Ben Newman: The 2x Daily Habit That Transformed Microsoft’s Team Culture | DSH #1594

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Speaker 5 I say, hey, what's holding you back? You know, you're a $7 billion solutions team. There's 350 to 400 people, 12 leaders that are sitting in this room.
What's the toughest thing?

Speaker 5 They said it's bandwidth. Like, it's really hard.
Like when we fail, we typically have to fail forward because technology, you can work on something, it changes fast. It's hard.

Speaker 5 There's so many people that we have to manage. I said, let me share something with you.
I said, it's called unexpected intentional touches.

Speaker 5 I said, so let's say one of you has a team of 40 and you work 20 days twice a day. Make sure that you slow down enough to tell people on your team how much you care.

Speaker 5 Tell them thank you for the hard work that they're doing. Tell them that you appreciate the little details of how they attack their opportunity.

Speaker 6 All right, guys, one of the top mindset coaches in the world been in six cities in the past seven days speaking at events. We got Ben Newman here today.
Thanks for your time, man.

Speaker 5 Sean, thank you. I'm just glad you can squeeze me in.
You're setting records for most podcasts in a day and the way you get after it. I love it.
It's great to be here.

Speaker 7 I'm six today, but you're in six cities, so that's a big thing.

Speaker 5 Your energy's still going, so I like it.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Well, energy is an interesting idea, right? Because a lot of people seem to struggle with work ethic and energy, but it's never been an issue for me.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And energy is probably one of the most authentic tools for engagement that people overlook and they don't realize the importance of it.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 It's so fascinating because people are always like, how do you work so hard? But I don't feel like I'm working. I just feel like I have unlimited energy, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 6 I don't know if that's like a mental thing or.

Speaker 5 Well, a lot of times it comes from just how you show up, the purpose behind your work, the passion behind your work, the excitement behind your work.

Speaker 5 I can tell even before getting here, just in our engagement, I think this is, we're going on three years making this happen, trying to get schedules to align.

Speaker 5 But your commitment, the readiness, the questions, the lead up to, I mean, I can tell there's an authentic energy and care, which is why you've been so successful doing this, which is just a testament because I pay attention to the details, which I have to in my work.

Speaker 6 Thank you. Yeah, authenticity is very important to me because I used to not live authentically for a majority of my life.

Speaker 6 So now that I've gotten past that phase of trying to fit in and be friends with people that don't care about me,

Speaker 6 I'm authentic on myself, you know.

Speaker 5 So I'll share a quote with you. A dear friend of mine, Tyron Woodley, who is the former UFC welterweight champion of the world.

Speaker 5 He says, small circles create big damage. And I think we all go through that phase in life to where we think that, you know, we just have to be friends with everybody and make everybody happy.

Speaker 5 But for you to learn that and to know that, and I think that's important for all of us is to make sure, like, you know, there's probably just a very small circle of people who are going to love you, support you, and truly care about you through the ups and the downs.

Speaker 5 Everybody wants to be a part of lots of success, but are the people really there for the right reasons? And I learned that from Tyron as he elevated and became champion.

Speaker 5 He said it was hard because everybody comes at you, but small circles create big damage.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'm sure that's a big issue with athletes that you see, right, in every sport, their circle.

Speaker 5 The circle is important and everybody wants to come at them. And I've been blessed to do this with some of the highest performers to ever walk the face of the earth.
And it is not easy.

Speaker 5 being those individuals, whether it be endorsements, whether it be success, whether it be everybody trying to come at them.

Speaker 5 Sometimes it could be family, sometimes it could be endorsements, endorsements, sometimes it could be a new agent, and it's very hard.

Speaker 5 And distractions are going to keep you from identifying your highest level of performance.

Speaker 6 What are the big distractions, temptations you're seeing your top athletes and people you coach deal with?

Speaker 5 Well, you know, a lot of times it's social media, right?

Speaker 5 It could be the engagement of they do something wrong in a game and they spend way too much time paying attention to the details of what some fan says that doesn't even understand what they went through to get to that point.

Speaker 5 So a lot of times you, not that you want them to tune it out.

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Speaker 1 Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.

Speaker 3 There's no Milo here.

Speaker 9 Who picked up my son from school?

Speaker 6 Streaming only on Peacock.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection.

Speaker 3 You don't understand. It was just the five of us.
So this was all planned.

Speaker 7 What are you gonna do?

Speaker 5 I will do whatever it takes to get my son back.

Speaker 3 I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other.

Speaker 7 All her fault.

Speaker 5 A new series streaming now, only on Peacock.

Speaker 5 Life and enjoy social media, but you have to learn to silence the distractions, eliminate the distractions, because otherwise it puts undue pressure on yourself.

Speaker 5 I think also, you know, family is something that can really tug at you if it's not controlled, right?

Speaker 5 You know, the the ninth cousin who all of a sudden wants to come to the super bowl with you like they could probably buy their own ticket you know if we're trying to prepare you to play in a super bowl the last thing i want you worried about is your ninth cousin who thinks that he should be getting a free ticket to the game like we don't need you taking that phone call yeah right doesn't mean that you don't love that ninth cousin but somebody needs to pull away from the distractions and it's it's it's incredible and at the end of the day these athletes are human beings And they want to be loved.

Speaker 5 They want to be supported just like anybody else.

Speaker 5 And I always share with those athletes, if you feel that there's not an authenticity or there's not real love or not real support, is that person really in your circle?

Speaker 6 I love what you do because obviously a lot of people are athletic, you know, they're physically gifted, but the mental side of sports is almost as important, right?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, it's, I think it was Lee Trevino, the golfer, used to say that golf is 90% mental and the other 10% is in your mind,

Speaker 5 which means what?

Speaker 5 It's all completely mental, right? And so it's just one of those things. People underestimate the power of mentality or the power of belief.

Speaker 5 And, you know, the way we speak to ourselves determines the action that we take. And that's something that a lot of people don't realize, right?

Speaker 5 So if you and I say, where could, where could Sean take this platform? How big can this go? What's the impact on the world he can have? Right.

Speaker 5 Because you're getting millions upon millions of viewers every episode, right? Like, but how big can we go? Can we go even bigger?

Speaker 5 Well, if you don't have that belief or desire to do that, well, your action would be really insignificant.

Speaker 5 But when you say something and you believe in it, and I just, I feel this from you, like you feel like you haven't even scratched the surface of how big you can take this platform.

Speaker 5 Well, then for you, when you say that, what happens? The action goes, well, I'll do 23 episodes, which is probably a Guinness Book of World Records when we go to Arizona, right?

Speaker 5 Like those, those are things that you're willing to do that most people would never do. But because you speak belief into yourself, your action follows.
Most people stand on the sidelines.

Speaker 5 They choose to allow politics. They choose to allow environment.

Speaker 5 Distractions to cause them to think a certain way, which is not even conditioned for them to think at their highest level, but they listen to it. And then what happens to their action?

Speaker 5 They minimize their own action through their self-talk. Right.

Speaker 6 Limiting beliefs, right?

Speaker 5 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 I'm still working on some of mine. It's an ongoing process.

Speaker 5 So am I. I've still got two coaches, and this is the work that I do.

Speaker 7 It's ongoing. And ongoing.

Speaker 6 The victim mindset was dangerous for me, though.

Speaker 5 That held me back for it. What was it for you that held you back?

Speaker 6 It was never my fault. You know, if something bad happened, I would put the blame on someone else and you can't grow like that.

Speaker 5 How old were you when you finally figured out I can't do that anymore? I would say like

Speaker 6 entrepreneurship helps me find it. So maybe like 22, 23, which is earlier than most.
But I see people struggle with that one a lot. And that's a red flag to me.

Speaker 6 I can't work with people like that when they can't take accountability. Like I'll be the first to admit when I mess up.
And I used to not be like that, but it's how you grow.

Speaker 5 Well, if somebody has an inability to take ownership, you can never have trust with that individual.

Speaker 7 Exactly.

Speaker 6 Trust is major for me. In business, you need to trust your partner, man.
It's like second marriage people say.

Speaker 5 It's very true.

Speaker 6 Very true. I mean, you spend the same amount of time with your business partner than your wife.

Speaker 5 Sometimes even more. Yeah.

Speaker 6 You're on the road. How many days a month?

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 it's less than people actually think.

Speaker 5 You know, they see it. I tend to get in and out of cities pretty quick, and I spend as many nights at home as I can.
But I've always said I never really count the days away.

Speaker 5 I make them count when I'm at home. And I'm a big believer.
I think this is is important to share because when people see a busy schedule for any of us, right,

Speaker 5 I always encourage people to lean into actually having balance in the areas that matter most, which is really contradictory.

Speaker 5 I think there's a lot of people who online, they say balance doesn't exist and just work really hard and take time off. And it's typically a cop-out.

Speaker 5 in a major way because that person lacks discipline. And you and I talked about it before we hit record.
You know, there were things I used to do at Alabama or reasons why I stay in shape.

Speaker 5 Like I'm not a strength coach. I'm a mental conditioning coach, but I stay in shape because I have to be disciplined if I'm going to have a conversation with somebody about discipline.

Speaker 5 So when I hear people say, oh, I just travel when I travel.

Speaker 5 And no, like when I go home, like I'm taking my kids, well, not my son drives himself, but, you know, my daughter, I'm still taking her to school. I'm picking them up from practices.

Speaker 5 I'm engaged as I possibly can be, engaged with my wife, doing day dates, doing the things that we can, because I think people live to their excuses and think they can't have love in their life and love with their kids and time with their kids and run a successful business.

Speaker 5 And once again, it goes back to the self-talk.

Speaker 5 And so I encourage people, if you're not leaning into doing the things that take care of you, you'll never understand what your highest level of peak performance is.

Speaker 6 I love the, how'd you improve your self-talk game? Was that like some form of therapy or something?

Speaker 5 I'm still working on it. I have been to enough therapists.
You could probably call me doctor, but

Speaker 5 for sure, I mean, it's, you know, with self-talk, it's same as you, right? Limiting beliefs. And then at some point in time, you wake up and you say, man, I'm sick and tired of this.

Speaker 5 If I choose to believe that, I'm going to choose to act a certain way if i choose to believe something else then i'm going to choose to act differently and it's like i said what we say comes out of our mouth goes in our ears and that's what drives the action so finally i got tired of the self-talk doesn't mean that i now am perfect and i don't have self-talk but the conversations i have with myself they don't last very long and they're met with extreme levels of discipline nice yeah i used to be very pessimistic it was the household i grew up in so every thought was negative i would assume the worst whenever someone told me both parents uh yeah different ways but yeah both both were pretty negative.

Speaker 5 Parents married?

Speaker 6 Divorced, but yeah. Married until I was 10.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 6 And then really nasty divorce.

Speaker 7 So that's

Speaker 7 how I grew up in only child.

Speaker 6 Only child. And it was lonely.

Speaker 7 Very lonely.

Speaker 5 So Jersey, and they both stayed in Jersey? Both stayed.

Speaker 6 Dad disappeared for like a year when it first happened. And then I saw him on weekends.

Speaker 6 You know.

Speaker 6 Yeah, so I had to fight through that. But

Speaker 6 now when I moved out of the environment and realized how negative I was, because you get so used to your mindset, you don't even realize like you're being negative. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 6 And then I

Speaker 6 found a good girl and she got me through it.

Speaker 5 You still with her?

Speaker 6 Yeah, we're getting married in three months. Are you really?

Speaker 5 Yeah. Congratulations.

Speaker 6 Eight years in, man.

Speaker 5 That's amazing. I'm 19 years married in November.
You find the right woman and it makes all the difference in the world.

Speaker 7 I'm a stranger, man.

Speaker 6 I see a lot of my friends struggling, single friends. You know.

Speaker 5 I'm happy for you. That's a big deal.

Speaker 5 yeah because it's um i always needed the right woman in my life um and i'm so blessed to have her because i lost my mom 11 days before my eighth birthday so you when you have that kind of extreme pain that young you know you almost search almost too hard for the one um and to find amy the way that i have and the support she's given is

Speaker 5 it's everything so for you to for you to have that is is incredible can i share something with you about your growing up though that i think might help and i don't know if you've done this but i think it'll be powerful for the listeners as well.

Speaker 5 We do what I call boot camps. We've been doing these for years.
I think my first boot camp was in 2009.

Speaker 5 There are events where people fly in, and now we've done them in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. We've done many of them here in Vegas.
The first one had nine people. We made no money.

Speaker 5 I probably should have never done a second one, but we've been doing them a long time. And this last year, we did it in Puerto Rico.
And we had an elite day, an extra day.

Speaker 5 And it was Tim Grover, Phil Heath, and myself.

Speaker 5 And we took everybody into a dark room. So the elite day is always only 30 people.
And so those are the people who are really committed to locking in.

Speaker 5 And we completely blacked out the room, Tim Grover in a chair, me in a chair, Phil in a chair, spotlight on you. And we talked about the darkness.

Speaker 5 And a lot of times people, Sean, and I'd love to actually hear this from you, even though we're flipping the mic. This is supposed to be you and you interviewing me.

Speaker 5 People don't realize the power that comes from their darkness. And I had to grow up so fast.
Both of us did, right? Because we, you know, sharing each other's stories here. I had to grow up so fast.

Speaker 5 But now I've found that in the darkness of what I had to go through, there's beauty in how I honor my mom every day, which is what I call my burn. But there's also a darkness that fuels me.

Speaker 5 The times that my dad verbally abused me and told me that I would never achieve anything and you'll never be good enough, you'll never amount to shit.

Speaker 5 And when I was successful, he'd try to do things to manipulate me mentally to pull me back so that I couldn't grow. Wow.
That's a hard thing.

Speaker 5 When you've already lost your mom at seven years old and parents were divorced at six months old. I've now learned to harness this darkness that lies inside of me.

Speaker 5 And I don't really talk about it often, but there's a fuel. And when I step into that darkness, John, there's a place that I go to.
People always feel the big, fun, loving band.

Speaker 5 Like they never feel anger or nastiness from me, but there's a fuel that I've been able to find in my darkness.

Speaker 5 And when an individual understands how to pull strength from their darkness, it's amazing what they can achieve. Wow.

Speaker 6 Thanks for sharing that.

Speaker 5 So I ask you, the darkness for you, being that 10-year-old and probably feeling split and pulled and carrying different areas, have you ever tried to harness that side to find more power and strength?

Speaker 6 There's definitely something there because I have this subconscious anger in me. So I think that's what you're referencing.
I need to figure out how to channel it better. So

Speaker 5 can I share an opportunity? Yeah.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 I now write in the back of my, so I have what I call a burn journal. So our podcast is called The Burn, and we've had, you know, seven years of it.

Speaker 5 And we help people stay stay connected to this burn, which is really that underlying fire that ignites wine and purpose.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I have a burn journal that I write. I write down the same thing every day for years.
And I got stacks of these, these journals.

Speaker 5 But after I read Jamie Kern Lima, a dear friend of mine, after I read her book, Worthy, and after I read another dear friend of mine, Trent Shelton, his book, Protect Your Peace,

Speaker 5 now I write in the front of this journal and then I go to the back of the journal.

Speaker 5 And in the back of the journal, every single day, I surrender and I speak to the darkness that lies inside of me and the strength of that little boy that's inside of me.

Speaker 5 And I remind myself how strong that little fucking boy is and how when I tap into the strength of that little boy, that anything becomes possible as I try to help other people find the best in themselves.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 5 So that might be powerful for you to just speak to that little boy every day because what you've done and the manner in which you attack it and your willingness to do it and desire to do it in preparation, If we help you find a whole nother level, look out world.

Speaker 6 Man, that'd be deadly.

Speaker 6 With what I'm already doing, let's go.

Speaker 5 Turning pain into power. You'll be telling God I need a 36-hour day to do 36 episodes in a day.

Speaker 6 I feel like there's not enough hours in a day, man. I just love to work and grind and meet people.
It's awesome. Turning pain into power, though, that's powerful.

Speaker 6 I think when I got into entrepreneurship, a big reason was, you know, I got bullied. I had a lot of trauma and I kind of turned that pain into

Speaker 6 money, if we're being honest.

Speaker 5 Start speaking to that little guy. Yeah.
And you'll make plenty of money.

Speaker 5 But start speaking to that guy and just watch how the purpose, especially stepping into this relationship, getting married now, one day if you guys want to have kids, like to learn to harness this and to understand the strength of that little guy that's still inside you.

Speaker 5 The only way that you're doing the stuff that you're doing is that little 10-year-old who's reminding you. And now, right now, it's subconscious.
You bring it to the conscious.

Speaker 5 I'm telling you, it's about to get nasty in a very good way.

Speaker 7 Let's go.

Speaker 6 That inner child, people call it, right?

Speaker 7 Exactly.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I think we all have that.

Speaker 7 Yeah. That's so cool, man.

Speaker 6 So are you still doing a lot of mindset coaching with athletes? Are you doing mainly the public speaking stuff?

Speaker 5 No. So it's actually, I pick and choose.
You know, I've been doing this for almost 20 years and I pick and choose the events that I want to speak at. And then we have a whole team of speakers.

Speaker 5 We've got a whole speakers bureau that Monique, who's, we've worked together for 15 years, she runs our bureau.

Speaker 5 And so I show up to the events that I'm super excited to be at and that work on the calendar. But then I'm still the mental conditioning coach for the the Kansas State Wildcats football team.

Speaker 5 I'm also mental conditioning coach for the Indiana Fever basketball team. And then the Husker football team, the Nebraska Corn Huskers just hired me to work with their football team.

Speaker 5 And then I've worked with the Miami Dolphins the last eight years and about 25 NFL players that I mentor. And then, you know, the rest of the work is all corporate.

Speaker 7 Wow. Well done.

Speaker 5 So it's been fun. It's busy.
It keeps me out of trouble.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I bet.

Speaker 6 I got to ask about the fever because they're in the headlines every day. What's happened like to WNBA?

Speaker 5 You know, so I've worked with their head coach, Stephanie White, for the last 10 years. And I was actually with her when she was

Speaker 5 with the fever 10 years ago. And that team with Tamika Ketchings, Brianne Gianniore, who's now an amazing assistant coach, they made it to the WNBA Finals then.

Speaker 5 Coach then went on to Vanderbilt and the Connecticut Sun. This is her first year back.
And she gave me an opportunity to serve in this role for the team. And it's been incredible.

Speaker 5 I mean, these girls have so much energy.

Speaker 5 And I'll tell you, one of the greatest things going back to energy, we did like a, it was like a retreat retreat with the coaches in Nashville, and they're all telling me, wait till you meet all the, like the team, these women, the energy they bring is unbelievable.

Speaker 5 And sure enough, I walk in that first day at training camp, and it's like, you feel this energy from Natasha Howard, who's won three championships. You feel this energy from Lexi Hall.

Speaker 5 You know, when Caitlin Clark comes up for the first time, you feel that special energy in her.

Speaker 5 And what happens is, especially on basketball teams, and you know this being a hooper, teams are smaller, right? Football teams, college teams could be 100.

Speaker 5 You get 10, 12 individuals that are ready to commit and fight. I find that no matter what adversity and challenge you face, they're willing to stay strong with great energy to stay together.
And so

Speaker 5 that's the blessing of the work. I learned so much from them, right? So it's, I get to learn from Caitlin.
I get to learn from Lexi. I get to learn from Sophie Cunningham.

Speaker 5 I get to learn from Coach White. And that's really the blessing is that we get to feed off of each other's energy to go try to do something special together.

Speaker 6 I love, I'm so impressed with Caitlin's emotional control because she's got a lot of headlines about her.

Speaker 6 So every player in the league is challenging her and she just doesn't seem to like react emotionally. It's impressive.

Speaker 5 Well, I think the most important thing is to stay neutral. And I think this is for any athlete, any sport, any business owner.

Speaker 5 You know, when you're really successful, people are going to try to attack you.

Speaker 5 When you're doing something that somebody wants to do, you almost become a prime target for somebody saying, hey, I want that.

Speaker 7 100%.

Speaker 5 But if maybe you're not willing to work hard enough to get it, oh, I may attack you. Or if I think you've been given an edge or you get, I'm going to attack you.

Speaker 5 And so I think we see it in business and in sports. And I always encourage people, 70% of my work is still corporate, even though my sports work keeps me busy.
70% is still corporate.

Speaker 5 So I see it all the time. It's maintaining a neutral mindset.
No matter who tries to throw you off your game, we stay neutral. We attack the next possession.

Speaker 5 No matter who in business tries to throw darts at you, oh, well, he does this because of this or he has this or he has that.

Speaker 5 No, I'm going to go attack this next interview and I'm going to give everything that I have and I'm going to stay neutral. So when we win, we stay neutral.

Speaker 5 When we don't get the results we want, we stay neutral. And I think that's one of the keys for high performers is learning to keep that neutral mindset through the ups and the downs.
Right.

Speaker 6 They got good control over their emotions. Absolutely.
You have to. You have to.
Because emotions can destroy you.

Speaker 5 Emotions can literally cause you to quit.

Speaker 5 We see it all the time. It's actually, so when Coach Sabin hired me at Alabama, I spent five years at Alabama.
And I know that you've had Coach Cochran on the show. So shout out to Coach Cochran.

Speaker 5 I love you brother to death. I would do anything for you and he knows that.

Speaker 5 Unbelievable man. Just an amazing story.
If anybody hadn't caught that episode, they need to go back to this episode with Cochrane. And he's also been on the burn.

Speaker 5 But I'll share with you that with Saban, I sat in his office in 2017. So, Sean, this is one of those things that's like you're with the goat, right? The goat is literally interviewing you.

Speaker 5 You're in the GOAT's office one-on-one. And he says to me, he says, Ben, like, what are you going to talk to the team about?

Speaker 5 And I told him, I said, Coach, I said, when I walked through the doors of the Malmor football complex right here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I felt the expectation. I felt the culture.

Speaker 5 I felt what you have built here.

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Speaker 5 And I said, that comes with a standard and a standard that these players have to be willing to live to. Now, I know you've already done these things.
There is the standard.

Speaker 5 But I said, to me, I believe, and this is what I'm going to share tonight. I'm talking to you.

Speaker 5 You're the GOAT. You're saving.
I said, I'm going to share the importance of standard over feelings. We cannot allow our feelings to dictate how we show up.

Speaker 5 We have to choose to live to the standard that's going to cause us to continue to win even after we win.

Speaker 5 And I looked at him, Sean. He hadn't even hired me for the job yet, but I spoke with this level of confidence, even though it's a little intimidating, like you're in front of the goat.

Speaker 5 And I said, when we win, I referenced it like you're already hiring me. I said, when we win, 52 to nothing on a Saturday.

Speaker 5 I said, I hope we can empower and inspire the players through the standard over feelings mentality to want to break down film on Sunday to say, what can I do better to attack Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for that next Saturday?

Speaker 5 And I believe that conversation and that statement kept me at Alabama for five years and two national championships.

Speaker 5 So I think for all of us, you know, standard over feelings, once again, so much of what I teach in sports applies to everything, right?

Speaker 5 If you live to your feelings, you're going to show up a certain way. If we live to our standards, we go and figure out how great we can be.

Speaker 6 I love that. Yeah, I've heard of facts over feelings, but standards over feelings.
That's cool. I like that one.
I'm very curious how you're going to answer this next one. So confidence.

Speaker 6 Can that be taught, you think?

Speaker 5 so confidence comes from discipline not from talent so a lot of people i heard uh erwin mcmanus shared this at a mastermind event that i was a part of with him in la

Speaker 5 a couple of years ago and he looked he was telling a story of the boston celtics and he was talking about the ups and downs and what he was watching and observing how they showed up and he said you know some of these basketball teams he's a big hoops fan he said some of these basketball teams they're just they're operating off of talent they allow their confidence to come from their talent he said they have it wrong.

Speaker 5 Confidence must come from discipline. And he said, when your confidence comes from discipline, you start to tap into how great you can be.
So can confidence be taught?

Speaker 5 I think you can develop confidence by your standards and your disciplines and how hard you're willing to work, which, you know, at some point in time, sure, you and I could have a conversation with a young athlete or a business professional who's lacking discipline, ask them some great questions to engage them.

Speaker 5 That's a form of teaching.

Speaker 5 But I think at some point in time somebody has to say they want it bad enough to choose the discipline to build the confidence that's going to make them successful and then if you want to be a goat right the kobe bryants the michael jordans what did they do they were blessed with talent and they had plenty of confidence from their talent but their real confidence came from their discipline i mean kobe used to say he never got bored with the basics the first hour of his workouts would be doing the little things that most people were unwilling to do layups and form shooting and things that most people just skip and they go straight to the three-point line.

Speaker 5 So when you have both, the confidence because God did give you talent, but then the confidence from extreme discipline, you go become the best in the world.

Speaker 6 Max, LeBron, MJ, Brady.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Actually, Brady's not even, he says he's not athletic, but

Speaker 6 you've got to get to a certain point, I guess.

Speaker 5 I'll share something with you on Brady that I think you'll find fascinating.

Speaker 5 I don't get to share this story very often. I've worked with Levante David, and this is all public knowledge.

Speaker 5 I'm not sharing anything private, but he's the captain of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. And so I've worked with Levante for 12 years, and Levante is an unbelievable athlete.

Speaker 5 He better go into the Hall of Fame for first ballot. He deserves it with the consistency of his stats.

Speaker 5 When Brady came to Tampa Bay and they go and win that championship in the first year after he'd won six, year one, right? And what were people saying? Like, can Brady really go and win one?

Speaker 5 So I was with the team. I was with Levante.
They win that Super Bowl. Before I fly out the next morning, I call Levante on the phone.
I said, man, I forgot to ask you something last night.

Speaker 5 I said, if there was one thing that Tom Brady did when he came to this football team to help you guys win the Super Bowl, what was it? You ready for this? I'm ready.

Speaker 5 He says, every morning when Brady showed up

Speaker 5 to this football team, starting the first morning, he would send a text message to the entire team on what it took to become a champion mentally.

Speaker 5 And every day he would send messages teaching the players how to think about becoming a champion.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 5 Text messages. So all the things you saw on the field, and this goes back to, you know, when you referenced that, you know, the mindset is everything.

Speaker 5 People operate off of talent. That's what's where you get a great roster, right? They got all the talent in the world, but they can't win because they don't have this.
What did Tom Brady know?

Speaker 5 We won all those championships. Yeah, we had some great talent in New England, but we knew this.

Speaker 5 And the moment that you understand how to control your mind and to drive disciplined action and to believe it's an amazing what you can accomplish, but literally text messages is what Levante Davids said was the difference

Speaker 5 in Tampa Bay.

Speaker 7 It's unbelievable. That's so cool.

Speaker 6 Reminds me of the Spurs, too, because they weren't the most athletic when they won those five titles.

Speaker 5 But Popovich taught him this. Right.

Speaker 6 Same with the Lakers, Phil Jackson.

Speaker 7 He taught them meditation.

Speaker 5 And people would, some people probably look at that and go, meditating and doing all this?

Speaker 6 Shaq made fun of it at first.

Speaker 5 At first. And then what happened? Shaq respected it.
They won.

Speaker 7 Back-to-back.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that's a legendary coach. He might be one of my favorite for basketball, Phil Jackson.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, but Saban's definitely the goat, man.

Speaker 5 Is he still coaching? No, so Saban's now, you'll see him on TV. And yeah,

Speaker 5 he's done coaching. And I'll tell you, I really feel blessed.
I've been able to spend the bulk of my work in college football with Coach Saban and with Coach Kleinman.

Speaker 5 And those are the two winningest college football coaches over the last 15 years. And it was like receiving a doctorate in leadership.

Speaker 5 I mean, just the way those men would attack details, the way that they approached a never-finished mindset, the way that they approached an ability to always get better and to always stay hungry was extraordinary.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I got to ask you about leadership because that's something I'm working on as I'm building this podcast and company. What have you seen from the best leaders that are big takeaways?

Speaker 5 Well, you know, in addition to the book that I wrote called The Standard,

Speaker 5 I wrote a book called Uncommon Leadership that came out years ago and it highlights 11 leaders that have impacted my life from the unique ways in which they led. So I'll give you two of them.

Speaker 7 Otherwise, we're going to be on here.

Speaker 5 We're going to set a record for your longest episode ever.

Speaker 5 The two things I'll share with you from Coach Saban and Coach Kleinman because we're referencing them.

Speaker 5 The whole chapter on Coach Saban talks about how the way you do one thing is the way you do everything.

Speaker 5 Many leaders don't realize that Sean can only lead somebody to the level of discipline in which he lives. So if you're sloppy, you're undisciplined, you're unorganized.

Speaker 5 but you're asking people to be disciplined and organized, probably pretty hard for them to follow your lead, right? So the way you do one thing is the way you do everything.

Speaker 5 And then Coach Kleiman always taught us and the title of his chapter in that book is called Find Your Edge in the Details. Real hungry champions are never finished.

Speaker 5 They're always going to try to find that edge, that extra that they can attack.

Speaker 7 I love that.

Speaker 6 Yeah, leadership is it's not a natural skill to just have. It's something you got to really pay attention and learn from the best.

Speaker 5 And I think you have to continue to desire to do that. I'm still reading books every day, like I shared with you.

Speaker 5 Even though I get to coach some of the highest performers, I still have two coaches who are helping me see the things that maybe I don't see because we all get moving too fast.

Speaker 5 And so I think it's got to be that continued worker desire to lead and to figure out how great we can be if we can ever lead others.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Have you accomplished everything you wanted to in life?

Speaker 5 Hell no. Still got goals.
Yeah, I'm going to two billion people that I want to

Speaker 5 impact and make a difference in their lives. It used to be a billion.

Speaker 5 And then my dear friend, the strength coach, Ted Rath, for the New Orleans Saints, we work together with the Eagles as well as the Los Angeles Rams.

Speaker 5 And I've got a program called Coach to Coaches, where there's really, I don't think there's anything like it in the world.

Speaker 5 It's where we take people behind the scenes and I actually teach, not 30,000 foot view.

Speaker 5 We teach everything that I've done to build this coaching business over the last 19 years, the things we did at Alabama, the things we've done at Microsoft, the things we've done at Google, all of it.

Speaker 5 And he was part of that program. And I was sharing this goal to get to a billion people, which you can't do by yourself.
You got to do it with others. He's like, man, that's too small.

Speaker 5 We got to go to 2 billion. Let's go.
So that's really the big goal:

Speaker 5 can you help others find their burn? Can you help others find that authentic energy? Can you help others find the right way to lead, grow, and develop others to go impact 2 billion people? So

Speaker 5 I haven't hit the number yet, so we got work to do.

Speaker 6 On the way there, I love that you're able to do this in multiple industries, not just sports, but Fortune 500 companies. You're seeing success in both.

Speaker 5 Oh, it keeps me hungry.

Speaker 5 It keeps me motivated. One of my favorite stories,

Speaker 5 I'll tell you real quick, it was with Microsoft. I was brought in through a booster at North Dakota State.

Speaker 5 So North Dakota State football, we won a handful of championships, And then Chris Kleinman was the head coach there. He brought me to Kansas State.

Speaker 5 Well, one of their boosters saw me at the hotel they would put me up in on game days. And he's like, hey, man, you're that guy who runs around on the sideline hyping up the players.

Speaker 5 I'm like, yeah, that's me. And he comes up.
He says, I want you to come speak at my company. I'm like, what company? He said, Microsoft.
He says, I'm one of the biggest boosters.

Speaker 5 I fly in from Austin, but I work on a $7 billion solutions team for Austin. And we're struggling in some areas of our leadership.
So let's get on the phone and talk about it. They hired me for a year.

Speaker 5 Microsoft only gives you a one-year contract as a coach or consultant. He told me that up front.
I go to the first retreat and I say to him, I say, hey,

Speaker 5 what's holding you back? You know, you're a $7 billion solutions team. There's 350 to 400 people, 12 leaders that are sitting in this room.
What's the toughest thing? They said, it's bandwidth.

Speaker 5 Like, it's really hard. Like when we fail, we typically have to fail forward because technology, you can work on something.
It changes fast. It's hard.
There's so many people that we have to manage.

Speaker 5 I said,

Speaker 5 let me share something with you. I said, it's called unexpected intentional touches.
I said, so let's say one of you has a team of 40 and you work 20 days twice a day.

Speaker 5 Make sure that you slow down enough to tell people on your team how much you care.

Speaker 5 Tell them thank you for the hard work that they're doing. Tell them that you appreciate the little details of how they attack their opportunity.

Speaker 5 So long story short, we get to the end of that first year. Lafe calls me.
He says, I got good news and bad news. I said, what's the bad news? He says, you're fired.
I said, I'm fired.

Speaker 5 He said, yeah, I told you you only get one year. I said, well, what's the good news then? Because that's not good.
I said, that is bad news.

Speaker 5 He said, we received the highest highest health score in the entire world for Microsoft. So they tracked certain KPIs for their leadership teams in order to spit out a health score.

Speaker 5 His team of 12 had the highest health score in the country. I'm sorry, in the world.
He got elevated to an international leadership position.

Speaker 5 One of the 12 became elevated to running that $7 billion group. I get together for the last ever meeting.
I told him, I said, I've been fired, but congratulations on the great work you did.

Speaker 5 I said, what was the difference? 10 out of the 12 said unexpected intentional touches.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 5 Just a little touch. Just from that little touch.
So sometimes as leaders, I think we have to slow down and remember it's the little things that make the difference.

Speaker 5 You don't have to remember some big dissertation or speech. It's the little things of reminding people you're important, you're appreciated, and I love the energy you bring to our team.

Speaker 6 I'm going to start doing that. Thank you.
Yeah, I guess as the companies get bigger, they lose that personal touch, right?

Speaker 5 Without question. And that's exactly what happened.
I think they got so big, they're like, well, you don't have to do, there's so many KPIs were managed.

Speaker 5 I said, you need to slow down and recognize the little things, the emotion. That's what drives all of us, right?

Speaker 5 Because then that connects you to the standards of do if you feel recognized and appreciated, I'm going to attack the work. I'm going to attack the standard.

Speaker 6 That's brilliant. I love that.
Can't wait to implement that one.

Speaker 6 Well, Ben, what's next for you, man? Any books coming out? I know you just released an eighth one, right?

Speaker 5 So, yeah, the eighth one came out a couple of years ago. The next book is actually going to be called The Process.
So really, really excited about that.

Speaker 5 I've got my hands in so many different things with so many different teams and the work we're doing right now. So we have started the process of writing the book.

Speaker 5 I cannot tell you when it's going to come out, but it's going to be a book that I think will connect people.

Speaker 5 You know, it'll be like a culmination of the standard and then helping people really break down that process of what it is that makes them great. I love it.

Speaker 6 Stay tuned, guys. We'll link your socials.
If you want to hire him, we'll link his website as well. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 5 Appreciate you, brother.

Speaker 6 Thanks for having me. Thanks for watching, guys.
See you next time.

Speaker 6 I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe.
It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.

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