Welcome to this episode of the podcast, focused on personal and professional growth, leadership, and self-improvement. In this episode, we’ll hear from a speaker who shares his experiences playing rugby league and arm wrestling, training in martial arts, and now using his platform to help others improve their vitality. We’ll explore topics like the difference between leadership and coaching, the importance of constant change and improvement, and the power of celebrating wins, as well as the importance of personal health and fitness for high performance and success. Join us as we dive into strategies for leadership and personal growth in this episode.

Meet David

David Lindsay is a personal trainer and professional speaker from Sydney, Australia. David played Rugby League for many years up to NSW Cup (formerly Reserve Grade), but suffered 2 knee reconstructions at an early age, cutting short his Rugby League Career. David put this setback behind him and went on to train as a Professional Arm Wrestler, until an unfortunate accident occurred, which put the breaks on his dreams. He then went on to pursue Martial Arts. David received his Black Belt in Wing Chun, Purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, train in Submission wrestling, and has had several Cage Fights (MMA).

In the last ten years David has studied many successful teams and individual athletes, from The All Blacks (Rugby Union), to Rafael Nadal (Tennis), Ronda Rousey (MMA, UFC) and many other successful teams and individuals. They all in their own way, follow a similar structure to the “5 Step System Towards Improved Vitality in the Workplace” that David has come up with to improve workplace relations, morale and profitability of your business. David has personally used this System many times to achieve results outsiders said were never possible.

Timestamped Overview

  • [00:04:01] David shares his journey from being a small kid who played rugby league, suffered a career-ending injury, got into arm wrestling, broke his arm, became a gym manager and personal trainer but lost movement in his arm, went into martial arts, had professional cage fights and boxing matches, and now is a speaker sharing his message on improving vitality.
  • [00:11:07] Overcoming tough times builds resilience and uncovers one’s true character. Talent alone is not enough for success; hard work and training are essential.
  • [00:14:49] Make time for what’s important, or make excuses.
  • [00:16:10] Creating positive habits for improved vitality through routines, napping for peak performance, and utilizing systems and strategies. Quality sleep, utilizing the Pomodoro technique, and being healthy and fit also contribute to improved performance. Solutions-oriented mindset is key to overcoming challenges.
  • [00:22:54] The importance of tapping and evolving in martial arts and business, using examples of companies like McDonald’s and failed companies like Nokia and Blockbuster. Failing fast, failing forward, and learning from mistakes is crucial for growth and success.
  • [00:30:57] Celebrate wins and losses, effort and dedication. Reward what you want repeated with public recognition. Building a tight-knit team creates a productive environment.
  • [00:36:38] Process of continuous improvement in coaching and sports teams through recap and analyzing what worked and what didn’t work. Emphasis on communication and finding solutions to problems, rather than throwing blame. Similar process can be applied in the workplace. Recap is necessary as no one can play the perfect game, and constantly improving is necessary to stay ahead.
  • [00:43:44] The evolution of technology is rapid and those who cling to the old ways will be overtaken quickly.
  • [00:47:07] Leadership and coaching are different, but both important. The speaker emphasizes humility and not forgetting where you come from.
  • [00:50:37] David Lindsay promotes his speaking tour, courses, and content on LinkedIn and TikTok for personal and professional improvement. Contact him via LinkedIn or email for more information.

Guest Resources

If you are interested in learning more about David’s resources be sure to check out the following links:

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Transcript

The following is an AI generated transcript which should be used for reference purposes only. It has not been verified or edited to reflect what was actually said in the podcast episode. 


 

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:

David, my man, welcome to the show here today.

David Lindsay [00:00:03]:

Thank you very much, Scott. I’m super excited to be beyond here with you and give your listeners some value that they can use straight away to raise their performance.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:14]:

I love it. Now, I normally don’t go into people’s backgrounds because often let’s just get to the goods, but I feel like your background is actually important and in this case, can you just give us a little, just a little taster of what life of David Lindsay Entailed 100%.

David Lindsay [00:00:37]:

Because my background is who I am now, so I’m not the biggest kid, I’ve never been the biggest kid when I was growing up. I’m still relatively small now, I’m five foot eight, but yet I used to play rugby league, which there’s a lot of enormous guys in that. And everyone said that I was too small to play rugby league, so I use that to my advantage. I use it to train hard, to train harder than anyone else around me, to get bigger, to get stronger, just to become the best athlete I could. And ended up playing for South Sydney because I’m coming to you all the way from Sydney, Australia. So I played for South Sydney in the Junior Reps, played up to semiprofessional level when I suffered a couple of knee reconstructions at the ripe old age of 21. My rugby league career was over, but I was still competitive, I was still extremely strong. And a blow came up to me and approached me about doing arm wrestling. And I’m not sure about you or the listeners, but for me, arm wrestling, I used to just do it for drinks or do it mucking around with some mates, but I started training with him, getting a coach, and he was actually the Australian head of the Arm Wrestling Foundation, Australia. And I got into arm wrestling and was on my way to going some professional arm wrestling tournaments in America. I started off on a round the world trip, me and my girlfriend at the time, and she’s my wife now, so you’ll hear why that’s extremely lucky that she stuck by me. We went to a mate’s wedding in Corfu in Greece. We were on our way to America after that, to England and around the world, basically. But a day after my mate’s wedding over in Korfu, I was mucking around, I was doing some arm wrestling and I snapped my arm. I snapped my humorous doing arm wrestling. That was an instant stop to our round the world trip. So you can see why my wife, my girlfriend at the time, I would have been devastated with the fact, what’s this idiot done? He’s gone and broken his arm, he’s ruined our holiday. Yet I was lucky enough that she stuck by me. We stick by each other all the way through, but that was our end of the round the world trip. Flew back to Australia, got a plate put in my arm. When they put the plate in, my arm became paralyzed. Now, at this time, I was a gym manager, I was a personal trainer, everything to do with sports, and yet my arm became paralyzed. That was the first point where I thought, what’s the point? What am I doing here? Because everything got ripped out from underneath me. And I actually went and got a nerve conduction study done. So they put needle in your arms and see how the nerves go. And I got told, David, we’re sorry to say, they’re shriveled up and dying. So here I am. I’m 22. At this point, I couldn’t use my arm. How is it going to be a personal trainer? How is I going to work in a gym? How is I going to do anything sporty? And went down into the depths. I locked myself in my unit for about two days, and I was crying. But luckily, my girlfriend, she came up and goes, david, come on. You’ve overcome so many obstacles along the way. What’s stopping you from getting over this one? I thought you know what? She’s right. And then in an instant, I just switched my mindset to, I’ve overcome so many things in the past. What’s a broken bone. I can overcome this as well. And then eventually got movement into my arm. And still at, like I said, 22, 23, still had the competitive juices going, and they’re still flowing through me to this very day. But I got into martial arts, got into kung fu, jujitsu kickboxing and wrestling. And then from there, I got into cage fighting, got into had a couple of professional cage fights, a couple of professional boxing matches, and the competition is just flowing through me. But I learned so many lessons, particularly from my life in wrestling and my coach in wrestling. And then from there, one thing led to another, led to another, and I started speaking. I went and I saw Eric Thomas, and he’s my favorite person to listen to. I was listening to him just before I got on this podcast with you, but I went and saw him live, and I actually won a ticket in the early part of the day to go to a speaker’s boot camp because I never thought of speaking as a career. I knew of the Eric Thomas’s, the Les Browns, the the Tony Robbins, and I go, Those guys are gods. Who’s going to want to listen to me? But then talking to my wrestling coach, talking to people that I knew, I started to see things emerge. And then I got out and started speaking. And that’s my wrestling. That’s my fighting now is getting up and speaking. Spring my message, and I know we’re going to talk about it a little bit later, but sharing my five sets towards improved vitality, I was going around building up reputation with that and then liked the whole World 2020 hit, and the world got locked down. And that’s where we’re in the process of. Everyone around the world is rebuilding, is getting into the new normal, getting into 2023 and beyond, really excelling in life and utilizing our skills for peak performance. So that’s where I’m at at the moment.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:15]:

Love it, man. I love it. I love the energy. But what I get out of you and what I hear from that is that never quit attitude. And no matter what life throws at you, you get knocked down, you got to get back up again. One of the things I think it’s crucial out there for leaders to understand that. And you don’t have to get your arm snapped before you’re going on a major rural around the world. You don’t have to get into crawl into a cage and put up the dukes and go into a cage fight, or you don’t have to get on a rugby field and feel like you’re small. By the way, side note, I’m actually smaller than you. I’m actually five six, and I play ice hockey.

David Lindsay [00:07:00]:

That’s a tough game.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:03]:

Okay, so I know exactly what you play rugby at, but I know what it feels like. Get your butt kicked on. Very similar. Right? Anyway, the moral story here is for leaders listening, is that you don’t have to go through that stuff, but you can go through a bad period. You can go through a downturn. You can go through 2020. Suddenly you got your best person leaves the team. Suddenly your boss gets replaced with someone who’s just destructive. You can go through all these things that knock you down, but what I get from you is get back up, keep moving forward.

David Lindsay [00:07:43]:

And what it is, it’s not just getting up and being in the same position that you were at either. When you get knocked down, like I said, my arm went paralyzed for three months. I had the first two days I was down in the dumps. I was feeling sorry for myself. But then I was out there, I was educating myself. I was going, okay, what can I do? Where can I get better? How can I get stronger? So that when I come back, I’m not the same person. I’m leaps and bounds ahead. Same as with 2020. A lot of people that I knew, they basically just pulled the sheet over their head and were waiting for it to go past, whereas that’s the worst thing you can do. Yes, we do have choices. You can go sit in the corner and you can cry, or you can make the most of these tough situations, because it’s during the tough situations when you build resilience, when you really find out how capable you are. We’re not like a piece of paper. We don’t get ripped easily. Yes, we may get broken, but when your bone heals, it’s actually stronger than before it gets broken. Yes. When you put yourself in tough situations, you may lose the fight, but you still come out of the fight better than when you went in. My wife had a terrible, terrible motorbike accident where she shattered her femur and she was in a wheelchair for six months. We had a seven month old at the time and people going, how did she get through that? And I said, that’s so easy. Again, we could have just sat in the corner, but we made the most of that time we made the most of that time with our seven month old and as a family, and it really brought us closer together. So you always have choices, it’s what you make during the tough times. And like I said, that’s when you find out most about yourself is during the tough times. It’s not when times are going easy, because I speak about that as well. When it comes to business, when it comes to sport, when it comes to just about any element in life, some people go, you’re lucky, you’re talented at this and this and this. Whereas a lot of times talent can be a curse as well, because if you’re super talented at something, you’re not putting in the hard work, you’re not putting in the grind and the hours and hours that have to get done in the shadows. So when it comes point to the time in rugby league, like when you get to 1718, when the money starts coming out, the people that are talented can’t magically flick that switch and get up and train early so they get overtaken by the people that weren’t as talented but train so much harder. Like with my speaking, I still get up and every Saturday, Sunday I go and train at the gym, then I go and practice while I’m exhausted on a stage, and I practice throughout the week as well to make sure that I’m sharp. It’s the hours and hours done in the darkness that really brings out your character and shows who you are when the lights are on.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:44]:

I’m loving this show now, I’m hearing it out of you at near the end, there’s like a lot of discipline. They say discipline beats motivation day in, day out, right?

David Lindsay [00:10:56]:

Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:59]:

I’m a firm believer in that. I’m a member of the 05:00 A.m. Club every day, Monday to Friday, 05:00 A.m. Club because I got two young boys, I’m a father of two young boys, I got a wife, I have a full time job, I got this on the side. Time is a premium. When can I get my workouts in? 05:00 A.m., that’s it. So that’s where I do it. And every day I’m up 05:00 A.m..

David Lindsay [00:11:25]:

05:00 A.m.. And the keyword that you said there as well is when do I do it? You make time. When something’s important to you, you make time for it. We all only have 24 hours in the day, but are you sitting down? Are you sitting down, watching TV, watching hour after hour of Netflix, are you out there reading? Are you out there training? Are you practicing your craft in order to get better so you make time for what’s important? And if it’s not important to you, you make excuses. It’s simple.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:59]:

So what I love to get from you is how does one David Lindsay make sure he stays disciplined to stick to his routine? And then when those bumps come along the way, how does he make sure he gets back on track so that he gets back to the routine and the discipline of practicing, going to the gym. And for the leader, if they’re listening, it doesn’t have to be practicing your speech, it doesn’t have to be going to the gym. It could be whatever it is that you want to get better at. Maybe it is you want to read up on your craft more, maybe you want to take a course, maybe it is you want to get in better shape, which, oh, by the way, is one of the domains of leadership anyway. But moral story is it’s whatever goal you’re after and how do you make sure you stick to it here?

David Lindsay [00:12:46]:

Yeah, with me, it’s all about creating those habits, creating positive habits. And there’s things that I talk about, like I mentioned in my Five Steps towards Improved vitality, the first step is snap. It’s creating routines and rituals to snap into action everywhere I go. Like, I’ve got my headphones, I’ve got my phone, so I get music going because music can help you snap into action. Music is such a powerful tool that can really help get you excited if you’re feeling flat or it can also work on the other side. If you’re a little bit anxious and you’re overexcited and nervous, it can really help calm you down. So utilizing systems and strategies every single day, like you said, you’re part of the 05:00 a.m. Club, you make time. I get up like it’s stupid o’clock in the morning. I get up at 03:00 because I open the gym at 05:00. So I do my own training at 04:00 in the morning. And it’s just people go, how do you do it? And I go, well, it doesn’t mean that I have to work until 09:00 at night without having a break. Because with the five Steps towards improved vitality, the second step as well is nap. Is napping for peak performance. So during my that means having a lunch break, that means stepping away from the computer, allowing your mind to recover. Yes, it’s about better quality sleep because so often people go, I had a short night’s sleep, I only got 7 hours, I get 6 hours and yet I’m jumping out of my skin because I have quality sleep. It’s like you hear people when they go, if it was just more sleep that they needed. People on the weekends, they often sleep in I still don’t sleep in on the weekends because I keep those habits going, but they wake up after sleeping for 10 hours. Sleeping for 12 hours, which that just blows my mind that people can waste that amount of time. Time is our most valuable resource. But if they really needed just more sleep, if they slept for 12 hours, they should be jumping out of their skin. But whether your listeners, if they may do that, I wouldn’t recommend sleeping for that long, wasting that time on the weekend. But they feel lethargic because it’s not quality sleep. So it’s about sleeping at night, it’s about having time off during the day. Utilizing the Pomodoro technique, which is a technique that’s been scientifically proven to help retain information and be more productive in a given time as well. It’s about, like you said, being healthy. Being healthy, fit, strong, all helps with your performance when it comes to work. It helps you as a leader, it helps you as a worker, it helps you as a teammate, it helps you as a family member, as a husband, as a wife, as a brother, as a sister. All of those things come into it, being fit and being healthy, but yet it’s creating those habits. The weather of broken my arm, arm wrestling, yes, I couldn’t use my arm and once I got past the three days I was still up, I could utilize my lower body. I was going for runs, I was still able to do leg press work on my ABS. I just couldn’t use my arm. It’s like when I had two knee reconstructions playing rugby league, I could still use my entire upper body. So whenever you see a problem, there’s always solutions that come with it. So are you solutions driven or are you problems driven? And it’s a people that are solutions driven where you can both look at the same thing and instead of putting your head in your hands and going, how are we going to come past this? You go, well we can try this, we can try this, we can try this. Always coming up with different solutions to overcome the problems that’s in every part of life.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:43]:

Those are some powerful words, brother. I really enjoyed both the snap and the nap, honestly, because it resonates with me and the things I tell, especially my Mastermind community members. I host the mastermind community. It’s called the leader growth, mastermind. We talk about three domains of leadership here at the Peak Performance Leadership podcast. The first one is the one that we’re really hitting on today, and that’s leading yourself. I E you the leader and all about you and how well you perform, try to get you to your pre performance. The second one is leading your team. I e the individuals. So Scott’s the David’s, the James, the Joe, so on. And then the final one is leading your organization. So that institution. So from your perspective, your gym, your business, leading that right. So I really enjoyed that. And the things that I talk about there and it relates to Snap, is to me it’s like, okay, what are triggers? What are some triggers that you can go ahead that triggers you to do the things you want to do? James Clear writes about it in his book Atomic Habits as well. And I like it where you take habits and you stack them together. Right? So for example, I like a good cup of tea or coffee in the morning, tea in the evening. And it’s like, okay, when I sit there, I have my book, there my coffee or my tea. My book is sitting right there. It’s a habit stack because I’ll take my book, flip it out and read my book for a bit as I’m sipping on a cup. Boom. Right? But it’s those triggers that you talked about. The nap is something I think the members of the Mastermind are probably groaning and not groaning in a negative way. We hear it again. But it’s so powerful. I’ll give you a clear example. One of the members went to a new job and everyone was pounding through their lunch. I mean they’re at the computer pounding the keyboard at lunchtime. He got up, he went for a walk and people saw him walking and he comes back in like, what are you doing? I went for a walk. Yeah, guess what happened? They started joining him and then all of a sudden people started going and producing more and more. Why? Because they were taking that nap just as you said, lo and behold. And this guy ends up getting a freaking promotion while on probation, which is like, what the hell? I got to promote it. You’re on probation. Yeah, I know, and still got promoted. But it’s just so powerful. So we talked with the snap, we talked about the nap. What’s the third step here to vitality for leaders out there?

David Lindsay [00:19:30]:

Yeah, the third step is tap. And all of these really come from fighting as well. So like say if I’m fighting and I get caught in an armbar, so what they’re trying to do is they straightening out my arm and they’re looking to either hyperextend my elbow or break my arm. So what I can do is I can fight for a certain amount of time, but then I tap and then my opponent lets go. Yes, I may have lost the fight, but I didn’t get severely injured. So what I do is I go back to my coaches and I go, how did I get caught in that armbar? What can I do next time to prevent it? And then gradually, day by day by day, session by session, you get better. You get better at avoiding getting in that armbar. You get better at being able to get out of it once you’re in it. And then eventually you can use that to your strength. And where that relates to businesses as well is many, many businesses are constantly tapping and evolving. So it’s not just doing the same thing. If I get caught in an armbar, and then I get caught in an armbar, and I get caught in an armbar and I’m not learning from it, well, it’s pointless. But I get caught in an armbar and I tap before I break, and then I go back and I learn about it. So what that is, is in business, especially with what we’ve been through the last three years, is trying things, being allowing yourself to fail. But when you fail, you fail fast, you fail forward, you tap and evolve. So you look at I use this in my talk as well. Many businesses that were going well but didn’t tap and evolve. Nokia phones, these phones were brilliant, and I’m showing my age now with that. They were around in the early 2000s, they were over 40% of the entire mobile phone industry because they were constantly tapping and evolving. But then they stopped because they invested so much money in their Symbion system and then refused to go to the Android system. And now this multinational global company is no more. Same as blockbuster. Again, in the 90s, they were everywhere, all the way around the world, and Netflix actually approached them to buy them out, because at that point, Netflix was a mail order DVD company, and they needed funding to go online and streaming. But Blockbuster laughed them out of their board meeting, and Netflix actually created an entire new industry, and Blockbuster went defunct. Then you have Kodak as well, where their money was in film stopped tapping and evolving. But companies that are continuously tapping and evolving and staying on top, you have Meta, you have Tesla. But I like to talk about McDonald’s, where they’re constantly moving forward. Everywhere around the world knows who McDonald’s is. They know the company. And you have to look back in the 80s. Back in the 90s, they had what, the polystyrene containers. And people leaving that in droves. So it’s knowing, okay, why are people leaving? Because the impact that we’re having on the environment. So they tapped and evolved. And nowadays as well, they have MEC Cafe, where people go in, they have a barista made coffee cake. They sit down there with a free WiFi comfy seats and have business meetings in McDonald’s. If you’d have said that back in the would have been kicked out of there and laughed out of town. They’re constantly tapping and evolving. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve never failed. And they’ve failed on an epic, epic scale. But every time they fail, they fail fast, they fail forward, they tap and evolve, because there’s MC spaghetti, Mcfettuccini Mclazania, those things. When you think about McDonald’s, you don’t think about spaghetti, you think about burgers. Same as McPizza. MC. Hot dog. There’s these so many things the McDonald’s have tried, but they try it. They put it in a little part, they fail fast and they fail forward. Same as I’ve done a lot of talks for nursing industries lately. It’s about this is a perfect time to try new things, try things that may be more effective, be an innovator or an early adapter, and know when it’s time to jump off, when to tap, learn, grow and evolve. So that’s what step number three is. And between each of the steps as well, between Nap, like you said, that guy started a walking group. When you come back to work, you snap back into action. So it’s not just ambling back into work and you’re still in walking mode. You do whatever it is, your power move to snap back into action. Same as tapping. You can’t hang your head in shame and hope the rest of the world is going to feel sorry for you because they frankly don’t care. You need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and then snap back into action for whatever the next thing is to move forward.

Scott McCarthy [00:24:40]:

I love the fail, fail fast learn mentality, something that I personally live by all the time and my background. By day, I’m a senior Canadian army officer. That’s what I do day in, day out. So I’m always the job I’m in right now forces me to be pushing the envelope, pushing hard. Guys, what can we learn from this so we can implement these lessons and we go through what we call an AAR process after action review process, where it’s very similar. What happened? What did we do right, what do we do wrong? And then the most important thing is how are we going to fix do it better next time. Which is very similar to what I’m hearing from you. But I love the examples. Kodak is one of my favorite examples to use of all time. Because the guy who literally, I believe he invented the digital camera, worked for the company and said.

David Lindsay [00:25:35]:

In the 70s, because I told you about that as well, that they put that on the shelf because their money was in film and go. Man yeah, that’s awesome, that story.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:46]:

But I will set the tone straight. I was a fan of Mick Pizza, by the way.

David Lindsay [00:25:54]:

It’s funny. You’re the first person that actually knew about it because I’ve told people this and they sort of look at me funny and they go, no, it was a real thing. So you’re a fan.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:08]:

Never heard of the spaghetti or fettuccine, though. No way. No, not touching that. All right, so we did snap tap. Sorry, snap nap tap. And I liked what you said. You got to trigger yourself back in. You can’t just saunter in or you can’t just sit there and tap out. You got to snap back into action. So we got through those three. What’s number four is clap.

David Lindsay [00:26:33]:

It’s plain and simple, you celebrate. So it’s about celebrating is bringing the team together. Because I played in, it was a good team for South Sydney. We weren’t the best by any means, but because we’ve been together for so many years, we had such a tiny bond that we ended up winning the competition. So that’s south sydney. North Sydney. It’s all the representative teams. We won the comp because we really came together. So celebrating, celebrating not necessarily just the wins, because when you lose, you still celebrate. Because you celebrate the time, effort and dedication that someone put into it. Because especially when I was fighting, many people think of fighting as an individual sport, but especially with cage fighting. I had four coaches, like for the different disciplines. I had countless sparring partners and I had my family at home. All of with which if we didn’t work together as united front, I wouldn’t have been able to get into the cage. So win, lose or draw, you celebrate. You celebrate the time, effort and dedication that has gone into that. And you’ll see this all the time in sports, but very rarely in business. All too often businesses let completed projects go by unannounced or unrewarded. Newly acquired contracts go by unrecognized. Excellence in effort go by unrecognized. This is a perfect time to celebrate. Those teams, those individuals give them public recognition. You don’t have to buy these expensive things or give expensive gifts. What you need to do is you need to give public recognition. You reward what you want repeated. It’s the same as with when you’re training animals. If your dog comes to you and he sits and he holds it, you reward it. And it’s the exact same with that. You reward what you want repeated. And then they’re willing to do more, go more. And also they’re not just willing to stay for longer and work harder, they’re also willing to do it for less money. Because of the team environment that you have. And that’s so valuable. It’s creating people that know, like trust each other and want to be there because when you want to be there, you’re just so much more productive. And it makes a world of difference when you can walk into a place and you feel the good feeling of it. I know when I’ve gone into places where I speak at and you can almost feel the tension in the air or you go into other places, other places I’ve spoken to and you feel it’s just completely different energy. And it’s not something that you can really point a finger at, but it’s the whole united front. It just feels good when you walk into a place that is that tight knit team.

Scott McCarthy [00:29:28]:

Can’T agree with you more there there’s so much negativity that goes around the world that’s the first thing we’re just blasted with it day in day, all day long, negativity. So the clapping to me is fantastic. And. The other thing is that find so many organizations out there, just like, all right, objective complete. Okay, next thing, move on. Can we just take a moment? And like you said, it doesn’t have to be this big thing or anything, but at least take a moment and celebrate what went into getting that and achieving that. Like you said, maybe you didn’t achieve it, but the win in there isn’t necessarily, in your case, the rugby game win or the fight win. But it was the time you spent, the dedication that was put into it, the training and effort, the lessons learned that come out of the loss that you’re going to take and push forward, those are the wins. Those are the things that you said, right, you celebrate. But I find so many people these days are just like, move on, move on, move on. It’s just like I had a weapons trainer when I was going through weapons training and I hear it in my head this day still. I’m talking like, this is 20 years ago now, right? It’s still there. I can hear it clear, crystal clear. And the words were and you slowest, smooth, smooth as fast. And we would do weapons drills where we’re doing constantly changing mags on the fly. You’re counting your rounds, you’re doing all kinds of different stuff. And he’d be yelling, he’s like, Smooth is fast, smooth is fast to be yelling at us. And then he would also be yelling threats and all this other stuff and putting pressure on us. But, you know but the moral of the story was, you know, if you took your time, within reason, obviously, but you take if you’re smooth with your drills, you don’t rush them, you’re actually going to be faster. If you’re rushing and you make a mistake, you fumble the magazine, you drop it. You miscount the rounds that you have expended and you’re actually changing mags too soon. Vice on the right one, because what you want to do is count so that you got one round left in a chamber. So you flip a mat, you just drop a mag, pop it in without having the action go fully back, and then all of a sudden you gone from what could be a three step process has gone up to a five step process, right?

David Lindsay [00:32:01]:

Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:01]:

So it’s all those different little things. But again, back to the moral story is celebrate those wins, find the wins, even if it is a bad. Yeah, all right, final one of the.

David Lindsay [00:32:14]:

Process, what we got is recap, which you sort of talked about that a little bit with tap, because tap and recap, they’re similar, but they are different because recap is a big one. It’s all about continuous, never ending improvement in everything we do. Like when I was coaching the football side, I’d sit down on the sidelines, take down notes what worked and what didn’t work. After the fight, like a couple of days removed from the fight. We’d sit down with the coaches, we’d write down what worked, what didn’t work. So we’re looking at it. This is from a distance and in football what we do is one person doesn’t see everything. So I’d watch it a second time with all the coaches, so we all see things slightly different. We then compile the notes and like with fighting, where I was fighting, watching it with my coaches, with this one, whereas coaches are watching it with the players and the players come in. And this also opens lines of communications, not just top to bottom, which so many times that’s what is. But I find it more important bottom to top is we get the players, we get the people that are on ground zero telling us what’s working and what isn’t working. And as a coach, like I spoke to you about that earlier before we hit record, was yes, I love leadership and especially leadership over boss because boss, that’s just old school stuff. But I like leadership and coaching. So as a coach, I want problems, I need problems, but we also need solutions. So if we can get problems and then solutions off the players, they’re going to get buy in. So what a couple of examples that we may have with rugby league is that the talk isn’t very good, that the conditions were slippery and that the referee called them offside. So we write that down as well. But we also have a rule before we even start that we’re never to throw anyone under the bus because you see it all the time where like you said about people have that negativity bias, they’re there to throw people under the bus. We don’t do that because that ruins everything that we did from the celebrate, that ruins that team, that mateship that you have for your teammates. So we never throw anyone under the bus. As a coach, I know if someone has dropped the ball three or four times, everyone knows if they’ve dropped the ball three or four times. But that’s my job as a coach to maybe show them how to catch it correctly. Or maybe we have them playing in the wrong position. So in rugby league we’ll go with ground, with American football, maybe we have someone playing wider receiver when they’ve got the best arm on them and they should be playing quarterback, so they’re playing in the complete wrong position. So maybe we just work at them, see if they’re playing in the right position and if not, get them playing in a position where they’re better off. And I use the example in work, you may have an accountant and I go, I’m sorry, to all the accountants out there and I’m using a stereotype. The stereotype is that accounts are boring, they’re just number crunches. Maybe have someone in your accounts department that they may do the figures differently to you know why they do it that way? Show them how you do it. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ve got such a bubbly personality they should be front of house, wheeling and dealing, wining and dining, should be with a sales team, should be with a marketing team. So they’re just playing in the wrong position. So we learn that in the fifth step, which is recap because no one has ever played the perfect game and no one ever will. But especially with now since I don’t play sports anymore, I still train a lot, but I’m a speaker now, so I watch my speaking. I watch it three times. One time I watch it without the sound. Then I watch it, then I just listen to it. Then I combine it because I have to make sure that what I’m doing the message I’m saying is conveyed with the sound off. Can you tell from my body when I’m excited, when I’m down all this sort of stuff? And does my tone of voice does that resonate when I’m just listening to it? But it’s about getting better each and every time. Because if I’m the same speaker in six months as I am today, that’s a waste of six months. If your business is the same in six months as it is today, that’s a waste of six months. Sports teams are constantly doing that. You look at anyone, Roger Federer, when he was at the top, he had to continuously change his game, tweak it a little bit. And that’s with recap because it doesn’t matter how good you are, people are going to overtake you if you stay the exact same and you get forgotten about very quickly. So that’s a fifth step is recap. And then again you always snap back into action whether it’s for the next fight for the next game, or the next project at work. So all of these it creates really like a circle where it comes back to snapping into action.

Scott McCarthy [00:37:40]:

And the last part is probably what I like the most about this is that it’s continuous, right? Because, yeah, things don’t stop. And most importantly, change is continuous. Change is constant. And as leaders, we need to be looking at it from our organization standpoint to make sure that we are constantly evolving, constantly moving forward just so that we don’t become one of the examples that people like you and I are talking about down the line, right? Because that’s what happens. They get cushy, get comfy, life’s good, look at our profits, blah, blah, blah.

David Lindsay [00:38:14]:

And rest on their long, right?

Scott McCarthy [00:38:17]:

And it’s just like, yeah, guess what? Someone’s going to come along, change the game. Quickly come along, right? Quickly change the game. And then all of a sudden you’re like, holy crap, where’d that come from? Well, if you weren’t doing this other thing, then you would have noticed. I like using a Canadian example, which is BlackBerry. It was funny because you mentioned Nokia, and I was like, oh, BlackBerry went in my mind and BlackBerry is like the top phone manufacturer in the world. And what happened? What happened? Everyone’s like, oh, the iPhone came along and destroyed it. Wrong answer. In fact, when the iPhone three GS launched, it actually increased BlackBerry sales. Yeah, unknown fact.

David Lindsay [00:39:00]:

Interesting.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:01]:

Yeah. But do you want to know what the CEOs were doing at the time? Because there was two of them. There was Jim Gaussilli and Mike Larry Zatus. Mike was the tech guy, he was the ones and zeros guy who really made the phone what it was. He popped open iPhone three GS and went, how did they put four? I think it was four gigs of Ram or whatever. How did they do that? They can’t do that. That’s impossible. This is not known. Right, so we sat back on the tech side and couldn’t get past where the technology was going. Jim Alsilli, who was the marketing genius behind it all, was busy trying to buy an NHL hockey team and not.

David Lindsay [00:39:51]:

Concentrating on the business at all.

Scott McCarthy [00:39:56]:

That whole time. The only reason why Jim Boli was in the news was because he was trying to buy an NHL hockey team. That’s where his focus was. So of course, the iPhone went and seized a moment after initial, but not many people know that. The actual story is that iPhone debut actually increased BlackBerry sales.

David Lindsay [00:40:20]:

Yeah, I didn’t know about that because I knew, because obviously, doing study for that, I was looking at lots of different businesses, and yet Nokia was still in front of iPhone when they first come out, because people, they were used to that. But I had no idea that with BlackBerry as well. And that’s where people just go, we’re on top, we’re always going to stay on top. You look at the last three years on how much everything has evolved, like, I’m talking to you, you’re over in Canada, I’m in Australia, and it’s just insane. And this is more acceptable than it was only three and a half years ago. Three and a half years ago there was a technology, but it wasn’t as accepted as it is today. Same as everyone working from home. How can you do that? If you’re just like you said, you’re worried about something else that’s outside of the business, of course you’re going to get overtaken and very quickly forgotten about.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:22]:

Love it. Absolutely. David, man, this has been a fantastic conversation, I really enjoyed it. No, it’s great. Before we wrap up here, I do got a couple of last questions for you, the first being a question that’s all the guests here at the Peak Performance Leadership podcast. And it is, according to you, David Lindsay, what makes a great leader.

David Lindsay [00:41:43]:

So it’s definitely not what it was back in the Dictator. Like I mentioned before, I’m big on leadership and big on coaching and from my mindset there is a difference. A leadership, a leader is like a captain on the field, so they might be in the trenches with them and directing them from in there, whereas a coach is slightly removed. They’re watching the game from the grandstands and they can see things from a distance. So I like to jump between the two. But it’s like, even with my speaking business, I don’t mind with the people that I’m working with getting on the ground, cleaning up, because when I’m in the gym, I still mop up the floors. Nothing is below me because I want to show everyone in the team as well that nothing is below me. And that’s because I didn’t come from money. Money was a thing. You know the old saying where only people that are criminals or drug people get money? That’s a wrong mindset. Money doesn’t grow on trees. That’s a wrong mindset. We can create money, we can create wealth, but don’t forget where you’re from. So that’s why I like to jump between the two, being a coach and also being a leader.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:05]:

Yeah, definitely. Good seeing that coming, for sure. And then follow up question show, how could people find you, follow you, be part of your journey? Shameless plug. Have at it.

David Lindsay [00:43:13]:

Yeah, no, definitely. I’m big on LinkedIn. So find me on LinkedIn. I’m actually looking at doing a speaking tour over in the States in I think they’re looking at January, February, March around there. So if you’d be interested in me coming and sharing my five steps towards improved vitality, which is a talk, or we do also have a course, which is design and middle management, which is the three pillars to high performance systems and strategies. Help you smash it both personally and professionally. You can get me, like I said, on LinkedIn, or feel free to reach out on email at david at david. Lindsay. Lindsay.com Au. And I just love giving as much as I can. And if you choose to take it, brilliant, that makes me feel so much better. But if I can help one person, I’m happy. If I can help a thousand people, I’m even happier. If I can help a million people, it just keeps getting better and better and better. So, yeah, LinkedIn email. I also do stuff on TikTok, which is about personal development, about improving yourself as a leader, as a family member, just as a person. So, David Lindsay, vitality on TikTok as well.

Scott McCarthy [00:44:31]:

Awesome. And for the listener, it’s easy as always. Those links are in the show description. Just go to leaddup, boss. Two six, 1261. And the links are there. David, again, my friend, thank you. Taking time at your busy day. Come talk to us.

David Lindsay [00:44:47]:

My absolute pleasure. And I hope that the listeners got something from this. Remember, create routines and rituals to snap into action. Utilize the power of music to change your mind. You change your mind, you change your body. You change your body, you change your results. Scott, thank you so much. I had a blast.

Scott McCarthy [00:45:05]:

Take your mic and throw it on the floor. That’s a mic drop moment to finish the show up winning.