champion teammate edit
Wed, Sep 13, 2023 11:42AM • 54:20
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
team, coach, john, teammate, great, jerry, uncomfortable, talk, book, belonging, athletes, teach, kids, years, write, sports, won, walk, read, service
SPEAKERS
John O'Sullivan, Paul Barnett, Jerry Lynch
Paul Barnett 00:00
Jerry Lynch and John O'Sullivan. Good morning, and welcome to the Great coach's podcast.
John O'Sullivan 00:06
Thank you so much, Paul. We're excited to be here for sure. halfway around the world, we're celebrating
Jerry Lynch 00:11
the afternoon.
Paul Barnett 00:13
Why don't we start with that that? Could both of you tell us where you are in the world and what you've been up to so far today. Go ahead, John.
John O'Sullivan 00:22
Yeah, so I live in Oregon. So us Northwest west coast. And yeah, it's early afternoon here. So actually started today with two interviews for our own way of champions podcast, worked on two of those did a little coach mentorship work, collected myself because I was out of town for four days. Just sent my daughter with my truck to go pick up my broken lawnmower. And then and when we're done here today, I think I got some yard work to do. How's that? Because there were real people.
Paul Barnett 01:04
Sounds good. Jerry?
Jerry Lynch 01:07
Well, it's hard to top that one. He stole my, my gate here. Well, I, I'm in Santa Cruz, California, just down the road from John and I'm a block from the ocean factor. I open the window, I could hear the, the waves out there. And I did my gardening this morning. And took care of some plants that the gophers were eating, and then got back to putting together my, my work with the curriculum for our upcoming conference in Denver. On August 4, fifth and sixth that John and I, it's our seventh annual, and takes a lot of work. And, and so I've been really focusing in on, on making this the best one possible, we want to crush it. And we want to give to people. So much of what we've learned since the last time in person with COVID, we hadn't had a chance to be together in person. So we went virtual for the last few years. And that's that's wonderful. And I'm glad that we did it. But we're John and I are both looking forward to be there where we could put our hand on someone's shoulder and look him in the eye and say, You're important to us. Yeah.
Paul Barnett 02:31
Well, I'm glad that I could rip you both away from the garden book writing mentor, and all those kinds of things to talk a little bit about being a champion teammate. We're gonna we're gonna get into that, and then you book as we go along. But, Jerry, could I start, actually with, with asking you a question. You've worked with some great coaches, and I don't use that word lightly. There's people like Phil Jackson, there's Dean Smith, and Dorrance. And of course, there's Steve Kerr as well. And I'm really interested to start with asking you from this experience, what is it you think the great coaches do differently? That sets them apart?
Jerry Lynch 03:13
That's a great opening question. And if we had four hours away, I could really go to work on that. But I think I can put it all into a nutshell. And, Phil, what really jumps off the page at me and John, maybe you want to add to this,
but all of these coaches that you mentioned, they've all won between Ed, Cindy Tim Shaw, and Ed TARA VANDERVEER. In there, these coaches have won at least 60, national or World Championships. So the question is, you know, how can that be? And if you ask them, What was the most important game, that they have a one in their row on their road to a championship. They'll all agree it's the same game. It's the relationship game. And what they do before you can win championships, and before you have winning teams on the scoreboard, you could have all the talent in the world. But as Phil Jackson once said, with all of those great ingredients of talent, and maybe a little bit of luck, the most important item is building a foundation of love, and caring, and connection. [PB1]
And of course, one of the names that we haven't mentioned is John Wooden and when he retired, everyone was interested in knowing why did you how did you do what you've done? It's been incredible. You've won seven consecutive national championships on and on and on. And he said, guys, it's really easy. I have a lot of love in my coaching. So you absolutely Fully positively it's an it's an essential absolute is what I call it is you must build that foundation and from that foundation, you can demand from your athletes, you can ask them to do anything. You can be tough on them, you can get in their face, you could do what you want, but they always know you're coming from love, and they feel accepted. And they feel valued and important, and they feel empowered. And when that happens, they'll go the distance. And when you have talented athletes, physically talented athletes going the distance, way of champions winds up being part 118 championship teams. And so that's it in summation. That's it in summation. John, perhaps you want to go a little more in there?
John O'Sullivan 05:50
Sure. I mean, I think, as the athlete, what do I want to know? What do I want from my coach, that my coach is in it for me, my coach has my best interest in mind that my coach is really about meeting me where I am and trying to get me to another place, I just the more athletes you talk to the more great coaches you talk to. That's what people want. Right. And, and that is, you know, you know, I think I was having a really interesting conversation with someone this morning. And she said, you know, leadership can be about power or leadership can be about influence. And sometimes we have power, but we always have influence. And and that a coach or a team captain or a great teammate can always have great influence, if if they're aware of it, and they use it wisely. And I know that, hey, they're in it for me. [PB2]
So when I think of the best coaches I had, or the best ones I've met, there's always something about them that says they have my best interest in mind. And, you know, right now, in this conversation, I'm the most important person in the room. Right. And when you feel like that, like Jerry said, you'll do anything for someone.
Paul Barnett 07:16
John, the new book is called The champion teammate. Timeless Lessons to connect, compete, and lead in sports and life, John, it's a great title. It's a great read. I really enjoyed it a was a holiday read for me. But I wanted to ask you, what was the impetus for the book? Yeah,
John O'Sullivan 07:34
I'm glad you like the title, because there's probably more hours and back and forth went into that title than went into the whole interior of the book, kind of figure out how are we going to describe this. But you know, the impetus was a couple fold, right? The number one, you know, Jerry, and I do this work with teams, Jerry has been doing it for decades. And I started about six or seven years ago, with a couple of teams, actually all former athletes that had done this work under Jerry as an athlete, and then became coaches and, and we're looking to bring this to their own teams. And you know, what was interesting about it was, you know, we had talked about, hey, we've done a lot of work for coaches and for parents. And a lot of our teams ask, like, hey, is there a book we can read together? Right, something that we can get us all on the same page this summer? And, and, you know, Jared, and I said, Well, we should be writing that book. There's great books out there. Don't Don't get me wrong. But why don't we write that book with our ideas of, of what we know works. And so that was the impetus. And it was a super fun journey, where finally in fall of 2022, we're watching the FIFA World Cup, we're seeing interesting team dynamics. We're both not traveling or didn't have a lot on our schedule for a couple of weeks. And I said, Jerry, you know, we should get this we should start writing this book. And so so we agreed, and we hashed out like a bunch of topics for chapters, and we split them up. And then I put it aside and went about, you know, my life. And then a couple days later, Jerry sends me 50 pages. He's like, Here you go. I was like, Oh, I've written zero words. So far, I better get to work. And so that was my impetus for the book was trying to keep up with Jerry. But yeah, the book I mean, I think we put the whole thing together in probably less than a month, because we were both so inspired to write it and we were, we were great teammates in this writing process of putting this together. Everything we talked about in the book, we were living every day to try to create the best book possible. It was a super fun because neither of us had really Jerry's had a co author before but not sort of on every topic on the book and I had never had a coauthor before. So it was super fun.
Paul Barnett 10:02
Oh, it definitely comes across as a group effort. Some of the lessons in there are very, very deep. And I found it very applicable to both life and sports.
Jerry Lynch 10:12
Well, I disagree with John, in this sense, we respectfully disagree, which is why we could write this book together. But this books been many years in the making. John and I, John and I have known each other seven years and, and when, when he joined me and some of the work that I'm doing, he expanded his repertoire, because before me, he was into other aspects of, of sport. And John was a professional athlete, playing soccer and coaching. And so there's a lot of years if you add my years with John, so we're talking about over a half a century of years of accumulating wisdom, not data wisdom, and but in these last seven years, with John working with teams, and me working with teams, John actually approached me and said, I have this idea for a book, are you interested, and he told me about writing a book on a teammate, and I'm always interested, I'll never turn something down with somebody if I respect them, and I feel good about them. And so secretly, I didn't tell John this. But if we're going to write a book about a teammate, this is really going to test our relationship, and see if we can be exactly what we're writing. So in order to write this book, as quickly as we did, and as well, as we did, and come up with these titles, come up with these chapters. We had to work together, we had a put into operation, and we did it so well. We had to be selfless, we had to be flexible, we had to be, we had to be leaders, with each other some days, John would lead. And I'd follow other days, I'd lead and John would follow. And I must say I did a lot of following on that title. But I'm glad I did. I mean, I trusted John. And so trust was another issue. So many teammates in sports, they don't trust each other. And you got to trust each other. And that trust comes from certain behaviors. And John and I wrote down in this book, the specific behaviors that you need to demonstrate as a teammate, if you're going to win the trust of everyone in the organization. And so it was kind of the backstory to the book is, it gave us an opportunity to see if we can walk our talk and live and live, what we're trying to teach. And, by the way, I always feel that's what I want to do in life. When I'm at a conference I, I might be teaching about leadership, but I want to be the leader that I'm talking about. And to be that leader, is much more powerful than to give you the seven, seven steps to becoming a fan transformational leader, you know what I'm saying?
Paul Barnett 13:21
Yeah, well, let's, let's jump into some of the content in the book, Jerry. And if I could start by, by asking you a question, because you talk about a lesson that you learned from Dean Smith, the Great, the great basketball coach, which you summarized as feelings equal function. And it caught my eye a little bit, because it's not a it's not a term I'd heard before. And I'd like to ask you, Jerry, how can people apply the learning that you talk about the, to their own teams?
Jerry Lynch 13:52
Well, let me talk about that feelings equal function. I've known intuitively, that for myself, as I feel is how my performance will go that day, whether I'm being a dad or a partner, to my wife, or here on the podcast. I mean, I can't come on this podcast and function at a high level unless I'm feeling good. And one of those feelings, I'm feeling confident, I'm feeling I'm feeling important, I'm feeling valued. I have, I have the feeling of being empowered, I have the feeling of being respected. And when you have these feelings, you have to agree with me, your level of functioning is going to be higher than if you were pessimistic, downtrodden, depressed, feeling worthless. Lack of confidence, your performance is going to be down. And so I've intuitively known this for forever, but some reason on the feelings guy I get it. I see myself In life and how I function. But then I start reading and doing research. And I realized that science is behind what I'm feeling intuitively, you know, they caught up to what I was feeling for 3040 years. And now you have these articles that are written in scientific journals, who then we're talking about how your function in life and how your performance is directly related to your central nervous system and what's going on inside and the feelings that that's creating in your brain and what have you. And as if this is some kind of new discovery. Well, it's not new to me. And I'm really glad that we have a little bit of background scientifically to show that's true. But I experienced that, personally firsthand, from one of the most iconic coaches that that ever lived, and someone I admired, who many of you listeners might have heard of who is coached Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina, aside from winning all the championships that he's won, and what have you, I just wanted to meet him, you know, I just wanted to walk into his office and tell him how much I admired him, and how honored I was to be with him, and and how much he had taught me from a distance. So I set up an appointment, I'm working at the University of North Carolina with other teams. And he's retired, but he still has an office there. He comes to work every day. And I walk in, and the Secretary goes to the back room says, I'll go get him he'll be right out. And I said, No, no, no, I'll set an appointment. And she said, you know, you don't have to, you want us to see you. He came walking out. And he came over to me and he said, Dr. Lynch, I just want you to know how honored I am to be in your presence. I hear about all the good work you're doing. But to meet you firsthand is like a gift. Now, this is how I'm feeling toward him. And he's telling me this, and he goes on and on. He tells me about all the good things that he's heard about what I'm doing with the lacrosse team, or the soccer team, or volleyball, or whatever I was working with. And honestly, Paul, I felt like I was the single most important person in his life, ever, now, intellectually, by go to my head. I know that's not true. I mean, come on. I can't be he doesn't know me that long. But he made me feel that way. And that's the key word. I felt important. I felt relevant. I felt valued and empowered. so empowered that I went out. And after I left and next year, I wrote and published a book called coaching with heart. But the main lesson that I learned from that meeting, was when I feel a certain way, I'm going to perform in a certain way. And that's why I was able to write that book, I had tears in my eyes, tears of joy, that even though my 13 questions that I had for him, never got asked, they all got answered in a very strange way. And so that story is really powerful. I got a book out of that. And I continue at that point, I realized I have to make a little shift in my, in my work with my teams and my coaches and my leadership. And he was totally responsible for that shift.
Paul Barnett 18:25
Or John, can I build on Jerry's Great answer there about feelings equal function. But talking about service, because you had a definition of service in the book that I I connected with me very deeply, you say, service is not about servitude, or catering to all the wishes of your teammates. It's about valuing them and adding worth to their lives. So great, great sentence or great two sentences. Rather, could you tell us about how you came to develop this?
John O'Sullivan 19:00
Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting. I think, wherever we talk or read here, we read a lot about servant leadership, which is sort of me below you. And I think Jerry and I have sort of there's like a little nuance to it of service leadership, where I'm doing things for selfless reasons, to add value and add worth to your life and add value and worth to my life as well. I think this is what we do. As parents, we hopefully we're not our kids servants. But we act oftentimes all day in service of them. And being in service of someone does not mean catering to their wishes, right. My kids didn't get to eat pizza every night of their childhood. Right? So by acting in service of them, I taught them that vegetables might be an important part of their diet, not always successfully, but but that's acting in service of them. If I, you know, as a parent had to hold high standards, I had to say no, I had to say that's not the right thing in this situation, right? That's not catering to their wishes. That's saying, I'm looking out for your best interest. And so I think that selflessness and that and that service attitude that that is what great teammates do. And I'm always, you know, there's a very well known now, military, former military leader in the US name, Jocko willing, again, you wrote a book called Extreme Ownership. I don't know if you've read that, or if it was popular in Australia or not, but it's a really, really good book. And he's got an interesting podcast. And he talks about this and someone asked him, you know, he was a Navy SEAL. And I think you could make a pretty strong argument that there's not a more high performing team in the world and the Navy SEALs. And they said, What's the number one quality of a seal? And he said, look out for your teammates first, right? Because if I'm the best shot, if I'm the strongest, if I'm the fastest, but I have your best interest in mind, then all my skills that I have go to serve you, and all the skills that you have served me, right, so So now the fact that I'm strong or faster, great shot, or whatever, that that helps us all. And I just think that idea is so often missed in today's popular culture that says, Look at me, who's more famous, who's got more likes, who's got more money, wait for fame, wealth, whatever it is, like all these things that popular culture and influences teach us really don't work well in? How do I work with others, to move forward?
And you know, if you ask for a big theme of the book, like one of them is just that you're going to be part of teams your whole entire life, your family work, you know, church, community, nonprofits that you serve, or whatever it is, right, you're part of teams. And so many kids crossed paths with sports growing up, what a great place to teach people how to be a great team member. And guess what, if you're a great team member, you're you're always going to be in demand, no matter what you do. So let's let's teach kids intentionally early on to be great teammates, let's teach kids in high school and university to be great teammates, because that's just going to help them function in the rest of their life. And what's one of the most the cornerstones of that its service to others.[PB3]
Paul Barnett 22:53
I'd like to pick up this idea of being a great teammate. And, Jerry, I'd like to come back to you because you, you preface this idea with what you call a sense of belonging. And there's a great quote in the book that I'd like to read you actually, before we dive into the question you say, everywhere we go. Coaches, general managers, athletic directors, and athletes consistently tell us they are craving two important objectives from sports. First, they all desire, a strong positive team culture, with a sense of belonging that includes higher levels of teammate accountability, competitiveness, caring, and connection. That's a great quote. But it's the word belonging in there that really captured my attention as I was reading it. So Jerry, I wanted to ask you, what did the best teams and organizations do to create this sense of belonging?
Jerry Lynch 23:47
Oh, what a wonderful question. And by the way, you know, a lot of the things that in this book even has in the title, not only in sports, but life as well. I'm going to start to shed some light that I might have, I don't know if I have it all, but on your question. Worldwide, it's a universal belief in all people, we all crave, being part of something bigger than ourselves. And I use that word crave, intentionally, that like desire. It's not like want, it's crave. What do you do when you have a craving, you don't stop till you get it. And so we all crave this notion of being together, of functioning at a high level together for something bigger than any one of us individually. And so, we work off of that craving. And what we do is we know that if we invite people to join us on this journey, what they're going to do is they're going to get what they want, eat down inside. This is really, really what's important. So that sense of belonging You know, when you move to another community, the very first thing you start doing is, let me see if I can gather my tribe. Let me see if I can, what I can do to start making connection, let people know that I care. So we can come together, and I can feel part of something bigger than myself. And it's that sense of belonging, which is how John and I, it's, it's, it's the essence of how we build a culture, where in life, you feel more like you belong than any other place. Hopefully, it's not always true. But hopefully, it's in your family. The first place that I felt I feel belonged is where I belong is my family. And then I started to drop a pebble in the water, and the ripples go outward, to the far shores of the lake, taking everybody in his path. And and so for me, in order to do that, and John, I know you agree with this, I'll speak for you is when we're working with a team, a culture, what we want to do is we want to mimic that concept of family and belonging. And in order to do that, we have to teach, it doesn't come naturally. Because you walk into a locker room, and you have 40 athletes, they could be from 40 different places in the world. It's not natural that they are family, or they feel family, but they but keep keep in mind what I said they crave it. So then what John and I need to do is we need to develop strategies, we have developed strategies, techniques and tools, which will make this world a better place, what world the world that you find yourself in that new community, you know, you came all the way from Colorado out here to Berkeley, California, and you feel like a stranger, well, hey, if you're part of a sports team that John and I are creating, you're going to real quickly feel a part of something bigger than you can imagine. And that's family and all that love, and all that support, and all that collaborative effort, and the whole idea of have compassion for each other when we're down when we're hurting. And so, yeah, it's it's taught, and, you know, we start we give exercises, where we can become very aware of the power each one of us, even if you're at 19, or 20, you become aware of the power to influence your teammates. That's why we wrote this book. And we talk in this book about lessons that we've learned and strategies that we can use to develop those particular kinds of relationships.
Paul Barnett 27:55
Wow, it's a terrific answer. And, John, I'm wondering, have you got any other examples of what great teams do to try and create this sense of belonging?
John O'Sullivan 28:06
I mean, I think great teams are, you know, people who get a chance to weigh in are more likely to buy in. So great teams aren't these authoritarian. You know, you're brand new, just shut up and sit in the corner, right, they give people a chance to weigh in and understand. Now, they also have agreed upon standards and values that if you want to be part of this group, well, you signed up to be part of us, right? We didn't, you didn't sign up. So we could all be more like you. So So I think great team sort of incorporate people in and then they teach them that, you know, culture, you know, cultures, how we do things here, culture is what happens when there is no coach around or there is no leader around. And so, you know, we bring in people and say, you know, you've become part of something special and bigger than you and maybe it's different than anything you've done before. Let us teach you about it. Right. And then let us hold you accountable to it.
And I think great teams, you know, they create this sense of belonging and an atmosphere, but then, you know, they don't talk about things they're not willing to hold each other accountable for, that they're not willing to hold themselves accountable for. I think the coaches in the support staff of that team also have to do the same thing and be held accountable and things like that. And I think one of the things that creates that sense of belonging is also this idea. Like there's no team that doesn't have problems, or issues or conflict, or disagreements, right? These exist in every high performance environment. But what these the best teams do is they acknowledge the elephants in the room room or, you know, we read a chapter in there called pet the dragons, right? They acknowledge the dragons and they pet the dragons, they keep them small and cute. And they don't let them take over the locker room. They don't let them take over the clubhouse. [PB4]
And what other teams tend to do is they know the problems there. But they sort of, you know, do the ostrich and they stick their head in the sand and hope it goes away. And every once in a while it goes away. But more often than not, it just simmers under the surface until it explodes and the season falls apart. And the team with great potential doesn't reach it. And you can point back to something that happened three months ago, four months ago, six months ago. And you're like, Huh, what happened there? Oh, well, we just didn't address the issue. And it's just built up and built up and built up. So you know, you don't avoid conflict and high performing teams, you acknowledge it, you talk it through, and then you have this respect and love for each other, that when we leave this room, we move forward. Even if I don't agree with the solution, I got to participate in coming up with the one. And now I have to agree that this is what I'm doing moving forward. And, you know, it just, I think about my own experience. As an athlete, I think about my own experience as a coach, and how you can feel so uncomfortable. When this thing is simmering below the surface, and it's just easier in the moment to walk away from it. But it almost never makes you a better team, it's pretty much always makes you a worse team. And so one of the things we teach is just acknowledge those things, they're real. And the fact that your team has them, congratulations, you're normal, you're just like everybody else, you're not special. What makes you special is having the courage to, to discuss them and grow from them.
Jerry Lynch 31:57
I was just going to add to that John. And Paul, specifically, if you're asking about the law, belonging, there's only one way to feel like you belong, and that is to feel connected. And so that's a trance, that that's that's a journey. So when you show up right away, you might not feel connected. But if you're made to feel like you belong, then you'll start feeling connected when you connect, and you feel like you belong. So some of the things we do, like we have a whole section, that first section in the book is called connection, or connect. And in that book, in that in that part one will teach will teach the reader, the athlete, how to be able to walk in another person's shoes. And when when all you You make me feel like you're you know, you can walk in my shoes, you really understand me and you have compassion for me. Oh, wow, do I feel like I belong, I feel important, I feel like I belong. There's a whole whole chapter or chapters are like three pages long on purpose. None of us have the time to read, you know, 35 Page chapters these days. But to be an elevator, that means you're a person who, when I walk into a room, I want to be an elevator, what I want to do is elevate your feelings, I want to make you feel important. I want to do things that make you feel empowered, we teach that in the book. And that's the important point is that we're not going to leave you out there with a concept and just put belief on the wall, or be an elevator on the wall, we're going to show you, okay, here's how you can be that way. And by being certain ways, you're going to enhance the possibility and the potential of actually feeling like you belong. And it all comes from the umbrella of creating a family atmosphere. So oftentimes, our our teams understand when we talk about la familia, we're talking about the family, we're talking about connection, we're talking about belonging. And boy, when I feel that way, I'm going to go out on a Saturday afternoon, and I'm going to freaking kick butt, you know, I'm going to go out there. And I'm going to make sure that I lay it all out in the field, because you're my brother. And that's how I feel. And I'm going to do it for you.
Paul Barnett 34:16
John, can I come back to something you mentioned just before you talked about being uncomfortable? Now the book is jam packed with stories, as Jerry just said, there's lots of great practical stuff that you can use as stimulus to talk about together as a team in indeed, that's the structure of the book. But I want to zero in on on being uncomfortable. Is there a story you could share a small anecdote, where you have found a team that's pushed themselves into being uncomfortable, and it's led to better performance?
John O'Sullivan 34:47
And then I can think of lots of examples, but the one that just pops into my head first and I have to say right as an author, all it's like whenever people like oh, maybe we're on page 200 When you wrote If this and you're like, Oh, God, no. Right, so, so thanks for not saying that, because I was getting very uncomfortable there for a second. But, you know, I was just, you know, the story just kind of popped into my head. As you were saying that was a, an NCAA team that I was working with was a field hockey team, you know, and we, you know, have very good team, and we're sort of perennial top 20, but couldn't crack that top five, top 10. You know, and we're good, but not great. And in 2020, un, so that's a fall sport, and in the university season, and then you have a shorter spring season. So in 2020, un COVID hit, and, excuse me, everything shut down. This team, you know, we all were on a zoom, and everyone got sent home, to the different places that you know, that we have a bunch of internationals, and, you know, some of them didn't go home, because they didn't know if they get in their own country, or get back into this one or whatever. And, you know, but we we just collect and talk on Zoom and stuff. And, you know, then we just said like, alright, we have no idea right now, what's, what's happening here? What's going to happen? Are we going to have a season next fall? If we do, what's it going to look like? And we said, but we also know that we are not at the level that we say we want to be. So right now we can take this time that we've been given off, and we can turn it into the offseason, like everyone else. Or we can turn it into what we call investment season. And that we all make a commitment to just invest in myself. Because that's an investment in the team. And what's it going to look like if all of us do that and someone gets a little faster, and someone becomes a better passer and someone gets, you know, better on on penalty strokes, or whatever it is, right. And the team was like really unanimous. They're like, investment season, right? And now my job there is not to teach hockey, I can't teach hockey, but my job is okay. And I'll make this investment in helping us all get together and feel more belonging and feel like a stronger part of this group. Right. And that's all of our investment. And, and we did that. And it was awesome, right? And it was awesome to see what what happened there. Because all of a sudden, when we came back out, we cracked you know, we played like a modified season, and we cracked the top 10 For the first time. And then we're like, okay, and now what can we do next? And then that next fall? We all of a sudden, there we were the fall of 2021, we ended up becoming the first team in our university's history to win their conference, we became the number one ranked team in the nation. And it wasn't because of what we did that month, it was because of this willingness to be uncomfortable. At a time when most people said, well, let me just make myself as comfortable as possible. This group said, No, let's be a little bit uncomfortable here. And I think this is such a challenge. As a parent, the thing I hate the most is when my kids are uncomfortable, right? From the moment they're born, they're they start crying, How do I fix it? How do I make it stop? Right? And yet, as kids get older, as people get older, we know that growth only comes in discomfort, right growth does not happen. When it's easy. growth happens when it's hard when it's challenging when it's frustrating. And I you know, so many teams are so uncomfortable with that, that they avoid it. And they push back against coaches that try to make them uncomfortable. And then they get the same mediocre results year after year. And so one of the things in this section on the book called competing, we talk about, you know, you want to be a great teammate, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, right? You have to be willing to suffer a little bit. That's the only road to the top. There's no There's no easy pathway. And we do kids a disservice when we make them believe that. And, you know, it's just yeah, it's just one of one of those things, you know, you're University freshman, and there's a senior and she's played 100 games and you've played none, well, you're not going to be her. Right? And how are you going to get there? You're going to do the reps and you're going to play 100 games and in four seasons, you could be her, but you're not going to be that today. So start getting uncomfortable. Right now, and I don't know, you know, I think kids get it, right, adults get it. And our job as a coach then is to step in and say, Come on, let's, let's push a little harder, let's let's do a little more. And people don't always appreciate you in the moment for doing that. But they do 10 years later, they do 10 years later in their when their sports career was successful, or their business careers successful, though, you know, thanks for that. Because that stuck with me,
Jerry Lynch 40:31
what John just said, being uncomfortable. One of the things that I like to do when I walk in with a team, to convince them of that I make this statement, and I can make it because I've been part of this, I can say to them, you know, becoming uncomfortable, is not going to guarantee that you have a successful season. But if you have, but if you're not willing to get uncomfortable, you'll never have success. And all of those championship teams that we refer to before the 118 1518, or whatever, I can guarantee you every team that I've ever worked with that has won a championship, we're willing to do what John said. And there's his team that he worked with became number one in the country. We're lucky, we're lucky, we know this because so many teams don't. And that's an incredible advantage to know that you're going to invest your time and your effort in yourself and your team and become uncomfortable. And knowing that you will never ever reach your full potential without becoming uncomfortable. So you make the choice, I walk in and tell these athletes you choose, you will never be the best version of yourself if you're not willing to be uncomfortable. But if you become uncomfortable, you still might not be the best version of yourself. So I just want to have a caveat there so that they don't think I'm promising something I can't. But I do know that you'll never ever be the best version. You'll never be the best team. You've got to be uncomfortable. Absolutely.
Paul Barnett 42:03
Terry, you in your previous answer when we were talking about belonging, you talked about you said laughing, laughing. Familiar. Sorry, my Italians. Not great. But I wanted to pick up on the theme of family in the book. It's just a couple of lines. It's it's steeped in the book. And it's very brief, actually. But you say your father was a battalion chief in the New York City Fire Department. And I'm just curious, how are the lessons that he taught you good or bad, visible in your approach to leadership today? Well,
Jerry Lynch 42:40
that story about my dad is in the book because John thought it was a good story. I thought it was a good story. But I didn't know whether it was book worthy or not. Now that I put it in there, it's like, holy Christmas. It's like white, how could I have missed that? The other thing that John and I have in common is a little aside is we both from New York, we both went to Catholic schools. And we both have fathers who were New York City Fire Department fighters. And so once once we had that goal, we knew we could write a book together, right? No, not really. There was some other ingredients that it took. But having said that, everything. Everything that I have learned about leadership in my life today, and I've been at this for 59 years. 59 years ago, I walked into a high school classroom, a Catholic high school classroom to teach English literature. And I had the job as the JV basketball coach. 59 years ago, I've been learning ever since I'm only halfway there. But on that journey of life, the very first exposure I had to leadership and everything that I really, I could have stopped learning then and I probably would have had enough was from my dad, being a battalion chief. And I was the luckiest kid in the neighborhood. During the summer, I would get to go to work with him one day a week. And I'd sit him back to the Chiefs car and we go to a fire and he jumped out and he'd survey the whole situation and see that, you know, this officer over here, this captain or this Lieutenant or whatever, they just weren't doing the job. And they were just shouting orders and people didn't know what they were doing. My father said, Look, follow me. This is how you do it. Here I go into the burning fire carrying the hose. Encouraging the the athletes, the they were athletic, encouraging the firefighters make empowering them telling them right there. I could hear it. I know you could do it. I believe in you get in there. Oh my god. I would have run in there at 12. And so he had all of these qualities. And when the fire was over, we go back to the firehouse and maybe they'd be lunch and he'd be sitting around the table. And what my father did as the leader was he would boiled down how proud he was of the group and the team. And what they did that really worked well, and what they could do to make it even better? Well, these are all things that I absorbed. And here I am. Now many years later, having the experience of teaching high school of being a naval officer and Vietnam, having many years of experience with leadership with with teams and what have you. And you know, it's all the same. He had the relationship game down. And he built a culture that was made, he created good teammates, all those firemen fought for each other, they all helped each other, through his leadership, it started with him, and then he gave them permission to run with it. So yeah, we call that chapter, grab the hose for good reason. Because sometimes in life, if you want to be a good teammate, you gotta grab the holes. If you don't grab the hose, you know, grab the cones, grab the balls, pick them up after practice, you know, grab the trash can and freaking clean the locker room, you know, make it make it right. And, by the way, I hope the coach does the same thing. Because that's what's going to really inspire as my dad inspired me to carry this message. And it's a story I'm so glad I can tell. Because I think it really makes a difference.
Paul Barnett 46:22
It's a great story. Thank you for sharing it. Jerry, I would like to ask you both one. And final question, John, first, John, you played collegiate and you played professional soccer. You've also coached at all the different levels in between over 30 years. Knowing what you know, now, if I could take you back, if I had a time machine, I could take you back and introduce you to that. That young man that was just starting out. What would you say to him?
John O'Sullivan 46:54
You know, I always think about, like, when people ask questions like that, I'm like, Well, I kind of like where I am now. So I wouldn't want to ruin it by doing something too radical back then. But because I still coach, right? Because I have my own children who are of that age where you're like, Huh, you know, you don't really realize how fast this goes by. Right. So to enjoy it. I wish I think I think I had really good influences about being a teammate, kind of similar to Jerry, with, you know, a firefighter for father, right, who's part of a team and a pretty high consequence team. Right? Like, there's not a lot of No, you don't realize this when you're a kid growing up. But you know, unless you're, you're a police officer or firefighter in the military, right? If your sales team teammate messes up, you're probably not going to die. Right? But but so this, this brotherhood that I grew up around because of having a firefighter dad, or that Jerry did was this year, just sort of marinated in that every day. And so I think I became a pretty good teammate because of that. But when I think back about certain things that I wish I knew, then that I know now I could have done a lot of things better, right? Because I wasn't necessarily intentional about them, they just sort of happened. So, you know, I, you know, if I, the advice that I give to a lot of kids who go and maybe play collegiately, or have the chance to play after the advice, I give them as play as long as you can. Because, you know, you can do this when you're 23. But you can't do it when you're 50. You can't change your mind when you're 53 and go, Oh, you know what, I'm going pro again. So, you know, I don't think anyone ever regrets going for it and trying to get to the highest level that they can. And maybe that would have been my advice would have been like the yes, this is hard. And yes, it's not exactly the way you might have scripted it. But keep going just a little bit longer, because you won't regret it later on. That's what I would say to myself.
Paul Barnett 49:29
Jerry, if I can take you back 59 years and introduce you to that high school teacher who was just that English teacher was just starting out. What would you say?
Jerry Lynch 49:40
Oh, my Well, I'm going to say a couple of things that John said because I I feel the same way about certain things. But you know what's interesting is the head of the English department at Bishop Lachlan Memorial High School in Brooklyn, New York. The very first day I showed up to teach a class he called Hold me aside. And he told me one thing. And I'll never forget it. He said, Jerry, remember, don't smile until Christmas. Right? John, you understand what I'm saying? Because if you walk in that classroom, and you smile, they're gonna get all over you. I mean, he's, I was 2222 and a half years old. I'm teaching people only five years younger than me and all boys, and it was really a challenge. And if he said, If you smile, then they're going to take advantage of you, you've got to be tough. And after Christmas, you've gotten, you know, I think that came from a place that advice came from a place of being insecure. And I wasn't secure. There's no question. But I think that teacher who told me that it was also insecure, because if you are secure, and you know what we're talking about now, and what what I've learned, you can smile all you want. Because if you know your shit, and you know what you're doing, no one's going to disrespect you and no one's going to take advantage of you. And you can smile all you want. And fact is probably even better. If you smile, it probably relaxes the kids more, and they probably won't misbehave, and all of that kind of stuff. So, if I had to do over again, I would like to try that just to see if I what everything I've learned really is true at that level. But honestly, this comes from a lot of thinking on a lot of my runs and walks recently, and this is something that's really important to me. At my age, you start thinking back on your life, and you start thinking about regrets that you have that terrible word regret. I've come to the conclusion that I don't regret anything. I really, really don't regret anything, and I wouldn't change a thing. And the reason is, this is what I've come up with. Now, I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying how I feel right now. I feel comfortable. Being in this headspace, while heartspace maybe more appropriately. And that every when I look back, and I connect all the dots, all of my failures, all of my setbacks, all of my mistakes, all of my decisions that I thought were bad, every single one of those times in my life is responsible for where I am right now. And I love where I am right now. So if you take out one of those factors, I might not be where I am. I mean, I've gone through a lot of hardship. Everyone goes through hardship. If you're looking at some people, and you think they've got the world, and then upon that's not true, everyone suffers. Everyone has problems, everyone suffers, we all do. But the greatest suffering is having those regrets and wanting to change things. So I would want to keep everything the way it was. I kind of wished that I would have learned it earlier. Because my life wouldn't have been as a struggle. But at this point in time, all those struggles really, really all those losses, competitively all those rejections from books being rejected by publishers, all of the decisions I made, and I've made some decisions that people would say, How did you ever do that? That's so unlikely. Well, it's not it is like me, and I need it to do that. Because right now, where I sit is the result of all of those setbacks, errors, mistakes, failures, rejections and and what have you. So yeah, it ran
Paul Barnett 53:41
miling more struggles and heartspace feels like a pretty good place to conclude. John. Jerry, thank you for spending some time with us this morning. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book is a great read. It's very easy. There's lots of practical advice in there. And I will put the links in the show notes for everybody to help discover it as well.
John O'Sullivan 54:04
Thank you so much. Yeah, it's a super fun. Thank you for the great discussion.
Jerry Lynch 54:08
Yeah. And you're one of the few podcasts that really put us on the spot do most of the talking. So here we are.
Paul Barnett 54:18
Thanks, guys.