WORDS Have POWER Choose Them Wisely | with Reed Maltbie

Reid, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you feeling today?

I'm feeling fantastic.

You have such a great voice. I think everybody's going to love listening to you talk today. Why don't you introduce yourself to the Book Thinkers family? Tell everybody a little bit about who you are and why you're on today.

Sure. Happy to. My name is Reid Maltby. I go by Coach Reid. It's something, it's a moniker that's been used for, oh, decades. And I love being called Coach Reed because I feel like that's my calling. That was my connection. I was by trade a soccer coach. I was a soccer player. I started coaching at age 16. And so I was coaching and playing at the same time for quite a few years. I thought that I was going to be a coach for a living in the beginning. So I went and got a master's degree in sports psychology right out of college. Took a little bit of a detour in life. Coaching was just a hobby for Probably a good decade more before I finally pulled the trigger and went full-time. And then since then, I've coached full-time. I've run soccer clubs. I've been a director of coaching. I've worked with— and then after my TEDx in 2015, I branched into the world of actually helping coaches coach. So today what I do is I'm really into high performance, but I use 3 key factors that help people unlock their own excellence, and that's language, leadership, and learning. Those 3 key factors.

Tell us, what is it like to coach and play at the same time? That's pretty unique.

It was actually— I think it was a very transformational experience for me. I think it was one of the things that set me up for my own career because, as a player, you see a very narrow strip of the game. You see a very— it's a one-sided conversation, basically. But once you get on the other side of the sideline as a coach, you start to see the game through a different set of eyes. And so to be able to coach and play at the same time, I understood what coaches were trying to accomplish when they were working with me, but I also saw the game from a different angle. So it was like having game film. Every time I stood on the sideline, I would see things and say, oh my goodness, I never understood how the bigger game looked from this sideline, from the mind of a coach. And so having that player and coach's brain, I think, just helped with my strategic thinking within the game.

Wow, that's really interesting. Quick point of reflection. When I was in high school, I played football. And I remember one time a coach called a formation and put us on the line improperly. And I remembered going through the game film and going through practice and how we were supposed to set this play up. So, I turned around and I acknowledged that to the coach. And I remember him saying, man, you should start coaching football instead. I was probably a better coach than a player. And so, I kind of get what you're saying, being able to see it from different perspectives. Final question to round out this intro. April 18th, you have a book that's launching. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about it?

Yes, it's the culmination of my career and it's my heart and soul on paper. It's called The Spartan Mindset: Mastering the Language of Excellence. And it is all 30-some years of coaching. It's all 30-some years of my coaching career. It's 2 master's degrees I have. I have a second one in early childhood education. And it's, it's all of the mentors and, and coaches that I've worked with along the way. I just picked up tidbits from them. The book focuses around what I think is the, the key, the linchpin in, in, in performance. So you've got the software side, which is the brain side, and you've got the hardware side, which is the physical side. In sports, typically we focus on that physical side, the hardware. It's so much easier to teach skill and learning environments and all of that. And so Lately, people have been saying, yeah, but the hardware only works as good as the software. So we really have to focus on mental acuity, mental strength, resilience, self-talk, all the things that happen within the brain of an athlete. But that key, that key between the two, that bottleneck is language. If we as coaches or as leaders, whether it's in business, on a stage, on a sports field, if in the classroom, if we don't use the proper language, then our athletes, our charges don't learn. And also from their perspective, if they aren't using the right language within their own brain, if we don't have the right self-talk, the right voice, then it also hinders our performance. So the book is really based around the use of words, and I break it down into power words and peril words. These power words are those words that actually help with performance. So when used in the right moments and used in the right way, they can help us have a better performance. And those peril words are the ones that just completely end performance. They're fatal words. in a performance environment. And then the last piece is I, I filter in at the end some, some transformational words. Those, those words that are used no matter when or where, but when you use them, they transform the person and the moment because they're such a powerful word to use.

Reed, that's so awesome. Uh, as somebody who struggles with, uh, the negative words and those peril words, I'm so curious as to how can somebody who's maybe just like an average person that's listening today, how can they start to just change the negative words into powerful ones? Like, where do they even begin to do that?

That's a great question. I'm glad you asked that. I was actually talking with somebody yesterday about how abusive our own voice can be. It really, at least for me, my voice should be the sweetest, the kindest, the most gentle voice in our lives. It's the most influential. And yet a lot of times it's the harshest critic. It's the meanest one. And so this is, I think this is a common thing for a lot of people. The first thing you have to think about when you have these parrot words that are happening in your brain is becoming more aware of them. So that is really the first step for anybody is to start to become very intentional about your speech. Listen to your speech. If it's, you know, tape a couple phone conversations of yourself or tape a conversation you're having within your household or just pay, if you do a lot of video work, if you're on the phone a lot, if you have opportunities to review recordings just like game film, review them and listen to the language you're using. Listen to the words you're using. If it's a self-talk thing, then every time you're having that inner monologue, the first thing is to become aware of the words that you're using. And if you want, create a word journal at the, you know, at the end of the day, look back at this journal. Every time you have monologue, write down some of the keywords that pop out, some of those words you're using, and then review them at the end of the day. And when you put them out in the world, when, when they go from being the silent voice in your brain to on paper, you suddenly sometimes see the absurdity of it. Like, why would I think that about myself? Why would I think I'm an imposter? Why would I be so worried about people wondering if I know what I'm talking about when I've, you know, when I've X, I've got this degree or I've worked in this industry for 20 years. You start to see how absurd sometimes your voice can be. You also then can see what kind of words you use. So it becomes like an SEO keyword search. If there's a certain word that's always popping up like try or can't in your vocabulary, then that's the word you want to target and you just take your time just like it's, the brain is a muscle. So it's just like weightlifting. You've got to do it every day. You've got to be intentional about it. But change that word. What, what is a different word from can't? Instead of can't, it's, oh, this is a great challenge. It's not that I can't do that. Oh, I'm gonna really be challenged in this moment. I'm excited to take on this challenge. Or in our household, we actually changed the word completely. Can't means challenge accepted, no takebacks. So if you say, oh, I can't do that, somebody in my house— and trust me, they're now teenagers, they do it all the time— oh no, challenge accepted, no takebacks, Dad. So That's— those are a couple of ways that you can start to shift those words. And the final piece is if you've got great accountability partners, great coaches around you, mentors, ask them to call you on the carpet to just be accountable for the words that come out of your mouth. So if you say something outwardly that is part of your inner voice, because we do share our inner voice with certain people, ask them to be the one to say, well, did you just say try? Because I know it's— I know you didn't say try. You meant will. I will do that, right?

Reid, I think your book is going to help us rewrite the language that we use internally at Book Thinkers on our morning huddles and in our Instagram captions and stuff like that. So that's really fun. You just mentioned mentorship, and I'm probably one of the only people that actually reads the acknowledgments sections in all of these books that I'm reading. And there's somebody who I'd like to ask you about, Mr. Downey. You said that Mr. Downey helped develop your love of language and reading. And so I'm interested in learning a little bit more about what that was like.

Nobody's— that's wild. I haven't been asked about Mr. Downey forever. Yeah, I tried to acknowledge as many people as I could. He was my English teacher in high school. And he taught a lot of the English poets. He taught a lot of Shakespeare and a lot of the English poets and that timeframe of like, Yeats and— oh, I'm blanking on all of them— Dylan Thomas. And so he— it was— 2 reasons why he made me fall in love with language, with words, and with writing was he always made us write. It wasn't just an English class. We weren't just reading. We would then have to write a poem that mimicked the style that Yeats used. We'd have to write something that mimicked, you know, the structure that was used by Shakespeare in some of his plays. And when he would read them, he would read them in this powerful— he'd get in character and he'd read them in this deep, powerful voice where the words just sort of bounced around in your head. They had a beat to them, an echo, because his voice was so deep. And he told all these really cool stories because he'd take these sabbaticals. And so he'd go to these places, he'd go and stand at the abbey that was written about in a poem, or he'd go to the markets in Greece where a play was written and he'd tell these stories about them. His passion of venturing into the world where these poems were written, or where these stories were written, and then the way he delivered it to us, and then making us live in the mind of the author by trying to write like them, by trying to think like them, just opened up the world to me. And he had such cool stories. He always brought, you know, like he went to the grottos where you had to duck down in the boats to get through the blue grottos and everything. And so he would tell these stories and Just his stories were so engaging. I was like, man, you can explore the world without ever leaving your room if you get the right books to read. And even better, I can share the world that's in here with people if I just learn to be able to put it on paper in a certain way. So, yeah, he was a real inspiration for me.

Oh, it's amazing. We at Book Thinkers, we all listened to this podcast last year a few times that Ed Mylett put out. And one of the lessons in that podcast was that things are caught, not taught. And so, it sounds like with Mr. Downey, His energy was infectious. The storytelling was amazing, and you were just receiving that energy. He was teaching you, but he was really demonstrating in front of the classroom, it sounds like, the energy and the importance of language and reading. And so that's really cool.

It is. And you're right, it was caught. I totally caught the bug for writing and reading. Yeah.

Storytelling is so important, and it's something that I know we're trying to get better at as a team of Book Thinkers, and then also just myself in my own life. And Writing has really helped me clarify my thoughts. So I love that you're a great storyteller as well, and you're a great communicator, as people will listen and hear. And also, once they read your book, they'll find that out. They'll find that out too. I want to— I have just this question, which is, what are some of the common challenges that come up with high performers? Like, are there— is there anything that's— is there anything that's just this commonality that every single high performer that you've coached and worked with, like, they have in common? Or is it different for everyone?

There are a few similarities. One that I saw a lot in younger high performers who excelled very early in their careers was this validation need. So they would look to me or look to the other sideline for validation of what they were doing or for direction. You know, we became very scripted in our youth sports experience with our kids when we were kids, mom and dad shoved me out the door. I'm 49, so I'm a little bit older. When I was shoved out— not shoved out the door, but mom and dad were like, go play. I'd run around the neighborhood and then, you know, don't come home until the streetlights come on. So we, we did our own free play without coaches. But nowadays it's like we're scripted down to the, to the minute in our lives with our athletes. They've got this, and then at 9 o'clock they have this, and then they have that, and they're working with this coach and they're working with this specialist. And, and I'm not knocking it, but what it's created is this external locus of control and this external motivation, this extrinsic motivation in our athletes. So what I saw pop up a lot, even in high performers, was this: they would do something and they would immediately look for feedback. And one of the things I want to do is break that cycle. And that's why those words and that language is so important. They need to be able to create feedback on their own. They need to be able to solve the puzzles on their own, because someday I won't be there. Yeah, you know, it's one of the reasons why I love Steve Kerr when he did that timeout and he had his players run the timeout and everybody went, what are you doing? You're the coach. Yeah, these are multimillion-dollar athletes who've been playing their whole lives and they're the ones on the court. Who do you think knows the game? Them. Let them have a say. And so that was the big thing with a lot of the high performers I worked with was being able to tell them, listen, at some point in time, the only person you can rely on is you and your teammates. So you have to figure out how to solve the problem. You can't always look to other people for the answer or You also have to understand how you're doing. You need to be able to emotionally propriocept your performance and be able to say whether you're doing well or not and how you can adjust it. Because you can't be looking over to the sideline for a coach to say, nope, you didn't do that right. You need to be able to feel that you didn't do that right. So that was probably the biggest commonality that I saw.

That's so interesting. I have 3 kids of my own, and my son Ezra, he is 6 years old, and he's really into art. He loves drawing and painting, everything. Actually, he's better than I am and he's only 6, which is crazy. But one thing that I have noticed is that he is constantly seeking the validation of both myself and his mother, which I think is pretty common. But I'm trying to work with him and get him to give himself kind of this sort of like you were just saying, that self-validation. Do you have any tips around that that I could use for my kids and that other people can use for For themselves. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And that is very common. I mean, that is, you know, Daddy, Daddy, look, Daddy, look, Daddy, check out what I did. My kids, my youngest is 17 and he still says, hey, Dad, check this out, you know? And I love it. Um, and the problem is, is we love when they do that. So it's really hard not to like become that external force in their life because you're like, oh, this is the coolest thing, you want to bond. Uh, um, one of the things that we would do with our athletes to sort of break that, or even with our kids, is start asking more questions. So what do you see? You know, pull an athlete out of the game and instead of saying, you did this right and you did this wrong and this looked good and work on this, the very first question that you'd ask when they sit down next to you is, what do you see? What did you see was going on? What, you know, there was that one time that you, you took a shot. What did you see? Oh, Pete, Coach, the keeper was off of his line. I really thought I could beat him. Okay, totally understand that. What else did you see? Was there anybody else open? Yeah, Mikey was open to the right. Would you have passed to Mikey? Yeah. Would that be a decision next time? Yeah. Okay. Now they, now they're starting to play back the pictures with the art. You know, it's like, oh, this is a beautiful drawing. And this is drawing on— I worked with Dr. Jane Yelson at Positive Discipline, and they do a lot of this in Positive Discipline, is asking them to validate their feelings. How do you feel about that drawing? What, what is your drawing? Oh, this is beautiful. How do you feel about it? Why did you draw it? What, you know, what, what is cool about the drawing for you? And so before you tell them what you like, If he tells you what he likes, oh, I love it because the blues or whatever, then you can say, oh, that's really cool. I liked X. And now, and now he's, he's forming his own opinion about his art. He's, he's owning what his performance is and he'll still want to show you, but he'll want to share how he feels about it versus finding out what you think of it.

Yeah, I love that. And it's definitely something that we are trying to do already. So it feels good to have that, have that validated. So thank you, Nick. I'll pass it over to you. You might have a question.

Yeah, I wanted to bring it— I wanted to bring it back to a question that I had at the beginning that I forgot to ask Reid. And this is really to tee up the book for everybody. When I first saw your title and your cover, I thought of the movie 300. It's one of my favorite movies. And last year, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in— actually, a little bit more than a week in Greece. And I loved every second of it because I'm just constantly thinking about the Spartan mindset. And you tell a story in the beginning of the book about the word if. And so, I just wanted to give you the opportunity to share that story with everybody because the validation piece that we were just talking about ties into certainty a little bit. And so, I think it could be a nice way to tie it all together.

Sure, happy to. So that's why it's titled what it's titled. I'm a huge fan of the 300. I've been a fan of, you know, like from Mr. Downey, and then I took a bunch of classics courses. My high school was classical, classic, so we took Latin and Greek studies. And, and so I just was always such a huge fan of some of the aspects of the Spartan nation, obviously not all of them, but, but some of the aspects. So when I, when I was Crafting the book about language, I found these two stories about the Spartans and said, "Oh my gosh! They are the perfect two stories to open the book and close the book." And I won't give away the closing story. And I was like, "These have to be the two stories." And then when I was talking with my agent and the publisher, we were trying to come up with a perfect name. And they're like, "Well, it's got to be about the Spartans. The first two, you know, the first chapters about them." So the the story behind the first chapter, If, is that Philip of Macedonia, Philip II of Macedonia, was at this point in time was was was passing through Greece and basically conquering all the smaller city-states. And people were acquiescing pretty quickly. He had a very powerful army, and he was just— a lot of times he'd march up to city gates and people would surrender before he'd do anything. But he was a savage. I mean, he was a savage warrior himself. So he was definitely— people feared him. He gets to Sparta, he gets to the outskirts of what would be considered the Spartan territory. And out of whether it was out of respect for the Spartans, out of fear for Spartans, whatever it was, instead of just going right into their land, he sent an emissary ahead. And that emissary had a note. Now, the Spartans at this point in time had already been through Thermopylae, so the 300, and they were, as a city-state, they were sort of on the wane. They weren't as powerful as used to be. They weren't as strong as they used to be. And obviously their army was decimated at the very least because of what happened in prior battles. So he knew this. But even with that knowledge that they may not be the strong Spartans of years of old, he sent this emissary. And the emissary had a note. And the note said, I'm paraphrasing, if I come into your lands, I will raze all your, you know, destroy all your buildings, kill all of your women, and enslave your people. You know, something very— it was an extremely powerful statement. It wasn't like, hey, we're going to have a battle here. It's like, I'm going to ruin you. You will no longer exist as a city-state. and as a people. And days go by, or however long goes by, and no message comes back. And finally, the emissary comes back. When the emissary comes back, the stories differ, but when they sent it back with the note, they either just circled the word if or they wrote back, if. And so the Spartans were challenging, they were calling his bluff, and they were reminding him, like, you didn't use certain language. You didn't say, when I come in, I will do this. You said, if I come in, which told the Spartans. I mean, it's gutsy. One word stopped an entire war and saved an entire nation because they called his bluff and said, this guy's not certain. He doesn't think he can do it. And you know why not? Because he used the word if, because he didn't believe himself that he could actually dominate us. So why don't we just call his bluff and say, oh yeah, if, come on in. And it worked.

Yeah, it definitely did. What, uh, so to kind of transition back to the meat of the book, what are some examples of language that displays Certainty instead of uncertainty?

Will. Will's a great word. So instead of somebody saying, I'll try, you know, we'll do this, you'll do this. Other power words that display certainty. I'm actually going through my book to look at the chapters. Yet. It's one Carol Dweck uses. When children use can't, you just say yet. And you're giving them some kind of certainty like, hey, look, it may not be today, but you will accomplish this. It also keeps them in that growth mindset that that process mindset. Like, this is a process. This isn't an endgame. It's always a process. There's always opportunities for growth. There's always going to be challenges. Other power words that we like to use, one that you wouldn't think was a power word, well, when. When's another power word. When you accomplish this, what would that feel like? One that became a power phrase for me that I put in a book was what if. My wife used it with me in a very powerful moment in our lives. And I realized that so much, so many, how many great things in our world have come about because somebody asked that quiet question. What if we could do that? What if you could carry a phone in your pocket? What if your computer could be detached from your desk and put in a briefcase and walked around? What if we could get on a contraption that put us in the air and got us somewhere in 5 hours that would take 2 days to drive?

What can I, can I read a section from your book? Sorry to cut you off, but this is one of my favorite paragraphs in the whole book. It says, this comes from page 84. It says, what if gave us the Miracle on Ice? What if gave us the Jamaican bobsled team, the curse-breaking 2016 Chicago Cubs, the Doug Flutie finish, and every other Hail Mary we've had the glory of experiencing or witnessing? What if fuels dreams, and dreams relentlessly hunted by a resolute athlete or group of athletes are the moments of magic in sports. So, I love that because there are so many of those what-if moments. It like, it gets me going. It gives me goosebumps. You know what I mean? I love it.

Thank you for reading that. That's, again, you sometimes forget the stuff you write. So as you're reading them, like, wow, that's really—

I like that. Well, you know, there's a— our audience is primarily ages 18 to 34. A lot of young professionals, people who recognize that they have— that they're capable of doing more. And they're looking at authors like you and books like the ones that that you just wrote to close the gap between who they are and who they're capable of becoming. And so, I think asking that question of what if is just such a powerful opportunity that creates action, just like the word will, it creates action. And that's what we're looking to do with these books. We're looking to create real behavior change. And I think that's one of the things that your books can— your book can help people to do.

That's my hope. And every chapter starts with a story of the use of the word. So, you actually see that I'm not— these are words that actually did You know, the word will. I talk about Kennedy's speech of putting people on the moon and how he said, we will do this. Like, really? We just, we just started flying like 50 years ago, and now you want to actually go leave our airspace? But he used the word will, right? And so the whole chapter then is centered around that speech. And so each chapter has that story. And then I do try to end the chapters with, here's how you can apply it. Here's some hints or tips or tricks. that I've picked up off of all of the coaches I've worked with, all of the mentors I've had, you know, all the researchers that have been out there before me. So standing on the shoulders of giants, I, you know, I, I did my best to try to distill it into actionable items. Yeah.

And I think you did.

Yeah, for sure. And that, that language, you know, I'm just sitting here, it's something that I still to this day, I've gotten so much better and I've come a long way, but I still struggle with a lot of those negative peril words. And I'm wondering, do we ever get to a point where we just completely eliminate them from our minds? Or is it just something that you constantly have to battle and fight with for the rest of your life?

Unfortunately. So that's a good question because it's one I think about. My wife and I were talking about it last night, the river of thoughts, the river of, you know, it's a constant flowing. It never ends. So, and I don't know if we can fully control it. The other thing that we talk about is that whole software piece. So the brain, it doesn't matter who writes the JavaScript, the computer does the code. So it doesn't say, oh, Luke wrote this one, or, you know, Chandler wrote this one, or Reed. The computer says, oh, execute this command. Same thing with our brain. So our lives have been filled with— I was on a podcast yesterday with a leader of a coach of women entrepreneurs, and we were talking about the difference between how men and women think. And the problem is, is it's been ingrained. Our life has been filled with people and folk stories and songs and cartoons and All these things that have sent these messages that imprint upon us, and then the voice of our mentors and our parents and our friends and our teachers, and then our own voice over the years has created this habit of using words. For instance, I, for a very long time as a coach, used the word guys, bringing in guys, and it didn't matter what, who I was coaching. I'm now like, that word still comes out even though I consciously think I'm not coaching a group of guys, or that's a very singular, narrow word to use in a world that we've discovered is, you know, always has been, but we just didn't understand gender fluid. So, guys isn't the right term. Bring it in team, bring it in friends, bring it in whatever, you know, or especially if I'm coaching a women's team saying bring it in guys is disrespectful. But I still have that problem with it. I still can't break it because it's just ingrained. So, I don't know if we'll ever actually be able to completely eliminate the words, but it's that whole idea of reframing and rewiring. We're never going to change the code. The code's there, but we can reframe it if we are intentional and hear those words and go, Man, I used guys again. And now I know that it's, it's a word. It's like, it's, uh, the Baader-Meinhof effect. Now that I'm aware of the word, I will hear it more often when it comes out of my mouth and see it more often and be like, oh, I can fix it here. I, I can, I see I'm doing it. And then it's switching to a new word. What, what is a different word? And you'll catch yourself down the road after practicing this. You'll go, bring it in, friends, bring it in, friends. Like you'll suddenly catch yourself recognizing the word. You go, don't say it. Don't say it, Reed. So I don't know if we'll ever fix it, but there is an opportunity to be more intentional as you start to understand the patterns that you have in your language.

Yeah, I love that. And I've even noticed myself with the word I can't. I can't. I guess that one I've struggled with for a long time. But I think for the most part, I've done a good job at overcoming that one because now when I hear it in my brain, I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute, pause here. I can do this. It might take time, it might be challenging, but But I can still do it. And I've noticed too, I've intentionally changed the language just to my children around the word I can't and around a lot of these negative words. And what's really cool and fascinating is that they don't really say I can't. Like my son, 6 years old, he doesn't really— I mean, every now and then, but for the most part, he doesn't. So, I think like, and maybe you have some thoughts on this too around Like the, the next generation, how we can start changing the language that they have. Because maybe the things like instead of bringing it in, guys, you can say bring it in, friends, or bring it in, team. And if we say that often enough, the, the next generation may just do that naturally. Do you think that's true or do you think they're gonna still have societal narrative norms that will control their language to be like the negative parallel words?

I really hope for the better because I, I tell my kids all the time, you know, Gen Xers, we were supposed to change the world and Well, we didn't. So it's up to their generation. Like, you know, I told my son the other day, it's up to you, man. You've got to fix this. You've, you know, in your generation, this— so the younger generations, what's really cool is I was, I was just telling somebody about this the other day. They're more in tune, so much more in tune with language and the use of pronouns and, and the inclusion practices, like using language that's more inclusive, because being excluded is one of the most painful processes in the human brain. We were, we were, we were created to partner with people from the days that we were scavenging and hunting. We grouped for warmth and we grouped for safety. So this is something that's ingrained in us. The human connection is one of the most powerful things that we have. And so to exclude somebody from that, to use language that's exclusive, is so hurtful, so painful. You might as well just beat them physically because that's what it feels like in their brain. And research shows that it is. It is really damaging. So this generation being more inclusive, not using a singular word like guys, and understanding that people have different pronouns and being aware. And as a 50-year-old, I'm going to get them wrong. And I tell my daughter's wife that all the time. As a 50-year-old, I'm going to get the pronoun wrong. But know that I'm trying. Know that I want to use it. It's not that I don't respect you or care about you. It's that I was ingrained that it was A or B. It was he or she. It was You know, that there was nothing else in our world. And that's— now the beauty is this, like you were saying, this younger generation, they are changing it. They're advocates. Like, that's the thing I love the most is I grew up silently, silently protesting things because that's how we did it. You sit still, you're quiet, you only speak when spoken to. And if you have an issue, you bring it up in silence. You bring it up one-on-one with somebody in private. The younger generation is told, no, when there's a problem, you speak up immediately. You state your issue and you, you know, and you do it in a civil way. And you're seeing it like my kids all the time. will correct me right to my face about things that I'm like, I would have never done that to my dad or my teacher. And so I absolutely love the fact that this is a generation that is openly advocating at all times and everything has a cause. We just bought stuff because it cost less. My kids buy things because they give back. You know, I buy TOMS Shoes because they give shoes away. I give— I buy Charity Water because they give water away. I buy this because they're sustainable or they're eco-conscious or more importantly, Seeing companies take stands where they're like, we're not going to do this because of certain practices, you know, we're not going to sell a certain product because of some of the child labor practices or things like you're seeing these kids go, well, then that's a company I want to buy from. That's a company that has a conscience.

When you were talking about that, that excluding feeling, I made a little connection in my head. I'm not sure that you said it this way in the book, but language like I can't excludes success or happiness or whatever the case is. And I think that thinking about it in that way is interesting for me as well. I remember the first book I ever read in the personal development space was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And in that book, he says, instead of I can't afford this, you should ask the question, how can I? afford this. One excludes success, one opens yourself up to it and creates action. And so that's an interesting way of putting it using that word excluding.

Brilliant what you just said because it's not in the book. But yeah, that's a brilliant idea. Yeah, can't does exclude it. Try excludes the certainty of doing something. I love that.

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, it's yours. I connected 2 things that you said. I wanted to bring up another thing that I highlighted in the book here, which is the word you. And so, I think there are a lot of people that lead teams that listen to this podcast, a lot of small business owners, and a lot of people at a management or leadership level in their companies. So, I'll read this quote. It says, if you want to empower someone, use the word you. That was all you, or you should be so proud of yourself goes a long way in building intrinsic motivation and self-confidence. So as the leader of a business, I think that's something that I need to be more aware of, using the word you. You can do this. You are successful. Thank you for your effort type of language.

That's awesome. And it will transform the relationships when you use a word like you. You already— I see what kind of leader you are. I'm not worried about your leadership skills at all. I've been really impressed with you all and working with you and getting to know you. So, but it does change. And there's that you, we, me paradigm in a leader. So you, what I noticed was that anytime a coach, anytime a team did really well, the coaches who wanted the spotlight would be jumping in the pictures or would be saying, you know, I'm so glad I got us to state and we won state. And like, coach, did you or did the 11 players on the field win? I'm still trying to figure that one out. So my— I was coaching a team and they won state and we're at the awards ceremony and they're doing the other age groups and I'm listening to these coaches and I'm like, okay, so my kids win, they're 12 years old. They go, do you want to go up the stage? And they go, nope, they got it. The captains have it. And so I receive the medal, but I let them talk. And it was because in that moment I had this epiphany that this isn't about me. I mean, I'm not 11 or 12 anymore. I played in state championship. This is about them. This was their accomplishment and this was their goal. They had it as a goal and I helped hold them accountable, but this was them. And so that was like an epiphany moment of, wow, you know, I gave the power over these kids. And then I started hearing about other leaders using you more often. Then the piece is, is that I heard about a leader of a team in the English Premier League who's, who's, who, when a team lost really badly in a game they weren't supposed to, instead of yelling at my brain like, you messed up, you made me look bad tonight, you this, he said, we didn't prepare you well enough. We didn't have you ready for tonight. We will go back to the drawing board. We will get this right next time, and we will be here with you. And it's like, so he took the loss away from them and put it on his own shoulders. And he also reminded them that they were part of something bigger than themselves. It was so powerful. And then, of course, the me is, you've seen those famous quarterbacks who go, this is all on me today. I just wasn't throwing good passes. Those are great leaders because they, they use language that includes everybody in the conversation. But then when it's needed to be, they make sure that they exclude that blame game. They exclude blame from the equation by using certain language.

Yeah, it reminds me of Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink type of leadership. Luke, I saw you had a question.

Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, we actually just interviewed an author not too long ago and he was talking about competition almost in this, not necessarily a bad thing, but almost in this a little bit of a negative light because it separates and makes, it just creates a lot of individuality. And with that, with that competition comes this separation of people and it can have, he thinks it has a negative, like a larger negative effect on the overall world. And I would love to know your opinion just on competition because we were talking about inclusivity before and I feel like there's a lot of sports that, you know, they they pit people against each other, or like when the Olympics, it's countries against countries, and, and you're like, oh man, we, we're, we're fighting against the, you know, the Europeans or the Germans or whatever, whatever it may be. Um, I don't know, what, what are your thoughts around, since you are a coach in competition, and like, what are your thoughts around that?

So I don't disagree with that other author about competition being a very exclusionary situation, and I don't disagree with the, the, the thought process that you're going through. I think the issue is, is that at its root, and even under the Olympic motto and other mottos, competition was meant for human performance, for personal individual excellence. And it's something that I've always preached, is that everyday individual excellence. And the problem is, is we have taken what was these endeavors towards individual excellence and we morphed it into a $15 billion industry, the youth sports industry, maybe more than $15 now. And so the sports industry in general, not just youth but across the globe, is, is multi, multi-billions of dollars. And so we morphed it into this beast, this machine that now it is about pitting people against each other. And it's, it's win at all costs, especially at the youth levels, win at all costs. And what I always say is, okay, so the difference between winning and competition is you, you don't want to win at all costs, you want to compete at all times. And competing all times doesn't mean against other people. The root of competition is competere, to strive together. That's the Latin root for it. So originally, competition meant that we would work together to be our very best. Now, if you and I are on the same team, we're going to work together to win. If you and I are on opposite teams, you're not my enemy. You're my ally in my own self-improvement. If I can't beat you today, my goal is, is that you've shown me a way to beat you next time. or that you've made me better, the whole iron sharpens iron thing. So from its root term, competition is a healthy thing to have because it's why, for instance, our government breaks down monopolies. Without competition, you can't have price variation. You know, if there's— if a company has a monopoly, they can drive the prices up as high as they want and they control the market, they control the supply so they can change the demand. But if you have a healthy competitive environment, now you have a slew of products to choose from that controls that supply and demand equation for you. I mean, very rudimentary and I'm not an economist, and I'm sure my economist buddy would be like, you got it all wrong, Reed. But, you know, from a workplace point of view, from an Olympics point of view, from even in the classroom, we need to shift that perspective to compete at all times. And it's not to compete against each other. It's to compete against ourselves. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you do. It matters what I do for me. At the end of the day, I need to be able to look in the mirror and say, I was better than the person I was yesterday. I did better today than I did yesterday. I can't compare myself to you. You're on a completely different journey. You're a completely different human being. You're experiencing a completely different world than me. If I start comparing— comparison, I don't remember where I heard this from, but comparison is the thief of joy. I will have no joy if I spend my life trying to be like other people. My goal is to be better than the person I was yesterday, to unlock my own individual excellence. From a youth sport perspective, when we started doing that with our athletes, what we discovered was They weren't competing again. They weren't, they weren't trying to beat each other. They were trying to be better people themselves. And so what we learned was our focus was always on that 1%. Oh, I've got 2 kids on my team that are probably going to go to college, and I'm going to focus all my energies on making those 2 the best. And who cares about the rest of the kids? They're not going to play sports anymore anyway, so they'll quit after this year. But that's the wrong mentality because those other— Well, over 13 kids that we didn't pay attention to, they're going to go on and be something. They're going to be a doctor. They're going to be a lawyer. They're going to be a teacher. They're going to be, you know, whatever it is they choose to be in their life, a politician. We had an opportunity to pour into those other 99% to make them better people, to teach them to seek their excellence. That's where competition matters, is teaching everybody that you have to be your very best, excellent at everything you do every day. And as a coach, if I start to think about competition from that perspective, that I'm treating each kid differently because I'm trying to get out of them, draw out of them their own personal excellence, knowing that one day the ball will stop rolling. And now I have a team of not just 2, but 15 people who are going to go on and change the world because I poured into them more than just sports skills. That's why competition matters to me, because we have the opportunity to teach people how to compete against themselves and how to unlock their own individual excellence every single day.

Wow. Reid, I wish you were my coach growing up. That, um, that was the mic drop moment right there. That was very refreshing, and I'll have to go back and listen to that again. We haven't had anybody talk about competition in that way before. So, that was really interesting. And I love that. I love shifting competition is the thief of joy to competition can motivate you if you stop aiming at other people and you aim at yourself. So, comparison is the thief of joy. So, that was really interesting. 45 minutes flies by when you're having fun. So, Reid, I want to give you an opportunity to tell everybody a little bit about your preorder bonuses since this is coming out before your book launches.

Yes. So thank you. Uh, and this has been such a great conversation. Uh, so I hate to see it end. So if you get the book before April 18th, I've got some preorder bonuses. So you have to go to my website, fullspartan.com. Uh, and I'm— anybody that preorders and fills out the form and lets me know. And I know there's preorders happening because my Amazon numbers are changing every day. Like one day I was like, oh my gosh, I'm number 2 in new releases for Sports Psych. It's not even out yet. So, so I know people are ordering it, but nobody's gone to the website yet and filled out the form. If you fill out the form, I'm going to actually— I'm like you, I take notes and margin notes and highlight. So I'm going to go through my book myself with my one buddy Chad, who said he'll do it with me. We're going to go through the book. I'm going to basically do my own book study on video of my own book, because sometimes when you reread what you've written, you go, oh yeah, I wrote that. And I'm a geek for that type of stuff. I've always been a geek for learning from books and taking margin notes. So I'm going to do a book study. You get access to the book study for free. As a preorder bonus, you get a discount on future courses. I have a couple courses, Mastering the Language, the Language of Excellence is a course that's coming out. That's a follow-on course on this, and we'll take it deeper into how we use our language in everyday use. Some of the questions you all asked about shifting our language and things like that. And there's a few other bonuses in there. So yeah, go buy it. If you buy the book before April 18th, go to fullspartan.com and let me know so you can get on my preorder bonus list.

Fantastic. Yeah, Luke, any, any last questions to wrap things up?

Uh, yeah, you know what, just, just one more that I like to ask all our guests, and it's, it's something that, um, yeah, I just like to ask all our guests, so I'll just, I'll just, I'll just go with it. If you, if you passed on and every bit of information that you put out disappeared, your book disappears, all your podcast appearances disappear, and everything else is gone, but you could leave one single piece of advice to the world, What would that advice be?

Speak loudly, people will hear you. Speak knowledgeably, people will listen. But speak lovingly and people will follow you. We've got to change our language so that it is inclusive and loving because more people will follow us when we show we actually care about them.

Wow, that's beautiful. I love that. And just like Nick said, I'm going to go back and listen to that competition piece a few more times because that was, that was gold. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your mind. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and care about your language and words that you're using to help a lot of people. We're excited to share your book and just continue to spread the message of the Spartan mindset. Awesome.

Thank you. I had so much fun, gentlemen. I appreciate it.

And a quick note to the Book Thinkers family. If you guys are on the fence, you don't know whether or not to check out the book, you want a little bit more information, by the time this podcast drops, we'll have a couple of pieces of content out on the feed with some book reviews and stuff. So you guys can go check those out too. And yeah, with that, thank you everybody for listening. Adios.