Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Vindig at Sport Law. Leave me a message, I'll get back.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: To you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
Foreign.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversations about healthy human sport today.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: We are so pleased to have three time Olympian, world champion and Olympic silver medalist Kath Bishop join us. Kath brings a wealth of knowledge and a humanistic approach to her career as a British diplomat and acts as a coach and consultant, advising on team and leadership development, development and organizational culture. Kath published the Long Win and was listed by the Financial Times as one of its top 10 business books in 2020. We're simply delighted to have you join us here, Kath. But before we get there, Steve, what's coming across your desk?
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Every time we prepare for a podcast, I, I know we have to talk about this and of course I, I usually prepare at the last second, so I just look at my calendar and see what's going on this week or last week. And as I like to say, sometimes things come in threes. I can, I can think of two right now in the last week relating to the removal of a director. It's other directors or the chair of an organization calling and saying, you know, we're having problems with the director.
And the problem isn't necessarily always they're not doing their work. It's the way in which they engage with each other and the conduct that they produce at a meeting. So a lot of time it's not about work, quality of work, it's about personal personality of, it's about shared values. It's about, you know, they're just not getting along and, and you know, that ties into all the things we talk on, about on the podcast about board recruitment, board screening, education, respect, values, the sharing of values. So to preach, you know, I, I still want to see more nominations, committees, I want to see more vetting and not necessarily again on experience or skill, particularly at the club level. Sometimes we just need people the work and it does not require maybe a specific skill set, but fundamentally and Dina, you know this, every time we hire somebody here, the first test is does their personality and their values align with ours. Regardless if they're the best lawyer or the best strategic planner in the planet, they don't get past that first step. We're pretty much done with them or they don't have an opportunity here. So I just think that's kind of work needs to keep happening, because as I've said before, paying services to get from point A to point A is never motivating for any of us. So I like the proactive work. We want to see more proactive work. And that's what's coming across my desk. So, Dina, how about you?
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Well, I'm fresh off a plane from Cabo. I don't know when we're going to be sharing this recording, but it'll be long, long after I've joined the two of you here today. What's coming across my desk? Well, Steve, as I was reflecting on what you said, we have an acronym for that, pbb. People Behaving Badly.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: It's not Peanut Butt. Never mind.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: Oh, it's not peanut butter. And no, People Behaving Badly. And. And that's. We kind of make a career out of that, don't we? And to bring in common sense and reasonableness. And what I have found is when people's values are being stepped on, this is when people can't bring their best self to the engagement. Because, remember, the people we typically serve, our bosses are the boards of directors who are volunteers. They're volunteering their time, and in many ways, they're more attached to this volunteer role than their paid position. Their full self is engaged in this. It does make things a little bit more complicated, doesn't it?
What's coming across my desk this week is I've been asked by the Future Sport Commission to speak. So I'm prepping for that. And in fact, my prepping is really not prepping at all. It's just to bring my perspective, something that I believe in. And then I've spent pretty much my life's work in trying to advocate for a humanistic approach to the relationships inside the sport ecosystem. So that would be the relationship between the board and the senior staff, the relationship between staff and the CEO, the relationship between coaches and athletes and parents, because until they're 18, it's that golden triangle. And then, of course, the relationships between the participants on the field of play. Who says they have to be our enemies? Right? Competitors must have mutual regard for each other, because otherwise, what's the point? So I think it'll be really fascinating to hear from Kath about what we've inherited as a sport ecosystem from, I'm sure, you know, the days of the Romans inside the arena and how attached we get to an outcome. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can reframe the story. So I'm really delighted now to invite you, Kath, to maybe tell us a little bit more about you and what's coming across your desk before we dive into the conversation today.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Sure. So there's a lot more conversations happening about culture in sports than probably at any other time. And so I think that's a good thing. Thing. I think you realize we're at quite a low level of really understanding how to manage it. There's a lot of fear, there's a lot of a sense of how do we measure this? Because we're used to these very binary metrics. But I do think there is. I like to think there is a growing body of people thinking that sport could play a different role in our lives. And so I'm involved in some conversations around that, looking at issues of safety in sport kind of system wide, looking within the, you know, sports that I'm connected with, gymnastics, where I do some work, rowing or. I spoke recently at a coaches conference and through the True Athlete project that I'm very connected in with, who work with lots of different sports. So I think there's a curiosity. But, you know, we've kind of educated ourselves out of this space and now we're at the beginning of kind of almost re. Educating ourselves back into it.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Yeah. It's hard, Steve, when we don't have the literacy, the common language, to be able to talk about the things that matter most, you know, beyond the wins and the losses. If we don't measure to a triple bottom line. What we call money, metals. Yes. And morals. Right. We're only going to measure the binary and, you know, look where that's got us. So we, we really have to elevate the conversation as you're sharing, Kathy.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: So I think it's a really interesting point, the measuring bit.
I'm surprised and not surprised how often it comes back to that. And when you say to people, what else matters? So let's just, okay, you've got your medal tally. What else matters here? Like, presumably we don't want our athletes to dope. That's an easy one. Probably don't want to be abused. That's an easy. You know, that list is really important. Why don't we really lean into that question and then let's not worry about the measuring for a minute. Let's actually just acknowledge that other things matter here. They're really important and they have a huge value. And then we'll get to the measuring bit. But let's get them on the paper beside the Medals, you know, these stories that are so powerful and have so much value. So I do find myself always wrangling, both in the business world and in the sports world, this question of, you know, because we like things to be put into a number and measured in a really short term, kind of put them in a spreadsheet, somehow we feel more comfortable, but actually we're just kidding ourselves and we're ignoring loads of stuff that's not on the spreadsheet that's gonna hurt us.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Kathy, you wrote a book five years ago called the Long Win. What's the premise? Why do we need to know about this in sport? Tell us your experience, tell us what motivated you to write the book.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Sure. So the book comes into this question of what does success look like? Our framing of success, and our use of the word winning. And he looks at it in the education world, sports world, business world, and beyond in public life and, you know, takes a step back to track actually how we define success and then to ask, is that helping us? And then to think, is it helping us to perform? If we are looking at high performance sport, does it actually help us? Does it help us to thrive? This question of healthy human sport, does that matter? And actually, what's the wider impact that this definition is having? That is, are people drawn to this? Are we building communities around this? Are we increasing the positive social ripples that could come from this? So looking at the sense of, you know, performance, thriving, social impact, and looking through those lenses at how we've often started to, you know, in recent years get even narrower about what success looks like, even more temporary. It's a moment crossing a line. It's a moment at school, getting your grades. And it's a very kind of non human definition. It's a trophy, It's a piece of paper with some numbers on it and often sort of imposed by somebody else who says, this is what you should be chasing. And so across all of these worlds, when those factors are part of our definition of success, then that's what leads us often to behave badly, to come back to your phrase, the ppb.
And so sometimes I find when we look at environments and think, oh, there's some issues here, we need to change some things here. A really important and useful starting point is to come back and go, well, how did we define success? Because that often drives our mindset, our behaviors, our relationships. And it's a way into culture change, it's a way into taking a step back and going, well, actually, what is this environment valuing? Is that what we want it to value. Is there anything else we should be valuing? And so I just have seen from so many different examples, you know, in sport, myself as an Olympic rower, you know, the chase for medals that actually damaged my performance, let alone created a kind of miserable environment. It wasn't helping me either, because I couldn't get the help I needed. I couldn't admit, oh, I need a bit of support over here. I couldn't learn from people around me because they're all my enemies. So it actually impeded me. And so I'm absolutely not against the pursuit of excellence, but I am pro a definition of success that enables me to be able to explore that over the long term, you know, with others, given we can't really succeed on our own. So it's a kind of an examination of what winning means and how it's got distorted. And then the long win is a kind of redefinition with some sort of three principles about, let's rethink, reimagine, redesign. And then, you know, then we've got a kind of new path.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: I have a million questions based on what you just said, but I'll start with this one. You know, the definition of winning, or the aspiration of the gold medal is always been embedded in our culture. That's what we're trying to achieve. And, you know, you mentioned a new definition of winning, and I want you to speak to that. And I can speak about it a little bit myself. I didn't make it to the Olympics, but I made it to a national and international level of competition. And I always kind of joke about it sitting here, you know, I'll say 20 years after retirement, and I don't remember necessarily the medals I won or the my best times or what place I came, but the experience that sport g me. So that's something that, you know, maybe comes with age and the ability to process. But what's your perception, Kath, on winning?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think, you know, again, I'm not against having medals, but I'm against having only medals as the marker of whether we've achieved success or not. I've met many Olympic champions, world champions, gold medalists, too many interviewed, spoken to, read about, who have got this ultimate accolade and feel empty, bit depressed, not sure it's worth it, deeply dissatisfied or, you know, worse, struggling in. In some ongoing way. And that really was part of a catalyst for thinking this isn't just about my own experience. This is very common.
And it's when the medal in itself has very little. You know, it's a round, inanimate object.
Its value is limited in itself as a piece of metal on a ribbon, you know, metal trophy. Its value, its real meaning comes from what it represents in human terms. So if that medal has been won and through that, you know, the person I've become, you know that. That is the person I wanted to become. The values that I've developed and shown and been tested, the community I feel part of, that will last after I step off the podium, you know what it represents, the story I'm part of, maybe for me, my sport, my club, whatever it might be, society at a broader level, these are the things that give the medal some meaning. And so that's what I'm looking for. What's the lasting value of the medal? For example, we've had gymnasts who've won medals and said, I would rather give it back if I could change the experience I've had. That's not okay. That medal is not. Can't be chalked up as a success. Now, if we're just looking numerically in the table that's given the same value currently in our measurement as we give a medal from somebody who has inspired people themselves. Got a great story to tell. They're about to go on, you know, to compete again, or they're going to give back to sport in another way, or they're going to take what they do into another part of their lives and they're very connected to others around them who've been part of the journey. Those two things for me, are not of the same value.
So, you know, it's. It's the lasting value that I'm interested in. What's the story? What's left? What does that person have when they get off the podium? Yeah. At that point, what does the medal mean? That's where its value comes. And so I've got no problem with pursuing the medal. I just want it to be a meaningful pursuit that has a deeper sense of purpose, connection to a community, a sense of the person you're becoming on the route. Those are the things that matter. It's the story that's left that you tell once the race has finished.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that. I was writing some notes here, and what would happen if we change the question? As you and I are both coaches, Kav, we know that the question, a powerful question, changes everything. As I was listening, it dawned on me, like, what if we asked, you know, from. From what's successful or what does success look like? To what does meaning what does meaningful, a meaningful sport experience look like?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:34] Speaker C: And it got me thinking in my book because I've written a couple of books, but my, my last book was on death and loss. I'm a certified thanatologist, which means I, I geek out on all things grief and loss. And you can imagine, just like you've connected with athletes, so have I. They end up finding their way to me when all other measures have failed and they feel broken, they feel disenfranchised because their grief experience was not acknowledged. And if it's not acknowledged, then the pain that they carry from not having that meaningful sport experience haunts them decades later. So I usually sit with them and we hold a ritual. The powerful thing about ritual is a reframing of the story that I've been telling myself and the longing for the experience I never did have. So I can reclaim some of that through ritual. But what, what really struck me is in my book I write about Viktor Frankl and note he writes about man's search for meaning, not man, search for success.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: I thought you'd appreciate these little linkages.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: I love that link. Yes, I think it'd be a great question. What does, you know, let's make sure this, you know, incredibly challenging path you're about to embark on that has absolutely no guarantees and huge external factors determining whether you're in the middle or not. Let's put that to one side and think, what is this pursuit? Because the pursuit is, makes up the bulk of the time, right? Not the, you know, the medal comes, you know, within sort of half an hour at the end, or comes or not doesn't come. So how about we kind of focus on making the quality of that better? There was a question. So I competed at three Olympics and the first two went very badly in results terms, also in experience terms. And I was part of this very out. Well, I think it's outdated, but many traits still exist. A very macho environment, very much, you know, more training is good. So, you know, you do extra.
You know, everyone's your enemy. You show your tough. If you lose, you must show how awful and grief ridden you are and how this is the worst thing that could possibly have happened. All of these sorts of behaviors. So I kind of lent into that because that's what the environment was telling me was needed to be successful, to be accepted and, you know, try to do that better than anyone else for many years. And of course my performance wasn't good and nor was the experience. And, and you know, at that point took a Step back and thought, you know, my goodness, A. To. To try and recover, but also to think, what. What am I missing? Because there's no way I was close to giving a performance I'm capable of. So this. This, you know, I didn't like the person I'd become, didn't like the process, and. And nor is it kind of helping. There's on no camp does this feel that it's actually been, you know, moving in the right direction. And that's when I got really curious about psychology, culture, relationships, you know, this. This whole human part of performance. And when I decided to go back, you know, a year, kind of 18 months later, for. For one more Olympics, I wanted it to be different, had to be different. Some things were changing with a new coach. Not everything was changing, so I couldn't control everything, but there were a lot of things I could control in my definition of success. And, you know, the mindset that I wanted to bring, the behaviors, the relationships. And there was a question that the psychologist asked me that I think is, you know, picking up on what questions can we ask? And, you know, he said, what else are you going to gain from coming back for a third Olympics if you don't win a medal? And at first I thought, oh, that's a bit negative, you know, and he said, look, the odds on anyone winning a medal are terrible for you. They're even worse. Look at your record.
And.
And he said, but do you know, I can reframe the question. What else are you going to gain if you do win a medal? It actually doesn't matter which way, and you can't control the outcome. And we don't know at this point, and it's no problem with aiming for one. What else are you going to gain? And that was what unlocked. You mean there's something else to gain out of this? Yeah, of course there is. And I mean, I already had those sorts of ambitions in my mind, but it. We turned it into goals. We turned it into, how are you doing? And creating meaningful relationships that aren't just transactional. Now, how are we doing? And not seeing everyone as an enemy, but what does it mean to think about people as being kind of rivals that you're striving with, not against. And, you know, that was just a great question. So we're not saying we're not pro or against the medal. It's part of what we're pursuing. Nothing wrong with that. But what else matters? And it really matters. The, you know, our values, the people we want to become on this Journey, how we're going to manage the difficult times. And so that was one that really unlocked things for me.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: I want to pose this question to both of you, Kath and Dina. You know, we've heard, you've mentioned it, Kath, during the podcast right now, and Dina, you and I have heard it in person, where a lot of athletes do come forward. Kath, as you've said and said, I'll give these medals back to have a more positive experience.
How do we get that message to Grassroots? I mean, my, my kids are 11 and 13. They're in the thick of it.
There's parents yelling, there's, there's, there's still that negative cultural environment. I mean, it's very prominent.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: My God, you sport. I mean, yeah, literally crazy. The odds of anybody becoming Olympian are so minuscule. And we're creating a system around, you know, supposedly helping 0.01% of a child and, and we're not even helping them either.
Yeah, I mean, we need to redefine success hugely about what is school sport for? What is youth sport for? And you know, what are the, yeah. What is our definition of success? And taking a much longer term approach. I mean, I've spoken and sort of done some work with, you know, school directors of sport thinking about this, starting, I think themselves starting to realize their role in, you know, the health, the social health issues that we have in terms of, you know, in society, in terms of just lack of activity, lots of other implications that come from that in terms of, you know, being able to focus and concentrate in classrooms or, you know, being able to, you know, staying at a, at a good weight, you know, having the sort of strength to play and run around. And so I, you know, we're at the beginning of starting to think about that and some, really, some of the more progressive, dedicated teachers understand that. And, and we've sort of talked in the school sport context about what if really your, your success, your definition of success was about how active the children are in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years time. And potentially schools with really good alumni relationships could start to track this a bit. What are the things in school sport? Maybe it's school physical activity that, you know, that mean you have a lifelong habit of sport because that could be of far greater value to the individual and to society than, you know, the 0.01% of children that might become an Olympian and even so might have quite a poor experience along the way, which has them very little individual or social value. So I think shifting, you know, shifting those things I hope in a world where also headteachers, parents will start to think, I want my child to be able to manage this very uncertain environment with a lot of digital pressures and distractions. And what they need is something different that isn't just about whether they've won the local hockey league or not. So we're at the beginning. I often find schools afraid of what teach of what parents might say. But actually when you then talk to parents, they've only had their experience to go on and are actually very open to, to us, engaging and saying, look, this is what your child's getting out of school sport. And they're like, oh, well, I just thought it was about winning the league because that's all anyone talked about when I was at school. So there's a re education process. But I mean, youth sport is doing so much damage to having a healthy lifelong relationship with sport and actually keeping people in sport. You know, for that tiny minority who might go on, we're going to lose a lot of them as well. So I don't see who it works for. And it creates so much stress, it's literally madness.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: I'm nodding and it's interesting to me as someone who studies sport, I think it's important for us to understand the sociology of sport.
What was the construct that we've inherited. And just because we've inherited doesn't mean we have to, you know, buy into what was designed at the time as a 1.0 more modern expression of sport. And, and that's often what we share. Kath, here in Canada, we, we are talking about, you know, sport 2.0 as an opportunity for us to do a reset. It's not to throw everything away or to stay focused on blaming and shaming all the ways in which the system design that was designed by people who had aspirations in a whole other era.
So for me, when I look at what you were sharing, a couple of things. Steve, back to your question. I think we have this competition between fitness and sport, what comes first? And for a lot of people, they have an aversion to the S word. You start saying, let's play sport, it's like a, like a, you know, a mental gymnastics they have to go through. You don't play sport, you are involved in fitness and they, they want to move their body because that's a health indicator. But for many, there's an aversion to sport because of the bad experience they had growing up. Right. Because of the many things that you shared where people were competing. You are on my team, we shame the last person that was picked. Right. So really important for us to, I think, understand the sociology of sport and to acknowledge that the current construct is really setting people up to not have a good experience.
I've been speaking about right versus privilege. So, you know, we have these human rights and in many of the human right passages and things where they talk about, you know, ways in which we can ensure children and youth and citizens evolve into having a healthy human experience, sport is there as a means to fulfill that end. However, we don't treat it as a right. Right. It is a privilege and you only acquire that if you have money. So it's not like the best person makes the team, it's the best person with the most money who makes the team. Right. So I think really reimagining, what would that look like if we really truly valued this precious asset that we say is important to us and how would we treat it differently? And even if we can't, you know, institutionalize this within a rights framework, a legal framework, I still think it's a really good mental exercise for us to go through. And then finally, and you said this word a few times, Kath, I believe it's stories. I'm a journalist by trade. It is stories that inspire. And if we look at the narrative right now that is playing out on social media, on, on more, you know, contemporary media, it is all about the negative. And we know that it takes three instances of positivity to counter one instance of negativity. And so we're wired to be in this fight, flight, freeze, faint mode. And if all that we're consuming is the negative expression or a false image of what being an Olympic or Paralympic champion really is, this is what's being sold to the generation of parents who are informing the experience of their children on the field of play. And finally, these same people are volunteers, tier coaches who have inherited a dogma that we need to focus on the outcome. So unless we change all of that construct and in my opinion, separate out national level sport from community sport, we're not going to be able to stay the course because our governance system, which is in dire need of a reformation, just won't be able to sustain the load.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah, gosh, there's so many points, then I think you're right. It's a, it's a deep keep. It's a going back to what's the purpose of sport. And I think, you know, another useful question is to think about what does society need from sport? And yeah, let's keep that in a broader space of physical activity. You know, when we started off, society needed good soldiers. It needed, you know, resilient young men to go and fight or join the establishment. And from our public schools over here, rich independent schools, it was a very different space. And I think it's a really useful question to think now, what does our society need from sport? Because we're not asking that, we're always sort of thinking just more sport equals good, which, you know, isn't the case. It's got to fit into people's lives and, you know, where, where they're at. You know, you, you mentioned that word movement. I think that's so crucial. We need to move more. And that's a sort of, that's a need, that's a bottom line sort of human need. Whether we need to do that through or not. Well, you know, let's explore. That's probably part of the picture, but not the whole picture. And so I often feel frustrated that, you know, sport is run by people for whom sport has been good.
And, you know, when we come together in organizations, running sport, I sort of think, gosh, you know, this works for everyone inside the room, but nobody inside this room understands about how we could make it work for the people who aren't currently in sport. And that's a major kind of gap and an issue in how we actually get, get the change that we need, because almost the response is, let's just get more people doing it, it'll be fine. Whereas I think we need to really adapt to meet, you know, people's needs, what, what they want from sport, and to be asking that for that, to be much more kind of driven from the community rather than let us come. You'll be better if you play more cricket, you'll be better if you do this. But actually, maybe we need to deliver cricket in a different way. That works for your lifestyles and your location and your house where you live and those sorts of things. And I think sport isn't asking that question, how do we adapt to fit what people need from, you know, this broader space of physical activity? And, you know, from a sports, from a school sport point of view, I think the same question could be asked what the children need. They need to be active. Active. How much, you know, how do we fit that into a school day? Like movement across the week should be a leadership priority for the health of your children, not have you done this little two lessons a week of PE over here, physical education, as we call it, you know, that's part of A picture of, of healthy movement. We tend not to think like that. It's the same thing in an office life as well. You know, again, if we're just sitting in front of a screen all the time, it's so bad for us at so many levels, you know, the work we've got to do, but also, you know, our own body functioning, you know, over the long term. And so it's shifting that question, isn't it? Not what can we do to you out there, peoples in schools, people in our workplaces, but actually what do you need from, from activity? And I think that's a mindset shift that, you know, maybe this concept of the future of sport commission you have, you know, it gives you that opportunity to, to open that up. But I think it's, it's critical to keep asking it from that point of view. Not how do we do a bit more of what we've been doing.
[00:31:14] Speaker C: Exactly. I know Steve wants to ask you.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: A question now that we've solved. Kath and Dina, all the problems, recreation and physical education in 30 minutes. Yeah, a little bit more about you. Kath, you're involved with the True Athlete Project.
What is it? How does it tie into the conversation we're having today?
Share with our listeners.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: So the True Athlete Project is a beautiful non profit organization that has, it's, does work around the world. It's based in the us has a base in the US and the UK and uses mentoring and holistic workshops, I guess different ways of working. And what I love is it, it really brings that the sort of meaningful bits of sport that were lacking in my experience. So for example, in the mentoring program that often works across sports, across countries, the conversations run, you know, around obviously what the mentee is interested in but, but the mentor is always given sort of training and space to explore topics around your identity beyond sport, your values, the role of compassion in sport, which was completely absent from anything I ever experienced. You know, again connectedness with the natural environment and your social responsibility. So what do you represent?
You're a role model, you know, whatever whether you win a medal or not, you know, in any sports environments really you're operating as a role model for people around what do you want to be standing for? And we find that again this work with, with athletes, it works at, you know, community level, it works with elite athletes, it works with coaches. The programs are all mindfulness based as well. So giving you that, that sense to tune into who you are in the environment, who the people around you, how you connecting. We see Such an openness and a receptiveness to this. Whereas sometimes administrators say, oh, I don't know if our coaches will like that. I don't know if our athletes like, like it. They love it. They are desperate for a space in which to explore these things that they've kind of, you know, maybe been waiting for without entirely realizing to bring meaning to their sporting journey wherever it is, or to use sports, you know, in a community context as just a. A place to come together and consider these things. And so I love the work they do. It's very practical, and it's very much about the quality of experience. It's not following some kind of framework. And the beautiful thing about mindfulness is you meet people where they are and you bring that into the room. Yeah, it's not a sort of template. This is what you should be thinking. These are your mental skills training. Here we go. You know, but it really allows people to then blossom to be who they are, to become, you know, to think about who they want to become. So, yeah, I'm a huge fan. I work very closely advocating supporting some of their programs. They've been running a program with elite athletes called Powered by Purpose, giving them a space to think about what it means to be a, you know, a change maker, what it means to be part of a cause, and that might be a sporting one, might be something else they care about. And again, we see, you know, just how much athletes want to be engaged in doing good and given a space to learn about that. It's not just your social media profile. It's not just, just, you know, what, what the sponsor on your kind of kit is. But actually, no, we stand for some other things and, but we want to do that in a, in a meaningful way and, and sort of engaging with, with others in that space. So, yeah, I love, I love the work that they do.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: Yeah, your. Your eyes are lighting up and it's, it's interesting. Steve, in Canada in the early, early days, Kath, I was, you know, instrumental in creating something called True Sport.
And True Sport as a way of us humanizing and not pathologizing what it means to be involved in healthy human sport. We're taking you back, like, 25 years now. Beautiful, right? So it's interesting to me, the language that we're using. You're using True athlete. We're talking about true Sport. And as we close off our time together, really want to focus on the future of sport. Just curious when it's interesting. Right. We're wired to focus on what we don't have so all the deficits. And then we, we tend to transact things. And sport is probably a really good illustration of that. If we dehumanize, you know, the people inside the ecosystem, we can do things to them and push them beyond what we would think is reasonable or ethical. Until now, we're in a different conversation. So when we look at the future of Sport Commission, that was really forged out of the voices of athletes and champions for athletes, healthy human sport, that were saying enough is enough.
So while the focus was, or the motivation was really inspired by all of the maltreatment, as you said earlier, we tended to do the same thing with doping. When we could no longer avert our gaze, we created wada, right, the World Anti Doping Organization. And we set up a whole infrastructure around that. And with match manipulation, we can anticipate there's another mole. Right? We're playing a game of whack, a mole. Another infrastructure is going to arise around sport integrity. And what does that mean and how we need to institutionalize a whole other set of bad behavior. But instead of making it a human problem, what would it look like if we created a systemic reformation? Right, that's, that's really designed and fit for purpose. So I think that the future Sport Commission cannot separate maltreatment from the system.
So sport 2.0 is what Steve and I and the gang at Sport Law have been talking about, to talk about a new way of being and seeing sport in Canada, excuse me, in Canada that isn't separate from the world sport system. And so, you know, we need new values, we need a new governance system. What are your thoughts? If, if we were to invite you into a radical Reimagining of Sport 2.0, what do you think the most important priorities should be?
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think it's the vision. What are we aiming for? Because I think, as you say there, we, we sort of tend to say, well, let's do the same thing with a bit less abuse, with a bit less doping, let's stop these things without actually thinking about why we're here. And this is something, I think that's been part, that I've seen British gymnastics look at. So instead of, you know, we've got to stop these, you know, obviously you have got to stop the abuse happening. But by stopping these few things and changing some policies, etc, that that's not enough. You have to rethink why you exist as a sport, why you as a governing body within that sport exist. And that kind of created this sense that Everyone coming in contact with gymnastics in their life, whether that's a teacher or a parent or an Olympia Olympic athlete or, you know, a young child, a local club, we want that to play a positive role in their lives. And then when that becomes why you're there, then people start to do things very differently. So I think we have to come back to this purpose point. I think we then, you know, the governance, the systems need to be built around that. And I find that's often what's lacking. People are going, how can it be anything else other than medals? I'm thinking, how can you think that's all that sports about now? Often, you know, when I do ask people, you know, let's. Well, let's just sort of leave that on the side for a minute. What else matters? You know, why did you come into sport? What's motivated you to have a life in sport, become a leader in sport? I find that people then, they do get it, but then they're sort of like, oh, well, I would never have brought that into the room. I would never have thought about that. So everyone answers the question. It's just we don't really ask, why do we do sport? What's the purpose of sport? And yet I've yet to ask people and not have them come up with meaningful responses. So I think it is leaning into that purpose that is really critical before we build the system and the governance and really thinking about the sort of longer term, deeper impact that sport could bring, what else could it do for our lives? And to look at that through the different lenses of health, education, communities.
And, you know, again, you know, sport in our government is very much, you know, it's parked at the end, in this weakest department, at the end of a list of things department for culture, media, sports. And so it isn't used as a social tool. It's seen as entertainment or a way of showing we're better than other countries, you know, or maybe like, football brings in some money, some commercial value, that's it. And so it will continue like that if that's its role in kind of government terms as well. So there's a piece to rethink how it comes into government, but there's also a really important place for voices in the community to be saying what they want from sport and physical activity and for us to really listen to what that looks like. And that voice is often absent in, you know, in our structures, in our decision making, in our, you know, who leads governing bodies. That voice is really absent and so much more you know, I'd want more citizens assemblies almost discussing, you know, what. What's the role of sport in your community? What could it be? And to be really hearing some of that as well, to change the thinking of, you know, lots of our local government and national government.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: I'm cognitive time, Kath Dean and I always make a joke that I'm. I operate at 3ft and she operates at 30,000ft. So I'm wondering, in closing, if you could give one piece of advice to our listeners. Sport clubs, provincial territorial bodies, national bodies. What's one piece of advice you would give them to try and maybe think about things differently?
[00:41:35] Speaker B: I think it's leaning into this question of what else matters in sport besides what at the moment you think matters? And just to lean into that and to ask it a few times and, you know, to make an ongoing list and maybe to ask others around you to open up these possibilities. What else matters in sport that maybe at the moment you're not measuring or paying attention to?
[00:41:59] Speaker A: And write it down on your board agenda meeting you won't forget.
[00:42:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I love this conversation, Kat. And I was really struck. You said so many beautiful things, but I was really touched and it felt almost tender when you said, nowhere was I close to giving the performance I was capable of because I was limiting, you know, my own capacity to conform, to shrink myself into a system. And. And I find more and more women who are coming in are feeling the contortion, the pain of the contortion. And so as sport moves away from a singular masculine approach towards maybe something that is more. More balanced, feminine and masculine energies working together, it's going to give rise to compassion. And this is the work of Kristin Neff, who's speaking about radical, fierce compassion as our superpower. Right. Hugging our competitors, being able to humanize, not pathologize the human experience. And if we were to remember that most of these Olympians and Paralympians, they were little babies when they started, you know, being triaged into the. The less than 1%. They don't know anything other than sport. So I think we're really exploring things now. And it starts with a different question. So ask not what you can do for sport, ask what sport can do for you. That changes everything. So we're just so grateful, Kath, that you joined us here today. In the episode Notes below, you'll find some sport law blogs where you can find more information related to this beautiful conversation. Thank you so much to our listeners. We're really grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you as we all look to elevate sport.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: As always to have your say in Sportopia. Email us at helloportlaw ca to let us know what you want to hear about next. Stay tuned for our next episode. Until then, be well. Thanks Kath. Thanks Dena.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Thanks so much.
Sa.
