BITESIZE #79 | Kevin Sinfield: Getting the best out of the people around you

We had the immense good fortune to spend an afternoon in the company of Kevin Sinfield for episode 42, a leader who provided so many golden nuggets of information. In the hard sport of rugby, we chatted about the importance of soft stuff: the ability to show our emotions, let people know we care and the power of friendship.

In this key takeaway, Kevin talks about the moment as a young boy, he realised in order to succeed he needed to get the best out of the people around it and the value it carried for the rest of his life.

For the full episode with Kevin - listen or watch: https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/podcast/kevin-sinfield

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**The Significance of Purpose in Life: Kevin Sinfield's Journey to Leadership**

In this episode, the podcast delves into the importance of purpose in life and its impact on individuals, particularly during their formative years. Kevin Sinfield, a rugby league legend, shares two pivotal moments from his childhood that shaped his leadership qualities and instilled a sense of purpose that guided his career and beyond.

**The Power of Purpose:**

- Purpose serves as a North Star, guiding individuals in their decision-making and providing direction in life.
- A survey revealed that purpose is the most critical factor for graduates, yet less than half find it in their lives.

**Experiences Shape Purpose:**

- Early experiences, whether positive or negative, can profoundly influence a person's purpose.
- Trauma can lead to triumph, as seen in the stories of Billy Monger, Ant Middleton, Tom Daley, and Dame Kelly Holmes.
- Conversely, conflict can diminish a sense of purpose, affecting energy, enthusiasm, and engagement.

**Nature and Humility:**

- A Japanese study found that nature plays a vital role in fostering purpose in young people.
- Surrounded by nature increases humility, helping individuals realize the scale of the planet and their place in it.
- In an era of self-promotion, humility is crucial for young people to develop.

**Creating Purposeful Young Leaders:**

- Establishing secure and stable relationships with parents or leaders is essential for young people to find purpose.
- Encouraging humility and getting them out into nature can help them develop a sense of wonder and perspective.
- Minimizing conflict and promoting positive experiences can increase the likelihood of young people living purposeful lives.

**Conclusion:**

Kevin Sinfield's experiences as a young boy highlight the significance of finding purpose early on. By understanding the factors that contribute to purpose, such as nature, humility, and secure relationships, we can help young people develop a sense of direction and fulfillment in their lives.

[00:00.000 -> 00:03.520] Hi there, welcome along to a bite-sized episode of the High Performance Podcast.
[00:03.520 -> 00:08.960] Listen, I want your attention for just seven or eight minutes tops, and I promise you that you
[00:08.960 -> 00:12.880] will be in a better place for what you're about to hear and the conversation that we're about to
[00:12.880 -> 00:18.480] have. I only ask one thing from you. I would love you to pass this podcast just to one person. I
[00:18.480 -> 00:22.800] don't want you to necessarily stick it on Instagram and shout to the world about it.
[00:22.800 -> 00:28.760] I just want you to pass this episode to one person who you think would really benefit from what we're about
[00:28.760 -> 00:32.400] to talk about and what you're about to hear, because that's all I want this podcast to
[00:32.400 -> 00:37.440] be. I want it to be an opportunity for more and more people to hear our guests talk about
[00:37.440 -> 00:42.360] their own version of high performance. And this is a great episode. This is rugby league
[00:42.360 -> 00:48.760] legend Kevin Sinfield. Now, if you're listening to this in the UK, you know all about the amazing career that Kevin Sinfield has had.
[00:48.760 -> 00:52.260] If you're not in the UK, and you're listening to this, let me just tell you, this is a man
[00:52.260 -> 00:57.640] who had a successful career because of heart and desire and determination and approach,
[00:57.640 -> 01:02.080] but also because of empathy. And you know what, since he's retired, he's also become
[01:02.080 -> 01:06.740] a prominent fundraiser for charities associated with motor neurone disease.
[01:06.740 -> 01:10.340] It's directly impacted some of the people closest to him.
[01:10.340 -> 01:14.540] And he has raised millions of pounds to fund the fight against the disease.
[01:14.540 -> 01:19.480] But when he joined us on the High Performance Podcast on episode 42, if you want to go back
[01:19.480 -> 01:23.900] and listen to the full conversation, he spoke to us about a couple of key moments in his
[01:23.900 -> 01:26.760] early life that he believe shaped everything
[01:26.760 -> 01:27.920] that was to come.
[01:27.920 -> 01:30.680] And after this, we're gonna talk about how we can help
[01:30.680 -> 01:33.680] other people find that purpose at a young age
[01:33.680 -> 01:35.280] to take into the rest of their lives.
[01:35.280 -> 01:37.760] But first, here's a quick bite-sized episode
[01:37.760 -> 01:41.160] of the High Performance Podcast with Kevin Sinfield.
[01:43.800 -> 01:47.400] I was determined not to be a bloke who propped up a bar somewhere and said,
[01:47.800 -> 01:48.640] coulda, woulda, shoulda.
[01:49.280 -> 01:52.760] I wanted to get rid of all of that and go, I'm going to throw everything out of this
[01:53.000 -> 01:55.200] and I'll be able to live myself for the rest of my life if it don't work.
[01:55.560 -> 01:57.840] But if it does, we're going to have some good times.
[01:58.720 -> 02:03.920] The second one, and I get asked this quite a bit because it was captain at a
[02:03.920 -> 02:05.520] professional club for 13 years
[02:05.520 -> 02:12.560] and that's quite a long time when you think I got given the job at 22 and seen a whole
[02:12.560 -> 02:20.080] host of different teams and environments within that. But I sort of got made captain of a
[02:20.080 -> 02:23.760] Lancashire team at under 10s. You're going to laugh at this, right? You're going to laugh.
[02:23.760 -> 02:28.640] But I played for Lancashire at under 9s and I'm a real proud Lancashire man, although I've
[02:28.640 -> 02:34.640] represented a Yorkshire team for my whole professional career. But I represent Lancashire
[02:34.640 -> 02:40.000] at under 9s and we were playing away at Hull and I'd been playing rugby for a couple of years and
[02:40.000 -> 02:44.080] I remember getting on this coach, driving all the way to Hull. My mum and dad were proud as punks
[02:44.080 -> 02:46.000] that little Kevin was playing i Lancashire.
[02:46.000 -> 02:48.000] Roeddwn i'n ddod o'r gwrthdwyr y diwrnod hwnnw
[02:48.000 -> 02:50.000] ac roeddwn i'n dod i mewn ar y ddau munud diwethaf.
[02:50.000 -> 02:52.000] Roeddwn i'n dod o'r bus ar y ffordd o'r ffordd i'r ôl
[02:52.000 -> 02:54.000] ar ôl y gêm, ac roeddwn i'n cofio fy mod i'n meddwl
[02:54.000 -> 02:56.000] fy mod i'n dod i'r ffordd i Hull o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r bus.
[02:56.000 -> 02:58.000] Roeddwn i'n chwarae'r ddau munud.
[02:58.000 -> 03:00.000] Roedd fy mam a'r dad yn cael fy nghyflawni, ond dwi ddim yn hapus.
[03:00.000 -> 03:02.000] Dyma ddim yn hynod i mi.
[03:02.000 -> 03:04.000] Felly, y flwyddyn nesaf, pan fydd y tîm Lanchester wedi'i ddod,
[03:04.000 -> 03:07.680] rwy'n mynd i fod yn ein. Rwy'n mynd i sicrhau fy mod i'n chwarae ar y dechrau.
[03:08.560 -> 03:13.520] Felly, y blynedd ddiwethaf, rydyn ni'n mynd i'r teithio Llanelli ac rydych chi'n cael eich rhannu i
[03:13.520 -> 03:17.600] gwahanol tîmau ac rydych chi'n rhoi pêl o gwahanol clwbau amater, clwbau cymunedol,
[03:17.600 -> 03:23.120] nawr, o ran y north-west neu o ran y rhan o Llanelli. Ac rwy'n cofio edrych ar fy mhlith
[03:23.120 -> 03:25.600] mewn meddwl, rydw i'n mynd i brynu heddiw, rydw i'n mynd i brynu i ddod allan ac i ddod allan or around the Lancashire region. I remember looking at my team thinking, I'm going to struggle today.
[03:25.600 -> 03:27.700] I'm going to struggle to stand out and get in this side
[03:28.300 -> 03:30.400] unless I can get the best out of these around me.
[03:31.400 -> 03:35.180] So I spent the next 45 minutes of this trial encouraging,
[03:35.200 -> 03:38.880] pushing, driving, motivating every single one of these
[03:38.900 -> 03:41.900] players in my team and we smashed everybody on this trial.
[03:42.400 -> 03:44.500] I get picked and I get made captain.
[03:46.120 -> 03:47.640] And I'm sure I got made captain
[03:47.640 -> 03:50.600] because of how I spoke to these kids at 10 year old,
[03:50.600 -> 03:54.320] right back in 1999, 1991.
[03:54.320 -> 03:56.840] From then on, every team I played in,
[03:56.840 -> 03:58.640] at some stage I got made captain of.
[03:59.640 -> 04:04.040] And I reckon, you know, when I roll back my career,
[04:04.040 -> 04:06.720] when people look for leaders, a lot of the time
[04:06.720 -> 04:11.400] they go to what they know or they go to somebody who has previously had that type of role.
[04:11.400 -> 04:16.640] I reckon just from being really, really fortunate, right place at the right time at different
[04:16.640 -> 04:19.760] stages in my career, you get made captain because you've done it before and you've
[04:19.760 -> 04:20.760] done a decent job.
[04:20.760 -> 04:26.920] So if you can see those two things, I'm 10 on the captaincy one,
[04:26.920 -> 04:32.240] I'm 11 at playing at Wembley, just had such an impact on my childhood and actually I've
[04:32.240 -> 04:39.360] still have a massive impact on me now. They happened and I look back and think, wow, without
[04:39.360 -> 04:46.000] those two experiences, would I be the bloke I am today? The answer would be probably not
[04:51.180 -> 04:51.720] So it's clear, isn't it from that conversation that Kevin found something at an early age at 10 or 11
[04:54.440 -> 04:54.960] That gave him purpose and there was a survey in
[05:01.280 -> 05:01.480] 2009 that spoke to 2000 graduates and it asked them what's the sort of single most important thing to carry into their lives and
[05:08.160 -> 05:11.220] They said purpose is the most important thing. But fewer than half of them succeeded in finding purpose in their lives. So first of all, why is purpose
[05:11.220 -> 05:14.920] so important? Purpose and it gets banded around, particularly
[05:14.920 -> 05:18.200] on social media purposes, the North Star purpose is the
[05:18.200 -> 05:21.560] opportunity to check yourself purposes, whenever you're making
[05:21.560 -> 05:24.400] a decision, or whenever you're going down a road, you go back
[05:24.400 -> 05:25.800] to that purpose and say is
[05:26.120 -> 05:29.560] This where I want to be going. Is this the right way for me to go?
[05:29.840 -> 05:35.840] So our job is surely to try and create purpose in our young people. Well, how do we do that?
[05:35.840 -> 05:39.280] Well again, there's been lots of studies. There's been lots of work in this area
[05:39.280 -> 05:40.920] I'm going to share a little bit with you now
[05:40.920 -> 05:46.440] The biggest thing is that experiences at a young age can give people
[05:46.440 -> 05:50.400] purpose in their lives. I mean, we've spoken on the High Performance Podcast to numerous
[05:50.400 -> 05:55.000] people who have proven the fact that trauma can lead to triumph, whether it's racing
[05:55.000 -> 06:01.360] driver Billy Munger losing his legs in an accident and choosing to face it positively,
[06:01.360 -> 06:04.880] whether it's Ant Middleton who lost his dad at a young age and he channeled that into
[06:04.880 -> 06:08.020] a successful career in the British military, whether it's Tom Middleton who lost his dad at a young age and he channelled that into a successful career in the British military, whether it's Tom
[06:08.020 -> 06:13.220] Daley who was pilloried online and lost his father to a brain tumour but still
[06:13.220 -> 06:16.900] rose beyond that to be successful, or Dame Kelly Holmes who came on high
[06:16.900 -> 06:20.280] performance and told us that she was self-harming before winning her double
[06:20.280 -> 06:27.520] gold medals. Trauma can lead to triumph. However, research carried out by psychiatrist
[06:27.520 -> 06:33.400] Patrick Hill also tells us that conflict can remove a sense of purpose from young people's
[06:33.400 -> 06:38.640] lives. Conflict is such a negative emotion for young people. It saps their energy, it
[06:38.640 -> 06:43.520] removes their enthusiasm, and it actually lowers the likelihood that they are going
[06:43.520 -> 06:45.720] to be actively engaged, that they are going to be actively engaged
[06:50.480 -> 06:51.040] That they're going to live an active engaged lifestyle and an active engaged lifestyle is
[06:54.780 -> 06:56.040] Proven to be a primary pathway to a life of purpose
[06:57.960 -> 07:05.400] so let me just say that again a Young person living surrounded by conflict is less likely to live a purposeful life. And purpose is actually linked to a
[07:05.400 -> 07:11.360] secure stable attachment to a parent. And I know that so many parents and so many teachers
[07:11.360 -> 07:16.800] listen to this podcast and that secure stable relationship between a young person and a
[07:16.800 -> 07:22.720] leader has proven to be a key element to young people finding purpose in their lives. Something
[07:22.720 -> 07:27.700] else which is interesting is nature. There was a Japanese study that revealed that nature is vital
[07:27.700 -> 07:29.200] to people finding purpose.
[07:29.200 -> 07:32.100] Young people associated beautiful images and memories of nature
[07:32.100 -> 07:34.300] with living a more purposeful life.
[07:34.300 -> 07:36.200] And the reason for that is because
[07:36.200 -> 07:37.900] when you're surrounded by nature,
[07:37.900 -> 07:39.700] it increases your humility.
[07:39.700 -> 07:41.600] When you are truly at one with nature,
[07:41.600 -> 07:44.100] you realize actually the scale of the planet.
[07:44.100 -> 07:48.080] You realize actually how unimportant all of us are.
[07:48.080 -> 07:50.520] It increases your humility.
[07:50.520 -> 07:53.480] And in this social media era of self-promotion,
[07:53.480 -> 07:55.640] and listen, there are a fair few podcasts out there
[07:55.640 -> 07:58.000] that indulge in self-promotion as well,
[07:58.000 -> 08:02.320] it removes humility, and humility is key for young people.
[08:02.320 -> 08:04.820] So how do we create a habit of humility?
[08:04.820 -> 08:10.740] Well, actually, in another study study kids who actually rated their knowledge is lower than others were found to be more intelligent
[08:11.060 -> 08:13.060] So we need to create
[08:13.720 -> 08:19.000] Humble young people with a real sense of humility. We need to get them out into nature
[08:19.000 -> 08:21.960] We need to make them realize the amazing incredible wonder of this world
[08:21.960 -> 08:25.300] We need to get them as far away from the self-promotion idea
[08:25.300 -> 08:26.400] as is humanly possible.
[08:26.400 -> 08:29.100] We need to give them secure and stable relationships
[08:29.100 -> 08:30.000] at a young age.
[08:30.000 -> 08:32.600] We need to realize that being surrounded by conflict
[08:32.600 -> 08:36.000] can directly remove them from living a life of purpose.
[08:36.000 -> 08:39.700] But also we must accept that trauma at a young age
[08:39.700 -> 08:42.300] can still lead to triumph.
[08:42.300 -> 08:47.720] And if we can find purpose as Kevin Sinfield did, then that can be the North Star that guides
[08:47.720 -> 08:51.920] people and leads to a life of gratitude and fulfillment and
[08:51.920 -> 08:55.760] serenity and happiness. Thank you so much for listening to
[08:55.760 -> 08:58.520] this short bite sized episode of the high performance podcast.
[08:59.080 -> 09:02.720] And please, please, please, if you can do one thing, it's take
[09:02.720 -> 09:04.960] on board the lessons and the learnings from the studies that
[09:04.960 -> 09:05.780] we've just talked about very, one thing, it's take on board the lessons and the learnings from the studies that we've just talked about
[09:05.780 -> 09:07.540] very, very briefly,
[09:07.540 -> 09:09.700] and pass them on to someone that you think
[09:09.700 -> 09:11.340] will really benefit
[09:11.340 -> 09:13.940] from some of our high-performance conversations.
[09:13.940 -> 09:15.820] Thank you so much for listening,
[09:15.820 -> 09:17.260] and we'll see you again soon.