The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 419: Scott O'Neil - How To Be Where Your Feet Are

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 The 3 things Scott told his daughter Kiraat a YPO event... Family, Family, Family It will always be ok. Things will go bad. It will be ok. Anything, anytime - "you can always call, text, FaceTime, no matter what. I am here for you." Scott's 4-part process to become more present: Find perspective Seek authentic feedback Cultivate reflective strength Love your leadership constitution Public failure: Scott started a business with Seth Berger, founder of AND1, basketball shoes. HoopsTV. Raised $14 million from investors… Eventually failed, had to lay off 50 people, including his own brother(!) The good old days are today (scene from the office (Ed Helms)  Andy Bernard: "I wish there was a way to know you're in "the good old days" before you've actually left them." Scott got fired from his role as President of Madison Square Garden. He says it was because he was "too busy being right instead of being effective." Scott is a change agent and values performance more than experience Watch the Battle at Kruger video (Scott shared this with the team) "To do great things, you have to be confident" Need to focus on "WMI." What's Most Important "Work-life balance does not exist. Beware of the mediocre middle." "Life is about tradeoffs" The most effective leaders seek authentic feedback and are able to hear it. Ask yourself, "Who have you connected to in the last month?" Behaviors of Excellence: Be your authentic self - "Be you. People follow authenticity." Work unreasonably hard. Intellectually curious - "The world is changing so fast." Passionate - "Fall in love with it." All executives at the Philadelphia 76ers are challenged to declare who they are at their core in the form of a leadership constitution. Anyone can—and should—create one by answering the following two questions: 1. I declare that I am... and 2. You can count on me to... Scott's leadership constitution: I declare that I am a passionate and authentic leader of leaders who feels a gravitational pull towards talent and character. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I love people and being part of a team. I get energy from helping others and would give the shirt off my back to a stranger and anything, anytime to a friend. I am family first, high integrity, and surprisingly sensitive change agent who is confident, caring, and intellectually curious. This fuels a competitive drive that at times feels like a chip on my shoulder. You can count on me to bring positive energy into my space. Exude urgency and push you, challenge you, nudge you and raise the bar beyond your expectations, and sometimes what you think reasonable. Laugh with you, cry with you, love you even when you won't laugh, haven't cried, and don't feel loved. Root for you today, every day, and always. Share the most personal of thoughts, emotions, stories, highs, and lows because I am okay with it and who I am. Enjoy the rollercoaster of life, whether we are going forward, backwards and upside down. Drive hard to reach the summit and then quickly start on another mountain. Share wins and take hits for losses

You have to be your authentic self. And I think when you're growing up, you're trying to look on and latch on to role models and how they do it and what they do, how they dress, what they say, how they conduct meetings, you know, how they go through life. And I would just say, if you're a rah-rah leader, be a raw-rah leader. If you're an analytical leader, be an analytical leader. If you're a strategic leader, be a strategic leader. But be you. You got to find out. Everyone else has taken.

You got to be your authentic self because people follow authenticity. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Rixie and Meyer. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4422 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning 9 o'clock Eastern with the latest articles.

ideas, books, podcast videos to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's featured leader, a great one. It's Scott O'Neill, CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment. That includes CEO of the Philadelphia 76ers, the New Jersey Devil, the Prudential Center, among others, also author of a great new book titled Be Where Your Feet Are. A few of the topics we discuss how to write your leadership constitution and why it's so important for you to do this.

And then what he learned from getting fired as the CEO of Madison Square Garden and how you could take from what he learned to become better. And then Scott shares the three things to tell your children right now. I think this applies to all leaders, whether you have kids or not. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a great one. It's Scott O'Neill. Scott, so good to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome, man. Ryan, thanks for having me.

I'm happy, healthy, and excited to dig in. I love your podcast. Your guests are off the charts. I'm humbled to be here and be part of this family now. And I think you're doing an incredible work. Thank you, man. We were just reminiscing before I hit record about our mutual friend who's become a legend on this podcast. And that's JJ Reddick because he played for your team, the Sixers,

and it was a great player for your team, still is a great player just now on the Mavericks. And it's cool to find a mutual friend in common man. It's JJ coming off a screen, jumping, floating, squaring his shoulders and knocking down threes is something that I've never seen before, and I don't think we'll see any time again soon. I mean, he is as special on the court as he's off it. And I love his podcast and career taking off. It's really cool to see. I think it's cool to see athletes in general thinking a little bit differently.

They can still be focused on their craft and working extremely hard on it, but then also trying to build on the side like he's doing and many others. I think it's really neat. But Scott, to get us started, this moment in your book just drew me in. And I wanted to talk to you about it. And so you're at a YPO event, young president's organization. I've been lucky to do some events with YPO, and I've loved all of them. The people are incredible.

So anyway, you're in the backwoods of Ohio. I'm here in Ohio. I'm in Dayton, Ohio. Not really backwoods. Some would call it a suburb, I guess, where I live. And you're with at the time, your daughter, Kira, is I hear you say her name? Is 11 years old? And as a dad of daughters, this really spoke to me, but I think it speaks to anybody in a leadership position.

Can you take us inside that moment of the exercise you were to do in some of the things that you said to CIR on that day. Sure. So, yeah, WIPO has been amazing and provided these kinds of experiences. And I think about a lot how we use our time and how important moments oftentimes pass us by. So that big best man speech you give it a wedding or or the big, you know, marrying off your daughter's speech or the big birthday toast you have is just too far and too far in between. And I think we have to do a better job and can bring a lot more richness and meaning to life by having those conversations. So anyway, so I'm in the backwoods in this awful accommodations. And I did live in Akron for whatever it's worth for a little bit.

So I know awful. And they have, they separated the daughters around doing some kind of craft and experience. And the dads are in this cabin. And a facilitator comes in and says, you're going to have 30 minutes. to tell your daughter everything you want to tell her. It's the last time you'll ever speak to her. What are you going to say? So, you know, your first instinct, because you're in the moment.

You're 100%. You're where your feet are. You're present. You're connected. And I kind of panicked. You know, I hadn't even thought about that or those conversations. Shame on me. I hadn't thought about it.

And so I'm like scribbling. My brother, Michael, was there with his daughter. And he's next thing. I'm looking at him. He seems to have like a perfect. perfect outline going. I'm like, I'm about to break into tears. You know, I'm just, I'm scribbling. And I, I, he's the time's up. I'm like, go find your daughter and, and go for a walk. You'll hear a horn in 30 minutes. So I tucked a piece of paper in my pocket, knowing there's

nothing on there. Anyway, that can be used. And, and, and I, she takes my hand. And I said, well, Kira, we're going to, she said, well, dad, what are we doing? I said, we're going to have a nice talk about life and love, the pursuit of happiness. It's like, life and love. What? I said, well, Kira, I'm just going to talk to you about some things I want you to always remember. She said, okay.

I said, well, first, family, family, family. And she says, I said, I just want you to recognize the importance of this unit we have. We're going to be together forever. And friends will come and go. boyfriends will come and go. And this is it. And I want you to lean in and lean on this group. And I want your biggest dreams and your biggest fears to be okay talking about.

And I want you to lead. I want you to be a leader in this family. And I want you to help be the best person yourself inside these walls. Because this is the safe place, but we can all take care of each other and get better. She gave me like the nod that an 11-year-old would give a dad. And then I said, it's going to be okay. And she said, well, it's going to be okay. And I said, everything.

And I find that in life, as I told her, nothing goes as planned. You know, and when you go through life, you think it's just a linear path to success or whatever success, however you define success in life, work, family, and or however you define it. It's never linear. It just goes up and down. Some things go well and some things don't go so well. She's like what? And I said, well, your boyfriend's going to break up with you. She's like, I don't have a boyfriend. I said, I know, not yet. I said, you're going to crash your car. That she actually did. You're going to fail a test. You're going to have a stumble in your marriage. You're going to have a miscarriage. Somebody you love is going to get cancer. Like life brings life is messy and I just want you to know that everything will be okay and you know sometimes we are so

focused on that tree in front of us if we can just pull that lens back and see the entire forest or the whole world for that matter or figure out that that little dot on the piece of paper and where you are now has nothing to do with what life is going to look like or what opportunity allows ahead and I squeeze my hand a little bit and the last The last thing I said was anything, anytime. I actually lead with a lot of my emails now since that, with anything anytime. And she said, I said, call me, text me, FaceTime me, email me. I am there.

I'm with you for better for worse. Things go well, I'll come cheer you on. And sometimes we have such difficulty celebrating things that go well. And sometimes when things don't go so well, we have trouble and we isolate ourselves. And if this pandemic has taught us one thing, is that we need that connective tissue. We need each other. And so those were my three big driving points to her. And I will tell you, like, we have an incredible, I've been really blessed with my three daughters I have.

She's my middle on. And I happen to have very different relationship with each of them and very special relationship with each of them. And I think that those moments that you have matter. And I think about my own life and we get up in the morning. It's chaos in our house. Okay. The mornings, the mornings, we're just, it's NCAA tournament for us. We survive and advance in the morning.

My wife and I look at each other, give each other a wink, give each other and I'm just trying to get them in the car, get to school, and we're okay. Somebody's borrowing somebody's shirt. They don't have their bag in place, whatever the chaos in the morning is. Then I'm off to work. The kids are off to school. and then they've got sports and, you know, homework, and I got games and come home. My wife, you know, does quite a bit of service in our church and the community.

And so how much time do you have, like real time, an hour, 45 minutes? Like, what are you going to do with that 45 minutes? I'll tell you what most of us do. We're exhausted. So we sit on a TV. We put on Ted Lassau or some show just to kind of like numb us or help us escape. By the way, that's a brilliant show. You should watch it if you haven't seen it.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And then it's bedtime. And that's it. Another day lost. Instead of like, where was that time? It could be 10 minutes. Oh, you want to find meeting.

Go ask a teenager how a day was. Good. How old school? Fine. It's like, that can't be life. There's something so much more rich and meaningful. And as the moms and dads, we have to drive it differently. So Scott, I love.

it. Thank you. Your career is a really cool one to study. And I wanted to unpack it a bit as we also talk about your family, because I can tell from reading your work and following you that your family is everything. But you've also built this amazing career for yourself. And we'll talk about balance in a second. But can you walk me? I don't normally do this, but for you, I'd like to because I think you have, initially I was like he's a CEO of the Sixers. Oh, no, no, he's a CEO of the, the devil's the two. Wait, no, he's a CEO of, and I was like, what is this? So can you lay out your actual role and maybe a little bit about how you actually got the current role that you have today?

Because I think it's very rare the position that you're in. And I don't know if I've come across someone with your kind of the expansiveness of all that you do. Oh, thanks. Yeah. My current role is fun. I'm the CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment. When I started eight years ago, it was the Sixers as a tenant in the Wells Fargo Center. And then when we quickly bought a training or built a training complex,

$80 million, most beautiful world-class training complex in all of basketball in the world. We acquired the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League and the Prudential Center, which is now one of the 10 busiest arenas in the world, believe it or not. Acquired an e-sports team, which is this growing sport. your traditional sports, people won't get it. But the numbers are incredible. We built a sports marketing agency. We have a real estate arm.

We have a venture arm where we invest in early stage companies. We have an innovation lab, which we've built. So it's a pretty incredible business that we've grown up in value, we've grown just over five times in the eight years. So the business is growing. And I think we've just barely scratched the surface in terms of what we can accomplish. So you've actually like, created your roles you haven't necessarily got hired or promoted you got you initially got

hired and what was that job eight years ago just CEO of the CEO of the Philadelphia 7th 60s yeah okay and what did just come through the worst trade in history with Andrew Bynum okay and they were at the bottom of a basketball team mean like in relation to an owner a general manager yeah like what what role does the CEO have with a team sure well I work for two guys that have day jobs So one's at Apollo and one's at Blackstone, two private equity guys. Josh Harrison, David Blitz, wonderful guys, good people. And they work for a living, you know. And so someone has to run the business for them.

So there are decisions we make to actually grow. And we pay the players. Players are very well paid. They do well for themselves. And somebody has to make sure that we take care of that. So that's me. So everything outside of drafting players and a stemming team. Okay.

So does the GM report to you then? No. How does that work? Yeah. So our, it works differently in all the, you think of us as partners. Yeah. Okay. So you and like, okay, I got you.

So you. I was Darryl Morey on the, on the basketball side. Yeah. And Tom Fitzgerald on the devil side. Interesting. Okay, okay. What a cool job, man. Oh, it's so fun.

And I got there. I was the president of Madison Square Garden in sports, which was the coolest job ever from a New York kid. I just remember walking in my first day thinking, like, all right. You know, I was, you know, I think we're going to play. Guys still play. I play a lot of pickup. And I was like, so do we get to play on the floor?

Like, no, we don't do that. I'm like, what you do now? So it was pretty fun. And we did. I mean, we spun Madison Square Garden out of Cable Vision to create a separately trade a public company, put over a billion dollars into the arena to create world's most famous arena to keep it as it is. infused the team in terms of culture and talent went from two turnarounds,

went from non-playoff teams, playoff teams pretty cool. And then did some of the biggest deals in terms of sponsorship tickets and and sweets ever done. So incredible experience and I got fired. Why did you get fired? You know, if I'm truly self-reflective, I was so busy being right and not as,

not spending my time being effective. So, you know, And that's a life lesson that I carry forward with me and have done a much better job the second time around. What does that look like in practice of worrying or of being right instead of being effective? I think a lot of us probably deal with this. So that's why. Yeah. Well, you know, when you're when you're really passionate about what you do and you've built a team that you're proud of in a culture that's inspiring,

you fight to the death to make sure that that is protected. And sometimes fighting to the death results in such. So instead of understanding that the 95% is amazing or the 90% and that I was part of a bigger organization. And so for me, you know, I was so focused on this third, I mean, a third of the business, big business. that I could have done a much better job and kind of like translated to the whole.

And I'll give you one specific example. So we had, I believe, I believe that people are motivated by different things. So that's what I believe, you know. And I believe that some people want to go play for Bobby Knight and some people never could. In other words, and I couldn't. I don't. I don't want anyone screaming at me all the time and tell me I'm an idiot.

I don't need to be pushed. I don't need to be motivated. I don't need to be inspired. Like, I got that part, you know. What I need is support a little blocking and tackling and let me go. And so, you know, we had a, we had they had a program that rewarded tenure, 10 year, 10 year-based rewards, which was a big thing at Madison Square Garden. You know, and I'm a change agent, and I was brought into change the organization. So I wasn't so much into celebrating tenure as I was performance and change.

And so how I handled that was not very good. I said, I'm not handing any tenure awards. Like that's honestly, like could I do that better? Isn't it nice? You know, as I look back, isn't it nice that someone hits a five year, 15 year, 20 year, 25? It's wonderful that people are busy for 25 years. Now, I was busy removing a lot of those people. but for the people that were here,

all I had to do was take a step back and say, Jan, I'm so glad you're here for 25 years. You're wonderful. Here's your blanket or pillow or watch or whatever we gave. And I was focused on these. I don't know if you've ever seen the Kruger Park video, the Water Buffaloes. Anyway, you should watch it.

It's too long. It's about 12 minutes. I played it on my first day. And it's effectively like this big watering hole. What's it called again? Kruger Park, K-R-U-G-E-R. it's in Kenya. And this tourists are just narrating, you know, this water buffalo herd is rolling up to the waterhole.

And the lions are crouching, ready to attack. And the lions attack. And of course, they get the little baby. Baby rolls into the water. And the lions are on top of the water buffalo trying to drag it out of the water so they can have for lunch. And just as they're about to get the water buffalo, big crocodile comes, snaps, it, starts tug warring with this poor little baby water buffalo. All being narrated by this tourist. they finally dragged they went and the torrent and the torres said the lions have won the lines of one and then he pans his camera back and you see all these water buffalo coming to the rescue and they're a little hesitant with their shoulder to shoulder and at the end of the day they come and knock the lions off they run and miraculously the little baby pops up and runs back with the hurt and it's unbelievable so I played that on my first day at masson square garden and so as a as a token of appreciation for when you were a water buffalo as opposed to a tourist who just watches things happen or

lions who attacked the week or the crock who would kick somebody when they're down, I want to celebrate water buffalo. So we got all these buffalo nickels, which costs about three bucks, whatever it's worth. And we had them. And so when somebody did something to be an extraordinary teammate, which is one of my core pillars of what makes a successful person at work, we would create this little card, put a water buffalo like a buffalo nickel on it.

And I had a little picture of a water buffalo. We'd tape one up by my office, which became like wallpaper. It was really cool. and then the other one would be on a cube. And so you'd see they had them lined up on a cube. It became like a central. So that was me being right. It's right.

Like celebrate the, celebrate what you want to reinforce. Okay, that's being a water buffalo. That's being a great teammate. That's like rallying around and making it good. Now, how could I have married that by being more effective?

Could I have helped the other, the media group and the entertainment group have that sort of program? Of course I could have. But I was just, I'm right. We need this program. Forget about tender. That's like an example. There are probably 100 of them.

But as I, do you think as you've gotten, you've matured, you've gotten wiser, like I think most of us do as we get older? Do you think your ego has just gotten smaller? Is that part of it? Did you have a bigger ego at that? Yeah. It's not ego as much. I mean, those who know me really well would say, that's a really humble guy. Those who don't know me well at all be like, wow, he's the ego's out of control.

Really? Yeah. So it's a misconception of you, you would say. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think to do great things, you have to be confident. Yes.

And to drive change situations, you have to make decisions that aren't going to always be popular. Yep. And you have to do them. And so I would say that, yes, over time, Have I found ways to rechannel that energy that could come across as ego into much more kind of self-effacing or much more celebrating others? Have I moved from like a warrior phase, which I had this executive coach was amazing. He just telling me like, you're a warrior, you're a warrior. I was like, yeah, I want to be a warrior.

And so as I've matured, I'm more, I'm more apt to celebrate other successes than my own. and I'm much more interested in helping, you know, help create the next generational leaders than I am taking my victory lab. And even the book I wrote, it's not a victory lab book. It's not, that's not, I wouldn't be able to talk to you about it. It's really much more about what can we learn when things go south. Yeah. I want to hit work-life balance.

This is a question I'm asked a lot. Obviously, you're asked a lot. and I believe your view on it has evolved. And one of the things that was compelling to me in your writing that really stuck with me is that when people are striving for some sort of work life balance, they end up being in the mediocre middle. And I was like, oh, that's a great point. Can you talk about how your views have evolved on work life balance? Yes. I thought, I think that when you are, when you think you can do it all, have it all, make it all, it's a really naive view. When you understand that, that life and time, that time is your most precious resource and that tradeoffs are the only way to make your time actually count, that's a pretty intense realization.

I don't believe in work-life balance. I don't think it exists. I don't know anybody, anyone who has been successful without working unreasonably hard. But as I laid out earlier, I'm not sure it's about how much time. I think it's about how you spend that time that you have and to make sure you where your feet are, that you're wholly present. I am, and by the way, that's at work too and at home. Now, for me, my life's about trade is my tradeoff friends. And I will tell you, a lot of people will say,

Scott is a good friend of mine. And then you can ask them, when's the last time you saw them outside of a game? And they'd say, not too recently. Because I know that I have to trade off. It's like, I have my work, I have my church, I have my family. That's where I'm choosing to spend a majority of my time. And so, and it's not that I don't have good friends. It's not that I don't love my friends.

It just means that if I'm going to see them, it's going to be the devs game or Sixers game. Because I know I have to be there. And that's an opportunity for me to connect. And so that's all, you know, and it's not, you know, I just, I don't see it. I don't know what nine to five looks like. But you know what I do know what it looks like. I know what a parent teacher conference looks like because I get there. I know what an awful eighth grade Christmas concert looks like because I'm there too.

And I can't believe they make them at 11 o'clock. I think it's so ridiculous, but they do. And I'm there. And I know what coaching my daughters look like because I've been coaching them for, 15 years. And so I have to be disciplined to go do it. And so that doesn't mean when I'm there, I'm not at a practice taking a call. I'm not at a Christmas concert on my iPad. I'm not at a parent-teacher conference wishing I was just about anywhere else. I'm there. And do I have to wait and not go back to games? Sometimes, of course I do. You know, I get the drill. Like I know what

my job is and what my responsibility is. But the gift is to be present. And I think that's get you, that is the recipe for fulfillment and not this illusion of balance. How about WMI? What does WMI mean to you and your organization? WMI is what's most important. And I learned that one from Brett Brown, our former coach. He was with us for seven years. We both came in together with Sam Hinky in early, early days of the Philadelphia 76ers. And he had it written on all of his notepads, which I loved. And so what he was, what he was trying to tell us is you've got to figure out what is most important in your life and spend your time there. And a great exercise I have, which is really interesting for if you're running a

business or running a department or wanting to run a business or wanting to run a department to figure out and articulate what your WMI is. And that might move. It definitely moves from year to year or decade to decade, but it might move when you're young, it might move months a month. If you're kind of just emerging your career, it might move week to week. You know, your WMI at work is going to be different from your WMI at home, but you better figure out what both of those are. But what a great exercise is is to actually write them down and then do an audit of your

calendar every week at the end of the week. And what that audit will say is you put Doug OMI, you put the things up there up at top, and then you try to figure out how many Zoom calls, how many meetings, and you how many engagements, how much work time was dedicated to that WMI. And the problem is, you're not going to love your answer. And so what high performers think about a lot is, can I spend 60% of my time on the three most critical things I need to tackle at work? That's a recipe for high performers. How much are we really doing?

Probably not enough. It's a great, great tool just to go through, do an audit, figure out what really matters. at home and it work. Yeah, I've heard a phrase, instead of telling me your priorities, show me your calendar. Oh, I love that. Of what you actually do and what you've done. And I think it's a great exercise to analyze and review weekly, what did I do? And what do I claim is most important and do my actions match with what I with what I claim is most important?

And if you're, as you said, you do that audit regularly and you care to make a difference or to make a change, I bet the odds of you focusing and doing a better job on what's most important will go up than if you just haphazardly wander around and hope for the best and say, well, I'm really busy. You know, I mean, we all have been there. I think that's that when I, that's why when I was reading about WMI, that really stuck out to me. Right. And I think one, to make one level better, which is where I challenge my leaders. that I get who I work with every day is either change your WMI or change your calendar. And so it's just no sense in fooling yourself. It's like I want to, I want great health, but you don't work out. I want great health, but I'm still eating at fast food.

Like, just stop. Like, it's okay. Like, you need to be your authentic self. You need to figure out what's really important. But, you know, there comes a point where we have to be accountable. to ourselves and what we want and what we want to accomplish. You write about the good old days and there's a something I want to bring up, a scene from the office.

Have you watched the office TV show? What is that? Okay. Do you remember Andy Bernard, Ed Helms? Do you remember this quote? No, give it to me. So he says, I believe this is the series finale. I could be wrong, but either way, you could Google it and find it at Andy Bernard or Ed Helms.

and he said, I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them. And I think a phrase I like to say to myself in the midst of kids sports in a crazy chaotic house at times similar to yours, especially in the morning, is these are the good old days. Like actually say it. Like say it in my head, say it aloud. These are the good old days. Because I've spoken with so many people who are further along than me whose kids have now left. the house because they went to college or beyond. And it's like a hundred percent of them say, hey, man, appreciate and enjoy these days. I know they're not all perfect. And I know they're chaotic

at times. You're in the good old days. Like live that. And so that's a phrase. And when I saw you write about like, oh, man, I got to bring this up because that that quote is something I really try to think about even in the midst of chaos because they, if everyone thought like we're in the good old days. I bet we just all be a little better off. Yeah, I do love Annie Bernard, and I do love that he went to Cornell. But I will say that, yes, I, from my perspective, I feel like, well, everyone said to me, by the way, with three daughters, they said, it's going to be so amazing, but wait until they're teenagers, you know, and I've loved it. I will say my 20s were incredible, my 30s amazing my 40s

like I'm not the guy who turned 40 was like I'm 51 like no I turned 40 I had friends that did not handle that well turned 50 and they're like okay my life's all right life's over we actually we we know what we're talking about now we actually have experience we have perspective we've had some level success we have relationships business should be easier parenting is is different because our children have grown up.

Now we're becoming coaches. As my daughters get older, I'm not parenting them anymore. It's not go to your room, put your phone down. Let me tell you about some shared experience I have. Let me tell you about what I learned when I made a mistake. It looks a lot like the one you're about to make. And so I think, at least for me, the perspective has been wonderful. I have had a blessed life.

It's littered with potholes and falls and trips and mistakes and problems. but my perspective is definitely not one at the tree and it's definitely one of the forest. And I think that every decade has been very, very different, you know, you know, from in our 20s not being able to pay bills to in my 40s being fired from a really high profile job and ended up in a paper and you wake up and you're like, whoa, I don't want my mom reading this, you know, to kind of settling back down and getting perspective and thinking through,

what I really what is meaningful. I was talking to a dear friend of mine the other day. And he said to me, he was walking through one of his issues and he said, he's like, look, I'm not saying it's midlife crisis. I said, oh, it's 100% of midlife crisis. I said, you're just dealing with it really well. And I said, you know, it's it's at my age, you know, my father's passed away. And I never thought my dad was really sick. Unfortunately, passed away. And I, I was like stunned. I was surprised that I was hurt so badly. You know. And which it's not that I wasn't really close to my dad, but he was suffering. I was praying that he would pass away because he means what it was pain.

But I, you know, after some reflection, I said, okay, I totally get it. Mortality. Now I know what it is. Because I didn't know. I'd heard about it. I read about it. I'd had friends that had dealt with it. I was like, okay, a clock's ticking.

I totally get the drill. How am I going to take advantage of this time, I have? I love that way of thinking. You mentioned, public failure and you being a public figure and a very public job. One other the stories you wrote about that I think we learned so much from these moments and I know this is a part of who you are is you're not afraid to share and talk about what you've learned from public failures.

But you started a business with Seth Berger who was the founder of And One. And for those of us who remember And One, it was like the, I believe the number two shoe in the world in the world of basketball. And you two together raised, I believe, $14 million. He put in a million bucks of his own. And it was called Hoops TV, right? This is a business you started. And it didn't go as you hoped.

Can you share a little more about what happened, what wrong? And then most importantly, I think, what you learned from that public failure. Sure. Seth works with me today, by the way. He runs our innovation lab if you want to complete the circle. Awesome. So Seth has a brilliant way of focusing all his energy and time on the three things that really matter. So here's what's most important are always really clear.

When I was, I think I was 28 or 29, I thought that running a company or being the president of a company was very different from what actually is. it's actually I know I needed to rate now I need to raise money I need to drive revenue and I need to drive traffic that's it that was my job but I thought it was everything other than that I probably spent 5% of my time on the stuff that really mattered and 95% of the time on the stuff that did not like whatever that like what is a ceremonial crap you know everything around you know I was leaning into some content stuff and I was you know, taking trips. I literally just needed to focus. Now, it was a dot-com bust era.

So it was boom-boss right in the middle of our, so environmentally was bad. Yeah. Secondly, we had a very video-heavy site in the days of dial-up. I know you're quite younger than I am, but, you remember that? yeah, I made a ton of mistakes. But man, I wouldn't trade that time for anything. We became a number two site to NBA.com, a basketball site in the world. Like our view, our vision was to become what NBA TV became, but for all of basketball,

not just the NBA. And then NBA obviously launched their TV network, and that wasn't great. So, and we still, you know, when we went down, I fired everyone, including one of my brothers, which is just awesome. And then I had to call every one of the vendors that we had money to and negotiate them down

because we only had to be a limited amount of money. So I literally took a company of 53 some odd people who were hopeful and young and full of energy and incredibly talented and kind of reduced it to a filing cabinet. And it was terrible.

And then I don't have any money. So now I'm out of work, out of luck, out of money. I'm married. My wife had done. retired since we had our first daughter. So we have a mortgage for the first time. I've never had a house before. I have a mortgage, which I can't pay. I have a baby. I mean, I'm just charging stuff in my credit card to eat, you know. And I was emotionally a mess. And so I mean, I learned so many lessons.

One is marry the right person. So that's, you know, if you, if you, if you pick the right partner, you're going to find out pretty quickly when when things are bad or you're in trouble. And I did. And I got married when I was 25. So I would love to say that I'm an incredible genius at reading people or I'm just lucky. But I got pretty fortunate with my wife, Lisa. And so she kept it all together and me together. She always pays the bills and runs the house.

So I didn't even know it was as bad as it was, but it was foreclosure and it was bad. Like that's bad. Wow. How did she do that? How did she have like what? What is it about her that had the fortitude to do that? I don't know. I remember she told me,

and she never, she told me later on, three years later. She said, hey, I just want to unpack this with you. And she's incredible talking about a life learner. I mean,

she's the ones like, you need to listen this podcast. You need to read this article. Hey, this is good for your team. Like she's just a very interesting woman who's interested. And so she told me a story years later about her, her girlfriend.

He said, I don't know what Scott's doing, but like he should go down to Starbucks to get a job, you know, and which is fine. I'm not, I don't mean to disrespect to Starbucks or anybody who works there, but, but she had bigger plans for me, you know, and so, and she let her friend know it apparently. My wife is just, she's, you know, we're very counterbalanced. She's introverted and thoughtful, and I'm a little more rollercoaster in high energy. Isn't it to them, isn't it the best feeling in the world, Scott to prove your supporter right, especially when it's your wife. Like I just don't know if there's a better feeling than to prove that person who had your

back when you had zip. You messed up. You failed. No money. Can't pay the bills. And that person had your back then. They believed in you. They supported you.

They did what they needed to be done even beyond what you knew was happening. And then today you have proven her right. Like man, I'm like that I just think that as the. coolest thing that is like such a good feeling to prove those people right yeah i think that is right i i i mean i remember we signed up for a mered debt which is one of those debt consolidation services no bueno by the way in case anybody's listening i mean they torture credit for seven years but anyway so i made so many like so i was just like trying to figure it out and i remember came home one day i was walking with alex and my daughter and i walked in the door i was like all right

i'm ready to go she's like great what's the plan and i said i'm just going to call my friends And that's what I did. And in three weeks, I was working at the NBA. And so it was, yeah, but it was three months. And I was me playing basketball trying to escape, reading books, trying to find myself, like spending time with family. I was just doing, and she was encouraging me to do all that stuff that was my good energy. And we dug out pretty good after a while.

But quick story about Lisa. I know you didn't ask my minute. I'm going to tell you. I was eventually, I worked at the main. Eventually, we moved up closer to New York because we stayed in Philadelphia for a while. just to get a little more stable and then moved up to some in New Jersey and we're you know having fun and my boss went on Bernie mull amazing guy went on to be the CEO of the hawks and thrashers in Atlanta and so there was like an open window and david stern was my boss called he was a really

tough guys got rest of his story he's passed away but his mentor till literally to the last day it was like for me but he was one of the meanest people I've ever ever met really oh yeah yeah now it's charming on TV but just a bully and you know So his, when that 8,300 would flash on your phone, you're like, you know, all of a sudden, the heat would rise up. And so, you know, he calls. He's like, I can't believe I'm going to do this, you know. But, you know, I think you're going to get this happen job. And I said, whoa.

I said, all right, well, thanks, boss. He hung up already, you know. So I'm home to least. And I said, hey, like, you know, I can believe this. But, you know, and I was already making more money than I had ever made or ever thought I'd ever make. You know, we got married. I was making $15,000 a year. Wow.

So she didn't marry me for money, that's for sure. You know, she'll earn me until she retired. So anyway, so I was like, you're not going to believe this, but I think I'm going to get Bernie's job and get promoted. She's like, wow. I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to get a big raise. She's like, oh, good, you know. So the next day I go in and he screams at me some more and says, you know,

would you have any expectations? And I was like, no, I mean, you know, and everything's fair, you know. So it tells me what I was double what I was making. okay oh yeah so i go home and i'm like you are not going to believe this but i'm making acts and she's like think of all the people we can help wow i mean dad is like

yeah you just get a good sense of those times of like it's i mean it is life is i mean it is not smooth and not easy yeah and you just like get that sense like okay I got this. I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight from my, you know, fight from my family, fight for my relationships forever. It's pretty awesome. I love it. That's such a cool story. Thank you for sharing. Scott, one of the other things you've written about that I personally love is creating and committing to a leadership constitution, one for yourself. Can you share why it's important

for all of us leaders to take the time to write it as well as maybe some practical how-to tips for people to the second they get done listening to this. And if they haven't already done this exercise, they could start it today right now to say, okay, I'm going to start my leadership constitution to get it from whatever is in my mind down onto the page. So I have some semblance of this is, this is what I declare, this is what I believe, this is who I am when it comes to leadership. Sure.

So I, you know, I grew up in the 70s and 80s. So that was kind of pop psychology back then. So it was like, you know, put this on your mirror, you know, listen to orchestra music before you go to bed, symphony, before you go to bed, you know, say these three positive affirmations, all that stuff. And I grew up in a house with, you know, my dad has had his PhD and my mom had, now she has a PhD. She got him.

She was 65, ironically. But they, she had her master's in child's psychology. So I grew up in a in a, in a. laboratory fishbowl of hey let's try some really amazing different things so i grew up in a really fun environment um and i was down at my brother michael i have three brothers and a sister all born within six years of each other so we pretty much our friends were all friends with each other and i have some really funny stories about growing up and you know we lived in a really small house and two bunk beds in one room with the four boys and my sister had a room and my parents and um and i was down

And they all run companies except for my sister. She's starting a company now. But so it's a group of leaders. And it's almost like we were bred to do what we do, if you will. And so it's at Michael's office. He runs a healthcare tech company called Getwell Network. One of the most inspiring leaders I've ever been around. And I'm in his office just kind of walking around because he was late coming out of a meeting.

And I look on those wall and he has this thing framed. And it's, I declare that I am dot, dot, dot, dot, and you can count on me to be. Dot, dot, dot. And it's this whole kind of, I actually have one here. I can, I can read it as helpful. Yeah. But it just gives me a sense. And he walks down, like, what is this?

He said, hey, I'm working for the working with this great guy, Rich, Rich Hill, Gabriel consulting out of Chicago. And it's a leadership constitution. It's like me putting myself out there. He's like, it's not what you aspire to be. It's what you are. It's who you are in your essence. It's like when you're your best self,

how are you living? And you just have to answer these two little questions. So I'm going to remind it's up here. So I just pulled it off the wall. I declare that I am a passionate and authentic leader of leaders who feels the gravitational pull towards talent and character. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I love people and being part of a team.

I get energy from helping others and would give the shirt off my back to a stranger and anything anytime to a friend. I am family first, high integrity, and surprisingly sensitive change agent. who is confident, caring, and intellectually curious. This feels like a competitive drive that at times feels like a chip on my shoulder. You can count on me to bring positive energy into my space. Exude urgency and push you, challenge you, nudge you,

and raise the bar beyond your expectations and sometimes what you think is reasonable. Laugh with you, cry with you, love you, even when you won't laugh, haven't cried, and don't feel loved. Ruthie for you today, every day, and always. the most personal thoughts, emotions, stories, highs and lows, because I am okay with it and who I am. Enjoy the roller coaster of life, whether we're going forward, backwards, and upside down. Drive hard to reach the summit and then quickly start on another mountain and share wins and take hits for losses.

So the key here, so that's me. That is me in a nutshell. And that took me about three weeks to keep refying. It's up in my office. I tried to read it when I walk by it. And I think Any mantra, now it doesn't have to be this model, this leadership constitution. I declare that I am, dot, dot, dot, dot, and you can count on me to be. If you answer those two questions, put that down on paper and show them to people who really love you and know you, they'll give you feedback. But I would just encourage you to write it down, sit it in a drawer. Two days later, go through it again and just start editing. You know, keep refining it to a point where it becomes a manifestation of who you are as your best self.

And I love it. I love positive reinforcement. I love reminders. And the way that the temperature check for you, as you know if you hit it out of the park or not, is that when I'm feeling off or I'm feeling like down, or I'm feeling uncomfortable, or I'm feeling not my best self,

it typically is because there's something in here that I'm not living. And so it's a great temperature check on life when you're not feeling your best. you've said that there's a four-part process to help people become more present and the fourth part is about this leadership constitution and living it. One of the other aspects of these four parts that I think it's critical and you just mentioned it and that is seek authentic feedback. For a person in your position, a powerful position with people working for you, how do you ensure that you're not surrounded by? yes, men or women, and that you're getting authentic, useful feedback in order to continue to improve, to get better at what you're doing and being there for your team and helping

your organization do what it needs to do. Yes. I mean, sometimes I joke at work, like at some point, I would like you guys to just humor me and be nice, you know? So I do not have a bunch of yes men and women around me for sure. And we love, love to debate and argue. fight and anyway, from a management leadership and to the extent you can build a team of people who will tell you the truth is the only way. And you have to be humble enough and okay enough

to hear it. And the sign that your organization is really cooking is when you as a leader aren't coming up with the best ideas. Like that's when you know you're loaded with talent. Anyway, so for me, though, when you're running a company, like good luck. Like, you're, You're not, I mean, everybody has a board or somebody financing them or a chairman. So, you know, I have a board, very, very active one. And I can't get it from them. And if I'm being honest with myself, although my teammates, they will give me real feedback for sure. It'll be on issues, not on me.

And so, you know, I get a lot of that from my brothers, quite frankly, and YPO. And my YPO forum, so in YPO, the Young Presidents Organization, mentioned before, you've get eight to eight to ten presence and CEOs. You get together once a month for four hours in a no-hold bar. Everything is what we call form confidential. Nothing leaves the room. And that's what you get some real feedback. Like I don't know how else you get it when you get a level.

It's like you say, well, I have, well, yeah, don't you have a mentor? I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty much either past or part of my mentors. So I can talk to them for sure, but it's different. you know and you're your your partner your wife your husband they're wonderful and my wife's not afraid of giving me straight talk for sure but it's different like she loves me and i'm i am she she she is there for me for me you know i'm not sure how much she's pushing me on different decisions and different times because at the end of the day she's on my team she's we're we're at the hip um so i think it's a really hard it's a it's a great question the right question um when you're coming up though

when you're emerging through an organization, I always, in particular with my younger, talented, ambitious execs, I always ask them, like, who have they connected to in the last month? In the sports world, that's the easiest thing in the world. I mean, I was like, okay, so you work at the Sixers. Do you know somebody at the Celtics? No, why not? Like, if somebody from the Wizards called you today and said,

hey, I just wanted to connect with you. I mean, we have the same job title. I just figured we should get to know each other. Maybe we'll connect once a month. Like, you would be thrilled. Why don't you be the initiator of that? Like, you'd go make the call. And I don't think this is just sports related.

If you're in insurance and you're working for state farm and you reach out to somebody from Progressive, like, what a great, what a great connect of network. Like, I think about when I was 22 years old, I was assistant, marketing assistant. And there were probably like 25 young people under 25 at the time. It was a relatively, it was a fascinating organization. And we worked together all the time. We had a lot of fun. We went out together.

We ate together. I mean, one of those guys is running Rock Nation, which is one of the largest agencies. Another guy's running CAA, which is one of the largest sports marketing town ages. Two guys from 25. You're like, what if I didn't get to know them? What if I didn't spend time connecting with them? And you think about, you're at this organization. You're 25 years old.

I've, whatever, 560 people full-time. 2000 total in my organization. What if they were friends with 568 people at 25 years old? What do you think is going to happen in those 568? Where are they going to be in 5 years? Where are they going to be in 10 years? We're going to be in 20 years. Well, I tell you what, I look around now.

I've got friends of mine running organizations all over the world. What a gift. And all you have to do is be your authentic self, reach out and offer to help people and add value down again. That's it. That's your price of admission. Like to me it seems like such a simple thing to do and such an awful miss on so many fronts Scott one more when you think about people in your life who have sustained excellence over an

extended period of time to big phrase for me excellence and the sustainability of it not just you know hitting it every once while it's something you've you've certainly done and you're surrounded by people who have done that as you mentioned leaders all over the world as part of your peer group your YPO forum. which I know the power of those and from meeting with them. What have you found that are some of the common behaviors, the actions of the people who have sustained excellence over time? Yes.

Okay. I know this is your go-to question. This is the money question. I've actually thought about as a listener. Number one, you have to be your authentic self. And I think when you're growing up in the business, in any business, you're trying to look on and latch on to role models and how they do it and what they do, how they dress, because everybody's watching, right?

So what they say, how they conduct meetings, you know, how they go through life. And I would just say, if you're a rah-rah leader, be a raw-rah leader. If you're an analytical leader, be an analytical leader. If you're a strategic leader, be a strategic leader. But be you. You got to find out. Everyone else has taken. You got to be your authentic self because people follow authenticity.

be. Secondly, they all work unreasonably hard. I haven't seen it. I hope that I meet someone that is really successful and doesn't work hard. That is my goal before I die. I haven't seen it. It doesn't exist because it, I think, talk about that's the price of admission. And I think the third thing is being intellectually curious. And it's not too far off from the title of this podcast. Like I just like the world is changing so fast. And I got so much of a dose of reality from David Stern, how I mentioned earlier, the commissioner.

We would get on a plane and he would be saying, you probably don't even know what whiffy is. I'm like, I don't know what he means Wi-Fi, by the way. But no one ever heard it because it was 10 years before it hit the market. it. And so if you're not, like, if you're not thinking about blockchain right now and how that's going to change the world, or you're not engaged in 5G and the transformation that we're going to have from 5G, I think those are the two technologies that are going to transform the world as we know it right now. It's like, you better be finding something else. And you might be life sciences.

I remember David Stern when Magic Johnson got contracted the HIV virus. He'd already known about he'd already talked to the world's most experts it's like because he studied because he was intellectually curious because he did the work and it's like it's not enough in my business to read the sports business journal and sportico and the stuff that's like right in your wheelhouse it's like that's wonderful like that's what everybody else is doing i have this saying in my house i say if you do what everybody else does you get what everybody else gets couldn't be any more true and so how much are you willing to learn. How much are you willing to study? How interested are you? Like I have one of my oldest daughters now interring for the Utah Jazz, a Western conference team and doing great. She said the funniest

thing to me that day. I said, okay, how's it going? What are you doing? I'm walking through. And I was trying to challenge her on her thought process. She's an intern. So she's not exactly running the world. She said, well, dad, I learned one thing. I would rather be the boss and telling people what to do than doing. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Here's the thing. It's like, you start and you learn and you work. And you just learn. And if you learn, it can add value, you can have a wonderful career. But you have to fall in love with it. And that's the fourth thing. I'd say, you have to be passionate. And I always use insurance. And I'm not sure why I pick on insurance, but you can be passionate about insurance. Okay. And you might not be passionate about the actual insurance, but you mean passionate about building. extraordinary teams. You can be passionate about building an extraordinary culture. You can be passionate about growing careers for some really extraordinary people and you're going to change their life. Think about what we can do. Like our when you are when you're an operator like like I am, it's like you can actually create an environment that transforms someone life someone's life.

I guess pretty cool. Like it's like you know and when you speak to the one I think I think like it's a lot better. Love it. How do you feel now that you see this? thing is out this this holding up for the audio listeners a picture of your book be where your feet are how does this make you feel man out in a strange kind of way like an emotion that i don't feel very often i i don't reflect very much on things that go well i'm a trained consultant so i typically when things happen i look for how we could improve them or what would i've done differently or what would i change next time and so i it's a it's a really strange rewarding um complicated feelings that I'm wrestling with. But thank you.

That's really good. The combination of the stories and the lessons and the principles and then the practical application, that's a tough combo to really to weave all that together. And I think you've done it really well here and be where your feet are, seven principles to keep you present, grounded and thriving because I found myself reading and then just, I think the mark of like a great book is when you get to the end of the page and you just you don't really have time to keep reading because you got to do something else and yet you keep reading and I think that's what this is all about. So I think it's awesome, man. Congrats on getting it out

in the midst of the 500 other things that you do as well as being such a good family. It was great to talk to you today, man. I appreciate you rooting for your success and tell me when you can get to a game and get east. Let's have some fun. Really? I'm going to take you up on this. So really? When are we fans coming back to a, I love to go to a, so I worked in Philly for a little bit, and I never got to go to a Sixers game. And I would love to get to a Sixers game.

Okay, I'm going to make that happen. What are fans? How much, like, when are fans? Are they, is it going to be this year or no? Okay, so we have 20% of our fans back now. Okay. I just heard an hour before this show that it's going to be risen to 25% come May 7th. So it's getting there.

It's like, baby. steps. And I think come next season, full house. What about the, when you guys are in the NBA finals this year? Have fun with that day. How many people are going to do that? That would be so cool. You have the squad to do it. You know you have the squad to do it. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah, no, we're really, really, we're a handful. I mean, Joe NB. Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris. That's, that's a three-sum I put up against anybody. So it's going to come down to what teams are healthy because we are very good. Yeah, fun to watch. All right, man. I knew you got to run to a game. Thank you, Scott.

I really appreciate it. It's good talking to you. Anything anytime. All right, thanks, man. That was a fun one. I really enjoyed oscillating back and forth between the stories from his personal life mixed in with the stories from his professional life.

I find Scott to be a really thoughtful, curious, and interesting guy. A few of my key takeaways from my notes. to love the dad and daughter moment and the three things that he said to Kira, family, family, family, it will always be okay. And the one I love most that I'm going to use is anything, anytime, let your children know anything, anytime, no matter what. And then when he talked about getting fired because he was busy being right,

or at least trying to be right, instead of focusing on being effective. All of us could probably accidentally have this happen to us if we're not intentional. And it was interesting that Scott realized this now that he's had time to learn from it. Then writing your leadership constitution, I declare that and you can count on me too. Those are the two questions or statements to answer when writing your leadership constitution. and then excellence, be your authentic self, work unreasonably hard, be intellectually curious, be passionate about what you do. Those are the four common traits and or behaviors Scott has found and people who have sustained excellence.

I want to say thank you for continuing to listen to the Learning Leader Show and spread the word, telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode with Scott O'Neill. It could help you become a more effective leader, both at work and at home. And because you continue to do that, and because you continue to write a review on Apple podcast, hopefully five stars, you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.