I Thought I Was Helping: A Lesson on Unintended Consequences

Good intentions don’t always lead to good outcomes. In this episode, I share a real coaching mistake from my time in Major League Baseball and the lesson it taught me about unintended consequences. We dive into how routines and mental training can shift from being helpful to detrimental, especially if it becomes a dependency for athletes.

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Transcript

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If you spend any time at all online following coaches, it's easy to sometimes think that we're all crushing it. Most of what we see is this beautifully curated highlight reel of our favorite moments, client breakthroughs, or the moments that make us look like everything that we're doing is neat and in order and working perfectly. And all this is fine and great, but it becomes easy to forget that there's a lot behind the scenes that maybe we don't always see. We don't always get to see the rejections. We don't always get to see the conversations that we think will help somebody that doesn't lead to a breakthrough. Or even sometimes a conversation where maybe we misspoke, or even with the best of intentions, tried to help somebody and yet maybe inadvertently made it worse. But one of the things that we know from a learning standpoint is that sometimes the most valuable form of development, it doesn't come from learning what to do. It comes from learning what not to do. So today on the podcast, I want to share one of those moments from me, one of the mistakes that I've made in the past, and use it to talk about something that I think probably shows up a lot more often than we realize. 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 Callinly.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 the inspiration for today's episode uh stems from a major league pitcher that I worked with um years ago. And at the time, like he had had a good number of success at the big league level and throughout his his professional baseball career. But then all of a sudden, we had a stretch in a season where he started to struggle and he started to be really inconsistent. You'd have flashes where you'd see, like, okay, this is his potential. This is like you'd see the talent come to the surface, and it was like he all of a sudden things would start to click, and then all of a sudden things would unravel. He'd follow up a great outing with maybe one or two outings that he'd obviously rather forget in a race. And amidst this performance and emotional roller coaster, we were kind of chatting routinely about his mindset. Thankfully, he was the type of player that was already pretty appreciative of the mental side of the game. But as we chatted, the thing that I kept kind of noticing was that there was pro there was a gap between knowing and doing. He'd say the right things, but then he wasn't quite sure how to train some of the tools and the skills. So one day we were kind of chatting a little bit about how to improve his consistency. Part of what we boiled it down to was getting more consistency with his in-between pitch process. And we were talking about focus, and we talked about a little bit, and one of the things that he asked me about was meditation. He's like, Hey, like I know you do a lot of meditation with different guys on an individual basis. Could you tell me a little bit more about like what's that all about? And so we started to talk through it what it is, what it's not, how it's not some magic bullet or magic fix, and it's not about clearing your mind. It's just about learning to become more aware, learning to be become more engaged in the moment, and hopefully develop uh a practice that enables you to be a little bit more grounded and weather all the different adversity and circumstances that you may confront. And after kind of talking it through, we both agreed like it could be a valuable thing to incorporate into his routine. So the intention was good. We were gonna treat it like a skill, so something that we would train, and to his credit, he bought in. He became really disciplined with it, very consistent. We would do it pretty regularly, um, almost to the point where like he was like, I don't want to ever miss this, so like make sure you come grab me so that way I keep it consistent. And along the way, he would describe things anecdotally that were encouraging. He's like, I feel better, I feel more free and light on the mound. And I think you could kind of see it. And for a stretch, I thought, okay, this is working, like we're gaining some traction. Like he'd each string together some outings and they weren't perfect, but it was again it felt like a step in the right direction. But then, like always, uh, the game has a way of testing you. And he had a couple of tough outings back to back again, and all of a sudden it was like the question kind of kept creeping back in, like, well, is this working? Is this what I need? Is this the most helpful thing for me? And this is where I think I dropped the ball. I failed to recognize in that moment that somewhere along the line, his trust was kind of shifting. It moved away from his ability to compete and more toward whether or not he had done the meditation within his routine. He wanted to make the meditation practice a staple of it, which was great, but without meaning to, it led to a dependency. And so despite my positive intentions, there was a cost and there was an unintended consequence. So for me, as I reflect back on this mistake that I made, I think there's really two important lessons that I've personally tried to keep in mind. And unfortunately, I don't think he's the only player that I've done this with in the past. So if any of you are listening to this uh that I've had in the past, so sorry. I've probably made this mistake more times than not. But the couple of the main lessons I've learned is first is on the performer side. Routines are great, mental training is valuable, like preparation matters, like all that. And at some point, you have to be able to separate your ability to compete from whether or not everything is worked perfectly leading up to it, or that your routine is completely dialed. Because there's gonna be instances where you can't necessarily follow it to a T. There's gonna be instances where the game is gonna test how well you can adapt. There's gonna be days where you're not gonna feel great. And the question's gonna become can you still go? Can you still perform? Can you still compete with what you have on that day? And I think that's extremely important. Like I think that's a major separator from some of the elite performers is not just can they be intentional with their preparation, but then when the game starts and they step between the lines and whatever their given craft is, can they then put their trust in themselves? I talked about this previously with things like mechanics, for example. Um, this is very common in baseball, um, like sports like tennis, golf, where if performers make tweaks in like the off season or they re-alter their swings or their deliveries and things like that, it's very easy then for them to put a lot of stock into those adjustments. They come back, maybe they feel better, they're stronger, all that. They're not uh interrupted by fatigue and all that. And next thing you know, things are starting to click. But what I've learned that's I think really important is that the best competitors, they have learned to compete regardless of those things. They've learned to like choose a moment where when the game begins, my trust is in me and not just something either outside of myself, or again, I know mechanics are still kind of part of you, but again, like your ability to compete, like that's what I want you to have trust and unwavering belief in. And then the second takeaway is more for me. This is on the coaching side. It's been a reminder for me to constantly consider are there unintended consequences of what I'm sharing or what I'm introducing? Because almost everything that we bring in, whether it's a tool, a drill, a strategy, a new thing in your routine, it will have benefits. And in most instances, there's gonna be a cost. And the goal isn't to find the one perfect approach, it's to understand some of the trade-offs. What am I giving or providing for the player? And also, what might be be an unintended consequence of this? Where might this actually be a drawback? Um, and again, this won't always be obvious in the moment. Sometimes it's only going to become Lear later on, which is again unfortunately what I encounter with this particular player. But I think the key here is the discipline to ask yourself and to consider that question um on a regular basis. Is what I'm introducing here, are there any of those unintended consequences? Because if I could go back to that moment with that pitcher, what I wish I would have done more of is simply remind him of this. Hey, this is gonna be helpful to you. This is gonna be beneficial in your routine and keep doing it. Let's keep building momentum. But none of this is the reason that you're gonna succeed tonight. The reason that you're gonna succeed is because of you. And if it's not there for whatever reason, it's okay. Like if you're not perfect, if the routine gets thrown off, that's okay. Your trust is in your ability to compete. And at the end of the day, what I want for any athlete, any leader, anybody that I work with is pretty simple. I want them to take every edge that they can get, but I also want them to be able to walk into any moment, even when things aren't perfect, and say, fuck it, I can go do this, I can go compete with what I got. And just the willingness to compete with what they got, that to me is one of the ultimate competitive advantages that you can have as a performer.