WHOOP Podcast - Finding Purpose on the Pitch with Performance Coach Steve Tashjian

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

On this week’s episode, WHOOP VP of Performance Science, Principal Scientist, Kristen Holmes is joined by performance coach Steve Tashjian. Steve Tashjian is a world-renowned high-performance expert with decades of experience in elite sport, managing teams, and high performers. He has prepared triathletes for the Kona Ironman, boxers for world title fights, teams to play Manchester United at Old Trafford in the Premier League, and the U.S. Men’s Team (USMNT) for the World Cup in 2022. Kristen and Steve will discuss how Steve got into sport and high performance (2:08), how he defines high performance (9:15), organizations reacting to stress (14:38), managing performance for the USMNT (18:46), working for Everton FC (24:23), managing the complex nature of an organization and its players (31:50), mitigating pressure (40:31), curiosity and risk leading to high performance (48:44), coaching teams vs individuals (55:52), and where things go wrong for organizations and individuals (1:05:19).Resources:Steve’s LinkedInSteve’s InstagramElevation ProjectSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of WOOP. We're on a mission to unlock human performance. This week's episode, WOOP, VP of Performance Science, Principal Scientist. He won the only Kristen Holmes is joined by performance coach Steve Tashin. Steve Tashin is a world-renowned high-performance expert with decades of experience in elite sport, managing teams and high performers. He has prepared triathletes from the Kona Ironman,

boxers for world title fights, and the U.S. men's national team for the World Cup in 2022. Kristen and Steve discuss Steve's views on high performance, how he trains athletes versus how he trains executives and coaches, the keys to performing under pressure, how to mentally prepare for big moments and challenges, fighting groupthink in elite organizations and teams, and stories from some of his most successful teams and athletes. If you have a question was answered on the podcast, email us, podcast to woof.com. Call us 508-443-4952.

Here are Kristen Holmes and Steve Tashen. Steve Tashen is a world-renowned high-performance expert with decades of experience in elite sport, managing teams, and high performers. He has prepared triathletes for the Kona Ironman, boxers for world title fights and U.S. men's national team for the World Cup in 2022. And Steve was a performance coach for the English Premier League team Everton football club, which I hear Steve is just a brutal place for everyone to play, to play in that stadium. Yeah, that was probably the highlight is they're going to move to a new stadium here pretty soon,

which is great for the club, but I consider myself, lucky in a way that I was actually part of what preceded that new stadium because Goodison, Goodison was amazing. That's a place that's got its own unique qualities and I'll never forget games in that building for sure. Well, I can't wait to talk more about that. You know, outside of athletes, you know, you've also, you've advised some of the most prominent executives for companies like Stanley 913 and organizations such as the Phoenix Suns and Colorado Rapids. So you just have this really cool breadth of experience in kind of in these high-performance, high-stakes, high-stress environments. So really excited to just pick your brain over the course of the next hour and

to try to understand, you know, some of the things that you've learned and, and hopefully some takeaways for our listener. So welcome, Steve. Great. Let's do it. I'd love to start where, you know, what kind of got you down this path? You know, not everyone has the opportunity, the skill set, the expertise, the knowledge, the background, know, to be able to come in and offer advice and direction, mental, physical, emotional to these high performance environment. So, you know, how did you kind of get yourself in position where, you know, you're qualified to, to serve in these roles? First, I'd say that you never end up where you think you're going to end up. That's the starting

point. So true. Yeah. I graduated in 2002 as a physical therapist in terms of my graduate work. I was a psychology undergrad and then finished physical therapy in 2002. And at that point, it was, I just wanted to be in great environments. And I think I had a part of me that definitely wanted to be in an athletic realm. But I really, I just loved movement, to be honest. I remember from the earliest days, my parents told me that it was, you know, in and around. The earliest I can remember was the 1984 Olympics. I was I was enthralled with that like I couldn't get enough of it and mainly it was in and around you know carloos with track and field and Mary Louretton with gymnastics and I loved my parents said that I would I was glued to the TV when the men's volleyball team would play the US men's volleyball team would play and there was just all super incredible athletic movement gurus just the the athleticism was unbelievable and and

those were the comments that I would make to my parents. It was about movement. And that was really the start of me being a person that felt like sport was going to be something, I guess, because I just loved the, you know, the infinite possibilities of human movement and human potential. So I think that's where it started. And then as I finished, you know, through grad school and started down the path, it was just about letting life kind of unfold, really. You know, I had, I've been in the private sector. I've been in professional sport. And over time, you know, if you think about the book mastery and that pathway to mastery, I don't think mine was very different, to be honest. You just have this chapter in your life. And in that moment, you're becoming, you know, more capable,

more competent with that particular skill set at that moment, whether it was inside the clinic, just being a therapist, being a person that could connect one-on-one, diagnose, create a plan, make people better, you know, accomplish goals or whether it was athletics, you know, even one-on-one. You know, there's this, there's a person in front of me. There's an outcome that's desired and just being in a place to try to create the plan that gets us there or in a team environment where now it's very much about a vision, a greater vision. And then how do I fit into that vision? How, whether it was me as a team member or eventually as a team leader, like what is it about this area that I'm involved in that, you know, that can contribute to the

overall vision of winning, the overall vision of accomplishing something greater that's outside of ourselves. And slowly about sure, you're just a part of these things in different roles throughout time. Some of them were sports medicine. Some of them were sports science. Some of them were end stage rehab. Some of them were, you know, head of strength and conditioning, whatever it might be.

And then eventually it was performance management. You know, now it's about overseeing the management of this area of, you know, player health and performance and just juggling the change in mindset that takes place from being a team member to a team leader and, you know, taking on all the responsibilities that come with it and the pressures and so on and so forth. And then eventually you get to a point where all of your experiences, you know, they culminate into something that can help other people. I guess that's the easiest way of maybe answering your question is the transition to what I'm doing now is about a vision to serve and the way in which I serve is defined by the experiences and the skill sets that I've developed over time. And that's really what it was about. It was not necessarily that I ever had my head wrapped around consulting in this way. It just evolved. over time and it's connected to things that I enjoy doing more than anything else.

It's connected to a circumstance in my life and in my family's life where this is going to bring the most joy to my family as well. So it's very much multivariate for sure, but the pathway to get to where I am now wasn't it wasn't scripted. It just ended up here based on the way in which my experience has kind of defined what I can do now and how I can help other people. It's amazing how, you know, when we're younger, there's just these seeds that get planted, you know, that really do, I think if we lean into them and we listen to those callings, I suppose, you know, especially when we're a bit younger, they often do lead, I think, to these incredible pathways and eventually careers, you know. And so I love that. You have this kind of origin story that that started, you know, with movement and kind of led you.

down this path where you're you know it sounds like you're really satisfied with your life and and a lot of that has just been you know following your passion and then I think secondarily you know building skills and and that's another thing that I hear you that I hear a lot of people who are really satisfied with life you know is is that they have accumulated a lot of repetitions yes and it's those repetitions that enable you to be expert and then you know you can kind of bring that expertise to whatever your arena is, you know. So I really appreciate just, just that path. So in our world, you know, this world of high performance that we operate, we hear this word high performance or these words high performance so often. And I think they mean,

you know, how I define it truly would be different than you define it. I'm so curious, you know, how do you define high performance? And is that, has that evolved over time? I'm sure it probably has, but yeah, I was really interested to hear what that evolution look like. In the beginning, I think I tried to create like a super intense, detailed definition because your mind's always wrapped around this complexity, you know, and then it does evolve based on circumstances in situations that you're in. But more often than not, a fairly relevant definition for me is the relentless execution

of your process. And then in other situations, you know, it might need to actually sit higher. You know, that might be a 10,000, 10,000 feet view, maybe 100,000 feet view is the relentless pursuit of your vision. You know, these things as they start to unfold, you know, the high performance in and of itself in my world has been attached to a department, right? it's been attached to a group of people responsible for this area as it relates to player health and performance. That is a mistake. High performance is the responsibility

of everybody in the organization. High performances are from the, from the ownership level, all the way to the team member, team support staff level. This is not anything that should be designated to one department of, you know, four to 10, 12 individuals. That's unfair, and it's not what high performance is all about. High performance is an organizational thing. It's an individual thing as well, but it's an organizational need. This is where I probably have the most passion in terms of what I do organizationally as a consultant, is I love exploring this concept within organizations. And if their goal is, we want high performance taking place within our four walls. There's a lot of questions that need to be unpacked at that point.

And I think that's why many times it's inevitable that if the pursuit is high performance, you're going to eventually start investigating vision. You have to. Because high performance is about execution of roles. It's about execution of standards. There's detail in all of that. Don't get me wrong. But it's the focus on the execution of that standard in your role, not the outcome.

and that for me is the most important piece. We're focused on winning or losing. I can win a game and have a terrible performance. I can lose a game and have an exceptional performance. And in the end, if you're consistently focused on the details and standards of your execution, more often than not, you're going to achieve your vision. You're going to move closer to it. And I think that's what gets ignored quite a bit is there's individuals who come and say,

we're not achieving high performance come in and tell me why and their assumption is it's all happening below their level i can't think of a single situation i've been in yet where there wasn't some sort of involvement all the way to the top all the way out to the sides it's just a connectedness that needs to take place and an alignment that needs to to take place in order for high performance to be achieved. So at times, my definition can sound super simplistic, but that's really what it is, because if everybody is operating with that one mindset,

which is I know my role, I know the details of it, and I have an elite commitment to the standards of my execution, of my process, especially as it relates to everybody understanding their role individually and collectively, then you're going to achieve high performance. I haven't found a situation where that doesn't land well, you know, for me, if it's defined by the execution of your process, the relentless execution of your process, then you're probably going to achieve it.

I think where I see a lot of tension in these high performance organizations is that there's this, they can say that they're committed to the process, you know, everything that you kind of outline. But I think they still measure success by wins and losses. You know, and it's like this really hard balance. I think because, you know, I think when you consider, like I would always say that when you're solely evaluating your success on outcomes, it's just an assault on the process, right? Like, you know, you're, and so how do you get organizations and individuals to really adopt

this mindset of process, right? Because we know from the science that there are very clear things happening in the nervous system when we are outcome driven versus process driven, right? There's no question about that. But I think that there's this society, you know, it's just the pressures of media. You know, there's this birdie on the shoulder that is constantly chirping about wins and losses and the opponent that we're playing, you know, all of the things that I think are an absolute distraction if realizing our potential is of interest. So how do you think about that noise that surrounds teams and in players and leaders within organization, you know, the owners, the, you know, all of those folks who are just distracting generally.

Especially at that, at the ownership level, really anywhere in an organization, if they're skeptical about the way in which, you know, commitment to process works, I think what you have to draw attention to is that outcomes based philosophies, outcome-based mindsets will crumble under pressure, right? We're dealing with complex biological systems. Human beings are complex. And those particular worlds don't show weakness until they're placed under stress, until they're placed under pressure.

That can be physical pressure. If you're an athlete, it can be mental pressure. It can be, you know, expectations, anything. that's being pressed upon a complex system, you don't realize where it's going to break until the pressure is applied. Well, the complexity also provides places where things can hide. So if you're constantly focusing on outcomes, wins and losses, for example, and you're not focused on process, You're not combing your organization regularly to find weakness. And that's what process-driven companies do really well.

Because when there is a moment where a process doesn't work, they refine it immediately. And they know I've strengthened the organization to pressure. And those are the- And you know where to look. Yeah. And how are you supposed to- You're waiting for a result. Exactly.

You don't know where to look. Correct. But if my daily focus is about my personal, process, there's going to be something that comes up and you're going to, ooh, we got away with one or we didn't get away with it and let's let's fix that quick. You know, there's these, you avoid catastrophe in those moments where the organization or you individually are placed under, you know, high amounts of pressure. And so that's usually my starting point is how does this organization respond when it's

placed under real stress, under real pressure. How does this biological system, this complex system react to stress? And let's be fair, if I've been called to come in, it probably doesn't respond well if I've been asked to, you know, to consult. And in those circumstances, that's the starting point is, okay, I think I'm here because something broke. Can you tell me where it broke? Can we define that? And then, all right, take me through the existing process. and let's explore why it failed. And a lot of times there isn't a process, and that's why it failed.

Right. So over and over and over and over again, what I've discovered over time is that if a system fails, it's because a process failed, either because it didn't exist or because it wasn't, it wasn't, you know,

robust enough to deal with the situation. And you just refine it. You refine it. You make it better. And now the whole organization is better for it. those are the types of conversations that take place as you're starting to create an understanding of why outcome mindsets tend to work, but they're not sustainable, right? It doesn't create sustainable success. And that's an important piece to this that needs to be communicated from the beginning, sensitively, right?

Because it's not, those are difficult conversations. But in the end, if they're not had, then you're not really leaving the project in a more sustainable state. I love that. You have a great quote that says, we don't drive performance development and players. We support and promote it. So I think this is kind of like a great follow on to, you've got this overarching process-driven approach.

Now it's about task orientation and understanding role and how the individual pieces fit into this broader kind of vision and ladder up to really this process-driven approach. Like, how does that quote maybe tie into that? So that's really interesting because that was very, very, very, specific to the national team. We had a very clear vision, mission, and values set by by Greg, by the head coaching technical staff and administration coming down to us, saying this is what we are here to accomplish in the next four years. And what we didn't have within the high performance

department when we took over was, well, what's our vision, mission, and values as a department? And not only that, but how do we set that entire organizational document so there is alignment with the greater purpose of the whole entire team? Like, how do we connect this all? And what we ended up looking at was the way in which we can be effective as a high performance department within an international team, which is much different than a club team. what we knew is we don't have the players long enough to talk about a vision where we're driving athleticism we don't it would be unrealistic arrogant and short-sighted you know ignorant because we can't and our role is to collaborate with the players parent club to create a 360-degree player health and performance plan for the individual.

So what's our role in that? Our role in that is to support and promote high-performance for our athlete. And the way we do so that all of a sudden it started to shake stuff out. So are we program designers? No, we're collaborators. We're facilitators. We provide resources. we support because we're not driving.

So that was a part, it does connect to what we talked about because we realized our role quickly. And once you realize your role quickly, you can define your vision and your mission and then start to outline what are acceptable behaviors and actions from us so that we're operating a really high level. Now, all of our roles are super clear. And if we just do that every day, we're going to accomplish our mission. And if we accomplish our mission every day, we're going to accomplish our vision.

And that is a very simplistic way of looking at the organizational structure of high performance. I love it. That's a beautiful framework. We have our individual roles, but we are committed to the collaborative process into the group. We know that we have a function that's highly dependent on how we affect others. you know, I say this often that, you know, we're talking about complexity, you know, and the greater the complexity of a task that's in front of you, the higher the probability that you will fail by yourself. That, and that I truly believe that. And I haven't seen a situation where that isn't

true, especially as you're dealing with complex biological systems, you know, when you're even complex organizational systems. You just, you don't have, you don't have what it takes by yourself to handle complexity. That's just the nature of it. I know it's commonsensical. It sounds like common sense, but you face it a lot. You face it a lot in organizations across all industries, you know, not just, not just sport, not just, you know, the corporate world. I work in, you know, the performing arts as well. I'm a musician and I love the performing arts. And, in when I'm looking at the dynamics of something as simple as a three to 12 piece band, when I look at, um, you know, the metropole orchestra. When I look at the LA Philharmonic,

you're looking at a very complex system. And in and of itself, to be successful, that complex system at some point has to be operating on an understanding that we need each other. Right. And I do think that, you know, that lends itself to the idea of what we were thinking when we talked about our particular role with the national team. We are connected. And if we disconnect, we're going to fail. So we just needed to stay super connected to the player, super connected to the process, super connected to the clubs. And you commit holistically to collaboration or else we weren't going to be successful. I love how you, in that example, you're able to understand your limitations to a degree and kind of build a framework that was realistic and could actually support the players in a way that they need to be supported. Because I think sometimes we often just have this idea about how we want to approach a situation or how to fix the problem, but we're not really like meeting reality on its own terms.

and as result, you know, the assumptions that we have and the frameworks that we put in place end up, you know, falling down, you know, so I love that. You kind of thought about it from that perspective. Let's talk a little bit about Everton because I, you know, I would imagine the lessons learned there were just profound. And, you know, what are some things that surprised you about that experience? And, you know, what were some of the lessons or the learnings that you've been able to kind of take from working in? What is our one of the most high pressure, high performance jobs in the world, English Premier League. I think that was the first big surprise was you could palpate pressure. And when I came from

MLS, it's not that we didn't have pressure in MLS, but it just, it didn't come from as many sources. You know, you feel pressure from everywhere in the Premier League. And I was in a department that I wouldn't say you're always safe or you're super protected, but we're definitely less exposed than the technical staff, the manager, scouts, technical directors, people who are obviously more frontline and taking bullets more often, you know, whether it be from press or whether it be from ownership, whatever it might be. But we're witnessing it all. We at least, you know, and then a lot of times we see the change in the reaction and the mood of the people that are dealing with it. Now it's starting to affect us because if they feel more pressure all of a

sudden they put more pressure on us. And, you know, we're in a place where, you know, where we were in the club within, you know, the sports medicine, sports science department where, you know, a lot of times you do get a response from management. You know, they're feeling pressure because the results aren't coming and now all of a sudden it's we're not fit enough, right? Too many injuries or whatever it might be. You do start to feel pressure in a different way than they're feeling it. But their behavior makes the pressure really evident to everybody. And so you just start to absorb that. And listen, when I started, I was, this, it was pretty, I was, this is young in my career too. For me to just deal with it and take it all in, you know, my, my age was a significant

contributor to the time it took for me to adjust to knowing how to deal with it. You know, my hair was on fire when I started. It was, you know, it came kind of quickly, the opportunity. And then the next thing you know, boom, I'm joining the team. They were in the United States on preseason already. So I went from where I was, packed a suitcase, met them in Seattle. And then it was preseason changing locations like crazy. We were in, you know, Seattle, Colorado, Utah, Canada. And then I finally got a break, was able to come home, help my wife, you know, for two or three days,

pack up the house. And then it was back to the UK. So I was all over the place a little bit when that started. And I think it took time for me to settle as it related to what my role was. But I think it, the pressure itself probably drove all of the things I learned in my, in my time there. I learned how to deal with different personality types as it related to my reporting lines. especially as it related to reporting to managers, technical directors, club secretaries, things of that nature.

They all had a different personality to them, some more complex, some less complex. And some of those interactions I handled well, some of them I did not handle well. In all that, that's the learning process that took place for me. I think I had the opportunity to probably utilize resources to a greater extent. financial resources for me to improve as a practitioner, you know, my, my practical skill sets. But the thing I gained more than anything else was probably the, my emotional intelligence skillsets, my human interaction skillsets, my, my leadership man, people management skill sets, even with the players.

Like, it was important for me. I was now in a position where I was learning how to interact with a player roster that had much more power and say in, in how things went. on a day-to-day basis than when I was in MLS. And I'm not dealing with a fairly American dominant player roster. I'm now dealing with way more cultures, more cultures than I've had to deal with in my career at this point. And players from Africa and France and Holland and Spain and Italy and England,

all in one place, I didn't have that at MLS. And so the scope of a majority of my development was now a pressure cooker and a pretty intense timeline to learn how to deal with people. And that was really, you know, I take that period, that five years there. And, you know, I equate a lot of my understanding of how to deal with conflict and, you know, how to have difficult conversations. You know, I did most of them for the first two years, I did most of them wrong. And then in the end, you know, when I came out of that, I think I was much stronger in understanding how to deal with those circumstances because you have to or you're going to fail. Like, there is a lot of pressure to be able to interact and make difficult

decisions in that world. I think that was a majority of it. It wasn't the skill set from a performance coach perspective or a physical therapist perspective or sports scientist. It was the human element for sure. What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guests.

So if you kind of look back on that experience and just thinking about this from a cultural perspective, you know, an individual from, you know, so every individual kind of comes to that team with a different set of experiences, perspectives. You know, they have grown up in different homes, different environments. Like, you know, it is, I don't think people really appreciate, like, how complex an environment like that is in terms of understanding different personality types, how they respond and react to pressure. I would say, I guess I've always thought about it that, you know, in order to kind of really manage all of that complexity, there needs to be a layer on top of that that resonates with everyone. So there are a set of assumptions about humans, right, that we can pull forward in an

environment and create a framework around that then allow all of this complexity across this human dynamic to fit into that model. So I guess I'm wondering, you know, when you're dealing with all of this, you know, kind of the differences in just human experience and complexity and just then throwing on top of that, this really challenging high pressure environment, what did you what did you feel like was absolutely necessary from an environment perspective to ensure is present in order for all this human complexity to plug in. Yeah, that's a really great question. I'll try to unpack that.

I think first off, you have to have a servant's mindset. If you have a personal agenda, I found that that group was maybe pressure makes people more intuitive about being able to read what's real. what's not real. Like if there's a fakeness to what's happening, I was astonished at the intuition. And maybe the pressure does that. But from my perspective, I do feel like as soon as you step into a place where you are comfortable with being a part of something bigger than yourself, I think that lends itself to you now being in a place where you are hearing things and seeing things a different way. You're hearing more, you're seeing more, and it's providing meaning to a greater depth,

meaning about what's important in this place. What are the values that maybe haven't been talked about to me, but I can see them, I can feel them, because Everton was a family club. There was a clear set of acceptable behaviors and actions in that building that didn't get communicated to me verbally. It was communicated viscerally for sure. And you won't necessarily hear them if you're in a place where you're approaching everything you do on a daily basis from a personal agenda. You know, I would say that was the first piece.

I've worked with a lot of high performance athletes and in a variety of settings. And I couldn't agree more that this just really, this kind of buy-in to something bigger is huge. And I always feel like what underpins that, though, is this value of humility. You know, like I have all of my athletes who I think are just the greatest leaders. And, you know, the ones who, when no one is watching, are doing all the things in the background to support their mental, physical, and emotional health. And I just feel like that, like if you're Everton, you know, if you're an organization, like, I feel like recruiting individuals who are humble, who have actually a little bit of personal self-doubt, like that to me is what drives the discipline, you know, that's required to survive

environments like that. So like I always look for like that humility, that a little bit of doubt, that kind of skepticism, can I actually do this? You know, because I feel like to me, those players really thrive and survive. not just in the time that they have these professional careers, but actually beyond. So I guess I'm wondering if that's just my experience. I'm curious your perspective on servant and humility, or are there any other personal values that you found kind of plug into that

mindset, which you said is really core to this environment. Yeah, I probably couldn't define it when I was in it. Actually, I know I couldn't have defined it. It's always the case, right? Yeah. But looking back on it now, I think the driver were, you know, the driver that I saw in those committed individuals was this sense that they knew the purpose. They knew their purpose or they or they aligned something internally aligned with the club's purpose or they just felt like they're right where they should be. They belonged, but it was connected to purpose.

And then to take that a step further, I always say that you never will be truly connected to your purpose or joy, fill in the blank, until you resign to the fact that your gifts were not meant for you, right? That's the humility piece. You know, how can we connect to purpose, which 99.9.9.9. percent of the time is something bigger than yourself. If you're not willing to accept the fact that your gifts are not meant for you either, I think looking back on it, I can say without reservation that I gave religiously in my career. I wasn't ever looking to take. I enjoyed

every opportunity I got. I'm blessed with the opportunities that were presented to me. You know, by grace, they came to me. I didn't do a lot of digging. People say, it's all about who you know. It's not. It's about who you know. But when you get the opportunity, you need to execute. Because the only thing you can control in your career is your reputation. And sometimes you can't even control that per se. But I can control the way in which I operate in the way I affect other people. And if I have this mentality where I'm accepting the fact that my gifts are not meant for me, then I can very easily give them away. I can very easily give my gift, right? It's that mindset of this gift is mine and I'm going to ration it.

that is that will that will you run the risk of your reputation being more defined by how people feel about your inconsistency right and and i think that's the piece that i probably had some advantage at like i definitely gained from my willingness through my career to to to commit to something i always felt was bigger than myself and i felt everton was like that And it's the biggest small club you'll ever be a part of in your life, right? And what I mean by that is it's, you know, we've been accused a lot of being a very small club. And a lot of that has to do with results and success in international competitions like

the Champions League and things like that. And what they don't recognize is the size and the largeness, the bigness of a club is not rooted in its, in a social. context. It's not in a financial context. For me, it's a history. It's about a history of a club. And if you dive into Everton's history, you'll see how big of a club it actually is. And so that was really gratifying for me. You know, I liked the bignness of it. It made me feel more comfortable feeling like I belong to something bigger than myself. And it was, it was refreshing to be in those circumstances, dealing with the pressure and some of the difficult relationships that

were there was just a learning process for sure. But once I stepped out of it and came back to the states, I knew I was ready to be in a high performance management position. I felt like I was ready to take on that particular type of challenge. But it came from that place of, you know, you're using the word humility, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. It was this, but I define it as a willingness. Sometimes I feel humility is, is a word that is also associated with like a passiveness. And that's not what this was. This was an active willingness to give in that way, to feel like I've got what I've got. I've been gifted with something. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to try my best to show clearly through my actions that I'm committed, I'm committed to the bigness of it all.

And this is not going to be about me. And I think that served me well throughout, you know, throughout my career. Do you think that helps mitigate some of the pressure? For me, the results, the results gained or lost in pressurized situations come down more for how much the pressure surprised you. I think failure under pressure tends to give insight into the preparedness of, you know, of the organization or the individual. The national team is a great example. We had, we had this picture, a four-year picture.

And I think everybody would agree that it ended with a World Cup, which we would all say is probably the most pressurized situation that we've been preparing for for four years, right? I think you would probably everybody would agree that on paper, that should be the most pressurized situation. If you're an Olympic athlete, it's the Olympics. If you're a national team player, it's the World Cup, so on and so forth. But what I would say is, World Cup in some ways is like, I found the World Cup having competed in one more pressurized then the Olympics. Like, there's just something different about a World Cup.

And did you compete in both? Did you compete in both, Kristen? Yeah. Yeah. So what a great spot for you to kind of be in and listen. And you tell me if you agree with what I'm about to say. All right. We got to the World Cup.

And that was the least pressure I had ever felt in an international competition, my entire four years with the national team. But the reason why is because of our collaborative commitment to process. Every single opportunity we had over four years to test something, to learn something was all focused on how does this help us understand what we're going to do at the World Cup. It's 2020 and we have to play the Nations League final at Elevation in Colorado. Great. We're going to test our strategies for elevation so that we're ready to face Mexico in Mexico City during World Cup qualifying. Everything was about a

learning process. So now success and failure doesn't matter. Because if you failed, you learned. If you succeeded, then you got it right and you maintain your process. Everything was about refinement. In 2021, we're playing the Gold Cup in some of the hottest locations in the summer throughout the United States. Great. We're going to practice our heat mitigation strategies, our cooling strategies, our hydration strategies, the way we deal with, you know, really oppressive climates so that we're ready for Qatar. We're ready for the World Cup, right? Everything was about process. How do we deal with the recovery? We're going to test this. We're going to test this. In this environment, we're going to look at things we've never before. We're going to float. We're going to use

photobiomodulation. We're going to do it all and see, can we incorporate? Does it help? If it does, great. If it doesn't, we're not going to use it. All these things that we, all these challenges that we had were about refining our process, about making us understand. If someone to say, what do you do in any given situation, we would just go, blah, blah, blah, blah. We had it. And we got to the World Cup, Kristen, and I did, I was not nervous.

The pressure should have made me nervous, but it didn't. That was as relaxed and present as I've ever. ever been in my career in situations like that that should have been, you know, really pressurized and super stressful. And it wasn't. So to answer your question, sorry. No. You know, pressure and it is humility is a part of it. Humility is a part of it. But it was far more about the ability to just take everything along the way and make it focused on refining a process so that when the most pressurized circumstances come, there is no uncertainty, right? Stress is really about uncertainty if you think about it.

Well, if you mitigate uncertainty, you significantly mitigate stress and pressure goes away. And that's what I felt. I mean, there was still pressure to win. And, you know, we go into the game against Iran and we know we have to win to move out of the group stages. So there's pressure. But I knew win, lose, draw in the game against Iran. We gave everything. We did everything.

And even when we lost to Holland, I talked to my wife afterwards. and I was, I was, you know, I'm baffled why I wasn't more emotional. And not only that, Kristen, not only about losing and being knocked out of the World Cup, I knew that was it. I knew I was leaving the national team. That was my last game. Not everybody around me knew it. Greg knew it and some other people knew it.

But at that moment, there was a lot for me to be emotional about. And I remember getting to the stands and she was like, are you all right? I was like, I'm okay. Everybody around me is in tears. And I get it. I'm not saying it's not legitimate, especially from a player's perspective. I would be distraught, and I understand it. But I don't know.

I just, I respect the emotional attachment that I was seeing, the emotional reactions I was seeing. I respect them for sure. And I have empathy and sympathy for sure in every circumstance for each one of them. I can only speak to why maybe I didn't. have that emotional reaction. I was ready. I was ready for it. I had done everything I possibly could. Our processes were highly successful. And I left feeling like, you know, I dealt with the pressure and I dealt with the emotions because there wasn't anything else I could have done. I was

completely satisfied because we gave everything to something that was definitely bigger than ourselves. You know, maybe that's the only way I can really contextualize it, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, when you talked about just process versus outcome in the, in the start of the conversation, you know, I think if you're truly living that ethos of, you know, this isn't actually about the outcome. It's very much about the process. I think you have that kind of reaction because you're not, you can't control talent, right? You can't control the vagaries of umpiring. And there's so many, you know, things that could happen over the course of a match that you just don't have control of, right? But. All you can do is control all of the potential surprises that could happen and do everything to prepare your athletes and the staff for those surprises. So you feel like you, when you step on the field, like, you've basically encountered pretty much everything that you can encounter. And at the end of the day, that's, I think, how you evaluate the success of my teams,

is, you know, did we actually, you know, fulfill our potential as a team? and did we, what didn't we think of along the way that we could have thought about? And that's what you bring into the next year. A lot of it is, I think, the curiosity that is driving that process. And that's what I hear. You guys were curious about the effect of heat on performance. You're curious about the, you know, different formations that, you know, that the different teams that the World Cup could potentially play and how we would counter that.

Like, you know, it's like this curiosity, I think, that. really is so foundational in high-performing teams, you know, because I think that informs the process and that gets everyone, I think, excited about that, about the process. And I think that's how you kind of really uncover those potential surprises down the road, you know, is just leading from this place of curiosity. But curiosity and taking risks, Kristen, you know, like we're, I think that's the one, you know, hallmark of high-performing teams is, you know, high-performing teams trust each other. They're connected to purpose. They all feel like they belong. They're willing to be vulnerable in front of each other. If you're willing, you're going to take risk if you're in

a team like that. But innovation comes from taking risk. You know, you hear it all the time. We want to blaze a trail. We want to blaze a trail. And then everything you see is fairly safe, right? If you want to blaze a trail, you need to be comfortable with setting some shit on fire, right? Like that's the definition. How do you foster that safety? It comes from connection and belonging, first and foremost. I feel safe in a place where I feel like I belong. I don't feel like I belong unless I have alignment of my values with this group. So what we were intent about, and I think this is important, especially as I go down this road with organizations,

they go, you're right, let's get in a room. Like, let's get this going. Okay, who do you think should be in the room? And we kind of go through this list. And it's usually very exclusive. It's like, listen, the start of this has to be huge. because everybody should have input into the values of the place where they work. And that's what it was with our department.

What are the values of this group? I didn't want to grab Darcy Norman by himself and Ron by ourselves and the three of us in a room decide what the vision of this group is going to be. That's not going to make people feel like they belong. It's not. It's like, listen, let's just talk this out. I call them jump words. Give me jump words.

Things that make you excited. about being a part of something, what would it look like? And you end up having this massive word cloud of words that means something to people. Well, take that word cloud and analyze it. Like, where are the consistencies? And that's why I love word cloud analysis. You get all these words that start to pop out to you. You know, like, this is important to people. This is important to our organization. And you start to pull these out. Do they make buckets? Do they start to form buckets? Do they start to form buckets? And maybe I'm an individual that gave 10 words, and none of those words made it to the list. But probably all of those words fit under a bucket.

Right? So I start to fit everybody's contribution because now your 10 words that might not have been the title of the bucket might define the bucket. So all of a sudden, you present these values to a group, and I can see myself in it. It's a mirror I can see myself in. I start to feel like I, I start to feel safe. Like, I can trust this group. Everybody is feeling the same way. And listen, I don't also want to make this sound brutal,

but you also knew, I mean, it defines who needs to go. Oh, yeah. And that's the truth. Like you want high performing environments, I think that's like a characteristic is that you have polarization. Addition by subtraction. People who go outside the norms of the group. Yeah, 100%.

I always, I have this conversation with folks a lot. I have this conversation of folks a lot in my, my analogy actually comes from music. When you're engineering a song, you're just dealing with, you know, these tracks that are these sounds that are all represented by frequencies. Well, when I go to, you know, correct and really filter an EQ, you know, a sound file, what you're taught is the first thing you do is you find harsh frequencies and you cut the frequency.

I'm not going to boost anything yet. I'm not going to go find frequencies I love and boost them first. What I'm going to do is find harsh frequencies and I'm going to cut them, certain dbs, right? A few decibels. And what you'll find is as soon as I get the harsh frequencies out of the way, it's amazing what you hear. Now I can hear everything else. The harsh frequencies have been removed. I haven't boosted anything and everything sounds louder, even though I have.

I haven't increased volume anywhere in the frequency spectrum. That's what, there's a lot of that that needs to take place within organizations too, within departments. What are some of the obstacles in our way? And when I take them away, spend some time and like, what can I see now that I couldn't see before? Now boost. The second step is boosting, not the first step.

I always feel that way. And it's an interesting, it's an interesting. you know, philosophy that has crossed from one area of my life in sport and high performance to music altogether. It's really interesting. But as it relates to that process, sometimes the removal is far more, you know, has a far greater effect than any sort of boosting or additions you make afterwards. And that's something that I'll, you know, I'll always probably start with that. What are some of the things we need to stop doing and then start working on things we need to do more of or things we need to add.

I think the people side of things, you know, it's easy to be like, oh, Greg, we're going to stop doing, you know, this behavior. But it, you know, sometimes to your point, like, you have to weed out folks who actually don't align to this bigger, broader vision or purpose, you know, and it, and I always would say when I talk to groups, you know, it doesn't make that person a bad person, right? Like, just because they don't align with the mission, the organization, like doesn't make them a bad person. It just doesn't make them the right fitness.

necessarily. And so I think, yeah, I think those honest conversations and an honest evaluation of really who's going to be a key piece of the puzzle to support the mission versus not is, is it a really important part of getting the team together, you know, and especially when there's selections evolved and, you know, you have choices, right? So we've talked a lot about teams and you just have given us, I think, so many things, cool things to think. about, you know, you've coached and consulted Ironman athletes, heavyweight boxers or just boxers competing for world titles. How is, how does your approach change when you're thinking about this on an individual level? Maybe it doesn't, but are there some like kind of things that

you bring into those conversations that might be a little bit different than how you think about it as a team or, yeah, just curious your, your thoughts? So I guess just individual athletes versus a team athlete. You know, I know that for me, you know, I've been a part of teams primarily my whole life. And, you know, my work at WOOP, I have started, you know, I talked to a lot of golfers and, you know, tennis players, you know, it's a single player game. And it's very interesting that those conversations like a team versus individual, a different kind of human, frankly.

Yeah. So just wondering your experience there and what kind of learnings you've had over the, over your time. I would say my approach is very similar, but everything gets super focal because it's all going into one person. And in those circumstances are that it's evident. You know, the really good example, last year I had the opportunity to work with Matt Fitzpatrick on PGA tour. That was the first golfer I've worked with one-on-one. That wasn't a relationship where they were coming into a clinic and I was treating them for something or we were working and then they were leaving. Like this was about, you know, this really intensive, comprehensive care and all your efforts

are going into one person, right? I think you're watching performance in a different way. I felt like you could be more aggressive. You could quickly have really important conversations. and that conversation could move to action a lot faster in a one-on-one situation than in a team situation. That being said, it's still all focused and dependent on process without a doubt. You know, and Matt is the most, he is the most data-driven guy in golf without a doubt.

the intensity of the way he's approached, you know, and I think innovated, you know, how you prepare to be a golfer is evident in the catalogs of data that he's collected on every shot he's taken on the range or on the course since he was like 13 years old. Yeah, it's intense. It still needs to be connected to a purpose. That's what I've found. Even as an individual athlete, it needs to be defined for there to be an individual who's willing to take risk, right? That's important. I keep coming back to risk, but I do think it's paramount for success. Calculated risk is paramount.

I was talking with Darcy about this, and he had directed me towards a podcast. I forget the podcast, and I forget the individual's name. He's the chaplain at USC at the University of Southern California. And at the end of the podcast, he was asked, if you can sum up in one sentence, the most important advice you would give to anyone, what would it be? Kristen, there wasn't even a pause. There wasn't a moment of contemplation. Immediately, he said, take as much calculated risk as possible in your life.

He said it immediately. And I was really taken by that. You know, he didn't need to think about that. He had probably said it a thousand times and believed it wholeheartedly. But to take risk, right, you need to feel really, really, really safe. So am I really going to take a risk when I don't know where this risk is going? If I know my purpose and I know my objective, my vision, and being number one in the world is not enough, Right? Because then what? My assumption is you have the capability of being number one in the world.

So once you do that, then what? A vision has to be big enough to pull you forward, right? It needs to magnetically, without you being pushed, it pulls you. And that's what keeps you committed to a process. That's what keeps you in this mindset to be able to do the work. And it's so much to be number one in the world at anything. to do that work and commit to it as exhaustive as it is, it needs to be because you're connected something bigger than yourself. So it doesn't change. But as if I don't know where this is all going, I'm going to ask myself why I'm expending energy on this risk. But if I know where it's all going,

I don't have to question whether it's worth it. I'm in. I'm all in. And it's, don't get me wrong, it's calculated risk we're talking about. right it's it's not frivolous risk but that's the key i don't think it changes a lot you can have the conversations faster they can be very focal efficient and you can get to the root of things faster but in the end i'm still focusing on you know my role in this was definitely take care of his

body but i you know i took upon myself to just be looking at process you know how does this person's team connect to each other high performance right like Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Like all of that is similar. It doesn't matter that I'm only dealing with one person now. These people still have teams, right? And their teams have this role, this responsibility to connect to each other for the benefit of one individual, right? And it definitely doesn't change for me.

Yeah, I love that. It's validating to kind of hear you say all that. I think especially with younger athletes potentially. And I think just people who. maybe haven't been tested yet when you understand what it is that you value who you want to be in the world, what you care about. I think decision making it becomes a lot easier. And I think your perception of risk decreases. 100%. So people around you are like, oh, that's a risky thing. But, you know, I think about like my choice to leave Princeton University where I was very

comfortable. And, you know, like I had and leaving Princeton people were like to go to, a startup that had six months of runway, we're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just living my values, people. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't feel the risk. And I feel safe in taking this, making this move because I am just simply living my values. And I, I kind of go back, like when I, when I talk to younger athletes, like I, I try to help create safety by saying, listen, like you, this isn't really risk. There are no real threats here, like overt threats. right like you are simply living your values and i think when you do that you're connecting to this greater purpose and all of a sudden you know you're in you're able to kind of get into this flow

that everyone is kind of you know looks or looks at you and is kind of in one way you know but but i think that that it seems like you're kind of creating that sort of connection um with with your athletes yeah it's i think it's essential it's essential and the younger they are the harder it is to get them to connect to why i need to do this yeah but what you illustrated is is exactly why values are so important it's about being decisive uh it's so true you know you you brought up the value of curiosity which i think is a fantastic value i love it and it it resonates because i have a high performance i have a mentorship client and as i was helping him go through this process of defining his values and connecting himself to purpose.

When we came out of it, he set a really important value to him's curiosity. And it sounds like it's important to you too. So when you get this opportunity to leave the stable, wonderful campus of Princeton and go to this unstable, unpredictable, you know, startup project called whoop, it's an easy decision. Why? Because I go through my filters. my values are my filters and the first one is curiosity case is staying at princeton being curious answer is no is going to whoop being curious the answer is yes now i'm sure you had other filters

you went through but that's an example of how quickly something like values documents missions documents vision documents how quickly they make decision making possible how quickly they make making the right decision the first time possible. That's the thing that I continue to drive when you're trying to convince people, why should I go down this pathway? The people that think vision, mission, and values, it's all bullshit. And you face it a lot, but it's not, that's not the point. The point is if you want to be decisive, if you want to try to make great decisions

in the midst of uncertainty, have values. yeah and when you have them and your whole group is aligned to them you'll all be making decisions based on the same values that's high performance really is yeah i love that where do things go wrong mostly would you say so when it comes to being able to execute in the moment and you know you kind of outlined a lot of different things that that you need to do in order for things to go right. But in spite of maybe all of those efforts, you know, where do you say like that, where does it fall down? I've watched a lot of individuals and organizations fall down. And they do fall for different reasons. I mean, at the, at the, at the root of it, Kristen,

is that there needs to be intention behind everything we do individually. and as an organization. And intention, again, is really difficult to have as an individual if you don't know where you're going. And a majority of the failings that I see are just from, we don't know what this is. We don't know where it's going. I have no, it doesn't have a connection to anything that's meaningful to me as an individual or for us as an organization. Because when you don't have that, everything's a moving

target, Kristen. Everything. Like, I don't know what I'm doing this for. And then when I'm told I'm not doing it well, I go, well, not doing it well, directed at what? How do I tell somebody they're not doing something well if I haven't first told them what the target is? I just think there's an, there's a element, especially what I found within the corporate space, especially startups that grow really fast. You know, there's this, there's a starting phase. The thing blows up and now I'm adding more people at an alarming rate. And as I add more people, these things that we discussed together in our small group that

never got down to policies and procedures now is completely diluted and disseminated. And now my group is larger and it's lost. It's lost in all the chaos and minutia of a growing organization that grows really fast. And I've told people, if you have beliefs, if you have an identity to your group, then everybody should be able to tell me what it is. You should be able to walk into your building and whether I'm talking to CEOs, board members, or if I'm talking to support staff, they should all be able to tell me what this place is about. And they should be able to recite it.

And if they can't, there's work to be done. So I feel like it always comes down at some point, it comes down to a connection to understanding where something is going, even as an individual player. And I don't even care, honestly, I don't care if that it, that one thing is money. I could care less because at least it's defined. I know what it is. You know what I mean? I think not all of us would choose that as that it, but it provides clarity at least.

You know, I'm not sure it's going to be the best choice as it relates to long-term sustainable success as an individual in an organization. But at the end of the day, at least it's solid and it's truthful. I think, you know, more often than not, it falls down on that, you know. I love that. Yeah. Well, see, this has been an awesome conversation. I just appreciate all your wisdom and insight.

Likewise. This is just really fun to get the opportunity to talk to you. Yeah, the next one I want to flip it. Where's the best? Let's do part two and I'll interview you. Okay. Where is the best place for folks to find you? We'll make sure we link to all of that.

But just to follow your work and. Yeah, LinkedIn. There's a great spot. I have two profiles on LinkedIn. If you see me on a drum set, you're on the wrong one. Okay. Well, no, maybe we want to follow that one too. Why not?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Instagram also at S. Tashin. Nice. On Instagram or at Bomb Shelter Beats on Instagram, because that's my studio's Instagram page. Oh, God. And then my website, Elevationprox.com.

There's another great spot to find us and just, you know, keep tracking. communicate with us any way you see fit. First initial last name at Elevationprox.com is my email address. I love connecting with people and I do my best to respond to everybody. So, yeah, I appreciate this. Thanks so much, Steve. Thank you. Thank you.

This has been great, Kristen. Thank you to Steve for sharing his insights and coaching philosophies on high performance. If you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, please subscribe to the podcast. Leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at WOOP, at Will Ahmed, at Kristen underscore Homes, 2126. Have a question. What's the answer on the podcast? Email us, podcast at WOOP.com. Call us 508,443, 49952.

If you want to join WOOP, you can check it out for free 30 days, free trial membership. That's just WOOP.com. New members can use the code Will, W-I-L, to get a $60 credit on W-W-A-L-Ccessaries. All right, folks, that's a wrap. Thank you for listening. We'll catch you next week. the world podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green.