The Hardest Part of Leading Yourself | The Culture Captain: Level Two | Episode 461

Speaker A: Are all great leaders great teammates? Are all great teammates great leaders? This is a question that has me puzzled still, even after the conversation. You're going to listen today with myself, Betsy and Nate, and we are going to be really unpacking in this episode the challenges and processes for athletes and coaches and leading themselves. Well, welcome back to the Coaching Culture Podcast, the podcast to help you grow as a leader and build a better culture. My name is JP Nurbin, and I'm joined by my peers and friends, Nate Sanderson and Betsy Butterick. For those of you who don't know, we are executive coaches, coaching coaches, coaching athletes and coaching leaders. I'm also a facilitator and author, and my most recent book is the Culture the Four Level Framework. To know yourself, lead yourself, lead others, and lead the team. And the book isn't just built on the research of great leaders. This book is built on my work with hundreds of athletes as they develop their own leadership. Get a copy for you and your athletes today. Visit TheCultureCaptain.net or just search for the Culture Captain on Amazon.

Speaker B: JP when you invited us to read an early copy of your book, I was a little bit surprised at the levels, because when I think about leadership, I often think about you have to be able to lead yourself first. And so for me, I was almost starting at level two without recognizing that level one, knowing yourself, of course, one needs to start there, and knowing yourself allows you to then effectively lead yourself. So for me, getting into level two and reading about leading yourself was, um, I'll say, a part I've been excited to get to. And I'd like to know, before we really dive into some of the nuances in this level, what was it like for you to. To put this out there, especially as someone who is often tasked with helping others lead? Um, yeah, just. I'd love to know more about your experience of. Of level 2.

Speaker A: The hardest thing is when you're trying to write a book on leading yourself. Well, is that where people are in that journey is, like, so different. So, like, for instance, absolutely the most difficult chapter to write in the whole book was that on effort or intentional effort. And it's so difficult because every athlete that picks this up could be on different ends of the spectrum. One could have a. Which I kind of landed on, which was understand helping athletes understand this continuum of like, a healthy and unhealthy obsession and how we can. Our effort can be. We can be obsessive over the effort and things like that. Um, and though we have to have a more Healthy obsession. And then others might not really relate to obsession at all. And so you're not wanting to feel like every athlete has to be fully obsessed or immersed in their sport and to get something out of it. So it's really just maybe the challenges of recognizing everyone is in a different place. But I think that's the important thing that the book I thought I was trying to address is that this isn't some prescription for everyone. You know, it's not do this, this, this, this. It's. It is a very personal journey.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think you hit on a great point. And in that point, I can understand the challenge of people are starting from so many different places. I did appreciate the part where it was differentiating between obsession being a negative or obsession being a positive, that healthy obsession, and it feeling like an engine, not a weight more. One thing that I wrote down for myself as I read Level two was that quote, a leader doesn't have to tell people to work harder. They make it embarrassing not to. And as a competitor, as a leader, I'm like, yes, that's all you have to do. Like, all you have to do is work so hard that it's embarrassing for other people if they're not working as hard as they can. But to your point that you just made, people are starting in different places. So what if you have a teammate? And this is a question for Nate Unjp. What if you're a leader and you are working so hard that in your mind it's embarrassing for other people to not raise their level, but you've got a teammate who's not obsessed with that, who doesn't value that in the same way. It doesn't matter as much to them. So they're not embarrassed. What happens then?

Speaker C: Well, Betsy, I thought it was interesting that there's a quote from Tom Brady that JP used in the book where he talked about working really hard and the power of his example to maybe raise someone else's level 5 to 10%. So it wasn't bring them to Tom Brady level of obsessiveness over preparation and all of that. It was, can my example boost this guy, you know, 5 to 10% where he wouldn't be if he wasn't playing with me? And I think, you know, it is challenging for high level athletes. You know, on a school basketball team, for example, we have some that are, are, you know, shooting all every day and they're playing all year round and they're playing with people that basketball is their third sport or they're out because of their friends or, or whatever. So, you know, that difference can sometimes cause friction, but I think it's, in some ways it's also grounding an understanding in the leader or in the obsessed one, you know, of what their influence can be while creating space, you know, still for those other athletes to, to show up where they are.

Speaker A: I think there's, there's so much when you're working with an athlete, because I was, I was actually, uh, through the process of writing this book, I was coaching one elite athlete at the later part of their career, and they were looking back on and this individual had over a decade of captain CNC at the top level of their sport and, and they had come to recognize the later part of their career that not everybody was going to have that Tom Brady esque, which Nate referenced, like focus and level of intentional effort. And I think what this athlete did, which was what Brady did, especially around, like a guy like Rob Gronkowski is understand that everybody's motivations is different and how people even express and what people need is different. Michael Johnson, the great Olympic gold medalist, he was recently on the Gervais podcast talking about how his preparation for a race was locked in, focus dialed in. But you go to Usain Bolt and he's joking around relaxed. That's what he needed. And so understanding people's motivations are different, understanding what people need to be at their best is different. And I think that if you just looked at the effort chapter and just focused on that, then you would really miss the important aspects of understanding, especially when you get to level three, connecting with teammates to better understand them. Um, to have that empathy is just so critical for you to be really a great teammate, uh, as well as a great leader.

Speaker B: As I'm listening to both of you respond, one thing that's coming up for me is to have that connection, to have that empathy, to have that understanding. A um leader also needs to avoid judgment or be free from judging their teammates, especially those that may not be up to their level, even more close to the 5% than the 10. If you are speaking to a leader who found it very hard not to judge, let's say, uh, judging a teammate that obviously doesn't care as much about the culture, about the team because they're not willing to put in the extra time the way that other people on the team are. How would you support or work with an athlete? A leader that finds it hard to reserve judgment from those that seem to demonstrate behaviors that are below the line, so to speak.

Speaker A: One of the Most powerful ones. And this kind of touches on the level three is that idea of curiosity and trying to take the heroic perspective of just what's that athlete's perspective? And I think that oftentimes our inkling as a coach is to go in there and just say, you know, to tell them to what another perspective might be. But actually just asking the athlete and putting them through the work of, okay, I get that this is your perspective, but what might their perspective be? What, how might they see things? You know, and she's trying to get that everybody is the hero of their own story. It's one of the simplest activities to do. It doesn't even have to be like this formal structured, which I often do do it in coaching engagements, that very formal, formal structured. But it's just getting them to start to think of new perspectives that the other person might have, um, is really critical

Speaker C: as a practical matter. Betsy, one of the things that we've done in the past too is to, um, get both of those players in. Like, you know, we do consistent rounds of one on ones during the season. Sometimes we would do two on ones where we would bring somebody in, you know, maybe an older player that has gone through a slump with a sophomore that's going through a slump, you know, and we just kind of put them together and I'll kind of moderate a conversation. And so, you know, if the leader is really struggling to understand a teammate, sometimes they do need a moderator, you know, and, um, so the coach can, you know, use that as an opportunity to kind of facilitate a little bit of curiosity and better understanding. And I think, you know, when we have done things like that, both players just walk away with a better appreciation for the other, you know, in ways that they probably would not have if we weren't intentional about getting them together for 10 or 15 minutes and asking some questions.

Speaker A: Uh, I would be curious too, how you both see this. There's that level of empathy or trying to understand their perspective. But where did, like, there also is an element of standard setting. Like, we've got to like, you know, have that. We just did that, you know, last month, the minimum buy in, you know, the buy in episode. And I go back to that time and time again. Like, you know, having that clarity around what is that minimum buy in to be at the table here.

Speaker B: For me, it very much relates to almost continuing the path of curiosity. Like, okay, I'm going to get curious and I'm going to reserve judgment and I'm going to get curious what it would take to, um, for an individual to uphold a standard related to our team or to our culture, what could be getting in the way of that individual's felt ability or desire to meet or exceed the standard? And then also, uh, it for me flows into setting expectations. So, okay, if whatever is true for that individual leads us collectively in that conversation to a point where it's now known that it is unlikely that individual will meet or exceed the expectation, now we need to. Or, uh, the standard. We need to talk about expectations. So if you are not going to be someone that's going to contribute to the team in this way, given our shared goals, then what can we expect you to give in service of the team? And also what can you expect in terms of your felt belonging within the team or your contribution within the team or, you know, your playing time? Like, you can get pretty specific, but I think anytime we have a conversation for understanding, to prevent it tipping into permissiveness that is out of alignment with standards or goals for a program, there has to be, uh, an intentional, curious conversation around, uh, shared expectations and also shared responsibility for everyone's role, wherever they're starting from, in contributing to team success and team experience.

Speaker C: Um, I think there can be some trickiness to do to this too, jp because let's say that everybody takes this journey through level one, and one player says, oh, yeah, you know, I want to give everything I possibly can and squeeze every ounce of talent out of my experience and, you know, has that sort of obsessive, but this is who I want to be perspective. And someone else goes through that process and says, you know, I like basketball, I like the sport, I like my teammates, but I really don't have time to do all these extra things. I really don't want to make basketball the number one thing in my life. You know, I want to be involved in this and I want to do this over here, and I'd still like to be part of it, but. But it's almost like they come to this realization that both of them, you know, where the sport is in their priority in life. And so, you know, you might end up with a player that's obsessive and one that's just compliant. They do the things that are. They are required to do and they do no extra. And is there a, you know, place for them on the team? And that's a question not just for your leadership, but like, I think in other cases sometimes, especially in a scholastic experience at the high school level, the obsessed player is the outlier, and that's the one sometimes that other people have trouble. Why is she always slamming me into the wall and diving for loose balls and you know, like, there's just a, A level there that other players can't really even identify with. You know, people talk about Caitlin Clark in high school being like an alien in terms of her competitiveness and her teammates not being able to even understand why she gets so angry when she loses the game of ping pong and you know, at a team dinner when we're just fooling around, you know, so there's a lot of potential for kind of murkiness, I think there, where, you know, again, communication and sharing and curiosity and openness and acceptance are really important. And sometimes those are hard conversations to bring about during a season for, you know, for lots of reasons, I think.

Speaker A: And this is where they, uh. So in level two, lead yourself. There's responsibility, effort, authenticity, compete, mental fitness and selflessness. And there's a reason I went with some of the order on that because you just talked about there, like the Caitlin Clark example. She has this obsessiveness that not everybody shares, but she still needed to show up as herself authentically. Right, like, and bring that self. And then I think it's up for great leaders, great teammates. They don't have to be at the Caitlin Clark level of obsessiveness to be even a great teammate or a great leader. And I think that's a really important thing. But how you can still, like, you know, when it comes to off the court, but like on the court, like you still, you show up, you should when you're there. There should be a basic standard to be able to lead. You don't have to be Tom Brady level of obsessed or Caitlin Clark level of obsessed, but you have to have some level of intentionality and effort. The other thing that I think was so interesting to me in writing the book, so I would have these, these ideas and the concepts that I knew were critical. They kept showing up in great leaders, right? Compete. They just compete to the edge. They're just athlete ruthless competitors. But I would coach athletes on this. We take this concept and I would take a dozen or a couple dozen through some group coaching and individual coaching. I coach them on, let's say compete. And this was probably the one that was most interested in like what keeps athletes from competing at a 10 out of 10, giving it all in. The interesting thing was for so often, to your point, Nate, so many players were afraid of being the Caitlin Clark. They didn't want to show up their teammates. And that obviously comes through in the book we talk about through the story is like, you know, Lily's out there and she's going hard. But that was something that was really interesting to me, is that, that. And it probably shows up. It showed up definitely a little bit more in female, when I was coaching females than in males. Um, it wasn't, wasn't as, as dominant, uh, of a barrier in males around compete.

Speaker B: Can I speak to that a little bit through just the Gen Z lens? A lot of the work that I've done in researching for writing kids these days and also working with athletes, especially at the college level, consistently, one thing that we know is that for Gen Z, Gen Alpha, the peer relationship is the highest value currency. So anything that feels like it may threaten that relationship, whether it's being at the Caitlin Clark level, like, I am better than you, even if I have the capability, I don't want to show up my teammates. So I'm going to do a little less or I'm going to hold back a little more so that my peers still see me as their equal in that way. They still like me. Um, and it's a really interesting choice. Same thing comes up when we talk about culture. So often today's athletes feel like they need to choose between the friendship or the standard. And I think one thing that your book helps leaders do is start to understand that they don't need to pick one or the other. It's a trap almost to fall into, to feel like if I'm going to value the friendship, then I need to not hold them to a standard. Or if I'm going to uphold the standard, it's definitely going to impact in a negative way the relationship. Two things can be true. I can uphold the standard and it increases the value or the connection with my teammate. Um, so I just think that when we talk about fear, it's like, why? You know, why? If they have the ability, why wouldn't they do that? And for me, I think understanding the value of the peer relationship in the context of today's athletes is also something very much at play. If it's okay, I wanna circle back to, you know, you brought up Caitlin Clark and M. I know this is like a, a hot topic. So, um, the question that came up for me in thinking about Caitlin, absolutely. A leader question around, is she a great teammate? And I've heard different perspectives from different teammates over time or people that have known Caitlin much more closely than I do. Um, the question I have in the context of leadership and culture is, is a great leader always A great teammate. And is a great teammate always considered a leader? I know I use that word always, and that can be tricky, but talk to me a little bit. Um, I'd love to hear the perspective from both of you about is there a difference between being a great leader and a great teammate? And if so, where do they overlap and where might they not cross paths?

Speaker A: My initial reaction, and then, nate, you can jump in, is my default response without really giving this thought, because I haven't really thought about this, was like, oh, you gotta be a good teammate to then be a good leader. But I don't know if that's true. I don't know. Nate, what do you think?

Speaker B: That's my default too. JP that was the first place I went. I'm like, you can be a great leader without being a great teammate, but you can't be a great teammate and not be a good leader. But I don't know.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think it just comes down to how you define those roles. I mean, I think when you're talking about a teammate, as you mentioned before, with effort, there is a standard that should apply to everyone in terms of how we treat each other and that we would define as being a good teammate. Here are the behaviors above the line, here are the values, et cetera. Right. So like, that becomes a bit of a non negotiable in your culture is this is what it means to be a good teammate. Um, but I don't necessarily think that those exact same characteristics are what are required to be a great leader. I think players probably would say their favorite teammates are also their favorite leaders. I would imagine there's a pretty high correlation there. But I think the job of leader is, is different. Like there's another level, there's another set of standards for leadership. There's a different job description there than being a teammate. I would imagine it's harder to build credibility today as a leader if you're not perceived as being a great teammate. But again, we could go down the, you know, Michael Jordan road here of here's a guy that a lot of would say, you know, was the leader and drove the culture and the effort and all of that. And a lot of guys did not like him as a, as a teammate and still have resentment today, you know, towards him. So was he an effective leader? I mean, are we, judging from the results, are we, you know, like, that's a, um, whole. Another question too, of like, how do you measure a great leader or great, you know, a great teammate?

Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead, just like, real quick. On that, like, oh, let's just take two basketball guys. Steph Curry, by all accounts, great leader, great teammate. Right. Everyone loves being his teammate. I think it's difficult for the staffs, definitely difficult for the Michael Jordans and the Caitlin Clarks, the world. She's probably in that place where she's still seen as kind of like an alien or out there, or she's just so. Just by the natural fame. It is hard to build connections and to have a normal life like everybody else. Your life is so much different than your peers. So I'm not making that as excuse, but that was just something that came up for me on that one.

Speaker B: And I like when, uh, I think about that, to go back into the college basketball context, in part because they're similar age, in part because they're exceptional at their craft. I often put Caitlin Clark in that leadership category and Paige Beckers in the leadership and teammate category. And just watching the interactions on the court, watching the nature of the game. Absolutely both leaders. Absolutely both incredible players. And this is where I start to observe different kind of relational nuances. And I think about, even when I was coaching, there's a phrase used in women's basketball, and apologies to anyone that finds this offensive, but it was on every team, you needed at least one good bitch. And that was kind of what that player who did not care what their teammates thought about them. They simply cared about achieving the objective or, uh, goals for the program. And everyone needed at least one because you could count on that person to say what needed to be said to their peers separate from whatever the coaches said. And they didn't care what it cost them as long as it moved the team forward. So oftentimes they were not necessarily seen as a great teammate or someone that their teammates necessarily liked, but they saw the value in the kind of leadership that they brought. And so this is where, like, you know, we talk about different leadership styles. And I love that in level two, JPU differentiate between personality and character, because I think that that's also a key component of leadership and being a great teammate.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think this is. I, uh, like that point because definitely that happens. But I also struggle because I think a lot of coaches, I want that player, I want that player just going to tell it how it is. And my hope is that players can be both. They can be both the great teammates and the great leader who uses their influence and has the hard conversations that can do it away. You know, like, you don't have to be, um, the Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan And Caitlin Clark, they work because they're, it works to be that type because A, they're really stinking good and B, they work really hard, right? So they have enough credibility in their talent and their work ethic. The problem is a lot of times you have players that are, that I don't care what other people think type of mentality and they don't work hard enough. Do you know what I mean? Like, type of thing. And then that becomes really toxic to have that type of individual within a team.

Speaker C: I think the other thing we have to keep in mind here too is that the vast majority of our listeners and our experience is working with high school or collegiate level athletes. And there's a different level of maturity there than what you might find in the WNBA who says, you know, we need an unfiltered voice on every team. That voice, you know, probably needs more care and maybe management, for lack of a better word, on a high school team because we're talking about 14, 15, 16 year olds, you know. And so I think, you know, when I look at your progression, JP and I think about, you know, 23 years of coaching high school basketball, it would be very difficult for me to imagine a player in high school being a great leader and not being seen as a great teammate because I think that would be a deal breaker because of just the way that people perceive or experience that leader. They don't necessarily have the maturity or the life experience to be able to value what they bring with that, you know, perhaps abrasive approach or voice or whatever it might be. So, you know, I think that that is a wise, you know, way to build the scaffold for most athletes that are probably going to engage with this book.

Speaker B: I'm going to ask, I'm going to throw a curveball question at both of you. And Nate, I'm going to ask you to answer this question through your experience in high school and high school athletes. And J.P. i'm, um, going to invite you, for the sake of the conversation, to answer either collegiately, professionally, if you had to give one piece of advice to an athlete who wants to be a leader within their team, what is the one behavior that you would recommend they do immediately and consistently?

Speaker C: Well, I think the currency, and again, my, all my experience is coaching, you know, girls at the high school level. I think the currency is care. I think if they don't, you know, feel that their teammates care about them in some way, it's just going to be, it's going to be an uphill battle to get Them to have someone want to follow them. So that contextually might be different coaching boys are at a different level. But I think that's really where it probably starts. And when I make a list of all the great leaders that I've had the privilege of coaching, it really starts with, you know, teammates that felt like they were cared for and that allowed leadership to be able to really flourish.

Speaker A: Maybe it's a cop out answer for me, but I would say it's the domino of just taking responsibility. If there's something in the team you don't like, you say, okay, what can I do to help make it better through my example, through reaching out to individuals, to talking to the team, Right. If our teammates, if our team's effort isn't there, then am m I giving maximum effort? If I'm not giving maximum effort, am I, do I need to get in better shape? Right? Like, do I need to be more well focused on my recovery? Like anything. If we're not competing, am I competing hard enough? Right. If I'm competing hard, still not responding to that. Like, like just, it's a total radical responsibility to say, what can I do? What influence do I have? Because like, I think we go back to our last conversation. What is leadership came down to me was just like, it's using whatever influence we have for good, right? So it's, it's, it's taking responsibility. And so whether you're the best player on the team, you're the Steph Curry, or you're the guy at the end, how do you start leading? You just say, what's in my, what's, what can I do, right? If I don't like this, if it's not heading the right direction, I gotta make a change. How would you answer your question that you asked us?

Speaker B: I guess, uh, this is why I ask the questions versus starting with answering them so I don't have to think as quickly. Yeah, mine, I think mine. Um, this is going to sound maybe soft to some people, but to your point about care and to your point about responsibility for both of those, what comes up for me is modeling vulnerability. And if you're the last guy on the bench, it's like, well, how is modeling vulnerability going to get me into a leadership position? I think if you can demonstrate your humanity, your fallibility, your ownership and accountability for the things you're responsible for and who you're responsible to, and by doing so demonstrate both care and that, uh, radical responsibility that you mentioned. I think being able to embody consistently the full spectrum of the sports experience, the successes, the failures, the celebrations, the, you know, the struggle like to be visible in all of those. I think is, is a connective piece that provides value both for being a great teammate and being a great leader.

Speaker A: Um, I love that I have this question here on this. I think it's somewhat related, but it's also coming back to what we talked about earlier. One of the chapters is around compete, and we talked about how female athletes maybe struggle because of the social thing. They don't want to make others look bad. They don't want to do anything that would risk. Like you, you spoke about there. Betsy, I'm curious, maybe you have your own experiences around this or maybe you can just guess to it, but what do you think? What, what do you think the reason that male athletes fail to compete at a. Like really get in there and lay it all out there and compete hard? What would be your, your guesses on that?

Speaker C: Well, I'll take a stab first here, JP Just with one of the words and phrases that I've heard more and more as we have more conversations with different athletic departments and focus group of athletes and that sort of thing. And that is, I don't want to be a try hard. Like, that's a, that's uh, a phrase that comes out a lot is that me going above and beyond someone else and this whole idea of my effort embarrassing someone else violates some sort of social contract, you know, that then upsets the whole apple cart when it comes to, you know, the team. So I've heard that, you know, in dozens of situations where you ask an athlete like, well, what's the thing that prevents you from, you know, giving more effort or competing harder, doing whatever in practice. And I don't want to be a try hard, you know, and, or labeled as a try hard. And so I think that is becoming more and more, you know, um, an obstacle and a challenge for coaches to have to deal with.

Speaker B: And to Nate's point, I would say from. And again, I can only speak to my experience in having similar conversations with male and female athletes. It's honestly the same reason. It's just expressed more within female athletes and not talked about as much until like directly asked by someone that, you know, isn't actually part of the program or their peer or their coach, where they're like, yeah, to Nate's point, like, I don't, I don't want to be a try hard, you know, or, or that guy I respect. Like, so I don't want to show him up. Even though I could, um, and then the other one I hear from male athletes specifically is if I go as hard as I can go and I'm not actually better than people think I could be, or I don't live up to the potential, or I don't beat the guy that I'm competing against, then what? And so the trying lesson you're capable of prevents the failure that is feared and the social ramifications that may come from that. You don't try, you can't fail. But we know not trying is in itself a failure for progress and potential. Um, but those are the two that I hear more frequently for male athletes.

Speaker A: You're both, I think, hit on the head with what my experience was as I dove into this. There was two. There was a couple things that came up that was really interesting for me in my coaching with athletes on the male side was the one was actually they lacked awareness of their effort. Males tended to rate themselves on the compete scale higher than females, and yet their coaches would have said, well, they don't actually compete as hard as they think they do. Whereas females were more honest. Um, and the try hard thing, I think when, as I dug into it in conversations, it felt like, at least in my situations as coaching was less about making people look bad. But there was that of like looking bad. But more to that second point, you said, Betsy, of like, if I try hard and fail, then what does that mean? You know, um, that was a big thing. And then there was oftentimes an excuses thing, like they were more quick to make excuses around, you know, well, you know, you've got to, you can't go hard all the time here or there. You got this. Like, there was just a lot more excuse making. Um, whereas the females seemed to be a little bit more aware that they weren't competing. And why they weren't aware was, you know, not wanting to embarrass their teammates, not wanting to make them feel bad.

Speaker B: Um, you mentioned the, you know, uh, the excuses. And this takes me back to an earlier part of the conversation that's also in Level two, you were talking about the hero. And there's a section where you mentioned the victim, the hero and the villain, and how to transition the victim to creator, the hero to coach, and the villain to the challenger. And I do hear this a lot from, um, especially, I'll say, competitive athletes that are very afraid of failure and as a result may not try as hard as they could because who are they? What if I don't actually achieve what people think I'm Capable of. For those that are currently the victims in their stories, there's all these reasons why I can't or why it's not possible, or, uh, these uncontrollable factors that influence my ability to, you know, be at my best. You talk about moving into the creator role. So essentially the difference between life happening to you or life happening through you, what do you think is required besides that perspective shift? From your experience, Nate and jp, what's required for someone to truly shift from victim to creator? Other than, you know, knowledge or, uh, like the framework of, you can. You don't have to do this. You can do this. So, yes, there's a mindset shift, but. But talk to me more deeply about, like, what does it actually take for them to move from being the victim in a story to being the creator of their story?

Speaker A: I would generally say it's probably one of the hardest things to coach, even when I'm working with leaders, like older leaders, not athletes, because you're talking about sometimes a learned helplessness of, um, a psychological conditioning, or over the course of years, years and years where they just tend to see themselves as a victim and seem to not see that they're at choice. And so it is a reoccurring for me, the best way is to continuously bring back to, okay, well, what are your choices here? You have choices, you have options. And to continuously help them to see what. What choices they do have.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think pretty similar to that. You know, a book that comes to mind is Tribal Leadership. And they talk about kind of these five stages of development. Um, and what you're describing, Betsy, is they level this. Stage two is my life sucks. You know, I'm the victim of all these terrible circumstances and people around me and that sort of thing. And then level three is transitioning to I'm great and you're not. And so they talk about how, like, you can't go from level two to level four, which is, we're great and you're not, you know, this collective idea without first going through this stage of agency where you have this personal, you know, sense of worth, even if it's skewed a little bit. Um, and so in the book, they talk about, like, even, you know, in, um, even just the language that you use, you know, in terms of, like, this transition stage, um, can invite them into a new perspective of possibility. And so if they can, you know, sort of take some kind of agency, as JP's, you know, described there, of finding something, some place where they can have a choice in their actions, and then they follow through on that, you know, like, that becomes the building block. But it's a, uh, very, you know, painstaking process, oftentimes because of that learned helplessness, you know, and because it's. It's safer to blame someone else than it is to, as you described before, lay it all on the line and then find out I'm still can't win the big game or I still can't get the first chair in the orchestra. Then who am I? I'd rather not know. I'd rather just wear this victim cloak because that's safer for me, uh, you know, internally.

Speaker B: Yeah. In the book, J.P. um, one of the characters is saying, okay, no BCD, like, you can't blame, complain, defend. And you talked about the drama triangle. And to your point, Nate, of creating that agency, like, same thing. If you told an athlete, okay, in this scenario or situation, the only things you can't do are blame somebody else, complain about something, or defend, you know, through excuses, maybe why you made the choices that you made. That agency for me shows up as ownership, which translates into responsibility, accountability, and even starting with something small so that it feels accessible and perhaps safer than what they might be exposed to if they fully took off the cloak. It's like, can we just throw it over one shoulder? You're still wearing it, but, you know, like, we're just going to expose, like, this shoulder here. Um, I think the other thing that I've. I've observed through conversations with athletes who fall into the victim role. You mentioned the conditioning of this will keep me safe. Right. And to identify even through conversation. And again, I'm not trying to advocate for people to take a psychological path without training or background, um, but just to understand what their fears are, what they needed to stay safe from and the past. And oftentimes a common example I found with athletes is if I didn't perform well, ex parent or caregiver wouldn't love me as much, they wouldn't be as proud. And so it would threaten the attachment, the relationship. And so if I don't try as hard as I can and there's a reason why I couldn't perform at my best, then they don't have an excuse to love me less. And even to translate it into whatever the high school or, you know, college experience of, like, hey, as your coach, that's different for me. Like, I still care about you as a person separate from how you play or perform. Now I'd like to help you perform at your best. But even when you miss that mark. The quality of care remains the same. And I mention that only because sometimes understanding what people felt the need to stay safe from helps you be intentional about demonstrating that this is not that. And those fears, while being the victim, served you in a protective way in the past. It's not needed in the same way in this context. And so being able to help them make the choice, have the agency to let go a little bit of that victim role, to embrace more of the creator role, because they understand that the thing they're afraid of is no longer present in the same way in this context.

Speaker A: M. Here's a question, I think.

Speaker C: Yeah, you go ahead. All right, J.P. i was just going to add, you know, if the average 15 year old just heard that speech, Betsy, they would have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker B: 100%.

Speaker C: Yeah, really, really challenging.

Speaker B: It would be a good exercise for me to actually like, listen back to this and be like, okay, if you were to explain this to a 15 year old, like, how would you take out a lot of the language and the fears and the psychology and just. I would use an analogy probably, or a metaphor like something very relatable to someone of that age that they can clearly understand, like, oh, yeah, you wouldn't use that for this. Cause it's something different. It's like, yeah, so same thing. You don't need that anymore because this is different. So let's talk about what would help you. But yeah, great call up.

Speaker A: Okay, so kind of, as we kind of wrap up level two, lead yourself, my curiosity is, and maybe it's one of the six areas that I focused on at level two, or maybe it was something else. But when you think about being an athlete today, what do you think is the hardest part of leading yourself?

Speaker B: The. For me, and this is thinking about myself as an athlete. So maybe not, um, as true for some of today's athletes. But I think the hardest part about leading yourself in or out of athletics is that you're going to let yourself down sometimes and to, to really be honest with yourself about what you are and aren't doing and why. Um, um, I think that level of honesty with yourself, you know, it's. I think it was Glennon, ah, Doyle that says, you know, you have to be able to disappoint everyone else but yourself. And it's like, man, disappointing yourself sucks. And to really like, own and sit in and acknowledge the times when you did not do what you said you were gonna do or, or you didn't behave in your integrity or in your values. Like, I think the hardest part about leading yourself is the times when you let yourself down and to, to own those and understand that you will make mistakes, you will fall short and still be able to believe in your capacity, ability and try again. Um, as far as leading yourself and then leading others.

Speaker C: Yeah. For me, JP the phrase that comes to mind is one of the values of our program over the years. Just, you know, when a kid gets through the program and we hope that they understand their value doesn't come from what they do with the ball. And I think that, you know, that's a level one thing. I understand. But like there's a, there's a level to lead yourself aspect of that where it. You need ways to remind yourself of that, you know, that my performance does not determine my worth or value in this world. When it may feel like my parents love me more when I score more points, you know, or my coaches play me more, you know, like because of the nature of sport is so result driven and there's so much measurement and there's so much, you know, of that is public. Like the whole apparatus is driving toward your performance, dictates your value. And that leads to all kinds of, you know, traps that you talk about in the book. And I think the way to, you know, to lead yourself is finding ways to remind yourself that my value does not come from what I do with a ball.

Speaker A: Well, I think that you just brought up for me, I didn't know how I was going to answer the question honestly, but it made me think of like, I think the hardest part for all of us, not just our athletes, is the linking between level one, level two. But it's critical. Like you gotta have awareness to recognize what you can take responsibility for, where you're falling short. You know, if you want to have, uh, really, you know, put in a lot of effort in it, you need to make sure you have some passion, you enjoy the sport and you're, you're like, they're all so connected. Authenticity. Well, who actually am I, right. Like outside of my sport. So I can show up not as just this personality or not as people want me to think I am, but like, like who I am and like what's really, really important to me. And you know, the men you talk about there, the identity is so tied to the mental fitness which we talk about there. So I just think it is about putting in the work on ourself. Like, it's not any single leadership behavior that unlocks leading yourself. It's like you just you, what you shared there date really called it for me was like, it's putting in the work on ourselves, knowing that this is a lifelong journey. Um, and, uh, you know, I think that's, to some that seems daunting. To some that might seem like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to do all that. I don't want to go down that road. And for others that are on it, I think it's, it's, it can be a very joyful process. And it's, it is. I was reading something today just around how like that continuous learning and growth and development is what is so critical to people's well being. Not just early in life, but later in life. Either way into old age are you learning and growing. You feel like you're still developing. So I would say that's the hardest part.

Speaker B: J.P. you just, I think you nailed it. Like, listening to you talk, I'm thinking about the number of athletes, coaches, people of all ages that I've met, who they've done Level one. They know themselves. I would say they know themselves very well. But what stops them is the work required to lead themselves. And so they default to things like, that's just who I am, or that's just how I am. You know, it's like, yeah, that's currently how you are and what you could be or what you're being asked to be or what's possible. It takes so much work. And either they don't feel they have the capacity, they don't feel they have the tools, they don't feel they have the time, they don't feel they have the support. There's so many reasons that prevent people from being doing the work. To be able to get to a point where you can lead yourself, uh, I just think the point you just made is so accurate across so many different cohorts and just different areas of life.

Speaker A: All right, that's it for today's episode of the podcast. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to pick up a copy of my new book, the Culture Captain, for you and for your athletes. You can do so@, uh, theculturecaptain.net, where you can also get the field guide. Or, or you can just head on over to Amazon and search for the Culture Captain. Now, if you found today's episode of the podcast valuable, please support the podcast by leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to share it.