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Adolfo Gómez Sánchez has dedicated over three decades to studying and modeling what drives optimal performance.
Adolfo was a competitive athlete and is a performance mentor to professional athletes on the ATP and WTA tours, C-Suite executives of large multinational corporations, and performance artists such as Grammy nominated singers and opera stars.
Our conversation covers:
- The Optimal Performance Formula
- What makes a tennis athlete great
- How Adolfo approaches his work with tennis athletes
- Growth mindset
- Applying the science of performance from sports to business challenges
- Lessons from athletes including Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Michael Chang, Jim Courier, Carlos Alcaraz, Jerry Rice, and Tiger Woods
- Learn more about Adolfo’s work at www.gold-results.com
Subscribe to Sideline Sessions here: https://sidelinesessions.transistor.fm/subscribe
About today’s guest
Adolfo Gómez Sánchez has dedicated over three decades to studying and modeling what drives optimal performance. His mission is to mentor professional athletes, leading multinational corporations, and performance artists to achieve the best version of themselves and to gain the “millimeters” of difference that separate champions from the rest in every field.
He holds an Ivy League Graduate Degree from Yale University and an undergraduate degree from McGill University, complemented by thirty years of studying scientific research on performance. He has merged his academic knowledge of what science has discovered that drives performance with his experience in the trenches as a competitive athlete and as a performance mentor to professional athletes on the ATP and WTA tours, C-Suite executives of large multinational corporations, and performance artists such as Grammy nominated singers and opera stars. Follow him on LinkedIn.
About the host
Ross Romano is co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and also hosts The Authority Podcast. He began his career in the pro sports industry before becoming a leading communications, marketing, and management expert working with education companies. He is founder and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. He also works directly with professionals at all levels, in all industries, coaching them in their pursuit of success.
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Sideline Sessions?
Designed for coaches, parents and other stakeholders in the world of youth, scholastic, and amateur sports, this show brings you interviews with leaders at the highest levels of their respective sports.
Hear from coaches and performance experts with experience in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Olympics, and NCAA Division-I, plus those who run elite youth programs, successful high school teams, and more. Hear about their motivations, philosophies, and strategies for success, and take away actionable insights to support the athletes in your life.
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everybody to another episode of Sideline Sessions here on the BE Podcast Network. As always, thank you for being with us and I think we're going to bring you a great conversation [00:01:00] today. My guest is Adolfo Gomez Sanchez. He has dedicated over three decades to studying and modeling what drives optimal performance.
He has a mission to mentor professional athletes, leading multinational corporations, and performance artists. to achieve the best version of themselves and to gain the millimeters of difference that separate champions from the rest in every field. And we'll definitely get into that. Adolfo was a competitive athlete himself, and he is a performance mentor to professional athletes on the ATP and WTA.
tours. So those are professional tennis players for those of you out there. It's also C suite executives of large multinational corporations and performance artists such as Grammy nominated singers and opera stars. His blueprint for performance is called the optimal performance formula, which he leverages to consistently prove the truth in his personal slogan, impossible only means that no one has done it yet.
Adolfo, welcome to the show.
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Hi, Ross. Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure.
Ross Romano: Yeah, [00:02:00] it's awesome to have you here. And and we love to talk about all kinds of different sports on the show here, and this is actually our first episode that we're really going to get to dive into tennis. So I wanted to start there a little bit and get your perspective on what do you love about the sport of tennis?
What makes it great?
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Well, yeah, I mean, what we'll talk about in tennis can extrapolate to most other sports, but I love tennis because, A, and I loved it when I started playing and I love it, you know, as a performance mentor, because it's something where it really does depend on you, right? You you know, it's not 12 guys out on the field and you know, you can have a bad day or they can have a good day or whatever.
It's really up to you. And you're on that court and really the difference in professional tennis between number one and number 200 is, is the mental game, right? I mean, they're all big, they all play spectacularly well. They hit the ball really hard. And it's, it's, it's a difference about the mental game and that's.
You know, that's a very broad category for such a small, small title. But [00:03:00] so it's, it's really exciting. And, and I think tennis, although, you know, you've got some deviations, but it's still very much a gentleman's sport. Right. And and I think that's nice. Right. I mean, I always say. I never wanted to win in anything if I didn't earn it.
And, and I think that's kind of the underlying you know, spirit that's in tennis. So it's, it's a lot of fun. And, you know, like anything, when you, when you're a professional athlete, right, tennis players start 12, 14, they start almost just exclusively dedicating this to going on tour. And it's, it's really hard because you're very young.
And so, you know, 20, 22, you know, Everybody's really good, right? So, then you, a lot of them will hit a wall and it's, so how do I then keep improving? Or do I even have to keep improving? Which is, which is one of the things we'll talk about. And so, it's, it's just a fascinating world. And with the advancements in physical training and the nutrition, you know, used to be finished at 30, right?
Now people can play till they're 38, 40. So it really does give you a horizon to do a really interesting journey. I would call it a mastery journey. (ad here)
Ross Romano: [00:04:00] Excellent. One of the things that has been kind of a theme on the show in the past is, you know, many of our coaches have talked about the benefits of athletes participating in a variety of different sports and not just Being too hyper focused on specialization from a young age. And so maybe we have some coaches, parents, athletes out there who have, you know, who love playing sports, haven't really played tennis that much are interested in it.
And one of the things that stands out to me, and I am not an expert on the sport, but it seems to be that, you know, there still is a, you know, variety of different styles of play, different ways to be successful. And you have your different court surfaces that play into that and other things. But we're in some sports due to either the [00:05:00] nature of, of what they are or in others due to, you know, the kind of the data and analytics revolution and what has been termed optimized for what it means to succeed.
I think We have seen a little more homogeneity you know, athletes the style of play, starting to get more and more similar and then having less variety because certain things that athletes used to do are not, no longer considered all that efficient, right? But, you know, I think of tennis as being one where you have Even if you look at, you know, the top players, right.
And some of the top all time guys are the top current players that they may have very different styles. But are there things kind of that are true typically across the board of like what makes somebody well suited to the sport, not, not, you know, we'll get into more of the, all the [00:06:00] performance that makes them great once they get there, but.
That makes somebody say, Hmm, like this could be a good sport for me. I have X, Y, Z, you know, I don't know. For somebody who's interested in getting into it for the first time.
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Well, you said a couple of really interesting things. So first let me just talk about, you talked about specialization in multi sports. I completely support multi sport in kids until they're at least 16, I'd say, right? There's a couple of reasons for that. One, there's you know, there's cross training, right?
And there's skills that we'll, we'll roll over to its mental freshness, because you know, it's, you're 12, you know, just drilling six hours a day in just one sport, it's just not normal that you would, you know, stay on that. And, and, and I think the third part is you take pressure off them, right?
Because a lot of parents, and I've seen this a lot, transmit and sort of project their frustrations onto their kids, right? And let's be clear, and if you, if you're a parent and you don't know this, the pro, [00:07:00] no matter how good your kid is now, The probability that in any sport, your child will be one of the, you know, one percent of professional is exactly that.
It's like less than one percent, right? So relax, right? The whole, the biggest value of kids in sports until they're at a certain age is learning the values, moving their bodies. Getting to know themselves, right, and their bodies, their emotions, their frustrations, etc. And developing a concept of themselves, right?
Am I somebody who gives up? Am I a fighter, right? That's it. And you can, you know, if they're gonna make it, and I've seen players who at 12 years old, there's a guy who used to name, his name was Carlos Boluda, when he was out of here in Spain. And when he was 12, he won. Everything. Worldwide, right? He won the Rose Bowl, he won everything.
He happened to be advanced in his mental structure. He played like a pro. He had, he knew exactly how you had to play. And then he turned like 16, 17, he just stopped growing, right? And and then another kid caught up to him and passed him and he ended up, I don't think he ever got past number 200 in the world.
And then, but his, One of the big [00:08:00] handicaps he had was he was so frustrated because when he was 14, you know, his parents would say, you want my son to go to your tournament? You pay me 6, 000 guaranteed, right? And they're like, excuse me? Right. And you know, I need a sponsor. And he had an agent and like, you know, whereas if you see a a Rafa Nadal, right.
The story of Rafa Nadal, he was coached by his uncle, which you know, was a wonderful stroke of luck. Not because I'm particularly a fan of Tony Nadal, but because he didn't have a say in whether that was going to be his coach or not. I think 12 years old, Fernando Velasco at 12 fired his coach, right? I mean, how can a 12 year old fire a coach?
Whereas, Rafael Nadal had no say on this, right? So by the time he was old enough, he had been, you know, distilled with a series of values around hard work, about, you know, the way you approach things, that really shaped who he is, right? And so, When a child is growing up, you know, and one of the things Tony and Adele did when Rafa won the championship, the national championship, I think it was 14 years old, or 15, he said, look, here's a list of the last [00:09:00] 20 champions of this championship, right?
How many names do you recognize? You know, like two or three, and everybody else. He says, so you haven't done anything yet, so relax, right? And I think that's important, right? You need to keep things in perspective. People have to be, and this is true when you get an adult, you have to be proud when you, and happy when you make a success, but that doesn't mean the journey's over, and definitely don't get overconfident.
And There's a great book called Thinking in Bets by, I think, her name's Annie Potts. She's a you know the book, right? She's a a PhD in cognitive psychology and she's a championship poker player. And one of her premises that she has discovered is that when things go well, people drastically overestimate their merit in that.
And when it goes poorly, they always put a lot more weight onto the circumstances. And it's actually wrong. And it's just not true. Statistically, it's just not true, right? So, you know, you are neither your successes nor your defeats. So just, you know, chill out and just keep working. And it's the big prize is who you become, right?
And if there's one thing I could say about kids in sports, it's who you become. So, so that's around multi sport. So back to being [00:10:00] suited to tennis. So obviously tennis, and especially if you think you're going to get serious about it. You have to be kind of okay being alone because you're alone on the court, but you're also traveling and you're kind of alone.
You have your team, but I think, you know, it's not like being on a, on a soccer or a football or a baseball team, where you might travel, but you've got your teammates and it's a whole, and you know, a lot of them are going through the similar things you're going You're a tennis player, it's you. And everybody else, your friends, are your rivals, because that's who you meet in all the tournaments you go up against.
And that's neither good nor bad, but it does have to do with your personality. You know, I'm a bit of an introvert, so it's, I'm comfortable with that. But I've known professional tennis players who said, you know, I should have been a soccer player, because I really like the team spirit, and I like being able to rely on people, and whatever.
I think that's one of the first things you have to think of. And the other thing is, it's it's technically, it's, it's a complex sport, right? I mean, you know, actually, the strokes and then the footwork and, you know, like, like everything, there's things that non professionals or non, you know, experienced people don't [00:11:00] see, right?
Roger Federer's footwork was World class and people don't realize that they thought he was just so gifted reason he played so well One of the reasons was because his footwork was just world class. So while other guys were lunging for balls He was already there and he was and that's one of the secrets of tennis, right?
You could you have to receive the ball, right? If you sort of hit it, even hitting, it's not the hard part, it's receiving it and getting it exactly where you need to get it, right? And so he was just exceptional at that and he worked really hard at this. Roger Federer was a really hard work I mean like, you know, four hours on the practice court and people think it's natural, right?
But it's those small things. So it's a really technical sport and you really have to work on those small things you know, Rafa Nadal with his brute force King of Clay, he did really well, but at one point he realized if he wanted to advance his career, he needed to do things that he wasn't good at.
He had to work on his serve, he had to work on his volley, he had to change certain things he had to flatten out his strokes, right? Just like Tiger Woods when he changed his swing halfway and his grip halfway through, right? [00:12:00] That's what a real, you know, tennis is a technical like golf, and it requires you to sort of fine tune all the time.
And so you have to sort of be able to put your ego on the rope, coat rack, and say, I'm going to test this out. And you may feel like you're going backwards but you'll eventually go forwards. And, and I think that's a special type of person, right? You know, I, I mean, I think few, I don't know, whatever.
Quarterbacks or running backs go out and take a ball and feel, Oh, I don't know how to run today. Right. When you're tennis player, there's days you're like, shit, I can't get my strings on the racket. Right. On the ball. Right. And so I think you have to be comfortable with that and, and see it as a journey.
And if you do, it's fun. And, you know, I, I guess it's true in all sports, but in tennis, the worst thing you can do is actually worry about, about the scoreboard, right? Cause you just there are so many exogenous factors and, you know, a call can go against you. It doesn't, it doesn't matter. Right. You just have to get into your game and your rhythm.
And so I would say one of the things that that gives you is the chance, tennis forces you to create an identity, right? Who's your, and all athletes [00:13:00] should have an identity because it's like a mission statement for a company, right? If you don't know who you are and what makes you unique it's not, you're not going to know how you train, where you're strong, where you're not, right?
So you really have to have that clear. Who do I want to be? And then what does that type of player do? Right? Like I'll give you an example. I worked with a professional top 80, top 50 ADB player. And that was the big. term key that changed and helped him jump into the top 10. It was about, you know, he would go out and he'd start playing like Roger Federer and he wasn't, right?
And he'd try and blow people off the hook. That's not your identity. So we talked about what he was really strong at and this guy was a really strong baseliner And he was really great shape, amazing shape, and he was just, he was mentally strong So he was like, his identity was a gladiator and the whole idea was I will play to wear out the guy I have in front, right?
Start up Michael Chang You know, David Ferrer type style, right? And that's who I'm gonna be and that served him to get all the [00:14:00] way up into the top ten Right But the moment, it was the moment he started playing the way, you know, he should. I remember the first Grand Slam we went to together, and, and I said to him, I said, look, he was playing a guy who had who was much more experienced, well known on the circuit, but he was a little older and didn't have his physical fitness.
And I said to him, I said, look, your goal, It's to play the longest games and the longest sets you can and every time you cross over with him You just smile and tell him I could do this all day, right? And so the first set went to a tie break he lost But it had taken so much out of the other guy He just jumped over the net and he said let's go second set And the other guy was like, Oh my God, I can't do, you know, three sets like this.
And so he started to wear them down, wear them down and he ended up winning. Right. He started realizing, Hey, if I take people into my area, I know who I am and where I want to play and what I don't want to do, then I can become really strong. Right. So, so I think it, tennis forces you to really think about who you are, who you want to be.
And if you want to be a servant volley, great, but then you maybe have to work on [00:15:00] your serve, right? I mean, you, you extra have to work on your serve. You can't cookie cutter. What you're, you know, somebody else is doing at your club because you want to be specially good, you know, David Ferrer was an example Jim Carreer, right?
They would, they were big into physical fitness. So these guys would play matches and then they'd go jog and you're like, are you serious? But because they knew that was part of who they are, right? I have to be stronger and, and more fit than you because otherwise, You know, I'm not going to blow you off.
I don't have a super strong serve, whatever, right? So, so I think it's that's a learning process and that's a that's a beautiful, you know, route And even if you don't end up going pro or whatever you do, you learn a lot about yourself, right? You know, am I good at this? What do I have to do? Am I willing to sacrifice?
Yeah,
Ross Romano: something you brought up that's really I think relevant to the mental approach for any, certainly, but any person to be successful is Jethro Jones. That the need to run toward the [00:16:00] challenge, right? You know, and it stands out in an individual sports, tennis, golf, so on. Certainly once you, you know, you're at a certain competitive level, right?
You as the athlete. are hiring your coach, very different from how it's if we were working in team sports. And there's been a lot of, you know, things over, over the course of time here where the, the power balance has tilted toward the athlete. We've seen it here in the U S in, in college sports with the, the way that compensation has changed and transfers where athletes can, switch schools, you know, without, without really much of a burden.
We've seen even some of the professional teams where athletes have achieved a certain level of influence, say LeBron James and guys like that, where they, if they're not hand selecting the coach, they have tremendous influence over it. And often in those [00:17:00] cases, it's looked at as, or, you know, maybe even is the case that it is.
taking the, the path that has a little less friction. It's saying, Oh, I'm not getting along with this coach, or I don't like his approach, or I just want to go with somebody who's going to let me do what I do and not necessarily try to get me to do something different versus, you know, in these individual sports, like you're not, you're totally accountable for yourself and your own performance.
And if you want to be your best, You're going to have to go to somebody who's going to push you and who's going to make you do the things that you don't do well. And you're going to have to have that perspective on, as, as I referred to in the intro, you know, those millimeters of difference, right? And you've talked about it, where you can watch a match at one of these tennis tournaments [00:18:00] and see a player who is, you know, rank number 200 or, or even below, and they could be going against.
One of the top guys, right? Djokovic, Alcarez, whatever. And to a normal observer, it can look pretty close. Like, oh, they belong there. They're, they're, you know, they're pretty good. Oh, you know, if, if they got a couple of breaks the other way, they could have won. That, but, you know, To the athlete who wants to get there, you know, they can tell, look, there's, it's, it's small differences, but it's not that close.
There's a reason that guy is number one, number two, number three, and I'm not. And, you know, and if I really want to improve, I have to be willing to really dedicate myself to those little things that. Maybe I don't want to do or that don't come naturally to me, but I have to find somebody and be willing to [00:19:00] be coached and have the, that mentality of, I can improve, I can learn this, but I need somebody who's going to really push me.
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: And I think you touched on something really important and it's, it's about being comfortable, getting comfortable being uncomfortable, right? And it's, and the greats do that, right? You talk about LeBron James. Yeah. But what's the difference? Look at Kobe Bryant, right? Or Michael Jordan. They would go out and speak people to make them uncomfortable.
Look, what else can you teach me? What don't I know? Right? It's not just what, what you think, you know, what don't I know? What don't, don't I do well? And then push me out, you know, Tom Brady, Tom Brady goes out and got somebody to work on his footwork because he wanted to be better. He got a guy to work on his flexibility, right?
It's all about how do I scratch millimeters all over, right, to get, to get better because they're obsessed. And this is something that I always impregnate or try and impregnate with any of my players, but everybody should believe it. It's not a journey, you know, it's a journey. It's not, you never get to the end, right?
And I will even say that there's a big problem with [00:20:00] corporate you know, corporate culture. I will, when I get in, but called in by a CEO and they ask me if I want to come and work with their team on performance, well, we'll talk about what they have. And at one point I will ask, so what's your personal plan to be a better CEO?
And I go, excuse me? And I'm like, because if you don't have one, that's part of the problem, right? You're assuming you've arrived and you can't improve. And yet, if you go to those, you know, Andre Agassi's, those Kobe Bryant's, those Michael Jordan's, they were always, no matter how famous they were, they were always driving for more, right?
And when they were the captain of the team, when they were the superstar, they kept pushing for more. Nobody, people were afraid to train with Michael Jordan because he wouldn't let you mail it in. Kobe Bryant was the same, right? That is what. You know, makes an elite performer, right? So, it never gives up.
It's not about getting there and being satisfied. It's, okay, I've gotten here. How much better could I get, right? And then you, and to do that, you have to crave feedback. You were talking about somebody to push me, right? You have to go looking for that and demand it, right? Look, pick it apart. I don't get, oh, [00:21:00] that was a nice one.
Yeah, I don't care. I know when I've done it right. I want you to tell me when I, how I can do it better. Right? And, and that's the key about feedback, right? You know, oh yeah, you're a big piece of shit, that doesn't help me, thank you. But, you're not using your hip, or you're not pivoting, or you're not transferring using a kinetic chain, that helps me, right?
But I want that, because, you know, that just doesn't make me good or bad, it just, it will make me better. And I want to be uncomfortable, because I've got this goal, right? And nothing is more important than that goal. And even if I have to feel bad, even if I have to work places much, and then you, you're willing to, you know, take it apart, and work on little pieces of it, Optimize it and go forward, right?
And most people aren't willing to do that, right? Because they just don't care enough. That's why you have to have your identity and a burning passion for doing this, right? The greatest players I've ever met on tour Loved to compete and love to play tennis. They were not playing tennis for the money or for the fame, right?
The ones who did that you know were always ranked lower, but a guy like Rafa Nadal Never, and not just now, [00:22:00] has never played for money. He wants to know how good he can be. He wants to compete. I mean, look at him now. He's got like a, you know, a metal hip, and he's, you know, or whatever they're made of now.
And you know, he's obviously achy, but he just, he's like, Could I get, back? I might have won that game. Let me see if I can get back, right? It's just a thing about, I want to look at myself in the mirror and be able to sleep at night. You know, he used to, this is, this is Urban Legend on, on tour, he would play tournaments, and if he played a game, and even if he won, but didn't feel like he was really hitting the ball well, he would then grab his coach and go to a practice court right after the game and say, I'm gonna work, I don't know, whatever, that cross court forehand wasn't coming through, right?
And he drilled the thing till he felt right with it, right? Nobody asked him to do that. Nobody expected him to do that. He was like, no, I want to get that right. So the next time I step on the court, I've got that in my muscle memory and it feels right, right? That's what separates the best from the rest and you find that in every field, right?
I mean, you know guys like Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an obsessive Worker and you know, he would [00:23:00] present when he presented his product. He would prepare like nobody, right? So every time you see somebody who's lucky or are you know a prodigy really? It's somebody's putting tons of hours of work in on their craft And people don't want to do that, right?
Cuz we live in a hack driven society, right? Tell me how to become a superstar or lose 30 pounds in a week, right? You can't. It's not sustainable.
Ross Romano: right. And I, making me think of something that comes up and I talk about a lot with when I do performance coaching with professionals in different businesses, but the same would apply to athletes, which is that there's a lot of emphasis. You know, often on, on strengthening your weaknesses and, and to a certain point, that's important.
But also spend the time to strengthen your strengths, right? There's no limit to how good you can be at the things you're good at. And the better you get at those, the more it matches up. For example, you mentioned that, you know, you referenced the guy like Jim [00:24:00] Currier as somebody who focused on conditioning, right?
And he might be going up against an opponent who he's only 80 percent as. skilled or as talented as his opponent, but if he's able to maintain his conditioning and he's able to stay at that level throughout the match and the other guys getting tired, eventually that level comes down and he might, you know, catch up because he was strong and what he was strong or Nadal, you know, he could be a lot, he could have been a lot worse.
On clay courts and still been the best clay court player, right? But, because he kept, you know, kept at it and focused on getting better and better, the gap between him and anybody else on that surface was so large that it allowed him to be one of the greatest of all time. Because he was so great at the things he was great at, and other guys were great in different ways.
And if he [00:25:00] decided, you know what, I already am the best at this, so I'm going to spend all my time on other things and not continue to get better at what I'm already good at, it may not, he might not have been as good as a whole. But anyway, it's making me think of that, but let's get into your approach.
I want to make sure. You know, what makes your, you know, how do you work with athletes? What makes your approach different?
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Well for me it's all about, you know, you were talking about something, it's about thinking about what moves the needle, right? And I was just listening to the example you were putting about, you know, fitness or whatever, right? I mean, what is the, what wins tennis games, right? It's getting the ball over the net and in the court one more time than the opponent.
That's it. Right? And there's tons of ways to do that, right? You can do that because you blow him off the court with a hard, you know, hard winner, or you can just plop that ball over a thousand times, right? you look at the net clearance that Rafa Nadal has, it's like three times anybody else, right? But he just doesn't miss on clay.
He will just, and he, and he can do that. It's like that Captain America line in the [00:26:00] Avengers movie, right? I could do this all day. He just doesn't care. And That sounds silly, but mentally that's tough, right? When you get into hour four of a match and a grand slam, boom, a guy who's just putting them over and over and over, it just wears you down.
Right? It's like boxers, right? There's power punchers and there's guys who will dance around and they'll, you know, they'll wear them down and they'll come in for the kill. You have to know what you can do. And so it's, it's understanding what creates value, what wins, and, you know, a good, a really, Prestigious coach on you on tour.
He said, you know, young players don't know how to play tennis anymore. They just know how to hit the ball hard. Right. Cause that's the fun, the snazzy part, right? It it's, you know, but is that always the best performer? I mean, I don't know. Joe Montana was not the most athletic guy I've ever seen. It was Tom Brady, but they ended up being prolific quarterbacks.
Right. And, and all these guys with the big arms, like, what was the Marcus Russell was his name? The guy, number one draft choice lasted like two years. Drew Bledsoe, you know. So, we have, this is all around talent, you know, and how do [00:27:00] you identify it. It's not all about the physical attributes.
There's a lot around, you know, personality attributes and what makes you suited for the game, right? So how do I work with, with athletes? So, the first part I want to know is where are they, right? Because it's not the same to have a player who is just going up as a player who feels that he's tanked or, you know, he's got a concern.
And then, and then just trying to figure out. Where they see themselves and so first thing I'll do is I'll sort of draw out a map of where they are and try and get them to honestly look at themselves. Now it's hard, right, because everybody will, you know, first time we do this, they'll all rank themselves 10 on everything and then it's like, so why are you not a top 10, right?
Okay, let's, let's start again. And then it's getting them to swallow their pride and then work on the things. And it's, and it's a, it's a path, right? So, look, I'm a big fan of the work of Dr. Anders Ericsson on deliberate practice, right? And if, you know, basic, which is what Malcolm Gladwell made famous with the 10, 000 hour rule, which is slightly a misrepresentation, but close enough, right?
The whole idea is there are no prodigies, it's [00:28:00] not talent, it's They got the people who do a certain type of practice more than others are the ones who become the best, right? So are you willing to do that? Right? And so for me, it's it's thinking about where are you? And what do we have to work on and are you willing to work on small parts of your game?
You know i've had i've had players stop working with me because i'll say You know, one of your weaknesses is your second serve, right? So what do you want me to do? Well, we'll find a coach, we'll work on your mechanics, and I want you to do two extra hours of serve after your regular training, a day.
Are you kidding? Well, do you want it or not? I mean, Hey, that's great. You don't want it. That's fine. But you know, you're competing with guys who are willing to do that, right? So. You know, and maybe another guy doesn't have to do that. He just has to clean up his diet or he has to do whatever. I guess he, you know, when he came back from his, he had that slump and he came back, you know, he started doing stuff like having a hydration program and planning, you know, an hour, a day before he started playing.
Well, I mean, that's a pain in the ass. You're pissing all night, right? But, but his performance went up to how comfortable, [00:29:00] you know, how much do you want to go? So that's, that's to me the raw materials, right? So I kind of have three blocks, right? Mindset for me is the raw material, right? Do have? Because if you don't, don't even go on the journey, because then you're going to go three steps.
You can start complaining, right? Do you take absolute responsibility? Do you always want to get better? You know, what meaning do you give it? Right? It's one of the tools I work with people. Nothing means anything except the meaning you give it. And that sounds really obvious, but it's It's probably one of the most powerful tools you can ever do.
So, you know, let me give you an example. A real story from the tour. Working with one guy and he said he would tell me he'd get really nervous when he had a break ball, a break point in his favor, right? So he's, he's able to break the other guy and he got really nervous. I was like, well, why the hell are you nervous?
Cause the other guy's got the pressure, right? And then he would give it this meaning that if he didn't convert it, then, you know, it was just, you know, rubbish, whatever it is, negative self talk. So then I said to him, I said, well, okay, let's get some data, right? Do you know what the best conversion, best guys in the world, the Junkervichs and Nadals do in terms of [00:30:00] conversion rates on break points when they've got a chance to break?
I don't know. I said about 30, 35%. So I don't believe you. I said, let's go. Let's look at the box scores. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I was exactly right. I've done that before, right? And he said, I don't believe you. So, okay, so now what does it mean? So when you got a break point in your favor and you fail, what does it mean?
Nothing. As long as you get three out of ten, you're rocking. You're world class. Wow. So how you play that point changes dramatically. Your physiology, your mindset, your aggressiveness, your strategy changes. If you think, I need to make a break, right? I fail this point, I'm a piece of shit. The game's over. Or I fail this point, I'm putting pressure on them and I still got another, you know, two points to still be on 30 percent, right?
So meaning is really important. So those to me are the raw materials. The next thing I think you need when I work with a player is a map, right? Because you can't, you can't do it all at once. So, you know, going back to the deliberate practice, it's a thousand, ten thousand hours is like ten years, right?
So if you want to be really great, you've got to, you've got to think in decades, right? What am I getting, you know, or at [00:31:00] least five year plans, right? Not what can I do in the next three months? What can I do from here to 10 years to be an amazing player? And that's how they have to think. That's, that's the mindset, by the way, that hurts in my opinion, guys like Carlos Alcaraz, right?
Carlos Alcaraz, he got so much success so fast, right? And he's incredibly talented, but if you notice he hasn't been doing so well, right, because the pressure and the expectations he has. Right? Are killing him. And, and it's a big mistake, because he's like, he's just been 20, right? He's not a finished product.
Can't be. Should never even have thought he was, right? And he was expecting to win every grand slam he goes into. And that, in my opinion, was poor training, poor coaching, right? He should have had somebody said, okay, great. Hey, wow. Congratulations, man. What can we do from here to five years? 25, you're gonna be eating the circuit, right?
You know Djokovic did that. I don't know if you remember, I mean I'm a little older, but Djokovic in your early career he would quit matches because he was winded, he had cramps, he loses concentration and in the 2007 US [00:32:00] Open he Double faulted three or four times against Roger Federer in the tiebreaker.
Guy was not who he is. As we went away and he said, okay, let me work on all the little pieces. So he fixed his diet, right? He started working on his flexibility. He's got amazing flexibility, which gives him enraged strength. He started working his cardiovascular. He did his mindset, you know, mental training.
He put all the pieces together and now he is who he is, he's an absolute beast, because he's done the work. He wasn't like that, you know, 15 years ago, right? And so you need a map, because they're also sequential, right? Whenever you want to develop a skill, you have to know what you need before. So you want to be a ballet dancer, right?
Great. Okay, Ross, you want to do ballet, great. Okay, I'll go out and I'll try to do this move. Wait a minute, you need flexibility and you need strength in certain muscles that you probably don't use to do the moves, right? So let's, you need to work that. Otherwise, you're going to hurt yourself, right? And it's the same thing, you need to build the pieces, right?
And, you know, I have what I call the echelons of excellence, right? It's like a hierarchy. You need to be tenacious. In tennis, you need to be consistent. Before you can have speed [00:33:00] and power, right? If you can't get 50 balls over the net. When I used to train, that's my coach, first thing, he'd go the net 54 hands or 50 backends, and you have to get 'em over the net and to him, right?
Because why? Because you can't consistently get the ball on the net. Forget about everything else. Everything else is fiction. Oh, I'm gonna play strategy. I'm gonna, no, you'd have to know. You can get over the net, then you can work on. Getting faster, right? And then you can work on more power, and even work on all kinds of stuff, but you have to understand what the fundamentals are, and so there it really helps to work with a mentor, and you, and we draw what, what I call a, you know, a mastery map, right?
What are the stages? And you're not going to do it all today, so the reason that's important is because, let's say you start today and you want to play, I don't know, basketball, right? Great. So your end picture is, I want to be like LeBron James. Great, okay. Now if you compare yourself after three months or a year to LeBron James today, of course, you're going to be disappointed, right?
He didn't get like that in a year, right? Kobe Bryant has this great story about when he was 12 and he had a summer camp and didn't score a point, right? [00:34:00] You need to say, one year in, where should I be? Okay, if you don't have a map, you can't know if you're on track or not, right? And that's where people make a lot of mistakes.
This is what I want to look like. Great, but what does it take to get there? Alright, so this is this five year journey and this is what I've got to do. And as long as you're taking the steps, then you can keep yourself focused. And so that's, I think that's really important because, you know, motivation is, motivation is like a shower, right?
You take a shower today, tomorrow you stink, you gotta take another shower. So that, you have to have a clear vision, a mission, and understand the steps. And be willing to take those steps every single day, and that's what drives you. So it's mindset, then, then there's math, right? So it's like, you wanna build something, you need raw materials, you need a map, and then it's, for me it's mojo, which is how, how do you execute, right?
You know, and that's how do I train, am I pushing my, so, You can practice for one of two things. You can practice to consolidate your level or you can practice to increase your skill. And there are two very different things. So if I'm just doing what I've always done, I'll get what I get. A good example is driving, right?
Most of us, once we learn to drive and [00:35:00] stop running over people and walls and stuff, we stop getting better. How many people focus on getting better at driving? You don't. As a matter of fact, you get worse because you stop thinking about it so much. Now what do elite performers do? They're constantly pushing themselves beyond their current abilities.
to get better and to piece those things together. And that's, that's a skill. That's an art. That's an ability, right? That's one part of an attribute of a superstar. And so you have to make sure that you're doing that in your day to day. And, and part of that is mental. You know, how do I manage pressure?
How do I manage stress? Which are two different animals, by the way, you know, but how do I, I get used to that? How do I work on it? So that when I'm in the game, you know, high pressure situation, I'm prepared for that. You know, so I think, I think those are the pieces, it's not I'm gonna come here, I'm gonna hit some balls, have some fun with my friends, and that's it, right?
And I think the way you do some things is the way you do everything. Right? So, you can't half ass it in training and expect to play world class, right? I mean, Deion Sanders said that in an interview, [00:36:00] it was really good. He's like, you know, you guys aren't here to be the best, you're here to, you know, just walk through.
Every training session, you know, guys like Jerry Rice. Jerry Rice used to say, every time he got the ball in practice, he'd sprint to the end zone. If you ever heard that story, right? And he said, the reason was, I want to know that every time these hands touch a ball, I'm gonna end up in the end zone, right?
And that, that shit works, right? And you're consistent. So when he gets in the game, he doesn't even think about it, and he actually expects to go there. And he's put in all those extra hours of work and that extra effort and that pays off you can't you can't compete against that right and he wasn't the most talented guy to start off with, but obviously the greatest wide receiver that ever played the game. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah. And then, you know, and, and something you said also really illustrates, I think part of what's important about mindset, growth mindset versus fixed. And, and then, you know, that's that piece about looking at those Vox scores, looking at, okay, look, the, you know, you don't break the serve that often, all those things.
It's [00:37:00] kind of the thought of thinking about it as what if I win? Instead of what if I lose, right? And the pressure we put on ourselves when we think like we have to win every point or every whatever and, and that that can come a lot from a more of a fixed mindset of, okay, I think I'm good at this, or I think I'm smart, or I think I'm whatever.
And then when something happens, To the contrary. Oh, I guess I'm not as smart as I thought. I guess I'm not. And now I, I've just changed because I think of it as a, as a, you know, crystallized thing. And, and that's the importance one of kind of working through adversity, right? Of, I'm sure this has happened with athletes many times who were successful from a young age and they kept being successful and they just, they didn't look at it as, you know, I am a good athlete and I also am performing well, but there's areas to improve.
They just, look, I'm just better than everybody. [00:38:00] And then one day they had a bad day or they got beat by somebody who was better than them. And now, okay, I guess I'm not good. And it just totally knocks them off their axis because they're just looking at it as, you know, that these are just fixed traits. I, I am good or I'm not good versus it's, it's a process.
I have to keep improving. I'm working on these things versus the one who has had more experience working through the, that adversity, who isn't saying, well, the, the outcome of every single competition isn't defining You know, if I'm talented, if I'm good, if I have potential, it is, okay, how do I look at what happened on that day and see what do I have to improve on?
What are the things that are sometimes outside of our control, right? When you're competing against somebody sometimes you just are going to get beat, right? Sometimes, you know, on a given day, in a given circumstance, somebody is just better than you on that day or whatever, and it doesn't [00:39:00] mean that you're not good, but but it requires continuing, but I, but I think going back to that piece of looking at it from kind of that opportunity lens of, okay, what's, what's the best that can happen?
What happens if, oh, this is hard, but what happens if I succeed? Then. This can happen. You know, if I break this serve, then I'm in great position because I flipped the, you know, I flipped the, the outcomes here versus, oh my gosh, if I, if I lose it and then I'm in a spiral and because I'm just thinking, oh, now I'm failing and, and you know, so it kind of all connects together,
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Yeah, I think, you know, I talked about meaning right I really think mastering meaning is important right. It's a great. You know, and a great example of that was in, I don't remember the year, but the year that Nadal lost to Sutherland in, in Roland Garros in 2009 or something like that, right? His first year he lost a game in, his first game he ever lost in Roland Garros, three time champion or something like that.
He's in the press [00:40:00] conference after and a reporter asked him, so Rafa, what does this mean, right? Does it mean your knees are shot? Does it mean you can't come back? You know, And he looked at him and he gave the best answer. He said the only thing it means is that I did not prepare properly and that won't happen again.
Right, so you, like, think of that. Key is that the meaning he gave it gave him all the power. It doesn't mean I'm washed up, I'm too old, what can I do with that, right? It means I should have prepared, right, so I take the responsibility. And because it was on my hand, it won't happen again, right? And of course it didn't, right?
I think you went on to win another 10 or 11, you know, rolling arrows from there, right? So meaning is incredibly powerful. And another way to manage that or look at it is the questions you ask yourself, right? You're saying like, you know, how can I be so shitty, you know, to lose this, right? Well, that's a terrible question, right?
Because the answer is because you're an idiot and you don't deserve to be here, right? You have to give your brain something to work with, right? You know, what could I have done to have not lost this game, right? Were there [00:41:00] things I did wrong that if I'd done right would have made me win? Yes, this, this, this.
Okay, now I can go away and work on that, right? And it won't happen again, right? And it was great. I remember after the Lakers lost a playoff series, I think it was against the Celtics, and they interviewed Kobe Bryant. And he said, they asked him something about, you know, if a team or some condition that had caused it.
He says, no excuses. They were better than we were. Off season starts, next season starts today, right? He says, and I am going to work on all those things that we didn't do right, so we'll do them right, right? And that, that is what empowers you, right? And that, to me, is the growth mindset. It's, it's, you know, your performance today isn't a result of, like you say, some fixed trait or some fixed quota you've got or you won the genetic lottery.
It's what I did and what could I have done better and how can I perform better? And, you know, deliberate, the research on deliberate practice shows that there is no limit, right? You don't, more hours don't. Make you flatline, right? You do keep getting better. [00:42:00] So, great performers are like, How much do I want this?
I'm just gonna outwork everybody else. You know, Kobe Bryant was, did not have the most genetically gifted body in the world. Right? But he got every single millimeter of possibility out of it. Right? And that's the difference. That's what makes champions. Right? They know how to, they figure out how to do the best with what they've got.
And, you know, optimize it. And, you know, most people don't do that, right? The, the vast majority of people.
Ross Romano: based on. One, it's not, not only is it not fixed, but it's not, there's, it's not only it doesn't move in one direction, right? If you approach it, right, you know, athletes get better, athletes get worse. Teams get better, teams get worse. That's one of the things that I think we're still pretty bad at, as far as how we evaluate those things is, is, okay, if, if this team lost to this team in the championship this year, then it means that they have to change a bunch of their personnel and there's all these [00:43:00] assumptions of what they need to do to be able to beat them next time that don't count on the fact that, well, But what if these players improve?
What if we focus on that? What if, you know, and and understanding that that's a big part of it, that you can't always assume exactly what that looks like or what progression is, but that just because they were at a certain level this year doesn't mean they will be exactly the same next year, nor should they be because if you assume that, then probably what it means is that they're going to get worse because if I stay exactly the same, somebody else gets better and I'm worse relatively.
Or, you know, there's an evolution in tactics and strategies and I'm still doing the same thing and now somebody else comes along who's doing a totally different thing and now I'm behind and, and that happens all the time. I know, you know, we're getting close to the end here. I wanted [00:44:00] to just really briefly give you a chance to, uh, give us an idea of, you know, how all, a lot of this applies beyond sports, right?
And you know, we, we, we, I know you use this in your work with businesses, companies, leaders as well. How does that apply? I guess in, in brief, like what are some examples of ways that you take what you, you do with sports performance and would use it with a leader in another field?
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Let me give you two quick examples. People I will usually take leaders in companies and go, listen, if your favorite sports team managed their team the way that you manage your company, you would be aghast. They're like, what? Let's talk about the role of a coach versus a manager, right? Okay. So what does a manager do?
Comes in, goes, Hey Ross, you're not hitting your sales targets. You better smarten up to be fired. Be back in three months. See how you're doing. Goodbye. So imagine, imagine, you know, Belichick coming into the locker room after. You guys lost on Sunday. Boy, you really suck. I'm going home. See you next Sunday.
You better smarten up or [00:45:00] you're all fired, right? I mean, you'd say, what a terrible coach, right? What does a coach do? He says, why did we lose? Tactically, where do we make mistakes? Strategically, where do we make mistakes? What skills are we missing? What conditioning are we missing? All right. Monday, we start working on it as a team, right?
How different would a company work if that were the manager's approach? Hey, Roz, you haven't hit your targets. What are you missing? Are we, do you need support on product, on training you know, getting out there? Is it something we're not giving you? Right. And what do you need to develop? And Monday, Hey, let's start working on a plan and we'll work on that together.
So you would feel, Hey, he's got my back. We really are a team and he wants me to grow. Right. So, you know, that's, that's one easy example, right? The other one is the word of, related to that, it's the word competent, right? Which is really, for me, it's a dirty word, right? You want employees who are competent, right?
Which means that 98 percent of the time you're doing what you know how to do. Right. And the question is, when do I train you? Right. And when you get better, Oh, well, I'll give you a half hour training and then go back to your desk and, you know, bugger off. Right. But that's insane, right? Because you need to be, you need to understand how people acquire skills.
I can, [00:46:00] I can explain to you how to do a spinning back roundhouse kick, because I've been doing martial arts for 35 years, but I'm pretty sure you won't be able to do it the first day, right? You'd have to go away and practice it, right? Now, if I give you a half hour to do it and then you never get to practice it, how are you going to get good at it?
So if I want to teach you, I don't know, whatever coaching or feedback or psychological safety in a company and I give you this speech on it, I'll let you go back to your desk. Are you going to be good at it? No, right? So you have to embed in the day to day. Time to work on that, which goes to the sports concept.
So, an athlete, you know, 90 time is working on what they're not good at, and what they have to get better at, right? So you need to do that in business. You have to carve out time and consider that real work for somebody to work on something that they need to get better at. And then you'll have a much better team, you know, in the midterm.
But you have to do that. And it's a very sort of narrow, naive view. So, you know, that's the kind of thing we, there's lots of lessons that we take from sports and, you know, another one is, we, we talk about training movements, not muscles, right? In sports, you know, the science of, of, you know, [00:47:00] training has come that you, you don't work on your biceps, you work on your swing movement, right?
Which is your hips, your legs, your, you know, your grounding, your shoulder, your bicep, and whatever. Why? Because what you really want is to do the swing, right? Not just have a bigger bicep. Well, within companies it's the same thing, right? They work in silos. Right? And then you say, you know, I want to reduce costs.
They either tell procurement or finance to do it. But to do it, they need to have operations in there, planning. They need to get commercial in there because the terms will determine, you know, how you work. And you need to get your third party suppliers in there because you need to work with them, right?
So it's, it's meant, it's things, lessons that the sports world has discovered and that companies can use. And, and it's funny because when we tell them that they kind of go like, Oh, yeah. And it's obvious, but for some reason we don't do it.
Ross Romano: Right. Excellent. Well, Adolfo, it's been great to have you here. And we'll link below to your website, voteresults. com and where people can go on there. They can also find your podcast and other things. [00:48:00] Anything in particular you'd like folks to check out?
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Well, there I'm, I'm available on LinkedIn, Adolfo Gomez Senses, and just if anybody has any doubts, any questions, or is it, you know, on a, on an interesting journey, wants to reach out, glad to talk to people, I, I love, I always say I'm rooting for people, the world needs more unreasonable dreamers, so I'm always rooting for you.
Ross Romano: Excellent listeners. Check all that out. We'll put the link below to Adolfo's website. Again, he has a podcast there that you can find and you can also learn about his other work with coaching and his LinkedIn if you want to follow him over there. So check all of that out. Please also do subscribe to Sideline Sessions.
If you're not already, we're going to continue to bring you conversations with a lot of great coaches from a variety of different sports. So something for, for all of you out there and hopefully you've found this really valuable as I have. Adolfo, thanks again for being here.
Adolfo Gomez Sanchez: Thanks, Ross. [00:49:00]