E124 | Clint Martin: Race, Growth, and Making Yourself Essential

On this podcast, we don’t shy away from controversial topics and we love interviewing people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. In this episode, University of Texas strength & conditioning coach Clint Martin shares how he battles the perpetuation of stereotypes and how non-minority populations can better understand the role that race plays in the modern workplace.

We also discuss:

• How to walk the line between allowing individual expression while holding standards

• If coaches should alter their communication style based on an athlete’s background

• What coaches should be doing to provide uncommon value during & after COVID

• Mistakes to avoid when trying to gain an edge in your career

• What you can learn from non-traditional sources of education

Clint also does a great job thinking on his feet for improv games, Devil’s Advocate, and providing thoughtful answers for who his favorite villains are (that’s right- he has more than one!). He has a ton of gold nuggets to share and there’s no doubt you will learn a lot in this episode!

Connect with Clint:

Email: clint.martin@utexas.edu

Twitter: @MrCMar10

Instagram: clintmar10

Throughout this episode, we talk a lot about building buy-in. If you read Conscious Coaching and want to dive deeper into the principles of building buy-in, we have an online course called Bought-In which does just that.

This course is NOT just for strength coaches. Whether you’re an executive, manager, researcher, student, or parent, the principles of communication are the same! If you want to communicate more clearly, improve your relationships, and be a more effective leader, check out Bought-In!

Clint Martin  0:01  

You can put up a front and do something for someone because you think that’s what they want. But if it’s not you, one, they’ll see through it two also maybe need to find another piece of you that they’ll relate. I think it’s not even just in strength conditioning, it’s just in the world right now, like, you’re either on the left or you’re on the right, like, you can’t be anywhere in the middle, you can’t level Olympic Lifts with this group and the data and with the other, like, it just can’t be that. And I think we look at these things. And people don’t realize, hey, I can be over here and also over here at the same time, or I can be over here, this time of the day, that can be over here on the other side. Like you said, when the mood is right or when it fits this scenario.

 

Brett Bartholomew  0:50  

Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom, and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew, I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker, and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior, and communication. I want to thank you for joining me. And now let’s dive into today’s episode.

 

Alright, if you’ve listened to the podcast for any amount of time, now you know that we don’t hide from controversial topics, we very much value being able to bring you guys some real meat you can sink your teeth into, sometimes it’s going to stir up emotion, sometimes it’s going to make you think in different ways. Sometimes it may make you feel uncomfortable. And we also like to have people on with a wide variety of backgrounds. That’s why you hear so often we’ll go between somebody in the defense industry, we may go through somebody in a major corporation, we may work interviewing artists. And we’re also going to honor my original base strength and conditioning because it is a special group of leaders that are continuing to expand their skill sets in different ways. All in all, everything that we do at art of coaching is so similar. everybody deals with people problems, everybody deals with leadership problems, everybody deals with problems related to communication. And that’s what we’re always trying to find how are real people dealing with common leadership issues. 

 

And today’s important because we’re going to talk about an issue and race. Now we’ve done this before, if you haven’t listened to our episode with Greg baker that we did in November 2019. It’s a phenomenal episode, we’ve had plenty of guests on females in different industries that have talked about barriers they’ve had to overcome. We don’t shy away from it. Now, we also don’t say things that everybody’s always going to agree with. today, Clint and I are talking about, in you’ll hear Clint, Clint is a minority and he’s a coach, and he perceives the world and things that he’s got to interact with in certain ways that, everybody’s going to have a different take on and I wanted to ask him, especially as somebody you know, being a white guy from Omaha, Nebraska. Now, I’ve certainly dealt with, and worked with a wide range of people from all over. But I had some questions, how can I better serve this message? How can I better understand the role that race plays and different things, especially since the majority of athletes I work with are African American, and even, Latin American when I work with MMA and fighters and what have you. And it goes hand in hand with just the fact that the world, no matter what your workplace is, is getting more and more diverse. In many ways, our messages are getting more and more skewed. And we talk about whether these things are just a matter of race, or it’s the time that we’re in and not us not knowing ourselves well enough, and even cultural prejudice related to professions that people get into. So I want to save it for the episode and I want you to dive in. 

 

But we also talk about building buy in and if you guys haven’t checked out, some of our resources, we do everything from communication training, regardless of the field that you’re in, we do this digitally, we do it live. We also have a course that I know many of you have read my book conscious coaching. We have an online course it’s a sequel to that and it’s called Bought In. And do you hear me use the term athlete and strength coach and it sure because originally that was targeted, at that population, but we’ve seen an influx of people in sales based industries, in human resources and what have you in education, take this and apply this to their own staff training, because no matter the noun that you use, athletes do client, what have you, all these components of communication are the same. It’s no different than if you read a book by a Navy SEAL. And they may talk about war, but you’re talking about the boardroom. It’s no different than if you hear about a researcher and their subjects are chimpanzees or what have you, but you might be doing trials with, human trials, whatever how these things are expandable and they can be extrapolated in a lot of ways. So, I invite you to go to artofcoaching.com. Check them out. We have a rich wet reservoir of resources. We do individual mentoring, group mentoring, if you want to communicate eat better. If you want to reduce misunderstandings, if you want to improve your efficiency, reduce your stress and relationships, anything like that. The way to do it is through enhanced communication, and it’s not as easy as you think. Alright, without further ado, we’re gonna get to my man, Clint, I hope you enjoy this episode. I’ll see you on the other side. 

 

Welcome back, everybody to another episode of The Art of coaching Podcast. I’m here with Clint Martin. Clint, nice to have you. 

 

Clint Martin  5:31  

Thanks for having me. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  5:32  

Yeah, no doubt, listen, hey, I want to start this off with the way that I kind of connected with you originally. And we try to really waste no time in the podcast, we try to get right into the conversation right into the topics, people are busy, they got lives. And one thing, man, I just got to tell you that I respect and admire about you, is you are always such a calm, relaxed, dude. And, I said this on the message. I’m sure there’s times where like anybody, you lose it, just like all of us. But we’re in the same profession. And we’ve at least are in the same profession, strength and conditioning and performance. And even though like I’m in a different route of that now, and going into the business world, and tactical as well, like, Man, I just have so much respect for somebody like you who’s navigated that profession without being loud, noisy, boisterous, combative, it’s a rarity. Where does that come from? Where does this equanimity that you have come from?

 

Clint Martin  6:27  

Well, I appreciate that. First of all, I don’t know if everybody would agree with that. But I think in the coaching space, that’s definitely part of my persona, per se. I think, for me, the big thing is just knowing that, regardless of what we’re doing right now, regardless of what’s happening tomorrow, like we really just need to take care of what we can right now. And I think,  there’s so much noise, like you’re saying, and there’s so many distractions, regardless of if you’re in strength conditioning, if we’re in the business world, whatever it may be, whether it’s social media, whatever it is that you’re trying to do, there’s so much noise, that it’s hard to sift through the rubble, right? So I try not to create any rubble and try to figure out what actually makes sense, and do what I can kind of in that moment.

 

Brett Bartholomew  7:07  

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, it’s just, for me, it’s always interesting, because there’s so many opportunities to make noise and create differences, right? We live during a time and we’re going to talk about this where whether we look at racial disparities, or social disparities, where it’s really easy to write somebody off because they’re younger, or they don’t have or even older, we’ve had audience members that are like, hey, you’ve talked about people that are younger professionals in fields that, have to fight for credibility. But what about older, because there’s a lot of people in their 50s and 60s that change careers. And even though they have age, they may go into a field, especially now with COVID. And people losing jobs, they may pivot and go to a job where they have less experience. So like, Have you ever had that battle that like chip on your shoulder? Or you feel like you had to prove yourself? And if so, what was the situation? And how did you address that?

 

Clint Martin  7:56  

I think, as a young coach, specifically for me, definitely have that battle. I think a lot of the younger coaches when I was coming up, we all kind of had that, thing that we were battling, whether it’s being a GA or even if it’s when you’re an intern, just trying to prove yourself trying to prove your worth, right. But I think for me, specifically, like when I was a GA, like, hey, I want to take care of all these teams, I want to do all these things great. But I’m the new guy, like everybody looks at me, like I’m the new guy. I’m young. Actually, my first GA was at my alma mater. So for my coaches to look at me, like, Oh, you were an athlete, but now you’re a coach or my, my peers, my, the coaches I’m working with, but also the athletes who see me as Hey, now you’re a leader, you’re leading us, right? I’m not a teammate of yours anymore. Right. So I think for me, seeing all those things happen at the same time, but then realizing, hey, I need to figure out what my values are. And then make sure I know what those are, and keep those in line, but then also figure out if my values and my morals are lining up at the same time, right. And then when I figured both of those things that have helped me stay in a straight line, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  8:56  

no doubt and when you and I first connected, one of the things I asked you is, hey, what really what is something you want to talk about you want to get through, and we’re talking about aspects of building buy. And so much of that is the first impression and as you said, you said listen, like I want to make sure that we can discuss managing through diversity, right, you being a minority and working with athletes with diverse skill sets, needs and personalities. That’s one of the most common questions we get Clint whether it comes from a woman, whether it comes from we’ve even had people on our podcast community ask about how does a woman of color manage it? anything like that? Like, do you feel like there’s a lot of differences when it comes to building initial buy in whether you are a minority or not? And if so, what you need challenges beyond the obvious, right? Because people are gonna judge us regardless, right? I work with a predominantly African American or black population and, they look at me is like, Yo, you’re a five a white dude, what are you going to teach me about running fast? And they’ll say that now it’s locker room humor, and I know where they’re coming in and we bust balls and what have you. So like, everybody deals with a little bit of that, but what do you feel Like you deal with, as, African American black strength coach in this field and and it’s already, like, talk to us about some of those unique tendencies and what advice you have for others that are in that position so that we don’t fall for stereotypes and stigmas. And we don’t create unnecessary friction where there probably isn’t even any.

 

Clint Martin  10:19  

Sure. No, I think, for me when it comes to being a black strength coach specifically, like when I was growing up, I didn’t have any black strength coaches, right, I was, to me, I was the first of my kind, right? So when I got in the field and started to know people, like you hear the biases, like you said, you have these preconceptions of who people are based on, whether it’s race, whether it’s gender, if you’re working at a team, or if you’re working at university, you might get athletes from the same neighborhood, right? You might have start to create biases through that. So I started to realize kind of a bias that I saw for the black strength coach was kind of the loud rah, rah, you were ex football player, that’s who you are. So for me, I think, one I wanted to overcome that stereotype. And I think that’s kind of me in general. Like, my backgrounds a lot different. Like, if you figure out where I come from, like, I’m from Iowa, I grew up in Iowa, on a farm born and raised, but I work in athletics. So those two things don’t really go hand in hand. People don’t really Oh, you’re from Iowa, you grew up on farm with with cows, horses, like, what, but you’re strength coach, that, that doesn’t make any sense, right? Based on who I am, or where I’m from, those are preconceived notions that people have just by looking at me looking at the strength or whatever the logo might be on my chest. Right. So I think, for me, while I’m trying to overcome those biases, and but then also just being myself being my authentic self, and not really caring what the bias might look like, but saying, Hey, this is who I am, this is what I can give you. And I hope you can deal with that.

 

Brett Bartholomew  11:44  

Yeah, and I think that’s valid. I mean, 100% and you look at this, you’re right, a lot of that stereotype early on, and let’s just be honest, right? We’re having a candid conversation about this. You said, rah, rah, former football player, what have you, that was totally my experience as a young strength coach, we had a lot of times whether as a black strength coach that was like trying to get into Sport Coaching wanted to be a head coach or position coach, they’d go through strength and conditioning, and they were usually former players. And you kind of heard this narrative of like, well, having a former player, would help with buy in with the players. And you’re, like, interesting, then, like, what are we, and we had a fit an interesting model, like, I always felt like, it was weird, even as somebody who’s white, like, when I first started as an intern, like our shirts had to be tucked in, we had to wear these really high tight shorts. I felt like I had to fit a stereotype of like, this powerlifting mentality where I and I’ve talked about in the episode before, I didn’t have a buzz head. And I had all these other kinds of white strength coaches, that short shorts, big, bulky, former power lifters, Buzz heads, and then like, I was outcasted. So and I have no idea what it’s like to be, a black, male, black female in that standpoint, but like, you just find that there’s so much of this in every profession, right? You have an Indian American or an Indian, my wife worked at Intel in their corporate wellness for a while. And it was like, oh, like, they all must be good at technology, or, like, we hear the Asian stuff like, oh, they must be good at math. And like, every race has its thing. And even if it doesn’t, every field has its thing. when, and this is what I’m interested because you have a great business presence about you as well. And I’ll never forget just being typecast as a strength coach going into corporate settings of being like, oh, you’re a personal trainer. And so when it comes to judgments and stereotypes, do you think it is as simple as a race? Or are there other things that we’re doing as a field or collectively just as human beings that are perpetuating the way we all view one another?

 

Clint Martin  13:45  

I think it’s a thing that we’re all doing, whether it’s on social media, or what have you, or anything like that, but at the end of the day, it’s also that knowing and also trying to become what we think people want us to be. And that might also kind of lead into that stigma of what like we are what they expect us to be because we’re doing what we think they want us to be if that makes sense.

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:08  

Yeah, elaborate on that I liked that way you phrase that we are what we become what people expect us to be Tell me a little bit more like dive into that a bit more.

 

Clint Martin  14:15  

Right. So I mean, I think a lot of people get caught up with trying to say the right thing or trying to say what people what they think people want them to say. And then you might fulfill that you might do exactly what they wanted you to say you might fit that narrative or you might also it might be a self fulfilling prophecy but in doing that you kind of might lose yourself and lose exactly what you wanted to be or your message in general just because you wanted to be liked. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:39  

Yeah, so like, think about this right? Like I always wonder where do we draw the line I gave the example early on and I think a lot of people can relate to this because we even saw in the headlines are being talked about at like the University of Iowa where and this is a lot of fields where certain people have to dress a certain way what have you this and that. And whether you can have earrings or whether you can wear that So that and it’s just like, of course, we have to have consistency no matter what field you work in, right? Even if there’s casual Friday somewhere, and now it’s like casual everyday for people because of COVID You still can’t just like walk in with like an AC DC grunged t shirt and holey jeans. Right. But like where I always felt weird just to give specific examples of like, I’d walk in and I made to wear these like, it was like this train coach uniform of tucked in super tight or super baggy shirt. high shorts, you’re supposed to just like you were supposed to look over. Like, it was like a weird Sunday school. I don’t know if I’m going to Sunday school are mowing the lawn. But it was hard for me to like coach with confidence because I didn’t feel like myself. On the other hand, if we let individual expression regardless of culture, race, whatever feel like, if we let that kind of expression just run rampant, then it’s like, well, where do we draw the line? And wherever standards? How do you think about that? If you’re leading a staff today, whether it’s training conditioning, or in FinTech or whatever, how are you balancing that?

 

Clint Martin  16:05  

Sure, I think, looking at it, obviously, there has to be the professionalism piece. That’s obviously very important. But also like expressing the individual person. Like, that’s how you really connect, right? You, I’m sure you see it all the time, you do a great job elaborating on it, but you’re able to build relationships through authenticity. So I think we need to be our authentic selves to be able to get by and to get relationships, whether it’s with our staff, whether it’s with our athletes, whether it’s with your co workers, whether it’s with your boss, whatever that may be, everyone appreciates consistency and authenticity. So I think we need to figure out, like I was saying earlier, figure out exactly what our values are, and how we can mold ourselves and to put ourselves in our values in the best position to take care of whoever it is that we are taking care of.

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:49  

Yeah, well set on that. And with you mentioning authenticity and being your authentic selves, we had a previous episode, at least it’ll have aired by the time your podcast comes available, that talks about impression management and in that we, kind of address the, I don’t know, if you want to call it a question, but the notion that there’s only one authentic self, it can be argued that there’s many, right, like, if you only did have one authentic self, you couldn’t really blend well with everybody, right? We all have to wear different masks at different times. Talk to me about your thoughts on that. And then different roles you play, what varying sides of Clint is there, maybe when you’re leading a group, and let’s say it’s mainly athletes here in America, versus working with an athlete of another country or another nation where you know, there’s other cultural barriers? versus maybe when you’re at your girlfriend, or is it fiance now is a fiance? 

 

Clint Martin  17:42  

Not Yeah, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  17:43  

Not  yet? okay, cool. Like whether you maybe you’re interacting with, her parents talk to me about the different masks you wear, that are all part of your authentic self.

 

Clint Martin  17:53  

I mean, like, it has to be more than one. And for anyone, I think it is more than one depending on the setting. The way I am with my will say women’s golfers is going to be a little bit different than the way I am with my men swimmers is going to be different than how I am with cross country or men’s spreads. And that’s not because I’m changing myself, I’m just trying to give them the best version of me to help them, like the piece of me that can help them the most, I will give them that and maybe cut out the rest, right? So I think, your authentic self, you need to be super, super happy with who you are. And I think being super self aware is also something that’s important. Surrounding yourself with people who can show you and help you become self aware is really important, because the more you know about yourself, the more you can be your authentic self. But I think you have to wear different hats at different times.

 

Brett Bartholomew  18:42  

Yeah, I think and again, this goes hand in hand with just talking about some things that are relevant, right. And we talked about not only across professions, but races. I once had an intern that come while came in watch one of my sessions. And throughout the day, I had worked with some MMA fighters, that were predominantly one was from Venezuela. Another one was from a different part in Latin America. And then later, they saw me work with an NFL group, again, predominantly black population in this particular group. And then they saw me work with a bunch of youth athletes that were predominantly from, like, what we would consider suburban white America, what I mean? Like they, were a part of this, like select soccer organization that cost like $40,000 even be a part of, right, so it’s already selected. And, they had asked me that question, because they said, Listen, I noticed that like you coach 99% of it is the same, but you still will throw in some way whether you change the way you enunciate some stuff, the jokes you tell this and that. Do you think that that’s racist? And or classist? Then I, thought that was an interesting question. And they didn’t ask it in a combative way. They were really curious. And I agree with you, Clint. I said, Listen, I have to be the version of myself that best suits the situation or environment of the moment. if if all of a sudden like I’m around somebody who loves hip hop, I grew up loving Hip Hop I always loved hip hop, if I happen to turn on hip hop music, just because I have a group that I know is going to appreciate that. And in that case, that was my football group, it was predominantly like, they’re gonna love that more, then the Venezuelan MMA fighter did, they wanted to listen to something that resonated more their culture, and they requested that I go, I don’t look at that, as you know, any different than serving somebody that kind of food they want, you know, if you ask them what they’re hungry for at that moment, but you tell me, man, I mean, because again, you’re a minority, do you think me as a white coach, and a leader in that sense, is that class is or race as being able to reflect different aspects of yourself in that suit in those situations?

 

Clint Martin  20:40  

I don’t think so at all, I think as long as we’re sticking to that, it’s still part of yourself, right? Because you can put up a firm and do something for someone because you think that’s what they want. But if it’s not you, one, they’ll see through it to also maybe need to find another piece of you that they’ll relate to. I think it’s not even just in strength conditioning, it’s just in the world right now. Like, you’re either on the left or you’re on the right, like you can’t be anywhere in the middle. You can’t love Olympic Lifts with this group, and then hate and with the other, like, it just can’t be that. And I think we look at these things. And people don’t realize, hey, I can be over here and also over here at the same time, or I can be over here, this time of the day. And I can be over here on the other side of the day, like you said, when the mood is right, or when it fits this scenario,

 

Brett Bartholomew  21:22  

no doubt one thing that’s always tripped me up and we interview a lot of different folks. And you’re it’s every industry, but it has always I think upset me is the right word. When I look at the roots of what I came from strength and conditioning, and I see how myopic it is. And in many fronts, you and I have had this talk, you know, I’ll go on to speak to different businesses that spend, you know, literally 10s or hundreds of millions of dollars on communication and leadership training and psychology, our field doesn’t value that as much right? They think it’s easy. Despite the fact that there’s scientists on colleges, people like that investing in those things. Our field thinks that there’s problems in it that are unique, right, whether it’s not getting paid fairly or whatever. What I always try to tell people in our field is like, no, like, our problems aren’t unique. But the things that we ignore, and the way we approach it is every other field seems to want and nobody no fields perfect. But every other field like approaches things a little bit like they’re ready to have these discussions, strength coaches, if COVID ended right now and feel free to disagree, right? You totally were friends regardless. But I feel like if COVID ended right now, and we had something that just wiped it out, right, let’s just play make believe. I really feel that train coaches would go right back to having conferences about squats, deadlifts, lunges, what speeds but like, I don’t think the field really wants to change as much as it does, which is why I don’t really associate with it as much anymore, does it? Like what are your thoughts on that? Am I out of my mind? Like, do you ever feel that way? Like you’re almost kind of a stranger in the house of s&c anymore with these topics?

 

Clint Martin  22:49  

No, I 100% agree. Yeah, we’d go back to conferences and doing everything like we had, and we wouldn’t change, we wouldn’t evolve. And that’s and I think that’s a big problem. We evolve in a whole bunch of different levels, not just communication, not just how we coach, not just how we train, not just how we build relationships, there’s so many different things, so many different facets, we need to look at growing and evolving. But yeah, I think right now, you’ll see which coaches are really good coaches these next couple of weeks, right, when specifically in university when we get back on campus. So now I got to look at building relationships with athletes from at least 12 feet away, right? Six to 12 feet away, I could command a group that’s no bigger than any group that I’ve ever had. But they’re spread out over a bigger radius, right? So it’s really gonna, I’m gonna have problems that I really feel for about 10 years, I’m gonna have problems that I’ve never had never thought about before. But can I adapt to them? Can I change with them? Yes, a lot of people struggle. A lot of people don’t want to continue doing the same thing. How can I make myself fit in what this new scenario looks like? Rather than saying, hey, I need to adjust in this scenario, I can’t be the exact person I wasn’t need to adjust to this scenario. So I think us as s&c, coaches, or performance coaches, we need to grow and evolve in so many different ways. And I think COVID definitely helped, hopefully, spark that.

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:09  

So let’s get specific with that a little bit. And I’m putting you on the spot, right? So what are some ways that you feel you’re going to alter the way you communicate the way you lead the way you address these groups? Like what are some specific communication tactics, whether it’s like verbal nonverbal logistics, you know, even addressing, like, how you’re handling this, like if somebody you know, and nobody’s saying you have the answer, Clint, so you don’t need to worry about that like, but what are some things that you think are just going to be best practices as we go back in the next couple of weeks, and you guys address these things?

 

Clint Martin  24:40  

Like for me, specifically, like I said earlier, like, I’m pretty low key, go with flow, pretty even Q with this now, everything’s so structured, regimented, that I’m going to have to be a lot more dictatorial, but a lot more rigid on a lot of the processes that we’re going to have and a lot more recently with my athletes because our time constraint We’re getting crushed down. Everything right now is going to have to be so regimented. And everything’s gonna have to happen on a dime, and you have to have everything planned. So it’s gonna be a lot different for me, that’s not my style of coaching. Well, let’s look at the clock start at zero, and the next group have started 20. But that might be something I’m gonna have to look at doing because I have to make sure that I can get these athletes trained and constraints and the constraints that are put them

 

Brett Bartholomew  25:26  

in do you think the world of this is something that I was actually going back and forth with Dan path, and if people listening don’t know who he is, he’s a central figure in not just track and field, but the sporting industry, in many ways, great guy, great friend, he was kind enough to write the foreword of my book conscious coaching. But you know, him and I were having a private discussion. And, I won’t go into all the nuances of it. But one thing he had said Is he thinks sports as we knew it, are going to be different forever. Now, we didn’t go, we elaborated in different ways, but I just kind of want to see what you think on that, do you think, and I’ll give you kind of some, but like in business, we know that’s going to happen. A friend of mine, that’s a lawyer has talked about how his company has already said, Hey, we now are going to cut down on this many trips, even post COVID We don’t need to do things this way. We’re seeing companies in Silicon Valley, basically saying, Yeah, we don’t think we’re gonna have fill our offices anymore. We’re gonna allow people to live wherever the heck they want, is the world of sports, as we knew it, over or, you know, is gonna look a little bit different. Where do you stand on that and just make have fun with it, right? Like, nobody’s gonna listen five years to be like, you’re an idiot, like, what do you think could happen?

 

Clint Martin  26:37  

Like, I think it’s gonna be, I think, based on how we are as a society, we’re going to do everything we can to keep it the same. And I don’t think that’s going to be the case, I think we’re gonna have to find new ways to continue to grow because of things. I mean, who knows, if an athlete gets COVID, what their body is gonna look like six months from now. 12 months from now, we have no idea, right? Athlete, athletes and athletics might look completely different. It might look very similar, just done differently based on things that we’re figuring out or better practice now, or, Hey, we actually don’t need to be on campus to do this, we can do this via zoom, or, Hey, we don’t need to be in the team room to do this together. We can do this via whatever means. So I think it will be quite different. It should be I think we need to find things. You haven’t figured out something that works better now, in the last five months. I don’t know what you’ve been doing. Because you couldn’t do everything the same. There’ no person in our field. I don’t think in any business that’s been able to do the same things over this last five months. So if you haven’t found something that works better than I think kind of wasted the weight.

 

Brett Bartholomew  27:38  

Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely going to be growth opportunities. And that’s what again, I hope coaches in the performance industry don’t squander, I think that, we made a big decision as a company and I made a big decision probably two years ago to like, no longer I don’t really identify fully as an s&c Coach anymore, with the work that we’re doing in other industries. Now, I always have pride in that. But we’re setting our sights more in leadership, psychology communication now. But I still have a lot of pride. It’s kind of like, I’m from Nebraska, and I love my home state. But I don’t really have a desire to move back there. Now, that’s nothing against Nebraska. That’s just my views of like, I think as people you grow, and you evolve, and you move away from home, and you do those things, right. I would imagine it’s the same with Iowa. Yes, 

 

Clint Martin  28:22  

yes, for sure. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  28:23  

So like, with that, like, some people get really offended if I’m like, Oh, I just don’t I’m sorry. Like, even though I coach athletes still to a degree, like I also coach executives, and I don’t just you myself as a strength coach, but the point being, I will be really disappointed in my home team s&c if it goes back to the same way. Because, you look at studies on habit formation and right, we suggest that the average time for a new habit to form 66 days give or take with a minimum of like 21. And that’s that research. And as of this podcast, the lockdowns already existed long enough in many countries to significantly change habits, but what when you look at whether things are going to change or not, I think you have to look at like what was going on in them beforehand. So for example, before the pandemic, the sporting industry was still it was great people are filling stadiums, people are doing this, of course not in every sport, there’s money, sports and non money sports. But like if stuff was great, before the pandemic, there’s a fairly high likelihood that it’ll at least go back to pretty successful. But if there are other industries that were kind of failing pre pandemic,  you may not see those rebounds. And that that comes from just looking at, you know, a deep dive in the data when you like, see, for example, and analysis showed that there was a drop off in cinema attendance, like movie theaters, attendance, before things got shut down. All that combined with the way that Netflix and Hulu, and all these things are going on. It’s probably likely that those things are going to continue. So now you’re going to see major directors do direct to home releases. They’re not going to like it, but they’re going to I just man, I have to wonder about The sporting industry because I know it’s a religion in this country and many parts of the world and rightfully so. But I just don’t ever see it fully going back to business as usual. And I don’t know what that even means for the strength and conditioning profession.

 

Clint Martin  30:12  

Yeah, for sure. And I don’t know if it came to be honest, like, we see all these, I’m gonna stick with the university, because that’s what I know. But you see these universities right now we’re struggling to get kids on campus, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:21  

really. 

 

Clint Martin  30:22  

Not even talking about like, in athletics, just getting students back on campus. It’s not three universities last week just went completely online, after they’d had four months of planning, say, hey, we think we can make this work. And they realized, we know it’s actually not going to work. So I mean, if we can adapt, then I think athletics will struggle. And it might not be for a year, it might be two years, maybe three years, I mean, people are starting to cut teams. Right? So that’s less opportunities for athletes. So it’s going to be interesting to see what happens in the next couple years,

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:50  

it’s more so to like, I hope, coaches and I hope people in the industry of performance, or what have you, as a whole really start to understand the congruence with time between what they do, and the world of business, because this really is a business model, either way, like, just like, companies are going to have to shift and shape their business model based on new demand and supply and what they can do. The performance industry and sporting industry is going to do the same, the demand for sport is always going to be there. Well, the demand for performance coaches, I don’t know, they’re not essential staff, you know? And are there going to be ways that, they can be utilized in different places? Are they already going to expand their hours? Right? Like, we know, like, when I was in the university setting, like I coach six, eight groups a day, same thing in private sector? Well, if you’re doing smaller groups, then is it gonna get even smaller? Are the hours gonna get longer? How much smaller? Can some groups if you work in basketball, even really good? I just I wonder about what the supply the demand, the sustainability and the willingness to adapt is because as well as I do, there’s some people that get into that field, just because they like to work out just because they like athletes, and just because they like game day. And I don’t think that that’s a sustainable path for those kinds of people. 

 

Clint Martin  32:04  

For sure, and I’m thinking to me myself, like, if we’re not essential personnel, like how do we make ourselves essential personnel? Yeah, it’s like, how do we figure out how to create more value? Or how do we become kind of more visually optic? Like, how do they see what we’re doing is important, right? Like, how do we make these things important to other people than ourselves? And I think it’s as a strength coach, like, we’re support staff. So I think, over the years, we’ve kind of just laid in the shadows and been fine with that. But I think we definitely need to do a better job of showing what we are capable of, and how much we can help and what benefits we can bring and value that we can bring.

 

Brett Bartholomew  32:40  

Yeah, and I want to piggyback off that, because you made an excellent point, and I had said something like this on on Twitter, a while back, and I won’t remember the exact context. But you mentioned value, right? And a lot of it is about how do you create uncommon value. And, it’s so hard. Like, in the past, a lot of people in the performance space have created value for themselves by investing more in tech or unique training methods. But like, here’s the thing, like, your teams aren’t willingly just going to be paying for these things anymore. like, they may not have the pocket book and say, All right, yeah, you want this platform, you want this point, you want all these things like, that’s just not going to happen. And I think one of the hardest things we all learn at some point as professionals, is not everything can be solved or shared in a 100% objective manner. So data alone won’t save you all these manners of like, trying to make what you do look more complex won’t save you. Sometimes you’re gonna have to learn how to play the game at a higher level, right? Value is quantified in many ways. What are some ways that you feel like you’ve really worked on creating uncommon value for yourself? beyond the traditional stuff that you do as a coach getting people faster, healthier, stronger? What have you?

 

Clint Martin  33:57  

I think having conversations with people who aren’t maybe like minded, I think that’s probably one of the biggest things that gives me more value is because I have a very specific lens, I have a very specific background, this is who I am, right? But I think everyone has that. And you have, time, and you have different resources that you can use, learn from their experiences, and all of a sudden you have 100 different experiences, right? So I’ve coached over 1000 athletes, how many coaches have been around, right? I work with Eddie Reese, who’s he’s the goat when it comes to swimming coaching. He’s been doing it forever. He’s almost 80 years old. When I’m around him, I don’t talk. I just sit there and I listen, because I know I’m gonna learn something. So I think putting yourself around people who can give you a different perspective. I love asking questions that I think I know the answer to that’s one of my favorite things to do. I’ll ask a question that I think I know the answer to and the answer I might get might be the same as when I was thinking in my head but framed differently. So therefore I learned something. So I think looking through different lenses, like I love to talk to pts. I love that After Cairo’s, like, what they do doesn’t necessarily involve me. But I think learning what they do, could definitely help what I think learning what I do can help what they do know. I love having conversations in a different lens.

 

Brett Bartholomew  35:11  

Yeah, it’s I mean, it’s a valid point. I mean, the just is this right? Like, and I feel like we beat this topic to death. And I promised I wouldn’t go into it again and again. But a recurring question that’s always arisen in performance is why don’t administrators, GM stakeholders, what have you value strength coaches? And the answer is the same. It’s just a field that hasn’t turned pro yet. with respect to how it handles its business, like, and that and that phrasing, Steven Pressfield. And the point is, Don’t devalue yourself through your actions and expect other people to value you and your return, if you make what you do. Really simple in terms of like, Hey, I’m very clearly demonstrating myself as a subject matter expert in training and performance. Well, you can’t be surprised, and by proudly, like claiming, oh, I’m not in it for the money all out, grind, everybody that’s like your message isn’t being received in the way you think. You think you’re saying you’re committed and loyal. But what others hear, especially when they’ve got a balance of the ledger, is that you’re expendable and willing to be leveraged? Is there stuff that you said, Clint, when you were coming up and trying to cash yourself in a positive light, which we all do, I’m guilty? We’ve all done it right? Or, when you’re trying to gain favor? Is there stuff that you’ve said in the past or done in the past? To get an edge that you’re like, ah, because we hear about good examples, but like, are you willing to admit some faults on the air of things that you did that were like borderline embarrassing that you’re like, Yeah, I definitely shouldn’t have done that.

 

Clint Martin  36:34  

Oh, yeah. I mean, as a young coach, you’re always trying to get a leg ahead. You’re always trying to figure out, hey, how, can I be seen better? How can I make more money? How can I get the next promotion? I think my first job as a GA,  I thought I was hot and thought, Oh, hot stuff. Like I’m working with the sport coaches. And they came to me with something that they thought was right, and I disagreed. And being the dummy that I was, I disagreed, probably a little stronger than it should have. But thinking that I’m right, all the all the data supports what I’m saying all that data supports what I’m saying but knowing Hey, that’s not the way to go about it. Maybe presented a different way, maybe go about this a different way, maybe ask a question to figure out what exactly it is they’re trying to do. Right? So I think, regardless of what it is, when you’re trying to provide value, if you don’t know the question they’re trying to answer or what it is that they’re trying to gain, you can’t provide more value. And so if you’re trying to get a raise, you need to figure out what it is the people who can give you money, and what do they need? And how can you do it? Right. So I think just listening will be a better thing for me. Like when I was a young athlete, or a young coach, I didn’t listen enough. And I think that’s been one thing that I’ve definitely grown for.

 

Brett Bartholomew  37:44  

Yeah, listening is essential to leadership. And you’re right, we, I tried to get it across in my book, although I’m planning guilty of it. Sometimes I don’t, especially if I get enthusiastic on a topic, I say, listen, every conversation needs to begin with what the other person cares about most. Now, where I’m guilty is if I’m really passionate about a subject, and I’m catching up with a friend, sometimes I can be a little bit too loquacious talking about that thing. You know what I mean? Because you get excited about it. And that’s, to me, that’s what I’ve learned is the fun of communication is you won’t ever master it. I’ll teach people communication, yet. There’s times where I’m miserable. And there’s times on this show where I’m miserable. But like, I think everybody’s got to find something they like, latch on to, that they’re inherently imperfect, and always will be. And they’ve got to learn to love the process of like, fulfilling that, like, we’re so ashamed of mistakes, we’re so ashamed of imperfections. And it’s just like, what, how does running from that fulfill you it can’t.

 

Clint Martin  38:46  

And like, if it’s imperfect, that means it couldn’t get better. And that’s how you grow you’re perfect, that’s something you can’t get better at it. So there’s no room for growth, right? I don’t think anybody’s perfect at anything. But when we see ourselves in that light, then we’re definitely shutting ourselves down for growth. Like if I think I’m super good at this, so I’m not gonna spend any more time on it. I’m not gonna grow in that area. So I think that’s definitely a problem that I think strength and conditioning coaches specifically, I know, we kind of struggle with

 

Brett Bartholomew  39:11  

no doubt. Now you talked about in that last part, about pre learning how to present things in a different light. And we’re gonna play a little game, if you will be willing to kind of join along on this. And even if you’re not tough shit, you’re on my show. We do something at our apprenticeship. And sometimes it’s just a joking kind of icebreaker thing. But we can also get very, very specific with it relative to the context of, a real social dilemma somebody’s dealing with whether that’s with a colleague, a significant other, whatever, okay? And it’s pretty simple, and I’ll explain it and I’ll give you an example. So don’t worry. It’s called the time traveler. And really the point is, one person leads in this case, it’s going to be you and your from present day, right when, let’s just call it 2020. It doesn’t have to be the day Right, but it’s 2020. Now, I’m from 700 years ago, and don’t get too caught up on exactly like what was, around 700 years ago to the tee, you just know, that was a long ass time ago. And the goal here is you’ve got to explain something from present day, for example, Bluetooth or a microwave or Tinder or whatever, to me. All right, and you’ve got to keep in mind, my frame of reference is crazy different than yours. I mean, you’re 2020. Right? And, and I’m from 700 years ago. That’s a fair amount of time. So the that’s called the 1300s. So, now the relevance, right, like, people might be like, Oh, why am I tuning in to listen to this game, your workshop sound dumb. This is all about the curse of knowledge. And it’s real. And most people are painfully unaware of how alienating they are to somebody else when they use jargon or their own frame of reference, right? When it comes to relating complex constructs to learner. So the goal is to overcome this. Are you with me? Do you understand the rules? 

 

Clint Martin  41:06  

I gocha man

 

Brett Bartholomew  41:07  

Cool. So go ahead and pick something from present day anything. And usually we let the audience in, in the workshop do this, but you go ahead and pick something. 

 

Clint Martin  41:16  

Let’s just go with like a light bulb, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  41:18  

a light bulb? All right, well, I mean, you’re kind of playing it safe with that one. But, we’ll go with that. Now, keep in mind, there’s two ways that I could play this. You could be like, alright, electricity, right? Well, obviously, somebody from the 1320 to the average, like, probably didn’t have a concept of that. So when you guys are playing at home? Like the benefit to the main person is somewhat predicated on your ability to like, actually act out that role. If you’re just like, yeah, or Clint, you also can’t be like, so there’s magic, right?  You can’t lean on magic, right. Alright, so here we go. Time Traveler. I’m from the 1300s. You gotta help me understand a light bulb. Let’s get with it. Go.

 

Clint Martin  41:57  

All right. So when you wake up in the morning, it’s dark. You can’t see anything. Right?

 

Brett Bartholomew  42:03  

Yeah, I’m terrified when I wake up in the like, I listen, there’s, I know that I have to get up early. And I have to work and I have to provide but yeah, I mean, by the way, who the hell are you?

 

Clint Martin  42:13  

Know, I’m from the year 2020. I’m from down. So tomorrow. I’m Trump tomorrow times a million came from longtime you’re funny.

 

Brett Bartholomew  42:21  

All right. That’s crazy. But all right, keep going. Like I don’t know why you’re in my house or anything like that. But yeah, let’s go.

 

Clint Martin  42:26  

So I’m in your house. You’re dark. You’re, it’s you’re scared. You just woke up. It’s dark outside. You don’t go outside to forage or start hunting until it’s daytime because the light light is safe for you. Right?

 

Brett Bartholomew  42:36  

For sun. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I do most of my work in the light. It gives me an advantage. I mean, you can see better, of course,

 

Clint Martin  42:42  

the sun is great. So a light bulb, essentially think about not being inside your house at night, and being able to visually see everything you can when the sun is out.

 

Brett Bartholomew  42:51  

But why wait a minute, a light bulb? Why is it called a bulb? What’s a what’s a bulb?

 

Clint Martin  42:57  

A bulb is it’s it’s round. It’s a little circular. So that’s where it gets the bulb shape

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:01  

like this. Like this rock I have right here.

 

Clint Martin  43:04  

That’s, not the rock. You need to look for something a little bit more circular, a little bit more grounded. That’s, where the bulb actually comes from.

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:14  

Okay, and what is this? What is this? What is this? Okay, and onions. So it’s made of? It’s like an onion. It’s made of an onion.

 

Clint Martin  43:21  

It’s not made of an onion. It’s made of glass.

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:25  

Where do you get this glass? 

 

Clint Martin  43:27  

Glass comes from heat.

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:29  

 Heat? How do you

 

Clint Martin  43:31  

use heat to warm up a material and it changes that material into glass?

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:35  

So you have this glass that’s heated? And I want to ask by what cuz you apparently knows a lot of things. I don’t know. And you’re freaking me out. But like, how does light come from glass? I thought light came from the sky.

 

Clint Martin  43:50  

Light comes from the sky. So you know electricity also comes from the sky.

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:53  

What is like I don’t know what is a form of electric? What is electricity?

 

Clint Martin  43:57  

A lightning bolt. When it’s raining, you might see a lightning bolt.

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:00  

We’ve discovered that that’s I thought that was the gods that were like, we know that this is a electricity.

 

Clint Martin  44:06  

It could be coming from the gods, but it’s still it’s still electricity. It’s coming from the sky. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:09  

So you’ve harnessed this in this onion glass? 

 

Clint Martin  44:14  

Correct? we’ve harnessed this and this onion glass and then you can see inside at night.

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:19  

Got at what? And what else? I mean, how do you make this thing work? You just have this glass and you carried it and it magically turns on? 

 

Clint Martin  44:27  

No, it has to have power. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:29  

What is what’s power when I think of power is who rules the country who governs the land? What’s what’s power?

 

Clint Martin  44:35  

Sure. So power is something that can make something that wouldn’t work. Turn on.

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:40  

Cool. Alright, pause that. You see how? 

 

Clint Martin  44:43  

Yeah, for sure. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  44:45  

Well, and like What’s crazy is why people that will come to these workshops sometimes and they forget that like we talked about coaching as a partnership, right, Clint? Like it’s dyadic it’s between us and the people that we lead. Well, so are these things and you’re a bad partner?  Like if you let the lead get away with stuff like, 1300s like electricity wasn’t discovered we didn’t know. It wasn’t until like Ben Franklin. Now some say the Italians discovered that lightning was you know harnessed electricity and what have you before then we’re not going to get into that. But like, we’re talking about things that are so esoteric to that group. And they don’t have light bulbs that term, they might know bulb in terms of something they plant in the ground, that then becomes something that they eat, but like, You’re a bad partner, if you just let them get away with this stuff. So not only is the game on one end about explaining things for the other person, it’s about like, hey, like, ask questions, because we think that this is crazy. But I’ll never forget the time where I tried to helping an athlete understand why they squat because of what the neuromuscular system does when it’s under heavy load. And I’m like, I’m all jazz, because I got out of, you know, my master’s degrees in motor learning, right? So like, I’m obsessed with what the brain does and how it learns these complex things. And the signal sent from the body and coordinated movement, that athletes like when’s lunch? 

 

Clint Martin  46:03  

Right, exactly. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  46:04  

You know, but like, I just challenged the audience, you know, to learn from that. And like, you have to everybody talks about range and debit David Epstein and whatever you learned, and lateral thinking, but people don’t practice that. You know, to me, the ultimate in leadership is understanding elements of chaos and improv and misunderstanding. And like, that’s real stuff that you can do day after day, no matter. And if you think it looks silly and stupid. compare that against leading somebody poorly, because you think you’re too cool to practice something lateral. How did that make you feel? As we went through that, were you a little frustrated?

 

Clint Martin  46:40  

I was a little frustrated, but not by the situation, just that I wasn’t able to simplify things, right? Like, I’m sitting here thinking, Oh, it’s a lot of this should be super easy to explain. The I definitely took a little easier route. And then I realized, like you said, that frame of reference was just, it’s just not there.

 

Brett Bartholomew  46:56  

Yet. You’re trying to figure it out. And it’s like, wait a minute, I don’t know what the hell just happened, like that. And like, you can take it it’s, I think, two, you mentioned frame of reference. One tip I’ll give the audience that you can make that easier is now you notice and we all do this right? So this isn’t me calling you out. I think you’re a wonderful coach, and you’re very thoughtful in your conversation. It’s a human being tendency. You started off telling me something, right? You said hey, when you wake up, it’s dark out. The best way to learn how to relate and reframe stuff, stuff that I talked about my book, or what have you is ask a question. Be like, Hey, do you ever work in the dark? Hey, do you ever have to go outside when it’s dark? How do you see more clearly in the dark? Oh, I use candles. Oh, what? Well, what is the candle provide? It provides light. Okay, and that helps you do what you right  because now we have information to go off of. It’s exactly what you said. And you’re an excellent communicator. But think about that, right? If we don’t practice those things in improv scenarios, and that’s where like, when people go to conferences, where all they do is lecture, they don’t really learn because we you and I can sit here all day and tell people hey, ask questions, find things they can relate to. But then you put it into a practical activity, like improv role playing and you forget to do that. 

 

Clint Martin  48:09  

Yeah, for sure. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  48:10  

Because we’re anxious to help. You got to sign up for improv man, like we’re gonna start doing online improv at art of coaching. And then you can join us every week with that. 

 

Clint Martin  48:19  

I’m into it. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  48:21  

So with that, I appreciate you being a good sport. Talk to me about some things that you feel like you’ve done in your life, that most people wouldn’t consider traditional continuing education, like maybe going to a conference or reading a book or whatever, that really paid dividends for you. What was something that was an uncommon form of communication or learning from you that like, Man was priceless?

 

Clint Martin  48:46  

it’s gonna sound crazy. And I actually the time I’m thinking of specifically, I went to not learn what to teach. So I was actually, I was giving a clinic overseas. And when I went over there and started teaching, started talking, lecturing, I realized how different things are done in different places, like we were just talking about frame of reference, like, we’ve been in whatever school, whatever facility for however long around the same amount of people, right? So that’s our frame of reference. Even if you bounce around a little bit. It’s still very, very small on a grand scale of things. I went overseas, and I talked to coaches, they do things completely differently than we do. And they’re not right or wrong. They’re just completely different. And they were doing great things. And I was like, wow, that’s not something I’ve ever thought to do. So now whenever I go overseas, I try to get overseas at least once a year. But whenever I go overseas, I’ll reach out to coaches over there. And I’ll say, Hey, can we just talk for a little bit, or I’ll just pick up the phone and call high school coach, like there’s so many different coaches at different levels that are really really really sharp, but everyone gets caught up in the be one or a pro need be one or pro like they don’t pick up the phone and talk to somebody who they see themselves as being above Ever might be lesser than, right. So I think it’s just it goes back to just creating a different frame of reference for yourself. And I think like talking to people from different walks of life, that’s been the biggest, benefit from your continuing education wise,

 

Brett Bartholomew  50:12  

I think that’s invaluable. And I agree wholeheartedly or talking to people from the 1300s, as a great and we can figure out time travel. I mean, it’s

 

Clint Martin  50:23  

your time traveling from,

 

Brett Bartholomew  50:24  

here’s the sad thing, and I’m a total nerd with this, like, you become so addicted to playing some of those games, because it’s the same idea as traveling, you’re putting yourself in a different perspective, you’ve got to come up with something from nothing you’ve got to adapt to like, whatever is given to you, right? Like, you don’t know if you’re going to a different, like, when you go to a different country, like certain phrases or, like, ways of speaking or asking for things aren’t gonna exist, you’ve got to adapt. But like, I ended up getting addicted to were like, oh, we’ll do these workshops. I’m like, yo, if anybody wants to stay out and keep rollin, let’s do it. Because it constantly especially now when you can’t travel, and this is kind of why they talk about fiction being so underrated for education is people are scared to travel to different places, physically, but also I feel like mentally man, I feel like people get too caught up and myself included.  I only criticize things that I was guilty of. Right? There’s times where like you, I would just if it wasn’t research, or this and that. But man, you know, we’re learning more than ever reading fiction can be really educational. Is there a good fiction book, or even a movie? I mean, like pure science fiction made up lore that actually helped you learn a really important lesson.

 

Clint Martin  51:33  

Yeah, so my favorite author, and I’m gonna say this unashamed, like my favorite authors, Matthew Reilly, and he writes pure fiction and straight science fiction. It’s about action. It’s about soldiers about all types of tech, if not invented hasn’t been created. But the amount of actual real life practice that I’ve learned from those books, or even if it comes to like, geography, or different things that have happened throughout the ages, like I just had no idea about, I’m telling you, like, there’s so much you can learn from fiction. It’s crazy.

 

Brett Bartholomew  52:03  

 He’s Australian, right? 

 

Clint Martin  52:05  

Australian. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  52:06  

Yeah, I say that. Like I just knew that. I looked that up. I’m looking it up right now because I’ve never heard him. But I have a lot of Australian friends. So that counts. Yeah, I mean, let’s see his best sellers that seven ancient wonders, five greatest warriors, the tournament and the great zoo of China, which

 

Clint Martin  52:25  

seven ancient wonders. It’s great. Like he talks about the seven wonders of the world and you learn about all the different Seven Wonders and he puts this crazy twist on it. What you’re actually learning while you’re doing it. Let’s it’s if that’s my that’s what I nerd out about. I crushed like four of his books this summer.

 

Brett Bartholomew  52:37  

And I just found out I hope this is true, Matthew, if you’re listening, I’m sure Matthew is listening because why wouldn’t he? It says that he owns a DeLorean he drives a DeLorean DMC 12 which is the car made famous from the Back to the Future movies. And he’s got a life size Han Solo in carbonite hanging on the wall. Listen, I need that for my podcast setup. I need a Carbonite Han Solo thing in the back.

 

Clint Martin  53:07  

If that’s true, then he became my like, I love him even more now.

 

Brett Bartholomew  53:10  

No doubt. Alright. Alright, we’ve talked about a lot of different things, right? We’ve talked about race in coaching, race and leadership. We’ve talked about uncommon learning opportunities. We’ve talked about a lot of things. Are you ready to have a little bit more fun with this though? Alright, let’s let’s build off the DeLorean and Han Solo. If you were hosting a video show or a podcast or whatever, and there had to be visuals involved, right? People are seeing you and this is posted to YouTube or whatever. What are three like weird things you’re gonna have in the background, that kind of speak to something you love, but are totally like, they’re totally there just to capture somebody’s attention at the same time. Like, the Han Solo in carbonite, or something like that. What are three really weird things you’re putting in the background?

 

Clint Martin  53:52  

Really, really weird things are put into the background 

 

Brett Bartholomew  53:55  

and it’s relative to you right? What you think is weird. Listen, some of our listeners are twisted. And so  what you might think is weird, they might be like, Nah, that’s normal.

 

Clint Martin  54:04  

Let me think I think number one would be like a real Chris Brown in the background dancing just gliding all over the place

 

Brett Bartholomew  54:12  

like not animatronic you’d like to try to contract Chris Brown to come dance.

 

Clint Martin  54:16  

Actually Chris Brown in the background dancing because regardless of what I say, like you’re gonna be mesmerized by him in the background just going out 

 

Brett Bartholomew  54:21  

there just gliding every time you use an action verb.

 

Clint Martin  54:26  

Absolutely. That’s, got to be number one. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  54:28  

Cool. 

 

Clint Martin  54:29  

Number two. It’s got to be my guy. Cesar. I think I showed you see there. He’s, his little gorilla. I have on my, my TV stand downstairs. Caesars. Like, he’s I think he encapsulates kind of how I feel most of my days. Silverback in it.

 

Brett Bartholomew  54:42  

Okay, okay, silveback. Got that. I mean, I feel like that needs to be a hashtag. Probably needs to be your license plates Silverback in it. I don’t even know what that means. But I love it, you know?

 

Clint Martin  54:52  

Yeah. And then I think it’s last and foremost. It’s not really weird, but it’s probably got to be a Kobe Bryant jersey. Just model mentality at all times.

 

Brett Bartholomew  55:01  

I do appreciate that. No, I like that. That’s for sure. All right, we got one more hot seat for you. And it’s one of our hardest ones we call it we actually keep going back and forth with the name, devil’s advocate or gray area. But here’s the deal. Okay, we give you a quote. And it’s like a common quote, the goal is kind of some quote that is cliche or something that like, most people would agree with, and you have to one or you for why you think it’s true. And then you also have to say why it’s BS, and you don’t get a choice, like, and feel free to start with whichever one you want. You can talk about why you think it’s not true. And then you got to think why it’s true. And the whole point of this is again, nothing in life is really black and white. It’s all contingent on context. Right? So have fun with it. I can’t wait to hear what you go. Are you ready for the quote, and I’ll repeat it. 

 

Clint Martin  55:50  

Yeah, roll 

 

Brett Bartholomew  55:51  

Okay. This is by Confucius, Confucius. And I have a funny story that I might tell at some point about Confucius in the future. But the quote is this, our greatest glory is not in never falling. But in rising every time we fall, so one more time, our greatest glory is not in never falling. But in rising every time we fall. So clearly, this is about getting up after failure and trying again and being resilient. Talk to me about why you agree with it, and then talk to me why you think it is BS?

 

Clint Martin  56:30  

Can we kind of flip it? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  56:32  

Like what do you mean? 

 

Clint Martin  56:34  

Can I say I disagree? First 100%. Yeah. I said I disagree. Think about the moments that you really remember in athletics. Think about, somebody diving over the endzone. He was falling. That’s his greatest moment ever. Think about somebody crossing the line to distract me that there was somebody right next to him. I think it was two years ago, sec championships, a&m has to hurdler sprinting for the Florida hurdles. The winter dove across the line right on his face face planted slid. He fell. That was a great moment. So I think  sometimes we have to follow them. Great.

 

Brett Bartholomew  57:09  

I like it. I mean, I’m into that. 100% and, like it just goes speaks to failure in general. Like how do you learn if you don’t, and sometimes I don’t think you want to rise every time. I think sometimes you got to chill out. I think sometimes you got to sit and reevaluate, like, think about we’ve talked about music, or like you mentioned Chris Brown. Let’s say he puts out a flop. maybe Chris Brown doesn’t need to make another album for a while, like sit tight, Chris Brown. Yeah, I mean, Tupac only released albums way, like, every seven years, like, or, like Dr. Dre like what have you, I think Tupac, right? We’re not counting like posthumous albums and things like that. But now we have this like SoundCloud area where people release albums every day, I don’t know that you’re always better for it. You know, we’ve always talked about like, we do two podcast episodes a week, or at least at the time of this recording, we do. But I’m not. There might be a time where we go away for two or three weeks, if we need to go back to the lab. So I don’t think you always want to rise right away, like sometimes state keep your ass down, standing eight count to like, if you’re a boxer, like, keep your ass down for a little bit. You know, take that breath. reevaluate. All right now. Now talk to me about why you agree.

 

Clint Martin  58:15  

I think I do agree. Because at the end of the day, once we fall, life’s got to continue. Like, you’re always going to need to get back up and take the next step, you can stay down, like we said, you can stay down as long as you need to, to be able to become better. But at the end of the day, the sun’s gonna rise again. And we got to keep it moving.

 

Brett Bartholomew  58:31  

Hey, that deserves a little bit of a Oh, that was supposed to be the clap sound effect. I’m new at this. I’m new, that we’re supposed to be a club that’s solid. And I think that’s something that’s haunting to me. Clint is, you realize that I was gonna give you a quote that said this too. It was like act as if your life and what you do matters? Because it does. And of course it does, right? Like the effect is real. It’s a big universe. Carl Sagan is pale blue dot, I get it, like life’s gonna go on, but like, you still gotta try. But at the same time. I mean, nobody’s missing us, after a while, like, eventually, once  and that’s a tough thing to realize. I think if there’s one reason why I was really glad I ended up writing the book. And that haunted me for a long time is like, hopefully, I don’t know, hopefully, in 200 years, somebody still buys that thing. And that’ll keep going. But it is kind of a daunting, haunting reminder that life goes on, but it should also inspire you because like, nobody really gives a shit about your failures that much anyway, Are you kidding? Think about the embarrassing, humiliating things that have happened in sport, life, whatever. People that have fallen going up stage and get awards, do like the talk of the town for a while and yet lives on the internet forever. But like, nobody remembers. Nobody, beyond a point. Nobody really cares, because it’s just like we expect these things in life because it’s a big Gong Show.

 

Clint Martin  59:51  

Right? Like the Michael Jordan crying gift. Like nobody knows what that’s from anymore. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:57  

Right? That’s a great example that somebody That’s an like, we were talking the other day, we were using a tagline on an aspect of one of our digital marketing things. And I was trying really hard to find the origin of this quote that we use, because it was attributed to like three different people. And I’m really careful about citing things, right? Like, because you got to try your best to do all that. And so I’m like, I’m really trying to find the origin, but you couldn’t find it. And so I’m like, You know what, like, I’m gonna put my own spin on this. And the attribution is just gonna be us, because we’re gonna say it in a different way. But like, we clearly can’t find an attribution, where it’s different. If you have research and you have some, that’s a clear attribution. But like, it’s interesting, after a while, like, I used to spend one to two hours sometimes trying to find the direct source of something, I couldn’t do it and I’m like, I’d be freaked out. In my own mind. I’d be like, Oh my God, if we don’t find that, and what if 10 years from now somebody’s like, Hey, you use this quote, this was somebody’s I’m like, why am I but if I’m spending two hours finding them, this person obviously didn’t document it well enough that they should even get the friggin attribution for it. Nobody can. like, I will, always I always get myself in those pitfalls, where like, I end up trying to do things too perfectly sometimes, where it’s just like, dude, just like, flip it. make it your own and get on with it. You ever do anything like that? You have any weird, like, OCD habits where it’s like,  to just like, pick up and move on with it?

 

Clint Martin  1:01:19  

I for sure do. Specifically I can think back to when I was started coaching at UT. Like, when I took over the role that I’m in now. I’m very, very specific about how I like things done, specifically in the weight room. So it was really hard for me to like give any kind of facet of it to anybody else. Because I need it done the way I need it done right. And if you do it, it’s not going to be the way that I needed done. So like learning to delegate was so hard for me, but so beneficial, like in my growth, because at the end of the day, like you don’t have the bandwidth to be perfect. So you have good people around you who put the people around you you can get things done if you don’t try to do it on your damn self right?

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:01:57  

Yeah. 100% Alright, last one, and then we’re gonna let you go. I need the worst joke. Like dad joke cheesy joke. awful joke, but like one of the worst jokes you know, but it still kind of makes you chuckle 

 

Clint Martin  1:02:12  

it’s a longer joke. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:13  

At least it’s like 10 minutes or what we talking about?

 

Clint Martin  1:02:16  

It was like, it’s probably like three minutes. Let me think I don’t even know how to word it anymore. I used to tell it during Halloween when I was younger.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:24  

The joke one’s hard if you want if we want to move I got another lateral one for you. It’s okay. 

 

Clint Martin  1:02:29  

All right lateral. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:30  

Let’s give you a different one entirely. So I guess it should it’s not lateral. Favorite Villain this is one that’s gotten some interesting responses. The best one we have right now is our guest Jessica Hagee went with a Willy Wonka. So if you guys haven’t listened to the Jessica Hagee episode. And there’s some people that are like audio files like on the day we interviewed Jessica zoom was down. And so we ended and Skype was because of the world’s like overloading these things. So we had to go on the phone. And my audio is like it is now but hers was you know phone and so I’m sure there’s some people like and I’m gonna listen to that there’s the audio, but she goes into why Willy Wonka’s a villain and that alone is a masterclass that people

 

Clint Martin  1:03:10  

that I can’t even wrap I can’t even think about the question because I’m just trying to think about that what she said

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:03:15  

yeah, it’s published you can go listen to it right now go listen to Jessica Hagee. It’s towards the end of the episode. You will not regret it you’ll stay awake at night being like she’s right. That’s amazing. Yeah, so your favorite villain because i don’t i don’t really I’m big on kind of strategically bringing out your dark side. I think we have a world that celebrates positivity in many ways it should. But I think we forget the benefits of the dark side. Sometimes to us being assertive is going for things us getting out of our own way and just going with it and not worrying about always stepping on toes and hurting feelings all the time. I think keeping out like these negative emotions or negative thoughts and is not good for anybody’s mental health and it’s just not realistic. We all have dark moments. So that’s why the villain question let’s celebrate a villain or an antihero. Talk to me about it.

 

Clint Martin  1:04:06  

I have 3am 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:04:08  

Three. Okay, here we go.

 

Clint Martin  1:04:10  

I’m a big movie guy. So one’s got to be The Joker from The Dark Knight Trilogy.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:04:14  

No doubt so Heath Ledger right now Jared Leto know 

 

Clint Martin  1:04:17  

he gotta be Heath Ledger. Just the way he embraces like himself. And we’ve been talking about this the whole time. The way he embraces himself, is it’s amazing. And the Thanos number two 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:04:29  

Oh Thanos. Alright, so now we got 

 

Clint Martin  1:04:33  

the stand up number two because at the end of the day, he was also embracing himself. He thought he was bettering the world in the movie at least for the universe by destroying half of it and as

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:04:43  

Josh Brolin, right, like if anybody out there knows Josh Brolin, I want him on the podcast, because that’s a thoughtful dude. I know Kenny Kane, if you’re listening and I know, you know, Josh Brolin, and we don’t chase celebrities on this podcast. We want like just real down to earth people. Not that they’re not mutually exclusive, but I want to interview Josh Brolin so somebody Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon somebody knows Josh Brolin. Let’s get him on here. Alright Thanos what else?

 

Clint Martin  1:05:06  

And you know Josh Brolin, please hashtag Silverback in it too. And I think my third one is going to be Bane 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:05:15  

just because it’s Tom Hardy, who by the way is my favorite actor aside from Robert Downey Jr. Like, is it just or is it just being the character in general are Tom Hardy as Bane? 

 

Clint Martin  1:05:26  

Tom Hardy as Bane. Bane in general 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:05:28  

why? 

 

Clint Martin  1:05:30  

Bane just can’t resist an unmoving force. And I think he’s the definition like we were saying the hashtag Silverback in it.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:05:38  

And I think if you get into the comic book lore, I mean, our own Cory van white, who’s our community manager could, like, tell you this, but Bane is actually really intelligent, like he rivals bat and from what I understand, in his intellect. So it’s not just as you said, All right, well, listen, Clint, you have been more than gracious with your time you’ve put up with ridiculous questions. You put up with deep questions. And if people want to support you, they want to learn more about you. Where can they go? All this will be in the show notes. So don’t worry about spelling it or going through phonetics or anything like that. But like, what’s the number one thing people can do today to give back to you for your time?

 

Clint Martin  1:06:16  

They can give me give me an email, send me an email clint.martin@utexas.edu and I’d love to have a conversation.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:06:23  

clint.martin@utexas.edu You hear it folks, it is in the show notes, email the bejesus out of you ask him what his favorite exercise is. Ask him what books to read basketball. Ask him ask him all those things. Hey, man, I hope you get peppered because you have delivered such great value. I really appreciate you I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. You’ve always been a gracious host you along with everybody down in Texas and I hate to admit that as a Nebraskan, but you guys have always been like an adoptive family to me and I love you all and I appreciate you coming on the show

 

Clint Martin  1:06:56  

man. I appreciate you having you’re part of the family. Always

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:06:59  

alright guys, until next time Arctic coaching podcast. Tell a friend and tell a friend Chris Brown dancing in the background. Me and Clint are outta here.