Player's Own Voice Podcast Transcript: John Herdman

A warning - this episode of POV podcast includes discussion about suicide.

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Anastasia:   Recently, a little CBC sports podcast hit a big anniversary:  150 episodes!  

Not to disrespect any of our guests so far, but I have never had anyone shake me with their honesty the way John Herdman does today.

The coach who took a struggling Canadian Women's team and made them into world leaders…the same coach who turned around the Canadian Mens Soccer team…the coach who now has the Toronto Football Club in his hands...he left me speechless,  describing his circumstances at last year's World Cup.

I can't summarize, and truthfully, I'm still processing it myself.

I'm just going to say-everyone he has coached credits Herdman with changing their mindset for the better, and today I understand why.

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It's Player's Own Voice. I'm Anastasia Bucsis

All right. Well, first things first, buddy. Last time I saw you was at my wedding. So let's not pretend like we don't know each other to an extent. Diana Matheson's footwork. Better on the dance floor or the pitch?

John Herdman: Oh, on the pitch. On the pitch! You know what? We used to, do this, like, skill school, right?  With the women's team. And I used to teach something, like we call them black flash tricks. She knows what that means. And there was an Olympic qualifying game. We were like nine:nil up against one of the teams. And she pulled out one of our skill school moves man!  It's the… it's still is one of my…Stephen Eustaquio nutmegging De Bruyin was a big moment, but that was a big moment, because she really skill schooled it, man.

Anastasia: You know she told me that story I think on our second date. So it's great to hear it from you. John Herdman in a TFC kit. You living your dream! You look good.

John Herdman: TFC, Black and white. Black and white. I always end up in a black and white. Yeah, it's in my destiny.  No, I love it. This is. This is a dream to work for a proper organisation that's got great resources and can elevate your performance, your staff's performance, but more importantly, to be on the grass every day teaching, which is what I love to do.

Anastasia: Toronto has a little bit of trauma when it comes to sports. The Maple Leafs have not won since 2000 B.C. I think. How do you approach a sporting market like Toronto?

John Herdman: I've not really followed it. (laughs)

I just know that the Toronto FC team are the only team in MLS to have ever won the Treble. That's a massive feat. A huge feat. And then the Raptors, you know, I really got on board with with what they did. I thought that was pretty amazing and really galvanising for the country. It was a real motivator for our national team as well during that time.

So I think Toronto does all right, isn't it?

Anastasia: Yeah it does alright. Everyone else from from Canada has to pick on him just a tad, though.

John Herdman: Okay.

Anastasia: But you're a master of shifting mentalities. Like, where do you even start when you come to a new club like this?

John Herdman: Well you got to listen! I think that's the first thing, you got to listen. You got to bring the right people with you. I think that's something I've always done in my career. There's a group of people understand high performance. They understand the high performance psychology. But the frameworks you have to put in place. There's frameworks for this. It  just doesn't happen by chance. So when you think of the mindset, you've got to understand the context first.

And we've been listening and trying to figure out, you know, what happened this year, what happened the year before. There's been a lot of circumstances that I think aren't going to be there next year. And, we get a real fresh opportunity to to shift the mindset.

Anastasia: So I read an interview from you and I …

John Herdman: Oooh! You've done your research, eh?.

Anastasia: I've done my research!  And I do apologise because it's a little bit out of context. But you had spoken so eloquently on sports trauma and how sports trauma is a real thing. It's bonding. I would love to know just kind of your theory around the technical side, but also the humanist side of of your coaching. Do you heal sports trauma?

John Herdman: Well, I had a great teacher, Dr. Ceri Evans, who Diana ( Matheson) will know really well, because he helped, I think emotionally reconnect and heal the team in 2011. So I was, really privileged to go through a process where you really had to understand that mindset will always undermine skill set and structure. So tactically, doesn't matter how good you have them organised if the mindset is not there.

Or even your skill set, you might be the most gifted, but we see a lot of gifted players underperform. And it comes back to that mindset piece. And that mindset is always going to be self-sabotaged because there's a part in us that doesn't believe in ourselves. And then you throw the context or the environment or a culture where there's fractures where there's a lack of trust.

You know, humans tend to behave in certain ways and those, those behaviours play out in real time and particularly in high pressure performance moments. So, you know, for me, it's right back to the sports trauma. I made a commitment to make sure that the people in my care would never be traumatised by sport. They would face disappointment. But shifting a psychology, a mindset: disappointment is growth. Disappointment is the journey. It's the hero's journey. Heroes have to fall to return,  all of those things.

So you know, things that may have been traumas were no longer perceived as trauma. But I think the critical part was you were never going to take a group of athletes to a place where they felt shame and I think shame's the key word here.

They're ashamed of who they've become as an athlete or ashamed of what they've created in their sports identity or in the world that they could have influenced. So if I go back to all of it, it's about: Disappointment is okay. Failure is okay. Shame is not.

Anastasia: I'm Roman Catholic, so this sounds this feels like a confessional, to be honest.

John Herdman: Yeah? But it is!

Anastasia:  Shame is not… that was brilliant. And when you said 2011, you of course, were talking about the women's national team coming last essentially in the World Cup and then finding themselves on the bronze medal step in 2012. Do you treat yourself that way?

John Herdman: I think I can teach it better than I live it.

Anastasia: Yeah, it's hard.

John Herdman: Yeah, it is hard. It is hard. Um, you know, I think my, childhood was one where, you know, you were exposed to lot of shaming moments, you know, and I think that, uh. That has probably directed at a lot of my coaching philosophy, uh, particularly moving into teaching.

And a lot of the shaming moments I had at school. Being a hyperactive ADHD type child and, you know, being constantly, shamed in that moment at school, sent out of classrooms and all those things. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think you have to look back at the chronology of your life. You've got to look at some of the reasons, you know, why you are the way you are. But recognise that, you know, a lot of those moments have put you inside what I would always describe as a performance cage.

And a lot of us get nowhere near our potential or become a shadow of ourself in big moments because of the scripting, the reality that you had in those early years. And, you know, I think, I go back to Dr. Ceri Evans. He helped us understand some of the realities that are dealt with and how they were impacting me as an adult. Which, you then start to weave that into a coaching philosophy. Understanding yourself, some of the things that are holding you back. And I don't think you're ever cured of it. You're never cured of it. You know, you you're always. I typically take them back to some dark places, but it's how quick you can get back to that performance space.

And that's that's what I've definitely become better at in my career. I think that some of the traumas of the early, early life and then traumas through your career, it's never going away. But how quick can you respond?

More importantly, how do you create a culture that doesn't amplify the situation? And have you created the foundational pieces in your own self mastery where you know you've managed to master, your energy, your love, your work, to make sure you can respond to the adversity that's naturally going to be there. So I've probably taken that a little bit off topic. But I would say I've been on a journey to self master elements I can control in my own career to keep me at my best, but more importantly to respond quicker to the moments that are inevitably there as a head coach.

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Anastasia: So I asked a few birdies, Hey, I'm talking to John. What would you be interested in hearing? And so many folks said: he is so detail oriented. I mean, every coach is a planner, but you are to a next level. You are stand alone and your wealth of motivation is standalone as well. Where do you think that comes from?

John Herdman: I think it's understanding that mindset is is clearly key to everything.  Like mindset, clarity, what the brain searches for, strives for, how to ignite parts of the brain that are going to help people to perform. I think that's at the core of it all. As I said, you know, the tactical foundation's important because that's part of the clarity. You have to create clarity. So one of our key principles we work from is Light Bright and Clear. You know, you're creating  light, bright and clear training moments, one on one meetings, staff meetings. And when you think of those three words, if you think of your own home, if you think of your own workspace, your own relationships, are they light, bright and clear?

So come back to just understanding how the brain will work, the psychology of an elite performer. And I think just generally what the real triggers are for performance. So mindset is at the core. Like everything else, if you think of mindset, is for me the hub of a wheel. All the other elements are just spokes. But to create an optimal mindset, what does the brain need? It needs clarity. It needs safety and clarity is your role, where you fit within these this framework? You need clarity on what that role looks like on the pitch. But then the trust and safety is what brings all of that alive. Without the trust and safety, you don't really feel clear.

Anastasia: So when you walk into the locker room now, or perhaps the first time you walked into the TFC locker room, what did you see?

John Herdman: Trauma! Trauma. Disconnect, similar to 2011, when I walked into the women's first meeting.

Anastasia: That's good though for TFC, if that's the similar vibe.

John Herdman: But similar to 2018, with the men's team as well. I mean, this is a team that has just consistently been beaten by the media."The women are better than the men" and all this sort of stuff. You know, you just see the residual and the cumulative trauma, which, I think creates a permissiveness in cultures.  You almost get a supportiveness. So, guys are like sticking together to some degree, but there's a massive amount of permissiveness. The standards just aren't there. The high performance standards.

And come back to when people said detail oriented, for me it's a clear above the line standard. Wherever we've gone we've set a framework of 80% plus above the line. That's the starting point. And I think when you walk into these cultures that are fractured, that line is just lowered to about 50%, 55, 60. And if as long as we get to this line, we're doing okay.

So resetting that line and then bringing in this framework with with principles that are so clear that, you know, you only break yourself against them every day.  So.

Anastasia: So you turned around the Canadian women's team, you turned around the Canadian men's team. Was the principle the same?

John Herdman: Here?

Anastasia: Yeah, just in those experiences.

John Herdman: Yeah!  We've, and I keep saying we because there's a group of us. There's no way you can create transformational leadership on your own. There is a group of people who understand the philosophy, understand the framework. They buy into a way of teaching and that links from, you know, whether it's Maeve Glass, who's an equipment person, you've got Simon Eaddy, who's a goalkeeper coach Robyn Gayle, who looks at the mental wellness cultural component.

It's a group of people that understand this is the philosophy, these are the principles. But over time, these people contribute to refining them. So where we started in 2011 was a rudimentary version of where we're at now a decade on. Like we've really refined these principles.  TFC, are getting, probably a double star version of what the women got in 2011. Like it's really come to a point where we're clear that to get to the top of a mountain. These are the guide ropes you have to put in place.

Anastasia: You've had a massive 18 months. I can only imagine that you are your harshest critic because anyone in sport usually is. And if they aren't, get out of there.  Lessons from Qatar 2022?  What would you have done differently?  

John Herdman: Not gone. Not gone.

Anastasia: Why?

John Herdman: I had a decision to make in June and I went against my instinct. I listened to my wife probably too much for the first time. And I shouldn't have went.

Anastasia: When to leave or...?

John Herdman: Yeah, it was the right time.

Anastasia: I'm sorry. That couldn't have been easy.

John Herdman: It was the right time. I had just lost my sister to suicide, and it really, really hurt and it was for a period of time, I've never been hurt like that. I'd always been the fixer in my family, and I couldn't fix it. So coming out with World Cup qualification, it was like the highest high, then down to the worst experience that I had in my life.

And she'd reached out for help when I was at the Gold Cup. And, uh, I didn't help in the way I could have, so. And then I just knew. I knew Canada, from an organisational perspective,we weren't ready. We weren't ready. And the players? You know, when you see what happened in June and the 'me', had already shifted the 'we' had gone to 'me'.

I should have left. Uh, yeah. And I still say I mean, my daughter had the best experience of our life there. She keeps saying like, you know:  "dad, it was amazing. It was amazing." But I didn't need it. I didn't need it. I felt my job was done, on the qualification. I did not need that World Cup. I don't know if I wanted it either.

Anastasia: Thank you for your... I don't even know how to respond to that. Thank you for your honesty. I think people look to coaches and they think that they always have all their shit figured out.

John Herdman: No, we never do.

Anastasia: God, I'm sorry. Is there anything that, you know, just in the last 8 months that you can kind of celebrate that's brought you to this moment?

John Herdman: I think the celebration was walking through the doors here! Realising a dream to work with a top class organisation to get on the grass every day and to, yeah, to to go on to that next stage of my career which, I'm excited for. It's going to be good.

Anastasia: You are a rare person in Canada where people really, really listen to what you say. I have the privilege of talking to a lot of athletes, a lot of folks in the sports system. But people sit down and they listen when you talk. And so I'm very grateful that you're speaking with me right now. What do you say or what do you,  I hope you roll your eyes, but anyone that goes:  'He's only coached national teams. I don't know if he'll be able to coach a professional club.' What do you say to that?

John Herdman: I think there's some truth in it.

Anastasia: I don't think there's any. Oh, my God. Do you know how many times I've had pints and defended you with these upper body? I think you're going to. I think you're going to win a cup in two seasons, maybe one season. Don't take offence to that.

John Herdman: But look. You know, people can can tell their truth. I mean, they deserve their truth and that's up to them. But I think, you know, I was a coach from New Zealand who never coached a winning team before. I was a coach who coached women who would never be able to coach men. I was a schoolteacher who'd never been a football player, so I'd never be a coach. I mean, that's the world we live in. The good news is, over time, I've just learned that you don't listen to any of that. That's the beauty. Like. Yeah.

Anastasia: You have left such a mark on every single place that you've worked and coached out of. It's a testament to just how your former players talk about you. There is a Canadian women's professional league coming. How exciting is that going to be?

John Herdman: Yeah, very exciting. It's been a long time coming. Um, but I'm more. I'm more excited to see the struggle, the battle, you know, what that group of women have gone through. You know, they're not really being supported in a period of time where women have just won an Olympic gold medal. They just stood on top of the sport mountain. And, uh, I just love to see people like Diana matheson in a leadership struggle, which is what leadership is. She's on a really cool journey. And there'll be people coming with them now.

And I think that's the bit I'm more excited about, just to see people who've lived the game who gave everything to represent this country, giving everything now, to leave that legacy, that needed to be left for the future of our game.

We couldn't really do any more with the national team. They've done enough. It had to be something different. And it's taken somebody now who #1, it's in their blood. And #2, they know football. They know what it needs. They know how it feels. They know what it should look like. And they've got credibility because they work on the pitch, people trust them.

And I think that's what's been lacking in Canada soccer for a long time. The people who have been, you know, leading the organisations have never had that credibility of doing something for their country. And having that reality of: this means more to me than anything else. I feel like, you know, those that have been leading the country, have infected it with me first. Reality. And people like Diana are coming in with a we first. This is about others. This is about legacy. This is about a better future. This is about what we never had.

Anastasia: Thank you so, so much for your time. I really appreciate it, John. You always look great, my friend. And especially in TFC Black and white, you gotta love to see it.

John Herdman: It is red and white actually or red and black, but I'm in a black and white kit.  Newcastle United.

Anastasia: Yeah. Go Newcastle.

John Herdman: Yeah. Thank you.

Anastasia: Thank you.

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John Herdman and I connected at the TFC training centre at Downsview, Toronto.

Camryn Kern shot our interview too, so there's a version of this POV podcast at CBC Sports You Tube channel 

We're always available on CBC Listen and everywhere else you get your podcasts

#players own voice... My handle is #Anastasure. 

Olivia Pasquarelli edits our audio.

Adam Blinov wrote our theme music.

 David Giddens is our producer.

Thanks for listening.