How to Craft a Winning Mindset in Your Career with NCAA Coach Vilis Ozols
Episode 155
Have you ever poured your heart into a project, only to watch it slip through your fingers at the last moment? Maybe you're struggling to balance the pursuit of your professional aspirations with the overwhelming demands of your personal life?
In this transformative episode we delve into the whirlwind life of an Olympian heart, where missed opportunities and the ferocity of resilience converge. Vilis Ozols, a former Canadian national volleyball player, joins us to share a treasure trove of hard-earned wisdom that transcends the volleyball court and infiltrates every aspect of life.
After this Episode, You Will Be Able to ...
Capitalize on opportunities that arise from your goal-oriented actions.
Apply the 80-15 rule to your professional life
Adopt the "maximum effort" philosophy to find peace in your pursuit.
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About the Guest
Vilis is a former member of the Canadian Jr. National Volleyball Team and a former Pro Beach Volleyball tour competitor. Vilis has also made significant contributions as a long-time NCAA Women's Volleyball Coach, including roles at the University of Colorado, University of Wyoming, Niagara University, and Siena College.
Vilis holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and is the author of three books: "Motivational Leaders," "GRAND-Stories," and "Motivational Selling." His diverse career spans over 30 years, during which he's excelled in leadership roles in sales, customer service, marketing, and corporate training.
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Danielle Cobo is an international female speaker for organizations, associations, and the public sector. She works with audiences to harness the grit and resilience to lead through change.
With over 15 years of corporate experience in the medical sales industry, she knows how to build high-performing teams that increase sales, productivity, and employee retention. Her expertise includes corporate resilience and burnout prevention.
Danielle is the author of “Unstoppable Grit: Breakthrough the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals” and hosts the globally top-rated podcast "Unstoppable Grit Podcast with Danielle Cobo.”
As a former Fortune 500 Senior Sales Manager, she led her team through downsizing, restructuring, and acquisitions to become the #1 sales team in the nation. As a result, she was awarded Region Manager of the Year. Her resiliency motivated her to earn four consecutive national Sales Excellence Awards in a male-dominated industry.
While her husband, a Blackhawk pilot in the Army, deployed to Iraq for a year, Danielle learned to balance a demanding job while caring for their energetic 1.5-year-old twin boys, who possess more energy than a squirrel after a triple espresso.
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Her tenacious attitude stems from being raised by an ambitious mother and recovering from being taken from her father and cast out at 17 years of age.
She is a two-time 60-mile walker and a monster truck driver in Louboutin’s.
Danielle has a bachelor’s in communication with a minor in psychology from the California State University of Fullerton, Certification in Inclusive and Ethical Leadership from the University of South Florida Muma College of Business, and accreditation in Human Behavior from Personality Insights. Inc., and Leadership from Boston Breakthrough Academy.
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What would you do if you were on the brink of participating in the Olympics and just months before, circumstances prevented that from happening?
Today, we have the privilege of hearing from Vilis Ozols a former member of the Canadian National Volleyball Team, Pro Beach Volleyball Tour competitor, and former NCAA Women's Volleyball Coach.
Vilis is the author of three books, Motivational Leaders, Grand Stories, and Motivational Selling. His diverse career spans over 30 years, during which he excelled in leadership roles. in sales, customer service, marketing, and corporate training. A very diverse background. Above all, Vilas takes pride in his family, participating in raising his four children, two of whom he adopted from Eastern Europe.
Triumphs and Trials of an Olympic Dream
I think I've been fortunate enough that I tend to maybe try and combine a bunch of those backgrounds. I do fall back on having been an athlete, but let's face it, I'm old and telling sports stories from when I was a youngster or in better shape.
It kind of sounds like your parents when they tell you about how they walked to school back and forth and snow storms kind of thing. but yeah, I do fall back on my athletic background. Having played professionally, you learn stuff and then, having coached, I think the biggest thing that happens when you become a coach is it's no longer about can you do it or did you do it?
It's getting someone else to do it. It can be frustrating. It is an entirely different skill set and then what you find is that you really, at least I found that I would fall back on every little bit that I could, in terms of how I could help my athletes, the young ladies to just be as they possibly could.
I was on the Canadian junior national volleyball team and the Canadian team had qualified for the 1980 Olympics.
I was still on the junior national team then, but I don't know if you remember, but we boycotted the 1980 Olympics. That was the one where, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, everyone knew the U.S. didn't go, but neither did Canada. So I stayed up in Canada, I had scholarship offers in the U.S. but stayed up there, and so now I'm getting ready for the 84 Olympics, I'm with the training squad, I'm one of the top players in the world, and then just before the signing of the IOC roster, you know, the one that says you get to go, I was coming down from a block in a practice match and blew out my ankle, tore all the ligaments, and I don't know if you could picture or imagine just in a split second knowing that everything you've worked for up to that point in your life just isn't going to happen.
And they do some weird stuff or weird testing at the national team level. We're like human guinea pigs. And one of the unique things that they did was test us for pain tolerance, and that's another story for another time. But, well, one of the unique things is that I was actually tested, and I had the highest pain tolerance level of anybody on the volleyball team.
But I can honestly tell you when that ankle went, I felt the most incredible pain that you could even begin to imagine, and it had nothing to do with the physical pain of the ankle going that, but just the idea that knowing that what you work for just isn't going to happen. and that must have been devastating.
And it got worse because I ended up going to the Olympics anyway. So as a spectator, I watched my team, and they made it to the medal round. So now we're in the final four at the Olympics, and I'm watching, and we lose the semifinal match to the US, which goes on and wins the gold.
Then we lose the bronze medal match to Italy. And I had some dear friends on the U.S. team. So that night they won the gold medal, and I partied with them and touched their gold medal. And you'd think it would be the coolest thing in the world and it was possibly the lowest point in my life.
It's a sports story, and it's from years ago, but it laid the foundations for everything that I've done since then. I struggled, and I honestly struggled, and I think having gone through that struggle helps me in terms of both working with my athletes because they go through adversity.
They go through injuries, even in a business environment. You know, it's, uh, we tend to look at people and look at how successful they are. Most people who've accomplished anything have overcome adversity in one form or another. I know you've had your share, and I know that's part of your secret to success because you just keep moving forward.
The Grueling Reality of Olympic Training
How many hours a week did you train?
It was off the charts, and as a coach now, I would say we would have never trained as hard as we did back then. We were doing two a day, so three hours, twice a day, plus weights every single day. and I remember that, like that, that's pretty serious. And obviously, there'd be highs and lows to that, but that was pretty standard, and we worked very hard.
So you can just imagine.
So let's put this in perspective. And I know this is a different perspective, but it's just kind of a slight twist here. That would be, I come from a sales background, and I know that a lot of my listeners are in sales. That would be it. At the end of the year, you are, and I have had somebody on my team experience this.
7 percent away from achieving the President's Club Sales Excellence Award. You are right there about to go on that lavish trip, and we, the company that I work for, spend about $20,000 per couple to go on these lavish trips. It was worth it. I've been on one. But could you imagine just, I know you can, but for our listeners, to be 0?
7 percent away from hitting 20, 000. Sales excellence, the President's Club, the bonus, the trip, the recognition. I'd imagine it'd be slightly like that because you've been working all year for it, but you've been working a lifetime to go to the Olympics.
I sometimes feel like my experience pales in comparison to, let's say, somebody who's living or their success from a business standpoint follows that same trajectory, or they get close. Still, they don't get close; you know, they don't make it.
It's really interesting because it's part of what I teach and what I preach, whether it's to my athletes or whether it's a business seminar, and honestly, I went through it, like we talked about the greatest lows that you can imagine.
And I've said this to my athletes: the only way I can live with myself is knowing that all those times that I was training, I did everything I possibly could. If you want to give it a moniker or a phrase, it was maximum effort.
I knew that I gave 100 percent, and looking back, the only way I can live with myself is knowing that I couldn't have worked any harder. And I guess if there's some takeaway, that's a learning point.
Whether it's in a business environment, a sports environment, or whether it's parenting, did you give it everything you had, and then if you happen to not fail or not make it, you can rest on that?
And that's kept me sane—literally sane—all these years, knowing how close you get and maybe not getting there.
At the end of the day, if I don't achieve a particular goal, I would rather look back and reflect, knowing that I had tried everything that I possibly could.
The Winning Mindset
With all of your hard work, with your efforts, sticking to the system, and with your attitude, I guarantee you, if you're looking for a guarantee, you'll be in a position to win. Nobody can promise what's going to happen at the end. And that, to me, is one of the best definitions of success I've ever come across.
And it's a little bit of what you were talking about: do you put yourself in a position to win? You start your business, you take a risk, and if you don't get it, you at least have hopefully done 100 percent maximum effort, and then B, you've put yourself in a position to win or to take advantage of the opportunities.
And then the other thing, and it's, you know, I'm big on, like, obviously I like to get into the details and give people usable stuff they can use, but I've always been a huge advocate of what I call values-based decision making.
I got to work with the Disney Corp, many years ago with their Imagineering group and there was this amazing quote on, in their facility. but it was Walt Disney and everyone can remember the Walt Disney quote that says if you can dream it, you can do it. But this one really resonated with me and what the Walt Disney quote was is when your values are clear, your decision-making is easy.
And that to me becomes a foundation of coaching, whether it's coaching athletes, whether it's coaching business leaders if you can share or if you have a clear, common understanding of what's important, they'll figure out a way to make it happen. And so that to me was always really critical.
And so, when I look at those foundational values:
Moving forward
Maximum effort
So, that's one that I've always put yourself in a position to win, but moving forward when playing defense, one of the things that tends to happen is people tend to plant themselves.
They put their heels down, stand there, and then, if the shot is deflected, spike or the tip. Then they can't move. And so one of the secrets to being a great defensive player is to always be moving forward, even when somebody's smacking a ball at you as hard as they can.
And that is one of those values of maximum effort, position to win, and then always moving forward.
Go After Every Opportunity
If you love what you do, if you can find something you love, it's, like that old saying, do what you love and the money will follow.
And if you're doing what you love, you never really work another day in your life.
I remember there was a period in my life when I first started, and it was coming from a scarcity mindset. I've got to make money, and I was kind of making my decisions based on that. When I truly let go of the money and started making my decisions based on one core value, which is, how can I make an impact?
That is my guiding light for any decision that I'm making and is based on: Will this make an impact, a positive impact on somebody's life? And sometimes it's a podcast, where maybe they're not going to work with me directly, but this is a way of making an impact and serving people. Maybe it's through speaking, maybe it's through writing a book, or maybe it's through coaching or leading a training, but ultimately it comes down to that one word.
And when you have alignment on the decisions that you're making based on one of your core values, you're happier.
You don't feel as burned out because burnout is a result of having a lack of passion for tasks that you're doing and you're doing it over and over again.
You're obviously on your true path, and it just shows it shows in your enthusiasm.
But I think you've hit on the secret and that is providing a benefit to that person.
Goal Pursuit with Purpose
There are many reasons why we fall flat on our goal setting:
Procrastination
Fear of Failure
Feel Unworthy
There's a lot of research, but there's no definitive answer. And so. I think some of the important things when you talk about goal setting come down to removing some of the barriers.
One of the reasons that we tend not to accomplish goals is we don't know what we need to do.
If for you to be successful, you have to do more than seven items, the human brain, the short-term memory can handle and can conceptualize seven items. Once you go beyond that. It becomes this nebulous cloud, it creates a real source of procrastination. And so the first thing that I highly recommend is just to remove that veil.
And that is do research, read a book, go on the web, YouTube is your friend there. YouTube will teach you anything out of the sky. And so what you're doing is you're removing that veil.
And when there's a veil between you and your goal, the odds of you jumping on board are much lower, but once you start doing your research and getting the information it all becomes much less intimidating.
And in my case, I didn't have them. And so I realized that I was going to fall. And so then you just jump off because you're only this high off the ground. So you're on a cliff, but you're traversing side by side. So one of the things that I highly recommend when we talk when we apply that to our goal setting is to find your monkey rocks.
And that is you don't have to do everything all at once. Maybe it's volunteering if there's something you want to do and I'm sure, you've had your version of monkey rocks. There are associations, there are mentors, there's asking for help.
Everyone's here to help you. And part of being an elite athlete is learning to ask for help. And so that's the second step. And then the third piece of the whole climbing metaphor is, the day comes and we do this climb, and we were climbing just outside of Boulder, Colorado. There's an A rock formation called the third flat iron.
And it's one of the most beautiful and exhilarating beginner's climbs. And it really was quite easy. It was like climbing a ladder. Handholds and footholds are always there, we're tied in. So safety was a big deal. But when you get to the very top of this third flat iron, instead of hiking down, most people don't realize this is that.
More injuries are going down the mountain than there are going up. So what they do is tie off a rope at the top of the mountain. And there's about to be an overhang.
You're that high up. And then you lower yourself off a rappelling line down, 30 yards or whatever to the bottom. And it was the most difficult thing I've ever done.
So you finally lean over; you're leaning over nothingness; you get to the bottom. What do you think you feel?
Relief that I'm on solid ground.
So go after your goals. The momentum will follow, and you'll get there.
So what are you going after, listeners? What's that ball that you're going to be going after today? What's your reason? How is that aligned with helping you achieve your goals? Because if there's so much to take away from this episode, I think this is going to be an episode I'm going to listen to a couple of times, a couple of times throughout the year because this is the one to listen to help us.
Be that elite in achieving our goals; no matter what time of year it is, we are not giving up.
We are staying motivated. We are moving forward. We are going to be in alignment with our values and our why, and we are going to go after every single ball that is out there, and we are going to think and play like a professional volleyball player.
