Pressure is a privilege: Some lessons learned from being a goalie.

Below is a small excerpt from a book I am writing. It’s nothing to write home about but it is a passion project of mine. Just sharing a few tidbits and would love to hear from other goalies/athletes and their perspective!

There are a lot of folks out there advertising professional leadership capability building (don’t like the word “training”) via Leader as a Coach. I benefitted from some of the best coaching via this methodology but wanted to expand on many of the published advantages to viewing leadership through the lens of an athletic coach. I often reflect on what skills and abilities have afforded me the opportunities I have had professionally, and I continue to land on what being a lacrosse goalie did for my professional development.

Although my experience as a goalie was in Lacrosse (HS/Div 1/MLL) having spoken with goalkeepers in sports like ice hockey, field hockey, soccer, water polo and more, the lessons seem to be very similar.

Pressure is a privilege – I believe this wholeheartedly. To be trusted as the last line of defense not only to keep goals or points from being scored or tallied, but to be the individual all eyes turn to, when every other defensive method failed, is a privilege. Good goalies stop shots or attempts on goal; great goalies prevent most shots from ever occurring by leading the defense, knowing, scouting, and understanding the offense, manipulating the offense from shooting from where YOU want and serving as the beacon of mental resiliency.

As a goalie, you are going to be scored on. You are going to fail either small (i.e. closer game than it should have been) or fail big (losing the championship). It is not a matter of if, but when. This same reality exists daily in our professional lives. We are going to fail small no matter what, but avoiding failing big, means having a short and long memory, among many other skills.

Mental Fortitude: This is only my opinion, but in my experience, the goalies who are the hardest on themselves and believe they should save every shot and takes the hit even if the goal was completely unstoppable serves a few purposes:

1)????? Building Trust – If your coach and teammates know through experience that no matter what criticism they might have of your performance, you are just as, if not more critical on yourself, they are more likely to work harder on your behalf than sit on the sidelines yelling criticisms.

a.?????? If your teammates, and defensive players especially, know that you as the goalie take responsibility for goals scored, even if there was nothing you could do to prevent the score/goal, they will play harder the next play for you.

b.?????? The inverse of this is the palms up, finger pointing that divides any team very quickly.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? i.????? Every positive behavior has a negative counterpart and consequence.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ii.????? It is a conscious choice to demonstrate Extreme Ownership, a topic that Jocko Willink and Leif Babin describe in Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership.

2)????? Short and Long Memory – If you focus on the goal that just went in, you are not focused on what is needed to prevent the next goal.

a.?????? After each goal, several micro-corrections are usually made. Tweaks in communication, player placement, defensive strategy etc. These are done almost immediately or at least before the next scoring attempt.

b.?????? You do not, however, decide to change major mechanics or fundamentals in the middle of the game.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson will make small changes during a match, but they wouldn’t change the fundamentals of their swing mid-match.

c.?????? Great goalies and successful professionals understand the difference between course correcting in the moment and redrawing the game plan, mid match.

d.?????? Post game is the time for deep learning.

e.?????? My personal experience in High School and College, was locking myself in a room and watching game film, of every shot and goal (not save) in slow motion as I picked apart every moment of my play.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? Some might think this is torturous or detrimental to improvement but it’s the opposite.

1.?????? The game was over and nothing was at stake, so your brain can concentrate on what part of your play needs improvement.

2.?????? Practice goals don’t count – Practice is the one opportunity where no one is keeping score.

a.?????? Be vulnerable – allow yourself to struggle as you work to improve your game. It is no different in our professions. Be open and honest with your team around what you need to improve on and use your team to help you improve.

b.?????? Seeing a leader in a critical position open and willing to show their weaknesses helps bond a team.

f.??????? The time in between games is the time to get better. Once the whistle blows, you fall to your highest level of preparation, you do not simply rise to the occasion.

3)????? The six inches between your ears – You do not just become mentally tough by failing.

a.?????? Learning from failure is a process. This process is different for most folks, but the most successful athletes and professionals have specific ways to ensure that lessons learned are captured and most critically, they have a plan to use those lessons to improve.

b.?????? Being hard on yourself, or a better way of saying that is, having the highest standards for your performance, may endear your teammates to you, but it doesn’t in and of itself make you mentally resilient.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? You must have a methodology that you use, day in and day out, to learn from failures or opportunities. Digging down into the root cause of failures and building a plan for future success helps build mental fortitude.

1.?????? You’ve don’t it once and you have a process so you can do it again.

2.?????? By failing, learning, and using that learning to succeed in the next game/match, you create the conduit through which you can see success even while you are failing.

3.?????? You create perspective.

c.?????? Control your thoughts – our brains can be mean and nasty places if we let them. Good goalies and good professionals know when their brain is lying to them. Great goalies and professionals, control the narrative in their head.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? We consciously choose words, phrases, and memories to guide us, motivate us and ground us.

1.?????? I remember one memory of how this feels when it becomes a habit:

a.?????? Scene: High School state championship – Sudden death overtime.

b.?????? I knew there were thousands of people in the stands, but I didn’t pay them much attention. I had trained and conditioned my brain to be able to focus literally on the next second. Lacrosse is a fast game and offense is generated quickly so this is an essential skill.

c.?????? We won in double overtime and as I squatted there in the goal, trying to absorb what we had just done, I heard an enormous noise from behind my goal. I turned my head to see around 350 students from the opposing team screaming and yelling as the fans tore onto the field. I came to find out later, those 350 people had been screaming their head off the whole two overtime periods. I didn’t know they were there. My brain only allowed the most critical inputs to be processed and blocked everything else out.

d.?????? This is achieved over time and with practice. It doesn’t just happen because you play in front of people.

e.?????? Everything we train our minds to do has to be intentional.

2.?????? The brain is our most dangerous and valuable tool available to us, but it doesn’t become trained or augmented simply by doing something. We must always seek to learn and grow from our failures and experiences.

4)????? Conscious compartmentalization – when you are playing in sudden death, you can’t think about the minutes already played and you can’t think about the trophy. You must be in the moment.

a.?????? The one attribute I have developed over time as a goalie, is to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It is not easy to willingly take on all that comes with being a goalie. The same is true in our professional lives. Consciously taking the burden off others and placing it on yourself while simultaneously giving the ball (or project) to a teammate to allow them to add value is a critical skill.

b.?????? Taking the burden off others is not the same as taking the ball and doing it all yourself.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? By standing in the goal, providing confidence to your team, you allow them to take risks, aim big and sometimes miss big, with you there to back them up.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ii.????? You don’t take the ball and try and play every position.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? iii.????? If you can work yourself into a position of trust, in the goal or in the office, your team will find ways to win and will take calculated risks to become victorious over a worthy opponent.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? iv.????? You don’t have to do it for them. You do your job, and you lead your teammates in their role from yours, with them knowing you are in place to backstop them.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? v.????? Goals temporarily go in one bucket, coaches’ comments in another, your micro-corrections yet another and all the negative talk goes in one ear and out the other.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? vi.????? When you are handling high stress environments like sports, family, and professional lives, you need to have places for thoughts and emotions to go, to be drawn upon when the time is right.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? vii.????? If everything is swirling in your head you can’t be focused, and if all those small data points are recorded for future use, the lessons you are trying to learn will continually escape you.

5)????? Be a PhD student of yourself – To be a successful goalie or professional, you must invest in understanding yourself.

a.?????? We are all informed by different experiences, cultures, parenting and friendships. We win and lose daily, at work, at home and in all our endeavors. Being a student of yourself is the single most important investment you will ever make.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? Know your tendencies.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ii.????? Know how to structure “practice time” to work on the fundamentals and any specific area of yourself that is not meeting your expectations.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? iii.????? Understand how you learn…Are you visually stimulated? Rather read than listen? Need to write things down to remember them? Good!

1.?????? Understand how you learn and comprehend information so that lessons become an effort in Poke Yoke vs. repeat disappointing failures.

b.?????? Understand where your motivation comes from, how you use it, what you need more/less of etc.

c.?????? Be critical of what you do that is not helping you personally or professionally.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? Identify your own gaps and put plans in place with goals, timelines, and expectations.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ii.????? Work every day to solidify your fundamentals while building advanced skills!

d.?????? NEVER STOP LEARNING

?

As I reflect on my decades in the goal, I get excited to see this book build itself from the inside out with all the lessons I have been fortunate enough to experience and learn from. I have a lot more to write, but excited to share to see if I can also learn from more people’s experience in the goal!