Rusty Earnshaw on Leadership Mindsets, “The Invisibles”, and Mastering Tough Conversations
In this episode of the Slappin’ Glass Podcast, we sit down with performance coach and leadership expert Rusty Earnshaw to explore the evolving role of the modern coach, from tactician to culture architect. The conversation dives into the concept of multiple mindsets, and how great coaches constantly shift between teaching, challenging, and competing environments, while also navigating emotional, tactical, and relational demands.
Rusty unpacks how elite coaches create shared language and mental models within teams, aligning both staff and players around clear expectations while still allowing for individual growth. He also introduces practical frameworks for leadership, including how to balance player ownership with authority, and how to build environments that produce better learners, not just better players.
The episode goes deep into one of the most critical and often overlooked coaching skills: having tough conversations. From assuming positive intent and creating safe spaces, to knowing when to act or when to pause, Rusty provides actionable strategies to handle the thousands of micro-interactions that ultimately define team culture.
Throughout the conversation, a central theme emerges: the best coaches don’t separate culture and tactics, they connect them. By simplifying communication, storytelling, and decision-making, they create clarity under pressure and unlock performance where it matters most.
🧠 What You’ll Learn
- How to apply multiple coaching mindsets (learn, challenge, win) within a single practice or season
- Why shared language and mental models are essential for alignment across players and staff
- A practical framework for deciding when to keep coaching a player vs. when to let go (Energy, Resources, Accountability)
- How to design team culture through four key questions: Who are we? Why are we here? How will we play? How will we win?
- Why the best coaches focus on creating great learners, not just executing systems
- How to recognize and respond to the “invisibles” (trust, confidence, connection) within a team
- A step-by-step approach to restorative conversations and building trust through communication
- Why assuming positive intent is the foundation of all successful tough conversations
- How to improve as a coach through feedback loops, reflection, and seeing through the player’s lens
- Why blending storytelling, simplicity, and tactics leads to better decision-making under pressure
Transcript
Dan 02:08
Rusty, we wanted to start with this, and I think it’s something that you’ve spoken on before, and it’s leadership requiring multiple mindsets, or for us as coaches being able to transition between different mindsets, whether it’s tactically, emotionally, mentally, all those kinds of things. And so, with the difficulties and complexities of being a coach in the job, I wanted to start there with your thoughts on multiple mindsets as a leader.
Rusty Earnshaw 02:34
Cool. I mean, this is the first time anyone’s asked me about this. I’m excited.
Maybe it’s helpful to start with, I love Roger Nieburn’s book, Expert, where he talks about development of expertise and how we all start out as probably novices and then become a journeyman. Then we start to become a little bit more expert over time. And I think, actually, if you look up, you guys would think the same. Like, when you started out, you probably had a slightly different mindset to what you have now. It might have been less curious. So it might have been even more curious. But there’s definitely some times where I thought it was at the top of the mountain. And I wasn’t at the top of the mountain. I was, like, at a false summit, unfortunately, for me. And maybe that’s a mindset, like a false summit mindset. Like, we need to help people navigate them working out that they’re not an eight out of ten, they’re a three out of ten. And so my sense is that it’s quite helpful. It’s definitely helpful for me to think about my mindset. But also, I guess we’ll talk about players as well in a second. So if I give you a couple of examples, if I know I’m going to have a conversation that might feel quite tricky and I’m planning that, then I might talk about, like, having a table mindset. So that would be me and you, Patrick, sat alongside each other with the problem in front of us, as opposed to me sat opposite opposite you. And it might feel a bit more like we are about to have an argument and a bit of a dust up. So my preference is I’m a bit of a rescuer. I want to help people. Sometimes I get that wrong. And I’ll give a shout out to Simon Ersel, who I do a bit of work with. He’s really good at knowing when is the right time to let someone go. And they are often relieved as well as we are. So that mindset of being clear and kind is, again, something that I think I’ve got way better at.
So I think there’s some mindsets for me. But also, if you think about the players you coach and especially when you’re like co-coaching. So if you imagine the three of us were coaching together, let’s take basketball. Understanding, OK, this part of the session is the learned mindset. So we’re going to have lots of goes. We might nudge them. We might go, I bet you can’t. We might go, oh, how does that feel? And that would be different to like a challenge mindset where we might put it into a game and have a scoring system and might be a series of games. And then lastly, the win mindset might be, OK, you’ve got one shot. You’ve got a 3.8, you know, it’s two seconds on the clock. You’ve got to put it in to win the game. And we would coach those different parts of the session differently. So if it was like learned mindset, we would probably might be a bit more hands off. We might nudge some people around some stuff. If we were challenged, we might be like, don’t mess up. I would hate to see you like this, not good.
Rusty Earnshaw 05:12
So we might start to put a bit of pressure on. And when we might go chev and quiet like this is like, this is the last go. So also, I think helping players understand different mindsets is helpful. And also, I think it’s a really useful way to align coaches. So my experience of seeing people go coaches, I think we’re doing a learn session and Dan’s getting really annoyed because people are making mistakes. And I’m like, OK, you guys haven’t. And so David Gray, who does great work with the hurricanes in New Zealand, that’s his language, learn, challenge, win. Danny Newcomb has done explore, exploit, execute different mindsets for players in different situations and different parts of training. And same for me as a coach. And it’s super helpful as well for me to be able to use the language then, isn’t it? So if we have a shared language around table mindset, I’m going, Patrick, like this is like we are. This is the table mindset situation for both of us.
We really need to work this out together. And then the last thing I would say is no. McNamara Bordeaux uses this triangle a lot. And I’m sure people have seen it. I think Gilbert Inoka used it with the All Blacks. And he’s just got structure, skill set, mindset. And if you think about most coaching situations, often we’re doing the structure. Cool. What’s the skill set the players need in this moment? But also what’s the mindset? So I’m often signposting mindset, helping people. What would be the most helpful mindset here? So and if you’d asked me 15, 20 years ago, was I thinking as much about mindset as I am now? No, quite frankly. And then if you start to think about leadership, then it’s, you know, I’m a coaching mindset now. Am I going to signpost at this meeting at the start? It’s going to be a really divergent. So we’re going to be really optimistic for the first 30 minutes. We’re going to come up with options. Everything’s on the table. Nothing’s wrong. Say what you’re thinking to them being a bit more convergent and prudent and going, OK, let’s rank them. Let’s go one, two, three. Cool. Which one are we going to do? Let’s optimize for the start line. Let’s agree what we’re going to do now. Those are different mindsets.
And I guess the reason I say that is because as a person sat in meetings, sometimes I’m not sure what mindset I should be in. So I’m not sure whether I can put my hand up and go because I’m worried that Danny is going to tell me off and we’re going to have a dust up. He’s going to go. Now, Rusty, we’re nailing ideas at this point. We’re not coming up with options.
Pat 07:46
a quick little detour i said something really interesting in your evolution as a coach and learning when to let someone go. What is that process now look for you like what did you learn about when for the better of both parties to let go versus a coach really like no i gotta coach this guy i gotta work here there still something that can come to fruition.
Rusty Earnshaw 08:07
The story I tell around this is, so my mother-in-law’s alcoholic, you can physically and metaphorically break in around the back as much as you want, but ultimately she needs to open the front door and let people in. So I do think one of our roles as coaches is to create good learners. So that’s like super important for me.
It’s like the armband versus the life raft. Do I need to step in and save this person? Do I need to like give them a couple of little nudges? But also what’s their take-up look like? Are there interactions? Are they coming to me more than I’m coming to them? Okay, that’s interesting. Have I asked them about like which way they want to climb the mountain and how willing they are to climb the mountain? So I was with someone the other day and they said, I want to do this. And I was like, cool, like how motivated are you to do that? Oh, have 11, zero to 11, spinal tap. Like how motivated are you? And they were like, three, I’m like, we might have the wrong goal here. So I guess it’s something that I’m way more likely to explore than I ever was. And the way I’ve thought about it, so, you know, the grow model, I guess, is quite a common coaching model. I think about the E, the R and the A. I think about your energy and your motivation to do this. And that might be what you say to me and that might be what I see. Okay, that’s interesting. Like Dan turned up 30 minutes early and was practicing. That’s probably a good sign or Patrick came up to me and he started asking for feedback rather than me having to give him feedback. R is resources. Do people have the appropriate cool? Like Patrick, you want to get better at your three pointers. By the way, my basketball bands is terrible. Who are the people that can help you with that? Or is there, you know, is there a couple of videos I can send you that’s helpful? And then A is accountability. Like the way I think about this is I do a hit session every day with my mates. And if they weren’t there, I wouldn’t do it. But honestly, if they’re not there, I don’t do it. How are you going to help yourself be accountable? And I guess all of those things are part of helping people be good learners, aren’t they?
So starting to understand the role of motivation and energy on you doing something, starting to understand how can I access people, resources to help me get better and how can I help myself be accountable because lots of getting better is frustrating, boring, annoying, hard work, you know, for coaches and players. So I guess I’m getting better at it. I think the bit that Simon’s really good at is, yeah, just going, no, this isn’t as shanked to one of the England rugby analysts this week. He was talking about the Invisibles. And I think the best coaches can see the Invisibles. So the Invisibles are connection, trust, confidence. The best coaches can like go, OK, Patrick, it seems to me looks like you can step back there, like, how are you feeling about this?
Rusty Earnshaw 10:47
Or, Dan, it looks like something crossed your mind that you want to share that with the group and just being more aware of that stuff has probably helped me be better at this as well. So noticing some of those things, noticing some of the invisible stuff, being good at seeing those things has been super helpful.
Pat 11:06
Shifting back to the role of coaches as leaders, often we think about we want to have this membership, we want to have ownership from the group, you know, we want to maybe try to where we can flatten the hierarchy, but at the same time we as coaches still are the ultimate authority figures, decision makers.
How you see the role of the coach as a leader within like a high performance environment and how the interaction between the group and us and the environments we’re creating.
Rusty Earnshaw 11:33
Yeah, it’s not like that with the Premier League, we’re doing way more stuff based upon expertise rather than competency now. So it’s not like a one size fits all answer, is there? And I think understanding like be yourself with skill. Who am I as a leader? What is it I’m good at? My experience is the best leaders also know what they’re not very good at. And they’re able to then hire appropriately. Lots of people don’t do that.
I guess I work with a few head coaches. You’re doing leadership, you’re doing management and you’re doing coaching. Like what’s the leadership part of it to you? Is it providing the vision? Is it direction and is it clarity and alignment? What is it to you? I think I would want to establish that. And then, yeah, I think the thing lots of people are wrestling with and how it fits in my head is the kind of ownership stuff. So everyone in the room stand up. If we all do ownership, would we be getting better outcomes? Would we have more points in the league? Stay standing if you have clarity on how we’re currently evolving that. And the reality is often people don’t have clarity.
So to me, again, it’s levels. So level one is might be like some player input into the session plan. Level two might be actually a couple of the players are adopting roles as secret coaches and they’re helping the players that are struggling the most. Level three is, et cetera, et cetera. For me, I would be way more explicit with that stuff than probably I used to be and just sign first people. This is where we’re at. And then again, it gives us probably some shared language, isn’t it, to be able to go, OK, this session is the session before the match. We are now at level nine. We’re just going to set you some problems. We’ve created some scenarios. We’re going to step back if you need our help. Come and grab us. But this needs to feel like a match or it might be like earlier in the week. I’m not saying that I would definitely do earlier in the week. It looks like this. You might go, look, we’re installing some stuff where you might not understand the rationale as players. So we want to just make sure you have all that. So we’re level three at this point, and it will be a bit more coach led than some of you would like. But we want to make sure that everyone’s aligned going into the weekend. I’m not saying you have to do them that way round. But again, without a shared language or shared mental model around it, I do think it’s challenging to do this stuff. It’s often quite ad hoc. We think we’re doing player ownership. No one’s quite sure about it. That’s how I think about that stuff.
And then, yeah, I mean, there’s different types of leaders, isn’t there? To my point around what are you good at? Well, you’re not good at what. Fletch did a really nice piece of work with Tinedale Rugby Club, where they just had like, again, different types of leaders, the medic, the warrior, the wizard, they would all have, you know, different types of roles.
Rusty Earnshaw 14:15
So the medic would care for people. The warrior would lead by example. The wizard would problem solve, you know, you have four or five. And I think the end of the game, the best coaches understand.
I’m a really good medic. I’m a really good wizard. I’m not the warrior. I’m going to bring in Andy Farrell to coach alongside me because he’s good at that. And more and more, you guys must see this thing, the head coach role and people and culture and the invisibles is a really important part of it. And for me, it’s way more around like coaching teams now than it is about one individual. So how do the pieces of the puzzle work together is what lots of people are trying to work out.
Dan 14:53
Rusty, as you’re creating shared mental models, shared language, standards of your culture, ownership, all those things, you’ve talked about this before, but there’s also going to be all the people, whether it’s a 15 person roster or 30 person, whatever it is, all those people are at different personal stops in their own journey of becoming learners and understanding who they are. And I think the interesting part of coaching and leadership is having all this stuff that is shared in a standard, but with all these people at different stops of their life.
And how have you seen the great coaches or leaders manage that friction of a standard, but with people being in different places?
Rusty Earnshaw 15:36
So Serena Viegman’s got a very simple framework around how she creates teams and it’s who are we. So for me, it would start with that, but Northampton Saints or INAC, when I was doing work with them, it would be three pictures about me, tell the story, who are you, why are you here, what do you love about being here? And then at Northampton, it would then go on the wall, on the way out to the Y wall. Everyone’s got their pictures on the wall to remind them as they go on to the pitch.
Second question, why are we here? Probably worth establishing that. Might not be at the start, so my experience is that you don’t have to have a big reveal on that. Often we make this declaration at the start and these are our values and this isn’t forgotten about when you’ve lost the first three games or won the first three games.
How will we play? Question three. So what are our ways of working? What are our rituals? How will we bring stuff to life, story tell, all of that? And then how will we win? So that is clutch moments. How are we going to execute and score in those moments? I guess there’s, you know, how do you prepare for all of those things? When you were asking about that, then there’s clearly implications, isn’t there? Like, how do you do this stuff? Do you like give it all to everyone? There’s options, isn’t there? So I could tell everyone this is what we’re going to do. If I was in that team and someone told me what to do, I would immediately want to rebel. So I probably wouldn’t do that to myself. The other extreme is, cool, you guys come up with it yourself. Why do you girls come up with it yourself? And my experience is that, like, it’s a bit of a shit show, isn’t it?
And there’s probably some stuff in the middle where it’s like, here’s what we did last season, or here’s a couple of things that might be helpful. So I think how you navigate that, how you create language, how you create shared mental models, and I’m going to call them current language and current shared mental models, because they’re not going to stay the same, are they? They will evolve. One of my favorite examples of this was, did a bit of work with one of the women’s cricket franchises, and we bounced around some stuff, and we ended up with some stuff that felt like it was really important. And I was like, if there’s one thing out of all of it, what would it be? And it was do good things. And it came from someone’s dad who died and used to take photos and write a note to the girls and at the bottom put do good things on it. It just resonated with everyone, this real emotional connection.
It was beyond just this couple of words. So I think how you create that stuff is, and whether or not they still use that is, they might have adapted that now. But how you create that is hard. And sometimes I’ll often come in and be the person that comes in externally and does that stuff. I want everyone to bring a picture. I want people to come and story tell.
Rusty Earnshaw 18:13
Obviously, I know you guys at Claire Murphy fans. The highs, the lows, let’s talk about them. They might help us decide what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable.
With that group of girls, one of the things they spoke about was, I said, everyone, bring your highs and your lows. The way the coach spoke to us in the change room, we know that that is unacceptable. We know that that is a line that we’re not willing to bend on. And then I think the bit after that is, I think if you go create that, you probably capture a lot of people. And then I remember speaking to a coach at Saracen’s Ruby Club and they had this theme around physicality. And he said, well, what we realized was we were just using the words and just meant different things to different people. So if you’re six foot nine and 140 kilos, physicality is different. So if you’re five foot three and 72 kilos, they’re different things. So allowing time, I guess, and again, time is always the thing that we never have enough of to go, okay, what does this mean to you?
And maybe going into a bit of like, cool, like, and if we achieve this, what will be the impact on you and your family? And I guess I’m very lucky and I’m sure you guys can speak to your experiences in the US, but I get to spend time in New Zealand where the Maori culture means that they don’t have time not to do this stuff. They would spend so much time on this stuff.
And I’ve brought a bit of it back to England and played around with it and people love it, but they will often go back to, let’s stick to the agenda. Let’s do this. And they don’t have any of these kinds of shared mental models or frameworks or reference points or stories or things that unite them both technically, tactically, but also probably more importantly, emotionally.
Dan 19:54
We wanted to take a quick second and say how much we enjoyed being out at the NABC Convention in Indianapolis. We had a great time hosting our classroom session and connecting with so many of you throughout the weekend.
We’re also really excited to continue partnering with the NABC going forward, as we both look to support coaches through better ideas, teaching, and a shared commitment to development. And while the convention may be over, the NABC’s work with coaches is year-round, through clinics, resources, mentorship, and a community that spans every level of the game, it’s a place to stay connected and keep growing. You can learn more at nabc.com.
Pat 20:32
How have you thought about dripping this in? You’re completely right.
Like time is always a scarce resource and we want to get on the court on the pitch wherever in practice, but like you think this stuff is really important. With your experience, have you managed to like drip this in? How much time are you giving it? Is it all like a preseason thing? Is it throughout the season as a weekly, monthly, I guess, what has been your experience in working with this?
Rusty Earnshaw 20:54
My experience is the best teams are proactive rather than reactive. So how often have we been called into an emergency meeting and we need to redo our values. I’ve definitely been in a few, but this is weird or your different team.
Sorry. I was just checking my experiences that and my experiences that best coaches are just experimenting all the time. So I love the thought of kind of small, sneaky, specific experiments. Okay. This week, what I’m going to try and do is I’m actually going to start my review by speaking about our values before I speak about anything tactically. So I’ve worked with two coaches specifically who did that brilliantly. Talk about that stuff before anything else, or this week, I’m actually going to experiment with every time I go and speak to a player, I’m going to speak to them about something that’s not to do with the sport first, I’m just going to notice what the impact is. And again, I’ve previously coached some rugby players who whenever I do that, cause I’ll tend to try and do that anyway. They’ll go, Oh, everyone else asks me about rugby first, rusty. I’m like, I know that’s why I’m doing the exact opposite. So I guess my experiences, people are experimenting all the time. I don’t think there’s a one size fits all same as we’re experimenting with coaching all the time. We’re going, okay, well, what if we did this, but actually we put this rule into it or actually we went under loaded instead of overloaded. Let’s see what the impact of that is. So I guess that’s my experience of it. And I guess it takes you, well, you’ll know. I mean, I’ve been lucky enough to hang out with Claire Murphy a lot and see people’s reaction to it for the first time, or when you speak to people about all storytelling is a really important skill of coaches and people are like, sorry, what that wasn’t on my level one or level two. I’m not quite sure what this is all about. So that’s also hard, isn’t it? Cause lots of our coaches, and again, I can’t speak for basketball completely obsessed with the tactics. And of course you can still do the tactics. You can still storytelling theme and connect. I think that both of those things actually allow you to chunk information and people to see your language and to be able to like make decisions under pressure in matches better than people’s whose heads are just full of X’s nose, which is definitely a lot of people I see again, I was discussing something with England Ruby, having a bit of a appalling time at the moment. And you can see actually, so there’s a position called scrum half and as the scrum halves like approach rucks, you can see that their brains are full of stuff and they’re not quite sure what to do. And then only in the last game, it looked like their minds were a little bit freer. Did they probably play to their strengths? So yeah, there’s this whole thing of Claire’s amazing out here. I’m sort of feeling like I’m in the Claire fan club, but just helping coaches be able to do this stuff because it isn’t natural.
Rusty Earnshaw 23:49
It isn’t normal. It is in New Zealand.
You might tell me there’s parts of your country or groups of people or that do this really well and really naturally. There’s not loads of people ever here that do that.
Dan 24:02
One of the things with obviously with coaching and you just mentioned how many coaches are drawn to the tactical parts of the game, me included. A lot of it growing up as a younger coach, it’s because you can see you put in something tactically and you get that immediate potential result on the court or on the pitch of whether that worked or not and whether that directly impacted winning or losing.
And so you’re sort of drawn to that as a coach because, oh, if I get better at this, then I can get better at winning the games versus a lot of the stuff we’re talking about. It’s just unseen. And you mentioned invisible stuff that it doesn’t necessarily show up in points or things like that, even though it’s equally, if not more important at times. And so I guess as a coach in the education of a coach, understanding that dynamic, how important this is and why it’s just at the same, if not bigger level than the tactics.
Rusty Earnshaw 24:55
Yeah, look, I’m definitely not saying they’re separate. I think the best coaches are connecting the two up. One of our challenges is that it’s interesting in soccer over here at the moment, like Pep came over and everyone was playing out from the back. And now everyone’s like trying to kick the ball long and basically people are just copying other people.
Okay. Like, how did you decide upon the tactics you currently have? And in rugby, it’s often, Oh, New Zealand or South Africa played like this three years ago. Oh, wow. That’s fascinating that you don’t have any of their players and you’ve decided to play this way. So for me, I do love tactical warfare. So I’m not saying that, you know, so Danny Newcomb and a bit of work with, he did some cool stuff with Wales hockey. Well, they would change tactics five minutes before half time. So the opposition would waste half time speaking about the new tactics and they would change at the start of second half. That makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense is you playing a way that everyone else is training to play against anyway. And you don’t have the best players in the competition. So I’m super interested in tactical warfare. And then I guess the other thing that for me is vital as coaches is our ability to simplify it. So even just language, like action verbs, like suffocating defense. When do we squeeze? When do we get our kill moments? Like you can see that language. So, and you can say a lot about tactics through like really clever language, I guess, and I guess, you know, how you create that language far too often. I’ve been coaching kid sessions. I’ve been going kill, kill. Sorry. No, I don’t mean that. I mean, it’s not appropriate with the kids. That language might look different at different ages. So really interesting.
Like often go to clubs and they’ll be like, oh, we’ve got the same calling system, you know, from the first team down to the under eights. And I’m like, really? They’re eight. Yeah, they’re not quite long words. They’ve got like three or four syllables. Some of those words. So I think, yeah, I think people are wrestling, definitely not wrestling enough with tactical warfare. Definitely wrestling with like learning tactics. And then I do see this as part of the simplification process. And I do think that is a critical skill of coaches and say this to people lots. Like, I wish I’d done like a piece of A4 of what I thought coaching was every month for the last 25 years, it would have been really helpful for me. Cause I could look back and go, okay, March, 2007. Oh my God. What was I thinking? And then hold 2012. The moment I realized that coaching individuals in a team session was really important, no one, there we go. October, 2015 started thinking about psychology. Wow. That’s interesting that I did 15 years without it. So I do like, you know, we are hopefully over time, like simplifying stuff down, working out what’s important, what’s not important, who we are, all of that stuff.
Rusty Earnshaw 27:46
And at this moment in time, like I guess the stuff that the tactical warfare, the storytelling, the theming, the mindset stuff feels like it’s helpful for me and other coaches.
Pat 27:58
On that note, in the quest to simplify and be clearer, how do you review your practice settings, you know, your kind of after action reviews? I guess what’s your process to continue to involve as a coach?
Rusty Earnshaw 28:13
It’s an interesting story, I always start with a story. So last week we did a week in 48 hours. So we got in coaches who are, I guess, really high potential academy coaches. And we got them to imagine they were Newport County head coach, they’d just been appointed. So they met the press, they did media, they did a managing up to the sporting director. They met the MDT, they hired someone and some people fired someone. You didn’t have to fire them, but they did. That got a bit out of hand. They did their first meeting with the players. So all of this kept turning to 48 hours.
But the meeting with the players, we used like mentimeter, so they did the meeting. It was their first meeting with the players, 20 minute meeting, their choice what they did. Could be tactics, could be about me, could use storytelling. And then afterwards we got all the players to scan the QR code and fill out the mentimeter. What’s the one word you would use to describe the coach? How are you currently feeling? What was the most important stuff in the meeting? How willing are you to go and fight for the coach now zero to 10? So we just asked them some questions, but the coach stayed in the room and then everything like flashed up on the screen, which they never get. You don’t run a meeting and, cause of course everyone’s in football like most sports. You’re like, there’s such a power dynamic that you’re not gonna get the feedback you need, are you? No one’s gonna go, excuse me, Rusty. I’m very bored at this moment in time. Can you please do this differently? Anyway, a couple of the coaches had some feedback that you would go, oh God, I’m not sure I would want that feedback. Definitely not in a room full of 25 people with my peers in it. And anyone I asked about what was their best moment of the two days, they said that. They said, never get that feedback I need to do.
So probably don’t get all the feedback I need. What I do love is I’ll get lots of like, I guess for me, it’s like the unsolicited stuff. That’s probably the most important. Do people like reach out and go, Rusty, that was really helpful or Rusty? Here’s a couple of bits of advice. So we had a couple of people come along last week and share some stuff without me meshing going, look, here’s a couple of things. I was thinking about after we left that a thing might be helpful. I was like, oh wow, that’s cool. So I guess I’m pretty lucky. I guess you also, as you become better at what you do, you start to see it through the eye of the learner, don’t you? So you guys will know just as well as me when you’ve done something and it’s not landed. You’re like, oh my God, please just swallow me up. And I’m going to get in my car and I’m like, oh, Rusty, what are you doing? And sometimes you’re like, you’re your own worst critic. I do love a good car ride home because you get time to think, but also sometimes you’re being harsh on yourself. I’ll definitely ask for people.
Rusty Earnshaw 30:50
We get feedback and every course we will run with the Premier League, it’s mandatory. So that’s super helpful. Hopefully people feel able to come and tell me stuff that would be better. I’m generally pretty proactive around, call, give me like one thing that I should know that’s going to help me work better with you. Tell me what I’ve done so far that’s been helpful. Like if you could give me one gift at this moment in time, what would it be? So I’m generally trying to be pretty proactive with that because the reality is A, I want to get better and B, like I’m self-employed. So if people don’t think it’s helpful and it’s not valuable to them, then they ain’t going to invite me back.
So the first one is more important to me, but of course the second one is also, I really want to do a good job for people. And that’s a hard thing as you guys know, like I think sometimes you’ve got to give yourself grace that you’re not going to be 100% all the time. I’ve been grafting for pretty much all of 2026 at this moment in time. I’ve been a couple of times in the last few weeks where I’ll be a cup of coffee, chocolate bar and sweets, anything that’s going to get me like up for this. And I’m like, come on, Rusty, you can do this. And it’s hard, isn’t it? You guys know, like it’s really hard to be a coach. It’s really, it can be quite public facing, can be people are like, have lots of opinions and they’re not the ones ultimately making the decisions that you have to make. So the other side of that coin is that I’m really in tension and looking after myself and creating time for myself. So important.
Dan 32:21
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For much more information on pricing and all the leagues that you get access to with Huddle and Stat, visit huddle.com slash Slapping Glass today. Rusty, great stuff. Well said. We want to transition now in the conversation to a segment on the show that we call Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic. I asked you to start one of them, sub one of them, and then sit one of them, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So if you’re all set, we’ll dive into this. Yeah, I’m excited. Okay, so this Start, Sub, Sit has to do with what we’re just calling crucial conversations or tough conversations and how they can have successful outcomes. And so I’m going to give you three different options and your start here would be, this is the most important to have a successful outcome of a tough conversation. So Start, Sub, Sit, option one is assuming positive intent, basically going into that tough conversation, trying to have positive intent about the other person. Option two is creating a safe space during before, so that conversation, that person feels safe within that conversation. And option three then is moving to action. So coming out of that crucial conversation or tough conversation with some actionable items that the two of you or the group can move forward on after the tough conversation. So option one, assuming positive intent. Option two, creating a safe space. Option three, moving to action.
Rusty Earnshaw 34:17
that’s hard, isn’t it? Okay, so we do a lot of work with actors and actresses and with coaches around this stuff. So, what is a crucial conversation if not done in the right time becomes a challenging conversation. So, I have a framework around feedback of kind, helpful, timely. I’m avoiding answering your question because I thought, can I start the first two? And I think the other one will come later. So, I haven’t answered your question yet.
And assuming positive intent is a really hard thing to do, isn’t it? Sometimes, because you haven’t, you’d like sometimes in a rush, but you’ve sometimes already made a decision on that person. And one of the skills we talk around this is ghost hunting. So, what are the assumptions I’m making about this person that isn’t actually true in this situation? So, I think the mindset of positive intent is super important. I think it’s probably going to allow you to create a safe space. You don’t have that mindset. If you don’t turn up curious, if you’re not thinking, okay, what questions do I need to ask here? So, I’m a fan of restorative conversations as a way of having some of these conversations, asking people like chicken in, how are you feeling? What are you thinking? What was the impact? So, I’m starting positive intent because unless you start with that right mindset, it’s pretty challenging.
I’ll take your nods as approval. I might have started someone right. A second one, I’ll get safe space. I think it’ll follow from it. And then there’s a couple of skills that I think about with this. And one is like just a statement of intent. I’m having this conversation with you Patrick, because I love you and it’s really important I share this information. That is clear, kind, statement of intent that hopefully doesn’t leave any ambiguity as to my intent versus my potential impact. Which if I don’t say that, you might go, why the fuck are you telling me that, Rusty?
Excuse me, my swear. So, I’m going, I’m subbing safe space, but safe space is definitely getting on the pitch. Like 100%, it’s getting on the pitch. And then the move to action is, because another important skill in these conversations is knowing when to pause. Said something, I’m waiting for them to process it. It’s landing. And the pause might not be in the first meeting. Pause might be between the first meeting and the second meeting. Pause might be, you need to go away and chat to your family and think about this and come back with a couple of, you know, what’s the easiest first step we can do to make progress from this point.
So, I guess that’s how I’m thinking about answering your question. So, we’re sitting, move to action. But again, move to action is definitely getting on the pitch. It’s getting some game time. Yeah, this stuff’s really hard, isn’t it? Because I spoke to someone the other week, Tyler Grange, and I said, how’d you approach challenging convos? He said, I just think about what’s the best possible outcome. And I was like, said, no one else ever.
Rusty Earnshaw 37:05
Like, everyone else is thinking, this is going to go so badly wrong. I’m going to lose my job. Oh, right. It turned out to be okay.
So, yeah, we do a lot of work on this stuff. And I really, really like, love it. And it’s definitely helping me get better at it. But it’s such a critical, like, coaching and leadership skill, isn’t it? My sense is that there’s, you know, I’ve seen players at 18, 19 that can’t, like, pass off both hands or kick off both feet. And I’m like, someone just wasn’t willing to go, okay, Patrick, let’s just pause for a second. So, have a think about how old your right and left hand are. How are we going to help your left hand become a little bit older? What would be the impact of that? I’m here to help you if you need me. Like, and someone hasn’t had that really, it doesn’t feel like that is a crucial conversation. Because at 18, that player’s dropping out of our sport because they can’t function in the game anymore.
And also the other side of it is, so I did a bit of work with Joe Alab when he was at Oianak and we calculated, it was ridiculous. He had something like 900 non-selection conversations a year. And basketball’s different because you rotate on and off. But of course, people often want to be starters or they often want to be on at the end, I guess. So, some of those conversations are all they want, like equal minutes or more minutes. And when you look at it like that and you go, okay, so let’s call it a thousand convos, you can break relationships if you get those wrong.
And then I started to explore that as an example. So, the England women just won the World Cup. Previously, one of the things they, the girls wanted to be told whether they selected or not on WhatsApp, wanted to be in their rooms on their own, told by WhatsApp. In another lifetime, they allowed players to bring in a friend as well. So, if they were super emotional, likely to react, then Patrick might say, Rusty, no, no, no, you’re not listening correctly at this point in time. I know coaches that will bring both of you in the room. So, Dan, Patrick starting this week. This is why you understand that so that they don’t go away and they start saying different things about what was essentially the same conversation.
So we delved in a bit to restorative stuff. We delved into like levels of conversation. Google do some good stuff. People can look it up around what level of conversation you are, whether it’s like almost like factual what happened, emotional or identity. Because sometimes I think we’re in factual and Dan, you’re going, Rusty’s questioning my very essence. You’re at a different level of conversation to me. But if I signposted that. So I guess what I was saying is if you are. It was another full summit I was at, wasn’t it? I was at the full summit where I thought I knew how to have these conversations and then I realized I didn’t have a clue how to do them. And now I’m fortunate enough to help other coaches get better at them.
Rusty Earnshaw 39:52
So I’m able to steal ideas off them. So I guess my nudges to most coaches like go and look into this stuff.
Chris Voss is just real good stuff on this. Sheila Heen, some really good stuff on this. And it’s often one of the biggest stresses and coaches I work with.
Dan 40:09
as coaches, and when you’re helping them get better, do you find with these critical conversations, you’re helping them get better at when to have them, at where to have them, or the how to have them, because of course it’s situational and depends, but where do you find yourself helping?
Rusty Earnshaw 40:26
All of the above. Yeah, I mean, it’s easier, isn’t it? If me and you go for a walk, that’s a different meeting. To me, you sitting in the office, we always sit in when we’re at work. One of them were kind of alongside each other. Maybe it feels a bit more table mindset. Even though we’re not at a table, we’re possibly out in nature. The fact that we’re going for a walk might indicate that we have a bit more time versus a rush meeting here.
Yeah. Like timing of it, how long you’re setting aside for it. What’s the meeting before the meeting? What’s the follow-up? Do a bit of work with Suzanne Brown, who’s a clinical psychologist, and she would body scan, just to body scanning yourself beforehand as well. Then it’s, you know, how prepared do I need to be? What questions am I going to ask? Am I going to manage my own reactions? Talk a bit about football coach I worked with who would do these on a Monday morning with the guys that he would call the two dickheads. So the two owners, he said, I do it on a Monday morning, because he gives me the whole weekend to think about it and get it right. And I’m refreshed and I do it on a Monday morning. Whereas if someone grabbed me on a Wednesday and said, quick, jump into the meeting now with the, then I wouldn’t be prepared for that. And he would need the reasonable amount of preparation. He would use a pen and a paper just to create pauses for himself and to get him used to playing back stuff. So Patrick, what I think I’ve heard is this. I don’t know. That’s not what I said. Okay, cool. So, but just again, different tools, different ideas for different people. Yeah. It’s got me stressed thinking about it. And then you think about if you’re a head coach in a sport, like I don’t know, like the NFL, like there’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of coaches, there’s a lot of staff. You are like a CEO of like a mini business school, quite a big business. And so one of the things I’m often helping players with is how they think about their weeks. So how’d you plan your week from a mindset point of view or maximizing coaches point of view? And I was just thinking about that because often I’ll say to the player, how are you thinking about your week to maximize the coaches? And they’ll look at me blankly. I like, well, think about the head coach. This is how many hours he has in his day. This is how many people, this is when he’s training. This is, there’s a lot going on for head coaches and this is a big part of it. And again, if you’re a player, like you should definitely be thinking, how am I going to have really helpful interactions with coaches?
Not in afar. And the reason that this is all helpful for me is years ago, I would have benefited from all of this stuff as a player and no one helped me with any of it, quite frankly.
Pat 42:49
You mentioned restorative conversation. If I could peg you down and go a little bit deeper on, I guess what that practice is or what it looks like. Again.
Rusty Earnshaw 42:56
quite common in probably educational places where there’s, you know, in inverted commas, the naughty kids. I love, people often talk to me about the naughty kids. So what happened? So first question, what happened? Like factual, what would stand up in a court? Often we’re straight into blame. Aren’t we at this point? Why the hell have you done that? Like da, da, da versus cool. Just tell me about what happened.
Cool. And then the next thing would be about understanding where they are. So how are you feeling? What are you thinking? Cool. Next question. What’s the impact? So impacts are really helpful question from a coaching point of view. Cool. Imagine Dan, if you added this habit to your day, like let’s fast forward three months. Tell me what the impact would be on you and your family. Tell me what the impact would be if you didn’t do that. And then the next step is like, is to your point around like the move to action. Like what are we going to do? And it’s quite hard, isn’t it? When you go upstairs and the bathroom’s flooded and time might not be of the essence at that point, but you know, you might turn the tap off and they’ll be like, okay, cool. What happened? It’s very hard to stay rational at that point as a grown up telling off a child. So yeah, restorative conversations, definitely something I enjoy. And I think the impact question is a question of, I’m definitely asking way more than I used to ask.
Dan 44:11
Rusty, you’re off the start-sub-sit hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. You nailed it.
Hey, we’ve got a final question to close the show. Before we do, this was really insightful and packful conversation. We appreciate you coming on and sharing. So thank you very much for today.
Rusty Earnshaw 44:25
Same to you. Thanks guys. Appreciate you.
Dan 44:27
Rusty, our final question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career?
Rusty Earnshaw 44:34
the weather she’ll hear me, but it’s definitely a good wife. You guys know as well as I do. Coaching is antisocial, stressful. All of that is interesting.
I was at Bath uni yesterday with a group of students and I want to tell them all the cool stuff about it, like you’re close to impact. Other jobs just don’t have the emotion or the connection that you get in sport. You’re around people that want to get better. But the flip side is, the Premier League just advertised for a job and 400 people applied. There’s governing bodies in the UK that are currently going through redundancies. People’s livelihoods are on the line and so you probably need someone that’s going to look after you, tell you when you’re wrong, tell you when you need to have a rest, be there when you get home at 11 o’clock at night soaking wet from being on a pitch with some coaches.
So I’m not sure whether my wife will listen to this, but she’s definitely the best in us.
Dan 45:31
Wow, Pat, let’s hop into this rusty was just unbelievable today with really such a great guest because understands the background. The theory has all sorts of experience, has great stories to tell with the experience and a fun guest, a fun.
Listen, I had a blast today.
Pat 45:48
Yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation today taking it from the angle of really like, the leadership, the power dynamic that kind of we as coaches hold or have and how that influences and how we then also in turn interact with our players and how we’ve seen teams do it right. And I mean, he alluded to a storyteller, I mean, the connection with Claire Murphy, and I think, you know, in the way when we got into creating teams and this co-creation, so really enjoyed the conversation today and kind of approaching it from that angle, the leadership, the various mindsets and the hats that coaches have to wear as they kind of navigate a season, a team and life and on the role for sure.
So, Dan, I’ll throw it to you for our first takeaway, and we can dive into some of our key takeaways here.
Dan 46:36
Yeah, I’ll try to narrow in to start because there was just so much. But I think I’ll give two like a one A, one B, so I’ll cheat here. But the first was just the interesting opening with the multiple mindsets of a coach and back and forth between curiosity or like coming like a table mindset, which is like the collaborative approach versus a more direct boss like warrior like approach. So he kind of had all his different terms. And I just enjoyed hearing him talk through why those are so important when you’re thinking about switching these mindsets and how they kind of bridge to each other.
And I just think the knowledge of that as coaches is just knowing that it requires you to be constantly pinging back and forth between these and then also when to use them and then also that our players are pinging back and forth. And I think he spoke around it too, which was good. I’m still in my one A takeaway, but why it’s important for with your staff and like in meetings to clearly state what kind of mindset are we in right now so you can just have better conversations. I thought that was another nice takeaway. So I was quickly one A, one B was I thought it got really interesting when you followed up with the when is the right time to let someone go. And I won’t over talk on that because I know you have thoughts on it too. But I thought that was a interesting sort of tangent that we enjoyed going down. And so those are one A, one B, but I’ll throw it back to you.
Pat 48:04
on your one a with the coaching mindset. And I liked the point you make piggyback off of that, that I think alignment while we didn’t directly like sit in it. And this conversation was kind of sprinkled around, especially when we got into the start subset. But I thought that was a great point he made with all these mindsets clarifying with your coaches, especially in my mind went to like in a training session, so, you know, like the point of the drill is yeah, whether it’s an exploration phase and not like a compete phase or a win phase and, but you have a coach in a win phase and you wanted to be in like, no, let them explore. And I thought that was just a really good point you want your players aligned. And then it’s equally important to have your staff aligned and you know, what you present to the team and being on the same page, I don’t think that’s any news to anyone, but again, just looking at framing it through like the different mindsets and what phase of practice we’re in, I thought was a really good point to your one B point.
He mentioned it earlier on, just how he kind of learned and evolved to let someone go the three things he raised their energy, resources and accountability and kind of approaching it like that, you know, if all of those are like unredeemable, then maybe that is time it’s best to cut ties, but in terms of like the energy, their commitment to do something, you know, I gave the great example, like they want to do something, but one to 11, they’re out of three. It’s like, well, you know, I think we all have ran into those players and yeah, the resources, like, of course, the ability to help that player, what’s at our disposals, and then of course, the accountability to follow up. And I mean, I think coaches who I think have like these checklists or these clear kind of order of operations that’s maybe be too strong, but I find that also just really helpful, like to frame it in a framework of, you know, something, okay, how should I cut ties on this guy’s and like trying to remove an emotional kind of response to it, but then looking at this energy, resources, accountability, can this relationship continue? Can we help this player? I just really appreciated that kind of model that he shared with us.
Dan 50:03
Yeah. This was also where in the conversation for me was a miss, not by Rusty in the longest job, but I thought we could have, if we have more time or taking it that way, love to keep talking about misalignment within your culture.
And I think he’s spoken before about misalignment is a silent killer to teams. And I think within this, when is the right time to let someone go? What’s best for the team, for the group? I think that that’s where you’re sort of talking around the conversation of, is there just extreme misalignment between the player or the staffer and the coach and the culture and the direction? And when things are misaligned and parties can’t get in alignment, then it’s going to kill your team if it’s not dealt with. And I feel like that was something that could have kept going down. I’m sure you would have had tons of examples and thoughts on that.
Pat 50:55
Just quick thought, I think this was the part of the conversation where we made a gut into like noticing the invisibles. Yes, I thought that was also really interesting and I mean completely true.
The overarching theme of this conversation today too was building communication, building trust, and especially with players like if we haven’t created these environments, given them these outlets to talk, it’s kind of paying attention to these invisibles, the roll of the eyes, the shoulder shrug, or these things that can be culture killers. If we don’t have the right processes in place to maybe start to identify these early, pick these outs, or conversations that happen along the road where like not weed these players out, but you know identify problems early, keep small things small, I think is the point.
Dan 51:37
Yeah, totally agree. Well, Pat, let me keep this moving for point number two to A to B, however you want to do it, but…
Pat 51:45
Is it one C might be
Dan 51:47
You’re right, but I’ll throw it to you for the second point.
Pat 51:52
go to the back half of our first bucket when we started to get into like the shared language, the mental models, and then another framework he shared that I really liked and like creating teams. And this is when I think we got into like the shared vision storytelling, but he talked about, you know, what addressing with the group, like who we are, why are we here, how will we play work and how will we win? He gave a great example of like the Y wall, kind of creating those rituals there. And so I thought that was just a really nice framework.
Again, referencing some of the past conversations we had and like how you build out these models or how you want to play these shared mental models. I thought within that we did sit in the shared language, just understanding that one quote he said that I just took down is that words mean different things to different people. And I think that’s a course when you say it out loud, it’s self-explanatory. It’s obvious, but I think we as coaches forget that. And he used a great example of physicality, which I think we’ve all felt trapped of, we just yell, we need to play harder or we need to play more physical. And we just forget that. Yeah. So your five, five player to your six, five player to your six, 11 player, like that’s all different things. And if like, we don’t bother to take time to clarify that and just keep yelling at the top of our lungs, we need to be more physical, you’re going to always be pretty unsatisfied with the results.
Dan 53:12
for sure. And I’ll just add sort of on the who, what, how, I thought that was kind of within that framework too. He had mentioned, I think that great cultures create good learners or great coaches create good learners. And I think sort of within that conversation about when you’re constantly going back to who are we, you know, what are we doing? How are we doing it? It helps the athlete understand how to learn, how to grow within your culture. And I thought that was like a good point.
And then I really liked what he was saying. It kind of tied later in the show too, but he’d also talked about becoming better as a coach later in the career. Like you start to see from the eye of the learner. So I thought that was another good quote in there, just centering around how we can create cultures where the athletes are focused on learning. We’re focused on creating that environment. We’re also focusing through their eyes a little bit too and how that might look. And so that was another, I thought good point within that part of the conversation.
Pat 54:10
follow up when the conversation got to balancing the culture aspect with the tactical aspect. And again, looking at through live coaching development and we had a really good conversation with Peter Lonergan on this. I think we all come in with tactical, especially with so much technology that all of us are probably further along tactically at the start of our careers and probably at any other time in the history of coaching, let’s say. But what we miss out is like this cultural piece.
And then the next step is, okay, if you want to commit to it, how do you commit to it? And I think we have this conversation a lot, like what does it look like as you try to drip this thing in and balance all the things you have to do within limited time. And I thought he summed it up really well. And with the quote, just from what he seemed like the best coaches are experimenting all the time.
Dan 54:55
Yeah, my fault was, yeah, about coming up tactically and then all of a sudden, you’re realizing how important these things are. Some of that, I think, it’s like how you get a job in coaching early is you are, for the most part, tactically or technically good at something. When the coaches are hired, they can either do player development or they’re great offensively or defensively or they’re a former player. A lot of times how you make your way at any level of the career is because you are really good at areas of the game that then a head coach or decision makers can see on the court. But then I think when we get into it deeper, say you start to rise to a head coach level or whatever it is, you do start to really understand, oh, this other stuff is really, really important and now I need to go back and really dive in and figure out how to do this.
Most staff, I don’t know, someone reach out if they have this on their staff, but when you go search for staff openings or you hear of a staff opening, you have the offensive coordinators and the defensive coordinators and the analytics and the video and special situations. There’s not an assistant for culture building on staffs that I’ve seen. Restorative conversations. Yeah, there’s not a storytelling restorative conversation, culture building assistant on a high major staff that I’ve seen listed. But I guess to my point, it’s as important as it is, it’s sort of something that just becomes then the role of the staff to then create it and figure it out. So I think that’s just an interesting part of our coaching profession is we’re sort of learning trial by fire, researching back, those kinds of things.
Pat 56:33
Completely, because I think you get better at coaching by coaching and experience and along that way you have many peaks and valleys and all of them kind of shape you into improving and empowering yourself on that journey.
Dan 56:48
I mean, it’s like any career, really, when you get hired as a, I don’t know, CPA, they’re not looking for you to be the culture builder right away. They’re just like, hey, just come in and just crush these spreadsheets for me. Easier turbo, yeah. Yeah. All right.
Pat 57:01
All right, Dan, well, before we get too harsh on CPAs, let’s keep it moving here. The third takeaway.
Dan 57:08
I will go to the crucial conversations, start subset, really a fun conversation that I feel like this could have been a whole podcast just on this topic, and all three of those things being super important, but I did like the assuming positive intent, which he ended up starting, because that will allow the safe spaces. And I enjoyed hearing him within this conversation talk about where he works with coaches struggling to have these conversations, the where, the how, all those kinds of things.
I’ll link back to the misalignment conversation or slight miss of not going deeper, but I think this is where we always talk about, you gotta build trust. Sometimes it can just be like a buzzword. This is like such a practical real life way that you actually do build trust within teams, that you have these conversations in ways that there is great action after the fact. And I think anytime you’ve had a crucial conversation with a player and it’s gone well, or even if it’s just gone average, I think that there’s a lot of trust built after the fact because you had it, it meant enough to you and the player to have it even as uncomfortable as it was. And then a lot of times what comes out of it is just a closer alignment of you as a coach with that player’s role versus the goals of the team. I think trust is built by they understand you’re aligning things within your program, their role, what you see them, their value. And so I think the benefit of doing these things and sitting in tough conversations is it does build trust amongst your group. And he mentioned the one coach having 900 or 1000 conversations. Not everyone has to be a big sit down 20, 30 minute session, but just these other little ways to have these conversations, I think do it. So I’ll pause there, I just thought that was like listening to them, talk about it. I thought that was really on point.
Pat 59:01
Within this conversation, as we went through it, three things that kind of crystallized in my head in terms of if you avoid these conversations to what you alluded to, trust may erode over time. If you’re just not addressing issues, lead to misalignment as guys are just going to like, again, it goes back to, you know, words, everyone’s going to interpret something different if you’re not constantly delivering the same message, but through these conversations.
And then I thought he also raised a good point skill may erode and the sense that it doesn’t have to be a crucial, like I’m benching you, you’re not playing anymore, but especially at high school, even in cult, like for the player development, they also need to be told like, Hey, you don’t have a, you mentioned a left hand, which also is applicable to basketball, right? And then the framework of like, again, you know, if you don’t improve it, this like, where do you think this brings your career in three months or where do you see yourself with an approved left hand, you know? And so that also then ties back to the trust that you’re invested in them. So to me, it was like going through all the benefits of why you have it as these opportunity costs of what could happen if you avoid these conversations really kind of run throughout my mind. Oh, the other point I really enjoyed is the preparation. You know, I think we all know why we maybe need to have a crucial conversation. Again, minutes, a skill that they need to improve. So I think like we can all get behind the why, but everything after that, being so intentional and of course the when, the where, whether it’s office or walk, but even just how you are going to be prepared in the conversation.
He mentioned the great example of one coach always having a paper and pen and just writing down. So it buys him the pauses. And I think that’s really important. I think sometimes if, you know, crucial conversations, no matter what are always somewhat uncomfortable and if you don’t give yourself a beat, maybe you overtalked it, don’t allow them the space to talk or too reactive or too quick to react versus yeah, if you just have this pen and paper, maybe you just do scribbles. I mean, for what not, but recalling their words, making sure you’re hearing them clearly, giving yourself time to formulate your response, I thought was a really clever trick or strategy trick might sound too yeah.
Dan 01:01:05
Yeah, for sure. My last little point, because I wrote it down, what you were saying earlier about sort of avoiding the conversations or not wanting to have them.
Someone, I can’t remember where the quote comes from, but bad news doesn’t get better with time. I forget where that was from, but always took that, like that’s an interesting quote as far as just handle it quickly, because it’s not like it gets better if you just keep avoiding it necessarily.
Pat 01:01:29
And then the other one is like clear as kind or kind is clear. I mean, Rusty mentioned that, but I know someone else on our pod. Robin Fralick. Yeah.
Dan 01:01:37
Yeah, but Michigan State women’s head coach mentioned that on here. Yeah, it was a great quote Pat I kind of talked a little bit about one miss of mine, which would been going deeper on this alignment anything else from your standpoint
Pat 01:01:49
You know, it wasn’t a miss because we did mention on it. I wish we had sat in it probably a little bit longer because I think it is a really interesting conversation is like noticing the invisibles.
Yeah. Just digging deeper on it. I think was something I obviously wrote down and starred and wish that I had come back to because those are like silent killers if we’re missing them. No doubt.
Dan 01:02:08
Well, once again, we really appreciate Rusty coming on, it was a fantastic conversation today. Thank you everybody for listening, and we will see you next time.
Pat 01:02:21
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit SlappinGlass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slapping Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.