Forging Resilience
Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
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Forging Resilience
62 Dr. Nick Wadsworth: Gold Doesn't Glitter: When Achievement Feels Empty
What drives us to persevere through challenges?
How can we find meaning in the struggle?
And why do some high achievers reach their goals only to feel empty?
My friend Dr. Nick Wadsworth returns to dive deep into the intricate relationship between meaning, authenticity, and purpose. As a chartered sports psychologist working with elite athletes and a co-founder of MAP Performance, Nick brings profound insights into how we can unlock our potential while honoring our true selves.
This conversation explores the fascinating paradox of human performance. Nick reveals how authenticity forms the foundation upon which meaningful experiences and purposeful action can flourish. Through powerful stories of Olympic medalists who found gold medals empty yet silver medals fulfilling, we discover how achievement without meaning leads nowhere.
Perhaps most valuable is Nick's perspective on anxiety and fear. Rather than seeing these emotions as obstacles to overcome, he reframes them as natural companions on any growth journey. "I'd be concerned if you weren't anxious," he notes, challenging the common assumption that discomfort signals something wrong rather than something right.
The episode offers practical insights for anyone navigating performance environments, whether in sport, business, or personal development. Nick shares how our past experiences shape our current beliefs, how simple acts of self-expression can transform our experience, and why connecting to something larger than ourselves fuels perseverance through inevitable challenges.
For leaders, coaches, and individuals alike, this conversation provides a blueprint for creating environments where people can flourish authentically while pursuing excellence. Because as Nick observes, the modern workforce—and indeed modern humans—increasingly demand purpose beyond performance and meaning beyond metrics.
Join us for this enlightening exploration of what it truly means to perform with purpose and find fulfillment in the journey, not just the destination.
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Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Today, on Forging Resilience, I'm joined by my friend and performance expert, dr Nick Wadsworth. Nick's a chartered sports psychologist, senior lecturer at john moore university and co-founder of map performance, which is a company that helps athletes and teams unlock their potential through cutting-edge sports psychology. His work bridges academic insight with real-life impact, supporting high performers to navigate pressure, build identity and lead with clarity. So, nick, welcome back to the show, my friends.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I like the friend bit of the intro. I like that our relationship has evolved to that point where friend is the first thing that you say. I think that's quite important, and also the welcome back piece as well. This is the third podcast I've ever done in my life and the first time that I've ever been asked to come back, which I think always a good sign. So thanks for having me again appreciate it.
Speaker 1:No worries, mate, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure, it's um. There's always a lot to that I get from our conversations and I think other people can learn from the work that you do, the way that you embody it as well. Um, yeah, so it's, it's a done deal. And, by the way, I just put it straight back out there that there will be a third as and when, so you can make it up to four podcasts there, buddy.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be running out of things to say sooner probably.
Speaker 1:It's a good point? I don't think so, but for me I'm not sure if you find this, nick, but some of the biggest lessons in my life I have to relearn of the, the biggest lessons in my life.
Speaker 2:I have to relearn, yeah, and conversations that you have a year apart can mean something very different, can't you? You can take something very different from it. So, you know, we should have probably pressed record about 10 minutes ago, when we are having our first conversation, but you, you brought up the idea of paradoxes, which is something that we spoke about towards the end of the last podcast, but since then, the idea might have evolved and might have taken on something new, and discussing the same thing, but through a different lens, can also be really valuable. So we'll be on this. We'll be doing episode 10 of me and you on this podcast at some point in a few years time, won't we?
Speaker 1:love it. Definitely, definitely, mate. Definitely. So, nick, you've worked a lot um, with, um performers, um high performers, in various sports and football. How do you define purpose?
Speaker 2:how do you?
Speaker 1:help your athletes find purpose, and how's that changed over time? Buddy, my god, that's three big questions, isn't it? Yeah, I can, I've got those jotted down, so. So how do?
Speaker 2:you define purpose I kind of expected you to ask me the question around definition and it, and it petrifies me a little bit because it's like well, those words are in the title of my company, meaning authenticity and purpose, but they're also really difficult and elusive concepts to define simply. And I think to start off with I would say that I think those three ideas concepts, philosophies are interconnected. I think it's quite difficult to define one without discussing all of them. So the concept of our business is meaning, authenticity and purpose. Map performance.
Speaker 1:Would it be more beneficial to start at meaning then?
Speaker 2:Ironically, it's probably easier to start with authenticity, which is the middle piece. There are clear connections, I think some crossovers, between the three concepts and there are clear distinctions between them. So I'll try and tease that out. But probably more meaningful to me to talk about the philosophy that sits behind the business and then try and address the definitions of the concepts. So meaning, authenticity and purpose. We always talk about our philosophy starting in the middle of those three concepts, so authenticity being central to the other two. If you actually look at our logo, you'll notice that the reason why I'm talking about the connection between these concepts, we have like an infinity symbol that covers so like it's very difficult to talk about these things without talking about all three together.
Speaker 2:And the philosophy of the map is essentially can we help create environments where people can understand love and express their true self? Where people can understand love and express their true self, this idea of revealing who you are, expressing creative self-expression, and that's an individual endeavour, but it's also an environmental one. To what extent can we create environments where people feel safe, where people feel respected to express and reveal more of their true self? Our belief there is that that helps create meaningful experiences and meaningful experiences are grounded in connection with self and others. So the way that we try and really simply define what meaning is to us is it's belonging to something bigger than yourself. That then allows you to be purposeful in the work that you do, and you can see how it's really difficult to define one without the other. And the way that I try and really simply define purpose is it's contributing to something bigger than yourself.
Speaker 2:One of the it's very hard to discuss meaning without discussing purpose, but one of the distinctions that can can often help people understand this is meaning tends to be retrospective. We experience something and then we reflect on it and we ascribe meaning to the experience retrospectively. So it might not actually have meaning in the moment, but if we think back on it, we go. That was a really significant period in my life. What did it actually mean to me? Now I'm looking back on it, my life, what did it actually mean to me?
Speaker 2:Now I'm looking back on it, purpose is a little bit more future orientated goals, ambition, inspiration, aspiration and a way of understanding a distinction between them is, if we lean into the map analogy, purpose is like the compass it's the North Star, it's the direction that we're trying to go to. Meaning is like the fuel that gives us the energy to go after our purpose. So this is meaningful to me and this is the purpose of my life. All of that is connected with this idea of authenticity. It's very difficult to understand what your purpose is and things that are meaningful to you unless you understand who you are, what the values are, what your beliefs are, what who you want to be, those kind of things, and that's why they're all interconnected with with one another, so I'm going to jump ahead of my question then.
Speaker 1:So if you're working with a person or an athlete, I'm quite interested in an individual level probably because I'm asking at some level, I'm asking for myself as well and to see where the gaps are. Understand that there's people like me that listen to this. Where, where does that journey start? If if I or somebody similar came to you, nick, I'm feeling lost. What, what can we do? What do we do?
Speaker 2:I mean there's two, there's two schools of schools of thoughts on this that I've studied quite a lot. That kind of are interconnected but something somewhat like opposition to one another. The two philosophies or the schools of philosophy that I draw from in MAP and we draw from in MAP are existential and humanistic and they both talk about the concept of meaning and purpose, but they're quite different in the way that they talk about them. I'll start with the humanism one, because that's more positive and nice to talk about. Humanistic philosophers, pure humanistic philosophers, would say that we're born with a purpose. So we're born with the purpose to self-actualize. So in essence, every human being on the planet has a purpose. To try and reach their own potential would be quite a positivist psychology humanistic stance.
Speaker 2:Existential practitioners is slightly darker and their philosophical position is that every human being on this planet is born without a purpose and life is inherently meaningless. So those are very two different schools of thought. One is very aspirational, inspirational, which is around. We have to go after our potential and self-actualize. The other is life is pointless, meaningless and has no purpose, and that's very clearly. Existentialism is very clearly tied with the concept of death. The only thing we know for sure is that we're going to die one day. The only thing we know for sure is that we're going to die one day, and when I say that to a lot of people, I laugh, because I say that to a lot of people and everyone looks at me like wow, that's really really quite depressing. I actually find that really inspirational. I find the existential philosophy more inspirational than I do the humanistic, and the humanistic is supposed to be the positive one and the existential is supposed to be the dark one. But I actually find real joy and purpose in the existential because, if you flip that on its head, we are going to die one day. Therefore, we need to create meaningful experiences for ourselves. We are only on this planet for a certain amount of time. Therefore, how do we want to live our life? And so that knowledge that it's going to end one day and that can be symbolic in sport, for example at some point I'm going day, and that can be symbolic in sport, for example, at some point I'm going to retire can be symbolic of the military experience at some point I'm going to leave this group of people that I've spent time with. It can be symbolic of business at some point. I'm going to move on. What do I want my experience here to be defined as? How can I help create meaning and meaningful experiences whilst I have the time to do it? So those are the two schools of thought.
Speaker 2:If we bring that into, like an individual, for example, who's kind of come to you and said, like you know, I'm finding it really difficult at the minute, I'm struggling with direction what I tend to like to start with is I think we spoke a bit about this on the podcast is I like to go back? I like to go past? Um, I talk a lot about like origin story, and I think the phrase that I used in the last podcast that you really liked was past pain, present purpose, um, I think it's really useful to go back. So if we take like sport, for example and this is a really nice way of articulating meaning and how it changes we use the same word to describe the same adverb, to describe what we do in sport, which is play. But if you ask a 12-year-old what does it mean to play sport? And then you ask an 18-year-old or a 22-year-old, what does it mean to play sport? I'm pretty confident you're going to get two very different descriptions of the same concept.
Speaker 2:So it's really common for me in sport, when I'm working with athletes, that they'll come to me. I tend to work with adults. They'll come to me and they'll say sport for me. Play to me used to be enjoyment, self-expression, passion, playing with my friends and opportunities for mastery, an opportunity to learn things, an opportunity to demonstrate my competence, and they might even use the word love, love and passion. And then you ask an adult to go.
Speaker 2:Well, what does it mean to you now?
Speaker 2:And it's like commitment, sacrifice, dedication, pain, suffering, and somewhere along that journey the meaning of play has changed for that person.
Speaker 2:And that's really typical of what I would find when working with a client. So if we go back to the concept of like existentialism, which is meaning is created. Well, now we have some autonomy in that. So what do we want play to mean now? Moving forward and we can actually change and ascribe what play means to us now, despite the fact that we've had some challenges to navigate. And just changing that story and changing that narrative can change the way that we feel about the thing that we're doing. And that's often a conversation I'll have reconnecting back with what things used to mean to us trying to bring some of that joy, pleasure, pain, fun, enjoyment, creativity into what we're currently doing now, and that would be a typical thing that I might do with individuals so so is it a case in I guess it's dependent on the person a little bit like those two, two theories there, which which resonates for them more in terms of the humanistic, positive approach, or the existential no point, no meaning.
Speaker 1:Go go and find it is. Is there part of the work taking them back to find when it did change? Or is a case of just identifying that it has? And what do they want to mean? Make it mean moving forward?
Speaker 2:I. I find it really useful to to find the catalyst for when things started to change. So I spend I spend a lot of time going backwards. Um, to what extent are our past experiencing shaping our present experience of the sport or business, and to what extent are those things holding us back to from being the person that we want to be so like? That's where that piece of authenticity comes in.
Speaker 2:If you think about this idea of like, if, if we do ascribe to the idea that our purpose is to reach our potential, by definition, then we're never where we want to be or we're never where we could be. So there's always a gap between who we are and who we want to be, or where we are and where we want to be Quite. A lot of the time, people often fill that gap with anxiety. So it's a really nice purpose to have. I want to go reach my potential.
Speaker 2:But potential means we're not quite there yet, and so this idea of going backwards to understand when things changed for us can also help us understand how we can move closer to the person we want to be. So the framework I always have in my head when I'm working with individuals is past, present, future. I want to go back to understand where things started to change and how things might be shaping your present experiences of it, so that I can help you move forward, to move towards the person that you want to be. So like this idea of meaning being that retrospective purpose being future goal orientated, and then and then authenticity potentially being like what kind of person do you want to be and how can you get closer to the desired version of yourself? That's that past, present, future love it.
Speaker 1:There's so many things to in in there. Um, so, in terms of, in terms of building that for for the future, if we're looking at, if we're looking at meaning, is it a case, then, of re-highlighting beliefs or reprogramming beliefs, or sometimes just the acknowledgement that things have changed?
Speaker 2:and seeing the catalyst and learning to see that from a disparate perspective is enough to re-tap into that meaning, to carry on the road or the path for the future yeah, I think there is definitely an element of meaning and purpose that's grounded in values and beliefs, and I think there's definitely lots of experiences I've had with clients where our beliefs and our values tend to be shaped by our experiences. So, again, going backwards and going what, what experiences have you had, what journey have you been on that might have shaped your beliefs about yourself and your beliefs about the world? Our beliefs about ourselves and our belief about the world then dictate the extent to which we connect with different experiences, and so our past experiences shape how we interpret our current experiences, and sometimes we just need a bit of a narrative shift. So I've learned all the way through sport, from the age of 14 through to 22, that I'm not good enough because I've consistently been given negative feedback from coaches. I've got lots of experience of being deselected and not making it into the squad, to the point at which, at 22 years old now, I'm looking at experiences that could be really meaningful and positive and actually seeing them as a threat.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden, that's where you start to understand how this concept of love and positive and actually seeing them as a threat. And all of a sudden, that's where you start to understand how this concept of love and joy and play at once, being able to express yourself and being given loads of acceptance through sport and sport being a platform to to demonstrate your worth to people. And now you've been on a journey of oh, it's turned professional, I've transitioned to a higher level. Now my narrative is doubt and now my narrative is anxiety. And all of a sudden, those experiences have shaped my belief about myself, which now is more commonly becoming I don't deserve to be here, I'm not good enough, I doubt myself, I'm not sure I've got what it takes to do this.
Speaker 2:Everyone else seems to be dealing with this really well. I'm abnormal in some way, and that narrative shifts then and then, all of a sudden, an experience that could be really positive and meaningful now has shifted into a really negative experience, and sometimes just changing the narrative that we can't necessarily change. The experience of elite sport that is going to be defined by pressure. It's going to be defined by injury, it's going to be defined by deselection. But our interpretation of that can change based on our belief system and our values, which, which is where the authenticity piece is central, to both meaning and to purpose yeah, and I guess for what?
Speaker 1:what's coming up for me, though, is a strong a picture of me in the military, then sort of just like you alluded to there, never thinking that was good enough. So either trying to do something, to try and fit in through behaviors or even things, yeah or yeah or crushing myself, belittling myself, um, almost isolating my voice, because I don't think it's valued is. Is there any other sort of things that either you see in athletes or in yourself that that really show themselves, that like the cost of not being able to express the authenticity that individuals have?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean that that's really common, isn't it like? When we, when we, then, if we start to question whether or not we've got what it takes to add value to whatever situation that we're in, we become fearful, we become anxious and we start looking around at what other people are doing. We start becoming external more and more, we start actually looking for answers outside of ourself, which tends to be on well, they seem to be doing really well. I'm going to model what they do do and that then leads you down that conformity route. If, if I'm petrified of not being good enough myself, I really hope nobody else realizes that and therefore I'm just going to try and fit in in order to try and survive this environment, I'm just going to conform. So I see that play out with with the people I work with, is like quite deep levels of suppression.
Speaker 2:I've learned what not to say. I've learned not to express these emotions. I've learned not to say these certain things. I've learned that the way that I like to think of things is not the common, norm, socially accepted thing that is done and therefore I'm just going to hide. And it's a bit again paradox. It's a bit of a paradox.
Speaker 2:Athletes deeply want to do well, they really want to do a good job and they want to stand out for their performances. But standing out is also a threat, because you definitely don't want to stand out. So it's like I really want to do a good job and show what I'm capable of. But what if I show what I'm capable of and I fail? And therefore now I've just put myself out there and I've reduced my chance of survival. And therefore now I've just put myself out there and I've reduced my chance of survival.
Speaker 2:And the reason why I see this play out a lot is because I think the thing that we can offer as psychologists or coaches executive coaches in a business sense is this is a safe space. I'm not involved in selection. I have absolutely no input. Who's going to be in the squad at the weekend?
Speaker 2:This is everything we say to one another is completely confidential. I recognize that you want to change and grow, but I accept you for who you are now. There's a lot of love and acceptance there and you know, for some people, as sad as this sounds, you might be the first person that's ever actually expressed that to them and therefore they're more willing over time to start moving from suppression into expression with you and the idea and the work there is. If you can create that safe space in that one-to-one setting, it might just give them the catalyst and the foundation to feel safer to do it in the environment that they're in. And that's why I'm always really keen to say the phrase bring more of your authentic self, not all of your authentic self, because that's deeply, potentially unsafe for quite a lot of people and there are some sports psychologists that would argue that it's actually unethical and immoral to ask people to be completely vulnerable and authentic because we're asking people to do it within a very unsafe, toxic elite environment a very unsafe, toxic um elite environment.
Speaker 1:Could you give us a real life example, then nick of of yeah, without going into details, or either from clients or your personal story, of bringing more of your authentic self, not all of your yeah?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna. I'll tell a story of a client I'm currently working with. Um, bear with me if I need to just slow down because I need to make sure that I'm not revealing too much of their story, but I won't say the sport, but the sport the athlete that I'm working with is work, is is performing at like the highest level you can in their sport. They they're representing themselves at a national level, professionally, professionally and an international level. Their story, in essence, was one of lack of acceptance by primary caregivers from a very young age, feeling very unaccepted, feeling very unsafe, feeling love was dependent on the extent to which they were was successful, and so tied their self-worth and their acceptance of primary caregivers to doing a good job. That translated into, like deep levels of low self-compassion, no self-worth, identity becoming wrapped up in the sport, um, identity becoming wrapped up in an outcome development, development of like perfectionistic tendencies, learning never to express themselves. And one of the key things in their story was they had siblings and they were the oldest of the siblings and they realised that they figured this out a little bit quicker than their other siblings because their other siblings were younger than them, and they realised that they knew how to rig the game so that they would get to rig the game so that they would get love and acceptance from parents, whereas the younger siblings didn't realise that. But the dynamic that that played out is that they were happy that they were getting love and acceptance but then felt guilty and shame that they were getting love acceptance when the younger siblings weren't. So what they started to do then, because of the deep love for their siblings, is they started to suppress any successful moment in their life. They then chose to purposefully not celebrate that so that they didn't make their siblings feel bad, because they loved their siblings and they felt really guilty that they were being perceived as the successful child. So you can see how that really complex past pain is really difficult to navigate and what that plays out in in sport typically is coaches then represent another, another significant person in their life who we want acceptance for, and it might not be.
Speaker 2:I want my coach to love me. It might just be something as simple as I want my coach to pick me on the team, and being picked on the team is conditional on me performing well, so that conditional of performance then represents what primary caregivers have done, and then sport then becomes like an inherently unsafe place for that person. I mean, this person's performing at the highest level, but they're suffering as a result of it. There's deep doubt, deep anxiety there. They would never feel safe to express any of this stuff to primary caregivers and therefore they translate that relationship into coaches. And the way that that shows up for the coaches is I'm never going to ask for any feedback. I'm never going to make a fuss. I'm always just going to do what the coaches tell me to do. I'm going to make a fuss. I'm always just going to do what the coaches tell me to do. I'm going to completely conform and I'm just going to be the perfect athlete and probably get rewarded for it, and then get rewarded for it and now they're like brilliant.
Speaker 2:That's a great pattern that I'm just going to keep reinforcing. However, behind the scenes, when they come to me, they go. I'm deeply unhappy. I haven't enjoyed sport for the last seven years. I I know I'm performing well and I'm really resistant to stop doing these things because it's actually got on me to where I am. But I'm also very aware that I've got more potential and there's more to give, and these things are all holding me back.
Speaker 2:So a really simple example of to what extent can you bring more of yourself to the performance was when they suffered an injury and they didn't know what was expected of them in terms of their presence at games and at training. They assumed that the coaches wanted them to be there every minute of every day. They were deeply uncomfortable with that idea because, as most athletes are, their identity was quite determined by sport, and when you can't play sport, there's a lack of purpose there. So it's like like I'm finding it really difficult to be around the team because I know I'm not going to be able to perform for a while and this is actually causing me quite a lot of pain. But their response to that was, but I'm definitely not going to say that to the coaches, I'm not even going to ask them what they expect of me, because that's that might be seen as something that's unacceptable to do, and and therefore I'm just going to go to every single training session and every single game, six, seven days a week, despite the fact that I'm really struggling to get around because I've got a lower limb injury and it's causing me deep emotional, spiritual and psychological pain to do it.
Speaker 2:So we just did a little bit of work together on is this a great opportunity for some self-expression? So bring more of your own self, your own needs, your own expectations to this and maybe just ask the question so have a meeting with the coach to go what is it that you expect from me? And and they did that. And then we, we did a little bit of role play and that's just how deeply ingrained this was for this athlete that she needed. She needed to go through with me in a session and I needed to be the coach for her so that she had a chance to practice this in a safe space. And she explicitly asked what do you expect from me? And the coach was brilliant.
Speaker 2:And the coach came back and went well, what is it that you need? Because I understand that this is quite a difficult time and the client was really taken aback by it. I didn't expect you to be so compassionate and so kind and they ended up expressing their needs and they've come to a decision around like involvement so some involvement, but not complete involvement, and that would just be an example of someone who felt deeply unsafe to express anything about their needs and desires in a really small step. And I saw that as a huge catalyst for potential change, because what that client now has learned is is not every relationship is going to be like the one that she's got at home, and now she's learning to change the narrative herself that she deserves to ask for things. And she's also learning to change the narrative that maybe there is good people out there that I can actually have a really nice relationship with, good people out there that I can actually have a really nice relationship with.
Speaker 1:And that's just a really small example of how she brought more of herself to that and just expressed her needs and desires yeah, I love that, and I got a lump in my throat while you're explaining the the history to that, because it that could have been me in a, in a different family at a different time, and nothing has gone wrong. My interpretation as a young boy, being the oldest of four, was exactly that that I have to help more, that I have to park what I need because there's three other people or three other my siblings to look after, and and I was given lots of love, care and attention. Yet my interpretation of what had gone on was skewed to. I only get rewarded or loved if I'm helpful, and so I've always. Yeah, the people pleasing. There's a lot. There's interest as well. I've never considered it around my siblings, but that's something to reflect on after this, for more than a few days.
Speaker 2:And the process that we're now going through.
Speaker 2:When I'm telling that story and you're then resonating with it, we're ascribing meaning to our experiences and this is what I mean about meaning, being retrospective and being reflective, and being I mean self-awareness.
Speaker 2:Now, if I was to tie a little bow in it to go, how is that then connected with purpose, which are the two concepts you asked me to define about 28 minutes ago or something?
Speaker 2:If I talk about the concept of like past pain, present purpose, one of the goals that that client has, in the absence of being able to perform because she's out for quite a long time, is I want to take on more of a leadership role within the team for the new recruits, the new people that are being inducted into the squad, so that they feel safe and they feel welcomed and they don welcomed and they don't have to go through the things that I've felt in my career. So you can see how her, retrospectively, looking back at the pain that she's experienced in a safe space, with my help, with some guidance, has helped her turn that into a an out, a process goal or a purpose driven goal, which is okay. I can't contribute on the pitch, but I can definitely contribute off the pitch. And what's the one thing I wish I had when I was younger? I wish I had a mentor that made it feel safer to be in this squad, and so she's now turned that into quite a nice purpose for her.
Speaker 1:Even though she can't perform and that's an example of how retrospectively we're looking back at our past pain has helped her create meaning and purpose in the, in the present day and for the future yeah, and and, and I guess there's, there's, there will be at some stage looking at the values and understanding what is important to us and how we can live into them, irregardless of if we're in the first squad or out and injured, if we're succeeding in business or not. Um yeah, and taking small steps to live into those, irregardless of who we're with or what we're doing and I.
Speaker 2:I think this is where the the value of me like this is really complex and deep. The conversation we're having here, and sometimes I find it quite difficult to articulate the value of this for corporate businesses, for example, which is why sometimes I struggle to get in the building, because I love to have these deep conversations and, with the greatest respect to me, 29 minutes into this podcast, like a director of a company switched off miles ages ago from some of this stuff most people have anyway. But the reason why this then translates into something that's important for businesses, I think, to get their head around, is this all contributes towards performance and actually what we're finding is the new generation of people moving into the corporate world. They want something that's more meaningful. So you're not going to keep people in the building, you're not going to attract and retain the best talent if you don't have a clear vision or mission of how the work that you do contributes to sort towards something greater in society. It's not enough anymore to go. We want to make loads of money and we'll give you loads of money if you help us make loads of money.
Speaker 2:That's only going to keep people motivated for a certain amount of time, the new generation of the workforce are basically saying, yeah, fine, but is there anything that we're doing that's a little bit more meaningful than that? What's the broader purpose to this? And so helping people connect with stuff like that, helping people connect with the value that we're adding to society, as well as wanting to make money because there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money, but we wanted something a little bit more meaningful in and around it you can see how that then drives performance, because purpose. I think purpose helps us persevere through difficult moments, and there are always going to be difficult moments.
Speaker 2:In high performance environments, we're probably going to be actually failing more than we're going to succeed, and so you want a workforce or you want athletes that are able to persevere through those difficult moments, and I think that's where allowing space to create meaningful experiences and allowing people to connect with a bigger purpose allows for that perseverance. And I think if you've got more people that felt purposeful in their work, staff wouldn't be quite as bad, absenteeism wouldn't be quite as bad, presenteeism wasn't wouldn't be quite as bad, and so, if you want to talk about like the outcomes of it at the surface, this is going to drive high performance yeah, and and my reflection of that is you, you completely right, it's a great catch, but even even a more simplistic level, one could argue even more important in our day-to-day relationships with, with family, friends and loved ones.
Speaker 1:If we're clearer of who we are, we have deeper meaning and be able to, to be there, be present for them and understand their experiences yeah, which has a massive ripple effect, obviously outwards.
Speaker 2:I think as well. One of the things to talk about here is that, with purpose, purpose sometimes petrifies people. When you talk about purpose, people immediately go well, what's my purpose? And then, if they can't come up with something, they start to feel under loads of pressure and it's like, oh my God, I've not got a purpose. What does this mean for me? And then it becomes the search for a purpose becomes now grounded in, like anxiety, which is again going back to.
Speaker 2:Everyone else seems to have a purpose, and I don't know what mine is, but the one that you've just articulated. There is a really simple but really profound purpose Like, if, like. If you look at this is where another paradox comes in. I believe everyone's different. I believe everyone's unique. I believe everyone views the world in a subjective, individualistic way. However, if you work with enough people, you also start to see patterns of human experience, and it's hard sometimes to hold those two things together. Everyone is different and yet we do have shared experience. That's kind of a bit of a paradox to get your head around. But one of the things you've just expressed there is a really common purpose that people connect with, which is to love and be loved, to connect and accept and love myself, so change my relationship with myself, and also to be surrounded by a community of people that love me, and that might just be family. That's a great purpose in life is to care for and be cared by people that you love. I don't think you can always bring that into a sporting work domain, but that's where meaning comes in to belong to something bigger than yourself, to have a tribe, to have a community that in itself is purposeful. To have relationships that are of meaning to you. So when people start to panic around purpose, I would actually encourage them to reflect on some of the simpler things.
Speaker 2:Another really common purpose that people will speak about is I just want to grow. I just want to learn Me and you have spoken about this so much. I just want to evolve. I just want chances to learn and grow and develop, and this is where it's really important in sport. Again, going back to the client I've just been speaking about, when she first started to work with me, she was like I'm really struggling with all the anxiety and doubt and the fear, but I really want to step up to the next level. I was like, okay, so talk to me about that, then, because you're basically telling me you want to run away from all these feelings and you don't want to experience them anymore, but you're now also wanting to go to a place where they're probably going to be heightened talk to me about that that's.
Speaker 2:That's quite a complex, contradictory thing to to focus on, as you're all. Yeah well, I just love, I love to learn, I love to grow, I, I love to develop. So now a really common narrative around purpose would be like the concept of passion. People speak about passion quite a lot and you can use passion and purpose somewhat interchangeably. If you find purpose to be something that's quite scary and anxiety-provoking, just think about passion for a minute, because passion can be a precursor to purpose. What gets me up in the morning? What's my why? What do I love to do? And if you actually look at my, one of my favorite definitions of of passion is suffering for something that you love, which I think is just like really existential, really love that concept, which is like find meaning in the suffering and know that you're doing it for a broader purpose. So that's where meaning and purpose again come in together and that, for me, defines sport and business at the highest level. This is deeply uncomfortable and I'm finding this really deeply challenging, but I love it at the same time and I want more of it, but I'm also really uncomfortable with it, but I really want more of it, and it's like whoa, how do you hold those two things together and sometimes deep discomfort can crowd the love and sometimes love can allow us to find meaning in the suffering and that's where it starts to become really deep. I've got another story of we're doing a little bit of work in the employability sector.
Speaker 2:Very short overview of the employability sector. Very, very short overview of the employability sector. Performance targets are defined by people external to the business. So you've got what the call called primes, who set the performance targets for each of the employability businesses. So they've got no control over the goals that are being set of them and, naturally, people setting goals for you probably going to set them too high. So most people 90 odd percent of people in the employability sector are constantly, every month, being told that they are not hitting their performance targets. Every month they get given feedback on how far away they are from the performance targets. Feedback only really gets given when things are going wrong.
Speaker 2:There's a pressure cooker of trying to get justify your, your role. There's loads of redundancies happening in this industry. Like I've been working in this industry for 18 months and I was like, wow, this is like sport, this is brutal. And then you speak to the people on the ground and you think you've been here 12 years 12 years of leadership boards, whiteboards in the office, where you're being told that you're failing every single day and you're probably not doing as well as you could be doing. How are you still in the building and how are you still smiling?
Speaker 2:And the person I was meeting with last week in a one-to-one she was like I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with helping people. I'm addicted to the feeling of helping people. So, oh yeah, the performance targets are telling me I'm failing. I'm working with this human being in front of me who I've gotten into sustainable employment and I love that. I'm suffering because I'm being told I'm rubbish at what I do, but I'm also finding this really meaningful and I didn't use this word. She said it's really meaningful to me because I'm helping people, and that's another common purpose is to contribute positively to other people and contribute to society, yeah, something other than ourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a great example I love that nick. Just to take you back then to this athlete and it's something I find with quite a lot of people as well is that, as you alluded to at the beginning of there, we know where we are, we assume we or think we know where we want to be, and that that gap can cause quite a lot of things internally. Um, but if we assume then that that that fear is a big part of that, if it's not going to go away, what? What can people do with that, regardless if that's in sport, business or in the personal life, as they move themselves along this path, they know where they are, but they want more, they want the promotion, they want their, the relationship, they want the, the, the, yeah, the, the next league up, the next level, up, what? What do you suggest? What works for you in terms of?
Speaker 2:fear there was a really, really clear moment, a really defining moment with that client that we've been talking about quite a lot in in the first session and I had to really think about whether or not I should say this or not. Um, and it was one of those moments where you've got about three seconds to decide if you're actually going to say it or whether you're going to withhold it because it's not the right time and it's it's kind of an intangible feeling about like, do I just say this? It feels right to say it, but there could be some repercussions. And her narrative in that first session was loosely around. I don't ever want to feel anxious. I really don't want to feel doubt and I really don't want to feel fear. And my response was quite brutal and I did it in a most compassionate way. But I said I can help you with that. I've got a really good answer for you there. She had kind of eyes wide open, as if to be like I found the secret. Give it to me. I said leave, leave the sport. I said quit. I don't always do that that soon. I'm not always that direct. I prefer to be quite direct and challenging with the clients that I work with, because I have a philosophical belief that discomfort leads to growth. But I also have to balance that with I want to make you feel safe, but it just felt right. In that moment you look really disappointed and then really deeply understanding of it, like yeah, you're right, like I know that's right and you've called me. Understanding of it, like yeah, you're right, like I know that's right and you've called me out on it and I know what I'm saying to you is contradictory and complex, because humans are contradictory and complex. I mean. The answer is I believe that anxiety and fear can be good things and if you want it to be the best version of yourself, you're going to have to learn to accept that anxiety and fear are going to be part of the journey.
Speaker 2:90% of sports psychs, or 90% of our sports psychology literature, has been dictated, directed towards reduction of those symptoms. Sometimes that's really meaningful and sometimes that's important. We don't want people to be in constant states of chronic stress, constant states of anxiety. I tend to view anxiety as like a really positive thing. If, if you, if you, if your purpose is to grow and be better, if your purpose is to make a step up, if your purpose is to go and play on an international level. You need to be out your comfort zone to learn to get to the level that you need to be at. So I see anxiety as a really positive thing. And that's where how can you redefine what anxiety means to you? So I do.
Speaker 2:I do way more work on reinterpretation of anxiety as a meaningful experience than I do on reduction of anxiety as a symptom. Um, so like the easy answer is it's never going to go away. And the follow-up to that is I'd be concerned if you weren't anxious. I'm more anxious now in my life. If I'm not anxious, if I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm not anxious, I'm even not stretching myself, I don't care anymore. Um, so I'd say anxiety is a normal human experience, which is why, when we go back to the start of this call humanism positive self-actualization, existentialism, deep, dark, talking about meaninglessness, loneliness, there's no purpose in life. I think the existential stuff represents human nature more than the positive psychology there's definitely elements of. We should not focus on loads of negative things, but anxiety is just a normal part of what it is to be human. Let's just get a little bit more comfortable with it.
Speaker 1:I would say yeah, as I, as I alluded to, but for the sake of this conversation, I I choose to see the emotions that I experience as exactly that part of the human, a great sign that I'm alive, which I'm very, very grateful for. And my quick story is yeah, that too. Last week I did a radio interview on on Catalan radio, so speaking my third language, about things that are already slightly uncomfortable because I get nervous, slash, excited every time I press record on my podcast, um, so it was a really interesting experience to be so close to my comfort zone and feel, yeah, the fear, the doubt, the anxiety, what if I make a mistake? But through the trust that I have in myself, through the self-compassion, knowing that it doesn't matter if this is successful or not, if they even decide it doesn't go out, doesn't change me, doesn't physically change me, I can put the distance between myself and this thing, even decide that it doesn't go out. It doesn't change me, it doesn't physically change me.
Speaker 1:I've put the distance between myself and this thing, um, but I think that that it was just that, that I could sit with that fear, with that anxiety, and see you see it. For that this is an opportunity. I'm not, in fact, in that case I wasn't nudging myself along the path, that was a leap and abound. No wonder I felt like that love it still alive and that the emotional hangover the day later, yeah, made it, made it very, very real.
Speaker 2:But again, just like you alluded to there, which is great to hear, let's assign them on the right path the way you've prepared for that event is very similar to how my clients would talk about preparing for a performance. The most experienced people tend to try and detach themselves from the outcome. The outcome is really important. It's always important, especially in sport and business. You know we have to perform and it is all about performance and outcome.
Speaker 2:I'm a I'm a sport and performance psychologist. I can't ever sit in front of someone and say the performance doesn't matter and the outcome doesn't matter. But if we hold on to the outcome and the performance too tightly, everything else just becomes meaningless and the process becomes distant of any joy and we ramp the pressure up even more. So what you've you've done to prepare for that interview which is phenomenal, by the way, in your third language that deeply creates fear for me, even thinking about it. You've detached from the outcome. It's detached from the significance of the outcome, whilst still really caring about the outcome. And again, there's another paradox for you I've heard you like paradoxes, mate I love paradoxes.
Speaker 2:I'm a little bit obsessed with them. I'm gonna bore people with it. Um, I'm interested to know then, if we use that as a story to discuss meaning and purpose. We talked about meaning potentially coming retrospectively. What did that experience mean to you after you'd finished it? You said about the emotional hangover after. What did it mean to you after you reflected on it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I just think that the anxiety around what did I say? How will I be perceived? Did I make too many mistakes? How will that be perceived? Did I make too many mistakes? How will that be perceived? So that's the. I could hold that, or I could sense that, without trying to push it away, but then at the same time, no, it doesn't matter, I get to decide. Ultimately, I get to decide.
Speaker 1:So I think here then, what shows, as I reflect on this myself, is it shows me there's a very, there's a human part of me. There's also a young Aaron, young Ron, that's learning to reparent himself and know that my value doesn't depend on my self-worth, doesn't depend on that. So it's fine to experience all that, but I just have to. I can reassure myself. You're right, you're all right, it's. This won't change me as a person, you know. So it's, it's, um, yeah, so I guess the I'm not sure if I mentioned that, but this, this whole experience, didn't feel unfamiliar. And I, I, yeah, I don't want to say this. This is my three seconds to decide if I want it or not, but I can see myself on stage talking more I don't know about yet, but that is well, I do actually, but you know it's part of I. I can see that, so it was another step on that path. It didn't feel too alien yeah.
Speaker 2:And then look at what you're already doing, which is grounded, and everything we've just spoken about. You're looking back and you're choosing to view the experience in a specific way. There's two broad ways you could view it. You could go back and go 17 minutes in. I said this and I wish I'd said that, and that wasn't really happy and I got confused with that word and God, I'm really stupid and God. That just reinforces why I shouldn't be saying yes to these things. Or you can look back at it and go all right, yeah, maybe I got the word wrong, but it's my third language.
Speaker 2:What does this story actually tell about me as a person? Well, what a courageous decision it was to say yes to it in the first place. The event's exactly the same. What happened, objectively speaking, is exactly the same. Your retrospective interpretation of it and the meaning you ascribe to it can be very, very different, and that's where the authenticity and the narrative piece comes in. You're learning over time to reinterpret that event as something that's maybe a courageous thing. And now look at how our past is connected with our future. All of a sudden now you're saying now I can actually see myself stood on stage. What a nice. First step. This is to going back in the public domain in front of hundreds of people, because I've just been deeply anxious, deeply doubtful, deeply fearful, and I've still done it. Courage, action despite anxiety. Now, maybe that's just going to give me the foundation to be more courageous, moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see how meaning past is connected with purpose, future direction definitely, as, as well as considering that one of my biggest things that I learned through coaching and and to change my perspective of as I'm not sure if you know this mate, there's a nine-year-old I wet myself on stage in front of the whole world, the whole school was behind me and all the parents are in front of me, so that, yeah, being on stage speaking in public definitely makes me feel very alive and go to the toilet before I have a performance yeah, you have told me that, you definitely have told me that before um, and I think that that's an example of, like past trauma that will be shaping your future likelihood of wanting to go back into that.
Speaker 2:That feels deeply unsafe for you, but moments like this, where you say yes to a an interview on the radio and your third language, is a step in the right direction towards um, reshaping what that event is and not allowing it to hold you back. And that's what I was saying before around the things that we learn to do to cope with our past pain can be the things that hold us back from achieving our future potential, and that's why I like the more and more I'm doing work as a psychologist, the more I'm spending time going backwards to help people go forwards, and that story is a perfect example nick.
Speaker 1:Um, we'll start to close this out soon, but I'm very keen to give you the opportunity of the the most impactful paradox, or the most challenging paradox that you wrestle with personally, all your clients wrestle with oh god, in this moment it doesn't have to prove correct and when you come back for episodes three, four, five and six and seven, it can change.
Speaker 2:But yeah, this is going to be one of those moments I look back on and go I wish I'd chosen. What an idiot I shouldn't know. You know what? I'm just going to go with the one that showed up for me first. Um, because I I think it's something that I've perhaps not found the balance in as a person and as a practitioner, and it's something that I'm starting to be a little bit more conscious of when I start to do more like systems, cultural, organizational work, which is still something that I'm I love doing, but I'm still very new to. Like, my bread and butter is your team, individual stuff, the system stuff is is a real challenge.
Speaker 2:Still for me, one paradox that I got introduced to, which actually came from a blog that I read of someone from the military, so it wasn't from business or sport and the paradox was um, I'm going to butcher this a little bit, but something on the lines of respect the foundations already in place whilst being a disruptor to the potential of new. So going in and changing things whilst also respecting the foundations of what's already in place. And that's quite a difficult thing to manage, because if we're external practitioners going into an organisation and we're employed and paid to change things. It can be really easy to position ourselves as the disruptor. We're not defined by the power dynamics and the hierarchy of what's going on within the system, so we're outside of the system. Therefore, we're probably a little bit more bold and courageous and we can take risks and we can chuck grenades around and I tended to do that in the early stage of my career going in and just going you can change this, this. Have you thought about this? Bang. And people are going whoa, I'm good ideas, but we're already doing some really good stuff. And then, if you flip to the other side of that paradox, which is like respect the foundations already in place, but then we're being asked to change things, it's like, well, just just respecting what's there is not going to lead to change. Yeah, yeah, I think you're going to have to try and find a balance between those two perspectives and I think I think moving up and down that continuum and starting with respect for foundations, understand the environment, understand the people, understand the system, understand what it means for them to change, and then move into disrupt, I think is a nice way of balancing that paradox.
Speaker 2:I am not very good at doing that. I'll be honest with you, I'm not very good at doing that in the work that I do at the university. For example, I went into the university and was a bit of a disruptor and probably caused a few problems for myself and maybe instigated a bit of conflict and confrontation with people, because what it meant for me to work at Liverpool John Moores was I was a student there 10 years ago and I was like this is what this place should be about, this is what I expect this place to be about, and I kind of came in and went bang bang, bang, bang, bang, disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. And then I was speaking to people that were like 25 years at John Moores and I was like I probably haven't respected the foundations a little bit. So I find that really difficult balance, because I find real joy in helping people change in a meaningful way, and so I'm like I'm always on the front foot, but sometimes just standing still and respecting what's already in place is even more important at times.
Speaker 1:Love it. That's a really interesting. That's a really interesting distinction like, and again something I'm going to take away and and sit with and reflect on. Um nick, is there anything that you would like to mention, talk about or or ask before? Before we start to wrap up for today, brother?
Speaker 2:there was a story that I wrote down in like when I was thinking about this, because I was really keen to take these complex ideas and make it accessible for people, and I think stories are a great way of doing that. Going back to the point we were talking about earlier, which is like how do we create environments that allow for meaningful experiences and purpose when, at the highest level, in both sport and business, it's all about performance? My business partner, ben, has worked with some of the most high-performing people on the planet. I'm talking like double, triple gold medal athletes, and I've mostly done work in professional football, but I've also worked with some Olympic athletes, and there's two clients that we've worked with. Ben worked with someone who has won multiple medals at the olympics and I've worked with someone that that won a medal at the olympics, and it was amazing just how similar their story was and when we shared those stories in a in a confidential way with one another.
Speaker 2:Very long story short both both of our clients ended up standing upon the podium in in the same Olympic cycle. One of them had won a bronze and one of them had won a gold, and the client that Ben was working with stood up on the podium holding the gold in the hand, and the phrase that she used to Ben was it's just a piece of metal. This doesn't actually mean anything to me. So like this is where sometimes meaning and purpose transcend performance. Everyone else in the world is looking at that person as the national anthem is being played, going pinnacle. I bet she feels unbelievable, and she stood there just feeling devoid of any happiness, devoid of any joy. She then later went on to win silver at the next Olympic trials, and the narrative that she expressed to Ben was the silver means more than the gold, because the last four years has not just been suffering and pain. I've actually found purpose and joy in the process, and so the silver actually means more to me than the gold. Now, that's not me advocating for let's accept poorer performances, but that's me advocating for let's find purpose in performance, because actually I don't think she would have carried on if she didn't change the process, and so she never would have even won the silver and, by the way, silver's still pretty good. I mean, you're second best in the world, right? Um, she wouldn't have persevered through that.
Speaker 2:Similarly, the client I was working with she had no expectation. Nobody expected her to podium. It was a go to the olympics, try and finish in the top 10. Use this as a catalyst to go and finish in the podium the next year. All pressure and expectation was off. She then goes and does an unbelievable performance, goes and finishes bronze. That was the point we talked about when play changes. That was the point at which life just became about well, now you've got to do that again. Um, now you've got to go and perform again.
Speaker 2:And actually what that bronze medal meant to her was the start of the end of her career and unfortunately she ended up not going to the nx olympics.
Speaker 2:Because in the next four years were just defined by expectation, pressure, commitment, pain, suffering, sacrifice, and she ended up not getting to the olympics. And so you can see on both one's won the gold and has found no meaning and purpose in it, and then has repurposed what it means to be in her sport and then gone on to persevere and win silver. The other has no expectation to win anything, which probably means that she's in the best place to win, and then has won bronze and then has gone. Oh, this has changed everything, what this means to me. So I think we have to be really careful of what, how we define success. I think, like when we're talking about meaning and purpose, it has to be more than just performance and it has to be just more than just profit, and I think that's really key here. And, like I said to you, the modern workforce they're not going to stick around if you can't tell them that yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant man. What brilliantly showcased there in both those those two stories. Um nick, where might people find you or reach out to you if they're interested in finding out a bit more about yourself, or even maps?
Speaker 2:um, we're begrudgingly on LinkedIn. We don't enjoy it, but we're on there. It means that we get to connect to people like you. So we're still on LinkedIn. We're increasingly well decreasingly posting on there because it's a bit of a soul-destroying process for us, but you can definitely find us on LinkedIn. I'm a big advocate of connecting beyond pressing the connection button. So I've got a lot of good people that I've met, you being one of them, which is why I smiled when you used the word friend, because we wouldn't have connected if it wasn't for LinkedIn. So I'm going to stick around on LinkedIn, even though I don't particularly like it. And then we have a very outdated website which we need to update wwwmapperformancecouk. But you know what wwwmapperformancecouk? Um, but you know what human connection trumps all of those things. So just come and find us and we'll have a meeting and we'll have a good conversation well, nick.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much once again for your time, mate, and for your insight. Thanks for thanks for being you, thanks for being the friend, thanks for all the challenging conversation we've had, both yeah, well in the podcast, but also outside as well. Um yeah, I've learned a lot just by listening to you and getting to talk to you as well. So thank you, buddy, thanks, mate.