It all starts here!

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Performance Rising podcast!

In this Episode I speak with Steve Axtell about how he creates culture.

“I think culture is something that [is] daily norms, daily behaviors, daily actions. What are the things that are non-negotiables that the players hold true to? . It’s almost like a series of family values. Culture can change the second one plater leaves or one player enters. Its’ now a different series of interactions and things, but I think you can maintain culture by having the same actions and behaviors; common threads that players know that they’re not going to mess around with. I think culture should be something that they take outside of the game.”

*Note: as this is the first episode I ask for your patience as I figure out all the technical details of audio production. The audio can sound different in parts and I am working to sort that out for the second episode.

Entering his 9th season as Head Women’s Soccer Coach at SUNY Potsdam, Mark Misiak and his players have experienced a steady increase in wins each year. In this conversation, Mark discusses the culture change that has enabled his program to compete with the best in their conference.

Quotable:

“[Culture is] how the team acts with each other when no one is watching.”

“I believe culture and identity are two different things. Our identity is what people see of us. Our culture is what happens between myself and the team. That’s our culture.”

In this episode, I speak with Sinead McSharry about how she creates culture.

“The first step in creating an intentional culture is to let your team know who you are outside of being just their coach”

“Whatever environment you’re in or whatever team you’re working with, the culture is that family feel…I think of culture as being [a family]. We have a specific culture and that culture changes of course. But it’s what you are expecting of the people who you are living with, working with, learning with on a daily basis.” -Jason Seward

“You have the culture you want when you know the process is there and you are always building to it. Just know that there never may be a total end result and that you’ve got to consistently have that buy-in and believe in the process every day.”

In this very special bonus episode, I speak with three Cortland State men's soccer players about how they experience the culture of the team.

Coach Steve Axtell explained his view of the team's culture in Episode 1, and here we hear from the player's point of view how that culture lives and is created in the minds of the players.