The one thing you must do if you're going to be the leader

The most valuable lesson I've learned from quarantine is the need to communicate.

No, no. I’m not talking about communication from government leadership.

I’m talking about YOUR leadership (and by “your” I mean “MY”), with your players, with your family, with your friends…with your people.

The kind of communication I’m learning about is the kind of communication that’s needed in the silence of isolation.

When you don’t talk to your people, they will fill the silence with the voice of their insecurity.

“I haven’t heard from them in three days.  I don’t belong.”
“No one has checked in on me in three weeks.  They don’t even know I exist.”
“Coach hasn’t said anything to me about last night’s game.  I’m not a valuable member of this team.”
“I haven’t received any feedback.  My contributions are insignificant.”

Looking for an anxious, stressed-out team, staff, or family? Isolate them with silence.

Looking for a high-performing team, staff, or family? Communicate with them regularly.
Positive, negative, or just say hi.

We used to run into them all the time – at practice, in meetings, walking to lunch. 
Now we have to schedule Zoom meetings.

But they are so busy, we don’t want to bother them with another meeting.
But why aren’t they calling me?
Do they not notice me?
Am I still an important part of the team?

Silence is a megaphone for our insecurity.

If you are using silence intentionally, be careful. The silent treatment can be a sophisticated form of bullying. You aren’t solving any problems with that. If you want behavior change, communicate clearly.

In the NBA we tell our players on defense to communicate early, loud and continuous.
You aren’t trying to communicate over 20,000 screaming fans, so we can adapt it:

Communicate EARLY, CLEARLY and CONTINUOUSLY.

Tyson Chandler used to dominate our innersquad scrimmages without ever touching the basketball.
How?
He used his voice to control the entire game.

Ty Jerome was the slowest, least athletic player on the court, but won nearly every pickup game during the preseason of his rookie year.
How?
He was the only player who would communicate.

The leader is not selected by title or position.
The leader is the one who CARES, the one who is most AWARE, and the one who COMMUNICATES.

The lies we believe under the spotlight

A teacher and an apprentice were scheduled to lead a discussion together for a large group of people. The teacher planned to lead it with the apprentice chiming in to supplement the lesson. But then the pandemic hit and moved every large gathering online and in front of a camera. 

The apprentice did not have much experience in front of a camera. Every time it was his turn to speak he would stumble over his words and forget what he was going to say. They had to stop and restart, and stop and restart again. Over and over. No one complained, but the apprentice could feel the tension and pressure rising. He became rattled. 

He tried harder to focus. He reviewed his notes, wrote down everything he wanted to say, and even tried to create a makeshift teleprompter. 

Nothing worked.  

More mistakes. 
More do overs.
Everyone became more and more frustrated. 

Then the teacher put his arm around the apprentice and secretly motioned to the camera operator to keep recording. 

He assured the apprentice that he had all the time, bandwidth and battery life to perform the presentation to his liking. Then he prompted the apprentice to recall the time he first believed in the message they were sharing, the struggle he had been through in his life, and why their message was so important for everyone to hear. Without the fear and pressure of the camera, he became unhinged. He told stories with emotion and made a passionate plea to an unseen audience as if he was talking to his best friend in need. 

When he had finished everything he wanted to say, the apprentice took a deep breath and slouched in his chair, wishing he could deliver the same performance when the camera was rolling.  Then he looked towards the camera and was surprised to learn it had been recording the whole time. 

After reviewing the tape, the apprentice was shocked and proud to see the person on camera speaking so convincingly. He never knew that person existed, how he came to be, or where to find him again.

When the spotlight is on you to perform at your best, it can melt even the most talented, courageous, and accomplished people. When you wade into uncharted territory, you can face an unfamiliar struggle.

When mistakes, losses, or failures accumulate, momentum seems to turn against us. It feels like our game – or life – is spiraling out of control. With all of our willpower we grip the reins tighter and focus harder to get back on track, but things only get worse. The whole thing starts caving in around is. The cause can only be one of two things: Either we are not capable or they are out to get us.

Neither of these is true of course.

But you have felt it. And your athletes have felt it too.

Our featured course, Catching Confetti, is the most tangible assist to athletes and coaches that we have served up yet. It will help you navigate the distractions standing in your way, dismantle the pressure that paralyzes you, and guide you on the path to becoming your own best coach. 

This is the mission of CHAMPIONSHIFT.

Everything you need to own the spotlight, shine in the spotlight, and be the star you imagine is already inside you. It’s time to bring it to the surface and shine it on the world.

3 Steps to Accelerate Your Climb

You know I spend a lot of time thinking about how to become an elite athlete and coach. Recently, I distilled the path towards elite to three elements. Do you have these as part of your life?

1. Be intentional about how you think.

For as long as I have lived in Arizona I have said it's hard to have a bad day here. It's warm and sunny with clear skies almost every single day. I grew up in the Midwest. I know the struggle of trying to overcome a dreary day to be happy and productive. That struggle doesn't exist in Phoenix.

Well, in July it's 110 degrees outside every day. It hits triple digits before 7 a.m. We can barely take a morning walk with the dog before we are relegated inside. It's easy to complain about the heat. It takes no effort and no one disagrees.

But it doesn't help you have a better day. In our house we call it stinkin' thinkin' and challenge each other to make an attitude adjustment. We hung three balloons from the doorframe to our living room. If anyone complains about the weather we pop a balloon. We can only do it three times in the week.

This is such a small mental shift. When it comes to your performance and leadership in high stakes situations the power of the mind can have monumental effects. It cannot be understated. It’s the secret to enduring all circumstances, to relaxing under pressure, to focusing your attention in the moment, and to making all the hard work pay off when it matters most.

We all invest a lot of time, energy, and money into developing our skills, tactics, and physical abilities. We put a lot of willpower into being successful and even just having a good day. 

Do you realize how one small shift in the way you think can change everything? 

And it goes way further than thinking positive during a thunderstorm.

2. Be strategic with how you organize your life.

The most successful people operate with some kind of systemization in their life. They have processes and routines that set them up for success, prepare for their opportunities, and develop them for the performance they desire. It’s not mindless automation. It strategically matches who they want to become and the type of people they want to be, and it gives them valuable feedback for when to adjust and where they can grow next.

You already live by a set of processes and routines. Most of us fall into them haphazardly and some of them are destructive habits we use to avoid something. When is the last time you took an audit of your processes and routines? Are they serving you well for who you want to become and where you want to go? Did they serve you well for a season and now it's time to upgrade? 

Routines can be a powerful tool to guide your life, keep you prepared for a hopeful opportunity, give you feedback when it's time to adjust, and give you something to fall back on when you're just not feeling it.

3. Be vulnerable in building a team of trust and support.

Vulnerability is not a weakness. It can be if you're just vomiting your junk on others for them to carry. Used appropriately though, it can be the superpower that binds a team together. It fuels the momentum for deep trust and respect that helps your team endure the wins and losses of life's roller coaster.

If you struggle with vulnerability it may be because you were vulnerable in the past and were hurt or taken advantage of. I'm sorry for that. But it doesn't have to inform the rest of your future. You may fear vulnerability because you fear it will confirm your suspicions that you don't belong, you are a freak, or that it will expose you for who you truly are.

The average athlete or coach who is part of a high-performing team will always go farther than a superior athlete or coach with no support. Until you learn to be vulnerable with the people who are investing in you, and the people you are investing in, you will always come up short of what you can be.

WAKE UP!

We were just starting the workout. The player had completed his warm up routine and the lead coach was explaining the first phase.

Then the player threw the ball at me.

“Wake up, Bret!”

I was in la la land. My responsibility in this particular workout was going to be minimal so my mind began to wander to new ideas and different things I could create to help.

The player realized I wasn’t fully engaged in the moment. So he brought me back.

That’s a good teammate to have.

People used to count how many times Steve Nash high fived a teammate during a game and practice. They lauded his leadership and team attitude.

Diana Taurasi does the same thing. Watch a Phoenix Mercury practice and no one is left out. I heard her explain her approach this way: She wants to see if everyone is engaged. Are you here now, in this moment? Or are you wandering, thinking about something else, worried about stuff that doesn’t matter to what we are doing?

Your best work is done when you are fully present, fully engaged.

I wasn’t engaged because I didn’t feel like I was needed. I naturally drifted to something more challenging, more exciting.

Sometimes we get lost in what’s going to happen next, or what happened last, and fade out of what is happening now.

Sometimes anxiety of our self-image keeps us from being fully engaged.

Sometimes fear distracts from the moment.

Take note of when you become disengaged. Where did you wander? What were you hoping to find, or hoping to escape?

Your biggest fight every day

Your biggest fight every day…

Is not to outperform the standards.
Is not to prove everyone wrong.
Is not to get ahead or move farther faster.
Is not to get one step closer to your goal.
Is not to even be better than yesterday.

Your biggest fight every day is to show up.

Fully present.
Fully engaged.

Show up.
Get there. Be there. Again. And tomorrow too.
The resiliency to keep coming back.

Fully present.
Remove the distractions that take you out of the moment.
Be here, now.

Fully engaged.
The best thing you can bring to the table is your full, energized self.
Bring your best stuff, your best self.

You’re already ambitious. If you learn how to get out of your own way and ignite your best energy, you’ll accelerate your growth and optimize your performance.

All you have to do is unblock the flow.

Tunneling to the next big discovery

I processed everything that could go wrong. What creatures I may run into. How I might get stuck. None of them seemed to be big enough threats.
So I strapped on the headlamp and started to crawl.

We were walking along the creek and stopped for a snack.

We sat down on a ledge cut out from a towering rock wall. It was the perfect resting spot. Over my shoulder I noticed a hole in the side of the canyon. I peered inside.

Not too far into the tunnel it seemed to open up enough that I could probably sit up and turn around. The initial opening was just big enough for me to army crawl through. My mind raced with options.

I could army crawl eight feet in with a headlamp, explore the opening, and still be able to turn around to exit the cave.

When I reached the opening it wasn’t just big enough for me to turn around, it was big enough for me to stand up and reach my hands over my head!
I was in awe of the discovery and so energized I yelled for Tayler to come join me.
She took some convincing.

Reveling in this secret I had uncovered, I almost missed the rest of the story.
At the back of this larger opening was another tunnel. We both could duck and waddle through. So we went for it.

At the end of the tunnel was another opening. This one larger than the first!
And evidence of active history in the cave.
A makeshift table. A rotten chair. Foam padding and piping.

Our imaginations went wild!

And then…

Another tunnel.
Stairs downward. With a handrail.

Leading to a larger opening.

What had we discovered?
Ancient life? History hidden along a tour path?

Again, another tunnel.
And another opening. This one with two more tunnels leading different directions.

The realization finally hit us.
We were in the belly of a mountain.

We consider ourselves adventurous.
We hike and explore new places all the time.
This one exceedingly topped the list.
The biggest breakthrough of our exploits.

I consider myself an explorer of ideas too.

I had a four-day weekend and spent the entire four days on my couch by myself. Not binging on Netflix. With a journal and a pen and a blank sheet of paper.

The brain was firing, the ideas were flowing, dots were connecting. I couldn’t let this moment slip just to stay on the same tour path of the weekend.

It was an opening in the cave.

You are chipping away at the rock wall of something.
Each swing of the axe is breaking pieces.
One swing is eventually going to take a big chunk out of the wall.

And then you are going to take a hundred more swings at the indentation you just made before your next big breakthrough.
And then another big chunk.
Each new opening is going to seem bigger than the last.
And each tunnel to the next will seem too small or too terrifying.

Keep chipping away.
Enjoy the new discoveries.
And then get back on your hands and knees and crawl to the next one.

Are you aware of your kryptonite? Learn to give yourself what you need.

“Who are you playing for?” she kept asking.

Her question was on point.

I didn’t like my answer.

She had talked about Saturday morning volleyball 2s for months.
Four courts. Winners stayed and losers were off. The goal was to get to Court 1.

I had been playing for more than a year in the more social Tuesday night meet-ups. My skills were improving and my confidence was growing.
I was ready to take on the more competitive Saturday morning 2s.
It was time for Bret Burchard to reveal himself to the volleyball community.

We won our first couple games but I didn’t play so well.
Passes were erratic. Sets off the net. No solid spikes.

Then we made it to Court 1, facing the usual stakeholders, Robert and his wife. I had played him before and all I ever wanted to do is block one of his power hits and spike one in his face. His arrogance made my skin crawl. Someone needed to put him in his place.

But he knew my game too.
He served every ball to me.
Outside. Inside. Short. Long.
7-0
8-0
9-0

My heart was pounding. My muscles were tightening.
I tried to breathe through it but I couldn’t relax.
Then I tried to power through it, but my disposition devolved to cuss words and outbursts.

I was defeated.
Not by Robert.
By myself.

Flow was elusive.

Removed from the courts, I know precisely my flow blocker.
The competition was different from our normal Tuesday night crew.
I wasn’t as familiar. And they didn’t know me.

When I don’t feel special or unique, I withdraw and hide (“No, let’s just play on Tuesdays.”) or I power up and prove (“Spike it harder in his face!”).

Internally I didn’t feel like I had a place in this Saturday morning group.
I felt the need to impress rather than just show up with what I had and impact.

This will always be my kryptonite. Whether I’m playing sand volleyball, at work, or engaging in relationships.
If I’m not aware of it, I will repeatedly self-sabotage or never step out to the next great leap.

Aware of it, I can take steps towards recapturing that flow.

This is learning.
This is growing.

Are you aware of your kryptonite?

You will never completely vaccinate yourself from it. But if you are aware of it, you can build safeguards to protect yourself and you can learn how to recover when it seizes you.

Even better, you can flip the weakness into a strength.
What once crippled you can become your superpower.

The hidden driver of every action we take and decision we make

She didn’t even cry.
I couldn’t believe it.
The mom set the infant down on a bench and she tumbled off to the floor!
It didn’t even faze the little girl.

Two minutes later her dad set her in a high chair and all hell broke loose.
She lost her mind, screaming her head off!

How can she fall off a two-foot high bench and not make a peep, but lose it in the security of a high chair?

We make a thousand life or death decisions every day on our commute to work and it doesn’t even faze us. Weaving in and out of traffic, changing lanes without signaling, slamming on our brakes, talking on our phones, and texting without any concern.

But if we survive the gauntlet and make it to work, presenting a new idea to our boss is paralyzing.
Challenging the status quo is only for the most courageous.
Asking for help is too much of an imposition.

Public speaking is considered people’s biggest fear.
Not dying in a car accident.
How can that be?

It is the power of shame.

There are two kinds of fear.
Legitimate fear of physical danger.
If there is a tornado outside and you duck and cover in your basement, that’s a legitimate fear.

Then there is the fear of shame.
Shame is feeling bad about who you are.
And it will prioritize potential emotional pain over physical danger.

This fear of shame is the hidden, subconscious driver of everything we do and every decision we make.

This fear makes rejection sting to the core.
It makes the unique contributors feel more like outcasts.
It makes vulnerability feel like a weakness.
It makes the confines of a high chair more threatening than a fall off a bench.

Your players are afraid.
They are afraid to fail.
They are afraid to disappoint.
Not because they don’t like to lose or don’t like the doghouse.
Because they are afraid of the shame.
Because they are afraid of what losing will say about who they are.

The next time you get so frustrated because they don’t understand what you so intelligently explained to them, or the next time you’re about to give up on them because they always cave under pressure, consider what they might be afraid of.

If you can speak to the voice of their shame, you can help them relax and focus.

And if you pay close enough attention, you might even realize you are the one adding to their voice of shame.

Want to become a resilient person?

View life through this lens:

Life is more about learning and experiencing than accomplishing and achieving.

If every moment is about learning, growing and experiencing something new then there is no endpoint.

If there is a finality, a single moment that holds the weight of all your validation, you set yourself up for a crash and burn, and even if you succeed, there is nothing after that.

There is no final exam in life.
There are only progress checks along the way.

Even “progress” is not the right word because growth isn’t linear.

Each moment simply reveals something more about who you are.

And so you put yourself out there,
You take chances,
You explore new territory,
You go before you’re ready,
You jump in with two feet,
You participate,
You choose yourself

Because every time you do you learn something new.

And then you focus your energy on growing or applying what you learned.

And you keep repeating that over and over and over again.

And that’s life.

This moment – like every moment – is just a moment. It will pass.
It does not define who you are.

So give your full self to the moment. Everything you have become and everything you know to be true. And when it’s over, reflect on it and keep on growing.

String together a lifetime of these individual moments and they will say, “There was a resilient person who kept on going.”

2 elements in optimal performance

Devin Booker ends every workout with the same drill.
He has to make seven consecutive 3-pointers from five different spots on the court.

It doesn’t sound terribly difficult for a great shooter, until you miss on the sixth and seventh shot a few times. Then it becomes terribly taxing on the mind and performance.

This particular day he drilled seven in a row on his second try from the first spot.
Next spot he hit six in a row then missed in-and-out.
A couple more makes, followed by a miss.
And again.

The inconsistency was taking its toll.
The frustration was building.
5 minutes later.
10 minutes later he was still on the second spot.

Then Coach stopped him. Talked to him about not being so critical with every miss. About finding his flow and letting it fly.

Book re-engaged, restarting from the beginning. He drilled seven in a row on the first spot.
Second spot he missed once but it didn’t faze him. We were off and running!

Our 19-year-old rookie, Marquese Chriss, was shooting a similar 3-point game. He just had to make 10 from the same five spots.

By his fourth spot he hit 5-out-of-7.
But then made just 2 of his next 10.
Frustration was boiling.

Coach stopped him. Reset his mind and re-engaged.
‘Quese hit five straight and moved to his final spot.

There are two elements in optimal performance:
1. High level of attention and focus
The task is challenging, not boring or redundant. All of your attention is here.
This was me last weekend during my first mountain biking ride. The novelty and danger required my full attention to every rock and crevice.

2. Surrendered motor control
When you release your motor control to instincts.
Nerves and anxiousness don’t tighten your muscles. It doesn’t cause you to willfully overpower or hesitantly participate.
This was not me two weekends ago playing Saturday 2s volleyball.

After enough reps, Devin and Marquese can get bored. Their minds wander.
Something has to bring their attention back to the now.

After enough misses the fear and critical voices become louder and more convincing.
Something has to help them relax and surrender again.

Pay attention to your focus. Are you here, now? Or is your mind wandering?

Pay attention to your action? Is it uninhibited?

Nurture the root. Fix the fruit.

It felt tight but I’m a tough guy. I could play through it.

Second possession of the first game my whole leg locked up.

I pulled my hamstring in my right leg.

After some ice, Advil and a depressed night of sleep I visited the training staff. They advised me to stretch my hip flexor (in front of my leg) and gave me exercises to strengthen my glute.

“But I pulled my hamstring…”

My deficiencies had nothing to do with my hamstring. A tight hip flexor caused my hips to sit forward, straining the hamstring. A weak glute required my stressed hamstring to do more work.

Lengthen the hip flexor, strengthen the glute, relax the hamstring.

The problem is rarely what we initially think it is.

I had a terrible hitch in my jump shot form. Coach after coach tried to get me to smooth out my stroke.

“Shoot in one motion,” they implored.
“Shoot on the way up!”

None of it helped.

Then a coach adjusted my hand placement on the ball.

Tracing back to the root cause of the hitch as it related to biomechanics, he helped me smooth out my stroke with some conscious repetitions.

The problem is rarely what we initially think it is.

That argument you had with your spouse wasn’t about taking the trash out.
You aren’t frustrated with him because of repeated mistakes.

Usually the true answer is below the surface, related to identity.

He introduced a new gadget to our coaching staff. I could feel myself tighten up and get defensive as they drooled over its features. The product had some value, but all I could feel was, “The space is too crowded. You have no place here. You are not special. You might as well give up.”

Usually the suffocation is coming from a strangle hold on our identity.
You don’t belong. You don’t feel safe. You won’t be taken care of.

Gain an awareness of this in you.
Then gain an awareness of this in those close to you, the ones you lead.
Then watch time slow down and you start to navigate conflict like a Jedi master.

This is what we excel in. Let us help you unblock your best self.

Relax. And play.

“The sand was amazing.”

But did you win?
How did you play?
Any good spikes?
Did you serve any aces?
How many points did you score?

“It was great on the toes.”

I just finished checking the scores on the sports app and was just as eager to hear how she did in her sand volleyball tournament.

Everything I asked was related to performance. Did she win or lose? Succeed or fail? Conquered or defeated?

She kicks ass at volleyball.
But she excels most in being fully present with the moment.

“How did you do?”
“The sand was amazing. It was great on the toes.”

Sometimes we are so driven to achieve the end goal that we forget to enjoy the journey. We relentlessly push ourselves to the top and disregard how we get there.

The most inspiring question a parent can ask a child after the game is, “Did you have fun?” When we become too attached to the result, it no longer becomes play.

I dribbled a basketball on family walks to shoot on each basket we passed around the neighborhood.

My dad and I used to love a fresh net hanging from a rim. We would race the world to see who could be the first to score on the new net.

Pursuing victory can push you to the edge of your abilities.
Needing the victory to feel whole will burn you out getting there.

The challenge for the ultimate competitors: How do you live in the tension of climbing the mountain and enjoying the walk?

How do you live presently engaged while future focused?

The first thing my dad and I do when we walk into a gym is go to the free throw line and find the nail hole that aligns with the center of the basket. 4,700 square feet of wood and we look for the speck that centers us with the goal.