Inspiring Leadership Lessons of Top Athletes: Winning Success Secrets from a 2-Time Olympian and International Speaking Star, Sherry Winn

Welcome to the first podcast episode in our new series, inspiring leadership lessons of top athletes. Our first guest in this series shares with us from the perspective of an athlete. She's a two time Olympian, and from the perspective of a coach, she is a National Basketball Coach of the Year. Sherry Winn shares, athlete mindsets and practices that can be translated to inspiring leadership in the workplace.

Welcome to the Courage of a Leader podcast. This is where you hear real life stories of top leaders achieving extraordinary results. And you get practical advice and techniques, you can immediately apply for your own success. This is where you will get inspired. And take bold, courageous action. I'm so glad you can join us. I'm your host, Amy Riley. Now, are you ready to step into the full power of your leadership and achieve the results you care about most? Let's ignite the courage of a leader.

Sherry, I am so glad that you are here today to talk about how athletics teach us to be courageous. And I cannot think of a more qualified person to be able to have this discussion as an athlete, a two time Olympian, yourself and as a coach, National Basketball Coach of the Year. So you bring the athlete perspective, the coach perspective, what lessons have you learned from athletics that enable you to think and act courageously?

Wow. That's a big question. Why would you throw a softball right

into the episode.

You know, what I love about that, as is in you know, you and I've talked about this before is this is it really makes you get comfortable with the uncomfortable like the discomfort because any growth as an athlete comes from pushing the edge, you don't get to settle in and say, Well, I learned this period, it's always the next you know, so. So as an athlete, if you want to get the next level, or if you want to even stay on the top, you can't stop with what you know, you have to find the very next skill that's going to keep you on the top, or the next skill is going to get you to the top. So is that really, that awareness of I can't live in a comfort zone, I have to constantly live on the edge so that I can get to the next place. And of course, that's just one thing. But I think that's the biggest thing that many people don't understand about being an athlete, it gets you prepared for the rest of your life. And that space of knowing that there is a next that I always have to be going to in order to be and I'm talking about not just about skills. I'm talking about, you know, things like happiness. What's the next skill I need to know to stay happy?

Beautiful. Yeah, I am really nodding along there, Cherie with everything that you're saying. I am far from an Olympic or elite athlete. But I do love my running and triathlons and endurance events. And yeah, it's something about that athletes mind I'm always looking for, like, what's the next challenge? Okay, I've covered that distance. What's the next distance? Oh, could I do that one faster? What if I take on some more challenging terrain. And it's always putting us into a place of learning and growth and figuring things out and figuring yourself out. Okay, I've showed up to the gym without my cycling shoes. I'm supposed to do a cycling workout now. Okay, do I have time to go back? Do I do something different? Now I've got a problem solve. Right? In the moment?

Mastering Change at any Age. So disruption is like you know, you break your leg and so for three months, you can't play or and or work the way you normally would or you have like COVID that lasts for four weeks or your child has been bullied at school. So those are life disruptions. Yeah, think about that. 48 in a lifetime, and we can't settle in. well beyond that. There's three to five life quakes that we're going to experience. So what's alive quake alive quake is a life disruption on steroids. So it's the it's the injury or illness That changes your life forever forever, is the lifelong dream that blows up in your face is that love when that betrays in such a way that seems unforgivable? So think about that look. So if you learn that you have to, you have to figure out how to overcome those challenges that you can't sell in. And athletics helps you learn that, you know, you're constantly challenged by opponents, you know, by your coach by your teammates, and you have to be able to get through that that challenge. And it teaches you to those life challenges that we're all under one all all going to have. It helps you learn to prepare to get ready and to not just lay down and die on some incredible live quick comes your way.

Yeah. Ah, share. Those are incredible statistics that you give us and I want to talk a little bit about how do we practice and kind of build some some resilience, some courageous muscles to be ready for the life disruptions and the life quakes that are coming up. First, let me tell listeners a little bit more about you Sherry. Okay. Sherry Winn is a two time Olympian, National Basketball Coach of the Year, Amazon three time best selling author, she is an in demand internationally renowned speaker frequently speaks for up to 14,000 people at a time, including companies such as StubHub, Anytime Fitness, New York Life, Edward Jones, and Technicolor. Shari is known as a leader of leaders and a visionary of visionaries who has written five books, including her just released has been much anticipated book entitled winning leadership. There it is seven secrets to being a truly powerful leader, we will put the link in the show notes. Sherry, I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now let's get to the stuff. I mean, if people are listening, let's get to really, you know, give them an opportunity to change your life.

Let's do they're so full of practical and inspiring guidance that yeah, that was my desire to get right to it. Do you want to say this is the first episode in a new series on the Courage of a Leader podcast called Inspiring Leadership Lessons from Top Athletes. I know I get inspired by those by athletes and those involved in athletics. And I think there are great lessons that translate to our work lives as leaders. So we're here to explore that. So the life disruptions share the life quakes are coming, right? How do we practice? How do we build resilience or courageous muscles?

I love that you asked that question because I just finished a talk on that. And so it's one of my favorite talks is about resilience, you know what I call it from tail spin to Olympian. It's, it's those stories that was meant to Olympian from tail spin to an Olympian. And so it's resilience from tail spin to Olympian. And so giving people, those those skill sets that I learned, I was forced to learn from, you know, the deep dive that I had in depression and suicidal thoughts, to, you know, a motivational, inspirational person, a speaker, author, but here's the deal, you just went, since we know challenges are coming, this is the human experience, there's no need to get mad at it. It's just a human experience, we're all going to have a human experience, because that's who we are. What is important is is what we call, you know, the toolkit, we have to meet these challenges, these live quakes, these live disruptions. And so the better your toolkit is, the easier it is to get through these. Not to say it won't be, you know, a period of time where you're a little mad because of course, like that's the human experience of human emotion. But why stay in it when you've got the toolkit to get through? So one of the things I like to do is talk about the power of gratitude. And this is something that we can all teach yourself, because gratitude leads to hope is when people are hopeless. That's when people become suicidal. That's when people get depressed. Hopelessness leads to those things. Well, how do you keep hope it starts with gratitude and gratitude is a learned tool. So it starts the day like before I get out of bed, I just start with a thank you. Before I get out of bed, thank you, you know, thank you for this body. Thank you that I get up to get another day. And in this life, thank you that I get a new adventure today. You know, thank you for yesterday and the things that happened to me yesterday that I learned from Thank you. So just start with this idea of, of gratitude. And so we can do a rampage of thankfulness. We're just as many things as we can, like just as fast as we can roll them off. We can do that. We can do a gratitude journal. So you know Oprah was an Oprah once who said she wrote down five I've gratitude statements every night before going to bed, which I think is wonderful because you're reflecting back and looking at it, recognizing it. And so Amy, I go, Well, if Oprah could do five, I can do 10 Like,

I can go on a rampage. Watch me,

I'll do 30 a day. But what I discovered was, you know, the rule is you cannot repeat, ask. You have to find 10 New. And it really became a huge challenge for me, because I had to notice the small things. Yeah, right. I didn't have the, the practice of, you know, something I hadn't seen the day before, to have a gratitude journal, before you go to bed. Now, your first thing in the morning, you know, you can practice gratitude, when you get to that moment that you're mad or angry, or something to be grateful for right now, like switching that into gratitude. Because, you know, we're vibrational beings. And as vibrational beings, that means we're energy like the energy, we're the emotions that we have our energetic emotions, right? So one of the lowest emotions we can have is guilt and shame. Those are the two lowest emotions we can admit. Well, the higher ones is gratitude. Nice. So switching into that, right, and as soon as we switch into gratitude, hope comes. And you know, when we're drowning in, you know, the challenge, we can't see hope. Well, you want to see Oh, go to gratitude.

Lovely. I want to underscore some of the things that you just said, Sherry, that don't get mad at it. That's really powerful. Because it can be easy when something tragic, unexpected, something we really don't want, we've been working towards the opposite. And comes our way, it's really easy to feel like this is unfair, why me? Right? But you just told us, everybody has 48 Life disruptions, and a handful of life quakes come in their way. So it's just, it's just the human experience. It's just what so and I think remembering that can help us not get into that mindset of why me? Why is this happening? What, what what's going on here? Instead of getting into something that's more forward focused, I feel that, that practicing the gratitude. And that's really interesting, what you said about the energetic levels, Sherry, because gratitude is something we can practice in a moment. Right? And if we can go from a lower energetic vibration to something that's much higher, in an instant, yeah. Right, that that changes the trajectory of our day of the next hour of the next interaction that we're

gonna have? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you know, somebody taught me a long time ago, the difference between pain and suffering, you know, like, I got to develop chronic pain when I was 35. And it was there. Like, I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know I didn't go look for it, you know, you know, it wasn't an accident that happened to just boom. So So pain is someone's physiology, you know, that physiological suffering, that's a choice. So the difference is, do you want to suffer through your pain? Or do you want to find a way of ease through it? And that is the difference? Because if the pain exists, and sometimes exists for a long time for us, right? I mean, there, there's something that happens to us. Do we want to stay in the anger? Do you want to stay in the Depression? Do we want to end sadness, the frustration around it? Or do we want to find some peace of joy around it? Do we want to find some peace of happiness around it? How do we want to experience the day? You know, because that's the choice we have is how we want to experience the day, even if we're going live in this challenge. So that that that that's the piece that people will go Oh, but I have the pain. Yes. Yes. You do. Not debating that. Yeah, we're debating how you want to feel about it.

Yeah. So sure if we could go to your personal experience there. You have chronic pain. Right? happening. It's there. How did you move away from suffering?

Well, so let me say this. So I developed chronic pain at age 35. I couldn't stand or walk without pain, right? And so it was an athlete like you're taught like, you know, get through the pain like get his okay, no gain. Let's go figure like a dragon knows you're still playing and right. You you do that, but in chronic pain, there is no there's no end to it. And what happens is the first day it's it's okay, I can get to a second day I could get through a third day. I get through it. One week goes by you're like, huh, a month goes by like whoa, a year goes by. Right that that that kind of consistency and the pain is so much different than the pain is getting better. You can feel an end to it like there's a difference. The first time I got chronic pain at age 35 I got depressed, angry, you know, my anger. Yeah, that's my survival mechanism. And I really did not handle that well, but what I found was like I was being miserable and that people didn't want to be around me he was be around a miserable person, no matter if you're in pain or not like they like who wants to hang around that. So, you know, sort of having friends, I was pushing friends away, well, in your deepest need of a human being, you need connection when you're pushing people away, it's not a good way to respond to that. And so it's, even though it's the worst thing that ever happened to me, I would say was the best thing that ever happened to me, because that's where the journey of really diving deeper into the emotions and the emotional work and, you know, empathy for myself, and I would say love for myself, right at that accepting myself, learning how to self validate how to have unconditional love for myself, which then could be given to other people. So, you know, and all these things like you go, I was terrible, but what a blessing. You could sit in the minute in a moment. But now, the person I became as a result of those things, and what I can offer, now, as a result of those things, what a true blessing that was, right?

Yeah, I heard a few more tools. For the toolkit share you what you were just sharing, I mean, first of all, the empathy for ourselves, the acceptance, that gets really easy, I sometimes call it the double whammy, Sherry, like there's some negative circumstances going on. And then we take out a big imaginary club and start hitting ourselves with it, right? Like, whatever I did, I must have done something wrong to get myself here, or, you know, I'm so frustrated with this, I shouldn't feel frustrated, like, we have negative emotions, and then we beat ourselves up for sure, those emotions. And if our body's in chronic pain we could get, we can get bad at our own body, our own selves. So how do you practice that empathy, that acceptance? How do I treat myself in ways so I'm able to move forward? And then you also talked about connection? Right. And and this is maybe a personal inquiry for everybody? How do you create that connection to what's important in your life to the people in your life to work or activities? That you you? Yeah, connection? Okay. Well, I

think and, you know, as you as you do me, I work with a lot of leaders. And so, you know, people always go like, Oh, leadership skills. And so yes, I can do all that. Right, let's do, let's talk about how do you delegate? How do you figure out what your priority question is? Let's give you your values, you know, what your values what your mission state and your personal myths? All? That's okay, great. But really, what makes the differences? How do you really love yourself unconditionally? How do you how do you validate yourself in such a way that you're not needy? Going out there in your connections? Right? So how do you get your ego, you know, in your back seat? Well, all of that is the work of you know, what we're talking about right? Now. All that's the work of When you love yourself so much? Right? That you don't need anybody else to love you. You don't need it. Right? You enjoy it, you enjoy it? Well, connecting with people means a you're not a taker, you're a giver. And when you start with that, you know, there's a different connection to be had. And so as a leader, if you're needing things from people, and that shows up in so many different ways, right? I mean, you can become a control person micromanager. You know, you are, you know, incredibly demanding in a negative way. You know, you overwhelm people, you demeanor, all those are like you're really looking for that control, which comes back to I need something from you, I don't have enough in me. So I'm taking versus giving. Right. So that comes back to all of that, but that's internal work. I mean, that's the work that that I think the highest leader of leaders get to it's what I've written in my book, you know what he leadership seven secrets to being a truly powerful leader. All of that. Ama is you have to first like you've got to do all this work on yourself, so that you show up differently for other people. And so that live experience through your life disruptions in life quakes can still be such a happy experience.

Yes, I love how you talk about this Sherry because this can sound like a nice aspirational concept. Love yourselves, please, right? Do I want everybody to love themselves just to just start their morning with themselves with with love. You are also pointing to so many reasons why we want to practice that because it impacts our ability to To be powerful in the world, right, because we're not needy, so then we're not the, the control leader, we're not the micromanager, we're able to give, we're not creating drama, because I think it also creates a foundation by which you can be objectively self aware. Absolutely. If I love myself, then I'm better able to say, Amy, you're really strong and great here, and you are not so strong and great here. And here are the things that trigger you. And you know, here are the situations where you need to regulate and be aware of yourself a little bit, so that I'm not operating on some automatic pilot, and you are all getting the, I don't know, the unintended consequences of you know, me not being aware of something that's triggered me or frustrated me or made me feel insecure?

Absolutely. I mean, it all comes internally, right. That's your that's the work that we all have to do. I mean, for our for our families, right? I mean, for your your partner, your relationship there, for every of you, for everybody, if you're a leader, you know, we're all leaders, because we lead our families, we lead ourselves, but it shows up differently. I mean, your power shows up differently. When I say power, I'm not talking about, you know, demand like, well, I'm going to get you and Power is power is kindness, powers, empathy, you know, power is forgiveness. Right? That's, and those are our, that's where we're truly powerful. And that thing and so you had made a point earlier about, you know, when we get mad, you know, something happens to us, we start saying why? Why does happen to me? Well, and so, one of the great things we can do for ourselves to say forgive ourselves, but but be forgive the people around us, like whatever, whatever person that we thought did something to us, right? Forgive them. But the third thing is, and and this is where I thought about it. It's when we say why did this happen to me? Who are you talking to you? Well, that's your higher power. So we forget that we need to forgive our higher power, because that's part of it. Because if we say the thing, why did this happen to me? Then who are you accusing? Yeah, who are you blaming? Yeah. And so that's that, that power of forgiveness. I mean, truly, in all three aspects, like you haven't gotten through something until you've gotten all three of those aspects, truly forgiven. And that is part of like, being able to be present, being able to be the great leader that you want to be, right, being able to be a great parent, the great friend, whatever the great daughter, all of that comes into that.

Yeah. Any guidance on how to forgive? I know that there's some areas in my life where it's easier or harder to forgive, and, and move forward in a productive way.

Oh, sure. Right. I mean, we all get stuck in that This shouldn't have happened. This was terrible. I can't believe that person to me, I can't you know. And I think when you look at it from a different perspective, so if you believe, I believe, like, the reason we came here, right, is that to evolve as human beings like we were meant to, to grow, and to learn and evolve, and so that we give our best to other people. Well, the reason events happened to us is so that we can learn, that's why they happen to us. So when, if you change one word, just one word, from, you know, this person did this to me, to this person did this for me. Everything shifts, right, so this shift becomes, you know, like, forgiving. For example, my mom, my mom has never said, I'm sorry, know what's right for the things that I perceive that she did wrong. Let me give you the list. No, but here's the difference. If I can fake that she really did it for me. So when she did something that gave me the experience, that helped me understand how the experience felt, and if I could then you know, learn from that and grow from that. She actually did something for me because she propelled me on a pathway to becoming a better human being. And so if you can look at it from that perspective, it's much easier, even if you are saying to your higher power, right. What did you do for me? How is this propelling me forward? What is the lesson here that I learned that's going to give more, you know, to in this lifetime, to me and to other people? What is it? What is it that you gave? And so now we've shifted that perspective. And once we shift the perspective, man, then we can really step into this opportunity to look at the other person and go, wow, wow, like without that lesson, I wouldn't be who I am today. Wow. Thank you.

That's, that's such a powerful shift, as you say, Sherry, and as you're talking I'd be thinking about the bigger picture commitment. And all of this, I'm going to be committed to learning and growing and taking away something. This painful, hurtful, frustrating, disappointing experience, whatever it was, I have a commitment to, you know what, I'm not going to become defined by this right? I'm going to decide what to learn. The commitment to love yourself the commitment to, I'm going to bring empathy, I'm going to find connection inside experience. And now having that commitment and playing, experimenting with different ways to do so.

Absolutely. You know, this is where I think a great leader is born, right? With all the work the internal work, I know, you believe this, your book and, and what you teach and those things. And so it's really, you can't go lead, if you haven't laid yourself first. Right? It's that bigger piece. It's really understanding yourself. And then, as you mentioned, looking in the mirror, and not being mad, that you're, you're incomplete, imperfect, right? Just understand, like, oh, man, I'm a human. And so part of the human experience is, I'm really good at some of this and other stuff I have to grow in. Yeah. And it's not like because you said, you know, like, you'd beat yourself up, like, we judge ourselves. And then we judge that we judge ourselves, and they weren't a whole, horrific, you know, thing, instead of giving ourselves grace, right, I'll learn from this, I'll grow from this. And it sit in that space between, you know, like, I call it the recovery gap. So mistake happens, whatever happens, and then our recovery gaps, whoever here, well, people go, I need to beat myself up. So I'll get better. And I say, why? What are you doing when you're beat yourself up? Who showed up as? Like? Who are you showing up? As for other people when they come in your office? Are you present? Are you ready to help? Are you having empathy? Are you still beating yourself up? How's that show up? But if here's the mistake, here's an event and recovery gaps like this. And so we make it a really, really small recovery gap. We don't need the beat up, we can just get to the next phase by giving ourself grace. And knowing that because we did that so quickly, we're in a better space for ourselves and other people. Why do we need to go through through hours or days days? Some people are beating ourselves up?

Yeah, well, yeah. I like this concept of the recovery gap. Because then we can also begin to assess our progress. Right, the first time I showed up to the gym, without the equipment that I needed, right, I was so frustrated, like, I know, I'm an efficiency person, Sherry, I like I do, and I feel like I'm detailed. And I feel like I could show I should be able to show up to the gym with everything that I need. The first time that happened. Right? I was like, annoyed for hours. Right? And then that get that recovery gap got shorter over time. Oh, okay. Well, I've been here before, let me just figure out the best thing that I could do, given the equipment and the time that I have. Right? So. So I love that everything you're talking about, it's like dealing with ourselves. And

athlete does it doesn't it our biggest our biggest opponents always ourselves, it's not the opponent across the course always ourselves, you know, if we don't have to battle if we're not battling ourselves, and we're free to, to, to, you know, go out against your opponent and just focus on that. But if we're having to battle ourselves and the opponent, that's a lot. Yeah.

Well said. So Sherry, for the listeners out there, who are not athletes have no interest in being an athlete, work one art one don't want to become one. Right? How can they learn these lessons that we're talking about?

Well, you know, you don't have to be an athlete to in our lesson, if you were in choir, if you were in band, if you you know, even if you didn't do any of those things, just the observation of self just, you know, how do I show up like an athlete's always evaluating where I am today? Where am I going to be tomorrow? Same thing with you as an individual. Who am I today? The self awareness is a very wish, not a judgment. Like, let me just say that we don't want to judge it's more of a curiosity. Like, can we replace judgment with curiosity? And if we can do that, like like an athlete would do watching a game, Phil, I'm curious. How can I didn't? How can I get faster? How can I get better? Same thing, right? Be curious about how can I improve who I am today? How can I show up better tomorrow? So I think being an athlete helps some people, but being an athlete hurts some people, right?

Yeah, I mean, well, and we all have the experiences and the circumstance. I mean, we talked about life is bringing us 48 disruptions, right. And all of us have had our journey where we've been put into, we've been put out outside of our comfort zone. And how do we do? What are your strengths in those moments? Yeah, I look, you're you're you're really good at the The powerful word shifts share that create a whole new filter and a whole new perspective instead of judgment. It's curious. Yeah,

well, those are the shifts that, you know, it's the, when people come to me, and they want me to coach them, and they're, you know, they want to become better perform better whenever we have to get a new of life philosophy, we have to have new live thoughts, we have to have habit of thought, that's going to move them forward. So that habit of thought, if you don't get the right habit of thought, is what you're going to be paying a lot. And you're gonna suffer a lot. Yeah, but without that, you know, because every day I choose to give in the morning. And, look, I can't run like you do. I wish, oh, man. If I could run again, if I could do the things that you do like that, I can get really mad about that. But I choose to say, what can I do today is going to bring me joy. You know, what can I do today? If it's 30 minutes of, you know, a yoga workout, I'm thrilled that I can do 30 minutes a yoga workout. You know, what can I do today, that I can't do the things I used to do, but I want to have be happy. I want to bring joy into my life. I don't want to suffer. So that's, that's, that's the life habits of thinking that have evolved. You know, from my on my life, life quakes, I just jumped from, you know, that I think I separate I think I've put more live quakes in my life than life disruptions. So like, let's just throw these live quakes that it wants. And let's get them done with when I was early Milan, who's like, Oh, great.

Yeah, those 48 as quickly as possible could have done, you

know, done, right. But that's because, you know, choose a choose to be happier, choose joy. I choose love myself, that makes a difference. And I think that people don't understand that it's a choice, and you have to work at it. Because we don't have those little, like you said those little nuances of the way you look at things you stay stuck.

Yes. Sherry, you have shared with us so many great things. Today, I'm gonna recap for listeners here. become more comfortable with the uncomfortable and be looking for your next challenge your next place to make yourself uncomfortable, and learn and grow and create new results. Don't get mad at it. Right? The challenge the circumstances, it's here. And how do you want to be given that that's so choose some tools in your toolkit, it could be gratitude. I love that one. Because the way you talked about it and how it can bring us to a higher energy vibration in a moment. Empathy, acceptance, connection, forgiveness, loving yourself. I love this concept of the recovery gap. Right? How long is that recovery gap? And if it's long, what is the impact of that to you and to those around you and to the work that you're doing? What are you committed to in the big picture that would have you say, you know, it's gonna be really short recovery gap. And then knowing that it's all choice. We could just how to see how to respond to the circumstances that are in front of us.

So appreciate the questions and your tentative attentiveness in no to listening. So thank you so much for that. Amy.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for sharing from your experience, and your expertise sharing so much. Great stuff. Thank you for being on the courage of a leader podcast.