Philipp Humm on Storytelling Frameworks, Player Resistance, and Behavior Change

Stories are usually best employed if you feel that they're some sort of resistance. I'd say you take a player and they're like, "Hey, I've been playing like this for the past five years. I sure are your tips useful, but I need to change." So anytime that you think of either people unlisting closely or you anticipate some sort of resistance, that's usually the most powerful way to include stories. Why? Because the stories appeal more to the heart and less to the brain. So in those moments, we really want to persuade someone and really get it. Well, those are the moments we share story. Hi, I'm Dan Cricorian and I'm Patrick Carney and welcome to Slaping Glass, exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today, we're excited to welcome storytelling and communication skills expert, as well as three-time best-selling author on the subjects, Philip Homme. Philip is here today to dive into practical storytelling and communication frameworks for coaches, how to be clear and concise under pressure, puts me on the hot seat to improv a storyline on air, and discusses the power of physical objects in a locker room during the always fun start, sub or sit. Here's the problem, there is a lot of smart basketball content, there's also a lot of basketball content. Slaping Glass Plus exists to separate those two things. It's a curated space for curious coaches with film breakdowns, deep dives and conversations with people who've already tested the ideas you're trying to understand. No searching, no sorting, no wondering if this is worth your time. We do the studying, you do the coaching. If you want to keep learning without turning it into a side job, Slaping Glass Plus is for you. Join the thousands of coaches from around the world who've made the investment SG Plus at Slaping Glass.com today. And now, please enjoy our conversation with Philip Homme. We'll be one of the start with this and kind of a broad structure to start and then we can narrow in and get more detail as we go. But it's practical storytelling frameworks for coaches, for leaders and for majority of people listening right now who are coaches and leaders, the underpinnings of storytelling and the frameworks that can be helpful for us day to day as we navigate our teams. So when it comes to storytelling, I would say the single most important thing is to zoom into the moment. Now, let me share what that means. Most people when they share a story, they hover above the ground. They're somewhere there in distance giving a summary whether they, oh, well, back in this game, we had a problem, then we changed this and then we, or came that problem, then we won. Well, that's a summary, right? It's a pretty boring summary. So the best story tell us they zoom into one specific moment so that you take us into one specific moment, maybe during the game, maybe outside the game where something happened. So I've come up with this super cool framework called P A S T or past. You can remember it by zooming into the past. Now what does each of those letters stand for? The first one is place, P for place. That is first thing, you share that story, share where you are, share where you are. What's the physical location? Are you maybe in front of that meeting room? Are you on the pitch? Where are you? Now why does it matter so much to share that because the moment you share the location or the place, a movie starts playing in your audience's head. They're like, okay, basketball court. Boom. Immediately something goes on. Now, you don't have to describe not everything on that basketball court. It doesn't matter, but you need to share that location in order to start that movie. So that's the first one. The second one is action. Take us into the action. What action is unfolding in that moment? So something should be happening. You're walking, you're shouting, you're screaming, you're throwing that ball. What is unfolding? And so that's action. Bring in for what momentum. And then the third one, that's my favorite one, and that is S or speech. Now every time a story has more than one character, maybe a coach, maybe player, maybe someone completely else. Share what that other person said in that crucial moment of the story. So for example, instead of saying, oh, yeah, in that moment, my coach was very disappointed with me. You say, in that moment, my coach looked at me and said, what the fuck was that, right? You didn't hit one single shot. So those are the exact words that were used in that specific moment. So you almost want to quote that person. So that is speech. And then the last one, and that one is, I would say, particularly effective if you want to make it more emotional. That is tea for thoughts. So we as humans, we have thousands and thousands of thoughts every single day. A lot of those thoughts, anxious, we have thoughts, hopes, dreams, plans. And some of those thoughts, what were you thinking in that moment? So for example, when you share that story about you on the pitch getting super nervous, instead of just saying, oh, well, in this moment, I was super nervous. You say, this moment, I thought everyone was looking at me. If I mess this up, my team will hate me. So you share the thoughts that we're going on in that specific moment of the story. And so if you just focus on that, P-A-S-T or past, zooming into the moment, you'll have the most incredible story possible. Phil, if we could narrow in on some of this stuff too, thanks for sharing. In the midst of telling a story, the thoughts, can you go deeper on that and how one can implement that into the story? You mentioned it a little bit, but that's interesting of what thoughts to use, what are interesting to bring in, what not as far as the thoughts go. On thoughts, the more raw they are, the better it is. And what people oftentimes do wrong is, they share thoughts that are already too polished. They're like, in this moment, I thought, well, this could go wrong and then I might risk my place in the team. Well, that's still super high level very polished. I don't know about you, but my thoughts, they're messed up, they're raw, right? I'd say I'm on this pitch, I'm just thinking, "Oh, right, they're messed up." They will tear me apart. So what are the raw thoughts? She was the raw thoughts in this moment. And Philip, with the raw thoughts and as a leader, the level or the role that vulnerability that you convey in your thoughts, what should coaches, leaders be mindful of when it comes to expressing the vulnerability, how much and so on? That vulnerable part is crucial for any story. If you share a story, everything is going great. Let's say you are already leading, you're winning and then you're not going to inspire anyone. And so if you want to inspire someone, if you want to change someone's perspective, you got to bring in this vulnerable part where you're on the pitch, something goes wrong. You're like, "Ah, damn it, right, it's terrible." In those moments, when you share this vulnerable part, this is where you connect with your audience. And so this is absolutely fundamental. Every single story that you share should have some sort of challenge. That is actually the longest and most fundamental part of any story. I know you do work with businesses and teams and things like that. And when a leader is thinking about crafting the story of, let's say, their program or their business, where do you start with them? I love the framework of the past and kind of narrowing in on a story. Is that same framework used when you zoom out or how do you think about that first before you zoom in? So first, you want to identify what types of stories you want to tell. And as a coach, usually as a leader, there are a few ones which are the most fundamental ones. The first one is to communicate a value. So each team has certain values that you want to live by. And so instead of just saying, "Ah, we are very hardworking." Well, share a story of a player that is just going a buff and beyond and has these incredible results. What is a story that could back that up? Or if your value is that you speak up as a team, let's say, Radical Kendra, or share a story of a moment where this value is being shown as being put on a proof. And so any time that you want to communicate a value, think of, is there a way how I can back that up? And the moment you share a story behind it, people will remember that. Because if you just share that value by itself, maybe in sports it's sometimes different. But I know in business, every single company out there, they share these very broad, meaningless values and no one remembers them at the end. And so if you want a value to stick, share a story that backs up that value. And so that's, I would say, a big occasion where coaches where leaders can use stories. Another one is to mentor someone. So for example, you're speaking one on one with a player right now. And instead of just saying, "Well, you should always run on this left side right before this thing," well, that might go into one ear and out in the other. But if you then share this one story with this other player, that exactly there's one thing completely turned that game around. Then that person that you're coaching will remember that story for the rest of their life and will actually implement whatever you're telling them. And so that one is the second one. And then the third one is to share a little bit of vision. This is maybe not so much about storytelling, but rather getting them excited. you bring them along we say hey imagine three weeks down the line, we're there on number one. And then you just bring them more in those imagined scenarios with, hey, this is possible. So I would say those three are the most relevant ones. When do you think storytelling is needed versus maybe just concise communication? Is there a difference? I mean, you just went through like three scenarios or when storytelling is good and very effective. But when is maybe just being a concise message or as a coach or directive, maybe needed versus a story? Great question. There I would say, hey, 9% of your communication, short, concise, direct communication. That as a coach is a superpower by itself. But occasionally there will be points that you really want to make where you're like, hey, I want people to remember that for the rest of their lives, or at least the part that they play here. And in those moments where you really want something to stick, then boom, then you switch into the story. Stories are usually best employed if you feel that there's some sort of resistance. Let's say you take a player and they're like, hey, I've been playing like this for the past five years. I sure your tip is useful, but I need to change. And so anytime that you think of either people on a listening closely or you anticipate some sort of resistance, that's usually the most powerful way to include stories. Why? And so in those moments, we really want to persuade someone and really get it. Well, those are the moments we share a story. And Phil, I've heard you talked before about, we're talking about clear concise communication. How does a great leader do that? Like what is actually happening by what are they saying with the message versus the detail that they're trying to portray when someone is great at being clear and concise? The thing that I noticed the most when it comes to leaders is that they communicate in a very structured way. And so you asked them a question and they would never just, "Oh, there's one more thing." "Oh, here's one more thing." "No, there's one more thing." "No, no, no." They say, "Hey, there are three things you need to be aware of." If you master those three things, you'll crush it on the pitch. And so they already give a structure front the moment that they communicate. And so one of this superpowers as coach but also as leaders in general is to communicate in frameworks. So to state up front, what are you going to tell them? So there are a few things that you can say. First one is we just say, "There's one thing that really matters for this." You would just say the one thing. Immediately everyone is like, "Oh, one thing. I want to know what that one thing is." Then sometimes you may be say, "Hi, there are two things that really matter." And then maybe there are sometimes there three things that really matter. Yeah, that you can say as well. But I would overall try to keep it pretty concise there. I would say the killer for any conversation, for any coaching situation, for any leadership situation is that people are too ambitious with how many things they want people to take away. Realistically, "Hey, you're having this inspiring talk." If you can get people to remember one thing but really ingrain it in their bodies and their play, "I'll done right. This is crushing it." If you're not trying to do this for 10 things, it's not going to happen. Period. And everyone thinks, "No, no, my people, they're listening really closely." It's not going to happen. Joe, maybe sometimes it's not one, but it's three. But don't go over than that. Don't try to over one because people will just not remember anything like that. I think that's a great message. If I can flip it to story time, you mentioned one, maybe the leaders don't go zoom in enough. What are other pitfalls, coaches or leaders can fall into when thinking they're telling a good story or that the message is going to hit? The number one killer for any story is giving too much context. And that applies to business, to sports, to private life. People are like, "Oh, yeah, three weeks ago, I was walking across the street. It was smelling a little like autumn leaves." Dude, no one cares. It's not that bad, but usually people go on for like one, two minutes until they go into the actual story. And so that is the biggest killer of any story, giving too much context. The best stories start right into the action, as close to the challenge as possible. So that you start maybe giving context in one to two sentences and then boom, something bad is happening, something surprising is happening. So you want to get to that point as quickly as possible. In your opinion, do the fundamental elements of a story like we're talking about is it the same for an individual versus a team, a quick thing you say to a player, say 20, 30 seconds versus what you say in front of the entire group? Are there differences or are all similar? An individual might have a little bit more patience. And right there is also this hierarchy where it's like, hey, the coach talking to the individual. So there, you don't need to have the most perfect story and you'll be given more freedom. But if you talk to your team, I would say, hey, if you can tell an incredible story in one to two minutes, that's the best that you could do. And so one thing that people do is making stories too long that are just not necessary, especially if you're addressing a team where, hey, they have so many things in their mind. If you can just bring us into the challenge, boom, how that challenge was maybe overcome. And would you learn from that? That's it. And those stories, you can usually tell between one and two minutes. You don't need more than that. So does anything change when coaches are thinking about motivating the group? And whether they emphasize something different part of the story, is there anything different or coach to be mindful of one thing about, I want to use a story to motivate? What pops to my mind is that the emotional arc has to be almost like a lot deeper. So when you share that story, that you go so deep into the problem that people think, oh, man, this is so messed up and they can relate with them. They're like, this is so injust, I need to change this. And so you've got to try to make the emotional arc, the emotional dip even deeper in order for people to really get invested and think like, wow, OK, I want to be that same person that overcame this. I want to be this person that turns this around. So the deeper there you go into how messed up the situation was, the more fulfilling it will be at the end. How about the end of a story, the takeaways? How much do you talk about the take what, you know, you tell a story or your team, it's done, and then kind of recap the wrap up of it. The good leaders share the takeaway in one simple sentence. And he comes back to what we said before. Not like, oh, from that story, here are my 10 takeaways. I don't know, just share one. And for example, if it's your own story, you can say what I learned from that experience is X, Y, and Z. And then just follow up with one simple sentence. Or maybe with the team, right? And you can say, hey, be so that one, every single one of you to go out there and do X, Y, and Z. And that's it, right? Don't try to have an up again, five takeaways. Just focus on one simple takeaway. And then, frame that S, what I learned from that experience or frame it as a clear call to action, what they should change. Philip, under pressure, so in sports, you have all these different opportunities to communicate with your team in a locker room after the game and practice and meetings. And some of those, you have more time. In a game, there's a timeout, quick 30 seconds, things like that. And you need to communicate information to your team quickly. What have you learned about the role of pressure and short and time in high level communicators, story or not story, but just the way that they navigate those situations? That one is the secret of the best communicators is that they can just respond within a minute in the most structured way, even completely under pressure. And now, how do you learn this skill? Because this is ultimate communications confidence. The tool that has helped me become the most effective communicator possible was improv. Improv, improv, improv, improv. And that means, sure, you can join an improv group. That's one thing. But the other thing is just you get a random topic. And you just improvise on the spot based on a timer. So you say, hey, one minute, boom, random topic. And you improvise and do that over and over and over again. You mess up, you're completely suck right because at the start it's so difficult. But the more you do that, the more you learn you teach your brain to trust yourself. Whatever comes up, you'll be fine. That thinking once I say, hey, whatever happens, difficult question, I lose my train of thought. I'll be okay. That is the single most important tool that you can develop within communication. Because then just letting go and you just say, hey, I'm here to help my team. I know in improv, one of the tools improvisers uses yes and accepting whatever is said and then adding to it communication and improv and how this relates to coaching, how that can be useful. So yes and as far as we accept what happens and then we just continue to flow to whatever's next. Similar to what you just said, but I know that's part of a lot of the improv stuff. Yeah, that is pretty more for group improv where you improvise something together and that is usually good if you want to find more creative ideas. And so I'm from Germany right and we're usually not used to be the most constructive. And then everyone is like, you share an idea and everyone is like, no, but that doesn't make sense. And so yes and helps in those situations, what to say. Hey, yes and you build up on that idea. So it's great for brainstorming, for coming up with creative ideas. Now what I had in mind there, this is more of a solo exercise. We can play some excercise here to give everyone a flavor. But that is much more like improvising a story by yourself or a speech. Got it. Okay, Phil, if you want, we can throw it out as well. If it works, it works. You have any exercise you want. Okay, I have something in mind. So I build this free tool that will give you a random topic. and you have one minute to improvise a speech. I can give you a quick flavor of how that looks, okay? And then you can try it out. So here I have, let's make it 60 seconds, so that's short. I have now 10 seconds to repair, and it will be a completely random topic. So let's see how to make peace with past mistakes. Cool. I'm the person who over-analyses everything that comes to my head. I'm just like, "Ah, what I do here? What do I do there?" And last week I was hiking with my best friend, and I noticed again, I was analyzing the mistakes in my head thinking of, "Was I not asking him enough questions? Did he feel included?" And I was just in my mind. But then in this moment, I somehow on this time caught myself, I'm like, "Ah, what is this voice there going on?" And I labeled it in the moment. "This is my overthinker. This is my people-pleaser." And so I saw this little philip just over-critical, and then I just let that little philip go, and I continued to hike much more peacefully. And so right now, any time that those mistakes, those past mistakes come up, I usually just try to refer this little philip-esque people-pleaser and just try to let it go. Love it. Glad you did that. So you see, it's very short. I had 10 seconds to prepare one minute to speak. Completely random topic. Do you guys want to give it a try or? Can, no. [LAUGHTER] Sure, I'll try it. OK, let's go. Then your topic is going to be, why I chose my career path. You have seven seconds, and the new improvise is 60 seconds speech. I was early Friday morning. I was working at my desk and my old job. Paper after paper was coming in, number after number. And I knew in that moment, as I was processing all those pieces of paperwork, it was not something I wanted to do. Later that afternoon, the thought in my head kept being, this is not your path. This is not what you meant to do. And there was a JV basketball practice that my friend invited me to later that day. As soon as work was done, I dashed out and I sprinted to that practice. And as soon as I got on the court and smelt the wood, put my whistle on, I knew that this was indeed the path I needed. The next morning, God up said, I'm done with this old job, done with this old life. And forevermore, I became a coach. [LAUGHTER] Hey, I'm impressed. Good stuff. Damn, that was super impressive. Nice. Did you somehow know what X says would be coming? Did you prepare for this? No. That was so good. Wow, I'm impressed. I'm sweating. You can't see it on screen. No, I'm impressed. That was very good. Thank you. So I guess, Phil, for someone like for me, though, how would you coach me on that to be better? I was trying to quickly put myself into a place and give some thoughts and then an action, but what would your thoughts be? On this one, could I give you now some feedback on how to tell that story, maybe a little bit more impactful? Yeah, for sure. But on this one, how you did it right now, this is the goal of the exercise. You went into a specific moment. So actually, on this one, I wouldn't give you any tips on what to improve, because what you did on this improviser is that's exactly it. You improvised on a topic you didn't prepare for, and you just had fun with that. And so if I can give more tips on, in general, how to get the most out of improv, as I've seen so many people be very awkward about it. And the first one is to have fun with that. You will mess up, you will say terrible, stupid things. And so the more you're like, "Huh, okay, I'm just having fun. The better it is, that's the first one." The second one is to not acknowledge your mistakes. Now, what does that mean? Oftentimes we fuck up and then we're like, "Ah, this was so bad, I hate myself." But don't do this. Anytime that we give a speech, people usually don't notice when we make a mistake. Even if you mess up, well, don't share it. Just go on. It's if you right now we're delivering an Oscar speech, 'cause your audience actually hasn't seen anything of that. And so that's the second one. And then the third one, try to, after time, give it some structure when you respond. And so anytime that something comes up, you're already in your mind, boom, I know a structure. And the more you can say that upfront, I know those ones we went on to storytelling, but let's say when you go for a debate topic, like, "Hey, should pineapple be in pizza?" Give us a structure immediately. We say, "Hey, the three reasons why pineapple should be in pizza." And boom, you shared straight away. But yeah, those would be my tips when it comes to improv. - Philip, when you were talking about not acknowledging mistakes and that most times the audience won't know that it was a mistake. Irrespective of whether it's a basketball team, or your business team, whatever your peers, are there some general commonalities that maybe if you look at public speaking or talking in front of a group, speakers should be aware of to avoid, like you said, acknowledging mistakes because the majority of the time, your audience doesn't know it's a mistake. Or I guess like, yeah, these things, we should be aware of when speaking to an audience irrespective of profession, place, time. - Good question. One big mistake that I see with any speaker is that they try to fit too much content into a short session. If the most advanced speakers, they don't only think from a content perspective, but they think, how can I make this as engaging as possible? And so when you see some more professional speakers speak, they actually have something that raises the anticipation, makes it more interesting every minute. Good speakers, maybe every three minutes. And then every speaker is maybe, "Oh, hook at the start." That's not enough. You wanna think constantly. How can I regain their attention? Because as you know, attention does not work like this. Oh, I have their attention at the start. Now I can just bore them with some boring stuff for the rest of their speech. This is not how attention works. You gotta re-earn it every minute. And so constantly think, how can I bring so much variety as possible in there? Maybe I share a quick story, maybe a quick show of hands, maybe an analogy, maybe a mini quiz, a competition. So constantly think, how can I make this as engaging as possible? Fast model tools have been part of basketball for years. And now, fast draw, fast scout, and faster crew are integrated into Huddles' full basketball system. You can move from play diagrams to film clips, to player tracking, all in one connected workflow. The tools you trust, now working even better together. Check it out at huddled.com/slapenglass to see what's new. Phil, we wanna shift to a segment on the show. We call Start/Subper-Sit. Usually we do this in basketball terms, we're gonna do this with some storytelling stuff right now. We're gonna give you three options around a topic. You'll start one of those options. You'll sub one of 'em and sit one of 'em. And then we'll discuss your answer from there. So, Phil, if you're set, we'll give you the Start/Sub-Sit. Yeah, let's go. All right, Phil, this one we've crafted, we call it powerful things that coaches can use in the locker room to reinforce a culture and idea of vision, all the things we talked about. And of the three things we're gonna give you, your start would be not the most difficult, but one that could be maybe the most lost in translation that would, you'd have to be mindful of in terms of how you use it versus then your sit would be probably the most like on the nail. So, option one is using quotes, putting quotes up in the locker room, again, to express our vision or culture. Option two would be visuals, whether it's graphics, a poster, a chart, or option three would be what we call like a totem, using a physical object to represent, again, the idea of the belief, the value. So, Start/Sub-Sit, a quote of visual or a totem, and which one requires the most finesse, or need to be the most mindful of one using to help represent this meaning. I love them. So, let's start with the sit. The sit is definitely the quote. Quotes are so overused, especially those generic ones. You're not gonna inspire anyone. Start the objects, what you said, the third option? Yeah. That one, if you play this well, that's next level. So, what that means, you make things a visual matter for. So, for example, you have two objects. Let's say here I have my phone and my water bottle. And I say one is team A, and then this is team B, and then I make them interact with each other. That usually gets so much attention, because that just is on a very simple level that everyone gets. So, if people can start that, I think it's a superpower. And with using an object, I mean, obviously, you'll have a story around it. Should the object be included in the story you tell, or the hope is that the story is transferable. Everyone kind of connects that object through the story or should that object be in the story. I would see the object separate from the story, much more visual prop to bring your message to life. For example, recently I recorded a video about, actually hooks in a presentation. And there I held a balloon labeled attention. And then I did different things. And every time the attention, the balloon, lost a little bit air. And at the end, boom, I popped the balloon, attention gone. And so that was then a very visual hook to get people to remember the key concept in that moment. And so, for example, if a basketball coach had that same thing with, I don't know, balloon labeled, scale, confidence, whatever it is, and then does certain thing to deflate it, or to pop it, people will remember that visual metaphor for the rest of their lives. If I could ask about your quote, the sit. I think we've all been around leaders or coaches that have you. quotes really well where it hits you or sets the theme for the day or whatever it is. How and when are quotes used well? I know you sat it here, but how have you seen it done well? The quote is done well if the quote A is novel so that you haven't heard it a million times and it's surprising. Oh, wait, what? Ah, okay. If it does that and then it's obviously inspire. If it does that, it's a good quote. But I'm yet to encounter a quote that has changed thousands of people. Sure. Now you take like, ah, marching with the king or whatever, but in the day to day business or so, I've not seen quotes having a lasting impact. They're not bad, right? They're still better than just normal communication if you don't have anything at all. But if I compare that to other tools like stories like making a bring in other analogies or so, I think then the quote is the least favorite. Kind of zooming out of this whole question for a second. When we were discussing this conversation with you, there's the storytelling element and then there's these things that you can use as a coach that add to the stories and the culture of your program. And so using the quotes and the visuals and the totems and things like that, what are your suggestions or thoughts of how these things just aid storytelling in general and when people do it well? Yeah. Those objects can be a powerful visual prop, but usually what I try to teach people is when your story is so well crafted, you don't need a single prop, you don't need to have the best delivery, you just connect so much to your audience that the other tools become meaningless. And then I would say focus on the story itself. Don't think too much about having all the crazy stuff with their different objects because they sometimes take people out of the moment. And so instead of then being in their head and really having this movie playing in their minds, they're then looking at your hands, whatever you're doing there with the prop. So I would say focus on the story and less so on the visual props. And like the ideal world with the leader crafting this great story and if we frame it through culture like how you want to build your culture, your vision, if you can craft a story about whatever the three components are, is any visual representation necessary? I mean as far as locker rooms will have their culture out there, the three things, you know, or graphs. What role do they play or is it that you think if you really focus in on the story that the buy-in and the retention will be there that these things can kind of follow the wayside? I would say those are all great things, great tools and you should still continue going. What I would not say is just because you know how incredible stories get rid of all the other cool traditions that you have. Each one of them is a tool to bring the team closer together, to keep up the discipline, whatever it is. And so use them. Just don't think that you always have to merge them all be together in let's say one story. But keep using them, those traditions, those customs, they're beautiful. That's actually what defines oftentimes the culture. Philip, you're off the start, super sit, hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. That was a lot of fun. You put me on the hot seat. We've got a final question to close the show. Before we do, really appreciate your time and your thoughts today. This was really fun for us and I know for our audience. So thank you for making the time. Pleasure. So Philip, our last question that we ask all the guests is what's the best investment that you've made in your career? The best investment that I've made in my career was doing more active walking meditation. And what do I mean with that? I've meditated already for like 10 years, pretty consistent. But I remember when I started my business, which is so anxious, right? Constantly just being dealt with frustrations within securities. An active walking meditation is the thing that has helped me feel much more confident, much more peace, much more in the moment. And so how does it work? Usually what I do is sometimes it's guided meditation, sometimes it's not, but I just put on some very inspiring music and I just then walk around as if I'm already this super hero, this god, whoever I want to energy, I want to communicate. And then I just focus on feeling that feeling, maybe that super confident person, maybe this person that has incredible abundance. And then I just walk through the park or the street and I tap into those very high emotions. And doing that for like an hour has been the single biggest factor why I could then bounce back so quickly from any anxiety so on securities and really focus on being present and inspiring. K-PAT, that was really fun, kind of great to stretch ourselves and get into a fun conversation and yeah, some fun improv stories up here, just sweating bullets. Ready to you? Yeah, some of us were better men today than others. You disappeared from the screen when he was asking which one of us is going to do it. Then we can be tricky that way, you know. But we made it, we persisted. So that was a ton of fun. We really thank Bill for coming on and context to this conversation. We've been on this storytelling theme a little bit, I think as we continue to grow as coaches and find interesting subjects, it's come up a lot with high level leaders and coaches of how you craft the story of your program and your season and relating to individuals and storytelling or not. There was so much in here today, just about communication and how people learn and retain stuff and Philip was really fun today. So we appreciate him coming on. Yeah, I think you said it too in the prep. You know, we're in such a unique position as coaches. You're talking to individual athletes, talking to the group, talking to sponsors or boosters. You have so many different audiences at times and then also different environments and everything that encapsulates how you communicate or how you think about storytelling or public speaking and the vast array of skills required or put upon as a coach from communication. We've talked about sports performance, all the stuff outside of like exonose. So always fun when we can do conversations like these. Like you mentioned, challenge ourselves, but also very relevant and important to just the many hats we wear as coaches at times. 100%. Well, let's get into our three takeaways and for that first one, I will throw it to you. Yeah, the first takeaway for me was I'll start with the opening question we post to him. Just useful frameworks for coaches and how they can think about coaching and his very first thought. I thought for me just zooming into the moment and that as a storyteller or coaches that we can miss the mark by saying to peripheral to kind of zoomed out and really willing to go into the story and I think as we discussed his past framework, place, action, speech thoughts, but especially the thoughts zooming in willing to be vulnerable, share the emotion to get the connection. And like he said change the perspective of the group to get like the true power of the story across. So we'll cover several other takeaways, but his framework, I thought we got an concise communication was very concise and actionable for coaches there and just four things to keep in mind of. I think kind of some other takeaways also knowing when like stories are useful or when to apply stories and he mentioned when trying to convey values of course mentoring or convey vision. I thought those were a good compass of when stories are beneficial and can really have retention create buy-in. Good stuff there took a couple of ones I circled to you kind of eight mile me there a little bit. But adding to your point what's interesting to us is that as you sit at the top there's so many situations in coaching and leadership where we are selling where we are selling our vision, our culture who we are our style of play. And just having these tools to inspire people to get groups of people motivated in a direction. I think it's worth crafting this part of our toolkit because as much as we want to just talk about X's and all that which we love of course but you're always trying to pull people and I think we've all been in a room or been on a team or of known someone that they just can pull people together and a lot of times as you think back like they were pretty darn good at maybe telling a story or crafting a message in a way that people gravitated towards. And I think that that's to the point of what having fill up on today and some of the things you just mentioned. It's just useful to think about and I'm with you. I love the past stuff just like as a quick anything you think about crafting a story around does it have these elements to it. I really like the one to two minute thing also they wanted to simple sentence takeaways I think is big. I think his coaches were oftentimes in a position where we are trying to explain takeaways of something always take a ways of a practice take a ways of a loss of a win. No you name it we're always in this position of trying to do that in a concise way and I think his thoughts there about being concise one big takeaway make it memorable don't ramble over and over. I thought that was really powerful because I mean you and I both know you're just always in a takeaway position as a coach and you're crafting how and when people are taking things away in a sense and I liked his thoughts on that that was a good part of it. On the concise note I think he gave a really good tip we followed up like how stories can miss their mark is when we get caught up in too much context to your point we're obviously always thinking about our team and if there's a story we want to tell or whatever however we want to address our team like it's probably something we've for the most part I think we'll get down the line when we talk about the improv but for the most part we've probably thought about it a lot probably unhealthily too much so there's all this context we're thinking about and then we get to the team and if we just dump all that context on them it can dive They loot the message we're trying to deliver or the impact of the story we're hoping for or changing behaviors or actions. And I think he raises a good point. Don't give too much context. Get as close to the action as you can and just kind of get into it. And that will have more effect or be more of an effective communication device than overbearing your audience with too much context. Yeah, I think you just hit on the head and just to put a bow on this point, just starting with the answer and then giving the context to someone asked you a question, just answer right at the top and then give the context if needed. I thought that was a good takeaway of some of his tips for high level communicators, especially under pressure, but really anytime, I thought that was really good too. Yeah, he talked about I think it was communicating in frameworks, be up front with it and then get into it. Yeah, so I'll give one really quick miss of mine here, which wasn't by Philip of course, but the humor and just the emotions and what kind of stories and how that plays in. It's always interesting. You know, we've touched on that a few times over the years here. I feel as a coach, when you're, you know, for me, 18 to 22 or I don't know, with the portal and 25 year old men at times, but you like can fall into trying to use humor to get points across because let's say for adult males, it's like a way to bond. But like what's the balance of how you use that and first the other types of emotions, but continue to explore that is interesting. I agree. You trigger like an interesting thought how relatable the story needs to be. Again, we as coaches continue to get older and our teams usually hover around that same age group. For sure. And as we slowly get out of touch, no, that's generations. All right. We'll keep them moving here. I'll throw it to you for the second takeaway. So second takeaway that I feel for every coach we put on the start, subset, hot seat after having to be on the freaking give a one minute speech live on air. At least he gave you a prompt, you know, I thought you're just going to have to just go. Yeah. Honestly, give me a 10 second prompt. I don't remember. That 10 seconds went like snap of a finger. I blocked out and just you're like, we'll fairly just kind of what happened. Yeah. Exactly. It was much more eloquent and old school than me. But the second takeaway, I'm actually going to go to his best investment answer and the walking meditations and found a lot of value in that just of, okay, maybe not everyone's going to do walking meditations or what not like him. But as coaches, how do we find the physical way or the ways that we can work through things? And I've heard a lot over the years, different takeaways on meditation or breathing or whatever and going for these walks and finding ways to do that. I think Brad Stevens on his first episode with us talked about getting out walking and just working through ideas physically. And you know, we talked about a lot of stuff today with storytelling and emotions, but I thought that was really good, especially as this is coming out early in the mid season. Those stressors and those emotions are coming full swing and how do we find healthy ways to deal with them on a day to day basis and everybody's got different setups of course of life. I just like that. I think we had kind of point on one doing it, but then how he did it where he's putting on music and he's imagining, you know, he's kind of overcoming some of the things. I thought that was a unique point at the end. Yeah, I can actually tie his best investment and then the improv together. I think both of those were great actionable ways to overcome anxiety or help with anxiety, mitigate anxiety through building confidence. I think like he said, walking around just with the energy, the emotion he wants to convey and the same thing with the improv just using it to build communication confidence. Those are really invaluable tools, especially as leaders, just building self-trust and, you know, we're going to be in so many uncomfortable situations, but building the confidence in oneself and getting comfortable being uncomfortable. I think is what we always tell our players and I think those were two really good examples that can help with that stuff and help us cope with situations that coaches or us as humans are always going to be in regardless of profession. Pat, I just want to give you the opportunity. Did you want to also do a one minute speech here at the end since I did it on the air? Or is that. I think we probably ran out of prompts, so, you know, we'll save it for the next wrap-up. Yes. I just wanted to give you the opportunity. Well then, let's move to our third takeaway and I'll throw it back to you. Yeah. Third takeaway, I will go to our start subset. For me, it was the quotes. He spoke really well on the objects and how you prescribed meaning to them, but I thought the quotes was kind of a refreshing look in the sense that everyone loves quotes. We fall in love with quotes, but they're oftentimes very overused and they lose their meaning and to his credit, he talked about in order for a quote to up through sticking power, you know, they got to be novel, they got to be surprising and they need to inspire. To your point, quotes is a powerful thing. What I took away from it is we've all heard the run of the mill ones, but if you're going to use them, they've got to one, like you said, be novel or surprising and then the inspire part is interesting because I think there's a lot of ways that coaches can use those quotes to inspire within their own team. So it was interesting to sit just because I think it's coaches, we love quotes, just to use them within the team and kind of helps, I think, at the storytelling aspect. And so, they're easy things that before and practice to kind of wrap things around. I think it's just like being considerate of what you're using and does it actually stick and does it actually kind of fit, I guess, the flow of what you're doing. So his start, which was like the totem or the physical thing, we had a really, really great slapping vast plus round table that coaches talked about ways that they honor certain things within their program, whether players of the week or things that they want to do over the course of the year, like signing things and like these physical objects. And I thought that was an interesting part of this is how are they powerful, when do they become the most powerful? It's up to the coach to tell the story of that object, that totem, whatever it is, that bell, the thing you have in the locker room and that when done well, that can really be an impactful, powerful thing that helps craft the story or the themes or the culture of your program. Yeah. It makes it so unique. That's what you imagine, like we love quotes. I think even visuals, and of course the visuals can be unique in terms of like tailored to whatever you're trying to convey. But I think especially what the totems or the objects, they're really unique, sometimes silly, but I think that's what gives it the staying power or the buy. And on top of the story, you wrap around it. All things are equally that you've nailed the story part. Like I think the uniqueness of it and it's not contrived and it's not like overused that even maybe sometimes visuals can fall into. Yeah. I gave one kind of miss earlier as we start wrapping this up, is there anything else you wish we would want Deepron? And sort of the same vein as you dig in Deepron emotion of the story teller of the leader. So and more so probably wrapped around like anger, like as we just get upset and how we navigate emotion in the story and the timing of when to tell the story, you know, if you've encountered failure success. I think those were maybe things that, you know, I was thinking about as we prepped and would have liked to maybe go into a little bit further time permitting. Yeah, it's interesting. The anger piece is interesting because it's bubbling there all season for everybody. Yeah. And how do you use it or how do you use it well in the right moments? Yeah. There was told to me once about anger and coaching that kind of stuck with me that there's times where you want to show your anger without losing your anger to your team. And like it's a fine balance. I want to show them I have it. And if I need to get to it, I can get to it for the point of getting a message across, but without blowing the roof off, house on fire all the time because of my anger. And I think that's like an interesting balance of when and how to use it. Anger and disappointment. Maybe they're the same and same. But I think how you channel it, you talked about with stories like to really inspire change or action or reaction. I think an interesting subject. Yeah. Powerful emotions to move people. If a player or team knows you're disappointed in them, maybe more than angry at them because I think players get used to coach being angry about something. But like disappointed is like a pretty big thing and how do you use that term? They fall below a standard or how they whatever communicate with each other can be useful. So good stuff. Once again, we thank Phil for coming on and sharing a ton of actionable advice for us today. We appreciate everybody listening and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglass.com for more information on the free newsletter, slapping glass plus and much more. Have a great week coaching and we'll see you next time on slapping glass. Or do we have a name yet for this thing? Have like slapping back or slapping glass. Slap and glass. That's kind of funny. I like that. That's good. Slap and glass.