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Revenue Builders
How to Build Sales Teams That Won't Quit When Times Get Tough | The Locker Room Strategy with Brian White, Legendary Football Coach & Author
01:11:11
Brian White joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to unpack why elite teams are built on respect first, why trust is collective (not individual), and why commitment without conditions is the only kind that lasts. Drawing from decades inside championship locker rooms, Brian outlines what it takes to build peer-led accountability, accelerate young talent, demand excellence without demeaning people, and create environments where pride replaces entitlement.
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- [00:05]
Podcast Host
Welcome to the Revenue Builders Podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by five time CRO John McMahon and Force Management co founder John Kaplan, the show takes guests in the barrel behind the scenes with the people who've been there, done that and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers best practices for skin scaling and growing your business while sharing the pitfalls to avoid. Enjoy today's episode.
- [00:34]
John Kaplan
Welcome back to another episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast. I'm John Kaplan and I'm joined today with my co host John McMahon and we're going to be digging into the blueprint of elite team culture. Joining us is legendary coach Brian White, author of the powerful new book the Locker Room is Not for Sale. Brian has some incredible stats and honors. He's part of a national championship team with Notre Dame. He was assistant coach of the year in Division 1. He's an elite producer of talent where he mentored the 1999 Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dain and multiple NFL first round draft picks including Michael Bennett and A.J. dillon. Brian is considered a offensive genius. He coordinated offenses that led the nation in total offense and produced eight consecutive thousand yard rushers. While he was at Wisconsin from 1995 to 2002, Brian has coached at some of the most storied programs in the country and he's here to share why the most successful organizations are built on a foundation that simply cannot be bought. In a world of constant transaction. Brian views the locker room as a sanctuary of values, a sacred space where authenticity and brotherhood take precedence over everything else. He challenges leaders to move beyond just strategy and focus on the human touch, operating under the philosophy of relationships first to build unbreakable trust. Let's go, let's listen in.
- [02:24]
John McMahon
Brian, it's great to have you back on the on the Revenue Builders podcast, brother. You're one of my favorite people on the planet and I'm just ecstatic to have you back, bud. Thank you for coming.
- [02:39]
Brian White
Well, it's a pleasure to be here. I just told you, I've been jacked up all week to come onto this podcast. And I mean I'm like flying on. I woke up flying this morning. I'm a falcon and we wake up flying here at Bowling Green and bowling. It's bowling. The grass is always greener, Ohio, and today's a green light day. So we're going to step on the accelerator, we're going to crank up this podcast and we're going to have a great discussion,
- [03:07]
John McMahon
buddy. I'm so excited. Like, if people remember from the last podcast you know, we're talking to Brian White. Reason why you're one of my favorites. You went to Harvard, you worked on Wall street, you've coached some of the greatest players on the planet. And now you're going to get to share all that wisdom with us. How did you get it all? I mean, I know we, I love talking to you about all these stories. What actually inspired you to get it down into a book?
- [03:37]
Brian White
When, when I got fired at Colorado State, I had, before I got hired at Bowling Green, I had about a month and a half where I was just sitting around and, and not doing much. And my wife said, why don't you write the book that you've always wanted to write and start writing it and put your thoughts down and you know, go do your workout, do your exercise and, and work on your book. And so I, that's, that's when I started it and I started putting thoughts down and how I wanted to organize and what I thought the title of the book should be. And it was just became very obvious to me. I mean I've been living, I grew up in a locker room. My dad was a high school coach, my dad played quarterback at Notre Dame. I always loved the locker room. I just lived for Saturday morning, drive into the stadium with my dad and listening to music, cranking up Arlo Guthrie, City of New Orleans and then, and then getting in the locker room with the players. And what I learned in the locker room was when to be quiet, when to celebrate, when to console. So I learned empathy, when to pull pranks, when to lead, all by watching my dad coach his high school teams. And then I became a college coach. So 55 years later and probably 12 teams, this book is going, it's really doing well right now. It's on a bunch of best selling lists, new releases and everything. And the only way I can explain it because it was, it was ranked number one for the past four days on new releases and sports and business and mentoring, a whole bunch of different categories. And Frank Signetti's or Kirk Signetti's book was, was seventh and, and Sam Darnold's was fifth. And I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying how could that possibly happen? And I'm going to tell you why. The locker room, it's 55 years worth of locker rooms all coalescing around one goal, one common goal. And that's to promote the book and to promote the fact that the locker room is sacred space in the locker rooms, never for sale. And, and it's just been, it's been fascinating. It's been absolutely fascinating. And it's really a testimony. The, the sales of this book are a complete testimony to the, the power of the locker room and the power of the human touch.
- [06:09]
John McMahon
Before we dive into it, Johnny, you had a very similar experience in writing your book. I'd like a couple of you know what sounds like best best selling authors here? What was your experience? Share some, share some experiences. A lot of people that listen to this are like, man, I have a lot of experience. I'd love to do that someday. I'd love to write a book before we dive into it. Just like, what are some of the things that I know? It's not as easy as it sounds. And what are some learnings that you had, Johnny, that you might be able to share with all of us? And you and Brian can riff a little bit.
- [06:46]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
I'm sure Brian found out, you know, and what they say is 99% of the people that start to write a book don't finish the book. So it's a, it's a matter of persistence. You know, you can have all these thoughts in your head and how to write the book, but it's, it's really tough work. It's commitment and it's non stop commitment. And even when you think you're kind of done or getting close to done, you start to find out when you really back up. At least I did. You're maybe 60 or 70% done. It's a, it's a really tough task. And that's probably why 99 of the people don't, don't finish the book. So, you know, kudos to Brian for, for being another author that could stick with it and because it's, it's, it's, it's a tough job.
- [07:31]
John McMahon
But you both had a burn, right Brian? Like if it's a flow state too. Johnny, I remember when I was talking to you, you disappear for days or hours in a flow state thinking about these experiences. Johnny's book is called, you know, the Qualified Sales Leader. All of our listeners know about that. Brian White's book is called the Locker Room is Not for Sale. Brian, did you have like, even though you started at Colorado State a few years ago, did you have like that burning desire like when it was time go time to write, did you get into a flow state and just let it go?
- [08:04]
Brian White
I didn't. It was, it was, it was beautiful. And a lot of the stuff was, you've read some of the stuff that I send it to you during the season, weekly messages to my players. And I started off doing all that stuff, and. And it was really more for me than them. I mean, I just. I needed to have an outlet to be able to put down my thoughts and put down things that I thought were important about why I coach and what coaching is all about. To me, it can be a lot of different things to other people, but once I got serious about it and honestly, the tremendous help of editors and people being able to organize some of my ridiculous thoughts, because I have a lot of ridiculous thoughts too, you know, just to. To kind of target me and so that. That it wasn't just all over the place, and they did a great job. And. And I'm really proud of it, and I'm really. I'm really thrilled with the product.
- [09:11]
John McMahon
Yeah, you should.
- [09:12]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
And cap, what. What Brian said in there, and I hope it wasn't lost on people, is when you write the book, you think you understand certain issues, and you do, but when you have to put the words down on paper, this is clarification of the issue that you have to get through to know exactly how to word it. You know what I mean? So you think. Understand this issue, but you're really at this level. And then when you have to write the book, you have to get down to. To. To true clarification of that issue and what it is, what it means to people. And that's what I heard and what Brian was just saying.
- [09:52]
John McMahon
Yeah. Yeah. What I. What I love about what you both have done and we're transition now to the locker rooms not for sale, is that I know the amount of work that you guys put into this, but I could also. And I could also feel like you're not writing about a topic like this isn't an education topic. It started out like that, but it is like it. It just comes through. And Brian, when you gave me the title, I think you told me about a year ago that you were writing this and you said, the locker room is not for sale. And, man, it resonated with me so strongly. Could you just kind of share what you mean by it? Like, how you pick the title?
- [10:34]
Brian White
Well, it hit me like a sledgehammer. When I was. When I was coaching at Wisconsin, I had. I had a buddy that was working down on Wall street, and he wanted to bring 10 clients to the game, to the Rose Bowl. And I said, can he get. No. No problem. 10 tickets? And he goes, how about two sideline passes? And I said, no problem. I'll get you two Sideline passes. And then he said, if you win the game, can I have them celebrate in the locker room with you guys? And I just said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. The locker room is not for sale. It's not for sale. It's for the people that, that delivered the sweat equity together in the shared purpose that they worked for, the goal. It's for them and the coaches to enjoy. It's for the families. The families are part of it, too, because they make so many sacrifices. But not outsiders. Yeah, not outsiders. It's not, it's not for sale. It never will be for sale. If you compromise the locker room, you will not win.
- [11:39]
John McMahon
You know, it's amazing to me when I thought about this and you know, that I'm a, a big Michigan fan and, and you know, I have a lot of affinity for the way that Harbaugh coached Michigan and, and how he, you know, has coached other places. And it reminds me of, you know, the reason why he's in the super bowl and the next year he's not coaching for San Francisco. And I don't, I think, you know the story. You know, there was a locker room incident and it was the owner of the team that wanted to bring people into locker room after, you know, it like at the NFC championship, I think, and he said it was players only and, and he was gone at the end of the year. Now, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, you know, highlight that as a great thing or what have you and not be the insubordinate to your, to your. But that. I think that's what he meant. I think that's what he meant.
- [12:33]
Brian White
There's no doubt that's what he meant. There's no doubt because the euphoria that you get from a magical wind, you can't describe it. It's like a narcotic. You crave it. That's what you're looking for, the authenticity, the spontaneity of the eruption of the locker room. But equally as powerful are those heartbreaking losses when there's complete silence and, and you find out who has empathy, who's a real person, who has perspective, who can, can handle adversity, the traffic of life. The, the, the. The. There's going to be traffic, there's going to be hardship, there's going to be death. It happens every year on every team and every family. You know, you got to deal with it. You have to be able to handle the traffic of life. So the locker room shows you the incredible euphoria that you can never duplicate because it's just so raw and it's so true and it's so authentic. That's what you're craving for. That's what. I live in the locker room. I love the men in the locker room. I love the locker room. I love it during the week, going in and singing and dancing with the players. They think I'm nuts, but, but, you know, I, that's what I love about it. You know, it's just so. It's, it's just awesome. I mean, I, I, I could sleep there every day, you know, I don't know if you probably want me to.
- [14:07]
John McMahon
I don't know if you guys saw it. I just, I heard about it and then I wrote about it. I posted it on LinkedIn a couple of days ago about what Vrabel said after losing. This point is so, so cemented for me after, after losing the game. He said, we lose together. And that's how he addressed the media and blah, blah, blah. So there's a video clip. If you haven't got a chance, go find it. I posted it on YouTube or, excuse me, on LinkedIn after the loss. This is such a leadership moment for me. Draybo standing in the hallway of the locker room. First of all, nobody's going in there but the players. He is standing there meeting every single player with a message to every single player. And basically it's like. And he asked a few of the leaders, like, I need us to be pissed off together in there, because obviously there's young guys on that team that didn't play well. And he said, we, we're all pissed off, but you need to help me be pissed off together in there. And I thought, man, I don't know if you saw that, but it was just such an incredible, incredible leadership moment.
- [15:14]
Brian White
I did. And, and, and don't ever underestimate the power of leadership. I mean, what, what Mike Vrabel did with the New England Patriots in one year is absolutely remarkable. And it's a tribute to his leadership and, and, and the coaches and the players. But, but it starts with, with a great leader. And what he did was, was, it's amazing, amazing. And you see it with, with that locker room scene that you're talking about. I watched it. I marveled it. I said, this guy gets it. He completely gets it. He, he, he's involved with his players. There's direct engagement. That's what the locker room. That's what this book is all about. You, you want to talk, you want to, you want to Bring down those walls. I talk about the isms of.
- [16:02]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Of the.
- [16:02]
Brian White
Of life. Racism, sexism, ageism, classism, elitism. All the isms and turn them into hoods. Servanthood, brotherhood, fatherhood, motherhood. You know, how do you. How do you. Neighborhood. How do you turn isms into hoods like Mike Vrabel did? You have direct engagement. You have dialogue. You create dialogue. And those walls come tumbling down, and there is no racism. People don't care about what your religion is. You know, they respect differences. Whether you're Muslim or Christian or Catholic or Jewish, they respect the differences. They respect black versus White versus Asian versus whatever ethnicity is. Those walls come tumbling down because the locker room is crucible. It's so intense that it forces people to get to know one another. And the good ones, because it's bad ones, too.
- [17:04]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
In the book, you talk about some core values. You talk about along the same lines. Respect, trust, love, commitment, and brotherhood. And I was. And you talk about the four walls being respect, trust, love, and commitment. And I was. Can you talk a little bit about that? And the one that I wanted to know is, I think I have my own answer. But what do you think has to come first so that the other ones follow?
- [17:32]
Brian White
I think the first one is respect. That you have to. You have to respect your teammates. You have to have a common respect for human beings. You. You have to respect people, and you have to respect that they came from different backgrounds, they're different ages, they could be different sexes. Whatever these issues are, you have to. And respect is what football players are craving. They want respect. People admire talent, but they. But they. They really respect. Respect is what people are looking for. They. Everyone admires talent, but respect is. Is. Is. Is. Is the bedrock and the foundation for every football player. They just want to be respected.
- [18:22]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
And you can't respect the guy. Then there's no way to build trust.
- [18:25]
John McMahon
And it's earned.
- [18:27]
Brian White
And it's earned if you can't respect him. That's right. There's no way that you can. You can build trust. And trust. It's really. It's really funny. Everyone says there's no I in team. Well, there's. There's no I in trust either. But there's an us in trust. There's an us in trust. And you have to. So you go from respect. Now you can build trust. Now you can find out if you can trust the person next to you. And then. Then you get to commitment, which I always crack up about. Commitment. What's commitment? Commitment is commitment doesn't have conditions. I always crack up about prenups in marriages, so that's a commitment. Hey, honey, I want to get married, but I need you to sign this prenup because, you know, just in case things don't work out, I don't want you to have my. My treasure chest that I had that granny gave me. And, you know, no, commitment doesn't come with conditions. A commitment is. I'm in. I believe in the values of your company, your team. I'm committed to it, and I'm going to show you. And I'm committed to it by coming to work every day and. And living the values of a badger, a falcon, a ram, whatever.
- [19:48]
John McMahon
I love this so much, this discussion. And, Johnny, I'd like to hear your. Your thoughts on as well. I learned this the hard way. It's not just. It's not just the trust for the individual. It's the trust for the locker room, or it's the trust for the. You know, for the company that you're entering. My example is I transferred from Boise State to Bowling Green. They made me report with the freshman. The coach that hired the coach that recruited me was gone. Blah, blah, blah. Sad story. I'm in there whipping everybody's tail because I'm mad because my coach is no longer there, and I can't transfer again. There's no. There was no portal back then. And I remember later on in life when somebody said something to me, they said, john, the people that learn, the people that assimilate best into cultures are the ones that learn how to be the same before they try to establish their difference. Be the same before you try to establish your difference. And I've learned that the hard way in my life. I've learned it. I learned it when I transferred to Bowling Green and I started fighting on the first day when the vet showed up. And that wasn't endearing me to anybody, wasn't winning me any favor in the locker room. I learned it when I went to PTC, and PTC had a. You know, I came from 10 years of Xerox, and PTC had a very specific way of doing things. And, you know, yes, they wanted input, but they wanted me to learn first the culture of ptc, and then not for me to. Because Johnny called me very specifically and said, I don't want you to be ptc, but I want you to help take PTC to the next level. So there's this. This trust thing was on both sides. It was for the individual entering the circle, and. And it was for the Circle itself to be able to accept somebody into it. So I just think that's so powerful. What, what you guys, what you guys are talking about, it really resonates for me. Really resonates. Johnny, do you remember that phone call?
- [21:51]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
No, but I think, you know, as Brian was saying earlier, you know, what I heard in him, what he's saying? I just put it in different words. You know, as a leader, you're either going to build a culture of a bunch of individual. Yeah, me, which is just subordinate. Whatever you tell me to do, coach, okay, I'll do it, you know, because I just want to play. If I don't play, you're going to penalize me. So it's very transactional leadership. You know, it's just. I'm an individual subordinate. I want to play. You tell me what to do, I'll do it. But there's no team. And a leader like Brian builds a team of. I don't know if I'm using the right word, but they are in some ways followers because they're a bunch of team. And they're saying, okay, Coach, I got it. We're a team and we're going to go make this happen. You know, it's selfless versus selfish. The individual selfish versus being selfless. And.
- [22:42]
Brian White
Right.
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Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
And it has to start with the leader.
- [22:45]
Brian White
Yeah, it absolutely does. And people are innately selfish. Yeah, people, whether it's me, you, people innately are selfish. But what I try to drill into my players, I want you to compete selfishly, Compete selfishly, but give selflessly.
- [23:04]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Love that.
- [23:05]
Brian White
So compete selfish. Compete selfishly. Every rep you take, as hard and fast as you can go, be a maniac. Be a beast. But. But you need to give selflessly. You need to give of yourself to the team. You need to understand that there's a bigger purpose to. To. To your life into the. Into what you're going to do on this football team. You could be the greatest quarterback in the world. But, you know, if you're not getting protection, people, receivers are dropping balls. You're not going to. You're not going to play well, you know, so it's all going to be coordinated. And it all starts in the locker room. By building the. The walls of the. Of the locker room and then the floor of the locker room's brotherhood. That's what everyone stands on. Everyone stands on the floor of the locker room. That's brotherhood. That's blood. That's what you're trying to create so that you can move through adversity and the Patriots will be just fine. Don't worry about the Patriots. Mike Vrabel is a great leader and those players believe in him. They'll be just fine. I know they're critical of Drake May right now and Will Campbell the tackle. Those two young players will be great too, because they believe in Mike Vrabel and Mike Vaughel believes in them. And that's what you're doing in the
- [24:24]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
locker room, Brian, when you're a guy like Kaplan who comes in and he thinks he's a prima donna and you want to build a, and you recognize, hey, these other players, Kaplan's basically like radioactive. I got a problem over here. How do I get that guy to conform? I don't know if conforms the right way, but start to become part of the team and build respect and trust with the rest of the players.
- [24:53]
Brian White
Yeah, you know what? It has to happen. It has to be player led. Now, as a coach, if you, if you see that, then you, you go to the leaders that you, you think can transform him and you say, hey, take this Kaplan dude under your wing and get him fricking right, okay? Or he's not going to be here very long. It's not going to work.
- [25:15]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Right.
- [25:16]
Brian White
So peer pressure is always going to be the most powerful influencer, and it always will be. So yet that's why the seniors have to teach the juniors and the juniors have to teach the sophomores, and the younger guys have to learn from the older guys to teach the values of who you are, what do you believe in? And when they do it, when you have a locker room like that, then it's going to be magical. But it starts with direct engagement. It starts with the human touch. We talk about the human touch all the time. What's the human touch? The human touch is really simple. Get involved with people, talk to them, create dialogue, get to know them. I mean, how many people in your company do they really know John Kaplan's story? They really know who you are, what makes you tick, what makes you go. And the only way you can do that is to create dialogue and to talk and communicate and get to know one another. And that's the fun part of building a team. And there's magic in it. There's magic in those teams go on. And they, they do ridiculous things. And I, I just love it. I just, I mean, I, I, there's
- [26:36]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
two, there's two lenses all the time. I mean, you're football coach, but you do see, it's very evident in hockey when somebody gets slammed into the boards by an illegal hit. You see another player come to his rescue and fight the other guy, and they know that if. If somebody doesn't come to my rescue, there's no way for us to be a team when we get back inside that locker room.
- [26:59]
Brian White
Yeah, there's.
- [27:00]
John McMahon
There's two lenses that are so powerful here that we're talking about because I've lived them both, and all of us have lived them both. We were either somebody trying to get into. I used to call it the huddle. I call it. The huddle's more important than the position. And I learned that the hard way. If I thought I was the best, but I didn't work well in that huddle, it didn't matter, because if that huddle didn't get better by me being my position and being in that position, and. And I learned it the hard way, I really, really did in my life. And so there was this. There was this. There's this lens of the person trying to enter the locker room, and then there's a lens of the person leading the locker room. And so I'm hoping no matter who you are listening to this, you're either trying to establish yourself in the locker room or in the huddle or in the team. Please don't just turn it off because you never played football or whatever. You know, that's not just what we're talking about here. We're talking about entering into cultures. We're talking about leading cultures. So as we continue to go through there, think about that. It's like in life, we're always worried. They're. We're either trying to enter into the huddle or the locker room and stay powerful in the locker room, or we're trying to lead it and bring people into the locker room. So this is. This is a life. These are life and business realities, not just football. Not just football stories.
- [28:19]
Brian White
Yeah. One of the things I wanted to share, the human touch part of it. What does that mean? I've come up with a new term, and you're going to love it, Cap. It's called Diana Rossing. And what does that mean? Diana Ross. My favorite song. I sing it all the time. Reach out and touch somebody's hand make this world a better place if you can. I sing that every morning to the players. Reach out and touch someone. Go touch someone. You know, make the world a little bit better. It's not that hard. Show some appreciation, gratitude, thankfulness for. For the gifts that we've all had. I mean, we've all been blessed to be able to. To play this unbelievable game, to be in the locker room, and everyone's been blessed. So. So reach out and touch someone.
- [29:15]
John McMahon
Johnny, you and I have talked a lot about leaders that have had great strategies, great minds, you know, great delivery of execution at an individual contributor. But this. This relationship building, this reaching out and touching is. Is not always. Is not always easy for some people. Could you talk about encouraging people to be intimate and not. Not to be funny? I'm not using that in any word. But you talk about it in your book. You talk about in the podcast. If you're not intimate with your people, you'll never get the most out of them. Talk to me about what you've seen in your career, Johnny.
- [29:52]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Like Brian said, you got to get to know. Get to. You have to build a relationship. And when you build a relationship, you get to know a lot about the person. You get to know some of the frustrations that they have. You get to know what their goals are. You get to know their background, you know where they came from, some of their insecurities and doubts and fears and all of those things. And then you can. You can appeal. If you know the person really well, you can appeal to that. You can appeal to their heart and their soul. But if you don't know them and you never built a relationship, you're simply talking to their head, and it's just not going anywhere because you're not resonating with them. And everybody's a completely different individual. I mean, if you have five kids in the same household, every parent knows there are five different kids with five different strengths and weaknesses and goals and fears and insecurities and doubts. And you get to know your kids, so then you can help those kids. And it's no different when you're a leader. You got to get intimate with those people and understand those things. Otherwise, you cannot. You cannot resonate with them. You can't drive them. You can't know what drives them. You don't know what frustrates them. You don't know what they're insecure about. Well, you can't help them.
- [31:01]
Brian White
Well, that leads me, right? What motivates them? When you're just talking, how do you. How do you do that? How do you get intimate with people? And I learned at a young age at Notre Dame, I tell the story in the book. There's this rough, grumpy, really hard coaching offensive line coach named Joe Moore, who the offensive line award for the college football. Yeah, Fillmore was named after him. And when I Say, gruff and crusty. And he was as gruff and rough as they come. But one week into coaching at Notre Dame, he said to me, you want to be a great coach someday? And he was a chain smoker and I had a gravelly voice and I said, yeah. He said, feed him. If you feed him, you can coach him hard. There's a connection with meals. If people, if you feed them, they know that you, there's an element of love that goes with feeding people and that goes to. How do you create love in your locker room? You feed them, you take them to your home so they see you outside of the coaching, outside of the white lines without a whistle. Coaching today is, everyone talks about coaching inside the, inside the lines with a whistle. Let me tell you something. It's as much, if not more coaching outside the lines without a whistle. What Mike Vrabel was doing outside of that locker room, that's coaching.
- [32:25]
John McMahon
Yeah.
- [32:25]
Brian White
That's leading. That's leadership. That's real. And, and, and, and it has to be authentic. The, the second part of that is I had this player, Jason Patterson, whose uncle I became very friendly with, and he, he lived, he grew up on the streets of Miami and, and he was, he was a street guy and he finally got off the streets and he, he started his own car detailing business. Well, he was very successful. So he wanted to give the lessons to his, the next generation of, of nephews and nieces that they didn't need to live on the street. So he said to me one day, we were talking, he said, you know what I like about you, B. White? You a real dude, man. You a real dude. He said, real is real, real is rare, and real has no color. And that's the truth. But if you're not real, you're never going to be able to get intimate with the people that you work with because they're never going to reveal. Everyone wears makeup. Everyone's got an element of Mary Kay cosmetic in them. They don't want to truly unmask who they are. What, what do you look like at 6 o' clock and 5 o' clock in the morning? You know that, that's the, that's the one you should marry. You turn over it. You know, she looks good at 5 o' clock in the morning, you know, with no makeup on. That's real. That's authentic. That's, that's what has to happen. If you, you want people to become intimate with you in a, in a workplace setting, they're not going to just reveal their scar tissue. You know, everyone's got scars. Everyone has scars. And I'm going to tell you this right now. Scars. Scar tissue is championship tissue. Scar tissue is championship tissue. You got to embrace those scars. That's how you become a champion.
- [34:18]
John McMahon
This is such a critical point. And we're talking about the leader also has to earn. We talked about trust. We talked about respect. I think what I'm hearing, Brian, is it's human nature to want to build a connection with another individual, because that's how we were built. And now whether or not somebody accepts it is whether it's authentic. I like both of your thoughts on when you're encouraging somebody that wants to be a great leader. X's and O's. I know how to go get big deals. I know how to build partnerships with, you know, strategic partners or whatever. How do you encourage people to find the courage to really reveal themselves as a leader? Because we can talk about it, but there I. I talk to a lot of people that just are not comfortable doing that. What suggestions do you have?
- [35:07]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Every time, like, if I'm riding with a sales rep equivalent to. And they say, you know, and be a manager, then I say to them, do you have any kids? And they go, Yeah, I have two. And I go, why, do you want 10 more? They go, well, what are you talking about? Then I go through what we just talked about, where you have two kids, they're completely different, and it's not about you anymore. When you were single, it's all about when you got up, when you went to bed, what you ate, what you did on the weekend, it was all that stuff. When you got married and you had kids, not about you anymore. It's the same thing. When you're a leader, it's not about you anymore. You got to take your ego, take it off, leave it on the dresser at home, and go to work and help those people become the best that they can be. So I always talk about caring is competence. Caring is not hugging people and kissing them and just telling them they're great. Competence is training the hell out of people. And you show you care because you help them win. Because competence is the precursor for me to winning. And winning is the precursor to pride. And what people really want is they want to be proud. Proud of their leader, proud of their teammates, proud of, you know, the. The school they play for. That's what they want. They want pride. And that's. And that. But that's built from competence to winning to. To, you know, pride. It doesn't happen overnight. And you're not going to get there as a leader if you don't do what Brian talked about and get intimate with your people so that you understand what they need to be competent at.
- [36:39]
Brian White
I, I absolutely love that, and I love the pride part, because if you don't have pride in what you're doing, then you, you're not going to do. You're not going to do productive work. You have to wake up with a passion, love what you do and do what you love. Love what you do and do what you love. You have to have pride. I. I grew up. My dad was the quarterback at Notre Dame. Now, was he a great quarterback in Notre Dame? Probably. No. History said no. But you know what? To me, he was the greatest quarterback in the history of Notre Dame. And I used to wear his letterman's jacket to school every day. And I told my friends, my dad played freaking quarterback in Notre Dame. Not your dad. My dad. My dad was the quarterback at Notre Dame. And I just, you know, I thought I was special. I had pride in it. You have to build pride in the school that you're at, the company you're working for. If people don't have pride in wearing the jersey, then it's not going to be good work. If they have to, if they have to use an alarm clock to get up in the morning, and God forbid you ever use a snooze button. You know, take that alarm clock and shove it right up your. You know what? Throw it out the window. It just means you don't, you don't have any purpose in life. You don't have any pride in what you're doing. You don't have anything to look forward to. I mean, snooze buttons. If you, if you, if you use snooze buttons, you got some problems.
- [38:08]
John McMahon
You know what I love? It's true.
- [38:10]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
It's about character. You know, if you have to worry about people, if they have the drive to do what you're asking them to do, you. You have the wrong person on your team.
- [38:19]
John McMahon
And, and as a leader, I'm just listening to you both, and it's so profound to me is that you have to, you have to build something that's bigger than the individual, and you have to build something. So in sports, for me, I wanted to be a part of that huddle. I, I wanted to play. And if I didn't do these things that, that were clearly outlined for me on how to get into that huddle, then I wasn't going to play. Once you get into that huddle. And you're a part of that huddle. And I can use the same experience at ptc. Johnny. We had a. Brian, we had a. It was. I don't know how many years has been. Johnny. It's been 40, 35, 40. We had a. We're all 60 years old. We had a reunion.
- [39:04]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Sorry.
- [39:05]
John McMahon
I know we had a. We had a reunion a couple of years ago, Brian. We went 43 straight quarters under this dude's leadership, Johnny McMahon's leadership with never missing our number to Wall Street. That's, that's. We went 43 straight quarters. That's over 10 years. And let me tell you something, 50. We're all in our 60s now. We've gone on to do other things. And that reunion, it just meant I sat with these people and we all had something in common that they couldn't take from us. Like, we all had individual accolades on what we did at PTC or what we did in the locker room or what we did at, you know, wherever we went to school. We all had these individual accomplishments, but standing in that room years later with those people that created that legacy and the leaders did such a great job of making it bigger than the individuals. Look, Johnny, we're right. We're in the apocalypse. We're in the SAS apocalypse the last couple of weeks, right, that people are calling it the SAS apocalypse right now. People are jumping ship. The, the stock prices are going to the floor, the options are worth nothing. And now I'm finding out, this conversation that we're had, we'll find out, is it built on, you know, principles of something bigger than individuals, or is it. This is where you find out right now. How do you build it, Brian? How do you build it? How do you take the bucks, the young people or whoever it is, or the transfer in, or somebody that comes into an organization in business and how do you really commit to saying this person can help us? I'm going to try to bring them into our culture, but if they can't do it, then I got to move on. How do you do that as a leader? Because you could have recruited them.
- [40:58]
Brian White
You have to. You have to have clear values. You, you have to have clear values that, that, that you can teach and that the older people in the locker room can teach. But, but it has to be something that they can, they can hold on to and they can go and tangibly attack. And if they can't, they're not going to see it. They're not going to see what you need for them. To see. And they're not going to do what you want them to do to produce at the level that is necessary to hit 43 straight quarters.
- [41:32]
John McMahon
Yeah.
- [41:32]
Brian White
I mean, it's just not going to happen. And, and, you know, it all comes down to, to, to dialogue. What's the language of your company? Is it simple to understand? It can't be 42, 000 core values. Just pick out three or four. This is who we are. Grit, loyalty, toughness, competitiveness, whatever. But don't pick out 90. They can't. No one can remember 90. Give them something that, a framework that they can, they can follow and let them go. Attack the framework. And I really believe this. I honestly believe this. People are innately selfish, but they all want to be part of a team. They all want to be. They all want to belong to something. They all want to be part of something that they can feel proud about, about putting that letterman's jacket on. They really do. And what happens? Where's the disconnect? I don't know. I don't know where the disconnect is. But, but the disconnect is a lack of communication, a lack of clear guidance, and a lack of, you know, dialogue. Is the demolition. It's the sledgehammer to all the problems in the world. You know, it's, it's, it's the demolition crew and the sledgehammer that knocks the Berlin Wall down. My wife, It's a picture in the book. My wife's sitting there with Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan when the Berlin Wall. She used to be one of Reagan's photographers, and she took me to his 82nd birthday party. It was unbelievable. But there's a Berlin Wall and she, she's sitting there with Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald freaking Reagan. And I'm like going, how did that Berlin Wall come down? Dialogue was a demolition crew. It's not that complicated. It's not. You got to talk and communicate and you got to be simple with your language, you know, and, and so that people can understand it so there's, there's no confusion. And then you gotta have, you gotta have passion.
- [43:50]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
What, what that resonates with me is a lot of times I'd say to people, okay, stand up in front of everybody and say, okay, we're gonna talk this year about the standards of performance. And the laptop's open and the pens come out and say, hold on, you don't need a laptop for this. You don't need a pen for this. To Brian's point. And you give you three things, the standards of performance, so that when you hop out of bed in the morning, your feet hit the floor, you know exactly what you're supposed to do. Now, those sound really simple, but I'm going to hold you accountable to them. There's going to be a penalty system, and it's going to be. There's going to be. On the other side, it's going to be a reward system, and that's what you want as a leader. To Brian's point, you don't want them to think about 42,000 things or even 10 things. You paralyze them. You know, you need people just three or four things that are in their head that they went when their feet hit that floor in the morning, boom. They know exactly what Brian wants out of me. So the overall message that Brian's delivering, there is clarity in your communications. As a leader, you have to be super clear about what it is that you expect people to do. And you can't do that when you give people 10 or 20 things to do. Just can't do it.
- [45:03]
John McMahon
I've experienced both of you in my life, and I'm so thankful for that. I. You guys have both done such a great job of being very clear with expectations as, what does it. What does it have? What does it take to be a part of this team? And then held people accountable for those things. And if you don't do those things, you're not a part of the team, and it's just very, very powerful. I believe what both of you are saying is everybody wants to be connected to something bigger than themselves. The greatest leaders make it very, very clear how to get into that circle. And they make it very, very clear how you get out of that circle. And there's no wailing and gnashing his teeth. There's no undermining. There's no. It's just, you're either in or you're out. And the choice is left to the individual that wants to. That's exactly. You know, there's a ball coach, Ed Schmidt, I don't know if you know him, but Brian, he used to be at Bowling Green. He now is in private business. He was out of San Diego State. You guys might have crossed paths somewhere. That's exactly how he presented it to me. The choice was mine. You want to get in the huddle? You want to get in the locker room? Here's what you got to do. And he was actually showing me film that said, that's not going to do it. Your choice. You got you know, 24 hours to decide. And it's the greatest gift that anybody in a leadership position ever gave me in my young life. It was my choice. I couldn't say I'm not playing because Ed Schmidt doesn't want me to play. I couldn't. It was my freaking choice. So people that are listening, you know, this leadership, there's, you know, leadership. It sounds easy. It. It sounds, you know, you can read books, man. I'm telling you, if you can't reach the individual and be clear on black and white and follow through and do it with kindness. He didn't call me a crap bird. He didn't. You know, he left it up to me.
- [47:05]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
What we touched on earlier, and I want to go back to is, you know, we were talking about when Brady was in the locker room or Brady was at the Patriots. It was, yeah, Ruski and those guys that became the leaders. And Brian touched on it earlier, and I want to go back to it as a leader. You're trying to manage a team. As Brian talked about, you need champions in your locker room. You need your own champions that are leaders in the locker room for you, because you can't be in that locker room the entire time as a leader. So you're going to be in there. Like Brian says, I'm going to be in there with the players every day. I'm going to dance with them, sing songs with them, cry with them, hug them. Those types of things. That's all good, but you can't be there all the time. And when you leave, it's the other leaders that are your champions as a leader that have to take control of that locker room and help you drive the type of things that you're trying to drive as a leader.
- [48:02]
Brian White
That is fundamentally a critical component of the locker room. I mean, you have to have that. And you know what? Those people don't have to be your star players. They don't even have to be a starter. Two of the most respected players that I played with in college at Harvard didn't play at all. Bernie Gagizian and Jerry Leone. But did people respect them because they worked their butt off. They were accountable, and they led. They led. They weren't afraid to lead in that locker room when coaches weren't around to make sure people were living right and doing, you know, doing the things that were necessary to be a champion. And they were passionate about it. And those players exist on every team, on every single team. They don't. They may not play five snaps in the season, but. But you can still be a leader.
- [49:02]
John McMahon
You can still Burkart. JD Burkhart said the same thing. Johnny, I think that's really, really powerful. If you get respect. Respect in the locker room, when I think about it, didn't always come from your position in the huddle. And that's really powerful. I love what you guys just said.
- [49:20]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
I want to also go back to one of the first words out of Brian's mouth was empathy. And I want to just kind of re. We talk about that is because everybody's gonna have good days and bad days. And it's. It's a leader's job and even the leader's champion's job, I think to understand that, that, you know, it's a human side of things. You're gonna have some good days and bad days, and somebody. There has to be people in the locker room that are going to have some sort of empathy for. For people, because you might have had a great, great game, but next game you might have a bad game, you know, and you have to be able to. When you're. Someone in your locker room had a bad game, even though the team had a good game, somebody has to be empathetic there. It's really powerful. That's how I think you start to build some respect and trust also.
- [50:08]
Brian White
No, it's like anything else. That's when you find out who your truth, who your true leaders are, who. Who your true teammates are. When it's tough in adversity, not. Not when things are going great. Not all the locker room celebrations. I know we. They just showed variables that out. But it wasn't in the locker room. All the, all the locker room celebrations they show are in the locker room after a win. And it's all. All these unbelievable celebrations. Well, that's not real. That's not real. That's what you're looking for. That's what you want to aspire to. That's what you want to feel. But just what you're talking about, the empathy in that dark moment when Johnny Jones fumbled the ball and they lost the game. And everyone knows that Johnny Jones was the reason why they lost the game. At the end of the game and he's sitting in his locker crying, who's going to support him? Who's going to say, let's go? It's never one play and it never is. It happened to be an important play. But you know what? Now you got to deal with it. Now you got to deal with. With the negativity or the traffic of life and, and you. Your Teammates, that's what teammates are there for. Great locker rooms have people that honor those situations and handle the adversity and hand and handle the. With empathy.
- [51:40]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
But they can accept to that point Brand is they can accept that Johnny Jones, his heart and soul was in the game and he fumbled the ball. What they can't accept in the locker room is, is passengers, people that want a free ride. You know, the locker room cannot handle those people just like they can't handle the prima don. They gotta, they. The immune system kicks in in a good locker room and gets, gets rid of those people.
- [52:06]
Brian White
You just hit me with a sledgehammer on when you, when you talked about the free ride. So this, the, the man in the arena is my favorite piece of literature in the world. You know, it's all about spectators and participants, right? Are you a player? You want to be a man in the arena?
- [52:30]
John McMahon
Do you?
- [52:30]
Brian White
Do you? I. That means you're not afraid to be judged, evaluated, criticized, critiqued, and, and you understand the risk of being the man in the arena. Now you have spectators, the people that are in the stands. We all need this people in the stands because they, they, they pay our salaries. But have you ever seen a person boo an athlete face to face? No. They're protected by the stance. So there's, there's, there's, there's people that do and there's people that don't. There's people that watch and there's people that perform. There's people that take risks and, and put themselves out there to be judged and evaluated, and they don't care. They don't care what the results are because they'd rather be the man in the arena than those cold and timid souls that know neither victory nor defeat. You know, give me the man in the arena every single day. I'm with you, Drake May and Will Campbell, because you guys were in the arena and you know what? It didn't work out. So what? Get back up and swing and fight and compete. Don't worry about all those cold and timid souls, those faceless people that are going to critique and judge. You just go out there and compete and compete.
- [53:53]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Right?
- [53:54]
John McMahon
No.
- [53:54]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Armchair warriors love it.
- [53:57]
John McMahon
Hey, I want to touch on something here. This capturing the moment, it just, it really resonated with me. In the book, it's called Capturing the Moment. And I think that you have this quote. I, I'm just going to put it on my wall. You don't rise to the occasion. You, you say you don't rise to the occasion, you Fall to the level of your preparation. Can you just kind of. Can, you know, this. This. There's a couple of stories in the book. I think one of them is Matt Bernstein Ripped My Face Off. When you're telling me about Matt Bernstein, can you kind of share some of these stories about people that are. Prepare. Like my dad used to say to me when I was young, prepare, and. And perhaps your chance will come. Prepare, and perhaps your chance will come.
- [54:47]
Brian White
Yeah. No, I love it. It's one of my favorite parts of the book, and it really is. It's a mindset of how you're living your life. Capture the moment. What does capture the moment mean? Capture the moment means you have to be prepared to execute and make the play. Urban Meyer used to say, competitive excellence was making the play when your number was called. So you had to prepare relentlessly. Practice film study. And then you would rehearse, walk it, jog it, run it, and then you'd go perform it. In the game, when your number's called, you make the play. That's competitive excellence. That's execution. That's making the play when your number's called. But then there's capturing the moment, which is totally, much bigger. Capturing the moment means that you have framed that moment. That catch, that play, that execution. You have framed it. You have stamped it into your body. You have tattooed it into your soul so that that moment lasts forever. That's what capturing the moment is. You have to be ready to. There's an example in the book. My wife took the picture of the last play of the Rose Bowl. She's a photographer. The last play of the Rose Bowl. And Wendell Bryant sacks Cade McNaught. We win the game. Everyone's running around crazy. Well, the next day, no one had the final play. So somebody had that picture.
- [56:28]
John McMahon
No, no, journalists had that picture.
- [56:30]
Brian White
Yeah, it was. It was a dig. It was pre digital, so it was. It was film. And I. And I brought in the pictures and I had this picture. I gave it to our Sid. He goes, I need the. I need. I need the film. I need the film. Because no one has that picture. So we need to. We need to be able to produce that. And I said, no problem. I mean, I gave it to us. So I said to Sally, I said, how'd you get that picture? No one else got it. She said, well, I'm not. You know, it wasn't that hard. I was. It was third down, and actually it was fourth down, and they had to get a first down. I just focused on the quarterback and And Wendell beat his guy and sacked the guy and I got the picture. I don't know how many, what, what other people were looking at, but she captured the moment. Yeah, she captured the moment. She was able to frame that moment and, and, and, and distill it so that, that it would last forever. Competitive excellence is, is preparing yourself relentlessly so that you're able to execute when it's time to capture the moment. That's the distinction. And, and, and it's. You talked about Matt Bernstein, one of my favorite players of all time at Wisconsin. I mean, he's a big fullback. 270 part, 70 pound, full fullback. It's Yom Kippur. He can't eat. He's fasting during the day, so until, until the sun down, he can't eat. Well, we're playing Penn State and it starts, the game starts at 6:00 and, and sun setting right around 6:00'.
- [58:00]
John McMahon
Clock.
- [58:00]
Brian White
So he hasn't, he hasn't eaten all day. So we, we, we had cheeseburgers and all the stuff that he liked from Mickey's Dairy Bar. When the sun went down and he plays, we lose our top three tailbacks and we had two other guys injured going into the game. So at halftime we have to make a decision. He's never played tailback before in his life.
- [58:21]
John McMahon
270 pound tailback.
- [58:23]
Brian White
270 pounds. But, but he, but he always done all the drills, just like the tailbacks every, every day with me. So I said to Coach Alvarez, I said, coach, Bernie's get, Bernie's going to be in the tailback. And he goes, the fullback's going to be the tailback. I go, yeah, the fullback's going to be the tailback. And who's going to play fullback? I said, greg Root. And he goes, he's never played either. And I said, he's tough and physical. He'll be fine. Well, Greg Root does a great job blocking for Bernie. And Bernie just, He runs for 120 yards on 26 carries. He's hurtling over people. So we nickname him the Hurdling Hebrew Hammer.
- [59:04]
John McMahon
And
- [59:06]
Brian White
he was, he's a Jewish kid from, from, from Scarsdale, N.Y. and the hurdling Hebrew Hammer, you could click right now and type in Matt Bernstein, Hurdling Hebrew Hammer. And you're going to see him jumping over people.
- [59:22]
John McMahon
I did.
- [59:24]
Brian White
It's unbelievable. The electricity that he created. It was, it was unbelievable. And it's considered one of the top 25 moments in camp Randall history. But he was prepared for the moment. The moment wasn't too big for him. And Greg Root was too. He did a great job of blocking people and running count. I mean, it was a magical, magical day.
- [59:45]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
You know what I take from that also is not only capturing the moment, but both of those guys had a talk about team. They had an obligation to the team and that's why they were practicing with you every day. And that's why they went into different positions, because they weren't just looking at their position and themselves, they were obligated to the team.
- [60:06]
Brian White
Yeah, that's absolutely.
- [60:08]
John McMahon
There's two big things.
- [60:10]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Team is when these guys have true obligation to the team. Coach, what do you need me to do for the team? I'll do it.
- [60:17]
John McMahon
There's, there's two big themes throughout this entire podcast. The lens of the player, the lens of the seller, the lens of the leader, the lens of the coach. Those two, those two lenses of leader and somebody playing for the leader. And when I hear this, I'm like, I hope everybody's hearing this. If you're not playing, if you don't have the territory that you want, if you don't, don't, the excuse department's closed, like provided. And if you're a leader, if you're giving people opportunities and you're preparing them, when the opportunity comes, somebody quits, somebody moves on, somebody, you know, you get your number called. It's your responsibility to be able to step up. And so I know there's a lot of young people out there that are listening, but if I could just get the better territory, if I could just, you know, the dude that was the 272 pound fullback, he's doing all the reps every day and there's a high probability he's not going to play on that, on that given Saturday or what have you. And then injuries come, but then the coach. Here's what I didn't hear. Vrabe Vrabel did not apologize for having a young team. You know, I hear this excuse, hey, how's your team going? I'll talk to sales leaders ago. Man, I got a young team. And it's like, like they say it's like an excuse, but when you look at like the history of championships, those young teams, you know, the Steelers were a young team and they won, you know, a ton of championships. The 49ers were, were considered a young team when you look at the age average. So leaders not treating their young teams like young teams, if that makes sense.
- [62:00]
Brian White
You know, it does. I'm going to give you one of Barry Alvarez's greatest lines, and I use it all the time in coaching. He said, your obligation and your obligation as a coach and leader is to get talent in front of experience. Get talent in front of experience. So as you're hiring people, John and Johnny, you, you hire this person that you, you think is a superstar, then you, you got to get him in front of that person. That's, that's a good player, a good player, but not a great player. You have to lead that, that superstar to be able to perform over that good player as fast as you can, because that good player is not going to win you a championship. That good player is not going to keep 43 consecutive quarters of earnings on Wall Street. That good player is just going to, he's going to do his job. He's going to be good. He's going to be good. But you know what? 43 consecutive quarters of earnings that exceed Wall street, that's called great. That's called greatness. So your responsibility is to get those players, get, get talent in front of experience. And I just, it rings in my head all the time because it's the truth. How do you get Ron Dane to play as a freshman over, over a really talented guy? How do you get A.J. dillon to, to run for 1700 yards as a freshman, play over another guy that played in the NFL? But you know, you got to get talent in front of experience. That's your job. You got to teach him. You got to teach them, you got to mold them. You got to demand. You got to demand without being demeaning. But, but, but that's such a critical component to this whole business world, competitive world of college athletics, NFL, because if you don't, it's easy, it's comfortable, it's really comfortable to just say we had a young team, will be better next year, they'll have experience next year. That's, you know what I'm going to say? That's a bunch of, that's a bunch of bs, you know, you know, accelerate that talent so that they can, so that you can win. One of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare about greatness is, some men are born great, others achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. So, you know, some just a genetic freaks, and they're born great. LeBron James, you know, some achieve greatness. Stephon Curry, he wasn't great, but he, he achieved greatness by work habits, busting his butt. Not that LeBron didn't. I'm not trying to diminish LeBron. But then others have Greatness thrust upon them in a game like the Super Bowl. Trey Burton, the Philly special, the kid that I coached at Florida ends up throwing, you know, the Philly special. For that's greatness thrust upon you. The great catch by the receiver from the Giants. I'm drawing a blank on his name, right? Yeah.
- [65:06]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Patriots fan. That hurt.
- [65:08]
John McMahon
Yeah.
- [65:09]
Brian White
You know, the ball's up. He catches the ball on his helmet. That's greatness thrust upon you. But. But as a. As a leader, you have to go create environments that are going to let those young players become great.
- [65:25]
John McMahon
Oh, man, I'm ready to rip the heads off chickens, man. Hey, last thing we've got a cup. We got three guys. Brian, I think you're. You're probably the youngest of all of us, but let's just say we got three white guys in our 60s, and we're having this conversation. Our listeners are very diverse all over the world. We got zoom. So we're talking about, you know, getting in cars with people, and we got zoom. We're talking about, you know, getting intimate with people, and I'm not using that term loosely. I'm saying, you know, getting close to people. We got HR restrictions, which somebody might be telling you can't ask people about their families or their. Like, give me some parting shots here today, folks, knowing that that's our audience getting. Building relationships, building these cultures, when everything or when a lot of things around us are telling, hey, stay in your lane. You know, leave people alone. Don't get too personal. Do you have any words of advice? I'm gonna. I want to start with you, Johnny, and I want to end with you, Brian.
- [66:29]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Starting with me?
- [66:30]
John McMahon
Yeah. I want to start with you, and I want to end with Brian.
- [66:34]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
I'd say what Brian said. There's no excuses. The excuses department is closed. I don't care that there's zoom. Go. Go meet your people face to face. What's an ex? It's just an excuse. It's no different than any other excuse. Just don't buy it.
- [66:50]
John McMahon
Love it.
- [66:51]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
It's as simple as that.
- [66:52]
Brian White
Direct engagement is. Is. Is the way to success. Direct engagement means you have to go confront people. That doesn't mean be negative. That just means you have to. You have to be directly engaged with your troops, with your players, with your. With your coaches. If you don't. If you want to hide in the corner, then you're not going to be able to. You're not going to be able to create a great team. You're not going to be able to have the productivity and the achievement that you're capable of having. And it's important that you talk to as many people as you can and get around them and understand what their goals are. I think the biggest problem. I'm going to say this in a very simple way. The biggest problems that we have in this world today are because people don't communicate. Martin Luther King says it all the time. Why do people fear each other? Because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other. They don't communicate with each other because they're afraid of one another. So you have to bridge those gaps. You, you have to be directly involved. You have to have the human touch. It goes back to the human touch. If you don't have that, you're going to have isolated people that, that, that are going to be filled with stereotypes. They're going to be filled with fears. And instead of really getting to know someone, race is a race and religion, the two most combustible topics in our country. And I'm just going to say it right now. People don't talk about it because they're scared. They're very, they're very calculated with their language. You ever hear people talk about race or religion? They, they look around. They look around and then they, then they, they're very cautious about what they say. Instead of being real about really expressing you, who you are and, and how you want to solve these problems. You want to solve these problems in the inner city. Hey, how, hey, politicians. How about not worrying about red and blue? How about getting in those cities and getting to know those people in those cities and solving the problems with those people? That's what this. Uncle Jason Patterson's uncle. Uncle Real 305. I'm thinking about putting a podcast together with him. He's a street guy from, from Miami who's, who lived a great life right now because he's, he's turned himself around and, and he's doing a great job mentoring people. He's an unbelievable human being. He's got wisdom. He's got wisdom to teach. We could go around the country. We could solve a lot of problems, A lot of problems. People can say, how's this, how's this white guy from Boston and this, this, this black guy from, from Miami? How did they all of a sudden get connected? You know how we get. We got connected because we connected with one another through dialogue, through communication, and we talk to each other all the time. Right now it's a beautiful thing.
- [69:51]
John McMahon
You are so amazing. You're so authentic. I'm so excited for the listeners. For just anybody, you have to go pick up this book called the Locker Rooms not for Sale by Brian White. Our great friend Brian White, who has different decades and decades of coaching this. You know, I was very, very honored that you asked me to, to write an introduction part for the book and I love doing it and it was all about business for me. I think this could be one of the greatest business books that was ever written. I have huge love and respect for you. You're. You're an absolute gem, buddy. Thanks for coming on.
- [70:32]
Brian White
Thank you. It was an absolute joy.
- [70:34]
Co-host (possibly John McMahon or another co-host)
Thank you, Johnny Kaplan. And thank you, Brian. And thanks everyone for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast.
- [70:46]
Podcast Host
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by Force Management, where we help companies improve sales performance, executing the growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out force management.com for more information.