Episode #31 - More Than a Volleyball Player with Stephen Maar

In this refreshing episode we talk about radical honesty, how to lead a team through a broken culture, and the downside of overanalysis. Maar shares his reasoning for retiring from the national team, why experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion is a good thing, and how he turned one of his greatest defeats into one of his proudest moments. Above all, it is evident from the first minute of this episode to the last, that Maar has a strong desire to help the next generation of Volleyballers, and will do anything to give back and share his experiences. 

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Transcript

0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the pit to pro podcast. In today's episode, we're joined by Steven Marr. Steve is a true professional having had a long and successful career in Italy and Russia, as well as with the Canadian national team, capping it off with two Olympic appearances in 2021 and 2024. There's a ton we can learn from Steve, given his thoughtful and introspective nature. And if you plan on being a high performer in any pursuit, this episode is worth a listen. Expect to learn why Steve is retiring from the national team, the value in feeling the entire spectrum of human emotion, how to lead in challenging cultures, why Steve never wants to be a captain, how to get over your fear of tough conversations, and how you might be lying to yourself about wanting to be the best.

Mathias 0:39

Before we get started, I'd like to introduce our sponsor for today's episode.

Jesse 0:43

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Mathias 0:51

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Jesse 0:56

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Mathias 1:03

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Jesse 1:20

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1:36

But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Stephen Marr. Hello and welcome to the Pit the Pro podcast. Jesse, Matthias, and Aaron Elson. This podcast is meant to guide young athletes on their journey to high performance. Join us as we share our first hand experiences in an effort to help you reach your own valuable goals.

Mathias 1:59

All right. And we're live. Welcome back everyone to the pitch pro podcast. Thank you, Stephen, for joining us. Pleasure to be here, boys.

Jesse 2:09

Yeah, this is really, really awesome. You, uh, I like to start these things off on kind of a personal note. You've played a huge role in the development of both Matias and I's, uh, career. Uh, who's not here today. He had toe surgery yesterday, so he's a little MIA. Yeah. Um, but I want to remember a story. It was our first, uh, summer kind of on the A team, training with the A team, and you took me, Titus, Brody, and Sam Cooper out for dinner. And you said, Hey, I'm paying for the whole thing. Let me tell you about pro life. Let me tell you what you need to, what you need to do to get to the next level. You gave us all the stories, all the inside scoops. And I really remember that, I loved that dinner, but my, my question I guess is, where do you find the time and energy to give back to the younger generation, to share your experiences, because you're obviously a very busy person, you obviously have your own stuff you got to deal with, where, where does that come from, and then maybe who in your life did that to you, where you were like, oh, that's important, I got to give it back.

Steve 3:20

I remember kind of running around. Like a chicken with my head cut off for my first summer on the national team when I had like I was maybe 21 and like the next closest guy was TJ, but he'd already been on the team for maybe 2 3 years and there was a huge generation of older guys, guys who had like I had watched in Champions League, guys Who are like early thirties and I remember realizing that most of them were going to retire and I was like trying to ask Questions about everything all the time and I knew it was bothering them but so I would just like disperse my questions among like seven or eight guys who would actually talk to me and I remember in between like I was like trying to make myself useful, and I was like spotting Fred Winters on bench, asking him about taxes. And I was like, man, if I can just, you know, pick up the weights for this guy, and then I can just ask him a couple questions about what you do about your taxes, then probably he won't get that, like, irritated with me. I feel like there's such a better way to do these things. And, um, a lot of the guys, a lot of the guys coming up, like there's not a ton of like ready available information about volleyball and the things that you are like prefaced with, with the national team or your university experience is very. It's very different than what you're going to experience, especially depending on where you play and the different cultures that you find yourself in. So I think just trying to give people a realistic expectation, um, is, is a lot better than just like, okay, guys, you'll figure it out. Cause I think one of the things that actually has happened with a lot of young Canadian players, I think they have an idea of what. Being a professional is in their mind, is in their mind, and we have a pretty high rate of burnout of like guys taking contracts for like their first couple of years and then just stopping to play. And I think that also just deals with like their expectations of what, what they think it's going to be. And it might be that thing, but just maybe five or six years into the, into the career. And your first couple of years are going to be a lot more difficult than, than that. And, um, I think if some people can kind of share some of that information, it might actually ease the burden and ease them into it.

Jesse 5:46

I love that answer because that's one of the reasons we started this podcast was to. Like Tia said, I think in our first episode, no one told him any of the things he wanted to know. So this is us trying to share our experiences and bring on guests that share experiences. I think you're the perfect person for that. So we're really fired up to have you on here and talk about that. Yeah.

Mathias 6:06

Yeah. So I'd love to dive into like, what are What are some of the common things that people get wrong about being a professional and having that long career overseas? And then what are some of the common, let's say, character traits of those that do survive for the long haul overseas?

Steve 6:28

Um, I'm going to give kind of a hybrid answer here. Uh, I think when you kind of break it down, you can understand that most of your time is spent not in the gym. You know, and I think that is one of the things that you really do have to get right Because if your whole self worth whole self Your day revolves around one training and I think you guys know With all of your experience that if your whole thing revolves around one training and then that training goes bad What is your day like? Like, what is your, what is your vision of how a day went? And it's usually, if the day, if the training was great, then things are as, as you expected, things are as it seems, like, I'm doing well, I'm progressing my career, I'm getting better as a player, go team. If things do not go well, then you're kind of sitting there like, oh man. This kind of sucks. I can't really talk to anyone who's like around me. I don't really have any friends. Oh man, my family's at Thanksgiving. And then imagine you have another battery. You're like, what am I doing here? Like this sucks. Then you can kind of start to find yourself spiral. So I think kind of. Finding what works for you as an individual and having like the the self awareness to actually experiment with Okay, is is sunlight important to me is getting outside going for walks is socializing important to me It is making sure I get a good sleep or playing some video games with my buddies back home important to me Like and I think as I've gotten older a lot of these things I'm I used to think things were kind of in, would fit into one groove, like one path was the same path for everybody. And then I realized that everybody's very different and what might be downtime for me is not downtime for another person. And, um, I think that's kind of the individual self awareness piece that you have to kind of have going into it. And, um, yeah, I think, I think guys can, can really have a good awareness of that when they, when they start. And then it's a lot easier than having a problem and trying to fix a problem at the same time.

Mathias 8:51

Yeah, that's cool. It's almost like this concept we've talked about a couple times, um, about like separating you as a person from you as a player and making sure that things, uh, there's obviously going to be some leakage, let's call it, of how your performance is onto your life. I think that's inevitable. But, uh, try finding like Okay. Who you are outside of the game is like a big important thing, especially playing pro because it can be, it can be a harsh environment sometimes. Um, when things aren't going well overseas.

Steve 9:25

Yeah, like, I, I guess the other thing too that is, is starts to, starts to interfere sometimes with your joy of the game is you realize there's a dollar value on you now, and that's like something that I personally had a really tough time with struggling with is knowing that someone out there decided to pay an X amount of dollars for me. To represent this team to play on this team and maybe an X amount of dollars for someone else to play on this team and like, Oh, like you're more valuable than me. Like, and it kind of does start to take away from a lot of like club based sports, university based sports, maybe now with the NCAA getting some money. Okay. It's a pretty new thing, but for most of like youth sports, it's like, everybody's the same on the team. Everybody's just as valuable. And you know, like all for one, one for all. And then you kind of start to realize like there's a bit more of a mercenary life in professional volleyball and people are kind of out for contracts and. And there's a dollar amount on your head and like that, that, that was something that weighed on me of trying to separate the two. Um, it actually really forced me to actually look inwards and to find things that were good for me as a person and kind of to separate myself from the actual professional that goes into the gym every single day.

Jesse 10:47

What do you believe now that you, or what did you used to believe about volleyball at the beginning of your career that you no longer believe?

Steve 10:59

think in the beginning, I really, I didn't really have a set, like a set of principles that I could really kind of like right the ship with. And so, I think when things were starting to get difficult, it would be okay for me to start to question all of my skills. Or I start to question like all of my approach to a game and then I think once you start to have rituals and routines and in professional life you really can control all aspects of your life, um, and more so than in a university setting, then you can start to really start to play with things that can become almost crutches to a degree. Like I need to, I need to not leave my house the day of the game because I need to just nap and just focus and just do this and do it. And then you start to realize that maybe one time something was out of your control. Let's say your grandmother's in town and you're hanging out with your grandma because she's there. And then you have a great game and you realize, oh wow, like. Did I actually need to do all that stuff and then you can start to pick apart the actual processes that are like Well, you know, I can probably come to a medium ground Like I probably don't want to be out all day But like going out and having a coffee and talking to a buddy on the team and then coming back home Actually breaks up my day nicely and that's actually something nice for me But I think when you're early in your career you start you start to overanalyze like if you're someone like me Like oh, I had a bad performance. Let me just analyze overanalyze every single thing I did Leading up to that and maybe there was something good maybe there was something bad. And maybe I can tie down to this happened and you kind of take away from the fact that like our game is a game that's built on errors and realistically. Someone else can just be playing great and that might just be why you lose and might not be that you could come out with an B plus performance, which isn't bad, but someone else had an A plus night and you know what, you're just probably not going to beat that person on that night. So you can start to realize things a little bit more about your own life like that.

Jesse 13:06

That's, that's really cool. The grandma thing, I had the exact same thing last year, exact same. I was like, yeah, I need to be in, in bed. I got to eat this for pregame meal, whatever. And then my, my mom's uncle who lives in Germany came to watch the game. And he stayed, he came at like two o'clock game was at eight. I didn't get to nap. I like made dinner and stuff. We chatted like broken English. I'm like, Oh man, this was before the Arcus game. And then we beat Arcus in the golden set. I played great. Got the MVP. Music. All right, like just volleyball. I didn't forget how to do it. You know, like, yeah, yeah, that's cool. That's a cool answer that you said. I would ask you

Steve 13:47

like one of the cool things about something like that is then when you take a step back after you've been playing for a little while, you can actually ease back on the over analysis of like things and you actually start to enjoy like do you start to enjoy the game a bit more when you really have a like a set idea of. On my absolute worst, I'm going to perform probably about like this, and my absolute best will probably perform somewhere around here. And most of the time I'll be somewhere in the middle. I found that to be a really like comforting thing. It's like, oh, like my peaks and valleys are not so high and low now. And like, oh, I can actually like enjoy the sport a bit more as opposed to being like, oh, come on, just be a good one tonight. Just be, just do every single thing right to be a good one tonight.

Jesse 14:31

Yeah. No, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And, and, uh, Actually, something Graham Viagra said when he was on the podcast, he was talking about, it doesn't matter. Like, what's the worst that can happen? Worst that can happen is I get subbed out after eight points, but I had a great lunch with my great uncle. I got some relationship time, I got some people time, got to play in front of a huge crowd, and the day goes on tomorrow. You know, like, that has been really liberating for me as well. It's like, it doesn't really matter, really. Like, it doesn't matter, and I thought that was really powerful.

Steve 15:04

Yeah, I've listened to a lot of your guys episodes with So I'm here with you. I've been, I've been learning from some of my old teammates that I don't get to talk to as much anymore now. So it's great. Oh, that's awesome.

Mathias 15:17

I, uh, well, you mentioned there quickly about, you said for a guy like me at one point, and I think that like where you're going with that is that you're one of the most dialed. Analytical, like process based people that I know you have like the level of discipline you have to control as much of what goes into your body, what the exercise you do, how you approach the court, all that stuff is like, like no one I've ever seen. So I want to move into like a team dynamics thing. And I'm wondering if it bothers you when there's people who don't, don't have that same mindset and don't don't approach the game that way.

Steve 16:06

So I know, I know some of this stuff is going to be amazing to share. So one of my, one of my roommates, sorry, my roommate now on the road is Uroš Kováčević and Uroš, now we're, we're pretty good buddies. So I'm going to, I'm going to share two stories. Um, so I played firstly against Uroš in the under 21 world championships in Izmir. Something like that. Urosh was already on the national team playing in Modna, but was still, like, now playing. They just wanted to do well at the Under 21 World, so they sent Urosh and a couple of the other guys who were already on the A team, but they're like, no, you go play this too. So Urosh is there, and I, like, know who this guy is. And he obviously has no idea who we are. And I see, like, we coming down from video, um, the night before the game, and he's up with the coaching staff having some ciggies, just drinking a little bit, having a blast, like, something that, like, when you're 20, like, can you imagine, like, going up with your coaches, having ciggies, just drinking for the night before a game, in the world championships? Like, I was like, what is going on here? He, like, destroyed us the next day. It was amazing. And then now, um, now on our team, like, you couldn't find two guys who are so different. Like, if Uros is like, quite professional and like, when there is a competitive thing in practice, like, he is all in, like, he's dialed in, like, loves that. But if there's other stuff, okay, I'm just warming up. I'm getting it going. Like it's fine. Weight room. Same thing. If it says six sets of three at this weight, I do six sets of three. I don't do four. I don't do five. I don't want, like, it's just, this is what I'm doing. And it's, it's pretty funny to me. Cause now, if you were to ask me this question before I'd met someone like that, who is just gifted, I would have said it frustrates me. If you're not performing, if you're performing, I'm not going to say anything. Um, what I would say personally is that I'm not a gifted player. Like I am, I have a good arm swing, I don't have the best arm swing you've ever seen. I have decent Like, body genetics to be, but I'm not the lightest, like, most physically, genetically gifted player. I'm not the best passer, you've ever seen, I'm not this, I'm not that. But the one thing that I do try and meticulously kind of work through, is like, how do I achieve the most out of what I have? And, Um, and I think you've seen that side of me a bit more because in pro versus in national team in pro, it's a bit more transient, like you're not maybe trying to invest in someone for four years, like, whereas if you see a young guy. In national team and you're looking at him and you're like, Hey, you know, like I know how much someone's words meant to me when I was you because you can literally put yourself back in those shoes because we all kind of come up through the same situation. Then you can kind of look at that moment and be like, I'll go watch the B team practice for an extra 15 minutes out of my day. And I might say one thing to someone who looks like. Like they could, they have what it takes to come to the next level. And I think, I think coming out of Canada, like a lot of the stuff that you guys. are aware of is there's not a lot of people who are exceptionally gifted at the sport just based on how we all grew up in the models that we train under and technically our, our nation is not gifted. But the one thing that is quite different about us is that we do really lean into the work side of things. And so I think there's a lot of stuff that you can squeeze out of yourself in that regard. So, um, in national team, I'm a lot more Particular what I would say,

Jesse 20:19

I have a, I have a question about, um, skills. Let's take volleyball skills, strength and conditioning skills, and mental skills. If you were to make a pie chart, percentage wise, for you, what's the most important? Would it be 33 percent across the board, or is one more important than the other? What do you think about that?

Steve 20:42

Are you talking me now, or are you talking if I was to develop a volleyball player?

Jesse 20:48

That's a great question. Let's go, if you were to develop a, let's say you had a son, 13 years old, getting into volleyball, where would you urge?

Steve 20:57

Ooh, I've never thought about this before. Ha ha ha! Um, I think as it, I think it, it grows as it, um, as you grow, um, I'll break you through a timeline. If you can develop great movement patterns at an early age, you're going to excel at almost all sports. How you move, like literally you can watch some people who move effortlessly, move beautifully. They have no negative movement. They know how to control their legs. They know how to control unilateral portions of their body. They can learn skills very fast. So, when it strikes the ignition thing, that's, I would consider that to be part of it. And if you can ingrain motor patterns at a young age that are optimal, you're great. Technically, volleyball is, as you are aware, it's an incredibly technical sport. If your left foot Is arced out from a place of like parallel here to here when you're passing a ball on your left side Your hip is then going to open your shoulders I'm going to open in when the ball arrives at somewhere over a hundred and five hundred and ten kilometers an hour The ball is going to just skid off your platform because you don't have the actual time and the eye Capability to move the ball. So if you learn the wrong motor pattern technically as well You're just gonna be a ceiling on how good you can be Um, that's, those are things I'm trying to unlearn at the moment. So it's, uh, kind of fun on that moment. And I think mental, I think one of the things that I've always attributed is you can't change who you are off the court versus who you are on the court. So You can kind of manipulate, you can kind of bring out certain or emphasize certain part of your personality and things that make you tick and maybe you don't show very often. If you are an undisciplined Um, for example, if you're an undisciplined and really sharp to anger person outside of the court, that will come out, but it's not going to come out in a training. It's not going to come. It's going to come out in the exact intense moments where your true character arrives when it's 20, you don't want it to. Yeah, and it's, it's going to come out maybe in a moment where it's not your best buddy who makes a mistake. It's someone that's kind of been on your nerves all week and then you're going to see who you really are. And those are the moments that are tough because other people are going to see who you really are. And so I think in the mental side of things, you really need to work on a holistic approach to change these things. Um, if you want to. And I think in a full summary is you can be as good as you want to be, but it's a matter of if you want to, and you can say you want to do a lot of things in this sport or say you want to go to the Olympics or you can say you want to get a full scholarship, but really there is nothing in exchange of the place of doing what you do. Um, so I'm going to give a terrible answer and just say 33 percent all the way. But if it was my kid, it would start with probably 60 percent strength conditioning from my kid and then like 30 percent mental and then 10 percent tech, I'm not the most technically gifted guy, but that kid would be an absolute monster.

Mathias 24:36

I want to, I want to dive into the, the mental side of things a little bit and. What, what has changed for you over the years? I think what's tough about building mental toughness and performing under pressure is that you get like maybe two reps a year at learning to play under pressure. Like you play an entire eSports season and then the moment where there's actually pressure where your season's on the line it happens maybe Once or twice in the Can West playoffs and once in nationals or something, and then whatever, a whole national team summer, every match is important, but when there's true, true pressure on and you need to perform at your best to win a championship or to not get relegated or something like that, the opportunities are so, so rare. So I'm wondering how you maybe used to approach those moments. Some things that. Um, I'll

Steve 25:43

share a quick story. Um, I like stories to understand things. So yeah, I love it. We were doing the 20, it was for the 2020 Olympics. Um, and we went to an Olympic qualification in China. Um, I was someone who was kind of coming off the bench, um, sometimes starting, but I was at this moment. I was the third. Uh, on our initial team and we, we went into that tournament and I remember the second side was getting absolutely destroyed by the starting six. The starting six were just, they were, they're impressive. It was incredible what they were doing. And I went into the games like, Oh man, we got this, like, this is ours. Like this is done. We're going, no chance. And I was so overconfident. in other people that I kind of missed the boat and I didn't naturally prep myself actually to perform in the way that I had to. And generally the way I approached coming off the bench was always, hey, if, if I don't go in, We win that's the only way I don't go in like, no worries. We win but if I do go in, we win because I'm going to make, I'm going to make a change. I'm going to make, give some good energy. We're going to win this game. So like either way, we win Great go team. And I didn't approach it like that. And two guys had a really, two guys did not perform at the level that they had been performing at. And. Um, and I went in and I had a good game. I didn't have, uh, one of those games where I was like, Oh, we're going to win. And I felt it. And I felt like I didn't prepare it. And I remember feeling that disappointment and realizing and crying. I was crying on the, on the bus ride home because I realized I had, I had put as much faith into other people and the things that were outside of my control. And I hadn't done what I needed to do to, with the things that were inside of my control. And, um, that was a really good moment for me. And it was, it kind of elicited a response that is similar to what you had mentioned before, Tius. Like, I did not drink. I weighed my food for the next four months. And every single time I could have touched a ball, in addition to what was required in practice, I did. I, every single day I did extra weights. Every single time it was built around, there was one qualifier coming up. It was in Vancouver in January to, to play. And I knew we'd be playing against a really good Cuba team. And I had watched that same qualifying game happen before the Rio Olympics. Where we were playing in Edmonton and they had destroyed the team in like maybe 50 minutes. And I remember also being so sad watching that. So I knew kind of what was at stake, kind of what was on the line, and I knew how I felt. And I remember we had lost the first two sets in Vancouver against Cuba. And I remember an incredible sense of calm and, and presence of mind of, okay, like. There is, because in those moments, you know, every negative thought, every, Oh, I wish I could have, Oh, maybe if I had passed a couple more reps, I would feel better right now. Or maybe I would have, if I had just, if I was three kilos lighter, I'd be blocking higher. And it's like any of these things. And I had actually hurt my back. So I hadn't trained the week before that at all. And that would have been the first thing that would have set me off. Oh, I didn't train this week. Oh man, how am I going to be able to play? and some guys came off the bench and we were able to turn that game around. And I remember feeling the exact same way emotionally through the entire game after losing the first two sets at your Olympic dream at home. And that was one of, probably maybe the only times in my, nah. One of the only times in my life that I've been proud of myself, like truly to your core, like, I am so proud of like, you had a moment where something didn't go very well, and you took the responsibility and the ownership of your own actions to change something, and you were put back into a similar situation, a situation more difficult that you probably would have crumbled, and you did not, so I think Thank you. Take care. I think self reflection and writing about those moments are important because in the moment you have all of the emotion, you have all of the truth and all of the reality coming at you. And if you can write that, you can put yourself back into those moments in your mind's eye. If you think back to what something was, like if you think back, imagine to a breakup. Imagine you think back to a breakup two years ago. You think back, oh yeah that kind of sucked, but well, whatever. But like, during that time it was horrendous, and you have all the emotion to make a change, and it's just a choice if you make that change or not. Um, and kind of like that in those moments, like we didn't qualify for the Olympics in that first round and he had all the emotion to make a change and do something about it, but you need to intellectually, emotionally and like soulfully be put on the same page. So, um, I don't know if that answers the

Mathias 31:45

question. It gave me

Jesse 31:45

goosebumps. That was

Mathias 31:47

awesome. Yeah, that was unreal. Unreal, Steve. I remember watching that game. I was in, uh. Maybe my first year, maybe first year, second year.

Jesse 31:58

It was my third year and we moved the game. Like, Canvas moved the game to like 2 p. m. so that we could all go to Vancouver

Mathias 32:04

to watch. And I still, that was, that was to this day the best volleyball match I've ever seen in my life. And like, I was so proud to be Canadian in that moment and watch you guys perform. And like, now hearing the backstory to that even more so, um, I think I saw on Instagram the other day. It was Karch Karai talking about what separates, like, the good from the great, especially in volleyball. And he said it's response to failure. And I think you had a failure, let's say, in that, in that China qualifier, and your response was like, over the moon positive. And I think that is what, that is what leads you to those moments where you can actually perform. And I think it's cool what you're saying about kind of the serenity you had under pressure. Do you think that was a result of knowing that you did? Everything you could have to prepare yourself for that moment.

Steve 33:08

Yeah. I think it's the exact moment of like pure flow state is there was no, there was no reality. There was no moment that you could have looked back or, you know, like that little devil on your shoulder. Like, Oh, that was the day where you didn't do this or you cut reps here. Like there was, there was no moment of that. And when you realize that there's everything you did to the best of your ability and you, then there's no, there's an emptiness. of that like negative self talk. And I'm not saying that I've achieved this very often since then, and I don't know if I'll ever achieve it again, because I don't know if I'm willing to do what I, what I was willing to do at the time to achieve it, if that makes sense. But it is probably one of the most special things that I've felt, and to do it with people that you truly love, and to people who you saw at a moment of Everybody knows what the odds are at the in that moment. Everybody knows. Um, and you see it in your friend's eyes, and then you are able with them to claw it back from that. Like, yeah, it's,

Jesse 34:23

I think a cool part about that responding to failure. And maybe an overlooked part is really being. Emotionally honest with yourself. And like, like you said, you, you were crying on the bus afterwards because you were so distraught. And I think that's really important. And you, I think it's important to sit with that feeling and like sit in that discomfort and be like, why did that upset me so much? Why am I feeling this way? And then you can make the choices that are going to lead you to being like, I'm never going to, I don't want to feel that way again. So what do I have to do? If you skip that part, it might not be as beneficial. In the long run,

Steve 35:07

yeah, when I was young, there was forget where it came from, but someone explained the idea of if you like push away feelings and you push them down, you're going to go without them eventually. Eventually, you're just not going to get that feeling anymore. So if you. If you push away sadness, if you push away regret, if you push away despair, um, even though they're not enjoyable to feel at the time, then they're just gonna get buried, and buried, and buried. Which, in some respects, some people might say is good, but, um, I think what I personally want is to like to live a full human experience and to live an experience where you have the full spectrum of human emotion because everyone knows after three days of rain that first sunny day is like, Oh my God, this is amazing. And, and I think there's, there's a lot of lessons to be learned in, in both sides of the coin and you can take what you can take what you want. But I think what you said is really important, especially in today's day and age, because now there's There's so many ways to distract yourself from feeling that way, of actually sitting in silence and letting your, I'm going to call it, you can call it your conscience, your soul, whatever, but letting that inner voice actually speak to you because it, there is so much wisdom that you already know what the problem is. You already know what, why you felt the way you felt. And um, It's listening and just coming to terms with it. And I think in those moments of emptiness and those moments of silence, you can get real inspiration. And I think you have a moment and choice to act in those moments. And, um, yeah, and they're, they're special. They don't come all the time.

Jesse 37:01

This is so cool. We have so many questions for you, but I kind of wanted to stay on this, on this path because everyone, let's say in TD Place and Ottawa, they're watching you as behemoth of a man, lots of emotion, but no one really gets to see the failures behind them and the emotion behind it and get to know you. And so I'm curious about if there's other, uh, failures, or can you, can you tell us about some other failures you've had and what you've learned from them throughout your career? That

Steve 37:36

would probably be the best resounding one. Um, I think, yeah, I think that would probably be the best resounding one if I'm, if I'm honest with you. That's the best one I have prepared for you

Mathias 37:56

the honesty. Well, what was cool, what was cool about this, um, Arch Karai clip too is like, it's not just about the big ones. Like volleyball is a sport of failure. Every time, every time you don't score a point, the other team scored a point. So yeah, you fail like so many times throughout a match and it's also that response to failure That is so critical for a high performer and just staying present moving on from those micro failures Faster and having a positive response to that as well Not just waiting until you lose a final or you don't qualify and those big things That's the the resilience of like moment to moment even moving on from those

Steve 38:42

Yeah, and I think a lot of how you deal with that, like, for me personally, like, I think, I think a lot of people you could also kind of see like how your day is going before you head into the gym for practice, like if you've been super like short tempered or super, but he didn't sleep well and you're already like frustrated and irritated. You kind of know what you're going to get in the moments where someone starts pushing it like. You, someone just didn't set that ball a little close enough on a high ball and you're like, but you realize like it starts to like, also you can start to spiral in those micro failures as well. Like in the same way, like you can really start to think like, man, why, why are people not like, why are people not just delivering better? And then you, you can start to feel like, do I ever set intentionally bad? Have I ever tried to do that? It's like, no. And then, and I think those, those responses to failure. Yeah. They can say a lot about you as a person and it really does speak a lot to your team cohesion of can someone also speak to you in those moments? So I think, um, you've been in the gym when Brett's kind of come to me a couple of times and been like, Kind of called me out on, on, on my behavior or called me out on my reactions to things. I think, especially when you're looking at the situation where you have someone who can be honest with you and someone who can kind of call you out in those moments, especially when you're not a place of self awareness, when you're not at your best, then those are the moments where when you're going into a spare or when you go into a fire, the team chemistry really can help you out as if you're being honest with people and you care enough about people, you can pull someone out of that just by Right. really kind of giving a hard reset of being like, Hey man, like, what are you doing? Like, that's not, you know, that's not what you want to be doing right now. Like, that's not how you want to be treating people or that's not how you want to be acting like, come on. And like, those are like the small parts of a team that those moments when they're not done, it removes a bit of team culture. And when they are done, you can lean into those moments where that actually strengthens the team. And from the outside, you might look at that and be like, Oh, oh, there's conflict in this team. It's like, no, but it's necessary at those moments. It's necessary to not let that thing slide. It's necessary to kind of dive and push in and lean into that. And, um, yeah, those, those small failures in a day to day, those are the things that are the building blocks for those big moments as well as a team. That's

Mathias 41:26

I really want to dive into this, this team dynamics part because that's one thing about you that stood out to me for the couple of years that we played with is your capacity to be honest with me, especially and to tell me how you saw it and Yeah, just the honest truth about about what you're seeing in my behavior or the teammates behavior What's going on within the team? And I think that's something that I always struggled with. I was a get my job done guy. Like I was always focused on myself, doing the best I could and didn't really, I was never comfortable, um, having those tough conversations. How can someone like myself learn to have those conversations?

Steve 42:21

Um, there's a book, our sports site gave us during the Olympic run, Kyle Paquette, uh, was about radical candor. Um, it was something that spoke about, I'm going to take two steps back here. If you look at your personality and you start to see what areas that you're comfortable in. And you start to look at people on the team and how people a receive information and be given information. And then you start to look at the people who are responsive enough to actually receive information and make the most of it. And then you look at your sphere of influence of people that, um, if I said something to them, they would actually listen. Um, you can start to like. Identify a couple of key people. And if I'm being brutally honest, you're going to look at also people who it's worth investing in. So, um, you're going to probably take a lot of these factors and in team dynamics, like if, if it's you, who's looking into those moments, you're, and you're a bit more shy about these things. Um, the easiest thing to do is to have one conversation and it's like, just. One conversation, it's like something you don't want to do. It's just, you know, in the back of your mind, uh, this guy is sitting beside you every single day in lecture and he stinks and you're like. Well, I don't want to be rude. And I think in Canada, we have this issue where like we don't want to be rude to people and I think it really, it degrades the amount of honesty that we're able to have. And I think actually that's one of the things in Europe that you really notice really fast is like how brutally honest people are. And I appreciate it so much. Um, because you don't really want to waste people's time. So I think if you can have the first conversation. And it can be something small, but it's something that it's like off the court as well, like you build into having these conversations and sometimes it's not going to go well and like, that's fine. But, um, I think when you start to look at the world. In a way of like, I want to say what I mean and mean what I say, and for example, if I'm going to be doing something ahead of time that I know is going to be pretty, like, not controversial, but it's going to ruffle some feathers. For example, I'll talk to someone whose opinion I take very highly. For example, Brett Walsh. Sometimes if I'm going to be doing something, I'm like, hey man, do you think that this is a wild thing? Conversation to have or thing to do. And it's usually those pre planned ones are the ones that you know in your heart or in your soul, the things that you need to be sharing with teammates or things you need to be discussing with your partners or your friends, whatever it is. And I think if you get a second opinion and someone's like yeah man, like, you really want to kind of You don't want to erode your friendship. Like, if you're hiding something from your friend, like, every time that I do this, it really bothers you, eventually you're just not going to be friends anymore. And that's going to be sad for everybody, you know? Or, if you have one conversation up front, you can really do something about it. So, Radical Candor, and then another book, really short book, changed my entire life, is called Lying, by Sam Harris. Uh, I've probably listened to this book about seven times on Audible. Um, it makes the case obviously against lying, but it, it really gives a healthy perspective on, on what the, the benefits of the truth can be. And what information people can take from that, you know, and I think, yeah, being truthful is something that's not always been my, my M. O. And, um, it's really something I've tried to cultivate and then that also helps me with teammates. So I hope some of that can help.

Mathias 46:34

I love that. It's so interesting too, because I love I love when people are honest with me, like it's so refreshing, and I feel that I have the, the ability to take the information and disassociate the emotional response from it, and just like take the information as it is, um, but I don't know what it is, maybe it's like a, cause I don't like, I don't like, like you said, being rude or like hurting someone's feelings, putting someone down, like I think I'm, um, aware of that. Um, but it's honestly kind of like you're saying, it's like way more of a disservice to them. And not letting it get to that point. Let

Steve 47:15

me give you a different way to describe it. If you were to come up to me and say, Hey, Steve, um, I just want to talk to you a bit, cause I really, I really like you. And I really like you as my teammate. Um, but. Every single time when I make a mistake, you throw up your hands and get really frustrated and you know, sometimes it doesn't bother me, but sometimes when I know it's an intense moment, it really frustrates me. It makes me not want to talk to you. Um, I don't, I like, I really like you as a friend and I, I just don't want it to be this way. So do you mind not doing that? Now, there's two ways I can take that. Hey, TS really likes me as a friend and I'm doing this and I'm bothering him. And. Is this a behavior I actually like? If TS did this to me, would I like that? Probably not. Maybe I can change something about that. Or, TS, I don't care. Like, but like, those are the things where you, if you weed out all the other likely realities, I think logically a lot of people would be like, Oh yeah, I didn't even realize I was doing that. I'm sorry, like, that sucks. And then, I think if you're prefacing with like you care about the person, you're prefacing with hey, this is kind of what is making me feel and a lot of people don't want to bother you anyways, so I think there's a lot of good that could come from it. Um, but like I said, I think just your approach matters. And if you're, there's ways to say things that are like, you don't have to intentionally put someone down. And I don't try and do that, but sometimes, as you can imagine, my personality is a bit intense. Sometimes that does happen, and that's just, in my opinion, the cost of doing business at a high performance level.

Mathias 49:10

Yeah, fair. And yeah, I think the thing with, when you would talk to me, I knew you had my best interest in mind. And I think you had built a trust in me beforehand by, you know, taking me out for dinners and stuff. And I knew that you believed in me. What you were telling me was Not to put me down, but to actually build me up. And I was able to obviously feel that through all those conversations.

Steve 49:40

I think the last thing I would say is because you guys had brought it up before, um, not to belabor this point, but there was also a reason why I took you guys out for, for, for dinner. And maybe you guys weren't always aware of this, but I knew I'd probably be kind of shitting on you guys at some point. And this is going to sound bad, but that was a preemptive move on my behalf. I've also been like, you can't look back and be like, Oh, this guy's a jerk. He doesn't care about me. This guy was the same guy who took me for dinner and gave open season on whatever I wanted to know, like, and I think it's little moments like that where if you have the ability to build some rapport, then you have an emotional, you have a sphere of influence that you can use. Now, if I'm, if I'm just ragging on you every single day, okay. You use it up really quickly, but if you say one pointed thing every once in a while, like, Hey, when you're doing this, you do that. And that's not helpful for the team. Or, this is an error you keep making, take some time to think about it and look at it. How could you not keep doing that? You also realize, like, I don't want to be spending time in negative situations, bragging on people. No one really enjoys that. So it's like this person took the time out of their day to kind of come to all these conclusions. And this is all back into self awareness. Like if you have that awareness that people are trying to help you, then if you come to a bad conclusion, like that's just kind of on you. That's

Jesse 51:10

nice. I think people often get close teams and unified teams confused, and I don't think they're synonymous, right? Like you and Brett are obviously very close, and if you guys were on a close team, he would say whatever to you, you'd say, yeah, okay, let's go for beers and laugh it off and move on. But because it's such a unified team, you can learn from those conversations and you know, and he knows. That whatever is said is to better the team and better those around them. Right. Whereas close teams don't learn from it. They have those experiences, but we're best buddies. So who cares? But those unified teams always come back to the goal. And they always come back to the, the task at hand and use the setbacks because there's going to be setbacks. There's going to be drama. There's going to be guys you don't like, but you use that to propel the program forward. And I think that's why that's a great example with you and Brett, because you guys have, you've been unified for so long through junior team, B team, A team. You, you both know what the common goal is of each other. You know what the common goal of the program is and you, and he has, he feels the freedom to come to you and he knows that you're going to accept that because. He knows that you have his best interest at heart.

Steve 52:29

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a bunch of great things with that. And I think the first one is, is just really doing what you say you're going to, like, if you're saying you want to be proving a ton at this skill and doing your best, and you're not doing the actual thing, then it's, you easily open yourself up for people to just be like, Hey. You said you were doing this. You're clearly not doing it. What's going on? Like, have you changed your mind or are you just And it just leaves that question hanging in the air. And I think that's sometimes a good thing. But one of the other teams that is really special is the 2008 team who won gold for the US. That team, as I've heard, is one of the most combative teams in training of just going at each other. Like, aggressive. Like, not. Like, very unlike volleyball today. In North America, but one of the most unified teams like that, if every day is you going to war against guys, sometimes you like some, a lot of guys you don't like, and. That can create a lot of that intense moment that you were kind of talking about, Tia, it's like we're all unified because we're all trying to make that Olympic spot, we're all trying to win gold, and if you're not doing what we said we were going to do, then you're not one of us, and it's just, you kind of start to realize like those moments create a little bit of tension, a little bit of intensity, and You know, like, you're performing under that intensity every single day then. And, it's not as intense as the big game, but, I'm sure as you guys can realize, like, especially with your careers, like, burnout is real, because like, every single day, if you gotta be on, every single day, and like, not an easy day, like just a pass serve, like, pass serve where someone's talking shit to you when they ace you. Like, that changes everything. Then your, then your past term is not just a walk in the park anymore. It's like, alright, like, let's, let's go. And, I think when you can start to realize, like, those little things, those are what can rack up the intensity and rack up, like, the team unified goal. Because some people are doing that because they want what's, they want to put you under pressure. And, If you're one of those people, like it's, it's sometimes tough.

Jesse 54:55

How do you create that unified culture? Like, I'll give you an example. Like we have 40 percent of the team bought in and the other 60 is upset with the coaching decisions or the president or playing time or practice structure. And like, I think it's more common, obviously overseas, because like you said earlier, like the club university national team, it's very clear what the objective is. How do you create that in a professional setting? Or can you? Or have you tried?

Steve 55:30

Um, you need one thing to unify everybody. That gets everybody on the same page and you need to eliminate any straying from that. So, imagine, imagine you had a coach that nobody liked. That's a unifying thing for everybody to have that coach. And everybody can have the little jokes, everybody can have a little thing, and then you can all sit down because you're all on the same page and be like, well, I know this guy sucks, but like, we got a big game coming up, we got a great team, like, let's just go and do it. And the more you kind of lean into something, someone else, something being a unifying factor, you have a level one common ground to start on. And then you kind of have to look at it, man. In reality, there's going to be three or four big voices in the group that you have to have on your team. And if some of them are going the wrong way, then you're going to have to assume that a couple of the other people who aren't saying anything who look to that person will probably go the wrong way as well. So, um, if you can get some of those respected guys, you can get some of the experienced guys or the, or the leading guys. If you can get them on your team and kind of corral them in the same direction, then you're probably at a level two. Now you've got a unifying thing, now you've got all the big voices on the same page, and then you've got to make it your own. You've got to have probably what the goal is. And that's got to be your level three. Like we can, Hey, like I believe in this, you believe in this. Let's like, we can do this thing. And these are actual conversations you need to have, not just assume that people know or care. But what I will tell you is it's extremely taxing to do that. So you better really want to do it because it's gonna, it can't, if you're the person who's initiating it, and I know you're the captain on your team in pro, in pro right now, right? No, not, not on this team. Okay. You were last year. Okay. If you're trying to do that, then every day that means you have to be on. Because you're trying to change a culture, you're trying to change and create a level of ethos, a level of belief, and that means praising things that are going towards that, and snuffing things out that are taking away from that, and that means You're watching training. You're, you're maybe sending clips of training to some of your buddies who don't want to receive your message, don't want to be looking at training, you're like, Hey, man, you did exactly what we're talking about. That's amazing. Good for you. And then they know you're watching training. And then they're like, Oh, I didn't do that. Thanks. Everybody loves getting told they're doing a good job. Oh, great. Oh, awesome. Thanks. And then, but you, it's literally like it is. Corralling and keeping people inline because not everybody's going to want, for example, to go to the finals as much as you do. A lot of people are like, Oh, well, I guess I'll tell you a story. Last year I had a guy on my team who was counting down the days until the season was over because he missed home. He was Italian. His home was an hour a minute. It was an hour and 10 minutes from the gym, hour and 10 minutes. I was screaming at him in his head, like, what are you talking about? And like, but like one of those moments, like had to snuff that out, walked up screaming in my team, who put this up on the board, like days until we're done because you're not playing like we're, we're potentially going to the finals, this club, like you've never been to the finals in your entire career and you have the audacity to put that on the board, that's got to get, that's got to get destroyed. Snuff that out right away. But like, he's thinking about Sonner. He's thinking about, what am I doing? Why I want to see my family. So do I. Like, that's not what we signed up for here. You know, and I, and I think now you can kind of start to see like that little bit of a darker side of me that maybe is a bit different, but like, I think, I think once you kind of all accept it and buy into the same thing, then you can all hold each other accountable at the same thing and you got to be ready that people will also hold you accountable to it and not, and not in a productive way. Like, oh, you said you're going to do that, but you didn't do that today, did you? And then like kind of the smart little smile and you realize like, yeah, you're right. I was off today and now I just took a little step backwards and it's, it's hard. It is really hard.

Jesse 1:00:26

But like you said, like you, you, you, you said. Maybe you saw a dark part of me, but that's like high performance desire to be great. And it's hard to have, it's hard to build that desire in other people, right? Like, like you said, this guy didn't want to go to the finals. And that's really up to you to instill in him if he doesn't want to. So that's where it becomes really hard.

Steve 1:00:53

Yeah. And yeah, there's, there's really not much, it's really not, in my opinion, it's not much like if, if that's a reality that you're dealing with. To me, those are voices I don't even encourage, like I don't, I don't, I don't accept and I like, if I'm, if I'm really honest, I will try and snuff out every single thing you say, and I will just make it like that will make it uncomfortable for you. And like, that's that same part of that brutal honesty that we were talking about is like. And I will tell you honestly, like, I, I think that you're, you're a cancer and most people like, don't like hearing that. And that can actually be something. Well, that can be something that changes it for people. They can realize like, Hey man, what you're doing is, is, is brutal for this team. Like, what are you, like, why are you doing that? And then. If you want, you can take the time to listen why they miss home an hour, 10 minutes away, and they can obviously go there any single time they want to, which makes absolutely zero sense to me, but you can imagine I'm over this. I just, I just made my peace with it. Uh, let's go that.

Mathias 1:02:14

Is that, is that kind of your, let's say, framework for leadership, kind of everything that you just went through there with the common ground and the finding the voices directing it at a common goal, snuffing out the, anything that's not related to that? Um,

Steve 1:02:33

I, uh, like if I was, to be brutally honest with you, I, I'm not. I don't want to ever be a captain on a team because I think my personality is a bit too volatile. Um, and I think you've, I think you both have seen that. Like in the gym, you know, that's probably not the calming, reassuring, like this is the guy who's like always at this level emotionally that we want, you know, but I really like my position as like number two or three, I find that to be fun because you can be a little off the walls at times, but you're still driving the thing the right way it needs to go. Um, I think giving space for people to, to be who they really are. And making people feel comfortable with that and realizing like there's certain guys on like for example on our national team I don't really connect with it all and I just try and maintain Enough of a connection like if you're talking to me and you really like imagine you really like comic books I don't like comic books, but I will listen And maybe if I see something, let's say on Instagram, or I see something here, I'll bring it up to you like, like, Hey, I'm listening. I listen to what you say when you give time to share like something that's important to you personally. I don't do that freely because I also want to know that like, Hey, like, I care about you. But then, you. If it's something in the training, like, don't think that I hate you for why I get frustrated with you and like, well, let's talk about this. And, and I, and I really, I really appreciate also when people come to me. Um, and I think it happens, honestly, I'd say it happens about the same amount that I go to other people just based on my personality, like, um, I can obviously make people sometimes uncomfortable and I have a boisterous personality in that intense way in the gym. And I've had people come to me like, Hey, you make me feel like sometimes when you're, you're too demanding and training. And I'm like, okay, let's, let's break that down. Like, can you explain to me, like, how this works, how this feels? And like, when people have that honesty back to you, then you can start to see, like, they care about you too. They care about your relationship. And I think that's, like, probably the best thing. in terms of a leadership type thing is like service leadership. Like you're trying to, to maintain friendships and to, to, to unify the group in a certain way. And the means in which you do do all those things are personal to the individuals you have on the team. But I think having like a second eye towards that is a really important thing because Um, those things matter and sometimes you're the one who actually needs to pick me up and it's one of your buddies who's been paying attention to you that actually is able to give you what you need and they probably don't even know how valuable it is to you when they say it to you. Um,

Jesse 1:05:49

that's, that's really, really cool because it's about character, right? It's, it's leading with character and being your own. Character that you have been, that you're comfortable in actually, hold on, let me find this. I was reading my notes from a book called the captain class here, the most crucial ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the characters of the players who lead it. I thought that's exactly what you're talking about.

Steve 1:06:19

it's funny to me. Like you say that. Cause one of the things that TSU said to me was you might, you might be able to impact volleyball more as a coach than as a player. And I, when you said that to me, it really kind of hit struck a nerve with me because I was like, Oh, that makes sense. Because I'm like, you actually can instill values. on people and show why those values matter and you can live out your character and people can see like that's on, that's on display for all to see. And you're never going to know how that impacts anyone else, but like as an athlete and as a younger guy, you probably know of one or two moments with someone else. As an older athlete, as a coach, as a mentor, as whatever. That changed how you see things. That changed how you, like, move through the world. That changed how you move through. Life as a player as well. And, and that's all derived on character. And I think, like, that's the lasting impact that you will always be able to ensue. It's like, how great you were as a player, that's a lot out of your control, to be totally honest with you. Like, you gotta be born, like, for example, look in the mirror. Incredible player. He's never gonna have as many gold medals as, like, people who are half his level of player. At Olympics, at major important tournaments. He will be remembered as an incredibly gifted player also because he made a choice. He changed Completely roles. He rolled the dice on himself like that to me is bananas And like that was an individual choice that someone chose to do maybe inspired someone like yourself. He's got no idea He doesn't know anything about that he's just continuing to play but like the character things are things to me that So that's pretty cool.

Mathias 1:08:33

I think it comes down to like the impact versus the accolades. Like, I think I spent a lot of my career chasing after the accolades and that's why I got into so much trouble with my head is I was chasing this accolade of becoming an Olympian one day and I was sacrificing like a lot to get there and like things that were reasonable, like being away from home and missing certain things, being disciplined, eating well, lifting heavy. And then I started sacrificing like my, my health. I was, I was given everything to that, but then it's, um, a couple of years ago at one of our athletic banquets at Trinity, our athletic director brought up this idea. And it's like, no one in this room could tell me who the MVP of nationals was in 1982, let's say, but you remember the impact that your fourth grade teacher had on you when, They believed in you when you were struggling and they took the time to care for you. And I think it's so true. Like I, I don't care that you're a multi time Olympian. What I care about is the fact that you took the time to be honest with me and to guide me down my journey. And so I think thinking about the ways that you're impacting people and you, like you're saying, you, you might never know, but just having an awareness of that, that, that truly changes lives more than. Anything you could ever win or do for yourself.

Steve 1:10:17

I, I completely agree with that. I wanted to, I wanted to share actually one, one little piece of information that really helped to guide a lot of the principles that I kind of worked through as I was growing up because that was something that really helped me and something that you had kind of touched on and something that we've touched on throughout this whole. Piece is a concept of like an energy pie of like if you want to achieve a 1 percent or 2 percent Increase at let's say something to do with volleyball that one or two percent of effort of Sacrifice of discipline sacrifice has to come from somewhere else And that's when you start to get meticulous enough with your development, with your nutrition, with your technical skills, with your tactical understanding of the game, with watching video, watching other people's video, watching. It's all going to come from somewhere. And maybe that means cutting out a little bit here, or cutting out a little bit there, but then slowly you're left with, Do I go play Junior Team, or do I go to my family reunion? And then you slowly realize, well, I can't do both. And then it goes, well, I think I can be on the B team this year, but my brother's having a baby. Do I miss the first two months of that baby's life for this? And those compounds sadly in more and more things as you get older and more and more. As you're trying to get better, like, do I, I think I've kind of pulled back a little bit from this, like I was saying about my day of a game or something like that, you start to realize, like, as you're chasing these dreams, as you're chasing, like what you see is the, the horizon of your own success, like you have to give more and more and more of yourself. And I think. When you start to realize that, then you start to have a question of like, do you want to be the best player in the world? I don't care if I'm the best player in the world anymore. Like, I never said I wanted that, personally, because I wasn't, I know already when I was younger, I wasn't willing to give everything it would require to be there, and And I think things like that are something that a liberating thing as well. Like if I want to go and be a great professional athlete and I want to enjoy my time and I want to enjoy my, my career, I want to play great along the way. But then you, you can liberate yourself from a lot of the guilt of like, Oh, should I have been doing this? Or Steve said he was doing that. Or this guy said he was doing this. I'm not the same as these people, you know, and I think. a lot of that for guys who are coming up in university and I know some guys who Won a bunch of gold medals at Trinity. They ended their careers there. They could have been great national team players, could have been great professional players, maybe Olympians, and they chose not to, you know, and you're, and those guys just had different goals and different willingness to sacrifice. So I think just understanding and identifying your goals early and really being honest with yourself and reflective enough to sit with them and like, is this really what I want to do? And if it is, then you have that conviction and you have that honesty and then you're free to go and chase those. And if you're not, no one, no one who really loves you and like knows you personally cares if you become an Olympian or you don't. Like my grandma doesn't care. Doesn't care. She's proud of me, but. If I hadn't gone, she would love me the same, my girlfriend would love me the same, doesn't matter.

Jesse 1:14:36

Speaking of your grandma, isn't there a story where you took a jersey off of her in the middle of the game because your other one was wet or something?

Steve 1:14:47

Yeah, we were playing, I think, I think we were playing the first Cuba game a couple years ago in Ottawa, we were playing in red, and I was, we were going into the fifth set and I was drenched, like full, like jumped in a swimming pool, tarp, second jersey, didn't have another one. And I look up, my grandma's up there cheering and she's got one of my red jerseys on. I go pointed at her. I was like, give me that jersey. My grandma, my grandma laughs at this story. So she's incredible. My grandma laughs at this story because like my mom's got white one. My dad's got a black. My grandma just happened. She didn't have a shirt under. She gets someone's jacket and tosses the jersey down to me. Oh, we won that game. And it was

Jesse 1:15:39

like an older jersey too, right? No, it was the same. Oh,

Steve 1:15:43

it was the same. That's funny. Oh, I'm dialed in. That's funny.

Jesse 1:15:48

Well, uh, we're running a little long here, but, um, I know Tias has a couple questions that he always likes to end the episodes on, but I'm just curious. I think you, you, So you're starting to touch on it. Um, but I want to just talk about your decision to leave the national team and, and what went into that decision. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision. Um, but if you wouldn't mind sharing that with us a little bit, I'd really like to hear about it.

Steve 1:16:19

Um, there's three parts to the decision. Um, probably a bit more, but I'll start with that. Um, the first one in my body, um, I played a lot of games, played a lot of consecutive VNLs, played a lot of sets in those VNLs and the past couple of years, especially with all the coaching changes and everything like it and trying to keep the team like I viewed it as a failure of my own to the older generation and to the program. If, if when I was at my peak. I let the team get relegated. And I know that's a lot of, like, personal ownership, but like, oh, you're so self centered. It's like, no, like, it was my time where I was one of the, you're generally at your best from, like, let's say 28 to 30. Generally, uh, when you are physically fit enough and you have enough experience to be playing your best ball. And when I was at that time, I was one of the guys who was supposed to like, you know, be right in the ship and keep the ship there. And I put a lot of pressure on myself and I have cartilage cracks in two parts in my one leg and there are some things you can work your way out of and some things you can't. So that was a large one. Um, two, it, it, the team has changed a lot. Um, and I know It, it kind of feels, I needed to take some time away to understand what, why I was playing. If I, it's because I had to play, or I felt like I owed the team something to play, or it's, or it's that I really love playing. And I think in some respect, I think it's time for some other people to, to, to get their time to, to really go and play and, and do their best. And maybe build something without me and I, I think, I think that's a good thing. Um, I think, I think if there was a moment where the team was struggling, really, and I, I don't know if I would come back to help, um, or they would want me to come back to help. I don't really know, um, that. But as of right now, I just don't really feel the desire to, to start something new again when everything else kind of weighed on me a lot. The last thing is, um, my girlfriend and I are expecting a baby this summer. Whoa, congratulations!🤯🤯🤯🤯Wow. Do you want us to keep that in here? No, you guys can keep that in here. Yeah, I told you. I told you. Yeah, we just big announcement on the Pit to Pro podcast. Let's go. Congrats, Chuckie. Hell yeah. Congrats. Congrats. We just went on about radical honesty, so why not? That's awesome. So,

Jesse 1:19:29

so you are for sure thinking about 60 percent strength and conditioning already.

Steve 1:19:34

Oh yeah. Well, but it, so, um. We're going to have a little girl in July. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. So, maybe not 60%. We don't want an absolute monster troll out there. We should dial it down to 40%. Yeah. Girls will eyeball it. She's got to be a bit more technical. Yeah, get the skills going. 40 percent technical. Yeah. That's

Jesse 1:19:56

so funny. Dude, that's awesome. You're going to be a great dad. Thank

Steve 1:20:00

you guys. Yeah, so we're pumped. We're super excited, but that was like kind of like I wasn't sure and then like that hit and I was like, Well, yeah answers everything for me

Jesse 1:20:10

the decision easy. Well, Steve, I just, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the time and energy you put into, into us and to Tias and into the program and you're going to be dearly missed for sure. All those, those screaming matches and stuff will be, will be extremely missed and you've done more for me and Tias and all the young guys than you probably know, like, like we talked about. So just wanted you to know that. Thanks guys. It's,

Steve 1:20:40

it's, it's fun to be kind of seeing it on the other side. Like it's, it's cool because like, like I said, I've listened to a ton of your podcasts and it's, it's cool to kind of also like, I see, I view it as like, I love to like nitpick, like what other people think too. And like, I've learned a ton from some of the questions you guys have asked. And it's pretty cool to watch you guys, like from when I first met you to like the men you are now and the questions you'll ask now. And also from the beginning of this podcast to like where you're at now, some of the there's like self reflection and the questions and the depth that you're able to kind of bring out of the people that you're talking to, the people that I know that it's like not easy to bring that depth of them. So yeah, I got to commend you for that. And I think you guys are doing something cool to make volleyball a bit more accessible, um, to younger guys. And I think some of those things are just resources like. If you were young, you would have eaten that up. So, um, yeah, I hope, I hope I can, I hope I can do anything to help you guys continue out to, to do what you're doing. This

Jesse 1:21:50

conversation has been incredible. I'd be our best yet. I was thinking the same thing. I was seeing the same guys. Don't say it's the dad energy. It's the dad.

Steve 1:22:00

Yeah.

Mathias 1:22:02

Thanks guys. Okay. Um, I have one last one second.

Steve 1:22:09

You guys, you gotta do me a favor though. You got to do one thing. You guys need to get out with a book📚list. You guys got to get all your guests. You did? Okay.

Jesse 1:22:20

Oh, not with our guests. That's a really good idea.💡Good idea. But dude, I just launched a website three days ago, actually. Okay. And I started a blog. There's a section of, I've started a blog and then T. S.'s section is, uh, like a book nook thing of all the books he talks about and all the books he's read.

Steve 1:22:36

Nice. Hey,

Jesse 1:22:38

but Steve, that's a good idea. Idea. Like a book you're saying? Yeah, like from each guest.

Steve 1:22:42

One, one from each guest. Like one book that meant something Nice. And I'll start here for you. I'll give you one. Yeah. Done. Deal. The Liar is that one. No, no, no. Those are, those are bonuses for people who are cruising through all episode. Okay. Okay. Re-listening to this book on Audible. Um. Amazing, amazing book. You guys will both love this book. I've suggested this a ton to people that I know and it's like, it's nitty gritty too. So if you're going through it, give it some time. It's called The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin and it is, uh, Chess world champion to Tai Chi push hands world champion to jujitsu black belt to mental coach for the Boston Celtic like amazing guy Amazing how he processes learning information and everything under that Sun Amazing like you guys are gonna love it. So first book recommendation get it in there What a great idea

Mathias 1:23:46

Okay, let's go.

Jesse 1:23:48

And that's going to be on the website. So everyone go check out the website. Yeah, look at

Mathias 1:23:51

the website. Yeah, sweet. I listened to that one, Chuck, when you recommended, you recommended that to me like maybe a year ago now. I listened to it, blew my mind.

Steve 1:24:05

Yeah.

Mathias 1:24:05

Like it's, it's definitely one where you need to take it like little parts at a time because the depth of what, how he processes learning and improvement and stuff is like, I didn't even know It was possible to think about something that deep.

Steve 1:24:21

Yeah, it's one of those things that's like, you're on level 1, he's on level 5, and he's trying to give, he's trying to dial it down to level 3 so he can explain it to you. Yeah, yeah. It's incredible, and you're like, oh, wow. Yeah. Incredible, yeah.

Mathias 1:24:36

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Steve 1:24:38

Glad you enjoyed that.

Mathias 1:24:40

Yeah, that's a good suggestion. Um, okay. Man, okay, I had a thought though, when you were speaking earlier about the energy and how it takes It has to come from somewhere and it becomes more and more. And one of the things that Dan Lewis actually taught me was like setting a timeframe for your commitment to certain decisions. And I'm wondering if that's something that you also feel could be valuable in, uh, in that kind of situation, because it's like, it's a big task to commit your life, let's say, or the next 15 years of your life to that pursuit. But in your example, when things didn't go well in China, you committed everything you possibly had for, what'd you say, four months? And you said you probably wouldn't be able to sustain that over that amount of time. So I'm just wondering if that's something that you've used is committing to a process. or a level of commitment for a time period and then reevaluating.

Steve 1:25:43

Uh, I've heard Dan talk about the same thing. And I remember when he talked about it, I was like, Oh, that's a great way to eliminate all that negative procrastination time that you waste second guessing things. Or maybe I should alter the plan a bit like this. Or maybe I should do that. Or, and you spend so much time spinning your wheels, thinking about doing the thing as opposed to doing the thing. And I think I think that's a great way to look at it. I personally have not, but that's something that I'm not incredibly strong at, um, and something I'm trying to cultivate myself. So I appreciate you bringing that back up to me. Um, in terms of my, I guess the thing that's strange about me is when I watch the Olympics. When I watched Vancouver Olympics in Canada, I had the conviction that that was what I wanted to do, and that was going to be what I was going to be great at, is going to the Olympics, and I had enough things to buy into in terms of athletic pursuit, like I had the sport, I knew genetically I would be kind of in the picture, and then you kind of start, you can start to deduce everything back down, like you can deduce Okay, where are the guys on the national team? Where did they go to university? Okay, then, whoa, you can dial, you can deduce it all down, all the way back down. Like, how did they build their career? Like, how did they build this out? You know, so I think what I said a bit earlier is kind of going to tie into that. It's like, I think you should, you should look at the game and look at the life and look at what you're willing to live with and what you're willing to commit to. And then to, to then go after that. Now, I think having a set, a set timeline, I think maybe, maybe that's a helpful thing. I personally subscribe a bit more to the hardheadedness of like, I don't want the out. There was never an out for me, personally. Like, it was like, oh, it's gotta work. It's the only thing that can work. So this has gotta work. And that, when I was younger, it came from a bit more of a negative place of like, this is what I need to be successful. And I had that in my phone, like, as a daily alarm. Like, to be successful is to be an Olympian. And like, that would go off every single day for years. And it was like, okay, but then you're also reminding yourself, like, if this doesn't work out, something kind of outside of your control, like, your life was not successful. So, pick and choose your goals wisely, I would say. Pick and choose your conviction extremely wisely, because then that's going to drive everything that you choose to do, and probably at the end of the day will be a huge contributing factor to the person you become. And you'll, at least in that respect, it's a nice thing because you get to kind of choose. Who you become as opposed to if you're just on autopilot, you'll just end up as someone who's a mix of the five people that you averagely spend your time with.

Mathias 1:28:57

There you go. Love that. All right. Last question. I'm actually really curious what your answer is here because I, I have a belief that everyone you talk to is an expert in something. And whether it be like a mindset or an actual act, or it could be anything really. Um, but I think that's, that's like the coolest thing to learn from people is what they've mastered, or just being them. And so I'm wondering, it's a tough question, but I'm wondering if there's something that you believe you're an expert in.

Steve 1:29:49

It's, I'm going to give you a caveat answer. I don't have one. Um, and the caveat is because I know who is better than me, so that's already tough. Yeah.

Mathias 1:30:03

Well, yeah, that's fun. There's multiple experts on every topic.

Steve 1:30:07

So Blair Band is going to be the guy who's better than me, but one of my favorite players to ever play with was Blair because his, his feeling and his flow of energy. And energy is something that I love. I love to cultivate the energy, intense energy, angry energy, sad energy, whatever it is. And personally, I feel like my, like I said, I live very much on the full emotional spectrum. And you that's part of how I play. And I have tried to withhold that and pull that out of my game. And that's not optimal performance state for me. So what I've gotten quite good at is monitoring the energy of my team and trying to, um, trying to see how people react to energy. And what, what can provide an optimal performance state for people around me. And that is also something that I use to kind of get out of my own head and kind of get myself into a flow state, get myself into a game is I'm trying to kind of do that, like kind of rising tide of like fun, intense, positive energy on a team. And you kind of like, Oh man, like everybody's getting digs. People are covering people are. People are talking, people are laughing, people are having that, that intense training session. I want as much of that as I can possibly get. And that. Is something that I, I really try to, to cultivate in myself and to cultivate awareness to be around people and to be, and to bring that out of people as much as I can. So, um, I guess team energy would probably be something that, um, I do. And, and it's also, to be brutally honest, it's something that I also am bad at sometimes. And it's something that's like also pulls me out of the moment if I'm, if I have a moment of like frustration or something and I can see I can see myself take away from it as well. So it's not I'm like, Oh, I'm just a great energy guy. No, but I just have an awareness for it. And something that I look for. And it's something that's important to me.

Mathias 1:32:35

Well,

Steve 1:32:35

love

Mathias 1:32:36

that.

Jesse 1:32:37

Yeah. Alrighty.

Mathias 1:32:38

That was fantastic. I think we'll wrap it up there. Thanks for coming on, Steve. That was unreal. Nice voice. It's great to see you guys.

Jesse 1:32:46

Well, Steve, man, I, I learned so much talking to you today and I really appreciate your honesty and your, your willingness to share again. Thanks guys. From so far away and it was a really, really special episode. I think people are really gonna take a lot away from what you had to say.

Steve 1:33:03

Thanks man.

Mathias 1:33:03

Alrighty. I think that wraps up episode number 31 of the Pit to Probe podcast. Thanks everyone for listening. And signing off.

1:33:14

Thanks everyone for listening to the Pit to Pro podcast. Give us a follow on Instagram and submit your questions to the link in our bio. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you think will like it and subscribe to our show on Spotify and Apple podcasts.