EntreLeadership - #278: Fearless at Work with Molly Fletcher

Episode Date: August 6, 2018

Talent, skill, and an unparalleled work ethic may seem like a guaranteed recipe for success, but Molly Fletcher—acclaimed motivational speaker, author, and former sports agent—has seen fear undermine it all. Tune in as Molly explains how a positive mindset can be a total game-changer, unlocking boundless potential and unforeseen opportunities for growth. Better yet, she offers powerful advice on making this shift in your own life. Also joining us is Dave Ramsey, who shares why fear is such a dangerous thing and suggests ways to escape its manipulative grip. entreleadership.com/podcast Decision Making Checklist from EntreLeadership Work/Life Balance from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I believe negotiation is just a tough conversation. And the more that we can connect, the more we can keep the conversation going. And the more we can keep the conversation going and connect, probably the higher likelihood of us being able to get a deal done. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation.

Here's what we've got coming up for you. Our featured guest is Molly Fletcher. She's an entrepreneur and former sports agent. In fact, she's known as the female Jerry McGuire. An unbelievable story of success. She's going to share some great content for you in growing yourself and your business. And then we're going to give you some more teaching from Dave Ramsey, our founder. Each week in our staff meetings on Monday mornings, he teaches.

And we're going to give you a little bit of his teaching on making decisions in a non-fearful way. That's going to be great stuff and free stuff coming your way. She has been featured in ESPN, Fast Company, Forbes and Sports Illustrated, one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in America. She's got a great story of working from the bottom to the top. She is Molly Fletcher. She's got four books, Fearless at Work, a winner's guy. to negotiating the business of being the best and the five best tools to find your dream career. Here is my conversation with Molly Fletcher.

Well, this is fun. Molly Fletcher, who if you read her bio, it's easy to get impressed quickly. But the line that jumped out at me, Molly, was hailed as the female Jerry McGuire and as a lover of sports. I played sports my whole life. I'm now nothing more than a weakened warrior at best. coaching my own kids. That was one of the great sports movies of all time. It has to be in everybody's top 10. And female, Jeremy Geyer, so I saw that. And we have some mutual friends. I thought, well, this is cool. How did you come by that? Before we get into the book and all the other stuff,

I can't go any further without getting the story behind that. Well, you know, I did an interview with CNN, and they just grabbed it. And that's sort of what they started calling me and then other people started referring to it and then now it's sort of evolved and so here we are. But, you know, and people will sometimes say, hey, does that bother you that you're called the female, whatever? And for me, it's just a quick and easy way for people to know what I did. And so, no, it doesn't bother me. I think it's a quick and easy way for people to get their head around the world that I lived in. I think it's pretty darn cool. So let's get into that. I want to know. Take us back. How did you get into being a sports agent?

So I was a student athlete at Michigan State. I played tennis in college and I graduated and wanted to get into the business of sports, but I was 21 or 22, right? I really didn't know what that really meant or even looked like. But I grew up in East Lansing, awesome parents and went two miles down the road to Michigan State. And after I graduated, I said to my parents, I think I'm going to move to Atlanta and try to get a job in sports. So long story short, I got down to Atlanta and negotiated a deal for free rent in exchange for teaching tennis, which I joke with my clients. And I said, say, look, I loved every contract I negotiated for you guys, but I got to tell you, this was one of my favorite deals, you know? Exactly. So for nine years, I lived for free in exchange for teaching tennis, which gave me, you know, and it was an hour and a half a week, right? So it was every Tuesday night. And so during the week, I had an opportunity to start to network and build great

relationships. And, you know, I've always believed that, you know, when you ask for advice, you get a job, when you ask for a job, you get advice. And so I started getting in front of awesome people that were kind enough to give me advice and spend 15 minutes with me. And fast forward, I found myself in an office through really networking with wonderful people that were kind to share. And so I was hired by CSE, which is a sports agency in Atlanta. And I started taking athletes to appearances and endorsements.

It was 95, I think, 96. It was the Super Bowl had come to Atlanta. The Olympics was coming. So we had Lenny Wilkins as a client. And so I was running Lenny around to all his appearances at the Olympics because he was the head coach of the Dream team. So I did that. And then I sort of saw a gap and I saw an opportunity to represent more guys. We only had about five or six guys at the time as an agency. And I thought, gosh, let's go build this up. let's get more guys. And so the agent blessed that, he said, hey, go for it. You know, I put a business

plan together and showed him how I thought we could do it. Let's start with baseball. And so I recruited guys out of Georgia Tech, baseball players initially. And that just sort of evolved and grew. And I had guys that would get to the minor leagues. I'd go take them to dinner, play golf, hang out, whatever. You know, and I tried to sort of take really good care of these guys as their agent with all their stuff and their deals, et cetera. And so we would go to dinner and they would bring their buddies. And then I would try to recruit those guys. And so it evolved. And, you know, I think it's like Arthur Blank told me one time who started that little hardware store in Atlanta called the Home Depot. He said, Molly, sometimes when you, you know, follow your heart and identify problems in the market and

close those gaps, you know, good things will happen. And that's truly all that really happened. And so for 15 years, that was a pretty cool world. And we had about 300 guys and gals and lots of different sports. And so it was fun. Yeah. And I think when people think, They think, okay, negotiation, you know, representation. They think those two main buckets. But the reality is you built a business. You saw a need and you said, okay, let's go get some more. So here you are very early on, just finding your way. But you built a business. It's like a small business. What was the key to success of that agency as you began to branch out and grow the business? You know, I think number one, it's doing it for the right reasons. And for me, it was about these guys and gals,

a window of time to do something that's pretty special and pretty unique. And for me, it was how do I maximize that window of time for these guys and gals that is so unique from on the field, off the field. So that was obviously one thing. Obviously, relationships were imperative. Your ability to connect and to serve them inside of that window in a way that obviously added tremendous value. To build those relationships in a way that allowed my guys to want to help me build the business was huge. I mean, I had a lot of guys that would pick up with a phone and help. me get other guys, other golfers or other baseball players. And so, you know, the relationship component, the authenticity component, and being in it for the right reasons, I loved being around

guys and gals that woke up every day and were peak performers, right, that always were trying to get better. And they had to. I mean, the best guys in the world, the best coaches in the world, the best golfers in the world. I mean, there's somebody on their tail every day trying to take their job. And so they're remarkable people to be around. And I learned, as much as I was serving them, right, and negotiating their deals and helping them on and off the court. or the field or the court. You know, I learned a ton, obviously, from these guys as well. Well, that's what I want to, I want to spend a little bit of our time on that right there.

I'm sitting here thinking about, you mentioned one of your clients, John Smoltz, who this guy's going to go down as one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game. And so let me take you to maybe, and again, I want you to tell me story or two. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're sitting there. I got a couple.

Yeah, I'll bet you do. You're watching some of the greatest athletes in the world. struggle with confidence, struggle with ego, all those things. When you watched an athlete or a broadcaster go through a tough time, what I think our audience would love to hear from you is what you learned about the great performers, how they rise above, how they push through, because they go some of the same struggles that we go through just in front of more people with a lot more pressure. Yeah, for sure. You know, for me, and I was right there when Smolte transitioned from starter to closer, back to starter. But, you know, you know,

You know, those are the moments that I saw all the time. And what I found was that they felt fear and feel fear and they get scared and they get nervous and all those things just like we do as business people when we're walking into a big meeting or we're raising money as a business owner or whatever. But they lean into it. And they realize that, you know what? Yes, I have a pit in my stomach. Yes, I'm scared to death. Yes, I'm nervous. But I'm going to go out there and I'm going to execute. And they do it by believing in themselves first, right? They believe it by reminding themselves that they belong there. And I had a baseball player once that was struggling, and I literally put a two and a half minute video together of just he was a hitter of one unbelievable hit after another. Like one unbelievable moment, you know, the dugout guy's coming out, the fans going crazy, right? Just awesome little moments. And I said, dude, you can do this, right? Like, and so as business people, I always tell business people, sometimes we've got to do those kinds of things for ourselves too so that we can pivot from fear to opportunity to recognize that this pit equals growth. that those moments are gifts and that on the other side of it is usually something that's going to take us to another level.

And when Smolz went, you know, I mean, I was right there when he did that. And, you know, what I saw was a guy sort of embraced that change, recognized that he didn't need to do it, but he wanted to do it. And by embracing change, right, which is something that a lot of us as people are super uncomfortable with, which is normal. But John leaned into that change and said, you know what, I'm going to do this. And then that first season as a closer, he led the National League in saves with 55 saves. You know, he went into the Hall of Fame as not just one of the best starters, but one of the best closers.

So, you know, I think what I consistently saw was guys embrace these challenges and lean into them instead of run from them. And that to me was probably one of the biggest things I learned. And John was a guy that certainly taught me that firsthand. I want you to talk about the continual learning process. Now, we know this on this program. We talk to leaders all the time. And I constantly am asking them, how are they growing? How are they learning?

Because no matter how high they are up the ladder, you know this, Molly, they've got to continue to learn. But I would love to know, you know, how are the top athletes, the top coaches? You've represented so many of them, Tomizzo, Doc Rivers. We're talking about two of the greats. How are they continually learning so that they stay on top? Because there's always competition. There's always a hot young coach. You know, there's always another program.

What have you learned about these great performers and how they continue to learn and grow? I'd say probably two really big things. Number one, they really parked their ego and allow curiosity to sort of rise to the top. You know, the other day, Izzo picked her with a phone and called the softball coach at Michigan because she's had incredible success and he wanted to learn. I mean, I, Gino Ariama was on my podcast and he told me once that, you know, he picked out of the phone and called Popovich and said, hey, listen, let me talk to you about team and let me talk to you about. And so, you know, Kobe Bryant consistently was picking up the phone and reaching out to great people in all fields and all spaces so that, you know, he could learn.

So they park their ego and know that other people can help them get a little bit better. And they're not afraid to ask for advice. You know, they sort of have to park the ego to probably be able to do that, right? And then the second thing is they're incredibly curious. They know that there's always a way to get a little bit better that if they do a little bit more, if they listen to one more podcast, if they read one more book, if they ask more questions, they're curious beyond belief. And so they continue to consume content so that they can learn and show up a little bit better every day.

And they realize it's like Saban talks about, right? It's a process. And they recognize that there's something that maybe they did five years ago that they would never consider doing now. But they're probably doing things today that through curiosity, they'll learn that they could do better in a couple years. So, you know, for your audience, right, for entrepreneurs, for leaders, for leaders, for leaders parking our ego so that we can ask tough questions to great leaders that

they're in and outside of our space allows us to grow and to stay curious unlocks new levels of capacity and growth for ourselves. I want to ask you about two big words. I know you're passionate about teaching around these words and the difference between the two. Achievement and fulfillment. Oh yeah. Huge difference, right? I mean, you know, achievement is good. going after the wrong things, right? It's, you know, one of my really good friends is Dr. Jim Lairn, he talks about how he worked with 17 number ones in the world, and they achieved a lot, right? I mean, they were number one in the world in tennis or whatever, and they were miserable because they weren't fulfilled. And, you know, fulfillment means we've got to get really clear on

why we're here. And I know you talk about that, right? And you've got to get really clear on what your purpose is and what really, you know, you're born to do and what are your gifts. And that's what's going to fill us up. And oftentimes, fulfillment comes through giving. and serving other people. And I know personally for me, you know, the greatest moments for me as an agent were the moments when not the biggest contracts. One of them was a deal where we got a guy 10 more days in the big league, so he got his pension for the rest of his life. And it was just a silly little deal to get him his pension. But that was fulfillment, right? You know, when you're doing a $50 million deal, so what, right? Like it's all about changing people's lives and when you can

change a guy's life because he gets his pension for the rest of his life. That's cool. So huge difference between the two. And I encourage people to spend time getting really clear on what does fulfillment look like for that. I think we have to ask you what you've learned about negotiation. I love that you came into this business as a tennis player. And I would guess you had not done a lot of negotiation other than maybe some allowance issues with mom and dad over the years. Or talking the cash register chick at the grocery store. Right. Right. Right. that was expired for sure. Yeah.

That was it. So take us to as we set this up because this is important because we don't actually talk a lot about negotiation on this program. I think this is great because this is lifeblood stuff for small business men and women. I want you to take us back to one of those very first negotiations where you don't maybe have a mentor, maybe you're on your own now. Yeah. You've got to make the deal happen.

Yeah. I mean, those moments happen all the time, right? And whether they were little deals or big deals, to me, there was a formula that I saw work. And for me, it wasn't about, you know, money and sort of muscle and force. It wasn't about getting on the other side of the table and sort of fighting and arguing with somebody. To me, that's not how you get deals done. And that's certainly how you don't get the second one or the third one done with those people. You know, so there was lots of times that whether it was Jeff Rancourt or John Smoltz or Tom Isso at Michigan State,

what I believe you've got to do and what's incredibly important is to understand the kind of people that you're negotiating with. What are they like? John Sherholz at the Atlanta Braves when he was the GM. I mean, John is a very. financially focused guy, right? I'm pretty relational and strategic when I negotiate. So understanding how he's going to show up, how I'm going to show up, and how can I adjust my style so that I can connect. I believe negotiation is just a tough conversation. And the more that we can connect, the more we can keep the conversation going. And the more we can keep the conversation going and connect, probably the

higher likelihood of us being able to get a deal done. So, you know, for me, I always try to be incredibly prepared. I always try to have something up my sleeve that maybe would surprise them that I knew. I tried to connect. I think that that is imperative. It's not about yelling and screaming and flexing our muscles. It's about understanding. And I think it's about giving, you know, when I did this apartment complex deal, super sort of basic deal, but, you know, I did a lot of things in advance of asking for the deal to show her what this relationship would be like. I think you've got to think about what are they worried about. What problem are they really trying to solve? I think a lot of times when people negotiate, they spend a lot of time figuring out

what they want, which is incredibly important. But you've got to figure out what problem they're trying to solve and how you're going to help them. And what else are they worried about? Right. I mean, you know, if I'm going in to negotiate a baseball player's contract and I know that they're consistently sitting at an $80 million salary as a team or $100 million salary, I got to know that and then know how my guy's going to slot into that sort of situation. So getting inside of the heads and the hearts of the people is incredibly important. And we have a game changer negotiation workshops that we deliver. And, you know, one of the things that we talk about is really getting clear on all the components of a deal that can be negotiated.

And what I found is when I was negotiating baseball player contracts, I would actually take ideas from baseball and drop them into golf contracts or into NBA coaches contracts or college coaches contracts. And so, you know, understanding all the components of a deal that can be negotiated to me are important. So we have models that we talk about called an Ewok, not the Star Wars character, and, you know, 360 awareness and lots of cool stuff. Yeah, well, you're doing, that's a great segue because you're doing some really cool stuff with Game Changer. I want you to take us into what you're doing by telling us how you decided what led to you walking away from being president of a very respected sports agency. And now you're on your own speaking and writing and taking all that you've learned and you're helping business leaders like our audience. What led to that decision? And then, second part of that, what all are you offering right now? So, you know, it was 2010, and I had about eight agents working for me, and I had, you know, 300 athletes and coaches.

And I had written a book because I saw the way young people were going after jobs. And it broke my heart because I felt like there was a gap. I felt like they were recruiting maybe me to be an agent. I was watching the way that they'd go about that process. And I felt like it wasn't working. And so I wrote a book for them. And I thought, you know, I can't meet with all these awesome young people. so I'm going to write a book, and even if I staple it together and give it away, at least I can help them. Right. So then school started saying, hey, will you come and talk about the book? And so I did.

And then I wrote another book and then companies started saying, you know, hey, will you come and talk and tell some of these stories? And so I did. And then I found myself at a place where I felt really, really fulfilled in my ability to share these experiences and stories and allow it to make people in business and transfer it and make it better. And, you know, to me, sports is an incredible metaphor for life, for business, for all those things. And so I found myself at a place where a couple companies said, you know, Morgan Stanley, nationwide insurance, a couple different companies came and said, hey, we want you to do 10 a year for us, you know, or we want you to do nine a year for us. And I had to make a decision.

And my heart was telling me, what do you want to do? You want to go to your grave and make a whole bunch of guys, a whole bunch of money and sort of do this? Or do you want to bet on yourself a little bit and feel like you can give and serve more people that way, right? I mean, you're giving and serving 300. Now I'll speak to hundreds of thousands of people. And so that was what I sort of had that moment. And my family sort of said, hey, go, we support you. And that was huge, of course. And the truth is, it's really the same thing, right? For me as an agent, what's interesting, that is kind of cool to share, it's a short window of time where I wanted to maximize that for our athletes. And that was my goal was how do I maximize this for their families and for themselves

inside of what can be two years, four years, five years, ten years. And speaking, and speaking, Speaking is the same thing, right? It's maximizing an hour on a stage when you walk up there and people are going, hey, lady, you better be good because I'm busy. I got emails coming in. I got stuff going out. What do you got for me? That's right. And it's a short window of time and you've got to move them from one place to another and allow them to get up a little bit better and a little bit different. And our negotiation workshops are the same way. You've got one day and you're going to take them from being able to do deals that are good to hopefully being able to do deals that are great from taking them to have okay relationships and negotiations, to having great relationships. And I'm super grateful the decision has been just such a blessing. And I'm so grateful and feel really, really blasts because I feel like I have a chance to do something that, you know, it's like you said before we went on, right? I've never worked a day of my life.

And that's pretty cool. Molly, you understand our audience so very well. They're entrepreneurs. They're chief everything officer of small companies. And even if they have a staff of 15 or 45 or 150, whatever it is, it can just get so consuming to run a business data. today, you know this, certainly when you want to grow. And so I thought it would be fun to just teach us a bit for a moment on what you've learned from the great performance, whether it be coaches, athletes, they can go to a level of focus that just blows the rest of us away. It's why it's

great art. It's why we like watching the seventh game of a series and the crowd's going nuts and Smoltz's got to throw a strike on a, you know, on a full count, or whatever it is, or Izzo's got to call a time out with eight seconds to go and national championships on the line. How do the great ones focused in the day-to-day process, Molly, so that they can focus in those critical moments that they get paid the big bucks for because they perform under unbelievable pressure? Well, I mean, you know, like anything in life, right, it's lots of little things. But to me, it's all the little moments that got them to that spot, right? So it's putting themselves in those positions a whole a lot before those big moments happen, right? So the more that you've done it, it's why when I

played tennis, I would stand there and have to hit 50 serves in a row. And on 49, you get pretty nervous because you don't want to go do it again. So now you're on the tennis court all by yourself, nobody's there. But you told yourself you're going to do 50 in a row, and you're at 49. And so you're pretty nervous in that moment because you don't want to stay there for another hour. So athletes do that. They put themselves in those moments before the moments are real, so that when the moments become real, they know exactly how to handle it, and they felt that way before.

So I would say that's the number one. You know, that's obviously an incredibly important process. It's a mindset. They send themselves the right messages. You know, the best athletes recover from adversity incredibly quickly in those moments, you know, you might see a golfer scorecard where they go,

bogie, they're going to birdie your par of the next one. The best ones are. They're going to recover. And, you know, you're going to see pitchers. Best pitchers in the world. They're going to walk a guy, right? They're going to hang a slider and they're going to get it knocked out of the park.

But they recover. And they don't stand on the mound after they've walked a guy and go, you got to be kidding me, man. If you walk this next guy, you got to have two on and it's a one-one game. It's the bottom of the eight. They don't say that, right? They say, all right, you got this. You sat this guy down before.

They get really clear on what they did before. They send themselves the right messages. And then they step into that moment with confidence and positivity and they execute. But it's a mindset thing. It's putting yourself there before those real moments, happen and it's creating clarity for yourself and your head and your heart and physically so that when you're in it, it's like you look at the way Navy SEALs are trained, right? I mean, the reason that they beat them down in buds is so when they get over there and they're in it

and it's really matters, they've done it before. They've not eaten for 48 hours. They haven't slept before. They've done that before. So we've got to have the courage to put ourselves in those moments a lot before those moments become real. And this is a dovetail here. You've really kind of touched on it. The great ones can just deal what a leader or a business owner thinks is bad news is similar to something going wrong in a game or an injury. The ones that kill me, Molly, honestly, the ones that break my heart still is the Gordon Hayward situation. You know, here's a guy that signs a new contract, big-time contract for the Celtics at the start of this season.

And he's looked upon as a guy who's going to be a lynchpin, a star, and five minutes into the season. season breaks his leg, he's done. They work so hard. They desire so much and in an injury takes them completely out. That's just one example of bad news for an athlete. How do leaders reframe bad news? Well, and you know, we're all going to get it, right? I mean, we're going to have bad meetings, bad phone calls, you know, bad, bad days, bad months, bad years. You know, I think that's when you've got to go to your why and you've got to go to why you're doing it in the first place. And usually when you go to your why, if your why is something that is authentic to you, it's going to allow you to kind of unlock the drive. It's going to get rid of that negativity. It's going to unlock the voice that is

telling you to quit or to stop and allow you to say, no, you know what, I know why I'm doing this. And it's worth it. So when athletes get injured, they have to go back to why they do what they do and that this is all they've ever wanted to do all their life. And that's what's going to drive the rehabilitation or the recovery in those moments. You've got to. You've got to be a lot of got to be able to reframe bad news and learn from it, right? I mean, I did a deal once with Billy Donovan when we took him to the Orlando Magic, and he went to the magic for two days. And then he changed his mind.

And, you know, I'll never forget that moment when, you know, he said, look, I don't want that job. I want to stay at Florida. And I thought, you got to be kidding. Wow, you know, what happened? I thought, what was my role in this? And I think great leaders will say to themselves when things don't go right, what was my role in it?

What could I have done differently? And what gap was there for me? And what I found in that moment with that contract with Billy was never once inside of that week that we were negotiating that deal, did we, did I ask Billy the tough questions? I never said like, hey, Billy, are you ready to say goodbye to those 18-year-old men who you promised you be their basketball coach or the fans or the athletic director of Florida? Are you ready, Billy? You're young. If you get fired, what does that look like? I never asked him the difficult questions. And so that was a moment that was tough, but it was a moment where you had to reframe it and say, what can I learn from this? How can this make me better? How can I own this and own my role in it? I think we've got to reframe those moments. We've got to reframe them and learn from them and reframe them and find the good in them because there's good in all those moments. I learned more in the tennis matches that I lost than the ones that I won. You know, because what it did was allowed me to show up at the courts.

the next day and know the spots that were my gaps. So reframing's key. Wow, I did not know you were a part of the Donovan situation because that was one of the most well-publicized coaching changes where he got criticized on the NBA side. I got to tell you, I really admired it at the time. I thought, this is not easy for him to do and for you to do to call the Orlando Magic up and say, hey, Billy's changed his mind, or maybe he made the call. But I thought that it was actually honorable to say, you know what? I know I said yes, the NBA is very attractive, but I think I'm still supposed to be at Florida. How difficult was that for you to deal with the executives with Orlando?

Well, I think that's why it's so important to have great relationships. And we did with the magic. And so that helped that not be as hard because they knew we were honest. They knew we were being forthright. And so that was incredibly helpful. And that's why I'm such a big proponent of building great relationships. But number one, we wanted to make sure Billy was really clear. You know, because Billy, if you don't take this job, they're going to lock you out of the NBA for a little while, which I don't blame him. And so you've got to be ready for that. The biggest thing was making sure Billy was crystal clear and that he was making the decision for the right reasons. And once we knew he was really clear, it was easy. And that was our role, you know, to represent him and to serve and support him. And so it was no problem. I wish I wouldn't have ordered that really nice bottle of wine that night, but after we did the deal. But, you know, and there's lots of moments like that, right, that I have made mistakes or failed. And those are.

are the ones that you learned from. And yeah, it was hard, but it makes everybody a little bit better along the way for sure. And I love that. I want to stay here because there's so much. You said the big lesson you took away, I'm sure there were many, but you didn't ask him and press him before he said yes as leaders with new opportunity. Because I'm sure one of the great roles you've played as an agent was saying yes to the best and not saying yes to everything. I mean, there's tons of opportunities that come to these five-star athletes and these big-time celebrity. What can we learn as business leaders, owners, just personal growth junkies, people that want to be on purpose about recognizing opportunity and saying no when it looks good so that you can

say yes when it's great? What's a process that you've learned that we can borrow from? For me, you've got to filter everything through a really clear purpose. And when you can filter your decisions through your purpose, that gives you the clarity to know what to say yes to and what to say no to. And the byproduct of that is probably you're living your purpose. So I'm a big fan of taking the time and the energy to get clear on our purpose. So we know what to filter things through that gives us the clarity to say yes and no. I think, again, you've got to ask yourself in those moments, what was my role in that? But, you know, for leaders, to me, there's going to be so many moments where things don't go our way or when we walk out of a meeting and we think, man, that's awesome. They

didn't bring it up. Maybe they forgot. And, you know, we're excited that we think a problem that we thought was an issue wasn't brought up. But to me, that's when we build great relationships and that's when we connect. And so the agency, we did not do his deal with Oklahoma. And why? Because I think Billy knew, man, maybe these guys pushed me through this thing a little bit too quickly. We didn't ask the tough questions. I think that's part of it. And so I'm a huge proponent of in those moments when you think, man, they forgot this deal is, this is good, right? Like this problem's gone. That's when you've got to ask the questions. I think had we asked Billy those tough questions, had we gotten him really, really clear,

my sense is maybe he would have gone, wow, you know what, I need to put myself in that locker room. And I need to say, am I ready to look at those young men who I love, who I sat and recruited? You know, am I ready if I'm a young guy and I don't win? If you don't win in the NBA when you're making that kind of money after a couple years, you're gone. Yeah. Are you ready to go coach against Florida? Are you ready for all that? So what I would say to leaders is when you hang up the phone and you think a problem didn't

come up. That's just when I think we have to find a way in a safe way and an authentic way to ask those questions. And then when the moments do happen, when they don't go right, it's like that whole Billy story. To me, that's what I used to always tell my athletes if things didn't go right. If something happened, right? I mean, you know, I would have told Tiger Woods after what happened with Tiger, you know, years ago with his wife, you know, tell the truth, tell it fast and tell it yourself. And that's something I used to always tell my guys is if something happens, you've got to tell the truth, you've got to tell it yourself, and you've got to do it fast. And I think that as leaders, we have to do that too. We have to own it and step into those

moments. Okay, before we let you go, fun leadership question, who do you admire most in the sports world as a leader and why? It doesn't have to be somebody you represented, but if it is, that's fine too, but I thought you have represented some leaders, whether it be coaches or executives or whatever, who do you admire most in the sports world and why as a leader? Boy, there's a couple, right? I mean, you're going to kill me here, but I'm probably going to have to give you a couple. You know, I would say as a coach, the two coaches that I really admire, one is Tom Ezzo because he's authentic and he takes time to be with his guys. And a lot of coaches don't take the time sometimes to be with their guys and Tom does. Also, the biggest would be

Dabo Sweeney, who I recently had on my podcast, who is so high character. The line I love that Dabo says is serve their heart, not their talent. And boy, to hear that from a coach that wins a national championship is pretty awesome, right? Serve their heart, not their talent. And when you're winning national championships, that's hard to do. And Dabo is a guy that I haven't spent a ton of time with, but I've spent a little bit of time with, and he is incredibly impressive. And then I would say as a baseball player, you know, John Smaltz is a guy who has always lived true to who he is. He's super high character guy and family man and his capacity to deal with adversity and then step out on a mound and execute as something I've never seen before. I knew all the stuff that was going on

in his life personally, physically issues with his elbow, his thumb, you know, his shoulder. And then I would watch him step out on the mound and just crush. And his capacity was insane. Golfer, I would say probably my favorite guy that we had was Matt Coocher. What I respect so much about Matt is, you know, too, right? I mean, he married a tennis player in Sibby, his wife. So I like that. But no, I mean, I think the biggest thing with Cooch is he approaches it like a CEO. And when you see athletes approach what they do as an athlete like a CEO, like a leader,

that they recognize, okay, for me to execute as a professional golfer, these are all the things I need to go right. No different than a leader says, look, I need an ops division. I need my HR team. my need. We as leaders need all these verticals to run right for us to be able to lead, and that's on us. And Cooch was a guy that, and is a guy that tries to put the right people around him so that he can go play golf. And to me, operates as a CEO, as a PGA tour player, and that's something I respect a ton. Love that. The new book, or the latest book, rather, is Fearless at Work. She is Molly Fletcher. The podcast is Game Changers with Molly Fletcher. She's

going to give you some great conversations, and you know how much I love a good conversations, folks. So go check that out. I want to also mention other books by Molly, a winner's guide to negotiating, the business of being the best, the five best tools to find your dream career. Fun stuff, and I had to be a professional. I always have to bite my upper lip when I talk to Buckeyes and Spartans. I am a Michigan man. And I know, I knew. I was waiting to the end. So you didn't hang up. Well, because now if you hang up, we've given value. And so therefore, I've maintained my professionalism. You know what?

You are a very good dude for being a Michigan dude. Yeah. Hey, fun stuff. I've known about you for a long time, Molly. And it was a real pleasure to have you on. I know that our audience is better for it. I will not hold it against you that you are a Spartan at all. There's still tremendous value.

Nor I with you. There you go. See, we can learn from our enemies. Some of my greatest friends in life are Michigan. people to be honest. Isn't that true? It's really great. Well, Molly, thank you for being with us. This was really a great amount of fun. We appreciate you. Wow, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Big thanks to Molly for hanging out with us. Hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. All right, on to the free stuff. Entree leadership bringing you a free tool, as we always do. This episode

is the decision-making checklist. We understand that making decisions can sometimes choke the life out of leaders. So many decisions to make, so many factors going into the decisions, and sometimes he can paralyze you. So we have a checklist comprised of 10 questions that you need to ask yourself to help you combat that paralyzation. So this is a great resource for you and your team. I'd print out a bunch of copies and have it in everybody's desk. It's a wonderful reminder and extremely practical because it is actually 10 questions that you can roll through in checklist form. Here's how you get it. Text the phrase, episode 278.

Episode 278, text that phrase to 33444. That's 33444. Or you can get the link in our show notes at entreleadership.com. Click podcast and go to episode 278. Let's get right to it. Here's Dave Ramsey coming to you from the stage of our conference center speaking on fear not one of our core values this will change the way you make decisions if you grasp this truth here is dave ramsay one of our core values is fear not

in the middle of high stakes scary situations all of us experience some level of fear all of us do but we made a decision years ago we recognized that organizationally in the middle of that fear we don't make the decision based on fear. And so you have to say, okay, recognize here is fear. I recognize what fear is. Now, I cannot make the decision based on that because that's one of our core values. I have to make the decision based on wisdom and other variables. And we were talking about this as we were offloading this stuff.

And we were going back to examples of times that organizationally or, you know, even inside a department, we've had something really good. come at us hard, whether it was a marketplace problem or whether it was competition or whether it was somebody lying about us or the potential loss from something. Something's coming at you. It's a high stakes, high stress scenario. And how do we make decisions in the middle of that? And why do we make decisions in the middle of that? And it occurred to me after we offloaded some of these ideas that, you know, one of the things we kept going back to is, okay, Dave, when you're faced this, you react this way, 100% of the time. When something comes at us,

you react 100% of the time this way. And I always just call it hillbilly fight, whatever. I'm going to take you down. You know, buy the house next door and lay siege. I mean, you're not, you know, there's a predictable reaction from Dave, which makes it a core value. And if you understand it, it's downloadable and transferable. But over the weekend, it came to me.

I know why it's there. I've been broke and I didn't die from it. I lost everything. And I didn't die from it. And going through that caused, me to have two experiences that have changed me for my life and now have changed this organization permanently. And to the extent you've become producers of this core value, it will change this organization generationally. The two things that came out of me going broke was, one,

I lost my fear of man. What other people think is really not a big deal to me. Now, I love hearing from the customer and trying to serve the customer, don't misinterpret that, but some troll, some hater, some guy that doesn't get it. And you know, when stuff's coming at you, sometimes what you're really afraid of is acceptance, approval. You want everybody to like you. Let me tell you, if you do something up scale, everybody ain't going to like you.

If everybody likes everything you've done, you've never done anything. Everybody's not going to like anything. And you just need to do some more stuff because you'll find somebody that's wrong because they disagree with you. Right? I mean, you've got to get there, right?

And the second thing that happened when I went broke was I figured out my supply, my provision, and I figured it out down in here, not just in my head, because I experienced it, that my provision is not from an outside variable, a bank. My provision is not from a family member. My provision is not from my church. My provision is not from my friends. my provision is not from my wife. My provision is from God. And I have the benefit of really believing that because I've been through it. I don't want you to have to go through what we went through to believe that. But you can use those things to help you make decisions when something's coming at you. And you have that one big sale and that sales is falling apart and it's going to mess up your quarter. It's going to mess up your budget. It's going to mess up your commission check for the month. I can just list them off for 25 years that have come at us. And we thought it was the in the world, but we really didn't think it's in the world because you're not my provider. So when stuff comes at you, here's some things you can do to make decisions to help you, fear not.

We're not dependent on this one thing. If we lose huge sale and advertiser land, no. Does it hurt? Yes. Is it a setback? Yes. Do sometimes you set back in order to step forward? Yes.

sometimes God's pushing you out of the nest and what you got comfortable with wasn't the best. It was just the good enough and the good enough oftentimes is the enemy of the best, isn't it? If things are bad, we recognize that. We've got to get away from bad. But when things are just kind of good enough, you can kind of sit in the good enough. You've got a big deal in front of you and it's stressing you and everything, work it. Do the best you can do. But we're not going to cave on principle. We're not going to work with people we shouldn't work with.

we're not going to do a whole whole bunch of things in order to get that deal because we're not dependent on that deal. We're not dependent on that one thing. When big, scary, monstrous decisions come at us, we can remember we won't be threatened. We won't be abused. We will not be beat down. And we will not violate who we are and compromise in order to get the deal. We'll serve. We'll be careful. We'll be wise. If we need to change something, we'll change something. But we will not compromise. We will not be abused.

We will not be threatened. We will not be beat down. That's what fear not on the back wall means. How about that every week? How about sitting in that room getting that kind of teaching every week? It's a good, good thing. I'll tell you what else is good. Infusionsoft is good.

They give you good resources. They're good friends of us. they help us do what we do very, very well. We're going to take on work-life balance with this tool. We talked about decisions throughout this episode. And in this guide, InfusionSoft, showcases how small business owners achieve harmony with their work and personal lives.

They cover actionable tools, apps, and techniques from experts who are winning. And they're going to show you how to work smarter and make the most of your time. If you want to get it and you should, the link is in our own. our show notes. Entreeleadership.com, click on podcast, Episode 278. Well, that's going to do it for this episode. On behalf of Will the producer, Tim the Engineer, and the entire Entree

leadership team, thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help women all over the country take their ideas and passions and hobbies and turn them into profitable businesses. If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart, and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help.

Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to businessboutique.com.