How to reduce the anxiety your players feel

The fastest way to unlock performance isn’t a new drill or a sharper playbook—it’s lowering the mental noise your athletes carry in with them. We share a simple story from a doctor’s office that proves how precise care changes state without changing a single variable on the whiteboard. That shift in state turns scattered attention into readiness, and readiness into better outcomes.

We walk through why care is not a soft extra but a performance lever. When players feel seen beyond the jersey, they take smarter risks at training, tell the truth in review, and compete with freedom on game day. You’ll hear three simple, repeatable actions you can use tonight, whether you coach pros, school teams, or weekend warriors: start with the person, not the plan; name and normalize the pressures in the room; and close the loop within 48 hours so players feel remembered, not managed. These moves don’t cost time; they buy focus.

Along the way, we talk about owning the feel of the environment, reading arrivals, and adjusting your session openers to meet real human energy. We highlight why presence is a skill, how good questions are data, and why psychological safety accelerates learning. Nothing flashy—just small, consistent signals that compound into trust. Over time, those signals build resilient people and better teams, even when the drills stay the same. State before outcome becomes the rule, and performance follows.

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a coach who cares, and leave a quick review telling us which of the three actions you’ll try first. Your feedback helps more coaches find these tools.

If you can SUBSCRIBE, RATE, and SHARE the show and series, you would be doing your bit to grow this show. Very appreciated. Ben

To subscribe to the newsletter or to get a copy of the book, jump onto:

www.coachingculture.com.au

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Care Comes First
• 2:15 The Doctor Visit Story
• 3:57 Lowering The Internal Noise
• 5:57 Care As Performance, Not Soft
• 7:07 Three Actions To Build Care
• 9:02 Start With The Person
• 9:47 Environment Is The Coach’s Job
• 10:42 Name And Normalize Pressure
• 11:02 State Before Outcome Reminder
• 11:22 Presence, Questions, Safety
• 11:37 Adjust Plans For Real Lives

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Hey team, today we're going to have a little chat about deeper care and how you can get it in your teams. Deeper care is a little passion of mine because I think it's just so massive. And I had a great example today, which I'll tell you about, about an external thing which relates to coaching. And then I want to do a little bit later in the segment is just go through some action points about how you can actually get deeper care, that everybody, whether you're coaching professional, school, school age, or anywhere in between, you can actually do three actionable points to get better at your level of care as a coach. And when you get that level of care better, you're going to see amazing growth in your team individually and as a collective. Now, here's the story that happened today. Like my wife went to the doctor. Nothing urgent, just one of those nagging things that was sitting at the back of her mind and stealing all her energy. And it's it's been nagging her for a while. So she went to the doctor today. And she came back and she told me this. Hey, Ben, the doctor listened amazing today. Really listened, she said. She asked a few thoughtful questions, booked me an extra test, and wrote a note to follow up. Now, my wife didn't walk out of that medical center cured, no way. But what she walked out with was feeling really cared for. The worry that it being under the surface went quiet. Because someone took her seriously, you know, took the issue seriously. Her attention dissolved the anxiety my wife was feeling. Care changed the story my wife was telling herself. And I think that's an amazing concept. Just that care. There was no fix. There was no definitive thing, no improvement in the physical state. But what she did was she just cared. And that is the first job of a modern coach. And here's why. Because your players are arriving carrying all sorts of invisible loads. Family stress, contract pressures, form dips, fear of not being picked, a bad night's sleep. Ten different stories running through their heads at once. Now, I know tactic mat tactics matter. I know training matters for coaches, of course. That's why we're there. But the first job is to lower the noise that's going on in your player's head. If you can lower that, if you can lower the internal volume, there's more chance what you're saying is going to be heard. When we lead with care, we give athletes the space to show up as they are so they can become what they can be. And this is something which annoys me when people say it's a soft skill. Care is not soft, it is precise. It is performance. It's pretty much that bulldozer that clears the lane so you can drive down it. It clears things so you can actually your work can actually land better. Care looks like presence. It sounds like good question. It feels like safety. And when players know they are seen beyond the jersey they're wearing, the you know, the the role they're functioning in, they're more likely to take risks at training, to tell truth in review and compete with freedom on game day. And you do not need a title to do this. You need intent and you need small, consistent actions as a leader. People go above and beyond when they can feel that. When they know that the care and connection is there, they will give you all of themselves. But it does take that little perception from them to make you feel or make someone feel like they're actually cared for. Now, as coaches, we are responsible for the feel of our environment. That is our job. I know there's other factors which influence it, but we are the ones that have the biggest impact on how players experience training. It's our job, and that's responsibility we should take and we should be proud about. So, how do we do it? Well, I want to give you three simple actions at any level, professional level to school level, to anywhere in between. Three things you can do, and you can start today at training and you can do them. And watch the difference it makes. Here's number one start with the person, not the plan. Now, I know as coaches, we love the plan. You'd write up your piece of paper, what it all looks like, your timings, who's doing what and why. Love that. That's the role. That is what coaches do. However, when you start, let's put that in your pocket for at least the first couple of minutes, and open every interaction with a question. How are you? How are you arriving today? You know, maybe it's just a one-word check in, a fist pump. Check in and listen to what they're saying. And listen behind it. Listen to the tone. When you ask it, you get all this information back. So listen to what you're getting. And here's the rub. You probably, if you're really attuned, might have to adjust the plan if needed. Particularly the way you start. And that's where you can really make some of the big adjustments, the start. And think about this. If you're coaching school kids, they've just sat at a desk all day, probably doing stuff they don't really love. And they're stiff and croaky and be growled at and got detention, all this stuff, didn't eat well, and now they're coming to you. And they're coming from all different subjects. And you've got blue-collar workers that have been sitting at a desk all day doing accounts for someone else, or construction workers that have been lifting bags of concrete all day. You've got all these people converging at once from all different areas. You've got adjust a plan. You've got to check in how they are, see how they are, and then adjust that start accordingly. Spend a couple of minutes just seeing how everyone is, getting someone to talk, saying their piece. Someone through that little check and might have had some great news. Bring it out to the team. And that brings us to number two. I want you to name and normalize pressures. So there's there'll be pressures at every single training. Say it out loud, what most people are feeling. Hey team, it's a big week. It's a semifinal. Nerves are normal. Here's what we can control today, that sort of thing. When you're when pressure's named, it shrinks. It's norm when it's normalized, it's not feeling like you've got something wrong with you, like it's a personal flaw. So you could say something like that, hey team, it's school holidays. I know you're all probably at home with the kids and it's doing your head in. I am too. As soon as you don't say that, it just this stress goes. You're quieting that noise, that internal loop that's going around in people's head for just that first minute. And then it's good, and then you can get on with it. If you don't, it's still spinning, you're still beating yourself up because you haven't taken the kids to the water park in the school holidays, they've just sat and watched Nintendo all day. Get into it. Normalise whatever's going on in your environments. Number three, last thing today, is close the loop. This is massive because we can do all this wonderful conversing, but we've got to bring it back up again. If a player mentions something to you really meaningful, they open up and within 48 hours, or the next time you see them, make sure you bring it up again. Quick message, short chat. It just closes that loop. Tells them that you remember, that you are listening, and that builds trust faster than any sort of morale building speech. So just think about every interaction. Where was the last time I saw them? Oh, I saw them down by uh when they were getting changed and they were talking about the blisters on their feet. Mate, how are the blisters going? Are they any better today? Yeah, they actually healed up good. Oh, great, mate. Or you could say to someone, mate, did you get the tax returns done? You were working on them uh last Tuesday night. Oh yeah, I spent all day on the tour. Fantastic. I got mine ready for you if you need some more to do. That just makes a connection. It shows you care, builds trust. There's a wonderful way to get that into your environment. So the philosophy is care first. Care about people, then the game. I know we're all there for the game. That's what brings us together. But take that little bit of time, honestly, care about it first. Care reduces fear. And fear, we know, blocks a lot of learning. So when you have less fear, it means more honesty, means more focus, means higher quality reps, all of those things. Now, over time, this compounds into resilient people and better teams. These small little interactions compound like amazingly so, and you won't even know it sometimes. And you'll have in 10 years' time they'll reflect on the you as a coach and think you made a lasting impact. But sometimes nothing will change on the whiteboard, the things your X's and O's, the the drills and skills you're doing, but everything can change in that person. That's an amazing concept. You can do the same drills, the same training, you don't have to change anything. But with those little interactions, having that little bit of time, a little bit of care and connection, you can change things in people. And that's massive. So even when there's no immediate fix that appears, care and connection shift the state of that person. Like my wife at the start, she she walked out of the environment, got pumped, and in a better state to then do anything that was coming to her afterwards. A better state always leads to better outcomes. Always. If you're in a great state, there will be better outcomes. Deeper care is not an extra, it is the foundation. So go lay it in your teams tonight.