Hi guys, my name is Greg Corbinidis and welcome to the Rev. T. Pogmaster, which is brought to you by Revolution Performance Training. I’m an avid trainer and fitness coach, who strives to learn the very best in the world of health and fitness. Join me in this episode and expect a game changers in their chosen fields to share in their story of passion and success.

For all podcast related things, please leave a please subscribe and check us out on Revo It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Sure, why not? You know, I can’t do a lot about it. So I’m just, you know, just enjoying what I care about. Yeah, of course, man. Very good. Doesn’t bother me at all. There’s some actually pretty good things coming out of it. I think so.

We’ll see how we go. We’ve, um, you’re generally on the road a lot of the time. So it must be nice to kind of, uh, yeah. I mean, it feels weird not being on an airplane or an airport or a hotel right now. So I’ve been actually been chilling out with the family a bit more. No, perfect. We’re about to have you been more recently since I guess having a yeah, I’m gonna down since we got locked down.

Yeah, yeah, just mainly staying in Melbourne at home I’ve been going anywhere. Okay. Yeah, like literally I mean I mean for a number of weeks because I we’re in the US getting ready for some competitions that Got canceled like really right before they were starting and then the next morning all the agents and they were like listen we have to get out of here.

No Trump’s gonna lock the borders and blah blah blah I because I’d been overseas, I got the whole two weeks, I have to lock myself up. And then since then, just hanging around at home, going for walks, doing some jiu-jitsu in the garage with the family. – Oh, very nice. – Nice, it was good. – No, awesome, well that’s great to hear. Well, as we always do, we always kind of like to give a little bit of an introduction.

Would you be able to suppose give our audience, I guess a little bit of an intro into who you are and what you’re all about? – Jesus, I don’t know how much time we have, man. – Oh, look, I mean, like I said, I have a performance coach. I don’t know where to start. I’ve been in the industry of allied healthcare and fitness and strength conditioning for over 20 years now.

Before that though, I was still teaching physical fitness classes. I was teaching jiu was teaching Jiu Jitsu and I Ki Jitsu like martial arts. Even years before I was, you know, quote unquote a professional before I got qualified. So pretty much most of my life have been in this industry of human movement, performance, fitness. I started off, like I said, teaching martial arts, then became a personal trainer and then a massage therapist.

The course I did then was a three or full time gig. So it was pretty involved as far as like sports and clinical time treatments. Then from there, I became an athletic trainer, which is, you don’t have that in Australia, but overseas, a lot of people would know what that is. Part of me, a bit groggy today, sorry. s. um sport and the people get hurt on the field and those guys that run out that’s what we would do we do all the emergency care on on site yeah and we did all the rehab and and prep work before and after matches in between tournaments so we did all the the physio work it’s essentially like a physiotherapist but we specialized specifically on And then you know in that process became a strengthening coach yep strength and conditioning coach and yeah, and then just since then just been studying everything I can you know Literally anything to do with human movement mind sense psychology I mean even in our in my martial art background where I did most of my initial training when I was younger You know we had to for like each of our block belt levels.

We had stack of books We have to study they were on psychology on human behavior and physiology on physiology. So we actually had to study a lot of the stuff about how the human body works, you know, physically and mentally. So before I went to school, it was like I knew all these things, but I didn’t know what they were called. You know, I mean, I understood how these things worked, but I didn’t, you know, I remember one of my students was a physio.

Yeah, and we’d be talking, we lived together for a little while, like, you know, friends. And we just be sitting there talking about stuff. I just tell her about things and and she’s like, “How do you know all this?” Like, you don’t know what they’re called. I had a label of it, but like, I have my colleagues don’t understand what you’re talking about.

So I was like, “Maybe I should do this for a living.” And that’s what happened. And I’ve just been in environments from working in hospitals, doctors clinics, working with HIV and AIDS patients, tons of junior athletes. And as I’m probably will probably discuss a bit more like a lot of elite athletes from yeah, I’ve helped a lot of athletes come from you know qualifying for their national teams they’re Making it you know into the championships to even win medals in a variety of olympics and Commonwealth games.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s been pretty cool. No, that’s something I’ve always I kind of picked on I picked up on obviously, you know, just to my research you’ve kind of really worked in a lot of different fields and You know see you started off in you said or is that as a fitness trainer and a massage therapist and obviously branched into more sort of like lecturing speaking working hospitals How do I guess it all be sort of opportunities slowly come about was this more like your interest or did it’s just kind of just present themselves?

I mean, it’s a good question. It’s been a long time. I do know in my early days, like I said, for me, just movement, fitness, this whole thing was always just part of my life. I’ve been doing martial arts, for example, since I was like six or seven years, like consistently, actively. And a lot of the opportunities, I mean, I just seem to, when I come to human movement, especially like seeing people move and seeing like something wasn’t quite right.

It just sort of, I could just see it, you know, very like it was just really clear to me. You know, like I said, early days, maybe I didn’t know what it was called, but I could just see something wasn’t right. You know what I mean? And so for me, I always knew like this was something I was going to do. You know what I mean? And so like as a profession, getting all these opportunities early days, I just had to figure out and thought about, okay, well, where do I want to be?

What environment do I want to work in? And how am I going to get in front of those people? And I just did everything I could to be in front of those people and when I was there I did every I gave everything I could I asked lots of questions not with like ego or arrogance But just and not annoying people either. Yeah, but just out of curiosity I share my ideas and thoughts with people that I just met that were the ones running the organizations brought yeah I wasn’t afraid just to get out there and say listen I was thinking about this or I say you guys doing this way what you know I was thinking of this like why you take this approach and would you share with me?

So I would just just make sure I was working every event I could get my you know my body into yeah everywhere I could be I introduced myself to the whoever’s running the place I just you know whether it was the Paramedic running the first day just tanned to the physio or the doctor who is like on site for the event I just introduced myself that’s it and I was always there just making sure I did good work.

Very professional, did anything I could to help did that extra bit, came early left late. Everywhere I could be. And then eventually things like one of my instructors at the school I went to, he was working for example the Seattle Sounders as a pro soccer team. And he wanted to take some time off. And he’s like, listen, and he came to me. I just a freshly new student said, hey, I’m thinking’m thinking about taking this time off would you be interested in covering the season for me and I’d be in there for a couple of seasons well Okay, and you know so some of it’s like who you know like that definitely helps But I just made sure that I just did the best I could and just was learning from everyone just listening taking notes Just put myself out there as much as I could.

Yeah, no I forget because I said this quote a few times. I’ve never seen enough for a mind yet. It gonna have to remind me. I think this kind of sums up very well. That summary is that obviously you need to know the right people but it’s more about being obviously good enough to stay in that. Who you know gets you there. But what keeps you there. You know what I mean?

Because it is. It’s about… I mean that’s how it is. Whether it’s right or wrong doesn’t matter. The fact is is who you know gets you there. That’s wrong. But what keeps you there. Yeah. You know what I mean? So like, because it is, it’s about, I mean, that’s how it is. You know what I mean? It’s just whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter.

The fact is, is who you know gets you in the door. You know what I mean? But how you are and what you know and what you’re able to, you know, the relationships you’re able to build, the outcomes you’re able to achieve, your effectiveness, I suppose, as well as do you fit in with the group. That stuff is the stuff that keeps you there. But youhmm, right?

But you know you have to if you don’t go out meeting people you don’t offer your you know feedback Yeah, and learn from as many people as you can then those won’t come. Yeah, you’ll just be Well, I find a lot of coaches do especially nowadays the you know more recent years Yeah, is there just so focused on like getting those degrees those qualifications get those letters behind my name?

You know, I have all the education So I should just get the job. It’s like well, it doesn’t work that way. Yeah, everyone’s got education nowadays like it’s education nowadays is like easily accessible It’s not like difficult, you know what I mean? It’s all about application. Yeah, it’s all about I think you need a good combination of both I remember a few years back I was speaking at event with Dan Baker Yeah, and he had mentioned to like it some I mentioned in my speech, in my lecture, but he had mentioned something about nowadays, these higher performance organizations, they don’t, we know, there’s that whole pendulum theory, you know, I gave them to go from application and real world appliance to like the data, the numbers and the science, and that kind of goes back and forth.

It’s like, well, really, it’s just in the middle. Everyone has education. You need to have the knowledge, you need to have some information. But nowadays I can get my iPhone right now and ask me any question, I can get the answer. I don’t need to have, you know, information is not as valuable as it used to be. Your ability to apply that information and not just build a toolbox but know what tool to use, how to use it, when is the right time and place.

And then all those relationship things I’m sure we’ll talk about. That’s the stuff that like, you gotta, that’ll keep you in those places. And as you asked me before, that’s how suddenly people will come into me that like I have all these different sports I’ve worked in and I don’t think I’ve ever actively called up the sports and hey sport, you know, I’m gonna come work with you.

You know, the people say, hey look, I saw you at this workshop or someone’s a friend of mine works in soccer I mean I’m actually with one of the swimming coaches we were talking about you the other day and you know we’d be interested in coming check on this out or you know So but it’s because of those reasons like I know what I do I’m good at what I do and I keep trying to learn as much as I can But it’s also like I just make sure that I get to know the people as best as I can I was gonna touch on me that song we will talk talk in a bit.

I suppose it’s that building relationships as well. Of course. It’s a big part of it. Work with people. Yeah. So going back more into that experience. One thing I want to cover is that you, as you kind of touched on, you kind of worked in a lot of sort of different areas. Did you at first, I suppose, have an area you wanted to focus on? Like you kind of said, you really like the movement to movement Did you go down more it sounds like you went more than a rehab or clinical side at one point?

We more did you have like different like maybe at one point you would think you know it’s gonna go down this road and then I Would feel like I would probably say no I know that happens a lot where like and when I teach so I see it a lot people They’ll start I don’t do this correct. Yeah, and then they either they get in the industry and they find that the people like that are certainly coming to them and they’re doing really good work with was some group that they didn’t think about before Yeah, so they kind of shift gears or others they just they keep going that track for me It was it was I always knew like even when I was doing this massage stuff I was like okay.

I’m doing I’m working with athletes I work with sport. Yeah, it just spoke to me just I just knew that’s what I was gonna do and that’s again everything I studied during that period everywhere I did my internships everywhere I did my hours every event I did do it’s all just to be in that environment. Yeah, and so like I just always knew I mean it was just Part of what I did I was already working with combat athletes.

Yeah, you know, you know back then you know those days in the 90s the jitsu thing wasn’t as big. It wasn’t actually anything really. It was nowadays. It was more like the karate kickboxing boxing kind of thing and wrestling, that kind of stuff. So yeah, I was already working with athletes. I was an athlete myself doing my own training as well. It just matched.

I was ready to go. Everything I did was with that. I never had any doubt in my mind. It just clicked. When I did my first internship hours at University of Washington, it’s like where I did some hours for one of the massage courses, which I ended up working there later. But everything I did was when I got there and just saw all these different sports and all these athletes and all the different sort of professionals doing different roles, that for me was like, okay, I’m in the right place.

But even during that period, I saw a lot of gaps. I don’t know if we’ll talk about this later, but that was a big part of for me. It was like, it was like, all was learning all these things. And one reason why I kept learning different, going to different sort of educational backgrounds and information was I just felt like there was missing parts like things weren’t connected.

There was too many gaps. many gaps like nowadays It’s a little bit better like you know there’s more of this bridging the gap between like say rehab just about the side sounds like you’ve done that I’ll be kind of bridged a lot of things Yeah, that’s and that’s what early days. It wasn’t a lot of that It was like especially in the US we have like you know insurance companies So you go see a physical therapist after only you get a referral from a doctor Yeah, and then your own the physical therapist is only allowed to do certain things based on your insurance and what the doctor said.

So you make certain ADL, you can brush your teeth now by yourself. Okay, you’re done. It’s like, yeah, but I’m a baseball player. I need to throw, I need to do more than brush my teeth. So, yeah, and so I mean, I always knew, but I always knew that there was, I wanted to work in that in the middle of this. I wanted to bridge those gaps because I felt like there was just too many holes and everything.

Everyone was so focused on that one little part. And no one was talking to each other. So for me it was like, that’s why I was like, as I was working as a massage therapist, I was hanging out with the physios, the doctors and I was hanging out in the strength conditioning room and talking about what they’re doing and why, about this, my athlete that I was working with.

And they’re all saying different things. And I’m like, well, no one’s talking to the athlete, or very few are. And they’re definitely not talking to each other very much. They’re sort of telling all this what I’m doing. I Yeah, no, no, I think that’s that’s one big thing even today is I find that I Couldn’t know I’ve made up myself is I think people seem to they want to neat they niche out really quick Whereas I feel like they don’t maybe don’t explore as much as like whoa, it’s right looking to other areas and it sounds like you kind of did all that ground work pretty early on and yeah still doing it to Well, yeah, it’s for that one.

Yeah, no, I think you’re right. I agree with that it’s I Would say it’s wrong or right or whatever but I agree that people seem to really want to niche down or get deep into that one little element It’s like it’s important. It’s important have people out there like that are doing that cool, right? And I use a lot of those people when I need like some detailed information about one thing like hey What have you found about this or what have you guys looking at these days in this area and I just take that information and I go actually like okay Well, is it useful to me?

How can I use it right now with my current environment? Yeah, so we need those people I have friends who like you know, they’re the data lovers and they’re the research guys and you know They were not they were never meant to be interacting with people and humans, you know, so we need those guys a great and gal. Sorry But I’m definitely think, yeah, you know, as I mentioned to you before, like the other day, we were talking is I always, I get a lot, I like do like coach development workshops.

And as you mentioned, teach different places and when I get younger in the sense of new, the industry coaches and trainers, I try to encourage them to like, you know, there’s this big thing of like, you know, to work in a commercial gym is like, you know, it’s a negative thing. It’s like, oh, you know, it’s terrible. I know why would you do that? And, you know, it’s all this stuff.

It’s like, at the same time I look at it and go, who goes to a commercial gym? There’s a lot of different types of people from resources of it, like how much money they earn. The, their, their previous experience with movement or health or fitness, the mental health issues that you address. You have single moms to grandmas to executives to high school kids and everything in between.

Even athletes go in there like many athletes. So you have a huge range of people with a lot of different situations and difficulties and obstacles. And then your job is to sit there one on one with them and figure out how to get them to find their way to achieve what they want. Right? So you learn how to develop these skills of being able to work with anyone.

You can walk into a room, just sit down with that person and have a short conversation and figure out a little bit more about what they’re about and how that you’re going to help them help themselves. Right? And that’s I think a big part that’s missing a lot of coaching. So for me, like, I think if you can get that range of background skills of working to different types of people, no matter what you want to specialize in, even if no matter what you’re going to specialize, like that’s your thing, right?

For whatever reason, that’s great. But get some exposure in some different environments and work with different people and whatever you specialize in you’re gonna you’re gonna be very very good at rather just like everybody else. Yeah that makes sense? Absolutely. No no that’s great answer. Now I listened to a previous post because I was just kind of going a little bit back and it was more going over your childhood.

I saw the red that you are a little bit I guess You’ve learned a lot going through that difficult period mainly in terms of dealing with people and even yourself like your own emotions and communication. Of course. Of course. I mean, I’m assuming you’re talking about when I was homeless. Yeah. Yeah. So when I was from around maybe 13ish and it was like for a few years.

So maybe around 16 then I sort of get off the streets. But I was I was really homeless. Like I just went my father died when I was 10. Yeah. My mother, you know, so I haven much of you know some some struggles, you know, there kids all that stuff and I don’t remember exactly how it happened But like you know, I kind of went away and I was living with these people helping them do some stuff and then I was coming back home and when I went there there was nobody there And so then I ended where I was and I just I just stayed on the streets by myself So as it was from about 13 to about 16 I was literally just I was homeless living on the streets sleeping outside at different times I was staying in some pretty pretty disgusting places.

I mean I remember staying this this is a abandoned hotel where people would just squat. Like you know what they just do really bad things there. Yeah. And you know I would sleep there but I would like go I would steal some tape or whatever I’d find some like rope tape and I’d have to like up my ankles and shirts and my neck cuz it was literally so many cockroaches and rats everywhere like you couldn’t step that night It was just covered in wow so I just like but it was a roof right so I just ate these so it was pretty some nasty stuff and obviously you know doing some Things just to survive, you know, so I mean look a lot of the people I was hanging around with Obviously worth it, you know the nicest people to say the.

So, you know, I mean, yeah, it was pretty rough. Like I just had some, you know, I had many times, I’ve been shot at many times. I’ve had a number of concussions and a few of them were from getting hit with the head with the back of a gun. I’ve had people try to stab me. I’ve had people where I was sleeping where people I was like, okay, you know, we’re cool, you know, and I’m just, we’re staying in this place together.

It would just be like, they’d be high and just getting freaked out and like, “Wait, I’ve had this big biker guy come busting into my room where I was staying with a big asper to knife, just like swinging at me.” ‘Cause he, I don’t know what, he was just mumbling and yelling at weird random things and it was really high and all messed up and he’s like, “I just somehow got out of that room and I ran, I just kept running, I never went back, never got any of my, I mean, I didn’t have lost stuff anyway.”

but I just disappeared just took off like okay, I’m never going back there So, you know, it was you know, it was interesting interesting times Yeah, but I mean, you know tell your your point about how it’s helped me with other things of course, you know in these environments You know, you have to learn how to control your emotions, you know, you have to be, you know, I was in many, many situations where like you have to know when and how to either stand up and when to, you know, kind of just back down.

Right. But you never want to be like showing this weakness or fear because then you’re prey. Like emotional awareness. Yeah, a lot of it is like emotional awareness and social awareness. Like you got to, you got to get a real good vibe of like, and if I, nervous or scared I’m gonna have some problems. They’re gonna they’re gonna look at me as a threat Yeah, that’s a very bad thing a lot of these people but at the same time if I if I walk around or act like I’m not scared Right they’re gonna be like well.

They’re gonna step up to me like well Who do you think you are right? So and it gets very very ugly then as well especially in the situations I was in was not like I wouldn’t live I was very outclassed and outnumbered on the level of violence and the ability of those people. So, yeah, I really had to learn how to control my emotions, read people’s intentions, really understand what is this person about, what are they up to?

Because I had to, in a lot of ways, a lot of situations got out of and survived Wasn’t just because I was so smart or so quick or whatever. It was just like Something just didn’t feel right. Yeah, and I would pay 10 I sort of really paying attention to that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah I mean I use that even in my coaching still like there’s always just you know, we all get that there’s something like Even from a movement you’re watching someone doing exercise or drill of their sport and you’re like Something just doesn’t look right.

It may not always be able to like pinpoint it right away But there’s just something about it that you just you know There’s something missing that you can’t put your finger on it, right? So I listened to that for me part of it was obviously back in the youth of having to you know having to survive But a lot of it was like I still use that now where like I listen to my gut so I listen listen to my mind, okay, this is what we should be doing, this is how it should be happening.

And I look at all the structure and what’s happening here and there, talk to the coach and talk to the player. But then I’m just like, no, something’s still not right. If I still get that thing, something in me, I’m like, okay, I’ll keep working through this until we figure out what it is. And sometimes it’s asking questions, sometimes it’s just forgetting about it coming back later.

But for me, the gut is one of the biggest things yeah like with everything I do So I have that process and then I go how does it make me feel? Yeah, I could tell you about how I use that now with my In coaching I said yeah, I’ll be fascinated so like one example would be So I caught like a zoom in and zooming out. Okay, right and also call it sort of having the one foot in one foot out.

So like if you take like an assessment movement assessment, right? And what I like to do is zoom in on like so I’ll maybe look at like three or four key areas like you know foot ankle, you know these hips. Like I learned to head squat. Yeah, yeah. Cause I progress you over head squat, be perfect. Easy example. So you look at your, you know, like your thoracic sort of spine region shoulder region, your hips and say your foot ankle, foot ankle right and then maybe the knees right.

So you’re looking at those three or four key areas. And what I like to do is I just like to sort of step back and almost just gaze at the movement. I’m not looking at anything. I’m almost barely looking at them. I’m just watching the movement like how does it flow? Does it seem like how’s the rhythm? How’s the feeling of the movement right? And then I’ll zoom in on the ankles and feet let’s say while they’re doing the movement the movement, okay, then I’ll zoom back out, okay, man, then I’ll do that with the knees, zoom in, then I’ll zoom out and then look at the hips.

So I kind of zoom in and zoom out every time. And what’ll happen is, for me, I find that it gives me that sense of the movement overall, like, ’cause, you know, I can look at just their knees and go, they’re neither lined up and the hips are lined up and everything can be lined up the way it’s supposed to be you know quote unquote supposed to be But if you know sometimes it just doesn’t look right yeah, right or sometimes it’s just something’s not quite right the timing it might maybe I’m lined up at the timing of their movement isn’t off is it right and for me as Working with professional athletes or even developing athletes It’s like how they coordinate their movement is more important than how well they do this assessment Yeah, right you You might have all the right ranges of motion and when you do this movement, everything’s lined up the way it’s supposed to be.

But if it’s not coordinated and rhythmic and effective, like ineffectiveness to the movement, then there’s something wrong, in my opinion. And that’s what we need to fix and find is like, how can we make that as smooth and effortless as possible, that movement? That’s what I’m looking for. And so by zooming out I get that sense of like that feel of the movement.

And I do the same thing let’s say with a practice session. I often go to practice sessions just to hear what they’re talking about what they’re doing and watch them actually apply what we’re working on. I think that’s probably a key thing to take note on. Whenever you can’t, if you’re working with athletes go to as many practice sessions as you can, get into all the coaches, watch how they interact with their other athletes, et cetera.

But I do that with same practice. I don’t just get there, like I’m just watching everything they do and really, really focused. Like I have moments of that and then moments where I’m just sort of like, I’m kind of barely paying attention or I’ll just switch off and I’ll do something else and I’ll go back and look. ‘Cause I don’t wanna get to get stuck in seeing something and missing everything else.

– Correct. – It’s like working on these other sports. I think that’s been a big positive for me is that it’s helped me, I have all these different things to pull from. And I like to always have one foot in and one foot out. I’ve been on the tennis tour, the pro tennis tour for years. I’m working with literally the best of them. Yeah, and a bunch of the juniors.

But I’ve never even played tennis in my life. Yeah, like I’ve joked around and messed around and there’s just laughing me because I can emulate the movement. As soon as the ball comes like I’m just like I have to show you some videos sometime. It’s ugly. It’s ugly. It’s funny. It’s actually fun. But I mean the point is I don’t want to fall into like while I’m doing what everyone else is doing.

Right. Because I get so stuck in that environment which it’s easy to do. And you start thinking and acting even if you think that you’re not doing it, you are. We’re human. We become sort of the average of our environment, right? Everyone’s talking this language. We also start talking this similar language. It’s like in Reston and Jiu Jitsu, I travel all around the world and visit different clubs.

And they all have like, they all, they all have guys are good and better, you know, new and experienced all that stuff. But in the club, there’s like, everyone kind of has a similar way to roll. Like they might have their unique little specialties, but they have like a similar way that they kind of move, right? Right. Yeah. Based on kind of how the coach and how the teaching is done and structure of the environment.

So it’s the same thing. If I work within a sport or an organization, if I only do that, I only look at that, and I’m going to fall into that same thing of thinking I’m getting creative and being unique, but I’m not really. I’m just sort of doing a little bit different of what everyone else is doing. So I want to, I want to have part of that because I need to understand my sport, but I also want to not get stuck with the you know those little horse things they put with the blakers where they can’t see anything Yeah, I don’t want to have that so I purposely make sure that I’m always Working with a variety of different people in different sport to make sure that doesn’t happen Anyway, that’s a long answer for your No, no, that’s not like you said that’s assuming a one one, sorry, yeah.

– Yeah, or like zooming in and zooming out, just get a sense of everything, but also that sort of kind of, you know, don’t, don’t, you can each and you can specialize, but you still need to like step back and look at what’s happening. You know, think about an athlete, they’re playing when they’re on the corner of the field, they see a limited amount of things, compared to the coach who’s out in the stands looking.

They can see often the athlete misses, right? You want to be both those people. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like you need to have moments where you just step them back and go in. Okay. What’s missing? What’s something’s not right? Yeah, anyhow, there you go. Well, that’s what I was going now going more into I suppose your career. Can you suppose talk about the cross crossover from I suppose doing maybe that sort of like personal training or fitness training to sort of perform its training?

Was that a, that transition, was that sort of like a tough transition or was it something that was quite, you know, I feel like people ask me this question a lot and I feel like I’m supposed to say yes, but I don’t feel like it was I just I don’t feel like it would have been for you. Yeah, it’s I just I mean I feel like people want me to go. Yeah, this is why and like, you know, the athletes pro athletes like this and this and that and all these you know big sort of things and I’m like They’re people man.

They pay this people. m. and a row and some, some do that. Right? But they don’t enjoy it. It’s not like they’re so excited to go work out today. Yeah. And they all can’t wait to do another four hours of practice today, every day doing the same thing over and over again. Most of them just, they don’t like it. They don’t enjoy it. They don’t, they do it because it’s their job.

And they know if they don’t do this today, that next week they’re gonna be called out in front of the world. Everyone’s gonna see that they didn’t do their work. So they’re gonna let their team down, whether it’s the team of trainers and coaches, or if it’s a team sport, and there are other players, the other athletes. So one of the other differences I’d say with people, general public, I think it gets lost.

And I’ll reason why I mention this is I feel like I’ve had these few conversations with a few colleagues lately is, you know, I think a lot of people get scared away from fitness because either they think they have to like be super fit, you know, like they’re doing like, you know, you have all these images of people doing crazy workouts, you know, like so high, everything’s high intensity, everything’s going nuts.

And so a lot of people get scared. They’re quite intimidated by this. Or they just think they need to be a certain level of fitness before they start doing fitness. Think about hiring a coach or a trainer. How many times have you guys heard, “I’m going to get in shape before I hire a trainer. I’m going to get fit before I hire the trainer.” And they do some work first first.

It’s like, well, no, that’s what they’re for. But people, they’re so caught up in the trainers and coaches, so caught up in trying to be seen as being so knowledgeable that they’re almost unrelatable and they’re not approachable. So a lot of general public, I think they’re training for different reasons. A lot of us want to feel better. There’s something about their life that they’re not feeling good about.

Right? Not necessarily a negative thing, but there’s something that’s missing. And a lot of it is just, they just want to feel better. Some of it just want to be a part of something other than themselves. Right? Pardon me. They want to be a part of something bigger. Yeah. So yeah, there’s not a huge difference, to be honest, but it definitely just resources and time that you spend with them and you know, how much you’re going to push them.

Yeah, you know, like my pro athlete, there’ll be periods where we’ll put a lot of stress under them, you know, physically mental stress, where, you know, if I have some, you know, working mom who’s, you know, grinding herself down, she’s just coming to the gym just to feel better and get away from everyone. You know, I’m not trying to kill that person right?

I just want to help them feel better. Yeah, so I gotta meet them where they’re at and just go from there. Yeah You know, it’s nice to meet them. She’s now so let’s go on to your sports like you that sorry I’m sorry Lizzie you’ve got like you’ve worked with numerous in that so combat combat sports summing golf soccer gymnastics table tennis. I’m sure there’s many others Sure, sure wide variety.

And I suppose more, what your real reason stuff is, was you being a big part of the tennis tour. Yeah, it’s been a big part, I’m sure. For how many years did you say it was 15? Yeah, about 15 now. I suppose with all these different avenues and adventures, is there any sort of like, any sort of like things that sort of stood out in one sport or any sort of, I don’t know where it’s like highlights or any sort of things that it’s like, that there was different, maybe there’s a different way you coach approached it or a little bit of difference.

– I like the point of differences. – Yeah. – In a certain way. – I mean, each has okay, like they all think that their sport is the most unique and the most difficult. – Yeah. – Right? – So they all think that. And look, there is definitely everything from the kind of language they use to the culture behind the sport, the environments that they’re used to working in.

There’s definitely points of differences. You have your team sports where you have certain cultures where it’s very team-related and everyone holds each other accountable kind of thing. You have some team sports where it’s very top driven, very top heavy. You have individual sports where people kind of just doing whatever they want to do. The tennis, for example, part of it.

I used to describe it as like a closed off traveling gypsy community, you know? ‘Cause it’s very hard to get into, right? And we all, even though we’re competitors against each other, we’re opponents, right? We all travel together the whole time. We’re in the same hotels, we’re in the same car transports, we’re at the same courts, we’re in the same locker rooms, week after week after week, even though we’re competing in constant, I guess each other, we’re also together.

And it’s very hard to get into that circle, right? It’s this little closed community. It’s very difficult to get into. So I don’t really know how to answer that question, but there’s definitely some differences in the language and the environment. Well, maybe let’s put it more from I suppose team sports individual sports. Okay, I suppose that would have been something a little bit different in the sense because obviously the team sports you probably have a lot more people involved Yeah, I mean yeah, definitely or that yeah obviously if you’re working with an organization where there’s like a team, you know So you have like all your different coaches, you know, and then there’s different allied health professionals and then you have your different strengths, conditioning people.

And I think one of the things, at least with my personal experience, because I’ve worked in some organizations and federations as well as, you know, obviously, mostly with the private athletes is, you know, like say an organization, as far as like your role is concerned, you’re putting it in a box, right? Like, you know, a strength coach, right? Unless you’re like the main guy, like the guys running it all, you kind of pretty much like, here’s your workouts, go make sure they do it.

You know, it happens a lot. A lot more than people and I want to admit, you know, even if those guys are working in there now, it happens. It happens. I’ve seen it, I know. So, and that’s actually why I kind of shifted the way I go too, because I was just like, I was just putting in a box, you know what I mean? It’s like, well, no, there’s more to it to it than that like why can’t I talk to the psychologist?

Why can’t I go talk to the physio right now? Yeah, I can I take you and go talk to them together? You know, I mean like why should I have to just do this workout because today? This what we’re supposed to do but last night, you know You slept like crap and you woke up film like, you know, I could barely walk But I’m supposed to do this. So why can’t I have some flexibility to understand like this is where you’re at today.

How are we going to manage this? Yeah, I know there’s a bit more that happening these days like the managing of energy and all that. But with team sports. Yeah, you have, you have, I guess to consider others roles and the amount of work and time that they’re putting in these other departments. Yeah. Right. So you have to really be able to communicate well with them a lot more where, let’s say individually, it’s still a team.

So I still have coaches, we still have the physios, the psychologists, the trainers, the parents maybe, whatever. So they’re still like a team, it’s just a different structure, but you’re a lot more personal with them. You interact with them more directly on a day to day basis. So it’s easier to make quick decisions, it’s easier to adjust things faster to make adjustments I guess.

So that’s one of the biggest things. And then you have just the one focus, that one person. Sometimes you might have a couple of people, but basically you don’t have this big group. So you have to manage the one person. So it’s really gonna be more about individually where we manage ourselves, each other as a team. You know, meaning coach might make sure I stand on track with what our focus is.

I’m making sure he is or she is, right? You know, for example, I’ll give you an example. Let’s say it’s we’re going for a match and let’s say a tennis match. And this player is, you know, get a little bit anxious, you know, it’s a big match, whatever. And like the coach comes in and the coaches acting different than usual because the coach is getting like a bit nervous.

Because that happens all the time. A lot more than people realize, you know. I know some of the best coaches in the world that they’ll literally before every game they go in the bathroom at Pew because they’re so, they’re just completely shooting themselves. And you wouldn’t believe it. Like you talked to them, they’re just like, yeah, they talk like they know everything up top.

They’re like, bam, but no, they’re human. But anyway, so like, so the thing would be is, you know, the coach comes in and they’re not acting like they’re normal sort of self. Yeah. And that changes that vibe of the environment. And that’s not very good for the athlete, right? Things need to be consistent and just like they have their sort of routine that they follow.

You know, we need to help them find that sort of sweet spot of like how they perform their best, right? So whether they’re over-rows or under-rows, whatever we need to be able to like read that and find it Yeah, but if this person’s like really over-rows and a lot of high anxiety more than what they normally would perform their best in and then the coach comes in and there’s these pacing or acting different talking really fast and impact Something’s different about the person.

It’s gonna have a negative impact as something’s changed Yes, so then the player of like oh my god my coach is free. free. You know, whether they’re thinking it consciously or not, it’s still going to make the environment change. So then what I mean by keeping ourselves accountable and keeping in track is that if I see doing this or she doing that, I’ll be like, Hey, get a little nudge or like, Oh, let me I actually something.

So I’ll kind of pretend I’m going to talk to him about something and get him away from that without saying, Hey, you’re doing this. Right. I’m like, Oh, hey, let me ask someone to, you know, blah, blah, whatever whatever just to get him away for a second and Then you know may or may not bring it up depending on how you know that person you know the situation But you get the idea.

Yeah is that we have to kind of more really control our actions Because it’s just that one person we don’t have the team or we know there’ll be some leaders of the team some guys who kind of help you each other out and you know They kind of feed off of each other you don’t have that in an individual sport as much right? Yeah, so you have to be really really mindful of like your your actions and your words You I just walk around and have like short little two second chats with the guys.

It’s just individually just boom, boom, boom. So they’re they’re working the room kind of thing, right? And then they’ll have time where the guys get together. And then they have their own thing, right? So conceptually it’s very similar, but there is some differences. Like the application has to be a little bit more specific to that environment. I guess that’s good little segue You can’t scrub a little bit already.

Yeah, I mean it’s it’s tough, but it’s but I love it for me It suits perfectly that that type of environment, but yeah well how I got into the tennis like I’m not a tennis player like yeah At all was even a tennis fan before that like never even watched it before that if I was working with the best in the world, it’s pretty funny, but It well goes back to what you asked me before about that quote about who you know gets you there what you know keeps you there.

Yeah, okay, so I was living in a stray at the time and my wife’s from here So that’s why we’re living here, but we’re in the process of moving back moving back to the US Okay, I have there’s this tennis professional who we have a mutual friend a couple of friends are mutual friends So this tennis pro I met him once when he first migrated to the US He was like 13 or 14, but that I didn’t really see or spoke spoke to him since then like just didn’t really know him but new welcome We had this mutual good friends.

And so that mutual friend thought, you know what? I’m gonna go do a strike because I watched Dimitri play this rain open and I could go hang out with Jason and Renee, my wife. So it would be a win-win, like yeah, cool. So as they came over here, we just happened to be talking. And at that time, so it was Dimitri Tursonoff was the first pro I was working with.

They were in the process of they wanted to fire their physio and strength coach guy like this. just kind of do a bit everything they wanted to get rid of him and Tom our mutual friend was like and Vitality of the coach was like hey Jason does this what he does like he’s that’s what he’s been by then I was already you know ten or you know whatever years into working with a lot of stuff I was already you know no one for doing what I do yeah so they came to Kennedy say hey like we hey, like, we know you moving back to the US.

He was based in the US. Um, and just asked, they would have been interested in checking out, trying out tennis. I was like, cool. So I flew over early, did like a little camp with him and another player, Igor Kounitsen. Yeah. Um, do like a little mini camp with them. That went pretty well. I kind of liked the, the way it was set up. They liked the way I was working.

So they said, Hey, well, you know, traveling and working on tour is much different than just going to the gym and training and practicing, right? Yeah, it’s a huge difference. So, you know, why don’t we go to a couple tournaments to see how that goes. And that went really well. And then, yeah, I just got stuck there. And then, you know, after like a very short period, like all the players, because I just approached things differently.

Cause I wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like everyone else doing everything else. Um, you know, I would go to the physios and other coaches and just say, have this idea. What do you think?” I would just share my thoughts even if I looked like a complete idiot. Because I figured, “Well, why wouldn’t I just share this?” That’s one of the big things that I do all the time anyway.

I just think about, “Well, I want to try this.” Is anyone else try it if not, “Why?” and if yes, how’d it go? Give me your feedback about it. I mean, the first two athletes I had after maybe six months, four or five, maybe six months of training, they used to do this high performance profile thing. Like twice a year, they would just take all the top guys and you know, guys was ATP and just test and follow these different performance markers like their fitness, their core strength, all that stuff.

And both my guys were just destroying it. Like there was this one, this like, Coron Durance, like exercise that this doctor and this physio structured together. And they’re like, they’re banging out reps. I and they’re falling apart. It’s like so I think we’re good and like what are you doing with them? I’m like, oh, I’ll tell you. So I did all kinds of stuff.

But anyway, so that’s how I kind of got there. But traveling on the tour to your second party question. Sorry. I mean, it’s very, I mean, for me, I love it because it’s always on. Meaning you’re in different time zones almost every other week. You’re in and out of airports constantly. We’re on like beds, different food that’s available. What equipment we have available as far as training space and gyms and weather.

You know, so we’re literally constantly changing the time zones, the food available. You know, we still have to perform week after week. We don’t know our schedules, right? Meaning we know we’re going to play tomorrow, the night before. Like literally, right? And then on the day, you might be third on, but that might be in two hours, it might be in 10 hours.

It might get changed to the next day. So everything has to be, you have to be adaptable very quick. You have to be able to react and respond quickly and still make sure that your player is fresh. I mean, I’m feeling good because it doesn’t matter how they feel, right? Everyone’s so sneaky and has problems and stresses, but make sure that they’re fresh and ready to play yeah when it’s time to perform Yeah, right so you have a lot of things that you can’t control that are always changing that are very important like sleep What time of day it is what food they have available?

So you have to be like just on point all the time and the thing too that I like about it is that Even as a strength conditioning coach or performance coach, anything and everything I do today with you, the entire world’s going to see if I screwed it up or not the next day. Right? Like it’s going to be obvious if we’ve been doing this and they go out and they don’t perform that way.

It’s going to be obvious if something I did helped or hindered their performance. Yeah. Right. I know it’s not all just on me. I just have a look at it Obviously, there’s a lot of variables like their mindset them. You know, the whole thing. There’s a lot of variables obviously But you get what I’m saying, like it’s very very like, you know Everything there’s nowhere to hide Yeah, I’m a tourist because of nowhere to hide like even from the other coaches and trainers like there’s just there’s nowhere to hide You know, it’s very stressful and then you have players that because they’re always on the road, like some of the younger ones, like they’re new to the environment, they’re always away from friends.

They’re never around friends or family. They’re basically in airports and in hotels 24/7. If we’re awake, we’re all together and we’re working. Right? There’s like not structured official like downtime, because we can’t plan ahead. We don’t know. Like most, for the most part, we don’t know. So I like it because it’s very, very performance based. You have minimal resources in time, right?

Cause you can’t control it. And you have a massive outcome that you’re supposed to achieve. So I love that. It’s like perfect. I think it’s very like, I don’t think people realize that like me from side to side looking in the people would actually realize just how much work goes into all that. And like you sort of said, like, yes, okay, you may know when a tournament’s on burn the actual day-to-day like it’s probably sounds like it’s ever changing like you don’t know whether you’re playing like in the morning or not There’s a lot of guesstimating you know a match that might be before you might go for four hours sometimes mentioned.

Yes men’s games. Yeah, you go to a glass slams like ours. Yeah, you never know you so you have to just imagine that like you or the weather kind of comes and goes and stops and starts like imagine like you’re about to perform at a you know the biggest stage in your particular sport Yeah, and you show up on the day you there in the morning you do all your prep you do all your warm-up hips you do all your your stuff Let you do and then you could get ready to perform and then you’re like, okay, no, it’s oh and constantly kind of like I’m about to go on but I’m not starting I’m stopping so you know being able to manage that energy so that way they don’t by the time they get on the court they’re not just spent from just like sitting there waiting or anticipating more or like yeah it’s tough it’s tricky it’s a bit of art form in that the timing and the rhythm and it goes it goes really even further and why you really need to know your people really well yeah so that way you can help manage that energy.

– Sure. – The better touch on the importance of why it’s so important to build rapport and I suppose develop that sort of relationship, not only I suppose with your clients, but also like you said with the rest of the coaching staff. – Yeah, I mean like regardless of the environment, I mean you’re working with people. – Yeah. – Like so you can know all the fancy numbers and data and your science behind what you’re doing, But if you can’t work with people, the thing is, it’s about having trouble.

You can have all the right ingredients all perfectly lined up and in place. But if you lack trust, those are always going to be limited. You’re going to be limited on what you’ll be able to get that person to do. You need to have this report because there’s going to be times where maybe you need to speak up and you need to give them a hard word, you know what I mean?

And if you don’t have that relationship where you can do that, well one, it just turns into an argument, there’s not much positive outcome out of that, and maybe even you lose your job. And you get a poor reputation of being like, you know, assholes. I don Yeah, no, I mean, that’s like a side thing. But like, I mean, it’s, well, because it’s everything.

I guess the easy answer to your question, like, why is it important to build rapport and I’m not sure what I said, but like having that rapport and that relationship is because it is everything, especially in these individual sports, like say in the tennis. I mean, you’re spending so much time together. If you don’t like each other or you can’t at least get along on some level, it’s not going to be a comfortable environment.

Like you need to have that. And there’s times where there’s so much stress internally and externally outside of the environment. Like you need to have that relationship with each other where you can kind of help each other out, support each other, kind of keep things going. But if you really want to get to like what they need and where they’re at right now, if you don’t have the You’re not gonna you’re not gonna get them to make any change.

Yeah, you’re not gonna get them to want to do more You know what I mean? It makes sense. Is that sort of something like I want to do that? You know because the other part is the athletes job as well like so like we always talk about like coaches and their language and our body language and build relationships and Building rapport and all that kind of stuff to help our clients, whoever they may be, to for them to come up with the solution on how to help themselves and make those decisions.

But it also goes to the athletes. Like, I want to do everything as a coach I can to make you want to do your best, right? I want you to want me to be successful, right? But also I want the athletes need to understand that like to get the most out of your coaches and your team, you need to do the same thing. You also need to learn how and understand that your coach is a human.

They may have a family that they’re not with all the time. They may have some other external things happening to them. Whatever the thing is, it may not be negative things like I’m saying, but it could be positive. But you need to know your coach and your physios, your staff, right? Your team. – They were humans. – We’re all humans. And like you want them to like do that extra bit for you, then make them want to do that.

– Yes. – Like don’t be a prick, right? Be grateful for what’s around. You know, give feedback, you know, and you know, a timely feedback and you know, appropriate feedback, but like, you know, it goes both ways. – Yeah. – Right? It’s the relationship part. So people often forget that part. – You’ve hit that straightening my next thing, and that’s what I was talking about.

Yeah, I suppose that I was gonna ask you why it’s so important, it’s supposed to keep asking questions and keep forgetting that sort of feedback, but I think you’re kind of at– – Yeah, I mean, it’s important, obviously, ’cause things are always changing and evolving. You need to, you can’t be assuming that you’re on the right track. Yeah, you know many times that I thought like I knew why someone was doing something and I’m pretty good at like reading people and the vibe and you know kind of seeing what has happened That’s because you know that led to this you know is how connecting those dots, but even with that There’s so many times where I was like yeah, I knew what was happening and why was happening and then suddenly like I asked a question and they come up with the answer I’m like, wow, that’s so obvious I didn’t think about that.

Yeah, you know what I mean? Like you got to get that feedback because you never really know like you have to like even just from a learning perspective, you know, coach development stuff is like I’ve learned more from my athletes and my clients than I have from like studying a textbook course, you know, like of real world application because you know, like like my one tennis player, for example, my wrestler, whatever, they have had all their own experiences.

They’ve had lots of different coaches and being exposed to lots of different things that I haven’t. Like that was their experience. So why would I listen to them? And at the end of the day, they’re the expert on them. So why would I not want to constantly be asking questions and finding that information out? Good point. Yeah. Now, I suppose one of the biggest challenges of most athletes or clients or I should say all the athletes are going in is more that dealing with ego.

Oh, yeah. How I suppose do you manage that? Like, especially like when we’re talking to some players, I imagine you would trend some of these players would be a bit younger, like the early teen, maybe they got more out of their 20s. – Oh, like the early 20s? – Yeah, you get those ones. Yeah, they got the young ones out of their 20s. – Obviously I’m sure the season ones, you know, they said they’re kind of a bit more mature and stuff.

– How do you keep the ego in check? – Well, I mean, that’s why I do so much Jiu Jitsu and wrestling and stuff. So just in case next to me. (laughing) – When did that just chokin’ that, right? – Yeah, yeah. – Actually, it’s funny, I’ve had coaches come to me and say, “Listen, I’ve had this I And they said but I’m gonna come a few comes I figure that like one you’re good at dealing with these because I have a reputation of taking the people that no one else can go work with like they just they’re crazy that like really that attitude but they’re just intense and yeah, they’re kind of crazy and said They would tell me like listen like you know one you’re good at dealing with these people somehow getting them to do the work even though no one else seems to be able to do it and worst case never figure like if they get out of hand you just choke them out and it’s all fine so But they know that you’re gonna hurt them so yeah, I should say that out loud, but I haven’t heard anybody yet, so it’s okay.

So it’s okay. I would Anyhow look the thing is is I think first and foremost I need to understand that like ego is good. It’s not a bad thing necessarily It can be like in the term of you know people use it in that context of like being really arrogant and rude and disrespectful You know disrespectful, part of ego. But if you want anyone to perform their best, to really, really be able to get out there, put themselves in front of the world and online, if they don’t have that strong, deep self belief, that ego, they’re not going to be able to do it.

They have to have that. Yeah, okay Yeah, they can learn to and as they mature they can learn how to like interact with people better and and know you know how to Speak to people like something to learn that right so for me look I first and foremost I understand listen, you know what especially an individual sport like I know there’s gonna be a certain money you go like they’re the they’re the ones they’re the boss right they want to be you know the one in charge Yeah, that’s quite more than because obviously that you’re the spotlights on them like that’s yeah and talking tennis, my tennis players pay me directly, right?

So like in a way I work for them. Yeah. Right. So, so often there’s this weird thing of like, well, I’m paying you. So like I’m in charge. That’s what the athletes thinking, right? It’s like, well, nobody, you’re paying me to like coach you to help you with these things. Right. So you’re paying for my expertise, not for you to tell me what you need to do.

Right. So there’s this weird little, it’s a weird thing where normally like, you know, you work for a team. If you’re the coach, well, that player got recruited by the team and the coach is the boss. Usually it makes sense. In a lot of these individual sports the other way around, it’s almost like the athletes are the boss because they’re the ones paying, not the team.

That makes sense? How do you deal with that, though? I guess that relationship will… You just sit in the table from the start to understanding like well What are your expectations of me and I’m gonna tell you my expectations of you and then we’re gonna find you know before we start We’re gonna find sort of how that’s gonna work and of course we can adapt and evolve this as we go So it’s just having that clear sort of understanding of like okay.

Where’s the line? Right and for me, it’s like listen you can get pissed off while you get frustrated. You get angry at me. I’ve had many athletes, you know, even in the gym just lose their shit. Just like, it’s so upset because I’m just like getting them to do that next little thing, right? Or making them do something they just, they’re very uncomfortable or I’m doing things to purposely, purposely frustrate them and fluster them and distract them while they’re practicing because that’s the environment they have to work in.

They have to be able to not let those distractions get their emotions. So in those moments, there’s some heated conversations for sure. Times where I’ve just lost it. I mean, I had one girl like, oh, actually it was the first time I was a guy. We’re in the middle of doing whatever. He starts going on his phone and we had this clear like boundary about, okay, you’re not on your phone while we’re doing this, right?

It was one, one, second time there was a third time and I just grabbed his phone and literally just got his phone. I like I’m actually takes a long time for me to have that but yeah, I write off the bat I let people know this is my line and probably the line really for me and And what’s helped me is like you can get mad and frustrated all you want.

Yeah, it’s part of it like it’s normal you’re human you’re pushing yourself It’s very difficult but never ever make it personal. Okay. Yeah, if you say anything personal if you start to get personal about it call on people names Swearing at the person like me insulting any of us on the team. That’s where the line gets drawn. That is, you don’t do that.

It’s okay to get mad. Smash a racket, throw a ball, fucking punch a wall, I don’t really care. Just do whatever the hell you need to do, and then get over it and get back to work. But you make it personal, then we have problems. So that’s probably one of the biggest ways, to just make it very clear from the start. It’s caving that long. I would say having those boundaries Yeah, and some some people I give bigger boundaries to others and I kind of closing in as we go It’s like kind of like maybe they’re younger and I kind of get where they’re at So some are a bit more patient with and I kind of let them get away with a bit more other times other people I’m like no no you know better I know that you’re doing this purpose place.

So and I know you’re able to do differently Yeah, so we’re gonna talk about this. Okay, – Now what about in terms of the extrinsic, there’s other sort of factors, like things like I guess maybe just the pressure of being I suppose like an athlete, wherever it could be the media, it could be obviously that bouncy, chagrass social, like within the humans as well.

– Sure, yeah. – Obviously like maybe people seem to forget there’s obviously a lot of, maybe other stresses that they can have the same stresses like any other person they just they play a sport. How do you manage that? How like I’m sure you’d obviously a few of your athletes would they bring into training sessions or bring into all these courses in the outside.

Yeah. How do you control it? Yeah, of course. I mean, look, like with all these questions, I mean, we can speak days on this. There’s a lot of different things. But firstly, you’re right. I mean, they’re human. They have relationships outside of their sport. They have responsibilities outside of their sport. They might have responsibilities within their sport.

A lot of the players I work with are, you know, like they’re the top players. And so they have sponsorships. They have managers, you know, like they have agents, you know, so they have all these outside responsibilities to media, you know, activities, you know, they have to do certain things for their Nike sponsorship or not do certain things for this.

Like, so there’s a lot of other things that they have to be constantly mindful of and deal with, not to mention like their family, their partners, their, you know, I’ve had, I’ve had so many of my athletes not do well, like having to phases where they’re struggling had nothing to do with their physical ability. Right. It was because they had like some relationship with their partner was going bad.

Like they were having a divorce or they’re having a big breakup or a big fight or their kid was sick or whatever, you know, like depending on the sport. And they’re human. It’s very difficult to separate that stuff sometimes. So again, I think a big part of it is first and foremost, like I said, it’s like that setting the table thing, like understanding from the start that like you said, they’re human.

There’s going to be things that we can’t control that are going to happen. There’s going to be be obstacles, there’s gonna be some life things like arena of the girl work with like the end of last year, we’re starting our preseason. Like it’s the only time that we have a block of actually like training, right? To work on something, ’cause we’re just competing all year long and her father dies.

And then she has a huge breakup with her coach at the same time. So that’s gonna be a pretty productive training camp, right? So like, but we still need to do the work. We still find a way to, you know, to keep moving forward. So these things happen. So first and foremost, you just understand that there’s going to be things that you can’t control. But there’s all going to be things that we can’t control.

You know, if they come in, like you can’t, if you think that you’re going to keep them away from all that stuff, I think you’re doing them a disservice because things are gonna get in the way Yeah, and I think what how I deal with it is more so a longer-term approach There’s no magic pill bullet thingy, right? Yeah, it’s more like if you know your person really well Then you can help them get through that better.

Yeah, if you know your person really well then you can help them find that Switch during this training session to get through it, right? So there’s that part. The other part though, I look at it more of a long-term development thing, meaning if someone is having these, if they’re smaller sort of things and they’re influencing it impacting their performance negatively, then we really need to work on that, right?

Because what we need to do is teach them how to, how to hit that switch. When they walk in the door, they’re onto the core of the field, how to, how to, how create that that’s gone. Focusing on what I’m doing in front of me right now is all that matters. There’s going to be many times that we have to perform when we don’t feel our best emotionally, physically, mentally, whatever.

And so if you want to be the best at whatever you do, you need to learn how to do what needs to get done today regardless of how you feel. So it’s teaching them various techniques on how to manage that. Some of it is managing, like, sometimes it’s just, you know what, this is a pretty serious thing. Go take some time off and deal with it. Just go deal with it.

Just get the hell out of here because you’re wasting your time. You’re gonna feel worse because you know you had a crappy practice. You know, on and on all these things. So sometimes it’s like, look, just go have a break. Is it perfect timing? No, but just go get it done. But overall, I think you just need to help them learn as a human how to deal with adversity.

Yeah, how to manage their energy. So maybe it’s even like we get through this and I start giving them some, you know, like we have this thing called legs up breathing. Right. So tonight, legs up breathing. It’s just a way of just help them physical recovery, but that breathing exercises helps them have a moment of just like just switching off, just find lots of different ways of applying it.

Like conceptually, that makes sense when I’m saying it. – No, it does. – Yeah. So there’s a lot of things there. Just you can’t stop it from happening, but you can teach them how to manage it best. – Yeah. – Right. And also to be prepared for that stuff. – Do you have to mistake a lot of people, mate, it’s that maybe some coaches make it’s kind of like dismissing that it can happen.

Like not acknowledging that, hey, just can come sometime and they just seem maybe they’ve seen anything all that’s ignored or that’s a straw. Yeah some of them just like trying to you know be sort of really aggressive about or angry about it or they’d be like complacent about it like they they kind of blow it off like it said or I just get through it or just toughen up or this or that like I’m not saying you need a baby people because you don’t like I said you need to get them to be able to do things when they don’t feel like doing them yeah that’s a big part of our job no matter what role you play that’s a big part of our job yeah and it doesn’t matter if you’re general public or or whatever like it’s the same thing right right so yeah I think people do either over focus on it or under focus on it but again that’s why you know your person yeah that’s why you know your team your people because then you could best figure out how to apply that how do I attack it?

Yeah, so now I’m just a bit of an expanded question here, but we kind of talked a lot about You know, there’s a lot of things out there in terms of how coaches using such as you know like data and I’m sure like all that sort of has its place But for sure, I feel like with you as well, you know, you’ve always struck this someone that, like, you obviously acknowledge it can be useful.

We can do it. But you don’t obviously rely on it purely. I suppose can you talk about, I suppose, the power of, obviously, body language, words, and just how much of the impact it can have. It’s dealing with your athletes, with you talking to them, but also reading theirs as well. – Yeah, sure. I mean, the first part of your question, yeah, obviously, and I kind of mentioned this earlier, I suppose, is that definitely collecting data, relevant data that’s useful, the numbers, having our various devices, we have some great technologies in the days.

I remember when the Omega Wave thing came out with the HRV, it was this massive machine that cost thousands and thousands and thousands. Now you just add on your phone. So it’s great. And we do use these things intermittently in different times or different environments, again, more based on the athlete like what they feel like if they have that data like some people really driven by that Yeah, others are like more noise.

I don’t care. Yeah, they don’t care They just think it’s like, you know, I go to some athletes if I start going okay, we’re gonna use this app and we click this data They’re just like right away. They switch stops like yeah, okay. I want someone else next All right, cuz they’re like this guy’s just like he’s gonna be heading some no text book He’s gonna give me some spiel about something, but he’s not gonna listen to me.

Yeah, right so They definitely have its place right because you need to know what you’re doing is working right you need to measure things Yeah more than okay. I did say I listen to my gut a lot, but I still I do check I do make sure that you know we’re managing is working and all that good stuff so Has its place? But you’re right. I don’t rely on those things.

Like it’s not like, I’ll use them when we need them, they’re a tool. And like any other tool, I got to know when to use it and when to back off and how am I going to use it, right? So obviously, I think especially this younger generation of coaches coming through and they’ve become so reliant on the technology because it’s so available and our whole life is about technology, right?

Live without your phone for a second, see what happens. You want to do anything, find anything, hear anything, whatever, connect with anything, it’s your phone, boom, right away, I’m sorry. So there’s this habit, I guess, people falling over using technology and forgetting these softer skills of Actually being able to communicate right be able to speak to people knowing like you said how I carry myself Yeah, and the words I use the tone I use the speed I speak the you know all that stuff is gonna have a massive impact on how the person’s gonna respond You know I could say the right words, but if I say very aggressively your initial reaction to me to me is like, “Well, what the hell?”

If it’s not the right time. If I’m trying to get you to do something and I’m telling you you have to do it, initially you’re right away have a resistance. This whole psychological reactance theory, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, is like, “No matter if I suggest something to anybody, right away, there’s already a little bit of, even if you trust me like nothing else, else, you still have this little bit of hesitation until you understand Well, why am I saying that?

Okay. And why do I want you to do this? Yeah, right? Even if you trust me and you’re just doing anything I say, right? There’s still initially this resistance to like, okay, wait, he’s telling me to do this, but I still need to have a bit more information on why. So imagine if you don’t have that full trust. There’s obviously I got to be able to not just tell them what to do.

I need find out Well, what do they think and then why and then go let’s find let’s kind of work together on getting there Yeah, cuz I need you to tell me why you’re gonna do something not me to tell you that Going around the other way point of the other way around what about more can you talk about just the athlete as well and the maybe there’s some breeding things like the body language Oh 100% like which I kind of touched a little bit on before is that if I’m walking around pacing and stressing out or twitching and fiddling, like, I actually have a habit of doing that.

Sometimes I’ll just cause I like a very like, a lot of energy all the time. So I just be sitting like, tapping my foot or moving, like moving my leg. Yeah. I’m not cause nervous to just, just cause I have to sit still for too long. And like a arena, for example, it drives their nuts. Just cause just looking at me, Jason. I’m like, I know what she means.

Yeah. So like I still get caught up in it, right? So, but our body language and the words we use, of course, like it’s going to have a direct impact on our athletes. Yeah. And if our job is to get them to perform the best, then we need to keep that stuff in check. You know, and then and sometimes look, there’s times where like, let’s say they had a match and they lost or was ugly loss or you did something, you know, during or before the match that kind of they used it as a distraction right like got into their head Yeah, you know and then after the match is just like there’s been matches where I’ve just not said a single word So they’re still doing their routine.

They’re doing their warm downs or doing the stretch like just on their own though just and I’m sitting there Just quiet not saying a single word the entire time I want to make eye contact with each other would just sit there in the same room right next to each other like we’re not even there. You know, and sometimes they’ll have like times you just need to know if my player, if I know my player well enough and let’s say they’re acting really flat but normally they’re pretty hyped up.

I need to find a way to get them hyped up. If they’re normally pretty mellow, they need some time alone and they’re quiet, you know, but they’re pacing around and joking with everyone, I need to pull them up and get them to get away from everybody. So I need to get them to make sure that they’re doing what they need to do, but I also need to act the same way.

I mean, if they’re overaroused, I can’t be aroused either. I can’t be walking around all hyper and crazy. I need to check myself. So how that is, the details of that are very specific to that moment and that individual. I don’t know if I mentioned the question. No, you are. No, you are. I don’t know if you want to talk about specific words or whatever, but like.

Yeah, that actually was. Well, one era, I think I’m more of myself. I suppose how with the athletes dealing with losses and adversity, just maybe maybe some examples of how, you know, way did be able to control when I suppose maybe things haven’t gone maybe the athletes way and Yeah, I suppose um, yeah, I know whether it’s like a locker room or yeah again It can vary obviously, you know I consciously try not to answer questions with it depends, but I want to every question for the last few.

It depends. The two word on Go. To go back to the word thing, the body language, one of the things that a simple one to, as an example, is like, besides that psychological reactance thing, I don’t want to tell you things, I want you to tell me what you’re going to do or how you’re going to do it. There’s a few little ways of getting people to do that, but also there’s that whole concept of like, do versus don’t.

I want to tell you what I want you to do, not what I don’t want you to do. If I want you to not serve into the net, I’m going to serve into the net. Because all they heard was serve into the net. The brain goes, oh, they cut that part. I know a lot of people heard of this thing, but you’d be surprised how often how often you do it without realizing it Okay, right so just be very mindful of those like little subtle things sure you know if they have an injury being really careful about the words you use about like if their back is bothering me Oh, yeah, it’s really unstable man You can tell someone back pain that they have unstable back suddenly they’re gonna move a lot less than be paranoid about doing anything because it’s gonna just gonna fall apart all of a sudden right Yeah, so it’s being really mindful of that kind of stuff is important to make sure that, you know, if something happens, I don’t get, I don’t, something bad happens, I don’t freak out.

I just like, I just get really calm and just, I’m chill. More than normal. Normally I’m pretty like, “Hey, let’s go, go, go.” Right? But when something bad happens, I’m just like, I’m just cool. I’m good. Right? It’s like, okay, it happened. And so this is what we’re gonna do about it. – Is this something you’ve learned over time, or is that something you’ve always kind of just picked up on up on straight away I think I mean for me I felt like I feel like it’s something I’ve just been that way for a long time and then as I got older and more you know experienced I started to realize what those things are.

Yeah, you know what I mean like oh that’s called this You said you didn’t have maybe that the term you knew I was doing it for whatever reason like I was I don’t know how I picked it up or taught it or you know Yeah, yeah, just it just was doing it. Yeah, and then later on I realized oh that’s called this. Okay, I still have that we’re all be talking about something and someone some expert in a specific niche with all Yeah, that’s called this I’m like, oh, okay.

Cool. Take a note of that. I didn’t know that that sounds great Well, I’ll talk about breathing and like some yoga expert comes in and goes all that’s called sucka walka digi or whatever Yeah, sorry not to insult anyone. But there’s no other names, but I’m like, “Oh, it’s like 3,000 year old way of breathing.” I’m like, “Oh, like just last year they just came up with that from some research they did.”

But the only losses, I mean, that’s again, it’s part of it. It’s gonna happen. I think probably one of the biggest things that I like to do is to know and just let them have their moment. If they come off of their field or court and they just embarrassed themselves, they feel embarrassed, they’re humiliated, they’re upset, they’re angry, they had their moments, they screwed it up, they didn’t pull the trigger or they didn’t feel like whatever the thing was, they just were overwhelmed with this motion.

Let them have their time in. You don’t need to fix that, right? They need to fix that. It’s not my problem. My job is to make sure that the next day they can keep going and to figure out what worked that day and what didn’t work that day and then what are we going to do about it. So I’m already processing that stuff, but I’m not talking to them about it.

I’m just letting them have their space and time. If they’re angry, they’re slamming stuff, they’re getting mad. I’ve had so many times athletes afterwards just losing their shit Right and sometimes even like I don’t I’ve had athletes like talking about us the team like oh I just don’t know about you trust me if you guys you tell me this and this happens it Yeah, we’re all think we’re getting fired basically right.

I mean I don’t think that usually when they do that I just know that they’re in this moment and they’re a frustrate and they’re trying to find a reason and they’re so upset and they don’t know what to do and why it’s happening Oh, yeah, you you know, and they’re just saying things. It’s like, okay, let them have it. And then they’re gonna settle down and then we have a little bit of like subtle talks, you know, and then we’ll kind of find this thing.

It’s like, okay, yeah. And then 99% of time that later that day or that moment or even the next day, it’s like, hey, look, you know, they’re more settled. They’re kind of more rational. And then we could go, okay, let’s look at what happened. So kind of figure out when to talk about what happened, like the details about what you did or didn’t do or how or why and what are we going to do next time about it to make sure we can avoid that.

So just part of the deal, brother. Now going on to another new on to the I guess the coaching sweet spot. sweet spots my business. Yeah, because it’s a cool ass name. Well, I was just thinking like, you know, I originally kind of came about, because I always looked at things I used to talk a lot about this years ago. And it probably just come from that martial art background where, you know, like in martial arts where it’s combat sports or traditional martial arts, it’s really so much more than just learning how to fight.

Yeah, it’s about developing you as a person, right? As a competitor, as a performer, off the mat, how you are as a human is Just as if not more important as you are as a competitor right because they’re gonna have a strong impact on each other and you know when it comes down to stressful moments Who you are as a person is what’s gonna matter? That’s what that’s who’s gonna come out successful right so you know That’s what we focus on so much so I’ve always had that sort of approach where like you’s a person-first approach.

And again, it’s not a new thing. It’s been around forever. People talk about it over the years. The last few years has probably been more conversations about like the language, you know, the person first, you know, knowing your person, all that stuff. So for me, the coaching sweep spot was, you know, initially it was like, I always looked at this hierarchy of like, it’s first the person, yeah, second the athlete, and then third the specific player, like what position they play, what sport they play, what level they are.

So what I mean is like first I know who are you, like who are you individual, what you’re personality like, what you like, what you don’t like, what experiences you have, what country are you from, what exposure you’ve had to, whatever, right? Just who you are. I need to know the more I know about that the better it’s gonna be be. Then as an athlete, what you get is just what I mean by that is like, okay, you want to do this sport at this level, in this position, whatever, right?

Now, do you have the basic physical attributes and capabilities to do that? So let’s fill in the gaps if you don’t. And then the last thing is like the sport specific thing, right? The player specific, the position specific, whatever. But and what I’ve found over the years is that most people go the other way around, they get a new client, they go all the sports specific stuff.

Because that’s what the athlete wants. And that’s what they think they want. Or the parents or the coaches, it’s like, oh, let’s do all these specific drills and do this and that. And it has to be, which again, it’s not wrong or right. It’s just the way it is. Yeah. And then over time, they start to of work out and think oh yeah, knowing the person is important or it happens by accident, right?

Or I always say I need to do this on purpose. I start the work with the things that they think they they want like the specific things we need to do the work But I’m looking at filling in the gaps and making sure I know who is in front of me So it kind of came about that where it’s like if you look at my logo There’s like a shield there’s three little things on this around it.

And one looks like a DNA strand because that’s about who you are. Another one looks like a two hand sort of intertwined shaking, like the relationship thing. And the other is like a wing. Because again, that’s my goal is to like, I want you to be self aware, self-reliant and know and just I want to help build the foundation so you can go and fly and just take off and go wherever you want.

And so the sweet spot part of it is literally just about that. It’s like what every sport, everything, what is the sweet spot? It’s like that perfect combination of all those things. And what that combination for you and me is different. And what it is for you right now is different than what it was last year, what it might be next year. So that’s what that is.

And so that’s what it is. And to ask Andrew in question regarding what have I been doing, like most of my work in the sweet spot has been broken up in three parts. One is I still work with my athletes. And a few different sports. A lot of it’s online. And then I travel with a handful of them as well. Mostly the tennis now with arena is been my main person I’ve been working with traveling.

And then I have a few of you with and if I happen to be in the country where my online clients are we’ll do some face-to-face work. Then I have my coach development side. I work with a lot of younger coaches because I’ve said that point in my career last few years where I just want to like share as much as I can have a lot of different experiences and I find that a lot of that’s missing and a lot of the education that they’re getting.

So I do a lot of coach development stuff, run little programs, awesome online, some face-to-face. And in between all that, I do a lot of lecturing and workshops and teaching. And I started the teaching side, even went into allied healthcare and the fitness industry, ’cause I wanted to look at, well, what are they teaching you right now? And what’s missing?

‘Cause then if I knew what you know and what you’re missing, I would know how to better create my content as far as workshops and lectures and stuff. That’s really what we’re doing. I’ve been working with lots of athletes. I mean, got a whole bunch of championships and different sports over the last number of years, a few gold medals and silver medals in three Olympics, two Commonwealth Games, a bunch of different…

don’t know I mean I forget half of it to be honest because I don’t really do it for I have this thing and sometimes it works against me but I have this thing where like before we finish this thing I’m already like planning and acting on the next so I sort of missed that whole like we should celebrate this win you know like yeah we won the US Open like last year like the girls like one the US Open doubles.

Yeah what are you talking about I was good Well that whole year of even just for their doubles like she like my my players She was having a you know some ups and downs overall. She did well overall for the year But oh there was a lot of ups and downs. There’s a struggle a tough year for her the year before she had a breakout year And then last year was a bit of struggle because there’s this expectation everyone knows who she is There’s a target on her back.

Yeah, yeah, I mean to rea Saba linka. Sorry. She’s like I don’t know maybe right now the number nine in the world or something. Yeah, it kind of changes a little bit here. But doubles in singles and doubles. I think she’s like four or five anyway, but so they had a great year in doubles and like at first she was very resistant to play doubles, but we’re like a coach and we’re like, well, no, like it’s comp is competing.

It’s learning how to prepare for matches. It’s practicing your reactions. It is a different game. Yes. And your goal was to win all the grandstands as a singles player. We understand. And you’re very young. She just, well, she just turned 22 last week. So she very, very young at this. So at the time, she was like 20. We’re like, look, it’s okay. Got time.

You got a lot to learn still. Slow down there. You know what I mean? So we got to do doubles in that year. won the the sunshine double or something like this So it’s two major tournaments in my Indian Wells of Miami two huge ones Yeah, they won both of those back to back and then you know whatever the next grand slam They won the doubles and they killed it in the doubles I mean, they made so much money to you and it was crazy.

So I’m like, so you have you did some doubles now Yeah, but um, you know, that was great. I was cool. I mean it was it was exciting like for me It was it was a weird feeling because the I think it was in the final semis or something like that Of her singles. I think it was because she did okay in singles too. I was we’re preparing for the match I wasn’t feeling well that day I was having some health issues like I kind of just kept getting woozy and losing my balance Yeah, and then as they were going out to the court I was like to the coach like I was like said to me.

She was like man I can’t I called it get the doc here now I’m leading against the wall. I was like screw. I was like screw I I went back and got to the court for the final. What were you talking about? Still going through a little bit of that. I’m about 80% now. So they had all the markers for a number of things from MS to these autoimmune diseases.

They thought at the time I was having some sort of brain issue. Blood flow to my brain was a problem. I took every box where I had literally no blood going in my brain. They rushed me to the hospital. Did all these tests. All the blood flow was fine. I I mean, it’s getting better. I mean, I went to a point I couldn’t do five push-ups Like at all I went back to the jiu-jitsu club when I came back home And I thought I’ll just go hang out and maybe watch him just maybe do some drills like easy So I could barely do anything I jog around the mat once and before the second time I couldn’t move my legs I could not lift my legs like a tae point it was weird But it was like like for five six days after that every every part of my legs hurt to touch Like it felt like I ran like five ultra marathons Wow just for my jog lightly around the mat once.

Yeah, so my nervous system was fried and What we think okay when I say we everyone telling me off because I often will have like two or three days where I won’t go to bed Like I literally don’t close my eyes. Yeah, so that was probably the main thing is like a sleep So it’s sad because I’ve written papers on it and they’ve had Some of the schools I’ve taught out or went to school at they asked me to use my papers as part of their curriculum because it’s so I We do that day we’re on an airplane to the next one.

Yeah, I mean so it’s like you know and that’s my mind says like hey I’ve already we won that I’m a cool high five kind of the back Let’s go guys. You think I work to do like we have to recover. We have to go to the plane We gotta make sure we land this what you’re gonna do. So my mind is already like boom boom. I let them have that space to go celebrate But only for a certain amount because you know what next week we have work to do You gotta start a tournament all over it’s not fresh.

That’s right. So anyhow, yeah, so Well, I really like I’m going a little bit back to you I I’ve heard of him. I watch his team take down a thing. I get jealous. That was something for me, which is really different for coaching. He was the first coach I ever had where he actually had a set of criteria that he had to meet to train in his gym. It was more about as a person and nothing to do with it.

I feel the obviously, it’s something that you can’t support. But for him, it was like you know, you had to basically go through it was about a month and a bit of a process where you know He wants to basically find out, you know, first I’m a conversation one of the first why you want to reach out to And then have a team member meet the view then references It was this and it was this and it was me at the time I thought it was so over the top.

He like what the heck’s going on? I I’ve seen the what I feel like as a person I’ve gotten better doing as well, but I kind of see why it’s so important to Obviously, yeah, so it’s like you need to know who the athletes know person is and you know Obviously they’re a good person off the mat. You know on the mat like yeah, you don’t want very very connected Yeah, so I spent you think about like the sport that we do you know the grappling type stuff It’s very like can hurt people.

You want to make sure that you know, you got and from a coaching perspective, because I’m one of my old like since days in traditional sort of Jiu Jitsu, you know, we have this problem where one of his block belts end up, he found out later on that he was convicted rapist and he trained him from like nothing to be coming to a block belt. How would you feel about that man?

Like teaching someone how to like control people, like physically control and harm people that was actually a predator. Like so I can get it like why you know that’s like an extreme version obviously but like just in general like you working very closely with each other. Like you know it’s important to be able to like you know really know who’s in front of you know what they’re going to interact with your team.

More you got that from the martial arts you took that from martial arts into your coaching is that something or yeah, I think so I think I mean that’s always been a part of just like like I said I can’t touch them before is you know take that holistic approach you’re looking at developing the person right not just like can you fight because a lot anyone could learn how to You know fight really, you know, okay.

Yeah, there’s some X factors involved, but yeah, definitely I think that a big part of it comes from my background as a You know, I was born in Japan. I’ve been doing martial arts pretty much my whole life Yeah, and I mean obviously when I was homeless and stuff like like even actually I would say martial arts saved my life Yeah, maybe sometimes this physical sense but not and I don’t mean in that sense meaning the there’s this local martial arts school I used to you know in the hood sort of thing I mean there was like adult bookstores and porn shops surrounding it right like so it was really definitely like this little shack surrounded by like you know Dirty places that’s was this this is in Washington state Washington.

Yeah, and so I said kind of just see it all the time and you know before I had this issue I was really big in a martial arts I was training all the time wrong I was homeless all that and I used to go in his watch and talk and try to get there and I didn’t have anyone to sign You know I was underage I couldn’t get anyone to help me there, but the coaches there the since they’s there They let me start up and I just signed paperwork and a lot of them were like actually like drug enforcement agents and sheriffs and cops a lot of the guys that were training there, which is pretty common with grappling type stuff and But like that place that that’s in my life like eventually like I everyone I have in my life now that I call my family I met there like all of them like every single one of them So like that’s the place where like I really realized like okay, you know Because it was all about developing as a person the game of the opportunity You know this is the place where I said like for all of our our belt levels like the black belt levels We had like study like stacks of books right, write reports on them, we have give it a thesis.

It was like being that full on like PhD University kind of thing where yeah like it was so intense on like your education about why you’re doing this about people, about society. I mean I was like 20 years old 1920 I had to write a paper on like my eye which is like space condition, controlling distance and how that concept of space condition that concept was related to to today’s society or something.

It was like, I was like, what? I was like 19 year old man. Like, so it made making you think, you know, like, and so for me it was, that probably was one of the biggest parts. Getting to my coaching was just understanding people man and helping them develop as a human as a person. Cause at the end of the day, that’s what I want.. I want you to be happy and healthy and be successful, but I want you to be a good person.

– A good person, yeah. – I just say, “Hey, I want a trophy and you’re a big prick and no one likes. “I don’t want to work with you, I don’t care.” Yeah, anyway. (laughs) – Now some closing questions. – Oh. – Especially in this sort of period where now, what are your secrets as maintaining, maybe you probably’t know, you’d probably find it hard for all to suck you too, but how do you maintain a good sort of work-life balance with, I suppose, with the family coaching, traveling, all these things?

How do you do it? – It’s tricky, I mean, at home I have three little ones, like young kids. Well and foremost, I think just knowing my values as a father and a husband and then as a coach, knowing where I stand, and then communicating that with my wife and saying, “Listen, even before I…” Because I took a little bit of a break for a couple years of traveling, not traveling so much, because it used to be like 46 weeks a year of traveling.

– For years I did that, but took a break. And then went back to traveling, but it was like before that happened, my wife and I discussed like, okay, this is what we are in our life right now. It allows me some freedom to go travel. This is how many weeks I’ll travel. This is what, you know, sort of the structure of that. So I sort of put some limitations on that, how that would work.

What do I do when I’m home versus when I’m But um, so I think the other part is then understanding that like sometimes there’s just not gonna be a balance man Yeah, like it’s just the way it is like sometimes, you know And if everyone’s who’s involved understands like okay right now, that’s just the way it is Yeah, and that’s just the way it is so just understanding it’s not like that forever and it and but the value the my having those values and clear Understand of why I’m doing something will allow me to make that decision to say okay.

Oh, excuse me I’ll commit to doing this right now. Yeah, knowing that like it’s getting us there’s a purpose behind it. It’s not just I’m just busy you know and distracted you know what I mean? So yeah, yeah Now what advice would you give to someone who you know wanted to pursue a you know similar career to yours? That’s like high performance or you know strength conditioning Yeah, what would you give them?

I mean that advice again it would vary on who I’m talking to, like what age range, what experience level, what area do you want to go in? But overview, I would say networking is a big part of it. And I don’t mean this cheesy ass fake networking thing where you’re just trying to, well, one, you have the people who are just trying to get information out of you constantly, right?

And not really even talking to you. They just wanna pick your brand as they say and all this and that. Or really scripted. You can see they’re like, “Oh, I’m gonna mirror you right now.” And you can see that they’re trying to play these weird games. Just be yourself, man. Just be you, be genuine. If that’s what want to do, then just be in that environment.

So network, get in front of those people, talk to them, learn from them, listen to your athletes, listen to your clients, ask them lots of questions, get their advice on how things are going, because it doesn’t matter what you think. If you think it’s going great, if they don’t, it doesn’t matter. Like, you know what I mean? But I think the networking is one of the biggest part But the other part I would say kind of say two more parts just I’ll be quick.

I know one is and just start supporting each other Yeah, and this industry is full of people who are just like Man, they just got so much trash talking like y’all that’s not the way you’re supposed to do this or all I supposed to do it that way or all you don’t know this or all you know blah blah blah. It’s like man, you know, I know what I mean like just we’re here to help each other out you know this industry is getting torn apart you know the fitness industry strength condition performance because everyone’s like has a little secrets or they want to just like chop down everybody else so in a sense I look at it is like give and give all the time right and then then you can ask for it to take something later right yeah so – Yeah.

– So just keep giving. You know, if you go out to an event or you’re networking, like, what can I do for you? Like you, great. Like what can I do to help you with your business, your podcast, your whatever you’re doing? Like I’ll just share all the time. – Yeah. – I’m just giving things out. Like telling people like, yeah, that’s what I think is what I do.

Like with no, with no like in my mind that like, well, I’ve given you something, you have to give me something care about that yeah just just share because one it’s that person’s gonna remember you doing that and maybe that comes around maybe that person ends up working somewhere that you want to work and they know or they talk to someone that knows someone they go hey I know this guy yeah right so you never know you’re not doing it for that reason but that’s how it works yeah but it’s also like if I share then I might learn something as well because you might have some other ideas on top of that Yeah, so just give give give share lots network, but just be just be genuine man.

Don’t be a Cheesy douchebag weird aggressive dick somebody a dick man. Just chill out I’m not asking this but I actually don’t think I actually I think I know the answer I’m gonna get but I guess it’s something that you wish you had a known pride of starting your career So you think I know what I’m gonna answer? I get asked these kind of questions a lot and I struggle like what would be the one thing you do differently or what would you wish you knew then?

That’s probably what I would say I don’t think I would because like it might sound cliche or whatever but it’s like the things that I feel really like I’ve done really well with is because of all the good and the bad like all the crap all the good all the those moments like okay maybe my journey was a long way around than others like maybe it took me longer to do whatever else I don’t know maybe some faster but like yeah like it was all just part of it like it’s just the way it is I wouldn’t go back and change anything really like yeah, I mean I know people say that sometimes, but yeah, okay So you got me you got me yeah, can I just I’m gonna you know go back one step with here Why would I give advice to coaches?

Okay, and this is to get a job and to keep that job, okay, right is man Learn I know even if you’re niche and you’re trying to be like the super hardcore niche guy Hmm have a range of skills. Yeah, have a broad range of things that you’re good at doing and show that you’ve done it Go do it. Yeah, go put it in an application apply get some result in a lot of different things working with different people different backgrounds You know like like guys who want to come on the tennis tour?

I was like listen if you if you’re just a strength coach or just a therapist, good luck. You need to do both. You need to have at least as a minimum, have to be able to do the strength conditioning fitness work, the movement based stuff, the recovery stuff, as well as your hands on, and you don’t have to be a physical therapist, but be able to manage the rehab.

Yeah, right. You need to have a, and then also again, having those people skills, but you only get that through, get yourself exposed to different environments. If you just do that one thing and work with this one people, you’re going to be that specialist, which again, there’s like I said before, there’s this time and place for them. But if you actually look into some of the most successful people in all different industries, they had a range of skills that they were able to pull from.

They didn’t get stuck and locked into one thing. You know, to make, percentage-wise is more of that. It actually reminds me of that book. What was that called? Actually, I think it was called “Range.” I can’t remember who it’s by, but that’s actually a really good way to talk about all these examples of all through history of some of the most successful people.

They were actually had a range of background that they were able to pull from, rather than just being so specialized because they get stuck those blinders again. And yeah, keep going. There we go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah about funny one just now actually is what because I get asked I I think that’s too do it. Well I have to say like what I just say to you is listen and I’ve actually studied a lot of this social media stuff but like okay it’s like I’m kind of old school, new school really like so I get through spurts where I like do a lot of social media and then I kind of stop I’m like oh you know why do I need to tell people what I’m doing like who cares like I know I might be doing something that’s pretty amazing Yeah, and I know people would love to see it and look at my perspective on it And I like my values and the thing I’ve been thinking about is I want to share more So I need to do it through social media, right?

So if I’m really gonna live my values I need to be more active on social media But then I kind of slowly slip back and then not doing it as much and just get busy working and doing my thing and Because it’s just I’m just doing what I’m doing, I don’t often think of it as like an special, you know what I mean? Which I guess is kind of normal. So yeah, there you go.

– I came up with a question. That’s good. – That’s good. I didn’t think I was gonna be answering that when you first said that. – No, no, you are nailed it. Now, before we get on to loose the little file signature, which is our rapid fire questions, which you don’t have in front of you, which is the idea. Where can our listeners connect with you? They want to reach out to your finder.

Let’s say online. The So it’s STACY. So Jason Stacey underscore coach. I have a website, just a basic website, nothing fancy, but you can contact me through the website. no. com. com. Just have a look there. There’s a few things on there. I haven’t updated it in like a year, but it’s some good stuff. Yeah, website, Facebook, you know, it’s just Json Stacey I just social media or email me through the website.

Okay, if you have any questions or whatever, just hit me up. Alrighty, so we’re gonna finish off with a 20 question. Oh, okay. Fast responses, especially comes to mind. Oh, here we go. I’m ready. Should I warm up a little bit first? What’s up? responses I Jiu Jitsu or wrestling? Come on man, really? Depends on the day. I would say, let me say Jiu Jitsu, because I need a room, that’s what I’m working on.

Learning the art of Jiu Jitsu. I’m Basel leg locks. I’m still kind of old school, hard bars. I need to get into those legs a little bit more though. – Favorite childhood hero? – What? Childhood hero. They just have to be like a famous thing famous thing. Maybe there’s anything. I was a couple of people that I met in my life that helped me get off the streets and get my head straight and I’d be so crazy.

Okay. So yeah, there’s probably like one of my jujitsu, I kiddo, jujitsu guy, a sensei, jian, and then a woman named Charlene. And then the padawans in my family, like adopted family. Yeah. So all those people like the people I met at this place they helped me like just you know Become me basically sure. Yeah, definitely If you’re a professional athlete you would be a badass Well, I mean it would be some sort of combat support for sure.

Okay. Yeah, you guys want support I would play. Yeah. Yeah, so it’d be some Jiu-Jitsu I mean, I mean right now in 46. I wouldn wouldn’t say MMA because that’s you know a bit old for that But grappling like I’d say jujitsu probably let’s go that let’s go with that. That’s a lovely art. It’s fun. All right. Drive will navigate Drive come on man. I’m favorite cheat meal cheat meal.

Yeah, like I just I’ll cheat me. I mean I see eat I don’t care about it. Um cheat meal quick quick quick. I would say I talk show or something. I always have to analyze why they’re doing that. I say it was dancing with the stars like Jerry was on, right? Yeah. Like you can always see like these these competitions where who they’re favoring based on the words they’re using and how much time they give them on the commercial and like you know what I mean?

Like so I always tend to like over analyze all yeah they’re doing that because of this and people come on. I just enjoy it. Yeah, I mean, yes and no but more like I just understand like the source of why they’re doing that or how they’re trying to influence you. You know what I mean? And I tend to, I can’t not see it. You know what I mean? And sometimes it annoys my wife especially.

– Fair enough. – What’s the best wifi name you’ve seen? – Best what? – Wifi. – Wifi name? – Yeah. – I would have a clue man. Never really look. – Just connect. – I just like look, what’s the one I’m supposed to be on? Okay, there it is. I mean I feel like I’ve seen some crazy ones, but I wouldn’t remember up time I’d say one word me is me my man. Oh Okay, me okay.

I’ll say resourceful. Okay resource. , three things that you can’t leave without. Can’t live without Jiu Jitsu. Yeah Food and water notes. Okay Three things huh Jiu Jitsu. I mean, I gotta say my family. Yeah, you know, so I’ll get trouble later if my wife listens. Yeah Just two things. I don’t know. I’m not really that type where like I have to have something.

Yeah, for me, it’s probably the biggest thing. Like, being able to grapple, be able to move, to wrestle. For me, that’s probably the main thing. I don’t think there’s much else. I’m sure after I leave, go, “Oh, yeah, there’s a whole bunch of things.” What’s an amazing fact that you know you can an amazing effect? Yeah, anything Okay, how about? Because I just spoke at the last conference the MIMT the soft tissue Congress on this which is probably 70 to 85 percent of our clients whether allied health medical strength conditioning Yep 70 85 percent of our clients, whether allied health, medical, strength conditioning, 70, 85% of our clients are not doing their homework.

(laughs) Are not doing the things that we think that they’re doing or that we’re asking them to do. They’re basically non-compliant or not committed, even if you think that you might be doing. So we have all this information and knowledge, right? We think we know everything, we think we have all the right answers, but yet a large percentage of our people not doing the things that they know right, right?

Okay, and a lot of people know what they need to do, but they’re not doing it for me. It’s a That’s crazy if you could have two superpowers what would they be superpowers killing me here brother I mean I mean the people always say like speed and strength probably you know those are like your your common ones but I would say oh I got one yeah the power of foresight yeah being able to like yeah have a clear really clear understanding of like if I do it don’t do this This is what’s gonna happen.

Okay. That’s kind of cool And then maybe okay, how about time travel then yeah, cuz I always get I know how to get strong and fast it’s enough But if I’m resourceful and I know what’s coming I’m back Batman or something. Yeah, absolutely Two books that everyone should read. Oh my god, that’s really I know you’re very too that maybe ones you give to your athletes is really well I have a handful that I give to all the athletes Yeah, so I used to be a mindset with Carol Dweck.

Yes, that’s starting to be more and more out there now like that was like when she first wrote book. The Little Book of Talent is another one I used to give everyone, Daniel Coyle. It’s just 52 or 52 little simple tips on performing. The Little Book of Talent. That’s a lot of them. One I just mentioned earlier, it came to Mom and you said that because I mentioned it was range.

It was a really good book. I like the idea that, mean there’s so much man. I had to look at my phone because like I mean really for me it’s like well what’s the topic like what’s what do you need you know I mean like what do you need right now I think would benefit you. There was a cool book I read recently that I sent off to a few coaches that were trying to like build a business like really coach better.

What’s it “Change maker.” Oh, John Barardi was a change maker. That was a fairly new one. That was pretty cool. It kind of covered a lot of coaching things and business things. I like the perspectives on that. I don’t know. I mean, look, you need all of them. You need all your science, your textbooks. There’s that one that the Australian dude put together in a few years back.

David Joyce, high performance, training and sport. I think it was one. Yeah, I took a handful of different different authors That was more like texty sort of thing, but I think you need all of you need your science books like your text based stuff I think getting some books on human behavior. Yeah, it’d be very important Brain rules was one we used to give everyone all the time back in the day, but yeah, I mean I could go for days man.

I got lots of books. I’m always reading or listening to books. Yeah That’s a tough one for me to answer short. Sorry. No, that’s all right. Okay. It’s for me some context based like you know like it’d be too context based to like Give a broad answer. All right when I finish the wire and you can answer this one pretty quick. Oh, yeah, we ask everyone this one.

Yeah, do pineapples blowing Do pineapples? Yeah. Yeah. Like pineapple and cheese would be like head to head for importance. There you go. Do I just split on this one? There’s no doubt. It’s just no doubt. I don’t have pizza with that pineapple. Yeah. Like that’s just how it is. Alright. So this is episode 115. I said, thanks for joining me. I’ll give you the final word.

Anything you want to finish up with? No, thanks. I appreciate the opportunity to share. I hope you guys got some stuff out of it. Just keep working and keep going and spend equal amount of time learning your craft as you do learning people. That’s what I would say. Yeah, no, great way to finish. I said thank you and I said stay tuned for next week.

Like all episodes, I hope you are leaving with some great things that can help you in your life and journey through health and fitness. Get after it and as always, train with purpose.