EP 128
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers this is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
All right, my friends, we've got Jen Mueller online. And here's the thing, she is a fascinating individual, because she's a sporty girl, and it says you're a veteran reporter the Seattle Seahawks, longtime member of the Seattle Mariners TV broadcast team, and all kinds of experience with NFL and BL and BL, N, B, A, M, L, B, this is mouthful and H, L, A, B, C, E, F, G, right. But we're going to talk about relationships and how you deal in not just maybe tricky environments like competitive and sports like but fast moving, right? So here I am slowing things down so I can say the letters, but we're going to talk really fast today. Jen Mueller, welcome to the pod.
Jen Mueller:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I talk fast naturally. So I mean, maybe this is a perfect fit, and maybe you're gonna have to slow me down a little bit.
Alyssa Dver:
Alll right. Well, let's get right into it, because my first question for you is, how did you get into something like this? Because it's not forgive me for saying a traditional lane for most women, and even though our podcast is for everybody, I'm curious, personally, what drew you to become a sportscaster?
Jen Mueller:
Well, I had a nudge from a high school guidance counselor who suggested that maybe broadcasting would be a fit, given my skill sets and propensity for talking. Once you start going down the road of broadcasting, you got to pick where your expertise is going to be. I was always an athlete through high school, I enjoy sports. I am ultra competitive, and so it really does fit my personality. And then it's like any other job where you look for that internship and you start moving your way up. I had no idea that this is where I would end up, but to me, in the early going, it was just about finding that next step to just try to further my career and tell people what I wanted to be doing.
Alyssa Dver:
Well, you said a lot right there, to be honest with you, because you kind of followed a path that was like, try this. But I can imagine you've despite having some skills that seem to align, there's probably was a lot of challenge. You remember any particular things that challenged your confidence as you were gone?
Jen Mueller:
Oh sure. I mean, back in those days, women were allowed to do sports, but we weren't really supported or encouraged. And my first experience in an NFL locker room was with the Dallas Cowboys in the late 90s, and they made it very clear I was not welcome. They yelled in my face. They made it as challenging as they possibly could, and I had to make a decision every day that I went to my internship, of, is this worth it to me? And you learn very quickly that it has to be an internal motivation, not that proving other people wrong, sort of a situation. And so you have to find your little ways to win, to maintain your confidence.
Alyssa Dver:
So, you know, roll me back for a second, if you don't mind, like, those days where you're like, I gotta go and deal with being yelled at that. I'm not, I don't belong here. What did you tell yourself? Like, what did you do?
Jen Mueller:
Well, I would say, look, here's what I want to do. I want to work in sports. This is part of the job of a reporter. I'm not a reporter yet, but if I'm putting myself in those shoes, here's the opportunity. I could either focus on the environment that I'm in and how unpleasant that might be, or I can focus on the job at hand. And so it was one of those competitive moments where I knew that I needed to go and hold the microphone, get the sound bite, get the interview, and that was my focus. And if I left that locker room with the interview, if I held the microphone, if I kept a smile on my face, all of those things were wins, and I knew that I could repeat that regardless of the environment.
Alyssa Dver:
Wow, that's that's pretty amazing, especially it sounds like you were very young at the time, and you know to have that persistence and that resilience is amazing. In your bio, you do talk about fast paced environments. Do you, you know, What? What? What? How do you define that? First of all, and then, what's the difference in a fast paced environment relative to what you just said? You have to do something different. Or is it the same skill?
Jen Mueller:
It is similar skills, but fast paced in broadcasting means things can change in a second. So that could be the game winning home run gets hit in the bottom of the ninth and your entire interview starts over again because you thought it was going to go one way. It goes the other way. It could be the guest doesn't show up on time, so you better figure out how to tap dance until you get that guest. Because you're on live TV, there's any number of things that could happen. And what always helps me is to think through the situation beforehand. So I think about how this conversation is going to play out. I think about what happens if it doesn't go according to plan, what would I be able to fill time with if I lose my train of thought? How would I get back on track? And so I have a loose game plan for just about every scenario so that even if it doesn't go the way I want it to, I know that I can recover to a point where I can still be presentable, smile, mostly confident in my ability to wiggle out of that.
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. And I can hear the broadcast of your voice. It's really fun to listen. It's great. You know, I actually probably don't know this when we started American Confidence Institute, and I say we because I was pushed into this by a wonderful human named Lynette Rumble. She lives up in Toronto, and she came out of the sports world too. And I say came out, I think she's still does a lot of work. She was coaching athletes that were retiring at some ripe old age of 25 or 30, because their confidence was rooted in their sport. And when they retired, all of a sudden they're like, I don't know how to what an ATM is. You know, I don't know some basic life skills. But more importantly, they didn't know what they were going to do with the rest of their very long left life. And I'm just curious, like, when people would step up at the microphone with you? Like, were they, did you, see, feel that they were completely confident in that interview? And, like, what were the tells for you? And how did you help them? Did you help them get through it? Or was it part of your job to, kind of, like, expose it?
Jen Mueller:
No.So my relationship with my athletes is a little bit different because I work on the team side, or I was the team partner. So for years, the Mariners were broadcast on the network I worked for so you have a different, friendlier partner type relationship. What I tell people, though, is anytime you walk into a locker room, it is the same cross section of human beings that you would find in any work setting, which means there's introverts and there's extroverts, and the extroverts, they know they're the ones that are raising their hand saying, Hey, if you need something, you come to me. I'll give you the interview that you need after the game. No problem, right? Those are the go tos that I could always count on. There are plenty of others that are introverted, that feel really uncomfortable on camera or feel really uncomfortable with a microphone. And so for me, there's a couple of things. One, I will talk to them when I don't need anything and I don't have a microphone in their face, so that it is not a transactional interaction. It is actually relational.
The other thing I will do is I will actually tell them what's going to happen. I will say we're going to have four questions. Two of them are going to be about that play in the fourth quarter. I'm going to ask you about your quarterback, and I'm going to ask you what this means for the team, so I can just kind of set them up so that their brains start thinking, and then I do exactly what I said that we were going to do. Each question is really, really specific, so that there's only one answer. So as opposed to the open ended question of what happened in the third quarter, the question actually, is, what happened on the opening drive of the third quarter to set the tone for the second half? There's only one answer, and now they have confidence that they can give me that one answer.
The number one thing that I have heard from athletes over the years, when they are doubting their ability to speak up, they don't feel like they have anything to say. I have had athletes say, What do you want me to talk about? I'm just a football player. Like, what I'm not smart enough to what I'm just a football player. It's like, that's what I want you to talk about. Like, that's all I want you to talk about, and reassuring them that they do have the answers and to use their voice.
Alyssa Dver:
So you now work with a lot of business people, so and you translate a lot of what you just said into a business context. So here's where my brain is, like, going, how does she do this? Well, you can't just say I'm just a manager, right? You can't just say I'm just a CEO, right? It's a much broader playing field, I should say. So, you know, translate some of this to the business world for me, if you, if you don't mind, that's a big question to you. I realize, you know.
Jen Mueller:
And so I think when you work in sports and broadcasting, we are very precise in how we communicate, because our conversations are measured in seconds and not minutes, and so when I talk to managers or CEOs, it's just getting them to think about the impact of small moments, like when I tell an athlete, this is what we're talking about. Here's the order of the questions, and here's how long it's going to take. Same exact strategy I tell managers and CEOs to use with their teams. When you do that, not only do you maintain confidence because you know exactly what's going to happen, right, but you give other people around you the confidence to respond in the way that everybody is hoping for, right, so that everybody can do their best work. It's also me pointing out the value of just saying hi to people and how to build relationships one word at a time. It doesn't have to be this giant overhaul. It's just adding a little bit more intentionality and strategy to the interactions you are already having.
Alyssa Dver:
I love it. I love it. You know, I think there's so much again that you kind of packed in that one sentence. There's the fast moving, let's get it done, kind of mentality. And I love it. So what I'd like to do is I'm going to just give the sponsor a little slice of our time, very small slice, because I want to come back, and I want you to give some other examples if you can, of that intentionality. Because that's where I think the difference between a really great manager who wants to lift the team and is tucking away their own competitive stuff to make their teammates, their colleagues, their peers better. That's what we're all aiming for here. So it sounds like you have some great tips for folks, so we'll come right back with you. Right?
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Alyssa Dver:
Jen Mueller, I am really digging everything you're saying. I love it, and probably because of all the stuff that we did in the beginning of ACI, and I forget how parallel it is. You know, we talk about small wins and all kinds of structures and things that I'm sure are familiar to you. But let's give our listeners some more jewels that you have in your in your kit that make those interactions with people, particularly seconds worth of you know, how do we make those intentional moments less transactional?
Jen Mueller:
Well, I would say, use the full range of your words. We default to using the same words over and over and over again, and we have the right, I think, idea, and we have the best intentions, but it doesn't land the way we think it does. So here's the best example, when you see somebody and you are giving out a compliment or handing out praise, the phrase that probably comes to mind first is great job, great job, great job, great job, good job, great job. Here's the problem with that. It doesn't mean anything, and we back ourselves into the corner when we give false praise, which is what that is most often. And it's not landing in a way that hits somebody's heart and actually, like sinks in when you use your full range of words. There are so many more words you could use instead of great. It could be clutch, phenomenal, mind blowing, if you want to go on the positive side or it's just being accurate. Thank you for doing exactly what I knew you could do, right. I counted on you. You came through. Thanks for getting the job done. That actually makes somebody feel seen and noticed and recognized more than great job. And as a manager, it gives you the ability to build your team and to create teamwork by acknowledging people, encouraging them to do their best and not handing out false praise.
Alyssa Dver:
I love it. I love it. You know, I'll even tag on to that if you can tell them why, right? I think that I was an old athlete, too, and I remember, you know, great game. Why was it a great game? Like, what did we do? Like, I can't repeat, great I but I can repeat, you know, you're rebounding in this game was really great. I loved how you blah, blah, blah, you know. And I think that we, we are in that culture of, like, fake praise. You know, I also joke sometimes I get off a stage or keynote and people are like, great job. I'm like, they're full of crap, because they don't want to say either they didn't like it or if there was something in particular, you know, they're having a hard time. But when we do feedback forms and we ask them, Did you like it? Why? And makes all the difference in the world. So how can we, I guess, change that behavior, whether we're a manager or just individual contributor. Is there a tip that you like to use to just remind people to do that better? What you just said?
Jen Mueller:
Well, you could use it as a group. So when I do keynotes, quite often, I will put words on the screen, and I'll say, just rank these in order of what lands with you. And it's everything from phenomenal to clutch or you could practice with how would you describe you the dinner you had last night? If it's too personal to start with your own work, start with dinner, and put five words up there and have people rank them, and you will see very quickly that there's no right or wrong, but certain words resonate. So if you do this as a team building activity, start with food, and then put five words up that could describe performance, everything from clutch to inspiring to phenomenal, right? And then have the conversation about why that is. And then for you, just pick words that are authentic to you, right? That there are two or three words that you could always have. And you could start by when somebody asks the question, how are you try saying phenomenal or, I came through on the clutch today, and I feel pretty proud of myself for that, right? Like, just try those interactions that you know you're going to have to be intentional about shifting the conversation so you can practice in that low stress moment that gets you ready for when you're in front of your team.
Alyssa Dver:
I love it. I love it. I you know, it's just it's so easy and so practical, and we've only scraped maybe a very small surface off of the football there. So let's give people a way to reach you. What's the best access?
Jen Mueller:
Well, if you search talk sporty to me, you should find me across all the social channels. I've got the YouTube channel. There's LinkedIn, and I will point out that on my website, talksportytome.com one of the ways you can work with me is through virtual office hours, and it's drop in hot seat coaching. So if there's a specific conversation you want to be more intentional and strategic about, we can work on that together in a small group setting.
Alyssa Dver:
Oh, so great. So it's TalkSportytoMe.com?
Jen Mueller:
Yes.
Alyssa Dver:
Thank you so much for the very fast but very interesting and very you know, just exhilarating conversation today. Thank you so much.
Jen Mueller:
Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it before.
Alyssa Dver:
We totally wrap up. I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other Real Confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute, All Rights Reserved.
