Lead Like a Gardener with Phil Brown, Experiential Education Trainer & Podcast Host

Phil: [00:00:00] Welcome back to How Soccer Explains Leadership. This is Phil Darke. I'm your host for this show. Hopefully this isn't your first time. Hopefully you've listened to a lot of our episodes, but if it is your first time, welcome, I look forward to hearing back from you. What you're learning, everyone listening.

I really look forward to hearing you engaging this conversation, not just listening in, but being a part of it. So with that, if you haven't done so already join a Facebook group that we have you can click that link in the show notes. if you haven't joined that already, if you have, you know, that we do have conversation there, great place to let us know any guests that you have, that you might want to introduce to us so that we can get them on this show.

Also rate and review the show if you haven't done so already, but Again, great guests. We have again today as, as usual, I've learned from this guy already, we met a few weeks ago because he also does a podcast. He is the trainer of High Five Adventure Learning Center and host of the Vertical Playpen Podcast.

His name is Phil Brown. He is from the [00:01:00] UK, Ipswich, England, to be specific, Phil welcome.

Phil Brown: [00:01:05] Thank you so much for having me, Phil.

Phil: [00:01:06] Absolutely. You're going to have a lot of Phil today, so folks get ready for it. But not surprising to you I'm guessing that not a lot of people know who you are listening to this, if they do.

I'm glad about that because you know, you're pretty cool guy. Who's got a lot of good things to learn from. I know I have already But can you just share, as we get started to share your story a little bit about what you do, your podcast, how you developed your passion for soccer and leadership.

Phil Brown: [00:01:32] Yeah, sure. Thanks. So, originally I'm from a town called Ipswich. Soccer fans out there. Ipswich Town Football Club is the team that I support. Currently, unfortunately in League One. And they're having a rough, rough go of things, but that's where I'm originally from. I looked at trying to become a teacher, an English teacher.

That was where my vocation was heading. That's where my career was heading. And at one stage during college found out that I could work at a summer camp in the States. And [00:02:00] so I thought, wow, this could be good for me. This could be a way that I could add stuff to the resume, sign up with kids from different population, different countries that will help.

And then I entered into this world of working with youth and adults in team development stuff. Just through that summer came experience. They had a challenge course, a ropes course, and I was introduced to that world and realized that, wow, this is so much more fun teaching kids, how to be better human beings and better leaders and better participants in that community.

Then it was to try to teach Shakespeare you know, and what I was able to do is take all of them, my training in the education world and bring that to doing team development work. And I was very, very fortunate that the camp that I ended up in, in New York state ended up having an outdoor education program year round.

So they sponsored me to extend my visa. And then from that point, I grew into this position, which I ended up creating the organization called the challenge course coordinator or a team development [00:03:00] coordinator. And I ended up being sent to High Five to do my formal training. They do training around challenge course operation, but also to human leadership development facilitation.

So I was able to go to many trainings and that was how I found out. Actually, this is a career. I had no idea that I could work in this field. In the UK, possibly it is a career. I haven't, I still did not know, but here I was able to fall into this outdoor ed world. And I was very, very fortunate to do so had lots of training along the way.

And then myself and my wife, we met at the summer camp. We worked at the summer camp. We lived at the summer camp. We got married at the summer camp, very summer camp.  Decided we need to, to grow what we want to grow a family. And we couldn't stay in that world for that much longer. And a job opened up at High Five as a trainer.

And I jumped on the chance to work at an org that meant a lot to me and was doing great stuff with communities all around the Northeast of the US and now I've been there coming up on six years. So it's [00:04:00] been very fortuitous how I ended up finding my way here in terms of the podcast. I realized that when I was starting out in this industry of adventure and experiential education, that's what we're umbrella termed in.

I had no idea existed. I had no idea existed when I was in England. I had no idea existed, even when I came to the States and I was like, what is this, you can go to colleges and get degrees in this. I had no idea you could do that. And so the point of the podcast was I wanted there to be an avenue or a way for us to spread the word of experiential and adventure education.

Since I had no idea existed, no doubt. Other people don't know exists. People listen to this may be like, wow, this is a thing he does for a living. So I, we created the podcast originally. It was just myself and some of the stuff High Five talked about, how we started High Five and then realized that people were interested and we got listeners and people were asking questions and submitting questions, and now it's become, we've been doing it for two years and.

Yeah, it's got a good listener base and welcome other people to jump in and take a listen to some of the [00:05:00] episodes. I interviewed a bunch of people. I interviewed Phil, who's hosted this podcast and I'm realizing that so many people are connected to experiential education, which essentially it it's very, very basic term is learning from your experiences.

Wow. That you've probably everyone as they learn from their experiences. but there is studies, there are journalists who is, there is people that do this for a career and teach this, and I just get passionate and excited about the idea of making better human beings, but also being able to introduce people to this idea that they already probably are aware of.

So it related sometimes to a comedian who goes up on stage and says obvious jokes. And everyone's like, wow, it's so relatable. That's kind of how the industry feels like to me, once people realize it, they realize, wow, I've probably done that. You know, you think of a very simple description symbol example.

Would be like, you're walking down as a kid, you're walking and you trip over something like a root on the ground. If you're outside, you realize now you probably should keep your feet up. That in itself is experiential learning. You did [00:06:00] something and you had something happen to you and you had a learning outcome afterwards, and that cultivates and shapes the way you continue to live.

So, it's a, it's an exciting thing. In terms of soccer, you know, I've referenced this in a, in another conversation with Phil that, and people are probably aware of this in England. It's pretty much our only sport. There are a few, but you're raised on soccer. You're raised on football. it's a part of your being in nearly every single town or at least very close by has a stadium and a team of their own in the town where I'm from Ipswich is, would be considered a city in the States. I think it's somewhere like 350,000 people there. So it's, you know, a big area and and it has a soccer team and you just you're raised and you support them. And I also know that Norwich City, who's an hour North of us, our archrivals you just as a component of your livelihood.

So you just don't know anything other than that. And so trying to separate those things is challenging for me because I think that's just a part of growing up. when I came to the States and I've been here now since [00:07:00] 2007 around this 2008, that it wasn't really publicized in the way it is now.

It wasn't on the TV, it wasn't as seen. And I'm so thankful that NBC and NBCSN has started showing some of the games. And now I can watch a lot of the Premier League games. And so I'm immersed back in it. And so that's, that's really exciting.

Phil: [00:07:19] Yeah. It's, it's funny you say that because if you're here in the U S listening to this and you're, you've never been to England to experience football in England it's nothing like anything we have in the U S it's just really isn't.

We can talk about the Oakland Raiders when they were in Oakland as well. They're rabid fans, but you don't, you don't know what you're talking about until you, it, like you said, it's just who you are and the thought of you being in, in, from Ipswich and not being a supporter of Ipswich is just crazy.

Like, he just wouldn't see it, right? Oh yeah. No,

Phil Brown: [00:07:56] if you, if you saw anyone wearing any other jersey, his Phil, yeah. [00:08:00] This was a tourist doing, clearly tourists.

Phil: [00:08:01] Yeah. And especially here, I'm out in California, so California, it's like you, it's a free for all of who you support, you know? and that's just, that's something that's, that's really cool.

But, we're not going to focus on that, but that is something like you said, it's just part of who you are. it's just part of your blood. You are a football supporter, you are an Ipswich supporter and, and you've been learning from the game your whole life, which is really cool.

A few episodes ago. We had Mark Pease. If you haven't listened to that episode, I strongly encourage you to do so. it's about his experience. He's a pastor. Yes, but he's also a lifelong Leeds supporter. And he talked about Marco Bielsa and the impact he has had not just on that team and club, but on the community and the leadership lessons, we can learn from that.

But the other thing that's really cool about you and what you do is, as you said, it's experiential learning and, you know, folks. If there's one thing I want you to learn from this podcast. And one of the reasons I started it is to learn from your experiences, learn from your experience in the game of football, but also learn from, learn [00:09:00] interdisciplinary, you know, have interdisciplinary learning.

 I don't know exactly when this is going to air, but we're going to have a guy that I'm going to interview soon. Who's a field hockey referee and we're going to learn from him. He also has written a book on baseball and he was a USA Today journalists. So these are things like we can learn from other disciplines. Hopefully we have people listening in who are businessmen and women in your parenting, in your marriage. These are things that we can take these principles as you do with the adventure sports through ropes courses, through mountain biking, through whatever whitewater rafting, right?

Like we can learn life lessons from these things. I say that, hopefully I don't have to make the connection. Hopefully, especially as we do more of this, you can see that this is there is a method to the madness. you know, I believe that what you do is exactly what we're talking about doing on this show.

What we hope to encourage people to do is literally in every area of your life to think about, okay, here's a lesson. How [00:10:00] can I apply this to other areas of my life and how can I really use this? So with that, how do you use the lessons you've learned from football in your country? Right.

Now you're in the U S so we'll, we'll use soccer for the purposes of this interview, just because we are an American podcast, but you know what I'm talking about if I slip into football, but you learned from soccer and your leadership in, in your training development work that you do today?

Phil Brown: [00:10:23] Yeah, I would say, the great thing I think about soccer in terms of the difference between that and other sports is that doesn't necessarily have to be these individualized people on the team who.

Create the winning structure of the team. It's, it's much more focused on a collective community. And I think that that's something that in England, they also have in a big way as well is because that team is a part of the community and the community. So in a structured around the team that you do have that connection formed with the players and the staff to have the insignia of your [00:11:00] team on your badge and say that you work for them, they work for you.

It has this kind of feel of symbiotic newness that I, I don't sometimes sense from teams in this country and other sports where it's more fan-based idolization of people. It's more a community. Everyone on the same level. I think that where this leads into the work that I do, we have a product we also create team development products.

And one of the products we create is a deck of cards called Ubunto people can't see that, but it's sitting right behind me, but it's Ubuntu, be you and to you and the essential phrase of it, what that means. It's the Bontu dialect in Africa. And it essentially breaks down to be. I am because we are.

I am because we are, which then talks about that sense of community. It was coined very famously by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Archbishop Desmond Tutu to talk about around apartheid, about the community of South Africa, getting together to work together, to [00:12:00] raise the bar of what was going on there. And that had to come from every component.

It's not an individual. It doesn't require an individual, requires all people. So we utilize this deck of cards, which you can find on our website, but there's a lot of activities that go with this, but we use that phrasing of Ubuntu, to represent that we're all part of the exact same team, no bigger than anyone else.

And I think that that's something that I know in soccer teams is that when let's say a captain comes up and talks about the team or, or a coach comes up and talks about the team post game, they might highlight individuals, but really they're talking about the larger component of the team. How was the quality of the team's morale?

How was their energy? What was that fight? Like? What was their drive rather than say, this person saved us because, and even when you see journalists ask that question of them, they often recoil back and say, watch, this is a team effort. And I think that that really sums up what I think that soccer brings that's that I think other teams could learn from other sports could also learn from that this mindset.

Going back [00:13:00] to Ubuntu in, relevance to American sports, the Boston Celtics basketball team in this area when they were coached by Doc Rivers, they used to put their hands in the middle and chant before every game. And that word that they would charge would be Ubuntu. So going back to this idea, they were trying to get to this mindset that we're all component of this team.

We're not a product of an individual, a product of the whole team. And I think that that's something that we continuously work on when we're doing leadership development, be that with youth programming, with adult corporate groups with sports teams, we do a High 5 does work with NHL teams. So we do professional sports, but mainly in the hockey air error sport.

But whenever we welcome with any of these teams, we're always talking about the connection of the team. In experiential education. There's a term that gets used, I think sometimes banded around too often, but it's connection before content. And it essentially means that we should be focusing on how connected people are before we ever get into the nitty-gritty detail stuff, [00:14:00] rather than talking about like, Oh, we don't trust each other, or we're not communicating all those things.

Forget that for a moment. And let's just focus on, are you connected? Cause you're more likely to be able to have good conversations and important conversations with people that you're connected with then people you don't know. So that connection is, is key. And so when you end up having that connection, you sort of get rid of you.

You're cut away from the ego of the individual and you start realizing that we're all a part of the team. And so that's something that I would say we consistently use at High Five in terms of our leadership development staff, which I think is a good parallel between soccer leadership, because I think that it doesn't often come necessarily from individuals.

It comes from the group working together. And I would even say as well. I think that soccer coaches are more facilitators and that's a term that we often use in our industry to talk about what we do, facilitation, meaning to make easy the, that those coaches facilitate the growth of their team, rather than once again, ordering people around and telling them what you need to do.

[00:15:00] And often those people you've talked about Bielsa as an example of, of a coach that does that. Well, if you've ever watched a Leeds game, you'll know he sits on his little Bielsa bucket, but he's very silent. You don't get him animated on the sidelines, yelling at the team because what he's done is he's cultivated.

These team knows what to do. And he can sit back and he can then observe and then he can watch and he gives and empowers the team members to make the decisions for themselves. So lots of different components. I think that there are parallels and great lessons from watching teams operate that can be brought into any kind of environment.

Phil: [00:15:34] Yeah. You said a couple of things there. The first is, you know, I'll hit the last thing you said first, which is great leaders really cultivate that environment that everyone can flourish in. it's not so much, you're telling people what to do. No, you're cultivating this environment for them to grow.

you're basically a gardener to be able to, till that soil so that these different plants, these different [00:16:00] types of people can all flourish within this garden, so to speak. And so that's what a great coach will do and a great team. The other thing you talked about there really is the idea of, soccer being a weak link sport, Malcolm Gladwell had a great podcast on this, talking about basketball, being a strong link sport, meaning that a great player can take over a game. Look at LeBron James, for example, he can, he can take over a game, even if he's the only dude on the team, who's a rock star, so to speak. But if you have that one rock star on a soccer team, it's not gonna, you know, have one, you know, one Messi and he's playing with a bunch of players who can't play.

Those other players will be exposed. Your weakest link will be exposed by another great team or another really good team for that matter. But the other thing with that is to have this team, because it's a weak link sport. You not only need to have strong links, but you need to be connected. You need to be one unit.

And the only way that's going to happen is by actually having that leader, cultivating that, environment, but also having players that believe in that, and that [00:17:00] are actually seeing it as we are a team, we love each other. We care about each other. And for that culture to spread into the community, I think of one of my old coaches, he played for West Ham United and we're going to have him on the show at some point in the future.

Clyde Best is his name. And he was an amazing, amazing player for West Ham back in the seventies. And I in the nineties, early nineties, I called him and said, Hey, I'm going to be over in London. Any chance you can get me tickets? He says, Oh yeah, let me call up my old friends. Well, his old friends ran the pub across the street from the stadium and they were just, the team would go there after the game.

And so they were hanging out and these are guys that he still keeps in touch with. They were buddies, I just assumed they were old players. And I talked to him the other day and I said, was it where those old players were like? And he says, no, they were just my friends. They own, they own the pub. We would all go there and hang out.

So that's that idea is just so foreign thought of a team going after the game here in the U S to the pub, across [00:18:00] the street or the bar across the street is just crazy talk, they'd be mobbed. And so that's something that is, you know, again, that's just kind of a cool little thing. I don't know. The, the life lesson with that, except to say, if we, as organizational leaders can bring our customer base to bring our people, to bring our team into a feeling of, like you said, family into a feeling of, we are one, we are part of this.

How much stronger is that, so what are your thoughts on all that stuff?

Phil Brown: [00:18:30] Yeah, I think that, some of that struck into my head though, was the sense of that community that they're connected with the people that are in the pub and that kind of stuff. I think that something that England has, or, soccer has that I think is really helpful is that they have this Academy grassroots system where they're really bringing in cultivating kids from a younger age who were also were homegrown in that area.

So I went to a high school and there, I had friends who got into the Academy team and then you see them grow. And [00:19:00] sometimes they make it, sometimes they don't, but a lot of times you'll get these players that end up playing for the teams who were actually a part of the community to begin with. So you can sense there's a huge amount of investment from the local community around seeing an individual come from them, rather than I think that sometimes the States has an issue with size, to be honest, it's just, it's so big.

And so you can't really have the connection as much to the players as you would like to have. But you can see in England that you can have this real deep connection with people who are really connected to the team and the coaching staff and other, other individuals. I was interviewing a guy who was actually from my hometown. And he said, when he was growing up, he would walk down the street and he'd walk past Bobby Robson. Bobby Robson was the coach of Ipswich back in our heyday when we were great. He was also the coach of the national team, England team when they would do, and so wonderfully well as well. So he would walk down the street and he would say, Hey, Hey, Mr. Robson and Bob robson would say, Hey, Andrew, like he'd know the name. Like it was a, there wasn't this big, like [00:20:00] we rushed to get autographs and security and all of that kind of sense of isolation. I think that creates from that as an example, I've worked with a couple of NHL teams. And whenever we've worked with those teams, we sign NDAs.

 we have to hand over like cell phones. We have to have security represented. We have to keep the location of where we're going secret. That's an odd thing. Really, when you, when you really analyze it, like the individual suppliers, I remember we were in a one hotel and they were, it was a shared hotel over and there were other people in the hotel we'd have to sneak him out the back.

They've had their hoods up. And I think like this, what a life that must be to lead them that life. But when you, and you're unable to really have that deep connection to the community, there's something lost there. I would assume. And then how do you cultivate that passion when you don't have that deep connection?

We go back to the connection piece.

 Phil: [00:20:50] That's interesting. It may, I don't know why it made me think of that. Actually. I do know why, because it's a similar idea. This idea of the celebrity culture in the US, I think really throws us for a loop. I was actually just talking to somebody [00:21:00] about it this morning about our platform, right?

How much talk do we have a platform building in our world, in the U S really? I don't know how, how big it is over in Europe, but how many followers do you have? How many friends do you have on Facebook? How many, even the words that are used are relational words, They're leadership words, but they're not really, you're not leading necessarily.

You're just a quote unquote influencer, but the reality is what is your real platform? your real platform or the people that you know, and love and that know and love you. I mean, like you're really, really impacting deeply into their lives. You may be a nugget of something that they remember, but the reality is people that I, if you're on this podcast, I'm, you're going to learn some stuff from this, but if I've disappeared for six months, you wouldn't really miss me.

I don't think. And hopefully that's, hopefully you have people in your life that if they were to disappear for even three days, you'd say what's going on with them. How are they really doing those? That's really your plot, your [00:22:00] true platform at the end of the day. But we've established this celebrity culture where if a hockey player on the Boston Bruins says something, we go, Ooh, I must listen to that.

Right? Where LeBron, James is now a political figure. Why, why. He's a great basketball player, but why would we listen to him on these very, very important global issues? And, and so, and like you said, they need protection. They need all this other stuff because we have the celebrity culture because we put them on a pedestal.

Contrast that to what you made me think of, I was in the Hague with my, one of my really good friends, and we were walking around and he points over to this guy, riding a bike. He goes, that's the prime minister. And he was riding a bike cause he rides his bike to work and he locks his bike outside the government building and he walks in and it's just the prime minister.

It's no big deal, no big, huge entourage, no secret service. No. And you go, what are, are we [00:23:00] missing? Right. I mean, like from a leadership perspective, you go, are you putting yourself on a pedestal? As the leader, or are you truly seeing yourself as a gardener who is a servant leader, who is cultivating the flourishing of those around you?

And I think it's really hard to be both.

Phil Brown: [00:23:17] Oh, there's an almost polar opposite. And I think that most of the, if I talk to most people who work in leadership development world, and I immersed myself in that world quite often, when I'm traveling to ground conferences, most of the time we're teaching skills that are more servant leader oriented, we're not torturing and talking about those other things in saying these are, those are things that we shouldn't be aiming for.

we don't teach. You have to be the loudest in the room. You know, like you'd have to be the brightest star in the sky. We don't, we're not saying that stuff. I often, we're talking about the concept of being a servant, facilitating other people's growth. I've worked for people that have really cultivated me.

And I've deeply respected them. And at the same time I've worked with people who have ordered me around and I know how I [00:24:00] feel about that. Right, right. Like, so there's the notion of like, if I know as a, as an employee, that that's how I feel. Why would I want to aspire to be that when I get to a stage of leadership and it's, yeah.

I would say most people in the, in our sphere and not teaching the one, but definitely focused on the other, which is like, how can we serve the community that we work with and how can we cultivate the people around us to be able to grow? And that's what I think that you see in really successful soccer teams.

I think you can tell a really great coach by the way that the players speak about them. So a great, just a slight difference in the terminology. If someone says the coach, versus saying my coach very different, but listen to them, describe talk about their coach or whoever it is.

And if they say our, our coach or my coach, they use some kind of some ownership over it. Then you can tell that they respect them. If they say the coach, they don't really respect them. They just know that that person has a title. And so [00:25:00] when I'm thinking about trying to cultivate leaders, I want it, I want people to realize that you want to get to a point where you are a part of them that you're not telling them what to do.

You're not above them. the pyramid should flip and the totem pole should flip, but whatever you want to phrase it it should be a point where you'll refer to as their leader rather than the leader. I think that slight distinction difference is very interesting when you talk to people and I've found that the case when I've interviewed people who worked, if I'm going into work of a corporate group, and I want to get scale of.

What's going on in the department that I'm working with, I might ask them questions that will sort of leads that in and they will know I'm doing that. But I said a little bit of detective work on my end, because if the leaders in the room, when I'm trying to have a discussion, then I'm going to be honest.

So I want them to have a little bit more honesty about stuff. So just those small things about the way that they term they'll give you information. And the difference between the and my is very striking. I found

Phil: [00:25:55] it's massive. I mean, it's, everything right? And that goes to, I think that a lot [00:26:00] of that goes to personality.

The coaches, it goes to task focus versus people focused. It goes to the culture it goes to, are you a servant leader or are you, have you learned to be a transactional leader? that just transactional leader versus relational leader Joe Ehrmann and Inside Out Coaching talks about that.

Very deeply. It's a great book on that. But. What you find, is a lot of coaches think we need to be transactional because this is a results-based business. And even I saw Alex Ferguson talk about the other day talking about, with Solskaer, well, Hey, it's a results based business based business at the end of the day, but you're going to get the best results when you are a leader they want to play for when you are the relational leader.

So yes, it can be a both/and it needs to be a both/and. I think for long-term success because you translate, you put that up against a Mourinho, for instance, I don't think anyone would accuse Mourinho about being a relational leader. He's very much a transactional leader.

So what does he get? He gets short term results and, you know, two, three years virtually [00:27:00] every club he's been a part of as imploded. And it's because I think, you know, in my completely uneducated view, and if, if Jose, you want to come on the show and tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to have that conversation.

Cause I do want to know the method behind the madness, but you know, to say, that he is not cultivating an environment for all of his players to flourish. I think some of the players flourish in some completely implode or explode. And because of that, the locker room is a mess versus what I saw just the other day.

And it's interesting cause you don't hear about a lot of this. You don't see a lot of this, but with soul skier on man United he said in a quote, I just saw talking about how he has one-on-one conversation with his players to really see how they're doing personally, how their marriage is going, how their, how their kids are doing, how they're doing.

And you know, to really, he says, you know, we walk, if, if they're struggling to get in the team, we have these conversations, one-on-one. That's a totally different approach from a [00:28:00] relational folk that takes a lot of time, energy effort. That is an X's and O's, and I think that's a great leadership lesson all around.

Yeah.

Phil Brown: [00:28:08] And I think that you have to build that into your normal work to work day. Don't assume that these are additional parts. Like if you're a leader, that's the crucial, these are crucial steps. These aren't like parts that you add in, if you have time or are, you don't have time to do that. I didn't have time to do that. No, that should be a part of your day to day. Because the last time we spoke Phil, I remember us saying like, Man United were having a rough go at it. So congrats at the moment. You're number one.

So it's like their milking it right now. But we also talked about how Paul Pogba,

really has, disappeared. He's just all about himself. What change has made in the last few weeks. And I think that the, in every discussion I've seen, it's been exactly what you've suggested. It's been, relationship-focused actually.

Solskaer is actually talking to him, actually having conversations with him and learning about his [00:29:00] players.

And that does take time. It's also not a quick fix. I'm not a massive fan of the coaches in and coaches out after like three months because they didn't win. It's like give him some time to build the relationship a little bit. Haven't given him some time. But as an example of like spending the time, our executive director, our org, when we were back in our offices, he would purposely every single morning.

And the first hour of his day was spent going office to office and saying, how are you just checking in every day? Now, sometimes you were like, Oh God, he's coming quick. I was trying to have a meeting or something. You were trying to do something. But from a perspective of knowing that your leader has your back and really cares about you, he knew every single thing about what all of his employees life and everything.

You know, like when my daughter turned five, he get, he sent me a text. He's not on social media. He just knows those things. Or he's written them down some, or he's taken the extra step to learn. I would go above and beyond for him because he's gone be above and beyond for me in these moments.

And it's taken maybe an hour out where he's day, but when I'm talking to leaders and teaching them about this [00:30:00] stuff, I was with a corporate group and we were doing a session on communication. We throw in activities. That's how we use stuff. We use activities as an example, or a real life scenario and try to make it entertaining.

But they were signed at the end. Wow. That was so much fun. I wish we could do this more often. And I just said, why can't you like, is there a reason you can't now grant office for sort of saying somethings you can't do, but spending the time to connect as an example where it was sort of doing, not doing this as well with the zoom, zoom is great.

Right? Cause we can have lots of interactions with lots of people, but how often do you actually schedule a meeting? Just to chat, not to have a meeting, having an agenda. Like we see each other a lot, but we're always focused on an agenda. So spending the time out your data's to connect. Our organization, what we do is we do coffee partners and every single week we get assigned a new staff, a different staff member.

Who's going to be our coffee partner. And once or twice a week, we have coffee with them virtually and it's, but it's planned, it's [00:31:00] planned and it's intentional so that, you know, that it's part of work. But in air quotes there, but you don't feel like you're, you're skipping out on something. It's an intentional part of the workday, just like as an intentional part of, I think a leader's job to really cultivate connection with the people they work with.

Phil: [00:31:18] Yeah. That's, that's just so good. I can't emphasize that enough folks if, again, that, that last little bit there just talking about connection first, And then that goes to really the way you guys train leadership. Going back to what we talked about early on, just you with High Five and you guys have three things, connect, empower, lead.

That are your, the focus of what you teach and train, and it doesn't say lead connect empower, or, empower, connect, lead it's connect first. But can you just speak to the other two and what that looks like as you're training? Obviously in a, in a nutshell, we don't have the time for the full training, but and we'll get all the information on the show notes as far as how to connect with you [00:32:00] and be able to be able to learn more about High Five.

But can you just give that a nutshell and then, really how it applies to what we're talking about here? Yeah.

Phil Brown: [00:32:09] So in terms of that's like essentially our umbrella term, it fits into every department for us connect, empower lead. We try to focus everything we can around that. There's also an additional part after the lead, which is be the example, which I think is another important role model component to it as well.

But how do we represent ourselves? But if I take it into the terms, when working with sports teams, the first thing obviously is focused on the connection. The next is to really empower the team, to make the decisions about how things flow. What I really love this as an analogy that was shared with me recently that as a facilitator, a team development, leadership development facilitator, this is my essential job.

I climb into the bus, I turn the engine off and then get off the bus, let all the players go on to the bus. They determine where they're going. Who's steer and what speed they're going at their destination. Every component of all I do is turn the engine on. So [00:33:00] that's the empowerment piece. There's a phrase that, you know, Ted talks Sage on the stage, right?

Like this person, the Sage on the stage. What I like, I think this is a little cheesy, but I do like, this is, I heard someone referred to us as guides on the side instead of sages on the stage guide on the side, which essentially is that giving the over the power. It's not about me. I don't the end result.

Shouldn't be, did Phil have a great day? Like that's a bad end of the program, but I've got them to connect. I've then handed over stuff to them. So I've maybe given them prompts or discussions, let them figure out cultivate what their needs are and all that kind of stuff. And then we talk about who in the group are the leaders who steps up and represents and leads.

And we have to be able to give them the empowerment, give them the choice. In adventure education. There's a term called challenge by choice essential meaning is that I allow people to choose their own level of challenge when it comes to, if we were talking about a ropes course climbing really high or [00:34:00] going on the zipper, all that kind of stuff, but it also represents to how he wants to speak up and who wants to take roles on.

But I think that that empowerment is really crucial. If you want to have leaders, rather than you. Picking an assigning people. I really dislike. I've seen this a lot in meetings where people are assigned to, who's going to introduce what, or you're going to splay this next, or I'm going to pick names you're looking at across the grid or zoom and say, okay, you're going to fill, I need you to say this stop poignant.

You haven't really empowered. You've just told someone to do something. So you want to give them the opportunity to empower themselves. And there has to be some sort of choice there. So we have that connection. We have the empowerment and then the end point is leadership. That's sort of like the result.

If we get to a point where we've done those first two, really, really well, then we can have the, a leader who's really, really well in charge of their role. And the other thing I would say on leadership in general is that I think that there. Either it's society-based or whatever. I think that we have misrepresented what the word leadership should mean.

I think that externally people might [00:35:00] hear the word leader and assume it's the person on top, the person doing all the order and around and all that kind of stuff. I think that these, this is my stance and also High Five's stance every single person has leadership quality has the ability to stand up and be a leader.

And it doesn't mean the person making decisions. There's this. It was a video going around for a while and it was this notion of the second leader, which I really, really liked this notion the video showed like a dance party or a festival or something, a big field, like a Glastonbury, if people are aware of where that is.

And there was someone, there was music in the background and there was just someone who had obviously had too much to drink, but they were just dancing in the middle, like on their own. And you could hear the chat and there was someone filming it. And there was a lot of laughter like everyone laughing at this person in the middle.

And then someone else joined in too. Cause they empathized in some way, they first felt this person was vulnerable and they wanted to join in and support them. They joined in, as soon as that second leader, soon as that second [00:36:00] person went over and did it more people joined and it became a big celebration dance.

And so I think of that in terms of leadership, not just being that person who speaks out, but also those people who support everyone else. So as an example, if you're working with a group and someone speaks out against an injustice they're experiencing that puts them in a vulnerable position, others might look at that and go, why did they just say that that's embarrassing?

Don't say it. What all that's going to take is one other person to step in. And that creates that little bit of movement, a little bit of a validation on the concept and that. That second person is what I see is as good leadership as demonstrate empathy, understanding for what's going on, realize there was a need for them to step up and support and they stepped up to support somebody else.

They didn't do it for their own actions. They did it for somebody else. And I do a workshop called the power of play. And in this, I talk about the science and the neurochemicals implied, and they're essentially four chemicals that four [00:37:00] neurochemicals that are key when you're experienced in playing with a group.

And they make you feel joy. There's endorphins, there's dopamine. The serotonin is oxytocin. Well, the one I focus on is serotonin. We were, I refer to it as the leadership, chemical, and what happens is when you see someone else do a good deed. You get a boost. If you have serotonin the person that did the good deed gets the boost, but anyone who witnessed the good deed also gets the boost.

So when you see someone like tripping full or do something embarrassing, when you see someone go in and help them, even if it's not you, that helped you get that boost of serotonin. And I think to tie it back into soccer, that's why people in all sports, cheer on teams, when you see your team do well, you get excited.

That's all serotonin. That's a boost of this serotonin kicking off all around the stadium. And that's why you hug strangers when you win and you have these elated experiences and then you were more likely to want to do it again. And it's highly addictive, highly repeatable. So, that went off a tangent.

I apologize, but that's what I think of like those different leadership [00:38:00] skills. And I think that that's where I tie it back to that connection and power leadership piece is about where do you step up and how do you empower people to be able to step up.

 Phil: [00:38:08] Yeah. again, this podcast called how soccer explains leadership.

So I'm just going to say, like right now, if you play soccer, you know, or if you've coached or if you've been a fan, you know, that when a team is playing and the fans are behind them and cheering them on, or even if they're booing them and throwing stuff at them, that's motivating them. And so you see it now with these teams, the first few games these teams were playing still really to today, it was, there's a lot of flat play going on, especially I think it's, homefield disadvantage.

Now you look at, look at man U as example, they couldn't win at home. First few games a year. The away form was phenomenal, but at home they lose almost every game or tie to teams. They should be winning and they'd lose. Why? Well, I mean, I still, and I've said this before in this, if you're listening anybody [00:39:00] related to Manchester United, get the little part that Matt buzz, I don't care who said it, football is nothing without fans don't have that in the Stretford End right behind the goal.

Cause they're reminded every time that their fans and the Stretford end, aren't cheering them on to score that goal. So that is actually causing the opposite effect where they're not pumped up. They're actually bummed out and it's going to cause them to, you know, so they have to come with even extra boost within to be able to do that.

Now I'm not saying that's why their home forum was bad, but. You know, it may have something to

Phil Brown: [00:39:31] do with it. They refer to the fans as the 12th player on the field. Right, right. Like it's, it's an essential core component of the field. And without those people, you don't have that boost. Absolutely. You don't have that drive to succeed.

I think there was a study on you see this a lot in track and field when you've got like the long jumpers in the triple jumpers, they do like, they get the, the clapping go in with the, with the crowd. Now that's why it's it. People assume sometimes that's rhythm based that helps them get on rhythm.

Like there's a rhythm. [00:40:00] Like these people are practiced. They're trained athletes. They know how to run and land on the right board at the same time. But the point of it is when they have those people, they often get personal bests. That's why, when you see these things, like how are the kids constantly getting personal best at these world championships?

What's cause when they train, they can't get there. And then they have the crowd and suddenly they get there. So it's the same thing in, in soccer. When you lose that connection to having people cheer you, then you don't have the drive and the desire and you know, whose, who cares. No, one's watching and they forget, sometimes the cameras are on them, you know,

Phil: [00:40:32] and put that into a business setting, put that into a nonprofit setting, put that into your family, put that into your marriage, right?

You want to get the best out of each other and courage, As we say in our house, choose joy, When you choose joy, not only helps you, it helps the whole family. When you have that gratitude. I, you know, the idea of, just think of three things and write them down of every day, that you're grateful for proven studies on all those things.

But as you said, it also helps everyone around you. And I love that guide on the side [00:41:00] concept, because as we talked about earlier, that gardener idea that cultivating the environment. If that's what you're really looking to do, think about that. How many gardeners do you know. But how many gardens have you seen that are like, that is beautiful as a coach, as a leader, you want to be that person that they're looking at your organization, whether it's a soccer team or a nonprofit, and they're saying that's some amazing work going on on there.

That's an amazing team going on. And you as the coach may or may not be known, I mean, you know, the big name managers, but you don't known a lot of these little smaller managers who are doing pretty amazing things with teams that have, less than stuff. I mean, how many people would know Bielsa, if the Amazon prime wasn't, a lot of soccer fans will, but you wouldn't know, you wouldn't have that knowledge.

If the all or the not all or nothing, but the Take Us Home didn't happen. So those are things that I look at and go leaders. If you're in it for yourself and your image and your glory. I [00:42:00] hesitate, you know, I hesitate to call you a leader. You're you're just a guy who wants to do stuff for you, but if you're, if you're there to really build others up to really be that servant leader, which I think we have such a leadership void and we call so many things leaders, when you call everything a leader, it's kind of ceases to be a leader, ceases to mean something.

I love what you said to you. And I say it all the time. Everybody is leading someone. And when you see yourself as a leader, you will handle yourselves differently. You will just really carry yourself differently. And hopefully you will see it as that servant leadership. Some people do it easier than others.

So anyway, those are, I love the tangents. You, they weren't really tangents. They're all absolutely related to this. And it's what I love about, doing what we're doing. I mean, what you're doing, what we're talking about here. It's why I love coaching to be able to, I mean, what should bring you the most joy as a coach is to seeing one of your players or as a leader as to see one of your employees or see one of the people in your organization, just hitting it out of the park and flourishing at that [00:43:00] next level that really the environment and training up everyone to be seeking, to build each other up, to be the best they can be.

I mean, that's what makes weak link sports. That was what makes great teams and weak link sports.

Phil Brown: [00:43:15] Yeah. And you see it in teams where the players either they stay at the same club because they're invested in the coach and they have that feeling, or sometimes they do move on. And then you hear the players talk about their previous coaching, great ways.

Or you hear the coach talk about how proud they are of that player that moved to a bigger club.

You know, going back to my town, Ipswich, we have a great Academy. So there are a great number of players that have come through the younger youth Academy of play to the Ipswich, but Ipswich is a lower league team you're not going to, it's not a career ending location.

And so Tyrone Mings who plays for Tyrone Ming's, who plays for Aston Villa grew up in the academy. So what's nice for me is I have a small investment in [00:44:00] watching and seeing and investing only because of the player that's there because I know he's, he's a homegrown player from the town I'm from, and he wasn't gonna, he had so much talent.

We knew he would be primarily, he's not going to stay with us. But you will still have the coach talk about him in great ways or here when wrestling she's time search as it being a really powerful thing. You don't want to keep holding these people. If you, if you're a leader, you want them to flourish and grow. We can all probably think of people who we've worked for, who trained us so that we would leave. That's not the, it's not always great for the organization, but for an individual that does feel really gratifying that you've sent you on professional development, and they've allowed you to Paige for you to do these things and do these courses that might not be particularly related to the work you're doing, but they know that it's all designed to cultivate. And actually I've found in my own personal experience, that when your leaders do that, you're actually less likely to leave. I had a lot of professional development paid for when I worked for the YMCA, when I was at this camp was a YMCA [00:45:00] program. And YMCA is a fantastic organization for really cultivating its staff and from my opinion, and they would send me to trainings, pay my way to go conferences and all that kind of stuff.

But because they had invested in me, I wasn't going to be like, ah, great, thanks for spending all this money on your piece. I'm out. You know, like I actually stuck around full probably three, four years longer than I necessarily needed to because of a. Devotion to them because they devoted themselves to me.

So I think that you see that also in, in soccer teams, you see the players that stay because of the coach, even though they've got tons of offers on the table to go to XYZ, Oh, Real Madrid wants this player or whatever they stick because they're invested in the team and the coaching staff. And it's less about moving forward.

And going up, go into Leeds would be Phillips who plays the Leeds. He, when, when they were in the championship, he got so many Premier League offers because he's young, he's being tapped for England. You know, like lots of potential but he stuck with [00:46:00] Leeds. There's a reason why he did that, right. That it's not just a, well, my friends.

And if you watch that take me home document. You see actually his grandmother and stuff. And like his family are very devoted to that, that community. It talks about the community driven stuff again. And he, it was, the decision was obvious to him. I could earn triple, quadruple what I'm earning right now.

or I could stay at the place that I have passion and really want to cultivate me and now look where they are now. They're probably even the premier league and this, and now he's playing for England. So yeah, we got what we wanted, but he'd stuck to his guns and stayed exactly where he was. But mainly because of the leadership around him, right.

Phil: [00:46:37] Oh man, we could, we could talk a lot longer about this, but we do have to wrap it up and to bring us home, you know, I mean it Leeds did get home and we will get home on this podcast too. but the last couple of questions we ask our guests and, you've been prepped on it, but how have you used the lessons you've learned directly from soccer in your relationships and other areas of life outside the football pitch [00:47:00] and your marriage and your parenting you know, what, what have you used directly from the game?

Like we say, retaliate or gets the red, that type idea. what have you learned.

Phil Brown: [00:47:07] Well, I, I'm fortunate in that my daughter is already somewhat a bit of a fan she's five, but she knows the dad watches soccer on the weekends. So it's become a community part of feel to it. This is a bit of a, I know you wouldn't like this.

I don't, I'm not a big fan of this over my my mum was sending an Ipswich Town little toddler Jersey, and she sent it, but then she, there was like a sale going on somewhere or someone that would drive. And there were like extra jerseys, but from random teams, right? So she figured this other Josie. And now my daughter, who's five, doesn't have less than necessarily understanding which one's more important than other, but knew which one she liked the look of more.

And now she wears almost every day, an Arsenal Jersey. Oh man. I know the design of their away kit, it was kind of like a bluish greenish kind of like, it looks cooler than the straight blue, [00:48:00] which, which town. So she'll wear that all the time. But I would say that. You know the idea of one thing that I was used and you're you're I know you coach also was, don't be A glory Hunter don't be a ball hog.

Like these kinds of things. I think that that's an essential part of the team aspect of, of soccer anyway. So she started passing, playing around. We kick the ball to each other, but I'm really in trying to reinforce the idea of passing it. We're practicing passing the ball because you can hold the ball yourself.

You can, you can try to go to score, but the best goals. And I can say that from watching, like the  the game, the best goes you ever see, or the ones that intricate pass play, and it's the unselfishness of the play. That's always exciting. So I, just in very basic terms with my daughter, I've been encouraging the idea of passing.

And I think that that's translated into the ability for her to share. And when she's playing with friends and whatever sport and what she's playing with, there's a, there's a passing of it. Don't be a hog, don't be a glory. It's not all about you. [00:49:00] It's it's about that team. So other than the fact that she has an arsenal Jersey around the house, which is like.

No, I can't, I don't have anything hatred around them. I'm just like, she has an Ipswich one sitting there, like stick on the one that's like from our team, please. I'm fed up with taking the photos of her outside of the Arsenal Jersey. People will get the wrong impression.

Phil: [00:49:17] Yeah. You're a better son than I, if my mom would've done that, I probably would have taken it to Goodwill and just dropped it off before my daughter had a chance to,

Phil Brown: [00:49:25] Oh, the thing is, I, she never told me she was sending them frigging the thing, it was like opened up the package. I knew that it was a jersey, there were two in there and I killed her. The one, what was spraying was like, I don't care.  It's costing me, my mental anguish.

Phil: Exactly. That's funny. [00:49:41] That's funny. My soul that's. I mean, that, that idea of, you know, passing to the assist, the helping others, the sharing, the serving, right?

I mean, that's something, the, the joke in our family, it's not really a joke. My, my, he was seven at the time he was picking his number for his team and he said, Hey dad, what's, you know, [00:50:00] cause he's he's, as I said, it takes, it took me five kids at my pure striker. And so he he says, what's the, what's the number I get.

If I don't have to pass, you know? And I said, well, there's no number, but the nine, I mean, if it's the nine, if there's one, that, that, that would be it. But the thing is though in all seriousness now, What do I do? Of course, you know, as a dad, who's a coach and who understands life lessons and what we can do to teach him, what am I praising more in any practice in any game?

Is that assist right? I mean, yeah, I know he can score. He's got a great shot and whatever, and that's great. Don't get me wrong. But if he has a, you know, he's threatened a pass or he's going and has a great cross, or if he has a shot, but his teammate has a better one. You know what a great thing, what a great life lesson there to say.

The assist is just as important and sometimes more important than the tapping goal. Right. You know, creating, passing, like you were saying, those threatened those needles. I mean, you're seeing [00:51:00] a lot of the Barcelona goals that comes to mind for good reason. It's just boom, boom, boom, boom. And then just it's a tap in or pass.

Phil Brown: [00:51:07] You've got two players playing for Tottenham right now. I know they play for genocide, but like you've got, you've got Kane and Son, who like a dynamic duo right now. And it's because they're constantly setting each other up. Like Kane has more assists than he has anyone else in the S in the league at the moment. And so I I've actually noticed, I don't know if they've always done this, but I've started noticing even when you look on stats on whatever app you're looking at, they often now will tell assists as much as goals, which I think is, I don't know if it was always the case, but I like seeing, like how many assists people get. It's always like now in the stance, but it's glorified more. The fact that someone set someone up. As much as someone's score. And sometimes even the, the, the man of the match award goes to the person that gave the assistance there, the goal score. See, I like that. And I think that, yeah, consistent messaging.

Phil: [00:51:55] Well, like you said, I mean, it's rare that you see a upper corner shot. I mean, yeah. [00:52:00] There are those that are amazing that come out of nowhere, out of a deflection or off the defender, a bad pass, or, you know, Rooney's midfield goal or whatever, like you see those. But for the most part, the goals are garbage goals.

They're, tap ins, they’re passes into the corner. They're, they're the result of a great pass that just set them up on a table, on a platter. So, yeah, no, I love that. Love that lesson. Last last question as we wrap it up, what have you read, watched or listened to recently that has impacted your thinking on how soccer explains life and leadership.

Phil Brown: [00:52:31] Yeah, I've got,  I wrote down a few things, but the first thing that really pops into my head, it's a different sport, but I know that we've talked about this before was Legacy by James Kerr, which talks about the New Zealand All Blacks, they have this phrase, which I think is essentially essential for everyone is this notion of sweeping the sheds.

Now they call that locker room, the sheds, we talked about like selflessness and community and all those kinds of things that we've already talked about. But in that this team wins the rugby world cup biggest thing you could win. And [00:53:00] the first thing they do is send them straight down to their, their shed.

And they're asked to do chores, clean up, help clean the locker and put all their laundry away. And then they go up and celebrate. So the service piece and serving the community is. Before the glory that they're going to get, and once they've done that, then they get to then have that glory moment. But I think those are like essential skills. And I think they tie in to what we've already talked about. Relationship to soccer with that.

Another couple of books that like are somewhat not related to soccer, but I think are really important in the stuff that I've been doing around leadership.

One is The Power of Moments by the Heath brothers, Dan and Chip Heath, just talking about how can you create those small moments?

And I think that, I think that does what we referenced when your leader comes and checks in and says, how are you doing today? Just those small check-in moments. They stick in, people's head more than other stuff. So they're powerful moments that create a very tangible memory that can tell you back to what it, so that's a great book.

And then the other one is The Art of [00:54:00] Gathering by Priya Parker. Talking about how people collect and how they gather in the way that they work in communities. Something that's referred to, which I've been really like, I'll be on a, a tear with trying to think of is the term of toxic positivity and this idea that I don't like necessarily the word toxic, because it puts on like a positivity is bad that the notion is that rather than just focusing on all the things that are good, we also need to understand what is, what we also need to work of work on.

And so when you're always talking about everything's awesome, everything's awesome. Then that creates this false sense of security that, that then you can't bring up the things that aren't awesome. And so I think about that when you see coaches it was a perfect one that I, this is another Man United reference, but Solskaer the last game on zero, zero against Liverpool and they. They asked him how he thought his team, did that you got a point out of it and their top of the ring. He said, no, no, I didn't think we played very well. What a difference that was, then you go back three months when he was talking and [00:55:00] constantly talking about the guys are playing really well. They're trying really hard and you knew it wasn't real people get it when it's not there.

So that owning up and not having everything being positive is actually positive. One last reference. There was I it was The Social Dilemma, Netflix documentary, but there was a phrase at the end and I liked this. The critic is the truest optimist because the critic actually wants there to be improvement.

You don't criticize stuff necessarily just to say it's bad, you're critiquing stuff because you want things to get better because you are you're passionate about it. You've got some heart and that you got some skin in the game. So the critic is the truest optimist.

Phil: [00:55:38] No, that's good. I mean, how many times have you heard that?

You know, hate is not the opposite of love app. Apathy is the opposite of love, right? I mean, if you don't care, that's the worst thing, but if you're critical, Of something, it means you actually care about it. You want it to be better. I mean, not everybody, but a good chunk of the time, but you look at Jurgen Klopp.

I mean, he's probably the, the apex of a great manager, as hard [00:56:00] as that is for me to say as a United fan. But right now there's, it's hard to say there's a better manager out there as far as the culture, that development that we're talking about. As far as that, that. Not being that continually toxic positivity guy, but being the guy who's building up his players and doing what he needs to do to cultivate that environment.

From what I've heard, I'm obviously not over there in Liverpool, but from what I've heard about the guy, that's just exactly what I see out of him. The other thing, if you've listened folks to every episode, you know, that Graham Roxburgh, it was a part of season one, but he, he talked about Legacy in depth and such a great book.

If you haven't picked it up, pick it up. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to it. He goes into the sweep, the sheds which I absolutely love, love. A lot of that book also love just, you know, as you talked about the connection of the team, I don't know that anyone does it better than them and with the Haku before every rugby match, nothing that I've [00:57:00] seen compares to that.

anyway, Phil. Thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for your example, as you said, be the example. Thanks for the example. I know you've taught me just in the little bit we've had in our relationship. I look forward to the day we can meet in person. Maybe I can come and do one of your, one of your experiential learning experiences with my family or with an

Phil Brown: [00:57:20] organization.

We've got a, we've got a spring calendar has got virtual offerings. So if anyone wants to jump in and see us in virtual, anyone can come to those. Yeah. On

Phil: [00:57:28] that note, how do what is the website? How do people get in touch with you?

Phil Brown: [00:57:30] Yeah, so, you can go to high five, the number five. So H I G H. Hi, as in opposite of low five high5adventure.org, and then on our website, you'll find all the trainings and stuff like that.

Once again, vertical playpen, just search that in, in any way you listen to podcasts and then we're also on Instagram @verticalplaypen. So, otherwise you can find, and if you, when you go on the website, you can always just track me down. And if you want to show Phil, you can put somewhere in the description, my email, but any ones feel free [00:58:00] to email and contact us.

We always answer our phones and happy to answer more questions.

Phil: [00:58:04] Fantastic. Thanks again, Phil. Very much appreciate you very much. Appreciate all that you're doing. Folks out there. As you know, you can reach out to howsoccerexplainsleadership.com. You can find out all the information you need to about us there.

Thanks again, for being a part of this show. I do hope that you take everything that you're learning from this show, everything that you're learning from the resources that we're providing for you, and you're using it to help yourself be a better leader, to help you to cultivate that environment that we talked about here today that will help your players, your employees, your family, to flourish.

Thanks a lot. Have a great week.