Notes from Talk with Dr. Andy Walsche, Director of High Performance, Red Bull
Dr Andy Walsche — Director of High Performance, Red Bull
looking @ talent:
most people look at great golfers if they want to be a better golfer. that doesn’t help answer what makes the greatest, great
red bull breaks down the skills that make someone great, “what are the characteristic skills that make a world class golfer?” then look at masters within those skill sets to model future golfers off of
examples:
- they have the composure and coolness of an east asian monk
- they don’t see horizons; they see limitless potential like an explorer
they create models of talent that don’t exist today but will in 10 years. they say “this is what it’s going to take to win for the next 10 years” and help the best in the world train towards that
makes the talent pool to draw from HUGE
they’re much stronger at the right side of this than the left side
x factor = stuff we don’t know yet, undefinable/untenable stuff
blood tests re: nutrition
How do you want to be remembered?
Every 2 years, samurai put themselves through an immense personal challenge. Red bull takes that idea and puts technology on top of it to have a significant impact
they’re always trying to learn
fMRI before and after the experience. they took some of the best athletes in the world and took them to patagonia in the dark, put them in a new situation they had no experience in with a few navy seals and gave them challenges, physical, mental, emotional that they had to get over and get through.
their brains changed
their ability to process information under stress improved
ability to adapt under stress improved
capacity to tolerate stress improved
had never been measured before
they built an AI/NLP bot that read a bunch of papers on creativity (AI)
interviewed the masters and opinion leaders (expert intelligence)
asked the masses (collective intelligence)
what if they cross the learnings of all 3? Does it give them a competitive advantage. Their hypothesis is yes
3K papers read
most papers are on business and creativity. only 5 written on art and creativity
red bull music academy
the bring 30 people out to spend a week there and they get interviewed. threw the interviews into the AI reader. found patterns there (too small a sample size)
clustering around self-doubt tho
we can uncover patterns, trends and that’s an opportunity
connecting people who suffer from self-doubt as the motivator for their performance, for example, helps them connect and raise the bar
when you start something with a thing in mind, what you learn is often not what you expected
will be open source in September 2016 with ~500 people (email Walsche for beta access)
Top gear model is conceptual. You can put anything you want around the outside for your field. You get it right and the model works or you get it wrong and you change the model. Totally iterative, always spinning and re-engineering
This is a prototype visual model of the model above:
How can they help greater society? It’s great they’re making world class people even better, but how is that helping to solve the world’s most challenging problems?
If they can make that available to the broader public, that’s where the power is and the eventual goal
Give that information away. Share how the best in the world perform. Lessons are very transferrable
What if we gave it away to all the schools?
Open source is crucial. Could help the little girl going into her piano recital, for example
Q&A
60/40 split men/women
how they strip away ego from top athletes:
- putting a top surfer into a ballet class or dance class. allows them to fail, be a beginner, look like a fool. helps teach them how to let go. take that beginner’s mindset
- skills are transferable back to surfing
- it’s not easy though, for sure
They ask:
- what’s your goal
- how are you going to get there
- and then ask, is that the optimal way? can they add value
- sometimes they let the athlete train the wrong thing. so they can experiment and push the limits in their own way and learn from that
- it’s a back and forth process between the athlete and red bull
How does it benefit Red Bull?
- original plan of RB was to support athletes. Started as simple as buying athletes plane tickets, etc.
- evolved to human performance. their athletes have so much more to offer
- those learnings funnel right back into the RB org itself
They define themselves as about a 3 in understanding people and how they work but because they’re in such a cottage industry, a 3 is great right now
the opportunity to do this is open space
hacking creativity is just a model, they want to layer in spirit, grit, resilience, etc.
complexity of the program directly proportional to money
they don’t go for answers, necessarily but for new perspectives
application @ tech companies now:
- chefs prepping brain food
- meditation and mindfulness practice
