October 10, 2025 • 40 mins
Doug breaks explains the dramatic changes he's made with his Wisconsin- Green Bay squad to dramatically improve on their last place Horizon League finish.
Then, he's joined by New York Times best selling author Don Yaeger to discuss his latest book, The New Science of Momentum: How the Best Coaches and Leaders Build a Fire From a Single Spark, including why his research shows that momentum is 100% real, how the sports analytics crowd got it wrong by denying its existence, what coaches, military leaders, and business moguls are doing to keep momentum, and which leaders have been the most effective and innovative in their quest to the science of momentum.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, what to welcome in. I'm Doug Gotland.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is all bold. Don Yaeger is my guest today.
He has twelve best selling books. Twelve and we'll see
if his new book, The New Science of Momentum is
his thirteenth New York Times bestseller. And it's fascinating to
me because some of the elements to his book, some
of the elements to momentum, creating momentum, keep a momentum,
(00:30):
building a momentum, are things that I've already tried to
use while being a head coach at Green Bay, And
these are real things. And it's interesting because my program.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
We were picked last in the Horizon League. Now I
get it. Somebody's got to be picked last. There were
some other options.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We finished last last year, albeit no one seems to
be aware of who we've signed, what we've done, who
we've brought back, and kind of interesting, maybe most interesting
is Marcus Hall. My best returning player was first team
All League, yet my team was picked last.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Okay, so he's good enough to be one of the five.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Best players in the league, but we're not good enough
to will be the last place in the eleven team league.
That defies logic, But the elements of momentum are something
that we're going to use. The science of momentum that
you hear from Don the idea of culture, and culture
builds the possibility momentum and the belief in being part
(01:32):
of something positive, something amazing, something that truly resonates not
just in your team, in your school, but in your
town or in your state. Think of your favorite NCAA
tournament run and how that changed how you look at
that school, how you look that state, how you look
at that area, let alone the players that you remember.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Part of all ball is also going to.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Be focused, as I said on my season, on our season,
not just overall on the sport of basketball, and so
as so many of you guys are coaches or players
that listen to this, and I truly appreciate it. This
one is one that's near and dear to my heart.
How do you take a program which has been downtrodden,
with the exception of Sunny Wicks Sundance Wicks this year,
(02:19):
how do you take it and spark the momentum? And
I think it's all the key elements that so many
of us talk about, Yet there's actually a science to
building it that Don has studied, and Don has has identified,
and Don has allowed kind of the public and you
and me to read about. It's called the new Science
of Momentum. So, without further ado, here's my new guest
(02:41):
on All Ball, Don Jeger. Hey, Don, thanks so much
for taking time. There's a lot of things I want
to get to you with you, But why write this book?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
It actually it started back in twenty seventeen. You'll remember
the Super Bowl with the New England Patriots who are
behind twenty eight to three to the Atlanta Falcons. Most
of America turns off the game, right because it's over.
In fact, by the middle part of the third quarter,
the prognosticators gave Atlanta a ninety nine point four percent
(03:13):
chance of winning the game. Right, there's no way New
England comes back. And then you know, and then we
know what happened, Right, A small thing happened. Tom Brady,
who hadn't rushed for more than eight yards but one
time all season long, suddenly escapes the pocket on third
and eight and he rushes for fifteen yards. And then
it's just the little things they start adding up. Pretty
(03:34):
soon they score, and they score again, and next thing
you know, they're only down by sixteen, and Brady's running
around saying, we only need two scores, two touchdowns to
two point conversions. We know the odds of that are
really low, but they but they pull it off and
they win in overtime. And the next day I came
into my office I'm down in Tallahassee, and I pulled
(03:56):
some of the creative folks that work for me together,
opened up the whiteboard, and I just wrote the words,
how do you turn a moment into momentum? How does
that happen? How does momentum? And can it be generated
or do we have to wait on something to happen?
Can we actually manufacture momentum? And I began kind of
an eight year research project just studying the best in
(04:18):
the world in four verticals, right sports, obviously because I
have so many relationships in that space. But then I
went to the military. I want to understand how how
do great generals build momentum on a battle plan? Like
how do they use it? And so I got you know,
David Petraeus and and and Stanley with Crystal, some of
the great generals of our time to sit down with
(04:39):
me to talk about how momentum is part of what
they do. I went to business. I got the team
at Nvidia allowed me to work with their one of
their co founders on how they built momentum to become,
you know, from a small technology company to the most
valuable company in the world today. Uh. And then I
added the world of politics, where I got James Carville
(04:59):
and Carl Rove to sit down and talk to me
about how you build momentum into into you know, uh,
plans for running an election, running a campaign, and ultimately
between all of it, I really came to understand you
can build momentum. It actually is something that you can.
You can construct, but most people don't know that. Most
(05:21):
people are waiting on something to happen, but by the
time it happens, they often missed the moment. And that's
why it was important to try to figure out not
just how to tell this story, but how to make
it actionable. Let people who are interested in believe in
momentum realize that they can. They can, they have the
(05:42):
ability to capture it and do something special.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Okay, so what's the what'd you find the processes?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Let again, it is the sports pod, But I still
think I think the military staff is fascinating. I think
business is fascinating as well. Again, I don't necessarily know
if I ever thought of it, the idea of creating momentum,
but I nor the idea of waiting for momentum. I
think there's momentum triggering events is kind of how my
(06:12):
brain always worked. So is the idea that, well, maybe
you can't truly create momentum. You can create a momentum
triggering event and correct and that starts the process.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
But so ultimately what we came up with, Doug, is
this idea of sitting down and looking at ken there
and we built a model for momentum. So my co
author in the book as a guy by the name
of General Bernard Banks. Bernie was the chairman of his
last duty station after a thirty year career in the Army,
(06:46):
was he was the chairman of the Department of Behavioral
Sciences and Leadership at West Point Right, so he taught
momentum to young soldiers. But our goal was to try
to understand is there a is there's some way you
could do it? And what we found, like you, I
believe momentum always started with a spark there was something
that had to happen, a momentum defining event or creating event, right.
(07:11):
But what I learned from talking to these great leaders
is that there's a there's a series of events that
happen on the front end that allow you to be
best prepared to capture the moment when it occurs. And
what most people are missing is they're not doing the
work on the front end. They're not doing that that
work that exists to actually to help you when the
(07:32):
moment occurs, to actually turn that spark into a flame.
One of the examples a peer of yours, a friend
of yours, Buzz Williams at at Texas A and m SO.
Buzz so believes that you can prepare and actually be
ready for momentum. You can so that a little event
(07:53):
can suddenly become bigger than its natural state would allow
it to be. That he spends all season long off season.
In the off season, you're walking by his office, you're
one of his players. He says, hey, Doug, get in here,
and he'll open up his laptop and on the laptop
he'll have a recording of an event he has just watched,
(08:15):
or some sporting event, and it's usually not basketball, might
be women's volleyball, might be baseball, might be softball. And
he makes his player sit down, he hits play and
they watch six, seven, eight minutes of the contest. Then
he closes the laptop and he says, right now, what's
the time that's left in the contest, what's the score
(08:38):
of the event, and who has momentum? He calls a TSM,
and so he wants every player when he's because they
don't know when he's going to close laptop. Right, So,
you have to be constantly present. You have to be
in the moment. You have to be aware of what's
happening on the court, so important that your awareness become
(09:00):
a skill set. He argues that developing that skill, that
power to be aware of time, score, momentum at any
given moment allows him allows that player to be as
valuable on the court as somebody who really has a
great jump shot, or somebody who hits the weight room
really hard. He considers it part of their practice and
(09:21):
their training to constantly be aware. And he shared with
me when we're sitting down and he's laying it out
how he does it. He shared with me that there
are times during a game especially key moments in games
when he may not have his five best players on
the court, but he'll have his five players who understand
timescore momentum. Because your best player may be open with
(09:43):
twenty seconds left on the shot clock and think I
got to jack it out right, I'm open, but that
may be the wrong thing for the moment, right, The
moment is take it down fifteen more seconds and then
find a shot.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
There's also this thing we talked about this with our group,
which is underunderstanding I love the time score momentum idea.
You have to understand your personal momentum, right, as well
as the team's momentum, as well as the momentum of
the the other of the game of the other team.
That has to be an awareness of recognition.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
But that's that's the full awareness of this concept that
momentum can affect the outcome of your contest.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I don't think there's any question.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
If it can affect the outcome of your contest, what
can you do to affect the outcome of momentum? And
so that's what this concept is. How do you prepare
in business? For example, you would have a you would
have a what if strategy? Right, you might gather your
leaders together and say, hey, what if what if the
(10:44):
president of the United States were to say, let's throw
tariffs out there on every country in the world. What
would that do to our business? Now, no one, I mean,
let's both admit that that's never going to happen, right,
No president would ever do that. But let's let's just
what if the moment and imagine it. But it's your
ability to put to prepare for the moment before the
moment exists, by thinking through what you would do when
(11:08):
that moment occurs. It's why you run at the end
of practice, Right, we're down six, thirty seven seconds left
to go, put it on the clock. What are we
going to do? Right? You are preparing for that moment
so that when you're down six and there's thirty seven
seconds left, you can look at your team as the
leader and say, by the way, we've practiced for this, right,
(11:29):
we're ready for this. This isn't this isn't foreign to us,
this isn't brand new to us. We're ready to hit
that shot. That's that's going to propel us into what
will be the close to this game that we want
to have happen. The best leaders are. So there's on
the front end, before you have the spark, there's the
(11:50):
need to have the right team culture, right, and it's
this culture that you can cheer for each other. See,
there are people out there that unfortunately, if you get
the last shot, like it pisses me off, right, are
you kidding me? Like, coach, I've been I'm the best
player on the team. Why would you let Doug get
the last shot? And and and so when I can't
(12:12):
cheer for you. There there's a thing in neuroscience called
mirror neurons. Right, the best way to explain it is
you walk into a room and somebody yawns. What happens? Right,
three other people start yawning too. It's because we we
if we're in a room with people we enjoy or
that we like being around, we actually grow to recognize
(12:34):
their behaviors and our behaviors start to mirror them. It's
called mirror neurons. It's a it's a pretty well accepted
piece of neuroscience. So in a place where we are
all cheering for each other, when you hit the shot,
it's as good as when I hit the shot. Right,
when you hit the shot, I feel so good there's
not an ounce of jealousy in me. If you can
(12:56):
recruit the right people who do that, then what happened
is you know, I mean, it's one of the very
few places in the book where we talk about we
actually show a really negative example. And you'll remember this
the Chicago Bulls. You know, Michael Jordan retires for the
first time. Yeah, Tony kukoach right, and Scottie Pippen refuses
(13:17):
to get off the bench. And to this day, I
know NBA players who refer to the idea of an
extremely selfish act as pulling a Pippin because you're so committed,
it's so more it's more important that it's about you
than it is about us winning, right, And when you
have those kinds of people who are ostensibly your team leaders,
(13:41):
you'll never have great success. So you have to have
the right culture, You have to recruit the right people,
you have to prepare for these moments. And then when
the moment occurs, this spark that you and I were
talking about earlier, now we're fully ready to engage it, right,
We're fully ready to take advantage of everything that that
the spark allows us. And so it's this work done
(14:04):
before the spark. It stood out to me as we
were writing this book.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
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Speaker 2 (14:23):
Okay, so in trying to lay the ground, and it's
fascinating you said that. So I actually had a talk
with my team. So we're recording this and it's October eighth,
So October tenth, tenth, eleventh, sorry, eleventh. We're gonna play
an exhibition game pretty early too, our exhibition game. So
(14:46):
and you know, look you got we have sixteen kids. Okay,
a couple are gonna red shirt once kind of hurt.
Might help us out. But my point was kind of
like you talked about cheering for a teammate to make
a shot.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I said, hey, look, some of you guys can.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Experienced me having perience a long time, which is you
have to sit there and cheer for a teammate to
do something that you know in your heart of hearts
you should be doing and you can be doing right that.
I wouldn't have you here if I didn't think you
were capable. But I can only play five guys, that's
the way it works. So the challenge is can you
(15:20):
feel and feel I love the idea of just momentum
as where it takes away it becomes non confrontational. Right,
if you talk about ego and selfishness, sometimes that becomes
confrontational because if you're not feeling it, you well coach said,
I'm selfish if I'm not feeling it. But if it's momentum,
it's a way of taking away kind of the confrontation
and the idea of labeling somebody selfish for not feeling
(15:41):
the joy in somebody else making a shot. So you
talked about living kind of the foundation of momentum.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
What's the first step that you're able to find?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
The first step is creating the right culture. Right. It's
this culture where where you are, as I said before,
where you're going to really believe in and create in
an environment in which you, as the leader, are going
to say you know that we will the only way
the team can create momentum. Right, It's one thing for
an individual to have momentum. That's actually really called flow.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Flow is when I'm in the flow, it feels like
I hit eight shots in a row. I'm going to
I believe in my heart, I'm going to make the
next eight. That's flow. Momentum is when we as a
group are in flow, right, when we as a group
are doing something collectively that almost might seem impossible, and
(16:35):
then a moment occurs that allows us to kind of
take it to the next level. And So, if that's
the case, what's the culture you have there? Are you
as you're having that conversation with your players, are they nodding?
Are they just kind of staring at you, like, coach,
you know what I didn't I didn't sign up for this.
I'm better than that. And if that's the kind of
(16:56):
player that you have, that's a skottie, right, that's the
moment that I believe this needs to be about me.
And when it's not about me, you're not going to
get the full version of me cheering for my teammate.
And if that's the case, it's difficult as a group
to move forward with momentum. It's difficult to actually capture
(17:19):
it and sustain it. It's one thing to have it
happened for a moment, right, It's another thing to make
it sustain. And that's really what we were trying to
study is how do the best teams, the best leaders,
the best coaches, the best business executives as generals, how
do they create this excellence that sustains itself Because you know,
(17:40):
a product in motion remains in motion until something stops it,
and so we want to create that motion. It's inertia, right,
So our goal is and what we were trying to
understand was how do the best do it in a
way that allows them to almost create supernatural results? And
(18:02):
one of the great examples was the company in Vidia,
right in Video everybody, many people know it. If you
if you don't know Nvidia and you don't have it
in your stock portfolio, shame on you. You know, back in
the back in the early twenty tens. In twenty thirteen,
and Video was so convinced as a group, as a
leadership team that artificial intelligence was the future that there
(18:25):
was going to be, but it was going to require
different computing needs than other than than other than was
available at the time. They started spending twenty five percent
of their active cash every year on R and D
on how they could be a better organization to support AI.
(18:45):
Twenty thirteen or twenty fifteen, chat GPT the company open
Ai is formed and the first purchase they make is
an Nvidia processor right a GPU. When chat GPT is
announced to the world as the most rapidly downloaded software
of all time, four hundred million people downloaded chat gpt
in the first four months of its operation. All of
(19:08):
those people needed in VideA GPUs. This company went from
worth a market cap of three hundred million dollars at
one stage to now they're worth four point five trillion dollars.
Why because they they they saw something, they were ready
when the spark occurred, they were prepared to take advantage
of it. And so that's our that's our real goal
(19:30):
here is we're trying to help people understand there's a
spark ahead for you, and it might it might be negative.
It could be that you're you're the company that you're
competing with. Their CEO is caught on a Coldplay video
hugging up on his HR director. Right now, there's an
opportunity for you. Are you ready? Can you can you
actually do something with that moment? And the best teams
(19:53):
are able to do that, and they're able to then
amplify guess what we're not, We're not that Let.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Me circle back.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Just something, okay, because I am fascinated by this topic
and you're hitting all the words in terms of culture
and foundational building and and how to continue the momentum.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I love the idea of inertia. I'm going to use
that tomorrow. Right, it's just great.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Right, objects your rest stay objects at rest, stay stay
at rest.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right, you either.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Were we're we're moving forward.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
If you're not moving, if you're not moving with us.
By the way, yeah, there's a place for you.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Correct, correct, it's somewhere else. It's somewhere else. That's it's
somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
You've been able to I mean, you've had was it
twelve thirteen New York Times bestsellers like this.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Is Tonight it was announced that my My, my book
that I've just recently written, made the New York Times
list for the first thirteenth time. Thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I asked that, because we are in a culture now
where nobody read newspapers anymore, and there's I have books,
and I've I actually buy books for my players, for
my friends as well, and I mean, you know, look,
it's when you have a long day. To me, there's
nothing I can only probably do a chapter or two
to night. But one of the challenges you found in
(21:12):
writing in twenty twenty five, obviously the idea is twenty seventeen,
But how is your job different? And you've been doing
this a lot obviously, I know you're a very well
regarded public speaker as well, so you have to you
have to stay with the times there. But in terms
of getting people to purchase your books, has that changed
(21:32):
your process, the topic, the style of writing at all
in these last you know, ten years where so much
of media has.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Changed absolutely well. First off, you know the days of
those books that were that were you know, five hundred
pages long gone? Right now you know, two hundred and
sixty two hundred and sixty eight pages, that's as long
as it gets fifty thousand and sixty thousands. It's a
it's a much tighter. You have to write more quickly,
you have to, you don't You're you value every word.
(22:01):
There's there's a lot that has changed that. But but
a big piece of it too is picking the right topics.
I'm trying to you try to find topics that are
that are that other people are scratching their head at
and asking, well, what's going on there? What does that mean?
And that's that's in part why this topic really worked
for me. I was fascinated by momentum. But but I
(22:24):
would talk to coaches like you, and I would talk
to the hosts of of of podcasts like you and
and they were fascinated with it too. Everybody can define
moment can can see momentum, but few people can define it.
So what we were really trying to do is come
up with I'm looking now for topics that I think,
(22:46):
once entered into the universe, people will go, oh, I've
always wondered about that too, right, So you can't. It's
harder to take that really obscure idea and go play
through it and hope that people will adapt, well, will
come to it. You almost have to come up with
an idea that people are already scratching their head and
are willing to go, yeah, I've been interested in that too.
(23:08):
I'll drop twenty five bucks for it.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
The naysayers momentum are the analytics community, right yep.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Baseball especially it's all about random events, right, Everything.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
These are random events, and you kind of all everything
regresses to the mean of what the data tells you. Right, right,
And we have become very data driven in sports and
running businesses and how.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
We program TV.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Even the data analytics for what the books should be about.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
What's that like to combine to.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Because the analytics let's just say nerd and we say
it lovingly, so right, But the analytics person will say, look.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
But you're arguing with the computer. The computer has no feelings.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
This is the reality to it, right, is out of
reality that the data doesn't lie, and data proves that
momentum doesn't actually exist.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Some people would argue that, and there are in fact,
I remember one of the early interviews I did on
this book was I reached out to the there's a
three person team at ESPN that runs you know, and
we've all seen it. Right after every play, it tells
you what are the odds this team's going to win
versus this team? Right, and it shifts every play depending
on what happens. The numbers change every play. And so
(24:27):
I thought, these guys have got to believe in momentum.
I mean, the numbers show it. Right, good things start
to happen, and then they start happening more regularly. The
numbers keep rising. Obviously that and and in fact, they
were the first group to completely try to shut me down.
They said, by the way, this is all random, these
things just you know, you can't you can't manufacture a
(24:49):
series of random events. And under I grew to believe
that they were completely wrong because they are focused on
just a number of statistic But momentum at its core
is a belief system. Right if you and I, if
we're doing really well together and suddenly we start feeling like,
you know what, this this game is ours like we're
(25:10):
gonna we're on a roll right here, that that works
to our advantage, and if you're on the other side
of it, it completely works against you. Right You're you're
sitting there going, I can't you know, it doesn't matter
what we do. Every time the ball seems to bounce,
it's bouncing in their direct it's bouncing in their direction. Right. So,
(25:31):
if you understand momentum not to be a science project,
which is what we really understand here there there there
is science to it, but this is actually it's a
it's it's the creation of a belief system. And if
we can do that and and collectively we believe we're
moving in the right direction, you can actually almost predict
(25:56):
an unstoppable force. You can predict the way it has.
It's now what happens is these statistical people want to see, Yeah,
you're going really well, everything's awesome, and then suddenly your
point guard dribbles the ball off his foot out of
bounds and the other team, you know, races down and
scores a bucket and everything you had going for you
is lost in that moment. But that's only if the
(26:19):
team begins to believe that the point guard's mistake is called.
So that's why this concept of actually having a group
of people who are willing to play and support of
each other, it matters. All the neuroscientists that we worked
with said that that that's a real defining it's a
real bright line. You want eight players, but you want
(26:40):
eight players who can cheer for other eight players.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
So you start foundational, You start with culture. What your
leadership's about. All the things you're saying rings so true
to both of my jobs, right, and that it comes
down to leadership. It comes down to the type of
people and building a belief.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What's the next big step.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
The next big step is the idea of actually it's
the buzz Williams piece right, it's the it's the preparation,
it's the work you do to actually get people to
be aware of the moment, right, so they're constantly in
the moment. Buzz Williams talked about it. It's actually more
important to him to have to have folks who are
(27:21):
in the moment and aware of what needs to happen
in this moment. That then sometimes people who are more talented, right,
and so he's constantly working on preparedness. Are you ready
and are you are? Is your mind locked into what
where are we right now and what needs to happen
next in order for us to keep progressing positively forward?
(27:43):
And then the next step is obviously once you've done
all that work, then you then you you wait for
a spark. And the spark doesn't have to be that big.
Sometimes the spark can be a lineup change. Sometimes the
spark can be who you decide to enter. You know,
who you decide to put in the game, or maybe
who he decided to take out right, It can be
The spark can come in so many different ways. Many
(28:05):
people think it has to be something large and dramatic.
It actually doesn't. But if it starts to turn things
your way, then your job as leader is to amplify
that through communication. It's your job to say to them,
this is exactly we were ready for this, this is
our moment, this is what we're you know, and and
(28:26):
they again, remember, momentum is a belief system, and if
you and your job is to is to take these
moments and get them to maybe believe the moment's even
bigger than it really is. But because they so trust
you that they know that you see, you see an
(28:48):
end game that they don't quite see yet, and you're
telling them, this is the moment we've been waiting for,
right We prepared for this all season long. We you know,
remember all those drills we ran, all those those times
you cursed my name at the end of you know,
walking off a practice, off the court at the end
of practice. It's it's because we needed to be where
(29:10):
we are right now. And you've earned it, You've earned
the opportunity, right and so you amplify it. Then you
get to this idea that there's belief in mindset. And
it's this idea. If you've created the right belief in
mindset within your team, they begin to feed off each
other as well. They no longer just need you to
be they they're they're encouraging each other, they're they're there,
(29:33):
and and as all of that really starts to play,
you you look for outcomes and feedback. And as you're
looking for outcomes and feedback, it's you know that that's
often things you'll do after a game. You'll actually spend
time actually breaking it down and you're looking for those
moments that you're trying to say, what did I do?
What could I have done differently? As a leader? What
(29:55):
could what could what could they have done differently? And
as you create that, you know, I focus a lot
with the Blue Angels on outcomes and feedback. I mean,
think about it, five hundred and fifty miles an hour
they're flying with the playing above them that literally they
could reach up in touch if there wasn't a canopy
above them. So they got to be pretty good. But
(30:15):
they do an entire feedback loop at the end of
every practice and every show in which they break it
down and they look for everything they could do better,
and they do it without any rank on their shoulders.
They take the ranks off their shoulders so that everyone
has a voice. So are you you know, the phrase
they use is feedback as the breakfast of champions. And
(30:37):
if we're willing to accept feedback and get better, then
we're ready to start the loop all over again.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I love that feedback is breakfast champ taking all these nuggets.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
And I'm just gonna gonna mel u.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Say this tomorrow for your team.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I'm going to I'm going to in forts. The hard
part of momentum is as a coach, you're not trying.
You're trying to not kill momentum, right, you want to
be a momentum killer. On the other hand, you're like,
all right, at some point those guys are gonna get tired.
I need a new grow somebody else in there. You
(31:11):
talk about buzz. But and look, this is with all
things in the military. Okay, one group advances does a
great job, but at some point somebody has picked up
the baton and and take it forward.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
What that decision like.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
In terms of first, when, then how and with who
to take that baton forward?
Speaker 3 (31:32):
You know, again that's very individual to your team and
your your situation.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
But sure, but there but there's there's definitely it does
come down to some of it comes down to preparation.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
As you point out something. It comes down to field.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Sometimes you feel like someone has run their course, right,
you know what I mean? Like, Okay, they everything they've
done well has has has played itself out. For the
last eight trips down the court, right, they've been amazing,
and then suddenly they have a couple of trips in
which they're suddenly not as sharp, not as engaged as
they as they were previously. Perfect time, perfect time to
(32:06):
make a switch. And when you do that, then it's
about making sure that as you're pulling that one player
off the court, that that that the player you're sending
in is sit in with the instruction, Like you have
a responsibility to this guy to do what he just
did eight times down the court, right you you you
know it's your job to pick up the baton, as
(32:26):
you said, and actually so so stay focused, stay locked
in because you know this is this is a window
of time in which everything in the game is just
could shift. And I'm trusting you. We're trusting you to
be the to be the answer when you get out
there again. It's all in. It's all in communication skills.
You're a master of it, but leader communication is a
(32:49):
real driver in all of this. How do you how
do you as a leader communicate to them the opportunity
and that's provided to them, and the and the responsibility
they have to other people they love. Right, you know
you just sat there and cheered gratefully for this other
(33:09):
guy last eight trips down the court. I trust me,
he was going to be sitting here cheering for you too.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I go out there and do it, go out there
and do it for us, right, And that's people want
to be part of something bigger.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
There's a gentleman. There's a gentleman named Mark King. If
you're familiar with Mark, Mark used to be the president
they see you know, uh, Taco Bell h Taylor made Yeah,
Taylor Ma. And I've heard Mark speak. He's actually a
Green Bay lumbelieve or not?
Speaker 4 (33:37):
What was he really?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
He put in the golf team here and I heard
Mark speak and he said exactly that.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
He said.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
You know, at the end of the day, people want
to be a part of something special. And when you
can make them feel a part of something special, that's
when you tapped into the magic.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
That's the role of the leader. The role of the
leader is to is to actually make sure they recognize
what's being presented to them. The opportunity that's in front
of them is something you're not going to get if
you went down the street. Yes, you could transfer to
you know, to some acc school next year if you
want to. I mean, you not going to say this.
But at the end of the day, what you're getting
(34:21):
a chance to do here, this is once in a lifetime, no.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
No question, no question. What was the most fascinating?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
This is hours upon hours of interviews and research, right,
just you've been doing this your entire professional life. Yeah,
what was the most fascinating thing that maybe somebody else
doesn't find interesting, but you're like, man, I just I
got caught in this loop of being interested in this
one thing that I didn't think until I started researching
(34:49):
to write this book.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was the mirror neurons concept. It was this idea
that there is actually a whole field of neuroscience about
what happened is when a group of people who actually
care for each other, what happens when when they when
when when one of them does something well? Right? And
(35:13):
and what you really start to realize about your team
is when someone does something well, is everyone off the
bench cheering for him? You know and make it or
is there that one who's kind of hanging in the back,
like going, damn, that should have been me, right like
you said, this could have been me. I'm worthy, I'm
as good as that guy. I show it every day
(35:33):
in practice and the coach won't let me in, and
so they're hanging in the back. You see it on
teams that you start to watch crumble, but the teams
that actually constantly are are are just you know, just
the joy that comes from one person's excellence, the joy
(35:55):
that comes from everyone is the difference maker. And I
always wonder where that came from. And the longer I
grew to understand the neuroscience of mirror neurons, the more
I came to it and it you know, there's just
there's a whole series of of of events and things
that you can you could try to understand where your
(36:16):
team is on that concept. But this this sense that
that we feel so we're so close that we feel
each other's pain and we feel each other's joy. And
when you get to that place, that's where you you
really are almost in this nirvana state, this state that
allows you to capture momentum and do something special.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
It's amazing to science find it because I'll tell you
what I learned, Like there's lots of things you learn
in your first time coaching in college basketball program. But
you know, I've always thought, again, when you're when you're
on the radio, there's two ways to go about it.
You can be the combatant where you everyone hates you. Okay, Uh, yes,
(37:01):
stephen A, yeah, he's he softened some now, but yes,
there was the time in which he yes, okay. But
there's also a point to it where you have to
be People have to like your voice, they have to
like to turnround, you have to like your your family,
your anecdotes or whatever. So I always thought, hey, I
(37:23):
can get college athletes to gravitate towards me, which I did.
What I didn't know was exactly what you're talking about
with the science of the connectivity.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And the perfect example is, you know, last.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Year, we had a really young team, and what I
noticed and what others pointed out to me, was when
I would lose my mind because they were young, they
were fairly weak, and they were getting pushed around and
I would try and you know, go to the whip
and get after him, and really my emotion they matched
(37:59):
my emotion and it took me till some other people
pointed it out. I knew it, I felt it, but
I couldn't get myself sort of out of it. And
when my emotions turn to be positive and energetic and
back to being thoughtful and and and yes, yes, So
I view that as an incredible success story last year
(38:23):
in that, despite we lost twenty one games in a row,
and despite that, by the end of the year, they
were still all fighting for me, for us, for the dream,
for the belief, which is like, that's what you're looking for.
There's absolutely a science to it. I'm a buyer, I'm
a believer, and I think it's fascinating and it's something
I think we were able to create last year.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Now we're going to try and recreate it earlier.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
And and and and by the way, I've given my all,
my all, my players your book because I'm a I'm
a buyer and a believer into momentum, and all it
takes is a spark, just so so people are aware
who are seeing whether it's Amazon, Apple Books, Audio porch Lights, Spotify,
(39:05):
bulk Books, Google Play, you name it, Okay, you can
there's an audiobook as well to it, okay, and of
course you can go you can go.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Pick it up wherever you pick up your books. It's
the thirteenth best sellers.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, wherever find books are sold is the way we
say it.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
This is a really really interesting topic.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
You've done a lot of really good ones, don't get
me wrong, okay, but this one in terms of because
the buzzwords are culture, but it's not followed up with
what is culture?
Speaker 1 (39:32):
How do you establish it? And how do you use
that positive culture to create? And this the science and momentum?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Right, how do you how do you use the culture
to recruit the right people to then? Right? So then
you're doing all the elements right, It's it's there. There's
there's a whole flow to this thing that's really magical.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
John, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I encourage people to pick this up, and I mean,
I mean it, this is big time. You've written a
lot of good ones, this one I personally enjoyed.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Doug, I'm such a great and friend. I appreciate you.
Thanks for letting me be on with you, and I
hope we stay together for a long time.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. I'm Doug Gottlieb reminder.
The Doug Gottlieb Show airs every day three to five
Eastern twelve two Pacific, Fox Sports Radio iHeartRadio app. Of course,
you can download that as in podcast form. We also
have a podcast only hour.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
And if you like.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
All Ball, why not review it? Why not rate it?
Why not tell a friend about it? Why not share
it on social media? If not for me, because Don
Jager is a stud writer and an amazing guy, and
he joined me here and you enjoyed the listen, Thanks
so much for listening. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is All Ball.
Hey, what to welcome in. I'm Doug Gotland.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is all bold. Don Yaeger is my guest today.
He has twelve best selling books. Twelve and we'll see
if his new book, The New Science of Momentum is
his thirteenth New York Times bestseller. And it's fascinating to
me because some of the elements to his book, some
of the elements to momentum, creating momentum, keep a momentum,
(00:30):
building a momentum, are things that I've already tried to
use while being a head coach at Green Bay, And
these are real things. And it's interesting because my program.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
We were picked last in the Horizon League. Now I
get it. Somebody's got to be picked last. There were
some other options.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We finished last last year, albeit no one seems to
be aware of who we've signed, what we've done, who
we've brought back, and kind of interesting, maybe most interesting
is Marcus Hall. My best returning player was first team
All League, yet my team was picked last.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Okay, so he's good enough to be one of the five.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Best players in the league, but we're not good enough
to will be the last place in the eleven team league.
That defies logic, But the elements of momentum are something
that we're going to use. The science of momentum that
you hear from Don the idea of culture, and culture
builds the possibility momentum and the belief in being part
(01:32):
of something positive, something amazing, something that truly resonates not
just in your team, in your school, but in your
town or in your state. Think of your favorite NCAA
tournament run and how that changed how you look at
that school, how you look that state, how you look
at that area, let alone the players that you remember.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Part of all ball is also going to.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Be focused, as I said on my season, on our season,
not just overall on the sport of basketball, and so
as so many of you guys are coaches or players
that listen to this, and I truly appreciate it. This
one is one that's near and dear to my heart.
How do you take a program which has been downtrodden,
with the exception of Sunny Wicks Sundance Wicks this year,
(02:19):
how do you take it and spark the momentum? And
I think it's all the key elements that so many
of us talk about, Yet there's actually a science to
building it that Don has studied, and Don has has identified,
and Don has allowed kind of the public and you
and me to read about. It's called the new Science
of Momentum. So, without further ado, here's my new guest
(02:41):
on All Ball, Don Jeger. Hey, Don, thanks so much
for taking time. There's a lot of things I want
to get to you with you, But why write this book?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
It actually it started back in twenty seventeen. You'll remember
the Super Bowl with the New England Patriots who are
behind twenty eight to three to the Atlanta Falcons. Most
of America turns off the game, right because it's over.
In fact, by the middle part of the third quarter,
the prognosticators gave Atlanta a ninety nine point four percent
(03:13):
chance of winning the game. Right, there's no way New
England comes back. And then you know, and then we
know what happened, Right, A small thing happened. Tom Brady,
who hadn't rushed for more than eight yards but one
time all season long, suddenly escapes the pocket on third
and eight and he rushes for fifteen yards. And then
it's just the little things they start adding up. Pretty
(03:34):
soon they score, and they score again, and next thing
you know, they're only down by sixteen, and Brady's running
around saying, we only need two scores, two touchdowns to
two point conversions. We know the odds of that are
really low, but they but they pull it off and
they win in overtime. And the next day I came
into my office I'm down in Tallahassee, and I pulled
(03:56):
some of the creative folks that work for me together,
opened up the whiteboard, and I just wrote the words,
how do you turn a moment into momentum? How does
that happen? How does momentum? And can it be generated
or do we have to wait on something to happen?
Can we actually manufacture momentum? And I began kind of
an eight year research project just studying the best in
(04:18):
the world in four verticals, right sports, obviously because I
have so many relationships in that space. But then I
went to the military. I want to understand how how
do great generals build momentum on a battle plan? Like
how do they use it? And so I got you know,
David Petraeus and and and Stanley with Crystal, some of
the great generals of our time to sit down with
(04:39):
me to talk about how momentum is part of what
they do. I went to business. I got the team
at Nvidia allowed me to work with their one of
their co founders on how they built momentum to become,
you know, from a small technology company to the most
valuable company in the world today. Uh. And then I
added the world of politics, where I got James Carville
(04:59):
and Carl Rove to sit down and talk to me
about how you build momentum into into you know, uh,
plans for running an election, running a campaign, and ultimately
between all of it, I really came to understand you
can build momentum. It actually is something that you can.
You can construct, but most people don't know that. Most
(05:21):
people are waiting on something to happen, but by the
time it happens, they often missed the moment. And that's
why it was important to try to figure out not
just how to tell this story, but how to make
it actionable. Let people who are interested in believe in
momentum realize that they can. They can, they have the
(05:42):
ability to capture it and do something special.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Okay, so what's the what'd you find the processes?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Let again, it is the sports pod, But I still
think I think the military staff is fascinating. I think
business is fascinating as well. Again, I don't necessarily know
if I ever thought of it, the idea of creating momentum,
but I nor the idea of waiting for momentum. I
think there's momentum triggering events is kind of how my
(06:12):
brain always worked. So is the idea that, well, maybe
you can't truly create momentum. You can create a momentum
triggering event and correct and that starts the process.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
But so ultimately what we came up with, Doug, is
this idea of sitting down and looking at ken there
and we built a model for momentum. So my co
author in the book as a guy by the name
of General Bernard Banks. Bernie was the chairman of his
last duty station after a thirty year career in the Army,
(06:46):
was he was the chairman of the Department of Behavioral
Sciences and Leadership at West Point Right, so he taught
momentum to young soldiers. But our goal was to try
to understand is there a is there's some way you
could do it? And what we found, like you, I
believe momentum always started with a spark there was something
that had to happen, a momentum defining event or creating event, right.
(07:11):
But what I learned from talking to these great leaders
is that there's a there's a series of events that
happen on the front end that allow you to be
best prepared to capture the moment when it occurs. And
what most people are missing is they're not doing the
work on the front end. They're not doing that that
work that exists to actually to help you when the
(07:32):
moment occurs, to actually turn that spark into a flame.
One of the examples a peer of yours, a friend
of yours, Buzz Williams at at Texas A and m SO.
Buzz so believes that you can prepare and actually be
ready for momentum. You can so that a little event
(07:53):
can suddenly become bigger than its natural state would allow
it to be. That he spends all season long off season.
In the off season, you're walking by his office, you're
one of his players. He says, hey, Doug, get in here,
and he'll open up his laptop and on the laptop
he'll have a recording of an event he has just watched,
(08:15):
or some sporting event, and it's usually not basketball, might
be women's volleyball, might be baseball, might be softball. And
he makes his player sit down, he hits play and
they watch six, seven, eight minutes of the contest. Then
he closes the laptop and he says, right now, what's
the time that's left in the contest, what's the score
(08:38):
of the event, and who has momentum? He calls a TSM,
and so he wants every player when he's because they
don't know when he's going to close laptop. Right, So,
you have to be constantly present. You have to be
in the moment. You have to be aware of what's
happening on the court, so important that your awareness become
(09:00):
a skill set. He argues that developing that skill, that
power to be aware of time, score, momentum at any
given moment allows him allows that player to be as
valuable on the court as somebody who really has a
great jump shot, or somebody who hits the weight room
really hard. He considers it part of their practice and
(09:21):
their training to constantly be aware. And he shared with
me when we're sitting down and he's laying it out
how he does it. He shared with me that there
are times during a game especially key moments in games
when he may not have his five best players on
the court, but he'll have his five players who understand
timescore momentum. Because your best player may be open with
(09:43):
twenty seconds left on the shot clock and think I
got to jack it out right, I'm open, but that
may be the wrong thing for the moment, right, The
moment is take it down fifteen more seconds and then
find a shot.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
There's also this thing we talked about this with our group,
which is underunderstanding I love the time score momentum idea.
You have to understand your personal momentum, right, as well
as the team's momentum, as well as the momentum of
the the other of the game of the other team.
That has to be an awareness of recognition.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
But that's that's the full awareness of this concept that
momentum can affect the outcome of your contest.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I don't think there's any question.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
If it can affect the outcome of your contest, what
can you do to affect the outcome of momentum? And
so that's what this concept is. How do you prepare
in business? For example, you would have a you would
have a what if strategy? Right, you might gather your
leaders together and say, hey, what if what if the
(10:44):
president of the United States were to say, let's throw
tariffs out there on every country in the world. What
would that do to our business? Now, no one, I mean,
let's both admit that that's never going to happen, right,
No president would ever do that. But let's let's just
what if the moment and imagine it. But it's your
ability to put to prepare for the moment before the
moment exists, by thinking through what you would do when
(11:08):
that moment occurs. It's why you run at the end
of practice, Right, we're down six, thirty seven seconds left
to go, put it on the clock. What are we
going to do? Right? You are preparing for that moment
so that when you're down six and there's thirty seven
seconds left, you can look at your team as the
leader and say, by the way, we've practiced for this, right,
(11:29):
we're ready for this. This isn't this isn't foreign to us,
this isn't brand new to us. We're ready to hit
that shot. That's that's going to propel us into what
will be the close to this game that we want
to have happen. The best leaders are. So there's on
the front end, before you have the spark, there's the
(11:50):
need to have the right team culture, right, and it's
this culture that you can cheer for each other. See,
there are people out there that unfortunately, if you get
the last shot, like it pisses me off, right, are
you kidding me? Like, coach, I've been I'm the best
player on the team. Why would you let Doug get
the last shot? And and and so when I can't
(12:12):
cheer for you. There there's a thing in neuroscience called
mirror neurons. Right, the best way to explain it is
you walk into a room and somebody yawns. What happens? Right,
three other people start yawning too. It's because we we
if we're in a room with people we enjoy or
that we like being around, we actually grow to recognize
(12:34):
their behaviors and our behaviors start to mirror them. It's
called mirror neurons. It's a it's a pretty well accepted
piece of neuroscience. So in a place where we are
all cheering for each other, when you hit the shot,
it's as good as when I hit the shot. Right,
when you hit the shot, I feel so good there's
not an ounce of jealousy in me. If you can
(12:56):
recruit the right people who do that, then what happened
is you know, I mean, it's one of the very
few places in the book where we talk about we
actually show a really negative example. And you'll remember this
the Chicago Bulls. You know, Michael Jordan retires for the
first time. Yeah, Tony kukoach right, and Scottie Pippen refuses
(13:17):
to get off the bench. And to this day, I
know NBA players who refer to the idea of an
extremely selfish act as pulling a Pippin because you're so committed,
it's so more it's more important that it's about you
than it is about us winning, right, And when you
have those kinds of people who are ostensibly your team leaders,
(13:41):
you'll never have great success. So you have to have
the right culture, You have to recruit the right people,
you have to prepare for these moments. And then when
the moment occurs, this spark that you and I were
talking about earlier, now we're fully ready to engage it, right,
We're fully ready to take advantage of everything that that
the spark allows us. And so it's this work done
(14:04):
before the spark. It stood out to me as we
were writing this book.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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Speaker 2 (14:23):
Okay, so in trying to lay the ground, and it's
fascinating you said that. So I actually had a talk
with my team. So we're recording this and it's October eighth,
So October tenth, tenth, eleventh, sorry, eleventh. We're gonna play
an exhibition game pretty early too, our exhibition game. So
(14:46):
and you know, look you got we have sixteen kids. Okay,
a couple are gonna red shirt once kind of hurt.
Might help us out. But my point was kind of
like you talked about cheering for a teammate to make
a shot.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I said, hey, look, some of you guys can.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Experienced me having perience a long time, which is you
have to sit there and cheer for a teammate to
do something that you know in your heart of hearts
you should be doing and you can be doing right that.
I wouldn't have you here if I didn't think you
were capable. But I can only play five guys, that's
the way it works. So the challenge is can you
(15:20):
feel and feel I love the idea of just momentum
as where it takes away it becomes non confrontational. Right,
if you talk about ego and selfishness, sometimes that becomes
confrontational because if you're not feeling it, you well coach said,
I'm selfish if I'm not feeling it. But if it's momentum,
it's a way of taking away kind of the confrontation
and the idea of labeling somebody selfish for not feeling
(15:41):
the joy in somebody else making a shot. So you
talked about living kind of the foundation of momentum.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
What's the first step that you're able to find?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
The first step is creating the right culture. Right. It's
this culture where where you are, as I said before,
where you're going to really believe in and create in
an environment in which you, as the leader, are going
to say you know that we will the only way
the team can create momentum. Right, It's one thing for
an individual to have momentum. That's actually really called flow.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Flow is when I'm in the flow, it feels like
I hit eight shots in a row. I'm going to
I believe in my heart, I'm going to make the
next eight. That's flow. Momentum is when we as a
group are in flow, right, when we as a group
are doing something collectively that almost might seem impossible, and
(16:35):
then a moment occurs that allows us to kind of
take it to the next level. And So, if that's
the case, what's the culture you have there? Are you
as you're having that conversation with your players, are they nodding?
Are they just kind of staring at you, like, coach,
you know what I didn't I didn't sign up for this.
I'm better than that. And if that's the kind of
(16:56):
player that you have, that's a skottie, right, that's the
moment that I believe this needs to be about me.
And when it's not about me, you're not going to
get the full version of me cheering for my teammate.
And if that's the case, it's difficult as a group
to move forward with momentum. It's difficult to actually capture
(17:19):
it and sustain it. It's one thing to have it
happened for a moment, right, It's another thing to make
it sustain. And that's really what we were trying to
study is how do the best teams, the best leaders,
the best coaches, the best business executives as generals, how
do they create this excellence that sustains itself Because you know,
(17:40):
a product in motion remains in motion until something stops it,
and so we want to create that motion. It's inertia, right,
So our goal is and what we were trying to
understand was how do the best do it in a
way that allows them to almost create supernatural results? And
(18:02):
one of the great examples was the company in Vidia,
right in Video everybody, many people know it. If you
if you don't know Nvidia and you don't have it
in your stock portfolio, shame on you. You know, back in
the back in the early twenty tens. In twenty thirteen,
and Video was so convinced as a group, as a
leadership team that artificial intelligence was the future that there
(18:25):
was going to be, but it was going to require
different computing needs than other than than other than was
available at the time. They started spending twenty five percent
of their active cash every year on R and D
on how they could be a better organization to support AI.
(18:45):
Twenty thirteen or twenty fifteen, chat GPT the company open
Ai is formed and the first purchase they make is
an Nvidia processor right a GPU. When chat GPT is
announced to the world as the most rapidly downloaded software
of all time, four hundred million people downloaded chat gpt
in the first four months of its operation. All of
(19:08):
those people needed in VideA GPUs. This company went from
worth a market cap of three hundred million dollars at
one stage to now they're worth four point five trillion dollars.
Why because they they they saw something, they were ready
when the spark occurred, they were prepared to take advantage
of it. And so that's our that's our real goal
(19:30):
here is we're trying to help people understand there's a
spark ahead for you, and it might it might be negative.
It could be that you're you're the company that you're
competing with. Their CEO is caught on a Coldplay video
hugging up on his HR director. Right now, there's an
opportunity for you. Are you ready? Can you can you
actually do something with that moment? And the best teams
(19:53):
are able to do that, and they're able to then
amplify guess what we're not, We're not that Let.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Me circle back.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Just something, okay, because I am fascinated by this topic
and you're hitting all the words in terms of culture
and foundational building and and how to continue the momentum.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I love the idea of inertia. I'm going to use
that tomorrow. Right, it's just great.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Right, objects your rest stay objects at rest, stay stay
at rest.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right, you either.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Were we're we're moving forward.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
If you're not moving, if you're not moving with us.
By the way, yeah, there's a place for you.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Correct, correct, it's somewhere else. It's somewhere else. That's it's
somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
You've been able to I mean, you've had was it
twelve thirteen New York Times bestsellers like this.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Is Tonight it was announced that my My, my book
that I've just recently written, made the New York Times
list for the first thirteenth time. Thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I asked that, because we are in a culture now
where nobody read newspapers anymore, and there's I have books,
and I've I actually buy books for my players, for
my friends as well, and I mean, you know, look,
it's when you have a long day. To me, there's
nothing I can only probably do a chapter or two
to night. But one of the challenges you found in
(21:12):
writing in twenty twenty five, obviously the idea is twenty seventeen,
But how is your job different? And you've been doing
this a lot obviously, I know you're a very well
regarded public speaker as well, so you have to you
have to stay with the times there. But in terms
of getting people to purchase your books, has that changed
(21:32):
your process, the topic, the style of writing at all
in these last you know, ten years where so much
of media has.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Changed absolutely well. First off, you know the days of
those books that were that were you know, five hundred
pages long gone? Right now you know, two hundred and
sixty two hundred and sixty eight pages, that's as long
as it gets fifty thousand and sixty thousands. It's a
it's a much tighter. You have to write more quickly,
you have to, you don't You're you value every word.
(22:01):
There's there's a lot that has changed that. But but
a big piece of it too is picking the right topics.
I'm trying to you try to find topics that are
that are that other people are scratching their head at
and asking, well, what's going on there? What does that mean?
And that's that's in part why this topic really worked
for me. I was fascinated by momentum. But but I
(22:24):
would talk to coaches like you, and I would talk
to the hosts of of of podcasts like you and
and they were fascinated with it too. Everybody can define
moment can can see momentum, but few people can define it.
So what we were really trying to do is come
up with I'm looking now for topics that I think,
(22:46):
once entered into the universe, people will go, oh, I've
always wondered about that too, right, So you can't. It's
harder to take that really obscure idea and go play
through it and hope that people will adapt, well, will
come to it. You almost have to come up with
an idea that people are already scratching their head and
are willing to go, yeah, I've been interested in that too.
(23:08):
I'll drop twenty five bucks for it.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
The naysayers momentum are the analytics community, right yep.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Baseball especially it's all about random events, right, Everything.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
These are random events, and you kind of all everything
regresses to the mean of what the data tells you. Right, right,
And we have become very data driven in sports and
running businesses and how.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
We program TV.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Even the data analytics for what the books should be about.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
What's that like to combine to.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Because the analytics let's just say nerd and we say
it lovingly, so right, But the analytics person will say, look.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
But you're arguing with the computer. The computer has no feelings.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
This is the reality to it, right, is out of
reality that the data doesn't lie, and data proves that
momentum doesn't actually exist.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Some people would argue that, and there are in fact,
I remember one of the early interviews I did on
this book was I reached out to the there's a
three person team at ESPN that runs you know, and
we've all seen it. Right after every play, it tells
you what are the odds this team's going to win
versus this team? Right, and it shifts every play depending
on what happens. The numbers change every play. And so
(24:27):
I thought, these guys have got to believe in momentum.
I mean, the numbers show it. Right, good things start
to happen, and then they start happening more regularly. The
numbers keep rising. Obviously that and and in fact, they
were the first group to completely try to shut me down.
They said, by the way, this is all random, these
things just you know, you can't you can't manufacture a
(24:49):
series of random events. And under I grew to believe
that they were completely wrong because they are focused on
just a number of statistic But momentum at its core
is a belief system. Right if you and I, if
we're doing really well together and suddenly we start feeling like,
you know what, this this game is ours like we're
(25:10):
gonna we're on a roll right here, that that works
to our advantage, and if you're on the other side
of it, it completely works against you. Right You're you're
sitting there going, I can't you know, it doesn't matter
what we do. Every time the ball seems to bounce,
it's bouncing in their direct it's bouncing in their direction. Right. So,
(25:31):
if you understand momentum not to be a science project,
which is what we really understand here there there there
is science to it, but this is actually it's a
it's it's the creation of a belief system. And if
we can do that and and collectively we believe we're
moving in the right direction, you can actually almost predict
(25:56):
an unstoppable force. You can predict the way it has.
It's now what happens is these statistical people want to see, Yeah,
you're going really well, everything's awesome, and then suddenly your
point guard dribbles the ball off his foot out of
bounds and the other team, you know, races down and
scores a bucket and everything you had going for you
is lost in that moment. But that's only if the
(26:19):
team begins to believe that the point guard's mistake is called.
So that's why this concept of actually having a group
of people who are willing to play and support of
each other, it matters. All the neuroscientists that we worked
with said that that that's a real defining it's a
real bright line. You want eight players, but you want
(26:40):
eight players who can cheer for other eight players.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
So you start foundational, You start with culture. What your
leadership's about. All the things you're saying rings so true
to both of my jobs, right, and that it comes
down to leadership. It comes down to the type of
people and building a belief.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What's the next big step.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
The next big step is the idea of actually it's
the buzz Williams piece right, it's the it's the preparation,
it's the work you do to actually get people to
be aware of the moment, right, so they're constantly in
the moment. Buzz Williams talked about it. It's actually more
important to him to have to have folks who are
(27:21):
in the moment and aware of what needs to happen
in this moment. That then sometimes people who are more talented, right,
and so he's constantly working on preparedness. Are you ready
and are you are? Is your mind locked into what
where are we right now and what needs to happen
next in order for us to keep progressing positively forward?
(27:43):
And then the next step is obviously once you've done
all that work, then you then you you wait for
a spark. And the spark doesn't have to be that big.
Sometimes the spark can be a lineup change. Sometimes the
spark can be who you decide to enter. You know,
who you decide to put in the game, or maybe
who he decided to take out right, It can be
The spark can come in so many different ways. Many
(28:05):
people think it has to be something large and dramatic.
It actually doesn't. But if it starts to turn things
your way, then your job as leader is to amplify
that through communication. It's your job to say to them,
this is exactly we were ready for this, this is
our moment, this is what we're you know, and and
(28:26):
they again, remember, momentum is a belief system, and if
you and your job is to is to take these
moments and get them to maybe believe the moment's even
bigger than it really is. But because they so trust
you that they know that you see, you see an
(28:48):
end game that they don't quite see yet, and you're
telling them, this is the moment we've been waiting for,
right We prepared for this all season long. We you know,
remember all those drills we ran, all those those times
you cursed my name at the end of you know,
walking off a practice, off the court at the end
of practice. It's it's because we needed to be where
(29:10):
we are right now. And you've earned it, You've earned
the opportunity, right and so you amplify it. Then you
get to this idea that there's belief in mindset. And
it's this idea. If you've created the right belief in
mindset within your team, they begin to feed off each
other as well. They no longer just need you to
be they they're they're encouraging each other, they're they're there,
(29:33):
and and as all of that really starts to play,
you you look for outcomes and feedback. And as you're
looking for outcomes and feedback, it's you know that that's
often things you'll do after a game. You'll actually spend
time actually breaking it down and you're looking for those
moments that you're trying to say, what did I do?
What could I have done differently? As a leader? What
(29:55):
could what could what could they have done differently? And
as you create that, you know, I focus a lot
with the Blue Angels on outcomes and feedback. I mean,
think about it, five hundred and fifty miles an hour
they're flying with the playing above them that literally they
could reach up in touch if there wasn't a canopy
above them. So they got to be pretty good. But
(30:15):
they do an entire feedback loop at the end of
every practice and every show in which they break it
down and they look for everything they could do better,
and they do it without any rank on their shoulders.
They take the ranks off their shoulders so that everyone
has a voice. So are you you know, the phrase
they use is feedback as the breakfast of champions. And
(30:37):
if we're willing to accept feedback and get better, then
we're ready to start the loop all over again.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I love that feedback is breakfast champ taking all these nuggets.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
And I'm just gonna gonna mel u.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Say this tomorrow for your team.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I'm going to I'm going to in forts. The hard
part of momentum is as a coach, you're not trying.
You're trying to not kill momentum, right, you want to
be a momentum killer. On the other hand, you're like,
all right, at some point those guys are gonna get tired.
I need a new grow somebody else in there. You
(31:11):
talk about buzz. But and look, this is with all
things in the military. Okay, one group advances does a
great job, but at some point somebody has picked up
the baton and and take it forward.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
What that decision like.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
In terms of first, when, then how and with who
to take that baton forward?
Speaker 3 (31:32):
You know, again that's very individual to your team and
your your situation.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
But sure, but there but there's there's definitely it does
come down to some of it comes down to preparation.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
As you point out something. It comes down to field.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Sometimes you feel like someone has run their course, right,
you know what I mean? Like, Okay, they everything they've
done well has has has played itself out. For the
last eight trips down the court, right, they've been amazing,
and then suddenly they have a couple of trips in
which they're suddenly not as sharp, not as engaged as
they as they were previously. Perfect time, perfect time to
(32:06):
make a switch. And when you do that, then it's
about making sure that as you're pulling that one player
off the court, that that that the player you're sending
in is sit in with the instruction, Like you have
a responsibility to this guy to do what he just
did eight times down the court, right you you you
know it's your job to pick up the baton, as
(32:26):
you said, and actually so so stay focused, stay locked
in because you know this is this is a window
of time in which everything in the game is just
could shift. And I'm trusting you. We're trusting you to
be the to be the answer when you get out
there again. It's all in. It's all in communication skills.
You're a master of it, but leader communication is a
(32:49):
real driver in all of this. How do you how
do you as a leader communicate to them the opportunity
and that's provided to them, and the and the responsibility
they have to other people they love. Right, you know
you just sat there and cheered gratefully for this other
(33:09):
guy last eight trips down the court. I trust me,
he was going to be sitting here cheering for you too.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I go out there and do it, go out there
and do it for us, right, And that's people want
to be part of something bigger.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
There's a gentleman. There's a gentleman named Mark King. If
you're familiar with Mark, Mark used to be the president
they see you know, uh, Taco Bell h Taylor made Yeah,
Taylor Ma. And I've heard Mark speak. He's actually a
Green Bay lumbelieve or not?
Speaker 4 (33:37):
What was he really?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
He put in the golf team here and I heard
Mark speak and he said exactly that.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
He said.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
You know, at the end of the day, people want
to be a part of something special. And when you
can make them feel a part of something special, that's
when you tapped into the magic.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
That's the role of the leader. The role of the
leader is to is to actually make sure they recognize
what's being presented to them. The opportunity that's in front
of them is something you're not going to get if
you went down the street. Yes, you could transfer to
you know, to some acc school next year if you
want to. I mean, you not going to say this.
But at the end of the day, what you're getting
(34:21):
a chance to do here, this is once in a lifetime, no.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
No question, no question. What was the most fascinating?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
This is hours upon hours of interviews and research, right,
just you've been doing this your entire professional life. Yeah,
what was the most fascinating thing that maybe somebody else
doesn't find interesting, but you're like, man, I just I
got caught in this loop of being interested in this
one thing that I didn't think until I started researching
(34:49):
to write this book.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
It was the mirror neurons concept. It was this idea
that there is actually a whole field of neuroscience about
what happened is when a group of people who actually
care for each other, what happens when when they when
when when one of them does something well? Right? And
(35:13):
and what you really start to realize about your team
is when someone does something well, is everyone off the
bench cheering for him? You know and make it or
is there that one who's kind of hanging in the back,
like going, damn, that should have been me, right like
you said, this could have been me. I'm worthy, I'm
as good as that guy. I show it every day
(35:33):
in practice and the coach won't let me in, and
so they're hanging in the back. You see it on
teams that you start to watch crumble, but the teams
that actually constantly are are are just you know, just
the joy that comes from one person's excellence, the joy
(35:55):
that comes from everyone is the difference maker. And I
always wonder where that came from. And the longer I
grew to understand the neuroscience of mirror neurons, the more
I came to it and it you know, there's just
there's a whole series of of of events and things
that you can you could try to understand where your
(36:16):
team is on that concept. But this this sense that
that we feel so we're so close that we feel
each other's pain and we feel each other's joy. And
when you get to that place, that's where you you
really are almost in this nirvana state, this state that
allows you to capture momentum and do something special.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
It's amazing to science find it because I'll tell you
what I learned, Like there's lots of things you learn
in your first time coaching in college basketball program. But
you know, I've always thought, again, when you're when you're
on the radio, there's two ways to go about it.
You can be the combatant where you everyone hates you. Okay, Uh, yes,
(37:01):
stephen A, yeah, he's he softened some now, but yes,
there was the time in which he yes, okay. But
there's also a point to it where you have to
be People have to like your voice, they have to
like to turnround, you have to like your your family,
your anecdotes or whatever. So I always thought, hey, I
(37:23):
can get college athletes to gravitate towards me, which I did.
What I didn't know was exactly what you're talking about
with the science of the connectivity.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And the perfect example is, you know, last.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Year, we had a really young team, and what I
noticed and what others pointed out to me, was when
I would lose my mind because they were young, they
were fairly weak, and they were getting pushed around and
I would try and you know, go to the whip
and get after him, and really my emotion they matched
(37:59):
my emotion and it took me till some other people
pointed it out. I knew it, I felt it, but
I couldn't get myself sort of out of it. And
when my emotions turn to be positive and energetic and
back to being thoughtful and and and yes, yes, So
I view that as an incredible success story last year
(38:23):
in that, despite we lost twenty one games in a row,
and despite that, by the end of the year, they
were still all fighting for me, for us, for the dream,
for the belief, which is like, that's what you're looking for.
There's absolutely a science to it. I'm a buyer, I'm
a believer, and I think it's fascinating and it's something
I think we were able to create last year.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Now we're going to try and recreate it earlier.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
And and and and by the way, I've given my all,
my all, my players your book because I'm a I'm
a buyer and a believer into momentum, and all it
takes is a spark, just so so people are aware
who are seeing whether it's Amazon, Apple Books, Audio porch Lights, Spotify,
(39:05):
bulk Books, Google Play, you name it, Okay, you can
there's an audiobook as well to it, okay, and of
course you can go you can go.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Pick it up wherever you pick up your books. It's
the thirteenth best sellers.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, wherever find books are sold is the way we
say it.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
This is a really really interesting topic.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
You've done a lot of really good ones, don't get
me wrong, okay, but this one in terms of because
the buzzwords are culture, but it's not followed up with
what is culture?
Speaker 1 (39:32):
How do you establish it? And how do you use
that positive culture to create? And this the science and momentum?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Right, how do you how do you use the culture
to recruit the right people to then? Right? So then
you're doing all the elements right, It's it's there. There's
there's a whole flow to this thing that's really magical.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
John, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I encourage people to pick this up, and I mean,
I mean it, this is big time. You've written a
lot of good ones, this one I personally enjoyed.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Doug, I'm such a great and friend. I appreciate you.
Thanks for letting me be on with you, and I
hope we stay together for a long time.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. I'm Doug Gottlieb reminder.
The Doug Gottlieb Show airs every day three to five
Eastern twelve two Pacific, Fox Sports Radio iHeartRadio app. Of course,
you can download that as in podcast form. We also
have a podcast only hour.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
And if you like.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
All Ball, why not review it? Why not rate it?
Why not tell a friend about it? Why not share
it on social media? If not for me, because Don
Jager is a stud writer and an amazing guy, and
he joined me here and you enjoyed the listen, Thanks
so much for listening. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is All Ball.
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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