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

28:17So I think that's part of it. And there's one other thing from Tyler Cowen, who I've interviewed a few times. He's this economist, George Mason, teacher, professor. He's written a ton of books. And Tyler Cowen said, one of the things that great leaders do, and I think Ollery and Coach Greg do this and others like Coach Trestle and that we've got to work with, is they believe in the high return activity of raising others' aspirations. And what he means by this is when Tyler Cowen is meeting with a student and the student comes in and says, hey, I particularly maybe talented student and one who's really smart.

28:51Hey, I think I'm going to go get my MBA. And Tyler says often I'll say to them, well, have you thought about just skipping that and just going straight to the PhD? And the student's like, I didn't even know that's possible. You can do that. And he said, sure, you can. And what Tyler says is at critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind. As the leader, it costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them and the broader world is enormous.

29:31And I'm like, yes. Isn't that the leader you should strive to be that you push people to go bigger? I think this is what Pat McAfee does. And we're going to talk about your show with Pat. But I think he's one of the biggest, grandest thinkers and has been for a while. And that's part of the reason why you guys, he's also very talented, but part of the reason why you guys are doing what you're doing is because he's ambitious enough and thinks big enough that like, Hey, there is no limit. And I think that's, that's an example of, of really good leadership. yeah i think i know we're gonna get to it eventually but yeah i thought of pat right away when you talked about that the going skipping the skipping the mba to get your straight to phd yeah like he pat's like an absolute like huge like always always driving for like next always thinking how we can get better what we can do to get better yeah it's pretty it's cool to see honestly it's like uh yeah i'm not i'm not exactly that kind of thinker all the time, but it's made me think more like that because of how he is.

30:33Being around him, right? Being around him. I actually feel like that after we were in Tahoe, especially when we've had good sessions in the tent with bigger, like we're with Annika Sorenstam this year and some others that are like big Alfonso, Miles, big thinkers that have done big things in their lives. Just being around that, it changes how you think. makes you, I think, think grander or bigger. Because you realize these people, they're just people. They're very impressive people, but they've accomplished really big things. And if they can, then why can't I? And I think being around that is a really good thing.

31:12And that's why I would push people, put yourself in rooms with people who do really big things and have accomplished big things. Because one, it makes you realize they are human. Now, they're talented and skilled, but they're human. If they can do it, I can probably do that too. So the next question is actually about your show. This was asked a lot of times from fans is what's the magic? What is the magic behind the Pat McAfee show and all the cast of characters and the fact that it's taken over the media world? And I'll have Pistol start so you can think a little bit and then I have some thoughts too.

31:46But Pistol, what do you think is the magic behind Pat in the whole show? Yeah, well, the first thing I would tell you is every time I go somewhere and interact with people that are, let's say, 25 to 40-year-old, usually dudes, they mention the Pat McAfee show. And it's made me realize again and again, you guys really have a demographic that is strong and loyal. And so I think you understand your audience and you guys put information in front of that audience that it wants to see and hear. And so you just keep dishing it up to them day after day. And you understand very well what you are and what they are.

32:26And the other side of it is it's big fun. I mean, that show does not take itself particularly serious. Headlined by Pat's thanking everybody for watching this dumb show every day. I mean, he leads the band on the fun and not taking themselves too seriously. And I would just add one other thing. I'm jumping on to what you guys have already talked about. But Pat doesn't make small bets. Pat makes big bets. He doesn't try to say, well, maybe we can get on YouTube and then maybe we can get on some small little cable outlet. No, Pat says, you know what? Why don't we go on ESPN? Let's just go talk to those guys and skip the others.

33:03And by the way, if I want to get a football coach on the show, well, I'm just going to go to Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, probably the greatest pro and college coaches of all time. And he signed them both up in the same year. So he just keeps doing big things. Yep. But age, what do you think? You're right in the middle of all of it. But if you had to analyze why you think it works so well, what is it? I don't know. People have asked me that before. And I mean, Pat is the magic. Obviously, Pat is the guy that started all. He had this vision years ago of what he wanted to do. And he's just continued to chase it and, you know, work so hard.

33:36He has a million different things he does and hosts and wrestling and game day. So he does it all. He has crazy ambition, I think, and crazy work ethic when it comes to all of that. And he wants like, he absolutely wants to put on a good show every single day. That's, he's always talks about that. Like he wants to make it good, always trying to make it better. Oh, we can, whatever we can do, but he is, there's no one like him. I mean, you know how he is just on camera. Like that's how he is at all times. He's always the same dude and all, and what that it's super authentic. And that's who he is like very, I think he's very like open, vulnerable on there too, at times talking about different things, whatever's going on.

34:13But yeah, I don't know. I just think how he is running the show and everyone he's brought in, like everybody, you can't, it's hard. You can't just all of a sudden put it together. You can't throw it together. And he's made jokes about people have came up to him and said, like, oh, well, do like the, they tell other people like in the media, you guys put together like a, you know, more like a Pat McAfee type show. Like do that, throw that together. Couldn't you do that? And I'm like, okay, bud. Like if that's your goal going in, I'm sure you could put a good show together. if you have good people but you can't like it's got to be your own thing it's got and everything that pat has done he's you know had the ideas in the past for it and always been thinking about it but all the guys he brings in all the boys i i think just fit perfectly with each other and i love those dudes like i love getting a chance to hang out with them in person it like gives me energy when i get to go hang out i went and hosted from or i got to go in studio before we went to ireland just being around the guys again it had been a little while since i've been around in the same room and working together where we're in person.

35:15It's so fun to be around them. Cause I know of all, I know they're all such good dudes off camera as well. So I don't know what it is. I think it's, we all care about it. We all want to do a good job and we all love it and have fun. Like for real it's, I don't ever sit there. Like I don't ever sit there. Oh man, we got to do the show today. Like that's never been, that's never been anything that I've ever thought ever. Like I enjoy, I look forward to doing the show every single day. I look forward to going on Fridays wherever we may go. And then we do watch along. It's like, it's always fun. It really is.

35:46And when we all get to hang out together and whenever we go on the road and do shows and games and stuff, people that are around us that only see us for those day or that day or two, there are a lot of times like, man, this is like, well, this is, it's kind of like you guys, you guys actually just like you do on camera. Like when we're getting ready for shows or going, getting like driving somewhere or doing whatever, they're like, man, so you guys do really get along, huh? I'm like, yeah, this is what, I guess that's why it works. Cause we actually do really like each other and everyone understands what we're doing and we get it.

36:15So I don't know what they're, you can't like pinpoint anything, but there's nobody on the world like Pat. That's the first thing. Like there's nobody like how talented he is, how hard he works, how he like the consistency to want to do that every single day. Like I, I know I'm not a huge talker and that's why I love working with Pat too. Like he's, he's great at teeing me up and going back and forth. is just a lot of fun but to do that every day i'm sure there's days he doesn't feel like you know he doesn't have a bunch of juice he's only slept for an hour or two but it doesn't matter you can't tell like the old what's the old johnny carson thing that red light comes on and that dude is rolling and he's not it's not fake either he genuinely think yeah i'm just gonna have a good time here and i'm gonna i'm gonna bring the juice and i think that's what's awesome about it i think that people feel that and they see that and people that watch the show are so invested because they've been with pat for a long long time and followed his whole journey so they're super invested and they you know they they know everybody on the show they know the characters they know who we are i feel like and and in turn we like pistol said we kind of you can walk around and kind of see the demo like you can see certain people in age groups and what they look like and like oh this guy this guy definitely knows like then they'll ask some quote hey man like i was goopy i was goopy doing what's going on is he getting deported again like they all have inside jokes and make fun of my fingers and all different stuff.

37:36So yeah, like people are invested and that's what I think is cool when people are invested in the show and they know all the little weird behind the scenes jokes and all that stuff. And that's what makes it fun. I love it. The few things I thought of, I think there is a starting with Pat, but then the whole show, there is a fearlessness of the, of everybody on the show, Starting with Pat, I think there is amazing authenticity. You know it's real. These are the things people want to say, but maybe are too afraid to say what it gets said on your show. And then I think you guys have awesome role clarity.

38:17Everybody understands and embraces their role. I actually was taking notes thinking about this. I think it's similar to the dynasty of the New England Patriots. So think about when they were really gone, when they were winning all those Super Bowls. So at the top, you have this one person who is the combination of three people. Pat is Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady all in one person. He owns it. He makes all the decisions, and he plays. So he's three guys. and then you look at like you and tie and d butt and tone you're like connor well hold on you're like wes welker and edelman and randy moss and then you also bring in this who's moss sorry to interrupt you who's randy moss who's edelman who's welker initially i wrote you to try to fluff you a little bit but then i was like yeah you know you're moss maybe you know gets teed up by the quarterback pretty well.

39:20Pat tees you up well, throws up jump balls for you. So maybe Moss. Or you could be the slot receiver who's just really dependable. So are you Edelman maybe? Maybe. Then you have this character who we all love to see how wild and crazy he is. Gronk is Connor. So Gronk is Connor right there doing his thing. And then you got Zito and Foxy and Nick and Gumpy, they're the offensive line. They're clear in the way, making sure everything's good. And then I got it because I know CFO Phil is a listener. I've interacted with him. Amazing guy. He's like the D coordinator, right? He's got to maintain, hey, Pat, let's not go too crazy with the spending.

40:08Let's reign this in, okay? Let's do what we got to do. So he's all there. My point is there is everyone on that team that won all those Super Bowls, they all understood their role and they embraced their roles really well. And if any of you guys got too big of an ego or you wanted to be Tom Brady, it wouldn't work. But I think all the guys understand their role and they play them so well, in addition to being fearless, in addition to being amazingly authentic. And by doing all of that, you have the guy who plays three roles at the top. If you have all of that, that's how you get what you get. And that's why it can't be duplicated.

40:49That's why people say they want to do it, but they can't because they don't have all of those things. And that's a lot of magic that I think most people are still do. And that's what I think is so cool. And I'm just, I'm, I'm glad and grateful that you get to be part of it. I think it's amazing. Yeah. Believe me, I am too. I am absolutely thankful and glad because like I said, it's, I have fun. Like I'd really, I laugh on there more than anything. And yeah, I just, I love doing it. I'm lucky because a lot of people don't find something that they love to do after they get done playing sports. For sure.

41:19For sure. I remember talking, you know, I was sending you articles and texting and having conversations with you like year three, four, five, six, when you're in the NFL thinking like, God, I want you to, you know, I want you to have, I just want you so badly to have something when you're done to have this is just awesome. So super cool. Okay. Next is a question that is about something completely different, giving speeches. So all of us go out and give speeches to a wide variety of audiences. We've done this now for years. Pistol, you've done it longer than us. So maybe I'll have you start. But there's a lot of questions about what do you do to be really effective as a keynote speaker?

42:02How do you prepare? How do you think about it? How do you make sure when you get on stage, you absolutely destroy it? Well, I know we're going to cover a lot between the three of us. So I've focused on just two or three main things that I think might be not in a book about how to give a speech. So I'll give you things that I do. A lot of people I observe who are giving presentations or speeches tend to have, they try to prepare for every last word they're going to say. They'll write every word down. They'll have 30 slides or charts that have everything that they want to get across to their audience.

42:38And I think that might be good if your job is to be in a legal case or something like that where you've got to cover every last thing. But I don't think it's so good to be effective as a communicator. And so I have a very different approach. I'm not comfortable as a speaker if I'm too tied to every last word. And so what I do is develop what I call a set list. So if you guys are Dave Matthews fans, he's got a set list, right? And he just writes one or two words that remind him of the next song they're going to go to. Because I do want to go in the order that I intend to go, typically, of the topics I'm going to cover.

43:14But it allows me to think in stories rather to have to be burdened by thinking in the exact words that need to be said. And I think when I think in stories that the set list idea gives me where I just have a word or two to remind me of where I'm going next allows me to do a better job as a communicator. And then what I do is I, once I have that set list, is I will give the speech to an audio recording device, my phone typically. And I'll give the whole speech, right? I'll go through the whole thing. And I'll have some notes around me so that I can, because it's early, right? I haven't given it yet.

43:48So I'm preparing and I have everything that I intend to cover and I'll have that recording. And then I'll take a walk. I'll take a few walks at night and I might have a cigar and I will walk for miles listening to myself giving that speech so that I just kind of ingrain the material in my head so that by the time it's time to go do the speech, I've heard it a bunch. I've literally absorbed it, and I've just got my little set list that says, here's where we're going to go, and I'm off and running. So that's my behind-the-scenes kind of things that I use, just a couple of points that I think are so much more effective to be a good communicator than if you're so rigidly tied to every last word that you think needs to be said and tied to a bunch of slides.

44:39I use slides, don't get me wrong, but they're just meant as background color for the words that I'm saying. To reinforce it. The saying it out loud part's big, I think, because you don't want the first time to be, you're hearing those words spoken when you're up there. You want to have said, like, I've done this before. I know this material cold so that when you get up there, you can just let it fly, right? Absolutely, yeah. Age, what about you? Man, you guys obviously give more speeches than I do, but I enjoy it. I love doing it. I love giving speeches. Now, but Pistol, quick, when you record yourself on your phone and you walk around listening to it, like how do you, it's tough listening to yourself give speeches, I think.

45:18It's tough listening to your own voice. Are you able to remove yourself from that? Like, oh, I sound stupid. Or like, how do you listen to yourself that much? Well, I'm more trying to absorb the material, right? Because I don't want to rely on a bunch of notes or a bunch of prompters or certainly not a teleprompter. I've never been a guy that likes to use a teleprompter. so i've got to i've got to have all the memory in my all of the memory that's so to me it's more of a memory exercise and by the way i do kind of want to hear what do i sound like because they're all going to hear it he loves that you got to get comfortable with it yeah you're right he got it he just let you know i know you rate you were a what radio tv uh major back in the day yeah jt hawkins famous dj from the midwest anyone growing up at that time no there you go heard you okay Yeah, I guess I don't, every time I give a speech, I feel I go in and the day of, and when I show up, I feel unprepared.

46:11And I always feel like I didn't do it. Like, man, I really screwed myself on this one. Like, I thought I had it. I thought I had it. Why did I accept this job? Yeah. And I'm like, okay, these guys, like, this is going to be a tough audience. They don't care. They don't care what I have to say about this story about Charles Woodson or whatever I'm talking about, you know? and it always tends to ends up it always I'm not saying they're all a plus you know they all can't be homer and home runs grand slams but it always kind of goes the same it's gone the same way I don't I don't write the whole thing out I do the same kind of thing I'll like have okay what I want to do what do I want to say here what kind of stories do I want to tell and then I kind of like write down little one line or two lines just to remind me because that's like an order thing for me i feel like hey i need to for it to make sense i need to have the order right and i can't bounce around because my brain naturally just bounces around to 50 different topics especially if i'm getting up talking in front of people and they may someone may raise their hand or somebody ask a question or something might pop up my mind i would get derailed for 10 minutes like i got to figure out how to get back to whatever my message was just because i remember watching great speakers and watching you guys watching john maxwell one time different ways i was so impressed with stuff that he started out with how all of a sudden at the end he ties it all together and i'm like wow that's like a magic trick man like i didn't even know what was happening and this guy wrote he ties all and i've been trying to do that ever since i've watched maxwell pistol remember that i don't know how many years ago i sure do eight nine circleville bible college doing a big big audience thing i pulled my i pulled my phone out and started audio recording it at like five minutes in because this dude is legit like he's really good i had never seen him in person and then when he ties it all together.

47:51I was like, I got to figure out how to do that. So I've been actively trying to do that ever since I saw John Maxwell and I am not hitting the mark yet. I'm trying to figure it out, but it doesn't, in my brain, I'm tying it all together, but it's not really having the impact that I want. But for me, I go in, I feel underprepared, even though I'm usually very well prepared and feel like I got it in my head, what's going on. And then I might have a couple index cards that I'll look at before I go, but then when I'm up there, I don't like to look at anything because if there's something to look at that for me, I don't work that just doesn't work.

48:24That's one thing I learned is you got to do whatever works for you and whatever you do best, because I've tried it in the past. I'm like, oh, you got to like, I've never sat there and read a speech. No, I think that's awful. When you try to read and like you're in sixth grade and you're speaking to the class and you read and you look up and do that, like people do that. And it's crazy to think of, but I just, the more you get, the more comfortable you get. And I go in feeling uncomfortable, feeling underprepared. And then when I'm done, I'm pumped. I'm like, this is fun, man. Like I'm excited.

48:52It was great. And it's usually kind of minor, kind of a mixture of, okay, I went in with this plan. I wanted to, I wanted to kind of hit these stories. I wanted to say this, I wanted to do that. And I usually hit about 50 % of it. And then 50 % is things that pop into my head in the moment where like, oh, well, how did I not think of this? Because beforehand when I'm thinking like, oh, I need to, what's a good story or what's a good coach or a thing here that I could throw in. It's hard to think of when you're actively trying to make yourself think. So all of a sudden, when I'm up there, a lot of times different things will hit me and remind me of other things.

49:24And then I can hopefully tie it into whatever message I was trying to give. But my speeches are not like what you guys are doing, training, training people, like super serious things. Like people usually want to at the end, do a Q and a and ask me, you know, questions and weird questions about people I've played with and stuff. And that's, that's super easy it's fun yeah the q a the q a can lead to new stuff too yeah sometimes those prompts i i i did one speech for the video guys i i had like i kind of finished and got an applause and then i you know like well they're like can we do q a i'm like sure sure and and the video guys shut that they were tearing down they were i was like no no no that's probably the best part or could be or could could lead to a new bit i don't know so the q a i think is really useful for a speaker and can be great for an audience too.

50:14So this could be an hour long thing. So I'll try to compress it as much as possible. I think one question I ask myself is, what do I want this audience to do? What do I want them to do? And meaning if they don't take action, I say this every time I'm on a prep call with a group, if they're thinking about hiring me, I say, do you want someone to come in there and entertain? Or do you want someone to come in there and inform and create action and entertain? Which do you want? And if they just want someone to entertain, which sometimes people do, I always tell them, hire a standup comedian. They're great, a good one.

50:55Hire a good standup comedian if you want entertainment. But if you want to create action, then maybe I could do that. So I think, what do I want them to do? And then try to tailor the message based on whatever action I want them to take, depending on what they want. I think I got advice early on that you should create one awesome, awesome speech and then just run that at a lot of different places, but just master the one speech. And I think that advice is partially correct. I do think you should have your bits that are your, as Pistol, you said, you tell me like, hey, you got to play the hits, tell the triathlon story, whatever.

51:33you got to play the hits. And so I do have some of those. But I also now, since I speak, especially in the fall when it's soccer and volleyball season, when I don't want to travel, I speak fewer times. So I try to make them much more customized. So I will interview, I just had lunch, in fact, with the guy I'm speaking with for next month, the CEO of the company. And I'm going to meet with four or five of his leaders and then a few individual contributors because I want to hear the language they use. I want to hear about their competitors. I want to hear about their problems. I want to hear about what they're striving for so that when I mix in my stories and bits, it is tied directly to the people sitting in those seats.

52:16When I think about one of the better speakers I've been in the audience for many times is Charlie McMahon. Charlie speaks at Southbrook Church. And Charlie, like so many people come up to me and he's told me this and they say, I felt like you were speaking directly to me. You created this change or you created this action in me based on what you said, the story you told and how you told it and the action you pushed for. I think that's the mark of a really good speaker is everybody in those seats feel like you're speaking directly to them. But in order to do that, you got to know your audience.

52:51You have to do the pre-work in order to know. That's why I try to spend a good deal of time interviewing people who are going to be sitting in those seats, meeting them, getting to know them, understand the way they talk and what they're going through so that they know I'm actually thinking about them because my end goal is what do I want this audience to do? And so everything should be pointed towards that question so that I answer it and I push them towards whatever that thing may be. So that's what I try to do. And I think getting up on stage is one of the coolest things ever. It's not like running out at the big house before a big football game, but it gives you some similar feelings of the nervous anticipatory feeling before a big game.

53:34It's not the same, but I do think it's on that path. And so I want to create as many of those moments as possible because I think it's good to feel nervous. I think it's good to feel that anticipatory feeling and want to go do a good job. And it creates these highs for you that I think it's part of the juice, it's part of what we need. so okay all right i'm going to be mindful of time we're not going to get to everything i do think this is a good one though i'm going to start with age what did the best teams you've been on do differently than just the good or average teams you've been on i mean you have some good questions there's every coach always is trying to figure this out i think too yeah but it's the same thing where there's no secret like the best team like we won the super bowl in green bay my fifth year and when we we look back i just got to go back a couple of my teammates clay matthews aaron campman went into the packers hall of fame so i got to see a bunch of the guys a lot of guys from that super bowl team and we talk about a lot like my wife laura and i like that team was super close like we hung out we went to sports corners bar after games where it was like a high school slash college environment to where home games we win cool like we would just naturally meet up there and everybody's family could come like there's a whoever was in town boom we come here we hang out everyone has a great time i think that's a huge thing that people don't uh you can't like quantify and whatever but like just being together with your teammates off the field is awesome and when you're you're that close uh you can't like there's no stats or anything right whatever you can do but You can try to, if you're the GM or you're putting a team together, you can try to make sure, hey, I get the right type of people that will gel together.

55:18And it takes a great coach like Mike McCarthy too to kind of get you all going in the same direction. But honestly, it's people that are, there's still egos. Like that's the thing too. Like there's still egos and there's still everything. Everyone wants to, yeah, this guy's on a contract year. This guy's doing that. But they all kind of understand like, hey, if we win, if we go win, like there's enough for everybody. Everybody gets taken care of if we win. And a lot of coaches in the NFL will say that, like, hey, don't worry about it. Like, if you go out there and we win, there's going to be enough to go around for everybody.

55:49You may not be here. We might not be able to keep you. But trust me, there's 31 other teams that someone will pay you and someone will get you what you deserve if we win. But we have to take care of business and win first. So I think it's just like the same thing. Consistency, good dudes that care about each other. Everyone's going in the same direction. it's very hard to do all of that especially over the course of a long year with injuries and all the things and people are just resilient and don't care like teams i've been on that are the best like doesn't matter we'll just keep going like okay cool something happens there's no drama there's no whatever like yep we don't care like we're just going to keep going go about our day and go about our business no matter what happens whether people on the outside are saying oh you how unlucky are you guys about this or you guys get screwed over by the refs like it doesn't matter like we don't care.

56:34We don't need anybody else. We'll go beat them. That's how every team I've been on that's good. I love that. That's kind of like the core. That's how everybody feels on the team. Laugh together, cry together, do hard things together, right? That's how trust is built, how good teams are built, right? You genuinely are there for one another. You care. I love it. Pistol, how about you? This was one that people wouldn't expect me to give, given how my career went later on. But in my early days at LexisNexis, we had a big challenge in our business. Customers had to convert from one kind of a device using our service to their own systems.

57:09And it was a big challenge. And some guy in leadership said, we need to create a tiger team to get out there and go across the country and get all these customers connected. And they put me in charge of that. And I got to hire a few people. And they all came in saying, how are we going to do this? It's overwhelming to go out into all these customer systems and make it work. And I said, look, there's three things we have to learn. And I told them what those three things were. And if we'd go on a customer's property and ask these three questions and solve for those three questions, it would work every time.

57:41And everybody got real excited about it because it always worked. It was like a miracle that we could make happen. And people didn't understand that we really just knew three things. But these people I hired were very dedicated and they were most interested in being a great teammate. And I will never forget when AJ and I used to give a talk. I think we called it something like the winning organization or something like that. And I would bring up a topic, and one of them was about being a great teammate. And, AJ, I think you thought of Morgan Burnett as an excellent teammate because he was so trustworthy, and you had all these great reasons you gave when we gave this talk.

58:14But these people, it was their biggest desire. I want to hold up my end. I want to travel as much as I have to travel. I want to see as many customers as I can possibly see. And if somebody's sick or somebody has a wedding to go to, I'm going to go do theirs too. And so we very much had a sense of our mission is very important to our business. It became important to us as individuals. And we wanted all of us to be successful. We all thought we were all-stars at what we were doing. And we had this little secret that we'd go around the country and make good things happen in our customers' technology systems.

58:49And so to me, it was most about we were responsible to the mission. We were responsible to each other. and in fact, to the point of we would back each other up. And I think if you walk in and out of other people's companies, you see people that really want to be great, but you don't always see people that want to be a great teammate necessarily. You certainly don't always see people, especially in service-giving organizations, of covering for each other. And so I had just overwhelming sense of just how much we all cared about each other's success. That to me was something that really was a team that I thought worked well.

59:25Was that the top gun group? caring for each other. Was it the Top Gun group? Well, that came later as an inspiration from this. We had a Top Gun group go out to teach our own sales people. You actually got these people together, gave them the Top Gun hats, got a big picture in front of a fighter jet. We went out to an Air Force base and took pictures in front of jets. I think that stuff matters. That matters. I'm a part of this team. I'm a Top Gun guy. Everybody wants to be a part of a team. Everybody wants to be a part of the team. Everybody does. Whatever that team is. Look at Pistol and his cycling.

59:54you're on a team and then mom's on her own cycling team i don't know why you guys don't go to the same cycle place that makes no sense to me but hey i just celebrated my 1000th ride come on congrats i know i saw it that's cool but why don't you go to the same place why don't you go to the same place i don't get it she says a secret to a happy marriage is in the morning uh she turns right and i turn left and we reunite at night hey okay look at you still together still going strong. Here we go. That's good. I will add a little bit because I had some notes that similar things. I think the best teams, because I've unfortunately been the quarterback of a losing team, and that's terrible, but especially as you're responsible that the quarterback is the only football player that has a win-loss record.

1:00:39I think the best teams, though, the best players ... ... practice the hardest. That's a commonality among great teams. The best players wanted to take every rep. They took those reps seriously. They took notes and meetings. They chose extra work in the weight room, watched film, and when they get out to practice, they practice the hardest. They first hold themselves accountable to a very high standard, very high standard. And because of that, they then can hold everyone else to that high standard. And so the best teams have their best players practicing the hardest, and they're not afraid to hold themselves to a high standard and then hold others, their teammates, to a high standard.

1:01:31On our teams, when we got to play together for two years, I was most fearful. I'm sure you probably feel the same way. Most fearful of letting my teammates down. That's what I thought about all the time. When I played as a freshman and Adam Taylor was a senior, what I thought giant linebacker, when in reality, he's like six foot 175. But I was scared to death to let him down because he was the hardest worker on the team. He was the best defensive player on the team. He was scary. He was unafraid to go after guys way bigger than him and just make plays. And I so badly just didn't want to let him down.

1:02:09And that raised the level again of my play. And so when the best players practice the hardest, I think it gives your team a good shot to win. And when it creates this kind of, I got to be there for my teammate. I don't want to let him down. I think that's a really powerful thing to have on a team. I think it's everything yeah like there's nothing worse than a teammate that makes a mistake or does something like selfish during a game and you hangs his buddy out to dry and then the dude doesn't care like he doesn't like if they whenever whenever that would happen to me it would crush me like if I knew like oh man like I we're playing cover two and I'm chasing this guy to the flat like what an idiot and they just hit hitting this curl right behind me as I'm chasing the guy when I know the corner sitting in the flat and I knew like just a dumb mistake like that and let my team down like that's day one install you can't do that and so when things like that would happen yeah you absolutely that's all I thought of yeah your coaches you know they're gonna kill you and yell at you and whatever but I'm thinking like man I got Charles Woodson thinks I'm an idiot now I don't understand what cover two is so yeah like that was always my thing from a young age in high school obviously for sure from day one like all right let's just don't mess this thing up don't don't I don't want these guys beating me up I don't want them coming and killing me if I I don't do my job.

1:03:24I need to prove that this guy is in here. It was probably something since you were a junior and I was a freshman. I'm sure when I got thrust in there, people probably thought if I was out there and I was garbage, they're like, we're just putting this guy in because his brothers are starting quarterback. I would assume. I didn't think of it at the time, but yeah, they should be thinking that. I have to prove that I deserve to be here. I wrote about using fear as fuel in my most recent book. And I think you got to be careful with fear as fuel, but there is a part of it that it can work. It could burn strong for you if that fuel can work.

1:04:03It can't be too much, but us not wanting to let teammates down, I think, has been a fear we've probably used forever. I still use that. I have teammates now. I don't want to let them down. I got to raise the standard continuously every day. And I think that's part of what makes stuff good. Okay. Let's do one more for the draft. I know there's like five or six more I had on our list, but we'll be here all day if we get to all of them. Do you guys want to do the resilience one? Which one do you like best? I think that's a good one, Ryan. Go for it. Okay. Age, do you have a story on a moment in your life when you failed?

1:04:45For whatever reason, it did not go your way. And you had to deal with it. How did you deal with it? What happened? How did you respond? What did you learn from it? A moment of failure where you had to be resilient. Yeah, as you were saying, I'm trying to think. There's a lot of different situations I could reference. But my sophomore year, we were undefeated and went to Michigan. We won my national championship my freshman year, 14-0. I mean, I just walked into Ohio State. Walked into an unbelievable situation my freshman year. we go 14-0, win the national championship. I got to start one game, play some, and then play special teams.

1:05:23Not a huge part of it, but my second year, I was starting, and we went to Michigan, and we played them, and they just ran all over us. They killed it. I don't know what the final score was even, but we got manhandled. And I didn't play well. It feels like nobody played well, especially on our defense. They ran all over us. They were out-physicaled. And Mark D 'Antonio was our D coordinator, and he made us come in and watch the game is this the game was maybe after thanksgiving we watched or whatever and he caught one by one everyone who played on the defense you had to watch in his like in a conference room with him where he would sit across the table from you and just watch the whole game and every play like i still remember one play where this guard came out to block me i don't know what happened and i kind of like threw my body into him didn't use my hands and the dude just swallowed me up and I think I think they maybe even scored a touchdown like in the 10-yard line they run in and I remember him just kept running it back and forth that same place like what is this what what are we doing here did we ever teach you this what do like and he did that 10-15 different times in different plays throughout that game and I was like oh my gosh I remember sitting there as he was telling us how terrible we did one-on-one though there's no other players there no one's there and it's just you and him and he is like Mark D 'Antonio I have he's another guy like you have a healthy fear of him but also the most respect of anybody in the world like i love that dude he's an unbelievable coach but he's a scary individual at the same time i walked out to practice one time i went to tie my freshman year i was tying my cleats and i'd tie them and boom they ripped my laces ripped completely i didn't have time to get new laces we're running out there so i put some tape i just taped my shoe on my foot my cleat and i'm and i've got out there for practice and dan antonio spots the tape on my cleat and went crazy he's like what do what are the individuals around here get that tape off your show my god i started back coach by rip late he's like i don't care i'm like okay cool so i practiced with one cleat falling off the whole day because i didn't have time to get a new lace but that's like the healthy fear you have of coaches like that and i'm sure if i told him that he would laugh now but i that film session alone was one of the lowest points in my football life absolutely with him because it's true like our team didn't play well.

1:07:39I definitely didn't play it. And then I, he would add, he would just look at me sometimes like, what is this? Like, what are you doing here? And I remember being like, I don't have an answer. I don't know why I'm doing that. That's like, it was one of those things where a team starts beating you and we just couldn't figure it out. Like, okay, maybe I'll jump here. I'm supposed to have a gap here, but I'm going to jump and peek in the B gap and try to make a play to get everything kickstarted. And then boom, they gashed you for 20, like things like that. It like illustrated to me, all the things coaches have been telling us for years of what you cannot do.

1:08:07and we all, I especially, we did that in that game, and it was, oh, I mean, that meeting, because then we'd sit there and talk to our friends. I talked to Bobby Carpenter about his meeting he had with D 'Antonio later and just how brutally honest it was and how terrible it was to watch ourselves like that. And I was like, I don't ever want to have to watch that again from myself or anybody. I think that had a huge impact. I still think about it. I still have fear thinking of walking into that room and seeing him sit down, like no hands, you sit down and he puts you right across from him and just watch the whole game for two hours straight i'm like d 'antonio he's a truly he truly cares about the squad because think how much time he took to watch he probably watched that game with 16 17 different players one by one and we obviously watched it together too later but yeah he shows you how much he cared and how much it bothered him and in turn bothered us for sure because it opened my eyes no doubt wow i remember that game i believe chris perry he ran all over us i believe you came to athens after and stayed with me that night i remember that rough rough rough terrible terrible situation yeah oh man i hadn't heard that before that's really cool to be able to it's it's wild the moments that you never forget right and how they impact you forever after you've messed up or you've fallen down and and how you bounce back from that's awesome pistol how about you i'll give you one that most people Certainly our listeners haven't heard before.

1:09:32On the topic of resilience, I think most people think my career, Alexis, was a big joy ride, which, you know, a lot of fun and excitement and good things happening for me. But it wasn't always that way. I recall that shortly after our company had been acquired, we got a new CEO. A little bit after that, we got a new CEO who was coming in. We'd met, but he barely knew me. and I was the SVP of sales at the time, big sales force, 1500 people. And I got a heads up from the former CEO who took me to dinner and he said, Hey, I know he doesn't know you from Adam really. And it's not fair, but he's going to bring in his own guy as the head of the sales force.

1:10:13And so, you know that where that leaves you. And he said, so you got to decide what you want to do about that. And so I thought, well, I can start looking for jobs, I guess, but I had a lot of experience that I thought was really important and useful. And so I asked this fellow, his name's Mike, and he and I have shared this story since then a lot with each other. But I called him, I said, Mike, can I have breakfast with you? And I showed up for breakfast, and I knew he had in his head some information that he didn't want to tell me. So I said, Mike, I understand what it's like coming in as a new CEO, and I also understand that the most fired senior position in major corporations is the head of sales.

1:10:55And I don't know for sure what your intentions are with me, but let me just say some things to you. It's conceivable that you've got somebody in mind to be your head of sales that you know from some other venue. And so I can't do anything about that. But here's what I want you to do about me. I said, if you choose to keep me as your head of sales, I'll be honored and I'll keep pushing hard to do a great job. I said, but if there's somehow in your head, that's not what you want. I hope you consider not throwing me out because you think I'm the job, thus I have to go if someone else comes in. If it's on your mind, I want you to think of me as a bundle of skills and experiences that might be useful to you in some other way.

1:11:35And he said, wow, no one's ever had this kind of conversation with me before. And I said, well, I'll tell you, I've never had this kind of conversation before either, but it is my life. And he said, I do have some thoughts of somebody else that I know who's been a big sales VP in another company, but you're giving me really some reasons to think. Anyway, he and I went on to spend a couple of hours and we designed what became maybe the most fun job I ever had that I did for five years where we created a position where I was still a senior leader known by our customers and our sales force, but my role was to go in front of customers day after day after today all over the United States in tough situations where we were either heavily challenged and something really negative could happen to us, or we had big opportunities that something really positive could happen to us.

1:12:25And I could contribute directly to those customer support or sales situations. And I had this job for the better part of five years going around the United States, meeting with our biggest and toughest or biggest and best customers. Also a lot of customer entertainment. I took customers to the masters every year. And it was an amazingly fun thing to do that I felt like utilized my personal skill set to the maximum. And by the way, in that time, the guy that replaced me as the head of sales became one of my closest friends, certainly in the company. And so that was even great. I was able to be a background support to him, even though I wasn't in that role.

1:13:06And then as history would have it, Mike, who had made that change, came back to me when my friend was going to leave the business and said, you know what? Come on back. I want you to lead the sales force again. And I did it for another bunch of years after that. And so I, in the meantime, had acquired all this experience directly with our customers, learning their problems, their challenges, learning our salespeople's questions and challenges. And then I came back to lead and I was better at my job than ever before. So I think most people probably would have said, daggone it, they're going to get rid of me.

1:13:37And I just said to myself, that's not the resilient thing to do. Let's go at least try to do something bigger and better. And it worked out better than I could have dreamed. That's awesome. I remember that. I didn't know all the details. But what also happens and why you have to usually get rid of the, if you're hiring a new SVP of sales, a head of sales, the reason you can't have this happen is because there's a lot of healthy or unhealthy ego involved in the head of sales of 1 ,500 people. And that CEO, until that day probably thought, there's just no way for these two people to coexist because that's like having two quarterbacks and two quarterbacks can't play at the same time.

1:14:16So you got to let him know about and prove to him probably your humility and your willingness to be a good teammate and be a good player, a good team player, because he knows that most organizations, if you're going to replace the head of sales, you can't let him stay in the business because it could cause too many issues or the guy might be politicking behind the scenes to get his job back and to get the guy fired. And he had to trust the fact that you're not going to be that type of guy. And you and the head of sales ended up, like I know Brian, right? The guy who was head of sales became great friends.

1:14:47And then for him to be able to get the job back after he left was an amazing story when I think a lot of people would just quit. Screw him. I'm going to leave. I'll go somewhere else. He wants another guy. I'll go get another head of sales job somewhere else. And you stayed in it. And it was way, way better. You were way better. We were all way better off for it. As it turned out. And by the way, I also had to have a meeting real quickly with the guy that replaced me, and I made him a promise. I said, I will never go against you publicly. I may very much have debates with you privately where if I just have an opinion, I'll share that opinion, but I'm going to be your biggest supporter.

1:15:21And you have to trust that that's going to be the way it is. And the instant that it's not, you have the right to say you got to leave. So we had that agreement as well. That's where it's like people have to have the tough conversations. Sometimes I think people are afraid to just say, hey, let's get real, right? Let's get real with this conversation. This is exactly how we're going to operate. This is how we can work together. This could benefit both of us. This could benefit the company. Here's how we're going to go. And I think that's a great story that people could learn from to do in their own careers.

1:15:50I'll share one again from my playing career that's obvious to you guys. And I don't know if maybe not to others, but I get recruited to go to Miami. I remember going on my official visit, and it's one of the most beautiful campuses in the world. They had just hired a new offensive coordinator named Greg Seaman, who was going to put in this type of offense that I was certain that the starting quarterback at Miami University was going to play in the NFL because I think you rack up tons of stats. This was before everybody ran the spread and threw for a bunch of yards. But anyway, I decided to go there.

1:16:22And then shortly after I committed, probably the most decorated recruit in the history of the school, I decided to go there to Ben Roethlisberger. And so leading into that, I decided to go to college early, right after the day after graduation. Both of you guys were the ones that dropped me off at that terrible house in Oxford, Ohio. I was told by my assistant coaches there would be other freshmen there. There were none. I was by myself with all the OR guys. I made a commitment to learn everybody's name. I think that's a really important thing as a quarterback is to be able to look a guy in the eyes and call him by his name.

1:16:55By the end of the summer, I was determined to earn respect through showing up at every single workout, going to seven on seven. I have turned some heads by saying, who is this guy? I thought our big time recruit was the taller guy with a stronger arm. And they were right, but he wasn't there and I was. And so I did all those things, earned some respect, fought through that first year. Fifth year, starting quarterback Mike Bath was still the guy. So we go into the second year through spring practice, 15 spring practices, the spring game, coach Terry Heppner, the late great Terry Heppner, doesn't name a starter.

1:17:29We go all through the summer. I do the same things, try to work like crazy, be there always, be a constant in the weight room, running, throwing, being with my guys, being a good team guy. We get to the first week of the season. we play University of Michigan. Ben and I both play. I happened to catch the first pass Ben ever threw in college. The next play, we run a speed option left where I pitched to Luke Clemens and he busts off 40 yards in the big house. It was awesome. We lost. Second game, we play Iowa. We both get absolutely pummeled. We get beat up because we're rotating and playing. Coach Heppner then looks me in the eye and says, that's it.

1:18:01I'm done. He's a starter. You're done. You're the backup. You're not going in anymore. Maybe a little receiver stuff, but for the most part, we got to keep you healthy. And I share the story of getting beat out for the starting quarterback job as a really tough time because I've been the starting guy on every team I've ever been on, whether it was playing pitcher and shortstop on the baseball team, point guard on the basketball team, and certainly the starting quarterback on every team, including all four years in high school. So I never had to deal with that before. But the lesson that I learned or the resilience part is I think not exactly what maybe what people would think because did I handle it well?

1:18:35I don't know. I ended it okay. Probably not great. It was immature. What I learned though is something that I still draw from every single day. I think is that my teammates would say, we see you in the weight room. We see you watching film. We see you taking notes. We see how hard you practice all these things that may be at a higher level than the other guy. But on Saturday, that other guy is an absolute stud. And as coach Hepner told me, he gives us a better chance to win than you do. And so what I learned is the world does not care what you think you deserve. The world doesn't care if you think you work harder than everybody else or that you spend more time watching film or lifting weights or throwing extra at the end of practice if the other guy doesn't.

1:19:26The world does not care. What matters is how much value you bring to people. And in that case, it was a football team. But in general, in life, that's all that matters. Nobody cares how hard you work. Nobody cares what you think you deserve. Nobody cares what you think you may have earned. They care about the value you can bring to them. And if you don't bring value, you are done. That's just the way it works. So the exact same thing is how my business works. If I don't bring value, I don't do long-term contracts. I don't make people pay me for speeches until after the speech. These are cardinal sins in the professional services world.

1:20:09Long-term contracts lock people in, make them commit to at least a year. You do not get on that airplane until you're paid in full. All these rules, I do not follow any of those rules because I think you have to provide value. You have to give them even more than they expect in order to think you deserve any sort of pay or to continue working the next month. That's why I tell my guys, we have to earn the next month now. We have to earn this job every single day. And nobody cares that we work really hard in the background to be prepared. Nobody cares. What do they care about? They care how you can help them.

1:20:49And that's exactly what Coach Hepner taught me was, hey, the other guy gives us a better chance to win than you do. That's it. That's it. And I'm like, yeah, this is not fun. I wish that wasn't the case. I love it here. I want to stay here. But the other guy gives us a better chance to win. That's just the perfect time in a kid's life to learn that the world doesn't care. They don't care. Like, it doesn't matter. So yeah, I'm going to work hard. I'm going to be prepared. But ultimately, nobody else cares about that. They care about the value that I can bring. So I think I feel now, because a lot of people said, oh, that was so unlucky to go there at the time Ben was there, all that stuff.

1:21:27Yes, I thought that too. I don't think that anymore. Now it's the most luckiest thing that's ever happened by far because I got to learn a really valuable lesson at a really early age. And I take from that every single day. So I think that's while the response was transferring, playing at OU, having a below average career, winning a few games here and there, led to a little bit of playing after college. That's fine. All the playing stuff's fine. It's really more about the key learning from thinking I deserved or I was entitled to something when that's just not how it works. It doesn't matter. What matters is how you can add value to other people.

1:22:10And if you can't do it or somebody else is better at that than you, you lose, they win, have a nice day. And I think that's something I try to bring to every single situation, every relationship, every client, everything I do, you know, this podcast, I try to do, I try to bring that to everything. Awesome. Yeah. Entitled. How do you do that? People are entitled. That's the whole issue people have now, but yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you think about it, I know age, you, you approach things similarly. I feel like that's the hallmark of your role now on the show too, is there's just no entitlement.

1:22:45There's no expectation. There's no thinking, I deserve anything. It's more about you saying, I'm going to show up and try to be as good as I can possibly be at my job every single day. Right? And that's why I think you're a part of it. That's why you're doing it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Life's not fair. Yeah. I tell my kid, it's not fair. like just because you congrats you worked harder you did all this stuff life's not fair there's always somebody that can do it like but that's not a reason to not do that continue all that stuff it's going to event it's going to pay off somehow we don't know when or where or how or even it's in the same profession or whatever but yeah it will eventually pay off yep yep that's the consistency part which i think is a part of our family dna right it's just you got to get up and keep working okay there are a bunch of questions we're gonna get to you guys want to draft let's do the draft yeah okay all right so um i'll go first you want me to go first yeah but i gotta explain it first i gotta explain it okay what we're drafting okay so we've had a million ideas none of them good uh so we took the least worst idea that's what our draft is going to be okay so here here's what it here's what it is you're stranded on a deserted island you have one thing in your possession and that is an iPad.

1:24:03An iPad. On that iPad, there are five TV shows and nothing else. Just five TV shows. We are going to draft what those TV shows are. And if somebody drafts it, then obviously nobody else can take it. So it's a draft. And at the end, we are going to compare. and one point this is a very serious competition and there will be a clear winner and two losers right my prediction having not seen your boards is pistol will attract last place the older demo right worse dominate okay you know some of those older ones send the emails and tell me pistol So obviously one age will attract the marks, the WWE fans.

1:25:01I don't think so. And I will win. Okay. All right. I will let age go first because you whined and cried about going first, because I think what you're going to choose is, is at the top of all of our list. It's definitely at the top of my list. I'll let you go first. I'll go second pistol. Then you get third and fourth. Cause it's a snake draft to go back. I'll let you go first because you were a baby. Well, I thought snake draft, man, I go first. He is the youngest, yeah. I go first, someone takes second, and then I get third and fourth, though. I thought I got three and four. When does Pistol go then?

1:25:35I don't know. I'm third, and then I turn the corner to fourth. He's third, and he's fourth, and then I'm fifth, and then you would be sixth and seventh. Snake draft works out. Here's a snake. Yeah, I know what a snake is. Well, that's a snake. Let's just come with the pick number one, Ed. How many twists and turns you got on that snake? Is that an anaconda? other things long um well i think it's safe to say that's what she said yes well me and you yeah i'm leading into ryan and myself we are not really scared or worried that pistol is going to take any of our picks i think right that's correct i don't know if there's anything pistol has written down that i have even seen but we will see i don't know maybe he'll surprise us number one overall pick here i think we all would take it michael scott the office got to go to the office i still I watched last night.

1:26:20I'm trying to think the episode. That's one. My wife and I watched that at night. Oh, what's on? No, there's hard to find anything good on. Boom. We're watching the office. We're watching Peacock. How many seasons? Nine, eight, nine seasons, whatever it is all day. It still holds up. Yeah. The office. Episode two of season one was diversity day. It's one of the still up there. Is it still up there? I heard it got taken down someplace. No, it's I've just watched it. It's one of the best episodes of TV of all time. I also had the office number one on my board. Pistol, did you? I did not. Okay. I was going to put you at first so that I could go second, but since Adrian was crying earlier, I let him have the office.

1:26:59I was also going to draft the office number one. I'm up next. Part of my reasoning, and I think I've done a lot of work to prepare for this because this is very serious. Part of my reasoning... We're not worried about your work. You just said that. We don't care about how hard you work. What are you talking about? Survivor. Survivor. Watching people on a deserted island while I'm on a deserted island. Now, here's one of the primary reasons why. 46 seasons. That's a lot of stuff on that iPad for me to watch while I'm stranded. So Survivor. 46 seasons. The number of seasons plays a role into my board, just so you know.

1:27:41Survivor. Makes sense. Love it. Good choice. Pistol, you get two. Well, that's great because it's going to add to the domination. Hey, you Checkers players, I appreciate your early entrance. I'm playing three-level chess in this game. What? No, that's not the phrase. Yeah, well, something like that. That's not the phrase. Yeah, he nailed it. Put it on his shirt. I nailed it. He got it. And so I'm thinking about surviving. Surviving and the elements you need to survive. And I think the first thing I need to survive on a desert island, deserted island, is that I need interaction. I need stimulation mentally.

1:28:28And I think nothing's going to stimulate me more mentally. And by the way, this show has 8 ,635 episodes. Jeopardy! is my first pick. Oh, I had that. We'll watch Jeopardy every day for the rest of my life on this deserted island because there are so many episodes. And I will get to keep my intelligence level high. So Jeopardy is my first choice. Wow. I had that high because 40 seasons. 40 seasons of Jeopardy. I looked up the number of episodes. All right. Now, second, I assure you that neither of you know about this show nor many of our listeners, but some will. There was a show that had 350 episodes in the 60s and 70s.

1:29:17When I'm on this deserted island, I need music. I need music, not just words. There was a show called Don Kirshner's Midnight Special that starred Wolfman Jack, the disc jockey, who brought in in the 60s and 70s all, and I mean all, of the greatest musical acts of all time. From the Rolling Stones to the Temptations. You name it. They all played the Midnight Special, and I'm going to have all 350 episodes to watch as I'm on that deserted island. The live acts with their greatest hits on Don Kirshner's Midnight Special. That's my second choice. Back to you. The TV show is called Midnight Special?

1:29:58Midnight Special. It's called The Midnight Special. All 350 episodes are on YouTube. Wow. It's a great watch. Is it a talk show? No, it's a show where it's basically like a concert where they'll say, okay, first tonight we're going to have the Rolling Stones. After that, we're going to have the Temptations. And then here comes Gladys Knight and the Pips. Next week, come watch the Jackson 5 and Curtis Mayfield. I mean, it's week after week, every Friday night at 1130. Okay. What? He needs music, I guess. I do. Wow. Okay. You've done some work. I'm trying to think now. Now, I got to be strategic to think what age won't pick since he gets two after me because...

1:30:41Wait, you're up now? Yes. He's up now. Then you get two. You will never, ever figure out how these things work. I don't understand the snake draft. I'm not going to lie. I thought I'd get two now. Or maybe three. You're about to benefit by it. Why would it skip me? Because I'm next. Because I went first. I went second. He went third and fourth. And it snakes back to me. Yeah. Just trust the process. You got to draw a picture. for. I'm a visual guy. I don't understand the snake back situation. It'll look like a snake. No, a snake sometimes is straight. A lot of times, it slithers. Ryan, make your choice.

1:31:13This is awesome. What do you got? I'm going to pick Homeland. Eight seasons. The problem with Homeland is that it's not as good when Brody dies. Spoiler. Spoiler alert. People are going to kill you. Not as good. And I love, and I know I've talked to Laura actually quite a bit about this age, how cool it is that the guy's wife calls him just by his last name. So I said, you got to call him Hawk. It's just, it's not age or AJ. It's Hawk because of Brody in the show Homeland. So I'm picking Homeland second. Okay. Nice. Is that the same wife though, that was fornicating with his best friend? when she thought he was dead that's correct that's a that's a tough thing to get and he had to die but yeah that's tough yeah that's a tough hey we get it she thought he was dead she thought he was dead right move on hey made it you got to create tension uh and in storytelling that'll do it okay you get two picks h two picks okay all right well this one i don't know if you have this on your list or not but that there's a ton of scenes of this i don't know how many episodes didn't look it up should have got that moment to look up the number of episodes but i'm going the real world no that's what i was gonna pick yeah bam sorry about early on too i want early i want a lot of the early episode this the the ms uh season as well 33 seasons 33 seasons i knew you would do that research for me so yeah give me the real world there's a billion episodes brothers yeah yeah i know there's a million different each different cast has its own second its own identity i feel like so yeah give me real world i could go back and watch all of those i had spent a long time since i've done it but yeah also is there a charger do we got how we how are we keeping this thing powered this is on solar power there's a solar charger okay that makes sense then i get it okay so i get another pick right this is another one i got a third pick coming up see i got a couple different options i could go here i got one that i know i i might pick just because i know ryan wants it and there's for sure going to take it but i don't know if the i don't know if the current kids know as much about this show but yeah give it to you my third pick is the wonder years kevin i knew it i had on my list i knew that was going to be on ryan's list real quick because the one years how many seasons how many do you know and not that many i don't think not as many as we need i don't have the number of seasons i will take it jack the father great character everybody's a father winnie cooper i guess she's like a math wizard now as an adult i hear everyone's doing great fred savage looks amazing he looks the exact same just 40 years older looks i'm running i'm my board is actually getting eaten up.

1:33:55This could be a problem. I might be having to search for things. Okay. The Office, The Real World, The Wonder Years. Pretty good. Pretty solid so far. I'm going. I'm up. Then Pistol gets two. I am going to choose Billions. Billions from Brian Koppelman. There is seven seasons of that show. A really cool experience for me was getting to go record a podcast with Brian in the office where he and his team wrote Billions and it was insane. It was like one of the coolest days of all time. The writer's room, his personal office, David Levine, his co-writer's office. And then we went to this other spare room and recorded together, toured everything.

1:34:36We went out and passed football afterwards. It was the coolest day. But so I'm a little partial to Billions because of that experience with Brian and just being blown away that he created that world out of thin air and then brought it to life as a TV show that I thought was really entertaining. So Billion's my third pick. Pistol. Hey, Ryan, by the way, side note, did I remember, did I remember right, did he produce, back when he was in college, did he produce Tracy Chapman when she was an up-and-coming musician? Was that him? He did, he did, yeah. And then now Tracy is now one of the most famous videos of all time.

1:35:08Right. His dad was a massive guy in the recording industry and music, and so Brian started in music. He's still a big music guy, and one of the first people he, I guess, I don't know if you'd say discovered, but he worked with before the hits came out was Tracy Chapman. And he was a part of that. I guess it was actually an actual record at that time now, you know, digital, but yeah, Tracy Chapman. A little trivia for the listeners. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. All right, Pistol. I've got two. Okay. So I'm going to miss sports being on a deserted Island. And I don't know what I'll do without sports.

1:35:42This show that I'm selecting began in 1970 and has gone strong ever since with three and a half hours every Monday night. I'm choosing Monday Night Football and all 667 episodes. Huh? You like that? That's a pretty good one. I guess it is a show, right? I guess my sports fill. The listeners are saying this contest is already over. We've only been three picks. This has done more prep than all of us. I did not expect this. And I have another pick coming. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Monday Night Football is actually really good. Now, it could get boring on a deserted island. I could really become thirsty for drama, for suspense, for action.

1:36:24And I also want to show this got a bunch of episodes. So I'm going to take one of the longest running shows in history, Law & Order SUV, and all 551 episodes. SVU. Yeah, that's funny, man. I called it an SUV. Law & Order SVU. You obviously love it. 551 episodes on my iPad. Law & Order. Wow. is that with drama suspense and action is that with iced tea is he in that one or is he a different one yeah uh is that iced tea yeah yeah yeah yeah i think he's long order i haven't seen much of it i think that's him he's good i mean that's a that's a i didn't have that one on my list no i don't think i've ever seen that one i haven't seen that one okay i recommend it not a bad list although i'm uh i'm concerned that age's list is actually good so that's that's concerning i'm better too i get two now no you got it it's all you so i'm gonna add sports into mine too can you see that it's a snake going is that what your snake looks like we can't see really we need to sit down we'll do this all fair we'll drive it happens every time i'm gonna add it does happen every time maybe it's just part of the tradition I'm taking The Last Dance I think The Last Dance is maybe the best 10 episode documentary ever, the only downside is it is only 10 episodes but those are 10 awesome episodes The Last Dance, it came at a critical time remember, in the pandemic and I still watch it all the time or random episodes, if I have like 20 minutes just throw in The Last Dance and watch 20 minutes of Steve Kerr and MJ talking about their dads or whatever I think The Last Dance is one of maybe the best documentary I've ever seen.

1:38:07Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Now, you, you got another one? Nope. You get two, and there's your final two to round out your five shows. This is an easy runaway victory for me on this one. I thought you guys were going to actually have good ones, but my fourth pick goes, I mean, I would imagine this would be on your list, Ryan, but give me Entourage. entourage was a whole entourage was an era that we lived through at a great time we were at a perfect age oh yeah i think everybody that's around our anyone that's probably what 34 to 50 right now grew up like there was a great time when entourage was on on sunday nights i believe oh just a magical time for that i think they had at least five or six seasons too so there's a decent amount they're all hour-long episodes uh you can rewatch it is making me want to go back I can rewatch it actually thinking about it.

1:38:59So yeah, Entourage, no question for me. My fifth pick to round off my perfect list. I'm kind of waffling between a few things. I don't, The Office is my comedy I have on there, but give me The Sopranos. Sopranos has multiple episodes. I would like to rewatch that. I could get into that. I'll take Sopranos, but I had Succession on there as well. I love Succession, but there's only like three seasons, I think. Man. Okay. Good choice. What do you got? Cosby Show? Which one? You're playing for second age. That's very good. Okay. My final three, and I'm picking one. House of Cards. It only has like one and a half good seasons.

1:39:42The rest of it's not that good. It's very good though. That one and a half is awesome. I've watched it a ton. Not picking that. Pistol, you'll remember this more. Age, maybe 24. Nine seasons. Oh, man. I'm not going to pick that either, but 24. Good run. We watched that while you were sick. I remember we had all the tapes from the library. We had the DVDs. DVDs. I'm going to pick, even though it only has two good seasons, but it's some of the greatest writing of all time. It's a guy on my list of guests I've been trying to get for nine years that I really want. That's Aaron Sorkin, and that's The Newsroom.

1:40:19The Newsroom, season three is not good, but season one and two are insane. and the pilot episode with Jeff Daniels is one of the greatest monologues of all time. Best monologue I ever saw on TV. Ever. Go watch it, listener. Even though it's one and two, it's only two seasons that are good. The Newsroom one and two is so good. That's my fifth pick. The Newsroom. Good one. I didn't think about that. I don't know which of you is going to wait second. These are some good choices. We're competing against Don. Pistol lost. Pistol, regardless of what you pick, you got third place because of midnight special and law and order suv no no no no no people that know yeah my final topic under the heading of i'm afraid i'm afraid on this deserted island in my cave i'm going to have problems sleeping and i need something that that soothes me and makes me sleep and it's the soothing voice of jim nance with uh many many years actually cbs has had golf Were you picking the Masters?

1:41:22No, all of CBS's golf broadcasts for 62 years, including the Masters, and the soothing tones of Jim Nance will help me sleep in that cave. In addition, I get to watch golf while I'm still awake. So I'm closing it out with 62 years of golf on CBS Sports. Wait, you just picked golf? Oh, they're telecasts of golf every Sunday. Give me football. I'll take football. All right. All right, then I will back it off. I expected that you might have that debate point. So I'll just say 62 years of the masters. Yes, I'll take it just for that and close out my actually five big purposes that need to be met to live and survive and prosper on a deserted island.

1:42:06And I've ended it with sleep. So you went three for five. I will give it to you. You went three for five. Age? Five for five. I had the Wonder Years on the board, but not in the top five. Really? I thought for sure you'd have that in the top. No, it was on the board, though, but not in the top five. Okay. Yeah. So the winner, Survivor, Homeland, Billions, The Last Dance, and The Newsroom. Thanks, guys, for playing. Thanks for helping me celebrate number 600. The listeners need to decide who wins. I appreciate you being here. The listeners must decide. And we'll figure out some other stupid thing to draft for number 700.

1:42:45Thank you. for celebrating with me. We went so long. I didn't play it on that, but this was fun. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Good job. Congratulations, man. Good list, Pistol. Great list, Pistol. Golf. Just pick golf.

1:43:01It is the end of the Podcast Club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the Podcast Club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with my dad, Pistol, and my younger brother, AJ. A few takeaways from my notes other than winning the draft. Frontline obsession. I love Pistol's story of the legendary Mert McGill going to the Supreme Court to demo LexisNexis and earning the most important sale in the history of the company at the time. I love stories about leaders who proactively go and do it. They get on the front lines, right?

1:43:36General Stanley McChrystal would regularly do this. Cat Cole talks about this. But some of the most effective leaders are not afraid to go straight to the action, and that's what Mert McGill did. Love that story. And then failure stories. All three of these I thought were pretty good. AJ talking about Coach D 'Antonio sitting with him one-on-one, watching each play of the Michigan game when they didn't play well. It's a day he said he'll never forget for how hard it was and how upset he was and how determined he was to respond. And I will note, AJ never lost to Michigan again after that game. And then Pistol sharing the story about the time when the new CEO wanted to bring his own head of sales in, which is very common in corporate America.

1:44:19And instead of complaining and just leaving the company or bad-mouthing the CEO for wanting to bring in somebody else, he got creative. He asked them to go to breakfast. They end up meeting for hours, and they came up with a new idea. It was a great way to leverage Pistol's skills and all of the knowledge he developed from being there for years. and instead of leaving, he stayed and helped the new head of sales. This is almost like a football team hiring a new head coach, but also keeping the previous head coach for them to work together. That's actually what they did. I remember I was there for part of that time, and it's amazing to see how it worked.

1:44:53I love it because it shows that he humbled himself, but helped the company thrive in a different way. I think we all would be better off for behaving like that more often when adversity strikes. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for supporting the show through almost 10 years and 600 episodes. That is wild. But I'm so grateful for you because this doesn't happen if you don't keep listening and going to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and writing a thoughtful review and rating the show five stars. and also then going to all of your friends and saying, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show, number 600, this celebration with Ryan Hawk, his dad, Keith Hawk, and AJ Hawk.

1:45:39I think they'll help you become a more effective leader. Because you continue to do that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait. Thank you.