The Uncommon Leader Podcast

Episode 196: How to Build Champions - The 3-Step System for High Performance with Josh Sutcliffe

• John Gallagher • Episode 196

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We explore how belonging, curiosity, and care create better people and better teams, drawing on rugby culture and cross-cultural roots. Josh Sutcliffe shares a practical coaching system for awareness, belonging, confidence, and a freedom model that balances structure with initiative.

• origin story shaped by moves across Australia and New Zealand
• rugby as connection, identity, and shared language
• champion defined as caring, inspiring action, and staying curious
• coaching method built on awareness, belonging, and confidence
• performance model using codified basics, acceleration, and freedom
• grit as rituals to perform under pressure
• case studies from college sports and leadership transitions
• rebuilding the Philippines' national team and heritage networks
• new podcast exploring unseen roles that build performance
• how to connect with Josh for coaching and support

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Connect with Josh:
➡️ LinkedIn (primary): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsutrain/
➡️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EngagePerformanceLLC
➡️Instagram: @coachwithjosh and https://www.instagram.com/jsut
➡️ Website: https://www.joshsutcliffe.com/

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Did you know that many of the things that I discuss on the Uncommon Leader Podcast are subjects that I coach other leaders and organizations ? If you would be interested in having me discuss 1:1 or group coaching with you, or know someone who is looking to move from Underperforming to Uncommon in their business or life, I would love to chat with you. Click this link to set up a FREE CALL to discuss how coaching might benefit you and your team)

Until next time, Go and Grow Champions!!

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SPEAKER_00:

Okay, if you can't find something that you love and dislike about a place, then you're really not living. And that sense of belonging, it's not something that gets taught, it's something that gets left.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey Uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncomma Leader Podcast. I'm your host, John Gallagher. I've got a dynamic guest for you today. Josh Sudcliffe is the founder of Engage Performance. Let's start there. He's a high performance coach for athletes and coaches ultimately looking to grow champions, very aligned with the Growing Champions organization that we talk about today. There's some dynamic story behind what Josh does as well, because you're going to hear not only about his coaching model, but also about some of the things that he's done in the space of rugby and coaching, being from New Zealand and bringing that over to us and many of the ways that he incorporates that and still incorporates that coaching of rugby today. And I can't wait to talk about that, how he does that with the Philippine national team as well that he coaches. But Josh, I'm excited about our conversation today. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm doing great. John, thanks for having me. It's really exciting to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Well, again, I personally just ultimately get a little bit connected to coaches, certainly athlete coaches and things like that. The game of rugby, while many Americans probably would say we're not really uh knowledgeable about that. My son did play for a couple years in college. And so anytime my kids get engaged in something, I end up learning a little bit about it myself. I wouldn't call myself an expert by any stretch, but I had lacrosse players that were in high school as well, and my kids, and I never played lacrosse, so you just got to learn those things. But you are ultimately a unique individual in that you've brought some of that rugby coaching into your performance system that you coach. I'm gonna ask you the first question, which really is my favorite first-time guest question on the Uncommon Leader podcast, where we get to know a little bit more about you, and that's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a person or as a leader.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if thank you for asking that question because I think where the sum of our experiences and one of the things for me, when I was seven years old, I moved from Australia to New Zealand. So I was born in Australia, raised in New Zealand. My dad's white, his parents moved to Australia after World War II, and my mom is Filipina. And so when you move around so much, and I lived 13 towns or cities before the age of 18, and my dad was a minister, so we moved across Australia and New Zealand, and I say 13 towns or cities, but some were more than once. And um, I think when I was three or four, we moved 10 different houses in one year, and when you learned to do that, yeah. So the big impact for me was my mum and dad were really unique. You have this Filipina and you have this sort of surfer, rugby player, Aussie there, and we were moving around a lot. And my mum had this idea that you blend the best of wherever you come from with wherever you are, and that has left a huge impact on me. Um, everything that I do, every way that I lead, I'm always looking for the strengths in people and the areas that I live in. And I've been very fortunate to live all across the country, a lot of places around the world. And if you can't find something that you love and dislike about a place, then you're really not living. And I took that lesson from my parents, and it impacts how on my relationships, how I interact with people, and honestly how I care for people.

SPEAKER_01:

So no, interestingly, Australia and New Zealand. I mean, look, I've moved a lot of times uh in my married life, but I often tell a story I moved 11 times in 17 years, not 13 times in one year. Uh and many times I just moved in the same zip code uh in the same town. You're talking about changing countries and things like that as well. So it absolutely has to be a cultural challenge. But tell me about how did you I think New Zealand, you have to love rugby. Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_00:

How did you get involved in rugby? Yeah, you have to love rugby in New Zealand. It's the national game. It's everyone you could walk down the street and there could be five people that you walk past, and they'll all know something about rugby. Whether they love it or really love it, that's the question, right? Um, and so you're on that sort of scale. Having an Australian father, we moved over there in '87, um, which '88. And in '91, Australia won the World Cup. And they beat New Zealand in the semifinal. And I tell this story because it's quite an amusing story because my dad rocks up to church because of the time zones difference. The 91 World Cup was in England. That's 12 hours ahead of New Zealand. So the game was at two o'clock in the morning. And I remember getting up with my dad to watch it, and we watched it, and we were Australian, right? So we weren't New Zealanders, we were Australian. And we get there, and the first thing my dad says is, Oh, I'm so glad you're here. You're all wearing black, that means you're in mourning. And half the congregation stood up and went out, did not sit through the rest of the service. And when you have this, these core memories about your childhood with rugby, and everyone plays it, and it's the way you make friends and it's the way you make connections, and it's the banter that just happens all the time. Rugby to me became this almost this place where I felt comfortable because anytime you move, and if I'd move to a new town, you learn the rugby team, and then you have a conversation about it, and it becomes that point of connection, and and through that, it sort of just grew into my identity as well.

SPEAKER_01:

So love that. And I know that's ultimately how we kind of got a little bit connected just a couple years back on a on a phone call, and you mentioned you you had a rugby background and from New Zealand. I just kind of mentioned that I had finished a book called Legacy about the All Blacks from uh and how they helped succeed in business and life, and just so happened you were in that performance culture coaching space as well. So it makes sense. I mean, look, those who are uh, let's say courageous enough to play the game of rugby, although if I compare that to U.S. football, I would say that the rugby folks are a lot smarter. They don't wear the helmets, so they have to learn how to tackle properly ultimately. But then and the pace of that game, though, is phenomenal and it's just a fun game to watch. You tell you you've brought some of those things, both your family, then your cultural change, and then the sport itself into your performance coaching. And on your website, you say, be the coach that creates champions is who you want to be. So tell me what a champion is in that space uh for you and ultimately why you chose to be in coaching.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So you talked about legacy, and legacy is a book about the all blacks culture. And one of the things that they said was better people make better all blacks, right? So to me, a champion is a better person. And so a better person, and this comes back to my personal philosophy. My personal philosophy is care deeply, inspire actions, and dare to be curious. So the people that I'm developing into champions, I'm gonna help them care about the world around them, help them care for themselves, help them care for the others that they worked with, and help them make an impact beyond what they see. And this is that idea within Legacy that you leave the jersey in a better place. And when I'm coaching student athletes, especially when I was at Stanford, I was really fortunate. You work with all these different brilliant minds, significantly smarter than me. I'd walk into the clubhouse and they'd have many different, I don't know, they were diagrams of molecules and different things. I was like, I have no idea what's going on, right? But what they do with that is got to be for good. And so that idea that I they'll stand on my shoulders because I've taught them different things about life, and then they go out and impact other people. And so for me, that champion is someone who cares deeply. They inspire other people to action, but they never stop being curious. And so that's sort of how I define that champion.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. And I certainly that third point is so important. Dare to be curious in what you do. Too many times, as leaders, we get to a certain point and we may stop that growth. And ultimately, what we're really saying is that we want to be on a continuous improvement path. And as long as we stay curious, that certainly is possible, outside of just being a great human being with regards to caring about folks and inspiring them as well. So I appreciate you sharing that. And I love the story. I had forgotten about that statement about the all blacks that in essence, better people make better all blacks, but better people make better leaders. There's no doubt about that in terms of what happens. So your performance system, you've got three steps on your website. It's all about cultivated culture is to coach uh the team and performance. So when you work with these organizations, and you tell me you still, you know, you're working, the the folks you're looking to coach are coaches at both the collegiate uh level or some other level. What is it that you are assessing when you get there? And how do you help them with your system, your coaching method?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the first thing that I do is get to know them. And by getting to know them, you start to see where they're feeling a gap in themselves. And the three areas that I talk about in the method is the coaches, awareness, belonging, and confidence. So every coach needs to have an awareness of where they come from, why they coach and what brings them joy. They need to have a belonging. And as a coach, you don't get to create your own belonging because you're joining an organization. So you need to find ways to fit in and deepen your connection with that. And then confidence is the sum of your experiences. Most coaches, they really struggle with the belonging piece, right? But it depends on where that gap is. And so we'll sort of dig into that area with the team. It's about direction and it's about empathy. And depending on what's going on in the team environment, where the coach is strong, where the coach is feeling an absence, we dig into those two different areas. And then the last bit is freedom and grit. And that's about the performance. And freedom for me, and it translates in sport and business and other areas. 80% of everything you do, we should know. If I'm working with you, John, I should know 80% of what you're going to do because it's codified. It's best practices, it's what we do together, it's how we identify as a group. But then there's this place where sometimes we accelerate. And when you accelerate, it's because there's a specific short-term goal, and that's at 81 to 90%. Some more mistakes might happen. There might be less communication, but we want people to push the boundaries. But then the freedom really comes 91 to 100%. When you call an audible, you don't know what's going to happen. And sometimes you have to do it, right? You pick up a phone, you make a plan, rugby, you make a call as a coach. And in that decision, you have the freedom because you know 90% of the work you've done together, you understand what you're doing. But that last 10%, that's that freedom to act on your instincts that you've honed together within a group. And then the last one's grit. And to me, grit is how do you perform under the highest pressure? How do you actually work when you can't control what's happening? And all you've got in your control is your response. Right. And as a coach, the biggest one that we have is when an injury happens and it happens in the middle of a game, and you are coordinating however many people you have on your team. They're all having their own emotional responses to it. And in that moment, you have to operate the best. But you can't have a routine because you don't know when it's going to happen. So there has to be this ritual that you access and that puts you in this place to perform at your best.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I think, I mean, I love that because I could I could see the picture of kind of the rugby match kind of going on, as you said, the scrum. And I, by the way, I know that's not resting, but it certainly feels like you watch that and it, you know, like it just kind of standing there and getting up. And man, all of a sudden it turns to 100 miles an hour in terms of what's what's going on. As soon as that ball comes out of that scrum, it's going at 100 miles an hour, and they got to make those changes. And I I really appreciate, I mean, even that statement inside the coach of awareness, belonging, and confidence. You know, I gotta believe when you assess to your point, you mentioned belonging was a tough one. Confidence being the sum of the experiences that we have. How difficult is it to overcome those differences as you work them? How long does it take you to go there? Maybe, maybe you can share an example of who you've worked with as you how you've helped them overcome that, especially in the space of belonging and confidence.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think one of the things that uh I was working with someone, and and you can go on my website and I have a conversation on there with Carameli Faye. And when I was working with her, I was working as a mentor in a world rugby program. She's the former US women's national team captain for rugby, and she was coming back as a coach. And we talked about how she belonged in that space beforehand, but coming in as a coach, now we've got a different role. There are different pressures. People see you as a different person. And so she needed to find belonging in a very different way than how she had as a player. So we teased it out and we worked back and forth, and we made sure she had spots where she could step back and step out before she stepped up and stepped in. And that's one of those things with belonging. I think with another coach, I worked with them as they transitioned from one school to another. And every college sports department has sort of their values, and no one can really lean into every part of those values. So we try and pick one, and then we try and pick the actions that coach does naturally and that are strengths for that coach that connect with that value. And we're like, yes, this is how I belong here because my strengths belong here. And then we start to build from there. And after we feel that first connection, then we expand to the other values. And if there's a weakness that we have, then we start working on that weakness and sort of building it up.

SPEAKER_01:

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SPEAKER_00:

I think for me, and I love this. So the coach that's in the book, uh, Legacy, is Graham Henry. Uh Sir Graham Henry, I should refer to him correctly by his full title. Um, but he goes by Ted. And so I actually got a chance to meet Ted. He came to Stanford and he ran a some clinics and stuff. And so yeah, I got to we got to talk a lot about a lot of different things. And the thing I loved about And was two things. One, he made incredibly complex ideas accessible. And I've heard other people say, Oh, you make the complex simple. And I disagree with that statement because the complex remains complex, but if I feel like I can do it, now it's accessible to me. And that's what I'm good at as a coach, is I make complex ideas that you feel are three, six, eight, nine months away, and I bring them to next week. And so that's my ultimate strength. And then the other one is I love to get to know people. So when I say I help coaches, what I think about and the analogy that I use is I get to ride shotgun in your journey. And by being able to ride shotgun, I understand where you're navigating to, but I'm not making the decision of where you're going. And I get to feed back it, oh, too fast, ice coming up, whatever it happens to be. I get to pick the music along the way, I get to be involved in all those things. We have a sing-along together, but I'm riding shotgun in your journey. And by doing that, it becomes a almost this joyous moment where you go back and forth and we play, we play with different ideas. With Caramelli, the first task I ever gave her, I was like, all right, so you have these different positions in rugby, but you're going to come up with different superheroes from all different genres about which superhero is what position. And whatever strengths they have, that's what you expect the people who play those positions to have. And it was just this really playful way. And by using analogies and by using things that people are interested in, you get to have this light band-to-fill conversation. But at the end of it, you have this series of ideas that are super executable. And by writing shotgun and listening to the music and getting to know people, getting to know their environment, you just build a connection that's super deep and it's a lot of fun to be in.

SPEAKER_01:

What a great analogy, too. I mean, again, first of all, folks, go back to the if it's not a rewind. We're not on tape or anything like that, but hit that little button that kind of back 15, 15, 15, just for a few of those, to hear what Josh said about making the complex accessible. That's the first time I've heard that before because I've often heard that you know leaders can make the complex simple. And I appreciate what he had to say there about making it accessible. What a powerful statement in terms of doing that. Second side, the analogy of the uh superheroes. What a great idea. I remember coaching uh gentlemen, I was just really struggling to break through with a few of his leaders on his team. I'm like, what do you love to do? And he talked about uh he coaches girl softball, travel softball. I said, Oh, excellent. I bet you can relate analogy, some of the positions that you coach in girls' softball to some of the foremen on your team. Go out there and call them girls or girls pitchers or something like that. But in terms of how you would coach those girls, much like you would uh coach your foreman, there's not that much difference in the way you approach that. Because again, you're talking about awareness, belonging, and confidence. Nowhere does that say sport, electrical contracting, manufacturing. It's just leadership in terms of understanding that. So it's agnostic to the space that you're working in. It doesn't care where you're working. So I love both of those strengths that you talked about. Really cool. And I can imagine you're still pretty powerful. And actually, you know, you you say that because you're coaching others, but you're also still coaching the Philippine national team. You just brought them back. Tell me that story and how you do that from Nashville, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting, right? Because the world has gotten smaller because of technology. And when I first played for the Philippines, I was living in America and they had started in 2006, and I got the opportunity to play for them because of my mom. Being a heritage player, I got to come back and I got to put on the Sun and the Stars. And that was a huge honor for me. And it really this is a cool part of my journey, and I love it because I knew I was Filipino from the time I was born. My nickname as a kid was Filipino Rick because my dad's name was Rick, but I looked Filipino, right? So I looked like both sides. But I didn't know what it was to be Filipino until I spent time there with people who had similar experiences to me. And I got to play there for a number of years, and then COVID came and it really took everything away from the Philippines. 2019, they won a championship and then they didn't play again. And so, over that sort of four or five years, the last four or five years, I've been talking to Ada Milby and a couple of other people in the Philippines to see how we can bring it back. And finally, this last 18 months where we found a way, players are paying their own way. And so, sort of what we do is we keep track of them around the world and we have these groups called Maharlikans. Mahallikans is a Tagalog word for warrior, and so we have the UK Mahalikans, the Hong Kong Mahallikans, the USA Mahalikans, and then the Australian Mahallikans. And so Filipino heritage players can get to know their heritage, get to play with people who have similar experiences to them, who, when I say Lola, they know that that's grandma. If I say lolo, they know that that's grandfather, right? And you have these things that aren't necessarily common to everyone. And then you get to go out and you get to be a warrior within your culture, get to put on a jersey that represents sort of who your house is. And to be able to bring that, and we got to go play in the Union's Cup, which is a Southeast Asia competition. We played Singapore, the semifinal, we won that game, and really fortunate to do that, and then we got to play. Um Thailand in the final because they beat Chinese Taipei. And so we got these couple of games, and what's crazy about it is just how much joy these players have. They still what's at me, they hit me up on Messenger, and they're talking about like these memories. And I'm like, guys, I wasn't actually with you during that time. You were off and you were hiding it from me, and now you want to tell me about it. But what it is is there's this joy, this joy that comes from helping people live their dreams. And to be able to have a number of parents and brothers and sisters sitting in the stands and hear the Philippine national anthem be sung. And you none of the boys were singing it by the end because they were crying, right? And there's this passion that comes along with it. And so many of us live in diaspora, right? We have Filipinos and Philippines' greatest export is Filipinos, right? They work in Dubai, they work in Europe, they work in America. If you go to a hospital, you'll probably run into a Filipino nurse. And these kids grow up all over the world, but they come back and they remember who they are. And that sense of belonging, it's not something that gets taught, it's something that gets lived. And to be able to help create that for this current generation of players, it's just it's a bit where I get to serve. And it really is a privilege and an honor to be asked to help lead this team and bring it back.

SPEAKER_01:

So cool. So cool, Josh. And you got a lot going on right now in the future. What's coming up next for you? What are you working on right now that's going to be powerful and exciting?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, at the moment, I'm going to be working on a podcast and I want to tell stories about how so many different people create connection and lead with care and help people rise to the challenge. And within sports organizations, coaches tend to get the big billing, right? Like if I ask a Nick Saban to come on a podcast, everyone will listen to it. But Nick Saban also has a medical director, head of athletic training, strength and conditioning staff, and all of those people help create this environment, this dynamic learning environment for the athletes to operate in. And they have to be as bought into it as the athletes are. So I want to tell these stories from a lot of different perspectives. And then I want to shift out of team sports until I do Brazilian jujitsu, I've done CrossFit in the past, and there's a different way to interact with individual athletes. And so I want to just bring these stories and I'm curious about it. So I get to learn from them. But also, if I can pull a little nugget of gold out, then you get to learn from it as well. And so that's sort of what's coming up next for me.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. And that's exactly why I do this Uncommon Leader podcast, Josh, is so that we can learn the stories of others. You know, uh, we have a common thread link in the brand builders group, and people get tired of hearing it from me, but that's okay. They're gonna have to hear, you know, we're most powerfully positioned to help the person we once were. And that's really you know what I sense in what you're doing, making a difference in those and understanding uh what's possible with your coaching performance system. So uh how can folks get in touch with you, Josh, learn more about you, uh and then ultimately be able to learn about your podcast when it comes out?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, follow me on Instagram at coachwithjosh. And if you do want to get in touch with me, talk to me about coaching or anything else, freecallwithjosh.com, and you'll be able to book a little appointment with me and we can have a chat about whatever you want to chat about.

SPEAKER_01:

Love that. I'll make to sure to put both those links in the notes so that folks get in touch with you. Josh, it's been a lot of fun and conversation-wise. I want to honor our time as we go through this. I know we could keep going in terms of some of the learning, and I just smile at some of the rugby things, stories that I continue to hear. Because I just, you know, you mentioned it's so cool to hear the uh closeness of that community and understand how they have to work together uh in many different ways to be successful. The last word for you is really uh an opportunity for you to kind of share your mantra. I gave you the billboard and you could put that billboard anywhere you want to. What's the message you're gonna put on that billboard and why do you put it on?

SPEAKER_00:

I think I would say go with others, right? And life is better if you go with others. Everything that you do is better with others. And so if I had a billboard, I would just say go with others. And that connections, yeah. It's just and you just get to smile, you get to experience life with people, and that's there's so much joy in that.

SPEAKER_01:

Love that. Josh, thanks so much for being a guest on the Uncommon Leader podcast. I wish you the best in the future. I hope we stay in touch, okay? Absolutely. Thanks, John. Absolutely. And hey, for those of you still listening, thanks for holding on through the whole call. If you know, if you have done that, I know there's a message that you need to share with someone. Share this episode with them so they can hear it as well, so they can connect with Josh and know what's happening in his space, in that coaching space, to help them get better. Folks, and I would encourage you after you share it ahead and go out onto the podcast and give us a five-star review and leave a comment for what you heard today. Because the way we get it in the hands of more uncommon leaders like yourself is when folks comment, when folks stay engaged, when folks hear in that conversation. So please go and follow Josh. Please share this episode with someone you know needs to hear it. Until next time, go and grow champions.

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