July 16, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of the Coaching Minds Podcast, Ben Carnes sits down with Marc Nudelberg—former college football coach and founder of On The Ball—to explore the principles behind consistent, high-level performance. Drawing from his experiences at programs like Florida State and Cincinnati, Marc explains why simplicity beats complexity, how culture can make or break a team, and why most businesses are failing when it comes to real leadership development.
The conversation dives into athlete identity, the dangers of tying your worth to your title, and the difference between feedback in football vs. feedback in business. Marc also shares tactical ways entrepreneurs and coaches can build sustainable habits using the “1% better every day” philosophy—without burning out or chasing perfection.
TimeTopic
1:10 | Marc's coaching and entrepreneurial journey
3:00 | Why he left college football despite success
5:10 | Special teams = leadership bootcamp
7:00 | The hidden culture behind Florida State’s national title
10:00 | Identity shifts and the cost of chasing success
15:00 | Why most athletes (and coaches) struggle with identity
18:00 | What business gets wrong about leadership + training
21:00 | The importance of visibility and feedback loops
25:00 | How solo entrepreneurs can use AI (like ChatGPT!) as a coach
28:00 | What “1% better every day” really means in practice
30:00 | Avoiding burnout and perfectionism through minimum standards
33:30 | Applying time + mindset management for MTP coaches
37:00 | The 3 priorities every coach-entrepreneur must schedule
40:00 | How to hold others accountable without sacrificing care
42:00 | Marc’s advice to his younger self: Be obsessively curious
Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
mentaltrainingplan.com/athletes
Are you a COACH looking for an affordable year-round mental performance training program? Check out the MTP Academy available through our website:
mentaltrainingplan.com/academy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome to Coaching Minds Podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan.
Today's guest is someone whoknows exactly what it takes to
win, whether that's on the fieldor in the boardroom.
Mark Nudelberg is a dynamicleader whose journey bridges two
intensely competitive worldselite college football and
(00:22):
business leadership.
For over a decade Mark was inthe grind of Division I coaching
at Florida State, florida,cincinnati, nevada, lafayette.
Worked on both sides of theball, was special teams
coordinator, recruitingcoordinator, built game plans,
developed athletes, helped shapenationally recognized programs.
(00:44):
But Mark's story didn't stopthere.
He took those same leadershipprinciples, those
high-performance habits, theteam-building strategies and
translated them into businesssuccess.
Today, mark helps otherscompete at the highest level in
their own arena, and at the coreof his philosophy is the idea
(01:06):
of getting 1% better every day.
Mark, so excited to have youhere.
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Ben, thank you for having me and thank you for that
wonderful introduction.
It's great to be here and I'mexcited to share my story with
everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Love it.
So, to start off, would love tojust hear who you are, how you
got to where you're at.
Just maybe take us through someof the highlights of your own
story.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, so I'd say you know I'm Mark Nudelberg.
I'm a proud dad.
Family is the thing that ismost important to me, and I
think it really started backwhen I was a little kid, growing
up in an entrepreneurial family.
My dad's been an entrepreneurmy entire life, and so if you
know anything aboutentrepreneurship, it is entirely
(01:52):
about performance, andparticularly your performance on
a daily basis in order to besuccessful.
So I grew up in that kind ofenvironment.
I became obsessed with what madepeople great.
I used to read books aboutMichael Jordan when I was a kid
because he was the best outthere, but it didn't matter if
it was the Cowboys in the 90sthat were having great success,
(02:15):
or the Chicago Bulls, or my hometeams like the Miami Heat, the
Dolphins and the Panthers.
I was always drawn to thingsthat were having success or
people that were beingsuccessful.
But figuring out why and I wasfortunate to get the opportunity
to become an equipment managerat Florida State when I went to
school there.
That offered me my foot intothe college football industry,
(02:39):
and while I was a student there,I worked my way out of the
equipment room to becoming astudent assistant, volunteer
coach, to then getting hiredfull time when Jimbo Fisher
became the head coach, whichthen led to a 10 year career
postgrad, where I was a specialteams coordinator and worked on
both the offensive and thedefensive side of the ball.
Through that time no-transcriptit didn't matter how many kids I
(03:24):
recruited out of the state ofFlorida.
If the head coach had a friendhe wanted to hire or the AD
didn't like the head coach, orwhatever the reason was, we
ended out looking for a job.
So that's when I ended upgetting out and starting my
entrepreneurial journey,building this company on the
ball with my family, which nowwe service organizations all
(03:45):
over the country, and we focusin two areas modernizing the
sales process, which is 1000%performance based, and helping
leaders understand how toactually become great coaches,
which is something that I wasfortunate to do at a high level
throughout my career in football.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I love that.
I'd love to go back and justkind of start off in your
coaching days.
And you know, being on bothsides of the ball offense,
defense and then, even morespecifically, being a special
teams coordinator I think is aunique role.
I was an offensive coordinatorat the high school level for
(04:24):
quite a few years and my headcoach at the time actually
convinced me hey, you need to ifyou're serious about wanting to
be a head coach.
Like you can't just coachquarterbacks your whole life.
Like why don't you go be, whydon't you be our special teams
coordinator?
And now it's like well, I'mresponsible, instead of being
responsible for five guys andcalling plays.
(04:46):
Like now I got to figure outwhat are we going to do with 150
dudes on this football fieldand where are we going to put
them on?
How are we going to?
How are we going to practicewhat?
What were some of maybe the,the leadership lessons that you
took away specifically fromthose, the special team side of
things, where you wereresponsible for such a large
(05:08):
group of people?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
That really the ultimate key to success was
simple and effective.
Right, I knew that everybodythat I was going to coach, aside
from the punter, the kicker andthe snapper, everybody else was
recruited to play a differentposition, so this would always
be the secondary thing for them.
So I couldn't have elaborateschemes and really complicated
(05:33):
processes to go through.
I had to keep things supersimple so that they could know
it and have a lot of confidencein it, and so that then it could
be effective.
If it was simple and unaffected, well, what's the point in
doing it?
So everything that I tried to doas a special teams coordinator,
I tried to keep the philosophyof our goal was to be simple and
(05:54):
effective, and that transitioninto business for me and
everything that I really do inmy life is in order for it to be
successful, there has to beconsistency to it.
Right, and the more complicatedthings are, the harder it is to
be consistent to it.
So I am always on the hunt totry to cut the fat and try to
(06:17):
get rid of the excess and to tryto keep things as simple as
possible so that I have theopportunity to be as consistent
as possible, which will lead meto way more success than anybody
who has something that's reallyelaborate and really difficult
but can only do it a coupletimes a week.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, and you know that makes me wonder also about
some of the bigger picturethings like culture.
But let's talk maybe just for alittle bit about, you know,
within some of those powerhouseprograms, what were maybe some
moments where you saw culturemake or break a team.
(06:56):
Just the expectations of, hey,this is how we do things here,
either in a really positive wayor a negative way that you were
able to learn from.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, so I think probably one of the highlights
of my career was building thenational championship Florida
State team.
Right, I wasn't there for theyear they won it.
I had actually taken a job atthe University of Cincinnati but
I had been there for the sevenyears prior and we had gone from
being blown out by Wake Foreston our home field with Bobby
Bowden, to now being anationally dominant team.
(07:31):
Twelve and two Orange Bowlwinner.
The next year they win thenational championship.
And what's interesting is atthat time when I left, I always
told everybody in that 2013season the Florida State
Seminoles actually won thatnational championship despite
Jimbo Fisher and people thoughtI was crazy at the time because
(07:52):
he was the dominant name and hehad built the program, but I was
like there's a lot of lack ofaccountability there with him
and there's a lot of big Bart nobite.
And I'm telling you that thereason that team was successful
was because of the culture ofthe kids, the quality of the
kids that we had recruited forthose four years prior and the
(08:14):
assistant coaches and what theyhad done in developing those
kids, because when they won it,everybody was gone.
More than half of that staff hadgone to take jobs in other
places and part of that wasbecause it was all great
opportunities for them to go dosomething Guys like Mark Stoops
who went on to the University ofKentucky but the other part of
that was it was really hard tobe there and work for Jimbo
(08:37):
because of that.
You know, toxic environment thatwe were being that was a little
bit bipolar and there wasn't awhole lot of accountability to
it.
So I will tell you what wasreally interesting was watching
a team galvanize for themselvesright and galvanize and say we
can do this no matter what,because of who, the brotherhood
(09:00):
they had and the bonds they hadand the quality of relationships
that they had developed.
So to see that happen and besuccessful was really
unbelievable.
And then I think of the flipside of that coin was maybe when
I was at the university ofNevada and we were crippled with
injuries, we actually lost aplayer in the off season and we
(09:21):
were an untalented football teamby most stretches of
measurement.
And I would say that watchingthose kids go six and seven that
year which most people wouldcall like a failure of a
football season watching thembattle and scratch and claw for
every little thing that we couldget, and getting six wins out
(09:42):
of that year was something thatwe were very proud of.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah.
So now, at some point, youstart to feel this pull.
You start to feel this pull,maybe outside of football.
Hey, maybe there's somethingelse I want to do.
Maybe it's better opportunity.
What was that pull towards moreof the business, more of the
(10:06):
leadership side outside offootball?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I will tell you, I think the key to success for
anybody is understanding what itwill cost to be there, right to
get there.
And I think, having been in thecareer for 10 years and being
all over the country and workingat different levels of major
division one college football, Iknew what the cost of becoming
(10:30):
a head coach and continuing thatcareer was going to be.
It was going to be family, itwas going to be my life, it was
going to be all of my time.
I was going to have to devoteeverything to that and the 10
years prior I had no problemmaking that sacrifice and that
commitment.
At the end of 2018, I was likeam I really willing to make that
(10:53):
commitment still?
And as soon as I knew I wasquestioning whether or not I was
willing to make that sacrifice,I knew I was going to do the
organization of this justice,the kids, the injustice, all of
these.
It was gonna be a ripple effectbecause I wasn't willing to
give up what I needed to give upin order to meet the standard
that I thought was necessary andwas and was I owed the team and
(11:17):
the kids.
So that was really the start ofit.
Then there were someopportunities that popped up and
I realized that I had beenoffered this moment of
in-between where, like, I couldget out, I could go do something
for a year and if it wasn't theright thing and I realized all
I wanted to do was be a ballcoach, I could always come back
(11:38):
and have the same jobopportunities and rely on the
same network, and I could justgo back.
And so that was really themoment for me where I was like,
if I'm not 100% certain, I'mwilling to sacrifice what's
necessary to be successful, thenlet me try to find something
else that I am willing to makethe sacrifice for.
And that's how the journeybegan.
(11:59):
That was the first step out,and then it was a long journey
of you know.
Now it's been six years since Iexited the game and, you know,
on the ball has been goingstrong for five of those years
and we're continuing to grow andchange.
And what's interesting is thatI found a way to to fulfill my
dream of being a head footballcoach, of being a head coach
(12:22):
without being a head footballcoach.
Right, and that's really theway I look at myself in terms of
our organization, our communityand all of the people that
we're responsible for workingwith is I get to be the head
coach for all of them and createthe environments and deliver
the resources and create, youknow, everything they need to
get that growth and thatdevelopment.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, was there any piece of maybe your identity
that you felt shifted, changed,when you left coaching?
Were there any aspects of thattransition that were difficult
for you?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I think it's similar to most athletes who, when they
retire after a professionalcareer, or even college athletes
, when they transition into thebusiness world for the first
time, you've devoted everythingto this thing and that thing no
longer exists for you and whatyou realize is that you've tied
(13:22):
your identity to that thing,which I will tell you is the
most unhealthy thing we can doas professionals, as people and
I always sound like Dr Seusswhen I say this you are you, no
matter the industry, the job,the thing you choose to do as a
profession.
(13:43):
You are you no matter what, andyou need to define that for
yourself and help yourselfidentify what that really means
in the term of your life andthen find the place or the
profession or the passion thatfeeds that the best for you,
because you cannot create youridentity around what you do,
(14:04):
because you are so much morethan that and when it's gone.
It was one of the hardestthings for me to really then go,
the transition to go through,because I really had to redefine
myself as a person, because Iwas no longer Mark Nudelberg the
ball coach.
I had to be Mark Nudelberg, theman who then had a profession
(14:24):
doing something else.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, do you think that that's a possible thing to
teach an athlete or a coach, anyindividual, while they're in
the middle of doing that?
I would say probably.
Where we saw it most was whenan athlete would get injured and
, you know, kind of spiralinginto some negativity.
(14:47):
It's like my worth, my value,my purpose, my identity has all
been in this sport, has all beenin this.
You know me as football player,me as basketball player, and
now that's gone, is it?
Do you think it's possible, youknow, for the it's possible for
the players out there, thecoaches out there, to really
(15:09):
understand that and really startto separate that identity
before feeling that loss?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I do, I do.
I think if we can start to shiftthe conversation around having
to sacrifice everything to besuccessful in something and
that's not saying it's not goingto create you don't have to.
You don't have to sacrificemore to be the best or to reach
(15:40):
a certain level, like, if youlook at the greats of the greats
, they were obsessed with whatthey do.
There's nothing wrong withbeing obsessed with what you do,
right, but understanding thatthat doesn't define who you are
and helping yourself create youridentity as just because you're
high performance focused andjust because you care about
(16:03):
committing to process and dailybehaviors and routine and all of
the things that make peoplesuccessful, that doesn't mean
that your identity is wrapped inthe thing you do.
You can carry that philosophyinto everything into being a dad
, into being a husband.
You could chase everything withthat kind of relentless pursuit
(16:25):
, but you have to chaseeverything that way, right?
And if that, what I think weneed to help kids particularly
kids understand is that youdon't have to play football year
round to be the best footballplayer.
You can actually still playbaseball, you can still play
basketball and it's actuallyprobably going to serve you
better as an individual to beless specialized and more
(16:49):
well-rounded and experience, andit's going to help you detract
yourself from that identity ofI'm a football player or I'm a
football coach by exposingyourself to more opportunities
and more experiences to give yousome perspective for yourself
that says, yes, I love to dothat, but it's not who I am.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah.
So, as you've made this shiftand you know, and you've just
left the coaching world andyou're getting into this
business leadership developmentarea, where did you see the
biggest gaps in how businesseswere approaching the development
(17:32):
of leadership, the developmentof high performing metrics, of
all of the things that are maybedone at an elite level in
athletics to reach that peakperformance?
Where did you feel like thebusiness world was lacking that
the most?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Where did you feel like business the business world
was lacking that the most?
Well, it was actually in myfirst job.
So when I got high, when I whenthe first sales job that I got,
I got trained for two weeks,right, and then my training was
over, right, like sure, theybrought in some speakers or we
had some like group meetings totalk about how to do things and
share some like, but they'relike in ball.
(18:13):
You practice every day, youwatch tape every day, right,
like every day you are studying,you're preparing, right,
preparation and preparationmeant studying, meant planning,
meant practicing.
Well, all of a sudden I gethired into an organization
that's a very successfulorganization and there's very
(18:35):
little studying, there's verylittle planning, there's very
little practicing happening.
And I'm like, wait a minute, Iknow that these are the
must-have components to beingsuccessful and it's not showing
up anywhere.
And then you talk about likefocused on behaviors and not
outcomes.
I didn't.
I knew that that on Saturdays,saturdays would take care of
(18:55):
themselves If we practice theway we needed to practice.
All week long, you talk aboutbeing focused were having and
the results of the behaviors,instead of focusing on how to
(19:15):
perfect the behaviors on a dailybasis that lead to those things
.
So I recognized inside of myown business that I was in, that
I was like whoa.
The expectation for what itmeans to be trained and to be a
professional and to commit toyour craft on a daily basis were
wildly different in athleticsthan business, and so that
(19:39):
helped me start to create anidea around a business that
could exist, that could helporganizations adopt these
principles, not just asorganizational excellence, not
just as leadership development,but actually changing sales
culture to be results orientedor results focused, to being
(19:59):
behavior focused and resultsoriented.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, so in the world of athletics, I hear that, and
it takes me back to planning myindividual time.
So there were, certainly therewere things that my guys were
going to do every individualtime.
So there were things that myguys were gonna do every single
week, and there were things thatthey were gonna do every day,
and those were set in stone.
(20:23):
While we were watching film,though, we would break every
single play if it wasn'tefficient.
The question was well, why wasit not efficient?
Did we not make the right read?
Did we just make a bad pass?
Did the coach call the wrongplay from the sideline?
Did the quarterback not checkout of something that wasn't a
(20:46):
good fit for the front we had orthe coverage we had?
We wanted to know why was itnot efficient?
And then, how are we going tofix that?
How are we going to get better?
Tell me now, from the businessperspective, how does that carry
over and what does that looklike?
And maybe I was missing that alittle bit in my example.
(21:08):
No, your money, your money.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So you're you're talking about the feedback loop
which, in in sports, isinstantaneous and multiple.
In a day, right Like hey, I dosomething on the practice field,
I immediately get feedback onit from the coach after it
happened.
Then we go back into the filmroom and we watch it on tape and
we see it again.
(21:31):
So I get another, you knowanother piece of feedback on
what the inputs were, whathappened and why it happened,
which, in business, mostpeople's feedback loops are a
week long.
Action happens and nobody getsany kind of feedback on that
action for a whole nother week.
And you're expecting to developpeople.
So the thing that's missing,which we have in athletics, is
(21:55):
visibility to the work.
I'm watching it actually happen.
We're videotaping it.
I can watch it again and reviewit again.
So I think it's really criticalfor business leaders to create
that visibility to work so thatthey can shorten the feedback
loop and give more feedback totheir people to help them
develop.
So, for instance, right, I'm notasking people to micromanage,
(22:18):
but I one of one of three thingshas to happen.
You either have to deliver me areport saying these are the good
things that happened, these arethe bad things that happened.
These were the priorities thatworked on so that I have
visibility to see that and giveyou feedback on it.
Right, or you've got to recordit or have it captured in some
way, whether it's an audiorecording, a transcript or
(22:41):
something that you can deliverto me for me to be able to
review with you, or it's got tohappen automated, right, where
things are automatically beingpopulated for myself so that I
can see that and give youfeedback on it.
Cause if there's no visibilityto work, then there's no,
there's nothing to really givefeedback on and there's no way
(23:02):
to really develop people ifthey're not getting that
feedback.
So I think that's the biggestthing that I think I took for
granted in sports was just thatyou just had this happening all
the time, and then it wasnatural and expected where now,
when I deal with organizations,it's like, okay, well, show me
how we're getting the visibilityto give these people feedback,
and that's a kick in the hose,usually for everybody.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Right then, and there yeah, and so to to follow up on
that, I want to just give you areal world example up on that.
I want to just give you a realworld example.
So this morning I had a salescall at 9 AM with a school on
the East coast who wants me tocome over and do a workshop with
the coaches and then we'regoing to kick off the MTP
(23:45):
Academy where they're doing someyear round training.
Set you know, told her aboutthe program, we talked through
what the pricing was going tolook like.
We set up like some next steps.
So let's say, I'm Ben Carnes,I'm running my own small
business here.
I don't have someone, I don'thave that assistant coach or
(24:05):
that coordinator or that headcoach behind me giving me
feedback, telling me, hey, thiswas really good, or hey, dummy,
you forgot this, or maybe it's.
I am, I am working and I dohave that boss, but, like you
said in your your first jobexperience, there's no, there's
(24:27):
no, like you look around andthere's no one there.
There's no accountability,there's no training.
So if you're kind of on yourown, what does that look like?
How does somebody like me getfeedback from that sales call
that I had at 9am this?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
morning.
So chat GPT is a great place todo it right, like I'll tell you
, like I could sell our businessright now, like that's why we
exist right, because there's fartoo many people that want to be
high performers that don'texist in environments that are
conducive for that and we cangive you that right.
We have a weekly morning huddlethat we do live for our
community.
(25:02):
We have monthly coaching andaccountability happens for
everybody.
We have a training platformthat we have visibility to that
we can see whether or not you'relogging in and learning and
doing the things you need to doto perfect what we feel like are
the pillars of performance inbusiness.
We have that.
So like one you can go find acommunity and find a place or
(25:22):
find a coach or find somebodythat can give you that.
But let's say you don't have abudget for it.
Let's say you're not.
You know you're not.
You're not in a place where youcan afford to do that, because
it's going to cost you money andthe good ones are always more
expensive.
So let's say you're not in aplace to do that.
(25:45):
You could literally say toChatGPT I want you to operate as
a CEO of a small tomedium-sized business that's
focused in this area, and I'mgoing to deliver you what I'm
working on and how I'm doing it.
And I want you to give mefeedback on blind spots, on
things I might be missing or howI can execute better.
And it'll give you thatfeedback right, because it's
pulling from all of thesedifferent sources all over the
(26:05):
internet to develop that mind.
Now you have to give it thecontext right.
You can't just deliver it yourcall and be like hey, how did I
do here?
You have to tell it the contextright.
You can't just deliver it yourcall and be like, hey, how did I
do here?
You have to tell it how youwant it to operate.
But if you can be reallyspecific with that identity for
chat, it's going to give yousome really really good
perspective and help you.
So there's a couple of ways todo it.
(26:26):
You can go find the communitieslike ours that exist that want
to deliver that for you, or youcan just hop right into chat and
do it for yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
So, if I'm hearing it right, it's almost like I could
record that call and then Icould give that to chat GPT and
say, hey, I want you to sort ofact as my coach here and give me
some feedback.
Or I could even have my ownscrimmage and just have a
conversation with JetGPT as ifit's another athletic director
(26:56):
on the West Coast that I'm doinga sales call with.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You nailed it right, it can do all of those things
for you, and I think that's whatpeople don't really understand
about.
The value of what's been put infront of us and how rapidly
it's growing and changing islike people are just using it to
like write stuff for them whichlike cool, that's awesome, but
like that's the infancy of whatit's really capable of.
(27:19):
When you take it and say I wantit to help me develop and grow
and you start getting into thatkind of dialogue with it and
being very specific about howyou want it to operate, it's got
unbelievable capabilities forpeople.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Kind of going back into you guys' motto of the 1%
better every day, which, from anathletic standpoint, I
obviously completely, I'mwholehearted, all in, bought in
on that.
It's a simple idea, but it'snot easy.
That it's a simple idea, butit's not easy.
(27:57):
So what does that actually looklike from an implementation?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
standpoint in your world.
The fact that you said simplebut not easy is one of my
favorite phrases of all time.
Right?
Because nothing that requiresconsistency is easy.
That requires consistency iseasy.
Consistency in itself is hard.
So, simple but not easy.
In that exact philosophy, itcomes down to controlling the
(28:22):
controllables, which, as humanbeings, comes down to two things
what we choose to focus on andwhat we choose to do.
So, if I can build simple habitsfor myself that allow me to
focus on the right things and dothe right things on a daily
basis, and then I can havediscipline to doing that which
(28:44):
creates consistency for myself,that is the simple formula for
getting 1% better every day.
And now, candidly, I believethat the philosophy of getting
1% better every day and now,candidly, I believe that the
philosophy of getting 1% betterevery day is not actually in
getting better, but acceptingthe challenge of getting better.
Right, because the things thatare going to get in your way are
(29:05):
your feelings.
And as soon as you're able toignore the way you feel and say
I know that I want to try to getbetter today and you show up
and give the effort to do that,you still might not meet the
standard right.
You still might fall short ofthat standard, but because you
showed up, that's going tocompound day after day and those
(29:28):
days that you came up short,underneath the standard.
The next day is going to be theday that you catapult 10x
beyond that and create anentirely new standard for
yourself that allows you tofocus on the things that you
(29:51):
know you should focus on, andnot the noise, not the
negativity, not the feelings,but actually the things, the
goals and the visions you havefor yourself.
If you can focus on thosethings and discipline yourself
to doing what you need to do,success is nearly guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
So how do you now Stay consistent in chasing that
progress without getting stuckin perfectionism or, you know,
falling into the other side ofmaybe burnout?
You know, you're just, you'reall in on this.
You kind of you lose any anysort of, you know, balance in
(30:33):
your life or any sort of restand recovery.
To go back to our athleticexample, I mean, what does that
look like once you're in thechase?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Consistency over intensity, right?
So I'm not interested ingrinding for 10 or 12 hours a
day, right?
I can tell you the days of meshowing up at the office at 7 am
and leaving at nine or 10o'clock at night, or worse,
midnight Sometimes, when we wereat Florida State.
Those days are long, long gone.
It was inefficient andineffective, right?
(31:06):
So for me, the way you createthe ability to sustain and
maintain is by understandingwhat's the minimum required.
Sustain and maintain is byunderstanding what's the minimum
required.
What is my absolute,non-negotiable right?
Like, I got to at least get upand work out for 20 minutes.
I might not get an hour workout, but I got to get 20 minutes
(31:27):
and, no matter what, I'm goingto get 20 minutes every day and
I'm going to read every day.
I might not read a wholechapter every day, but I'm going
to read a page every day, right?
And if I can get more, great,I'm going to get more.
But I have my minimum,non-negotiable standards that
I'm able to accomplish everysingle day and that creates
consistency and createssustainability for me, so that
(31:50):
I'm not like, ooh, I'm going toread 10 chapters today If I have
the time to do it and I feellike I'm capable of doing that.
Awesome, go ahead and go for it, but I don't.
I've got two young boys, I'vegot a family, I've got a
business.
I got so many things going onin my life that I don't have
time to be in the gym for threehours.
I would love to.
It's not a reality for me,Right?
So, figuring out what thequantity is and it really just
(32:14):
boils down to time management,which you know like you talked
about planning your individualperiod Most people use their
calendars for other people.
Everything on their calendar ismeetings with other people and
they don't have anythingscheduled for themselves,
whereas ball coaches, wescheduled every minute of the
practice, everything we weregoing to be doing.
(32:34):
Whether it was an individualperiod, a group period, a team
period, a special teams period,didn't matter.
We knew everything we weregoing to do.
So, carrying that philosophyover for myself and just being
like okay, nobody's going todefine the schedule for me.
The head coach is no longerhere telling me this is when
we're going to be in the officeand this is when we're going to
leave, and this is how longpractice is going to be.
I have to define that formyself.
(32:56):
Then it becomes about definingpriorities, reverse engineering
the behaviors that are alignedwith those priorities, getting
them on your calendar for theright amount of time and then
being consistent and showing upand executing on those things
every day.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I love that.
So one of the I would say thenewest thing that we have right
now is our MTP certificationright, where coaches can go
through the training.
They get trained and, using theframeworks that that we use,
working with the individualathletes one on one.
So putting them through theassessment.
Let's figure out, you know,where are they at score wise in
(33:33):
the prime five, what are themain objectives that, the things
that we're going to beintentional about working on
moving forward.
And then you know what are thesessions going to look like, or
what's that kind of practiceplan look like for our
one-on-ones right.
And then you know the coacheswho go through the certification
program.
(33:53):
Now they're getting ready toessentially start their own
business, to start working withathletes.
How would those coachesstarting out trying to build
this coaching business whereverthey're at, apply this 1%
mindset of getting 1% betterevery single day?
(34:16):
What's like a real worldexample of if your company was
working with a client like that.
Where do you start?
What are they building?
What's that look like?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So I think it really comes down to defining the
priorities right.
So like, and I think, forpeople particularly, you got to
look and I don't know what yourI think you called them prime
five, right.
I don't know what those fivepillars are, but for me there's
two main pillars it's yourmindset and it's your time
management.
How are you cultivating agrowth mindset, extreme
(34:50):
ownership and self-awareness?
Those are three non-negotiablethings that happen internally in
our brain, that are skills thatwe got to be able to cultivate
for ourselves, and there areroutines and behaviors that will
feed that right.
The other part of that is whatdoes my daily schedule look like
(35:11):
?
Do I have a morning routine?
Am I hitting the big three inthe morning in terms of physical
movement, in terms of readingand writing?
Right, those are the thingsthat are going to affect my body
and my mind.
How am I structuring my day sothat I understand I have time
for me, I have time for myfamily, I have time for my
(35:33):
business.
So I would say, focusing inthose two areas and giving
yourself a grade and saying I dothis really well, or I think
there's some significant gapshere, because when I look at my
calendar, I actually have hugeareas of white space and
everything on there is for otherpeople.
I think that's the areas tofocus on, because then, when you
(35:53):
go to the business side, to methere's nothing more important
than revenue, right?
How do you drive revenue then?
Because, particularly as asolopreneur, or particularly as
somebody who is going to beresponsible for running a
business of small people, you'renever out of the revenue seat
until you've scaled yourself wayout of the business.
(36:14):
So and I would even say thatmost CEOs of successful
organizations are still creatingrevenue somehow, some way.
So what are your non-negotiablebehaviors for the priorities?
For me, I've got threepriorities in our business
revenue, our team and ourclients, and I know the
behaviors that are associatedwith those three things.
(36:36):
If they're not on my calendar,they're not getting done.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
So kind of shifting gears a little bit.
You know, maybe now, instead ofthe solopreneur, maybe you know
larger business, medium sizedbusiness, certainly the coaches
that we have listening, what are, what are some things that you
feel like every leader should bedoing, but most?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
aren't.
I think every leader shouldhave a development plan for
their team, for each individual,a specific, tailored, and so I
like to grade people on a matrixof core values and performance.
Right, so you might beunbelievable culturally for our
(37:23):
organization, but lack the skillsets to exceed in your
performance.
That doesn't mean you're badfor the team or you have to be
fired.
But as a coach, I know I needto be focused on developing
those skill sets with you, andnot necessarily the intangibles
of what it means to be focusedon developing those skill sets
with you and not necessarily theintangibles of what it means to
be a good teammate, as opposedto the worst kind of teammate we
can have, which is an ultrahigh performer but super low
(37:47):
core value score.
I got to do everything in mypower as a leader to be working
with that person to develop theintangibles that make them a
good teammate.
I don't need to be coaching themon skill sets.
You don't coach Randy Moss torun a post route.
You let him run the post route,but you teach him what he needs
to do in order to be able tocommunicate with Tom Brady at a
(38:07):
high level so that they can meshtogether.
There's far too many leadersout there that are just looking
at the scorecards and coachingthe performance side of it and
they don't actually know wherethe gaps of their people are,
because they haven't reallyevaluated them in that kind of
way for them to figure outwhat's the real gap that's
(38:27):
keeping them from becoming thehigh performer that they need to
be.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
And then I guess my next question would be how do
you, as the leader in yourorganization, how do you balance
the intensity with still caringabout that person when you're
leading others?
Like, how do you find thatbalance between I want to drive
and push, because I know from acoaching standpoint it was like
(38:56):
if I build up that relationshipto the point where this guy
knows like I love this kid and Iwant what's best for this kid
and he's going to run through abrick wall for me, I can light
him up, I can get in his face alittle bit and he's going to
take that very differently thanyou know.
Some new kid, some freshmen,somebody that just transferred
(39:18):
in what's that look like in yourmind?
In the balancing the peopleaspect, of it.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I'm always investing in the relationship first, right
?
So like I know how many kidsyou have and I know your wife
and I know your spouse and Iknow what you guys like to do
and I'm asking about what youdid on the weekend, and so I'm
never sacrificing the person forthe performance, right?
And then I'm a huge Godfatherfan.
(39:46):
It's one of my favorite moviesof all time and one of my
favorite lines out of it is it'sbusiness, it's not personal.
And so me, holding youaccountable to your performance
is business, it's not personal.
I don't make it personal, Idon't attack, I don't demean,
and I actually got rid of a lotof those traits that are so
(40:08):
associated with footballcoaching, which is that getting
in somebody's face and gettingnasty with them.
There's not a whole lot of roomfor that in business,
particularly because it's anentirely different environment.
So for me, I try to be as clearand direct as I can be, I try
to be as unemotional as I can beand I try to ensure that they
(40:32):
understand the accountability isactually in their best interest
and not for me.
These are goals that you agreeto.
These are goals that are goingto help you grow in your career.
This is my investment in you,and part of that investment is
me holding you accountable andensuring that you're willing to
(40:54):
meet the standard and havingthose difficult conversations
with you, which are not personal.
I still love you as a humanbeing, but that has nothing to
do with the fact that, in orderfor you to be on this team, you
have a standard to meet.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah, that reminds me of our previous head coach,
jake Gilbert.
He would always say be specificwith your criticism.
You just yell at a kid.
What the heck are you doing?
You're an idiot.
He's now thinking oh, coach,doesn't like me.
Oh, I'm not good, oh, I screwedup.
No, all these negative thoughtsversus hey, you need to fill
(41:30):
that gap.
When you make that read, it'slike oh yeah, I should do that.
We practiced that.
We had drills for that.
I know what to do now and howto change my behavior.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
And I will tell you in business, right, I get a lot
farther by asking peoplequestions than by telling them
what to do, right?
So instead of me saying, hey,you need to fill that gap, or
like, hey, how come you didn'tget back to that person's email
yesterday?
Right, I can just ask, like,what happened with that scenario
(42:00):
with that customer, right?
Like, hey, I saw XYZ customerhad had emailed us yesterday.
What happened there, right?
Oh, I didn't get back to them.
Ok, how come?
Help me understand whathappened there, right?
And like, helping them uncovertheir own mistakes and helping
them problem solve their ownmistakes leads to far better
(42:21):
development, far more ownership,far more accountability than me
coming in Monday and being likeyou need to respond to that
email.
That doesn't help anybody solvea problem.
All it does is keep me in theweeds of what's happening and
doesn't allow development foranybody else to really grow.
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
So, as we start to wrap up, one of the things that
I love to ask guests is justlooking back on your journey,
knowing what you know now, whatadvice would you give a younger
self, maybe the version of youthat just started out coaching?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
of a younger self, maybe the version of you that
just started out coaching.
So it's actually something thatI think I did well early on,
but that I would want toreinforce to myself, or that I
would want to encourage more of,which is be as curious as you
could possibly be.
Ask questions about everything,figure out how everything works
.
Like whatever you think you'relearning, you need to learn 10
(43:20):
times as fast and 10 times more,so at the end of the day, you
feel like you learned a lot.
Learn more, ask anotherquestion, grab another book, do
something, get into anotherconversation, because the thing
that serves me really well ingoing from being an equipment
manager to being a special teamscoordinator was I was always
(43:41):
wondering why we were doing whatwe were doing.
I was always asking questions, Ialways wanted to understand the
philosophy behind it.
I always wanted to understandwhere it generated from and why
we were doing it, and because Iunderstood that, I then had
context around everything thathappened and I became more and
more valuable to theorganization because I knew more
(44:03):
, and because I knew more, Icould do more, and so I think
that's really important foryoung professionals is it's not
about how much you're gettingpaid, mind you.
I got paid $7.25 an hour for 40hours a week to be a quality
control coach at Florida State.
I worked far more than 40 hoursa week and I was getting paid
(44:24):
minimum wage.
Right, it's $13,000 a year tobe a ball coach and I was like
you're going to pay me to dothis.
I was thrilled to just getmoney right.
So I think far too many youngpeople early in their career are
chasing status and money andtitles rather than chasing
experience and knowledge, whichthat that pendulum will flip so
(44:48):
fast if you invest in thatrather than the other things.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, Well, Mark, I really appreciate you hopping on
here and joining us today.
If people want to connect withyou or learn more about the work
that you're doing now, what'sthe best way for them to do that
?
Speaker 2 (45:06):
You can go to our website.
Wwwontheballco is a great placeto learn about us.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn that is my number one
social media platform, but I'malso on Instagram.
You can find me at at coachnoodle Um, and I'm always open
to a conversation and helpingsomebody if I can.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Awesome.
Well, Mark, thanks again foryour time today.
It's been really great havingyou on the show.
Thank you, Ben.
Hey, welcome to Coaching Minds Podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan.
Today's guest is someone whoknows exactly what it takes to
win, whether that's on the fieldor in the boardroom.
Mark Nudelberg is a dynamicleader whose journey bridges two
intensely competitive worldselite college football and
(00:22):
business leadership.
For over a decade Mark was inthe grind of Division I coaching
at Florida State, florida,cincinnati, nevada, lafayette.
Worked on both sides of theball, was special teams
coordinator, recruitingcoordinator, built game plans,
developed athletes, helped shapenationally recognized programs.
(00:44):
But Mark's story didn't stopthere.
He took those same leadershipprinciples, those
high-performance habits, theteam-building strategies and
translated them into businesssuccess.
Today, mark helps otherscompete at the highest level in
their own arena, and at the coreof his philosophy is the idea
(01:06):
of getting 1% better every day.
Mark, so excited to have youhere.
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Ben, thank you for having me and thank you for that
wonderful introduction.
It's great to be here and I'mexcited to share my story with
everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Love it.
So, to start off, would love tojust hear who you are, how you
got to where you're at.
Just maybe take us through someof the highlights of your own
story.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, so I'd say you know I'm Mark Nudelberg.
I'm a proud dad.
Family is the thing that ismost important to me, and I
think it really started backwhen I was a little kid, growing
up in an entrepreneurial family.
My dad's been an entrepreneurmy entire life, and so if you
know anything aboutentrepreneurship, it is entirely
(01:52):
about performance, andparticularly your performance on
a daily basis in order to besuccessful.
So I grew up in that kind ofenvironment.
I became obsessed with what madepeople great.
I used to read books aboutMichael Jordan when I was a kid
because he was the best outthere, but it didn't matter if
it was the Cowboys in the 90sthat were having great success,
(02:15):
or the Chicago Bulls, or my hometeams like the Miami Heat, the
Dolphins and the Panthers.
I was always drawn to thingsthat were having success or
people that were beingsuccessful.
But figuring out why and I wasfortunate to get the opportunity
to become an equipment managerat Florida State when I went to
school there.
That offered me my foot intothe college football industry,
(02:39):
and while I was a student there,I worked my way out of the
equipment room to becoming astudent assistant, volunteer
coach, to then getting hiredfull time when Jimbo Fisher
became the head coach, whichthen led to a 10 year career
postgrad, where I was a specialteams coordinator and worked on
both the offensive and thedefensive side of the ball.
Through that time no-transcriptit didn't matter how many kids I
(03:24):
recruited out of the state ofFlorida.
If the head coach had a friendhe wanted to hire or the AD
didn't like the head coach, orwhatever the reason was, we
ended out looking for a job.
So that's when I ended upgetting out and starting my
entrepreneurial journey,building this company on the
ball with my family, which nowwe service organizations all
(03:45):
over the country, and we focusin two areas modernizing the
sales process, which is 1000%performance based, and helping
leaders understand how toactually become great coaches,
which is something that I wasfortunate to do at a high level
throughout my career in football.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I love that.
I'd love to go back and justkind of start off in your
coaching days.
And you know, being on bothsides of the ball offense,
defense and then, even morespecifically, being a special
teams coordinator I think is aunique role.
I was an offensive coordinatorat the high school level for
(04:24):
quite a few years and my headcoach at the time actually
convinced me hey, you need to ifyou're serious about wanting to
be a head coach.
Like you can't just coachquarterbacks your whole life.
Like why don't you go be, whydon't you be our special teams
coordinator?
And now it's like well, I'mresponsible, instead of being
responsible for five guys andcalling plays.
(04:46):
Like now I got to figure outwhat are we going to do with 150
dudes on this football fieldand where are we going to put
them on?
How are we going to?
How are we going to practicewhat?
What were some of maybe the,the leadership lessons that you
took away specifically fromthose, the special team side of
things, where you wereresponsible for such a large
(05:08):
group of people?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
That really the ultimate key to success was
simple and effective.
Right, I knew that everybodythat I was going to coach, aside
from the punter, the kicker andthe snapper, everybody else was
recruited to play a differentposition, so this would always
be the secondary thing for them.
So I couldn't have elaborateschemes and really complicated
(05:33):
processes to go through.
I had to keep things supersimple so that they could know
it and have a lot of confidencein it, and so that then it could
be effective.
If it was simple and unaffected, well, what's the point in
doing it?
So everything that I tried to doas a special teams coordinator,
I tried to keep the philosophyof our goal was to be simple and
(05:54):
effective, and that transitioninto business for me and
everything that I really do inmy life is in order for it to be
successful, there has to beconsistency to it.
Right, and the more complicatedthings are, the harder it is to
be consistent to it.
So I am always on the hunt totry to cut the fat and try to
(06:17):
get rid of the excess and to tryto keep things as simple as
possible so that I have theopportunity to be as consistent
as possible, which will lead meto way more success than anybody
who has something that's reallyelaborate and really difficult
but can only do it a coupletimes a week.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, and you know that makes me wonder also about
some of the bigger picturethings like culture.
But let's talk maybe just for alittle bit about, you know,
within some of those powerhouseprograms, what were maybe some
moments where you saw culturemake or break a team.
(06:56):
Just the expectations of, hey,this is how we do things here,
either in a really positive wayor a negative way that you were
able to learn from.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, so I think probably one of the highlights
of my career was building thenational championship Florida
State team.
Right, I wasn't there for theyear they won it.
I had actually taken a job atthe University of Cincinnati but
I had been there for the sevenyears prior and we had gone from
being blown out by Wake Foreston our home field with Bobby
Bowden, to now being anationally dominant team.
(07:31):
Twelve and two Orange Bowlwinner.
The next year they win thenational championship.
And what's interesting is atthat time when I left, I always
told everybody in that 2013season the Florida State
Seminoles actually won thatnational championship despite
Jimbo Fisher and people thoughtI was crazy at the time because
(07:52):
he was the dominant name and hehad built the program, but I was
like there's a lot of lack ofaccountability there with him
and there's a lot of big Bart nobite.
And I'm telling you that thereason that team was successful
was because of the culture ofthe kids, the quality of the
kids that we had recruited forthose four years prior and the
(08:14):
assistant coaches and what theyhad done in developing those
kids, because when they won it,everybody was gone.
More than half of that staff hadgone to take jobs in other
places and part of that wasbecause it was all great
opportunities for them to go dosomething Guys like Mark Stoops
who went on to the University ofKentucky but the other part of
that was it was really hard tobe there and work for Jimbo
(08:37):
because of that.
You know, toxic environment thatwe were being that was a little
bit bipolar and there wasn't awhole lot of accountability to
it.
So I will tell you what wasreally interesting was watching
a team galvanize for themselvesright and galvanize and say we
can do this no matter what,because of who, the brotherhood
(09:00):
they had and the bonds they hadand the quality of relationships
that they had developed.
So to see that happen and besuccessful was really
unbelievable.
And then I think of the flipside of that coin was maybe when
I was at the university ofNevada and we were crippled with
injuries, we actually lost aplayer in the off season and we
(09:21):
were an untalented football teamby most stretches of
measurement.
And I would say that watchingthose kids go six and seven that
year which most people wouldcall like a failure of a
football season watching thembattle and scratch and claw for
every little thing that we couldget, and getting six wins out
(09:42):
of that year was something thatwe were very proud of.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah.
So now, at some point, youstart to feel this pull.
You start to feel this pull,maybe outside of football.
Hey, maybe there's somethingelse I want to do.
Maybe it's better opportunity.
What was that pull towards moreof the business, more of the
(10:06):
leadership side outside offootball?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I will tell you, I think the key to success for
anybody is understanding what itwill cost to be there, right to
get there.
And I think, having been in thecareer for 10 years and being
all over the country and workingat different levels of major
division one college football, Iknew what the cost of becoming
(10:30):
a head coach and continuing thatcareer was going to be.
It was going to be family, itwas going to be my life, it was
going to be all of my time.
I was going to have to devoteeverything to that and the 10
years prior I had no problemmaking that sacrifice and that
commitment.
At the end of 2018, I was likeam I really willing to make that
(10:53):
commitment still?
And as soon as I knew I wasquestioning whether or not I was
willing to make that sacrifice,I knew I was going to do the
organization of this justice,the kids, the injustice, all of
these.
It was gonna be a ripple effectbecause I wasn't willing to
give up what I needed to give upin order to meet the standard
that I thought was necessary andwas and was I owed the team and
(11:17):
the kids.
So that was really the start ofit.
Then there were someopportunities that popped up and
I realized that I had beenoffered this moment of
in-between where, like, I couldget out, I could go do something
for a year and if it wasn't theright thing and I realized all
I wanted to do was be a ballcoach, I could always come back
(11:38):
and have the same jobopportunities and rely on the
same network, and I could justgo back.
And so that was really themoment for me where I was like,
if I'm not 100% certain, I'mwilling to sacrifice what's
necessary to be successful, thenlet me try to find something
else that I am willing to makethe sacrifice for.
And that's how the journeybegan.
(11:59):
That was the first step out,and then it was a long journey
of you know.
Now it's been six years since Iexited the game and, you know,
on the ball has been goingstrong for five of those years
and we're continuing to grow andchange.
And what's interesting is thatI found a way to to fulfill my
dream of being a head footballcoach, of being a head coach
(12:22):
without being a head footballcoach.
Right, and that's really theway I look at myself in terms of
our organization, our communityand all of the people that
we're responsible for workingwith is I get to be the head
coach for all of them and createthe environments and deliver
the resources and create, youknow, everything they need to
get that growth and thatdevelopment.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, was there any piece of maybe your identity
that you felt shifted, changed,when you left coaching?
Were there any aspects of thattransition that were difficult
for you?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I think it's similar to most athletes who, when they
retire after a professionalcareer, or even college athletes
, when they transition into thebusiness world for the first
time, you've devoted everythingto this thing and that thing no
longer exists for you and whatyou realize is that you've tied
(13:22):
your identity to that thing,which I will tell you is the
most unhealthy thing we can doas professionals, as people and
I always sound like Dr Seusswhen I say this you are you, no
matter the industry, the job,the thing you choose to do as a
profession.
(13:43):
You are you no matter what, andyou need to define that for
yourself and help yourselfidentify what that really means
in the term of your life andthen find the place or the
profession or the passion thatfeeds that the best for you,
because you cannot create youridentity around what you do,
(14:04):
because you are so much morethan that and when it's gone.
It was one of the hardestthings for me to really then go,
the transition to go through,because I really had to redefine
myself as a person, because Iwas no longer Mark Nudelberg the
ball coach.
I had to be Mark Nudelberg, theman who then had a profession
(14:24):
doing something else.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, do you think that that's a possible thing to
teach an athlete or a coach, anyindividual, while they're in
the middle of doing that?
I would say probably.
Where we saw it most was whenan athlete would get injured and
, you know, kind of spiralinginto some negativity.
(14:47):
It's like my worth, my value,my purpose, my identity has all
been in this sport, has all beenin this.
You know me as football player,me as basketball player, and
now that's gone, is it?
Do you think it's possible, youknow, for the it's possible for
the players out there, thecoaches out there, to really
(15:09):
understand that and really startto separate that identity
before feeling that loss?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I do, I do.
I think if we can start to shiftthe conversation around having
to sacrifice everything to besuccessful in something and
that's not saying it's not goingto create you don't have to.
You don't have to sacrificemore to be the best or to reach
(15:40):
a certain level, like, if youlook at the greats of the greats
, they were obsessed with whatthey do.
There's nothing wrong withbeing obsessed with what you do,
right, but understanding thatthat doesn't define who you are
and helping yourself create youridentity as just because you're
high performance focused andjust because you care about
(16:03):
committing to process and dailybehaviors and routine and all of
the things that make peoplesuccessful, that doesn't mean
that your identity is wrapped inthe thing you do.
You can carry that philosophyinto everything into being a dad
, into being a husband.
You could chase everything withthat kind of relentless pursuit
(16:25):
, but you have to chaseeverything that way, right?
And if that, what I think weneed to help kids particularly
kids understand is that youdon't have to play football year
round to be the best footballplayer.
You can actually still playbaseball, you can still play
basketball and it's actuallyprobably going to serve you
better as an individual to beless specialized and more
(16:49):
well-rounded and experience, andit's going to help you detract
yourself from that identity ofI'm a football player or I'm a
football coach by exposingyourself to more opportunities
and more experiences to give yousome perspective for yourself
that says, yes, I love to dothat, but it's not who I am.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah.
So, as you've made this shiftand you know, and you've just
left the coaching world andyou're getting into this
business leadership developmentarea, where did you see the
biggest gaps in how businesseswere approaching the development
(17:32):
of leadership, the developmentof high performing metrics, of
all of the things that are maybedone at an elite level in
athletics to reach that peakperformance?
Where did you feel like thebusiness world was lacking that
the most?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Where did you feel like business the business world
was lacking that the most?
Well, it was actually in myfirst job.
So when I got high, when I whenthe first sales job that I got,
I got trained for two weeks,right, and then my training was
over, right, like sure, theybrought in some speakers or we
had some like group meetings totalk about how to do things and
share some like, but they'relike in ball.
(18:13):
You practice every day, youwatch tape every day, right,
like every day you are studying,you're preparing, right,
preparation and preparationmeant studying, meant planning,
meant practicing.
Well, all of a sudden I gethired into an organization
that's a very successfulorganization and there's very
(18:35):
little studying, there's verylittle planning, there's very
little practicing happening.
And I'm like, wait a minute, Iknow that these are the
must-have components to beingsuccessful and it's not showing
up anywhere.
And then you talk about likefocused on behaviors and not
outcomes.
I didn't.
I knew that that on Saturdays,saturdays would take care of
(18:55):
themselves If we practice theway we needed to practice.
All week long, you talk aboutbeing focused were having and
the results of the behaviors,instead of focusing on how to
(19:15):
perfect the behaviors on a dailybasis that lead to those things
.
So I recognized inside of myown business that I was in, that
I was like whoa.
The expectation for what itmeans to be trained and to be a
professional and to commit toyour craft on a daily basis were
wildly different in athleticsthan business, and so that
(19:39):
helped me start to create anidea around a business that
could exist, that could helporganizations adopt these
principles, not just asorganizational excellence, not
just as leadership development,but actually changing sales
culture to be results orientedor results focused, to being
(19:59):
behavior focused and resultsoriented.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, so in the world of athletics, I hear that, and
it takes me back to planning myindividual time.
So there were, certainly therewere things that my guys were
going to do every individualtime.
So there were things that myguys were gonna do every single
week, and there were things thatthey were gonna do every day,
and those were set in stone.
(20:23):
While we were watching film,though, we would break every
single play if it wasn'tefficient.
The question was well, why wasit not efficient?
Did we not make the right read?
Did we just make a bad pass?
Did the coach call the wrongplay from the sideline?
Did the quarterback not checkout of something that wasn't a
(20:46):
good fit for the front we had orthe coverage we had?
We wanted to know why was itnot efficient?
And then, how are we going tofix that?
How are we going to get better?
Tell me now, from the businessperspective, how does that carry
over and what does that looklike?
And maybe I was missing that alittle bit in my example.
(21:08):
No, your money, your money.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So you're you're talking about the feedback loop
which, in in sports, isinstantaneous and multiple.
In a day, right Like hey, I dosomething on the practice field,
I immediately get feedback onit from the coach after it
happened.
Then we go back into the filmroom and we watch it on tape and
we see it again.
(21:31):
So I get another, you knowanother piece of feedback on
what the inputs were, whathappened and why it happened,
which, in business, mostpeople's feedback loops are a
week long.
Action happens and nobody getsany kind of feedback on that
action for a whole nother week.
And you're expecting to developpeople.
So the thing that's missing,which we have in athletics, is
(21:55):
visibility to the work.
I'm watching it actually happen.
We're videotaping it.
I can watch it again and reviewit again.
So I think it's really criticalfor business leaders to create
that visibility to work so thatthey can shorten the feedback
loop and give more feedback totheir people to help them
develop.
So, for instance, right, I'm notasking people to micromanage,
(22:18):
but I one of one of three thingshas to happen.
You either have to deliver me areport saying these are the good
things that happened, these arethe bad things that happened.
These were the priorities thatworked on so that I have
visibility to see that and giveyou feedback on it.
Right, or you've got to recordit or have it captured in some
way, whether it's an audiorecording, a transcript or
(22:41):
something that you can deliverto me for me to be able to
review with you, or it's got tohappen automated, right, where
things are automatically beingpopulated for myself so that I
can see that and give youfeedback on it.
Cause if there's no visibilityto work, then there's no,
there's nothing to really givefeedback on and there's no way
(23:02):
to really develop people ifthey're not getting that
feedback.
So I think that's the biggestthing that I think I took for
granted in sports was just thatyou just had this happening all
the time, and then it wasnatural and expected where now,
when I deal with organizations,it's like, okay, well, show me
how we're getting the visibilityto give these people feedback,
and that's a kick in the hose,usually for everybody.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Right then, and there yeah, and so to to follow up on
that, I want to just give you areal world example up on that.
I want to just give you a realworld example.
So this morning I had a salescall at 9 AM with a school on
the East coast who wants me tocome over and do a workshop with
the coaches and then we'regoing to kick off the MTP
(23:45):
Academy where they're doing someyear round training.
Set you know, told her aboutthe program, we talked through
what the pricing was going tolook like.
We set up like some next steps.
So let's say, I'm Ben Carnes,I'm running my own small
business here.
I don't have someone, I don'thave that assistant coach or
(24:05):
that coordinator or that headcoach behind me giving me
feedback, telling me, hey, thiswas really good, or hey, dummy,
you forgot this, or maybe it's.
I am, I am working and I dohave that boss, but, like you
said in your your first jobexperience, there's no, there's
(24:27):
no, like you look around andthere's no one there.
There's no accountability,there's no training.
So if you're kind of on yourown, what does that look like?
How does somebody like me getfeedback from that sales call
that I had at 9am this?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
morning.
So chat GPT is a great place todo it right, like I'll tell you
, like I could sell our businessright now, like that's why we
exist right, because there's fartoo many people that want to be
high performers that don'texist in environments that are
conducive for that and we cangive you that right.
We have a weekly morning huddlethat we do live for our
community.
(25:02):
We have monthly coaching andaccountability happens for
everybody.
We have a training platformthat we have visibility to that
we can see whether or not you'relogging in and learning and
doing the things you need to doto perfect what we feel like are
the pillars of performance inbusiness.
We have that.
So like one you can go find acommunity and find a place or
(25:22):
find a coach or find somebodythat can give you that.
But let's say you don't have abudget for it.
Let's say you're not.
You know you're not.
You're not in a place where youcan afford to do that, because
it's going to cost you money andthe good ones are always more
expensive.
So let's say you're not in aplace to do that.
(25:45):
You could literally say toChatGPT I want you to operate as
a CEO of a small tomedium-sized business that's
focused in this area, and I'mgoing to deliver you what I'm
working on and how I'm doing it.
And I want you to give mefeedback on blind spots, on
things I might be missing or howI can execute better.
And it'll give you thatfeedback right, because it's
pulling from all of thesedifferent sources all over the
(26:05):
internet to develop that mind.
Now you have to give it thecontext right.
You can't just deliver it yourcall and be like hey, how did I
do here?
You have to tell it the contextright.
You can't just deliver it yourcall and be like, hey, how did I
do here?
You have to tell it how youwant it to operate.
But if you can be reallyspecific with that identity for
chat, it's going to give yousome really really good
perspective and help you.
So there's a couple of ways todo it.
(26:26):
You can go find the communitieslike ours that exist that want
to deliver that for you, or youcan just hop right into chat and
do it for yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
So, if I'm hearing it right, it's almost like I could
record that call and then Icould give that to chat GPT and
say, hey, I want you to sort ofact as my coach here and give me
some feedback.
Or I could even have my ownscrimmage and just have a
conversation with JetGPT as ifit's another athletic director
(26:56):
on the West Coast that I'm doinga sales call with.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You nailed it right, it can do all of those things
for you, and I think that's whatpeople don't really understand
about.
The value of what's been put infront of us and how rapidly
it's growing and changing islike people are just using it to
like write stuff for them whichlike cool, that's awesome, but
like that's the infancy of whatit's really capable of.
(27:19):
When you take it and say I wantit to help me develop and grow
and you start getting into thatkind of dialogue with it and
being very specific about howyou want it to operate, it's got
unbelievable capabilities forpeople.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Kind of going back into you guys' motto of the 1%
better every day, which, from anathletic standpoint, I
obviously completely, I'mwholehearted, all in, bought in
on that.
It's a simple idea, but it'snot easy.
That it's a simple idea, butit's not easy.
(27:57):
So what does that actually looklike from an implementation?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
standpoint in your world.
The fact that you said simplebut not easy is one of my
favorite phrases of all time.
Right?
Because nothing that requiresconsistency is easy.
That requires consistency iseasy.
Consistency in itself is hard.
So, simple but not easy.
In that exact philosophy, itcomes down to controlling the
(28:22):
controllables, which, as humanbeings, comes down to two things
what we choose to focus on andwhat we choose to do.
So, if I can build simple habitsfor myself that allow me to
focus on the right things and dothe right things on a daily
basis, and then I can havediscipline to doing that which
(28:44):
creates consistency for myself,that is the simple formula for
getting 1% better every day.
And now, candidly, I believethat the philosophy of getting
1% better every day and now,candidly, I believe that the
philosophy of getting 1% betterevery day is not actually in
getting better, but acceptingthe challenge of getting better.
Right, because the things thatare going to get in your way are
(29:05):
your feelings.
And as soon as you're able toignore the way you feel and say
I know that I want to try to getbetter today and you show up
and give the effort to do that,you still might not meet the
standard right.
You still might fall short ofthat standard, but because you
showed up, that's going tocompound day after day and those
(29:28):
days that you came up short,underneath the standard.
The next day is going to be theday that you catapult 10x
beyond that and create anentirely new standard for
yourself that allows you tofocus on the things that you
(29:51):
know you should focus on, andnot the noise, not the
negativity, not the feelings,but actually the things, the
goals and the visions you havefor yourself.
If you can focus on thosethings and discipline yourself
to doing what you need to do,success is nearly guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
So how do you now Stay consistent in chasing that
progress without getting stuckin perfectionism or, you know,
falling into the other side ofmaybe burnout?
You know, you're just, you'reall in on this.
You kind of you lose any anysort of, you know, balance in
(30:33):
your life or any sort of restand recovery.
To go back to our athleticexample, I mean, what does that
look like once you're in thechase?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Consistency over intensity, right?
So I'm not interested ingrinding for 10 or 12 hours a
day, right?
I can tell you the days of meshowing up at the office at 7 am
and leaving at nine or 10o'clock at night, or worse,
midnight Sometimes, when we wereat Florida State.
Those days are long, long gone.
It was inefficient andineffective, right?
(31:06):
So for me, the way you createthe ability to sustain and
maintain is by understandingwhat's the minimum required.
Sustain and maintain is byunderstanding what's the minimum
required.
What is my absolute,non-negotiable right?
Like, I got to at least get upand work out for 20 minutes.
I might not get an hour workout, but I got to get 20 minutes
(31:27):
and, no matter what, I'm goingto get 20 minutes every day and
I'm going to read every day.
I might not read a wholechapter every day, but I'm going
to read a page every day, right?
And if I can get more, great,I'm going to get more.
But I have my minimum,non-negotiable standards that
I'm able to accomplish everysingle day and that creates
consistency and createssustainability for me, so that
(31:50):
I'm not like, ooh, I'm going toread 10 chapters today If I have
the time to do it and I feellike I'm capable of doing that.
Awesome, go ahead and go for it, but I don't.
I've got two young boys, I'vegot a family, I've got a
business.
I got so many things going onin my life that I don't have
time to be in the gym for threehours.
I would love to.
It's not a reality for me,Right?
So, figuring out what thequantity is and it really just
(32:14):
boils down to time management,which you know like you talked
about planning your individualperiod Most people use their
calendars for other people.
Everything on their calendar ismeetings with other people and
they don't have anythingscheduled for themselves,
whereas ball coaches, wescheduled every minute of the
practice, everything we weregoing to be doing.
(32:34):
Whether it was an individualperiod, a group period, a team
period, a special teams period,didn't matter.
We knew everything we weregoing to do.
So, carrying that philosophyover for myself and just being
like okay, nobody's going todefine the schedule for me.
The head coach is no longerhere telling me this is when
we're going to be in the officeand this is when we're going to
leave, and this is how longpractice is going to be.
I have to define that formyself.
(32:56):
Then it becomes about definingpriorities, reverse engineering
the behaviors that are alignedwith those priorities, getting
them on your calendar for theright amount of time and then
being consistent and showing upand executing on those things
every day.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I love that.
So one of the I would say thenewest thing that we have right
now is our MTP certificationright, where coaches can go
through the training.
They get trained and, using theframeworks that that we use,
working with the individualathletes one on one.
So putting them through theassessment.
Let's figure out, you know,where are they at score wise in
(33:33):
the prime five, what are themain objectives that, the things
that we're going to beintentional about working on
moving forward.
And then you know what are thesessions going to look like, or
what's that kind of practiceplan look like for our
one-on-ones right.
And then you know the coacheswho go through the certification
program.
(33:53):
Now they're getting ready toessentially start their own
business, to start working withathletes.
How would those coachesstarting out trying to build
this coaching business whereverthey're at, apply this 1%
mindset of getting 1% betterevery single day?
(34:16):
What's like a real worldexample of if your company was
working with a client like that.
Where do you start?
What are they building?
What's that look like?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So I think it really comes down to defining the
priorities right.
So like, and I think, forpeople particularly, you got to
look and I don't know what yourI think you called them prime
five, right.
I don't know what those fivepillars are, but for me there's
two main pillars it's yourmindset and it's your time
management.
How are you cultivating agrowth mindset, extreme
(34:50):
ownership and self-awareness?
Those are three non-negotiablethings that happen internally in
our brain, that are skills thatwe got to be able to cultivate
for ourselves, and there areroutines and behaviors that will
feed that right.
The other part of that is whatdoes my daily schedule look like
(35:11):
?
Do I have a morning routine?
Am I hitting the big three inthe morning in terms of physical
movement, in terms of readingand writing?
Right, those are the thingsthat are going to affect my body
and my mind.
How am I structuring my day sothat I understand I have time
for me, I have time for myfamily, I have time for my
(35:33):
business.
So I would say, focusing inthose two areas and giving
yourself a grade and saying I dothis really well, or I think
there's some significant gapshere, because when I look at my
calendar, I actually have hugeareas of white space and
everything on there is for otherpeople.
I think that's the areas tofocus on, because then, when you
(35:53):
go to the business side, to methere's nothing more important
than revenue, right?
How do you drive revenue then?
Because, particularly as asolopreneur, or particularly as
somebody who is going to beresponsible for running a
business of small people, you'renever out of the revenue seat
until you've scaled yourself wayout of the business.
(36:14):
So and I would even say thatmost CEOs of successful
organizations are still creatingrevenue somehow, some way.
So what are your non-negotiablebehaviors for the priorities?
For me, I've got threepriorities in our business
revenue, our team and ourclients, and I know the
behaviors that are associatedwith those three things.
(36:36):
If they're not on my calendar,they're not getting done.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
So kind of shifting gears a little bit.
You know, maybe now, instead ofthe solopreneur, maybe you know
larger business, medium sizedbusiness, certainly the coaches
that we have listening, what are, what are some things that you
feel like every leader should bedoing, but most?
Speaker 2 (37:00):
aren't.
I think every leader shouldhave a development plan for
their team, for each individual,a specific, tailored, and so I
like to grade people on a matrixof core values and performance.
Right, so you might beunbelievable culturally for our
(37:23):
organization, but lack the skillsets to exceed in your
performance.
That doesn't mean you're badfor the team or you have to be
fired.
But as a coach, I know I needto be focused on developing
those skill sets with you, andnot necessarily the intangibles
of what it means to be focusedon developing those skill sets
with you and not necessarily theintangibles of what it means to
be a good teammate, as opposedto the worst kind of teammate we
can have, which is an ultrahigh performer but super low
(37:47):
core value score.
I got to do everything in mypower as a leader to be working
with that person to develop theintangibles that make them a
good teammate.
I don't need to be coaching themon skill sets.
You don't coach Randy Moss torun a post route.
You let him run the post route,but you teach him what he needs
to do in order to be able tocommunicate with Tom Brady at a
(38:07):
high level so that they can meshtogether.
There's far too many leadersout there that are just looking
at the scorecards and coachingthe performance side of it and
they don't actually know wherethe gaps of their people are,
because they haven't reallyevaluated them in that kind of
way for them to figure outwhat's the real gap that's
(38:27):
keeping them from becoming thehigh performer that they need to
be.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
And then I guess my next question would be how do
you, as the leader in yourorganization, how do you balance
the intensity with still caringabout that person when you're
leading others?
Like, how do you find thatbalance between I want to drive
and push, because I know from acoaching standpoint it was like
(38:56):
if I build up that relationshipto the point where this guy
knows like I love this kid and Iwant what's best for this kid
and he's going to run through abrick wall for me, I can light
him up, I can get in his face alittle bit and he's going to
take that very differently thanyou know.
Some new kid, some freshmen,somebody that just transferred
(39:18):
in what's that look like in yourmind?
In the balancing the peopleaspect, of it.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I'm always investing in the relationship first, right
?
So like I know how many kidsyou have and I know your wife
and I know your spouse and Iknow what you guys like to do
and I'm asking about what youdid on the weekend, and so I'm
never sacrificing the person forthe performance, right?
And then I'm a huge Godfatherfan.
(39:46):
It's one of my favorite moviesof all time and one of my
favorite lines out of it is it'sbusiness, it's not personal.
And so me, holding youaccountable to your performance
is business, it's not personal.
I don't make it personal, Idon't attack, I don't demean,
and I actually got rid of a lotof those traits that are so
(40:08):
associated with footballcoaching, which is that getting
in somebody's face and gettingnasty with them.
There's not a whole lot of roomfor that in business,
particularly because it's anentirely different environment.
So for me, I try to be as clearand direct as I can be, I try
to be as unemotional as I can beand I try to ensure that they
(40:32):
understand the accountability isactually in their best interest
and not for me.
These are goals that you agreeto.
These are goals that are goingto help you grow in your career.
This is my investment in you,and part of that investment is
me holding you accountable andensuring that you're willing to
(40:54):
meet the standard and havingthose difficult conversations
with you, which are not personal.
I still love you as a humanbeing, but that has nothing to
do with the fact that, in orderfor you to be on this team, you
have a standard to meet.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah, that reminds me of our previous head coach,
jake Gilbert.
He would always say be specificwith your criticism.
You just yell at a kid.
What the heck are you doing?
You're an idiot.
He's now thinking oh, coach,doesn't like me.
Oh, I'm not good, oh, I screwedup.
No, all these negative thoughtsversus hey, you need to fill
(41:30):
that gap.
When you make that read, it'slike oh yeah, I should do that.
We practiced that.
We had drills for that.
I know what to do now and howto change my behavior.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
And I will tell you in business, right, I get a lot
farther by asking peoplequestions than by telling them
what to do, right?
So instead of me saying, hey,you need to fill that gap, or
like, hey, how come you didn'tget back to that person's email
yesterday?
Right, I can just ask, like,what happened with that scenario
(42:00):
with that customer, right?
Like, hey, I saw XYZ customerhad had emailed us yesterday.
What happened there, right?
Oh, I didn't get back to them.
Ok, how come?
Help me understand whathappened there, right?
And like, helping them uncovertheir own mistakes and helping
them problem solve their ownmistakes leads to far better
(42:21):
development, far more ownership,far more accountability than me
coming in Monday and being likeyou need to respond to that
email.
That doesn't help anybody solvea problem.
All it does is keep me in theweeds of what's happening and
doesn't allow development foranybody else to really grow.
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
So, as we start to wrap up, one of the things that
I love to ask guests is justlooking back on your journey,
knowing what you know now, whatadvice would you give a younger
self, maybe the version of youthat just started out coaching?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
of a younger self, maybe the version of you that
just started out coaching.
So it's actually something thatI think I did well early on,
but that I would want toreinforce to myself, or that I
would want to encourage more of,which is be as curious as you
could possibly be.
Ask questions about everything,figure out how everything works
.
Like whatever you think you'relearning, you need to learn 10
(43:20):
times as fast and 10 times more,so at the end of the day, you
feel like you learned a lot.
Learn more, ask anotherquestion, grab another book, do
something, get into anotherconversation, because the thing
that serves me really well ingoing from being an equipment
manager to being a special teamscoordinator was I was always
(43:41):
wondering why we were doing whatwe were doing.
I was always asking questions, Ialways wanted to understand the
philosophy behind it.
I always wanted to understandwhere it generated from and why
we were doing it, and because Iunderstood that, I then had
context around everything thathappened and I became more and
more valuable to theorganization because I knew more
(44:03):
, and because I knew more, Icould do more, and so I think
that's really important foryoung professionals is it's not
about how much you're gettingpaid, mind you.
I got paid $7.25 an hour for 40hours a week to be a quality
control coach at Florida State.
I worked far more than 40 hoursa week and I was getting paid
(44:24):
minimum wage.
Right, it's $13,000 a year tobe a ball coach and I was like
you're going to pay me to dothis.
I was thrilled to just getmoney right.
So I think far too many youngpeople early in their career are
chasing status and money andtitles rather than chasing
experience and knowledge, whichthat that pendulum will flip so
(44:48):
fast if you invest in thatrather than the other things.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, Well, Mark, I really appreciate you hopping on
here and joining us today.
If people want to connect withyou or learn more about the work
that you're doing now, what'sthe best way for them to do that
?
Speaker 2 (45:06):
You can go to our website.
Wwwontheballco is a great placeto learn about us.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn that is my number one
social media platform, but I'malso on Instagram.
You can find me at at coachnoodle Um, and I'm always open
to a conversation and helpingsomebody if I can.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Awesome.
Well, Mark, thanks again foryour time today.
It's been really great havingyou on the show.
Thank you, Ben.
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