Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Super Bowl Winning Coach on Grit, Growth and Failure | NFL Coach, Tom Cable

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

What would you do in the face of a very public and shocking defeat? Would you crumble, or would you use it to grow and learn? Today’s guest chose growth, transforming one of the most heart-wrenching moments in NFL history into a profound learning experience.In this episode, I'm thrilled to introduce a friend and former colleague from my time with the Seattle Seahawks — the exceptional Tom Cable.Tom’s coaching journey includes three years as an NFL Head Coach and seven years as an Assistant Head Coach, including two Super Bowl appearances with the Seattle Seahawks – one where the Seahawks won in 2014 (against the Denver Broncos), and one where they lost in dramatic fashion in 2015 (against the New England Patriots). We cover that loss – and the ramifications of it – in depth in this conversation.With over 35 years of coaching experience, Tom has left an indelible mark on both collegiate and NFL levels. His expertise is with the Offensive Line, but his influence goes way beyond X's and O's; he's a teacher, as all great coaches are, a co-creator of cultures, and a problem solver who challenges players and organizations to be honest in their approach toward mastery.  Now, this is a special episode – not only do we get to dive into Tom’s stories & insights, but in the second half of the conversation, Tom and I get to wrestle with some of YOUR questions around coaching and leadership. We set up a call-in phone number, and you all left some great questions for us to tackle.We cover: the mindset required to adjust when things don’t go according to plan, how to build a trusting environment, personal stories from our time together with the Seahawks (including a never heard before breakdown of the infamous goal-line call, that cost us the win in our second superbowl), and so much more. This conversation serves as a reminder that success is not solely defined by championships, but by the growth, support, and love shared along the path._________________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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Every decision we make in my world, at least in my belief, is I either do it with love or with hate. And so I chose love. How are we growing? How can we be better than everybody else if we just stay on this side of the short fence? Let's step over that and let's go climb the tallest fence. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host,

Dr. Michael Gervais by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And today I am so thrilled to introduce a friend and a former colleague from my time with the Seattle Seahawks, the exceptional coach, Tom Cable. Tom's coaching journey includes three years as an NFL head coach and seven years as an assistant head coach. He was a member of two Super Bowl appearances with the Seattle Seahawks, where we won one in 2014 against the Broncos, and then we lost one in dramatic fashion in 2015 against the Patriots. With over 35 years of coaching experience, Tom has left an indelible mark on both collegiate and NFL levels. His expertise is with the offensive line, but his influence goes way beyond X's and

O's. He's a teacher, as all great coaches are. He's a co-creator of cultures and a problem solver who challenges players and organizations to be honest in their approach towards mastery. creator of cultures, and a problem solver who challenges players and organizations to be honest in their approach towards mastery. Now, this episode is special. Not only do we dive into Tom's stories and insights and his practical approaches to getting better, but in the second half of this conversation, Tom and I get to wrestle with some of your

questions around coaching and leadership. We set up a call and phone number and you left us some great questions for us to tackle. So we cover the mindset required to adjust when things don't go according to plan, how to build a trusting environment, personal stories from our time together with the Seahawks, including a never heard before breakdown of the infamous goal line call in the Super Bowl that we lost. And we talk about so much more. This conversation serves as a reminder that success is not solely defined by championships,

but by the growth and support and love shared along the path. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with the incredible coach, Tom Cable. Coach, this is awesome. Like very rarely do I get to sit with somebody I deeply respect and that I've had the chance to work with and I would consider you a friend. So like this is rare that I get all three and I just can't wait to have this conversation with you. Well, for me, this is really a blessing. I mean, we've talked so many times over so many things for years and we just spent a weekend together and every minute of it, when there wasn't others around was about something really cool. So, you know, this is, this is a lot of fun and exciting thing for me as well. A hundred percent. And it's worth noting why we spent the weekend together.

It's probably good context. Absolutely. Go ahead. Super Bowl. The 10-year anniversary of the Seattle Seahawks in 2014. I didn't even know that was a thing. I didn't know that there was reunions like this. I'm sure you did.

Well, not really, but I think there's a reunion for everything. Like there's one coming up next month when you and I met. This was years ago. I just haven't told you about it. Oh really? Yeah. But I'll invite you. You'll invite me to that party. That's really good. The Superbowl reunion for me was like, you and I talked about this is that it was nearly overwhelming. Yeah. And I flew into Seattle, driving from the airport to the hotel. I called my wife and I was like, what am I doing here? Like, why am I going back? Like, I kind of like going forward. I don't go back very often because I haven't been with the

team for three years. And so I was like, what am I going back for? And yeah, okay. You go, wow, that sounds cold. But I didn't realize what I was missing by not going back. And it was so overwhelming. The gratitude, the appreciation, the celebration of seeing people doing stuff. And I was listening to how people were talking to you about like how you changed their life. It was awesome. And so I'm so stoked to be part of that team. And then to have this little celebration with everyone. I knew as soon as I found out what it was going to be and what was going on with it.

It was like, I wouldn't miss this. And Carol and I talked about it, that, you know, all the things that you lived through and experienced, they're going to come right back to you. And as you see each one of them, there's a story, right? And so the only real negative of any of it was the ones who weren't there. I know. But the ones that were there, I mean, more than a celebration, right? It was, you got to see where they've come and you start out with them at A and you've done the A to Z a few times because it's a long journey and you start seeing those guys and what they're

doing and their families. You got a bunch of little kids and their wives. And it was just, it touched me in so many ways because we had such a cool part in that together. So, you know, what kept coming up like at the dinner table or, you know, the small plates when we're standing around as people, athletes and coaches kept saying this, there's something special about this team. Yeah. I must've heard it 20 times. And so then towards the end of the weekend, I said, don't you think that most championship teams would say that? And so I was trying to suss out like what it was. And most of the guys were like, yeah, I think probably, but this was different because relationships happen

first and then winning happens second. And that's the order that I hope all things go, you know, and that's actually the way that I've seen how you work. So you really are a relationship-based coach. Everything that I've ever tried to do, it was a gift given to me from my high school coaches, my dad. When someone gives you something, it's yours to take it and shape it and maybe grow it and see how far you can take it. What did they give you? The ability to communicate without fear, to be real. Some people would say, well, you can be strong and you can be sometimes overwhelming, whatever it is.

No, they're talking about you. Yeah. Yeah, no. And it's okay. I've seen you bark. Well. But it's okay because when you, you know, everything, every decision we make in my world, at least in my belief, is I either do it with love or with hate. And so I chose love.

And can I get after you? Can I chew on you and push you and take you where you want to go? You just don't want to get pushed right now, but that's too bad. I can do that. And you know that I love you along the way. And that's, I think the connection. Support then challenge is the way that you and I have always talked about it. Develop that right support mechanism where you really know the person, where their tripwires are, what their

hopes, dreams, and ambitions are, what their fears are, like really know them. Because of that, you broaden the aperture of how, how much you can challenge. But if you don't have that right first piece, you're laughing. You want to broaden that thing as much as you can, because I need people like you in my life to hold the standard, to know that even when I fall and trip that I'm okay in your eyes and you'll reach out and pick me up, you know, and we've had plenty of those, you and me, like outside of all relationship based support, then challenge as a, as a methodology. Yeah. You brought up your dad. What did you learn from your dad specifically about how you can trust yourself to be honest and how other people can trust you to go on that ride, to go on that life adventure with them. So people trust you and you trust

yourself to pour in. Is there anything about your relationship with your dad that is important there? You just gave me the look like, are you going there, dude? My dad was amazing, first of all. He gets done high school, he goes in the service. It wasn't an athlete. He goes in the Air Force, learns a trade. I'm born in Merced, California. He's at Castle Air Force Base. I'm getting out of California.

I'm taking my kids out because I don't want them to grow up with this mindset. I want them there to be more. And I can't afford to buy land here because it was all agriculture was produced and first resale for retail. And so he said, let's go, we're going to buy a dairy farm up in Washington. And so we did that. He taught me, here's how you trust yourself is you fail and then you succeed and you fail and you succeed. The comment you just made a minute ago about, well, you can fall down, but I'll just pick you back up and we'll go forward. Right. It's never over. It's never, we didn't, we didn't fail. I don't know even if that's a fair word. It just didn't work in that moment. So we come back to it. And that's what my dad taught

me. You know, when I was 10 years old, he taught me to look around and the old adage of, you know, buying stocks and find five things that you see every day for two weeks and write them on a piece of paper. It could be Pepsi. I think it was Converse at the time and it was GE and it was all these things. And so he gave me a hundred bucks and he said, I want you to put $20 in each one of these. So he taught me how to do that at 10. Taught me how to make money at 10 because as a farmer, you don't always have money. You don't have money to have Christmas. You don't have money to have, you know, buy a birthday present for someone. But if you have a little extra on the side, you'll find a way. So he taught me that you can get through that. You can trust yourself that you've planned. And there's a built in protection, if you will, that if all else fails, you've always got something else here.

And so I thought that was pretty cool because I had to learn at that age. You know, if you remember in my office, there's this red old water pump that you attach to a main. People always talk, oh, it's the old prime to pump thing. It's like, no, it's not. You know, I remember being nine years old and cutting firewood with my dad. And he said, get some water. So I could take the thing over. You got to screw it on. They got to pump it and get it going, get it going. And it wouldn't come up. And I got so mad and he looked at me and he says, well, I mean, I guess you could just give up, I guess, but we need to get some water. And it was hot, you know, and I'm a little kid and I'm crying and I'm mad and I'm pissed. I'm

like, dad, this isn't working. And he looks at me and he's like, okay. And so he, he knew how to just keep pulling it out of me and pulling it out of me and pulling it out of me. But in doing so, he was teaching me that I could do anything. And that trust that he gave to me by just persevering. We've talked a lot about grit, but persevering at that young age. And how to always have a backup plan financially and all these things. And when you look at it he was a hard guy right if you didn't do it right you're probably gonna you're in trouble it wasn't

always fun but what he was is he was a lesson guy he would always teach you and he's the reason and you've seen me coach i can i can get after you if you continuously are taking the wrong step or you got a bad backhand or whatever that is but But the minute you get it, then the first thing is, all right, you've done it now. Let's do it again and own it. And then when you do it that second time, I'm celebrating with you. Yeah. You know, and that's the piece where earlier about, you know, loving them and all that is they're going to know that I will celebrate that with them. So back to my dad, he taught me how to do that. That when you do get it, when you do get that water flowing, right?

Celebrate. That's a hell of a job, son. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms. One thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort.

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Like there are athletes that take a lot of time to trust. Yeah. There are some athletes that never will trust. There are athletes that are eager to trust somebody. I don't know if i ever told you this but part of my selection criteria to support the gm and the scouting staff was to discern level of trust of the athlete if they had no to low level of trust put a red mark next to them like i we don't have the time right if they had moderate i'm like okay you got to work though the high level

of trust it's like oh well it's going to be actually easy. They're good learners. They're vulnerable enough to be curious enough to, you know, know how to take care of themselves so they can trust another person in the process. But low to no trust, it just is so much work. What did you do to help athletes independent of what water level they had of trust? How did you help them? Well, I think your point there, you know, first knowing what that is.

And so I would ask that question, what disappoints you? What disappoints you and why? Oh, that's cool. And all of a sudden they'll start talking to you. Like that's, that's out of the norm, if you will. So you do this prior to like after practice before when you're first meeting so we haven't put pads on we haven't done any of that stuff what disappoints you yeah you know i you know like you know the nfl the draft

structure right with all the meetings and then you do your 30 for 30s and you bring them there you go work them out right and so that would always be a question. I need to know what disappointed them and why does it disappoint you? A lot of times what disappoints them isn't any different than you or I or anybody, but why it bothers them, they start talking about what's out there. Let's make it concrete. So when you ask one of your athletes what disappoints you, what's something that came up that you remember? The number one thing. You tell me one thing, but another thing happens. You tell me I'm going to get a shot, but then I never get a chance. I played three snaps. I played three snaps. That actually happened to my son in his first high-level club season,

and he goes and confronts the coach mid-season good it was awesome did it on his own you know what the coach said listen we want you on our team you're going to be on the bench practices will be your game day that's when you're going to you know get your reps it's going to be fast and high speed and they end up taking third in the nation so it was a really good team at the highest level of clubs so and my son is new to it and so he's like okay this this is what i want halfway through the season he's like hey coach I want to talk to you because you're giving all the reps to the starter in practice. And so I know game days is not my game.

Practice is my game. And I'm advocating for time. You know what the coach did? I said, Grayson, you've gotten a lot better. You've done a nice job. We want to win. And so we believe the best way to win is to make sure that we pour into the starter. I appreciate you, but you're not going to get reps. The coach not only lost my son,

lost the whole bench because it was a philosophy. So they sold out development for winning and full train wreck. They probably should have won. Third is really quite an accomplishment, but they lost the bench, the entire bench because they didn't, they swallowed some poison, you know? So what would, what would you have done? How would you have handled that? If a kid said that to you? Well, first of all, that it's such a cool, um, scenario in that that's most of the failures, failures that happened in sport, you know, it's, it's an untruth. And so if that happened to me and it has, okay. You personally. Yeah. I mean, I, I've said, Hey, when I first met a kid, whether it was going

to work him out, if you, if you, if we draft you, we sign you as undrafted free agent, you know, the plan will be to give you a lot of reps, you know, our deal in Seattle. And, and so I might push it and say, well, I'm going to, this'll be the rep count or whatever. And then I don't do that. And so he comes to me and I always tell him in the beginning, if you have an issue, if you need a truth, don't, don't sit there and stew. Don't act like a child. You'll be treated like a man here, but I expect the same. And so it's okay to come talk to me, say, coach, this is what you said. And at no way can I ever say, well, we were going to do this. No, no, no. You're right. You're right. That's exactly what happened. And so what I got to do here is

make this right for that person. That's the trust piece. That's the, you know, if you're going to get into a relationship, do it because you love them and you love the process of getting them where they want to go. You taught me that, right? What is a man's story? And then how does he get there? Well, that's something you got to sit down together. Can't throw a story on the whole group because it doesn't work for everybody. But that kid comes to me and says that, then I've got to be able to step back, you know, as a teacher and say, wait a minute, I owe this guy. This is exactly what I said. And I'm going to own that. And I'm going to tell them that. What do you do in your relationship with your coaches? I'm sorry, with your athletes where they know that they can come to you. What do you do prior to that? I hear you say,

listen, here, you're going to be treated like a man. I do want to understand your definition of a man. We're talking about men because in the NFL, the only players are men. We could substitute that word for adult. Let's start with what you do to help them be able to confront authority in a way that you can hear it. So some people won't confront to your point. Some people over confront and it, and then it creates a defensiveness. What would you do to get that conversation tonality? Just right. I think first to explain to them where I'm coming from and don't let my words, you don't have to buy them right now.

They don't have to be what proves it to you. Let me earn it. Yeah. Okay. And then the first time they come in the room, there's two thoughts that go out. And one is you got to work hard. If you want to see me, you know,

get after you and not feel good or sound good or whatever that is, be lazy. You're going to need challenge. Yep. And I want to challenge you. Yep. But there's a rite of passage there. You have to bring high effort. All the time.

Is that what you're saying? All the time. To get to the deep, rich challenge, your responsibility is high effort. Consistent high effort. But I like that as a rite of passage. For your point, you know how we always talked about, I'm going to be at my best today. And maybe I don't feel great. Maybe I've got a touch of the bug or whatever that is. But if I'm connected by my effort and in my core, in my being, that this is the only way I can do

it is to just give the very best I am right now, then whatever it is good enough. Let's open that up. What does that mean? Give the very best of myself around. Cause we talk about be your best. We want to help you be your best. And every time I say it, I fundamentally believe it. And I want to gag just a little bit because I don't have, it sounds so pop psych. It sounds so cliche. Help you be your best. I want to do like this weak voice when I say it. So, but what you just said was very grounded.

So you said, bring my very best, whatever that is right now. How do you get there is I think that's a taught thing. I don't know how to surf, but you could go out and teach me how to do that. I'm sure. Now I don't know how proficient I'm going to be. No, you're kind of, you know, you're a little stiff, a little bit older, you know, a couple of surgeries, but I'll make it. Yeah. I don't swim great though. Does that matter? Yeah. There's sharks and you know, not really. I didn't like the Jaws movie when I was a kid. No, I love it. But the point is, I think that's something taught. Like you and i can go out and do something and i bring up the example you teaching me to surf i'll do

that to a certain level but what i can do is come every day and try to be the best damn surfer i can be with a very limited knowledge that i have but i gotta trust you that you can take me up a notch today tomorrow so on so forth that piece i. But somewhere in my mind, somewhere, somebody's taught me how to have that control. And I think that comes down to, you know, I use the term being comfortable being uncomfortable. Sure. Right. I'm known for how I drill and have individual period. And it's a piece that is called adaptation. And I want to take you to a place where others don't go. They'll go part of it because it's cool, man. You know, I got to do enough.

You know, I got to do that. No, I want to go so far that at the end in the fourth, you're probably going to quit. You're probably going to give up because these goons, and we were just around a bunch of them, that was some of our conversation this weekend. Some of the stories about how we just went further than others wanted to go. The first practice, I don't know if we've

ever talked about this. The first practice I'm on the field with you or with everybody. And if paint the picture for folks that haven't been on an NFL practice facility or like a practice, it's two to three fields and it's a massive masterclass on managing time because everybody's doing something. So the D line is doing their own thing. The O line's doing their own thing. And there's like, there's practices taking place inside of practice.

And then the two sides come together at the end. Okay. Quarterbacks are doing their own thing for a little bit. And then eventually everyone comes together. So you're with the O-line. We should probably start with what the O-line is for a minute. So how do you describe the O-line to folks that aren't familiar with American football? They're the guardians of the team. Oh, I can't believe you said that. That is awesome. It's so true. They're the father in the house. They're the owner of the company that demands from everybody. You know what I love that you just did is that you didn't talk about the technical aspect.

You didn't talk about the role. You talked about the spirit of the people that are on that line. So they are the protectors. They're the guardians, if you will. And they are responsible for taking care of an asset, which is the quarterback who's responsible to get the ball to the right person. Yeah. To make a pass, if you will. Practice was rolling and all of a sudden whistles are blowing and people are going to their right places.

And you were always right in front of like the athletic training center. And I always wondered just because like you push so hard that it's an easy walk to get bandaged back up, you know? So, and I hear, I can't do justice to the way you sound. Your line is by far the most intimidating, intense practice that on any of the other disciplines on the field. And I wish people got to hear your voice when you do it. Like, can you access any of that right now? I don't know. Just, it's natural. It's just natural.

You know, there's, first of all, there's a whole plan with that. Yeah. So, and the players have to sign off on it. What are they signing off on? On what today is going to look like. So we use a term in football, don't, listen to the film. It's telling you the story. It's telling you exactly what you need to be working on.

Game film or practice film? Both. Both. both you know i go to practice sometimes and yeah i hear guys talking about hey we're going to get together and do this drill that drill and i look at and go what does that have to do with where our issues are you know and so i was taught again a long time ago by a mentor alex gibbs who said to me the film's got to talk to you and you got to listen you can't be afraid of it, the film's got to talk to you and you got to listen. You can't be afraid of it. And sometimes it's going to be brutal. You can sing mistakes. Yeah. There's holding calls. And like right now, the holding call is the biggest thing going on football, both college and professional, because no one teaching them to move their feet.

Yeah. Right. Right. The film tells you what to do. The players know exactly what to do. Right. We talk about it every day. I'll put a list up when we're game planning on Wednesday for their lesson plan about what they're going to need to have mastered to perform at their very best on Sunday. Oh, that's cool. Okay. Yeah.

So they'll have that ahead of time and they can break it down. Because on Friday, then I go around the room and say, hey, Mike, is there anything else that you need? Do you need another B slip? Do you want to hit another TE drill? Hey, let's do the double bump on the scat thing, coach. I really could use a couple more reps of that. So the film has told us, right? We listened, we planned it. Then we showed it up there and every guy goes out and we work at it Wednesday, Thursday, hard, right? And on Friday, now you got to talk, the player.

Coach, I need this. I think that's another part of that connection we were talking about earlier. And so I make a little list, and that list is a little bit shorter, and we try to do everything what we call game speed, right? Most people go through the motions. Like you've heard the saying, you go out to practice, and you're watching a classroom session on the field because coach is talking and one player's doing, and you got 10 guys standing around. I can stand that. It's like, why? And so everybody's involved.

There's this half running the bags and this half doing the drill. And then we rotate and we're in and we're out and we go run to pass and run to pass and fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And I tell them in the beginning, I want you to get to the point where this is so uncomfortable. It's difficult. It's hard. You might only get six to eight drills early, but we'll get it up to 14. We do every year. And what happens on this journey is they learn how much they can count on and trust each other. They know the belief that when I say this, they'll break the terms down from a B slip to a B or just slip 45 or whatever that is. They'll break it down and shrink it. And they'll tap each other twice and boom, they go.

And so, and we're using the cadence. You said you want to hear my voice. It's like, I want, I want, I'm for sound, hard count, hard count, double up, double up. You know, and I'm just doing the most, doing the calls for them, but then they got to repeat it. And if I pause because they didn't repeat it. And so they got to stay in tune mentally. I'm trying to gas them physically. And then to your point that you made earlier, one of the really cool parts of this whole

thing is that at the end of that individual period, right, all the different positions are doing their thing. Then we come together. And usually we come together for an offense-defense period. And I wanted them to be tongues dragging, you know, just, oh, my God. What is this? You know, what are we doing? Because when you can do that, you can play late in the drive, and you're okay.

You can go out and have a long drive, kick a field goal, get a touchdown, your defense gets you a turnover, you're right back out there. Well, they've been training to do that. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately

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And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. So one of the things that's happening in modern business is that people are pushing to the brink because of the schedule, because of the demands of their teammates or supervisor or whatever. And there's an energy crisis that's taking place right now. People are tired, fatigued, irritated, and you're pushing them to that place. What have you learned about pushing to the edge and then what? Okay. Something you taught me years ago. What is their story? Where do they want to be? Okay. Let's lay that out. Let's build a picture. All right. And then routine. See, I think in business,

you know, whether I was talking to my sister or talking to Carol when we were doing the hospice company, they would be pressed. And then, you know, they come home and they're like, God, I'm so tired. We had a long day and blah, blah, blah. And I said, tell me about it. Well, you know, this happened and that happened. And I said, you know, were we all prepared? Yeah, we knew it was coming. Just maybe didn't think it was going to be quite that big a deal or we just had to push. It was one of those days, last two days. But I think when your routine tells you to step on the gas and hit the brake and step on the gas and hit the brake, how about if we kind of look at that and let's plan ahead? You know, today happens to be a

Wednesday. What does Thursday and Friday look like for us? Right. Maybe we do that before we get on air here and start doing that. So you've got some idea. We have a way to kind of organize that in our brain, let our body know what's coming. Right. Same thing we do in football, get them that plan on Wednesday. So they know what's ahead. So purpose, connect them to their purpose. And then there's a whole set of practices to recover, to know how to take care of the recovery aspect, but also to know what to expect. Is it, so they're not always anxious. 100%. I never wanted it to be like that.

What's next? I would go from run to pass, just like the game. You know, if you're the play caller, you're not calling it every run in a row. It's run, run, pass, run, pass, run, pass, pass, run, run, run, run, pass, run, pass, run, pass. So that's how you did your practice? Absolutely. Yeah. Readiness for game-like conditions. Okay. We've got a bunch of questions that folks called in because they wanted to get your wisdom and there's some for you, some for me,

but I think we tackle them both together. But before we get to those, if you were to, if you were just to highlight a few really important concepts that you believe would be incredibly important to pass to the next generation of leaders, to pass to the next generation of doers, you know, not that leading is not doing, but people in the arena and people leading those in the arena. Are there, are there a handful of gems that you say, look over all of my scars and all of my mistakes and all of the brilliant celebrations I've had, here's a few things that I think are really important to pay attention to? Yeah, I think with all the growth, right, that we've got to witness in our careers,

you and I go to Europe to study rugby and learn some things that I thought would really be helpful towards the American football game. And yet with all that growth and all the things that are available to us, it's kind of a divided mindset right now. Well, I'm just going to be on the growth side and just go for it and be ahead of everybody else and let them try to catch me. And then there's the old school, if you will, and I would be part of both, but there's the old school that says, well, I'm going to do this. And it's like, no, no, no, no. That's your foundation.

Wait, wait. What's the old school? Stubborn, not willing to open up, not willing to look forward. The wisdom and the heritage of quote unquote old school, the traditions, it's like knowing which traditions are foundational and which ones weren't built in the right way. And knowing how to do that is hard. So, okay. So go back to the important, the important pieces that you'd want to pass on. Sorry to interrupt. No, I think the most important piece is don't just talk about your foundation, right? Don't just talk about, well, this is what we used to do. Well, okay, great. So what, here's what we're doing now. Well, what parts of what we used to do need to be a part of what we're going to do?

Got it. And when we can sit down and decipher that and break it down and start stacking our bricks, our foundation for that, then the innovation and the movement forward just makes that even greater. And I think that's the combination. You know, when you came into my life, you gave me clarity. It's okay to think that way, first of all, because I knew I was doing it a little different than other people. I knew I was coaching the line different and I was managing a group of people different. I would talk to them different. But you gave me permission.

It's okay to do that because you were the forward thinking part. I had the foundation and I, but I would be, if you will, sometimes fearful or I'd worry somewhat that it may be too much. It may be too much push, whatever that is. But in essence, that's what they were hungry for. They were starving for that. They wanted someone to take them where they wanted to go. And they wanted someone to share in the part that it was not going to be easy and be very difficult. Is that how you define being a coach? Yes. Yeah, it's everything to me. I mentioned earlier the gift.

It was given to me from my dad, from my high school coaches, from mentors. And I don't want to keep it. I figured that out about 10 years ago. And it didn't matter whether it's business that we were doing, husband and wife, whether it was coaching, whether it was the kids. This is something that was given to me. Why would I just keep that? Why would I take that with me to whatever's next? I'm going to give it back. So you have, like yourself, you have all these kids who have mentored and worked along your side.

Now they're going out and creating their own journey as line coaches in the NFL or in college. And it's fun to see that. And I didn't want to hold on to it. I wanted them to have it. I want everybody to have it. Let me bring up a few people. Max Unger. So Max Unger is a center, was a center at the Seattle Seahawks. Kind of the, in many respects, an unsung hero.

Like ran the offense. Kept the locker room in line. Nobody barked around Max. When somebody was stepping out of line, Max would show up. Like, and it was never recognized publicly that he was the keeper in many respects that it takes not, it's not just one person, right. But he was a foundational keeper of culture in the locker room. Who else comes to mind for you? Um, when you think about special people that you've coached. So I think there's two parts to that. You know, Max, Max was very

humble, right? He didn't need you to put him out there. If he put that C on his chest, that was enough. The captain. Yeah. I'll take care of business. I'll be there for you. You didn't talk about me. I think like guys like Max, I think of Jeremy Newberry, right? Kid who played at California. Max could do the whole thing. Like he could run the offense. He could turn around and tell Russell what play to get to. Yeah. You know, Jeremy could see the box. He might not see the big picture, but then he would torture whoever was in front of him. Right. And because he was so fundamentally solid and giant, powerful guy where Max did it with his, his character, his mind, right. Wasn't as big, wasn't as strong, but he's a hell of a player in his own right.

I think about guys like that. Then I think about guys like JR Sweezy, George Fant, guys who didn't have any offensive line background and what they became in their careers. You know, I'm watching, before I came over here, I'm watching a taping of Houston and George playing right tackle for Houston. And, you know, they just had a heck of a win. And it's just amazing to see guys do that. And so when you talk about the special partners too, there's the great leaders.

There's the guys that you look at and say they run the locker room. They control things. They make this thing work. And the more of those types we have, the stronger we're going to be. And then there's these other special guys that either never had done it or tried it and stayed after it, stayed after it and became something that everybody looked at and said, I can respect what that guy has done in his journey. That's powerful to me. Guys who took an opportunity and they take the, everything that comes with it, cause it's going to be really difficult. And they're like, I'm okay with this. You were the head coach of the Raiders,

one of the NFL franchises. Did you feel like you were an underdog in your life or a sure bet that you were going to be successful? No, where I come from, that was one of the lessons my dad taught me. No one will ever give you anything, no one. And so you always have to take it and things got to go your way and you got to do right. Because if you don't, then you're stacking up obstacles for yourself.

And what does right mean to you? You know, don't steal. Don't, don't do the knucklehead things that we all teach our kids. Don't, you know, create problems. You got homework, do your homework, right? You're going to get a job B on time. You know, you start throwing hay bales when you're big enough to pick one up. OK, well, that starts at six in the morning. So let's go.

Right. When you learn those kind of. Did dad go to college? No. I'm the first one in my family. Yeah, me too. Neither side. So. Yeah. So how did you get to college? I could play football. Really? I mean, I was student-wise not great in the classroom. There were parts of it I loved. I get to college and I meet this gal, Dr. Sharon Stone, who's a sports psychologist. Okay. She was my hero. Oh, my goodness.

The reason I said, okay, I'm going to go get my degree now. Because I get to come and listen to this lady teach me and take me where I want to go. I don't have to just sit around and do math and English. I'm going to go learn something. I'm going to go pull from this person because she hit me that way. And she challenged me every single day. And I'd get so mad at her. And, you know, I'd be like, golly.

But the cool part was once I stepped back, it was like, oh, she did it again. Right? She took me to another really cool place i remember so that's why you're probably so receptive to like the our conversations is i remember one of our first conversations and you've been coaching for your whole life and playing and the whole thing and i'm one of the first times we met you don't know me and but i know you and and i say what are you going to do after you stop coaching? You looked at me like, why would you introduce that? Are you fucking with me, dude? Like, why would you even, are you kidding me? We're on a Superbowl potential run. This is a great team.

Why are we talking about that? Do you remember that? Mm-hmm. Because no one, but that was the cool part of it not many people can fairly and safely challenge others that way that's right yeah that was awesome yeah not to i don't want this to be too cheesy but this is this is what's really cool so the questions out there about okay he's coming at you from a different you know angle with different thought and but you had great clarity about i really don't even know what you guys do you know watch it i see out there but i don't know with different thought, but you had great clarity about, I really don't even know what you guys do. I watch it.

I see it out there. But I don't know. Hey, let's talk about, like, how do you touch them when, how do you get to them when they're having this, this, and this issue going on? And my first thought was, holy smokes, man. This guy, this is how you're supposed to think about shit. This is how you're supposed to be able to take a breath and let something come to you. Not with, okay, it's a first and 10 and we're going to do this drill and this is going to get on the bus. We're going to do it. It's like, come on,

how are we growing? How are we getting any beer? How can we be better than everybody else? If we just stay on this side of the short fence, right? Let's step over that and let's go climb the tallest fence. And so to do that, we got to learn some stuff between here and there. And that's what you did. You brought it in a perspective where it's like, it's okay to think about that. And because I would write stuff and I would say, I wonder if I could do this. And, you know, I don't know. And it's that internal fear I think humans have when they don't know, when they're not sure. And it's people like you, and I've done that with people in many facets

where you get them to think differently because that's okay. And sometimes when you get someone to think differently, they think greater. And for me, that's what it did. It was like, this is freaking cool, man. I'm finally with a head coach, got a really cool philosophy. Coach Carroll. Yep, Coach Carroll. And now internally in that philosophy, as we build it, we build this team.

There's this guy that says, it's okay to be different. It's okay to think different. So when I first saw it, I was like, who's this guy? Right? And then you listen to it and it was like, who's this guy? Right? And then you listen to you and it's like, whoa. That's so fun. I need to shut up and keep listening. That's so fun.

But that was the cool part because you didn't really know football. That's never been your deal and you never claimed to. But what you did was you knew people and you knew how to say, ask the question that would make me or anyone else think differently for a second. What about this? Well, what percentage of the game do you think is mental? Oh, gosh. At the highest level, at the NFL level. I honestly think it's 90%.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's any less. You know, the case in point, we've all seen it. I've coached guys who they don't run the good 40. They don't jump good. They got a little more body fat than others. Arms aren't quite what you want, or their hands small. Yeah, but look at him.

He's blocking guys from all over the place. He's tearing guys limb by limb just with his technique and his mind because he knows how he's going to step this guy. He knows how he's going to shotgun punch him or machine gun punch him back and forth. He's going to pick it up, put it down this week instead of oversetting. I mean, there's just so many things that go on. Well, that's the whole game right here. And he's not the athlete that you and I would pick. He didn't win the all combine team. In fact, he didn't even go to the combine, but look at him play.

Yeah. You need enough physical and technical skills to get in the building. And then to compete on a regular basis, if you can play in real time, instead of playing in like a strobe light effective time where you're only getting bits of the information because your mind is distracted or you're critiquing or worrying. That's like the strobe light turning off. It is a totally different game for people. And this is not about intellect. This is about confidence. It's about deep focus. It's about being purpose-driven. It's about being able to make mistakes, learning from them, being a great teammate, focusing on the things that actually move us forward rather than the worrying if I'm going to be okay. And the anticipation that it's going to go wrong, like the whole thing is like not that complicated, but relationships are invisible. And if you can work from your first principle of love, it certainly makes it easier.

Yeah. You know that, that, that the whole point about, uh point about you're gonna work hard and don't BS me? You know what the third piece of that is? Is the point you just made. All right, now I want you to write this down. What does it take to be a pro? Wait, hold on. Do these big three right now. So when you think about coaching,

you've got three pillars that have been important to you. Put it in your language. Your work ethic. Okay. Right? We're never going to slack off. Even when you're tired and it's the three days, four days. Great, consistent effort.

You're going to come back and go again. All you got. Second one? Let's not bullshit each other. Keep it real. Keep it real. Let's get to the truth. That was a phrase that you said, if not a hundred, a million times. Yeah. Let's get to the truth of this. We'll fail together and we'll celebrate together.

Yeah. And that's all we're trying to do. Yeah. You know, it's actually hard for me to tell when someone's lying. You know, I don't, I'm not good at it. I tend to believe people. I can tell when they're fidgety or they're shifty or there's an inconsistency. I'm not good at it. Are you good at BS, picking up BS? Only if I spend enough time around them. Then you can tell. Yeah. If I, to your point, if a guy walks up and I don't know if I'm getting conned or not.

Yeah, right. But it's like I said to him before, I'm going to ask you to trust me, but don't, don't do it right now. And don't just take my word for it. Let me prove that to you. Yeah. So I think trust of others takes time under tension yeah right and so it's the tension piece not just time but time under tension because i

need to see how you act when you feel squeezed yeah if you're if you're a young athlete and you want to know how i'm going to get in the middle of your rear end when i don't like something yeah are you going to be okay with that yeah there you go you're going to be okay with it because come from the right place it's not just no it's it with it. Cause it's coming from the right place. It's not just, no, it's, it's, it's real. It's true.

And then what's the third point that you have? What is it going to take to be a pro? So how do you define being a pro? The guy who can get his, have a really bad series or a bad down. I mean, just get tore up and it's okay. The guy who can make all the right calls,

the guy who can put his time in, the guy who doesn't cheat, doesn't cut corners. Ultimately, you've got to be available, so you've got to play with some injury, some hurt. But it's the guy that people look at every day and say, he's here every day, he's on time every day, and look at him, he progresses. And athletes see that in each other.

And when they know that you progress, you're a pro, they trust you. Yeah. I like the simplicity of what you're saying. I'm going to oversimplify it as like, they walk the talk and they walk the walk. Is that the phrase? They walk the walk and talk the talk. Yeah. Right. And so there's a consistency about them. And their priorities in life are pretty well lined up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A hundred percent. So what do well lined up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A

hundred percent. So what do you say we get to some questions? Absolutely. So we, we solicited questions to our community. We told them that we're going to have a head coach and an O-line coach from the NFL in the conversation and they came flooding in for us. Let's go ahead and let's play a couple of them. Let's do it. Hey, Mike, this is Sam here. I wanted to first say thank you to you and the entire Finding Mastery community for all you guys are doing. My question is, as it pertains to starting over, I wanted to ask how you and your team or the teams that you've worked with think about, you know, when you almost get to the mountaintop and have to go back down and start over, what do you do from a mindset perspective to, to reset, to start over when you've done so much

to get to that point, but you didn't quite reach the top. Appreciate the insight you and coach can provide. And thanks again for everything you do. It's a cool question. Where do you go from there? We've all experienced that, you know, And I've always thought that you have to first sit down and ask yourself, why didn't we get to the mountaintop? Is he talking about our second Super Bowl? He could be.

You think? He could be. And I think- Wait, before you go, for reference, we went back-to-back Super Bowls. We won the first one in dramatic fashion. Why? Why? I mean, how?

Yeah. The first one in dramatic fashion yeah the first one was dramatic yeah i mean that was a bit of a buzzsaw of a competitive experience and the second one half yard line yeah right at the end whole stadium thought we're gonna win which was part of why it was so hard to work with that loss is that people thought that they had experienced the win before they did, which was problematic for, we can get into that later, but that was a dramatic loss. So I guess we could use that as kind of the mountaintop in some respects. If we use that as the backdrop for the question, we're so close. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were a foot away. Literally. From being back-to-back world champions. And, you know, as talented as the team was,

and we kind of were all connected in all three phases. We played complementary football to each other, offense, defense, special teams. But when it mattered, you know, there was always a saying, don't make things up. You can't make things up. You know, it's like, did you see a ghost or not? Well, first of all, do you believe in them? You know, so don't start making things up.

Let's not go there. And I think when you do that, then for all that greatness and all that wonderful preparation and, you know, bond that's there, once you bring something in, it's like, you know bond that's there once you bring something in it's like you know throwing a virus in the deal and it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa and it cost us and so you know we just got away from from who we are and what we are in the moment i think what you're saying is that we saw ourselves and we made the decision to be a run first team yeah is that what yeah you're pointing to yeah i mean you know the whole thing about run to win and RTW, it's something I've talked about a ton, but that team embraced it and it didn't matter who you were. We could be on the other side of the ball and you embraced it. That's

what we're going to be because we're going to play great defense. What about the fact that the whole stadium knew, including one of the great coaches of all time, Bill Pelichek on the other side of the sidelines. He knew that we wanted to run, that we're a run first team. So he brought out the, some of the largest humans on the planet to stop the run.

Yeah. Right. So he switched his defensive line and brought out the big boys. Okay. How do you factor that in? I guess that to me, I didn't and wouldn't,

you know, because. You would have still run our best against their best. Yeah. I think part of being really good at something, and again, this goes back to you allowing me and pushing me to think this way. Conviction. From clarity to conviction. Absolutely. When you know that you know.

You know, there's a great catch made. We had a timeout left by Jermaine Kearse, a wide receiver. Wild catch on his back. And we go right to the line of scrimmage we want to play. And Marshawn, one of the greatest running backs in the history of the game, he trips over his left tackle's foot, who's pancaking a guy in the end zone. Wait, we should set that up. There's this wild catch, right?

And then you had already designed the play. You and the coaching staff had already designed what the next play would be if we made that catch, right? And then you had already designed the play, you and the coaching staff had already designed what the next play would be if we made that catch, which was a run play. So you quickly, there's no huddle, is that right? Quickly line up to the ball. We're gonna hand it off to Marshawn and he bangs it for another, how many yards?

We were on the six and we ended up on the one foot yard line. Okay, and if he wouldn't have tripped, is that what you're saying? Then he walks in. Then he walks right in. All right. So now here we are on the one yard line and you're saying we should call that same play again.

Yeah. Ditto. Ditto is the code in the headset. Yeah. I understand a couple of things here, which is like, if you see, it's like the point counterpoint. Oh, they showed their hand. They're bringing out the run stop because they think we're going to run. Let's not, let's not walk right into that trap. Let's pivot. Let's adjust. And you're saying that's making

things up. Yeah. From a run first coach, you're very clear. I'm a hundred percent clear because remember there's, there's the process, right? There's so much invested. There's clarity. It all started with this vision, but we went through the process. We knew who we were. Which is a run first team. Yeah. Great toughness was one of the. And there's clarity on, I'm going to hand the ball to arguably the best runner in the game. And I don't care if it's care if I put all five guys or I just take them out of the game.

I could put him on the one-foot yard line and he'd think he's going to score. That's how much belief I had in the situation in the moment. And now, one final word from our sponsors. 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, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft.

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C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Let's jump right back into the conversation. This is relative to the question that came in. Is that climbing to the mountaintop so close and doesn't work? We do need to address how to work when it doesn't work. I was on the coaching staff for the Olympic team in Rio for indoor women's volleyball, And one of our best hitters went down weird little injury. I watched the, the medical staff handle it, but I knew that they were handling it out of kindness, which is totally cool, but they didn't have the reference points that I had. I'm not a medical staff. So I want to be clear about that. But the reference point to your point earlier is that when you finally get to a championship opportunity, and this is the game that we needed to qualify to get into the gold medal match. They did the right thing to take care of the integrity of her knee. However, that unique injury wasn't going to get worse.

Like it was an injury that happened, but it wasn't going to get worse if she tweaked it again. So can you play through the pain is a weird way to think about things, but that is only for her to make a decision. And they didn't give her the decision. It haunts some of them on the team that they didn't give the more of an informed information to the athlete to make the decision to play or not. They just took the decision away and they knew that it wasn't going to get worse if she went out and tweaked it again. And I didn't do anything either. I didn't say anything. I didn't know it was my place. I didn't, I didn't know what to do. It's not really my place. Um, but I'd seen that injury and I'd seen plenty of people in the NFL say, um, Hey, do you have some duct tape? You know, do you have something I can do? Like I'm not advocating to play through injuries.

Parents, young athletes, listen to your body. Do not play through injuries. At the same time, gold medal moment, this injury was not going to get worse. Okay. That's an important part of the facts. Does any of that ring true to you? Yeah. You know, there was, I had, I did say something and, and yet,

you know, you also have to understand there's, there's a boss, there's a head coach, there's an owner manager, whatever, they're making a decision and you have to respect that. And there's a lot of information coming in. That's right. I don't know what decision I would have made. I don't know who I would listen to, how I would have done that process. This is not a critique on anybody, but do you feel like you did enough in that moment? I don't know. I think I did. Maybe I should have just been more forceful. I can be that way sometimes. Two years later, I sat down with this myself and I wrote about it. It's like, what if we took the staff and you coordinate the thing and we put the staff in groups of three.

Okay. And it's a brainstorm period. And we're going to, the three of us are going to go to lunch, go to breakfast, and we're going to sit there for an hour, two hours, whatever it takes. And we're just going to come up with ideas about what ifs. What if you have second and one in the one with a timeout and 32 seconds to go to win them back-to-back world championships planning right and i thought to myself you know the whole the whole mindset was don't make things up there's a purpose and there's a belief and we're going to do what we do and we know that we're going to do what we do but you can never really you know handle those kind of moments unless you at least have talked about them,

unless they've, they've come up and you've had some discussion, uh, you know, so that, that we can all be real transparent here right now and just be in that moment. Well, I don't know that we ever did that. And so I look back at it afterwards and think that's where we failed. That's where, that's where we're getting to the mountaintop and where we couldn't get there because we just hadn't gone that far with it. That's cool. You know? And so, um, yeah, I've, I've got a new list of things that, uh, the what ifs, if you will, but really they're the extreme ones. There are things you got to really think about. I love the idea of thinking about, could you have done something more

different? Um, you did your best. Everybody did their best. Like there's no, it serves us very little to point any fingers at what happened. Players, coaches. Let's go back to that moment though, because you're the O-line coach. This is an opportunity to trust your O-line, to trust the quarterback, to hand it off to one of the great backs running runners in in football ever but certainly that league that league in that time certainly on the field no question and the call was to go away from your team your o-line yeah the smaller part of your team can you can you just unfold what it was like from your perspective on the headset, on the sidelines, hearing, feeling, watching, and just walk me through your experience.

As we mentioned, when we hit the, we knocked it down in there and you're so close already, and you just want to go ditto, ditto, which was our term for do it again, get right back, do the same thing. Someone made the call that they're going to goal line defense. And I remember saying, it doesn't matter. It does not matter. And the decision was made, no timeout. So we used our final timeout. And then we changed the clock. It's like, okay, because you can't, if you stay back there, then you're not going to, it won't be present for the next one. If you stay frustrated. Yeah. That we didn't ditto.itto, that we might not run it, we're now going to talk and think about it.

Yeah. And things like that matter to me because when you call timeout and the quarterback comes over and usually during timeouts, Max would come to me. As the center. And so as the center who's going to go up there and key this thing in what is right on the goal line, so you're not going to see where the pressure's coming from.

It's going to look like a mess anyway, because it's all jammed. Yeah. It's all we call short field play. Right. Right. Everyone's jammed up. Yeah. Spacing is all wrong.

And it is what it is. So, you know, I, I knew right then I, I need to get off that. I need to go away from that. And because when he comes over here, I need to present the right thing that, Hey, I'm in this, let's go. I'm okay. And so it was weird,

you know, because it was, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't believe in that, but you have to. And so you do that. And then we go back out there and run the play.

Did he walk over with big eyes? Like, what are we doing coach? Yeah. Yeah. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to smash it. Yeah.

So they went to go on. He's like, I don't care. I'm going to reach the, the, the one technique. It won't matter.. Yeah. So they went to go on. He's like, I don't care. I'm going to reach the one technique. It won't matter. I said, we got some really cool things going on here.

We'll get it out there. And I said, listen. And I reminded him of that. Short box. Call what you see. Don't make stuff up. And he goes, I got it. I got it.

He goes back out there. Then we call a play. Obviously, the interception gets thrown. And at that moment, all of what happened before, it was almost like someone just poured it on top of us, that feeling of no. So you were keeping at bay all of that stuff. And then when it collapsed, it didn't go the way that we hoped it would go, that everything poured on top of you. And that was what you're talking about is a flood of emotion. Yeah.

And I just remember hearing prelude to what the locker room was going to be like on the sideline, the screams and the cries and the awfulness of that moment when everybody understood what just happened, what really did we just do. And then when I got in the locker room afterwards, even worse. That was the most intense, emotional, emotionally intense room I've ever been in. You go to a funeral and you think it's emotional, which it is. But this was all of the emotions that are prickly, difficult, hard. It was rage, frustration. Well, it's interesting because after the play happened and I was on the sideline,

fast forward, we get on the plane the next day to come home and I get up in the morning and my youngest boy has sent me this text. He's like, dad, I've never been so more proud of you to watch your reaction. Everyone else was losing it and you stood tall. And I know that that's important to you, and I just want you to know I saw that. Wow. And I remember at the moment that that ball got thrown, and then to hear the screams and to look around, and guys were just losing it. I was like, you've got to take a breath,

and you've got to just help them through this right now. Don't you worry about how you feel. Look at what's happening. You've got to help them through this right now. Right, don't you worry about how you feel. You gotta look at what's happening. You gotta help them. And it was so bizarre, because Zach and I have always been connected. He's a coach as well. To have him see that and then respond to that

was really probably one of the truly great moments in our father and son relationship. For him to see you at maybe your finest. Because that's- With all of that emotion. You know, I had a chance to give him a gift in that moment. In that moment. Yeah.

It's funny. I was, I don't know, maybe like six or seven feet up from Coach Carroll. And I saw the thing happen. I didn't know play or run. I didn't know it was happening. But of course, we see, I saw the play. And I didn't know play or run. I didn't know it was happening. But of course, we see, I saw the play. And I'm gutted in that moment. I look down, I look to my right,

and I see Coach Carroll drop his hands to his knees. And I remember 6'8 crying. I remember 6'4, I'm just doing heights of people, 6'4, like ready to rip someone's head off. I remember coaches like with the biggest eyes, like so confused. It was anger, sadness, hurt, disappointment, let down. And it was loud in the room. I don't remember you. It must be because you were there in service and I was working to be in service and you weren't one that I needed to care for. That's cool. Do you remember me? Yeah, no.

No, that's interesting. The way you just responded or explained that, it just kind of hit a nerve because that's what I felt the whole time. Once I got back to the once once i got back to the room it was me and the family i went in the other room and lost it oh you did yeah after it was all done later that night because you grieved privately yeah because i couldn't do that in front of the others because they needed me and then when i see the others i'm talking about the players and the coaches i mean there are some coaches who who really it was hard. Just remember some of the, you know, some of the crying and wailing and the yelling and the I mean, you witness some things with players that I just have never seen. I never saw before.

And I never saw that. Yeah, exactly. That was that was like it was it was the moment of trauma expressed. Yeah. Yeah. And so when you talk about service, it's like, that's what I felt. My job right now is to put a hand on someone. Yeah. And, and the hand needs to be, I'm just, I'm right here with you. You know, I also thought was, um, coach Carol was remarkable in that locker room.

Absolutely. I get confused because when I'm feeling and flooded, isn't it right for me to be there with all of that emotion and not pretend like I got it together? The role is not to be lost in the emotion, but to be with the emotion and get lost in it some other time, but be with the emotion and not overrun by it. So I don't know how you feel about that. Remember the year before we just won the Superbowl. Right. Okay. And so I remember the clock ticking down and having the same intense feeling, but it glowed, if that makes sense. It didn't hurt. Yeah.

And so all those things, what we went through when we won it and then when we lost it, they're on the same level. They're equals to me. They're extreme emotion they're they're everything that's in all of us that just comes out in that moment right and yet none of it was fake not on the good side not on the the lost side the honesty is so pure yeah and i didn't know i'd get that in traditional stick and ball American football. I didn't think I would get that. And it was there in much of our work together, not all. There was some stuff that was clouded and not pure and not honest, but so much of it was. There's two other things I want to just note is that recently we had two seals, Navy SEALs on the team, special

operators, I'm sorry, on the podcast, Rich Deviney and Brent Gleason, and they talked about compartmentalizing our emotions. So being able to put them in a box to be able to manage a situation. I'm mixed on that. I'm not interested in that approach. I hear it. I need to be more fluid. I'm a running river sometimes rapid sometimes calm

how do you think about compartmentalization and or the analogy of like a running river with emotions i i think that compartmentalization that piece to me is a little bit scary oh it is yeah because because i i think unless they're trained like those guys are, I think for a lot of people, a lot of us, however you want to say it, unless you're really trained how to handle those compartments, I think that they can become toxic. And I've seen it. I've seen it with players. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And they're going to put it over here.

And they're going to do this. And then they got to deal with it. Yeah, eventually. They can't. That part is where I say, you know, would worry me a little bit in that they got to be ready for that. And I said, if you tell me that there's two Navy SEALs, and I think about, I've never gone through that training, but I've read a lot about it and studied those guys and heard a lot of them speak, I think they're exceptional. And I think that that background that they have is incredible. For all of us, whether it's as athletes, teachers,

businessmen, whatever that is, we have to make sure we're processing that right in order for that to work. Yeah. So if you're going to, would you say if you're going to compartmentalize as a strategy, you need to process that quickly? Yeah. You know, not exactly in the moment, but that's cool. You know, I don't know. I'll get in an argument with my wife and we'll, we'll kind of not really do the deep work to sort it out. But you know, we jump in the car and we're going to go do something tactically like, you know, I mean like we're arguing, but we're not, not ready for divorce. It's not like that type of argument,

but then you don't come back around and work on the healing of it, and then it just kind of festers a little bit. That's what I think about compartmentalization times 10. Same thing. Okay. Last kind of sequence to this question is the, I think the framing of the mountain top is really important.

And I'm really glad that I got to experience losing in such a dramatic fashion. I know that I've been part of so many winning teams. Even the year before was the winningest team in the NFL. I'm so happy that I got to lose in that dramatic way with this team because that pain, emotion, experience has reframed how I think about mountaintops. to lose in that dramatic way with this team because that pain, emotion, experience has reframed how I think about mountaintops. I'm not interested in mountaintops. I'm interested in the path, not climbing a hill

and then climbing back down to get to a taller mountaintop, some other point. I'm framing it differently to our questioner, which is I don't think there's quote unquote big games. And I know you and I disagree with this. I think, no, we don't. Oh, you're on the same page here. Oh my God. Okay, good. So let's open that up. So I don't see that there's big games even drilled all the way down to big halves, big plays, or even big moments. I see it's that this is the moment, this one right here that you and I are in

is the most important moment of my life because this is where life happens, this moment. And so my job is to be as tuned to this moment over time to my best ability. And if I can do that, I'm winning. And so that's the path, not like the mountaintop, the celebration celebration the thing that you're seeing something similar yeah i i think that loss validated it did the journey

yeah it made the journey the real purpose not the mountaintop you and i argued a bunch about the perfect season well we okay so i i this is early in our, right. We, we, we have, but remember I, I, I kind of came to the point where I want to chase with a group of athletes, perfect moments. And I was like, what were you, what,

what the perfect doesn't exist. And then you're like, yeah, but hold on. Not in, not in entirety. I don't, I don't believe in that,

but I think in moments it does. I said, can you describe what you mean by a perfect moments? Yeah. Like I, I would start with a helmet stretch. It's a drill, okay? And we do it something we do most days. And when I could see that toe come down, the big toe on the outside,

the little toe of the defender, that inside toe come right down the pipe on him and both hands and eyes fit on the right upper tip of that 77 he's wearing. That's beautiful. That's perfect. To me, I'm like, what did you just say? I mean, I understand it. You're looking for, you're looking for footwork. You started with footwork. Then hands and then head placement or helmet placement and the fit and the whole thing like it's together. And then there's movement. There's a dance between two, right? And one's dominant, you know,

like, so you would say, you would say, and I've gone this way, and this is why I said you gave me permission that it's okay to think this way. Convincing a young man or a young athlete that your first two steps, when done exactly the way they have to be done, okay, based on the alignment of whatever's in front of you, your chances of winning are 75% or greater. Now let's put your hands and eyes in the correct spot. You have a chance for that 90-10 rule. The what rule? 90-10.

What is that? That means that 90% of the time, if I'm going to do exactly what I'm supposed to do, I have a chance to succeed. There are 10% that I can't control. A guy might stem on me. he might stunt, he might this, he might grab me, he might whatever. But if I do what I'm supposed to do.

To put myself in a position of leverage. That's right. Is that it? That's right. Leverage. And when that happens, I think you celebrate that. No, that second step's too long, it's too long. No, there it is, there it is, you got it, you got it.

And I think that celebration from that you keep pressing to find it, to find it, and when you get it, celebrate it. When you lose a big game like that, it did nothing more than put the focus, the spotlight, if you will, on, you know what? That wasn't much fun. But by God getting there, that was glorious. That season and all the seasons that we spent together, there's so many moments. I remember you, headsets are on, crowd is at our home, the C-Link, CenturyLink, the Seahawks home stadium, now Lumen Field, is one of the loudest, if not the loudest in the NFL. And you just kind of walk over in the middle of the game and you'd look at me and you go, take your headset off and you go,

isn't this cool, man? You know, like bodies are all over the place and you're like, isn't this cool, man? Like it's the appreciation of strain and trust. You can't get to intense emotions either side of the ledger there without being vulnerable and that's what the people we love being around is that they push to the edge of vulnerability every day not just once a quarter you know like every day that's right finding

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I think there's two things that are really, really important. So here it is. I think up to the age of 12, get them in everything. Don't streamline them. You know, we're blessed. You have six grandchildren, a seven-year-old who's, I think, going to be a terrific baseball player. Okay?

Seven years old. But his parents, I really have great admiration for them because they've got him in taekwondo and they've got him in soccer and he's playing baseball and he's doing drama. And I think that for parents, don't let the coach or the neighbor or whoever say, oh, get Mike into doing this. Get him in this academy. Do this with them. Streamline. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I think until they're 12 years old, let them experience it all. Let one sport grow them in the other. Let the acting class grow them in taekwondo, whatever that is. Let it all kind of put it, you know, you're putting ingredients in this beautiful soup, right? And let that happen. But I think when they get to that point, then allow them to fail. From 12 years old on, allow them to fail and be their form. Don't judge them.

What is failure? He struck out three times. That's okay. Want to get you some ice cream? Let's go talk about it. Yeah. It seemed like the curveball is really kind of your demise today.

Is the ice cream for you or for? Well, I mean, it works both ways. You know? Yeah, it is. Okay. Yeah. So the idea of experiment have lots of different languages

that you understand so that you can pour into a language that you're interested in later. I love that. And there's a fear if you don't get the kid on the quote unquote high performing treadmill, meaning you don't get them in special clubs at age eight for baseball, that it's going to pass right by. I will tell you it did happen to Grayson. So he's got a double degree. He did all the sports and then he liked taekwondo a lot uh double double degree black belt in taekwondo and then he his high school says everyone's playing a sport there's no taekwondo in his high school so he had to figure out what he's going to do

going this was like in seventh grade so he's thinking ahead a little bit and he says so he tried a couple more sports he's like like, I like volleyball. So his first year under his belt of volleyball, all his other friends had like five or six. So that's why he was on the bench is because they were so much better than him. So there is a little bit of a moment here that I think it's important to ready parents for is that if you get on the treadmill early, and I don't mean an actual treadmill, but like the early camps, your kid will get good. And then cool. But if you do the diversity, your kid will be able to innovate and create and not get locked into an identity around just one thing, which I think is the big danger. They're going to be on the bench for a bit. Maybe. That at least was our case. Be ready for that. I think he's big danger, they're going to be on the bench for a bit, maybe.

That at least was our case. Be ready for that. I think he's on a faster learning curve than anyone else around him. Taekwondo taught him how to be a great student because if you don't listen right in a martial art environment, it's not the right choice. So he's a great student.

And so assets. There are assets. No doubt. What else would you suggest to parents? Well, I think, again, I see so many times now when you allow them to fail, you're giving them so much growth. And when you support the failure, meaning, OK, let's break that down. Let's chop that up.

How did it happen? Why? What do you think? What could have been different about it? I think when the kids hear mom and dad having that conversation with them, they're in a place where that trust that we talked about earlier, that gift of learning to believe in myself, because geez, I figured out what I was doing wrong. Yeah. I got to keep my elbow up.

Yeah. I got to keep my elbow up. Yeah. You know? All those things start to grow. And I think that connection of parenting and with the child and that bond is even greater. I think sometimes when I see parents and I go to these games, they'll think the coach is going to give their kid a scholarship or he's going to make the difference. He's going to be like, nah, let's let them do so much. So they have a broader

perspective here. When you start to dial them in, help them through failure. It's okay. And then make that the journey. Don't, don't depend or expect someone else to do it. How do you operationalize it? I'll tell you how I do this, but I want to hear your thoughts. So, so I'll give you an example to be concrete. I want to have an outsized conversation with my son about academics and relationship relative to sport. Okay. And it's because it's so easy for me to talk about sport with him. So I want to have an outsized conversation about health and relationships, academics, then sport. And so I ask conversations about what scared you today? What mistakes did you get to make today?

What's something that lit you up today? What was the funniest part of your day? Those types of questions set the stage later for when I say, what mistakes did you get to make in practice? Did you have any unlocks? What was the hardest part of practice? And he doesn't really want to talk

about stuff right when he's in the car, just to be clear. So the car ride home is a dangerous place for parents to talk about sport, you know, cause the kid's exhausted. They just gave it, poured into it. You know, when I'm tired, I don't feel like processing. Right. But they are. They totally are. They're totally processing that deal. That's why they don't want to be bothered. Yeah. Right. They're trying to make sense of it's why they don't want to be bothered. Yeah, right. They're trying to make sense of it. So what do you do on the car ride home?

Same thing. I think getting a feel for, you know, all the boys about how they felt about things. You know, with Alex, you could press into him. He's the middle boy. With the younger one, the minute he got in the car, well, what'd you think? Oh, so he asked you. Yeah. Oh, and so he's bringing it to you.

Oh, yeah. And how would you answer that? I said, well, I said, there's some things I liked. I said, I thought the guys really played hard today. I loved your effort. I thought, you know, situationally, there's some things you need to grow on and look at. And it'd be really cool as a group. Maybe you kind of lead them guide them towards

that so they have a better understanding of it i said what do you think yeah we really missed it you know that's not that but once they're in that place then it's safe and i think it's okay but to your point when they don't want it to be like that just let it go just like yeah ice cream little music yeah right yeah yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. My son's in a phase right now where he wants to put his headphones on going to practice. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. But you know what? This is me being totally selfish here.

He's at school for what? Six hours a day or something like that. I get like a handful of moments in the morning. He's with his mates and, you know, teachers most of the day. And then I get, you know, like 45 minutes-ish. I'm usually not home at this hour, but I'm kind of rushing in the door to be able to take him to practice. And then I get like 20 minutes on the car ride to practice. He's with his coach for two and a half hours.

It's 9, 9.30 by the time he's out. Like, damn it, I'm only getting minutes a day so i like i'm at a crosshair like i okay getting your music get your vibe man i want to talk with you how would you handle that well i think uh i'm i feel lucky right now sitting here with you because i have i have three of them yeah you know but at the same, I think I probably just asked for it. I've always felt like, and again, this goes back to when you and I first met. It's okay to ask this question. Should I just ask them? Yeah, they'll be all right with that. Why wouldn't I ask them? What would you ask?

Hey, can I get some time? Yeah. All right. That's what I'm doing today. That's what I'm doing today. Stop making it so simple, coach. Well, no. But you know the deal, too, about the headphones thing on the way. Yeah. Finding the rhythm. That's right. He's getting ready.

That's part of his routine, his preparation. And he's an introvert, which means like he's all day stimulated by it. And he likes kind of the introverting process. This is his stepping away from that other side, right? Yeah, right. This is like getting in my little zone. All right. Let's get to another question. This is fun, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Hey guys, this is Braun.

I was wondering how hyper effective competitiveness, like a mentality of wanting to be the best is either kind of opposed or maybe works in tandem with just being happy. And I sometimes find that those can be hard to align or kind of get on the same page. Thanks guys. Bron, I don't think Coach Cable knows about competitiveness. So maybe we need to go to another question. This is like, this is like right down the strike zone. I know. You know, you think about that question, competing and happy, they shouldn't come in the same place, but you should be happy competing.

So if you can, Bron, if you can take your routine and what you're trying to achieve and you've got a nice map, you've got it laid out, and you can check your boxes daily or as you prepare for this competition or this numerous events of competition, and if you're checking box, that's where your happiness is. What do you mean checking box? Well, your preparation. Like, you know, the old John Wooden thing, right?

I didn't really care about the game on Sunday. I mean, we were laughing about this weekend with some of those guys. You know, they're like, you're still the craziest dude at practice, man, because practice is everything. It is. Practice is what makes us. When the film tells you what you need and then you prepare it and you get it right, then someday you just go kick ass and have fun.

I mean, I've always said it would be the same for me in business or anything like that. If the plan is right and it's complete, let's take this circled table as our plan. And we've kind of closed the loop, if you will, right? And we've got these other little things that are in here. These would be obstacles. But you know what? We're okay. We're prepared.

We've got a plan. And we just keep boom, boom. And then we get to this obstacle and we just kind of deal with it through our preparation, right? So nothing about that to me says I'm unhappy. I think this is unbelievable. It's the best. It's where you want to me says I'm unhappy. I'm, I think this is, this is unbelievable. It's, it's the best. It's where you want to be. It's competing. You know what I heard in the question was the framing. I heard competing to be the best squared with happiness. I think those two can be problematic. I love the reframe you said about

have joy and happiness in competing. So competing is a process. And you and I are going to flat out agree with this, but maybe we take a counterpoint just for fun, is that he's focusing on competing to be the best. And you and I have committed to compete to be one's best, to be my best, to be your best. I'm going to compete to help you be your best. I'm going to compete to help me be my best, to be your best. I'm going to compete to help you be your best. I'm going to compete to help me be my best, not the best. It just might so happen because that fundamental approach to competing to be one's own best is so rare

that when people really commit to that, it could lead to that idea of being the best in the world if you've got some physical technical skills to back it up. But did you hear that in the question? And how did you work with that? My feeling listening to it was it was more about he's going to get his happiness from the success of competing to be the very best. Being better than someone else.

Yeah. And it's never, ever about that. It isn't. Because at the end of the day, you're going to look back and there's going to be far more failures in regards to that statement than there are successes. And so in order to truly be competing and to truly trying to find the very best you're capable of, then it's that journey and that preparation and that day-to-day grind to compete where the real thrill is. Again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, with the Super Bowl question.

If everything was about that winning or losing it, well, we did both. We won it and we lost it. But you know what? It was a hell of a ride getting to both of them. What if, so I've got some shady fellows in my family. Oh. Okay. I'm making up a little bit of a story.

Partly true. Yeah. Maybe true. I'm not sure. Okay. So let's say that there's some very suspect families in my heritage. Yeah. And they could rig the rest of your career that you win every game that you play.

Okay? Guaranteed. We get to the refs. You win everything. It's going to cost you a little bit. There's a freedom to know that no matter what you do, you're going to win. You're going to win. You can be terrible in practice for six days and then go compete on day seven. But you're going to win. You're going to win. You can be terrible in practice for six days

and then go compete on day seven, but you're going to win. You sign that contract? No. You're going to make a lot of money. You're going to win everything. You're going to have a stack of trophies. You'll be the most hereditary coach ever.

You'll be the most winningest coach ever. You will have more victories stacked than anyone that's ever played because you've signed this deal now. You don't sign it? You got a billion dollars to give to your kids. I don't sign that shit either. You know, like, okay, so let's unpack it. Why? Why don't you sign that? Because this is directly related to Bron's question. Yeah, I guess for that very reason, you know, competing to be the very best at something when you really break that down and understand it, that that's where the value is.

That's the joy. Yeah. That is the joy. And if this is, if this is the trophy, okay. Yeah. That's all it is. We're looking at a cup on a table right now, but you're saying if that's the big trophy, quote unquote, it's's not what okay what does that do how many times you wear your super bowl ring i've owned it twice but i did just wear it for an entire weekend and you know it's it's crazy because i my dear friends will say why don't you wear your ring and i don't know why i don't know why it's so special but i feel weird wearing it i brought it out once to a high school camp um of quarterbacks and I use it as an opportunity. Took it off my hand, kind of threw it to a kid, not not disrespectfully, but threw it to a kid. And you could see everyone like, oh, I was like, yeah, like 63 athletes got it. About 25 coaches got it, and about 150 staff got it. Secretaries, GMs, presidents, heads of marketing,

assistants to marketing. If you want a ring, there's a lot of ways to do it. It's not about the ring. It's not even close about the ring, is it? Yeah. The joy, I would replace the word happiness with joy. It's a little bit deeper and richer say the joy is competing yeah to get to the edge of your capabilities and and unlocking there that's

where the unlocks happen that's where insight happens that's where wisdom is earned it's also where high performance is made at those edges that's fun yeah yeah let's go to the next one hi this is Matt Jackson. I'm wondering, how do you create a trusting environment with players when you can cut them at any time? How do you rise above any other NFL team in that regard? What a terrific question. You know, we've talked about the four seasons, right?

In the life of a coach, and every year is its own deal. You know, historically, not to be a cliche thing, but in the NFL, like the other majors, there's only one team that'll live forever. All the rest of them, they came and they went, but there's one team. That people remember? Is that what you mean? The champion, the one, the last one standing right and so i think when you when you take this thing and you drill it down even further and you think about what do you do after the season for this segment of time and then between that space in that space and then the competitive season those to me were seasons of life and seasons in the life of the coach. And so to answer this question,

one of the really big, and I think one of the probably most important, if not the most difference making season is the relationship season. And when, when I draft you or we pick you on undrafted to sign with us and we bring you in, it's all the things we've been talking about. It's when you first walk in the room, our rules. You know this. You taught me this. Tell me your life story. What's your story?

Okay, can you write that for me now? Okay, now can you and I go spend some time one-on-one and let's tear this apart. Let's shred this. Let's see what we can really define here. Okay? And then the guy says, well, why are we doing all this? And I said, well, because we're going to make this come alive. This is your story. This is your dream, really. We're going to bring it to life. And so, you know, in answering this, it's because of those relationships. And then once they write

it and once you start to build the plan, the journey, now it's a matter of competing to check every one of these boxes. Because if we do, and we can take this thing this way, and then at the end, it doesn't work. It's okay. Because we did everything we could. So there it is. It's like relationship building. And then it is plan building. And then it is competing together. When you do this right, there's no surprises, right? Like, and because you're working the system, I'm sorry, you're working the relationship and communication like, okay, look, this isn't good enough. I love you.

I don't know if you say that. I love, this is what I say to Grayson, my son all the time. This is what I say to athletes. Look, I don't really give a shit about how well you do. That's not what I'm in it for. I love you because you breathe. I'm stoked to be able to do something together with you. And now I'm thinking about an athlete. We can talk about wins and losses and all the stuff that goes with it, but I'm much more interested in your story and what the tripwires are and see if we can work through some tripwires. The end of the deal here is like, there's a standard. You have to meet the standard. If you can't meet the standard,

it doesn't mean that the relationship goes away. It just changes. So you know what I do? I don't know if you do this. I say very clearly in this environment, it is transactional, meaning that there's an invisible handshake that if you're not able to meet the standard, you can't be in this room. And sometimes I'll decide it. Sometimes it's apparent to both of us, but that doesn't mean the value of who you are is anything different from me, but we need to know each other. So there's an invisible handshake. I'm making it visible. And that's the way I do it. It's like, it's, I don't cut anyone. So I'll be really clear. That's not what my role ever will be.

You could cut them at any time or you can cut them the next day, whatever that is. But that's not the focus. The focus is to get them to a point where that's not possible. But it happens. It happens. Yeah. But the focus, right, the vision, the purpose that we're here for is to try and not allow that to happen, to try and bring your story, your want, your desire, your dream, to bring it to such life that it's never going to happen. And I would say the story, dream, vision, all of that, part of it might be expressed through the vehicle of sport.

Yeah. But it's not the only vehicle, right? Like it is a carriage, not the carriage. Not to get too esoteric on it, but when you do cut somebody, and you've had to cut some folks that you really cared about, but they just couldn't quite get it done, or there was too much pressure from other folks that like, we need to move on is kind of the phrase.

How do you keep people's trust when they know that at any given point in time, you are the one to say you can't be here anymore? So how do you know that they're not just blowing smoke? How do you know that they're not just laughing at your jokes because they want you to like them? I think that's the reality part of it. When you're working with an athlete, you can feel when they're invested. You can feel it.

Do I see it? Yeah. Do I hear it? Yeah, I'll take that with a grain of salt, but I'm going to feel it. And I know when you're in. Not just your toe, but you're all in, both feet in a circle. And I've seen guys buy into the fact that we have a plan here and we got to go for it. It's not going to be easy to make the team when you're a rookie, first of all, unless you've been drafted in the first three rounds, you really have very little chance to make a team. Let's be real about that. Okay. And I think when you start with that statement, then they know what they're up against. Okay. Now let's find a path, okay, that doesn't allow that to happen. Let's find a path that puts you on the team. So that's you committing to it. And so your risk and vulnerability is part of it as well.

It has to be. That's interesting. I think one of the more dangerous elements to that question is selling family. I don't know how, I don't think you and I have talked about this, but I have a strong reaction to that idea like the Seahawks family or the whatever franchise family. One, I'm not so sure that families are the most healthy places sometimes, right? Like you, first of all, I don't know the person's family. You don't know my family. You don't cut and fire family members for not performing well enough. You might not want to be around

them if they steal from you, if they lie, you know, like there's some behavioral things here. So do you have a reaction to the word family? Yeah. I don't think they should ever be in the same sentence. Okay. I think that when you're, when we're talking about whether this guy makes a team or not, whether you got to cut them or not. Okay. To me, that is the whole transactional side that's the business side but we dang sure can put a plan together that is going to eliminate the chance of failure as best we can and then it's about performance and so if we can create our mind and our body to perform our very absolute best that's all we can do to say and use the word family in that, I don't think that starts until that cuts over with.

And if you still are part of that group- Oh, that's interesting. Right? If you're still part of that group, now let's you and I talk about our philosophy and how we see our team slash family. Oh, that's interesting. Because if we're not going to talk about it like family, if we're not going to deal with it like family on a day-to-day base, then it's still just, it's a team. It's a team of men in a professional sport. So wait, now I'm confused. Do you like the word family in sport?

I think only if it's real. I think if that's who you are, if that's what you celebrate every day, you create every day. But to say that you're going to be a family when you're in the process of the transition i don't i don't see it like that but the transition is going to happen it's going to happen so that's why i don't do family i don't either during that time i don't think it fits you oh so okay so you're saying you talk about family post-cut absolutely like this is who we are we're all here at the dinner table this is who we are. We're all here at the dinner table. This is what we got. And I think people forget that coaches get cut too.

Oh yeah. Like there's an exit for everybody. You know, sometimes very few people retire. You know, it's such a fun. What do they call it? The,

uh, your date when you, you know, like on a, you know, grocery thing. What is that? When you can sell it till this date.

And then after that, it's got to go. I don't know. Oh, expiration date. There's an expiration. Everyone's got one. And the very few that don't, well, you know, we all have an expiration date, but guess what? We try to make that as wide and as broad as we can, or, you know, hopefully it doesn't happen to us very often. Oh, that's hilarious. Let's go with the next question. Hi, I would love to know what you think are the most effective strategies for performing under pressure or dealing with performance anxiety. Thank you.

Pressure and anxiety. Those are two different concepts for sure. Which one do you want to wrestle with? I think the anxiety piece, you know, is the one I've always kind of like gravitated to and grabbed onto because no matter the drill set, no matter how we're going to put it all together, there's the process and being able to stay like in this moment right now. If I can just not think about all the, and just think about the right here, right now. That is the anecdote for anxiety.

It's right. Totally. So let's do, there's two types of anxiety. They're called, one is called cognitive anxiety. Another one's called somatic anxiety. Somatic means you feel that anxiousness in your body.

Cognitive is that it's like the hamster wheel is always running. So you, it's a mental and you can have both. And certainly hamster wheel is always running. So it's a mental, and you can have both. And certainly the mental part is really important, but not everyone's aware of that mental activity. So they feel it in their body first, cognitive or somatic. And so you're saying the anecdote is to, when you recognize that you're over-activated in your body or your mind's racing to all the things that could go wrong, say hello to that and then goodbye by focusing on whatever the task is here.

Focus on executing the plan or preparing a plan or be in the conversation that we're having right now. So how do you practice being good at that? The biggest thing for me is to get them to, when they feel it or they see it. When they feel the anxiousness. Right? Feel it, see it. There's got to be a process.

I think there's some education needed as to how to take a breath. Yeah. How to calm down. I can say it to them. You could say whatever. But I think you got to press into them. You got to teach them how to do that. Because I know that's real.

Anxiety is real. This is something that i think most humans really do understand some people have really struggle with it and some are deeply suffering there's no one that doesn't understand anxiety okay one of the things i love that we did is um if anxiety is a worry about later what we would do what day of the week did we do it where um we would do we would lead mental imagery sessions mondays mondays so we would have them see success later in their minds now and we took it really far you would run some cadences you you would do some stuff to prompt different cues and that was a nice strong evidence-based science-based practice to help people work with not only performance excellence, but to decrease anxiety. Mental imagery is a strong practice.

You know, the cool part of that was when you said, what are their issues? Where do you see that anxiety happen? And so that's what we did with the cadence and we did it with some couple of situations where we were able to describe it and put themselves in it. So what are you doing that post? So Monday was post describe it and put themselves in it. And then. So when we're doing that post, so Monday was post game review and we would do it on Mondays because we were fixing something or. No, that was the followup because we really had done the work in the spring.

Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. And we wanted to be able to do it while they're in that big developmental state. That's right. It was in the season of development,

not like post game Mondays. That's right. That was more of follow-up. And we were able to kind of, I remember this one you did, just kind of jot down some things that you thought happened yesterday that really kind of, it got to you, it's still in your mind, and then letting it go. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's right.

That was pretty cool for Mondays. That was a good Monday. Because, you know, some of those guys, they'd carry that for a few days and they'd come in Wednesday and it was like, you're good. It was like, man, that thing on Sunday. And it's like, oh. Didn't we process that already? few days and they come in wednesday and it's like you're good it's like man that thing on sunday it's like oh didn't we process that already three days ago yeah right come on wait yeah go back out and come back in and so another strategy that we use for the anxiety piece was prior to every practice prior to every game if you can be consistent

across it's great write down three goals that are 100 under your control and so many of your o-line were doing that because it's now putting them in a position to control where they put their mind and they're putting themselves in a position of leverage. Because if I can master these three things and it's not reliant on someone else, like winning and losing,

everyone across the field wants to win too. So that's not a good goal, by the way. Winning is not a good too. That's right. So that's not a good goal, by the way. Winning is not a good goal. That's an artifact. It's wonderful when it happens, but like write down the things that you're 100% in control of and that you're going to specifically

apply your focus on those. Yeah. That decreases anxiety. All right. We've got time for one more. Let's keep it rolling. Yep. Yes.

Hello. This is Ivan. I have a question as far as uh being an nfl coach how would the rule of uh not worrying about what other people think apply to you being that that position itself is under so much scrutiny as it is thank you have a good one bye we got a faux pas FOPO question. How about it? Yeah. Okay. But this is really cool because it's about you being a head coach. You get, you, you've been in the media scrutinized.

Yep. You've been beat up here now. Yep. Totally warranted, by the way. Oh, thanks. I love this question. I think because of when you kind of get, you know, gut punched and you're kind of pulled through it, it makes you realize you're not doing it to be the head coach and the notoriety. You're doing it because people see you as a leader of men or women and you can take them to a higher place.

That's why you're in that role. But with that role, from day one comes to scrutiny and the challenge. What I've learned coming through that, that I wish I knew prior to, just do you if you know who you are. Because if you try to live up to all that other stuff, dude, the media, the social media, they're like tanks coming at you. And there's no crack to get through. So you're going to get rolled. And it's like, you just wish, I really do. When guys ask me that now, they'll call me up and say, hey coach, I'm going to interview you for this job.

And I'm a couple of things. What would you say? And I said, be you. Because when you get that, the minute they announce, hey Mike, you're going to be the head coach of the all surfsurf team down here at Hermosa or whatever, then that's it. Man, you're the head coach. So the minute the waves don't come in, that's your fault. The minute something else happens with the board, that's your fault.

I don't know the term. But you get what I'm saying. So don't do that. You got there because you have a really good offensive mind. And I can be creative and I can develop players and I can build a relationship with players that will not just take them through this journey as a football player, but it'll take them into being a father and a husband and a businessman. And those things, as long as they apply to what's left in life after sports, which is a huge, huge chunk, if it applies to that, then it's right.

But if you're worried about quote that head coaching title, you're going to get run over with the scrutiny. So know who you are is ground zero here. Absolutely. We are, you and I have done a lot of work together with the athletes and with each other about our personal philosophies, which is at least a moniker or a couple sentences or a word or two that captures your first principles, right? Like that's really what a personal philosophy is. You are so much more than your personal philosophy. You're so much more than the values that you represent. But when you say know who you are, what level of value do you place on helping somebody? Or let's keep it with you, you having your personal philosophy clarified.

At the end of the day, if I'm doing something for others, then I'm being me. Because what is most important is that process and that journey. It gives me the answer that this is a life that is not only worth it, but is exactly what I had hoped it would be, meaning I can take the gift and give it to you or I can give it to them. If all I want is the accolade,

then I guess I would just chase the dream to be a head coach again and again and again and again, a bigger school or a bigger team or more money or a faster car, a bigger car, more clothes or whatever. That's so empty. And to me it was I just wanted to help you go where you want to go. And that's why you should be the head coach. That's why a person should take that position because you're going to be scrutinized anyway. Early on, let's say when you're the head coach of the Raiders, did you have your personal philosophy locked in? I did. You did? Yeah. How did you deal with the scrutiny that you got?

Whether it was the O-line. Like when Russell Wilson would get tackled, they were blowing you up. It was your fault. Okay. Or you had something to do with it. Sure. So how were you mechanically working with that scrutiny? I think when you know that that's coming, you already know what it's going to be.

You're not sure how it's going to be said, but you know it's going to be said. Then you just stick it over there. Would you read it? No. Would I hear it if it was on a radio thing I was listening to or on ESPN or something? Because, yeah, because I'm sitting right there. Yeah. Like, ah, they're on me again.

Okay, well, that's life. Would you turn it off or just kind of like? No, I didn't. I think when I was younger, I'd be like, golly, these guys are still on my ass. But I think once you grow up and once you get to a point where you realize it's not about that. What about the other, the rushing titles and the other 479 passes where he didn't get hit and on and on. You start finding reasons. But even then, I don't need to say potato or potato.

I need to say, look at the process. Look what they're doing after football. These guys are making all kinds of money. That was always part of it. One of the coolest things was at this, we'll go full circle here at the Seahawks Super Bowl reunion that you and I just were at, is to see one of your players. You can name them if you want, but I won't is to run up to you, bear hug you. This is in the middle of a cocktail party, bear hug. You almost lift you over your

chest or over, you know, over his head. It was such a big bear hug and lift you off your feet and like, just kind of grab you by your shoulders and like coach and you hadn't seen him for probably i think i've seen him once since the white house yes and then plenty of phone calls with them yeah you know like the relationship is intact but that physical moment right there is like yep there's the relationship yep like it's intact there's no awkwardness you know about it so that's so when you've got those principles in place that are activated on relationship and this is full circle relationship based developmentally minded and that stuff kind of rolls off your back it does and i think moments

like that that's the proof yeah did you know i wrote a book on this no but i'll find out yeah so the last two years this is what i've been like i i love this question because the last two years that's what we spent researching and writing about which is the fear of other people's opinions yeah as potentially one of the greatest constrictors of human potential yeah i can't wait to read this because i'm sure in somewhere in there's gonna say this is something that you have to A, accept and then work through. Having your sense of who you are is ground zero. So you nailed it.

Why did I do all the research? I should have just called you. I just called you. Coach, this is awesome. Thank you for everything in our relationship. And thank you for this time and sharing your wisdom. And I'd love to do this many times over with you. So this was awesome for me. Oh, that goes both ways. Thank you for this time and sharing your wisdom. And I'd love to do this many times over with you. So this was awesome for me.

Oh, that goes both ways. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support

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