The Wireless Way, with Chris Whitaker

Building Leaders: Jason Vonk's Path from Sports to Executive Excellence

• Chris Whitaker • Season 5 • Episode 95

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Leadership Transformation: From Gymnastics Coach to Executive Coach with Jason Vonk

In this episode of The Wireless Way, we explore the journey of Jason Vonk, a former collegiate gymnastics coach turned Sherpa executive coach. Jason shares insights from his 30-year career in developing leaders and athletes, discussing the parallels between coaching athletes and executives. He delves into his methodology, the importance of addressing weaknesses, and the power of building trust in the coaching relationship. Join us to learn how executive coaching can elevate your career and personal life.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:47 Jason Vonk's Professional Background
01:52 Transition to Executive Coaching
05:31 Coaching Philosophy and Techniques
08:36 Parallels Between Sports and Executive Coaching
10:34 Client Profiles and Common Challenges
19:31 The Sherpa Executive Coaching Model
24:55 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

Learn more about Jason:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-j-vonk/

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Chris:

Hey, welcome to another episode of the wireless way. I'm so glad you're here today as always. I'm equally grateful and glad that Jason Vonk is with me today. I'm going to, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Jason before we bring them on and just a reminder, you've heard me say this in the last few episodes, but the wireless way, that's a double entendre. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the wireless technology business and, wireless Whit, my hashtag, if you will. I got the YouTube channel and all. But I'm passionate about educating, motivating, inspiring the wireless way has a second meaning to me. It's, no strings attached, no judgment, and the way is the path, the journey, the venture. So we're really going to lean into that today as, it's really more about, how can we add value to you and your career. And when your career has value, your personal life has value. They're very closely tied together. So a little bit about Jason. Jason has been developing leaders for 30 years before becoming an executive coach. He coached division one sports for 12 years at three different institutions. Yale university. George Washington university. And the university of Georgia. As a gymnastics coach, Jason develop athletes who competed internationally for team USA. won conference championships became NCAA. All Americans. He combines his experience. A master degree in executive leadership and the Sherpa. Executive coaching certification to help clients discover their path to leadership growth. He coaches leaders and corporations, small businesses and nonprofit organizations. And each situation Jason is a catalyst for positive change in the coachee. And for the organization. So Jason, I just read your bio. That's what we know about you professionally. Tell us what's not in the bio. How did you get here?

Jason:

Yeah, the main part of the bio is people here. Collegiate gymnastics coach turned Sherpa executive coach. But the background before that was just a lot of years in developing my leadership. Owning a small business in Colorado Springs and leading 20 to 30 people. And a small, being a small business owner comes with all sorts of things that you face and handle. And that's a big part of my background is just the leading small businesses. For

Chris:

Leading small businesses. Yeah, I got to ask you a little bit. I wanted, I'd love to hear how did you get affiliated with Yale? Is this, was this such a big, brand, if you will, very impressive. Was that was that a you asked, did you have to pursue it? How did that work out?

Jason:

Yeah, interestingly enough, I had the Yale application sitting on my desk as a senior in high school, and I never filled it out. My brother in law at the time lived in Connecticut. So when the job came up, I already, I was like, Ooh, Yale. But embarrassingly, I didn't even know it was in Connecticut. I wasn't sure where it was in the Northeast. But I applied for the job and the interesting thing about Yale Athletics is, Yale is a top academic institution and they're a division one, but they don't offer scholarships. So they kind of function in this unique space in sports. So You know, I would say that it was an entry level gymnastics job at the time. And so that's how I got into from being a business owner and high school, middle school coach of gymnasts to being a college coach.

Chris:

Wow. And of course, I'm in Georgia. I'm a native Georgian. Got to ask you about UGA, right? Was that a completely different experience or, I imagine, sports, gymnastics, is it the same from school to school or did you find it to be a different environment?

Jason:

Yeah. I think the biggest crowd I coached in front of at Yale was 1500. I was at George Washington University and, maybe was at a regional meet with five or 6,000, but we consistently had over 10,000 people in the Stegman Coliseum. And then just, the University of Georgia, it's a beautiful campus. There's so many great things about the education and the student life. It really just it was a experience to be part of all that Georgia offers.

Chris:

Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that. And as you were talking a quote popped in my head or, saying that, and I may get it wrong here, but it's we're the sum of the five of the average of the five people we hang out with the most. It's not you hung out with a lot of high level high performing people with high expectations in life. People that had a great work ethic, people that were dedicated and no teamwork. What a great environment, I think, to even hone what you're doing today, because tell us a bit more, what are, how would you do, maybe ask what do you do for a living? How do you answer that question?

Jason:

Okay, that's a good question. I was on the, First I was on the like working with high level people and thought about, yeah, I coached with two Olympians. They were my coaching partners, each of them for a different season. I coached athletes who went on to national team and all Americans in college, so high performing there. And then the switch to executive coaching. I've always been a really driven person and love to learn. So switching careers has been just a great opportunity to learn. Take what I've learned in leadership and then start leaning into a whole different world and a whole new level.

Chris:

Yeah. You had mentioned some of your athletes, you coach, excelling and moving up in stature or whatever the rating is. Is that kind of like a proud parent moment? Do you, it's yes you help coach them, but did you still talk to them? You follow their career or how's that, what's that like?

Jason:

Yeah, first of all, I would say coaching is like a dance in a dance. Both people have their part and both people have to do their part well to be successful and they have to know how to do it together. And that's a good coach athlete relationship. The athlete is putting in their hard work there. They're doing all the physical side of it, really. But the coach has to see them, know them really well, know when to speak up, when to not say anything, how to motivate. There's, it's a very personal experience, especially in gymnastics, being an individual sport at the club level and the Olympic level, and then being a team sport at the college level. So it's really a partnership. And so being a good coach just takes that skill set of seeing others, knowing how to work well with them and how to get the most out of them.

Chris:

That's an issue. All that was really interesting. He got me thinking further again. I'm very, almost I would not call myself the most athletic guy. I was in track in high school and I joined the army and I love watching sports. Gosh, the Olympics, it was a great the gymnastics teams, both men, women did a fantastic job. But it got me thinking too, it's being a coach, and you're coaching someone that is considered, the best. And, I got one, does that ever, does that athlete ever look at you and go, look, you can't even do what I do. How can you make me better when you can't even do half of what I do? That was, is that intimidating as a coach? Cause I even almost every sport, you look at these football coaches, man, they're out of shape. They're big guys and maybe in their prime, they were doing it, but they're coaching these teams to go do great, amazing things. Does that ever get in your head? Or do you ever hear, do you ever have to coach a, an athlete? Are you, like you said, the athletes, they know this. They're like, yeah, your role is not to necessarily show me how to be a better athlete is to, Help me perform better. What's that dynamic like?

Jason:

Yeah, it's really interesting dynamic in college athletics because every freshman comes in asking the question in their head, can this coach really help me? Maybe they have a chip on their shoulders. Maybe they just are uncertain about you, but there is that phase where you have to build trust. So for sure, that's a part of it. I would say, I've actually had three decades of. Gymnastics coaching experience. I guess each year I would get more confident with just, okay, it's not a big deal if they don't trust me yet. And just sit back and just wait for that trust to build. And then I think another key thing about building trust, and this is gymnastics coach and executive coaching, is that I didn't have to be. the only expert in the room. So even when I'm working with another athlete, I literally would say to them, Hey, you've been doing this for probably 15 years. You bring expertise. And when we work together, I want you to bring that to the table. So I would ask questions just as much as I would tell them, because if I could get into their head, know what they're thinking, no what helps them it was a lot quicker to taking a freshman to not trusting me to, within even a few short weeks, them realizing, wow, this coach is ready to. To pick up right where I left off with my previous coaches.

Chris:

That's interesting. And, the, we touched on this just a little bit, but I want you to tell us a little bit more about the parallels you draw from, from, coaching to do an executive coaching from, from athlete athletics to executive coaching. Are you able to draw from some of your past experiences or do you feel like, is it a different conversation?

Jason:

Yeah. I would say There's more things that transfer than don't helping an athlete in high performance. Obviously there's a technical side that has nothing to do with executive coaching, but the mental side of performance the areas of focus, those are a really important transfer. A leader, whether they're just walking in the room leading a meeting or whether they're standing in front of a, a big group of people, talking, it's, those are moments not much different than, standing in a stadium full of people and having to perform. So some of those performance things they carry over And it doesn't even have to be in front of a crowd. It might be speaking up to somebody two or three layers up in the organization where it's really important that you share information with them or get their perspective. So there's a lot of things about being an executive that takes that high performance mentality that I help my clients with. And then probably the other thing is, teamwork. Teamwork is similar everywhere. And and so there's a lot of transfer there and teaching aspects of teamwork.

Chris:

Is

Speaker:

there a like a personality profile, especially on, we can pivot a little bit more into the executive coaching piece. Cause that's what initially got me interested in wanting, to have this conversation with you, then learning about your background. I was like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense to me, so again, as I was telling you earlier, pre show, as a hiring manager, if you're a collegiate athlete. You know probably at really any level especially we got a scholarship to go do something clearly you're top quality you're the cream of the crop. But what kind of personality profile do you see? Of your clients coming to you. Are these seasoned veterans? Are they new executives? What does Your client base, just from a profile perspective, how would you describe it?

Jason:

Yeah, I would say maybe somewhere in between that I've worked with a handful of young leaders but I would say that most of my clients are mid-career. They've got some experience under their belt. A lot of'em haven't had. Formal leadership training, because reality is there's not a lot of formal leadership training out there. People learn it as they go and I would say executive coaching might be the best formal leadership training that you can get. So if I'm their first executive coach, then. Then it might be their first formal training. So I would say then those people end up being either in the middle of large corporations where they're maybe right below the C suite but interacting with the people in the C suite or in small to midsize businesses where they're the CEO or the CEO of the business, and they've got a lot of responsibilities, both strategically and with people leadership.

Chris:

Do you find yourself sometimes being more of just that, that sounding board or I don't want to say, counselor, but is it I can I had a my, my late brother in law worked with the Vistage, if you're familiar with Vistage organization. Yeah. A bunch of executive coaches there. And he would tell me, so sometimes I'm just a guy, they call. When things are going wrong, they just need to talk to somebody that's not a family member, that's not an employee, that's not a shareholder or a board member, they just need this person outside of their ecosystem to vent to and just get advice on. Do you, is that a component that you deal with?

Jason:

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you touch on the word coach can be like. What is a coach? And on the one end of coaching, it is simply the person brings whatever issue to the table and the coach asks good questions to bring clarity. That would be, I would call that under the ICF certification kind of world. And then the other end is a little bit more like a consultant. The coach is bringing the content for the person. What I do falls probably in between, but establishing that. Trust that they can come to me with an issue and I'll help bring clarity by asking good questions is probably one of the most important things in the coaching process.

Chris:

That's fascinating as well, like I was sharing with you is like even in my personal life. I'm I've been like following other coaches and other keynote speakers, in my industry, there's always a keynote speaker some conference and she was some kind of leadership or, whatnot. And it definitely, when you take inventory, cause I'm late career. I'll say I'm in the back nine, if you will, my career, which is great. It's exciting. Can't believe it, to be honest, it's still feels like I just get, I'm just getting started, but it's yeah, how can, how can I level up? Are you seeing, is there common barriers? You think about your, the folks you're working with in the past or still working with, whatever it means, there are common issues. Or do you find like every person is unique? And they're, yeah,

Jason:

I would say big picture. I'll mention the strengths finders profile. I love strength finders. Let me start there. And the goal of that is to get,

Chris:

yeah. What is that? So yeah, strength finders is a basically there's 34 strengths and you find out your top five, which are your best strengths. And then your next maybe seven or eight are still in your wheelhouse. And after that, you should be delegating. In that concept that a lot of people have is you work in your strengths and you delegate your weaknesses. I'm a hundred percent behind that, but it comes with a downside. And that is simply people don't work on their weaknesses. And I have seen in careers, maybe the best you can do is be 80 to 90 percent in your strengths. There's still going to be weaknesses that come up. Maybe I'm working on my strength and I'm I'm really detail oriented and I can sit down in an office for eight hours straight and get a ton of detail work done. And so maybe I'm not the one communicating with. Everybody eight hours a day and in leading, but I sure better be able to communicate. And if that's my weakness I still have to work on it enough that I don't lose the benefits of my strength. And we're looking for that with all of our clients and Sherpa. We would just go, okay, what weakness is coming up in your workplace that's holding you back? And everybody has it. Another interesting thing about that is a lot of times it's a strength overused. So for example, let's say I'm good with people. I really care about people, but the weakness side of that, the strength overused can be, I don't give hard feedback because I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. Oh yeah. So Yeah, somebody's really detail oriented and excellence focused, but they have trouble taking the first step because it's not perfect. So sometimes they get stuck. So it's really interesting that what we find is people's strengths has a weakness side to it. And if you don't focus on that, you get stuck. But if you do focus on that, people get unstuck and they get to another level in their career. Almost reminds me of that interview question, what are your weaknesses and people always say I care too much. You talked earlier too, you know about you know that asking the questions and for clarity and content and whatnot is there a process that you take people through to deal with that? I just I'm thinking of some leaders I've worked with in the past, they're like, yeah, I've been working with this executive team for, five, six, seven years. We're trying to level up the company but maybe one or two Or, they got this as far as they can take us, but they don't want to make that hard decision. And maybe we need to make some changes, our yeah, just acknowledging that the barriers for the business, those are some, they're very emotional. And we always say, is this business, it's not personal. I'm like, sometimes it's personal.

Jason:

Yeah, I think when you get into that space, when you're coaching people, it's really important as a coach not to go into advice giving and there's a couple reasons for that. Number one, they're the expert in exactly what they do. And I would be not honoring that or not getting the best out of that if I didn't start with questions. And then the other reason is when people come up with solutions themselves, they're more likely to follow through and do it. So a good coach knows how to ask questions that bring clarity. Somebody who doesn't know how to do this process will, the person will go back and forth between problems, solutions, reality, they'll bounce all over the place. And when people bounce, when they're processing something, it doesn't help their brain get to a place of, Oh, this is the clear step forward. So a good coach. Clarifies, okay, this is the problem that's happening. Let's get that clarified that we're trying to fix. Let's talk about the reality of what's going on. Let's talk about the possibilities. What can we possibly do about this? And now let's get a step or two that we're going to commit to. So that's the questioning process. And a good coach knows when to simply listen to wait in silence to ask what else and when to move the conversation along. And the goal is clarity. Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah. And you ever felt like you have to challenge your your client means like challenging them. Cause why don't you do it that way? Cause I, I feel like sometimes guys, I know that generally moves me. If someone was saying why don't you, why can't you do that? Yeah. My God. Okay. You're right. I should go do it. You know what I mean? Is there a part of that? Cause I guess even with the gymnastics, you're challenging, Hey, come on. I think you can do a little better than that. What, is that a part of it?

Jason:

A hundred percent. That's my job. If I don't do that, then I'm not a good coach. That's challenge looks like a lot of things. I think the first way that I'll challenge clients is simply When I coach them through something and they realize they have an aha moment, they see the solution. I just asked them for a commitment. Okay. When are you going to commit to do that by, and then I check in with them. So that's a, and that's probably one way of building trust. So that later on, when I have to look at them and go, wait a second, you're not being honest with me, or wait a second You're trying to hide you're trying to hide this weakness here and you need to face it. So you have to build trust to get to that place, but absolutely. However, you phrased it with the word why, and typically as a coach we don't ask why, because that puts people in the defense. So you might say, what are you going to do about that? And then they're like I do need to do something about that. It is in my control. So a good tool of a coach is to help people understand what do you actually have ownership of it in this situation and then are you taking that ownership or are you just letting it happen?

Chris:

Yeah, it reminds me of Ryan Holiday in the Stoics, control what you can control, that sometimes that gives me a lot of peace because sometimes, yeah, it's easy to get, overly concerned about something. And then when you realize, you know what, I have no control over that. But I can't control how I respond to it. I control me. I can't control that or them. So talk to us a little bit about what does your, your program or your process look like? If someone's listening and they're like, yeah, I could really, I like what I'm hearing. I'm interested and what does an executive coaching relationship look like, is it. Do you meet the gym every month, every morning at 5 a. m. Or is it a lunch thing? Or is it zoom called? And what's your typical engagements look like?

Jason:

Yeah. I use the Sherpa executive coaching model. It's a 12 session model. So it's pretty clear about. What's going to be accomplished in those 12 sessions, how long it's going to last. And and those are, I do some, I work with some clients over zoom and I work with some clients in person and I've found that it's powerful in both scenarios. I think that regardless of the medium it's a really good process. In the end of the 12 sessions in Sherpa coaching clients, they have a lot better awareness of who they are, how they show up. At work what they're good at what they need work on. We've taken some steps and some of those weaknesses like we talked about and they have specific ways to fix them. And they know where in the end, this is what I can do about this weakness and this is what I need to delegate. And we're working on that. Sometimes at the end of that process, people are at a good place. There's not a lot of room for more growth immediately. And we just check in regularly and see if there's another time to coach with other clients. I do ongoing coaching after that. So the Sherpa coaching kind of lays the foundation for them and gets them a few breakthroughs that are most needed.

Chris:

Are you surprised with some of your clients come to you and you do that initial discussion? Do you have the feeling that everybody can get better? Everyone could use a coach or some people come to you and you're like, wow. I think you're doing it right, buddy. You're the CEO of a fortune 50 company or whatever. Have you ever had those clients that maybe they're just it's cause it's easy if you're right here and you want to get here, but if you're right here and you can only go up a little bit more, is that, you know what I'm saying? Is that, does that happen?

Jason:

Yeah. And I would say there's two layers to that. One is, am I a fit for this person? Personality fit stage of their career journey. So if I'm not a fit for somebody and I don't think I can help them in that time, I just let them know. The other layer of that is, I work with a lot of really high functioning leaders that I respect a lot and they, there are times in the session like, huh, I've just got to trust that some things are going to come up that I can help them with. But it always does. It always does. And I would say there's a couple things that go on there. Number one, most leaders don't have really good support. There's always a subset of things that they're not, they can't talk to anybody about at work. Maybe they're at the top of the organization and they can't talk to the people that follow them because that would somehow maybe break trust or, not work out well with their leadership. Sometimes there are things that are confidential that they need to be able to talk confidentially about with the coach, but having that person to process with is really powerful. So no matter where they are in their leadership, that's an area of support. And then the second thing is once again, a coach is not primarily bringing the information. They're primarily bringing clarity. A lot of times people already have the solution in their heads. They just don't know it's there. So a good coach helps bring that out.

Chris:

Yeah, sometimes I wonder if they have the answer, they just need someone to agree with it or validate it. Going back to that's a hard spot, but you don't really want to give advice because you don't want to, it's hey, no, I'm just trying to lead you to the right answer. I guess to have, have your client come out and say, you know what, I gotta do this by Friday. Versus you say, you know what, you really should do this by Friday, right? Did you find your clients point blank, either seeking you tell, I need your advice. Someone tell me what I should do here. Is that a, how do you get out of that conversation?

Jason:

And the purest form of coaching, you're not giving advice. However, The Sherpa coaching model does have some tools that we work people through. So tools that help with communication or problem solving, maybe their executive presence. So there are tools that we help them with. So there are areas we switch into that lane of, Hey, I actually have the skill set and the tools to help you here. Then, in some of the coaching questions that I ask, there is, Sometimes I'll ask the question, would you like a suggestion from me? And if I'm really trying to do that pure coaching, I'm really careful to just give one suggestion because as a coach, as soon as you like throw a whole bunch of things at them, it becomes here you are bringing clarity. And all of a sudden you brought chaos. So every once in a while, there might be one thing. And I say, what do you think if you tried this? And then they think about it. And then as a coach, I asked more questions. And a lot of times that one suggestion does bring them clarity, but it was all the coaching that got us to the place that one suggestion actually made sense.

Speaker:

Do you find people earlier in their career are more receptive to coaching versus people late in their career? The same, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Is it, do you have a different perspective or different opinion on, younger first half of the career versus second half of career?

Speaker 2:

I would say that the people in the first half of their career are open to having a coach for the first time more than people later in their career. But what I've found is that people who've had some sort of coaching experience They want more because they've seen how powerful it is. Some people will have a coach that's specific for sales and another coach that's specific for their business processes. There's coaches out there that are. broader support. And there's coaches out there that are more focused on a specific thing. So I do both support and help people with their people leadership. So I might find somebody who has somebody helping with their processes, and then they'll get a second coach for people leadership.

Chris:

That's fascinating. A lot to think about there. And so again, great conversation. Again, if you're listening, I hope you're taking inventory and check the show notes. I'll have more information. About Jason and how to get a hold of him and learn more about what he does. Jason, is there anything we haven't talked about yet? Is there any last words you want to leave us with?

Jason:

Yeah, I'll give you an equation. Most people follow the equation performance equals capacity plus knowledge. So they want to increase their performance. Ultimately, they're trying to add knowledge to it. But a lot of times in high performance, and this I found in gymnastics, and I also find it with executives, is performance equals capacity minus interference. So maybe their weakness is interference. Maybe the thought tornado in their head is interference. Maybe some fear of taking a certain step is interference. So ultimately, a good coach helps the person recognize what the interference is and remove it. So they can get back to hyper.

Chris:

That's pretty deep. That's a deep note to end on. Jason, thanks so much for sharing a little bit with us today. You definitely added value, you, you inspired, you motivate and you educated. So that's fantastic. Thanks. Thanks for making time. I appreciate your flexibility and getting this together.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome. I

Jason:

appreciate your time and the time of all the listeners. Yeah, you bet. And there you go, folks, another episode of the wireless way. And as you were listening, surely you probably thought of someone or someone you think could benefit from this conversation, please share it with them obviously, I love it when you like and subscribe and follow and comment all the above. It just really helps grow this. And some more people can hear the good messages that we're sharing here. Yeah, thanks a lot. And we'll see you next time on the wireless way.