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This Week at BETTER:

• We have a book release in the BETTER family! Yesterday marked the launch of Kevin DeShazo’s new book Into the Storm: how to turn adversity into your advantage. It is a short story with exercises to help both you and your team learn to how to handle and get better in the midst of adversity. Grab a copy on Amazon. There is an added bonus of a free PDF on 30 Days to a Bison Mentality (a guide to building mental toughness) for those who order by September 1. There are also bonuses for team bulk orders. Check those out here.

Yes, that’s right. Somehow, in all of our “spare” time between team retreats, speaking engagements, workshops, flights, travel, “some” of us have time to somehow write a book??? (Seth here - can you tell I’m impressed with my partner? 😁). Go get the book!

The Idea: Self-Preservation

The self-aware leader can answer any challenge without fear, while the insecure leader will do anything to keep people from seeing their weaknesses.

Every person striving to improve has to deal with fear at some level. By the nature of athletics, every person involved in performance has to wrestle with the fear of failure.

But, self-preservation most impacts your team relationally. Last week, we painted a picture of Psychological Safety and defined it as your team’s ability to take interpersonal risks. The more you risk, relationally, the more opportunity you have to build trust.

We all naturally self-preserve as we manage risk and reward.

However, the fear of loss can easily control our minds and behaviors, creating deadly consequences.

As a coach or leader, you may do all the right things to build psychological safety, yet your team members still struggle.

So, the question is, what makes up self-preservation? And how can we begin to address it and break it down with those we lead?

Self-preservation can be boiled down to three different questions:

1. What am I afraid of losing?

2. What am I trying to hide?

3. What am I trying to prove? To whom?

Put another way, self-preservation is the overprotection of what you’re afraid of losing.

When you overprotect, you tend to lose what you were afraid of losing in the first place.

Research: Capable and Confident = High Performance

A 2014 study presented to leaders in the IOC 2014 examined athletes in the Canadian Football League.

They found that players with higher fear and lower self-efficacy experienced more injuries and performed worse.

High self-efficacy means the athlete feels capable and confident.

So, for athletes, how capable, confident, and “free” they feel allows them to perform better. But it also serves as effective injury prevention!

This is not unknown or groundbreaking to coaches. They talk broadly about their athletes playing “free.” However, the responsibility is often placed on the athlete.

Most coaches take little to no ownership of creating an environment where their athletes play with nothing to lose, nothing to hide, and nothing to prove.

But not our readers. 🙂 

Anecdote: Jane Figueiredo, Olympic Diving Coach

The Olympics bring us dozens of amazing stories from the world of sport. One you might’ve missed is Great Britain’s diving coach, Jane Figueiredo.

Figueiredo is an eight-time Olympic medal-winning coach from Zimbabwe who has played a pivotal role in athletes' careers, including Tom Daley.

She is known for enabling her divers to dive with confidence and acuity to get her athletes to a place of mental peace in a highly technical sport involving fear beyond just performance, including physical danger.

It’s simply amazing to observe an entire training regimen, program, and even facilities entirely built around helping athletes confront their fear so they can perform at their best.

The High Performance Podcast highlights her in this 14-minute mini-doc. The video is worth watching, but we have queued up a 30-second masterclass on a specific tactic she uses to coach her athletes well during competition.

Putting it all together:

So, how do we handle our self-preservation, and how do we help those we lead to deal with theirs?

If you’re new, we follow the know yourself to lead yourself, then lead yourself to lead others’ philosophy. So, our first couple of takeaways usually involve personal practices for yourself. Then, we discuss how to lead it well in your team.

1. Answer the Questions Yourself

   • When you react defensively or sense you handled an interaction poorly or got heated at work, reflect on that. Where was that coming from inside you? What are you trying to hide? What are you afraid of losing? What are you trying to prove? To who?

2. Vulnerability

   • After you’ve discovered something inside of yourself. Be willing to share your own experiences of self-preservation to model vulnerability.

3. Build Self-Efficacy

   • Focus on developing your team members' confidence and competence.

   • Provide regular feedback and opportunities for growth.

   • Celebrate small wins to boost self-belief and reduce the need for self-preservation.

4. Handle Mistakes Well

   • Reframe mistakes as valuable learning opportunities rather than something to hide.

   • Encourage team members to take risks without fear of failure.

5. Create a Culture of Support

   • Develop a culture where asking for help is seen as a strength, not a weakness.

   • Encourage collaboration and mutual support among team members.

   • Recognize and reward behaviors that align with transparency and teamwork.

Conclusion:

To overcome your self-preservation and become the leader you were meant to be, you need to break through your insecurities and become a secure, confident, and humble leader. By addressing fears, building confidence, and fostering a culture of vulnerability and support, you can help your team move beyond self-preservation and towards a more open, trusting, and high-performing environment.

The Culture Playbook + Cohorts

Coaches have access to a lot of coaching content. What they lack are systems.

The Culture Playbook is 10 leadership ideas with the exercises you need to install the ideas and culture into your program. It’s the exact system we use to help coaches build their programs around mindset, leadership, and performance. We’ve used it at schools like Oklahoma, Mississippi State, and Florida State.

Since the Culture Playbook was released almost a year ago, nearly 1,000 coaches have purchased and are using it for their programs.

You can get it for your program today.

Culture Playbook Cohorts

We are offering Culture Playbook Cohorts if you’re interested in exploring the Culture Playbook on a deeper level.

We’ve had a few dozen commitments over the last week and aren’t starting with very many cohorts, so reserve your spot today!

Monthly Calls + Powerful Content + Practical Application + Community = Accelerate Your Growth

If interested, simply DM Seth or Kevin on Twitter.