Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Coach Paul Assaiante on the Longest Winning Streak in NCAA History, Perspective, Courage

Episode Date: October 5, 2016

Paul Assaiante, current coach of the Men's Squash team at Trinity College, is known for his unique achievement as the “winningest coach in college sports history”, winner of 15 NCAA Championships titles, and 22-year dedication as squash coach. In This Episode: -Obsessing over the outcome at an early age -Identifying his calling.. to be a college coach -Why he’s more fascinated by losing than winning -Utilizing practice as a time for failure -Why practice is everything -Teaching kids to value the process over outcome -What proper preparation looks like -The awesome power of now -Why people fail to perform under the lights -Pride vs. ego -How he gets in his own way -His philosophy… the ship must move forward -Observation as his mindfulness practice_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that might be kind of hidden is that sometimes being way out in front, there's a unique pressure in that as well of holding up those standards. He's also created winning cultures for 15 NCAA championship titles. And he's done all of this as the Trinity College head men's squash coach. He's also twice named the United States Olympic Committee Coach of the Year. So he's done it. I mean, like flat out on the world stage. And there's no rhetoric in this conversation. So it's real and it's honest. And he is real and honest. And that's exactly what I hope to take away of this conversation is. Okay. He's also with a fellow author, James Zug, written a book called Run to the Roar with the subtitle, Coaching to Overcome Fear. And, you know, the reason I wanted to get into this conversation with coach is that I want to understand how he thinks about winning, how he thinks about success and failure and fear

and the strategy that he's employed to create a culture that supports and challenges people to become their very best and to do it over and over and over again. And what I hope that we all take away from this is the process of being able to identify what you're most passionate about because that's the stuff we'll work for and from. And I think the idea is if you love growth, you'll also love the moments that promote growth, that promote change and promote learning.

And that oftentimes comes from moments of pain. And for Paul, that's why losing is so fascinating for him. So Coach reminds all of us of the importance to invest in both love and the process of helping people become their very best. So my hope of this takeaway is that you'll be more connected to living passionately, to reserve judgment, and to commit to learning and loving deeply. And as we continue to move forward, hopefully today, to fight to stay just a little bit longer on the razor's edge, just a little bit better than we were able to do yesterday. And that's the hope. This conversation is beautiful.

And I want to thank you, Coach, for being on. And I want to thank you for sharing so richly. And with that in mind, I want to talk about the Finding Master community for just a moment. I want to, I'm amazed. I'm flat out, like, I can't believe how quickly it's been built and how quickly you guys have taken on to support and challenge each other in the community. And so y'all, y'all are just doing it and it's rad. And so I just, I love watching and observing and dipping in and out of, of, you know, that community.

And so if you're new to this program that punch over to finding mastery.net, yeah, finding mastery.net forward slash community. And you can find us there. It'll take you over to a Facebook page. And, um, that being said, please, please tell a few folks, tell maybe three people this week about what we're doing and the community or this podcast that you're involved in. And the reason I want that to challenge all of us to do it, it would mean a lot to me personally, but as well as that's how we're going to grow. And

we do need to grow to be able to keep the runway open. But more importantly, we need to grow to be able to celebrate the insights and the wisdoms of some of the great performers of our time. So please share people and encourage them to share people as well. So with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Coach Paul Asciante. All right, Paul, how are you? I'm doing great, Michael. Great to hear your voice. Yeah, likewise. So where are you? This is a Skype recorder call. So where are you? I'm sitting in the squash office at the Trinity College. Okay, perfect. So this is the squash office or it's your office? It is my office and it is the squash office. Oh, that's too fun. So

you've been there, if I have it right, you've been there over 20 years. Yeah, this is my 23rd year. It's hard to believe. Oh my goodness. Okay. So here's a couple of things that I'm excited to learn from you. One is you've got this beautiful book that you've put together with your coauthor, James Zugg, But you've also captured something that's difficult to capture, which is the longest winning streak in the history of intercollegiate sports. And so your philosophy that you guys captured in your book has been fascinating to me, as well as how you think about winning is really interesting to me as well. So, you know, if we could just kind of take it from maybe what I'm thinking, because you've got such a storied history and

a rich history, I'm thinking maybe a way that will help me break it down is, and I don't know if you've ever done this before, but can you think about your life, your entire life in chapter headings? And you might have two chapters or eight chapters, I don't know. But what would be like the early chapters, the middle chapters, and then the more current chapters? Yeah, that's a wonderful question. The early chapters, and I've come to this conclusion based on many years of therapy. Oh, have you done a lot of insight work? Oh, very, very much so. And I think the inside chapters were, would be, or the beginning chapters would be, uh, an obsession with, um, of, of success so that I could feel better about myself. And, um, and that is a very unhealthy way to approach things. But,

you know, when you're participating in sports, there's a scoreboard. And I would really view myself through the prism of results. And that's just a formula for disaster because you there's only one champion. And that means all the other participants are runners up at best. And so I would be constantly running toward a successful outcome so that I could feel better about myself. I had two wonderful parents and they loved me deeply. And I think they raised me well. And yet how I internalized their messages, I don't think was altogether healthy. And so I couldn't handle the pressure that I was feeling that I was probably creating on myself. And that was the start. That would be the opening chapter of my experience. Born in the

Bronx and just a little guy, very short, very small for his age and trying to prove my worth and constantly falling short of my goals and expectations. And it wasn't until much later when I graduated from college that I started to understand that, you know what, you can't measure your worth on a field. You can measure your performance. You can look at it through the prism of were you successful on that day or your preparation. But you know what? That doesn't define you as a man. And I didn't really start coming to grips with that until I was well out of college.

It was interesting. We started to have some success in my coaching. And every time I would achieve a certain something, whatever that was, a championship or having an All-American or having one of our players win a national championship, my father, who was incredibly supportive, would say, what's next? What's next? It was always, what's the next goal? What's the next challenge? And I bought into that. And it wasn't until we were towards the end of his life where we had won a championship and he said, what's next? And I said, dad, what's wrong with, this is pretty good. You know, what's wrong with, this is as good as it gets. And let's just try to continue this for as long as we can.

And his response was, if you don't improve, you deteriorate. And so you could see why I was on this treadmill of striving, but never really hearing my own voice until quite a bit later. Paul, did you hear your voice? Okay, so I want to get a couple kind of context. Is that at that confrontation, that loving confrontation that you had with you and your dad there that you just described, was that towards, you said, towards the end of his life? But how many wins had you had at that point, like national championship wins well we we went through a crazy spurt there in the middle where we won 13 we won 13 national championships in a row without ever losing a match we went 13 years without losing a match and i would guess this was about number eight or nine okay and so you already knew some sort of formula for well yeah well you know, it was interesting. It wasn't my idea. What we've accomplished was not my idea at all. I came back to coaching because I just wanted to touch young people. I was a pro at the Princeton Club of New York and playing professionally. And you were going to ask me a question. I'm laughing. You can't see me on Skype. But if we just took that quote, it would be so dangerous. I came back to college to touch young people. Oh, yeah, right. I feel like Sandusky, right? I wanted to be in the service of young people. And that is what we are.

We as coaches are nothing more than here to help them learn about themselves through sport so that they can be better, more balanced, and more successful people in society later. What was that calling about? Because you're one of the most successful in outcome, but you have this incredible balance of the, that was what I just learned was the origin was to help people become balanced and successful in life. Why, where did that come from? It was always, I didn't know it, but that was always the deal for me. I cut my teeth as a young coach in 1974 at West Point. And there was a plaque on the wall. It was a MacArthur quote. And it was on the friendly fields of strife are

sown the seeds that on later fields will bear the fruits of victory. And what I took that to mean was you learn about yourself on the athletic fields, lessons in life that prepare you to be more successful in life. Success being what is success. That's a whole different topic. I started off coaching at West Point and loved it. I then went into the private sector as a pro. I went back to Williams and was coaching and I loved it. And because of some changes in my personal life, I went back to being a pro because you can make so much more money being a pro. And then I regained the custody of my three older children. And I knew, ah, I can finally go back to my passion. I can finally go back to coaching young people. And Trinity coincidentally opened up. And that was 24 years

ago, I came back here 23 years of coaching. And the interesting thing was, I knew that's what I needed to do. I knew it was my calling. But I couldn't find a way to get back. So for how many years did you have the idea? This is why I'm so excited to talk to you because I've got like four burning questions right now. Okay, so let's start. Let's go almost in reverse order before we move out to the next phase. How long was it between the time when you had that calling to work with young people to help them be successful and balanced and period, I think. And then until you got to actually do it. I was out of college coaching for about seven or eight years. Okay.

And while I was loving what I was doing and I was teaching some children and I was, I was, you know, giving lessons to women and lessons to men on their lunch hour. I was, I felt inside a certain lack of fulfillment and I was, I was really hankering to get back into the college scene. So I think that if, okay, so I want to know what you did to be able to stay the course during those seven years or so. It sounds like to me, just kind of quickly filling in some gaps is that you filled it kind of by being able to coach on the side but it wasn't it wasn't sustainable

because it was just fits here and there you know opportunities moonlighting almost but it wasn't meeting the calling or yearning that you had is that accurate, no. So what it was was I was a full-time pro at a couple of different clubs while I was playing professionally. So they were full-time jobs. And I was in there because you can earn so much more money as a teaching pro than you can as a college coach. Got it. Okay. And then once my personal situation improved, then I could return to coaching. And all the while I had improved, then I could return to coaching. And all the while, I had that little whisper in the back of my mind saying, you've got to get back to this. You've got to get back to this.

Okay. Got it. And then why, when you say this, that's the working with young minds, right? Okay. So why, maybe if I just be more direct, is it because that's what you wanted is you wanted the help for yourself at when you were that age to have somebody mentor you in a way that felt healthy and balanced and also achieve success? Or was it something other some other type of calling? It was, it was for me, the incredible satisfaction of just helping people learn how to lose, sort of ironic there, and how to learn from those lessons. Learn how to fail, but fail quickly. And you don't get that outside of a competitive environment. In the competitive environment, you really get it. Also, being a coach is very much

like being a grandparent. Grandparents are wonderful. They have the best of all jobs because the kids come to them and they get to work with them, maybe spoil them, but have fun with them. But at the end of the night, they go home. Whereas when you're a parent that job never ends i wasn't a very good parent the first time around um that's why i wrote my book it was really as an apology to them and i wanted with the college students i was much better i i was able to commit and dedicate myself and um i found it so fulfilling. And so the idea of brand parenting, to be able to, you know, the kids go away, I love the analogy. And then but the first piece that you said was that you help them learn how to lose. And then wonderful idea. What are the mechanics?

Like, how, how do you how have you come to understand the best way to handle loss? Well, it's beautiful. I mean it is all – it's what it's all about. I actually have something attached to my computer and it's just what our focus is for the year this year. And it is that life is a game of losing and you need to learn to adjust your sails. And to me, that sums it up. I know you've heard that phrase, you cannot control the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

I see when people are winning, when they are successful in any aspect of their lives, they immediately look to the next frontier, the next conquest, the next goal. We don't spend any time thinking about, well, I just won the Super Bowl. Let's figure out how I did that. No, now we have to repeat. Or we just won the league championships. Now how are we going to make it to the nationals? But when you lose, the train stops.

And all of a sudden, you're surrounded by mirrors. And you look in the mirrors and you ask, what happened? How did this what just happened? Did I not prepare? Well, did was I, you know, too emotional in the fire? Why did I lose and losing is the most wonderful mechanism through which to learn. Unfortunately, if you lose too often, the finger that you were pointing at yourself now gets pointed at your coach. So if you lose too often, then the coach is at risk. But losing is this fantastic thing. And it's, it's, to me, it's the cultural problem that we're having in society today. My next book is going to be called In the Name of Love,

because in the name of love, I fear parents are destroying an entire generation of young people, because they're not allowed to be human. They're not allowed to fail. They have to be perfect, because you know what? They might want to give a verbal commitment to University of Maryland as freshmen in high school for lacrosse and those kinds of things. Losing is the essence of it all. And you need to construct opportunities for people to fail. And then you go running in with your magnifying glass and you say, great, what just happened? You know, so I'm nodding my head going, God, that is so good. And then I've got this other thought, which is, you know, this is the contrarian, is that I hear I'm nauseated by listening to people talk about winning.

And they actually haven't done a whole lot themselves. Right. And so then I hear you talk about losing. You haven't done a whole lot of it. Like you've won a lot. And so and you're more fascinated by losing. Because that's where all the learning happens. So I believe in the Japanese philosophy in practice, which is that you let you cry in practice and you laugh in competition. who is my neighbor at West Point. When people see me on match day, parents see me on match day, they think, gosh, what a nice guy. I would love to play for that guy. I've got my arm around the

kid's shoulder and I'm trying to do everything I can to take the pressure off of them. But on practice day, I'm doing everything in my power to put pressure on them. And because there is where they get a chance to learn. So I create scenarios where they're going to fail and fail all the time so that they can learn to adjust their sales. Now, if there's too much emotional impingement on that failure, then they don't learn how to make adjustments. Okay. And so the emotional impingement, let me take a quick run at this and see if it's close to what you're working on. If the emotional impingement, no, the beginnings of the emotional impingement is the idea or the thought that this mistake, this failure, this loss

is defining who I am. And if that's the case, then there's too much at risk. So I can't really go for it. And then if I do go for it and it doesn't go the way I want, now I'm destroyed as a psychological framework, if you will. So how do you decouple somebody's identity from their outcome? That's the beauty of it. That's where a coach or a parent can get right in there and say, all right, what did we learn here? Did we not prepare well? Did you not handle the moment well? It's such a beautiful moment.

And, you know, I talk to parents all the time. You know, and you'll see a young child will come off a tennis court. And the parent will walk up to them after losing. And they'll say the right thing. It's okay, Johnny. You know, you gave it everything you had. I'm proud of you. And then they walk to the car.

It's a three-hour drive home. And the father gets on the phone and starts doing work for three hours. Because it's an opportunity to do that. What is Johnny thinking in the front seat of that car? Daddy's not talking to me. He's upset with me. Those three hours can be, once the emotion of the moment is gone, those three hours can be incredibly constructive. So as a college coach, I don't coach my players after they lose.

At that moment, I put my arm around their shoulder so they know that I'm there. And then when their internal temperature comes down to 98.6, that's when I go in there and start talking to them. But you need, your actions will speak louder than your words. And we as coaches and parents need to use that moment as the teachable moment. And, you know, I always laugh. I gave a speech recently in Philadelphia to a company and I said, how perfect of me to be in Philadelphia. Do you remember that quote? We're talking about practice, man. Practice. This is the home of that quote. But you know what? Practice is everything. Everything. When I was coaching world team tennis, we would have a match at night and somewhere in

the country. And then we would have a team meeting and we would talk about the next day and the first thing we would put on the docket for the day was practice where are we putting practice where and from there we would expand okay now where are we going to eat around that practice time where are we traveling when's the match? Practice is the essence of everything we do here. It's interesting. I got a text yesterday from one of my dear friends, Bobby Bayless. Bobby is the retired tennis coach at Notre Dame. And Bobby was at Navy when I was at Army and he was my mentor. And he just had found out that I'm going into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame in a month. And he texted me and he said, you know, congratulations. That's long overdue.

And I said, Bobby, do you miss it? And he said, I miss practice. You know what I hear all the time from guys? Like when I talk to them after they've retired or i get a phone call out of the blue somewhere and i ask them how you doing you know and they say yeah i'm doing great like i'm figuring it out the transition was harder than i thought and then i asked that same question you know um do you miss any of it and you know i get it you know what i get all the time and it's like it's surprising to me i miss miss the stretch and the warmup.

Yeah, exactly. That's when you're talking to them. That's right. Yeah. That's when they're goofing off. Yeah, right. Okay. We've been to 15 national championships.

Well, we've won 15 national championships. We've been to 17 national finals. And when people ask me what I remember from those matches i remember the morning's breakfast of the finals yeah i know i can because we're all sitting there yeah and we're pretending that we're enjoying a breakfast together as a team but their stomachs are in their mouths you know nobody's enjoying that meal that's so so good. And the eggs are not good. They never are, right? Oh, that's too much.

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Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. So I want to, I would love for you to talk through a little bit about, so I've got an eight-year-old son and like, I think about what you and I are talking about often, and I'm not sure that I'll know exactly what to say and which is part of the beauty of parenting, but what would

be some, some thoughts that you could share about when my child comes home after you know he says 12 15 16 whatever and what what is that car ride home because I've got this idea in my head this piece of research that kids leave sport because of the car ride home that's interesting yeah which is the parents problem right that's right that's a parent's problem a parent's over attachment to the outcome but so I find myself not confused, but I don't see loss like you as a big deal. I see it as an opportunity. Okay. And I really, I have alignment. I believe that. But sometimes I'll find myself on the professional ranks with

professional athletes. And after a loss, I don't feel the same way they feel. And when I look at the devastation that they feel, sometimes I think that, man, am I cold? Because I'm sad for them. But in the big picture, it's not war. It's a loss. We get to do it again, hopefully. And so I'd love if you could teach me about how you respond when somebody you love or somebody you care about, it didn't get what they wanted, but you know that the thing that they wanted is not actually life-threatening. Well, you know, you're talking about two different things. So the first thing is professional athletes. And I have the very good fortune of being fairly close to Bill Belichick

and had a chance to talk to the Patriots two years ago. And it was amazing. That's their profession. That's their business. And not only that, but it's played on the world stage and it's only played 16 times a year. And all the social media and all the talking heads spinning around all of that. For them, and it's a three-year window for most at best it's everything and i i can understand i can empathize with them for what they're going through in that moment it's also

rather macho and and you know a lot more testosterone and that sort of thing flowing around but when we get into the amateur aspects of sport, the purity of it all, then it's not their livelihood. It's not the end all and the be all. It can't be. And so when you're with your young son, it's all a beautiful opportunity to talk to him about what's important. And what's important is really helping them understand you want to prepare the best you can and you want to perform the best you can. But you will be remembered not for what you do. You'll be remembered for how you do it. And if you can go out there and fight and compete with everything you have, and yet do it with dignity and character and show the beauty of that moment, you know, an Olympic race and a runner helping her comrade across the finish line. That's what's going to be remembered

from the Olympics. And, you know, Zindan, one of the greatest soccer players in history, will always be remembered for headbutting his opponent. So we need to teach lessons that are way beyond winning and losing to help them be more happy and successful and balance people in this world. And the irony of it is most of that learning happens after they lose. Okay. I love it. And is there a way that you enter those conversations? And maybe you can picture an amateur, like a young child, I'm sorry, like a high schooler or a middle-aged kid. And it's probably not that different than the adult that's just lost something, but is there a starter to those conversations that you orientate yourself toward? I always ask them two questions. How'd you play? And how do you feel?

And it's it's interesting in the middle of matches here at Trinity. I asked the boys, how are you doing? And do you know what they tell me every single time and have for 42 years? They tell me what the score is. They tell you the outcome and you're looking for the process yeah right i didn't and i say i didn't ask you for the score i asked you how you're doing how are you playing what's your opponent doing how are you adjusting to that are you enjoying the moment what are you planning on doing differently going forward i didn't ask you the score. And then I always ask him, how are you feeling? Because that is so critical. Most people go into competition and they wait to see how they're playing to determine how they feel. It's backwards. It's backwards. That's why we call it setting your mind, right? Exactly. It's a mindset. Set it before.

Exactly. Okay. So I'll, like, I'd love to tell you how I do that, but I'd love to, and we can share that, but like, how do you do that? How do you help them? Do you just introduce the concept or do you help them identify their ideal competitive mindset? Or what is the approach that you use to be able to help your athletes? What we talk to the boys about is the awesome power of now. And that wasn't certainly my phrase, that was Dr. Peck's. But we talk about the awesome power of now. And what I ask of them is I want you

to invest yourselves and engage in every activity of the day to make it the best it's ever been. So when you go to class, I want you to make it the best it's ever been. So when you go to class, I want you to make it the best class you've ever been to. You actually can do that through your investment and engagement in the process. When you come to practice, it damn well better be the best practice up until that point. When you go to dinner, I want it to be the greatest culinary experience of your lives. When you go out on that date tonight, I want it to be the most romantic tryst you've ever had. By how you approach things mentally, you can will things to go a certain way. But most people wait for the feedback of how am I doing to determine how they feel.

And that's, that's, that's not cool. No, it's not in this. And you'll hear it in fans as well. I don't know if you've had this experience that you hear fans talk about, well, if we just get the first point,

then I'm okay. Or if we get the first series, then I feel like we're okay. And the athletes are doing the same thing, right? Of course we are. Yeah. Which is exactly that.

Like, okay, well, if I just get off to a good start, then I can settle in. And what happens when you, so that that's, it's cheating. It's cheating the inner game, which is, um, well, what happens if you get off to a bad start? Right. One of the things I also think a coach needs to do is a coach needs to help prepare the young person for what they're about to experience in football. And you're deeply involved in that. A lot of it has to do with strategy, game planning. You know, they're going to run the Navy's going to run the option. And so we're going to defend against the option what we do is in squash a lot of it has to do with when you're home and away and what the crowd is all about what the conditions are all about

and what i help the guys understand is it's interesting we go into a match hoping that we kill somebody hoping that it's easy but the reality is it's going to be hard it's going to be a roller coaster and you're going to go through valleys and peaks. And if you expect that and it gets hard, you're not surprised. But most people go in avoiding that. I hope it doesn't get hard. Even from a physical standpoint, Michael, we'll take the boys down and get them on a treadmill and train them. And when they're on a treadmill, they're prepared to run till they throw up. That's part. It's the deal. I'm training to get fit. We get into a competitive situation and they start to get tired. And you know what they do? They panic. Well, heck, we just

put all of this time in so you could learn to deal with that discomfort. You should seek it. You've prepared yourself for it, but we run away from it. So how we can help people perform better is by helping them understand and prepare for what's likely to happen out there. And you should expect it to go badly. You should expect it to be hard. And you won't be surprised when it is. Okay. So as a concept, I've been working on this concept for a while. I don't have any data to support this statement, but I'd love to hear your response to it. And maybe you say, Mike, that's not right. And I can give the argument to both sides, but the thought is to explore our potential, we must override our DNA.

And I'd love for you just to take any ego or any sensitivity to what I might think about what you say out of it. If you could respond to that, I would love it. Repeat it one more time because it's profound. Okay, yeah. To explore our potential, we must override our DNA. So our DNA, to me, is the physical, what the body is capable of doing as it is created, if you will. That's right. And then there's the mind and the spirit and the soul. And the engagement of those three things allows a body to do what it didn't think it could or shouldn't have done up to that point. So that's how I internalize what you've just said.

So spirit, mind, and body in combination allow us to reach levels that the body on its own wouldn't normally reach. That's exactly. It starts with a thought. So you would support that thought. 100%. Yeah. Overriding our DNA. And the way to override it is to literally hijack the survival mechanisms within us.

And the way to do that is to push to capacity on a regular basis so that we can play inside of once was a limit and we can play in that space because it's no longer the limit. Yeah, okay. I agree with that. And, you know, it's the pushing the walls, you know, hitting a wall when you're running and learning to go through the walls. But, you know, that's a very physical thing.

That, to me, comes back to the whole concept of practice, Michael. I don't believe, and at least in the sports that I coach, it isn't a big, big or biggest. It isn't a personal record, the fastest I've ever swum, or I just ran, you know, a mile in 15 seconds faster than I've ever done before. To me, it's in my sports, it's being able to execute on Saturday in front of 2000 people, what you can execute every Wednesday when nobody's watching. What has been your experience of why people can't as soon as the lights turn on? Well, you know, it's interesting. I think the greats, everybody chokes. Jimmy Connors told me that everyone chokes, the greats choke less. And I think a lot of it has to do with unrealistic goals. I honestly believe that

champions simply perform closer to what they can every day. And the rest of us fall off. I don't think there are heroic acts. Occasionally there is, you know, the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, there was a ridiculous play and that's going to always be remembered. But for the most part, I think championships are lost. They're not won. And I am of the belief. So a great story. I was talking to Jimmy Connors once and I said, you know, Jimmy, why is it that you come to the net more in tiebreakers? You seem to become more aggressive and pressurized moments than at other times in the match. And he smiled and he said, my strategy is to come to the net on every short ball. And in a match, when things get close and things get tight, I get more short balls. So he's executing his game plan. Yeah, he's attacking what's given to him, but it's given away more when the pressure mounts.

You know, okay, so I don't know if you have this experience in squash. And so this might be something you say, like, I don't have a point of view about it. But maybe you do. And so at the elite level, there's enough obsession and narcissism and anxiety that is required for somebody to kind of go for it and go the distance to, to go through as many obstacles as people tend to go through. And in other arenas, that level of anxiousness and obsessiveness and narcissism is, is not okay. Like, you know, in a church, that's not okay. Right. In a community center, that's not okay. In business, sometimes it's not okay in business sometimes it's not okay okay so the way that so if narcissism is a part of some of the elite um characteristics of elite performers the way to help a narcissist is

to turn on the lights but 100 okay because now they all of a sudden they're reminded that they matter but for most of us that as soon as the lights come on, there's an interpretation of that experience that changes their ability to access their craft. And so is your thought about that, that we need just to push them physiologically to breaking points so that they can have a new conversation with themselves? No, because in practice, crying in practice is more than just the physiologic it's making them uncomfortable emotionally um overloading their cerebrum doing all kinds of things that get them to a place of comfort you know the way a sword is made is it's put in fire. And, and so my philosophy of practice is you've got to make it, you've got to make it fire. You've got to make it uncomfortable. The interesting thing is you use the word narcissism and, and perhaps in the sports that you're typically around there,

there might be a good deal of that. I don't love that word, maybe because I was called one once and I didn't appreciate it. But to me, I go back, go into the issue of ego and pride. And I try to do everything I can to get rid of the ego and try to impose in them a sense of pride. I see pride as healthy. I see ego as unhealthy. And I want these boys to feel proud of themselves and proud of the fact that they've put in all the hard work. So they've earned the right to be able to perform on game day. So that's what I am trying to do here. We do have narcissists, there's no doubt about it. I do everything in my power to break them of that. There you go. Okay. So I've got this, I love the concept of giving them a reason to earn the right to speak to themselves a certain way, whether the lights are on or not. So that's like that inner experience is based on something that's credible.

It's not mythical. And so that's the killing of the ego is part of, or the dying of the ego is part of that experience, it sounds like. And when you say pride, my antennae come shoot right up. And for a long time, I've always thought of pride as, I've more associated that to one of the seven deadly sins, right? Not deadly, what are they called? I'm blanking on the name. But like pride is one of the, I don't know.

So I've always associated pride with not being a good thing because it was attached to ego. And I'll tell you where my… They don't have to be. Yeah, I want to hear this from you because my orientation always has been more not for self-pride, but for like from a parent or another saying, son, daughter, I'm proud of you. And that's more about the father or the mother than it is about the son's experience. And so I've always thought that a better way to relate to others is that I'm excited for you. I love watching you do what you do. What was that like for you?

As opposed to it's about me being proud, so make me more proud later. Right. Well, that was a problem in my upbringing. I know my parents were proud of me. Proud sort of suggests ownership. When my players come back to me, that's right. Years later. And you know, how are you doing? Oh, I just had a son or, you know, we're getting married. Would you come to the wedding? Would you be a godfather or, you know, or best man? I never tell them I'm proud of them.

I always tell them I'm happy for them. That's right. But as an athlete, you need to have a sense of pride. And I draw the line from where that is taken to a point of ego obsession. I want people to walk onto a court like a proud stallion, head up, confident. Some people misperceive that as being cocky, but it's just I'm here. I'm ready to perform. I'm comfortable with where I am. I'm going to give you everything I have.

And that's a proud sort of a state to get into. I play a lot of tricks, obviously, with the whole psyche of competition. So for instance, when we are at a championship, we never stay in the championship hotel. We don't hang around and socialize. We come in, we play, we leave. Because what I want people to be thinking is when the boys walk in the gym, I want people saying, oh, there's Trinity. You know, familiarity breeds contempt or it creates a level of comfort. We want to be separate from the group, at least on game day. But in terms of pride, I see that as a healthy level of emotion.

I've worked hard. I feel good about what I'm about to present. The cards that I'm holding in my hands, I feel good about because I've worked hard to get to this place. And if I lose, I'm going to shake your hand and say, well done. And if I win and I play poorly, I'm going to shake your hand and say, I'm sorry I didn't play better today. To me, competition is a dance. The dance is more beautiful when both people are dancing well. That's the ultimate. My best experience as a competitor was losing in the semifinals of the World Doubles. Because it was a match where

all four players played brilliantly and i came off the court feeling like wow that was just so great and there was no there wasn't any ill feelings about that i mean i think proud pride is it can be viewed as healthy and of course it's semantics and how we all view it but i don't but i never use the word proud when i'm speaking to someone else about what they've done there we go okay and i think that i think actually we're gonna fit you say this um have a very familiar what's that what am i saying we're gonna have the same relationship with that word proud and pride and instead of pride i think i use i just don't do it because of the word proud but but I can, I really appreciate how you've articulated the difference between the two.

And then, so with all of your winning, with your appreciation of loss, with the importance of the relationships that you're building with people to be able to earn the right to stand on their own two feet, to set course on their own journey. How have you gotten in your own way? What have been the traps that you've walked down that you can help maybe me not walk down in the future? There's some very important human emotions that have held me back and have made the journey very difficult and have cheated some of my players along the way. Here's the, there's a couple of emotions that I think are terrible. Um, I think ego, maybe that's not an emotion, it's a state, but that's a really dangerous thing. And ego comes from ownership. You don't own this stuff. As a coach, you don't own it. Um, I am here for the players. They're not here for me. I'm here just to help facilitate their journey through the process and learn as they go. And things that really hold you back are things like jealousy. yourself, or if you're seeing other people doing really well and you want what they have,

but are not prepared to work as hard to get there, or you want to pull them down. You can imagine the amount of jealousy that's been targeted at our program over these 23 years. You know, we're a very international team playing in a sport that up until that point was pretty much prep school, mainline Philadelphia, you know, Brookline, Mass, kinds of backgrounds. And here we have these boys from Mumbai and Pakistan. There was a significant amount of jealousy directed towards this program. And it would really cut me to the core because I didn't see it. But then when other teams started doing better, I found myself becoming jealous. And I was like, what? What are you doing? That's a terrible emotion to have. Owning it. You don't own any of this. When the team wins, the players win. And when the team

loses, they lose. I drive the van there. And the beauty of the competition for me is I get to coach whether we win or lose. I get to coach more if we lose. But for a while there, I couldn't wait to read the newspaper clipping. You know, I wanted to I had a little bit more of a spring in my stride when we were doing well. And you see that in college coaching all the time. When coaches go in season, they become different people. And when they win, they seem to have a glow. And when they lose, they seem to be neurotic and, whoa, what's happening? What are other people thinking? And that sort of thing.

You know what's an awkward experience is when after a loss, the team doesn't know what to do. A winning team or a team that has lots of success, they don't know what to do a winning team or a team that has lots of success they don't know what to do when they lose oh yeah they fundamentally act different at breakfast at dinner at the next couple days how as a yeah how do you how do you how do you think about that i imagine that you're like no no that's ridiculous but no no, no, it totally happened. So the two losing experiences I could share with you that were transformative for me and the team was we had won 252 consecutive matches. That was 13 years without losing a match. And we were up at Yale University and we were the better team that day. But they beat us.

And it was in the middle of the season. It was a dual match. And the team was gutted. And I walked into the post-match meeting and I said to the guys, you just lost a dual match. I want you to hold your heads up high. I want you to walk up to the man that just beat you as you're leaving the building and shake his hand and look him in the eye and say, well done. And we'll see you in a couple of weeks at the Nationals. I said, the team that wins the NCAA basketball championships is probably not going to go undefeated on the season.

So you've just been given a gift. You walk out of here with your head high. So when people remember this night, they'll think, wow, Trinity lost. But those guys seem to handle themselves really well. The other, and that's a critical teaching moment to me. The other moment was when we lost the national championships for the first time, we lost at Princeton university and we lost to my dear friend, Bobby Callahan, who is sadly no longer with us. And we, it was a war. We were up for two and they came back to

four all and we lost the match. And, you know, the kids were all standing there. Now, at the end of the national championships, there's a ceremony, sort of like, I guess, a hockey or a soccer ceremony. Both teams line up on the court and then they walk across the court and they shake hands. So we're standing on the court and we've just lost. And I'm looking down the line at my players and they're crying. And it's this snot running down their noses. They just looked awful. It was the proudest moment I've ever had as a coach because I knew that on that day they went all in.

And I went out and I bought everybody a cell phone cover and it said, All In, Trinity Squash. Because how many people in life ever really go all in? Most people stick their toe in the water. I don't really try. I haven't really failed. These boys exposed themselves to the possibility of glorious victory and devastating defeat. I was so proud of them. And by highlighting that moment and my pride or my happiness, no, that was proud. And my pride in them, they walked off that court feeling better about themselves. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding,

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So you, you, do you front load this with them on a regular basis to give them a way to think about loss well before loss? Absolutely. Or do you use the moment of loss to introduce the thoughts? We talk about it all the time. It's interesting. My dad, when I was growing up, used to talk a lot about death. And not in a maudlin way, but in a way that, you know what, that's the other end of the skies. And it's going to happen. It's going to happen to all of you. I was very comfortable with the concept of death and I still am. Um, and I watched my mom and dad pass away. I was with them and it

was a beautiful thing. Um, it's part of the process. And so to me, while it's over-dramatized, losing is a little bit like death. It comes with the territory, guys. And, you know, I talk to them a lot about this, especially in relation to injuries, because we're human beings. We are different every day. And some days you come to practice or you come to a match and you're only 70% of your best self. You've got the flu, you had a fight with your girlfriend. I want a hundred percent of that 70. That's the best you can do. It may not be enough to win on that day, but it's the best that you can do. And on a day like that, it does feel like that because you're not going to say sour grapes. You're not going to

say, you know, Oh, I hurt my leg. So I'm going to storm off the tennis court at the US Open. It's that, you know what, I gave you all I had, and it wasn't good enough. And that's okay. So we talk about losing all the time. And so that they become comfortable with it. When you're injured, or you're not quite your best self. That's a frustrating and a difficult thing for a young person to deal with. And what I say to them all the time is, I don't know what chapter it's in, but nowhere in the Bible does it say life is fair. It isn't fair, but it's beautiful. Celebrate it. Is life hard? Life is very hard. Okay. Is there a philosophy or a word or a phrase or something that you could articulate

that guides you? Yeah, it's interesting you've asked that. Up until maybe a couple of weeks ago, my whole mantra was run to the roar, which is the title of the book. And it was essentially, go at the problem, deal with the problem. It's never quite as bad as you think it is. Recently, I had open heart surgery 11 weeks ago and it was a shock. I had no symptoms. I didn't know what was going on. I had what they called the widow maker. And the doctor said, you know, your first symptom would be your last symptom.

You would just drop dead like Hank Gathers did. You have no idea you had this. So one of the things that I've come upon in these 11 weeks of rehab, which have been very hard, is the term forward. And I'm actually going to get a tattoo on my wrist this week. And it's going to simply be the word forward. Because life is about moving forward always. And when you're, the ship is going through the water, it comes upon obstacles, seaweed, things that threaten to clog up the motor and get the boat to be bogged down. The boat must just keep moving forward. And when life gets hard and you're

dealing with issues, last week I had my wallet stolen and somebody tried to clean out my checking account. You know, that would be the kind of thing that would typically bog me down. I went, I froze the credit cards. I did what I needed to do to protect our identity, and then my ship moved forward. That's what life has to be. And then how did you come to learn that? By getting so, by having this curveball thrown at me. Okay. And, you know, other things that have come across in my life,

my oldest son is a heroin addict, and I've blamed myself for that because I wasn't there for them when he was growing up. And, and so there have been, there have been things that have happened to me in my life that have stopped me in my tracks and could have easily caused me to turn life into a pity party and feel sorry for myself. No, you deal with the issue. You make it better if you can. You've got to learn. And this is something I've learned as a coach recently. We as coaches think we're little gods and we can make everything better for everybody. You need to learn to recognize what you own and what you don't own. And if it's something you

don't own, you have to let it go. You got to let them fail. Sometimes you got to let them make their own mistakes. If you own it, it's your responsibility. Try to make it better. And then your ship needs to move forward. I love it. Okay. And what is it like to have a child that is struggling? A parent can only be as happy as its most unhappy child. And it's true. When your child is struggling or suffering out there in the world, you sleep with one eye open. You're afraid of that phone call in the middle of the night. A part of you dies. It's really hard. When you're dealing with addiction, it's particularly difficult because everything that you want to do as a parent is the wrong thing. What you need to do is counterintuitive because anything you do to help them through this is enabling.

And so you have to give it up. And that, that took me 16 years with Matthew, but I have reached that place. And now Matthew owns his journey. Hmm. And do you and Matthew, are you, have you guys, uh, celebrated a dual path or is he he's still struggling he's still having a tough journey we talk every day but it's for him life is hard he has a brother and a sister Scott and Kristen and they're doing great and for them Matthew's difficulties are hard for them also And then I've been given a second chance in life. And I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a one-year-old. And so God has given me a second chance. I'm the luckiest man alive. So maybe this is about your craft or your life,

but what is the greatest challenge? I like to ask that of coaches. What is the hardest thing about coaching? But maybe you want to take it about life. I don't really care. That's a good question there, too. I think the hardest thing about life is, I think it's the serenity prayer. To me, it's just recognizing what you can change and can't change and having the knowledge and the wisdom so you can move forward with grace and dignity. And with coaching, I think one of the things I came up with this summer is I think to be a really great coach, you need to be knowledgeable, but everybody's knowledgeable. And you need to be humble because it's never about you.

Most people don't have those two qualities in the same package. The great ones do. It's always about the kids. And until the middle of my career, I didn't quite understand that I was attached to the outcomes. And now I'm too old to be bogged down with it, I guess. But it's hard, but you have to remember that you don't own it. And, you know, to me, a coach is like a referee. They should be in the facility to make sure that nothing bad happens, but nobody should notice that they're there. That's, that's a coaching philosophy. Yeah. Um, do you have a spiritual framework that you work from? Yeah, I was raised Catholic and I was very devout. You know, used to teach Sunday school at West Point.

The irony of it is my father was an agnostic and he was the most beautiful man I ever knew. And when my dad passed away, I couldn't reconcile myself to the Christian beliefs, because there wasn't a place in heaven for my father. And yet he was one of the greatest men I've ever known. He would walk across a grass field, and he wouldn't compress any of the blades of grass. He just made things around him better. And so I struggled at that moment. That was a seminal moment for me. And I've become more of a spiritualist.

I just think that life is about, in religion, is good thoughts, good words, good deeds. We're all in this world to make things around us better. And that's the whole deal to me. I would have not known that story, obviously. But I would have guessed that you've had some Buddhist influence because of your appreciation for non-attachment. Very much so. I'm very into Eastern philosophy. Do you have a mindfulness practice?

Mm-hmm. You do. Absolutely. Absolutely. I try to meditate. It's interesting. Meditation is hard for me, but I try to do it every day but what I do find through meditation is the that during the course of the day when crises or things

that threatening things come at me I find that I do go inside and and focus on my breathing and and just calm and make things slow down. You know, you hear about in athletics, people talk all the time about being in the zone. When you're in the zone, things are very, very quiet and seem to be moving very slowly. You can create that state. Yes, you can. There's, it's not, it's not actually that complicated. No. But it does require a disciplined mind.

Yes. Yeah. And I love that you added the word that so many people miss in that statement is seemingly slow down. Exactly. Because it doesn't slow down. It's just that we have now syncopated our mind to real time as opposed to busy time. Exactly. Yeah. That's brilliant. That's a beautiful thing. I've got to write that down. Yeah, that's good. I'm learning more from you than you're learning from me here. Oh, no, no, no. That's not the case here.

So you feel to me that you have a lot of compassion and you have a deep insight about how people work and that you also are a grateful human. And do you do any of your, are any of your mindfulness practice or meditations, are they about gratitude or compassion? Both. But what I'm working on mostly right now is learning to be better at observing. Yeah, me too. That's a hard one, but we create these stories in our minds, and then we attach ourselves to those stories. And if you could step out and observe yourself, it's just a story. I mean, it doesn't – I talk to the boys about this a lot.

I call it simplistic thinking. When we're – you see this in athletics all the time. It's what Bill Belichick asked me to talk to the Patriots about. They had three games left and they were favored in all three. And he said, you guys are usually favored. How do you deal with that? And the danger of that one is you, kids particularly, will go into a competition and they make a decision beforehand how it's supposed to go based on their fear or their lack of respect for their opponent. And so I'm constantly trying to get them to understand that you must respect the game. You must respect your opponent and give it everything you have

every time. Because if you don't and you underestimate your opponent, all of a sudden you find yourself in trouble. The person would say whoa i underestimated this guy i better start playing better but most people particularly in the college age will say oh i'm playing like garbage and i'll say why are you playing like garbage because i'm supposed to be killing this guy says who says your story you know that's and the example I give them is you have a girlfriend. You have a fight with her on the phone. You feel badly. An hour later, you call her. The phone is busy. An hour later, you call her. The phone is busy. An hour later, you call, and it's busy. You call the operator, and the operator says the phone is off the hook.

What's the first thing you as a macho college- age boys think of? You think she's with somebody else. Maybe she just knocked the phone off the cradle. But you created this story and you've made yourself crazy in the process. So to me, observing gets you out of making yourself the protagonist in this movie that's playing out in your mind when none of it's real. So that observation without judgment is obviously a central characteristic of mindfulness. Are you doing that like one minute a day, 20 minutes a day, somewhere in between? Or are you doing a thousand a day little moments where you're observing without judgment? What is the practicing of that for you? I kick it off with about 10 minutes a day, and then I try to go back to it. I call it

shuttling when the train goes back inside. It's interesting. Observing is an outside act, but I need to shuttle inside first to remind myself time to get out and look down. Yeah, there you go. So I do that a thousand times a day. Can I ask you a tough question? inside first to remind myself time to get out and look down yeah there you go and uh yeah so i do that i do that a thousand times a day can i ask you a tough question what i think is tough and you can please with all you know respects they know is that is there a time when you realized what you were most afraid of in life yes but it was an unhelp it's not it's not now okay i think what was the thing i was most afraid of in life was failing but now what i believe i'm most afraid of is being found out to be a sham. Oh my God.

You know, I'm not all these things you guys are saying I am. It's interesting if I can, if I can, you know, go to a story again, when I was at West Point, I went there to be a gymnastics coach and I had a really bad injury and I was no longer able to do gymnastics. And so I started playing tennis. And but I was playing tennis the way I was doing gymnastics, which was seven hours a day, seven days a week. I got fairly good at it. Well, the tennis coach at Army was a guy named Ron Holberg. Ron Holberg was the real deal. He, you know, he was a Davis Cup player. He had beaten Rod Laver in Junior Wimbledon. He was tremendous. And so Ron Holmberg quit. And like an idiot, I applied for this job. I had no right getting that job. Well, they offered the job to seven other people, all of whom turned it down. And they said,

oh my God, we're stuck with this kid. So they brought me into the office and they said, okay, we're going to make you the head tennis coach for one year. And they took me downstairs to the second floor. And they said, and by the way, this is a squash court and you're now the head squash coach. I'd never seen the court before. So I sat the team practice and I sat him down and I said, guys, I don't know what the marks mean. I don't know what the any of the boundaries mean. I have no idea what you're doing. But by watching, the one thing I can tell is it looks like fitness is a big part of this game.

So here's the deal. I'm going to make you the most fit team in the country and you're going to teach me squash. For the first three years of my career at West Point, I woke up to a recurring nightmare almost every night, which was the middle of an Army-Navy tennis match. There were 4,000 cadets there. And in a quiet moment, a general stood up and said, stop the match. This man is an imposter. And they took me off in handcuffs, and they should have. I still have that recurring nightmare.

No kidding. What is the nightmare about to you? That's phenomenal story. I haven't synced up me with what all of the accomplishments or the accolades are supposed to be. They don't mean anything to me. And yet somehow in this competitive forum where you're striving for that, I'm just masquerading. Wow. I love the complications in it. And, you know, just recently we had a stud soccer player on Stephanie Levy, and she represented Canada in women's soccer down in the Olympics.

And I asked her this question, like, what would be the question you would want to ask other masters of craft and others that are on the path of mastery? And she wanted to know, maybe you can answer this as like, what is the one thing that drives you most? And I'd love to know how you respond to that. It's interesting. It used to be fear,

right? That's what I thought you were going to say. Now, as I'm getting closer to the finish line than the start line for me, when I go, I just want on my tombstone the words here lies a man who made a difference see and in that regard i can't fail all i have to do is get up and be true to my ethos and my my craft i want to touch and make a difference in these people's lives so that they can go on and feel good about themselves and know they had a positive experience.

And are you looking to make a deep impact on few or some sort of other type of impact on many? Like, are you looking for an impact on many or looking for a deep with a few? When I first started coaching and I was up at Williams College, one of the great coaches up there said, if you make a difference in one person's life, you've made a huge impact. But because so much time has passed and so many have come through and stay in touch. I'd like to influence or impact or at least help many feel good about themselves through sport. I think that is a possibility and it's something that I strive to do.

I think you can. Okay. I'm respectful of your time, but I want to get some quick hits from you here. You're at the top of the game in squash. There's nobody that has more wins in squash, obviously. And then also in college, holding the longest winning streak.

So how important is the mental aspect of your craft when you're at the elite level? Oh, it's tremendous. It's the differential. If you can get everybody to the same level physically of preparedness, it's all mental. And to me, it's all about managing emotion and fear. You cannot play this game in a state of road rage because ours is a game of very subtle

adjustments in match adjustments as you go. Emotion takes away your ability to recognize that adjustments need to be made and what those adjustments are. You so you can't, you can't play with that. I want you to be excited, high energy, but emotion, you can't carry that in. So how do you, how do you develop yourself to be mentally strong, emotionally pliable? How do you do that? Well, for me, it's, I have an obligation. It's, I guess, again, it's acting. People ask, say to me all the time, you know, in the matches, you seem so calm. Well, if you came inside my body, you would see that I'm chewing my tongue. But I have an obligation to present a very calm and

placid demeanor, because if I show anything more than that, the players are going to feed off of that fear. So for me, it's acting. And if you do it often enough, you actually can reach that state. But also I've done it long enough where a loss or a poor performance, you know, it's interesting. We had an experience here several years ago that was really tough. We had a young man come here who was one of the greatest players ever to come to the college game. He was brilliant. And he was the classiest most character large guy I ever coached and I guess I was sort of proud of the fact that I was riding on his coattails just a little bit and he was playing his last college team match and he was his opponent was doing everything he could do to get into my guy's head

and he was really being very chippy and and tough and when my fellow won his match he turned to this opponent and let out a primal scream into this guy's face. And because my guy was 6'4 and the other player was 5'7, just the physical difference looked so overbearing. Well, the boys at ESPN thought that this looked hysterical and they didn't know that by playing it 30 times a day for a week, that would be a bad thing. You know, it was sort of like if two people got into a verbal altercation at a polo match or a sailing contest. That's how they viewed squash. Are you kidding me?

You know, two guys, you know, looking like they're ready to come to blows. And this was on television for a full week. And I got hundreds of emails calling from my residence this poor boy was no was rolled through the mud on this thing the college the president was devastated we were getting calls from everywhere and it was that moment that I realized, you know what? This boy gave away control a little bit. No big deal. I mean, Brittany Griner a week later broke somebody's jaw by punching her on a basketball court. No blows are exchanged here. And this guy was treated really badly. And because I felt terrible for him, a part of me died. And we've remained incredibly close, and he's doing so well out there.

But I let him down a little bit then because I was attached to his performance, and I was hurt when that happened, and I shouldn't have been. When you say hurt, do you mean disappointed? I was hurting because of all the swirl that was going on around us. Got it. Okay. So, you know, it sounds like you've practiced your mindset and you've practiced the mental skills and the inner psychology or the psychology period to be able to be the best version of yourself on a regular basis. Do you teach those same skills like breathing and or inner dialogue or imagery maybe,

or like, do you teach those to, to your, your athletes or, okay. And we repeat those daily. You do. Okay.

Yeah. That's what I figured that so much. Okay. Let me get, let me ask you just a quick hits as we round home base here is that are you more street savvy or analytical um i'm definitely more analytical do you prefer a slow-paced environment or a fast-paced environment i live in a mock speed environment and i crave slow pace so you do i imagine you recharge then

in slow-paced environments okay yes um Yes. Introvert or extrovert? Extrovert. Oh, you are? Okay. And then do you prefer to take risks or follow rules? Oh, very much follow rules. Okay. Is your need for control high, medium, low?

High. High need for control? Yeah. So you like to be the person you know that's in control i do intellectually competitive no physically competitive yes do you are you more critical of yourself and others or more positive of yourself and others i am much more positive others and much more critical of myself how How do you do that? People say that all the time, but I don't understand it because I feel like the way that I speak to myself is the way I speak to others.

Because I have this disease to please. Oh, geez. Is that codependency? So I want to make sure everybody's okay, which you can't do. Is that codependency? 100%. Yeah, okay. So mom or dad, neither of them were alcoholics or drug addicts themselves?

No. No. No. Okay, so do you like fast-paced environments? I'm sorry, no. Do you make fast decisions or slow decisions? Very fast. So you're decisive. When you get the information, you make it.

Okay. I need to learn to slow that down. I need to remember that we have one mouth and two ears. Yeah. So you make mistakes in slow environments when, um, the environment's too fast and you're forced to break a rule. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, so then where does pressure come from? Totally self-inflicted. And yet again, in this world of the media. So, so ESPN did a piece on us a couple of years ago

and it aired the morning that we were getting on a bus to go to Princeton for the national championships and I had to make sure the boys didn't get to see it so there is a pressure there okay yeah but for the most most of it comes from ourselves yeah and and what is that pressure for most people? Do you think maybe yourself if you want to answer it that way? But well, for me, approval. Yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's actually for most, you know, it's like, if I don't do something well enough, my human doing and human being, if I don't do well enough, my being doesn't matter. You know, that's it's craziness. But

that's where we are, where you I think it's primal. I think that if we didn't do well enough, my being doesn't matter. Exactly. It's craziness, but that's... It is where we are. Where are you? I think it's primal. I think that if we didn't do well enough while we were hunting or gathering, that we were shunned. Yeah, we were shunned when we came back to the tribe. Okay, so when I say the word love, what happens?

I smile. And when I talk about relationships, what happens? It's a complicated answer because presently it's beautiful. I wish I had been better before. That haunts me. That saying, the way that you describe that haunts me and i'm going to thank you now because i think about this a lot being a dad and a husband that is you know on the go flat out on the go like that's the thing and you know i know that some some folks listening

to this i go yeah i hear you talk about it, but that's the thing that haunts me the most. It's interesting. I speak for the Goodman Speakers Bureau and I've done a couple of YPO's young president, you know, and one of the things I'm often asked to speak about is work-life balance. And the book is all about the fact that I had none. And so I go down to speak to these young professionals, and I say, you've asked me to speak about work-life balance, and I'm telling you I had none. So all I can do is to give you the epitaph of my life, and you can make your own decisions about work-life balance. And recently I was doing one of these in Virginia,

and one of the men's cell phone rang and i said so who's that and he said it's my wife and i said and what did she say and then he said she wanted to know if i was coming home for dinner and i said and your answer is and he said you bet you're right i'm gonna be home for dinner but i'm doing it now okay and then as a as a elite coach yourself or i don't even like the word elite i don't know why i've said it so many times but um as a world-class coach what do you see in your industry in the next i don't know five years ten years we need to revamp things we are moving in a terrible direction i'm so glad glad. Yep. I'm right there with you. I'm so concerned about the young people. It starts at home. Parents are not giving young

people enough ownership. They come to us. We're on this, this, you know, they look more put together than they've ever looked before. The first time they face adversity, they fall into a million pieces. We're seeing more cheating than we've ever seen before. I get a call from my athletic director. I go down to his office. He's gotten an email from the president who got an email from a parent who's driving home. And it's this long, esoteric email about the values of sport and society. And if you read between the lines, what the parent is really saying is Johnny's not getting enough playing time. Coaches are losing jobs because of the involvement of people that shouldn't be involved.

One of the really crazy things, and I can do this because I'm old, is when I go to see the athletic director for my annual evaluation, he hands me a packet. And in that packet are the students' evaluations of me. And I thank him very much and I put it in the garbage pail. Because I'm not interested in what the students think about me. Because at this moment in time, they're not experienced enough to know what life is all about. You know, I've got 23 boys on the team, nine of them play in a match. That means at any point in time, 14 people are going to be very upset with me, you know? And so for me to be concerned about that, I'm not interested in that. Now, if they hand me a packet of what alums 10 years out think about their experience here, I would love to know that because life has

beaten them up a little bit. It's taught them what life is all about. The Mark Twain quote is beautiful. When I was 10 years old, I couldn't believe how ignorant my father was. When I was 25 years old, I couldn't believe how much he learned in 15 years. That's so good. So I'm very concerned about what's happening in sport, in society, what's happening in colleges. The tail is wagging the dog. Kids are making verbal commitments as freshmen in high school. It's just children should have seasons. They should be doing multiple things. Now, if you're in ninth grade and you're not playing squash 12 months out of the year, you can't keep up with Johnny. That's not healthy for anyone. Yeah, there you go. So who do you calibrate to see or feel if you're on the right track about something?

Is it an inner calibration? Yeah, at this stage, I just look inward. Yeah, okay. Is there a central question you ask yourself? Did I make things around me better today? Is that a daily question? Yeah, that's the mantra. Is it? Yeah. today is that like a is that a daily uh yeah that's the mantra is it yeah yeah and and sometimes

maybe making things better is for the moment making things worse you know sometimes if they're not behaving right or you know one of the things i'm very worried about is giving away control with this age group i'm constantly telling, don't ever give away control. Because in a moment, life can change. And you guys are moving at very fast speeds. You're still young people in adult bodies, and you can't give away control. And if something is wrong, and I see something wrong, sometimes we've got to come in here and have a come to Jesus meeting. And at that moment, their lives don't feel much better. But in the long run, they will be better.

Got it. Yeah. Okay, got it. Is your office like right next to the squash court? Yeah, the squash court's one foot outside my door. So you hear banging balls all day long. I mean, I can hear them in the background. Exactly.

Okay, so last real question here is, you know, in your words, how do you articulate mastery? Well, that was a very, when I got the information that this is what it was going to be about, to me, it's a never-ending journey. You can't get there, but you are always striving for it. Increasing your knowledge, increasing your ability to share that knowledge, and increasing your level of humility so that you don't own the performance of others. Oh, God. There's a reason why you've been so successful. Paul, I just love this conversation. Thank you so much. so successful paul i'm so um i just love this conversation you know and so yeah the insight the

the authenticity of the insight and um the humility that you express over decades of success external success is reflected by your internal uh insight and success for sure so i want to say thank you and then where can people find i know that we can go, the Finding Mastery community can, if they haven't already read your book, Run to the Roar, they will. And I hope so at least. But where can we find you? My email address?

No, no, no. I wouldn't say that. But like, should we point people to Run to the Roar? Or do you have any social media or any projects that are coming up that people can support and celebrate you oh no i think just the book run to the roar yeah fantastic book okay paul thank you and yeah thank you this was a real treat for me yeah oh it's my honor and um you mentioned uh somebody that i was honored to know as well, Coach Callahan from Princeton.

Loved him. You know, the interesting thing, I know we're going to break off, but Bobby was the most gracious person in defeat I've ever known. And when they won the national championships, it was his last match as coach. He didn't know it at the time, but he had brain cancer. And I went over and I hugged him and I could feel him crying. And it occurred to me that he knew how to lose, but he didn't know how to behave when he won because he didn't want to show us up. That was him. That's totally him.

That is totally him. What a wonderful human. And you were a great friend to him. I loved him. That's totally him. What a wonderful human. And you were a great friend to him. I loved him. Okay, Paul, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay. All the best to you. Okay. Take care. Bye. Bye.

All right. If you enjoyed this conversation and you haven't subscribed yet to the Finding Mastery podcast, punch over to iTunes and you can take a look for it. Easy to find, just punch in Finding Mastery. There's also another podcast that we just fired up called Minutes on Mastery, and that's quick hits under three minutes of insights and daily little pearls of wisdom and gems from people that are on the path of mastery. That being said, you can also hit us at findingmastery.net. And what we have there is just an archive of a blog and insights and all of the podcasts that we've ever done are also available there. You can also find us on facebook.com forward slash finding mastery. You can find us on Twitter at Michael Gervais.

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