You already know how to push yourself. You’ve earned the wins nobody saw, the early mornings, the extra hours, and the miles all alone.
But now you’re the one leading people, and a harder question shows up. When do you let someone struggle their way to their own belief about themself, and when do you hand them the positive reflection they need to hear from you?
This episode follows former Olympic Gold Medal swimming coach and current executive leader coach Steve Mellor through both sides of that question, in his own life first.
Steve built his self-belief alone, five a.m. after five a.m., before he ever coached a single swimmer. Then he had to stand across from swimmers who looked at him and said, “I can’t do this without you,” and tell them the truth: they could.
Steve built a respected career across collegiate and international swimming before he ever coached a single executive. He made the leap anyway, one guest conversation at a time, until the podcast he started as a side project became the thing that told him who he was becoming next.
You’ll hear the real research behind why some belief has to be built alone to count, and why some belief only becomes real once someone else hands it to you, and which one should come first.
Note: There is another British swimmer named Steven Mellor who competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Our guest is a different person.”
Note on Olympic gold medal: Steve Mellor coached Brooks Curry, who swam in a qualifying heat at the Tokyo Olympics in place of Caeleb Dressel, specifically so Dressel could rest for the final. The US Men’s team then won gold in the relay, with Dressel leading off. Right after the medal ceremony, Dressel walked off the podium, found Curry in the stands, called him down to the first row, and tossed him his gold medal, saying, ‘I felt like he deserved that a little more than me.’
Steve Mellor Growth Ready coaching: https://growthready.com/
Steve Mellor Growth Ready podcast: https://growthready.com/podcasts/
Brain activation from positive self descriptions
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.700046/full
Social rewards same place as money: “The findings suggest that social and monetary rewards are processed by the same population of neurons within these regions of the striatum. ”
https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/12/10/1558/3980284?login=false
Bandura on Self-efficacy:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Self_Efficacy/eJ-PN9g_o-EC?hl=en&gbpv=1