Curiosity: The Choice That Changes Everything

Curiosity: The Choice That Changes Everything

Judgment arrives first. Before you have all the information. Before you know the full story. It is not a flaw. It is human. But if it is all we have, we stop growing. And so does everyone around us. In this episode, I explore curiosity as a deliberate choice. Not a personality trait. Not something you either have or you do not. A shift you can make in any moment that changes everything about what happens next. We get into: Why expertise makes judgment worse, not better  The Taylor Swift story and what Nashville's best label executives missed  Curiosity to learn versus curiosity to know, and why the shift matters  The piano analogy: why your mastery is not the problem, but playing new keys makes the music richer  A personal story about Starburst, a grandmother, and one pause that changed an entire night  The Dutch Football Federation research on relative age and what it reveals about what coaches are actually selecting for  Anson Dorrance and what curiosity looks like with twenty-one national championships  What Arteta's second-place finish teaches about groundedness and joy in the process Ten percent more curiosity creates exponentially more joy. That is not a slogan. That is what I have experienced. And this episode is about showing you what that looks like across youth, college, and professional sport. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/]  If this resonates, I work 1:1 with sport leaders who want to lead themselves first, so they can show up differently for the people they coach.  Learn more at acumencollective.co

Powerful Questions: Reaching Beyond the Head

Questions shape every interaction we have. With our kids, our teams, our partners. But most of the time, we ask questions that close people down instead of opening them up. In this episode, I break down the difference between yes/no questions, why questions, open questions, and powerful questions.  I explore Daniel Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 thinking, and why real behavior change only happens when you move someone past automatic responses. Each level of sport, youth, college, and professional, gets its own example of what this looks like in practice. This is not about being softer. It is about understanding what each question actually does to the person in front of you. Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/]  acumencollective.co Interested in 1:1 coaching? I help sport leaders lead themselves first, so they can show up differently for the people they coach. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/]  If this resonates, I work 1:1 with sport leaders who want to lead themselves first, so they can show up differently for the people they coach.  Learn more at acumencollective.co

Being and Doing

Most of us know the feeling. You pour yourself into something. You care deeply. You do the work. And somewhere along the way, you realize there is a quiet disconnection between who you are and what you are doing every day. I know that feeling from the inside. I built a company called Beyond Pulse for seven years. The mission was real. I believed in it completely. And still, the distance between the why and the daily reality had me drifting without fully realizing it. This episode is where the philosophy behind the whole series finally lands. Every tool we have explored so far, listening, the saboteur, all of it, flows from one idea. Being before doing. And the order matters. We get into: * What the being actually is and why it lives in the body before the mind * The difference between leading from doing and leading from being * Why a twelve-year-old reads your energy before your words * Josete in Spain and what it means to stay yourself when the environment pulls hardest * Ken Lolla at Louisville and what being looks like at the highest level * Three questions that start the most important work a coach can do * Why you have to design your life to return to your being, again and again The being shapes the doing. Not the other way around. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/]  If this resonates, I work 1:1 with sport leaders who want to lead themselves first, so they can show up differently for the people they coach.  Learn more at acumencollective.co

The Saboteurs - The inner critics running your team

I never thought I was running a critical inner voice. I was just moving too fast to hear it. Then I went through Co-Active training. Hundreds of hours of coaches coaching coaches. You can't hide behind the theory when someone is always sitting across from you, paying attention. And somewhere in those sessions, I heard it. The saboteur. And everything changed. In this episode, I walk through what the saboteur actually is, where it comes from, and how it is quietly running your locker room right now. We cover the Judge, the nine accomplice saboteurs, and what neuroscience tells us about why you cannot be fully present and in judgment at the same time. We get into: * What the saboteur is and why it feels like the truth * The Judge and the three directions it points * The nine accomplice saboteurs and the ones most common in sport * How you are authoring your athletes' inner voice every single day * The Anson Dorrance approach to comparison and why transparency works * What this means for youth, elite, and professional athletes * And the question that rarely gets asked in coaching rooms: how are you actually doing? Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/]  If this resonates, I work 1:1 with sport leaders who want to lead themselves first, so they can show up differently for the people they coach.  Learn more at acumencollective.co

Are you really listening to your athletes?

I never thought I was a bad listener. I just had no idea what real listening actually was. For 30 years, I was at Stage 1 without knowing it. Unconsciously incompetent. You don't know what you don't know. In this episode, I walk through the Co-Active framework that changed how I show up with athletes. Four stages of learning. Three levels of listening. And what it actually looks like on the ground with youth, college, and professional athletes. We get into: * Why most coaches are stuck at Level 1 without knowing it * What Level 2 listening looks like in a real conversation with an athlete * How Level 3 changes everything -- what isn't being said matters as much as what is * Why the kid on the bench is carrying something, and what to do about it * What elite and professional athletes actually need from a coach The athletes in front of you already have the answers. Your job is to listen at a level that lets them come forward. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamaillet/]  If this resonates, I work 1:1 with sport leaders who want to lead themselves first, so they can show up differently for the people they coach.  Learn more at acumencollective.co