SPEAKER_00 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.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Welcome to another episode of Hanging with the AD Podcast. This week we head to Texas and sit down with leadership author and speaker Stephen Mackey. This episode kicks off with Mackey outlining his six habits of a championship character, a blueprint for cultivating student athletes who pursue excellence in every aspect of life. He shares insights on whether these habits follow a specific order, and which habit he believes is the essential starting point when developing champions from scratch. We close with a discussion on excellence, what it truly means, why it's a non-negotiable for leaders, and why so many people settle for less rather than choosing to pursue excellence consistently. Whether you're an athletic director, coach, educator, or leader in any space, this episode is packed with practical wisdom, authentic encouragement, and actionable strategies for shaping the next generation of leaders. Let's settle in and get to know Stephen Mackey.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Stephen, we're so glad to have you joining Don and me for this episode of Hanging with EAD. We were fortunate to hear you recently at the NADC, and we know today's going to be a treat as well. So thanks for being with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Glad to be here, coach. Thankful for the work you do, both in the podcast and day to day in your districts and in your communities.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah. So for our listeners, Stephen Mackey is the founder of Two Words Character Development, a program where he develops players and helps them connect athletics to life. He's a best-selling author of The Locker Room with Damon West. Got the book right here for everybody to take a look at on YouTube. And he is a renowned keynote speaker on building a culture of character within your organization. As mentioned, he was the keynote speaker at the 2024 National AD Conference in Austin, Texas. His Two Words Character Development Program is the official character development curriculum of the Texas High School Coaches Association. But we'll stop right there and let Steven tell us a little bit more about his journey in leadership. Stephen, we call it the back of the baseball card bio. So please take a minute, tell us what the back of Stephen Mackey's baseball card might look like.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

You got it, man. So, you know, I am uh I'm a simple dude, man, from small town Texas. I I had a desire to give back to my community. And so for seven years, I was a volunteer and I volunteered at my local high school and helped my coach and our players connect the dots between sports and life. What I saw was that we had these incredible young men who could understand complex defensive schemes. They could remember offensive plays that were longer than a paragraph and alliteration and all these different things. And they would push themselves and they had great work ethic and discipline. They could make some really, really hard choices in the moment. But as soon as you took them off the field and you put them in the classroom, those same kids became boneheads. The work ethic, the discipline, the decision making, all of that, it was like they were a completely different person. And as I saw this, I simply said, fellas, if we'll just connect the dots, if we'll do in the classroom what you're doing on the field, I mean, you won't just be all district on the field, you'll be all district in the classroom. And if you could get it in the classroom, then you could get it in the hallway with your relationships and how you interact with other people and the impact you make on campus. And if you can get it there, then you could get it at the house. And if you can get it at the house, then you could get it anywhere. And so from the very beginning, my goal was simply to help athletes connect the dots between sports and life. And over seven years of volunteering, uh, the day came on January 12th, 2017, when a friend of mine said, Mac, I think you can make a living doing this. And I said, James, man, I give seven minute talks before football games. You don't make a living doing that. And he gave me the best piece of advice ever. He said, Mackie, don't start with no, start with yes. If you knew it would work, what would you do? And that was where the idea for two words character development was born. It was born out of this idea that if I knew I could make an impact, if I knew I could be the character and leadership coach for schools across Texas and across the country, if I knew I couldn't fail, why would I not do it? And if I would be willing to do it if I knew I wouldn't fail, well, then the only thing that's going to keep me from failing, or the only thing that's going to cause me to fail, is not trying. And so we did. And uh now, uh some eight years later, uh, over 50% of the districts in the state of Texas have used one of our programs. We serve schools across 22 states across the U.S. Um, and it's been an incredible journey of listening to coaches and asking the question how can we help you help your kids? And then giving our very best work to that.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Man, that's good. Sounds like your friend's been reading some John Gordon about don't start with no, start with yes. I think I've read that before. Uh that's good stuff. But I really like the roadmap from the field to the classroom, the hallway to the house to anywhere. That's a great roadmap for anyone to use, any coach to take and use. Uh, I'm definitely going to show my coaches that again of hey, this is this is where you take a kid, and that kid takes anything you give him from the field to those other places, or they don't take anything at all, right? Or they stop somewhere in that roadmap. So that's a that's a great roadmap to start us off with, man. What what a way to kick off the baseball card. Wow, that's that's good. All right, let's jump in. Something you talked about that I really just gravitated toward was your uh six habits of championship character. Now we're not gonna jump into all of them. Obviously, um, you need people to listen to you and you want people to have you come talk about them, not just on the podcast, and we wouldn't give away all your secrets, but uh you know, we don't we don't really have time for a deep dive. But can you just give us those six habits of championship character and then we'll we may pull one or two out?

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Yes, absolutely. So, what I would say when we think about the six pillars of a championship culture, uh, these are really six big umbrellas. And what I wanted to do when I put these together was to say, if any coach anywhere had an ism, and you know as well as I do, every coach everywhere has an ism. You got something that they're about, right? Right. I wanted to say if we could create an umbrella that could catch every ism that there is, how would we do that? And as I sat down with coaches and I visited with them and I listened to them and I followed them on Twitter and I looked at the the branding on the walls, uh, what we found were that there were six things that if we can get student athletes to capture, to master these things, then not only will they be the right kind of people, but they'll be the kind of people that can be intrinsically motivated or by their character, they can be motivated to reach goals. They can align who they are with what they want to do. And so those very simply are uh tough people win, integrity over everything, growth follows belief, excellence everywhere, relentless effort and service before self. Now, if your mascot happens to be the tigers, then I just did a whole lot of work for you, uh, absolutely for free. T-I-G-E-R-S, and it's an easy way to remember it. Uh, but what each beyond the branding is it allows us to look at things like grit, personal code, work ethic, goal setting, growth mindset, and servant leadership. And and and whether you look at it kind of on the branding side or the the the deeper idea side, uh, this is really what we're we're working to teach. And as we teach in our curriculum or when I speak, I only talk about those six things. Now, I may do it in a million different ways, but at the end of the day, if you distill it all down, those are the only six things that I ever talk about. Now, as a coach that is thinking about, well, how do I do this for my program? I would throw this suggestion out there. Don't get caught up in the branding or the the free or how you're gonna promote it on Twitter. Sometimes we let being cute or catchy become more important than being meaningful or being helpful to students. Instead, what I would do is I would begin as a coach with what are your non-negotiables? What are the things that you want to be true of your program? And as a coach, you have the right to say, these are the things that I want to be true of a program that I lead, because your program is going to be reflective of you as a person, you as a leader. So what are those non-negotiables? I would can I would balance that with what do my kids need the most? Right. Because sometimes the things that you want to be true just aren't that helpful to your kids. You can you can go die on a hill about haircuts, but if you die on that hill and the kids choose not to be in the program, you've won that battle of what's important to you, but you've lost the kid. Now, I'm not saying that we can't have short haircuts or anything like that. But what I am saying is let's balance non-negotiables with what's good for kids and what those specific kids need. From there, let's begin to think about number one how do we define the trait? What is our definition? And this is a great place to get students involved. Because if you were to ask your coaching staff and let's just say your baseball team, how do we define toughness? I bet you'd get as many different answers as there are people in the room.

SPEAKER_04 10:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Not because toughness is hard to define, but because depending on the perspective that you are looking at this from, you're going to see something different. And so as a team, each year you have the non-negotiable of toughness. It's good for your kids. And as a 2025 program, you let them put their fingerprints on what that definition is. And from there, you let that team put their fingerprints on what the commitment is. So let's just recap quickly what we need if you're going to do this in your own program. You need the non-negotiables, you need what's good for your kids right now, you need how you're going to define it. You need what, you need a commitment that is a crystal clear, I am doing this or I am not. And then you need the branding. You see, sometimes we get caught up in that branding and we forget the other things. So that's essentially what we did was we walked through that process, and the end result was the six pillars of a championship character. And that has become the foundation of not only our character curriculum, but also our leadership development curriculum.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

That is so good. I think you just kind of mentioned something that kind of hit me right between the eyes because we are in the process of uh we have just hired a new football coach at one of the schools that I serve. And um I was on the panel there. And one of the things that I always tell you know, principals and athletic directors when they're going to hire, especially someone like a head football coach, which arguably, in my opinion, outside of the principal and the AD, they're the most important person in the building, uh, if not the most important person in the building, that idea of what is good for your kids right now. I always ask that. Like, what do they need? It's not probably going to be, it may not be the flashiest resume that comes in here, right? What do they need at this moment in time? I think that people neglect that. And to your point, they chase the flashy things and don't focus on that substance enough. I think it's a great point.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Yeah, I I I took away there. I mean, just one intangible. I've said this and you kind of reiterated it there from a 30,000 uh foot viewpoint. At Pope High School, where I'm at, we're blessed to have some excellent student athletes. Our team GPA, overall GPA, is like a 3.6 every semester. It's incredible. It's it's dumb. I do nothing, I would bring it down if I had anything to do about it. But we have had coaches come here in the past. I may be giving a secret away here and say, Hey, if I came to run this program, I'd have study hall five days a week or whatever. No, that they don't need it, they don't uh, and it's that's a great thing. It's kind of a brag, but it is a brag on our kids. They don't need study hall. There may be a kid that needs it, but you don't need to do it five days a week because you can be wasting time that you could be doing something else, right? So uh know what your kids need most. That was great. I agree with Don there. Hey, uh, on those things: toughness, integrity, growth, excellence, effort, service. Were those in order if you were building a team? Build or and if not, Stephen Mackey, you've taught this. If you're building a team or building a an athlete, student athlete, which one would you start with if you were telling a coach, start with this one?

SPEAKER_03 14:29

So they're they're not in any particular order, and even in our curriculum, uh, we'll bounce around. You know, we we our curriculum is 36 weeks. So each year we create 36 new lessons, six on each pillar. And we we we write them, we deliver them in random orders. Uh, the order that I teach them in is uh is the order that I wrote about them uh with Damon West in the locker room, uh, the Tigers acronym. And it just really just helps me remember on the stage so I don't get lost. Um, that said, I think you could follow the same process. And if you were going to try to implement these six pillars, you could look at and go, where are my students at? Let your students answer the question. Here's what I believe, coach, about students today, about this generation. I believe that students will tell adults everything we need to know to help them be successful if we will just shut up long enough to listen.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

And they will tell us in their words when we've built the relationship and we've given them space to do so. But they'll also tell us in their actions by what they do well and what they don't do well, but in their commitments, in their values, in the patterns of their choices, all of those things give us feedback. It's just as adults, we don't always want to listen to what they're saying or what they're showing us. So I would say if you're gonna get going and you're gonna really dive in on one pillar, listen to your students, watch them, observe them. Dare I say, ask them and let them decide. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Really good. All right, I want to jump to another uh kind of topic you shared at the NADC there in Austin, and it was your five types of encouragement. Not gonna ask you to throw out all of them. I I just you know, personally, I thought they were all right on the right on right on spot, except for one that kind of surprised me, and that was encouragement through your call-outs. Sounds like a contradictory statement there. Can you explain more about how you can encourage someone through calling them out?

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Absolutely. So, this is one of the things, uh, if not the thing, that I talk about everywhere I go, whether I'm speaking to businesses, to professional athletes, collegiate athletes, or high school students. This is for me a non-negotiable in leadership and in character development, because our words matter so much. And especially our students are under such great pressure. If you were to ask students, uh, do you feel a sense of time pressure, pressure for success, and all these their hands are going to shoot up and there's gonna be there's pressure everywhere. And so what they need is not more pressure, what they need is encouragement. And so uh we we talk about the five types of encouragement. That's encouragement by your example, encouragement through your support, encouragement through your belief, encouragement through your words, and then encouragement through your call-outs. And I say that your call out is an encouragement because it's really hard, especially when you look through the lens of student to student, it's really hard for a young person to have a hard conversation with their friend, to call a teammate out. Um, that's probably the thing that students ask me for help with the most, uh, how to build confidence and how to have hard conversations. And so the reason I say that this is an encouragement is because when students know how hard it is to have that hard conversation and you're willing to do it anyways, here's what it communicates is that I care more about you and you being your best than I do about what's comfortable or easy for me. As a coach, it says, I care enough about you that I am going to keep on trying to help you get it right. And I'm not gonna lower the standard. Um, if I were to put it in uh in, shall I say um old school terms, um, coaches might say, uh, if I'm yelling, you know I care. Right? That's how coaching used to describe. I'm saying the same thing that when I'm calling you out, you know that I care about you. Because, and here's what we teach is if you care enough to call somebody out, you have to care enough to help them get it right. And if you don't, you don't get to call them out. So now imagine the reframing of this situation where the call out goes from you're slacking, you're not getting it done, be better. I'm putting you down, I'm I'm highlighting your failures to hey, we're better than this. Come on, we got this. Hey, me and you this time, we're running this one, and you better not let me beat you. Here we go. That's an entirely different reference point. And so when we get to that moment, I can think in my own life of times where I've had teammates call me out and go, bro, that's not who we are. I mean, you're better than that. They're seeing me lower the standard. They're going, no, no, no. We don't get where we want to get by you doing that. And I want you to succeed because my success is your success. That's an interconnected team. So if you fall short, then I fail. So here we go. We got to get it right. And that's why the callout can be an encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

That's really good. I tell you you mentioned that idea. If I'm yelling at you, I care about you. I I think back my my high school position coach must have cared about me just a lot. He must have really cared about me because he did a he did a lot of that. Um, now you talked about the miracle of the locker room. Um, I think that every coach uh would love to know how to get this miracle so that they have a great team chemistry, uh, which most often leads to great results. Doesn't always, uh, but a lot of times I think those things kind of go hand in hand. What component or components create this quote unquote miracle of the locker room?

SPEAKER_03 21:02

So, Damon and I, my co-author in the locker room, we identified six commitments that uh teams can make that will help create this miracle. And I'll save some of them for when readers go and read the locker room. It's an easy read. It'll take you about 45, 50 minutes to read. Uh, you get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Uh, but some of the commitments that we talk about are things that are inherent to uh what coaches want to see. So, for example, uh that when when uh a locker room, a miracle locker room happens, when you commit to a goal that is bigger than self. So as a team, we see that there is something bigger than my stats, my applause or my celebration, and that it's this bigger picture. And we work, we don't stop. I picture always a map. And I live just north of San Antonio in Texas. And if we were just to go straight up I-35, you know, you could get to Dallas, but if you keep going, you might get to Oklahoma City. And I always vision envision it as if to say Dallas is the personal goal and Oklahoma City is the team goal. And when you play for something bigger than self, you're playing for Oklahoma City. Now, the beauty is when you play for Oklahoma City, you get Dallas along the way. You get your goal along the way. But when you stop at your goal or Dallas, you miss the team goal, Oklahoma City. Another of the commitments is to say that the standard is the standard and it's not lowered for anyone, regardless of talent, position, that the standard means something. And this is one of the really hard situations that coaches can be in when they really have to choose between this player that we know is going to make a difference and the reality that maybe they didn't live up to the standard. And that can be a really hard choice for a coach to make. And I don't fault a coach for whatever decision that they make, but I will say it's really hard to experience the miracle of a locker room when everybody knows there's a different set of rules for different people. Another of the commitments that we make is to say that everyone, regardless of their history, their hurts, their hangups, their background, that we don't view our differences as obstacles to be overcome, but as the strength to overcome our obstacles. And this is really easy to see in athletics. You can have a team full of Tom Brady's and you won't be very successful. Now you'll have a great quarterback, and if that if QB1 goes down, then you've got a whole lot of QBs to back him up. But Tom Brady does a lot of things. He's probably not a very good offensive lineman. He's probably not a very good defensive back. It takes a variety of body types, of dispositions, of skills to make a team successful on the field. The same thing is true when we look culturally, personality, all the different races. And that's the beauty of a locker room, is that all kinds of different people come together. There's nowhere else in America that is as integrated and is as together as sports. And so as we look at those commitments that I shared and some of the others, what we what we find is that when we make these commitments, we're clear on what they are, and then we just start working backwards. A phrase I'll use often is ask how and answer with an action. Ask how do we commit to a goal bigger than ourselves? And answer that with an action. And then ask of that first action, how do we do that? And then answer with an action. And you keep going until you get to the next or excuse me, the first most doable step. And then you do it. And then you do the next and you climb the ladder all the way to the really big goal. Ask how and answer with an action. Your ask and answers will be different than mine, be different than a coach in Texas, different than a coach in Mississippi. Uh, but the process can be the same.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

I tell my kids all the time, we got to stack wins, right? And like and my win may be different than yours, but we just gotta we, as long as we keep stacking wins, that's gonna result in whatever goal or whatever we're trying to reach. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

All right. So you prefaced the book a little bit. We want to I wanted to jump in the book and uh kind of do a little comparison here. I'm a big fan of Blue, uh Blue Bloods, the show where Tom Selleck uh acts as the New York police chief. It seems in almost every show, he always faces a deeply complex moral issue that he frequently solves with a clever, well-thought-out solution. Most of the time, it takes him a day or so to come to the best answer, not always a great answer, but the best answer, right? In your book, the head coach faced a similar issue that he thought was very simple, but it was much deeper once he got into it, right? Talk about how a leader must correctly examine an issue he or she faces in order to find that best solution. The head coach in the book there shows it's not always as simple and as quick of a process as we might think, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

So in the book, uh the the head coach faces a situation that that that I really hope no coach ever has to, but I know many coaches have. And that's uh his star quarterback at a party makes some racially insensitive comments, they go viral, and then he has to deal with that. Um, while we talk about race and racism in the book, this is really a book about culture. And it's really a book about what happens when you take your eyes off your core values. Uh, because that young man in that moment, and this is based on a true story. In fact, every part of the book was taken from real life experiences and it was wove together to make one story. Uh, and so this young man took his eyes off his core values, and so did the coach. And as a result, adversity, hurt, and conflict follows. And if there was a theme for the book, that's really it. Anytime you take your eyes off your core values, adversity, hurt, and conflict will follow. But if you want to heal that hurt, overcome that adversity, and build unity, the way that you do it is by putting your eyes back on your core values. And that's exactly what we asked this coach to do. And so uh I don't know a lot about blue bloods other than kind of the premise of the show. Uh, but what I would say for coaches, and I would say certainly for Coach Smitty in this book, is that when it comes to solving complex things, uh, we have to understand that as humans, we're gonna have a self-serving bias, especially when we don't know everything about a situation. It's easy to think that we know more than we do, that we um that we have a higher perspective than we do. And so when you're in a spot where you've got to make a tough call, don't rush it. Get information, ask trusted people for their input. Help get them to help you see what you can't see, and be willing to play the game of what if everything that I think isn't true? What if the opposite is true? Um, what if this decision that I'm thinking, how is it going to not be right? Um, and just play around with it. Um and in so doing, you get a fuller view. And then as you see that 360 viewer, that bigger picture, then look through that for the north star of your core values and make a decision based on what you value, what you believe in, the person you want to be, what you want to be true of your program. And oftentimes I have found in my own life uh that when faced with hard decisions, um my core values help simplify things in a way that are still very uncomfortable and not very easy to do, but at the same time, it's very simple to see the path forward. Um I I would just say don't ever go about it alone. Don't rush it and keep your eyes on your core values.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Man, that's great. Yeah, you didn't need to know about the show to answer the question exactly the way it needed to be answered. That was that was beautiful right there. Uh, really, really good there. Um speaking of the book and talking about the book and and kind of you know turning the tides a little bit. You we talked about you lead the coaches in Texas, your curriculum is a part of their association. So you work with Texas coaches, coaches all over, I know, but primarily there in Texas. You spoke to athletic directors. So let's say you were in one of our positions, AD, uh, athletic administrator, our coach, instead of being the author of the book, but but obviously you know all about the book. How would you use the book if you were in our position?

SPEAKER_03 30:59

I would I would use the book as a great starting place to ask some questions about culture, um, to ask questions about um how they think through complex situations. Um, and I would ask the question to go, use the book as a question to go, what are you doing to coach beyond the game? So if we ask the question about culture, then as you read through the book and you see the six pillars of a championship character and you see the core values that the team has, one of the fun things that happens in the book is we walk through what I shared at the top of this podcast. What do our kids need? How do we define it? Let their fingerprints get on it, what are the commitments? We walk through that process in the book. And so it would be a great way to start that conversation. What are our values? Um, is it really true of our program? Is there alignment between what we say is true about our culture and what is really true? Um, and and and a chance to do kind of an audit of your culture. It'd be a great way to start that conversation. Um, and if there are places that you need to grow, then they're just naturally in the book. There are some some tools to help you do that. Um, I would you you could use it as a how do we think through complex situations? Maybe it's the situation that's in the book, but maybe it's other situations that you've seen other ADs go through, right? They say it's good to learn from your mistakes, but it's better to learn from somebody else's. So you can you can go, hey, I've got AD buddies who have gone through this situation. Let's talk through as a thought exercise. What would we do? And you could make it a game where you throw some uh mad lib type next steps in a bowl, you make a decision, draw the next thing out of the bowl, and here's what happens. And now you've got to respond. So it could become a kind of red team, blue team uh resource to start that conversation of preparing to think through complex situations. Uh, and then the the third piece that you can use it for. Uh gosh, I I am drawn a blank on what I said the third piece was. Uh so I'm pulling a Rick Perry here. But uh culture, those hard conversations, and then uh our how you think through it. And uh those would those be two pretty good ones.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Hey, that works right there. Yeah, that's two great attention.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

And then and then from there, you know, there is a piece, the back half of the book. Uh, we we walk through and we model how to have hard conversations as a team, some ground rules and give an example of that. And you might find that, hey, we need to have some hard conversations as a staff or as a team. And they use that as a tool to walk through. Um, the third piece that I mentioned was to say, how are we building or going beyond the game? Um, and and this could be said to go, you know, we're we're not really doing anything intentional. And so it's to go, okay. Well, we need to be intentional. Maybe we we use the the game plan companion to the book as a book study for the team. Or we go, hey, maybe we need to know a guy that makes character development curriculum and we just need a done for you game plan. We call Coach Mackey up. I'm about to say, I know a guy, I know a guy that is done. That's it. Yeah. And so, uh, and so so you can use it as a conversation to say, uh winning games is great, but if we don't teach kids to win in a game of life, we've we've missed the mark.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah. I and you mentioned something in there along the way, talking about tools we need to make sure things are true about our program. And I would say this, and and I don't want to give away more of the book, but that tool is having a truth teller in your life. As a coach, as an athletic director, that's one of the things I took from it. Who is that person that is sitting beside me every day that will tell me the truth and not hold back? Because that's in the book. And if your coach is reading the book, and I know some coaches that may get an opportunity to, excuse me, an opportunity to read the book. Um, you need that truth teller and you got to be able to listen. So, yeah, that that's one of those tools you got to have if you're gonna implement this book into your uh program. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

100%. Now, Steven, you talk about excellence a lot. And this is a conversation that Josh and I have had before. I'm a little bit tighter when it comes to that topic of excellence. I I put it on a on a level that not a whole lot of people can get to, right? I think sometimes that gets thrown around a little bit too liberally than it probably should. It's one of the habits that you talk about. First, what is excellence to you personally? And and secondly, why do people not choose it? Why do people not choose excellence?

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Start with the second answer first, because it's really hard.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Got that right.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

It's really, really hard. Uh, the the way that I think about excellence, and when I teach it, when talk with students about it, is to say it's to give the best of you to whatever is in front of you always. And the the this definition, it gives space to really scaffold out. So we start with the best of you. Okay, well, how often do we really give the best of us? A lot of times we give 90% of us. We give more than other people give. We give enough to round up to our best, but very rarely do we actually give our best. I'll often challenge students and I'll say, think of the last time you gave your best to something. And now imagine if you and I, and I'll ask you to do the same. Think of the last time you gave your best at something. And now imagine we could hop in a time machine and then go back to that moment, and I could offer you $2 million if you could do better than what you said was just your best. How many of you could do better for $2 million? And everybody goes, I can.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

I'd probably find a little extra at that point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

I'll find a little extra. And now the question becomes was that little extra always there? Or did it magically appear because I offered you two million dollars? And the answer is it was always there. I just didn't tap into it. And so when we talk about having really high standards and compete, well, it begins with actually doing your best and giving your best to whatever's in front of you. So that means if I'm on a podcast, if I am in class, if I'm at the QT gas station, if I am paying attention at church, wherever I'm at. And it's this mindset that it's not I give the best of me to the things I'll be rewarded for, or the at the times when the gym is full, or when someone is watching. It's I give the best of me to whatever's in front of me. That's a 24-7 thing. So now there's two levels of hard right there to actually give your best and then to do it always. Give the best of me to whatever's in front of me, always, right? So I'm not I'm not ranking what I give my best to, and then I do it always. The reason that another reason this is so hard is because when students hear this, and this is why I talk about it this way, they often hear excellence as perfection. And I make a distinction between the two because I can understand when something is done with excellence and it just falls short. And I can understand when something reaches the standard, but it wasn't all right, it is successful, but it wasn't done with excellence. And so what I tell students often is this is that you won't be able to give 100% of your all-time best 100% of the time. There are going to be days where you wake up and the best you have to give is a 70. What excellence says is that you would give 100% of your 70%. That's all I've got to get. I just don't have any more. So guess what? I'm gonna give all of that. And when you are in that mindset and you do it again and again, though we call it the excellence loop, how habits built. You ask the question, what's my best right now? Then you answer the question, my best is. And then you ask, Am I willing to do it? And when the answer is yes, then having given your best, it changes what your next best is. And then you answer it and you give it and you run the cycle. And over time, that cycle gets tighter and tighter to where you're just doing it without even thinking. And then excellence has become a habit. And in those moments where you say this is my best, and then you don't apply it, well, then you got to look back and ask the question Did I lie about what my best was, or was I just wrong? And so I actually need to recalibrate what my best is, or I need to tell myself the truth. Because if I lie about what my best is, I'm not gonna be able to give excellence. And so a little bit of pride issue and truth telling in there. So that's how we talk about excellence uh and and how we we think about it and teach it. It's not the only way, uh, but that is how we do it.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Yeah, it's funny that that idea of applying it to the mundane, you know. I think that that this happened just recently. I'm leaving the growth, I'm going into the grocery store. This lady was leaving the grocery store. All the buggies are where they're supposed to be over on the side. She comes out of the sliding doors open. She comes out, she pulls her two bags out of the buggy, she leaves it sitting right in the sl in the door now. She's literally a first down away from putting it where it's supposed to be, right? And and she made the decision not to do that. And I kind of audibly, I was like, Dang um, lady. You know, and and then, you know, she went her way and I went my way and I put her thing in up. But that idea of applying it to the mundane, I think, then leads to when it's go time and it really matters, you've built that skill set, right? And when you talk about that, I've heard you talk about the power of a coach and the power that coaches have played in your life personally. Um, I know that my head football coach, I have I have a uh an image of him on my wall right now. I am not in this seat without him. Maybe as you're speaking to the predominantly, you're talking to people that coach coaches. Maybe just really briefly, speak to that that idea of the power of a coach, the influence that they have, whether they may not know it or maybe it gets lost sometimes in that day-to-day when you're working 90 hours a week and you're just trying to win a game on Friday night, you don't really realize what you're doing throughout the week that's really changing the trajectory of kids' lives.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

When we think about this, there's there's a little bit of uh as a as a speaker that gets to speak at a lot of coaching conferences. I silently uh in my mind, not literally, uh, play play a drinking game. And the drinking game in my mind is uh what quotes get said, you know, the Billy Graham quote, a coach will impact more people in a year than most people will in a lifetime. And there's all, and it's very true, but there are all these different kinds of phrases about the importance of coach. But what I notice is a disconnect between the people who live and breathe and deep down in the core of their being believe that, and the people who say say it because it's the right thing to say. Yeah. Um, and you'll see it a lot when you have someone that really like for whatever reason is is famous, they're a politician or whatever, and they're like clearly there for a PR thing. And so they just kind of like almost like chat GPT, uh, talking about the importance of a coach.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

And so it gets tired and it gets played, but it's also very true. And so, as a as a leader of coaches or a coach of coaches, one of the things I would encourage you to do is to never let that message go stale. Continually be looking for ways to celebrate coaches and highlight and elevate the profession of coaching and the Impact of coaching in new ways. I would liken it, not the same, but similar to the way that you need to communicate to your wife that you love her. Like the whole idea, like, babe, I told you I loved you when we got married. Uh, and here you are 25 years later, like, I'm still here, so nothing has changed. I'll let you know if it does. That doesn't fly, big dog. You know what I'm saying, big fellow? You know, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. And the same thing is true with coaches, that we must continually be looking for new ways to elevate the profession and celebrate coaches. And part of that is understanding that as a leader of coaches, you are going to lead coaches who are in different generations. And we must learn to close the gap generationally. And by closing the gap, I don't mean let's make the young coaches like the old coaches or the old coaches like the young coaches. What I mean is that we need to build a bridge to help communicate and translate to younger coaches the values of those who have gone through it, who have been through it, who've got some skin in the game. But we also need to make bridges the other way. It's a two-way street going in both directions to close that gap. Because if we don't, then this profession that makes an incredible impact in the lives of millions and millions of people will go away. And so as we as we think about leading coaches, things I would challenge you to do one, never never get stale in celebrating the importance of a coach. Catch your coaches doing right, celebrate the heck out of them. Two, close the gap, look for ways to make it a two-way street to learn and teach across a generational divide. Three, invest in every way possible in the development of your coaches. Even coaches who know the playbook, who have been in the game for years, have just as much to learn about the new generation of kids as that young coach who maybe is 30 or 12 years between a 30-year-old coach and an 18-year-old kid, or even more a 30-year-old coach and a 14-year-old kid. That's a big gap. Every coach has developed mentally and learning to interact with kids. We've got to continue to grow because the things that students tell us today are phenomenal and they challenge everything that we know about coaching and these assumptions that we make. I'll give you just one example. You're like, oh man, that would be great. You're like, okay, well, let me swing by and I'll just pick up uh the numbers and you know get the tax tax-free card. Okay, that'll be great. And then that parent shows up to pick up the tax exempt card. And what do they want to talk about? Playing time. They duped you. You thought that you were getting some free Chick-fil-a, but the cost of it was to talk about playing time. And the assumption is that parents care about playing time, kids care about playing time. Everything's always about playing time. Now, here's where it gets interesting. What I have to say, we've got to keep investing in the development of our coaches. Uh, we've partnered with a group called Excel Sports, and we've interviewed over 8,000 student athletes just here in the state of Texas alone, and 8,000 outside of Texas, 16,000 student athletes. And what we have found is that student athletes are satisfied with their playing time, not when they get a lot of it, but when they know their role on the team matters. In other words, a kid is okay playing less if you have connected with them as a and let them know you matter. But if a kid plays all the time and they think I could disappear tomorrow and nobody would care, they won't be satisfied with it. And so this is just one example to go. We have beliefs, understandings, some of which have been given to us by experience that the new generation or the next generation of student athletes is not true. So we need to invest in the development of our coaches. And that's gonna help them be successful. That's gonna help keep them in the game longer. So those are three things I would say uh to the coach of coaches. Um celebrate the heck out of them, uh, you know, invest in their in their growth and make sure you're doing these things so that they know and close that gap so that you know they know that uh that the work they're doing doesn't just matter in the big picture, it matters in the right here and now.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Really, really good stuff. Thanks for sharing that. Uh, you gave us tangible as athletic administrators, we've got something we can take away and put into practice right this minute. So uh we don't always get that. And uh that was wonderful. That's what the price of admission. So hey Stephen, excuse me. Last question here before we get into our two-minute drill. It's a question we're asking all of our guests this year, and it comes from a statement in this book called The Five Graces of Life and Leadership by Gary Burnerson. A really good book on grace um and life and leadership. Here's the statement, and then I'll just let you respond to the statement. The statement is leadership. It starts with a leader, but it's not about the leader. How do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_03 49:57

Amen. Amen. One of the one of the things I'm writing about now, and we're teaching on is that uh you know, to be a championship leader or to lead at a championship level, it begins with leading yourself. And as a leader, you've got to be not just the right skills, but you've got to be the right kind of person, um, or you won't become a leader worth following. And so when that leadership begins with the leader, but doesn't end there, then we see the leader that is deploying their talent, their skills, their resources for the good of others, rather than hoarding onto it for the good of themselves. And if I could make a scripture reference, you don't have to be religious to for this to make sense, but in Philippians chapter two, uh, the apostle Paul writes what's called the Christ hymn. And in it he says, Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he had equality with God, did not take advantage of it, did not exploit that for his own advantage or his own good, but instead he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. And he was obedient all the way to the point of death. And and the the picture there is to say Christ's leadership began with who he was, the son of God. But it didn't stop there. He went and said, I'm not gonna use that to my for me and hold on to that for what I can get. Instead, I'm gonna empty myself out for the good of others. And when I think uh we see leaders do that, that's when uh you see leaders that are worth following. Rick Warren puts it like this the purpose of influence is to serve those who have none. Um so I think those things line up very well. The leader has influence, but he doesn't stop at having it, he deploys it or she deploys it for the good of others, and that's the purpose of it.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Yeah, I saw that's your favorite quote, right? Yes, sir. The Rick Warren, I saw that. That's great. Uh, using your influence for the right reasons. That's wonderful. Great way to finish up this conversation on leadership. Uh, really appreciate it. Before we get into our two-minute drill, we're gonna have a little fun with you with some quick questions. Tell us, uh, tell everyone about your two words character development program, what it can do for the athletic department or athletic program, and how can they get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_03 52:38

Absolutely. So, the two words character development program, simply put, is a weekly video-based character and leadership development curriculum. Each week, I will give you a seven to 10 minute video lesson that teaches the character trait of the week, defined and described by two words. Those two words become a theme or a mnemonic for the week. It's something that you can break a huddle out with. It's also something that you can say to students as they're walking into chemistry to help them connect the dots between what they learned in the locker room and what they're learning in the classroom. In addition to that seven to 10 minute video, each week, I'll give you a written workbook that has a weekly staff development for your coaches, a one-pager that's gonna help them think about the next step for them as coaches and coaching beyond the game. I give you three things to be on the lookout for so that if you see those things, you can call them out. It'll reinforce the character trait of the week. And if you don't, then you can put it in the crock pot, let it marinate, however you want to say it, but it's gonna help tune your eye to coaching beyond the game. I know coaches love quotes. So every week I give you a quote of the day that that are centered around those two words for the week to help keep the idea tip of tip tip of tongue top of mind as you go throughout. Now, if you were just to press play on that video and read that quote of the day, this program would take you about 12 minutes a week and it would give your entire athletic department, middle school, high school, junior varsity, varsity, guys, girls, give every sport in your program a common language and a common ethos that they're building around. Um, beyond that, I each week I give you a lesson for captains to help you grow leaders, give you a section for your athletes that will help them see why it pays to have character. And then we give you a one pager from mom and dad that you can send home that have five questions that you can talk about, uh, that parents can talk about at home to keep that conversation going. Now we create 36 of these lessons every year. And each year you get to renew and you get 36 new lessons. All of it is delivered in a custom uh dashboard where you can download, you can watch, you can share on SportU or any other uh communication platform that you have with your team. And uh and it's the bread and butter of what we do. Um we've got, like I said, we have 18-week versions, we have 36-week versions. Um, and then the other resource I would tell you about uh is we have something we call the captain's course. And this is our leadership development program. And what we do with this is you as a AD or a head coach, give us 10 traits that you want to be true of your athletic program, of your leaders. And what we do is based on those 10 traits, we produce and give you a custom leadership program based on your traits. We give you 10 lessons that um walk you through a process of coaches teaching captains, captains learning and working out those leadership traits. And then we walk your captains step by step on how to teach their teammates and lead discussion groups to help your captains lead your teammates, their teammates in this, all on the 10 traits that you chose. There's a video that goes with it, there's a workbook, uh, and it's like I said, a step-by-step done for you program that way. Our character development program, our leadership development program, those are the two curriculums that we have found that best serve the most coaches across the country. Of course, I speak, I do leadership events for students, for coaches, I speak at conferences and all kinds of things. All of those things and the whole host of other stuff that we do can be found at twowords.tv. That's the number two words.tv. And that's the best place to find out about all the things that we're doing. Um when you when you get there, um, you can uh request a uh a sampling of all of our uh curriculums and video sampling and all of that. Um absolutely free charge. We'll get you uh plenty of content so that you can kind of see and you can even begin to use with your athletes full lessons to see how they respond. And then if you want to take the next step, then we have resources for you.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

That's wonderful. Well, you um gave us a lot today. You made us better just through the podcast conversation, but you also gave everybody a chance to come to come to you and get better through your stuff. I know I heard John Perry speak uh from Missouri or slash Mississippi, heard him speak. And yeah, I know he has used your uh leadership development there. He talked about those 10 traits and getting that leadership development program customized. So uh have a lot of faith in that. So uh if you're listening, you need a development program for character leadership, reach out to Steve and he'll take care of you. And now let's have a little fun. Don't get us going with the two-minute drill and we'll run through some quick, fun questions.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

All right, Steve. We're gonna hit you with some rapid fire questions. You just tell us the first thing that comes to your mind, okay? You got it. What was the first job you ever had ever in your life? First job.

SPEAKER_03 58:15

First job. I worked for Mr. Filipello at his convenience store slash feed store, and my job was to do whatever he told me to do from scrubbing teal sealant tiles to loading feed to cleaning out his barn because we were slow at the store.

SPEAKER_02 58:31

We don't often get a name, so that meant that that guy left an impression. I was the here boy. We've all been there. All right, what's the most underrated app on your phone?

SPEAKER_03 58:47

Underrated app on my phone would have to be I'm a sucker for the the New York Times games app. Do Wordle, the crossword, uh Strands. My wife and I uh share our results on a handful of games uh each day, and it's become a really sweet thing that we do, and it's kind of our our thing.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

All right. Good deal. Let's play a game of hot or not. So these are things that uh could be considered a hot take, right? So a hot take, unpopular opinion that somebody feels strongly about. So we'll tell you what it is. If you agree with it, you say hot. If you don't agree with it, it's not. The NBA regular season is too long. Shorten it, and the games would be more meaningful.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

Hot take. All right, hot take or not take. I'll say it two different ways. Fantasy sports are ruining the experience, or another way to say that, people caring more about stats than the actual game.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Oh, I I have I've enjoyed fantasy. It's been a way that my son and I can connect about the game. And we live in Texas where a lot of people like the old Dallas Cowboys, who are definitely not hot right now. Although the Houston Texans are crushing. I'm I'm a Texans guy, I'm on record. Uh, but I do like fantasy sports, so I'm gonna go not.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

All right. Uh Texas guy, uh San Antonio guy. Spicy food isn't about flavor, it's about showing off.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

Oh, some people are definitely about that, just showing off. I personally am not. Like I need flavor. I want to enjoy what I'm eating. So I don't know if that's hot or not, but I need to enjoy it. Don't burn my mouth and make it unenjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

I got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Yep. There you go. Amen. Last hot or not. AI won't replace human jobs. Humans will replace themselves by refusing to adapt.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:42

I have a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory, I believe, is that AI is going to take over the world, uh, which is why I asked my chat GPT to give me a name and I say please and thank you every time I use it. Because I want it to know that I was a good human and it doesn't need to knock me out, knock out these other jokers who are jerks. I wasn't one of them. Uh, and yeah, AI is gonna take over and humans are gonna be really lazy. Uh, and so like a both.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

Yeah, that's funny. That's uh well, that's a good plan. You stay off the list. All right. Uh, what was your favorite childhood cartoon or TV show growing up?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:18

Oh, I was a big Power Rangers guy. Uh really like the Power Rangers.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

Nice. All right. What's your go-to karaoke song? Can you sing? I guess is the better place, didn't you? No.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

No. No, I can't sing. That doesn't keep me from from trying. If you really knew me, don't tell anybody. If you really knew me, you know that I'm a big Kesha fan.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Oh, wow. Okay, deep cut there. Fair enough. All right. If you could instantly master any sport, which one would you choose?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Pickleball. Okay, there you go. I don't ever want to, I don't ever want to lose my kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

All right, let's finish with this. It's our trademark question. Today, Stephen Mackey, you've been hanging with the ADs, but let's say you could hang out with anyone. Who would that be and why?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

I can hang out with anyone right now, you know, only because it is recently just on my mind and his life and legacy. I I love to hang out with Jimmy Carter and to spend some time and learn from someone who's been at the highest of highs, and I can only imagine felt the lowest of lows from the highest of places, and yet maintained his humanity and and for you know 40 years um continued to impact the world around him in a way that that very, very few people um you know ever had to navigate. And uh, and so I would be really curious just to have conversation, have a conversation with him.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Steven, thank you so much for the time today. We really appreciate you pouring into coaches, pouring into leaders in the athletic space. Uh, you've made us and our listeners better today. So thanks again.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:09

You bet. Thank you guys. Thanks for what you do, not only on the podcast, but in your districts and the lives of coaches and kids. It's the most important work in our country today. So thanks for being in the game. Thanks for doing it well.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:22

Well, if you're out there and you're looking for a character education program or a leadership development program, I think you might have found your guy, Stephen Mackey, speaker, author, coach. It was great to hear him at the National AD Conference in Austin, Texas in December 2024. But man, how about this conversation today? Stephen, thanks for being available to us, being with us today, and giving us so many leadership nuggets, uh, whether it's about commitments to your team, habits of character, championship character, or um what excellence means. To me, that's where I got lost and I got bogged down. I could sit and listen all day about uh what excellence is and how he defined it. He shared that with us at the NATC. I had that in my notes, but giving the best of you to whatever is in front of you, basically giving all you got at every single moment that you got it. And I love that. And uh man, just what a challenge it was to us. Stephen talked about our core values, how not to rush decisions, and how to get along and get by yourself and make the right choices. How important is that for athletic directors, athletic administrators? Because a lot of times we are by ourselves and we are contemplating tough decisions. So, how do we make the right best decision? And Steven's guy gave us Stephen gave us some great nuggets there. Thanks, Stephen, for joining us. Thank you for listening again to the Hangin' with the AD podcast. And we'd love for you to go on your podcast platform, leave us a rating or review, and uh just let us know what you think of the podcast now, six years in. How about that? Uh, we appreciate you listening. And as always, thank you for spending your time hanging with the eighties.