Offseason Talks, Volume 3 -- Who Are You Listening To?

Phil: [00:00:00] Welcome back to How Soccer Explains Leadership. I am your host, Phil Darke, and we are continuing a series right now that is a little break from our normal programming. We are doing the Offseason Talks. The first couple off-season talks we've been focusing on self-leadership. Today will be a continuation of that journey on understanding how we can lead ourselves so that we can lead others better. And the reality is there's so much to this. We couldn't even possibly cover all of it in these few off season talks we're doing between season three and season four, but we started with where we think we should always start, which is knowing your why.

And we talked about knowing your why. Starting with the end in mind when writing your eulogy, go check that out if you haven't checked it out already. The second one we did was talking about DISC and the importance of understanding yourself so that you can understand others. And you can again go back and listen to [00:01:00] that one.

I encourage you to do so. I'm a firm believer in the power of DISC in leadership. And I think you should understand if you don't already understand what DISC is all about. That would be a good place for you to start to understand why I think it's really important for you to be able to flourish. And today we're going to continue that conversation about really understanding ourselves and helping us to flourish.

My why is to help others to flourish and to make good things better, but I'm not going to be able to do that unless I myself am healthy and I myself am flourishing, I'm not going to really be able to help others because they're going to watch me. And they're going to wonder why they'd want to follow somebody.

And that's really what we're talking about is mentors and really knowing who are you listening to. Who are you really listening to? Those are the people you trust. Those are the people you want to emulate in different things. Those are the people who you respect. And so make sure that that is actually true.

[00:02:00] The people that you're listening to are telling you truth about yourself. Are reinforcing things in you that will help you to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Don't try to be them. Don't try to, like I said, emulate everything that they do, but take the things that you respect in them and understand how that plays out and how that manifests in you.

The way you're wired. As we talked about DISC through the filter of your why. As we talked about the why. So what does this look like in the mentors? How do you really choose mentors? Who can help you to be who you really are created to be, and to be that full flourishing version of yourself? Well, there's a few different things that I've learned a lot in this area from good friend of mine, Peter Greer. I did an interview with him. I think it's episode 55 or so of the Think Orphan Podcast. If you want to go check that out, that whole interview is about self-care. I've talked about it a little bit on this [00:03:00] show already, but Peter talks about this idea of constellation mentoring.

You know, we always hear as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. So one woman sharpens another. That's absolutely. I believe it with everything that I am. And I've had some amazing men and women in my life who have sharpened me in different ways. But this idea of constellation mentoring is, is some people think, oh, I'm just going to go one mentor, and that's going to take care of everything.

That's going to take care of all my issues. That's going to take care of everything. It's just a life coach. I can go talk to them. I don't think it really works that way. I think there are people who can speak into different areas of our lives. And this is this idea of constellation and mentoring that my friend Peter told me.

And it's it's, it may be intuitive already, but he put a name to it. So I liked that. I liked this idea of constellation. Really. It's, it's this idea of finding people who can help you in the areas that you need help in your life. [00:04:00] So, for me, you know, I found a mentor when I took over for Providence World, the organization that I run, I found a mentor who could help me in leading a nonprofit, because I'd never done that.

It's different than leading a for-profit business. It's different than leading a soccer team. It's different than leading some church group or some other things, some Rotary Club or other things in life to have someone who could help me understand what it is to run a nonprofit organization. That was huge for me, also, someone to help me in my finances.

So I took the Crown Ministries course from a friend of mine who was able to do. You know, you could do Financial Peace as well. That'd be a good mentor in financial area to find mentors in marriage. I found someone who was ahead of me in that who also had five kids. So it was kind of killing two birds with one stone where I could get someone I respected to talk with an encouraged me in my marriage to challenge me to be a better husband, challenged me to better, better [00:05:00] father. I found someone who also had a lot of kids cause I have five. Was able to really have him be able to mentor me and speak truth into my life about how I could be a better dad.

And it challenged me to do things I wouldn't do. And the obvious, analogy that we have, and it's not even an analogy cause it's one of the other constellation parts is a, is a personal trainer. We don't have any problem going out and getting a personal trainer for our fitness for working out. When we're going to work out, we're going to find that personal trainer to push us.

To go further than we would ever go. I know that I go way further. I lift more weight. I do more than I could do that. I think I could do. I push myself whether it's on the bike or a card, any other cardio machine, whether it's with a deadlift or a squat, I'm going to push myself more. When I have someone keeping me accountable, when I have that personal trainer keeping me accountable. And the same thing goes for every area of our life, we're going to push ourselves.

Budget better. If we have a financial mentor. We're going to push ourselves to [00:06:00] be that better leader and to really read more and study more and engage our people more. When we have a mentor for our organizations in soccer, we're going to push ourselves more. When we have a coach and a mentor who's pushing us to.

Extra 10 juggles or to get that extra little bit of agility, our little bit of strength, little bit of speed. That thing that will make the difference in play though, to be able to understand the drills that we're going through. As I trained keepers, to get your foot work a little bit better, to get that understanding of your positioning, better, to understand the game better and study the game, to be able to have mentors, to be able to help us to do.

And ideally you have a mentor who is someone who knows you and you know them, and you have a trust between each other, but sometimes it could be an author. It could be a podcast. It could be this podcast. I could act as a mentor for you because I'm challenging you to be better and think about things that you need to be thinking about to [00:07:00] get better, to go to that next level, to really flourish beyond where you would have flourished without that mentor.

So that's something that I firmly believe in. It's insane. It absolutely applies. As I said, coaches will push us. Our teammates will push us. Sometimes it's an older teammate. If you're on a college team or a pro team, you see mentors, as we talked about earlier with Ted Lasso and how Ted Lasso Explains Leadership.

I think it was the last episode we did on that a couple episodes ago, Paul and I talked about the mentorship and Roy Kent being a mentor to someone. Players, Ted being a mentor to some of those players as well into other coaches, then being a mentor to Nate the great and all these people have mentors.

So we should be mentoring others as much as we're being mentored too. That's a whole ‘nother conversation, but we need to understand that when we mentor others, that's actually mentoring us. Sometimes the best way. Usually the best way that we learn is to teach something to somebody else. So while we're being mentored by [00:08:00] people, we should also seek out to mentor others, not only to pay it forward, but also to help us to hone and understand better so that these things that we're learning become muscle memory.

That's a whole conversation for another day, but our mentors. This constellation, this idea of find these different areas where you need help, which is really every area of your life. If you're honest with yourself and find people who will help you to challenge you to take everything that you're doing to that next level.

So that's. The constellation mentoring that idea. And I actually have in the past, I, I, I'm just not as active right now if I'm completely transparent with you, but I have men and women in my life. My wife is the woman, who are acting like a personal advisory board. For me. It's more informal now.

It used to be formal and I'd have people that we'd met quarterly, but now it's people who are in my life, who I can go to when I know I need to be challenged to think. To think deeper. If I'm in a [00:09:00] discernment phase of my life, I can go to them and I can ask the questions because they know me almost as well as I know myself.

And if I'm on healthy, going back to the DISC conversation, if I'm unhealthy, they know me better than I know myself, because I'm not thinking right. So I can go to them to confirm direction, but also to challenge me to go harder and go deeper and go better in everything. So that's that idea, but, but you also may be saying, well, Phil, the problem is anybody who I'd want to mentor me.

They're super busy. And that's just a reality in our lives. We're, we're busy, you know, it's, it's just something that is true. And if there are people who you want to listen to, who you trust, who you respect, chances are, they're going to be pretty busy and I'm really busy. But if someone that I. Love and someone that I care about comes and asks me to mentor them.

I'm going to make time in my life. And I have the feeling these other people here you're thinking of, as I'm talking about this mentorship would also make time in their lives. But, but the Peter Greer who I mentioned earlier also has this idea of two by two [00:10:00] by two mentoring. And I really liked it because we know these people are going to be busy.

So at the outset we help them say, yes, By giving them than understanding that what we're asking you for. When I'm asking you to mentor me, I want you to give me two hours twice a year for two years. And in between those times, they can give you work and you will do that work. And you will commit to doing any reading that they ask you to do any other work that any writing that they want you to do, they ask you to do your eulogy, do the eulogy, because if you're not doing that work between you a will tell them that you don't respect them and you don't, you're not taking it seriously.

And you're not going to get the most out of that mentorship relationship. So to be able to help them say yes by saying, I'm not asking for a massive commitment. I'm asking you for two hours, twice a year for two years. Now, the reality is most of the time it goes on longer than that. All of my mentors have gone on longer than that.

And some I talked [00:11:00] to, you know, every month. Some mentors. I talked to every couple years, but when you have that relationship, that's founded on a mutual respect and the reality is mentors. We all know if you've ever mentored anybody. You get a lot out of it too. Sometimes more than the mentee. So I would strongly recommend you find those people.

You ask them with a, with a very, you know, it could be even you put in. I'd I'd recommend that because that would show your commitment and show how seriously you take it. And if you do that with someone, I'd be really surprised if especially if you know them, that they wouldn't say yes to that. Now I'm not saying go to somebody you'd never met before, because you like their book and ask them to mentor you.

That's not realistic, but these are people that it could happen. I mean, it could happen. I'm not going to say no, but it's unlikely. But if you ask someone who, you know, I would be shocked if they don't say yes, so. With that there's obviously [00:12:00] a whole lot more. I could talk about mentoring. I'd love to continue the conversation with you offline.

And on that note, if you want to get in touch with me about any of these things we've talked about on the show, you can reach out to me, phil@howsoccerexplainsleadership.com. You can also join the Facebook group and reach out to me there. That's just obviously on Facebook and it's the how soccer explains leadership group.

So go check that. And you can, we're going to be putting more and more stuff out there on that, on that group. We're going to be putting stuff on that group. That's exclusive to the group. It won't be on the page. It won't be on other things online. And we have a couple other opportunities. If you want to go deeper on all of these things, if you want to meet to be able to help coach you on these different, uh, DISC, on self-leadership on this, we're creating a program called Coaching the Bigger Game.

If that's interesting to you at all. Send me an email and I can tell you more, I can give you more information about that pretty soon, we're going to be launching it. We'll have all that info online, but if you have some questions about it, [00:13:00] if you want to do DISC training with your teams that you have, whether they're corporate teams or soccer teams or other sports teams, I would love to talk with you about that as well.

But those are all things that we have that. Then these offseason talks are able to go because obviously 15 minutes, doesn't give us a whole lot of time to go into these things that are so important for us to be thinking about. So with that, I just want to thank you again for being a part of this.

Thank you again for being a part of the conversation that we have on how soccer explains leadership. I, I hope and pray that you're learning as much from this show as I'm learning, as I'm interviewing people, as I'm preparing for these different off season talks as Paul and I are having conversations about what to cover and the relationships that we're building.

I just hope that you can build relationships through this podcast, share it with others. If this is helping you, I have a feeling you will help others in your circles. I have no doubt. It will actually, I've had great conversations with people. I'd love to have conversations [00:14:00] with you who have listened to this show.

And it's something that I do do this because I absolutely love helping you and helping others. With that. I just hope that you take everything that you learned today and you use it to help you be a better leader. You take everything that you've learned from the other episodes we have on the show. If you haven't listened to them, go back and listen to them and you take all those things that you're learning and you use them to help you be a better leader.

And I hope as always that as you're learning these different things, as you're listening to this podcast, that you understand more and more, how soccer really does explain life and leadership. Thanks a lot, have a great week.