture that I have in my office is Frank Sinatra leading
\nthe Count Basie Orchestra and his favorite hotel wearing a
\nbaseball cap and a really casual shirt. And people always wonder why I have that
\nphoto. Like, what is this indicative of? But let me ask you real quick, when you think of Frank Sinatra. How do you
\nhow does he typically dressed tuxedo slicked back hair delivery?
\nWell, that picture is indicative of really and there is only I think 400 of a made in the world is
\nthat the world’s best never try to make themselves look like something that they don’t need
\nto be. Right. Like you can if you’re really great at something, it should almost look casual and boring.
\nAnd that has always been something that I’ve always looked at as I think that I think the best performers
\nnothing looks sorry, the best coaches the best for. Like it shouldn’t look crazy. There
\nshouldn’t be any on inspiring tactics. You should almost be a little bit bored because it’s
\nin the unseen where the great things are happening. So you came and watched me listen. You’re going to see
\nsimilar things you see with many coaches in terms of soft tissue modalities of a relatively thorough warm up. We’re going to see
\nexercises and drills that excite the neuromuscular system and things that challenge all aspects
\nof, you know, just shrink development, all those. What I always tell people is watch the interactions.
\nYou know, when when we go watch, people observe. Dan Paff and they’d ask him. It was it was
\nalmost wasted questions. They’d ask him about technology and what he thought about this rack versus that rack
\nor whatever. And, you know, Dan, who wrote the foreword for my book would come out and be like, nobody asks about actual
\ncoaching anymore. And so he was one of the earliest supporters. So I think what I did and I
\nthink you’d see is you’d see strategic interaction that is patient and purposeful,
\neven whether I’m using a certain type of language, whether I’m gesturing, whether I’m not
\ncorrecting an athlete, even if they’re doing something wrong, even if I’m not correcting him at the moment, there’s a reason
\nwhy I’ll have people come shadowplay. BLOCK Well, you didn’t do that. And you know that bounding exercise
\nthat he didn’t achieve extension. And I said, yeah, that’s his third rat and it’s his first week.
\nDo it. I get it. So I would like to think what you would not see is a lot of over coaching.
\nWhat you would not see is a lot of dictatorial type of leadership. What you would not
\nsee is a bunch of needless novelty. So I almost and I know I answer that in a turnaround way of
\nhere’s what you would not see, but hopefully that also gives you a clear idea of what you would see.
\nIt’s good. I think, you know, you look at training. Who would you say
\nover again over your career? Who’s had some some big influence in maybe your philosophy or just even your approach
\nto how you think in terms of systems? You talk about an athlete that I worked with that challenge me thinking
\nabout these things and like a coach. Yeah, I think more
\nI think more just who who’s kind of, you know, who’s kind of had that voice
\nover the years. When you sit down to write a workout or your thought process is
\nto address key objectives, whether it’s who’s influenced you the most, you think? I would say it’s
\nan amalgamation. I mean, listen, I’ve never I’ll be honest. I’ve never had a true mentor that was with
\nme every point in my career that influenced me. And I used to be really bitter about that. Now, I actually think it
\nwas a strength because I there were so many influences, right? There is
\nwho I learned under Gerard Nestel and at southern Illinois was ruthless
\nand making us defend our programs. And he would make you get detail every single thing you had
\nto defend as if you were caught in a court of law. And I loved that. I really appreciated that about him.
\nSome people thought that that was kind of hard nosed, whatever. I thought that was great, that just growing up in Nebraska,
\nyou grew up in the shadow of a mecca of strength and conditioning. So just good old fashioned husker power
\nprinciples of multi joint. Movements, right, multiplayer, multi joint movements and no
\nnonsense training. And then, of course, my time outfits performance with with Mark Verstegen.
\nI mean, people have a dramatic misunderstanding of what a lot about what I mean
\nbefore him and people like Vern gamburdo, who also was an influence in terms of how I look at
\nmovement. There was really not a whole lot of folks out there that were taking the same attention to detail that you saw
\nin track and linear speed or acceleration and applying that to multi-directional movement.
\nAnd, you know, API back in the day. Now, people would know it as exos, but to me they’re very different
\ncompanies. Athletes performance was an environment where coaches would openly challenge each other and be like,
\nHey, you thought that was a good session, you can do better. What are five things you need to improve on? It was all came
\nfrom a good place, but it was competitive in a healthy way. So I’d say, you know, just from the roots of where I grew
\nup. The graduate assistant is situations that I was in and
\nthen, of course, the athletes performance. And then there was one gentleman, Victor Hall and Andan
\nPath and Stu McMillan were three people down when I really started talking more about psychosocial aspects
\nwhen everybody else thought I was crazy, cause all I used to talk about was periodization and agility and all those things.
\nThey encourage me to keep going. So those three deserve special recognition for jumping on early board.
\nDan was huge. No, not love. Thanks for sharing on that. I think it’s so critical for
\nif you walk in, you look at a coach and you look at him training and working with the team, you got to know the background
\nof that coach and how they were raised. Hardships. They went through their family,
\nthat they were a part of the different coaches. They were under the adverse the dark
\nseasons. Maybe they went through things that had a big impact on them, things that didn’t cause that goes into
\npart of who you are, who I am. And I think that’s always it’s kind of like
\nthat old country, Sam. And when you meet drink out of a water hose, you go get a little taste
\nof the hose no matter who. The water’s gonna be great. But there’s gonna be a little taste of the hose and everybody’s
\ndifferent, right? Yeah. And one to that point, exactly. One conflict I had early on in my career
\nas there was an athletic trainer that didn’t really care for the way that I coach because I’m pretty intense depending
\non the context or what have you. And you know, she had said that she goes, I just don’t understand why you
\ncoach, why everything is always so loud and intense and what have you. And I was probably maybe 25 at the time
\nand I realized that she had no idea of my background of that. You know, again, at 15 years
\nold, I was hospitalized for a year. My life nearly died. And when I got out of there, it was inculcated
\nin me pretty clearly that you don’t have long on this planet. I had family that died really young. My dad
\nlost his dad, my grandfather when my dad was only twelve. My grandmother suffered a major heart
\nattack. I’ve had family members die of cancer. So it’s urgency has always been in me. And
\nthis idea that I’m probably not you know, I don’t know how long I’ll be here. And I’m grateful to be here in
\ngeneral from coming out of that hospitalization. So, yeah. Coach intensely. And I don’t do it to try to
\ngarner attention. I don’t try to do it to assert dominance. I try to do it because at the end of the day,
\ntraining to me is nothing more than a tool to teach other people what they’re capable of. And
\nyou don’t have many opportunities to teach them that lesson in impactful ways. So we don’t have time to waste.
\nSo that was an example of, you know, a lot of times that would kind of turn out a lot of times when that circumstance
\nit turned a colleague off to my approach because she didn’t know she had drank from that
\nhose. Yeah, that’s true. Talking about training a little bit more,
\nyou know, technology is just on the rise and it seems like. Every
\nother week, you turn around, there’s some new gadget or device
\nthat can capture data in training. Do you use any technology?
\nAnd then kind of what are your thoughts on some of the technology just being used in training today? Yeah, I use when I can
\nnow. What I’ve determined to use now is based on, you know, experience that I had had when, you know,
\nan API and what have you, we would always have people coming in and trying to hawk the latest and greatest just because they want to get those
\nthings in with partnerships. Right, just like they do with teams and what have you. So I’ve been exposed to
\na wide range of technology. Some you know, it’s great. And you get onto it for a while and other things,
\nyou’re kind of you start to differentiate. Nice to have need to have, especially depending on your budget.
\nSo I want to I have to make it very clear any technology I use now is 100 percent out of my own
\npocket and I own a self-funded business. Right. So I think, of
\ncourse, if you have the budget, it’s great to use things like force plates with relevant software. That tells
\nyou what that data means. It’s great if you use things like Naude Board and the groin bar. I’ve used both
\nof those in the past. It’s great if you use things that measure velocity, whatever. You know, there’s a million of
\nthose what I use now when I’m self-funding it and to keep it simple and
\nI coach remotely and have to adapt is I’ll use a good old fashioned jump mat. I’ll
\nuse a good old fat. I’ll use a good ol. If I still bring out the industrial tape measure to look
\nat everything from broad jump to lateral bounds to lateral, you know, like a single triple hop test,
\nthings like that. We will use during certain phases of the offseason like a Tendo unit to get an idea
\nof where the neuromuscular systems at IV use something as simple as a hand grip. Dinham ometer. I mean CNS.
\nYeah, when I when I’ve been abroad and relatively like, you know, situations where you don’t
\nhave access to much if you give me a hand grip dinham ometer and a jump mat. And then you know what, just
\ndata that you’ve collected through the strength programs and the phases, you should be able to tell a good bit. Now, of course,
\nwe also make know we’re not talking about assessment’s as a whole. You’re saying on technology, but I will use
\nlike AB just easy to sign things that are sent to guys for medical waivers and all those
\npieces. Of course. Yeah, we just like it. We try to look at the cnrs, we try to look at biomechanical
\ndeficiencies, but at the same time I just feel like coaches right now need to be
\nunderstanding of the fact that they’re probably doing too much. You need to put blinders on to a point, say right
\nnow if your job depended on it. What are the three things you would utilize? Because it’s always easier to add,
\nadd, add, add, add. But like right now I just thing more coaches need to strip away because it’s
\ntaking away from their coaching skill. They’re getting too reliant on so many aspects of this technology where
\nthey need to be married appropriately. That’s good, I think. I forget the name the author, but the book
\nunplugged, they talk about that in there. That training is you’ve got to you’ve got to know your body.
\nYeah. But if you’re always looking at a piece of data or device for how you should
\ntrain that day, then you lose that connection and we’ll get to that point like we use a browser. There’s certain times
\nwhere NFL guys, if they do not want that browser to come out because one of them defensive
\nlinemen every time, instead of just comparing where he’s out from the beginning of the offseason to later
\non. Once we’ve gone. He just keeps comparing himself to where he was at the combine. And I said, man, like,
\nyou can’t do that. You’re six, seven years into the league now. You have bumps here, like what
\nyou lack now and physiological capacities that you maybe had. Then granted you want to manage that gap
\nyou’ve made up for in technical savvy and know how from being a veteran, you know, it’s just like it’s not even
\nin boxing, like you had the opportunity to meet and work with Roy Jones and Winky Wright and what have you. And
\nand these guys like it. Even if they can’t hit as hard as they used during certain parts of their career, they knew how
\nto recognize counter-punching opportunities. Coaches need to understand counter-punching opportunities
\nas opposed to just being offensive with more and more, more, more, more. You’ve got to balance that. And that’s good
\npoint. I like to you talk a lot about in your book about
\nby in my experience the last few years
\nis I’ve seen coaches, strength coaches, specifically having trouble
\nwith head coach BIEWEN. So getting your athletes to buy into a program is one thing.
\nHow do you speak to somebody that maybe they need to work on, get their head coach to buy into
\ntheir program to what they’re doing? How would you. Yeah. And this is your address. This has been an interesting problem and a failure
\non my part that somehow we have a community so we can read a book
\nby a Navy SEAL. And none of us are Navy SEALs, but we recognize that we can apply those lessons.
\nWe can read a book. You alluded to by David EPSTEIN. Now, none of us do. Like many people listening
\nright now are probably not just solely professional authors and they’ll take things from that. Yet what I’ve struggled
\nwith is my book while it talks about athlete Baen. Is
\nabout buying in totality. So I’m trying to figure out this divide where when I go to speak
\nfor corporations or tactical settings, they understand that we’re talking about systemic buy in
\nwith that book because they can extrapolate. Coaches tend to think, well, hey, I read your book,
\nbut how does this work for superiors or colleagues? Well, it’s the same byan as trust
\nplus commitment. And building trust takes a combination of skilled interpersonal communication,
\nwhich includes great listening, which includes learning how to relate to others, which includes having
\nto knowing how to navigate power dynamics. And of course, those are all the precedent set
\nprecedent for how we do that with other folks. So, you know, when you think about buying. If we had
\nto bastardize it and consolidated to three things are really four. I always say research
\nrelaid, reframe and reinforce. So research is if you want to gain buy
\nin or the trust of somebody ethically and responsibly, you need to listen and understand what
\ntheir pain points are, what their fears, what their struggles, what their tendencies are. You need to relate.
\nYou need to be able to help them understand whether that’s understood that you were listening. By summarizing what they say to ensure
\nthat you’re on the same page or even relating by showing some level of vulnerability, meaning you’re not getting your own
\nego into it. Right. You’re able to step back and let them kind of win the battle so you can win the war. And those
\nare inappropriate analogies. But this is not a Ballo award, should be a mutual partnership.
\nAnd then you want to reframe like every time you talk to them. Now, once you know more about their wants, needs, drives, desires,
\nfears and what have you. And they know a little bit more about where you’re going and you’re listening. Reframing is now
\nyou’ve got to change your language. Coach mayb- so that everything you speak to coincides
\nwith what they value most. And then you constantly have to the final are reinforce that
\nyou have. It’s a long term partnership that takes a while to end. That’s the key. That’s why in the book
\nI say one of the biggest elements that people struggle with buying is time. It’s not going to happen on your
\ntime. It’s not. That’s a relationship. It’s a negotiation and it’s a partnership.
\nYou know, you’re not gonna make somebody fall in or out of love with the overnight real love. Right? You’re not going to make
\nit. That’s almost like saying, hey, if I get my athletes under the squat rack or what have you, I expect instantaneous
\nresults. Now, sure, somebody, if they’re being contrarian, can say, well, you do you get enhance motor unit recruitment
\nright away. They know what I mean. Yeah. You don’t get direct, non ambiguous transfer
\nto sport immediately. You have to look at buy in the same way. And I like that. I think,
\nyou know, I think for younger coaches or even some older ones, too, I think the coach is
\ngoing to buy into you as a person before you buy into whatever you’re going to person. So I think just being,
\nyou know, like you said this having those skills, relatable skills of how to just have it, just normal
\nrelationship first, kind of like that. I think coaches that get so caught up in the program
\npart of it, they try to assert themselves and versus just, hey, just who cares about the program right now?
\nJust worry about making this connection in this relationship first. Once
\nyou get that trust, then you can get the commitment like you just said. But unfortunately, it’s hard to be surprised that that’s what
\ncoaches do, because that’s what they’ve been taught to almost it’s almost become fetishized,
\nlike coaches try to assert their superiority or credibility through their programing methods. Right.
\nLike that. I mean, how growing up, that’s all I ever heard about is are you a West Side guy or are you an Olympic
\nguy? Are you this guy again? Think about the divides we’ve talked about. Just aren’t here. West Side
\nGuy, Olympic guy D Tech, do you not? Right. Like in terms of people have what kind of tag
\nare you, private sector, collegiate, pro high school, whatever. I don’t go into doctors or Dennis
\noffice and hear people be like you, an orthopedic surgeon, you’re a brain surgeon. You a wisdom tooth guy or a molar guy.
\nAnd like our field, sikh’s divides and seeks to assert itself so much that it digs
\nitself a hole. And no wonder we don’t get along with many superiors or colleagues because
\nwe’re so worried about proving our value instead of providing value. And that’s leads
\nus astray. Very true. Now that I’ve got another little
\ntopic for you here, I’ve got a bunch of questions for you via. You’re doing great. So one thing
\nI’m being just I’m so interested in intrigued, you’re an author,
\nbest selling author. What was that process like writing updated?
\nWell, was bad. What was it? Well, I mean, I’m a kinetic individual. I think best
\nwhile moving or while interacting. So I tend to think more clearly through conversation,
\nthrough self reflection, through movement, all those things and trying to write
\na book. Where it’s your you’re just stationary. You have to sit
\nand you have to. And it’s silent and you don’t want to read other people’s stuff because it could influence your work too
\nmuch. But at the same time, you have to do some due diligence, like there is no playbook that was passed
\ndown to me on how to do that. I started writing it. You know, probably I can’t even I
\nwould probably it came out in 2017. It probably started writing it maybe in 2011,
\nand you move or you have different things going on in your life. And at the time, you don’t even know it’s going to be a book. You’re just putting something
\ndown. And then I got married in between. We had moved again. And so.
\nYeah. And I finally, I think actually would encourage me or
\nthe thing I actually have to give credit for actually getting it written is I had left
\na job in Los Angeles. It just wasn’t a good fit for my wife anymore. We had turned
\ndown a job in the NFL a year prior and it wasn’t because we didn’t want it. It just timing. We had already
\naccepted this other position. And I only say that because if I had taken that job, I really don’t think I would have finished
\nthe book when I did. And so it was only when I was like, all right, we’re going out on our own
\nand this is all up to us. Like there’s no safety net. I’m not
\na trust fund, baby. My wife’s not a trust fund baby. I need to get this done.
\nSo I went on my own, started yelling. I was coaching our feeds from 5:00 in the morning to
\nit was awkward for me because I’d gone from now coaching all these pro athletes and doing this. Now, even having to do
\nsome elements of personal training again until we made the decision of where we were going to move. And then I would
\nwrite from basically 11:00 p.m. to 2 a.m. and then get up and do it again. And
\nI had to invest a lot of money in it because we self-publish. So now you’re
\nlooking at what it cost to do an ad, hire an editor, what it costs to hire a graphic designer for the cover.
\nAll these things. And, you know, I’m a strength coach not having made much money. So it’s equal
\nparts, rewarding, harrowing, frustrating, enlightening. You learn a lot
\nabout yourself. I always tell coaches my best advice for coaches now because I hate when people are like, get your
\ndegree, get an internship. Like tell them something real. Put skin in the game. I do something
\nwhere the consequences are very, very, very real. Learn as much about yourself as you can
\nmetaphorically taste your own blood and then you’ll start to know what you can do. Because, you
\nknow, one thing that that book helped me do is it help me move from what was essentially early
\non. I’d criticized so much of what I saw. And I realized that that was because I identify
\nwith somebody that was I’m in the trenches, I’m doing this, and so much of this stuff out there is crap. But then
\nI had never tried to communicate something to a broader audience. And when you do that, when you sit down and actually
\nput pen to paper and try to elucidate and like make it clear, like, this is what I know, here’s how
\nI can make it super easy to understand while also not trying to please everybody. You know, you rewrite
\nyour book like six times. The first time I wrote it, it was probably too academic. He. And then it’s funny because
\nnow in its current rendition, people are like, well, you know, like, yeah, it’s a good starting point. And then
\nthere’s other people that think it’s it’s too technical. So that’s when you learn you’ll also never make anybody
\nhappy. But I would say the last thing I would say is this I’m glad I did it because you’re haunted
\nby it. We would go out if we went out to a movie or something like that. I would feel when I got to that
\nmovie, I would feel like a failure because I knew this book was this thing I had to do.
\nI had to do. And so I’m I’m just glad I did it, because you’ll know if
\nif something’s really something you’re supposed to do, it will haunt you every waking moment, every
\nday. And then to a degree, you’ve got to block it out. I mean, the amount of people that said I could have written this and I could have
\ndone that, I’m like, but then go do it. Go write your book. Yeah. So,
\nyeah, it’s a rewarding. But it takes years off your life. Any possibilities of another book?
\nYeah. You know, and I get asked that a lot. So the first thing we did is and I’m going to steal this from
\nRobert Cialdini because Robert Sheldon, he wrote two books that were 20 years plus apart
\nfrom one another. And they ask him why. He said, I’m into planning oak trees, not shrubs. So,
\nyou know, I knew and we had offers to do like a conscious coaching for sport coaches, conscious coaching for military
\nconscious coaching for corporations. We could have mella to that. That was not something I wanted to do.
\nAnd thankfully, because the audience was discerning, they knew that despite
\nthe fact that I talk about shaming, conditioning and all that, that it’s it could spread. And that’s where the book kind of took
\noff in the business world. There will probably be another book at some point time. But I’ll all
\nI’m telling you, this first won’t sell like the last one did. People will be very divided
\non it because of the topic, which I’m not going to talk about here. But the topic would be one that
\nwould be polarizing and not intentionally. It’s just because sometimes people don’t want to hear the
\ntruth in the way that they want to hear it, because I get asked that a lot, too. Don is like, well,
\nhow do you. You’ll know on that there’s no way your second book could ever measure up to your fur, and I’m like, why does it have to?
\nI got not worried. I’m not where I self-published something. Clearly, I’m not worried about book sales. It’s a blessing from God
\nthat the book is translated into six languages and over a hundred thousand copies sold. But
\nI thought my mom would read it and my brother would burn it. Now, we did do a follow up to the book.
\nI wanted to explore what it was like making things in different mediums. So the book came
\nout in 2017 and 2018. I made Bought In, which is an online course that
\nwas made for people who wanted to go deeper and be more immersive. So yeah, that’s good. Yeah,
\nwe did that because I think too often people get caught up thinking they need to write another book. I’m more in
\nline. We live in a digital age. Right. You talked about how technology is pervasive in training. Well, it’s
\nalso pervasive in education. It would behoove me just to think that a book is the only way I can reach people.
\nSo we have more than 500 coaches in that online course, and that’s only a year old
\nor year and a half old. So, yeah, we’re just we’re taking our time with it. And I want to plant an oak tree when it when
\nand if it is time and I want to plant a shrub. Well, I mean, I like that. I like that analogy. The oak tree. I think,
\nyou know, you need to keep doing what you’re doing. You’re definitely making an impact and influence.
\nThere’s always gonna be people that that are going to hate or not like or criticize. But typically
\nthose are the ones that aren’t doing much. They don’t do anything because if they’re really happy, they don’t criticize. And so
\nthose are the ones you just gotta, you know, just be sort. Weren’t those guys and just keep moving. So keep doing what? You damn
\nappreciate that. Likewise. Yes, sir. Talking a little. We’ll talk a little
\nsocial media. Sure. So social media is not only here to stay, it’s not
\ngoing away. Would you agree? 100 percent. We have a whole podcast on my about that. Yeah. It’s never going to do.
\nWhat would your advice be? So this is even recent for me. This is a current kind of
\nexperience I’ve had. I run into coaches today like, oh, you know, I don’t
\nhave social media. That’s not for me. That’s just that stuff’s bad. I’m not going to get on that and blah, blah,
\nblah, blah. So you got that side of it, right. But then you go all the way to this other extreme
\nand you start talking about us as professionals, younger coaches posting things
\non there. That’s really sometimes a bad look. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong,
\nbut it can influence or have big impacts on the perception of
\nour role as shrink coaches. What advice would you give to a younger swing coach
\nthat maybe they post all the time? But then what about over here, the six other extreme of like
\nthese older coaches or some coaches? You know, I’m not full with social media. Yeah. I mean, simply
\nput, social media is your resume aid to the world. So I like that. That’s my advice to people is
\nput out. It should be led by values, not vanity. And listen, I know
\nwhat, if I wanted to have a million followers, there would be a bunch of pictures leveraging
\npictures and videos, leveraging, you know, my athletes notoriety, doing all kinds of crazy
\ndrills or half naked people like that’s not what I’m about. So if you follow me, it’s pretty straightforward.
\nIt’s about, you know, I’ve posted a lot of things over the years. We do some training, but now a lot of it is coaching leadership.
\nIt is about my life. Communication, what have you. I think it is funny when you say
\nolder coaches that when I was coming up and it was an athlete that actually challenged me to get on social media.
\nRichie Incognito had told me at this time I didn’t even have a Twitter because people had said everybody
\nI learned under and I was a hardcore convert of this is if you’re on social media, you’re not a real coach.
\nThat’s what I that’s what I grew up, it being kind of told. And so I adhere to that. And
\nthen I remember one of my athletes, Richie, had said one time when the group was having a water break. He goes, why aren’t you on Twitter,
\nInstagram when really around at this point? And I said, real coaches aren’t on social media. He goes, oh, it’s
\nfunny. He goes, ’cause you educate your interns and you tell us why we’re doing certain things like
\nyou don’t think there’s anybody else in the world that could benefit from your insight. And like, well, I mean, I’m not a know
\nit all. You know what I mean? So like, I’m sure there is, but that’s not how I want to come across. And he goes, I think you’ve got your audience
\nwrong, brother. He’s like, if you think that there’s people out there and you’re not doing what you can to help them, then
\nyou know, you need to redefine what it means to be a coach in so many words. And so is him of
\nall people. And people can say what they want about his mental health struggles. He’s one of the best. He’s
\njust a great person. He is. And people don’t know anything other than what they read in the tabloids or whatever. But,
\nyou know, that challenged me. So I started looking at what can I change? Because that’s kind of like saying I’m not going to post
\nor whatever. And it’s bad for you is like living near the beach and you hear there is drownings that happen occasionally.
\nSo you’re not going to teach your kids how to swim. You just rather move away from the water. Like no matter what social
\nnet, we live in a time of digital networks and social networks
\nand all those things. And I also heard coaches say, wow, I’m too busy. Elon Musk tweets,
\nRichard Branson tweets. So really, here’s the thing, Tony.
\nOur fields excuses. Ninety nine percent of them are masked or thinly veiled insecurities.
\nBut we’ll come up with that whatever reason they want to say, but it’s imposter phenomenon.
\nThey they don’t want to be judged. They don’t want to be criticized. The key, they don’t want to be criticized a person, they don’t wanna be crazy. They think
\nthey’ll lose their job because if they say something stupid or looking napped and like whatever, they don’t want to be criticized.
\nIt all goes back to skin in the game. It all goes back to this game, a game that younger coaches already said it values,
\nnot vanity at your resum\u00e9 to the world. You can never take those things back because even if you remove a post that’s
\na digital catalog that will live in the Internet ether forever. Don’t overthink
\nthis stuff. You know, like I used to think that if I posted, it had to be something that would like, wow,
\nyou know, the thought leaders of our field. And now I just do me. And if you like it, great. If you don’t.
\nWhatever. I had a conversation, you know, to piggyback on what you’re saying. This was just
\nrecently with a coach. Great coach, very knowledgeable. I had a
\ngreat has a great job doing a wonderful job with the athletes he’s got. And
\nso I asked him about this. Are you? You know, if I go to Google, you or whatever,
\nwe not only then not on Twitter and on Instagram, nothing dangerous. And so I.
\nBut hold on. So then we were having this conversation about career path and getting
\npromoted and move. I said today your resum\u00e9 is own line.
\nPeople aren’t looking at your piece of paper. I’m not saying you got to go crazy on it, but you need to get
\nyour so you can get your stuff down in. You need to get. You need to have an online presence. It’s current
\nand it gives people a snapshot of what kind of coach you are you. That’s a powerful
\nplatform. You have control and you can paint that picture. You need to do it with integrity,
\nobviously. But you’re missing the game. Yeah. I mean, you make a great point. And our mutual
\nfriend Ron McCaffrey, we talked about that. If you don’t have if you don’t own your own digital real estate, you’re leaving it up
\nto somebody else to draw what conclusions they might. And that’s it. That’s just the truth. You know, it is
\nit is like in the end, it doesn’t matter. People need to get it through their heads. And it doesn’t matter what you like in
\nthis world. It matters what you can adapt to brass tacks. It just is the facts.
\nRight. Like so if all of a sudden, like. And I think people get it twisted. They say social media is the downfall
\nof shaming conditioning. Have you ever Googled strength coach fired or shrimp coach, ethics
\nor strength coach? Viral. You look at those sayings Google. I would argue, is
\na lot more powerful than social media and strength. Coaches do a pretty good job of embarrassing themselves
\nthrough some of the things that have gone on through the years. And you’re talking about a lot of honor and ethical. And listen, I’m not one
\nI’m not perfect. Right. Like who? Everybody. But if you Google strength and conditioning and you go
\ndeep enough, you see a lot of Google searches and a lot of index results that come
\nup. Google’s coaches doing some really questionable stuff. So even if social
\nmedia didn’t exist, like you say, I always tell people social media didn’t create more idiots.
\nIf anything, it actually puts a spotlight on the ones that you should avoid. Right. But like, good. We
\nlook at, you know, and before listen, like that’s true. That’s to say before social media, there weren’t people
\ndoing unethical or ridiculous things during like, you know, during colonialism. Like
\npeople would try to advertise themselves to be something charlatans go throughout the
\nhistory of time. You know, the Wild West. Somebody would sell colder ice than somebody else. And so I just
\nI love it when there’s always something to blame. You’re usually to blame. And that’s collective. That’s myself,
\ntoo. You have to take a hard look, which is why I’m so visible now. As I say, when I until other people to do
\nthings, I’m not doing it. And myself not perfect. And it’s not for everybody. But you know what? They’ll know who I am and what I stand for.
\nAnd I think to coach Brand, I think if you’re going to stay relevant and
\nstay current with the profession, you’ve got at some point have an online presence.
\nOther professions, if you don’t stay current, you don’t move up. Yeah. You don’t advance. You
\ndon’t stay. You don’t stay relatable. And I mean, how much more? And I’m not saying again,
\nI know I like what you’re saying, because just because there’s some bad stuff out there
\ndoesn’t mean you’re going to join the bad stuff. Don’t you want to do. And I think the key to that is you’ve got to be authentic.
\nAnd I think that you need to have the right motive of why you’re doing. I mean, I think
\nI know when I first started doing something, I would struggle with this kind of pool of like being
\naccused and judged. So you’re accurate in that of being a self-promoter.
\nSo I would struggle with that. So you know what? People can just go in, misjudge me or whatever, that I’m
\nself-promoting. But, you know, I’m actually I enjoy what I’m doing and I love trying to help people.
\nAt the end of the day, you can call it what you own. Yeah. Let’s be real clear. What’s wrong with it? If you feel like you’re doing something
\nthat has value and you’re doing it ethically, what’s wrong with trying to share that with other people?
\nRight. Like that. That it’s so there’s so much double speak there because
\nthink of everything, right? Like do these people that say this, they work for teams or organizations
\nthat have a budget. And that budget is typically allocated through alumni or some other donations or it’s privately
\nfunded by the team owner. But at the end of the day, if anybody wants something to be
\nallocated within a budget, if somebody wants to be able to utilize resources that upgrade their
\ndepartment, how do they think they get that money through promotion and fundraising?
\nRight. So when people say, well, I’m not a self-promoter, I’m not this and that. No, but you’re reaping the benefits
\nof other people that are doing promotion and marketing for you. And so it’s one thing, if you’re a self-promoter that’s doing
\nthings that are unethical or you’re trying to present yourself as a no at all. But no matter what you’re marketing to
\nthe world, regardless the people that say I don’t promote myself and I’m not on social media
\nare marketing themselves as these old school people that don’t mark their marketing even
\nby default of not the absence of a feature is still a feature. That’s the bottom line.
\nAnd so they really don’t they really don’t unders- like when I walk through. Airport at in Atlanta.
\nI see. And I think it’s down here, it’s it’s a cancer research hospital for in
\nAustin. And it advertises what they’re doing from a cancer research standpoint. KOCH That’s
\nadvertising right now. Do I look at that and think, well, that’s that’s that’s not that’s
\nnot sound ethics or that’s inappropriate. If they were doing it for the right reasons, they wouldn’t need to advertise.
\nWrong. Like public relations if people want to increase the use of Metro Transit
\nin New York. Guess what? They need a public relations campaign to tell people why. If you want to draw attention
\nto a helpful product, a new form of technology in the weight room that might benefit your athletes. Those are all forms
\nof marketing. Impression management and and all those things. So I just think it’s funny when coaches
\nsay that they don’t want to self-promoter market yet they engage in those behaviors every day. They try
\nto make their programs appealing to their athletes by being in coaching. Here’s a bomb. You’re
\nin marketing by default. You’re taking in message, trying to distill it
\nin a meaningful way to an audience. Dan Pink’s kind of book. Daniel Pink
\ncould sell all that book has changed. My whole thought price process is that we’re all in sales.
\nHow do you like it or not? You may not say you’re a salesman, but you’re in sales. And because of the human relations
\nside piece of it, and you’ve got to build influence and you got to persuade. Be honest with yourself. Right. And that’s a lot of what my doctoral
\nwork is now is on influence, persuasion, power dynamics. Because what I learn is writing
\ngreat programs was not enough. It is not enough because you. It doesn’t matter how well-written
\nthat program is, if the athlete doesn’t put out that type of effort that you want from it or
\nif somebody organizationally is stifling what you’re trying to do because of their agendas.
\nRight. So most people in professional sport organizations are elite sport, just like with elite organizations around the world
\nare not finding a lack of success because they’re not writing the right programs or they don’t have the right base ingredients.
\nIt’s because of power dynamics and agendas of other people that deviltry, ulterior motives.
\nYou don’t understand those things. How you going to combat them? What would be some simple just
\nsteps and advice? Somebody is listening. We just kind of they want a trial of social media.
\nThey’ve never done it. They’ve shied away from it. Now they’re realizing that, hey, I need to kind of
\nstart doing some this will be some simple advice you give to somebody who’s just starting now. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I always tell people
\nand this is where I don’t worry about the self-promotion anymore. Look at the resources we put out. We like I have a whole
\ncourse that addresses ethical behavior around this and it kind of coincides with
\nwhat we talked about earlier. If you’re just starting off with social media, it’s like the same thing. If you’re writing a book,
\nwrite what you know and don’t follow the crowd. Put blinders on. There are tons of people that want me to just
\nkeep posting training videos and photos like I did three, four or five years ago, two years
\nago. I like I don’t want to just do that anymore. Like, how many more agility drills can you see? How many more squat?
\nYou know what I mean? Like, I I wake up and there’s things I feel moved or influenced by and I want to talk about those
\nthings. So like be consistent is the other thing. I have people that have said, you know, I
\ntried it. I did this. I thought I put helpful stuff out there. And it’s just not taking I.
\nHow long you been doing it? Six months. Right. Like it took me five years even get
\nany kind of following when my book Conscious Coaching came out. I maybe had 5000 people following me on Instagram
\nand, you know, not much. I didn’t even have like a newsletter. I didn’t have anything. And
\npeople quit right away. So just write what you know, be consistent.
\nQuit worrying about everybody else. Be authentic. Yeah. Yeah. Like, again, like, who are you? Like, if
\nyou can’t. If I can look at that. The first 16 photos or post I see should give me a clear indicator,
\nfairly clear indicator of who you are. And you know what I found, coach? The minute I quit worrying about all that stuff, the
\nminute I quit worrying about pleasing everybody and wanted everybody to see me a certain way and whatever.
\nI got more of a following and a loyal following and it was a good following. And I got rid of the toxic people
\nthat just want to, you know what I mean? They’re like. And it’s relaxing. Like I saw my post. Like
\npeople can see my goofy side. People will see the serious side. People will learn about my son. My thoughts
\naround coaching. And if you don’t, I follow that. Great. There’s a million other humby, I think. I think people were drawn
\nto mistakes we make, you know, because that’s you’re vulnerable.
\nBut then also you’re so relatable because there’s a humility that comes to that being able to acknowledge
\nthe handle, have all the answers and made some mistakes. I like showing my imperfections far more now than I like. I’d rather
\nshare embarrassing stories and stuff than good advice. Recently,
\nanother little topic I think is interesting, but really a very hot topic
\nin strength conditioning specifically in the college scene over the past I’d
\nsay few years, we’ve definitely received some criticism from athletes not being trained
\nproperly. What are your thoughts on just certifications in regards to
\nraising the bar professionally as well as just minimizing athlete risk? Yeah, I think
\nyou said you want me to attack that from the certification standpoint or what we can do to. Atomize athlete risk.
\nFirst and foremost, you know, I’d love to hear your thoughts on certification, but then,
\nyou know well, let’s hear your thoughts first as I got my thoughts to sell on the certificate. What’s your thoughts? I
\nthink right now, transparently, our governing bodies could be doing more. I think they’ve gotten tone deaf. I do. And
\nI’ve like, listen, I’m a paying member and I have my Yes.Yes and my RACC and all these
\nother things. But I think that it’s gotten a bit tone deaf to the field. Now, granted, like I’m biased,
\nright? Like I’m putting information out there that is about the art of coaching and relationships and
\nalso dealing with burnout and financial management and things that real coaches are struggling with.
\nAnd I’ve been told that that laterin that latter topic in particular wasn’t relevant enough to
\nget C use, which I thought was really interesting because we had more than 3000 coaches
\nper third party survey say that they deal with aspects of burnout, financial issues, student loan debt,
\nanxiety. They’re not sure if they can stay in the field. Now, we were told point blank by a governing body that that,
\nyou know, that just stuff wasn’t they didn’t view it as rella. Now they try to kind of shield that with saying,
\nwell, what we’re saying is it’s not a part of our certification type
\ninformation. And I feel maybe it should be because we need to focus on allowing coaches to be able
\nto actually have a sustainable career. Now, I want to keep it on topic with what you said.
\nYou talked about athlete safety, health and all that. That’s the endgame.
\nKeeping them safe. Yeah, well, 100 percent. But like I said, they’re not mutually exclusive. As a coach, you can have
\na career that you are able to keep your athletes safe, but you’re also able to see your family and make some money.
\nYou know, I always love it when people say it’s like they act as if our profession has to be either or, you know, and that’s like the
\nfirst book I was ever given in the fields, like first in, last out, which is basically a connotation of saying like
\nin which it was given to me, like, unless you want to work obscene hours constantly and not have a life,
\nyou’re not going to be successful. And there’s a balance to those things. So I think that, you know, the
\nway that we’ve treated, whether it’s certification or whether, by the way, we’ve addressed
\nissues within screaming conditioning in totality, that has a reflection of what we’ve done with athlete health
\nand safety, like more people need to get involved into it as opposed to just speaking up. We have so many
\nstrength coaches out there that clamor for solutions. Yet what are they doing? What are they doing? That
\nwas the biggest point. I had to check myself as I could complain about a lot of things and I used to, but until I started
\ntrying to put stuff out there books, courses, podcasts, whatever. I realized that like
\nlike quit complaining about the dark if you’re not going to light a match. So I’m encouraging the answer to your question
\nas direct as I can be. If you think you have solutions, get involved. And getting involved does
\nnot say does not entail you telling these governing bodies what they should do.
\nYou like whether you need to run for positions or you need to provide the resources or whatever. Do it. Get in the trenches.
\nI had to spend my own money to create all of my online courses. I do spend my nobody funded that. I don’t get
\npaid a salary. And like so it troubles me when I have coaches. I mean, I saw it the other day on one
\nof the message boards. Somebody is complaining that we need licensing in our field, not certifications, but a licensure.
\nBut these people been complaining about this for years. OK. Great. Then create a proposal that,
\nyou know, expands upon curriculum or a path and then let’s figure out what that needs to be done and then
\nget the necessary people on board. Believe me, if people can figure out how to shoot rockets into space
\nthat land themselves back down on that very pad, a group of trained coaches can figure
\nout how to improve some things, but they just expect the governing bodies to do it for him. So I think
\nI think it’s multi-factorial. I think it’s insidious because our governing bodies for sure can be tone deaf to some things that need to be
\nimproved and that you don’t always feel supported as a strength coach. At least I don’t feel like the minute I got
\nout of a team setting, like I do feel like our governing bodies are very much geared towards
\njust team and there needs to be more unification of what we’re doing. Right. Like other fields have unions,
\nother fields. Yeah, I agree with the NFLPA. They have a players, I say. Meanwhile, we’re all fighting
\neach other and then we have organizations and we wonder why there’s so many issues. Right. And
\nthen more coaches just need to learn more about. Like I said, business ethics strategies, get involved, spend your own
\nmoney or quit complaining and find a way to make it work. Yeah. And I like I like on that. I also feel
\nlike, you know, that the athlete risk. I think that there’s. And I know this is a bit
\nyou know, you talk about this, too, but you talk you look at the culture and the power structures
\nin different teams. And I think, you know, you look at the the the amount of
\npay that some of our coaches are getting in, some of the revenue sports is getting very high, which with comes
\nout comes a lot of authority and weight. Right. And so I think that, you know, you look
\nat who’s being hired, how they’re being hired. Look at hiring practices. And are they just good buddies
\nthat you’re bringing in? Most of the time they are. Yeah. And so I think I think I think it’s going to be more
\njust from my experience in the field than just a certification. Oh, without it a guy. And it’s they’ve
\ngot to be unified. Like you said, there’s there’s definitely stronger unity needed. But then there’s the other pieces,
\ntoo. But your colleagues at parties. So that’s why when I created that online course valued that
\nwas the goal is to provide coaches with an alternate MBA of sorts. Because your resumes and your connections
\naren’t enough. So we wanted to create a resource that bridge fields and gender gaps
\nand age gaps. We got Donelle Bush, a coach, Hootie,
\nany McCloy. We got people in collegiate, pro-private, whatever. A bunch of other coaches, a financial
\nmanager or a financial advisor provided resources, a lawyer. And
\nwe tried putting that together because what we’re trying to say collectively is nobody’s going to do it for
\nyou. You know what I mean? Like, it shouldn’t be the expectation that these improvements in our field are going to be done
\nfor us. You’ve got to be a part of that. You being a collective us. Right. But then the issue, coach, and
\nwhen I challenge you on is even when these resources are available. But what we’ve learned
\nis most coaches don’t want to talk to him because they feel selfish. They feel guilty. We’ve heard.
\nWell, you know. Yeah. Like, I have trouble with this. I have trouble with that. I feel stuck. I’m burned out or I’m
\nnot sure what to do or it’s a toxic organization. And I don’t I can’t leave because I’ve got a family. But
\nthen it’s like, well, hey, there’s a resource that can help you in there. Yeah, but, you know, I just feel like I
\nshouldn’t do it. Like if I’m in it for the right reasons, I shouldn’t be focused on these things. I just need to give more. I’m like, yeah. Oh,
\nyeah. Key point from an empty cup. See how that goes or. Yeah. The the oxygen masks
\nhave fallen from the plane. Don’t put yours on and see how many people you can help. So I think this martyrdom
\nof strength and conditioning needs to go away too. And that’s another topic. I mean how many coaches today
\ncoaching themselves? Very few because they don’t want to pay for it. Yeah, it’s that just how
\ncan always kind of have the same. How can the coach, the coaches
\nbe uncoachable, you know, if we’re going to coach and teach. We’ve got to be great
\nlearners himself, you know. And I think, you know, emptying your cup, that’s a that’s a definitely martial arts
\nterm or saying that’s it. That’s definitely relevant. That’s
\ntough, coach. Where do you see our profession going? What’s the next big thing? Do you see
\nsomething on the horizon? If you thought about this at all? Babin I’m trying to put my money where my mouth is. I
\nthink if coaches don’t invest in learning more about the psycho-social of aspects of influence, communication,
\ninterpersonal skills and also coaches don’t upskill their their own knowledge of the business side
\nof this field. I think you’re going to be left behind. So when I say the business, it’s everything I’m talking
\nabout, whether it’s understanding social media, negotiating contracts, proper networking,
\nall the things that kind of provide you with intangibles and more control over your own career. And then the
\nsocial side of what we do and really diving deeper and understanding that the art of coaching
\nis every bit a science as well. And so I think those are two
\nareas. And I’m totally right. I’m totally fine being wrong. I’ll say that, you know, but at least
\nI look at this way, what allows me to sleep as I’m planting a flag, you know, but I just find it hard to
\nthink that in our field we are going to I mean, coaching
\nby definition is social in nature. So why aren’t we investing more in understanding social
\nscience? But it goes hand-in-hand with what you just said. Coach made most people not getting coaching
\nthemselves because we all suffer from some element of Dunning-Kruger thinking we’re better at it than we really
\nare, or most people just don’t change until the changes thrust upon
\nthem. It’s just like the athlete that won’t listen to what you. He keeps pulling his hamstring and you tell me to do something
\nand he doesn’t do it. So he keeps pulling his hamstring. And then eventually it’s like there’s gonna be a tipping point where maybe
\nthey’re gonna listen to you or they’re going to phase out. Same thing will happen in our field. Habits are so hard to break.
\nObviously not only lifestyle, but work habits because we’ve always done it that way. Yeah. What do you feel like
\nhas been the hardest habit for you to overcome something that you knew is toxic or or harmful or like just
\nkind of like you were stuck and you couldn’t get over it for a while? And then you just realized,
\nno, the way I looked at that was completely wrong. L like, was was there something you were a little bit hard nosed
\nor stubborn about? Yeah, I mean, I think. Probably similar to a lot of coaches.
\nI like the work and just taking vacations, taking time away.
\nYou know, it’s something I’ve been doing. I think the past four or five years, I’ll take the first part of January,
\njust kind of reset and just do some stuff, whether it’s take days off or go through
\na cleanse or something. But just I think making time for me. Yeah. And just
\nmaking sure I’m good. And I think that that has been this past
\nyear. I think I’ve done more to try to take care of my body and just be in a better place physically
\nand mentally than I’ve ever done. So. What do you do specifically? I’ve been you know, I’ve had just from playing
\nball mode injuries kind of bothered me still. But just in the past. Just try to ignore that
\nin better shape and be better mentally, physically. I might want to do that myself. And so
\nit’s inconvenience at times. And, you know, you don’t have to
\nput yourself in those situations where you just always stressed out and not taking care yourself. So I think
\nthat’s been a struggle for me, but something I’ve definitely gotten better at here later than the last few years. Yeah.
\nYeah, I appreciate it. Stop it. And it’s not been easy. And, you know, I can still fall back into some of those. But but
\nit’s something that we’ll keep working at for sure. Yeah, I’m definitely aware of it since.
\nSo you have a course we can’t talked about called Valued and for the most part, strength
\ncoaches kind of. We’ve been talking. They are overworked and underpaid. We have a lot of young
\ncoaches getting into the profession, but we also have some really good ones are getting help. Yeah.
\nThey’re just done, right. They’re burned out. Low pay, long hours.
\nThey don’t have the support. I feel like I said that earlier. What can we do, coach?
\nI mean, that’s just as across the market. I don’t think even collegiately s’pore specifically
\nto increase our value, not just how we’re perceived, but monetarily. How can we what are
\nsome things we can do to do that so we can have a better quality of life? Yeah. I mean, I’ll give you it’s obviously hard to consolidate
\nwhat is 10 hours, of course, material, because we walk through all of that step by step by step
\nin the online course. But just a sample of some of the topics we discussed within
\nthat is one you have to understand that you have to make your job and what you actually do
\na lot more complex than meets the eye. And a lot of coaches get wrapped up just in being a strength.
\nCoach Brian Donelle Boucher talks about this a great deal in the course. He talks about ways
\nthat, you know, you have to bring value to other departments. You want to make sure you want to make your job description
\nas complex as possible so that you have advocates at every level. You know,
\nI think that’s a huge problem where Pete. It’s great that people identify with being a strength coach. And listen, like I have a beard. I’m
\nfrom Nebraska. I like lifting weights. I get it. Like we have. It’s an awesome thing, but you’re more
\nthan that. And I liken it to a big music guy. And so I. Pardon me if people
\ndon’t like these analogies, but I look at people like Dr. Dre and Jay-Z and these people like
\nthey might have started off as deejays or rappers relative to whichever one you’re discussing. But then look,
\nJay-Z’s the first billionaire really in hip hop and one of the only ones in music.
\nAnd then Dr. Dre went on to orchestrate a deal with Apple. You know, you look at I
\nalways tell people because people get cheeky with me sometimes saying, are you a coach or a speaker? And I said, both.
\nAnd I you know, I just make sure to remind them that Steve Jobs didn’t go to his grave building Mac books.
\nMy career evolution is not only natural, it should be encourage.
\nSo that’s great that there are some coaches that just want to spend the rest of their life coaching eight, nine, 10
\ngroups a day, the rest of their life every day until they’re 70, 80 years old. That’s awesome.
\nLike a part of me wanted to do that for a while, too. Now I’ve learned I like coaching, but I also like Nanjing
\nand I like leading and I like doing other. I like having my hands on a lot of things. It makes me better range.
\nRight. Going back to the very beginning of this. So we teach coaches how to do that. We give them exact
\nsamples, whether they’re in team or private or what have you, of how they can do these things, lateral
\nstrategies. And then we also walk them through how they can communicate and ethically build
\na brand in a way that is not gimmicky, not sales, not is or and
\nthat is true to who they truly are. So we walk them through brand strategies and guides.
\nAnd I would say most importantly, we teach them about how to identify.
\nWe give what’s called an opportunity matrix. So this opportunity matrix is inevitably coaches are going to be
\nfaced with a wide range of opportunities pass they could take. How do they evaluate which
\none is really right for them? So they’re slowing down. So we offer an opportunity matrix. There’s nothing
\nlike this in the field and then we give them a full of full of fuel. Good lord,
\na full on burnout guide. So a lot of people think that burnout. I’ll give you a sample
\nis for people that aren’t committed or in something for the right reasons. Over 50 years of literature. Now,
\nmind you, coach, maybe. Our field has really been around as a profession for about 60 or samadhi
\nyears, whether you but it’s Alvin Roy or Boyd Epperly or whatever, I’m not talking about how long people have participated
\nin physical culture. Random Time out, how long Shrinking Edition was a recognized field?
\nMaybe about 60 years. There is over 50 years alone on burnout literature
\nthat shows it is actually not people that are mentally weak or uncommitted or unsure. Burnout
\noccurs most in vocations, such as surgeons, nurses, members of
\ntactical communities, human resources, people that tend to give their all and are very
\nservice and servant based centered. So the most committed are actually the most
\nlikely to burn out. But it’s funny because coaches feel ashamed saying their burned out because they feel like they’re not
\nin it for the right reasons. Because that’s what we’ve told coaches. So we go through step by step, not
\nonly what the research shows with that, but how to identify stages of burnout. So if you’re currently
\nin a position where you feel stuck or is toxic, how you can really identify it and then actual
\nstrategies, because it’s not just leave the job. It’s not just, oh, try to seek.
\nTry to go on vacation because of your burnout. You go on vacation, you’re going to come back to that same environment.
\nAll these things that we’ve been taught have in classic strategies of distancing yourself. Excuse me,
\nare not really what you want to do. So we give people a full on guide for it. So it really is full on
\nfrom getting the job. Advancing within the job or securing your future. That’s everything
\nthat the course walks through. But you’ve got to look at those areas if you want to take steps to the right direction. Yeah, I
\nlove that. I think that the way you use the word that I can’t
\nuse the word similar to you, but it’s reinvent now. And I really do. I feel like
\nover my career I can look at tangible points or periods of time
\nwhere I’ve done different things outside of being a strength coach within my profession. That’s helped
\nassist me to develop skills in other areas. It’s not only knowing
\npiqued my interest, but has actually refreshed me in my career. Well, again, think
\nof what you just said, right? Things outside of training conditioning made you a better strength, coach.
\nWhen our athletes come into the weight room, by and large, coach maybe, are they doing sport specific movements?
\nAre they doing things that directly relate to sport or look like sport in the weight room? So different, you know? Right.
\nBut we know that it improves their ability to performance. Yeah. But then again, you see the hilarity.
\nCoaches don’t. They don’t. They think the only way to be a good coach is by coaching.
\nNo, there’s indirect methods to become a better coach. That’s all I’m encouraging people
\nto understand. And we provide resources that help them do that. So for me, it’s been exhausting.
\nI’ll be honest the last three years to try to convince coaches that they’re doing the
\nsame things they’re telling their athletes not to do. And not only that, they’re getting angry
\nabout it, you know. It’s not taken only by ironic.
\nWhat do you do for professional development? Personally? How do you stay sharp? Yeah, well, one is putting
\nmyself out there more. So, you know, I used to just the guy I’d read a book a week. I do this.
\nI do that. And I realize that that’s great to consume information. But to turn it around and have to teach
\nit is a completely nother ball. So true. So I’m big like while everybody else right now is kind of talking about how
\nmany books they read a year. I’m going the opposite way. I’m trying to read fewer books and do more with
\nthem. So that has been the benefit, I think, of the biggest kind of growth for me in the past three years
\nis after I’m done with a resource, whether that’s a book or research article or what have you, that either has
\nto get turned in and adapted into something that fits with a presentation. FreeBee,
\nwe give out tons of freebie resources on Ardo coaching dot com. But I haven’t learned from that
\nunless I’ve done it because it’s great if I’m highlighting it and writing. But I think again, creating has
\nbeen a huge piece for me. I like to think that. I think when you talk to. I remember
\nI took more arts for years and I’ll never forget my instructor told me one time
\nand the light bulb came on. He goes, you can come and I can teach you every night.
\nHe says, but if you really want to get good at this, you need to start teaching what you know. Yeah. And I did coach.
\nI started my own class. It’s awesome. This was in Boulder, Colorado. He would teach in
\nLittleton, which was 45 minute drive. So I would take from him
\nonce a week. And then I started my own class in Boulder and I got it up to about seven
\nor eight people. And actually, you know, at the time, I think my highest ranking build, I got somebody up to
\npurple belt. I didn’t really know if it was working. One night
\nafter a couple of years, I left my instructor’s class and the students
\nare. They were they were like, how are you getting good so fast? I go, you’re just.
\nI’m just doing what you’re doing. I said, Oh, no, you know what? I’m actually teaching. Yeah. Teaching what I was
\nlearning. So when he would teach me something, I would have to go to apply it to different sizes, different genders.
\nAnd my teaching style improved my thought process of how I analyzed it. Because he talks
\nabout there’s three views when you learn martial arts. There’s if we’re working together, you’re
\ndoing a technical me. So that’s one where you learn you’re doing number two. I’m receiving it from you.
\nYeah. And then the third view is that I’m watching you guys do it right. And that was the
\nimpetus behind doing like we do these two day workshops now called The Apprenticeship, where it’s that I
\nrealized that I was going around and speaking given a lot of 60, 90 minute keynotes, what have you. But
\nthen I’d still get the same questions again and again and again. So I’m like, right, I’m either doing a really poor job of communicating
\nthis or it’s just not the right environment and what have you. And, you know, it’s interesting.
\nNow we run events that are 10 percent PowerPoint, 90 percent interactive. And,
\nyou know, coaches have to take their own. They have to engage. They have to get involved. They have to get up and do role-playing and improv
\nstuff and and video breakdowns. And it. I mean, teaching is the highest form of learning. So that’s
\nwhat I focus on in my professional development. I also seek I go to people outside
\nof our profession and because, again, most of the issues our profession faces have already been dealt with
\nin other fields and vise versa. I pay. I spend a lot more money, to be honest.
\nAnd it’s not that I listen. I have a kid. I fund my own business. Right. And I live a pretty,
\npretty simple life. Like I’m not rolling in it. I maybe make $2 a book from every book sold on Amazon.
\nThat book costs me twenty five thousand dollars to write. I’m being fully transparent. Each of those
\ncourses cost twenty five thousand dollars to create. Imagine that. Putting that on your credit card. Being
\nscared out of your mind because you’re creating something that’s completely dependent on you that hadn’t even been created yet.
\nBut I had to secure the resources for the people that did the filming and all those things. And then it took me eight to
\nalmost blacked out there for a moment because I’m trying to remember where we’re at. But doing all these things that there were real consequences
\nif I didn’t apply and didn’t reflect and all that, like helped me tremendously.
\nAnd I just think that people need to up the stakes, like, oh, that’s where you got to invest. So like most
\ncoaches will say, I don’t have the money to do this. None of us. You’re never going to have enough money. You’re never gonna
\nhave enough money or time. When I look at is what I don’t have is time or money to waste. So I started
\nlooking at on average was spending, let’s say thirty five hundred dollars a year, going to certain conferences,
\nflights, hotels, food admission fee. And I started looking at like a lot of these have just
\nbecome redundant. A lot of them, they’re just networking vacations where people barely even went to the talks.
\nYou know, they it just seemed like nobody was going. And so I’m like, where can I reinvest this money elsewhere? So
\nI think coaches, when they say, oh, I don’t have five hundred dollars or this or 300 for that. Yes, you do.
\nThat’s usually the cup like the cost of a cup of coffee or $3 cup of coffee a day for six
\nmonths. Right. Or less than that. And so I think people you’re going to spend that money anyway reevaluate
\nbecause so much as free coach, so much as free. Now when people say, I don’t have the money for X. I wonder
\nwhat they’re spending it on. Because think about it like if you can get so much education for free now,
\nwhy can’t you afford the one percent of it that isn’t free? You know, because even when I made ten thousand dollars
\nas a G-A, I’m a one time I saved up enough to go to an eight hundred dollar clinic. And that clinic was crazy.
\nIt was great because it gave me more ideas. It was worth sixteen hundred to me, five coaches just kind of quit being scared
\nand making excuses. And the way said, if you don’t bet on yourself, why would anybody else bet on you? Right. You
\ncan’t find 200 bucks or twenty bucks. Yeah. Like you said, there’s so many resources.
\nYou don’t have to have a big budget to do that. So I totally agree. And it’s definitely
\na passion of mine. So I’m fired up about a lot of this hits close to home because it’s we’re trying to change.
\nSo I know I’m rambling, but you know, it is what it is. One last fun question as we kind of get to the end here.
\nIf we were rock, would Brett be in a car or whatever? You got your playlist. What would we
\nsee on the playlist, coach? Oh, yeah. So it’s public on Spotify. You can check it. So what? I’m a
\nbig hip hop fan, like true true lyrics. So I’m in that about I’m not I like Nas, Eminem,
\nJay-Z, 50 Cent, you know, like. Yeah, like I’m big on on older and
\nand like Notorious B.I.G. I’m also really big on just some classics. Bobby Darin,
\nFrank Sinatra, Jim Croce, my dad, you. So listen to that stuff all the time, you know, but I listen
\nto a wide variety, just depends what situation you catch me. And now lately actually what I’ve been training to
\nand I know you didn’t ask this question. I used to train exclusively to like hip hop rock. What have you.
\nNow, if anything, I’m doing more like no lyrics, kind of these like
\nchill. I think you would call like a lounge music. It’s just as chill, ambient constant tempo
\nand it’s very low key. So I think they call like on Pandora, it’s like chill house. And because
\nI notice that so much of what I’m doing puts my nervous system at a 10. Whether it’s speaking podcasts,
\nwhatever, so you don’t want to do that, why trios bring a bad guy and downgrade you? I didn’t realize that until
\na couple of years ago. I just like I’m way more fatigued from my training than I should be. And there are certain times you’re
\nlike, I love lift and heavy, but like, I just didn’t feel like I had the capacity. Now, like,
\nI could will it out like your bike just didn’t want any of that. So I’ve started being more mindful of how to keep myself
\non this thin line between sympathetic and parasympathetic because otherwise I’m always rocking it to 10.
\nYeah. I mean, I think you even look at athletes today, you’ve got to find an outlet. You can’t just always be
\non. And I was just. You just drained. Listen to me now. I’m still on 10. That’s right.
\nCoach, as we close up here, just I know you mentioned it. You’ve got an apprenticeship
\ncoming up here soon in Atlanta. Just quick little snip that you were talking to me about
\nthat today. It sounds so amazing. Sure. Yeah. I mean, you talked about certifications like I just don’t I don’t know
\nright now that I believe in the idea of certification of this idea that you’re an expert after coming to somebody to
\nday. So we call it an apprenticeship to allude to here. The learning. It’s a process, right? Yeah. So
\nhighly interactive to day full on about power dynamics, social skills, being a better communicator,
\nwhat the research says about being an effective leader. And it’s really the only thing of its kind and strained
\nconditioning in coaching right now. And that we do improv, film break, small group discussions,
\ntons of different things. And it’s got the for like the first social skill based evaluation for coaches.
\nWe’ve had physical therapists, members of the FBI, straight coaches, athletic directors. We’re
\ndoing a couple in services for teams, but these are open to anybody. Male, female, 19 year old. Eighty
\nfive year old, whatever. If you want to learn how to be a better communicator and thus a leader coming,
\nget nasty. It sounds great. Coach, I definitely look forward to hear more about that.
\nIf the audience wants to connect with you, follow you. If they don’t know where you are, what’s the easiest way to
\nfind you? Easier. Straight up is just art of coaching. Dot com. Everything is
\nthere. Podcasts, courses. Web site newsletter. Art of coaching. Dot com. You
\ncan find it all. That’s awesome. Coach Brett, you’re the man.
\nWe absolutely love having you in Austin. Likewise. You’re dear to us. You’ve definitely had an influence
\nand impact on us as a staff and we look forward to working more with you in the future. And we appreciate
\nall you’re doing for all the professionals other keep making an impact. Coach, we appreciate you. Love you guys. We
\nlove you, too. We’re out of here. This is a team behind the team podcast. I’m Danny mayb- and who’s with
\nme today. Brett Bartholomew Hulu.com. Thanks so much
\nfor tuning in and listening to this episode of The Team Behind the Team podcast
\nfor future episodes. Go to i-Tunes Spotify, Google Podcast or
\nStitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show and great content.
\nSo if you have a moment, please go to i-Tunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re
\ndoing. Hamdani, me and thanks so much for tuning in.<\/p>\n"},"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2020\/03\/Team_Behind_Team_1400.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/podcast-download\/22\/e6-brett-bartholomew-strength-conditioning.mp3","player_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/podcast-player\/22\/e6-brett-bartholomew-strength-conditioning.mp3","audio_player":"