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- [00:00]
A
Every mistake you make, every challenge is actually your partner in growth. Even when you fail, even when you mess up, it's actually your partner in growth. That opponent that you're playing against is actually your partner in growth. You know, Alec, the best coaches, they believe in you. They developed a relationship with you, and then because of that, when they challenged you, you didn't get bitter about it. You got better.
- [00:23]
B
Youth sports in America are at a crossroads and I'm here to help lead the conversation forward. I'm Greg Olson. Each week we're sitting down with top athletes, coaches and more to talk about what's working, what's broken and what's next. Welcome to youthink. My kind of work in self development is really getting into the leadership space. Now, obviously it was adversity is an opportunity. How do you self develop internally? And now it's kind of developing to how do I become a better leader? And I can't think of a better person than the leadership guru himself, John Gordon, being able to ask questions. I'm wondering, for young athletes, when they kind of get that itch or they get a push to become that leader, what is one of those skills that they can start developing in youth sports to become better leaders on their teams?
- [01:16]
A
I believe that we're all called to be a positive leader. We're supposed to be a positive leader, which means we influence the people around us in a more positive way. We believe in others more than they believe in themselves. We encourage them. The word encourage means to put courage into. So when you're encouraging someone, you're putting courage into them. So as a leader, when I encourage you, you rise higher, you will perform at a higher level, you will believe in yourself more. Because I'm encouraging you, I'm putting courage into you and I'm believing in you. So that is essential. As a leader, am I encouraging the people around me? Am I lifting them up? What kind of energy am I sharing? Is it positive energy or negative energy? Am I infecting them with negative energy or affecting them with positivity? So as a leader, you can do that every single day. So that belief is contagious, that energy is contagious. And. And as a positive leader, knowing that leadership is a transfer of belief, and that's what we're talking about here. I'm transferring my belief, my energy, my encouragement to you. And because I'm a leader, you're now performing better because of that. So that is essential. Another key part of leadership is am I helping you get better by challenging you at times so I'm encouraging you by. But I also sometimes need to challenge you. But tough love doesn't work anymore. That was the old model of leadership. Real, positive leadership is love. Tough. I love you. I encourage you. I support you. We have a relationship. You know, Alec, the best coaches, they believe in you. They developed a relationship with you. And then because of that, when they challenged you, you didn't get bitter about it. You got better because of it. And you knew they cared about you, and they were pushing you because they saw something great in you. And so challenging is key. Being tough on people is key as a leader, but the love must come first. So take the time to earn the relationship and care about others and encourage them, and then you earn the right to challenge them. So that's a key part of leadership as well. I say be demanding. Just don't be demeaning. Be demanding, but don't be demeaning. Don't knock someone down. Don't criticize them in a negative way. Constructively help them get better and build them up. And then another big part of leadership is reminding people where we're going and why we're going there. Like, what's our vision of where we're going? What did we say we want to accomplish? What was our dream? What was our hope? What was our goal? And we have this vision of where we're going, but then we also have the why of why we're going there. There's a. There's a purpose behind it. Like, let's accomplish something great together. Let's achieve this dream. Let's become the best teammates we can be. Where years ago, Jack Del Rio said, let's be the most explosive team in the NFL. That was the purpose. That was the goal to be that. So as a leader, we get this vision. We got the purpose. But also a big part of leadership is commitments. And that's my new book, the seven Commitments of a Great Team. A great leader will get their teams to commit, and they will also commit to their team. So they commit and they get their teams to commit. And there are seven commitments that are key to a great team. And commitments are actually more important and are even greater than goals, because your goals, as you know, won't take you to necessarily where you want to go, because you can have the goal written down, but if you don't work hard, you're not going to achieve it. Your commitment to the goal, your commitment to the vision, your commitment to your teammates, that is what will lead to great success. And so great leaders lead with Commitments, they go first, they lead the way, they commit, and then they get their teams to commit to each other.
- [05:20]
B
There's so many gems there. And I'm thinking of trying to put myself in that spot, right? To be positive, to encourage, to share that vision. And as a teammate, sometimes I get wrapped up in, man, I didn't play well, I didn't perform well, I didn't hold up to my commitment. I wasn't perfect. So how can I possibly love tough to my teammates in that spot? Is there any advice for athletes when they're trying to lead peers like horizontal leadership, horizontal accountability, that love, tough mentality when you're performing bad, like after a
- [05:54]
A
tough performance, it's really simple. You have to feed yourself in order to feed others. If you don't have it, you can't share it. So every day it's important that you're feeding yourself. This is where a positive mindset comes in. To be a positive leader, you have to have a positive mindset. You have to develop your mindset. You have to handle your own adversity, your own challenges. Instead of listening to those negative thoughts and the fear and the worry, the anxiety and the doubt, you have to talk to yourself with words of encouragement, words of life. So before you can encourage your teammates, you got to encourage yourself. You got to encourage yourself like you would. Like you would encourage your own best friend, right? You encourage your best friend in a great way. Well, guess what? That's how you have to encourage yourself. Give yourself grace. Don't beat yourself up. Will you try your best? Did you really want to fail? Did you want to mess up? Did you want to make that mistake? No. You just did. So you gave yourself grace. One of my key successes to life is that I don't spend too much time beating myself up. Maybe for a short term, a little bit, and then I move on. Because why would I destroy myself if I actually want to be my best? And so I have to encourage myself, talk to myself, don't listen to myself. I got to make sure I'm doing things on a daily basis to let the past go. And then also realize that every mistake you make, every challenge is actually your partner in growth. So even when you fail, even when you mess up, even when you make a mistake, it's actually your partner in growth. That opponent that you're playing against is actually your partner in growth. That rival that challenge. They are making you better. So competition makes. Makes us better. And failure is a part of life. It's not a definition. It's just an event. So don't define yourself by your failures. They're not meant to define you. They're meant to refine you to be all that you're meant to be. And so it's about feeding yourself every day with encouragement, with positive thoughts, with positive beliefs. And here's my favorite, at the end of every game or practice or just every day, write down your one success of the day. Write down the one great thing that happened that day. Not all the bad things, not the failures. There are many of those. What's the one great thing that happened? And you write it down, go to bed a success every single night. Then you'll wake up a success. And what happens is when you do this, you're actually now looking for successes. And what you look for, you find what you focus on shows up more in your life. So by doing this every day and you can try it for 30 days, give it a 30 day test, I guarantee if you do this, you will start seeing more successes show up in your life. If you don't believe me, start looking for blue cars on the road today and you will see more blue cars on the road. What you focus on shows up. And so the success journal has been a game changer for so many professional athletes, but also will help a lot with youth athletes as well.
- [08:56]
B
Yeah, that's huge. I'm thinking of my self talk and encouraging yourself first and it's like, dude, you can't beat yourself up. Right. I love the, the phrase of failure isn't a definition. Right. Like that's, it's, don't let it define you. I'm thinking of so many times where I'm trying to have a short self talk phrase in my mind that I can repeat over and over again. It was be the best you. Right. It was be the best you trying to encourage yourself. And that kind of helped flood that positivity a little bit more when, yeah, you're beating yourself up. But are you being the best self? Are there self talk kind of tips and tricks that you might have for phrases, lengths for some of these athletes?
- [09:36]
A
Yeah. On the left side of a piece of paper, write down your negative thoughts that come in often. We all have our own patterns. You have yours, what are they? Write them down on a right side of a piece of paper. Write down your words of encouragement, words of life, that, that you will speak to yourself on a daily basis when those negative thoughts come in and try that. So the negative thought might be, you know what, you made a mistake. You're never going to Start again. You're going to lose your starting position and it's over. Guess what? My job is to get better every day. I am confident, I'm strong, I'm a warrior, and I am ready for the future. And I am going to get better and better over time. And guess what? I will start again. Whatever it may be like. I didn't come here to be average. I came here to work hard, to become great. So there are constant negative thoughts coming in. Another one might be the future's hopeless. Future is hopeless. You should just give up. We often get those thoughts. They actually come in now. The future is full of hope. And I believe the best is yet to come. And if I put my head down, I work hard, I believe in myself. I believe that I will accomplish the goals that I have set. I'm really big on I am statements. I am strong. I am powerful. I am a warrior. I am a great teammate. I am a difference maker as a man thinks he becomes, as a woman thinks she becomes. The thoughts you think and the words you say become the reality and the life that you create, I am Is so powerful. I did this with the University of Texas football team two years ago in training camp. Had him stand up, say, I am. And they picked a word afterwards. Man, it was powerful. One guy said, I'm a warrior. Another guy said, I'm a great teammate. Another guy said, I am a champion. Another guy said, I am enough. Really powerful. I am enough. I'm in the weight room an hour later with the team. They are surrounding their strength coach. The strength coach is in the middle of a big old circle, and they are encircled around him. And he yells, I am. And the team yelled, my brother's keeper. He yelled, I am. And they yelled, my brother's keeper. I said, this is going to be a team that wins a big one. They beat Alabama that year. They were speaking life into who they were and to who they were, to each other. So it was just so powerful to watch them do that. And that's the power of I am. My wife got this, this report from a health thing, health service that looked at her DNA, looked at her genes, looked at her, you know, like, you know, those latest. Those latest tests that show all that stuff. And basically it said she was an Olympic athlete. And like, she had the genes of an Olympic athlete. After my wife saw that, she changed from, I feel like I'm getting old, my body's breaking down to, I am an Olympic athlete. I am an Olympic athlete. Everything changed after she started saying, I AM and those. So that's the power of our thoughts. That's the power of our beliefs. And I look back at my life like, what I've been able to accomplish as an athlete and also now as a writer was the result of the thoughts that I was thinking and saying. And I had this message for young athletes, which is so important. You're not the thoughts that you think you're going to have negative thoughts come in. You're the thoughts that you believe.
- [13:05]
B
So remember that, that Texas story that you just shared, I believe is so powerful. Obviously, the positive mindset, positive leadership, encouraging those guys to feel like, I am enough, I am this warrior. To see that in a team setting, because individually they're standing up and they're saying, I am this. But then a coach gets them around and is able to say, I am, and everyone to say together, my brother's keeper. Like, that's positive culture. That's positive leadership. That's a positive team. If you're talking to a coach right now, wanting to build a culture that way, a positive culture, one that's empowering, what's something you might give them as a piece of advice?
- [13:50]
A
The seven commitments of a great team.
- [13:53]
B
Right on.
- [13:54]
A
It would be, what is our commitment to the vision and mission? We've got to have the shared vision and mission that everyone is committing to. It has to be the commitment of staying positive together. It has to be the commitment of giving your best. And what is the best that you can give? Look like, because, you know, you might not be 100%, you might be 70%, but you can always give 100% what you have. And if you want to be disciplined, everyone talks about discipline and you want to have consistency. You know what you need? You actually need devotion, devotion and caring more. When you have devotion and you care more, then discipline is consistent and consistency are a whole lot easier. And so devotion and caring more. Drive your discipline and your consistency. There's also a commitment to getting better as a team. How will we get better? There's a commitment to connecting. We're going to make sure that we're connecting as a team. If I really want to build a great culture and I really want to build a strong team, I'm going to build a culture of connection where we have strong relationships, we have trust, we have a bond as a team, and it's never too early to do that. You can do this in youth sports. And we have a goal of really being a great team. Let's have fun together. Let's build a bond Together, let's try to accomplish something great together. You'll never forget those moments. I'm not going to share the last commitments. You got to read the book. But those are some key commitments to developing as a great team and as a leader. I'm making sure that everyone is buying in to these. And when I think of, like, when I think of kids, we've got to remember that no matter what age you are, everybody wants to be part of something bigger than themselves. So what can we all participate in together and join in together to accomplish together that's exciting? I go back to my youth sports when I was playing, and, you know, we won the championship in football and we won a championship in baseball. And I'll never forget those moments. We were trying to accomplish something great together as a team.
- [15:59]
B
I love it. Yeah, I mean, you think of Friday Night Lights, you can play on Sundays, but nothing is like Friday with the guys you grew up with doing something special, doing it together. I hope I'm not taking a shot here and guessing this last commitment, but an underlying theme that I was kind of getting was gratitude and the power of gratitude and attitude of gratitude. Carrying that approach with you through all those commitments, what's some, like, routine things that we can help remind ourselves to have that attitude of grad, to be grateful for the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than just ourselves.
- [16:33]
A
So gratitude is a part of the commitment to stay positive together. I have five ways to stay positive, and one of those is to focus on get to instead of have to. We've been reading that a lot lately. We've been hearing about that. Even the Rock has been talking about that. But Alec, I wrote about that in the no complaining role in 2008. 2008, about get to instead of have to. And when we focus on, we get to do instead of what we have to do. We change a complaining voice to an appreciative heart. And I'm convinced abundance flows into your life when gratitude flows out of your heart. And I also know when we elevate, right? We elevate. It's because we have appreciated where we are. You have to appreciate to elevate. And in that appreciation, you elevate your mood, your performance, and the people around you. So just by being grateful, you're elevating how you feel and your mood, and you actually perform at a higher level. We're not talking about complacency. We're not talking about contentment. We're talking about gratitude. I'm thankful I get to do this I'm thankful I get to compete. I'm thankful I get to be part of this team. I'm grateful that I'm learning and growing and even that failure, you know, I'm grateful that, guess what? I went for it. I gave my best. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to at least give everything I have and put it all on the line. And when you focus on that gratitude, you keep arrogance away, you keep complacency away, and you become so much more humble and in that humility and that gratitude, that actually connects you and gives you strength and power. Whereas when you're entitled, you actually feel very disconnected and very arrogant, and people really don't want to be around you when you're like that. But the more grateful you are, the more you enjoy it more, and you do perform at a higher level. One of the great techniques for golf, for instance, is while you're playing and swinging, it's to practice gratitude, appreciation, and rhythmic breathing. And while you're rhythmic breathing and practicing gratitude, you create coherence, which allows you to have a more fluid swing.
- [18:42]
B
Golfers have their partner in competition or their partner in growth. Is the course, right? Like, they're competing against that thing every day and being grateful to. You know, I might be in the woods every once in a while, but I get to check out more of the course over there, right? I get a little bit more vibes. One of the most inspiring pieces about your work and what you do is bridging the gap between athletics and then beyond the game, beyond those white lines and the amount of executive leadership, the keynote speeches, the work that you do in leadership outside of sports, as well as in. There's so many parallels you could share. Like one of the biggest powerful lessons that truly translates from athletics to being a great human being. Be that leader outside of sports. What might that be?
- [19:27]
A
Who you are determines how you lead. And that involves sports, it involves business. So the kind of leader you are will impact the people you work with wherever you are. I think of Dabo Sweeney, who, when he quit football for a little bit, went to go work in commercial real estate. And I met a guy who worked with him in commercial real estate and said he was the best. And he showed up every day with this incredible optimistic attitude, and he was like, we're going to crush it. We're going to sell. We're going to make this happen. He said, our business just grew exponentially. Dabo would make a great CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He makes a great leader of Clemson football, the same principles apply. And so when I develop my character, my integrity, my discipline, my moral code, my values, those values impact me and everyone else else around me, wherever I am. And so that's the key to leadership. You lead from the inside out, and who you are on the inside determines who, how you impact others. On the outside, you just wear in a different uniform. You're wearing a suit or you're wearing a football uniform, but it's a uniform. And who you are on the inside is where the power is. Like when Superman took off a Superman outfit, who was he? Most people say Clark Kent. No, he was still Superman. He was Superman on the inside. So the power is within you to impact the people around you. And if you want to go to the next level, if you want to go to the next level, the key is to understand the constraint that you have that's holding you back from being the best leader and the best person you can be. And so often the best person you can be will help you grow into the best leader you can be. I have a circle now. It's called John Gordon Circle. I have a max of 100 people who are part of the circle. I'm watching these people transform. Am I discussing business strategy? Not a ton of so much of it is you as a leader and who you are and helping them grow individually and also spiritually. And as they are transforming, their business grows in response to their growth.
- [21:39]
B
I love that. That's powerful. So many gems today. The phrases are going to stick with me for a long time. I appreciate this.