E18 | Michael Silbernagel: Managerial Creativity, Resourcefulness & Staff Development - Art Of Coaching™

Posted April 14, 2019

TRANSCRIPT

Michael Silbernagel

Don’t follow a logo or division perception follow the best route to grow as an individual we had to create a brand like we had to make something that our athletes wanted to take part in

Brett Bartholomew

we’re jumping right into this one. I am really excited about today’s episode I am coach Michael Silbernagel with us today. Coach How you doing?

Michael Silbernagel

I’m doing well Brett how bout yourself.

Brett Bartholomew

Good man. It’s good to I’m glad that we’re now meeting there’s minimal interactions or logistical issues. Whereas the last time I saw you, I think for the third time in one year I was delayed in North Dakota, I cannot get out of your airport. I don’t know if I’m ever coming back to North Dakota because that state although the people are great. It’s like a succubus it won’t let out

Michael Silbernagel

a you know we’re attracted to greatness. And in my defense, it was actually Minnesota that caused the delay ti was the sunshine was was out in North Dakota. When you were here,

Brett Bartholomew

you’re essentially the same state. When I go out at night, like when we went out one night, and I’ve been there a couple of times whenever I was in GA and we were playing NDSU and things like that and then out to speak or connect with you guys. I went out one night and I was talking to somebody and like I was single at the time and I was a graduate assistant. I remember asking the waitress I was Like Where is everybody? And this woman’s like, oh, in North Dakota, it’s hunting season here. Everybody’s gone. And I’m like, I get where their boyfriends are at ma’am. Where are the girls? And she’s like, Oh, whether you’re in North Dakota or Minnesota when it’s hunting season. Everybody goes not just the guys don’t and I’m just like, oh Lord. And so I’ve had equally interesting experiences. And this is all of a sudden where everybody from North Dakota or Wisconsin like unfollowed me and started picketing horrible Dale Lennon impersonation, but anyway, can you want to give everybody a brief rundown on kind of your background and how we know each other?

Michael Silbernagel

Well, yeah, I guess a little bit about me. I’m originally from the area here in North Dakota, with my wonderful accent. My background I guess starts with you is I actually GA under someone that you worked with Jared Nessland when he was at university,

Brett Bartholomew

don’t drop his name. Drop, drop his name. Yeah. Because if he is listening, he’ll never admit it. if anybody knows coach Nessland, you gotta get my heart. He’s just like, I don’t do podcasts and clinics. And I’m not doing this and Matt, so you can’t name drop him.

Michael Silbernagel

But anyhow, that’s how we first got it. And then I went to Colorado State, spent six years out there, and have been here at the University of Mary since January of 2011. When I started the department from scratch.

Brett Bartholomew

What got you into the field initially,

Michael Silbernagel

I think it was like most people didn’t even know what the field was just like to lift and wanted to make people bigger, faster, stronger, and went into undergrad as athletic training. Because that just made sense to me, and then realized I was taping ankles that didn’t really fit what I thought athletic training was. So it was just kind of that passion of picking stuff up putting stuff down at the beginning, and then evolved from there.

Brett Bartholomew

One of the things that struck me because you and I, we talked to indirectly and what I mean by that is whether it’s social media or just mutual connections for a while before we met, but when I went out and I think you were hosting the NSCA state clinic what I really enjoyed about that is just how locked in professional seamless all that was, I mean, because you present to like not many events are always well organized or if they are the communications is shoddy but my first impression there was that your management kind of teaching and communication style were really on point. How would you describe the way you interact with others, whether it’s personally professionally and what influenced that the most?

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah, I think but before we get to that real quick, I it was it was seamlessly when he came I’m here because I have a lot of great people helping me out. So I think, first off as a manager, you find great people to support you. To me, it’s about kind of preparing everybody for life. And I know that sounds like a corny statement, but if you can kind of get life in order, you can be a pretty good coach. And what I mean by that is understanding that there has to be harmony in what’s going on. Something that my grandfather told me growing up is you can’t get too far off kilter one way or another. So I think that’s kind of where I come from at the beginning. But then talking about how, I’m a demanding individual, I’m not afraid to keep the standard and set the standard where I feel needs to be met. And that’s probably from my farming background, and having a dad who made sure that that was pretty clear. But at the same time, being caring, passionate, and then having a hands on component, to where not only hands on in terms of the traditional sense of, hey, we’re gonna lift, I’m gonna demo and we’re gonna show athletes how to do all these things. But also, hopefully hands on in terms of helping an intern helping a GA, to get them to understand, hey, here’s my first program I ever wrote, and man that it’s suck. So we’ve all kind of been there. And we’ve all gone through the struggles that you’re about to go through.

Brett Bartholomew

And when you say you’re demanding, one thing that as I’ve continued to dive deeper into kind of just coach education, Coach development and the associated research, one thing they continue to say is one big issue is one reason we don’t have coaches that typically think around fringe topics or complexity, the way they should is because they tend to just get under, they learn under people that they say, Okay, I’m going to coach the way this person coached, right? They mimic these people. So for that, when you’re demanding, how did you find the balance between helping them grow organically as opposed to just having them do things that you did , like making sure that you’re not just bringing them up the way you had to do it, and that you’re actually giving them the tools and the challenges they need? As opposed to those lessons being influenced by the biases of your paths? does that make sense?

Michael Silbernagel

No, totally. I think at the beginning, I did make those mistakes. I think when I was first mentoring, I thought it had to be my way. Like they had to learn from my experiences. And that didn’t always end up being successful, to where the evolution now and guess what demanding is we have standards for how we want things to be here within our department. And I don’t care how the individual coaches, I want them to be unique and who they are. But I want the standard to be held. And some of my past experiences may help with that. Some of them may not. But it’s fun to watch them grow into who they are. We don’t do set weekly meetings. I don’t want set assignments, if someone wants to come into my office and talk shop, let’s talk shop, if it happens to be a life concern, to where they have things going on at home and outside of work, let’s talk about it, let’s grab a coffee. My joke is, if you want feedback, or an opinion, just come into the office, if you want me to listen, bring me a cup of coffee, because I know I’m just supposed to sit there and drink it. But I think those different personalities also evolve. Who I am, right I got someone on staff right now is about as quirky as you can get. But man, they can control a room. And the standard that we have set doesn’t drop because of their personality. we can have any different kinds of music playing. It’s not just, heavy death metal, even though that’s awesome, doesn’t have to be playing nonstop to set the culture and the tone of what the workout is. And I think those are things that have evolved over time. And then you point out those times where hey, I know this mistakes can happen. Right? You’re six months into this, this is where we start getting comfortable, every individual no matter who they are, is gonna get comfortable at this moment, this moment in this moment over their time. And it’s just what mistakes you’re gonna make as to how I’m gonna help fix.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, no, That is a complete answer. One thing that I want to build off of that though, is how do you define your standards? How can I ask this because and I’m being critical here of our field, but the point of this podcast is to kind of challenge some dorms and just get all of us to think deeper. I find that a lot of times when people define their standards, it’s always well, be be a professional, be on time, do your job, be humble. And there’s this ambiguity behind it. Like it kind of feels copy and paste to me. Yeah. How do you define your standards in a way? Well, one, how do you define them in general? And then how do you do it in a way that’s very specific where, people understand what’s being asked of them and more importantly, how they can even evolve those standards, because I would assume you’re somebody that like, you don’t want just people to follow these rules. You want them to help evolve your approach as they are not new, am I? Correct? So How do you define those? And then how do you create that kind of environment? Or just kind of way of thinking?

Michael Silbernagel

Well, I think it first was started as kind of like what you said it was this the this is what we’re going to do. And we evolved it because I was forced to buy a sports coach. They wanted evaluation of athletes and serves a color scheme, right? Are their red, yellow, green, and we’re sitting in end of your meetings, and I’m like, I don’t know how to answer this. Like, what are you looking for? And what I realized is he was also looking for the kind of culture that we were trying to create, but in a much more relatable way. Or I want to say scientific because it’s really not but a concrete way in terms of having the same standard for everybody. So it starts off by simplistic things, what’s going above and beyond what’s doing the bare minimum, and what’s below that bare minimum, so they can get constant feedback as to where we are as a staff. Right continuing education, or self eval yourself. Are you reading every week? Are you listening to podcasts? Are you watching videos? Are you communicating with other coaches? Have you talked to the Sport Coach, yet this week that you work with directly? Have you had any concerns or questions if he communicated those appropriately? In terms of attire, are you wearing our apparel? It doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be tucked in, you’re going to be demonstrating, etc. But do you look depart in terms of what our staff for lack of better term, I guess, gear is? Which we make life easy? Because we supply that for our coaches? How you handle yourself in terms of communication? Are you someone that is always a day late? $1? Short in terms of getting back to someone with an email or text message? Or are you communicating appropriately? In terms of coaching in the room? Are you facilitating? Are you coaching? It’s very easy to grab a clipboard, blow whistle, clap a hand or whatever you want to do to make someone goes through a workout? But are you actually giving feedback? Is it something that is well supportive, constructive, everything in between? And then kind of the last overall blanket is no matter who walks into the room? Would you want to see what you’re doing? if a future employer had a camera up in the corner of the room, and they’re watching you, is this something that you want them to see? And that’s kind of what we’ve evolved to? And no, it’s not a huge set of checklist type standards. They’re very vague. But that vagueness allows us to evolve?

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, no, I think you can define them in the fact that you have it in a way that they’re going to evolve. I think that’s what matters most. Because I know I’ve been guilty of it. There’s certain operational standards you abide by you get comfortable with, do you think they work? And they only work until they don’t? And that’s inherent to kind of coaching as a complex process instead of something that’s kind of rational, knowable, sequential? Well, when you’re dealing with people, that’s always how that is, including yourself. So that phenomenal answer for the reasons and examples that you gave, you find a lot of ways to get creative, despite, being at a school that has a relatively small budget, what are some tricks that have helped you and your staff during the process of this ever evolving process that you mentioned, continue to maximize those resources? How have you gotten creative?

Michael Silbernagel

Well, when it first started, my staff and myself, I joke around a little bit that I actually invented the selfie because it was my staff meeting, staring into the mirror. But, I think you something you’ve done a phenomenal job of is we had to create a brand, like we had to make something that our athletes wanted to take part in. They had never had a strength conditioning department before they’re walking around wearing other universities apparel, they didn’t understand that they are a walking billboard themselves. So the beautiful thing about being in the college setting is all the athletes doesn’t matter. The Sport doesn’t matter. The gender are basically one connected group within our weight room. And we started with simply just making T shirts that had our logo on them. And it was lucky because it was already a big logo in the weight room. Don’t ask me why. But there was and we were able to kind of market that. And then as soon as we sold those things, we took the money made off of it, put it right back into our facility. So the athletes saw the instantaneous return. And now they realized that it wasn’t just I say it jokingly for my truck payment it was for their benefit. Right then we started some summer camps to where rather than getting paid. We took that money, invested it back into the room to get it to the standard that we wanted. We did have some phenomenal boosters, but we use it in such a way to where we didn’t abuse it. One year they were phenomenal and bought us some bumper plates the next year when they asked what we wanted I wrote a letter saying we appreciate everything you’ve done. But you helped us last year help some others this year. Well, that put us into good graces for the following year, we were able to get some more things. In terms of the not fundraising piece, we started creating that brand on on social media platforms. For us, it started off as a YouTube page. Like I said, I was the only coach, when we started, we had athletes that were going home for the summer, I’ve only been here a whopping four months, they had no idea what a back squat was compared to a split squat compared to a front squat. So we use YouTube to put all of our exercises on there, like a evolving exercise index. And we hyperlinked it into their Excel documents when they went home. So I just had to click on it. Now it’s even easier because they got a bald guy, you know, short and stocky, who is demonstrating these things, and we still use them today from that piece of it. Then our social media kind of evolved, it grew into, as you mentioned, we started connecting even via Twitter, terms of just reaching out initially. So we use that social media piece for a branching out aspect of just learning from other coaches getting to know him. We weren’t always able to go to conferences. So what can we do to continue that networking aspect, and Twitter was a great way to do it. And then this last year, we evolved into the Instagram platform to where we’ve kind of made that our for lack of better term of video newsletter to where every day we’ve got something.

Brett Bartholomew

And to consolidate that, I think and correct me if you wouldn’t agree, but you kind of run your program, like a business, which sounds to some coaches. Some coaches are like, Oh, that’s not how I like to think of it, you know, we’re not, we’re a service based profession. While there are a lot of businesses that are service based, right. There’s a lot of things like nonprofits out there, and other companies that they’re predominantly service based, but running it like a business is kind of, there’s an operational efficiency behind it. And then, like you said, the branding piece is actually really critical and useful, because that facilitates athlete engagement, and athlete engagement, any form of elite sport, or just in general is critical. If you want anything that you do to really sick, and people can think what they want about, oh, this medium, that medium, what have you The fact is, I think that the data came out today, and we’re talking on it’s November 14 2018, data came out today, I saw that Instagram Stories has 300 million users, 300 million users. And so regardless of what you think about it, that works, and I think that was impressive, the way you’ve kind of adopted and adapted that early, and really made it easy to kind of get everybody on board did the athletes did they take to it? Well, initially, like were they pretty like, Okay, Coach, so be like, we see what you’re doing like? Or, Was there a period where that was a little bumpy? And you had to figure out how to exactly shoot the videos? Or how to get it, delivered to them in a certain way? Like, what roadblocks did you deal with initially?

Michael Silbernagel

Well, I think I was, fortunate because our athletes were all over it right away. The challenging part is, when we first started, you couldn’t take video on your iPhone, so it was trying to figure out how am I going to take video off of an RCA handheld type deal and put it into a format that looks cool. And then not to plug them but I’m going to iPhone made life easy with iMovie and everything else now everything’s, at the click of your button, you can make things look respectable. And then some the start of it, I couldn’t stand it. Right, it was the hardest thing for me is I’m a coach, I shouldn’t have to be sitting here videotaping stuff, putting it out there. But then when you realize how that built into the buy in and built into the brand, from the student athlete perspective, it was a really easy sell for me that we had to do more that we had to find a way to get creative that we had to take advantage of the opportunity of social media, and invest more time into it to create a game plan that would be successful for all party

Brett Bartholomew

and that’s funny. I’m a coach, so I shouldn’t have to do this. How many other professions do you think, have said that over the years? we have a Like, I’m a dentist, why should I have to do this? we’re a hospital, why should we have to tell people, that we’re the best choice for their healthcare needs? Or, I’m a business owner, why should I have to do that? And the reality is, everybody’s got to do that. It’s just a story you tell? And getting people aware of that. And so other than social media, have there been other different things technology wise that you’ve kind of that you’ve utilized? That have been a huge kind of time saver for you?

Michael Silbernagel

Oh, I don’t know what necessarily time saver but I think an efficiency aspect which in terms of just teaching athletes a different way using an iPad using video for feedback to show someone whether that’s true Turn into play or whether that’s just something as simple as, working on technique. That’s what these athletes are used to now, they have huddle, they have everything at their fingertips in terms of instant video, that they really thrive on that ability to see some kind of coaching queue right now. And it doesn’t have to be every single workout to where you’re constantly stuck to a phone or a tablet, but to where you can at least use it when need be to get those services out to make those things happen.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, yeah, well said. So when you talked about that initially starting to use whether social media technology, there were some inherent frustrations that you mentioned, and I know the same was true with me. What are two other topics that you are kind of, and you can use this word however you want. But I’m just going to kind of say it’s straightforward, embarrassed that you don’t know more about, and that can be performance wise, it can be business, that can be anything and it doesn’t even have to be work related. But what are two areas outside of our traditional area of, expertise that you’re like, Man, I really to invest more time in that.

Michael Silbernagel

I think one that’s come in as you’ve been in the business longer and longer is retirement. It’s not often talked about in terms of, what do you need to do to save? What should you be saving? How much should you be putting away? as you’re growing a family, etc? What is the difference between keeping a roof over your head and planning for the future? That’s been kind of eye opening in terms of how little I actually didn’t know about that. And then the other one off topic is I went to Colorado for six years, and everyone fly fishing, or skiing. And I feel like I just missed the boat on two fantastic opportunities.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, no, absolutely. I met somebody the other day on a plane that he was just he was an avid fly fisherman describing that, and that dude was just going in and, telling me all the intricacies of it. Now, the bad part is I was trying to sleep, you know, and I think he talked the whole five an hour, half hour trip, but now I feel like I need to, buy a ticket to Montana. So regarding retirement, you know, and you don’t have to share this or what have you, you know, like prior to that, or prior to even you diving into it a little bit more, had you been saving? Had you been investing? Like, if so, kind of what did you do? and noting that anybody listening to this, coaches and providing investing advice, neither am I, we’re just talking about a topic. So but, did you do? And how have you kind of changed that approach to be more robust there?

Michael Silbernagel

I think I started like, probably anybody, you know, got into my first job, and they’re like, hey, we’ll put this much into to retirement, do you want to match it? or you’re gonna lose it? I’m like, Well, I’m a farm kid, it makes sense to match it. You know, it’s money there. And you just kind of wrote it, right? Like, there is no checking into something. And what stocks is it in? It was like option A, B, or C, and you’re like, which one’s the safest? I’ll take that one, because I’m a young kid who’s a chicken. And now it’s more so sitting down with a financial planner, and looking at all my options, and different times throughout the year meeting up and going, should we be investing a bit more monthly, continuing to add to this portfolio, making sure it’s diverse enough? And then taking all the other aspects into the equation and try to make the most educated guesstimate that you can at this point in time, because you’re talking hopefully, years out? Before this thing comes to an end?

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, hopefully. And I know you have an empire up there. And I think they’re building a statue of you from what I’ve heard, Have you thought worst case scenario what if we got fired? Or, what, if something happened with the university where there’s, significant funding cuts? Do you have like a backup plan? Do you have anything like that kind of ready to roll on? Or is it still something that you feel like, I’ve got to develop I’ve got to think about a little bit when and where I’m coming at that is like, from a programming standpoint, right. We talked about beginning with the end in mind and working backwards. I think it’s interesting. We don’t often really do that from a career standpoint.

Michael Silbernagel

Well, I guess part of my thought process, obviously, number one is you want to do this as long as you can, but I’ve also got a teaching degree and worst case section say worst case scenario, but to me if it comes a time to get out of this profession, I have an opportunity to to hopefully get into the education system and work from a teaching standpoint. Or could go back on the farm and see if dad let me work some cattle

Brett Bartholomew

and is that something you even talk to your staff about, of you obviously want them to focus on the job at hand, you’re not going to sit down with them and you know, say, Hey, we got all these athletes to take care of in we need to make sure we’re on on point here. I know that’s going to take the foremost by like as a staff education or even an off day like is that something you have in your curriculum, you’ve been talking to them, even if they you’re an intern or first year coach, you ever just say hey, like, cuz I think there’s some naivete there. I think first year coaches are kinda, all they want to do is showcase their grind. And this and that it’s been a topic, we’ve kind of hammered on this podcast a little bit, but I’m interested, like, do you think that is your responsibility or our responsibility to discuss with those kinds of learning,

Michael Silbernagel

I think you need to make them aware of it. And that’s where I actually do use one of my experiences, and I was 27 years old. And the football coach got let go where we were at, and I had a six month old kid, and I remember getting told in the tunnel before we played a football game, hey, last night, Coach A got let go. And it’s going to be an interesting next few months, and I’m going I have no connections 27 in this field, I’ve got a six month old. Okay, like I was lost, I was shell shocked, and then want to pass that kind of information on to my staff have, we got to make sure that we understand how things can unfold, and change quickly. Now that kind of goes back to that, you know, trying to prepare them for life statement that I made early on.

Brett Bartholomew

It’s something that can definitely be It’s shunned People don’t like to talk about it. But I do think and I’d like your take on this as well. I do think that if people aren’t thinking about kind of the end of their career, even when they’re maybe so in the beginning of it, what have you if they don’t have some kind of idea, worst case scenario, contingency plan, whatever in place. I think that impacts your coaching. Because I think that naivete like kind of, it may not at first because at first you’re just kind of rolling off the high of I’m coaching, I’m in this I love the profession, I got free gear, I’m lifting this couldn’t be better. But then eventually you kind of hear, it’s kind of like you hear one ghost story. And you’re like, I don’t believe that, you know, that ghost story in this example, could be like, Man, somebody had to leave the field or somebody had to do this, then you hear another ghost story. You know, maybe this time somebody, you know, their contract, someone’s goofy with it. Yeah, that won’t happen to me. But then you start hearing enough of them. And you’re like, Alright, maybe I believe in ghosts, and bad analogy there. But the point being, if people aren’t thinking about that stuff, do you think it can affect how they go about the job, even the level of cynicism they have towards the field, or their ability to focus on long term, things that are good for their family, so they can continue to serve others?

Michael Silbernagel

Human nature, right, whether we’re talking about this field, or just life, how many times you have someone that you care about that you don’t interact with enough, and then all of a sudden, they’re suddenly gone. I think that’s just kind of the human nature element of things is we don’t realize, we live in the now so much, we don’t realize how can affect our future. While at the same time, I 100% agree with you that as we continue to get going in this, the cynical nature is the only direction that really can happen because of the unknown, because of what we want to keep to ourselves as you started hearing these ghost stories, as you say, of people that we may know, no longer in their profession, and all of a sudden, you you’re kind of the only one left in the room.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, without a doubt. And I think, I always like to bring the listeners into this, because I want them to be active participants in the podcast, but any of you listening to this, it brings up an interesting thought, I’d love you guys to email info@artofcoaching with things that have kind of scared you on that front, or what strategies you guys have used, if you haven’t thought about it, or even if you have a story where you’re like, Hey, I didn’t think about it. And then this happened. Like, it’d be interesting to discuss kind of those case studies and see what you’ve done. Because if you look at it, I think this, I’m double checking my, my source here. Yeah, fidelity says it like by age 30, you should have one time your salary recommended savings, right. And all these figures, I’m about to go through a recommended savings by fidelity. And just like any research article, right, we can always find a point counterpoint. So there’s going to be other resources out there that may say different, this is just general, they say by age 35, we should have two times our salary saved by age 40 3 times it goes all the way up by age 60, you should at eight times your salary saved. And so I get it. And we’ve talked about it a little bit in the past that none of us get into this field for the money but the numbers are really objective and in your face, that money still does matter in this field. And that’s a realization that you come to I think, maybe differently for everybody. But for me once I didn’t just have a crock pot to support but I actually had a wife, and I’m like, yeah, I can’t run around saying money doesn’t matter, because one that devalues our field, which is the point of a future episode. I think a lot of what we do devalues our field and makes people think they can’t pay us. And too it’s just not reality. I mean, how many of you out there coach do you? I know I’m 32 do right now. And we’re discussing this when it comes out, I’ll be 33. I do not have currently two times my salary saved up, especially because I’m self employed. So a lot of my annual salary goes right back into the business, or buying new training stuff for athletes that I work with or anything like that. Like, are you on point with all those numbers?

Michael Silbernagel

No.

Brett Bartholomew

How old Are you coahc

Michael Silbernagel

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, so by 40 three times our salary we have to have in savings. That’s crazy, you know? And that’s like, that’s conservative. That’s why they recommend.

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah, because it’s something that like I said, it’s so you’ll think about enough, right? Because you’re never looking in the future, you’re living in the now. That’s at least that’s been my problem. You know, I’m worried about making sure I have enough coffee in the coffee pot.

Brett Bartholomew

And no doubt I’m well, I’m again, like it’s a service based field, we’re worried about athletes and all those things. But it goes, it’s full circle. Like if you go home, and you can’t afford certain things, or you can’t provide certain things like you’re coming to work, and you’re not your best self, you know what I mean? You’re not getting the sleep you need, you’ve had arguments with your significant other because things are getting tight. And then you’re supposed to go pour all this emotional energy into other people, then inevitably, that’s kind of what research shows a cycle of burnout leads to, like, this sense of emotional exhaustion has nothing to do with commitment, if anything, it’s over commitment. And it’s something we talk about, like in an online course, that that we have on artofcoaching.com. But it’s definitely uncomfortable. So moving on from that, things that you had been embarrassed about things that you probably haven’t invested enough time in. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. In order for us to move forward as a field, or their strength coach kind of cliches that you think need to be put to rest, like things that maybe you’ve heard on a lot of podcasts are. And this isn’t disrespecting any of these coaches. Right, but like just what’s really bad advice you keep hearing people give to others.

Michael Silbernagel

Oh, man, where do I start? I think for me, the first one is the statement of pay your dues? Because it said was such a blanket meaning that you take that for what you want to write like, what is paying your dues me and like, I’m supposed to wipe the underside of the benches and make sure that no one stuck gum underneath them? Or does it mean you may have to grind as a graduate assistant to get your master’s degree. Moving forward anchors are two drastically different routes yet that pay your dues blanket statement covers both of them. Were I think one, come on, man, I don’t think you cleaning the underside of my benchpress is really beneficial to your career path. Where I do think getting a master’s degree paid for and learning how to coach in a system is very beneficial. So that’s one kind of statement that I wish wouldn’t be said anymore. Because it also starts a wildfire right? You either agree with that statement or you disagree. It creates a divide between between people in terms of what it is the other cliche piece, I guess or thing.

Brett Bartholomew

It’s good to have you thank you don’t have to answer quick. That’s the point of these kinds of matters. that’s the value of this right like not scripted just thinking about it. So take your time

Michael Silbernagel

I say it with a little bit of it’s going to come across maybe the wrong way. And I hope it doesn’t. But I wish more people would say go to a place where you’re going to have the chance to learn. Go to a place to where you’re going to get to evolve your craft, I don’t care if that’s private setting Collegiate High School, you name it, don’t follow a logo or division perception. Follow the best route to grow as an individual.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, and a lot of people then follow that up I find when I give because I give the same advice. And I think it’s good advice. But then they say well, how do I know what’s best for me? And it’s like, usually what I say is listen, you can discern that, where do you feel like you need more upskilling and if you can’t identify those things if you don’t know where you need to have more upskilling or those things like that, that lends itself back to like well you got to do some deeper thinking and diving into where you’re at and assessing your needs but I couldn’t agree more. I mean both with my experience at Southern Illinois like that being able to coach and as much as I did and do all that was huge. And then even though I was told like don’t go private sector the bottom line is that was the only job that was that was open after I had applied and all these other things for other positions and I don’t think I would have been the coach without it because it taught me so many different things and I had to coach different groups rapidfire but at the same time, it’s that blend if somebody’s like, what’s one thing you credit to you been able to grow? And like it was the blend? It’s not following the logo, it’s not doing all the things that you said, Did you ever kind of go down that path? At one time? Did you ever think that you had to be at a certain place at a certain university, or in a certain role, like Did that ever get the best of you

Michael Silbernagel

wholeheartedly The majority of my career, small town kid wanted to prove people wrong, like every step of the way, it was all I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna keep doing it. In some ways that may have been beneficial to me in terms of the mindset I had, and some ways that may have hurt me in terms of I missed opportunities that presented themselves, I was chasing something bigger. But I think as I evolved through this aspect of a coach and marriage and fatherhood and all that fun stuff, I got to where I’m at now, and to me, it’s the destination became as a result of the process, just like what you said, I wouldn’t have had the thought process acknowledged or not done. What I did.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah. And we’ve talked a little bit about advice to give, coaches earlier in their careers and stuff, but a lot of coaches listening to this could be 10 20 30 years into it. Where do you think they’re lacking, even though knowing that some people listening to this are way smarter than you and me combined and have done more for the field than we have and whatever else. But, just if you’re going to be critical, and you’re talking to a friend that has years in the game, and is killing it, like, what what advice do you think even more veteran coaches aren’t following that? Maybe they give to others, and they’re not listening to themselves? And guys, whatever his answer is to this, take it as a discussion, right? this is like, if we’re in a room, and we’re like, Alright, guys, there’s five of us. We’ve all been in the game a bit. Let’s call bullshit. What are we still doing wrong? Right? This is the tone that it should be in. So don’t, get weird or offended, like engage in the discussion and write in with your own thoughts, if you want to voice your opinion. But Coach, what would you say?

Michael Silbernagel

Not taking enough time for ourselves? everyone who used you said it, we’re a service based profession, and we invest all we can. But how much time do we take to go on vacation? I mean, I got married, and the next day I was working a sports team. And that’s not something I’m bragging about. That’s something I’m looking back on going why didn’t I ask for the day off?

Brett Bartholomew

But we have bragged about.

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah, I mean, wholeheartedly, and now it’s to the point of man. And it wasn’t the guy I was working for. That was the problem I didn’t even ask, right, because I was like, I’m above this, like, my new wife understands my field and my profession and,whatever else. And it for me, it hit home, right when I was at Division One, and I came home one time, and I was actually at home and a friend came over to watch a NFL game and my son is three answers the door and he’s like, oh, where’s dad, and my kid points the TV. And you sit there and you go, that’s something that really, I mean, you want to talk a sock to your stomach, you’re thinking you’re doing this for them. And so that, to me, is something because guess what, now we try to go on a family vacation, we try to I’m not saying I’m perfect. And I’ve come out of this all about my job mentality that a lot of us still have. But I do try to take time for them at a much higher level. Right now. I’ll be picking my son’s up from school here shortly. Because that’s now something that’s important to me.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, that would hit I can relate to a degree in that when my wife and I got married, I had saved up a bunch of money. And she had been just a ride or die person through and through. So I wanted to, we really value travel. Like we don’t spend much on material things. But like travel is something we value. And so, we both really wanted to go to South Africa. So I redeemed every airline point that I had, I redeemed just all this stuff. And we went and I only scheduled that for four days, because I couldn’t be gone that long. You know, not because I couldn’t I mean, there was a combination of that, but also, like, just wasn’t allowed to. And I remember recounting that story one time and like it was kind of hard to not tear up. When I decided to go out on my own. I was wondering, I was telling somebody why I did that. I just remember I just had to go out of my own at this point in time because I remember that experience and I don’t want to have to choose between my wife and that like I don’t think there’s ever a perfect balance but I do think there’s better cohesion than that. And we talked about sacrifice and the sacrifices we make which is a questionable term in general, but like nod huge nod to the significant others out there, male, female, whatever, like they’re really the ones that have to come front center even before our athletes because They empower us to do what we’re going to do. And I’ll go as far as saying this, I applied for a crazy high annual fee credit card one year. And, I pay it off every month. So if you’re like Dave Ramsey guy, spare me, I’m joking, but like, we pay it off. But the reason I did it is because it came with this fourth night free thing where it says, you know, any hotel is many times a year, if you stay three nights, we’ll cover your fourth night free. So even if you stay at like kind of a mid tier like hotel, you’re gonna get the money back for that annual fee easily. And we did you know, like we have every year. But the point is, I applied for that. Because if my wife and I don’t commit to taking at least four days for ourselves a year, I know that not only am I a crappy husband, but I’m going to have to forfeit that annual fee, and so it’s almost kind of like what you hear when people, they make bets. And it’s like, if you lose, you’ve got to donate to, the political party that you ate, or whatever, like, I did that, I take a huge sock in the wallet, if I can’t prioritize that. And that works for me, it’s not going to work for everybody, but knowing like, Hey, we’ve got to do this, not only because we should, but because it’s gonna rip money out of our pocket. If we don’t. And it’s we’ve probably got three to four times the value of that card back every year.

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah, I’ve got a strength and conditioning department you can donate to if you don’t make that happen.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, yeah, I’ll make sure but I like you. So that wouldn’t be I’d want to do that anyway. No, but I think you hit the nail on the head there. And, it’s I think that feeds into the question I was going to ask, but you hit like, what’s that common? We always ask what’s good advice, but it’s like now what’s good advice that you should? Or what’s advice that you should actually ignore? Would you say it fits into that still? Like, do you think people should ignore this kind of self sacrificial martyrdom thing that you’ve got to do this to be the best you got, like, Whatever happened to just now you got to do good work, and probably be good to people and be patient and be creative to be the best? You know? What do you think is advice they should ignore?

Michael Silbernagel

Well, I’m gonna branch out a little bit, but maybe stuff that doesn’t apply to them at that time of their life. You know, there’s so many things that apply to me differently. Now, being in this for 15 years that apply to a first year GA, we’ve got so much information that you know, date myself, there was no, you’re talking like Interlibrary Loan to get some books and stuff like that back in grad school. Versus now you have everything on your fingertips, with your phone. Being able to decipher what really needs to be known, is also part of it. You don’t have to be a perfectionist six months in to the profession.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, that’s a good point. And yeah, I think for anybody listening, I think you don’t just ask people what what advice you have, I’d actually say what advice you think I should ignore? This is a pretty interesting question for a lot of reasons. But that can get whittled down and locked in. Alright, so let’s talk about this. We talked about planning, we’ve talked about adapting evolving contingencies. Inevitably, when we step into new roles and leadership roles, you’re gonna get overwhelmed, you’re gonna get caught off guard. I mean, I had one of those shitstorm days yesterday, where like, I went to bed feeling pretty defeated. And I was not caught off guard by stuff, but just more so overwhelmed because of my lack of ability to I don’t know, manage time, effectively, and delegate, which was also constricted by other things that happen. When you get overwhelmed or caught off guard, what are some strategies that you use to get back on track that kind of go beyond just like, good time management? even when that fails? Like, what do you do when you’re overwhelmed? How do you cope with it?

Michael Silbernagel

Well, for starters, it’s a continual work in progress a couple of years ago, and that first Avengers movie came out. One of my athletes came in and asked me about it. I was like, coach, do you watch it yet? I’m like, No. And they’re like, well, there’s this part of Bruce Banner. They’re like, so what do you do get angry so fast? He’s like, Oh, he’s always be angry. They’re like, we thought of you. And right away, I’m like, sweet, I’m the hawk. And then I realized that meant that I was always angry. But it did allow me to take a step back and I, kind of go back to my roots. Now I start thinking like a farmer. My dad taught me growing up that very seldom does plan a workout. You have to have a plan, ABC. I mean, I remember on days that we were on like Double Z, and I’m like, how could I have crossed all this stuff off because it didn’t work the way I wanted it to. And that’s been something that’s really allowed me to go you know what this isn’t working. But the next thing might not, the next thing will, but it might. And that’s allowed me to kind of take a deep breath in those moments and count to 10.

Brett Bartholomew

So let’s not get too into that. And so, I think when we think of coping strategies, there’s a lot of different things, =and at the time of us talking, mindfulness is always a huge thing people talk about ironically, like, I’m not really the meditating type, like if I am that’s got to be hiking or when I’m boxing kind of hitting the heavy bag it’s I find that even jump roping and this kind of harkens back to me boxing I had a coach that we’d have to friggin jump rope for like an hour, three days a week, at our practice quote unquote, but anything kind of rhythmic and active and, low to moderate intensity is always really kind of I don’t know meditative for me. But that’s Imagine you’re in that day, you’ve gotten overwhelmed, you’re caught off guard, you failed at a lot of stuff. And it’s just been a full day of nothing but coaching groups admin putting out fires, you’re about to walk out the door, and you don’t want to take that kind of baggage home and you still need to train. What are you doing when you’re like, Alright, I got 15 to 30 minutes. That’s about all I can pour into this. What are some things you’re doing? What’s that training session look like? Just one example.

Michael Silbernagel

One is, I’m a former power lifter. So to me, it’s lift heavy stuff. Right?

Brett Bartholomew

It’s even if he got 15 minutes,

Michael Silbernagel

I got 15 minutes, it might be one movement, it might be finding a way to get that just released real quick and leave. But that’s also evolved to where I now have a little setup in my basement with a TRX, some bands and an Aerodyne bike. And I’ll tell my kids, hey, give me 15 to 20. And I’ll bust out some interval training on that Airdyne. And I’ll hit a little push pull kind of nonstop circuit with the TRX. And the bands and a walk out with smiley face.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, give me 15 minutes and I’ll be a better dad talk to you soon. Like I said even last night, like it was 10:30. Again, I had one of those days. And there’s some times where I’ll do what you did one exercise or even just a big three. And then there’s some times where I’ve learned to just chill out a little bit and do whatever the hell I feel like like even if it was just kind of a GPP 3030 circuit and I’m like, Alright, I got the strongman sandbag I got a Versa pulley so I can do you know, like a rotational row here, I can do you know, some kind of press or TRX foot elevated push up if I don’t want to get a lot of equipment out, and I can do a sled push whatever you know, or even like a verse a climber. But what I found is sometimes I was going down the rabbit hole of every time I trained, it had to be perfect written down periodized. And I think I quit being so obsessive about that. When life demanded that, I still look at every week and I’m like, Ryan, I know I’ve got to clean I know I’ve got a squat. I know I gotta pull. But there’s also got to be days where you just go out into the garage or go do whatever the hell you feel I can say, You know what? I checked it off. Because I think in our field, like, we have a tendency to continue to prepare, like we are getting ready to always compete compete, whether it’s going to live with another strength staff or what have you. And then I looked when and I’m like, hey, I want to be stronger than the average dude, for sure. But I also want to be active at 80. And I don’t know if the way that I always used to train and how obsessively I always used to train the lended itself to that. So there’s times where like, if I get off an 18 hour flight to China, I’m probably not going to squat for the 24 hours out or back squat after the 24 hour and Dan Baker and I talked about that like after a long trip probably not squatting or dead lifting for 24 hours I might go do a dumbbell complex and the quote unquote fitness center and then do some treadmill sprints, but you’ve got to be adaptable. Do you not

Michael Silbernagel

Oh, wholeheartedly. The summertime. I like habit. We got tires out here. Prowlers we got hills in North Dakota. So those are kind of my go to is in the summertime wintertime. Not so much.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, play the long game there. What’s one thing that you go from a training standpoint, again, that you used to believe in wholeheartedly? Like nobody could convince you otherwise? That you look back now? And you kind of laugh? You’re like, wow, not that it was dumb, but just maybe it was even the way you thought about it. But is there anything that you can hit on that?

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah, that we had to? I had to clean one day a week snatch one day a week and push your one day a week?

Brett Bartholomew

Clean snatch and pusher?

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah. You know, like it was just, you had to do the three Olympic movements.

Brett Bartholomew

powerlifter

Michael Silbernagel

Yeah, I know. It’s ironic. A whole different level. But to where now, you know, even with my athletes, we’ve taken some of those movements out and focused on getting really good at one of them. rather than being mediocre at all three, let’s get really good. We still go from the hang or from the blocks from the floor, you know, full power, however you want to work at it. But something when I first started coaching, I thought no one, you know, one day you have to do a clean variation. The next day, you have to do a snatch variation, and you have to do a push up variation, or the program is faulty.

Brett Bartholomew

Especially because we get these books that tell us here’s how the Soviets did it, or here’s how somebody else did it. And it’s like, I don’t know if it’s in science and practice I got to do this or if it’s and it’s so many people miss the forest for the trees. Like that book is not necessarily telling you you need to replicate their programs. They’re showing you principles in which they’re based upon, right and it’s interesting because coaches will just keep buying more and more training books more and more training Books More more training books and, it’s like they just love being told what to do. And it’s like, come on, like, you learned so much about this not only just reading the books, but actually going out and doing it yourself. Like I learned so much more about periodization 12 years in the game when I started traveling more, because when I was in the collegiate side as a GA, you travel on rotating weeks, but not a ton. And even when you did travel, it was a bit different, right, it was usually local or national travel. When I first started in the private sector, though, that’s when I really started hitting a ton of international travel last year, I hit 42 flights of nine hours or more. And then you start realizing some things you used to program in the past. You talk about how travel impacts performance, and we research it and we know it, but I don’t think a lot of coaches always really feel it, there is nothing like getting off of a nine to 18 hour flight and being like, oh, maybe I’m not adapting my athletes programs enough, even though they’re not hitting those flights, like it’s all relative to them. Some of them, have other interpersonal stressors that they don’t deal with, as well as you do, because you’re not as you know what I mean, they’re not as old or they don’t have the resources. And so I just started realizing I wrote some training sessions in the past that probably downregulated a bit for travel, but not as much as I should have, or just maybe not as creatively as I should have. like, when you travel you do, what are the things that you notice that you like? When would you not pay enough attention to what were situations where you felt like, Alright, I need to spend a little bit more time on this. And maybe I should be doing that for my athletes as well.

Michael Silbernagel

Well, we’ve wholeheartedly taken that concept with our athletes, especially since our conference is spread out and we’re not playing run a boss. So we’ve actually built in downregulated weeks based off of our home or away schedule and where those away games are. If we’re playing at home, we might be a little bit more aggressive. Whereas if we’re on the road, we’re coming back. And so might actually look at it as like a D load week on paper, but you’re at a 12 hour bus ride being contorted, no matter what your size is, those things are comfortable for 12 hours. Most of the time, we’re dehydrated, right, because we don’t want to push fluids when we have one of those little shared bathrooms with you know, 50 60 individuals. So those are things malnourishment, you’re stopping at a gas station, and you’re cheap. So you’re just going for the quickest option, rather than the best option are all things that we’ve now kind of looked at how we adapt that to our student athletes training.

Brett Bartholomew

I think that’s huge. And anybody that wants to kind of dive a little bit more into the travel adaptation side of things my friend David Joyce, with at the time of this recording, is with the Greater Western Sydney Giants does some tremendous work out there. And David is a warm, erudite, compassionate guy that is awesome. Be respectful of his time, but reach out to him if you want to learn more on that side, because he’s awesome.

Coach, as we wrap up, and you’ve touched on a number of things, I mean, from defining your standards, the myth of kind of paying your dues and other cliche pieces of advice, the difference between facilitating and coaching, one thing I still kind of want to know is, they say write the book that you want to read, what is the book you feel that nobody in our field has written yet that theoretically, you would like to read or write like What is that book where you feel like we’re still not kind of diving into enough

Michael Silbernagel

I’m, a joke about it because one of my former GA is actually told me I need to write a book that’s called shit they don’t teach you to book

Brett Bartholomew

what would be in that.

Michael Silbernagel

But I don’t know if we talk enough about the practical aspect of things that science is the foundation but everyday life is going to change those things. You mentioned some of it, sleep, stress, hydration, all those aspects, not being afraid to make a change, like so often. I know as a coach, sometimes you put things down at what’s on eat, I can’t change it. I don’t want to admit fault. How do you deal with coaches or personalities? those are being not being married to a philosophy but being based in principles to where you can work with more individuals in a non confrontational way while both parties still getting what you want out of it.

Brett Bartholomew

Yeah, I agree. And even just something that compels people to do the work themselves as opposed to read it. I remember you know, I wrote conscious coaching for a reason I was tired of communication and leadership books and just talked about things in Fortune Cookie sound bites, like pure about your athletes understand the other person like when we did the archetype when the archetype section and had to be not only what they were but how to identify them how to communicate with them, strengths and weaknesses, mistakes to avoid, like getting really tactical. And even after that, I was like, Alright, I want to get more tactical. So I put out the field guide, just as free PDF, but then coaches still like sometimes will read that stuff and not like commit to it. So I even add on to what you’re saying. And I think that’s a great point like shit They don’t teach you in books, but like, stuff you’re not going to do just by reading a book, like put your butt in a chair and write down and create an action plan and commit to that, and get things like stuff. This book won’t teach you how to put this into practice how to do that, ask yourself tough questions. It’s, I do think you should write that book but what would be the cover of that book?

Michael Silbernagel

Oh, man, it probably just you know, the North Dakota landscape.

Brett Bartholomew

The The big lesson you’re gonna need to take before everyone before we sign off, you got to tell them the baked potato story because this was my this was the indelible part of North and coach likes to riff on me because he’s like, Oh, you’re a private sector guy and whatever. And so I get my own jokes and and him but why don’t you tell them that the baked potato story there and how it’s representative of the folks up there and no doubt country

Michael Silbernagel

at all. It’s a meat and potatoes story, right? I mean, we went out to eat that night and had a steak and a phenomenal, loaded baked potato that I think they carved the insides out of and loaded up with about a pound of bacon, covered it up with cheese and then put more bacon on top. I mean, it was it was every strong man’s piece of beauty.

Brett Bartholomew

The best part of that is, you can imagine this waiter comes by I’m just watching coach crush this guy and the guy the waiter comes back and he’s like, Can I get you anything else? And I’m like, listen, is this like the old 96 year where he gets a t shirt for finishing? that baby essentially. And he goes buddy, and he looked at me deadpan in the face, and there was a long silence. And he goes, This is North Dakota. We don’t give T shirts for baked potatoes and just like dropped the metaphorical mic and walked away. I’m like, Good Lord, why I think that that is a good representation of the advice you gave, you look at the meat and potatoes and you say okay, it can be served different ways we can adapt it but it’s always gonna kind of cover your bases and all those things and is there anything that we didn’t cover that you just been kind of burning to share that you think that you’d like other people to know either about the work you’re doing up there, how they can connect with you or anything else coach

Michael Silbernagel

I think the easiest way is they can connect with us on either on social media, @UMarystrength on Twitter, and Instagram. And I’ll make sure that you get my contact information for emails, etc.

Brett Bartholomew

Perfect. Well, thanks again for the time and guys don’t be hesitant to reach out just again, make sure you respect everybody’s time be specific with your questions. Coach Selby is a wealth of knowledge and he shares and I think that’s something that more of us got to do. Your opinions are always welcome guys. Make sure to visit artofcoaching.com we’re creating more member forums, things like that where you guys can kind of voice what you’re struggling with, what you what you kind of want to connect on and how we can continue to make the community and craft and coaching more robust coach. Thanks again for your time.

Comments

Dylan Hogan April 20, 2019
Reply

Another great one, got to get a segment on how egotistical some of us coaches can be. Tried an exercise recently that I saw on another 2 strength coaches’ IG. After the first time I commented regarding its difficulty & efficiency so they replied to try again & make another video. I did so adding a variation to it that made more sense and asked their opinions. Bith ignored the tag (idt they liked my moderation & took it personally)

Cart

TRANSCRIPT

Leave a Comment
Cancel reply

TRANSCRIPT

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Leave a Comment
Cancel reply