Alex Auerbach - Creating an Unfair Advantage

If you enjoy this conversation with Alex Auerbach, we are launching a substack newsletter in January 2022 called Unfair Advantage. In Unfair Advantage, we're going to explore the intersection of psychology and coaching, the science, the questions, the practical applications, and how you can rapidly accelerate your ascent to the top of your competition. And more importantly, stay there. To keep up to speed with when the newsletter launches, head to codyroyal.comunfair and register your email. In the meantime, enjoy where others won't. 85 with Toronto Raptors director of Wellness and Development Alex Auerbach. Alex Auerbach, how are you mate?

I'm great. It's good to see you. Excited to do this with you finally.

I know, I know, it's great to see you. And yeah, I guess bring one of these conversations online and record it because we have them anyway. That's why I'm so looking forward to this, because I know where this can go and some of the ideas that can come out of it. But I'll just throw us straight into the fire here. One of the things that we've always talked about is kind of bringing together the ideas of a head coach and a psychologist in terms of creating a really high performing and dynamic organizations and environments. And most of the things we talk about or text about tend to be in that kind of realm. And then within that, one of the ideas that we've really bandied around is this idea of high performance knowledge work and of psychologists and coaches and executives which within those environments being knowledge workers, but really at this next level of the traditional office worker where there's really priming that needs to be done and even rewiring of the brain to really operate at that high performing level. So I mean, I'll just throw it over to you, but where does your mind go initially around that idea that we've been throwing about?

Yeah, well, I think we have to start by giving you credit for the terminology because I think I only latched onto it when I heard you deliver that in a presentation and it's resonated with me. And so where my mind goes is really to like, huh? That is where if we could get executives, coaches, leaders in these organizations to really identify with that concept and to really internalize that and start to think of themselves in their own performance as critical to the performance of the players and the overall organization, we might really be onto something there. You know, I think that so often there's a strong tendency. I'm not sure it's a preference, but it's definitely a tendency to prioritize player health and wellness, and rightfully so. Right. Like they're the ones out there sort of delivering on the floor, on the field. And so I think that really matters. But oftentimes that comes at the expense of the performance of the people around them. And it doesn't always have to. You know, there are certainly some times when, you know, coaches or staff will have to make sort of a higher level sacrifice or lifestyle decision that may not be the best in the short term, but oftentimes that sort of bleeds into just the way things are done here, if you will. And so to me, it's kind of like that's, that's what I really latched onto about this idea is like, I think if you start to think of yourself as a high performance knowledge worker, it does change your priorities a little bit, it does reorganize your goals a little bit. Um, but that's just my kind of gut take. I mean you, like I said, you were the one who kicked this off. So like, for you, I think I would pitch that back to you. Like, when you originated that concept, what was the idea behind it? How did you come up with that terminology? What resonated for you?

Yeah, it was a little bit by mistake. It's not a natural area for me to really think about and maybe to back up a little bit. So knowledge work is a Drucker ism. Peter Drucker, famous management guru, let's call him an author, and came up with this idea that knowledge work was essentially where knowledge, or the knowledge of the workers added to the assets available to an organization. And so what he was describing was the modern office worker marketers and accountants and consultants and things like that. And so their knowledge is really powerful as assets for an organization. But then, yeah, when I kind of saw that idea and what I'd been noodling around in terms of was really about depletion, I was looking at it the other way around and what depletion of the brain does to knowledge and what it does to communication and what it does to awareness and what it does to decision making. And so, yeah, I kind of started backwards a little bit. And then when I started to look at it forwards in terms of what we could do with it if we identified as performers and said, well, you know, the title of the chapter is you're hired for your brain. You know, and if you're hired for your brain, then you're obligated to protect your brain. So athletes are hired for their bodies, their athletic capacity and Capability, whereas coaches and executives are hired for their brains. And so it kind of begets them to start to have to look, look after it.

I think it's interesting that you came at it from sort of like the inverse a little bit and looked at it from, from a depletion perspective. But I think everything you said just resonates so much for me, you know, And I can remember talking with coaches or people I've worked with in the varied organizations I've been a part of and sort of hitting on like, you know, when you're making a decision about a player to, you know, say go after in recruiting, for example, like, don't you think you would better evaluate that player if you were well rested? Like, wouldn't it be better, wouldn't you see this player differently if you slept 8 hours versus 3 hours? And is there, is there something to that? Like, does that, you know, at all shade the way that you do this work and then think about, you know, obviously you can extrapolate that to decisions on the field, their decisions on the court. And I think in some way, like, it's interesting because it's kind of like counter sport culture a bit, right? It's the idea that like there's so much embedded in sport that we just got to grind it out forever. And then eventually by grinding it out, we'll sort of like make diamonds. And that might be possible, but it might also be that you might just find diamonds without doing that if you could look more clearly. And so it just, it's fascinating to me that you arrived there from a coach's perspective too, because you, I would imagine we're probably facing some of those pressures that a lot of coaches face, which is sort of like, you know, some of the cliches, right? If you're not working the other opponents working and outworking you, you know, you're responsible for this group of people and your well being rests in their hands and they look up to you, you know. So I'm curious, kind of like what that shift was like for you when you came up with this idea. You piece these ideas together and you're living in a world where you're facing the pressures that push against that. Like, how did you make sense of that?

Yeah, I probably subliminal, subliminally knew that this was going on. And the reason is that in my sport of Aussie rules, there's essentially no such thing as tournaments. So we play leagues in Australia. And then I was a tournament based coach with the national program. And so that whole World was even very foreign to me. So going to a place for two weeks and playing five games in that stretch and doing all your review, all your prep, all of your training, all of your analysis, all of your stats on two day increments was just so foreign to me in general. And the only way that I could think of to get through it was.

To just plow through it.

But like, I mean, I'll tell you so in 2017 when we went to Melbourne, I was in the most bizarre space I think I've ever been in as a coach. In that I was so exhausted just getting the team onto the plane to get to Melbourne and then so anxious for the entire three weeks we were there. Like I was having to drink alcohol to get myself to sleep, which meant that I was not sleeping well and getting up early because I was thinking and then so that your day is already, you know, in a bizarre place when you're awake, you know, again, living in a hotel, nutrition poor, having to get basically yeah, like massage almost at the end of every day to try to get some sort of, you know, state of sleep based on the alcohol that you've tried to consume to take your mind off things to. And it just becomes this cycle and the only way that you, you can, even if you recognize that the only way you can think of is to try to just continue to smash through the wall and be like, well I may as well either try to go harder at this or. And so that's kind of what I was thinking of personally as, as I was thinking through this concept and just how the impact is felt by the players. So your ability to make those decisions, particularly in game really high stress environments and you know, again I was thinking about it from a depletion perspective and what we know about the brain is the astronomical effects of depletion and tiredness on awareness, communication and decision making. The three things we have to do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like if you boil it down basically a head coach does those three things and those three things only and you just, you're already setting yourself behind the eight ball. And so yeah, maybe all of that is to say like having put myself through it, no one else was to blame for that. Having put myself through it, maybe I was resonating with it a little bit stronger than others. And again my circumstances being torment based is I got to stop at the end of it and look back at it and go holy shit, what did I do? Whereas coaches that are in season and it's just straight into draft and straight into the next one. Don't really have that time to stop.

Right. Yeah. Your story, I can just imagine, resonates with several coaches. I mean, there have obviously been more popular sort of public coaches who have come forward about issues with substance use and things like that. And I think the lifestyle is incredible, incredibly challenging. But what you said at the end really struck me, which was this idea that, like, actually by just pushing through, you were sort of behind the eight ball. And I think so much of sport, both for players and coaches and staff, is the idea that somehow pushing through is better always. And I actually just read this interesting article, is about stress mindsets in Navy seals. And it turned out that, you know, believing that stress was enhancing was the best mindset a Navy SEAL could have. Their. Their teammates liked them more, they performed better, they persisted longer. Believing stress was harmful was obviously not great. But there was this third mindset they looked at which was this kind of, like, sport mindset. This, like, will can get me through anything. Like, just keep pushing. And it actually turned out that didn't help performance, but it actually made your teammates like you last too. And I thought that was really interesting because it was sort of like it spoke to the disconnect that the seals had with the reality of the rest of the experience. And I think when you talk about kind of the impact on players and some of these interpersonal dynamics, that piece is really interesting. Players are incredibly smart and perceptive, you know, so they know when something is up. And they may not know exactly what it is, but they have a sense when, you know, decision making is off, or coaches and aware of something. And so I think that's a really interesting point because it's almost like maybe part of the shift is how do you get people to see that this kind of approach puts you ahead and not behind, but everybody else might be doing it a different way. And I think that that seems to be, like, the scary part big time.

That is the hurdle. And I don't think there can be any more meaningful research or literature into any of these areas around performance and the mental space and team dynamics and the impact of it. For us to have to sit there objectively and say, yes, there is an issue here, but, yeah, the next steps I see are an acceptance of the role of a performer, which could be a really critical juncture in that what the acceptance does is it creates conversations that haven't happened before. So what does that mean for a coach? What do they present to the team in terms of the way that they're going to be coached the way that the coach will show up in the environment or even better, when will they not be in the environment because they're at home in bed? And why. And if there's a group that, that should make sense to, it should be elite athletes where they're going through that same experience as well of having to live into performance. And they understand that, look, whether I do it or not, I should be at home at this time in bed. And I know the impact of an afternoon nap before a 7pm game. And if I feel clearer, I reckon coach will as well if he gets to have one. And yeah, so again, there might be a middle point of just those conversations coming from the acceptance of that as a core part of being an elite leader that might generate some really interesting conversations that just haven't happened before.

Yeah, I love that. I love that idea. Because there is something really powerful in the athlete being able to identify with the coach in that way and the coach being able to identify with the athlete in that way. And there's sort of like shared experience around the pursuit of excellence. Right. Like we are both trying to be great at what we do. And in large part it requires a lot of the same things like good nutrition, sleep, exercise structure, a positive work environment. Like there are a lot of things that, that would help both parties be successful. And yet, you know, those conversations don't happen. And maybe that's a vulnerability based issue. I mean, I'm sure they happen, they do happen at some places, but by and large I'm not aware of a ton of people having those conversations, let's say. And so is that like a, is that a vulnerability issue on the coaches part of the athletes part? Is that sort of a larger sport culture issue? Is that a mix of both? I just think that's like a really, you know, people might miss the sort of powerful impact that kind of connection could have and that resonance around. We're both sort of chasing the same thing, but we're chasing it in different areas. And it may also, you know, I'm just thinking kind of downstream, but is that the kind of thing that can reduce conflict between coaches and athletes? Whether there's conflict around selection decisions or conflict around practice schedules or playing time? You know, it's sort of like a deeper appreciation of what everyone's after because it goes beyond the sort of outcome of each game. The other thing it makes me think of though, which I guess we could address as part of the larger cultural conversation, is sort of like, you know, where do Those expectations come from that coaches or management will be always on, always accessible. And, you know, what data is there to support that that produces better outcomes? Or is that just the way we've always done it? Is it a mix of both? You know, I genuinely don't know, but I think that would be an important piece of this to address as well. Knowing that, in fact, the people probably making those decisions or structuring that environment would probably also benefit from the same things. You would probably also benefit from some sleep and good nutrition and all that. So it's just. I mean, there's so many layers to it, but there seems like there's this thread that people could really connect around in terms of, you know, wanting to be great at what they're doing.

Yeah. And just to build on that, I think part of that acceptance process and that communication becomes. Look, there has to be realistic conversations. We're not talking about doing nothing or doing significantly less. And I position it like this, we are not talking about balance in professional sport. There is no such thing. What we're talking about is greater balance. So greater balance than we've had. So the, you know, the seesaw, or what do you guys call it? Teeter totter, what do Americans call that thing?

I think seesaw or teeter totter both work.

So whatever you call that thing, it's moving it closer to the middle, not to the middle. And so that's part of it too. But that then again creates a conversation around. And maybe these conversations haven't happened either. Is coach to athlete conversations around. Well, what do you actually need from me and why? Like, why is it helpful? Do you need all the video? Do you not want all the video? Do we need to cut up these particular patterns? Is 10 defensive principles for the next opposition? Is it too many? Do we even need that? And so you can kind of really start to see how a structured environment can also facilitate this sense of greater balance and coaching performance as well as athlete performance. Because you're kind of forced into these conversations around what is necessary and what is kind of superfluous. Because to your point, the coach that I had when I was growing up, he did that. So I've just built on top of it and made more of it under the assumption that more is better.

Yeah, I think that last point is critical, the assumption that more is better. And I think it's also, you raised an excellent point, which is that I think sometimes when people think about restructuring life in this way, they do immediately jump to an extreme, which is going from, say, like 100 working hours a week to 20 working hours a week. And I think you're right. Like the greater balance concept or one that I've played around with is the idea of harmony. Like, you know, the pursuit of balance in a pure sense, 50, 50 work and home for, for anyone that's pursuing really high level goals is probably impossible and may not actually be helpful, right. In the pursuit of those goals. Like, you may need a little bit of doggedness, you may need a little bit of extra time and commitment to really reach that, and that is okay. But that can tip into a space of disarray or unhelpfulness, right? Whether that's impacting family life or impacting how you communicate with your players, right. Communicate with the staff around. You know, all of those are sort of adverse consequences of that over pursuit or over pushing of what that is. And it reminds me a little bit of like, you know, when people grip really tightly to something. Like inevitably you get fatigued and you have to let go and you can actually persist longer if you sort of relax your grip a little bit and held on. Like, we're not saying completely let go, we're just saying sort of like ease up and breathe into it and find that harmony. And so I think that that point is, is really important. And I guess, like, you know, I want to, I'm going to push because I think you've got such an interesting, like, experience with this. Like, is there anything, if you think back to that sort of tournament experience, is there anything that could have happened environmentally, like for the people around you or the, you know, not knowing fully the organizational structure you were in, like the sort of powers that be that were guiding you toward what you needed to accomplish at this tournament. Is there anything they could have done environmentally that would have allowed you to pursue that greater harmony?

That's a great question. I think the answer is always yes. Now, whether at that time in my coaching journey I would have been open to, to a lot of that, I also don't know. And I still think a lot of the mistakes were of my own making rather than some sort of environmental factor that could have been solved with, I mean, more resources. You can always say yes. But then you start to enter the question of where is the tipping point of helpfulness versus just throwing human bodies at something which again could have created more stress because that's just more management for the head coach, right?

So.

Yeah, I mean, the answer is yes. But then, yeah, you start to very quickly get into that. When does that then Put you back into that same state of depletion and just having to slog through by managing more different stuff. So. And maybe that even raises an interesting point in terms of where that actual legitimate performance zone sits around the size of things and the size of staffs. And, you know, because again, we're kind of over the last 20 years, if you look at the growth in sporting departments, in organizations, it is off the charts. It's like bitcoin off the charts. That, like, throwing humans at the problem to me, doesn't always solve the problem. There's actually a lot of. There's a lot of innovation that comes from even potentially being slightly under resourced and having to decide what's important and having to have tough conversations about what really is important. Like, I know you follow soccer closely. I look at someone like Brentford and what they've done. That the analytics piece is very interesting from a nice news story, and I really like that side of what they've done. But what I'm really interested in is they've taken that same approach and brought it into how they manage the club and done things like, we're not going to have an academy before. I think it's under 21s or under 19s. So, you know, they, again, resource restrictions don't have endless money. It's literally they're surrounded by Chelsea, Fulham and I think Queen's Park Rangers. So they're just like, well, we're not even going to compete in that because we think we can garner better use of our resources over here and become late investors in players rather than early investors. And so now if they had all the resources in the world and all the money in the world, they make a different decision.

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. I mean, I think in my mind, where I was going or thinking about what the question was like, I wonder if someone just needed to give you permission. You know, I wonder if someone needed to just give you permission to be like, harmonious in what you were doing. But then I hear all these other questions that you're sort of raising, which I think are also valid. Right. Like, one of the things that I think is. Is tough sometimes in sport is, you know, it's kind of like a lot of fields, I think, have gone this way toward, you know, really specialized people in. In specific roles to solve really specific problems. And that's also valuable. Like, there is merit to those positions. But, you know, it does create managerial challenges for the people who are sort of one layer above that now managing a Larger headcount. And, you know, I think. I think that's relevant too. And your point about sort of resourcing and innovation, I think is. Is interesting. And I know Ben Littleton wrote an awesome book called Edge about all these European soccer clubs who pursued these kind of unique competitive advantages in large part based on the resources they had or where they were geographically or what was available to them. And I think that that's, you know, I think that that's a valid sort of, like, way of looking at it too. You know, I think that that speaks to sort of like the identity Brentford's creating. Right. Like, this is how they're. They're sort of building their program and what they're standing on, and they're finding creative ways to do it. But, you know, we're sort of going down two paths, I guess. But I think it's interesting to sort of consider like, the. The role of the resourcing and supporting the head coach. It's also interesting to consider the role, the resourcing in terms of the identity of the club and what that means for. With a larger sort of like, how people are functioning. Because I do think under resourced probably also means overworked a little bit. And overworked might not be bad. It might not be super harmful, but it may not be optimal either. And I think that's like, the trade off between fine and good is actually pretty big or finding great is pretty big. And so I think that point is also worth sort of unpacking a little.

Bit, talking of identity, just to loop those ideas together and then I want to change direction a little bit. But you can also create small and mighty as a mindset off the back of that, and I think that into itself can help. And again, like, that's the opposite of huge and endless. That's not a. That's not a kind of a mindset that people easily get behind necessarily. So, yeah, very interesting and nuanced. And, yeah, there is a middle ground in there. I want to come back to, really your role and sports psychology in general and how we can potentially move the needle in my world around things like wellness and even just general psychological principles more so ingrained in both our culture, but also our coaching practice and how that can really help move the needle in terms of some of the things that we're even talking about, but obviously more so for our athletes and the impact it can have on them and their performance.

Yeah, I mean, it's a broad. It's a broad subject. There's a lot of places we could go with it. I think I would push you a little bit. I would challenge you a little bit on the idea that I think that coaches can benefit from this stuff too. I know you know that, but I think, you know, we're sort of focusing on athletes and I think that's a great way to take it. But to also know that many of the same principles would apply to any coach or executive who thinks of themselves as a high performer. Right. And I think, you know, to me, ultimately this is kind of the starting point of really, really high level performance. You know, to get to the NDA, for example, right. You do need a baseline of physical ability. There. There is just a reality that there's like a physical cutoff essentially. Right. That, that you've got to meet and, and a level of skill and, you know, prior knowledge and experience is valuable and intelligence and those things are really important, important, you know, and I think that that also bleeds into like it does. I think to reach the very peak of what you want to do, it does. Does require a bit of work on the mindset too.

Yeah. And as an extension of that, and hopefully this is that entry point to more consideration around this, I think the most interesting idea from a coaching perspective, and you and I have talked about this a little bit, is really getting into things like training design and practice design using those psychological principles as the base for the design rather than the tech and tack, which is what it currently is. So we're just trying to. We use drill as we're just going to drill this particular skill or this technical knowledge into the players based on them running past these cones. But the next level of it, I think, starts to become a psychological base that builds that technical and tactical ability as well. But really it's got a performance mindset idea underpinning the whole thing.

I love it, man. I love it because I think you're spot on. And there are so many layers to that, right. There's the layer of skill acquisition and real learning. Right. Like, is the player actually absorbing what you're asking them to absorb by repeating this drill, for example, over and over again? Or is this just sort of like a part of practice that we do because we think we should do it and we believe that it might translate. Is there a real clear link between what we're asking players to do in practice and what we're asking them to do in games? Are we structuring the environment in a way that creates mental states that might parallel games and practice? So for example, like, there's a lot of really interesting research out there around circadian rhythms and how, you know, they rise and fall and peak at certain points. And so are we practicing at a time when, say, an athlete's in a little bit of a lull, and then what does that do for focus? And is that going to translate to now like a hyper or aroused activated sport environment? Right. Those are things that are really important for people to think about. And I think, you know, again, we've gone through a lot of, you know, sports psychology, I think, is kind of like the latest sports scientist to the, to the table. You know, at first, I think it was strength and conditioning and then athletic training and then nutrition and, you know, and consistent with sort of like Western health ideals. Right. The mind is the last part to come around. But, you know, we have a lot of influence in this, in this space, and there's a lot we can offer. And so, you know, I think that piece is, is really, really important. And then you're right. We can get into, you know, what is the kind of optimal state for performing this particular skill, and what do we want you to be thinking and feeling, and how do we want to direct your attention, and how can we make sure you're acquiring this in the most helpful way? And similarly, like, you can extend it to interpersonal relationships, you can extend it to the team as a whole. Like, there's just so much room for the influence of how we're performing, behaving, connecting to really influence the outcome of the team. And I think I'd be curious from your perspective as a coach, knowing you didn't have as many resources perhaps as you would have liked for you, if you were dreaming big about the role of a sports psychologist in your program, what would that look like?

That's a great question. So I know the answer immediately, but I haven't seen many do it. And that is that I see the optimal position for a sports psychologist to essentially sit beside their head coach as a subject matter expert and essentially coach the coaches. So the delivery still comes through the coaches. So the head coach and the assistant coaches, but the research and the ideas around that activation essentially come through the psychologist. So I come to Alex and I'm like, what was that research point that you talked about about the seals? Or how do I. How do I talk to this athlete about that concept that you mentioned last week? Like, what are the key points that I need to get across to him or her? And then I still go and deliver it, but it's informed by the psychologist who can, again, specialize in being an expert and researching the latest things that we can grab onto and create an advantage out of. And the reason I think about it like that is a couple of reasons. One, I'm a massive fan, more of the integration model of infusing psychology into the things that we already use. But then also I'm interested in moving sports psychology away from the idea of the white lab coat in the room and the kind of clinical. Again, it's a social thing that we just immediately jump to light bulb, couch, white lab coat, notepad. And I want to move it away from that and say there's a bunch of functional people with really applied skills that we can utilize. And so maybe there's a little bit of just imagery there that it stems from bringing sports psychology actually out into the light.

Yeah, well, you're preaching to the choir, my friend. I would. I'm very glad I haven't had to wear my white lab coat for several years. And I think you're spot on. I mean, there's just so everything has. Everything is behavior based, right? Psychologists are experts in human behavior. All behavior has meaning. Everything that's happening in a sport environment is something that a psychologist can contribute to. Right. And people have different specialties or areas of interest. And so sports psychologists have this really unique ability to contribute in this particular environment with an understanding of the complex dynamics, pressures, team dynamics, you know, those things. And so I love how you're thinking about it, because I think there's so much room for people in that field to make a big difference in the overall experience of not just the athletes, but also the coaches, the staff that surround them. Because this is a person that's going to think about kind of holistic human health and wellness and what it would mean to get an extra hour of sleep or hour with family, as much as it would mean to get an extra hour of practice and how those things might be mutually beneficial. Right. It's not necessarily. You're trading one for the other. You're sort of doing one to enhance the other and vice versa. Right. There are ways that these things can work together, but we have the ability to really give voice to that and think about that and sort of walk people through it. And, you know, I think Ted Lasso's been an interesting sort of exposing of the role. I'm not sure it's entirely 100% accurate, but it's not. That's not the least accurate thing. And I'm just glad to see, like, I'm glad to see that they had her come to practice. Right. Because I think that kind of thing, while it may not seem like a big deal to, say, a coach who's obviously going to be at every practice, for a sports psychologist, that's data. What I see happen at practice is data about the work that I'm doing with the entire organization. And so if you take away that access to that data, you're limiting the impact this person can have and their ability to help you. Right. And ultimately, you know, I think you've talked about the white lab coat. I think there's been a degree to which people have been intimidated by the involvement of a psychologist or fearful that it will mean, you know, the psychologist is going to have all this confidential information and they can't share anything. And so they're going to know things I don't know. And if I don't have the information, something's going to go wrong. And all that is, is, I think, normal to be afraid of. But, you know, what it means for the psychologist to be in the role that you're describing or in and really integrated in the organization means that we can commit to the coach's goals with the same degree of intensity and authenticity that the coaches can. And all that means is we bring a really unique, special set of skills to bear on those goals. Right. I'm never pulling against what the organization is going for. Right. We all want to win. Like, what would be the point of being here if winning wasn't at least part of that? Right. And so all I can do is bring my unique skill set to bear on winning and the health and wellness of the people I work with. And I think that that's true of all sports psychologists. And so I like the way you're thinking about it, and I hope that we can sort of push the needle there because you hit on so many things we can contribute to internal communication. Right. Working with coaches, working with staff, working with players. We haven't talked about talent development, talent selection. Right. There are so many places, places where this voice really matters. And, you know, oftentimes it's the psychological that ends up being, you know, sort of the ultimate barrier to, say, a player reaching their full potential or does contribute to how much playing time a player does or doesn't get or how people feel in the organization about a particular player or a coworker. Right. That stuff is a huge factor. And so to have it woven in, I just. I just think is hugely important. I'm going to get off my soapbox now, but. But you know, this stuff really matters.

Well, I'll put a full stop on that because the. The standout quote from the Alex Ferguson documentary by far was him saying, psychology is someone else's word. I just call it management. And what he's saying, there is actually something quite profound in that. He merely sees himself as a psychologist that works with footballers. And so it is inextricably linked to the role of a manager. You know, obviously that's a soccer term, but a coach, a head coach. And so he saw his role as that. And again, I kind of. I like to draw back to people like him and I talk about coaching coaches and how Pep Guardiola has one and Eddie Jones has one.

And.

And the reason I draw back to those examples is because we look to these kind of oracles for what they're doing in so many factors, like their tactics. And you can find every Pep Guardiola drill in a book or on YouTube or whatever. But then there are these other things that are in there that are really important as well. And when you start to think about why they have said that, why they have structured their coaching environment that way, why. Why is Alex Ferguson talking about management and psychology as inextricably linked? Why does he think that? And when you start to interrogate those, you start to get to some really profound answers about maybe where we can all sharpen our ideas up a little bit around things like this.

That is one of the best quotes I've heard in a while. I love that because I think it's. It's spot on. And it speaks to the very first thing we started this conversation with, right? Which is these really, really elite coaches thinking of their own performance as important to their team's performance, thinking of their own health and wellness as important to their organization's performance, and thinking about the role of the real human factor in how all of these organizations go out and deliver, deliver what they do. And so I love that because it speaks to both his management style, which I think it sounds like is fairly unique, but also the value he does place on managing himself to a degree and thinking about what it means for him to be able to perform. And I think the best coaches that I've been around are not the coaches. Coaches that are grinding it out until 2am and then waking up at 4 and then hoping that everything comes together on the practice field because they can't see straight. It's the coaches who wake up and meditate and do yoga and exercise and spend 20 minutes with their family and then show up to Work and are able to be fully immersed at work and then go home and then fully immerse at home. Right. That are doing these things. Things. And then they extrapolate that idea to their staff. Right. They extrapolate that idea to the other people around them and appreciate that if this works for me, this might help somebody else and I can extend that sort of managerial principle outwards. So yeah, I think that quote's gonna live somewhere in my office or something. That's, that's brilliant.

Yeah, I'll just, I'll punctuate that again because you, you just hit on something perfect as well in that. And I wrote about this a little bit in the tough stuff around the recognition that you as the head coach and the impact that you have on your assistants and the other staff, particularly around something as simple as going home is huge. So you give essentially authorization in your behavior for others to either do what you're doing, that is go home at a reasonable hour, or they have to stay in the office too. Because no, no intern that's cutting up tape for an NBA team is going home before the head coach if they want to keep their job or if they want to have a career in. And no receptionist and no. And you know, no assistant coach. The list goes on. And so you're right. Like the pass down effect because of the power dynamic, particularly of the head coach or let's just call it the, the executive, you know, gm, A president is remarkable in just that simple behavior and thinking of yourself like that. So yeah, it's not just the impact on the team, it's not just the impact on you. Your staff follow you.

Yeah. Oh, 100%. Right. I mean, culture is hard won and easily lost. And so if you are sort of like defying, you know, indirectly defying what you say is important. Important by, you know, undermining your staff or not doing something yourself that you're telling other people to do. Right. Those, those things are noticeable. Right. And staff notice it and players notice it. And so I love this point because it is so important for it's a responsibility, I think, of high level leadership to think about what you are doing and what that's communicating to the people around you. And sometimes you do have to give like explicit versions, verbal permission. Right. Sometimes people really don't know that it's okay to go home. And, and that can be a challenge in and of itself. Right. But I think a lot of it does start with, you know, what's the message the coach is saying about sending about how important it is to, to be with family or what's the message that the president is sending about what it means to be fully committed to the team and be fully committed to a family? Right. Those, those things matter, right? And they matter for people's performance. It's not just some like pie in the sky kind of mushy, gooey, like everyone's loved and sports is just warm and fuzzy and wonderful and we're all going to have the best life. Like sports is hard, right? And what we do is hard work. But it is okay to fill up somewhere outside of work and bring that energy back with you, you. And it's important to do that. And if you do that consistently, you might perform better. Right? All the way from the intern to the, to the highest level executive. And I think that messaging is just, it's just critical and it's, it's tough, right? It's tough to leave work sometimes, particularly when things are more challenging. Right. You've gone on a little bit of a losing streak. Sometimes it can be hard to feel okay to walk away. But in the long run, that stuff makes a really big difference for how people feel about where they work, for how people perform at work. And those things do trickle down to players, right? And players pick up on that messaging too. And if that's ultimately who we're serving and who we're trying to develop, if we're telling players that it's really important that they get on a healthy diet, plan and develop professionally in their eating habits while we're smashing a Big Mac, I mean, that it's not going to resonate super well. And the same thing goes, you know, with staff. And so I think, I think that sort of like responsibility as a model is really, really important for high performing organizations. And it's hard, that's a really hard responsibility to take on. But I think it's one of the unwritten responsibilities that probably head coaches don't know they're walking into when they take over.

Yeah, that's not in the education. And then if you spend any amount of time observing society or the news, you might have picked up on a trend of. I'm using inverted commas here, but this generation more than willing to call bullshit on people who aren't being accountable for their actions or saying one thing and not behaving the way that they are saying. So if there's one thing that I would point to from this generation, it's that if you're not, if you're going to coach in maybe a bit more Of a. I hate the term old school, but an old school way of I'm going to tell you what to do. I don't need to do it. But you guys need to do it because you're the team and I'm the coach. I don't think you're setting yourself up for a very long career with this generation of athletes that are coming through that are, like you said, really hella smart, really hella socially competent and also have a voice where they will say, you're full of shit. And I'm going to tell people that you're full of shit because you've broken our social contract too many times.

100%. I have to know, what do you prefer to the term old school?

I don't know. I don't know. We can work on that.

What about it do you dislike?

I think it comes with connotations because there is a lot of good things that come from. A lot of the core principles that are actually revisiting now are old. And so what I don't want us to do is say old is bad and new is rethought and fully conceptualized. Actually what we're doing is we're just going back to the old school, grabbing the really, really impactful things and bringing them into the new world. And so, you know, you can look at literally everything. Like we think yoga and mindfulness are new. They're thousands of years old, mate. Like, they're new in the West. They're new in the West. This is some of the oldest school stuff you've got in the world. So, yeah, that's kind of my thinking around it is. I don't want us to just go bad. There's a lot of really solid principles that we're, we're dragging back into our lives that are really helpful and they.

Come from really old stuff, 100%. I'm sure we could go on a whole cultural narrative tangent here about old versus new and generational differences and all these other things, but I don't think that would serve us well.

I touched on social media. Where can people find you and follow you on social media? Because you share a lot. You share your thoughts and if you've read an interesting article and you extrapolate on your thoughts, which I really appreciate because it's so easy to just kind of post it and say this was cool, but you actually go through and post threads and new ideas that you bring together. So where can people find you?

Yeah, I appreciate that. And yeah, try to, try to share. Right? Try to make it meaningful and give people something that they can apply. You know, it's a way for me to learn too. So I welcome people's feedback. So it's at Twitter. It's lex our back PhD is my main social account. I don't don't Facebook and don't Instagram at a high level, so Twitter's the best place but happy to connect there.

This has been fantastic conversation. Thank you. I know I'll probably see you on the weekend, but we can pretend for the audience that we're going to close this conversation. But I know that I know we're just going to continue probably via text. So thanks for coming on, man. This has been awesome and yeah, long overdue, but I'm glad we got to do it.

Pleasure is mine. Thanks so much for having me.

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