Episode 29: Max Rooke | Coaching Beyond the Field

Okay, guys. What a treat this was to talk with Max Rook. He is one of my oldest friends and he is brilliant and you guys are about to see why.

Max Rook is a high performance coach and associate head coach for Pepperdine University women's soccer. A former pro player for the Reading FC and Great Britain's national team, Max also starred at Mercer University where I got to know him, earning all American honors and having his jersey retired. That was such a cool moment.

He now coaches high achievers on how to overcome fear, anxiety, and burnout, helping them unlock the difference between good to great in all areas of life. He has a deep understanding of mindset and behavior, and he empowers other to reach their full potential.

Outside of coaching, he loves supporting his wife's volleyball team and living life with purpose and passion. Make sure you also check out his book and this podcast that we have with Max Rooke.

Hello, and welcome to the Power Up Your Life podcast powered by GoBundance Women. I'm Mandy McAllister. And I'm Kelly Resendez. And today, we have such a treat for you, the one and only Max Rooke. Max, hi.

How you doing, ladies? Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited, for this conversation. It's gonna be awesome.

Me too. Well, Max, tell us just in your own words a little bit about your journey and what it is that you stand for.

Got it. Well, there's a lot. I have to make it short. So, but, originally from England, grew up in England, and, quickly fell in love with the game of soccer, football. And that kind of became my pathway. Like, every young boy wants to grow up and be professional soccer player, so that was my pathway for a number of years. Got to play for Reading Football Club, which was an amazing experience. Got to have some really cool experiences there.

And then, got to, like, the age of 18, and they saw suddenly say, hey. You're probably not gonna make it, you know, in this in this sport. Like, my first real soccer punch. You know? And, so at that time in my life, I was trying to figure out what's next, and does it go trialing with another club and try and keep down the same path? And, at that point in my life, this opportunity to come out to America presented itself. Like, hey. Have you ever thought about coming and studying in The US and playing soccer in The US? I had no idea. Like, I didn't know anybody that done it. So there was something in my head that said, you know what? There's something there's something more. You know? So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do it. So I've had a positive attitude, a suitcase, and a dream. I'm like, I'm gonna make this happen.

So, I step on this plane. I came out in 1998. That's where I met the beautiful, wonderful Mandy Michalis. That's where our paths crossed at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia of all places. And then that led me a completely different path where kind of fulfilled a lot of great dreams playing for the national team, got to play in two world championships, got to have these incredible experiences.

And then coaching came into the the web because it was like, how do I give back to the game for what the game gave to me? So quickly coaching became something I wanna get into. And so helping people have the same experiences that I had, and that led me to being a high school coach and teacher. I then met my beautiful wife of seventeen years who is also a collegiate volleyball coach as well on the beach side. So we do this thing called life together, and then that led us to the University of Illinois in Springfield where she accepted the position she wanted. So we was there for a couple of years, shoveling snow, you know, every day in the driveway and then just to get to work.

And then, and then I got the call twelve years ago back in 2014. I got the call from a a guy named Tim Ward, and he said, do you wanna come out? And do you wanna be my right hand man at a place called Pepperdine University in Malibu, California? And so that's where I've been for the last twelve years, working with some of the most elite women in the country. We're one of the top top women's soccer programs in the country.

But the last thing I was gonna say is is along that way, quickly became evident that, like, some of the stuff that was inside of me, the messages, it was more than just about the teams I was working with. So I was like, how do I make this bigger? So I create this thing called LUTM, life to the max university, like, university. And so I just created all of these books and online courses and programs and consulting and speaking events. And now I get to kinda share on a on a bigger scale kind of all the experiences I've had along that way, and how do I help people, empower them to to be great, you know, and and take their lives to the next level and help them be more successful, whether it be in sports and business and life.

So, it's been a beautiful journey. One of them is meeting you, Mandy, and that's it. Is that all? I well you know? So that was, like, a terrible point. Like, how many pills? I don't like

holy moly.

I can say too that I I know personally that Malibu, California is slightly better than Springfield, Illinois. I I I do believe that to be true.

But I one thing that's worth pointing out too and how it aligns with GoBendance Women and our primary listeners of this podcast is the bulk of your coaching has been done with women, with girls, in Sure. Their rite of passage. Right? So I'm I'm really curious just from a leadership perspective. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, common struggles

that you see in girls and women and and their journey towards leadership. Yeah. No. It's a it's a great it's a great point. Yeah. I mean, such a such a blessing. Some of the girls I get to work with now, I mean, not to name drop, but, like, somebody that, kind of is in the limelight right now. So Lynn Williams, she's she's on the US women's national team. She played at Pepperdine, started her career at Pepperdine, had this illustrious career. She just got to captain for the first time the US women's national team. And to see who she was and who she's become, is quite a phenomenal story.

And there are so many stories of not just places that don't play professionally, but go on and and do, you know, be successful, like, say, entrepreneurs, successful lawyers, doctors, whatever. Like, but I will say this. When they first come into the program this is usually Pepperdine plus. When they come into the program, they used to be in the best. Right? They used to be in a big fish in a little pond, and then they come to Pepperdine women's soccer, and all of a sudden, now they're a little fish in a in a big pond swimming with some Yeah. Some some extraordinary young women. Right? And, if you haven't been the woman or if if you if you're used to being the woman, then you you kinda get to that secondary kind of, like, now I have to be the support role. It's difficult for them.

So I think, Mandy, to your point, what I what I was gonna say is what's on my heart to say is is that a lot of these young women, it's helping them understand that their value doesn't come from what they do. It comes from who they are. You know? And you don't have to be the starter. You don't have to score all the goals. You don't have to be, you know, the all conference per person to make a difference. You know? You can be on our team, and you can be beautiful and extraordinary and strong and make a difference in our team. It doesn't matter whether you play ninety minutes or you play one minute. It doesn't matter whether you step on the field or you don't step on the field.

And that's a that's a that's a shift that's a shift in mindset, helping them get their strength and their power from somewhere else other than what they've been conditioned all their life, which is is I score the goals, therefore, you know, that's who I am. You know? Like, for instance, I could say there's two injuries when somebody gets, like, a significant injury, and they're out for a significant amount of time. If if soccer is their whole life, their identity is ripped from them. You know? And then they'll come to me. They'll come, Marcus, Max, can you help me? I'm like, of course. And we sit down, and we go through these processes and stuff, which Dan is going to get through now.

But it's like when you get to the end of it, and they'll come back and they'll say, Max, you were right. At the beginning, I thought it was I thought it was the end. Yeah. I thought my career was over. My life was over. He's like and now nine months later, I'm realizing it's the beginning. Yeah. Because this this beautiful nine months in my life that I thought was wrecking my life is actually setting me up because now I know who I am without soccer. So when I add the most precious thing back into my life, I'm an even more better version of myself.

You know? And so those things, you can't just tell somebody that. They have to have to live it. Right? They have to live it. They have to go through it. And, so I'm very proud of not just me, but what we do in our process to help those young women,

fly. You know? That's amazing. Well and, Max, you had an amazing pivot. Right? Like, you were told when you were in England, like, you're not good enough to do this as a professional, and yet you've made a profession out of doing this. Right? And so I think the attachment that so many people have to the path. Right? It could have been Mhmm. I'm gonna play for, you know, Manchester, whoever your favorite team is. Yeah. it'll be good and do if I send the wrong one. I'm Good. I'm no. Good. About this football game over there.

But, like, really looking at at, you know, what it took for you to make that pivot. You know, you you kinda nailed it, which was I couldn't have an attachment to what it looked like. Like, how do you guide someone through that? Because there are so many women out there that are gonna be listening to this that have an idea that they're attached to, and they have so much disappointment and stress and even imposter syndrome tied around trying to get that when Yeah. A lot of times, it is, you know, being open to to what our life brings. What would you how would you put someone through that?

Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind would be must've plugged the book, but Mandy's got the book. But, like so I wrote this book called Max Moments, and it's all about, like, how do you come back to, like, the Tony Robinson. How do you master meaning in your life? Right? How do you become a master of meaning? And when you can really understand why things happen the way they do in your life, then you realize that everything's part of a bigger plan.

And what I mean by that is that there's a there's a maximum in this in the book, and these all maximums are, like, 42 little maximums, like, two, three, four pages long. So there's this one called connect the dots, and this connect the dots one in the book, it's a very personal one because it's about basically my story, Kelly, which is what you just said about, like, what did I learn from being cut by Reden. And so yeah, you remember the old children's books, right, when you did the coloring books where you connect, you know, dot one to dot two, dot two to dot three, and then you, you know, and there's, like, it's a bunch of dots. You're like, what the heck is this? And all of a sudden, you know, you connect to all the dots and then a rabbit appears on the screen. You're like, what the heck? There's a rabbit on the screen. What's what's all this? You know?

Well, I look at the connect the dots coloring book like life. A lot of times that we look at events that happen in our life like a singular dot. Like getting cut from red and is a is a singular dot in my life. You know? Getting an injury is a singular dot in my life. Not getting the contract that I wanted is a singular dot in my life. Getting told no is a is a singular dot in our life. And we look at those dots, and we don't connect them. You know? But through experience, when you can get to a place where you can actually look and say, that thing that happened in my life is actually connected to this and to this and to this, and so you can actually create a pathway where everything is happening for you and not to you. You know what I'm saying?

Mhmm. And, it takes some conditioning of the mind, of course. It's not like an instant thing, but but I look at now, if I hadn't got cut by Redding, I never would have made the biggest decision in my life to come to America. If I hadn't come to America, I never would have met Mandy. I never would have met my beautiful wife. If I didn't met my beautiful wife, then life to the max wouldn't exist because Noelle was the one that told me, you gotta do this. You gotta go for it. And if I hadn't have, you know, created life to the max, then I wouldn't be on this podcast. I wouldn't have written a book, and I wouldn't be doing what we're doing today.

So I now look back and say, it's exactly the way it's supposed to happen. Mhmm. It's exactly it's exactly the way it's supposed to happen. But in the moment, it's really difficult. But if we can take ourselves out of that for a moment and say, this is just a part of the process.

Could I give you one more story? Is that possible? Yeah. Yeah. So so something recent just happened about this idea of mastering meaning. So we our team this past year, we are fortunate because it's fresh on my mind. We just won the championship. Very grateful for that. We just won the championship this past year. And that's never an easy thing to do to win the championship.

Rewind a year ago, on the very last day of the of the season last year, we lost the championship. On our home field, in front of a home crowd, we lost it. Last day of the season, we had to tie or win the game to win the conference. The team that we were playing, Gonzaga, they had to beat us to win the conference. It was first against second. They beat us, boom, they win the championship. Devastated. Right? K. What does this mean? Right? Like, what does this mean? Everybody's just emotional Everybody, you know, just myself included, a lot of girls.

So in that moment, part of my my role is as we are entering into this past year is, like, how do we empower our girls to use this as, again, as as something that is helping us, not hers? How could it be fuel? How can we turn this into a great story? Like, there's gonna be one heck of a story. We're gonna do this turnaround thing.

So last year, I'll I'll I'll narrow it down. We had this great, great season, and we get to very close to the end of the season, about two to three games left. And we're on this trajectory, and we're like, man, we're doing this thing. Kelly, we are in it to win it. Mandy, we are I mean, we are we're gonna put this thing that happened last year. We're you back. We're going for it. Right? And then we're doing this, and our goals were phenomenal.

And then with two games left to go, we go to this place, to play this game, and we're neck and neck. Not with the team we played, but there's another team that that was neck and neck with. And we had to win this game, and we tied. In the very last minute of the game, we conceded a goal. And from being one o'er, we tied this game one one. And all of a sudden, I see Mandy's Mandy's reaction. Right? Everybody's emotional kinda just content just just the floor dropped out from under us. You're like, this is about to happen again. You know? And, you know, we've all been there. Right? You know what I'm talking about. No. It doesn't have to be soccer, but it's just that feeling in your heart when you just it just drops. Everything just drops from you. You're like, And it's hard to console those young women in that moment.

And and, so we circled up, and we pray after every game, so we circled up. And Tim, who I've been working with for, I'd say, twelve years now, he came into that circle and he said, look at me, ladies. He said, you're beautiful. You're strong. You're powerful, and you're made for this moment. He's like, and I don't know why or how this story or how this part of the story connects with our story, but everything is going to work out the way it's meant to. You gotta believe.

And so we left that we left that circle, and everybody still dejected. And, you know, the questions, what does this mean? Are we gonna do this again? Is it gonna be a second year in a go where we're gonna drop the ball? We're gonna have total control. We're gonna drop the ball. And, we get on the plane. We go home.

It happened that the team we planned, they didn't have lights, and so we we were flying home. And the team that we were neck and neck with, hadn't been to last day's season, was planning an evening game. So we're on the we're on the flight home, and I hadn't quite turned my phone on. We land. And, obviously, the girls behind me, they turn their phones on. And all you hear is this, oh my god. Oh my god. It's unbelievable. I can't believe it. Oh my god. Oh, this is unbelievable. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? I'm turning around looking what is going on. And the the the flight is full. You know?

And the team that we were neck and neck with, the team that we were they were playing, and I I'm making this longer than it needs to be, so my apologies, is the team that they were playing, they have a great coaching staff. They're they're on this great trajectory, but the team they were playing at that time wasn't wasn't as good. And so I'd say this, nine times out of 10, the team that we would neck and neck with would beat them. 49 times out of fifty, ninety nine times out of a 100. That night, they dropped the ball as well.

Mhmm.

And so all of a sudden Sorry. Everything's back on the table. And we head into the last day of the season, exactly one year from the day playing on our home field

Woah.

For a championship.

Amazing.

And and you can fill in the and you can you can fill in the blank, and you know exactly what happened, which is we were not we weren't gonna let that happen again. But my point being is in that moment, you could say, is it the end or is it the beginning? Yeah. Right. You know?

In that circle, it's like when everybody's like it's like, is it the end? You could be like, oh, this is it. Pointing fingers. It's your fault. It's awful. We did it again. Here we go again. Poor us. We're always the unlucky one.

So it's how do we master meaning in our life? And if we can get as leaders and, you know, high performers, we can get to a place where we can learn to master meaning in our life and create better meanings for things that happen in our life, I believe we get better outcomes. So, anyway, sorry. That's the problem.

Yes. Well, it starts with that decision. You know? It's one person's decision to to lead towards what you want rather than to run from what you don't want.

I'm curious, Max. Like, you you have become this incredible leader, and you're a leader who trains leaders, which I I think is the ultimate win in the world Yeah. Of leadership. Right?

Well, I'm sure you've seen some things that our leadership fails. Tell me some of the biggest leadership mistakes that you see happening in sports, in business, in in any sort of high performance that you work with.

Yeah. Yeah. I think probably one of them would just be what what we focus on. Right? When focus goes energy flows, what are you choosing to focus on? Right? Which is not things that help us or hurt us, you know, make us better, make us worse, push us towards what we want further away from. When I think when we can get clear on on what we focus on, that's important.

And I I believe that, you know, results are important, goals are important. But if you look at, like, a, like, a continuum, okay, I believe that leaders create the culture. Mhmm. Culture conditions behavior, and behavior drives a result. But a lot of times, we don't go through that continuum. What we do is is we, as leaders, we flip straight to the end, and we just focus on results. It's like, hey. What's the result, and how am I gonna get it? And then if it's not happening, it's like this roller coaster. Yes. We're hitting our goals. We're getting close to goals. We're really far away from our goals, and then, emotionally, we get attached to that result to where, yeah, we ride this we kinda ride this roller coaster.

So if you actually break it down, you're like, okay. What is it that drives the result? It's our behaviors. Right? It's our actions. It's our habits and stuff like that. Well, from a team setting, because you're talking about leaders, Mandy. Right? Is this okay? Well, what what sort of really conditions those behaviors? Well, it's the culture that you create in the workforce on the team day to day. Right? And what what ultimately creates that those con you know, those that culture is gonna be the coach, the leader. So being very conscious of, like, what environment am I creating? What is that culture like? What is it like to show up every single day?

You know? And I go back to that story in that moment. You've got probably thirty seconds to deliver a message in that circle. What message are you delivering? That creates the culture. The culture then conditions the behavior. What are we going to do after it? Are we gonna sulk? Are we gonna sit down? Are we gonna throw our hands up and say, poor us? Or we're gonna buckle up, lean into our faith, and say, you know what? We have a strong faith that everything's gonna work out. We have to play our part 100%. We have to show up and and, you know, do everything like it depends on us. But, ultimately, you gotta pray like it depends on God or, you know, whatever your wherever your faith is. Right? But it's just you gotta lean into that, and it's like you gotta have a a belief that everything's gonna work out where it's meant to.

So this is where I'm going is, yeah, that continuum. But I think we skip those two steps to go straight to result. It's all result, result, result. Can we can we,

focus on a on creating a culture that creates the type of behaviors that we want and conditions of behaviors so that we can get ourselves done?

Max, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question because you probably deal with this a lot. So a lot of the people that are listening that run run businesses or trying to scale see employees or talent out there, partners that have a lot of potential, but they haven't actualized it. And so they invest time and energy in someone where they're like, or you have a kid that's the same way. Right?

Could be somebody listening that's like, my kid has so much potential, and yet you haven't actualized it. How do you how do you coach a leader on navigating bringing out the most in them or coaching them on, like, hey. Unless they've actualized the potential, it's just gonna be wasted time until they're ready to be able to take that next step.

What would you give the audience on that?

Yeah. It's, that's a that's a great one. Yeah. Oh, we got me. Got me turning here. I think, I like the idea of really bringing out the the what brings out the best in us. Right? And, oftentimes, I think there's two spectrums. And I think this is what you're asking, Caleb, but this is this is my first thought is is that, you know, I have a lot of things where I talk about this idea of going from good to great. Like, what is the difference from good and great? Like, a good result, great result, a good team and a great team, a good life and a great life, a good marriage and a great marriage. Right? You know what I'm saying? What's all of those different things?

And oftentimes, there's two sides of the spectrum. There's there's inspiration, a a compelling future. When you can help somebody understand, like, something that's really compelling to them, and you've gotta understand the person first. Right? So you gotta you gotta you gotta understand their world. But when you can understand whoever it is that you're working with, Kelly, right, and you can create a compelling future for them, like, actually tap into something that's gonna propel them. It's like it's like this push versus pull mentality. Right? It's like when you're trying to push towards your gut it's sometimes gets hard, and I've been there. I've done that where I'm, like, pushing, pushing, and you get you get bogged down. But when you guys feel like you get pulled in a direction, like I'm being called to something, it's a different type of energy. So when you can tap into that for them, it's helping them understand what is that what is that pull mentality? What are they being drawn towards? What is that compelling future?

The other side of it is just desperation. Like, helping them understand, like, if you don't change right now, like, is this really what you want? And and nothing happens in the middle. Nothing happens in good land. Nothing happens in average. It's it's inspiration or it's desperation. You know?

I remember one time we had a player, she wanted me saying she was a goalkeeper, and she was, she's a phenomenal a phenomenal young woman, phenomenal human being, and she was the number two goalkeepers. Right? There's only one goalkeeper who can play, and so typically we have two or three goalkeepers on a on a on a on a roster, but but only one can play at a time. And so if you're the number two or the number three, it's difficult. Well, she was the number two. We had three keepers. She wasn't the number one, but she was the number three. So she's the number two keeper. She got set in average land. She's like, I wanna I I wanna be the number one, but I don't know if I wanna do what it takes to be the number one. She said, but I'm not the number three. And whenever we travel, we would travel two goalies. At least the third keeper was never traveling, but she was always the number two goalie. So she said, well, I'm traveling. I'm take I'm going to Hawaii. I'm having all these great experiences, but I'm not playing. I kinda wanna play, but she's stuck in average land.

So one day, we knew that there was potential, and Kelly used the word potential. Used and that's a beautiful word, because I think it's like, how do you get out of that word potential? So we did one thing, and this is the idea of desperation. We left her off a trip. So we we announced the we announced the the rosters, and we said, she needs to learn a lesson. She's not the number one. So we left her, and we took the number three keeper instead of the number two keeper on this trip. And when we did, as soon as she saw her name what do you think she did? Can I be come meet in the office? I'm like, yeah. Come down the office. Let's go. She said, what are you do? I can't believe it. You're leaving me off the trip. Like, I can't believe it. Like, I'm the number two. You should be I'm like, you you gotta earn this thing. You know? So we left her off the trip. She said, I can't believe it. It's not fair. We're like, okay. Well, it's not fair that you have all this potential and you're not doing anything with it. You know?

And, long story short, she wasn't on the trip. We came back from that weekend. We had a successful weekend. It was great. We came back that Monday morning who Who was the first person into training? Brielle. Yep. Who was the person who stayed after practice? Brielle. Who was the person who knocked on my door and wanted extra film work? Brielle. Who was the hardest worker can play in practice? Brielle. Who was the best goalkeeper out of all three in room for the next week? Brielle.

Awesome.

And you know what happened? The next two years, she went from being the number two goalkeeper, not only to being the number one goalkeeper, but being the two time WCC conference player of the year Wow. Which has never happened in our program.

And the difference was is she got left off of one trip. Because all of a sudden, potential turned into desperation, which then turned into, like, I've gotta figure this thing out.

So Yeah. You gotta get people into one of those two places. If you get there,

game changes. You gotta absolutely. You gotta know that person first, but what an incredible way to light a fire under her and help her see more out of herself. You gotta kinda borrow that light that someone else sees in you before you can see it in yourself sometimes.

So, you know, Max, just like always, I you you leave me with so many things to think about, so many nuggets. I've got a couple that were my favorite. The a thing that we talk a lot about and, you know, having had injuries and athlete and and changing my work a number of times. This idea that your value comes not from what you do, it comes from who you are as a person. That is so incredibly key, in athletics and in everything else.

And I also love this idea of the leader creates the culture which influences the behaviors, and the behaviors

are what lead to the results. Kelly, did you have any favorite nuggets? Yeah. There's so many nuggets, but I'm gonna actually focus on who Max is being today. Because one of the important things that we can do as a leader and as a woman in business or a man in business, if you are listening, is to really be influential. And Max's ability to tell a story and like, I've never gotten the chills more times than one podcast. If we have an award for, like, the most kills in a podcast, Max, you got it. Right?

And I just wanna wonder, like, Mandy, why didn't we go to Malibu to do this interview? Come on. Like, if you don't want to be in these places, let's hop on a plane. I was just in LA yesterday. So, anyway, like, your ability to tell a story and invoke emotion in in the person that's listening is at one of the highest levels I've ever seen.

And I'm gonna guess you didn't come that way. Some of these things are learned skills. There might have been some natural part of that as well, but that's really the greatest nugget that I got is that part of your success is that you have really learned how to invoke emotion in other people to be able to pull them probably where they wanna go. Right? And that is, an amazing quality as a coach. So thank you so much. Like, that was awesome. Appreciate

it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Love what you're doing, ladies. Keep up the great work.

So I have one final question for you, Max. One thing that matters a lot to us is, you know, you you gotta have an ask. You got two arms for a reason. Wanna pull yourself up and wanna pull other people up with you because you give so much to other people. For us and our listeners, what is an introduction or a resource that if you had it, it would change the ball game for you?

So we wanna help you. What's a resource or an introduction that would change the ball game for you? To to connect to connect with me? Yeah. Or to support me. Oh, appreciate that. Well, thank you very much.

Well, I just I just took everything that I did, and I I bought it down into this thing called L2TM University. Go to my website, www.maxrook.com. And then on there, I just created this thing called L2TM University, which is basically a pathway into all the things I do.

So there's, like, these introductory things that you can kinda tap into that are free and stuff like that, and these more advanced courses and coaching programs. And then I have this, like, master's level mastermind that I'm doing. And so you can go on there, and then wherever you're at in your journey, there is probably something there that can help you, get you from where you are to where you wanna be. So, but it's all there on on on my website, www.maxrip.com.

We will put that in the show notes. Any leader, any athlete, any coach, Max is the go to for becoming better, getting to that grade. So thank you for joining us on the Power Up Your Life podcast, powered by GoBundance Women.

If you liked or got anything out of this, of this episode, make sure that you're subscribing. Make sure you're sharing because I know Max needs to hit more lives. We will see you on next week's episode. Thanks, Max.