the first thing I say to people when I introduce
myself to them in a performance situation is that I'm a human and I'm you know it's likely that
I'm going to make some mistakes culture isn't a document it's not a set of rules culture is what
we live right it's the environment we live in so Gary Anderson welcome to the podcast my
first question is how do you define success in sport well first of all thank you very much
for having me on this podcast I'm delighted to be here and you know in my
aging years now I
just want to make sure that I impart some of my um things that I've encountered so that if someone
comes up against something that I've encountered you know that they they can see how I've dealt
with it um but how dividing success in sport I think what you have to look at is what were
the objectives at the start of the journey um why did you do this to start with um and once
you define why you did it and what you wanted that outcome to be then I think you can map against
that um but that's for an individual to decide I don't think we should you know in sport we
are confined sometimes by scoreboard you know the number of runs we score the number of goals
we score or whatever so but that doesn't always tell the full story you know certainly in a team
game you could lose the game one nil but had the game of your life you know in you know you only
have to watch some of the football at the weekend with late last minute winners and things you know
it's um you kn
ow people have had a really really good game and yet come out on the losing side so
yeah is that a success to them or is it yeah and I think that you've got to look the objectives
but in sport the determinant there is often the scoreboard um and we've got to remember sometimes
that the scoreboard whilst it's important and we all live by that and it's what we get rewarded
by sometimes doesn't tell the whole story in terms of being a reflective practitioner and
looking back on that time if yo
u were to maybe think about maybe what traits certain athletes
have to become successful what do you think they are and you mentioned obviously your kind of
experiences and viewer to maybe use that as a kind of a a benchmark and kind of think about
some of the traits that's professional athletes and successful athletes have to to make it to
that top level what do you think they might be um what I will say is that um driven doesn't even
describe it from the people that I grew up with you kno
w they were they were totally focused they
were totally engrossed in what it needed to take um but I don't think any two athletes are the
same I think that and that's the same in every Walk of Life I believe that you know what works
for one doesn't always work for another but driven in some capacity has to be there has to be that
intrinsic drive that you want to achieve something um I love working with athletes who challenge me
um and I think that an athlete who's inquisitive would challeng
e me as a coach and ask lots of
questions um at the time you know you might get a bit paid off with it with athletes always asking
questions but I I see that as a positive because they want to learn as long as they're asking
the questions in the right way and for the right reasons um but I'm I love working with those type
of athletes who might not always be seen as the norm they might be a bit Machiavellian they might
be a bit Maverick you know and I often see some of these performers on th
e TV looking at some of
these footballers that are classes a little bit of prima donnas are a little bit difficult to
handle I love that I love that type of athlete um you know and with once you get under the skin
of that type of person you see where that drive comes from um and I think you know when you look
at some of the things that these athletes do they they wouldn't do it unless there was a purpose
for them doing it and uh I think the trait that I would look for an athlete that I woul
d think would
be successful is that that inquisitive nature um and you know finding a way of making it work
for themselves so you mentioned kind of getting under the skin of a Maverick athlete and kind
of working with athletes that challenge you what strategies you use to get the best out of
those individuals is there any techniques or any processes that you use within your practice
that enables you to kind of build a relationship and and also kind of get the best out of those
different ty
pes of personalities that you might have within certain Sports yeah at the time some
of the personalities you know you think what the hell am I trying to do here you know it's um
yeah they you're trying to break through that that tough exterior but I think finding out what
actually they want from from their life in sport and you know empathy is a big thing I I've never
met anybody in my whole life who hasn't responded to genuine empathy I think if you are genuinely
empathetic and care about
that person and you know there's that saying that people don't know how
much you know don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and I think that's
important it's it's showing empathy to that person um and making sure that you go out
of your way to try and understand and yeah most of the time in sport we don't
experience that that high that we all crave because there's a process we have to go through
and I learned very early on in my coaching career um was that asking a
l athlete is there anything
you can do for them win or lose whether they've won whether they've lost or whatever is yeah
it's their result if The Athlete's a result as a coach or a performance professional it's not my
result it's the athletic result but finding out in an empathetic way is there anything I can do
for that athlete was really important for me in order that I can get that athlete's trust and
that athlete then could allow me to help them um and some of those the athletes we tal
k about
you know the difficult ones that's hard because you know they they don't they're not people that
are easily trusting of others so I think it's a that's very important but genuine empathy I think
is the the key do you think that's where maybe the problems lie around especially kind of well-being
and mental state is that we always focus on being there when bad things happen rather than
kind of being there as kind of the whole process the reason I say that is sometimes athletes need
s
upport during the process when things are going well and things are going successfully in terms
of maybe just having a bit more of an holistic approach towards that Outlook if that makes
sense yeah I think that's very important that um you know I'm I'm a big Journal I document
lots of things um I do it now because my mind sometimes doesn't remember everything
that I should so I have to write it down um but it's it's important that what whatever
we're doing whether it's successful or not suc
cessful that we make we document it and we
have it there as a reference point because we might want to revisit it and find out
why it didn't work but most importantly we want to find out why it did work you know
I've and there's this philosophy that I have and it's it's a phrase that's used a lot of
what it takes to win and it's understanding the sport and the process that you're currently
working in and what does it really take to win um I I learned this a lot um working when I did
in bob
sleigh I worked in bobsleigh for a number of years I've got metal success at Olympic Games
and we worked with an organization called McLaren yeah the formula one uh outfit and they designed
um one of our sleds uh one of our bobsleds and we got taken around their uh Center at woking and
we got introduced to the gardener The Gardener outside and the person that was working with me
from McLaren said go and ask him what his job is he says no go and ask him what his job is and I
went and asked h
im look I've been asked to ask you what's your job and he said to make McLaren
guard cars with Formula One races oh no wait no you're a gardener he said yeah if I have these
Gardens looking right and pristine the people that come on site here that make these cars go
faster feel good about themselves so my job is to make McLaren cars go fast by doing my Gardens
and that really resonated with me um about what it takes to win um and so understand exactly what
your role is within that team does
that kind of relate to the culture of an organization then Gary
in terms of kind of making everyone feel part of it everyone's together everyone's involved whether
it's the gardener whether it's the kit man or you know people working in the canteen is that kind
of approach from a leadership position very much that in terms of making sure that everyone feels
valued everyone collaborates in their own sense to kind of support that process yeah I think that's
it it's really important that peop
le understand their roles and their responsibilities but they're
also given the authority to do things that could influence an outcome in those roles it's
it's no good putting that guard now in at McLaren and telling him what flowers to
plant you know that's his job you know um it shouldn't be anybody else's job other than
the gardener so he should have the authority to plant what flowers he wants in order to make
that cultural environment the best cultural environment he can be and that's
a big thing for
me is culture isn't a document it's not a set of rules culture is what we live all right it's
the environment we live in and the best cultures and I I've experienced really bad culture I've
experienced really good culture and it's taken me to my mid-60s to realize what the difference is
okay because it you get so wrapped up in it that you sometimes don't see the culture that you're
actually working in but it's really important that you live that culture you live those values
and that everybody contributes to that and whatever your role is as long as it's clearly
defined you are then allowed to shape that role with the authority that you are then responsible
for the outcome I think that's hugely important you said you figured out what the difference
is between a bad culture and a good culture what what are the differences I think it's
that it's um the responsibility and knowing um the respect and the trust um yeah a key
question I ask any team is who are we yo
u know who are we as a team like for instance at the moment
I'm working with baseball and softball and that that is a huge honor for me to work in a sport
like baseball because the Major League Baseball in the US the professionalism of it it's it's
a huge Sport and that's a real privilege for me but when we get them together as Great Britain I
asked a question who are we so what I'm trying to do there is to get us to identify and Achieve
an understanding of what we're actually doing and wit
h that you then get to know each other
there's that respect and trust that suddenly starts to build that spontaneous interaction that
you can get um and but if you don't do that and it is unresolved that you sometimes get that lack
of understanding that mistrust and everybody treats everybody with a little bit of caution and
I think if everybody is a little bit suspicious of everybody you can't really get that culture right
very interesting in terms of how you define what that is and the im
portance of trust and autonomy
and a sense of but I think that comes togetherness yeah it's important to establish who does what
and when and where um and when that's clear the team will operate within that their identified
role um and the responsibilities then are shared and understood and I would then know if I didn't
do my job correctly what impact that would have on the person next to me and similarly he would
understand or she would understand what you know impact it has and I if we do
n't understand what
each other do yeah we're as humans we're really good at picking holes in what other people do and
having a little bit of resentment a little bit of misguided competition amongst ourselves and you
know what when it gets like that people get very apathetic and when you get apathy in the culture
that's when it's hard for the people that are trying to develop and Lead that culture to bring
that back so I think a clearly defined roles and responsibilities are what leads to th
at respect
and Trust so how do we build relationships what kind of things do we try to imply if we are going
into an organization or with there might be people listening to this in other disciplines maybe
business maybe education where they're trying to build strong relationships up with colleagues
and staff members and build a rapport is there anything that you think is valuable within that
process I think you know asking and defining the question of what what we're trying to do here what
what why are we doing this you know and if you don't know why you're doing it I think that's it's
going to be very difficult then to build anything on top of that and if if you then do that and you
get Mutual accountability individuals we don't like being singled out unless we've done well we
like being singled out if we've done well if we've screwed up we don't like being singled out okay
so developing that Mutual accountability with the team is important so that if someone does mess up
t
hen others are there to to pick them up and you know you know cover for them because tomorrow
it might be the other the other way around so I think that Mutual accountability is what makes
that great teamwork and and builds that culture um but if only half the team buy into
that you're never going to get that right um and you know you start getting that resentment
and once you get that sort of uh embedded in a culture it's really difficult to to recover that
um so I think that the yeah it's
really important there's an understanding of what everybody does
um and the difficulties that we all face in the jobs that we do because none of this is easy
you know if it was easy we wouldn't be doing it none of it is easy okay um but what we must
remember is how lucky we are to be doing it if you've ever been in situations where there has
been a misunderstanding so you mentioned the term philosophy and a sense of why we're doing it and
how we how we do it is there any has ever been a ti
me or a moment where there might have been
disagreement or they've kind of been different ideas and different thought processes in terms of
what the long-term strategy might be and that's kind of maybe challenged your values or challenged
the way that you you kind of see this process to kind of play out within a certain role is there
anything that's happened there in terms of maybe do that and how do you kind of deal with that
in terms of making sure that you are on board you want to do the
best for athletes but you
know you've got to ensure that your voice is heard and you are making sure that you know
you stick into your values in your and your your nature within what you're trying to achieve
no it's never happened it's all been plain sailing um no yeah many many times I've been
in that position where we've had conflict I guess you know um I've had situations
in teams that I've been part of where you know it's become a physical altercation between people
because they are s
o passionate about what they do um I'm not I'm not saying for one minute that's
the right way to do it but you know when you get a to people that are really passionate about things
they they they they resort to the means that they feel they can get their message across but it's
I I have a a saying like um like a differential diagnosis that yeah let's have an open floor when
we're discussing something and there is no right or wrong let's yeah we've got this problem we
need to solve and in pe
rformance we we're always solving problems in performance we're always
looking for that a little bit of gain somewhere so let's have a look at differential diagnosis
here just because one day that we went with this um attacking lineup and it worked maybe the next
day that attacking lineup wouldn't be appropriate for the strategy or the situation we might find
ourselves in so therefore let's have a little bit of differential thought on that and a bit of what
ifs let's throw some what ifs in
you know and let let's everybody have the opportunity to say in a
group of performance professionals men and women alike with strong opinions that takes a lot of
cheering trust me um and leading that process um but I think it's allowing everybody to have that
voice allowing everybody to know that they're being listened to but equally understanding
that at some point somebody's got to make a call and that once that call was made we've all got to
be on the same page and that leads back to tha
t Mutual accountability what we can't have is then
someone sitting in the background when we come in at half time we're losing two nil told you so
you know that isn't helpful um yeah but it happens and you know we're human we're always you know
the first thing I say to people when I introduce myself to them in a performance situation is
that I'm a human and I'm you know it's likely that I'm going to make some mistakes um it's how
I recover from those mistakes but you know when I make a deci
sion it's it might not be good for you
as a player there it might not be good for me as a coach but what I have to do is build that out to
make sure that any decision I make is for the good of the team and good for the performance outcome
and I think going back to what I said before about empathy if you do that and people genuinely
think that you're doing what is right for them then some of them you might be allowed a little
bit of leeway in some of the decisions you take when they go wrong
but yeah um even now I I
sometimes look forward to those conflicts because out of those conflicts and arguments you probably
have tested a lot of your strategies in a way that you haven't tested before when somebody's
so passionate about it you're really testing it in in that way and I think that that that's
that's a positive thing I think it's a good thing so you do you feel like it sometimes it's
needed in in the right place at the right time then to some extent um I think so
um I think
so that everybody understands um you know if something only exists in someone's
head we can't fully understand it they've got to have the courage of their convictions to
say what they believe and what they share um the way they communicate it maybe they should
we should look at you know developing the skills in that sometimes um if we are in an environment
where they feel that they can be trusted to share that information and it they're not going to be
attacked for sharing that information
they can probably use a bit of detail to commit to what
they're trying to get out there and you know in complex situations such as Sport and we are always
in a complex situation when we're trying to win um realities and opportunities from that
sort of thinking needs to be encouraged um and we shouldn't shy away from it just because
it's sometimes difficult just because sometimes you might say something about to someone and they
might not like it shouldn't mean we don't do it but we do it i
n the appropriate and the proper
way sometimes again there's some reflection of that you mentioned the appropriate and proper way
if you think about maybe external factors pressure to get results football for example you might
be in a a spell of bad form and you know this pressures from the media the fans and all these
other things do you think that's the easiest said than done in terms of trying to control that
emotional element and trying to communicate effectively because I'm sure that t
here's a lot
of external factors that do impact that emotional aspect or that emotional Outburst if that's if
that's the case how do we kind of control that how do we set an environment where we can kind of
elaborate on these issues effectively rather than let the pressure take over and all these kind of
things that are impacting US during that period of time yeah I think what you said there is the is
is football is an example you know and as you know I've worked in professional football fo
r a number
of years as well as Olympic sport my philosophy of what it takes to win in professional football
is you can't implement it you know um you you know you you have a set number of weeks probably
in football to make your mark and you know there aren't many luxuries in certainly in a senior
professional football of where you can have a long-term Vision hopefully nowadays with sporting
directors they might have the long-term Vision but the head coaches you know I'm not sure that many
head coaches have a long-term Vision beyond the end of the season because you know you lose two or
three games on the Trot and you know what happens um so I think that the what it takes to win
principle in Olympic sport with a long term where you have a four-year cycle is probably not
appropriate in a sports actually professional football where you've probably got for a four
week cycle not a four year cycle you know um and the philosophies have to be very different
there and I'm you know wh
en the amount of money is involved in going into the Premier League or
yeah getting promotional relegation you can see why some club Owners take that short-term view
um but I'm yeah I'm hoping that with the Advent and more and more sporting directors coming
into professional football that they take a longer term view because I think that if it's
given time it would work um but in in terms of where things like that have been tested
um it it's that work ethic and culture um that living that c
ulture which I think
sometimes in football it's difficult to be able to do that um I'm trying to say that you know
I don't I'm not saying it's wrong it's just very very different I think you know does that answer
your question a little bit I'll probably rambled a right off peace there but I think it's a yeah
just to add to that so from your own personal perspective you mentioned the different sports
that you've been involved in how do you adapt to that philosophy and those agendas then
so
you mentioned time frame as kind of a key element that that's that's different whether
it's the Olympic Games in comparison to obviously football as mentioned how do you adapt your kind
of your values and your strategies to going into those environments is there anything that's kind
of Springs to mind I'm reflection of maybe your journey so far yeah um it's understanding the
environment you're going into um it's and and starting with that Clear Vision of what you want
to achieve here you kn
ow my time in professional football I was very fortunate I worked with
some really good managers um who you know did things very well and we probably had more success
than I had or and not success so my turnover of managers that I was working for was probably not
as big as what some people experience in football um however it's I would never dream of going
in as a director of football to a professional football club with the same philosophy and the
same model I would going into an Olympic s
port because you would fail you know it would it would
just wouldn't be given the right time frame and similarly you can't take that short-term model
in football and move that into an Olympic sport because the luxury of an Olympic sport if it is
a luxury is that you have you have four years to get ready the pressures of investment and
funding from UK sport might mean that you've got to perform on demand each year but the you can
always show that long-term process of four years time for inst
ance in Paris standing on the top of
the podium was what you started thinking of four years ago whereas you know in football you're
often parachuted into a job in football where you've got to make immediate change you know
you you we see it with the new manager bounce or whatever but you know the reason clubs change
managers is because they want to change fortunes you don't normally go into a football job because
the team's doing really well you know that's that's very rare that that happen
s um and it's
understanding of what you're going in to achieve um and making sure that everybody then understands
that and having that impact that you that you want to achieve um how I adapt to it is and I've
come into a a situation at the moment where for one one minute I'm dealing with Great
Britain players who are playing at a fairly low uh Independent League level in the USA as
professionals and probably on the same par as non-league footballers in in the UK and we're
also having playe
rs are on multi-million dollar contracts playing for the senior MLB clubs and
we have to then bring those players together so that culture in that locker room is in one corner
I've got a player that is on millions and millions of pounds owns many cars many houses I've got the
player that is playing next to him who is probably living from week to week that's a really
interesting cultural Dynamic to have um and it's making sure that they
they understand each other and simply going to sports t
hat are heavily funded I was
fortunate in one of the sports I've worked in where we were one of the highest funded Sports um
that was a lot easier to manage that performance environment because I had the resource to be
able to throw a little bit of money at it to solve the problems didn't always guarantee
success but in the short term it got us over hurdles a lot easier than being in a sport where
there wasn't that resource and those hurdles were difficult to jump over so it was you know I
think
adaptability and knowing what your role is I was always taught as well even if you haven't got the
investment you haven't got the money doesn't mean that you shouldn't try and do things right you
should always try and do things right but within the capabilities and the investment that you
have available Yeah you mentioned obviously the Olympics and if you kind of use this as a bit of a
case study I can imagine that period of four years and that's that's everything the mindset is on in
terms of trying to compete at that very elite peak level um at the Olympic Games or the paralympic
games um I'm intrigued to to kind of figure out the transition after that and that and what you
do to support maybe athletes after that kind of high or even low um because obviously the focus
has been on that for such a long period of time and when you get there it's kind of make or break
in terms of performance the ruthless nature of it sees very successful people Macy's people not
achieve
what they set out to achieve and then there's that transition of okay it's finished
and what next do I compete again or do I retire can you elaborate a little bit on that process
and what you do to support athletes within that yeah I what you've picked up on there
because these are really big thing for me um yeah one minute you're in a stadium packed
at the closing ceremony 70 000 people at the closing ceremony you're celebrating your medal
your or you're commiserating because you didn't ge
t your medal and the next day it's all over
yeah you've you're back in the UK it's raining um yes you have to you have to buy your drinks
whereas you've lived in an Olympic Village for three weeks where you've not had to pay for a
single thing you know your Coca-Cola you just went and helped yourself you know you go into the
shop here and you you you're suddenly staggered because someone's asking you to pay for it um it's
it's a real difficult situation and that don't get me wrong here it w
e are all privileged to
work in high performance sport it's an it's a real privilege to do so but the pressures of
being in that environment and they must not be interested in any particular way and everybody
that's in them they're human and probably more vulnerable than lots of people who aren't in that
environment so one one minute they're on that that stage of performance and the next minute they're
back where that's it it's gone you know what next um and it's really really important tha
t they are
supported you through them fortunately now I think in the UK we've we've got good support structures
around that but there are still people you saw it today on the news with Adam Petey about um talking
about you know his return to training for Paris Olympic Games and how a gold medal won't solve
the problem that he has um that's a very real thing it's an extremely real thing and I think
that we have to be mindful of that and I you know make sure that that support network is in th
ere to
for those for the athletes um that are working in that but equally we're very lucky to do what we
do you know we are we really are lucky you know to experience those highs and lows and what I've
done over the years of I've worked it out that it pretty much evens itself out you know you have
those massive highs where you've won you've won a medal You've Won League or whatever and then
there's other years where you've got relegated you've not performed there you wanted but you
know wh
at over my years and it's it's 45 years I've been involved in sport now is they've
aimed themselves out it's pretty you know you could probably draw a line and it's a fairly
medium line yeah um but I wouldn't change any of those highs same change under the lows but then
I wouldn't have appreciated the highs as much you set the the pressure on athletes to perform
in that Elite level or that competition or um whatever uh sport that they play there might be
certain events that happen during a
season or or a year what what what things do you do to kind of
relax athletes or relaxed teams in terms of those pressured environments there might be media there
might be expectation uh there might be factors around you know maybe internally in terms of them
wanting to achieve certain things what do you do as a kind of an organization or
a practitioner to kind of support those athletes you mentioned having
the right support network but what what would that entail what would
that look like
within that process well first of all I think we try and get across
the message and certainly the psychologist that works with me gets across the message to me that
that pressure is a bit of a privilege you know um you know if we didn't have that pressure on you
that probably means there's no you're not going to win because no one expects you to so having that
pressure is because you're pretty good at what you do all right and people are expecting you to
win so embrace it a little bit you
know um yeah we all know that if the pressure gets too overbearing
it it can have a detrimental effect on the outcome but let's try and embrace that a little bit
and understand why we're feeling that pressure because you know the fact that we've got that
pressure is probably we're pretty good at what we're doing and we probably should win this so
let's understand what that pressure really means um obviously some people can cope with it better
than others you know if people are are new to it
then they probably don't have the experiences to
draw upon to be able to do that so that's where having a good support network of psychologists
good coaches around people that can support that person to to explain to them the feelings you're
having are normal these are normal feelings you know it's not people that have gone before
you felt exactly how you're feeling now okay and it if it if we would be more concerned if you
weren't feeling this way right that you that you didn't feel that
pressure but then understanding
what your job is how are we going to execute this all right and we all know that an athlete and
a coach is probably gonna react emotionally in a lot of circumstances whereas my job as
a performance director or as a head coach or whatever is to probably try and bring that logical
element into it of you know we've done all this in training we've done all this and yeah this is
how we do it we know that by what it takes to win policy that if we do it this way the
likely
outcome is we're going to achieve this and it's my job to bring that logic in it's and let all the
emotion come out on the podium let all the emotion come out if you need to cry because we've lost
okay that's the time for emotion if we try and win this emotionally the odds are probably going
to go against us a little bit so it's bringing that support into some to the athletes that the
reason we do it like this and then provide them with all the evidence of why we do that I'm not
sa
ying that on the start line we bring the book out and say look this is everything we've done
but over the period of time we we reassure people by this is the evidence that we've got that we
know if we execute in this way the likelihood is this is going to be the outcome all right and
then hopefully that with embracing that pressure which is a privilege then goes on to
lead to a an outstanding performance um but the afterwards creating that
space to allow that decompression and any strategic
intervention by a psych or bias
approach or by a support network is needed um make sure that we we create that space for
those interventions to then go in and do their job um you know if you don't create that space
afterwards for those interventions those interventions are not going to be as effective
of what we probably need them to be well you like doing this process Gary do you get
nervous do you feel pressure obviously the focus has been on athletes but what are
your emotions like dur
ing this during these processes or phases of composition I'm
the worst I'm terrible um I am the most saying that was given to me by a psychologist that
worked with me because I was I was always the most emotive person there I was the person that used to
throw things around I used to smash dressing rooms I used to Yeah Bang tables and yeah I was I was
that type of Coach um I learned quite quickly that that was a bit of a show and you only impressed
the youngsters in there because they they u
sed to like GA using it losing his temper and throwing
stuff around but it wasn't very effective um so I was taught this phrase of helicopter that
in the most pressured performance environment even the most seasoned athlete was probably looking
for leadership somewhere they're looking for that calming influence and if they see the person
that's head of Delegation or the performance director flying around you know not knowing what
he's doing you know smashing tea cups and doing things like t
hat they are probably going to act
in that way as well because they think ah he's doing it must be the way to do it whereas if they
see me as that calming influence that is taking it in my stride a little bit then they might
think well that's good you know we're calm here it's under control I can go about and execute
my performance but trust me I can I can do that but it's an act inside I'm wanting to fight the
referee I'm trying to fight the fourth official on the touchline I'm about to th
row you know a
tantrum so inside of me that's all that's going on I think my skill is trying to portray that I
am that cool calm collected individual to allow the athlete to execute that performance that we
have worked so hard to do uh I'm yeah but equally I'm you know when we win I want to celebrate um
normally I have to celebrate by going to doping control and sitting in there for four or five
hours because it's so dehydrated that they can't produce a sample so the amount of medals we've
celebrated sitting in doping control is unreal um but it's it's um yeah I I have a something
that when an athlete is really struggling a very simple statement I give to an athlete is
a question of how do you want to be remembered when you come off that field of play when you
come off that track or when you come off that pitch how do you want to be remembered have that
in the frame if you know however you want to be remembered if your performance kind of elicit that
feeling in other people
then you've done your job interesting Gary and um I think it's I
think it's intriguing how you mentioned the energy that you let off in terms of a
calm calm and trying to develop a common environment when you're you're kind of your
heart's racing and you're kind of emotionally um outbursts are going on in your head but you
can't kind of let the office is interesting how that energy of being calm and I suppose
that's the skill that you've learned and developed over time right yeah and I thin
k what
my experiential learning from it is that any world-class performance on the biggest stage I've
been on has been when I've behaved in that way all right whether that's because I've behaved
in that way or when it's gone wrong and we were never going to achieve it anyway I've behaved in a
different way I I can't quite work out but what I do know is talking to athletes and debriefing with
athletes and athletes that have retired and I that I used to work with now you know they recalled to
me yeah you know when you were really calm that day when everything was going wrong and you you
just you gave us that reassurance that everything was under control it wasn't trust me because I was
equally as frustrated as everybody but I thought you know I can't let people see that I'm starting
to panic because when it gets to me panicking where do we go you know if I'm panicking it must
be [ __ ] you know so everybody's gonna yeah you know goes to that um but it helps to me as well
when
athletes are behaving in that way as well that they're calm and going about their business
I that gives me an air of confidence as well but then everyone is different I some athletes I
want to see really wild up and I want to see them you know acting totally irrationally because
once you get to know you know well he's in the right frame of mind she's in the right frame
of mind because she's doing that um but that's when you get to know athletes so your book winning
mindset can you just uh l
et viewers or listeners um a little insight into what the book involves
and what it entails and uh how did it become a how did it come about in terms of you writing
this and sharing knowledge Within mindset and having a winning one yeah well I I was approached
by um an author who that writes lots of books um and he's very clever because he gets he's
the managing editor so he gets lots of people to write chapters etc etc I'd always done a few
chapters for him in other books and he'd just com
e up with me and said look how do you fancy being
alongside being imagine is Eric sevis on this guy and he said how do you fancy being alongside
me doing one of these books as a managing editor and we can put it together and we'll see how
it goes and I said yeah I'll give it a go um and so what we did we collated stories from
other high performance practitioners how other coaches other performance directors and we we
basically put this book out winning mindsets and I I'm privileged to have
written the the forward
and the first couple of chapters but then we it's almost like a conversational piece then of where
we talk to other practitioners about what do they do in these circumstances and at the time it
was an opportunity for me to get down on paper some of the things that I've learned overall
these years and I didn't think anything of it at all and then all of a sudden it took off a
little bit and um yeah we it got done quite well in the Amazon charts and you you couldn't
y
ou know it's not that going that well at the moment it's 99p in bargain bookshops at the
moment you know it's um so we're never going to be millionaires on it but it was something that I
felt now and I carry it around with me now because it reminds me of what I've put down in paper but
also some of the other people in there reminded me that sometimes I need to revisit and reflect
on what I'm saying I'm good at telling people this is how it should be done what this does is
bring me back and
allows me to function in the way that I've told people is the most appropriate
way so it's reminded me and you know I think it's quite a good read personally but I would in that
driver I wrote the bloody thing no it's um yeah but I would like to do another one I really would
but that will come when I retire I think yeah and and which is gonna probably
be sooner rather than later what we'll do uh Gary is we'll put the link uh
to your book um in the in the description so if anyone's listening
or watching this they can kind
of check that out okay and final question for me Gary um what I tend to do with my guess is I
either get them to look back or look forward but I think we've kind of talked about some of
the things that have happened in the past and you mentioned retirement and um where you might
want to kind of leave a legacy and it kind of comes back to your point in terms of what you
said to an athlete and I'm going to ask you the same question in terms of how would you lik
e to
be remembered in the area of sports performance ah that I asked that question a lot to people
and I've never ever had it asked of me you're the first person that's had it that um yeah
I I've had a couple of retirements already and come back from them so um I'm I'd like to be
remembered as someone that facilitated you know people's performance and they they look back and
think yeah GA was one of the people that I look up to and do that I I don't do this for that I
but I'd like to think
that my legacy is that I I'd like to leave any job I went into in a better
place than when I joined it I know I can't back go back and do some of the those jobs again and
I probably didn't leave it in as good a place as what I found it but I'd like to be known as the
person that went in somewhere and when I did leave it it had been taken to a much better place than
when I started and I think in a couple of jobs I've done certainly towards the latter part of my
career that's happened at the
start of my career it certainly didn't wasn't that way but I
was learning that's my excuse I was learning um but yeah I think how do I really remember
there's someone that took Sports into a place that left a little bit of a legacy that
allowed them to push on even further excellent stuff Gary Anderson thank you for your
time thank you and finally from me if listeners or viewers want to maybe get in contact with you
how do they find you social media I presume no I don't do social media um
I used to um because
um on LinkedIn um it's probably the LinkedIn one yeah and I'm happy for you to put my LinkedIn
profile up and people can and I'm definitely yeah I'm always happy to speak to people it might
take me a little while and as you know I work on us time at the moment because of Major
League Baseball but I'm based in in London um but I you know I'll always get back to people
it might take you a few days but I'll always get back to people but no social media I still
treat as a
petulant teenager um and uh gets people in all sorts of trouble so I I have
a personal Facebook but that's about it yeah Gary Anderson thank you so much thank
you very much thank you foreign [Music]
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