September 12, 2023 • 13 mins
Ever wondered about the alchemical relationship that exists between an athlete and their coach? Join us for a conversation with our guest, Lee Povey, a performance strategist and former US Olympic Development Coach, where we discuss the potency of these relationships and their parallels with therapy. Lee imparts his unique perspective on fostering genuine connections with athletes, emphasizing the importance of comprehension on a profound level to unlock their full potential.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real-life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Thanks for tuning in toHatching Creativity.
In today's episode, I'mspeaking with Lee Povey from
Povey Performance.
(00:20):
Now I know Lee from the cyclingworld, where he was the US
Olympic Development Coach and avery well-decorated cyclist
himself.
Now he's a coach of a wholedifferent kind.
His goal is to help executivesand leaders build strategies
about being the most effectivepeople they can be.
Today, we talk about thesimilarities in relationships
(00:41):
between a client and theirtherapist and an athlete and
their coach.
We also talk about theimportance of a strong mind-body
connection.
Remember, if you like what youhear, please like, share,
subscribe and tell all yourfriends about Hatching
Creativity.
I am really excited for today'sguest, lee Povey.
(01:02):
Lee and I go back quite a bitand have done quite a bit of
bike racing together.
Lee, would you like to do abrief introduction of yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hey, mike.
Yeah, I'm a performancestrategist, so I now work with
founders and their companies,and the simplest way to describe
it is I help them understandthemselves on a level so that
they can be the most effectiveversions of themselves.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So you were just talking about interviewing with
British cycling.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah.
So I interviewed for a positionwith British cycling it was to
be the Paris Fritz coach andduring the interview process I
realized that although I'd beendoing some work with them as a
guest tactical and tactics coach, I didn't realize the way the
(01:55):
organization run and how itdidn't fit my style of coaching.
So they viewed athletes at thattime and I think it's changed
quite a lot since then.
We're going back nearly 20years now but they viewed
athletes at that time asliterally cogs in a machine and
for me they didn't really thinkabout the relationship between
(02:16):
the athlete and the coach and Ithink the reason was is because
they didn't want any kind ofimproprieties to happen, so they
didn't want athletes andcoaches to be close with each
other.
I knew that for athletes toreally be their best, that
relationship has to be reallyclose and it's up to picking
good coaches and healthy coachesas humans that aren't going to
(02:38):
do inappropriate things withtheir athletes, instead of
having this blanket thing thatathletes and coaches can't be
close to each other.
Because for me you've got tounderstand somebody's psyche,
are really deep level to helpthem perform at their best, and
that's why, for me, I've alwaysbeen a little bit different not
from all sports coaches, becausethere's plenty of sports
(03:00):
coaches like this, but I foundmyself being different from many
sports coaches because I was sointerested in the emotional
side of that.
I was so interested in the waythat people thought how that
affected their ability toperform.
And we tend to separate that andhave to think, called sports
psychology.
And a lot of sports psychologyis coping mechanisms.
(03:22):
Somebody is presenting with anissue here's a coping mechanism
to so that they can perform onrace day and I, for me, I would
actually look at them and gowhat's going on for them as a
human being which is thenpresenting in this coping
mechanism.
Let's go back to the source ofthat first.
(03:43):
Let's fix that and then thiscoping mechanism is going to go
away.
We won't need a copingmechanism for the coping
mechanism.
So that's why I thought aboutsports coaching.
That's how I've ended up doingwhat I'm doing now, because I
just kept looking for more andmore of that and there's much
more of it in the leadershipworld and the business world
than there is in the sportsworld and coaches wanted to stay
(04:05):
away from it in the sportsworld.
I don't want to touch that, Idon't want to get into the
mental stuff.
I don't want to give them theyips or mess them up or and you
just understand that humanbeings are human beings and
they're going to do human beingstuff and to me it was very
important that I was able tohave those kind of relationships
.
So, to go back to this interview, kind of talked myself out of
the position in the interviewbecause I'm like actually this
(04:26):
isn't the job I want to do, thisisn't how I want to do it, and
that's why I had my own privatecycling coaching company for
many years before developing theOlympic Development Program for
USA Cycling and when Ideveloped that program with Ben
Sharp, the number one thing onour sheet and the first thing we
wrote down is the athletesleave the program better people
(04:47):
than they came to the program.
That was our number one goal.
I love that they became betterhuman beings from their
experience of being in theprogram, because you might have,
you know, 50 athletes go for aprogram like that in 10 years,
for example, and the amount ofthem that are going to make it
to the Olympics, if you're lucky, might be three or four or five
(05:07):
or six, right, you know it's10% would be a good ratio.
It couldn't just be aboutwinning the Olympics.
It had to be about these peoplehaving experience of being
better human beings because ofhow we looked after them,
because of how we challengedthem, because how we invited
them to look after themselvesand to step into challenging
(05:30):
situations or learn and growfrom those and develop more
self-reliance.
So that was, that was how I sawit.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well, you know we talk.
We talk in behavioralhealthcare and substance use
disorder treatment about atherapeutic alliance and if you
want the longest engagement andthe best engagement between a
client and their therapist, youhave to have that.
That real engagement and thatreal alliance of trust comes
(06:01):
from authenticity.
It comes from not playing arole as a coach.
You know, I've had coachesbefore where they'll send you a
workout once a week or or sendyou a list of workouts and then
they expect you to do it andthey may or may not look at your
files and what you've done andall of this and you're going.
I don't feel like this persongives a shit about me.
(06:22):
And trying to get to a highlevel in any kind of sport or
just trying to be the best humanthat we can be requires a lot
of work and you have to have ateammate in your coach.
It's really important.
(06:43):
You know my coach that I workwith now.
His name is John Fraley.
I gotta imagine you know John.
I talk to John when I'm havingADHD problems.
I talk to John when I'm havinghealth problems and I consider
him a friend and somebody that Ican really count on and I think
(07:05):
that is really important.
And, again, it's different thana therapist, right, your
therapist doesn't need to beyour friend, but you need to
have that relationship, thatauthentic relationship of I'm a
human, you're a human.
We're not judging each other,we're here for the same goal and
that is really important.
(07:25):
The other thing that you hit onthat is just so important is
the relationship of the body andmind, and it's not just a coach
, is not just about workouts andgive somebody their workouts.
It's really understanding wherethe athlete is and or where the
(07:47):
client or patient is, andmeeting them there.
Sometimes, mentally, you justcannot do another workout, and
it doesn't mean you're soft, itmeans that your cookie jar is
empty somewhere and sometimesjust meeting that person to be
helpful can be really valuable.
(08:07):
So I love that you said that.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I definitely say as a partnership.
I see the coachingrelationships I have now with
the organizations and thefounders as partnerships.
I'm not there to tell them whatto do.
I'm there to exposeopportunities for them and then
support them in working withthose opportunities.
And as a cycling coach, Iremember an athlete that went on
(08:33):
to have success at the Olympicstell me that I was his best
coach that he'd ever had, and Icouldn't understand why.
He said I'm like you had allthese other great coaches.
And he said yeah, you're theonly person that ever actually
said I don't know something.
And you would say I don't know.
Let's go and explore thattogether, let's find out about
that, let's research it, let'sfind somebody else that's an
(08:55):
expert in that area.
And that's where I thinkpartnership and authenticity is.
So important is, I don't haveto have all the answers.
As your leadership coach, asyour cycling coach, we're in it
together and we can go discoverthose answers.
We can find out hey, the day isnot there yet.
Let's see if we can set up ourown study on this.
And I believe when I went backto British cycling, the reason I
(09:20):
was told you couldn't havethose kind of relationships with
athletes was also because theyfelt it made you unable to be
objective about making, say,selection decisions.
And I don't know what it isabout my personality, but I've
never had a problem with that,like we could be friends and I
could say, mike, you're not theteam, you're not going well
(09:41):
enough at the moment, and I'llbring the data why you won't
never be an emotional decision,because I'm just a performance.
I won't win until I'm out ofperformance.
I'd be this other person doesthis part of the team's sprint
better than you?
And that's what we're goingwith them and it would be
completely transparent.
And I realized that themanagers of the programs were
(10:01):
having this way of looking atcoaching because they weren't
comfortable making thosedecisions.
So they were kind of projectingout on the program where I'm
like, I'm comfortable makingthat decision and being very
clear as to why you've beenselected and why you've not been
selected, and friendship won'taffect that.
And that's how I see leadershipin business.
You might become friends withthe people you work with.
(10:21):
It doesn't change how yourelate to them as a leader and
you might have to say, right,we're not friends right now.
I'm your boss right now and I'mexplaining something to you
from that position and be clearabout the difference and it
doesn't affect our friendship.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Data doesn't lie.
The data tells the truth and italso tells the story, if you
look at it and that's, and intrack you know the sport we both
love.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Track cycling Data is so easy to measure.
It's not like a lot of teamsports where it's very
subjective and you're liketrying to make these gut
decisions.
Track cycling, you're eitherfast at the other person or
you're not right, and your lapprofile is even better.
You accelerate at the rightpoint and drop the other
teammate off at the right topspeed, or you've done and those
(11:08):
are so easily measurable likehalf a second or less at a time.
So, yeah, I think, for me, therelationships I want to have the
people I work with just as yousaid about you know, johnny
Fraley, your coach therelationships I want to have
with people, they're very deepand meaningful relationships
because I want to do very deepand meaningful work.
(11:30):
When people work with me, theyleave working with me changed.
Their life is not going to bethe same again, and that's the
work I want to do.
I don't want to just give you acouple of quick fix strategies.
I want to change your world.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I literally want to change your world, lee, can you
give some information on howpeople can get in touch with you
and learn a little bit moreabout your work?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, so, depending on when this podcast comes out,
I'm actually just doing arebrand at the moment, so my
work is changing from maximizeyour potential coaching to POVY
performance.
So the easiest way to find mewas just to Google the POVY.
There's not many POVYs in theworld, luckily, so if you Google
me, you'll get access to all ofmy stuff and, yeah, anybody out
there that wants to work withme I'd love to have a
(12:15):
conversation with you.
My purpose in the world, my why, is to make the world a better
place by impacting the mostpowerful people I can, so those
that lead and lead othersgreatens and expands my impact
on the world, and I wanteverybody to have their
(12:37):
experience.
There's lots of learning toolsand coaching that can make all
of our experiences better, andif I can teach leaders how to be
better leaders, then it meanseverybody that works should have
a better experience.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Lee, I really love your message and I really
appreciate you coming on.
This is outstanding and foreverybody listening we will
definitely have Lee back on.
I think that this has beenreally helpful and hopefully
informative for you.
Thanks for tuning in to Hatchand Creativity.
We appreciate your support.
Please don't forget to like andsubscribe until all your
(13:10):
friends about the show andremember it's never just about
one thing.
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real-life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Thanks for tuning in toHatching Creativity.
In today's episode, I'mspeaking with Lee Povey from
Povey Performance.
(00:20):
Now I know Lee from the cyclingworld, where he was the US
Olympic Development Coach and avery well-decorated cyclist
himself.
Now he's a coach of a wholedifferent kind.
His goal is to help executivesand leaders build strategies
about being the most effectivepeople they can be.
Today, we talk about thesimilarities in relationships
(00:41):
between a client and theirtherapist and an athlete and
their coach.
We also talk about theimportance of a strong mind-body
connection.
Remember, if you like what youhear, please like, share,
subscribe and tell all yourfriends about Hatching
Creativity.
I am really excited for today'sguest, lee Povey.
(01:02):
Lee and I go back quite a bitand have done quite a bit of
bike racing together.
Lee, would you like to do abrief introduction of yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hey, mike.
Yeah, I'm a performancestrategist, so I now work with
founders and their companies,and the simplest way to describe
it is I help them understandthemselves on a level so that
they can be the most effectiveversions of themselves.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So you were just talking about interviewing with
British cycling.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah.
So I interviewed for a positionwith British cycling it was to
be the Paris Fritz coach andduring the interview process I
realized that although I'd beendoing some work with them as a
guest tactical and tactics coach, I didn't realize the way the
(01:55):
organization run and how itdidn't fit my style of coaching.
So they viewed athletes at thattime and I think it's changed
quite a lot since then.
We're going back nearly 20years now but they viewed
athletes at that time asliterally cogs in a machine and
for me they didn't really thinkabout the relationship between
(02:16):
the athlete and the coach and Ithink the reason was is because
they didn't want any kind ofimproprieties to happen, so they
didn't want athletes andcoaches to be close with each
other.
I knew that for athletes toreally be their best, that
relationship has to be reallyclose and it's up to picking
good coaches and healthy coachesas humans that aren't going to
(02:38):
do inappropriate things withtheir athletes, instead of
having this blanket thing thatathletes and coaches can't be
close to each other.
Because for me you've got tounderstand somebody's psyche,
are really deep level to helpthem perform at their best, and
that's why, for me, I've alwaysbeen a little bit different not
from all sports coaches, becausethere's plenty of sports
(03:00):
coaches like this, but I foundmyself being different from many
sports coaches because I was sointerested in the emotional
side of that.
I was so interested in the waythat people thought how that
affected their ability toperform.
And we tend to separate that andhave to think, called sports
psychology.
And a lot of sports psychologyis coping mechanisms.
(03:22):
Somebody is presenting with anissue here's a coping mechanism
to so that they can perform onrace day and I, for me, I would
actually look at them and gowhat's going on for them as a
human being which is thenpresenting in this coping
mechanism.
Let's go back to the source ofthat first.
(03:43):
Let's fix that and then thiscoping mechanism is going to go
away.
We won't need a copingmechanism for the coping
mechanism.
So that's why I thought aboutsports coaching.
That's how I've ended up doingwhat I'm doing now, because I
just kept looking for more andmore of that and there's much
more of it in the leadershipworld and the business world
than there is in the sportsworld and coaches wanted to stay
(04:05):
away from it in the sportsworld.
I don't want to touch that, Idon't want to get into the
mental stuff.
I don't want to give them theyips or mess them up or and you
just understand that humanbeings are human beings and
they're going to do human beingstuff and to me it was very
important that I was able tohave those kind of relationships
.
So, to go back to this interview, kind of talked myself out of
the position in the interviewbecause I'm like actually this
(04:26):
isn't the job I want to do, thisisn't how I want to do it, and
that's why I had my own privatecycling coaching company for
many years before developing theOlympic Development Program for
USA Cycling and when Ideveloped that program with Ben
Sharp, the number one thing onour sheet and the first thing we
wrote down is the athletesleave the program better people
(04:47):
than they came to the program.
That was our number one goal.
I love that they became betterhuman beings from their
experience of being in theprogram, because you might have,
you know, 50 athletes go for aprogram like that in 10 years,
for example, and the amount ofthem that are going to make it
to the Olympics, if you're lucky, might be three or four or five
(05:07):
or six, right, you know it's10% would be a good ratio.
It couldn't just be aboutwinning the Olympics.
It had to be about these peoplehaving experience of being
better human beings because ofhow we looked after them,
because of how we challengedthem, because how we invited
them to look after themselvesand to step into challenging
(05:30):
situations or learn and growfrom those and develop more
self-reliance.
So that was, that was how I sawit.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well, you know we talk.
We talk in behavioralhealthcare and substance use
disorder treatment about atherapeutic alliance and if you
want the longest engagement andthe best engagement between a
client and their therapist, youhave to have that.
That real engagement and thatreal alliance of trust comes
(06:01):
from authenticity.
It comes from not playing arole as a coach.
You know, I've had coachesbefore where they'll send you a
workout once a week or or sendyou a list of workouts and then
they expect you to do it andthey may or may not look at your
files and what you've done andall of this and you're going.
I don't feel like this persongives a shit about me.
(06:22):
And trying to get to a highlevel in any kind of sport or
just trying to be the best humanthat we can be requires a lot
of work and you have to have ateammate in your coach.
It's really important.
(06:43):
You know my coach that I workwith now.
His name is John Fraley.
I gotta imagine you know John.
I talk to John when I'm havingADHD problems.
I talk to John when I'm havinghealth problems and I consider
him a friend and somebody that Ican really count on and I think
(07:05):
that is really important.
And, again, it's different thana therapist, right, your
therapist doesn't need to beyour friend, but you need to
have that relationship, thatauthentic relationship of I'm a
human, you're a human.
We're not judging each other,we're here for the same goal and
that is really important.
(07:25):
The other thing that you hit onthat is just so important is
the relationship of the body andmind, and it's not just a coach
, is not just about workouts andgive somebody their workouts.
It's really understanding wherethe athlete is and or where the
(07:47):
client or patient is, andmeeting them there.
Sometimes, mentally, you justcannot do another workout, and
it doesn't mean you're soft, itmeans that your cookie jar is
empty somewhere and sometimesjust meeting that person to be
helpful can be really valuable.
(08:07):
So I love that you said that.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I definitely say as a partnership.
I see the coachingrelationships I have now with
the organizations and thefounders as partnerships.
I'm not there to tell them whatto do.
I'm there to exposeopportunities for them and then
support them in working withthose opportunities.
And as a cycling coach, Iremember an athlete that went on
(08:33):
to have success at the Olympicstell me that I was his best
coach that he'd ever had, and Icouldn't understand why.
He said I'm like you had allthese other great coaches.
And he said yeah, you're theonly person that ever actually
said I don't know something.
And you would say I don't know.
Let's go and explore thattogether, let's find out about
that, let's research it, let'sfind somebody else that's an
(08:55):
expert in that area.
And that's where I thinkpartnership and authenticity is.
So important is, I don't haveto have all the answers.
As your leadership coach, asyour cycling coach, we're in it
together and we can go discoverthose answers.
We can find out hey, the day isnot there yet.
Let's see if we can set up ourown study on this.
And I believe when I went backto British cycling, the reason I
(09:20):
was told you couldn't havethose kind of relationships with
athletes was also because theyfelt it made you unable to be
objective about making, say,selection decisions.
And I don't know what it isabout my personality, but I've
never had a problem with that,like we could be friends and I
could say, mike, you're not theteam, you're not going well
(09:41):
enough at the moment, and I'llbring the data why you won't
never be an emotional decision,because I'm just a performance.
I won't win until I'm out ofperformance.
I'd be this other person doesthis part of the team's sprint
better than you?
And that's what we're goingwith them and it would be
completely transparent.
And I realized that themanagers of the programs were
(10:01):
having this way of looking atcoaching because they weren't
comfortable making thosedecisions.
So they were kind of projectingout on the program where I'm
like, I'm comfortable makingthat decision and being very
clear as to why you've beenselected and why you've not been
selected, and friendship won'taffect that.
And that's how I see leadershipin business.
You might become friends withthe people you work with.
(10:21):
It doesn't change how yourelate to them as a leader and
you might have to say, right,we're not friends right now.
I'm your boss right now and I'mexplaining something to you
from that position and be clearabout the difference and it
doesn't affect our friendship.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Data doesn't lie.
The data tells the truth and italso tells the story, if you
look at it and that's, and intrack you know the sport we both
love.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Track cycling Data is so easy to measure.
It's not like a lot of teamsports where it's very
subjective and you're liketrying to make these gut
decisions.
Track cycling, you're eitherfast at the other person or
you're not right, and your lapprofile is even better.
You accelerate at the rightpoint and drop the other
teammate off at the right topspeed, or you've done and those
(11:08):
are so easily measurable likehalf a second or less at a time.
So, yeah, I think, for me, therelationships I want to have the
people I work with just as yousaid about you know, johnny
Fraley, your coach therelationships I want to have
with people, they're very deepand meaningful relationships
because I want to do very deepand meaningful work.
(11:30):
When people work with me, theyleave working with me changed.
Their life is not going to bethe same again, and that's the
work I want to do.
I don't want to just give you acouple of quick fix strategies.
I want to change your world.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I literally want to change your world, lee, can you
give some information on howpeople can get in touch with you
and learn a little bit moreabout your work?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, so, depending on when this podcast comes out,
I'm actually just doing arebrand at the moment, so my
work is changing from maximizeyour potential coaching to POVY
performance.
So the easiest way to find mewas just to Google the POVY.
There's not many POVYs in theworld, luckily, so if you Google
me, you'll get access to all ofmy stuff and, yeah, anybody out
there that wants to work withme I'd love to have a
(12:15):
conversation with you.
My purpose in the world, my why, is to make the world a better
place by impacting the mostpowerful people I can, so those
that lead and lead othersgreatens and expands my impact
on the world, and I wanteverybody to have their
(12:37):
experience.
There's lots of learning toolsand coaching that can make all
of our experiences better, andif I can teach leaders how to be
better leaders, then it meanseverybody that works should have
a better experience.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Lee, I really love your message and I really
appreciate you coming on.
This is outstanding and foreverybody listening we will
definitely have Lee back on.
I think that this has beenreally helpful and hopefully
informative for you.
Thanks for tuning in to Hatchand Creativity.
We appreciate your support.
Please don't forget to like andsubscribe until all your
(13:10):
friends about the show andremember it's never just about
one thing.
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