The Psychology Of Building Team Culture | Eddie Jones

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England have unveiled their first foreign head coach. Eddie's built this legacy of a guy who can get some really good short-term results. Eddie Jones has been dismissed from the position of England head coach. Where Eddie Jones's men are looking to ambush his former side. It made me feel like really important, that I was important for the team, that I knew something. And I loved that catch ever since. You know, I'd do anything for that coach because he made me feel like that. Wait, wait, wait.

What just happened for you? You want to cry?

No, but yeah, no, it's just that I want them to have that feeling that they're really important and they can do things they think they can't do.

Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dave Erickson. Dr. Michael Gervais, a high-performance psychologist named Michael Gervais, who head coach Mike McDonald and former head coach Pete Carroll brought in to work with the Seahawks, famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos project.

Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. They have to stay mentally tough.

Today's guest is Eddie Jones, one of the most accomplished coaches in world rugby. Eddie has built a career on turning teams around. He creates pressure, and then he challenges more from the people that he leads. Now, there's a fine line here. Too little challenge, we never really understand who we can become. Too much challenge, we create the wrong conditions to explore potential.

I regret it so much. I took her love of the job away just because she was untidy in one area, and the value she gives to the organization was far greater than those errors. And that was probably the best lesson I've had.

So as you're listening, are you creating an environment where people simply perform for you, or or where they feel capable and supported and challenged to be their best.

Emotional control is important, but the ability at the right time to show vulnerability is very important. And I'm probably not that good at that.

With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with the legend, Eddie Jones. I quit. I quit. I quit. Eddie, first of all, congratulations on a huge body of work. And there's very few people that understand success at the level that you do in elite sport. And so I'm honored to sit with you and have a conversation about culture, about pressure, about what it takes to, to help a human become their very best. So excited for you to be here.

Yeah, no, it's great to be here and a real honor to be here, mate.

Yeah, it's really cool. So by heritage, Your dad, your father is Australian and your mother is Japanese.

Japanese.

And how do you blend those two uniquely for yourself?

Uh, well, I think I've always been an outsider. And yeah, when I— in Australia, half Japanese, half Australian, particularly when I was growing up, you know, everyone was— it was white Anglo-Saxon, so I was the odd kid out. So sport was a way I had to find to become part of the group. So I tried to become a good at cricket and rugby to become part of the group. And then, you know, I've coached in Japan a bit, and my wife's Japanese, and she said to me, don't ever think you're going to be treated like a Japanese. You're not Japanese. So I'm an outsider there. So for me, it's always probably been a strength of being able to just be yourself rather than try to worry about too much whether I'm Japanese or Australian, inside or outside. Just try to be yourself.

So you didn't take that— you don't fit in here— you didn't take that in a toxic way. You didn't take that in a way like, oh well, I am ostracized. You said, oh, you're right, I'm a little different, so then I'm by default I'm gonna just go figure out me.

Yeah, yeah, very much so. The only place I've really felt at home is Hawaii. I remember going to Hawaii and everyone would say Oh, you're half, aren't you?

You're half.

And everyone seems to be half.

Yeah. Hapa, as they call it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when you were in younger years, let's go back to, like, grade school years. I don't know the grading in Australia, but, like, third grade is like you're like 12. Yeah, something in that age. So, or no, more like 9 or 10. Okay. So what was it like then for you?

I just loved it, mate. Every memory I've got of school is fantastic. Had good teachers. I was academically— I was one of those kids academically pretty good up till the end of primary school. High school sort of dropped off a little bit, and then when I went to uni, I was— I did quite well, you know. So school was fun. We played sport all the time, had great teachers. Yeah. I always remember now the first cricket coach I had and the first rugby league coach I had. Rugby league's a version of rugby union. And the love they had of the game, I've always tried to remember that and always tried to, to feel that and coach that. Because I think, you know, the importance of a good coach in making someone give their best was reinforced in those early years.

Oh, okay, tell me more, because you used two words. Feeling was a word that you used to describe— you wanted to feel that. What does that mean to you?

That you just want to do it for the sake of doing it. You just love playing the sport, love coaching, and I want players to have that. You know, we talk about the grind in sport, and it is— there is a grind there, obviously, but you want the players to love that grind, you know. And the best players I've coached always love it. They love the game, they love the contest. They love getting better. They love every bit about it. So as a coach, I've always tried to instill that into the players and try to be a role model yourself.

What do you love about coaching at this point? You played at a really high level, but what do you love about coaching?

Firstly, there's a contest. I love creating a team that has a strong identity and plays to itself, like You know, Japan in 2015, we played fast, we played quick, and you know, it's almost how Japan can be at rugby. So I've loved doing that, but I also love the challenge of putting a group— you know, come into a room, there's 30 players there, yeah, and they're all thinking different things. One's thinking, I hope I get selected. One thinking, I hope my wife's happy, you know. And you're trying to get them all on the same page think together, play together. And the multiplication effect in sport is fantastic, isn't it? You know, when you get 30 players there, if they can all work together and play together, you get this force of nature that's a beauty to watch. You know, I always think that a good team looks like a great band playing, that, you know, they, they're all moving off each other, there's some eye contact, they know what's going to happen next. And, and then the the result is this fantastic thing you see.

I always think about great teams as like a flock of birds. A handful will dip, they all dip, and they're just kind of moving and kind of undulating together. So you're at, on the music level, I'm thinking that way, there's probably something very similar. There's a frequency that they're tuned to, to each other. Let me go back because you're talking about 30 players, 30 humans, and they've got different stories going on in their head. And then right before that, you talked about identity. So I do want to understand, what does identity mean to you? And then how do you get the stories or the minds of the people lined up to work together? So first and foremost, what does identity mean and how do you go about that?

It's hard to define identity. Like, I know everyone speaks about it and I speak about it, and I don't— you know, to be honest, I don't really know. But I've got an idea in my head. It's, it's the way I think you see yourself playing the game. Because at the end of the day, particularly in sports, everyone generally comes together for the game. So the game's the central part of it, but out of that then comes a culture or a set of behaviors that everyone follows. And I think when you've got a good identity, everyone's got a pretty good understanding of what that is, you know, how we're going to behave, what's important for us. And then that flows on to tactically how you're going to play, I think. Yeah, and you know, I've had some teams that have been really successful, and, and I think they've had a really strong identity. And I've had teams that have been successful and then lost it, and then trying to find it again is one of the hardest things. And I failed a couple of times at doing that.

Before we go to like what it is and kind of get under there, because I agree with you, I think it's hard to articulate. And I think what you're pointing to though is you have something in your mind that you're imagining of what this group could be. And I don't think that you're doing that where it's cold. I think you've done something to understand the individuals, or do you already have the identity and you're trying to match the individuals to it? Or are you taking an understanding of the individuals and then from the collective creating or emerging the identity? Which way does it go?

I think it's a bit of both. Yeah, I think you're always doing a bit of both. I met once a guy, a soccer coach called Louis van Gaal. And he was the person who probably spoke about it with the greatest clarity. So he didn't know me from a bar of soap, you know, and we met in the Amsterdam airport. Yeah, he's highly successful coach, Manchester United, Barcelona, you know, all the big clubs in Europe, Netherlands. Very distinguished coach. But anyway, through a contact, we— I managed to meet him and have lunch with him. And he said every time he gets a team, he has a picture in his head of what it looks like. So say it's this cup. So that's how he wants to play and that's how he wants the team to look. But then he gets the players and they might only be— they might only be able to play to that shape. Okay. And, and that's the personality. And so as a coach, you've got this in your head as the end in mind. You've got this here as the current group. And then you're always trying to fill that gap. And I think that's the process. And some of that, some of this here can be historical reasons. It can be social reasons like international rugby. Take my own country, Australia. We're always aggressive, quite innovative, quite brash, and that's how we play the game. Yeah, tough. We're a tough nation. And I think that shapes the way you play a little bit, whereas Having coached England, England are much more polite. They like to be organized. They don't want to actually make the game, they want to control the game, whereas Australians want to, want to take the game. And, you know, coaching Japan now, always been underdogs in rugby, so we've got to find a way to be innovative. We've got to work harder than the opposition. So part of that goes into the mixture. Then you've got the group of players, you've got the history of the team. So there's a number of factors you're trying to take into consideration.

What a great insight. Just the idea that there's something in your head, whether it's historical or your idea, then you've got the actual elements, and your job is to close the gap between the two.

Yeah.

Yeah. How do you go about closing that gap?

Well, I think you've got to have, you know, one of the things is strategizing. What are the 2 or 3 key areas that'll help you solve the gap? You know, in any, any situation you go to, there's 100 things wrong. Yeah, when you're losing, there's too much Gatorade, there's not enough, uh, ice in the ice bath. Yeah, there's always a lot of problems in every team and every group of people you get together. There's problems, and you try and identify the 1, 2, or 3 things that are going to solve most of them. And some of it might be tactically on the field, some of it might be leadership-wise, some of it might be the, the composition of your squad. You know, I was reading something this morning. The— it's been good being here because I've had a bit of thinking time though. I re-read this morning The Culture Code by—

oh, Dan. Yeah, yeah.

And Daniel Boyle, he was talking, a friend of the show. Oh, is he? Yeah, yeah. And he was talking about, you know, one bad apple in your team can, can have such an effect. And so, you know, I think one of the things you're always looking at and If I go back, when I was a— when I finished university, I'd be— I wanted to be a PE teacher, so I qualified to be a PE teacher. But eastern suburbs of Sydney, everyone wants to live there. PE teachers never, never leave. So I couldn't get a job as a PE teacher, so I had to become a casual teacher, supply teacher in maths. And because for some kids they don't like it, I'd always go to my old school and I'd get the bottom class in Year 9 maths. So I became an expert in teaching the naughty kids maths, you know. And you go in there and I'd have to work out, right, who's going to give me trouble? Who do I need to pull a bit closer to me? Who's going to help me? And so I think you do that process in the team as well, you know. Where are your trouble areas? What do I need to do to get them on side or, or move them out? Who are the guys that are really going to help me drive the, the the process of bringing the team up.

I do want to go back to identity in a minute. So I'm speaking out loud for myself, but there's a fun moment I had with Coach Carroll, former head coach of the Seahawks, and we're talking about the team and we're talking, we're going down the list of like guys that are really create a challenge to coach. And I asked him like, how many knuckleheads do you think, you know? And he says, So there's 70 athletes on the team. He says, 63 dress, 53 travel. And he said, I think we can do 2. And then he paused and he goes, nah, probably 2.5. So out of that, so when you say 1 out of 30, and we're, and we've never met and talked about this, and we were talking about 2 out of 70, there's something to that math that's maybe universal. I'm not sure what it is, but would you say you could handle 1 or could you handle more? Knuckleheads on a squad? And knuckleheads is code for like people that really push against what you're trying to build.

You can handle more if they're— if they've got really strong winning behaviors.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, because the other players will tolerate it then.

Winning behaviors being defined as—

well, they'll win games for you. Yeah, they'll win games. They've got something special about it. And, and a lot of times the really special players are the most difficult to handle. You know, because they're out there, you know, they're above the pack and they likely always have been.

Yeah, it's a different universe.

Exactly. But if the players understand they help you win, you can tolerate their behavior. Like, I think the, you know, the best story I've ever seen is the Chicago Bulls with, um, the rebounder. What was his name? Dennis Rodman.

Dennis Rodman.

Yeah, yeah, they could tolerate him because he, because he'd win games for them. And with the other strong characters in the team, they were able to manage him. But then, you know, historically, I don't think after he left that team he did so well, you know, because it didn't have the structure around it. So Jackson could, could handle him in that environment, and he was a winning force for them. But then when he went to other teams, he became destructive.

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Well, I love American sport.

Oh, you do?

Yeah. So I, I tend to read a bit. Jackson, definitely. I used to love Pat Riley. There was just something about him, and he seemed to get the best out of his teams. And I like, like how he presented, you know, he looked like a winner.

That's fun. That's an interesting comment because your, your reputation is that you're tough, right? Like, you are— you create a cauldron of pressure, direct. And the way you speak to athletes, like, you're not trying to be their friend, you are trying to coach excellence, I think is the way I understand it. But there's a lot of pressure. You— and you're also— your reputation is that you know how to come in and kind of turn something around.

Yeah.

Pat Riley has a toughness to him as well. And Pat Riley— I'm going to bridge two ideas and then open it up. Earlier you said that winning after winning is really hard. I nod my head to that. As well. Pat Riley talked about the disease of me after winning, right? So you win one and then you've got to prevent the disease of me. I understand that too. So can we go to winning after winning, and can we maybe talk about tough-mindedness, wherever you want to go? Yeah, yeah, next.

Yeah, I think we had with England— so we had a— they, they missed out on the 2015, they didn't make the playoffs for the World Cup finals at home. The big deal at home. So yeah, first time they appoint a foreign coach, which was me, and we won 18 games in a row. Tests is still a world record for number of tests, and we were flying. But we had a— we had this guy, Dylan Hartley, was a captain, not a great player, but really good at bringing people together. And England's quite— it's quite stratified because of the class system there. And there is differences in the players there. And he was— because he was a rough, rough, tough New Zealander from Rotorua, he was able to bring everyone together in the same room and get them to play together, you know. And there was a few other things we did, but not, not as, not as important as his leadership role in bringing that team.

So what did he do and how did you support him to do that well?

Well, he was very straightforward, very good at talking to to the players, making things very clear and simple, strong on standards, uh, you know, all the things you expect from a good leader, um, but really hard to do and hard to do consistently. Yeah, yeah. Someone was a little bit out of line, he'd immediately speak to them. He'd bring the young players through, make them feel good. You know, he had that— you know, some guys are just really good at making people feel they belong here. And he was good at that. Really well here.

Yeah, they belong here. When you see a behavior that is not a winning behavior, when you see something that is orthogonal to the culture that you want to build, that is, it just doesn't kind of square up. Do you address it immediately in front of everybody? Do you pull that person aside? Do you coach other people so they can coach it? Like, how— those are three very different examples. You might say all of them. But what is your, what is your style?

Well, when I was young, I'd be very direct, and probably back then you could do that. And, and, you know, we, we have got generation change, you know. And so now it's more, I, I think if I see something that's not quite right, I'll say, I'll say to the person privately, do you think that's going to help us win?

Yeah.

And get them to think about, have a think about and come back and see me tomorrow. Yeah, I think that's how it's changed a lot. You're trying to, you're trying to guide the players now to the solution. But, but I also think the feedback, immediate feedback, so important. Yeah, as soon as you see something, deal with it straight away. Don't let it sit.

You are known for high-performance feedback in that way. So immediacy is better than waiting?

Yeah, generally speaking.

Yeah, I found that if you publicly humiliate somebody, I'm not sure you really ever get them back. You have to publicly apologize and make it right. It's really tricky. How did you do it where you would call somebody out directly early days? Or do you think that you made more mistakes than you didn't, and that's why you—

I don't think I ever wanted to embarrass a player, you know. So I'd do it discreetly but immediately. Okay, just pull them aside, have a word to them. Certainly there was times I've done it the other way and And, and you never want to— you never want to humiliate a player, you know. You always want to give them a chance to come back because everyone makes mistakes, and particularly under the pressure of, of sport, you know, you make mistakes in the situation. So you want to give them an opportunity to open the door again. And generally, I would do it privately, discreetly, but immediately.

And are you coaching to make mistakes, or you— and to learn, so get them right to the edge, or are you coaching so they don't make mistakes?

Well, I reckon this is, this is the, the great thing about sport. Yeah, I don't know NFL, but I watched the training and everything seems so organized, but then I see highlight plays and the great quarterbacks just do it off the cuff, don't they?

Yeah, yeah, they say to them and like, yeah, like the guy from—

is it Kansas? Kelsey Chase, right? Like, he seems an absolute freak. So I think you've always got to create training sessions that prepare the players for the game. The game is not certain. The game is far from being certain. And in rugby, you know, statistically, 40% is structured and 60% is unstructured. So you've got to create trainings that, that allow them to, to meet those game game day demands. Like, I think the, the game gives you the greatest feedback, you know. So your training's got to be, got to be geared towards the game and harder than the game. Like, so the game should become easy for the players.

So that's why you create high pressure in practice?

Yeah.

And when they make mistakes in practice, do you celebrate it? Do you learn it? Do you just treat it like it's part of it? And the reason I'm asking is because in the business world most of our audience are people that when they make decisions, there's a ripple effect. Like, they have influence in the worlds that they're in. And we say a lot, like, fail fast, fail often, fail forward, but then environments don't really feel like it's inviting that. And there's a lot of anxiety about making mistakes.

And I'm just wondering how you handle that in our game, particularly if you haven't got mistakes at training, you're not training to the level you need to be. You know, we talk about there's a sweet spot of about 70% So you want your training to be about 70% successful, and then you're getting 30% failure, and they're huge learning opportunities, that 30%.

Are you measuring that, or is that a little bit of a—

you know, the longer you, you coach, the more you get the feel for it. Like, but if I see a training that's 100%, everything's perfect, then you're not practicing the game. I haven't really been involved in business, but I would imagine in business you've got to make mistakes to actually have have a chance to be successful. Otherwise, if you're always 100%, you're always underneath the ceiling, you know, because above that ceiling we know there's more, there's more to go. So you've got to be pushing that all the time.

Let's stay on relationships here for a minute. When you think of building relationships with your people, how do you do it?

Well, I think more and more now coaching's, I think, moved from being very team-based to now being much more individual-based. And I think that the— again, the younger players now respond much better to one-on-ones. So yeah, before we'd have a lot of team, team activity, a lot of social team activity that you'd get to know the players. But now I think it's much more purposeful about one-on-one, trying to get to understand the player. And not that you didn't do that before, but now I think you've got to be much more purposeful about it. And, and just try to find out a little bit about that player, what motivates them, what's important in their life. You know, we were talking before, what's the best game they've ever played, what's the worst game they've ever played, and get an understanding of where they were. I had this kid the other day, yeah, he wasn't training very well, and I said to him, what's the best game you've ever played? He said, I was at university and we didn't have a great coach, so we took on all the responsibility. And we played really well. We didn't win, but we played really well, and it was satisfying. I said, so what's the worst game you've ever played? He said, uh, we had a really good team, but it was all driven by the coach, so we just did what we were told. I didn't say anything I didn't think was right, and we still didn't win. And so I said to him, so which one are you now? And he thought. He said, well, I want to be the university. I said, well, what's stopping you? And he had to think about it, and he didn't know. But from that day onwards, his performance at training just improved immeasurably. And I had a little nickname for him then about his university or his high school. Which one are you today? Who are you today, your high school or university?

Yeah, that's good. Our community at Finding Mastery would recognize me saying this, but you just kind of walked right into the insight. Which is masterful coaches ask way more questions than amateur coaches. Amateur coaches say a lot, but directionally are not very accurate. High-performance coaches have this blend between asking a lot of questions or asking a fair amount of questions, but like giving direction that are more pretty accurate. But the best of the best of the best coaches are constantly asking questions. They do some teaching, of course. So you find questions to be an important unlock.

It's interesting, some players need to be told, like, and that's how you get the best, best response for them. So, but I think generally most players respond now particularly well to being asked, asked questions. So if you look at the range of being explicit, implicit, I think you're always bouncing between them and you're trying to work out for, for that player and for that group what the right influence is.

What does that mean between explicit and implicit?

Well, explicit, you're saying directly, direct, direct telling, correcting, when the implicit, you're giving them situations to work it out themselves. So I think, you know, I always feel, right, where do I need to be today?

Because that's that in your mind, you've got like a graph between those two and you're doing it for each individual or you're doing it for the team, trying to You're trying to, yeah, of course, you don't get it right.

But yeah, I know there's a few players that I've got, all they want to do is be told by me. They don't want to think about it. Yeah, and they respond well to that. And then they might want that, and if they respond well, you can keep doing it. But then they might want it and but they're not responding, then you might have to change your ways. And I think the other part of that, I think, is the one of the most important thing in sporting environments is you always got to be thinking about the context of of where you are, you know, where is that player today, what's happened to him. Yeah, I was lucky enough in England to, to meet Sir Alex Ferguson a few times, and he had this great story. He said they built a new training center and he made sure he had his office overlooking the car park. And he'd say he'd stand there with a cup of tea like you were drinking, and he'd watch the players come out of their car. And he's— if he saw a player getting out of the car, a bit restless, on the phone. Yeah, something's going on. Yeah, whether it's his wife's unhappy, his girlfriend's unhappy, he'd go down and he'd purposely, you know, talk to him and say, how are you, mate? You know, is there anything I can help you with today?

That's a relational approach to the game. That's a relational mindset, if you will. Are you more focused on excellence, or are you more focused on the person? The behavior that the person does or the person that is doing the behavior?

I've never really thought about that. I think initially when I first— when I first coached, it was about knowledge. Yeah, it was. When you're a young coach, you think you've got all this knowledge, you want to impart it, you want to be the smartest guy in the room. I think as I've moved on, it's sort of become more— I'd hope a bit more rounded. That, you know, some players it's more personal and relationship-wise, other players it's, it's, it's more about performance. So again, trying to find the sweet spot for that player, because I think like we're saying about 70% and 30% for your training, I think also for every player there's a certain sweet spot you're trying to hit where you're trying to connect with that player, get the, get the right relationship with them get the right level of understanding. And some players, you know, you just can't— it's hard to break them down. You know, with other players, it's quite easy. So you're, you know, there's that continual battle going on.

Let's stay on the relationship here a little bit longer because I think this is at the center of the whole thing. I think relationships are at the foundation for everything we're doing, and it starts with your relationship with yourself and then moves outward. And I think in many high-performing business environments, it's a little bit like, yeah, but they do it that way in sport, but there's no time to do it that way in business. So can you maybe speak to, like, the informal nature of getting to know people? Because very rarely does the head coach sit with the players or his assistant coaches and say, tell me all about yourself. There's some of that that happens, but it's more— my experience has been more informal. Is that the way it is for you as well?

100%.

Yeah. So how do you do it informally? Like, what are the—

I think, you know, you got to roam the room. Yeah. You've got to spend time purposely looking. I think Daniel Coyle talks about collisions.

Yeah.

Purposeful collisions.

And I think you've got to be like that, you know. So every time you walk in a room, there's an opportunity to either add to the business or take away from the business. Like, you know, one of the things that's probably always struck me And I pinched this from another person, so it's not, it's not my originality, but I think you're either— every conversation you had, you're either adding to the business or you're taking away from the business.

Yeah, I like the idea that you're either creating constriction in the environment or you are opening the environment, you know. So same thing, good way. So are you tuning to yourself, knowing how your way of being is going to impact the others, Or are you purposely focusing on them, on how you'll add to it?

I think first of all, you've got to start with yourself. Yeah, you walk in a room and you're shuffling, you got your head down, it's sending a message to the— particularly when you're the leader of the organizer, sending a message. Whereas if you walk in, you're bouncing, you say, how are you today, mate? How's, how's your son going? You know, you're talking, you, you're setting the, setting the environment for people to engage. Then, then you're setting the tone for the day.

Research is pretty clear that leaders set a tone for the emotion of the culture. How do you think that your players feel around you?

I would hope, and I don't know, and it's probably a good question to ask, but they're probably not going to tell me the truth. They'll tell other people the truth, that they feel like Coach that cares about them. That's environment that allows them to get better. And they feel like when they come into the, the organization, it's going to be tough, but they're going to get better as a player. And I think that's, you know, in— at our level, the players all want to get better, you know, they all want to get— but some of them don't know how to get better. And so you've got to find the ways to help them get better.

We've all made mistakes, and the idea is hopefully we learn from those mistakes so we don't to repeat them, both tactically on the field and then, you know, relational in leadership. And when you think back to the mistakes that you've made, what are the general themes? I'm not looking for the specific story that you cross somebody this way or whatever, but generally, what are the mistakes you made? Because I want to go back to context— is that you're a direct, hard-nosed, high-pressured, identity-building, high-standard coach.

Yeah, say we're in this room now, right, and we've just lost against Pittsburgh Steelers. Like, there's going to be all this noise banging on the roof, right? Yeah, this and that, this and that.

Media.

Yeah, media, and possibly from players as well. Yeah. And so I think one of the things, mistakes I've made, is sometimes allowed that to affect me. Yeah, I feel like now the roof's coming down on top of me. And I think that's always one of the most difficult things of being a leader, you know, that you've got to keep that ceiling high, acknowledge that there's noise there, and maybe listen to it and work out what's true, you know. And, and there, I think the staff that you have, having someone experienced, you know, in— it seems like in American sport at the moment Like, a head coach generally wants to get someone experienced to help them that's experienced the noise, that understands it, and just stay clear about where you need to go and what you need to do. And if there is some good information out there, take it, absorb it, put it into your program.

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Getting old, I think. Like, yeah, even probably 3 years ago I made some mistakes in that, you know. I allowed it to come on top of me, um, rather than just accept it. But I, I just keep on— you've got to be aware of it. You know, and then, and then you've got to find a way to, to keep your balance, keep your thinking clear. Like I was saying to a young guy last night, that one of the most important things about being a leader is, is giving yourself thinking time, you know. Allow yourself, whatever it is, however you do it, whether it be at night, whether it be a morning, whether you do it regularly each month, give yourself some clear thinking time.

I love that. Is this a daily practice for you, or is it more like a weekly practice?

No, well, for me, generally speaking, I'll get up really early, uh, around 4.

Oh my God.

And I'll try to use that first hour to set the tone for the day, like think about what I want to do, write notes, be clear about what I want to achieve today, and then I'll go to the gym. And then I'm ready for the day.

Why 4?

Because it just gives me enough time. Like, I need it. I need about 2 hours before I start work.

Work starts at 6?

Well, around, around that, you know. So it's an hour, hour of thinking, and then an hour of physical exercise.

How much of that thinking time— it's journaling for sure— how much of that is meditation? How much of that is just quietly, you know, aware of your thoughts?

I'm hopeless like that. Zero.

Zero. So it's writing, right?

Yeah.

And you're writing for an hour?

Uh, well, approximately, yeah. And I might be watching some vision as well, you know.

What's that mean?

Uh, watching some, some rugby, some tape. Yeah. And that's where I get my best thinking time. And I think, you know, one of the things for any person is to work out what's your best thinking time.

All right, emotions. Do you approach the World Cup, or do you approach championship moments as a big moment or another moment? How do you go about those tests?

Well, the World Cup's once every 4 years. For 3 years, you're putting everything into it. So I think, yeah, I've never really thought about it in that way, but when I think about it now it's a big moment. And I can always remember in 2015 with Japan, you know, we're on the bus going to the game against South Africa and I was feeling sick. Like, I remember saying to the S&C coach, we've put 4 years into this and we've got no— because you never really know how your team's going to play, you know. You, you do all the preparation, they've done well, and yeah, it's the only time as a coach you're hoping because something can happen that upsets you. So yeah, no, always treat it as a big moment because you put so much work in for 4 years. It's all towards that one tournament, and you know, you've got 3 or 4 games at the start of it to get right.

So how do you help your athletes and your coaches work well with pressure? What do you do? Because pressure, for the most part, is a made-up construct. And what that means is that you're interpreting an environment or set of conditions in such a way that you think that you need to think or act faster than you're capable of thinking or acting. And so that's really pressure. It's like, it feels like the walls are kind of closing in, everything gets tighter. It feels a little bit maybe darker. There's a tension involved in it. How do you help your athletes work with pressure?

I think firstly you gotta acknowledge it, that it's there, and that's important. And because most of these games now, you know, you go to a Super Bowl final, there's a consequence, isn't there? You know, other games you play, league games, and the consequence not so high. And it doesn't matter whether you say it's just another game, it has huge consequence.

So what, what are the consequences?

Well, if you win a Super Bowl, you, you know, you're happy. Yeah, to start with. You know, there's always one happy team, one unhappy team, and there's financial rewards, status rewards, all those sort of things that, that people think about. And they do. So firstly, you've got to acknowledge it. Secondly, you've got to prepare them for that, for that perceived pressure. So make sure you dress rehearse that as much as you can.

How do you do that?

Sometimes it might be setting up a training session where the players are constantly under pressure. I can remember one session we had with England where we put the weakest forward pack with the strongest backs and Owen Farrell was our captain at that stage, and so he was constantly under pressure because he's not getting any good ball and he's got the opposition bearing down. And we ended up having a fisticuffs at training, and he reacted badly to it. But that's the sort of experience he needs to have. Now you can learn from that, like, this is what it's going to be like, so how can we deal with this better in the future?

Go back to your implicit and explicit. Will you ask questions or will you direct in those moments when the pressure gets to somebody in training and they are a smaller version of themselves, they are— they collapsed in on, on lower performing behaviors. Will you be more implicit or explicit?

I think, well, generally I think you want to be implicit there. You do get them from— get them to learn, you know, how did you feel there, what was your communication like with the rest of the players, what could you have done differently.

Yeah, one of my favorite is like, okay, help me understand what was going on for you. Yeah, yeah. And then they'll say something and I go, right, what led to that? Yeah. And they'll say something. I said, right, what do you think led to that? And before you know it, it's like, you know, it's like he said something 14 weeks ago, the beginning of the season, and it's like I never let it go. And then it showed up and how dare you know, it's like, oh, so you've been carrying stuff, you know, or oh, you didn't sleep for the last 3 weeks because you got a newborn or whatever it might be. Yeah. Okay.

Because what you're saying there, there's always like— if you're driving a Jeep, right, imagine this, there's always grenades in the back of the Jeep, right? And they're ready to go, you know. And, and your job as a sports psych or a head coach or any coach is to try to detonate those grenades before you get to the big show.

I've never heard the analogy. That's great, that's great. Would you say earlier you pinched it from somebody?

I have been interested.

This is a good one to pinch.

Yeah, for sure.

We're all intellectual thieves. Yeah, right. Okay, good. All right, so are you more interested in the person or are you more interested in the player?

I think it'd be both.

It is both.

Yeah, because— so the player is important for that tournament or that game, but one of the greatest joys of coaching is when you've got players who've had difficult careers come back to you and and talk to you about what happened. Like, you know, there's one— I was talking to someone the other day. There was this Samoan boy we had with the Brumbies. You know, he's always in trouble. Like, he got his first contract, right? $20,000. He spent it in one week. Oh, it was just one of those— like, he was just crazy, you know. But great guy, trained hard, and he was always in trouble. Remember, we put him on the diet because he was overweight. After dinner, I saw him pick up 6 bananas and 4 yogurts and take it back to his room. And I said, what are you doing, mate? He said, I've been told to control my weight, so I'm trying to eat healthy bananas. So he was one of those guys. And so he keeps contacting me all the time. We keep chatting. I've gone to where he was living, helped him set up a club. So it's one of those, those things that make you feel really good about coaching.

It's always the relationship, isn't it?

Fantastic, mate.

So, okay, so you're trying to strike the balance between the person and the player. Do you remember a moment in your life when a coach had a dramatic influence on the way you felt about yourself?

Yeah, when I first cracked the top level in rugby, I was on the bus and I was this little 75kg guy, you know.

Is that like 140, 150 pounds?

Not—

no, 160 pounds.

Not heavy, not heavy. You know, it's light for my position. And I just made it. And I sat on the bus and the head coach came, he sat next to me. I remember he put his hand on my— he said, what do you think today, mate? I thought, why are you asking me? But then it made me feel like really important, that I was important for the team, that I knew something. Yeah. And I loved that coach ever since. Yeah, I'd do anything for that coach because he made me feel like that.

He made you feel like what?

Important.

I heard it in your voice just now. Did you feel it? And what is that emotion?

Guys standing there like— and yeah, and wait, wait, wait, wait.

You're talking— what just— what happened? What just happened for you? You want to cry?

No.

Yeah, you do.

But yeah, no, it's just that, that really good feeling.

Hold on. This is amazing, Eddie. You're a tough coach. And you've turned around so many organizations, and part of the origin story is that you want to feel important, like you matter, and you want the same for your people.

What's the same for the players? And I want, I want them to have that feeling that they're really important and they can do things they, they think they can't do. Like You know, always trying to encourage players to be the best version of themselves, but a lot of time they don't really know what the best version of themselves is. And there's, you know, there's all these— whether it be a mental obstacle, a physical obstacle, a social obstacle. And as a coach, you're trying to unleash that. And just one conversation like that, you know, it's crazy, isn't it? That was 30 years ago and I still feel all of it.

Yeah.

That's the power of good coaching.

Thank you for bringing that forward. I hope that your community that listens really understands you in a different way. And I hope that everybody listening thinks about how they're making that impact in the lives of others as well. How do you work with your emotions? I saw you just struggle with it. You let it come to the surface and then wanted to do, you know, push it down or move it to the side.

But I think, yeah, The generation we came through in Australia, we were all taught to be tough, you know, don't be vulnerable, don't show any emotion. And generally I'm like that.

I think that's old.

Yeah, no, no, it is, but it's a hard habit to break.

It is a hard habit. How do you want to be?

Oh no, no, I'm happy how I am. I think we all want to have emotional control, and because it's important to have stability, particularly when you're a leader. Like, you don't want to be too down and you don't want to be too up. You know, when you're winning, you shouldn't be too happy. When you lose, you shouldn't be too sad. So emotional control is important, I think. But, you know, all the stuff you read now, and I think it is true that the ability at the right time to show vulnerability is, is very important. Um, and I'm probably not that good at that.

You just exercise it a little bit.

Yeah, might be one-off.

Yeah, it's so right. Like you know that idea, victory and defeat, those two imposters the same, that idea, not be too high, not be too low. What ends up happening, I think, is that many are unskilled with working with emotions. So what is accepted is frustration, intolerance, anger, if you will. And so that's what comes out. And that scares people, right? No one wants— and that embarrasses people. And it keeps people on their toes. Now, there's a time and place to be pissed, right? Bad behavior, meaning unacceptable behavior, needs to have some sort of consequence in my mind.

Yeah.

Okay, so all that being said is when we are more like what Bruce Lee talked about, like mind like water, we can just kind of roll through things. And we are more like Buddha or the Dalai Lama talked about, like being unbothered, you know, and childlike in their mind, a beginner's mind. There's so much freedom. But to do that, you have to really work with emotions. Yeah. Yeah. How good are you? Let's just do 1 to 10. How good are you dealing with anger when you feel it?

Probably now I'd give myself probably a 7 out of 10.

Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Before, when I was young, terrible.

2 out of 10?

1. 1.

1. Okay.

Probably like a 1 sometimes.

How good are you at working with fear? Like things that you're really afraid of?

Yeah, not bad. Probably 6 or 7 again.

6 or 7. And sadness?

Sadness? Yeah, no, probably 6 or 7.

And joy?

Joy is, I think, one of the most difficult ones.

Oh, that's surprising for me. For you? Tell me more.

Well, I think joy or enjoyment comes from the game for most players, I think. And again, I think it's changed a little bit that players like to get— and I'm going to contradict myself here, which is part of coaching. I think a lot of the, the ability to create a joyful environment now is important, and I don't think it was as important before, but I think now, particularly for the younger generations, they've got to feel that joy. And the balance, you know, if you look at that high performance triangle where you've got high performance there, enjoyment or joy there, and, and hard work and learning there. The ability to get that balance right, I think, is really important these— more so than before, where, you know, previously maybe you could just have a hard-working— everyone had just front-up grind away. But now I think that balance is really, really right. And I think in a lot of ways the American coaches have led the way in that area, you know. You've worked with Pete Carroll. I think his ability to balance that— Steve Kerr at Golden State Warriors, from what I've heard about him and seen a little bit of his stuff. So I think that's important, and that's probably the area I'm probably not as naturally as good in, you know, in understanding how do we get joy.

Yeah, it's interesting that you're saying joy comes from the game. I actually— I'd like to challenge that idea a little bit, that joy comes from yourself and the way you interpret and what you bring into an experience. Like, joy in my mind is a frameable experience.

Yeah.

You know, and it takes discipline. But I'm curious because you gave yourself the lowest score on joy. I had this moment where it still sticks with me today. It was a technology. It was— I can't talk about it because it's— call it secret. I don't like that word, but it's— I can't talk about this technology. Triggered joy in a way that surprised me. And it was a flood of joy that was taking place. And I was overwhelmed by it and I pulled myself out of it. And so I knew from that moment, like, oh, I've got to increase my sphere of being able to deal with like this love, joy, something. Right. And like, why would I be afraid to go on the other edge of this thing. And so I wish I could share the technology, but I think the most important part is that it led me to an insight that like, oh, I'm not as good as joy as I thought. So for the last 4 years, my team will love this. Every year we don't set out to do resolutions. We know they fall apart, right? But every year we recommit to something that's important to us. And at Finding Mastery, this is one of our practices. I do it with a bunch of teams is like, what's this year about?

Yeah.

And I'll ask athletes and coaches, like, okay, you can do the year— can be January 1st, it could be the start of the season. Yeah. What's the promise? Like, what's the promise you're making to yourself? What are you committing to? What's the fundamental commitment? That idea. And for 3 to 4 years in a row, I can't remember, it was play. Like, I know I need more play because I'm intense, I'm serious, I'm all these things. So my muse was like a panda bear. Okay. Like, no predators. They're just rolling around. They're having a good time. So if you were to kind of recommit right now, or declare, I should say, what is this next year or what is this next phase of your life about?

If you were a panda bear, I'd be a beaver. A beaver?

What do you mean? What does a beaver do?

I love this. I love how they're industrious. Like, they can just build something out of nothing. They can swim in the river. They look free, but then at the same time, they can work hard and build something.

Oh, and they're really community-minded too, right? They work well together. Yeah. Oh, so beaver. Okay.

The beaver.

That's my resolution.

That's your documentary. Eddie the Beaver. Okay, good. Unbelievable. Finding Mastery is brought to you by our flagship mindset training course, Finding Your Best. Any time you feel the pull to reset, to zoom out, to refocus and ask, am I moving toward the person I want to become? It helps to remember this. Lasting change comes from training, not resolutions, not short-term sprints, but deliberate practice of the skills that shape how we show up in work, in relationships, and in the moments of great intensity as well. That's what Finding Your Best is all about. It's a science-backed framework for training your mind. It's the same set of tools that we've taught to Olympic athletes, top executives, elite military teams, and artists at the peak of their craft. In this course, you'll learn the foundational psychological skills to be your very best, full stop. And the best part is you can start anytime. Right now we're running a limited time offer on Finding Your Best. Simply head to findingmastery.com/course and use the code RENEW100 to get $100 off your registration. If you've been waiting for the right moment, this is a good one now to lean into. Spring and summer, they are powerful seasons of momentum. It's a great natural time to step into growth, to refocus, to recommit to who you want to become. And this discount will not be around for long. So go to findingmastery.com/course, code RENEW100 for $100 off today because your future is not shaped by what you intend. It's shaped by what you train. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Fatty15. Okay, let's talk about longevity. Longevity is much more than simply adding years. It's about maintaining health and a zest and a vitality and enhanced performance as you age. And that's why I'm excited about Fatty15. It's an award-winning supplement. It's powered by C15, which is the first essential fatty acid discovered in over 90 years. Okay, so C15, it's a geroprotector. What that means is it helps to slow biological aging by strengthening your cells, basically protecting them from damage. You can think of it like kind of like a 401 for your health where you're investing in cellular, quote unquote, resilience. And I dug into the research on the relationship between C15 and heart health. I love what I saw. Fatty15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help you live healthier, longer. Get 15% off your 90-day subscription starter kit by heading to fatty15.com/findingmastery and use the code Finding Mastery at checkout. That's Fatty, F-A-T-T-Y, 15.com/findingmastery. Start investing in your long-term health today. Okay, so one, thank you for all of the insight. Thank you for bringing all of yourself into it. What we haven't gotten to, though, is like, like practices. What do you do to switch on a culture, to activate the identity that you want to do? Do you have rituals that are maybe, I don't know, fun to celebrate or point to that are important?

We've done all sorts of things. And again, it varies on, on the team. I remember, you know, the Japan team, we used to have this really hard training regime. So we trained 3 times a day— Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday— 7, 10, 3. But then on a Wednesday night, we'd go and have a Korean barbecue, yakiniku, for 2 hours, and everyone would relax, enjoy themselves, and the players would look forward to it. So that really worked with that group. So for each group, I think there's things that that work, that, that help reinforce the identity, that help reinforce the behaviors that you want. One of the interesting things post the game, like if you think about 20 years ago, post the game, the old thing was don't touch the players for 48 hours, let them chill, let them get themselves right, right? Which was the rugby thing. And now we'll have a— we'll come back to a room like this, we'll have tables set out and we'll ask the players for 15 minutes in, in their positional group to have a quick chat. They might have a beer, they might have a soft drink, to have a chat about the game and reconnect on the game and have a think about what we need to do. And that's been something that's really, I think, worked well for this group of players.

And it's athlete-led.

We try to encourage the players to lead as much as possible. So for my group, I might sit down and say, right, the for instance, the high ball didn't work well today, boys. Can you guys have a think about what we need to do to improve it for next week? Or it might be they lead it. So combination of it.

That's different. When I went and spent some time with like a couple of the rugby clubs in Europe, a couple things that are different rugby versus American sport is in rugby they play for the shirt. Yeah, for the tradition, right? And so culture is— needs to capture that heritage, if you will. And the other thing is it's way more athlete-led. Yeah. Than in the US, it's very much coach-led. And we adopted some of that up at the Seahawks where there was like, how do we bring the voice in of the athlete in a way that drives their engagement in a deeper level? So is that why you do it?

Yeah, 100%. I want the players to own the game. And you've also got to realize in rugby, like, we're not allowed— coaches aren't allowed on the field. So once the whistle goes, the players are in charge of the game. So they've got to adapt to the game, they've got to make decisions. So we want to encourage that as much as we can. So we try to drive that player engagement. I think, you know, the way you run, run meetings now, completely different than before. And we're trying to get much better engaging the players. You know, if you just look at how school teaching's changed over the last period of time You know, before was a teacher at the front lecturing, telling them what to do. Now teachers want to engage, they want to use multimedia, they want the kids to work out problems in groups. So I think coaching's, coaching's moving in that direction, and particularly in rugby where, as I said, you know, players have to solve the decisions by themselves, problems by themselves.

If we knew what you knew, how would we lead better.

I always find, like, I always come back to it. I think if you look at how you teach or how you lead, there's being explicit and being implicit. And then within that, you've got all your players, right? And somewhere on that line, there's a sweet spot for each of the players, and there's a sweet spot for the group. And as, as a coach, you're always trying to find that— what it— where is it?

That's very cool. Yeah. What have you had to unlearn over your decades of working with multiple cultures? And I mean Australia, Japan, England, and then the multi-cultures of players that are on your team. What have you had to unlearn over the last 30 years of coaching?

I think the one thing you always got to stop yourself doing is assuming. Assuming, yeah. You see a player and you assume something you've been told about this player, you assume something, you've got a staff member. You should never assume in coaching, you know. You should always confirm, and you can only confirm by getting to know that, that person.

That's awesome. Rassi is a coach that, yeah, you know, who's making some noise and having a way. And what do you respect about his coaching approach, and what do you fundamentally differ, if anything?

His is an amazing story. You know, because he— South Africa— we— Japan beat South Africa in the 2015 World Cup.

That was a shocker. Yeah, right. Was it a shocker to you?

Uh, yes, it was.

Yeah, it was a shocker. South Africa, just for folks that don't follow rugby, is like a dominant— always have been. They are an incredible nation of sport. Yeah. And a small little nation as well. And so when Japan, also small in size, was rivaling this big, you know, South African reputation, it was, it was a moment.

Now But post that, the interesting thing was South Africa said, right, we can't play rugby like we used to, which is physical, a lot of kicking, not glamorous sort of rugby, hard, tough rugby. So they brought in a new coach, right? And if you could imagine, he wants them to play like Patrick Mahomes, right? The ball's fizzing around everywhere, right? The ball's moving. But it doesn't suit them. So they win 40% of the Tests for 2 years. So Rassi comes in and we talk about identity. He goes straight back to South African identity, like kick, chase hard, be tough, be brutal. And they win the next 2 World Cups, right? Next 2 World Cups they win by going back to the identity. And the other smart thing— and I don't know 100%, but I've heard enough One of the things he does that a lot of teams have gone away from— on the first training, training day, Monday, if you don't train on that day, you don't— you're not eligible for selection, right? So, and it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're the best player in the world, and they train reasonably hard. Like, it's not a walkthrough, it's not, uh, training shoes on. They train reasonably hard. So you got to be ready on the Monday, which again, you know, if you just think about it, you're setting the tone for the week. Be ready on Monday, be ready to go, be ready to train. So I think those two things he's done absolutely brilliantly.

So there's a standard there.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And so he—

identity.

Yeah. So he knew the ethos of that region of the world and what, what South African— and you could do this for your company as well, like, what do we stand for? And then you back in behaviors and standards and ways of talking. Yeah, you know, that, that would back that thing up and make it honest.

Yeah, but if you did that with Australia, you'd get absolutely nowhere. Like, you'd have the players on strike. They, you know, because Australians want to have a say in how they play, right? English should follow it for a while and then they'd, they'd revolt. Yeah, and, and it's different for particularly in international sport. There's a, there's a, there's a social norm that you've got to take into consideration of how people behave. I think what Russie's done is understood South Africa brilliantly. He's a highly detailed guy. They like a lot of detail. And, and generally speaking, South African players like to be told. They like to be told what to do.

Oh, look at that. Where do you disagree with his approach?

Uh, nothing.

You like it?

Yeah. And I think he's the only— the only probably thing I don't like is that I think he's used social media to put a lot of pressure on referees, which I don't think is probably the right thing to do.

When you're coaching Japan, which you still are right now, but when you went up against South Africa— this might be one of the greatest upsets in rugby, in world sport— how did you mentally prepare them?

So 2 years before the World Cup, we saw the draw came out and we had South Africa first. Right? And traditionally Japan had always played their B team against the top team and saved themselves for the other World Cup games, right? So I immediately said to them, we're going to pick our best team. And then I put up there, beat the Boks, and these are the things we've got to practice. There was 3 things we've got to practice. Then we came up with a modified game of, of how we're going to play against Springboks. And, and every training session we do that, right? This is how we're going to beat them.

So you had this vision, yeah, for 3 years, you backed into it and just practiced it, talked about it.

This is how we're going to beat them, this is how we're going to do it, you know. Stop training, this is going to be the time where it's going to happen, you know, because there's some, some time in the game where their power is going to take over and we've just got to hang in there because they're so powerful. There's a period of time, and if we can hang in there for a period of time they start to get uncomfortable. So we just dress rehearsed it, dress rehearsed it. And because of that, the players believed. We got them super fit because we said we were going to be the fittest side in the world. So we got them super fit, dress rehearsed, spoke about it, messaged it, and had a bit of luck.

What does competitive unity mean to you when you hear that term, competitive unity?

That everyone's working towards the same goal.

And is the goal in that framing, is it to be one's very best, or is it to be better than the others?

The only thing you can control is be the best version of yourself. Like, and, and that's the great— I remember watching, uh, recently there was something on Netflix on, on the American gold medal team in basketball, the recent one, and they had a great shot of the Croatians and the Croatians had got beaten by America, and they were having their post-day, and, and they're sitting around, and they were so proud of what they'd done. And one of the players who plays NBA— I can't remember his name— was saying, look, we played really well, but we're just not good enough to beat them. And there's no embarrassment to that. And that's all you can do. And, and I want every team that I coach to sit down at the end of it and say, well, we did our best. Like, did we win? Well, hopefully you always want to win, but if you didn't win, you, you just gave your best and you feel that we did our best, you know. And that, and that's a powerful feeling.

That's where the relentless uncommon standards for weeks and years leading up to this moment, whatever this moment is, meaning this conversation even— if you were uninformed for the 3 decades that you've been coaching and haven't thought about much, and then here we are talking about deep, honest conversations, you would fall apart. Right? And that's for all of us, whether it's in a living room and a loving conversation, or it's, you know, in a boardroom with an intense conversation. It's the relentless uncommon standards to practice being your very best over time with tension, so that at some point you can be in flow with, you know, how it's going. And so that's what I hear you saying is like, we said, this is the mission, beat the box. And that comes from Springboks, right? The name of the club. And then it wasn't just about being better than them, it was about we're going to be our very best in these 3 ways.

Yeah.

And we're going to practice it. And then you would call it out, reward it, praise it, you know, and correct it when it wasn't. Yeah, man, I think I understand. I would like to be coached by you.

Good. Yeah, but I reckon that's one of the questions any coach should ask themselves, or a leader should ask themselves. Would you like to be coached by yourself? Would you like to be led by yourself?

I think it's a great question. And so I think sometimes I scare myself. I think I'm really hard on myself sometimes, but I no longer cut myself. I'm no longer mean to myself. Yeah, I wasn't really always that mean, but it was— there was an exacting standard. I'm still looking for that standard, but I like my friend within myself. Do you like your— do you like how you speak to yourself?

I think you've always got to take yourself to the edge. Yeah, like if you're not, if you're not on the edge, yeah, you're not really where you can be.

And then the idea for me is like being radically honest. Like, that's the edge, because I can tell stories to myself to make myself feel okay about how something went. But if I'm really honest, it usually is about the preparation leading to that was not quite up to standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the most important conversation you'll have, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a great point.

When you think about the countries that have the best emotional control, the ones that are cool, they're just cool, they handle it. They're all about the business and they stay connected when it gets really hot. I think of Irish rugby.

Yeah.

You do too?

Yeah. Yeah.

I think of South African. Yeah, yeah. Who else do you think of? Do you think of— do you think of Australia? Um, New Zealand?

Not recently. I mean, New Zealand, New Zealand are falling off a little bit historically. I think that's a really interesting point. Yeah, because a lot of sport now, you're being encouraged to celebrate good moments, you know. And I was watching a rugby league in Australia, and the team that did really badly, right, and they played their first preseason game, and every time they're doing something, they've got 13 blokes, they're all giving high fives, and there's all this energy, right? This trial game, they win easily. They play the first game of the year, they get beaten by 30 points, and after 20 minutes, there's no celebration, you know, there's nothing there.

In other words, the, the circumstances are dictating the behavior, and the behavior is not driving the circumstance. So when you get that thing out of whack, I watch for that.

Yeah.

What do you do after? What do you do when? And If it's not consistent, I'm like, oh, they don't have a system, they don't have a way of going about it, they're just riding the momentum. Yeah.

So getting back to Ireland, South Africa, my perception of them is that they enjoy the game and they do celebrate, but they don't go over the top, you know. So imagine we're having a party today and there's 4 crates of beer coming, which is just about enough for everyone to have one beer.

Okay.

Like, they don't bring in 8 crates of beer, right? Yeah, so they don't go nuts. And I think that emotional— so when you get disappointed in— because I think the big thing is not when you're doing well, it's the disappointment of the game, how you cope with the disappointment of the game. That thing about getting your mental modeling as close to reality as you can so that when something goes bad, you can stick at it, right? Let's get this right. And I think they're really good at that, both of those teams.

I know the Irish system for a long time would coach up against that. Yeah. And, and who else comes to mind that really that we can look to and watch that has a—

they're probably the best, those two.

They are. Yeah. And who, who are the wildcards that they are like, you know, like I want to pick on Brazil for a moment in so many sports, like moments of brilliance. And then as soon as it starts going sideways, some of the teams, the national teams, You know, they start to turn on each other even.

France is a bit like that.

France is a little bit like that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny how the cultures and ethos— there's so many ways to get to brilliance. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very cool. What would you give— what guidance would you give to the US in, you know, growing the accelerated rate of rugby here? Ah, that laugh is too much, man.

I don't know if we've got enough time here. Yeah, uh, but I, I—

it's such a good game. Why has it not—

it suits USA.

I think it's a gentleman's sport. It's rough, it's rugged, it's tactical. Yeah, discipline, joy, and high performance come together. There's a bonding about it, you know, like, I don't, I don't quite get it.

What's USA rugby look like? What does a USA rugby team look like?

Identity.

Yeah, what is it? Okay, yeah, if, if I had an idea. I think you've got to be, you've got to be big, you've got to be physical, and you've got to be fast. Like, that's what USA have got. They've got big, physical, fast athletes, right? So then, then you've got to add to that some level of, of smartness to it. So how are you going to play a little bit smart but really put yourself on— that's how we're going to play. Yeah, this is USA.

Oh, I see how you're doing it.

This is USA.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by AG1. Summer is here, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. You can just feel it though. Days are longer, pace picks up, and there's this sense of momentum that comes with the season. For me, that also means more travel. It's more early mornings, more late nights, and it's just really a schedule that isn't consistent as I'd like it to be. That's exactly when having a simple, reliable daily foundation, it matters. AG1 has been that foundation for me for over a decade now. One scoop in a glass of cold water in the morning, and I know I'm supporting my gut health, full stop, filling the nutrient gaps that are hard to cover through food alone. And what ends up happening is I'm giving my body what it needs to keep showing up, and that really matters to me. What I love about AG1 is that it doesn't ask a lot of me. It's one habit, one scoop, and it travels Easily. The AG1 travel packs are something I genuinely rely on this time of the year. I throw a few in my bag before a trip and the routine stays intact wherever I am. If you haven't tried AG1 yet or you've been planning to think about getting back into it, now's a great time to start. Visit drinkag1.com/findingmastery to get an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 free in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription.. It's a $72 value. Again, that's drinkag1.com/findingmastery. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning. That's always in my control. That's always in your control too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. And the best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to findingmastery.com/morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to findingmastery.com/morning to get your morning mindset routine. And if you were coaching USA, how would you establish the values or the— yeah, would you, would you start with values?

I'd start with the rugby first and then, and then go down from there.

You would start with the tactics?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, this is how we're gonna go?

Because I reckon, you know, in establishing the culture of a team, there's, there's two ways you can do it. You can, you can start with the values— these are the values we want to have— and then build your team up from that. Or you can go This is the game we want to play, and from that, these are the values that are going to be important. Because, you know, like, you do a lot in business. You go to a business and there's all integrity, respect, you know, all those things are up there, you know. And, and they're just words, aren't they? In reality, you've got to have a clear model of what behaviors are important, and sometimes those can come from the game, right? So, you know, we play a hard-working game, and if you're one player, you might only touch the ball for 2 seconds. So the other 79 minutes 58 seconds, you're running around supporting, like, and that, that, that's a selfless game. So there's some values that are non-negotiable, and then you've got to work out, right, what do we want to still see in our game? Yeah, if I use an example, when I first coached the Brumbies in, in Australia, we were a team that was basically led by the players. So we'd get together on a Monday night, 6 senior players, for 2 hours we'd thrash out the game plan. There. Never done it with any other team. And but they loved doing it, and it was their key behavior that they wanted to be smarter than everyone else, and they wanted the players to lead it.

Very cool. And when you work out the behaviors, do you teach, explicitly teach the behaviors, or do you say, right, this is how coaches— we're going to model it? How do you, how do you get into the actual behavioral change?

I think Coach is modeling it, making sure you're rewarding it, making sure you're praising it, and making sure you're correcting it. And as much as you can show it on the— on— at team meetings, this is what we want to see, this is what we don't want to see.

After a blowout where you, you really underperformed and you go to film or tape, do you, do you point out the mistakes or do you point out the successes of what we could become?

Again, today, mate, I reckon you just got to find the good things.

Yeah.

So what is your good things as you can?

What is your ratio there?

Uh, almost 80/20. 80/20. Generally 80/20. 80% good stuff, 20% is what we've got to get better at.

When I bring that idea into non-sport environments, they're like, wait, you don't— because the old image of like Monday morning, kind of after a Sunday game, Monday morning you're going to get blasted by the coach if you That's old. That doesn't work.

And you still hear the commentators talk like that.

Yeah. On like media. Yeah. It's old. It does not work that way. I need to flood my imagination with what is good, what I'm working toward, what I could become more like. I need to flood myself with that because there's so much noise. Don't show me. I know where I screwed up. Believe me. Yeah, but like reinforce how the things I do need some insight about. Look, I've told you a thousand times, don't take a full step, it's a half step. Yeah, yeah, ah, that's right, a half step. Yeah, okay.

But generally, yeah, you're saying we want more of this, and it might be at the, at the end or at the start, we need a little bit less of this voice, a little bit less of this. Yeah, let's have— but let's have more of this.

But do you say it with a smile like you just did?

Oh, I think that's one of the most important things now. To, to be optimistic and positive. I think, again, if I think back to when I first started coaching—

Eddie Jones is talking about optimism, is that right?

You have to be.

You have to be.

Yeah, I think it's really important now.

Have you always been fundamentally optimistic?

Uh, optimistic, but could be a bit dour and tough. Yeah, you know, and had that tough persona.

Frustrated.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think now one of the things you don't want to show is frustration, right? Because, because I don't think, I don't think the younger generation can cope with it. I think if I think about my father, right, he fought in 3 wars, right? He's a soldier, right? So he had a tough life. I haven't been to any war. I've never had to look at anything.

You're still flip-flops, right? Yeah, yeah.

Never had to, right?

No.

My daughter had an even easier life. So that's the way life's going. So this is not something that, uh, we should think is unexpected, you know. It's expected that people are going to tolerate less tough things as we go on, yeah. But the way— we've still got to teach them to play tough, yeah.

How do you do that?

Or that's got to be your training, standard training, standards and training, yeah.

So I've got a leader that I work with where she's amazing, by the way. She's smart, she's articulate, she understands excellence. She's great. And her team will say, Mike, it's a little unreasonable, though. I go, what do you mean? Well, if we show her a PowerPoint deck that we're going to present on whatever, and there's a period out of place, like, it's a thing. And if there's 3 lines when it should be 2 lines because all the other things had 2 lines and we couldn't quite figure out how to say it, so we just made it look asymmetrical. It's a thing. And like, we all get berated and it's overwhelming. So then my question back was like, okay, what are you working for here? And let them tell me what— well, we want to be great. Well, there's some standards here. So are you attention to detail? Is that what standards means?

It's a really good question. I remember I had this PA—

and PA—

personal assistant, okay— and she was fantastic, best person in the world, do anything. But, you know, say she had to write up food nutrition ingredients, there'd be 5 spelling errors, right? And I remember one day I drilled her on it, and I reckon by doing that I took away a bit of her love the job. So I think it's always balancing, you know. You need to have standards, right? So I'm probably going around this in a funny way, but you need to have standards. But you've got to understand, for your, for your staff or for your players, is that going to make a difference to what they do? Does that make sense? Yeah. Say those documents— like, I hate seeing spelling errors and I hate seeing sloppiness in documents. But drilling down into that, is that going to help you win? Like, that's, that's the thing you've always got to be thinking about. Not just having it for the sake of having it. Is it important to help you win?

How do you finish this thought? If you don't get this right, you'll never understand what you're capable of. How do you own that?

Well, I think getting, getting it right for each person is different. So you've got, you've got to know what's right for them to make them want to you know, run faster, play harder, give more love to the organization. I think you've got to understand what's right for them. You know, if I go back to that PA, I still, I still think about it all the time, and I regret it so much that I took her love of the job away just because she was untidy in one area. And the value she'd give to the organization was far greater than those errors. And that was probably the best lesson I've had. So I always try to weigh that up when I'm thinking about those things now. And particularly in Japan, you know, we've got a multilingual situation, so some of the English spelling we get, you know, it's not— it's off the charts. So I have to just put my head down. No, no, let's keep going.

Okay, a couple quick hits. It all comes down to—

I think you've got to inspire people. Inspiration.

If you could name a boat What would you put on the name of the boat?

Ensemble.

Relationships are most important. Success is hard work. The uncomfortable truth that most people would not admit about winning is that the grind sometimes becomes the grind. Eddie Jones, what a gift. Thank you so much for how you've shown up today and the way that you've put your words together is evidence of years of understanding of what it takes. And it's been a real joy to get to know you in this way. So thank you so much.

No, thanks to you. It made me think a lot today. That was quite a difficult podcast, and I see why you've been so popular. So I hope this becomes the best podcast you've ever done.

Let's compete. Let's compete. Okay.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by Dr. Stacy Sims, exercise physiologist, nutrition scientist, bestselling author, and one of the leading voices in women's health and performance. For decades, much of what women have been told about nutrition, training, recovery, and aging was built from research conducted primarily on men. Stacy challenges that foundation with a simple but powerful idea: women are not small men. In this conversation, we explore why so many women feel like their bodies suddenly change the rules, what's actually happening during perimenopause and menopause, and how to work with your physiology instead of fighting against it. We also discuss what partners, coaches, and families often misunderstand about these transitions. So join us Wednesday, July 15th at 9 AM Pacific, only on Finding Mastery.

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