What Confident People Focus on Instead of Winning | Ballerina Isabella McGuire Mayes

Isabella McGuire Mayes 0:00 There was a scenario where this 12-year-old girl was a bit of an Instagram star ballerina, and she was competing in this competition, and she didn't win. And she said, crying to her mother, "Please don't post this on social media because I don't want my followers to know that I failed." And she's 12. That is what she's focusing on in terms of her success.

Simon Sinek 0:27 My mind is bubbling because there's so many things happening here, right? Which is we've become so obsessed with outcome, we've forgotten process.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 0:33 Yeah, exactly.

Simon Sinek 0:33 We've become so obsessed with winning, we've forgotten improvement. Does self-confidence come from winning? It certainly appears that way. When we nail the presentation, get the promotion, post something that gets a ton of likes, we feel great. We feel strong for about a day, a week at most. But that feeling fades, which is why we need to chase the next win, the next dopamine hit. Whether it's social media, our careers, startup life, even the whole discussion about how AI can improve our lives, we're always talking about the outcome. In fact, we're obsessed with outcomes these days, so much so that it seems we've forgotten the value of the process. This is important because chasing wins can actually destroy our confidence. So to understand where confidence comes from, we have to learn to appreciate the process. That's why I wanted to talk to ballerina Isabella McGuire Mayes. Yes, a ballerina. Ballerinas by nature are perfectionists. They will train their entire lives to strive for something that they know they'll never reach. No matter how good they get, every ballerina knows that every class, every rehearsal, every performance ends the same way: imperfect. They have no choice but to appreciate the process. At 15 years old, Isabella was the youngest British student ever to attend the legendary Vaganova Academy in Russia, the very same school that produced dancers like Nureyev and Baryshnikov. Isabella graduated top of her class and danced for two major Russian companies. Today, through her online platform Isabella, her podcast A Dancer's Mindset, and her intensives that sell out in minutes, Isabella coaches dancers of every age and level not to worry about perfect, but to obsess about the process, because she knows it's through the process that we build our confidence. If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is A Bit of Optimism.

Simon Sinek 2:47 There's two reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast. Some people know I'm a big dance fan, and I followed you on the Instagram, which is how I found you. And what drew me to you was the way you teach and how you are so good at helping people build their confidence, which I think is a thing that people struggle with today. But we're coming at it from a quite different point of view because you are a ballerina. The other reason I wanted to bring you on is because I don't think people understand ballet. People are enamored by Olympic athletes-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 3:17 Yeah

Simon Sinek 3:17 ... and the sacrifices that Olympic athletes will make for their dream.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 3:21 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 3:22 They give up friends. They give up holidays. Um, they're obsessed. It's a somewhat lonely experience. Ballet, I think, is the same, if not more. So let's start with your career- [laughs]

Isabella McGuire Mayes 3:34 Okay

Simon Sinek 3:34 ... before we get into the, the way you teach.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 3:36 Yes.

Simon Sinek 3:37 What age did you start dancing?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 3:38 My mom put me into ballet when I was probably two as some form of babysitting initially. Like, let's just get her occupied, and I absolutely hated it. I screamed under the piano and protested, and it didn't work for my mom because she had to come and collect me, um, regularly. So who knows how I ended up becoming a ballet dancer. And then when I was nine years old, I got introduced to a Russian ballet coach in the UK because my regular Saturday ballet teacher thought I had talent, and she sort of recognized that she could only do so much with me, and I needed to be passed on to someone who could take me further. And I had this lesson with this Russian ballet teacher initially, and it was the most terrifying experience I ever had. She was slapping my feet. I was sweating more than I'd ever sweated in my life, and I cried afterwards, and I said to my mom, "I never want to see that woman ever again. I don't know what just happened." And then something in me two weeks later said to my mom, "You know what? Actually, I think I'd like to see her again," because I realized that, well, if that's what ballet's about, the hard work, then I want to take this further and see what that's all about. And after that, I was seeing her every weekend on a Sunday. I was already in performing arts school in the week. And from there, I went to the Royal Ballet School. I tried once. I didn't get in, and I tried a second time and was accepted. I was still seeing my Russian coach on the weekend because I was very in love with Russian ballet and was always obsessed with the Vaganova Ballet Academy and always watching YouTube videos of the dancers in the studios.

Simon Sinek 5:28 And for those who don't know, what makes that academy in Russia so special? Why is it such a big deal?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 5:34 Yeah, it's a big deal, and it was a big deal that I eventually went when I did. It's the home of many legendary ballet dancers, such as, if you know ballet at all, Nureyev, Baryshnikov. They all came from there, and it's also the school where Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty was choreographed and set with Marius Petipa and Tchaikovsky in the same studio and in the same room where we train and do all our exams.

Simon Sinek 6:02 So the actual studio, the choreographer worked with Tchaikovsky-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 6:05 Yes

Simon Sinek 6:05 ... to, to make The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and all these, these-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 6:08 Yes, where you see it globally all around the world.

Simon Sinek 6:10 Wow. So this is a storied, a storied academy.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 6:14 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 6:14 Okay.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 6:15 So it's known for creating legends, basically.

Simon Sinek 6:18 Okay.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 6:18 And so- I always resonated with the dancers as well because I'm very tall, and in the UK I was kind of out of the ordinary in terms of my, my shape and my physique. And I kept in contact with the Vaganova Academy because my Russian coach trained there. She was put on a train when she was nine years old from Tashkent and sent on her own to the academy, and she trained there till she was 17. You know, she's made of stone, [laughs] you know? And so I auditioned three times for the Vaganova Academy. I went when I was 13, and then I went when I was 14, and then I went when I was 15, and kind of begged them to let me in. And they said, "No, foreigners can't handle it here. They always get injured. They can't handle it." And I said, "Please, I can handle it. Let me in." And they said, "Um, okay." And so I went, and I ended up staying there for four years.

Simon Sinek 7:12 So let's be crystal clear now.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 7:13 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 7:14 An, a foreigner, a young English girl getting into Vaganova at 15 years old, this is, this is a big deal.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 7:24 Yeah, it was a big deal. I was the, the... I think there was one other British person in the '70s or '80s, but they went for, like, the graduation year, I think, so the last year, which is usually the case with foreign students. They go in the final year as a bit of icing on the cake, so you're not really invested in by the teachers, you know. It's really just so you can say, "I graduated."

Simon Sinek 7:45 Good for the resume.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 7:46 Exactly, yeah. But I wanted to be really trained there. I wanted to become one of them.

Simon Sinek 7:50 It was in the newspaper, right?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 7:51 Yeah, it was in the newspapers and-

Simon Sinek 7:54 Because you were so young getting into the school.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 7:56 Exactly, yeah.

Simon Sinek 7:57 So you go to Russia, you g- and you go through the school.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 7:59 Mm.

Simon Sinek 8:00 Was it hard? Was it-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 8:01 [laughs] Yeah.

Simon Sinek 8:02 Did you, do they teach you, like, math and normal stuff, too, or is it just dance all the time?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 8:08 So the Russian students had academics, much like we had at the Royal Ballet School. We had academics in the morning.

Simon Sinek 8:13 'Cause you have minimum schooling requirements-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 8:15 Yeah

Simon Sinek 8:15 ... as required by law. [laughs]

Isabella McGuire Mayes 8:16 Yeah, so [laughs] yeah, so we did our GCSEs and our-

Simon Sinek 8:20 Okay

Isabella McGuire Mayes 8:20 ... and actually, you know, my parents spoke to me about it 'cause they said, you know, "You could do online school. Like, we could try to get your A levels whilst you're there." And we had a chat about it, and they're very open about the approach that I wanted to go down. And I said, "Look, I just don't think I can focus on these two very intense things at the same time." And I just said to them, "Look, if this doesn't go well, then I'll do my studies afterwards," because you can, whereas with ballet, this is the only time I have.

Simon Sinek 8:51 Mm-hmm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 8:51 And I need to devote absolutely everything to it. So as the foreign students, we had Russian language, and some of them did online school. But apart from that, it was just day in, day out, the training every day. And obviously, initially very difficult. It's all in Russian. All the classes are in Russian.

Simon Sinek 9:08 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 9:08 And so I got very good at watching and analyzing the teacher because they would show you wrong and then show you right. And often I would be praised as, "Why is this English girl getting the corrections and you guys aren't? She doesn't even speak the language," which I think then helped me much later in what I do now in explaining things to people.

Simon Sinek 9:29 A- and I want to be clear because-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 9:30 Yeah

Simon Sinek 9:30 ... I think a lot of people who are listening to us don't know ballet and what it takes. I would argue that more professional ballerinas, even amateur ballerinas, they're more athletes than artists. Some of them are artists. They love the artistry.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 9:45 Mm.

Simon Sinek 9:45 But this is an intense athletic pursuit.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 9:48 Yes.

Simon Sinek 9:49 And you can break a sweat just by standing because all your muscles are engaged so tightly.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 9:54 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 9:55 And you're on your toes, which is unnatural. Bloody feet is normal.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 10:02 Yeah. [laughs] I think it's all slightly unnatural. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 10:05 The whole thing is unnatural. All of ballet is unnatural, it's true. And what you see on the stage are smiles and everything easy. You know, I had the opportunity to watch a performance from the wings of the New York City Ballet, and the best part about it was recognizing the artifice, which everybody's smiling and happy and joyous and, when they're on the stage. And the minute they break the wings, the minute they come backstage, they're exhausted and in pain. And I don't think people realize the intensity of this athletic pursuit.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 10:30 No, and that's what makes it very different from sport because in sport you can show the effort. You can, you can, like, take your deep breaths. You know, some of them make noise just before they do something. And it's almost like when you watch sport, you understand how difficult it is because the athlete shows how difficult it is.

Simon Sinek 10:50 And if something hurts, they fall down on the ground-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 10:53 Yeah

Simon Sinek 10:53 ... and you know.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 10:53 Yeah, yeah. Whereas with ballet, we train so hard to make it look so easy that you have no idea how difficult it is. Or when we run off stage, we're literally dying inside, [laughs] you know, panting, sweating. Maybe we're on painkillers from something. You know, you'd, you would just never know. But that's why we train from so young and train for eight hours a day. Um-

Simon Sinek 11:19 It's insane.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 11:20 Yeah, it is insane. But it is an artistic pursuit as well because even when we... And this is why the Russian school as well was so amazing because they are very in touch with their soul and their artistic depth and the way they move. And so when you learn a basic movement such as an arabesque in ballet, when you have your leg up at the back and your arms in front, they will help you understand how to do that in an artistic way so it becomes not just a movement, but poetry at the same time. 'Cause at the end of the day, we're not here to impress and get a score on something. We're here to make someone in the audience feel something. That's kind of the ultimate goal. And you can get very tied up in the technique of it because obviously you need to be good enough to make it look effortless, and that's why every year if you're not up to par, they cut students every single year, and you have to audition for the next year.

Simon Sinek 12:20 Wow.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 12:21 Yes.

Simon Sinek 12:21 So then did you go on to dance for a company?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 12:24 Yes, so I danced in Russia, two different Russian companies. It's- A common thing once you've experienced this kind of passionate culture in Russia with ballet, even down to ordinary people go to the ballet. It's not just for the wealthy, which is often the case in Western culture.

Simon Sinek 12:40 In, in, in the West it's, it's an, it's an elite art form.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 12:43 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:43 Worse, it's an elitist art form.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 12:46 Exactly. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:46 It's, you know, the hoi polloi go to the ballet, but in Russia it's, it's-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 12:49 Everyone goes to the ballet

Simon Sinek 12:50 ... it's the movies.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 12:51 Exactly, and you see a ballerina on the street, and you're like a football star. And they say, "Oh my goodness, it's Lipatkina," or, you know, someone like this. And so it becomes very hard to leave.

Simon Sinek 13:02 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 13:03 You know, once you're in that environment, almost nothing else lives up to it-

Simon Sinek 13:07 Mm

Isabella McGuire Mayes 13:07 ... in terms of the passion. And so again, another reason why I'm so passionate about sharing what I've experienced, because it's an experience like no other.

Simon Sinek 13:16 Okay. Now, now it gets interesting. Insecurity is built into the profession. From a young age, girls are put in tight clothes to look in mirrors-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 13:28 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 13:29 ... while they're going through puberty, constantly comparing themselves and their bodies to each other,

Simon Sinek 13:34 teachers yelling at them because of their weight. At most, there's a high school education or high school equivalency, very few college educations. They devote their life to this art form, and if it doesn't work out professionally or if they get hurt-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 13:47 Yeah

Simon Sinek 13:47 ... and it ends their career, you get a career-ending injury, which is fairly common, there's very little to fall back on.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 13:54 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 13:54 And so a lot of them become angry ballet teachers because there's nothing really else to do.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 14:00 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 14:00 The entire profession breeds insecurity, and the teachers don't help, and I don't think people realize that. And there's insecurity in, in oneself because you know... Like, that's the dirty secret, which is, "I don't know what I'm gonna do if this doesn't work out."

Isabella McGuire Mayes 14:14 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 14:14 And they're young. Very often they're, they're, they're professionals at 16, 17 years old when they have stars in their eyes and no sense of reality either.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 14:22 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 14:23 So why did you choose to leave if things were going

Simon Sinek 14:26 well?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 14:26 I had gone through a couple of bad injuries, and I'd recovered from them. It's funny, when you're training as a ballet dancer, I don't even think about the possibility that it might not work out. Like, it doesn't even enter my brain, you know, because you can't.

Simon Sinek 14:42 Yeah. 'Cause then you'll play it safe.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 14:44 Yeah, you'll play it safe, and you're kind of inviting it all to go wrong. There's no time to even think that it won't-- you won't have the confidence to deliver. And so yes, I had had a couple of serious injuries. I'd fractured my back, and I'd managed to get back to school. It was in my last year at Vaganova, my graduation year. I missed the first five months, went back, completed it, and then I had a bad hip injury and needed surgery for this one. I rehabbed really well, went back. [laughs] I learned what it's like to be lonely through that period. And it was throughout that period I went back to Russia, and I entered a company which was a new company because I thought I needed a fresh start somewhere different to where I had been before, and the environment was not good for me. It was very depressing, very isolating, and I'd just spent a year rehabbing from my hip. And I was thinking, "Is this it? Is this what life is gonna be like?" Well, then I got injured by one of the guys there 'cause it was very aggressive pas de deux work.

Simon Sinek 15:51 Pas de deux means two dancers.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 15:52 Yes, yes.

Simon Sinek 15:53 So aggressive meaning he's throwing you around a lot.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 15:55 Throwing me around a lot, and-

Simon Sinek 15:56 [laughs]

Isabella McGuire Mayes 15:56 ... and he squeezed-

Simon Sinek 15:57 Let's just translate him.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 15:58 [laughs] Yeah, and he injured my rib, so I kind of didn't break it, but I, I hurt it. And so I said to my mom, "I'm gonna come home and look after my rib," and she said, "I know you. If you come home, you're not gonna go back." And I was like, "No, no, no. I'll, I'll go back, I promise." And then I never, I never went back again.

Simon Sinek 16:16 And did you dance in the UK? Did you join a company in the UK?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 16:19 Um, I haven't spoken about this that much, but I, I went really down. I got very depressed when I came back because I'd worked literally a year to get over my surgery. I went back, and it was almost like a switch had gone off from my desire to go back in an institution and be managed. And so I was in London for a while. I tried the freelance scene in London, and it was hard. You know, I'd come from, you could say, the Harvard of ballet, you know? And suddenly I had to take also part-time jobs here and there to sustain myself, and I was kind of like, "What's going on?"

Simon Sinek 17:01 Why didn't you quit in that, in those dark times when, you know, you're back in England. You went from being a rock star on the street to now sort of doing gig work when you could get it. Why didn't you quit and just do something else?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 17:14 I thought about it. I thought about becoming an actress, thought about doing what my parents do and becoming a journalist, but ballet is just so a part of my core.

Simon Sinek 17:24 Is it an addiction?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 17:26 It's a passion. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 17:27 What's the difference? What's the difference? Serious question.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 17:31 I would say my heart wants it, you know? And I'm driven day in, day out by a, a soul connection, and it's not something I can even choose to do. It's something I, I have to do with my soul. And I had to find my love for ballet again, and I think it took six to eight months to really come back. And I started entering the scene more, and I thought, "You know, maybe I can help others, and I wanna see how that feels to help other people and help young dancers," because they were very much looking up to me as well after what I had done and where I'd gone. It was still, like, really rare. And that's how it started for me. I then started helping young dancers, and I realized I could really help them, and I had a way to instill confidence and explain movements to them to get the best results out of them because I had spent many, many hours practicing every night whilst at the academy. When I started Teaching people, I realized, well, there's a way that I can carve out this career as well for myself that is so fulfilling now. I also have the opportunity to change the culture a little bit of ballet with the voice I have now.

Simon Sinek 18:51 Okay. So now let's get into the teaching.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 18:53 Okay.

Simon Sinek 18:53 'Cause this is what I discovered about you-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 18:55 Yes

Simon Sinek 18:55 ... on the Instagram. The way you teach is quite different. Um, you came from this intense school. Say what you want about the way they teach, they get results, as you said. You know?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 19:10 Yes.

Simon Sinek 19:10 Nureyev, Baryshnikov, I mean-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 19:11 They know what they're doing

Simon Sinek 19:12 ... they know what they're doing. People who go through that school and become teachers teach the way that they were taught.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 19:17 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 19:18 I think that's fairly normal. We become our parents. [laughs] What was it inside you that you chose to teach differently and develop your own way of teaching?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 19:31 Yes. Well, the best teachers I've had have this very nice balance of blunt, genuine honesty with their feedback, but also they have a sense of humor with them as well. And although the Russians are very, very strict, they had a hugely wacky sense of humor, and it's also not for everybody. There were many occasions in the school, for example, I'll just tell a story, where one of these older teachers, a male teacher, was watching my class, and he was then in this corridor, and the corridors in this school are massive, so he was right down the corridor. And he shouted from down the corridor, "England." Like that. [laughs] And I was like, "That must be me." [laughs] So I turned around and I was like, "Yes?" And then he was like, "Are you stupid? Are you stupid?" And he, like, knocked on my head and did that-

Simon Sinek 20:28 Yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 20:28 ... because they do that all the time. Like, is there anything in there? And I was like, "Um, I th- I th- maybe." And he said, you know, "I gave you a correction yesterday for this one exercise, and you applied it to that exercise, and you didn't apply it to anything else. Are you stupid?" You know. And I was like, "Yes, that was a s- very silly thing to do. Got it." But I just laughed it. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 20:53 That, if you... You can't do that in-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 20:56 You can't do that-

Simon Sinek 20:56 ... a Western school.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 20:56 You can't do that anywhere.

Simon Sinek 20:58 You can't do that anywhere. And going back to insecurity and sort of self-confidence, like, you could take that, but a lot of people can't. Or is it if you get into that school, you can take it?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:07 A lot of people can't take it. A lot of people leave.

Simon Sinek 21:11 A teacher can't tell you you're stupid.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:13 No. No, they can't. But I knew also, number one, I was very grateful to be there. The fact I was even there was a miracle. I could easily separate the culture I'm from, and I understood the culture and also generation that they were from. This guy was, like, 80 years old.

Simon Sinek 21:31 Okay.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:32 I, um-

Simon Sinek 21:32 So, so you were able to create, you-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:33 I was able to separate and understand.

Simon Sinek 21:35 You were able to, you, you were able to not take it personally.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:37 Exactly. Yeah. I had to.

Simon Sinek 21:40 Okay.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:40 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 21:40 So how do you teach people not to take criticism p- personally? Because we live in a day and age where it seems that criticism is taken even more personally.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:49 Yes. So because I was able to separate myself, I could take the value in what they could give me-

Simon Sinek 21:55 Yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 21:55 ... which was the very honest, genuine feedback and criticism, which is very important. You can't dance around, no pun intended, like, the facts of what you need to work on. Because whereas in some institutions it can feel like the teacher's up here and the student's down here, I resonate so much with, like, a tennis coach and a, a tennis player. I think you should be on the same level with your students and make it seem very much like we're a team doing this together. I'm here to get you to where you want to go as a teammate, rather than I'm telling you what to do, do it or else. And that can be easily the scenarios in these institutions. And so I took the way I was taught, which was very open, very honest, very genuine, but I do it with a sense of encouragement and confidence building, and more in the sense that I'm making you understand that you're capable of so much more than you realize, so let's get you there together.

Simon Sinek 22:57 So let's leave Russia for a second.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 22:59 Okay.

Simon Sinek 22:59 Can you paint a picture, for people who are listening, can you paint a picture for how feedback or the teacher-student dynamic exists in the West? Give me a real-life scenario of something specific you're working on with somebody and how it would traditionally go and how you're doing it.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 23:16 Number one, I think, let's say we're working on a pirouette.

Simon Sinek 23:19 So that's when you spin around.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 23:20 That's when we spin around. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 23:22 [laughs] A spinny, a spinny thing.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 23:23 Hopefully you don't fall over. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 23:24 Right. But so one spinny thing.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 23:26 Yeah. One? No, at least three. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 23:28 Three spinny things. [laughs]

Isabella McGuire Mayes 23:30 But in the, in the UK, it could be just a very soft approach, such as, "Okay, that's better." Or when you see there's still something to fix, we might move on from it already and say, "Okay, great, let's move on." Whereas in my case, I can't, and I feel like it's a disservice to not give everything you possibly can to that student in this moment. And so I would say, "Okay, you're doing this good. Well done. But you're still not doing this. We need to do it one more time, and I want you to focus on getting that clean fifth position," which is when you land afterwards. And I'll say, "This time focus on this, focus on this." And what I do that's different to other people is I very much tell them how to do it. So I don't mind spending five minutes more on something and telling them to think, "You need to think about lifting this arm up more," or thinking about certain muscles so they really understand the how behind the movement. Often in ballet schools and normal drop-in classes, they'll say what the result needs to be. So they'll say, "You need to land in a clean fifth," or, "You need to turn out more." And you're just supposed to say, "Okay." You know, that's what it's like in any other scenario. Whereas what I do is I'll tell them how to actually make that happen.

Simon Sinek 24:56 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 24:57 Because I think if I can teach someone to understand how to do something, then they're more likely to be consistent with that movement.

Simon Sinek 25:04 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:05 So they can then think in a certain way themselves, so when they go to do that movement again-

Simon Sinek 25:09 Mm

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:10 ... they almost have the blueprint of things to think about to do it.

Simon Sinek 25:13 So this is the reason why I wanted to have you on the podcast, right? Was I think there is lessons to be learned here that go way beyond ballet, and this is one of my favorite things, which is how we learn things outside of, you know, our lane that we're in.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:24 Mm.

Simon Sinek 25:24 And this is why even on this podcast, I have guests from all sort of walks of life because I think there's lessons to learn from everywhere.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:31 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 25:31 And I think this is actually fairly common. I see it in schools, but I also see it in business.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:36 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 25:37 Where somebody in a senior position, you know, the work isn't good enough, they say, "I need you to get to this," and they point to the goal.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:42 Yeah, exactly.

Simon Sinek 25:42 And say, "You're not there yet. I need you to work, I need... See if you can get here." Right? And then walk away.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 25:49 Mm.

Simon Sinek 25:50 And if it doesn't work, you say, "No, no, no, you're still not there yet." Now, I've seen it happen where somebody's confidence gets slowly chipped away at because you keep missing the goal. And even a well-intentioned good leader is like, "No, no, no." Like even if they're patient and say, "You know, good job, way to go. You know, just a lit- little further. See if you can get here." Like, I see it all the time. But what you're doing is stopping and slowing down.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 26:12 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 26:13 And you said it yourself, you're becoming the coach, not the boss. And you're saying, "Okay, but you're being, but you're being honest. You're doing good work, but you missed the goal. Let's take a look at what you're doing, and let's work together to see where the technique or the way you're doing it, maybe I can help."

Isabella McGuire Mayes 26:29 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 26:31 And you have to have a willing participant who says, "Yes. Show me."

Isabella McGuire Mayes 26:34 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:34 That's part of it as well. Um, and then you work together, and then you go away, and then they try again. And that's what I wanted to capture here, which is this idea of even though you have stature, even though you have position, even though they'll do what you say, it's the idea of slowing down and breaking things down to help people get to where they're going, rather than just saying, "Good," giving them the feedback, pointing out the things, and then walking away. But actually showing them-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:00 Yeah

Simon Sinek 27:00 ... how to do it, not just pointing out what's not working.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:03 Definitely. I mean, me getting to the, the level I did in ballet was not what people expected of me to attain. Because throughout my whole training period, I was told, "You're not flexible enough, and you don't have enough turnout." And turnout, obviously-

Simon Sinek 27:19 Is when your, your feet are-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:20 When your feet go-

Simon Sinek 27:20 Like, like a duck

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:21 [laughs] Yeah. You can spot us down the street. When we turnout, it's, it's the major thing in ballet.

Simon Sinek 27:27 It's the thing, yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:27 It's the thing.

Simon Sinek 27:28 It's the starting po- the starting point. Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:29 And so you don't have enough turnout, good luck.

Simon Sinek 27:31 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:32 But again, I was like, "Well, you're not telling me how to turnout."

Simon Sinek 27:36 Right. You don't have enough turnout versus tell me how to turnout.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 27:38 Yeah. So me being quite stubborn and thinking, "Well, all I've got to do is try." Another thing I try to implement in my students is I've noticed a lot of people give up before they've even started. A lot of people put limitations on themselves before they've even tried. You know, when I give exercises out on my social media or something, someone says, "Well, it's all right for you. You know, you're already flexible." And I say, "Well, have you even tried? Have you even seen how far you can go? What if you start? You don't know how much you can improve."

Simon Sinek 28:11 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 28:12 And so I think there's a lesson there in, again, all walks of life. How do we know how far we can go if we don't even start the process and try?

Simon Sinek 28:23 Which raises another interesting question, which is the question of risk.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 28:26 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 28:27 And the question of risk, especially with a young, the young generation. And you work with a lot of young pre-professionals-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 28:32 Yes

Simon Sinek 28:32 ... and you work with adults. When I was younger, if I tripped over in the cafeteria-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 28:38 Mm

Simon Sinek 28:38 ... and my meal went everywhere, everyone would laugh, everyone would point. I would be humiliated. And maybe people would come up to me, make fun of me later that day. But give it a couple days, everybody's moved on. And today, everybody's cameras are out.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 28:53 Yep.

Simon Sinek 28:54 And your tripping over in the cafeteria will now be memorialized on YouTube forever, or Snapchat or wherever they're putting it, right? And so you cannot escape the sort of ups and downs of growing up or just being stupid, you know, tripping over and things. Now, w- I've heard that young people, if you go to a dance party or a club, they don't dance. Nobody dances. Everybody just stands around the dance floor because people are too afraid-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 29:22 Mm

Simon Sinek 29:22 ... of dancing and somebody filming it and being humiliated and having that put on social media.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 29:27 Right.

Simon Sinek 29:28 And so the r- the risk tolerance for experimentation or just having fun has declined.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 29:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:36 It's been replaced by fear.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 29:38 Yeah. Definitely.

Simon Sinek 29:39 And so you have a young generation coming up with a very low risk tolerance for, to try new things.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 29:44 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 29:44 Or, as in your case, point and say, "Well, you can do it. I'm not even gonna try," because that risk tolerance has now, affects everything in their lives.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 29:55 It's something I'm very passionate about, actually. The opportunities for young people, like in the ballet world, like if they wanna do a summer intensive or there's a lot of focus on competing and competitions. Even when students do summer courses or something that's supposed to be just fun for them, there's often scholarships at the end of it that are handed out. There's often some kind of prize that's handed out, and I very intentionally remove all of that when I do my prof- pre- pre-professional.

Simon Sinek 30:25 No stakes.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 30:26 No stakes. Like, we're here to just get better-

Simon Sinek 30:29 Mm

Isabella McGuire Mayes 30:29 ... as a group, and we're here to learn, like we do in pro ballet school. We're here to encourage you. We're here to make sure you leave more confident. I call my intensives for the kids the ballet lab, like a laboratory.

Simon Sinek 30:43 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 30:43 'Cause I want-

Simon Sinek 30:44 It's a place for experimentation.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 30:45 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:45 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 30:45 'Cause I want them to experiment. I want them to make mistakes. I want them to try something new that they haven't before.

Simon Sinek 30:51 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 30:51 And it's kind of instilling in them that you can fall over in front of me. That's fine. Like, you don't need to impress me. We're here to work on this together. You don't need to prove anything to me. And they often leave feeling a lot more confident, and they often say it's the best intensive they've been to because they just feel like the focus is on learning-

Simon Sinek 31:13 Mm-hmm

Isabella McGuire Mayes 31:13 ... and not-

Simon Sinek 31:15 Rather than achieving

Isabella McGuire Mayes 31:15 ... winning.

Simon Sinek 31:16 You pointed something out to me. We had a conversation off camera. A young ballerina who'll be showing off her stuff on Instagram.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 31:23 Yes. Well, social media's a big thing for young students now, and it's a tricky thing because I find young students are chasing the skill of ballet now. So they like to post that they can do 20 pirouettes, and they get a lot of social validation. It can warp their sense of how good they actually are in the real world. You know, because a, a ballet school or a ballet director, they don't really care if you can do 20 pirouettes. They just wanna see that you are a nice dancer and you can do certain things in the ballet class. But it is a big problem in terms of the competition aspect as well. And there was a scenario, which I think I was chatting to you about, where this 12-year-old girl was a bit of an Instagram star ballerina, and she was competing in this competition, and she didn't win. And she said to her mom, crying to her mother, "Please don't post this on social media because I don't want my followers to know that I haven't won. I don't want them to know that I failed." And she's 12. And it made me so concerned as well that that is what she's focusing on in terms of her success, both as a, a young girl and also as a prominent ballet student.

Simon Sinek 32:46 Mm.

Simon Sinek 32:47 My mind is bubbling because it's, because there's so many things happening here, right? Which is we've become so obsessed with outcome we've forgotten process.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 32:54 Yeah, exactly.

Simon Sinek 32:55 We've become so obsessed with winning we've forgotten improvement.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 32:58 Yeah, and it's a slippery slope.

Simon Sinek 33:00 And I've talked about this in terms of AI. AI is only an outcome machine, but there's no process. And so sure, AI can write the letter, but you still don't know how to write. And sure, AI can help you resolve the conflict with your boss, your spouse, whatever, but you still don't know how to resolve conflict. It's everything is about the goal, the goal, the goal, the goal, and we've forgotten about growth, improvement, experimentation, taking risks. All of these extremely human things-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 33:23 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 33:23 ... are sort of being engineered out of us. And now you have this young ballerina who puts herself out as perfect. She's got a huge following on the Instagram because people are looking at her perfect turnout or her perfect 20 pirouettes.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 33:35 And especially in this dancer's case, the focus becomes on being better than somebody else, and that doesn't create a legendary artist. Like, sure, you might do well in this ballet competition, but are you gonna stand the test of time if that's your focus-

Simon Sinek 33:51 No

Isabella McGuire Mayes 33:51 ... is just being better than someone else? It should be about the process. You kind of have to figure out what works for you in terms of your, your chart on where you focus the percentage of your work. Is it process half and performance half and half, or is it mostly process and slightly more performance? For me, process was probably, like, 75% of it because then I found I was confident in my performance and it was a result of the process. But actually, you're correct. In that dancer, when I worked with them in a process scenario, I had to go right back to the beginning. There was so many problems, problems which, if you go to a pro ballet school, they would think, "Oh, you're going to take too much time for me to fix," and so she wouldn't do that well. And so again, it goes back to, like, why are you doing this in the first place? Why are you doing this ballet competition? Why are you trying to be better than someone else? Why did you start ballet? And I always ask students that because I think with the rise of competing and social media, which is different to sports, we're not supposed to be competing in ballet in the same way. They lose all sense of why they're doing it.

Simon Sinek 35:04 I like this idea, focus 75% on process and 25% on performance, and we're in a world that's largely 75% on performance and what process do I need to do to win-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:14 Yeah

Simon Sinek 35:15 ... versus improve.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:16 I mean, you can get very stuck in process.

Simon Sinek 35:18 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:18 And very-

Simon Sinek 35:19 Well, that's, yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:19 ... and overthink everything.

Simon Sinek 35:20 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:21 And then-

Simon Sinek 35:21 Analysis paralysis. Yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:22 ... yes, and then not have enough confidence to perform. To a certain degree, you need to have this kind of periodic moment of being put on, you know, let's say literally the stage or a scenario where you have to show your process of, show what you've worked on so that you can then see the result of what you've-

Simon Sinek 35:41 Mm

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:41 ... been churning all those hours over. But when all the focus is on performance, your process becomes performance, so you neglect all your fundamentals, everything else that needs to be ingrained. You know-

Simon Sinek 35:55 Yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 35:55 ... laying the foundations of your house. You skip all of that.

Simon Sinek 35:58 I mean, this is so true. I mean, you see people, they're great studio ballerinas. Like, they're fantastic in the studio, but they're too afraid to go on stage.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 36:05 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:06 And but I think it's very true in the real world too, which is, you know, somebody, they come up with any manner of excuses. "I'm an introvert," or, "I'm uncomfortable in public places," or, you know, and they don't want to present their work.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 36:16 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 36:16 You know, they wanna do the work. They're good at their work, but they don't wanna present their work. So there's somebody who's good at process, but there is no performance, or they resist the performance for fear of humiliation. And then there's the opposite, which is the people who, "Put me in, put me in," and you realize that they're sort of faking it sometimes, presenting other people's work sometimes. But if you peel the onion, they're, it's a little bit of lying, hiding, and faking.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 36:37 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 36:38 And you're right that y- a good leader pushes the person to perform even though it makes them uncomfortable. And how you do that, it's not just, "I need you to perform. I need you to do this presentation. I need you to be on stage," but, "Let me show you the, the mechanics of," going back to the how you do it.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 36:54 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 36:55 Slowing down and saying, "Okay, you've done great work. Let me show you how to present your work."

Isabella McGuire Mayes 36:58 Yeah. From my experience in ballet school, we're kind of seen like an army of students, and we're given all the same Opportunities, let's say. But sometimes, for example, I'm not a naturally confident person. That's something I've really had to work on. I only felt confident when my process was intact. When I had enough process time, I could trust myself with performance. And so when a teacher didn't quite see that I needed more confidence building, she might push me 20 steps ahead than I'm ready for and say, "We're gonna put you in this thing, sink or swim," which didn't work for me at all because it wasn't done in a, in a kind of nurturing way.

Simon Sinek 37:41 This is the insight for me. This is why I wanted you on this episode. This is the insight that you've given me, which is we're living in a world where the confidence that we get comes sporadically. You have a great performance. You win the race. You get the promotion. You get lots of adoration on Instagram or TikTok. You get lots of likes. That the feeling of confidence you get spikes-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 38:08 Mm

Simon Sinek 38:08 ... in that moment, and you believe that you are confident until the win was last week, everybody's moved on from your post, the competition is complete, and now you're left with just being you because-- and you can't live off those past wins forever. You, you know, they last a little bit.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 38:28 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 38:28 And then the confidence starts to go down, and so you desperately need another win. You desperately need another post that gets lots of likes. You desperately need another hit-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 38:38 Yeah

Simon Sinek 38:38 ... to get the confidence up again. And so we falsely believe that if I keep winning-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 38:42 Yeah

Simon Sinek 38:42 ... or if I keep getting successful posts or if I keep putting myself out there, then I will build my confidence, and it's really just this peaks and valleys of confidence.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 38:51 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 38:51 Whereas what you, what I'm learning from you is if you focus 75% on process, the confidence you're building is innate. What you learn is that, "I'm really good." Like, look at my process. I'm re-- I lost the competition because they were better.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:06 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:07 But I'm really good.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:08 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:08 I'm disappointed I lost the competition. It didn't go like I would like, but I'm really good. And the sense that the peaks and valleys of winning, though they still exist, you still get the hit when you win.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:19 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 39:20 The valley is not deep.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:22 Correct.

Simon Sinek 39:22 You get a little spike, and then that comes down to a higher plateau.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:26 And this is what I'm learning from you, which is winning feels good for everybody. But if you learn process, you learn technique, you work on your thing, not only do you get good at the underlying skill set, and there's always gonna be somebody better than you. And this idea of being the best, it's in a competition. It's only that day versus those people.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:45 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 39:46 And somebody else might can g- might have gotten lucky.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:49 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:49 That happens, too.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:50 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:51 This is for me the insight. Focus on process, and you build real confidence, not fake confidence or temporary confidence.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 39:57 100%. You know, these students I'm mentioning, they do maybe six competitions a year, and they train the same variations. So in ballet, we have these things called variations, which if you watched Swan Lake, there might be a two-minute dance in it that everyone knows. And so you train that for a competition. And so the panel will judge you on that kind of thing, and it will have, like, certain technical things in it. And so they'll be doing those movements for, like, six months out of the year, every single day rehearsing this variation. And so they'll look really good-

Simon Sinek 40:33 Doing that one thing

Isabella McGuire Mayes 40:34 ... doing that one thing. Ask them to do a standard ballet class, and I'll be like, "Why can't you do a tendu?"

Simon Sinek 40:40 A tendu is a very, very, very, very, very basic technique.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 40:43 [laughs] Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:43 Putting, putting your foot forwards or sideways or backwards.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 40:45 Yeah. Yeah. Just your legs are straight, and you just send it out in a direction.

Simon Sinek 40:49 That's it.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 40:50 And-

Simon Sinek 40:51 So they can't even do the basics.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 40:52 No. And I have to go right back-

Simon Sinek 40:55 Yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 40:55 ... to the beginning with them. Like you said, because I focused, and professional-- I would say the real professionals focus on process. We know what we need to work on in terms of it's more a case of, oh, I've gotta work on my confidence on stage rather than my actual skill of being on stage. The skill is there. I've laid it all down. Now it's just experience.

Simon Sinek 41:15 You moved away from being a professional dancer yourself to becoming a teacher. You developed your own style of teaching. You hinted at it before, which is the joy you get from teaching that you didn't ex- expect you would get. Can you tell me a, a specific story of a specific student that captures why it's all of this new challenge that you face is all worth it?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 41:34 Yeah. So personally, I wish I had had more confidence in myself and had enjoyed the process more 'cause I was very hard on myself. And it was quite recently, I had my summer intensive, and I had an advanced group. And one of the students in there who I've been in touch with a long time, coaching her on the side when, um, she's not at school 'cause she goes to professional ballet school. And she's recently gone to a very, very prestigious school. And she was training with me, and, and, and it was the first time I'd seen her after a while of her training in one of these very intense institutions. And I was watching her initially at the barre, and she was making a few mistakes. And I could see her face, like, change every time she made an error. You could see the kind of inner dialogue she was telling herself, which was probably negative. Like, oh, you got that wrong, or you're not good enough. And at one point, she, she left the class and went to the bathroom. And I was like, "Oh, she's having a hard time." She was also recovering from a, a bad injury as well, and I knew what she was going through. And during one of the combinations, I just went up to her as she was doing it, and I just gave her a look, and I was like, "Listen, you've got this. You've come a really long way, and you're ready. You're ready to go back." 'Cause she was gonna go back to this school the next day after we'd finished. And her expression just, like, changed, and she was like, "You're right." And it was just this sense of If I can instill in somebody that they can trust themselves and they can trust that it's everything, all their hard work will pay off, and this is all part of the process. You don't need to be perfect right now.

Simon Sinek 43:29 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 43:29 What is that? In ballet, we're kind of hardwired to expect perfection from ourselves right now, like for that teacher in front of the room, and if we don't deliver, we're just not good enough. And what I try to instill in them is, like, if you leave this room just slightly better than yesterday, then you're doing great. You don't need to be what your ideal is of perfection right now. And what I loved seeing with her was she was making mistakes, but she was laughing it off, and then she would try again, and I would give her feedback. And instead of seeing the feedback as a kind of negative criticism, she was like, "Okay," and she did it again. After the intensive, she came up to me and said, "Now I know what inspiration is."

Simon Sinek 44:14 Mm.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 44:15 And now I know what that means.

Simon Sinek 44:17 This is such an important insight, right? 'Cause we so often try and help people we care about, even well-intentioned leaders, build their skills, and yet it's hard for some people to hear feedback.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 44:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 44:32 Even if it's well-intended, even if it's well-presented feedback.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 44:34 Mm.

Simon Sinek 44:35 And we really have to work to help the people on our team build their confidence. This is the story you're telling. 'Cause when their confidence is built, they can hear the feedback, where before you built her confidence back up, any feedback you gave, even it was honest, she took as criticism. She took as a spotlight on what she's doing wrong.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 44:55 Mm.

Simon Sinek 44:57 When you built her confidence, she took the criticism as feedback, and I can work on that.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:03 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 45:03 And she could laugh off mistakes rather than feeling devastated by mistakes, knowing that she's, going back to this word, this is part of the process.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:11 Yeah, and then the results speak for themselves. She does better-

Simon Sinek 45:14 Yeah

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:14 ... because she's more confident.

Simon Sinek 45:15 Which builds her more confidence, and then it's a, it's a-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:17 Yeah, and she's-

Simon Sinek 45:18 ... a virtuous cycle

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:18 ... exactly, and she's more likely to have a mindset that lasts a career.

Simon Sinek 45:23 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:24 And beyond, yeah, rather than one which will eventually batter you down and you'll quit because you'll have nothing left. And so that's ultimately what I'm doing.

Simon Sinek 45:36 I love finding lessons in extreme examples because the lessons are more obvious.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:39 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 45:40 And ballet, for me, is an important thing for people to study because it is an extreme example of perfectionism and people who are driven by perfection. And every dancer, all they do is try to achieve perfection, and every time they're in class, they're all gonna say it was imperfect.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 45:56 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 45:56 And it's, it's a group of perfectionists in a constant struggle to find perfection. And for anybody who suffers from perfectionism, anybody who struggles with, you know, any mistake they make is a blight on their identity-

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:10 Mm

Simon Sinek 46:11 ... I think you need to go take a ballet class with a teacher like you and understand process, because you're in a room of people who it's always gonna be imperfect.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:20 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 46:21 And for the ones that don't build their confidence, it, it'll destroy them on stage and off.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:26 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 46:26 And for those that build their confidence, they'll have-- successful careers or not, it's fine, but they'll have joy.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 46:33 And they'll move on to whatever they do next and bring that with them. I'm being really serious. Anybody who's a recovering perfectionist or a struggling perfectionist, go take some ballet classes, 'cause on day one you will suck.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:44 It's humbling.

Simon Sinek 46:45 It is-- You, you don't even-- You thought you know how to lift your leg up. You do not know how to lift your leg up, you know?

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:51 No.

Simon Sinek 46:52 You don't know how to do anything. You have to rewire your whole body.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 46:55 Yeah. Need to drop all ego.

Simon Sinek 46:57 And the first time you make a movement that looks nice, that probably took weeks to get there, just one rinky-dink tendu that actually looks like a tendu, it, it, it's crazy.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 47:09 That's what keeps you going as well.

Simon Sinek 47:10 That's what keeps you going. It is process. Take a class from a teacher like you, that it's not about banging a stick or saying, "You got it wrong" or "Try again," but rather somebody who takes care to help you build your confidence and learn process rather than just movement.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 47:23 Yeah, and not an environment based on fear.

Simon Sinek 47:25 Yeah.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 47:26 Because that makes very, very inconsistent results and a scared dancer. So if your process environment is circled around fear, then so will your performance, and you will have massive fear of failure.

Simon Sinek 47:43 We've been talking about the students. What about the teachers? 'Cause you sometimes have the perfectionist who then gets promoted to be the boss.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 47:48 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 47:49 So what happens in ballet when that perfectionist now is the teacher? That can't be good. [laughs]

Isabella McGuire Mayes 47:55 [laughs] Yes. I mean, I've had my fair share of, of teachers. The teachers are often going back to these institutions again. They're under a lot of pressure, you know, th- from higher up. They have to deliver. They have to show that these students will become professional ballet dancers, you know? And unfortunately, that can bring this energy into the room, and unfortunately, those teachers can be quite toxic because they project a lot of their own insecurities onto the students. And so you then become fearful of, oh my God, I've gotta not make the same mistake I made yesterday, or I will be punished in some way. But also going back to the performance thing and the competing thing, a lot of teachers and schools make it about them. Like, I want my school to have the reputation that my student won. And so it's not even about the student. And that's a big problem, I think. Why are we making it about your reputation when actually it's about this 12-year-old who wants to become a ballerina one day?

Simon Sinek 48:58 There's so many overlaps. We had Don Yaeger on the podcast, and he was the biographer of John Wooden.

Simon Sinek 49:05 John Wooden was a v-- was the winning-most college basketball coach in history. And he-- People couldn't understand how he kept winning. And his dirty secret was he didn't care about winning. His dirty secret was he cared about his players.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 49:20 Mm.

Simon Sinek 49:20 And all he wanted to do was have them improve, and all he wanted to do was focus on the process.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 49:27 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 49:28 You play to win, but you don't train to win. You train to get better, and this is what people get wrong. Training, practice, class is not the place you, you ... Nobody can train to win. You can only train to get the movement better, to get the play better.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 49:41 Mm.

Simon Sinek 49:42 That's the only thing you can do, and if you learn to perfect the play, if you learn to per- per- perfect the movement, when it's game day, you're more likely to win.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 49:50 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 49:51 But you can't train to win. It doesn't exist. All he did was build their confidence. All he did was focus on process, process, process, process when they're in training.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 49:58 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 49:58 Training was used to improve the, the movements.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 50:00 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 50:01 And then game day is game day. We'll see what happens. Sometimes the other team plays better than us. And so there's so many overlaps in the best coaches in sports, the best leaders in business, and in what you're doing that, you said this to me when we were off camera, ballet's a little bit behind. Like, all ballet schools and teachers should be like you. You shouldn't be the standout. You shouldn't be on some podcast talking about what you're doing is special. You should just be one of many because this is how it should be.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 50:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 50:25 By the way, I feel the same about leaders.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 50:27 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 50:27 This is how leadership should be. Like, I shouldn't be on a podcast talking about leadership either.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 50:30 Mm.

Simon Sinek 50:31 It should be so normal that it's so unimpressive.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 50:34 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 50:34 There's so much overlap because it's human beings.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 50:37 Yeah, I mean, it feels very normal for me to teach in the way I do, and it's very strange that people don't teach in or lead in that way. But I think my generation taking over now is at a good place because we understand what it was like to be treated probably not so great in the studio, and we wanna change that. And we also know what it's like for young people now, and we want to instill confidence. So I do think there will be a change when we start to step into more leadership roles like directing companies, directing schools.

Simon Sinek 51:15 So good. So interesting. Thanks for coming on.

Isabella McGuire Mayes 51:18 Yeah. It's been a pleasure.

Simon Sinek 51:19 I really appreciate it. It's a lot of good stuff. As always, thank you for watching. If you liked this episode, please subscribe to A Bit of Optimism for more interesting guests and even more interesting conversations. New episodes drop every Tuesday. But if you'd like more optimism right now, click here to watch another episode. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other.