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# #017 Mini-Episode
- URL: https://adamringler.com/podcast/017/
- Published: 2017-10-27T20:10:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-20T05:08:58.000Z
- Author: Adam Ringler
- Tags: Decoding Excellence, #podcast

In this episode **(or Mini-Episode)** of the Decoding Excellence Show, I am sharing a few of the many lessons I've learned from a variety of the great experts and guests who joined me on the Decoding Excellence show.

This was a lot of fun and a great distraction away from the typical interview fashion of the show. I hope you enjoy some of the things I chat about throughout this mini-episode. We'll return to the typical Decoding Excellence show shortly, so keep your eyes out for new episodes.

**Today on the show, I discuss:**

- A few of the great books I'm reading.
- A number of great applications I'm using.
- How I'm optimizing my sleep.

## Key Takeaways From This Mini-Episode

After dozens of conversations with masters of their craft, patterns start to emerge. Here are the ones I keep coming back to, and the ones I put into practice in my own life.

**1\. Sleep Is A Performance Pillar, Not A Luxury.** Every serious performer I have interviewed treats sleep as training, not rest. A dark room, a consistent bedtime, and a hard stop on screens before bed. Nothing exotic. Just consistency. I have learned that recovery is where adaptation happens, and sleep is the most powerful recovery tool we have. Protect it like you protect your training sessions.

**2\. Steal From Masters, Then Make It Yours.** The whole point of this show is deconstructing excellence: sitting down with people who are great at what they do and pulling out the tools, tactics, and techniques behind it. But collecting ideas is not the same as using them. Take one thing from every expert you encounter and run it through your own training lab. Experiment. Keep what works. Discard the rest. Open experimentation is foundational to anyone serious about getting better.

**3\. Simple Tools, Executed Consistently, Win.** I am drawn to applications and systems that reduce friction, not add complexity. Chase clarity, not complexity. The best results come from simple systems executed with consistency. That applies to the apps on your phone and the programs in your weight room. If a tool does not help you ask better questions or make better decisions, it is decoration.

**4\. Reading Is Professional Development.** I read constantly: coaching, psychology, business, human performance. Curiosity is a competitive advantage. The best coaches I know are obsessed with problems, not tools, and reading widely is how you learn to see problems clearly. My newsletter exists for exactly this reason. It is a collection of the most interesting things I find each week, a Birchbox for the curious.

**5\. Coach Yourself The Way You Coach Athletes.** Everything I teach applies to me first. Shorten the feedback loop on your own habits. Take ownership of your misses. Be where your feet are. The standard you hold for your athletes has to start with the person in the mirror. What you see is what you coach, and that includes yourself.

This episode of the Decoding Excellence show is brought to you by Vald Performance, the makers of the NordBord, DashBord, and the GroinBar.

They can be found at [ValdPerformance.com](http://www.valdperformance.com/?ref=adamringler.com)

Stay updated with the podcast by following me on Twitter via @AdamRingler

In addition to those social mediums, you can head over to [AdamRingler.com/Newsletter](http://www.adamringler.com/newsletter?ref=adamringler.com) and sign-up for my weekly newsletter. This is a newsletter for the curious. It's chalked full of interesting articles I've read through the week, things I'm exploring and finding fascinating through my week, and a collections of thought experiences and resources I've cultivated.  
​  
*It's essentially a Birchbox newsletter for performance-related articles, research, and daily musings.*  
​  
Thanks again for listening to the Decoding Excellence Show! I appreciate all the support growing this Sport Science, Strength & Conditioning, and High-Performance Coaching resource. If you have taken anything away from the show, please login to iTunes and navigate to the [Decoding Excellence](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-excellence/id1205636566?mt=2&ref=adamringler.com) page and leave us a review.

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## Key Takeaways

- Treat sleep as a performance pillar, not a luxury: a dark room, a consistent bedtime, and a hard stop on screens, executed consistently.
- Steal from masters, then make it yours: take one idea from every expert you encounter, run it through your own training lab, and keep what works.
- Chase clarity, not complexity: simple tools and systems executed consistently beat complicated ones, in your apps and in your weight room.
- Reading widely is professional development: curiosity across coaching, psychology, and business is how you learn to see problems clearly.
- Coach yourself the way you coach athletes: shorten the feedback loop on your own habits and hold yourself to the standard you set for them.

## Listen and Subscribe

Find this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-excellence/id1205636566?ref=adamringler.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/093GVrPwd9l832q3EWhVKc?ref=adamringler.com), or use the player above.

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## Go Further in This Episode

Enjoyed this conversation? Here is how to get more from it:

- **Read the transcript below** to revisit key ideas at your own pace.
- **Share this episode** with a coach or colleague who would benefit.
- **Subscribe to the Decoding Excellence Show** on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-excellence/id1205636566?ref=adamringler.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/093GVrPwd9l832q3EWhVKc?ref=adamringler.com), or your favorite app.
- **Join the newsletter** at [adamringler.com/newsletter](https://adamringler.com/newsletter/) for weekly insights on human performance.

---

## Episode Transcript

*This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.*

\[00:00:00\] You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want, you take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit opens. Sport science, strength conditioning, high performance coaching, welcome to the Difcoating Excellence Show. Today's episode of the Difcoating Excellence Show is brought to you by VOD Performance, the makers of, the Nordboard, the Dashboard and the Growing Bar. Whether it's return-to-play, rehabilitation or performance testing and training, VOD Performance

\[00:01:01\] Has the tools you need. So who's actually using VOD Performance technology? I don't know something like 14 NFL, 19 NCAA, 15 English Premier League, 7 English championship, 5 NBA teams and 6 MLB teams. They have the tools you need to get the best out of your athletes. Check them out at VODPerformance.com. Hey everyone, this is Adam and thanks for tuning in to the Difcoating Excellence Show. Today's something a little bit different. It's an experiment where I'm going to go away from the traditional interview style of the Difcoating Excellence

\[00:01:39\] Show. We'll deviate away from interviewing some of the great guests that we've had on the show, and today will be a short episode, a mini episode, where I explore some of the tactics and strategies that I've applied over the last couple of months, just from some of the interviews that I've had on the Difcoating Excellence Show and some of the wisdom and lessons that these great guests have shared. So I invite you to listen in and let's go from here. I think it will be a great episode and a great sort of distraction away from

\[00:02:13\] The typical interview process that we've had. So without further ado, let's get to it. Hey everybody, welcome to the Difcoating Excellence Show. I am your host, Adam Ringler. And today I am excited to release this mini episode. It is a shorter episode rather than our hour-long format. But also different from it is that instead of having a guest on the show to share what their specialty is, whether it's brain health or big wave surfing or sleep or nutrition, today we're going to break down some of the guests and some of

\[00:02:55\] The things, some of the wisdoms that they have shared with us. And I'm going to talk a little bit about how I've applied some of those strategies to my own life over the last four months. And some of the things I'm looking at, books I'm reading, things I'm trying to do to optimize my own life, my own coaching abilities. And this will be a long form version or monologue of some of the strategies that I've applied. So I'm really excited to get going, to get into this episode. And there are a number of things that I really

\[00:03:28\] Want to talk about today. And first and foremost will be some of the books that I'm reading and some of the things I've learned and I'm applying and offer some recommendations to those books. We're going to talk about sleep and recovery and some of the things, simple things that you can do to improve your quality of sleep, not only the quality and the quantity of it, so that you can be a more rejuvenated and more rested coach so that when you do hit the floor, that you bring your best abilities out with your student athletes and that you're

\[00:04:00\] Not a sleepwalking zombie when you're out there coaching athletes and coaching and working with the people that you do. So we'll offer some strategies. We'll talk about phenomenal book regarding the subject of sleep and some resources and tools that maybe you can use to try to improve your sleep quality. And then maybe lastly, I'm going to get into talking a little bit about some applications that I've been using, some simple downloads, whether it is guided meditation applications, whether it's budgeting, I did write an article on

\[00:04:35\] My website, atomringler.com, talking about some of the simple and maybe inconspicuous applications that strength coaches should download to their device and utilize. So again, you can find that at atomringler.com. But without further ado, let's jump into what is otherwise the first conversation topic of this mini episode today and that will be our book recommendations. So I think it's obvious that the first book I really want to talk about today is one that I've pre-ordered and have been looking forward to for a very long time.

\[00:05:17\] And that is Dr. Fergus Conley's game changer. And let me tell you, as a practitioner and as an applied sports scientist and a strengthening coach, this thing really is as the title is of the book. It is a game changer. I've devoured this book. It's filled with highlights and notes and there's just some really great content to this book that Fergus goes on to explain and model out in this book. And some of the things I've really enjoyed about it without getting too deep into the discussion of this book is just the topic of talking about

\[00:05:58\] Co-actives, whether that's a physical or physiological, the psychological, the technical or the tactical aspects of a game model. And I really like the fact that Dr. Conley discusses in detail, both in theoretical models and in pulling from different professors and different sports scientists, some other game models in discussions about how these co-actives are involved in elite performance and how one athlete versus another may have equal outputs whether whether that might be a physical component or their actual aren't field or aren't competitive environment outputs,

\[00:06:44\] But may actually go about those outputs in a different manner. Where one athlete might be a little bit more physiological dominant, another athlete might be a little bit more psychological dominant, another athlete might just have more technical or tactical skill sets that allow them to achieve the outputs that we're looking for. And I really liked that aspect that's been something that I've stressed to coaches over the last, I don't know, decade in discussion about the over-reliance of training the physiological systems at an expense of maybe dedicating or allocating more time

\[00:07:22\] To the technical, tactical aspects of the game. And this book was a phenomenal read and I recommend it to not only strengthen conditioning coaches or sports scientists, but if you work in with with anything involved in coaching industry, I think this is a well-needed read. And another example of maybe why it's a phenomenal read is just how Dr. Conley breaks down the game and segments it into different principles or different sort of transitional periods, whether it's the offensive, the defensive, the offensive transition into defense or the

\[00:08:01\] Defensive transition into offense. And how he breaks these downs with sort of major and micro, macro and micro principles into discussing what are the goals of each of these four sort of pursuits. And that's just literally the tip of the iceberg of this book. If you're interested in sports science like I am or strengthening conditioning, this is a read that you definitely need to pick up. It's filled with references, it's filled with photos and diagrams and models. I think it will be something if you do have an appetite for this type of material that you should

\[00:08:40\] Definitely pick up because it is, as the title says, a complete game changer and a book and a resource that I've looked forward to over the last several months, as soon as he announced the pre-ordering immediately up on Amazon for me. The second book that I'm getting a lot of satisfaction out of and I think it's applicable to the world of coaching and working with student athletes or high performers of any capacity is Kim Scott's radical candor. It is a book regarding how to be a better manager, how to give better feedback, how to give better evaluate of advice to people

\[00:09:21\] That you work with. And if you're in the coaching industry, that's a large part of what we do. We evaluate, we give feedback, we are essentially giving job performance reviews every single time and session that we're working with the student athlete. So if we can be more effective, if we can give that radical feedback or candor to a student athlete and we can embrace that, I think we are better coaches for it. So anything that can improve your feedback capabilities and how you give feedback and what you structure it with as we all know, right? Feedback and coaching is the art of,

\[00:10:03\] I can sure that you tell an athlete what they need to hear and not always what they want to hear, what they need to hear. So this has been a book that I've recommended to my staff that I've really thought is a phenomenal read and one that again, I've taken many, many highlights and notes and hand have exported those notes and now in the process of condensing those down into a one-pager so that I can constantly refresh that material as I review some of these notes. Another area that I've been exploring more or rather getting back into is just a regular

\[00:10:43\] Meditative practice and this is something that I've done long before, even my transitional period, even back in Kansas. I developed a meditative practice, I utilize an application called Headspace. You can find that at Headspace.com, they share applications on Android and iOS but the website is also phenomenal and another application that you could use for guided meditation or visualization is column, calm.com. Very similar applications both have their pros and cons however I tend to prefer Headspace.com over a calm but that's just a simple matter of preference but the reason I

\[00:11:29\] Really like Headspace and why I like this daily practice is it, it really gets me back into a moment of reflection and through the guided meditation and through the instructions that Andy provides on Headspace, there's a number of different sort of emphasis that you could utilize, whether it's stress or anxiety or work-life balance or even a sports performance package which talks about visualization and performance related anxiety or whatnot but there is a number of different packages based on whatever you might want to be going through. There's some that's just

\[00:12:10\] Purely performance driven like I want to improve my creativity or my drive or my focus or whatever it might be and so Andy goes ahead and sort of tailors a different guided meditation exercise if you will based on what your goal is and I like this because there's 10, there's 20, there's 30 minute sessions and you can really sort of tailor it based on your duration based on what you're trying to improve and optimize in your life. I've utilized this app more in the history, I've utilized this app, I've utilized this application and these software's much more rigorously back

\[00:12:55\] In Wichita but having gone through this transitional period where you know I've relocated my family and started this position out here that I needed this back in my life and it's a practice that I'm continuing to try to carve 10 to 20 minutes out of my day whether it's very very early prior to actually even going to work or in the evenings if I can where I have a moment where I can reflect and sit and go through this exercise. It's been a rock in my program and something that I've continued to encourage student athletes to do to download these applications because they're free and they're

\[00:13:31\] You know you can get the first headspace take 10 which is 10 free sessions. You don't even have to subscribe or do anything. You just use your name and password and you have access to 10 guided meditation 10 minute exercises and usually that's enough for the hook to sink for athletes to start to see or people rather start to see some of the benefits from establishing a regular meditative practice. It doesn't really take that long before you start to feel some of the benefits from it and then as you graduate from the take 10 series there's 15 minute segments and then there is

\[00:14:09\] A few 20 minute segments as well so highly suggest checking that out that's been a huge thing as you start to listen to other high performers whether it's coaches whether it's athletes CEOs most of these high performers have some sort of priming or some sort of meditative practice or guided meditation practice in their life and it is something that despite going through K through 12 and through higher education that nobody is really discussing this and I think it's just a huge life lesson or life skill that we should be cultivating and developing even earlier prior to that.

\[00:14:50\] I know that's a practice that even my in my own life with my own children they have a tremendous headspace that is they have a tremendous kids section where it's literally one minute three minute five minute up to eight minutes of different sort of very kids centric guided meditation. I utilize a one of their packages sleep which just essentially is an exercise for my children as they go through they lay on their backs typically later in the evenings when they're starting to get a little bit drowsy and they go through essentially a body scan where they're saying goodnight to

\[00:15:29\] Their toes and to their feet to their to their legs and all the way from toes to the the tips of their head and they say goodnight to these segments and it's a way for them to and certainly my daughter hasn't articulated this but it's a way for them to essentially scan their body and and release some of the tension in those areas and that is essentially the the premise of some of the guided meditation is to embrace your body embrace your mindsets not to try to discourage thoughts but to see the thoughts for what they are to accept them and then to let them go and really try to find

\[00:16:07\] Your breath and find your your your calm or your center if you will but I'm not an expert I don't play one on the internet but I have really really gotten back into doing this daily meditative practice and it's helped me incredibly during what is otherwise a very sort of challenging time as you go through any sort of transition in your life and the transition from one run location further west to a new position to a new job to the work demands of it and spend something that I think is well needed and I think as as we find in the sort of healthcare world that we live in

\[00:16:48\] The more wellness programs are starting to incorporate so I highly encourage it to help you unlock your creativity to help block unlock your calm and to hopefully restore a little bit of balance to your life so that you can perform at an even higher level than what you're performing at already. And along the same vein as the last segment discussing guided meditation and some of the applications that I use like headspace.com and calm.com is a fantastic book called Why Buddhism is True. Now before you start thinking I'm crazy this book is a fantastic guide to guided meditation

\[00:17:32\] So it has a little to do about the religion of Buddhism although I'm not an advocate to discuss or to expand on any sort of religion or what to believe in or what not to believe in that is ultimately up to you but why I like this book is because there's some basic tenets there's some basic practices that regard it lists of whatever your beliefs are that will help you become a better version of you and I don't know in this world who wouldn't benefit from having a little bit more composure a little bit more patience and being more essentially themselves right

\[00:18:13\] Where they can embrace the great qualities and let go of the things that that might be keeping them down or restricting them so this book has been a fun read it's been something that I've been turning the pages as quickly as I possibly can getting through the next page because the way that Robert Wright expands on this topic without getting too deep in the religious aspects of Buddhism is fantastic so it has helped me make better use of my practice that is got the guided meditation that I do on a consistent basis pairing what he has discovered throughout

\[00:18:54\] His sort of experience going to different retreats and and embracing his meditative practices and some of the thoughts and the wisdoms that he is gathered through his journey really has helped me magnify not only my own practice but it's also helped me get more out of the practice that I have the last topic I want to talk about today on this mini episode is a discussion about sleep I don't know any coach within our industry that probably gets the adequate amount of sleep that they need I'm sure there are some but it seems like if you listen to other podcasts another

\[00:19:35\] Guess not only on the Decoding Excellence Show but on other podcast shows as well that we have an industry that prides itself on doing more with less right doing more work working harder grinding harder than anybody else and doing so without sleep but I couldn't think that my belief is that that is hurting our industry and is actually restricting us or holding us back from doing some of our best work so one of the things I've really done and it's helped that with the addition of my children that I get to bed a lot earlier than I usually did back when I was a little bit younger

\[00:20:13\] And sands children is trying to find my R90 sleep cycles so I had a guest on the episode which I will link in the show notes to this Nick little hills and Nick has worked with a number of professional sport teams in trying to help them optimize their ability to get not only more quantity of sleep but a better quality of sleep as well and one of the changes I've made is rather than looking at just the total amount of sleep that I'm getting I'm really starting to dial in and trying to make sure that I get enough 90 minute sleep cycles throughout my day so the number that I'm shooting

\[00:20:54\] Is at a bare minimum of 5 90 minutes cycles now why 90 minutes well Nick expands on his R90 method in his book called sleep the myth of eight hours the power of naps and the new plan to recharge your body and mind this has been one of the most practical guides that I have read lately that discusses how to optimize your sleep and he gives some really simple tools and tricks and tactics that you can immediately adopt in your own life or educate your student athletes on so at a bare minimum for me I try to get seven and a half hours of the sleeps which is five 90 minute

\[00:21:37\] Sleep cycles if I have a little bit more time on the front end of my morning then I try to bring that up to six 90 minute sleep cycles which brings me up to a nine hour sleep duration in addition to some of the the tactics that Nick shares in his book and just looking at sort of your rhythms and the the number of 90 minute sleep cycles you're getting one of the things I've really done that's made a significant influence is really bringing the temperature down in my bedroom so many evenings what I'll try to do is try to open one of our doors that like a sliding glass door to our room and

\[00:22:17\] Bring the temperature down into the low 60s which sounds incredibly cold but this has been something that Nick expands on in his book and something that a number of different podcasts hosts have talked about whether it's Tim Ferris or Dr. Kirk Parsley discuss and trying to improve your sleep quality is making sure that the temperature of your bedroom is set to as low as you could possibly tolerate it so 60 seems 60 to 65 seems to be the sort of the magic spot for me and then another thing that I've learned through Dr. Kelly star at whether it's in the supple leopard

\[00:22:55\] Or any of his talks about trying to optimize his health and the health of some of his clients that he services as well so what he recommends and a number of other sleep experts recommend is trying to reduce any of the ambient light in your room so when you think of your sleep environment or your sleep hygiene we should really try to make it like a dark cave like the same cave that a bear or a caveman would live in so the darker the cooler the better and I've really take that to to light I really take that to heart as a huge recommendation in improving your sleep hygiene so

\[00:23:38\] If you haven't already investing in a blackout curtain can be a great strategy not only for yourself but for your student athletes that might be living in a dorm or apartment buildings with a shared driveway or parking lot where there's a lot of headlights that might be shining in the blackout curtain can prevent a lot of that light shining through windows and just disrupting the sleep quality of a student athlete so in addition to that powering down your devices towards the evening so I try to limit my device activity later in the evenings certainly I have

\[00:24:14\] Night shift enabled on our Apple devices but if you're an android user you can download twilight to try to help cut some of the blue light although a lot of experts still say that's not enough so if you find yourself doing a lot of computer work late in the evenings number one if you can't avoid it I would then recommend looking at gunner optics as a strategy which is essentially glasses or optics that help prevent or cut some of the blue light exposure admitted from some of these LED screens as well but those are just a few of the strategies whether

\[00:24:53\] It's Nick Littlehill's book whether it's really trying to create a cool environment or cutting out some of the ambient light those strategies in itself can really help you get the best quality of sleep the the quality of the quantity that you need as a coach because if we are to preach it then we certainly should also walk the walk so we need great quality of sleeping and to be well rested and as Dr. John Sullivan said on our show as well there's we need to make sure that our brain health is also optimized in a right place because on a daily basis we're reading faces and

\[00:25:33\] Reading the perceptions of our student athletes and maybe if we're inhibited because of a lack of sleep then maybe we're picking up on wrong body signs and body language and our perceptions might be off as well so we owe it to the athletes that we serve to make sure that we also take care of our own health and take care of our own sleep I want to thank you guys for tuning into this week's mini episode of the Decoding Excellence Show and like I said in the intro this is just a exploration it is a distraction away from our typical normal schedule where we interview some of the greatest

\[00:26:21\] High performance coaches in our industry whether it's strength conditioning coaches sleep experts nutritionalists whatever discipline that you work within that optimizes or helps a student athlete that's the person that we want to bring on to the show and continue to have these thought provoking conversations about what got these people into our industry and some of the lessons that they can teach other practitioners in our industry as well so I want to thank you guys for your continued support I'm so excited to be able to reboot this show back up and I ask you guys keep

\[00:27:01\] On the lookout for some new episodes we're going to have some great guests coming on to the decoding excellence show here soon I can't wait for it and I'm really excited about the guests and the interviews and some of the journeys that these great guests will continue to share with our listening audience and like always this is our exploration in the tools the tactics the tricks the high performers utilize on a daily basis to bring out the very best with the student athletes that they work with like always thank you so much for your support