Welcome to the Paul Vette podcast, a podcast about leadership, mindset and hypnosis. Enjoy listening. I was a goalkeeper and we got a penalty against us. And not just any one, but a very important one for me. Why?
It was the start of the competition. We were a few matches into the season and we had won everything up to that point, together with a number of other clubs. And the club that came to visit us, they had also won all their matches. But this club was NAK Breda. And that was the first time in my life that I played against a professional club.
So I was nervous, found it exciting, together with the rest of the team we found it exciting. And we played that match and we went one-nil up. But while it was one-nil, somewhere near the end of the second half, we got this penalty against us. A super important moment of course, because if it becomes one-one, then the match runs very differently than if it stays one-nil. But I knew, I'm quite good at stopping penalties.
I knew that, I believed that, but I could also see it. 40 to 50 percent, I don't remember the exact figures anymore, I stopped them. And I also told the striker that, because I enjoyed playing that game. Just like Hans van Breukelen used to do, I don't know how old you are, but a goalkeeper from the past, he also always played games. He would grab his eye with his index finger and look sideways at the player as if he knew, hey, I know where you're going to shoot.
Well, I played that game too, you might find it annoying when that happens on TV now, but I played that game with the NAK striker. And I felt in everything 'this has to go well', but somewhere I also felt 'this is going to go well'. And as the NAK player who was taking the penalty came running towards the ball, the referee blew his whistle. And I knew immediately this is not the whistle that means the penalty can be taken. No, this is the whistle that he had to wait a moment.
So he runs and he shoots the ball and he shoots the ball in a spot where I could stop it. I knew it. I knew okay, if I dive now, easy. It was poorly shot. I could have easily caught it, but I pulled my hand back.
Why? I knew, okay, he has to retake it. And that was indeed the case. That player was already celebrating somewhere, because he thought 'yeah, I scored'. But that wasn't the case. He had to retake it and I was meanwhile standing by the ball, at the penalty spot waiting for him.
I said 'yeah, I'm sharp, because I knew he had to retake it. You saw it, I pulled my hand back, because now that you think about it, you shot it poorly'. I played hypnotic games with him, I was good at that. And then I knew it completely. Yeah, now he's completely mine and then it happened.
The player took his run-up, shot the ball over the goal. My game won over his game. We won that match two-nil and what I find so cool about this situation is, apart from all the games involved and all the insights you can extract from it, which I'm also going to share with you in a moment. At the end of the season we played against the same team again. But what you need to know is, at the beginning of that year we had gotten 2 new coaches, one of whom was Erik, the other, I've forgotten the name.
Erik apparently made the biggest impression and coincidentally I ran into him again recently. I see him regularly now. Super cool. But that season 2 new coaches, so that was very disruptive. They had a different method.
They looked at our team with a completely blank slate and they got to work with us. And they were really good, because they wore us out. We didn't always enjoy training. We always went though, because we were really a tight team for a number of years already. And that year we also grew closer to each other and we stayed at the top.
And then suddenly we had to play away against NAK. And those matches were played, I think not anymore now, but in any case next to the stadium and we also had to change in the changing room of the big NAK. Yeah, that was of course also exciting, but that year we had grown so much and grown so much towards each other and our mindset was different. And one more thing, but I'll get to that in a moment, that's the most important thing actually, we had so much confidence in ourselves. We played that match and it was cold and raining and I was also just cold as a goalkeeper.
I got nothing, I didn't get a ball, I had nothing to do. The only balls I got, and this is no joke, this is really true, were the balls from NAK's first team who were training on the side on another field and sometimes a ball came onto our field. I was literally just the ball boy for the first team and I touched those balls more often than the match ball. We won that match seven-nil and afterwards parents who hadn't been able to watch the match came by and we ran into them and they asked 'and how did it go' and we said 7-0 and they thought 7-0 for NAK. They thought 'yeah yeah you see, NAK is really better than you guys'.
We had grown so much that year that we completely wiped them out. It was also logical, this was I think, and now it's all called differently, but I think that was NAK's C3 and we had also played against NAK's C1 that year, highest team in that age category for the cup. And we also won that match four-two. So we had grown enormously that year. How does that happen?
Because of those coaches of course, but especially because they were disruptive. They looked at us with a blank, blank gaze, completely as if they didn't know anything about us yet, they looked at us and they saw in us our maximum potential. And what we underwent in that year is not look, in a year's time I as a goalkeeper don't really learn to keep much better. Of course something in terms of technique, in terms of body posture. Of course something, but those are small steps.
But I really made a jump, just like the whole team. Personally, but also as a team we made a big jump. How come? That's because we made an identity shift. We could already do all those things at the beginning of the year that we could also do at the end of the year.
Apart from maybe a few technical things. But the jump we made was one in identity. Suddenly we were a well-oiled machine. Suddenly we were full of self-confidence and all our qualities rose to the surface. Why?
Everything else fell away. And then you see that such a team like us, we could make an enormous jump. 1 because we had different coaches, but 2 also because we weren't at our maximum potential at all yet. And now I genuinely believe that at NAK at that moment that season the problem was, that they had already had the same coaches for a number of years. And when you've been coached by the same people for a number of years, then actually the same thing happens as with parents of children.
Recently my nephew came to visit us or he even stayed with us. And quite normally, I just ask children, because I never know. I don't know ages either. I also always think those ages go faster than they actually do. Last week was the birthday of a nephew of mine and I thought he was already turning 7, he's only just turned 5.
Yeah, that's how it goes in my head. I don't know. I have a son myself, but estimating ages and what they can all do, I just don't know. So I just always assume they can do things themselves. So I also assumed he could put on his own shoes.
Well, he could do that just fine. But a day later his mother comes to pick him up. And what does that mother do? She automatically puts his shoes on for him. Why?
She's used to that. She has completely put him into that normal behavior of hey, you can't do that yet, I'll put your shoes on. And that also happens with other people who coach people, like the coaches at NAK, they're just used to the certain qualities of their team and they do tweak, they do adjust, but they're not disruptive and they can't look with a blank slate to see what is all possible. So that's the rut that NAK stayed stuck in. And of course NAK played at a higher level than we did all that time.
That level difference was just bigger. But for us there was much more progress in that piece, that we could actually still reach maximum potential at that time. And they lived all that time in that same rut in which they were fixed in the mental and physical capacities they have. And those 2 things automatically ensure that you also stay stuck. 1, you can't look at yourself with a blank slate at all, because you've been used to doing certain things in a certain way all your life, while there might really be something possible for you in a different way.
And I say might to tickle you a bit, but I know for sure. For you too, things are really possible differently. You just don't realize it because maybe you've been, I don't know how old you are of course, but maybe you've been doing something the same way since your tenth year of life. While somewhere in your youth a switch occurred there. And during that switch you actually found opportunities to deal with something in a different, unique, powerful way, which you started to hide away.
In another video I've already explained this, but all talents, all primal talents that are in people, are seen as something that deviates from the norm. And as a child you're always looked at sideways, because you have to go back to the middle, you have to go back to what is in quotation marks the norm. And that's really a bad thing. That's really such a shame, because it's precisely in your early youth that you develop qualities and competencies that make you unique, but that also make you a self-willed person, a colorful person with your own unique talents and primal strengths. And those are then simply brutally suppressed by everything.
So at whatever level you're performing now, I know for sure if you look in the mirror, you can't look with a blank slate. You need someone else for that and so you also don't need people who are going to see you the way you present yourself. Even when I work with people, then I ask a few questions and very different questions than most people. But the moment I let you talk for the first time for half an hour and don't give an answer to my question, but simply because you say yeah, I just want to get this off my chest, then it's very difficult for me to stay completely out of your story. Because before you know it, you tell your story, I take over that story and then you're just like NAK that whole season at the same level and then nothing changes.
And that is what I wish for you, that something changes. So take this with you, this given, this insight that shifting an identity, that only happens if you sit across from someone who can perceive you with a blank slate. That's never you yourself. Reflecting at the end of the day can help you. I'll give you a technique in a moment.
And know that in moments when you're already achieving success, that that's just become a kind of pattern in which you've started pacing. I don't know if you used to see those cartoons where people are pacing for so long that they're digging a hole and can't get out of it anymore. That's that golden prison you've created for yourself. When you're already successful and you're at a certain level, then it's almost impossible to get out because you've dug yourself in. And then something or someone has to dare to be disruptive and you actually have to murder your identity, who you think you are now, so that your true identity with your true potential can really come to life.
That's also what I do. I give or I activate people's true identity, so that the next level is inevitable. And I wish that for you too. But if you could hold a blank mirror up to yourself, then there's only 1 way to do that. And it's not completely blank, but it's a lot more blank than how you look at yourself now.
That's looking very honestly at your day every evening and then admitting to yourself where you haven't performed at your best. And then you shouldn't do that based on feeling, but based on facts. So you have to make things more measurable. And when you have things measurable for yourself and at the end of the day you reflect and you see 'okay, here I didn't get the maximum out of it', then you can say 'okay, then I'm going to do that better tomorrow'. That's a way to at least grow in that.
But a complete identity shift, that's very difficult to make for yourself, because you're so used to thinking in the way you think, that it's also difficult to think of a different way of thinking. That's almost impossible and that's why you have to be disruptive and you have to, I use techniques for that that are applied in trauma therapy, but what I actually do is in that moment of a bad experience in your life, that's also where your gold mine is born. You create it there, a gold mine full of primal talent and primal strength and I apply that form of therapy to mine your gold there. That's what I wish for you. I wonder, if you look at your life like that, at 'okay, who's been training you the past year?
Is that a business coach? Do you have a coach? Is it are you just yourself? Because most people who perform at a high level, they actually don't dare to bring in a real coach who looks at them with a blank slate, because they're afraid that vulnerabilities will come up. Well, good news, I see those things as gold rather than as something negative.
So yeah, in that respect I would say, get in touch with me if you're that person. But so it's very important that someone really dares to look at you with a blank slate. I can keep ranting about this, I won't. Your time is precious, but I would say reflect on yourself and just examine for yourself am I really getting everything out of my life or do I actually know that there's much more in it, but am I holding on to that identity that I've now set up for myself? Actually it's an illusion and what would then be a very practical other step is okay, which illusion of yourself that you're actually holding up to the outside world, could you let go of.
What's no longer necessary, because it also takes a lot of strength to maintain a kind of illusion. Whereas if you stop doing that, then you also get space to activate that true identity of yourself, to reveal it and from there to start acting in life. Well yeah, that's what I wish for you.
---
This transcript has been translated from Dutch.
