The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 527: Sally Jenkins - What Sports Can Teach Us About Leadership, Excellence, & Life (How To Make The Right Call)

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join 10's of thousands of your fellow learning leaders and receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12   https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Notes: Tony Dungy's quiet strength - He never criticized without an adequate solution. As leaders, it's on us to be thoughtful about how we help our people get better. Just yelling that someone messed up is not helpful. We need to provide an adequate solution. Dianna Nyad – She swam for 53 hours from Cuba to Florida. It looked like a solo mission. It was anything but. She needed a full team to make it happen. We need other people to help us accomplish big missions. A lot of people are afraid to win. They are afraid to put it all on the line and risk not being enough. Too many of us want to look cool and play it safe in case we lose. The people who sustain excellence over time commit 100% to what they're doing even though they might lose. It's worth it. It is "kind of a sin" to waste potential and the real champions never committed it. - Dan Jenkins Advice from her dad (legendary sports writer, Dan Jenkins): "Never let a thing go until it's as good as you can make it." "Interest yourself first before you'll interest anyone else." Key learning from Brian Daboll - Winning organizations are made up of people who've been doubted in the past. The "greats are a result of construction." We must be intentional. Go all in. Preparation. Practice. There must be a dept of preparation. "Never leave the field wishing you'd prepared more." "Pressure is what you feel when don't know what the hell to do." Michael Phelps was not born with an innate sense to swim fast. His body was well suited to swim but not much more than any other Olympian. "The work is what made him great." Day-to-day consistency leads to excellence. Derek Jeter built his schedule around being consistent every single day. Laird Hamilton built his resilience through doing hard things like cold plunges, saunas, and surfing tough waves. Activate your body to stress: Stress has two sides. We're meant to experience stress. Stress + Rest = Growth. We need stress to grow. Life is born without it. Pat Riley - What happens when people don't believe in their leader? They gear down their effort. Life/Career Advice: Shoe leather hard work. You can't substitute hard work. Find the thing you'd do for fun and see if you can build a career from it.   Sally Jenkins has been a columnist and feature writer for The Washington Post for more than twenty years. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 and in 2021 was named the winner of the Associated Press Red Smith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Sports Journalism. She is the author of twelve books of nonfiction including The Real All Americans, the story of the Carlisle Indian School, and its use of football as a form of resistance following the close of the Indian Wars. Her work for The Washington Post has included coverage of ten Olympic Games. In 2005 she was the first woman to be inducted into the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. Her most recent book is called The Right Call: What Sports Teach Us about Leadership, Excellence, and Decision Making.

You see it all the time. You wonder why a big personality fails so publicly at the head of an organization. And it's because their communication skills, whatever they are telling their people, those people aren't buying it and in fact are resenting it and are gearing down their efforts. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. 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 666866. Now, on to the night's feature leader, the legendary Sally Jenkins. is a sports columnist at The Washington Post. She was named the nation's top sports columnist in 2001, 2003, 2010, and 2011 by the Associated Press. She's also the author of 12 books, four of which were New York Times bestsellers.

Her most recent book is called The Right Call, What Sports Teach Us about leadership, excellence, and decision-making. During this conversation, we discuss how Peyton Manning's meticulous study of his worst moments, set him up for future success. And then why we feel pressure and what to do when we do. And then how to better acclimate ourselves to stressful situations so that we respond well when adversity strikes. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is packed with so much great stuff. It's the legendary Sally Jenkins.

Sally Jenkins, it's so great to have you. here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I flipped the acknowledgement section of your book, The Right Call, and I noticed a name, and that is your twin brother, Marty. I love hearing about love, in fact, especially when it comes to a sibling. I'm lucky to have two great siblings, and they really still play a massive role in my life. What role did Marty, your twin brother play in your life, and how has he helped you?

Well, first of all, Marty Jenkins took care of my dad, Dan Jenkins, for really the last 10, 12 years of his writing life. My dad was still at his desk, literally 48 hours before he died, partly because my brother took such good care of him, drove him to the Masters tournament every year, drove him to U.S. Open golf tournaments. The fact that my dad could still travel to events was really thanks to my brother. And, you know, there's a lot of osmosis when you hang around sports writers. I mean, my brother has a lot of good ideas and a lot of good observations. He's been in the field. He was in the field along with my dad, literally at my father's elbow.

And so, you know, he knows as much about it just about as I do, frankly. You know, he's listened to a lot of athletes in his day, primarily at golf tournaments. He urged me, the one subject I didn't go to that he really urged me to that I may have to revisit was rodeo, rodeoes, rodeo athletes. Really? And yeah, yeah. So I may have to go back to that. But my brother lived in Texas for a long, long time, and he's an out-west guy. And that's the one area I didn't follow his advice, and I kind of regret it now.

Your dad, legendary Dan Jenkins sports writer, I remember being so witty and funny even on Twitter, in addition to the long-form stuff that he did. And I thought, like, who is this guy? And I just dug into all of his stuff. I actually didn't realize that you were fully, you were related until I dug in, because you've built such an amazing career for yourself. But I can only imagine what it was like growing up with a dad like Dan Jenkins and everything that he did. You could probably go on for an hour, but what advice, what wisdom did he impart on you that has helped you so much

in your own career? Well, the first thing he really said was never about writing that I've really internalized. He said, never let a thing go until it says good as you can make it, you know, on deadline. I mean, you know, understanding that at some point you have to turn things loose, but he was like, you never, you don't just file, you know, you don't just mail it in. You, you learn your craft and you hold on to it until the last minute and you keep working to make it as good as you can. That was the first thing.

The second thing he said that really stayed with me was you better interest yourself first or you're not going to interest anybody else. And so he really encouraged me to, you know, have fun on the page. which is what he did so brilliantly. You know, he was as much fun in person as he was in print, by the way. I mean, you know, my dad could make changing a light bulb, a comedy. And, you know, he had a very irreverent outlook. He understood that sports weren't the most grim endeavor in the world.

But at the same time, he also told me, you know, sports are serious business. They're not trivial. And so threading that needle, finding that right sweet spot of the right attitude towards our games and their place in our society was something he thought very seriously about. And what he said that I quote in the book, that really is the impetus for the book, The Right Call, is my father asked a question, who can explain the athletic heart? And explaining the athletic heart was a real challenge to me and to him. And I'm not sure it's possible to get all the way to the bottom of that organ

because it's very mysterious. but I tried in this book. The right call is very much about trying to answer that question. Who can explain the athletic heart? How can we deconstruct, you know, real competitiveness? And how can we figure out how to apply the athletic heart to the rest of our lives? Because, you know, it's really the $64,000 question with great athletes is, you know, can we really learn something from a Michael Phelps?

Are we able to draw something from his performances or a Peyton Manning? or are they out of our reach? And the answer is they're within our reach. They do a lot of things that we can draw from, and we can use them more than we suspect. You wrote that your dad said it is, quote, kind of a sin to waste potential, and the real champions never committed it.

Tell me more about this thought. It's a sin to waste potential and how if you're a real champion, you don't do that. He was talking about Jack Nicholas when he said it, who he probably chronicled more than any other sports writer of Jack's generation. And I think he was pointing it out about Nicholas, that Nicholas had gotten absolutely everything out of his ability. He, you know, my dad pointed out, he would say,

look at Nicholas's legs and look at his forearms. Anytime you doubt that a golfer is an athlete, he said, you know, they've got the forearms of steelworkers and the legs of running backs. And he was always emphasizing how much work, a great champion like Nicholas really put in. He pointed out at one point about Nicholas that Nicholas wasn't a great putter.

There were better putters on the tour, but that Nicholas was unbelievable at making the important putt when it counted most. It wasn't a matter of talent. It was a matter of application. And there's a great story in the book that doesn't have to do with Jack Nicholas. But Brian Dabble, who's now head coach of the New York Giants,

And this is probably my favorite story in the book. When he was an assistant head coach of the Buffalo Bills at the start of training camp a couple of years ago, Dable said, okay, everybody in the room stand up. So the whole team, the coaches and players of the Buffalo Bills stood up. And he then said, all right, anyone who wasn't drafted, sit down. And fully a third of the room sat down. And then he said, anyone who's ever been cut or fired, sit down. and another third of the room sat down plus the entire coaching staff and he said anyone who's ever

been traded sit down rest of the players sat down there's one guy left on his feet and it's josh allen the quarterback and and he says to him josh how many scholarship offers did you have coming out of high school and alan said none and dable's point was organizations winning organizations are made up of people who have suffered real reversals and they're not made up of the superstars and the top, you know, draft picks. And that's a lesson. I think it's so vital for anybody, you know. I love that story and it's very much part of the spine of the book. Oh, I love it. Your dad also said, quote, a lot of people are afraid to win. What did he mean by that? Well, you know, I didn't know what he meant by that for the longest time. And I finally asked my great friend Pat Summitt, who won eight national championships at the University of Tennessee, set the standard in women's basketball for dynastic victories at Tennessee. And I said, Pat, my father says most people are afraid to win. And she said, he's absolutely right. And I said, well, what does that mean? And she said, you know, most people are afraid to put it all on the line. You know, most people are afraid.

that they'll have to say, that's the best I can do. And that's what I finally understood. And Pat said most people are afraid to say, that's the best I can do. And so they would rather sort of default, you know, rather than go all in and push all your chips to the middle of the table, you know? And what happens if your best effort isn't quite good enough?

It's painful, you know, and a fearful experience. But the champions, you know, the great, every champion in this book, everyone I talk to, Peyton Manning. I mean, people have to remember about Peyton Manning that by Peyton Manning's third year in the league, his overall record was 32 and 32. He didn't become a great quarterback until Tony Dungey came into the Indianapolis Colts and really cured his habit of throwing more interceptions than any quarterback in the league. You know, these greats are very, very much constructions of their own effort over the years, reversal.

mistakes, deep analysis about where their weaknesses are. And so almost, I mean, pretty much every anecdote or chapter in the book is really devoted to showing people how much these people are really, you know, constructions, not born. Champions aren't born, they're made. This willingness to put it all on the line, to commit everything you have to something, whether it's sports or your job, because it feels more and more like we try to look cool. And sometimes, for example, in sports, you may play 80% defense in a basketball game because you're kind of trying to look cool.

And if the guy gets around you to score, you're like, well, you know, I wasn't fully going for it. Right. And this applies in business. This applies in an interview. This applies in sales career like I've had after my football career, which is like, are you going to really give everything you have, even though you still may come up short? And so, Sally, how have you implemented that into your life, into your career by saying, you know, I'm not, I mean, you've accomplished so much.

You're one of the greatest of all time in your field, legitimately are. But how have you approached it and say, I'm just going to put it on the line. I'm just going to go for it, even if I may look stupid, I may get embarrassed. It may not turn out how I want, but I'm going for it anyway. You know, I really learned a lot from Pat Summitt in that regard. I mean, one of the things that I learned from her about going all in in my own field was preparation, practice. You know, so many writers trust a fortunate burst of inspiration or, you know, a jolt of coffee on deadline or something like that. And we don't really think as carefully.

I mean, anyone who works at a desk probably should think a little more carefully about how they prepare the depth. through their preparation. One of the things I started doing was instead of, you know, doing a little pregame reading and then just showing up to the stadium on game day and like hoping to be good, you know, I really started working 24 hours in advance of a big game, like doing a real deep dive, writing paragraphs in advance that I might very well have to throw away. I mean, you know, if I'm covering the 49ers and the Eagles, you know, in an epic playoff game, I usually by the time the ball kicks off now. In my senior, you know, status as a sports writer, I've learned to have 500 words already written. Really? They may go to waste. Yeah. Just background material. Antigotes that I know

are interesting, depending on who wins the game can be bent one way or the other. Quotes that I, pregame quotes that I know could possibly be relevant when the final score goes up on the scoreboard. because when you have to write 800 to 1,000 words in 90 minutes, that's pressure. I mean, that's a real pressure-packed endeavor, and it's very hard to be good. It's a lot easier to be good or even great, write something great, if you've already got 500 good words that you can pull from. So, you know, preparation in any field makes everything easier. I've talked to Peyton Manning about that a lot.

You know, Peyton knew. One thing Peyton told me for this book was that he said, you know, I left the field a lot, feeling like maybe I could have played better or I'd wish for a different result. He said, I never left the field wishing I'd prepared better. And so I've just tried to do that in my own work. I try to get ahead of the game. As Peyton said, paraphrasing the great Chuck Knoll, pressure is what you feel when you don't know what the hell to do. and it's it's just an easier sensation writing on deadline you can be more creative you can be more

inspired when you've done a lot of brick-by-brick work leading up to those 90 minutes or two hours that are really going to count at the laptop I quite frankly just took a very athletic viewpoint towards it that seems like it should be the norm and I could only guess that the reason it's not is just because it's harder. It takes more work. It takes more effort. Is that why this isn't the norm? I mean, you think if you're going to study one of the grades, if I was in your field or in any field, for that matter, it's like, how can I take what Sally Jenkins does in her field and implement that into mine? Do you think the reason this doesn't happen more is just people are lazier or they're not willing to go the extra mile to do the necessary prep and work

leading up to these moments? Or what is it? Well, I think some of it's cultural, you know, writers, again, it's a very sort of inspirational seeming, you know, I'm a writer, you know, I work on inspiration, or I'm a journalist, you know, like I work on deadline. And so some of it's cultural. Some of it is like we're just sort of maybe not raised in the business to think quite that way. But I think some of it too is, you know, I mean, I know lots of great broadcasters and sports writers who do do a lot of homework. I mean, beat writers spend all season long amassing, you know, reams of material that they can hopefully draw from on deadline. So, I mean, I don't want to, by any stretch, say I'm the only one.

But I am saying that what I took from athletes was to do a lot more preparation. As a younger writer, I was much more, it's back to the nonchalant thing. It's so cool to sort of just breeze into the press room. Go out the night before, stay out late with your colleagues, have some drinks, you know, socialize and not get enough sleep, wake up in the morning, have maybe too big of a Sunday brunch before you're going to sit down and write, which is terrible for thinking. So, I mean, all I'm saying is that as I got older,

I started to think, if you respect what these people do, which you do, why wouldn't you behave half as seriously about your end of the day as they do about their end of the day, right? And so I try to get enough sleep. I try to eat right. I try not to eat it a bunch of garbage in the press room that I know is going to make me jittery and not think great on deadline. I mean, just little things like that is just a more athletic approach towards what is,

quite frankly, desk work. I mean, writing is very neck-up stuff, but it's a serious mistake to think that you aren't working and working quite hard and that you can't train yourself for that job physically to perform better when it counts. You mentioned Peyton Manning a few times. And it's really cool to see his transition to life off the field into Omaha Productions and this business he's building that seems like they are a part of the best parts of media everywhere.

And I have to believe it's probably, you would know better than me, probably because he takes the same approach to his business, Omaha Productions, the media company that he started with Eli and others, that that approach is now, it's not surprising that they are absolutely crushing it in something else other than actually playing football. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely right. I mean, look at there have been some people who've tried to imitate that show and they can't do it.

And the reason they don't do it, the reason it's not as good is because they're not preparing as well and they're not as knowledgeable. You know, if you listen to Peyton Manning and Eli Manning on the Manning cast, invariably, you'll hear Peyton say, well, I was talking to Coach Reed last week and or I was talking to so and so. I mean, you know, there's this famous, rather famous intervention that CBS did with Tony Romo this past year because they felt he wasn't doing enough homework. You know, Manning doesn't make that mistake. He's not going to do anything if he doesn't think it can be really, really good. He, you know, he could have had any network job he wanted, obviously. He wasn't going to do something

that bored him, number one, and he wasn't going to do something that he didn't think he could do differently and at a higher level than most of what he watched on TV. So I really respect that about him. That's a absolutely great show. I mean, it's gripping television. You learn more football, watching one of those Manning cast than I've learned in 20 years of really covering the NFL. He explains the game in a way that you can understand it. He predicts what's likely to happen. He explains how the people on the field are likely feeling. You know, he's just, he really, really studies. You know, that's what I can say.

What made Peyton Manning great was the study, you know? The comprehensive thoroughness of his study of the game before he ever got on the field, you know? And I think that translates to all other areas in the business world as well. You have a big presentation coming up. You have a quarterly business review. You're meeting with the board, whatever it is. You can tell the difference between the people who are overly prepared, have rehearsed.

They know their stuff so well. It's like a stand-up comedian. You know, Sally, have you ever seen great stand-ups? They make it look like they're just wandering out on stage talking, when in reality, the great ones have etched out every single word of that stand-up performance. And I think the same is true in the business world. When you know your stuff, when you've done the necessary prep and over-preprep, you can let it fly once you get in those important meetings.

And I think that's the difference between the ones who sustain excellence and the ones who don't, is that they're willing to do that extra work in the dark. That's what nobody sees. They're willing to make those calls. They're willing to study. They're willing to practice. They're willing to rehearse versus the ones you've already mentioned who maybe they just want to go play golf. And that shows when the lights are bright that whether you prepared or you didn't.

You know, Ryan, I heard more times in putting the material together for this book and interviewing people for it. I heard more times, you know, Michael Phelps's coach, Bob Bowman said that he literally told Phelps when he was a very young swimmer, you can be an Olympian, but it's not going to be about what you do on race day. It's going to be about what you do in the pool at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, you know, and that was very true. I mean, Phelps even trained on his birthday and Christmas Day. I mean, that's another story that's in the book. Senior swimmers on the USA Olympic team were riding a bus with a teenage Michael Phelps. And one of them said, you know, you train a lot, don't you?

And Phelps said, well, yeah, I guess I do. And this senior swimmer said, well, I mean, but you don't swim on Christmas, do you? And Phelps said, well, yeah, I do. You know. So as Bob Bowman says in the book, the thing that made Phelps great was the work. Everyone kept analyzing Phelps and saying, oh, does he have some freakish an anatomical gift, you know, is his torso too long? Or what about his arms? And, you know, and in fact, Scientific American actually did a study of Phelps's physique and torso and found out that actually

he didn't have any extraordinary qualities for a six-foot-four young man. You know, so I think we're always so tempted to, we're overawed by athletes. And so we think that they possess some magical, physical quality. And in some cases they do. I don't mean to undersell talent. But it is, I mean, it is a fractional determinant of what eventually happens

and what eventually makes somebody great. I mean, just look at Tom Brady, if you have any doubt about that. Not a man built for greatness. I could see some people saying, Sally, you know, I'm trying to build a great career and support my family. I don't want to be swimming

on Christmas. I don't want to be doing all extra work. I want to have a little bit of balance in life. What do you think, what do you think to those types of comments? Well, I mean, I think recovery is actually an essential principle. A great interview for the book was a guy named Dana Cavalaya, who was longtime performance coach for the New York Yankees, worked very closely with Derek Jeter. And he said, what type A hard chargers mistake about great champions and great athletes or great coaches, the big misapprehension that they have is that these people are like working 24-7. He said they take a lot of time off. Derek Jeter doesn't train. I mean, overtraining is a big mistake. A lot of young athletes make

and a lot of people make in approaching their work. It's essential to have that balance because your muscles have to recharge. Your brain has to recharge. And so when I talk about work and preparation, that doesn't mean like working yourself to the nub, making yourself irascible and exhausted, that doesn't lead to better judgment or better performance. What leads to great performance is day-to-day consistency that builds in preparation, warm down, recovery, rest, proper sleep, decent food. And it sounds tedious and it sounds obvious. But the interesting thing about the champions in this book is that they're willing to work for the one to two percent. the rest of us want to play golf and then find a magic bullet.

The hack, the hack, yeah, the life hacks. Yeah, we want the 60% all at once. Yeah, well, it's funny because you hear terms like consistency, reliability, and that's the makeup usually of a great teammate of great players, and it's not some of the time, it's all of the time. And to me, I think it's because it's not that. sexy. At the end of keynote speeches, usually there's the Q&A section and people ask, you know, what's the quick tip? What's the hack? What's the thing? And I'm like, wow, this is going to be

really disappointing part of the presentation because it doesn't exist. It's consistently showing up doing it day after day after date. And part of that is rest, as you mentioned. But, but it's, it's the, I think the inconsistency is probably one of the biggest issues with people who are not performing at the levels that they want to perform at. It's really hard to sort of get in, I mean, Look, I struggle with it. I'm not going to lie. But what Cavalaya, one thing he told me about Derek Jeter, he said in season, no matter what time the game ended, no matter where they played, no matter what invitations Derek Jeter had, he was in bed exactly two hours after the end of the game. He had two hours to wind down, get something to eat, decompress, and he was in the bed. And everyone in his life knew, in season, don't ask Derek to go out after a game.

whether it was a girlfriend or a partner or a best friend, everybody knew. Derek Jeter's in bed two hours after the game no matter what. And he was that way from spring training through October. He was very unvarying in his habits. And that's what's the consistency of the habits are what matter more than, you know, the hard charge, the overwork, the burning it at both ends. Method and routine and sort of cultivating what you. you understand.

Analyzing yourself, asking yourself questions, what did I do right that day that made me perform pretty good? You know, and sort of ditching the things that you're pretty sure are getting in your way and emphasizing those habits that you're pretty sure make for a better decision or a better performance at your desk. Yeah, it makes me think of James Clear, the aggregation of marginal gains. You just keep stacking and it compounds over time. But if you're inconsistent, you then get in the way of that compound interest.

you're building for yourself. So that's why consistency is so key. In your book, there's seven principles you write about, conditioning, practice, discipline, candor, culture, resilience, and intention. And then you bring those principles to life through stories. It's beautifully done. Not surprising. It's Sally Jenkins.

But there's a few more I wanted to point out. Leonard Hamilton, you write about him quite a bit too. And when it comes to his willpower, how can, and willpower is tough because some of it's environment based, some of it's like building your mind up. I'm curious, what did you learn from Laird Hamilton about willpower? You know, one of the really fun things about this book was looking at a variety, a wide variety of athletes. You know, what does Laird Hamilton have in common with Peyton Manning or Patrick Mahomes or

Steph Curry? And they do have things in common. And one of the big things they have in common, Laird identified for me as articulately as anybody. You know, he's the greatest big wave surfer in the world who has to master a lot of fears, has to be highly conditioned. And what Laird said was that usually when we get in a state of emergency under pressure, we're actually not really well conditioned to that particular stress.

Like if you get in a car, you drive a car every day, but if you get in a race car that's going 200 miles an hour, your senses are going to blur. You're not prepared. You're not conditioned to that onrush of stimulus. But you can condition yourself to it by getting in a race car and going higher and higher and higher speeds, right? Well, you can do that with anything.

And so Laird identifies your body doesn't know what's stressing it. Your body doesn't know why it's anxious. Laird says, my body doesn't know whether I'm anxious because I'm in an ocean with a really big swell coming at me or because my daughter left the house two hours ago with the car keys and isn't home yet, right? So Laird trains himself to deal with anxiety through hot and cold. He does a lot of ice baths and a lot of saunas. And, you know, no one can jump into an ice bath right away and stay there for very long.

Laird has worked at training himself to, you know, get from five seconds to 20 seconds to 30 seconds. And anyone can actually do that with their own shower. And it's apparently incredibly good for you. I will confess, I don't do it very much. But the bottom line is that hot and cold can help acclimate. your body to stresses. And you can help teach yourself. It releases all kinds of good chemicals that help you deal better with, you know, all of the things that come along with stress, all the things that are released in your body. Stress has two sides. And as Larry Hamilton says, you know,

we're meant to experience a certain amount of stress because stress is our way, our body's way of helping us rise to a moment that really matters. So stress actually sharpened, your perceptions, it sharpens your focus. If you become alert to it and what it's doing for you, and you're not over-focused or misfiring, but you're learning to use stress and learning to calm your own anxieties through breathwork or, you know, lots of work with cold or hot treatments, you can master, you can learn to master those stimuluses better. As Laird says, it's not the great athletes who have the most to improve in these areas. It's, the rest of us. It's in a way we have to, in some cases, manufacture hardship to better

prepare us for whatever adversity is going to strike. Because the only guarantee in life is that change is going to happen and adversity will strike. And so to me, I view it as something as little as you see the escalator, you see the stairs, take the stairs, right? It's a little bit harder. It's not that hard, but it's a little bit harder, you know, get in the ice bath, go in the sauna, it, whatever the thing is to better put yourself, your mind and your body in a position to deal with hardship, it's not, you're not going to respond well if you never have to go through it. So if you're regularly putting your, you manufacture, you regularly putting yourself through it, it increases our odds of responding better when whatever happens happens. And that, I think that's

the difference I found. I want to meet interesting people, a lot of, you know, 500 plus something. this podcast, the higher performers, they're always, like, their intent on manufacturing hardship for themselves to better prepare themselves for adversity. And that's why when it happens, they respond better. And I think we all can do this. We just have to be thoughtful and intentional about it. Absolutely right. And I mean, you know, what Laird would say is that comfort is not the only thing worth seeking, right? I mean, it's just, let's face it, it's kind of boring. It's sort of deadening. And, you know, too many comfortable days, you're like, I'm kind of bored.

As weird as that sounds, you know. Yeah. I mean, you know, one thing about being a Laird Hamilton is that, you know, you become, you become master of your situations. Now, look, you know, for a Laird Hamilton, what's stressful for Laird is not the ocean in which he has an incredible amount of expertise. What's more stressful for a Laird Hamilton is standing up and speaking at a corporate, you know, a corporate gathering in front of a group of people who may not respect surfers, right?

And so, you know, so Laird has to work harder at those sorts of things. I mean, you know, if we go into an ocean, you know, we're not going to feel very comfortable. He doesn't necessarily feel very comfortable coming into boardrooms. And yet he's learned to do it. He's a great entrepreneur. He's launched multiple of his own businesses and he's a great innovator. And so, you know, he had to teach himself things that he really was. wasn't very comfortable with.

So again, we've all got so much more room to grow than we may imagine in these areas that we think are so far beyond us. Not many surfers sit around going, oh, I'm going to become a great businessman and head my own company, right? And so when we sit around and go, well, I couldn't possibly be a Michael Phelps. I mean, don't, like, that's just a real dead end sort of mode of thinking.

I mean, I think we should all be thinking, what does Michael Phelps do that I could do too. You write about the difference between a coach like Tony Dungey and his quiet strength versus a coach like Urban Meyer. Now, just so you know, Sally, I live in Ohio. Urban did win a national title here for the Buckeyes years ago, but obviously it's had some issues. When you compare and contrast the coach like Tony Dungey's quiet strength versus a coach like Urban, what did you learn? Well, look, everyone has a different style of communication. It's really the challenge.

or the episode about Urban Meyer is just a demonstration. So Tony Dungey is a critically different type of coach from Urban Meyer. The way that matters most is what he does different from Urban Meyer is he never presents a problem without presenting the solution. So when Tony Dungey would criticize a player or correct a player or an assistant coach, Tony Dungey never put that out there without following it up with when you do this, this makes us great. If you listen to Steve Kerr talk about his team, the Golden State Warriors, you never hear Steve Kerr talk about one of his players

without saying, when Draymond Green does this, we are great, right? When he does this, it's tough for us. Very tough for us to win when Draymond Green gets technicals and gets himself thrown out of a game. when he does why we win. Urban Meyer's mistake was to criticize, to demean and to belittle without ever presenting an adequate solution to any of the problems that he was pointing out. That was his chief deficit as a professional coach.

And it is what separates a professional coach from someone who can just push a bunch of schoolboys, you know, who are at his back and call. and he really have to do everything he tells them in order to keep their scholarship, you know, that's not the working world. In the working world, the people underneath you will destroy you if they don't believe in what you're telling them to do, even if you're a military commander who thinks he's in charge of a barracks. The fact of the matter is that your underlings will take you down.

That is a fact. Pat Riley, I quote Pat Riley in the book, He talks about what happens when people underneath the leader don't believe them. And what Riley says is everybody subtly starts to gear down their efforts, you know, and enroll each other in their own cycle of disappointment. You know, you see it all the time. You wonder why a big personality fails so publicly at the head of an organization. And it's because their communication skills, whatever they are telling their people,

those people aren't buying it and in fact are resenting it and are gearing down their efforts. God, that's so true. I love the way you put that. And when I was thinking about coaches in my life, the ones who got the most out of us versus the ones who didn't. And that is a critical element of it. Like right there, I mean, it really fascinating. Because that also, Sally, plays in all world. That's not just the sporting world.

Think about a leader, a CEO, a business leader. I've had bosses like the ones you describe that that had the criticism with no adequate solution versus I've also luckily had the Tony Dungey types and the ones who sustain excellence over time especially when you're working with pros as you mentioned they're the ones who do have I'd say they're more thoughtful they've had a thoughtful adequate solution not just this overt criticism them. Yeah, I mean, look, Pat Summitt could yell with the best of them, but Pat Summit never showed a player of failure. I watched a million tape sessions. I would sit in the back of the room at Tennessee watching her show her team film. And she never showed a failure on film that she

didn't then show them doing it right. Tommy Amaker at Harvard does the very same thing. He shows, he shows his players at Harvard, his basketball players at Harvard, how it looks when it's done right. It's really such a critical distinction and my best editors don't just say write better or that wasn't very good. They say if you move this paragraph here, if you cut here, this part's slowing you down, you know, all of a sudden people get deeply appreciative of that. When you put like the right tool in someone's hand to fix something, most people, Tony Dungey told me, most people want to be good at something. They don't want to be failed. They don't want to disappoint.

They want to live up to a certain level of performance. They just need you to give them some direction in how. Peyton Manning wanted to be told how to cure his interception problem, right? I mean, Tony Dungey didn't just say to Peyton Manning, you've got to stop throwing interceptions. You know, you can't throw 90 interceptions a season. Like, you know, if you keep throwing these interceptions, 32 interceptions a year or whatever, you know, in a spate of this many ball games, it's just going to kill us. That's not what Tony Dungey said to Peyton Manning.

He sat down with Peyton Manning and Jim Caldwell, the quarterbacks coach, and they went through tape of every single one of Peyton Manning's interceptions. Then they went through the tape of all the balls that Peyton Manning through that should have been interceptions, but he just got lucky because the defender dropped the ball, right? then they went through, which Peyton said, that's a hidden tape that a lot of people don't get to. But he got to it with Tony Dungey, right? Then they went through all the pictures, all the frames of throws that Peyton Manning made that should have been touchdowns but weren't, where he missed a guy, you know?

And again, did he just get a little unlucky because the defender was too good or did he put the ball in the wrong place? Did he make the right throw? Did he make the wrong throw? Did he go to the wrong place with the ball? after that, they analyzed and said, what are the commonalities here, you know, in your performance? And one of the things they discovered, Tony Dungey and Jim Caldwell and Peyton Manning decided that his accuracy really suffered when defensive, large defensive lineman dove at Peyton's feet. Peyton would get a little jumpy with his feet. He wouldn't plant as well as he should.

And that was causing some of his accuracy problems and some of his interceptions. And so they designed a drill where Jim Caldwell would throw heavy bags at Peyton's feet in practice, you know, to try to work on those feet. So, I mean, that's a small example, but a critical one of how the right kind of criticism that's attached to impersonal data, impersonal analysis, followed by the fix. People become deeply appreciative. Peyton Manning will tell you he was an absolutely different quarterback. Tony Dungey than he had been before. He goes from throwing the most amount of interceptions in the league to the field.

He throws nine interceptions in the year they win the Super Bowl all season. So, I mean, I just think that's such a huge differential between a great coach and a poor coach. I love those examples because they can apply to all of us in our leadership roles, both on the field and off the field. You write about Diana Nyad, I think is how you pronounce it, 64-year-old. She failed. Say that again? Diana Nyad?

Nyad. Yeah. So it's failed four times and then eventually swam 53 continuous hours to complete her swimming journey from Cuba to Florida. What did you learn from Diana Nyad? Well, I learned from Diana Nyad that no matter how individual an effort looks, you don't do anything alone. Diana, you know, it's very easy to say Diana Nyad is the only human being on the face of the earth who couldn't have made that swim. And that may be partly true because there is something in her makeup. She's an endurance athlete and those people do have a different mentality. But Diana had an incredible team around her. It took four tries before she made it.

She had a great swim director. She had people in kayaks around her warding off sharks. and basically, you know, she had a swim director and a great partner in the endeavor named Bonnie Stahl who could say to Diana when Diana wanted to quit, see if you can do five more. Do you have five more strokes in you? And Niyadh would say, I think so, maybe, I mean, I'll try. And she'd swim five more strokes. And then she'd pull her head up out of the water and Bonnie would say five more.

can you do five more? And she'd do five more. And over and over again, that happened. And Diana would get a second wind. You know, she had trained very heavily. And over those 53 hours, there were just some critical points where Bonnie's decision-making and Bonnie's ability to sort of coax her through the swim was really, really a critical factor.

And so, I mean, I think, and that chapter is a chapter about communication and how really close communication between two people. can make the difference in what seems like an utterly impossible undertaking. It was a huge organizational undertaking in blackwater a lot of times, dangerous, sharks, jellyfish, hazardous, storms, currents. I mean, the first time Diana tried to make that swim, the currents pulled her so off course she was swimming towards Brownsville, Texas, you know. So what I took from that is that no matter how much you think you're,

individual effort matters. It's not enough. Did I read this right? You co-wrote two books with Lance Armstrong. I did. Yeah, I love Lance Armstrong. What was that like and what's your relationship like with Lance? I'm still friends with Lance. I'm not in touch with him the way I used to be. He's got a bunch of kids and a big life out in Colorado and Texas. But I'm very fond of Lance. Always have been, you know, love doing the books with him. It was a great experience doing the books. Obviously, I was terribly disappointed to discover that he hadn't been honest about the doping, but we've talked about that. And he issued to me personally a very private heartfelt apology that, you know, was really meaningful to me. I really respect him. I always have. I mean, I've always, I believe he was the best

cyclist in the world, no matter what. I believe he was just trying to level the playing field. I think that the performance enhancement was so widespread that it was simply the price of of competing. I don't believe there's any substance that can get you to the top of a French Alp or keep you in the saddle under that kind of pain. I think the ultimate determinant in the Tour de France is will. I do. It beggars the imagination what those cyclists do. I do not understand the demonizing of athletes for taking substances that are not directly performance enhancing but actually are just trying to keep them healthy to perform for another day. So I'm not as judgmental about the doping thing as most of my colleagues in sports.

I never have been, even regardless of plants. I felt that way about Marion Jones. You know, I felt she was the greatest runner in the world and was simply trying to level the playing field with all the other competitors who were doing this exact same thing. I think the anti-doping movement in this country is unfortunate, overly judgmental and misplaced. And I feel that quite independently of Lance, who I have a really high regard for and a lot of affection for. He beat Cancer Fair and Square.

And he's done incredible work in that field. So that's my Lance Armstrong story. He's also fun. He's a lot of fun. Seems like it. And a great podcaster. You've accomplished so much in your career and are still in your prime doing it. Like I said, I told you before we started recording one of my favorite writers for quite some time that I.

I'm not sure Don Lemon would say I'm in my prime. Oh, geez. Well, I think you are. I don't know who's earned me anymore. I do still have a job. Anyway, no. But I'm curious what you would say when somebody, let's say somebody who, whether it's in your industry or not, but they're earlier in their career, maybe a recent college

grad. And they want to do good in the world. They want to be a productive member of society. They're not 100% sure what they want to do yet. like most of us at that age, but they've seen what you've done and what you're doing and they want to learn from you. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person? Just never underestimate the value of shoe leather hard work. You know, I've, if you question that, go back and read my earliest work from, you know, 19882 or 1983 and compare it to the work I do

today and just look at the different level. You know, I wasn't, I wasn't born a great sports columnist or a great feature writer. It's in a learned craft. As my father said, learn your craft. You know, choose your craft and learn your craft. The other thing I would tell you is find that thing that you will do for fun and see if you can't make it work. Because, you know, at the end of the right call, you know, what I write in conclusion to the book is that, you know, something more animates athletes than just work or just practice or conditioning. They are moved by a real impulse to seek and a real love for the endeavor. And that's what really elevates a performance. Just to use writing as an example, a piece of writing will lift off the page. It's almost like perfume. If you write something

with a certain intention, with a certain enthusiasm, with a certain humor or love, the reader will feel it. It's the most mysterious thing in the world, but what you put into that sentence when you put it on the page, when the reader reads it 30,000 miles away, like perfume, it will come off the page. That's true of almost anything we do. If you do something with love and enthusiasm, it will work. It's what Billy Jean King meant when she said to me, people who bet on that, themselves tend to win. Sally, I really appreciate the book, which is like everything else, we've written more than 12 bestselling books. This one is called to highly recommend picking up the right call, what sports teach us about leadership, excellence, and decision-making.

And I'd imagine being in your shoes, it's tough. You have to live up to these standards that are almost unreachable, and yet you somehow do it. And so I just give you huge props for that. I'm so grateful that you decided to publish this book. And I'd love Sally to continue our dialogue as we both progressed. This was a lot of fun. I love being here. Thank you so much. It was a great conversation.

There's the book. That's it right there. It looks good. It goes on sale. It goes on sale June 6th from Gallery Books, part of Simon & Schuster. Love it. I loved it. It was a labor of love.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. It's the end of the podcast club. Thank you so much for being here if you're a part of the end of the podcast club. Send an email Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great one with the legend. Sally Jenkins.

Few takeaways from my notes. Tony Dungy's quiet strength. He never criticized without an adequate solution. As leaders, it's on us to be thoughtful about how we help our people get better. Just yelling that someone messed up is not usually helpful. we need to provide an adequate solution to go along with the criticism and coaching. Then that story about Diana Nayad, for 53 hours she swam Cuba to Florida without stopping. This looked to some like a solo mission, but it was anything but that.

She needed a full team to make it happen. And it tells me in life we need other people to help us accomplish. big missions and to be intentional about those people we choose to surround ourselves with. And then the advice from her dad, a lot of people are afraid to win. What, really? They are afraid to put it all on the line and risk that it might not be enough. Too many of us, we want to look cool and play it safe just in case we lose. However, the people who sustain excellence over an extended period of

time, they commit 100% of themselves to what they're doing, even though they still might lose. I think it's worth it. Once 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 Sally Jenkins. I think she'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net, which launches you into iTunes Apple Podcast.

And once you're there, you write a thoughtful review. rate the show hopefully five stars and by doing that you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis and for that I will forever be grateful thank you so so much talk to you soon can't wait