SPEAKER_01 0:04

You're listening to the Hanging with the AD podcast, where we break down hot topics in athletic administration and lessons learned through leadership. Now, here are your hosts, Josh Matthews and Don Baker. Today's guest sees his second time on the podcast as we once again hang out with Jamie Beckler. Jamie's a professional speaker, leadership trainer, and executive business coach who works with teams ranging from major corporations to the NBA. Before going into full-time leadership work, Jamie served for 20 years as a college basketball coach, professor, and administrator. When he hung up the whistle, he didn't stop coaching. Jamie just moved from the locker room into the boardroom. He now travels the country motivating people and coaching organizations on how they can build championship teams and cultures. There's so much great stuff in our conversation today. So let's settle in and welcome back, Mr. Jamie Beckler.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Coach Beckler, we're so glad to have you joining Don and I for this episode of Hanging with the AD. As we look to broaden our scope as a show to really develop the whole leader, we're always looking for authors and leadership experts to join us to talk shop, and you definitely fit that bill. So thanks for taking time today to sit down with us.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Guys, I appreciate it. I love your show. You're doing great work to help out ADs across the country. It's a it's a tough job. So uh I appreciate you uh you doing uh your part to help out ADs and touching lives, and it's great. I appreciate you you asking me to be on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, this is gonna be fun. We appreciate those kind words and your support there. For our listeners, Jamie Beckler used to be one of us in athletic administration and coaching, but now he's a professional speaker, leadership trainer, and executive business coach who works with teams ranging from major corporations to the MBA, and who has also authored books on the topic of team-based leadership. We'll stop right there, though, and let Jamie tell us a little bit more about his journey through both leadership and athletics. So, coach, we like to start the show with what we call the back of the baseball card bio. So tell us a little bit about what would be on the back of Jamie Beckler's baseball card.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Well, I bat and throw right-handed. And uh I'm hitting about uh 212 and uh not much power, but I was pretty fast. But uh no, I I love baseball cards too. And and unfortunately, I just uh about two years ago, I I came to the realization we had moved a number of times, and I had lugged all these crates and crates and tubs of baseball cards, and I was like, I'm just sick of it. They're not gonna be worth anything. I'm not gonna be able to pay for my son's college, so I'm gonna sell them. And I sold them for like pennies on the dollar. And I'm talking, I'm talking like you name it, I had it. Yeah. And uh never did I know that they would start to come back all these years, and uh, it looks like baseball cards are coming back, at least in the in the short term. Maybe it's just a maybe it's just a COVID thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, I read that recently that baseball and basketball cards are kind of getting hot again.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

They are, uh they are, but uh uh yeah, so so uh anyways, to answer your question, I was a longtime college basketball coach uh for about 20 years, mainly at the small college. I coached uh women mainly. And uh I started off as a grad assistant at the Division I level and uh at Kent State University in Ohio. I'm originally from Michigan, but I went to Ohio, tried to convert them all uh to the Michigan way of life. Uh that was that was not successful. But uh uh I did meet my wife there and I converted her, so at least I I was successful in getting one, you know, Ohio into become a Michigan person. But uh uh I always kind of wanted to be an A D. I wanted to be a coach, but I thought I wanted to be an AD. And uh and so I went, uh I had a great opportunity to go uh to an athletic uh department, uh a large athletic department in Indiana. And uh so I left my whistle behind, left coaching behind. Uh we we had a really good run of coaching and uh uh went to be an AD at a school in Indiana, uh fifth largest high school gym in the in America, seated over 7,000. Um, we had over a thousand season ticket holders just in boys basketball alone. No one's won more boys basketball titles than the school I was at. So uh it was a great opportunity to go. And uh, you know, they wanted uh a fresh perspective. They wanted me to turn their culture around. I know that people say that a lot, but they had lost essentially they had uh outspent or overspent about a million dollars in the last 25 years. And so they were completely broke, and there was a whole set of bills on the desk when I took over. I'm sure you've heard that kind of story before. Yep. Um, you know, uh there was a lot of things that needed to be changed. And so uh we went in there and spent a couple of years there, and then I uh moved into full-time leadership. That's always been a passion of mine, and so I left Organized Athletics, um, got certified by uh to be a John Maxwell leadership coach and uh from there started my own business of consulting and started writing books, did a do a podcast, and uh work with teams all across the country at all different levels. Uh, you know, I mean, I think one week I was I was working with a junior high team, and a couple days later I was flying first class to uh go work with the Raptors, you know, for a week. And so uh, you know, I'm I'm all across the board. You know, it doesn't it doesn't matter if there's athletes that that uh you want to help develop their leadership or a culture you want to be better, I would love to try. So yeah, I've been doing a lot of that for the last four years. So it's been fun. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Jamie, on your website, it states that now is the best time to maximize your potential. We have spoken to several leaders about the importance of being the best version of yourself as a leader, but how would you advise them to get there? What steps should one take to really take inventory of themselves in an effort to make positive change?

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, well, you hit upon it, take inventory of themselves. We we don't like to talk about it, we don't like to honestly evaluate ourselves sometimes. Yep. And uh, you know, one thing I think we that has to be the starting point. If we're gonna maximize our potential or be as successful as possible, we have to be honest with ourselves. Now, most of us don't want to be honest with ourselves. Uh, and so one little trick, one little kind of hack, and this isn't easy, but it's kind of simple, is take a look at the things that you're doing and put yourself in uh kind of flip rolls and say, all right, this isn't me right now, this is my friend, and I'm gonna consult with them or I'm gonna sit down and talk with them because we always have the answer to someone else. You know, we can tell them exactly what they should do. We know how to run someone's life. It's like, you know, 11 years ago, I was an amazing parent. I was a great parent.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

I was just about to say that. I was just about, I was I was I was a heck of a parent before I had kids.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

It's a yeah, it's amazing. And now I have no idea how to how to deal with my 10-year-old, you know, or my I guess he's 11 now. That's shows you how bad of a parent I am. I don't even know how old he is. But you know, we always had the answer for somebody else. And so we want to honestly evaluate and assess ourselves, but sometimes we have trouble doing that. Not everyone can be self-aware, not everyone can do that. And so look at it in terms of if you're, you know, if your friend is sitting on laying on the couch and you're the counselor or you're the therapist, what would you say to them? And so that's a starting point to becoming the best version of yourself, as you said, or maximizing your potential. We want to maximize our potential. It's not just like I played my 11-year-old in Uno last night cards, and I beat him. Okay, that's great. I'm I'm and he's pretty good at Uno, but I'm glad that I beat him. Yeah, but just because I beat him doesn't mean I'm ready to turn pro. I don't even know they have Uno Pro.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

I'm sure they probably do.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

It'll be on ESVN tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah, yeah, just you know, just because I can I can uh win the backyard cornhole game or win the backyard volleyball game or whatever doesn't mean I'm ready to turn pro in those things. So sometimes we evaluate ourselves in this small bubble, and we're not really maximizing our potential or maximizing our success because we're not being as good as we can be. We're just beating up on somebody else or or we're having some quote unquote success, but we're not really doing as well as we can do. And so, yeah, definitely take an inventory of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

All right, Jamie, let's uh jump over to kind of your social media uh post and uh what you like to do, and that's uh consult with coaches. Uh, you know, one of the things uh about following you on Twitter that I love is how you highlight main ideas from coaches' press conferences and speeches that they give with a corresponding video snippet. That's really neat how you capture the attention there. You've highlighted some of the best coaches across all sports uh on your Twitter, on your Twitter feed there. So if you were hiring a brand new staff and you could get anyone you wanted, who would be your first three to four or five hires? Uh why would you pick these specific individuals to lead within your athletic program?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Wow, great. That's it's a great question. And uh, you know, I I hate to uh I hate to go with the cliche cookie cutter answer, but Nick Saban would be on that short list. Um, you know, and that's not me, you know, being this uh wise guru or giving you any great insight, but I love the way that he focuses on process and the journey and making good decisions all the time, no matter what the outcomes are. Now, the cynic will say, well, yeah, it's easy to make, it's easy to say those things when you're winning all the time, or it's easy to say those things when you have all that talent. But once again, going back to what we talked about, it's not like he's playing, you know, the sisters of the poor every week. You know, he's playing teams in the SEC that also have five stars, that also have four star kids. So he's being better than the best. Uh he's he's beating the best all the time, but he's focusing on the process. Also, to uh take the easy way out, Dabbo Sweeney. I would take Dabbo Sweeney and and I mean, yeah, I'm I'm attracted to success. I'm attracted to those coaches that are doing things the right way. And I don't want to get into the coaches that I think are doing it the wrong way, but I would say if you see a team that year after year is winning a lot of regular season games but always falling short, then they're probably not doing things the right way in whatever sport that is. You know, if they have talent. And I think Adabo Sweeney and Nick Saban, they're taking talent and then they're maximizing that talent. You know, we as uh you know, we'll sit on our couch and be armchair quarterbacks and say, well, yeah, anyone could take that team, anyone could take Deshaun Watson, or anyone can take Trevor Lawrence, or anyone can take Tua or Jalen Hurts, you know, yeah, and and win. And it's like, no, that's not the case. You know, the NFL is full of stars who had 500 records in college. Um, you know, there's plenty of teams out there that have talent that don't maximize their success because they're not able to build a team, or they haven't developed a culture that focuses on the process, that focuses on doing the right things. And that's important. You know, uh your culture, your culture is intentional. Your culture doesn't just happen by accident, even though that's how we think it is. It's like, wow, man, our culture is not good, or we've got these issues. How did this happen? Well, it happened because we intentionally, every day chose to put something else ahead of building a strong culture. So we're intentional about choosing something else. You know, my podcast is called Success is a Choice. I firmly believe that every day we're making choices along the way. You know, I I heard Nick Saban say uh years and years ago, you know, he's talking, he's like, hey, most of our decisions in life, most of our choices in life are easy. Now we complicate those because we want what we want. But I know drinking water is better than diet coke. You know, I know eating an apple is better than eating a Kit Kat.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

It it's not a sometimes we make these hard, we make it harder on ourselves. It's it's not about the choices are difficult. Choices are easy. We know good choices versus bad choices most of the time. We choose something else. And so with culture, it's intentional. What we say, what we do, reinforces and reaffirms our culture every day. Um, and we we choose what kind of culture we want. And so those guys, a dab, a dabble sweeney, uh, a Nick Sabin, they affirm the cultures um uh that they want constantly. Hey, this is not how we do things here, or this is how we do things here. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And while we're on the topic of great leaders, uh to get more generic, but uh in uh but specific in who they are and what they do, what are some attributes of a 360-degree leader?

SPEAKER_02 12:45

360-degree leadership. Uh I first heard that phrase from John Maxwell, and he actually wrote a book about it. But essentially what 360 leadership comes down to is being able to influence everybody around you. Uh, you're you're able to influence in all directions, not just the people next to you, uh, not just the people above you, not just the people below you, but everybody kind of on an organizational chart, uh, on a flow chart, so to speak. And so being a 360 leader means your your scope of influence, you're a person of influence to as many people as possible in as many ways as possible to make things better. And so uh qualities of a leader, there's so many great qualities, but to be a great 360 leader, you have to have self-awareness. Now that's tough. That's tough to do. You have to be a great listener so that you can understand. Learn to listen and listen to learn. You know, we don't do that very, very well as people, you know, uh, whether we're in leadership positions or we're just leaders, you know, because we influence people and have relationships with people or whatever, we don't understand other people. And so we end up having arguments with people, we end up severing relationships, we end up not maximizing our potential or other people's potential because we don't listen and we don't find out what's what's really going on in their lives or what makes them tick. And so if you're gonna be a great 360 leader, you know, you're not just going to uh you know hang out or listen to the people that are like you or listen to your friends. You're gonna listen to everybody because you want to make sure number one, you're not missing anything. But number two, if if if I'm gonna be a leader or influence anybody, I want to bring people along with me. I want us all to go together and all be successful. You know, sometimes uh, you know, I think of success as being the best you can be. You know, you Don, you mentioned earlier being the best version of yourself. Right. I think also significance, significance is helping others be the best version of themselves. So obviously we want to be successful, but we want to be significant too. And significant, I think, is bringing people uh along with you and then helping them, elevating them, equipping them, empowering them to be the best versions of themselves. Uh Jackie Robinson, you know, he said, you know, essentially, I'm gonna butcher the quote, but essentially uh a person's impact is relevant to their significance, or a person's significance is relative to their impact on other people. Right. You know, if you want to have a great life, then you're gonna impact others. It's not just a great life because you're rich or have these records and milestones. It's a great life because you've impacted others. That's when you're significant. And so uh I think a great 360 leader is somebody that's bringing everybody, everybody around you, you're making their life better and bringing them all to the finish line, bringing them all to where uh, you know, you want to go. Coaching is essentially taking someone from where they are to where they they want to be or need to be. And so, yeah, that's what I would talk about with a 360 leader.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

You know, you mentioned that idea of the concept of process just a second ago. I'm currently reading the Cubs Way by Tom Verducci about the Chicago Cubs breaking the curse and what led up to that. And I noticed that you tweeted a quote from former Cubs manager Joe Madden when he said, if you're only focusing on the outcome, you can become fearful. If you focus on the process, you can become fearless. I can remember being a first year AD and thinking that my chest was going to explode any minute because I focused on everything that the job entailed. But the longer that I did it, I realized that the most important thing is simply the next thing. And I had to compartmentalize my task as to really not just get overwhelmed. Why did that quote speak to you?

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Well, because I love I love the process. I love uh we all want to win. It's not that I it's not that I don't want to win. And sometimes it we get this misshapen, you know, misconception that when you talk about the process, you don't want to win. Man, we want to win. But we just realize that focusing only on the outcome is is short-sighted because there are other ways to measure success sometimes. Um, certainly wins and losses is a major part of it. We know we're in athletics, you know. We would rather have a winning team than a losing team.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

But all things considered, you know, we want to still, you know, it's not the wins we accumulate, it's the winners we produce. And I think that that's a huge deal with coaches, even with ADs, is are you fostering an environment where you're getting your coaches to produce winners as opposed to just achieving or accumulating wins? Um, and certainly, like I said, we all want to win. But, you know, you talk about Joe Mann, you talk about the Cubs, you're reading that book uh by uh Verducci. You know, that I think there's a really cool uh part of the Cubs winning, and that's David Ross. And not a lot, you know, now he's the Cubs manager.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

But but David Ross, I think is a great object lesson for for number one, for value, for being uh a valuable player, not just the most outstanding player, but also when you talk about process, when you talk about culture, you know, and Joe Mann talking about the process, they did that with David Ross. You know, I joked earlier when when I first came on about my baseball card and and how bad of a hitter I was and I didn't have any power. I didn't realize we were gonna talk about David Ross. That's David Ross. Right. David Ross couldn't hit for anything, and he couldn't hit any home runs. And yet two teams, the Red Sox and the Cubs, paid more money than they probably should have to bring him in because he was a glue guy. He was a locker room guy. He wasn't this stud, but he was a stud teammate. And both teams, and I don't think it's a coincidence, both teams won the World Series right after, essentially right after they brought him in. And David Ross came in, was a Hall of Fame teammate, was a most valuable teammate, and he helped two teams win. That's part of the process is saying, all right, what do we need to do to build our culture and make our culture better? And then the results will take care of themselves. Yes, you see it all the time. Teams all the time are spending tons of money in free agency to bring in these flashy studs, and then they go 500 or they underachieve every year, and they're they never learn. Well, the Cubs brought in a David Ross, Red Sox brought in a David Ross, and and ironically, he hits the home run. You know, he hits essentially the game-winning home run when the dude can't hit home runs. You know, it's like a Hollywood story. But, you know, that's part of when we talk about culture and process, that's a great story of culture and process is we're going to do what's in the best interest of our team, not just what's flashy right now.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah, that's good. I love that MVT. You talked about that. You had that in your book, The Bus Bus Trip. And uh we'll talk about that book in a few minutes. But I love that most valuable teammate as a as a goal of anybody there. But let's talk about for a minute success is a choice. Uh, you mentioned you had a podcast earlier. The name of it uh for listeners is Success is a choice. And you highlighted in the back of the book the bus trip. I hold it up for the ones uh listening on uh or watching on YouTube. That's the front of it there. Great book uh that we just mentioned. Those 10 fundamentals that you have as a premise to success as a choice are in the back of that. So we'll let the listeners go and get the book and they can look up those 10 fundamentals unless you want to share it with them. But since we have an audience of mostly athletic administrators, how does your success as a choice mantra play out for the ones of us leading athletic departments?

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Great question, Josh. You know, I think every day, every day we are making choices. And I I think we have to work backwards, we have to reverse engineer. So I talk a lot about culture, and I know that's a buzzword, and we sometimes just throw it around, but what do you want your athletic department to look like? That's important because if if you want it to look like a certain thing, then you have to work towards that. And the best way to work toward that is to kind of reverse engineer and work backwards. So you start with what do I want this to look like? And so success is a choice. So when I'm an athletic director, I was an athletic director. Okay, I can put up great posters in our locker rooms. You know, I we redid one of the first things I did when I got there, it was the summer. We redid our uh our athletic department office. We wanted to make it look better. We repainted it, we took out cup, you know, old cupboards, and we just did a facelift of our office. We made it look a lot better. Our culture wasn't better because we made it put a new coat of paint, we put some really cool posters up, put some really good memorabilia, and then I sent out some really nice emails and some good stationer. Our culture was not better because of that.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

What I could do every day to make our culture better was when I came in in the morning and I greeted our secretary, or I was there first, and then she comes in and I greet her, I greet her friendly and I make her day start off well. That's one of the best things I can do for culture, and that was my choice every day. No matter how my day had started off, or what happened, or if I got the right coffee, or you know, was my drive into work, whatever. If I greeted my secretary every day with a smile and and making her know that she's valuable. She's going to be answering hundreds of phone calls that day. She's going to be greeting students. She's going to be handling issues before they get to me. If she's in a bad mood, that's going to say and do more for our culture negatively than you know, if I never did a facelift on the office. If I treat her well, if I give her significance, or if if she feels like she's a valuable member of our of our team, all of a sudden she's going to be greeting people a lot better. And our culture is going to be a lot better. If I do the same thing with coaches, if I listen to coaches, those are all choices. So those are the things that you can do to build your culture much better than any poster you'll put up or any policy you enact is how are you treating the people? And that's a choice because I don't naturally fall out of bed and be like, man, I just want to be friendly today. Right. You know, especially in the winter. Now you guys don't know much about that. Uh, you know, but but but those of us that have been up here in Michigan and Ohio and Indiana, you know, it's it can be pretty dreary, you know, to have snow on the ground and, you know, below freezing temperatures all winter long. Um, and those aren't days you'd necessarily want to get up and uh be friendly to people. And so you make a choice every day. You make a choice when a parent comes into your office or when a principal is telling you something and you just want to roll your eyes and bang your head against the wall because you know they have a different agenda or they're giving in to a parent or they're doing something that's not in the best interest of the athletic department, and you just want to scream. Well, you have a choice. All right, am I gonna sit here and listen to what they have to say and understand where they're coming from? Uh, Don, I I love, I've heard you say this before. I've said this before, you know, are you gonna look at just your tree or the whole forest? Right. You know, and so those are choices, though, choices of a mentality of how you're gonna deal with people. Your principal might be an idiot. Your parent might be an idiot that's talking to you, but you can still learn something from them. If nothing else, you learn where they're coming from. Um, you get out of that mode of I'm only seeing my tree, and I'm right. I'm right, I'm the AD. I've gotten this position because I'm smarter than you or because I've earned it. I'm uh, you know, I know what we should be doing. Yeah, you might be knowledgeable, you might be intelligent, but are you being wise? And right now you're not choosing to be wise. The wise thing is just to listen and to understand so that then you can make a better decision and a better choice the next time, or in the next hour, you can make a better choice because you have more information. But oftentimes we're just like, we're the expert, or we don't listen to people. Learn to listen, listen to learn.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah, that's so good. Now, JB, one issue that leaders face that you can shed some light on is the concept of finishing or seeing things through. Too many times leaders have really good ideas and they're surrounded by a lot of idea guys too. Uh, but in the business of the job, they never make it to the finish line. In your book, and this is something we've discussed via email, but it in the leadership playbook, you shared the story of R. U. Darby, which speaks to this concept. I shared this concept with the local school athletic directors that that that I work with as well. Could you share that story with us as well as your reasoning for including it in the book? Because it's great.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yeah, I appreciate that. And uh yeah, so there's this, there's this uh, you know, dude back back in the 1840s, 1850s, you know, during the gold rush, and he's gonna go out to the West Coast, you know, become one of the original 49ers. Uh, you know, but uh he uh he goes out San Francisco or California to to mine for gold and and he gets all this equipment and stuff and he's going away and he and he gets little beat pieces of gold every once in a while, but but nothing uh that he expected when he went all the way across the country. He didn't find the mother load. So he he does like most of us do. We get discouraged. Um and that's why most people quit, is because they're discouraged, maybe discouraged at the results or discouraged because they're not being recognized. Sometimes, sometimes in that this is a key, I'm getting off topic here slightly, but sometimes people quit, maybe not physically, but mentally, when we don't think they should quit because they seem like they're getting results, but they're not getting recognized for those results, or they're not, we're not uh uh in tune with with their needs. Um so he's discouraged. RUDAB is discouraged, and so he ends up quitting. So he sells all of his equipment, packs up, heads back, you know. Just a mere few days later, the people that bought his his equipment and use his land, they found the mother load of gold, three feet, three feet, like reaching out at arm's length, three feet from where he had stopped. Right now, I I don't know if he had kept digging. You know, the cynic would say, well, who knows? Maybe he had gone a different way and he never would have gotten that gold. That might be true. But 100%, 100% of the time when you quit, you don't reach your goal. Right. Um, 100%. So I know for a fact that when he quit, he wasn't gonna get that mother load. If he had kept going, there's a good chance he would have gotten it. And so oftentimes we get discouraged and we quit. We don't know that next step. Is that next step, you know, the some teams I've worked with, uh the Toronto Raptors, Dwayne Casey, he had this big rock, this big, huge rock. He got permission to put that in their locker room. And it was pound the pound the rock or pound the stone. You know, and and you know, a lot of times, you know, you're chipping away at that rock, chipping away, and it doesn't look like anything's going on. And then all of a sudden, all this stuff breaks off, and the hall, here's this great statue type thing. Um, you know, we never know when it's gonna be that that blow, that 101st blow or that 102nd blow that might be the thing that knocks off everything, and then all of a sudden we've got this finished product, so to speak. We never know when we're three feet away. And and as ADs, man, it it can be frustrating. It can be frustrating because you didn't get into being an AD to make sure that there's blue power aid in the concession stand and that people are mad because there's not blue power aid, but there's red, but they don't want red, they want blue. And you didn't get into it to sweep floors, and you didn't get into it to wash laundry and to go to staff meetings. And that kind of stuff can get frustrating, but that's all part of the process of what you really want to do, and that's impact lives. And and so sometimes we get discouraged at all this stuff, but we never know, we never know when we come out of that staff meeting that was just a waste of our time. A kid might be passing us right then in that hallway that if we hadn't been at that staff meeting, we never would have gotten to interact with that kid. And that kid might have needed a smile, that kid might have needed our our good, encouraging word for the day. And we actually boost our confidence or we boost our spirits by boosting someone else's. And so I know that that's kind of deep in a way, but we never know, you never know. I I'm not even talking like spiritual karma, none of that kind of stuff, weird stuff. I'm just saying you never know what the next minute, what the next hour, what the next day, if you're gonna be presented with an opportunity that can make a difference in a kid's life, or in our life for that matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah, uh, that that's a great thought about we never know when we're three feet away. I think there's an argument there that to say for athletic directors and especially coaches, you are almost always three feet away from making a significant difference. I mean, there's some it may like you said, you may be digging in the wrong direction, but if you change and go the right direction, there's probably uh a difference you can make, an impact you can make three feet away from you in some direction there. That's a great uh mentality to have. Uh so thanks for sharing. Boy, that that's good, good stuff there.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

And let me quickly uh let me quickly piggyback on that just a minute, because uh uh you break that's a great point, Josh. And and we as ADs, or even leaders in in other areas, but as ADs, sometimes we get bogged down in the minutiae of being an AD and we're managing. We start to just get in the management mode. All right, I've got to sell, I've got to do this, I've got to do this, I've got to do this, and we stop being a leader, or at least our mindset is not leadership. And so we miss out on some of these impactful situations or these conversations because we have to get this to-do list done, or we have to restock this concession stand or whatever. And I know that you instituted uh uh like student passes, you did student passes at at your school. Um okay, we can think of those kind of things, and that's just one example, but we can think of those things as a management issue, as just a procedural issue, or this is just a way to raise money, or this is just this could be nice to get more students at the game. But every single season pass you're selling, somebody's probably interacting with that student. Now, they could get it online maybe, but there's a lot of just trivial times that we interact with students we don't think of, but that's an opportunity to smile. That's an opportunity for them to see an authority figure, not as a jerk or not as an authority figure. It's a chance. Every single interaction we have is a chance to create a legacy and to maybe change a life. And and legacy is not just what we leave when we die. Legacy is what we leave every time we or somebody else walks out of the room after an interaction with us. What is a kid thinking after they buy a season pass from your office? Or what is a kid thinking after they they stopped in to just hand in their physical paperwork, you know, the physicals or whatever. Every single interaction is a chance to touch a life, not in a big, meaningful way, but it might be the next step to get them to like their day is not going well, and you're the bridge, you're that next step to just get them to, you know, the next through the next 30 minutes or the next hour of their life where they're not so discouraged, they're not so depressed that they keep digging to get to that three feet. So we never know our interactions. We might not be the one that changes their life, but we might be the one that just keeps them going for another 10 to 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

You know, that piggybacks into one of our questions, this idea of the butterfly effect. You know, there are you know, there are no small things. You know, we we have had these conversations with other ADs about, you know, there's big things and there's little things. No, there's not. There's every there are no small things, you know. Really everything matters. And that's kind of what you're talking about. That idea that it all matters. You know, every interaction does, every action, you know, that you that you do in that role, it all matters.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm I'm I mean, I know there's there's times, I mean, it this can't be kumbaya, like let's just sit around, saying kumbaya, hold hands. It's not that all the time. Obviously, there's work that needs to be done at times. And I'm not saying that you have to come out of your office to greet every student who's talking to your secretary. You know, you don't have to do that. Sometimes you have to be locked in your office to get some work done or whatever. But if you are in a position to interact with somebody, then you need to make the best of that and take advantage of that opportunity because you never know. Like you said, every moment matters. I'm not saying you spend a 12-hour day only looking to interact with people because then you won't get anything done. And then that's not good for the students either. Um, but when you have those opportunities, make sure you take advantage of that. And that goes back to success as a choice. You choose your mindset, you choose your mentality about that. And some of us may be very task-oriented, and that might be tougher for us. Some of us might be, you know, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, you know, the sky is falling, everything's terrible. We might not be the most pleasant athletic director or the most pleasant leader sometimes. We're gonna have to work harder at that, you know. But maybe our disposition starts to get more pleasant because we force a smile or we force ourselves to have a kind word to somebody.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Yeah, I was gonna say that every interaction can have an impact. And you were talking about kids bringing in physicals. Well, sometimes those kids bring in a physical at 3:30 on the first day of practice, right, instead of the month before. That interaction may not be as pleasant as you as you're mentioning, but it can still be impactful, right? You can teach a lesson of uh promptness and being prepared and getting your stuff turned in ahead of time and all that stuff, but you're not necessarily going to be nice and pleasant about it, but you can still understand, have the mindset of I can, I'm gonna leave an impact on how I teach this lesson, correct? So I think there's a lot in what you just said there, really, really good stuff. And man, we could probably chase uh talk talk on that all day long and teach lessons on that all day long. So that's that's good. So uh going back to, and I know I ask earlier, talked earlier about your uh social media or Twitter group, one of the things you do, and this is kind of a public service question here, you target or you address specific content to specific groups of people. You direct certain information to coaches while other information is meant specifically for parents and players. Why take such an intentional approach to delivering these messages? And while you formulate your answer there, I want to recommend to everyone listening that you flip over right now on Twitter, if you're on your phone and listening on a podcast, or go to your um go to Twitter on the desktop that you're listening from and follow at Jamie Beckler, no E and Jamie at Jamie Beckler. This will be one of the best follows you have on social media. You'll want to pass it on to your staff and students. So, so coach, what is the vision behind intentionally addressing a specific population with your Twitter post?

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Yeah, Josh, and I and I appreciate you uh you uh uh mentioning my Twitter. Uh my username is Jamie Beckler, but my the actual Twitter handle is Coach Beckler. Um sorry about that. But I think they can find it if they just type in Jamie Beckler. But uh, you know, one of the things that I wanted to be intentional about with my Twitter was making sure it was positive and and productive as much as possible. You're you're not gonna know who I voted for in an election. You're not gonna know uh who my favorite teams are, you're not gonna know where I went to eat, you're not even probably gonna know most of the time where I'm speaking at. Once in a while, you might we might mention where I spoke at or who I, you know, if I come to speak to your team or do it virtually, most of the time you're not gonna know that. I try to make it productive and I try to make it very positive. Um, I try not to be controversial, though sometimes it will be. So moving into that, uh, you mentioned sometimes I'll address things for coaches, sometimes I'll address things for players. That actually gets controversial sometimes when I'll get a direct message or somebody will reply to it and be like, Well, why aren't you telling the coaches this? So it might be something about the players. And it's like, well, I did yesterday, you just didn't see that tweet. Um, you know, like I I noticed today, I noticed today that there were like two or three coaches in a row, you know, things where I address coaches in a row. And a couple days ago there was two or three players tweets in a row. Sometimes that just happens, but I try to keep it as fairly equal as possible. But essentially, I want to get your attention. So as a coach, I want to get your attention. This is for you. This is, I'm not just talking, yes, it could be leadership, but I want to address you as a coach or players. I don't want you as a player, if you're following me, to just scroll past it because it doesn't apply to you. So I think if it's important, I want you, I want it, it's almost to grab your attention uh as a player. Um because there's a lot of noise going on on social media, and so I want to make sure that it grabs your attention a little bit. And so we tried to do that, and uh, but you know, people will, you know, invariably, and this happens invariably I'll have a parent that uh will respond back to me, sometimes negatively, and be like, well, my coach doesn't do that, or well, yeah, except that's wrong because coaches don't do that. And it's like, uh, coaches do that, but your coach of your kid in ninth grade, who scarred you for life, didn't do it. But the other 57 coaches at that school probably would have done the right thing. But your one coach you had in ninth grade. But that's the other thing about me is I never I rarely respond back. I I'm not a, I don't, I don't go into that because on Twitter it's gonna be hard to have that conversation. On a direct message, I might have that conversation with somebody, but I rarely reply back to somebody if they're if they're trolling or they're just an unhappy person that wants to tell me about their ninth grade experience or their kid had this coach that was terrible, or their their coach played favorites. Yeah, the coach plays favorites. The coach does what coach plays who they think is best for the team. Well, not this coach. Well, my kid did everything right. No, your kid probably didn't. In the same way, a kid will say sometimes, well, I did all this stuff, I don't know why coach isn't playing me. No, you do know why coach didn't play you. You really do know. And that goes back to Don, your first question about uh self-reflection and about uh taking inventory of your life. Kids know why they're not playing. They don't like that they're not playing, they don't agree with the reasons, but they know the reason. Like when coach benches me, I know why he benched me. Now I think he might be a jerk, or I think he might overreact, or I think I don't agree with his reason, but I know the reason. But anyways, that going back, I I don't respond to that kind of stuff, you know, on Twitter. It's just not productive. And so I want to continually put out good content on Twitter as much as possible. Uh I hope that when people scroll through their timelines, you know, they they it's a breath of fresh air when they see my timeline, hopefully, is that all right, he's not gonna talk politics, he's not gonna talk religion, he's not gonna criticize people uh for the most part. And I don't have to, you know, listen to him talk about the Michigan Wolverines again or you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, I you know, you mess around with uh you start trying to go back and forth with a keyboard gangster. That that that's a that's an uphill battle. Uh that's what that's what I that's how I refer to them as. And you talk about being positive and productive, and to kind of counter that, let's talk about a leader's word choice and specifically the use of the word but and how such a short word can be immensely powerful and even devalue intention to those that we lead and that we speak to when we use it. Why should we be careful with that one?

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Well, I had uh going back to when I was uh thinking I wanted to get married and we went through premarital counseling, the pastor told, you know, this is one of the things I remember, you know, and and uh, you know, we didn't talk about the serious stuff. All right, we didn't talk about the real stuff. We just talked about deep stuff in premarital counseling. We didn't talk about, all right, what what you know, should the shades be open at night, how much light comes in the bedroom, you know, uh, what do you do? What do you want to do when you're driving in a long trip on a car ride? You know, we didn't talk about the real stuff that leads to arguments in a marriage. Yeah, we talked about deep stuff. But the one thing I remember, and I've tried to live by this, is he gave us advice. He said, never apologize and then use the word but after it. Well, hey, baby, I would I would have done that, you know. I'm sorry, I I'm sorry I treated you bad, but if you just weren't such a jerk about things or but you were just a nag. You were just nagging. Never follow it with a butt. And you know, I think that that's important to remember sometimes is is we don't have to follow up stuff with a butt. We don't always have to rationalize what we do, we don't always have to make an excuse, just let our word hang out there. Apologize for something. Um, if we're going to uh say something nice about somebody, say something nice and just leave it at that. Um, you don't have to, hey, you know, I I know the you know the positive, negative sandwich type thing, you know, a positive with a negative, then a positive. You know, just say what you gotta say.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Now, the the one thing I would say about that positive, negative, positive thing is if I'm gonna be, if I'm gonna correct you, Don, so you're doing something you probably shouldn't do, I think you need to do something better, I want to remind you of what we need to be doing. But oftentimes, what I like to do is tell you what you needed to be doing better, how you could do it better, but also give you a reason why I think you can do it better. So instead of just saying, hey, you gotta, you gotta touch the line or you gotta you gotta run harder or you gotta turn in these reports. You know, you're just not turning in these reports. I say, hey, you know, we need you to get these reports in uh like you did last year when your kid, you know, we were able to get those reports in and your kid got honored by the conference or your kid got honored by the district, you know, or or something like that. I mean, there's so many examples, but you don't just you you don't just remind them, but you remind them with also reminding them of why it's important and why they can do it. Now, paperwork's kind of an easy thing, you know, everyone's capable of turning in paperwork, but maybe just uh connect the dots for them just a little bit. Hey, we need this paperwork in because of this. Right. And it's not because you said so. And it's not because, well, our standard operating procedure, the coach's manual, says you have to get it in by March 1st. No, it's not that. They don't care about your stupid hand, your manual, your handbook. You know, that I mean, that's important, but they don't care about that. That's not a good reason. That's like saying, because I told you so. You know, and they probably didn't read it anyways. You know, they don't want you to be a nag either. So, hey, we need you to do this and then relate it to something that that can be helpful, um, maybe to their students, or you know, maybe hey, you know, if you do this, we'll get you donuts or something, you know, bribe them maybe like we do our kids.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

But that's good. I always wonder uh you said Everyone's capable of paper of doing paperwork. And sometimes I wonder about that. But you know, the when you say that, it makes me wonder more about did I give them a why? If they didn't do it, it's probably my fault because I didn't make the why important. So uh that that's a good reminder there.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Well, and go that goes back to to the forest and the tree thing. Because coaches are the same way as we are. We're we're all the same to a degree. We all just see our tree. You know, we get bogged down with what's best for us, our agenda, what our thoughts are. Um, that's us as people. You know, it doesn't make us bad, it's just the reality of the situation. And so the more that you can help them see the whole forest, and it's not always, hey Don, I need you to do this because it's gonna help me out. Well, yeah, that's a bigger purpose, but Don might not care about helping me out. Right, right. Now, now, if Don and I are great friends, you know, I and I'll give you, I'll give you kind of a silly example, but I'm an athletic director and we have these staff meetings. No one likes going to the staff meetings, okay. Well, our basketball coach missed two staff meetings in a row. Okay, now now realize this is Indiana, but also realize that there's two people at our school that have contracts longer than me as an athletic director, our superintendent and our basketball coach. That's amazing, but that's the case. All right. All the other administrators are on two years, they're on three-year contracts. But, anyways, but the basketball coach and I have a great relationship. We're friends. And so I go to him, and this would be kind of the exception, but I go to him and I'm like, listen, do you believe in what we're trying to do here in our culture? He's like, Yeah, Jamie, you're doing great stuff. You know, I love what you're doing, all this stuff. I said, Okay, what do you think when when the other coaches see that you're not at the staff meeting? What do you think that they what do you think that they think? I don't know. I said, okay, what if they decide not to come to the staff meetings? What do you think would happen then? Oh yeah. I said, what do you think I could tell them? Uh that they need to come. And I said, and then what if they say, well, you're not coming? He's like, oh yeah. I said, see, I would love for you to come to these staff meetings because then it helps me to be able to say to everybody else, hey, everybody's at these staff meetings. But when you don't come to these staff meetings, that puts that puts it on me. And that's harder for me then to remind them they need to come. So I probably didn't articulate that great, but if you have a great relationship with someone, then you can appeal to the bigger sense of, hey, I'm your friend or whatever, this can affect if you don't have a relationship or great relationship, and you're not gonna have great relationships with all your players, and you're not gonna have great relationships with all your coaches as an AD. In that case, you're gonna have to appeal to something bigger than them that doesn't include you or doesn't include your handbook or manual. So uh I went on a little detour there. Maybe it was a good story, maybe it wasn't. But if you have a good relationship with people, you can appeal to that as friends. And that's the same thing I talk about with my leadership. One of my main things with leadership is it's influence. That's pure and simple, it's influence. But you have a hard time influencing people if you don't have a good relationship with them. And some people will say, Well, how do you influence people that you don't get along with? Or what's the best thing when somebody that you don't like on the team is doing something? I say, Well, get in a time machine and go back a year ago and try to make your relationship better. Um, and that's kind of silly, but coaches will say this all the time. You know, I would have coaches come into my office as an AD and say, I can't reach this parent. Well, if they're a senior parent, that's one thing. If they're a junior parent or a sophomore parent, well, then in the offseason, you better be going to their swim meets. You better be going to their softball games and you know, cozy up to those parents one minute, two minutes every game, and just say, Hey, you know, so-and-so did a great job today. Hey, good to see you. You know, it was she really played hard today. He really played hard today. You don't have an in-depth conversation, but you have a year to develop a relationship with that person so that next year when you have to have a difficult conversation, you have stuff built up in that emotional bank account. If you want to have a tough conversation with someone, you better have a strong bond with them. And so I think a lot of times as ADs or coaches, we don't develop these relationships. So we don't develop strong bonds. And then when we have to have a tough conversation with them, we're not able to do that effectively because they don't trust us, they don't respect us. We're just an authority figure.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah, good stuff there. We'll take the detour. That's that's good. Good detour. Hey, Jamie, let's finish up with a couple questions. We are blessed to have an author uh with us today. So let's talk about reading and writing and books and that kind of stuff. Uh let's first talk about the power of books. You're on record of saying that reading Coach Wooden's book, they call me coach, in the seventh grade, developed a dream of you wanting to be a coach and you are a very successful coach. Now you are a writer. And we've heard uh other guests of ours and other podcasts we listen to where people have said, leaders are readers. Talk for a minute about why leaders, even the coaches and athletic directors who may think they have no extra time, why they should be readers. Where should reading fall within a leader's daily priorities? And in that same kind of realm, what is the difference between reading books versus reading articles in the newspaper?

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Yeah, I I'm not sure. Uh I'm not sure if reading articles or or you know in a newspaper or online or whatever uh is any better or worse than a book. I I think if you're reading anything that can stimulate thought and get your mind percolating, I think that that works. Uh it could just be social media. You're just scrolling through social media and you're seeing a whole bunch of uh positive thought leaders and you get some of that stuff. It's like reading a book with a whole bunch of mini chapters, you know, 280-word chapters or or whatever, but you're getting lots of thoughts. So I think as long as as you're a leader and you're seeking to grow your mind, you're seeking to stimulate the thought process and and and get better in your thought process to understand uh more people, understand more situations. I I think you're gonna be further ahead as a leader. Now, I am partial to books. I think books are a great way to do that. You know, but uh, you know, nowadays, the audiobooks, you know, whether it's audible or something else, it's so easy to download a book and then on your commute, on your way to and from school, on your way to and from a competition to the grocery store, whatever, you can listen to 10 minutes, listen to 15 minutes of a book. It might take you longer to do that, but a lot of us say we don't have any time, but you are in the car. What are you doing in the car? Are you just listening to music? Now, if that's the way that gets you focused, great. But if you're just really mindlessly doing that, then then take those 10 minutes, those 15 minutes to listen to an audiobook. Uh maybe, maybe listen to a podcast. You know, I'm fine with podcasts as well. But uh I read, I read when I'm on the stationary bike. Now it's harder to do if you're on the treadmill, but on the stationary bike, the stationary bike is boring. I don't want to be on that bike, um, but I'm doing it because I got to get in shape. But instead of listening to music, some people will listen to music because they want to get pumped up. I re I'll tell you what, I read a book. Uh, I don't know if you guys are familiar with David Goggins. He's the Navy SEAL uh that used to weigh over 300 pounds and now is just like a Greek god statue. I mean, he's amazing, but he uh he wrote a book, or he was uh there was a book written about him by a guy, uh uh Jesse Itzler. Jesse Itzler is a minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Uh he's rich dude, he's married to Sarah Blakely of Spanx, uh, who invented Spanx. But, anyways, Jesse Itzler wrote this book called uh Living with a Seal, where he brought this seal into his house and the dude trained him. Okay. I'm saying all this because I'm reading that book on the stationary bike. As I'm reading this book, this is this is motivation. This is better than listening to any music I've ever listened to on a stationary bike. Like I'm reading this book and I'm going faster automatically because this dude is just getting pumped up. He's getting motivated to be better than he's ever been before. And I'm like setting records on the stationary bike while reading this book. Now you don't have to do that, but find time. We we say we don't have time. All right, I know there's gonna be 30 to 45 minutes of my day where I'm gonna be on a stationary bike. I have 30 to 45 minutes to either relax or to feed my brain. And sometimes we just need to relax. Uh, that's fine. I'm not saying don't do that, but I'm saying there's these little nuggets of time we all have during the day. You know, what can you fit into that? And it doesn't have to be you read a whole book at one time, just read 10 minutes, read 20 pages, read 10 pages, whatever it is. But we say we don't have time. Well, we really do have time, we're just choosing to do something else in that time. So if it's important to you, you're gonna find time to do it. And it might only be 10-minute chunks, it might be 20-minute chunks, but I I do think reading or stimulating your mind as much as possible. Uh, reading has been huge for me my whole life. Uh, I've loved books. Um, and I I still do the paper copy. I do the physical copy. Um, I I dog ear pages, I highlight, um, I sweat on it um on the stationary bike. That's right. So uh I do that. My wife, my wife doesn't touch a physical book, she's all uh audiobook. She listens to it all on her phone. I've I don't do any of that on my phone. I don't read ebooks on my phone and I don't listen to them on my phone. Interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

That's good. Now I mentioned earlier I read your book, The Bus Trip, and really enjoyed it. And for any coaches listening, I highly recommend this uh for every team to read as a team to improve their chemistry and understanding of how they can perform their very best. But what I love about the book is the role the bus driver plays. And you know, in Todd Gongor's book, Lead for God's sake, I imagine you've read that one, being a basketball guy, the janitor was the unsung leadership hero there. The lesson here for leaders to me is to know all of your people. Talk about how we can gain insight and leadership resources by allowing people who serve in what may seem insignificant roles to play a significant part in the development of our staff and teams.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

Oh, great question. I appreciate you bringing up the book and talking about that. Uh, first off, I would say realize that everybody is part of your culture. Everybody you interact with is part of your culture or part of your team. So your parents are part of your culture, they're part of your program, whether you like it or not. They don't shoot baskets or wear a uniform, but they're part of your program. The same way your janitors, you mentioned Todd Gonware, great book uh for coaches, lead for God's sakes. The janitor is part of your program. The bus drivers are gonna be part of your program. Everybody that your kids might interact with is part of your program and your culture. And so uh one thing, one thing, uh our our custodians, when I was an AD, they loved me because I was constantly feeding them. I was taking them donuts, leftovers. We would have staff meetings. We'd have this big spread at our staff meetings, like actual breakfast. I would get up way early in the morning, make breakfast for our coaches, and all the leftovers would go down to our custodians. So you do that to be nice, but you also do that because take care of those who take care of you. And oftentimes, you know, uh, you know, just giving them a t-shirt or anything, tossing them a bone, you know, we forget about that kind of stuff. Um, and so yeah, the bus driver, you mentioned that the bus drivers are gonna talk to your players. The janitors are gonna talk to your players, secretaries are gonna talk to your players, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna live, they're next door neighbors with parents. They're all part of your program. And so realize that the way you treat people and the way you add value or add significance to people's lives could come back, even if you're just focused on X's and N's and focused on, you know, I'm selfish, I just want to win, I just want to have a great athletic department, whatever it is, just from a selfish strategy standpoint, take care of those who take care of you. Because you never know what reach and what influence they're gonna have, positively or negatively. But just from a bigger sense, man, take care of those people. Show people the value that they have. Because a lot of people have value. A lot of people have life lessons. And yes, in this book, so bus driver Frank, he was able to impart some knowledge to some players. They respected him, and his words sometimes carried some weight because he had in he had influence because they respected him. And so a lot of people, you know, your volunteer assistant or whatever, it doesn't matter who it is, treat all people right. Um, you know, uh don't be above everybody else. Don't don't be like, well, I'm the AD or I'm the I'm the coach, you know, I'm the head coach. You know, so what? That's great. That's a position, that's a business card, that's a name plaque. Okay. But what are they, what legacy are you leaving? What do people feel when they leave an interaction with you? Are you helping people be better? And when you help make people feel better and help make people be better, then all of a sudden that's gonna have, you know, Don talked about the butterfly effect, that's gonna have far lasting impact because you're not always gonna be around as an AD, you're not always gonna be around as a head coach, or even the captains aren't always gonna be around people. So uh the best leaders aren't just having compliant followers, the best leaders are growing and developing other leaders. Um, and that might be the bus driver, that might be the custodian, that might be a secretary, and not even your athletic secretary. It might be the secretary for the dean's office when that kid gets in trouble, or that kid has to go, or the counselor's secretary. You know, whoever you're interacting with, man, it I I mean, I hate to use the cliche, it takes a village, but everybody's involved. You know, it's it's this village that everybody's looking out for one another. And in your school, you know, if you can facilitate that and cultivate that, and it's not always it's not gonna be perfect, but everybody can add something, positively or negatively. And so, hey, let's try to influence positively. And so, yeah, the bus driver, he actually uh my dad's name was Frank, and so he was uh, you know, when you write a book, you get to do whatever you want. Sure. And so uh originally the bus driver's name was actually the bus driver that I had for a lot of years in Texas. And then I'm like, wait a minute. I mean, he meant a lot to me and he was great. Um, but I was like, wait a minute, I'm the author, I can write whoever I want. And so I was like, so uh, so like his backstory and everything, everything that he did was my dad. I think I said like two, he'd been a truck driver and driven two million miles without an accident. Right. You know, my dad was that. My dad was a fireman, my dad was involved in local politics, my dad, you know, so so uh yeah, I made it like that. And I'm thinking he's gonna be a reoccurring, he might be a reoccurring character in in all my books going forward, which might be difficult if they're all fictional books. Yeah, you know, he he might you know he might get around a lot.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Yeah, he might have a lot of maybe we'll see Frank and the Captain coming out in uh fall of 2021, I believe, right? Yeah, you will see him.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

He is also the bus driver. He picks up the team after their bowl game. He picks up the team and takes them back to campus. Um, so but going forward, you know, in the future I have like a golf book. I have a golf book coming out uh in a couple years. I have a couple ideas going on, and so it'll be interesting to see how I'm able to maybe he'll drive the golf cart or something.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

All right. Well, Jamie, we typically finish up after our last question, wrap it up and move into the two-minute drill, but I want to flip the script a little bit. I want you to wrap us up with a story about the value of a role that a person plays. So I'm an athletic director and assistant principal. There's value in where I'm at right now, there's value in what Don does and what every person who's listening, there's value in the role you play right now, whether you're a bus driver, a janitor, or whoever. And I think the best story that sums up that you could do to sum us up and really to give us perspective in the value of the role is the packing the parachute story. So I'm gonna put you on the spot. I don't know if you uh mind sharing that story that is in the book, but I just think that would be something great to share with us. And when you finish that, we'll roll into our two-minute drill.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Yeah, I appreciate that. And and you know, I'll tell teams all the time uh a $100,000 luxury sports car can be sidelined by a $10 spark plug, a $5 spark plug. And in the same way, a $100,000 luxury car, you know, can can go 200 miles an hour or look good driving down the road because that five or $10 spark plug is working. So every role uh is important. Every person, every team member is important and valuable. And so the story you're talking about is one of my favorites. And uh back in the Vietnam War, there was this great uh captain, uh fighter pilot, Navy fighter pilot name uh Charlie Plum, Captain Plum. And uh he he had you know 75 straight missions, successful, but on the 76th mission, he gets shot down. He ends up being a POW. You know, fortunately, he didn't die when he got shot down. He parachutes, but he's a POW for six years. Eventually, the war ends for the United States, and so he's actually released. Years and years and years later, he's out in Kansas City where he lives with his wife, and they're eating at this restaurant. And this guy comes up to him and says, Excuse me, excuse me, sir. Uh, sorry to interrupt, but you're Captain Plum, right? He's like, Yeah, and he's like, You were on the USS Kitty Hawk and got shot down, right? He's like, Yeah, how do you know all that? You know, I'm sorry, I don't know you. You know, how do you know me? He goes, sir, I'm the one that packed your parachute that day. Well, and you're like, I mean, there's a lot of layers to this, but like I'm thinking to myself, when I first heard this, first of all, never, ever, ever in my life ever did I think about how a parachute got packed or got on the pilot's back ever, ever, until that story. And so I'm like, oh, wow, somebody had to pack that parachute. And then I'm thinking, I bet that parachute packer, he probably didn't grow up with on his wall in his bedroom this this other parachute packer. Like, these are the best parachute packers out there. Like he didn't grow up wanting to be someone, some dude that's in the bottom of an aircraft carrier, you know, with no windows, nobody knows who you are, you know, you don't get to wear the cool sunglasses, the chicks don't know who you are. You know, it's it's not what you want. Like that's not what people grow up as. He probably hated his job, it wasn't fun, but every day he had to come to work and do his job because someone's life depended on it. And he's probably thinking to himself at some point, you know, man, if I, you know, who cares? It's not like anyone's gonna know, even if I do my job bad. Because if someone gets shot down, the first thing you think don't think of, you're not thinking of, oh, the parachute didn't deploy. Right. You're thinking, oh, you just got shot down. You know, so all these things going on, and that's how we are sometimes. We don't, we don't like our role or we don't like uh, you know, our situation right now. But everybody is needed for Charlie Plum, this great pilot, you know, this hero to do his job well and to survive and to go back to his wife. He had to have somebody else that he didn't even know was doing their job correctly. You know, in basketball, you know, everybody sees Steph Curry hits this shot at the end of the game, you know, oh, it's great. High five Steph Curry, great. But we don't, we don't always see the screen that got him open or the pass that got him open, or we don't see that Draymond Green with six seconds to go in the game on defense, you know, with five fouls, took a charge, and if the referee calls the other way, he fouls out, but he took the charge to even get the team the ball back so they could hit this game-winning shot. And so what happens sometimes as coaches is we don't acknowledge those role players. We don't acknowledge those things that went into winning. And so uh, but if you want to win, if you want to be successful as a team and we're all part of a team at some level, then we've got to play our role and be be a Hall of Fame role player. You know, Daryl Johnston, a lot of people don't know him except that he he does Fox football broadcast for the NFL. But Darryl Johnston is not in the Hall of Fame, but he was a Hall of Fame teammate because he opened up as a fullback, he opened up hole after hole so Emmett Smith could become the all-time rushing leader in the NFL. You know, so our roles, we might be Hall of Fame role players, and that allows us to win Super Bowl rings or that allows us to be successful. And so, yeah, like I said at the start, uh, a five, ten dollar spark plug can cause a hundred thousand dollar luxury car to work or not work.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:00

And the thing about it is too, I saw recently uh the the game where Emmett Smith broke the rushing record. Johnston, he's there on the Moose is there on the sideline, and they end up embracing and like you know, just the love that they have for one another because Emmett Smith knew. He he he knew in that moment why he was able to do what he was able to do. And so, you know, that connection they had there when you brought that up. I just I saw that just the other day.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

So that was well a little known fact too about Moose Johnston, uh he was a I believe he was a second or third round draft pick of the Cowboys coming out of Syracuse. You know, he was a really good running back at Syracuse, you know, and and you don't normally draft a dude to just block, just to sacrifice his body. I mean, he was a pretty good running back himself, and yet he sacrificed for the good of the team. And and that's you know, role parachute packer. And what and you know, think Steph Curry's gonna be a parachute packer at some point. You know, now his role might be to shoot the three most of the time, but he's also gonna set screen sometimes. He's also gonna be a decoy sometimes. Times. And so we're all going to be a parachute packer at some point. And so the more we can not only accept our role but embrace it, but then excel at our role, the better our team is going to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:10

Okay, Jamie. We're going to head into our two-minute drill now. So we're going to hit you with some rapid fire questions. We want you to just tell us the first thing that comes to your mind, okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

This is dangerous. My mind works weird. So it's all right.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

What was the first job you ever had ever?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

Working in a uh at a college, Hillsdale College in Michigan, working in as a dishwasher person back in the in the cafeteria. I'd go there after practice every day, and and uh uh it was a terrible job. I hated it. And I had to work back there because I was late every day because of practice, so I didn't get to be out in the limelight and so everyone could see me.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

Got to value your role there. Everybody got clean dishes, right? That's right. That's right. What was your first car?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:55

Uh Ford F-150, uh, four-wheel drive, pickup truck, blue.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

There you go. Uh, what is the strangest thing that you're afraid of?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:07

Uh snakes. I I don't I don't think that's strange. A lot of people are scared of snakes, but uh that always I always felt like I could win on that show Fear Factor years ago, except there was always snakes involved. And I I just can't I can't do snakes, even if they're not poisonous.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Yeah, that's a deal breaker for me, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

Who is the best guest you've had on your podcast?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

Oh mercy. Uh I I I will give you the one that I will give you the one that's kind of my go-to answer in terms of because most people don't know who it is, but it's it's a lady called Betsy Butterick. Or she's Betsy Butterick, and she's a she's one of the best people in communication that I know. She's she works with high-level teams in communication, but most people would skip past her episode because they wouldn't recognize her name. She's not a household name, but she's awesome. Um, I've had I've had some great guests. I mean, I've had awesome guests, some awesome guests that I've loved that were bucket list people like Clark Kellogg and Phil Helmuth, the poker guy. You know, he's a funny dude. So I've had some fun guests, but Betsy Butterick is one that that's not name recognized, but was really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

Name your favorite video game when you were a kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

Pole position.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

Oh favorite cartoon growing up.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:29

GI Joe.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

Yep, you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

Always an interesting question for an author. Uh, what are you reading right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Uh huh. My my next book, proof reading it. There you go. Yeah. Um, what I just finished a book. I just finished a book. What was it? Oh, uh Lead Lead Em Up Lead Up? Lead Up by uh JP Lead 'em up. JP Nurbun. Nurbun. It's a fictional book. Uh really good about or calling up. Golly, I should know the name of it. It's like songs. I never know the name of a song. Right. I just know who sang it. JP Nurbun. JP Nurbun has a great book, a fictional book. I encourage you to read it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

There you go. First thing your wife made you throw out when you got married.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:25

Um it was it was when we were engaged, but I I sold all my DVDs, like all my Tupac DVDs and hip hop DVDs, so that she could we could have a little extra money. Um she didn't want me listening to that trash, first of all, she says. But secondly, uh I did it to raise some money so she could uh do a a demo herself because she has a good voice. So I just remembered that. I haven't thought of that in a long time. Uh she never did the demo, so she owes me a demo or owes me money or owes me some DVDs.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

Uh what's something that you were obsessed with right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:04

Oh, this is terrible. Fantasy fantasy golf. Um, golf. I'm a huge golf fan playing it, and but I I actually most people don't know this, but I write articles on in my spare time. I write articles for fantasy golf. So I know, like, you know, I know all this stuff about the 200th best golfer in the world and stuff like that. I have way too much useless information in my head.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

So I'm I I just got uh uh I guess addicted or introduced to chirp. Uh I don't know if you do chirp, but it's the fantasy golf betting that you're using fake money with. So uh that's pretty good. I don't know if you go that direction or not, but made me think of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

No, I use real money, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh what advice would you give your younger self? Oh man, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

You're stupid. You know nothing. Like, don't yeah, absolutely. I I became a NCAA uh head coach at the age of 27. And I everything that I did like as a as a four-year athlete, as at grad school, everything I did led up to being a head coach at an early age. Like my goal was my goal was to be a head coach at age of 32. So I smashed that goal, but everything was leading up to that goal. Um, and I thought I knew everything. Like I thought I was I was the cat's meow because I had done everything possible to sacrifice, know the right peer people, do the right thing, and all of a sudden I'm a head coach at 27. So I'm smarter than everybody else. And that doesn't matter if I'm smarter than everybody else. But and and four years later, at the age of 31, uh, I had the opportunity to get resigned.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:56

And uh, and then uh I took a year off, and then at 32 was a head coach again. So I guess in a way, I'm I'm better at most people at achieving goals because I achieved my goal twice. Yeah, at 27 and at 32. So I'm twice as good as most people at achieving goals, I guess. But yeah, uh my my advice would be listen a lot more. You don't know. And just because you do know doesn't mean it's the right way. Sometimes being right isn't the right way.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:25

What's your biggest pet peeve? Excuses. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:36

Uh it's it's it's the one that comes to mind right away, and I already said it earlier was take care of those who take care of you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:44

So let's finish with this. It's our trademark question. Jamie Beckler, today you've been hanging with EAD, but let's say you can hang out with anyone. Who would that be and why?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:55

Uh I'd like to hang out with Medea. Um you didn't see that one coming. No, no, Tyler Perry. Um, I'd like to hang out him with him for a day. Um, he's down in your neck of woods down there in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

He is, he is. Fantastic choice.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:15

Or another guy that's in your neck of the woods, uh, a rapper, a hip-hop guy named Lecrae.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:19

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

Um, you know, I but I I like to hang out with guys that uh one, I don't well, I'd like to hang out with guys I don't know, um, you know, a new person, but people that I think are wise and have good perspectives on things. And uh yeah, and so and that are funny and are entertaining as well. So make up for my lack of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:41

That's awesome. Jamie, thank you so much for the pleasure of your time today. Uh, you've surely put some new tools in our toolbox that we're gonna be able to use immediately. I know I speak for our listeners uh when I say that we're very grateful for it. So thanks again for the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:54

Hey, I appreciate it, guys, and and thanks for allowing that two-minute drill to go a little longer. That was almost like a fourth quarter drill, but I had a lot of timeouts. We used we used all our timeouts and we got through out of bounds a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:04

Hey, you you can't take him into the locker room, so you might as well use them. You gave us tons of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:09

Thanks a lot, Jamie. Appreciate it, guys. Well, how about today's conversation? Was that not just a masterclass in leadership or what? Usually that right there will cost you a pretty penny, but Coach Jamie Beckler was so gracious to come on our podcast and to share so much leadership with us today. We are indebted to him for his time today. Some highlights for me here. One, if you were the therapist, what would you say to yourself? Next, it's not the wins that we accumulate, it's the winners we produce. Another one, be an MVT, most valuable teammate. We never know when we are three feet away. Another one, you have a hard time influencing people we don't have a relationship with. Be a parachute packer, and finally, legacy is what we leave when we leave the room. How about you? What did you write down in your journal today? How are you going to apply the great words of our guest today, former coach, current author, and motivational speaker, Mr. Jamie Beckler? Coach Beckler, thank you for inspiring us to be better leaders wherever it is that we are serving today. Now, we know today's episode generated some thoughts, and we would love to hear those thoughts. So please take a minute, leave us a review on the podcast platform there under the review tab, or connect with us on social media, Twitter or Instagram at hangin' with the AD. And until next time, thank you for spending your time hanging with the A D.