June 20, 2025 • 72 mins
In this conversation, I sit down with Mike Porteous, triathlon coach and author of the brillliant book 'Beyond Belief' - the art of confidence-centred coaching. Mike's journey from academic to civil servant to failed mountain bike business owner to successful triathlon coach reveals fascinating insights about what really matters in developing both athletes and coaches. We explore Mike's approach to confidence-centred coaching, which places how people feel at the very heart of the coaching process. Rather than focusing purely on performance metrics or development outcomes, Mike argues for a third way that prioritises the subjective experience of both coach and athlete.
Three Key Takeaways:
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Three Key Takeaways:
- Confidence isn't a thing you acquire - it's actually a combination of three feelings: excitement (thrilled anticipation), composure (control over what you can influence whilst being calm about what you can't), and fluency (losing yourself in the moment and finding flow).
- The best coaches often aren't the best athletes - Mike's own journey from being a mediocre mountain biker to helping athletes achieve extraordinary feats shows that empathy, presence, and the ability to be alongside someone on their journey matters more than technical prowess.
- Drawing out beats putting in - Rather than instructing athletes what to do, confidence-centred coaching focuses on helping people discover their own solutions through feeling and awareness, creating more resilient and self-reliant performers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Sometimes that impact goes as far as family members and
(00:23):
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(00:43):
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(01:26):
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(01:46):
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Speaker 2 (01:56):
Welcome to the Townent Equation Podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
If you are passionate about helping young people to leash
their potential and want to find ways to do that better,
then you've come to the right place. The Talent Equation
podcast seeks to answer the important questions facing parents, coaches,
and talent developers as they try to help young people
become the best they can be. This is a series
(02:22):
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Speaker 4 (02:44):
Enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So, as usual, I start the podcast with apologies because
this conversation is some time coming. I first found out
about this particular individual and the work there. Work through
(03:34):
an approach as often happens, where we you know you
reached out well, introduce you first, Mike Portias, Welcome to
the po Welcome to the podcast, Welcome to the Tower Equation.
Thank you, yeah you you. You reached out to me
saying I'm writing this book, to which point I was like, well,
(03:55):
well done you because I've still got about four long
ago and there are all slowly going to get to
the finishing line at some stage. But anyway, I'm but yeah,
you asked me to sort of read it and and
if I liked it, to provide endorsement, which I was
absolutely delighted to do. And then I you know, I
(04:16):
read the other people who are on. It's like a
it's like a it's like a celebrity catwalk of luminaries
from the you know the world of sport and coaching.
Lawrence Halsted from the True Athritic Project been on the podcast.
Stephen Rollneck on the podcast, saw Stephen recently jen Co
(04:38):
working with jen Co at the moment in a past
development project. Craig Morris, Rusty Earnshaw. I mean, wow, what
what exalted company to be alongside and they all like it,
so there must be something good about what you've done here.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Well, that's that's kind of I think it's is more
about some of those people's generosity, including yours, because you
and I hadn't hadn't met ye, And that's been a
super thing. Actually, I've found that just having the courage
(05:19):
to go out and ask someone would you mind reading,
which I tend to do in a rather hesitant way,
Oh please, if you could stay the time, and wow,
so many people have been so generous, not just to
read and make comments, but to engage in in great conversations.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Well, I have to say I found your actual your
your kind of invitation if you like all request quite refreshing,
which is probably one of the reasons I responded because
I don't know. You may not know this, but one
of the things that's happened of late, I think is
(06:01):
if you've got a podcast with any level of audience,
you're getting a pro I'm getting approached on an almost
daily basis, usually via AI or at the very least
by some sort of agency that is promoting somebody else
because they've clearly done a contract where they're going to
get them x number of podcast appearances, and many of
them are completely irrelevant to my audience. Some of them
(06:24):
are relevant, But the problem is is the approach they
take is so kind of in your face and you
need me on your podcast that I sometimes find it
a little bit jarring, and so I'm probably less apt
to respond. One in particular that really strikes me and
I can never forget is the guy I won't mention
his name, who who is a specialist in the male
(06:47):
appendage and in particular a rectile dysfunction. I don't know
why they came through to me, can't imagine for a second.
Maybe they know that I'm getting into my fifties. But yeah,
and I wanted to give me all sorts of insights
my audience, all sorts of insights about these sorts of things.
It might have been a very interesting conversation in many ways.
I probably should have done that, but yeah, I was
(07:10):
one of those ones. So anyway, your approach was far better,
and therefore I did welcome it in lots of ways.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
That's good. So it was abuseful, really really heartwarming endorsement.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, to be fair, you know, you sent me the
manuscript and I was able to sort of, you know,
like get into it and have a and you know,
and get the sort of sense of what you were writing.
It wasn't difficult because once a couple once I'd just
sort of read, you know, first few lines. Really, I thought, hello,
we're onto something here, So it wasn't difficult for me
to sort of be able to sort of put together
(07:51):
an endorsement. Anyway, we've started talking about the book. We'll
get back to that. I'm more interested in talking about you.
Talk to me about you and your story and your
journey and how you've ended up writing a book.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Right, Okay. Some people can tell these stories as if
they're you know, a nice, clear, straight Mine is not
like that sort of rag bag of different things that
somehow or other have led me to where I am.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That sounds more interesting already.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I suppose I've had three careers now, in a way.
I started off as an academic, which one of the
super things was that took me to Brazil. I did
some work in Brazil. I was also for quite a
(08:49):
long time as a civil servant, which, as soon as
you say it, some people are boring paper pusher. But actually, somehow,
by luck or my obstinacy or whatever, I was able
to get involved in some really exciting developments, sort of
(09:12):
big moments of change. When this thing called the Internet
was appearing. I've had a strategy for a big government
program to get businesses into an online way of working,
so you know, super opportunity to have an impact anyway,
(09:33):
So I'm going into a bit of detail. And then
I took what's very politely called early voluntary retirement, otherwise
known as I jumped before there was a chance of
(09:53):
being pushed. And at the time I was doing I
was a I've been doing a lot of triathlons, i
was into mountain biking. I had very active lifestyle and
living where where I am on the on the South coast,
(10:16):
with the South Downs sort of within view. I thought, Wow,
it wouldn't be amazing to set up a business taking
people out on mountain bikes. And then with a friend
we set up a business called zig Zag Cycling and
(10:37):
with this beautiful idea of, like I said, taking people
across the South Downs. In the end we ended up
having quite a lot of people who are completely new
to mountain biking. And that's where I think I really
started getting into kind of a way of being a coach.
(10:59):
UH been alongside people who are doing something for the
very first time where they're pretty unsure what's going to happen.
They've only just met you and and you're out there
h as an idea it was. It was beautiful. As
(11:20):
a business, it was a disaster. Maybe maybe maybe some
clever people can make money from it, but not me.
Uh and the business partner had he had to leave
very very early on. So it was pretty much met
me on my own. But one of the key things
(11:46):
I got from it was that people would be saying
to me, you know, when they gave some feedback afterward,
they said, oh, you know, that was that was great.
I've never done anything like that before, And Mike had
this way of making me feel confident, and I'd be thinking,
but I don't know what I've done. I'm not quite shocked,
(12:07):
you know, what is it that's happened out there? And
so I the more I thought about it, oh, I
mean either think technically I was pretty rubbish as as
a mountain bike rider, you know, compared to some of
the amazing tricks that some people can do. You know,
(12:29):
it was quite good at falling off, but not quite
And they're always in this position of, you know, of
trying to encourage people to try quite novel things on
the bike, where actually I wasn't feeling that great inside
myself and again that kind of brought this thing to
(12:51):
the fore of confidence. What is it about? How can
you create a space where both I as the as
the mountain bike instructor and the person I'm with can
feel at ease and ready to try something. But as
(13:14):
I said, as a business, it didn't it didn't work,
so I ended up shifting it to triathlon coaching and
that's that's what I do now. The business changed its
name to zig Zag Alive and for the last twelve
(13:35):
thirteen years something like that, I've had had wonderful clients
come forward for a whole range of different challenges. Some
wanting to get into swimming open water for the very
first time. Either's doing big iron Man, iron Man triathlon events,
(14:00):
some looking to compete for Great Britain in in their
age group, so you know, really super mix of ambitions
and abilities. I'm back to the confidence thing. As I
was going through the qualifications to be a Traumathan coach,
(14:24):
I kept coming back to this thing about confidence and
I found when you get to like the highest level.
It's changed now, but in British triathon it used to
be that, you know, you go to go through the
highest level qualification, and you get these amazing kind of
scientifically based, very technical resources to help you be the
(14:52):
best coach that you could possibly be with your athletes.
And there's there's a kind of implicit assumption that really
you should be working with elite athletes, even though most
of the people on the courses are actually you know,
running running clubs with the young people don't actually have
(15:14):
that much interest in, you know, in the Olympics. It's
what's happening with the kids who come week by week
to their sessions. And I was. I was immersed in
that world as well. I was for a time I
was a head coach at a new club, Brighton Try
Club that had a lovely junior section anyway, So there
(15:39):
I was thinking, you know, we're getting all this fabulous
input from real specialists in specific areas, you know, like
nutrition or physiology or psychology or whatever. But then in
the evenings, when we're all sat around having pizzas and
(15:59):
chat about what we've learned, again, we just kept coming
back to, in my view, we kept coming back to
questions of confidence. How am I going to feel about
taking this back to my club? What about the kind
of rather difficult relationships that we were all sort of
(16:20):
moaning about and sharing the difficult clients or the challenging
setups we were in, and how can we help our
athletes have a sense of confidence whatever that might mean.
And so after a time, I thought, now I really
(16:44):
want to get into this area. I wanted to develop
a new thinking around confidence in a way sort of
going back to the mountain bike experience. I want to
find out what it is that was working there. Uhh yeah.
(17:04):
And that's that's I think that's kind of a bit
of a zig zag story of how I got to
where I am. So I'm now, I'm now I have
a private coaching business. I'm doing work on what I
now call confidence centered coaching, which is where where the
book comes in. And then I do a few other
(17:26):
sort of things and it's not quite on the margins,
but I teach children with disability to swim one afternoon
the week, which is like the high point of the week.
I do some stuff around mental health, particularly cold water dipping. Mhmm. Yeah. Oh,
(17:47):
I'm mentoring, mentoring coaches. M yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Wow, that's a lovely mosaic. I think I think there's
some parallels with my own journey as well academia, civil service, well,
(18:14):
working for a local authority as a sports development offers
that is essentially you know, local authority, civil service, and
then obviously working at sports, working at agencies like Sport England.
You know, you're an extension of the civil service arms
length the body. So lots of kind of sort of
that journey with sort of coaching bubbling along as the
kind of core theme. Something that I was curious about
(18:36):
that you mentioned was you your obviously your journey into
coaching was sort of is slightly atypical because many people
their experiences in coaching is, you know, they were participants
of some level. You know, usually they've experienced relatively sort
(18:58):
of extensive experience of activity itself. Uh, and then they
then they so they now naturally want to be able
to sort of communicate some of that, and then as
a result of that, they then start to look into
the way of they where they're asked often to lead
(19:19):
others because they seem to have some degree of proficiency,
and as a result of that, they then go on
this learning journey about what it means to actually help
others learn, and actually that can be quite difficult sometimes,
I think the more the more, the more able you
are as a participant, sometimes the harder it is to
be a teacher. But in your case, it's slightly different
(19:39):
because you were essentially relatively novice or be it, more
experienced than them. But you were essentially taking something that
you found great enjoyment from and wanted other and wanted
to help others experience it, and then obviously went on
this learning journey of how to help them to experience it,
(19:59):
even though you were going through those experiences yourself as
a learner. So the interesting thing that I noticed, or
at least was curious to ask you about, was I
often talk about the notion of being the guide on
the guide by the side, you know, as a way
of thinking about the coaching role as opposed to the
instructor or the director or the teacher, but more the
(20:21):
guide or the navigator. You were almost forced to adopt
that role by virtue of the fact that you didn't
have all of this experience to fall back on. And
yet I imagine upon reflection, that's now a bit of
a superpower.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Hmm. There's so much in there, I think because a
lot of people assume that the best coaches have been former. Yes, yeah,
(21:01):
but I don't know. I certainly don't want to diss
coaches had come that way. I did, I did have
some experience. Uh. I chatted with Tom Hartley about this,
and the conversation has made its way into into the book. Uh.
(21:28):
When I was when I went to university, I got
into running, but I was, you know, I was kind
of middle of the pack when I when I started,
and they just very slowly sort of started improving and
kind of self coached in a way. And I bought
lots and lots of books. And then a coach at
(21:54):
the local club just came up to me one day
and he said, would you like some help? Would you
fantasy some help? And I was so so amazed, so
blown away, said someone showing an interest at a point
where I wasn't like a standout super talent. There are
(22:17):
plenty of those in the club. Just the fact that
he showed an interest. Wow, that had such a big
impact on me. I didn't actually follow all the things
that he suggested. Told him this for many years, but
(22:40):
that thing about someone believing you in you before you
even have an image in your head of for how
far you can go? And again talking going back to
the conversation with Tom, I think I realized through talking
about it that the I was less drawn to the
(23:02):
kind of higher profile, highly qualified, more kind of elite
type of coaches because they only showed an interest once
I was doing pretty well, once I got to quite
a high standard, and again that that there's something different
there maybe in in in the route I've taken into coaching.
(23:26):
Mm hmm, that one of the people who had the
biggest impact did so purely by just shown an interest
being generous with his time, rather than any of the
kind of, if you like, kind of technical things of
the programs that he drew up put to one side.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not No, I didn't mean to,
like you said, I didn't mean to sort of disparage
people who'd gone through that route. I think what I
was trying to do is I'm always just interested in
coaching biographies, and I'm interested in the different routes people
take and the sort of a There is a more
(24:15):
traditional route, which is the ex experienced or elite athlete
becoming the coach, and that's sort of the tried and
tested model that tends to replicate itself time and again.
Whereas the individual who maybe was, to say, maybe slightly
less accomplished athlete, but naturally gravitated towards the support of
(24:38):
others and bringing them on this sort of journey and
was happy to do so despite not necessarily having enormous
amounts of experience. You said that you were asking people
to do things on a mountain bike that you weren't
necessarily that comfortable doing yourself, and yet being willing to
allow that to take place despite your lack of confidence,
(25:02):
knowing that it was an important part of the learning
journey for others. That there's that sort of natural empathy
and willingness to be with somebody on that journey that
I think is It's it's not a typical story, but
one that I think needs to be told more.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, hm hmm. It's taking me back to.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I'm curious about your you mentioned earlier on I'm about
this notion of confidence centered coaching. Obviously you've now written
about it, and we will get into that. But you
in your opening sort of monologue you were talking about
about questions of confidence kept coming up, so clearly that
sort of sparked an interest. But when and how did
(25:56):
you start to crystallize your eye beers around this notion
of confidence centered coaching. So most ideas around coaching tend
to center around the human, so it's athlete centered, child centered,
player centered. But you know, Mark Bennett's spoken about needs centered,
(26:20):
interesting concept, some interesting areas that I'm wrestling with myself.
You've centered it on confidence. So I'm just intrigued as
to what was the catalyst and then how did that develop?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Yeah, it goes back to the course. I was on
that sort of high level triathlon course and I'd be
telling people about, you know, the way I wanted to
be a coach, and already I could see it was
different to a lot of the other people on the course,
(26:56):
and my background was different as well. That was sort
of coming through. And then one evening a super tutor
called Simon Ward who has a podcast for triathlon, and
uh in the bar as things happened and another coach
(27:18):
was saying to me, and are you know You've got
to keep going with this stuff, Mike. It's it's really,
you know, really interesting doing something something different here. And
so I looked at them and I said, Ah, what
what do you think it is? What is it that
you think that I'm doing. And so they said, well,
(27:42):
you know, it's kind of well, it's a bit like
you know, well it's sort of holistic, isn't it. Let
me see see and I can forget. I had a
long drive home and I kept holistic. You know, yeah, yeah,
it is holistic, But that's not a word that is
(28:06):
ever going to capture anyone's imagination. What is it? And
how can I find a way of expressing it where
hopefully people will, you know, will have an interest there
won't sell tell us more, say holism to someone and
(28:27):
they'll go, yeah, yeah, we know that. Yeah, yeah, we're
all holistic. Yeah, athletes centered, Yeah, that's us. So yeah,
in one I was looking for a way of kind
of bottling it in a way and then also could
play back these things of you know, previous conversations and
(28:53):
and eventually it came up with the idea of according
a confidence centered coaching. Yeah. And the more I kind
of explored the ideas, the richer it seemed to me
to put in a way that that just felt right
(29:15):
for me. Mhmm. And as you know from the book,
it starts with thinking about our own confidence as coaches. Yeah,
our self belief, how can we create a space where
(29:35):
we're just feeling at ease, where we're bringing the best
of ourselves and the and the coaching just it just
flows without your head being cluttered up with you know,
these are the five things that I should be doing
or h and as on a personal and that was
really important to me to kind of to find that.
(30:01):
I call it an assured space where I could feel
at ease and like I said, let the coaching from it.
Also struck me it really important to think about the
confidence that other people have in us, you know, the
client coming doing something really daunting. How do I create
(30:29):
a place where or a kind of a relationship where
again we can both be at ease and we're both
committed to exploring just how good that could be, so
confidence in the coach. And then the third element is
(30:49):
all about well how do I help support people going
for some of these extraordinary challenges that come up? And
I've just had a thought. This takes us back a
little bit in a way to what you were saying
before that about do you need to have been really
(31:10):
good at your sport in order to coach it? And
in the early days, almost everyone who came to me
that they were they knew that I'd done similar events.
You know I've done I done a Highman trackling, competed
(31:33):
at a reasonable level. But then after a time I
found people were coming who were asking for support for
challenges that were way beyond anything I'd ever done. I
think probably one of the most striking was that Chap
became who I'd coached through an iron Man event and
(31:56):
then he said, well, next year I want to do
I've got a place in the marathon Sabler, which is
sixth day ultramarathon through the Sahara. There's no way in
which they ever done anything close to that, nor do
I have any interest. And you know, it immediately takes
(32:19):
me to that place is hey, okay, so if I'm
to coach him, what's my what's what's my competence? What
can I bring here? And ask him as well?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Know why me?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
You know, there's plenty of people out there who have
done such events, and it was it was quite a
quite a key moment in a way for me that
basically his response was saying, well, I can find out
about if you like the kind of technical detail, I
(32:55):
can read up on stories of what people have been through.
You know that's all accessible, But for a coach, I
want someone that that sense of being alongside someone who
week by week is going to ask me how's it going,
you know, how's how's the trading go?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's really interesting, isn't it. And when
you have an athlete recognize the value of that, that's
that's a sense. I think that's an athlete with a
good degree of maturity as to knowing what they need,
which isn't always the case.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just last week m Hum,
I had someone come looking for help to do quite
a big swim event. And I won't give details confidentiality,
(34:01):
but at one point he was saying, oh, and it's
it's relatively soon. It's not all that much time to prepare,
and he was sort of staening and well, what I
really need is I need a plan that's guaranteed to work.
It's going to take me to the to the end
of this strength. And I had to say, but I
(34:25):
don't have such a thing. And I'm really excited about
the idea of exploring with you how to get you two,
in effect, to the start line feeling as ready as
you possibly could be. And I'm really excited about what's
(34:46):
what's going to happen, But I no coach can guarantee
you that you're going to going to get to the end.
And again I don't always see that in some coaches,
you know, coaches, yeah, presenting themselves as if they they're
the keepers of this knowledge, which is if you're lucky
(35:11):
enough to have it imparty to you, then yeah, you
should be all right. And if it doesn't work out,
well it's your fault. You just haven't followed the dictact.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very seductive, the you know,
the one thing to be able to have that level
of confidence interesting, but it's a misplaced confidence. Perhaps, Oh yes,
I can guarantee that for you, because what if you
(35:48):
if you can tap into what I know, then I
will happily give you that guarantee. I always feel like
that's like a bit of a red flag, isn't it. Yeah,
just on the confidence piece. Get drawn to the images sometimes.
But you have an interesting image in the book, like
a ven diagram where you talk about development centered coaching,
(36:12):
performance centered coaching, and you place confidence centered coaching almost
as the third wheel with the overlap and obviously the
sweet spot in the middle of the in the middle
of the sort of ven diagram. I just wonder if
I can invite you maybe just to sort of speak
to that a little bit, because I thought it was
really interesting.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Right right, Yeah, Okay, it goes back to it's kind
of the journey I've been through trying to trying to
figure out what what is it? What is it that
I'm expected to do as I'm going through different qualifications.
Notice the emphasis of the word do coaching as things
(36:56):
we do to other people. Much of it I think
as like the course as I was on, I think
of as performance centered coaching. So it's in general a
very very clear objective results. You know, you either have
(37:21):
got on the podium or you hadn't. You've either had
your PB or scored so many goals or whatever lead position.
It is. Things are measured in very very definite, finite terms.
The actual coaching, certainly and trying to increasingly, is kind
(37:43):
of data driven, hard numbers, objective facts with these sort
of hard out outcomes. And my sense was that if
if you're in that realm as a form and centered coach,
then the way in which you deepen your practice is
(38:05):
by going deeper and deeper into the you know, kind
of evidence based research, get more and more kind of
scientific in one sense, you know, sharper analysis of tactics
of strengths of you. In Triathlin we talk about, you know,
(38:25):
what's happening to your lactate levels or your heart rates.
Like I said, I most coaches actually aren't in that world,
although they're taught, you know, from places that go on
about that kind of that sort of model. Most coaches
(38:49):
that you know, they're out there. It's what we you
call grassroots. It's working in clubs, typically with young people,
so that kind of the measures that you work with
are quite different. They're more about things like engagement and
(39:09):
fun and do these kids come back? Do we retain
them when they hit adolescents? I think of a big,
big issue. And if I want to develop my practice
in that area that I think of as development centered coaching,
(39:33):
well I probably need to get into the stuff about,
you know, the learning, how people acquire and learn from experiences,
how to use playfulness in preparing the end results are
(39:55):
very different as well. You know, it's more about kind
of sport for life and and the change that sport
can have, particularly in young people. I hope, I hope
it's clear. I'm not criticizing any one of those, and
(40:15):
are drawn the very heavily on, you know, on both.
I want to be really good in both spheres. M
But I also think there's that missing element and what
I call confidence centered coaching, where the measures are way
more subjective. They're not you can't quantify them. They're about
(40:38):
how people feel. They're about how I feel as a
coach when I stood there, how easy I feel in myself,
how true to myself I'm being h you know, things
about self awareness. The results, again, they may be measured
(41:04):
in you know, yes, I did you know? I did
my PB across the line and the iron Man, I
completed that mammoth swim, but it's going to be far
more about just that sense of wonder of people surprising
themselves with what they can do. And I want to
(41:24):
feel that as well as a coach. I want to
go away from a session thinking, you know, wow, where
did that come from? How did the time go so quick?
How did we cover so many things? All these new
things came up. It's very very creative way of coaching,
I think, and if I want to develop as I do,
(41:54):
you know my skills in this area, Well, I probably
need to look area is outside of sport. I probably
need to look at you know, who the leaders in
in in listening and empathy and who are the leaders
in being alongside people who are really up against it,
(42:19):
not just in a sporting endeavor. But so that's that's
a kind of a description of the three circles. But
you hit on this thing about you know, and there's
a sweet spot in the middle. And I talked with
the publisher about this. She said, you know, yeah, you
(42:39):
should expand on the sweet spot in the middle. But
that's not what the what It's not where I want
to go, and it's not the message of the book.
The book is actually saying, what how would it be?
What if we made confidence the very center of everything
(43:03):
that we did, rather than performance or rather than development.
H for sure, we're you know, come to me and
they need some technical input that comes from this sort
of performance related world, or I want to make the
(43:25):
sessions that I lead, you know, I have a kind
of playful moment, but fundamentally I wanted to be so
centered around what it feels like. How can I how
can I be so attuned to what I'm feeling and
what the person in front of me is feeling. Like
(43:48):
I said that the coaching just just flows, It just happens.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, you've if if you've evoked flow several times, and
that intrigues me because I believe I could have been
deluding myself. But I believe that I've experienced flow in
(44:17):
coaching a few times and usually coming back to what
you're talking about, which is why this is resonating, it's
because I was so immersed. Yeah, sometimes because things were difficult,
or who I was working with or the group I
(44:39):
was working with were presenting some challenges which forced that
level of immersion, you know, because it was the only
place to be. And then, like you said earlier on
where did the time go? Yeah, and obviously that's a
feature of flow that you know, time stopped and sort
(45:00):
of thing what speeds up. And I and I've only
ever experienced flow when I've switched off my Strangely, I've
switched off my coach as director, leader, coordinator, manager and
(45:25):
been coach as alongside in the weeds, hacking through the
undergrowth together forging our own path, finding and solving problems,
discovering things, making new discoveries and going back to your
point about extremely creative, you know. And so is is
(45:50):
there something around flow as central to the confidence message?
Speaker 4 (45:58):
Yeah very much. Yeah, yeah, I actually think of it
as as fluency as much it's but partly because well, yeah,
we can come back to that. Uh. I want the
I want to experience a fluency in the coach, and
(46:19):
I want the athletes I'm working with to have that
that again, that the head's not cluttered up with with
with advice or you know, you have to do it
this way. I believe it comes from people being really
attuned to what's happening in their bodies. Maybe maybe it's
(46:44):
easier in some way, I don't know. But for the
sports that I coach, I think we can we can
take people quite quickly to that place we're not talked
to be. This isn't now anything any coach educational program.
(47:04):
And then't they give an example a swimming people people
assume there's a bite way to swim, which to an extent,
there is, and it's very technical, you know. Uh So
(47:25):
I could be stood there at pool side watching a
group of people swimming up and down, see and I
look at someone and I think my goodness, you know
they're doing that all wrong, you know, whether they're listening
or that's not how we would talk to to swe see,
(47:47):
so don't my HiT's gone immediately to it basically a
kind of a judgment about what's right and what's wrong. Yeah,
but if I could stop myself, and if if the
swimmer is willing to do this, you know, when they
get to the end of the lane, I might say,
(48:07):
I wonder, would you like some help? It looks to
me like you're struggling a bit. Yeah, And then that
person might say, yeah, yeah, I just can't get my breath.
I'm so out of breath. And again, I know what,
(48:28):
you know, I know what the remedy, if you like,
is there's a way of breathing that will will kind
of in inverted common solve that. But unless I can,
unless I can kind of tune into what that person
is feeling and in a in a kind of a
(48:51):
non judgmental way. You know, I'm not saying where you're
doing it all wrong, mate, but say yeah, I can.
I can see that, and you're you're panting when you
get to the end of the lane and are yeah,
it looks like like quite a struggle. Would you like
(49:12):
to try something different?
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (49:15):
And then I and then I say, how about this?
Why don't we do the following. As soon as you're
heading the water, see if you can how strongly you
can bubble out and listen out for the for the bubbling,
just just focus on that. Pretend it's a motor. You've
(49:36):
got a bubble motor installed, so you've got to bubble
out to make the motor get you to the end
of the lane. See, or you know, whatever bizarre image
might might come to mind. But I'm saying, no, why
don't you try this? And then I'll try it. Nine
times out of ten a swimmer get to the end
(49:57):
of the ray and then I put their head up
and how did that look?
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Or was that right?
Speaker 4 (50:06):
And I had this very annoying habit of never answering
that the same Tell me how did it feel? Oh
I should yeah, I'm not plenty. I felt more in control.
Oh wow, how brilliant. Let's see if we can take
that further and hang on to that feeling. Mhm. Because
(50:31):
the feina has to reside with the person. They have
to own their own right way of swimming. Even though
there is a kind of what we would think of
as a correct way of swimming. H unless they have
(50:51):
that in their own bodies, and not necessarily with any words.
They could just kind of rooting to that feeling what
it felt like, and then take that to the next
session than the next and it belongs to them. If
(51:12):
we can do that, then that's where that fluency is
likely to happen or flow. It's never going to come
by a coach saying do the following bubble out this
way or have your elbow up this high, because that's
(51:36):
that just places a bunch of words in their heads
and makes it as if the coach at the end
is going to judge whether they've done it right or not.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
Whereas this way that that sense of has it worked well,
that's entirely up to the swimmer. You know, they'll know
that it was easier, felt more lagsed.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
So you made me think of a quote from golf
coach funnily enough called Fred Shoemaker, which was teach it
probably I'll paraphrase slightly, but he separated teaching from coaching.
(52:25):
I actually think he probably meant to say that, you
know that there's a teaching style of coaching and a
something else style of coaching. But anyway, just what you're
talking about, I think, and he said that teaching is
where you're trying to put something in for somebody else,
whether it's information or whatever, or a movement pattern or something,
(52:50):
whereas coaching, in his view, is where you're drawing out
from within them. So it sounds to me like you're
very aligned to that approach, and you, well, if I've
read broadly speaking the thesis of the book correctly, that
(53:11):
you're set. One of your arguments at least is that
that approach foster's confidence because it's the person who is
having the experience and then essentially utilizing you as a
(53:31):
verification tool in some respects as to I think I've
experienced this from your observations, does that look about right
sort of thing? Or at the very least, you know,
they might say, you might ask some probing questions which
will solicit from them some feelings or some sensations that
(53:54):
they may or may not have been aware of themselves.
But by placing awareness there, they then begin to become
more attuned to the things, and that becomes an extremely
powerful learning modality for them. And I talk about this
quite a lot. A lot of people default to instruction
(54:17):
or teaching because snappy and quick, and it gets the
message across and the person gets something that they can
use then and there. But it's fragile, brittle and doesn't
necessarily stay with that person because it's been gifted, so
it doesn't have resonance. Whereas when it's something that's been
(54:40):
struggled for to a certain extent and has been a
personal discovery, it's got way more resonance and power and
therefore stays with that person. And that's what reads confidence.
You're not reliant on an external source for a solution,
You're capable of discovering it from yourself.
Speaker 4 (55:01):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And an interesting thing, this is going
to sound very very odd coming from someone who's written
a book about confidence. Confidence doesn't actually exist if we
think of it as a thing that some people have
(55:24):
and some people don't have. The person who who has
discovered that sense of fluency, I don't know if they
would say, oh, I feel confident. I think they would
say a bunch of other things. Oh I just felt
(55:47):
so relaxed, or I felt at ease, or I felt
in control, or so In the book, I call it
a paradox that I think we can be acutely aware
about the absence of confidence. Stuff happens and boom, I'll say,
(56:10):
you know, oh I just lost all my confidence was
put it into those that start language. But I don't
think the same is true for in verticomers having confidence,
not the same kind of you know, what's the word?
(56:32):
So the definiteness, and instead I think there's there's I'd
set them out of three particular types of emotion or feeling,
and if I as a coach, if I can go
to those and coach around those feelings, it might be
(56:56):
someone at the end and says, you know, I felt
really confident. Chances out they'll actually express themselves in other
ways and those three feelings just run through them quickly.
The first is a sense of excitement, but not excitement
as in, oh, I've got this made. You know I'm
(57:17):
going to get to the end of that big swim
because it's guaranteed. I think that's called arrogance or maybe
not being aware enough of the challenge. Excitement is quite
a thrilled anticipation of what's going to happen. I am
(57:40):
so excited to be here at the start line, ready
and I don't know what's going to happen, but wow,
you know how brilliant to be here. The second is
all around control, which is where a lot of the
sports psychologists I think we're probably focus. You know, are
(58:00):
my actions going to lead to the result I want?
Which is which I think there's a great deal of
truth in that, But it also has to sit side
by side or have a kind of flip side of
having a kind of calmness about the things we can't control,
(58:23):
you know, an awareness that I don't know that the
result is guaranteed. All sorts of things might happen that
we haven't planned for, especially in the in the sports
I coach for someone doing an iron myness, no, that's
a lot of hours that the unexpected to happen. But
(58:48):
if I can help people have that sense of we're
as well prepared as we possibly can be for the
things that we can control, and we have an easiness
about the things the fact that there are some things
that we can't control. So I call that a still
in composure, And that's that's the second sort of emotion
(59:15):
or feeling that I think we can coach for. And
then the third is that fluency that we've been talking
about where you just lose yourself in the moment. It
doesn't mean that it's pain free, you know, but it
can be a real hard struggle, but you still have
(59:38):
that sense of you know, I'm at my absolute limit
and at my absolute best, and I don't know where
this is going to take me, but wow, everything is
in just this moment here right now. Yeah. I've had
(01:00:03):
that feeling as an athlete, and there's a maybe not
in quite such a colorful way, but also as a coach.
I'm going back to the thing about you of going
back home and thinking, Wow, how did that happen? Where
did that idea come from?
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
I you, I'm really taken by this notion of confidence
isn't a thing, or confidence doesn't exist if we think
of it as a thing. It reminded me of a
quote that I often quote when I'm doing skill acquisition workshops,
(01:00:45):
because something Keith David's talks about is that this will
seem tangential because I'm talking about skill acquisition, but it's
I think it's very relevant and I think there's a
lot of parallels. But talks about skill and he actually
challenges the notion of skill acquisition because skill acquisition evokes
(01:01:07):
the idea that skill is something you acquire and you gain,
and therefore you keep and you own, and his articulation
of skill is actually a continuous protion process of adaptation,
and so he prefers to use the term skill achievement.
Funnily enough, yeah, and so and again the notion of
(01:01:35):
immersion within some sort of context, context or environment, and
the environment evoking this sense of creativity, exploration, curiosity, play
and all those sorts of things whilst we sort of
explore the limitations or boundaries of our capabilities in a
(01:01:57):
safe to fail environment of some kind, you know. And
this notion is really interesting, and it does. I'm drawing
a lot of parallels from those ideas, from what you're
talking about. But I also thought that was an interesting
sort of like there's the other side of that wave.
(01:02:18):
Confidence is not a thing. Sorry, confidence doesn't exist if
we think of it as a thing. We know when
we haven't got it, and the more we strive to
get it, the more elusive it becomes. Like flow, like
a you know, that sort of meditative state that people
try and search for, and actually it's not something you
(01:02:39):
search for, it's something that comes to you by virtue
of the more. The more you lose yourself in an experience,
then it can come. But you have to If you
try to lose yourself, it's illusory, just gets away from you.
So there's an interesting this and I like the fact
(01:02:59):
you describe it as a paradox because it absolutely is,
you know, which is why the terms you're using, which
is there's an excitement, there's composure, and then there's fluency
as the ingredients of confidence and fostering environments that feel
(01:03:21):
where people have that sense or that feeling, and therefore
confidence builds and grows as a feature of the environment.
That must take quite a lot of thinking through. Where
I'm and where I'm taking you to is lots of
people here will be thinking, right, I'm on board. I
(01:03:42):
like it, but how do we get there? And I
don't want to give away all the secrets of the book,
but I'd be interested just to get a few insights.
Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
Yeah, just to step back at a tiny bit. Yeah,
part of the thing about out if we think of
confidence as a thing, actually it's quite judgmental. If you
really should be or we better go and fix you,
(01:04:11):
or we'll put out some easy tasks for you to
do so that you can get confidence. It's certainly not
all sports psychologists do this, but there you can see
some have this, or in some environments people say, you
(01:04:34):
know this, this athlete got a few problems. Really will
We'll send them off to the sports psyche to get fixed,
and then I'll come back with confidence. How much how
much richer it could be? I think if we focused
(01:04:58):
around you wonder if not the combination of those three emotions.
So you know you're saying about, an example, the excitement
our talk with the people I coach, not so much
about achieving the particular you know, the result that they
(01:05:26):
might have come to me in the first place to gain.
You know, I want to do an iron man, I
want to get under this particular time that is often
how someone might come. But as we as we start
working together, I want to kind of shift the attention
(01:05:48):
much more to how are we going to make sure
that you feel at your absolute best on the start
line and how amazing to be there. But a lot
of people I see have this thing of sort of
(01:06:09):
feeling a bit out of place. You know, I don't
really belong here. I'm not a real summer or I'm
not as good a triathlete as some of these other people.
So a lot of work around excitement. I think it
has to be about how as a coach we can
kind of reframe that to say, you know, number one,
(01:06:32):
you do belong here, this is your space, and wow
is it an exciting space. And when we get there,
just just lap it up. You're a part of what's
going to happen. H And then there's a there's a
fabulous phrase from an American psychologist and Michael Javat, who
(01:06:54):
did a lot of work with Pete Carroll. They talk
about living masterpiece.
Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Again.
Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
I really like that term, and it's on I use,
probably overuse a bit with with people I coach. You
understand there and say, right, the space between the start
line and the finish line is way and to create
your living masterpiece. And not always but pretty pretty solidly
(01:07:31):
people get to the end and they're just blown away
and say I didn't I didn't believe I could really
do that. You know, a guy is saying, you know,
I thought i'd be within this time to the iron Man,
and actually I was over an hour quicker, or maybe
you know, I thought I was going to hate the
(01:07:51):
swim but actually it was brilliant. I loved it. I
was ship was longer. Yeah, your living masterpiece, you know,
it's it's it's you in that moment, just just at
your at your most profound best and you're most easy
(01:08:12):
in a sense, back to the sense of fluency. Yeah,
so a lot of it would be around you know,
how we how we talk about what's going to make
for a really brilliant experience, and it's not just going
to be the time at the end, or the position
(01:08:33):
on the podium or m hm hm. I think chath
Bishop's stuff around. You know, long Win is brilliant that way.
You know, it's kind of makes us rethink what what
do we really mean by success? Mhm m pipper Grange
(01:08:54):
talks about winning deep and supposed to winning shadow h Yeah,
that's that's where I want to be.
Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
I love it well. Talking about being immersed and where
does the time go? I've now just looked at the
clock and yeah, sort of ninety odd minutes later or thereabouts,
we're We're. The flow has definitely been there. It's been
very much a fluent and flowing podcast. I've really enjoyed this.
(01:09:32):
This has been by my bedside for a while, and
I've been, you know, just tapping into it from time
to time. It's actually been really helpful in conversations that
I've had with not necessarily people in the sports world,
but other people who are struggling a little and suffering
with you know, various different challenges or moments of you know,
(01:09:54):
my children for example, I mean moments of doubt because
of various things that happening with them and all those
sorts of things. So I think it's really quite powerful,
and I'm grateful to you for the time you've taken
not only to write it, but to come and share
the insights with me on this on the podcast. If
(01:10:17):
people want to get in touch with you, and they,
for example, you know, would like maybe to work with
you or get you to come and you know, again,
do you share some insights or whatever it might be,
what's the best way for them to reach out.
Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
I've gone off social media really obvious reasons, so now
pretty much the only place in that world is linked
in m But I have a website you can look
(01:10:53):
at which is called zig zag confidence dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Exact confidence dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
I love it, and I'd be delighted to hear from
people I find I just I learned so much from
people from other sports, from other areas, you know, outside
of sports.
Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yeah, Mike, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for
coming on and all the best with the book, and
all the best with all that you do, not just
in triathlon, but hopefully in some other sports with some
other coaches around this notion of confidence centered coaching.
Speaker 4 (01:11:37):
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it. Good to chat
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
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At the top of the page.
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Speaker 2 (01:56):
Welcome to the Townent Equation Podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
If you are passionate about helping young people to leash
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Speaker 4 (02:44):
Enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So, as usual, I start the podcast with apologies because
this conversation is some time coming. I first found out
about this particular individual and the work there. Work through
(03:34):
an approach as often happens, where we you know you
reached out well, introduce you first, Mike Portias, Welcome to
the po Welcome to the podcast, Welcome to the Tower Equation.
Thank you, yeah you you. You reached out to me
saying I'm writing this book, to which point I was like, well,
(03:55):
well done you because I've still got about four long
ago and there are all slowly going to get to
the finishing line at some stage. But anyway, I'm but yeah,
you asked me to sort of read it and and
if I liked it, to provide endorsement, which I was
absolutely delighted to do. And then I you know, I
(04:16):
read the other people who are on. It's like a
it's like a it's like a celebrity catwalk of luminaries
from the you know the world of sport and coaching.
Lawrence Halsted from the True Athritic Project been on the podcast.
Stephen Rollneck on the podcast, saw Stephen recently jen Co
(04:38):
working with jen Co at the moment in a past
development project. Craig Morris, Rusty Earnshaw. I mean, wow, what
what exalted company to be alongside and they all like it,
so there must be something good about what you've done here.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Well, that's that's kind of I think it's is more
about some of those people's generosity, including yours, because you
and I hadn't hadn't met ye, And that's been a
super thing. Actually, I've found that just having the courage
(05:19):
to go out and ask someone would you mind reading,
which I tend to do in a rather hesitant way,
Oh please, if you could stay the time, and wow,
so many people have been so generous, not just to
read and make comments, but to engage in in great conversations.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Well, I have to say I found your actual your
your kind of invitation if you like all request quite refreshing,
which is probably one of the reasons I responded because
I don't know. You may not know this, but one
of the things that's happened of late, I think is
(06:01):
if you've got a podcast with any level of audience,
you're getting a pro I'm getting approached on an almost
daily basis, usually via AI or at the very least
by some sort of agency that is promoting somebody else
because they've clearly done a contract where they're going to
get them x number of podcast appearances, and many of
them are completely irrelevant to my audience. Some of them
(06:24):
are relevant, But the problem is is the approach they
take is so kind of in your face and you
need me on your podcast that I sometimes find it
a little bit jarring, and so I'm probably less apt
to respond. One in particular that really strikes me and
I can never forget is the guy I won't mention
his name, who who is a specialist in the male
(06:47):
appendage and in particular a rectile dysfunction. I don't know
why they came through to me, can't imagine for a second.
Maybe they know that I'm getting into my fifties. But yeah,
and I wanted to give me all sorts of insights
my audience, all sorts of insights about these sorts of things.
It might have been a very interesting conversation in many ways.
I probably should have done that, but yeah, I was
(07:10):
one of those ones. So anyway, your approach was far better,
and therefore I did welcome it in lots of ways.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
That's good. So it was abuseful, really really heartwarming endorsement.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, to be fair, you know, you sent me the
manuscript and I was able to sort of, you know,
like get into it and have a and you know,
and get the sort of sense of what you were writing.
It wasn't difficult because once a couple once I'd just
sort of read, you know, first few lines. Really, I thought, hello,
we're onto something here, So it wasn't difficult for me
to sort of be able to sort of put together
(07:51):
an endorsement. Anyway, we've started talking about the book. We'll
get back to that. I'm more interested in talking about you.
Talk to me about you and your story and your
journey and how you've ended up writing a book.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Right, Okay. Some people can tell these stories as if
they're you know, a nice, clear, straight Mine is not
like that sort of rag bag of different things that
somehow or other have led me to where I am.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That sounds more interesting already.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I suppose I've had three careers now, in a way.
I started off as an academic, which one of the
super things was that took me to Brazil. I did
some work in Brazil. I was also for quite a
(08:49):
long time as a civil servant, which, as soon as
you say it, some people are boring paper pusher. But actually, somehow,
by luck or my obstinacy or whatever, I was able
to get involved in some really exciting developments, sort of
(09:12):
big moments of change. When this thing called the Internet
was appearing. I've had a strategy for a big government
program to get businesses into an online way of working,
so you know, super opportunity to have an impact anyway,
(09:33):
So I'm going into a bit of detail. And then
I took what's very politely called early voluntary retirement, otherwise
known as I jumped before there was a chance of
(09:53):
being pushed. And at the time I was doing I
was a I've been doing a lot of triathlons, i
was into mountain biking. I had very active lifestyle and
living where where I am on the on the South coast,
(10:16):
with the South Downs sort of within view. I thought, Wow,
it wouldn't be amazing to set up a business taking
people out on mountain bikes. And then with a friend
we set up a business called zig Zag Cycling and
(10:37):
with this beautiful idea of, like I said, taking people
across the South Downs. In the end we ended up
having quite a lot of people who are completely new
to mountain biking. And that's where I think I really
started getting into kind of a way of being a coach.
(10:59):
UH been alongside people who are doing something for the
very first time where they're pretty unsure what's going to happen.
They've only just met you and and you're out there
h as an idea it was. It was beautiful. As
(11:20):
a business, it was a disaster. Maybe maybe maybe some
clever people can make money from it, but not me.
Uh and the business partner had he had to leave
very very early on. So it was pretty much met
me on my own. But one of the key things
(11:46):
I got from it was that people would be saying
to me, you know, when they gave some feedback afterward,
they said, oh, you know, that was that was great.
I've never done anything like that before, And Mike had
this way of making me feel confident, and I'd be thinking,
but I don't know what I've done. I'm not quite shocked,
(12:07):
you know, what is it that's happened out there? And
so I the more I thought about it, oh, I
mean either think technically I was pretty rubbish as as
a mountain bike rider, you know, compared to some of
the amazing tricks that some people can do. You know,
(12:29):
it was quite good at falling off, but not quite
And they're always in this position of, you know, of
trying to encourage people to try quite novel things on
the bike, where actually I wasn't feeling that great inside
myself and again that kind of brought this thing to
(12:51):
the fore of confidence. What is it about? How can
you create a space where both I as the as
the mountain bike instructor and the person I'm with can
feel at ease and ready to try something. But as
(13:14):
I said, as a business, it didn't it didn't work,
so I ended up shifting it to triathlon coaching and
that's that's what I do now. The business changed its
name to zig Zag Alive and for the last twelve
(13:35):
thirteen years something like that, I've had had wonderful clients
come forward for a whole range of different challenges. Some
wanting to get into swimming open water for the very
first time. Either's doing big iron Man, iron Man triathlon events,
(14:00):
some looking to compete for Great Britain in in their
age group, so you know, really super mix of ambitions
and abilities. I'm back to the confidence thing. As I
was going through the qualifications to be a Traumathan coach,
(14:24):
I kept coming back to this thing about confidence and
I found when you get to like the highest level.
It's changed now, but in British triathon it used to
be that, you know, you go to go through the
highest level qualification, and you get these amazing kind of
scientifically based, very technical resources to help you be the
(14:52):
best coach that you could possibly be with your athletes.
And there's there's a kind of implicit assumption that really
you should be working with elite athletes, even though most
of the people on the courses are actually you know,
running running clubs with the young people don't actually have
(15:14):
that much interest in, you know, in the Olympics. It's
what's happening with the kids who come week by week
to their sessions. And I was. I was immersed in
that world as well. I was for a time I
was a head coach at a new club, Brighton Try
Club that had a lovely junior section anyway, So there
(15:39):
I was thinking, you know, we're getting all this fabulous
input from real specialists in specific areas, you know, like
nutrition or physiology or psychology or whatever. But then in
the evenings, when we're all sat around having pizzas and
(15:59):
chat about what we've learned, again, we just kept coming
back to, in my view, we kept coming back to
questions of confidence. How am I going to feel about
taking this back to my club? What about the kind
of rather difficult relationships that we were all sort of
(16:20):
moaning about and sharing the difficult clients or the challenging
setups we were in, and how can we help our
athletes have a sense of confidence whatever that might mean.
And so after a time, I thought, now I really
(16:44):
want to get into this area. I wanted to develop
a new thinking around confidence in a way sort of
going back to the mountain bike experience. I want to
find out what it is that was working there. Uhh yeah.
(17:04):
And that's that's I think that's kind of a bit
of a zig zag story of how I got to
where I am. So I'm now, I'm now I have
a private coaching business. I'm doing work on what I
now call confidence centered coaching, which is where where the
book comes in. And then I do a few other
(17:26):
sort of things and it's not quite on the margins,
but I teach children with disability to swim one afternoon
the week, which is like the high point of the week.
I do some stuff around mental health, particularly cold water dipping. Mhmm. Yeah. Oh,
(17:47):
I'm mentoring, mentoring coaches. M yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Wow, that's a lovely mosaic. I think I think there's
some parallels with my own journey as well academia, civil service, well,
(18:14):
working for a local authority as a sports development offers
that is essentially you know, local authority, civil service, and
then obviously working at sports, working at agencies like Sport England.
You know, you're an extension of the civil service arms
length the body. So lots of kind of sort of
that journey with sort of coaching bubbling along as the
kind of core theme. Something that I was curious about
(18:36):
that you mentioned was you your obviously your journey into
coaching was sort of is slightly atypical because many people
their experiences in coaching is, you know, they were participants
of some level. You know, usually they've experienced relatively sort
(18:58):
of extensive experience of activity itself. Uh, and then they
then they so they now naturally want to be able
to sort of communicate some of that, and then as
a result of that, they then start to look into
the way of they where they're asked often to lead
(19:19):
others because they seem to have some degree of proficiency,
and as a result of that, they then go on
this learning journey about what it means to actually help
others learn, and actually that can be quite difficult sometimes,
I think the more the more, the more able you
are as a participant, sometimes the harder it is to
be a teacher. But in your case, it's slightly different
(19:39):
because you were essentially relatively novice or be it, more
experienced than them. But you were essentially taking something that
you found great enjoyment from and wanted other and wanted
to help others experience it, and then obviously went on
this learning journey of how to help them to experience it,
(19:59):
even though you were going through those experiences yourself as
a learner. So the interesting thing that I noticed, or
at least was curious to ask you about, was I
often talk about the notion of being the guide on
the guide by the side, you know, as a way
of thinking about the coaching role as opposed to the
instructor or the director or the teacher, but more the
(20:21):
guide or the navigator. You were almost forced to adopt
that role by virtue of the fact that you didn't
have all of this experience to fall back on. And
yet I imagine upon reflection, that's now a bit of
a superpower.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Hmm. There's so much in there, I think because a
lot of people assume that the best coaches have been former. Yes, yeah,
(21:01):
but I don't know. I certainly don't want to diss
coaches had come that way. I did, I did have
some experience. Uh. I chatted with Tom Hartley about this,
and the conversation has made its way into into the book. Uh.
(21:28):
When I was when I went to university, I got
into running, but I was, you know, I was kind
of middle of the pack when I when I started,
and they just very slowly sort of started improving and
kind of self coached in a way. And I bought
lots and lots of books. And then a coach at
(21:54):
the local club just came up to me one day
and he said, would you like some help? Would you
fantasy some help? And I was so so amazed, so
blown away, said someone showing an interest at a point
where I wasn't like a standout super talent. There are
(22:17):
plenty of those in the club. Just the fact that
he showed an interest. Wow, that had such a big
impact on me. I didn't actually follow all the things
that he suggested. Told him this for many years, but
(22:40):
that thing about someone believing you in you before you
even have an image in your head of for how
far you can go? And again talking going back to
the conversation with Tom, I think I realized through talking
about it that the I was less drawn to the
(23:02):
kind of higher profile, highly qualified, more kind of elite
type of coaches because they only showed an interest once
I was doing pretty well, once I got to quite
a high standard, and again that that there's something different
there maybe in in in the route I've taken into coaching.
(23:26):
Mm hmm, that one of the people who had the
biggest impact did so purely by just shown an interest
being generous with his time, rather than any of the
kind of, if you like, kind of technical things of
the programs that he drew up put to one side.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not No, I didn't mean to,
like you said, I didn't mean to sort of disparage
people who'd gone through that route. I think what I
was trying to do is I'm always just interested in
coaching biographies, and I'm interested in the different routes people
take and the sort of a There is a more
(24:15):
traditional route, which is the ex experienced or elite athlete
becoming the coach, and that's sort of the tried and
tested model that tends to replicate itself time and again.
Whereas the individual who maybe was, to say, maybe slightly
less accomplished athlete, but naturally gravitated towards the support of
(24:38):
others and bringing them on this sort of journey and
was happy to do so despite not necessarily having enormous
amounts of experience. You said that you were asking people
to do things on a mountain bike that you weren't
necessarily that comfortable doing yourself, and yet being willing to
allow that to take place despite your lack of confidence,
(25:02):
knowing that it was an important part of the learning
journey for others. That there's that sort of natural empathy
and willingness to be with somebody on that journey that
I think is It's it's not a typical story, but
one that I think needs to be told more.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, hm hmm. It's taking me back to.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I'm curious about your you mentioned earlier on I'm about
this notion of confidence centered coaching. Obviously you've now written
about it, and we will get into that. But you
in your opening sort of monologue you were talking about
about questions of confidence kept coming up, so clearly that
sort of sparked an interest. But when and how did
(25:56):
you start to crystallize your eye beers around this notion
of confidence centered coaching. So most ideas around coaching tend
to center around the human, so it's athlete centered, child centered,
player centered. But you know, Mark Bennett's spoken about needs centered,
(26:20):
interesting concept, some interesting areas that I'm wrestling with myself.
You've centered it on confidence. So I'm just intrigued as
to what was the catalyst and then how did that develop?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Yeah, it goes back to the course. I was on
that sort of high level triathlon course and I'd be
telling people about, you know, the way I wanted to
be a coach, and already I could see it was
different to a lot of the other people on the course,
(26:56):
and my background was different as well. That was sort
of coming through. And then one evening a super tutor
called Simon Ward who has a podcast for triathlon, and
uh in the bar as things happened and another coach
(27:18):
was saying to me, and are you know You've got
to keep going with this stuff, Mike. It's it's really,
you know, really interesting doing something something different here. And
so I looked at them and I said, Ah, what
what do you think it is? What is it that
you think that I'm doing. And so they said, well,
(27:42):
you know, it's kind of well, it's a bit like
you know, well it's sort of holistic, isn't it. Let
me see see and I can forget. I had a
long drive home and I kept holistic. You know, yeah, yeah,
it is holistic, But that's not a word that is
(28:06):
ever going to capture anyone's imagination. What is it? And
how can I find a way of expressing it where
hopefully people will, you know, will have an interest there
won't sell tell us more, say holism to someone and
(28:27):
they'll go, yeah, yeah, we know that. Yeah, yeah, we're
all holistic. Yeah, athletes centered, Yeah, that's us. So yeah,
in one I was looking for a way of kind
of bottling it in a way and then also could
play back these things of you know, previous conversations and
(28:53):
and eventually it came up with the idea of according
a confidence centered coaching. Yeah. And the more I kind
of explored the ideas, the richer it seemed to me
to put in a way that that just felt right
(29:15):
for me. Mhmm. And as you know from the book,
it starts with thinking about our own confidence as coaches. Yeah,
our self belief, how can we create a space where
(29:35):
we're just feeling at ease, where we're bringing the best
of ourselves and the and the coaching just it just
flows without your head being cluttered up with you know,
these are the five things that I should be doing
or h and as on a personal and that was
really important to me to kind of to find that.
(30:01):
I call it an assured space where I could feel
at ease and like I said, let the coaching from it.
Also struck me it really important to think about the
confidence that other people have in us, you know, the
client coming doing something really daunting. How do I create
(30:29):
a place where or a kind of a relationship where
again we can both be at ease and we're both
committed to exploring just how good that could be, so
confidence in the coach. And then the third element is
(30:49):
all about well how do I help support people going
for some of these extraordinary challenges that come up? And
I've just had a thought. This takes us back a
little bit in a way to what you were saying
before that about do you need to have been really
(31:10):
good at your sport in order to coach it? And
in the early days, almost everyone who came to me
that they were they knew that I'd done similar events.
You know I've done I done a Highman trackling, competed
(31:33):
at a reasonable level. But then after a time I
found people were coming who were asking for support for
challenges that were way beyond anything I'd ever done. I
think probably one of the most striking was that Chap
became who I'd coached through an iron Man event and
(31:56):
then he said, well, next year I want to do
I've got a place in the marathon Sabler, which is
sixth day ultramarathon through the Sahara. There's no way in
which they ever done anything close to that, nor do
I have any interest. And you know, it immediately takes
(32:19):
me to that place is hey, okay, so if I'm
to coach him, what's my what's what's my competence? What
can I bring here? And ask him as well?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Know why me?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
You know, there's plenty of people out there who have
done such events, and it was it was quite a
quite a key moment in a way for me that
basically his response was saying, well, I can find out
about if you like the kind of technical detail, I
(32:55):
can read up on stories of what people have been through.
You know that's all accessible, But for a coach, I
want someone that that sense of being alongside someone who
week by week is going to ask me how's it going,
you know, how's how's the trading go?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's really interesting, isn't it. And when
you have an athlete recognize the value of that, that's
that's a sense. I think that's an athlete with a
good degree of maturity as to knowing what they need,
which isn't always the case.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just last week m Hum,
I had someone come looking for help to do quite
a big swim event. And I won't give details confidentiality,
(34:01):
but at one point he was saying, oh, and it's
it's relatively soon. It's not all that much time to prepare,
and he was sort of staening and well, what I
really need is I need a plan that's guaranteed to work.
It's going to take me to the to the end
of this strength. And I had to say, but I
(34:25):
don't have such a thing. And I'm really excited about
the idea of exploring with you how to get you two,
in effect, to the start line feeling as ready as
you possibly could be. And I'm really excited about what's
(34:46):
what's going to happen, But I no coach can guarantee
you that you're going to going to get to the end.
And again I don't always see that in some coaches,
you know, coaches, yeah, presenting themselves as if they they're
the keepers of this knowledge, which is if you're lucky
(35:11):
enough to have it imparty to you, then yeah, you
should be all right. And if it doesn't work out,
well it's your fault. You just haven't followed the dictact.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very seductive, the you know,
the one thing to be able to have that level
of confidence interesting, but it's a misplaced confidence. Perhaps, Oh yes,
I can guarantee that for you, because what if you
(35:48):
if you can tap into what I know, then I
will happily give you that guarantee. I always feel like
that's like a bit of a red flag, isn't it. Yeah,
just on the confidence piece. Get drawn to the images sometimes.
But you have an interesting image in the book, like
a ven diagram where you talk about development centered coaching,
(36:12):
performance centered coaching, and you place confidence centered coaching almost
as the third wheel with the overlap and obviously the
sweet spot in the middle of the in the middle
of the sort of ven diagram. I just wonder if
I can invite you maybe just to sort of speak
to that a little bit, because I thought it was
really interesting.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Right right, Yeah, Okay, it goes back to it's kind
of the journey I've been through trying to trying to
figure out what what is it? What is it that
I'm expected to do as I'm going through different qualifications.
Notice the emphasis of the word do coaching as things
(36:56):
we do to other people. Much of it I think
as like the course as I was on, I think
of as performance centered coaching. So it's in general a
very very clear objective results. You know, you either have
(37:21):
got on the podium or you hadn't. You've either had
your PB or scored so many goals or whatever lead position.
It is. Things are measured in very very definite, finite terms.
The actual coaching, certainly and trying to increasingly, is kind
(37:43):
of data driven, hard numbers, objective facts with these sort
of hard out outcomes. And my sense was that if
if you're in that realm as a form and centered coach,
then the way in which you deepen your practice is
(38:05):
by going deeper and deeper into the you know, kind
of evidence based research, get more and more kind of
scientific in one sense, you know, sharper analysis of tactics
of strengths of you. In Triathlin we talk about, you know,
(38:25):
what's happening to your lactate levels or your heart rates.
Like I said, I most coaches actually aren't in that world,
although they're taught, you know, from places that go on
about that kind of that sort of model. Most coaches
(38:49):
that you know, they're out there. It's what we you
call grassroots. It's working in clubs, typically with young people,
so that kind of the measures that you work with
are quite different. They're more about things like engagement and
(39:09):
fun and do these kids come back? Do we retain
them when they hit adolescents? I think of a big,
big issue. And if I want to develop my practice
in that area that I think of as development centered coaching,
(39:33):
well I probably need to get into the stuff about,
you know, the learning, how people acquire and learn from experiences,
how to use playfulness in preparing the end results are
(39:55):
very different as well. You know, it's more about kind
of sport for life and and the change that sport
can have, particularly in young people. I hope, I hope
it's clear. I'm not criticizing any one of those, and
(40:15):
are drawn the very heavily on, you know, on both.
I want to be really good in both spheres. M
But I also think there's that missing element and what
I call confidence centered coaching, where the measures are way
more subjective. They're not you can't quantify them. They're about
(40:38):
how people feel. They're about how I feel as a
coach when I stood there, how easy I feel in myself,
how true to myself I'm being h you know, things
about self awareness. The results, again, they may be measured
(41:04):
in you know, yes, I did you know? I did
my PB across the line and the iron Man, I
completed that mammoth swim, but it's going to be far
more about just that sense of wonder of people surprising
themselves with what they can do. And I want to
(41:24):
feel that as well as a coach. I want to
go away from a session thinking, you know, wow, where
did that come from? How did the time go so quick?
How did we cover so many things? All these new
things came up. It's very very creative way of coaching,
I think, and if I want to develop as I do,
(41:54):
you know my skills in this area, Well, I probably
need to look area is outside of sport. I probably
need to look at you know, who the leaders in
in in listening and empathy and who are the leaders
in being alongside people who are really up against it,
(42:19):
not just in a sporting endeavor. But so that's that's
a kind of a description of the three circles. But
you hit on this thing about you know, and there's
a sweet spot in the middle. And I talked with
the publisher about this. She said, you know, yeah, you
(42:39):
should expand on the sweet spot in the middle. But
that's not what the what It's not where I want
to go, and it's not the message of the book.
The book is actually saying, what how would it be?
What if we made confidence the very center of everything
(43:03):
that we did, rather than performance or rather than development.
H for sure, we're you know, come to me and
they need some technical input that comes from this sort
of performance related world, or I want to make the
(43:25):
sessions that I lead, you know, I have a kind
of playful moment, but fundamentally I wanted to be so
centered around what it feels like. How can I how
can I be so attuned to what I'm feeling and
what the person in front of me is feeling. Like
(43:48):
I said that the coaching just just flows, It just happens.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, you've if if you've evoked flow several times, and
that intrigues me because I believe I could have been
deluding myself. But I believe that I've experienced flow in
(44:17):
coaching a few times and usually coming back to what
you're talking about, which is why this is resonating, it's
because I was so immersed. Yeah, sometimes because things were difficult,
or who I was working with or the group I
(44:39):
was working with were presenting some challenges which forced that
level of immersion, you know, because it was the only
place to be. And then, like you said earlier on
where did the time go? Yeah, and obviously that's a
feature of flow that you know, time stopped and sort
(45:00):
of thing what speeds up. And I and I've only
ever experienced flow when I've switched off my Strangely, I've
switched off my coach as director, leader, coordinator, manager and
(45:25):
been coach as alongside in the weeds, hacking through the
undergrowth together forging our own path, finding and solving problems,
discovering things, making new discoveries and going back to your
point about extremely creative, you know. And so is is
(45:50):
there something around flow as central to the confidence message?
Speaker 4 (45:58):
Yeah very much. Yeah, yeah, I actually think of it
as as fluency as much it's but partly because well, yeah,
we can come back to that. Uh. I want the
I want to experience a fluency in the coach, and
(46:19):
I want the athletes I'm working with to have that
that again, that the head's not cluttered up with with
with advice or you know, you have to do it
this way. I believe it comes from people being really
attuned to what's happening in their bodies. Maybe maybe it's
(46:44):
easier in some way, I don't know. But for the
sports that I coach, I think we can we can
take people quite quickly to that place we're not talked
to be. This isn't now anything any coach educational program.
(47:04):
And then't they give an example a swimming people people
assume there's a bite way to swim, which to an extent,
there is, and it's very technical, you know. Uh So
(47:25):
I could be stood there at pool side watching a
group of people swimming up and down, see and I
look at someone and I think my goodness, you know
they're doing that all wrong, you know, whether they're listening
or that's not how we would talk to to swe see,
(47:47):
so don't my HiT's gone immediately to it basically a
kind of a judgment about what's right and what's wrong. Yeah,
but if I could stop myself, and if if the
swimmer is willing to do this, you know, when they
get to the end of the lane, I might say,
(48:07):
I wonder, would you like some help? It looks to
me like you're struggling a bit. Yeah, And then that
person might say, yeah, yeah, I just can't get my breath.
I'm so out of breath. And again, I know what,
(48:28):
you know, I know what the remedy, if you like,
is there's a way of breathing that will will kind
of in inverted common solve that. But unless I can,
unless I can kind of tune into what that person
is feeling and in a in a kind of a
(48:51):
non judgmental way. You know, I'm not saying where you're
doing it all wrong, mate, but say yeah, I can.
I can see that, and you're you're panting when you
get to the end of the lane and are yeah,
it looks like like quite a struggle. Would you like
(49:12):
to try something different?
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (49:15):
And then I and then I say, how about this?
Why don't we do the following. As soon as you're
heading the water, see if you can how strongly you
can bubble out and listen out for the for the bubbling,
just just focus on that. Pretend it's a motor. You've
(49:36):
got a bubble motor installed, so you've got to bubble
out to make the motor get you to the end
of the lane. See, or you know, whatever bizarre image
might might come to mind. But I'm saying, no, why
don't you try this? And then I'll try it. Nine
times out of ten a swimmer get to the end
(49:57):
of the ray and then I put their head up
and how did that look?
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Or was that right?
Speaker 4 (50:06):
And I had this very annoying habit of never answering
that the same Tell me how did it feel? Oh
I should yeah, I'm not plenty. I felt more in control.
Oh wow, how brilliant. Let's see if we can take
that further and hang on to that feeling. Mhm. Because
(50:31):
the feina has to reside with the person. They have
to own their own right way of swimming. Even though
there is a kind of what we would think of
as a correct way of swimming. H unless they have
(50:51):
that in their own bodies, and not necessarily with any words.
They could just kind of rooting to that feeling what
it felt like, and then take that to the next
session than the next and it belongs to them. If
(51:12):
we can do that, then that's where that fluency is
likely to happen or flow. It's never going to come
by a coach saying do the following bubble out this
way or have your elbow up this high, because that's
(51:36):
that just places a bunch of words in their heads
and makes it as if the coach at the end
is going to judge whether they've done it right or not.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
Whereas this way that that sense of has it worked well,
that's entirely up to the swimmer. You know, they'll know
that it was easier, felt more lagsed.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
So you made me think of a quote from golf
coach funnily enough called Fred Shoemaker, which was teach it
probably I'll paraphrase slightly, but he separated teaching from coaching.
(52:25):
I actually think he probably meant to say that, you
know that there's a teaching style of coaching and a
something else style of coaching. But anyway, just what you're
talking about, I think, and he said that teaching is
where you're trying to put something in for somebody else,
whether it's information or whatever, or a movement pattern or something,
(52:50):
whereas coaching, in his view, is where you're drawing out
from within them. So it sounds to me like you're
very aligned to that approach, and you, well, if I've
read broadly speaking the thesis of the book correctly, that
(53:11):
you're set. One of your arguments at least is that
that approach foster's confidence because it's the person who is
having the experience and then essentially utilizing you as a
(53:31):
verification tool in some respects as to I think I've
experienced this from your observations, does that look about right
sort of thing? Or at the very least, you know,
they might say, you might ask some probing questions which
will solicit from them some feelings or some sensations that
(53:54):
they may or may not have been aware of themselves.
But by placing awareness there, they then begin to become
more attuned to the things, and that becomes an extremely
powerful learning modality for them. And I talk about this
quite a lot. A lot of people default to instruction
(54:17):
or teaching because snappy and quick, and it gets the
message across and the person gets something that they can
use then and there. But it's fragile, brittle and doesn't
necessarily stay with that person because it's been gifted, so
it doesn't have resonance. Whereas when it's something that's been
(54:40):
struggled for to a certain extent and has been a
personal discovery, it's got way more resonance and power and
therefore stays with that person. And that's what reads confidence.
You're not reliant on an external source for a solution,
You're capable of discovering it from yourself.
Speaker 4 (55:01):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And an interesting thing, this is going
to sound very very odd coming from someone who's written
a book about confidence. Confidence doesn't actually exist if we
think of it as a thing that some people have
(55:24):
and some people don't have. The person who who has
discovered that sense of fluency, I don't know if they
would say, oh, I feel confident. I think they would
say a bunch of other things. Oh I just felt
(55:47):
so relaxed, or I felt at ease, or I felt
in control, or so In the book, I call it
a paradox that I think we can be acutely aware
about the absence of confidence. Stuff happens and boom, I'll say,
(56:10):
you know, oh I just lost all my confidence was
put it into those that start language. But I don't
think the same is true for in verticomers having confidence,
not the same kind of you know, what's the word?
(56:32):
So the definiteness, and instead I think there's there's I'd
set them out of three particular types of emotion or feeling,
and if I as a coach, if I can go
to those and coach around those feelings, it might be
(56:56):
someone at the end and says, you know, I felt
really confident. Chances out they'll actually express themselves in other
ways and those three feelings just run through them quickly.
The first is a sense of excitement, but not excitement
as in, oh, I've got this made. You know I'm
(57:17):
going to get to the end of that big swim
because it's guaranteed. I think that's called arrogance or maybe
not being aware enough of the challenge. Excitement is quite
a thrilled anticipation of what's going to happen. I am
(57:40):
so excited to be here at the start line, ready
and I don't know what's going to happen, but wow,
you know how brilliant to be here. The second is
all around control, which is where a lot of the
sports psychologists I think we're probably focus. You know, are
(58:00):
my actions going to lead to the result I want?
Which is which I think there's a great deal of
truth in that, But it also has to sit side
by side or have a kind of flip side of
having a kind of calmness about the things we can't control,
(58:23):
you know, an awareness that I don't know that the
result is guaranteed. All sorts of things might happen that
we haven't planned for, especially in the in the sports
I coach for someone doing an iron myness, no, that's
a lot of hours that the unexpected to happen. But
(58:48):
if I can help people have that sense of we're
as well prepared as we possibly can be for the
things that we can control, and we have an easiness
about the things the fact that there are some things
that we can't control. So I call that a still
in composure, And that's that's the second sort of emotion
(59:15):
or feeling that I think we can coach for. And
then the third is that fluency that we've been talking
about where you just lose yourself in the moment. It
doesn't mean that it's pain free, you know, but it
can be a real hard struggle, but you still have
(59:38):
that sense of you know, I'm at my absolute limit
and at my absolute best, and I don't know where
this is going to take me, but wow, everything is
in just this moment here right now. Yeah. I've had
(01:00:03):
that feeling as an athlete, and there's a maybe not
in quite such a colorful way, but also as a coach.
I'm going back to the thing about you of going
back home and thinking, Wow, how did that happen? Where
did that idea come from?
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
I you, I'm really taken by this notion of confidence
isn't a thing, or confidence doesn't exist if we think
of it as a thing. It reminded me of a
quote that I often quote when I'm doing skill acquisition workshops,
(01:00:45):
because something Keith David's talks about is that this will
seem tangential because I'm talking about skill acquisition, but it's
I think it's very relevant and I think there's a
lot of parallels. But talks about skill and he actually
challenges the notion of skill acquisition because skill acquisition evokes
(01:01:07):
the idea that skill is something you acquire and you gain,
and therefore you keep and you own, and his articulation
of skill is actually a continuous protion process of adaptation,
and so he prefers to use the term skill achievement.
Funnily enough, yeah, and so and again the notion of
(01:01:35):
immersion within some sort of context, context or environment, and
the environment evoking this sense of creativity, exploration, curiosity, play
and all those sorts of things whilst we sort of
explore the limitations or boundaries of our capabilities in a
(01:01:57):
safe to fail environment of some kind, you know. And
this notion is really interesting, and it does. I'm drawing
a lot of parallels from those ideas, from what you're
talking about. But I also thought that was an interesting
sort of like there's the other side of that wave.
(01:02:18):
Confidence is not a thing. Sorry, confidence doesn't exist if
we think of it as a thing. We know when
we haven't got it, and the more we strive to
get it, the more elusive it becomes. Like flow, like
a you know, that sort of meditative state that people
try and search for, and actually it's not something you
(01:02:39):
search for, it's something that comes to you by virtue
of the more. The more you lose yourself in an experience,
then it can come. But you have to If you
try to lose yourself, it's illusory, just gets away from you.
So there's an interesting this and I like the fact
(01:02:59):
you describe it as a paradox because it absolutely is,
you know, which is why the terms you're using, which
is there's an excitement, there's composure, and then there's fluency
as the ingredients of confidence and fostering environments that feel
(01:03:21):
where people have that sense or that feeling, and therefore
confidence builds and grows as a feature of the environment.
That must take quite a lot of thinking through. Where
I'm and where I'm taking you to is lots of
people here will be thinking, right, I'm on board. I
(01:03:42):
like it, but how do we get there? And I
don't want to give away all the secrets of the book,
but I'd be interested just to get a few insights.
Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
Yeah, just to step back at a tiny bit. Yeah,
part of the thing about out if we think of
confidence as a thing, actually it's quite judgmental. If you
really should be or we better go and fix you,
(01:04:11):
or we'll put out some easy tasks for you to
do so that you can get confidence. It's certainly not
all sports psychologists do this, but there you can see
some have this, or in some environments people say, you
(01:04:34):
know this, this athlete got a few problems. Really will
We'll send them off to the sports psyche to get fixed,
and then I'll come back with confidence. How much how
much richer it could be? I think if we focused
(01:04:58):
around you wonder if not the combination of those three emotions.
So you know you're saying about, an example, the excitement
our talk with the people I coach, not so much
about achieving the particular you know, the result that they
(01:05:26):
might have come to me in the first place to gain.
You know, I want to do an iron man, I
want to get under this particular time that is often
how someone might come. But as we as we start
working together, I want to kind of shift the attention
(01:05:48):
much more to how are we going to make sure
that you feel at your absolute best on the start
line and how amazing to be there. But a lot
of people I see have this thing of sort of
(01:06:09):
feeling a bit out of place. You know, I don't
really belong here. I'm not a real summer or I'm
not as good a triathlete as some of these other people.
So a lot of work around excitement. I think it
has to be about how as a coach we can
kind of reframe that to say, you know, number one,
(01:06:32):
you do belong here, this is your space, and wow
is it an exciting space. And when we get there,
just just lap it up. You're a part of what's
going to happen. H And then there's a there's a
fabulous phrase from an American psychologist and Michael Javat, who
(01:06:54):
did a lot of work with Pete Carroll. They talk
about living masterpiece.
Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Again.
Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
I really like that term, and it's on I use,
probably overuse a bit with with people I coach. You
understand there and say, right, the space between the start
line and the finish line is way and to create
your living masterpiece. And not always but pretty pretty solidly
(01:07:31):
people get to the end and they're just blown away
and say I didn't I didn't believe I could really
do that. You know, a guy is saying, you know,
I thought i'd be within this time to the iron Man,
and actually I was over an hour quicker, or maybe
you know, I thought I was going to hate the
(01:07:51):
swim but actually it was brilliant. I loved it. I
was ship was longer. Yeah, your living masterpiece, you know,
it's it's it's you in that moment, just just at
your at your most profound best and you're most easy
(01:08:12):
in a sense, back to the sense of fluency. Yeah,
so a lot of it would be around you know,
how we how we talk about what's going to make
for a really brilliant experience, and it's not just going
to be the time at the end, or the position
(01:08:33):
on the podium or m hm hm. I think chath
Bishop's stuff around. You know, long Win is brilliant that way.
You know, it's kind of makes us rethink what what
do we really mean by success? Mhm m pipper Grange
(01:08:54):
talks about winning deep and supposed to winning shadow h Yeah,
that's that's where I want to be.
Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
I love it well. Talking about being immersed and where
does the time go? I've now just looked at the
clock and yeah, sort of ninety odd minutes later or thereabouts,
we're We're. The flow has definitely been there. It's been
very much a fluent and flowing podcast. I've really enjoyed this.
(01:09:32):
This has been by my bedside for a while, and
I've been, you know, just tapping into it from time
to time. It's actually been really helpful in conversations that
I've had with not necessarily people in the sports world,
but other people who are struggling a little and suffering
with you know, various different challenges or moments of you know,
(01:09:54):
my children for example, I mean moments of doubt because
of various things that happening with them and all those
sorts of things. So I think it's really quite powerful,
and I'm grateful to you for the time you've taken
not only to write it, but to come and share
the insights with me on this on the podcast. If
(01:10:17):
people want to get in touch with you, and they,
for example, you know, would like maybe to work with
you or get you to come and you know, again,
do you share some insights or whatever it might be,
what's the best way for them to reach out.
Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
I've gone off social media really obvious reasons, so now
pretty much the only place in that world is linked
in m But I have a website you can look
(01:10:53):
at which is called zig zag confidence dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Exact confidence dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
I love it, and I'd be delighted to hear from
people I find I just I learned so much from
people from other sports, from other areas, you know, outside
of sports.
Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yeah, Mike, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for
coming on and all the best with the book, and
all the best with all that you do, not just
in triathlon, but hopefully in some other sports with some
other coaches around this notion of confidence centered coaching.
Speaker 4 (01:11:37):
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it. Good to chat
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Thanks for listening to the Talent Equation podcast. If you
like the show, then please consider supporting it by leaving
a review on your favorite podcast player, telling your friends
about it, or even becoming a hero. Can show your
appreciation by becoming a patron. Just head over to the
Talentequation dot co dot uk and click on the becoming
a Patron button
Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
At the top of the page.
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