E51 | Donnie Maib: The Secret Sauce – Moving from Ordinary to Extraordinary Leadership

[00:00:00] Donnie: Welcome to the team behind the team podcast. I am your host, Donnie Maib. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to athletic performance, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, sports science, mental health and wellness, and sports nutrition.

[00:00:23] Joe: Hello and welcome back to the team behind the team podcast. I am your host today, Coach Joe Krawczyk, and we’re doing something a little bit different today. As you noticed, Donnie did not do the intro, but don’t worry. He’s with us here in the studio and he’ll be here in just a couple seconds. The alarm sounded at 4.

30am. My dream morphed into a nightmare. As I sat up on the edge of my bed in my boss’s guest room, staring at the floor while I contemplated my escape. If I got up a little earlier and headed back to Tennessee, no one would ever notice. I could steal away in the middle of the night, my car was packed, and by this time tomorrow, I could be home.

I had accepted my first paid internship as a strength coach at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Under the direction and guidance of Coach. E. J. Doc Christ. And reality was hitting me hard. I was in my second week of work, and rising before dawn only to come home after dinner was cold and crusty and lost its appeal.

Coach Donnie Maeb has been a director of Olympic sports and athletic performance, uh, here at the University of Texas since 2011. From 1998 to 2007, Coach Maeb was the assistant coach at the University of Texas, working primarily with football, various other Olympic sports such as women’s track and field, women’s golf, men’s golf.

Ben’s tennis, soccer, and volleyball. In 2007, he was promoted to associate coach for football. He came from the University of Tex he came to the University of Texas after four years at the University of Colorado Boulder where he worked as an assistant with all of our city sports. He’s been here for 25 years.

He’s won four national championships and currently he’s a director of Olympic sports athletic performance and oversees all aspects of athletic performance efforts, um, at the University of Texas with the exception of football. Coach. Sitting on that bed at 4 30 a. m. Did you ever imagine you’d be sitting right here in the studio with me?

[00:02:16] Donnie: Coach Joe, I did not. I mean, you know, reading that, that intro was pretty, it was pretty powerful. Just making me reminisce of how I got started in this career and to, I can still remember standing at that. Back then it was a digital clock and it was pitch black, dark, and I still, Recall looking at that clock thinking, What have I signed up for?

And now almost 29 plus years later, you and I are sitting here in the studio, and I never would have dreamt or imagined that such a small beginning has led to such an incredible and fulfilling career. So I’m very thankful, coach.

[00:02:55] Joe: Yeah, coach. I think when I read that paragraph, um, I was kind of like, Wow, like how many strength coaches have had?

That same exact morning, right? Same exact moment earlier in their career. Cause it’s just not easy to make it in this career, get that first job or even understand what it takes to become a strength coach. Um, because it’s such a saturated field and, um, and quite honestly, it’s not. a very well known, uh, career path, you know, it’s not like becoming something we’re all familiar with since we were kids, like a teacher or a police officer or, you know, working at a factory that, you know, maybe your father worked at or working on a farm, right?

Like it’s, it’s kind of a niche community. So, um, that just hit me hard. I think every strength coach has kind of had that moment. They can, they can kind of hit home for them. Um, But today’s episode is about leadership, Coach, how are you doing today?

[00:03:48] Donnie: I’m good, man. I’m excited about this, uh, getting a little different, a little different flavor for our listeners today, but we wanted to switch it up.

Uh, and I appreciate you, Joe, taking the lead and, man, I look forward to this conversation.

[00:04:00] Joe: Absolutely. Well, let’s dive right in, Coach. I want to start. So, as a lot of you guys already know out there, I come from a military background. I was in the Marine Corps for seven years. And when I was in the Marines, we had 14 leadership traits.

All officers learn this from their first days either in ROTC, or whether they come out through PLC, the Academy, wherever you come from, um, you have to memorize these things. And, and so, uh, Coach, I’m going to read off J. J. J. J. did tie a buckle. That’s the acronym for it. I’m going to read off each trait, and then when I’m done, coach, I need you to pick two, and then I need you to hang on to those in your back pocket until we, until we kind of get further in the episode.

So, here we go. J. J. did tie buckle. It’s judgment, justice, decisiveness, integrity, dependability, tact, initiative, endurance, Bearing, Unselfishness, Courage, Knowledge, Loyalty, and Enthusiasm.

And you can, you can share them now if you want, Coach, but we’re gonna hang out with

[00:05:01] Donnie: those until, uh, Sorry. No, that’s good. That’s a great list. Um… You know, you kind of sent me these notes a little in advance so I could kind of reflect on it. I think for me, even though I think number one, even though I know it will be cliche, is integrity, and I do sincerely mean that, and I don’t, when I say integrity, I don’t mean that you’re never gonna make mistakes or fall short or being, being a, being a, in a stressful situation where you make a decision that that maybe weighs on your conscience.

Um, I can honestly say I’ve made some decisions and done some things throughout my career that there were times where my conscience wasn’t clear and I had to go back and had to fix that and remedy it. So I think for me, integrity is big because it touches every aspect of what I do from how I treat people, um, how I communicate, how I, do I, do I do what I say I’m going to do?

Um, if you ask me to be there for you, do I have your back? If we get into situations where possibly that, uh, for lack of better terms, that maybe there’s mixed motives, right? Um, am I going to put myself before you or the team or am I going to put the mission and the team first? And so I think for integrity, uh, is number one.

I think secondly, really close to that to me is loyalty. Um, and I think part of that comes from my background of how I was raised and coached back in Tennessee. I came from a very dysfunctional, broken home. My parents divorced at a very young age. So I went through a lot of pain as a young, uh, young boy, as an athlete.

And so sport was the avenue where I could find a lot of very strong bonds and relationships. And so when I would find somebody that really believed in me and trusted me and… And would work with me. I was very loyal to them and I think that’s been kind of been how I’ve been wired As a strength coach and working with teams and different staff.

So I think those two stand out the most to me coach Yeah, I

[00:07:10] Joe: think what’s really cool is you you already touched on a little bit with the integrity is like The great thing about these is you can almost say like integrity, but under like one a, you could put, um, you know, judgment under, you know, integrity, like, like what, what decisions do you make?

Are they honest decisions? Like you were saying, you know, is there some kind of motive behind it that, that doesn’t, uh, mesh well with like a team atmosphere and stuff like that. So it’s really cool that there’s, there’s 14 leadership traits that, um, Individually, yes, they’re all, I think, very punctual and strong, but they all kind of bleed into each other, too.

It’d be like a giant 14 circle Venn diagram, if you will. So that’s why I, I, I’ve always thought it’s such a great tool to have and bringing up young leaders. That’s good.

[00:07:58] Donnie: Very good. Good matrix to go through for sure.

[00:08:00] Joe: Um, now I know as we continue this conversation, uh, we’re inherently gonna, you know, talk about a few quotes.

You always have a few quotes from books you read. So I gotta know right off the bat, what are the five, either your favorite or best leadership books? You’ve ever read and

[00:08:15] Donnie: why yeah, this one this one’s obviously one of my favorite questions But also extremely hard because I’ve read so many good ones and I think right off the bat anybody listening this if you’ve never read Any of John C.

Maxwell’s books on leadership, I mean, that’s kind of like your, that’s like, to me, that’s the Bible on leadership. It’s like the foundational one is the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. I think that book’s, um, it just recently celebrated its 20 or 25th anniversary and it’s been updated. It had some chapters and stuff added some material that is well worth your time.

Very applicable to any team, any sport, any. Staff, organization, uh, you will glean a lot of wisdom from that and how to apply that. I think that would be my number one. Um, probably a second close. Um, it’s, it’s a bigger book. It’s, it’s a, it’s a steak. It’s not a little snack. But it’s called The Leadership Challenge by Kuz and Puzzler, I think is their last name.

Um, but this, this book is a lot more in depth research in different venues of, of areas of leadership, military, corporate, uh, nonprofit. So you go, they go into the research behind what are the, I think there’s there’s the five different, um, values or different traits of being a leader. They really unpack in that book.

Absolute phenomenal. And they back it up with research. So it’s not just a bunch of feel good, uh, motivational type stuff. So I think that would be two, uh, one of my third favorite leadership books is, uh, Lincoln Own Leaderships, uh, is the name of it, Donald T. Phillips. He does these whole series, Coach Joe, on, you know, something on leadership or whatever.

So it’s Lincoln Own Leadership, uh, the second one that I think he did was called Martin Luther King Jr. Own Leadership. But anyway, he’s a great. Uh, writer and so engaging. You just can’t put his book down, but, uh, Lincoln on leadership is an absolute must read. It’s a shorter read. You can probably read it in a week or less.

So I think that would be my third. Um, another great book. I think my fourth would be, uh, Henry Cloud has a book called boundaries for leaders. And that one just goes into how you, you know, set boundaries. I think a lot of, uh, leadership, we get in trouble when we don’t learn how to set boundaries with different staff or prioritize things in our life.

We kind of, we start trying to do too much, so you lose your power and effectiveness as a leader. And I think one of my other favorite books, uh, my last one I’ll share, I’ve got more, but my last one, um, this one was, it’s different, it’s, it’s called Leadership Pain. By Sam Chand, Sam is interesting. He writes a lot on the topic of leadership from more of a nonprofit, um, maybe ministry type background.

He does speak to businesses, so it is applicable. But the thesis of that book, it was fascinating to me because he talks about how as a leader, if you want to continue to advance in your career and move up, whether it’s in your organization or a different one or different career field, you’re going to have to go through.

And endure pain, that can be problems that can be failures that can be whatever you want to put in that category. But if you can’t handle a certain level of pain where you currently are as a leader, there’s no way you can move up. So you’ve got to learn to manage those problems pressures and pain Where you’re at currently if you want to be polished right to move up for that next position So those would be kind of my top five off the top of

[00:11:50] Joe: my head.

So yeah and coach I mean another big reason I ask you that question. I mean you’re just And anyone on our staff could, could back me up on this. I mean, you’re always walking with like three or four books under your arm. I mean, you read so much. I mean, was that part of kind of cutting your teeth as a, as a young leader?

Did you read this much starting out in your career? Or is it something you kind of had to pick up along the

[00:12:10] Donnie: way? Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think for me, first of all, coach, I didn’t read one book in college. I mean, I was, I prided myself, unfortunately, in turning in books that cracked. The spine on them would crack when you turn them in because I hadn’t opened them.

So I wanted to do as little as possible. It was so bad, it was so bad. I needed to be probably kicked out, but. I don’t know, something clicked when I got out of school. And I was working at Colorado under Doc. Um, there was this one weekend my wife had to go out of town. And I was by myself, and I was like, what am I going to do?

And, you know, I wasn’t making any money. I didn’t have a budget to go out and do anything. We didn’t have Netflix and all that back then. We had one TV and a stereo. And so I just started, I actually started reading some books on the weekends and just caught, like, almost caught the bug. And then from, I can go back to that one moment to today.

And then the next thing, the books led to back then, we didn’t have CDs. We just had cassettes, so I would buy cassettes with, you know, uh, seminars on them and would listen to those in my car driving back and forth to work. And so, I don’t know, it just caught the bug and it’s been part of kind of how I’m wired and it just, it’s exciting.

I always like learning and applying and, and going and doing new things and so I think that’s one thing that keeps me fired up about, about our job and profession. Yeah.

[00:13:32] Joe: Yeah. I’ve always thought it was pretty cool. Like, you know, coming up through my, my time in the Marines, there’s a, there’s a list that comes out and anytime we get a new commandant, it’s the highest ranking officer in the Marine Corps, the common, I’ll put out a reading list and, um, for every rank he has maybe six or seven books that that rank should probably read.

Um, You know, that would, that would help them get, get success and maybe set them up for their next, uh, chapter in, in the Marine Corps. And so, uh, I’ve always tried to keep up with it. I, you know, then I got buddies who read other books and I get distracted and read other things too, but it was, it was always a great guiding feature.

I think too, you know, if, if you can kind of read and find that pattern and, and, and the books and elevate yourself, it’s, it’s always really helpful. And sometimes too, things get dry and you read something and you get. Remotivated, re energized, and next thing you know, you’re, you’re trying some of those things with your, with your guys and, and, uh, and it can do a lot, you know, it’s, it’s very powerful.

[00:14:33] Donnie: Yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, one other kind of metaphor is, I forget, um, there’s a book called, I think, by Donald Clifton called How Full Is Your Bucket? And you got to think about in our industry, whether we’re strength coaches, we’re sports med, sports science, nutrition, right, mental health, we’re, we’re in a service industry.

So we’re consistently and constantly, we’re giving out and we’re pouring into our athletes and we’re giving of our resources and time and energy. And so there’s a big piece of that, you’ve got to refill your bucket. And so, you know, I always, I always find it interesting and intriguing in these high level environments that we work in, how many administrators and coaches.

actually prioritize themselves, meaning what courses are you taking? Where are you getting coached and mentored? Even even if you’re. Senior in, in your leadership role, um, the best leaders I have been around do that consistently. There may be seasons where ebbs and flows, they just can’t make time or room for it, but they always come back to that true north of like, I’m going to sharpen my saw and axe first so that when I go help other people, I’m more effective and efficient with them and I can help be a bit greater service.

So I think that’s a big piece of it. Yeah.

[00:15:51] Joe: And it is. So many lessons learned in books to, you know, there’s so many people write about the things that they screwed up and hopefully, um, because it affects other people, some of the, some of the mistakes that may really affect other people. So they’re hoping that they’re the last one, they can just write about it and put it out there that, that affects someone negatively, uh, you know, coach, what are some of the lessons you learned throughout your career, you know, in, in leadership and, you know, you could cover mistakes or, or just.

things you saw that you know you, yeah, I want to do that or no, I don’t ever want to do that again.

[00:16:24] Donnie: I mean, one of the biggest ones that, uh, you know, I kind of went through here at Texas was early on, uh, when I got here, I was young, very green. Um, if, if I could, I think it’s safe to say I was arrogant for sure and thought that I knew the best and the most.

Efficient greatest way to train. You know, we were working with football at the time and I ended up, we ended up talking, I ended up talking bad about the program we were running to someone, one of our, one of our athletes, one of our football guys, and it got back to coach Brown and you know, not to get into the weeds of that, but it did not go well for me and I ended up coming clean on it and just admitting what I had done and I came close to losing my job here.

Coach Brown graciously, Coach Jeff Madden, Mad Dog, that graciously worked with me and let me kind of work my way out of that, uh, that bad situation and earned the trust and respect back from them. And it took a long time, but it, you know, I’ll never forget that lesson. It humbled me, um, it taught me that, There’s really more than one way to do our jobs that just because you know, a really good way, maybe, you know, if somebody listens, man, you study this coach or this person or this professional and they, and they’re really successful what they do, but you still, at the end of the day, you’ve still got to remember that there are so many different ways to train people and execute, um, yeah.

whatever it is, modality you’re using and to get results from that team and be successful. So I think that’s something just staying humble and being open minded about your approach, even as you get older and more seasoned in what you do. Don’t, don’t become more entrenched. And more closed off and closed minded as you get older, hopefully you make some mistakes.

They humble you and you learn like, I need help to do this. I need to learn more. I need to lean on people more. And I think that’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned and to be, to be fair, I’m still learning that. So it’s good.

[00:18:31] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Um, lessons learned can be extremely humbling too. It’s just like.

I know, I know one thing I learned as a, as a Lieutenant, you know, don’t trust big time yes men, you know, like when, and, and the facade that they provide, you know, when they’re, when they are the, the yes man is because things get done, you know, and, and what you see from your level is you ask them to do something, they do it.

So on the surface, everything is cool, but what they’re doing to get there, what they’re doing behind the scenes. A lot of times are the things you miss and I know at one point I had a Marine who was It just seemed like he was like the ultimate dude like a like a Terminator and he was he you know He was he’s killing it, you know getting ready for deployment and then halfway through deployment We found out he was doing some not so great things in the barracks treating other Marines poorly He had a drinking problem he was back to drinking and And so we, we caught him, sent him back to Hawaii where we were stationed at the time.

And when he got back to Hawaii, he couldn’t make it through security because there’s apparently a warrant out for his arrest. So there’s a lot underneath the surface that no one even knew about. Um, but he, he covered that up with just being a yes man and, and getting like those, those easy tasks done to just kind of keep us right where he wanted us.

And so, um. Sometimes it can be easy to get deceived, you know, if you’re busy and you’re, you’re working a lot. Um, so that’s something I learned is sometimes you got to slow down and, and do a little digging to figure out why, you know, why is this guy good? You know, why is he so good? Is he, is he really about the unit or is he just about himself and keeping, keeping you from figuring out who he really is?

[00:20:22] Donnie: I love that. I think, you know, I was, I just had gotten recently, I just got back from a leadership conference. Over in Charlotte, and it was all these different athletic directors and administrators from all over the, you know, different universities, high level positions. And I was talking to, uh, was visiting and talking to one of the ADs about this kind of concept we’re, we’re talking about with this individual you just mentioned.

And you really can’t today, we live in a day and time, you can’t compartmentalize your character. And you can’t be one person. In front of people and then a different totally different person when you’re kind of behind closed doors, right? You may get away with it for a while But eventually that’s going to come out and when it comes out, it’s going to be it’s going to be not good Everything you do today from your text your emails voicemails People can video you doing whatever.

It’s really, we live in an x ray leadership kind of culture right now where, you know, you’ve really got to be, your character’s got to be strong, you got to be buttoned up on how you handle and do things as a leader. And if not, you’ll get exposed and it could not only, not only could you, it could hurt your career, it could ruin your career.

And it could hurt and embarrass countless other people that’s depending on you. So again, the higher you go up in leadership, uh, the more influence you have, the greater, the greater good you can do, but also the greater harm and damage if you don’t watch it. So that’s a good point. It’s good stuff.

[00:21:53] Joe: Yeah.

And you know, I, I, it’s funny, you know, the lesson you talked about, you learned, I had recently read about it, uh, because, Um, you’ve just written a book yourself, The Secret Sauce of Leadership. Uh, congratulations, Coach. Thank you, John. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of awesome stuff in there. Can you really quick walk us through the process of writing that book?

Like, why did you do it? What was, why did you wake up one day and say, I need to start this?

[00:22:22] Donnie: Yeah, I think, you know, for me, Coach, um, I can still recall the day it was, and everybody listening this probably can too. For us at Texas, it was Friday the 13th, ironically, and it was in March of 2020. We met and you were in that meeting.

Everybody’s going home. Uh, you’re not coming back to work. We don’t know how long, how long we’re going to be at home, but we’re going to work from home. COVID’s here. Um, and so that’s what we did. And I went home and, you know, for years, coach, I’d had this dream. I felt like I had this book inside of me. I wanted to get out.

I just didn’t know what it was. And so now, here I’m sitting at home for four straight months, working from Zoom, uh, not, you know, not having any excuse. And so it was during that, that moment, that, that timeframe. That I started, uh, just started brainstorming and almost, almost the way I did it coach was I just started writing down these little principles and concepts of leadership on sticky notes and just started organizing them.

And then before long, After I did that for a while, I had a book outline and I had the book outline. I literally just started like chapter one. I started writing chapter two and just do start doing a brain dump on these principles and before you, again, that was 2020 and once we come out of COVID, it really, I slowed down a lot just because we got so busy and I finally finished the book and I think it was last spring that I wrote the last.

Word of the book and just started looking for editors and publishers and stuff and got it done, but it took a long time. It was a long process. It has not been easy or perfect, but it’s exciting. I’m thankful to be here.

[00:24:06] Joe: Yeah, what I loved in it, there’s almost like a theme to it too, you know, you tie a lot of personal life experiences to a variety of leadership lessons throughout each chapter.

Did you ever hit any walls along the way, like, thinking of that moment in your life that would really tie to? You know, multiple instances of, you know, leadership examples.

[00:24:28] Donnie: Yeah, for sure. There’d be times I’d be writing and I was like, I don’t know how to unpack or teach this. And then I would literally marinate on it for sometimes several days, sometimes weeks.

And then all of a sudden I’d get like an idea from something that happened to me in real life. And I was like, Oh, I can, I can use that. Or it’d be, maybe I would find or read a story in some of the books I was reading and that would jog my memory into something I’d read before that I could use. And so.

The different ways and, and, and stories that I came up with and principles and points in the book came from all different, uh, walks of life, but to your point, primarily from my own personal experiences and I mean, growing up from. You know, these are in the book, you know, having to clean out a septic tank to having to clean out a horse stall.

Like I tell, I mean, those stories are so, um, memorable to me as, as a young man growing up. And now I think years later that, you know, can use those kinds of stories to teach leadership principles in our career path and field. It’s pretty

[00:25:28] Joe: cool. Yeah. And I, I think you kind of mentioned it too, like you get an idea.

Did you ever, did you ever get a couple of ideas or. Recall an instance where you’re kind of just like, Alright, everybody stop what you’re doing. I’ll be right back and you just start typing something down so you don’t forget it.

[00:25:42] Donnie: Yeah, those would happen. I’d be out for a run or something and I don’t do this all the time, Coach, but if I get something real good, I’ll either do a voice recorder of it so I don’t lose it um, on my iPhone or I’ll just type up it in notes or something like that.

Um, so that’s kind of, those would happen not as frequently. As I would, just the stories would come to me. Um, but my, my main, the main tool I wanted to use to illustrate and teach was going to be stories. Because, I mean, I’ve done enough teaching and coaching over the years that people and kids really resonate and kind of light up when you tell a story.

And they’re easily, you know, much more easily remembered than just giving you some dry content. So I think for me, it’s just been capturing those stories, whether it’s… Voice recorder notes or just typing them up throughout just are waiting for the right moment to come inspiration Has been been key to writing this book.

Yeah,

[00:26:38] Joe: I’ve always been fascinated with the process because I feel like You know, someone like yourself with just years of experience and so much to recall and look back on. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like a liberating thing. I feel like it would be a liberating thing just freely write about your, kind of like your life, you know, and the lessons you learn and things like that, you know.

Did you ever get that feeling like, man, this is, this just feels great to like recall like these great times in my career and, and put it out there and, you know, hopefully this helps somebody.

[00:27:07] Donnie: Yeah, I mean, I think the You know, when you whenever you’re writing and I’m not I’m not a writer by nature by any means so it’s it’s hard for me you know, I think the one barrier to your point that I had to kind of get over was I Would start writing Joe and I’d be like, oh, this sounds terrible And so it just stopped me like oh, this is nobody nobody wants to read this crap, dude This is this is awful.

And so in the process of What I was doing. I was also listening to some books on audible on how to write. So I’m writing a book But I’m also trying to learn like, you know I’ll never forget I listened to this one chapter and on this book and we can put this in a show notes I’ve got it on my iPhone. But um, and I think the book was called how to write and the one barrier that a lot of writers come up against is like this having this perfection and Mentality, like if it’s not great and pretty and sounds eloquent, like you got, you can’t, you can’t do it.

And so, and I’m not gonna say that there’s some, some language in this one, but She said basically you gotta get your really, get your first draft, the really crappy draft, just get it done. Don’t worry about structure, don’t worry about sentence organization, whether the thoughts are clear. Get that crap down on paper and get it.

If you didn’t get your really, and I think she called it, you know, poopy, I’m not gonna say it on here, but you’re really bad first draft done like that gives you so much momentum. And so that became my laser focus, Joe, for the, until I finished it. Once I knew I got that done and I’m not kidding you the day I wrote the last and put the period on the last Sentence it’s like I felt like a breakthrough happened to me in the book like I could actually envision holding the book in my hand and So that book really helped me get over that process of that was hold kept holding me back We just get that that first rough draft done.

No matter how ugly and nasty and terrible sounds get it done.

[00:29:08] Joe: Absolutely Yeah, so I’d like to come full circle here, so we talked at the very beginning about your two leadership traits and your two were integrity and loyalty, um, how are these two leadership traits portrayed in your book?

[00:29:26] Donnie: Oh, that’s a great question actually, this thing, oh, uh, the, one of my favorite chapters I think in the book is on professionalism and I think that’s for me over the years.

And, I mean, you’ve been in the military long enough, you’ve been coaching long enough that, and you see it, coach. Oftentimes, what will keep people back from advancing and growing in a career is just that they’re very unprofessional. It could be the way they dress, their language. It could be the way they treat people, the words they use, it could be the way they keep their office unorganized.

It’s always in shambles, um, you’re always running late, um, your emails and your text messages are so inappropriate. I mean, whatever. It may be, you know, um, so I think for me with integrity, uh, if you’re going to do this, you’ve got to do, you’ve got to be a professional and you’ve got to do, you’ve got to carry yourself in such a way that people have full trust and faith in your competency and what you know, but also in your ability and your competency to lead and represent their program and their, their organization department at a high level with excellence.

And so I think those two things when it comes to integrity are huge for me. Yeah.

[00:30:45] Joe: Um, One more question before we kind of get to the near the end here and even I want to fall back a little further in our conversation to the intro I mentioned when you woke up at 430, you know, I think it’s important for listeners to know that, um, there’s mountains and valleys in this career, you know, there’s a lot of highs, a lot of lows.

How do we as leaders stay in the fight at the lowest times, like in the valleys, but also humble on the mountaintops?

[00:31:13] Donnie: Yeah, I think when you know, um, I 100 percent have been through that and I think for me if I could give advice and I think this is a, I mean, I may have a couple things here actually, I think you got to remember like why you got into it in the first place.

Um, I think what I mean by that too, coach, is when you, because if you go back to when you first Started thinking about your career, whatever it is, your position. Just thinking about how excited and full of energy and enthusiasm. So, when you’re in this low point, what is it that’s kind of weighing you down?

Is it, um, is it you’re not getting paid enough? Are you doing things in your job you really didn’t want to do? You didn’t sign up for this? Did you make a mistake that you’re kind of paying the price for right now? Um, that you wish you didn’t or you not advancing or maybe, maybe you’re thinking, man, this is, I wanted to be so much further along in my career path than I am at this age.

I mean, that was something I had to kind of battle through for sure. So I think you got to look at like kind of what you’re going through, but like, why did you get in this in the first place? And you kind of got to, you almost got to weed your way through some of those, those uh, discouragements and where you’ve been defeated and get back to.

Why you’ve done it. I remember My, I think it was my second. No, it was my first year at Colorado. So maybe, no, I actually remember my second. I was uh, On the low key, I was out looking for different jobs at night because I was so I was overworked. I wasn’t getting paid. Doc was chewing my blood out every other day, it felt like.

I didn’t feel valued, respected, or trusted in a lot of ways. And I was like, this is not for me. And then my dad, one night I was talking to my dad, and he was listening to me, he didn’t say nothing, he just, he ended up sending me an article they had written on me when I was playing football at Georgia. And in that article I went in, I was just telling the story of like, Who I am as a person, I don’t quit, I don’t give up, you know, yada, yada, yada, all that kind of stuff.

And it was like a smelling salt to me. It like woke me up and go, wait a minute. I can’t quit now. What am I doing? Like, I can’t, oh, this is hard, but now I’m going to run from it. Uh, I’m going through a difficult season. Oh, I’m going to, you know, shut down shop and do something different. And so it kind of reminded me of who I, my identity, but then also like why I got into it in the first place.

And so. That was, you know, that was a huge, uh, pivotal moment for me in my career when my dad sent that. Again, it was just a short little article that I actually did in, at Georgia when I was in high, when in college. And it, man, it was, it was such a, uh, just gave me fresh energy. So. Yeah. And

[00:34:03] Joe: then, you know, what about, I guess, what about the good times though?

You know, if you’re, if you’re up on that, that mountaintop, you know, volleyball just won national championship last year. Um. How do you, how do you stay, how do you stay up there? I mean, it’s easy, it’s easy to get complacent no matter who you are. Winning, winning, uh, can be just as dangerous as losing.

[00:34:25] Donnie: Yeah, I think the biggest thing with, when it comes to winning, to your point, getting, no matter where you’re at, to getting to a successful level of winning takes a lot of work.

But coach, it takes even more work to stay there. And… The thing about, you know, to stay at, when you get somewhere high like that, you’re, you’re so spot on. It can be so natural and easy to just kind of like shut it down and take it easy and kind of drift a little bit. And so I think to, to stay at the top, I think there’s some strategies you need to kind of like consider.

I think one is really, really thinking through Times where you really need to take a break. Um, I, I know I work, I have been this person, and I’ve worked with people that just don’t ever take a break. You’re gonna burn out. You think you’re Superman, and you think you’re bulletproof, but dude, it’s coming.

And, You know, for us, you know, this word, uh, you, you and myself, uh, other people listen this. If you’re in the fall season, you got sports, you’re, you’re in a grind right now. You’re tired. You’re exhausted. I literally, I go to bed at night late cause my, I have family duties too. My daughter’s a senior in high school, so I’m watching her and helping with that kind of stuff at night and volleyball.

And then I’m up early in the morning to come back into work. And so my days are long and there’s no breathing room, but I do know this. I know that when we get to the holidays, I’m going to shut it down, coach. That’s my goal. I’m going to shut it down, take a break, uh, and just recharge. And man, that allows you to kind of go and dig deep again to get to that next level, that high level.

And I feel like if you’ll do that, if you’ll do a good job of really taking good care of yourself, and make that a priority, and try to… Try to really avoid burning out like that. You can sustain over many seasons, but again, if you don’t, it’s a slippery slope. And I mean, I’ve, I’ve definitely had moments where I’ve, I felt like I’ve burned out and lost my joy in what I do and just my passion.

So having those moments where I’m at home and not thinking about work, not doing work, unplugged. I think this summer we actually, uh. As a family, we went off the grid up in Arkansas to a lake house and we didn’t have very little, if any, uh, Wi Fi or internet phone access. And it was just so, it was so nice just to be able to do that and recharge.

So that’s what I encourage. That’s how you do it. You got to take good care of yourself.

[00:37:05] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. It was just a quick story. I, um, when I was up in Seattle, I took over platoon. And, um, as I was taking over that platoon, I’d been in the unit for about a year and a half. And our battalion commander was like, Hey, I want you to go over to this platoon.

I want you to kind of, you know, clean some things up a little bit, you know, and, and, you know, they’re, you know, lacking here and there. And it’s like, okay, got it, sir. So I go over to that, that platoon. And, um, I remember. Like the third day I had that, that group, I look up at the wall and like the battalion comm like a lobby, if you will, and there’s, there’s photos on the wall, um, Marine of the Month, Sailor of the Month, um, a couple other awards and, and almost every other company had Marines up there except ours, you know, or every other platoon had guys, guys, and, uh, girls up there, except for us.

And I was thinking that’s got to change. Like we gotta, we gotta. Develop good Marines and sailors and we got to get up on that wall. You know, we got to represent this battalion much better and It can almost be easy starting at a lower point because it’s easy to identify Like some of the big problems and if you start tackling those like a checklist Things just start inherently improving and, and that’s kind of what we did.

I sat down with my, my new platoon sergeant. He was, he was a good guy. And, uh, and we got a new staff NCO to help out too. Um, another great, another great Marine. And we just started going down that list. And after, and in six months started noticing a couple of our, a couple of our folks up there, and then about, um, three to four months later, all but one photo on that wall was from our platoon on that wall of outstanding Marines and sailors.

But in that moment, I was like, you know, and, and one of my buddies is just kind of funny. He, he was, you know, trying to talk smack to me a little bit about something that had happened. And I was like, I was like, Oh yeah. What do you think about that? And I pointed up at the wall, I was like, any, any of your guys up there?

And uh, he’s like, Oh, you know, shut up and walked away. And I, and I sat there and thought for a second, I was like, okay, like we, we got here, but now, now where do we go? How do you get better than this? You know? Good performance, you know, individuals are doing well, we’re sending kids to schools, we’re doing a lot of things better, but, you know, it really sucked to fall off this, this hill, you know, and so, um, I just kind of think back to some of the stuff myself and my petunias aren’t talked about, like, hey, you know, there’s got to be areas we’re getting lackadaisical in, and we kind of do a little reevaluation of, You know what we were doing and, and sure enough, we were getting a little lazy in other areas, you know, because we were starting to feel good.

Like we, we could operate well in our job, but sometimes we, we’d forget to mop the floors cause it was 3 a. m. and it was, we just wanted to go home, you know? And, and, uh, a lot of people listening to this are like, oh, well, it’s 3 a. m. You can just do it tomorrow. I was like, no, you got to do it now, you know, because if you don’t do that right away and you start losing that discipline, um, and you’re always handling.

Heavy equipment, uh, weapons, things like that. The complacency, it had no, there was no boundaries, you know, and something bad could happen. So, um, that was something we, we had to fight kind of for the rest of my time as the platoon commander with that group is we were in a good spot. We had it, we had to stay there and it was, it was, it was tough.

[00:40:25] Donnie: Yeah, no, you’re right. I mean, complacency can, it creeps in. Um, I mean, I’ve, I’ve 100 percent been on some teams and I’m in my own personal life. You know, I’ve seen the, the dangerous. Aspects of complacency and it’s sneaky, like you said, and it’s subtle and you don’t see it and I think one of my favorite quotes on complacency.

It’s like, um, tomorrow’s greatest threat is today’s success. And, you know, if you’re if you’re somebody who’s been very successful, I mean, you got to watch it because I mean, I remember when I was with Coach Brown and his staff and 2009 we went to 2010 season there was definitely and he’ll he’ll admit it if you if you ask him Definitely some complacency there on that team That took Texas football into to a tough spot.

I think they’re finally after all these years They’re finally starting to come out of it, but man complacency can can cost you but to guard against it Like you said it’s worth it every every time it’s worth it. Yeah.

[00:41:26] Joe: Yeah, and it takes some serious like Yeah, sometimes you just have to dig and you have to dig to find it and it’s, it’s hard.

It can get hard because you’re, you’re, you’re sitting there thinking like, man, we, it feels like we’re doing the right thing. But um, but once you find it, you’re like, Oh, you know, I better knit this in the butt now because if we don’t.

[00:41:48] Donnie: Yeah. The one last quote, I think Ronald Reagan had a, I think he had a quote on it years ago on complacency is, I think he said it’s Latin for the mess we’re in.

I don’t know if that’s true or not. I think it’s kind of humorous a little bit. Um, but you look at any organization, any team, any sport, personal or professional, wherever you find complacency, like you said, you’re getting lazy. Or you’re just getting so smug and thinking that you can’t be beat. You’re in for a, you’re in for a world of hurt.

So you gotta, you gotta wake up. So it can be crazy. Coach

[00:42:23] Joe: is that the first quote of the the podcast right there might be I was trying to tee you up on a few I was like, this is the one we’re gonna get like I got quotes We’re gonna get like 10 or 12 quotes in this right? Right

[00:42:33] Donnie: for sure. I got him all day coach.

I got you

[00:42:36] Joe: Well coach for our listeners out there. Where can they find you on social media?

[00:42:40] Donnie: Yeah, so my Instagram is just at Donnie Mabe all one word and then Now, I don’t look at my Twitter as much, but I think it’s at Coach D, I think, or no, at Coach Donnie. Sorry, I haven’t even looked at it recently, but those are the two best ways if you want to get me on socials.

Um, and then can I talk about when the book comes out? Yep, that was my next question. So, um, so the book is called officially The Secret Sauce of Leadership. It will, you can pre order it. So you can go to Amazon and pull it up right now and order it. It will release on, I think, Monday, Uh, November 6th, and so I’ve already got some copies of it, some author copies I can’t send out, but, um, but yeah, I’m excited, uh, spread the word, would love to, for you to read it and hear your thoughts on it.

It’s just a book about, uh, all the little things that can help, kind of help you stand out and kind of have an edge as a leader. Um, and so hopefully, hopefully you enjoy it and definitely, uh, uh, take a, take a look at it and let me know your thoughts. Hit me back up.

[00:43:45] Joe: And coach, I don’t want to, I don’t want to spoil anything, but.

I think you told me there’s another one, too, down the line. Yeah,

[00:43:51] Donnie: so that goes back to, you know, when I wrote the book, uh, and turned it into the publisher, it was so big that we actually ended up turning it into two books. And so the first book, I think, is like 140 pages. It’s not real big. Um, the second one’s going to be a little bit bigger, but both of them are leadership books.

And the first one’s going to deal with more of the, uh, the little things that set you apart. The professionalism, um, your mentality, your attitude, how you do things. The second one, again, this will be much further down the road, uh, will be more about the practical. How do you learn to lead? Uh, and kind of lessons from that.

So, yeah, I’m excited. The first one, again, drops November. We’ll, uh, to be determined on the second one though. But it’s, it’s done too. And we’re in the editing process now. Awesome.

[00:44:38] Joe: Well. For our listeners out there, keep your eyes peeled. Go to Amazon, get the book. It’s awesome. I got a little behind the scenes sneak peek at it already, so I’m glad to be ahead of the game there.

Get on there, check it out, and then keep your eyes peeled for that second one coming soon after. Coach, one last question, one last one. You do this to all of our listeners, and I gotta know, top place to eat in Austin.

[00:45:01] Donnie: Oh man, top places if you’re in Austin to eat. Let me think about that. Coach, I got, I’m sorry, I’m a Tex Mex guy.

I love, love, love, love Chewy’s. And if you’ve never been or maybe you’re a junkie, my favorite, I love chips with the creamy jalapeno dip. I think they literally put liquid crack in there. Um, cause I put that on everything. Chewy’s is probably one of my favorites. Um, I’m trying to think the other place is.

I’m a breakfast taco junkie, and so I’ve, I’ve done um, Recently, I don’t know what it is, but it’s a little hole in the wall over here near campus called Taco Joint. And they make the, I think part of it, coach, they, they pack that thing full of ingredients. I think I like that. One time I ordered two and I almost fell asleep at work.

It was just too much food. Um, but that, that taco joint is a, a really good place. So is, I think taco deli is really good as well, but those are my go tos for me personally. I just got to do it. Yeah,

[00:46:11] Joe: no, that’s awesome coach. Well coach. Thanks. Thanks for all your advice and everything you provided for us today I’m coach Joe Krasick with coach Donnie Mabe from Austin, Texas Hook’em.

Hook’em.

[00:46:26] Donnie: Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode of the Team Behind the Team podcast. For future episodes, go to iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show and great content. So if you have a moment, please go to iTunes, leave a rating and review, and let us know how we’re doing.

I’m Donnie Mae, and thanks so much for tuning in.