The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 600: Keith Hawk & AJ Hawk - Setting The Standard, Failure Stories, Taking Ownership, Giving Great Keynotes, & What The Great Teams Do Differently From The Good Ones

Episode Date: September 15, 2024

Read our book, The Score That Matters - https://amzn.to/4ggpYdW Full shownotes at www.LearningLeader.com The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk We are celebrating episode #600 with Keith Hawk and AJ Hawk Tell a story about an awesome leader you worked with... Ron Ullery – I'm a firm believer that people either live up to or down to your expectations. And most people set their expectations for themselves too low. So it's on you as a leader to raise those expectations for them. Demand more because you know they can do more. Tyler Cowen – The high return activity of raising others' aspirations. Encouraged someone who was going for an MBA to get a Phd. At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind.  It costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them, and to the broader world, may be enormous. What helps you give a great speech? How do you prepare? Ask, "What do I want my audience to do after seeing my speech?" Interview members of their team. Learn their terminology, challenges, what's going well, what's not, what are their goals, etc... Practice, practice, practice. Say it out loud. Rehearse so that once you're on stage, you can let it rip. What did the best teams you've been on do differently than the average teams?  The best players on the best teams always practiced the hardest. They set the tone for the work ethic of the team. They chose extra work. They set high standards and they demanded others raise their level of performance. The best teams hung out together outside of work. AJ was a Captain of the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl-winning team in 2010-2011... That team regularly hung out together outside of working hours, shared lots of meals, and knew each other extremely well. They trusted each other. Tell a story about how you've shown resilience… Failed and what did you do next? The Miami/Ben Roethlisberger story - The world doesn't care what you think you deserve. The primary goal is focused on adding value to others' lives. AJ shared a story from his sophomore year at Ohio State. His defensive coordinator, Coach Mark Dantonio sat with him 1 on 1 watching each play of the Michigan game. A day he'll never forget for how hard it was, how upset he was, and how determined he was to respond. AJ never lost to Michigan again in his career after that. Pistol shared a story about the time when the new CEO wanted to bring in his own head of sales (which was Pistol's job). Instead of complaining and leaving the company, he got creative and offered a new idea and a great way to leverage all the skills and knowledge he developed from being at the company for so long. It is amazingly rare for the head of sales to stay at a company after he's been replaced. But he thrived in the role and made the company better. Front line obsession – Pistol's story of the legendary Mert McGill going to the Supreme Court to demo LexisNexis and earning the most important sale in the company's history. I love stories about leaders proactively taking action and not being afraid to do the work. Update since Episode #500: Built the Learning Leader Team -- Officially working full-time with Sherri Coale, Brook Cupps, Geron Stokes, and Eli Leiker. We are working with leaders from a wide variety of companies throughout the U.S. The magic of the Pat McAfee Show -- They are unafraid. They say what others are thinking but are too afraid to say. They are authentic and fully themselves. They have great role clarity. Everyone knows and embraces their roles and excels at them. The End of the Podcast Draft – You're stranded on a deserted island. You have one iPad. On that iPad has 5 TV shows (and nothing else). Which shows do you choose? This is a competition with a clear winner and losers. The object is to win the draft. 

Hey and welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawke. I've gathered tons of questions from listeners of the show. What do you do to be really effective as a keynote speaker? Do you have a story on a moment in your life when you fail? The leader you should strive to be that you push people to go bigger, working with great leaders, trying to help them be better. So, commemorating 600. 600, that's a lot. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show presented by Insight Global.

I am your host, Brian Hawk. Thank you so much for being here on this special 600th edition of the Learning Leaders Show. Text Hawk to 66866 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 note from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how our books, The Score That Matters, will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk to 66866.

Now on to tonight's featured leader, as has become tradition. On the 100th episode, I have my dad, Keith Hawk, and my younger brother, A.J. Hawk as my guest. A.J. Hawk is the all-time leading tackler in Green Bay Packers. History won a national championship at Ohio State University. He was voted team captain of the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl winning team in 2010, 2011, was inducted in the Ohio State Hall of Fame in 2019, and currently is a co-host on the Pat McAfee Show, which airs weekdays on ESPN from 12 to 2 o'clock.

Keith Hawk, my dad, also known as Pistol, spent 30 years as a sales leader at one point leading more than 1,500 people. He now spends time speaking around the world, playing golf, writing books and mentoring future leaders. During this special 600th episode of the Learning Leader Show, we answered listener submitted questions. Some of the topics that we covered, we each tell a story about one of the most impactful leaders in our lives.

We talked about the magic behind the Pat McAvey Show. We went deep on how we prepared to give excellent keynote speeches. We discussed the differences between a good team and a great team, and we each share a personal story about a time we failed and what we learned from that failure. And then what has also become a tradition, we did a draft. Spoiler alert. I won again. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy our celebration of episode number 600 of the Learning Leader Show with my dad. Keith Hawk and my younger brother, AJ Hawk.

All right, episode 600 here with Pistol and Age. Pistol is dressed appropriately for the occasion. I love the vintage Ohio University jersey, which it's wild that it is a vintage jersey now. Hawk number 12, that's my actual game jersey. So that's the jersey I actually wore when I played in the Birmingham Steel Dogs hat. Looks good. So commemorating 600, got to do it. 600. It's big. Actually, I was talking with Miranda this morning. I was like, yeah, I'm filming

600 today with Agent Pistol. And she's like, God, if you think about it, 600, that's a lot. I'm like, it is. It is. It's pretty cool. So thank you guys for being here. I've gathered tons of questions from listeners of the show. Obviously, they're what make this show go. If they, if they didn't listen, then it probably wouldn't be able to create a whole business for me. So I'm super grateful for them. I've merged lots of questions together and we'll get to eat. one. But I thought to start, we should share an update of what we've been doing, what we've been up to since number 500, which was about two years ago. So I'll go first and then you guys can share what's new in your life since number 500. So I have a couple of updates. One,

this one was really cool to learn that I am officially a professional caddy. I've been caddying for about 15 years with age in Tahoe. But that I'll always be a little bit. I'll be a little bit of changed this year and I became a pro because I remember Pistol when I graduated college and I played arena football for the first time and I got my first game check. We beat the Everett Hawks. I threw five touchdowns and I got a check right after the game for 250 bucks. And you said, you are now a professional football player because you're getting paid. Well, this year, randomly I get a check in the mail for $460 from A.J. Hawke. And I said, texted you, what is this?

Why are you sending me a check for $460? And you said, look in the bottom left corner. I did. And it said, catty 10, as in caddy 10%. I got paid 10% of AJ's winnings from Lake Tahoe this year, thus for the first time making me a professional caddy. So thank you, Aides, for that. You said, I said, age, you know, I can't cash this. I would pay you to be your caddy in Tahoe.

It's one of my favorite jobs I've ever had. I love it. I love those four days getting to walk with you in our groups. It's the best. But you said, no, we're professionals. You have to cash the check. So I did. So thank you for that.

I appreciate it. Yeah, you're welcome. Just like my buddies, I used to play every once in one, play golf with in college. You got to wait until like next Tuesday to cash that, though, because there's not enough money in that account. Cash is that day immediately. And it went through.

So thank you for that. Second. I hope you scanned a picture. Yes. Second, I need to keep that, actually. Second, I have another job now. This one's unpaid. Ella had asked me in the off season and said, would you be the game announcer for the Alter High School Girls Volleyball team to hype the crowd, to be energetic, play the music. And then when we get spikes and kills and aces that you show some energy and do it. And then their head coach actually asked me as well. And so now I'm officially, and I've been doing it a few times now. the game announcer for the Alter Girls High School volleyball team.

So I try really hard to bring the juice, get excited when the girls get to spike, play good music. But I'm taking the job really seriously because I think that job requires you to bring the energy for the kids. So I'm trying to do that too. So that's my second new job that I've taken on this year. We have a game of night, by the way. So I'm getting the playlist ready, ready to rock reading the other team's stats and trying to get the girls' names pronounced right.

I've memorized our girls' roster so that we're ready to go. So I'm the game announcer, loving that. Great job. One more thing, and this one's a little bit more serious, but it's awesome. I'm officially working with Sherry Cole, the Hall of Famer, Brooke Cups, Garon Stokes, and Eli Liker. I've added them to the team. Brooke, Garon, and Eli have left the classroom and now are officially working with me as a learning

leader team because I think the demand for this leadership development stuff, which is really cool, has gotten so high that I can't do it by myself. And it's so much better to work on a team. It's so much more enjoyable to have these meetings with the Central Hall of Famers best in the world at what they do as coaches and teachers of leadership. They've built real cultures. They're currently building real cultures. And now we get to do that with leadership teams from all over the world. What I think is really really. cool is that I get to be with these great coaches, working with great leaders all over the place, trying to help them be better. So them leaving the classroom to work with me has just been,

I think, one of the coolest things. And we're just getting started. I mean, we just, Brooke and I had been doing stuff for years, but now officially with the full team, that's what we're doing. And that's, so those are probably the three biggest updates that I've taken on since the last time we talked. Right. And they're still coaches too, though, right? Oh, yeah. So that's one of the things that I said, I was hopeful of to Eli, Brooke, and Garon especially. I mean, Sherry is retired and in the Hall of Fame as a University of Oklahoma's women's basketball coach. But the guys, I said, I think part of our edge is that you are active coaches and you're

going to continue to be active coaches because you're living out the stuff that we're teaching in real time. You're not a former coach. You're an active coach. And so I like to think I'm actively out there learning and growing and trying to gain new knowledge from all these great people I speak with on my podcast, and they're out there doing the thing on the front lines. And I think that makes us more effective when we go to work with leaders because it's not a former thing. It's a current thing. Okay. Pistol,

two years. What's up? What have you been up to since then? Two years ago when we filmed episode 500, I had just closed on a house in Florida. And for the last two winters, your mom and I have spent close to five months in sunny Florida, I virtually eliminated the winter months of cold weather and had a great time, have a whole new group of friends down there to add to the group of people that we care about and like a lot. And also, I think it's a lot healthier for both of us to be down there rather than up here sitting on a couch when it's 12 degrees. So that's been a big thing. And I have taken a tiny, one other thing I would note, I've taken a tiny step into the podcast world myself.

There is a site called former LexusNexis employees, and I was asked to narrate and then participate in the questioning of living founders of the great corporation Lexus Nexus, which is now a multi-billion dollar company, who founded the place and were the early successful pioneers who got it going and created it from nothing. And we've been having those interviews and airing them for, former employees on this very special site that there are thousands of people on. And we've been getting a great feedback about it because they see these people that they sometimes are surprised,

are still alive, telling amazing origin stories of how this now, multi-billion dollar company, got started and got rolling. And it's been a really fun thing for us. Wait, where is this? Why have we not seen this? It's kind of private. It's on a closed, I guess it's a Facebook platform, primarily a close platform to why don't they open it up for the public to hear? Maybe we will. Maybe we will because it's been really well received. I don't know if anybody that didn't work there would care that much about it.

You might as well do it though. Yeah, yeah, we probably will. But it's been fun. And we filmed a really cool opening to the thing. And I was really proud to narrate it. And yeah, it's good. I got to see this. I got to see it.

We need to see that. It's a really cool opening. We got to see it. So wait. but it's for, is it for current employees there or just former? I don't think current employees would care as much. So it's pointed at former or retired employees or long-term employees that are still there, I guess. Yeah, that's a real niche market, I feel like.

Very much a niche market. But my buddy that I do commercials with, the studio operator, Terry O'Brien, is the guy that had the original idea and he does all of the audio video part of it. We're going to have to see this. So that's my update. All right. I love it. Pretty sweet. Age, let's go on.

I guess I'm next. I don't think I have a whole lot of, like, changing my, everything I'm doing is kind of fluid. I would say, like, week to week, month to month. I mean, right now we're about to start, you know, we're in football season. So once football season starts, it's pretty much I joined Pat McAfee's show five days a week. So, boom, we're going to get, we're going all through the season. We don't have any, we're not looking to taking any days off throughout the week when it comes of that. And then hopefully, I think towards the end of the year, we'll be traveling a little bit,

doing some watchalongs where we stand on the field and we commentate usually on like ESPN2 as an alternate broadcast. I think we might be doing some of those later this season. I'm not sure what we're doing during the regular season. That it can always change week to week. I went to Ireland a little while back. There was week zero for college football. Got to go there. Didn't actually go to the Florida State Georgia Tech game, but went there Friday. we did a show from a pub there. Saturday, Pat did game day and everything. Great time was had by all. We were in Ireland about 40 hours, I think, 38, 40 hours, got home and was loving it. And I'm assistant coach on a sixth grade tackle football team, and I'm the head coach of a third and fourth

grade flag football team that my first grader and third grader are on. So yeah, we're putting practice plans together trying to get, trying to wrangle, wrangle cats basically. And that, is that what it's called wrangled cats. How do you? Hurting. Hurting cats. Yeah, wrangling anything trying to get them together, get them all on the same page going in the right direction. Hey, H. is normal. You're modest. You guys, another change that I would note, your platform has grown that you guys broadcast from. When we talked two years ago, you guys were broadcasting on YouTube pretty much exclusively, and you had a radio presence, I know. But since that time, big change, right? Where did you guys go? Yeah, I guess it's been a little over a year now on ESPN, I think, or almost right about

year. So yeah, it feels like we've been on there longer, but yeah, ESPN licensed the show from Pat, and we're on there 12 to 2 Eastern every single day, and then we go after on YouTube, TikTok, all that stuff. I don't know if we're on TikTok or not. We get kicked off on and off, I guess, of TikTok live, depending on if someone says something or something, I don't know what the regulations are, but yeah, I guess the platform. The ESPN thing's been big, I think, because it just opened up to a completely different demographic. I know like I can't imagine how much you hear it because I know how much I hear it from people who were not, they just weren't on YouTube. But they do watch ESPN.

And so I think that's been pretty cool, especially when you make big, like when you go on Fridays to college campuses and you shoot long threes and make them to help a kid win a scholarship or something like that. It's pretty cool to see the impact now that. you guys are having since ESPN's licensed the show. Yeah, I mean, I did not anticipate, well, I guess what ESPN would have brought, but it's been, honestly, it's been great. It's been awesome. But, you know, like people, there's so many TVs that just have their default channel, boom, they put on ESPN. So you think like airports, restaurants, people getting coffee, whatever's going on. There's a, so people say, yeah, I saw your big head and face on the TV the other day. I'm like, yeah, there we go. I'll be on there a couple hours, most days if you turn it on. So that's the

The thing, I guess I was not anticipating, but everyone's been cool and super nice. And through ESPN, like they help facilitate a lot of stuff. And it's a lot easier to, I guess, get different people to come on. And yeah, it's just fun, man. It's been, it's been a lot of fun. I think two years ago when I said it, I talked to you guys, I said, yeah, I'll do this forever. I want to, I love joining Pat and the boys and doing everything. And I hope to, to continue that. I hope to, we don't stop anytime soon. Love it. I can't walk through an airport without seeing Pat and AJ mugs up on TV, whether it's a bar or restaurant where I play golf in Florida and we go to a restaurant or bar to have lunch after we play. And my neighbor loves doing this. He always says to people playing with us. You see that guy up there?

And the guy goes, yo, yeah, I see those guys. And he says, yeah, that's Keith's kid up there. It always gets them. It's funny. Okay. We're going to get to. So just a little layout, what we're going to do, get to, I've again, merged a lot of questions from listeners of the show. And we're going to answer those. And then at the end, we are going to draft, do a draft. draft. Again, I'll reiterate when we get to it, but it's very serious. There will be a winner and two losers, and we're going to compete. It's going to be a good draft. So I know we have our boards ready to go. So, okay, before we get to that, let's go to some of the questions again that I merge together. I think this one's just pretty broad, but fun and could be good. Tell a story about an

awesome leader you've worked with, story being key. So I'm curious to hear about a story about an awesome leader you've worked with and how that's impacted you. Pistler, you want to go? Love to. Yeah, I'm going to mention a guy and I may have mentioned before in the last 600 episodes, but a fellow that is the longest term mentor I have had in the world of business. He held the job for many years that I later in my career held for many years, and that was a senior VP of Sales of Lexus Nexus, and the fellow's name is Mert McGill. When Mert was younger in his career, when he was one of the pioneers at Lexus, Nexus, he did something. And I put this under the category of don't send somebody else to do something

if you can do it yourself and show great leadership and doing it. And Mert heard that there might have been an opportunity to sell his new product called Lexus Nexus to the United States Supreme Court, which, as you might imagine, would be very important to a small company trying to come up and gain a foothold in the marketplace, especially the legal marketplace. So he took it on himself to go himself, taking a technical specialist with him to help make sure that you have everything was set up properly. Mert went to the United States Supreme Court, and all nine justices showed up. And this was in the early 1970s, mid-1970s.

And he demonstrated Alexis Nexas to the Supreme Court, did an amazing job. So amazing that they asked him to come back. He came back a couple of weeks later, did a demonstration, and all nine justices showed up. The chief justice was already sold on the concept. He left and just made sure the rest of them watched to understand. what Lexus really was about, this very special new product that did something that no other product could do, which was to search across all the legal cases, find the answers you're seeking instantly, which this, remember, this is way before something called the internet existed. There

was no Google. There was no Yahoo search. There was none of that. They'd invented this capability. And Mert, he has the contract, and he puts it in front of the person that was like the admin with them to sign. And the guy signs it right away. And Merck goes, oh, that's, that's great. I assumed you would take some time and send it off to your lawyers to review it. And they go, this is Supreme Court. We know better than anybody else. Any contract can be broken if need be. So he, he inspired generations of Lexus employees. Murd did. Inspired generations of Lexus employees after that with the greatest sale ever made by the company, made by the guy that led the Salesforce. And I always took a lot from that and meaning, don't you ever, don't you ever send other

people to do something that you wouldn't do yourself and couldn't do yourself. So, Mert McGill, an awesome. That's awesome. It reminds me of some of that general Stanley McChrystal, cat coal, frontline obsession. Go do it. Go do the thing. I think the leaders we respect the most are ones that certainly we have to have trust, but part of how they build that trust is that, you know they can go do it. They can go do the thing. They go on the front lines and can whatever it may be, they can show up and take action as opposed to just sitting in the office and say,

hey, go, you know, go to D.C. and sell this thing. He's like, I can do it. I know what I'm talking about. I love it. Age, how about you? Man, I don't have, I couldn't just think of one specific thing. I thought of multiple coaches I had and multiple people. First one, obviously, I'm sure you may talk about them at some point.

Ron Ulry, our old, you know, high school coach. I was lucky enough to talk to for a while back at your your latest, you know, book launch that you had months back. It was awesome talking to him and catch you up, but I just, honestly, for Ron O'Re, the number one thing that I'd realized, and I didn't know at the time was just everything about that dude, like was so calculated. I remember where we had to park our cars in the morning at like 4.45 walking into, to walk into our locker room, you walk by. and at that time when we were in school already had a black Durango. I'm sure you remember it. He had a black Dodge Durango and he always park like right in front of the lot that we would park in. His car was there no matter what time you ever showed up, he was in there.

His car was in there. And he was the same dude every single day. He was never like frazzled. Spotless too. Oh yeah. Inside and out car spotless 24-7. And still that's when I see already now and I saw him at your book launch, I'm sitting there. I'm like, he's wearing a sweet, nice tailored jacket.

it just looks, looks the part. I told him, I told him, like, you look the, you've looked the same for the last 50 years. And he's like, oh, wow, you know, like, he's so humble and awesome. But I just remember watching him and not ever even talking about it, really. I mean, me and you would, we would mention like, man, do you think Ron's ever not here? Like when we, like, is he ever not at the facility? He's ever not thinking about this team and what he can do to make everybody better and helping out the assistance and everything.

So just him every single day. He normalized, like, extra work. He normalized getting their. Like being crazy, I think, in a good way. Yeah. He normalizes it. Well, of an insane work ethic, being overprepared, always taking notes. And I think a leader like that gives his players confidence to know that nobody, nobody will ever be more prepared than him.

What a thing that a leader can do is add that much confidence because we know that he's going to be ready to roll every single day. The consistency, too, is just crazy. Yeah. What's cool, too, thinking about it now. Like, he never once told us what time he got in. He never once told us what time he left. He never had to tell us how hard he was working because it's true. Like, that's the worst.

What people love to tell you how hard they work? I'm like, congratulations, bud. Like, yeah, everybody, there's people struggling all over the world, but you're awesome. Rise and grind, okay. But I love that he just did that and he lived it and that's how he still live in his life. Like, that's how he is. But the other guy that comes to mind, obviously Jim Tressel in a very, very similar manner. He was my college coach all four years from recruiting through.

Like that dude was the most consistent, caring person I've ever seen in my life probably. They don't make him like him. I say all the time, like, we need to cherish him when he is here because whenever Coach Tressel's gone, there's never another guy ever coming like him. Like, he is such a unique individual. He was at my house a couple months back. He's doing a video podcast now. His first guest he had was John Maxwell.

And I was the second guest. I'm like, come on, coach. Like, you can't put Maxwell. I don't put me after John Maxwell. That guy's too, that guy's too legit. have me there. Like I need, I need, you need to put me in between some other guests, but he was the exact same thing, though. Like every single day, I still remember in our city. He brought the binders for that podcast. Yes, he did. He talked about prepared, over prepared. He pulled out, he pulled out

stuff that I had written when I was in college. Yeah. He would, that's the other thing like I love that Coach Trestall. You talk about living it. One of the examples, we had all these different things we'd fill out. Freshman year, sophomore year, all these things of your goals, like your school goals, football goals and the thing the thing is like all the stuff that we'd ever talk about or fill out football was usually like the last thing we talked about it was never like okay what's your football goals oh oh american 500 tackles like pete no one you weren't doing that like that was always coming towards the end that was almost an afterthought of everything we did with him and i think i remember he would call you in his office and he would go over what you're like your stuff that you wrote at the

beginning of the year of what your goals were what you went where you wanted to be all of this stuff and he would just look at you. Oh, how are you, uh, how's number two coming along? Like something he knew you were falling behind or something. Like, oh, I want to have straight. Your actions aren't matching your words. Yeah. And he would just look at you. You never have to yell, never do anything. And he was just like, oh, and you would just, you know, spill everything. Oh, I don't know. Sorry, coach. I was 15 minutes late to practice the other day. Like, you tried to just tell him things that you don't need to and that he already knows. He's like a wizard with that and how he can not like how he knows to motivate each individual player. It's so,

awesome and how much he cares. So it's really hard for me to pick one specific thing because as I get order, I just think of every single day. And I'm sure we'll talk about consistency here. Like there's no secrets. And those two coaches showed me like, yeah, man, there's no secret pill you can take. There's no secret thing you can do or some secret workout. It's just every single day. You just live it. And those are the guys that did it for me. Coach Tressel has amazingly high emotional intelligence. What is that? Can you define that exactly? Honestly, like what? What does that mean? I just think he has such a great feel for people. For example, we're on the Buckeye cruise this year. Very grateful to get to go. I fill in at times and go on this Buckeye Cruze for

cancer with age when Laura is not able to go. And on the last day, you know, we're getting ready to get off the boat with Coach Tressel and we're down there with your former teammate and our friend Bobby Carpenter and Bobby's a character. And Coach Tressel is just not afraid and knows the perfect timing to bust somebody's balls and just make fun of them in front of a lot of people. And I just think he has this great feel for how to be curious, how to ask questions, how to tell a joke at the right time, just how to interact. I think my teenagers would say he's got the Riz. He's got charisma about him that where you just want to be around that guy.

And to me, I think he's always been also very super kind, supportive and curious to me, which, you know, he didn't need to do that. He reached out to you. He asked me before, hey, I need to talk to your brother. I'm starting this podcast and all this. I need to talk to him on what I should do. I was just, I was like, I don't, coach, I feel like, I don't know. I tried, you know, I tried to offer him feedback and to be helpful, but I felt so almost

awkward giving him advice. My coach, you should be giving me advice literally on all elements of life. I should not be giving you. But that's the type of guy he is, is that he just, you could tell he genuinely wants whatever he does to be great. and he'll ask or reach out, and he's humble enough to ask questions and seek advice from people who have done the thing that he's now embarking on. So I love that, dude.

Good choice. So I'll just reinforce the Ulary thing because that's actually who I was thinking about. Coach Alari, he was my offensive coordinator for all four years, AJ's head coach for two years after Coach Greg retired. One of the things I love about Coach Alari is, and I put this in my most recent book, because of we were out to dinner and he was talking about and I asked him if he would write it down after we went to dinner and he did and this is part of what he says. I'm a firm believer that people either live up or down to your expectations and most people set their expectations for themselves

too low. So it's on you, this is me talking, it's on you as the leader to raise those expectations for them. You have to demand more because you know they can do more. And I thought there were moments where I did not like him as my coach because of how hard he was on me. But he knew I had it in me. He knew I could do it. He knew I could play better. He knew I could raise the level of my performance. And that is the ultimate sign of leadership is where you're willing to push people because you know they've got more in them. And you raise the level of their expectations for them. Thus, they end up raising their level of expectations and performance. And I think that's what a leader does.

And they're not afraid at times for you to be upset with them, even like dislike them. And I think that's what he did for me. And I would say, and I've said this before, Coach Gregg and Coach Allery, like, I don't get a college scholarship without those guys. There's no way. I think I'm athletic and talented to the level of being like a division three player. And then those guys made me a division one player. And I think that's leadership. I mean, that's what great leaders do is they get people to.

to perform at higher levels than they even thought they were capable of. So I think that's part of it. And there's one other thing from Tyler Cowan, who I've interviewed a few times. He's this economist, George Mason, teacher, professor. He's written a ton of books. And Tyler Cowen said one of the things that great leaders do, and I think Ollery and Coach Greg do this and others that we've, like Coach Trestle and that we've got to work with, is they believe in the high return activity of raising others' aspirations.

And what he means by this is when Tyler Cowan is meeting with a student and the student comes in and says, hey, I particularly maybe talented student and one who's really smart, hey, I think I'm going to go get my MBA. And Tyler says often, I'll say to them, well, have you thought about just skipping that and just going straight to the PhD? And the student's like, I didn't even know that's possible. You can do that. And he said, sure you can. And what Tyler says is at critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations. of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting

they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind. As the leader, it costs you relatively little to do this. But the benefit to them and the broader world is enormous. And I'm like, yes, like, isn't that the leader you should strive to be that you push people to go bigger? I think this is what Pat McAfee does. age and we're going to talk about your show with Pat. But I think he's one of the biggest, grandest thinkers and has been for a while.

And that's part of the reason why you guys, he's also very talented. But part of the reason why you guys are doing what you're doing is because he's ambitious enough and thinks big enough that like, hey, there is no limit. And I think that's an example of really good leadership. Yeah, I think, I know we're going to get to it eventually. But yeah, I thought of Pat right away when you talked about that, the going, skipping the skipping the NBA to get your straight to PhD. Yeah.

Like he, Pat's like an absolute like huge like always, always driving for like next, always thinking how we can get better, what we can do to get better. Yeah, it's pretty, it's cool to see,

honestly. It's like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not exactly that kind of thinker all the time, but it's made me think more like that because of how he is. Being around him, right?

Being around him. That, that, I actually feel like that after we were in Tahoe, especially when we've had like good sessions in the tent with with bigger like we're with onica sorenstam this year and some others that are like big alfonso miles big thinkers that have done big things in their lives just being around that it changes how you think like it makes you i think grander or bigger because you realize these people are they're just people they're very impressive people but they've accomplished really big things. And if they can, then why can't I?

And I think being around that is a really good thing. And that's why I would push people like put yourself in rooms with people who do really big things and have accomplished big things. Because one, it makes you realize like they are human. Now, they're talented and skilled, but they're human. If they can do it, I can probably do that too. So the next question is actually about your show. This was asked a lot of times from fans is, what's the magic? What is the magic behind the Pat McAfee show and all the cast of characters and the fact that it's, you know, taken over the media world?

And I'll have Pistol Start so age can think a little bit and then I have some thoughts too. But Pistler, what do you think is the magic behind Pat in the whole show? Yeah, well, the first thing I would tell you is every time I go somewhere and interact with people that are, let's say, 25 to 40-year-old, usually dudes, they mention the Pat McAfee show. And it's made me realize again and again, you guys really have a demographic that is strong and loyal. And so I think you understand your audience and you guys put information in front of that audience that it wants to see and hear. And so you just keep dishing it up to them day after day. And you understand very well what you are and what they are. And the other side of it is it's big fun.

I mean, that show does not take itself particularly serious headline by Pat's, thanking everybody for watching this dumb show every day. I mean, he he leads the band on the, on the fun and, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,, and,, and, and,, and, and,, and, you know, what, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going on ESPN. Let's just go talk to those guys, and skip the others. and by the way, if I want to get a football coach on the show, well, I'm just going to go to Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, probably the greatest pro and college coaches of all time. And he signed them both up in the same year.

So he just keeps doing big things. Yep. Age, what do you think? You're right in the middle of all of it. But if you had to analyze why you think it works so well, what is it? I don't know. People have asked me that before. And I mean, Pat is the magic.

Obviously, Pat is the guy that started all. He had this vision years ago of what he wanted to do. and he's just continued to chase it and, you know, work so hard. He has a million different things he does and hosts and wrestling and game day. So he does it all. Like he has crazy ambition, I think, and crazy work ethic when it comes to all of that. And he wants, like, he absolutely wants to put on a good show every single day. He always talks about that.

Like, he wants to make it good, always trying to make it better. Oh, whatever we can do. But he is, there's no one like him. I mean, you know how he is just on camera. Like, that's how he is at all times. Like he's always the same dude And all in what if that is super authentic And that's who is like very

I think he's very like open vulnerable on there too at times Talking about different things Whatever's going on But yeah I don't know I just think how he is You know running run the show And everyone he's brought in like everybody You can't

It's hard you can't just all of a sudden put it together You can't throw it together And he's made jokes about People have came up to him And said like oh do like the they tell other people like in the media, you guys put together like, you know,

more like a Pat McAfee type show. Like, do that. Throw that together. Couldn't you do that? And I'm like, okay, bud, like if you, if that's your goal going in,

I'm sure you can put a good show together if you have good people, but you can't, like, it's got to be your own thing. It's got, and everything that Pat has done, he's,

you know, had the ideas in the past for it and always been thinking about it. But all the guys he brings in, all the boys, I think just fit perfectly with each other. And I love those dudes. It's like I love getting a chance to hang out with them in person.

It gives me energy when I get to go hang out. I went and hosted or I got to go in studio before we went to Ireland. Just being around the guys again, it had been a little while since I've been around in the same room and working together where we're in person. It's so fun to be around them because I know about. I know they're all such good dudes off camera as well. So I don't know what it is.

I think it's we all care about it. We all want to do a good job and we all love it and have fun, like for real. It's I don't ever sit there like I don't ever sit there oh man we got to do the show today That's never been that's never been Anything that I've ever thought ever like I enjoy I look forward to doing the show every single day I look forward to going on Fridays wherever we may go and then we do watch alongs like it's always fun it really is And when we all get to hang out together whenever we go on the road and do shows and games and stuff People that are around us that only see us for those day or that day or two there are a lot of times like

man, this is like, what this is, it's kind of like you guys, you guys act just like you do all on camera. Like when we're getting ready for shows or going, getting, like driving somewhere or doing whatever. They're like,

man, so you guys do really get along, huh? I'm like, yeah, this is what, I guess that's why it works, because we actually do really like each other.

And everyone understands what we're doing and we get it. So I don't know what they're, you can't like pinpoint anything, but there's nobody on the world like Pat. That's the first thing. Like, there's nobody like how talented he is, how hard he works,

how he, the consistency to want to do that every single day. Like I know I'm not a huge talker, and that's why I love working with Pat too. Like he's great at teeing me up and going back and forth. He's just a lot of fun. But to do that every day, I'm sure there's days he doesn't feel like, you know, it doesn't have a bunch of juice. He's only slept for an hour or two, but it doesn't matter.

You can't tell. Like the old, what's the old Johnny Carson thing? That red light comes on and that dude is rolling. And he's not, it's not fake either. Like he genuinely think, yeah, I'm just going to have a good time here. and I'm going to bring the juice. And I think that's what's awesome about it. I think that people feel that and they see that.

And people that watch the show are so invested because they've been with Pat for a long, long time and followed his whole journey. So they're super invested and they, you know, they know everybody on the show. They know the characters. They know who we are, I feel like.

And in turn, we, like Pistol said, we kind of, you can walk around and kind of see the demo. Like you can see certain people in age groups and what they look like. And my God, this guy definitely knows.

I was like, then they'll ask some, hey, man, like, I was goofy. I was gumpy doing. What's going on? Is he getting deported again? Like, they all have inside jokes and make fun of my fingers and all different stuff. So, yeah, like people are invested. And that's why I think is cool when people are invested in the show and they know all the weird behind the scenes, jokes and all that stuff.

And that's what makes it fun. I love it. The few things I thought of, I think there is a, starting with Pat, but then the whole show, there is a fearlessness. of the of everybody on the show like starting with pat i think there is amazing authenticity you know it's real these are the things people want to say but maybe are too afraid to say what it gets said on on your show and then i think you guys have awesome role clarity everybody understands and embraces their role like i actually was taking notes thinking about this i think it's similar

to the dynasty of the New England Patriots. So think about when they were really gone, when they were winning all those Super Bowls. So at the top, you have this one person who is the combination of three people. Pat is Bob

Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady all in one person. He owns it. He makes all the decisions, and he plays. So he's three guys. And then you look at like you, and tie and debut and tone, you're like...

Connor and Ball. Well, hold on. You're like Wes Welker and Edelman and Randy Moss. And then you also bring in this... Who's Moss? Sorry to interrupt you. Who's Randy Moss? Who's Edelman? Who's Welker?

Initially, I wrote you to try to fluff you a little bit, but then I was like... Yeah, you know, your Moss, maybe. You know, gets teed up by the quarterback pretty well. Pat tees you up well, throws up, jump, balls for you. So maybe Moss. Or you could be the slot receiver who's just really dependable. So are you Edelman maybe?

Okay. Maybe. Okay. Then you have this character who we all love to see how wild and crazy is. Gronk is Connor. Right. So Gronk is Connor right there doing his thing. And then you got Zito and Foxy and Nick and Gumpy.

They're the offensive line. They're like clear in the way, making sure everything's good. And then I got it because I know, I know CFO Phil is a listener. I've interacted with him, amazing guy. He's like the D coordinator, right? Like he's got to maintain, hey, Pat, let's not go too crazy with the spending. Let's let's let's rein this in. Okay.

Let's do what we got to do. So he's all there. My point is there is everyone on that team that won all those Super Bowls. They all understood their role and they embraced their roles really well. And if any of you guys got too big of an ego or you wanted to be Tom Brady, it wouldn't work. But I think all the guys understand their role and they play them so well in addition to being fearless, in addition to being amazingly authentic. And by doing all of that, that's, and you know, you have the guy who plays three roles at the top. If you have all of that, that's how you get what you get.

And that's why it can't be duplicated. That's why people say they want to do it, but they can't. because they don't have all of those things. And that's a lot of magic that I think most people are still doing. That's what I think is so cool. And I'm glad and grateful that you get to be part of it. I think it's amazing. Yeah, believe me, I am too.

I am absolutely thankful and glad because like I said, I have fun. Like I really laugh on there more than anything. And yeah, I just, I love doing it. I'm lucky because a lot of people don't find something that they love to do after they get done playing sports. For sure, for sure. I remember talking, you know, I was sending you article. and texting and having conversations with you like year three, four, five, six when you're in

the NFL thinking like, God, I want you to, you know, I want you to have, I just want you so badly to have something when you're done. To have this is just awesome. So super cool. Okay. Next is a question that is about something completely different, giving speeches. So all of us go out and give speeches to a wide variety of audiences. We've done this now for a year. years, Pistol, you've done it longer than us. So maybe I'll have you start. But there's a lot of questions about what do you do to be really effective as a keynote speaker? How do you prepare? How do you think about it? How do you make sure when you get on stage, you absolutely destroy it? Well, I know there's, I know we're going to cover a lot between the three of us. So I'm,

I focused on just two or three main things that I think might be not in a book about how to give a speech. So I'll give you things that I do. A lot of people I observe who are, are giving presentations or speeches, tend to have, they try to prepare for every last word they're going to say. They'll write every word down. They'll have 30 slides or charts that have everything that they want to get across their audience. And I think that might be good if your job is to be in a legal case or something like that, where you've got to cover every last thing.

But I don't think it's so good to be effective as a communicator. And so I have a very different approach. I'm not comfortable as a speaker if I'm too tied to every last word. And so what I do is develop what I call a set list. So if you guys are Dave Matthews fans, he's got a set list, right? And he just writes one or two words that remind him of the next song they're going to go to. Because I do want to go in the order that I intend to go, typically, of the topics I'm going to cover. But it allows me to think in stories rather to have to be burdened by thinking in the exact

words that need to be said. And I think when I think in stories that the set list idea gives me, where I just have a word or two to remind me of where I'm going next, allows me to do a better job as a communicator. And then what I do is I, once I have that set list, is I will give the speech to an audio recording device, my phone typically. And I'll give the whole speech, right? I'll go through the whole thing. And I'll have some notes around me so that I can, because it's early, right, I haven't given it yet. So I'm preparing. And I have everything that I intend to cover. And I'll have that recording.

And then I'll take a walk. I'll take a few walks at night. And I might have a cigar. And I will walk for miles listening to myself giving that speech so that I just kind of ingrained the material in my head. So that by the time it's time to go do the speech, I've heard it a bunch. I've literally absorbed it.

And I've just got my little set list that says, here's where we're going to go. And I'm off and running. So that's my, you know, behind the scenes kind of things that I use, just a couple of points that I think are so much more effective to be a good communicator than if you're so rigidly tied to every last word that you think needs to be said and tied to a bunch of slides. I use slides. Don't get me wrong. But they're just meant as background color for the words that I'm saying. To reinforce it. The saying it out loud part's big, I think, because you don't want the first time to be, you're hearing those words spoken when you're up there. You want to have said, like, I've done this before. I know this material cold so that when you get up there,

you can just let it fly, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Age, what about you? Man, you guys obviously give more speeches than I do, but I enjoy it. I love doing it. I love giving speeches. Now, I want, but pistol quick, when you record yourself on your phone and you walk around listening to it, like how do you, it's tough listening to yourself give speeches, I think. It's tough. listen to your own voice. Are you able to remove yourself from that? And be like, oh, I sound stupid or what does that? Like, how do you listen to yourself that much? Well, I'm more trying to absorb the material, right? Because I don't, I don't want to rely on a bunch of notes or a bunch of prompter or certainly not a teleprompter. I've never been a guy that likes to use a teleprompter.

So I've got to have all the memory in my, all of the memory. That's so to me it's more of a memory exercise. And by the way, I do kind of want to hear what do I sound like because they're all going to hear it. He loves that voice. You got to get comfortable with it. Yeah, you're right. He got to, you just let you know, I know you, you were a, what, radio TV, uh, major back in O. T. Hawkins. Yeah, J.T. Hawkins, famous DJ from the Midwest. Anyone growing up at that time, no. There you go. Okay. That's, yeah, I guess I don't, I, every time I give a speech, I feel, I go in and the day of, and when I show up, I feel unprepared. And I always feel like I didn't do it, like, man, I really screwed myself on this one. Like, I thought,

I thought I had it. Why did I accept this job? Yeah. And I'm like, okay, these guys, like, this is going to be a tough audience. They don't care. They don't care what I have to say about this story about Charles Woodson or whatever I'm talking about, you know. And it always tends to ends up, it always, I'm not saying they're all A plus, you know, they all can't be Homer and home runs, grand slams, but it always kind of goes the same. It's gone the same way. I don't, I don't write the whole thing out. I do the same kind of thing. I'll like have, okay, what I want to do? what do I want to say here? What kind of stories do I want to tell? And then I kind of like write down little one line or two lines just to remind me because that's like an order thing

for me. I feel like, hey, I need to, for it to make sense, I need to have the order right. And I can't bounce around because my brain naturally just bounces around to 50 different topics, especially if I'm getting up talking in front of people and they may, someone may raise their hand or somebody ask a question or something might pop up my mind. I would get derailed for 10 minutes. Like I got to figure out how to get back to whatever my message was just because I remember watching great speakers and watching you guys watching John Maxwell one time, different ways. I was so impressed with stuff that he started out with, how all of a sudden at the end, he ties it all together. And I'm like, wow, that's like a magic trick, man. I didn't even know

what was happening. And this guy wrote, he ties all, and I've been trying to do that ever since I've watched Maxwell Pistol. Remember that? I don't know how many years ago. I sure do. Eight nine. Circleville Bible College doing a big, big audience thing. I pulled my, I pulled my phone out and started audio recording it at like five minutes in because this dude is legit. Like he's really good. I had never seen him in person. And then when he ties it all together, I've got to figure out how to do that.

So I've been actively actively trying to do that ever since I saw John Maxwell and I am not hitting the mark yet. I'm trying to figure it out, but it doesn't in my brain, I'm tied it all together, but it's not really having the impact that I want. But for me, I go in. I feel underprepared, even though I'm usually. very well prepared and feel like I got it in my head. What's going? And then I might have a couple index cards that I'll look at before I go. But then when I'm up there, I don't like to look at anything because if there's something to look at,

that for me, I don't work to. I just doesn't work. That's one thing I learned is you got to do whatever works for you and whatever you do best because I've tried it in the past of like, oh, you got to like, I've never sat there and read a speech. Now, I think that's awful. When you try to read like you're in sixth grade and you're speaking to the class and you read long, you look up and do that.

Like, people do that. And it's crazy to think of. But I just, the more you get, the more comfortable you get. And I go in, feeling uncomfortable, feeling underprepared. And then when I'm done, I'm pumped. I'm like, this is fun, man. Like, I'm excited. It was great.

And it's usually kind of, minor kind of a mixture of, okay, I went in with this plan. I wanted to kind of hit these stories. I wanted to say this. I wanted to do that. And I usually hit about 50% of it. And then 50% is things that pop into my head in the moment. we're like, oh, well, how did I not think of this? Because beforehand, when I'm thinking, like, oh, I need to, what's a good story?

What's a good coach or a thing here that I can throw in? It's hard to think of when you're actively trying to make yourself think. So all of a sudden, when I'm up there, a lot of times, different things will hit me and remind me of other things. And then I can hopefully tie it into whatever message I was trying to give. But my speeches are not like what you guys are doing, training people, like super serious things. It's like people usually want to at the end do a Q&A and ask me, you know, questions and weird questions about people I've played with and stuff.

And that's, that's super easy. It's fun. Yeah. The Q&A, the Q&A can lead to new stuff too. Yeah, sometimes those, it always does,

I did one speech for the video guys I had, like I kind of finished and got an applause and then I, you know, they're like, can we you Q&A? I'm like, sure, sure. And the video guys shut, they were, they were tearing down. I was like, no, no, no.

That's probably the best part, or it could be or could lead to a new bit. I don't know. So the Q&A, I think, is really useful for a speaker and can be great for an audience too. So this could be an hour long thing. So I'll try to compress it as much as possible. I think one question I ask myself is, what do I want this audience to do? What do I want them to do? And meaning if they don't take action, I say this every time I'm on a like a prep call with a group. if they're thinking about hiring me. I say, do you want someone to come in there and entertain?

Or do you want someone to come in there and inform and create action and entertain? What do you want? And if they just want someone to entertain, which sometimes people do, I always tell them, hire a stand-up comedian. They're great, like a good one. Hire a good stand-up comedian if you want entertainment. But if you want to create action, then maybe I could do that. So I think what do I want them to do and then try to tailor the message based on whatever action I want them to take,

depending on what they want? I think I got advice early on that you should create one awesome, awesome speech and then just run that at a lot of different places, but just master the one speech. And I think that advice is partially correct. I do think you should have your bits that are your, as Pistel, you said, you tell me, like, hey, you got to play the hits. You know, tell the triathons story, whatever. You got to play the hits.

And so I do have some of those. But I also now, since I speak, especially in the fall when it's soccer and volleyball season, when I don't want to travel, I speak fewer times. So I try to make them much more customized. So I will interview. I just had a lunch, in fact, with the guy I'm speaking with for next month, the CEO of the company. And I'm going to meet with four or five of his leaders and then a few individual contributors.

because I want to hear the language they use. I want to hear about their competitors. I want to hear about their problems. I want to hear about what they're striving for so that when I mix in my stories and bits, it is tied directly to the people sitting in those seats. When I think about one of the better speakers I've been in the audience for many times is Charlie MacMahon.

Charlie speaks at Southbrook Church. And Charlie, like so many people come up to him and he's told me this and they say, I felt like you were speaking. directly to me. Like you created this change or you created this action in me based on what you said, the story you told and how you told it and what, you know, the action you pushed for. And I think that's the mark of a really good speaker is everybody in those seats feel like you're speaking directly to them. But in order to do that, you got to know your audience. Like you have to do the pre-work in order to know. So that's why I try to spend a good deal of time interviewing people who

are going to be sitting in those seats, meeting him, getting. to know them, understand the way they talk and what they're going through so that I can they know I'm actually thinking about them because my end goal is what do I want this audience to do. And so everything should be pointed towards that question so that I answer it and I push them towards whatever that thing may be. So that's what I try to do. And I think getting up on stage is one of the coolest things ever. It's not like running out at the big house before a big football game, but it gives you some similar feelings of the nervous anticipatory feeling before a big game. It's not the same, but I do think it's on that path.

And so I want to create as many of those moments as possible because I think it's good to feel nervous. I think it's good to feel that anticipatory feeling and like want to go do a good job. And it creates these highs for you that I think it's part of the juice as part of what we need. So, okay. All right. I'm going to be mindful of time. We're not going to get to everything.

I do think this is a good one, though. I'm going to start with age. What did the best teams you've been on do differently than just the good or average teams you've been on? I mean, you have some good questions. Every coach always is trying to figure this out, I think, too. But it's the same thing where there's no secret. Like the best team, like we won the Super Bowl in Green Bay, my fifth year. And when we look back, I just got to go.

back a couple of my teammates, Clay Matthews, Aaron Campman, went into the Packers Hall of Fame. So I got to see a bunch of the guys, a lot of guys from that Super Bowl team. And we talk about it a lot. Like my wife, Laura and I, like, that team was super close. Like, we hung out. We went to a sports corner to his bar after games where it was like a high school slash college environment to where home games, we win. Cool.

Like, we would just naturally meet up there and everybody's family could come. Like there's whoever was in town, boom, we come here. We hang out. everyone has a great time. I think that's a huge thing that people don't, you can't like quantify and whatever, but like just being together with your teammates off the field is awesome. And when you're that close, you can't like,

there's no stats or anything or whatever you can do, but you can try to, if you're the GM or you're putting a team together, you can try to make sure, hey, I get the right type of people that will gel together. And it takes a great coach like Mike McCarthy too to kind of get you all going in the same direction. but honestly it's people that are like there's still egos like that's a thing too like there's still egos and there's still everything everyone wants to yeah this guy's on a contract year this guy's doing that but they all kind of understand like hey if we win if we go win like there's enough for everybody everybody gets taken care of if we win a lot of coaches the

NFL will say that like hey don't worry about it like if if you go out there and we win there's going to be enough to go around for everybody it might you may not be here you we might not be able to keep you. But trust me, there's 31 other teams that someone will pay you and someone gets you what you deserve if we win. But we have to take care of business and win first. So I think it's just like a same thing. Consistency, good dudes that care about each other. Everyone's going in the same direction. It's very hard to do all of that, especially over the course of a long year with injuries and all the things. And people are just resilient and don't care. Like teams I've been on that of the best, like it doesn't matter. We'll just keep going. Like, okay, cool, something happens.

there's no drama, there's no whatever. Like, yep, we don't care. Like, we're just going to go about our day and go about our business, no matter what happens, whether people on the outside are saying, oh, how unlucky are you guys about this or you guys get screwed over by the refs? Like, it doesn't matter. Like, we don't care.

We don't need anybody else. We'll go beat them. That's how every team I've been on that's good. I love that that's kind of like the core. That's how everybody feels on the team. Laugh together, cry together, do hard things together. That's how trust is built, how good teams are built, right? you at you genuinely are there for one another. You care. I love it. Pistol, how about you?

This was one of people wouldn't expect me to give, given how my career went, but later on, but in my early days at Lexus Nexus, we had a big challenge in our business. Customers had to convert from one kind of a device using our service to their own systems. And it was a big challenge. And some guy in the leadership said, we need to create a tiger team to get out there and go across the country and get all these customers connected. And they put me in charge of that. And I got to hire a few people. And they all came in saying, how are we going to do this?

It's overwhelming to go out into all these customer systems and make it work. And I said, look, there's three things we have to learn. And I told them what those three things were. And if we'd go into customers' property and ask these three questions and solve for those three questions, it would work every time. And everybody got really excited about it because it always worked. It was like a miracle that we could make happen. and people didn't understand that we really just knew three things.

But these people I hired were very dedicated, and they were most interested in being a great teammate. And I will never forget when AJ and I used to give a talk, I think we called it something like the winning organization or something like that, and I would bring up a topic, and one of them was about being a great teammate. And AJ, I think you thought of Morgan Burnett as an excellent teammate because he was so trustworthy and you had all these great reasons you gave when we gave this talk.

But these people, it was their biggest desire. I want to hold up my end. I want to travel as much as I have to travel. I want to see as many customers as I can possibly see. And if somebody's sick or somebody has a wedding to go to, I'm going to go do theirs too. And so we very much had a sense of our mission is very important to our business. It became important to us as individuals. And we wanted all of us to be successful. We all thought we were all stars at what we were doing. And we had this little secret that we'd go around the country and make good things happen in our customers' technology systems. And so to me, it was most about we were responsible to the mission. We were responsible

to each other. And in fact, to the point of we would back each other up. And I think if you walk in and out of other people's companies, you see people that really want to be great, but you don't always see people that want to be a great teammate necessarily. You certainly don't always see people, especially in service-giving organizations of covering for each other. And so I had just overwhelming sense of just how much we all cared about each other's success. That to me was something that really was a team that I thought worked well. Was that the top gun group? By caring for each other.

Was that the top gun group? Well, that came later. But it was all from this. We had a top gun group go out to teach our own salespeople. You actually got these people together, gave them the top gun hats, got a big picture in front of a fighter, jet, right? Like, you went out to an Air Force base and took pictures for a jet.

I think that stuff matters. That matters. Like, I'm a part of this team. I'm a top gun guy, you know? I'm a top gun girl. Everybody wants to be a part of a team. Everybody wants to be part of the game.

Whatever that team is. Look at pistol and his cycling. You're on a team and then mom's on her own cycling team. I don't know why you guys don't go to the same cycle place. That makes no sense to me. But you both celebrated my 1,000th ride. Come on. Congrats.

I know. I know. I saw it. That's cool. But why don't you go to the same place? Why don't you go to the same place? I don't get it. She says a secret to a happy marriage is in the morning.

She turns right and I turn left and we reunite at night. Hey. Okay. Look at you. Still together. Still going strong. There we go. That's good.

I will add a little bit because I had some notes that similar things. I think the best teams, because I've unfortunately been the quarterback of a losing team. And that's terrible. But especially as you're responsible that you're the quarterback, is the only football player that has a win-loss record, right? I think the best teams, though, the best players practice the hardest. That's a commonality among great teams. The best players wanted to take every rep.

They took those reps seriously. They took notes and meetings. They chose extra work in the wait room, watched film, and when they get out to practice, they practice the hardest. they first hold themselves accountable to a very high standard, very high standard. And because of that, they then can hold everyone else to that high standard. And so the best teams have their best players practicing the hardest and they're not afraid to hold themselves to a high standard and then hold others, their teammates, to a high standard. Age on our teams, when we got to play together for two years, I was most.

Most fearful, I'm sure you probably feel the same way, most fearful of letting my teammates down. That's what I thought about all the time. When I played as a freshman and Adam Taylor was a senior, what I thought giant linebacker, when in reality he's like 6 foot 175. But I was scared to death to let him down because he was the hardest worker on the team. He was the best defensive player on the team. He was scary. He was unafraid to go after guys way bigger than him and just make plays.

And I so badly just didn't want to let him down. And that raised the level again of my play. And so when the best players practice the hardest, I think it gives your team a good shot to win. And when it creates this kind of, I got to be there for my teammate, I don't want to let him down. I think that's a really powerful thing to have on a team.

I think it's everything. Yeah. Like there's nothing worse than a teammate that makes a mistake or does something like selfish during a game. and you hangs his buddy out to dry, and then the dude doesn't care. Like he doesn't. Like, whenever that would happen to me,

it would crush me. Like, if I knew, like, oh, man, like, I, we're playing cover two, and I'm chasing this guy to the flat. Like, what an idiot. And they just hitting this curl right behind me as I'm chasing the guy when I know the corner is sitting in the flat.

And I knew, like, just a dumb mistake like that and let my team down. Like, that's day one install. You can't do that. And so when things like that would happen, yeah, absolutely, that's all I thought of. But yeah, your coaches, you know, they're going to kill you.

at you and whatever, but I'm thinking like, man, I got Charles Woodson thinks I'm an idiot now. I don't understand what cover two is. So yeah, like that was always my thing from a young age in high school, obviously, for sure from day one. Like, all right, let's just, don't mess this thing up. Don't want, don't, I don't want these guys beating me up. I don't want them coming and killing me if I don't do my job. Like, I need to prove that I, hey, this guy is in here. Like, it was probably something since you were, you know, you were junior, I was a freshman. I'm sure when I got thrust in there, people probably thought, like, if I was out there and I was garbage. They're like, what, we're just putting this guy in because his brothers are starting

quarterback. Like, I would assume I didn't think of it at the time, but yeah, they should be thinking that. So I knew like, I got to, yeah, I have to prove that I deserve to be here. Yep. I think it's that there, I wrote about using fear as fuel in my most recent book. And I think like, you got to be careful with fear as fuel. But there is a part of it that it can work. Like it could burn strong for you. If, if that fuel can can work. You just got to, it can't be too. It can't be too much, but me, us not wanting to let teammates down, I think, has been a fear we've probably used forever. I still use that. I have teammates now. Like, I don't want to let them down. I'm, I got to raise the standard continuously every day. And I think that's part of what makes stuff good. Okay,

let's do, let's do one more before the draft. I know we have, there's like five or six more I had on our list, but we'll be here all day if we, if we get to all them. Do you guys want to do the resilience one? Which one would you, what? What? What? Which one do you like best? I think that's a good one, Ron. Go for it. Okay. Age,

do you have a story on a moment in your life when you failed when it, for whatever reason, it did not go your way and you had to deal with it? How did you deal with it? What happened? How did you respond? What did you learn from it? A moment of failure where you had to be resilient. Okay.

Yeah, as you were saying, I wasn't, I'm trying to think. There's a lot of different situations. I could reference. But my sophomore year, we were undefeated and went to Michigan. We won my national championship, my freshman year, 14, though. I mean, I just walked into Ohio State. Yeah. At Ohio State, walked into an unbelievable situation.

My freshman year, we go 14-0, win the national championship. Like, I got to start one game, play some of it, and then play special teams. Not a huge part of it. But my second year, I was starting, and we went to Michigan and we played them, and they just ran all over us. Like, they killed it. Like, I don't know what the final score was, even. but we got manhandled.

And I didn't play well. It feels like nobody played well, especially on our defense. They ran all over us. They were out physicaled. And Mark De Antonio was our D coordinator. And he made us come in and watch the game. The game was maybe after Thanksgiving we watched or whatever. And he caught one by one, everyone who played on the defense,

you had to watch in his, like in a conference room with him, where he would sit across the table from you and just watch the whole game. game. And every play, like I still remember one play where this guard came out to block me. I don't know what happened. And I kind of like threw my body into him, didn't use my hands. And the dude just swallowed me up. And I think they made even scored a touchdown. Like in the 10-yard line they run in. And I remember him just kept running it back and forth, that same play. He's like, what is this? What, what are we doing here? Do we ever teach you this? What do like, and he did that 10, 15 different times in different plays throughout that game. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I remember

sitting there as he was telling us how terrible we did. One-on-one, though, there's no other players there. No one's there. And it's just you and him. And he is, Mark D'Antonio, I have, he's another guy, like, you have a healthy fear of him, but also the most respect of anybody in the world. Like, I love that, dude. And he's an unbelievable coach, but he's a scary individual at the same time.

I walked out to practice one time. I went to tie my freshman year. I was tying my cleats, and I'd tie him, and boom, they ripped my laces, ripped completely. I didn't have time to get new laces. We're running out there. So I put some tape. I just tape my shoe on my foot, my cleat. And I went out there for practice.

And Dan Antonio spots the tape on my cleat and went crazy. He's like, what are we individuals around here? Get that tape off your shoe. I started by coach my rip late. He's like, I don't care. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I practiced with one cleat falling off the whole day. I didn't have time to get a new lace.

But that's like the healthy fear you have of coaches like that. And I'm sure if I told him that, he would laugh now. But I, that feeling. session alone was one of the lowest points in my football life, absolutely, with him, because it's true, like, our team didn't play well. I definitely didn't play it. And then I, he would at, he would just look at me sometimes like, what is this? Like, what are you doing here? And I remember being like, I don't have an answer. I don't know why I'm doing that. That's like, it was one of those things where a team starts beating you and we just couldn't figure it out. Like, okay, maybe I'll

jump here. I'm supposed to have a gap here, but I'm going to jump in peeking the B gap and try to make a play to get everything kick started. And then boom, they gashed you for 20. Like, Things like that, it illustrated to me all the things coaches have been telling us for years of what you cannot do. And we all, I especially, we did that in that game. And there was, oh, I mean, that meeting, because then we'd sit there and talk to our friends. I talked to Bobby Carpenter about his meeting he had with Antonio later and just how brutally honest it was and how terrible it was to watch ourselves like that. And I was like, I don't ever want to have to watch that again, like from myself or anybody. I think that that had a huge, I still think about it.

I still have fear thinking of walking into that room and seeing him, like, sit down. Like no hands of you, sit down. And he puts you right across from him and just watch the whole game for two hours straight. I'm like, Antonio, he truly cares about the squad because think how much time he took to watch. He probably watched that game with 16, 17 different players one by one. And we obviously watched it together too later. But yeah, he shows you how much he cared and how much it bothered him. And in turn bothered us for sure, because it,

opened my eyes, no doubt. Wow. I remember that game. I believe you... Chris Perry, he ran all over us. I believe you came to Athens after and stayed with me that night. I remember that rough, rough, rough day. Terrible situation. Yeah. Oh, man. I hadn't heard that before. That's really cool to be able to... It's wild. The moments that you never forget, right, and how they impact you forever after you've messed up or you've fallen down and how you bounce back from. That's awesome. Pistol, how about you? I'll give you one that most people. Certainly our listeners haven't heard before on the topic of resilience.

I think most people think my career, Alexis was a big joy ride, which, you know, a lot of fun and excitement and good things happening for me. But it wasn't always that way. I recall that shortly after our company had been acquired, we got a new CEO, a little bit after that, we got a new CEO who was coming in. We'd met, but he barely knew me. And I was the SVP of sales at the time, big Salesforce, 15. hundred people. And I got a heads up from the former CEO who took me to dinner. And he said, hey, I know he doesn't know you from Adam, really. And it's not fair. But he's going to bring in his own guy as the head of the sales force. And so, you know, where that leaves you. And he said,

you got to decide what you want to do about that. And so I thought, well, I can start looking for jobs, I guess. But I had a lot of experience that I thought was really important and useful. And so I asked this fellow. His name's Mike, and he and I have shared this story since then a lot with each other. But I called him. I say, Mike, can I have breakfast with you? And I showed up for breakfast. And I knew he had in his head some information that he didn't want to tell me. So I said, Mike, I understand what it's like coming in as a new CEO. And I also understand that the most fired senior position in major corporations is the head of sales. And I don't know for sure what your intentions are with me. But let me just say some things to you. It's conceivable that you've got

somebody in mind to be your head of sales that you know from some other venue. And so I can't do anything about that. But here's what I want you to do about me. I said, if you choose to keep me as your head of sales, I'll be honored and I'll keep pushing hard to do a great job. I said, but if there's somehow on your head, that's not what you want, I hope you consider not throwing me out, throwing me out because you think I'm the job, thus I have to go if someone else comes in. If it's on your mind, I want you to think of me as a bundle of skills and experiences that might be useful to you in some other way. And he said, wow, no one's ever had this kind of conversation with me before. And I said, well, I'll tell you, I've never had this kind of conversation before

either, but it is my life. And he said, I do have some thoughts of somebody else that I know who's been a big VP and a sales rep in a company. But you're giving me really some reasons to think. Anyway, he and I went on to spend a couple of hours and we designed what became maybe the most fun job I ever had that I did for five years where we created a position where I was still a senior leader known by our customers and our sales force. But my role was to go in front of customers day after day after today all over the United States in tough situations where we were either heavily challenged.

and something really negative could happen to us, or we had big opportunities that something really positive could happen to us, and I could contribute directly to those customer support or sales situations. And I had this job for the better part of five years going around the United States, meeting with our biggest and toughest or biggest and best customers. Also, a lot of customer entertainment. I took customers to the Masters every year, and it was an amazingly fun thing to do that I felt like utilized my personal skill set to the maximum. And by the way, in that time, the guy that replaced me as the head of sales became one of my closest friends, certainly in the company.

And so that was even great. I was able to be a background support to him, even though I wasn't in that role. And then as history would have it, Mike, who had made that change, came back to me when my friend was going to leave the business and said, you know what, come on back. I want you to leave the sales force again. And I did it for another bunch of years after that. And so in the meantime, had acquired all this experience directly with our customers, learning their problems, their challenges, learning our salespeople's questions and challenges. And then I came back to lead and I was better at my job than ever before.

So I think most people probably would have said, daggone it, they're going to get rid of me. And I just said to myself, that's not the resilient thing to do. Let's go at least try to do something bigger and better. And it worked out better than I could have dreamed. that's awesome. I remember that. I didn't know all the details. But what also happens and why you have to usually get rid of the, the, if you're hiring a new SVP of sales, ahead of sales, the head of sales, the reason you can't have this happen is because there's a lot of healthy or unhealthy ego involved in the head of sales of 1,500 people. And that CEO, until that day, probably thought, there's just no way for these two people to coexist, because that's like having two quarterbacks and two quarterbacks can't play at the same time. So you had a, let him know about and prove to him probably your humility and your willingness to be a good teammate and be a good player, a good team player, because he knows that most organizations, if you're going to replace the head of sales, you can't let him stay in the business because

it could cause too many issues or the guy might be politicking behind the scenes to get his job back and to get the guy fired. And he had to trust the fact that you're not going to be that type of guy and you. And the head of sales ended up like I know, Brian, right? The guy who was head of sales became great friends. And then perhaps to be able to get the job back after he left was an amazing story when I think a lot of people would just quit. Screw him. I'm going to leave. I'll go somewhere else. He wants another guy. I'll go get another head of sales job somewhere else. And you stayed and it was way, way better. You were way better. We were all way better off for it. As it turned out. And by the way, I also had to have a meeting real quickly with the guy that replaced me.

And I made him a promise. I said, I will never go against you publicly. I may very much have debates with you privately where if I just have an opinion, I'll share that opinion, but I'm going to be your biggest supporter. And you have to trust that that's going to be the way it is. And the instant that it's not, you have the right to say, you got to leave. So we had that, we had that agreement as well. That's where it's like people have to have the tough conversations. Sometimes I think people are afraid to just say, hey, let's get real, right? Let's get real with this conversation. This is exactly how we're going to operate. This is how we can work together. This could benefit both of us. This could benefit the company. Here's how

we're going to go. And I think that's a great story that people could learn from to do in their own careers. I'll share one again from my playing career that's obvious to you guys. And I don't know if maybe not to others. But I get recruited to go to Miami. I remember going in my official visit. It's one of the most beautiful campuses in the world. They had just hired a new offensive coordinator named Greg Seaman who was going to put in this this type of offense that I was certain that the starting quarterback at Miami University was going to play in the NFL because I think you'd rack up tons of stats. This was before everybody ran the spread and threw for a bunch of yards. But anyway, I decided to go there and then shortly after I committed

the, you know, probably the most decorated recruit in the history of the school, decided to go there to Ben Rothersberger. And so leading into that, I decided to go to college early right after the day after graduation. Both you guys were the ones to drop me off at that terrible house in Oxford, Ohio. I was told by my assistant coaches there would be other freshmen there. There were none. I was by myself with all the oar guys. I made a commitment to learn everybody's name. I think that's a really important thing as a quarterback is to be able to look a guy in the eyes and call him by his name. By the end of the summer, I was determined to earn respect through showing up at every single workout, going to seven on seven, I have turned some heads by saying, who was this guy? I thought

our big time recruit was the taller guy with a stronger arm. And they were right, but he wasn't there and I was. And so I did all those things, earned some respect, fought through that first year, fifth year starting quarterback Mike Bath was still the guy. So we go into the second year through spring practice, 15 spring practice is the spring game coach Terry Hepner, the late great Terry Hepner doesn't name a starter. We go all through the summer. I do the same things. Try to work like crazy. Be there always. Be a constant in the weight room, running, throwing, being with my guys, being a good team guy. We get to the first week of the season. season. We play University of Michigan. Ben and I both play. I happen to catch the first pass

Ben ever through in college. The next play, we run a speed option left where I pitched to Luke Clemens and he bust all 40 yards in the big house. It was awesome. We lost. Second game, we play Iowa. We both get absolutely pummeled. We get beat up because we're rotating and playing. Coach Hepner then looks me in the eye and says, that's it. I'm done. He's a starter. You're done. You're the backup. You're not going in anymore. Maybe a little receiver stuff. But for the most part, we got to keep you healthy. And I share the story of getting beat out for the starting quarterback job as a really tough time because I've been the starting guy on every team I've ever been on, whether it was playing pitcher and shortstop on the baseball team,

point guard on the basketball team, and certainly the starting quarterback on every team, including all four years in high school. So I never had to deal with that before. But the lesson that I learned or the resilience part is I think not exactly what maybe what people would think because did I handle it well? I don't know. I handled it okay. Probably not great. It was immature. What I learned, though, is something that I still draw from every single day, I think, is that my teammates would say, we see you in the wait room, we see you watching film, we see you taking notes, we see how hard you practice, all these things that may be at a higher level than the other guy. But on Saturday, that other guy is an absolute stud. And as Coach Hebner told me,

he gives us a better chance to win than you do. And so what I learned is the world does not care what you think you deserve. The world doesn't care if you think you work harder than everybody else or that you spend more time watching film or lifting weights or throwing extra at the end of practice if the other guy doesn't. The world does not care. What matters is how much value you bring to people. In that case, it was a football team. But in general in life, that's all that matters. Nobody cares how hard you work. Nobody cares what you think you deserve. Nobody cares what you think you may have earned. They care about the value you can bring to them. And if you don't bring value, you are done. That's just the way it works. So the exact same thing is how my business works.

If I don't bring value, I don't do long-term contracts. I don't make people pay me for speeches until after the speech. These are cardinal sins in the professional services world, right? Long-term contracts lock people in, make them commit to at least a year. You do not get on that airplane until you're paid in full, right? All these rules. I do not follow any of those rules because I think you have to provide value. You have to give them even more than they expect in order to think you deserve any sort of pay or to continue working the next month.

That's why I tell my guys, like, we have to earn the next month. now. We have to earn this job every single day and nobody cares that we work really hard in the background to be prepared. Nobody cares. What do they care about? They care how you can help them. And that's exactly what Coach Happner taught me was, hey, the other guy gives us a better chance to win than you do. That's it. That's it. And I'm like, yeah, this is not fun. I wish that wasn't the case. I love it here. I want to stay here. But the other guy gives us a better chance to win. That's just the perfect time in a kid's life to learn that the world doesn't care. They don't care. It doesn't matter. So, yeah, I'm going to work hard. I'm going to be prepared.

But ultimately, nobody else cares about that. They care about the value that I can bring. So I think I feel now, because a lot of people said, oh, that was so unlucky to go there the time. Ben was there, all that stuff. Yes, I thought that too. That I don't think that anymore. Now it's the most luckiest thing that's ever happened by far because I got to learn. a really valuable lesson at a really early age. And I take from that every single day. So I think that's while the response was transferring playing at OU, having a below average career, winning a few games here and there,

it led to a little bit of playing after college. That's fine. Like all the playing stuff's fine. It's really more about like the key learning from thinking I deserved or I was entitled to something when that's just not how it works. it just it doesn't matter what what matters is how you can add value to other people and if you can't do it or somebody else is better at that than you you lose they win have a nice day and i think that's something i i try to to bring to every single situation every relationship every client

everything i do you know this podcast i try to do i try to bring that to everything awesome yeah entitled how do you yeah people are entitled that's a whole issue people have now but yeah yeah Well, I mean, if you think about it, I know age, you approach things similarly. I feel like that's the hallmark of of your role now on the show, too, is there's just no entitlement. There's no expectation. There's no thinking I deserve anything. There's, it's more about you saying, I'm going to show up and try to be as good as I can possibly be at my job every single day, right? And that's why I think you're, you're, that's why you're a part of it.

That's why you're doing it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Life's not fair. You got to tell my kid. I tell it, like, it's not fair. Like, just because you, congrats, you worked harder, you did all this stuff. Life's not fair.

There's always somebody that can do it. But that's not a reason to not do that. Continue all that stuff. It's going to, it's going to pay off somehow. We don't know when or where or how or even in the same profession or whatever. But yeah, it will eventually pay all. Yep. Yep.

That's the consistency part, which I think is a part of our family DNA, right? It's just you've got to get up and keep working. Okay. There are a bunch of questions we're going to get to. You guys want to draft? Let's do with the draft. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So I'll go first. Do you want me to go first? Yeah, but I got to explain it first. I got to explain it. Okay. What we're drafting. Okay.

So we've had a million ideas. None of them good. So we took the least worst idea. That's what our draft is going to be. Okay. So here's what it is. You're stranded on a deserted island. You have one thing in your possession, and that is an iPad.

an iPad. On that iPad, there are five TV shows and nothing else, just five TV shows. We are going to draft what those TV shows are. And if somebody drafts it, then obviously nobody else can take it. So it's a draft. And at the end, we are going to compare. And one point, this is a very serious competition. And there will be a clear winner. and two losers, right? My prediction, having not seen your boards, is Pistol will attract the older demo, right? Worse. Dominate.

You know, some of those older ones send the emails and tell me Pistol, obviously, one. Age will attract the marks, the WVE fans. I don't think so. And I will win. Okay. All right. I will let age go first because you whined and cried about going first because I think what you're going to choose is at the top of all of our list.

It's definitely at the top of my list. I'll let you go first. I'll go second. Pistol, then you get third and fourth because it's a snake draft. I'll let you go first because you were a baby. And then, uh, well, I thought snake draft, man, I go first. He is the youngest. Yeah.

I go first. Someone takes second. And then I get third and fourth, though. I thought I got three and four. When does this pistol go then? I'm third and then I turn the corner. He's third and he's fourth and then I'm fifth and then you would be sixth and seven.

I know it's a snake. Well, that's a, I mean, that snake is. How many, how many, how many, how many twists and turns you got on that snake? Is that an an anaconda that thing's long? Well, I think it's safe to say. That's what she said. Yes, well, me and you.

I'm leading into Ryan and myself, we are not really scared or worried that Pistol's going to take any of our picks, I think, right? That's correct. I don't know if there's anything Pistol has written down that I have even seen. But we will see. I don't know, maybe he'll surprise us. Number one overall pick here, I think we all would take it.

Michael Scott, the office. Got to go to the office. I still, I watched last night I'm trying to think the episode. That's one, my wife and I watched that at night. Oh, what's on? No, it's hard to find anything good on. Boom. We're watching the office.

We're watching Peacock, however many seasons, nine, eight, nine seasons, whatever it is all day. It still holds up. Yeah, the office. Episode two of season one was Diversity Day. Is it still up there? Is it still up there? I heard it got taken down someplace.

No, I've just watched it. It's one of the best episodes of TV of all time. I also had the office number one on my board. Pistol, did you? I did not. Okay. I was going to put you at first so that I could go second. But since age was crying earlier, I let him have the office.

I was also going to draft the office number one. so I'm up next so part of my reasoning and I think I've done a lot of work to prepare for this because this is very serious part of my reasoning we're not worried about your work we're not worried you just said that we don't care about how hard you work

no one cares what are you talking about Survivor watching people on a deserted island while I'm on a dessert island now here's one of the primary reasons why 46 seasons That's a lot of stuff on that iPad for me to watch while I'm stranded. So Survivor, 46 seasons.

The number of seasons plays a role into my board just so you know, Survivor. Makes sense. Love it. Good choice. Pistol, you get two. Well, that's great because I'm just going to add to the domination. I check, hey, you checkers players, I appreciate your early entrance. I'm playing three level chess in this game.

What? No, that's not the, that's not the, that's not the, phrase. Yeah, well, something like that. That's not the phrase. Yeah, he nailed it. I nailed it. I nailed it. He got it. He got it. And so I'm thinking about surviving, surviving and the elements you need to survive. Okay. And I think the first thing I need to survive on a desert island, deserted island, is struggling. A deserted island is that I need interaction. I need, I need stimulation mentally. And I think nothing's going to stimulate. me more mentally. And by the way, this show has... What's the show?

This show has 8,635 episodes. Jeopardy is my first... Oh, I had that. I will watch Jeopardy every day for the last... For the rest of my life on this deserted island, because there are so many episodes, and I will get to keep my intelligence level high. So Jeopardy is my first choice.

Wow. I had that high because 40 seasons, 40 seasons. 40 seasons of Jeopardy. I looked up the number of episodes. All right. Now, second, I assure you that neither of you know about this show nor many of our listeners, but some will. There was a show that had 350 episodes in the 60s and 70s. When I'm on this deserted island, I need music.

I need music, not just words. There was a show called Don Kirshner's Midnight Special that starred. Wolfman Jack, the disc jockey, who brought in in the 60s and 70s all, and I mean all of the greatest musical acts of all time, from the Rolling Stones to the Temptations, you name it, they all played the Midnight Special, and I'm going to have all 350 episodes to watch as I'm on that deserted island. The live acts with their greatest hits on Don Kirshner's Midnight Special. That's my second choice.

Back to you. The TV show is called Midnight Special? Midnight special. It's called The Midnight Special. All 350 episodes are on YouTube. Wow. It's a great walk show. Is it a talk show? No. It's a show where they're, it's basically like a concert where they'll say, okay, first for tonight, we're going to have the Rolling Stones. After that, we're going to have the temptations. And then here comes Gladys Knight and the Pips. Next week, come watch the Jackson Five and Curtis Mayfield. I mean, it's, it's week after week. Every Friday night at 1130.

Okay. What? They need music, I guess. I do. Wow. Okay. You've done some work. I'm trying to think now. I've got to be strategic to think what age won't pick since he gets two after me because.

Wait, you're up now? Yes. Then you get two. You will never, ever figure out how these things work. I don't understand the snake draft. I'm not going to lie. I thought I get two now. You're about to benefit by it.

Why would it skip me? Because I'm next, because I went first. I went second. he went third and fourth and it's snakes back to me. Yeah, just trust the process. You're going to draw a picture for. I'm a visual guy. You know, I don't understand the snake back.

It'll look like a snake. No, a snake sometimes is straight. A lot of times sleetters. Right. Make your choice. This is awesome. What do you got? I'm going to pick Homeland.

Eight seasons. The problem, the problem with Homeland is that it's not as good when Brody dies. Spoiler. Spoiler works. People are going to kill you. Not as good. And I love, and I know I've talked to Laura actually quite a bit about this age, how cool it

is that the guy's wife calls him just by his last name. So I said, you got to call him Hawk. It's just, it's not age or AJ. It's Hawk because of Brody in the show Homeland. So I'm picking Homeland second. Okay. Nice. is that the same wife though that was fornicating with his best friend when she thought he was dead

that's correct that's a tough that's a that's a tough thing to get over and he had to die but yeah that's tough that's tough yeah she thought he was dead she thought he was dead right moving on hey made it you got to create tension uh and in storytelling that'll do it okay you get two picks age two picks okay all right well this one i don't know if you have this on your list or not but that there's a ton of seasons of this. I don't know how many episodes, didn't look it up, should have got that moment to look up the number of episodes, but I'm going to the real world. No, that's what I was going to pick. Yeah, bam. Sorry about it early on, too. I want early, I want a lot of the early episode, the, the Miz season as well. 33 seasons, age.

33 seasons. I knew you would do that research for me. So yeah, give me the real world. There's a billion episodes. Yeah, I know. There's a million different, each different cast has a It should have picked a second. Its own identity, I feel like. So yeah, give me a real world. I could go back and watch all of those. It's been a long time since I've done it. But yeah, also, is there a charger?

Do we got, how do we, how do we keep this thing powered? It's on solar power. There's a solar charger. Okay, that makes sense. I get it. Okay. So I get another pick, right? You another one.

I got a third pick coming up. See, I got a couple of different options. I could go here. I got one that I know I might pick just because I know Ryan wants it. And there's for sure going to take it. but I don't know if the, I don't know if the current kids know as much about this show, but yeah,

give it to you. My third pick is the Wonder Years. Oh, I knew it. I had on my list too. I knew that was going to be on Ryan's list real quick. Because the wonder is how many seasons? How many do you know?

Not that many, I don't think. Not as many as we need. I don't have the number of seasons. I will take it. Jack, the father, great character.

Everybody's the father. Winnie Cooper. I guess she's like a math wizard now as an adult. I hear everyone's doing great. Fred Savage looks amazing. He looks the exact same just 40 years older. Looks awesome. My board is actually getting eaten up.

This could be a problem. I might be having to search for things. Okay. The office, the real world, the wonder years. Pretty good. Pretty solid so far. I'm going. I'm up.

Then Pistol Gets 2. I am going to choose billions. Billions from Brian Coppelman. There is seven seasons of that show. A really cool experience for me was getting to go record a podcast with Brian in the office where he and his team wrote billions and it was insane. It was like one of the coolest days of all time. The writer's room, his personal office, David Levine, his co-writer's office. And then we went to this other spare room and recorded together, toured everything. We went out and passed football afterwards.

I remember that. Like it was the coolest day. But so I'm partial, I'm a little partial to billions because of that experience with Brian and just being blown away that he created that world out of thin air and then brought it to life as a TV show that I thought was really entertaining. So Billion is my third pick. Pistol. Hey, Ryan, by the way, side note, did I remember, did I remember, right? Did he produce back when he was like in college? Did he produce Tracy Chapman when she was an up-and-coming musician?

Was that him? He did. And then now Tracy is now one of the most famous videos of all time. Right. His dad was a massive guy in the recording industry of music. And so Brian started in music. He's still a big music guy. And one of the first people he, I guess, I don't.

if you'd say discovered, but he worked with, before the hits came out was Tracy Chapman. And he was a part of that, I guess it was actually an actual record at that time now, you know, digital. But yeah, Tracy Chapman, pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. All right, Pistol. I've got two. Okay. So, I'm going to miss sports being on a deserted island. And I don't know what I'll do without sports. This show that I'm selecting began in 1970 and has gone strong ever since with three and a half hours, every Monday night. I'm choosing Monday night football and all 667 episodes. Huh? You like that? That's pretty good one. I guess it is my show, right? The listeners are saying this contest is already over. We've only been three picks. This has done more prepped than all of us. I did not expect

this. And I have another pick coming. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Monday night football is actually really good. Now, it could get boring on a deserted island. I could really become thirsty for, drama, for suspense, for action. And I also want to show this got a bunch of episodes. So I'm going to take one of the longest running shows in history. Law and Order, SUV, and all 550 episodes. SvU. Yeah, that's funny, man. I called it an SUV. My own order, SVU. 550 episodes on my iPad. Wow. Wow. Is that with a drama, suspense, and action? Is that with Ice T? Is he in that one or is he a different one?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he's long order. I haven't seen much of it. I think that's him. He's good. I mean, that's a, that's a,

I didn't have that one on my list. No, I don't think I've ever seen that one. I haven't seen that one. Okay. I recommend it. Not a bad list, although the, I'm, I'm concerned that ages list is actually good. So that's, that's concerning.

I'm going to go to. I get two now? No. You got it. It's all you. So I'm going to add sports. into mine too. Can you see that? It's a snake going, is that what your snake looks like? We can't see it. We need to sit down and describe it. It's all right. I think it's happens every time.

I'm going to add, it does happen every time. Maybe it's just part of the tradition. I'm taking the last dance. I think the last dance is the maybe the best 10 episode documentary ever. The only downside is it is only 10 episodes. But those are 10 awesome episodes. The last dance. came at a critical time, remember, in the pandemic. And I still watch it all the time or random episodes. If I have like 20 minutes, just throw on the last dance and watch 20 minutes of Steve Kerr and MJ talking about, you know, their dads or whatever. Like it's, it's, I think the last dance is one of maybe the best documentary I've ever seen.

Yeah, it's pretty good. That's pretty good. Now, you got another one? Nope. You get two and there's your final two to round out your five shows. this is easy, easy runaway victory for me on this one. I thought you guys were going to actually have good ones. But my fourth pick goes, I mean, I don't, I would imagine this would be on your list, Ryan, but give me entourage. Entourage was a whole, entourage was an era that we lived

through at a great time. We were at a perfect age. Oh, yeah. I think everybody that's around our, anyone that's probably, what, 34 to 50 right now grew up. There was a great time when Entourage was on. Sunday nights, I believe. Oh, yeah. Just a magical time for that. I think they had at least five or six seasons, too. So there's a decent amount. They're all hour-long episodes.

You can re-watch, it is making me want to go back and re-watch it, actually thinking about it. So yeah, entourage, no question for me. My fifth pick to round off my perfect list. I'm kind of waffling between a few things. I don't, the office is my comedy I have on there. But give me the Sopranos.

Sopranos is multiple episodes. I would like to rewifference. watch that. I could get into that. I'll take Sopranos, but I had Succession on there as well. I love Succession, but there's only like three seasons, I think. Man. Okay. What you got? What you got? Cosby Show? Which one? What do you plan for second? That's very good. Okay. My final three, and I'm picking one. Three.

House of Cards, it only has like one and a half good seasons. The rest of it's not that good. It's very good though. That one and a half is awesome. I've watched it a ton. Not picking that. Pistol, you'll remember this more. Age maybe 24. Nine seasons.

Oh, man. I'm not going to pick that either, but 24. Good run. We watched that while you were sick. I remember we had all the tapes from the library. DVDs. I'm going to pick, even though it only has two good seasons,

but it's some of the greatest writing of all time. It's a guy on my list of guests I've been trying to get for nine years that I really want. That's Aaron Sorkin and that's the newsroom. The newsroom, season three is not good, but season one and two are insane. And the pilot episode with Jeff Daniels is one of the greatest monologues of all time. Best monologue I ever saw on TV. Ever. And so I think even though it's one and two, it's only two seasons that are good. The newsroom one one and two is so good. So that's my fifth pet. The newsroom. I didn't think about that. It's good. I don't know which of you is going to wait a second.

These are some good choices. What? We're competing against with Don. Don, Don, you lost with a pistol. Regardless of what you pick, you got third place because of midnight special and law and order.

No, no, no, no. People that know, no. Yeah, my final topic under the heading of, I'm afraid,

I'm afraid on this deserted island in my cave, I'm going to have problems sleeping. And I need something that, that soothes me and makes me sleep. and it's the soothing voice of Jim Nance with many, many years. Actually, CBS has had golf... Were you picking the Masters?

For 62... No, all of CBS's golf broadcasts for 62 years, including the Masters, and the soothing tones of Jim Nance will help me sleep in that cave. In addition, I get to watch golf while I'm still awake. So I'm closing it out with 62 years of golf

on CBS Sports. Wait, you just picked golf? all their telecasts every Sunday give me football I'll take football all right all right then I will back it off

I expected that you might have that debate point so I'll just say 62 years of the masters yes I'll take it just for that and close out my actually five big purposes that need to be met

to live and survive and prosper on a deserted island and I've ended it with sleep so you went three for five I will give it to you. You went three for five. Age. Five for five.

I had the Wonder Years on the board, but not in the top five. Really? I thought for sure you'd have that in the top. No, it was on the board, though, but not the top five. Okay. Yeah. So the winner, Survivor, Homeland, Billions, the last dance and the newsroom. Thanks guys for playing.

Thanks for helping me celebrate. The listeners need to decide who are. I appreciate you being here. And we'll figure out some other stupid thing to draft for number 700. Thank you for celebrating with me. We went so long. I didn't play it on that. But this was fun.

Thank you, guys. Thank you. Good job. Congratulations, man. Good list, pistol, great list, pistol. Golf. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club.

If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with. my dad, Pistol, and my younger brother, AJ. Few takeaways from my notes other than winning the draft. Frontline obsession. I love Pistol's story of the legendary Mert McGill, going to the Supreme Court to demo LexisNexis and earning the most important sale in the history of the company at the time. I love stories about leaders who proactively go and do it.

They get on the front lines, right? General Stanley McChrystal would regularly do this. Cat Cole talks about this, but some of the most effective leaders, are not afraid to go straight to the action. And that's what Mert McGill did. Love that story. And then failure stories. All three of these I thought were pretty good.

AJ talking about Coach Dantonio sitting with him one on one, watching each play of the Michigan game when they didn't play well. It's a day he said he'll never forget for how hard it was and how upset he was and how determined he was to respond. And I will note, AJ never lost to Michigan again after that game. And then Pistol sharing the story. about the time when the new CEO wanted to bring his own head of sales in, which is very common in corporate America.

And instead of complaining and just leaving the company or badmouting the CEO for wanting to bring in somebody else, he got creative. He asked them to go to breakfast. They end up meeting for hours. And they came up with a new idea. It was a great way to leverage pistol skills and all of the knowledge he developed from being there for years. And instead of leaving, he stayed and helped the new head of sales.

This is almost like a football team hiring a new head coach, but also keeping the previous head coach for them to work together. That's actually what they did. I remember I was there for part of that time, and it's amazing to see how it worked. And I love it because it shows that he humbled himself, but helped the company thrive in a different way. And I think we all would be better off for behaving like that more often when adversity strikes.

Once again, I would say thank you so much for supporting the show through almost 10 years and 600 episodes. That is wild, but I'm so grateful for you because this doesn't happen if you don't keep listening and going to Apple, podcast or Spotify, and writing a thoughtful review and rating the show five stars and also then going to all of your friends

and saying, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show, number 600, this celebration with Ryan Hawke's dad, Keith Hawk, and AJ Hawk. I think they'll help you, become a more effective leader. Because you continue to do that, you give 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.