COACH'D
Join us on COACH’D, a podcast where the some of the world's top athletes, coaches, and performance experts come together to share their stories, insights and secrets to what has made them successful in their own right.
Think of it as a "locker room" chat — unfiltered, raw, and real. We dive deep into all things athletic performance, wellness, science and culture.
COACH'D
Dan Haesler Pt. 2 - "Navigating High Performance: Balancing Identity, Mindfulness, & Emotional Maturity in Sports"
Dan Haesler returns to COACH'D for a deeper dive into the nuances of high performance and personal growth. We explore the dynamic balance between striving for improvement and embracing imperfection, a crucial shift in mindset for athletes and coaches alike. Learn how the unpredictable nature of sports serves as a training ground for resilience, adaptability, and maintaining a healthy relationship with failure. We uncover the metaphor of wearing and shedding identities, revealing how these concepts influence self-control in challenging situations.
We also explore the rituals and routines that shape high-performing athletes, drawing parallels between sports teams and corporate environments. Hear how iconic figures like Michael Jordan exemplify the power of preparation and trust within teams. Discover strategies for athletes to recover quickly from mistakes, such as building trust and creating an environment free from judgment. From predictable routines to adaptable practices, we examine how athletes maintain focus amidst chaos, ensuring that disruptions don't become performance crutches.
Lastly, we tackle the crucial aspects of time management and personal growth, offering strategies that transcend sports. From visualisations and time blocking to integrating spiritual practices, find out how athletes can balance intense schedules with personal values.
This episode is rich with insights on mindfulness, personal identity, and fostering emotional maturity, all designed to help athletes and individuals alike navigate the complexities of a high-performance world.
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https://open.spotify.com/show/1YJMztpYSgnPusEXB3fWcc?si=FJsWITv7QdSCSgCt3lkElw
Join us on Coached, a podcast where some of the world's top athletes, coaches and performance experts come together to share their stories, insights and secrets to what has made them successful in their own right. Think of this as a locker room chat unfiltered, raw and real. We dive deep into all things athletic performance, wellness, science and sporting culture and sporting culture. Hear from those who have played, coached and built their way to the top with athletes from the field, coaches and medical in the performance setting, or owners, managers and brands in the front office, while also getting an insider's view on my own personal experiences in this high-performance world. If you're passionate about sports, curious about the minds of champion athletes or looking for information and inspiration on your own journey, coach is the place for you.
Jordi Taylor:Dan hensler, welcome back. Well to coach. Well, thanks very much for having me back. I think it's the uh, the first time we've had a repeat guest, so that's early on in the piece, but it's good. It's good to have you back, mate. It's good to be the first yeah it's always good to be the first.
Jordi Taylor:I think off the back of our previous conversation. We jokingly said at the end we could easily do a part two. Based on some feedback and the conversations we had off the back of it, it just made sense to do a part two. So here we are with a part two. We've got even some Q&A, so we'll see where it sort of takes us today.
Jordi Taylor:But I think off the back of last time, I personally took a lot out of it, I think, just as a bit of a recap and refresh for those that maybe have no chance to listen to the part one yet. For me there was a couple of key topics there. It was around being able to control yourself in certain situations. The wearing the mask or identifying or de-identifying yourself in certain situations was another big one for me. And then off the back of that there was a heap of stuff that we didn't get a touch on. So I'd love just to start at the top.
Jordi Taylor:And on the way out you were kind enough to give me a copy of your book and I jokingly said there, before we jumped on, my partner had it all Christmas break and wouldn't let me touch it. And genuinely that was true, and then she took it into work and I also didn't get a chance. So, for those that are listening, you can get the book obviously the physical copy, or, as I discovered later on, you've also got it on Spotify. So anyone that's got Spotify you can just jump on and listen to it.
Dan Haesler:It's got your beautiful tones going through. If you can't get enough of my dulcet tones, yeah, jump on Spotify for six and a half hours or whatever it is. I think it was for five hours or something.
Jordi Taylor:Two times speed it's only half the way, but you can jump on Spotify and it's also I mean, it's free, but otherwise, support, buy it from the bookstore. But I think, as I said to you before, I got about three quarters of the way through and there was a couple of things that really stood out to me. But there was one quote in particular and it really resonated with me and probably a bit of a like a, I don't know. That's kind of you know it slaps you in the face a little bit and it was the quote.
Jordi Taylor:It's simply high performance is not about being perfect, and I don't know for me, I always feel like that perfectionism or trying to be perfect or display that you're doing perfect at all times. Again, probably directly reflecting that in what I do in regards to coaching. You know something like this as well. It's always about being perfect, but nothing's ever perfect. You know, things come along the way and I think, even with the way we communicate that with our athletes, if we're perfect, then what are we doing it for? There's no point. So I don't know for you. What does that mean to you? I know in the book you dive in a little bit deeper around what that actually means and give more context to it. But for you, what does that mean to you?
Dan Haesler:There's that there itself. Yeah, I think um, the striving for perfection is um, so striving to be better, um is different to striving for perfection. Um, it's a different mindset, it's a different way of being, because if I'm striving for perfect, I've it's kind of like I think what, I think what differentiates someone who is striving for. Let's start that video again. I think well, that's good, eh Not?
Jordi Taylor:perfect there we go.
Dan Haesler:But I think the thing that differentiates someone who's striving for perfection versus someone who's just striving to be better or has that growth mindset, is their relationship with failure. So if I'm striving for perfection, then my relationship with failure is that, essentially, I don't want a relationship with failure, I don't want it to come into my lexicon, whereas if I have a growth mindset, I understand that failure. And I'm not talking about, like critical failures on the biggest of stages. I'm talking about just not quite meeting the mark here or there, or deliberately pushing myself into an environment where I am not as competent as I might be right.
Dan Haesler:So to find out what that next edge is and you know, too many people think of high performance. As you can't make mistakes and I think of it completely differently I say no, no, a high performer is the one who's able to respond to making mistakes. So sport is predicated on people making mistakes. If nobody made mistakes I think we touched on this in our last episode then sport would be really boring, because you'd know who was going to win based on who's the fastest, who's the best. We have the metrics that show us this and the rest wouldn't cop any abuse and the rest wouldn't cop any abuse.
Dan Haesler:The rest wouldn't cop any abuse. But seriously, right, it would just be so formulaic. So it's predicated on who handles the ability there to manage ups and downs throughout a season or throughout an event or in the moment. So I'll always challenge a coach. You know, oh, we've got to be perfect. No, we don't.
Dan Haesler:Maybe it'll be nice in this moment to be perfect, but you know, in many sports which are kind of open-ended, what's perfection anyway? Because if we're saying perfection is just not making mistakes, then I can help an athlete make no mistakes simply by saying don't do anything, mate, just cruise through the game, right, don make no mistakes. Simply by saying don't do anything, mate, just cruise through the game, right, don't call for the ball, you won't make any mistakes. So really, as I said, it's about this idea of, yeah, just creating a relationship with setbacks, with failures, which means that I learn from them and I grow from them. And that's really tied in with the idea, then, of pressure. Because if perfection is the goal, then already the pressure is almost insurmountable because I'm not in control of whether it's going to be perfect or not. There are so many variables which come to that and ultimately it's unobtainable. That's the bottom line. You're setting yourself an expectation which is ultimately unobtainable, I think.
Jordi Taylor:Um, the other part, which was probably far farther into the book around, like being in an environment that's safe to fail as well. Yeah and um, I think there's some good examples there around. It was more so organizational structures, but also in the team setting as well, like it's okay to fail, uh, or not necessarily hit the nail on the head, but having the safety net and people around you that it's not frowned upon as such, it's okay. Right, talk us through that. You've got some of the best players in the world. We've gone through this in the previous episode. They make mistakes. How do they respond in a team setting and what's the environment like around them once those sort of mistakes are made?
Dan Haesler:Yeah, so I think, first of all, yeah, just framing the book. So the book is predominantly a leadership book, right so it's, and it's predominantly aimed at sort of like your corporate type leaders. The stories from sport to illustrate some points, but a lot of the concepts are kind of said okay, what does this look like in a typical nine to five kind of work environment? Like in a typical nine to five kind of work environment, what you're alluding to there is, you know, an environment where it's OK or it's safe to admit mistakes, it's safe to not get things 100% right. That concept that we're referring to is a concept called psychological safety, which is the belief that no one will be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or making mistakes. And so it's one thing for me to walk in.
Dan Haesler:Let's say I moved from one team to another or walked from one organization to another, and in my previous organization it was fine. You could come up with a crazy idea, you could have a go at something, it it doesn't come off, but you'd put your hand up, you talk about it, you'd share the learnings, and that's how that environment operated. Right, but you move across town or you move across the league to another team and all of a sudden, you do that, or you make a mistake and it's put up on the big screen and the coach is making you feel stupid for even trying it. Well, I've not changed, but my behavior will. My behavior will change, based on the environment. It suddenly becomes less safe to have a go at something and it not come off because of how it's gonna.
Dan Haesler:I'm going to be made to feel about it, and so what we talk a lot about in the, in, you know, high performing environments, is it? You know, we don't want you to be. We're more concerned if you're afraid to have a go cause you're worried about making a mistake, than you. We are about you making the mistake. We can't be afraid to play no-transcript. So, yeah, it's, which is interesting, right, because Jordan, of course, did continually strive, outwardly perhaps, for we've got to be perfect, we've got to be this, we've got to be that, got to be that, but I think there's some nuance in the way that that went about. So, yeah, thinking about the environment, the coaching staff, the senior players, whether that's in a sporting team or a corporate team, how do we set up the environment where people can have a go?
Jordi Taylor:And the one thing that no one could ever question Jordan on, and probably why anyone from the casual fan of basketball all the way through to say you know Phil Jackson being the head coach to give him that final shot was they would never question. Has he done the preparation?
Dan Haesler:leading up to that moment, yeah.
Jordi Taylor:So you know how do you just not turn up to training for six months, like Dennis Rodman, and go to WWE and, you know, do whatever else. And then Rodman took the big shot. Yeah.
Dan Haesler:Maybe it'll be different scenario. Jordan was always able to do that, yeah, and I think again, that's the culture piece, that's the environment piece, understanding and knowing where people are at and what they've done. You know, that's trust, right, that's that's understanding your teammates. And, um, interestingly, we're sort of doing a work in different spaces where we're sort of getting um players to talk about. So if I do make a mistake, what do I need in that moment from my teammates?
Dan Haesler:So like tap on the bomb or whatever it is yeah, or maybe I need the ball straight away, get me back in the game, and that might be outside of the system, but we know that in that moment that's what that player needs in order to get them back into the game as quickly as possible.
Jordi Taylor:So we work to do that and how? Because that makes heaps of sense In a complex, dynamic game like, let's say, like, rugby league. How do you try to do that? Based on position, is that they then put themselves? You know, let's just use Nathan Cleary as an example, because it's just nice and simple. He's a halfback, so he gets his hand on the ball. A lot Is that just. You know that next set he just needs to get his hand on the ball twice. You know, drop someone under, maybe play out the back or take a run or something like that. Is that how it is? Because I've heard that Me personally, my coach used to always say to me if you don't have a run in the first two sets as a half or get into some contact, you're in for a bad game Basically that was his KPI.
Jordi Taylor:For me, that's your key focus and he's probably a bit of truth in that. Is that kind of like the similar sort of thing?
Dan Haesler:It's having. So, whatever it is for Nath or whatever it is for any other player, it's got to be something that they're in 100% control of and can activate when it needs to be activated. So when I say 100% in control of, like, I'm saying, okay, I need this to happen and other teammates can contribute to that In a case where, because it might not be appropriate, that what we come up with is the thing, so then okay. So if it's not that, what is it? So I'll give you an example.
Dan Haesler:With players running on the field on a debut, for argument's sake, getting them to do something that they're 100% in control of as soon as possible is key. Now, for some of them, it might not be getting the ball because of the position or the state of the game, it might not be making a tackle because no one comes down their side, so it could be more. Okay, well, I'm 100% in control of communicating with my outside man and I'm going to say this or I could go over and touch the corner flag, or I could. I'm going to do something which I'll mentally rehearse. I've put myself in that situation and I'm just going to do it to have a sense of okay, I'm in the game, I'm not waiting for something to happen here.
Dan Haesler:Um, in the ideal sense, I think you know your coach, if it's right for you, you know, yeah, in the ideal sense it would be really game specific. But sport is you know. Imagine you're a goalkeeper in soccer, right, oh, yeah, I want to have a good catch. Well, what happens if the you know you spend half the time, you know the get the balls up the other end of the field? You can't do that, so you need to be doing something else to get into the game rather than just waiting for it.
Jordi Taylor:Um, and again, that's yeah, that's a lot to do with understanding, agency, efficacy, control and doing something ideally game-specific, but if not, something else that you're in control of, wasn't going to go there today, but I think it makes perfect sense off the back of it and this was something that came up a lot just in conversation around. Some of the things that people took a lot away from the last episode was the rituals and the pre-game not necessarily superstitions, like some of the things that people took a lot away from the last episode was like the, the rituals and, like the pre-game not so superstitions, but pre-game things that people do. Yeah, and it wasn't necessarily like you know, you have to have your left boot on before your right boot and you know, do it's that? It's like it really related to when we spoke about kobe crossing the court and he went from kobe bryant to the uh, black mamba and we mentioned Sasha Fierce, beyonce on stage, like that sort of. That really got a lot of people's eyes open and that was a lot of feedback for me personally anyway.
Jordi Taylor:So to go there a little bit like let's use NBA, because I love basketball. I know you know a bit about basketball as well. You know you look at Steph Curry. When he runs on the court to start the game, he runs down from one end of the court. You know, kevin Garnett used to smack his head on the post Dwayne Wade used to do like pull-ups in the ring, like everyone had their own sort of like moment. Like you mentioned there before, they could 100% control because that court, whether they're in Miami, boston, Madison Square Garden, it's going to be the exact same. Talk to us about pregame rituals or those sort of moments, or maybe even define the difference between the two for us, difference between rituals and superstitions, yeah, yeah. And and then how? Athletes that if they do have maybe they're type a and they do have a healthy habit of it needs to be done this way every single time, whether I am in miami, you know here or sydney versus melbourne, yeah, and if things don't go their way, what? What then happens?
Dan Haesler:yeah, okay cool, I think there. I think there's a lot in here, right. So I frame it as I talk about predictable routines, right, versus superstition. So superstition could also be a predictable routine, but there's this added element of if it's a superstition if I don't do it, then immediately I'm on the back foot. It's like, oh shit, I can't do what I need to do.
Dan Haesler:And I've had examples of really really good players who, for example, if they were travelling and they weren't able to have the usual smoothie that they would have pre-game, would really knock them, you know, really throw them, which I couldn't believe I was actually hearing at the time, but it's. But obviously I can believe I'm hearing it, but it's. It's just really interesting, like the most simplest of things, you um that that can just knock someone, and so superstitions tend to be quite fragile, right? Um, we, what you know, we wear one pair of undies in the game we play really well, so that's now the pair of undies I mean, and and if we lose them, or we? So?
Dan Haesler:So I try and steer clear of talking about superstitions. What I talk about is predictable routines, which are helpful, and what I'd like to do is try and backward map from the kickoff or the tip off or whatever it might be. If we work backwards from that, what are things which, in your ideal scenario, you would prefer to be able to do? Right, and so, two minutes before kickoff, what would you prefer to be able to do? Boom, boom, boom, sweet, okay, let's take it 10 minutes. Boom, boom, boom. Some of it's now managed for me because we're doing the team warmup. Okay, let's take it further back. Let's take it further back. Let's take it further back. And what we're trying to suggest is that, in the ideal world, your predictable routine will play out as it does, right, but we're also trying to recognize that there's strength or resilience built into this routine. So if something does drop, it's okay, because the next domino is still standing.
Dan Haesler:Not everything's gone. If I can just get to here here, then I can click in and you know, whatever it might be. I can do my prayer, or I can do my mindfulness bit, or I can do my particular dynamic stretching. I need to whatever, right, but the point is, we're being quite deliberate about what that is. So the the really most recent example I've got of this I work with a lad who plays for the Socceroos and ahead of I could get this wrong, but I think it was ahead of the last game they played. I'm going to say Japan, but I'm not entirely sure. But it was certainly just in that last international block the bus got stuck in traffic going to the game and I mean it was proper traffic. The bus wasn't moving at all to the game and I mean it was proper traffic, like the bus wasn't moving at all to the point where, once they got to the ground, there wasn't actually time for them to do the warm-up.
Dan Haesler:Sports scientists having conniption on the bus yeah, yeah, yes, and they're ringing, they're trying to get, for whatever reason, you know, the governing body wasn't going the kick, they couldn't push it back or whatever. And it was really interesting to chat with the player I'm working with because I was saying, surely it's one thing he's not the smoothie guy, right, I'd shared with him the smoothie. It's one thing to not be able to have your smoothie three hours before kickoff. But that must have rattled you. And he went, to be honest, not really, because I knew we were going to get there in time for me to do my little 15-minute prep that he does prior to kickoff. And he said you know, it's a classic example we can't control the traffic, so it was just making sure that there wasn't.
Dan Haesler:You know the nervous energy or all that. You know the amount of stuff wasted. Oh, what if we do this? Can we do that? Oh, we're not going to be that. Just, everyone was that. Everyone was pretty chilled.
Dan Haesler:He said on on the bus, but him specifically, yeah, he was able just to understand. Well, I can't do anything about the traffic, but what I can control is as soon as I'm in there and the calculations was like 15 as soon as I'm in there. I'm just going to lock into that and what will be will be, and a lot of the athletes that I think are able to have that flexibility and adaptability have that whole. The bus ride isn't going to determine whether we play well or not. I've been playing this game for 20 years. I've got a lot of experience here. I know the sports scientists have got you know just, but I know there's routines which are useful. I don't get me wrong, but it's, it's a bit like you know, the same thing that people will talk about confident. I've had a bad week, you know, and we touched on this last time yeah, zoom out.
Dan Haesler:yeah, you might have had a bad week, but you've had a hell of a career. Yeah, you wouldn't be here if you'd not had a hell of a career. You've got a lot of experience, a lot of reps, a lot of currency in the bank here that you can withdraw. So it's about, as I said if you've got a predictable routine that allows you to, in the ideal world you do X, y, z, boom. But in the real world sometimes you only get to do X and Z, but they're so useful for want of a better word that the absence of one of them isn't as big a deal.
Dan Haesler:It's not a superstition where it says, well, if I don't, then I can't which is that superstition? Or if I do this, then it's bad luck. And a predictable routine is just saying, okay, well, ideally, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this. Then it's bad luck. A predictable routine is just saying, okay, well, ideally I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this, and it just gets repped over and over and over again, without any attachment to the magic of above or whatever Awesome breakdown.
Jordi Taylor:I think that's very helpful for athletes so they can picture and break that down between what they probably do. We often talk about game day. Do you ever bring any of that purposeful practice into training as well? So then, that eliminates some of that game day anxiety. Is that something that you speak to your athletes about as well?
Dan Haesler:What do you mean by that, like prepping for game day?
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, so we get a captain's run. We know our captain run is going to be, let's say, 11 am on Friday. We play 4 pm Sunday, whatever it is. Do you ever say to them okay, well, when you're coming into game day you might have your anxiety is really high, your stress is really high, you're starting to redline a little bit. So you've got your plan here to follow, which is obviously designed minimize some of that effectiveness put in the moment, so on, so forth. Yeah, do you ever go, okay, well, maybe, let's, let's practice that before we actually do it like we do with our training. So do we ever try you know, obviously it might be condensed version or maybe just take three of those six elements before training and go, okay, let's try that before you train. How do you feel at training when the there's no media?
Jordi Taylor:there there's's no 50,000 fans screaming at you. Do you ever try that with the athletes as well?
Dan Haesler:The short answer is yes, not all the time, but there'll be certain times during a season or in pre-season where you just have the opportunity to be able to do things like that. For example, we might do a whole visualization session prior to training just to really try and dial in certain focus or get them experiencing certain feelings before they then go and execute. What we often do is we'll often get them to plan their time away from training. So training, as you know, most in every high performance environment is very carefully managed. Nothing's left to chance doing this, this, this, but then they go and have a day off, or they have the afternoon off, or they have captains run at 11 o'clock, as you say, and then they've got almost what? 24 hours after that or more, before kickoff, you know. So then we talk about okay, well, how are you going to manage that time? How are you going to block out time for certain things to focus on? So yeah, it's probably.
Dan Haesler:I mean, one of the things we have trained, you know, in different environments is like training certain things Like we've trained like a half time in different environments is like training certain things Like we've trained like a half time. We've trained a pre-game scenario. So we kind of said this is what to expect With debutantes, for example. We often do a lot of visualization with them. We get people to talk about what they can expect, because everything they think they're going to expect, they you know, they, they see it, but it's all. It's more of that emotional, it's that overwhelm, um, it's the seeing everyone who's surprised them from their hometown in the crowd. You know, it's all that kind of stuff. So yeah, so we'll definitely do visualization on that kind of stuff. We do very deliberate time blocking for days off or in between captains run game days and I'd say yeah, and then there could be specific elements of the day that we will train. Ie half-time.
Jordi Taylor:I think very interesting. Rolling off the back of that around professional athletes, time is so well managed, right, they're always doing something and there's very little downtime. So two parts of that. One I'm um, reading slash, listening, uh, to a book at the moment by big sean. He's a rapper, um, but very like self-conscious bit of the inner, inner work, kind of off the back you, probably a bit more spiritual, yeah right, very interesting around how he's implemented these different strategies and techniques to sort of get through.
Jordi Taylor:What he's done is a bit wooey. You know, like you'll have your studio set up a certain way based on his chakras, trains a certain way, like he's made everything based on this sort of a being around what he wants to be, right, rugby league athletes, obviously probably not to that level, but busy all the time. You know he's like, as an example, you know, I meditate for 15 minutes a day, I take my cold shower a day and it's like, yep, you maybe can, but we've got 24 hours a day. Everyone has 24 hours a day. Listening back to the previous episode, we didn't really give a whole lot of strategies, which is great, because I think that was probably good for a conceptual level and I know that some people will listen and go, yeah, but that's easy to say when they've got so much time allocated towards doing that. Or you know, they're a celebrity and they don't have to be their nine-to-five job.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, you can pay for your personal barista and chef and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, so when?
Jordi Taylor:you hear that that's just a resistance, right? Sometimes there's genuine reasons. Also, sometimes it's not a priority, which is sweet. You just got to identify what it is. I myself, as of late, have tried to embody some of these things and you know, today, for example, up at five o'clock on the field, literally straight to here, back to back to back, I would love to sit down and, you know, take five minutes just to, you know, do a meditation or something like that. It's pretty hard to do. When you're hearing stuff like that with athletes and they go, I'm all for it, dan. But when you're hearing stuff like that with athletes and they go, I'm all for it, dan. But where am I going to fit this in? Where do you break that down and how do you start to look at that?
Dan Haesler:Yeah, so okay, so let's use. So the athletes have got time, right. So I think maybe let's think about this. For the average punter listening to or watching the podcast, it's like, because every professional athlete will have time for that, right. So then it does become a case of how important is it to you, or do you just feel like you're being compelled to do this and you can't really be bothered? So I'll just use the age-old excuse of I don't have time, right, because no one's got time. So everyone goes. Yeah, no, we're all really busy, so it's just a bit of a cop-out, right. So let's talk about the people who genuinely don't have it. You know, they don't have every second day or second half day, kind of to themselves.
Jordi Taylor:Or having someone like you available to you know. Pop in and provide services, okay yeah, so for me it's about.
Dan Haesler:So, if we use your example, you know, today you're doing a lot, you're up, do, do, do, do, do. Right, and this might sound a bit out there, right, but what, what I like to have people think about is, rather than, um, then you know what, what are you going to do today? How are you going to be today, right, so? So I'll give you my example, right, so, when I'm thinking, what I'm trying to be, no matter how busy, so what I'm trying to be, no matter how busy I am, what I'm trying to be, is calm, present and flexible. Right last week, how did I track with that? How flexible was I this week, or was it just now? There was no flexibility because I was so locked in. It was like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, back to back. How present was I with people? Well, probably not, because I had so many emails to get to and even though I was in a conversation, I was thinking about something else. Or, worst case case scenario, I was actually on my phone whilst with someone else. And how calm was I? Well, now I've got a bit uptight about this, that or the other, right, so that's like being able to zoom out and then you're able to get really micro and so for something like right now, right here, right now, you know how calm am I, how present am I with you talking about this, how flexible am I to be able to respond hopefully well-ish, to some of the questions that we don't know? I don't know what you're about to throw at me, and that's how I want to be and that, to me, is more important than what I do. That's my philosophy, that way of being, along with a few other things that I've done. You remember last time we were talking about I am what I do yes, splitting the I am and what I do. So since then I've really gone in on it and sort of really explored it and also shared it with all the people I'm working with to get them to sort of kind of think about it themselves. And it's like when you get that right, when you get the I am part right, like you understand, I mean, I'll show you. I am always learning. I am people first, right, I am interested in results, but I'm focused on the manner of them. So I'm interested, but I'm more focused on that. You know my values. You know belonging and excellence. I'm committed to helping people thrive professionally.
Dan Haesler:Personally, I'm calm, present, flexible, right. When I'm that. When I am that, whatever I'm doing coaching, podcasting, presenting online, presenting on stage to a thousand people, parenting, being a husband when I am that, I'm good. No matter what domain you find me in, I'm good. The problem I have is when I focus on what I'm doing right and it all becomes about doing and I start losing track of that. So when I'm focusing on doing of the running the business, I can become pretty uncalm because it's all about the bills, the numbers, the this. Have we got enough clients coming in this, that and the other. If I'm all about the coaching work, I can sometimes be a little less present in another domain of my life, with my kids or whatever it might be. And again, just to be clear, it's not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing, I'm just saying it's a good frame of reference for me to have.
Jordi Taylor:I know that when I am, I do well I think this flows beautifully like and I don't interrupt you, but it just, it just makes so much sense. Here I'm going to selfishly steal the spotlight again and say uh, me personally, when I'm busy, when I'm doing lots of things, you're kind of in that flow state and you get more things done and I feel that it's kind of like a battery the more that goes on it gets charged, charged, charged, charged, charged, and at some point obviously you need to take a break. But do you find that with your high performers that when they're on they're like really, really, really on, and they get that domino effect and it just keeps smashing, smashing, smashing. Is that a thing? And then, is that a positive or a negative? Because eventually you know you probably have to stop and then does that kill the whole momentum. You have to start again, like where does that look for you? So yeah.
Dan Haesler:So just I think, just to sort of try and join a few dots there. So what I'm, what I'm suggesting, is that, in reality, what I should have when I'm saying I am is I am striving to be these things, right, that's what my aim is. To be these things, and because life happens and I'm human, I probably don't tick all those boxes on any one given day. But it's a frame of reference, like a compass, right? Whereas when I'm focusing on what I'm doing, that tends to be more like goal-orientated and goals. I sort of think of more like goal-oriented and goals. I sort of think of more like a map, and by definition, a map is written, it's set in stone, it is what it is and I've just got to do this, to do this, to do this, to do this. And there's not as much if I'm just following a map. It's not as mindful. So you think about Google Maps when you're driving in your car. And if you're driving somewhere for the first time with a map on Google and then you have to switch the map off and drive again, a lot of people have got no idea. It's like if you're a passenger in a car, you don't actually know the journey, whereas if you've got a compass and you're going right, I know I need to be heading north or whatever. Whatever direction. The point is you're more in, you're literally sort of here, you're in the moment looking at the compass and you have to have more awareness of what's going around you to orientate yourself in that. So the I am is a compass, the to do what I do is the map, and one without the other you can get by, just to be clear, but it's optimal to have both. So, to go to your um, your point, I would suggest that um it the idea of yeah, I'm just busy and I'm in flow.
Dan Haesler:The only reason you get into flow is because what you're doing is so nicely aligned with who you are. If you're just being asked to do loads of stuff which is actually at odds with, or you're asked to do it in a way that's at odds with, who you are, you won't get into flow. So if I'm working with a team and I don't feel a sense of belonging, like if I'm the guy that no one really, you know, wants to spend any time with, they're not interested in what I'm doing. I'm just there because it seems to be the new thing that teams have got and and whatnot, or or you know, like in the corporate world. You know, like the bosses the bosses listen to a podcast, he thinks it's great, he brings you in and everyone's sitting there you can't get into flow. I can't, because it's such a clash of my values. If I'm working with someone, my other core value is excellence. If I'm working with people, I can be doing all the work, but if they're not buying in, I'm not going to get into flow.
Dan Haesler:So that's the state of flow typically is when our values align. We've got agency, volition, we're good at what we do, there's meaning and purpose and all that kind of stuff. The potential downside of that is we can get so into that that we do lose track of other important metrics, for example, other relationships in our life. We've become so singular, focused on this or, in some cases, our own well-being. You know, like burn I'm not. I wouldn't use the word burnout, because burnout means we're sort of being pulled away from our values as much as we are fatigued and tired. But we can certainly get tired, you know. We can run ourselves into the ground doing things we love.
Dan Haesler:So, yeah, it's an interesting. It's an interesting tension and balance, because that's where I'm sort of saying that, having the compass which has things like if I'm going to be present and flexible and calm. I know I also need recovery time in there to be able to do that. And there are times this is one of those times the start of a year where it doesn't feel like there's much of that. At the moment it's pretty much full on, it's go, go, go. But what I do know is when I zoom out and I look at the calendar, in the next couple of weeks we can get back to that rhythm that we're striving for.
Dan Haesler:It's like any game of sport, right? There are moments where we've all just got to go harder, dense periods of hard work. Yeah, and then there's times where we just sit back. You know, not sit back as such, but you know there's times and ebbs and flows within a game, which is a bit like life.
Jordi Taylor:I reckon, yeah, well, a lot of people now. So it's like seasons. You've got seasons of hard work and seasons of, you know, downtime and arbitrary time. It's not necessarily a season like winter and summer, but you know, that's just an idea of you know. This moment right now, or this next couple of weeks, is going to be really hard, yeah, but it's all good, like I've accepted that, I've communicated that, I'm aware of that. There's gonna be late nights, it's gonna be early mornings, whatever it is.
Jordi Taylor:But then on the other side and that's probably important, the other side part like you mentioned there when you zoom out, it's the mind, it's a carrot yeah, it's being mindful and deliberate about that.
Dan Haesler:And so this is the long-winded way of getting back to your first question about what? About the average punter? It's how mindful and deliberate are you being? It's not how many ice baths do you have in a week, or how good is your nutrition. No, no. The question is with whatever resources you have available at this point in time, how mindful and deliberate are you in using those resources? That's what it's about. I like it. I should have said that right at the start.
Jordi Taylor:I was chatting to one of the AFLW girls this morning and she's big on. She previously listened to a lot of podcasts. She's spoken to me a lot about mental resilience, the mental side of the game, and for her it was something she wasn't very familiar with but has started to open up. She's gotten a little bit older, which is really interesting. And then, on the contrast, you know she's now she's in her early thirties versus I was actually another W girl I was working with this morning and I asked I was like and she's only 19. I was like, out of curiosity, like how much to the mental side of the game have you ever thought about? She's like what do you mean? I was like that's all sweet. That probably answers the question for me. And then so that gives two polarising probably viewpoints. Now obviously N equals one. They're just two individual athletes and that doesn't necessarily cast a generalised statement across the board young versus old. But the older one asked me a really good question and it kind of goes into two parts I'm interested in Do you think that your mental side of the game gets developed with emotional maturity and with experience so you can then relate certain situations back to whether that be.
Jordi Taylor:Things happen in your life end all games as one part of it. So you know, the 19-year-old just simply doesn't have the capacity. You know, like in the gym, they don't have the work capacity yet to be able to score 100 kilos. You know what I mean. It has to be step-by-step progression to be able to achieve that. So we just can't, even in a team environment, cast that same assumption or that same level across the board. What's your thoughts on that, like from an emotional maturity standpoint? You know you get athletes and you go. You know what. You're probably just not ready for this yet. But here's one thing just hold on to that for the year. You know, and teams are diverse, you've got old, young, everything in between. What's your sort of because emotional maturity is also subjective you could be 30 and have the emotional maturity of a 16-year-old. That's also very common, especially in rugby league.
Dan Haesler:Well, especially for me. I think most people who know me would think not emotional, just maturity in general. But yeah, look, okay. So I actually have a bit of a phrase that speaks around just the kind of work I do anyway, which is kind of like it's not for everyone until you realize it is.
Jordi Taylor:It's kind of like insurance you don't know you have it until you need it.
Dan Haesler:Exactly, and in my experience I guess it's the same for any kind of behavior change. Usually it takes a critical incident for people to really make a change. Like, intellectually, most people would probably go yeah, it's pretty important. Like when I ask a room, you know I often do it. You know if I'm speaking to a big room of emerging athletes or whatever, you know, I'll say you know a scale of one to ten.
Dan Haesler:How important do you think the mental side of the game is? And I'll sort of give a little bit of you know. So you know how you handle setbacks, how you handle pressure moments. Out of 10, you know 9 or 10, 7, 8, 9 or 10, most hands are up around the 8, you know 10 out of 10, 9 out of 10. By a set, okay, 8 out of 10, most hands in the room are up. And then I'll say okay, on a scale of one to ten.
Dan Haesler:How deliberate are you in training that side of your sport in the same way that you are your physical? So by that I mean there's time set aside, you've got dedicated um drills, techniques, you're doing reps. You may even have a coach who helps you with that side of things. On a scale of one to ten. You know, there's a handful of people who handful you know, and a hundred who are doing it. So, intellectually, it's not that of people who a handful you know and a hundred who are doing it so intellectually, it's not that the people don't know it's important, but there's only a number of reasons as to why that people aren't doing it. The first one could just be access. The second one could be resourcing. The third one could be yeah, it's not really for me, though, is it? You know like, but I not really for me, though, is it? But I think for a lot of them they just haven't had a critical moment.
Dan Haesler:They might have had constant kind of self-doubt or nerves or whatever self-limiting beliefs or like that Sort of simmers below the surface Simmers below the surface, but it's not until they go to something big and they just have a meltdown, or they just don't perform anywhere near what they're capable of, or or in a lot of cases, like you know, a coach suggests something, or in the. You know what's happened with us. They just hear something at the right time. You know, like since our last podcast, you know, I've had a couple of athletes reach out.
Jordi Taylor:They just heard the podcast at the right time for them and they've engaged and I said this literally this week to a coach I did some upskill with, just literally off the back of this, and I think it's just a perfect point. We're very, very going to learn new things once we've got some experience. It's just being reframed, being retold or being told at the right time in a different way. Yeah, it's one of those four things usually like very rarely is it something completely new. This is going to blow your mind. Yeah, minor elements of it or whatever else.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, and he was like yeah, that just makes so much sense, yeah and um and and to your emotional maturity piece. So the actual okay, is there an age bit? Think so. You know, I used to be a teacher and a lot of our work as a teacher is, you know, differentiating. So meeting the people where they're at, rather than just saying, hey, here's what you need to learn, go learn it. Okay, here's a bit like the goals thing. Here's where we're aiming for, here's the map. But oh, you're over here, are you? Okay? Well, let's change the language, give you some scaffolding, whatever.
Dan Haesler:So, to be quite frank, I think under sixes, under sevens, under eights could be doing stuff on this like a coach. If I was coaching an under-8 team, for example, I might say who's your favourite player? Why are they your favourite player? What do they look like? How do they act on the field? Now, unless they've picked a complete tool of a player who carries on like an idiot, right, let's say they've picked someone who carries himself well, has had setbacks, bounces back, okay, cool.
Dan Haesler:How would you describe that person? Why don't you try and play, not do what they do, but try and be so left to the doing? Why don't you try and be like that today in this game and then we'll talk about afterwards how you were, as opposed to whether we won, lost, scored goals or whatever. How did you manage it when the ref called you for that foul? And I think, as I said, I think by meeting the people where they're at, you can absolutely train, you can get people thinking about this stuff. I'm not going to go to a 13-year-old athlete with the same kind of techniques per se that I would with an elite athlete, but I'll absolutely be talking about the same concepts but just in a different way. I'll be framing it in a different way.
Jordi Taylor:I think that's probably the most important thing, as you're saying that. I'm just trying to relate it back to coaching, and that was one of the first things you mentioned in your book as well, which is why, again, it just resonated with me. So much was like the book is designed, how I coach, and everything you're saying there is exactly the same as what you would do at a gym. Like you've got a 13-year-old kid, of course you're going to get him to. I'll just use an analogy of squatting again, squat variation, but it's not with a barbell and with two times body weight it's.
Jordi Taylor:Let's find a variation that's appropriate to you Exactly.
Dan Haesler:So that's the point. I don't think we should be saying, oh well, you're only 11, so emotional regulation isn't important to you. No, no.
Jordi Taylor:You're 11.
Dan Haesler:It's really important for you, but we'll do it in a different way. We might not do mental rehearsal with them, but we could do. I'd use the word imagination.
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, yeah, same thing, different meaning yeah exactly.
Dan Haesler:It might not be as long, it might not be as deliberate, but it'll be something around. Okay, just imagine that you're scoring this penalty on the weekend. What does it feel like? As opposed to? Okay, smell the grass. This, this, taking them through the big, longer session.
Jordi Taylor:Do you ever walk into a room and go? That guy and girl's got it. That guy and girl doesn't have it. That guy and girl maybe. Like, do you ever walk in a room and you can just literally go, bang, bang, bang. Is that something?
Dan Haesler:what way it got. What? What do you mean? They've got it.
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, so that's a very good point. Got it as in, like if you are going through and I know these, it's a very complex, wide topic but you are talking about, you know, an athlete that I don't say singing with that emotional maturity, but like if you're going to give or go through concepts, new ideas, you've got it. Like you will be able to pick up on it or you walk in. You already got the scaffolding there, if you want to use the word scaffolding, you just need just a little bit of extra mayo on top and you've really got it. You know you're going're going to be well composed.
Jordi Taylor:I know for you that the mental skills side of the game necessarily may not be as important as the athlete over here. Is that something you're consciously aware of? It's like you know certain athletes if I'm just going to keep using the analogy of the gym like they kind of got it enough. Like what's the point in trying to get an extra two and a half kilos on your back squat? What are the other areas we can focus on? And it may actually not even be the gym, right, because it's the holistic development of the athlete, not just my bias or my, my singular focus.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, you does that something you ever look at and go um I think what I'm really more looking for, rather than whether they've got it or not, is have they got the appetite to explore it? Because I can tell that very, very quickly. Yeah, I can tell it from… what's your go-to signs? Where they sit, how they sit.
Jordi Taylor:They bring a pen, and paper or they…. Yeah, the simple stuff, eh Just simple things, like simple things.
Dan Haesler:Are they on time? Yeah, when I ask them, what are your expectations? What have you thought about prior to this? Now, just to be clear, there are still lots of people who come in completely cold, who do then end up coming good for want of a better word or sort of leaning into it. It's just that they didn't know what they didn't know. So tomorrow, for example, I'm working with an academy group where they're as good as you can be at that age for their sport, certainly in the state, if not around the country. But because they're an academy group and because they're 16, 17, I know that there'll be a chance that they just don't know what they don't know. So I'll walk into that environment. I'll walk into that with. I'll walk into that with a different level of expectations than if I walk into a first grade or an international team. If I've got an international team not rocking up with a journal, that to me is fascinating. I'm like, wow, this is really interesting.
Jordi Taylor:And do you look at that as that's a good problem or that's maybe a not so good problem?
Dan Haesler:Well, it gives me an immediate thing to help them with, like the importance of reflection, but it also, you know, again, yeah, I guess what I'm really sort of trying to land on is this that I try and hold off judgment as much as possible, but sometimes, sometimes it's just obvious, like I've done, and maybe it's just the nature of what you're also going into. So what I mean by that is like when I first started going around to sporting teams in particular, it was kind it sort of did feel like it's just, it's on their calendar. You know, once every month they have to have an external presenter come in. They do something. Sometimes it's on finance, other times some respectful relationships are this week it's mindset, and so these guys or female athletes have just been kind of it's just it's more of a habitual thing.
Dan Haesler:It's on the calendar and so breaking past that can be a challenge as well. Like, hey, I'm actually not here to tell you how to do anything. I'm actually here to ask you whether you'd like to do anything in this space. And if you would, here are some ideas and suggestions. It's not me just mandating one way or the other. So what I would say is, when I went into those in that context, certainly I got a few kind of people didn't want to be there, you know, and that's a challenge, because yeah, they just didn't see the value, they didn't know what the value was going to be leading in and, yeah, they just wanted to go. You know so. But since then, you know, when you're working longer term with people, typically you avoid. You don't work long term if that's the case, right. So you only work long term where people are actually engaged.
Jordi Taylor:Two things off the back of that that I really want to ask you. One, what tools do you use then? When you walk into a room and maybe it's not something you expect and you know, let's say it is an international team and you go on New Beauty, they're going to be all over it, and you walk in and they just don't want to bar you, they're not prepared. So like, from that standpoint, what's where do you go? Like, what do you do in that moment yourself? Because, jokingly, say, a lot of the time, like people that are psychologists or you know are in this space, quite often edit the most. That's a bit of the saying out there. You know you actually overanalyze so many things. Yeah, not saying that's you, but that that's.
Dan Haesler:Oh, I'm human yeah, correct, we all are. Yeah, um, yeah. So in that scenario which, to be fair, hasn't happened for a long time, and I'll tell you why it hasn't happened for a long time that was going to be fair hasn't happened for a long time, and I'll tell you why it hasn't happened, for a long time.
Jordi Taylor:That was going to be the second part of the question.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, well, okay, let me start with. Why it doesn't happen anymore is because I'm choosing that. I am over the do. So when I first started out, it's like do you do? You want to come and do this? Yeah, I do, because look who it is, look who they look at the, look at what this will look like on my website, look at. And so I was privileging that over the stuff I've said I am. And, to be clear, at that point I wasn't I probably wasn't that clear on who I am. I was. I've started a business. I need to do the business.
Dan Haesler:So now, yeah, the whole piece around belonging and excellence if I don't get both of those, I'm not working there. So I've started working with the New South Wales Swifts right, netball team, super netball. So excellence is a kit, right, I mean the professional team, and they just have that way about them. They're striving for that. But the so I was doing the first two or three months of my engagement there was really just getting to know the environment, doing one-on-ones with players and whatnot, and one of the players so, and usually like sort of, I'm doing most of the asking and and then I would say any questions for me, and this one player said yeah, why do you want to work at the Swifts? Which I thought was a really cool question, and I had the answers. I knew exactly why I wanted to play at the Swifts because the first time I went in, the very first time I went in, it was their captain's run for their penultimate, if not last, game of the season and they invited me to join the warm-up.
Jordi Taylor:How'd you go? I went all right.
Dan Haesler:I mean, it wasn't netball, to be fair, it was some version of volleyball, right, but the point was that belonging piece. They didn't know who I was, but I mean to it. I'd met. I think I'd met one of the players previously at an event. I'd met the coach previously, but the players were like hey, dan, come on over. So I was introduced to the group at the start. Hey, dan's here, he's thinking about doing some work with us or we're thinking about doing some work with him. But that was it. And then I was just sat there watching and said, whoa, whoa, don't sit there, come over. And I was like, wow, so when you think about belonging, that was cool.
Dan Haesler:And so making business decisions for want of a better word off of the values means that now I very rarely will be spending time with people who don't have that desire to actually do the work. How I've managed it in the past ranges from very poorly, very poorly ie not having a plan B during the session and just muddling my way through and walking off, going far out I'd never, ever want to do that again through to actually quite good where, basically just posing, so realising that, oh, hang on, there's a bit of a gap to close here. Well, you know, here I am talking about this and there over here we need to close that. So, having some good go-to questions like and that's where the whole out of 10 thing came out of, and it's like once, once I say, keep your hand up if you're 10 out of 10 for how important, oh so, how deliberate you are for training it, and all the hands go down.
Dan Haesler:You know, there you go in that interesting, are you telling me? It's the different. You know, especially at the elite level, it's the difference everyone can kick, everyone can pass, everyone can run. Yeah, there's, you know, I say it's, it's a big part of the difference between who can handle those pressure moments or not. You know, um, so, yeah, so I got better at it, but now I you know, as I said, I'm pretty deliberate about um, about not being in rooms where you might get where.
Jordi Taylor:We've got that big gap.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, I mean, I like being thrown. Don't get me wrong. I like being challenged on things. That's that's different. The gaps is not. It get me wrong. I like being challenged on things. That's different. The gaps is not. It's a different gap. I like being challenged on things. What I'm saying is I'm not keen on trying to convince people that this is important. I'm not keen on having to motivate people that this is important.
Jordi Taylor:That's not my job and that's a good differentiator too, just for people to understand. Most definitely, yeah, do you also think and this is where, uh, my head went as well um, with maybe why now you've had a lot more success as well? Obviously it's a lot of front of mind for people, the the mental skill side of the game with everything that's going around, um, and for right reasons. So it should be two. Do you also feel now that, uh, you've got quote unquote runs on the board? You know you've worked with some phenomenal athletes across multitude of sports.
Jordi Taylor:Now that people just go, the education, your education, obviously one of your key values was always learning and developing. So obviously you're always going to keep learning and developing. But you know I'm making an arbitrary number. You know 90 of what you've learned, yeah, and what you, your experience is probably going to stay relatively the same, like they're your core principles. You might pull and choose and, you know, add different pieces to it, but that core principles are pretty much somewhat cemented and whether that was five years ago or today, but you athletes will buy in because, hey, like, if you do have a presentation, I'm just making an assumption you chuck it up and here's like five athletes you work with. I'd look at that and go well, I'm not going to be able to argue with that Like if it's worked for them. You know it's going to work for me.
Dan Haesler:Well, only if they do the work. That's the point, right Like? This stuff does not work.
Jordi Taylor:But does that help them take that first step, do you think?
Dan Haesler:at all.
Jordi Taylor:Oh for sure. I mean, of course it breaks down that full of shit, or is this guy legit, you know?
Dan Haesler:yeah, oh, certainly. I mean credibility is um, because, because I'm yeah, so it's an interesting one, right, because I'm not a qualified sports psychologist, which we chatted about last time, so I'm not that, right, I'm not that guy, um.
Dan Haesler:So it's a really interesting one, because there are some people for whom that means I don't have any credibility because I'm not a sports psychologist, right, and I've never professed to be I don't know what I say is I'm a teacher, right, um, who you know for a whole series of little little serendipitous moments, kind of found himself doing this. Yes, I've, um, I've done different, you know courses and certifications and all that kind of jazz, but this whole idea of you know sports like. No, I'm not a sports psychologist. So so, as I said, some sporting bodies aren't keen on me being involved if I'm not. That because, for whatever reason, they see it as not as beneficial. Or perhaps it's in competition with or whatever.
Dan Haesler:What I am is a coach and what I say is often I'll serve either as a gateway to a sports psych or a clinical psych in some cases, like it's well out of my pay grade what you're needing to manage, like it's well out of my pay grade what you're what you're needing to manage. So it'll sometimes serve as a gateway, but what it always serves as and that's giving myself a rap, but this is what it always serves as an amplifier for any messages they have had from a sports psych before. Yeah, so it's like, oh, yeah, the psych put a graph up about that or said this. But now because how you know the way I would work they're able to really contextualize it and make it there's, whereas perhaps and I'm not saying this is the case in every situation, but perhaps it was a somewhat, you know, as a presentation to the whole team, because often that's how that's how this stuff is often done. You know it's just the presentation for the team and maybe there's a one-on-one if they get lucky or whatever.
Dan Haesler:So certainly, but then being able to say, look, okay, so I'm not a psych, I'm a coach, and here are some of the people I've worked with and they have reported that it's helped them in this way or this way or this way. There's no guarantee that it's going to help you, but what I would say is that if you're prepared to do the work and that's what I said before like if you're coming to this with a mindset of curiosity and wanting to improve, I I would back myself to be able to help people, make connections that perhaps they hadn't made before, and create strategies, techniques, ways of being which can help them manage whatever it is they're trying to manage, whether that's in the corporate world or sporting world and I think that differentiator, probably, as much as it may work against you, works for you, right it?
Dan Haesler:might do do, because I think we probably touched on this last time. I do think and this is not I don't agree with this sentiment whatsoever, but I do think that there's still something of a bit of a stigma around the idea of a sports psych. It's just the word psychologist and it's like I just I don't think there should be.
Jordi Taylor:I've got the utmost respect for sports psychs you know, to go from nothing to mental skills, to sports, psych is like that bridging gap. Yeah, and you frame it as a skill.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, Athletes get skills you know, it's oh. I can train this okay, whereas, yeah, I do think, and maybe in some environments you know, they've not done enough education around a sports psych versus clinical psych type situation. So yeah, it's. But yeah, sure, having good players say it's helped Helps.
Jordi Taylor:Definitely. One thing we spoke about off-air last time because I was very curious about your thoughts on it and I really want to touch on it today is you're at the Swifts, now you're at the Panthers, two very different organisations top down, but obviously you now got male athletes and you got female athletes and I think my personal experience. I'll tell you what I think in a sentence, because I was thinking about this on the way here. How to summarize it as brief and succinct as possible? I believe with female athletes, as a coach, you have their trust till you lose it. With male athletes, you have to build trust. That's my simple way of doing it. Sorry, I have muddled that up.
Dan Haesler:With male athletes.
Jordi Taylor:I've tried to nail it with male athletes, you have their trust until you lose it. Right. With female athletes, you need to build their trust, right. Okay, that is my, my quick, succinct version of that. Yeah, so for a bloke until you do something that goes against them. Oh, I trust you. Again, generalization. But with female athletes it's okay. Show me that you care, show me this, show me that you get the proof. The proof adds up Then, all of a sudden to me, I've found that with female athletes, especially working in the private space, if a female athlete moves on, whether they go to a different club or they do something else, it generally feels like a breakup because there's so much emotional investment in it. That's been my opinion, my quick cliff note version. Your shorter experience now with the Swiss. You've obviously worked with female clients in the past. What's your opinion on that?
Dan Haesler:how do you? Yeah, I mean it's um. So I've heard a few different versions of what you've said um obviously not as succinct and beautiful as that?
Dan Haesler:obviously not. I mean, that's an instagram uh post right there. But one version I heard which, um, you know, I think, think in my experience sort of mirrors this a little bit is that if I go into a room, let's say I'm doing something on like the inner critic, right, or I'm doing something on imposter syndrome, if I go into a room full of male athletes, very generally speaking, the vibe is oh yeah, you know, they're listening. Oh yeah, yeah, there's guys in here who struggle with this. So the idea is that the person there yeah, this is other people deal with it, whereas in a female environment, everyone's listening going, oh my God, he's talking about me. Everyone's listening going oh my god, he's talking about me right now.
Dan Haesler:Again, I don't want to. I'm not saying that, that's true, but it's. I had, I've had a few different coaches sort of share that approach to thinking about. So what does that mean when we're giving constructive feedback? What does that mean when we're dealing with setbacks? And I think you know, without being in any way stereotypical about it but maybe it is stereotypical, I don't know, but I'm just basing it on my experience what I've found at the Swifts and with other female athletes is that from the get-go they actually are able to be a bit more reflective, or they certainly seem to be open to being a bit more reflective on the whole identity piece, on the whole what you might even call the softer side of performance, which I actually feel is the foundation of performance, whereas and again, massive generalisation but I'm only speaking from my experience the male athletes tend to it has to be more performance-based to start with. We'll get to this. We'll get to the other bit later.
Jordi Taylor:You sort of opposite ends of the spectrum a little bit.
Dan Haesler:Kind of, but almost naturally.
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, it's a seesaw effect, right yeah?
Dan Haesler:yeah, now to be clear, maybe that's because of how I'm, maybe that's my biases coming through and how I'm framing the session. I don't know, but certainly in my experience that tends to. They're the main ones, like the male athletes straightaway need to know the performance benefit, whereas the female athlete tends to be more about the identity piece, as I might frame it, that softer side stuff, and then we'll get to the. Oh okay, now we can take this to the core or to the whatever environment.
Jordi Taylor:I couldn't agree more, even just taking it back from a layer deeper in my explanation. Male athletes just want to know why. Why is that going to help? Great, I can do that. That's kind of the end of it With the female athletes. You kind of like to take them through the journey a little bit more.
Jordi Taylor:You know the emotional side of it and you know what I find that more often than not, if you just ask them what are you up to on the weekend? Oh, I'm going to go see my friend who is up from Brisbane or down from Brisbane, depending on where you're at. You know, down from Brisbane for the weekend. You know, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This, this and this Monday comes around. Hey, how was it? When you caught up with, you know, your friend, oh yeah, it was really really good and all of a sudden're like, oh, he really cares, she really cares. That care factor is just amplified. In my experience, I don't know. I was really curious from your perspective and I think where people get it wrong is where they say there is no difference, and I've had that experience with coaches before. They've gone well. Team to team. Team dynamics are not a team dynamic. Male team versus male team is different, female team versus female team is different.
Dan Haesler:Athlete to athlete is different as well, there you go. So that's what I would say. So a different way of thinking about this could be to say that there's more difference between athletes of the same gender as there are across the genders.
Jordi Taylor:Is that?
Dan Haesler:right, that does make sense. There's more difference between individual female athletes than there are between a whole heap of female athletes and a whole heap of male athletes and and to be honest, that goes that back to that idea of differentiation again, that where, yeah, I'm I am notes there are differences between the two environments I spend most of my time in in the sporting, noticing there are differences between the two environments that I spend most of my time in in the sporting sense. There are, but there are also differences between the playing groups Within that.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, within that and I think having that idea of meeting our athletes wherever they're at is super important and trying actually to go in with as open a mind and open you know um book of techniques to to try and make those connections as possible for sure.
Jordi Taylor:Wrapping up Cause we, we, we've gotten halfway through the questions again, so part three might be on the cards. I think this time of year is really important for a lot of athletes, for our field based athletes. They're going back into trial games, they're playing junior reps. I know your son had a game on the weekend. Junior reps are on. They'll be just around the corner. The Panthers are traveling. Are you going to Vegas? I'm not going to Vegas, unfortunately. What a shame. Panthers going over for round one. Afl round zero is literally around the corner. Zero is literally around the corner. Like it's all happening. Clubland goes back in juniors and seniors as well.
Jordi Taylor:Pre-season can be a great time because it can really build a good foundation, a good base. Also, I know, for a lot of athletes, especially if they're, you know, first, second year, third year players they get to now and they're actually fucking cooked. They're like I'm done, like I'm buggered. This isn't even started yet. You got 26 rounds. What do you say to athletes now if they're starting to maybe show whether that be subjectively, like ie, like you know, you're asking hannah, how are you doing? I'm bloody, I'm tight. Yeah, ask man, how you going, mate, tight. You start to see that subjectiveness or like their performance just starts to decrease. Just a little freshen up. Or, um, yeah, maybe just that freshen up approach, like how do you just give them a little spark again in knowing that like, yeah, it's a big season, but we're here, yeah what's your approach there?
Dan Haesler:yeah, I think it would that predominantly. Actually, my approach would be, first and foremost, to check in with the physical stuff, like the sncs and the physios or whoever, so it's just to try and get the lay of the land. So is this a physical thing or is it a mental fatigue thing? Because obviously there's different approaches. So if it is a physical thing, then whatever that looks like break or reduce the load, whatever that far better than me.
Dan Haesler:If it's a mental fatigue thing, then yeah, I would sort of like I talk a lot about this idea of being able to switch off, because if you don't switch off, then you're always on, and if we're always on, then you are just going to grind into nothing. And again, this kind of ties back into the whole stuff around who you want to be and and where do you, what other environments and other canvases where you get to express who you are. So if it's only, if you've only got the sport and that's literally it, then it's really hard to switch off, because if I switch off then I feel like I'm not doing or being anything. So it's like saying, okay, well, let's find other environments that you get to be yourself in hobbies, relationships, you name it.
Jordi Taylor:And can I ask a question? Sorry to cut you off in your flow. Let's say, for example, I'm a professional athlete. Let's say your hobby is yoga or Pilates. That's almost adjacent to what you do. Is that a good hobby? Or would you rather say, hey, let's do something completely. Let's go do painting, let's go do clay work, like I'm just making up something very, very random, very different. Is that better, do you think, than having something slightly adjacent? Because at the end of the day, you might be doing yoga and you're like, okay, this is going to increase my hamstring flexibility, which then all of a sudden, okay, I'm doing something that is deemed right or better for me, but I'm still thinking about my sport versus clay, unless you're making AFL balls or every league ball or something like that, because you're a complete weirdo. You're kind of really disconnecting or disassociating from that identity disconnecting or disassociating from that identity.
Dan Haesler:Yeah, thoughts, I, um, I come back to this question like is this helping, is this serving you, is this helping or harming? Um, so if it's yoga and go and and I say, is that is it helping and go, yeah, I completely switch off. I just follow the yogi and doing this and transport it to somewhere completely different. I do my mindfulness at the end of it and I come out and I feel a million dollars, sweet, keep doing yoga, play on, play on, yeah. But if it's like, yeah, I'm doing it to try and get a break, but I don't think I can, then that's when it becomes the issue. So, again, it's like just getting to know them and getting them to know themselves as much as anything. Oh, I thought this would help, but it turns out it doesn't. So, yeah, having different places where they get to be them, and then saying, okay, and does this help? Because it's no good having, like you say, something, that clay work.
Dan Haesler:I don't know where clay comes from, let's say clay yeah, clay, but they're just making afl balls all the time and you know, I mean maybe that helps, I don't know. But but my point being yeah, the question is, does it help you or not? Because if you, if, if you go and do your hobbies and then you come back and he's just as cooked from doing your hobbies as you would have been if you'd done a field session, then maybe we need to rethink those, those hobbies, or or how are you spending that time? Because it's a finite resource, right, our energy and our, our focus. So we need to be mindful and deliberate about that.
Dan Haesler:So, um, so if, if let's say, you address that, um, and then it could just be let's realign, let's realign with our, and then it could just be let's realign with our goals and what we said was important, and again, who you want to be, and it's just unpicking that, but, yeah, understanding that we need to switch off, because if you're always on, well, you can't switch on when it really counts. If you're always on, and, yeah, you're just going to exhaust yourself. I love it Just to wrap it up.
Jordi Taylor:Someone's just going to exhaust yourself. No, I love it, just to wrap it up. Someone's gotten all this way, then this is awesome. We've spoken about a variety of topics. I can really relate. I just need one or two things to actually take away. It may not be like an actual practice, but it may be okay. Here's an idea to go and explore just a little bit further. We spoke about the off switch. That's a nice concept. Someone can tangibly take away with them to go and explore what that means, Okay, so riff on that, right.
Dan Haesler:So go away and think about how you think differently about switching off and recharging, because they're two different things but we get them mixed up. So what I mean by that is sometimes people. The best way we can recharge is obviously sleep. All right, but a lot of the time you know what it takes to recharge other than you know recover, let's say, recover sleep. To recharge typically requires some sort of intentionality. So people will recharge, they'll tell me, for example, by going out and meeting friends. So you don't go out and meet friends by accident. You have to be intentional.
Dan Haesler:Some people talk about yeah, I recharge by going to the gym. Physically it's tiring, but afterwards I've got that real sense of recharge ready to go. No one ends up at the gym by accident. I've got that real sense of recharge ready to go. No one ends up at the gym by accident, right. But then other people say, yeah, you know, I just like to chill out and watch Netflix with a glass of wine, right. The problem with that is that's typically quite passive, because you think you're going to watch one Netflix episode, but you end up watching three and the glass becomes a bottle, and so that's more of a switch off. Right, I'll switch off there and I'll just mindlessly now just start doing it.
Dan Haesler:And the problem with that, of course, is that those things which are helping us switch off come to the detriment of our ability to recover. You know sleeping. So in my world, I switch off by reading fiction, I recharge by reading nonfiction, right? Or listening. I can't switch off by listening to a podcast. Now, some people might have switched off and fallen asleep listening to me, but if I'm listening to a podcast, my mind's popping off. I'm like, oh, I could do this. You're actively listening, right? Yeah, if I try and go to sleep after listening to a podcast, my mind's popping off.
Jordi Taylor:I'm like oh, I could do this. You're actively listening, right yeah?
Dan Haesler:If I try and go to sleep after listening to a podcast, I can't because I'm jotting down all the things. I'm going to do this. So I know that when I'm on holiday, if I want to go away on holiday, I'm taking a fiction book and it could be the crap, it doesn't matter what it is, but I fiction I'm not taking. I'm not even taking, um, a biography, I'm not even taking a book on, you know, jockovich or anything like, because I know that that will get me thinking about stuff. So, again, that's that mindful and deliberate piece.
Dan Haesler:Um.
Dan Haesler:The other thing I think would be really it's it's so valuable to spend time thinking about.
Dan Haesler:It is if there's anyone sort of listening or watching who does over subscribe to what they do as a sense of who they are as a person like you know, if, if I'm playing well, that I'm doing well as a, as a human, or people love me more, if I'm in the team, or, you know, if I finally make it, get selected or get the contract, then I'll be happy, right?
Dan Haesler:If any of you feeling, then I think, doing the exercise of breaking that I am what I do, into I am, and talk about your values, talk about your way of being, how you want to show up and then think about what you do. That can be a game changer for people, for sure. And once you've got that married with the ability to switch off at the end of the day and recover at the end of the day, stuff in the middle of the day tends to become a little bit easier, you know. And then, yeah, sure, add your visualization, add your breathing techniques, add your goal setting, whatever it might be, but without those two kind of uh cornerstones or whatever you might call them, you know, bookends, um, anything that happens in the middle is going to be suboptimal I love it, mate.
Jordi Taylor:That's a very good way to finish and a nice little piece for people to take away if they were jotting their thoughts down. That's it. That's a great way to do it, mate. Thank you again. Best of luck upcoming season with the Panthers. Hopefully we'll chat again very soon, but in the meantime we'll see how it all goes. So best of luck with the team and the Sw.
