EntreLeadership - #163: Lou Holtz—Game Plan for Success

Episode Date: September 5, 2016

You’re in for a special treat this week because legendary college football coach Lou Holtz joins us to talk football and so much more! One of the most celebrated and accomplished coaches in sports history, Lou has made a career of inspiring his players and motivating them to be winners. It’s advice that will transfer directly to you and your business! If you want to be a success and be a better leader, listen to this great conversation. entreleadership.com/podcast 3 Reasons Team Members Fail Giveaway Summit Event E1D LiveStream Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City. This is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature interview this episode is with the legendary football coach turned broadcaster, Lou Holtz. And this is really fun.

stuff. You don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy this, but trust me, you're going to get a lot of wisdom out of Coach Lou. We've got more and new free stuff. So, hey, let's get right to it. We are so grateful for our relationship with InfusionSoft, and they have got a business playbook. It's absolutely free. This is great. In the theme of Coach Lou Holtz and winning, how about a playbook that's absolutely free and proven to win, go to infusionsoft.com slash entree. Infusionsoft.com Entree. Well, when Eric the producer locked in Lou Holtz, I got very excited because if there are any types of interviews that I enjoyed doing maybe more than others, and I don't know that I really feel that way, but if there are, it would definitely be the sports interviews solely because I grew up watching sports digesting it day and night, it seemed. And this is a guy that has won at the highest level of college football. that's not easy to do.

And the truths that these men and women who are champions on the field of sport can transfer over to the business world are absolutely invaluable. So you're going to really love this. If you're not familiar with Lou Holtz, I'm not going to give you this guy's bio would be 10 minutes for me to read it. But his 1988 Notre Dame team went 12 and 0. He's the only college football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the five. final top 20 in rankings. Now that just gives you not. This is how difficult this. We're talking about the top of the echelon in college football. Everywhere he went, he won. That's saying something. So he's going to be at Summit in 2017. I'll tell you the details. If you haven't heard us talk

about the summit event, I'm going to give you all the details and everything you need to know, plus a huge discount after the conversation. This is fun. And I got to tell you, I started off the interview in a unique way because I am a Michigan fan. And it took a many years for me to get to the point where I could truly respect Lou Holtz. Here is that conversation. Well, Coach, I have to make a confession right off the bat here because in my formative years, I resented you greatly for your success. As a Michigan fan, I spent the better part of my teenage and college years viewing you

as Darth Vader. It was only after you left and I matured tremendously that I began to appreciate your leadership. And this is an honor. But I had to get that out of the way because you, boy, you caused much chagrin for Michigan fans for a long time. And that's said out of great respect. Well, I appreciate that. You know, Michigan's a great school. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the second best in the country.

But I had nothing but the utmost respect and love for Bo Schembeckler, just a great human being. I love competing against Michigan because we had the same type of recruiting philosophy. the type of people we recruited. But we did have good success against Michigan, but we're also very lucky every game could have went the other way. So true. It was such a great time. I want to start our conversation there because it's fascinating when I get to sit down

with the great coaches to come to mind, two of the greatest of all time in their sports, and certainly in sport in general, Coach Kay and Pat Summitt. And I asked them these questions. I want to ask you this too. It's a two-parter. So the first part being at what point, in your life, did you realize I want a coach?

And then secondly, when you were a young coach, who were the coaches that you look to that had tremendous influence on you as you were beginning your craft? Well, that's a very interesting question. Number one, I never had a desire to be a coach. See, my dad had only gone to the third grade and I was born during the Depression. Nobody from my family had ever gone to college or no graduate. growing up, you know, initially I wouldn't be a garbage collector because he only worked on Tuesdays. I thought that was a good deal.

But everybody in our family, et cetera, worked in a mill. All I wanted was a car, a girl, a job in a mill, and $5. I never had any of them. So there's no intentions of me ever going to college whatsoever. At the end of my junior year, my high school coach came up and told my parents, he thought I should go to college and become a coach. he felt that would be a good thing. Now, in addition to playing athletics, I'd save my money, so I'd save it to buy a 49 Chevrolet.

And my parents said, you're going to go to college. I said, I'm not. We can't afford it. They said, you are. I said, I'm not. So we compromised. And I went. That was a typical compromise with my parents.

And what they did, they made me use the money. I'd save for the car to go to college. So I'm going to go one year, and that's it. I come back home. after the first year I did pretty well academically, but I wasn't going back. I got a job in the mill, labored in the open heart. I want to tell you, after the fourth day, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I'll tell you the one thing I wasn't going to do, I wasn't going to labor in that open heart for the rest of my life.

And so now I'm going to be a coach. And when my high school coach had told my parents I should go to college, be a coach. Years later, he told my wife, he said, when I said he should go, college being a coach. I meant high school coach. I didn't mean Notre Dame. He said, I didn't know that. But that's how it happened. Now, once I got into coaching and my senior year, I had a knee operation and couldn't play my last year, so they had me coach the freshman. And unbeknownst to me, my college coach was in the Navy with Forrest Hesheski, played against him in college. Forrest was at Michigan. My college coach, Trevor Reese, was at Ohio State. He got me a graduate assistant at Iowa University. And I went to Iowa, and that's where my coaching in college really started.

Now, there were a lot of people that influenced my life, a guy named Rick Vizano, who was just a very well-organized individual, I think a DARE Royal. What people don't realize is I'm a young coach in 1963, I think it was. I take my own money and fly to Austin, Texas, to visit with DARE Royal. I went in there unannounced. Bill Ellington, the backfield coach of Texas, was the only one in the office. It was in the summer. I wanted to see Daryl. And he said, oh, I don't think that's possible coach.

He plays golf every afternoon in the summer. Now, he said, well, would you just see if I could visit with him? So, Derre Royal, because as a young coach says, okay, I'll give you an hour, an hour and a half in the morning. But I tee off. So I go in with 83 questions. What do you do when a player quits? What do you do when a player gets injured? He said, we close ranks, pick up the rifle, march on.

He had such a profound influence. And not only that, he canceled his golf game, spent the entire day with me and took me to dinner. Wow. And I mean, how do you repay that type of thing for a young coach? Nobody knew anything about it. And that's why I've always tried to be very nice to other people. Woody Hayes had a profound effect, Bear Bryant.

In those days, when you went to the coaching convention, you got a chance to meet with these people and listen to them, lecture, etc. But you sort of develop your own philosophy as you go along. I've always felt if you study successful people, and you learn from, but I want to tell you something else, you can also learn from unsuccessful people. I learned certain things from coaches that I worked for that maybe weren't outstanding. And the biggest difference, they didn't have standards for their players.

They wanted to be well-liked. They wanted to be popular. They made their life a little bit easier than what you should. And as Woody Hayes said to me, your job as a leader is not to be well-like. You want a friend by a dog your job to make them the best they can be. That's so good. All right. So, Coach, that story about meeting Coach Darrell Royal has got so much in it.

We could spend an hour there. We don't have that kind of time. but for our audience who are not football fans, I want to go back to some things that coach shared in that story that I think are huge for you personal growth junkies. Coach Darrell Royal, if you're not a football fan, we're talking about a legend at the time. And he interrupts his golf game, commits an hour and a half,

and then it turns into a whole day and takes you to dinner. Now, that's huge. So coach, I know you know the answer to this, but I want you to share with our audience because we have a lot of young leaders, people who are in their 20s and 30s that they desire to live a life of significance and to be their best. And I want you to tell us why you think that Coach Royal decided to give you the rest of the day.

What was it about you and how you went in there prepared that changed that from an hour and a half for a young coach to, I'm going to give this kid the rest of my day and taking the dinner. That's a significant deal for a coaching legend at that time. Well, DeRoyal, I had the best one loss record in history of the Southwest Com. I know that because I had the second best only to him. But I tell you why I think he did. Because I've asked myself that.

It's because a couple of reasons. Number one, I was well prepared. As I mentioned, I had 83 questions. And I was preparing. If I was ever going to be a head coach, I want to know how to handle these different things about recruiting and set up by it's very well prepared. But here's the thing, and I think it's really critical for your small business owners.

I have found that the more successful somebody is, the more willing they are to give you their time in order to help you be successful if you really and truly want to learn, that you just don't want to make a contact, you don't want to drop names, etc. But you really want to learn. The more successful people are, the more apt they are to help you be successful because that's one of the reasons why they became successful is their willing. to help other people. And I have tried to do that same thing. And Dale Royal did always have time for young people that want to learn, want to benefit, not just people in coaching, but I've had all kind of people come to me and say, coach, can I visit it with it? Don't be hesitant to go talk to successful people. They'll be more than willing to help you most of the time. I've never learned anything by talking. I only learned by listening. And the only thing that's going to change you from where

you are today to where you're going to be five years from now are the books you read, the people you meet, and the dreams you dream. But I think learning from people is invaluable. And please don't think they don't have time for you. One of the things I've always been fascinated by the coaching industry is the unique leadership role of turnover. Now, in the business world, you don't want a lot of turnover per se. You want to have people that are with you a long time and sustained success, but in college coaching for certain, and then in the pros with free agency now, you have a lot of turnover.

Specifically, when you're coaching young men in a football environment in college, and you've got recruiting classes, new classes coming in each year. Coach Kay told me one time in an interview that every team is so uniquely different because you've got new people coming in. And so when you start a new season, it really is a completely different team. what did you do over time that really work for you as a leader in resetting the culture when you've got new people coming in all the time and keeping that consistent culture in place? Well, not only don't you have the same team every year, you don't have the same team every week. That's true. I've said this on TV so many times.

You've got a different team each week. They play great one week and what happens during the next week. But first of all, when I had staff changes, I had a lot of them because I felt my obligation was to prepare my assistant coaches to become head coaches. And most people want to be a head coach. And so every time I had a decision to make, every time there was a difficult problem, et cetera, I'd always explain to the staff why I was doing it this way and all the ramifications that would happen if you didn't do it certain ways.

And so consequently, many of them were not to become head coaches, you know, Pete Carroll, Barry Alvarez, a Charlie Strong, and Urban Meyer. But here's my philosophy. If I lose a coach, I'm going to make this a better staff by who I hire. When you lose an employee, what the term is whether your company is going to get better or worse. It's not who you lost. It's who you replaced. in the same thing in recruiting.

We lose a senior athlete. Let's make sure we're going out and getting athletes that can be every bit as good, et cetera. Now, here's the other thing. As far as culture is concerned, one of the first things that I would tell the freshman when they reported there, you come here to become us.

We didn't bring you here so we can become you. I don't care how you wore your socks in high school. I don't care. But there are certain things. When you get a great person coming in, great athlete, we think, oh, he's so talented. But there's a lot of things you have to teach him. You have to teach him how to take criticism. He's never had it before. And this is one of the problems you have with hiring young people today. They've never been criticized. They've never

been told that they aren't the brightest and smartest in the world. They have to learn how to compete, how to accept responsibility, how to be held accountable for different things. This is all part of our culture. Now, one thing I did was I assigned. Every freshman that came into our program was assigned a big brother. And that big brother's primary obligation was one. He had to have one meal with that young man every week the entire year. Because they're freshmen. They don't know where to go, what to do.

They've been a star. Now all of a sudden they're freshmen, they're lost. They don't know how to budget their time. They don't know how to take criticism. And you sit down with the younger brother and you explain to them, hey, I've been there. I know exactly what. Trust me. Believe in the system. He's doing the right thing. You'll be better off in the long run. And so I think that your senior employees have an obligation to help those younger employees blend in and make the company better. But too many times,

if you have upper classmen look on the new employees as a threat, oh, they might take my job, they might get my promotion, I'm trying to get it. Then you know, don't have any chance. You've got to build a love and a feeling and a genuine care among your players, among your staff, among your family. And I thought that's critical. Anytime you find a great organization, you're going to find people that will be accountable for decisions they make, but more importantly, they care as much about everybody else in the organization as they do themselves. I want to ask you about the unique dynamic of when you assemble a team and you've got a a whole team out there on the field for their first spring practice,

and you're thinking about the season coming up, and you're trying to evaluate the talent now that it's there in front of you together. How did you handle players who weren't playing to their potential? What was your approach, and how would it differ based maybe on their personalities or the way that they were wired? Well, I had three rules. Do the right thing. Do the best you can and show people you care.

Now, when somebody's not doing the best, best they can, whether it be on the football field or in a classroom, you sit down with them, and you say, Jim, I don't believe you're doing the best you can. Here's why. You got an A in space one. You're getting a D in space two. You miss class three times, study all twice, two to once. I don't believe that's the best you do, and I want to know why. You never attack the performer, but you must attack their performance. That is absolutely critical. And you also explain to them, if you want to fail, you have the right to fail. You do not have the right to to cause other people to fail

because you don't fulfill everything to the very best of your ability. And we would assemble our team and we'd talk about our goals. We had goals. But then we had to answer these questions honestly. And I think it applies to a small business as well. We want to win the championship, for example,

or we want to be number one in our whatever bakery or anything else. And answer these questions honestly. what financial sacrifices are you willing to make in order to achieve that? Number two, what personal sacrifice are you willing to make? You're willing to give up golf, you're willing to give up certain things, because there's going to be a sacrifice if you really want to do it. And that will tell you how serious you are.

The third thing you have to ask yourself, what skills and talents do we have to acquire in order to do this, to accomplish this. What improvements do we have to make in our organization to do this? Who do I have to work with in order to have this happen? And what problems and obstacles am I going to have to overcome in order to make this happen? And if you answer those questions pretty honestly, and you follow up on them, you'll find out that those dreams will become a reality.

That's good. I would love for you to speak to our audience on this issue, and you saw it all the time as a head football coach, where you've got a bunch of players trying to get your attention, your coach's attention, so that they can get in and start and fulfill what they believe is their potential on the football field. We've got a big audience here, and a lot of people who may be trying to get noticed. They're looking for that opportunity to get the ball and crunch time and make a play and move forward. And they sometimes feel like I'm not getting the coach's attention. Do they notice me?

They're asking all these questions. This is all very normal stuff for us humans. But I'm curious from your perspective as a leader who made those decisions. You've got a bunch of young men trying to get that opportunity. What would you say to these people who have yet to get their chance, this idea of they've got to be persistent, they've got to show up and practice every day, but they're going to have to have some patience. And boy, that is so very hard. What would you say to us about that? I would say whatever you do, do it to the very best of your ability and try to create an environment. that if you didn't show up at work, they would miss you. And the only people you miss are those had valued other people's work.

If they didn't go home, who would miss you and why? If your company seems to exist, who would miss you and why? Would your customers miss you? Oh, you know, like if an airline went out of business, you don't miss them because there's other airlines are all the same. Disney went out of business, you'd miss them because it's different. It's unique. There's not many like it.

And I think you want to make sure you're that way as an employee. you are looking to do things and you're going to do it the very best of your ability and you can count on you and the people want a grandstand that want to be recognized that doesn't work do your job and see what else you can do and be accountable for everything and when you see a problem you own the problem don't say well that's not my duty that's somebody else you see a problem you own it you look at the alternatives and you solve the problem. That's how you'll get a promotion. I've got to say this in all honesty. I don't ever recall once I became an assistant coach in college, I never applied for a job. I never sought out a job. Every time, if you do a good job, people will come look for you. But all I say is, just make sure that if you didn't show up, people would miss you.

Because then you'll be promoted. I promise you. Yeah, that's so true and so good. All right, I want to flip this to our leaders who are people who are making decisions every day. And I love this context. So the big decisions in the big games, fourth and one. You know, it's play for the win. Do you kick it? Do you go for the win?

Kick it to tie. All the big decisions that any sports fan understands. If you're not a sports fan, you get this metaphor. It's very, very real. So here you are. You're coaching Notre Dame, NBC. I mean, it doesn't get any bigger than that glare in college football. It simply doesn't. And you've got to make a decision. You've got to make a decision. It's on you. And everybody's looking at you. Millions of TV viewers, everybody in the press box, the players, everybody, and the decision is on you. How did you handle those moments? I'm just curious what was going through your brain and preparation ahead of time versus instinct. Because those are huge decisions. that can make the difference in your life? It certainly does, and the TV camera was on you.

Let me tell you what I learned. I learned it the hard way at Notre Dame. What you say to an individual, an employee, is important. But what you say is not nearly as important is your tone of voice. And your tone of voice is not nearly as important is your facial expression. Your tone of voice and your facial expression

will determine whether that, individual reacts positively or negatively to it. So what I learned I'd put my arm around a kid when he had screwed up with a smile on my face, I'd say, that was a dumb thing to do. I'd say, you come Monday, you're going to regret that. I'd say, oh, look how he loves that coach. So when you chastise somebody, sit with a smile and a nice words. But a lot of people concerning the question you just asked, will notice,

I always had a vanilla folder on the back of my pocket. In my back pocket, I had a vanilla folder fold up. And on it was a variety of different things, the runs, the passes, the screens, runs were in green, passes were in blue, screens, draw delays were in red. But let me tell you what was the most important thing on that folder. One section, every single week I wrote down the following things. Make them beat us. We do not have to beat them.

It's not the great play that wins. It's eliminating the dumb play. Get a first down. All this game is, if you get enough first downs, you're going to end up in the end zone. Don't need the great play. You eliminate the bad play by winning. Forget who we're playing.

Forget how good they are. Let's focus on what we can do. These are things that I had on that folder every single week. And right before the game, I read them. So those were the determining factors. What can we do? What's the best thing we can do? And in calling the game, I go into a game, I may say, okay, 21 points will beat Michigan.

But all of a sudden, you're down 14, nothing in the first quarter. And you say, you know, I think we need to open this sucker up. I think we're going to have to take more chances than we normally would. Because remember this. Every time you made a mistake, it gave the other team seven points, that was seven points. You had to get back. That's right. It's the same thing when you make a bogey, a professional golfer makes a bogey.

That means he has to make a birdie somewhere in order to get back to even. So let's just make sure we understand what we're trying to do and be well-prepared. and what you do. And the execution of the place I call, what do we do best? I want to call something I know we can execute in practice. I'll tell you something else. In practice, I put tremendous pressure on our people because then they got in the game. It was no big deal.

They'd been there before. They understand. And it's just go back to the three rules. I hate to be repetitious, but these three rules have never failed me. tell your employees, hey, I want you to do the right thing. That's all. You know, it's the right to be honest. Right to be on time. Right to be loyal. Right to show up. It's wrong to lie to steal, to cheat. Second thing, I want you to do. I want you to do everything the very best to your ability. I want this place to be clean and need people come in. I want to be impressed that there's a sense of pride in what we do and how we do it. And the last thing, I want you to care about people in our organization, but I want you to care about the customers, et cetera. Because if you do, those three things. You build a trust. You build a commitment. You build a care. And I don't care when they're talking about football, small business, major business, or race and children. That's so good. Coach, I've got to ask you, what do you love most? If I made you and I can't

make you, but just for an exercise and a fun question, if you had to pick the favorite thing that you loved and love about coaching, what would that one thing be? Watching people be successful. You know, last year, two players of I coached Notre Dame went in the Hall Fame, Tim Brown and Jerome Bettis. Three players I coached Notre Dame were added to the coaching staff last year at Notre Dame, Autry Denson, Jeff Burris, and Todd Light.

And two players I coached at Notre Dame were added to the Board of Trustees at Notre Dame, no small feet, Byron Spruel and Rod West. All seven of them were Afro-Americans. I can't take credit for it. Their parents have to. But I like to think I created an environment

where they learned to make good choices, and be accountable for the choices they make. And it's just watching the athletes be successful. I just meeting with my secretary on Luz Lads. Everybody played for me for 11 years at Notre Dame comes back. The second home game of the season. And we have a dinner on Friday night and reminisce and I talk, etc. And they've given over half million dollars to Notre Dame and scholarships.

They run the kitchen food banks in like 57 cities along with Notre Dame alumni. office. So it's seeing them be successful, getting a promotion, Byron Spreewell, just becoming present of the NBA writing me a little note and saying, I'm so excited, but I want you know that you help me get here by the philosophy that we generated. So that's the main thing about coaching. I miss a relationship with the players. You know, I think if I went back into coaching the day, I'd be a better coach than I've ever been before. I'm convinced of that. But you step aside and you let the younger people go on. You know, people try to hang on too long.

I always felt I wanted to leave somewhere when people ask me, why are you leaving rather than when are you leaving? All right, a couple quick questions before we let you go. And this is a nod to the Notre Dame fans and certainly the college football fans in the audience. Putting you on the spot here, as you look back of your Notre Dame time, the best leader that you coached. the field. Oh, well, it's like asked me, who's your favorite child?

I know, I know. I know. I had a lot of great leaders. I'll tell you, Tony Rice was a tremendous leader because he's a great competitor. A leader is somebody that has a vision where you want to go and a plan of how you're going to get there. And I think it just having a vision of what you want to do, what you want to accomplish in life, but an individual that refuses to accept defeat.

You know, we talk about competition. You're going to have problems and difficulties, but my attitude, I refuse to believe there's any problem, any difficulty, any obstacle that's going to keep me from being successful. I just think you have to feel that way. But I say Tony Rice is a great leader. I'm at William Mary. My second year is a head coach. And I select Jimmy Laycock as my starting quarterback. He's been the head coach of William Mary now for about 25 years.

Well, the second string quarterback quit when I named Jimmy Leacock as my quarterback. So now I lose Jimmy Leacock to a knee injury in the second game. I'm down to our third string quarterback. He breaks his hand in the fourth game. And I'm down to my four-string quarterback. A little kid named Stevie Regan, 5-7, 150 pounds, wore black top shoes. If he got to race with a pregnant mother, the best he'd finished, be third. But you know what? He was unselfish. He wanted to win. He just cared. And he didn't try

do anything fancy. We went on to win the conference championship. The only one William Mary has won end up going to the Tangerine Bowl. So, you know, we have problems and difficulties, but everything. I've never had an obstacle happen in my life. It did not turn out to be positive. If I reacted favorably to it. And so when I have difficulties, what can I learn from this? How can I make us better? And it's all part of it. And leadership, that's the coach's obligation to provide the leadership and the motivation

of the athletes. And the first thing I would tell the athletes, and, you know, when somebody buys another company, let's say you buy another company, I recommend you do the same thing I did when I would go into a different school. I'd go in and say, I know you had no decision whatsoever who would be your head coach. You had none. They didn't ask you, you didn't get to vote. And if you did get the vote, I know you were not to pick me.

Because you've heard I'm mean and nasty. It said, I understand that. I understand you don't want me here. But what I want you to understand is one thing and don't ever forget this. I had a choice. I had a great job. I didn't need to move my family. I had a better program on what we're in here.

But let me tell you why I came here because I wanted to be with you. I felt that if we were together, we could really do something special here. So I know you didn't want me, but don't you ever forget. I wanted you. Let's go. Wow, that is good stuff. So good. Okay, last fun questions.

I know you've got to go. So it's a really quick one. I don't know how many miles and no one will ever know how many miles you paced on the sidelines during games. But I love that energy. But my favorite thing to see you do was to kind of, kind of squat down and that catches pick up the grass you have no idea how many people still talk to me about that it was your thing you know i just had a tendency growing up to pick grass and chew on it

now i think ESPN put a pedometer on me and i think i walked something like eight and a half miles on the average during a game just doing a game oh i didn't know that but i got the habit of picking grass and chewing on it and just some but then they brought in that and then they brought in that Astro turf, and I'm still trying to pick the goddog Astrid turf out of there. Oh, it's one of my favorite enduring images. And Coach, I'm really excited because our audience knows this. And I know you know this. I'll be hosting our Entree Leadership Summit event in Orlando and May that you'll be speaking at.

And we're so excited you're going to be there. I can't wait to finally meet you and shake your hand. This was a fun conversation. And I know that each and every one of our audience members is better for it. We appreciate your example as a leader. and we appreciate you taking time with us today. Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm really looking forward to being with you.

Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that. And listen, if you're not a sports fan, don't ever check out on these type energies because, number one, I'm trying to transfer as much of their wisdom and knowledge and practical experience to you as possible. But secondly, there is just so much naturally that's there. I mean, Eric, the producer is not a big sports fan,

and he's writing notes like crazy back there behind the window. So take away. Eric has challenged me to give you something, and I love this, as soon as the interview is over. What did I take away? What's one thing? There was so much there. Eric, I could have literally done an entire interview based on that Darryl Royal story. And so I'm going to give you, go back and listen to that again.

If you are a young leader, a young person, if you're not a leader, this idea of being bold enough, an audacious enough to add. somebody who's a master in your field, somebody that you look up to, somebody that's winning big, have the guts to ask them for some time. That is invaluable. You cannot put a price on that. So go back and listen to that story and then think to yourself, who can I sit with? But here's the big thing that I took away, and I think this is important for all of us to remember, especially those of us who were achievers. We want to make our mark. And that comes with a little bit of ego. And it's not bad. Ego's not a bad thing. But ego has to be kept in check. And you remember what he said about the young players when they come in? He said, hey, I tell him, look, I don't

care how you wore your socks in high school. We're not going to become you is essentially what he said. I'm paraphrasing. Here's the takeaway. And it's a great reminder for me. It's a great reminder for all of you. And I've got a personal anecdote when I first joined the team here at Ramsey Solutions. But the big thought is simply this. Remember, it's not about you. You may be a star. You may have tons of talent. And the team may be putting a tremendous amount of faith, a tremendous amount of resources

behind you. They may be counting on you in a big way. The bottom line is, it's not about you. It's about the mission of the organization, the team that you have decided to join. And the personal antidote on this is one of our board members when I was in the hiring process. here. I had my own radio show. I'd already written a book. I was doing Fox News every week before I got here. And it was a great question. And one of the board members asked me in the interview process, and she had known me for a while. She said, how do you think that you'll be able to

come in here and be a part of this bigger team? You're not doing your own show anymore. You're not, you're going to be lifting other people, not just lifting yourself, not lifting yourself, quite frankly. And it was a great question. And my immediate response is born out of humility and having to learn this lesson that I'm sharing with you. And that is, no matter how talented you are, no matter how big the platform you're on, you're always going to be lifting something much bigger. And so as a host, it's not the Ken Coleman show. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm lifting a brand. I'm lifting a message. I'm trying to lift you, members of the tribe. And when I forget that, It's when things blow up.

It's a great reminder. And my answer to her was, well, Jimmy Fallon host the Tonight Show. Ryan Seacrest hosts American Idol. Those were two hosts examples. Matt Lauer hosts the Today Show. Those are three A-list hosts, and none of them have their name on the marquee. They are serving a bigger brand. They are lifting a bigger brand.

They are a part of a much bigger mission. And that's what's happening when football players, basketball players, you name the sport. They come in as highly. sought after recruits, major, major talent, but they've got to learn very quickly. They are a big part of what is going on,

but they are still a part of the bigger hole. That's huge. That was a takeaway for me. It's a great thing to keep yourself humble. Even when you got big ego, even when you got big responsibility, and you've got to deliver, and it's really important when you're in a role where you get a lot of

out of boys and out of girls. Don't believe the hype. Fun stuff. He's to be with us, as I mentioned, at our 2017 Entree Leadership Summit. This is an amazing event. There's not a business event like it anywhere in the world. It's unbelievable as we unveil the Entree Leadership Playbook, Plus, Plus, Plus, Plus, and then amazing speakers like Lou Holtz. And he'll be joining Robert Hershevik from the runaway reality show Shark Tank and Simon Seneca, John Maxwell, Pat Lynchone, and of course, Chris Hogan, Chrissy Wright, and Dave

Ramsey. Now, to get details on this event, Entreleadership.com slash summit. The date, May 21 through 24, 2017 in Sunny Orlando, Florida, May 21 through 24. And we're going to give a special deal for one week. So from one week from this thing airing, which always airs on a Monday. So you can just look at the episode release date, and it's a Monday to Monday type deal. And you're going to get $300 off if you get a hold of our sales advisors by going to ontraeleadership.com slash Summit will save you $300 if you just mention the special podcast listener deal. So that's $300 off for Lou Holtz and that whole host of great speakers. And also we're doing a special meetup at this event for podcast listeners only.

It's going to be fun. We'll tell you more details about that as we get closer. It's going to be a special time to hang out with this great community. So I'm looking forward to that. And this is worth every penny. Entreeleadership.com slash summit to register and get all the great details. Speaking of hanging out, very excited to announce that in three days, for the very first time, Eric the producer and I are going to do a Facebook live hangout

on the Entree Leadership Facebook page with you, the podcast audience. That's three days from now. September the 8th at 1130 a.m. Eastern, 1030 Central. Very simple. You've got to like our page if you have not already. Facebook.com slash Entree Leadership, the official Entree Leadership page on Facebook. If you like the page, then you're in. And you will see a show up at 1130 a.m. Eastern time. And it's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to discuss episodes. I mean, really, Eric has said, hey, it's what you folks want to talk about. This is ratcheting up our Facebook and podcast communication. Everybody and their mother is on Facebook. So just get on over there to the Entree Leadership page. Like it. And if you'd like to hang out, I mean, it's real-time conversation. Is that right, Eric? I mean, it's coming at me.

And we want to talk about an episode. Hey, we could break down the Lou Holtz episode. What did you take away? What did I take away? I mean, it's just open for real communication. We want to make each other better. And I know this, iron sharpens iron. And when I'm out on the road at these Entree Leadership Live events and I meet you folks in the lobby, I always come away like I've just had a shot of vitamin B or something.

It's just a jolt. And so that's what this is designed to do. We won't waste your time. We'll be productive. And it'll be fun. But the first time we're going to do this. We're going to do this a lot more. This is the first time we're just kind of hanging out.

And really it's for our podcast audience. And so Facebook.com slash Entree Leadership. We'll see you there. September the 8th at 1130 a.m. Eastern. It's going to be fun. Can't wait to talk with you. All right, folks, it's a new month, and that is exciting news for you. Trust me, because that means we're bringing you a brand new weapon, a brand new tool to win big.

We're going to give you some great plays to win in the field of business. And that's what we do every month from the Ontario Leader. team. It's absolutely free. This month, we're giving you three reasons that team members fail. So what happens when you deal with failure within the team? How do you fix the situation? How do you move forward? Dave says this all the time around here. Attack the problem, not the person. So our giveaway in the month of September is focused on how do you respond when you've got failure within the team? Three reasons that team members fail and then we're going to walk you through not just the reasons, but how you handle it.

That's everything from navigating the reprimands, the course corrections. If you have to fire, how do you do it, when do you do it? This is a video lesson from Dave Ramsey teaching on this. Now, that's 40 minutes of absolute leadership gold and is completely free. We're going to give that to you, Dave, teaching on three reasons that team members fail. So to get it, you're going to text the word failure to 33444. failure to 334444. Now, some of you are going, man, that's kind of a negative word. You know what? Is it? I don't think that it is. See, we get scared of failure. We spend so much time

thinking about success. And there's other wrong with that. But don't run from failure. Don't be afraid of failure. It is failure that allows us to move forward. You know, Craig Rochelle said this. in the episode that he was on recently, this idea that they would look at failures and dissect them like crazy, as opposed to moving on and just kind of brushing it under the rug, if you will. So where there is no problem, there is no progress. That, to me, is a great positive perspective on this. You're going to have failures. You're going to have problems.

But it is those very problems that will allow you to make progress. I can tell you this right now. If nothing's going wrong, you're not doing a whole lot. Newsflash. I don't want to ruin anybody's day. But if you haven't had any problems recently, you're probably not pushing hard enough. You're not leading well enough. Because if you're pushing and your vision casting and going after that, there's going to be some problems.

Turn them into moments to create progress. So, again, this is a great tool. Text the word of failure to 3344 or go to entreleadership.com slash podcast. and this resource is in the show notes. I can't believe it, folks. Here we are in September. We are just around the corner from our first ever, Entree Leadership One Day Live Stream.

We've been telling you about this, the first time we've ever done it. We're not going to play this a second time. This is a one-shot deal where we take Entree Leadership and we're going to open it up to the world. You can watch it anywhere you want with whoever you want. It's October the 19th. The Entree Leadership One Day Live stream is only

$24 for you podcast listeners. Now you got to use the code, E-L podcast. E-L podcast, that's all one word, and you can put that in at entreleadership.com slash E-1D to get the live stream, which is coming to you from Kansas City. It's going to be fun.

I'm going to eat some barbecue the night before Eric to get my strength up. Big day. I'll be on the stage all day with Dave Ramsey. Chris Hogan, Chris You're right. It's going to be a lot of fun. October the 19th from Kansas City. We're going to be their lives.

If you want to join us live, you can do that as well, entreeleadership.com slash e1D. And don't forget the special $24 rate. All you got to do is use the code, EL podcast. Well, I want to thank Lou Holtz. I know I'm better for it. I know you're better for it. And on behalf of Eric, the producer, and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you so much for listening.

We will talk with you again very, very soon.