Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Volleyball Great Karch Kiraly on Leadership, Passion, Risk

Episode Date: August 19, 2015

Volleyball legend and three-time Gold Medalist, Karch Kiraly joins the show to discuss his path to Finding Mastery. The ‘winningest’ player in the history of the sport, Karch Kiraly is considered the “Michael Jordan” of pro beach volleyball as he is the oldest player to compete in the sport and continues to perform at the highest level — beating competitors literally half his age. He has won at least one tournament in 24 of the 28 seasons he has played, spanning four different decades._________________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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but there's 148 tournament wins on the professional beach volleyball, and it's currently the record. And he has Kerry Walsh Jennings nipping right at his heels, and so we'll see how that plays out. That's a really exciting kind of piece of information. But most importantly, he just brings a level of ferocity and fire and competitive spirit. And it's authentic. He's not interested. I want to say he's not interested in beating the other person, but what he's more interested in is progression and making it happen at the highest possible level right now. And there's some amazing gems and nuggets in here about parenting, about how his dad helped him value the process and the performance progression, as opposed to just getting caught in, you know, being the best kid in Santa Barbara,

which is one of the meccas for beach volleyball. And at a young age, he was one of the best around and he didn't care about it. He didn't get caught up in it. He was purposely positioning his efforts towards progression. And so there's some great nuggets in here and there's a cost. We won't talk about it in this podcast, but hopefully I'll talk about it at a later time. there's a cost to being really good early. And there's a cost to early success for people is that their identity gets foreclosed on and they say, I'm an athlete. And then when that takes place, like going out and competing and putting your skills on the line, there's a great fear that can take place with that. We don't get into that here because he talks about the other side, which is, okay, I'm really

hungry for getting better. And it's been that way for a long time. And so some of his stats that, you know, he wouldn't want to talk about, but he's won three Olympic golds and he did two indoor and he did one on the beach. And that's phenomenal. I mean, two different sports, basically same skill sets, but the translation between indoor and soft sand is noticeably different. And indoor obviously has many more people on a team and on the beach is just you and your partner. So he was able to make that transition. And now he's onto another transition. And that transition is being the head coach for the women's national team. And all the frames that he's seen and experienced as being one of the best athletes, male athletes, in the game. So what he's doing now is on the third transition into coaching.

And he's got a really clear approach. And he's translating how to his team, how he's done that. He also wants to make sure that there's a lot of fun taking place in the gym on a regular basis. So it's serious, it's competitive, there's lots of fun, and that there's a deep connection and that the relationships really matter to him. And then the last is that the way it looks when they play really well is that women's national team volleyball is fast. And so there's fast, there's fun, there's the deep connections, and there's a ferocity about him and the team that he's cultivating. So he's got great talent in the gym. He's got a real clear purpose on how. And in this conversation, he breaks down his path towards mastery, how he understands how

progression and mastery works. And then he gets into the particular mindset skills that he values and some of the ways that he's cultivated those over time. So I'm honored to be able to have this conversation. I'm honored to be able to work with the women's national team. And there's something really special about being part of a national team and being able to wear the flag and be part of that purity of performance. So I can't wait to share this with you. Let me stop talking and get right into this great conversation. It was a joy to be part of this with a legendary athlete and coach Karch Karai. Here we are Karch. Yeah. Thank you so much for spending the time. We've had the opportunity to spend countless and scores of great conversations over the last three, is it three or

four? It's gotta be three. I guess we would say two plus because we got to first meet early in 2013 and then got to start working together with the team in May of 2013. Here we are in two and a half years later, calendar wise. And at the end of our third USA season together, really exciting stuff going on. And I think about it and I just when I said really exciting stuff going on, my I think about it and I just, when I said really exciting stuff going on, my whole body lit up with goosebumps. And those, you know, what I'm looking at is Karch's hair literally standing up and there's a running joke here in between us and the team that as soon as you say

something, you can't hide it when you're excited. Cause every, every party comes alive. I fess up to my volley dorkness. I will revel in my volley dorkness, but the, I don't know, there's something I like. There's, uh, I am authentic or sincere when I tell somebody, when I get excited by something that somebody has done, that maybe they're working really hard to get a little better. I can literally get these. I don't try to, I just do. I get excited for something, for a light bulb to go off brighter or for the first time. And that's a big part of, all of our staff are amazing with

this in terms of trying to bring out the best in each of the people in our program. And if they do that, then most of our work is, can be considered a success. So there's two nuggets in there. So often we have the conversation about excellence happens in the present moment and the importance to train ourselves to be present. And this is a great example of it, is that when you're fully connected to a thought, an idea, an image, an emotion, that full presence for you is realized by

seeing your hair stand up. And there's a technical name for it. Philo or pilo erection. I knew you'd love that. I'll take it. Yeah. Only dork pilo erection specialists. Oh my God. That would go down forever. So, so that's an aliveness that you bring probably to your whole career, your whole life, all of the relationships that you have.

And so as this conversation unfolds, hopefully we'll be able to talk about how you prepare to be present so often in life. And obviously being one of the best ever to play the game, there's something we can all learn from this. So if we just began with how did did it start? Like this process or path of mastery for you. And if we can quickly snap back to like when you were young and, you know, there's a storied history here. So share as much as you want about, you know, your relationship with your dad, your dad's relationship with country and your unique path where it begins and that might be a kind of a first memory or you know not of life but like first memory of kind of how this path of volleyball excellence has been on for you I think a few big things come to mind first before I was born my

father grew up in Hungary and he fell in love with the sport of volleyball there. He played some other things. Everybody plays soccer everywhere in the world except the U.S., although that's growing here, too. And so he played on the Hungarian junior national team, and he heard reports that Hungary, people all over Hungary heard that they might get their freedom for the first time. What year was this? This was in 1956, 11 years after the end of World War II. After World War II, lots of Eastern Europe was taken over behind the iron curtain by the Soviet Union,

and they were basically a client state, a puppet state of the Soviet Union. So students all across the country got super excited. Every day they would have peaceful demonstrations, 50,000, 100,000 mostly university students assembling in the square with this incredible, this excitement that they were going to start to get to vote, get some democracy, start choosing their leaders, start determining their own country's outcomes. And then eventually that, and so he would walk through the neighborhood every day and he could see the, the, every block, about every block had a communist party member who was part of the puppet Soviet regime who would kind of peek out of the curtains and take numbers and take names and keep track of who was going where, their travel. And so he could see the guy watching him in the window every day on his way to these demonstrations. And so then the Soviets sent in the tanks to crush the revolution.

And he knew that he was probably going to be tortured and strung up somewhere if he didn't get out of town. So he had to leave his five-year-old sister and his parents and sprint for, make a run to cross the border into Austria. And so he came to this country. So that's the first big part of my story is he is one of the most proud Americans I could possibly know, waves the flag with great passion and pride and loves this country that has taken him in and given him the opportunity to meet a wife and have a family and become a doctor and have a long and successful career. And then to have a son who got to represent this country at the highest levels playing volleyball, both indoors and sand. So that's the start of that story. And then he began teaching me when I was about six years old, because he kept playing. He played

some sand volleyball on the beaches in Detroit. We ended up, I grew up for a good part of my early years in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he went to school, where he met my mom. And so we would play. We would just bop the ball back and forth. When I was six years old, we went to Santa Barbara for his internship year of medicine, first year out of medical school. And he and my mom just completely fell in love with Santa Barbara. It's an easy place to fall in love with. And that's where we started bopping the ball back and forth, just kind of peppering. And, and so, um, that's how I got my start when, so there's lots of ways that parents and mentors and people teach us. And what does your dad represent to you? And the reason I'm asking

you this is because he has such a big influence in your life. And, you know, what does he, maybe not necessarily what did he teach you, but what does he represent to you that he naturally taught you through his day-to-day livings and how he conducted himself? He is incredibly passionate about his vocation and his avocations, his hobbies. And that was evidence early about him kind of standing up with the revolution. Absolutely. So was he noisy in that revolution?

I don't think he was like a big leader who had a bullhorn out there, but he was absolutely, I'm sure, not embarrassed to be out front and center. He would walk right by the Communist Party member and not shrink. He was no shrinking violet. Okay, so go into that because there's something here that really captures my understanding of you too, is being able to stay big, to fight when you need to fight, to be fluid when you need to be fluid. So can you talk more about this concept of staying himself and not shrinking? Uh, absolutely. I mean, he, for years, he started a tradition in Santa Barbara, a couple of traditions. One of them was called his, uh, my dad's name is Laszlo.

Everybody calls him Laz for short. Um, there's this thing, I don't even know if it really exists anymore cause he doesn't play anymore, but they called it Laz Ball at East Beach in Santa Barbara. And that was you go down early, you call some buddies, and you get to the court and just play your tail off for three hours, like from 7.30 to 10.30 or 11 on a Saturday morning, and you've got this amazing workout. You're giving everything you have.

You're not playing in a tournament. You're only playing because you love this game. But you would walk down there, and you would hear him absolutely before you saw him. He just had these things that he would scream because he has a Hungarian accent, having come here when he was 21. But some of the things he would say would be like, rise and think, coach, jump and hit

that ball. I mean, he would scream these things. And this was just a hobby just for fun, playing last ball. This is to you? To me, to anybody, whoever. And when you play last ball, you usually play with each of the other three guys, and you want to be the winner every time.

You want to be the champion for that day because you play this kind of round-robin, king-of-the-beach format. And people would just be like, who is this guy? And where is he from? And why is he so loud? But he just put everything he had into it for those three hours, and there was no trophy on the line. There was just fierce competitiveness, trying to get better, trying to learn new stuff, trying to learn well into playing into his 60s. And then the other thing he brought

to East Beach was this concept, because he was a doctor, is they had these nooner courts. And I don't know if they have that anymore, but these nooner courts, basically they designated a bunch of courts. It didn't matter if you were Kerry Walsh or Karch or whoever. If you were on that court, you were booted from when the nooner club members who were working, who were working guys, worked all day. When they got down there, they got precedence and could kick anybody off from 12 to 1.30. And so for those 90 minutes, most of his patients didn't know that he had trunks on,

he had a bathing suit on underneath his suit as a doctor. He'd sprint down there, play for 85 of those 90 minutes. Get the best in the world off the sand. Take the best in the world off the sand. Get his 90 minutes in, shower, sprint back to work because he was madly in love with this game. And in that sense, I got completely infected by this same love for this game. He has so much passion for it. And I got exposed to a lot of that early.

So it started when I was six, and then we played in our first tournament together when I was 11. We were a team for the first four years I ever played. And so I was the quiet one. I was intense, but really quiet. He did all the talking because of this. Rise and think, jump and eat that ball. Go, cars, go, go.

He'd just be screaming and getting me going. And I was like, okay, cool. This is awesome. And you're saying rise and think? Uh-huh. Yeah, like get up in the air. He would come up with these weird things that would just, yeah, like jump and think and hit a good shot and put it somewhere. But it wasn't so much, uh, literally it was just, he had these, uh, lazisms that people would hear and they would just get a chuckle out of,

but they also, uh, grew. It would just became a part of East beach that you would hear Laz before you saw him. And so he was essentially, he was my first coach, my first teammate, and he and I were my first, that was the first team I was ever really a part of in volleyball. Did that get confusing for you? Or like, was he always dad? Or was he coach, teammate? Like as a young kid, because I know that a lot of caring parents want to be able to bring this level of infectious, to use your word, passion and drive and intensity to something that

they find to be really valuable. And then it gets confusing to, to kids. Like if you just reflect on that, did that looking back, did that get confusing ever? Or was it really clear that he's dad, this is how dad is. and he accepts me for whatever? It doesn't mean I have to be great. To me, it was really clear. My mom remembers it differently. Like, I remember just that my dad was available to play when I wanted to play. She remembers it more that he would drag me out once in a while.

But I remember a lot of it that when I was ready to play, whenever I was ready, he was ready. And when I wasn't, he wasn't. So that was a big part of it. What a great little nugget right there. And not driven into that. I consider myself really lucky that I grew up and there were no video games at that time.

Everything kids did was outside. We were the old thing, the, uh, classic saw that you'd hear you'd stay outside until the dinner bell rang and got called in cause you didn't want to be out inside. There was nothing fun to do inside. So I consider myself very lucky that there were no video games. I know those would have called to me in my intense nature. And if I'd have gotten into a video game, I would have wanted to do really well at it. And I would have spent more time on things like that and less time on things that were, I guess, sports related. He also taught me how to play soccer. So I was a pretty good soccer player, played on some teams that he coached. And then also, I think I was really lucky to grow up for two reasons in a

time when there was no junior, no club volleyball. There were no clubs indoors. Now clubs are everywhere and club is what every kid grows up playing. And there were no junior age group tournaments in beach volleyball. Why was that good? For one thing, I got a huge advantage because when we first started playing, the first time I ever played on a court two on two was when I was nine. My dad said, I think you're about ready. We've been bopping the ball back and forth. Here's a good player. He's a buddy of mine. I play last ball with him, but he's better than I am,

so I want you to play with him. I'll play with another guy, and we'll just play a pickup game. That was at nine, and then at 11, I read an article in Sports Illustrated about one of the all-time greats of USA, a guy named Larry Rundle, who was a great indoor player and a great sand player, a great beach player. Not too many of those around.

As it turns out, I had pretty good careers on both sides of those, too. Kind of. Kind of. Yeah, right. So he had set a record of being the youngest ever to play in an adult tournament at 11 years old. So I thought, ah, that'd be kind of cool to match his record. So we played. We played in a tournament.

But the huge advantage I got was I saw adults playing. I didn't see 11-year-olds playing because kids who are 11, they don't really play the game very, they're not very sophisticated. So at 11, I'm seeing the game the way it's supposed to be played when I turn 17 or 22 or 32. Huge advantage that for years and years and years, I got to see it how it's supposed to be played, not how 11 or 12 or 14-year-olds play it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance,

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Okay, because one of the things I always think about for development, whether it's Best in the World or somebody that's at the recreation level or somewhere in between, is that there's these bands of performance. And the idea is how quickly can we move up one band, right? And I hope that makes sense. Like at the top, it's a very narrow band because there's very few people there. At the bottom, it's a wider band. How quickly can we work up into that band?

And then how well can we manage the transition through that band? And most people can only move up a couple bands. And then if we're playing, it's kind of like this idea that our social network and our environment are usually one or two standard deviations or above where we are or below possibly, but we can't, we can't be around people that are way smarter than us because the conversations don't make sense. And same with performance, but you were around people that were really good, maybe two or three bands above. And somehow you didn't shrink to that. I'm guessing this was your dad's coaching. You were learning that this is a learning process and it's okay to not be the best in the court when you're playing against the people, two or three bands above in talent.

Is that close? This was one of the great, I guess, empowering moments for me is when we entered that tournament when I was 11 years old and I'm playing against grown men in California beach volleyball at that time, there were these levels, maybe you could call them bands of, um, of expertise. And so, uh, yeah. And it would be novice B a double a triple a. If you were a triple a volleyball player, you were some of the best on the planet. And there were some triple a guys who lived and played every day at Santa Barbara. So I would watch and idolize the way they played. Do you remember any of their names? Yeah, I would see people like Jim Menges come to town once a year to play the Santa Barbara Open.

His partner, Greg Lee, Steve Obradovich, Gary Hooper, Fred Sturm, Andy Fishburne. I'd see all these guys come through town, and it was just awe-inspiring to see. And some guys who played at UC Santa Barbara were gauchos and then would stay in the summer times and play tournaments up and down the coast of California. But anyway, we entered this first tournament, and it was a novice tournament. It's the lowest one. When you win a tournament of a classification, you move up to the next. So you win a novice tournament it's the lowest one when you win a tournament of a classification you move up to the next so you win a novice you become a b and i'll just never i'll never forget it because these are all grown men and i'm just this

completely skinny punk kid and you i could see nobody played with sunglasses back then, so it was a cool little thing because I could see the fear in their eyes. Nobody wanted to lose to an 11-year-old kid. And it was incredibly empowering for me. were both really close and those grown men had to give everything they had to avoid, um, all of their friends just berating them and, and denigrating them for losing to an 11 year old kid in a novice tournament. But that was really powerful to me that at that age I could, I could push, I could, the great power was that I, it's really hard, it's really difficult to grow from a boy to become a good man, a good husband, and a good father. And on this one level, this was a huge gift to me that I could stand already at 11, 12 years old, toe to toe with men.

Doesn't mean I'm a good man, doesn't mean I'm a with men. Doesn't mean I'm a good man. Doesn't mean I'm a good husband. Doesn't mean I'm a good father, but at least in this one part of becoming a man already, I was able to stand toe to toe. It was awesome. How did you know to look for or interpret what was in their eyes? Was that something dad helped with or is it something? No, I think I just picked up on it it was like um it's the same thing because volleyball in years past was pickup or challenge or signups and at east beach the a court had one gnarly team after another so when you were good enough you you there was this natural thing you wanted to be good because if you lost you would have to wait three hours to get another shot on that court. So the same thing in tournaments, we just, you're trying,

I was trying really hard and I don't know, something about their demeanor, their body language. If I were a grown man, I probably wouldn't want to lose to 11 year old kid either. Of course. But this is something really, I think special is that you are not consumed with how you looked or the result you were going to take or I don't want to look bad. I don't want to let down dad. You were so present that you were seeing what was happening in others and filtering that in a way like, oh, look, okay. So they're concerned. Let me take advantage.

I got space now. Let me go. And what do you remember some of that inner dialogue? I was quite good at a very young age. So that stood out to people. And I don't know if it was just playing with my dad and no, you know, if I didn't give effort, he'd be like, come on, Karcher. You know, it was never, oh, you're so good at such a young age that you should be happy with where you are. It was about getting better.

It was about trying to become, give more effort, give better mastery, but not in a really demanding way. It was just like he'd be disappointed if I slacked on a play, or I'd be disappointed in him if he slacked on a play, as I learned from him. So for some reason, I'm really lucky I never got caught up in this thing of people watching me and what are they thinking. It was always about, God, this is so cool to be on the court with this guy. And then I'd play with my friends, and eventually we got up to the nerve when I was around 15 or so to challenge these AAA guys, these guys who were winning opens. They were the best beach volleyball, some of the best in the world.

And we'd lose 15-4, and we'd think, that's pretty cool. We can't wait to get up. First of all, it took us a lot of nerve to eventually challenge, and then we'd get our butts kicked. But we'd lose 15-4, and then the next time it was like 15, seven. And then all of a sudden now we're competing with them. And there was again, this power of like these guys are, well, these are just local kids. How, why are we having so worked so hard to beat them?

At 15, 16 years old. And what at home, what percentage, and this is me like actually curious now, but what was the percentage of conversations about winning versus progression and getting better and high effort? And this is easy, like process versus outcome focus from your dad. It wasn't that much about volleyball when we were off the court, in my recollection. It certainly wasn't about, oh, we didn't win this tournament,

we have to win this tournament. It wasn't about, oh, we didn't win this tournament. We have to win this tournament. It wasn't about winning. It was just about deriving joy from this thing that we both found that we loved. And this was kind of, it started as dad and son time, because when you're an intern in medicine, you're working close to at least 80, maybe 100 hour weeks. So our only time was on weekends. I wouldn't really see him during the week, but then we'd get to bop the ball around a little. And then as I got a little older, that was our time. On weekends, we would drive as far south as Ocean Beach in San Diego. All the way up and down the coast,

we would drive down early on a Saturday morning and couldn't get enough. We'd go to Marina del Rey. That was the big tournament we'd play at a lot. 128 teams in a novice tournament. I couldn't get enough. We'd go to Marina del Rey. That was the big tournament we'd play at a lot. 128 teams in a novice tournament. I couldn't get enough of volleyball. We'd stay overnight at a local motel, play all day Sunday, drive back Sunday night, and that was my time with him on the weekend. And then he'd work really hard during the week,

and I'd be doing my school thing. But outside of volleyball, I don't think there was very little about winning and losing and more just about, hey, maybe how do we get a little bit better for next weekend when we play the next tournament? Love it. And then so this is like the part of your relationship with your dad and the process. And you being one of the best, if not the best, hands down the best, you know, multiple awards medals, um, in multiple sports, indoor and out and beach. What is there a cost to investing deeply in mastery? Is there a, is there part of this that, um, you've experienced that says, okay, it's great to be one of the best. And there's also a, uh, another side to this that has been a real challenge. And,

you know, I'm thinking about people that are listening that have this glossy aspirational view of it, and it might not be so clean, you know, and I'm wondering if there's anything that comes to mind for you. Um, I think there is a cost at times. just is I guess I have to when I'm pursuing mastery I can get so engrossed in it that it's to the detriment or to the cost of making sure I have enough focus on other things that are important, really important in my life. My wife, our kids, things like that. So my wife, Jana, has been great about just kind of gently steering me back when I get particularly involved in the vortex of trying to, I don't know, help this team be a little better. You can take that to the nth degree and work on it 24 hours a day. is that I'm not taking enough time for myself outside of volleyball with family, with friends, to recharge

and have the energy I need to be good at anything that I'm doing. So certainly that can be all-encompassing at times. That's the side that can be all encompassing at times that that's the side that can be a challenge because it's something I really love to do. It's not, it's not an illegal activity. It's a perfectly legal and wonderful activity, but too much of anything is too much of anything. Yeah. I'm on this conversation on this side of the conversation, having some relief and because I struggle with the same exact thing and people ask me about balance all the time. I don't have it in my life. And most of the people that I'm spending time with would say, yeah, I don't think I have balance as well. But the, the, the search is not for balance. It's for being deeply connected to whatever it is that we're doing at the time.

So being a great dad, a great husband, a great coach, and a great player when you're with it, when you're actually playing. One of the things that helped with that certainly was the fact that my wife and I homeschooled our boys for five years. And that was a time I would never give up, just precious, precious time to be able to spend with them. And it worked well because my summers with sand volleyball, I still could be around during the week, but I would be gone every weekend. And so my summers were the busiest time, and a normal school kid, the summers are the off time. So it was a great way to kind of balance some of that out that when I was most busy, they were least busy and most available to me. And I couldn't always be available for that.

Yeah. So creating a structure for that deep connection in time. OK, is there a phrase that guides your life? Whatever might come to mind? Um, I don't know if there is one, but you could certainly, we've had a lot of work with our team in terms of what could easily stand for is just relentless pursuit of good or of better. Not of perfection and not of great. But some really good things will happen if you relentlessly pursue better. Yeah. Your, your whole life has been invested in progression and growth and, um, taking lessons from today and moving forward with you for the next opportunity, whatever it is. Yeah. Is there a word that would cut to the center of what you understand most in life?

Is it, it's a tough question. Hmm. Well, one of my buddies, a great friend and recognizable and charismatic and just loved having him as a teammate. Big guy with a red flat top. Some people remember him with that unique haircut. But he would just say, you can't do anything halfway. You do everything as hard as you possibly can. So I don't know.

It's something to do with effort or excellence, I guess, would be two. Because it is really hard for me to do anything half-ass, halfway. That just feels like a total waste of time for me. And following this thread, is there a word that describes who you are the best? Hmm. I don't know that there is cause I want to be a good man, a good American, a good husband, a good father, a good teammate, a good coach, and somebody who's trying to find and bring out the best in people around them. I don't know if there's a word that fits for that. Yeah. I don't know if there is either.

But is there, maybe in another language, it's like the French are a little more precise than we are in language. But is there, what are you hungry for? Like what are you hunting or hungry for in life? Right now, at least inside of volleyball, I'm hungry in this constant pursuit that this team, this USA Women's team has to reach higher levels of mastery, to get better, and to help the team get to places it's never, addictive. And so that's where I have to find some, some happy mediums too. Yeah. It's on this side of the art, not the side, but being part of what you're creating and developing, um, the consistency of your approach towards progression and effort

and rise and think, you know, and this, this real deep interest in how do we get better today is created so much space for athletes to be able to trust and let go and figure it out as they go. And instead of this need to be perfect and from my lenses, it's a gift that you've given every member of this team for them to be able to know that they're working on being their best, and that's it. It's not perfect. It's just being their best. It's created so much space for people.

And I wonder if you've noticed it in the time you've been able to help dictate or guide some of the ethos and culture. I have. have, I just think there is some comfort when it's acknowledged that a player gets here and she's acknowledged that you are not fully formed when you get here. Hopefully you're never fully formed. Hopefully you're always growing. Hopefully I'm never fully formed. Hopefully I'm getting better. That's my great hope and aspiration. But I think it's a lot better to be in a place of becoming, of constant becoming, than of being and stuck and static.

And, yeah, there it is again, the process of growth. And in that, it invites this relationship to risk-taking. And do you have a particular moment in time that captures your relationship with risk taking? Is there a specific moment where you say, this is when I figured some stuff out about risk taking? Um, cause you do let it rip. I remember the first meeting that we had with you and this team at the end

risk-taking no it wasn't risk-taking at all it was what you talked about you mentioned you remember helped me remember just because you said let it rip the at the end of that first meeting you asked people what's more fun? Is it to play it safe or is it to let it rip? And not a single hand went up that said it's fun to play it safe. So we let it rip. And a few weeks before that and the first meeting we had with me as head coach and the athletes, the players we had around at that time, maybe I took a little bit of a risk but I thought it made a lot of

sense. I just said, the first thing I said was, look none of us are good enough yet. That huge word yet. And it starts with me. I'm not good enough yet. And that's okay. I coached the last four years. We tried to do something from 2009 to 2012 in London to help the team get to somewhere it's never been before, to stand at the top of a podium at a major international event. And we got awfully close. We got a couple of silver medals, lots to be proud of. But I wasn't good enough for those four years. And so I thought taking a small risk to fess up, I guess, or take on the responsibility of not being good enough would be freeing to everybody around that it's okay to not be good enough and we're going to get better.

And to reveal that this is part of growth is like saying, okay, there's more to go. I'm not perfect. It hasn't been good enough yet. I I'm hunting for it. I'm hungry for it. And let's do this together. And it, it just invited everybody into this process. Cause you know, you are clearly the best to be able to do on as an athlete what you're doing and you're saying hey i'm in i'm in a learning frame right now from what i've learned and done at the highest level as a coach and the other thing is um if we're not making mistakes we're not pushing the envelope enough we have to be operating at the edge of our ability level so i kind of front loaded it.

I said, look, if I'm never making mistakes, I'm not pushing hard enough. So I'm going to be making some mistakes here. I'm not always going to be perfect for you guys. I'm going to screw up. We'll have a laugh about it, but it'll be part of this experience. And so hopefully you guys are okay making mistakes too, because I know I'm going to make some. I've never been a head coach anywhere before. I'm going to be learning a lot, but I need to be making mistakes or I'm not learning fast enough either. So hopefully that freed them up about this concept of risk and making mistakes too. And it probably freed you up too to say it, right? Yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't

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And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it,

I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash findingmastery and use the code findingmastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash findingmastery. And then, so this is, for me, if we can snap into inner dialogue, the inner critic, that little voice that can maybe keep us small or keep us safe, which is maybe not even close to what we really want to do in our talent.

What is your inner critic like or how do you deal with that inner voice, that self- don't know just the nonsense that gets in the way like what what is it that you do to be able to be great at that um I think first of all I've made a wise choice not to follow a lot of the I don't know social media stuff a lot of the, I don't know, social media stuff, a lot of the literal, literally there are lots of voices out there. And if I wanted to follow those closely, I'm sure I could find out lots of ways I screwed up. But it's not about all the mistakes I'm making is, is it, can I be better? And can I help people be better? So first of all, it's shutting off literally that noise out there and not paying attention to it. I learned that in Italy playing professionally over there, the papers would just kind of write anything, say anything, make up quotes about you, and I just learned not to pay attention to that stuff anymore.

And I grew up, for some reason, playing with my dad and just never got caught up in the thing of, oh, have you seen that 15-year-old kid and what he's doing? It wasn't about me and what I was doing at 15. It was like, hey, I want to beat that guy right now. I got to figure out how to get that shot up. He's got this really good shot. What's my answer to that so that next time we play,

I'm going to make his life a little tougher there and not get caught up with the people who are watching and talking and not doing. Do you think your framework of pursuing mastery, of growth, of being able to value progression at the same time being open and honest about where you are and your hunger for it, that that has decreased the volume of inner critic as well as not paying attention to what other people are thinking about you? I think having a growth mindset like that does help significantly decrease the volume. Uh, so you're not battling as hard in yourself as somebody who's got lots of doubt needs to be perfect. Um, I don't think so. Yeah. I think it's really freeing. Yeah.

It's freeing hopefully to all of the players, all of the people who play in this program, and to all of the staff in this program that we're all okay with screwing up sometimes and learning from it. We need to be operating at the edge. I love it because there's two ways that I always think about the inner game. There's the psychological framework, which is what you and I have been talking about so far. And then there's mental skills. And if you've got this really robust framework about, Hey, I'm gonna make mistakes, but I'm going to get over them quickly and I'm going to be better for them. And I'm really good as well. So let's package that up and go. We don't need to do as much mental skill work, but mental skills still has an advantage. So can you kind of walk us

through when people watch, um, yeah, when people watch you, um, what is your ideal competitive I always love to, I guess there were three things that were big for me as I competed as a player. Number one, how do I make people around me better because I found that really freeing because if I can help one person next to me or five people on the court with me play their best, then it doesn't really matter what I do. If I can find all these ways, sometimes I can be having kind of a lousy game, but if I can still help people play near at or near their best around me, then there's such power in that. And in a sense, that was freeing because it took away some of my putting pressure on myself to play well. So that was one, is elevating the play of those around me. Number two was just being as well prepared as I possibly could be, knowing there's this amazing sense of calm and of poise that comes with, look, I did everything I could to be ready, so now we'll just let the game take care of itself. And that,

and I did have a really strong ability to play one play as hard as I possibly could with a really high level of focus. And then I could back off from that and I could do that over and over again for hundreds and hundreds of plays in a given day and took me a while to develop that my dad certainly with his focus and his passion was a good model for that but that ability to just play in these discrete segments because if you you look at this tournament we have coming up we've got 11 matches um where we're trying to qualify for the olympics and if you look at it in its sum it's really intimidating but if we just think about that first play and give it everything we have and then the next play and then the next play and we string together lots of good on in these points then it's not so it's not intimidating at all it's just giving everything you have for

10 seconds brilliant and was there anything you did to be able to increase your ability to focus discreetly in this on-off mechanism or Or was it built into just how you trained? We would build practices to do that, for sure. We had challenging practices with the USA, with the men's team. We had challenging... I adapted those drills or those activities to use on the sand when I was retired from the USA team and we'd have these challenging things. I'll never forget this. We had this thing where, you know, how many in a row we could do or so we would do in a row activities or how many out of how many.

And one day my partner got injured as we were at a training session. So he sat down and I just said, okay, I'll do it myself just to challenge myself. And, um, so the, it was just a simple thing. You, you, uh, the serve comes my way. Go ahead. Take a break. I'll take it. I got somebody to set for me, but it was like, usually the serve would come to me and then it might come to him, and we had to see how many out of 24 we could win. And so I actually, I'm still mad that I didn't get the 24th, but I got 23 in a row where the serve came to me, the replacement partner set me, and I needed to put it away,

and I put it away. It was the highest we ever scored out of 24. A really good score was like 20. I got to 23. I didn't get the 24th down. But 23 times I played a discrete play and a 24th time too. And that was really challenging because now physically you get really tired and can you keep that level of dialed in this or that level of engagement?

We talk about engagement here. I think that that's one of the gifts of high level performance. Let me strike that. It's one of the gifts of sport is to figure out your mind with your body breaking down and exhausted. Like that's different than a normal meditative or mindfulness practice. Right. About deep awareness. We were pursuing that when our body is exhausted. than a normal meditative or mindfulness practice right about deep awareness we

were pursuing that when our body is exhausted and it's a great way to figure some stuff out about who you are I loved operating in that state I I didn't get to do it and I loved the challenge of being so tired so drained that it's really hard to think straight and to operate and see if you can get back to thinking straight. That was awesome to me. When you're on the verge of exhaustion or on the verge of, there was one time playing in a tournament in Rio, it was 114 degrees and 99% humidity. And so we just got into this. A guy across the net and I, who I knew had a ton of willpower,

I just, in my own mind, and I know he knew what was going on, but I just said, I'm going to make this a contest to see who has to call a timeout first. And I've never had my heart beating so hard. I wouldn't have been surprised if I had a heart attack at that point, even though I'm 22. 22 don't have, or 25-year-olds don't have heart attacks who are in great shape. But I just made it a contest. And I was gasping for air and gasping for oxygen. But at some point, about 25 minutes into the event, he called the first time out.

And I knew at that point we had the match because I had just decided I'm not going to back down. And I don't care if I'm getting dizzy at times and part of me wants to call that time out. I will not be calling that time out. Unbelievable. I mean, like we're both grinning right now. Like that is rad. Okay. So I'm mindful of your time. I want to get to just a few more little nuggets here. Thank you so far for all the time. Out of all of these mental skills, which one would you say is, you know, which ones are the most valuable to you? Gener generating confidence having a deep focus doing mental

imagery or having some sort of routine to get ready um i have a lot of calm i think that is helpful as a teammate and as a coach i want to infect this team with calm and with poise uh what was second Like generating confidence. I've been able to have some real success even at times me to never be really surprised on the court. And when people would try to surprise me is when that would cost them. Because now they're doing something they don't normally do. And so that turned into a real advantage, the focus thing. And then I also had not so much pre-performance

routines or maybe I had routines that I would use in getting ready for the next play, but not so much earlier that day. Although I did have a routine that I really liked in terms of stretching and balancing and some dynamic movements that I liked as part of my warmup each time. And I found that really centering and, and calming and focusing to switch your body on. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you Okay. So if you just kind of like, if we just did some quick hits and just see like quick little responses to these, um, without any judgment, what comes to mind when I say pressure comes from, from my own mind.

So I got to work on my mind and then I'll lower it. I love it. It comes down, it all comes down to? Being, having a plan and being engaged in that plan for the next play for 10 seconds. The crossroad was. I think the only time I ran into kind of a fork in the road or this thing of, whoa, I really don't know what's going to happen next, was after my first shoulder surgery.

It was really tough coming back. Had some terrible results. Was different architecture in the shoulder. Taking a swing and the ball would go five feet different from where it had gone for 30 years. And I just eventually had to have a meeting with myself, like, I don't know if I'm ever going to get back to the state that I was able to play at this certain high level, this certain consistent level.

Am I okay? Am I okay with that? And I decided after a couple hours in this self-dialogue that I was okay with that. And then I ended up playing another 10 years. But I was thinking at that instant, this could well be my last season. So I'll just let up a little and just ride it and see what happens. And it turned out not to be my last season, but my 11th to last season. Wow. And is that what you would do? Have a meeting with yourself? Is that how you do like an introspective? Uh, I did at that time because it was just so frustrating to not be able to do what I had done for a long time on the court. Success is? Making people around you better.

Love? My wife, Jana, and our kids, Corey and Christian. Flow? Flow. there's something incredibly freeing and liberating to prepare for that next point, be engaged in it, and then just let it happen. That's the flow to me. is for this program to constantly pursue mastery and to give each player, each person in this program, every tool she can have to pursue the best her she can be. Wow. Okay. Last little last, last little gem here.

And then I've got one question. We'll wrap it. I am. I am. Yeah. I'm trying to be a good man, good husband, good father, good son, good American, good coach. That's beautiful. Yeah. In that order? The order can vary depending on, I don't know, when I'm here at work, it's about being a good man and a good coach.

Yeah. Okay. And less about being a good husband and a good father. Yeah. Because you're all in. Yeah. Wherever you are, you're all into it. Okay.

In your words, how do you define or articulate mastery? And then the follow-on to that is, is there any one habit that is most important? And this is definitely the last question. I guess I think of it as a never ending process. I don't think you, there's this point at which you become a master. It's a lot like if you're in a martial art and you get your second degree black belt, well, of course, you then start pursuing your third. It just never ends. It's this constant pursuit of better than whatever you are. There's something about being that, but something really exciting about what else you can become beyond that.

Beautiful. Okay. Karch, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for coming in and sharing this, all the wisdom and insight and where can we find more about the club and what you're up to? And, and, uh, well, certainly you can learn about a lot about the USA women's indoor volleyball team at usavolleyball.org. Um, and you can find, find them on Twitter, of course, at USA volleyball. And I'm on Twitter somewhere. I don't, I just put Karchin. You'll, you'll find that too. So anyway, um, thank you, Mike, for all of you that all you've meant to this program for the getting on the end of our third season now and some exciting stuff we've been through and a lot more exciting and challenging and exciting because it's challenging stuff to come. It's been a gift and this has been a great ride and progression is what we're both hungry for. And I can't wait to see where this takes us.

Awesome. Thanks, Kurt. Thanks, Chris. If you enjoyed this conversation and there's a couple of things I hope you might be able to do. You go to iTunes and subscribe to finding mastery. And if you are so inclined to press the like button, it really helps us out as we're trying to create some momentum here.

And you can also go to our website, finding mastery.net. You can follow us on Twitter at Michael Gervais my name mi ch a el G e r v a is and then on Facebook as well so facebook.com forward slash I think it's a forward slash or maybe it's a backslash I don't know nowadays, but slash finding mastery. And you can also connect to Karch's work on social media and Twitter as he described, and it's K-A-R-C-H. And yeah, what a gift. Thank you so much. Hopefully we'll have lots of this loaded up

on show notes and all the good stuff that you can find on finding mastery.net. And until we're able to connect again, um, just a deep gratitude and thank you for listening. Um, I'm hopeful, um, to hear how, you know, you're vibing with this and, and send some social media tweets our way and, and keep us honest and keep us connected. And I'm thinking about spending some time on some podcast to decode, like after the close of the conversation to decode what I've heard. And what I don't want though is too much of my voice in these things. So if you're interested in that, can you hit me up on Twitter at Michael Gervais and just say yes. Share the decode with us and I'll spend an extra maybe, I don't know, seven, ten minutes on ways that I

think we can maybe train mastery or that we can, the way that I've understood what he or she has spoken about. So again, deeply gratitude for all of this and deeply grateful for Karch for spending time and sharing his path towards mastery. Okay really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback.

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Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.