The Truth About Winning: Why Most Leaders Fail Under Pressure

Speaker A: Oftentimes coaches think that the word coaching is to serve and the word coaching is to be selfless. But in reality, I believe coaching is a very selfish job. And that's a very different position than most coaches automatically. So if I come at it from the perspective of like, hey, I want to get something out of this, whether it's pushing you to greatness, it's this art of achievement, this idea that I get to be a part of a world championship, I. I'm being transparent with that. Oftentimes coaches hide their agenda behind an athlete's action and I don't think that that's healthy. People do this in coaching too, or in business where they're saying like, hey, uh, you should do this cause this is what's best for you. But in reality, it's what's best for them. And they've not taken into account how they are being perceived because of the way that they're actually manipulating the people in the workforce to do something that actually has an outcome that benefits them.

Speaker B: Leadership looks powerful from the outside. But behind closed doors, the pressure is real. The decisions are heavy and most leaders

Speaker C: have nowhere to talk about it.

Speaker B: The boardroom moments that keep you up at night. The decisions that affect thousands of people. The quiet questions MIDI leaders carry but rarely say out loud. I'm Melissa Dawn Simpkins EdTech, founder of AthLeadership, CEO of Velvet Suite and the C Suite. Confidant to leaders performing at their highest level as they navigate pressure and change. For more than two decades, I've, uh, built global leadership platforms and advised executives and elite performers across business and sport in high stakes environments. If you're here, you're probably someone people count on. That's why I created C Suite Confidential. Grounded in neuroscience and the elite athletic mindset. Each episode features candid conversations with CEOs, talent, leaders, athletes, high performers who understand both demands and the privilege of leadership. Most leadership conversations focus on strategy. This one focuses on conditioning. If you're leading in the arena and you want to do it with strength, clarity in heart, you are in the right place. This is C Suite Confidential, where leaders

Speaker C: come to strengthen the mindset required to

Speaker B: perform when it matters most.

Speaker C: Welcome. Um, this is C Suite Confidential. Real talk leaders can't find anywhere else. I am so excited for today's guest. We are talking about elite performance and the mindset of elite athletes. And no one better to have this conversation than coach Justin Kavanaugh. He is a six time Olympic champion coach. He is also a peak performance strategist and CEO of sites that scale. Over the last two decades, he has been at the intersection of business and sports, leading peak performance and high stakes when it matters most. And what I love about this conversation in the arena is we get straight to it around the accountability of leadership, the playbook for building teams that win and what it means to be ready, conditioned for high stakes moments so that you can become the leader the moment demands. It's all happening right here inside the arena. Let's go in. Coach Kav, it is awesome to have you here on the show. How you doing?

Speaker A: Well, uh, I'm doing great now.

Speaker C: It's going to be good. You know what's going to be great about this? Because the way that we met, I just keep going back to that. I keep going back to the fact I was on a plane and someone was sitting next to me. I was on my way to a keynote and she looked over my shoulder, saw what I was doing and she said, oh my gosh, you have got to meet Coach Kav. And this is a complete stranger. And I said, okay. And we connected and it was, you know, history from there. So for our audience, you're on C Suite Confidential. Tell us, who is Coach Kav?

Speaker A: Well, outside of that Michelin star person that introduced you to me, I'm a coach by trade. So I'm um, um, a father, a husband. I have an 8 year old boy. For 23 years I've coached at the highest level. I love competitive environments. I believe that every human wants to push their limit and you'll never know where it is until they kind of like cross that line or there's a break point. Sports has transformed the way that I look at the world. My entire life has been really how do I teach life lessons through sports? And now in the work that I do, working with high performing athletes and high performing coaches and CEOs, it's all about how do I teach business through the lens of sports. Because people are looking, looking for that competitive advantage. And I don't think that you'll ever be able to tap into a, uh, competitive advantage unless you understand the rules of the game and then also have a really strong sense of awareness which is what every good athlete and player has.

Speaker C: Yes. How do you think we have, have to evolve the language of leadership to bring the connection of high performance sports and business together?

Speaker A: Well, I think it comes down to transparency. I think most leadership problems have two fundamental issues. They have a communication problem at the root of the issue and then they have a account problem both within the culture of the team, the person who's giving the commands or directions and into the environment in which they're operating out of. So accountability needs to be a standard set by the organization. And accountability needs to have some level of self respect around the standard that is being adhered, uh, to. And normally the leadership communication problem is missing those two things. It's missing clear communication and it's missing a high degree of accountability in your work.

Speaker C: You work with the best of the best. And athletes has really kind of been where you started. Tell us about your journey as an athlete and then for those who don't know all of the details of what you do, maybe about how you coach Olympians and world class athletes.

Speaker A: Well, I want to say like I'm still practicing. I mean, I'm still coaching. Yeah, uh, Paris was my sixth Olympic cycle. I mean I started 23 years ago in sports. My first client was an Olympian. And my, my work today is done in the NFL and pro sports all around the globe. I'm proud of that. I've had 47 world championships now my son's trying to get me to get to 20 more so I could get 6, 7 and be part of the cool kids, you know, with the terms. And I'm like, it takes a long time to get there. But I've always had high degree of skin in the game and uh, I love it. I think that you gotta find your limit, push your limit, know what you're good at. I love the sport of basketball, but I'm not a good basketball player. And I learned at a young age, like I enjoy things more when I'm good at it and you just kind of get addicted to something. So my career as an athlete, although I would say short lived in a lot of careers and a lot of people's perspectives, it was mine, right? I uh, was disappointing in my own level, like to go play college football to fought at a high level. But also I think what happened is I became more self aware the more I found breakpoints and found my limits. You're Superman. When you're 18, you feel like you could take over everything. And then when you start to understand that like, hey, other people's agenda being put on your plate affect how you show up. And that was a lesson that I learned is that, you know, not everybody plays by the same rules, not everybody has the same agenda. And you know, you can't really control how other people respond to you or how other people show up. But you can control how you show up, you can control your attitude and you control your effort. And the benefit of sport for me is that that's my escapism. I know a lot of times kids today, leaders today, they go, they go to a movie, they get a book, or they're on social media and they're just trying to get in a gamification of their life. Sport to me is my gamification, that is my escapism, and that's the way it's always been. And uh, I just want to be able to share that with the world because I think that when you put the helmet on or you put the gloves on, you step into the cage. Like nobody gives a crap where you're from. Nobody cares if you have money, if you grew up poor, nobody cares if you. Like. I grew up in the hood of Miami, but I was not poor. I think people misunderstand. Like, I grew up with a lot of privileges and a lot of opportunities because that's all I knew. And my parents gave me everything in the world. So when it's not foreign to you, this is the only thing that, you know, you look at that as a blessing and you try to do the most with it. And yeah, now I, you know, I live in Reston, Virginia. I, uh, very different than, you know, where I grew up. However, to me I always want to create an environment where it's better for my kid than it is for where I grew up. And I think it's the same thing in sport is that I'm trying to understand the rules of the game, the lay of the land, and then I create a, uh, competitive advantage. My sporting background has basically been my journey in business. That's basically what it's been. But I was a five sport athlete all through high school. In college I played football. Had a lot of injuries that affected my playing career. Pretty much shut my entire career down at one point where I broke my back. L4L, uh, five. And you learn really quickly, like if you don't fit inside of their puzzle piece, then you're not very valuable. So I had to kind of create my own environment, which is where I went into fighting, because I could kind of control my own destiny. And then in coaching, it was just a matter of like, how do I help others do that? And when my body kind of hit its limit, I wanted to make sure that there was no regrets for other people, that I could kind of tap into their potential.

Speaker C: You just kind of glaze over. Five Sport, like, that's, that's pretty significant when you think about moving from player to coach. Right and you still are, you know, in love with the game, in love with sport. What are some of the attributes of elite level leadership that those who coach teams can think about in terms of the connection between sport and business?

Speaker A: Well, I think it's a level of number one, every great athlete has a high degree of self awareness. Number one, you've got to have a high degree of self awareness, you know who you are. Number two, you need to have social awareness, meaning like you got to know where you fit within the rest of the roster. And then number three, you need to have good situational awareness, like be where your feet are, what's the play, what's your role for that Actual down, like the locker room talk, when do you jump in? When versus when do you not jump in? And these are the same parallels that happen on the, in the locker room, that happen on the field, that also happen in the boardroom, but they also happen at the water cooler when you're talking with kind of colleagues. And a lot of leaders tend to use their title as their position and they don't think that that is their authority. Their authority is based upon the respect and respect is yeah, maybe they will respect the title and not the person, but that's very short lived. So I always want to look at is like, hey, you respect the title even if you don't respect the person because that's the position that they're in and that's the role that you're in. And you have to know that role based upon an athlete to coach dynamic. But as a coach to a leader, right? When you get into the business world, if you're just using your title to force things down other people's throats in those environments that ain't going to last very long and you're going to lose people faster than you actually win people over. Because the real power is to move from a manager to a leader to a coach in your organization. If you could do that, then you actually, actually have a lot of respect and a lot of authority across the entire organization at every level.

Speaker C: Yes, one of the biggest challenges coaches have, whether it's on the field or in the boardroom, is earning the trust. I think right now trust is really broken in a lot of organizations and in the workplace you've to coach some of the best and I'm sure they've had many coaches. What insights can you tell us about building trust and empowering people to become or athletes or coaches to become their best?

Speaker A: I think number one, it's understanding your intent because oftentimes coaches think that the word coaching is to serve and the word coaching is to be selfless. But in reality, I believe coaching is a very selfish job. And that's a very different position than most coaches automatically. So if I come at it from the perspective of like, hey, I want to get something out of this and it's the, whether it's being the pushing you to greatness, it's this art of achievement, this idea that I get to be a part of a world championship, like I'm being transparent with that. Oftentimes coaches hide their agenda behind an athlete's action and I don't think that that's healthy. People do this in coaching too, or in business where they're saying like, uh, hey, you should do this because this is what's best for you. But in reality it's what's best them. And they've not taken into account how they are being perceived because of the way that they're like actually manipulating the people in the workforce to do something that actually has an outcome that benefits them. And I think that's a problem in leadership. So I'm very transparent. And I think the first part about it is owning up to the idea that coaching is a very selfish role, is that I'm doing it because it's very fulfilling to me. I get a lot of fulfillment when we win. I don't really enjoy losing, but I'm not going to be able to win if I don't give the best to the athlete. And the minute that you make that clear, the athlete is aware of that. And now all of a sudden the athlete is like, okay, he's telling me that he's doing it for him. Every other coach in this world told me that they're doing it for me. And they're like, here's the handout. Nobody likes to feel like a victim. So if you are even creating a coaching relationship with a high performing athlete, that's saying that you're giving them a handout, they feel like a victim. How is a victim supposed to be able to achieve, uh, something that's beyond their expectations, that are posted on that other people are putting on them? If you're treating them like it's a handout, you say like, I'm the best in the world at what I do. You want to be the best in the world at what you do? Let's figure out a game plan to do what's in the best interest to get you to that level.

Speaker C: That's not a conversation we're having in the workplace? Not in that way at all. Matter of fact, I was on a panel yesterday and it was fascinating, Coach, because it was a, uh, panel on veterans and athletes in their transition. Both veterans and athletes in their transition to the workplace. And someone told a story about how it was on sponsorship. Someone really sponsored her in the workplace. She was a veteran and she moved forward and someone raised their hand and the audience said, yeah, that was great. But they didn't sponsor you just because they liked you. They sponsored you because they knew there was something in it for them. And she said, absolutely. I helped make them $200 million in the business. Right. So that level of transparency, what do you think keeps us from having that level of transparency in this dynamic?

Speaker A: I think it's because the people that have that either manipulation tactic, they've never been to the top. People that have been to the top, they tend to be very transparent with you. Like, hey, you're not going to like this, but I m want to be very direct with you about it. And people are always basically kind of hedging their bet with other people in their organization. Just like coaches are hedging their bet with an athlete where they're saying, like, hey, like, oh, you're my guy. Like, we're going to make sure that this works out for you. But yet they just did a draft and they just picked up two other people to replace them just in case. Look, everyone's in it to kind of COVID their own, but when it comes to their job. So just be open about it and say, hey, listen, this is a competition. You haven't really met where our expectations are of that role. And this is what I need to see in order to get the outcome that we want. But based upon our current process, right now, this is where you stand. People need to have a transparent depth chart. But in business, they tend to be like, oh, you should do it this way for this reason. And then this is the outcome. And then six months later, you don't get the raise, you don't get the promotion. And then you wonder why.

Speaker C: Yes, or the leader, the executive. Right. We're talking C suite. The executive has a team, they have a roster that they've got to deliver outcomes to the business based on who's up next. How do you begin to think about your roster? You've got a roster of Olympians. What separates those who perform at their top, the best versus those who have potential but don't reach it? What do you see is the differentiator they control?

Speaker A: Number one of their decisions? On a daily basis. They are selfish even if they're in a team environment. Now I work in, at the Olympic level, I work mainly track and field. So it's very individual, right? So if I look at like, Johan Blade might be one of the most humble athletes that I work with, but he's still super focused on how does this serve him if he's going to be told by the team, even let's say he's running a four by one or they're with a group of people at the track club and they have to do some things together. He's not going to ever put his body in jeopardy, that compromises his high performance. And they'll do it like, oh, well, I'll do this one for you. And then what you expect them to do it for, like in reciprocity. A high performing athlete is not going to like give you the advantage and then potentially create an injury in their body just so that you guys could do things together. They're on a fricking mission right now to get to, uh, the highest level. And the only way they could do that is if they not just turn over every rock that's possible in this journey, but they make sure that they don't have anything that's inhibiting them from slowing down. And a lot of people in organizations slow down the growth of the company because they're not moving at the same pace, they're not aligned, or even worse, they're actually creating drama and friction and pulling them back. So I, number one, like cut out drama and number two, just be super direct with where you're trying to be. And that's why I tell executives sport is very process oriented and it's all about inputs. It's practice, practice, practice. And they're like, well, we can't control what's on the scoreboard. Like the score will take care of itself. But what you need to understand in business is inputs, process outputs, those three things are very consistent and very predictable. Now what we're trying to do as a coach is assess outcomes and the outputs. So we have those outputs that happen on a regular basis and then we have outcomes that we're trying to achieve. The minute that our output and our outcomes start to get aligned with what we want and it's predictable, then you basically put your foot on the gas pedal on the inputs and you just do that because you are pretty much guaranteed a better outcome because you've seen the outputs be aligned with where you want to be.

Speaker C: I love that. One of the things that I often say is we don't rise to our expectations, we fall to our conditioning. And that input, I would say, ah, a constant conditioning to prepare us for the moment. What are some of the moments maybe that you've had that are high stakes pressure moments that you've been tested and what did it reveal to you as Coach Kaft?

Speaker A: In the world of sports, I pretty much only live in high stakes. If not if an athlete's not trying to break a world record or if an athlete's not trying to win a medal, I'm not that interested. So I mean, I'm very fortunate. Where the work that I've done today is done where there's a lot of skim in the game and there's a high stake reward on the line. And in business, I've had to show up for actions that other people were 100% responsible for, but I had to be the one that was accountable to it. I had to be the one that even though I wasn't the one that pressed the button, did the thing. I'm liable because I'm in charge. And uh, as a leader, you need to understand that everyone says that the fish rots at the head. And that's a great statement where it's like, okay, everything rises and falls on leadership. However, if you look at a fish that ever rots, it doesn't rot from the head, it actually rots from the tail and the belly and it kind of works its way up. As a leader, you're on the hook. However, there's things in the organization that you allowed. So I fundamentally believe this, which is anything that I see either as a coach or as a, as a leader in an organization I've either coached to happen or I'm allowing to happen. And I don't know which one's worse, ignorance or negligence. So anything that I see in my line of work at practice, I'm either allowing that athlete to do that and if he gets hurt, like, okay, I'm allowing it to happen, or I'm coaching him to do that and that becomes a bad behavior which then gets conditioned and then that's where he'll actually drop down to. But, um, I mean, at one point in my, in my business, and it's a small business, I lost a million dollars in a day because of one human's bad decision. I had nothing to do with it. I was not involved in it. But guess what part of owning something is you own the risk. And I knew I had to show up every single day and share the message with the world so that the message wasn't being assumed by other people. So sometimes you have to step into an uncomfortable situation and fill the void so that people don't start to fill that void with whatever messages come to their own mind. Because people think like that. And I think that's one of the hard parts about leadership, is you're responsible whether you were responsible for the action or not.

Speaker C: Do you think we have a real clear understanding of what it means to be a leader today?

Speaker A: No, not at all. I think that it's, um, misguided, misunderstood. And I think that there are a bunch of people that put people on the pedestal that have gotten to the top, but they've done it the wrong way. So a lot of times people look up to people of where they want to be, but how they got there has nothing to do with the integrity or values in which they have.

Speaker C: And that is what then often causes the downfall.

Speaker A: Well, because when you look at, like, leadership and you look at the people that are in those places right now, they got there by doing things that are out of alignment of, of the integrity which you have or that they say they have. But once they get to that point now they're in a position of power. So they could say, hey, uh, here's how you should act.

Speaker C: I don't know that anyone goes into a position knowing that they're going to make a bad character decision. There's something that happens along the way. Maybe micro decisions, maybe it's the avoidance or not looking that way. Our audience, you know, we're having real conversation. We can't have other places. But how do you feel like that happens? There's such a weight for C Suite leaders on how they show up. Where does the breakdown happen?

Speaker A: I don't know if I would subscribe to that because I think that there's patterns that we just don't identify along the way. That they did small that then get. They become big. But just because something didn't get caught or something wasn't seen doesn't mean it was right. So it's okay that it happened, but you didn't get caught. It's okay that you sped and you ran through the red light and you didn't get caught. And then now you get on a, uh, main stage and then you're caught. Like some people got to the dance by doing things the wrong way, and then once they are at the dance, the light shine on them and then there's a problem. So this is what happens in business all the time. The Issue is, I don't believe that to be true. I think somebody somewhere down the line, you identified, you saw the pattern, but you pushed it under the rug because you'd never been to where you were trying to go. So you decided, like, that's okay, I'll deal with it after I get there. And this is what a lot of people do is a lot of people, they stampede on top of other people, friends, colleagues, other workers. They stepped on top of them, use them as stepping stones. And then once they get to the top, they tell a story because they won. And you see this all the time in leadership. Authors, speakers, coaches. There's some very well known famous people that I knew well before they were even recognized. And you're like, wait a second, that's not what happened at all. And it's an unfortunate reality that we deal with is the winner gets to write, rewrite history. The question is, is like, are you buying it? Because if you are, if you're buying it, then you're going to make those same mistakes too, as a young leader, and you, uh, escalate your, you know, your way up into the workforce or into the organization.

Speaker C: You said something that's a, uh, trigger word for me in a great way, which is patterns. Because we are really just a compilation of patterns. And to your first point, a lot of times we're not consciously aware of the patterns we've created, positively or negatively, that ultimately lead to that place. So what is one truth about leadership that you've had to learn the hard way?

Speaker A: I mean, I think there's a lot of lessons in it, but I think that people just, like kids, will, like, they'll follow your actions more. They follow more than they follow your words. And the difficulty with that is when you talk about patterns, people are looking at, like, how you show up more than they're looking at what you tell them, how they need to show up. So one of my first rules of working with me is, uh, I have a document of how to win with Coach Kaf. And the first rule is, you are expected to be on time, expect me to be late, and I say it right out the gate. And that is a hard truth in my organization because if I tell everybody, like, meetings start on time, you are where you need to be when you need to be there, and you are prepared for that work. And yet I show up late. Now, not only do I disrespect them, I'm disrespecting the values of the culture of our company. But the hard truth on my End is that I've made it very clear that based upon my schedule and my obligations, I am traveling all around the world. I have to go from multiple different environments to others. But I'm also very sensitive to the fact that sometimes I'm in environments where I cannot control the clock. Well, what am I supposed to do? Tell them, like, hey, wait for me. No. Yes. I expect you to be on time. I want you to expect me to be late, but I also want to respect you. To where it's my job to catch up. Meaning if I come into the meeting and I interrupt the meeting by saying, like, hey, guys, I missed this. Where are we? Catch me up then. That's my fault. I'm smart enough to kind of get a read of the room, see what's going on, use my coaching eye to actually identify, like, where I need to step in or back off. And if I can't do that, then now I don't have, uh, a leg to stand on. But people are going to watch on how you show up more than what you say.

Speaker C: So some people will listen to this and say, well, wait a minute. That's a disconnect on who you. What you say versus what you do. But what I'm hearing is that you're controlling the controllables. If your schedule is out of whack, then that's you giving them the reason why you're out and you're not able to be on time.

Speaker A: Well, I think that more importantly, I'm actually. I'm not saying anything. That's a, uh, dissonance from the. The other. I'm telling you very clearly, like, you are expected to show up on time. Expect me to be late. If you're looking at the people that are in that role and you know that that person is not going to adhere to the time schedule, then it is still a truth. What would not be a truth, where there'd be a disconnect would be like, every meeting in our company starts on time, and then I show up late with an excuse. I'm setting the precedent from the beginning, letting you guys know, like, hey, listen, based upon the reality of our schedules, both travel and the environments in which I'm in. I'm in rooms with owners of teams. I'm in rooms with professional athletes. I'm in rules with C suite executive, in the. In rooms with presidents of countries. If they tell me that we're not leaving until this gets resolved, then my clock doesn't start or stop. It just goes until we're done. And People don't understand that when they are feeling like, well, wait a second, I had a 9:30 meeting. Yeah. Your job is to make sure that you had built a buffer for your day, to show up on time, to respect your time. My job is to respect your time too, which means I'm not going to go up and slow you down. However, you need to have that awareness and expectation.

Speaker C: Yeah, it sounds like parallel to what you talked about before. It's just being very transparent and upfront with the realities of your situation.

Speaker A: It's the same thing with the scoreboard in sports is that the scoreboard never lies. Just like the eye in the sky never lies when you're doing coaching film. I seen something when I was on the field or I felt something, that's great. But when you get to the study room and you start looking at the tape and we watch game film, we're like, oh, wait a second, that guy wasn't where I thought he was. Because perception and depth perception changes based upon the energy of the actual moment. How do you.

Speaker C: Because I think that's a very important point in leadership. We often show up and we coach people to show up for the moment. But we haven't done the work in the study room. We haven't looked at the film before. We haven't built that discipline. How do you help leaders begin to assess where they're showing up before the moment?

Speaker A: I mean, one of the number one reasons why I am regarded as a really good coach, you could say I'm good coach or bad coach, but I'm a successful coach because we win. So if you like the results that I have, then you may want to follow the practices. That which we have, which is I fail more than most coaches even try because I fail in practice. Like all of my failures are done when the lights are not on me. So that when the lights are on me or on the athlete and they're on the line like it's go time, all the work is already done. But, uh, most people are holding back because they don't want to push the limits in practice. And then they, they think that they're going to show up for an environment that they're not prepared for. Be on time and be prepared. Like you don't do that. Like that's the basics of just doing your job as a professional.

Speaker C: I love what you have on your website as an executive athlete. That's who I am. And I've been an athlete in many ways. But I, in the gym in the morning, I use that time to practice, mental practice, physical pushing, my limits, all of those things. Let's bring that into the executive who maybe don't even like sports, who doesn't even watch a game, who's like, that's great. I'm never going to be an Olympian. And they're still thinking very literal. How do you bring that into the boardroom for the average executive, I think

Speaker A: business, don't you want to win? So I think at the end of the day is like, do you like losing? Do you like getting your butt kicked? Even if you weren't an athlete at a younger level? Or enjoy sports? The greatest coaching lesson I've ever received was when I was in Barcelona, Spain. I was at the Picasso Museum. And, uh, I was walking around and I got an incredible lesson. And it became one of my greatest coaching lessons of all time. And I'm like, wow, well, if art could teach me a lesson in sports, sports could teach you a lesson in business. And I'll tell you the story, which is Salvador Dali looked up to Pablo Picasso as like, uh, a, uh, mentor, as an artist. And the girls in their life was the ones who ended up making the relationship work. Which, uh, would tell you that you should listen to the women in your life because they're probably more powerful than your ego. But after some time, they built a great relationship, and there was this kind of mentor, mentee relationship over the years, and you can could see kind of his perfectionism in all of his different type of art styles with Dali. And then it evolved, and you could see that kind of creative nature that took place with Picasso, with Dali's and his later works as well. But one day, Dali wanted to create this painting of his mentor, which is Pablo Picasso. So he painted him, and then he shipped him the painting. And the story goes that Picasso opened the shipment up, looked at it, the painting that his mentee created of his image of his mentor, and never spoke to him ever again. And the lesson to me was the way you are seen from your students, from your athletes, or from the people that you mentor as a leader in your organization might be very different in which you think you're being seen. And I think it's really important for you to probably have that conversation sooner than if you do it when they ship you a, uh, thing. And it may not even be what you want. You don't know how you're showing up. So your level of awareness might be one of the most important things.

Speaker C: You took a whole new level to awareness. It reminds me I'm a part of A CEO group. And one of my CEO compadres was, like, he had a thing that he would do quarterly where he would ask his wife, his kids, how am I showing up? And it's great to do that in business. But then we think about personally, like, ouch. And give them the permission to say, you know what? You hadn't been the greatest dad this month, or you've been great. You know, I've really appreciated you as. As my husband. You've done these things. And so what I'm hearing you say is just the ability to receive feedback in a different perspective than what you think and what you see for yourself. How hard is that for leaders?

Speaker A: I mean, I think that you should look at feedback as a gift because it's a present from someone who cares enough to tell you the truth. And you may not like the feedback, but that doesn't mean it's bad feedback. It just might be something that's not aligned with what you wish you were presenting. And in coaching, you need three things. Number one, you need to have perspective, which is your coaching. Your ability to be able to see things that other people don't see. The punch that basically knocks you out is the one that you don't see coming. So in business, you need to be able to see things that are coming your way that other people maybe miss, because your job is to be able to see the board, see the playing field. That's perspective. Develop your coaching eye as a leader. Number two is you need attention. If you don't have the eyes and ears and energy of the people that you're communicating to, then you're just being loud. And that's the difference between noise versus a very clear signal. And as a coach, you need to be clear and concise, and you cannot do that if you're just banging on a bunch of things and you're not actually being direct with your message. So do you have the attention of the people that you're trying to lead? And then number three is you need direction. In order to lead somebody, you got to tell them where you're trying to go. Hey, this is where we are. This is where we're trying to go. This is the gap that we have between those two points that we're trying to achieve. And our job as a leader is to not just collapse time, but to close the gap from where you are versus where you want to be. And the minute you could give clear direction to a group of people that have your attention and the people that trust your coaching eye, now, you could Actually achieve it with the least amount of friction as possible.

Speaker C: Brilliant. Um, I have a question. One of the things I admire about sports and coaches specifically is clarity and simplicity of language. It's so clear, it's very specific. One of my favorite that I heard over and over again with the coach from Indiana was refuse to lose. Right? Just very simple. Refuse to lose. In companies and corporate, we get very wordy. We get a lot of words. How do you help business leaders, particularly, who want to get a team aligned, want to drive a mission forward. They've got to break through walls to build the business. How do you get them to simplify? What advice would coach Cav give to simplify that message?

Speaker A: Are you happy with the current results that you're getting?

Speaker C: They're not. How do they get to the message?

Speaker A: So the reason why I say, are you happy with the results that you're getting? And you clearly said they're not. Okay, well, then, have you tested a shorter message? Because you haven't. And what happens with an, uh organization is everybody wants to put their two cents in. And when it comes to communication, their two cents is two words and two words and two words. And when you start adding the damn thing up, you have basically six pages of a mission statement that means nothing. So as a leader of any organization, your job is to repeat yourself. You're a professional repeater. And I categorize people in my organization in one of three buckets. People that I have to manage, people that I need a lead or I get the lead, and then the people that I get to inspire to coach. And the level from management to, uh, leader to coach is a phase of how often do I need to repeat the same thing? And in that first bucket of the coaches, the true visionaries of their organization, the people that set the tone, set the standard, and adhere to the standard. You're probably saying things, do them one to three times because you want to make sure that it was clear. You might have to say it from a different angle, a different perspective or a different tone. But after the fourth time I said something to you, you're probably in a leadership role. So, 4, 5, and 6, if I have to say something over and over again and you didn't get it yet, you're probably in that leadership role. And I truly believe, like, you are a leader. If I told you four times and you've already taken action and you executed on it with clarity and precision, seven, eight, nine, you're in the management space, just like speeding cops say it all the time. If you're in a, uh, speeding zone and you do under 10 and you're like nine, you're fine. Okay, so you could keep your job. You're just going to be in the management space where I have to manage you on a regular basis. 10, you're mine. You're going to get a ticket, which means that ticket is out of the organization. Because if I have to repeat something 10 times and you still don't get it, we're not talking about a competency problem. We're talking about an intent and effort and drive problem. Problem. You have no desire to get better. So what bucket are you in? And what you'll find is if you're getting wordy with your content and with your communication, it's because you have a whole bunch of people that you have to manage and you've created a standard of people that it's okay to not understand. When you basically said, I am accepting the bar to be this low because the standard is not what you set. The standard is what you actually clear consistently. So I am setting the bar down here and I'm accepting basically this level of work where I have to repeat over and over and over to you until you do it. Because if they're still in the organization, then you're allowing that to happen. So my message to you is if you're long winded, which I am, but you're not clear, which I would like to think I am, then it's probably because you're okay managing somebody. But if you want to lead somebody and you want to coach somebody, then you need to actually be okay with the fact that you're only going to be able to lead people and coach people that are taking action on very clear, concise, quick feedback. And you can't do it over and over and over again.

Speaker C: Great call to a new standard for those who are challenged with this one question I have for you. Who coaches the coach? Ooh.

Speaker A: I mean, I get a coaching check every time I open the door.

Speaker C: Who coaches you?

Speaker A: I have, uh, what I call lighthouses in my life. So I grew up on the water. I love, um, you know, sailing. I love the water. I think it's a great place to be. But I look at my world as a, as a captain, as the player that I was, and as I transitioned to a coach into the work of sports and business and as a captain, like, I always wanted to kind of write my ship. That was my goal. And, uh, that was kind of the way I thought about my career. And if you think about it you want to kind of get on this path to where you're in this channel and you're moving along, along. But what is the actual goal of a lighthouse? It's to protect you from the rocks. So you have mentors in your life that are there to protect you from a rocky area in your life. So I have a finance mentor and their job is to protect me when I'm doing anything that's out of alignment. I have a health mentor, I have a doctor, and his job is to check my blood work and make sure that I, you know, doing the things that I need to do so I could be a healthy father and husband for a very long time and lead an organization. Especially with my travel schedule that I have. I have somebody that's in my life that's helping me on the business side. So your coach should be the lighthouse that's there to protect you from the rocks. They're not always there to say, hey, that's the right path for you. A lot of times they're there to say, whatever you do, don't do this because you don't see what's coming. And I believe that you need to move past some of your mentors. Just like Tony Robbins would say, you need to stand on the shoulders of giants. My goal was to, with the work that I do is to find people that are where I want to be and I want to move past them because that inspires them to coach me even greater. Coaches get super excited to work with somebody that wants to actually move past them. A lot of times people come to me and then they're just like, well, I just want to do this. I'm like, that's not really that exciting. And then my number one frustration with high performing athletes and high performing executives is that people look up to people that are not where they want to be and they listen to them and it's the most confusing thing. I have not been able to crack that code.

Speaker C: Say that again.

Speaker A: Athletes and executives look up to people that are not where they want to be. They are taking advice from people that have not won an Olympic medal, that have never been to the Olympics, that have not won a world title, that have never played in the league. They're taking advice from executives that have never run a board meeting. They're taking advice from people that have never built or, uh, created a strategy that helped grow a million dollar or a billion dollar company. And yet they're saying, I'm gonna follow this person because I like him, I believe in him, and this person does it. I'm just like, to me, it is a code that I've not cracked yet. I've not understood that. That is a gap in my understanding. When I look at people that follow what they call is a leader or an expert that is in a place where they don't even want to go.

Speaker C: And you've seen this and you've struggled with understanding why it sounds like that

Speaker A: happen, uh, it's every day in sports, in the world of sports. I have been able to reverse engineer winning for over two decades. And the ability to win comes down to understanding the rules of the game and putting yourself at an advantage ethically. To be able to do that and capitalize on the opportunity, which is all about timing. And if you understand how to do that, you will win. Whereas a lot of people are creating a strategy that is going to end you right up into the rocks. And this is why I've been able to produce world championships after world championships in multiple different disciplines over and over and over again. I've had four of the top 10 fastest athletes in human history that I've worked with.

Speaker C: You have a formula, but people don't want to listen to the formula always. Is it that it's hard work? Is it that they don't believe in it? What is it?

Speaker A: No, most people put the hard work in. Pat Riley said it best. Hard work never guaranteed anything, but without it, you don't have a chance. Most people run themselves into the ground or even into the wrong path because they do have hard work. The problem is, is they don't have the right direction. The issue that most athletes run into that don't get the results, that have the talent is because they have the wrong strategy. Strategy is the thing that's going to collapse time and make things easier for you. Two groups of people, and it's the same group. It's the same problems at both ends of the spectrum. So you have the victim mentality and the people that literally are like complaining. They think that someone's going to come save them. And that group of people are. They just don't take any action. And then you have the group of people that are like the high performers. They make it to the dance, but they never ever win. And there's the difference that people that participate, but they don't actually podium. And the biggest problems that you have with them is at both of those spectrums. What they're doing is following a path that is an equation that gets them a result consistently that they don't like, but they don't change. And the real path out of that is a very simple framework, which is. Is, number one, you need to have awareness. You need to have awareness that you're a victim. You need to have awareness that you are waiting for someone else to do something for you. You need to have awareness that you're not where you want to be, that you're close to the. To the edge, but you're in fourth place and you don't medal. See, I don't really care what color the metal is, as long as it's hardware you're coming home with. So the first part is awareness. You need to have a very good understanding of where you stand, because if you don't know where you stand, you have no idea how to get to where you want to be. The second thing is you need to take ownership. Nobody's going to do it for you. Just like no one's going to come save you. No one's going to actually get you on the podium. You have to do it yourself, not your coach, nobody else. You're the one who's got the risk on the line. And then the third thing is you have to take action. It's enough to know something, but it is. If you don't do it, then what's the point? So our job as coaches at both of those spectrums is to close the gap between idea and execution. And that comes down to awareness, ownership, and action.

Speaker C: And I'm sure consistency, too, as we wrap up every in our athlete or ship approach, it's anchored in why. It's my. Why my purpose. Because that's what stays consistent when everything around is changing. What is.

Speaker A: Coach Cavs Why My mantra is to live your telos, which is most people get to a point of high performance in their career. Of the people that I work with, high achievers, people that really want it, put their work in, take ownership, and then take action. Those people, they climb that first mountain, mountain, they get to the top, they play their sport, they basically land on the moon, they get to the Olympics, they podium, but then they come down, they get that leg down or they drop down. They're not really happy with what's going on because they look back in their life and they go, okay, um, I'm more than this, but this is my identity. And you have to change your identity. And what they need to learn to do is they need to learn to take the lessons, the habits, the conditioning, as you called it, to build it as a baseline of who they are and use it for a greater Good. Which is achieving that kind of second mountain. My job is to build a bridge between that first mountain, the second mountain, so you don't have to go through the valley of despair. You don't have to go through the same heartaches and headaches that you did to get to that first level of achievement. And then from there, you'll get to the top. And that is about living a higher purpose, which is live your telos. I want to see you win, but you need to win the right way.

Speaker C: So good. We need a Coach Cav coaching moment every day. How about it?

Speaker A: I mean, I need that hair. I am jealous.

Speaker C: I'll tell you what, we'll swap. I'll give you the hair and you give me the coaching.

Speaker A: Don't try me. I could rock that if I could. I wish. Thank you so much. This is great. I think what people fail to understand is that your opportunity to connect with somebody is one moment of gratitude away. And the easiest way to do it is publicly. So if you're listening to this and you got any sort of feedback from, you know, Melissa or myself, my recommendation is actually to, like, send that note in, send the takeaway that you got. But more importantly, think about it from the frameworks in which we gave you. So number one is, what's the level of awareness where you are right now in your life? Number two, are you going to take ownership? Are you a victim? Are you waiting for someone else to do it for you? And then number three, like, are you going to take action and when? Because if you're able to do that, you'll build exactly what Melissa said, which is the conditioning in your life. And here's the thing that's fascinating about conditioning. So there's four physical qualities. Strength, speed, flexibility, and endurance, which a lot of people would combine with conditioning. Conditioning is all of those physical characteristics combined into a single action that's done repeatedly. Conditioning is specific. It's the one thing where, if I have general strength, if it helps me push somebody out of the way, I could use my general strength to do something specific. But conditioning, if I could run a marathon, that doesn't mean I could swim. If I could swim, it doesn't mean that I could bike. If I could bike, it doesn't mean I could box. Conditioning is specific. So what you're going to fall to is the conditioning in which Melissa said, based upon the consistent actions that are specific with what you're doing every single

Speaker C: day, and you show up, you couldn't have said it. You've said it. Better. I mean, that's how we, at the end, we leave with the conditioning drill and you just gave it to us. You literally broke down conditioning and you gave us a challenge to take action. There's no excuse. There's no excuse. We've got action to take. You've given us the blueprint, the playbook. Coach Cav, thank you so much.

Speaker A: Thank, uh, you blow the whistle, then we're good.

Speaker C: Thanks for joining us on C Suite Confidential. Every episode is designed to help you condition your leadership for pressure, performance, and long term impact. If today's conversation resonated, be sure to subscribe on your preferred podcast platform so you never miss an episode. For more insights on athletership, where elite athletic mindset meets next level leadership conditioning, visit athletershiparena.com until next time, Remember, leaders aren't born, they're built. You've got this.