Episode 252: The Emotional Decompression Model: A Powerful Framework for Post-Event Analysis ft. Dr. Danielle Adams Norenberg & Sarah Cecil

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In this episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, instead of focusing on the training, planning, mindset, and tactics that go into the lead-up to a race or major event, Matt explores the equally critical yet often undervalued process of post-event decompression and assessment.

Post-event is a huge part of the fabric of your athletic journey. Win, lose or draw, the experience can be a confusing and destabilizing time filled with distractions and complex emotions, both positive and negative. There is a natural desire to analyze your performance, find answers, process and move on to the next big thing.

In today’s discussion, Matt Welcomes Sports Psychologists Sarah Cecil and Danielle Adams Norenberg for an in-depth discussion around Emotional Decompression, a model around navigating the emotions following a major race or event.

Danielle and Sarah both have extensive experience working with British Olympic athletes across various sports and set out to create a process for athletes to properly digest the experience and re-engage with the athletic journey and life in a healthy way.

With their help, Matt takes a closer look at the evolving role of psychology in sport through the lens of their work with world-class athletes and the essential need to structure the process around the post-event experience.

Together they break down the model of decompression step by step to deliver a highly accessible and actionable process that is sure to become an essential part of your performance journey.

Guests Bios:

Sarah Cecil

Sarah is a Chartered Sport Psychologist and has worked in Olympic and Paralympic sports for over 20 years. She has extensive experience in helping athletes reach their ultimate goals. She was the psychologist for British Athletics in London 2012. Post 2012 she worked at the Team GB Intensive Rehabilitation Unit and on UK Sports coach education programs. Sarah was the UK Team psychologist at 4 Invictus Games from London to Sydney. She was the Team GB psychologist in Beijing in 2022. She has an extensive record of developing coaches, leaders, and staff in elite sports. Sarah sits on the UK Sports Mental Health Steering Group. Sarah also runs a private consultancy in addition to her role as Lead Sports Psychologist for the English Institute of Sport.

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Episode Timestamps

00:00 - 7:38 - Welcome and Episode Introduction

07:45 - 10:24 - Matt's News-ings

10:31 - 1:17:36 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 252: The Emotional Decompression Model: A Powerful Framework for Post-Event Analysis ft. Dr. Danielle Adams Norenberg & Sarah Cecil

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Full Transcript

Matt Dixon 00:03

I'm Matt Dixon, and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere, integrate sport into life.

Matt Dixon 00:25

Hi there, Matt Dixon with Purple Patch. And in today's show, we're going to talk about a part of the athletic journey, which is often ignored. And I think a big part of that is that this performance journey that we go on, is really complex. There's so much to think about, just think about all of the subjects that we could talk about under the banner of endurance training, strength and conditioning, nutrition, recovery sleep, and the world goes on. And so how do you gain focus? How do you get to really build around the boulders rather than get distracted by the sand? Well, one of the tools that we use at Purple Patch is InsideTracker. Because by taking a look inside at your biometrics, as well as combining with the advice and counsel from the team of experts at InsideTracker, you get to focus on the components that are going to yield performance for you. It's one of the tools that we leverage for our more elite athletes, as well as our very busy time-starved athletes, and guess what you can too, you don't even need to be a Purple Patch athlete. In fact, if you want to get involved, all you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch, that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch and we even have a sneaky code for you. It's Purple Patch pro 20 Purple Patch Pro to zero, that's gonna get you 20% off everything at the store. And I think that's a rather good deal. All right. Enjoy today's show. I promise you, it's a cracker. Let's go with that Barry.

Matt Dixon 02:01

And welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and today decompression. Navigating the emotions following a major event or race. It is a goodie. And it's going to prove essential along your journey of performance, we get to welcome two special guests, Sarah Cecil and Daniel Adams Norenberg, both are part of the English Institute of Sport, Sport psychologists, but also hold extensive experience working with the British Olympic athletes across various sports. In fact, Danielle is currently the lead psychologist of British triathlon. And instead of today, focusing on what you might imagine, if we invite sports psychologists onto the show, about mindset performance, anxiety, prepping for major events. Instead, we're going to explore the other side. Some of the components that are actually quite often ignored by both coaches and athletes. It's all about post-event decompression and assessment. The good news is, in today's show, you don't need to be an Olympic athlete. In order for you to benefit, you don't need to coach Olympic athletes, all you need to do is have an interest in becoming a better version of yourself and building the fabric of a performance journey. That word is really, really important. Over this course of the discussion, we discussed Danielle and Sarah's work with world-class athletes, we also go into the essential need to put in rigor and process around the post-event experience not just preparing for an event. We have a breakdown of their model of decompression going step by step and ultimately, the result of all of this is a highly accessible and valuable discussion for all.

Matt Dixon 03:53

Now before we get going with this, I thought it might be helpful just for me to provide a little bit of my lens as a coach on this, a little bit of my perspective around why this conversation is so important. And so before I get to present you with their expertise, which I promise you is much greater than mine in this journey, I thought a little context and framing might be helpful. You see at Purple Patch, we always love to discuss the journey. In fact, you know, one of the sayings that we have embrace the journey, we want you to really take on a long-term planning and thinking when it comes to your own journey of performance. And so within that scope, your races that you decide to do or the events, they're really important. They're targets. They're stepping stones along this journey. And they enable you to have very succinct goals, it's a chance for you to actually chart your progression, your improvement. And of course, there is the joy of pride and satisfaction when you really get a sense of accomplishment when you achieve the goals that you set up around those races. But still, more importantly, the purpose driving it is your journey. And so these races still ultimately just act as stepping stones. When you cross the finish line, it isn't the end of your performance journey. And so with this context, there is so much education out there. And in fact, so much obsession by athletes and coaches around the lead-into events. How do we set up training, the planning for it, the mindset, the tactics, but so many coaches and athletes unfortunately, ignore what happens following, and post-event is a really important part of the overall process. In fact, just think about how you feel when you finish a major target or event. There is normally a swirl of emotions, sometimes good, sometimes bad. There's also a desire to analyze to find answers, what went wrong, what was great so that you can apply those lessons to future events and training. And of course, there's a real need for you to process and ultimately, put the emotions and experience to bed so that you can get on with future goals. All of this requires a continual re-engagement with the journey. And that's trickier than it might seem. In fact, it's no accident that post big events, a lot of athletes become distracted, almost sometimes get the blues. In fact, there's a whole thing around post the Olympic blues. Win, lose or draw, there is a real championship distraction that occurs afterward. And guess what our guest today, Danielle and Sarah, they set out to try and fix this. The result of it was the development of a model. And this is central to our discussion today. And the good news about this is that the model is highly accessible, really simple, and it is applicable to you. In fact, it goes well beyond just sport, you can take this model, and it's not very tough to join the dots of how you might leverage this model across broader life, and even of course, in the work setting. So I think you're gonna love today's show. That's just my perspective. And just before we get going, I do want to tell you one thing that we have around an upcoming educational opportunity beyond this show, it's on February the 15th. And so I just want to insert here quickly a little episode of Matt's News-ings.

Matt Dixon 07:45

Yes, it's Matt's News-ings, and I'm just going to take a brief moment to tell you about an opportunity for education. It's anchored around Ironman performance, and Ironman 70.3 performance, specifically designed for the time-starved athlete. Now, I think most of you guys know, but we've got pretty good expertise of how to amplify Ironman and Ironman 70.3 performance while navigating a time-starved life. In fact, a lot of this show discusses just that. But I thought it'd be really interesting and helpful for you guys to get really applicable. So on February the 15th, I'm going to reveal the whole methodology and some of the supporting habits so that you can be successful so that you can ultimately become your personal best, whatever that means for you. So you might be thinking about taking on a half-Ironman challenge or an Ironman challenge. But we don't want this to become a monkey on your back. I don't want this sport and the training for these events to become a second job. We're already busy enough. And so how do you integrate this sport into life and still get the results that you want. And I want to be very clear, this isn't about finding balance, doing less. In fact, I find that whole phrase less is more rather abhorrent. This is about leaning in and leveraging a really smart and pragmatic approach so that you get more, you achieve more, you show up and you can nail a PR or you cross the finish line and be thriving. That's the quest. And over the course of this webinar, I'm going to try and provide a really strategic plan for you that you can go on and apply in your own life. It's on February the 15th. It's at 5 pm Pacific. But the good news is that if you can't attend live, we have a lot of folks across time zones that listen to the show. Feel free to register and we'll send you a recording. Of course, those folks that do attend live, you're gonna get to ask me any questions that you'd like about your own journey. It's a great opportunity, and always it's going to be a lot of fun. And so we're gonna leave the link to register in the show notes you must register to get the recording or attend live. And it's very, very simple. You can also reach out to us to info@purplepatchfitness.com if you want any other information or if you have any questions, but Barry, I think that's it for Matt's News-ings. Now we get to well invite Sarah and Danielle, I think you're gonna enjoy it, folks. This is a great one. And so without further ado, I give you The Meat and Potatoes.

Matt Dixon 10:31

All right guys, it is yes indeed The Meat and Potatoes. And goodness me we are very excited to welcome Sarah Danielle, thanks so much for joining the purple patch podcast.

Sarah Cecil 10:43

Hello

Danielle Adams Norenberg 10:43

Hey, Matt, Thanks for having us.

Matt Dixon 10:45

It is three English people giving the wisdom or at least you two guys giving the wisdom to the Americanos in our global audience. So I'm very, very excited about our conversation really thankful for you guys joining the show and hopefully over our time together, we can we can really dig into the subject of decompression and beyond, I guess to kick us off, I'd love to just get a little bit of a grounding for our audience. And why don't you guys let me know firstly, what your role is and how you define your role. But also your history of working with each other and how this whole project came about. And why don't we kick that off? Maybe with Sarah?

Sarah Cecil 11:29

Yes. So my current role is I work part-time for the Institute of Sport. And then I freelance as a sports psychologist, Daniel and I met I think actually about 10 years ago when she ran, rang me up from Scotland and said, hey, I want to come and like, you know, my, my boyfriend or husband lives in London and I want to come down and work out of there help. So then. And that's always it. Yeah. So sometimes people ring you and you feel connected to them. And sometimes people really don't feel connect to them. But I felt nice Danielle from the start. And I was then working at Team GB's intensive rehabilitation unit, where athletes can come in a week for injury sort of rehab. And whenever I went on holiday, we had to get someone to cover for me. So I so I know. I know a woman who could do this. So that was so Danielle's first instruction to work in us working together. And I probably sat her down and ran, ran her through my injury model and said, have a go doing this. And so that's probably the start of our working together. And then I was her line manager and now she's my boss. So that's the way that's the way we roll. So some people are kingmakers, I'm queen makers, whoever I line manage ended up being - so there we go.

Matt Dixon 12:45

You know, it's I love the last line there because I just finished just before us having this conversation coaching a session and one of my coaching lines is always right in the middle of a hard interval. I say this is the queen maker. So so -- that's fantastic. And so Danielle, why don't we go to your role?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 13:06

Yeah, so part of my role is day-to-day sports psychology delivering to athletes now was canoeers. And also do some work with the ballet with the English National Ballet. But most of my week is Head of Psychology for the English Institute of Sport. So yeah, working with Sarah and a bank of other psychologists, about 25 of us working across different sports within the British performance system.

Matt Dixon 13:38

And you just recently have taken on that role of supporting the British triathlon team. Yeah?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 13:44

Yeah, very recently. It's very new, very exciting prospect just to make sure I'm still delivering to athletes and coaches, I think in terms of leading the service at EIS. After about a year, I've really missed it. And for me, it's very important to ensure I'm keeping my skills up. And you learn so much from the coaches and staff that you work with, you're on a journey together the whole time through developing relationships, encouraging self-reflection, and all of the tools and the ways we work are informed by the context and the coaches and athletes that we work with. So without that, it's really tough to call yourself a sports Psychologist.

Matt Dixon 14:26

Well, that's that that's a great kickoff because a lot of folks perceive sports psychologists as just support folk are trying to fix athletes confidence and there's a perception of goodness me I've got to see a sports psychologist, there must be something wrong with me as an athlete. And our discussion today is obviously going to dive in and showcase a much broader perspective for that, but can you guys explain how you see the role of a sports psychologist and an athletic journey?

Sarah Cecil 14:57

So when an athlete comes to see me, my starting line is often that they've got to be really good at what they do, they get to see me. So most of the people, you know, we work in, Olympic and Paralympic sport, professional sport. But even you know, anybody who I get to see is really good at what they do. So I tend to start from a strength perspective rather than deficit perspective. So I'm much more interested in talking about how I'm going to help them run faster, ski better, play tennis better. So that's my starting point. I'm not starting from a deficit point. I mean, sometimes they show up with something they want to work on. But I think what we've been really good at doing in the UK sports system is reframing what we're here to do. Most of us work as immersed sports psychologists. So we're in the sport we're not behind the closed door. And we're working with athletes, we're working with coaches, we're working with physios. So that that's probably that the we're trying to reframe how people see what we do, I'm just here predominately, to be even better at what you're already good at. But our expertise is (inaudible).

Matt Dixon 16:18

And that's really interesting because you use the word sort of immersion into the sport, and then a British sport has been so successful over the last 10 to 15 years across many, you know, rowing, cycling, triathlon, swimming, et cetera, like across the Olympic sports, for a relatively small country has done so well. And it used to be that sports psychology was sort of the dark cupboard at the end of the corridor that you would have to go into almost like a penal colony sort of thing. But so it's do you think that's been a real catalyst of one of the many, many elements that have really helped sport from sort of integrating it into a part of the ongoing journey rather than being an afterthought, Danielle?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 16:58

I think, yeah, I think so. And I guess from our perspective, Sarah and I have talked about the proactiveness of sport psychology and the power that has for a long time. And we work around this idea that the athletes, coaches and staff all work with us because they want to grow beyond where they're at right now. And I think tribute to that, with some of the reflections, we see post-competition, particularly reflection of Tokyo, athletes, really, really self-aware talking about the journey that they've come on in terms of their growth, and less focus on the outcome of the competition. Of course, that's important. That is absolutely what we do. We help athletes perform at their best when it matters most. And that relates to results. But I think when when an athlete and a coach has been truly exposed to the proactive elements of sports psychology that are strength-based, they come away from competition, being able to effectively reflect and debrief on the whole performance itself, rather than just the outcome.

Matt Dixon 18:08

There's so much focus on priming for competition. So getting the mindset ready, in fact, is straightaway when I think about sports psychology, I think about, you know, helping an athlete peeking for their prime performance, et cetera, managing performance, anxiety, obviously, a natural part of it, performance, mindset, development, etc. But what we're here to talk about today is sort of on the other side of the equation, in many ways where your guy's project and passion is anchored in post-competition. I'd love to know what the catalyst was of focusing on post-competition, or we're going to label decompression.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 18:50

Absolutely, when you when you think about performing as a journey, you're able to identify a number of different events or situations or circumstances that contribute to the next one. And then when you've got a critical event, or the peak event that you're building up to which most of the athletes that we work with, can pinpoint that in their diary you're working backward too, so every event has a place in that journey. And if we're really emphasizing learning and growing through each of those events or circumstances, the importance of being able to review and then reshape and potentially shift the goals slightly or influence the training program in a slightly different way. There's so many bits of evidence that you can get from each experience golden nuggets, you know, success leads to clues. And the decompression piece is about ensuring that athletes and coaches are able to get out the evidence through a really effective review. But we also know that most events along a journey especially the bigger events and the Olympic Games as an example. So many emotions come with that event. And what we wanted to assist people to do is to make sense of those emotions so that the details and the evidence and the golden nuggets that come from successes of course, the learnings that come from not being so successful, then they can truly be learned without being blinkered or shifted by any kind of emotions that were still lingering. Sarah, what would you add?

Sarah Cecil 20:32

Well, I'd say like, so. Some, like our skills, a sports psychologist is to help people grow and develop. But what we're also good at being sense makers, because we're trained to have (inaudible) situations, and we're trained to help people manage their emotions, understand their thinking, understand how their brain functions, that, throughout our support of athletes, we're helping them make sense of training, we're helping them make sense of competition. So we have to help them make sense of the biggest competition because they've got to have a clear, like, I don't need to tell you this as a coach, but they've got to have a clear hypothesis to understand how they're going to improve. Like, if they hit their target, how they go again if they didn't hit their target, what needs to change. And to do that, you've got to be able to do that without being contaminated by emotion. And I think so our driver for this is, I've been involved in Olympic sport since 2002. And I don't really want anybody else to have the post-Olympic blues a year later. And I want athletes and stuff to move on in a really healthy way. Because what we do is super exciting, what we're involved with is a great, great thing to be involved in life, whether you're a support staff or an athlete. So we want everybody to like, go have an experience, make sense of it. And if they want to go again, but not a year, two years post it, still be stuck, you know, stuck up in our context, currently in Tokyo. So we're kind of saying that people are still referring to Tokyo, we go, whoa, we need to move on from that, we can help you do that.

Matt Dixon 22:18

Yeah, it's fantastic. And now our mission today is to educate the audience on the major principles of this model. So that hopefully, we can take your work with the very best athletes in the world. And they can extract some principles and a little bit of the process and maybe apply to their own journey. Because while most of us don't get to compete in the Olympic Games, the events that we do, or the occasions in our life are very meaningful to us. And, and so I think that there are great principles to apply there. Before we dive into the model. And we're going to go, I'm going to ask you to go through step by step. And I think it will be very, very helpful. I know, it's not just athletes that are going from this, in fact, it's coaches so let's listen up for the many coaches that are listening today. But before we go in, I want to talk about challenges and strengths of some of the work that you've seen. So before we dive into the model, I want to come up a level. And I look at the landscape. And I would say, through observation through experience that most coaches don't seem to have a template or a specific process to go through post-event. So there's such a focus on leading in charging in and finish and there's the ashes of good or bad, both very strong emotions. And it's like, all right, the next thing and there is no process, there is no there is no sort of formal review, whether it's good or bad, etc. So I'd love to hear your guy's Sarah, maybe you take this but your guys observations of, of coaches and some of the weaknesses that we don't see.

Sarah Cecil 24:12

Yeah, I mean, I think like, it's coaches, but it's most human beings. Like, we'd much rather think about what's next rather than really unpicking what's just happened. So I think it's like we're not skilled or educated in that. That's not a part of how we've been taught or grown as human being. So it's no great surprise that people are always looking to what's next. Because that's exciting, especially in sports, which has lots of let's say you work like I work in tennis and there's loads of competition. So it's much easier just to focus on the next one rather than all stop let's look at this one. So there's that cause we're, you know, optimistic and forward-thinking by nature, human beings, that's a safer place to be. So, yeah, I mean, I've worked with some amazing coaches and I say the really amazing are the ones are the ones who have got that arena skills, isn't it just know, in the moment how to get someone ready. But yeah, they probably haven't invested as much time and they don't get as much reward for debriefing. So you know, you don't see any great quotes from coaches about that was an amazing debrief. It's all about all the inspirational stuff that they said before me that one, one thing which changed or that (inaudible), you remember talk, so it's not something that's promoted as, as some as a skill to have. And also think it's often framed in very probably theoretical scientific here's a reflection model. And most, I mean, most of us might switch off of the word reflection. Whereas if you're going to say, we're going to quickly make sense of it, so you can move forward and what's important, and have a clear hypothesis and stop you going down lots of rabbit holes, that's probably a bit more interesting for people to consider. So I think it's probably where it's come from, how it's been framed. And it's also, you know, you're not going to get the sort of celebrity status from being an expert, debriefer. But you're going to become a famous coach who said one thing, which changed an athlete's performance. I mean, so we're thinking about, you know, being what you see, you don't see any coaches, you know, I mean, I'm slightly obsessed by Ted Lasso. I mean, Ted Lasso does more briefing than anything. We're talking about, we're looking at great coaches in that sense, so yeah, I think. So what thing Danielle and I are passionate about is changing the conversation around...

Matt Dixon 26:39

Okay, and I'd love you to paint a picture. And maybe Danielle, you take a crack at this sort of, of modeling what you would see as really positive coaching behavior, and let's sort of ignore, let's ignore, like the run up the passionate accelerant of performance, but what it just without going into the model, what are some of the behaviors of a coach of saying this is really important? What are some of the behaviors you see where you're like, yeah, that's a smart coach right there.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 27:13

Yeah, I think one of the things you see initially when it's done well, is a time and a space to offload immediately after the event. So typically, we might refer to that as a hot debrief. And I think just giving an athlete time and space to just give that blurb immediately after the performance. There's so many things that come from that blurb as it were. Initial reflections, sometimes there's, like I said, a golden nugget in that too. And if they can remember it, or recall it, record it, that hot debrief that can really drive some further debrief conversation. But there's also the opportunity in that hot debrief, to validate the emotions as well. If a coach can hear the hot debrief insight from the performance itself, as well as offer the opportunity to validate the emotions, that's a really good place to start. Because athletes want to leave that performance, feeling right about what just happened. And also be knowing that any kind of emotion after an event is also okay. And by validating those emotions, that they end up not dragging on so much longer. So that's the first thing that I see done really well is an immediate space to work through that whole debrief.

Matt Dixon 28:39

Can you counter that with? Let's imagine a stereotype of the absolute wrong thing that can have a knock-on effect of like, no, please don't do that. Maybe some -- don't name names. But anyway, like, no, that's just really bad behavior and the long-term sort of things to really avoid

Matt Dixon 29:02

That's a tough one. Sarah does anything spring to mind.

Sarah Cecil 29:07

I mean, if you tell someone they let you down, or you shame them in public, so there's sort of like, we have, like normal, you know, emotions, like sadness, and we can experience that. But if we turn sadness into shame, or guilt or embarrassment, that sticks around a lot longer. So so that element of see, I mean, I know coaches who, who couldn't watch their athletes perform live, because they got too nervous, which is absolutely fine. So sometimes you want a bit of space for the coach poster performance. Because they've got their emotions too. So that you know, and I always tell athletes, they're not responsible for anybody else's emotions. And we choose to go on this journey too. So So I think you've got to help the coach, offload their emotions before they interact with the athlete.

Matt Dixon 30:01

That that resonates for me, I remember many years, the tension that I would feel at the Hawaii Ironman every year with our squad of professional athletes, and you are so vested. And once the gun goes off, the one thing that destabilizes all of us is a complete lack of control. And all you want to do is tinker and form and you just sit back and it's like, don't worry, they know what's going on, and ultimately, is it but But internally, it's the same performance anxiety than an athlete feels but, but in many ways, but myself being an elite athlete, but then also a coach of elite athletes, I was more stable, I would say, mentally or emotionally as an athlete than I was as a coach.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 30:47

It's not in your control as a coach, like, the worst thing is to feel like you're trying to control the outcome. That's where the really difficult emotions show up. And I guess that's why the work that we bring to the table with coaches is just as important as with the athletes. You know, there's a really big part of what a psychologist can do in that sense is, how can a coach manage what they want from the journey to and how they can best experience that journey in supporting athletes to perform. And there's a whole space for that.

Sarah Cecil 31:27

And Danielle, you say, you can't, you can't control the performance. But you could work on controlling the emotions, or how you're gonna make somebody feel at the end of a performance. You could have a plan, you could have like, you know, that you might have your pre-race routine, where you're going to help them and you're going to do this warm-up and eat the food at this time, and all the other elements, but there's no reason why coach shouldn't have a plan of how they're going to communicate afterwards. And then refine that and get better, better in that. So So, but I think people don't never plan for it. Because when we hope the best is always best to hope for the best. And we imagine this great scenario, and it's going to be amazing. And most of the time, it's kind of not because the odds are there's lots of things which can go wrong. But yeah, so I would say, well, coaches, okay, what's, what's your plan? When they cross the finish line? Well, when you first see them, how do you want them to make them feel? What's your number one priority, then? Yeah, and coaches are planners? Oh, come on. Love to say coaches, great planners, coaches are great planners, plan for that as well. Go, Danielle.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 32:35

Oh, yeah, I was gonna say I've got another don't. And that's trying to fix it. And that comes from some of the best coaches I've seen. They're like, you can tell or you know, because you've built up a connection that they're going through something as a result of that performance for themselves. And for the athletes, a lot of the coaches that we work with do feel for athletes as well. And the best coaches I've seen, they just don't rush, and they don't react. And therefore they don't try and fix anything in the immediacy of the finishing of an event. They do their best to almost be with the athlete, let the athlete drive that journey, and ensure that the athlete knows that they're there for them. And I think it's very easy to not recognize the importance of an athlete, feeling like they've got this intimate team around them. And the coaches that first got fair space for that. No matter how successful and athlete I've worked with, they've always felt so much from knowing that there's an intimate support team around them that at the end of the day, I are always going to be there as people. And if a coach can emulate that in the immediacy after an event, by not trying to fix anything, not trying to change anything, but to be there as a human being that's really, really positive.

Matt Dixon 33:57

That's a that's a terrific insight. I want to dive in and get specific I want to sort of understand rip apart the model a little bit, but um, I want to frame the benefits for people as we do this post-event decompression. What, what benefits have you observed for athletes, for teams, for coaches, when they have integrated they're sent and to give you a little bit of context of this, one of the words that I keep hearing you guys say is the journey, which is something that we talk about at Purple Patch the whole time, you know that the events themselves are just little checkpoints along the way and they create the framework and the lightning rod for us to build towards but ultimately, it's a performance journey. And so as a part of that, as athletes go on their journey, what benefits do you observe, what's the sell like the ABC of like, this is what you yield from adopting something like this? Sarah, you can lead us off if you'd like.

Sarah Cecil 35:03

Yeah, so kind of like our catchphrase is you've got to process the emotions that surround performance. That's like a catchphrase, imagine that's a really important thing to do. So that you can go again, and not get stuck in the moment. And by doing this process, you're gonna identify your strengths. And it and what's also going to become really clear by the end of it, is why you choose whatever you're going to do next. So, and I guess the example that I work with a team, and it's looking more at the staff of the seven, who went to the games, six said they didn't enjoy it, anyone enjoyed it. At the end of the decompression session at all several were really clear on what their strengths were, and why they were choosing to carry on on this journey, for lots of different reasons. So it's very, yeah, that's really fascinating. So by the end, then, from an athlete's perspective, I think them and their coach debrief to understand the performance and how to go again, and we make sure that the emotion doesn't contaminate that debrief. So ideally, you want to what we do before you have your more for more like coaching debrief of an athlete.

Matt Dixon 36:29

I think once one thing I want to sort of add here, which I am making an assumption, but this is we're talking about negative and positive emotions here, yeah? So you said making sure they don't get stuck on performance, and that can be dwelling on a really negative bad time, but it can also be I've won a medal and, and sort of complacency. I'm assuming, like, not actually moving on from positives. Would that be a part of it as well?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 36:55

Yeah,

Sarah Cecil 36:55

yeah. Cuz historically -- go on Danielle.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 37:00

No go for it. Just, yeah.

Sarah Cecil 37:03

Yeah, I mean, I think historically, that the, you know, the best year to make a breakthrough in the World Championships in most sports is a year after Olympics. Because most, most of the medalists, their performance tend to drop a bit. Now that might be so yeah. So. And when we do this, this emotional decompression with people were very neutral in our language, we have no idea whether it was a positive or negative experience. We just want to understand memorable or meaningful experiences. We're not assuming either we know how they may feel. Then your catchphrase she talks about, we're kind of educating people, we can educate coaches and support staff to do this process. And therefore they're able to have an emotionally driven conversation. Which is really important for a space that people for people to be able to get into.

Matt Dixon 38:02

Fantastic. Well, should we dig in? I'd love to love to break it apart, I guess, I guess to frame the model first. I'd love Danielle, model design. Where did it come about? This isn't based just out of the the ideas of Sarah and Danielle, can you sort of frame how you how you develop the model and some of the research experience best practices that maybe went into the building of this model? Yeah, well,

Danielle Adams Norenberg 38:33

I'll try and keep it brief. There there are probably two strands to this, so we've got our experience in sport. And like Sarah said, for a number of Olympic cycles really. For me personally, I felt quite frustrated with the reviews that sometimes happen in that you'd be ready to go and review a performance with an athlete and coach just emotions are clouding the review. And what an athlete is getting out of and learning from their performance. And so you observe emotions coming in, and gosh, these emotions they've not been dealt with yet. And then so far down the road, a year after your Olympic Games, maybe an athlete, is still referring to that performance and how they felt about it. So that there's that going on. Well, then we had that famous lockdown in that big pandemic thing that happened a couple of years ago. And athletes coaches weren't able to go and do the thing that they loved. And then all of a sudden, things started to open up. And we're like, wow, people have been at home trying to work trying to trying to train and also colleagues, etc. from our organization had been stuck at home obviously going through lots of trials and tribulations of any different nature. And we kind of said we want to help people make sense of that experience. And we want to help them come back to work. We want to help people have emotion driven conversations about this really significant period of time that we've all been through. And really recognizing that everyone's experience of that big thing that happened to all was very, very different. And the team of ours, our organization tried to put something together. And we found some research by the Red Cross. And they had done a significant amount of work in terms of helping hostages come back home. And they put together a debrief for hostages to do a peer-to-peer debrief to help each other, make sense of the emotions and be ready to come back. And so we use that work from the Red Cross. We use a lot of other research around how to decompress how to debrief, what does a good debrief process look like? And then as we were preparing for Tokyo, fresh off the back of the positive results we've seen from the lockdown debriefs, we reframed it and made it more appropriate for those who were experiencing a major event as a performer. And so refined it and then rolled it out.

Matt Dixon 41:18

And so who is the model for?

Sarah Cecil 41:23

So, yeah, so. So our belief is that we can train anybody up to deliver the model. The model could be for anybody who's experienced something big. So you know, you could talk about business people, I mean, there's not limited to Olympic athletes. So the notion is if anyone's had a big experience, we want them to process it, so they can move on healthily. And when we created this lockdown debrief, we were pragmatic, we're an organization to 250 people, with 25 psychologists, we're not going to do everyone's debrief. And we note, we saw the importance of this notion of peer-to-peer debrief. So who was going to do your debrief really important in the research. So we trained up 150 people in our organization, to debrief their peers or somebody they line manage. And we we framed the tool is a step by step tool that anybody could do after the train and with some support when delivering it. So it is totally based in psychology. It's based on research and psychological debriefing. But the language we use in the way of creating, and this was, this was from a pragmatic need, everybody was coming back into the workplace, we didn't know what happened to them. And but we knew some things may have happened, and we wanted to help them return to the workplace. And then, and then we think about the number of people who were at the Olympic Games, you know, from different countries, including staff and athletes. And again, we want them all to come back and get going what's important to them as quickly as possible. Yeah.

Matt Dixon 43:08

So I want to dive into the model a little bit. And I guess maybe the best way to do this is okay, boom. And we're using the Olympic Games as our case study, if you want to call it that, but Sarah, as you said, wisely said, this is about any big event, but let's imagine an Olympic Games, it's finishers, yay, I won or no, I didn't win, but okay, that's where the model comes into action. So I'd love you to lead us through how the model or plot is applied, what the phases or the steps are, in many ways, and maybe, Sarah, you can kick us off.

Sarah Cecil 43:45

Yeah, so ideally, we'd want post event for athletes and staff to go through four stages. So you're still at the Olympics, you're still in country, and you do some kind of hot debrief, where you're capturing the thoughts and feelings you've got immediately post competition, then you get on your flight, you go home, and everybody would have some time off, usually. And we'd call that like Time Zero. So that's stage two. And in time zero, we want you to like, kind of settle back into your world. We'll explain a bit more about time zero in a bit. And then stage three is this you got to process the emotion that surrounds performance. And this is a longest the six-step process we spoken through. You would do with someone who's trained up in our tool. Once you've done that, so you've slowed down a bit, then you can go to your traditional performance debrief or review, coach and athlete where you can unpick what's happened and figure out what to do next. So what we've seen is people always do stage one, this hot debrief, capturing stuff immediately afterwards. With see them do the performance debrief historically have not done stages two and three. And that's what we want encourage people to do.

Matt Dixon 45:08

(Inaudible) that pollution. So let's dig into it a little bit. The hot debrief, immediately post-event, you know, celebrations, commiserations, whatever, but there's some form of quick review often with your coach if they're live there or, or whatever it might be. And, and that's pretty simple to understand. I don't think that there's a coach athlete or an athlete alive that doesn't get across the finish line and, and debrief even if they're debriefing to themselves. So I think I think we're gonna pass on that. Then it's travel home and time zero, as you as you labeled, it so -- for how long is that? I know, it's fluid. How long does that sort of time zero last? And what's the process there?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 45:54

Well you're right, it's like how long is a piece of string? Although based on based on the conversations we have had, and the research we've done, really, we think about two weeks is probably a nice, nice period of time. It's not always feasible by any stretch of the imagination. And so it's not a stipulation. It's like, you know, what, if you can take a break, brilliant, do it. And if you can do it for two weeks, even better. And advising people within that period of time, like to do three things, engage in the present, ride the waves of emotions, don't fix them, don't try to change them, embrace them, and connect with friends and family. Both Sarah, and I work from an Acceptance Commitment Therapy perspective. And, and we really used the theories in acceptance, Commitment Therapy, to put that piece together around time zero. So there's a bit of mindfulness in there. Try not to fix -- there's a lot of acceptance. So we think, keep it simple. Just give people three things to help them through that period of time when emotions are pretty much all over the place.

Matt Dixon 47:16

Yes, you have all of these emotions. And the natural tendency for so many athletes is to try and fix things that think or understand what went wrong or look for solutions or or plan for the future. It's like okay, what am I doing next year? So is the big call to action is, don't do that? Isn't that accurate? Just just be in the present, and feel the emotions and then connects with, you said friends and family? What do you mean by that?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 47:48

Well be be curious about them. Go on Sarah.

Sarah Cecil 47:55

Yeah, so these three like headlines we're giving people so they can plan this time well. So we're gonna, we're gonna say we don't know what's best for you. But you've got to do things which help you be present. We don't try and fix the emotions and then reconnect and as a way to recharge. Now that might be spending time and lots of family members, it might be one or two or friends. But so the guidelines is so people can plan this time well. So again, we're coming back to this, you got to plan your time well post, as well as pre and friends. Yeah, and the family and friends bit is because everyone is more interested in you, because you've been away doing this fun thing, amazing thing, and you've been on TV and all that stuff. But some of the most grounding stuff is reconnecting with if you've a family member of your children. And so this is all about grounding you in your actual present-day reality. To rather than still being stuck at the Olympic Games. There's recent research isn't there on on depression, that actually doing something for somebody else has a bigger impact on depressive symptoms and therapy. So that's why we're saying just just knowing that it's not about you, and see what happens there. And some of this guidance actually has come from people I've worked with and who are in the SAS, and when they came back from being on tour. One of them said, you know, I just did whatever my family member wanted them to do, because it wasn't about me, which is we know this is a habit for people to do. But the way things are set up, it's still all about you because you're the one who's come back with all the Olympic kit and everyone wants to know about it and what was it really like and all that stuff? So it's a no no ask them about their work or their school or their life is as valid and interesting as yours because we know that's a really healthy thing for people to do. Yeah, So. So that's the thinking behind it.

Matt Dixon 50:04

And it's grounding is the word isn't it? perspective as well, where it's because tunnel vision occurs with any event. In fact, even if it's not an Olympic Games, it can be just me getting ready for my marathon, I've never run and I want to just cross the finish line. But everyone can resonate, it can become all consuming, and family starts to take second place -- work, don't worry about that. It's and then it finishes and you're like, you feel like the rug has pulled been pulled from under your feet. So this is maybe an essential phase to say, hang on, welcome back to the real world, and which is going to carry on and and I guess it's so I can imagine how that becomes a real grounding process. And and again, underlining. This is an essential part of the process to go through before you start trying to super analyze or fix anything that went wrong over that experience that's just occurred. Yeah. So it's, it's real breathing room. Yeah.

Sarah Cecil 51:05

Yeah. Yeah, we want you to slow down, so that we can process your motion properly, so you can go again.

Matt Dixon 51:13

It's interesting, and maybe I'm lucky. You know, I've sort of been lucky enough to seem like a smart coach. But one of the things post-Hawaii Ironman was always, we need breathing room. So we'll have a quick chat will go through and and say, go away for a while, you know, decompressor is literally a word used to say -- the decompression model. Because we will review this in 10 days or two weeks, where then we can actually have clarity and that, that that space is really important. Which is, which is fascinating. So okay, we've done that. We connected with other people, we felt these very, very strong emotions that we were prepared for, because Danielle helped us prepare, and I knew it was coming. So it was fantastic. Now, now we kick start the next phase. So let's let's dig into the next part of the model.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 52:13

Yeah, the next part of the model is based on the idea of an emotional driven conversation that's got some guided stages to it. And we find time and time again, that the process works. So these six stages are relatively prescriptive in nature, actually. But in the sense of providing a structure for for someone who is almost guiding someone through the journey of decompressing, they're making sense of their emotions. So as an overview of the of the six stages, not quite in front of me, God, this is a test. I'll just run run through the six of them to start with. And if we want to go into any more detail, we can, Sarah please do intervene. Right. Okay, so we've got the first one, which is all about contracting the conversation. Why am I here? What do we want from it? Two is a timeline of meaningful moments. Three are the emotions that surround those meaningful moments. And four is about identifying the strengths and strategies that someone used to work through those moments, Then there's a bit of sense-making, consolidation, and what does the horizon look for me? And then stage six is wrapping up and debriefing.

Matt Dixon 53:34

There you go. That's impressive. I'm glad that you actually know it. So, I'd love to go back to the start of the conversation.

Sarah Cecil 53:44

Don't forget one thing, you got to set some actions at the end of the sixth stage. So you can't leave it without some actions. That's often that I've got in front of me, that's the only reason I can remember it. There we go.

Matt Dixon 53:59

So contracting the conversation, that's creating alignment on what what are we here for on what are we looking to get out of this? Yeah,

Danielle Adams Norenberg 54:05

yeah, I really love this stage, because it's one of the one of the fundamental tools for a sports psychologist and and one thing that makes psychology feasible. So So, psychology brings this idea of contracting your conversations and giving permission to ask questions and to engage in such a conversation, there's actually a vulnerable place to be. And so you're, you're really naming it out front, we want this to be a really open conversation, because otherwise we can't debrief your emotions. So you set the platform and you create create permissions for that conversation to be of that nature. And you also decided together like you said, What do you want from this and how we're going to get there? And in some of the conversations or decompression sessions that we've had, it's there's a So confidentiality element to it. So who might we share this with anyone afterwards, or This stays between us too. And any sharing is based on the recipient. So I think there are three real fundamental pieces to that, that contracting that permissions confidentiality, and what we're here for.

Matt Dixon 55:22

So with that in mind then and coming back to our sort of case study of the Olympic athlete, using us as our model for this, maybe take you through what that might look like. So the contracting is clear clarity, what we're looking to get out of it, then take me through sort of what it might look like as a typical case study, if you can. Sarah, why don't you lead me through that?

Sarah Cecil 55:48

As in how you'd have a contracting conversation, or

Matt Dixon 55:51

no, take me through the process of, you know, as as a case study a little bit of, we've got an Olympic athlete, they've had the experience, they've had a hot debrief, time zero has occurred. Now, we're going through this, they've had a tough time, it's the pinnacle of four years of work. Okay, so how does this conversation flow, and I'd love to go through the stages.

Sarah Cecil 56:19

So you one of the things you do beforehand is send the six stages across and say, this is what it's going to look like before. So they kind of know what they have coming. And then I'd probably say, look, this will last about 90 minutes is about you, as you can talk about whatever you want. There will be some structure. We ended up going down avenues you don't like, just let me know. And, but we're going to work through this the six stages. And so then, so -- we're going to be contracting. And then we say okay, so and contracting is often about making the implicit explicit. So I'm going to tell you what we're going to do today, in that sense. So and then that's the then you kind of agree, and then you say, right, so let's get into the next stage. And this stage, we're really trying to we did we're going to do timeline of their meaningful moments. Because you want to understand their experience. And the importance of doing the timeline is things they will remember things that they've forgotten. Because we know that recency bias will be important. They'll remember the last stuff or things like that. And so this is about, you know, Danielle's spoke about a golden nuggets or gems or we want everything to come up in that sense. And lots of different ways of doing a timeline, you get a flip chart, you can write it on, what I tend to do with the athlete is, because this is 90 minutes about you, I'm going to make notes, you don't have to, I'm going to be writing furiously. You don't need to do anything, but I'm going to be writing down, right? Let's say people say it started when they got to the holding camp, or it started when they first got their kit or wherever the wherever they want to start in that sense. So when we're training people up in this, we kind of train them up in how to have this thing about the meaningful moments. And then I'll literally say, okay, right, tell me about the your first meaningful moment related to the Olympic Games. And then they start.

Matt Dixon 58:21

And that might be it might be for example, I got off the plane, and I arrived in Tokyo. And the heat was just oppressive. And I felt, goodness me this is XYZ, whatever it might be, or I got to the Olympic village, and I had this idea of what it was, and it wasn't like this. And that was destabilizing, or it was confidence building whatever it might be. It's like, their own experience that they could pinpoint in the whole journey, not just I went off the starting block. And then I went through the finish. It was the whole experience of of of that. Yeah?

Sarah Cecil 58:58

Yeah. So so that then you sort of say, right, what's next? So you told me about that meaningful moment? What happened next? And then and often they start to want to sort of solutionize or describe the emotions you go no, we'll come back? What happened next? Okay, what was the next meaningful moment? So actually, I feel like when I do this I sound like a broken record, I'm like, was there another one, another one and you do this till then they're kind of like back home. So we imagine that that's these, where they've where they've, so you're writing furiously, and you're sort of making notes. But really, at this point, you just want to capture what happened. You don't need to go...

Matt Dixon 59:38

It's a storyboard.

59:40

It's a storyboard. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and if there's like a really strong one, you're gonna say like, well, we're gonna come back to that, you know, I'm not I'm not dismissing you, we are going to talk about it but let's storyboard and people will go off on tangents you need to (inaudible) But that's a really important thing to document so they've got says this storyboard or timeline. So then it's like it's a physical thing as well. You know, then this is an important part of processing the emotion, that there are lots of different elements, and there'll be a richness which they suddenly emerges. Because they will remember things, or there was that, or there was that. And whether it's if it's a good or negative emotion, it's kind of they need to remember at all. So then you've got a timeline. So you can imagine, I've actually probably got one, I've got a notebook in front of me if I look a bit further, and I've probably got some ones in here. So, you know, I write, I write whatever happened, like, you arrive there, I write down what happened, and then I leave space, because I know we're going to come back for the next stage. In that sense,

Matt Dixon 1:00:46

Okay. So once it's done, take me to the next stage, then then what happens?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 1:00:52

You've done that piece around, getting the facts of what happened, the timeline of meaningful moments to storyboard of meaningful moments, You alluded to yourself, Matt, in the, in your example, when I yeah, that really added to my confidence when I put my kit on. Right? That is starting to identify some of the emotions that come with those moments. So we've established the facts. And now we're going to go back and indulge ourselves in all the emotions that came up, people really light up and really engage. And like Sarah said, bring even more richness to the conversation and start to like, connect the dots a little bit at that point, oh yeah I felt I felt really, you know, overwhelmed. When I walked into the village, or when I walked into the team GB tower. Lots of people from lots of different sports. And all of a sudden, I've come from my world where it's just me and my daily training environment, I got on a plane, and whoa, I'm overwhelmed. And actually, that first conversation with my coach, when I talked about what the session was going to be like, I was probably a bit confused. And that's when you start to really understand how the emotions can build up over over an event like that. And how powerful it is for someone to go back to those meaningful moments and recognize the wealth of emotions that they experienced throughout, it can sometimes be just a three-day period. And what you see them you go, Oh, yeah, I did have that feeling then. And I can actually change to something even greater or even more complex the next day. So you're labeling each meaningful moment with a series of emotions. And the idea there is you're normalizing them, and you're accepting them. And that's a really cathartic process. For anybody, especially when they've go on.

Matt Dixon 1:02:59

Yeah, and sorry, initial long process. Interestingly, like the whole conversation is 90 minutes. So there's, it's incredibly important, but it's not like a three-week process to go through. This is a conversation that structured, it's making sure that it's not just emotional, but it's actually in helping, reflection and also a picture of moments that are connected with emotions to say, Okay, it's it's accepted, accepted. So how then does it move to action? And then from there, so I feel like we're starting to emerge out of the model a little bit and moving. Maybe I'm rushing it too much, you guys. No, no, no, no.

Sarah Cecil 1:03:48

Yeah, we're only on stage three. And there's three more stages. The first three are kind of reflecting on the past. And all you're doing is gathering data. You're not solving anything, you're not rescuing anybody gathering data of the first three stages. And then stage four, you kind of want to understand what strengths they utilize or skills for situations which were positive or challenging. So so, so we're saying you kind of you want to help people unpick how they handle this situation and handle the challenges and handle the good times. So what, what we this stage is really about is you're kind of a mixture of a sort of Investigative Journalists and a spin doctor, because you're getting people to understand what their strengths are. So we're now starting to, you know, shift towards the future a bit. And this is a really lovely set to do. Because whatever the experience, they will have utilized their strengths but they won't have an noticed it probably, they won't have noticed it, they won't name them, they won't have had great insight into how they utilize their skills. So that's this section where you're going to say, Okay, let's, let's pick out a moment and let me know how you coped. What did you do? Now, this is the first stage that you're allowed to tell people things. Before that you're just gathering data (inaudible) at this stage, you can say, well, I kind of, I noticed this in you. Sounds like you're really resilient. Yeah. How do you do that? And obviously, British people find that a very hard question to answer. So our audiences may find it easier to do. What it is were really naming their strengths. We know a lot like people have got this whole arsenal of strengths. And we really know that success leaves lots of clues. So we need to find them. So when we say a sports psychologists are really good sense makers, we're really, really good at. We're really good at highlighting people's (inaudible) and skills.

Matt Dixon 1:06:15

You're for our American audience that are way more familiar with these types of conversations, it is the most unBritish thing that I could possibly imagine what you've taken through there, which is so fantastic. And the irony is not lost on me. Imagine taking my brothers through this. I'm not having this conversation.

Sarah Cecil 1:06:37

To be a little bit more American in the section because I said, Americans do this so much better than us. And we need to steal from them about this. So yeah. This. So that's kind of the fourth stage. So you imagine that and again, I'm writing things furiously down. I'm writing down what their strengths are, and what skills are utilized. And we're developing this kind of, I'm not making it up. It's what they did. So it's based in facts. I'm not just saying you're amazing. And that's really important. Because when you come back, especially if you've won a medal, people put you on a pedestal. It's really important to find a way to tell your authentic own story, not what other people are going to say about you. So this is a really important part. So that's stage four. Are you ready for stage five?

Matt Dixon 1:07:31

Let's just go right, and let's finish it to close out.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 1:07:38

Well, like after the spin doctor piece, and you've taken someone through identifying that their strengths, there's a real natural, shift them to go. Okay, so what does that mean for you now? We often say that the critical question is what's on the horizon for you? And through the age stage plays such a significant role in a natural progression or a natural conversation that's just structured. So at that point, when someone has gone Oh, yeah, I did do it. That way. They've got that those strengths recognized, in my experience, they're ready to then go, ah, and I really want to do this now. Because you've, you've developed so much trust with them, as well through this stage, you've done everything really well, so far, remember. So they're, they're on board with you. And they're going through this with you, they trust you. You've created a bond and a connection through the structure of the conversation and the skills that you've brought to it. So naturally, they're then ready to go, I'd like to do this now. I'm really excited to bring this strength or this coping mechanism or this strategy and harness it with awareness. I want to consciously use this strength for this strategy. And now I'm actually ready to go training. And you're just like, Okay, wait, we'll just do the review first. But actually, more often than not, with the athletes that I've done this with, they've gone from a point of confusion. And then come through this conversation through these stages. And they're now on stage five, and they're ready to go training. And you can really engage in this stage with them by helping them shape what does that next stage actually look like? And because you're doing a sense, making peace with them, that they'll then believe in, in the journey that they've decided to embark on from here, the actions that they're probably going to take take now. Because they've gone on that journey, and you've guided them through that journey to the point where they're really ready to do it.

Matt Dixon 1:09:50

It's the it's the re-engagement side and and the application of the lessons that you drew for good or bad to put into action as you engage again. Yeah, that's amazing. Go ahead. Go ahead, Sarah, because I remember you, you said earlier conversation, remember the action plan out of that. So

Sarah Cecil 1:10:12

Yeah, by the end of section five, you've probably got some clarity on your current why. And so we might be a bit of summary around that. And then the really important thing is to set one two, two or three goals. So bearing in mind what we've discussed today, what two or three things are gonna go away and do. They don't have to be big things. Because, you know, they're now in a place where they're ready for action, they're ready to go and do a really good debrief, really unpick with their coach exactly. You know, good, bad, what we now know, but they gotta have some clear actions to guide them. And that's from all the rules of debriefing to have some goals, because you've got to start this planning again.

Matt Dixon 1:10:55

And I'm assuming the goals. Would I be right in saying that the goal is not like, oh, I want to go and win a world championship gold the next year is it more goals of actions that I'm so this is something that I am going to integrate, or whatever it might be as an action plan, it gives me something tangible on what you mean by goal there, cause it can mean different things to different people.

Sarah Cecil 1:11:20

A goal might be to go share this story with different people, that might be a really important thing to do. Right? So one of the goals is that often comes out this, I'm going to share this with a few people, family members, coaches, so that might be a goal. Or actually, I've got some insight that it's really important for me to have fun along the way. So that's going to be a goal that I'm there like not to take this all too seriously, perhaps, or it's a goal that actually, I need to have more emotional conversations with my coach. So there could be a real variety which have come out. Because then I've got some insight into what they need for their balance, what their motivation. It might be, I'm gonna go out to dinner, you know, coaches might say, I'm gonna get dinner my wife more often. That's fine. There's got to be some action. Some will be related to sports, some may not be. And both are fine, because they're driven from insight. But yeah, but they're not right --That's it. I'm gonna go and, you know, win Kona next year? That's not the purpose of this? You know, the purpose is, right -- yeah, I need to, it tends to be from my perspective, the ones I've done a lot of, actually, there's lots of people I want to now share this story with, I've got a way to describe my experience.

Matt Dixon 1:12:42

Yeah, I am. One of the things in in our own coaching was I talk about successful coaching is often taking some really complex things and making them simple and accessible. And we actually have a whole saying at Purple Patch - Nail the basics, focus on the boulders not on the sand, many times. One of the things of, of power or beauty, or whatever you want to say about this model is it's very accessible. But from my - as I learn about it, it creates process or process for the Americans, and a framework and structure. Because actually, like our experience in the pandemic, it one of the challenges was it was just destabilizing, like we had no tent pegs, it was just like this storm. And so it's so it was such a process for people to get to even some form of structure, which is a parallel experience of post event. It's just so many emotions. And I think what you've created is a really, really simple and accessible structure. And a little bit of discipline around this is how you do it so that you can move forward. And, and that's the real power, like coming out of this conversation. This even without being trained in it yet, I should point out, because I will be, but it I can see an evolution of just a bit of patience and an organization that can occur with a structure. So it's fantastic. So firstly, thank you, and, and congratulations, because I think it's really, really powerful. And you're shifting the British culture as you do it as well, which is even better.

Danielle Adams Norenberg 1:14:35

Thank you, Matt. Thanks.

Matt Dixon 1:14:38

No, fantastic. Well, I hope and in the show notes, of course, we're going to have a lot of information about the model. We'll share what the model looks like so that you can review it and we'll also reach -- Is there anywhere that the audience you'd like to send them to learn more if they can follow you on the social medias are any of you heavy influencers or anything along those lines? Or

Sarah Cecil 1:15:04

We could send you out. I mean, I've got mines called My professional is SMHRF.psych, if you want to follow me. And actually I do talk about pressure on there a bit as well. So it's a little bit of like stuff about when a good time is for different people to do it.

Matt Dixon 1:15:19

Good stuff. And, Danielle, would you like people to follow you along your journey at all?

Danielle Adams Norenberg 1:15:25

Well, yeah, I am. I do have a Twitter handle, although I'm not as active as perhaps I should be. There will definitely be appropriate updates on decompression when major events come up. And there's lots of resources on on both or about both of our Twitter handles in terms of decompression. So yeah, definitely keep an eye out for for updates on that.

Matt Dixon 1:15:49

Fantastic. Well, guys, thank you so much. And I really appreciate it. I know you've been very, very generous with your time. And it's been a lot of fun. But more importantly, it's been really insightful. So thanks so much for joining the show. Thank you.

Matt Dixon 1:16:04

Guys, thanks so much for joining. And thank you for listening, I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing, head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there. And you could subscribe Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe, also share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now any questions that you have, let me know feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commenced this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve, simply email us at info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends. But as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience. And we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that. I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

athletes, coaches, people, emotions, Danielle, journey, performance, Sarah, stage, model, conversation, event, debrief, important, decompression, strengths, bit, year, sport, Olympic games

SPEAKERS

Matt Dixon, Danielle Adams Norenberg, Sarah Cecil

Carrie BarrettFebruary 1, 2023