One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is Finding Mastery: Conversations with Michael Gervais. He has some amazing guests from a wide variety of fields- from business to sport to the military and more. Every one of his podcasts that I have listened to I have thoroughly enjoyed and has been able to take away ideas that can help me grow.  The Pete Carroll is one of the best that I have heard.

The most recent podcast that I have listened to was Pete Carroll…for the 3rd or 4th time. Michael Gervais and Pete Carroll have worked together to create Compete to Be Great.” It is designed to “help people be the best they can be.” They work with all sorts of teams and people- providing high-performance mindset and training.

In the Pete Carroll podcast, a central part of their conversation revolved around how Pete goes about creating a relationship-based culture with his football team, the Seattle Seahawks. He claims that for them to achieve the highest level of success, it is imperative that “I need to figure them out. I need to figure out how to best communicate with them.” For him to figure them out, he needs to be a great observer and listener. Every little detail matters to him, no matter the situation: “Everything counts. They are telling us something in everything that they do. How they dress, how they work, the music they listen to, whom they hang out with, how they eat…” No detail goes unnoticed. Developing, maintaining, and growing relationships are hard. It takes much hard work. It is a 24/7 job. However, this is the key to creating trust and unlocking greatness both as an individual and as a team.

We have all heard the saying, “players don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Coaches must invest their time and energy into developing relationships with their athletes, relationships that go far beyond the field/court/etc. For the athlete to reach what Michael Gervais calls: “the best version of themselves,” coaches must help develop their athletes as a whole. That means in every facet of their life (athletically, academically, socially, etc.). That can only be accomplished through intentional relationship building. This is a process.

Other things Gervais and Carroll discuss in the podcast range are:
-Competition and how it fuels him
-The importance of being present at all times- on the field and in his personal life
-Having an optimistic attitude and how to help others become more optimistic
-Focusing on the process and not talking about winning
-And much more…

I highly recommend this Pete Carroll podcast as well as all of the other guests that Gervais talks with. A few of my favorites are Pete Carroll, Shaka Smart, Richard Froning Jr., Jack Clark, Bob Bowman, and Karch Kiraly (I have listened to most of these multiple times and always take away something new).