Moment 57 - Why You Need To Forget About The End Result: Sir David Brailsford

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. David Brailsford is the Team Principal of INEOS and is the main behind the ‘marginal gains’ philosophy, which can be applied in life and business more broadly, that paying attention to the tiniest details, no matter how small, can add up and together produce a big difference. He has numerous gold medals and multiple Tour De Frances under his belt to show for his philosophy. Here David puts us inside the minds of real champions and reveals the best ways to prepare for events and really place ourselves in the moment. Forgetting about the end result and rooting ourselves in the here and now are key. It might sound hard, but David has made it his business to train people for the biggest stages for twenty years. Want to know how it’s done? Let David explain… Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/Ajq3f7OsYpb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things that definitely felt very original when I was reading about your philosophy is this idea of figuring about the results because thinking about the result or the outcome of your performance can reduce the chances of success in that performance. That's very unusual because in teams, in competition, in business, we think about the result, we think about closing the deal or, you know, and what that will mean and we kind of imagine ourselves in that moment of getting the medal around our neck or that business deal won. Why is that not a good idea?

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Well, if an event happens or something happens, the first thing that's going to happen to you without you even knowing is you're going to have an unconscious emotional reaction to it and it's emotion. It's not, you're not thinking it through, it's just purely emotion and that, that's going to be, you know, either it's sort of a fight, flight, freeze response really. But that emotional response will happen quicker than you know it before you can go in and get any logic or get any rationale into it. And of course, in any kind of situation like, you know, what could be perceived as a threat state where you're putting yourself in, in some kind of threatening scenario, be it I've damaged my pride or, you know, what people, what happens to people, they start thinking, well, what happens if I win? What happens if I lose? What happens if I look ridiculous? I don't want to look ridiculous.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  I'm under threats. And that then becomes, you know, very easy to get emotionally hijacked by that. So then you're purely running on emotion which is inconsistent, it's illogical, you know, it's not a, it's not a good way for you to be basing, it's not a good place for you to be basing your behaviour. But if you understand that and you think, okay, well, look, I understand that it's normal that I'm going to put myself in a threatening scenario. So if I worry about, let my emotion take over and I worry about what happens if I succeed, what happens if I fail, what happens if this, what happens if that, then it's actually pointless exercise. And if you can train slowly, recognise and train your mind to go, okay, I know what's happened here, this is just emotion, I'm going to put it to one side now then.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Let me separate this, whatever I'm doing, out into two things. We can have a dream, I want to win the Tour de France, it's a dream. My ability to win it, or our ability, or anybody else's to win it, is I'm gonna do my absolute best to try and win it. But other people are gonna try and stop me, and other people are gonna try and do something. It's stuff beyond our control that can impact on that. So if you set your goal as I'm going to win, you're gonna agitate non-stop because it actually is out of your control. Whereas if you set your dream as saying, this is what I'd really, really like to happen, I'll go all in, I'll do everything I can. I'm fully committed to that, but let me break it down into targets, which is, well, I could get to the ideal weight.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  I could do the proper training, I could do the, you know, follow a nutritional plan that's gonna give me the optimal energy. And, you know, I can train my tactics, I can be, really work hard to get a fantastic team around me, build good rapport, build confidence in my teammates, these are all things that you can do. And so if you say, okay, let's leave the dream over there for a while, but I'm gonna go after the things I can do. And you base your plan around the things that you can actually control and do, you'll be on fire. You'll be on fire, you'll be absolutely on fire. And the dream might happen, and it might not, and you'll be absolutely, you know, delighted and best thing ever if it happens. And if it doesn't, then you might be absolutely devastated. But you've got to leave it as a dream, and you've got to understand that actually worrying about the consequence of an event

• 3:32Speaker 01

  is detrimental to the process and the performance and the chances of you achieving that event. So you park that, go after your targets and go, right, I'm going process not outcome. And we talked a lot about process and outcome. And when you catch yourselves, you know, it's emotion in the end. So of course we do get hijacked, and of course we do get fearful or, you know, a bit panicked. And you've got to have a system whereby you can talk to yourself a little bit. You can bring yourself back around and focus on the now and the process of now. Rather than worrying about the future.

• 4:04Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  And then you can come back and concentrate on the process, get back into the now. And you know, some of the athletes would have a routine where they'd tie the shoe laces again. Or they'd do, they'd have a little, you know, a little process that they'd tap into and they'd go into that, in into that and bring their mind back into the present and stop worrying about the future. And of course, the penalty kicks, the best example of that.

• 4:27Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. Ronaldo did the.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:29Steven Bartlett?

  I'm sure they they bag a hundred percent in training.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 4:33Steven Bartlett?

  But in the Euros final.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Exactly, you know, and if you take the crowd out, take a penalty, those guys are so accurate and the, you know, a signal from the brain down into the muscle to contract in a certain way. That happens and the accuracy and the repeatability of that is is absolutely massive. Put a crowd in there and what changes? Nothing changes physically, it's all between your ears. And so how can you train that, you know, and and the mental skills can be trained just as much as you, you know, we all know that. But we want to get fit and strong and you go to the gym and you know that you're going to overload your body and you give it time to adapt. And it's adaptation that's going to make it a little bit stronger. And it's the same with the mind, you know, you can train your mind and and I think that's what certainly working with Steve was a was an eye opener.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  As well as, I think probably the biggest eye opener for most people is it gives you a, once you realise you've got like an emotional brain and a logical brain and a, you know, a bit of a memory, computer side going on, then then it gives you insight into yourself and why you are behaving and feeling like you are. And some of the assumptions you're making about other people, then you've got to start with yourself first. If you can get that little bit of insight, why do I feel how I'm feeling? Why do I respond like I do? What triggers me? What's my best self look like and what's my sort of, you know, not the best self look like? Why, why am I different? Why, why sometimes I might be behaving in this kind of, you know, this second or a shadow version of myself? And why am I sometimes in my best self? What's happening there? Why can't I just be my best self all the time?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Surely that must be doable, so take a bit of time to understand it and pick it. And some people just maybe haven't been educated, I certainly wasn't until really I sort of stopped and started to look at this stuff. And then you realise, you think, wow, a lot of my behaviour, a lot of my life was driven by emotion. It wasn't driven by the real me, who could be calm and logical and think things through and quite, you know, have a lot of passion and feelings and caring and and yet at times I could be something else, you know. And I think understanding that's fundamental, I think. I don't think there's any excuse for that.

• 6:34Steven Bartlett?

  No, okay. Both points sounded very similar in fact, because on one hand, you're saying with your goals, only go after the things you can control, like really focus on those things. And in the same way, when we're talking about personal responsibility of self, you're saying you can't control other people. So yeah, but the thing that, you know, maybe you do have control over in your life is your behaviour, how you act, how you conduct yourself, and then kind of leave the rest to.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Well, I think you can understand how other people are responding and how they're feeling. So you can accept that if somebody's, you know, if somebody's in a very, well, it's two things really. I think first and foremost, ambition is a big thing not to forget, you know, what's your level? You know, you can be incredibly ambitious. Why can't we be the best in the world at something? Why can't we be the first to do something? What's stopping us doing something that nobody else in the human race has ever done before? Nothing as far as I can see, you know, so I think there's a, it's, you know, you've got to have that ambition, enthusiasm, the belief we can do whatever we want to do, you know, and really stretch that. And then I think the next bit really, the target is more like the how to get there.

• 7:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  It's more like the boring stuff to get there, you know, so it's like head and heart really. And I think that if you understand yourself, then you should be able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. And if they're having a tough time, or if somebody else is angry, or there's something else going on with them, you know, rather than just dive in and respond to the behaviour you're seeing at face value, why not stop and think about it a little bit? And is this person in trouble? What's causing this? Where are they coming from? What's going on? You know, try and understand it. And if they're just responding emotionally to something and you allow yourself to immediately respond emotionally back, it doesn't really get anywhere, you know, so you'd better hold back and wait and find out and try anyway. Not always easy, but.

• 8:19Steven Bartlett?

  Not always easy. I struggle with that.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:22Steven Bartlett?

  I struggle with that, especially being in an environment where my time is so, feels so precious, right? It's always, there's so many things I could be doing and you're exactly, you're exactly the same. I know, you know, I know people that work with you. I know you're a very, very busy person. So it's, it's tough in the moment to stop and pause and to have patience when the rest of my life is run on like efficiency.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:44Steven Bartlett?

  So you know what I mean? It's difficult.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess in my world, you know, I'm out to try and help people and I do push people. And we've got high standards. You know, you do want a level commitment. I don't like laziness, for example. I just can't, that would really hurt. That gets me, you know. But then I have to manage it and think, okay, well, if that's what they want, there's no problem. This isn't the environment for them, you know. But in the main, I think, understanding challenges and setting standards and boundaries and working to all of that is important.