Grand Slam Journey
This podcast discusses various topics around - sports, business, technology, mindset, health, fitness, and tips for growth. Topics range from what sports have taught us and how we transitioned from a singular focus and pursuit of our athletic goals and dreams to the decision to end our sports careers and move into the next phase of our lives. My guests share how they found their passion and purpose, tips for maximizing potential - holistically - physically and mentally, how they transitioned from one chapter of their lives to the next, and how to drive success in sport, business, technology, and personal life.
Grand Slam Journey
42. David Lindsay on Infusing Athletic Resilience into Business and Unleashing Your Inner Athlete
Do you crave to unlock the resilience and grit of an athlete within your business framework? Then saddle up as we dive into a fascinating dialogue with David Lindsay, a maven in the realm of sports and business. His life, fraught with challenges and victories, from rugby league to martial arts, has honed a competitive edge that has propelled him into entrepreneurial and workplace success. David spills the magic potion of his five-step system towards improved workplace vitality, including 'snap,' 'nap,' 'tap,' 'clap,' and 'recap,' which infuses the essence of sports into a business workplace setting.
David's journey has not been a piece of cake. From overcoming two knee reconstructions to an injury which paralized his arm, he's tasted the bitterness of failure and the sweetness of resilience. He unpacks the emotional baggage accompanying injuries and identity shifts that led to significant life alterations following his sports career. The narrative of his journey is sure to resonate with anyone grappling with upheavals and identity shifts in their personal or professional lives.
But the rollercoaster ride doesn't stop there. David takes us through the pragmatic and power-packed five-step system for enhancing vitality in the workplace. Imagine applying the adrenaline rush of a sporting match to your work - that's what David's system promises to deliver. The conversation culminates with a call to action for all who desire to propel their businesses to new heights, leveraging the nuances between sports and business. Tune in to be jolted into a world where the athletic mindset is no longer confined within the four lines of a sports field but finds a new home in the boardrooms and desk jobs.
David's Website
Email: david@davidlindsay.com.au
David's LinkedIn
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Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential, sports, life after sports, and transitioning from one chapter of our life to the next, growing our skills and leadership in whatever we decide to put our minds into. For me personally, areas of business and technology, and for my guests today, areas of corporate and personal coaching. I am your host, Klara Jagosova, and today I bring you a conversation with David Lindsay. David has been a coach, trainer, and athlete and has seen what it takes to get things done. He knows how to prepare, motivate and stay motivated.
Klara:David played rugby league for many years but suffered two knee reconstructions at an early age, cutting short his rugby league career. David then went on to compete as a professional arm wrestler until an unfortunate accident occurred that made his arm paralyzed. He then went on to pursue martial arts. He received his black belt in Wing Chun, purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, trains in submission wrestling and has had several cage fights. In the last 10 years, he has studied many successful teams and individual athletes, from the All Blacks rugby union to Rafael Nadal, tennis to Ronda Rousey, mma, ufc and many other successful teams and individuals. From David's perspective, they all follow a similar structure that David calls five step system towards improved vitality.
Klara:David and I delve into similarities between sports and business, focusing on the mindset required for success. We discuss the importance of stress and accountability and how these factors can be harnessed to drive growth and improvement. David shared his insights on how to achieve peak performance in the corporate world, drawing on his experience in sports. He described the five step system towards improved vitality at work, which is snap, nap, tap, clap and recap. He emphasized the importance of creating routines and rituals to snap into action, for example, using music to gain energy and the power of posture to maintain focus and confidence. He also talks about overcoming failure, emphasizing the importance of accepting failure and tapping into a support network to learn from mistakes and improve.
Klara:Some of the questions that we cover in this episode are related to how important is our support system in sports and personal endeavors and how can it be helpful for growth, how do we respond during difficult times, what are some tips for eliminating distractions and focusing on the one thing that will make the biggest difference, And how can we, individuals and corporations, learn to accept failure and use it as an advantage. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who you believe may enjoy it as well. I would highly appreciate if you provided a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe. And now I bring you David Lindsey. Thank you, david, for being on the Grants them journey podcast, dialing from Sydney, australia. Is that correct?
David:That's correct, and thank you very much, clara, for having me on here. I'm super excited to share some time with you, with the listeners, and hopefully they can get something where they can implement straight away. I've spoken with you a couple of times, your background being with sport, mine being with sport and bring that all across the business. There's so many synergies there and I just love the chat that we've already had. Yes, and I'm excited for what this has.
Klara:Yeah, 100%.
Klara:And actually when you and I conversed before, i thought this podcast was totally started for people like you and have guests like you on who actually have gone through their own journey of extreme athletics and sports and will dive into all of that And now taking all of the lessons you have learned through your variety of sports and athletic endeavors into the corporate world And you're beautifully incorporating those lessons into helping others grow as well and get a little bit of what I actually personally call the athletic mindset and something that I've tried to shoot off back in the day at the beginning of the career. And now, more than a decade later, i'm realizing, oh my gosh, there's so many great things that my sport has taught me, and so I'm going back and taking some of the things from my athletic journey and tweaking them and applying them to my business professional career. So I know we're going to dive into many of those topics with you, including your personal framework that you have developed. Thank you for being on. I'll give you the mic and please introduce yourself to the listeners.
David:My pleasure. And again, kaira, thank you very much And everyone. I'm David Lindsey. I come from Sydney, australia, so we're on the other side of the world, and my life started off as just a little kid in the suburbs near Sydney, but I've always been a very athletic kid. I'm not the biggest kid going around, not the biggest adult by any stretch of the imagination, but I've always been very, very good at sports. I think. Being a second child, i've got an older brother and younger sister, the neglected middle child. So I was always super competitive. My brother he was 18 months old with me, so always playing in sports. as a youngster I was playing against older kids. You know, when you're six, they're eight, they're so much bigger, they're so much faster, but I wasn't going to let them overcome. So I do everything I can. I run faster, i train more, even at the age of six, seven, eight. I got my first weight set when I was eight years old. After begging my parents for about a year and a half I begged them for a weight set. They didn't actually end up giving it to me. Santa gave it to me, so I was so excited.
David:Even from my early life I've been into sports. I've been an athlete. I ended up playing semi-professional rugby league in Australia. I suffered two knee reconstructions. My first one, i was 17. My second one when I was 21. When that second one happened, i always said, if it happened after the first one, that'd be it for me. I'm true to my word as often as I can. So unfortunately, at the ripe old age of 22, i had to give the game away that I loved. I was still incredibly big, incredibly strong. At that point I was maxing out at about 95 kilos, so a bit over 200 to 110 pounds. From my height that was big.
David:And there was a bloke that came up to me at a shopping centre and goes excuse me, have you done arm wrestling before? And I thought, where's he going with this? And I said, well, when I do it for drinks I don't buy drinks, i get them to pay for me. And he asked me if I'd ever thought of arm wrestling as a sport And I went no. So he gave me his card And I thought it was such a weird conversation. My head was spinning. But then a week later I went and I practiced arm wrestling And I was really good at that as well, with the technique with my short limbs, with the strength behind that. You can use that to your advantage.
David:And I was on my way to go to some professional arm wrestling tournaments in the States when I happened to snap my arm in core food. So you see there's a scar all the way down my arm. Obviously, that stopped my arm wrestling. I flew back from core food to Australia and got it operated on. When they operated on, my arm went paralysed And I thought, man, like with everything that's happened the last three years, at that point my life got shook up. It got shaken up, stirred around and thrown out. Who's going to want a coach, a trainer, who's going to want an athlete that can't use their arm? My whole personality was stripped from me. But then eventually, after four months, i got some movement back.
David:When I did my third, third, fourth in fitness, there was a kung fu school across there So I went. That's it. This is what I'm going down now. So I did kung fu, jiu jitsu, kickboxing and wrestling And when it had a few cage fights I had a professional boxing fight as well. And then it was during this time where I met my wrestling coach and he kept drumming into me David, there's so much more to you than just sports. You can influence so many more people than just your team just to be with your coaching. And I didn't understand what it meant at that point.
David:But then, towards the end of my fighting career, i went to see Eric Thomas. I went up and I took a step, because there were some ladies before and going. Sometimes you just have to get up and take the first step. So I thought I stood up and I walked forward and I won a boot camp. So it was a three day boot camp for speaking. I never knew of speaking as a professional at all, but then I went to it and I did very, very well. So I signed up and did a 12 month speaking course And still at that point I was still fighting. And then, talking with my wrestling coach, we saw that there were gaps, so many gaps in the corporate world, like you said before, that we can take our sporting achievements, our metaphors, our methodologies, our mindset and bring it across to the corporate world. And that's where I came up with my five steps towards improved vitality And that's where I'm at now spreading the message bar and wide and loving life.
Klara:Thank you so much for the great intro, david, and description of all your amazing sports and journey. I have to say I've never talked to rugby players and yet personal I'm a wrestler but I do want to go back a little bit more. I'm always curious about how we initially uncover the passion, and you specifically started with rugby. What was it about the sport that intrigued you and inspired you to dive in? How did you know that's the sport you want to focus on at the beginning?
David:At the start. We always start out playing sports really for the fun of it, like you might get, with a couple of your friends, And that's where it all starts out. I started off playing soccer when I was younger, but then got into rugby league when I was 12 years old And I think it was having that bigger, older brother as well really pushed me to. That's where I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to prove myself to myself but also to everyone around.
David:No matter who you are, how big you are, I can take you down and use that physicality and that mentality to really be able to impose my will. So I just like the physicality, I like getting comfortable, being uncomfortable because really no one likes being uncomfortable but I like progressing from the discomfort places where most people will give up to keep on going, keep on going, keep on going, keep on going and then become comfortable at that and then raise the bar and then that constant evolution of getting so uncomfortable, sticking it out and moving forward as a result. So it's just a competitive nature that I've had since I can remember and hopefully will have until the very end. But yeah, the physicality and the mentality behind it is what really sucked me in.
Klara:I love that. And then just to compare, in the sports I was trying to note them down because you've gone through so many, So just to name them rugby. Then you went into personal arm wrestling I guess that's due to your knee injury, but just to pause there. I mean, those are completely night and day. How was the dynamic? Just tell me a little bit more about what happened there.
David:Because of my knee injury, I couldn't run, I couldn't do all of this sort of stuff. So I was doing a lot of upper body weights in during my recovery time and I got really big, I got really really strong And that's what the bloke sort of approached me for And I thought after my head stopped spinning, because who expects that sort of conversation when you go to the shopping center? When I got in I thought about and I go, you know what? this is the next avenue I can sort of go down. It's utilizing my strength, utilizing my competitive side. I had no idea about technique. I just thought I'd be able to muscle it through.
David:But very quickly you learn how important technique is And with all my sports since rugby league, with arm wrestling, with fighting and, no doubt you know, with tennis, is where people go. That's an individual sport And it might be an individual competing, but it's still a team environment, Like when I was arm wrestling. I was arm wrestling against people I was training against. I had my coach there, So we had a team of arm wrestlers. Same as with fighting we have a team of fighters. But yeah, learning their technique even and the mindset even comes into arm wrestling If I can get over the guy mentally first. I've already got in beat And that's where my strong will help me move forward. So it helped me up to propel me forward.
David:I'd go against big bodybuilding blokes And there was one bloke in particular where he thought he added all over me. I knew I had him beat already because to me he was just a poser, But because we both have short levers we both went for the hook. I had to hit and I beat him straight away. After that I had him beat mentally And he was such an easy beat physically after that as well. So technique mindset, along with, obviously, the body as well, the strength you need strength with the technique as well.
Klara:Thanks for describing that, because that's a great example of how mindset plays into sports, especially early on. Same thing when I used to play tennis. I have found that if you start well, the first two, three games at the beginning and how you carry yourself can dictate a lot kind of the following set and the outcome, because you can get mental advantage. So I left what you described in. With the arm wrestling It seems like it is probably across the sports. I can have a good start and being pumped and prepared to start the match game. Whatever you're competing at, right, 100% can create advantage. And so from there you went rugby, arm wrestling, but then you decided to go. You know what rugby wasn't hard enough. I already had two D reconstruction surgeries. I'm going to try full on wrestling and boxing and MMA.
David:Explain that to me, David, It's funny when I started arm wrestling, my grandpa, he was a wrestler when he was younger. He was a state champion. And he actually goes. Why are you just using your arm? Use your whole body. And I just laughed it because he always got us doing wrestling as kids me against my cousins. He'd always get us doing techniques, and him with myself as well.
David:But once I snapped my arm, my arm went paralyzed. It gave me time to think And first of all I was feeling sorry for myself. But then, once I started to getting movement back, my mindset goes okay, overcome knee reconstructions of, overcome broken arms, i need to keep pushing. I need to keep moving myself forward. What can be the next challenge? And first of all, it wasn't even fighting, it was going up and doing kung fu, having that goal to get my black belt. But then, once I started getting better with my skills, that's where I really wanted to test myself, not just in the school, but against any sort of opponent, against any sort of style, and that's where my mindset went with that, yes, i did get my black belt, but at the end of the day, belts really just hold your pants up or they're there for decoration. I wanted to see what it was really like in their full contact. Just about no holds bad, and I loved it. But more than anything with the fighting especially is a mindset from wrestling is the art of getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, and that's the same as with speaking. And I put those two very similar because, like we spoke about before, there's so many similarities between sports and business And we'll get into that in a little bit.
David:But when I say to people that speaking is the same as fighting, i get this funny look And I go, we'll think about it. I have to get an opponent to fight against, i have to get a conference to speak at. As soon as I get the confirmation with that, i get a little bit nervous. But then I get super excited And I go Okay, in eight weeks, i know I've got a fight in eight weeks. I know I've got a talk, okay, what strengths does my opponent have? What is a conference about? And then I practice and I practice and I practice and I refine my technique or refine my talk, and I get better and better and better. And then when you're there, you know when you've got a week to go, you're in the home stretch, same as we both. So you keep practicing And then, when you're there, they call out your name. You come out and you're excited, you put on a show for the crowd and you'll finish with a standing round of applause. That's why I've found similarities between fighting and speaking.
Klara:Yes, and you so beautifully describe it actually makes me a little bit wonder and also reflect on my podcasting journey and why I started my podcast. You know one of the reasons, just to share I was terrified at the beginning. It was literally the one thing that I thought, being a Czech person from Czech Republic, having this accent, and I was like you don't hear that many podcasters with this weird accent, and I was like I'm going to try it, and so it was totally fear driven at the beginning And now it's just become such a fun thing And I love obviously meeting people like you and learning new perspectives. It's become my primary ways of learning And I can feel a lot of the similarities in this and kind of what you described and totally see the connection between the performance speaking an athlete and speaking performance or even something like, i guess, my media podcast that I've chosen for myself.
Klara:But I do want to go to one more thing, because this is something I haven't really felt like in tennis. It's a little bit because you're there by yourself So you can think about it's a cage and you have to depend on yourself only, which is the beauty of it There is nobody else to blame and nobody else to praise, just yourself for the win. So that responsibility and accountability is something that I've grown with and almost gotten addicted to, which I now enjoy. But I find that there is another level. When you take it into this combat sports and extreme sports and fighting actually in a cage, to where you're literally, you know, risking your life and tennis. The worst can happen. You get hit by a ball and you have a bruise. That happened to all tennis players, probably in life. How is that mindset?
David:I love to, because I love being under the pump and knowing that you have that fight. It's like knowing that you have to finish a project to work. You've got a project, you've got the end date And then like, with everything you sort of will, you should reverse engineer it and know where you want to be each step along the way. So I love the fact of that pressure of knowing that there's someone else out there. They're training just as hard, if not harder, for me, so I have to constantly lift my game. Like I was training three times a day, i was dieting to get down in weight, so it's all these things. But you know that you have the end date And I was talking to someone about this just this morning. It's about the long term gratification as opposed to instant gratification. And even now I normally get up at three o'clock in the morning to do my training at four o'clock. I know that when I get up, how I'm going to feel afterwards? Well, we're in winter now in Sydney and might be cold, it might be wet, but I know that once I get up and I get going, i'm going to be so much more energetic. I'm going to have so much more Vim Vigor, and it increases my passion for what I do. So therefore it raises my vitality by getting up and going out, training, doing what other people can't do.
David:I love that And, like you said when you started the podcast, man my accent, i'm uncomfortable, i'm uncomfortable. You keep going, you keep going and then becomes a whole another language where you have created this. It's that level of comfort where, if you had to push through those tough times, like you said, with tennis, you might get hit with a ball. With fighting, you get punched in the face. So it's uncomfortable. Nobody likes getting punched in the face, but I know eventually my God will tighten up where most people give up once. I get punched once in the face, but it's knowing to push through it And that's what I do with the people that I coach as well.
David:It's about knowing the end goal. That's where the gratification is. That's where the reward is. It's not the reward. Now I'm going to have a chocolate cake, i'm going to sit down, i'm going to be comfortable. That's a terrible way to be And you might feel good for that five minutes, but then 10 minutes later you're going. Oh, I feel sick. Or, yes, it was instant gratification, but instantly you drop off and you have that regret. That's where sports, like you said, it keeps you accountable. With tennis, you know that you've got a tournament coming up. You know who your main opposition is in that, you know how they play And you set a game plan. you train to that game plan to beat them and then you hold the trophy up. Same thing.
Klara:Yeah, and just to share, i actually do find correlation. Now, even when you mentioned the performance mindset, i recently started playing competitively better for fun. These are just the small leaks, not professionally like I used to play or top level, but even that actually showing up and having this positive pressure when break points and game points and important points they almost helped me tighten up my mindset and actually feel I become a better human even at work, because keeping that mindset under pressure tight I feel like it helps me keep my mind tighter, even in business situations. Have you seen that perspective? Or when you talk to the people that you coach now, because I know you have your own coaching practice, is it something that you hear or you have personally experienced?
David:Well, both I've got personal experience with that. You hear it And I talk about that as well. I ask people like who think their stress is a bad thing? And the majority of people put their hand up. Stress is vital for growth, stress is vital for improvement, but it's stress plus recovery. So a certain amount of stress, like you said, it keeps you on that straight and narrow. Knowing that I've got a cat training to fight me, that's trying to punch me, elbow me, trying to choke me out, trying to break my arm, that keeps me on the straight and narrow. Knowing that I've got an audience of whether it's 10 people, whether it's 100 people, whether it's 1,000, 10,000 people that they're relying upon me to put on a good show. It's that stress. You get it working for you. Because a lot of people as well you'd see it with athletes Some of them are brilliant on the training court, but when you get to the competition side, they flake out. It's about having that mindset of okay, training is training, use that stress, but then knowing how to use the stress in competition to work for you.
David:Because there's two ways to really look at things You look at the excitement or you look at nervousness, and it's the exact same physiologically, because I've spoken with people about this as well. I use this quite a lot And there's studies that show it. If you're excited for something, your heart rate goes up. You might even start sweating. The body temperature, your mind is switched on, you're hyper-focused. If you're nervous, your heart rate goes up, your breathing goes up, you start sweating, instead of being hyper-focused, so you're hyper-scattered. So it's the exact same physiologically. It's just a mentality which changes it. Are you excited or are you nervous? Try and flip it. If you're nervous, to be excited to use that energy for you, whether it's doing a presentation at work, whether it's coming up with a new widget or a new app or new whatever you're working on, it's not nervous. You flip that to man. I'm excited to show this off. Same as in tennis, same as in fighting I was excited to get in there and showcase my skills.
Klara:I love that you're talking about it, because I have this theory, even from sports, that I actually was thinking about writing. I haven't written about it just yet, but now that you're touching on it I wanna test it out with you. To simplify things, i believe there's two types of people the trainers and the performers. And the trainers are the one that go in there. They do all the reps. They're really good in training. They do all their due diligence and more. If a coach tells them to do 20 reps, they'll do 25, just to make sure that they didn't miss count. And they're typically kind of praised by the coaches like look, this person is so good, such a good discipline. I work at it.
Klara:But it's rarely that those trainers know how to perform. Then there are those performers that you can probably see from your interactions in sports And you can point them out to you now when you look at the professional athletes. Carlos Alcaraz, one of those young kids. I strongly believe he is a performer because, being in tennis and playing the way he's handled himself his first US Open last year, you have to be a performer in order to handle the stress so well, right? So those are the people that are born with this talent that naturally thrive under competition. When you put them there, it's almost they elevate their own level, but it's typically harder to force them to get on the court and train, because I strongly believe there's usually no one that has both. I guess nature is equal in some ways, so we always have to learn one or the other, and maybe to tell them that what do you think about that theory and which one were you? Were you a trainer and did you have to learn to perform, or vice versa?
David:I actually did a talk last week with a football team about this, about that team is incredibly talented, but the unfortunate thing is, like you said, the people that are incredibly talented, they rely upon their talent, they rely upon their size, they rely upon their God given speed, they rely upon all of this sort of stuff, yet they're terrible trainers. So talent can get you so far And if you don't learn to transition across to train hard. The people that I still believe that I had no talent, and I've had people that tell me no, you did you too harsh on yourself? I didn't. I was a little, i wasn't the fastest to start off with, i wasn't the strongest, i wasn't the fittest, but I'd trained so hard that.
David:I became the strongest, i became the fittest, i became one of the fastest. I never was the fastest, but I became one of the fastest, and so I had no talent, but I'd train hard and I would stuff up in the game, but then again, you overcome it. You overcome it, and then the more you do it, the better you become at it. So, yes, you need both, but personally I believe that for me, very limited time worked hard, then the practice helped me become that performer.
David:Because at the end of the day, if you're gonna make money doing it, you do have to have both. You have to be the performer, but you also have to be able to train as well, and you'll see so many performers like specifically in tennis, like in fighting You have to be with it better than them at training, but you need to be with it better than them at training to raise their game so they can perform better as well. You need to be both, but for me it was hard work And then everything else paid off off the back of that. But everyone's different.
Klara:Yeah, What are some of the main tips that personally actually helped you, David, to switch over to the next level of the performance? Because even from my experience, I think you can train, train, train so hard, but you may have all the skills, but really what counts is at least my goal's been always I just wanna play the same way in the match as I play in training. If I just achieve that I'll be fine, And so getting my mindset to survive and the distress was just so much more harder, I believe, to train our minds than to train the body, or at least it was for me to kinda using how to tweak.
Klara:It's almost like curves and tunnels. You have to find bridges to create and cross and sometimes lie to your outside to get to the right mindset that you need right. It's almost getting yourself, getting to know your own mind, to get to the performance and learning what works. What are some of the things that really work for you, or even from your experience, coaching people and training many people and teams? what do you see as some of the best tips for achieving that?
David:Get out there and do it. There's nothing quite like getting out there and do it. Like you said, you can do all the practice. You can do all the practice again And, yes, we wanna go into whatever you're doing as well, prepared as possible. But that's like a course that I've created as well, where one of the things is execution. You know, it's no point doing all of this training, all of this training, all of this training if you never put it into practice. So get out and execute. That's also, like you said, where you learn so much more about yourself.
David:Yes, i can practice, because I practice my talk at least three times a week. Quite often it's after I do training, so I'm physically and mentally exhausted. I put on headphones with crowd noise, i get up on the stage. Often I do it, like I said, after training. So it's early in the morning so that the cleaners are still coming through. So I'm trying to train in as hard a way as I can to make the performance fun. So, knowing that I'm prepared, that's where I can go into it and enjoy the time.
David:Be really here, like at the moment. I'm 100% here with you When I speak. I wanna be 100% with the audience. I don't want other stuff going on through my mind. So practicing, but nothing beats getting out there and doing it. Even sparring when you're coming for fighting, it's not the same as when the cage closes. You have the audience there and the referee goes ready, you, ready, right. There's nothing like it. So, yes, prepare, yes, train, but get out there and do it. Get under the stress of the audience being there. Get under the stress of performing against someone that you've never seen before or that you may have only seen on TV or through video. That's how you learn so much more about yourself and that's where you build resilience is getting out there and doing it. If you fail, you fail fast, you fail forward. That's why the third set is tapping and evolving. So why didn't it work? Don't talk to your coaches. In tennis, i don't know. You can't talk to your coaches, can you? during the match?
Klara:It hasn't been allowed in the past. So you're kind of there, obviously by yourself In college. Actually, i found in college it was very helpful. So I played the tour before I came to college and in college you actually have a coach who can come in during changeovers only typically, and I do find that was super helpful for me, especially my first coach that I really needed to help me almost expose the thought process that was broken, that I couldn't find by myself, and so the fact that he was there with me on the changeover, i think that really a lot of my college experience helped me switch into understand what that performance mindset is and don't get into this dark and productive tunnels as we can by ourselves that you know, beat yourself up over the head and then it's just the spiral starts and you just go deeper and deeper and it's so much harder to dig yourself out of it later on, right, so I think that was very helpful, but still, mostly you have to be there by yourself.
David:Like I said, with college, you had the coach here. With fighting, you have your coach between each round, but also when I was fighting, there was a crowd there, yet my ears would only hear my coach because I'm so used to it The being out for him to be that second set of eyes from an outside perspective, so being able to rely upon them as well. And that's where you have full faith and trust in your coach, full faith and trust in your coaching partners, because, especially when I started speaking I think we spoke about it before where you fake it to, you make it, but then you become it.
David:I didn't have faith in myself, but I had the utmost faith in my coach And because he had faith in me in a roundabout way, that gave me strength and that gave me faith in myself, because I've put he's still up on a pedestal for me, but if he has faith in me, i'm never gonna second guess him. So I have to have faith in myself And one thing is led to another And again, just getting out there learning each and every match you wanna get that little bit better. Each and every talk you wanna get that little bit better. Each and every podcast you wanna get that little bit better.
Klara:Yes, i love that. And what are you describing as a little bit of what I've written about also and spoken about, and I hear from my guests, who are mostly athletes, is the importance of support system, and that is, i think, transferable. Whether you're an athlete, you actually have the people you lean on, and sometimes that can be your competitors because they're pushing you to be stronger. Sometimes they're your coaches, they're your family, and it can be small or large, but we all, in all instances, whether it's athletic or professional endeavors need some sort of support system, and that can also vary. But that's what I hear a lot of my guests describing. I do wanna get to your amazing framework, but I have two more questions. I wanted to tie on hearing you and get your perspective on this.
Klara:One of the things that I hear you describing is the huge identity shift and loss that is typically associated with any sport or injury.
Klara:When, for example, rugby, you had your second reconstruction knee surgery, then your arm that got totally paralyzed, and so that feeling is so hard. I mean, i've gone through it myself and it's almost all of my guests have gone through it in their own version And what I'm realizing now all humans go through it eventually. It's just a privilege in some ways as athletes. If we don't make it, we're forced to go through that earlier on in our life And so, if you think about the failure and success, that actually helps you to adapt, because it's something that is super hard, but if you overcome it, that can actually help propel you. So how did you perceive that, if you can describe the difficulty you had to go through, and how do you look at it even now, what helped you to rewire the brain? that this is not a failure, but I can use this and all that I have learned to my next sport and the next step of career, which is you doing it beautifully now.
David:Oh, thank you, Yiko. It's funny that you talk about this exact thing. I was talking with a mate yesterday about who played 100 plus NRL games So NRL is the national rugby league, that's the top of the top And it was the same thing where he had to stop his career early due to injury And I'm going to do an interview with him next week And it was the same as me, same as with other mates that have had to that it wasn't our choice to retire, it got ripped from underneath as due to injury. But how tough it is because when you're playing tennis, everything's structured. You turn up the training. At this time, you have this diet, this, everything is set up for you Training, recovery, video time, training, that, that, that beyond the court. at this time, your diet is all set out And then what happens is it gets ripped out from underneath you. And that's where a lot of people struggle. When they struggle with you have the crowd there cheering And then the next day nothing. Next day you basically walk down and it's almost like you're nobody, and that's where a lot of people struggle with.
David:I was lucky enough to when I did my knee. It was relatively close after that, when a bloke came up and asked me to do arm wrestling. When I had my arm wrestling injury, i went into a dark, dark place. Now I don't go into places that very often, occasionally I do. Everyone does have bad days, but it was the family and my friends that I had around me Because they knew who I was. They knew who I was, better than I did, because at that point I was a nobody. I wasn't an athlete, i wasn't a coach, i wasn't a trainer, i was nothing. Who's going to want? some of the can't use their arm at all. And then, when it came to fighting, it was difficult because I had so many fights, cancer on me, because that was when MMA it wasn't as big as it is now And people just wanted to say that they were tough and have page fights. I had 13 fights canceled within the last week. So I'd train up for the fights. But again, it's surrounding yourself with the right people. And then my wrestling coach was instrumental in getting me to even think about something outside of the sport.
David:And then it's each time along the way I've had the knee reconstruction, change my direction, broken arm change direction. Fighting change direction, and it's just about acquiring skills and knowing the long term game, like I didn't know it at the point. And Steve Jobs says it brilliantly We can't connect the dots looking forward but looking backward. It's abundantly clear And it's so cliche and so cheesy. Things don't happen to you. That happen for you, that's only if you use it. Like I could have sat in the corner and gone poor me, my knee. I've had two knee reconstructions. But I decided, i made a conscious decision No, get up and move. I could still use my whole upper body, so I could still train that. And then outside circumstance came in and outside influence and got me into arm wrestling. Yes, i still know my arm, yes, my arm when paralyzed and it was difficult. But then I went. I can still use my lower body. I was running with my arm in a sling And then when I got fit and got into fighting, then that's when I got pointed out to me, david, all these skills that you've acquired, the coaching that you've done with Olympians, with first grade footballers, with CEOs we stay at home, parents Bring that to the corporate world.
David:And I had no idea how to go about that. But then going and seeing Eric Thomas getting up winning that boot camp set me on another trajectory And then going and doing a 12 month course that helped bring that into focus. And everything I do, i do it to my best of my ability. I jump in with both feet. I do 110% when most people only do 60 or 70. Because I don't want to be there going if I am me. So, yes, each step along the way it's open a new door. It's just that I'm there to be aware of where the doors are opening and I run through it.
Klara:I love that. One more question and follow up on that Growth by winning or do you maximize growth by overcoming challenges? If I'm listening to you and hearing you describe your journey, i feel like your growth has happened always on the pedestal of a huge distress and something that was actually really negative and sort of bad for you in that moment right.
David:You have to celebrate the wins, especially when you're working in a team environment. Because about bringing everyone together, because when I was playing with South Sydney, we won the competition not because we were the best team, but because we knew like and trusted each other. We became like a family. Over the space of I think it was four years we played together and the fourth year was when we won the competition, because we wanted to do it for each other. We go into battle for each other.
David:Yeah, you learn more during the losses. You learn more during the tough times when things don't go according to plan. How did you respond? Were you able to step back and look for a different opportunity, or did you just sit down and pull the rug over yourself, which I believe a lot of people did or they have done over the past three years? Whereas with me I've seen it yet. The first week don't get me wrong It was tough, locked down, nobody knew what was going on, but then that opened so many doors. It enabled me to have this meeting with you, which is going to go so much further. Because of the tough times that we went during the lockdowns. Because of the tough times we had to learn, grow and adapt. We had to evolve. So there's positives wherever you look. Just depends if you're looking for the positive or if you're looking for the negative. Again, it comes back to mindset.
Klara:Yeah, i love that. And so, speaking of mindset, i've seen on your website the framework that you've crafted for the five-step system towards improved vitality in the workplace. I want to let you to describe it because I thought it was super interesting And I totally connect to it as an athlete And I was like, oh my God, this is fabulous. Everybody should know about this. It makes so much sense. So please tell us a little bit more about it and how you coach people in the corporate world to adapt it.
David:Like I spoke to you before, i've taken all these concepts from my sporting life And saw gaps and bought it from the sporting world into the corporate world Because, as we mentioned, you have different positions, different skill sets, different mindsets, but you're all a team. You're all pushing for the same angle. So the first one is creating routines and rituals to snap into action, because when I was fighting, i couldn't afford to waste five or 10 seconds before I snapped into action, or there's a very little possibility I could have got knocked out or taken down and get put in a very bad situation. So what can I do each and every day to ensure, when I turn up to work, i'm ready to go, i'm ready to fire on all cylinders And I utilize music.
David:I use music to pump me up. I put my headphones on. We all have our phones available within arms reach. This is about 24 seven. So put your headphones on, pump up some tunes and feel the flow. And along with that as well, it's a power of posture. So we sit tall, we stand like I'm constantly moving around, because that's just where the energy goes. And each time I'm standing up I'm not bending over slumping, because when you slump, not only can you not breathe properly, but your energy is stifled and it stopped there. And this is just a very, very quick rundown. Music and posture is a great way to snap into action. Then the second step is napping Napping for peak performance. Like I said before, i ask people who thinks that stress is a bad thing And it's not, it's required for growth Say, when you go to the gym, what are you doing? You're stressing out the muscles, the joints, the tendons, the ligaments. You're just stressing out the system. And what happens when you first lift weights? What happened when you first did squats?
Klara:I haven't actually squatting now in about four weeks because of the move And the first squat. After such a time it's so hard and so heavy, but once you get into a routine it gets so much easier. Exactly.
David:A hundred percent, and that's what people don't realize. And that's where you're stressing that system out. Next time you do squats you'll be sore and sorry, that's fine. You're allowed to recover. And then you do it again and again. So stress plus recover. And in the corporate world, that's where I speak about the Pomodoro technique Working in short, intense chunks, no phone calls, no emails, no distractions.
David:You're just single focus And you'd be surprised how much you can get done when you work like that. Having a lunch break, you'll notice that I've been sipping water the entire time, because it's about staying hydrated in the Western society, especially where chronically dehydrated. So you want to refuel your body and mind with water and with nutritious food not with donuts, not with pizza with nutritious food. And then, once you've had that nap, you snap back into action. Then the third step is tap, which is, yes, we're going to fail at things, but so long as you fail first, you fail forward, you tap and evolve. Say, we're fighting. If I get caught in an armbar, i go back to my coach and I go why did I get caught in that armbar? And then, each and every time, it gets a little bit better, a little bit better.
David:Apple is fantastic at tapping and evolving. They didn't stick with just the phones or with the iPods, no, they're constantly evolving. And now you have your whole house running off the Apple system. It's because constantly tapping and evolving, tapping and evolving. There's many, many companies that are doing that. But there's many companies that they stop tapping and evolving and they end up forgotten about Because another phone company, nokia, used to lead. Yeah, they were doing so well, but they stopped tapping and evolving and they were the world leaders, but then they've been forgotten about. But if you have had to tap because something failed, you can't hang your head in shame and hope the rest of the world is going to feel sorry for you. No, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and then you snap back into action.
David:Then, after that, the fourth one is clap is celebrating, celebrating the time, effort and dedication that you put into it. Like I was talking about before, if you work with people that you know like and trust, you're willing to do more, you're willing to put in longer hours and you're going to have so much more fun while you're doing it as well. And when you have fun, you do so much more productive. And then after that, the fifth step is recap, which is all about continuous, never ending improvement in everything we do. People sort of get tapping and recap and a little bit confused, because tapping is what you do between the ends of tennis. You have a quick talk with your coach and you make little adjustments. Recap is watching the entire game, watching what worked and what didn't work And, more importantly, why didn't it work, and then getting a little bit better 1% each and every day. So that's a five steps towards improved vitality Snap, knack, tap, clap and recap. There we go.
Klara:I love it. Thank you so much, david. I do want to touch base especially on one that I think most of us humans, as well as corporations, i believe is hard for us, and obviously corporations, because corporations are made from humans, right? So I think that just makes sense. And it's the tapping, accepting the tap and recovering from it, because we all fail, and I've been part of a few different large corporations and I think corporations handle that differently, right. The way you look at lessons learned as a human or as a company, and accepting failure versus moving over it, et cetera. You sharing your story and me listening to it. it seems like you really learned and mastered that skill through the different transitions of your different sports, as was you, coach people now and in the corporate world, and professionals. I just envision from my own perspective, that this can be really hard for others. Is that true? Do you find this one of the hardest one, and what are some of the tips that you would suggest for people to try and test or even organizations try to adapt?
David:Yeah for sure. And with that, really it's about having a good support network. So people that you work with and that are both one level above and one level down as well Here with you interact with all the time. I like to use martial arts as an example And Bruce Lee. Everybody knows Bruce Lee. He didn't walk in as a black belt, So he walked in and he still made mistakes.
David:But each time you make the little mistake, you learn so much more from it. So not learning from it is the biggest mistake you can do, because, say, if you have a sales team and they're on the phone, if a sale didn't go through, that's where you're gonna tap, That's where you're gonna talk with the people around you and brainstorm, Because with the whole mastermind thing, everyone has their own unique concept. But then there becomes truly a mastermind above it, Because when people throw out ideas, it gets you thinking from a different perspective on how to overcome it. Going back to the phone call example what point did you lose them? Did you try and sell too hard, too early? Did you not do this? Did you not do that? Were you so robotic? because you're just reading it off a script and the script says to do this and then laugh ha ha ha.
David:So it's all that sort of stuff, but so long as you learn from it and we're never going to get 100% That's perfectly fine. But so long as you get that little bit better, and that little bit better each and every time you're moving towards it. So when I was fighting, I accept failure because so long as when I do it I go to my coach okay, what I do, He goes. When you're throwing the overhand right, your left hand's dropping down. Then he just tagged me and trained him until eventually I got to the point where the hand's up there or with a takedown, If your arms play out to the side, boom, you open for a knee, As opposed to if you go for the takedown, the knee comes. Then you use that to your advantage. So quite often when you do fail a little bit first, that doesn't become a failure. It can actually become an advantage, just the way you look at it.
Klara:I love that. I agree You've shared so many great tips and wealth of experience from athletics and how you're now helping corporations and people in the personal world adopt it. There's still a lot of chaos going on in the world, including, obviously, the war in Ukraine, the economy and still recovering from COVID in different countries. To me, it's just a lot of chaos and it's hard sometimes for us to focus. So what do you want to invite people to be perhaps doing more of, or less of?
David:It's hard but it's not impossible. And I've got a couple of great books. I've only, just for the last eight years, got into reading and I love it. I'll just show you this one that I've got right here. Extreme Ownership is for people to take ownership on what they do. If you're in a good position, that's excellent. Talk to people. Find out what's working, what isn't working. Do more of what's working. Figure out if you can change what isn't working, but take ownership. And I've also got this other one here which is super, super important as well We don't have to be everything to everyone, mm-hmm. One thing You can't put 100% into 30 different things. I can put 100% into this podcast. I can put 100% into my talk, but I'm just doing one thing And I do that exceptionally well. So, yes, it's chaos. Find that one thing and might be off in the distance, but keep it on the end goal. So go for not instant gratification, but go for delayed gratification.
Klara:That's so great And actually spot on. Just today I was thinking what can I eliminate from my schedule? I need to focus more and narrow down more on what's in front of me, because I feel like I have a lot of echo from other sides and I have too many to do with slaterly that I'm just trying to focus on the things that make the biggest difference And how can I eliminate the rest? So I love your tip And it's funny along with that.
David:I use an example when I'm coaching people. I go okay, so if there's a big pile of dishes, the dishwasher isn't working. There's a big pile of dishes. How often do you walk past and go? there's just too much to get done. I can't clean them. And then nothing's happening, except more is getting pulled on top. Start off with one Wash one, then a second, and then eventually it's gonna work its way down. So don't get overwhelmed by all of the noise going on because there is so much noise. But that's where you focus down onto that one thing.
Klara:Love it And snap into action.
David:Yes, that's 100% right Love it.
Klara:Great. Thank you, David. I hope this lesson was inspiring and people enjoy it as much as I enjoy conducting with you. And if they wanna get in touch and wanna hear more, or perhaps get some tips or register for your coaching, what's the best way to reach you? The?
David:best way is either through LinkedIn I'm quite active on there or through email. Feel free to email me at David at DavidLindsay L-I-N-D-S-A-Y dot com. dot iu And I'm looking at getting a speaking tour going over there in the States, because I've done up and down the East Coast of Australia and I've loved it, but I truly wanna get over there. So if anyone is interested in that, by all means feel free to hit me up. I'm happy to have a conversation and to try and help you out. The more people I can help, the happier I am.
Klara:Fantastic. Anyone specifically you wanna call out? Call to action, David.
David:No, just people out there that really wanna raise their business to the next level. They wanna raise their employees, then manages, their supervisors, the floor staff, to the next level. That's what I'm there for To give them the five steps towards improving vitality, to get them snapping into action.
Klara:Sounds good, i'll make sure to add all the resources that episode notes so they can easily find you and get into action. Thank you so much for your time. If you enjoyed this episode, i want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify or any other podcasting platform that you used to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. It is a great way to remind someone you care about them by sharing a conversation they might be interested in. Thank you for listening.