After the Whistle: Are You Worth the Investment?

If you were evaluated like a financial stock, would your daily habits justify someone else investing in you? Inspired by my conversation with Wake Forest head soccer coach, Bobby Muuss, this episode breaks down how consistency and daily deposits shape how others evaluate (and trust) you. You’ll also learn how to approach each day like a one-day contract and why that mindset can change how you show up.

Learn More About Zach:

• Get 1:1 coaching with Zach -- Schedule a free call here
• Subscribe to my free newsletter here

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Let me ask you a simple question. If I evaluated you like a financial investment, would your current pattern of behavior justify the bet? Now I'm not asking should I invest in your potential or your intentions. I want to know if you think your current habits and efforts are worth investing in. And maybe even a better question is if I watched how you went about your work today, not necessarily just with the outcomes that you produce, but by the effort that you put in, would I still invest? And I think these are just a pair of the questions that were inspired by my recent interview with Wake Forest men's soccer head coach Bobby Mews. So today on this segment of After the Whistle, I want to explore what it might look like to compare financial investments to the world of sport and performance, and how all of us can start auditing ourselves day by day like we're a stock. Hey coaches and leaders, I got a quick question for you. You spend a lot of time building game plans for those you lead, but when was the last time you built one for yourself? If you're looking to sharpen your leadership skills, strengthen your team culture, or find better ways to support and challenge your athletes in the mental game, I'd love to help. I'm offering a free coaching call where we can talk through your current challenges and create a simple game plan for what might move the needle most for you, your players, and your program. Most coaches I know obsess over developing their team, but they neglect the person in the mirror. This call is a chance to invest in you because a better you is going to produce a better them. And if that sounds helpful, you can grab a time at Callenly.com slash Zach Brandon. That's Callenly.com slash Zach Brandon, or just check the link in the show notes. I'd love to connect and explore how I can best support you. So in my conversation with Coach Mews, he shared that he uses the idea of stocks with his players, and he shared this analogy through a question that he likes to pose to them. Here's how he described it.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I've been using my players like when they come in. I said, What type of stock are you? Right? Like even as a player, what type of stock are you? Right? You have we know you have high potential, but you're not performing. Right? And you're dropping. Should I sell you? Right? I mean, I I don't I don't it's it, but honestly, that that's the thing. It's like you just want this consistency of improvement. You know there's going to be a little bit of loophole, but that's what we want, right? Um, you don't want guys, I don't want guys depreciating on my dime, right? I've been using stocks a lot with our guys.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

So one of the reasons why I really like this is because I think it can shift how we evaluate our performance. Because when you think about investing, you're generally not looking for those that have random spikes. You're looking for more consistency, maybe something that's a little bit more reliable, a return that you feel like you can put a little bit more trust in. This is in essence what coaches are searching for all the time in their players. They want the guys that are consistent. For those that gripe about coaches playing favorites, well, of course they do. They play the players that they can trust. They play the ones that are reliable, not just when things are going well, but in how they show up every single day in the form of their preparation, their effort, or their responses when things aren't going well all the time. Because if your mindset and your actions fluctuate day by day and your effort is inconsistent, similar to how the stock market can be volatile and up and down, then you're probably not a very strong investment. You're probably a little bit more of a risk. Now there's a line from the author, Morgan Hausel. He's the author of Psychology of Money, where he says that more than I want big returns, I want to be financially unbreakable. And I think you could make a case. That's what many coaches often want from their players. Yes, a big return or a top performance is great, but it's also really nice when you have a player who is unbreakable and doesn't fall victim to the volatility of the game and the competition and continues to show up day by day with the same level of standards and with a consistent mindset. Now, the second reason why I really like this analogy from Coach Mews is the idea of like daily deposits being the equivalent to us putting in work day by day from a performance standpoint. Every single day, you're making deposits or withdrawals. Every rep, every practice, every decision, you're either building value in yourself that others can in essence invest in or you're diminishing it. Now part of the key here is reminding yourself that the best performers understand that these efforts will need to compound. You can't just have one great day. You have to deliberately stack good days over and over because over time those deposits they start to add up. And eventually you become undeniable. Now, one last reflection that came to mind as it pertains to the stock market analogy is that most people want short-term returns. They want immediate results, they want immediate playing time, they want immediate validation. But real development is oftentimes a very long-term investment. And just like the market, it's not always going to be linear. There's going to be dips, there's going to be plateaus. And in those moments, the question becomes, do you stay invested in yourself or do you sell? When your performance dips, do you start to lose your confidence? Do you abandon your process? Or do you trust the work that you've been putting in and the deposits that you've already been making? Because the best performers, they don't just panic when things fluctuate, they stay committed, they stay invested in themselves. Now, one of my favorite examples from this, um, in like a real life example, now I'm gonna kind of shift for a moment from the stock market analogy, but when I was having that conversation with Coach Mews, it kind of reminded me of my first year in Pro Bowl. Our outfield coordinator was Johnny Gomes. Now, for those of that are unfamiliar with him, his baseball career was pretty remarkable in its own way. His career spanned 13 years in the big leagues, and he was a key contributor to the Red Sox 2013 World Series team. Now, despite the longevity of his career, one of the things that he always talked about was that he never had a multi-year contract. Every single year he had to earn it again. Nothing was ever guaranteed, and over time that became his mindset. He didn't just show up assuming that he had tomorrow or he had uh another contract for next year, he showed up like he had to earn it every single day starting today. So beyond just evaluating yourself like a stock, what if you approach today like you were on a one-day contract? Just today. How would you show up? How would you prepare? How would you respond when things don't go your way? And when the day ends, would you earn a contract for tomorrow? Because every day you show up, you're sending a signal about who you are and what you're worth. And over time, your habits are going to tell the story of whether or not you're worth investing in.