Jason Koster on Mental Toughness, Discipline & Elite Performance

Today's special guest is Jason Koster, a world-leading judo expert, and we're going to talk about some of the habits he has instilled to become great and help others become great and how you instill them in your life. Jason, a huge welcome to the Habits of High Performers podcast. How you doing?

Yeah, I'm great. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Oh, it's such a pleasure. I mean, we got to thank, first of all, our great friend Rich. And so from the Shroom Room here in Littleton, we were out for a walk with the dogs and he said, James, I've been listening to your podcast for ages. There's someone you need to have on. He's a legend. His name's Jason. So thanks, Rich. And hey, we're here today.

Yeah, yeah. Very, very humbled by that. And yeah, thanks, Rich. He's an awesome man. And yeah, a lot, a lot of time for Rich, who was best mate of my late father. And, you know, even after my father's passing, he's been a massive instrumental part of our life. So yeah, thank you, Rich. And hopefully I do it justice based on that big— the big accolades he's thrown our way that I've achieved.

Now, 100%, I'm gonna have a bit of fun. So I, I guess from the listener's point of view, we always look through the lens of what does a high performer do to stay at high performance? And that could be in a chosen field, it could be sport, it could be business, it could be as a parent. But often I bring it back to, it's often a simple set of habits that help people become great. So we're going to talk about specifically judo, and we've never had anyone on the show talking about judo. So, what got you to judo? What attracted you to that in the first place?

Yeah, fantastic question. So, we grew up in Phillipstown, which, you know, I went to Phillipstown Primary School, formerly also known as the School of Hard Knocks, you know, quite a diverse, I guess, upbringing, you'd say. And with that, it brought its fair share of troubles. The ultimate origin story is my brother got basically jumped and attacked by 3 or 4 other kids. Mom and Dad were like, no, no, we need to, we need these boys to learn how to look after themselves. They went to karate, but they said we weren't going to do any sparring from, you know, until we were like green belt level, so quite far into it. And then lo and behold, judo. And as often is the case with things, it was one of the closest clubs. So yep, went along to Can-Am Judo, which at the time was in Sydenham. And I guess, yeah, rest is history. But I was actually way too shy to get on the mat to start with. So I didn't want to get on the mat, just an extremely shy child. And my dad was like, well, if I get on, will you get on? And so, yeah, rest is history, as we say. So that was the start. And it's sort of been a pretty cool journey over, oh, I believe 30, 32 years now. So lifetime commitment.

That's incredible.

Lifetime commitment, you know, and it's, I think like any great relationship, you know, had its moments where it was a bit tough. And it's one of those things that you kind of, you know, on reflection, you look back and go, geez, there were so many pivotal moments where I could have gone left and instead went right. And, you know, here we are.

And you went on to represent New Zealand.

Yes, I did. I was very fortunate. I had a very long, probably longer than I deserved career. So first time I represented New Zealand at a senior level was 2003. And then my last ever event was the 2022 Commonwealth Games. So yeah, close to, I believe it was 20 years actually of fighting for the for New Zealand. So yeah, yeah, yeah, the, the longevity— again, it was, um, you know, partly stubbornness, um, partly just some unfinished goals which I never quite got to tick off. But, um, yeah, also very, very supportive, um, village, as my wife would say. A lot of people behind the scenes, you know, um, letting me continue to do what I did.

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Caroline@jjlaughlin.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes. Yeah, so that's amazing. And I want to talk about the habits there. So to stay in the game for that long, to me, it takes some real consistency. So I was a drummer and I had probably a similar length of time, about 30 years, and simple things done over and over. And so people would see me at the world championships and they'd be like, oh, overnight success, whatever they might look at it. I'm like, guys, I still practice the basics, the absolute basics every day. And it's boring as hell for most people, but it's those basic things, exercises, the drills, that's what allows me to compete. It's not this, I was born with extra talent because I wasn't. It was hard work and habits. So, for you, if you think of those 30 years and some of those big high moments, what are the habits of a high performer when it comes to judo?

Yeah, I think again, what you talk about is like when you start out, you think that there's some magic happening at the top. And you think these guys are just insanely, you know, that much better or, you know, on these amazing programs or they're just born into greatness. And, you know, over time you start to realize that what you've just said, it's just habits and just, we say on our team, chop wood, carry water, which is, you know, it's a great book where it talks about the, a boy wants to go to, he wants to be the world's best archer and he goes to Japan to learn how to be an archer. And for the first, I think, 2 or 3 months, all he's doing is chopping wood so they can stoke the fire and carrying water so they can drink. And he says to his teacher, he says, you know, look, I'm never going to be the world's best archer if all I'm doing is chopping wood and carrying water. And then the teacher says to him, well, actually, no, you'll never be the world's best archer if you can't chop wood and carry water. And I was like, it's such a, you know, a beautiful— James Laughlin, the author, it's just such a beautiful way of phrasing it. And it's just like, you've just got to continue to do things at the highest level of importance that put you in the best position that when your opportunity comes, you can make the most of it. And I think, you know, one thing we realized is that there was a lot of— in martial arts, there's a lot of dogma and there's a lot of old wives' tales and there's a lot of things that people say which kind of puts handbrakes or roadblocks on things. And one of those things was that, you know, you'll never be successful being based in New Zealand. You need to export yourself overseas. You need to be, you know, doing X, Y, and Z, which, you know, don't get me wrong, there is a huge element of truth in that. But, you know, what I really did was flipped it on its head and looked at what things can I get better at, you know, being based locally. And I think most things you can distill down and sports really big at that's technical, tactical, physical, psychological. And so I was like, right, well, psychological, I can definitely be building that while I'm here. So lots of mental skills work, lots of visualization, that sort of stuff. Technical, you can always be refining your technique. Physical, naturally we can be in the gym doing all those sorts of things. And then the tactical is the one where we sort of are a little bit limited because obviously you need exposure to different scenarios and environments. But what I figured out was, okay, well, there's 3 out of the 4 things there. So 75% of my game I can develop locally. And I sort of made, for me, I knew I was never going to be the most talented person. So my mantra is just simply outwork everybody. So all I would do is, all right, I'm going to be the fittest under 100 kg fighter there is. I'm going to win fights just by like grinding people down. And so from that, you, you know, you reverse engineer and you've built what system is going to work best for you. And so when you talk about the habits and all that sort of stuff, it was like, okay, the habits were easy because, you know, I come from a West Coast slash Dutch upbringing. So hard work's an easy habit because that's just your duty as you know. As those two sort of bloodlines. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, so I had to obviously hold down a job to obviously pay for all this stuff because judo is an amateur sport. But it also meant that I had to just do those little bit of extra things such as, you know, getting up early before, you know, anyone else to make sure I get the extra gym session in. Non-negotiables around training. And I think, you know, when you talk about habits, it's hard to sort of identify them because, you know, a lot of them are just things that become your everyday life. You know, and, and as such, you know, to this day I'm still like, I was up at, I think it was 4 this morning, had to, you know, take Mum to the airport and that sort of stuff. But just being up early because then you go, well, that gives me an extra couple hours, you know, ahead of the game before I have to get on with real world to make the most of the moments.

So that's beautiful. And what I hear there is that, you know, you can't do it in New Zealand, you've got to go abroad. But actually you went from, hey, we don't have all of the resources here, but I'm going to be resourceful.. And I see this in the highest performers, like arguably any of the world's greats in sport. They don't have everything at their fingertips, but they become resourceful with what they do have access to. That mindset, the mental skills side of it, that really interests me. You know, as a drummer, you know, young kid, we had to perform on the world championship stage and essentially fine motor emotions. So you're holding two drumsticks. It's very technical, the type of drumming that we do. If you're nervous, you've got sweaty palms, you're shaking, any of that, or you've got a racing mind, it's going to be a disaster. So from a young age, I got— picked up a book called The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. I'm reading a brilliant book, right? Yeah, I don't play tennis, but I was reading it going, hmm, I could apply that to drums. And then they brought out The Inner Game of Music a bit later. And then I started reading all the books. Tony Robbins helped me a lot in terms of what goes on upstairs. So for years I've been fascinated and I'm fortunate to work with Canterbury Rugby and a few other athletes on the mental side of it. What were your mental skills for you when you were performing at your best, when you were showing up? What were some of the things you were doing to help you perform in the moment?

Yeah, well, it's interesting. I'll touch on that resourcefulness because that was the thing that I found was kind of quite liberating and freeing because for most of my career I was self-coached. I had the freedom to sort of, you know, as I say, not follow the norm. And leaning on other things like you talk about in The Game of Tennis and Tony Robbins and a lot of these, you know, real, real landmark sort of books that came out. I was just like a sponge and just trying to take everything in. And the mental skills stuff, that was, I studied sport and exercise science. And, you know, this is back when sports psychology was still in its infancy. And I remember literally one of my first lectures was on visualization. And I used to really struggle with my nerves. Get to the edge of the mat and we'd bow in and we'd always sort of look across to the opponent we're about to fight. And I'd sort of bow in and I just feel this massive rush of nerves. So, as simple as it is, I literally for that first period, I think it was about a week there, I just laid on my bed, closed my eyes, and I just imagined myself standing edge of the mat. And it was this insane shift that happened where I went from having this real nervous energy to this absolute laser-like focus. Of that when I had that moment and just experienced that walk out onto the mat, bow in, instead of like it going like this and having this massive adrenaline dump, it was like this. I was here to perform. I was excited about the opportunity. I was all of these different things. And that really worked well when I was 19 and full of the right types of hormones, you know, and able to go and all that sort of stuff. And as time obviously goes on, you start to refine things. And so, I love about this, there's the story about Aikido. So, most people know Aikido as it is today where it's just this very refined martial art and it's almost a bit more art than it is actual martial, if you will. But the original version of Aikido was very, very harsh and it was used for samurai and that sort of stuff as a form of defense and close-hand combat. But over time, the founder just refined it down to the absolute essence of what it really is. And when I look at that from a psychological point of view, I think in the mental skills, I think it's kind of, as you say, it's just refining things right down. And, you know, we've got a mental skills coach we use, Quinny, John Quinn. I know Quinny. Yeah, Quinny. And he talks always about do simple better. And I think that's ultimately when things just get blown out of proportion and, you know, you catastrophize things and things start to feel like they're overwhelming. You just boil it down and you just find what's the next smallest thing I can do. And another funny story is before Birmingham, because I was kind of player coach, as I was for most of my career, to be honest. But, you know, I had the responsibility of when we're traveling and going to training camps and all that sort of stuff. And the thing we did was that whenever I got too overwhelmed, all I had to do was take one step forward. And that little like sort of tactile cue was like, cool, we're one step closer to where we've got to go. Now let's simplify it. Because I think, again, you kind of, you talk about high performing, if you get caught up in the weeds and caught up in all the detail and the big picture, there's actually one really small step that you've probably got to take and the most important thing right now and the hierarchy of importance. And I think that's where most of us get sort of things blown out of proportion. So it's a trained skill as much as anything, but just being able to bring things back down and boil it down to, right, what's the most important thing right now? And I think that when I look at mental skills, that kind of summarizes it all in a one sentence is, you know, what's the most important thing right now? And then if you can really drill in and have that, you know, years of experience to fall back on and find out what that is, then everything else is just noise that you can block out.

Yeah, well said. Yeah, I often talk with clients about MINS. What's your MINS? Most important next step.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We think of 33 steps ahead and we get overwhelmed because there's so many bloody steps.

Yeah.

What's your next step? Like, just focus on that one thing and execute. That. I love that you think about it like that. There's an idea called essentialism, and an essentialist is someone who really focuses on one thing, nails it, and ignores all the noise. They're about getting less, focusing on less, but getting better outcomes. So just as what was Quinny saying?

Do simple better. Yeah, brilliant.

So that's an essentialist kind of mindset. Do simple better. Do those simple things consistently better each time. And you look at the top athletes and that's what they're doing. They're doing very simple things, but those things stack, right?

Yeah, and I think that's the important thing. And, um, you know, I've spoken about a lot how we've got like sort of a width versus depth problem at the moment, um, or as I often like to say, we've got, you know, uh, too many parrots and not enough owls. So, you know, a lot of people just replicating things that they've read online or seen online, but they haven't actually had that lived experience of, of what it is. And I think when you look at the work of Essentialism, it really talks about it. It's just like decluttering and, you know, actually drilling down to what's the most important thing right here, right now that's going to let you win the moment and then set you up for the next moment. We did a— I do quite radical things with my athletes. Not too radical, but one thing I did was I did a non-training training camp. And so classically in judo, in a training camp, you'll go and you'll do lots of rounds of fighting or sparring or randori, as we call it. And my guys, in lead up to our last sort of major qualifier for Commonwealths, they were really right there with the judo stuff, but I knew that I needed a big block of something. And so what I did was session one, went down to the beach, just a bit of like mental resilience work. But then what I did was actually brought in some frontline police and I got them to talk to us. And one of them spoke about, you know, what's important now, what's important next, as we sort of talked about. But what we actually, what we did was we got them all strapped up with the utility belts and they had either the pepper spray, the taser, or the gun. And they had to be put into these scenarios and make that decision right then and there. And what was really fascinating about it was, again, it was completely foreign scenarios. So they just defaulted to base behaviors that got them through as a child is the way I like to look at it. And prior to this though, we'd categorized our athletes in 4 categories, Mavericks, Architects, Engineers, and Closers. And so I can speak to them a little bit later, but what we found was that they all defaulted back to that behavior. So the Architects are the planners, so they need to have every meticulous detail planned out. And if there's an opportunity for them to make the wrong decision, they'd much rather make no decision at all, so they'll freeze. And so they'd get into a situation and it'd be like, you know, hostile thing and they wouldn't make any decisions. They'd sort of be looking around for help because they need that step of guidance. And so when we talk about the mental skills and the habits, I found it's definitely not a one-size-fits-all. And for actually extracting all that sort of stuff, what is simple for me might not necessarily be simple for someone else. And so when I say do simple better or Quinni says do simple better, for me do simple better is usually just take a breath, write a few notes down, just fight, let's go. Simple for someone else might be a case of actually, I need to be talking, I need to be sort of like, you know, kept very lighthearted, they need to be pulled back a little bit. For others, someone might have to really get in their face and say a few choice words and just, you know, ask them some polite questions. And again, that's the sort of the challenging thing. And that's why I don't necessarily think a lot of high-performance athletes always make high-performance coaches because they can't quite have that level of empathy to understand that, hey, what worked well for you, the principles of it will work well for someone else, but not necessarily the techniques. And so that's the mental skills journey. It's never ending. Particularly, I think the nature of our mental wellbeing and health is a lot more explored these days. And I think that, you know, while it's important to, you know, have these historic approaches, we need to be a bit more sort of, I don't want to say new age, but we need a bit more empathetic and understanding of how we can get the most out of people.

I'm so with you on this, Jason. It's interesting. So I came to New Zealand about 19 years of age. I at that time had won 3 world titles and was still competing, and the mission was to help a New Zealand-based team, a drumline, win the world championships. And they went across for the first time and came third, and then went back, came fifth. I was like, what's going on? I was pretty intense with them. I was kind of treating them how I treated myself. And I was like, well, this is how I became a world champion, so this is how they must do it. I was just a young kid, right? But there was lack of empathy, and it took me years to like go, oh, like, I've got to have a bond with them. There's got to be a sense of belonging. There's got to be trust. There's got to be flexibility here. They can't all just operate the way I operated. And when they did win the world championship and I started to look back and kind of break it apart, I said, okay, it was actually nuanced for every individual. Every individual had a different mental skills challenge and strength, and I had to manage it very differently than going, guys, harden up, get the bloody thing done, and let's go. Like, it just doesn't work like that. I'm glad it's the same for you.

Yeah, and it's funny because I find the coaches I resonate with most are like myself, who have got a very, very small, you know, I guess, human resources. We only have so many athletes.. And I like the analogy of like, you know, the bigger nations, they get the tube of toothpaste and they go, okay, all done. Yep. That's it. Move on. Where's the next one? I'm out here trying to squeeze out every little bit of corner and every little bit that I can get from my athletes for that very reason, you know, because yeah, we just, we just have to look after them at all costs because, you know, there's only so few of them. And I think a big turning point for me was many years ago before recent political forays, I read Elon Musk's book. And one thing that resonated with me was he couldn't comprehend how others couldn't work to the same level. Like, he was like, well, if I can work 18 hours a day, why can't other people? And that kind of was like a penny drop for the right reasons for me because, you know, I'm quite a determined and driven person and I like to have a broad array of interests. So for an example, you know, I love to play chess. I really, really am passionate about learning languages. I like to set myself little challenges. Like for an example, you know, your book, I borrowed it from the library and I was aiming to read it all over the weekend before I spoke to you. I only got 3, you know, I only got about 50% through because of— Yeah, but anyway, but like, I like to be very driven like that. But then I quickly realized, obviously, that's not everyone's drivers. So me going, why can't you get up at 4:50 in the morning and be up at 9:30 tonight? It just does not resonate. And you touched on it really well. The relationships, I think, are far more important as far as being a great coach than any sort of skill set you have. Because, you know, if you walk into a shop and you get bad customer service, you're not going back. And same as with the coaching model, it's like I actually have to really build and drill down and make really unique connections with all of my athletes. And the one thing in our team is, so teams can be sort of like individual-based or system-based. System-based being my way or the highway, individual-based obviously being, you know, like one-to-one. We have to be really, really individual-based but still operate a system. But within that, standards are different across the board because I deal with amateur athletes. And for a lot of the team, the team that get it and the ones that really are on board with that, they completely understand. And lo and behold, they're the most successful ones because they're not worried about everyone else. And, you know, the unfortunate ones in the past that have had to, you know, sort of been asked to leave the team or no longer part of the team, they were the ones that were more concerned with others than themselves. Yeah. And so, you know, with those standards and that, what we talk about is when you look at the individual standards, they are quite varied. But if you look at the standard of the team and what that makes the culture, it's second to none.

I love that. It's interesting, as you're sharing some of that, I think of Ted Lasso. And, you know, like he didn't know anything about football. Like nothing, but he knew everything about people and how to build connection and trust. And there's humor and there was compassion. It was amazing. I really loved watching it. And for those that haven't watched it, please go and watch Ted Lasso on— I think it's Apple TV. And when you're describing that, it's like, that's exactly how Ted would approach it. Like, let's build the trust, let's have standards. There's going to be consequences for stepping outside of those team standards. But I am going to work with individuals here because they're all different. And people often say, James, it's really important that we treat all our people the same. We treat them all equally. Yeah, well, I absolutely disagree with that.

Yeah.

Don't treat people the way you want to be treated. Don't treat people the same and equally. Treat people the way they want to be treated and you'll get the absolute best out of them.

Like, that's how we—

would you agree with that?

Big time. So it was really funny. A contemporary of mine who was in the secondary school sector for years and he was really, really big on this, you know, actually seeing people as individuals. And he said one of the sort of like lockheads he had was with a colleague of his. And she said, well, actually, I don't see race. And he said, and that's the problem.

There you go.

Because she was trying to say it as a no, I treat everyone the same. It's like, yeah, but you actually have to, as you say, treat people you know, how they want to be treated, because then you actually get some understanding from them. And, you know, the nice sort of segue there is with Ted Lasso. My favorite scene of Ted Lasso is be curious, not judgmental. Again, if you haven't seen Ted Lasso, you need to go watch the dart scene of Ted Lasso. And it's beautiful. It's just this beautiful, beautiful, you know, even on its own without seeing it, you'll get it. But he talked about, you know, when you see someone that you're not too sure what's going on or, you know, haven't walked that mile in their shoes. Be curious, not judgmental. And I think it was quite interesting growing up in New Zealand because we have got obviously the reputation of tall poppy. And, you know, as you could imagine, doing a minor sport, it was a bit challenging. But it was one of those things where you used to look and go, oh man, if they were a little bit more curious and a little bit less judgmental, then, you know, now you look at most rugby teams have got tackling coaches, grappling coaches, judo coaches. I've worked with, you know, a number of the, you know, Lover of Black Ferns, Canterbury Crusaders Development, all that sort of stuff.

Awesome.

You know, and it's just, but again, it was just, again, that being, that being curious as well. What can this other thing offer? And I think when we look at habits, I think always for me, it's that point of curiosity where, you know, I like to be the dumbest guy in the room and sort of find out more from other people. And, you know, recently, or, you know, last, last year or so, I was on a course for the United States Olympic Committee. So it was 32 coaches from 32 different countries, all different sports. And we had to do, through the United States Olympic Committee and the IOC, we had to do a project basically. But I got to rub shoulders with 32 or 31 different walks of life. And you tell them your problems and they go, man, I wish I had that problem.

Yeah.

You know, my really good friend of mine now, Jeff, who coaches in Suriname, and you know, he's a judo coach. And I was like, yeah, my issue is boom, boom, boom, boom. And he goes, man, I wish I had that problem because I can't even get the Federation to answer my emails. And so I think that curiosity and just finding out what else is going on and also, you know, how are things done and, you know, why someone is the way they are. And I think that's been a big change in my coaching journey and philosophy is actually, you know, a lot of the work that Crusaders do and Ivan Cleary does, they look at, okay, yeah, you definitely belong here, but here's why you matter. Yeah. And I think actually going and understanding someone's upbringing, someone's background, why it is when, you know, like a lot of the times, like, you know, some athletes, like you challenge them, why do they default to this behavior? Oh, it turns out that this happened in the past. And that's why that's not the best way to get through to them. You know, and I think that's really been instrumental in my coaching. And again, if I didn't have a small team, I never would have learned any of that. If I was it was all dumped in a big, you know, already running machine, would never have been, you know, never learned these great lessons.

It's amazing. And Jason, you mentioned the 4 archetypes earlier. Do you want to explore those for a second? What are they? And there's going to be people listening right now that are involved in judo or martial arts, but there's going to be lots of people who aren't. And I imagine these archetypes will be applicable to anybody from any walk of life.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, effectively, I think I'm just reinventing the wheel with these, but I'll tell you how we came about them. So, One thing I found, because we've got a limited number of training partners, we have to be really, really creative with what we do. And one of those points of creativity was actually through campaign theming. And so in lead up to national championships here last year, we were kind of just getting a little bit stale. And again, you know, we touched on Jocko Willink earlier, you and I, and you know, he talks about extreme ownership. And I've never been a point-the-finger coach. I've always been, okay, you know, if there's a finger pointing at you, it's also pointing at me because what do I need to do to get the most out of you? And I just found that it was getting a little bit just sort of same old, same old. And yeah, we want to be chopping wood, carrying water, but we need to be doing that with enthusiasm and intention. And so what I did was I put it to the guys, said, right, we've got to build out a campaign. And the campaign we built out was actually superheroes. And so they all got to have an identity or an archetype around a superhero. Which they explained why and how they were that superhero, what the strengths, what the weaknesses were and all that sort of stuff. And that rolled through. Nationals went really, really well. We won 11 out of the 14 or 15 senior national titles. Yeah, which was fantastic.

Mind-blowing.

Yeah. And it's one of those ones where it's one of those days where they just started to come through, come through, come through. And then you kind of go, well, there's my evidence. You know, imposter syndrome always looms in the background, which talk about it a bit later, but it just sort of went, wow, this worked really, really well. And then we came up with, we're looking at campaign theming for this Oceania Championships, which was held in April, which was our sort of last big qualifier for the Commonwealth Games. And we're like, well, look, we've got to do it again. And with these things, I always put it to the athletes. And they came up with this sort of this idea of being almost like killers. And I said, well, let's make that a bit more PC, but the essence was in there, the juice just needed a bit more squeeze, you know? And what we did was actually worked out that there were 4 archetypes for them. So we have, as I say, you got the Architects, the Closers, the Engineers, and the Mavericks. So they all have extreme strengths, but they also have weaknesses that we need to look at. And so what we did was we had to, all right, I am this, I'd like to be more like. That. And so the architects, they're your classic, I guess you'd say, Type A. I spoke about that earlier where they are meticulous on their details. They are the ones I turn to when I go, hey, what will we do? And they'll have the information for me. What their strength is, is that they are always prepared for, you know, the upcoming events. They know exactly what they need to be. They do not miss a single training session. If they do, they've messaged me and they're making up the session here. Coach's dream, if you will.

Yeah.

So super funny point though, when we're doing our session, we were doing the archetypes thing. We got to the end, I said, hey guys, can you tell me something about the architects? And they all had their phones with their notes and they all read from their notes. No other archetype did that. And I said, so this, now we look at it, here goes the weakness. Because if you guys didn't have that phone right there off your list, how would you feel? Anxious, uncertain. And all that sort of stuff. So what we found was we had to do two things. One was try and make them more like other archetypes. And the other was also we had to actually go into a bit more detail and reverse engineer a lot of situations. Because again, they were the ones that were expecting magic. I don't know what I'm doing. I better not do anything. That was a freeze as opposed to fight or flight. So I won't do anything. And so what we had to do for them is say, we'll do simple beta. It doesn't work for them. Because for them simple is actually, okay, can you break down the scenario into all the 55 different possible outcomes for it? You know, and what I love was Jalen Brunson. He just won the NBA championship yesterday off the Knicks. And something he said in the press conference was, you're allowed to think of the worst case scenario. You're allowed to go for it. You're allowed to play it out through here, but then you've got to go do something about it. And so that's what we're doing with these guys. Yep, tell me, tell me your absolute biggest fears from this situation. And we go, cool. So that's the worst that can happen. So that's the architects. Your mavericks, they're the ones, as the movie, the name suggests, the mavericks, they're the ones that just do what they do. They're gunslingers. They pull out big throws. They get these big results. They get the big wins. But on the flip side, when that doesn't work, they don't have a process to fall back on. So they need to lean more into actually having a process. So I think of myself a little bit like that. Like I'm a bit cavalier. Like I'll decide I'm going to do something business or coaching-wise, you know, more so when I was younger, I'd go and do the thing and then afterwards I go, oh, okay. Oh, oh, well, if I just, you know, did that instead of that, that would have saved us, you know, all this trouble. So they are the ones that actually need to be more like your architects that actually build out a bit more of a process to what they do. And then we kind of stole from Pep Guardiola, who his whole thing is that 90% of the time it's business time and then the 10% is party time, you know, when they get into that goal area. And so with, we only had one Maverick in the team, but with him, it was a case of, right, you need to find this situation. Once you get to the situation, then party time, do what you want to do. Then we've got the Engineers. Now the Engineers are the ones that are just absolute workhorses. Now, again, engineer over here, the strength for them is that you will not outwork them. They will go absolutely all day long. But as we know about anything, you know, if you're beating your head against a brick wall instead of using a hammer, it's not always the best way.

100%.

Yeah. You know, and that's, yeah, that's what we find with the engineers, that they'll just completely work, but then they'll fixate. So they'll fixate on, I've got to work hard, I've got to do more, I've got to be getting more, and I've got to chase that grip even more. I've got to, And so with that, they fixate and they miss a lot of the, you know, the minute details, or if they take a breath and slow down, they can benefit from that. And so with them, they kind of need to be a little bit more like the Mavericks where they're okay to just like, just go for it, you know, but also a little bit more like the Architects as well. And then the final one we've got is the Closers. And we look at the Closers and they're just clinical. They just turn up, doesn't matter what the weather's doing. As long as they've had their breakfast, they're ready to perform. And, you know, we've got a couple of the closers in the team and the big strength with them is that they just, whatever the circumstance, so that sort of principle of requisite frequency, they can be super adaptable to what's coming at them. And the strength of that is that obviously they are able to just get the job done. Now the flip side of that though, sometimes if they're too adaptable, they end up going along with someone else's game plan. And so for the most part, they're 99.9% there, but we just need to every now and then remind them of the mission at hand and not just to get the job done no matter what.

That's brilliant. There's going to be so many people listening to this right now thinking about it from their own family perspective or maybe team perspective at work. And they're probably thinking, I'm that, or I'm a bit of that and a little bit of that. You might have some blends, but obviously we've got certain ones that we sit in as strengths. But your greatest strength is often your greatest weakness. Yeah, really cool that you bring that up. Now, as a coach, you've got the ultimate challenge, and that is that you coach Moira, your partner. That has got to be challenging. So what's your role as coach? And I mean, people don't really know right now what Moira is about to do, which is about to go and do something pretty damn exciting, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So I'll start off the exciting piece. So yeah, as of 2 weeks ago, the Commonwealth Games squad for New Zealand was named for judo. There's 8 athletes going, 4 of which are from my team. So, yeah, really, really grateful. See, the old me would have said lucky, but we're not lucky. You make your own luck, as you know. So very, very grateful that the guys' hard work has paid off. And the sort of, you know, the one that leads from the front always is Moira. So Moira and I first met Got together in 2011, end of 2011, 2012. We were both players at the time and she was kind of without a coach and, you know, I was always a player coach and so sort of took her under my wing. She's been to two Olympics, first and only ever New Zealander to go to two Olympics in different weight categories. She's been to two Commonwealth Games and as you just mentioned, she's about to go to a third. She medaled in both the ones previous. And in 2022 she had the most historic year of any judo New Zealand athlete ever. I think she won, it was 8 or 9 medals at international competitions. This was post, 3, 4 years post having our daughter Nora. And yeah, she's an extremely driven, extremely determined individual, but with that, you know, stubborn Dutch background, stubborn lady of a South African background, we had to work really, really, really hard on our rules of engagement. And again, it was one of those things where we were both right but for the wrong reasons a lot of the time. And a lot of things would drift over from judo into home or home into judo. And what we did was we became very, very, very good at actually being able to have some role clarity there. And the first thing we did was actually, you know, waited until we're both in the blue zone as opposed to being in the red to actually have a real proper discussion. And, you know, actually setting that clarity. And I know it's something you talk about in your book is actually, you know, your hierarchy of importance. So that's my words, not yours. Yours is, yeah, WMI, what's most important. You know, having that hierarchy of importance. Okay, first of all, at the end of the judo career, we don't want to be getting divorced. You know, we want to still be, you know, we're an extremely loving and passionate family. We still want to keep that. So that was number one priority. So with that, it became a rule that anything that had to do with judo, we had to get it out at the club. And then as soon as we got in those cars and drove home, we were back to just being husband and wife. Second thing was looking at the needs. And again, like there's a great saying, whose needs are being met? Our big thing in our relationship outside of judo is always towards. So are our actions towards the other person? And so when we looked at it in the judo side of things, there were a lot of times where I was probably putting my needs ahead of hers. And what I mean by that is that, you know, she's come off after a hard fight. And I give it a classic coaching spray because she did X, Y, and Z wrong. But ultimately, she's already been hard enough on herself. What benefit is it for me doing that? And so with that, it was really a lot of apologizing on my side for times where, you know, hey, I got this one wrong. You know, I just want to apologize, put my hand up. And I think that that really actually had a massive impact on me coaching everyone because, you know, I've always been an apologize first. If I've done something wrong, I'll put my hand up and just admit that to everyone because I don't think it's very fair that coaches are held to a higher standard than, you know, the players or anyone else in society. So, you know, with that, um, I think, you know, I learned this from a guy, Jason McKenzie, who was a men's skills coach as well that we've worked with, and he spoke about you lead through vulnerability. And I think by me being a bit vulnerable and actually apologizing on times, it let my athletes and Moira, obviously, um, they could express their vulnerabilities to me as well, you know, before an event. Hey, I'm really nervous for this one. Okay, well, you know, let's just go through our process and let's just remind ourselves, remember that, you know, we always get nervous. And isn't that the exciting part about what we do? That's why not everyone can do it. You know, things like that and just being able to work through it all. But we both played a role really, really well. When we go overseas, again, because we travel a lot, yep, we're husband and wife, but we also know when to turn it on and be athlete and coach. And the other really, really interesting thing is because of Moira's standard being so high, you know, at her peak she was top 16 in the world. Which for someone being based in New Zealand is unheard of up until that. I hold her to an extremely high standard, like we talked about earlier. So all the other athletes in the team, none of them can really be complaining that I'm holding them to a standard because she's out to a higher standard. And, you know, with that, she drags everybody else up, you know, and it's just, it's been a, remove the wife from it, remove the, you know, our relationship. It's just an absolute pleasure to coach someone like that because they just prove a lot of things that are said to not be possible wrong.

Yeah. And I love the idea that you're driven by standards. And at the end of the day, the highest performers have standards that they maintain and they are uncomfortable at times, but they're the things that really drive performance. The other thing you mentioned there, I want to just highlight for the listener, the way I heard you say it was like, you know, we knew when to be in this role, husband and wife, and we know where to be player coach. I think of that as tap on, tap off. And it's like, okay, we've got the tap on, we're in judo mode, tap on, full focus. As soon as we step off the mat or out of the building, tap's back off and we'll put the husband and wife tap on. And when it's on, we're not turning the other— both taps can't be on at the same time. And I love that you've got that separation with being a coach, whether it's with Moira or with others. I imagine it's really important to get clear on what success looks like. So what's our goals? Where are we headed? And I'm a big believer in goal setting. I've got my goals written over here. I think about them every now and then, meditate on them. But some coaches are like fully, it's the win, it's the win, it's the win. Others go, actually, we know what the win is. We want it. This is the process. This is the habit. And they focus on the controllable here. For you, what's more important? Continually focusing on the win or the controllable?

Most important for me is make good people. So it was something that, you know, when we founded our club, our club's only 8 years old. And I remember it was the mission statement of the club right from the word go. We had to leave the other environment because it wasn't quite what we were hoping for, not only from a high performance point of view, but from a culture point of view. And so between me, my late father and my wife Moira, we start our own club and the club's name is Premier Équipe, which in French translates to first team or number one team. But for us, it's actually the other way around. It's team first. And so no one's above the team. And so I think when your focus is making good people, then the standard and the outcome isn't as important. Because the standard outcome is always going to be there. As someone that, you know, missed— I effectively missed two Olympics by one spot. And, you know, my coach Fiona, that was my coach when I was studying, you know, she said to me after I missed the first one, she said, look, it's the journey. It's the journey that's most important. And, you know, yeah, sure, it took me 14 years to realize that. But yeah, it's now very much a really, really important thing. So I think when you talk about that process for me as a coach, again, a contemporary of mine, he said, you'll know you're a successful coach if you turn up at an ex-athlete's wedding uninvited and they make a seat for you.

Yeah.

And I was like, wow, that kind of, it was one of those real, you talked about meditating. I meditate or muse a lot on these sort of Stoics or these sayings. And I think ultimately that really, really resonated with me. Like, you know, you hear of coaches or like, you know, Andre Agassi's father, for an example. Yeah, okay, Andre Agassi was this, but no longer has a functioning, you know, no longer had a functional relationship with his kid. And so when I look at myself as a coach, I want— I can't want your goals for you. I can't want what you want for you. I can create the standard knowing what it took to miss out on two Olympics. I can tell you what the standard is to miss out on two Olympics. And so the standard to get to those Olympics is that much higher. And so, you know, there's a great saying, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. And so with my athletes, whenever we have these crucial conversations, you know, the 10% of the time where I have to sort of, you know, put the dad voice on, you know, when you have these crucial conversations, I just say to them, look, you have told me that this is your goal. All I'm doing right now is holding you to the standard to achieve that goal. Okay, if you're offended by the standard that I'm holding you to, then we need to have a chat and look at what the standard should be. Yeah, because again, if— again, you can't— you know, that's the old thing, you can't have a million-dollar dream with a $1 work ethic, you know. And I'm very, very, very ambitious with what we want to achieve, but I'm extremely realistic about the process to get there. And I often explain it to my athletes, if we're on the mat 5 to 6 times a week, if you miss one session, that's 20% of your weekly training gone. So, as far as standards and expectation goes, I just simply hold them to the standards that are in line with the goals that they've set for me, or they've set for themselves, sorry. And as I say, there are times where, you know, why is this person not dum dum dum? It's like, okay, cool. So, their standard is to win a medal at the Canterbury Champs. You know, your standard is to go to the moon. And we say that because, you know, in judo, there's only ever been, I think I'll get my numbers wrong, but when we started our high performance squad 2 years ago, there'd only ever been, I believe, 13 people that have actually landed on the moon. And on the same token, it'd only have actually been 13 Olympic gold medalists in the sport of judo for each given weight group. So I said, we are literally trying to land a man on the moon. You know, so yeah, then that's the thing, right? Ambitious about the goal, but realistic about the process. And so, you know, with that, it's really, really important that with the athletes, you know, I, you know, you love the puzzle, you love the pieces. I I love the pieces. I love the pieces of the puzzle. And by putting that detail into the processes and refining and just making things that much more efficient, the puzzle will look after itself. You know, I think it's just a consequence of that passion for the detail.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then, hey, look, even if you get to the end of it and the puzzle wasn't quite what you want, you've had a great journey as we talked about earlier. And I learned, you know, yeah. And I think that's the thing. And I look at that when I look at the athletes that are no longer part of my judo team or that have gone on to do other things, I can proudly say that, you know, I'd say 90% of them, 95%, probably even more, I'd still be invited to their wedding.

Says a lot. And it's interesting, you know, when you think about winning. So often when I walk on stage, they'll say, 'James is a 7-time world champion,' and I, once I get on stage, I'm like, 'Guys, thanks for that. However, you could equally have welcomed me on stage and said James is a 10-time world champion loser. Like, I've lost it way more times than I've won it, and I've learned way more from the losses and going, well, why did it not perform well? Why did the adjudication panel not buy into that performance? And no different from you not making the Olympics, I imagine you would look back at that loss but actually take the learnings and go, that was one of the most valuable things that have shaped my coaching shaped my life.

Yeah, and that's, that's a huge thing. And I think there's two pieces to that. I think number one, and I learned this again after missing out on the first, probably still a little bit there in the second, but when you look at that hierarchy of importance and it's like, well, actually, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a jaded, bitter ex-coach that's trying to live through his athletes, or even worse, live through his children. And so when I looked at what's most important to me, it was that, you know, right, the four walls of my house, I've got I've got two amazing children. I've got a beautiful wife. I've got two dogs that I tolerate. You know, it's like, and the hierarchy of things, you know, I actually, I didn't want to be one of these coaches that still regrets, you know, not going to the Olympics. And yet there are times if I really drill down and think about it, I'll probably get quite upset about it. But now I look at what it has unlocked and everything else. And if I went to an Olympics, I probably wouldn't be coaching or the coach that I try to be at the moment. And it was really, really cool. One thing Mum said to me, you know, when I did retire was, your ceiling needs to be your athlete's basement. And I think that's so, so true. Yeah. Because a lot of the time with martial arts as well, the martial arts hierarchy is a little bit backwards. It's always sensei or sifu or master coach right at the top and everyone else stays below them. And unfortunately, in a lot of models with that, the coaches or the senseis never like their students to do better than them, as silly as this sounds. Because then people forget about what they are. But ultimately, as I said, for me, it's like, well, I come home, my four walls, my kids love me, my wife loves me, my dogs love me. That's, that's all that matters, right? And I don't want to, I don't want to ever hold on to being trying to be, you know, the, the toughest guy at the bar or the, the strongest one on the mat. And I think by having that vulnerability and by, you know, losing, it taught me a lot about you know, kind of to your point, you know, when you go for those losses, you have to look deep down and realize, and you know, I come back to my why as to why I really wanted to do that. And a lot of it was around the whole, you know, showing that Kiwis can fly. You know, it's just actually was a lot of it about, hey, let's, let's put ourselves on the world stage. Let me prove, you know. And I have this really like sort of clear moment when I was going to a tournament and I was fighting a guy from Tunisia and his coach, that's obviously French speaking. I was lucky enough to live in a year in France for a year and train with their national team. And so I picked up enough French understand things. And the coach was talking to him about me, watch out for this, make sure you don't do this. And I was like, oh, they actually respect me on this world stage, you know. And that kind of was a big breakthrough for me because it kind of made me realize that actually we do belong here. And that's, again, that's that handbrake that I grew up with that I don't want any of my athletes to have. So, you know, ambitious with the goals, realistic about the process. But you'll never once hear me with my athletes, you know, talk about not having the right to do something. They've all earned the right to win. They're all training as much as the guys overseas. And if anything, you know, we're doing it harder because we're amateurs. You know, they're in fully funded national teams, all that sort of stuff. They are, you know, a lot of them are paid athletes, whereas, you know, we're going to do the extra. So, you know, that's, that's for why for me it was never an issue about it mattering more or me wanting it more because, you know, I outwork everybody. And, you know, for me it was that, well, I've had to work harder to get here. 'Let me show you how much harder I can work than you, now that I am here.' It's a great mindset, I really love it.

And Jason, I want to say, I love the work that you do in this area. So we're both in Christchurch, you and I, so for anyone that's listening who's local, can you remind us the name of your club and how they can come and get in contact?

Yeah, of course. So it's Premier Keep Judo Club. So yeah, if you look up Premier Keep or judo clubs in Christchurch, you'll easily find us. I am just as proud of our whole community program as I am our high performance program. And that was a big model that I built was the high performance program inside a community space. So it works really well. We're just down in Bromley. And I like that being based in the east side. We're good working class bunch of guys that don't take ourselves too seriously, but get some good results out of it all.

I love it. Now I'll put a link in the show notes as well, mate. One last question for you. So for the person right now that has their thinking and their thoughts just on negative, on the problem, on the predicament that they're facing right now, what's your advice for them?

So I'm again, stand on the shoulders of giants. And in New Zealand, they don't get that much bigger than Sir Edmund Hillary. And I'll tell you a quick story. So 10 weeks before the Olympic Games in 2024, at one of the last qualifying events, Moira completely tore her ACL. We're talking grade 3 for those that are familiar with the ACL sort of gradings. And that's effectively gun to head, that's a 9 to 12 month recovery, surgery, et cetera, et cetera. We got told this information, we had just finished this competition was in Brazil. We'd gone up to Houston to see some friends of ours and we got this information. We got an MRI there, you know, in America you get MRI and then we're driving the car, we get the information through. And I remember we were going to Walmart of all places, and I said to, you know, Moira was obviously pretty upset, and, you know, my friends really understood the situation. I said, look, you guys go inside, I just got to do some stuff here. Went inside, I just bawled my eyes out, you know, for about 2 or 3 minutes. And one of the good things about being an old man that walks with a limp is I've been through a lot of things. And one thing I had been through was a very similar injury, and it took me 100 days to recover from it. And so I was like, okay, cool, this can be done. We've got 83 days. Moira's tougher than me. And so I spent the whole time there finding out all the different things, the witchcraft, the proven things. We had a hyperbaric chamber in our house. Moira was in that 3 hours a day on top of doing all the other things that we found out. Anyway, story ends. She's doing all the right things, but rightfully so, some of the sports physicians saying, we don't know if this is a good idea, et cetera, et cetera. Edmund Hillary famously said, you know, we knew that climbing the mountain wasn't a great idea, but we did it anyway. And I think the thing that you find when you set out for something that's extremely ambitious is that, you know, again, it's not the safe play, it's not necessarily the best idea, it's not always the right time, but you do it anyway. And I look at, again, you can point out all my failings, and, and there's probably a list far longer and far greater than my successes, but you know, as Roger Federer famously said, he only won 53% of games that he ever played. And it just shows you that that margin between high performance and absolute success and failure is so minute. So, my thing has always just been, we'll just do it anyway. You know, we'll always find a way. It'll always work out. And even, you know, if it didn't work out the way that you wanted to, you know, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. So, Yeah, I think the biggest thing about that is that again, your goal needs to scare you a little bit, your targets need to scare you a little bit, then you've got to refine it down, realistic about the process. And I think from that, you know, that fear is a driver. I spoke a little bit earlier about imposter syndrome and, you know, some people look at that as this real, like, you know, this real bad thing. I look at it as a bit of a superpower because I have imposter syndrome. I'm always trying to be better and I'm always trying to, you know, validate my worth like a Warren Fitness. You know, I've got to show that, hey, I am doing the right things. I am upgrading. I am upskilling. So, yeah, I guess the big thing is, again, that goal should scare you a little bit, but also, you know, you just got to do it anyway.

Yeah, I like that. Do it anyway and always find a way. I really like that. I'll write those down. Jason, I want to say a huge thanks for taking the time out this morning to connect and for what you're doing in our community and the fact that you're a walking example of what high performance actually looks like. And it's doing the work in the dark with nobody watching so that you can come out and shine in the light. So thanks a million, keep up the great work.

No, I appreciate the time, James. And yeah, thanks everyone that's listened. Then, as you say, if people want to get in touch, you can find me pretty easily through Premier Keep Judo Club.

Absolutely, I'll put those links in the show notes.

Thank you.

Cheers, Jason.

Cheers, see ya.