Are You Stuck in the Comfort of Your Knowns?

It's not an overstatement to say that my work is teaching me profound insights.

If you've been with me on this journey for any amount of time, my assumption of you is that you're interested in seeing life differently.

This requires reflection with depth.

Answers, certainly in my experience, are often not straightforward and take more and more contemplation to be revealed.

So I want to set out a layer of this for you. I'd love to hear where you take it - whether that's discarding it or if it's embodying some aspect to it.

I've broken it down into 3 parts. So here we go!

Point 1: Fear and lack are the real motivators within high-performance sport.

The term "athlete-centred" is a cliche in most coaches/support staff's philosophy. But this creates a servant mentality, bringing a fear mindset that's virtually always active, to the surface.

This shows up in ways such as:

• Self-preservation (low psychological safety - job insecurity & need to prove impact as an individual)
• We value depth of knowledge over the ability to share knowledge
• The hierarchical nature of sport restricts true collaboration
• We're trained as a practitioner through a silo lens (S&C, physio, physiologist etc)
• Technical knowledge is valued far more than understanding self

From my perspective, high-performance sport is based in fear/lack e.g:

• If I don't do well we will lose
• I need more power and control to get the outcomes I seek
• My peers will see I'm not good enough
• I will lose my job
• I must beat my competition at all costs to get the job/win/be the best
• If not I won't be seen as a great practitioner etc.

This matters because impact with athletes is being significantly impacted, here is a piece I wrote recently - click the image to read.

Point 2: Stuck in the comfort of knowns

I think we, me included, stay stuck too often in focusing on the knowns to solve the questions we are faced with at work and in life.

I believe that our professional silos within the physical, psychological, nutritional e.t.c support have been done.

What I mean by that outside of doing the basics expertly well, is that there are such small increases available now that the time and effort to find them through different loaded schemes, strategies and the like offers such negligible increases it's not worth it.

And are these small increases the real differentiator?

In my opinion - NO!

Focusing on enhancing (inner awareness not knowledge) the staff and athletes (people) is an area many don’t even think of in the performance picture (sport or corporate world).

My thinking goes straight towards people like Cody Royle and of course myself and the support they/we offer to head coaches/support staff.

Cody talks about the four crafts of head coaching

• Organizational Craft
• Personal Craft
• Locker Room Craft
• Game/technical Craft

This quote of his really hits home:

“While we scrounge around for a new squat technique to try to uncover a 0.01 per cent improvement in an athlete, I believe there are multiple percentage points of talent sitting dormant within our head coaches.”

My focus at Men Behind Sport is around really guiding support staff into understanding themselves and their blind spots in how they contribute to inefficient environments - see article higher up this letter for context.

This leads them to be empowered to enhance themselves, how they show up and how they become greater leaders of others by doing this.

As former CEO of Sale Sharks Sid Sutton said to me when recording a recent episode for the Untapped Potential:

"Leadership is a show, not a tell."

Point 3: Understanding show - Becoming aware of the subtle

What's your take on energy?

I'm sure your first thought is on or around mitochondria and ATP, which is of course important to know.

I've come to realise that energy is the most profoundly untapped and misunderstood area of study and application in understanding who we are as human beings.

To the best of my understanding in this moment:

• Energy = electromagnetic frequency and information that is not available to the 5 senses. It requires developing the sense through divergent and convergent focus to be able to tune in, connect with and influence.

Simply put energy is information, and the physical body is the printout.

Before you scoff at this idea, as I did first of all, consider for a moment that the idea of energy can be looked at from a very clear scientific perspective.

Scientific lens

In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll introduced the concept of the umwelt. He wanted a word to express a simple (but often overlooked) observation: different animals in the same ecosystem pick up on different environmental signals. In the blind and deaf world of the tick, the important signals are temperature and the odor of butyric acid. For the black ghost knifefish, it’s electrical fields.

HeartMath is an example of an organisation that has spent over 20 years studying the heart/brain connection. the heart produces an objectively measurable electromagnetic field outside of the body. Read more about it here.

Right now you are surrounded by waves of frequency and energy. Wifi signals, radio waves, ultraviolet light, and sound octaves you can't hear. So what seems like nothing around you consists of waves of frequency and information just outside your perception using your limited 5 senses.

 As neuroscientist David Eaglemen PhD says:

"The more science taps into these hidden channels, the more it becomes clear that our brains are tuned to detect a shockingly small fraction of the surrounding reality. Our sensorium is enough to get by in our ecosystem, but is does not approximate the larger picture.

I think it would be useful if the concept of the umwelt were embedded in the public lexicon. It neatly captures the idea of limited knowledge, of unobtainable information, and of unimagined possibilities. Consider the criticisms of policy, the assertions of dogma, the declarations of fact that you hear every day — and just imagine if all of these could be infused with the proper intellectual humility that comes from appreciating the amount unseen."

You are embedded in the Newtonian world of physics: Force, velocity, acceleration etc all very important and real factors in sport and our 3D reality.

The quantum model of physics also exists, yet from what I have experienced and seen, the world of sport doesn't even look in this space. 

For me, my main experiment is around skillfully working with and being aware of my energy. How different environments interact with my energy, and how I can or sometimes can't self-regulate.

There is no doubt for me now, that experience is the greatest professor.

In my investigations energy centres (chakras) are real. A bitter pill to swallow for a former S&C coach who naively thought he knew all there was to know about the body!

Yet, what I'm learning through my own experiments is that, if you change your energy you change your experiences in life.

My main go-to for this is Dr Joe Dispenza - click here to watch one of his team's keynote on recent research.

Here's the point...

Yin and Yang. Masculine and Feminine. Intellect and Intelligence. Mind and Heart.

Same same but different as they say in Thailand...

This is about energy behind intention.

The masculine has an energy:

• Focus
• Logic
• Control
• Strength
• Pursuit
• etc

The feminine has an energy:

• Expression
• Creation
• Flow
• Pause
• Surrender
• etc

Therefore it's a state of being that can be inhabited by both men and women - all of us have access to both.

The predominant state/energy/intention in the people within sport environments, and generally in society for the past few 1000 years is one of masculine. No doubt, it's led to great breakthroughs and advancements, and yet much of this has been based from the level of fear.

For me though, we are at a time where the balance of masculine AND feminine energy is needed to evolve - in sport and our wider Western culture.

The master, man or woman, constantly monitors what's needed in the moment and responds.

I love this description I heard by Aubrey Marcus where he practices the art of embodying the Warrior Poet—the balance between poles.

...reflections for you:

• Are you a show or tell leader?
• Are you aware of the energy you bring into the room you're in?
• Are you able to monitor and respond in the moment to what's needed?
• What resonates?
• Where do I lose you?
• Can you encompass design thinking in being able to open up a lens you may not be aware of right now?

I'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on this!