The Science of Human Performance with Dr. Jack Groppel
Welcome to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger Racquet's leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former tennis player and now director of tennis management at the University of Florida, and Simon Gale, the USTA National Campus director of Racquet Sports. Today on Racquet Fuel, we'll listen to the expertise of doctor Jack Groppel, a researcher, professor, and authority on the science of human performance. He'll address a number of topics around how we all need to manage our energy for top performance at work. Racquet's careers are known to be demanding between long hours and conflicts with family time.
Episode Narration:Jack is an expert on this challenge, so keep listening to hear Jack's helpful advice. Now here's Kim and Simon.
Kim Bastable:Welcome to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Bastable, and I'm here with my cohost, Simon Gale. Simon, how are you doing today?
Simon Gale:Fantastic, Kim. I'm very excited to have what I would define as an industry legend with us today, so I cannot wait to get started.
Kim Bastable:Totally agree. We are so excited and honored that Doctor. Jack Groppel is our guest today. He is so respected in the world of tennis through his leadership and, of great pros and has just broad impact through the Human Performance Institute and many of his other research. He founded the institute with Doctor.
Kim Bastable:Jim Lair, someone else who's who's very respected in our industry. And we're just so thankful for you being on the podcast today, Jack, welcome.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Well, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for inviting me.
Simon Gale:So Jack, it's great to have you and we can't wait to pick your brain here for thirty minutes or so. When we did our planning call, you had shared a comment that we all need to become literate about our own life. Can you unpack what you mean by that?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Sure. It's a fascinating concept to become literate with your behaviors, with who you are as a human being. And I'll give you the basic just ground level of literacy. I mean, when everyone learned to read, had to become literate, and you you didn't even know what how to start. You didn't know how to sound vowels, consonants, and then you became able to see pictures and associate words with pictures, and then you became able to reason and really understand literacy.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And the same with computer literacy, financial literacy, and so on down the line, that there's all these stages of development of becoming truly literate. And what I mean by this is let's go back to the coaching era forty, fifty years ago, before coaching education really stepped up. Most coaches, and I say this with a lot of respect, I'm not dashing this, but most coaches taught or coached on how they were taught and coached. There really wasn't analytical, is this the best way to do it? This is what worked for me, my coach was great, this is how I'm gonna coach.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And I think, so that happens in life too. You grow up as a child, you have biases that are presented by your parents, your community, your school, how you grow up, and basically we start living our life that way. Again, it's not to say that it's necessarily wrong, but I challenge people to think about what are your biases? And this isn't political bias or anything like that, it's biased toward how you view life and how you teach. Could you be better?
Dr.Jack Groppel:I mean, think that's a great question because I think all of us would say, sure, I could be better. I don't know what that looks like. Okay, well, let's break it down. What things that you do are counterproductive? In other words, when you played, when you competed in tennis, did you get angry?
Dr.Jack Groppel:I mean, we all know that anger on the tennis court is a counterproductive behavior, so it probably didn't help you. I mean, even the the the athletes that know they have a short fuse, they realize often after the moment that I would be better if I could handle that short fuse. So it's it's understanding what's counterproductive, how could I become better, and then rewiring ourselves and our behaviors to be more productive in our lives. So that's I hope that's helpful in what I mean by becoming literate.
Simon Gale:Well, and I think a lot of us moved into teaching because we couldn't control some of those counterproductive behaviors when I was a player. You know, you you you You could argue that's true. They they limited our growth, and we said, right, we're we're not gonna make it as a player, we're gonna move into coaching and just pass on what I've learned through the lessons I've had and worked for somebody part time, and I've passed on that knowledge, but now I need to go out and seek further education to become a better coach or better at what my craft is that I'm now moving into. And you know, you raise a very important word there. I used to do a talk,
Dr.Jack Groppel:what are the limiting factors in your tennis game or in your tennis? And I think we, coaches and teachers and administrators, what are our limiting factors? What's preventing us from being better than we are? And when you start taking that approach, you become pretty solid in what you need to do. Like is it we'll talk about this later, I'm sure, but what is it you need to do?
Dr.Jack Groppel:And, you know, I'm involved in field right now, know we're gonna probably talk about this later, but neuroliteracy, it's a brand new field, and I'm really excited about it.
Kim Bastable:Yeah, and I think that as much as Simon and I have seen you over the years and known you and my first experiences of exposure to you happened in, I think, 1989 when I actually talked to you. You don't remember this. I think I talked to you on the beach in Hawaii when we were at a USTA meeting. That goes way, way, way back. I was pregnant with my twins.
Kim Bastable:So we are way back there. But anyway, I've known you way back. But can you give us a little bit we know you're with, you know, like you said, the Neuroliteracy Now. Can you give us a short story of kind of your evolution through the Human Performance Institute? And and I think particularly, I'd like you to go to the corporate athlete program, which I think is a game changer in the world of, you know, we've got the tennis background, but then we get into the leadership.
Kim Bastable:So can you do that? I know that might be a lot to unpack. You've had a lot to do.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I'll try to do it real quick for So a lot of people don't understand, my undergraduate degree wasn't even in the field. My undergraduate degree was in wildlife biology. Woah. Because my father was a hard charger and a fear kind of a fearmonger. He was an alcoholic and loved my dad.
Dr.Jack Groppel:We reconciled later in life, but we had a rough life and I wanted to play tennis. I taught myself to play and I said, Dad, I'm gonna play at the University of Illinois because my sister had gone there. And I don't even know what I if I knew what I was getting into. But my dad said, well, you're nuts. You can't you can't make the team.
Dr.Jack Groppel:He said, you can't. He said, so if you're gonna go to Illinois and I've gotta pay for this education that you're gonna go there stupidly to play tennis, you gotta get a all my family were farmers. So he said, you gotta get a degree in agriculture or else in engineering. Well, I wasn't gonna go engineering, that was a little hard at that time. So I said, I went into agriculture.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I said, I got this wired, but I made the tennis team. I made the team. I walked on and I played, and, but I ended up getting my degree in wildlife biology. Couldn't find a job. All the hippies got the jobs in the park services and the National Forest Service.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And I started grad school in population genetics. So in my brain, I'm gonna be counting wolves in Wyoming, and and but but I hated it. So because in population genetics, you've gotta go to a laboratory, and you've gotta change these vials of flower so these little tribolium beetle can breed more they can propagate faster. So but so the joke is that I was creating an environment so little bugs could have sex and procreate, and I'm just and I was a mess. At 22 years of age, I was in absolute tears.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I was I was a mess. My sister, bless her heart to this day, and this is in the USBT Hall of Fame tribute video they made for me. My sister said, why don't you go talk to the people in kinesiology? And my first thought was dad will kill me, sister says, you know, you're 22, go talk to him. So I did, and they set up an appointment, they admitted me and honestly, the grace of God, I walked out, but I'm thinking, they admitted me, but I'm going, how am I going to pay for this?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Because dad's going to cut me off as soon as he hears this. And as I walked out of Doctor. Rollin Wright's office, he goes, did you say you played tennis here at Illinois? And I said, I did. He goes, I need somebody to teach tennis.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I'm gonna waive your tuition and fees, and I'm gonna give you a small stipend. And I'm going, are you kidding me? So that was the beginning, and then I took Kinesse exercise physiology and cadaver anatomy my first semester. This is in 1974, the spring semester. In May '74, Doctor.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Charles Dillman, who was my kines teacher said there were 17 words he said to me. He said, if you really apply yourself, you could one day become a pioneering leader in the science of tennis performance. And that was all it took. The field didn't even exist. I mean, Vic Braden hadn't even gotten started yet in what he was doing at the time.
Dr.Jack Groppel:So I jumped, I jumped, I got my master's degree, I went to Florida State for my PhD, I finished all my coursework for my PhD, the University of Illinois calls me, and they said, We know you're finishing your doctorate, are you available for a job? And I said, Well, what? And they said, We need it, our tennis coach is leaving, we need you to coach, we'd like you to come back and be the men's tennis coach, and we'll give you a professorship. And so I'm going, wait, I have no experience. I have none.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I'm studying the game. I'm doing all this high speed film work, and I'm studying it. I said, yeah. So I jumped in. I dove in the deep end of the pool.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I was the youngest NCAA coach in the country at the time, I was 25 years old. I go to Illinois, so now I've played in the Big Ten, I'm coaching in the Big Ten, and then that just launched everything because I'm doing all this high speed film work and Vic Braden and I got connected and Vic was wonderful for my career. I met Jim Lair in the late 1970s at the US Open. Jim and I worked together throughout the eighties. Rick Vetter, USPTA Pro, introduced me to Tim Gullixson.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I worked with Tim for a little while, and Tim said, I want you to work with my brother. And I said, Well, who's your brother working with? Said, My brother's working with somebody. He said, Jim Laird. I was like Buddy in the movie Elf.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I said, I know him. You know? And so that was the beginning of Jim and I working together with Tim and Tom, and then Jim and I just kept working together. We had this dream of creating a center, and it was in the eighties that I was I had worked with Stan Smith. Stan had had some elbow problems, and I had taken some high speed films of Stan at Hilton Head, he and I had worked together a little bit to try to ease the pain, the force on his elbow with a serve.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And Stan and I were we did a lot of clinics in the eighties together. At one clinic, was asked, You're in the twilight of your career, what are you gonna do? And Stan said, I'm gonna take everything I've learned in sport, and I'm gonna apply it to my life in business. And I went, oh my god, it's a corporate athlete. So I coined the term then, I trademarked it right away, and started doing Jim, at the same time, was doing he wrote a book in the mid eighties, Mentally Tough for Business.
Dr.Jack Groppel:We're still working together. He then he's at Volataris. I resigned at Illinois. I had tenure. I gave up tenure at Illinois and moved to Saddlebrook.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I became the director of player development for the Hopman program at Saddlebrook. Jim's at Boletier's. We're only 50 miles apart. We now get to work together a lot. And in 1991, Jim wanted to leave Knicks, and we said we said, why don't we talk to the owner at Saddlebrook?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Let's see if we can roll the dice and get this thing started. Whatever whatever it is we're gonna do together, we can build on both of our brands and because we were traveling all over the world. We were representing the USTA. We had created the sports science program. Jim was the founding director of sports science.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I was the founding chair of sports science. So we're representing the USTA in countries all over the world in coaching education because we had fallen behind in the eighties, The US, in tennis. So Jim and I are now now we're like we're like brothers. I mean, we're literally flying all over the world showing sports science and and trying to be leaders and also being sponges. What what are other countries doing?
Dr.Jack Groppel:The owner of Saddlebrook was able to work out a deal with us. He leased us two three bedroom condominiums. We started with our own money. We didn't take any investors whatsoever, and that was and then we opened business in '92, January '92. Our business started growing, we wanted to build a center, but we couldn't get the land at Saddlebrook.
Dr.Jack Groppel:It just didn't work out. And Stan Smith again introduced us to the president at Lake Nona, Lake Nona Golf and Country Club, And Rick Racquet was his name. And Jim and I got with Rick and he said, yeah, you guys are gonna need some investors though, you don't have the cash, but I'll sell you nine acres at the entrance to Lake Nona and you can build your institute. So we were the commercial business in all of Lake Nona in 1995.
Kim Bastable:You have more first than anybody I've wow. That's that's an incredible wow. When we haven't gotten even to the to the content of corporate athlete, which is essentially taking what you've learned in the world of sports and then translating it into to the corporate world. So at what point did you go into that? And you really got more focused on the corporate, didn't you, and less on the athlete?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Throughout the nineties, we were still very involved in tennis. Jim and I were we had a contract with Prince, we had a lot of appearances. We were traveling all over the world with Prince. They did a lot for us. Max Brownlee was just a superstar helping us.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And we stayed in tennis throughout the nineties, and then we started gradually just getting overwhelmed with the corporate stuff we were doing, the corporate athlete and the idea of this content we were creating around the Human Performance Institute. But we did. We moved to Orlando in '95, we opened our institute in '96, and then we the business grew and grew and grew, and in 2008 we sold the business to Johnson and Johnson, and became part of their health and wellness portfolio.
Simon Gale:So Jack, firstly, it's an amazing story because most of us just worked for our local coach and that was how we started. You started with all these names that led to this amazing career, so congratulations on your networking skills. Thank you. But how did that research and and work that you did specifically around the corporate athlete, how would you apply that to today's Racquet's industry? Kim and I have talked a lot on this podcast about work weeks and demands of the job, and and we we we are now in an era where work from home, hybrid, four day weeks, you're hearing all these terms that didn't exist ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.
Simon Gale:And so we've made adjustments here at the campus, for example, to a five day work week for our full time staff. And I think it's had an immediate impact on our culture and what the pros bring to the table each day in terms of energy and enthusiasm for their work. Right. That's on a there's not many places doing that yet. It's not the norm in our industry.
Simon Gale:The norm is six or seven day work weeks. So from all your research over the years, how would you help Racquet leaders and pros deal with kind of work demands of this industry and shaping where we go forward?
Dr.Jack Groppel:We could do a whole seminar, you know, on this question because there's a leadership side and an owner side, and then there's the employee side, and then there's the middle manager. You know, if you've if you've got an owner and then you might be a director of Racquet's, and then you've got employees working for you, there there's different segments here. And so if I I'll just step back for a second, Simon, and make sure we're all talking about the same. We define our terms. I'm really I'm really I get really specific about defining.
Dr.Jack Groppel:So what is a corporate athlete? You're a great performer. Forget about your years in tennis and forget about your years on the tennis court, but you're a great performer. You or you wouldn't have the job you have. So as a performer, as somebody that that needs to get a job done, now I ask people, who do you wanna be?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Who do you wanna be? And now it's not what you wanna do. See, a lot of people say, well, I want to teach tennis, or I want to be I want to get certified in rackets. Okay? If you do that, who do you want to be?
Dr.Jack Groppel:I mean, do you want to be a leader? Do you want to be so here's what I mean, so let's talk about your owner, the owner at your facility. What does she or he really care about? And and I'm not even gonna talk about making money, but they do care about that. But they wanna generate members.
Dr.Jack Groppel:They wanna get new members. They wanna sustain their members. They don't want members leaving. They would love to have community involvement so they have a great image in the community. Well, I didn't say one thing about they want you on the court banging balls all day long.
Dr.Jack Groppel:So you have to figure out as the Racquet's person, who do you wanna be and what is that? It's it's a it's an issue of quality versus quantity. So, yeah, do you have to be on the court? Sure. When Jim and I started HPI in the nineties, I told you that Prince played a huge role in in our funding and our program.
Dr.Jack Groppel:So yeah, we had to hit a lot of balls, but we also had to have boundaries, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, to the corporate stuff, because the corporate stuff was really gonna We knew that the corporate was gonna just blow our business out of the water, and it did. So it's quality versus quantity. You know, in the business world, there's such a thing as FaceTime, where I worked with an analyst at Morgan Stanley quite a few years back, and I'll never he became a managing director, but I'll never forget him telling me that when he was an analyst right out of college, he literally had to he was done for the day at five. The market closed at four. He was done at five.
Dr.Jack Groppel:But he had to sit in front of his computer until seven because that was the culture. And, you know, it's not that way any longer. They've changed that. But it was a concept of FaceTime. The idea that if I don't see you working, you're not working.
Dr.Jack Groppel:So we, as owners and leaders, have to change our perspective of what is performance in the workplace and get a little bit more specific, because it's a cultural thing that if you're gonna be a pro, you've got to bang balls. That's not true. You've got to be on the court, don't get me wrong. I thought one of the greatest things I heard from a pro not too long ago was she was the director of Racquet's at her club, and the sprinkler system, the irrigation system had broken down, so she was out on her hands and knees fixing it because nobody her the maintenance team wasn't gonna be able to get there. And her owner came out to her and said, what are you doing?
Dr.Jack Groppel:And she said, well, I've gotta fix this. And he said, no. My members don't want to see you doing this. My members, it's they appreciate that you're doing this, but they don't want to see you doing this. You need to be a leader here at this club.
Dr.Jack Groppel:It's not I don't want you doing the grunt. I don't want you doing this. We've got a team. Let's get them doing this. And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to speak out of one side and the other side, because when Jim and I, when we built the institute, we were the ones cleaning the bathroom, because we couldn't wait.
Dr.Jack Groppel:If we had a CEO coming in and the bathroom was dirty, we're cleaning toilets, Because so it's it's a fine line on who are you and who do you want to be? Well, if I'm
Simon Gale:the Racquet's leader, because I've been in that prior to the working here, I I owned a club. Prior to that, I worked for for a great honor. And I think part of that responsibility as the director of Racquet's or the general manager who reports to that owner, yes, they want they want return on their investment, they might have partners that they need to make 20% or 15% each year on, and they want their check at the end of a year. But it's my job as the Racquet's leader to also influence that owner, and try and influence our culture when you explain to them how much money it costs when we keep turning over pros, and they take business with them down the road to the club around the corner for $5 an hour or more. All those things that we're aware of if we're in touch with our staff, can we help influence change and influence an owner to say, hey, if we approach it this way, I think we'll actually make more money because it will increase our retention of pros and So that improves our customer satisfaction and our retention of customers.
Simon Gale:They're all interrelated, but that's part of I think being a progressive leader is not, well, this is how we do it, How can we present it to ownership maybe slightly differently and and and have a result that's win win for both?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Yeah. I often talk to people, they for example, they they say they don't have a they have a lack of funding. They don't have enough funding. And I'm going, well, what are you doing to give your owner a reason to give you more funding? Because if you've got if you've got a great idea, and you and this is why we have continuing education, you need to come up with ideas to give your own you've got to give your owner a reason to give you more money.
Dr.Jack Groppel:You know, I I owned my own business, and and everybody says, I we need more funding. Okay. Tell me what's the ROI on that because we'll give you more funding if you can show us we're just not gonna blanketly give you money, you know? But if you can show us so that's why continuing education and what you all are doing is so important, because we have to grow. We have to come up with new ideas and new ways of thinking.
Dr.Jack Groppel:How do we go back to what I said? How do we generate new members? How do we keep the members we've got? And how do we become really well known and respected in our communities?
Kim Bastable:Yeah. No. That's that's excellent. I mean, that's in fact and, yeah, in the University of Florida's program, we we do a lot of proposal writing, which is the yeah. It's it's it's sales of concepts and ideas.
Kim Bastable:And I think that's the leader has to do is provide the vision, sometimes go out on a limb, how to sell the idea and have some ideas. So, that goes back to the kind of another question. We did talk about the five day work week Simon has at the campus and for people that kind of have a structured work life that that maybe they're supposed to show up five days. But what about leaders? Leaders generally could work twenty four seven and many of them do not because they have to, but because they love what they do.
Kim Bastable:I think this speaks to your boundaries comment earlier. Can you help that someone who just purely loves their work figure out when to stop?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Yeah. So again, it's one of those longer questions, but I'll try to do it quickly. First, we can't be the Energizer Bunny. It's not like the battery just in some ways, maybe it is, but it's not like that long because what batteries sell is how long it lasts. Okay?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Well, you're not gonna last long if you just go twenty four seven. You're just not because humans, unlike a battery, are are a bile we're a biological organism. We're a biological being. That's why we require sleep. That's why we require nutrition.
Dr.Jack Groppel:That's why we require physical activity. Because if we don't have those things, we shut down. We'll get sick, our bodies will have anxiety attacks, because the body will do everything it can to survive. If you just push and push and push, the body will start breaking down physically and emotionally and mentally. So this is where you do really have to have boundaries.
Dr.Jack Groppel:You've gotta ask yourself what matters most to me. And you gotta be careful here because to your point, Kim, those of us that really love our job, we'll just go nonstop. K. So are you telling me you want no life outside of the sport? Because if that's true, okay, have at it.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Just make sure you sleep, make sure you eat, make sure you're active, you know. But that's not how most of us are wired. We're social creatures. We're we're creatures that wanna be around people. We're not meant to work in isolation.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And, yeah, your best friends are people you work with very often, but you also many people have partners, many people have families. And are you the best that you can be for them if you just are the Energizer Bunny? So you've always gotta ask, what matters most right now? And sometimes, by the way, this is we gotta let go of the ego trip. The fact that we're still there at work is not helping our employees.
Dr.Jack Groppel:We are terrible role models when we do that. You know, it's like the famous, I'm gonna if you know, I'm gonna email I'm I'm working, to your point. So I'm at midnight on Saturday night, I'm emailing my people. Gotta stop that. Because no matter what you say, they're going, oh, well, if you're working, I gotta be working.
Simon Gale:Well, saw a great quote the other day. I think it went something like, nobody remembers all the extra time and extra hours you put in at work except your kids. And that really resonated with me, you know, to your point exactly. Changing topics a little bit. You talked about exercise and and and the human body needing exercise or it shuts down.
Simon Gale:And I'm fascinated to know what your inspiration was to climb Kilimanjaro a few years I think your son was about 13 at the time. I'm sure you didn't just wake up and say, let's go do this. There was some some thoughtful planning that went into it and training, I'm sure. But what inspired you to do that, and what were some of the key takeaways or things you learned from that epic adventure?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Well, first of all, was crazy. He was only 12, and I was 65, I have artificial knees. I mean, probably the stupidest thing in the world to do. But what happened after I adopted Shen, my son, I started thinking my father died in 2008, and I adopted Shen the same year later that year, so Shen and I forgot to meet my dad. And as I said, my dad and I had a very estranged relationship.
Dr.Jack Groppel:When I was 20 years old, a junior at Illinois, my dad said he called me that spring and he said, hey, son, don't don't play any tournaments this summer. And I'm going, why? I said, I'm going into my senior year. I wanna I need to play tournaments. He goes, no, we need to take a trip together.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And I'm going, all right. And he said, we're gonna drive to Alaska. And I went, drive? He says, yeah, we're gonna camp every night. And he says, I think we can go up and back from St.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Louis. We were I grew up outside of St. Louis, from Alton, Illinois. He said, we're gonna drive from Alton, Illinois to I think we'll go up we'll drive all the way to Fairbanks and come back. He said, I think can do it in six weeks.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I'm going, dad, we'll kill each other. And he said, no, I don't think we will, but we might. We'll probably it'll it'll we need to do it. Well, was a good trip, it was very stressful, but we had a great trip. Well, when my dad passed away at my dad's funeral, that's all the pastor talked about who gave my dad's eulogy, that my dad talked about the trip to Alaska.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And I do believe that that was the beginning of he and I reconciling, even though we didn't really reconcile for another probably almost twenty years after that. But it was the beginning of being able to talk. Well, now fast forward, I've adopted my son. I'm older and artificial knees. He's little, and I'm going, I want to have an adventure with him.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And I don't know, driving to Alaska wasn't on my radar. I said, I gotta I gotta I'm either gonna go big or go home. So I started looking around, and I have always had an affinity for Africa. I did a tennis clinic in South Africa, went on a safari, I loved it, and a photographic safari, by the way, just to make sure everybody's clear on that. And I said, you know and I looked up Kilimanjaro, and I knew all about it, and it was it's the highest mountain in the world that you can actually climb.
Dr.Jack Groppel:You don't need technical skills. You don't need ice, you know, tongs or ladders or ropes to rappel. And I said, wow, that's pretty cool. So I took my son, now he had a cleft palate, and I didn't know how he was gonna be breathing at altitude. So when he was 11, I took him to Rocky Mountain National Park the summer before, and we went hiking.
Dr.Jack Groppel:He was in Boy Scouts. We went hiking there, and he did really well, about twelve, thirteen thousand feet. And I said, you wanna go higher? He goes, what do you mean higher? I said, higher.
Dr.Jack Groppel:He says, how much higher? I said, about a mile vertically. He goes, in The US? Now this is an 11 year old boy. He goes, no, we go to Africa.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And he just goes, my son has such a great affect. He goes, okay. So I told his mom about it, she thought I was crazy. And so we started training. I played tennis three days a week.
Dr.Jack Groppel:He was in karate. He was practicing really hard. So we built up our aerobic foundation. And then in March when the weather broke here in Illinois, we started hiking, backpacks and poles, and to get because you've got to get hiking fit to do that, it's not necessarily and the beauty of this was you didn't know you never knew if you were going to make it because you don't know how your body's going to respond to altitude, that extreme altitude. And it was it was a fascinating trip.
Dr.Jack Groppel:We got we got on the mountain and Shen started playing cards with everybody at night. His nickname, 12 years old, became the big dog. We got on the mountain. I was the oldest person on the mountain. He was the youngest.
Dr.Jack Groppel:My nickname became Babu, which in Swahili means grandpa. And I'm going, seriously? I've trained all this time for this, and you're gonna call me grandpa. And then on day three, they found out that I had metal knees, artificial knees. The head guide comes up, he says, is it true?
Dr.Jack Groppel:I said, yeah. Says, we changed your nickname now. I said, what is it? He goes, Chuma Matu. And I said, what's that mean?
Dr.Jack Groppel:And he goes, Iron Man. And I went, boom, I go from grandpa to Iron Man in three days. So this was a beautiful, beautiful experience, one of the hardest things I've ever done. You asked me what I learned. I learned the role of social connection and love to achieve something you probably couldn't achieve on your own.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And the best story I can give you is it was summit night, and we had hiked we we were at 15,300 feet. We started hiking at 11:00 at night, and you hike all night. You're on switchbacks on a very steep you go 4,000 vertical feet overnight to get to the summit at 07:30 or 08:00 in the morning. That's hopefully, if you can make it. And we had hiked all night.
Dr.Jack Groppel:We're only about 200 yards, 200 meters from the summit, from the actual cone, not the summit. We still had a long way to go to get to the summit, but to the cone of the volcano, we were only about 200 meters. And all you're doing with this point, you can't breathe, you're just sticking your poles in the ground, you take a step, it's chuck your poles, take a step. And you just your head's down, just keep taking the next step, just keep taking the next step, because you just you're about 19,000 feet, 18,000 feet. And all of a sudden, we heard all this noise around us, and I looked up and the park rangers because people get really, really sick on the mountain.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I mean, about twenty five to thirty, forty people die every year from altitude sickness. And I saw rangers all around us arm in arm. They were skiing down the volcanic scree with people that were throwing up. They were throwing up as they're skiing arm in arm with the rangers. And I got scared, I'll be very honest, I got scared.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And I turned around to Shen, I said, Shen, you okay? And he didn't answer me. And now I got even more I said, Shen, you've got to answer me. Are you okay? And all he did, he kept his head down, he just shook his head up and down.
Dr.Jack Groppel:He didn't say a word, couldn't speak. And then the guide that was with us heard me get firm with him, and he came back and he goes, Shen, do you want to go back? And I'm going, in my brain, I'm going, we're done. As soon as he gave that opening, and this is my son, head down, he shakes his head no, he doesn't want to go back. And at that moment, everybody that he remember I told you he was playing cards with everybody at night?
Dr.Jack Groppel:His nickname was the big dog. All the people that were climbing with us were on the cone 200 meters above us, and they saw that Shen was stuck, and they started screaming and cheering for my son. And I started tearing up, and I said, Shen, do you want to go? And I didn't know if that meant go back or go forward, and my son just started taking steps forward, and he made it to the summit. And I believe and I ask, why can't we be that way in life?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Why can't we have that kind of love and that kind of support in organizations, in everything that we do, so that we can encourage each other when it seems like we can't make it, we can make it.
Simon Gale:Well, I think it's fair to say that you, have created that moment equal or greater than your Alaska experience, mate. That's a tremendous story. Thank you.
Kim Bastable:That's such a good lesson. I think it's a good message for everyone, every leader. I know they talk a lot in the corporate world these days about love in the business, in the workplace. And Right. You know, people kind of are heartless a little bit and think of work as maybe the place without emotion, and that's just that's not a possibility.
Kim Bastable:So I love that story. Tell us just a bit we don't have a lot more time, but tell us just a bit about your neuroliteracy. Where are you going with that? What are your next ideas, Jack?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Well, it's interesting you said next ideas, because the company's called Next out of Canada, and we haven't even done the launch yet. People can look at the website. It's nextltd.com. It'll just give you a broad perspective of what they're gonna be about. But it's literally about how do you identify your counterproductive patterns and then what could you do to create productive brain patterns, and then you rewire.
Dr.Jack Groppel:So that's what we did at HPI, except what we did at HPI was with storytelling. It was very, very different. And in fact, I I knew in my lifetime, given where technology was going, that I I didn't in my lifetime. I knew this would happen one day, this would be available. I didn't think I would see it in my lifetime.
Dr.Jack Groppel:And now it's and we're doing a launch this fall. It should be so people can stay connected to me on LinkedIn or we can come back and do more about it if you want to. But it's an amazing situation and I'm honored to be a part of it.
Simon Gale:So Jack, you've been in the research industry for, I think well over forty years now, you know, centered around human performance. Yeah. And you've seen the Racquet's industry evolve. From your vantage point, what are two or three things that that our listeners could take away in regards to being successful in your career?
Dr.Jack Groppel:Wow. Number one, never settle. Never ever ever settle. I mean, if there's anything about my life, it's been an adventure. My life has been an adventure since day one.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I was forced to be an adventurer because my father was an alcoholic, I had to get out of the house. I was a dreamer, you could say I was a visionary, but I always was looking for the adventure in life. And sports science became an adventure for me, nobody else was doing it, so let's do it. Let's let's let's do this. Let's figure this out.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Let's let's help people. I think you got to step back and say, where can I get better? Who do I want to be? Where can I get better? So with your leadership, for example, are you the best communicator that you possibly could be?
Dr.Jack Groppel:If you're not, join Toastmasters. Don't don't think that you're gonna be doing what I did. You know, I was traveled all over the world. I was speaking in front of, you know, 20,000 people with preceding Muhammad Ali in the late nineties. I mean, you know, I'm not saying do that.
Dr.Jack Groppel:I'm saying learn to be a better communicator, whether that's your written word, write for USPTA and and PTR. Write articles. Speak in advance. Practice your speaking skills. You know, make a difference in your community.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Get involved in your community. Be a player in your community so people know who you are and they know your organization. You know, and the last question I posed with people, this comes from John Maxwell's work, who I really follow a lot in leadership. You know, we talk an awful lot about climbing the ladder of success, but we don't talk very much about being a ladder builder for other people. And I encourage you, if you wanna get really, really good at what you do, learn to build ladders for other people so they can climb.
Dr.Jack Groppel:Because Teddy Roosevelt said it, he was the one that was given has been given the credit for this. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And if you can be a ladder builder, your own career will disguise the limit. If you can be a ladder builder and be other focused in all that you do.
Kim Bastable:Well, it sounds like none of that stuff has to do with teaching a better forehand and winning another game or a match. We do that, but it's bigger than that when you get to the leadership, and that's just a part, and that's not the maybe the biggest part. So we we are really thrilled that you have been with us. I love I love the ladder builder. I think that's the job of a of a good leader.
Kim Bastable:We we feel that in this, Racquet Fuel podcast, we really wanna give action items to the people who listen. So that's a great takeaway, something we can remember. And then I think your Kilimanjaro story of keep taking the next step.
Dr.Jack Groppel:There's an interesting side to that. My son is Chinese, and that's a Chinese phrase, that journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. And we literally, on that mountain, just say, I just said, nobody cared. Nobody's gonna know what time you got to the top of the mountain. This isn't a race.
Dr.Jack Groppel:This is just take the next step. If you keep taking the steps and you think about that as a leader, what do you need to get better? Just take a small step. Don't think that you're gonna be this public speaker, you know, speaking at the US Open when you no. Just take the next step.
Dr.Jack Groppel:You don't know what's plan what what what's in store for you if you just keep taking the next step to being a better human being and a better person in our industry.
Kim Bastable:Perfect. We appreciate your time today, Jack. And that's all we have for you today on Racquet Fuel. We'll see you next time.
Episode Narration:That's all for today, but we're not out of fuel. You can find more information and resources in our show notes and by visiting racquetfuelpodcast.com. If you liked what you just heard, please subscribe. And also leave a review, which helps other people join the mission to become stronger Racquet's leaders.
Conclusion:This podcast is a production of Athlete Plus, the people, stories, and science behind elite athletes and teams. Athlete Plus is the official podcast network of the Institute for Coaching Excellence, a research, education, and outreach center in the College of Health and Human Performance at the University of Florida. The Institute for Coaching Excellence offers various online certificate programs and degrees in partnership with the Department of Sport Management. Learn more today at coaching.hhp.ufl.edu.
