498: Ted Rath - "Do Your Habits Today Align With Your Goals Of Tomorrow?" (VP of Player Performance For The Philadelphia Eagles)
00:00 Hey, it's Ryan. Quick announcement. As the Learning Leader Show continues to grow, I would like to involve you even more than I already do. I'd like you to become part of future episodes. We're going to record more and grow along with all of you. And there's a couple ways we can do this. One, if you'd like to hear your voice, your questions, on this podcast, The Learning Leader Show, which is my preference, then you can send a voice recording with your question to Ryan at LearningLeader.com. And if you're perhaps a bit more shy and you'd prefer to write your question and have it read by me, you can send an email to Ryan at LearningLeader.com. This way, the show will become more interactive. we will add in more of this Q&A that I think will ultimately add more value to your life. That's my intention.
01:05 That's my goal. So send a voice recording to Ryan at learningleader.com or an email with your question to Ryan at learning leader. com and we'll do our best to make this more interactive, more engaging, and more useful for all of you. All right. Here we go. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk.
01:32 Thank you so much for being here. Text, Hawk to 666866 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 from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 66866. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. A great one. Ted Rath is the vice president of player performance for the Philadelphia Eagles. In 2017, Ted was named the strength coach of the year by the Professional Football Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association. Now, at the time of this recording, the Philadelphia Eagles are the only undefeated team. in the NFL. A few of the topics we discuss focusing on daily behaviors in order to win
02:37 each day as opposed to thinking about long-term goals like winning the Super Bowl. And then the importance of being coachable and how that seems to be a common quality in the highest performers. In the hiring process from both sides, how Ted was able to earn a job on Sean McVeigh's staff within the first hour of meeting him, as well as what it was like when Ted was a part of the decision-making team with the Philadelphia Eagles to hire their most recent coach, Nick Siriani. This one is packed with stories and ideas and things for you to put into action. I really enjoyed it, and I think you will too. Ladies and gentlemen, Ted Raff.
03:32 Ted, it's so great to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show, man. Welcome. Thank you, man. I'm humbled and I'm just grateful to be here, Ryan. I really appreciate, appreciate all the work you're doing, spreading the word out there and making people better. This is a different one because I've, I mean, I've admired you since we met, and it's been more than a year now,
03:50 and the fact that you've had an amazing application and wanted to become part of my leadership circle, I remember that. that day when you applied man I went home and told my wife Miranda and I said this dude looks like I'm not going to be able to teach him anything I'm just going to be sitting here learning from him the whole time so I remember that was a pretty cool day when you applied and obviously I wanted to have you and after we talked and it's cool that we've been able to build this ever since then no doubt man well I've stolen from you way more than you could have taken from me so I appreciate you and all the lessons I've learned already I love it man well I intend for this to be long term
04:30 but to get us started, man, I want to go to, I love moments. I think you know that by now and stories, because the stories and the moments of our lives are where we can draw from and learn from. You've worked in the NFL for a while, but there was a time earlier in your career when you worked for the Detroit Lions, I believe is 2014 or 15, and you guys did well, went to the playoffs, and then the following year you struggled. Can you walk me through what happened? midway through that season on to the end of the season when you're with the Lions.
05:04 Yeah, absolutely. And it's really, it's a fun time for me to visit now because when I took on the job with the Lions, I was blessed. And that's a whole other story. But I was fortunate to work for my hometown team. So being able to do that, it was the first year after they went on 16, climbed a couple of years. We were in the playoffs after a few years with Jim Schwartz.
05:23 After a couple other down years, they fire coach Schwartz. They hired Jim Caldwell. So Jim Caldwell is there, which is another crazy story. I have my first baby was born and within six hours I get a text message. Can you come in an interview with Coach Caldwell for your job? This is 2014 going into it. So I got the hospital wristbands on, Ryan. You know what's like to have the first one?
05:42 And I'm like, all right, honey, I'm going to come back with either good news or bad news, but we still have a healthy, beautiful baby. We're good. And got to maintain the job. Got to work with Coach Caldwell. So 2014, Coach Caldwell's first year goes great. And it's phenomenal man, phenomenal leader who I learned so much from. and then move on.
05:59 We go to the playoffs that year. In my opinion, we got robbed in Dallas, which is a whole other story. Once again, we can go down to rabbit hole. We lose in the first round of the playoffs. Okay, rebuild, let's go, probably overachieve that year from what we were supposed to do. Then move on to the next year, 2015.
06:14 We start one in seven. So we're literally one and seven, and we're anticipated as one of the better contenders on the NFC side. And we're having a bad year. We're having a rough year. And that's a little bit of adverse now in the grand scheme of things. It's football. It's not life and it's not.
06:28 No one's dying here. But in our livelihoods and things like that, there's a lot of people whose lives are affected by wins and losses. So we go through the process. We're one and seven. We're about to leave to go to London. We had an international game. Before we even board the plane,
06:43 we had three coaches who got fired. Literally the day we're about to leave. They had already checked their luggage. Some of them kept those luggage checks. As a reminder, anything can happen in this league. It's a crazy league. So we fire our OC, our offensive line coach, in our assistant offensive line coach.
06:59 Boom, boom, boom, we fly to London. Okay, great. We're in London. On the first day of our practice, which is a Wednesday, we're London local time. And we're in, I don't remember where. We're just outside of London. I think Watford. And we're practicing.
07:11 Our equipment manager comes up and says, are you ready? We're going to fit you for your headset and everything else. Timmy O'Neill's name. I'm like, Timmy, what are you talking about? He said, you're going to be in a headset. You're helping with special teams this week with all the shuffling. I'm like, all right, let's ride. What was your job at the time?
07:24 So I was the assistant strength and conditioning coach. Okay. This is in the middle of it, I'm like, what's happening? And coming from our equipment guy, I'm like, okay, well, let's rock. Going to meetings, I'm going to special teams meeting, trying to soak in as much knowledge as I possibly can. So we fast forward through that game, have a horrible game that gets us to one in seven at that point. So we fly back and we have a bye week the following week. The day we land, they fire our president and our general manager.
07:49 So in football terms, all hell is breaking loose and you're looking around. Everyone's getting fired. Okay, great. So we come back from the by week, rested, refreshed. Now I'm an assistant coach. I'm helping with special teams. So on top of the other duties that I still have, it's not like somebody else took those on.
08:05 So we're continuing to do everything. And we were actually fortunate we went seven and one. So the second half of that season, huge improvement, huge turn. Coach Caldwell did a great job. You talk about consistency and you talk about a level of an approach where the process doesn't change from one in seven to seven and one. Our process remained the same.
08:22 And that's one of the greatest lessons I learned from Jim Caldwell. is amazing at that. So we transition at the end of the year. We go through, we don't know if Coach Caldwell is getting fired. They eventually maintain him or retain him. So Coach Caldwell is still there and you're thinking, all right, great. At this point, we had had her second child. So our second baby is, I think three weeks old at the time. Same thing. I get a phone call. Hey, can you come into the office? Got it. All right. Well, it's going to be a good day or bad day. We'll see what happens. So kind of same thing that we just went through a couple years ago. Now we transition into that, have the conversation.
08:54 We had hired a new general manager at that point. The new general manager, the head strengthening coach at the time, had worked for the organization, I think 15 years. So his office is right next door to me. They come down and meet with him first. I can kind of hear what's going on. It doesn't go well. He gets to let go.
09:11 So then I'm next. They come in, Coach Caldwell and the general manager. And it was a great conversation. As I'm sitting there and talking to him, I can kind of sense where it's going. And, you know, he gave me the reason, which I'll agree or disagree with the reason. reason, but he said, because of the perception, we have to make it look like we're making sweeping changes. We're going to let you go as well because you've been here so long with him. At that point, I'd been there seven years with a person who had been there for 15.
09:35 So the media thinks, all right, they're working, they're making big changes, blah, blah, blah. So I said, coach, thank you for the opportunity. The new GM, Bob Quinn, thank you for the opportunity. Great to me. First time I met him, I said, I appreciated everything. Say all the right things. In the back of my mind running, I'm thinking, man, that's a horrible reason to fire somebody because they started off that conversation with, we can't find anyone to say a negative thing about you before you've done a great job here. Coach Caldwell obviously knows you have.
09:59 So we go through that. You hit some significant adversity. First time in my career in the NFL that I got fired and it's from the hometown team. Then it hits the media. So all your friends and everyone's calling. And that's adversity. You know, real life adversity. Once again,
10:12 no one's dying. But now I have a baby who's just turned two or about to turn two. We have our second child who's three weeks old at the time. And I'm like, all right, what are we going to do next? Wow. And especially it would, I mean, I can't imagine what did you say to when you're like, wait a second, you're firing me because of optics, because of what it looks like to the media. Why do you care? I've never had that job, so maybe it's not my place to say that, but that blows my mind, man. Well, same thing. You know, I've never sat in the seat of a general
10:46 manager and I have an incredible amount of respect for what they have to do. But just like you, Ryan, I've hired people. And it's so hard for me to comprehend firing someone or letting them go when I've heard they do a great job and then saying, well, we have to make it look a certain way. That's really hard for me to comprehend. Yeah, but I guess that's part of that business, depending on who the person is. If they probably are more secure, I don't know this guy, But if they're probably more secure in themselves and maybe more established, I guess, they don't have to think about or worry about optics. But this idea that you have to be so consumed and concerned with how something looks on the outside of the building,
11:29 it probably means like, well, there's better places for you to be. And before this, I was watching the viral video, which obviously you know is out of you because it's of where you ended up at one point. And that's with Sean McVeigh being his get-back coach. You can Google that for Google Ted and Sean McVey and the get-back coach. The video is really funny. I remember watching it when it came out. I didn't realize that it was you, actually, until preparing for this.
11:59 But I'm curious about that interview process because McVeigh is known as a genius as one of the greatest coaches already, the lineage of his name. and his family being in the NFL. What was the process like to interview to work for him? That's another fun story. You know, the whole time, I was actually in Miami at the time. So Detroit ends, got an opportunity to go to the Miami Dolphins with Adam Gays in his first year. And we go there.
12:26 Within that staff, Vance Joseph had been hired to be the defensive coordinator. Vance's name was getting hot because we had immediate success in Miami. And, you know, it's a copycat league. All right, they're doing it well. They haven't been in the playoffs in a decade. And they're doing so well. What are they doing? his name gets kind of hot on the interview circuit.
12:43 The whole time, I think I'm going with Vance to Denver. You know, we go through this process. Vance is like, hey, you're coming with me. Are you good? I'm like, Vance, I'll go with you. I'm good. So he gets the job. And within that cycle, obviously, then a lot of things have to happen for a new head coach.
12:56 They've got to hire a whole staff. There's a lot of moving parts. So he's like, just hang tight. Just hang tight. You know, I'm working through the process. Got it. In the meantime, I start getting random phone calls from people, not even within the L.A. Rams organization, just random people.
13:08 They said, hey, got a call from the Rams. I gave him your name. And I'm thinking, okay, cool, great. You know, I'm under contract, so I can't talk directly to any teams. Vance is on staff. He can mention things like under, you know, under direct conversations. And I'm like, oh, cool. So hypotheticals, all sorts of things like that.
13:25 Then I started getting calls. And then the dolphins call me. So Mike Tannenbaum, Adam Gase, our head coach, they call me and they say, hey, we got a request from the L.A. Rams. They want to interview. In the NFL, you have to go through a request process. So I say, okay, great.
13:39 Mike Tannenbaum wants to block me because same thing. Mike says, well, this is a talented individual. Why do we let him out of the building? I still owe a lot to Adam Gase because Adam Gase said, you know what? This is a great opportunity for Ted and his family. We're going to allow him to explore it if that's what he wants. I said, Coach, I love it. And Mike understood that too.
13:55 And Mike's awesome. So Mike agreed to it at that point too. So we had this conversation. They said, go ahead. You can interview. So in the middle of all this, Sean is still in Washington, D.C. or in Virginia at that point. So he's actually there at the rest in town. and he's lining up interviews.
14:11 They call me, hey, can you fly out here? Got it. So I fly from Miami up there to meet with him. And I never met the guy. Never, never met Sean at this point. Had heard great things. Obviously, he had some mutual friends and said, hey, how is he? And you hear all the same things.
14:25 It's all true, Ryan. The guy's an unbelievable leader. He's an unbelievable person. He's an unbelievable human being. He doesn't have children yet. He just got married. I can't wait for a person like this to have children because I know what kind of father he's going to be.
14:37 Can't say enough great things about Sean McVeigh. he is a stud in all aspects of life. So within five minutes, I meet him, it just starts to roll line. We're literally, we're reading the same book at that time as extreme ownership by Jocco Willink and Leapabin. So he's like, you're reading that too? I said, yeah, I'm reading it. Here's what I. So we start talking culture.
14:55 We start talking practice sketches. We start talking international travel, how to handle West Coast to East Coast travel, all these things that would rot. And it started with what would you do? And then it quickly transitioned. All right, what are we going to do if this comes up? What are we going to do with team discipline? How are you going to handle fines? How are we going to do this?
15:13 Within five minutes, this guy and me are on the saved wavelength. We are literally clicking on all cylinders. And I'm like, okay, I can absolutely feel it. So within that night, had the job. And we go and we move forward and move the family to L.A. At that point with my wife now. You got to offer that job the day you interviewed the right then. That night, went out to dinner.
15:33 Yep, went out to dinner, had a great dinner, got offered the job. And Robin was, I think, eight and a half months pregnant at that point. Miami I said hey honey saddle up again we're going wow wow so what's it like to be your wife I mean this is a crazy life that you live man and and she's got to be along for the ride willing to pick up and go she's pregnant on flights you're getting fired you're getting hired I mean what's it like for her honestly Ryan she's my hero like I look at the stability you want to talk about consistency not you know what it's like to get children ready for school she does it with three kids every morning without my help because I've been at work for hours.
16:11 So I look at what she's able to do. I couldn't do what I do without being able to rely on her to be able to do what she does. And she does it at such an elite level. She makes me better each and every day. She holds me accountable, but she's my partner. We go through every decision together. It's not like I'm taking a job and saying we're moving. It's, hey, how do you feel about this?
16:28 And I trust her. I rely on her. And it's a team. It's a team effort. You talk about the greatest team. That's your family. So when we rely on each other and we have conversations like this and it's kind of cool. Our kids are getting older.
16:37 They're starting to understand, you know, dad's job and things like that. But, man, I couldn't do the job that she does, Ryan, because she is an absolute amazing warrior what she does day in and day out. Did you, so your high school sweetheart's right? Mm-hmm. Yep. Did you know that this was going to be your path when you were in high school? Did you say, I want to be, if I'm not good enough to play in the NFL,
17:00 which you and I probably in the same position, both played in the Mid-American Conference in college, had these grand illusions probably of thinking we are good enough to play in the NFL. So obviously I wasn't and you didn't make it got hurt. Did she know that? Did you know this? Like I'm going to be in professional sports some way or what was the conversations you had earlier on in your relationship? Yeah, no, short answer. No, absolutely not.
17:24 When we looked at our life paths, I started out in physical therapy. So when I went to college, I said, all right, what do you want to? I knew I wanted to be active. I wanted to be around athletic movements or I want to be around people trying to train to get better. And I went into it physical therapy. Then I kind of got the sense after a semester. I'm like, okay, well, this is a different path than I can probably see myself sustaining or excelling and loving. And then at the same time, just like, you know, Ryan, you're playing football.
17:50 I got introduced to our strength and conditioning coach, Steve Murray, you're still at the University of Toledo. And I started to see this. And at that point, strength and conditioning, performance, it wasn't what it is now. Sports science didn't exist. There was, there was all these things. It's very different. But I looked at this and said, that's an actually. professional. You can be a full-time strength and conditioning coach at the college level.
18:10 And at that point, I started to realize, yeah, probably at the NFL level. Within that, though, I'm still thinking, no, there's no grand vision of I want to be in the NFL in two years. I want to be at that point, just like you, I'm trying to be better as an athlete, as a student, as at that point a boyfriend or Robin, how can I be better each and every day? And then one thing happened after another and eventually I became a GA and then started working in it. I'm like, all right, this is definitely what I'm meant to do, and now I know what the next steps are. I think there's a lot to learn from your career path. And let's make it more broad beyond just professional sports for anybody who's trying
18:45 to build a career. Because to start at the lowest of the levels, I know which is what you had to do, right? You start making basically no money when you took a job. And you showed them, you earned each of those promotions. And I think the only way you truly earn it in that business, obviously you got to know people. We got to know people in every profession. That's part of it. But you didn't know Sean McVeigh, right, when you got that job. You met him and got hired the day you met him, right? So, and I would imagine he did the necessary checks prior to the meeting to say, all Ted's a dude, like he's a guy
19:16 you probably want. Let me just make sure. What was it? What did you, what type of approach did you take to your career from the very beginning that you still have today, obviously, you're in the middle of your prime? What did you take this, that enabled you to get promoted so fast? And take me back to the beginning, too, when, again, you signed up for these jobs with long hours, no money, all of that. I'd love to hear that part of it, too. Yeah, I think what helped me at that point is still what helps me today, Ryan. And I've always had this relentless desire, this relentless pursuit to be better every day. And that's my whole life is based on a process.
19:55 Did I get better today? And at the end of the day, here's the beauty. I can go home, stare at myself in the mirror, and I have to be honest with myself. everyone else. I could fool everyone else. Did you get better day? Sure, I got better day. You know who I'm not going to lie to myself? When I look at myself in the mirror every night, did you become better as a father, as a husband, as a Christian? Are you better as a performance coach? Did you help your team, your organization? Did you earn your money today? Did you earn your keep? I can be honest. So I've always had that. So going through the career trajectory, when I finished playing, got to the point I said, okay, I definitely, I want to do this. I want to look into the performance aspect. Had a conversation with our college strength and conditioning coach Steve Murray. He said, I want you to be a GA. I don't have a spot yet. You're going to have to wait a year.
20:38 Great, got it, coach. All right, I'm ready. So I actually took a high school job. I was going to take a full-time substitute teacher position and then coach football. So I went with my former head coach who was up around the Deerborn Michigan area at the time, just took a new job. So I say, great, I'm going to come up here. I'm going to work for you. We'll run the defense.
20:54 I'm going to run. I'm going to begin a strength and conditioning program for you because I know this is where my passion is and this is what I'm going to do next. Did that for a full summer. basically a couple months, probably eight weeks total. Within that time, then a GA job opened up at Toledo. So someone had left to-A graduate assistant. Graduate assistant. So a position opened up and he's like, do you want it? I'm ready. I'll be in a car tomorrow morning. So drove down, took the opportunity. Great. Fast forward a year, had an opportunity to work with multiple sports. I get promoted after one year to a full-time position. Great opportunity. Obviously, I'm young. I'm
21:27 22 or 23 at the time. I can't remember. Now I'm in charge of all of our Olympic sports at the University of Toledo. We had 15 at the time. Football was our 16, so I still helped. I still did everything with the football program. Now I get to work with 15 head coaches. Each of them has a staff. Each of them has a roster. We want to talk about leadership and learning and watching what works, what doesn't work. Amazing opportunity. Then kind of out of nowhere, get an opportunity to take a part-time job with the Detroit Lions. Now you get in and I'm looking at all right, medical benefits. There's a full-time position. Robin at the time was a full-time teacher in the Toledo area. at Whitmer High School. So now she's going there. We both have two full-time jobs. We think we're just murdering life and we're having a blast. And I'm like, hey, honey, hometown team, I can get in the NFL. I have a thousand hours that I can max out.
22:15 Not going to be much money. You good? Let's do it. Is this what you want to do? Yeah, all right. I'll ride with you. Let's go. Take that opportunity.
22:22 And then after one year, it got promoted there. It worked out. But there was a time within that first year, I go to a part-time position. I maxed out my hours through the off season. Ryan. I mean, you know the grind of football season. So off season, I'm done with a thousand hours in no time. So I made in effect 10,000 hours. That's all I was allowed to make. I'd assign paperwork basically saying, I will not sue you. I'm going to work for free. I'm willing to do this. So I didn't get a paycheck from training camp, from before training camp, all the way to February
22:48 of that year. So to make ends meet. Well, you had an hour's restriction? It wasn't out. It was something like that, but I think it was like a paid position since it was part time. Anything else would have. So you hit it and you hit it in like, let's keep gone. A hundred percent because I'm well you're not going to kick me out of the building. I can keep working. Great. I got it. I pick up another high school job to make ends me. So I'm driving at one point from Toledo, Ohio, Allen Park, Michigan, which is over an hour, from Allen Park, Michigan to Ann Arbor Mission about 45 minutes, then all the way back to Toledo. So I'm doing this every day. I'm getting up at 3, 3.30 in the morning and I'm cycling through. I don't even know what time I'm getting back
23:24 before 10-ish probably, wake up, start over and do it all over again. It was one of the funest parts of my career journey, Ryan, I love that part. I look back with fond memories, just the grind. Maybe I'm messed up, but knowing that I can get up earlier, I can accomplish more in a certain amount of hours than anyone. That's the competition that drives me. Let me play devil's advocate. Not just for that sake, but because like even me at points,
23:51 what about someone's like, dude, that's not a life, man? Like, what about your girlfriend or wife? What about your, what about like friends or balance or like, what do you, when you hear that, what do you think? It's a great question. At that point, how selfish were you before children, Ryan? I didn't know any better. At that point. Now, if you put me in that exact scenario with three children like I have right now, I'm going to look at it completely different.
24:15 I'm going to try to maximize both sides. But right then, I'm with my high school sweetheart. We're still close to home or hometowns there. So she has her parents, her support system, her friends. I really didn't have to think about it at that time. For lack of better term, I was allowed to be selfish. And that probably allowed me to put in those hours and to do those things that help me get to where I am today. If it happened later, I don't know if I would have been able to do it.
24:38 I can't answer them. I think when speaking with kind of recent college grads or I just spoke with one actually, who's a senior. And I'm like, dude, before, it's got a serious girlfriend, but before you have kids, this is the time that you work. Like you work like that and I know that's not popular everyone to say that but it really is I remember that too I'm the exact same way Ted where would would I didn't my first job after getting done playing arena football Was a sales job and a telephonic organization and I never had a real job in my life In the summers like I would go to like a warehouse and work and paint the walls and do random stuff But never it wasn't a real job I get a real job and I'm like wait I'm supposed to dress a certain way
25:22 I got a now I got a call cold call people I had no idea, but I didn't, I was curious to kind of learn from the others who I could see the stack rankings they posted. And I would just go talk to those people who were, who were doing it at a high level over years, and luckily found a few mentors who would come in extra and help me. And so the weekends were working too when nobody else would work. And I think that's, that's what the advice I would give. It's not the most popular advice, but is before you have kids and you can be a little bit selfish, that's when you kind of make. hey, that's when you set the foundation that could set you up for later to have a bit more
26:01 balance. It feels like that's what you did. Yeah, well, and I love what you said there. You've got to be allowed to grind and that's the stage in life when you really do have to grind. What you're doing right now, if you're a 20 year old, is going to help establish what you're able to do 10 years from now, 20 years from now. So do your habits of today align with your goals of tomorrow? That's one of my favorite things to say, Sean, you always say that. Do your habits of today align with your goals of tomorrow? If you're not grinding today, why do you expect to to have more not just tomorrow next week, next month, but five years from now. What you do now is going to directly relate to that.
26:31 And then you said you went and sought out the people that were successful. I love that. I'm making notes right now to where that's something I can continue to do. We can continue to do. That's what you do beautifully with this show. You think about what you're able to do. It's amazing. And I remember specifically, and I still do this to an extent.
26:47 So this is part of the sick part of me. When we schedule vacations, if there's a training facility, if there's a place nearby where I can sneak away for an hour. Ryan, I'm going to try to do it. If we're out in San Diego, California, and I know we're by Excells, where I know they have a phenomenal movement efficiency set up and they do a great job with training athletes.
27:04 Hey, honey, do you mind if I go over here with, now I'll try to take the kids. If I can visit another NFL training facility or a college, now I can bring the children and they get to experience something cool and I still get to kind of meet someone, talk shop, shop a little bit, but better myself, sharpen my skills and my tools. So what's better than learning from other people? nothing. You can learn from their mistakes for free without having to make them. I love that aspect.
27:27 Me too, man. You then leave the Rams to go to your current job, or at least your current team. You've been promoted since already being hired by the Eagles. So you're with the Philadelphia Eagles. And as I told you prior to recording, I do like to make these evergreen. But at this time, you guys are undefeated. You're the best team in the NFL at this point in the season. We're recording in late October of 2022. And it's neat because you and I've been talking for more than a year and your team was good last year, but you weren't the best team in the NFL, at least not by the record and by winning a Super Bowl, which is how this stuff usually gets measured. I'm curious, man, the way that you approach this, because you're such a process guy versus a
28:17 results-based guy, because I think we're so aligned and we were from the first time we spoke that the score will take care of itself if you if you dedicate and kind of marry the process can you walk me through your mindset now that you're a senior leader in the NFL for the number one team in the NFL how you view your record being undefeated as well as the daily process as what of what it takes to continue to get better each day yeah I mean the only thing that matters right now right it's a Friday right now so we'll play this Sunday we have have to go 1 and 0 this week. And then really to narrow that scope down, we had to have a phenomenal day on Monday because we came off of a by week. We had to have an even better Tuesday, Wednesday,
29:00 Thursday. We just finished our Friday preparation. And we had a great freaking Friday. We were locked in. The energy was right because every day we're preaching the same message. Last year, there was a point where we were two and five. And then we became a playoff team. And I've been team on teams like that. Our process hasn't changed since way back last year when we were two and five. Have we cleaned up things? Absolutely. But our process is still. that. I just look back at today. What could I do better? That's what I'm going to go through today. Now checklists. All right, next Friday, how do I get better on our Friday rhythm? Great. How do we improve that? If my process changes day by day based on our record, my process sucks. So if I only
29:36 concern myself with the results, I'm never going to be very good at whatever I'm trying to be good at. If I get my process refined every single day and focus on making that better, then we're going to have we're going to have a chance to be ultimately really, really good in life, no matter what skill you're talking about. As a father, a parent, a worker, any job, that's how this world works. Your process will result in whatever you get at the end of the day, at the end of the year, at the end of a life. So what your process leads to is everything, everything.
30:04 What are your goals, whether for yourself, for your team, now that you're working hand in hand with the owner, with the general manager, with the head coach. I know you're a part of that group. You were one of the guys to help hire your current head coach. How do you guys set goals and how do you talk about goals? We don't talk about goals, really. If we talk about our process. Now, if we're in a conversation amongst each other,
30:31 obviously our goal is to win the Super Bowl this year. The beauty is it's October 30th or 28th. We can't win the Super Bowl today. We can't win this week unless we win today. So once again, if you look at the top of the mountain and you step back and you're just staring up there, you're going to miss a step. So my favorite analogy is it's a step-by-step process. If I look up there, I'm going to inevitably fall. I'm going to bust my butt and I'm going to tumble down the stairs. And then I'm going to be at a lower point than I was to
30:57 start with. So we really don't set these huge, extravagant team goals. We talk about winning our division because that gets you into the playoffs. Then we talk about one step at a time after that. But we can't win our division today. We're in week eight of the NFL season. We have to win this week. And once again, boiling it back down, looking at that narrow scope, zoom in, zoom out. You better zoom back in and you better get the team to be able to zoom back in on the process. What's today? What's tomorrow? We have to get better each day. How do you measure if you won today or not? Great question. So for me, personally, I look back going through a checklist.
31:34 All right. For us, health plays a dividend. Did we have any avoidable injuries? So in the NFL, everything is predicated on injury when you're talking about performance. and the health and well-being of the team. Did we have anything that was unavoidable? Did we have a non-contact ACL? Okay, if we did, we're going to take a deep dive and we're going to go through a whole taxonomy process about what we could have done better.
31:53 And I'm talking about over the previous year. We're digging through piles of data, research, what we could have done differently with that athlete or what flag we may have missed. Now, for us as a team, obviously at the end of the week, did we win? Did we get that check? Yes.
32:07 But then within each unit, we have very specific isolated goals for our offense. And it changes week to week. Again, our process stays the same because we're working towards these goals, but it's going to interchange based on the defensive scheme that we're playing against, based on personnel, based on a lot of variables. Our defense is the same thing, and then our special teams unit is the exact same thing. So we have these goals, and then ultimately on each of those charts, each of those sheets,
32:29 did we win the football game? That's absolutely one of the goals. We work in professional sports. We have to win. That is one of our ultimate goals. But if we skip processes, we skip steps, and we have zero check marks all the way down, I guarantee the place where it says win is not going to have a checkmark if we missed all the other ones. In college, I remember, we got a grade on every single rep of practice, every single play in practice,
32:57 and obviously every single play in the games, a plus, a minus, a double plus, a double minus, and then we'd get a score on how we performed. And I remember liking that. I liked knowing that each individual thing I was going to do in the drill or the seven-on-seven or the team periods was carefully watched, and we would watch it afterwards. The coaches would watch it first, then we'd watch it with them, and graded as well as our games, and you could then focus on each play and each day. Do you have a grading system, or how do you do that with players?
33:37 since you're not the position coach, you're in charge of basically the team in a sense of their performance. How do you guys go about doing that? We actually do the same exact thing. Every player, every rep is getting graded. Specifically, here's the interesting part. Our practice squad probably has the most detailed grading from every single rep being just combed through with a comb because we look at every rep for them as ultra important because if a guy goes down who's next up, are they ready? So we grade effort. We grade performance. Are they? making elite level plays, and it's based on a grading system. So for us, we look at those plays, and ultimately, can we rely on? Can we trust? Is this player ready to step in and fulfill
34:18 a role if they're called upon? And then obviously our starters, they're still getting graded. Every play is getting graded. So when we go through that process, the coaches are watching film, they're breaking it down every day, and then the same thing. Then the players come back. They provide that to them. Hey, here's where you are. Here's where you messed up. Here's where you did great. Continue to build on that. And then let's fix the other part. So we go through that it's it's a monotonous process as you know with sports it's monotonous but for me i look at that more is consistency you have to be consistent in your process and if something does become monotonous all right is it time to change is it time to adapt is it time to evolve that's where you have to
34:53 ultimately assess yourself and say are we doing what's right right now did it work last year that doesn't matter is it right for our team right now one of the commonalities ted that i've found among the greatest players I've played against the ones who really showed up on game day is one they showed up every day but another element to the way that they approached their craft was they loved being coached in fact they would get mad if they weren't being coached and coached hard and I think I think this is a transferable skill this is transferable to all industries not just sports of people who say, like, I want the feedback. I crave the feedback. I need the feedback because I want to get better. Do you have some examples on your current team of guys who exhibit that quality of they so
35:45 badly want, need, and have to be coached hard? Absolutely. I'm glad you bring this up to, Ryan, because the cool thing is part of our foundation. What is an eagle? Part of that criteria is your coachability. Are you coachable? Because that's something, if you're not coachable, we're probably not going to draft you were probably not going to bring you into our organization. You have to be coachable, but you have to be wanting to be coached. Jalen Hertz literally is the first guy that popped in my head as you were talking about that. He literally gets pissed off if you will not coach him on everything. Tell me what I'm doing. I don't care what I'm doing right. I'll know when I'm do something right. You better tell me when I do something wrong. So a couple of weeks ago, Jalen did something,
36:22 not wrong, anything else. I went up to him. I said, hey man, you talk about the standard is the standard. That's one of his best sayings. And he leads by example. He leads verbally. He's amazing. He's amazing. He's a coach's kid. And I said, hey, your standard sucks today. You know what he did? He turned that shit around the next day, Ryan, and he was even more on fire the next week. And I've just seen him progress through the time here. There's guys, I mean, Brandon Graham comes to mind.
36:44 You look at all of our guys. We have so many elite guys on our team. I'm thinking back when I was with Calvin Johnson, he literally personified the same thing. And Domic and Sue, Aaron Donald, Matthew Stafford. I've been with all these players throughout my career. And literally, I can name almost every guy in our team currently. those are the players that ultimately have Hall of Fame caliber careers. They win championships.
37:06 And they are the ones that continue to strive and drive themselves to get better even after they win championships, even after the personal accolades. Those things don't matter because if you're looking at those things, you're looking at the results. These guys are process oriented and that's what's led them to that level of success. What do you, and we love those players. We love those people who work at our companies who work on our teams. unfortunately that is not necessarily the norm. It's probably more the norm this year for your team. The results probably are leading to that.
37:39 But how do you handle it when you find someone who maybe is really talented, really gifted, but maybe doesn't love being coached? Or, God, I hate to say, it doesn't love the grind or to work at it to make themselves better. How do you approach, because this definitely happens in the corporate world, right? How do you approach somebody like that? It all comes back to what's your why. You know, what are you motivated by? And our guys are just like anyone else. You're motivated by different things. And unfortunately, yeah, there's guys on our team that are more motivated by the things that football can give them than by the act of practicing, preparing and training for the level of
38:23 football. There are those guys like Jaylen that literally love the process. But there are the other guys that want the next contract. They're motivated by money. There's other guys that are motivated by the fame, the recognition. There's nothing wrong with that. So for me, Ryan, when I look at it, number one, my first rule is don't get mad at the player because they're being who they are. They're being who God created them to be. I'm never going to fault someone. It's not my job to judge you. If you're motivated by money, God bless you. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to bring you in. And then I'm going to try to trigger key words. When we're training in the middle of the off season, and I know you don't want to be there because it's voluntary. And I know you'd just
38:55 rather be in Vegas partying or doing something else, way more fun than grinding with us. I'm going to bring up, hey, man, you better get strong because that bag of money you're going to be carrying around your second contract, you're going to need all the muscle you can get, bringing them back to the why, because if you can tug on those heartstrings, if you can bring them back to their personal drive or their personal fire, Ben Newman talks about this, what's your burn? What makes that athlete focus and what makes that athlete literally want to get better each and every day?
39:22 If it's money, great. I'm going to draw on that. and we're going to make sure I'm going to try to get you as much money as possible by pushing you. So you've got to find out what their why is. How much of your, I texted Bobby Carpenter one of your former players right before this. And I said, hey, what's something about Ted that I can talk to him about that I won't find on the internet? Because, you know, I do like a deep dive. And he's like, oh, so first of all, I love Bobby.
39:45 My brother played in college with him. I hung out with him quite a bit in college and just was with him a week ago. But he is notoriously very critical of people, especially coaches, if they're not good. I've heard a lot of stories. And so I was wondering, I'm like, I wonder what he's going to say? Like, I love Ted, but there's a chance, Bob he doesn't. And he goes, oh, my God, I love that dude. I just can't get over the energy he brings, the juice he brings to each day, and that's contagious.
40:13 And I was like, that's really cool. And it's true. I think that's true. I sense that from you in our leadership circle meetings, as well as every time we've interacted. Is that something that's just a part of you? Did you get inspired to be this way from others, a combination of all? What do you think that is in you that you bring so much juice
40:30 to whether it's a Zoom call with people who aren't a part of the NFL, which is our group, or when you are coaching your players? Yeah, once again, Ryan, I think, I drink a lot of coffee, that's part of it. But for me, it's that relentless pursuit of being better. You know, for me, if I can draw something out, which I can in every conversation,
40:50 I'm going to be so in tune into that because I'm never going to miss an opportunity to get better. Never going to miss a rep. So if I'm having a deep dive with you and we're talking about all things leadership, I'm going to take away so much from that conversation. If you can't get excited about making yourself better, which is all we're meant to do on earth, then how do you wake up in the morning and go through life? For me, it's all about what can I do? What can I draw out of these athletes?
41:12 But then you said a word right there. It was inspire. I just read a great book by Stephen M.R. Covey. we actually have Britt and Covey on our team, the grandson of Stephen Covey. So the family has obviously done a tremendous job with pushing these. But the name of the book is Trust and Inspire. And in it, he talks about motivation versus inspiration. Motivation is great.
41:34 So for me, I always used to think that this was motivation. I read this book and I started thinking, man, I would rather, how much more would I be benefiting others and myself if I could get to the point where I inspire? So how do you inspire with repetition, with consistency? I can motivate somebody through a five-minute talk. If I go talk to a high school football game, I'll get them motivated. But what can I do to inspire people? I can be who I am each and every day consistently over time.
42:00 And then they see that there's no breakdown. There's no chink. There's no loss. There's no letdown. That should inspire people to see, okay, well, I can do that. Shoot, all right, I can wake up every day early and go work out before work starts. I can do those things. So if I don't pour in my passion to our players who go through a grind of a season, Ryan,
42:16 You know what the college season is like, and you know through your brother and through a lot of other people. The NFL season is a grind. And then I got to bring these guys in and we have to do more uncomfortable things. Well, if I don't have energy, I shouldn't be in there because my job is to get those guys to the point where they can better themselves, protect themselves. Go make money if that's their goal for them and their family or win championships. Whatever it is, my job is to make sure I better bring the energy every single day consistently. You know why consistency, while not a sexy term, is certainly. important because I think consistency is the foundation of trust if your guys
42:53 trust you because they know you're going to be there they not only are going to be there but you're going to be there with this type of energy and desire and when you show up every day and I this is a big reason why I try and consistency is one of my four core values because I realize how important trust is and it's created I think a lot of trust with my audience because they know every month day the email is coming for 337 consecutive weeks every every Sunday night at seven a new podcast is coming for seven and a half plus years never missing no matter what despite travel sickness COVID you name it we're not missing like that thing builds trust and I I would imagine the guys
43:31 around you that's got to be a big thing they say about you too yeah I'm going to steal that first of all because I would say consistency is the truest measurement of performance consistency is the foundation of trust that is what that's empowering because ultimately what do we have without trust If I can't get an athlete to trust me, why would I ever expect them to do the things that I'm asking to do that are uncomfortable to go home to additional recovery modalities that are going to help their bodies turn over so that they can come back better the next day? If I don't establish trust, I have no chance, nor should I. And then I always tell guys this, don't trust me right away. Don't trust me. You can get burned in this life.
44:06 And I know you feel opposite. I see why you say that, Ryan, but for me personally, I'm like, don't trust me. I'll give my trust away before I expect somebody to give me their trust. as weird as that is. I agree with that. No, I agree with you. I'm willing to trust you prior to you trusting me because I understand your life experiences are different than mine and maybe you've been burned more than I have. This happens with relationships at time and I understand it. When you see someone is so guarded, perhaps maybe it's in a, you know, someone's like hesitant to date or to commit. Maybe their life experiences are different than mine and I have to be open-minded to
44:45 the fact that if they've been burned a few times more than I have, I kind of get it. I understand. With that said, though, I had this kind of party a couple weeks ago as an appreciation event for people who listen to show. Isn't Dayton, so it was local, out-of-town people is tough for them to come. But anyways, it's like a concert. And one of the guys who came, he's actually a member of my other leadership circle, he came, and he's one of my good friends named Parker Mays. Parker said, you know what? I noticed when I go to your events, the thing that I love the most is like every person I meet is just such a good guy or girl like trusting, they're thoughtful, they're curious, they're just really high character people. And that was
45:25 like the greatest compliment I could ever receive. And I was like that, I think that starts because of that of the trust, because of like leading and having relationship with that. Because when you lead with that, people usually will try hard to keep it. They'll work really hard to maintain it because they already have it. Yeah, I like that. And I agree with you too. You're a magnet for the people that typically you want to be around it. If you're willing to get that trust out, and then those people are also willing to work for it, then you're going to have something really special bond over time because then you haven't even been vulnerable yet. Imagine when you show some vulnerability how much more strong that trust is going to get and grow. So yeah, we're speaking
46:02 the same language. I absolutely agree with you. Give it away, but I expect to earn it in return. What were your parents like? What was your upbringing like? Really, man, I'm blessed. Parents are still around. They're high school sweetheart still married. So unbelievable. But small town really real upbringing. My dad woke up at 2.30 in the morning every day for his job in downtown Detroit would drive the hour-ish from our house. He would still come home and I'd be there, a little energy bunny. Dad, you want to play catch? Want to play catch? Let's go out. And he would do it every day. I have such more of an appreciation for him now, right? Because when I get home, I'm just ready to go.
46:37 to bed, but you got to go. You got to go. And he always did it, man. So he taught me a lot. My mom, she is the, she's the woman who if you tell her she can't do something because she's a woman, she's 100% going to do it. She's driven in demolition derbies in our county forest, hunts and fishes. Ryan, I can't, I can't make up stuff in that there's a thousand other things I can tell. But she is someone. She makes me respect women in a different manner because I was raised by such a strong woman. And then my dad still had these awesome qualities. So I am blessed. I'm spoiled just to be able to call them.
47:11 My parents, Brenda and Kevin Day. I owe everything to them because they're amazing. Where are they? Are they close by? They're in Michigan. So for us, honestly, a big part of the move was to get closer. It's not close, but they can drive here in about eight hours and they can see our kids. And that's, that was a big draw of making the decision to leave L.A. to come here.
47:27 That was a big part of it. What do they think of their son having a job like you've got, the head of player performance with Philadelphia Eagles? They tell me they're proud, man. And it's something, you know, it obviously makes me. that they're proud and they're happy. But I remember we opened up in Detroit this year and we had a game. And I have a buddy who unfortunately passed away 10 years ago. So he was super young before 30 passed away. He has a 12 year old son. And I haven't seen his son in years. Obviously, I've been on the road and moved. You know, we live in different areas. And I was able, I brought them down
47:59 on the sideline and pregame, got to see my buddy's parents. And man, it was emotional. gave them a big hug and then being able to give the kid a hug my parents were also there they're friends with my buddy's parents so being able to experience that and bring them down on the field where I know it was an emotional thing for them but they were so thankful and then being able to get to talk to my buddy's son and say I expect you to grow up like a good man like your father was being able to have that moment man there's there's moments in life Ryan where you'll never forget I'll never forget that moment because I saw not just how proud my parents were but to be able to share that experience with someone who had obviously gone through some tragedy and some personal adversity
48:36 and being able to have that experience is there's no price tag that you can put on that. One of the parts of your career that I found to be really cool that we've talked about is you were in the group of people interviewing when you had a head coaching opening for the team. And I am fascinated by the hiring process, especially for huge jobs like the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. Can you, I don't know how many names you could name or how it went, but as much as you can, walk me through what that process was like, what questions were asked, who stood out, why did they stand out, like the combination of questions and answers. I would have loved to have been in that room.
49:19 What was that like? Man, I felt like I was stealing knowledge by the second. If there was a meter ticking ride, I mean, it was literally going a thousand miles an hour. When you talk about the greatest football minds in the world, we got to take. interview, it was either nine or ten of them in total. And we got to sit down with everyone. And the topics ranged from their personal upbringing, what their why was. Why do you want to be a coach? Why do you want to be the head coach? Why do you want to be in effect, the CEO of an organization? You know, what made you? A lot of it was their parents. They came from coaching backgrounds like
49:49 Josh McDaniels and Nick Siriani, who we ultimately hired. His dad was a huge influencer. His dad comes around the building all the time. You can see how much of an influence because he was a coach for, I think, over 40 years at Nick's high school. And his brother, as a coach at a smaller college. So you look at this and how it happens, they just caught the bug. But topic ranges from culture to how you handle discipline to offensive defensive special team schemes, to staff development, to player development. How are we going to pour into these athletes?
50:18 Are you going to lead by discipline? Are you going to lead by love? In hearing the dramatically different interview process from each individual candidate, each one was so unique that I can't even describe the intricate details of what every, every single head coach candidate ticks to a different beat. So for me, it's getting into the nitty gritty details, talking about one of my questions that I love to ask them, what is your personal daily routine? What's your process?
50:44 What's important? Do you get up in the morning? Do you work out? Do you work out at night? That was one of the things going back to Sean McVeigh. Sean and I worked out in the morning and it was early. It was like four in the morning. We would work out every single morning.
50:54 And it wasn't long. It was 15 to 20 minutes. But that was our daily digest of the team, what's going on, what the culture is like, what who do we need to love up? Who do we need to push harder? And getting to understand, do you have a process? Because to be a successful head coach, if you don't have a daily process, if you don't have a routine, you're probably not going to be very successful because it's such a grind. So trying to figure out what makes them tick, I think, figuring out their why and then understanding,
51:19 what are your values? The guys that had great cultures like Nick, like Coach Sireani, he had five core values ready to roll. And it was connect, compete, accountability, football IQ fundamentals. So then we broke down each one. going to live this, but how are we going to make the players understand that this is important so that they start to live it? Well, we're going to demonstrate it day by day. We compete in every way. Coaches compete against coaches, players versus players, players versus coaches. That's how we brought competition in connecting. You have to do team events. You have to get together. You can't put
51:48 connect up on the wall throughout our facility and then not actually promote practices to connect. Guys, go to the basketball game together. Go to the Phillies game. They're in the World Series. Go enjoy that. Go have fun. That's how you connect. You don't just put it up on the wall. We talked through the process of how you're actually going to instill these things and live them out and let them breathe and permeate throughout our organization. What were those five values again? Connect, compete, accountability, football IQ, and fundamentals.
52:18 Wow. Okay. So you have all these great candidates. He gets chosen. How, what put it over edge to choose him? You know, it's a lot of the stuff that we've talked about, Ryan. storytelling. You know, that was one of the things, man, he, Coach Siriani is phenomenal at telling a story. Really? Real quick, remember, I mean, obviously you remember, I remember his first press
52:42 conference. It was a, it was a disaster. Like, I remember thinking the Eagles are going to lose every game. Their coach, he just, I don't know what happened during it, and he's obviously rebounded and now it probably went coached the year this year, but, but it was not good. So I'm wondering what you were thinking that day like, oh my God, did we mess up? Did we make a mistake? Or what were you thinking from making him, choosing him and then him kind of blowing the first press conference? You know what's funny? And this is what makes him him. Accountability being one of our five core values. You know what Nick did when that happened? He owned it. Right. He literally played that clip in front of the whole team the first day. He said, here's whatever brings to me. First day.
53:20 Playes it. Plays the clip. He's like, guys, this is what people think of me. It's okay. Do you know what what I did the next day? I went back to the process. I met with our PR coordinator. I literally said, how can I get better? What do I need to do? And then he did it. So don't just tell me, people see way better than they hear. We watched him and he progressively got better. And you look at him now, he kills it in the media. He can joke with the guys with the press conference. He has done such a tremendous job of living out the value of accountability through that process. But he does that in every way each and every day. And I think that example is a great one, because if you look at the first one, everyone thought that. I get it. In the back of my mind,
53:54 I'm like, okay, that's one bad one. And we're in the Philadelphia media, which obviously, is not a gentle media to live in. And they crushed them and everyone worldwide. National media was crushing them. So a lot of people were thinking similar to you, but in the back of my mind, knowing him and watching him, he had a trueness about him
54:12 where you could see the empathy within him. You could see coaching from a loving standpoint, but still holding players accountable through his storytelling of how he told us he handled certain situations. When you hear someone talk passionately and you can feel that radiate off them and then you know it's authentic because you can talk to the players and you do this background
54:31 research, then you know and you put that trust in. Same thing. All right, we're going to instill trust because you bomb one press conference doesn't mean that we're just going to turn you off. If you throw one interception as a quarterback, we're not going to ultimately pull you out after that first throw. We're going to give you another chance. We've been through this together. Let's just give them a chance to go through the process and work through this. You mentioned Jalen Hertz a few times, and obviously I'm biased towards quarterbacks. And I remember he's gone through some adversity in his career. There's been doubt.
55:00 He got benched in college when his team went on to win a championship. And that had to be such a bittersweet, weird feeling of winning or title, but getting benched. I think that would be so hard. And he was doubted in Philadelphia. Will he be the guy? Will he be the guy now? He's MVP candidate and potentially will win that, depending on how the rest of the year goes. What is it about him and his leadership style that seems to work so well?
55:27 now because i don't know if it always did and the performance wasn't always what it was now so it's obvious he's gotten better uh what is it about him that's so special you know what's funny right we've had these same conversations like we're talking about i've asked him these questions how have you changed he's like i haven't changed my standard's always been this he said my process hasn't changed he's like maybe the results have changed because of all these other things have worked out he said but if i don't go back to the drawing board and continue to work relentlessly on my craft How can I expect to be better? And one of the stories, I remember this from going through the evaluation process for the draft that year,
56:01 one of the stories that I absolutely loved about Jalen, talking to the staff back at Alabama at the time, and they told me about the day after he got benched. So you look at the national media, everyone's crushing this kid who at that point, he was probably 19, 20 years old. And they're crushing them, saying, you're no good, you know, it's two, it's this, it's that. And I said, okay, tell me about that. And they said, well, the next day we had a workout. We're in the room and we have a training session. There's a freshman goofing off.
56:25 And who shuts down the lift, who stops everything and tells them that it's not the standard at Alabama? It's Jalen. This is a kid that's going through ultimately at that point, maybe the worst adversity he's went through, certainly from a sports career. And he, in the back of his mind, said, that's not the standard. I'm not going to allow it. He stopped the lift, pulled the freshman under his wing, and said, that's not how we do things here. This is Bama, there's a standard. And then took that kid under his wing.
56:49 That alone, you talk about leadership. Ryan, right when I heard that, I said, this kid's got. it. How do you understand that at 19 years old? Well, he's a coach's kid. He's been raised right. But he holds himself to a personal standard that is almost untouchable. And that's what makes him drive for greatness every single day. He's kind of quiet, it seems, though. I saw him on the Manning cast. And he wasn't, he didn't have a big personality on that. And I see him interviews. Like he's pretty kind of, I don't know if he's introverted or not, but seems like a little different at regard. Maybe you see a different side. I'm sure you do. But, but I think that also,
57:23 for those who aren't the loud ones or the super talkative ones that they may, they may be inspired by that style. Like, am I accurate there or what's he like? Yeah, I would say the one word I would use stoic. He is stoic, man. Jim Caldwell was very stoic. Yeah. Never had to raise his voice, anything.
57:42 Now, but Jaylon has that in him. If there's a time when he goes through, you know, to break the team down in a certain situation and he starts talking, you're like, holy cow, all right, this kid thinks like a coach. and he starts saying the right things. He has that within him. He draws it out when it's necessary in his mind. So otherwise, he's just going to remain cool, calm, collected. He's going to be as consistent as possible every single day.
58:03 And that's where that stoicism comes in because there are very different personality types. He has a very unique one. He's laid back, which I think helps him. And he can take on the coaching and doesn't respond with an emotional standpoint where most humans, if you coach me hard, I'm going to respond. He wants that. And he begs for it like you talked about, Ryan. You give him the coaching, he's like, all right, I got you.
58:23 And he goes out on the next year. He fixes it, right then. It's awesome. Well, I think one of the biggest things I always remember, they're like, what do you listen to in the locker before a game? And I would listen to the music that would be calming because it was not a problem to be amped up. But as a quarterback, I think stoicism is important because amidst the chaos and the body's flying around and the big guys trying to get you and managing the huddle in between plays, perhaps when you're always fighting adversity. You got sacked and get picked off. something bad happens. You've got to respond immediately. You've got to have complete belief in the play call as you're telling your teammates this is what we're about to go do. That stosis, I think, is so important in that position that you can then take on. I had Brady Quinn on, and Brady and I talked a lot about this, the fact that going through that as a quarterback can help you. And that's why you see quarterbacks go on beyond the football field, whether they're coaching or their executives or they're doing big things because they're able to remain.
59:20 calm amongst all of the chaos and that's leadership that's life that happens out in all different areas of the world so I think it's a it's good things for us to kind of draw from even if you haven't played quarterback even if you haven't done it you can still draw and learn from that no question it's calmness in the storm and that's stoicism by definition you look at how do you handle each situation if the situation is never bigger than you you're going to be successful and you're not only going to be successful you're going to instill confidence in those surrounding you. In a sports team, that is the ultimate best thing that you can do.
59:55 You instill confidence in the rest of the team. Everyone's going to elevate their level of play without getting too emotional, too high, too low. It's bad on both ends. For him, who will call him collected and you stay stoic and you know that the moment's not bigger than you, then I have ultimate confidence. We're going to go dominate and we're going to conquer that moment. It's the ultimate, one of the ultimate measures of leadership is that you help others perform
01:00:18 at a level higher than maybe they, even thought they were capable of. And because of your presence, because of the way that you handle yourself, the way that you show up each day, that's what the best of the best leaders find a way to do, whether they're playing, the coaching, or they're leading a business. They make others better. They help others perform at a higher level than they thought they were capable of. And that's why people say, ah, I want to work with Ted. I got to be around that. That's the type of thing that I think is huge. Ted, one more question for you, man. When you're, when you're, I could talk to you all day, but when you're,
01:00:53 I know you're in middle of game week, though, when you talk to people who are a bit earlier in their career, what you do, you've got a lot of young guys who are right out of college, as well as those who aren't playing in the NFL, because I know a lot of people come to you for advice. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person maybe in their early to mid-20s? And first, develop an incredible routine.
01:01:19 develop consistent patterns that are going to help you get better every single day. Your goal should be to be better tomorrow than you were today and so on, so forth. Connect to those. You talk about this. Great, Ryan. You always do a beautiful job of explaining this. Your who is so important. Surround yourself with people that are going to elevate you.
01:01:38 So if you need to reach out, if you're in the performance profession, reach out to me. Reach out to whoever's in the profession or in a seat that you want to be in. Surround yourself with those people. Be down doors. Be relentless in your performance. suit to connect with those people. And then ultimately, make sure that your personal process is in align with whatever your goals are.
01:01:56 Do your habits of today? Align with your goals of tomorrow. Well, if you're sitting here and you tell me you want to be a multi-millionaire, but you have zero money in the bank and you're 20, you should be able to save a little bit. All right, you have zero today. What are you going to save in the next month in the next week? Setting those minor goals, those small stepstones that are going to help you ultimately accomplish what you need to get.
01:02:14 But more than anything, establish your routine and be absolutely relentless. If you are relentless, no one will ever be able to stand in your way. I always love saying, if you fear failure, you're probably going to fail. If you attack success, you will be unstoppable. If you attack it with a relentless pursuit, you will be unstoppable. Nothing can get in your way. I forgot one more thing. So you sent me this picture of incline in Colorado Springs.
01:02:38 It made me want to book a flight to go out there. I've never been to this place. So talk to me, walk me through what this picture is of incline in Colorado Springs. and it looks like a bunch of steps going straight up. Yeah, it is. It's almost a 3,000 step climb ride. So you're in, obviously, Colorado Springs. So I think you start out at 7,000 feet of altitude.
01:03:00 And you eventually get to just shy of 10,000. So it's a steep climb. And World Olympians do this in 30 minutes. My time, the first time I did this was like 35, 36 minutes there. Like, that's pretty good. It's like, all right, but I want to do better. I was pissed off that I didn't do 30 or sub 30. Not Olympian.
01:03:17 I'm just delusional. So for me, though, what that stands for, the story leading into that, we're in Colorado Springs because we're acclimating to altitude because on our schedule that year, we were supposed to go to Mexico City. We were scheduled. I was in L.A. at the time with the Rams. We were going to play the Kansas City Chiefs. And this was a huge game.
01:03:35 We weren't undefeated, but we were probably like eight and one, nine and one. I actually have a game ball up there from this game. And I'll get to why the game was really cool and important. And Casey was the favorites in the FACC. Pat Mahomes is bawling out. Those guys are just going crazy. So we go, cool, rewind a week. We're in the middle of California wildfire season, which is not fun to live in California
01:03:55 during. So we actually had to move our previous game. We were playing the Seattle Seahawks. We had to move out of our facility on Friday that week. We moved into a team hotel downtown. They brought all of our families down. Basically got evacuated. The wildfires were getting close to our facility.
01:04:09 So we miss a Friday day of practice. I'm on the phone with Sean. How are we going to schedule this? We'll do this on Saturday at USC's campus. The air quality was good down there. So we change our whole plans. On that Monday, we were scheduled to fly to Colorado Springs because the next week was our Mexico game. So we play the game in Seattle or against Seattle at home.
01:04:26 Excuse me. And we play, we win. I think that was actually the game that they filmed the get back video as I think about it, which is hilarious. So we get out of that. All right, Monday, we're going back. The fires are still going on. They kind of calm down around our area. So we're able to sleep at home with our families.
01:04:42 Within that night, I want to say 50 members of our organization, players, staff members included. get evacuated overnight and we're still supposed to fly out. All right, what are we going to do? Well, everyone, the organization did a phenomenal job. Stan Cronkey and everybody at that organization can't speak highly enough of them because they sent families, they bought hotel rooms, they did all this for the families to make sure that they were safe as we were getting ready to leave. So they take care of us. We fly to Colorado. We go through the flight, land, fires have gotten worse. We're like, okay, what are we going to do? They get to the point where they actually get another plane for our families. So our families fly to
01:05:17 of Colorado to meet us. Once again, the Rams said, whatever the cost is, we'll eat it. They fly meet us in Colorado Springs. We're in Colorado. Our families are here. We're in the middle of this wildfire season that's really destructive. It was the most deadly wildfire season at the time in the state of California. In the middle of that week prior, I skipped this part. There was a mass shooting in probably within three miles of our facility. My wife and a bunch of the other coaches' wives were actually at dinner that night. I didn't know where they were, but they were right by where this place happened. It happened at kind of a country bar. And several casualties, very, very unfortunate. A police officer died. It was a sad time. And then the fires hit and we're going through this process.
01:05:56 So there's a lot going on. So the adversity going through that moment, great, it's building. It's building. In the meantime, the Mexico field is unsafe to play on. We literally say, all right, we have two days to schedule a game back at the L.A. Calcium. It's a Monday night football game. It's the biggest game of the week. All right, make it happen. So we're in the middle of all this adversity. Now we have to fly back with families, go to L.A., pull off a Monday night football game. The organization handed out all tickets to first responders and everyone that was going through, fighting the wildfires, the tragedy, the shooting, everything that had gone on.
01:06:27 So you couldn't buy tickets for this game. We fill the stadium. And we're in the middle of this. Ryan, it is one. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it. The end score, I believe, was 54 to 51. It was one of the most wild games I've ever been a part of. But having the crowd there, and these are people that are.
01:06:42 putting their lives on the line to go fight these wildfires. These are people that just lost family members. They're in the middle of this. And we're sitting there playing a football game. And it just made me think when we're in Colorado, we got to do the steps. So we did the incline while we were there. And I'm thinking in my head as I'm in the middle of this 30 minute climb, man, this is, all right, this is uncomfortable. Every time I started thinking about, there's people that just died in a mass shooting. There's people whose homes are gone. They're never going to have their possessions again. And there's people going through life-changing things. And I'm worried about taking one step because my heart rate's a little bit high, man, you want to talk
01:07:15 about perspective? And then this is one of the craziest parts. My family and I are taking our family Christmas photos that next week, Ryan, and we're in, we're at a local mall and we're doing the family picture thing and it's just where we went every year. There was someone in line who had lost a family member in that mass shooting. They were picking up their family photos. They took these photos with a full family. They came in there and they're leaving to go back to a home where they don't have a full family. And you want to talk about perspective, whatever's going on in your life, whether you have health issues, whether you're just in a tough time, you get fired from a job, you know what?
01:07:49 There's people going through a lot worse. So if you want to talk about the perspective and the empathy that you can have for just humanity, and I think we need this more than ever right now because you think about the things that are going on the world, those things led me to think about what's important, one step after another. If you're going through adversity, it's still one step after another. If things are going great, it's one step after another. If you don't change that process, you just consistently move forward consistently. You are going to be better at life in the end.
01:08:16 And along the way, make sure you help somebody out because you don't know what they're dealing with, what they're going through. Wow, man. Thank you for sharing. I know we went a little over, but I really appreciate this, that story, all these stories. I had high hopes and expectations you just killed. So I really appreciate it, man, especially in the middle of a game week. I'm excited for you guys. I've become an Eagles fan.
01:08:38 and I wasn't didn't really care before but I've become one so I'm rooting hard for you guys I just really grateful for you man and I know that we're going to continue our dialogue as we both progress absolutely Ryan I can't thank you enough man I'm grateful to be here appreciate you love it thanks that thank you I am a big fan of the way Ted approaches his craft his mindset his consistency his habits I've seen him do this for more than a year and I've seen him do this for more than a year and I've seen how he shows up during our leadership circle meetings committed to providing value to the others in the group as well as being a fantastic listener, a big note taker and really good about following up with what he's learned. And I admire that. I think that's a great quality and a person.
01:09:29 A few takeaways from my notes. Do your habits today align with your goals of tomorrow? What is your daily process? If you set big goals, what actions are you taking to get closer to achieving them each day? It's about winning each day and measuring that with yourself and being honest with yourself. That's how the results take care of themselves. And then his motto of relentlessly trying to get better, trying to learn from every moment. Again, I see him do this regularly in our leadership circle meetings of showing up, committed. and ready to learn, ready to add value, something inspiring for us to see and try our best to do the same. When we talked about coaching and being coachable, the greatest players love being coached. In fact, they demand it. They crave it. If you don't do that for them, they get upset with you.
01:10:30 And I think about for all of us as leaders, while we need to be coaching others, we also should be seeking out coaching. Everyone needs a team or at least a few people in their life to provide them with that feedback to get better. So I would challenge you and ask you, what are you doing? Who do you have in your life to ensure you're getting feedback so that you can improve and get better each day? Again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Ted Rath. I think it will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you continue to write reviews and rate the show,
01:11:14 hopefully five stars on Apple Podcast, you are helping me do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to soon. Can we?
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