CTC Shorts with Valorie Kondos Field

DISCLAIMER: Please note we use a transcription service, so there may be some errors in the following transcription of this episode. If you can, please refer to the audio for exact quotations.

Daniel Kiernan  00:09

Welcome to Episode 206, of Control the Controllables. And welcome to Episode One of our Podcast Shorts. Now that we are three and a half years in to Control the Controllables, there's certain guests, certain moments that have really stuck with us. And we want to bring them to you over over the next few months, whether it's a five minute clip up to a 15, 20 minute clip, we can put it straight into your veins, this amazing knowledge, insight. It's always been about educating, entertaining, and energizing you guys from the very start of the podcast. And when I spoke to Valorie Kondos Field, Episode 62, I felt nothing but educated, entertained and energized. Valerie was, was the head gymnastics coach at UCLA for many, many years and has a fascinating story. And one that I actually love about speaking to Valorie as well as her mentor is John Wooden, the famous basketball coach at UCLA has written many books, many of you might not know John Wooden, but I almost guarantee you've heard some of his quotes, a very wise man, and has passed that on to Valerie as well. And then Valerie has gone on, she's got a TED Talk, which is how I first came across her all about our winning doesn't always equal success. And that's a big, big area we've talked about on the podcast over the last three and a half years. But Valerie just articulated that so well. And even though that episode was three years ago, it must be the episode that we get people reaching out to us the most about questions about it telling us about all of the learnings that they've taken from it. So we want to take our favorite clip to share with you that I'm sure you are going to take with you as well. So without further ado, here is Valorie Kondos fields from Episode 62.

Valorie Kondos Field  02:23

I knew nothing. I could hire coaches that knew about gymnastics. But what I realized was, I had no clue what a healthy culture in athletics should look like. I didn't know what it should look like, I didn't know how about creating it, I did nothing. So I started out mimicking other badass coaches that were relentless that were my way or the highway that were dictators that lead from their egos that were sarcastic. And I figured literally, this is how sad this story is. I remember telling up well, I grew up on stage, I can act, I can act like a coach just act like a coach. So I did. We were horrible. Our team was horrible. I was horrible. And a few years later, they the whole team asked me for a team meeting. And for two solid hours. Okay, coaches out there, put yourself in my shoes here. For two solid hours the gymnasts gave example, after example of how my coaching was hurtful, demeaning belittling, harmful, the whole bit, and I had a huge wake up call

Daniel Kiernan  03:39

Fair play to you for allowing that meeting to happen. Because I would imagine a true dictatorship, President Trump would be an example. He he isn't allowing anyone to have two hours with him to tell him about all of the things that he's been harmful towards. You know, and I would imagine there's a lot of coaches out there. So I think you also deserve a lot of credit for having that meeting. And did that light switch go on? And then what did you do about it?

Valorie Kondos Field  04:13

It did. And I as you're saying this, Dan, I remember being in that meeting and thinking, well, I need to pause, I need to continue Posturing as a head coach. So I'm the head coach. I'm the leader, my way the highway. And as I'm thinking this, I'm going no, no, that has not been working. You got to figure out something else. And so I listened to them. I thank them. And then I did the most prudent thing that I could have done that set me off on my path. And that was to figure out my why. You know, Simon Sinek asks us all to figure out our why and why was I going to coach why athletes Why do you guys want to do sports coaches? Why do you want to quit why and quite honestly, a lot of the coaches that I know and the coach, I used to be you coach from your ego, because it's a high, you know, you get to dictate all this stuff. And that wasn't my wife. So my Y was very, very clear to me that and I believe, without question that athletics is the greatest master class, in learning really tough life lessons that one does not learn in the classroom. And every single boy and girl needs to be in athletics. And the, the especially girls, if you go on, if you go on Women's Sports Foundation, just go look up Women's Sports Foundation, they have an entire list of the benefits of sport, not just activity and exercise, but organized sport, and how it benefits you throughout your entire life. And so literally I was my why became very clear, I'm going to develop champions in life, who are going to go out and make the world a better place, and I'm going to the classroom for us is going to be the gym. So I'm gonna build champion through sport. And later on in my career, when people asked me what I did for a living, I'd say, You know what, I developed superheroes. That's what I do.

Daniel Kiernan  06:14

Nice. We need you to become an ambassador at the Soto Tennis Academy. Let's do it. It's literally is literally it's the philosophy that we have. It's the, you know, like I said to you before, that you articulated so well. And I urge people, there's two things that I urge, one that you've mentioned about this, The Social Dilemma, Netflix, you know, and I think we said it starts with education. So let's all open our minds to the education. But the second one, I urge people to listen to your TED Talk. It's, it's incredibly articulate, and it's very well put, and it's also it's very impactful, you know, and I've, I've shared it with a few of the parents at the Academy already and a few of the players. And basically you said in 15 minutes what I've been trying to say for 10 years. So, so well done. I've got a lot to learn from you on it, but I couldn't I couldn't agree more. You know, a sport. Sport is the greatest thing ever. It's the greatest. It's just incredible. The things that it teaches. It really is one thing actually I took from one of the talks that I listened and I've been doing my research on you, I think it was a maybe CBS, I think it was a CBS conversation. And you shared that one of the players had said you said to you that we want to be coached up not torn down. That must have been quite a quite a heartfelt thing to hear from one of your one of your Yeah, no,

Valorie Kondos Field  07:45

Absolutely. They said I want we want to be coached up not torn down. We want to be we want to be supported, not suppressed and belittled. And it was like, what was interesting. In my case, it wasn't that I was such a hard ass, it was my sarcasm, that was hurtful. And I feel like in coaching, it's kind of like Groundhog Day, you know, you're trying to teach the same lessons over and over and over and over and over again. And so you get tired, your mind gets tired. And so you start throwing out these quips that we think are funny, but you know what, they're not funny. And as my athletes have said to me, they said, you know, misspell, maybe if I showed up that day, and I was feeling great, and I got a lot of sleep and my body didn't hurt and the whole bit, maybe I could handle the sarcasm, and let it roll off my back. But 99% of the time, that's not the case. Yeah, something's going on. Even if I do show up feeling great. You know, I've got an exam that day or my parents had a fight or I fought with my boyfriend, whatever it is. And so I learned through those conversations with my athletes that were the site where I think the sarcasm is funny. There's really no place for it. When coach

Daniel Kiernan  09:01

How did you just one thing, I guess to recognize that, but how have you gone about or how did you go about making that change? So that it was able to have such an impact on on all of these young athletes that were you in charge of?

Valorie Kondos Field  09:19

Um, I flipped it all you know, and started being smart. Instead of being sarcastic and making jokes at their expense. I actually flipped it I caught them and doing things right doing the things well I became the ultimate optimist you know and as they're getting down on themselves for missing a balanced beam routine are falling. I'm the one saying okay timeout a Get over yourself is called athletics. It's hard and be let's start enumerating everything you did, right? Like, let's look at that first. Then we can figure out how to do something different not to fall next time. But um, it was it was the flip and it was it's so great as a coach To be able to see your athlete make a mistake come up to you, like the dog with tail between the legs, feeling so remorseful. And when you give them a compliment, or you point out what they did, right? It's so beautiful to see their entire being light up then with a sense of pride, and they're not going to be whipped for that one thing they did wrong.

Daniel Kiernan  10:30

How, how was that received with parents? So I guess a lot of parents, especially in a university, like UCLA, winning, winning was, what they were accustomed to winning was what they were going after. For you to then flip and go into we value this, these different success measures, was that ever looked upon as fluffy? Was that ever did you ever have to take anything, any heat from the parents on that?

Valorie Kondos Field  10:59

I never took it from the parents because I believe in a lot of communication. And so I, I communicate a lot with the parents and the student athletes. But I got the fluffy comment a lot from other coaches, especially coaches in the club and elite world. Because I'm the type of person that I'm the type of coach where I believe the work is done during the week. And then the competition is time to celebrate all your hard work. And so I learned also, through my years of coaching, that when I postured this intensity, in coaching, it made our athletes more tense. So when I allowed myself to just be myself, and for me, whenever I hear music, I start dancing. So when I would be dancing on the sidelines, it allowed them to be looser. And any athlete at the D1 level, they don't have a problem in focusing. It's not like they were going to be dancing on the sideline, and then lose their focus on being. I got a funny story to tell you. So few years ago, we finished fourth at the national championships, and I had this coach come up to me and say, You know what, I really think you do you do a lot better and you you'd finish a lot higher if you didn't have so much fun on the competition floor. And I said, Oh, okay, um, well, who do you think had the most fun and we all agreed Peng Lee? I'm like, well, she just got 2 10s like, Okay, who else Caitlin Ohashi. Oh, well, she just PRed. Okay. But thank you for telling you that the very next year, we have more fun, and we win the national championship. And this coach comes up to me six, I'd say it goes I'm a jackass. You know what you're doing.

Daniel Kiernan  12:55

And, and also to all of those listening, tennis coaches. You've got to start dancing on the side of the court. This is this could be this could be why I fall down a little bit. But this is a tennis coach. But I want to see it from new tennis coaches next time I see

Valorie Kondos Field  13:14

Exactly, life is short. It's just think about it. When you look at players that are in the zone. They're not tight and stressed. And like this maniacal vision, they are loose and relaxed. So if you as a coach are sitting in the stands or on the sidelines, and you're tense, and pacing, and biting your nails, how are you supposed to be helping your athlete get into their zone is counter intuitive and counterproductive. Now

Daniel Kiernan  13:47

If you're a regular listener of Control the Controllables you will know that I head up and Academy the SotoTennis Academy in the south of Spain, where we live in the beautiful Sotogrande. And I talk a lot about this on the show because it's it's defined. Yeah, a lot of my philosophy a lot of my situations that I've been in over the last 14 years that have that have made me the coach that I am and brought all of the philosophies together. And a big part of that is training in Spain, you know, in training in Spain. The competition structure is off the charts, the climate, the way that people compete out here, and and we thought well, it's Black Friday and if you are listening to this before December the 1st of 2023 we want to offer you a 10% discount to come and see it for yourself. You know you hear me talk about it so much. So why don't you come and see us come and meet the team come and see Vicki and have a brilliant week or two in the sun playing tennis on the clay courts compete doing, you know, play some competition while you're out here. And all you have to do to do that is you go to www.sototennis.com/blackfriday. And you will also see that in the show notes. And that is something that we hope you can take advantage of, and maybe buy someone a little Christmas present as well. So hopefully, we will see some of you in Sotogrande soon. But for now, let's get back to Valerie, we've talked a lot about it actually, coaches and coaches do discuss this a lot. The tone of voice the way even in office in tennis, you're not technically supposed to speak to the players when they're playing. Or you're not supposed to coach them. Should I say but you are, you're allowed to obviously say, Come on, here we go. Next shot, there's about 250 ways of saying Come on. Right? There's so many ways and you know, we've had a bit of a laugh over the years with a couple of the coaches that get that we get the tone, right. And it absolutely is if you get that each player will have their own tone of how you say it. And I think this is probably a bit of advice then for parents as well, because exactly what you're saying. And if I share a really quick story, I was fortunate enough to play at Wimbledon a couple of times. In one year, we played against the Brian brothers who have obviously gone down as one of the greatest teams of all time. And it's quite a big crowd around the court. Now, let's say there was 2000 people 1998 of them I couldn't care less about, but I could care about care less about my parents, because they were the most amazing parents, they never put pressure on me or needed pep pressure. You know, they taught me good values, it was about me, often I felt they were cheering my opponent because you know, and I struggled with that at first. But what I know that they were doing is they were trying to be fair and treat respect. However, without them putting pressure on me, I was so nervous, because I wanted to make them proud so much. Now, why I tell that story is, as parents, you're already putting pressure on your kids just by being their parents. So if you now turn away, in a certain way, if you put your head in your hands, if you say come on in, in a in an aggressive manner, the impact that that has on the athlete is absolutely monumental, you know, and or the way that you talk in the car before and you know all of these different things. And it's a very, very, very difficult thing to do in any sport. But what would your advice be to to parents, and not just for gymnastics, because you've already proven that you can go from outer gymnastics to being a superstar gymnastics coach. So my goal is to now bring you into the tennis world and start you're gonna you're gonna produce some grand slam champions. And

Valorie Kondos Field  18:05

I always had an interview yesterday, and they said, because I'm retired, right? And they said, Would you ever coach again, I said, Only if it was another sport.

Daniel Kiernan  18:15

You got set up. So what's your advice to tennis parents? Given the tennis isn't your thing? What would your advice be to tennis parents?

Valorie Kondos Field  18:22

Okay, so my advice to tennis parents is talk to your spouse. So you and your spouse are on the same page? What is success going to look like for our child? Because not everybody gets to be the Wimbledon champion. And you don't want your child to be quitting the sport simply because the expectations are not realistic. So the first thing is sit down and figure out your Why. Why do you want your child in sport and what does success look like? Then have that conversation with your child, and let them know that you're going to be there to support them, you're going to be there to listen to them. So if they want to come home and complain about coaching isn't missing that, but you're not going to enable them to be victims, you're not going to enable them to have a pity party, because sport is hard. And you're not going to let them quit on a bad day. That if they get to a point where they really really don't want to do it anymore. They can quit on a good day, on their best day when they just want a championship. They just want to match, then quit that day. You don't want to put on a bad day. And after that, every question that you asked your child should be about the process, not about the result. So don't ask did you win? How many points did you score? Those types of things. Ask what did you learn today? Like I always wanted our student athletes to get 1% better. How did you get 1% better even if that's the mental dialogue, the mental choreography, mental choreography, you're telling yourself What does that look like? How'd you get 1%? Better today? Did you help a teammate? Anyway, so parents, you put, as Dan said, you put so much pressure on your children without even knowing it. Kids want to please their parents. And so you need to be the advocate. And you need to what I think is important, like I've done with our grandchildren is we set a safe space. So when do you want to talk about the match? When do you want to talk about it? Because kids don't want to talk about it on the car ride home. When you pick them up, that's when they say they decide to quit a sport. Nine times out of 10 that decide on the car ride home, because the parents have them sequestered in this little metal box, and they just hammer them with all these questions. So have a safe space when you are talking about it. Because you know what, we got to talk about your grades. And we have to talk about your sport, when you want to talk about it and for how long? Not at the dinner table or at the dinner table. You know, when is that? On the phone? How long you know, the first three, three minutes, you wanna talk about tennis and let's talk about something else. But there is this whole movement out there that the professional athletes have started, I think it was LeBron James with Nike, I am more than an athlete. And children want to be valued as more than just the score.

Daniel Kiernan  21:18

Oh my goodness, those messages, I can listen over and over to them. For you coaches for you parents out there. I'm sure you've taken it on board as well. I hope you enjoyed our first podcast short. We do have another couple coming over the next couple of weeks alongside our next episode, which is Thomas Johansson, the 2002 Australian Open champion, and also the coach over the last 12 months to Soranna Cirstea who's shocked Rybakina in the fourth round at the US Open and making the quarterfinals which is her best ever result in a Grand Slam. Thomas is great. And then we'll have another couple of podcast shorts from Tom Gullickson and the Sir Andy Murray. So watch out for those. I hope you're well wherever you are. But until next time, I'm Dan Kiernan. We are Control the ontrollables