Suzie Muirhead on Athlete Ownership, Mentorship, and Rewriting the Development Conversation

We were pretty good at reviewing past performances from a technical and tactical perspective, but not very good at looking forward and looking holistically, looking at mental skills, looking at, you know, combining the conversation around athlete life stuff, like nutrition and athlete well-being aspects as well. So, they raised my game tool, forces that holistic conversation in a way that's way less awkward and uncomfortable for coaches that are much more comfortable in that technical and tactical space. How can we empower athletes to take control of their own development? Too often, coaching is about giving instructions, but what if it was about guiding conversations instead? My guest today is Susie Muahe. The creator of Raise My Game, a tool designed to help athletes and their coaches navigate performance planning, personal growth and decision making. Susie's journey from New Zealand hockey player to mentor and innovator has shaped her belief that true development starts with ownership, trust, and the right conversations. Whether you're a coach, a parent, or an athlete, this episode is packed with insights to help you level up. Enjoy. Susie, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. My pleasure. Excited to get into Raise My Game, something I came across last year and really curious to understand the origin story really. It's always a fascinating question on the show is to understand the people behind the products or behind the coaching, and so could you take us into why you came up with this idea and why you're so passionate about it? Yes, I guess coming out of my career as a hockey player, I really felt that we could do performance planning better. I felt that we could create better conversations between either a coach or an athlete or a mentor and an athlete, and that passion for helping young people really achieve their potential is really just stuck with me. I guess Raise My Game started as a passion project, which I did in the background alongside other consulting work, and it just kind of never went away, because I was just still really passionate about providing some real practical tools that could help people to get really clear on what was important for their development, what their priorities were, and then help galvanise or align all of the key stakeholders and important people around them to actually support them effectively. I had a conversation just yesterday with a young athlete that I've been working with for a while, and he had this important decision to make around whether or not he was going to play for one team versus another team, club versus school, and I think as I was navigating this conversation, I was thinking, "Oh, this is probably your perfect scenario to have a card sort and help him to figure it out," because yeah, it was stressful and there was uncertainties. I'm curious as to how you think about what a good conversation looks like or feels like you mentioned Better Conversations was one of the drivers for Raise My Game, and so I'd love to start there before we get into more of the tactile sides of what this does for young athletes, developing athletes, and high performing athletes. In your opinion, Susie, what is a great conversation look like or feel like? Yeah, so what the Raise My Game tools do is basically force the conversation to go really deep and really wide, and the way that it does that is because you sort through these competency cards, and so every kind of topic or issue that is important for being a top athlete is touched on and discussed and assessed, I guess, by the athlete and they drive the conversation, they explain why they think that's a strength or something in the middle or something for them to work on. That's the key part of it, but obviously it starts with, what do you want to achieve long-term and who is in your circle of support and what are your big goals for this year? What does your training work look like? That's just sets a context for this conversation driven by the card sort. Funny you should mention about the decision-making, because once you get really clear on what it is you want to achieve, then it helps you make those decisions because the priorities fall into line. Amelia Kerr, the cricketer, she has a story on my website about a big decision she had to make, so she, when she was a youngster, she was a really strong spin-bola, but also wanted to become an all-rounder with her batting as well, and got offered a contract to play in England where she would be batting down the order, so it would get limited opportunities to bat, wouldn't have a batting specific coaching, and she opted to stay in New Zealand where she could work with a batting coach every day and really put the time into a batting. So to turn down a lucrative contract offer, which a lot of people would have said was crazy, early on in her career, but because she was clear on her goals that she wanted to be an all-rounder, a better and a bowler, that decision became a lot easier for her. So those sorts of conversations can be had where you take the time to actually consider what the long-term goals as well as just what might look good in the short term. In your career, playing hockey and right through to the highest level over a long period of time, what were some of those key conversations that you had to navigate? Was that a part of the motivation? Was it the experiences that you had? Is an athlete and perhaps some frustrations that you experienced? Yeah, absolutely. I was really fortunate to have a really strong mentor who sat outside of the coaching structure or the hockey news Ellen structure. When did you find that mentor at what point of the journey? Yeah, right. It was really curious. Was that 14, 16, 20? I probably would have been 20, so maybe a year or two into my time in the Black Sticks, but quite early on. Right. And my mentor saw leadership potential in me, so I really encouraged me to go out and speak at schools to take on leadership responsibility, even though I didn't have a formal role as a leader. And I guess that led towards by the end of my career being Vice Captain and Captain of the team. But he also helped me navigate things like injuries and selections and priorities around how to become a better hockey player. And yeah, so I was really fortunate. And I guess I wanted to recreate that experience for other young athletes. I also found with certain coaches that we were pretty good at reviewing past performances from a technical and tactical perspective, but not very good at looking forward and looking holistically. So looking at mental skills, looking at combining the conversation around athlete life stuff, like nutrition and well, athlete wellbeing aspects as well. So the raised my game tool forces that holistic conversation in a way that's way less awkward and uncomfortable for coaches that are much more comfortable in that technical and tactical space. If we think about the key problem that raised my game, talks to, what are you seeing? We're living in a world that's changing and the kids coming through education and through the sporting system are arguably different, at least in their experience. I think there's still a lot of similarities in terms of the needs that they have compared to a generation ago, but how that shows up tactically, I think, is a lot different and the world that they're living in is a lot different. And so what are you seeing from that point of view, the young people, what do they need, what do they experience, and what are the hot topics that raise my game, talks to? Yeah, I think young people have a lot more information at their fingertips. And a lot more connections and things are much more instant. They want things to happen fast. And I think what raised my game does is it gives athletes ownership. And I think young people want control. They don't want to be told, do this without questioning. And I think that ownership, I think, throughout New Zealand's sporting history has proved crucial for success. So when an athlete is on the field, on the training, on the track, or the pitch, or whatever, they need to be able to rely on themselves to make tactical decisions, to handle pressure, to communicate effectively. simplespieyorum si de Goat, si de Goatliner garantisme. Te�iagisame, ma твоja howera moa- hackitabita 9gen e a practic Martお ef cyf bok i hyo east ― Which is the conversation about planning and it says but it's put the cards in the affilites hands, let's understand their goals, let's understand their challenges and their thoughts. And give them the opportunity to have a voice and to take control and to set up an action plan that they are motivated about. That they are committed to and that's the beauty of raising my game. Particularly with young athletes where they don't know what they don't know, so you're thinking, how can they lead a conversation when they don't know what they don't know. And that's where the competency cards really help them to not only self-reflect but also for some increase awareness of what is required to be successful. Yeah, digging into those competency cards is definitely something I want to get to soon. But before we do, you mentioned that your mentor was a crucial part of the puzzle for your career in sport. And I'm wondering if you could talk me through a little bit about how that worked. How did that mentor facilitate conversations to help you create, I would imagine, understanding and also reason. I think one of the things that's really important for young people is to help them filter all of this information that they're getting, that they have available at their fingertips. And make it relevant through really solid reasoning. So why should I do X versus Y and how is it going to help me as opposed to the scrolling through Instagram or YouTube to get information but not really being able to place it? I think that's what wisdom can be read. Yeah, so how did that mentorship work for you? I'd love to get a little bit deeper into the mechanics of that relationship. Both in my relationship with my mentor and with facilitators that I've been training to use, raise my game. It's very much about facilitation. So that word that you've used is right on the money. So, you know, facilitation is asking the right questions, is listening well, is reflecting back what you're seeing, what you're hearing, is being able to call out things that don't align or call out things that are being avoided because they're too difficult to deal with and sometimes that actually might be relationships between two people in this in their circle of support that are not working. So it's providing that opportunity for pause and reflection, but in a way that they're facilitating it, they're not giving you the answers or telling you the answers. And that can be frustrating for a mentor when you as an athlete make a wrong decision or a misstep and you go backwards or make a mistake or, you know, or. Or it doesn't quite go how you thought it might go so you're having to, you know, you lose some time and you have to restart or whatever. But that's part of it is learning from your mistakes and being willing to give them the space to make mistakes and learn from them, but also holding up that mirror and allowing them to reflect on it. Yeah, and but it all does come back to, I certainly with my mentor and with the athletes that I've mentored myself, it comes back to trust that you've got to have a foundation of trust. And if you don't have that, then you're not able to make as much progress with the relationship and actually support the athlete effectively. You know, I, my mentor worked in HR so had really good facilitation skills anyway. And yeah, and not only was able to, you know, help me reflect, but also was big supporter, you know, when I was struggling or down or just needed some encouragement. I remember a time when I was struggling with confidence and he'd make me do crazy things like head say, right, I want you to go and get all the medals that you've ever won and I want you to wear them under your clothes for the day. I feel like what baby, I'm not doing that. Or he'd say, I remember I had an injury once and he goes, right, I want you to go and get all your food and your fridge and get a vivid and right on it. And I'm like, I'm wearing a green repair juice. This is growing rips every time, you know, you're fueling, you're thinking positively about recovering from you. And I'm like, that's once again, that's crazy. And he had a really practical way of, of, you know, helping me move forward. I remember a particular letter he wrote me once and it was written as if it was from my mouthguard. So, you know, some, some quit, some quirky and creative ways to connect with me and it became a friendship and has lasted the test of time. And I know those, those, the different perspective that he brought, the quirky ways of bringing a little bit of joy, but a little bit of variability until the experience was a hugely effective at changing the narrative or providing a different twist on the narrative, which I think is so powerful for learning. And eventually, as you say ownership to us, like, I've never really thought about it like that before. And that provides options, doesn't it? It allows young people to go, there are other ways. And that's, that can be really hopeful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just about changing perspective, isn't it? It's about looking at your problem from a different perspective and that might be going, well, what's the absolute worst that can happen? Actually, it's not that bad or it might be going, you know, what can I learn? This, you know, this, this has been terrible. But what, what have I learned from it and what have I, what have I added to my repertoire next time I face something this challenging? So, you know, that can really help you to move forward, depending on what you're facing. So, what are the different pieces of how raise my game works? You've talked about facilitation, which sounds like it's a, it's a crucial piece of the experience. And then, and then you have the card deck with, which I'd love to hear a lot more about like what, what does that card deck cover and what are some of the different domains of development that it explores. And then anything else that is really crucial in the process so that the facilitation of the conversation, how does that work? And what have you seen makes that, or makes the magic? Do they need to be removed from, you know, the coaching environment for, for example, or can the coach facilitate this conversation? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. And then what does the card deck itself look like? Yeah, so there's a few questions in there. So, it can be facilitated by someone that's independent. And in some situations that can be an advantage because the independent person may not have a hand in selection or an assessment or judgment of the athlete. And therefore the athlete can feel free to be a bit more open on the other hand. Sometimes it is the right thing for the coach to be the one that goes through it. So they have the overview and putting themself in the best position to be able to support the athlete holistically. And, you know, the information that they gain through the process enables that. I've also seen it done really effectively by retired athletes who, you know, have a real strong empathy for for the journey and, and that can be that can work really well as well. And then, and then other things to consider for sports or for athletes is who else might want to be in the room like is it mum and dad? Is it another coat or, you know, multiple coaches? Is it a strength and conditioning person or nutrition person or a mental skills coach? And thinking about what stages of the journey they want to bring those people into the room. So I've seen it done every which way. But one of the things as I was working with high performance for the last couple of years was even so they would work with independent facilitators and then they and then those independent facilitators would then bring in the circle of support. So, so that might be then the coach, the strength and conditioning person or an athlete life advisor or whoever else. as part of that athlete's tight circle of support. For my athlete that I mentored, it was just mum and coach and me, but for others, you know, circle might be bigger or smaller. The process with the athlete, it's, there's sort of three steps. The first step is looking at the context for the athlete. So some foundational questions like what's their why, what are their values and what do they think their super strengths are, or strength, or strengths, what are their long term goals, what are their big goals for this year, who is in their circle of support, they're in a circle, in a trusted circle and they're out of circle. And then what does their training look like? So that's sort of step one, which is really just lets, lets figure out the lay of the land. And then the second, and then in the second, if I could, if I could just jump in for a second, and then I've got some questions as yes you go. I think one thing we see in development sometimes, and I know you're developing a cardiac for schools. So one of the questions around the why is sometimes the kids don't really know, like there's an intuitive joy to be a part of the experience. They may have talent and that talent may have got them to some representative sport and to create some status around how they identify with sport. So they find themselves in this position and then you ask them, like what are your long term goals and they're really just not sure. And so I'm curious how you play that out, like how you create some why when restricting that, why may not actually be what we want to do. Like we may not want necessarily to say playing for New Zealand or going to the Olympics is something that they see in their future. It might just be, I want to enjoy some sport right now, because that's as far as I've got to in my reasoning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're 100%. And that's more, that's more common. So I'm just curious of how you deal with that conversation. Yeah, you're 100% right. Like that, why question is often a question, especially young athletes, I've never been asked that, and that will cause pause for some of them will struggle to answer that question. But bearing in mind that the raise my game conversation is a series of conversations. And as that athlete grows over time, they'll get clearer as to what their way is. You know, my athlete that I work with, one of my athletes that I mentor, she, she's just snapped her Achilles, and so I went through the big, do I really want to do this, continue to do this, and why is this important to me? So often those, you know, big kind of crossroads will really, that will come back to, why do I want to do it, and do I still want to do it. And so that, so that why will grow over time as they get clearer about, you know, why it's important to them, and they get faced with those key points where they have to decide whether they want to keep getting up at six o'clock in the morning and the dark and the rain and the wind. Sure. And it will change over time as well. Like a lot of older athletes will say, you know, I'm really motivated by inspiring the next generation, or I'm really motivated by, you know, by being able to give back to my community around an issue that's important to me, whether that's mental health or whether that's domestic violence or whether that's disability or whatever that is. I remember one of the early conversations I had on the podcast. It was with Kevin Melamo, and he was talking to me about his why throughout his career, which as we know was, was sustained over a quite a long period of time in the All Blacks. And he said, you know, looking to make the team as why was just all about selection. It was like, what do I need to do just to get in the team? And then there was a second phase that was just about the work that was required on the daily to stay in the team. And then as he started to get to the back end of his career, it was like, what's my legacy? You know, what am I going to be known? And how can I, as a lot of people talk to in the All Blacks, how can I leave the shirt in a better place? And so it was just fascinating to hear his why, and then we, even sort of earlier in his journey when he was still at school, was why was different again. So yeah, it does change. And it's fascinating to leave space for that. Yeah, and I do think your point earlier is really important to be able to get in the team. And I do think your point earlier is really important, like for young people, having an identity in sport is really valuable for them. You know, it gives them, you know, in particular, if I've got multiple hobbies, you know, so they have identity as someone who's clever or someone who's a good friend or someone who's got at sport or someone who's got at arts or whatever. If they have multiple identities, then, and then if things don't go well in one of those areas, then they have confidence to fall back on because they don't have all the eggs in one basket. So I think whilst they probably won't articulate that, I think that is really important for young people. They get a lot of. Yeah, that's the mentorship role that I think is critical. And there is no doubt that we are seeing more and more of that in new sport, where kids are identifying around one single domain, and that's, in our case, that sport. And what that means, as you say, is that the consequence of failure is crippling. Yeah. Because the question becomes, "Who am I if this doesn't work?" Yeah. And it's a key foundation of adolescent development that you really need to consider more. Yeah, I agree. So I love how that. You're opening space to have those conversations because they're super important. Yeah, and the other question they struggle with too is, "What are your super strengths?" They're like, "Oh!" And, you know, after doing their cards, or to me, their super strengths become abundantly clear, but they might just be too humble or have not thought of it in that way to actually be able to go, "My strengths are actually XYZ." And for some people, like I remember for Amelia, one of her super strengths that we identified was actually her circle of support, like her mum and dad were able to be there to help her with technical development, with mental skills, with. even with technical skills. So it doesn't necessarily have to be something that, you know, it could be something around you, or it could be just that you've been through a lot of hardship and you've been able to persevere or, you know, it doesn't have to be my catch and pass or whatever. Which is. Yeah, I love that idea of having and identifying those superpowers and then leveraging those. Which, as we know, lines up really nicely to a lot of the research around positive psychology. So, yeah, it's awesome that that's something that the card sort does for them. Yeah, so it's a working conversation, as it grows over time. But it is really interesting. How much they've thought about what their long-term goals are, like you say, like what if they have nothing they haven't thought about it, it's just. they're just living day to day, which is pretty common for young people as well. So going, "Well, what is important to you around your relationships?" And I've had really cool young people who say, "Actually, I want to reconnect with my little brother because we've competed so much during sport that it'll be quite nice to race to do some races together." Or, you know, or they're moving away to university and they really want to maintain their friendship groups that they've had through school and with home or whatever. So they actually. So that when we do the long-term goals, we look at all the different areas. So, work, work, study, travel, the physical. So the sport goals and the injury side and the well-being and the nutrition. And then we also look at some mental skills or leadership or community. So we sort of encourage them to look at all those, you know, diverse different areas of life. So that we are saying, you know, it is important to have goals holistically, not just, "I want to make a black cap or a. or black or a black stick or whatever." So step one is to establish the Y or as much of the Y as you can on the road to developing a Y that's going to change as you talk to. The Y, the goals, the circle of support and what they're. what they're kind of training week looks like at the moment. And then. And so what's step two? Step two is there are two cards, so the athletes. So there are specific card decks for each sport. Having said that there's also one for. it's more generic for schools, schools, and includes learning and sport. And so they would. then their first card. o geninen, o conceita mo co renovare r下 to o sega felpartie, i te i tei tei tei tei tei tei tei tei munein, ich te tea tea a tei tei te i tei tei tei tei teis teis teis tei teis teis actus o ok? Na te их da a tei tei tei te Admiralis A te i felpartie o tillaf l其实 cen humanis i itiner mark but to do other things, and they would do that for their high solid level of competition. So they go through the whole card deoclaining in that talking as they go, and the facilitator's asking questions, connecting the dots, asking about anything that doesn't quite line up. And then they get to end of that, the athlete then does a summary so just to see what they. what they felt were the big rocks that came out for them or the, you know, the sort of lightning bolt moments. And then what we do is we pick up the work-ons and then we give them the opportunity to pick up some of their strengths. Anything they think could be a substrinct, could be really important bread and butter, competency for them. So they then have a smaller pile of work-ons and strengths. And then we say, right, let's look at the next training block, so how long is that going to be, so that might be up to the next competition, so that might be through a four months time. And we say, now we want you to prioritise the competencies that you want to work on as a high priority middle priority or a low priority for that training blocks of three to four months. So then they would do that, which just helps you narrow down the things that you're putting into your action plan. So you're not spreading yourself too thin. And. So they're taking their work-ons to form the next training blocks prescription and how do the strengths come into that conversation? Yeah, so they would take a pile of cards, which would be all of their work-ons and some of their strengths. And they would then prioritise those again so that narrow the cards down further, the competencies down. So then you would usually come out with less than eight competencies, and they might be across the different areas across different pillars, so mental skills, physical, technical, tactical, athlete life. Yeah, so they might have one in each or it might be heavily weighted into a particular area. And sometimes they might have a grouping of competencies that are actually, if they do one set of actions, it's going to shift through or four different things. So then they would take those in. And how do the strengths and the work-ons come together? I'm just curious of something that they might have identified as being one of their superpowers, how they then prioritise that versus something that they see as a weakness or a work-on. Yeah, so both can come through as high priorities. So a strength to turn that into a super power could come through as high priority, so that would go into the action plan. And then something that they need to work on could come through as high priority. So again, that could go into the action plan. And is that the athlete's decisions or does the facilitate that? Yeah, it drives that completely. Yeah. Okay. So they decide what's high, high, medium, or low priority. The facilitator can ask questions if they're prioritising something that seemed to come up again and again during the card sort conversation, is it something that was blocking multiple things or that seemed like a major issue. So if there's a bit of avoidance there, they can ask questions. And how often would they prioritise, like, the only their biggest work-ons? Like something that I've seen would be, you know, if I had that conversation with a younger athlete and they identified the things that their strengths and their work-ons and then they decided they were going to prioritise some of those oftentimes. And definitely with young females, they would take the work-ons and they'd say, "I've got to get better at that. I've got to get better at that." As opposed to using a strength to drive the process as much as any of the work-ons. Yes. Is that something you've experienced and how would you go about recommending or facilitating that conversation? Yeah. So I have seen it a few times where, you know, particularly when you get to the end of the first card sort and you ask them to summarise where, and they just go straight to the work-ons and they talk about all the things they needed to work on and their assessment isn't balanced. The great thing about the card sort is they will end up with a big pile of stuff that they're great at as well as some stuff to work on so it doesn't get defensive because it is so balanced. And so then as a facilitator, your job is to put the balance back into the conversation. And if they're up again to question and to help the athlete reflect, and if there are things that are really going to help them get selected and which is, you know, it's in the questioning as well. Like, you know, if you're a selector and you're looking at yourself objectively, what is the thing that's going to get you over the line or, you know, either compared to another athlete or on race day is going to give you the edge over your competitors. So, you know, you can really bring up the importance of extending those strengths if that's needed in the conversation. So then, yeah, you get that step two, so then you end up with a deep and wide conversation but then narrowing down very quickly to some priorities. And then those priorities get taken through into step three, which is creating an action plan. And so the action plan is pretty, it's not rocket science, it's, you know, what is good look like, what is a good outcome look like in four months time for this competency or group of competencies, what are the actions that you want to put in place and then how we're going to measure success. So with the actions, the athlete might have some ideas but they also might not have any ideas so that's where the facilitator can help. But there's also a whole database of ideas on the back of every competency cards, there's six or eight different ideas of, here's some things you could put into your action plan to shift. This competency. And of course, we encourage them to also lean on any expertise or specialists within their circle of support if they're not in the room to make sure that. I'd love to hear, I'd love to get some example, Susie, of the competency and then some of the ideas around how they could action that competency because that's, I think that would be really valuable to the listeners and in particular some of the things that may be less tangible. So something like aerobic fitness, I would imagine is in there and I haven't seen the cards but I'd love to at some point. And we know that that's how we measure that is objective, we can run a test, we can get and then we can train towards it. But if we think about something like self-confidence, how do we measure that? How do we help the athlete to know that they're actually getting better? So yeah, some examples of that. We can talk through a few more. Yeah, so as I said on the back of every card, there is six or eight ideas. So something like self-confidence might be some tasks like going back and going, do a mind map of all the times that you achieve something that you're really proud of and what was it, what was it that you brought to that that made it successful? It might be going to talk to 10 people in your circle of support about what they see in you and why they think you might, why they think you'll be successful. It might be going, well, self-confidence comes from when we push through when it's difficult. So I think one of the things that I used to do was go every training session that I do in the rain or the wind or every game that I am able to win that is was tight and I had to dig deep is like a rock in the jar. So you might go even, well, let's create a jar of rocks and every time you do something you're proud of, then you put a rock in the jar. So that's another activity that people could do to go, well, I look at that jar and it's full because it's full of the effort that I've put in, the successes that I've had, the ones. So thinking of it going back to my mentor, Steve, who was always about creative ways to change your perspective and help you reflect, self-confidence might be, there might be 10 different ideas like that on the back of the cards. And then you go, well, how do you measure it? It might be going, okay, when you do your game or your race analysis, reflect back on what you were thinking in the key moments. and rate yourself out of 10, how confident were you, how positive were you or whatever scale you want to use. And actually, I'm really encouraging, especially young athletes to plan well, like to be intentional with every training session and every race to have some outcomes that they want to achieve, but also to reflect well, to go, what did I learn, what do I want to change and do differently? So putting those good landing and reflection processes into every day. Yeah, so every. Yeah, that's super helpful. I love it. I think that takes something that's quite. Yeah, like something that's really intangible in making it really objective, I think, is a really powerful technique. Do you have, perhaps, a couple of other competencies that you could share some of the action ideas? Some of the ones that, perhaps, are a little bit less talked about, so the things that are still crucial in the developmental puzzle, but perhaps aren't being talked about as much as some of the technical technical and perhaps physical domains of development. Yep, so I'm just looking at some. Flicking through some cards, so maybe composure is one that is less tangible. Love it. So on the back of that card, you've got starting with reflecting on the consequences, so discussing with your mentor what happened when I lost my composure, what were the impacts, and also maybe even looking at some high profile examples of other athletes. And then the next one is experimenting with ways to stay calm and managing your focus. So having strategies, so whether that's breathing or a routine or music or LP or thought dumping or some of those techniques, so experimenting with some of those and going, "Do any of those work for me?" And did they, how well did they work? Did I remember to use them when I got to that key moment? Another one might be key moment planning, so going, "What are some of the key moments that I might face?" You know, I get behind with a minute to go, I get swimming in a trough line and I get punched in the face or kicked in the face or my chain falls off. What are some of the key moments or things that might happen? What's going to, I'm going to pre-plan my reaction to them, what's my reaction going to be? So that you can click straight into that reaction when that thing happens in your race or your match. Then another exercise that I get people to do is that's on the back of the cards is focusing on what you can control. So you get into Draw a Wii Circle and inside Circle you write down everything you can control and outside of Circle's everything you can't control. So when you're starting to lose your composure, you can't click back into, is this something I can control or is this something that's outside of my domain of control and is actually unhelpful to have my focus on being frustrated or annoyed about that thing. So those are just a few examples for composure. Awesome, no, those are super. Pick another confidence. Super tactile and you can make lots of sense. Yeah, let's do one more. Okay, motivation and passion, maybe is another one that's pretty intangible and of course motivation and passion is if you're starting to lose it, that's a big red flag. So on that, the back of that card, we've got what's your definition of success? So are you tagging your definition of success to I1 or I lost, which is or something that maybe you have less control over to something that you can control. Going back to that Y conversation, understanding your Y, like if it's really important to you, you're going to maintain your motivation for it. So if you're losing, if you don't understand your Y and you're losing motivation, then you can go back and say, well, is this thing really important to me? Looking at process goals, things like celebrating successes, sometimes you just keep going, keep going and don't ever go, well, you know, one of the milestones that I can be proud of that have actually achieved and actually have taken moment to celebrate those in some way that is meaningful to you. Bringing back the fun, so going, well, you know, training is just blim and boring. How can we make it a little bit more fun? That might be adding in a competition that might be bringing about a humour into it or thinking about ways you can do that. Not being too hard on yourselves around stakes, so giving yourself some leeway to go, there's actually some benefit to making mistakes. What can I learn from them? So, you know, not getting demotivated because you haven't made mistakes because you've made mistakes. The one is looking at your downtime, so remember working with an athlete that was a talented youngster, so he was playing at every level of the game, so the juniors as well as this open grades and had no breaks throughout the year. So looking at not just throughout your annual calendar but your weekly and your monthly calendar and looking at, you know, how are you recharging, how are you refilling your bucket? Now you have your got some breaks built in there. Another one is for tracking your motivation and passion is using a thrive, survive score. So, thriving would be a plus 10, coping would be a zero and I'm just surviving would be a negative 10, so you're tracking how you're going each day and if you're really struggling over a length, you know, over a couple of weeks, then looking at, okay, this is the time that I need to think about an intervention here, I need to think about doing something differently and that's where you might have a conversation with your mentor or other people in your circle of support. And then the other area that's on the back of that motivation, passion card is looking at your opportunities for your own ownership, going back to, you know, the whole premise behind the raise my game tool is developing the opportunities for athletes to take ownership. So the more the athletes can take ownership, the more motivated they're going to be. So if they're just turning up and doing what they're told and not having any opportunity for feedback or for input or for tweaking, then that might affect motivation as well. So thinking about opportunities where they can have more agency over what they're doing. So those are some of the ideas on the back of that motivation and passion card. Yeah, those are great. I think they're going to be really well received those tools and tactics that allow the athlete to then go and make a change. So thanks for sharing some of those. I've got two questions about the tool itself that I'd love to throw your way and get your thoughts on. And these are things that I see probably more and more, at least in you sport and we know like this is really what the podcast is about. And so those two things. This one would be when you strike a young person who is particularly planned instruction. So we could talk to perhaps the type A personality who is very ordered in the way that they live. Sometimes I feel like that can create pressure and it can become overwhelming. Sometimes I think that the solution or at least an intervention is actually to create a little bit more chaos and a comfort for that chaos. And I think we actually talked on this in our preamble before Christmas when we were sitting this up. But like how does the tool talk to that idea like to actually go hang on a second, maybe we have to plan less or we have to create room for doing less rather than a narrative that says we need to be more ordered and we need to be more planned. And we need to have more of our ducks in a line in order to reach the outcome that we're trying to achieve. Does that make sense? Is that a fair question? Yeah, yeah, I mean I think we're all different aren't we? And some of us, and everyone has different strengths. And so the downside of being good at planning is sometimes you don't deal with ambiguity. Well, you don't deal with like last minute change well. And so if you're mentoring an athlete that is in that camp then they're going to benefit from some of those what if planning scenarios were the pre thought of, okay, this could go wrong. It's not going to throw you because we've thought about, you know, what the solution might be. But even, and I remember doing this with the black sticks where we did some what if planning and then we went to Africa and we hadn't got any of our what if scenarios anywhere near extreme enough, you know, it's like we had, we got kicked off the bus on the way to the stadium, the bus got impounded and we just got left on the side of the street with no way to get to our game. We had the lights go out in the middle of the final. We got kicked out of our hotele, we couldn't stay there because the heads of government were taking over the hotel. So our what-of-sanarios weren't creative enough but the fact that we had thought about you know how we were going to respond to stuff going wrong was just so useful for us. So I think with athletes that overplan, overthink, especially over analysing as a big one, especially with the use of video analysis these days, we do have to like simplifying as a really important job to do and so as a facilitator of this planning process, that prioritisation step is really crucial, you know if we can narrow down to the critical priorities that that's important. And then it's just you know working with the athlete to help them with any curveballs that get thrown their way or any changes that are unexpected or you know off selections a big one that can throw a lot of athletes if they don't get selected you know how they have their bounce back from that. You know that's just day-to-day mentoring but on the planning side yet is about narrowing it down to these are the things that are going to make the biggest difference. And I remember a friend of mine told me a story about Steve Hanson's development plan that he had one thing on it and you know and that's perfectly you know that one thing is going to make the biggest difference for you then by all means put all your you know get that one thing right on top of you know the fact that you're training day in and day out but if you can you're not going to forget what that one thing is and you're going to think about how that how that one thing can be implemented and and and and force change rather than forgetting what is on your development plan if you've got 10 or 12 different things. Yeah love it I think that that prioritisation step that you mentioned would be crucial and and it comes with an understanding that we can build learning and development over time as opposed to it all having to happen now because I think that sometimes the narrative is like we've got all of these things I need to be working on my nutrition and my mental skills and I got to be in the germ and then I've got to be doing all my tech tech stuff and all of a sudden it's like one it's way too overwhelming for a development to athlete and two like time wise it's just not possible and so yeah I love the fact that they get to to prioritise and then there's there's an understanding that we're going to build over time. So as you might my last question as we start to wrap this up is around the consequence of more ownership because I think as as we empower and as we get more more ownership sometimes that can create more friction. So if if athletes are becoming more empowered and they're working in an environment where where that gets slowed down all these friction how like how do we deal with that like there's this idea of being a team and understanding that we need to all get along in order to get to the collective outcome but at the same time we're trying to develop an individual with agency whose got options who has empowerment and feels like they can make some decisions. And so I think that tension is real and I'm just curious of of your thoughts on making sure that all works. Yeah yeah yeah had Lewis Cleburt speak at a conference end of last year and he talked about you know his journey in that agency like as a young athlete has coached to say do what I tell you and you'll be fine and he just did what he was told and then as he's grown as an old athlete he's you know really even looked for a relationship with a coach that was much more two way a two way dialogue where it might not be that he's challenging you know the number of reps and sets that he does but he's challenging what competitions am I best to do in order to build up for this competition and how do I review that performance and so you know a lot more of a two way conversation that informs the training plan and that does you know for that conversation to be to be two way there does need to be respect both ways you know a coach needs to come into it going you know I'm going to get more out of my athlete if I understand then better and if I'm willing to to listen and let go a little bit of their ego where they you know often coaches will rise to the top because of their technical and tactical knowledge and so they feel that they need to be able to give that in order to be adding value to the relationship and sometimes that might not be what's required giving them the answer it might be what's required might be allowing them to try and answer and fail and then try another answer so yeah it does take a relationship and some trust both ways it requires the coaches to be open coaches or mentors to be open to you know listening and adjusting and adapting based on the feedback that the athlete's given wanting to hear that feedback and you know those relationships are built over time and through consistency of action and you know when people are able to do what they say they're going to do then that trust builds and on the foundation of trust if you've you know if you look at Patrick Lentzioni's stuff around trust then you can build agreements and then you can have accountability on the basis of that awesome well thanks for yeah sharing your thoughts on that I think it's a it's a super interesting piece of the puzzle I'm wondering it over the time that you've spent coming up with raised my game and implementing it over a number of different sports with a number of different athletes but what have you learnt firstly what have you learnt and then secondly have you changed your mind on anything like have you you know through your experiences that I got that wrong and and you've adapted accordingly yeah interesting question so my role has been mostly training people to use raised my game and generally I find if they come in with a really good skill set around listening and being able to facilitate good conversations then they pick up the tools and they and they um able to get massive amounts of value out of them straight away I said something that you do it like do you filter for that like is there a a survey that people fall out is there a conversation that you have before you dive into uh using the tool with them because I think I mean that's almost uh it's a qualifying idea is like this this is going to work for you or perhaps it's not yeah or do you do you go through that process and learn that perhaps a coach and the tools not well suited um you have had a few people where um they're like I just want to tell my athlete what to do and in that situation I'm like look the raised my game is not the right tool for you then um and then I've had you know some people who just need to see it a few more times and get more comfortable with the processing and then they can focus on listening well and connecting with the athletes rather than worrying about the process and what they're supposed to be doing and saying next the athletes love it because they do most of the talking through the process like I've never had an athlete that that comes away from it saying oh my god that took you know that was boring and time consuming and you know because it's about them they're doing most of the talking and they're being heard and listened to some of them for the first time so um so athletes love it and it's not as I said earlier it's very balanced it's not a pointed conversation you need to work on x, y, and z and they hold you know they hold their cards in terms literally in terms of um figuring out what's what's going to be important so um yeah I mean I think having trained probably close to 200 facilitators it's just I know that the it works really well the process creates these great conversations and even if even if they don't have um haven't done a lot of facilitation in the past the the conversation's going to be better and more rounded and more holistic and more thorough than any then a conversation that they would have had otherwise so um yeah it um it improves the conversations regardless of starting points of facilitators. Cool alright so yeah I've got two more questions for you these are questions that I ask all of my guests uh the first one is like how do you think about balance uh either for yourself and your work or you know for the developing athlete So I think athletes have long been put in a position where they have to figure out how to juggle all the different aspects of their life. So whether that's part-time work, study, their training, their different coaches or other stakeholders involved in supporting them, their family life. And I think that with Razmo game it has a conversation that is balanced, so it covers every aspect of life. And because if you go onto the field worrying about finances or worrying about a relationship breakdown or having stuff at loss or whatever it is that you're bringing, if you haven't had that balance conversation and sorted through the things that need to be sorted through, then it makes it difficult to be successful in sport and in life. You know, the goal is not just about performance, it's about being able to do it, be at an estate where you're happy and healthy and well. And you want to keep doing it even after you're winning or not winning. But based on your experience as an international athlete, yourself, you spent a long time playing at the highest level and now you've worked in sport. What is you sport for? This podcast is very much about the youth sport experience. So I'm curious what you think youth sport is for. I think if you asked my kids, I've got five kids. Many of them would say that the biggest thing they get out of youth sport is about social connection. It's about hanging out with their friends and being able to play sport with their friends. That one of my daughters, I don't even know if she would play sport if her best friend wasn't so sporty. That's a blabery sport under the sun because it's time that she gets to hang out with their friends. My second oldest is a bit more competitive, so but she is very much trying every kind of sport under the sun. Like she's happy to do well in a triathlon one day and you can go play cricket or hockey or touch rugby or whatever. She's just riding, she does a bit of everything and she just gets, you know, she sees herself as a sporty kid and she gets real enjoyment out of just setting a goal and achieving it. So that's linked up to that conversation we had about identity as well. I think kids' connections with others and about building their confidence and self belief, self worth through achieving something in sport is important. And then going back to my career, the thing that I would point to is lifelong friendships where we got through some stuff, you know, day in day out, but also some tough stuff and those friendships were formed and have lasted the test of time. That's probably the big thing that I have taken out of it, having now retired and if you'd asked me when I was playing I would say it was about winning an Olympic medal. But the spectres changed, so that's probably the biggest thing I got out of my sport. Cool, all thanks to you so much for coming on the show sharing the Razemite game tool and some of the stories and some of the tactics that are involved. Is there anything you'd like to share with the audience that we've missed or that you'd like to add before we wrap this one up? No, I just, you know, if you're interested in the Razemite game tools either as an athlete or as a coach or as a parent or as a mentor then, yeah, just look it up on the web. On the website and do reach out to me and I'm loved here from you. Perfect, yeah, we'll link to the website in the show notes, so if you are keen, make sure you check it out, get in touch with Susie. And let us know how it goes. So once again, Kia ora, Susie, thanks so much for sharing some of your time and letting us know all about Razemite game. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. Kia ora, and thank you so much for joining me on this journey. I love creating this podcast and sharing each episode with you. Please, if you're enjoying the show, be sure to subscribe and if you have a sec, share it with a friend. Your support means a lot. And if you're looking for even more insight, I have a newsletter I send out every Thursday. You can grab it by signing up at DrCraycHarrison.com. Take care and I'll see you on the next episode of the Athlete Development Show. [Music]