E56 | Jon Daly: Self-Advocacy in Athletic Performance

[00:00:00] Donnie Maib: Welcome to the team behind the team podcast. I am your host, Donnie Maeb. 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] Donnie Maib: Hello, and welcome back to the team behind the team podcast. I’m your host Donnie Maeb, and we are so fired up and excited this month. We have a very special guest from right here on the 40 acres. We’ll get to our guests in a minute, but Big Joe. What’s going on, brother? How is spring break coming, coming gone?

[00:00:43] Donnie Maib: You good?

[00:00:43] Joe Krawczyk: Uh, it’s good. Good. Any break is a good break. Uh, but it’s uh, it’s, it’s the dog days of spring. And I’m, you know, I’m ready for the championship season to come back in, you know, May. Yeah, end of May, June, so it’s coming around the corner. It’s coming fast, but Yeah, I’m ready. I’m ready to get through April,

[00:01:00] Donnie Maib: but Any spring break, what’d you do, what you gonna do over spring break?

[00:01:04] Donnie Maib: Family time. I love it. I like how you think I’m shutting it down myself recharge so excited about the spring. So anyway, with that, I want to welcome our guest, uh, right here from the 40 acres, uh, professor Dr. John Daly. Welcome to the

[00:01:17] John Daly: show. Thank you, Donnie. I’m excited to be here,

[00:01:20] Donnie Maib: man. I’ll tell you what, uh, for me personally, I love leadership.

[00:01:24] Donnie Maib: There is not a greater. Guy, um, expert that we could have in the studio day than you, John. So thank you so much for making time. I know you’re busy teaching still and all that. So, um, how’s

[00:01:37] John Daly: the semester been for you? Semester’s great. I just got done teaching. In fact, my undergraduate class, it’s called interpersonal communication.

[00:01:43] John Daly: I did my graduate class right before that. It’s called advocacy. So it’s a good semester teaching two of my favorite topics. Um, Uh, interpersonal communication class is an undergraduate class. It’s about relationships and communication and leadership indirectly. And the graduate class in Bay is all about how to influence people, persuade people.

[00:02:01] John Daly: And so those are two really important things and I get to teach both of them in the semester so I’m really excited about

[00:02:05] Donnie Maib: that. Well, I can tell you the listeners to this show are going to be, they’re going to get a treat today. Just real quick, short story. When I met John Daly, I was at a sports management institute course through Texas athletics, and it was multiple days of listening to lecturers and talks.

[00:02:23] Donnie Maib: And again, not trying to be mean, but some of them were pretty boring. But when John Daly took the stage and started teaching about leadership, I set up in like, Where is this guy from? I’m like, I’ve never, you’re literally one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. And I think John, the thing I love about you, you’re not only know your content well, but you’re very passionate and you love it.

[00:02:46] Donnie Maib: And that’s infectious. So thank you for what you’re doing and keep doing what you’re doing. I love what

[00:02:50] John Daly: I do. I love what I do. I’m amazed to get paid for doing this because it’s so much fun anyway. Of course, I’m not the golfer though. When I hear John Daly, most people think I’m a golfer. It does get me good reservations though.

[00:03:01] John Daly: It’d be good to

[00:03:02] Donnie Maib: have his paycheck, right?

[00:03:03] John Daly: Yes, I have a paycheck. Liquor bill would be too high for me. Right, right. That clothing taste, what can you say about it? Right.

[00:03:10] Donnie Maib: But, uh, to all our listeners, John Daly, just an incredible teacher and lecturer and professor and had a lot of influence on me as a leader.

[00:03:18] Donnie Maib: We’re going to get in this topic of advocacy, like you mentioned, and leadership, and, um, this is year forty 47 at Texas. Uh, so

[00:03:28] John Daly: I’ve been here a while. Got here was very young though. Got here was very young. Did you ever meet Earl Campbell? I met Earl Campbell. Earl Campbell actually majored in communication at UT, believe it or not.

[00:03:36] John Daly: Did you teach him? No, but many of my colleagues. We had a colleague named Martin Jadaro who was his advisor. Got him through school at the end. Uh, Martin was just pretty, pretty good. a saint to work with Earl on that stuff. But Campbell’s degree was in communication, believe it or not. Yeah,

[00:03:50] Donnie Maib: and I’ve had the privilege of being around him, uh, when I was with football here for years, and he’s definitely, he’s very well spoken.

[00:03:56] Donnie Maib: He’s very well spoken. He’s very good. And we’ll take all the credit for it, of course. Of course. Gotta take that. So just a little question here for, to kick us off, like, where did it all begin? We kind of talked about that, but like, what motivated you to become, uh, an educator?

[00:04:10] John Daly: I think I always liked watching people work together, talk together, communicate with each other.

[00:04:17] John Daly: Uh, I was originally attracted to research, actually. Uh, when I went to my master’s program, I, I found research fascinating. Discovering things, knowing things, making decisions. Distinctions that mattered, I found the idea of discovering knowledge, the most exciting in the world. So after my master’s, I better get a PhD and I got a PhD in communication and I loved that as well.

[00:04:35] John Daly: And I love the idea of helping people and making them more successful by the way they communicate, whether it be in a relationship, whether it be in a job. Um, we think about communications essential to everything you do in your life. And so I kind of figured out that’s kind of the core thing that if you don’t communicate, well, nothing is going to matter.

[00:04:53] John Daly: Uh, if you have a great vision, if you can’t communicate that vision, if you care about somebody, you can’t communicate that caring, it doesn’t matter. So I’d say in a classroom, just me knowing something and teaching it lies in communicating. And it’s true in every profession. I mean, doctors. Doctors are effective when they’re good communicators.

[00:05:10] John Daly: Lawyers are good when they’re good communicators. You cannot name a profession where communication doesn’t define success. So it’s kind of that one thing that makes a difference across every career, across every interest somebody has. Coaches have to be great communicators. Effective players have to be good communicators too on team sports, right?

[00:05:27] John Daly: Uh, it seems to me team sport is a communication sport. Uh, whether it be verbal and non verbal sorts of things. But how do you motivate people? You motivate by how you communicate. How do you coach people is how you communicate. So I think it’s kind of the ultimate kind of hub of everything. That’s why I found it so fascinating.

[00:05:43] John Daly: And we all do it every day. And the thing is, Nani, you know, fish have no other than water until they’re pregnant. Pull it out of water. Right. Like, oh crap, we’re in water. I should, I’m out of water. New water. Uh, we don’t know we’re in a communication world until we say things we wish, we wish we hadn’t said.

[00:05:57] John Daly: Uh, all of a sudden, I can’t believe I said that. That’s when you become aware of communication. And so, because it’s so common in our lives, we don’t spend much time thinking about how to do it well. Mm hmm. Right. And I really want to help people get better at communicating their ideas and communicating what their passions, if that makes

[00:06:12] Donnie Maib: sense as well.

[00:06:13] Donnie Maib: Yeah, that’s, you bring up a good point. Uh, I know Joe has seen this, but I mean, even recently, um, this past year, I’ve seen some of our athletes struggle and they just don’t know how to communicate and it impacts their performance because Hey, to your point, it impacts their relationship with their coach.

[00:06:32] Donnie Maib: It impacts their relationship negatively with their, with their teammates. And then because of that, they don’t have the result that they’re really seeking and they’re not as happy and they don’t have always a great experience. So, yeah, I mean, especially for. And I think to your point, we’re such a digital phone kind of default mode, a lot of our kids are, and they’re not very good communicators.

[00:06:54] Donnie Maib: They good, they’re good with texting and all that, but when they get in front of somebody, they’re very intimidated. It’s crazy how many athletes today are so intimidated to go talk to their head coach or to fight or advocate for themselves. It’s interesting.

[00:07:07] John Daly: Yeah. I think you’re right. I think now they do communicate.

[00:07:09] John Daly: Don’t question them out. Texting is a form of communication. I have, I have an 18 year old son. I watched him communicate with his friends. They play a game on the computer and they talk to each other as they’re playing. It’s a really interesting about how they communicate with technology. But talking still matters.

[00:07:24] John Daly: Talking still matters. And one of the basic principles I try to teach everyone is stop negotiating with yourself. Stop, stop making the ask, but people are afraid to make the ask sometimes. They are. So an athlete’s not willing to make the ask of a coach, a parent’s not willing to make the ask of a coach, a coach is not willing to make the ask of an AD sometimes.

[00:07:42] John Daly: And I say the biggest secret of being successful in life is being willing to make the ask. Um, too many people negotiate with themselves, it seems to me. So for my MBA class, for example, I give them an assignment. I say, for this semester, once a week, you got to ask for something you know you cannot get.

[00:07:59] John Daly: They get uncomfortable. They initially get comfortable. If I say, look, next time you’re in an airplane, ask for a better seat automatically. Next time you’re in a hotel, ask for a better room. Ask for a better room automatically. That’s tough. Don’t ask the question. Um, next time you’re in a restaurant, ask for something on the menu.

[00:08:14] John Daly: It’s good practice, right? And it’s amazing, many times you’ll get it if you make the ask, but people are afraid to make the ask. So if you want, you got to apply, you got to apply for the job, you’re not going to get it otherwise. So making the ask, right? You got to make the ask for a raise if you want it, you got to make, ask for the facilities, for the coaching, in that sense.

[00:08:30] John Daly: Some athletes will want to come and say, I need more coaching from you, and they get what they want. Other athletes don’t make that ask, and they don’t understand why they don’t get it. Um, but making the ask is a really important skill people have to develop over time. And a lot of people don’t get how important that is until it’s too late.

[00:08:45] John Daly: Then they say, I wish I had, I wish I had, I should have applied to that school. An example of a graduate, Donnie, is this, I always say, how many of you did not apply to school because you knew you couldn’t get in? People raise their hand. Then how many, much, somebody in your class who was much stupider applied and got in, right?

[00:09:01] John Daly: Yeah. So why not make the ask? What’s the other, just make a mistake and admit you, right? Oh, that’s a good point. Just make the ask. That’s a good point. And, uh, if you don’t apply, you’re not going to get it, and the same thing operates in any part of your life. If you want that internship, make the ask for internship.

[00:09:14] John Daly: No one’s going to choose you otherwise. Um, and that’s one of the most important skills, and a lot of people aren’t good at that. So I just, I say practice it. I mean, next time you go to McDonald’s, ask for something on the menu. They won’t do it most of the time, but sometimes they will. Uh, go to a hotel, ask for a better room.

[00:09:29] John Daly: They might give you a better room. I guarantee if you don’t ask, it’s not going to happen, right? So if you get courageous about people who don’t, you’re never going to see again, it gets easier all the times too. Uh, you’re married, you gotta ask your wife to marry you, okay? Otherwise, it’s not gonna happen, okay?

[00:09:42] John Daly: That was a tough ask, too. Yeah, tough ask, but you did. I’m sure it was a tough ask. You’re scared of death. You can say no in your case. I’m quite sure about that. Don’t reject me. But, uh, making the ask is a really important skill, and I’m always amazed by how many people are just, you know. Afraid to make that ask is career limiting.

[00:09:57] John Daly: No question about it,

[00:09:59] Joe Krawczyk: John. I got to admit, I did a little research on it. I do research on everybody and use an example in a video of, uh, asking for a car and had someone in the, in the audience named the price of a Porsche. Yeah. So I told Donnie, walk in. I was like, Donnie, I’ve been researching Bentleys all week.

[00:10:15] Joe Krawczyk: So I found a 350, 000 Bentley just in case you brought it up. So yeah, the

[00:10:19] John Daly: example is used to I say in my class. Uh, who wants to buy a nice car someday? And they’ll say, I want to buy a Porsche. Then I’ll say, well, how much does a Porsche cost? They say 100, 000. So let’s suppose you get a bonus in your company, they give you 95, 000 in cash in a paperback.

[00:10:34] John Daly: We live in Austin. Uh, you’re driving home that night, you go right by your neighborhood Porsche dealership. There’s the car of your dream with a hundred K in the window. I always say, always go with your paperback money. I got 95, 000. You want to give me the car for all my money? They may not, but they may.

[00:10:49] John Daly: By guarantee if you don’t go in, they won’t give it to you, right? And they may have negotiated. But I always think, why don’t I ask, why I always ask for the discount? It kind of annoys people after all, but it’s kind of good to do. I have a good friend, um, he teaches in negotiation, and he will literally, when he’s getting bored, go buy a car, not buy a car, but negotiate a car.

[00:11:06] John Daly: He’ll negotiate for two hours and walk out. He gets stuck in a city for the next day because of a snowstorm, and he’ll go negotiate for a car. He’ll never get by it. His goal is to see how bright, it’s just practice for him, it’s just practice. That’s awesome. That’s pretty insightful. Yeah, but why not? Just stop by and do it.

[00:11:19] John Daly: It’s a practice. You’ll never see the person again. You’re in. Love it. Why not go to a dealership and say, I’m homes that truck and I don’t really want to pay that much and see how far you can get them down. And you don’t have to buy it, you’re not signing any papers, you can say, I’ll come back later. But it’s good practice in some ways.

[00:11:33] John Daly: It’s kind of, I think it’s good to learn how to do that. Um, just making the ASCA is a really key skill. I think that’s, make the ASCA is kind of my theme for many people. Well, you’ve

[00:11:42] Joe Krawczyk: done a tremendous amount of work on, uh, Advocacy and everything. I mean, is that, is that kind of like a good place to start for people?

[00:11:48] John Daly: Like when they Advocacy is about how you persuade people. Advocacy is about how you successfully influence people. Uh, it’s all about, uh, having people adopt the ideas you have that are good ideas. Uh, it doesn’t matter if you have an idea, if you can’t get people to adopt it, it’s going to go nowhere. So if I want to buy, build a new stadium, I got to sell the idea of a new stadium.

[00:12:06] John Daly: If I want to get a new weight room, I got to sell the idea of a new weight room. Yeah. It’s all about, if you will, sales, but mostly internal inside organization, my most interest in. Politicians have to advocate for their ideas. Public interest groups have to advocate for their ideas. Athletics has to advocate as well.

[00:12:22] John Daly: Uh, you got to athlete for real estate on a campus, you got to, uh, for budget, um, the AD’s job is to advocate for the athletics in the university as a whole, but coaches have to advocate with other coaches, with the AD, and with players, and players certainly have to advocate for themselves. As well as for the sports sometimes.

[00:12:40] John Daly: So it’s all about how do I influence somebody to buy in one of my ideas? How do I get them to adopt an idea? And the way I teach it, there’s a whole bunch of skills involved. One is to make sure people understand what you’re talking about, communicating clearly. One is to make sure people want to listen to you.

[00:12:55] John Daly: Well, it was Yates, a poet, Irish poet, one time said, well, how do you tell the dancer from the dance? Are you the right person to present the idea? Why would I want to listen to you? So it’s all about building credibility. Uh, then you got to get partners, get people to want to be part of your team, if that makes sense to sell that idea.

[00:13:12] John Daly: Then you got to kind of pre sell and get people involved in your idea. Then you got to actually persuade them. And so there’s kind of a five step sequence I use, generally speaking, and it works almost every time. Um, but advocacy, advocacy is a really core belief in my life because it’s all about getting people to adopt the things you have in mind.

[00:13:30] John Daly: Assuming, I assume goodwill, good ethics, okay. But you know your strength coach, how do you convince somebody to put that extra hour in? Not by threatening them, threats don’t go that far, but how do you convince them to put that extra time in? How do you convince them to go a bit early before practice or game?

[00:13:45] John Daly: How do you How do you convince those things? How do you convince people to eat right? Uh, that’s all part of life every day. Parents have to influence their kids. Husbands have to influence their wife and vice versa. It’s all about influence. That’s what coaching really is about, advocacy, when you think about it.

[00:14:00] John Daly: Most coaches can’t force anything nowadays. They gotta persuade. Yeah,

[00:14:03] Joe Krawczyk: absolutely. Where do you think most people kind of fall short? Is it, you know, maybe near the beginning? You know, if they have like a great idea and they, you know, Like reality hits them, it’s going to take work, they got to go through the steps and they

[00:14:15] John Daly: fall short, or is think some people fall short of that.

[00:14:17] John Daly: I think some people think that people adopt that as a, it’s a good idea. People can see it automatically. I don’t know how many people I’ve run into in companies, for example, say, you know, I had that idea four years ago. No one listened to me. You know, she used to work for me. Now, she’s my boss. It’s not fair.

[00:14:34] John Daly: They kind of assume ideas by themselves sell themselves. And that’s only the first step. You have to have a good idea. But you also got to be able to sell this idea. And a lot of people just don’t get that. They think I write the report, it’s adopted. Um, CEOs, I make the announcement, it’s happening. No, it isn’t.

[00:14:50] John Daly: You got to get people to buy into your announcement. And the mistake is a lot of people don’t know how or don’t think it’s important to make the pitch at the same time. The idea is obvious. That’s one challenge. Another challenge is they’re not ready for resistance. So, you know, public speaking. Great skill.

[00:15:10] John Daly: Most people in classes don’t know how to be eloquent in public speaking classes. It’s okay. But we did research years ago that found it’s not how eloquent it matters, it’s how well you answer people’s questions and challenges. I can do a sparkling presentation. You ask me a question, I can’t answer it.

[00:15:26] John Daly: You raise an objection, I fumble that too. It oftentimes becomes a feeding frenzy that stumps the jump. On the other hand, I answer your question brilliantly, I respond to your objection even better, you go, this guy knows his stuff. We don’t expect, the idea is brilliant, we know it’s a critical idea, it’s a must idea, but we can’t imagine why somebody would have problems with this idea.

[00:15:45] John Daly: And so we don’t prep enough for that response. That’s another issue that we have to deal with a lot of times. People think it’s a no brainer, we gotta do it, it’s obvious. And they can’t imagine anyone coming back. So I always tell people, if you’re making a presentation, you probably spend too much time on your slide deck and not enough time thinking about people’s questions or objections.

[00:16:04] John Daly: Because my experience has been a lot of people can present eloquently, but they can’t handle questions. That’s when they fall

[00:16:10] Donnie Maib: apart. No, I think, you know, just, I was thinking as you were talking there, um, you can definitely lose credibility. And like you said, some momentum with people is if you can’t handle a question and answer, you know.

[00:16:26] Donnie Maib: And. I don’t know. I’ve done this long enough now. I spend more time now thinking about, like you said, what, what kind of resistance or object objections are like, how is this or why is this going to get shot down when we go into this meeting? Um, so with that, let’s say for let’s just hypothetically say you’re dealing with an A.

[00:16:47] Donnie Maib: D. Or a boss, and you want to go in there and sell them some idea, um, what would be some strategies or techniques or whatever that you, how would you get that person to one, because what I’ve seen, you said earlier, they don’t listen to you, like within about two to three minutes they’re listening, and then if it’s not something, they’re checked out and you can see it in their eyes.

[00:17:10] Donnie Maib: They’re there watching you, but you’ve lost them. You haven’t, you’ve not connected with them. You haven’t caught their attention and they’re done. So what, what, cause I know like a lot of times that like at a big school, like Texas, there’s so many financial pressures and problems they’re dealing with.

[00:17:26] Donnie Maib: They’re always going to be like, well, how much is it going to cost? Right. So, but how would you. To our listeners, how would you navigate and give people advice

[00:17:32] John Daly: on that? Yeah, let me give you a couple things. One is brevity matters. Right. There’s a wonderful thing in Hollywood called a log line. Every movie has a one or two sentence description in the entire movie.

[00:17:42] John Daly: It’s really hard to do. Take one movie, and it’s a two hour movie, and you have to write one sentence that describes the entire movie. I always tell students, imagine drawing a billboard of your idea. One picture, no more than seven words. So one thing when you’re dealing with decision makers, brevity matters, but when you walk in the room, what do you want to do?

[00:18:00] John Daly: Um, number one, you want to create a problem in their minds. People respond to needs. If there’s a problem, I’ll do something. If there’s no problem, why adopt anything, right? Uh, so I always teach this as the why now question. Why should we do this right now? Why can’t we wait? So you got to tell the AD, we got to do this right now because there’s a big problem right now because we’re pushing down the road for two years, we’re not going to do anything about it.

[00:18:23] John Daly: But the why now is important. And that’s the old fashioned SWOT analysis we have in marketing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then you offer your proposal. Now a big mistake people make sometimes is they present the proposal first. Here’s what I want to do. And the boss says we can’t afford that.

[00:18:39] John Daly: First you create a problem. Oh, that’s good. Then you recommend a solution. That’s so good. Your doctor never recommends treatment until she describes your malady. You don’t go to your doctor just to say, I want to cut you open. She says, you got a weird growth in your skin, I want to biopsy it. Go for it.

[00:18:54] John Daly: Always create the problem in people’s minds before you recommend a solution. So true. Because otherwise they’re going to knock the solution and not even list to your primary say, let me explain why. Hold on. Let me explain why. Always walk in and say, we have an issue right now that’s a burning issue right now we got to deal with.

[00:19:08] John Daly: And they’ll say, you’re right. And I say, I have a solution to it. But then what you got to do is show people benefits. Um, one of the most important concepts and influences called the with it question, what’s in it for them? People got to see there’s something in it for them. Not what’s in it for you, but what’s in it for them.

[00:19:24] John Daly: Um, we oftentimes talk about what we want, not what the other person would want. And then you gotta handle objections, and last thing, and this is kind of interesting research, Donny, that well, we’ve discovered this in the last 20 years. People fear regret more than they’re excited about opportunity.

[00:19:39] John Daly: Missing out is a deep fear. So, companies buy other companies, not because they want the company, but I want to make sure no competitor gets the company. Um, you know, Austin Real Estate. I wish I had, I wish I had, I wish I had. I should have bought that property years ago, now I can’t afford to look at it.

[00:19:55] John Daly: Last couple years, I should have sold, now I can’t sell. People are much more afraid of losing out than excited about getting. So you always answer to your boss, We don’t have to do this, boss. We don’t have to do this. But if we don’t do it, going to happen. Let me tell you what’s going to go wrong if we don’t do it.

[00:20:08] John Daly: That’s what gives them nightmares at night time. We should have done it. I didn’t do it. I’m going to be in trouble because I didn’t do it. I’ve never heard that about regret. But regret drives everyone. Regret drives everyone. It is true. You know, everyone has regrets. I should have married that person. I should have gone to that school.

[00:20:20] John Daly: I should have taken that job. Uh, and people live to some extent in life thinking about regrets. And I don’t want to think, if I don’t do this, I won’t get a second chance.

[00:20:30] Donnie Maib: You know, you, you made me, okay, for, I gotta, hold on Joe, I gotta, he said something earlier that’s kind of resonating. You said something in our, here at the beginning of the show, and what I’ve seen, to your point, is if you can find a way to take your ideas and let it become their ideas, but like, how do you do that though?

[00:20:50] Donnie Maib: Like,

[00:20:52] John Daly: let me give you a couple of ways. One is I always say, don’t ask people questions, ask for their advice instead. Uh, present the problem, let them solve it. Actually, what leaders do is leaders define problems, they don’t define solutions. Uh, leaders create problems. And they really honestly don’t care about the solution with the reason of ethics and law and so on and that.

[00:21:10] John Daly: They want the problem solved. See, AD says we need to get better at this. He or she doesn’t really care how you do it within reason of those things, right? They define the problem. Every new AD comes with a new set of problems. And what happens, they define the problems. So I ask companies, for example, are you a market share company or a margin company?

[00:21:31] John Daly: Both of them. You can’t be both at the same time. One guy comes and says, we’ve got to get more customers. Next person says, we’ve got to make sure our customers are profitable. Different problems. They don’t have a solution. Leaders don’t focus on solutions. They focus on defining problems and how you define the problem shapes everything.

[00:21:46] John Daly: And footnote, creative people redefine things. They redefine the problem. You’ve always thought the problem is this. Now we think the problem is this. Uh, good example. I’m a frequent flyer in American Airlines, for example. Okay. Um, years ago, Okay. You never fly American. I always fly American. You fly Southwest.

[00:22:05] John Daly: Years ago, they treated you wonderfully and ignored me. Because the problem then was, how do we get more, how do we get new customers? Nowadays, airlines actually punish new customers, reward old customers, right? The problem changed from how do we get new customers to how do we keep our current customers.

[00:22:19] John Daly: When you redefine the problem, new solutions come about. Like with kids, you and your wife’s talk about what’s the problem with the kid there. What’s the problem? They don’t work hard enough. No, they don’t have enough friends. No, they’re too involved in computers. Uh, no. Once you both agree on the problem, solution gets easy.

[00:22:35] John Daly: It’s true. Yeah. But if we spend too much time talking about solutions, not enough time talking about the problem. And a good leader understands their job is to find the problem, not to solve it. Yeah.

[00:22:44] Donnie Maib: You kind of made me think of that picture of like, sometimes leaders, you know, they They, they climb the ladder, but sometimes the ladder is going, it’s up against the wrong wall.

[00:22:53] Donnie Maib: Exactly. Right. And then you get to the top and go like, why am I stuck up here? Absolutely.

[00:22:58] John Daly: You don’t, you don’t focus. I’m, I’m, I’m working on a project now. We’re asking leaders what makes, what made them successful? What’s the secret of success? I’ve been interested in this the last couple of years. I’ve been, Basically, how do people become successful?

[00:23:09] John Daly: And I’m interested in the very small things they know other people don’t know. Uh, and one is choosing the right ladder. One is the ability to get off a ladder and go sideways sometimes. Uh, lateral moves are sometimes very valuable. You may not move up, you may move side. You may actually move down sometimes, uh, because that gives you a chance to have exposed to the things.

[00:23:28] John Daly: I mean, you want to get. Lot of experiences. One last thing, by the way, about leaders, one thing to remember also, and you go to your boss with an idea, and he says no, she says no, always remember this, ask them why they said no later on. Their answer will tell you how to persuade them next time. Oh, that’s so insightful.

[00:23:48] John Daly: Oh, wow. That’s insightful. So in other words, I go to my boss and I want to do this, and she goes, Nah, John, I can do it. Okay, I accept. You’re the boss. A few would say, You know, you told me no. Why’d you say no? So let’s suppose I’m going to bring you in as a speaker in communication, Donnie, okay? She says, Nah, to bring Donnie in.

[00:24:06] John Daly: I said, why not? Well, Donnie’s awful expensive, number one, okay? Number two, his slide decks are too kind of fancy for our people. And number three, you know, honestly speaking, he talks too slowly for our students. Next time, what do I want to do? Get a faster talker? Get cheaper and better slide decks? You just told me how to persuade you.

[00:24:24] John Daly: When you ask why they’re saying no, they’ll tell you exactly how to persuade them next time. It’s kind of a little secret most people don’t know. Most people go, I’m not going to do it. I guess I’m not going to do it. I always ask, why do they say no? That tells you how to persuade them next time. It’s a really neat trick.

[00:24:37] Donnie Maib: So we literally, I was at this, um, conference in January and this, it was coaches. It was the NSCA was a great conference. And this coach that I know to your point, he came in with this big proposal. Like it was number one, it was about 30 pages. So he was not, There was no brevity, no long line there. And then he didn’t, like you said, he didn’t define, he didn’t know how, why his boss said no.

[00:25:05] Donnie Maib: And so he just got shot down and never went back. He never circled back to figure out like why he didn’t want to do it. And he never got it done.

[00:25:13] John Daly: Always go back, not necessarily the same conversation, but always go back and say, I appreciate you saying no and understand that, but explain to me why you said no.

[00:25:22] John Daly: And most people would be glad to say the reasons why, and those reasons are how to persuade them. They just told you how to persuade them next time. By the way, one other thing about the coach in terms of that stuff, um, I always tell people when you’re making a presentation, come on, let’s say they’re giving you 20 minutes of the conference to present.

[00:25:37] John Daly: Come on, 20 minute version, no, five minute version. Five minute version is almost always better. It takes more work to get the five minute version. So much more. If you’re in a conference presentation and five people at the table, each of you has ten minutes to talk, somebody eats up too much of the time.

[00:25:51] John Daly: No one wants to stay for your ten minute presentation. They’re going to love it if it’s a four minute presentation instead. So, it’s really artistry to kind of take that time. Length of time and cut up by two thirds of three quarters. If I had to give the same presentation one fourth of time, what would I say?

[00:26:05] John Daly: It’s a great way of figuring out what the key thing is. Not 30 pages, but if you had to summarize in one page, what would

[00:26:09] Donnie Maib: it be? Yeah, I mean that’s, I mean, that’s like you said, the, you’d being an advocate and an influencer. If you go too long on all that, you, people check out so

[00:26:18] John Daly: fast. And they start getting angry.

[00:26:20] John Daly: People get angry. They go bored. And nowadays with media too, attention span has gone way down. People’s attention span, because they’re used to looking at websites now, everything’s quick nowadays. People can’t even sit through a movie nowadays like they used to unless it really keeps your attention over a period of time.

[00:26:36] John Daly: It’s just attention span’s changing. I mean, I teach undergraduates. It’s having them read a book. It’s not possible in many cases. I hate to say it. I’d like them to read a book, but they’re not gonna read a book. They don’t even read a newspaper article sometimes. Uh, it’s okay. Uh, they, you know, I used to read deeply, they read broadly.

[00:26:53] John Daly: So I might read an entire book to nourish them. I think they will go 50 different web pages for maybe three paragraphs a piece. Yeah. Just, you know, They, they, they take knowledge differently and that’s fine. It’s just a way of learning stuff, right? I want an unconditioning. I’m not going to take a manual and read the whole thing.

[00:27:08] John Daly: I’m going to go to a bunch of YouTubes to watch and I’ll figure out what’s going on across YouTubes. I’ll see consistencies. Just different way of learning, but people don’t have the attention span. We’d like

[00:27:17] Donnie Maib: to know there’s a there’s a book I bought recently and I’ve heard some people talk. It’s called the shallows and it’s it’s a book about what the Internet’s doing to our brains.

[00:27:27] Donnie Maib: And they go into this. The part of the book is like because of the way the brains wired in the way that the computer and the way we’re looking at things. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. type of sandcastle. It wasn’t to make this masterpiece, it was for them to learn to focus on one task for that length of time.

[00:28:05] Donnie Maib: That’s fascinating. And I wonder if in the future, if this is going to be something that may, you know, have things come back around. We have to learn how to focus down the road. So anyway,

[00:28:13] John Daly: good stuff. Well, I mean, I personally try, I mean, I force myself to read one reasonably long article every day and it’s really hard to do.

[00:28:21] John Daly: It’s really hard I find every excuse not to do it, but I simply say I’m going to read a New Yorker article or a magazine article, I’m going to read one chapter, and I’m not going to get up until I finish it. And it’s really hard to do. Uh, it’s just, I mean, I’m a big reader, I love books, I love reading stuff, but it’s much harder now than it used to be, because I’m so used to going to the web for everything, just reading a paragraph or two and being done with it.

[00:28:42] John Daly: Uh, you know, we’re a rossant species though, don’t worry, we’re cockroaches, we will survive. Uh, and we’ll just process data differently in some ways. And, uh, yeah. The kids in college know they’re learning. They’re learning a different way than I learned, but am I so scared anyway? I need them to learn well and whatever works for them works for me.

[00:29:00] Joe Krawczyk: Is it, is there almost, um, how do I say this? A hang up with, with some of that, we know where we kind of spoke on how brevity can benefit you. Is there almost like too much brevity where they’re kind of, you know, students, they’re taking in information, um, so sporadically and so quickly, you know, we, we just spoken and, you know, be ready for the challenges and the questions.

[00:29:20] Joe Krawczyk: You know, if you, if you only have wave tops prepared for. You know, uh, you know, fighting for something you want, you know, is that where a lot of, you know, young people get

[00:29:29] John Daly: hung up? Yeah, I think it can be a problem. I think the ability, for example, answering questions, it’s the follow up question that matters.

[00:29:35] John Daly: Right. Anyone can answer the first question. When I say, yeah, if that’s true, then What about this? We judge people by the follow ups. And so, when I teach people how to do this, I talk about Supreme Court justices, for example. You get 36 seconds to talk before a Supreme Court justice is going to ask you a question.

[00:29:52] John Daly: But it’s never the first question that gets you. It’s the third question. If that’s true, sir, then if that’s true, then what happens here? And the real experts are really good at the follow up. And they’re good at turning negatives into positives also. So, yeah. A product’s too small? Actually, it’s portable.

[00:30:07] John Daly: A product’s too big? Actually, you can’t lose it. They have this ability to take a negative and turn it into a positive. One of the things I remember about questioning, for example, almost no one does something they know to be stupid. When people do things, they have generally a good reason for doing it.

[00:30:23] John Daly: Now, looking back, they say it was stupid, but look, when they did it, good reason. I mean, we’re all teenagers once. I don’t know about you guys, but I count myself lucky to be alive based upon my teenage years. For sure. Every dumb thing I did, though, at that moment, I had a reason. I was drunk. I was pissed at my parents, all my friends were doing.

[00:30:37] John Daly: I had no idea what gravity and inertial force was. So I just did it, right? Looking back, it was really dumb. And what I’ve discovered about really savvy people is they assume people always have a good reason for what they’re doing. Once you figure the good reason out, everything makes sense. So if you’re married, you’ve had arguments with your partner before.

[00:30:54] John Daly: I said that because you did that, but I did that because you want this, but I want this because you did this. No one does something intentionally wrong. I’m very interested, do a lot of consulting on this kind of stuff and training on this and fasten it by safety. No one comes to work planning to get hurt.

[00:31:08] John Daly: No. When you debrief after an incident, they always have a good reason. I have incredible balance. I was a gymnast in college. I have great balance. I didn’t put my hard hat on because I didn’t think I’d go to the job site today. Uh, in your business, people do weights and hurt themselves very easily. But they had a good reason.

[00:31:23] John Daly: They didn’t think it was that dangerous. They didn’t understand physiology that well. They’ve done it a hundred times before. And so if you really want to work effectively with people, You’ve always got to figure out their good reasons. That A. D., you’ve got to figure out her good reason, his good reason for saying no.

[00:31:37] John Daly: Uh, if you can’t figure out their good reason, you don’t know how to work with them all the time. Because they’re not saying no because they’re dumb. They have a good reason. And figuring out people’s good reasons is actually, when you talk about what makes people very successful, is figuring out their good reasons.

[00:31:50] John Daly: That’s how couples work, too, when you think about it. I mean, you want to go to Miami. Spouse wants to go on a cruise ship. Well, what are you going to do? You gotta ask why. She wants food, drinking, uh, going to a lot of sites. You want basically relax, do nothing on a beach. Um, where can you go instead? Maybe Vegas.

[00:32:06] John Daly: All right. Once you understand the reasons why somebody wants something, it gets easier to negotiate that. And the why, the why behind the what is really incredible thing. So we’ve been studying this for a couple of years now. I’ve discovered that really successful people are great reads of people. You played football.

[00:32:25] John Daly: You see a game different than I see a game because you can read it differently. You can read plays. I would never, when you’re playing football, you could read a play kind of without knowing you’re not a replay. A good pilot knows how to read clouds. A good sailor knows how to read the water, right? If you’re a hunter, a military officer, you read weapons better than most of us do.

[00:32:43] John Daly: Comes to leaders, reading people’s the ultimate skill. And every successful person I’ve run into, self made for sure, is a really good reader of people. So we’ve been asking the question for the last couple years, what do they do to read people? What are the tricks they have? And we’ve actually done some really fun research on those tricks because they all know how to read people better than most of us because people matter more.

[00:33:03] John Daly: And the big key thing is they assume people have good reasons for things. So the job is to figure out the good reason. Yeah.

[00:33:10] Joe Krawczyk: I feel like, um, You know, I’ll use athletic performance as an example. You know, there’s, there’s multiple departments within athletic performance, you know, nutrition, athletic training, strength, um, and in every department within that group is, we’re all advocating for ourselves to, you know, to try to elevate our department.

[00:33:28] Joe Krawczyk: And, you know, and I, I feel probably confident saying every school across the country is that way. Um, you know, what ways do sometimes like maybe departments step on each other and maybe hurt each other in that process? And what are ways we can avoid, because we still need each other in one big group. If you, you know, you had to.

[00:33:46] Joe Krawczyk: Draw us on paper and just be a big giant Venn diagram in the middle is everything we can do for the student athlete, you

[00:33:53] John Daly: know I think what you do is cut me up keep reminding people the goal keep reminding goes like with you know You and your partner having an argument. Hey, we’re more we’re together.

[00:34:02] John Daly: We’re a couple. We don’t like this work We’ve been together for years. We have kids. We have a life together Every so often remind each other why that matters and I think everyone gets their own little silo and business Look, that’s how those are departments and we worry. What’s on our department You And we forget about the overarching mission.

[00:34:18] John Daly: Uh, it’s easy to worry about my academic department and not worry about people in engineering or education or the broads doing stuff. And I guess, you know, we want to create a student that’s well rounded. So I don’t want them to all take my class only. I want to take a lot of different classes so they get a lot of different experiences here.

[00:34:35] John Daly: Um, it’s hard to do that sometimes. What’s good for, what’s, what’s great for the, for Overall group may not be great for you individually. Now you don’t want to be picked on and taken advantage of at the same time, you got to defend your territory, right? But you’ve got to understand the big picture, um, and keep reminding people of the big picture.

[00:34:52] John Daly: And that’s what leaders do, is they remind people the why they’re there, why, what’s our mission, what are we trying to accomplish? And you do it all sorts of ways. For example, I always like to say, I walk into a building, look at the lobby, and I can tell you what that business does if they’re a good business.

[00:35:08] John Daly: How you decorate communicates something, right? So if I go athletics, what do I see? Athletes who’ve gone professional, that’d be one message, okay? I see athletes who are working jobs once they graduate, that’s a different message, right? I see pictures of coaches, that’s a different thing. So how you decorate telling me what matters.

[00:35:27] John Daly: I was at USC a couple weeks ago, in the SMI program, and we’re in this It’s a conference center they have at USC for athletics and they have all the Heisman winners on the walls. It’s really cool. They have all the Heisman, great etchings, great stories behind them. All the guys won world wide records in their sports.

[00:35:43] John Daly: But there’s a picture of this older guy, must be 70 years old as a day, right next to Heisman guy here. Another big star here. This guy’s in the picture. Full size picture. Who is he? He had gone to 680 games, never missed a game in something like 50 years at the U. S. S. E. U. C. fan. I said, that’s a really cool thing.

[00:36:03] John Daly: You’re celebrating fans along with athletics. I mean, most places, there’s a message there, right? You walk in that room, you go, why him? Well, he didn’t play sports. He was a mailman, postman, but he went to every game. His brother missed only two, okay, before he passed away, but he did 600 and some games. Never missed one.

[00:36:20] John Daly: And that communicates something about USC athletics in a way I had not thought of before. Of course, every school celebrates their greatest players, Earl Campbell kind of things, right? But celebrating a fan equal to that is a different message in some ways, right? And so I always tell you, how you decorate communicate what matters.

[00:36:37] John Daly: So I walk in the building, you’ll be celebrating your function, or you’re celebrating what your function does for people also. That’s another take home. Um, there’s a concept in customer service, no one wants your product, they want what your product does for them. So it’s athletics about the student athlete.

[00:36:51] John Daly: Or is it about entertainment? Or is it about building cohesion on the campus? Uh, that’s the 80s question. What business am I in? Are we in the athletics business? Or are we in the school spirit business? Or are we in the donation business? By the way, we’re not donating to athletics alone, but donations to the entire campus.

[00:37:07] John Daly: Um, if you fall in love with what your business does for people, it’s always going to be more successful when you fall in love with what your business does. Uh, so are you in the entertainment business? I mean, the whole business, what business are you in, in some ways, right? And I think when you remember that, you almost always get more cohesion.

[00:37:24] John Daly: It’s always good to come back in the meeting and say, hold on, what’s our real business here? What’s the real point of what we’re doing? So we want to do weight training. We want good weight rooms, but we also want people who are fed in the search of what, making these kids successful in what they want to do.

[00:37:37] John Daly: And by the way, it also helps the entire campus in some ways. We’re part of a campus too, and I think some athletic departments, the biggest silos, athletics versus non athletics. And I think that’s the worst thing that happens on some campuses. Uh, the silos with athletics are important, no question about it.

[00:37:52] John Daly: But being apart from campus, the question is when are you not part of campus anymore? I think our current AD is doing an incredibly good job, I don’t know the man, but I think he’s doing a great job of kind of building a campus spirit around athletics in some ways. We’ve had previous athletic directors who were just irrelevant to the campus.

[00:38:09] John Daly: And I think that’s a really important thing. I’m not going to name names, but there are some people who worked hard to piss off the campus. Uh, other, this current guy seems really good at this stuff and kind of being a campus citizen as well, if that makes any sense. And so the value of ethics is more than simply the student ethic, which is important, don’t get me wrong.

[00:38:27] John Daly: The value is what ethics does for the entire community. And that’s an equally valuable thing.

[00:38:31] Donnie Maib: Yeah. No, it’s got thing. Yeah. Yeah. CDC is definitely done. He’s got that ability to build bridges and extend all the branches.

[00:38:40] John Daly: I perceive that. I perceive that. He seems to be more involved in campus in some ways, uh, than some others.

[00:38:45] John Daly: And, um, you know, you got to give bad news to people, good news to people. But if you have the overarching goal, how do we make this a better experience for students? How do you build a sense of community? It’s hard to disagree with those things. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a, there’s a wonderful concept called God terms and the persuasion that are true.

[00:39:01] John Daly: Uh, if you hook your idea to a God term, it’s hard to say no to. I’ve heard

[00:39:05] Donnie Maib: you talk about this. Go into that a little bit.

[00:39:07] John Daly: God terms are words like quality, customer focus, sustainability. This is good. Um, if you superglue your idea to a couple of God terms, it’s hard for people to say no to it. So I pay, I might say in a meeting, as part of our quality industry, more customer focus we need to do on proposing.

[00:39:23] John Daly: You think my idea is idiotic. You say, John, I like your idea. I say, I hate quality. I hate customers. Which is it? Most of us have been in meetings before when people have literally picked our pockets metaphorically. They use a God term. We know we can’t argue against it because the God term is so strong, right?

[00:39:38] John Daly: God terms are, your kids do the same thing. Dad, don’t you trust me? All right, God term. Who’s going to say I don’t trust my kid, right? Yeah. So it’s a God term. So you come back, well, we trust you. It’s just your Friends, that doesn’t work, okay? They win with the word god term trust. So every organization has these god terms.

[00:39:54] John Daly: Maybe student athletes god, safety’s god, security’s god term, um, you know, quality’s god term, schedule’s god term. Every company, every organization has some god terms. Yeah, safety. Safety’s a big one. And with all due respect to safety, and I deeply believe in safety, but an enormous amounts of money spent on the name safety and nothing to do with safety whatsoever.

[00:40:12] John Daly: Very true. So I work with one company, I won’t name it, and the title is called Influencing for Safety. And they’ve never canceled a session. And they won’t cancel a session because you cannot cancel a program. Because I’ll read back this, you sure you want to cancel Influence for Safety? They go, no, no, we got to have it, we got to have it.

[00:40:26] John Daly: I know, because they want no record of canceling anything with safety. And it’s, it was a funny exercise, the guy created it, it was burned out, he said, they’ll use this program for a hundred years, whatever you want, John, because they never cancel anything without safety in it. By the way, how do you fight a God term?

[00:40:41] John Daly: Competing God term. You always come up with competing God terms. So if you say, it’s part of our core industry to, Be more customer focused. I’ll say, yeah, but you know, I think we have an ethical, a more in effect, a legal responsibility. Now the battle’s pitched. Oh yeah. You always fight God. Yeah, you just one upped him.

[00:40:55] John Daly: So if you have younger kids, remember when they’re teenagers, don’t you trust me? Think back to our conversation today and say, honey, we love you. That’d be so pissed. It’d be fun. I almost want to explode, because they can’t say, don’t love me, right? Love versus trust fair. So like in manufacturing companies, there’s generally what, seven, eight God terms, quality, schedule, cost, safety, security, um, environment, community, you can’t do all those things.

[00:41:22] John Daly: I can do something quickly, but it’s gonna be either very expensive or low quality. Safety and security are generally inversely related. To make something completely safe, it can’t be very secure. If I make it very secure, I can’t make it very safe. Hmm. Uh, so nightclubs, for example, there was a nightclub in Monterrey, Mexico, about 10 years ago, caught on fire.

[00:41:40] John Daly: A lot of people died. Very sad. Why? It was known as the most secure facility in Monterrey. Every door was sealed except for the main entrance, so no one could break in. Mm hmm. So the fire happened between the main entrance and the people. it was secure but not safe. Yeah. So you always fight a god term with another god term.

[00:41:56] John Daly: And god terms are really powerful when you’re trying to persuade people. You can’t do it obviously, but if you always talk up with god terms, it puts people in the awkward position where they can’t say don’t do it because they look like arguing against the god term. Who’s arguing student athlete? That’s a key word.

[00:42:09] John Daly: By the way, student is a god term. Athletics isn’t. All right. So student athletics is a different word than athletes. Athletes rather. Um, and your job, I mean, safety matters immensely. So you want somebody to do the weights safely. And if you want to get a new piece of equipment, for safety reasons, we have to have this equipment.

[00:42:27] John Daly: Yeah,

[00:42:28] Donnie Maib: we’re constantly talking about safety. I mean, that’s why all the mental health stuff, because of the rate of suicide is, is, is rising, or we’re just, we’re more aware of it, I think, sometimes. And it’s, but I think to your point, that’s what’s driving a lot of this, these initiatives right

[00:42:43] John Daly: now. And good, good for me.

[00:42:44] John Daly: And it’s got to, I mean, you can’t say, you cannot argue against the mental health of And you can’t argue in students, it’s a God term. Faculty is not a God term, by the way, sadly. I’m not a God term, but students are a God term. And what’s right for students, is that we all should be around on campus.

[00:42:59] John Daly: Everyone should wrap themselves around that. And I think your current idea is a good one at that. Um, I mean, there have been some issues, a couple of years ago, the stadium getting too packed too quickly, the entrance was a safety issue. It was built for security, right? But you could, you know, It came very close to a real disaster there, uh, because remember they had one or two entrances for the kids coming in.

[00:43:19] John Daly: Right. And there were too many kids coming in, so it was a case of security was being mattered more than safety. And that became a real issue in terms of how we’re going to let people in the stadium now. Uh, and it was a, it was a good case of God terms because yes, it was more secure. We had better crowd control, but too many people showed up at the same time.

[00:43:38] John Daly: And I’ve never heard

[00:43:39] Donnie Maib: that security and safety, that’s, that’s

[00:43:40] John Daly: so interesting. I mean, our stadium is a very, with the entrance we have, you can make an easy exit out of the stadium or something bad. It’s stadium security is an issue anyway, everywhere you go. But I always worry about, look around us, how safe are I’m here?

[00:43:53] John Daly: Maybe secure, but how safe and vice versa, uh, both are God terms and the competing gets each other sometimes as a point. So if somebody uses a God term, always come back with a competing God term. Don’t try to separate. Well, not really that way. Just come up competing. A little higher. Yeah. It’s

[00:44:08] Donnie Maib: a fun thing to do.

[00:44:09] Donnie Maib: I had a quick little question for him too, Joe. Uh, I know we’re kind of running out of time, but, um, I heard somebody say something recently. Um, John, you know, well, I, I just, I really haven’t found my voice yet, you know, and you know, over the years I’ve heard that term so many times, like in basically what that is in a big organization of four or 500 employees, right.

[00:44:32] Donnie Maib: And you’re somewhere in the middle of the organization and you can kind of get lost. And I think a lot of our listeners would. Probably, uh, probably be able to empathize with that. So how would you, if somebody say, man, I just can’t find my voice or I’m trying to find my voice in this organization, like what, what does that mean to you?

[00:44:52] Donnie Maib: And then what would you do to help them do that?

[00:44:55] John Daly: I think voices you want to be heard. You want to be heard. You want to be listened to. That’s it. Um, by the way, people don’t need you to agree with them. They need you to understand them. So the mistake leaders make is they’ve got to always agree with people you don’t just show you understand them.

[00:45:07] John Daly: People want understanding, right? If I know what you want, I can live with a disagreement, but I don’t think you get in the first place. Even your agreements kind of cheap. So voices having impact in some ways and always talk about building a personal brand. In my classes, you want to build a reputation where somebody says, I need to listen to him about this.

[00:45:23] John Daly: This is what I want to listen to. Bye. You, I listen to about, you know, facilities, training people, getting their muscles straight, doing it safely. That’s, I think that your brand, right? So if you talk about that, it makes sense. If you start talking about nutrition, maybe a little bit. If you talk about football, you played football, a listener.

[00:45:40] John Daly: You play your Marine Corps. You can talk about the military in a way, joking, you can’t talk, okay? What happens? Branding matters. What your background makes you listen about something. So it’s always figure out what people are going to listen to you about and establishing a reputation for that thing. And you can establish a lot of different ways.

[00:45:56] John Daly: For example, trust is one thing. Competency is one thing. How do I know what you’re good at? When I bring your name up, what comes to mind right about, what’s the word that comes with you every time? Are you a trainer? Are you a Marine? Are you a football player? Are you a UT person? Are you, what, what, what comes, the words that come to mind are critical.

[00:46:17] John Daly: And you want to shape that. You want to shape that over a period of time. So they begin to think, you’re the person I go to for that. When you start talking about something that doesn’t match that, it gets more difficult sometimes. Like, why are you talking about that? So as you move up in an organization, you’ve got to kind of change the brand you have, if that makes sense.

[00:46:33] John Daly: Mm hmm. You start off being a football player, then you become a trainer, then after you become a trainer you may become an assistant coach, after you become a coach you may become an AD, or you may become a broadcaster. Now you can live off that, broadcast say when I played football 20 years ago, when I was in the Marine Corps 15 years ago, but your reputation changes as you move up and you gotta kind of Texture your reputation.

[00:46:56] John Daly: You got to kind of decide what you want to be seen as and build around that. And the way I do it is I talk about, write down any three or four things you offer your organization. Just any three words come to mind. I’m creative. I’m outgoing. I’m smart. Then I’ll say, now circle those that the organization deeply values.

[00:47:14] John Daly: And you circle one or two of them. So that’s the first step. Figure out what’s valued in the organization. That’s good advice. Then secondly, I’ll say, now do me a favor. Of the things you circled, which ones are also scarce in the organization? Now put a check mark on those that are scarce. You offer things that are both scarce and valuable.

[00:47:33] John Daly: All of us speak English. It’s valuable, but not scarce. Speaking, I don’t know, Kazakh is scarce, but not valuable in Austin, Texas. Now in Houston, Kazakh language matters because of energy. Chevron’s big investment is Kazakhstan. ExxonMobil’s lead partner there. So in that city, Cossack language is both scarce and valuable.

[00:47:53] John Daly: In Austin, Cossack language is scarce but not valuable. So you really want to figure out what those things are that are both scarce and valuable you offer. And typically about non technical skills. Because technical skills, you’re trapped at some point. Uh, so how do you move out of your job into a more leadership job is a real challenge for a lot of people.

[00:48:12] John Daly: You’re really good at the technical skill. But you got to expand that brand name out of that to a leadership skill, for example. And you maybe have to work around the system. So you have military background. That gives you an extra credit point sometimes because you’re in athletics now, but you’re also in the military.

[00:48:27] John Daly: You’re a Marine Corps officer at the same time. That’s an interesting combination, right? Very few trainers that are also former Marine Corps officers. So people hear that and go, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that about you. Um, and Joe, Joe and Donnie, we always talk about, you You want people to discover your competencies, and there are two you want to focus on.

[00:48:46] John Daly: One is what we call extraordinary competencies. These are ones that almost no one has but everyone knows about. Olympic medals are extraordinary, right? One is called esoteric. Esoteric accomplishments are ones that almost no one knows about. But those few people don’t know how special it is. And it’s a very different set of competencies.

[00:49:04] John Daly: It puts you in a very small club. So ex military, you see a guy with his uniform on ribbons, he has a baby blue ribbon with white stars on it, Medal of Honor. No one outside the military knows what that looks like. It’s esoteric. Um, you’re an archery person and you got a couple of Robin Hoods. No one knows what Robin Hood is unless you’re as big, it’s when you split an arrow with another arrow, right?

[00:49:25] John Daly: It’s esoteric knowledge. And so when you have some esoteric knowledge, people know you, wow, they’re special about that. The key thing is you don’t want, have to announce that you want them to discover that about you. So I was at a company a couple months ago in San Francisco going down the elevator with a big shot, one of the top leaders, and a new MBA person was with him.

[00:49:45] John Daly: And we’re in the elevator and this MBA person starts talking to the janitor. In a language, I kind of recognize the language a little bit, but I wasn’t sure. Got off the elevator, the CO guy says, what language was that? And the MBA said, Filipino. You speak Filipino? Yeah. How’d you learn that? I did Peace Cove before I went to my MBA.

[00:50:05] John Daly: And then I said, and this is kind of a fun exercise, I said, well, you should be impressed by my name then. And the CO looked at me kind of strangely, and the MBA said, you know, you’re right. You’re right about that. Why? Daily City is the largest population of Filipinos in America. That’s Filipino food. It’s right outside San Francisco.

[00:50:21] John Daly: Most people don’t even know this. The NBA said, you know this, I know this. We’re kind of a special club. Most people have no idea. Daily City and Filipino food go together, right? My mother grew up in the Philippines. That’s why I like Filipino food. But what happens is that was esoteric knowledge we shared in common.

[00:50:36] John Daly: And the CEO says, you guys mystify me. I even know this stuff. So extraordinary knowledge is great to have extraordinary accomplishment to have, but esoteric stuff is something that builds your brand even more. He’s amazing. Let me tell you what it does. No one does. So one thing I always tell people, if you want to be a CEO, develop a skill that surprises people.

[00:50:55] John Daly: You do this and you do that. Is a great reputation builder, so the head of Goldman Sachs, DJ’s electronic music once a month in a bar in New York City, what a weird combination, right? Larry Ellison, head of Oracle, won American Cup twice, he’s one of the best sailors in the world. How does that work? Uh, you got a UT player, what’s his name, Justin Tucker, great kicker, probably the best kicker in the history of football, right?

[00:51:21] John Daly: Opera major. Sings opera for fun. He’s got opera benefits. That’s a weird combination. Football player, opera, you go. What an interesting person. So the way to build that reputation is to develop some skill that people go, That’s interesting. Let’s do him because of this. Let’s do her because of this. Not only do they have a great brand name, they do something no one else does well, but they also have something that makes them particularly interesting.

[00:51:44] John Daly: So I want to know more

[00:51:45] Donnie Maib: about that person. That’s a tremendous career advice. Oh my gosh.

[00:51:48] John Daly: I find it fascinating. I’m really interested in what is it some people, what makes some people more successful than other people. No,

[00:51:53] Donnie Maib: you’re right. I’ve seen people do that in their career. Um, that I’ve never heard it said like ISO, what’d you call it again?

[00:52:01] Donnie Maib: ISO? Esoteric. Esoteric and extraordinary. Yeah, I’ve never heard that compared. Like, that is, that is definitely, uh, that’s

[00:52:08] John Daly: fascinating. You belong to a club. You belong to a private club. But your thing is, it’s also, you know, everyone knows the Heisman Trophy, right? It’s extraordinary. What’s the Doak Walk What’s the The Running Back.

[00:52:19] John Daly: Yeah, Doak Walker. No one knows Doak Walker. But those people I know go, He won Doak Walker two years in a row. He’s really good. All right, most people, it’s an esoteric thing, right? Um, Marine Corps has esoteric stuff, okay? You know, you and another Marine talk about Okinawa, uh, and you know you belong because you’re both stationed, you talk about the swimming pool in Okinawa, all right?

[00:52:40] John Daly: People go, yeah, how do you know that? Well, guess what, I was stationed there. Well, I was too. You belong to this little club. So extraordinary stuff is neat, but most of us can’t establish extraordinary things. Most of us are not going to play Olympics, but all of a sudden you go to something esoteric. And people go, you do that better than most.

[00:52:55] John Daly: And I always tell people, get good at something that’s going to surprise people. And once you get out of school, keep working on something. Get so good at something that says you do that and you do that. How does that even work? Who’s that football player who played for the Ravens and is now a math professor at MIT?

[00:53:11] John Daly: It was a lineman. Oh, I know exactly who you’re talking about. I mean, what in the world, a football lineman, MIT math professor? That’s a weird combination, right? And people go, that doesn’t work in my mind. The fact that it doesn’t work in your mind makes it interesting.

[00:53:26] Donnie Maib: It does change the perception of how people see you.

[00:53:29] Donnie Maib: They see you so different.

[00:53:30] John Daly: Absolutely. When you do something that people go, you did that and you did this, how does that work over a period of time? And if you think of most great people you know, they’re good at one thing, but they also have something else that makes them interesting as well. I mean, your current AD.

[00:53:42] John Daly: His taste in clothes is questionable sometimes, okay, but it’s always orange stuff, right? He

[00:53:46] Donnie Maib: loves burnt orange. Burnt

[00:53:47] John Daly: orange, burnt orange. He looks like, what the hell, how could you dress this way? But it’s something, he, it’s part of his brand to dress that way in some ways, right? And everyone kind of laughs that way when they see him because he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s Professional greed at Walmart and retires kind of guy.

[00:54:01] John Daly: Okay, but that makes him different than some 80s or most office person. It’s just the finance stuff. You expect that. Yeah, but he’s such a personable guy. Yeah, that people go. Wow, that’s neat. He does that. Our current president, Jay Hustle shows up at tennis matches. And I love it. It’s so cool. What’s the university president?

[00:54:19] John Daly: He loves tennis, by the way, but he shows up. What’s the president of university playing around a match with some athletes just for fun and being able to play with anyone at the beginning or after a tennis match, right? Most people don’t even know that about him. But

[00:54:31] Donnie Maib: to your point, real quick, That makes you buy into people too.

[00:54:34] Donnie Maib: Of course. Like you, you like them more, you, you trust them more, it just, it just comes with the

[00:54:38] John Daly: territory. What a sweet person, what a sweet person. And there’s something we talk about in the research about how to build trust, and you want to do little things proactively. It’s called good faith in the trust research.

[00:54:48] John Daly: You do something proactively nice that people don’t expect you to do, and they go, what a sweet person. And that’s to never be underestimated. That’s being a sweet person is a great thing. And you don’t have to do big things, just little things that people You know, he’s such a nice guy. She’s so, she’s a sweet person.

[00:55:03] John Daly: Because they do something different. So a friend of mine was a big star general, four star general, walking by the White House one day. He’s in his uniform briefing the President of the United States at two o’clock. Staff Sergeant making a picture of his wife and three kids. What’s my friend do? He stops and says, sergeant, you want to take, you want me to take a picture of five of you?

[00:55:21] John Daly: Oh, you’re in the military. Four star general, staff sergeant, that gets your attention, right? Oh, yeah. Took my friend, what, a minute to take that picture? Probably created life memory. Oh, yeah, for sure. Doesn’t require that much to be distinctive in a positive way, but you got to be proactive about it, right?

[00:55:35] John Daly: People notice when you do those little things. That’s why I’m building a reputation when people say, Great guy, great coach, also a really nice guy. And leaders sometimes plan to demonstrate that niceness, but the genuineness does matter. And so I think that’s one of those things like, he’s so busy, he’s so important, but he also remembers, he remembers little things about people.

[00:55:55] John Daly: He’s just a nice guy.

[00:55:56] Donnie Maib: I got a good story and uh, we’ll let you kind of wrap up here in a second, Joe. But just one last story of, to your point, my first year coaching at Colorado. I was, uh, 1994 and working crazy hours, John, and left the weight room late one night, was tired. And back then, you know, I was, I was an intern, a little peon, and it was, I had to park really far away from the weight room.

[00:56:18] Donnie Maib: So it was late at night, I’m walking down this hill and this car pulls up besides me and I look over. And And the gentleman inside goes, Hey, can I give you a ride to your car? And it caught, it shook me at first and caught me off guard because it was Bill McCartney. Wow. He was our head football coach who everybody knew him.

[00:56:38] Donnie Maib: And he, you know, at the time, I mean, he was, they’d won the national championship in like 1990. This is 94. Like the head coach is talking to me, the peon intern. Do you know, like it changed how I perceived him from that day forward, the kindness of that. It literally took him. And when I got in the car with him, he was very like, how’s your family?

[00:56:56] Donnie Maib: Like, how are you enjoying Colorado? It made me want to work harder for him. Absolutely. And that’s just great

[00:57:01] John Daly: leadership. It took him, it took him what? Maybe three seconds, three minutes to drive you there. If that, yeah. But here’s the thing, you still remember it. 30 years later. You still remember 30 years later, and it was over three minutes, right?

[00:57:10] John Daly: It’s the notion of just proactiveness. We call it, we call it positive, academic call positive discretionary behaviors. You do something positive that you don’t have to do, but people notice when you do it and they go, what a sweet person. And in truth, be honest with you, they get manipulated sometimes. So big presidents of companies are big elected officials.

[00:57:29] John Daly: They send them to a little school to talk to kids for an hour and people, what a sweet guy. Okay. And they, or they, you know, they, they, Give money to a charity, but they don’t tell, but that people discover over time. But being nice, build your credibility in some ways. And you remember that’s esoteric knowledge.

[00:57:43] John Daly: I never knew that about him, but he does that. Absolutely.

[00:57:46] Joe Krawczyk: Well, John, as we’re kind of wrapping up here, we always ask our guests at the end, um, What are your top three books, podcasts, articles, resources that you can’t do without?

[00:57:59] John Daly: Oh, wow. There’s so many of them. There’s so many of them. Top three books. Um, well, top three books.

[00:58:04] John Daly: There’s so many books I read on a regular basis. I teach Machiavelli’s The Prince every spring. Right. Spring semester of my MBAs. It’s one of the most published books in history. It’s been everywhere. Do these studies where you look at what people read when they’re famous people. The Prince can be about manipulation, but it’s really an interesting book.

[00:58:20] John Daly: It’s about mergers and acquisitions, it’s about influencing, it’s about managing people. So I mean, that’s a classic I read sometimes. I actually like, believe it or not, C SPAN has a book review podcast. There’s a guy named Brian Lamb who created C SPAN many years ago. And every Sunday he has something called Book Notes.

[00:58:39] John Daly: And he interviews somebody who’s just in a book, typically about politics or history. He loves history. He’s president of President of History. And so I’ve always liked Brian Lamb’s podcasts. Um, I love trivia stuff. I love the, the, I never knew that kind of stuff. And Bill Bryson, thus is one of my favorite writers.

[00:58:54] John Daly: Bill Bryson actually is a U. S. guy, lives in England, okay? He writes these great non fiction books. He bought a church in England years ago and said, now I want to turn this into a home. Hmm. What rooms do I need? So we’re a book, wonderful book called At Home. Each room is, each chapter is the history of one room.

[00:59:12] John Daly: Uh, so I like books that kind of non fiction, just that’s interesting books. I love learning that’s interesting stuff. I am a big magazine reader. I love The Economist magazine only because I learn a little bit, a lot of things each week. It’s the only news magazine that lasts so much. Um, podcasts like your podcast, Arnie, this Khan podcast.

[00:59:31] John Daly: I listened to a couple of them before I came here. I’m going to keep listening to them. Because I don’t know, I know something about sports, but not as much as I should know about sports. But I listen to the podcast. Interested in learning about sports in a way you wouldn’t learn if you watched ESPN. I think it’s fascinating to learn kind of, From the trenches as you’re doing basically, and you have such a wide variety of people talking on these things that go, I never knew that.

[00:59:52] John Daly: I never knew that. And I love the reaction of never knew that’s interesting. And so I’ll be honest, the podcast, you guys do have started listening to, and I find just going back, you know, what, 50 some of them, I can pick and choose one. I’ve downloaded them all. Actually, I’m ready to listen to them all. But I think I love learning.

[01:00:09] John Daly: That’s interesting stuff. So anytime somebody tells me something to listen, I always listen to it once or twice. Um, I don’t have one book or one podcast. Um, I just,

[01:00:19] Donnie Maib: there’s so many of them. I got one more fun question. Then we’ll be done. What’s your favorite place to eat in Austin, John?

[01:00:25] John Daly: Ah, I like to say my home.

[01:00:27] John Daly: My wife’s cooking is amazing. He just, he just,

[01:00:29] Donnie Maib: he got big points right there.

[01:00:31] John Daly: My wife’s cooking is amazing. Um, I like, I like the original Marty’s, for example, on, um, Lake Austin Boulevard, uh, I like kind of local places.

[01:00:41] Donnie Maib: I, so when you go to there to Marty’s, what do you order?

[01:00:43] John Daly: Ah, just for breakfast order a couple of, a couple of tortillas with some eggs and making my own to, so good.

[01:00:50] John Daly: I’m full. I like the old Cisco’s that’s now in, uh, muni. I’ve been there. Muni, Cisco, the Muni muni with

[01:00:54] Donnie Maib: the butter, the biscuits with the honey coach

[01:00:57] John Daly: Joe. Cisco’s great and they, they used to be one, the used Austin and stuff that, but they now Muni golf course. The Ciscos, I’ve been to that one. Um, I’m a big kind.

[01:01:04] John Daly: East coast diner fan. I like these small businesses that you get. I think you generally get better food. Sometimes you get sick, but I think you get better food. I think you’re all supporting entrepreneurship. And I just love that. And I, I’m not a big chain restaurant person. I mean, I know they’re important, but give me a choice between a little diner on the side of the street and a Panera’s or Papa on the side.

[01:01:23] John Daly: Take the little diner, Dirty’s for example, I am, it’s a great place. I just like going up there for that. I get a milkshake there. I get a milkshake at Chick fil A. Chick fil A has good milkshakes, but give them a choice to go to Dirty’s, uh, simply because I want to support those kinds of things. So you always find me at the little diner places instead.

[01:01:39] John Daly: Um, somebody one time told me, uh, he was actually a Marine Corps general. He said, every time I got transferred in my life, from the time I was a second lieutenant, I’d always find one kind of little town diner near the post, near the base. I go there for breakfast every day. He said, I learned so much about the community that way.

[01:01:58] John Daly: And you don’t, not at Denny’s, but just go somewhere as a group and drink coffee and you just become part of that group for a couple of years. He says, I got the feel of the town that way, uh, because Marine Corps bases mostly are not in big cities. So you get the sense of community. He says, you know, I could go to a Denny’s, I’d go to the officer’s club, but I think going to the little diner for breakfast every morning on the way in, people kind of got to know me.

[01:02:19] John Daly: And if there was a community issue, when I became a colonel or one star, guess what? I could know, they, they talked to me about stuff they wouldn’t talk otherwise. Those little local places make my favorite thing. I’m always looking for

[01:02:29] Donnie Maib: places like that. Oh yeah. So good. Quick, quick little

[01:02:33] Joe Krawczyk: thing on that. Um, really, I think it’s a cool story.

[01:02:36] Joe Krawczyk: So I was stationed in Okinawa or I was deployed there at the time and a buddy of mine came into my room and was like, Hey, you want to get dinner? And I’m like, yeah, absolutely. So we’re on, we’re on, um, Camp Schwab. It’s kind of north, a little middle of the island, and we go up to the northern city, Nago.

[01:02:51] Joe Krawczyk: And, um, he knows where he’s going. I have no idea where we are. And, uh, and we park, and then we start walking down this alleyway, and I’m like, Where are you taking me, man? Uh, and we go into this little restaurant, hole in the wall. Kind of like you’re talking about. I mean, the most authentic Japanese restaurant you could possibly go into because the only people that could have known this was there, he, he kind of wandered into it one night and knew and remember where it was at.

[01:03:18] Joe Krawczyk: But I mean, the only people that could know where it was at was the locals. And, um, and yeah, the only English speaking guys in there, we, we figure out a way to order food and. It was fantastic. I was like, man, like, and it kind of sticks to this day. I couldn’t find my way back, but that

[01:03:32] John Daly: was in sales, pick one or two restaurants, go there regularly, tip well.

[01:03:37] John Daly: When you need to get in last minute with a customer, client, they’ll get you in. And you want the waiter to say, This guy, Donny’s great. This guy is Donny great. You know, Donny’s one of my best friends. He comes here all the time. He’s just a nice guy. I tell your customer that. Your customers love it. So it’s always finding that one place or two places you go to.

[01:03:54] John Daly: And it’s good to get things that are tied, that make you interesting in some way. So, music, I’m not a big music fan, but if you go to music, Skylark Laundry on Airport Boulevard, almost no one even knows that there. It’s a busy music place, but only locals go there, okay? And they get, Like nothing fancy there, uh, but you find those little places.

[01:04:10] John Daly: You take people there. They think they get the authentic experience and it’s nice when people greet you when you walk in. Hey John, how you doing? Uh, and I can say, I regular, I can order for you. And I think people are impressed again, managing your impression. People are impressed when you seem to know local, you seem like a normal person as opposed to a very fancy restaurant.

[01:04:30] John Daly: You know it’s good, and it’s authentic food in one case, but it’s knowing that no one knows that kind of thing. Yeah. And I think, wow, you know the city inside and out. And um, that’s the thing, I think, you know, always talk about Austin changing, I’ve been here a long time, almost 50 years, and I kind of miss some of the places I grew up with here so to speak.

[01:04:48] John Daly: Mm hmm. Cause there were kind of quirky places that most people said, what are you going there? But it was fine. Yeah. Uh, DC, I still go to one place in DC. It’s a little Greek restaurant. When I was in high school, I went there every day for lunch and the family, they can’t cook to this day. If I get, I’ve won the lottery.

[01:05:03] John Daly: I’m saying the kids call it a great grandkids call night school, but they know me by name and they have, I walk in, I walk in maybe three times a year now and they still remember me on something like that. And we talk about the grandfather passed away. And you feel like you belong to the community that way.

[01:05:17] John Daly: So I’m really kind of in terms of eating places. That’s my kind of favorite thing. Find those low niche places, uh, that have great food, but also good company. And also you’re supporting something, which I do believe in is entrepreneurship. Uh, I think people put their hopes and dreams in places like that and you all support the hopes and dreams and nothing against chain restaurants.

[01:05:35] John Daly: I mean, them are franchised where people hopes and dreams, but I’m just kind of a. Yeah, I’m a small town diner kind of place at my personality. Uh, you know, then I like it Well, they say you forgot your wallet. Don’t worry. You pay us next time. I’m not gonna say that I’m gonna say that Panera’s not gonna say that Papa always but they’ll say that those places I think that’s kind of a compliment when you know them so well, they say or they’ll make you a special meal Uh, I know exactly what I want on my steak and cheese at this Greek place in Washington D.

[01:05:59] John Daly: C. area. And they’ll still make my steak and cheese and I know what I like, I hate mayonnaise with a passion. They never put mayo on my, they say, they joke, we put a bottle of mayonnaise in the little joke about it. I’ll laugh. They know I hate mayonnaise. They don’t have a mayonnaise. And that’s just kind of a, I like that.

[01:06:13] John Daly: I think you support those things. Economic is good, but you also get great conversation in those places. You could spend an hour talking about the history. For sure.

[01:06:21] Donnie Maib: Well, that’s it. Uh, if, if any of our listeners want to reach out, where can they? Email

[01:06:25] John Daly: me. dailyataustin. utexas. edu. There it

[01:06:28] Donnie Maib: is. Well, Dr. Daly.

[01:06:31] Donnie Maib: Dr. John. Call you John. It has been an absolute pleasure, and man, I know I’ve learned a lot today, and that’s why I, a little selfishly wanted to get you in here so I could learn from you too, but thank you so much. My

[01:06:43] John Daly: pleasure. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks for the opportunity. I love talking about this stuff.

[01:06:46] John Daly: I could go on for a whole semester, come to think of it. Yeah. Forty hours. I ain’t got one hour. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it very much. Well,

[01:06:52] Donnie Maib: that’s it, uh, for the team behind the team. If you have not, uh, followed John Daly, look him up, read his stuff, he’s got some videos out there. Uh, you will be amazed and learn so much.

[01:07:04] Donnie Maib: So John, thank you so much. Big Joe, that’s it for today. Hey, we’ll catch you on the next episode of the team behind the team podcast, and we’ll see you soon. Hook em. Hook em. 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 podcast, or Stitcher.

[01:07:26] Donnie Maib: 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

[01:07:39] John Daly: in.