"I kept winning but realised that I had failed all those that I left behind..." - PBNO Episode 3

Mark and I talk about the origins of PDS from his time in the military and how we came together to embed the principles of PDS across the sporting landscape.

We also discuss my own commitments and some conversations we have had about honouring my own journey of change.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Right then performances a behavior not an outcome, Episode three
Live from Leeds. It's not live, we're recording and you're
not in Leads. I'm in Leeds because I've been to
the UK Coaching Summit and the UK Coaching Awards. Yesterday
I talked to you a bit more about that, Mark,

(00:24):
how are you good?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good? I've got my fifty eighth birthday coming up in
ten days or so, so I've just been doing a
lean phase as I do, just to see what I
can do each birthday. So still telling myself I'm thirty seven.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
So yeah, well, still still got the physique, the outlook
and the visage of a thirty seven year old. I
would say, Mark, I, if only I look good as
good as you at fifty eight, I would be more
than happy.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Consistency and genetics, well there.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
You luck and work like it. So we thought we'd
do something slightly different while not different. Actually I know
this program is we're working through various different things, but
one of the things I thought we were going to
do today was talk a little bit about why we're

(01:17):
doing This sort of occurred to me. Mark and I
had an exchange during the week via WhatsApp as we
often do when we're setting these things up and all
that sort of stuff, and it kind of prompted some
reflections in me that I want to talk about. But
what it then also made me think about was, actually,
we probably need to talk a little bit about the

(01:37):
origin of this and kind of our journey, your journey
with PDS, my journey to our journey together along the
sort of you know, kind of windy path, swimming in
different rivers from time to time, and then sort of
like join it all together so that people get a
real sense of kind of what we're doing now and
why we're doing it, and where we're going and what.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Before I up into all that, though, it's just a
reminder to the audience that you know, we're doing this project.
There's a few different reasons to do the project. One
of the reasons is an opportunity to reconnect, you know,
my professional life has enabled this. The other other reason
is is that you know, this is a collaboration, and

(02:19):
we're hoping that the collaboration will resonate with people and
be valuable. And one of the things we would dearly
love is for people to share it as wide as possible.
Subscribing on the YouTube feed or you know, wherever you're
receiving this, whether it's in any of the social streams
that you're getting it from and sharing it with others
so that they can, you know, if anything resonates with

(02:41):
them or it relates to a particular challenge that they're
facing or a problem that they're having, then you know,
by all means, please pass it on and pass it
on your social streams. We're keen to get this message
out as much as much as possible. And then off
the back of that, you know, if a number of
people then want to find out more or work in
more intensive ways than we can provide in an hour

(03:02):
long podcast every couple of weeks, then obviously we're happy
to do so. So that's the first thing to say.
So Mark as a starting point, I'd love you to
tell the story about kind of how pds came about
as even as a construct.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
So it was organic. It wasn't a deliberate oh, let's
let's develop this thing I can sell and earn money from.
It was actually the opposite of that. So not to
fill this whole podcast or conversation just with the origin story,
but the key I guess what it came from. I

(03:44):
was brought up in a small village in Cornwall, so
we had no central heating. We had the well that
was the water. You cycled and run to school every
day or weathers hills, so that was norm for me.
So I either wanted to be a commando or a
vet growing up, and I always loved animals. I've got

(04:05):
rescue dogs now. I'd always take on the abuse ones,
but they give so much back in wellness and mental health,
and that's probably we could do a whole different one
on that as well, ste on how we manage our
wellness pillars. So my mother said to me, look, you
know you need to do your homework if you want
to be a vetmark And I think she was very
concerned because I was the why kid at school. I

(04:27):
was if I didn't understand the why, I wasn't engaged
and some teachers love that, some teachers hated it. So
when she said, well, you're going to have to do
homework to be a vet, said oh, I'll join the
army then, so I went down the army route. My
mum had to sign the papers at sixteen, so I
couldn't go into the parachute regiment or commandos. I had
to get a trade, so I joined, thinking everyone to

(04:49):
be fit and motivated, and they weren't. There was a
few fit motivated, but a lot were unfit, took shortcuts, lazy.
So I became a bit dissillusioned as a young lad
and got into trouble as a young recruit, a young soldier.
It wasn't what I expected, and no one connected with me.
So a commando then called Buddy Burgess, this might be

(05:12):
a shout out story, and I'm sure as yours will
have them as well, Stuart. But he he was a
corporate He came from commando forces and I was at
a normal working unit, and he saw me for me.
He didn't see me as what others said to me.
He saw a fit lad that had a good smart brain,
that just needed a bit of responsibility. So he took
me under his wing and he started to actually connect
with me. And from that it stimulated me to go, well,

(05:33):
I could actually go down into the commando course. You
know I have value, So I went down did the
commander course. Past that, I think there was ninety odd
on our course. Nine of us passed January ninety I
then did the physical training instructor's course, and after the
golf conflict, I came back and then I served a
recruit training center in the early nineties as a corporal,

(05:55):
physical training instructor, commando trained. So there's me thinking, I'm
the man, you know, I can train people. And we
had recruit that you had platoons and pretty much in
those days, you could do what you want. And at
the end of ten weeks there was four or five
different platoons. You would have competitions, log race, endurance course, etc.

(06:15):
And it was a big, big thing for the patoon, commander's,
sergeant's corporals of that platoon to win that, because then
you were the best platoon. And for the first i'd
say eighteen months or so, whoever the patoon I was
with won everything. And on a pass off parade, one
of the parents came up to me and said, oh,
your corporal Bennett, my son doesn't stop talking about you

(06:35):
because he's really changed your life. And it kind of
hit me as a brick wall, and I thought, as
opposed to see that in a positive light, I thought,
hang on a minute, there's a bunch of recruits that
have not passed in that have gone back to civilian life,
And I thought, well, hang on, I've changed his life.
Have I changed the lives of the people that haven't
passed in that I've failed? So all of a sudden

(06:56):
there was doubt and questioned my head, thinking am I
any good at what I did? And I started to
think maybe I'm not. From going from a ten out
of ten, I went to a four to three out
of ten and think, hang on a minute, Am I
only good at the people that connect with me? The
people that i'd have some mental resilience that can keep up. Yes,
I'll develop them. But have I been any good at

(07:19):
impacting the ones that didn't pass in? So I went
on a journey then to see remember no Internet, I
had no connections, had no one that I didn't know
anything about this. So I went on this journey of thinking, well,
I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I need either
change my job or change how I did it. So
I started to see can I can I connect? Can
I get them that aren't motivated, that give up not

(07:41):
to to stay motivated? Et cetera, et cetera, And I
my opatuone then lost a competition. So yes, there were
more passing in, but I started to lose the competitions.
So the people around me then said, mark you going
soft tree hugging. It was a military term for going soft,
you know. And I had no one that was saying

(08:03):
to me, even asking me the question, mark, why I've
noticed you've changed, Why you're changing? And they didn't see
it as an understanding. Look, I need to do better.
I just couldn't go back. And then it took me
a while, but I started to win the competitions again,
but the platoons were bigger. The percentage of passing in
was bigger, so I knew I was onto something. What

(08:25):
I didn't know was how to explain it to others.
Useless at that so I couldn't share it. So I
started to get success. I then transferred to the Unphysical
Training Corps. Again that was a window where how I
was being treated on the courses of the mother course
I thought was horrendous, didn't manage me, didn't develop me,

(08:46):
so many wrong things. So I said a goal would
be once I got to a position, I would go
back and run that course, be the senior instructor, which
I ended up doing. But along that journey, the next
light bulb came off when I for years I started
to work. I think it was Garrison's Sales Sharks and
Premiership Rugby Warrington Wolves on holidays, league weekends. I was
training with elite sports in pre seasons, building them up.

(09:09):
And then another moment came up when a legend of
a rugby player called Alfie Langer Alan Langer, Brisbane Bronco's
captain in Australia League captain. He was at Warrenton Wolves
and when we did the preseason I got all the
guys connected together. You could see them really drive in, communicating, empathy, understanding,
real problem solving. But then he called me up a

(09:30):
few weeks when they went back to the sport the
club at Warrington, so the market's all gone back again.
So when I went up, it made me realize, hang
on a minute, this is useless if it relies on
me to influence people. I need to know how can
I describe what I'm doing? How can I get coaches

(09:50):
at any level to actually one understand it, then do it,
integrating in what they already do, and then embed it
so that when I'm not there under pressure, they'll keep
doing it. And that took another six years stewart of
me just finding to get the basics right, and this
is where I developed. It was called someone I didn't
make this up. Someone said you should call what you're

(10:13):
doing mark the performance development model. Because I started to
share the frameworks and I thought, oh, that's really good. Again,
there was a lot of skeptics. We've met a few academics, psychologists.
Remember one in golf that dismissed it. You're trying to
be a psychologist, etc. Still had the haters, and you
go and it's not about psychologist, it's about giving people tools.
And so from from the early nineties I've really been

(10:36):
it's been my passion. Every day I'm thinking every day,
I'm challenging myself. Every day I'm trying to find ways
and I use the word try because I'm not always successful.
But I'm committed to explore it, to make it robust.
How can I make it simpler? How can I find
a way to explain this, How can I add layers
onto it? So it's been on this journey now I
think over thirty sports all the way from the elite

(10:58):
of the elite, amateur and profession aid groups, grassroots, but
also going into governing bodies and we've worked with a
few stuarts, but also then into the rough neighborhoods, working
in schools that even primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, universities
in UK and America and now gone into business over
the last ten years helping managers, performance directors, lead bosses

(11:22):
to how can I embed change? How can I make
people better decision makers when I'm not there and if
someone's not doing what I want, how can I find
out the source without taking over a micromanaging So the
journey is if someone said to me, Mark, what is it?
And then what's the journey? What is it is helping
people make better judgment to influence others so unsupervised they

(11:45):
can be more effective and the spectrum of how to
do that, and the second element is getting people and
systems structure scalable that can embed the change as opposed
to going on a training day and then forgetting it
in two weeks. Is being at for fair and frenigo, No, no,
no no. If we're going to say we're going to
commit to this, we have to commit to what we

(12:06):
agree and there must be a support structure that could
be six months, a year, sometimes two years to embed
that in the habits and culture. And I think I've
become world class app doing that, but I'm still developing it.
I'm still learning the other element. It said, Mark, if
you could do it in a nutshell, I said, Look,
I've come across more skeptics and obstacles, and I have

(12:27):
champions because some people like dismissing things that don't fully understand.
Some people like saying they know it without finding out
and exploring, Actually, what is it? Why is it? Let
me find out. Actually, I don't know. If someone asked
me about PDS and Mark Bennett, they prefer to be
the skeptic more than the Actually I don't really know,
But why don't you ask him? So I'd say there's

(12:50):
been barriers along the years, but I think I'm in
a place now where I used to get a bit
frustrated by them. Now it's more I understand why you
might be a skeptic. But I'm here to ask questions.
I'm here for you to challenge me. I'm here now
let me understand what you know and what you don't
know about what we do. And if we disagree, that's fine.

(13:11):
But I know what I do work, so I know
it's robust. I know it has an impact on people
if you commit to it, but if you don't commit
to it, it's never going to work, which for me
is the defining factor when people say I tried PDS
it didn't work so well, when you say you tried it,
explain to me what you did. Oh, so you didn't
commit to it. Well, there we go. So I'd say,

(13:31):
that's that's the origin story. Stewart.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
I'll talk a little bit about kind of the way
we connected and what happened there and some of the
impact of that. But before I do that, one thing
I wanted to just clarify you made you feel about
helping people make better judgment I think the real true
power of PDS is it's not necessarily about the coach

(14:00):
making better judgments about whoever it is they're working with,
the leader of the coach. It's about helping people in
a so called guiding, you know, leadership role. Whatever we were,
how we want to describe that helping helping the people
that they work with to make commitments to change that

(14:25):
you know they themselves want, and then helping to guide
the j And so it's a way of drawing out
what the change genuinely is, and then help helping those
individuals to stay on the path. And the big thing
for me, and one of the things that I was
so attracted to PDS about was that the bit you
talked about where you said it was no good with

(14:48):
Warrington Wolves if when you weren't there, it didn't work.
So it had to be about ownership the group and
the individuals within the group had to genuinely own the
change and be response for themselves and each other. And
so the true power of PDS is it's not about
me as coach coach led making judgments. It's about me

(15:11):
and you whoever it is I'm working with, agreeing or
being clear about where we're trying to get to and
how we're going to act and what we're going to
do in order to get get there. And then being ruthless.
And this is the point, you know, this is a
phrase you use a lot, you know, which is this

(15:32):
idea of being relentless, I think is the phrase that
you use. And the every time philosophy stepping over the
line whatever wherever that line is a physical or metaphorical line,
and it's every time it's not well, this day, today yes,
and tomorrow No, we're going to make a commitment to it,
and we're going to honor that commitment and and we're
going to work out what happens when we don't, which

(15:53):
is where we're coming back to. So for me, like that,
that's the central thing and just to resonate that. So
I just mentioned and at the start of this I
was at the UK Coaching Awards and throughout the day
the summit, you know, gathering of workforce development professionals, coach
development professionals, you know, building systems and coach education and
all those sorts of things, and I lost count of

(16:15):
the amount of times I heard people talk about this
word holistic or person centered, athlete centered, whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Sometimes sometimes it's coach centered. But only awards as well.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
You know, there was an interview with Katerina Johnson Thompson
and her kind of sort of head coach, I suppose
Aston Moore, who is who has helped her to sort
of get the silver medal in Paris Olympics this year,
and he talked about it being about about person centeredness,
about understanding her and her goals and her aspirations which

(16:47):
she'd lost. Titops form out of love with the sport actually,
and they run up to in a run up to this,
and I kept hearing this same story in the Fabulous
Guy who was given the Lifetime Achievement Award, guy called
John Sheddon. It's an alpine alpine ski coach, really influential
on me in terms of some of his stuff around
feedback has just been absolutely light bulby for me. But

(17:10):
he said that in his interview when he was receiving
his Lifetime Achievement Award. It's all about the people. It's
a person centered It's about them, and so that really resonates.
I think with this sort of idea that you've got
around ownership and a journey of change and we're on
it on the road together, it's not about me directing.
It's about us guiding or me guiding and almost reciprocating

(17:34):
and guiding each other. You know, the athlete is developing
the athlete or employee or whoever it is that you're
working with. They're almost developing me as much as I'm
developing them.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
If that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, And it's an important point because that's why I
use the word need centered, is understanding what is the need?
Now that you may not see an outcome result right now,
but you need to do this now to get the
outcomes you want in two, three months, or weeks, whatever
it may be, as opposed to well, let me share
the solution right now and go, well, I'm sharing it
with you now. So I think what's been really good

(18:08):
on feedback over the years is the fact that the
language I use and the principles I use at me
when I'm mentoring a mentor or the boss or the
head coach is the same language and principles they're sharing
with their athletes, their employees, their middle management. So what
we're ending up with, and that's why I use that
word judgment, But it's the software in hardware, technical tactical

(18:31):
skill work, you know, as a Formula one driver, as
an accountant, as a basketball player, soccer makes no difference.
The software is actually me as an athlete at any age,
Am I engaged or now? How to stay engaged? What's
in front of me? What options have I got? What
influences have I got That's going to influence a choice

(18:51):
based on what do I need? Okay, Now I'm going
to commit to that, and I'm going to commit to
it one hundred percent not kind of. And I'm going
to review the choice in the execution live and I'm
going to develop a way where I can do that
at self. And if I'm working with a collective of
people that I'm going to understand their strengths and weeks
is in the moment, not on paper, and I'm going
to help that will influence the choice I make around us.

(19:15):
If it's a unit goal and the coach understanding, well,
that's what I want my athletes or my employees as
a manager to do. How can I develop them to
be effective in that confident and competent on the good
days and bad days. How do I cement the change
I need in me but also the change they need
in them to actually embed it and not be This
is another idea that three or four weeks is another initiative.

(19:38):
There's another initiative, and I know with your experience as
working a national governing bodies that that's the big danger
right where we have a fashion or a fad or
we have i've got a new boss coming in. Let's
have a new initiative as opposed to who wah wha
wah will stop. Let's identify our baseline, our reality, what
is our priority need aligned to where we want to
go to? Okay, well, how long is that priority need

(20:01):
going to take? How much respect do we need to
give it and support and knowledge and understanding to embed
that before we move to the next stage. And that's
often the missing bit with an organization because we're living
a world where people want results now. People are looking
for the magic bullet, people looking for what's a quick fix,
and there's people out there that will sell it. There's
not as many people in my experience or go whoa, WHOA.

(20:24):
I can't give you that, And let me tell you,
no one's going to give you that. What we need
is six months to a year of committing to these
fundamentals and you're not going to get a quick outcome.
If you do, it's a bonus. But this is what
you need if you're saying this is where you want
to get to, whether that's an individual, a big organization
as a pro athlete team, or a community sport that
is losing retention of young kids and they haven't changed

(20:49):
and the world has changed. You know, what do we
need to do. It's not quick fast initiatives, it's embedding. Actually,
what do we need to be what do we need
to focus on now? How long do we need to
focus on this without changing it? I think that's the
big thing. A lot of organizations trip up. And I'm sure, Stuart,
you've experienced that within your previous jobs massively.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
And I was going to just mention that that one
of the things that I hear a lot as well.
And again this is a conversation that emerged yesterday. Is
generally speaking, if there is poor performance in a sport,
work life capacity, the answer people look for is a

(21:32):
technical one, you know. So it's more training in the
technical stuff you know will get me, will make me better.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
So two things.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
The training modality has a tendency to be ineffective because
it's snapshotish, it's a lot of it is often lost
quite quickly. I distinctly remember being at an all colleague
training day. I wasn't even a training day, it was
just a gathering, but we did some kind of you know,
training stuff, and we used a technique. Don't know if

(22:00):
you've come across it. It's the different colored hats. I
forget exactly who see that? You got forgotten who actually
created it, But you have different hats. According to different
ways of thinking, and it's a way of ideating because
you're bringing in people's different perspectives and each hat has
a different way of thinking. You know, one is a questionner,
one is a more direction. Those sorts of things we
did that might have used it in one meeting subsequent

(22:23):
to that never saw it again. So another example of
how training sometimes really doesn't translate into kind of real
world practice. Despite everybody on the day saying how valuable
it was and how useful it was and how it
brought more people in and it was more inclusive, everybody
goes back to old habits. So that's the first thing.
And then the second thing is the problem a lot
of people have is when it comes to sort of

(22:44):
learning and development, training and training, whatever it is you're doing,
you know, you're developing somebody, very often there is a
there's no clarity in terms of the intended impact. So
we go on this journey and we'll do some stuff,
but we're not really making it clear what where we
intend to get to and what things we intend to

(23:06):
see happening behaviorally, you know, hopefully which then leads to outcomes.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
But what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Is is we're focusing on what are the things that
we're going to do that are within our control in
order to give us the best chance of achieving an outcome.
And often people are looking, they're not they're not clear
in what's going to help them bring about the outcome.
And so often in you've used this phrase work, you've

(23:34):
come into conflict with certain members of the in the
sports industry when it comes to stuff like coach development
or mentoring, because it has it lacks any kind of outcome,
It lacks clarity. It's a conversation between two people which
maybe we feel great and may be beneficial and may

(23:55):
the person might come away and they and they actually
have from a well being perspective, they feel this than
to and heard and they've had a chance to offload
or whatever it is, or or deal with challenges or
do some problem solving or whatever. It is great, but
it doesn't it's not like directed towards a particular action,
and there's no necessarily clarity of action coming out of it,

(24:18):
and so it's sort of meandering and it lacks focus
and purpose. And as a result, sometimes the coach development
industry struggles to show its impact. You know, so when
people are saying well, we're going to direct resources to
coach developments. And people say, wait, so what you know,
here's a load of cash or resource and people what
outcome did we achieve? And the answer is often we

(24:41):
had some nice conversations. And I think, actually, if you've
got a framework like PDS that you can use to
guide the journey, you can be really quite clear about
outcome and you know if it if it's you know,
if it comes down to her. You know, we've got
finite resources and you have to allocate resources to a
particular intervention to help people on a journey of journey
of change and development. I think it's incumbent on the

(25:02):
practitioner to be able to be clear about what the
impact was where we started, where we're trying to weigh
in towards and how close to that did we get
and can we see demonstrable changes of behavior. So I
think that's why I was so attracted to PDS initially
when we first started talking about the idea when I
was working in the golf industry, because what I saw

(25:23):
was two things coaches who were very technically minded defaulting
to technical solutions as the means by which to improve
somebody's performance when in actual fact, their performance was often
dictated by a range of other factors other than their
technical capability. And then the second bit was there was
no clarity in the coach development offerings that were out

(25:46):
there around the impact that it might have. And so
I guess that's one of the reasons that you know,
we forged the relationship that we did.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
And have been on the journey ever since.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, I mean we could break that down so much
that there's some and outs in there is organizations, whether
it's business or sport, they're so focused on performance outcomes
where they struggle, which is what you were saying here
totue is the enabling outcomes that now, the enabling outcomes
may not be a performance outcome measureing result, but enabling

(26:20):
can be measured. And often the enabling our behavioral enablings
in the behaviors certain individuals or teams or departments start
to change and make Now, so long as those behaviors
are aligned to achieving the outcomes that you're looking for
the performance outcomes, then great, But this is where the

(26:41):
investment needs to be. These are the facilitators of change,
and this is where people struggle a little bit and
I think also, we've got to a place now where
people will sell like your hat days and experience and
they'll get phenomenal feedback, and so everyone goes, oh, great,
that was well worth the ten thousand pounds they paid

(27:02):
for the consultant, whatever came in for the day. For me,
I'm kind of the opposite, and this may not be
helpful in my sales to people that haven't experienced myself,
but I always say, look, if if there's two extremes here.
If I run a day and at the end of
that day, everyone writes down, that was the best day

(27:23):
in my life, it was phenomenal, life changing. But within
a week they have shifted zero. Compare that to at
the end of the day when you share reflections, people say,
I hated it. It made me uncomfortable. I didn't like
what he was saying. But two weeks after that day
there's been a positive shift in people's behaviors. I'll take
the second one every single day of the week because

(27:45):
the difference between I think that's where the difference between
invalen x fel internal validation of that how was the day,
And unfortunately people are too much focused on that as
opposed to a hang on a minute. If we're driving change,
often that's going to be uncomfortable. Often we're going to
ask questions of people or to ask themselves that they

(28:05):
may not want to and be comfortable because it's never
been they've been able to cruise along. But the x
fal is okay. So what's happened now? Fit for purpose,
for your role and goal? What's happened out there's been
a positive shift? Right Well, that's important to me right there.
But for a positive shift, you need a support structure.

(28:25):
You need the more investment in the change than the
intervention day or weeks whatever. It's actually, how are we
going to integrate this? Which is what you're saying next
to you, And I think that's where a lot of
people struggle. I think again, when you're you with an
organization where you're giving funding to sports and often they'll
write their own impact statement, so you'll rarely get them going, oh,

(28:47):
it's terrible, you'll be wasting all your money. You know,
they'll be looking at it, well, here's feedback from this.
You know we did this, and you go, well, hang
on a minute. And I'm not saying this would ever
happen to you it but if I was the one
giving money, I'll be going what are your enabling ejectors? Right?
Let's agree that every three months or eight weeks you're sharing.
Once you share with me what the enabling injectors are,
how are we going to measure them? Right, Let's give

(29:08):
us updates. So instead of the year going past and
you write your performance, say, I'm getting some enabling injectors here,
and if you cannot tell me what they are, you
can't have the money. Because I want you to go
back and have a think about what is it you're
going to do with what I give you? Will it
be enabling you for the change that you need? And

(29:28):
put support in the help organizations do that. And that's
what I do now is sometimes I start asking questions
when I start speaking to the bosses and they don't
know the answers, which is fine, but let's explore the answers.
So it may be I'm not the right person for
you because you want someone to come in and do
a motivational chat or a great day, That's not what
I do. But if you identify now the need and

(29:49):
you want support in that need because now you recognize
what it is, Yes, I'm your man there I can
help you with that. And some is a bit scary,
right Stuart? That actually element go hang on a mite.
That means I need to change. That means actually we're
going to be held account ball for this investment over
months and months. There's some work there. What if it
doesn't work? A day where my bosses are going, well,

(30:13):
this is brilliant day, thanks very much. Is it easy
in a measure? Easier to invest in? It's done? Okay,
But where's the ripple? And it's the ripple that we need,
not a pebble in and it goes flat? Actually, no,
there's been changed. We've rubbed the rock so much that
the rock has now changed shape. That's the change we need.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
I've I've had teams that I've managed over the years.
You've worked with them who still use the language of
pds to this day. When I communicate with them, you know,
they become mantras. But what I like about those mantras
is there a shorthand way of articulating a you know,

(30:56):
a kind of a behavioral framework and a way of
thinking about what it is we're trying to achieve. You know,
one of the mantras I remember distinctly that my team
at the RFU we used to play back to me
all the time is we're ready when we're ready, And
that was based on one of your ideas, which is
we don't just deliver a session and move on because

(31:17):
we've delivered the session.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
We want to.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
See if we've seen the embedded learnings and those enabling
behavioral enablings as you describe them. We want to see
whether they're actually manifesting. We might even want to test
that using this is something we'll talk about another time,
a covert test, you know, we might actually put that
in place to see and test whether we're seeing the

(31:40):
behavioral shift that we believe and we have collectively agreed
is going to be one of the things that enables
performance to take place in a cohesive way, and sometimes
we want to see that. So the idea of moving
on just I've done that, I've done that training, I've
ticked that box, right they have, they've had the training.

(32:02):
My assumption is going to be that's gone in into
the brain is now manifesting behavior, and we'll see that
forever more and then we forget about it and go
on to the next thing because we've got lots of
things to cover. Your approach is manifestly different, or you know,
your philosophian idea is one that I have subsequently, you know,
kind of embedded into my my thinking, which is, now
we're going to stay with something until we've kind of

(32:25):
earned the right to move to something else.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
And there's a few elements in that that I think
some people do not connect with. Many do once you
start the journey, but initially something I haven't thought of
that is sometimes they'll believe one hundred percent this is
the route to take, but until you commit to that route,
you might get to a point and go, actually, now
that's exposed the real source of where we need to

(32:52):
put in the time says okay, so do we need
to adjust now or do we still need to embed
this because this is exposing something else, but we still
need this first. And it's that level of tangible evaluation
which is giving you real data, whether that software or
hardware data to say actually, I thought this, now we're
committed to it's highlighting this. I guess an easy example

(33:14):
with that in hardware would be a Formula one car
where someone would think, right, we need more downforce, so
let's invest in this downfall, so we got more downforce. Absolutely.
The driver then takes on a track that's slightly different
and go the rear ends too slippery. Now I can't
have traction. The rerens says, Oh what we thought now

(33:35):
is there's a byproduct now? Ah, okay, so do we
keep going with that downforce? And now do we focus here?
Or actually there something you need to adjust here. Now
that's easy in hardware because you've got data. Well easy.
I'm not saying it's easy for the solution. It's easy
to identify the problem. Sometimes the implementation of solution is difficult.
But in software, unless we start identifying one of the

(33:57):
behaviors that we need and how we're measuring them, that's
often where the missing link can be. It's not a
hardware issue, it's a software issue. But have we trained
our coaches, our managers, our leaders, our athletes to understand
can I self reflect effectively? Okay? Well where is the source? Now?
Where's my investment needed to be here? And we're going

(34:19):
for that journey a little bit. You and I. You
aren't we because you know this is the first time
for quite a while where you've had me really mentoring
you at a level of regularity, and there will be
uncomfortable little hits along the way because you're a human
being that's got a crazy life. But my job is
to just be calling, having those conversations and being relentless

(34:41):
and patient. But for pds to be effective, I need
to upskill people in organizations to do what I do.
People can't rely on me to do it, and that's
again identifying the influencers and upskilling the influence. Go right, now,
you don't need me because actually you have an in house, robust,
organizedzation that can continue the commitment to the change you need.

(35:04):
But now how to evaluate it?

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Go?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Okay? Are we ready? Okay? What's next? Okay, let's agree
what that looks like. How much time do we need
to commit to that? And I think that's so important
as well. Is that not relying on me? But actually
can we upscull people to know how to have those
conversations in an effective way to help still sell the ship?
So when the wind changes, we're still heading for that lighthouse,

(35:28):
but we know how to adjust.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yeah, I mean, I so we tease this at the start,
so it's probably worth going into this now.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
You Yeah, So just as an explainer a little bit.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
So this notion of kind of like mentoring you know,
this this project and this collaboration, you know, and it is,
you know, it's going in some different directions and it's
kind of interesting to see where it does go.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
But one of the things that's about about it is
sort of me.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Re re engaging with PDS, having sort of you know,
kind of follow different journey, but not just re engaging.
It's also you know, I've been on my own learning
journey with a range of different you know, you were
one of the gateways into you know, kind of holistic
and person centered, needs centered, athletes centered approaches, which then

(36:21):
took me on a whole range of different journeys looking
at different methods and so blending those together and making
those connections and bringing our respective you know, kind of
knowledge and skill sets together to sort of create almost
like a sort of a new perception around the way
humans can improve, advance developed skill, et cetera, et cetera,
combining the two and in so doing one of the

(36:43):
things that we're doing is I'm if you're like, you know,
kind of going through my kind of having done my
apprenticeship so to speak, you know, and to use the
Star Wars analogy having been a Paduan learner to sort
of make my graduation into being fully fledged Jedi. Obviously
you being a Jedi mass it's really about like recircling. So,

(37:03):
you know, I believe firmly that learning is not a
linear thing. It's not something that you know, I get
some knowledge in D and then all of a sudden
I become a skillful practitioner. It's a circular thing, you know,
And so you're you're continuously relearning things that you you
look in order to become sorry, embed it in your craft.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
So PDS is so deep and.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
So rich, like even if you were to just do something,
you know, kind of entry point surface level like I do.
You know, we do three day, four day kind of
really immersive thing that hugely powerful, transformative in all aspects
of my life. But it's still only scratching the surface.
It's so deep, and you need to immerse yourself. You

(37:51):
need to come back and circle back and reconnect with
it in order. And there are new epiphanies each time,
every conversation we have as a new epiphany. This one
was a bit really interesting. Was you kind of nudging
firmly friendly around honoring my commitment, which is a commitment
to re engaging with the learning content in your online space, which,

(38:17):
by the way, anybody who wants to actually start their
journey within within PDS, there is an online learning space,
and there is a specific code which we will send
out when we put this out on social to be
poking access Pbno. I think is the is the code
twenty five, So you're going to discount on that, So
that's probably worth doing. But as I go through that

(38:39):
journey myself, and I'm getting new moments of clarity, you know,
and you're pushing me to do that, and I'm not
always making I'm not always doing it because I'm not
allocating a time and you're saying to me, have you
got a time in your diary?

Speaker 3 (38:54):
No? And I'm pushing back and.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
I'm saying, yeah, but my life sort of is a
bit more chaotic and this, that and the other. And
then I've had a moment of gone, no, no, no,
no no, that's just me making excuses for not honoring the.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Commitment that I've met.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
I made a commitment, and you're reminding me very subtly,
you know, kind of very softly, but you know, also
you know, and I realized, and We've had an exchange
on WhatsApp, but I've realized that basically what I'm doing
and pushing back is I'm actually doing what I would
see somebody else do to me, and then I would
actually challenge, well, what are we trying to achieve? So
I've then had that sort of clarity of moment of actually,

(39:32):
I now need to sort of make that commitment. So
now I've diorized this and actually that is something that
I need to do more of anyway in other aspects
of my life, because I've allowed my work life to
become too buffeted by the winds of change. You know,
I'm responding to requests all the time because I'm obviously

(39:53):
operating in a new world with a different kind of
freelancing mindset, and I'm you know, wanting to explore every opportunity.
But the problem I'm having is is that creates just
absolute chaos in my home life, my personal life, and
in also my professional life.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
So I actually need some of that structure. So that small.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Epiphany around you nudging me on, have you are you
honoring your commitments? And can we find a solution to
help you? An option to help you with honoring the
commitments has been powerful, not just in this world and
our interactions, but having then that recognition that I have
to be much more create more structure in my life
in order to enable me to enjoy the spontaneity of

(40:32):
moments of you know, when I can follow a path
or a connection or whatever it might be. So, yeah,
I just kind of wanted to share that kind of
little bit of a reflection I've had over the last
week or so.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
The key point you've made there, Stewart is BDS isn't
about switching on and off to it. It's not about
turning into a robot or Mark Bennett's. It's about maintaining
your authenticity but actually seeing it as a life skill,
seeing it. And I think that's where your epiphany was
in your cold reflection where we had an interaction, and

(41:07):
I think the next day you could see you reflect
and you sent a voice note and you were connecting
with I do this in life. And that's the important part.
It's not about a coach or an athlete saying, oh,
this is how I do this on a court, this
is how I manage my training. Because if you're thinking
like that, you're not thinking about the human being. Your
whole point of this is actually to enhance what you

(41:30):
already do. And what you said there in your voice
message was about this is a problem I have in
many aspects of my life that you've had a lot
of conversations about, but you haven't committed. And what was
interesting was even on that voice I'm sure you don't
mind me saying, because you shared it here at the
end of the voice in the last three words you
use the butt of the voice message. So I'm going

(41:52):
this is really good to do it. Yeah, love that
you're recognizing that, But I heard a butt. So what
you haven't shared with what's your strategy, what you're actually
going to commit to, Because there's been a recognition, but
what's the plan? And we're getting to that.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Again, aren't Yeah exactly exactly?

Speaker 1 (42:07):
And yeah, so again you know this is a living
living the journey. And again it comes back to this
point of like you say, this isn't a concept a concept,
it's a way of being. It's a it's a way
of seeing kind of how you operate in the world.
Now you've probably come up come up against this. Some

(42:30):
people find this to to too rigorous, too structured.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
They don't.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
They don't like the fact that it's got you know,
and that's fine, courses for courses, but again, you're everyone
assumes that it's really structured.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
It isn't. It's it's about designing for you whatever your
goals are.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
And if one of your goals is to have a lovely,
kind of spontaneous, you know, kind of go with the flow,
lais a fair lifestyle. That's absolutely one hundred percent within
the frame work. And we're still but we can still
work out ways to achieve whatever it is you want
to achieve and be realistic about what those things are.
I think what people This is why needs center to

(43:09):
such an important point because people are often saying I
want this. I know, I want to lose a load
of weight, I want to put on X amount of muscle,
I want to improve my nutrition, I want to be
a better leader, I want to get better performances for
my business. I want to win more games as a coach,
but don't necessarily recognize the change they need to make

(43:31):
in their daily habits in order to bring that around.
And if someone says I don't want to change my
daily habits, I don't want to change my lifestyle. You say, Okay,
that's fine, but we're going to have to think about
where you're trying to get to with these other goals,
because without any willingness to change in any way, you're
unlikely to achieve better outcomes. And so, yeah, that's kind

(43:54):
of one of the interesting reflections I've had, you know,
because I was thinking, you know, there's things I really
value about the fact that I have this sort of
freedom to kind of do what I want to do,
and I don't necessarily want to be boxed into absolutely
formulaically determining that this is what I'm going to do
at this time every day, every week. And then I went,
but I'm not going to If I don't change something,
it's going.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
To continue the way it is.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
So that episode, you know, I have made a commitment
that is in the diary I sent you, the message,
I sent you the screenshot, didn't I saying there is,
It's in the diary. That's what I'm going to be
doing my learning. And now I have to want to
that and if I don't, then I'm going to have
to make a recommitment, and we communicate that as we go.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
It's interesting you say, where a lot of people pushed back.
It's generally when you don't fully understand it yet, when
you're on that early part of the journey where you're going, wow,
there's a lot here mark, you know, even in the
in the basic fundamental stuff. Obviously the members area is
about one hundred and seventy hours now of really here's
the basics, but hey, here's here's the depth. Here's a

(44:53):
deeper dive. So early on it's like, well, no, no, no,
this is too structure marks, this is I'm having to
change a lot. Now I'm having an over think. My
brain is exhausted now, and I think it would be
worth getting Alan keenon, for example, Dean from EVO that
we no doubt what have on guests in the next
few months where they can really share. My brains were

(45:13):
blown out even on a coaching session because now I'm
scanning for so much. Now I'm thinking, well, it's not
allowed me to be me. But it's a bit like
if you've never picked up a basketball or a golf club.
The first time we start swinging that club, it's like, wow,
this is a nightmare. And even if someone gives you
a little tip, you know, one tip as opposed to
overload you. It's like, oh, I'm overthinking. But once you

(45:35):
get through that, you go, oh no, no, no, it's
not giving me and it's not fixed. Actually, there's more
flow in this than I've ever had in my life.
But it's allowing me in the moment to connect with
where I need to get to and what I need
to do in the moment now, with clarity, with purpose,
And I think that's where it's the transition bit of

(45:55):
oh my god. You know, if you join the members
there and you look at it and you didn't go
through the process, you just want, I'm just going to
go a road place, you'd be going, oh my god,
this is too much. But if you just watch the
first bit, it's kind of oh, this starts to make
sense now, and then you add a bit. But to
think it will never be difficult, to think, it will
never be uncomfortable. You're setting up some pine the sky nonsense,

(46:19):
this and many many other ways. I mean, if Victor
Frankel's Man Search for Meaning as a book is a
great example of life changing perception of paradigm shifts of
how some people may see things. Will that change what
you do in your life. Maybe maybe not. But if
you're recognizing where you are now isn't what you need

(46:40):
to be, then you're going to need a change. And sometimes,
if you're lucky, that change is easy. Oh my god,
Well I don't need this sport. This is making it
so much easier. And I've had some of those in
the player first player lass as a tool. The rule
of three is a tool. Oh this is so much easier, Mark,
but there's so much more You're going whoa, I'm having
the change now. I don't like change. I haven't changed

(47:02):
for years. I've been getting some success. Not sure you
need to get pastor' not sure because if you're not
going to commit it to I'm sure, and I'm okay,
I'm going to be uncomfortable. I'm okay. I might be
more robotic initially, but for me to get where I
need to be, I'm going to go through it. I'm
gonna walk for a mud. That's where your success comes from.
And I don't know any successful person on this planet

(47:25):
that hasn't embraced change and continues to embrace change and
knows there may be a discomfort in the neural pathways
or the movement or the thinking may be a bit blocky,
but what they are not They are not uncomfortable in
going through that. Now they embrace that discomfort because this
has taken me somewhere. What PDS has given you, And

(47:49):
again when we're working with organizations, what we can give
organizations go, we can fast track you there, we can
give you tools are going to help you think better.
We're gonna share obstacles that you can some strategies to
prevent some of them, but also know how to manage
them when you get them, because we're dealing with human beings.
But will know where you need to start. We know
what the next step is, and we'll hold you back

(48:10):
if you want to go too quick. We're not ready yet.
How are we going to measure this? And I think
that's a framework where it's prices, where where there's an
unknown all like it's going to be discomfort, there is
a direction to go. So we can take you down
a route that is nonlinear, but it's an effective route.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Yeah. And actually that you've made you've reminded me by
mentioning Alan Keen earlier on.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
So Alan Keen is obviously someone that we both work
with and has been on my podcast in the past,
and I can link to the conversations that we've had
with Alan in the past. But one of the things
that Alan did ask, actually that he's quite curious about,
was we did tease in the previous episode that we
were going to explore some areas around ecological dynamics, which

(48:52):
you refer to and ecological psychology, which you refer to
in the course, and it's an area where I've got
some questions.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
And want to sort of unravel those.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
So one thing to say to Alan, who's probably going
to be listening into this and disappointed that we didn't cover.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
The ecological space.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
We will get to it, Alan, we promise, and and
you know, it'll be probably the next episode where we do,
because I've got to a point where I'm I've got
questions and i can't move beyond them until I've got
some of those questions answered. So that's going to be
the next episode. But what we felt we needed to
do was circle back to where is this come from,
what is this project about, what's the journey that we're

(49:28):
we're going on together, share a little bit of some
of the reflections as we unravel this live in the moment,
walking through the mud together and then and then we
can we can move forward. So next week we'll get
back onto the back on track and back moving through
the through the learning journey.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
I guess that's back to again looking at the big
picture of where we go and is this like and
share for these crazy algorithms that we know nothing about.
But if this content, we'll make this content as useful
as we can. We We don't want this content just
to be interested, and we want it to go well,
that's something I'm going to explore, that's something I'm going
to do, or that's something I can take with and
the feedback we get is going to help direct that.

(50:10):
Alan got in touch with you as an example. But
the other element is there's going to be a ton
of people out there that will never see this and
listen to this unless those algorithm and things with the
liking shares help share it. So we're going to keep
doing this. But the more you guys that are listening
can help bring this alive, help get it on the
door step or the eyesight of someone that may not

(50:31):
of that's where we need your support and that's where
we really appreciate that the more it can grow, the
more things we can do just moving forward as well,
what we definitely will be doing is and we will
be going live to organizations that are using these principles,
embedding them and you will see it live. You will
see it at different age groups, different levels of performance,
and we'll run it, we'll speak to the coaches, we'll

(50:52):
focus on an element, and you will see it live.
So it won't just be these conversations. But again, your
support in sharing and this is going to help us
do more things. So looking forward, we're definitely going to
have guests on and we're not going to stay in
our echo chambers. I'd really like to get guests on.
I'm going to give Dave Collins a shout out as
somebody that would be a great guest on here in

(51:14):
the future, and people like that, because what we don't
want to have is we just have people that have
been on the journey or agree in our language we're using.
What we need people to be is that they have
a conversation to go well, actually on social media we
may have disagreed, but actually let's have a conversation to
understand and unpicked so actually we can align and agree.

(51:34):
Not picking Dave Collins out for one, but there are
many people out there that just stick with their little
allies and what we need to be going. Well, we're
all allies in some way because we won't want the
same thing. But sometimes conversations on social media aren't enriched
as human beings can listen and understand. They're a bit
restrictive as we've seen across the world with stars and

(51:55):
everybody else. So live guests, but also if you have questions,
put them in and that will start the form some
of the conversations. But obviously we will still be picking
stuff up from that members area as well, because that's
a great resource that can fast track this journey.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
As always, Mark, I'm fascinating conversation. Lots for me to
reflect on as I drive down the road to pick
up my son from his sports science college course and
take him home. But really enjoyed the conversation and looking
forward to the next one, which will be just before Christmas,
the Christmas episode Christmas Special, shall we say, and then

(52:37):
I'll look forward to continuing the conversation in the new year.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Thanks Hert, and thanks for listening, and please whack that
like and share whatever those technical things our people have
to do to get it out there much appreciated.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
Thank you, thanks