Paddy Steinfort

I'm Paddy. I was drafted 30 years ago and spent almost a decade as a pro athlete - now I work with elite performers across NBA, NFL, FIFA, Finance and more. Here's who I am and what I do: - Grew up in middle-class suburban Melbourne - Played my first pro game at 17 at the MCG, a stadium my dad helped build - Spent six years clinging to a comeback that was never coming (but letting go felt like quitting) - Picked physio over psychology because it fit being an athlete, got injured anyway and struggled on mental side - Went around the world for the best psychology training I could find - Ran it with the players in my first coaching job, and a fair chunk had career years - Found realists were the most consistent, optimists had the highest ceiling, and the best had both - Went to Penn, then spent 10 years in the US across the NFL, NBA, MLB, two World Cups and the US Army - Burned out at the top, still trying to be a big deal to people who didn’t matter anymore - Came out of it surer of the stuff I use and share, and more focused on helping people than ever before - Now 47, writing my first book, with about half my clients in finance and executive roles I have lived it as a performer, studied it thru research and applied it to help high performers navigate high-performance environments. I’m like the "Gordon Ramsey" of pressure (complete with the swearing, but without the abuse) And here's what I'll be posting about: - How pressure hijacks your brain, and difference between stress and pressure - What went wrong along the way, and what writing my first book is teaching me - Routines elite performers lean on, and how you can borrow them - How to handle pressure at home, from the commute to the dinner table - Life as an Aussie in New York (with a husky who doesn’t do what he’s told) If any of that resonates, stick around

Your kid’s first scoreboard is you. Long before they care about wins and losses, they check your face to work out how bad a failure is. If you look worried or let down, that’s the score they take home. How you react teaches them how to handle the next one.

If you want the best sunset view of NYC, go here. I recently discovered📍Westlight in Brooklyn, which has an amazing view of pretty much the entire island of Manhattan. PS: Didn’t take a single photo, which anyone who knows me will find very on brand. This one’s courtesy of the internet 😝

In a lot of teams, the biggest bottleneck is people guessing what the boss wants. Ask your team what they think you expect from them, and listen closely to the answer.

The result Over five years, they tripled their assets under management. Over the same stretch, their Midwest competitors grew around 1 to 1.5x.

Clarity made them faster Here’s how co-founder Ryan Anderson described it to USA Today:

Then we worked one person at a time Alongside the group work, I coached each executive on their own mental performance. Better decisions had to hold up with each person, on their own desk, on a normal Tuesday.

We put everything on the table The founders and the executives each said out loud what they’d been assuming. Once they could see each other’s point of view, expectations finally matched, and people started acting without waiting to be told.

Everyone was guessing what the boss wanted The two founders wanted their executives to take initiative and run with things. The executives believed everything needed the founders’ sign-off. So every decision queued up at the top, and both sides were frustrated with each other.

The problem they named was a symptom They came to me saying the culture was too nice to play with the big firms. Once we dug deeper, we found something else underneath

I worked with a private equity group managing $1.5 billion that: - Wanted to compete with New York firms managing $100 billion - Thought their problem was being too nice - Had founders asking “why hasn’t this been done yet?” - Had executives waiting for permission nobody had asked them to get Five years later, they’d tripled their assets under management. Here’s how it happened:

How to fix your bad days: - Pick a stop sign early. Two things go wrong, you stop - Write down what you can’t forget, like school pickup or the deadline - Rest before you try again. Sleep, eat, walk, call a friend Catch it early and it stays one bad day.

An NFL player I was working with once asked me, "Where did your obsession with studying pressure come from?" Honestly, there isn’t a specific incident. It kinda started in school as I watched my mates get really nervous before exams, and I never did. I still did well, because I didn’t care that much. I figured if I knew the work, I’d get the mark I deserved. My identity just wasn't tied up in it. Football is where people expect the dramatic part, the big choke that sent me looking for answers. But I didn’t really have those moments. It still pulls me in. I barely watch sport unless it's the finals or playoffs. That’s where you see two people with the same talent facing the same moment and handling it completely differently. I’ve spent my career studying that difference, and the answer usually takes me back to those school exams. The less you tie yourself to the result, the more room you’ve got to perform.

Best thing psychology has taught me about dates is something called active constructive responding: - Start on a topic you care about, so you’re not performing - When they say something, reflect it back and ask for more - If they're talking about something good, ask how it makes them feel - Put all your focus on helping them feel good about what they're saying, because that's the job on the night When they feel good around you, you’ll probably get the second date.

First dates even as a grown as* adult SUCKS - It feels like your only shot, social version of do or die - Mind starts racing, or goes completely blank - You say things you’d never normally say The real fear: what if they don’t like me? How to feel like yourself again:

110% this

0. Let feelings come and go 6. Do it all again - moment by moment

Your kid walks off after a tough game and looks straight at you. The next thing you say can help them settle or pile your stress onto theirs. What to hold back and what to say when they’re upset: Skip the “settle down, it’s going to be okay, just breathe, you’re fine, it’s not a big deal.” It sounds calm and changes nothing when the pressure’s at its peak • You’re saying it that fast because their face set off your own panic before they even reached the car • Their attention is stuck on what’s happening inside their body and head, so none of it gets in • It’s your stress, passed down in a soothing voice and you call it support Do this instead: • Give them two things to focus on for the next game, because ten things is just more noise • Run “the car ride routine”, and say two specific things “I see this is hard.” and “I know you can handle it.” (works better than therapy and is backed by research) • Sort out your own spiral first, so the car holds one calm person instead of two spiraling ones When things get tense with your kid, what do you usually say first?

That's basically the first step to flow - your brain only has a limited amount of attention, and when you fill it up with one thing its basically a shortcut to being in the zone (in the moment, and in life!)

This is Skippy and he broke out of jail! He chewed thru his cone, ripped the bandage off (no evidence left behind), only to earn himself "extra security solitary confinement." 🤣