#300: Marty Smith, Reporter, ESPN – Deep listening builds deep trust

29:32David Novak:I'm kind of looking, me? He goes, come here. So I walk over to him, and he turns his back to the assemblage and lays into me. He goes, hey, you need to shut up. You need to shut your mouth. And I was ready to bust him in the jaw. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? He goes, I was watching that interview you did with Jeff, and there was a lot of things that he was getting ready to expound upon, and you cut him off and it was rude and you know it. Don't do that. You look foolish. And again, I was so mad, but I was only mad because I knew he was right. That moment changed my entire career.

30:18David Novak:It did. That moment was a flashpoint moment for me because it completely shifted the way that I interview people. and the work has gotten exponentially better as a result of being a good listener. I'm forever indebted to him. How do you know when the difference between listening versus prying? That's very interesting. I think that prying is if someone is trying to share something, whether that's a failure at work, whether that's you're trying to scale a business and someone has an idea and you're cutting off that idea. Think how that feels to the individual that's trying to share some sort of insight and you chop it off.

31:15rather than let them finish their thought, process that thought, and follow up on that thought,

31:24David Novak:either with a suggestion, well, okay, what if we took this route? Or in my case, the follow-up question always results in the greatest answer. Every time. All the time. all the time. And often the follow-up question is nothing but why. Why did you do that? When? How did that happen? That simple invariably produces the best insight and perspective. Hello everyone. I hope you're loving the 300th episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak. If you're loving this podcast and you're a loyal How Leaders Lead listener, I'd love it if you would subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's really easy. It just takes one second.

32:15David Novak:Right now, you can take your little mouse and click subscribe. That way you won't ever miss out on our great content. Subscribe to the channel and enjoy the rest of the show. You know, in building relationships, we talked about earlier, it takes time. You got to invest in it. but you have a natural charisma about you. I mean, there's no doubt about it. People know when you're in the room and they always say the first impression is often the most important impression. You know, when you meet somebody for the first time, what's something that you do that most people might not do? The very first thing that I do is shake their hand and look them in the eye like my daddy taught me when I was four years old.

33:03David Novak:I also, I guess, I don't dive directly into their professional, the what. I don't dive directly into the what. Like, if I'm meeting a country music artist for the first time, the easy thing to do is say something about a show or say something about a song. And they hear that every single day, all day, every day, grocery store, gas station, every meet and greet. So if you can find that little nugget or that connection point between you as people, then you're more memorable. And there's also an understanding from that person that you've taken that effort and made that effort to reach them on a different plane.

34:11David Novak:And that matters. I mean, it really matters. I've been very blessed to do that a lot. I mean, Saban was a tough one, man. Saban was, say, he doesn't just trust people. He doesn't just sit down across from anybody and offer these unbelievably golden nuggets of wisdom that he just carries around on his person and in his soul every day. I've learned more from that man. He's probably had a greater influence on my life than 99 % of the people I've ever met. And it's because he rewrote my understanding of self-accountability and demanding best of self every day and not hedging in that demand. And that's not easy all the time for anyone.

35:11What's your before and after? I mean, you say He helped you get to self-accounting. Describe, you know, Marty Smith before and the Marty Smith after meeting Nick Saban.

35:20David Novak:I thought I knew how to prepare, but Coach Saban was one of those people. There's been a few athletes or leaders in my career that I've been tasked with gleaning that insight, and I thought I knew how to prepare. But Coach Saban was always one of those people that gave you what you give. In other words, if you show up and it's surface level and it doesn't have a lot of depth emotionally or technically or schematically in the football context, he's going to give you surfacy answers. But if you show up to play and you're asking him questions that are nuanced, that do have depth, psychologically even.

36:10David Novak:And he's fascinated with psychology and how to reach these young men where they are. He's the greatest to ever do it. And he was always able to take the greatest player that ever came from whatever town. They've been told they were the greatest player in the history of the game since they were 12 years old. And he's able to break down all of those individuals into an incredible unit. He's a great, I mean, just standing in practice or being in a meeting and watching him do that was a fascinating masterclass education that I received and continue to now that he's a colleague. You often talk about preparing extensively and then I love this, throwing it away.

36:58You know, walk me through that process.

37:03David Novak:It demands that I'm listening. It goes back to that piece of this because if I'm doing a sit-down interview with David Novak, I'm going to study you. I'm going to study. I'm going to read. I'm going to watch. I'm going to consume. And I'm going to have a free-flowing list of questions. Everything that enters my mind, I'm creating a question list. And then I will take that question list and I will pare it down to about eight or ten, depending on the time window I'm given with the individual, with the subject. And I will study those eight to ten questions over and over and over and commit them to some semblance of memory, not verbatim, but some semblance of memory.

37:54David Novak:And then I throw the notes away because it goes back to, if I'm interviewing you and I ask you a question and you start to share with me the depth of the subject matter, and as soon as you start talking, I'm looking down at my knee at that question list, do you think that you're going to feel like I'm listening to you? No. So I will, that way I can ask the question and I can completely be present with the individual. So you think the over-preparation really helps you be present? 100%. I think excellence lives at the intersection of preparedness and passion. I think that preparation, think about it.

38:48people, if we have anxiety about something, and all of us in some context have some anxious energy

38:56David Novak:about something, if you prepare to the absolute optimum maximum output of your ability, then if you have anxiety, it's certainly far less than it would be if you feel unprepared. and that took me a long time to, to, I still haven't mastered it, but I'm getting closer every day. I mean, again, I'm going back to NASCAR starting this weekend. I haven't been full-time in that garage since 2014 and I'm hosting a show the next five weeks. And I've spent my entire last week, I mean, just completely immersed in learning and making sure that I'm prepared so that I'm never surprised. You know, Marty, I feel like I'm learning a lot in this podcast, this conversation with you about interviewing.

40:01You're such a good journalist and you know how to build relationships. Who do you go to to learn from now? I mean, are there people in the industry that you go to that are teaching you a lot these days?

40:19David Novak:I have a boss named Mike McQuaid at ESPN who is an absolute savant. He's a brilliant mind. And if I'm preparing for something, I always run my question thoughts through him. In terms of the craft of how to prepare or execute a good interview, my former colleague, Tom Rinaldi, who's now at Fox, who's just the greatest, most brilliant storyteller, I watched a lot of Tom Rinaldi interviews to watch how he crafted questions, how he followed up on questions. incredible listener, incredible writer, the way he crafts a feature to make you feel that emotion that you're trying to convey through a story or that insight you're trying to project.

41:18David Novak:So I would say those two are certainly really important. But these days, man, the stories that we're telling are so rich that I'm just trying to do my best to be a good conduit of that story. Because these young men and women playing sports now are so smart. And a lot of them have had strife. They've had to overcome. They've had to rewrite what they believed was going to be their path because nothing seems terribly linear. And so, yeah, man, it's an evolution every day, but I am grateful that I do have those voices who I can lean on and go to and say, what do you think about this? What did I do well?

42:20David Novak:Give me constructive feedback. Because again, going back to leadership, If you're not willing to self-evaluate, then you can't evolve. If you're not willing to look at how you executed a task, what you did well, what you didn't do well, so that you can adjust and evolve, then your ego's in the way. I interviewed Patty Gasso. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Coach Gasso. She's won eight national championships with the University of Oklahoma women's softball team. And she was in Sideline CEO. And that's what she said. If you're not willing to self-evaluate and evolve, then your ego's in the way.

43:02Because that's everything.

43:05David Novak:The context of what worked last year may not be what's going to work this year. Your failures last year as a leader, you have to be willing to look in the mirror and admit it. Because the window through which the world sees us all can't be hidden in the mirror. You might be able to make your way through a leadership moment, but when you get home and you're brushing your teeth, you probably know whether or not you executed it to the fullest or not. Yeah, you know, self-awareness is so key. And, you know, one of the exercises I always talk about is I call my three by five exercise, where you write down on one side of the card, you know, what am I today?

43:50And on the other side is how can I be more effective tomorrow? You know, when you look at where you're at in your career, you know, how are you trying to sharpen your axe now? I mean, what are you working on to make yourself an even better leader?

44:03David Novak:Complacency is the greatest threat to excellence, to quote Nick Saban. And when you've become entrenched in a job, you become entrenched in a task, and you're starting to really grow well into how to execute those tasks, you can coast. It's just a fact. A lot of people who are accomplished individuals will get to a place where they're comfortable. And I don't want to be comfortable. I want to be challenged every single day. And that's one reason that the diversity in my career is so wonderful for me is when you're going from college football straight to golf, straight to horse racing, straight to NASCAR, there's a lot of insecurity that can come with that because you're only there because they expect that you'll succeed and they expect that you'll be a beneficiary.

45:09David Novak:or you'll be beneficial, excuse me, to the broader product. I just don't want to be in a position where I feel comfortable. And I love this quote. I'm going to read it to you, David. You're going to love this quote. I carry it on my person every single day here in my phone as a tangible reminder of how powerful that self-accountability is every single day. All right. I've sat down with Nick Saban one time. Can you tell he's had an impact on my life? I sat down with Coach Saban one time and he said this quote, all right. When you're climbing a mountain, you look up. You never look back. Complacency is something that everyone who's had any level of success must challenge themselves to overcome.

46:01David Novak:But it's not just the willingness to do it. It's the why you're willing to do it. Because the why creates the passion for the what, and the passion creates the ability to sustain it. That is fantastic. I mean, it's the greatest quote. I mean, I was like, wait, what? Say that again. It was just, I thought it was incredible. And I mean, he said a million things to me that resonated so deeply. That's certainly one of them. But another one that's much simpler is mediocre people don't like high achievers and high achievers don't like mediocre people. And if you think about that, it sounds very simple, but man, is it profound.

46:46That is totally profound. That's amazing. I've always wanted to do a podcast with him. I got to get him on my show someday because he is.

46:57David Novak:Your mind will be blown. It's a masterclass every day. It really is. And you've been around such great leaders, or let's say great athletes that were leaders in their field. What's the biggest learning you got by being around Tiger Woods, for example? I remember the first time I sat across from him. It was in 2018. And I was, you know, that list we were talking about earlier. I'm going through that list, going through that list, going through that list. I want to ask him questions that demand he thinks that it's not just the same thing. And he's a genuinely private guy. He's hard to get to. And so I wanted to maximize the opportunity.

47:48I've learned from Tiger that the insatiable drive to compete is so powerful.

47:59David Novak:Tiger, Kobe, and MJ have a gear, had, in Kobe's instance, a gear that their competitive nature was so palpable, it permeated everyone in their midst. And you feel it, David. I'm sure you've been around Tiger. There's an aura, man. And even at TGL, even at TGL, which is certainly a far cry from major championship golf. But when I'm around him down there at TGL, there's just an air of, we're here to win. And he said to me in that first interview, this stopped time for me, this comment. My question to him was, why were you so dominant for so long? And he said, I just want to beat you. I said, Tiger, it can't be that simple.

48:57David Novak:And he cut me off. He goes, Marty, I didn't say I wanted to win. I said I wanted to beat you. And I sat back in my chair and went, oh, dang. That's just a different, you know, you know Eric really well, too. He has that same gene. There's certain people who have a competitive nature that is just different. And it demands that you elevate if you're going to even be in their presence because they won't tolerate mediocrity. They constantly reinvent themselves, you know. And, you know, Tiger changed his swing a few times, you know, even when he was at the height in his career to striving for greatness.

49:45You know, another Grand Slam winner today is Rory McIlroy. What about him? What have you picked up from him?

49:51David Novak:Been around him for a long time. built a great relationship with him. And he is someone who, across the tour, if you're just talking about God-given talent, Rory's going to be the first name that his peers mention, that all the experts mention. He just has a swing from God. But he's continued to develop his game. And beyond that, he's developed, to quote Bobby Jones, the most difficult golf course in the world, the five-inch space between your ears. Through failure, through embarrassment, through heartbreak, through years and years and years of trying to get that career grand slam, Rory kept coming back.

50:42David Novak:And there were moments of overwhelming, overwhelming disappointment. missing cuts at Augusta, finishing second at Augusta, and never could climb that mountain. And then once he did, I mean, it unlocked something in him that he didn't know what it would be, but then once he unlocked it, because he was able to slay that dragon, I mean, heaven knows how many of these he's going to win. You know, Marty, the five inches between your ears, you know, so many of us as leaders, we self-sabotage ourselves. You know, we have these things, you know, you know, how do you get through the demons? How do you get rid of those demons to keep you from achieving greatness as a leader?

51:35David Novak:I think there's a lot of layers to that. One of them, in my opinion, and I talked to Kirby Smart about this. Delegation is so important. You know this. you have to build a team because excellence so often is a team sport. And Kirby told me that he did not become a national championship head coach. He did not become a national champion until he genuinely learned to delegate. He hired people to do a job and he let them do that job. He told me, I'm hell to work for. Hell. Every day, I'm hell to work for. But until I was finally willing to hire excellence and let them be excellent, I couldn't win because a CEO has to delegate.

52:31David Novak:And if you are micromanaging, that's your ego. If you delegate, it's self-confidence. They are not the same thing. In fact, they are polar opposite ends of the spectrum. Because if you're self-confident, you're willing to allow those people to be great, too. And that took time for Kirby. And once he did it, he built arguably the best program in the sport. And, you know, Marty, you're a very human person. The way you've differentiated yourself is by being incredibly capable of building these relationships where people trust you, which is so, so important. You know, so when you think about that, and then I compare that to what's going on in the world with AI, you know, you're Mr.

53:25Human, and then there's AI. How is AI, how do you look at AI? How do you think about it in your life?

53:34David Novak:I've been completely against it. I'm coming around. I'm seeing some of the incredible, just mind-blowing things that AI does and will continue to evolve and do as we move along. But as someone who has made his whole life off of intellectual property, it's daunting. Think about songwriters. Think about novelists. Think about authors. Think about people who have been gifted with a mind that allows for that creative ability to produce something that becomes a living, breathing thing. And now somebody can go on the computer and they can create it in 10 minutes. That's hard for me to reconcile. It really is.

54:37David Novak:And then my ice maker breaks in my refrigerator and my wife goes on chat GPT and the thing tells me exactly how to fix it. And I had it fixed in five minutes. So I know that it's going to, it's here. I mean, it's not, it's just, it's here. So embracing it is the right thing to do, but I have been apprehensive just out of loyalty to how I've made a life and how so many of my friends, colleagues have made their lives. It's hard. It's hard. You know what I mean? Like, it's a hard thing to reconcile as somebody that's made a living off intellectual property. I appreciate that perspective. And it's a damn good one.

55:26And well, you know, I use AI all the time now, you know, and I find that it makes me a lot smarter. And I personally believe that the great companies, the great leaders are going to teach their people how to ask great questions so you can get the most out of AI. You know, because I think the more you dig, just like you dig in journalism and you get beneath the surface and you ask deeper and more refined questions, the better the output's going to be. So, but I don't like the fact that, you know, I'm a creative person myself. I dabble in, I write songs. I'm actually going to be producing my first album this year, you know, and I'm excited about that.

56:07But, you know, it bothers me like you that somebody could go on ChatGPT and, you know, write a country song.

56:14David Novak:I read an article and your production staff will have to fact check me on this, but I think this is accurate. I think it was the November 2025 country music singles chart. I think four of the top 10 songs were AI songs. I don't like that. It made me puke. I almost had to go puke. You know, I don't like that. I think creativity is something we all have. And hopefully, you know. I don't know that it's something we all have. We all don't have it. Right. We all want to have. Okay. And so when you find somebody like yourself who has it or an Eric Church who has it and all these great people who have it, you know, all the creative people out there, you know, it's a point of differentiation that I like seeing coming from the human being.

57:05Okay. I may be wrong, but that's kind of how I look at it.

57:08David Novak:I do think when it's coming from a human being, at least now, the emotional presence within the product you can feel, whether that's a song, whether that's a feature on college game day, whether that's, you know, whatever piece of art, a piece of art. I mean, that artist has spent his or her entire life learning how to create these beautiful images that they're taking a piece of their soul and they're placing on that canvas. Or they're taking a piece of their soul and they're placing in that song. That's a vulnerable piece of the human condition that lives forever in that work of art. and if that were lost, I just, I don't like it.

58:08Yeah, and you know, a great example recently that I just loved, and I'm sure since Eric Church is a mutual friend of ours, is the commencement speech he gave at North Carolina. It's one of the most brilliant speeches I've ever seen. He talked about the chords on the guitar, and you know, the most important chord was the widest chord, because it represented the foundation, and that's what you have to have in life. You have to have that strong foundation. He's worked his way up the seven chords. But it was brilliant. And, you know, it came from the heart. It came from insight. It came from experience.

58:45And, you know, that's irreplaceable in my mind.

58:50David Novak:I mean, if it's not the greatest speech I've ever heard, I agree with you. It's certainly one of them. And there's only one person I know that could have ever written something like that and been that creative and been able to remove all that frustration you were discussing a few moments ago in leadership. How do you get out of your own way? How do you distill yourself back to that foundation level and utilize all the failures, all the triumph, all the lessons that come from both, all of the evolution, the culture that you've built within your life, your family, and your team in order to create something like that.

59:39David Novak:The brilliance has no measure. The brilliance has no definition. It's just a creative masterpiece. And when he writes that book, it'll be a bestseller instantly. And to all our listeners, you got to go online and see the commencement speech in North Carolina. It's one of the best. And Marty, this has been so much fun. I want to have a little bit more fun before we wrap this all up. I always do a lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this? Yes, sir. The three words that best describe you. Passionate, loyal, and kind. If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?

1:00:21David Novak:I can't be my dog, right? My dog's got the greatest life in the world. So I'm going to say I would be Casey Bethard. Your biggest pet peeve. I guess the one that I'll use is I hate bathrooms without paper towels. Who would play you? I hate them damn hand blowers. Who would play you in a movie? Brad Pitt or McConaughey. The interview you'd love to have a second chance in. I would love to have a second chance to interview Kyle Busch, whom we just lost. He had gotten in some, he had made some mistakes as a driver and granted me an interview at the Brickyard 400, I want to say in around 2012. And I was so green that I would love to have that one back now on many levels.

1:01:18Your favorite song by Celine Dion.

1:01:20David Novak:Oh, come on, man. Do you want me to sing it? Yeah. When that happened, a lot of your listeners may not know this story. So my favorite song by Celine Dion is... Near, far, wherever you are. So we're at TGL. I'll tell this real quick. I know this is lightning round. Celine was there as a guest and I was interviewing her and I asked her the question, which song from your amazing catalog best represents your golf game? and she looked at me and started singing the Titanic song and then asked me to sing with her. I started singing with her. I actually know the words. Yes, David, I've got a lot of practice singing in the shower.

1:02:03David Novak:And, man, that thing was on every entertainment tonight. Good morning, America. It was everywhere. Near, far, where, come on, you just do it. Wherever you are, I believe that My ball will go on. You're not bad. I'm coming to Vegas. I'm going to come to Vegas for the residency. There you go. And I can't sing worth a hoot. Well, you just demonstrated that. What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work? I would say AI. I'm getting more curious about that and how it could streamline pieces of my life. but I'm trying to be a better journaler. I get up every morning.

1:02:58David Novak:I have a journal. I write my thoughts. I write my insecurities and things I want to be better at doing as a father, as a husband, as a friend, as a professional. And so I think that that would be my answer. Take the time to be present and write your life. The one thing you do just for you? Golf. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Eric Church. What's something about you few people would know? It takes about 20 seconds to do my hair. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you never miss besides doing your journal? Prayer. Your Mount Rushmore of interview subjects.

1:03:47David Novak:Saban, Tiger Woods, Dale Jr., just because we've gotten so deep into the sorrow of losing his dad and having to carry an entire industry on his shoulders. And then the fourth one, if you will indulge me and just let me tell a story. Sure. The fourth one is a young lady named Olivia Quigley. Olivia, I met in the summer of 2015. I was commissioned to cover the Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles, California. And it was the first time the Special Olympics had ever been broadcast on television that way. And we did it at ESPN. And my job was to embed myself with the United States teams, learn their stories and their journeys to the World Games, and share that over the two and a half weeks we would broadcast it on ESPN.

1:04:52David Novak:Well, the first day I'm in LA for the Games, I go to the University of California, Riverside, and I'm going to talk to the track team. So I walk into this track stadium, and the energy was overwhelming. It was palpable, the joy and the spirit emanating from these athletes who've been told their whole lives, you can't, you'll never, don't try, you're not capable. These athletes at the Special Olympics World Games have intellectual disabilities. So as I'm standing there witnessing their practice, I'm talking to the head coach of the team, a lady named Bonnie Kahn. She was from Wisconsin. and as I'm talking to Bonnie, I look over to my left and I see an athlete seated all alone on one of those aluminum benches that you would find on the sideline of a rural high school football stadium and I'm like, what's going on?

1:05:49David Novak:Who's that? What's going on over there? She goes, oh, that's Olivia and my reporter antenna went up, so I'll be right back. I'm gonna go talk to her. So I sit down right beside Olivia. She's bald-headed, has no hair, stretching her legs and I said, hey, what are you doing over here all by yourself? She said, I'm just so tired. I said, what do you mean you're tired? Look at this is incredible. What do you mean you're tired? She said one word, chemotherapy. Olivia had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and for five months had undergone an exhaustive radiation and chemotherapy treatment regimen before she got the call that she had qualified for World Games.

1:06:36David Novak:So she picked up the phone. She called her oncologist and she said, I'm going to go to World Games and I'm going to show women all over the world who are battling this disease what's possible. Well, I had lost my mother to breast cancer when I was 21. My mom was 47. And so I was completely taken by Olivia. and we had this incredible conversation and she had this way of chasing your eyes with hers to make sure that you were listening to her. Well, as we chatted, I learned that she had autism. She was adopted at three years old from China by her parents, Dan and Judy Quigley in Wisconsin. They did not know when they adopted Olivia that she had autism.

1:07:27David Novak:Well, for Olivia, autism was a condition, not a definition. So I'm enamored with her. As I'm leaving the track stadium that day, she grabs me by the sleeve and she says, Mr. Marty, can you do me a favor? Can you please just tell everybody how happy I am? I said, you have my word. So you fast forward a few days. We're at the University of Southern California. Olivia gets in the blocks for the 100-meter sprint. Gun goes off. Olivia takes off running. She wins the 100-meter gold medal in the Special Olympics World Games. Collapses in exhaustion at the finish line. Three days later, she's the anchor leg of the 4x100 team, relay team.

1:08:19David Novak:They, too, win the gold medal. So at this point, Olivia has become a global story. She's everywhere. She's the face of these games. We've talked about her a lot. I interviewed her on the opening ceremonies on ABC and the LA Coliseum. A beautiful spirit. Well, she and I maintained a relationship, David, for years. She would text me and she would say, hey, I see you here on my TV. Your tie doesn't match. Your hair looks funny. She was awesome. Well, unfortunately, the cancer just continued to spread. It went to her spine, ultimately to her brain. She was really struggling. Well, I come home from covering an LSU football game during the fall, and I open up my mailbox, and inside my mailbox, there's one of those yellowish-brown manila envelopes with a bubble wrap inside.

1:09:15David Novak:So I tear open this envelope, and inside there are two items. There's a piece of stationery and a black velvet box. The stationery was a letter from Olivia's mother, Judy, informing me that unfortunately the cancer had spread to the point that it took her from us, but that she was overwhelmed with gratitude of how ESPN and myself, how we covered Olivia and treated her like a human being, treated her with dignity, treated her with respect. And because of that, she was so infused with self-confidence that when they got home from the World Games, she got a full-time job at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

1:10:06David Novak:When doctors had told them she'd never have a job, she got her own apartment. When doctors told them she'd never live alone, She got a dog. She became a brown belt in jujitsu because she was so self-infused with confidence from her experience at World Games. And at the very bottom of that piece of stationery, Judy wrote, Before Olivia passed, we created something of a last will and testament. And within that document, Olivia stated that she wanted her special friend, which is what she called me. to have that black velvet box. You know, guess what was in the black velvet box? I know it was the gold medals.

1:10:51David Novak:Her gold medal from the 100 meters in the Special Olympics World Games. Wow. And I have that matted and framed in my office in Charlotte, North Carolina, right now, to this day, as a tangible reminder of the power of kindness and time. Well, I'm ending my lightning round after that story. That's so powerful. That's such a great story. I know that was definitely, that wasn't lightning. That was a whole thunderstorm. That was an unbelievable story. That is, I carry her with me and I will for all my days. Yeah, that's great. Well, I just got a few more questions and we'll wrap this up. And, you know, thank you for sharing that.

1:11:34That's an incredible story. and shows the impact of what one person can have by just being kind. Just take the time to listen to somebody and to build a relationship and to stay true. It's a great living testimony to the approach that's made you so successful. You know, you mentioned your wife, Lainey, up front. You know, when you think about where you're at today, what's been the big role she's played in your partnerships? There's no way I could ever pay it enough gratitude, enough respect.

1:12:13David Novak:She is my best friend. We've been married 26 years. She is my greatest sounding board. She has an intelligence, both emotionally and intellectually, that allows me to look at things through many different prisms. but her greatest attribute is grace. We meet people who have more or less, who've done incredible things, who are striving, but you just don't run across innate grace very often. And her willingness to evolve with me as a man is a gift that I could never begin to repay because the man she married is not the man she's married to now. And her selfless approach to evolving with what I've become and continue to become is incredible beyond words.

1:13:11David Novak:She's lived on an island a lot because in my business, you're on a lot of airplanes. And she's an incredible human being. And I'm so, so grateful for her. That's great. And, you know, last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd want to give to anybody that wants to be a better leader? Know your process. Know how to take that process to inject a culture within your team, within your company, within your tribe that is felt in every corner of the business or every corner of the unit, even if you're not present. As Doc Rivers told me in the book, culture happens when we turn our backs. If you have to have a really difficult conversation with your team or with an individual in your team, what that person is saying when that meeting is over tells you whether or not your culture is intact.

1:14:18David Novak:If you give your team a difficult task and they're all belly aching, then you got to fix your culture. If somebody in that team doesn't go, no, that's not how we operate. Suck it up. We're going to do this. That I think is imperative. Also, have some understanding or study about crisis management. Because if you're a leader, you're going to have to manage a crisis. And there is no playbook for them. But when you're put in that position, can you be the lighthouse that guides everyone through that crisis? I think about Greg Sankey and that Southeastern Conference through COVID. There's no playbook for that, but he was incredible in the way that he led not just SEC, but college athletics through one of the greatest unknowns of our lifetimes.

1:15:19David Novak:Um, and again, I'll finish up with, listen, it's hard to do when you're the tip of the spear, when you're the person that's pulled in every single direction and have oversight of every single sector or silo of the people you're leading. But it is so important when you call a meeting, listen, when you're in front of the people that you have charged with excellence, try to learn from them too. And I'm taking all of that that I just told you from all of those incredible leaders that were willing to share their time with me in that book. And Marty, I want to thank you very much for sharing your time with me.

1:16:10It's been very inspirational. And I appreciate just the stories that you've told the insights that you've shared. And I know it's going to help everybody that listens to this podcast become an even better leader. So thank you very much. I appreciate you.

1:16:23David Novak:I'm so grateful to get to spend this time with you. And I've learned so much from you through this platform and what you guys are doing. It's, it's just, it's like going to Wharton.

1:16:43David Novak:David, I'm so glad we finally got Marty on the show. Even if he was reporting live from his brother-in-law's laundry room slash converted office, that was awesome. That was nice of him to get rid of the tide and the dirty shorts. Man, that story about Olivia Quigley is going to stick with me for a long time. That was really, really sweet. Yeah, you know, the act of kindness that a human being can provide is so incredible. And that is such a great story. And it's one of the most emotional stories I've heard in a long time. And, you know, it just shows what the power of a human being has within their capacity.

1:17:30David Novak:I love the way that Marty pulls these stories out from all of the great people that he gets to sit down with. And I want to recap some of the things that just stood out to me from this episode, David. I love it when Marty said that excellence lives at the intersection of preparedness and passion. Obviously, that's something that he takes with him into his work. But how does that land for you? Yeah, well, I think that they're totally linked in my mind, because you're usually passionate about something that you love. And because you're passionate about something you love, you want to learn more about it.

1:18:04And because of that, you do, and that makes you prepared. And so when you're passionate and prepared, I think you can perform at the very highest, highest level. And, you know, I think that's what he was really getting at there. And I love it.

1:18:20David Novak:Obviously, I have to talk about how much Coach Saban has impacted him, because though I've never interviewed nor been a colleague of coach Saban's he has also impacted me in my life as a Alabama fan but I love when you asked him you know what's something that you've learned from the greatest leaders and he said that basically he thought that he prepared well until he met coach Saban and it actually reminded me of an interview we did with Jim Nance as well who's who talks a lot about the importance of preparation say a little bit more about how important preparation is for leaders in the different scenarios that they find themselves in?

1:18:56David Novak:How do you personally prepare? I think I always say that the best leaders have confidence, but that confidence is rooted in competence. The competence comes from, you know, really learning your trade. You know, I mean, Coach Saban did not become a good football coach overnight. I mean, he learned his trade and he was passionate about it and it drove him to keep climbing that mountain as marty was talking never looking down never being complacent having a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo so you continually get better and better and you know i i think that's how in my life i tried to to be prepared i tried to learn every single day that i could i tried to get better every single day that I could.

1:19:45And I never really was satisfied. You know, I always had, you know, this, this, this quench to get better every single day. And I think that, that, that leads you into a mindset of being prepared to, to perform and you can't perform well if you're not prepared.

1:20:05David Novak:I love all of the stories that Marty shared in this episode. And it's clear that he approaches his craft, maybe differently than many other journalists. He talks about, you know, when he was in school, they said, never develop personal relationships with the folks that you report on. And he said that he just tossed that out the window. And that's really, you know, what has set him apart in his career is that he focuses so much on spending the time to develop the relationship. And I love how he encapsulates the way that he views that. He says there's a difference between what the person is and who the person is.

1:20:41David Novak:And the way that he approaches getting to know people in relationships is that he focuses on the who, not the what. Say more about that concept. Yeah. Well, I think what he does is he digs into the individual and he asks questions that are outside of how someone might define themselves. Rather than being a regional vice president of a company, you learn that that person is really engaged in building relationships and enabling others. That's a much bigger thing than just the title that you might have. And so I think it's a classic Sam Walton phrase where no one will care about you unless you show that you care about them.

1:21:27And you learn by learning about somebody else outside of what they do in terms of their job description. I think you literally show people that you care about them and that you're interested in them and that you really want to get to know them on a much deeper level.

1:21:47David Novak:We talked about this in the episode with Bobby Long, how important relationships are. And sometimes, you know, the concept of building relationships and networking can kind of not sit well with some people just because it feels cheap and like you're trying to get something from the other person. But it's really clear the way, you know, that Marty approaches building relationship, taking the time and building that trust is really what allows him to approach his work differently and has been, you know, the reason that he is as successful as he is in his job. You know, Takula, one of the things that I think is very important was that he felt that he could build these relationships and still hold people accountable.

1:22:28You know, in the classic business world, you know, a lot of times leaders think they have to have an emotional distance from the people that they work with so that they can hold them accountable. I don't think that's true. I think you have to have courage. You know, what you have to have is the courage to hold people accountable. You have to have the courage to be vulnerable enough to get to know people on a human level. and you got to have the courage to hold people accountable, whether you happen to have a great relationship with them on a personal level or not. You know, but I always would much rather work with people I enjoy being around and that I had a relationship with versus people that, you know, I didn't really care one way or the other, you know, and that's the best of all worlds.

1:23:06I mean, if you can do business with people that you're friends with, man, that's nirvana, you know, and I did business with a lot of friends and still do business with a lot of friends. And I, but I still hold them accountable and hopefully it comes right back at me. They hold me accountable too. Let's not forget that, you know, accountability works both ways.

1:23:26David Novak:As we wrap this episode, David, I'm curious after that conversation with Marty, what's, what's the main thing that's standing out for you that you're going to take with you? Well, I have to tell you, I'm still kind of blown away by the Olivia Quigley story because it, you know, this special needs person who has cancer, the wins two gold medals in the special Olympics, you know, I mean, that shows me something that I've always really believed in all human beings is that you never really know what you're capable of. You never know. I mean, and, you know, I related that story because I've happened to have cancer twice and I kind of had the same attitude that I wasn't going to let this be.

1:24:05You know, obviously when, when cancer takes over your body, your body, you know, there's nothing, your attitude isn't going to change, you know, it just isn't going to change. it's just going to happen. But boy, while you're alive, give it everything you got, because you never know what you're capable of and look what you can achieve. And she definitely showed that. But, you know, I think what did I take away beyond that? I think there's nothing like having that marriage of passion and preparedness. I think they need to be linked and you got to be passionate about what you do so that you really do become totally prepared.

1:24:40it's so important for you to show up prepared, you know, and be ready. Because I loved how Marty talked about it. When you're prepared, you can be present. And for me, it was really good insight about, hey, when you're interviewing somebody, don't be looking down at the paper or looking at the next question, you know, while somebody's giving you the answer. I think I fall prey to that. I'm going to do a better job of getting better and better prepared in everything that I do. That was a great point. And hopefully I'm at least semi-prepared, but I think I can take my preparation level up a notch.

1:25:12And then I think if you really want to get to know people, know who they are, not what they are. You know, and really ask questions that get you to get some true insights on what that person is all about. And there's nothing like working with people that you have a relationship with and holding them accountable is still a possibility. is still something that you got to do. And, you know, they're not mutually exclusive. You can, you know, build relationships and hold people accountable. And frankly, that might be a great example of one plus one equals three. When you can have that great relationship and then hold people accountable, one plus one indeed equals three.

1:25:52So it was a fun episode.

1:25:54David Novak:Such a fun episode. I'm certainly going to take a lot of these insights and apply them to my life. And I'm excited for Marty to get back in the gear room, as he's in the gear room? Well, I will say this. He doesn't look like Brad Pitt or Matthew McConaughey. Nor does he sound like Celine Dion. Yeah, and he's not that good a singer. But he's a pretty good journalist, I would say. Well, David, thanks so much for a great episode of How Leaders Lead. And thank you, Marty Smith, for taking the time to be on the show. And thank you, of course, our listeners for tuning in. We will see you next week.

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