SPEAKER_03 0:04

You're listening to the Hanging with the AD Podcast, where we break down hot topics in athletic administration and listen to work through leadership.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Now, here are your hosts, Josh Matthews and Don Baker. Welcome to another special edition of the Hanging with the AD Podcast. Today we once again get the pleasure of sitting down with Brian Dodd. Brian's blog, Brian Dodd on Leadership, is a go-to resource for those both in and out of leadership positions, seeing over 70,000 readers per month, as well as being an author, the co-host of the Pursuit of Service podcast, and now our go-to resource when it comes to making our annual book wish list. Brian, thank you so much for joining us again today.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Hey, Don. It is great to be on here. It's my second time, so I'm absolutely thrilled. I love what you and Josh are doing and uh love who you serve. And anytime I can come on and just help out add some value to your audience, I'm just thrilled to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Now, Brian, one of the things that we enjoy that comes out of your blog post on leadership is your book list. Uh, you're a reader for sure, and Josh and I believe that leaders should be readers. Uh, before we jump into some books for athletic leaders, and quite frankly, you know, for you to make Josh and I feel like total failures uh in the reading game, how many books have you read this year? And did you or will you meet your goal?

SPEAKER_03 1:23

So I try to read at least three a month. And when I read them, I try to read really deep, for lack of a better phrase, and you know, really glean stuff out of it that I can use to serve other people. So I've got a reading strategy in terms of the actual content, and I've got a reading strategy in terms of how I remember it and how I apply it. So at the at the time of this recording, I'm at 38.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

And I've got three going simultaneously, you know, depending on what mood I'm in, or if I get bored with one, I can switch to another. I should probably finish with 42 to 44 this year. So 40, if I get if I get 36 to 40, I'm I'm very happy. So yes, I will hit my goal this year.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

It's nice. Yeah, it's uh it's November, but three a month is 36 and you're 38. You've already made the goal. So yeah, that's that's uh that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

A little bit ahead of pace, just a little.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

That's right. All right, Brian. Let's jump into this uh top 10 books every leader should get their hands on. The first one is uh really personal to me. I understand why it's on your top 10 for sure. You know, I was fortunate enough to receive this book from a mentor of mine when I became a deacon several years ago. And this book's already on my 2022 list as I plan to reread it to help me with a couple of new upcoming leadership roles that I have taken on. The name of this book is Leadership as an Identity by Crawford Lawrence. Tell us about this book and maybe share which of the four traits do you feel is most important?

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Yeah, definitely. It's it's funny you bring this book up first, Josh. If somebody were to say, Brian, other than the Bible, what's the greatest leadership book you've ever read? It would be Leadership as an identity.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Amen.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Um, and and I'll get into why. This group of books we're talking about this year. Last year we did, I think, the top 12 books on sports culture that I would recommend. And this year's books has a little different twist. There are some great culture books we're going to talk about. But what Crawford introduces in his book is there's a difference between leadership development and leader development. Leadership development is all about assignment, and it's about developing the skills, talents, and abilities to accomplish a task or assignment given to you by God. So this would fall under the heading of going to conferences, going to symposiums, reading books, listening to podcasts. It's developing the skills. Okay. Leader development is becoming the type of man or woman that God can use to accomplish a skill, task, or assignment given to you by Him. And these are totally different. So let's say that there's a great athletic director or coach or player, or, you know, let's just go outside the box, pastor, politician, business leader, that they have this dramatic fall. And it's a very public fall. And people will go, Well, I don't understand how that happened. Well, not to oversimplify it, but but it really is kind of fundamental how that happened. A person can work on their skills, talents, and abilities and build them up to an extremely high level, but they don't work on their character and becoming the type of person God can use. So what ultimately happens is their skills, talents, and abilities take them to a place their character cannot sustain them. And when I'm when I'm coaching leaders and I'm teaching leaders, one of the things I want to point out is you need to spend an equal amount of time working on your character as you do your competencies. Otherwise, you will be one of those individuals that that has that fall from grace. So to answer the question that you ask, over 400 uh leaders were studied in the Bible for this book. 77 finished well. Think about that for a second. So look around at all your leaders from a biblical perspective, whether you're whether you're an athletic director and you're sitting in a boardroom with all your coaches, or you're a coach and you're there with all your assistants, or or you're a pastor of a church and you're looking out at your congregation, from a biblical perspective, macro level, only one out of six is going to finish well. Wow. They then went back and studied those 77, and that gives us the four traits you talked about. The number one trait that's my personal favorite is brokenness. And the biblical picture for this is you know, Israel wrestling with God. Okay. So he was Jacob before. So he was Jacob when he started the wrestling match. They fought all night, and by the end of the night, God had changed his name. God had changed it basically gave him an entire new identity. And here's the principle that comes out of that. All great leaders, all lasting leaders, their brand is brokenness and humility, and they walk with a limp. When I see a strutting leader, okay, and we all know what that means, you know, they may be very proud of themselves, or hey, if I leave, this whole athletic department's falling apart, or, you know, the, you know, that kind of thing. If I see a strutting leader, I know one of two things. Number one, they haven't been broken yet, and their day is coming. Because God will take every leader through a series of brokenness. Because here's what the brokenness does. The brokenness is a constant reminder that yes, I have my competencies, I have my financial resources, I have my network, I may be located in an area that's a great recruiting ground or something of that nature. I may have facilities, I may have everything I need. Okay. But God will bring everyone to a point where they're on their knees and they're saying, Lord, if you don't come through on this, this whole thing's falling apart. And so the great leaders understand what I call and what Crawford calls the gift of the gap. When we have a gap in our resources, or we have a gap in talent, or we have a gap in knowledge, or we have a gap in talent on our team, that's actually a gift because that gap forces us to press into God and rely on God to fill that gap. And it brings us in total dependence and reliance on Him. And those are the leaders who ultimately ask. A self-reliant leader is a short-term leader. So, of the four principles mentioned, that is my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

That's good. That is good. That kicks us off uh solid. Uh, for our listeners who care about the length of a book when determining what format you're going to digest it in, that's one of the things that we'll mention today. Uh, this one comes in at 208 pages to definitely in anyone's threshold. Next up is our largest uh book of the list, coming in at 416 pages, the Barcelona Complex by Simon Kupler. Tell us about this one.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Yeah, so funny thing. Uh, this past year, one of my uh things I wanted to do with my reading was do a deep dive into European soccer. Okay. Uh, because I'm not an expert on European soccer, but here's what I did know those people are gods in that country. I mean, it's like you've got 11 or 12 Tom Brady's on the team. I mean, so the leadership pressure and what's involved to lead at that level is something I wanted to learn about. So actually, two of our books uh, you know, talk about European soccer. So this is the first one. Barcelona Complex, this is uh Barcelona is the team Lionel Messi played for. So everybody's familiar with that. Here's the thing that I loved about this book, and it's the rise and fall of Barcelona. Barcelona back in the mid-2000s or early 2000s, had four superstars, one of them, a transcendent talent, Messi, in their academy system. So their academies, you know, are just like farm systems in baseball. So they were coming up to their academies and they just had this once-in-a-generation talent and collection of talent. And so then they come up to the team, and they were very innovative in terms of how they played soccer. They were playing very fast, a lot of touches, a lot of passes, very, very innovative in their uh pace and rhythm in terms of how they played. But what happened is these four talents began to dominate. Now, what comes with that is that you've got to pay these four talents. Right. And these four talents aren't going anywhere. So now you had this farm system that no one could make the major league club. So other teams were starting to siphon off their young talent coming up. Well, what happens is you have this 10 to 15 year historic run of excellence. But then what happens after that is now you've got these aging stars who aren't what they used to be. Your financial needs are outpacing your financial resources, and then you don't have a pipeline of talent coming up because there was never anywhere for them to go. So they went to other clubs. So it's a very fascinating case study of what a life cycle of a successful organization looks like. And this is why this is not related to the Barcelona complex, this is why Bill Belichick and the Patriots were so relevant for so long. It's because Bill would let go of people one or two years before he really needed to. What that did, though, was allow the club to have financial constraints, be financially healthy, but also give young talent a place to display their skills. And so Barcelona, the rise and fall, it's really a success story, and then the ultimate trappings that come with a success in that particular environment.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Interesting. Now on to our next book. Uh, this next book comes in at 256 pages. The title is Believe Us by Melissa Reddy. Tell us about this one.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Okay. Uh, this is about Liverpool and their multiple championship team from a couple of years ago. This is the second book on European soccer. Uh, Jurgen Klopp is one of my favorite leaders in the world. They're the manager of that particular club. I did not know a lot about Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp. I just know that they won the championship and I wanted to know how they built the team and built the culture. So that's why I dive into the book. Here's what I loved about that book. Uh, by the way, if we ever do another book on sports culture, this will be one of the top 10 books. Okay. Number one, I love how Jurgen Klopp views failure. Failure is rarely final. I mean, it has to be something traumatic for failure to be final. But failure is a data point. That's how it needs to be viewed. What can we learn about failure? What did this particular failure teach us? And how can we improve from it? That's it. It's a data point. You know, let's don't emotionally overreact. Let's don't make snap judgments. You know, let's don't, it's a data point.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

And so, number one, I loved how he viewed and how he leveraged the subject of failure. The second thing I loved about this book is like we said earlier, uh I mean, these players in Europe are gods. And what he did when he became manager of the Liverpool Football Club is he sat all these players in, elite players, the best of the best. And then Liverpool has over 200 employees: ticket sales, marketing, janitorial staff, lunch room, over 200 employees make up Liverpool. He sat these players down and walked in, each employee one by one, and they said, Hi, my name is Brian Dodd. I work in whatever area, and this is what I do to help make you a champion. Wow. And it was to see that bonding of what I would call in America, we would call everyday mind-to-fivers, you know, with with those elite athletes, I thought was wonderful. And like when they have Christmas parties or celebrations, everybody's invited to it. So let me let me put this in a modern day context. Let's say my wife worked for the marketing department of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At the Christmas party, I'm there with Tom Brady in the lunch line, in the food line, getting my it is a beautiful picture that they've created that every person matters, everyone has value, everybody brings something to the table, and everyone is aligned in the fact that we are here to serve the players on the field so they can win a championship for our organization and our city. It's a beautiful picture of how they build the culture there on that team. And I just absolutely love that book by Melissa Reddy. So good.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Brian, as athletic leaders and coaches, we don't always know if the light at the end of the tunnel to train or if it is a step into brighter days. And sometimes when things are tough, we don't really realize that those tough times may be setting us up for opportunities for success in the future. And it looks like this next one may just be one of those stories. Next up is Chumps to Champs by Bill Pennington. Tell us about this one.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Okay. This this is a wonderful book. It's the story of the Yankees who kind of bottomed out in the late 80s, early 90s, and how they built to the championship dynasty in the mid to late 90s. Okay. Athletic directors need to pay specific attention to this book. What happened was George Steinbrenner got banned from baseball for a couple of years through some issues he had with Dave Winfield. George was notorious for trading prospects for an aging talent to try to win a World Series that year. Well, of course, you know, very similar to Barcelona, the farm system was gutted. And then George was suspended. So Gene Michael and Brian Cashman come in and they realize we've got to start, you know, rebuilding our farm system and getting young talent back in. So what was interesting is the suspension of Steinbrenner actually turned out to be the blessing because they held on to their young talent. They held on to Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada, you know, and these kind of players. George could not trade them. Now, of course, George comes off of suspension. Derek Jeter came razor thin close to being traded on no less than three occasions. Wow. And they somehow held George at bay. And so what athletic directors need to take from this book is uh number one, some people are trying to win in spite of you, you know. So, you know, have a little humility there. Right. And and number two, take a long-term view in terms of how you grade the performance of your coaches and your athletic department. If you see that pipeline building, you know, success is a daily thing. I think every leader should ask themselves this question did I do all the right things today? If I did, I'm already a success. It just hasn't showed up yet. But if you do the right things every day, those good habits compound over time and turn you into a champion. Chumps to champs is a beautiful story of that principle.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

That's good stuff. We were uh just asking for a book list and we're getting lessons in leadership today. So uh if you're not familiar with Brian Dodd and his leadership blog and all that, uh you're getting a little taste of it today. Go look it up. Now it's hard.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

If some of these answers are too long, you you feel free to say, look, Brian, I just need a sentence blurb and we're good.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

No, no, no, no. If it's too long for the listener, they can fast forward. I'm I'm gonna keep listening. So uh I feel like I'm getting I'm getting smarter. If if someone else chooses not to listen, uh I we're getting better than they are today, then that's their choice. So uh we'll let them make that choice. I'm not gonna cut you off when you're delivering goal like that for sure. Now, it is hard to argue with the success the Yankees have had over the years. That book is 368 pages, but it is full of really great stuff that you just shared. I'm interested in the George Steinbrenner story, even though it's not necessarily a leadership goal there. But uh our next book on the list is another one where it's hard to argue with the success uh a team has had, and it's called A Season in the Sun. That was gonna be tough for me to say. A season in the sun. It's about the Tampa Bay Bucks World Championship last year. It's by Lars Anderson. I believe he's also wrote a book about Nick Saban, if I'm not mistaken. But uh, Brian, tell us a little bit about this book about the Tampa Bay Bucks.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yeah, well, I'll tell you about Lars real fast since you brought him up. Lars is actually, he's head of the journalism department at the University of Alabama. Okay. Uh so he's an educator, so that's number one. But he's written a number of great books. He's written a book on the Mannings, he's written two books on Cope Saban. Uh, he wrote a book on Bruce Arians called The Quarterback Whisperer. So, you know, obviously that gave him access into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this past year. Lars Anderson's one of my favorite authors. I look forward to his book every year. Everybody kept saying last year how Tom Brady had changed the Buccaneers culture. And I agreed with that. Everybody agreed with that. That was obvious. But what no one talked about was okay, exactly how did he do it? This book tells you how to do it. I actually wrote a blog post coming out of this book called Can One Person Change an Organization's Culture? And it's really the lessons that Tom Brady did and what he did once he was signed. And I'll hit a couple of them real fast. So, Tom Brady, now, first of all, let's just remember this. Tom Brady's a six-time Super Bowl champ. He's the GOAT. He has every right to be entitled in professional football. Okay. He is signed. The first thing he does after signing his contract is say, I want the cell number to every player on the team. He then reached out either by a personal phone call or a text to every player on the team. Wow. All 52 other players. You know, let's be honest. They should be calling him, but he was calling them. Okay. So number one, he reached out to them. Number two, of course, the pandemic was going on. He organized the throwing uh camps with the wide receivers. They're locally in Tampa. These got to be so popular that offensive linemen were flying in from out of town because they didn't want to miss this. Well, then, of course, the defensive players didn't want to miss it either. They wanted to get in the work and all of that. So, number one, he he led and changed the culture through relationship. Relationships, but then he also led and changed the culture through preparation. He's obviously the most experienced player on the team. They handed iPads to everybody and they can track your time studying film on the iPad. Tom Brady studied more than any player on the team. Okay. Tom Brady was relentless in practice. He taught the young people how to practice. When people made mistakes, Tom never raised his voice. He never yelled at them. He came over as a mentor and coached them through their mistakes. Tom obviously modeled how to take care of your body. So because of all of this, that Tampa Bay Buccaneers squad hung on every word he said. And obviously, he had the hardware, he had the six rings, he had the reputation, he had all of that to have the cachet needed to have influence in the locker room. But in addition to that, he gained even more influence because how he served them. And so when you look at how Tom Brady changed culture, those are the things he did: relationships, preparation. How do you handle conflict? You know, how do you handle success and failure? You know, and he also did this. When the coaches asked them to do something, when Tom said, this will work, this will make us a champion, you do it. Basically, what he did is he gave credibility to Bruce Arians and Todd Bowles and Byron Leftwich and the staff because he bought into what they were doing. So that's if you're saying, okay, I'm a new leader in a new location, how do I change the culture? That's how you do it. If you study this book from a Tom Brady perspective, this book will help you know how to impact and change culture. And you may or may not win a championship. We all know you need a lot of luck to do that as well. But you'll have a winning culture if you do the principles that Brady did in this book.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

So good. I added this one to my cart recently. I'm looking forward to diving into it really soon. Uh, this book comes in at 288 pages if you're counting at home. Uh, let's move on to our next book, B2.0, by Jim Collins, who many believe is the most influential business thinker of our era. What can we learn from this one?

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Yeah, here's the thing you're going to want to learn about this. B2.0, if I can use it this way, is uh Jim Collins' greatest hits. So he's written the previous books, Built to Last, Good to Great, Why the Mighty Fall, Great by Choice, Good to Great in the Social Sector. So he's written these other books. Those books, theoretically, from an application standpoint, are not written in order. What B2.0 does is it takes all of these five books and combines them into a single stream of personal growth and development. So each year, I always, for a handful of people, I send them my favorite book for Christmas. This book came out last February, uh, nine months ago at the time of this taping. I said this back in February, and I say it today. This will be the book that those close to me get for Christmas. Wow. Because if any leader, you I would say this: if you've not read Jim's five books, all of them, then get this one. It's the greatest hits, and it'll tie everything together. And uh if it will truly improve your leadership exponentially.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

That's good. I think that's going to be on my Christmas list there. Uh I'm gonna take that to the bank and uh just go ahead. If my parents are listening, my wife's listening, maybe they can just go ahead and put that on the Christmas list.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

So hey, and I'll tell them this too. That book's been out nine months. So you don't have to pay the opening $24.99 cost on Amazon. You'll probably get it for like 10 to 12 bucks now. So, you know, you can get Josh Christmas pretty cheap this year, then it's good.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

I like I like uh cheap cheap presents. Maybe I get two books. There you go. All right. Uh, this book uh did come in at 352 pages, but don't be afraid of the link because it appears to be uh a great one, as you said, the greatest hits. So uh let's move on to the next one. Uh everybody's gonna recognize this author. The book is The Leader's Greatest Return by John Maxwell. It's hard to have a list of leadership books without one from John Maxwell for sure. So why is this one on the list this year?

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Okay, this book means a lot to me personally. And so I'm gonna be real transparent now in terms of talking about this book. I had the privilege on February 7th, 2020, right before the pandemic started, to go to a live taping of which John was taping the video resource for this book that was releasing. And what the leader's greatest return is, is when you reach a certain level in your leadership and you've done it for so long, if you have purposefully and intentionally invested in leaders under you, I hate to use that word, but on the org chart under you. We hope we can all understand that. Understood. Um, and invested in the next generation, your greatest return is the compounding interest and the compounding effect of what all these other leaders are doing that you've ever invested in them. Now, here's why this was very important to me, and why I think it's very important to some people in your audience. At the time, I was 54 years old. And where I work, I lead a department, but I'm also expected to be the number one producer. Okay. So there is a lot of pressure on that production. I heard Mac Brown once say, you know, in an interview, when you look at the he was at Texas and they said, you know, you look at this stadium and there's a hundred thousand people in here. What are you thinking? And he goes, I'm thinking about all these other sports I got to pay for. Okay. Well, sometimes when you're the top producer, that is how you think. And I was working really, really hard and I was trying to hit my numbers, and I had a daughter in college, and you know, I was internalizing everything. And what I learned on that day, February 7th, 2020, and what this book teaches is at the time, Brian, it's like God told me, Brian, you're 54 years old. For what you do, you're arguably at the top of your profession. And you think you're investing in everybody else by default. But if you don't start doing it by design and being intentional about it, here's what's going to happen, Brian. In the church world where you work, you got about five to 10 years of relevancy left, tops. When you're done, if you've not invested in other people, or if you or if I call you home before then, everything that's been invested in you for the last 30 years dies with you. The leader's great, what God showed me and what this book taught me is when I'm making investments in other people, everything that's been deposited in me, everything I've that's why I love these podcasts. I get to share what I've learned. You know, it's not just me reading a book. Everything that I've passed on to other people will outlive me here on this earth. And my leg, my legacy will be determined by everybody else and what I invested in them. It won't be in what I've done, you know. And the greatest return is the multiplication of investment in other people. And I think when you're an athletic director, there would be an extreme pressure that you've got to produce winners and you've got to generate X number of dollars. And there is measurements to our professions. That's a fact. But if we're talking about legacy and we're talking about impact, at the end of the day, your legacy and your impact won't be the number of championships you won or the amount of dollars that you raised or the expansion of your facilities. Your ultimate legacy and the multiplicated value that comes from it will be everybody you invested in, you equipped, you made them better. Uh, their life is fuller and more complete because you were allowed to be a part of it. That's the leader's greatest return. So I would recommend this book to anybody who, number one, wants to know how to leave a great legacy. Number two, wants to know how to make the greatest impact they possibly can. And number three is in some form of leadership that the pressures of production seem overwhelming. And there's got to be more than just production. That's an oval track. I mean, look at Ed Orgeron. He won it, he won a championship two years ago. He's out at the end of this year. Okay. There's got to be more than just that. This book is the perfect resource for those people. So good.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Uh as Josh said or alluded to, I think we'd lose all credibility if we didn't include one of Maxwell's books in this list. Uh, and like most of his, at 240 pages, it's a very good manageable link. And like you said, it kind of speaks to what we do as educators. You know, our return on investment is much further down the road uh than the immediate uh for us. Um, let's move on to our next book. Uh, and it's one that I think a lot of leaders are going to be interested in because we're always looking for those people in our organization who we can count on in those critical situations. Tell us about Impact Players by Liz Wiseman.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Okay, this is a book that's just come out in the last month. Liz Wiseman, I was very familiar with. Uh, she's part of the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit uh faculty. So I've heard her speak a number of times. And when the book Impact Players came out, obviously I was very excited about it just from the title. You know, here's what this impact leaders is about. This is not about good employees and bad employees, or good players, bad players, good coaches, bad coaches. This is about all good coaches, all good players, all good educators, the good ones. But within the good ones, there all these people have basically equal skill, equal training, equal education, all that. But there's a handful that kind of rise to the top. Why? That's what Impact Players is about. And uh, so I'm gonna tell you one thing I learned from this book that I applied this week. So this is real-time information. When you read a book, here's some questions you should ask. What book am I reading? What did I read that day? How am I applying it? Okay, very, very so. If you're wanting to mentor people and you say, Well, how do you mentor somebody? Get a book, read a chapter, what'd you learn? How are you applying it? It really is that easy. So, one of the things uh great employees do, so Don and Josh, your athletic directors, you got these coaches. A coach says, How you know, how can I serve you? Well, there's a number of ways they can do it, but one is called make work lighter and help them finish. In other words, if I give you, say, I want your budget for this next year, some people will just send you an Excel spreadsheet with the line items in the budget. Other people may send you an Excel spreadsheet with the line items in the budget, but then an executive summary of here's why we're wanting this. Here's the way we're gonna leverage it, here's what we think our return on investment is gonna be. That's an impact player. Okay. So think of meetings like a poker game. And you got three chips. I'm not gonna speak into every issue. I some issues aren't important to me. I've got enough influence that I can talk for three minutes without, you know, sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher after a while. So I got three chips I'm gonna play in this meeting. And I need to think about that before I go in the meeting. Now, here's the key. Two of the chips are how do I make my boss successful? And I need to develop the skill to look through his or her eyes and help make that mission or vision become reality, or help make that task assignment or project successful. So I'm gonna leverage my influence, two of my three chips, on what's important to them and how I can help that become successful. The third chip gets to be mine. Okay. I'll give you a real life example of how I used it this week. I had a meeting at church, and we were going over last year's budget. And fortunately, last year's budget, we had a great year. God was great to us. We 13 to 18 percent over over uh budget, over giving last year. Wow. Okay. Now, of course, we all know that there's people that hey, how can we make it better? You know, we missed opportunity, we left plays on the field, you know, that that kind of thing. So here's what I did. One of my three chips was gonna be we won. This is me looking through the eyes of my pastor, Ike Riker. Okay, we won. I want Ike to be encouraged. Okay, we hit all our financial goals and we actually exceeded them. Number one, we won. Okay. Number two, I wanted to serve him by creating a what's called an annual funding plan for the next year. A budget, by the way, athletic directors, is a spending plan. A funding plan is how do you generate the resources so the budget can do its work. The finance committee will come up with the budget. I wanted to work with Ike and leverage my influence to develop a funding plan so Ike's mission and vision and what he felt God wanted him and our church to accomplish next year would not have a resource problem. By the way, we all know that where there is no vision, the people perish. Where there are no financial resources, the vision perishes. Every athletic director knows that. Okay. So number that those are my two chips on Ike's behalf. The third chip was my chip. And I actually agreed with the person. I have a little bit of, hey, let's make it better myself in me. Okay, but I didn't want to lead with that. That was a chip that I wanted to save after I had earned the credibility by helping out my leader's vision become reality. Once it becomes reality, then I can talk about how to make it better. So that is a real life example of where I know impact players enter meetings with three chips, and two of them have to be used for their boss. And then they get to play their chip. And when conversations come up that don't fall in those three chips, I don't need to participate in those conversations. There are people who are more passionate about that subject than I am. There are more people more educated on that subject than I am. I don't need to speak into it. I don't have to use, I don't, I don't need to miss steward my my influence by speaking in on those things, but there's three that I'm gonna speak in on. I learned that from impact players.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Wow, what a concept. I love that. Uh it changes the mindset going into meetings. I I'm picturing myself drawing three circles on the bottom of my agenda at a meeting and you know, playing my chips when I need to. That's really cool. Concept that came from Impact Players there. That book's 336 pages, by the way. And um obviously, I mean, it just has me intrigued. So it's a must for leaders, it sounds like. Now, we talk all the time on this podcast that there really are no little things. Little things become big things, and and really and truly everything matters. Our next book on the list comes in at 304 pages. Talk to us about Raise Your Game by Alan Stein.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

Yeah, I love this book by Alan Stein. Alan Stein is a personal performance coach. And uh the thing about Alan is he primarily specializes with NBA players. And if you're looking on how to maximize performance, particularly in the athletic realm, this is a book you will want to buy. It's a fun read, it's a very educational read. I'll give you one of my favorite stories from the book. So Alan was working Kobe Bryant's Nike Skills training camp that he puts on for students. And so he was not going to miss an opportunity because he this was back in around 06 when Kobe was the best player in the world. Uh LeBron had not totally become LeBron yet. You know, he was certainly ascending in that direction, but Kobe was the best player in the world. And so he goes, Kobe, I want to go watch one of your workout sessions. He says, Perfect. Be at the gym at four o'clock tomorrow morning. Okay, well, 4 a.m. is early for anybody. Okay. But Alan's like, okay, well, I'm not going to miss this. And then Alan does this. He says, you know what? I'm going to beat him. I'm going to get there at 3:45. I'm going to show him I'm serious. Right. He gets there at 3:45. Kobe was already there in full sweat. You know, I had been working out since 3 a.m., full sweat. And as Alan began to watch him, the same drills that a middle schooler would do, Kobe, the best NBA player in the world, was attacking them with the Mamba mentality. So after the workout was over, Alan approached him and he said, Kobe, I want to ask you a question. You're the best player in the world. Why do you work so hard on the basic fundamentals like that? He goes, Alan, because I work so hard on the basic fundamentals, is why I'm the best player in the world. Got it. These are the kind of lessons you get from the book Raise Your Game. And I cannot recommend this book enough. You know, we got a mutual friend, Mike Lynch. I recommended it to Mike. It's now one of Mike's favorite books as well. But uh, but yeah, Raise Your Game is a personal favorite. And if you got a sports fan who's a leader, that this is a fun read, an easy read, an educational read. Great Christmas gift for them.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah, I know Alan spun a podcast off of that as well. I've listened to his podcast a couple of times. But before Don finishes up, I wanted to say, Brian, my goal this year was 20 books, and I'm gonna I'm gonna come right down to the wire. Um, I have not read 400 page books, but I'm looking over here at my stack and the two-minute manage, the two-minute leader is uh it was on my stack for 2021. So uh if you don't know about the two-minute leader, it's uh one of Brian Dodd's couple three books he's written. So go uh go look that up. It's a quick, easy little uh reminder of how to be a quick uh how to be a good leader. So well, thank you for that.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

I I appreciate it. By the way, let me ask you then. So you're gonna you're about 20 books. How many did you read last year? I think I was 14. All right, look at you. So I six divided by 14. You've improved like 45% this year.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

So great job, Josh. I gotta I I I'm at about 16 right now. I got a couple started, so I've got to finish strong here. So we'll see if I can make it. Okay, that sounds good. Well, even if 16, you've improved. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

So awesome. Brian, let's finish with this comprehensive list with one that I've got on my desk. I'm ready to start it. Uh, and that's the latest by Tim Elmore, the eight paradoxes of great leadership. Tell us about this one.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

Yeah, a lot of your educators are probably familiar with Tim. He's got the uh the organization called Growing Leaders, uh, which works with educators, athletic teams. I mean, uh Tim, I've been aware of Tim for 30 years. Uh, he and I are both part of the John Maxwell leadership tree. So we're part of John Maxwell's greatest return. I I just love everything Tim writes. And and what Tim goes into is coming out of the pandemic, leadership is not as linear as it used to be. It used to be, I mean, we'll talk about it from an athletic perspective. It used to be like the coach was the almighty and everything flowed from the coach. And things are just so much more nuanced now. And so Tim goes through eight paradoxes of great leadership. And I'm just gonna hit them real fast, but I want to spend a little time on how he concluded the book. But like, here's your paradoxes you must be able to balance confidence with humility. You must leverage both your vision and your blind spots. You know, there's things you don't know. One thing that COVID uh revealed is there's a lot we don't know, you know. Um, you know, you've got to embrace what's visible and what's invisible, you know. You know, and what that means is as a leader, sometimes you're out front, and there's sometimes you need to step back and let other people go out front. Uh so that's what it means by that. You gotta be stubborn and open minded. You need to lead in a way that's deeply personal, what's important to you, what your core values are, but inherently collective. How can what's going on in my life, I build a tribe of people very similar? You got to be a learner and a teacher. You know, obviously your audience would understand that. You got to have high standards. Do not lower your standards, but you've got to increase your graciousness and your forgiveness. Okay. Uh, and and you've got to be timely. In other words, you got to speak to the events of the day, but you've also got to be timeless. There are timeless truths that have always been in place. And so you've got to be both of those. And then Tim closes out and he talks about a concept called a poet gardener. Okay. And what poet gardeners are is this people who obviously can have great communicative skills and rally people and talk about the times and be relevant, but at the same time build teams and cultivate and disciple people and mentor people and bring them along. And here's what these people are, and I'll hit them real fast. Highly relational. They interpret their culture well. They're emotionally secure. They share ownership freely. They empower others. They're comfortable with uncertainty. They listen and foster self-discovery. They embrace the role of a mentor. They're less formal in structure. There is structure, but there's less formality to it. And they're driven by service to the common good greater than their personal ego or agenda. These are the type of leaders that are succeeding today. And by the way, people who are continual learners, from a leadership perspective, they have a head start on what it takes to be successful today. COVID leveled the playing field for everybody. And those people who are learners and growers and collaborators, and will freely admit they don't have all the answers. These people have a head start on everybody else. Everybody else is trying to shoehorn old ideas and old agendas into a new paradigm. But the learners and the growers just have a head start above everybody. So that's Tim Elmore's book.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

So good. Thank you, Brian. It 240 pages. I'm ready to dig into this one soon. Uh, but I doubt that I'm gonna have the view that you did when you read it. Uh, I saw you posted that on Twitter. It made a lot of people jealous. Uh, so I appreciate you doing that. Uh, I have no idea where you were, but it looked fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

Uh it was Gatlinburg. I was I was in Gatlinburg. I had to get, you know, there's an old saying, you got to come apart or you're gonna come apart, you know. So so it was time for me to enjoy some fall leaves and and get up to Gatlinburg and read a couple of books and and just you know, it's funny. I uh I actually wrote a blog post last night. It was posted today. We had a face in a face-to-face encounter with a black bear.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

I saw that.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

And uh, so that that's today's but it was a great trip, very memorable trip. And uh so yes, we had a wonderful view reading Tim's book.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Yeah, so you got a little bit of an insight there uh into what Brian does. You know, he can find leadership lessons in anything, whether if it's interactions with bears or catching a cat from an upper level uh of a stadium. Uh, he he can find a way to do it. Brian, thank you so much for the time today. I'm ready to hit proceed to check out on my Amazon card. I know our listeners will too, once they pick up these books. And we're always looking to learn. Uh, I feel comfortable saying to anyone listening that you can find a book for you in this list. Uh, we hope that leaders listening are going to use this list as they develop their own stack for 2022. Uh, Brian, close us out with telling our listeners the best way to connect with you uh and how to find your podcast, as well as maybe even give us a preview, give us one book that's already on your 2022 list that you look forward to reading.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Yeah, absolutely. Uh well, first of all, let me just say this: Don, what you and Josh are doing in terms of providing this resource to athletic directors and coaches and educators, God bless you for it. It's an invaluable resourcing gift to these leaders. And I just number one want to thank you for that. To tell people uh where you can find me. Brian Dodd on leadership.com is is obviously, you know, my website. I post about five times a week. And it is a it's a myriad of leadership activity. It's church, it's sports, it's business, it's family. You know, what I try to do is just take the experiences of my life and other people's lives and and process it through a leadership grid. And maybe we can talk about this at another time. I've actually, at 55 years old, changed the way I write. And my website's grown by over 40% by doing it. Wow. So that, you know, it's it's you know, you're not too old to change, you know, that's what I'd say. But also on Twitter, I know we interact a lot on Twitter at Brian K Dodd, B-R-I-A-N-K-D-O-D-D. And I'd love for your uh listeners to reach out. And also, I have a great passion uh for educators and coaches and athletic directors and and what they what they're called to do and the generational impact of their investment. And if I can ever serve your audience in any way, I'd be absolutely honored. Uh, the book I'm looking forward to. I've pre-ordered it. Uh, Bill Polian, uh, the the former GM of the Colts, and you know, the other team is escaping me. He's Peyton Manning's Buffalo Bills. He went to four Super Bowls. Okay. Uh, he's got a book coming out at the end of November. It's released on November 30th. I've already pre-ordered it. I think it's called the Super Bowl Blueprint or something like that. He's done a deep dive into Super Bowl teams and Super Bowl champions and how they built and constructed their teams. So I can't wait to read that book. Uh, if you if you search it on Amazon, Bill Polian, he's only written two books. The game plan, his other book is also an excellent book, but it's called The Blueprint, I think, and it comes out November 30th. It's on my list. I can't wait for it. Awesome. Brian, thank you so much for the time today. Oh, thank you guys. Thanks, Brian.