The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 244: Bill Curry - The 6 Characteristics Of A Champion (Lombardi, Starr, Unitas, Shula, Bryant)

Starting point is 00:00:00 There's an old saying, everybody has the will to win. Who has the will to prepare? Don Lindsay was a great defensive coordinator for us at Georgia Tech and Alabama. We worked together for years, and that was one of his favorites. He'd get up in front of the team and said, we've got the will to win, Coach. Yeah, I know you've got the will. Everybody's got the will to win. Who's got the will to go out here on this practice field for the next five hours with me and prepare so that we can be ready?

Starting point is 00:00:27 This episode is brought to by Gusto. Gusto is making payroll benefits in HR easy for small businesses. Modern technology does the heavy lifting, so it's easy to get things right. PCMag and fit small business have called Gusto the best payroll for small businesses. Gusto saves you time. 72% of customers spend less than five minutes to run payroll. Don't believe it, just Google them. People love gusto.

Starting point is 00:00:55 How often do you actually love your payroll provider? Most small businesses don't have an HR expert, but you don't need one to use Gusto with great software and great service. You can focus on your business, not payroll and paperwork. And to help support the Learning Leader Show, Gusto is offering our listeners an exclusive limited time deal. Sign up today and you'll get three months free once you run your first payroll. Just go to gusto.com slash leader. That's G-U-S-T-O-com slash leader. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leaders Show. I am Ryan Hawk.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Thank you so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Text learners to 44222 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world to discuss the latest trends and topics in the space of leading and serving others. Text learners to 44222. This episode is so good and useful. We all need people like coach Bill Curry in our life for more than 40 years. His inspirational messages have mesmerized audiences.

Starting point is 00:02:11 He's commanding, passionate, and funny. He's got an old school message delivered with contemporary player. He played for Vince Lombardi and Don Shula. He snapped the ball to Bart Starr and Johnny Unites. He won two Super Bowls, the national coach of the year at Alabama. When he talks of discipline and success, his life experience is proof positive of the effectiveness of his methods. A few of the topics we got into. These six characteristics of a champion.

Starting point is 00:02:44 Then why leadership in the huddle is a metaphor for our culture. Then how he defines success. Again, Bill is the wise experience mentor that we all need. I cherished this conversation. I know you will get a lot from it. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Coach Bill Curry. All right, Coach Curry, it is such an honor to have you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome.

Starting point is 00:03:18 Well, thank you. It's such an honor to be here with you. And I love the title of your show. It's a very good place to start. Awesome. Well, that's cool. Your background, there's so much there. So I first have to ask you this.

Starting point is 00:03:30 So you played for coach Vince Lombardi. and Don Sule. You played with Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas, and you've studied the lives of some of the great leaders such as Helen Keller, Theodore Roosevelt, and many more. So thinking about all of those people, I love coach to study the commonalities of people who sustain excellence. So not only in your lifetime, but for those who you've surrounded yourself with, both your coaches, your teammates, and the historical figures and people that you've studied, what have you found are some of the common themes of those who sustain excellence? Well, we developed, and I say we advisedly, because it was not just me. It was everybody that I had around me, from my players to my coaching staff, to my family, my wife, who's a brilliant scholar, and she's a scholar of women's history.

Starting point is 00:04:25 And both our children who are also very bright, and more recently we've got seven grandchildren. and I have honestly sat at the feet of all of those and tried to pay attention. And it's a vast oversimplification to try to answer the question you just asked in a few words. But we have boiled it down to six common characteristics that most of the leaders share. If we start to study any one person, then, of course, it becomes much more complex because they're variations and devaluers. from the norm. But we had the six characteristics of the champion gradually evolve over the last 40 years. And I've written them down.

Starting point is 00:05:15 And I talk about them sometime. And when people come to me and say, look, we're in the, for instance, I'm going to speak at a company in a couple of months. And they're in the top five in the world at what they do. And they're not interested in being in the top five. They want to be number one. Well, we call this the characteristics of champions. And so what we say is this.

Starting point is 00:05:37 And again, oversimplified, but champions, number one, show up. That sounds obvious. Well, of course, Curry, yeah. Of course they show up. No, I don't mean just show up. I mean, they show up on time, early, every time. Of the champions that I have worked with, the true champions in the sport of football and in business, and in spiritual matters, I can't remember one of them being late.

Starting point is 00:06:05 I've been late to things, but I can't remember one of these people showing up late at anything, so they're punctual. And when they show up, they show up ready to compete, ready to be their best, ready to be compassionate, ready to be at the top of their game. And I don't know how they do it because I'm not one of them, but they show up. The second thing that sets them aside is that they have singleness of purpose. And I can't say those words without thinking about Vince Lombardi. I played for a lot of great coaches.

Starting point is 00:06:38 He's the one that still gets the most attention, even all these years after his death. But he had such singleness of purpose. His focus was so directed and so powerful, he could walk in a room and look you in the eye And you instantly understood what was expected of you that day, and it was every ounce that you had. So signal as a purpose is an important thing. The third characteristic is a surprise to some people. And I find that champions are very unselfish. Bart Starr, one of the great human beings that ever lived, also the only quarterback to win five world championships in seven seasons.

Starting point is 00:07:19 those Packer teams, that that record will never be duplicated. Bart Starr would give you the shirt off his back, and I'm not using that metaphorically. I was fired in one of my jobs. Actually, I was fired more than one of my jobs, but it happened to be in Lexington, Kentucky. And I was not a happy camper. We had four more games to play in the season. I was expected to coach those games, and I wasn't going to let my guys. guys down. So I was going to stay with them. It was one of the most difficult moments of my life.

Starting point is 00:07:55 And my assistant said, there's somebody out here to see you. And I said, I've told you, I didn't want any guests today. She said, well, I think you might want to see this one. Well, Bart Star walks in. I said, well, what are you doing? And he said, well, I came to see you. I said, were you passing through? And he said, no. He had driven from Birmingham, Alabama, to Lexington, Kentucky, because his buddy was in trouble. And he spent the day. He spent the day making me feel better about us and about myself, that's unselfishness. That's a friend who really didn't need to do anything like that for anybody. The fourth characteristic of champions is they're just tough. And of course, I'm talking about the fourth quarter, and of course I'm talking about

Starting point is 00:08:38 bending your knees on the goal line, but mostly I'm talking about champions don't make excuses. They take responsibility for their actions. They never alibi. They never point. fingers, they never blame somebody else. They simply take it on the chin, take responsibility, get the job done, and move on. The fifth characteristic of champions is that they are smart. And I'm not talking about IQ points. I'm talking about prepared. The first day I was with the Baltimore Colts after being traded from the Packers, I left the practice field. I was always the last one off because I had a long snap. I was feeling sorry for myself. It was about 100 degrees. I'd lost 14 pounds and trying to get to the showers. And I look back out there and there's somebody's

Starting point is 00:09:27 still out there and it's getting dark. Shula's two of days were forever. And they're two players. I thought, well, maybe that's two high school kids. No, it wasn't. It was John Ioannitus and Raymond Berry, who by the way are in the Hall of Fame for a reason. They're still throwing and catching throw it hours after the rest of us went in. That year, John Unitius was the most valuable player in the National Football League, again, for the third time. And it was not because he had superior talent. It was because he was preparing when the other guys were resting.

Starting point is 00:10:03 The opponents were not willing to do what he was willing to do. And the final characteristic of champions is that champions won't quit. Champions will never give up. No matter what you do, they will come back at you. while there's breath in their body. And you know that when you take them on that it's going to be a long, long day. So those are the six things we've come up with that are generalizations, but they usually apply. I laugh because, Coach, we could pretty much end it now and people would get as much value as they need for the day or the week.

Starting point is 00:10:38 So thank you so much for going through. I wasn't expecting that. But, I mean, I have high expectations. but when you blow it out of the water within the first five minutes, it makes it, it makes it hard to say, where do we go next? No, but I have to pick out number five. When you talk about smart and being prepared and the fact that Johnny Unitedis and Raymond Barry stayed in the field extra, and I found in my life, and maybe you could help me here too, part of why I personally work to prepare so much, whether it's for a speech or a podcast, is because I have intense

Starting point is 00:11:10 fear that I'm going to do a poor job. And some calls me. that may be productive paranoia, Jim Collins would. And I don't know, I found for me, preparation has been a good medicine for fear in my life, whatever I was scared of, whether it's playing football and watching film and practicing, whether it's getting ready to give a big speech in front of a thousand people and I'm nervous, I'm going to mess it up, that I, if I just prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare, that helps me with the fears that come up in my life. What do you think about that? Well, I think there's a lot of truth to that, but I don't think it's the whole truth. I think the will to prepare, there's an old saying, everybody has the will to win.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Who has the will to prepare? Don Lindsay was a great defensive coordinator for us at Georgia Tech and Alabama. We worked together for years, and that was one of his favorites. He'd get up in front of the team and said, we've got the will to win, Coach. Yeah, I know you've got the will. Everybody's got the will to win. Who's got the will to go out here on this practice? feel for the next five hours with me and prepare so that we can be ready.

Starting point is 00:12:17 But I think there's a great truth to what you say, but I think there's more to it than just the fear factor. I think there is a personality and there's a determination and a grit that comes from the heart and the soul that causes some people to keep driving and preparing when others will not. I think those two probably go hand in hand. but fear of failure certainly drives a lot of champions. You can't deny that.

Starting point is 00:12:46 Yeah, and you've, like I said, you've played with some of the greatest of all time, and you've played for some of them. You've also coached. When you think about a good coach versus a great coach, what are the biggest? Because I think this applies to all of life, not just football or sports. I think, and I know your message does apply and you speak, like you said, you're already, you're going to speak to one of the most successful companies in the world here. soon, but when you, when you differentiate between the good and the great, specifically when it

Starting point is 00:13:14 comes to coaching, what is the difference between those two? I don't know. I think it's some kind of magic. And I'm not copping out because I'll give you the answer that I have deduced from having been in the presence of greatness so, so many times. Coach Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech was a great coach. What made him different and greater than the rest were a couple of things. Number one, when we showed up at Georgia Tech, we were told by Coach Dodd, we are not going to kill you on the practice field.

Starting point is 00:13:57 We're not going to run you off. A lot of SEC teams were doing that in those days. They'd signed 60 players and run off 30. I mean, it was basically a pro tryout. He wouldn't do that. However, he said, you will go to every class and you will graduate. And if you cut class, you will regret it the rest of your life. Well, I cut one my freshman year.

Starting point is 00:14:18 And he ran me up and down the stadium steps until I decided that chemistry at 8 o'clock in the morning was a marvelous thing. He changed my life. I never cut another class because my football coach loved me too much to allow me to self-destruct when I couldn't see my own potential. But he also did this. He also studied the game so carefully that he had the other coaches intimidated with his brain. Bear Bryant wrote in his book, I'd rather look across the field and see anybody other than Dodd on Saturday because he can beat you with his brain. Coach Dodd was so smart in game time decisions and how he played and how we played field position

Starting point is 00:15:02 and how we were all school in the kicking game. So those were the basics and the fundamentals. Again, a vast oversimplification of why Bobby Dodd was a great football coach and mentor. Vince Lombardi had a, at the time, it was in plain view, but it seemed to be hidden from the public awareness. And that is that he wouldn't tolerate prejudice. We had more African-American players than anybody, and this was in the civil rights time, 1965. there were teams that had no African-American players and bragged about it. And nobody could beat us.

Starting point is 00:15:40 The guys trusted him because they knew that when he chose somebody for the team, it wasn't because of the color of our skin or where we came from. It was because we were the best football player for that team. Everybody trusted him in that. And so everybody would deal with the fact that he was so incredibly demanding. That was the other thing. He was so precise. was a high school physics teacher. So he taught the offense so carefully and the special teams.

Starting point is 00:16:09 He had somebody else to do. Phil Binkston did the defense. But nobody could beat us for years and years through there. And I had the privilege of being in that program for two years. So that, I think, set him aside, along with the obvious fact of he was quite bright and deeply religious and serious about his priorities, which were your faith, your family, and the Green Bay Packers. And he harped on those every day. Don Shula's great gift, in my opinion,

Starting point is 00:16:43 was his ability to build a relationship with each player. He's the winning history. Lombardi has the best playoff record in the history of NFL coaching. Don Shula won more games than any coach in the history of the NFL. I don't think that's an accident. Coach Shula had the gift of deciding you could contribute to his team, and then he would never give up on you.

Starting point is 00:17:07 He took more people that nobody else wanted. I was one of them and gave us an opportunity and would not give up on us until we would fight to the very end for him every single Sunday. And I think that's Coach Shula's main gift. Then again, all these guys were more complicated than I've described him in these last couple of minutes. The ability to build relationships with each player that I find interesting because I think this also translates, I mean, all of the qualities. And it's an incredible answer speaking firsthand from Vinceumbardi and Don Chula and Bobby Dodd. But that relationship building, I think, is so important, especially when you read about why people decide to leave a job, for example. And usually most often they leave a job because of their manager or their boss. They're not leaving the company. They're leaving their boss because they probably have not done a good job of what Don. Shula did, as you just said. And so how do you take, when you're giving speeches or you're consulting, you're helping companies, what are some of the tips or things you say to them to help their leaders within

Starting point is 00:18:12 the business build great relationships with their players or they could be called their employees? Well, there's a system. And normally, if I only get a one, if there's just one time that I get the opportunity, to speak to a group, I try to reach inside the souls and the heads of the leaders by talking about the incredible gifts that every single human being has. When I was working at Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, it's a independent school there that goes through high school. It's been there for 120 years or so. As you leave the premises at Baylor School, there's a Latin word. 12 letters, five syllables, one word.

Starting point is 00:19:01 Magna nematas. Magna nematase. M-A-N-A-N-I-M-I-T-A-S. Magna-N-I-M-I-T-A-S. It means greatness of spirit. When Dr. Baylor, the school's founder, wrote his last epistle to his students, he wrote these words.

Starting point is 00:19:23 He said, if I were to give you just one word to guide your life by, it would be from the Latin, magnanimitas, meaning greatness of spirit. Each person has a unique greatness of spirit. If we could do fingerprints of the roughly 7 billion people on earth today, there wouldn't be two sets alike. We are each unique, different, precious, and beautiful. I want you to recognize the fact that you have brilliance and genius in you.

Starting point is 00:19:53 I want you to develop your magnanimitas and then give you. give it to a cause greater than yourself. You may become a great theologian, a great philanthropist, or a great coach, or whatever it is you choose to do, but you will never be the human being you were chosen that you were made to be until you locate your magnanimatized, develop it, and give it away. I try to start there so that I'm not just implying, but I am directly challenging the leader to understand each of his or her people and to know what, what their greatness of spirit is and then to find a way to help them maximize it. When you're doing that for people, they want to produce for you. And I'm not trying to simplify this because this stuff is just gold, but you have to truly

Starting point is 00:20:43 care. I mean, it comes down to caring deeply about the people that you surround yourself with, the people that you work with because if you're phony or you're doing something because somebody told you but you don't believe in it. or flat out you just don't care as much for serving them or care more about yourself, then I think you're going to struggle when it comes to leading and serving other people. Well, I think the thing that destroys more leaders than anything else I've seen is narcissism, the idea that I am the greatest and I have all the answers and you don't and I'll tell you what to do

Starting point is 00:21:20 and you don't need to ask any questions and I'm not interested in what you think or how you feel. And when the leader lacks empathy, then that leader virtually never lasts very long. Yeah, no doubt about it. We've probably all unfortunately spent some time around those types. And we spend time around the great ones as well. And one of the – Well, here's the bad news. I'm interrupted.

Starting point is 00:21:42 I'm interrupted, Ryan. Here's the bad news. We've all been that type person one time or another. No doubt. I have been that person. And I'm so ashamed. And it cost us. And I had guys – I always sat down.

Starting point is 00:21:55 with every single one of my players at least once a year and went over his goals with him and building that relationship and that's a kind of an obvious thing to do and I always said I want you to tell me the truth what do you think of our program and one of one of the one of my best young men at Georgia Tech one time said coach you you want the truth I said sure he said well you talk about family and how you love us and I'm getting there at breakfast with my buddies you walk in you go over a table by yourself, eat your breakfast, get up, and leave. You don't even look at us. That's not how families are, I didn't even know I was doing that.

Starting point is 00:22:31 I was thinking about me. I was thinking about practice schedules. I wasn't thinking about the human beings that were under my tutelage. So you hope you got somebody that will tell you when you fall into that trap. That brings up a great point. And we've all, unfortunately, have been probably had that happen, but maybe not as fortunate to have somebody willing to speak truth to power, which is very important. And do you still, and at what age did you start realizing about having your own personal,

Starting point is 00:23:06 I guess I just learned this term, but your own personal board of advisors or really a select mentor group that helped you in your life? Because I assume you mentor a ton of people now. And you probably still have those who mentor you. But what age or what moment in your life does? you realize I need to really have this group of people that are willing to tell me the truth? If you play on a football team with a responsible coaching staff, you really never have to think about that because it's built in. There's always a group of people who are evaluating you

Starting point is 00:23:44 every day, whether it's the long snap or whether it's stepping with the wrong foot, you're a quarterback. If you step back and you step on your quarterback's foot, that's a that's not a good thing you got somebody there to show you how and to inform you that you're doing the wrong thing but but your question leads me to another real life situation and I'm happy to share things like this because these are the things that change lives but I was in my fourth year at Georgia Tech I had never started a game I was not getting to play and I went to one of the coaches and I said, coach, why am I not getting to play? He said, because you're not good enough and you'll never be good enough. You don't move your feet well enough and I'm sorry. He wasn't cruel

Starting point is 00:24:33 about it. He thought he was doing his job. He said, just get your education, help us recruit and you'll be okay. Well, it just crushed me. So I'm back at my locker and that afternoon, another coach from our staff named John Robert Bell came to my locker and he said, I know you can play. Now, I don't know if he overheard the conversation. He never mentioned it. And he said, how about you and me going down to the practice field early and let's work a little extra and let's see if we can't improve your footwork because you're going to play. I promise you. Oh, my gosh, can you imagine? So when I played 10 years in the NFL, who do you think I was grateful to? I mean, people like that change your lives. And you have an opportunity to do that

Starting point is 00:25:20 every day if you're an alert leader that has that empathy that you brought up. Man, what a great story. How frequent are you having those one-on-one dialogues with people? Because I have to believe people are beating down your door for you to be a personal mentor of them. And you're such a giving, serving type of a leader that probably could create problems at time, given the fact that you have a life to lead in addition to with family and things like you mentioned before, but what's your life like when it comes to mentorship of people who are looking for advice?

Starting point is 00:26:00 Well, there's a, I have to make a confession here. I love doing it so much. I don't ever see it as an imposition. Yeah. But I hear from a former player or a former associate virtually every. day. Wow. And then my wife brings it up occasionally.

Starting point is 00:26:26 Are you eating up too much time on that phone? Or does that person deserve your attention? My answer is, well, I don't hear you asking that question when ladies call you up asking for advice because you spend all the time in the world with them. She said, okay, okay, enough said. So we both have the privilege of, gosh, we're 75 years. years old, we ought to be able to contribute something. We had the privilege of mentoring folks who run into snags, and I wish I could always, I wish I could do a better job, but I do love them.

Starting point is 00:27:02 And by the time we part, at least they know they've been loved and that our relationship is something to cherish. Coach, you seem to have this really genuine humility about you. Is this, does that come from your upbringing or you learned that through great coaches or maybe a combination? I'm curious. Where does, I'm not trying to give you a compliment. I'm just speaking truth to what I'm hearing here in the fact of just your approach of not taking credit of pointing out times when you've made mistakes. And that's, I think obviously qualities of a phenomenal leader is just being humble about genuinely humble, not fake like we sometimes unfortunately see. Is that, where does that come from in your life? Maybe is your parents or I don't, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:27:45 I'm curious. Well, I had wonderful parents who certainly emphasize humility, but humility, and I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not making this up. It had to be beaten into me. I thought I was hot stuff, and every time, every time. And I really, it's a prime article of my Christian faith. I believe that God, in his hands, involvement with us, when we get too big for our britches, there's something coming. I'm just going to knock you for a loo.

Starting point is 00:28:24 It was when I reported to the Green Bay Packers, it was a guy named Ray Nitchke that's in the NFL Hall of Fame. He whipped me all day, every day, and I knew, not only did I realize I wasn't a hot shot, I didn't know if I could make the team. I didn't know if I could play in the league. and it became apparent through the years that I was going against one of the greatest of all time. Well, what happened was that that forced me to be the best I could be. It also forced me to stop thinking so much of Bill Curry. Well, that's happened to me everywhere I've ever been. There's always been somebody there.

Starting point is 00:29:00 There was a whole lot better than I was. And I think God takes those lessons and, see, this is what I want you to understand. There's always somebody better than you. And so don't think you're such hot stuff. Make sure you're helping others and then you'll be a happy person. Coach, I've met two types of people, I think, in my life. And I'm sure you've heard this quote before. But those two types are the people who are humble and the people who are about to be humbled.

Starting point is 00:29:29 And that's what I've found to be common in all parts of life. It's just a matter of time until it's going to happen. I love that. I've never heard that. Really? Yeah, I've been both. of those. Yeah, I'm saying here.

Starting point is 00:29:43 So I think it's, it's good to have some of those experiences for us to go through to build some of that humility. And I'm guessing a guy like Ray Nitchki is as good of a teacher as any. One of the other aspects of you from a leadership perspective and using metaphors is, is leadership in the huddle and how that's a metaphor for our culture. I've been lucky to talk with other quarterbacks, guys who played professionally and and other athletes and coaches.

Starting point is 00:30:12 And I love your message in the regard of the importance of the huddle. And if you could expand on some of that of your teachings that you've put out into the world in regards to this for our lives and how to better them as both just general citizens and people as well as leaders. The football huddle, the football game. is the only game I'm aware of in which every player needs every teammate on every play just to survive. As great as Bart Starr and Johnny and Idis were, they couldn't throw the football unless I gave it to them. So I had the privilege of passing that ball back and then defending great men like that for many, many years. most of us know where we were for September 11th, 2001. Most of us do not remember where we were September 13th, 2001, which was the Thursday afternoon

Starting point is 00:31:21 following the Tuesday. I was in my car driving to an ESPN assignment. I was an ESPN analyst at the time, and we were to broadcast the Southern Mississippi versus University of Alabama football gig. in Birmingham, Alabama, if indeed the game were to be played. The NCAA was meeting to decide whether or not to play the college games after the disaster of the Twin Towers. I stopped in a Tala, Alabama for gas, and the gentleman at the filling station recognized me because I had coached in the state. And he said, well, coach, are we going to play these games this weekend?

Starting point is 00:32:03 I said, well, I don't know. but you may be the first fan in America to find out if this cell phone rings while I'm here. Well, it did. And I was told to go home. We're not playing the games. So I walked up back front and I would never forget the man's reaction. I said, well, my friend, we're not going to play the games. Well, his face reddened and his jugular veins popped out and he leaned toward me and he said,

Starting point is 00:32:33 Well, let me tell you something, coach. In Atlanta, Alabama, come Friday night, we're going to play football because it means a lot to us. Well, I walked out of there, stunned. I didn't expect an intense response like that. I was vulnerable already because I was so horrified at what had happened to our country and to those 3,000-plus citizens that lost their lives. I turned it into a spiritual exercise and began to pray. And God, show me, what am I supposed to learn about this? And it came to me like a thunderbolt, really, in a matter of a hour or two, that that huddle, that football huddle on Friday night in America.

Starting point is 00:33:20 Why does it matter in Atala, Alabama, or Peoria, Illinois, or Chicago, or New York, or Pueblo, Colorado. matters in America because that's when we huddle up. And you can't step into a football huddle or even sit in the stands on a Friday night and be a racist. You can't be a sexist because African American white folks, liberals, conservative, skinny, fat, tall, short, everybody is a part of that huddle. So that we come together and there's a kind of synergy. and it's supposed to happen in the church or the synagogue, and sometimes it does. It's supposed to happen in our place of business, and sometimes it does. It always happens in the football huddle.

Starting point is 00:34:12 Because I can recruit a young man from South Central Los Angeles and another young man from the hills of North Georgia, and they've been raised to hate each other's guts by our sick culture. I can stick them in a huddle. I can make them dress next to each other. You can't even get your shirt off by yourself in football. You've got to have somebody to pull your – you know that. You know that, Ryan.

Starting point is 00:34:35 So what happens is the guys find out the sweat smells the same on everybody. It doesn't matter what colleagues can you. We need each other. And these guys that thought they hated each other, I've actually had them walk in my office two years later and say, coach, we hate to admit it, but you were right. We don't hate each other. We actually love each other. And you know what? those friendships to last the rest of your life.

Starting point is 00:35:00 So the football huddle is a metaphor in America for who we ought to be and who we could be if we would just work at it. What are some, I love this story. I vividly remember the looks. I walked into, I played a quarterback for the Birmingham Steel Dogs in the arena football league coach. And I was the most northern guy on the team. And they actually used some of that language about northerners.

Starting point is 00:35:27 which I'd never really heard before. I played college football in Ohio. I played high school football in Ohio. And I was playing in Birmingham and a wide variety of races and people from all over the place. But the coolest part about it and what I learned so much about being a leader was if I showed up prepared, I worked, I walked in the huddle. I called the play confidently. I believed in the play. We all had the same goal.

Starting point is 00:35:52 We all were trying to do the exact same thing together. And when we did, the celebrations were so fun and so beautiful. And it was, I'm still, I still talk to some of those guys. We only played together for a year. But we came from all different walks of life. Initially, I think they kind of looked at me funny because maybe I talked funny to them because of where I came from. And the bulk of the team was from the South. And, and I just, I treasure the experience, even though it was challenging initially.

Starting point is 00:36:20 And I think that's all because of that shared goal, that, that, that, that, that, that, theme of us being together, of trying to accomplish something that was a challenge, but doing it together and knowing that we all needed each other in order to make it happen was a beautiful, beautiful time. And that's why I'm grateful. I get scared when I watch some football games and these guys are trying to take each other's heads off because I know the benefits it can bring. And so it's it's tough. It's tough at times to see the tough parts about football because I I realize that it's given pretty much everything to me as far as foundationally of how to work, how to be a good teammate, how to lead. All of that came from that sport and being in the huddle with guys like that.

Starting point is 00:37:06 When you guys were hugging each other after a victory and after you had learned the system and you had led the team, they didn't stop and say, oops, you're a Yankee. They just hugged you. They just hugged you. They didn't care. And that love lasts the rest of your life. and it's wonderful that you've experienced that. I've experienced that. Is football brutal and crude?

Starting point is 00:37:29 You're darn right it is, but so is life. And I'm not saying that it's okay for us to smash each other in the head. The concussion thing must be dealt with. It is a major issue. I've got two grandsons that played football, and we're just grateful that they've come through it. I've got three more that may play, and I sit there holding my breath,

Starting point is 00:37:50 just praying that they'll come through the Holy experience healthy, but teenage males are going to do something dangerous. If you stop football tomorrow, you think guys wouldn't get on motorcycles and start riding off a cliffs? They do. That's just what we do. We're going to do something crazy. And if we can get the right equipment and the right rules and have it as a place to teach

Starting point is 00:38:12 people how to love each other, because you can't have a great football team without a bunch of guys that love each other. You can't do it. So it's just those are the good things. things and we have to deal with the not so good things. And it translates to all things you're going to do in your life. When you go to, let's say you go get a job, you need, you're going to, no matter what your job is, I mean, almost every job, you're going to have to find a way to work with others.

Starting point is 00:38:37 You're going to have some shared goals. You're going to need to have moments where you lead. And so all of that, for me at least, and I know for others, could be built and playing football, could be built in the military, could be built playing other sports or doing other things but for me I know that I don't know I would have been lost absolutely lost without it and that's why I'm with you when I hope that we can find a way to keep keep those moments being created for young people in their formative years to build some of those skills because it translates so well to having any any levels of success in the professional world well that's true and one of the

Starting point is 00:39:15 exercises that I'm privileged to do with companies and spiritual organizations and teams and universities, if it seems appropriate as we come down the stretch during the talk, I ask everybody to take that unique fingerprint that we've talked about, that magnanimitas that's exemplified in our fingerprints, our hands that are also unique, and join hands across the aisles, across the differences, the pigmentation and the religious and the political and the spiritual differences that we tend to emphasize in our culture and understand with me, again, that which most of us know scientifically. We don't understand why it is, but we just know it's a fact that when we join hands, when we cross those barriers and we don't allow

Starting point is 00:40:12 ourselves to be separated in our team efforts, in our group efforts, then our capacity to do good and to do well does not increase arithmetically it does not increase geometrically it increases exponentially and it does so in an instant so that very small groups have determined people can change the world as well they have for the last 100,000 years your message is so inspirational that and you're and your well-known guy that some of the things that come along with that coach are there are people who are skeptics. How do you respond to people who are listening to this and they say, well, Ryan and Coach Curry are having a lot of happy talk here.

Starting point is 00:40:57 This sounds really happy here, but what's, I don't know if that's real life. My life is hard. How do you respond to people who are skeptical of this type of, of us thinking in the way that we are? Well, I think, first of all, they ought to be skeptical. They ought to ask us. They ought to force us to defend. our positions. They ought to find ways to pick us apart so that we have to think about what we're

Starting point is 00:41:27 saying. It's really easy after the first, if you've delivered this message that I'm delivering, if I've done this 50 times, and I certainly have, then it's easy to just sort of spew it out, and I don't want to do that. I want people to hold me accountable and say, wait a minute, Curry. I remember you back in so. You weren't, you didn't believe all this stuff. Well, yes, I did. Well, you didn't behave it. I mean, I've had, I've got friends that will hold me accountable. So first of all, the first answer to your question is they ought to be skeptical and they ought to think about it. The second part is they should, in my opinion, they should examine to see if it's true. Does it really work. Do great teams have this kind of synergy because they don't respect each other or because they do

Starting point is 00:42:14 respect each other? Because they have humble, hardworking leaders that have empathy or because they don't. And so study it scientifically. There's one other thing that I would say about that. There is also a group of people. God bless them. I call them the fellowship of the miserable. They don't want you to succeed. They don't want me to succeed. They will find anything they can to keep us. When I went to Georgia Tech, I was not a very good high school student. So my buddies, and they're good guys. They know, they don't

Starting point is 00:42:44 dislike me. I don't dislike them. They said, Curry, you can't go to Georgia Tech. You're too dumb, son. Well, they were right. But I had a great coach that made me go to class, and I found that if I studied and sat on the front row and acted interested, that I could

Starting point is 00:43:01 graduate. So I did graduate. So then I decided I would play in the NFL. The Packers had chosen me in the last, round of the NFL draft. The same guy said, Curry, don't go play in the NFL. You're too smart. I said, wait a minute. Four years ago, I was too dumb. Now I'm too smart. And I realized it was a threat to them for me to succeed at hard things or for anybody to succeed at hard things because they weren't willing to try it. So the fellowship of the miserable goes along telling everybody what a rotten world it is and how we're not going to succeed and how you're not

Starting point is 00:43:36 good enough and they make up names for people and they shout those names from the rooftops and god bless them uh my team started saying coach you talk about the fellowship a lot but you don't tell us what to do about the fellowship so we devised on our last our little georgia state team we devised the system for the fellowship of the miserable we love them we pray for them we avoid them that's our policy so you can spend some time and try to help but don't have hang out on a regular basis with the fellowship of the miserable because you'll become one of them. Yep. You'll be, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you're going to be the average of those five people. Very, very contagious. Yeah, yeah, it is. And they love company. I, I'm curious about this,

Starting point is 00:44:22 a guy who has, um, done so much in your career and, and still to this day are doing it, as you already mentioned. And this may be another deep question, but, but I, I couldn't help but ask, how do you define success for you as a as a person how does how does what does that look like what does it sound like and i know everyone's definition should probably be a little bit different based upon their experiences in their life and what they're trying to do but i'm curious from coach bill curry's perspective what does success look like for you mine has changed the criteria by which i gauge my personal success was so terribly warped and skewed for so many years. And I live with this great person who studies

Starting point is 00:45:13 great people. She has a PhD in history and a PhD in watching Bill Curry make a fool of himself. I had such an obsession with winning the games. If my team didn't win the game, I was an abject failure no matter what. And we lost more games than we won a lot of times. And so I would be miserable and I made sure everybody else was miserable. That's no way to live. And so she just constantly worked with me and loved me through it and confronted me with it. First of all, she'd say, this is not a rational way to live.

Starting point is 00:45:58 You're dealing with 100 teenage males. They're not going to win every game. You're going to come home and feel like you're an abject failure because of what happened on third and four at the end of the game. That doesn't make any sense. It took us years to deal with that. But I define success now in the various ventures, whether it's in my marriage or with our children, am I making a contribution to the spiritual life and the well-being of this human being? Can I do something to make them feel better or to think better?

Starting point is 00:46:32 Can we sit down and go through some terrible dilemma that they have? And can I make a contribution? And the fact that I'm still getting the privilege of doing that is a big surprise to me, and I love every minute of it. So the definition of success has changed in our house, and I owe it to Carolyn Curry. I've heard you speak so highly about your wife on numerous occasions. and as a guy who's obviously striving to have a continue a great marriage and very lucky found somebody in my life who lifts me up on a daily basis with their attitude and intelligence.

Starting point is 00:47:10 But I want to, you know, I want it to be continually to stay that way and to always get better like everything else in my life, but it's the most important part. What advice, this may be weird, what advice would you give to anybody looking to have a long, successful, happy marriage? Well, when I say this to my buddies, they laugh at me because they think it's a joke. It is not a joke. I mean it from the depth of my being. But here's the answer to your question.

Starting point is 00:47:41 Do exactly what you're told. Do exactly what she tells you. Don't ask questions. Don't defend yourself. Just go do it because I don't know how it's uncanny that the female. is right 98% of the time and we're right about 2%. I've been watching and listening for a long time, starting with my mom and dad. So that's my advice.

Starting point is 00:48:06 If it's not 100%, it's very close to that. The second thing, though, the second thing is this. The female is not anything like the male. We go in that locker room, we go in the practice field, we're kicking each other in the groin, and we're shouting and caught screaming profanity. Women don't do that stuff with very few exceptions. Women have a different orientation. And what we can do, if we will, is to treat them with absolute respect and tenderness

Starting point is 00:48:38 and listen carefully when they want to talk. You come home after football practice, you don't want to listen to somebody talk, but you need to sit down and listen. And I didn't learn that. Thank God she didn't run me off. took me way too long, but I love to listen now. And that's a, that's been a shock to her. But it certainly is important in the continuing to build that relationship. Right now, our marriage is by far the greatest joy in my life. And the second greatest is our children

Starting point is 00:49:08 and grandchildren. And the third greatest is the wonderful people that allow me to mentor them. Man, this is, this is really great, coach. One more question. When you, um, Saw that you received a cold outreach from a person who had a podcast called The Learning Leader show. Learning Leader. What was the first thought that came to mind? Wow, that guy's talking about me. That's a great compliment. A learning leader.

Starting point is 00:49:43 I'd love to find out about the Learning Leader. And so that's what we've been doing here. And I think what you're doing is great. well thank you it means a lot and i know we weren't recording yet but when you mentioned that you and my brother a jay shared the same number with the green bay packers and that you'd watched him play brought me a lot of joy and i can't wait to tell him as soon that's the first thing i'm going to do when we stop recording here as i'm going to call him and say i just spoke with the legendary coach bill curry and he was talking about you and he'll be he'll be so

Starting point is 00:50:17 flattered and blown away. So we should clarify here that we wore the same number, but it was decades apart. He played so long after me, but I couldn't help but watch him because we shared that number. And he was a wonderful player. AJ had a great career. Oh, that's cool. It's been a joy for our family and so fortunate that he's healthy and feels good after 11 tough years in the NFL. unfortunately to win a Super Bowl. It's really neat. And it was cool, cool that you said that.

Starting point is 00:50:53 So I appreciate it, Coach. If my listeners want to learn more about you online, where would you send them? It's just www. Bill Curry.net, B-I-L-L-C-U-R-R-Y. That's our website. And we've got snippets from the speeches and some of the things. It's not complete, but it's got a lot about the wonderful coaches and the people that I've had the privilege of learning from,

Starting point is 00:51:24 and that's helpful too. So I would hope that folks would enjoy that. And then I don't know how this works, but there are a lot of things on YouTube now that I had nothing to do with. Somehow people have picked them up, and the thing about the huddles all over Twitter. And again, I didn't instigate that, but I'm happy if people benefit from listening to it. Well, I know I have, and it certainly helps in the preparation for this conversation. It is all over the place. And it's incredible.

Starting point is 00:51:54 I hope if even one more person goes down that YouTube rabbit hole of Coach Bill Curry because of this, I'll be very happy because it'll make them better for it as a person and as a leader. So, Coach, thanks again for being here. And I would love to continue this dialogue as we both progress here on our leadership journeys and try to improve and get better. Well, thank you, Ryan. We are constantly trying to improve, and you call anytime I'll be happy to talk to you. Oh, man, you're the best. Thank you so much, Coach. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:52:24 All right. Bye. Bye-bye. So grateful for Coach Curry and the wisdom he delivered during that conversation. That was one of those talks that I'll remember for a long time. I'm so grateful for him. And thank you for listening. If you have gotten value out of the Learning Leader Show,

Starting point is 00:52:41 I would greatly appreciate you to subscribe, rate, and write a review. in iTunes Apple Podcasts. It really helps spread the message worldwide. Subscribe, rate, and write a review iTunes, Apple Podcasts. Thanks again to Coach Curry, and thank you. Can't wait for the next one. See you guys next week. This episode is brought to you by Gusto.

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The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 244: Bill Curry - The 6 Characteristics Of A Champion (Lombardi, Starr, Unitas, Shula, Bryant)

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