Anson Dorrance, 22x National Champion Coach of UNC's Women's Soccer Team on Leadership, Accountability, Parenting, and the Competitive-Cauldron

Episode Sumary: In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast,  Anson Dorrance takes us on a deep-dive into his 47-year long career at the University of North Carolina where he's led the women's soccer team to an awe-inspiring 22 national championships.

About Anson Dorrance: Anson Dorrance IV is an American soccer coach. He is currently the head coach of the women's soccer program at the University of North Carolina. He has one of the most successful coaching records in the history of athletics. Under Dorrance's leadership, the Tar Heels have won 21 of the 41 NCAA Women's Soccer Championships. The Tar Heels' record under Dorrance stood at 809-67-36 (.887 winning percentage) over 33 seasons at the end of the 2017 season. He has led his team to a 101-game unbeaten streak and coached 13 different women to a total of 20 National Player of the Year awards.

The NCAA has recognized Dorrance as the Women's Soccer Coach of the Year seven times (1982, 1986, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2006) and as the Men's Soccer Coach of the Year in 1987. On March 10, 2008, Dorrance was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

3 Key Takeaways:
1. We explore the pivotal role of data-driven practices and core values in creating a competitive and successful team.
2. Anson shares his passion surrounding his students leading a principle-centered life, instilling respect for authority figures, and setting lofty goals.
3. He shares fascinating anecdotes about his experiences coaching and molding competitive students into responsible adults.
4. Anson offers advice to students transitioning to elite universities, as well as challenging listeners to never give up on leadership.

Quotes From the Episode:
“Connection is critical.”
“Data is candor.”

Resources Mentioned:
University of North Carolina

Connect with Anson:
Twitter | Linkedin 

Transcript

Doug Smith: 0:07

Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host, and today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Bear Tongue Advisors. We also recorded this episode live from the newreturncom studio. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy our content and become a subscriber. I know that you can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube channel, so make sure you're subscribed there as well. And, as always, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and it's made an impact on your life, it would mean the world to me if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever app you listen to podcast through. That really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, so thank you in advance for that. Well, leader, in this week's episode of the podcast, you are in for a treat. You're going to hear my conversation with coach Anson Durant, who is an absolute legend. If you're unfamiliar with coach, let me just tell you a little bit about him. Anson has been coach of the University of North Carolina's women's soccer team for over 47 years. In fact, he is the one and only coach that the program has ever had and under his coaching and leadership he has led the teams that he's led to 22 national championships. He has been a time coach of the year. He was coach of the 1991 World Cup champion team Team USA. He's a Hall of Famer, a leader and mentor to so many, and in our conversation you're going to hear him talk about what he calls the competitive cauldron, which is incredible. You're going to hear him talk about what separated him from all the other coaches and competition, what separates the great players from everybody else, how to draw potential out of others, and so much more. And all I can really tell you is buckle up, get out your pen and paper and get ready to take a massive amount of notes. This was one of my favorite interviews of all time and I just can't wait for you to listen.

Doug Smith: 1:51

But before we get into the conversation, just a few announcements. This episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Beratung Advisors. The financial advisors at Beratung Advisors help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how Beratung Advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at beratungadvisors. com. That's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisorscom. Securities and investment products and services offered through LPL Financial. Member of FINRA and SIPC. Beratung Advisors, LPL Financial and L3 Leadership are separate entities.

Doug Smith: 2:27

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Doug Smith: 2:52

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Anson Dorrance: 4:00

Well, honestly, there's no sort of mythical, I guess, algorithm for winning in collegiate athletics. You've got to be an effective recruiter, and obviously I worked for a remarkable university that's very attractive, and so we've been in a position to recruit some incredible student athletes. And so anyone in collegiate athletics that pretends that they win for reasons other than the talent they have on their roster is just, you know, bloviating in the most negative way. So, no, I've had a collection of amazing young women that, have you know, killed themselves to compete at the highest level, and I worked for a university that's very attractive, and so for me it certainly comes down to the elite athletes that we've attracted to the university. And then I think, there you know, once you do have these amazing athletes, you have a moral imperative to try to take them to their potential. And I think we have three different elements that I think assist us in getting to our potential. And the first element is something that I think is talked about consistently, and I appreciate the fact that is talked about consistently, because this has been a huge weapon for us from the beginning. I believe that if you want to become elite at anything, you've got to compete, and so this thing that we've stolen from Dean Smith and the men's basketball team here at the University of North Carolina has served us incredibly well, and it's a thing we call the competitive cauldron, and I'll share the backstory for it because I think you'll appreciate this.

Anson Dorrance: 5:40

I was a young coach here at UNC, you know, wet behind the ears, and we had this absolutely brilliant man on campus that we all admired by the name of Dean Smith, and for those of you that don't know who this gentleman is, this is Michael Jordan, this college basketball coach, and he was an extraordinary man, not just an extraordinary coach, he was an extraordinary man and he was such a generous human being. He came up to me one day, when I was, you know, recently, hired, wet behind the ears and basically said you know, hanson, if you're bored one afternoon, you want to come watch us practice basketball? You know, please let my, my staff know, and we'll set you and your staff in the, you know, in the auditorium and the Carmichael Center. This is where, you know, michael Jordan basically finished his basketball career. Of course, they've built the Smith Center since then, but we'll put you in Carmichael and you can watch the practice and and I'm thinking this is unbelievable. So this guy's going to let me come, you know, watch practice. And and I thought it was incredible so, of course, yes, yes, this is Dean Smith, I mean, he's a God here in Chapel Hill Then he's invited me to watch practice. Now, of course, of course.

Anson Dorrance: 6:48

And so I show up one day and of course I mustered in. I have to show up at a certain time. It's incredibly structured and I have to sit in a certain place with my assistants. We're not allowed to talk during the practice or not interfering with what's going on. And what was also fascinating for me is I am handed by one of his managers, and so is every one of my staff members, an outline of the practice.

Anson Dorrance: 7:12

Now I'm looking down at this thing and first of all, I can't believe it because it looks like he's organized the practice to the minute. I have never organized a practice to the minute. I've got sort of a general idea of what's going to go on that day. I know it's going to be a hard day or a medium day or a light day. I know the practice is going to last an hour and a half or something, and that's what I know. And other than that I don't know anything. And then I started inventing stuff to do during the practice based on my own experiences as a player.

Anson Dorrance: 7:40

And now I'm looking down at this agenda for the training session that day and I just can't believe it. And first of all, I can't believe that someone wrote all this down. How does anyone have time during the day to actually write down what's going to happen in practice? Because I was used to just being in sheer chaos every day of my coaching life, couldn't catch up with anything. Even getting on this podcast was difficult for me. Why? Because I get like 400 emails a day. I am harassed from every possible corridor, which is why I wanted you to send me this link five minutes before we're on. Why? Because if you sent it an hour before we were on, I'd never find it. So, anyway, thank goodness we're actually on this thing together, but anyway. So I'm looking at this agenda and I am shocked. And then, of course, he follows it. So, yeah, you know it's such and such a time the warmup begins, and then, all of a sudden, noise goes off and then they go to their first training environment and the players all scatter, going in different directions the guards are going here, the forwards are going here, the bigs are underneath the basket playing 2v2 or something and all of a sudden the noise goes off again. They all sprint somewhere else and incredibly organized and down to the minute. I'm now looking down on my watch thing and, oh my gosh, yeah, they are exactly on time and I'm just I'm stunned. First of all, they actually have an agenda and then they follow the agenda. Yeah, one day I decided to write out my practice. After the practice, I looked at it and I was thinking, holy crap, I didn't do any of this stuff. We have the year in the practice and I was thinking this is amazing. Now Dean Smith is following his own practice outline and first of all, I'm stunned.

Anson Dorrance: 9:17

But the other thing I noticed pretty early is underneath every basket is an assistant manager with a clipboard and I can see these guys writing data down on the clipboards. Obviously, if it's a free throw shooting station, they're recording of the hits or misses for all the kids. If it's a mid-range jumper station and I assume now it would be a three-point shooting station as well as they're all doing these different things. And then, of course, you've got these 3V3s full court with the guards playing against each other, and the 4s are doing that, and the centers are doing that, and then it's 4V4, sometimes 5V5. And I assume the winners and losers are being assailed and accumulated Every now and again. You look at underneath one of the baskets and the four bigs are there playing 2V2. And I assume they're writing down whether or not you boxed out for the rebound or failed to, whether or not you got a rebound or failed to, whether or not the putback was something you did or what someone else did. So anyway, I am watching all of this data collection and I am stunned.

Anson Dorrance: 10:22

And then at the end of practice and sure enough, it followed the practice outline the noise goes off, practice is over and they all sprint. These guys with these clipboards, these managers, have sprinted to the score stable. The head manager is now compiling that day's practice data. Dean now is addressing the boys and he's chatting them in the vid and by the time he turns around, the head manager has compiled that day's practice data. Every player is now ranked for performance in that practice and so if he has a 12th player roster that year, the first four or five guys can leave and shower immediately. The next eight or nine kids are now lined up on whatever you call the end line on a basketball court and now they're sprinting out to the foul line and back, then to the mid-striping, back and to the other foul line and back and to the other end of the court and back, and they're all doing this on a clock because the noise goes off and if they're late they've got to either go again or do a push-up or a set-up or something, and then that group leaves and then of the final group that's been there the whole time, I assume the last four guys in practice are sprinting until the end of recorded time and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is fantastic.

Anson Dorrance: 11:39

I loved the accountability of it, I loved the measurement of it, I loved the immediate feedback of it and I'm thinking this is incredible. So I got together with my staff and we designed a soccer competitive cauldron and from then on we recorded everything in practice and this just suited my personality. I'm an alpha. I would love to know at the end of every practice I'm the best player on the field and I assume that everyone knew that if I was out there. Yeah, but I would love it certified with data, so there is no contention about who was the best that day. And so, yeah, data can certify it for you. So I love this.

Anson Dorrance: 12:19

And so, all of a sudden, we started organizing practices where we would compete eventually, and it ended up 28 different categories, and at the end of every practice we'd assemble the data and then my assistant analytics team would get together and they would rank the kids in practice and then we would put on a bulletin board the next day for practice in 28 different categories where you ranked. We wouldn't necessarily do 28 different competitive things a day. We would obviously, at the beginning of the year you're doing your fitness testing, so you would have your beep test, which is a measure of your aerobic capacity. You would do sprint tests that would show your acceleration and your 30 meter speed. You would have agility tests and vertical jump tests, and that stuff is up there from the beginning so you can see where you stack up against the rest of your teammates. And then, of course, you're competing 1v1 tournaments, 77 tournaments, 11v11 events and heading ladders where you're trying to battle people in the air.

Anson Dorrance: 13:21

And so we took our game of soccer and we took it down to its fundamental base and we competed in everything we could. So all of a sudden it's evolved to the point where, on a 30 player roster, where four kids on the roster are goalkeepers, the other 26 are field players, everyone's ranked in 28 different categories based on their success in competing in practice. And so this cauldron has developed a team that's extraordinarily competitive, and in my opinion, it makes a difference year to year because our teams are consistently competitive. We're competitive in every game we play in, and a lot of even great teams will beat a good team one day and then get slaughtered by a good team the next, and one of my favorite statistics of all time is this statistic where for 603 games in a row, we either won the game, tied the game or lost it by just one goal. So for 603 games in a row, we were in it until the last second, and almost every other team that we see in our Vietnam again loses by two goals, or sometimes three or four. That doesn't happen to us, or when it happens, it's incredibly rare. And I think what the cauldron does for you, it makes you extraordinarily competitive, and I think a part of this is these kids being bathed in this cauldron of accountability, and I think it's made all the difference in the world for our teams from the beginning. So I think that's one element that separates our environment for player development.

Anson Dorrance: 15:08

The other element that I will never undervalue are the core values that we expect our kids to live by. If you jumped online right now and typed into your web browser UNC, women's Soccer Core Values, hopefully the most recent rendition of them would pop up. We have 13 core values and we expect all the kids to live by them, and it's basically a principle-centered living. This might shock anyone listening to this podcast, but I don't believe in rules. I don't even believe in having a rule of showing up on time, but we expect everyone to show up on time Because if you read through our core values, it's about respecting people, it's about respecting yourself, it's about making good choices, and so, of course, even without being told to show up on time, you will show up on time Because you're going to respect the people that have organized the practice of the meeting, and this is all a part of leading a principle-centered life. And so we don't believe in certain things and we have core values that admonish you from practicing them.

Anson Dorrance: 16:13

Like the first thing that every player in our team memorizes is this quote about not whining. I don't know about you, but I absolutely abhor winers. They drive me absolutely crazy, and almost all cultures are filled with winers. I don't embrace it, I never want to hear it. And so the first core value everyone memorizes that we expect them to live is a George Bernard Shaw quote about being a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little cloud of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy, because that's basically what a whiner is. And my favorite core value is a Victor Franco quote about the last of the human freedoms, which is to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose your own way. So we have all these principles, and the way the principles are framed are not with sort of ordinary language. They're framed with quotes that I think are inspiring, and we expect our kids to memorize these inspiring quotations and then live them.

Anson Dorrance: 17:22

And then, twice a year, the young women in our team basically evaluate every teammate on each of the 13 core values. And if you were to attend our athletic banquet, basically in the spring of every year, the top award of this banquet is not the MVP and, by the way, we've had some extraordinary MVPs I'm Meneah Ham, christine Lilly, crystal Dunn, tobin Heath, cindy Parlow I could go down a list of names that would just be shocking relative to most programs that are out there. So we have some amazing MVPs, but that's not the top award at our athletic banquet. The top award at our athletic banquet is the Kelly Muldoon Award for Character. So which player on the team, on basically a peer vote, in living the 13 core values lives, a principle-centered life, the best? So I think my main job as the women's soccer coach at the University of North Carolina is not to win ACC regular season championships or ACC tournament championships or national championships. I think my main job at the University of North Carolina is to help cultivate and develop extraordinary human beings, and so the cauldron is a critical element for us. The core values are another critical element.

Anson Dorrance: 18:47

And then the final piece is a more modern problem, and this is the problem of basically getting everyone's personal narrative to the truth. What's happening right now is we're raising our kids differently, and the way we're raising them right now is we're raising them basically protecting them from the chaos of the universe, and in doing that we're basically eliminating them having any standards and we're eliminating them having any accountability. And I'm certainly not a sociologist or a psychologist, so I'm going to throw something out there, and who knows what I'm about to throw out is based in any sort of truth. But here's what I speculate.

Anson Dorrance: 19:31

I speculate that somewhere back there there was this self-esteem movement that was being developed by, who knows, maybe child psychologists or maybe a collection of sociologists, but I think it became mainstream and I think the theory back then was all right, I want my children to develop an incredible amount of self-esteem, and one of the best ways to create self-esteem is to obviously be positive with your children, and please don't think I'm sitting here telling everyone not to be positive with your children. Of course you should be, but I think what ended up happening is that sentiment, which I think originally was a positive one, went in the wrong direction. Because then what started to happen with these parents that weren't experienced sociologists or experienced psychologists basically started to praise their children for anything they did, with the illusion that if they could construct a platform of basically self-esteem with their children, they were going to conquer the world, and all that ended up happening is they ended up crippling their children, and one of the biggest problems I have when a kid comes into play. For me at the University of North Carolina is their self-esteem, and their basically personal narrative has been constructed by loving parents, by the way, that wanted to protect them from the chaos in the universe and then basically were not critical of anything they did. And so now they think they're God's gift to the earth.

Anson Dorrance: 21:02

And boy is that entitled individual almost impossible to deal with, because they all think they should start and play 90 minutes, and what they don't understand is there are 30 players in the roster and if you want to get on the field, you've got to compete to get on the field. In other words, if you want to get on the field, you have to kick everyone's ass in practice and that gets you on the field. And if someone on the other team is kicking your ass in the game, you're coming out and I'm going to try someone else to take up for the slack that you basically gave the other team that got them in the game or basically allowed them to plant their flag in your zone. And so, basically, this is about accountability. This is about Dean Smith and his managers making sure that every kid that left practice knew whether or not they were the alpha that day. And, trust me, failing every day is humiliating in a very positive way, because the first thing you gather is you know what, you're not the greatest thing on the planet and you've got some work to do. And that humility inspires, I think, all the great ones, because all the great ones do want to leave practice every day.

Anson Dorrance: 22:07

Being declared the alpha and one of the best teachers they've ever had in their lives is failure. And so the third piece that's critical for me is to get every kid's personal narrative to the truth as fast as possible, and they have never been told the truth in their lives, and now they have this collision course with me, and the truth is so painful for them to hear because they've never heard it before. Mom and dad have only seen the best player on every team they've ever played on. Why? Because we're in that luxurious position. We don't recruit the second best player on any team. We recruit the best player on the team, and oftentimes the kids that we recruit are not just the best player on that team, they're also the best player in that league, and then oftentimes the best player in that state and oftentimes again, the best player east of the Mississippi and sometimes the best player in the country. So all these kids are coming in together and guess what?

Anson Dorrance: 23:05

With all those kids here, there's a new hierarchy. They're not the best anymore and now they've got to learn to live with the fact that they've got to do more work and then possibly be this thing called coachable, which means listening to the stuff we're sharing with them, if they want to get to the promised land, and this is difficult for them. They've never suffered in this way in their whole lives. And then, of course, who are their touchstones? Following a practice or following a game, their parents, and their parents are listening to them. And what are they telling their parents? A lot of times they're telling their parents absolute BS. There's very few kids call home and say, oh, by the way, we had our first practice today and, by the way, my ass was handed to me in every single minute of the practice. Very rarely does a kid fall home with that, but, by the way, and a lot of these practices, their asses were handed to them. But it's not information they're sharing with their parents. So, honey, how did it go today? Oh, mom and dad, it was great and I did a really good job, you know, and I did this and that and the other thing, and all of a sudden, now the parent is shocked on the weekend when their kid is not even getting into the game. And now, of course, who's to blame? Well, I'm to blame, well, I might have blamed, because their little darling, who clearly was awesome, isn't being played, and so it's really funny.

Anson Dorrance: 24:24

And so what was really cool is obviously being a part of an elite university. We have these brilliant men and women that come lecture to us all the time on the sort of people we're dealing with, and so I remember this and I'll remember this for the rest of my life. Every five years or so, we bring in the eminent sociologists to tell us who we're recruiting, who we're coaching to help us so we don't make any egregious errors. And so this guy came in in 2012 and he was the eminent sociologist on campus and he was a brilliant lecturer and, honestly, between you and me right now, I can't remember a thing he said, and the reason I can't remember a thing he said because the first slides he showed with all of us I will remember for the rest of my life, and it was a summary of what he was saying in the lecture, and here's what they are. The first slide he put on the board had the date 1969 at the top. I'll never forget that date. That's the date I graduated from high school. That's why I brought in from the next room someone that was born, you know. A lot later they had to fix this computer so I could actually get on your podcast because I was, you know, graduated high school in 1969.

Anson Dorrance: 25:37

So in that slide 1969, this kid is coming home from school and this kid has all Fs on his report card. The parents are streaming at the kid. Then the next slide shifted to the year he was giving the lecture, which was 2012. 2012,. The kid comes from school, all Fs on his report card, and now what's happening? The parents are screaming at the teacher. So it's been a paradigm shift.

Anson Dorrance: 26:08

So now, of course, it's not your fault, honey. This teacher obviously doesn't know what they're doing. She's not teaching you properly. Obviously, if they taught you properly and inspired you, you would have an A on this, and now you're certainly being undermined by this destructive teacher. Now the kid's feeling great because, of course, it's a teacher's fault. It's not the teacher's fault, it's the culture in the home's fault.

Anson Dorrance: 26:32

And all of a sudden what they're doing for their poor little kid. They've completely eliminated standards from this kid's life, because whatever the kid does is absolutely fine. But the other thing they're undermining is they're undermining authority figures for this child, and so now anyone they collide with for the rest of their lives, the kid's gonna assume that this person is compromising them. And the parent has just turned this basically bag of garbage into someone that's never gonna succeed in the real world. And that's on them. So what's my job? My job is to try to convert them into people that see the truth now, because, guess what, you've got some work to do. So if I had to summarize what we do here, I would put it in those three silos. Obviously, we can drill into any part of those three that you like.

Doug Smith: 27:24

Yeah, two follow up questions to that. Specifically One I am curious. I mean you're getting the most competitive kids on the planet and they're still coming in with that entitlement attitude. You said it's almost impossible to turn them. How often do you actually see someone come in that can actually change and develop the humility necessary to do whatever it takes to get to where they need to go?

Anson Dorrance: 27:44

Well, these are the superstars. Every now and again, you'll bring in a kid that, right out of the get go, is taking responsibility for everything, and obviously their combination of factors with that one is they're well raised and they do respect authority. So when you tell them they need to do this, they jump on it immediately. They don't whine and complain to their parents about it. They're the masters of their own universe and they don't require any sort of gentle hugs from their parents to survive. These are kids that are going to make it, and so those are the kids that can step in and, along the way, their parents have educated them about failure and the value of failure and the value of taking responsibility for everything, and so we've got a whole set of core values that will help them go in that direction. In fact, let me see if I can find our book right here. So yeah, so here is.

Anson Dorrance: 28:46

I had a class of leaders that was really concerned with this sort of thing infecting the team, and so I'll read this thing to you this is our 13th core value, and this was and, by the way, my leaders dictate whether or not we keep the core value, change it, et cetera, et cetera. So, in this particular year, my leadership council, which are made up of basically all the juniors and the team. This is in the spring, so all the seniors have gone pro, and so now the juniors are deciding what we're gonna live by. And so the juniors got together, so all the juniors are on the leadership council one sophomore, one freshman and here's what they came up with. Here's the way they wanted to live. So here's what we constructed together as a collection of team leaders and me. So it's the 13th core value. It says accountable. This is the biggest challenge for the millennials. Now is the period to escape the protections of loving parents who don't want you to get hurt. You have four years to get ready for chaos of the universe.

Anson Dorrance: 29:53

Mark Cohen, an award-winning UNC assistant professor of English and comparative literature, when asked who was the best teacher you ever had and why, said this the best teacher I've ever had is failure. Samuel Beckett said it best Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again, fail again, fail better. And here is what every kid memorizes that they're being evaluated against by all of their peers. So here's what they have to recite to me in every player conference Some want to be exempt, they do not want to excel, they do not want to exert, they want to be considered excellent for desiring to be held exempt from all accountability.

Anson Dorrance: 30:39

And that's a quote I stole from Beau. Here is what we added to it, and this is basically a combination of my conversations with my leadership counsel. So, and what protects them from all accountability? Their own narrative that is not interested in exploring their potential but is crafted to keep them comfortable while recruiting every possible excuse along the way. So how do we want to live? And obviously we, as the UNC Women's Soccer Culture To paraphrase Alex Ferguson of Banyou fame we want to take responsibility for our own actions, our own errors, our own performance level and, eventually, for every result. So this is a collection of kids that have decided yep, we want to be held accountable. And obviously we've got 13 of these. All anyone needs to do is just jump on the internet and just type in UNC Women's Soccer Core Values and all 13 of them will pop up.

Doug Smith: 31:36

Yeah, so not. I'm a dad of four, four kids under seven, two girls, two boys. My wife played soccer on the preventive side. If you could give an address to the nation Specifically addressing parents, you know I can at least speak for my wife and I. We want to raise accountable kids. We're gonna raise kids that you know you'd be proud. That play for you. What would your I yeah, I'll just leave it open ended what would you tell parents in order to raise great kids who are actually prepared for the world, versus not?

Anson Dorrance: 32:04

basically To allow them to embrace failure. And in my opinion, one of the greatest aspects of sport is failing and coming back, failing and coming back again, failing and coming back again, because, boy, you develop a certain resilience level. That's absolutely remarkable. But also, don't have any delusions of grandeur. My wife and I joke about this all the time. I've got a kid Kid. She's in her early 40s now. She was, you know, climbing the dance world and Of course, I deal with these parents who, you know, have a completely Bizarre view of their own children.

Anson Dorrance: 32:50

And she's a Dance instructor. She taught at Duke for 33 years in their dance program and then she danced professionally for years before she married me and started teaching. And so we're very, very wary of Parents that, you know, I guess, give their children false praise. So, yeah, if our kids did something well, you know we hugged them and you know tell them. You know we told them great stuff, but we never protected them from failure. And one of our favorite moments was actually this kid of ours. If you type her into a Google search, you'll be shocked at what she's achieved. Her name is Michelle, michelle Doran's. She is a rhythm tap dancer. She has her own dance company called Doran's dance and she had just won a Bessie. I think a Bessie is a top performer in New York and Melissa and I obviously are very proud she's won this award and she was nominated. So we were in the room when they were announcing the Bessie award winners and, you know, we didn't know that she was gonna win this award, but we were invited to be a part of this. Of course we're very proud of her that she was even included, nominated in this, and all of a sudden they announced that she was the Bessie award winner and my wife and I turned to each other and we finally said you know what? Maybe she's pretty good.

Anson Dorrance: 34:17

I think what's critical is to always make sure when you're raising your kids they're feeder on the ground and always make sure. And you know this is stuff that all of us can learn from you know a Carol Dweck, I mean. Basically, have a growth mindset. Have you know? You know talk about potential, talk about the next level. Never talk about you know you've done enough or you've arrived, because that's the first day of your you going backwards.

Anson Dorrance: 34:50

So, yeah, I think that's critical for all of us that raised children, but also to see if we can help them construct a principal center, because I think having a principal center is gonna help guide your life in the most positive way. But taking responsibility for everything, because when we start to make up excuses for all of our failures, holy cow, we're gonna basically make sure we will never achieve anything. And if you want to achieve everything, take responsibility for everything you can. And then what you're saying is I'm in a position to change where I am, and If excuses are what protects you from the chaos, the universe, you're never gonna go anywhere. Take responsibility for everything, even if it's not your fault, to sort of try to figure out a way to take responsibility for all these different elements so that you can make a change. And so, yeah, that's that's so critical for all of us raising our kids.

Doug Smith: 35:46

So good You've coached. You coach the best of the best, you recruit the best of the best, and I love the competitive cauldron. You've coached 19 different players. The national player of the year honors You've been. You mentioned people like Cindy Parlow, mia Ham, so you you're bringing into the greatest. But then there's those who separate themselves. I'm just curious when you see the Mia Hams of the world, are there specific traits that they had when you coach them that you just that do allow them to separate themselves from Everyone else? Who is great?

Anson Dorrance: 36:15

First of all, that's a great question. First of all, everyone is Different, so please don't assume for a second that when I start to give you these generalizations that you can apply these. You know, across the board I think we're all wonderfully different. We all have to be led differently Because we're all different. When I meet with my kids, I talk about all these different categories. If they want to become extraordinary and these are like boxes they have to check and I stole this from a gentleman that was hired by the NBA and the NFL and the Basically all the pro teams to sort out whether or not to draft this player or that player.

Anson Dorrance: 36:59

And he is this guy that sets up a psychological profile and he goes into the home of someone that you're hoping to draft and he has. You take this, this profile and this profile. When I started reading about this guy first Was to sort out if you had self-discipline, competitive fire and self-belief. And this guy had an incredible hit rate 85% of the time. When he was given someone to assess and you followed his advice, he was spot on. So he added a 15% you know, I Guess failure rate, but 85% successful. So if you went in and you had this guy and you hired this guy and you were saying, well, should I, you know, draft Michael Jordan? And Michael Jordan fill this profile out, and, sure enough, he came up in spades with self-discipline, competitive fire and self-belief, and then this guy would say, yeah, obviously, draft this guy, but there are a lot of people out there, even Heisman Trophy winners In football, that don't make it in professional football. And so, and all of us know, and obviously on draft day, the stories are Legend for the people that are, you know, drafted first, that don't make it, and people that are drafted last that make it. Of course, what's the greatest story of all time? It's Tom Brady. Tom Brady, yep, tom Brady drafted 199. Are you freaking, kidding me? All these guys that were paid a small fortune to assess talent Drafted this guy 199th. Can we go back and fire that whole you know Advisors? I mean, are you kidding me? That guy will retire, the greatest football player of all time, and he's drafted at 199th.

Anson Dorrance: 38:42

And the reason I'm bringing up this story is because it's so difficult to assess Talent. So what are the elements that are going to stretch you? What are the elements that you're taking to the Promised Land? So I start with those three the cauldron your rank in the cauldron is your competitive fire ring. You're you're basically. Your other ranks can be assessed. Other ways in which you can be a player Can be assessed other ways in the different data collections that we use. So self-discipline we basically use fitness testing, competitive fire we use the cauldron.

Anson Dorrance: 39:16

And self-belief is something I will not touch. I will never negatively touch anyone's self-belief. So if a kid thinks they're God's gift of the game, I'm never gonna say you're not, because you know what. If I think you suck and you think you're great, it's gonna be shocking how often you're gonna have your own self-belief and get to a completely different level because of that self-belief. So a kid gets to give her own self-belief grade in a player conference with me and I'm never gonna touch it Because I've had several players that, looking at them, I'm thinking you know you are the most ordinary creature of all, but your self-belief is off the charts. Then it's amazing what you can do with this self-belief, wow. And so that's something I am never gonna touch.

Anson Dorrance: 40:03

But we have other categories we look at. I call this the love trilogy. If you want to become a lead in soccer, you gotta love the ball. You've got a love playing the game and you've got a love watching the game, and if those three loves aren't a part of your soccer development, you're never gonna make it at the highest level. If you don't love the ball, you're not gonna spend enough time with it to master it. So anyone that's watched Tobin Heath play, that young lady loved the ball and as a result, she had this amazing ball mastery that all of us love her for. Just because watching her play, it's clear she mastered the ball. So self-discipline, competitive fire, self-belief, love of the ball, love of playing the game, love of watching the game these are all critical, and there's invariably a piece missing, even among the elite athletes. What's my job? My job is to take him to the promised land.

Anson Dorrance: 40:54

There are other pieces. There's an athletic platform that's critical, and sometimes this is dictated by your genetics. Can you impact on it? Yes, you can, but not to an incredible degree, but that's also a factor at an elite level. But so is your ability to connect with the people around you. Connection is critical. How do you connect? Do you connect? Because if you don't, that's gonna interfere. Certainly in a team sport that's gonna interfere. And then there are other things that make a huge difference in practice, but also make a huge difference in you elevating your practice, and that's energizing. You bring energy to practice, are you a positive life force, and, though some kids have come to practice and I tell them this all the time they bring such joy, my gosh. The whole practice is lifted because of their joy. In practice, they're energizing is at a completely different level.

Anson Dorrance: 41:46

And then another absolutely critical piece is leadership, and they're all kinds of leaders. You can certainly lead by example. You can lead, you know, by being a chemistry leader on the team. You can lead by all these different ways. The most important leadership quality for me, though, is verbal leadership. The biggest challenges in women's athletics is verbal leadership. They're so afraid of what their teammates are gonna think of them when they try to lead verbally and, as a result, it prevents so many of them from being these extroverted, aggressive, classic verbal leaders, and we've gotta change that in our culture when we raise these extraordinary young women, because, as leaders, they can be extraordinary, because one quality they have in spades is they are generally a lot more compassionate and they have other aspects of trust that I think can make teams so much better, and so this is a piece we have to address aggressively, and so, if you look at those elements, you have to check all those boxes if you wanna get to the promised land.

Doug Smith: 42:53

I'm loving this conversation. I feel like I could do a four hour interview with you, but we don't have time for that. One thing I wanna follow up on that I've heard you allude to a few times is player coach conferences or something like that. You said they have to recite back to you the core values and things like that. What does that look like and what does candor look like from you as a coach, one on one?

Anson Dorrance: 43:14

Yeah, first of all, as you can tell from this conversation, I'm data driven, so data is candor and basically, if and everyone of my kids knows it well I'll give you an example of this sort of candor. So I'm gonna give you a typical first meeting with an incoming freshman at the University of North Carolina. Of course, they come into these player conferences and they're all terrified Because, first of all, they have to recite the core values, and the only thing man fears worse than death is public speaking. And so now that you're in front of the coach and they've got to recite stuff they've memorized, they're in abject terror Because I want them to recite it perfectly. And so they're coming into the meeting intimidated anyway, all right, honestly, most of them get through that because they're so terrified. They've all memorized the core values.

Anson Dorrance: 44:06

Then we get into basically the different categories. The first category we address is self-discipline, and what we have them do is we have them assess their own self-discipline Because, keep in mind, I'm trying to get their personal narrative to the truth. Well, how do I know what their personal narrative is If I don't ask them what it is? So I am asking them and all of these different categories to evaluate themselves, cause this is a test of whether or not their personal narrative is the truth. So I say all right, on a five point scale, I want you to tell me where your self-discipline is. Is it US full national team and Olympic team level? And if it is, I want you to give yourself a five.

Anson Dorrance: 44:54

If you think you're already at a professional level in this category, I want you to give yourself a 4.5. If you think you are UNC starter level already in this category, I want you to give yourself a 4. We try to play a deep roster. We try to play anywhere from 16 to 20 players a game. So this next question sort of alludes to that. If you think that you should play in every half, give yourself a 3.5. That's a gift that plays in every half. They don't start but they get in for 10 to 15 minutes a half. If you think you should make the travel roster in this category, give yourself a 3 all the way down to. If they want to give themselves a zero, fine, but of course no one ever gives them self a zero.

Anson Dorrance: 45:45

I'm so waiting, I guess, for I'm waiting for Jesus Christ to come in and give himself a zero and something I want to see what it might look like, but anyway, so yeah. So now, all right, self-discipline. What do you say? And they're thinking this is a freshman. Of course the kid wants to start. Now they're thinking, all right, what should I give myself? Because, yeah, I don't think I'm ready for the Olympic team or the full national team yet, no, I don't think I can sign a pro contract yet, but I definitely want to start. So then the kid says four, because four is UNC starter level. Then I say, okay, what's the standard for the beep? Here at the University of North Carolina? The beep is an aerobic fitness test and the kid knows what it is because they basically did the beep maybe a week or two ago. The standard is a 40 on the beep. So I'll say well, you're giving yourself a four in self-discipline and the standard we have for the beep is 40, what did you get on the beep? Oh well, I got a 28. I said, okay, in self-discipline, I'm going to give you a 2.8.

Anson Dorrance: 47:01

And all of a sudden now the dream of starting has been absolutely shattered. And now she is in an even more terror, because now she has this huge fear that I have a data point for every single category and now she is absolutely sweating herself. So now lying has gone out the window for the rest of the player conference. Now she's realized that you know, lying is just not going to cut it with this guy. This is going to be incredibly brutal.

Anson Dorrance: 47:32

And then we go from one category to the next and all of a sudden she's realizing oh, I mean, I have to kick everyone's ass in practice to establish myself as someone high in the competitive cauldron. Oh, I've got it. They're realizing now that you know mom and dad are not around them protecting them from the chaos of the universe. Now they're seeing failure and they're seeing I've got to get to work. And you know, it's just, it's a completely different experience. And so that's, and the conference. Obviously we talk about a lot of other things, but you can see the sort of what I'm trying to do for them.

Doug Smith: 48:10

And just real quick how often do you do that with players? You mentioned freshmen, but is that once a year? Is that every month, every week?

Anson Dorrance: 48:17

These things take about an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. So I meet with them once a fall, once in January and once just before they leave to go home in the summer. So three times a year. And then I've got a staff member sitting in the player conference with me and this guy's taking notes down. Then they get a very elaborate goal setting letter. That's a follow up to this goal setting meeting, because then at the end of it we're doing goal setting.

Anson Dorrance: 48:48

So what are your three greatest strengths? What three things do you need to work on? And then we talk about where they can lead, because we want everyone on the team to be some kind of leader and it's just a very in-depth, basically performance review, if you will. But, by the way, what's really good about the way this is structured is I'm always telling them there's another level in them and I'm also always telling them what they can do to change their place. So, assuming they're not starting a part of the conversation is right. Here's how you start, because they're all interested in that information. Here's how you make the travel team. Here's how you get rotated into each game and the biggest issues most kids have coming in that are elite players coming in, because every kid we recruit is an elite player. But even a lot of the elite players don't head, don't defend, and so they realize that I expect them to be complete as fast as possible, as certainly if they want to play.

Doug Smith: 49:49

Yeah, oh, and so we're out of time. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I can go for hours. Hopefully we can do this again. I have so many more questions, but thank you for all the lives that you've changed through your leadership. I know you've impacted the world in a great way, and a lot of women's lives specifically. So thank you again and hopefully we'll do it again.

Anson Dorrance: 50:05

I certainly have no issue doing it again with you, and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, so good luck to you.

Doug Smith: 50:12

Hey, thank you Take care.

Doug Smith: 50:14

Well, leader, thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Anson. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes at L3leadershiporg, slash 394. And, as always, leader, I want to challenge you that if you want to attend extra growth this year, next year, then you need to either launch or join an L3 leadership mastermind group. Mastermind groups are simply groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together on a consistent basis for at least one year in order to help each other grow, hold each other accountable and to do life together. For me personally, mastermind groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over the last eight years, and I truly do believe that every person needs to be in a mastermind group. So if you're interested in learning more about launching or joining a group, go to L3leadershiporg slash masterminds or email me at dugsmith at L3leadershiporg.

Doug Smith: 51:00

And, as always, I like to end every episode of the quote, and today I will quote Anson Durrance himself, and he said this. He said competition is key to developing players. The only practice environment in which you truly develop a player is a competitive arena and I love that. I just love, love, love this interview. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Well, leader, know that Laura and I, my wife Laura and I love you. We believe in you and I say it every episode. But don't quit, keep leading. The world desperately needs your leadership. I'll talk to you next episode.