The Olympic Games, High Performance and Supporting Young Athletes - 'A conversation with Chris Shambrook'

In this 'Olympic Special' sports psychology consultant, speaker and author Chris Shambrook joins Gordon MacLelland to discuss the Olympic Games, High Performance and Supporting Young Athletes.

During the conversation they discuss amongst other things:

• Chris' reflections on his Olympic Journey supporting world class performers
• Life behind the scenes of high performing teams
• Being curious about the information we hear as sports parents
• Strategies for helping to support young high performers
• Recognising every child is different and ensuring co-collaboration with our children
• Helping our children intelligently define failure
• The dangers of 'Silver Bullets' of advice
• Personal highlights of the Olympics so far

Chris Shambrook is an accomplished speaker and author and as a sports psychologist worked over 5 Olympic Games with one of Team GB’s (Rowing) most successful sports.

He now uses this immense wealth of experience to support leaders and performers in the world of work.

Chris designs and quality assures 'PlanetK2' programmes and content, and his common-sense, personable approach has had such a positive impact on the people he has worked with.

He also has an Honorary Professorship from Staffordshire University and is the co-author of three books.

www.planet2.com www.theperformanceroom.co.uk

Transcript

Speaker 0:13

Welcome to season five of the Parents in Sport Podcast. I am your host, Gordon Maclelland. I'm delighted to be joined today by sports psychology consultant speaker and author Chris Shambrook. Chris, thank you for joining us on the show.

Speaker 2 0:26

Pleasure. Thank you very much for the invitation. Great to be chatting.

Speaker 0:30

Well, hope you're all enjoying the action. Uh from Paris, we certainly are uh here at Working with Parents in Sport. And we thought, what better than to get somebody on who's experienced it firsthand through the course of six Olympic cycles and five uh Olympic Games in Crisp. But Chris, can you just tell our listeners uh a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2 0:51

Yeah, sure. Um, very, very quickly from an Olympic perspective, I was uh I got the role of sports psychologist with the British rowing team in 1997. So my first Olympic cycle was the Sydney Games. Um and so I was with the team from Sydney all the way through to Rio. Uh a little bit of involvement with some of the athletes in the build-up to Tokyo as well, and a bit of support for the Irish Olympic Federation in Tokyo as well. But most of the Olympic experience uh with the rowing team um through what was a fantastic era from uh you know 2000 onwards, which was building on you know the Steve Redgrave era that started way back before that as well, but you know, peaked in 1996 when that was the only gold medal of Team GB for that Olympic Games. Um then uh UK sport funding came in, lottery funding came in sort of around 97-98. So um, you know, I I was really part of the system when everything was becoming you know upgraded in in a really holistic way. Uh, other bits and pieces of involvement in some other sports and with coaches along the way as well. But um the the rowing was the one where I got to kind of be on the inside and enjoying um what was you know some really incredible moments.

Speaker 2:04

Yeah, I mean uh that you must have had some amazing experiences. We'll dig a little bit deeper into some of those across all of those uh games, and it it sort of brought, I guess, you know, something Dame Catherine Granger, I think, has been quoted as saying about you, Chris, and obviously watching her this morning as the the British uh quad uh won goal. You know, she said, you know, that you had brilliant new ways of thinking about problems and bringing out top performances. Um, what are your memories of of that sort of era? You know, particularly maybe those home games. Presumably London was pretty big for all of you, was it?

Speaker 2 2:39

Yeah, London was pretty big. You know, Catherine's a really good reference point because I think Catherine and I both started on the team in 1997, and she Rio was her last Olympics at you know, as was mine. So I kind of got to experience that you know, a lot of the sort of different challenges and and opportunities that she had through that period. But London particularly was um my my memory of that was actually the season had gone pretty well, and there was a training camp a couple of weeks before on the women's side of the program where two or three of the boats, two of the boats set world's best times. Now it's it's unofficial because it's your own closed program timing, but we knew the boats were flying, and you therefore know the other boats are going pretty well, and and both boats that set the world's best time actually went on to win the gold medal as well. And there was another one of the boats that was pretty close to them as well. So so between the lightweight women's double, the women's double, and the women's pair, there were three gold medals out of that one training camp. And that was that that was just a really exciting um mix of successes because you know, with Helen Glover and Heather Stanning winning the first gold for Team G B at that Olympics, that was actually their first Olympic Games as well. And you don't get many athletes who come in and medal at Olympic Games like their first one. Um, Catherine and Anna in their double, that was obviously you know uh a turnaround from Beijing for Catherine and for Anna who'd got a bronze medal in in Beijing as well. But they'd had a stellar season, and it was just so great watching them and Heather and Helen training together and going really well. But then there was a lightweight women's double of Sophie and Kat, who who had just been so tenacious in terms of how they'd taken on the challenge and how they work together with their coach and their coaching team. And so you got these three very different stories. You remember Kat Copeland going across the line with arms up, kind of we won the Olympics, and you know, just this pure joy, and then the you know, almost the pressure and expectation on Catherine, and then the taking of the opportunity of getting the first gold for Team GB by Heather and Helen by just doing what they did best and performing brilliantly. It just shows some of the different stories that are present. Medal colour might be the same, and and and whether that's bronze, silver, or gold, or a fourth or a sixth, or a fourth, whatever, the position might be the same, but the stories are wildly different, and and the meaning and what it takes for people to get in that position and follow through. So that's the memory for me, as well as you know, on the men's side of the team. And there were some great performances in the lightweight programme, the men's programme as well. And it it just everything with 13 boats out of the 14 qualified and nine medals delivered. It was it was just an exceptional thing where everything got on a roll, and home advantage also just added an icing on the cake for that happening for that whole games.

Speaker 5:31

Yeah, and it was a it was a golden era, wasn't it? I mean, uh, those boats were were streaming down the river in in 2012, and it felt like you were cheering, you know, almost every morning that the the TVs went on. I think uh a lot of the times uh a lot of people who you know maybe don't get that close to that level of sport or see what it is uh going on, you know. Can you just give us a bit of a glimpse, you know, behind the scenes, you know, these high performers, the commitment, what they're putting into it, you know, some of the things that your con you were, you know, working with them around during during that time. Because it is different, you know, people say, Oh, I want to be high performance, want to go to the Olympics, I want to be a professional footballer, but you know, it's not it's not for everybody. And I think the reality of it looks very different to maybe how the general public perceive it.

Speaker 2 6:21

Yes, yeah, and you know, and I think it it's the ratio of preparation to performance and competition that is the most challenging. And when you've got an endurance sport like rowing or you've got very technical sports, you know, that every everyone's got their kind of training to competition ratio, but the ratio is very high where you're doing loads and loads of really forensically focused and sometimes just hard graft training, which often doesn't feel like you're making a huge amount of progress. You just know you're doing a lot of stuff. So it can it can be quite a it's a real challenge to stay driven and motivated and confident when a lot of the time you the tendency might be to focus on things you're not good enough at. And and and so doubt can come in in that time when you're also physically tired. And so there's a lot of managing of progress, um, doubts, emotion, um, projecting to the future and worrying about what might or might not happen based upon today's training session, you know, maybe forgetting some of the brilliance that got you in this position in the first place. So that there's a constant challenge for each individual to find their pathway through. And then you've got the really interesting situation where you've got a squad of athletes training together who are friends and colleagues supporting each other, but they're probably going for limited number of places. So you you also get this, you know, there's also a healthy competition internally, and you've got you want the best for the team, but you want the best for yourself. And so there's there's all sorts of just interesting conflicts to manage and you know, an acceptance really that failure is part of the bargain if you're gonna try and succeed. And and and and that, and that's a really interesting, whether I fail on a training session or I ultimately fail in not making the crew, but I've helped someone else develop who's gonna go forward and get a medal. You know, I've succeeded in playing my part, but I haven't got the ultimate goal. And so people have got to be really clear about what the opportunity is for you to learn about yourself and how you might grow and develop beyond what medal you might be able to hang round your neck or what kind of accolades you might be able to get along the way as well. And I think that's some of the stuff that, you know, that's the stuff that weighs heavily on people's psyche and and emotions, which is why we see much more of the stories about kind of the mental health challenges that people face. Because it's because it's just you know relentless. Yeah. It's like applying for your job every day and hoping that you kind of get you get accepted again to do the next day. Um, it can feel like that. So I think you've got to be ready for that, as well as the brilliant upsides that come as well.

Speaker 8:58

Yeah, we're gonna dig a little bit uh deeper into that failure piece because there's no doubting, certainly in my work, the the the biggest uh, you know, one of the biggest challenges parents face and the most popular workshop we get asked to deliver is how do you manage disappointment with your kid as a parent, particularly when they're younger, younger than that. Um, what I do want to go back to, because you just sort of, you know, a sort of light bulb moment thinking about when we're in performance programs. I think about football academies, and you know, the there's no getting away from the fact that I think people sort of stand, try to rank their children uh from a young age as to where they stand, worried about whether they'll be there uh the following year. Probably in many ways. There'll be, I'm sure, some dark thoughts from some parents that it'd be nice if he got injured or he moved somewhere else because it opens up an opportunity uh for my child, and I'm sure that that goes on, and whether or not anybody will admit it's uh uh another matter. But the reality is actually there's a real strength in having a really good group, isn't there? In many way, in many ways, you should want the best group because your individual progress probably will be better by having great people around you. I mean, what what are your thoughts what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 10:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that and that was one of the things, you know, with within the rowing setup, when it whether it was the whole team training together or the men's squad doing their stuff, the women's squad doing their stuff, you know, what you knew was that because there was a pedigree of Olympic champions in there, you benchmark yourself every day in terms of how well am I doing against someone who's already done it. And and the power of that becomes really very you know clear when you see the momentum that starts to build. You know, to the extent that you see a you know a lot of turnover post-Rio Olympics and not many people returning, and actually it's taken an additional Olympic cycle to get back to the success that we're about to see, you know, purely because we've near this is now much more experience back in the team, from what I can see from the outside. But uh, but uh you know, when you know that by going to train, you're going to have the best development and probably better than anyone else, you're winning the training competition. And if you can win the training competition, the chances are you've given yourself a biggest opportunity to win the competition competition per se. And that's where you know I I I saw that within within elite setups, the athletes who are really good at understanding how does this environment, if this environment was built just for me, how good a job am I doing of enjoying it and benefiting from it? So that that concept of I'm really lucky to that someone's put all of these other brilliant people in place for me to benefit from, I wonder how well I can take advantage of it. But I had that conversation with many different athletes. Look, just pretend this is a game and UK sport has put this entire thing in place just for you. Yeah. How do you want to make the most of it? And you know, and so it's then then up to everyone to kind of go, okay, well, what what what do I want to do with it? How do I want to benefit from it? And if at some point that means I want to choose to walk away, or if I can't continue for one reason, uh, but I know I've invested in the best way I can. I think I think it it helps create a greater sense of self, even though you know it there's there's that bigger picture around you as well.

Speaker 12:21

Yeah, because I I think you you see a lot, uh I'd say particularly in the in the youth space with this, and you know, a lot of young people who go from maybe being dominant in a uh let's say a small pond, then it opens up and they maybe get you know selected. I was over doing some work with Leinster rugby and some girls who done particularly well at under 18 regional girls, and then they'd they'd gone into the the main Leinster program, and actually they did need to just trust themselves and back themselves and do the things that have got them there. But then they suffered this sort of I I guess one parent said to me, you know, they're really struggling with imposter syndrome, you know, this doubt that they should be there, and actually that you know, obviously there's things we can do that to manage it then, but I think we also have got to recognise before then actually we just want the best groups with the best environments and the and the best people almost pulling each other along. So it's it's a strength, isn't it? The competition's a strength as opposed to a threat, yeah.

Speaker 2 13:22

And and there's a real there's a real set of paradoxes in high performance that that are are useful to recognize and enjoy the challenge of managing them. So I so you know there are very few athletes who haven't got you know an incredibly deep drive for perfection. But the relationship between perfection and imposter syndrome, there's a big overlap in the Venn diagram of that. But that's a force for good because it means that I'm constantly driving for more, I'm never satisfied. But that's also incredibly unhealthy if that becomes the only driver and you're not getting better at recognizing how good you are.

Speaker 1 14:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:01

So you have to be a perfectionist, you know. If we're if we're going to rate perfection on the ability to judge how good you are, you need to have a high degree of brilliance at that, as well as being brilliant at picking out the bits that you need to get better at. So that so that whole quality is really important, but we tend to see the downside of it because we don't do the due diligence in terms of, hey, you've got really high standards. I want you to be the best in the world at knowing how good you already are, as well as being the best in the world at knowing how you might add to that or what or what would make you better. And then we can expand these qualities to actually be a force for good rather than I mustn't have imposter syndrome or I mustn't be a perfectionist. It's just like, no, do it. But start playing with that as well as you know, you can be a perfectionist, but you can also be your your greatest supporter.

Speaker 1 14:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:51

One will come more naturally than the other, but but let's see if we can play the game of that. And that and that's where I think those environments are full of people who are never satisfied. So you have to make a really good effort to pause the, you know, press the pause button every now and again and kind of go, right, let's practice being satisfied. Not because it's going to make us complacent, because it updates our confidence foundation to then be able to go again and challenge ourselves from a position of strength rather than a position of worry that I'm not good enough and I'm now just myopically focused on all the things that you know I've been told I need to improve. I've just lost sight of the brilliance that has given me the opportunity to improve all these things. Trust me, if you weren't a legend at all these things, we wouldn't be worried about these things over here. But let's keep let's keep the balance of those things really in in tune.

Speaker 15:41

Yeah, I think that perfectionist one's interesting, actually, quite timely. Next month we've got uh uh he describes himself as a recovering perfectionist in a uh former professional cricketer called Lewis Hatchett, who's doing uh an awful lot of research into perfectionism, and he's had to even you know go through it all himself. And we were just talking, we were saying, you know, as you say, there are some good things uh about being a perfectionist, some very good things, yet there are some things that you probably need to reframe or or or potentially think about from a negative side, which which I think then leads me on to my next point, because I know this is a real bugbear of yours, and it's a bugbear of mine as well, is that then if we look at proportions of social media, the way things are necessarily reported, or as people decide one size fits all solutions, we then get the statements that you've already said there, such as, oh well, perfectionist uh uh perfectionism is uh is a bad thing. And it doesn't have to and there's and there's there's loads of these scattered round. I I use them in workshops to pull up three or four to make the point that actually for all of these statements, you can probably connect with some of them, you can probably contradict some of them, and it's a hell of a lot more complicated. So let's get curious and let's discuss it because there does seem to be a trend towards here is one solution, it's a one size fits all, and this is a blanket statement. And that the brilliant book that I know you've read, and I've read um No Silver Bullet by Steve Pearson. Really good read. Uh, I've enjoyed bringing that into our work. Um what do you make of it all? What's your advice to parents? Who take all these snippets of information? What do we do?

Speaker 2 17:33

Yeah, yeah, so it's it's it's really interesting because it because it's it's a big challenge, but it's a it's a it's a maturation process, I think. And it and it's an ability to kind of go, right? Ultimately, the people who I'm looking at have gone through a process of working out what's right for them. Me doing a copy and paste of what has worked out as right for them is not me copying the right thing. I need to copy the ambition to work out what's right for me. How did they work out what's right for them? What did they kind of learn about themselves that meant they could reject one thing and focus on another? Or they knew there was so it's so it's actually about that a bit the ability to enjoy taking this information and kind of go, how does that feel for me based upon what I know to be true about me? What what do I lean towards it? Do I lean against it? But and and and I would also say it's helpful for people to kind of you know just think of most things as a balance. So if we have a seesaw, one side of the seesaw is weighted towards the preference that we have. Actually, I prefer that side. Right. And it doesn't mean the other side is totally irrelevant to you, it just means it's not going to have the same natural appeal and it won't fit as well. But it doesn't mean you can't practice thinking in that way or behaving in that way. So I think if you've got this approach to kind of say, look, what feels like the side you you naturally go to, and how good a job are you doing of enjoying that and making the most out of that? What does the other side look like? When might that be useful? When might actually leaning towards that one be a bit of a helpful contrast for you? And when might I try and get the balance right between the two? I I give you, so we talk about go back to uh Heather Stanning and Heather Stanning and Helen Glover. Helen Glover is a brilliantly competitive person. Um, and she loves being better than everybody else. Heather Stanning is a brilliant self-referenced performer who loves being better than she was yesterday. Now, between the two of them, you've got a superpower where you've always got the opportunity to kind of go, right? When do we need to be absolutely competing against anything that moves? Because Helen's going to lead us on that. And when do we need to be absolutely brilliant at making ourselves better than we were, independent of what anyone, because Heather's going to lead on that? And you know, you can enjoy the power that that contrast brings. We've all got an opportunity to have both of those things within us, even though there is that natural one that kind of goes, that's me, that fits, and I know, and I know and accept and love being that way wired that way. So that's where I kind of go, you know, if if we can work towards that, some acceptance of what is naturally us, but a curiosity about how we might blend some other things into it, not change it, because that's the other thing these sort of binary things tell us to do is this is right and this is wrong. You shouldn't be like this, you should be. It's just like it's not true. So it's the blend that we're after, really, and the ability to kind of you know mix it up, but still know that if I can get in the sweet spot of doing it, you know, having it all come through. Love it. I'm gonna do it that way.

Speaker 20:46

Yeah, and I think for any sports parents listening, which I know will will have a lot of these who who will listen to this, I think if you see any blanket statements, and those of you who've done that sessions with us, you've just got to treat them with a degree of wariness because Chris has talked about some things there. You know, I could think of things like intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Everybody says to you, oh, you need to be intrinsically motivated. But as Chris said there, there are some young people who are just motivated by winning and being the best. They will probably pick up some of their processes just because that's their motivation. It can be a good thing, it can be a bad thing. I think about things such as what will be a push for some children, will be perceived as pressure by another child. And we've talked about on this show as well about people trying to say some sports parents have been bad, they've been good, they've been helpful and unhelpful, and the challenge of labels is wrong. You know, people tried to criticize David Beckham's dad for his approach with with David growing up. But if you watch things like that documentary, who's to say that what he did didn't help him get through what many human beings would never have been able to navigate through? In the challenges that he faced. And I think that our ability to, you know, remain curious, uh, consider what it is we're seeing, where the information's actually coming from. I think I talk a lot around people stood watching football, people on gym balconies, swimming balconies, who's telling who the information, what is their motivation, what's in it for them? And I think for all of us, it's about us, you know, getting people like Chris on the show, exploring these stories. But ultimately, it is your child. They are different to everybody else. You need to work with them because what works for one child won't work for another. And as Chris said, the more you go through it, the more you try things, the more you experiment, you can bin some of them if they're not proving to be at working at that point in time and adapt. It doesn't mean you can't go back to them later on.

Speaker 2 22:53

Yeah, yeah. And you know, if we if you think of a couple of additional things there, I think, you know, we could look at, you know, if you if you work, if you're playing a sport where you get to try different equipment, you get into try the do I like this, do I like this equipment? Does it make a difference? Is it is it comfortable? Is it does it feel like it's worth sticking with? Because I think it's going to make a difference for me. It's just like, well, actually, some of the personality stuff. So you know, I'm going to try this personality, you know, on the size. And and it's not to change your personality, but it's just like, can I step into that space and and become comfortable at using it? And you know, I think there's also some, you know, usually there is a way to take your personality and bring it to life in the other, the other flip side. So the intrinsic, extrinsic motivation, you know, and and the competitive thing, you know, you you talked a bit about right, you you want to beat everyone at everything. I want you to be the best in the world at bettering yourself every day. So then you get the best of both worlds. You get that desire to be the best, but you, you know, we've now just made up a world ranking of, you know, who's the best at bettering themselves. Because the ego-oriented person will want to be at the top of that. And but actually, the people who are very individually oriented kind of go, I'll I'm good at getting better every day. I'm going to give you a challenge of seeing if you can actually get better at being competitive. What improves your ability to take someone else on to use them as a source of reference, as an inspiration? So, you know, I we you that they both work in all of these things work in a complementary way. It's just not taking it at face value, as you say. It's just like Ben Goldacre's book, Bad Science, that he wrote ages ago. He had some t-shirts made that was, I think you'll find it's a little bit more complicated than that, um, which is you know a rather patronizing type approach, but it is, you know, it will always be a bit more complicated than something that is boiled down to this is good and this is bad.

Speaker 24:50

Yeah, I mean, uh a good friend of the uh a good friend of the show, and Judy Murray supports uh, you know, a lot of our work and she wrote the foreword for her book. I would just think about when you talk about competing there. I mean, isn't I was sat with my kids the other night and thought Andy Murray is just the ultimate competitor because he just stays there, doesn't he? He just gives himself uh he just stays in the game, he finds a way, he finds a solution. And I was thinking about exploring a blog on you know, what does it mean to be a competitor?

Speaker 2 25:23

And that's uh yeah, so I I wrote something uh 15 years ago about you know, can you suffer from Federer syndrome, which was all about the fact that you know can you be brilliant at knowing how not to be beaten in order to give yourself the opportunity to still win? And and if you look at if you look at tennis and you look at those players over, you know, the top four of Murray, Nadal, Djokovic, and Federa, in their own way, they're driven to succeed, but they're really good at knowing how to play to make it really difficult to beat them, they're really good at not failing. Yeah, and if you're really good at not failing for long enough, that might turn things around for you to then start winning again. But if all I've got is win-win-win-win-win-win-win, actually, I've I've I've lost some of the art of competing, which is actually the enjoyment of frustrating an opponent until such point that the momentum shifts back again. So, you know, there's there's these things that we go, oh, it's got to be winning, it's got to be well, maybe, maybe being the best in the world at not losing might be your starting point because that might open up the opportunity to be successful or to win. Um, I and I love that type of stuff because it's just like, look, you know, it's it's all a game anyway. It's playing games for a living.

Speaker 26:42

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, let's throw in another one then while we're on Olympic theme, because beyond proud of her performance last night, Georgia Mae Fenton uh in the gymnastics. So I know mum Lisa well, and Georgia's actually helped me out with um a couple of sessions that we ran with some young gymnasts at South Essex, and we were talking about comparisons because surely comparisons, Chris, is the thief of joy. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's Georgia watches lots of other people, and we'll openly say she nicks people's routines and she looks to invasion on other people.

Speaker 2 27:19

So let's just I love that one because it's just like okay, so when Roger Bannister won the first what did the first sub four minute mile, how come loads of other how come loads of other four-minute miles then got done as well? Just like, you know, bad comparison is the thief of joy. Yeah, but actually, social learning theory tells us one of the best ways of building confidence is to uh and and yeah, Albert Bangier's work shows us that one of the best ways of building confidence is vicarious experience, the observation of others who are similar to me in order that I can steal their confidence that they've done something. I can go, well, I'm like you, and if you can do that, so can I. So I just kind of go, well, it's it's not comparison to say for joy, terrible comparison about someone else's result when you're not anywhere near capable of delivering that result and then holding yourself accountable to doing the same. That's just that's just sort of you know blunt comparison. Yeah, let's get really clear about what healthy comparison looks like, but what needs to be true about how I compare myself with myself in order to then bring in comparison with others. And I saw that in training squads, you know, we we had a lot of conversations and and crews particularly, we'd talk about right, can you all talk about the strengths that you contribute to this crew that you want everyone else to be able to follow the lead of? So I want you to actively be proud of what you offer, but know that you're doing that in such a way that people can benefit from the fact that this observational model is present.

Speaker 1 28:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:00

And people, you know, and confidence is one of the areas that I love the most. And there's a huge amount of uh people who get predominantly confidence from the outside in, confidence from what other people tell them about themselves, or confidence from them using other people as a reference point. I I don't think it's as I don't think it's as um uh I don't think there is as many examples of people who naturally just I'm confident from within and I don't need any validation from outside. So I I love all of that opportunity to kind of go, well, if you value other people's perspectives of you and of and the ability to model against other people, how good are you at using that and accessing that rather than all of the stories that sort of say you mustn't do comparison and you have to be self-referenced in your confidence? So I'm kind of going, I'm no good at doing confidence in myself, but I've been told that I'm not good at doing confidence, and now I'm even less confident in myself because I'm not even doing confidence properly.

Speaker 29:58

So that's just yeah, I I I get it, and it's madness, and and parents listening uh to this show, you know, with younger athletes, and we talk a lot about this, is they tell us that where are our worst, a top three answer for young athletes, where are our worst when we compare them to other athletes. But it's not when we're letting them compare themselves and they use it, it's when, as Chris has just said, we're making blunt comparisons. And actually, what we could be comparing with younger athletes is the fact that somebody's just physically more mature today. Doesn't mean they will be in the future, but they are today. And actually, you're expecting your child to maybe do things that they're just not capable of doing. And you tell that to a young person when they probably know that and make some of their own comparisons. That's some of the bad bits that we're seeing, some of the things we need to consider and work with.

Speaker 2 30:54

Yeah, yeah. And developmentally, kids are looking at different things to work out how competent they are anyway. There's you know, there is a developing process where they they they start to understand competence and what skill looks like. But to begin with, there's a lot more focus on kind of effort and and the way in which you kind of engage. So, you know, uh, so we would be using an adult reference of this is what competence looks like, and trying to impose it into a child who kind of doesn't have the same scorecard. That they're kind of going, I don't, you know, it doesn't fit for me. But actually, we can be really helpful in terms of going, what feels important for you? So I think a lot of the collaborating with the kids and and asking them, what do you think? What are you seeing, what are you noticing, what would you like me to look out for? What are some you know, actually, if they're being engaged in the process of building confidence together, then it becomes a great shared mission rather than me trying to inject it into someone else on their behalf, because I think they could do with a pep talk.

Speaker 31:54

Yeah, absolutely. Now I like this one because as I mentioned earlier, we we touched on this because I think managing disappointment failure, yeah, whatever language you want to use to do it, and I and and you recently said this, and I like this failure is not simply anything other than the success we want. Intelligently defined failure will set you free to pursue success. Now, how do we help then sports parents? What are your thoughts around disappointment, failure, working with young people uh around just working their way through what is difficult for everybody, yet everybody's gone through it. They're not yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 32:40

So so I I think there's there's a couple of things here which I think are much more about yes, you mentioned the curiosity word earlier, but I think the mindset of curiosity where it's about I wonder how well this part of your performance can be delivered today. I wonder how much fun you can have in this bit, I wonder how freely you can do this bit, I wonder how quickly you can respond to this type of situation. So if you're going in with a desire to find out how well something might be done that's been practiced, there isn't really failure associated. There's simply the opportunity to kind of get a benchmark of how well have I translated what I've practiced into a more pressurized environment. So you're really saying we're defining success as the ability to translate what we've prepared into the moments where there is scrutiny and pressure associated with it. So that's nothing to do with the result, that's nothing to do with with the outcome. It's much more to do with success, is about the performance and the the demonstration of growth and progress.

Speaker 1 33:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:45

That's why I say, you know, intelligently defining failure. Failure is practicing something and then going and trying something completely different that you've never practiced before. Failure is actually starting to do it, but only doing it half-heartedly. Because you kind of, you know, for some reason you, you know, ah, that's a shame because you know you went for it and then didn't follow through. We can we can be more successful next time by thinking about how do we get you to commit to the whole thing. So if we define what failure is up front, that allows us to kind of go, we'll only be disappointed if these failure things crop up. But we're not gonna be, we're not gonna define success purely on did you get the result or did you do the personal best or did you get player of the match or whatever. Because that that's just you know, it's it's it's not really about growth and progress. You know, you might you might play terribly and get player of the match because everyone else was just like, you know, it it's it's too blunt an instrument when you're on potentially a pretty long process of growth and development through a sport. Because I tell you that the biggest one of the biggest things that I talked to the Olympians about and other athletes is I've talked to them about, you know, how did you used to play when you were doing it for the first time? Can we get some of the freedom of just doing it for the joy of it into your Olympic performance? Because kids are usually just going out there to play and have a go.

Speaker 1 35:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 35:14

And and and and we want to keep some of that spirit alive. And if we can focus on that, go and have a go at this, because that would be really exciting if you can do that. We can harness that joy and discovery. And if that can be more prevalent through a junior career, just think how powerful that becomes when you can switch on pursuing the joy of the moment when you when everyone else is telling you there's an Olympic gold medal you should be focused on.

Speaker 35:37

Yeah, I I it it's tricky, is it? We're spending a lot of time, Chris, from a sports parent's point of view working with parents to help their kids understand why they're winning and why they're being successful, and looking at some of the sort of character traits that they're gonna give themselves the best chance of maybe achieving what they're achieving. And if on a given week their dis their kids are displaying those traits, regardless of what the outcome says at the end of that week or that particular thing, we know that outcomes are gonna come and go. We if we knew if we knew had a crystal ball, Chris, and we could predict every single outcome, we wouldn't be we wouldn't be sat here, we'd be very, we'd be very wealthy, wouldn't we?

Speaker 2 36:18

So the bookies it'd be very poor, yeah.

Speaker 36:21

Well, yeah, absolutely. And I I think that's uh an important thing again for us as parents, just to think about our conversations at home around failure, disappointment. Um what are we actually focusing on as our children's success? Um God, and one of the other things, I was just thinking, because I think this is um become more and more prevalent, I guess, is how do you separate when your kid's really upset, like properly upset, for something that is just normal disappointment? So I I've been saying recently to parents, right? I can tell you now, over the next five years in this program, you're gonna have the best day, the worst day, somewhere in the middle, somewhere above average, somewhere less than average. You're gonna fall out with a teammate, you'll fall out with a coach, you're gonna get injured, uh, you're gonna get let down by a referee or an umpire decision, you're gonna get asked to play out of position, you're gonna get asked to uh you'll be not selected for something you want to take part in.

Speaker 2 37:25

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 37:26

That is a not if you are entering performance sports, sports environments, for me, they are all a normal part of the experience, they're not the greatest tragedy since World War II.

Speaker 2 37:39

Yeah, yeah, and and equally, if you're going in expecting daily, weekly, monthly growth in a beautiful kind of sort of straight line, again, you know, that's not reality. And so, you know, I I historically I would have done stuff like if you if you can get a wall chart, and it's it's very analogue and not very digital, but you know, a an annual wall chart with a red amber-green sticker thing on it that kind of goes, was there enough today to make it a green day? That I was really satisfied with the commitment I put in, the effort that I made, you know, I I learned something, is there enough that there was it's a green day? Or maybe it was an okay day and didn't set the world on fire, but it's enough to be an amber, you know, and then occasionally there might be a red day. But if you've got this thing on the wall and you can kind of see what the aggregation is over the course of a week, a month, two months, three months, you know, and you can kind of go, how many reds are there actually in this thing? And are you gonna be do you do you want, you know, and how well did you deal with the next day? And that there's there's a uh Jim Lew, American sports psychologist from the 80s and 90s, he talked about never having two days two bad days on the trot. So if you do know you get a red day, it's just kind of go, right? We've got an opportunity to practice bouncing back from a red day. Should we sit? Should we see what we can do? Because then it develops a useful skill. And another, you know, another great sports psychologist, Ken Revisa, another American guy, he he he talked about knowing when not to be in the competition for who can be most disappointed anymore. So, but have your time when you're showing you're disappointed, and that's fine because there's going to be an emotional reaction, but actually there comes a time when it's useful for you to kind of go, right, I think I think I'm done with that because I can start looking forward to making tomorrow at least an amber day, if not a green day. But if I if I if I let the red linger for too long, I'm not actually developing some of that skill, which is developing the ability to manage some of those things that don't go in my favour. So I I think a couple of things like that are are useful. The other thing that that's really important for me here is kind of going because the 100% mentality is a really big one for me. On any given day, I'll wake up and I'm you know, I might not be eight out of ten, ready, nine out of ten, fresh, ten out of ten, feeling on top of the world. But if I wake up and I'm a seven out of ten and I can get seven out of seven, that's a green day straight away. And that's teaching me a really important skill that I don't have to have everything exactly as I'd want it in order for it to be a great day. But very often we'll have a red day because I was in a I was I was five, six, and I expected myself to be a nine ten. And you know, you've got to earn the right to build up to that. But actually, it wasn't a red day. If we'd have just been clear, kind of go, you know, today it feels like a consolidation day. Everything isn't fired on all cylinders, but if I can do a really solid job of making it a five out of five or a six out of six, I'm gonna that that's gonna be really good. So actually just being aware of what does good look like today, rather than it having exactly the same scale every single day, also means that we get disappointed in the right stuff, not just disappointed because we set ourselves up to be disappointed because we weren't compassionate enough in the first place.

Speaker 41:09

Yeah, I I like that one about you know the scales can sort of reset and be different every day. I think that's in part. I was thinking of something we were doing in a girls' football programme recently. We were talking about using little bits of motivational interview, we were talking about it in car journeys home and using the scaling stuff. And one parent did put the hand up and said, Oh, well, but what happens if they gave themselves an eight this week and then the next week, but they're not disappointed if it was a seven. I said, but you but and and that was the exponent. Well, we're not we're not judging it week by week as a grading, we're judging that day on how they were feeling and what the sucks, you know, what we were working towards or or whatever else. And I think that's important that you reset the scales as it opposed to be, oh, well, I'm now an eight, I'm now a nine, and now a ten. Everyone seems obsessed with a rigid with the rigid.

Speaker 2 41:56

And look, what watch in Paris because where there's where there's heats and semis and finals, a lot of that is the art of getting to the final in the best shape possible, but being realistic that you're possibly not going to be in the final in the best shape of your life ever. But as long, you know, if you can manage that process and you've peaked and you've taken done all the right stuff, you'll still be good, but you might not wake up on the morning of your Olympic final feeling the best you've ever felt in your life. Yeah. And if you then go, oh, that's a shame. It was that you know, the summer's out to be out, the birds were supposed to be singing, you know, all sorts of glorious stuff. So it's like, actually, I was ready for this, and I'm I'm a nine today. And if I can make it a nine out of nine, you never know what's going to happen. Yeah, you never know. You know, you look at Tom Pidcock earlier in the week, and you look at sort of you know Alex Yee earlier today, you know, this there's just this stuff that kind of goes, keep yourself in the game where whatever state you're in, that's such a valuable skill to learn, rather than requiring it to be flawless before you'll kind of go, good, I'm gonna do well today because nothing's wrong.

Speaker 43:03

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think yeah, I think you're absolutely right because I suppose if you think about it logically, you put the eight runners across the track on the hundred meters, who's to say that everybody's not feeling six, seven, eight, nine? There might not be any of them feeling 10 out of 10.

Speaker 2 43:19

No, there might not be, and they've they've had to manage the heats, and then it's a comp it's a recovery competition. Who can recover better between the semis and the finals? And they've got that so so you are competing on recovery as well as competing in those things, and that's where you kind of go, how what how how good a job can I do of keeping the capability and capacity there, rather than saying I mustn't lose any capacity whatsoever? It's just like there's a cost to everything. How how effectively can I repay it and top the bank back up in order to withdraw again? And that and that's some of the that's some of the fun of you know, we've just seen it in Euros and tournament competition and you know, momentum. It's it's about managing all those things over a period of time. Time rather than hitting round one and expecting kind of right, I mustn't fall off anything. It's just like hit round one and try and build, but recognize that by building technically and tactically, you're still having to take care of physical stuff and mental load as well. And that's why that's why I love the challenge of all of that, because it comes, you know, we're we're playing a different game here. We're we're playing the holistic performance challenge rather than just focusing on what the medal table is or what the winning time was, which tends to be the thing that gets focused on the most.

Speaker 44:32

Yeah, absolutely. Now I'm conscious of time, Chris, and we've obviously finished by talking about medals. So I I guess this is more of a personal question. Uh, you know, you've you've obviously been watching a lot of the action. What highlights so far? What are you most looking forward to between now and the end of the games?

Speaker 2 44:48

Um, I'm I'm I'm looking forward to seeing Helen Glubber race tomorrow. So she goes in her final tomorrow, which will be uh just just really looking forward to that. Having seen the women's quad win the first gold in that event for British Sculling, British Women's Sculling this morning. Looking forward to that. Um I'm looking for any anytime I can get to see Steph Curry playing basketball, I always enjoy that. And I'm just fascinated as to how that tournament might work out because I think there's you know different performance ingredients across the different countries. Um, and there's always some moments of brilliance in the athletics and some drama and some jeopardy. Um it this is this is the first time I've for quite a while where I've sort of just really thought about spectating and what am I going to watch. So it's quite nice to just kind of be going, I might get some of my sort of just being a fan back because I've definitely lost a lot of being the fan of sport. So then so this is quite nice to reset that. I thought Alex Yi was sensational this morning. I thought Tom Pidcock, his his move having got back on to the sort of you know, to the front of the the race, and his move to win the race was just just a phenomenal bit of competitive instinct and execution, and I love that type of stuff, whilst under the most intense fatigue. You know, just it's just exquisite what all of that stuff. But it's the the the the thing I'm enjoying most is the fact that more often than not, you're kind of seeing everyone stepping into those moments where they need to execute and it and they're they're nailing it. The women in the diving just did it this morning, you know. You just you just look at all they're just kind of going, oh my god, the pressure's on it's the last dive, you've got to nail it, and then they then they deliver their best dive of the competition. And all those types of things, wherever you finish, I think that's brilliant. Because it just nailed it in that moment when it mattered most, and and and you know, you you did it. And I don't care what the judges score or what the clock says, you know, to be able to do that after all of that preparation, it's just like that that's what it's all about.

Speaker 46:58

Yeah, and I'm glad they're also not plugged into what the commentators are saying and how we're reacting at home because I think that would throw them throw them miles off. But yes, it's amazing when those um moments unfold. Chris, um absolute pleasure uh to have you on the show. Uh, thank you for joining us. Enjoy uh the rest of the action, and um hopefully we'll we'll get a chance to chat again at some point in the future.

Speaker 2 47:23

Yeah, it'd be a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity to chat and enjoy it as enjoy it yourself as well.

Speaker 47:29

Thank you for listening. Check it out at parentinsportco.uk