Beyond the Cleats
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Beyond the Cleats
Building Your Toolbox: The Power of Versatility
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Can mastering a wide range of skills truly set you apart from the competition? Join us in this episode of Beyond the Cleats as we uncover the secrets behind building a versatile toolbox for success, both professionally and athletically. We promise that by the end of this discussion, you'll have a new appreciation for the importance of adaptability and the diverse competencies needed to excel in any team or workplace.
Listen as we explore how athletes with broad skill sets, much like utility players in sports, become indispensable assets on the field. We also delve into how the principles learned in sports and military environments can be applied to careers, emphasizing the significant edge provided by versatility and the ability to learn from others.
But it doesn't stop there. We stress the crucial role of consistency and dedication in skill improvement. This episode encourages you to self-reflect, identify both your strengths and areas for growth, and practice regularly to achieve substantial progress over time. By the end of our conversation, you'll be inspired to jot down your own skills and areas for development, gaining a clearer understanding of your personal and professional potential. Don't miss this thought-provoking dialogue on the necessity of versatility and adaptability in achieving success.
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Creating a Versatile Toolbox for Success
Speaker 1What's up guys? Welcome to the Beyond the Eats podcast. I'm here with Miss Elena Keeley and today we are going to be talking about one of my favorite analogies, which originally is called the slapper's toolbox, which I'll get into. But we're going to talk about creating your toolbox whether that's professionally, athletically, we're going to get into it.
Speaker 1So the slapper toolbox stemmed from myself being a slapper essentially. So what a slapper is in the context of softball is you have your hitters and then you have someone tiny like me who I'm a good hitter but we essentially have want to hit the ball a certain way. I always make the funny analogy that I hit the ball into the ground and I run really, really fast. My goal is to get on first, or like move runners over. That's like my only objective. I don't hit home runs and I'm proud of it. So essentially, with that, a slapper has many tools at their disposal.
Speaker 1Essentially, with that, a slapper has many tools at their disposal. So for me it was my bunt, or it was. We had something called a soft slap which I'd make the ball bounce on the ground, or hard slap which I'd try to hit a line drive. So that's where the slapper toolbox essentially came from and I really started to translate that into kind of my professional life, which we all have tools and skills that make us valuable. From the athletic standpoint it's, you know, depending. You want to have tools that not only aid you but aid your team. And it's the same way in the workplace, where you want to have tools or skills that are going to make you valuable Because you have to give value, to add value. You have to add value in order for them to give you value. And it's very kind of you probably have a set of skills that you like in soccer. What are some soccer skills?
Speaker 2There's a bunch of different ones. You know, I feel like soccer players have to be super well-rounded, not going to lie. Like you know, you have those. Well, I guess positionally too, like you have those people that can run a lot. You know, that's a huge skill. Communication's a huge skill. Communication's a huge skill. Footwork's a huge skill.
Speaker 1Passing shooting throw-ins, so you're probably going to have certain people that are better passers or better shooters.
Speaker 2Yeah, or they can see the field really well. Those are like your midfielders that are playmakers. They have all those other skills as well, but that's like is to like be like a playmaker or something like that. But there's like all kinds of different like you're getting at like the toolbox is filled, like you know you have different things you can pull from to accomplish whatever you're trying to accomplish on the field, whether that be like a throw into someone's feet or, like you know, using your, your brain to you know, get a header and a goal or something like that. You know, like all those different things like all make up, uh, a soccer player and you're not always going to have the same skill set as someone else in something that they are doing. So, like you know someone's really good at like scoring, so they're at the forwards. You know they go up there, they score some goals.
Speaker 1A defender's not going to go up there and be a forward and you know you have those players that are adaptable and like can do a bunch of different things and those are so valuable, those, those coachable, like, uh, adaptable players that literally can go anywhere in the field you're super about and that was going to be my next question it's like, so would you say, the more skills you have, let let's say like really good footwork, but you're also fast, so you could be being adaptable to where you can maybe go from a midfielder let's say you're a midfielder, yeah To a what is it? The strikers, yeah.
Speaker 2Forward strikers. Forward strikers, yeah, or like even outside back, sometimes will be forwards because they're just quick on the outside and they can cross the ball in really well and also score, or like vice versa. Those players are the types of players Well, that's how I was as a player was I could play pretty much any position besides goalie, but literally anything. So I started my career. So actually, no, in high school I was primarily midfield forward, that was pretty much. It Went into college and they decided to train me as a center back completely different world. I had never done it before. I was like, what am I doing? But I wanted to get on the field. And that's the god is that. I wanted to get on the field. So so bad that I would do anything to get on the field. Whether it was that I was going to be a center back or forward, like I didn't care, put me on the field and that's it. Like I. I had no care in the world, I just wanted to be on the field. So bad.
Speaker 1So would you say as a, as a coach, then those players that have kind of those valuable, kind of interchangeable skills, where you can kind of put them anywhere, they add more valuable value to the team because it makes it you're more flexible in your, would you say.
Speaker 2Absolutely. I mean, if you can go play seven positions, I'm going to take you probably over the one that can play one, depending on what I need on my team. You love the utility players though.
Speaker 1The utility players. That can just do. We have those in softball too. They just like utility.
Speaker 2You put them in the midfield.
Speaker 1You can put them in like the infield, you can put them in the outfield.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, it doesn't matter where they go, they just are going to be like they're going to make an impact on the field.
Speaker 1So wouldn't it be really positive if you could also be a utility player in your professional life?
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 1I mean, that goes hand in hand, right, If they can you know, if your boss can trust you to handle multiple different tasks or different skills, like for us, like as technicians, we have lab skills. So it's like you get someone, someone who's like when I went, when I, you know, became a technician when I got to my job, I'm like, okay, how can I be valuable? It's like, okay, well, I'm gonna be on the. We have, like this metabolic, I'm gonna learn the metabolic cart. Okay, now I'm gonna do venipuncture, let's do.
Developing Versatile Skills for Success
Speaker 1Oh, they need people to fly the. We have something called the hyperbaric chamber. I tell people I fly a submarine, we basically simulate altitude. It's like, oh, I'm gonna fly. So it's it's like I know by, and I'll be completely honest, it was purely from a job security, security perspective. I'm, you know, kind of a contracted employer. So once your year's up yeah, your year could be up, yeah, or it could not. So I, it was almost, uh, I would say a little bit. It's a place of, I would say, selflessness, but also selfishness like selflessness, selfless in the fact that I want to do better, you know, for the people around me, yeah, but also job security and kind of creating those, those different skills and those different kind of ways you can be an asset to the team in a way which I think is super valuable. Whether you're an athlete or whether you know, from the athletic perspective or also on the professional perspective, I think that's what's gonna, you know, make, make you more competitive. I would say like in the, would you say maybe more like competitive Is that?
Speaker 2I feel like that's the right word. I mean absolutely If you're especially if you're like a player that's like trying to get into the college level and like play at a different level.
Speaker 2Obviously, like those players that are out there and just like grinding at anything that they can get their hands on just for the sake of like grinding, are going to be the ones that you know you look for over like, um, you know a player that, just like you know, can only do one thing and that's it.
Speaker 2So, like that, if they're bad at that one thing that day, well, you're probably less likely to play those players. They can go around the field like all right, maybe, like I just forward today, you're just not. But let's put you as, like you know, a winger, like maybe not a left wing, like a left back or something Like you know. Put you in a different spot on the field to see what's up, you know, and then you come out and you come and clutch on the left wing Like all right, sick, like here we go, you can play more. You know you get more time on the field. The military side of things for me like, at least for, like guard members, you have a bunch of different people that are doing a bunch of different jobs outside of the military.
Speaker 2It's like you get the cops, you get the architectures, you get the mechanics, you get the whatever anyone does like whatever they want outside the military, because they're not always full-time military. I'm full-time military now, but that doesn't mean that everyone's full-time military. Um, and so you get a bunch of different people with a bunch of different skills going towards like a common goal of whatever being like deployment-based training or something. They all bring different things to the to the table which, like brings a unique perspective to like going to go fight a war, oh, 100, you know, like someone has, like is in the state police and has like a lot of tactical squat, like training they they're probably going to train other people how to do those skills Right, because they have that skill and they can teach it. It's the same thing as, like you know, going to the field with your, your teammate that's like a couple of years ahead of you and has a couple other skills and they want to share that with you. It makes you more valuable.
Speaker 1And then like so are you saying kind of, by other people having skills, you're able to add skills to yourself as well?
Speaker 2Absolutely, if you're receptive to it. And I think, like it all depends on your will and your drive. And I think, for like, for me personally, like in like, so I am security forces, so I'm an MP, but like my secondary duty is like a little bit different, so I also have like another skill on top of that that allows me to bring things back to my unit and add yeah, that's more value to your unit absolutely, and to you and to yourself.
Speaker 1It makes you more competitive from a from an employment standpoint absolutely.
Speaker 2You know, if we look a little bit from the yeah, it looks good on the resume, it looks really good from from the skills perspective.
Speaker 1have you ever heard of the jack of all trades quote? Yeah, so most people when they hear the jack of all trades quote, they hear the first part, which is a jack of all trades is master of none.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1And then what a lot of people forget is the second part of the quote is a jack of all trades is master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
Importance of Versatile Skills for Success
Speaker 2This happens all the time in careers. People will like have this one skill and they're training this one skill and they're really, really good at this skill. Then they'll get fired and try and get another job and they have no other skills and a lot of people don't know this.
Speaker 1It was actually written um someone. It was about, will Shakespeare. Okay, because he was a, he was. People often know him as a like a poet and a writer, but he actually knew how to write, he knew about like all everything it had to do with, like theatrics and like down to, like the actors, the set, design, everything like that. So it enabled him to do what he really because we all have those skills that we're really good at, yeah, and it enabled him to, as a playwright, do his job really really well, yeah then really those like natural skills, right, those ones you're like born with, that you're just good at yeah, he's just really really good at um.
Speaker 1my brother um not to put him on the spot, but I'll brag a little bit about my little brother is he's a game designer. Yeah, and he's said, in order for me to be a really good game designer, I might not be good, so in game design there's everything from graphic design to programming to coding a whole bunch of different plethora of things that goes into a game. It's like if I can understand and have a little bit of a skill set in each one.
Speaker 2it might not be what I'm best in, but it's what's going to help me become a better game designer and you know what the best part of that is Is, as you work your way up the ladder and you become a manager, you get to know every ounce of the job. Maybe you're not the best at every single one of them, but you can like have knowledge and you should have knowledge at every single skill that you're like leading the people underneath you, and if you don't, then like you're probably not going to be successful because I I don't think I would respect someone who I was like I can do a better job than you and you're my leader.
Speaker 1that's not great, no that's just not good leadership. So, like, having these different skill sets it also goes into. It helps me do my job better. Because if I understand uh, going back a little when we, when we talked about like like different different roles and understanding people's roles, by having, like the understanding, those skills, like I'm, if I'm the phlebotomist and I might not be the phlebotomist on that study that day but I understand that skill, yeah, and what they're, what they're going through, what their mindset is it's gonna help me in in my job what also allows you to step in when someone else can't perform at whatever capacity, especially as an athlete, if someone's sick or injured, and you're like you know you have that skill and you can actually step in and do that.
Speaker 2Um, it just proves you know the. That adaptability is like more, I guess, fulfilling and not fulfilling, but what's the word that you know? I'm trying to get like adaptability and like being able to step in in times of like, of need, I guess, like if someone was injured, like that would be. It just shows that like, yeah, it's your character, right?
Speaker 1yeah, I think it shows your adaptability, your character, but also your value. Yeah, it by oh yeah you're adding value yeah, you're adding value and I think I sound like an old lady. But like our generation today, like I feel I've seen it a lot of I say kids our age, but like they're, they're not kids. Yeah, like folks our age, they want to almost skip this step of adding value. They want that manager position that they want, I agree yes, they want to have that, you, you know the job.
Speaker 2You know why that happens? Because when, like our parents were like, or even our grandparents were going to like get jobs and stuff like that, they not all of them went and got higher education right. So like they were coming out of high school trying to get jobs and like working in mills and stuff like that, without skills, so like they had to build from the ground up. They don't have a skill. They're like learning those things. Us, on the other hand, a lot of us go to school.
Speaker 2Now it's pushed heavily to get a higher education, right, oh yeah, for your degree. So we go, we get a degree, we have a skill up front and we think, because we have that skill, we're entitled, yeah, to. Okay, you're entitled to certain things based off of, like, certain careers right, like lawyers get more money because, like blah blah, their school is more intensive, and doctors and blah blah, stuff like that but when you're coming out of school with education, you have no, no experience based like experience goes a long way.
Speaker 2100 right so that's why we feel our generation feels entitled to like have more money or like get those leadership roles right away, because we're coming out with a skill that we think should be like rewarded with those types of things which is automatically, automatically owed to us which is not the case whatsoever because you don't like. I said, you have to learn to be a leader, you don't just become a leader overnight.
Speaker 1Yeah, and those, those leadership skills and just in, yeah, it's really, and even when you come out of school, you might have that degree but you don't have, you might not have that real world experience which I actually just got done. Me and our team were reviewing applicants and I have two number ones. One I don't like your GPA because I won't. It only says so much about you. Decent GPA, gpa because I won't. It only says so much about you. Yeah, a decent GPA.
Speaker 1You know, if you have, like you know, below a, you know a two or something like that, you know. Obviously that's in consideration, otherwise you wouldn't be in the running, right, but I don't look at GPA. And the other, the number one thing I'd look for is did you, did you work in school or have you worked? Have you had some sort of work experience, some sort of real world experience, because college can be a bubble. Yeah, of, like you said, you get out of school, you have that four year degree. You feel like, okay, like I have these skills and I have this knowledge. It goes in. My degree is exercise and sport physiology. Yeah, I can't just go and be a strength and conditioning coach. Yeah, I have the knowledge and the skills, the practicals and everything Right, but I haven't practiced.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And put in the work of being a good strength coach, giving good cues and stuff like that.
Speaker 2The other thing to that? That's where the skills come in. Yeah, yeah, the other thing to that is that you can, as an athlete, like gain those skills by going to the gym and like getting those things. Like so, just because I've been an athlete since I was like five and I've gone to the gym and I've learned these things and I have like good strength and conditioning coaches that will walk through programming, programming and saying that doesn't make me equipped to go write another program for someone else. That's a good point.
Speaker 1Yep oh, you know what I mean, just because I have that skill, because I've learned it not by any means of like studying.
Speaker 2I didn't go to school for it whatsoever. I 100 know I could write a program for someone. I write them for myself all the time. You know I can go to the gym and do that doesn't mean that I should get paid for it, not at all. It's the same thing, I think, with a lot of like life coaches and like they have zero degrees, no degrees, they're just like uh and they're like, preach things at people and I'm like you, you can, you know, talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Speaker 2But like you're not a psychologist, you know, like you didn't get that skill, you didn't acquire that skill, so it's like hard for me to like I don't't know.
Speaker 1You know what I mean. All you can do is is my biggest pet peeve is all you can do, like, if you're giving advice to someone, it's it's advice, right, it's advice. This is like hey, this is what I've gone through this is what I've experienced and what I took from it. Yeah, which is a lot. What we're doing here.
Speaker 1We're no experts and you know which we kind of you know say very upfront, like we're just here sharing our experiences and this is what we've gone through and creating that, you know, open space where you have kids and things like that, and they'll be like, oh, you have to do it this way, or, yeah, you know, I get up at blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's like no, it doesn't work for everybody yeah, come from this.
Speaker 1Hey, this works for me. Yeah, it might work for you, it might not. It the the easiest thing I can say is like with like sleep, like yeah, I'll get up at 5 am every day. Some people are really good at getting up at 5 5 am every day. Some people are really good at getting up at 5 5 am every day. Some people aren't. Sometimes they're more. And that's just from a my physiologist, coming from a physiological perspective. Sometimes are there's just a way we're by. We biologically are yeah morning person.
Speaker 2Or it can be consistency, I think too, because I think you can train a hundred percent, because I definitely never used to be a morning person, and now here I am, waking up at 4 30 every morning.
Speaker 1That's what I tell people.
Speaker 2I'm a trained morning person you yeah, I'm a trained morning person. Do I want to be?
Speaker 1no, do I want to be up at this hour.
Building a Versatile Skill Toolbox
Speaker 2No, but I am and I feel good about it and I'm like whatever. But it's the same thing with running. A lot of people like I'm not a good runner. You, I guarantee that it's just a consistency thing. You do it more and more and you'll get better at it. I guarantee you may be not a seasoned runner right now, but if you want it and you keep doing it every single day and you build those skills and you do those things and your muscles get a little bit stronger every day, just by doing that work over and over and over again, I guarantee you'll become a better runner and maybe you might even like it, who knows?
Speaker 1Yeah Well, offer and offer again I guarantee you'll become a better runner and maybe you might even like it, who knows? Yeah, well, I think that goes with wanting to learn new skills. Yeah, and it's just, you're not going to be great at it to begin with and you might think you only need to do a couple of good things. But I think the biggest thing is look around you, yeah, and see what jobs can I fill? Yeah, how can I add value? Yeah, that's like even when you're going for a raise, like if you want to raise, or, yeah, like anything like that.
Speaker 2Well, you can't just run a marathon, right?
Speaker 1yeah, you can't it's like this is what this is a train you gotta train, you have to have those skills dedication time management, whatever you're all those different skills, yeah, but I think at the end of the day, it's you start. It's it starts with reflection and looking inward and being what, what is in my toolbox? Yeah, when you guys are, when you guys are done listening to this, I want a serious go. Go just write on a piece of paper like what's in my, what is in my skill toolbox. If you're an athlete, what are your skills that, like, you really hone in on, like oh, I'm fast, or oh I'm a hitter or these are the skills that I bring.
Speaker 1Maybe it's in the workplace. Maybe you're really good at time management. Maybe you're really good with people yeah, or maybe you're not so good with people and you're really good with numbers.
Speaker 2Just write down strength, because I think also on the other end of it it's like what is lacking from your toolbox. I think that might even be like oh, that's a good one, that's a good one, uh, like another.
Speaker 2Parallel that like might even be more influential is like understanding your weaknesses so that you can get a little bit tiny bit better of them every single day and not only hone in on the things that you're good at, because you're already good at them. You're already like. You know, I'm good. I got these, this is my toolbox, but what can I add to my toolbox so that I can be a little bit better today than I was yesterday?
Speaker 1I like that. What can you add to your toolbox? What you currently have and how can you add value to your environment?
Speaker 2and that just becomes a more well-rounded person right 100 and I don't think anyone could ever complain about that I mean no, you got the skills and you got the motivation, anything can happen.
Speaker 1Yeah, elena is awesome. Go build up your toolbox, guys.
