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Lead it Like Lasso: A Ted Lasso Rewatch Podcast
Marnie Stockman and Nick Coniglio, authors of the book Lead it Like Lasso, dig into each episode of Ted Lasso with a lens of leadership. Each podcast starts with a fun quick-clip summary of the episode. Marnie and Nick tie together the leadership principles from Ted Lasso, their own business successes, thought leaders and everyday advice to help individuals level up as they lead themselves (and others). This is a great podcast for TedHeads! There are many other Ted Lasso podcasts out there - this is the "same but different."
Lead it Like Lasso: A Ted Lasso Rewatch Podcast
Leadership Lessons from Big Week | S3 Ep4
🎧 NEW EPISODE DROP!
In Ted Lasso Season 3, Episode 4 (“Big Week”), the gloves come off — both on the field and off. AFC Richmond faces off against West Ham, but the real battles are more personal.
In this episode of Lead It Like Lasso, we dive into:
âš˝ Ted vs. avoidance
⚔️ Nate vs. guilt (and Rupert’s manipulation)
đź’Ľ Keeley vs. a very awkward first impression
🔥 Roy & Beard vs. Ted’s “let it go” approach
🎯 Rebecca’s war cry: “Beat them!”
Leadership Lessons We Explore
✨ Overthinking vs. Execution
✨ When anger becomes motivation — and backfires
✨ What to do when your past haunts your present
✨ How to deliver tough feedback (the RIGHT way)
✨ And why being your authentic self is still your best bet in high-stakes moments
Plus: Zava wisdom, Van Damme dreams, and 4 a.m. Jamie Tartt.
📬 And check out our newsletter at workinprogmess.ai and our new book The Business of You.
#LeadItLikeLasso #TedLasso #Leadership #AuthenticLeadership
Hi again everyone. I'm Nick Negleo.
Speaker 2:And I'm Marnie Stockman, and this is Lead it Like Lasso, a Ted Lasso rewatch podcast. We are the co-authors of Lead it Like Lasso, a leadership book for life your life and, as of this week, we are also the authors of the Business of you, available on Amazon.
Speaker 1:So this podcast is an extension of many of the elements outlined in our book Lead it Like Lasso. We invite you to join us as we take a deep dive into each episode and explore the leadership principles as they played out in the series. And for today's episode, we're diving into season three, episode four, which is named the Big Week Big Week, big Week. So, quick recap the Big Week is really more than just a match on the pitch. It's about facing your past, whether it's ex-husbands, ex-teammates or even ex-versions of yourself. This episode really centers on the showdown between AFC Richmond versus West Ham, but we think the real story is internal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many verses right, like Ted versus Nate, but also Ted versus his own avoidance.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then there's Rebecca versus Rupert, which is somehow masked as a soccer rivalry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not about soccer at all. Nate versus Nate right he's starting to it's weighing on him how he was last season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sure is. And Keely meets Jack for the first time.
Speaker 2:I don't even like thinking about that. That would be awkward. Yeah, roy and Jamie. Jamie is aiming to get better with some training.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Shandy is really starting to push push the boundaries of the working relationship with Keely and personal relationship. I think yeah, so we'll see where that goes.
Speaker 2:And then Beard and Roy take matters into their own hands and trying to motivate AFC Richmond against West Ham at halftime.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so where do you want to start? Is there any particular topic that you're really anxious to dive in on?
Speaker 2:So yeah, really anxious to dive in on. Um. So yeah, fairly early on, beard and Roy are talking about, uh, how they're going to set up the team and they said, okay, so we could do the four, the two, four, two, right. And then, but, nate, I'll think we're doing the false nine, but then he's going to assume we're going to do the four four two, so then he'll assume we're doing the five four one, and so we should. And I was like woo, all of that. And they get back to Nate's false nine, right. And I thought overthinking, uh, is a very real thing. As a matter of fact, just this week I saw somebody comment on the fact that overthinking is just the kiss of death for anything. How about execute over, executing like?
Speaker 1:you're what those are wise words yeah, yeah, they are. So that's what I wanted to talk about first well, I think, uh, it's pretty appropriate, because what do we talk about all the time?
Speaker 2:we talk about defeating the blank page yeah, and don't let perfect be the enemy of good, right or done.
Speaker 1:It's just overthinking everything. You know, I think as I, as I think back, uh, especially early on in my career, but it still plagues me to this day. I overthinking on almost anything that I do ends up producing, I think, a worse result. I don't need to look much further than my hobby. You know my passion, which is on a golf course. Anytime I overthink, it ends up poorly, without a doubt. That's the least concerning part. I think overthinking in anything in a professional environment never, ever, leads to any paralyzing.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah. There's a difference, though, I think, between overthinking and brainstorming, and I think, I think we need to make that pretty clear, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think, all ideas on the table to open up the top of funnel thinking in that regard? There's no, you shouldn't shut that down. Uh, one of my bosses would have a flag up. If you put the flag up, it was there are no bad ideas, no criticisms of ideas, everything's on the table. And then, after 10 minutes, flag down. So now it's. Now. Let's weed through and get to the ideas we want to do I think of. Well, you know, one of my favorite words is perseverating, right, the overthinking of where you just stew on something until it really does freeze you and gets you stuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. For those little behind the scenes sausage making here, I think Marnie has uh has told me many times you're persevering too much over this. That is good advice, I think. Words to live by for sure. Um so do you think they do, you think they outsmarted themselves in the show, overthinking.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, I think that's what they were trying to communicate, that to us for sure, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it was. It was funny when Higgins came in and really brought up a point that in all their overthinking they did not uh, they did not consider, which is how's Zava going to feel about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and funny. You mentioned what other people are thinking, because the next day I wanted to bring up was actually Zava who said don't listen to all the talking heads, as people were listening to all of the pundits again and I thought that is another good piece of advice. Um, you know, you and I, now that we have the business of you out, talk about how everybody's got an answer, but they might not have your answer. And then Zav is saying cut out that noise.
Speaker 1:So even when they're facing in his, in your direction, I think that's always something to really remember. You know, we, we talk. We sometimes we talk about this whole notion of an echo chamber, right where everybody is. You're, you're soliciting input from people who have the same thoughts and ideas and will agree with you all the time, and I think that was the. I agree with your message as a whole, but I think zava made a point to say all right, right, they're tooting our horn, right, but we don't. We need to ignore them. We need to take focus. Yeah, and Jamie said that as well Focus, maybe he's right, but it was kind of weird because Zaba had some good one one liners in the show. It wasn't just that one.
Speaker 1:And when you know it was a little well, a little out of context.
Speaker 2:But his message to zero about yes wherever you need to be whoever you want to be, yeah, yeah, he wants to be van damme apparently yeah, as ted would say very early on in the series.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he realizes how emotionally healthy that that is. Yeah, that was. Yeah, that's the same thing that jamie, basically in a different way, way back when.
Speaker 2:So funny, you mentioned that because I have been thinking about how Zava and Jamie both divas in different ways, but they have made darn sure that Zava was not just another Jamie Tartt right, Because they'd have to take a similar path. So he is a very different but interesting. Interesting that, like, I like who I am and then, Van Damme, you can be whoever you want to be. Yeah, that's good catch, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Oh well, behind the scenes, Marie doesn't often say I'm a good catch, so that's two behind the scenes we've got going on here. All right, my turn. So the one thing that I wanted to cover because I think it tends to happen quite a bit is the whole notion that the team finds out that it was really Nate who tore down the sign. Yeah, beard, along with Trent, trent's genius, and checking the recordings, and Roy, find the video.
Speaker 1:They show it to Ted and Ted's like squash it you know we don't need this, but of course Ted is a little preoccupied with Rebecca at halftime and Beard and Roy actually show the video to the team and they come out. I forget the words they use Dirty, angry.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, All those types of words ended up with three red cards.
Speaker 1:Clearly does not work the way they intended to work. But when you talk about motivations, a lot of people will try to find a way to use anger as a motivation. Yeah, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Well, it only works so far. Um, like you can, only I get that that can be motivating in the business world. Uh, they often say, if you want to take out your competitor, that's sort of a big North star idea that you can go for. But when you get to that level where you have done that, your motivation is almost gone right. So you have to have something beyond the anger because something's going to remove that anger, even if it's just time, because you just can't stay in that hot, stressful situation for a long period of time. What did you have in mind? I feel like I'm giving the wrong answer.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think you're giving the wrong answer at all. As a matter of fact, we may have talked about this in season one of this podcast, but that was so long ago that I'll say it again. I do recall a time when I was in consulting and we had one of our lead consultants actually leave us, organize a coup, so to speak, took a couple of consultants and directly engaged with one of our clients and, my gosh, we were angry, we were furious.
Speaker 1:It ended up that we were just spending all of our cycles, you know, not only figuring out ways to stop it, but to in some ways get a little bit of revenge and get them out of that particular client and we put everything else on hold and we let things we got, sloppy things that you know we would normally take care of for being ignored put to the wayside because we were so focused on rectifying this situation. I'm not going to use the word revenge, but it was. It was pretty much revenge and I'll never forget. At some point, thank God, we had a, we had a leader that saw this and said you know, this is not the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:It's not the right thing to do for our customers.
Speaker 1:It's not the right thing to do for existing employees, it's not the right thing to do for us because, exactly as you said it, it it's not sustainable, it wasn't long-term, it would have been done over and done with and everybody would have been the worst for it. So I think wherever, wherever possible. You know, motivation is great. The wrong kind of motivation is the opposite of that. And I always try to keep that in the back of my mind, for sure.
Speaker 2:So, with that in mind, the notes I had taken was they were playing under stress, right, because of this anger and pressure. And when you are behaving under stress, you revert from your aspirational goals to your primal way of being right, fight or flight, kick in, and so that's what really came to mind. Is anger creates the stress when you're not your best version. Ted's all about helping them become their best version. 0.0 people played as their best version in that, so you know when you're when you're fearful or angry and you're moving to survival or safety it just doesn't, doesn't play well.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to point out that your primal being that fight or flight is very different than you acting in accordance with your core values.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah it's not.
Speaker 1:Some people think it's the same. It's not because you have all sorts of things. Just ask me, when I have a panic attack, right I. There are things that that take over my mind and I have no idea who that is. Not only, uh, do I not like it, um, but it's. It's not how I feel on a day-to-day basis. And that's how everyone feels when they're under stress, for sure, yeah, I, I get super tactical boss.
Speaker 2:You know, depending on the scenario I know, I mean I can picture it really changes your decision making Right it. It also changes your disconnected mentally from so there's there's a gap. I believe the technical term is cognitive dissonance, and when I say I believe that means I wrote it down because I had to look it up. I don't keep that one handy it up, I don't keep that one handy. There's also greater potential for burnout because you just can't live in that state and I think what you're speaking to is sort of it is almost contrary to your integrity. Right, it's kind of challenging your own integrity because it's not who you really want to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So along those lines, since we're talking about integrity and who you want to be, there was that awkward, embarrassing moment when Keely found out that she was going to meet the person behind the funding of KJPR. She fully admitted that she was nervous. So I'm curious any advice? What do you think about when you're meeting somebody, for whatever reason, you deem as important, or somebody that has some sort of high stakes potential in your life? How do you get through that? How do you manage and navigate that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it gets better as you mature. I can remember in high school I had to call the speaker for our graduation ceremony and I thought this was a very important person. I remember thinking I wasn't dressed well enough to stand in the main office and make this phone call and I was trying to be very proper. But then when I talked to them and they were just human, I could relax and just speak like a normal human being. So I think the challenge is to just really be your authentic version. I think that's the challenge. I'm going to throw this in there because I think it's funny.
Speaker 2:We've chatted with Billy Brimblecum right, who runs Thundergong with Jason Sudeikis, and when we've chatted with him he said some people get so weird when they meet Jason. He said if you ever get to meet Jason, don't be weird. And the only thing that goes on in my mind is I know if I ever meet Jason Zagatis today, cause only weird things are going to come out of my mouth. Um, so yeah, that what comes to mind is you have to fight to reduce the noise in your head and to just realize they're another person and to show up as your authentic version. If Keely could just be confident about who she was, which is what Rebecca was trying to give her right. Rebecca knows who she is, so she's unaffected by that. What do you think?
Speaker 1:Oh, I agree. I will say that again. Like many other things, this was something I certainly struggled with, especially when I was younger. So I wholeheartedly agree that as you mature, it becomes easier and easier.
Speaker 2:But don't you think that's because you know who you are, and so you're well aware of how you I think that's definitely part of it.
Speaker 1:I, I think you know I used to approach meetings like that, like when Keely was meeting Jack. She knew she was going to meet her at some point. So to me it was all about preparation. I would, I would, I would try to learn every everything about the person I was going to meet, which is a great. I think that's a really good thing to do, don't?
Speaker 1:get me wrong, I still do that yeah 100%, but I still remember, even after doing that it was oh my gosh, my hands are, they're all clammy, they're wet, I'm cold, my voice is quivering all those fun types of things Although my voice is quivering, all those fun types of things and it does come down to feeling good about yourself at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:But it also helps me remembering that you know what. I've made some really bad first impressions because I was so nervous. It's kind of like overthinking things. When you're really nervous, the best part of you typically doesn't come out, at least in my case, and I made it through those, you know. So again, with the maturity comes experience and the fact that you know what. I had some really great relationships where I I didn't make a good first impression and I overcame. That is very, very helpful for me. So you combine that with the. Obviously that's the experience, but with a better understanding of who I am as a person and the fact that you know what I'm not Marnie Stockman, you know. Let me again fill the audience. And it's really hard when both Marnie and I meet somebody for the first time because you're very outgoing, very energetic and that's not me, but understanding who I am. That helps and I'm pretty good with that.
Speaker 2:It's funny you say that because when I meet someone new I often think what would Nick do and you would have a great question. You would also know everything about whatever their favorite hobby is, regardless, and if goodness knows their favorite hobby is regardless, and for, if goodness knows, if it's a sport, you're going to know all of their favorite players, games, anything. I can't, I don't even try to keep up there, but I do try to think about what would Nick do here and I know you would ask questions and you would be a great listener. So I mean I think that, yeah, it is more behind the scenes baseball or whatever that saying is which I'm getting wrong. Not very Ted of me to get the saying wrong, but but yeah, I think everyone can learn from the other, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, about how do I typically show up and how might I want to show up, and you know planning for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and asking questions is a good one right, because if you're not sure what to say, let somebody else speak and eventually you'll find your voice and whatever answers come up, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What else you got in this episode.
Speaker 2:Um, so I had a few other notes. Oh, rupert telling Nate good job, you did what's best for you. And then nate says knight rupert, and rupert says mr manion, oh, that's yeah, anybody that plays that, I don't. I don't even want to talk about it. Um, now, of course I took a big note when ted said he was a work in prog mess, because this is actually the motivation for our newsletter, which is a snarky little satirical newsletter called Work in Progmas. So you bet I put a big old star around that on my paper.
Speaker 1:Workinprogmasai. A little blatant publicity there, for sure. And you know it's, I think, what's kind of again the brilliance of the writers. We say it week after week after week, this whole notion, the theme Ted, you know, am I a mess? Right? First Sassy tells him he's a mess, then he goes to the Diamond Dogs asking if he's a mess, and then he goes to Rebecca again asking if he's a mess, and the reality of it is the diamond dogs call him out. Right, you're a mess, of course. You're a mess because you're asking about this and you're not dealing with the elephant in the room, which is that we're playing nate this week.
Speaker 1:Um, and, and the whole fact of that, ted is avoiding that whole situation almost in its entirety, just hoping things are going to work out. But at the very end of the show, while he doesn't really address Nate you know he tries to make small talk and be nice with Nate he actually calls up Michelle and said you know what that really, the fact that you're with Dr Jacob, that really ticks me off. So he finally came around to it, but it was not with who we thought he would, he would confront his feelings with. It was at least during this episode. It was with Michelle.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that is one of three notes that I put around how you should deliver tough news or bad news or feedback which is one-on-one. So, rebecca, when she pulled Rupert aside and said I saw you with your assistant right, she pulled him aside and said it Keely to Shandy Jack was standing right there. She could have played a big power trip Look, I'm the boss, shandy, you got to change that Pulled her aside. And then Ted talking to Michelle, I just think that's always an important leadership lesson that, regardless of the emotions that you need to keep in check, that you need to deliver tough feedback one-on-one feedback one-on-one, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:I mean number one. It's the opposite of what Rupert would do.
Speaker 2:I mean based on what we just talked about. Yeah, and you just think about what Rupert would do the opposite. You're in good shape.
Speaker 1:I mean because I think that's power trip, that's command and control, dressing somebody down in front of a group of people. It really ends up destroying trust on the team. And how often do we talk about the importance of trust for teamwork? And I think that there is always. When you're delivering feedback, it's awkward. Delivering feedback it's awkward. You have to give somebody a chance to process that information in an environment where they could be as authentic as they possibly could be and in receiving that feedback, whether they agree with it, disagree with it, however they process it. If they're in a group setting like that, it typically will not come out the way either they want or you want as a leader.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because the three receivers didn't say anything. Yeah, as I remember it, it doesn't. It's not always going to play out that way.
Speaker 1:for the record, the way it plays out in TV for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that nice. Oh, what are the writer gonna say? Like they're gonna say they say nothing.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, yeah no doubt it was a pretty big episode it was a very good episode, yeah did we? Did we miss anything? Anything that was on your list?
Speaker 2:uh, no, that was. Those were all of the big leadership elements I did like the fact that it starts with Roy training Jamie at 4am. He's like have you lost your mind? And then when Roy shows up the next time, jamie is ready to go. All right, I'm in. So I'm excited to see where that goes.
Speaker 1:Important to remember that growth isn't always this loud and blaring thing. Right, there was no big speech there. I'm just showing we're putting in the time. It's just consistent effort, Um, and both sides. You know Jamie's committed to training hard and Roy is fully committed to coaching and at the end of the day, that almost always is your best chance for success, For sure.
Speaker 2:It definitely wins in the hearts of the viewers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they got us. That's for darn sure.
Speaker 2:Indeed.
Speaker 1:All right, I guess that is our whistle whistle, so game's over, but the leadership lessons they keep playing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they certainly do. And, as a reminder, you can find us here, there and everywhere on social, at LeadItLikeLasso and, of course, leaditlikelassocom.
Speaker 1:We'd love for you to check out our snarky sidekick of a newsletter that we just mentioned, workinpragmasai. Yeah, We'd also love for you to check out our new book, thebusinessofyouai. So until next time, stay curious, stay kind and keep leading it like lasso.
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