Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Psychology Of Building Team Culture | Eddie Jones

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

How do great leaders build teams to become who they're capable of becoming, and prepare them to handle their emotions when the pressure is highest?Eddie Jones is one of the most accomplished coaches in world rugby. He has led Australia, England, and Japan on the international stage, and guided Japan to one of the greatest upsets in rugby history at the 2015 World Cup. He has built a career on turning teams around, creating pressure, and challenging more from the people he leads. There is a fine line in that work. Too little challenge and we never understand who we can become. Too much and we create the wrong conditions to explore. That line has not always been easy to walk. Eddie’s demanding methods have drawn criticism over the years, and his exits from England in 2022 and Australia in 2023 came under intense public scrutiny... a chapter he alludes to here when he describes the mistake of letting the noise come down on top of him.In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Eddie walks through how he builds team identity, starting with a picture in his head of how a team could play and then closing the gap between that vision and the group in front of him. He explains why he keeps training about 70% successful, so the 30% of failure becomes the learning, and why training should always be harder than the game. He makes the case that immediate, private feedback beats public humiliation every time, and that the best coaches ask far more questions than they answer.Eddie also talks about understanding the individual, why coaching has shifted from team-based to one-on-one, and how a single moment of feeling important from a coach 30 years ago still moves him today. He opens up struggles he has faced with his own emotions, the mistakes he has made, the generation that taught him to never show vulnerability, and why he is still learning to make room for joy. In this conversation, we explore:How great coaches build a team identity and close the gap between vision and realityWhy training should be about 70% successful, so the failures become the learningThe value in training harder than the gameWhy the best coaches ask more questions than they answerHow understanding the individual has become central to modern leadershipWhy you should never assume, and always confirm by knowing the personThe thinking time every leader needsBy the end of the conversation the two land on a question every leader should ask: would you want to be coached by yourself?Links & ResourcesSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: 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/newsletterDownload Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XEddie Jones' Books: My Life and Rugby: The Autobiography and Leadership: Lessons from My Life in RugbySee 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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and use the code finding mastery for up to 35% off your first order. Again, that's live momentous.com slash finding mastery. The code is finding mastery for up to 35% off. England have unveiled their first foreign head coat. Eddie's built this legacy of a guy who can get some really good short-term results. Eddie Jones has been dismissed from the position of England head coach. Where Eddie Jones's men are looking to ambush his former side. It made me feel like really important, that I was important for the team that I knew something. And I love that coach ever since.

You know, I'd do anything for that cage because it made me feel like that. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What just happened for you? You want to cry? No. But, yeah, no, it's just that I want them to have that feeling that they're really important and they can do things they think they can't do. Welcome back. We're welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers.

I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais. A high-performance psychologist named Michael Jerva. Who head coach Mike McDonald and former head coach Pete Carroll brought into work with the Seahawks. famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos project. Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. They have to stay mentally tough. Today's guest is Eddie Jones, one of the most accomplished coaches in world rugby. Eddie has built a career on turning teams around. He creates pressure and then he challenges more from the people that he leads. Now, there's a fine line here. Too little challenge? We never really understand

who we can become. Too much challenge. We create the wrong condition. to explore potential. I regret it so much. I took her love of the job away just because she was untidy in one area. And the value she gave to the organisation was far greater than those errors. And that was probably the best listen I've had.

So as you're listening, are you creating an environment where people simply perform for you or where they feel capable and supported and challenged to be their best? The motion of control is important, but the ability at the right time to show vulnerability is very important, and I'm probably not that good at that.

With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with the legend, Eddie Jones. Eddie, first of all, congratulations on a huge body of work. And there's very few people that understand success at the level that you do in elite sport. And so I'm honored to sit with you and have a conversation about culture, about pressure, about what it takes to help a human become their very best. So excited for you to be here. And it's great to be here and a real honor to be here, mate. Yeah, it's really cool. So by heritage, your dad, your father is Australian and your mother is Japanese. Japanese. And how do you blend those two uniquely for yourself? Well, I think I've always been an outsider. And, you know,

when I in Australia, half Japanese, half Australian, particularly when I was growing up, you know, everyone was white Anglo-Saxon so I was the odd kid out so sport was a way I had to find to become part of the group so I tried to become good at cricket and rugby to become part of the group and then you know I've coached in Japan a bit and my wife's Japanese and she said to me don't ever think you're going to be treated like a Japanese you're not Japanese so I'm an outsider there so for me it's always probably being a strength of being able to just be yourself rather than try to worry about too much whether I'm Japanese or Australian, inside or outside, just try to be yourself. So you didn't take that, you don't fit in here. You didn't take that in a toxic way. You didn't

take that in a way like, oh, well, I am ostracized. You said, oh, you're right. I'm a little different. So then by default, I'm going to just go figure out me. Yeah, yeah, I very much so. The only place I've really felt at home is Hawaii. I'm going to Hawaii and everyone would say, oh, you're half, aren't you? You're half. And everyone seems to be half there.

Yeah, Hapa, as they call it right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So when you are in younger years, let's go back to like grade school years. I don't know the grading, and I'll show you, but like third grade is like, you're like 12. Yeah. something in that age.

So, or no, more like nine or ten. Ten, yeah. So what was it like then for you? Oh, I just loved it, mate. Every memory I've got to school was fantastic, had good teachers. I was academically, I was one of those kids academically pretty good up until the end of primary school.

High school sort of dropped off a little bit. And then when I went to uni, I did quite well, you know. So school was, fun. We played sport all the time, had great teachers. I always remember now the first cricket coach I had and the first rugby league coach I had. Rugby league is a version of rugby union. And the love they had of the game, I've always tried to remember that and always tried to feel that and coach that. Because I think, you know, the importance of a good coach in making someone give their best was reinforced in those early years. Oh, okay. Tell me more because you

use two words. Feeling was a word that you used to describe. You wanted to feel that. What does that mean to you? That you just want to do it for the sake of doing it. You just love playing the sport, love coaching. And I want players to have that. You know, we talk about the grind in sport. And it is, there is a grind there, obviously. But you want the players to love that grind. And the best players I've coached always love it. They love the game. They love the contest. They love getting better.

They love every bit about it. So as a coach, I've always tried to instill that into the players and try to be a role model yourself. What do you love about coaching at this point? You played at a really high level. But what do you love about coaching? Firstly, there's a contest. I love creating a team that has a strong identity and plays.

to itself. Like, you know, Japan in 2015, we played fast, we played quick. And, you know, it's almost how Japan can be at rugby. So I've loved doing that. But I also love the challenge of putting a group, you know, come into a room, there's 30 players there. Yeah, and they're all thinking different things. One's thinking, I hope I get selected, one's thinking, I hope my wife's happy, you know. And you're trying to get them all on the same page, think together, play together, And the multiplication effect in sport is fantastic, isn't it? You know, when you get 30 players there, if they can all work together and play together, you get this force of nature that's a beauty to watch.

You know, I always think that a good team looks like a great band playing. That, you know, they're all moving off each other. There's some eye contact. They know what's going to happen next. And then the result is this fantastic thing you see. I always think about great teams as like a flock of birds. A handful will dip. They all dip.

And they're just kind of moving and kind of undulating together. So you're at on the music level. I'm thinking that way there's probably something very similar. There's a frequency that they're tuned to to each other. Let me go back because you're talking about 30 players, 30 humans, and they've got different stories going on in their head. And then right before that, you talked about identity. So I do want to understand what does identity mean to you.

and then how do you get the stories or the minds of the people lined up to work together? So first and foremost, what does identity mean and how do you go about that? It's hard to define identity. Like I know everyone speaks about it and I speak about it. And I don't, you know, to be honest, I don't really know, but I've got an idea in my head. It's the way I think you see yourself playing the game because at the end of the day, particularly in sports,

everyone generally comes together for the game. So the game is the central part of it. But out of that then comes a culture or a set of behaviours that everyone follows. And I think when you've got a good identity, everyone's got a pretty good understanding of what that is. You know, how we're going to behave, what's important for us. And then that flows on to tactically how you're going to play, I think. Yeah. And, you know, I've had some teams that have been really successful.

And I think they've had a really strong. identity and I've had teams that have been successful and then lost it. And then trying to find it again is one of the hardest things. And I've failed a couple of times at doing that. Before we go to what it is and kind of get under there, because I agree with you, I think it's hard to articulate. And I think what you're pointing to though is you have something in your mind that you're imagining of what this group could be. And I don't think that you're doing that where it's cold. I think you've done something to understand the individuals. Or do you already have the the identity and you're trying to match the individuals to it, or are you taking an understanding

of the individuals and then from the collective creating or emerging the identity? Which way does it go? I think it's a bit of both. Yeah, I think you're always doing a bit of both. I met once a guy a soccer coach called Louis Van Gogh. And he was the person who probably spoke about it with the greatest clarity. So he didn't know me from a bar of soap, you know. And we met in the Amsterdam Airport. Yeah, he's highly successful coach, Manchester United, Barcelona, all the big clubs in Europe, Netherlands, very distinguished coach. But anyway, through a contact, I managed to meet him and have lunch with him. And he said, every time he gets a team, he has a picture in his head of what it looks like. So say it's this cut. So that's how he wants to play, and that's how he wants

the team to look. But then he gets the players, and they might only be, they might only be able to to play to that shape. And that's the personality. And so as a coach, you've got this in your head as the end in mind. You've got this here as the current group. And then you're always trying to fill that gap. And I think that's the process. And some of that, some of this here can be historical reasons.

It can be social reasons. Like international rugby, take my own country, Australia. We're always aggressive, quite innovative. quite brash and that's how we play the game. You know, tough, we're a tough nation. And I think that that shapes the way you play a little bit, whereas having coached England, England are much more polite, they like to be organised.

They don't want to actually make the game. They want to control the game, whereas Australians want to take the game. And, you know, coaching Japan now always been underdogs in rugby, so we've got to find a way to be innovative. We've got to work harder than the opposition. So part of that goes into the mixture. Then you've got the group of players.

You've got the history of the team. So there's a number of factors you're trying to take into consideration. What a great insight. Just the idea that there's something in your head, whether it's historical or your idea, then you've got the actual elements, and your job is to close the gap between the two. Yeah.

Yeah. How do you go about closing that gap? Well, I think you've got to have, you know, one of the things is strategizing. What are the two or three key key? areas that will help you solve the gap. You know, in any, any situation you go to, there's a hundred things wrong, yeah. When you're losing, there's too much gatorade, there's not enough ice in the ice bath. Yeah, there's always a lot of problems in every team and every

group of people you get together, there's problems. And you try and identify the one, two or three things that are going to solve most of them. And some of it might be tactically on the field. Some of it might be leadership-wise. Some of it might be the composition of your squad. You know, I was reading something this morning. It's been good being here because I've had a bit of thinking time. I reread this morning the culture coat by. Oh, Dan. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, a friend of the show. Oh, is he? Yeah. Yeah. And he was talking about, you know, one bad apple in your team can can have such an effect. And so, you know, I think, you know, think one of the things you're always looking at. And if I go back, when I was a, when I finished

university, I wanted to be a PE teacher. So I qualified to be a PE teacher. But eastern suburbs of Sydney, everyone wants to live there. PE teachers never, never leave. So I couldn't get a job as a PE teacher. So I had to become a casual teacher, supply teacher in mass. And because for some kids, they don't like it, I'd always go to my old school and I'd get the bottom class in year nine mass. So I became an expert in teaching the naughty kids mass. You know, and you go in there and I'd have to work out, right, who's going to give me trouble? Who do I need to pull a bit closer to me? Who's going to help me? And so I think you do that process in the team as well. You know, where are your trouble areas? What do I need to do

to get them on side or move them out? Who are the guys that are really going to help me drive the the process of bringing the team up. I do want to go back to identity in a minute. So I'm speaking out loud for myself. But there's a fun moment I had with Coach Carroll, former, hey, coach of the Seahawks. And we're talking about the team. And we're going down the list of like guys that are really create a challenge to coach.

And I asked them like, how many knuckleheads do you think, you know? And he says, so there's 70 athletes on the team. He says, 63 dress. 53 travel. And he said, I think we can do two. And then he paused and he goes, nah, probably two and a half. So out of that, so when you say one out of 30 and we're, and we've never met and talked about this and we were talking about two out of 70, there's something to that math that's maybe universal. I'm not sure what it is. But would you say you could handle one or could you handle more knuckleheads on a squad?

And knuckleheads is code for like people that really push against what you're trying. trying to build. You can handle more if they've got really strong winning behaviors. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, because the other players will tolerate it then. Winning behaviors being defined as Well, they'll win games for you. Yeah, they'll win games for you. They've got something special about it. And a lot of times, the really special players are the most difficult to handle, you know, because they're out there, you know, they're above the pack. And they likely always have been. Yeah. It's a different universe. Exactly. But if the players understand, they help. you win, you can tolerate their behavior.

Like, I think the, you know, the best story I've ever seen is a Chicago Bulls with the rebounder. What was his name? Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman. Yeah. Yeah, they could tolerate him because he'd win games for them. And with the other strong characters in the team, they're able to manage him.

But then, you know, historically, I don't think after he left that team he did so well, you know, because it didn't have the structure around it. So Jackson could handle him in that environment. and he was a winning force for them. But then when he went to other teams, he became destructive. Finding Master is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. If you've ever hired for a small business, you know the real cost isn't just the salary.

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for free at LinkedIn.com slash mastery. Again, that's LinkedIn.com slash mastery. Terms and conditions apply. Finding mastery is brought to you by Sunlighten. I'm really excited about a new partner of ours. Something that I've come back to again and again is when I invest in recovery with the same intention that I bring to my work, everything gets better. My energy, my focus, my ability to show up fully for the people that I'm with and the work that I care about. That's why I am so bought in on the sunlight and impulse intelligent sauna. I was first introduced to their team a few months ago and was so impressed by what they've created. This is one of the most advanced infrared sonnas that they've built in over 25 years of pioneering this technology. That's right. They've been at this

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Or, like, if not, no problem, who comes to mind when you think of great coaches? Well, I love American sport. Oh, you do, yeah, yeah. So I tend to read a bit. Jackson definitely, I used to love Pat Riley. There was just something about him, and he seemed to get the best out of his teams. And I like how he presented. You know, he looked like a winner.

That's fun. It's an interesting comment because your reputation is that you're tough, right? Like you create a cauldron of pressure, direct. And the way you speak to athletes, like you're not trying to be their friend. You are trying to coach excellence, I think, is the way I understand it. But there's a lot of pressure. And you're also, your reputation is that you know how to come in and kind of turn something around. Yeah.

Pat Riley has a toughness to him as well. And Pat Riley, I'm going to bridge two ideas and then open it up. Earlier, you said that winning after winning is really hard. I nod my head to that as well. Pat Riley talked about the disease of me after winning, right? So you win one, and then you've got to prevent the disease of me. I understand that too. So can we go to winning after winning and can we maybe talk about tough-mindedness

wherever you want to go next? Yeah. I think we had, with England, so we had a, they, they missed out on the 2015, they didn't make the playoffs for the World Cup finals at home. The big deal. So, yeah. First time they appoint a foreign coach, which was me. And we won 18 games in a row.

Tests, it's still a world record for the number of tests. And we were flying, but we had a, had this guy, Dylan Hartley was a captain, not a great player, but really good at bringing people together. And England's quite, it's quite stratified because of the class system there. And there, there is differences in the players there. And he was because he was a rough, rough, tough New Zealand from Rotorua. He was able to bring everyone together in the same room and get them to play together. And there was a few other things we did, but not as, not as important as his leadership role in bringing that team. So what did he do? And how did you support him to do that well? Well, he was very straightforward, very good at talking to the players, making things very clear

and simple, strong on standards. You know, all the things you expect from a good leader, but really hard to do and hard to do consistently. Yeah. You know, someone was a little bit out of line. He'd immediately speak to them. He'd bring the young players through, make them feel good. You know, he had that, you know, some guys are just really good at making people feel

they belong here and he was good at that really good at that here yeah they belong here when you see a behavior that is not a winning behavior when you see something that is orthogonal to the culture that you want to build that is it just doesn't kind of square up do you address it immediately in front of everybody do you pull that person aside do you coach other people so they can coach it like how those are three very different examples you might say all of them but what is your what is your style Well, when I was young, I'd be very direct. And probably back then you could do that. And, you know, we have got generation change, you know.

And so now it's more, I think, if I see something that's not quite right, I'll say, I'll say to the person privately, do you think that's going to help us win? Yeah. And get them to think about, have a think about it and come back and see me tomorrow. Yeah, I think that's how it's changed a lot. You're trying to guide the players now to the solution. But I also think the feedback, immediate feedback, so important. Yeah, as soon as you see something, deal with it straight away, don't let it sit.

You are known for high performance feedback in that way. So immediacy is better than waiting. Yeah. Generally speaking. Yeah. I found that if you publicly humiliate somebody, I'm not sure you really ever get them back. You have to publicly apologize and make it right. It's really tricky.

How did you do it where you would call it? somebody out directly early days or do you think that you made more mistakes than you didn't and that's why you don't think i ever wanted to embarrass a player you know so i do it discreetly but immediately okay just pull them aside have a word to them certainly there was times i've done it the other way and and and you never want to you never want to humiliate a player you know you always want to give them a chance to come back because everyone makes mistakes and particularly under the pressure of of sport you know you make mistakes in the situation. So you want to give them an opportunity to open the door again.

And generally, I would do it privately, discreetly, but immediately. And are you coaching to make mistakes and to learn? So get them right to the edge. Or are you coaching so they don't make mistakes? I reckon this is the great thing about sport. Yeah, I don't know NFL. I watched the training and everything seems so organized. But then I see highlight plays.

And the great quarterbacks just do it off the cuff, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. They side of all. And like, yeah. Like the guy from Kansas, Kansas, Massachusetts, my home. Mahomes. Like, he seems an absolute freak.

So I think you've always got to create training sessions that prepare the players for the game. The game is not certain. The game is far from being certain. And in rugby, you know, statistically. 40% is structured and 60% is unstructured. So you've got to create trainings that allow them to meet those game day demands. Like I think the game gives you the greatest feedback. So your training's got to be geared towards the game and harder than the game.

So the game should become easy for the players. So that's why you create high pressure in practice. And when they make mistakes in practice, do you celebrate it? Do you learn it? Do you just treat it like it's part of it? And the reason I'm asking is because in the business world, most of our audience are people that when they make decisions, there's a ripple effect. Like they have influence in the worlds that they're in. And we say a lot, like fail fast, fail off and fail forward, but then environments don't really feel like it's inviting that.

And there's a lot of anxiety about making mistakes. And I'm just wondering how you handle that. In our game, particularly, if you haven't got mistakes at training, you're not training. to the level you need to be. You know, we talk about there's a sweet spot of about 70%. So you want your training to be about 70% successful. And then you're getting 30% failure and be a huge learning opportunities, that 30%. Are you measuring that?

Approximately. The longer you coach, the more you get the feel for it. But if I see a training that's 100%, everything's perfect. And you're not practicing the game. I haven't really been involved in business. But I would imagine in business, you've got to make mistakes to actually have a chance to be successful. Otherwise, if you're always 100%, you're always underneath the ceiling.

Because above that ceiling, we know there's more, there's more to go. So you've got to be pushing that all the time. Let's stay on relationships here for a minute. When you think of building relationships with your people, how do you do it? Well, I think more and more now, coaching's, I think, moved from being very team-based to now being much more individual-based. And I think, again, the younger players now respond much better to one-on-one. So, yeah, before we'd have a lot of team, team activity,

a lot of social teams, activity, that you'd get to know the players. But now I think it's much more purposeful about one-on-one trying to get to understand the player. And not that you didn't do that before, but now I think you've got to be much more purposeful about it. And just try to find out a little bit about that player, what motivates them, what's important in their life. You know, we were talking before, what's the best game they've ever played, what's the

worst game they've ever played, and get an understanding of where they were. I had this kid the other day. You know, he wasn't training very well. And I said to him, what's the best game you ever played? He said, oh, I was at university and we didn't have a great coach, so we took on all the responsibility. And we played really well. We didn't win.

But we played really well and it was satisfying. I said, so what's the worst game you've ever played? He said, we had a really good team, but it was all driven by the coach. So we just did what we were told. I didn't say anything. I didn't think it was right. And we still didn't win. And so I said to him, so which one are you now?

And he thought, he said, well, I want to be the university. I said, well, what's stopping you? And he had to think about it. And he didn't know. But from that day onwards, his problem. performance at training just improved immeasurably. And I had a little nickname for him then about his university or his high school. Which one are you today?

Who are you today? High school or university. Yeah, that's good. Our community at Finding Master would recognize me saying this, but you just kind of walked right into the insight, which is masterful coaches ask way more questions than amateur coaches. Amateur coaches say a lot, but directionally are not very accurate.

High performance coaches have this blend between asking a lot of questions or asking a fair amount of questions, but like giving direction that are more pretty accurate. But the best of the best of the best coaches are constantly asking questions. They do some teaching, of course. So you find questions to be an important unlock. It's interesting. Some players need to be told. Like, and that's how you get the best response for them.

So, but I think generally most players, respond now particularly well to being asked, asked questions. So if you look at the range of being explicit, implicit, I think you're always bouncing between them, and you're trying to work out for that player and for that group, what the right influence is. What does that mean between explicit and implicit? Well, explicit.

You're saying directly. Direct, direct telling, correcting, when implicit you're giving them situations to work it out themselves. So I think, you know, I always feel right, where do I need to be today? Because that's, in your mind, you've got like a graph between those two. And you're doing it for each individual or you're doing for the team. You're trying to. You're trying to.

Yeah, of course. You don't get it right. But, you know, I know there's a few players that I've got. All they want to do is be told by me. They don't want to think about it. Yeah, and they respond well to that. And then they might want that. And if they respond well, you can keep doing it.

But then they might want. want it, but they're not responding, then you might have to change your waist. And I think the other part of that, I think, is one of the most important thing in sporting environments is you always got to be thinking about the context of where you are. You know, where is that player today? What's happened to him? I was lucky enough in England to meet it, Sir Alex Ferguson, a few times. And he had this great story. He said, they built a new training centre. And he made sure he had his office overlooking the car park and he'd say he'd stand there with a cup of tea like you were drinking and he'd watch the players come out of their car and he's if he saw

a player getting out of the car bit restless on the phone yeah something's going on you know whether it's his wife's unhappy his girlfriend's unhappy he'd go down and he purposely you know talk to him and say how are you mate you know is there anything i can help you with today that's a relational approach to the game. That's a relational mindset, if you will. Are you more focused on excellence or are you more focused on the person, the behavior that the person does or the person that is doing the behavior? I've never really thought about that. I think initially when I first, when I first coach was about knowledge. Yeah, it was when you're young coach, you think you've got all this knowledge. You want to impart it. You want to be the smartest guy in the

room. I think as I've moved on, it's sort of become more, I'd hope, a bit more rounded, that some players, it's more personal and relationship-wise, other players, it's more about performance. So again, trying to find a sweet spot for that player, because I think, like we were saying, about 70% and 30% for your training, I think also for every player, there's a certain sweet spot you're trying to hit, where you're trying to connect with that player, get the, get the right relationship with them, get the right level of understanding. And some players, you know, you just can't, it's hard to break them down. You know, with other players, it's quite easy. So, you know, there's that continual battle going on. Let's stay on the relationship here

a little bit longer because I think this is at the center of the whole thing. I think relationships are at the foundation for everything we're doing. And it starts with your relationship with yourself and then moves outward. And I think in, you know, many high-performing business environments, it's a little bit like, yeah, but they do it that way in sport, but there's no time to do it that way in business. So can you maybe speak to like the informal nature of getting to know people? Because very rarely does the head coach sit with the players or as assistant coaches and say, tell me all about yourself. There's some of that that happens, but it's more, my experience has been more informal. Is that the way it is for you as well?

100%. Yeah. So how do you do it informally? Like what are the? I think, You know, you've got to roam the room. Yeah, you've got to spend time purposely looking. I think Daniel Coyle talks about collisions. Yeah, purposeful collisions. And I think you've got to be like that. You know, so every time you walk in a room, there's an opportunity to either add to the business

or take away from the business. Like, you know, one of the things that's probably always struck me, and I pinch this from another person, so it's not my originality. But I think you're either, every conversation you had, you're either adding to the business or you're taking away from the business. Yeah, I like the idea that you're either creating constriction in the environment or you are opening the environment.

Yeah. So same thing. Good way. So are you tuning to yourself knowing how your way of being is going to impact the others or are you purposely focusing on them on how you'll add to it? I think first of all, you've got to start with yourself. Yeah, you walk in a room and you're shuffling, you got your head. head down, it's sending a message to the, particularly when you're the leader or the

organiser, sending a message. Whereas if you're walking, you're bouncing, you say, how are you today, mate? How's your sun going? You know, you're talking, you're setting the environment for people to engage. Then you're setting the tone for the day. Research is pretty clear that leaders set a tongue for the emotion of the culture. how do you think that your players feel around you? I would hope, and I don't know, and it's probably a good question to ask,

but they're probably not going to tell me the truth. They'll tell other people the truth. That they feel like a coach that cares about them, that it's an environment that allows them to get better, and they feel like when they come into the organization, it's going to be tough, but they're going to get better as a player. And I think that's, you know, at our level the players all want to get better.

They all want to get, but some of them don't know how to get better and so you've got to find the ways to help them get better. We've all made mistakes. And the idea is hopefully we learn from those mistakes so we don't repeat them, both tactically on the field and then, you know, relational in leadership. And when you think back to the mistakes that you've made,

what are the general themes? I'm not looking for the specific story that you, cross somebody this way or whatever. But generally, what are the mistakes you made? Because I want to go back to context is that you're a direct, hard-nosed, high-pressured, identity-building, high-standard coach. Yeah. So we're in this room now, right? And we've just lost against Pittsburgh Steelers. Like there's going to be all this noise banging on the roof, right? Yeah. This and that, this and that. Media. Yeah, media. And possibly. from players as well, you know.

And so I think one of the things, mistakes I've made is sometimes allowed that to affect me. Yeah, I feel like now the roof's coming down on top of me. And I think that's always one of the most difficult things of being a leader. You know, that you've got to keep that ceiling high, acknowledge that there's noise there and maybe listen to it and work out what's true. You know, and there, I think, the staff that you have, having someone experienced, you know, it seems like in American sport at the moment, like a head coach generally wants to get someone experienced to help them.

That's experienced the noise that understands it and just stay clear about where you need to go and what you need to do. And if there is some good information out there, take it, absorb it, put it into your program. Finding Master is brought to you by Proton VPN. When I work with high performers, one of the things that we talk about is taking real responsibility for the things that are 100% under your control. The discipline to be great with the things that are in your control is a mark of mastery. Your digital privacy is one of those choices. And it's one a lot of people hand over without ever deciding to.

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You know, I allowed it to come on top of me rather than just accept it. But I just keep on, you've got to be aware of it, you know, and then you've got to find a way to keep your balance, keep your thinking clear. Like I was saying to a young guy last night that one of the most important things about being a leader is giving yourself thinking time. You know, allow yourself whatever it is, however you do it, whether it be at night, whether it be in morning, whether you do it regularly each month, give yourself some clear thinking time. I love that. Is this a daily practice for you or is it more like a weekly practice?

No, well for me, generally speaking, I'll get up really early around four. Oh my God. And I'll try to use that first hour to set the time for the day. Like think about what I want to do, write notes, be clear about what I want to achieve today. And then I'll go to the gym and then I'm ready for the day. Why four? Because it just gives me enough time. Like I need it, I need about two hours before I start work. Work starts at six. Well, around, around that, you know. So it's an hour, hour of thinking and an hour of physical exercise. How much of that thinking time, it's journaling, for sure. How much of that is meditation? How much of that is just quietly, you know, aware of your thoughts. I'm hopeless like that. Zero. Zero. So it's writing. Righty. Yeah.

And wait, you're writing for an hour? Oh, well, approximately. Yeah. And I might be watching some vision as well. Yeah. What's that mean? Watching some, some rugby. Some tape. Yeah. And that's where I get my best thinking time. And I think, yeah, one of the things for any person is to work out, what's your best thinking time? All right. Emotions. Do you approach the World Cup or do you approach championship moments as a big moment or another moment. How do you go about those tests? Well, the World Cup's once every four years. For three years, you're putting everything into it. So I think, yeah, I've never really thought about it in that way. But when I think about it now, it's a big moment. And I can always remember in 2015 with Japan. You know, we're on the bus going

to game against South Africa. And I was for a lot of the game. feeling sick. Like, I remember saying the S&C coach, we've put four years into this and we've got no, because you never really know how your team's going to play. You know, you do all the preparation. They've done well. And, yeah, it's the only time as a coach you're hoping. Because something can happen that upset you. So, yeah, no, always treated as a big moment because you put so much working for four years. It's all towards that one tournament. And, you know, you've got three or four games at the start of it to get right. So how do you help your athletes and your coaches work well with pressure? What do you do? Because pressure for the most part is a made-up construct. And what that

means is that you're interpreting an environment or set of conditions in such a way that you think that you need to think or act faster than you're capable of thinking or acting. And so that's really pressure. It's like it feels like the walls are kind of closing in. Everything gets tighter. It feels a little bit maybe darker. There's a tension involved in it. How do you help your athletes work with pressure? I think firstly you've got to acknowledge it that it's there and that's important. Because most of these games now, you know, you go to a Super Bowl final. There's a consequence, isn't it? Other games you play league games and the consequence is not so high. And it doesn't matter whether you say it's just another game. It has huge consequence. So what are the consequences?

Well, if you win a Super Bowl, you're happy to start with, you know, there's always one happy team, one unhappy team. And there's financial rewards, status rewards, all those sort of things that people think about. And they do. So firstly, you've got to acknowledge it. Secondly, you've got to prepare them for that perceived pressure. So make sure you dress rehearse that as much as you can. How do you do that?

sometimes it might be setting up a training session where the players are constantly under pressure. I can remember one session we had with England where we put the weakest forward pack with the strongest backs and Owen Farrow was our captain at that stage. And so he was constantly under pressure because he's not getting any good ball and he's got the opposition bearing down and we ended up having a fisty cuffs at training and he reacted badly to it. But that's the sort of experience he needs to have. Now you can learn from that, like this is what it's going to be like.

So how can we deal with this better in the future? Go back to your implicit and explicit. Will you ask questions or will you direct in those moments when the pressure gets to somebody in training and they are a smaller version of themselves? They are, they collapsed in on lower performing behaviors. Will you be more implicit or explicit in those things? Well, generally, I think you want to be implicit there.

You do. Get them from, get them to learn. How did you feel there? What was your communication like with the rest of the players? What could you have done differently? Yeah, one of my favorite is like, okay, help me understand what was going on for you. Yeah, yeah. And then they'll say something.

I go, right, what led to that? Yeah. And they'll say something I said, right, what do you think led to that? And before you know it, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like he said something 14 weeks ago the beginning of the season. And it's like, I never let it go. And then it showed up and how dare, you know, it's like, oh, so you can carry and stuff, you know, or oh, you didn't sleep for the last three weeks because you got a

newborn or whatever it might be. Yeah, okay. Because what you're saying there, there's always like if you're driving a Jeep, right, and imagine there's always grenades in the back of the Jeep, right? Okay. And they're ready to go. And your job as a sports cycle or a head catch or any cage is to try to detonate those grenades before you get to the big show. I've never heard the analogy. That's great. That's great.

Would you say earlier you pinched it from somebody? I haven't pinched it. This is a good one to pinch. Yeah, for sure. We're all intellectual feces. Yeah, right. Okay, good. All right. So, are you more interested in the person or are you more interested in the player? I think it'd be both. It is both. Yeah. Because, so the player is important for that tournament or that game, but one of the greatest joys of coaching is when you've got players who've had difficult careers come back to you and talk to you about what happened. Like, you know, there's one, I was talking to someone the other day, there was this Samoan boy we had with the Brumbies, you know, he's always in trouble.

Like, he got his first contract, right? $20,000, he spent it in one week. Right, it was just one of those, like, he was just crazy. easy, you know. But great guy trained hard and he was always in trouble. Remember, we put him on the diet because he was overweight. After dinner, I saw him pick up six bananas and four yogurts and take it back to his room. And I said, what are you doing, mate? He said, I've been told to control my weight so I'm trying to eat healthy bananas. So he was one of those guys. And so he keeps contacting me all the time. We keep chatting. I've gone to where he was living, helped him set up

a club. So it's one of those things that make you feel really good about coaching. It's always the relationship, isn't it? Yeah. It's fantastic, mate. So, okay, so you're trying to strike the balance between the person and the player. Do you remember a moment in your life when a coach had a dramatic influence on the way you felt about yourself? Yeah, when I first cracked the top level in rugby, I was on the bus and I was this little 75K guy, you know. Is that like 140, 150 pounds? No, 160. Not heavy, not heavy, you know. It was light for my position.

And I just made it. And I sat on the bus and the head cage came. He sat next to me. I remember he put his hand on my, he said, what do you think today, mate? I thought, why are you asking me? But then it made me feel like really important that I was important for the team that I knew something. Yeah. And I loved that cage ever since.

You know, I'd do anything for that cage because he made me feel like that. He made you feel like what? Important. I heard it in your voice. now. Did you feel it? And what is that emotion? Guys down in the year. Like, yeah, and that and wait, wait, wait, wait. What just, what happened? What just happened

for you? You want to cry? No. Yeah, you do. But yeah, no, it's just that that really good feeling. Hold on. This is amazing, Eddie. You're a tough coach. And you've turned around so many organizations and part of the origin story is that you want to feel important like you matter and you want the same for your people what same for the players and i want i want them to have that feeling that they're really important and they can do things they they think they can't do like you know we're always trying to encourage players to be the best version of themselves but a lot of time they don't

really know what the best version of themselves is and there's you know there's all these whether be a mental obstacle a physical obstacle a social obstacle and as a coach you're trying to unleash that and just one conversation like that you know it's crazy isn't it but that was 30 years ago and i still feel all of it yeah so it's the power of good coaching thank you for bringing that forward i hope that your community that listens really understand you in a different way and i hope that every everybody listening, thinks about how they're making that impact in the lives of others as well. How do you work with your emotions? I saw you just struggle with it. You let it come to the surface and then wanted to do, you know, push it down or move it to the side.

I think, yeah, the generation we came through in Australia, we were all taught to be tough, you know, don't be vulnerable, don't show any emotion. And generally I'm like that. I think that's old. Yeah, no, no, it is, but it's a hard habit to be. It is a hard habit. How do you want to be? No, no, no, no. I'm happy how I am.

I think we all want to have emotional control because it's important to have stability, particularly when you're a leader. Like, you don't want to be too down and you don't want to be too up. You know, when you're winning, you shouldn't be too happy. When you lose, you shouldn't be too sad.

So emotional control is important, I think. But, you know, all the stuff you read now, and I think it is true that the ability at the right time to show vulnerability is very important. And I'm probably not that good at that. You just exercised it a little bit. Yeah, it might be one off. Yeah, it's so right. Like, you know that idea, victory and defeat those two impostors are the same, that idea, not be too high, not be too low. What ends up happening, I think, is that many are unskilled with working with emotions. So what is accepted is frustration, intolerance, anger, if you will.

And so that's what comes out. And that scares people, right? No one wants, and that embarrasses people. And it keeps people on their toes. Now, there's a time and place to be pissed, right? Bad behavior, meaning unacceptable behavior needs to have some sort of consequence in my mind. Okay. So all that being said is when we are more like what Bruce Lee talked about, like mind like water,

We can just kind of roll through things. And we are more like Buddha or the Dalai Lama talked about like being unbothered, you know, and childlike in their mind, a beginner's mind. There's so much freedom. But to do that, you have to really work with emotions. Yeah, yeah. How good are you? Let's just do one to ten.

How good are you dealing with anger when you feel it? Probably now I give myself probably a seven out of ten. Pretty good? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Room for improvement. When I was young, terrible. Two out of ten, three.

One, one. One. One. Okay. Probably likely to get a one sometimes. How good are you at working with fear, like things that you're really afraid of? Yeah, not bad. Probably six or seven again. Six or seven.

And sadness? Sadness. Yeah, no, probably six or seven. And joy? Joy is, I think, one of the most difficult ones. Oh, that's surprising for me for you. Tell me more. Well, I think joy or enjoyment.

comes from the game. For most players, I think, and again, I think it's changed a little bit that players like to get, and I'm going to contradict myself here, which is part of coaching, I think a lot of the ability to create a joyful environment now as important. And I don't think it was as important before, but I think now, particularly for the younger generations, they've got to feel that joy. And the balance, you know, if you look at that high performance, where you've got high performance there, enjoyment or joy there and hard work and learning

there, the ability to get that balance right, I think is really important, more so than before, where, you know, previously maybe you could just have a hard working, everyone had just front-up, grind away, but now I think that balance is really, really right. And I think in a lot of ways the American coaches have led the way in that area. You know, you've worked with Pete Carroll, I think his ability to balance that Steve Kerr at Golden State Warriors from what I've heard about him and seen a little bit of his stuff. So I think that's important. And that's probably the area I'm probably not as naturally as good in, you know,

in understanding how do we get joy? Yeah, it's interesting that you're saying joy comes from the game. I actually, I'd like to challenge that idea a little bit that joy comes from yourself and the way you interpret and what you bring into an experience. Like joy in my mind is a frameable experience. Yeah. You know, and it takes discipline. But I'm curious because you gave yourself the lowest score on joy, I had this moment where it still sticks with me today.

It was a technology. It was, I can't talk about it because it's, call it secret. I don't like that word, but it's, I can't talk about this technology. It triggered joy in a way that surprised me. And it was a flood of joy that was taking place. And I was overwhelmed by it. And I pulled myself out of it. And so I knew from that moment, like, oh, I've got to increase my sphere of being

able to deal with like this love, joy, something. And like, why would I be afraid to go on the other edge of this thing? And so I wish I could share the technology. But I think the most important part is that it led me to an insight. that like, oh, I'm not as good as joy as I thought. So for the last four years, my team will love this. Every year, we don't set out to do resolutions. We know they fall apart, right?

But every year we recommit to something that's important to us. And at Finding Mastery, this is one of our practices. And I do it with a bunch of teams is like, what's this year about? Yeah. And I'll ask athletes and coaches, like, okay, you can do the year. It can be January 1st or could be the start of the season. Yeah. What's the promise?

Like, what's the promise you're making to yourself? What are you committing to? What's the fundamental commitment? that idea. And for three to four years in a row, I can't remember, it was play. Like, I know I need more play because I'm intense. I'm serious. I'm all these things. So my muse was like a panda bear. Okay, like no predators. They're just rolling around. They're having a good time. So if you were to kind of recommit right now or declare, I should say, what is this next year or what is this next phase of your life about? If you're a panda bear, I'd be a beaver. A beaver. What do you mean?

What is a beaver doing? I love this. I love how they're industrious. Like they can just build something out of nothing. They've got the, they can swim in the river. They look, they look free,

but then at the same time, they can work hard and build something. Oh, and they're really community, you might be able. Yeah. And they work together. Yeah.

Oh, so a beaver. Okay. Eddie the Beaver. That's my resolution. That's your documentary. Eddie the Beaver. Okay, good.

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Thank you for bringing all of yourself into it. What we haven't gotten to, though, is like practices. What do you do to switch on a culture to activate the identity that you want to do? Do you have rituals that are maybe, I don't know, fun to celebrate or point two that are important? It's done all sorts of things. And again, it varies on the team. I remember, you know, the Japan team, we used to have this. really hard training regime.

So we train three times a day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 7, 10, 3. But then on a Wednesday night, we'd go and have a Korean barbecue, Yaku Niku, for two hours, and everyone to relax, enjoy themselves, and the players would look forward to it. So that really work with that group. So for each group, I think there's things that work,

that help reinforce the identity, to help reinforce the behaviours that you want. One of the interesting things, post the game, like if you think about 20 years ago, post the game, the old thing was don't touch the players for 48 hours, let them chill, let them get themselves right, right? Which is the rugby thing. And now we'll come back to a room like this,

we'll have tables set out, and we'll ask the players for 15 minutes in their positional group to have a quick chat. They might have a beer, they might have a soft drink, to have a chat about the game and reconnect on the game and have a think about what we need to do. And that's been something that's really, I think, work well for this group of players. And it's athlete-led. We try to encourage the players to lead as much as possible.

So for my group, I might sit down and say, right, for instance, the highball didn't work well today, boys. Can you guys have a think about what we need to do to improve it for next week? Or it might be they lead it. So a combination of it. That's different. When I went and spent some time with like a couple of the rugby clubs in Europe, a couple of things that are different. Rugby versus American sport is in rugby,

they play for the shirt. Yeah. For the tradition, right? And so culture is, needs to capture that heritage, if you will. And the other thing is it's way more athlete led than in the U.S. It's very much coach led. And we adopted some of that up at the Seahawks where there was like, how do we bring the voice in of the athletes?

athlete in a way that drives their engagement in a deeper level. So is that why you do it? Yeah, 100%. I want the players to own the game. And you've also got to realize in rugby, like, we're not allowed, coach is not allowed on the field. So once the whistle goes, the players are in charge of the game. So they've got to adapt to the game. They've got to make decisions. So we want to encourage that as much as we can. So we try to drive that player engagement. But I think, you know, the way you run meetings now are completely different than before. And we're trying to get much better in engaging the players. You know, if you just look at how school teachings changed over the last period of time,

you know, before it was a teacher at the front, lecturing, telling them what to do. Now teachers want to engage. They want to use multimedia. They want the kids to work out problems in groups. So I think coaching's moving in that direction. and particularly in rugby where, as I said, you know, players have to solve the decisions by themselves, problems by themselves. If we knew what you knew, how would we lead better? I always find, like I always come back to it.

I think if you look at how you teach or how you lead, there's being explicit and being implicit. And then within that, you've got all your players, right? And somewhere on that line, there's a sweet spot for each of the players, and there's a sweet, spot for the group. And as a coach, you're always trying to find that. Where is it? That's very cool. Yeah. What have you had to unlearn over your decades of working with multiple cultures? And I mean, Australia, Japan, England, and then the multicultural of players that are on your team. What have you had to unlearn over the last 30 years of coaching? I think the one thing you've always got to stop yourself doing is assuming, assuming, you see a player and you assume something, you've been told about this

player, you assume something, you got a staff member. You should never assume in catching. You know, you should always confirm. And you can only confirm by getting to know that person. That's awesome. Rassie is a coach that, you know, who's making some noise and having a way. And what do you respect about his coaching approach? And what do you fundamentally differ, if anything? He's his amazing story, you know, because he, we, Japan beat South Africa in 2015 World Cup. That was a shocker. Yeah.

Right. Was it a shocker to you? Ah, yes. It was. Yeah, it was a shocker. South Africa, folks that don't follow rugby is like a dominant, always have been. They are an incredible nation of sport. Yeah.

And a small little nation as well. And so when Japan, also small and size, was rivaling this big, you know, South African reputation. It was a moment now. But post that, the interesting thing was, South Africa said, right, we can't play rugby like we used to, which is physical, a lot of kicking, not glamorous sort of rugby, hard, tough rugby. So they brought in a new coach, right?

And if you can imagine, he wants them to play like Patrick Mahomes, right? The ball's fizzing around everywhere, right? The ball's moving. But it doesn't suit them. So they win 40% of the tests for two years. So Rossi comes in and we talk about identity. He goes straight back to South African identity. Like kick, chase hard, be tough, be brutal.

And they win the next two World Cups, right? Next two World Cups they win by going back to the identity. And the other smart thing, and I don't know 100%, but I've heard enough, one of the things he does that a lot of teams have gone away. from on the first training training day Monday. If you don't train on that day, you're not eligible for selection. Right? So, and it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're the best player in the world.

And they train, reasonably hard. Like, it's not a walkthrough. It's not training shoes on. They train reasonably hard. So you've got to be ready on the Monday, which again, you know, if you just think about it, you're setting the tone for the week. Be ready on Monday. Be ready to go.

Be ready to train. So I think those two things he's done absolutely brilliantly. So there's a standard there. Yeah. Right. Standard identity. Yeah. So he knew the ethos of that region of the world and what South African.

And you could do this for your company as well. Like what do we stand for? And then you back in behaviors and standards and ways of talking. Yeah. You know, that would back that thing up and make it honest. Yeah. But if you did that with Australia, you get absolutely nowhere. Like you'd have the players on strike.

You know, because Australians want to have a saying how they play, right? English should follow it for a while and then they'd revolt. Yeah, and it's different for, particularly in international sport, there's a social norm that you've got to take into consideration of how people behave. I think what Russi's done is understood South Africa brilliantly. He's highly detailed guy. They like a lot of detail. And generally speaking, South Africa players like to be told.

They like to be told what to do. Look at that. Where do you disagree with his approach? Nothing. You like it. Yeah. And I think he's, the only probably thing I don't like is that I think he's used social media to put a lot of pressure on referees, which I don't think is probably the right thing to do. When you're coaching Japan, which you still are right now, but when you went up against South Africa, this might be one of the greatest.

upsets in rugby, in world sport. How did you mentally prepare them? So two years before the World Cup, we saw the draw came out and we had Savonvaga first, right? And traditionally, Japan had always played their B team against the top team and saved themselves for the other World Cup games, right? So I immediately said to them, we're going to pick our best team. And then I put up there, beat the box.

and these are the things we've got to practice. There was three things we've got to practice. Then we came up with a modified game of how we're going to play against Springboks. And every training session we do that. This is how we're going to beat them. So you had this vision for three years. You're backed into it.

And just practiced it, talked about it. This is how we're going to beat them. This is how we're going to do it. Stop training. This is going to be the time where it's going to happen. And, you know, because there's some time in the game where their power is going to take over and we're just got to hang in there. Because they're so powerful.

Yeah. We've got to hang in for a period of time. And if we can hang in there for a period of time, they start to get uncomfortable. So we just dressed it, dressed it. And because of that, the players believed we got them super fit because we said we were going to be the fittest side in the world. So we got them super fit, dressed rehearsed, spoke about it, messaged it. and had a bit of luck.

What does competitive unity mean to you when you hear that term, competitive unity? That everyone's working towards the same goal. And is the goal in that framing, is it to be one's very best, or is it to be better than the others? Yeah, only thing you control is be the best version of yourself. And that's the great, I remember watching recently, there was something on Netflix on the American gold medal team in basketball, the recent one. And they had a great shot of the Croatians. And the Croatians that got beaten by America and they were having their post day. And they're

sitting around and they were so proud of what they'd done. And one of the players who plays NBA, I can't remember his name, was saying, look, we played really well, but we're just not good enough to beat them. And there's no embarrassment to that. And that's all you can do. And I want every team that I coach to sit down at the end of it and say, well, we did our best. Like, did we win? Well, hopefully, you always want to win. But if you didn't win, you just gave your best and you feel that we did our best. You know, and that's a powerful feeling.

That's where the relentless and common standards for weeks and years leading up to this moment, whatever this moment is, meaning this conversation even, if you were uninformed for the three decades that you've been coaching and haven't thought about much. And then here we are talking about deep, honest conversations, you would fall apart. Right. And that's for all of us, whether it's in a living room and a loving conversation or it's, you know, in a boardroom with an intense conversation. It's the relentless, uncommon standards to practice being your very best over time with tension so that at some point you can be in flow. with, you know, how it's going.

And so that's what I hear you saying is like, we said, this is the mission, beat the box. And that comes from Springboks, right? Yeah, the name of the club. And then it wasn't just about being better than them. It was about we're going to be our very best in these three ways. Yeah. And we're going to practice it.

And then you would call it out, reward it, praise it, you know, and correct it when it wasn't. Yeah, yeah. Man, I think I understand. I would like to be coached by you. Good. Yeah. But I reckon that's one of the questions any coach should ask themselves or a leader should

ask themselves, would you like to be coached by yourself? Would you like to be led by yourself? I think is a great question. And so I think sometimes I scare myself. I think I'm really hard on myself, but I no longer cut myself. I'm no longer mean to myself. I wasn't really always that mean, but there was an exacting standard. I'm still looking for that standard, but I like my friend within myself. Do you like your, do you like how you speak to yourself? I think you've always got to take yourself to the edge. Yeah. Like if you're not, if you're not on the edge,

you're not really where you can be. And the edge for me is like being radically honest. Like, that's the edge. Because I can tell stories to myself to make myself feel okay about how something went. But if I'm really honest, it usually is about the preparation leading to that was not quite up to standing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the most important conversation you'll have. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point.

When you think about the countries that have the best emotional control, the ones that are cool, they're just cool, they handle it. They're all about the business and they stay connected when it gets really hot. I think of Irish rugby. Yeah. You do too? Yeah, yeah. I think of South African.

Yeah. Yeah. Who else do you think of? Do you think of Australia? New Zealand? Not recently. Probably, New Zealand are falling off a little bit. Historically that happened.

I think that's a really interesting point. Yeah, because a lot of sport now, you're being encouraged to celebrate good moments. You know, and I was watching a rugby league in Australia and the team that did really badly, right, and they played their first pre-season game. And every time they're doing something, they've got 13 blokes, they're all giving high-fives. And there's all this energy, right, in this trial game, they win easily. They play the first game the year. year they get beaten by 30 points. And after 20 minutes, there's no celebration. You know,

there's nothing there. In other words, the circumstances are dictating the behavior. And the behavior is not driving the circumstance. So when you get that thing out of whack, I watch for that. Yeah. What do you do after? What do you do when? And if it's not consistent, I'm like, oh, they don't have a system. They don't have a way of going about it. They're just riding the momentum. Yeah. So getting back to Ireland and South Africa. My perception of them is that they enjoy the game and they do celebrate but they don't go over the top. So imagine we're having a party today and there's four crates of beer come in, which is just about enough for everyone to have one beer.

They don't bring in eight crates of beer, right? Yeah, so they don't go nuts. And I think that emotional. So when you get disappointed in, because I think the big thing is not when you're doing well, it's the disappointment of the game, how you cope with the disappointment of the game. That thing about getting your mental modeling as close to reality as you can, so that when something goes bad, you can stick at it, right, let's get this right. And I think they're really good at that, both of those teams.

I know the Irish system for a long time would coach up against that, yeah. And who else comes in mind that really that we can look to and watch that has a... They're probably the best, those two. They are. Yeah, and who are the wild cards that they are like, you know, like I want to pick on Brazil for a moment in so many sports, like moments of brilliance. And then as soon as it starts going sideways, some of the teams, the national teams, you know, they start to turn on each other even. France is a bit like that. France is a little bit like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're funny how the cultures and ethos. There's so many ways to get to brilliance. Yeah. Right. Yeah, very cool. What would you give, what guidance would you give to the U.S. in, you know, you know, growing the accelerated rate of rugby here. That laugh is too much, man. I don't know if we've got enough time here.

It's such a good game. Why has it not? It suits USA. I think it's a gentleman sport. It's rough. It's rugged. It's tactical. Discipline and joy and high performance come together.

There's a bonding about it. You know, like I don't quite get it. What's USA rugby look like? What does a USA rugby team look like? like. Identity. Yeah. What is it? Okay. Yeah. If, if I had an idea, I think you've got to be, you've got to be big, you've got to be physical, and you've got to be fast. Like, that's what USA have got. They've got big physical, fast athletes. Right. So then, then you've got to add to that some level of, of smartness to it. So how you're going to play a little bit smart, but really

put yourself on, that's how we're going to play. Yeah. This is USA. Oh, I see how you're doing. This is USA. Finding Master is brought to you by AG1. Summer is here. At least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. You can just feel it, though. Days are longer, pace picks up, and there's this sense of momentum that comes with the season.

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I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning. That's always in my control. That's always in your control, too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using.

The best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to finding mastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to finding mastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. And if you were coaching USA, how would you establish the values or the, yeah, would you start with values? I'd start with the rugby first and then go down from there. You would start with the tactics. Yeah, yeah. Like this is how we're going to go.

Because I reckon, you know, in establishing the culture of a team, there's two ways you can do it. You can start with the values. These are the values we want to have and then build your team up from that. Or you can go, this is the game we want to play. And from that, these are the values that are going to be important. Because, you know, like, you do a lot in business. You go to a business and there's all integrity, respect, you know, all those things are up there. You know, and they're just words, aren't they? In reality, you've got to have a clear model of what

behaviours are important. And sometimes those can come from the game, right? So, you know, we play a hardworking game. And if you're one player, you might only touch the ball for two seconds. So the other 79 minutes, 58 seconds, you're running around supporting. Like, and that, that's a selfless game. So there's some values that are non-negotiable. And then you've got to work out, right, what do we want to still see in our game? Yeah, if I use an example, when I first coached the Brumbies in Australia, we were a team that was basically led by the players. So we'd get together on a Monday night, six senior players for two hours,

we'd thrash out the gameplay. Never done it with any other team. But they loved doing it. And it was their key behavior that they wanted to be smarter than everyone else and they wanted the players to lead it. Very cool. When you work out the behaviors, do you teach explicitly teach the behaviors? Or do you say, right, this is how coaches we're going to model it?

How do you get into the actual behavioral change? I think coach is modeling it, making sure you're rewarding it, making sure you're praising it, and making sure you're correcting it. And as much as you can show it at team meetings, this is what we want to see. This is what we don't want to see. after a blowout where you you really underperformed and you go to film or tape do you do you point out the mistakes or do you point out the successes of what we could become again today mate i reckon you just got to find the good things yeah so what is your good things as you can what is your ratio there uh almost 80 20

January 80, 20, 80% good stuff, 20% is what we've got to get better at. When I bring that idea into non-sport environments, they're like, wait, you don't, because the old image of like Monday morning kind of after a Sunday game, Monday morning, you're going to get blasted by the coach if you're, that's old. That doesn't work. And you still hear the commentators talk like that. Yeah, on like media. Yeah, it's old.

It does not work that way. I need to flood my imagination with what is good, what I'm working toward, what I could become more. Like, I need to flood myself with that because there's so much noise. Don't show me. I know where I screwed up. Believe me. But like reinforce how the things, I do need some insight about, look, I've told you a thousand times.

Don't take a full step. It's a half step. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, that's right. A half step. Yeah. Okay.

But generally, you're saying we want more of this. and it might be at the end or at the start we need a little bit less of this voice a little bit less of this yeah let's have but let's have more of this but do you say it with a smile like you just did oh i think that's one of the most important things now to to be optimistic and positive i think again if i think back to when i first started coaching you hey jones is talking about optimism is that right you have to be you have to be yeah i think it's really important now have you Have you always been fundamentally optimistic? Optimistic, but could be a bit dower and tough.

Yeah. You know, and had that tough persona. Frustrated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think now one of the things you don't want to show is frustration, right? Because? Because I don't think the younger generation can cope with it.

I think, if I think about my father, right, he fought in three wars, right? He's a soldier, right? So he had a tough life. I haven't been to any war. I've never had to look at anything. You're still flip-flops. Right. Yeah, right.

Never had to, right? And my daughter has had an even easier life. So that's the way life's going. So this is not something that we should think is unexpected. You know, it's expected that people are going to tolerate less tough things as we go on. Yeah. But the way we're still got to teach them to play tough, you know, How do you do that?

Well, that's going to be training, standards at training. Standards and training. So I've got a leader that I work with where she's amazing, by the way. She's smart. She's articulate. She understands excellence. She's great. And her team will say, Mike, it's a little unreasonable, though.

I go, what do you mean? Well, if we show her a PowerPoint deck that we're going to present on whatever and there's a period out of place, like, it's a thing. And if there's three lines, when it should be two lines, because all the other things had two lines, and we couldn't quite figure out how to say it. So we just made it look asymmetrical. It's a thing. And like we all get berated.

And, you know, it's like, it's overwhelming. So then my question back was like, okay, what are you working for here? You know, and let them tell me what the, well, we want to be great. Well, there's some standards here. So are you attention to detail? Is that what standards means? It's a really good question. I remember I had this PA.

And a PA means personal assistant. Okay. And she was fantastic. Best person in the world. Do anything. But, you know, say she had to write up food, nutrition ingredients, they'd be five spelling errors. And I remember one day I drilled her on it.

And I reckon by doing that, I took away a bit of a love of the job. job. So I think it's always balancing. You need to have standards, right? So I'm probably going around this in a funny way, but you need to have standards, but you've got to understand for your staff or for your players, is that going to make a difference to what they do? Does that make sense? Yeah, say those documents, like, I hate seeing spelling errors and I hate seeing sloppiness in documents, but drilling down into that, is that going to going to help you win. That's the thing you've always got to be thinking about. Not just having it for the sake of having it, is it important to help you win? How do you finish this thought?

If you don't get this right, you'll never understand what you're capable of. How do you own that? Well, I think getting it right for each person's different. So you've got to know what's right for them to make them want to, you know, run faster, play harder, give more love. to the organisation. I think you've got to understand what's right for them. You know, if I go back to that PA, I still think about it all the time and I regret it so much

that I took her love of the job away just because she was untidy in one area. And the value she'd give to the organisation was far greater than those errors. And that was probably the best lesson I've had. So I always try to weigh that up when I'm thinking about those things now. And particularly in Japan, you know,

We've got a multilingual situation. So some of the English spelling we get, you know, it's off the charts. So I have to just put my head down. No, no. Let's keep going. Okay, a couple quick hits. It all comes down to.

I think you've got to inspire people. Inspiration. If you could name a boat, what would you put on the name of the boat? Ensemble. Relationships are? Most important. Success is?

hard work the uncomfortable truth that most people would not admit about winning is that the grind sometimes becomes the grind Eddie Jones what a gift thank you so much for how you've shown up today and the way that you've put your words together is evidence of years of understanding of what it takes. And it's been a real joy to get to know you in this way. So thank you so much. No, well, thanks to you. It made me think a lot today. That was quite a difficult podcast. And I see why you've been so popular. So I hope this becomes the best podcast you've ever done. Let's compete. Let's compete. Okay. Appreciate Jenny. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next time on Finding Masteru, we're joined by Dr. Stacey Sims, exercise physiologist, nutrition,

best-selling author and one of the leading voices in women's health and performance. For decades, much of what women have been told about nutrition, training, recovery and aging was built from research conducted primarily on men. Stacey challenges that foundation with a simple but powerful idea. Women are not small men. In this conversation, we explore why so many women feel like their bodies suddenly change the rules, what's actually happening during perimenopause and menopause, and how to work with your physiology instead of fighting against it. We also discusses us what partners, coaches and families often misunderstand about these transitions. So join us Wednesday, July 15th at 9 a.m. Pacific, only on Finding Mastery. All right. Thank you so much for diving

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