As a father of 2, and the leader of an organisation, one of the topics that fascinates me the most in these interviews is resilience. The American Psychology association describes Resilience as the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences.
And in my humble opinion, it is as critical to your success in as a leader as your emotional intelligence and your ethical standards.
To begin the exploration of what the Great Coaches think about resilience I will start with Neil Craig, who offers an alternative definition to the one I just shared, and uses an analogy of driving a F1 car to illustrate why being uncomfortable is a necessary pre-cursor to developing resilience.
09_07_Craig0:00
I'd sort of go back to the definition of it, or what's the resilience? Immediately most people think it's about how you handle some form of adversity or crisis. That can be a loss can be a poor form, it can be an error on the pitch in front of 100,000 people. It can be criticism in the in the media, and it is that it is part of that. But it's also being able to handle success. So you need to be resilient, to better handle success. Because if you're not resilient, you'll be you'll become very inconsistent. Because success seduces people. I think as human beings, we've evolved to seek the comfortable environment. Our body is, from a physiological point of view is geared to bring it back to equilibrium doesn't like to be stressed. So it's got all these internal mechanisms that if if you start to overheat, get rid of the heat. And I think as humans, we tend to be like that anyway, like, we'd like to be comfortable.
Whereas your best high performance environment, Eddie Eddie Jones, Ric Charlesworth, Charlie Walsh, they are very, very uncomfortable about being comfortable. In actual fact, they seek they seek ways to keep things uncomfortable, because when that's when you really learn, like you learn you when you first learn to drive a car, like it's uncomfortable isn't like if you everything so highlighted in yellow, you've got to push the accelerator down, you've got to brakes and the indicators and whatever. Eventually you get to a stage where quite comfortable. And if you want to get better, if you want to get better at that you need to actually extend yourself. So you might be to drive a car around Prague all day. But if you want to be really uncomfortable, we'll put you in a Formula One and so your skill set will have to increase enormously, because you'll be totally uncomfortable again. And so this capacity to to embrace the adversity which which is a form of training for you
Cori Close coaches the UCLA Womens Basketball team in America and she builds on Niels thoughts by saying that uncomfortable places is where growth starts, and in order to get their your response must be greater than the event you are experiencing.
09_07_Close
Cori Close
0:00
Okay, at the end of this time that you've not
had to sit out, so to speak, what do you want to be able to say about your
response? What do you want to be able to look back and go, Man, I chose to
strengthen my arm, I chose to respond a certain way. And as a result of those
choices, this is what transpired. This was the work I did in the dark that got
revealed in the light, so to speak later on, but sometimes when we all tend to
look at like our circumstances and go, Oh, this is what we can't do, this is
what we can do. But when you are committed to your response, or discipline over
default, you choose to say, Okay, where is it that I can grow maybe an
unpredictable way as this event is hard. This event is not what I would have
chosen, but maybe it will force us to the uncomfortable places where the
real growth and change happens when you have to make those hard choices
that develop deep character and life changing habits. So
it's a work in progress. It's an everyday kind of thing. I also don't believe
you can carry it over. I think you got to choose it every day. You got to go
okay, I'm going to choose to strengthen my art today. I'm going to choose to
choose discipline over default because I know I am I'll go back to old habits
or comfortable ways and not a lot of good or growth happens and happens in
comfortable ways.
When it comes to building resilience the Great Coaches talk about starting in training, and setting up pressure situations that simulate what you will experience during the game. Here is iconic Netball coach coach Norma Plummer.
09_07.2_Plummer
Well, the performing under pressure we, we would have to do all of that at training. Of course you have to have you, your players under pressure and building it up. And the thing is, when you do it in training, I used to say to them, it doesn't matter if you make the mistake, that's why we're doing it a training so we learn how to handle that under the pressure. Of course you don't make a mistake, but once you really started to handle the pressure you got better than decision making on what you were going to do.
Brenda Frese is an American Basketball coach and she echoes Norma’s views on the importance of simulating pressure in training so that people are uncomfortable. But she adds an interesting twist by also referencing her twin sons and how she thinks you can help build resilience in children.
09_07_Frese
0:00
I just say this as a mother of twins as I think we've taken away as parents, just the resiliency factor of, it's okay for your kid to fail. It's okay for them to experience hard things. I think sometimes we've gotten to a point that we just don't want to see our kids hurt or be in pain. And I think those are some of the toughest moments where you're able to establish that resiliency within your child. I think when you think of a team, sometimes I can point to a moment and a season each and every year where there's a defining moment that moves your team along a path more times is for the good. Sometimes it changes the path. But those moments are crucial. Sometimes after a really tough loss. You'll learn about your team to be able to fix it and change it. The growth that comes out of it really allows your team to become a lot more resilient. And so in practices, we're trying to kind of build those moments all the time. We want those practices to be hard and as uncomfortable as possible. We want them to understand that games are going to be you know, different and uncomfortable and we want to embrace it because that fight is what makes it so worth it.
When it comes to creating pressure situations though, you have to find the right amount of pressure. And finding this line is the art of leadership that is so difficult to develop and yet so important to your eventual success. Here is WNBA championship coach James Wade.
09_07.2_Wade
but you still want to put that you want to apply the right amount of pressure, but it's delicate. So it's like, okay, when and where and how and how much. So this is the constant battle that you're fighting as a coach because you care about the players and you care about their well being. But you also know that they have to be pushed to a certain point to be there better sales. So you're actually trying to balance that all season to go along with the tactical stuff, and pick and roll those games or getting the player to post up more or shoot more threes when they're open or all this stuff or just work on their jump shots. And, and so all you're dealing with all this stuff, and so that's where we had to get better as a staff. That's why I had to get better as a coach is, where's their limits mentally, physically, you know where it is, but where's their limits mentally? And how do I motivate them to be on the same page, even when it's not their day, and now was the tough part
One way of balancing the amount you push your players in training, is to include a focus on selflessness. A good example of how this works comes from Australian basketball coach Dean Vickerman.
Would you mind sharing
the the trademark that you have present with your team?
Dean Vickerman 12:08
Yeah, no, we will
share which is selfless hard accountability, relentless execute other words
that we that we use on that team and and try and live it, you know we've broken
it down even further to finish a practice. The selfless side of
it is, how did you make someone better? And so we'll ask that question after
practice. How is your physicality which was the heart of what we did? Did you
make others better with screening? Did you compete on every rebound? Did you
dive on the floor? Did you do all the little extra things that that helped
teams win? And then how did you execute what was prescribed on top of before
practice? And you know, did you achieve it in the day? Did you execute on
offensively defensively what we wanted to get done over the day. And so we
asked our players to either write themselves or to write their teammate and
give yourself a ticker or cross in all those three areas and try and build a
consistency in our behaviours in practice every day.[PB1]
Another way of helping to build resilience is through the expression of gratitude. And psychology research is now able to show the link between gratitude and your inner strength to combat stress and therefore build resilience (Gloria & Steinhardt, 2016). It is such a powerful force, and in this example Jan Stirling, which coached Australia to the World Championship in Basketball, talk about how she uses it as a coach.
Jan Stirling 36:10
look for this question comes up from time to time. Hopefully, you've influenced others too. And I think I have in many ways, and I'll use an example of what my legacy has been in one way when we I got to coach my first Olympic team. And before we went to Athens, 2004, given my Adelaide lightning journey is the reason why I was a head coach, the success of the lightning clearly played carrying weight in me being appointed the head coach of the groups. I remember writing, I remember the number 78 handwritten cards, and I write a legacy card, by the way, all right, you know, a lot a lot. And it was to the faces of the parents of every athlete, it was to the partner of every athlete, and then it was to arrange of our corporate sponsors, we then go to essence, then have the group together, like Trish found and Christy Hara wonderful, gracious, we had some fencing, Sandy bomdila was in that team, you know, had some fantastic athletes. And I just challenged them. And I said, Hey, you know, now that we're all here together, have any of you given thought to actually, when you get home, wanting a car to someone who actually will be home watching you with great interest that might have impacted on you really early in the study or journeys might have been you? And straightaway, the girl said, Oh, he went on to 10 coach was really fantastic. Do you know that every one of them did that? And fast track it now to now. And I know for a fact that there's some of those athletes that I've engaged with over time that say RJ one of the best things, you know, I do I actually send that email, of course, but I actually write to people now and thank them. And I, you know, when I get to something, or when I want my MVP, I wrote back to them and said, thanks for sharing, you know. And so, I'd like to think my legacy is that I've helped people embrace a little bit more of thanking and being having gratitude for the journey that you've had an understanding that even if someone's only had you for one season, that when you're an open, and you're getting that little render it may they own you, like but let them know, they mattered to you. And that they contributed to your journey because they kept your interest or, you know, you're ready to quit, and they talk about whatever it is. And it could be your grandma around it could be struggle system, but just make sure that let them know that you appreciate and you're grateful for how they've impacted on your journey. At some stage, there might have been a time when you didn't make the team but then you made the next one or whatever. And I know for a fact that some of those fantastic young women that I've been privileged to coach, a lot of them do that now. So that will be that's the only legacy or no, it's pretty much the only one on our planet anymore. That's it.[PB2]
Resilience, like most things, is built through a daily, ongoing focus on small improvements. In this example from Cori Close she talks about focusing on the small daily habits that can be overcome through the application of a little discipline.
09_07_Close_1
CC
Cori Close
0:00
I think maybe asking yourself the question of
what are three areas that if I do nothing I will default to but if I make some
small habitual discipline choices I can overcome. The reality is if someone
were to strengthen there are tomorrow, it's just to make a decision that what's
going to govern your feelings and your circumstance, I always say not to decide
is to decide if you don't decide in advance. Look, I may have some hard things
that happened today. But I'm going to choose to look in and strengthen my
response no matter what. And if you don't decide
that that's how you're going to do it, then usually your circumstances overcome
your feelings or your moods or your choices. And so I would just say, if you
want to strengthen your art tomorrow, decide that your art is going to be more
important than your circumstances period. And if you don't decide that usually
your circumstances when
The Wresting coach Tom Ryan builds on what Cori says by talking about the importance of mindset, and developing that through achieving small ongoing improvements in tasks. This idea of bringing your focus on to the next action, and not looking too far ahead, was a common theme with many of our guests.
09_07.1_TomRyan
So the first thing I think is just developing a mindset, right, getting the mind ready for what is about to move toward. And then I would set up right a series of challenging scenarios that they succeeded at. Right so it's a whole theory of right 1% Better, they would be challenging but they would prevail is because prevailing is important.
Mental application when under pressure, also helps build resilience for critical moments when it will be tested. In training there is the opportunity to normalize these situations but introducing small games or tasks. A good example of this comes from Gold medal winning Rugby 7’s coach Tim Walsh.
09_07_TimWalsh
0:00
So they're really important to be able to perform under pressure. And that's where that sort of processes come in is a process driven, performance based and then giving the players tools to be able to do it. And that got to be that's got to become part of your your culture and your training. So out of your comfort zone chaos, and I just find a lot of a lot of games that aren't related to rugby, it's more mental application that really put you in those positions. So I think there's a double dartboard in the background here. So there's like, we'll have tournaments in here that get one shot close to the ball or whatever it is that and how do you mentally review it is like, how did you feel? What did you do about it? How did you handle that that moment? Did you visualize Did you breathe? Did you think about the outcome did you not focus on the process, so whether it be their sole goal for anything, but you're constantly putting the players under under pressure, and at the end of training instead of market kickers just to come over and get the whole team just to circle them and just absolutely berate them in the best way they can to see how a if they can kick it under pressure. I've even got in a indoor training area here I recorded the crowd on the iPhone and then hooked it up to the to the speaker system and just played that while they were on to training in the in the field but just how you can block it out. So just continually trying to create scenarios that put you in that position. The there's nothing better than alive and how do you create it, but it's just trying to understand it, and then giving him giving them the tools to be able to do it
Behind the resilience is mental toughness, and the material on this topic is so rich that we will have a separate lessons episode on that alone in the future. But here, basketball coach Jackie Carson Smith explains why mental toughness is important, especially in a social media world, and the role she plays in trying to help her team develop it.
09_07_Carson
So, the resiliency, it's also tough because it's so tied to mental toughness. And that is the one aspect that is becoming harder and harder to coach. Because, again, going back to what we talked about, there's this negative self talk. And there's all these influencers. If you think about the generation of players that are coming through the playing race right now, they have so much more access to people who can influence them in so many ways through social media, through internet through, there's so many people and get a hold of them. And they allow their opinions to matter more than the people whose opinions truly matter. So the resiliency is they gotta find a way to block out the noise. Focus on the goal, focus on the process, and just available mental toughness. The mental toughness part is the most challenging thing that you can do to maintain resiliency because, again, there's so many factors that can come into it that are damaging and can quickly you build all this mental toughness and in one second one game, one instance, it can all be snapped
One of the gifts of Great Coaches is their ability to reframe situations, and look at them as opportunities to learn or develop. It’s a difficult skills to develop, but one which they describe as being linked to motivation when it comes to the need to preserve. Here, Sandy Brondello, the WNBA championship coach explains the importance of adversity when it comes to success.
09_07_Brondello
You know, everyone sees only the good things, but plays even at the top, they go through so much adversity, but I think that was a defining moment for me that kind of helped to be the person that I am. And that's why it's so important for my teams. I think the most successful teams handle adversity. And if you and really how do you how do you grow as a person and that's why you know, how you or as a sports person is through the negative experience. Now, I try and make sure that and, you know, I know you've read a quote for me, I say, and I stole it's not my quote, it's, you know, the lesson of the experience is always positive, even though at the time it was negative, and it's very painful. But sometimes we have to go through those hard times to fully appreciate the good times the successful times.
09_07_McCallie
You know, first of all, there's a, there's a presumption here,
that life isn't this joyous thing and all the pictures that people put on
Facebook, like everybody's happy all the time. The reality is, the principle is
that suffering, suffering is part of the deal. And by suffering, you are able
to get to the core of what what the difficulties are, and you feel like feeling
pain is a part of life, it is not something you can remove. Life is full of ups
and downs, good times. I mean, sometimes it's good times, and then immediately
following. It's bad. I mean, it's just things you can't believe you're up,
you're down, you're thinking about life. But if you have a measure of faith in
the process, if you're a person of faith in general, if you're a person that's
spiritual or thinks about things and knows that if you do your very best, good
things will happen.
But you will suffer things will go wrong, you will get injured, perhaps you will get into situations where you have a hard time communicating, you will lose games, you will win games, you will be on the bench, you will be a starter, you know you there's so many roles that you can play. And so I like books that talk about getting comfortable with suffering, and I've had enormous amount of suffering that I think is develop me in a very strong way and character comes from that. So we do talk a lot about embracing suffering and you know, kind of, you know, kind of joke about it sometimes like, Okay, ladies, we are going to suffer, you know, through this conditioning and you can look at it two ways you can let that suffering take you down and feel, you know, feel weaker because of that or you can rise and you can get past any suffering despite how you feel when you run around the track or something. I mean, you can make it so it's light, but palpable or you know, definitely motivational. And so we're comfortable with suffering.
09_07_ Taaffe-Cooper
But in terms of resilience I think the single best piece of advice I would give is to as much as possible allow your athletes to experience the consequences of their own behaviors
09_07_Akle
So I just think if you don't have that scoreboard, not everything's roses and not everything's perfect. And losing probably teaches you more than winning does. And, you know, I see a lot of kids, I spend a lot of Saturdays at soccer, there's no netball, but there's definitely a lot of soccer and cricket, and it always blows me away that we have this rule here in Sydney. So to be able to win gracefully lose gracefully. There's so many learning moments for kids that winning and losing teachers you and if you don't have that, like I just think it's crazy. Crazy. So yeah, you've got to be able to handle walking away but there's a better team on the day. There's a better time on the day practice harder. So there's so many life learnings in that
09_07.1_Hamlett
0:00
But I think the first thing and ultra distances, teaching the man in those dark places, what he's capable of, I think that's important. When things are tough, you know, we hear all these things, but it is true, you know, and sometimes it becomes like one of these awkward days because, you know, it means nothing. But when things are tough, we show them in when you run the first 50 case, okay, it sounds a lot if you're not an ultra distance runner. But in terms of auto distancing, that's really nothing. It's internal. It's not really something serious. That's like a good warm up. But after that, what's happening happens to you? Where do you learn about yourself, when things are so tight, that you're battling to put one leg in front of you, and you longing for that nice piece of fruit or yet, or that cold drink, and you waiting for it and you fighting with yourself to keep yourself going, and your mind is saying Get in the car, get in the car, and you fighting through that. And now you slowly teach that resilience against that. And as you get stronger, you make it longer. And eventually that whole resilient part of you is like almost like a muscle. It's able to take more and more and more and more
09_07_Coles
Winning getting them on the field is winning for them. But because they were abused in the media, it's a waste of money, women's cricket, they shouldn't be in the kitchen. And they had to put up with all of this and then not being paid for six months, because the PCB at that particular time that administration thought that it was a really good idea that they don't pay them for three months building up the World Cup, because that will make them hungry to perform at the World Cup. And then when they didn't perform at the World Cup, surprisingly enough, they didn't pay them because they performed so badly. So when I came in, these girls hadn't been paid for six months. And it wasn't until I listened to a few conversations and understood. So resilience. That for me is resilience in itself.
09_07_Menzies
So I introduced things and I knew they were going to fail that, that it was okay now you've actually got to learn to work hard for something. So, because she's, there's a lot of athletes and a lot of kids that things come really easy to them, and they've never had a hardship. So then when a hardship does come, they don't know how to handle it. So if it's a disappointment, like missing an Olympic team, and they've never had a hardship, it's gonna hit hard. So it's putting things in place that you look and go, right. If this happens, what things we putting in place to prepare this. So yeah, it's sort of not a crystal ball but sort of looking and going radio if this is going to happen. Like we do stand I do dry swim sometimes I might I call them get out swings that I might write up on the session. Okay, if you're within this percent of time that's it for the session. They're like aren't really. So then you say the kids that really lift and then there's others that go, oh, I can't do that. Can't do that. They're the ones that you know, okay, on race day, you've actually got to help them because they haven't got the skills
09_07_Meyer
0:00
I think that's true leadership. So my boys, I just want to be happy. Enjoy what you do and always fight one more round and why say fight one more round. I write this in the book is that I watched an interview with Muhammad Ali, actually a fight against Sonny Liston. And nobody gave Ali a chance. He was a young fighter and Sonny Liston was an animal. He was an unbelievable he was unbelievable fighter wasn't jailed. People saw this guy's invincible. So Ali told the whole world obviously being early, you know, I'm going to be this guy. And then in the first round, Ali wanted to quit because the Sunday lesson can put Wintergreen, which is deep it on the on the gloves and hit early in the eye, and he couldn't see. And he wanted to quit because this is unfair play and he couldn't see in order to show the world this is unfair, but it would last about So Angela dandies trying to push them in and say God, then fight one more round you don't quit at a great first round. And in the sixth round. You had a great sixth round in the seventh round, the unimaginable happened. Sonny Liston stood up and they threw in the towel. Ali was the world champion. He told him I told you I'm gonna beat the world. So as a youngster as a leader out there when people don't believe in your dreams, they'd write you off and especially in Gaza, if I can just give one message in COVID is that you are going to get setbacks and my whole message is round fight one more round like Ali did, he could have quit so easily. And a lot of businesses a lot of people emotionally and a huge pressure even myself, you know, I haven't coach for a while but we have to go out there and fight one more round and that's the Mental Toughness
09_07_Alexander
Yeah, look, it's, it's a hard one. It's something it's a big character driven as well. But I think, you know, I'm a educator, so I'm always optimistic that people can learn this. And I think it goes back to that, again, you know, the writing the journal is actually writing down those issues or experiences that have been tough and really examining them instead of, you know, not facing them. I've often, you know, written down my challenges and the things that have really confronted me and what I needed, what I've needed to do, which has been very helpful. So it's sort of like having your own copilot that sort of helps you to navigate the tough times.
09_07.1_Alexander
0:00
I'm a educator. So I'm always optimistic that people can learn this. And I think it goes back to that the writing the journal is actually writing down those issues or experiences that have been tough and really examining them instead of not facing them. I've often written down my challenges and the things that have really confronted me and what I needed to do, which has been very helpful. So it's sort of like having your own copilot that sort of helps you to navigate the tough times
09_07_Jones
I think it's it's the ability to be able to teach them that it doesn't always have to be fun and you don't always have to be happy. And at times there are difficult situations but there's a fun to and the fun to sticking at something doing it well, and then achieving I think it's almost you've always got to be conscious of the fact there's a fun there that you've got to let him have, you know, and it's teaching players about how do you find that fun to have you understand fun to is something that you've got to stick out it's gonna at times gonna be uncomfortable at times there's going to be bits and pieces where you don't like and you just keep on trying to find ways to get it through
09_07_Searle
I think it's a lot of it just lead by example to start with, isn't it? I guess I'm a pretty good role model in that aspect sports hard. AFL W in particular is hard. It's a short season, there's no reserves teams to prove your performance. So if you don't get picked it, so AFL on steroids only everything's magnified, because it's so short, and that the impact is quite big. So every week is quite dramatic for the nine players that don't get chosen is quite tough. So it's just a matter of always workshopping. I mean, it does look different with different individuals in it, but it's always a matter of what the opportunity is. It's not what's fine or you're not getting but what is the opportunity going forward? And is it next week, maybe maybe not the opportunities to work on something to improve on something or maybe the opportunities just to grow some resilience? So there's always something that can be achieved out of a sad time or low level, so to speak. So it's about changing the narrative to not what you've lost, but what you can gain