The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 57 - Why You Need To Forget About The End Result: Sir David Brailsford

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. David Brailsford is the Team Principal of INEOS and is the main behind the ‘marginal gains’ philosophy, which can be applied in life and business more broadly, that paying attention to the tiniest details, no matter how small, can add up and together produce a big difference. He has numerous gold medals and multiple Tour De Frances under his belt to show for his philosophy. Here David puts us inside the minds of real champions and reveals the best ways to prepare for events and really place ourselves in the moment. Forgetting about the end result and rooting ourselves in the here and now are key. It might sound hard, but David has made it his business to train people for the biggest stages for twenty years. Want to know how it’s done? Let David explain… Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/Ajq3f7OsYpb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. One of the things that definitely felt very original when I was reading about your philosophy is this idea of forgetting about the results because thinking about the results or the outcome of your performance can reduce the chances of success in that performance. That's very unusual because in teams, in competition, in business, we think about the result, we think about closing the

deal or, you know, and what that will mean. And we kind of imagine ourselves in that moment of getting the medal around our neck or that business deal won. Why is that not a good idea? Well, if an event happens or something happens, the first thing that's going to happen to you

without you even knowing is you're going to have an unconscious emotional reaction to it. And it's emotion. You're not thinking it through. It's just purely emotion. And that's going to's not you're not thinking it through it's just purely emotion and that that that's going to be you know either it's sort of a fight flight freeze response really and um but that that emotional response will happen quicker than you know it before you can go in and get any logic or get any rationale into into it and of course in um in any kind of situation like a you know what could be perceived as a threat state

where you're putting yourself in some kind of threatening scenario, a bit of damage my pride or what happens to people, they start thinking, well, what happens if I win? Why must I lose? Why must I look ridiculous? I don't want to look ridiculous. I'm under threat. And that then becomes very easy to get emotionally hijacked by that. So then you're purely running on emotion, which is inconsistent. the threat and that then becomes you know very easily to get emotionally hijacked by that so then you're purely running on emotion which is inconsistent it's illogical you know it's not a

it's not a good way for you to be basing it's not a good place for you to be basing your behavior but if you understand that and you think okay well look I understand that it's normal that I'm going to put myself in a threatening scenario so if I worry about let my emotion take over and I worry about what happens if I succeed what happens if I fail what happens if this what happens if that then it's actually pointless exercise and if you can train slowly recognize and train your mind to go okay I know what's happening here this is just emotion I'm going to put it to one side now Now then, let me separate this, whatever I'm doing out into two things. We can have a dream. I want to win the Tour de France. It's a dream. My ability to win it or our ability or anybody else's to win it

is I'm going to do my absolute best to try and win it. But other people are going to try and stop me and other people are going to try and do something. It's stuff beyond our control that can impact on that. So if you set your goal as I'm going to win, you're going to try to do something it's stuff beyond our control that can impact on that so if you set your goal as i'm going to win you're going to agitate non-stop because it actually is out of your control uh whereas if you set your dream and saying this is what i'd really really like to happen i'll go all in i'll do everything i can i'm fully committed to that but let me break it down into targets which is well I could get to the ideal weight. I could do the proper training. I could do the, you know, follow a nutritional plan

that's going to give me the optimal energy. And, you know, I can train my tactics. I can be, really work hard to get a fantastic team around me, build good rapport, build confidence in my teammates, these are all things that you can do. And so if you say, okay, let's leave the dream dream over there for a while but I'm going to go after the things I can do and you base your plan around the things that you can actually control and do you'll be on fire you'll be on fire you'll be absolutely on fire and the dream might happen and it might not and you'll be absolutely oh you know delighted and the best thing ever if it happens and if it doesn't then you might be absolutely devastated but you've got to leave it as a dream and you've got to understand that delighted and best thing ever if it happens and if it doesn't then you might be absolutely devastated but you've got to leave it as a dream and you've got to understand that actually worrying

about the consequence of an event is detrimental to the process and the performance and the chances of you achieving that event so you park that go after your targets and go right i'm going process not outcome and we talked a lot about process, not outcome. And when you catch yourselves, you know, it's emotion in the end. So of course, we do get hijacked. And of course, we do get fearful or, you know, a bit panicked. And you've got to have a system whereby you can talk to yourself a little bit. You can bring yourself back around and focus on the now and the process of now, rather than worrying about the future. And then you can come back and concentrate on the process get back into the now and you know some of the athletes would have a routine where

they'd tie the salute undo and tie the shoelaces again or they do they'd have a little you know a little process that they'd tap into and they'd go into that into that and bring their mind back into the present and stop worrying about the future and of course the penalty kicks the best example yeah that's what i was thinking about ronaldo stood there yeah i'm sure they they bag 100 in training yeah exactly in the euros final exactly you know and if you take the crowd out and take a penalty those guys are so accurate and the you know signal from the brain down into the muscle to contract in a certain way that happens and the accuracy and the repeatability of that is is absolutely massive put a crowd in there and what changes nothing changes physically

it's all between your ears and so how can you train that you know and the mental skills can be trained just as much as you know we all know that but we want to get fit and strong and you go to the gym and you know that you're going to overload your body and you're going to give it time to adapt and it's adaptation that's going to make it a little bit stronger. And it's the same with the mind. You know, you can train your mind. And I think that's what certainly working with Steve was an eye-opener. As well as I think probably the biggest eye-opener for most people

is it gives you, once you realise you've got like an emotional brain and a logical brain and you know a bit of a memory computer side going on then then it gives you insight into yourself and why you are behaving and feeling like you are and some of the assumptions you're making about other people then you've got to start with yourself first if you can get that little bit of insight why do I feel how I'm feeling why do I respond like I do what? Why do I respond like I do? What triggers me? What's my best self look like? And what's my sort of, you know, not the best self look like?

Why am I different? Why sometimes am I behaving in this kind of, you know, this second or shadow version of myself? And why am I sometimes in my best self? What's happening there? Why can't I just be my best self all the time? Surely that must be doable. So take a bit of time to understand it and pick it and some people just maybe haven't been educated i certainly wasn't until really i sort of stopped and started to look at this stuff and then you realize i think wow a lot of my

behavior a lot of my life was driven by emotion it wasn't driven by the real me who could be calm and logical and think things through and quite you you know, have a lot of passion and feelings and caring. And yet at times I could be something else, you know. And I think understanding that's fundamental, I think. I don't think there's any excuse for that. No, I agree. Both points sounded very similar, in fact, because on one hand you're saying with your goals,

only go after the things you can control, like really focus on those things. And in the same way, when we're talking about personal responsibility of self you're saying you can't control other people so yeah but the thing that you know maybe you do have control over in your life is your behavior how you act how you conduct yourself and then kind of leave the rest well i think you don't understand how other people are responding and how they're feeling so you can accept that if somebody's um you know somebody's

in a very well it's two things really i think first and foremost ambition is a big thing not to forget you know what's your level i'm you know you can be incredibly ambitious why can't we be the best in the world at something why can't be the first to do something what's stopping us doing something that nobody ever in the human race has ever done before. Nothing as far as I can see. So I think there's a, you've got to have that ambition, enthusiasm, the belief we can do whatever we want to do and really stretch that. And then I think the next bit really, the targets, it's more like the how to get there. It's more like the boring stuff to get there.

So it's like head and heart really. And I think that the if you understand yourself then you should be able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and if they're having a tough time or if somebody else is angry or there's something else going on with them you know rather than just dive in and and respond to the behavior you're seeing at face value why not stop and think about a little bit and is this person in trouble what's causing this where are they coming from what's going on you know try and understand it and if they're just responding emotionally to something and you allow yourself to immediately respond emotionally back it doesn't really get anywhere

you know so so you'd better hold back and wait and find out and try anyway not always easy but not always easy no no i struggle with that yeah i struggle with that especially being in a environment where my my time is so feels so precious right it's always there's so many I struggle with that especially being in an environment where my time is so feels so precious right there's so many things I could be doing and you're exactly the same I know people that work with you

I know you're a very very busy person so it's tough in the moment to stop and pause and to have patience when the rest of my life is run on like efficiency you know what I mean it's difficult I i guess in in my world you know i'm out to try and help people and i do push people and we've got high standards and you know you do want to level commit i don't like

laziness for example i just can't that that would really hurt that gets me you know but then i have to manage it and think okay well if they that's what they want there's no problem this just this isn't the environment for them you know but in the main i think understanding challenges and and setting standards and boundaries and working to all of that is important