Aaron Walsh Edit
Thu, Nov 09, 2023 8:21AM • 41:14
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pressure, identity, performance, new zealand, work, talk, people, adversity, good, suppose, coaches, team, athletes, culture, bit, outcome, experience, put, proverb, sporting teams
SPEAKERS
Aaron Walsh, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Aaron Walsh Good morning, or rather good afternoon to you and welcome to the great coaches podcast is made great
Aaron Walsh 00:06
to heavier second evening 9pm here in New Zealand, so just pass the longest day of the year. Let's
Paul Barnett 00:11
just start with something really bland. What are you up to today? Or rather, what were you up to yesterday, we're in the world.
Aaron Walsh 00:18
Today I'm recovering in Toronto, which is a little city two hours southeast of Auckland, just down on the coast. So like a little coastal town for the equivalent, like if you're in the US like San Diego, it's like a beautiful little beach town and was little over 100,000. So today, I've taken two naps, and stretch, because yesterday, I played 100 holes of golf. So walking, so me and a mate of mine started at 530 in the morning, and we finished at 630. At night, we played five and a half rounds. So that's five rounds recorded. So we put our scores in for five rounds, and then 10 extra holes to make it 100. And we covered about 53 kilometers on our feet. So here today was bit of a recovery day,
Paul Barnett 00:59
the fact that you've got any energy left to talk to us today is pretty impressive. So thank you very much for getting out of it. Yeah, no, I loved it. It's also good to hear a an accent from the same part of the world where I'm stuck here in Prague and CAC and Christmas. So that said, I'm really keen to talk to you that you're the first mental skills coach, actually, we've managed to talk to, and it's a growing industry. And I can see why particularly with what's happening here in COVID. But I wanted to actually start with a marry proverb that I used in one of your articles, and I thought it was so, so relevant, given the situation we're in now just read it to you if that's okay. The proverb translates into the sweet potato never speaks of its own sweetness. So I've tried to structure these questions away from you. And under the teams you've had experience with, because I was worried that you might not want to talk about Yeah, but can I ask by saying, you've worked with some great coaches, some very, or at least some very, very good ones? So can I ask that by asking you what is it you think the great coaches do differently? I think it's
Aaron Walsh 02:10
becoming more and more common now. But I think of these three things to me, when I think of great coaches, or great leaders, they connect, so it'd be that I have the three C's, I think, connections massive. So they have an ability to see the person in front of them have a database of experience and knowledge to adjust what they think in that moment is going to be critical for that person in front of them to get better. And so you'll hear about legendary coaches who are very, very kind and compassionate and quite empathetic with one player than the other players sort of thing was always quite tough on me, and he was quite almost a little bit combative at times, I think it's the ability to understand what's in front of you and see what they need, have a database of tools and experiences to make those adjustments and then meet them where they're at. So that would be the further end connection.
I think extending beyond that goes beyond just simply connecting with you as a performer, but I connect with you as a person. And so I think those that really, really get the buy in from the players I think of someone like Craig Bellamy in Melbourne, he's, he's infamous being quite seems to be quite a hard nosed sort of approach sort of coach, but there's hundreds of stories of him turning up hospital rooms with flowers for wives that have had babies and driving overnight to go to weddings and funerals. And just like, I think there's just no doubt that there is a massive understanding that he cares about you as a person, not just as a performer. And it's a really difficult balance to get because your right of entry into high performance sport is still performance. So you don't belong because you're a good man, you don't belong because you have an ability to get on well with everyone certainly helps. In the end, you belong because you're put up performances week after week, there are new that right. And so when I think of those coaches, they have this unique ability, probably the best way to describe it is that they have really good skills to create social belonging, an equally different set of skills to create a performance edge. [PB1]
And so that would be the connection. So this whole thing of performance and belonging. It's a very, very important subject right now to sort of go on with so that'd be the first thing the thing will be consistency you're gonna get every day. That's more emotional than it is necessarily technical. Like you walk into the room and you know what you're getting. It's not a mystery. It's not moodiness, it's not one day down the Nether, you show up on a Monday morning, you might have won by 40 points lost by 40 points. Yes, there's a sense in the environment around how that feels. But the good coaches are getting that they're going to have a good way of purchasing it. The outcome and the results have a good way of interpreting that into the environment that they're about to leave for that week. And their behaviors. I just just radically consistent, and probably the final C would be to me would be competency. So they know how to do their job really, really well. So they have big trust with the players in front of them, because it's not just that they're really kind and they're nice people and you're going to get every day and they have an ability to understand you as a person actually really going to be a job. And they understand the game deeply. They understand the game well, and they understand no putting on the strip performance hat now they know what it's going to take for you as a individual, whether you're a member of the staff or as a player to be at your best and create a pathway for that to occur. So might be a bit of a long answer. But there's probably the three things that stick out if off the top of my head. So
Paul Barnett 05:40
are in connection, consistency, and competency. How do these great coaches then take these skills that they have, and transform that into the fourth? See, the culture of the team? I
Aaron Walsh 05:55
think that is the culture, to be honest, like, I think those three things, at the end of the day become the foundation of the culture.
So the culture has become a really, really big word with I think a lot of people, I think it's a word that we all kind of understand its value, but don't necessarily understand what it means. So there's a lot of people say here, we've got to get the culture, right. And then when you actually drill down into that quite deeply, what do you mean by that? And that's where the myriad of answers emerged. But I think that's right, because I think there's myriads of needs, depending on the context, if you find yourself, we're both parents, right? So the culture of our family is going to have a different set of guidelines. So the culture of when I'm working in Super Rugby, or working in cricket, it's a different culture, the outcomes quite different. There's different things that we're trying to accomplish. So therefore, the behaviors, the standards will be a little bit different from time to time. [PB2]
So it's an interesting I've been a part of, as you can imagine hundreds of these conversations, and I suppose I'm probably a bit cultural, over it a bit. Like, what are we actually trying to accomplish here? Like, where does it fit? What's its importance? How do we position it? We know culture isn't everything, you've got to be able to have the skill set, and the ability to perform as well. So that's why I use an example like a provincial team in New Zealand will never win the Rugby World Cup. And they said, even if they have the greatest culture in the world, because they don't have the talent, or the skill, culture, to me all like to be honest, I just use the term environment, because I think there's a better way of describing it, because the culture is really the things that happen every day in the environment. So what do you want your environment to be like? And is it created or curated to get the best out of the people that are there every day? So
Paul Barnett 07:40
let's talk then about skills, and technical competence that goes into that environment. You've talked a lot about the link between preparation and execution. So what I'd like to ask you is where to teams that are world class preparers, but fail to translate that into matching performance need to focus first.
Aaron Walsh 08:01
So my job and mental skills I basically describe what do you do? Pretty simple. So my goal is to shrink the gap between someone's capability and what they deliver under pressure. And so I think that's what you're asking is, why is there often a gap between capability or we could use it another word potential, and then delivery or performance, you could enter mingle those words? They're quite the same. I guess the question is, where does my work fit? Okay. So then it's really important that you can't out think about body and you cannot think bad technique. You can maximize that with having good mind, maximize your physical capability, and you maximize your technical skills, but you can't create new advances in that you've got to train that. And so there's no, there's no silver bullets. There's no quick fixes. There's no if you will get the mental guy and then all of a sudden, we awesome No, no, you can't out think that. But when you've worked really, really hard at those things, and you've got it up to a level that's computable or even more than computable, then I think a lot of the work I do is then going okay, well, what we're noticing is that you have high capability here, and you have low delivery is a big gap. Okay, so why does that gap exist? And there is not one answer. I wish I wish I could say well, that gap exists, the common denominator is pressure. So that's the common. That's the common reason, but where that pressure comes from, why people experience and feel it different ways. This as fast as the ocean make, because we're all quite different in the way that we suppose process pressure, understand where it fits within our life and understand what sort of relationship we have with it. [PB3]
And so the preparation, once again, can be world class, world class, world class world class, I think it gives you a much more better chance of performing than if you didn't go prepare that way but it's no guarantee. So that's what I say with the guy with the mental stuff I work with the older stuff helped me so well. Gotta give you a good chance of helping you. But it's better than you don't. But it's not a guarantee, there is going to be so many other factors in your performance, all I'm trying to do is have that gap between what you're capable of and what you're delivering and key moments to be really, really small. And this often to go,
Paul Barnett 10:16
how do you do that? Aaron, what would be if you took someone with a gap? And they said to you, I want to improve my performance under pressure? Yeah, yeah. What are some of the things you take them through to help them get better? Now there's
Aaron Walsh 10:27
a mix of education and tools. So the education part is really important, I think. So if we understand that the way that we're biologically designed is we walk away from pressure, not towards it, because that's how we've lived for the last 1000s of years plus is that when we sense threat, or we sense danger, we have these things go off within our minds and our bodies, which alert us to that, okay. Our goal then is to find some comfort, to alleviate the pressure, and to get back to feeling non threatened. So if you think about high performance sport, which is the word I was working, is that you have to learn how to walk towards pressure. So that's a whole nother skill set, right? You have to understand that there is no avoiding pressure if you want to perform well. So you've just got to learn how to walk towards that. Welcome, come back to that. Number two, you've got to accept this is the crazy part, right? You've got to accept that adversity is a necessary part of growth, where most people live life with voiding adversity or adversity comes and they can overcome it, or they cope with adversity. Whereas to operate at that top level, you've got to understand adversity is often a stepping stone into the next level of your of your capability, because you got to learn from adversity is going to force you to do things different, then the final thing is failure. So, failures has to happen if you're operating at the edge of your capability. And so you think of those three things alone, you have to have reshaped the whole relationship with pressure, adversity and failure to be successful at the highest level. And so so often people have a way of saying go into answering your question, when they come and talk to me, they'll say, Well, pressure. And I'll ask them a question like, how often are you uncomfortable? In a week? I know I avoid discomfort, why it doesn't feel good. Okay, that's very normal. Do you understand that discomfort is critical to you, you have to learn how to navigate through discomfort to perform. So how do we help you reshape your relationship to pressure. So all of a sudden pressure is not something to be avoided, but something to be embraced as you understand where it fits? And then that's the tool. So everybody has a little bit of a different reason why they feel pressure, I probably have, honestly just put it down to three main categories, which is expectation, am I good enough? Judgment? What will people think if I get it wrong consequences? What happens to me if I get it wrong? So pretty basic stuff. And there's answers you can see, it's not a simple equation of just unwrapping a standard. Here's a 123, because everybody's got a different relationship, for sure. So how[PB4]
Paul Barnett 13:08
are you helping your children reshape their relationship to pressure versus
Aaron Walsh 13:13
identifying why they feel it? I reckon that's a big one, like why do you feel pressure, and it's often a sort of cold pressure, a social disease is that no people no pressure, often? So pressure is something we often feel and experience in the presence of others because it's where failure as possible, and with failure goes, judgment and consequences. So what will people think of me or what will happen to me? And so what we're not just dealing with simply as I don't know, if I like pressure, the bigger question is, how do I get free from the prison of everybody else's opinion of me? That's the big question. And how do I have freedom to be authentic to myself, and to bypass the judgment factor which holds me back and keeps me pretty safe and secure and boring and predictable and non creative, risk adverse if you want to use that term? So our biggest goal was to create safe failure, I suppose, where learn the lessons of failure, but be safe, and our acceptance and love I suppose it would be our goal. So we don't mind if you fail, you'll always have love and acceptance from us like because we're not judging you as a person here. If they can have those things secure. So for example, by talking to my kids, like when you go My son loves curry is a cricket nap. So when he goes to play cricket, it's like crickets. Hey, go today's not going to define how mum myself or anyone who cares about your fields about you. Like we don't we love you because your character because of how you operate, because if you love for all of us, like but crickets, a canvas that you have to digest to express your freedom through so get out there and enjoy it. That's probably how we try to work with our kids. And Erica sounds
Paul Barnett 14:55
to me like you're calling out the inputs, not the result of the output. So
Aaron Walsh 15:00
yeah, with kids, I think it's a little bit different to maybe working with athletes, right? So we can't be naive at the top end to say that outcome doesn't matter. It does matter. It's how they're judged. So contracts derive by outcome, determined by outcome. It's interesting. So let me go back to that. It's a great subject. So I think there's two sort of categories. So you've got outcome obsession, which I would say sits out here. So everything's about getting a win. Everything's about outcome, how I feel my self esteem, all of that, it's about that. So that's a really dangerous place to live. But modern athletes, I see a little bit of a danger to at times, and I put it over here, and I'll call it process apathy. They're actually too scared to be judged. So everything's about my process, I'm always in a process, or when are you evaluating the effectiveness of your process? So to me, the evaluation of effective processes is performances. So if you're not performing better, your processes are rubbish. And we have to just say, change your processes, because it's not getting you to where you need to get to. So I think there's always a mixture, I don't think we can be naive enough to go okay. It's interesting. All the studies, when you talk to kids about sport, the whole political career sort of impetus towards it now as to it's fun, and it's enjoyment, that's warranted, and there's a lot there. But there's also a lot when you ask kids about why do you want to play sport, I want to play that what you notice is that it's built into them, I want to win, you can't dismiss that desire to win and to have success and compete and beat better, that's awesome. But they can get messy if it's not the administrators, I suppose, efficiently. But I think there's a real danger and taking competitive edge out of our kids and just resorting back to what I would call process apathy, where you're never measuring improvement, you're never measuring, if you're getting any better. And you know, and I know that they're one, they step into the next part of their life and the big bad world and outcome determines belonging. Like if you perform, you got a job, if you don't perform, you don't have a job, and how do you maneuver through that pressure is going to be pretty critical.
Paul Barnett 17:04
I think putting my corporate had on for a minute, there is a degree of judging someone's potential. In fact, I know that we do that. But there comes a point where potential must be translated into a performance that can be viewed as sustainable. And how do you go about working with teams to find that sweet spot between potential and performance, as
Aaron Walsh 17:27
you always evaluate, so I do pro my splitters 70%, sports 20% corporate 10% skills. So they're probably my split across the year. So with a corporate clients, it's always a little bit more interesting to me in sports, because sports is every week, like, it's just every week, either you good enough, or you're not good enough that we can go back and have a chat and you have an evaluate. Whereas there is a little bit of a luxury in the corporate space to have a little bit more long term, not not a huge amount, but at least you're able to go maybe a quarter, which is better than every week bent on the hammer, though, I know that it's also role specific. But I think what we're identifying is, I was asked the question from Wade, above got a high potential athlete. Okay, well, in your case, high potential young worker, and then not translating that into the performance, there's going to be two reasons why, right? I, they haven't given them the tools or the education for that to occur, or they haven't taken responsibility. So it's not it's going to be one or two things. So they've either setting up, I've got the tools, I've got the education, and Sam a lot even working in pretty high level, rugby and cricket. There's still guys I watch every year who don't take responsibility for their careers. And they end up not taking all the education opportunities and tools they've been given and doing something with it, I reckon that would correspond really nicely into your space, because I don't imagine it's much different, right? At the end of the day, you'll see the person who's got that growth mindset, he's got a bit of hunger, but a drive, who's willing to ask questions, he's willing to go deep, who's willing to learn who's willing to make mistakes be quite humble, they're gonna be fine for the rest of their career, because they've got the right stuff internally. But then if you're not providing them the tools or the education, then their growth will be stunted. So I think it's a bit of a both and I don't know if you experienced the same way, but sort of how I
Paul Barnett 19:22
think so we're lucky enough to do we have a psychologist on staff, and we do a lot of site testing. And it's great because it gives you great insight, and you manage a great insight. And I think my learning from watching this unfold over the last decade is resilience, which you can test for and drive are actually pretty strong indicators of success much more. So I think then intelligence you've got to be smart enough. But beyond that, particularly during this COVID time, your ability to as you talked about withstanding pressure, I mean, sometimes it's just a matter of showing up day after day. And I think it's the way, it's coming to the understanding that it's not the mistake or the challenge. That's the issue. But it's your reaction to that challenge or mistake, which is going to define you. And I think I don't know how that sits with you. But I'd say that's one of the key learnings that personally I've taken, you
Aaron Walsh 20:16
go back to Angela Duckworth, who wrote a very, very famous book called Grit. She identified two traits, passion and perseverance, not much different to what you say like driving endurance or driving resilience. It's the same sort of concept that people who understand deeply the value of their work in their own lives, and then have a reason outside of, I suppose, quite hedonistic in nature, they have a reason for the work that enables or encourages or empowers the endurance perseverance placed, so maybe we'll do like at the start of a season, I'll ask a lot of our guys, why do you play rugby. And if you can nail that was someone, then all of a sudden, you're creating like this kindling, internal kindling, that you just need to light a match to? Because they're already identifying, because it's going to be difficult, it's going to be really hard, you're going to have tons of adversity, so there'll be decent action, there'll be injuries, that we all have the stuff. So what's going to give you the fuel to persevere and be resilient in those moments will be connected to things that are much bigger than what's sitting in front of you every single day. Right? So deciding what's happening in COVID is the tyranny of the urgent if you want to use that term, but more from a motivational pathway speak like, I was really motivated, because it was always something in front of me, almost like as a need for ties to the to where I was really out with my career, my life and all of that stuff. So when COVID has come, I think a whole lot of people have been the anesthetic of worn off. And when you have go from busyness to Quietness or idle, you go from chaos to peace, not that, you know, everyone's gone to peace, but that sense of slow down and, and you have time to reflect and reason with yourself. I reckon that it's been incredibly beneficial, but aren't really terrifying to a lot of people because they're like, I really like my life. I don't really like my work, I don't really like whatever that might be, what am I going to do about that? That connection or that connection to go? I know exactly what I do. I know exactly why I do it. And I know in my experience, COVID was geared to be tremendously adaptable. But that adaptability to me was fueled by an understanding of COVID Wouldn't dictate the parameters of my y, it might dictate the parameters of my watch. But it doesn't touch the parameters of my y. So I can keep doing that. The expression of that might just look a little bit different here. And
Paul Barnett 22:43
could I switch the conversation to leadership for a minute, because when I was preparing for today and reading about your background, I came across the 2018 work that you did with the New Zealand women's football team. And what I found really intriguing about it was the work was focused on helping them move on from a bad experience under a coach. And through your work with them, you sort of arrived at this idea of we'll find a way because anything is possible, which for those of us who don't know, the New Zealand culture, it's very much embedded in the psyche. What I'd really like to ask you just based on this experience, what tips do you have for other teams who are trying to move forward after a period under a very divisive leader,
Aaron Walsh 23:27
I see teams, I suppose probably the little bit of the cultural aspect of being a New Zealander and having some of our connection to modem is that we have a concept within New Zealand called Fokker Papa. And it's a concept that basically you could put it this way where we are one, our arms are linked all the way back in history and all the way forward in history. And we're continuing a story or continuing a narrative or an identity. And at the moment, the sun's on us. And so we have a responsibility then to honor those that have gone before us, and then also to prepare for those that are coming after us. And so when we talk about something like fucka Papa, as it related to the football foods, which is the team that I was working with, they had had a quite a tremendously strong historical narrative of togetherness and some beautiful qualities that exemplified who New Zealand woman were in for a period of time that was taken away, I suppose, or, or stolen. So for me, it was never about trying to create a new identity, it was trying to recapture that which was most authentic, they had operated for a while, but some sort of imposter ship had occurred within the environment, and therefore, we had lost the essence of that. And it was now going back to our history and well who are we? And so, when we came to that point of moving forward, I suppose it wasn't so much though we did have some, I suppose a little bit of processing of what had occurred during them. Previous 18 months it was very much going well, we know we are we actually this is what I find with teams, it is quite a few rating when you go in there is that I think Harvard did the study where if you go to values, there's only about nine that come up in every single team session. So values, I don't really believe in putting values on the wall. And I just think it's a waste of time. What I care about is stories and identities. And who are you? Who are you who's been the people in your history that have shaped who you are today. And I suppose there's that Fokker popper aspect of it. And so we went through some tremendous stories like so we had this idea of what we wanted, the quiet part of the New Zealand culture was just the sort of sort of that proverb of just looking after each other, and we take care of our own, and we don't put our needs before anyone else. And there's a beautiful story about a woman's goalkeeper, and she was the number one goalkeeper in New Zealand before one of the Olympics. And just two days, I think it was before they went on an Olympic qualifier, her father took his own life. And she never went to the qualifiers still got selected for the World Cup and for the Olympics, and never played a minute, she went from number one to number two. And then was Rebecca. And when we when you talk to her, and you talked about the story, she made the statement, and she said, on any given day, somebody's going to make a sacrifice. My job was to prepare that team as best as I possibly could for those events. So I could say to them, Hey, we have a value of selflessness. All we could say Whose turn is it to be Rebecca today? Does that make sense? So now it's alive. It's It's organic. It's, it's meaningful. And I reckon if I sit with most companies or teams, and I say, Well, tell me, your fuckup tell me your identity. Tell me who you are. Because your identity, to me is the foundation of your invite your identity dictates what your values are, your identity dictates what your behaviors are, your identity dictates what your purpose is, that all flows out of this thing. Who are we? And what are we here to do? Right? That's the so when we went to the New Zealand football team, we always had these little traits. So we look after our own, we find the way. And then we sort of had this little one sitting on any given day. So we had this in our Fokker pub, we had all these stories of these New Zealand teams that should have never competed, like we just were talent wise. So I'll just give you one quick story how this worked out, we, we had quite a difficult time, we managed to qualify for the World Cup, this team, this is in November 19. And in June 20. So November 18, and 219, we found ourselves in the south of England and Brighton were playing England, England's last match before they went to football World Cup ranked number three in the world. And they I think they had we have 5000 Woman players in our country, it's under like 5 million. The budget for the World Cup was designed to go on mate it was we'd beaten them one nil. They had 73% of the ball. And we stuck together, we found a way. And we believed well, on any given day, we could just do because there might. So now these identity pieces invaded the environment that now becomes part of our performance identity. And that's where I think environment identity culture affects performance, and where it can be quite powerful. So I don't know if that answers your question or not, but sort of some practical examples. Very
Paul Barnett 28:19
much does answer and I want to ask you a follow up on about the broader identity of New Zealand sporting teams. But I'd like to firstly, drill into identity, you've actually said that identity is the golden thread of mental skills. Could you just expand a little bit more about how identity links with mental skills and team performance? I think from an
Aaron Walsh 28:39
aspect of if we go back to what are our major pressure points, right? So if we think about this judgment thing of what will people think of me, it's a big one and consequences. I tend to put much more in the physical thing, will I be selected? Will I have a job? So they all vote pressure, can I pay for my mortgage? Well, I have a contract. So they will vote pressure, which steals our ability to be free and perform right if we don't deal with it. So what identity for me becomes critical is that if you don't get identity, right, you're asking the sport to deliver something to you that it cannot deliver, which is your sense of self worth. And so to me, I look at a young athlete and go well, your identity is not as an athlete, we know that that's what you do. Okay, so often go to them go and find I want you to find three anchors from your family history, that if you displayed you'd be really proud of they'll go away and talk to mom and dad do some study and really quite profound talks of grandmas and grandfathers and come back and go well. So I'll use as an example like our three real anchors that we just have to that every single day a part of our our family. Number one, by far we gotta have a lot of fun. All right, so we've always been a family that's had fun. I come from a big Irish family is always a lot of fun. When I Having fun, we're not being true to ourselves, right? So that would be number one. The second thing is consistency. So same thing like granddad dad got out went to work every day, it's more about, you know, what you're gonna get with us, we're gonna be reliable, we're gonna be consistent. I think the third thing is very much around that sense of looking after other people. So that's been a big one that empathy. So for example, then each day I get up and go, is my identity going to be defined by what role I have this week? What role I have next week? What team I'm working with what athlete I'm working with? Is that where my self worth? is going to originate from? Or is there going to be another source and for me, it's my, my self worth, derive by my ability to be authentic to those identity anchors that I've determined to be important, rather than compromised, though, in order to be someone else to get another role. So when you go on, how do you apply that to a sports field? So if you can you imagine going to play 18 minutes of rugby, give you that as an example. And how you feel about you, as a person, your measure of self worth for that week, right? And put something else in there, which even makes it more difficult. Your sense of value from your peers is going to be determined by your performance, all of a sudden, your anxiety goes from here to here on rather than my sport isn't where I get those big questions answered. But it's the canvas in which I'd get to express my identity anchors through. Therefore, when I go to play, what are the three things that are true about me that I want to be authentic to on? What do they look like for me as a rugby player? Does it make sense makes
Paul Barnett 31:34
total sense? I wasn't aware of this concept of Fokker Papa, and I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah. For anyone who knows anything about New Zealand sport, I think it's fair to say they are the most proud sporting nation on the planet. And I say that as an Australian that's living in Europe. So I probably you can argue with that forevermore. But there is something about New Zealand sporting teams that does set them apart. And I wondered whether it is this connection that you talk about. But there's also, when I listen to you talk about respect and value and the pressure that comes with having to serve this higher national value this national identity, you must find that you are dealing with a lot of negative self talk, or a lot of negative self identity because of the pressure that athletes are putting themselves under. If you were just drilling to self talk, how do you stop someone from beating themselves up if they're not honoring this rich history that dates all the way back
Aaron Walsh 32:37
with the All Blacks is probably the one that most people associate with New Zealand sporting success. And we are talking about a legacy now over 100 years of fairly good success. And so I think you understand that when you walk in there, I've never been an all black myself. But I think players understand when they walk into their their environment, there is a natural edge that's created and a natural expectation. But I think that the counterbalance of that, I suppose that that particular example is you've dreamed your whole life to do. So it's not like there's a dread. There's an unbelievable excitement as well. Now, as we talked about sports as a wider hole, and we separate it just from the New Zealand thing. So I do think you're right, I think we have a spiritual component to our sporting success, which is connection with a purpose higher than ourselves. Which is, you understand that as a little country in the bottom of the world. So you think about the purpose of the All Blacks is to unify and inspire all New Zealanders. So they know that's their purpose, they know that we know that sometimes inspiration and unity can happen through them performing well. So we know that. So if you talk about purpose, that's your purpose, in order for that purpose to be achieved, they got to play some good for you. So everybody accepts the responsibility associated with that. But I suppose the art of it is I suppose from a pressure management scenarios to accept that feel that be excited by that, embrace that, but then reduce all of that noise into the background and do what you're there to do. And I think that's where we've had good coaching that's able to go, we want you to have this sitting there but not as a burden. It's just part of the history that we want you to get tremendous pride and hopefully inspiration. But in the middle of the of a game on a field. You don't want players thinking about maintaining the dignity or manner we would use that term of the Jews, you want to have them thinking about doing their job, right. So there is a passion element, but probably during the middle of performance, the analogy I use Do you want your doctor who's doing life saving heart surgery on you to be thinking about your family and the consequences of you living or dying or do you want to just be locked into doing the best job he could possibly can on your heart in that moment in order for you to supply. He's understands those consequences but then just reducing it back to nice clear actions in that moment that make a difference. It does
Paul Barnett 34:59
And listening to it, it sounds pressurized. And I wonder if it isn't that New Zealand kids are being prepared at a very young age to shoulder this societal expectation, which is probably a good thing, I think, yeah, small nation, bottom of the world, cold hearts, rough waters, there's an element of needing to survive, I think which has probably been passed down. Through the generations, you often hear more about sporting teams from New Zealand than you do about Star, I think
Aaron Walsh 35:31
a real good paradigm shift. For most people, builders, pressure is not something to be avoided as something to be utilized. Get the best out of yourself, whenever you see pressure in a negative light, right, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, then how can you associate that with high performance for OC pressure is something that's just a necessary thing you have to utilize in that moment as a privilege to understand where you're at? And what's in front of you right now. And you do hear that concept? Pressure is a privilege. So why is it a privilege, because you're exposing yourself to high pressure moments where real outcome, so there's a faith in your ability to be there in a moment, it's a privilege to be on a field, and a Rugby World Cup final with 10 minutes to go like most people give their whole life for that opportunity. Right? Yeah, there are negatives. And I think it's how you view it. I think it's really how you view it. And I think that's what separates the better. So the best, understand they view pressure through the right lens, and they have the right towards it and utilize it to increase their performance with those that don't go to the next level. They avoid pressure. And when it arrives on them, they're overwhelmed by it, and it decreases their level of performance.
Paul Barnett 36:39
Aaron, I'm going to ask you a final question. I'm not sure you'll answer it because of the proverb about the sweet potato, but I'm going to try anyway, we've covered a lot of ground today. Resilience, pressure, performance, consistency, fun, respect. We if I was to talk to the athletes you've worked with, what would you think they would describe the legacy that you've left with them? How would they describe?
Aaron Walsh 37:03
The Bozo got lucky? I'm not a I'm not a trained psychologist. So I feel pretty fortunate mate. Like, I've never done any formal training, like I probably have a heap of impostor syndrome, like most of the time, to be perfectly honest, but probably got lucky enough to have
Paul Barnett 37:23
you deal with having there and you're not the first coach that I've spoken to who has said that they feel this imposter syndrome. And you have to understand that for people listening to the depth of your experience, it does sound strange. Yeah, I
Aaron Walsh 37:38
think probably for me, because I recommend everyone who's younger than like, I'm 44. So recommend those like a 25 who want to go into the field, go get a master's degree, because I think the landscape has changed with those qualifications, it's going to be necessary for those like, I'm pretty probably got lucky, I'm a bit older, now I can sort of still operate and that may change still be able to operate a little bit through having some experience. But I think the imposter thing. I don't know some of the things really helpful. It keeps you grounded in the fact that don't get comfortable. Always keep learning still be I suppose, enough confidence, the right word, but suppose confidence like that. You're there for a reason. And you've got the tools to help people. I reckon it sort of drives you a little bit. It's like that I've done a quite a few webinars and things the last six months during lockdown and try to be generous as I can with information and IP. And then I know some people thought, are you giving me a lot of way? My thought as well, you'd only test the validity of your ideas by exposing them to others. So that's a great learning experience. Right? So how do you know if your ideas are good? You got to put them out there. Sometimes it's sometimes a cramp. And you find that out. So that's good to know. It's free research a from people. So yeah, free research.
Paul Barnett 38:55
Once you get it out there, it forces you to go away and learn something else to put out there. Exactly.
Aaron Walsh 38:58
That's the second thing that keeps it nice and hungry. So I feel pretty fortunate on the aspect of as someone that there's so many more qualified people in the mental skills space who are doing some incredible work. So yeah, I got pretty fortunately,
Paul Barnett 39:14
I think we make our own luck. But I understand I was watching on LinkedIn recently. And you said, you are dyslexic? Yeah, I've worked with a managing director for a long time. It was only at the end when he was retiring, that he came clean with the fact that he was dyslexic, but he said that he compensated by reading people very well. And I wonder whether there is an element of that, that you're just very good at reading people, and that you're probably quite a good poker player. As a result.
Aaron Walsh 39:40
I'm not very good at writing. So the writing is that's where like, I can articulate things but like to get my wife to check everything I write, basically, and then even like I write stuff, and I've gone through a times and I just think I've got it and then I'll send it away and some will come back. I'll just for typos in these. I didn't even see it by not even like close to seeing it. So even if you pointed it out, like obvious stuff to everyone else, and like now I just can't see it. So I'll probably talk more than I write that I do love writing, but I'm just not very good at putting things together. So, suppose you learn how to communicate, you're forced to communicate in different ways.
Paul Barnett 40:18
Aaron, I'm not gonna let you off the hook on the legacy question, what would the athletes you've worked with? Say? Oh,
Aaron Walsh 40:25
I don't know. I mean, you'd have to ask them I reckon like, it's hard
Paul Barnett 40:28
to say what would you like them to say?
Aaron Walsh 40:30
I'll probably consistent year, we knew what we were gonna get the moods and the behaviors and you understand this was a really difficult world and there's so many roller coasters and people come and go, and coaches come and go and athletes come and go and you'd hope you offered some consistency and some support would be nice.
Paul Barnett 40:48
I think that was just a little bit more than I expected to get. Aaron It's been lovely to chatting to you very selfless person. You have a wonderful ideas and when and if you put them together into a book, I will be very, very keen to read them and share maybe as long as I don't write it. Thanks very much for your time today. It's been an absolute treat chatting to you THAT YOU'RE WELCOME BACK.