June 1, 2026 • 38 mins
Why do talented athletes underperform when it matters most? In this episode, Andrew Cipriano is a culture and mental performance coach who shares how to build player-led team culture and develop mental toughness in sport. You’ll learn about controlling emotions under pressure, shifting from outcome-based thinking to process-driven performance, and simple strategies to help athletes enter flow state consistently. Andrew shares real examples of turning struggling teams into top performers through mindset, accountability, and communication. If you’re a coach or athlete looking to improve consistency and confidence, this is for you. Listen now and get ready to unlock better performance.
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Our favourite quotable moments:
“Control what you can control. And then to see them come back show straight away.” - Andrew Cipriano
“For an emerging coach, don't worry about the wins and the losses. The losses are there to learn from.” - Andrew Cipriano
“Be honest and open and vulnerable with your players. Give them direct feedback.” - Andrew Cipriano
Resources:
Mind Starts Now’s Website: https://www.mindstartsnow.com.au
Mind Starts Now’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mind_starts_now/
Mind Starts Now’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-cipriano-11104b379/
Get 15% off our Mental Skills Training course. Simply go to Functional Training Institute and input 'PDM15' at the cart checkout: https://functionaltraininginstitute.com/mental-skills-training-for-coaches/
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About Our Guest: Andrew Cipriano is a culture and mental performance coach and the founder of Mind Starts Now. With a background in semi-professional basketball coaching, Andrew works with athletes, teams and leaders to strengthen mindset, communication and high-performance culture. He supports programs across basketball environments within Basketball Victoria and is currently in conversations with clubs in the National Basketball League regarding future performance roles. Andrew also works with an international Australian cyclist, delivers wellbeing workshops in schools and supports business leaders and CEOs through performance coaching focused on mindset, leadership and resilience.
This podcast is produced by Brave Moon Podcasts.
We sometimes include links to products and services we find interesting. These may or may not be affiliate links. Thanks for your support!
Related: how to build player led team culture, mental toughness training for athletes, how to get into flow state in sports, how to improve team culture in youth sports, process vs outcome performance coaching
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Hello, listeners.
Welcome to anotherPurpose-Driven Movement podcast
where we interview highperformers across sport,
fitness, and wellness.
Today we have the great pleasureof having Andrew Cipriano as
guest.
Andrew, great to have you on theshow.
SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
Thanks for having me on today, guys.
I'm really excited for thischat.
SPEAKER_02 (00:35):
Bit of background.
Andrew is currently a cultureand mental performance coach
within Basketball Victoria, andhe's the founder of his
business, Mind Starts Now.
Andrew's got a background insemi-professional basketball
coaching and more recentlycompleted an NLP practitioner
course with our sister company,the Coaching Room.
(00:55):
And Andrew currently supportsprograms across all sorts of
basketball environments inbasketball Victoria.
And is currently inconversations at the National
League level, but I'll let himsort of talk about all of that.
Andrew works with internationalAustralian cyclists, delivers
well-being workshops in schoolsand such and so forth.
(01:15):
And my purpose, my reason forhaving Andrew on is the recent
traction that he's managed toget that he's been looking for.
And I wanted to hear him talkabout that traction and what's
really driving it for othercoaches out there in the
marketplace who want to get thatkind of traction because
Andrew's approach is really,really different from the normal
(01:39):
approach to this kind of thing.
You've lived the game deeply asa semi-professional basketball
coach.
I mean, you've been there,right?
And now you're stepping furtherinto the professional space with
a focus on mental skills andperformance through mental
skills and culture rather thanjust traditional strategic
strength, conditioning,strategy, technical, tactical.
(02:02):
You're moving more into themental cultural, which is really
unusual.
So let's hear your story.
Start just back up a little bitand tell us a bit about the
background of Van Drew.
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
I started playing when I was probably about the
age of eight.
So I played all my ways throughtill my 40s and found struggles
along the way in my sort of 20s,30s, 40s, where my mental
reactions were coming out on thecourt where things weren't going
fair.
Like the ref makes a mistake,and your reactions will come out
of it.
And not quite understanding whythat was.
But then moving into thecoaching side of it with junior
(02:34):
athletes as well, I could seethat as well.
So we could have two playerswith the exact same skill
ability, but then they couldn'texecute because of the
environment outside of them.
So one of them would performwell in the environment, the
other one would clamp up and goto a non-resourceful state.
And I was seeing this over andover again.
As I was moving up in mycoaching sort of journey, I
started noticing connectionsreally important, culture is
(02:56):
really important, understandingthe inner game is really
important.
And after living that experiencemyself, it didn't matter how
much talent you had.
It was always about can youcontrol what you can control?
And that's how you think andfeel and let go of everything
external.
So I started implementing thatin every any team I could coach
just to see as a bit of aprototype on how this looks.
(03:16):
That's sort of where I startedand I've moved into
semi-professional and thenapplied it into that
environment.
SPEAKER_02 (03:21):
So just to clarify, when you talk about culture,
tell me about what you mean.
What does culture mean to you,Andrew?
Because I think it's importantfor people to have a definition
because we all have differentdefinitions of culture.
From your perspective, what isit?
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
Yeah, culture for me and 100% my perspective, but it
doesn't matter what environmentyou're in, if you're a business,
work, school, family life,professional, elite sport,
you've got to have two keyingredients.
And the key ingredients thatI've witnessed that actually
builds performance and winningis one, you've got to have
vulnerability, and the otherone, you've got to have
accountability.
And if you can start any kind ofculture and plant those two
(04:01):
seeds where anyone can bevulnerable enough to speak up
and also hold anybody andyourself accountable without
judgment, then your culture'sgonna grow and be able to hold
each other accountable and movethrough any kind of problems you
have in life, pretty much.
SPEAKER_02 (04:15):
We'll get to more of that because I'm interested in
your philosophy, Andrew, of aplayer-led culture because I am
a very firm advocate ofplayer-led performances, build
better teams and better teamcultures full stop.
So we'll come back to that.
We'll talk more about that.
When you're a basketball coach,your your value is often
(04:37):
measured by strategy, structure,outcomes, your technical, your
tactical ability, and yourability to get players to play
the game, the content of thesport, right?
When you move into a mentalskills role, and I want to hear
about your movement from coachinto mental skills as part of
the answer to this question aswell.
(04:58):
Your impact becomes far moresubtle, Andrew.
It's about influence psychology,shaping mindset, shaping the and
leading the culture, right?
What is it that you needed toshift to be able to spend more
time on that and take us throughthat process?
SPEAKER_01 (05:13):
So individually for myself first, before the
players, I had to let go of theenvironment.
So I used to coach and I wouldtell players that would get
frustrated, you know, don'tworry, it's a ref, it's a call.
You always make excuses and youlabel the excuse, which is
external.
The big shift for me internally,I just class everything as the
environment.
Everything outside of yourcontrol is part of an
(05:35):
environment.
If they score, you score, yourteammates what they do, the
scoreboard's out of yourcontrol, it's part of the
environment.
You can influence it, but youcan't control it.
And then when I shifted thatkind of thinking to okay,
where's my focused attentionnow?
And that's how I show up.
So what do I think and feel?
If I can control that, which isin my control, then I can
(05:56):
influence any environment.
So if I'm controlling mythinking and feeling in a
positive way, I'll influence thegame in a positive way.
If I'm frustrated and aggressiveand I can influence in in a
negative way.
So it's really taking control ofthe one thing you can control
and then owning that and lettinggo of the environment.
And you tend to turn up as yourbest version of yourself and you
(06:18):
tend to perform extremely well.
But in saying that, someplayers, so the work I end up
doing, some players actuallyrespond to frustration and
aggression to help them playbetter as well.
So it's navigating what leverswe need to pull in each
individual player.
So it's managing people first.
Yeah.
And then if it comes back tobefore strategy for me now is
(06:38):
state before performance.
So if I can get anybody in theright state that they want to
perform in, I'll get the rightperformance out of it.
So I can have the highly skilledathlete, but if he doesn't want
to be there at the time, he'snot going to improve as much as
the person who's in the rightstate to learn, he'll get more
out of the session all the game.
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
So, Andrew, I have a question for you around the
player-led culture.
If you can sort of expand orgive an example of maybe some
nuanced differences when youapproach it from a youth
perspective to an adult, and nowwhat are the key key differences
there?
So, firstly, like what isplayer-led culture from your
perspective?
And secondly, what are some ofthe nuanced differences,
especially from a cultureperspective that Jay alluded to,
(07:17):
from a youth to an adult?
SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Yeah, well, I'm lucky enough that I get to coach
from a domestic level from under12 to under 16 rep to youth
level to talking withprofessional teams.
It's actually very similar.
So there's not that much thatshifts between the two, except
the domestic kids actually grabonto this a little bit easier
and understand it a little bitbetter than what the
professionals do.
So, yeah, a player-leg cultureto me is me stepping back as
(07:42):
head coach and observing a bitmore and letting them like ask
the questions and let themactually find the answers, like
having them hold each otheraccountable as well.
So that's where thevulnerability comes in.
If you can imagine 15,16-year-olds playing in an
under-23's competition, and that15 and 16-year-old can go up to
an under-20 or 22-year-old andcall them out with vulnerability
(08:05):
with the right intentions whereno one takes judgment.
Like we're creating not ahierarchy anymore, we're
creating everybody's value.
So if we can move into that kindof language, but then you've got
to bring that into a trainingenvironment as well.
You can't just turn up on gameday and expect this to happen.
It takes time.
So that looks in a trainingenvironment is while we're
running drills and while we'retraining, like we hold mini
(08:27):
huddles all the time.
Like we train how to huddle in agroup.
So instead of me callingeverybody in saying, you know,
we're doing this wrong, you'redoing that wrong.
It's like, hey guys, we've got15 seconds.
So I'm teaching the people toplay a huddle together within
three seconds, figure out who'sthe communicator, because you
can only talk and listen at thesame time with one person to go
and implement it.
So we actually train whatculture looks like with
(08:49):
accountability and player-led.
And a lot of the season actuallygets trained like that.
And then come to game day.
My role, if I'm still a headcoach, my role on game day is
can I keep their emotions incheck?
Can I put them in the emotionlike the right state?
Because I've actually taughtthem to be their own coaches
because they actually havecontrol of the game more than I
do as a head coach.
I can stop it three times agame, I can have a few timeouts
(09:12):
along the way, but what they cando on court is much more
powerful than what I canactually do off court.
SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Yeah, they've got to play the game.
You can't play it for them.
SPEAKER_01 (09:20):
Yeah.
So we train game day attraining.
So this is how we play on gameday, this is how we train, and
then same thing, I'll influencewhere I can, but also not to
take the authority away fromthem to be able to own it on
game day.
SPEAKER_00 (09:32):
I was gonna say it can resonate with that because
and it's maybe some of thelisteners who coach at a youth
level.
It's important that havingplayed the game, you've played
it since you were eight yearsold, you mentioned, that it's
sometimes easy to kind of casthow you think the players should
be performing.
So just having that generalawareness as a coach, and I've
also experienced this havingcoached for many years at a
youth level in soccer, to kindof step back and let them play
(09:54):
without making those judgmentsis I think crucial to allowing
that culture to spread, as youalluded to, of not hierarchical,
but finding that key influencer,or maybe there's two or three
influencers, to then let thatsort of ecosystem emerge on the
field.
And then it's probablycommentary at half time and
giving them you know thatdirection that they might need.
(10:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:15):
It's never like I'll give you the authority and
everyone's vulnerable.
You've got to build that up aswell.
So to do that in micro moments,it's like you bring the team in,
you get someone to close outtraining session.
You always sort of invite theyounger players to do it as
well.
And even no matter what theysay, it could be two words, but
that's okay, encourage it andmove on.
And then suddenly over a seasonor two, you end up with this
(10:35):
bond that's really, really,yeah, it's pretty much almost
hard to repeat.
SPEAKER_02 (10:39):
I really like your advocation for each player's
unique contribution is valued.
I think that's a very powerfulmessage right there in driving
culture.
What kind of results have youhad in your actual coaching with
this kind of approach?
And then talk us through whatled to that, those kind of
results.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yeah, I think like last season with our youth
league program, we went from16th of the ladder to first on
the ladder in the regularseason.
And that was a lot of player-ledtraining, a lot of player-led
like how they were connected waspretty much outstanding.
Look, and don't get me wrong, itwasn't only culture and mindset,
like the boys put the work in.
Like they had the drives, theyhad the ability, they did have
(11:20):
the skill set.
But to be able to have that allconnected where everyone valued
each other and celebrated eachother, regardless of their
minutes or their contributions,because it changes constantly,
but they all felt valued enoughwhere where it just kept coming
out on those results.
SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
So let's move to the invisible part of that
challenge, right?
It can't have been easy to gofrom being your regular
technical, tactical, strategiccoach to being what you said to
us before, how much time wereyou spending on the mental side?
You know, from saying 100% ontechnical, tactical, strategic
to what percentage of mental.
SPEAKER_01 (11:55):
Yeah, so originally, and it's probably evolved over
five years, but originally itwas only tactical.
So it was like five years ago,it was 100% tactical.
Then I started leaning into alittle bit of how do we build
connection?
Connection will be talent.
And then from there it it reallydid shift into 50-50.
And then last season with theNLP sort of certification and
(12:16):
the high performancecertification, I just leaned in
maybe 70-30 because the playersowned, like the players actually
own, like they're they'reintelligent players, like they
know how to read the game, theyknow how to play the game.
I'm the same, I see it the way Isee it.
So if you give them theauthority to say, what did you
see there?
You know, why did you make thatdecision?
They actually point out thingsthat you don't see as a head
(12:37):
coach.
So you've you've got to almostempower and trust from time to
time.
And that's where our huddling attraining is really important
because I'm giving them theownership to go and execute
right or wrong.
Just listen to the instructionand trust whoever said it, and
then we play off that.
And by doing that, I got toreally sit back and watch
something unfold.
And when we talk about flowstate, when they're in flow
(12:58):
state, and we had quite a fewgames, we would come back.
I won't go deep in the circle ofexcellence, but that was our
anchor for the whole season.
And we had that on the boardbefore the game, and at halftime
it was still there.
And that was the first thing wechecked in when we walked into
the locker room.
And to answer these sixquestions, have we got a great
attitude right now?
Are we taking responsibility forhow we're showing up?
(13:18):
Are we playing in the presentmoment or are we worrying about
other things?
What perspectives can we seeright now and systems might we
need to change?
Can we let go of the first half?
You know, and are we worthyenough regardless of your
minutes?
Now, to quickly touch on that,it only took 30 seconds to a
minute, but they had the answerstraight away.
They were just like, we haven'tgot a great attitude and this
system we need to change.
Then we just walk out there inthe third quarter and blow teams
(13:40):
apart.
And I actually sit back in awe.
Like I remember one game down by10 and next thing we're up by
20, and I didn't even see thescoreboard move.
Like it was just such like a,you know, when you talk about
flow state, how to um get in andout, and we do teach that, and I
teach that quite a lot withathletes.
And to be able to sit in that asa coach as well, watching it,
was pretty powerful.
SPEAKER_00 (13:59):
Andrew, that I think is pretty monumental to go from
16th to first place.
So, where in the season didthings just suddenly sort of was
there a sudden shift where youwere lingering at the bottom of
the table, as it sounds, andthen there was obviously a clear
process of of you incorporatingsome of these mental skill
strategies.
So if you're able to kind ofcome back to that, I'll break
(14:21):
that down a little bit for you.
SPEAKER_01 (14:22):
So 16th was the previous season where we
finished up on the ladder, and Iwas coming in as an assistant
coach, and then round two gotput into the head coach role.
So grabbed the team right there,and I think we lost the first
game, and I'll be honest, welost the first game I was
coaching because I picked it upthat night, and I'm like, oh, do
I want to put myself throughthis?
And that's the reflection timeof a coach.
Like, what can I learn rightnow?
(14:42):
Like, there's no losing inanything we do as long as we can
take a micro win out of it.
And then that was the shift.
Like that game itself wasprobably my turning point where
our attitude wasn't great, andthe result, like we had the
skill set, but we just didn'tturn up.
And from there it was like,okay, well, then that's our
problem.
That's what we need to work on,that's what we need to shift.
So, and from there, they justgot on, you know, we changed our
(15:05):
language.
We weren't on win streaksanymore.
We spoke about let's not losetwo games in a row.
Like little measurable things wedon't have to judge ourselves
on.
Like, let's make sure we don'tgive up a home game.
So let's win a home game.
Okay, let's get a two home gamewinning streak.
We might have two away games inbetween.
We've won.
We're not talking about the bigtotal, we're just talking about
this week, let's not lose anaway game.
(15:25):
Like we just kept it reallymicro, so we didn't make it
bigger than what it was.
Yeah, and the boys areoutstanding.
Like we didn't end up winningthe whole thing, and I can bring
back down to a mental fatigue asliterally why we shifted our
identity for three quarters.
But when they fired back up andshifted back into play, they
almost came back and won thatgame, which was an amazing
comeback.
SPEAKER_02 (15:45):
Let's talk about like you've changed the whole
nature of the system, right?
Then that's gonna come withpressure, especially when you're
trying out a new system.
Things don't always go the way.
People are learning new skills,new capacities, new abilities.
They're learning to empowerthemselves and trust themselves,
which is not easy for a youknow, a young man or a young
(16:07):
woman to do.
Professional sports has its ownpressure, its own ecosystem,
expectations from club owners,management, fans, media, parents
you name it.
You know, from your perspective,what could organizations do
better to support peoplestepping into these roles and
transitioning more into themental side of it as you have
(16:29):
with great outcome?
SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
First of all, like I'll touch on expectations.
I've I've used this, I'mactually luckily enough, I'm
enjoying coaching a 16's repteam at the moment as well.
So the same thing, I'm puttingstrategies in but giving them a
lot of these principles.
We've deleted the wordexpectation from our season.
It's not part of our vocabularyanymore.
We've replaced it withintention.
So our pre-game chat is alwaysour intention.
(16:51):
It's the first word on theboard, is, and then we reel off
what most people would find anexpectation and pressure
builder.
So if we achieve it or don'tachieve it, we can judge that
kind of thing.
And I think a lot of people theybring up unconscious sort of
pressure and expectations onthemselves.
They create their own stories,which is the work I do.
It's the meanings they make outas the coaches look, the parents
(17:13):
look, a comment in the car onthe way home, whatever that is,
they're creating a narrative andmeaning about it.
And it's holding them back withconfidence, it's holding them
back in their performance.
And when I go back to theenvironment, you've got to let
go of other people's opinion.
And you've just got to figureout how you fit, think, and
feel.
And you've got to go and checkin with the coach and you've got
to go and check in with yourplayers.
When we're clear and we go backto vulnerability, when I'm clear
(17:36):
with my communication with theplayer, I'm dead set, clear.
And regardless if it's anuncomfortable conversation
around the team, there's nojudgment involved, and it's
there to make everyone better.
And everyone starts respondingto it.
I think we sort of sugarcoat alittle bit too much in how we
communicate.
But if you've got the rightintention behind the way you're
saying it, you know, and takeownership responsibility, like
coaches.
I'm wrong.
I'm the first one to put my handup, especially if a players take
(17:59):
a meaning out of my decision.
I'm the first one to apologize.
And that's that culture, that'sthe environment you want to be
around.
SPEAKER_02 (18:05):
And so, you know, I hear, Andrew, there, you haven't
said this, but you've inferredthis.
You're shifting the dial frombeing externally authored and
therefore referring to whatother people think and feel to
becoming internally authored andreferencing, no, no, what do I
think?
What do I feel?
(18:26):
What do I know?
What is my criteria for success,not what's yours?
So that that shift is creatingmore ownership and more
empowerment within the players,I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
Definitely.
And it's that internal success.
If you can look at internal, andI'll put my language at the
moment with a lot of theathletes, I've been doing some
high performance shootingsessions where I'm rebounding
for a lot, and I watch thefacial expressions of these
athletes.
They miss a shot, they're headsdown.
They miss two, they're reallydown.
They hit one, they don't react.
But they're judging themselvesoff a make and a miss.
(18:58):
So I get one in, I'm good, Imiss one, I'm bad.
Now, you know, Steph Curryshoots under 50% and he's the
greatest shooter in the world,but they're judging themselves
on these performance outcomes.
So I'll I've shifted it wherewe're talking about a 10 out of
10 shot we're trying to find asa team, or an eight out of 10
shot.
Now, if you can judge yourselfthat's an eight out of 10 shot,
let go of the result.
(19:18):
You know, if if you turn aroundand and you, and this is where
our vulnerability comes in, ateammate comes up and goes, that
was four out of 10.
Okay, well, there's no judgmentin that.
He's just telling you how it is,and you can accept it and go,
yeah, it was.
Next time I'll look for that 10out of 10, 8 out of 10,
regardless if it goes in or not.
So we stop internally judgingourselves on a result.
So we internally can go, yeah,that was a great shot,
(19:40):
regardless.
I could be zero for 10.
You know, as a coach, that's myresponsibility to say, how about
we just try a different shottoday?
But there's a way in saying thatas well.
But I'm trying to empower allthe athletes to stop thinking
about everything external andjust control themselves and then
they forget about everything andthen they're in the moment, and
then it really helps them shiftinto flow state.
SPEAKER_02 (19:59):
And then the other benefit, if you like, positive
outcome of outcomes there isthat you're shifting the
person's perspective from theoutcome to focusing in the
process.
So they're falling in love andgetting lost in the process
itself means that they'refocusing almost right in front
of them.
Talk with us about the smalledges that are the difference
(20:21):
that make the difference forwinning games.
Like at the elite level,everyone's talented.
And so everyone's prepared to acertain extent.
So the margins are incrediblysmall between your skill level
and your capacity, and thenopposition's skill level and
their capacity.
Not always, but you know,particularly at the top of the
competition.
What are the little things fromyour perspective that genuinely
(20:44):
are the difference that make thedifference in those high or
elite performance environmentsthat details most people would
overlook?
SPEAKER_01 (20:52):
I think one being in the present moment and letting
anything go.
I'll give you two analogies.
One of them for me, we're in atight game.
I know why I coach, I coach forfun.
So I hit my fun anchor in atight game that puts me in the
present moment.
I have a smile on my face, I go,here we go.
Like, let's go.
This is gonna be enjoyable.
I would call a timeout, I wouldlook at the clock, I would work
out we've got 10 or 12possessions left, and I'll let
(21:14):
my client, my teammates know, myathletes know, we're running
about 10, 12 possessions left atbest in this game.
Now we're gonna get some goodones and we're gonna get some
bad ones.
But the only way we're gonnaactually win this game is to let
go of the bad ones and just go,okay, we've got nine more to go,
or we've got eight more to go,and just play the next one, the
next one, the next one.
There's gonna be good and bad.
And if we can do that, ourintention is can we get more
(21:37):
good than bad and finish thegame?
So there's no pressure onfinishing a game anymore.
And the guys go out there, andas I say, majority of the time
we win, or if we don't win,we're in a position to win, and
they walk off the court, theydon't put meaning behind it
because they know they weresuccessful in it.
That's one aspect of it.
The other aspect, as far as anindividual performer, so not
(21:57):
necessarily in team environment,but for yourself.
I put an analogy together wherejust say, for instance, you're
playing a video game and you'recreating your own build.
Okay, so you've got a circlering around you or a cylinder
around you, and there's a humanbody inside.
He's X amount this tall, he'sgot this kind.
Of jump, he's got this kind ofskill.
You could have your athlete at80% skill set, but inside that
(22:18):
cylinder is his mental set.
And now, if that athlete sittingat 20% with the mental game,
he's never going to reachplaying at 80% skill set.
He's always going to be downbecause the environment's going
to keep pulling his skill setdown lower and lower throughout.
Now you could have another buildin the same elite sport, and he
could be 80% in the mental setand 20% in the skill set, but
(22:39):
because he's constantly in thein the moment, he's probably
going to rank his skill back upto 40 or 50% in his performance
and outplay his skill set.
Now he might still not beat theother athlete, but over time his
skill set, he's going to bethere getting better and better
and better.
And then eventually that 80%will be 80%.
So you'll be meeting his mentaland skill.
That's where you get 100% out ofyour performance.
(23:00):
And then you go squeeze thatout, and then you're into flow
state.
That's where that explodesoutside of your performance.
So you see it a lot in a lot ofathletes where they're
outstanding, but they choke orthey can't finish off tight
games.
And you I've been watching a lotof the MBL this year through
that lens.
I'm not watching the X's and O.
I'm actually watching the statemanagement and the shifts in
(23:22):
players.
And you can almost go to a pointwithout talking directly to
them.
You can figure out their matrix,what gets them into flow, why
they get frustrated, what dropsthem out.
And the analytics actually stackup with it as well.
So it starts becoming a pattern.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
I love how you're using numbers to drive different
meanings.
So it makes me think of I waslistening to Roger Federer talk
in a podcast, and he was talkingabout that he won 80% of his
games, if you can believe that.
80%.
But he said, What do you thinkmy ratio on hitting the ball in
(23:56):
was?
And the presenter said, I don'tknow, like 80%.
And he said, 52%.
And he said, so one in two ballsI hit would go out.
One in two balls I hit would goin.
It mattered which ones I hit,not all of them.
And I knew all of them weren'tgonna go in, but I didn't need
all of them to go in.
I only needed 52% of them at theright time to go in for me to
(24:20):
win 80% of my games.
And you're using numbers in areally similar way, Andrew, to
drive motivation and driveperspective and drive focus on
what it is you want.
Your approach is revolutionary,buddy.
Is there any pushback from yourathletes, from the management,
from the people around you onthis approach?
SPEAKER_01 (24:39):
Not at the moment.
Everyone I've worked with hashad pretty very quick as well.
Like I can have, for instance, Ihad a big tournament on the
weekend and I was watching ateam that I don't coach, but I
know the players, I know themindividually, and I was watching
them emotionally discharge forabout three games, extremely,
even for them.
And I spoke to them before thesemi-final and gave them a
five-minute talk about, youknow, letting go of the
(25:01):
environment, the emotion, youknow, just control what you can
control.
And then to see them come backand show straight away, like a
five-minute conversation wentfor a 40-minute game where no
one cried, no one wasemotionally upset.
They were definitely David andGoliath, they were the David in
this contest, and they didn'twin in the end, but they
definitely showed up and walkedoff the court happy.
Yeah, uh it's time and timeagain, one session or 10
(25:24):
sessions with my internationalcyclist to get him the best
results he's ever got in aperformance, even exceeded his
goal in that performance.
Using all the tools likequieting the inner critic when
it comes out and shutting it offand leaving it at the start
line, and then going into flowstate and then breaking himself
out of flow state in the lastfive kilometers, positioning
himself with a non-judgment sortof pack position, and then to
(25:47):
see him, you know, go throughand debrief after, and for him
to explain to me that he endedup 43rd, he wanted to make the
top 50 in the internationaltournament, and his old pattern
and story was close enough isgood enough, which came up when
he was beaten in a running raceby a girl out of school when he
was seven, and he's played itout all his life, 30 years
later, and we figure all thisout and we change all that
(26:09):
narrative.
But then for him to go, I wasone second away from being 35th
in that performance, and he goesthree seconds away from being
75th.
So the difference that makes adifference for him on his best
result is how he spoke tohimself and how he implemented
the mental game into his toolsbecause the pattern and the
excuse he always had and hisfamily was telling me is close
(26:29):
enough, is good enough.
He would always bail out at theend and just remind himself, oh
that's okay, kind of thing.
So to give him tools and see thefeedback's been pretty special
to watch.
SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
Andrew, you you talk about flow state a lot and it's
it's an important factor here.
Are there any strategies orapproaches?
Jay importantly talked about theprocess rather than focusing on
the outcome.
That always is a key predicate,you know, to getting into flow.
What are some of the strategiesthat you use to kind of help
athletes get into flow state?
SPEAKER_01 (26:57):
First of all, I find out why they're doing it and I
really deep deep dive why, likereally deep dive into the why
they're doing things.
I do a lot of state management,what's the best version of you
in this performance?
And they might say excited orwhatever that is, energized,
whatever that state they want toput in.
But I actually go deep diving,why do you want to be energetic?
And just keep breaking it downuntil they get that deep meaning
(27:19):
behind why they're doingsomething.
You know, and I've had meetingswhere I'm playing for my brother
who passed away, or you know, afamily connection or something.
So they find it themselves.
And then once they understandthe real root behind why it
takes away from them the outcomereally.
And then we always touch base onis your skill set aligned with
the challenge we're playingwith.
So we always sort of talk alittle bit into that.
(27:40):
And then my biggest hack tothem, and I know there's a few
different ways of doing it, butjust be in the present moment
and let everything go.
Like it just seems to be if youcan just be in the moment, you
know, my sayings be where yourfeet are or what's next,
whatever that is for you.
If you can constantly be inthat, so let go of everything in
that moment and worry about themicro moment next, there's a
(28:00):
good chance you'll forget aboutthe game and you'll be in the
moment.
And then you'll find yourselftwo minutes, five minutes, ten
minutes in flow state throughoutthe game.
And that's from a coach's pointof view.
Now I can actually look at that.
I've had athletes come up to merunning down the sideline,
absolutely gas saying, get meout of the court.
And I am like, no, mate, I'vegot two more minutes for you
until you show me your outerflow, you know.
(28:21):
And talking with my athletes, Iexplain how to get other players
out of flow when they'reshooting really well, what to
say.
And I I train this at trainingtoo, guys that are shooting
extremely well in my trainingsession.
I will go up to them and knockthem out of flow just with the
language I talk to them.
And then we joke about it, andthen they can't go back into
flow.
So I'm teaching them how toreset themselves and how to let
(28:41):
go of the noise.
And some athletes turn aroundand say, No, you didn't say
that.
Like they try and shut it downbecause they understand the
meaning and how to get in andout, and they just try and just
try and try and play the game.
And next thing you know, youdon't know when you're in it.
So why try and figure it out?
Like let a mental coach pullthose levers for you.
I've got an athlete, I know howto get into flow state by saying
(29:04):
some disgraceful things to himin a fun, playful way where he's
like, I'll and gets frustrated.
But guess what happens?
He goes into flow state on thecourt, takes that aggression out
on the court.
So, you know, as opposed to Ican say that to another player
and they they tighten up andthen they won't perform.
So it's really about knowing thepeople, working with the
individual, working with thecoaches, because it takes
(29:24):
coaching staff can knock whatyou work with an athlete, they
can take that away in onecomment.
So it's really about workingwith the coaches and the
athletes and actually sort of,yeah, just coming up with what
I'm trying to work out is anecosystem where I don't need to
work with the professionalathletes as much.
But if we can teach this toparents, coaches, and juniors,
which I am doing, I'm workingwith a lot of juniors and and
(29:46):
I'm seeing them now just this ishow sport is.
This is how I shouldn't beworrying about how many points I
scored.
I shouldn't be worried.
So we use language like peopleover performance.
That's our award for the night.
It's not MVP, it's who was theperson that put the people over
their own performance.
And how did that show up in thegame in one possession or five
(30:06):
possessions?
And then you get the award forthe night because you gave up
your own performance foreverybody else around you.
And guess what?
It everybody does that, sothat's where your culture's
built.
SPEAKER_02 (30:16):
And then, you know, paradoxically, it's all about
performance because you'regetting better performance when
you're actually not focused juston the performance, you get a
better performance when youfocus on the process.
So advice for emerging coachesand people stepping from being a
player in the game to being acoach in the game.
What was some advice or wisdomyou'd give for a young and
(30:39):
upcoming coaches looking toreally stamp their style on the
game or any game?
SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
I'd probably move, like if you're a player and
especially an elite player, likethink about what worked well for
you.
But more importantly, even for acoach, don't worry about the
result.
Like we speak about with a lotof my athletes, we speak about
if we lose a game of basketball,what's our micro win we get to
take away?
So where's our focus attentiongoing to be to get better?
Now, we had a situation we lostfour games at the start of
(31:09):
grading, all under eight points,most of them four to two points.
And we come into second round ofgrading, and I said, Is that
losing or is that winning?
Like, did we win our first roundor we lose our first round?
And they always look at meconfused because I always throw
these things at them.
But I said to them, I said, ifwe lose every game by eight
points or less, what can welearn?
And what they took away, youknow, micro moments matter.
(31:29):
I said, Yeah, they do.
Like three or four micromoments, we win every one of
those games.
So how about we take that as thewin?
We delete the result becausethat doesn't serve us now, and
we take that into the rest ofthe season.
I can tell you right now, fromlosing all those games, we're
playing a better brand ofbasketball and we're at it for
40 minutes.
And most teams are hating usright now because they want
(31:49):
every micro moment in everypass, every dribble, every
possession that matters at somepoint.
So let's get better.
So for an emerging coach, don'tworry about the wins and the
losses.
The losses are there to, and wesay it a lot and you hear it a
lot.
The losses are there to learnfrom.
So if you can learn from it, youhave a win if you win the game,
you have a win if you lose thegame.
It's only when you walk awayfrustrated and don't look into
(32:12):
what you can get better at.
That's the only time you lose inany performance.
And then probably the only otherthing I'd probably lean in,
things that I would have mademistakes for, is overvaluing
certain players as well.
There's always I'm playing thisbest group at the end to win the
game.
My advice is 80% of the time youend up losing the game anyway
because they're too fatigued.
So just trust your judgment andlive with your thing and just be
(32:33):
honest and open and vulnerablewith your players.
Give them direct feedback.
Don't let them leave the gamemaking meaning out of something
you did.
Make sure you're direct withthem because that is the work
I'm doing now with eliteathletes, unwinding all that
work from the start that a coachsaid or a parent said.
So be clear and concise with howyou want to communicate.
SPEAKER_02 (32:50):
Yeah, and you're helping them make meaning rather
than leaving it up to them tomake meaning.
You're facilitating the makingof resourceful meaning, I'm
hearing.
SPEAKER_01 (33:00):
Yeah, and then you're not getting the parents
influencing their version of theevent on the way on top of their
meaning as well.
Because then the player or theathlete can turn around and
straight away say, Well, this iswhat he meant as a coach.
And then the parents get a clearview of it as well.
And it just makes everythingjust sort of locks in together
nicely.
SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
Yeah, and I just think going back, what's crucial
is you talked about theindividual versus player and how
culturally, like that individualcan be sacrificial to help the
team, but not to the detrimentof, as Jay said, of the overall
performance.
So I think just for thoselistening in, I think that's so
crucial is to not take awaythose different layers of
interchangeable meaning betweenthe player, the team, and then
(33:37):
also the parents.
So it's amazing how you're ableto facilitate and juggle that,
not randomly, but with thissystem of mental skills that you
put in.
One question that we we oftenask those uh that come on are
about what's one thing from yourperspective that that you would
like to see change, whether it'ssystemically now in basketball
that you're involved in, or justsomething that you see in sport
(33:58):
in general from a coachingperspective, what would be one
thing that you would like to seeshifted or changed?
SPEAKER_01 (34:02):
Probably one thing I I would wish mental skills gets
taught at a junior level.
That's sort of as much as I'mworking with sort of the elite
athletes, but I'm still holdingon to the junior associations
because the influence you canhave very quickly down there
will save in the future.
And it will save a lot ofhardship.
Like I'm I'm in a lot ofstadiums all the time, most
(34:23):
weekends.
I do it with no judgment becauseeveryone's running their own
race, but I I see reactions fromparents, I see the reactions
from the coaches, I see, youknow, luckily enough, I watch
the kid who doesn't see thereactions, and I'm like, oh,
thank God they didn't see thatbecause they'll make some
meaning out of it and won't.
I think just how wecommunicate's really important
and what we see.
And I would love to see mentalskills, not just and it's still
(34:46):
new in elite sport, like it'sstill just been like it's not
sports psychology what we do.
Like your story is not importantto me.
I'm sorry to say it.
It's important to you, and I'mglad it's important to you, just
like my story is not really thatimportant to you guys.
It's it's my journey.
But the work and psychology isabout your journey and repeating
it and talking it and that, andthat's fine.
There's a place for it.
(35:06):
But the work that I end up doingis I just want to get to the
root of the problem.
Is it an inner critic you keeptalking to yourself?
Is it a belief structure?
Is it a state management issue?
Is it something can we rip theroot out and then move on?
Can we give it a simple meetingand then move on?
And then can I give you, youknow, anywhere between eight to
ten tools that you have theownership to use whenever you
need?
You don't need me.
I'll just give you the tools.
(35:27):
Like I'm here to actually makeyour performance better and then
check back in with me if youneed me.
But it's not the work I end updoing is more about the
education side of it to helphelp people, yeah, just turn up
the best version of themselves.
SPEAKER_00 (35:39):
Tremendous insight, you know, that you shared the
key things that have come out ofthis, and maybe that resonates
with the listeners are be whereyour feet are.
I think that's just brilliant.
So just to be yeah, and thendon't worry about the
scoreboard.
Uh, Jay talks about that lockscoreboard pressure and the
impact that that may have.
And then micro moments matter.
So just three perlers there thatthat the listeners can play.
SPEAKER_01 (35:59):
Something you mentioned about my trajectory at
the moment and how quick this israpidly built with the company.
That's actually me just gettingout of my comfort zone and
pushing forward.
So that's me putting myself outthere.
So for coaches or anyone thatwants to train in mental skills,
or they turn around and theysay, Well, what have you
achieved?
You haven't played aprofessional level yourself or
anything like that.
It doesn't mean you can't impactit.
(36:21):
At the end of the day, all thework I teach, I'll be embodied.
So I know it works.
So that's why I'm so certainabout all this kind of
philosophy.
So it puts me out there.
So it's just get out there, stopquestioning yourself.
You're actually holding yourselfback and send the messages, put
yourself in the room, open upthe door.
Like this is where a lot of mywork's heading now, and it's
heading there quite rapidly.
(36:41):
And I'm putting myself in roomsthat most people would think you
need a connection to get into,but you you actually don't.
I'd say back yourself if you'rethere to serve people and help
people, the doors will openthemselves.
SPEAKER_02 (36:51):
And I'm also hearing, Andrew, that one of the
differences that really makes adifference is you doing the work
on yourself first is soimportant because you can't take
somebody past where you've gone.
And you know, I'm blown away byyour interpretation and your
application of you know whatyou've learned both as a player,
(37:15):
as a coach, and working withthese teams and going through
our mental skills program andNLP programs.
Your application andinterpretation is, you know, off
the scale, buddy.
Like you're taking it and you'reinferencing it and you're
referencing it in so manydifferent ways that I've not
even given a moment's thoughtto.
(37:35):
That you stand on our shoulders,buddy, and take it much further.
And a deep vow for coming andsharing that experience and your
philosophy with the listeners,mate.
It's been bloody awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (37:47):
I appreciate the opportunity, folks.
Just to get the message a littlebit more out there.
If one person takes it away, alot of people talk about public
speaking and things like that.
But if as long as you'recommunicating to one person that
will get something out of it,they'll influence someone else.
So that's sort of the messageI'm sort of trying to get out
there to any coach or anyathlete or any CEO or business
owner that I work with, or evena school program, like primary
(38:09):
school kids, like they takesomething out of it and it might
transform the way they see andchange their perspectives.
SPEAKER_00 (38:15):
Finally, from my perspective, I really appreciate
you coming on, Andrew, beingreally authentic.
You know, your approach isauthentic, your passion, and
it's an embodiment process.
I think that's the critical wordyou use.
It's not simply intellectual,something you've learned, you're
being able to transfer it in areal passionate embodied way.
So I hope that the listeners whoare, you know, striving coaches,
current coaches, can learn atleast one pearls of wisdom that
(38:38):
you've provided.
So thank you for being presenton this uh show.
SPEAKER_02 (38:41):
Thank you.
It's been enlightening.
SPEAKER_01 (38:43):
Beautiful.
Thanks, guys.
Appreciate it.
Hello, listeners.
Welcome to anotherPurpose-Driven Movement podcast
where we interview highperformers across sport,
fitness, and wellness.
Today we have the great pleasureof having Andrew Cipriano as
guest.
Andrew, great to have you on theshow.
SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
Thanks for having me on today, guys.
I'm really excited for thischat.
SPEAKER_02 (00:35):
Bit of background.
Andrew is currently a cultureand mental performance coach
within Basketball Victoria, andhe's the founder of his
business, Mind Starts Now.
Andrew's got a background insemi-professional basketball
coaching and more recentlycompleted an NLP practitioner
course with our sister company,the Coaching Room.
(00:55):
And Andrew currently supportsprograms across all sorts of
basketball environments inbasketball Victoria.
And is currently inconversations at the National
League level, but I'll let himsort of talk about all of that.
Andrew works with internationalAustralian cyclists, delivers
well-being workshops in schoolsand such and so forth.
(01:15):
And my purpose, my reason forhaving Andrew on is the recent
traction that he's managed toget that he's been looking for.
And I wanted to hear him talkabout that traction and what's
really driving it for othercoaches out there in the
marketplace who want to get thatkind of traction because
Andrew's approach is really,really different from the normal
(01:39):
approach to this kind of thing.
You've lived the game deeply asa semi-professional basketball
coach.
I mean, you've been there,right?
And now you're stepping furtherinto the professional space with
a focus on mental skills andperformance through mental
skills and culture rather thanjust traditional strategic
strength, conditioning,strategy, technical, tactical.
(02:02):
You're moving more into themental cultural, which is really
unusual.
So let's hear your story.
Start just back up a little bitand tell us a bit about the
background of Van Drew.
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
I started playing when I was probably about the
age of eight.
So I played all my ways throughtill my 40s and found struggles
along the way in my sort of 20s,30s, 40s, where my mental
reactions were coming out on thecourt where things weren't going
fair.
Like the ref makes a mistake,and your reactions will come out
of it.
And not quite understanding whythat was.
But then moving into thecoaching side of it with junior
(02:34):
athletes as well, I could seethat as well.
So we could have two playerswith the exact same skill
ability, but then they couldn'texecute because of the
environment outside of them.
So one of them would performwell in the environment, the
other one would clamp up and goto a non-resourceful state.
And I was seeing this over andover again.
As I was moving up in mycoaching sort of journey, I
started noticing connectionsreally important, culture is
(02:56):
really important, understandingthe inner game is really
important.
And after living that experiencemyself, it didn't matter how
much talent you had.
It was always about can youcontrol what you can control?
And that's how you think andfeel and let go of everything
external.
So I started implementing thatin every any team I could coach
just to see as a bit of aprototype on how this looks.
(03:16):
That's sort of where I startedand I've moved into
semi-professional and thenapplied it into that
environment.
SPEAKER_02 (03:21):
So just to clarify, when you talk about culture,
tell me about what you mean.
What does culture mean to you,Andrew?
Because I think it's importantfor people to have a definition
because we all have differentdefinitions of culture.
From your perspective, what isit?
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
Yeah, culture for me and 100% my perspective, but it
doesn't matter what environmentyou're in, if you're a business,
work, school, family life,professional, elite sport,
you've got to have two keyingredients.
And the key ingredients thatI've witnessed that actually
builds performance and winningis one, you've got to have
vulnerability, and the otherone, you've got to have
accountability.
And if you can start any kind ofculture and plant those two
(04:01):
seeds where anyone can bevulnerable enough to speak up
and also hold anybody andyourself accountable without
judgment, then your culture'sgonna grow and be able to hold
each other accountable and movethrough any kind of problems you
have in life, pretty much.
SPEAKER_02 (04:15):
We'll get to more of that because I'm interested in
your philosophy, Andrew, of aplayer-led culture because I am
a very firm advocate ofplayer-led performances, build
better teams and better teamcultures full stop.
So we'll come back to that.
We'll talk more about that.
When you're a basketball coach,your your value is often
(04:37):
measured by strategy, structure,outcomes, your technical, your
tactical ability, and yourability to get players to play
the game, the content of thesport, right?
When you move into a mentalskills role, and I want to hear
about your movement from coachinto mental skills as part of
the answer to this question aswell.
(04:58):
Your impact becomes far moresubtle, Andrew.
It's about influence psychology,shaping mindset, shaping the and
leading the culture, right?
What is it that you needed toshift to be able to spend more
time on that and take us throughthat process?
SPEAKER_01 (05:13):
So individually for myself first, before the
players, I had to let go of theenvironment.
So I used to coach and I wouldtell players that would get
frustrated, you know, don'tworry, it's a ref, it's a call.
You always make excuses and youlabel the excuse, which is
external.
The big shift for me internally,I just class everything as the
environment.
Everything outside of yourcontrol is part of an
(05:35):
environment.
If they score, you score, yourteammates what they do, the
scoreboard's out of yourcontrol, it's part of the
environment.
You can influence it, but youcan't control it.
And then when I shifted thatkind of thinking to okay,
where's my focused attentionnow?
And that's how I show up.
So what do I think and feel?
If I can control that, which isin my control, then I can
(05:56):
influence any environment.
So if I'm controlling mythinking and feeling in a
positive way, I'll influence thegame in a positive way.
If I'm frustrated and aggressiveand I can influence in in a
negative way.
So it's really taking control ofthe one thing you can control
and then owning that and lettinggo of the environment.
And you tend to turn up as yourbest version of yourself and you
(06:18):
tend to perform extremely well.
But in saying that, someplayers, so the work I end up
doing, some players actuallyrespond to frustration and
aggression to help them playbetter as well.
So it's navigating what leverswe need to pull in each
individual player.
So it's managing people first.
Yeah.
And then if it comes back tobefore strategy for me now is
(06:38):
state before performance.
So if I can get anybody in theright state that they want to
perform in, I'll get the rightperformance out of it.
So I can have the highly skilledathlete, but if he doesn't want
to be there at the time, he'snot going to improve as much as
the person who's in the rightstate to learn, he'll get more
out of the session all the game.
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
So, Andrew, I have a question for you around the
player-led culture.
If you can sort of expand orgive an example of maybe some
nuanced differences when youapproach it from a youth
perspective to an adult, and nowwhat are the key key differences
there?
So, firstly, like what isplayer-led culture from your
perspective?
And secondly, what are some ofthe nuanced differences,
especially from a cultureperspective that Jay alluded to,
(07:17):
from a youth to an adult?
SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Yeah, well, I'm lucky enough that I get to coach
from a domestic level from under12 to under 16 rep to youth
level to talking withprofessional teams.
It's actually very similar.
So there's not that much thatshifts between the two, except
the domestic kids actually grabonto this a little bit easier
and understand it a little bitbetter than what the
professionals do.
So, yeah, a player-leg cultureto me is me stepping back as
(07:42):
head coach and observing a bitmore and letting them like ask
the questions and let themactually find the answers, like
having them hold each otheraccountable as well.
So that's where thevulnerability comes in.
If you can imagine 15,16-year-olds playing in an
under-23's competition, and that15 and 16-year-old can go up to
an under-20 or 22-year-old andcall them out with vulnerability
(08:05):
with the right intentions whereno one takes judgment.
Like we're creating not ahierarchy anymore, we're
creating everybody's value.
So if we can move into that kindof language, but then you've got
to bring that into a trainingenvironment as well.
You can't just turn up on gameday and expect this to happen.
It takes time.
So that looks in a trainingenvironment is while we're
running drills and while we'retraining, like we hold mini
(08:27):
huddles all the time.
Like we train how to huddle in agroup.
So instead of me callingeverybody in saying, you know,
we're doing this wrong, you'redoing that wrong.
It's like, hey guys, we've got15 seconds.
So I'm teaching the people toplay a huddle together within
three seconds, figure out who'sthe communicator, because you
can only talk and listen at thesame time with one person to go
and implement it.
So we actually train whatculture looks like with
(08:49):
accountability and player-led.
And a lot of the season actuallygets trained like that.
And then come to game day.
My role, if I'm still a headcoach, my role on game day is
can I keep their emotions incheck?
Can I put them in the emotionlike the right state?
Because I've actually taughtthem to be their own coaches
because they actually havecontrol of the game more than I
do as a head coach.
I can stop it three times agame, I can have a few timeouts
(09:12):
along the way, but what they cando on court is much more
powerful than what I canactually do off court.
SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Yeah, they've got to play the game.
You can't play it for them.
SPEAKER_01 (09:20):
Yeah.
So we train game day attraining.
So this is how we play on gameday, this is how we train, and
then same thing, I'll influencewhere I can, but also not to
take the authority away fromthem to be able to own it on
game day.
SPEAKER_00 (09:32):
I was gonna say it can resonate with that because
and it's maybe some of thelisteners who coach at a youth
level.
It's important that havingplayed the game, you've played
it since you were eight yearsold, you mentioned, that it's
sometimes easy to kind of casthow you think the players should
be performing.
So just having that generalawareness as a coach, and I've
also experienced this havingcoached for many years at a
youth level in soccer, to kindof step back and let them play
(09:54):
without making those judgmentsis I think crucial to allowing
that culture to spread, as youalluded to, of not hierarchical,
but finding that key influencer,or maybe there's two or three
influencers, to then let thatsort of ecosystem emerge on the
field.
And then it's probablycommentary at half time and
giving them you know thatdirection that they might need.
(10:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:15):
It's never like I'll give you the authority and
everyone's vulnerable.
You've got to build that up aswell.
So to do that in micro moments,it's like you bring the team in,
you get someone to close outtraining session.
You always sort of invite theyounger players to do it as
well.
And even no matter what theysay, it could be two words, but
that's okay, encourage it andmove on.
And then suddenly over a seasonor two, you end up with this
(10:35):
bond that's really, really,yeah, it's pretty much almost
hard to repeat.
SPEAKER_02 (10:39):
I really like your advocation for each player's
unique contribution is valued.
I think that's a very powerfulmessage right there in driving
culture.
What kind of results have youhad in your actual coaching with
this kind of approach?
And then talk us through whatled to that, those kind of
results.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yeah, I think like last season with our youth
league program, we went from16th of the ladder to first on
the ladder in the regularseason.
And that was a lot of player-ledtraining, a lot of player-led
like how they were connected waspretty much outstanding.
Look, and don't get me wrong, itwasn't only culture and mindset,
like the boys put the work in.
Like they had the drives, theyhad the ability, they did have
(11:20):
the skill set.
But to be able to have that allconnected where everyone valued
each other and celebrated eachother, regardless of their
minutes or their contributions,because it changes constantly,
but they all felt valued enoughwhere where it just kept coming
out on those results.
SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
So let's move to the invisible part of that
challenge, right?
It can't have been easy to gofrom being your regular
technical, tactical, strategiccoach to being what you said to
us before, how much time wereyou spending on the mental side?
You know, from saying 100% ontechnical, tactical, strategic
to what percentage of mental.
SPEAKER_01 (11:55):
Yeah, so originally, and it's probably evolved over
five years, but originally itwas only tactical.
So it was like five years ago,it was 100% tactical.
Then I started leaning into alittle bit of how do we build
connection?
Connection will be talent.
And then from there it it reallydid shift into 50-50.
And then last season with theNLP sort of certification and
(12:16):
the high performancecertification, I just leaned in
maybe 70-30 because the playersowned, like the players actually
own, like they're they'reintelligent players, like they
know how to read the game, theyknow how to play the game.
I'm the same, I see it the way Isee it.
So if you give them theauthority to say, what did you
see there?
You know, why did you make thatdecision?
They actually point out thingsthat you don't see as a head
(12:37):
coach.
So you've you've got to almostempower and trust from time to
time.
And that's where our huddling attraining is really important
because I'm giving them theownership to go and execute
right or wrong.
Just listen to the instructionand trust whoever said it, and
then we play off that.
And by doing that, I got toreally sit back and watch
something unfold.
And when we talk about flowstate, when they're in flow
(12:58):
state, and we had quite a fewgames, we would come back.
I won't go deep in the circle ofexcellence, but that was our
anchor for the whole season.
And we had that on the boardbefore the game, and at halftime
it was still there.
And that was the first thing wechecked in when we walked into
the locker room.
And to answer these sixquestions, have we got a great
attitude right now?
Are we taking responsibility forhow we're showing up?
(13:18):
Are we playing in the presentmoment or are we worrying about
other things?
What perspectives can we seeright now and systems might we
need to change?
Can we let go of the first half?
You know, and are we worthyenough regardless of your
minutes?
Now, to quickly touch on that,it only took 30 seconds to a
minute, but they had the answerstraight away.
They were just like, we haven'tgot a great attitude and this
system we need to change.
Then we just walk out there inthe third quarter and blow teams
(13:40):
apart.
And I actually sit back in awe.
Like I remember one game down by10 and next thing we're up by
20, and I didn't even see thescoreboard move.
Like it was just such like a,you know, when you talk about
flow state, how to um get in andout, and we do teach that, and I
teach that quite a lot withathletes.
And to be able to sit in that asa coach as well, watching it,
was pretty powerful.
SPEAKER_00 (13:59):
Andrew, that I think is pretty monumental to go from
16th to first place.
So, where in the season didthings just suddenly sort of was
there a sudden shift where youwere lingering at the bottom of
the table, as it sounds, andthen there was obviously a clear
process of of you incorporatingsome of these mental skill
strategies.
So if you're able to kind ofcome back to that, I'll break
(14:21):
that down a little bit for you.
SPEAKER_01 (14:22):
So 16th was the previous season where we
finished up on the ladder, and Iwas coming in as an assistant
coach, and then round two gotput into the head coach role.
So grabbed the team right there,and I think we lost the first
game, and I'll be honest, welost the first game I was
coaching because I picked it upthat night, and I'm like, oh, do
I want to put myself throughthis?
And that's the reflection timeof a coach.
Like, what can I learn rightnow?
(14:42):
Like, there's no losing inanything we do as long as we can
take a micro win out of it.
And then that was the shift.
Like that game itself wasprobably my turning point where
our attitude wasn't great, andthe result, like we had the
skill set, but we just didn'tturn up.
And from there it was like,okay, well, then that's our
problem.
That's what we need to work on,that's what we need to shift.
So, and from there, they justgot on, you know, we changed our
(15:05):
language.
We weren't on win streaksanymore.
We spoke about let's not losetwo games in a row.
Like little measurable things wedon't have to judge ourselves
on.
Like, let's make sure we don'tgive up a home game.
So let's win a home game.
Okay, let's get a two home gamewinning streak.
We might have two away games inbetween.
We've won.
We're not talking about the bigtotal, we're just talking about
this week, let's not lose anaway game.
(15:25):
Like we just kept it reallymicro, so we didn't make it
bigger than what it was.
Yeah, and the boys areoutstanding.
Like we didn't end up winningthe whole thing, and I can bring
back down to a mental fatigue asliterally why we shifted our
identity for three quarters.
But when they fired back up andshifted back into play, they
almost came back and won thatgame, which was an amazing
comeback.
SPEAKER_02 (15:45):
Let's talk about like you've changed the whole
nature of the system, right?
Then that's gonna come withpressure, especially when you're
trying out a new system.
Things don't always go the way.
People are learning new skills,new capacities, new abilities.
They're learning to empowerthemselves and trust themselves,
which is not easy for a youknow, a young man or a young
(16:07):
woman to do.
Professional sports has its ownpressure, its own ecosystem,
expectations from club owners,management, fans, media, parents
you name it.
You know, from your perspective,what could organizations do
better to support peoplestepping into these roles and
transitioning more into themental side of it as you have
(16:29):
with great outcome?
SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
First of all, like I'll touch on expectations.
I've I've used this, I'mactually luckily enough, I'm
enjoying coaching a 16's repteam at the moment as well.
So the same thing, I'm puttingstrategies in but giving them a
lot of these principles.
We've deleted the wordexpectation from our season.
It's not part of our vocabularyanymore.
We've replaced it withintention.
So our pre-game chat is alwaysour intention.
(16:51):
It's the first word on theboard, is, and then we reel off
what most people would find anexpectation and pressure
builder.
So if we achieve it or don'tachieve it, we can judge that
kind of thing.
And I think a lot of people theybring up unconscious sort of
pressure and expectations onthemselves.
They create their own stories,which is the work I do.
It's the meanings they make outas the coaches look, the parents
(17:13):
look, a comment in the car onthe way home, whatever that is,
they're creating a narrative andmeaning about it.
And it's holding them back withconfidence, it's holding them
back in their performance.
And when I go back to theenvironment, you've got to let
go of other people's opinion.
And you've just got to figureout how you fit, think, and
feel.
And you've got to go and checkin with the coach and you've got
to go and check in with yourplayers.
When we're clear and we go backto vulnerability, when I'm clear
(17:36):
with my communication with theplayer, I'm dead set, clear.
And regardless if it's anuncomfortable conversation
around the team, there's nojudgment involved, and it's
there to make everyone better.
And everyone starts respondingto it.
I think we sort of sugarcoat alittle bit too much in how we
communicate.
But if you've got the rightintention behind the way you're
saying it, you know, and takeownership responsibility, like
coaches.
I'm wrong.
I'm the first one to put my handup, especially if a players take
(17:59):
a meaning out of my decision.
I'm the first one to apologize.
And that's that culture, that'sthe environment you want to be
around.
SPEAKER_02 (18:05):
And so, you know, I hear, Andrew, there, you haven't
said this, but you've inferredthis.
You're shifting the dial frombeing externally authored and
therefore referring to whatother people think and feel to
becoming internally authored andreferencing, no, no, what do I
think?
What do I feel?
(18:26):
What do I know?
What is my criteria for success,not what's yours?
So that that shift is creatingmore ownership and more
empowerment within the players,I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
Definitely.
And it's that internal success.
If you can look at internal, andI'll put my language at the
moment with a lot of theathletes, I've been doing some
high performance shootingsessions where I'm rebounding
for a lot, and I watch thefacial expressions of these
athletes.
They miss a shot, they're headsdown.
They miss two, they're reallydown.
They hit one, they don't react.
But they're judging themselvesoff a make and a miss.
(18:58):
So I get one in, I'm good, Imiss one, I'm bad.
Now, you know, Steph Curryshoots under 50% and he's the
greatest shooter in the world,but they're judging themselves
on these performance outcomes.
So I'll I've shifted it wherewe're talking about a 10 out of
10 shot we're trying to find asa team, or an eight out of 10
shot.
Now, if you can judge yourselfthat's an eight out of 10 shot,
let go of the result.
(19:18):
You know, if if you turn aroundand and you, and this is where
our vulnerability comes in, ateammate comes up and goes, that
was four out of 10.
Okay, well, there's no judgmentin that.
He's just telling you how it is,and you can accept it and go,
yeah, it was.
Next time I'll look for that 10out of 10, 8 out of 10,
regardless if it goes in or not.
So we stop internally judgingourselves on a result.
So we internally can go, yeah,that was a great shot,
(19:40):
regardless.
I could be zero for 10.
You know, as a coach, that's myresponsibility to say, how about
we just try a different shottoday?
But there's a way in saying thatas well.
But I'm trying to empower allthe athletes to stop thinking
about everything external andjust control themselves and then
they forget about everything andthen they're in the moment, and
then it really helps them shiftinto flow state.
SPEAKER_02 (19:59):
And then the other benefit, if you like, positive
outcome of outcomes there isthat you're shifting the
person's perspective from theoutcome to focusing in the
process.
So they're falling in love andgetting lost in the process
itself means that they'refocusing almost right in front
of them.
Talk with us about the smalledges that are the difference
(20:21):
that make the difference forwinning games.
Like at the elite level,everyone's talented.
And so everyone's prepared to acertain extent.
So the margins are incrediblysmall between your skill level
and your capacity, and thenopposition's skill level and
their capacity.
Not always, but you know,particularly at the top of the
competition.
What are the little things fromyour perspective that genuinely
(20:44):
are the difference that make thedifference in those high or
elite performance environmentsthat details most people would
overlook?
SPEAKER_01 (20:52):
I think one being in the present moment and letting
anything go.
I'll give you two analogies.
One of them for me, we're in atight game.
I know why I coach, I coach forfun.
So I hit my fun anchor in atight game that puts me in the
present moment.
I have a smile on my face, I go,here we go.
Like, let's go.
This is gonna be enjoyable.
I would call a timeout, I wouldlook at the clock, I would work
out we've got 10 or 12possessions left, and I'll let
(21:14):
my client, my teammates know, myathletes know, we're running
about 10, 12 possessions left atbest in this game.
Now we're gonna get some goodones and we're gonna get some
bad ones.
But the only way we're gonnaactually win this game is to let
go of the bad ones and just go,okay, we've got nine more to go,
or we've got eight more to go,and just play the next one, the
next one, the next one.
There's gonna be good and bad.
And if we can do that, ourintention is can we get more
(21:37):
good than bad and finish thegame?
So there's no pressure onfinishing a game anymore.
And the guys go out there, andas I say, majority of the time
we win, or if we don't win,we're in a position to win, and
they walk off the court, theydon't put meaning behind it
because they know they weresuccessful in it.
That's one aspect of it.
The other aspect, as far as anindividual performer, so not
(21:57):
necessarily in team environment,but for yourself.
I put an analogy together wherejust say, for instance, you're
playing a video game and you'recreating your own build.
Okay, so you've got a circlering around you or a cylinder
around you, and there's a humanbody inside.
He's X amount this tall, he'sgot this kind.
Of jump, he's got this kind ofskill.
You could have your athlete at80% skill set, but inside that
(22:18):
cylinder is his mental set.
And now, if that athlete sittingat 20% with the mental game,
he's never going to reachplaying at 80% skill set.
He's always going to be downbecause the environment's going
to keep pulling his skill setdown lower and lower throughout.
Now you could have another buildin the same elite sport, and he
could be 80% in the mental setand 20% in the skill set, but
(22:39):
because he's constantly in thein the moment, he's probably
going to rank his skill back upto 40 or 50% in his performance
and outplay his skill set.
Now he might still not beat theother athlete, but over time his
skill set, he's going to bethere getting better and better
and better.
And then eventually that 80%will be 80%.
So you'll be meeting his mentaland skill.
That's where you get 100% out ofyour performance.
(23:00):
And then you go squeeze thatout, and then you're into flow
state.
That's where that explodesoutside of your performance.
So you see it a lot in a lot ofathletes where they're
outstanding, but they choke orthey can't finish off tight
games.
And you I've been watching a lotof the MBL this year through
that lens.
I'm not watching the X's and O.
I'm actually watching the statemanagement and the shifts in
(23:22):
players.
And you can almost go to a pointwithout talking directly to
them.
You can figure out their matrix,what gets them into flow, why
they get frustrated, what dropsthem out.
And the analytics actually stackup with it as well.
So it starts becoming a pattern.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
I love how you're using numbers to drive different
meanings.
So it makes me think of I waslistening to Roger Federer talk
in a podcast, and he was talkingabout that he won 80% of his
games, if you can believe that.
80%.
But he said, What do you thinkmy ratio on hitting the ball in
(23:56):
was?
And the presenter said, I don'tknow, like 80%.
And he said, 52%.
And he said, so one in two ballsI hit would go out.
One in two balls I hit would goin.
It mattered which ones I hit,not all of them.
And I knew all of them weren'tgonna go in, but I didn't need
all of them to go in.
I only needed 52% of them at theright time to go in for me to
(24:20):
win 80% of my games.
And you're using numbers in areally similar way, Andrew, to
drive motivation and driveperspective and drive focus on
what it is you want.
Your approach is revolutionary,buddy.
Is there any pushback from yourathletes, from the management,
from the people around you onthis approach?
SPEAKER_01 (24:39):
Not at the moment.
Everyone I've worked with hashad pretty very quick as well.
Like I can have, for instance, Ihad a big tournament on the
weekend and I was watching ateam that I don't coach, but I
know the players, I know themindividually, and I was watching
them emotionally discharge forabout three games, extremely,
even for them.
And I spoke to them before thesemi-final and gave them a
five-minute talk about, youknow, letting go of the
(25:01):
environment, the emotion, youknow, just control what you can
control.
And then to see them come backand show straight away, like a
five-minute conversation wentfor a 40-minute game where no
one cried, no one wasemotionally upset.
They were definitely David andGoliath, they were the David in
this contest, and they didn'twin in the end, but they
definitely showed up and walkedoff the court happy.
Yeah, uh it's time and timeagain, one session or 10
(25:24):
sessions with my internationalcyclist to get him the best
results he's ever got in aperformance, even exceeded his
goal in that performance.
Using all the tools likequieting the inner critic when
it comes out and shutting it offand leaving it at the start
line, and then going into flowstate and then breaking himself
out of flow state in the lastfive kilometers, positioning
himself with a non-judgment sortof pack position, and then to
(25:47):
see him, you know, go throughand debrief after, and for him
to explain to me that he endedup 43rd, he wanted to make the
top 50 in the internationaltournament, and his old pattern
and story was close enough isgood enough, which came up when
he was beaten in a running raceby a girl out of school when he
was seven, and he's played itout all his life, 30 years
later, and we figure all thisout and we change all that
(26:09):
narrative.
But then for him to go, I wasone second away from being 35th
in that performance, and he goesthree seconds away from being
75th.
So the difference that makes adifference for him on his best
result is how he spoke tohimself and how he implemented
the mental game into his toolsbecause the pattern and the
excuse he always had and hisfamily was telling me is close
(26:29):
enough, is good enough.
He would always bail out at theend and just remind himself, oh
that's okay, kind of thing.
So to give him tools and see thefeedback's been pretty special
to watch.
SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
Andrew, you you talk about flow state a lot and it's
it's an important factor here.
Are there any strategies orapproaches?
Jay importantly talked about theprocess rather than focusing on
the outcome.
That always is a key predicate,you know, to getting into flow.
What are some of the strategiesthat you use to kind of help
athletes get into flow state?
SPEAKER_01 (26:57):
First of all, I find out why they're doing it and I
really deep deep dive why, likereally deep dive into the why
they're doing things.
I do a lot of state management,what's the best version of you
in this performance?
And they might say excited orwhatever that is, energized,
whatever that state they want toput in.
But I actually go deep diving,why do you want to be energetic?
And just keep breaking it downuntil they get that deep meaning
(27:19):
behind why they're doingsomething.
You know, and I've had meetingswhere I'm playing for my brother
who passed away, or you know, afamily connection or something.
So they find it themselves.
And then once they understandthe real root behind why it
takes away from them the outcomereally.
And then we always touch base onis your skill set aligned with
the challenge we're playingwith.
So we always sort of talk alittle bit into that.
(27:40):
And then my biggest hack tothem, and I know there's a few
different ways of doing it, butjust be in the present moment
and let everything go.
Like it just seems to be if youcan just be in the moment, you
know, my sayings be where yourfeet are or what's next,
whatever that is for you.
If you can constantly be inthat, so let go of everything in
that moment and worry about themicro moment next, there's a
(28:00):
good chance you'll forget aboutthe game and you'll be in the
moment.
And then you'll find yourselftwo minutes, five minutes, ten
minutes in flow state throughoutthe game.
And that's from a coach's pointof view.
Now I can actually look at that.
I've had athletes come up to merunning down the sideline,
absolutely gas saying, get meout of the court.
And I am like, no, mate, I'vegot two more minutes for you
until you show me your outerflow, you know.
(28:21):
And talking with my athletes, Iexplain how to get other players
out of flow when they'reshooting really well, what to
say.
And I I train this at trainingtoo, guys that are shooting
extremely well in my trainingsession.
I will go up to them and knockthem out of flow just with the
language I talk to them.
And then we joke about it, andthen they can't go back into
flow.
So I'm teaching them how toreset themselves and how to let
(28:41):
go of the noise.
And some athletes turn aroundand say, No, you didn't say
that.
Like they try and shut it downbecause they understand the
meaning and how to get in andout, and they just try and just
try and try and play the game.
And next thing you know, youdon't know when you're in it.
So why try and figure it out?
Like let a mental coach pullthose levers for you.
I've got an athlete, I know howto get into flow state by saying
(29:04):
some disgraceful things to himin a fun, playful way where he's
like, I'll and gets frustrated.
But guess what happens?
He goes into flow state on thecourt, takes that aggression out
on the court.
So, you know, as opposed to Ican say that to another player
and they they tighten up andthen they won't perform.
So it's really about knowing thepeople, working with the
individual, working with thecoaches, because it takes
(29:24):
coaching staff can knock whatyou work with an athlete, they
can take that away in onecomment.
So it's really about workingwith the coaches and the
athletes and actually sort of,yeah, just coming up with what
I'm trying to work out is anecosystem where I don't need to
work with the professionalathletes as much.
But if we can teach this toparents, coaches, and juniors,
which I am doing, I'm workingwith a lot of juniors and and
(29:46):
I'm seeing them now just this ishow sport is.
This is how I shouldn't beworrying about how many points I
scored.
I shouldn't be worried.
So we use language like peopleover performance.
That's our award for the night.
It's not MVP, it's who was theperson that put the people over
their own performance.
And how did that show up in thegame in one possession or five
(30:06):
possessions?
And then you get the award forthe night because you gave up
your own performance foreverybody else around you.
And guess what?
It everybody does that, sothat's where your culture's
built.
SPEAKER_02 (30:16):
And then, you know, paradoxically, it's all about
performance because you'regetting better performance when
you're actually not focused juston the performance, you get a
better performance when youfocus on the process.
So advice for emerging coachesand people stepping from being a
player in the game to being acoach in the game.
What was some advice or wisdomyou'd give for a young and
(30:39):
upcoming coaches looking toreally stamp their style on the
game or any game?
SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
I'd probably move, like if you're a player and
especially an elite player, likethink about what worked well for
you.
But more importantly, even for acoach, don't worry about the
result.
Like we speak about with a lotof my athletes, we speak about
if we lose a game of basketball,what's our micro win we get to
take away?
So where's our focus attentiongoing to be to get better?
Now, we had a situation we lostfour games at the start of
(31:09):
grading, all under eight points,most of them four to two points.
And we come into second round ofgrading, and I said, Is that
losing or is that winning?
Like, did we win our first roundor we lose our first round?
And they always look at meconfused because I always throw
these things at them.
But I said to them, I said, ifwe lose every game by eight
points or less, what can welearn?
And what they took away, youknow, micro moments matter.
(31:29):
I said, Yeah, they do.
Like three or four micromoments, we win every one of
those games.
So how about we take that as thewin?
We delete the result becausethat doesn't serve us now, and
we take that into the rest ofthe season.
I can tell you right now, fromlosing all those games, we're
playing a better brand ofbasketball and we're at it for
40 minutes.
And most teams are hating usright now because they want
(31:49):
every micro moment in everypass, every dribble, every
possession that matters at somepoint.
So let's get better.
So for an emerging coach, don'tworry about the wins and the
losses.
The losses are there to, and wesay it a lot and you hear it a
lot.
The losses are there to learnfrom.
So if you can learn from it, youhave a win if you win the game,
you have a win if you lose thegame.
It's only when you walk awayfrustrated and don't look into
(32:12):
what you can get better at.
That's the only time you lose inany performance.
And then probably the only otherthing I'd probably lean in,
things that I would have mademistakes for, is overvaluing
certain players as well.
There's always I'm playing thisbest group at the end to win the
game.
My advice is 80% of the time youend up losing the game anyway
because they're too fatigued.
So just trust your judgment andlive with your thing and just be
(32:33):
honest and open and vulnerablewith your players.
Give them direct feedback.
Don't let them leave the gamemaking meaning out of something
you did.
Make sure you're direct withthem because that is the work
I'm doing now with eliteathletes, unwinding all that
work from the start that a coachsaid or a parent said.
So be clear and concise with howyou want to communicate.
SPEAKER_02 (32:50):
Yeah, and you're helping them make meaning rather
than leaving it up to them tomake meaning.
You're facilitating the makingof resourceful meaning, I'm
hearing.
SPEAKER_01 (33:00):
Yeah, and then you're not getting the parents
influencing their version of theevent on the way on top of their
meaning as well.
Because then the player or theathlete can turn around and
straight away say, Well, this iswhat he meant as a coach.
And then the parents get a clearview of it as well.
And it just makes everythingjust sort of locks in together
nicely.
SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
Yeah, and I just think going back, what's crucial
is you talked about theindividual versus player and how
culturally, like that individualcan be sacrificial to help the
team, but not to the detrimentof, as Jay said, of the overall
performance.
So I think just for thoselistening in, I think that's so
crucial is to not take awaythose different layers of
interchangeable meaning betweenthe player, the team, and then
(33:37):
also the parents.
So it's amazing how you're ableto facilitate and juggle that,
not randomly, but with thissystem of mental skills that you
put in.
One question that we we oftenask those uh that come on are
about what's one thing from yourperspective that that you would
like to see change, whether it'ssystemically now in basketball
that you're involved in, or justsomething that you see in sport
(33:58):
in general from a coachingperspective, what would be one
thing that you would like to seeshifted or changed?
SPEAKER_01 (34:02):
Probably one thing I I would wish mental skills gets
taught at a junior level.
That's sort of as much as I'mworking with sort of the elite
athletes, but I'm still holdingon to the junior associations
because the influence you canhave very quickly down there
will save in the future.
And it will save a lot ofhardship.
Like I'm I'm in a lot ofstadiums all the time, most
(34:23):
weekends.
I do it with no judgment becauseeveryone's running their own
race, but I I see reactions fromparents, I see the reactions
from the coaches, I see, youknow, luckily enough, I watch
the kid who doesn't see thereactions, and I'm like, oh,
thank God they didn't see thatbecause they'll make some
meaning out of it and won't.
I think just how wecommunicate's really important
and what we see.
And I would love to see mentalskills, not just and it's still
(34:46):
new in elite sport, like it'sstill just been like it's not
sports psychology what we do.
Like your story is not importantto me.
I'm sorry to say it.
It's important to you, and I'mglad it's important to you, just
like my story is not really thatimportant to you guys.
It's it's my journey.
But the work and psychology isabout your journey and repeating
it and talking it and that, andthat's fine.
There's a place for it.
(35:06):
But the work that I end up doingis I just want to get to the
root of the problem.
Is it an inner critic you keeptalking to yourself?
Is it a belief structure?
Is it a state management issue?
Is it something can we rip theroot out and then move on?
Can we give it a simple meetingand then move on?
And then can I give you, youknow, anywhere between eight to
ten tools that you have theownership to use whenever you
need?
You don't need me.
I'll just give you the tools.
(35:27):
Like I'm here to actually makeyour performance better and then
check back in with me if youneed me.
But it's not the work I end updoing is more about the
education side of it to helphelp people, yeah, just turn up
the best version of themselves.
SPEAKER_00 (35:39):
Tremendous insight, you know, that you shared the
key things that have come out ofthis, and maybe that resonates
with the listeners are be whereyour feet are.
I think that's just brilliant.
So just to be yeah, and thendon't worry about the
scoreboard.
Uh, Jay talks about that lockscoreboard pressure and the
impact that that may have.
And then micro moments matter.
So just three perlers there thatthat the listeners can play.
SPEAKER_01 (35:59):
Something you mentioned about my trajectory at
the moment and how quick this israpidly built with the company.
That's actually me just gettingout of my comfort zone and
pushing forward.
So that's me putting myself outthere.
So for coaches or anyone thatwants to train in mental skills,
or they turn around and theysay, Well, what have you
achieved?
You haven't played aprofessional level yourself or
anything like that.
It doesn't mean you can't impactit.
(36:21):
At the end of the day, all thework I teach, I'll be embodied.
So I know it works.
So that's why I'm so certainabout all this kind of
philosophy.
So it puts me out there.
So it's just get out there, stopquestioning yourself.
You're actually holding yourselfback and send the messages, put
yourself in the room, open upthe door.
Like this is where a lot of mywork's heading now, and it's
heading there quite rapidly.
(36:41):
And I'm putting myself in roomsthat most people would think you
need a connection to get into,but you you actually don't.
I'd say back yourself if you'rethere to serve people and help
people, the doors will openthemselves.
SPEAKER_02 (36:51):
And I'm also hearing, Andrew, that one of the
differences that really makes adifference is you doing the work
on yourself first is soimportant because you can't take
somebody past where you've gone.
And you know, I'm blown away byyour interpretation and your
application of you know whatyou've learned both as a player,
(37:15):
as a coach, and working withthese teams and going through
our mental skills program andNLP programs.
Your application andinterpretation is, you know, off
the scale, buddy.
Like you're taking it and you'reinferencing it and you're
referencing it in so manydifferent ways that I've not
even given a moment's thoughtto.
(37:35):
That you stand on our shoulders,buddy, and take it much further.
And a deep vow for coming andsharing that experience and your
philosophy with the listeners,mate.
It's been bloody awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (37:47):
I appreciate the opportunity, folks.
Just to get the message a littlebit more out there.
If one person takes it away, alot of people talk about public
speaking and things like that.
But if as long as you'recommunicating to one person that
will get something out of it,they'll influence someone else.
So that's sort of the messageI'm sort of trying to get out
there to any coach or anyathlete or any CEO or business
owner that I work with, or evena school program, like primary
(38:09):
school kids, like they takesomething out of it and it might
transform the way they see andchange their perspectives.
SPEAKER_00 (38:15):
Finally, from my perspective, I really appreciate
you coming on, Andrew, beingreally authentic.
You know, your approach isauthentic, your passion, and
it's an embodiment process.
I think that's the critical wordyou use.
It's not simply intellectual,something you've learned, you're
being able to transfer it in areal passionate embodied way.
So I hope that the listeners whoare, you know, striving coaches,
current coaches, can learn atleast one pearls of wisdom that
(38:38):
you've provided.
So thank you for being presenton this uh show.
SPEAKER_02 (38:41):
Thank you.
It's been enlightening.
SPEAKER_01 (38:43):
Beautiful.
Thanks, guys.
Appreciate it.
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