Robby Emery is a pivotal figure in collegiate athletics and personal development, serving as the Director of Character Development and team chaplain for the University of Michigan Football program. Over nearly a decade, he has been instrumental in shaping the team's culture, emphasizing integrity, faith, and a sense of belonging. His efforts have contributed to the Wolverines' success, including three Big Ten titles and a national championship
Emery's influence extends beyond the football field. He is the author of Pick Me: A Story of Belonging, a book that delves into themes of self-worth and readiness. Drawing from his experiences, Emery encourages readers to recognize their inherent value and to prepare for opportunities with humility and purpose
His approach to leadership and mentorship has resonated with many, including former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, who praised Emery as a "beacon of guidance" within the university community . Through his roles, Emery continues to impact lives, fostering environments where individuals feel seen, valued, and prepared to make meaningful contributions.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
Emery's influence extends beyond the football field. He is the author of Pick Me: A Story of Belonging, a book that delves into themes of self-worth and readiness. Drawing from his experiences, Emery encourages readers to recognize their inherent value and to prepare for opportunities with humility and purpose
His approach to leadership and mentorship has resonated with many, including former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, who praised Emery as a "beacon of guidance" within the university community . Through his roles, Emery continues to impact lives, fostering environments where individuals feel seen, valued, and prepared to make meaningful contributions.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to Truly Significant. I'm Rick Tolkeinny. This show
is presented by the folks at truly significant dot com
and they are all about trying to honor people in
your life that have lifted you up. And speaking of
lifted up, I had a chance to be a part
of a men's retreat at Gateway, Austin, a fabulous community
(00:36):
of faith, and the keynote speaker was Robbie Emery, author
of Pick Me, A Story of Belonging. He's the director
of Character Development at the University of Michigan and we
feel so blessed to have you on today.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Welcome Robbie, Hey, thank you Rick for the invitation. I
really founded the privilege and honor to be able to
talk with you today share some things. And it was
a great time at Gateway Austin, a couple of days
hanging out with some great men of faith. And you know,
there's something about the collectively being together with people who
are just like you said, leaning in wanted to learn more.
(01:15):
And I really think that's the key to it. You know,
when we stop learning, we stop right. We just always
are students of anything. I want to be a student
of just you know student of you, a student of
other people. If we live life as students and not professors,
I believe we do get that significance.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, sir, exactly, And I wanted to ask you questions
after the conference, and so here they go. I've been
saving them for several weeks. People see you at the
University of Michigan as the director of Character Development, But
what's the rest of your story? How did you arrive
(01:54):
at that calling?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think the my core calling is development of people.
That's my core calling. You know, when I pastor and
be flying on an airplane somewhere, and you know, you
get a chit chat conversation with the person next to you,
I'd really tell them what I do for a living,
because you never know where that's going to go. If
(02:18):
you say you're a pastor, So whether I wanted to
have a conversation on the plane or not, I always
tell them that I sell health and life insurance, which literally,
as pastors, I believe we do it's to better your health,
it's for eternal life. It's so that's what I do.
And so I believe that the development of character is
(02:41):
h is something that is ongoing. It never stops it's
it's always I'm always learning how I can become a
better version of myself. And my son is fourteen years
old now, and when we dropped him off to go
to kindergarten when he was five, we had to like
talk school up. You know, hey, Bud, you're gonna you know,
(03:01):
you're you're gonna eat lunch, and he was really excited
about that. And then you're you're gonna go to recess,
and he had a time what that means, and go
outside and when it's nice out, and then and then
you're gonna learn to read. And so we pick him
up at the end of his first day of school
and comes out the door and the car line and
jumps in the truck, shuts the door and says, well,
still can't read. And I think for a lot of people,
(03:23):
we think we're gonna, we're gonna check all the boxes
on day one, and it's not. Our development of character
is an entire life thing, whether it's in faith, whether
it's you know, just in your own your own reaching,
You're always learning, you're always growing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I was.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I would say this may be the wrong word, but
amused and curious about the title of Director of Character Development,
and I thought maybe the rest of the universities around
the world have it wrong to have a chaplain and
maybe the church has got it screwed up by calling
people senior ministers because it scares people away. And your
(04:07):
title is disarming. It makes you, makes me want to
come and talk to you about significance because you don't.
You don't have a caller on or a cross So
it does that make sense. You've engaged because somebody is
(04:28):
take put this title on you. That's so human.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, and oddly enough, so this is my tenth season
with the team, the second season now with the title
of director of Character Development. And when coach Harball went
to the Chargers to the NFL, the university really wanted
me to stay around. They were nervous about my possibility
of going to LA and other people were going there
(04:53):
as well, and they said, we really like for you
to stay And I said, okay, Well, what was my response?
What are my responsibilities going to be? They said, just
do it? Continue to do give us a title. So
all I did was just wrote down all the things
that I do as a pastor, as an advisor for
the football team, created my own job description and actually
created my own title and director of Character Development was
(05:16):
really what you know, it's really what I do outside
of just leading and loving these young men.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, but Robbie, to my point, do we have Are
we mislabeling professions and not bringing people to Christ because
we've got these scary titles.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Possibly I think we need to make the you know,
the way I explain this, Rick is I tell everyone
you know have teenage kids, right, And I always say,
watch your tone. What you're saying. What you're saying is
not wrong, but the way you're saying it is. And
quite possibly we do speak in the wrong tone when
it comes to the gospel. The guy in the corner
(05:58):
with the bullhorn telling you need to repent of your sins,
you need to turn to God, Well he's right, but
no one's listening to him because the way he's saying
it's wrong. And yeah, quite possibly we could package the
Gospel in a way that makes people turn away from
the Pharisees got right when and one of the few
things that got right when they witnessed Jesus raised Lazarus
(06:20):
from the grave. Yep, they said these words, if we
leave him alone talking about Jesus, all men will believe
on him if we leave him alone. So from that
day forward, they started getting in the way of Jesus.
And I think far too often we get in the
way of Jesus exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
That leads me to what is something that has surprised
you in the last ten or eleven seasons that you
didn't tell us at the men's retreat.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What has surprised me is the overwhelming support from families
of the football players. Overwhelming support of what what I
didn't tell everybody is that prior to every game, I
go and speak to close to one thousand people at
(07:14):
a tailgate and we all gather around and I'll scream
as loud as I can do a thousand of these people,
and then we'll all join hands for prayer. And these
are people from I mean, they're they're setting down their beers,
they're they're setting down all their stuff to grab someone's
hand and and and and pray. And then there's this
(07:34):
overwhelming just like I've been on Fox, you know, they've
they've come to display the game on Fox, you know,
and but they captured the end zone prayer prior to
us breaking before we start the game, and so the
there is just a surprise of like how receiving and
(07:55):
how awesome it is and not people want this.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, it's uh. I love that. Thank you for sharing
that during the During the men's retreat, you were giving
us an update on your son's baseball game.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And you don't know it, but that one really got
to us because we're also leaning in going what what
happened and what's dad gonna say? And I'm wondering how
you have grown as a man and as a dad
through your children's sports.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, I have grown to the awareness is that I
just I don't celebrate their their achievements on the field
in a way that maybe others will. You know, if
he hits a home run, or you know, he strikes
a kid out and then he's pitching, or just something
I just always tell him I really love watching you playball.
(08:54):
And it removes the It removes the expectations from them
and and allows them just to go out there and
have fun. Whether they do well or not. They know
that dad loves watching them play, that mom loves watching
them play. You know this one of the stories that
I shared at the men's retreat. If you don't if
you remember this, my son was younger, he played soccer
(09:16):
and I couldn't take him to a soccer game. My
dad did, and my son had a great game. He
scored two or three goals that game. And he came
home to tell me and I said, I said, well, budd,
you got another game next week. How many goals you're
going to score for Dad? I'm gonna score three or
four goals for you. Dad. We go out there and
he goes out and plays soccer and he doesn't doesn't
(09:38):
score a goal because he's the goalie the entire game,
and he didn't score any goals, but they won the game.
He didn't allow any goals. And he gets in the
car and he's defeated. He's upset. I said, what's wrong, man,
You won? And he says, I didn't score any goals
for you today. Dad, I put, you know, unfair expectations
on my own son to go out there and score
(09:59):
goals for me. And now I don't want to score
goals for me. I don't want him to go out
and perform for me. And that's how I've learned to
just lean into just who they are and just I
love watching you play.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Beautiful. One of the things that has happened since you
and I met was I've dug deeper into the number
of men, young men that have been raised by their
mother only or their grandmother. I had a chance to
(10:36):
interview Tom Osborne, who is really kind of took a
deep dive into how he could mentor young men without dads.
And I'm wondering if you could just advise, provide some
advice to young men, as if it were you had
(10:58):
all of the high school graduates about to enter college today,
to say, as you enter college and you think about
your core values, and you think about getting married someday,
why it's important for you to stick around and be
a present dad.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
That's a great point, and I think and a good question.
So what I would say is one is we know
that often culture's not taught, it's caught. You know, it's
what they're around, the environment they're around. And and I
would I would say, if you didn't have a godly
example of a good father, you didn't have that person
in your life, find somebody who is, whether that's a
(11:40):
coach or a mentor or somebody. Because we can say
all we want, rick, but really they need to they
need to immerse themselves in a positive culture where the
dad did stick it out, where the leader has stayed
faithful to his family and has been a present father.
And we have to take some of the restraints off
(12:02):
to where I lead fathers, I lead men, and often
because of the job that they're in, because of the
success of trying to provide for their family, that they
get caught up in quantity over quality, meaning I'm not
spending enough time or not doing all this stuff. I said, well,
how about you spend quality time with your kids. How
(12:24):
about you put the phone away when you can, how
about you close the how about you have a digital
sun set on your life that at five o'clock. There's
certain times I will leave my computer at my office
just so I don't bring it home, because I want
to be a present father, and so we have to
be very intentional about it. We have to remove the
distractions to be able to do that. And for the
young men who are jumping into there, I tell them
(12:47):
that discipline is the greatest gift you can give yourself,
and being a good leader, being a good husband, being
a good father takes discipline. It takes I didn't know
how selfish. I was until I got married. I didn't
know how selfish, so I still was until I had kids.
And because when you when your life is about other people,
there's no room for selfishness. And we live in a
(13:10):
world that's really selfish. We live in a world at that.
So I think going to the root of that is, Hey,
I'm gonna start here. We're gonna remove these selfish endeavors.
We're going to remove some of these bad habits. We're
gonna create some really good patterns in your life, and
ultimately that will end up being You'll end up being
the type of person that you need to be.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Thank you for that. Okay, Robbie, we're gonna go to
commercial and I'm gonna throw it to you first, tell
our listeners where they can by pick me a story
belonging and maybe even get an autograph copy.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Absolutely, you can go to Robbieemory dot com, r O
B B Y E M E R Y dot com.
You can order it right off there. If you do,
put in a little note and I'll be sure to
personalize that book to you. Or if you just wanted to,
you can go to Amazon get the book off there.
It is entire I'll pick me A story of Belonging
forward by Jim McCarthy and excuse me Jim Harball and
(14:06):
JJ McCarthy. Jim McCarthy's JJ's dad. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
You're most welcome. We will be right back after this
quick message.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
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Speaker 1 (16:00):
And we are back with Robbie Emery, the author of
Pick Me, A Story of Belonging, and he is the
director of Character Development at the University of Michigan. More
than that, he's a dad, husband, good teacher, inspirational speaker.
We were so moved here at Gateway of Austin by
(16:20):
what he had to say. In the back half of
this show, We're going to talk a little bit more
about what you said, but I'm going to probably take
things out of total context and put it into Ricky.
They always talk about truly significant people, and I'm wondering,
if you could start with through your lens, how would
you define success versus significance.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I guess it's very similar to me, is that what
you leave your children if you leave behind something, And
to me is is I can leave them behind an
inheritance and that's you know, that's that's insignificant to me,
(17:09):
significance is leaving behind a legacy. And it's not not
what I can leave for them, it's what I can
leave in them. And we always try to with our children.
We've always tried to We've not done it right, we've
not done it perfect, but we always try to insulate them,
not isolate them. And so that insulation we we do
(17:30):
over the years. Again, going back to culture, it's it's
often caught, not taught. Is what am I leaving in them?
What am I'm leaving inside of them? That is that
is to me, is a life of significance as opposed
to weekly successes.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Oh that's so good. Thank you for that. Now I
want you to take a few minutes to thank your
wife for the significance that she's meant to you, especially
in how she's helped shape you as a dad.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, that's great. You know, briefly, our two stories are
very different. In a month, my parents will be married
for fifty years. As a child, her mom left her
as a baby, and my wife grew up in a
single father home, but her dad had to work a
(18:25):
whole lot to provide for the family, and so she
ended up living with her grandparents and living with her
aunt and uncle, and there's this resilience that's been built
in her in a life where it seemingly people abandoned her.
She is so committed and true to our family, to me,
to our children. Where she's not had good examples of
(18:47):
sticking it out, she sticks it out as far as
making sure she's here. She's locked in to where she's at.
And the other part is that, you know, we've been
married for twenty five years and she's she's like wine, right,
she just gets better with time. A lot of people
are like milk. You guys just get sour and stinky
with time. My wife is like a good wine. She
(19:08):
just gets better and better and better. So I'm so
thankful for her and who she is. She prays over me,
she loves and leads me, and you need the people
like that in your life, and why not allow it
to be your spouse. There's a reason, for whatever reason,
you can't smell your own breath right below your nose
right and so you need people in your life to
point out some things that you're not able to see
(19:30):
or ultimately not even able to smell. And so she's
that for me. So thank you, babe. Thank you for
being the person that always makes sure I'm doing being
the best version of myself.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Whoof that's powerful, very powerful, best version of yourself. That's
that's why Carla's been so important to me. This is
our next month. We will have known each other for
fifty years as friends. It's like fifty years. What's up
with that? Why is time flying by faster? Robbie, I
(20:03):
don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I heard some a really smart person say this one
at one time that older you get, it seems like
it goes by faster, and it's like a It's like
a tether ball right going around the poll. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, it starts off.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
It seems like it's taken forever, but the closer it
gets to the poll, it seems like it's going it's
still going around the same length. But uh yeah, that's
what I feel like. Life just starts going a lot
faster the closer you get to the end.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I want to hear your heart about your concern and
optimism for the next generation of football players coming in,
all athletes coming to universities. What are you concerned about
and what are you optimistic about?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think we'll start with the optimism. Optimism is opportunity, right.
I think that's why we're always optimistic in life. There's
opportunities and as long as there's opportunities for these young
men and women stepping into these uh, these arenas, and
the reason why they're going into that is they want
to do something professionally. UH would what I would tell everybody,
(21:11):
there's opportunities any university you go to. And the opportunities
are not necessarily the ones on the field though that
will be whether you're playing baseball, you're playing you know,
field hockey, or whatever sport you get into. It's the
relationships that you really need to work on. It's the
relationships on the field, in the locker room, but ultimately
in the classroom. And I would encourage you to build
(21:32):
those relationships and then allow mentorship. There's so many well
most people don't realize there's so many professionals, so many leaders,
so many successful people on the campuses of these universities
that as a teenager find those people, connect with those people.
And we live in a world that there's a lot
of travel agents, right, they tell you where to go
(21:57):
as a young person finds some tour guides. Tour guides
are people that have been there. They take you where
they've been, they take you to places they've gone, They've
take you to the platform success, they show you things
that they've been themselves. So optimistic, there's always going to
be opportunity no matter what level you're stepping into. And concerns.
Concerns would be that in this world of that, we
(22:20):
do put a lot of emphasis on on things that
are flashy. We do try to put a lot of
emphasis on you know, how many commas do I have
in my bank account? As opposed to true connections with people.
I said something the other day, I believe that AI,
you know, artificial intelligence is too perfect. I believe what
(22:44):
people will I don't. AI will always be here now
that it's here, but I think people will move back
to a real AI, and that is authentic interaction mm hm.
Because if people are gonna want the human part of us,
the imperfection, the things that are flawed, that's what's going
to take that's what's going to bring about great significance.
(23:07):
You may be able to get success through AI, but
significance is going to come through authentic interaction. And so
when you go to the campuses, lean into that. You know,
concern would be is that we move away from these
authentic interactions. More to this, I'm going after the commas
and the bank account and not truly going after real relationships.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, easier said than done. I want to unpack the
one part about First of all, I agree with everything
you said, but it's easier said than done. On the
so many mentors in finding tour guides. I interviewed a
person a couple months ago and I said, tell me
about the mentors in your life, and they said, I
don't have any. I went, well, say more, I don't
(23:55):
need any mentors. I have Google on chat GPT. I went,
what what do we what can we do with that
statement to reverse it? And authentic interaction A that AI
is one way we do. But listen, you know that
the kids students are coming to your university and they
(24:17):
don't know how to ask somebody to be their mentor.
What give us a little navigational guide toward How do
you get that student to just engage and say, Professor Jones,
I'm really impressed with how you tell a story. Will
you be my storyteller mentor?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
And again, mentorship is never on the mentor, It's always
on the mentee. It's always on the one who wants mentorship.
And you know, and I tell these young men, I said,
you're never going to get you know, what you're looking
for the knowledge that someone else's has unless you ask
for it. I've never had a doctor call me. Never
(24:57):
had I got to call the doctor to get help
and support. The same thing for trying to find a mentor.
You have to call the mentor. You have to reach
out to him. He's not going to tap you on
the shoulder. He's not going to ask you for coffee.
He's not going to take you to lunch. You have
to be the one to initiate that. And what we
have to do is we have to show them the
value of that right, So we have to give them
(25:20):
results as mentors. We have to be able to give results.
When they go to the gym and they work out
for three weeks and they eat healthy and they're lifting heavy,
they're going to see results in their body. When they
put in the time and work and energy and effort
into studying and preparing for their classes, well, they're going
to see the result at the end of the semester
with a good grade. As mentors, I think too many
(25:42):
times we're just offering information, and we have to we
have to show these young men and women, we have
to give them results. This is what it's going to be.
This is going to be the turnaround because I think
too many times they just hear a lot of things
and they're not offering any type of results.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
That's terrific information and great guidance. All right, Robbie, I'm
gonna wrap up this show by telling you something that
dawned on me in the middle of that weekend, and
it's the real reason I wanted you to be on
today's show. I think that you have transcended from this
career path of wanting success and titles to significance.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I believe that I believe in and making sure that
these young men have a life of significance. And that's
what I want always wanted, you know, Oh, I just
I just want to help as many people as they can,
encourage them make a difference. However, however, God sees that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Do you know, thank you for that. Do you know
when it happened. When that happened to dawn on me
at the it's when you started just talking to us,
got a guy and you went off script and you
were speaking from the heart, and it's like, all of
a sudden, you're everything that was locked in here as
(27:07):
if you're a ted talk guy just started flowing from
your heart so naturally and intuitively. And I knew then
you you're your chase, your after significance, and you're about
legacy thinking, and you're about shaping the hearts of young people.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yes, sir, that's all I'm about. One harvecent.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
He is Robbie Ambery, and he is the author of
Pick Me, A Story of Belonging. Tell tell our listening
audience one more time how they can get a copy
of that book and even contact you if in case
they want to. The ten thousand people would love to
have you as their mentor today.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Absolutely Yeah. You can go to Robbiemory dot com to
order the book. There you can also email me Robbiemory
at me dot com and that is me. I'm I
will email you back, I'll hit you up. But you
can also find pick Me Story of Belonging on Amazon again.
The forward by Jim Harbaugh and JJ McCarthy, and the
(28:09):
book is a story of belonging. I really feel like
we live in a PICM culture where we're hoping that
chair turns around, you get picked to be coached by
someone on a singing show, or you hope to get
a rose at the end of the night. We all
live in this pigmy culture, but I truly believe that
we are the proverbial middle school student holding our tray,
(28:30):
walking around the lunch room hoping someone will invite us
to have us to sit down with them. And we
all want to belong. And I want you to know
that you're listening to if you're listening to this today,
that you belong. You belong to be a part of
something bigger than yourself, and I would love for you
to pick up that book and help you find that.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Thank you, Robbie, that was so inspirational, and thank you
folks for joining us today. We hope that you found
this as inspirational as we did. And as usual, we
wish you, We wish you success on your road, but
we really hope that you find your way to significance.
(29:09):
Have great
Welcome back to Truly Significant. I'm Rick Tolkeinny. This show
is presented by the folks at truly significant dot com
and they are all about trying to honor people in
your life that have lifted you up. And speaking of
lifted up, I had a chance to be a part
of a men's retreat at Gateway, Austin, a fabulous community
(00:36):
of faith, and the keynote speaker was Robbie Emery, author
of Pick Me, A Story of Belonging. He's the director
of Character Development at the University of Michigan and we
feel so blessed to have you on today.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Welcome Robbie, Hey, thank you Rick for the invitation. I
really founded the privilege and honor to be able to
talk with you today share some things. And it was
a great time at Gateway Austin, a couple of days
hanging out with some great men of faith. And you know,
there's something about the collectively being together with people who
are just like you said, leaning in wanted to learn more.
(01:15):
And I really think that's the key to it. You know,
when we stop learning, we stop right. We just always
are students of anything. I want to be a student
of just you know student of you, a student of
other people. If we live life as students and not professors,
I believe we do get that significance.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, sir, exactly, And I wanted to ask you questions
after the conference, and so here they go. I've been
saving them for several weeks. People see you at the
University of Michigan as the director of Character Development, But
what's the rest of your story? How did you arrive
(01:54):
at that calling?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think the my core calling is development of people.
That's my core calling. You know, when I pastor and
be flying on an airplane somewhere, and you know, you
get a chit chat conversation with the person next to you,
I'd really tell them what I do for a living,
because you never know where that's going to go. If
(02:18):
you say you're a pastor, So whether I wanted to
have a conversation on the plane or not, I always
tell them that I sell health and life insurance, which literally,
as pastors, I believe we do it's to better your health,
it's for eternal life. It's so that's what I do.
And so I believe that the development of character is
(02:41):
h is something that is ongoing. It never stops it's
it's always I'm always learning how I can become a
better version of myself. And my son is fourteen years
old now, and when we dropped him off to go
to kindergarten when he was five, we had to like
talk school up. You know, hey, Bud, you're gonna you know,
(03:01):
you're you're gonna eat lunch, and he was really excited
about that. And then you're you're gonna go to recess,
and he had a time what that means, and go
outside and when it's nice out, and then and then
you're gonna learn to read. And so we pick him
up at the end of his first day of school
and comes out the door and the car line and
jumps in the truck, shuts the door and says, well,
still can't read. And I think for a lot of people,
(03:23):
we think we're gonna, we're gonna check all the boxes
on day one, and it's not. Our development of character
is an entire life thing, whether it's in faith, whether
it's you know, just in your own your own reaching,
You're always learning, you're always growing.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I was.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I would say this may be the wrong word, but
amused and curious about the title of Director of Character Development,
and I thought maybe the rest of the universities around
the world have it wrong to have a chaplain and
maybe the church has got it screwed up by calling
people senior ministers because it scares people away. And your
(04:07):
title is disarming. It makes you, makes me want to
come and talk to you about significance because you don't.
You don't have a caller on or a cross So
it does that make sense. You've engaged because somebody is
(04:28):
take put this title on you. That's so human.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, and oddly enough, so this is my tenth season
with the team, the second season now with the title
of director of Character Development. And when coach Harball went
to the Chargers to the NFL, the university really wanted
me to stay around. They were nervous about my possibility
of going to LA and other people were going there
(04:53):
as well, and they said, we really like for you
to stay And I said, okay, Well, what was my response?
What are my responsibilities going to be? They said, just
do it? Continue to do give us a title. So
all I did was just wrote down all the things
that I do as a pastor, as an advisor for
the football team, created my own job description and actually
created my own title and director of Character Development was
(05:16):
really what you know, it's really what I do outside
of just leading and loving these young men.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, but Robbie, to my point, do we have Are
we mislabeling professions and not bringing people to Christ because
we've got these scary titles.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Possibly I think we need to make the you know,
the way I explain this, Rick is I tell everyone
you know have teenage kids, right, And I always say,
watch your tone. What you're saying. What you're saying is
not wrong, but the way you're saying it is. And
quite possibly we do speak in the wrong tone when
it comes to the gospel. The guy in the corner
(05:58):
with the bullhorn telling you need to repent of your sins,
you need to turn to God, Well he's right, but
no one's listening to him because the way he's saying
it's wrong. And yeah, quite possibly we could package the
Gospel in a way that makes people turn away from
the Pharisees got right when and one of the few
things that got right when they witnessed Jesus raised Lazarus
(06:20):
from the grave. Yep, they said these words, if we
leave him alone talking about Jesus, all men will believe
on him if we leave him alone. So from that
day forward, they started getting in the way of Jesus.
And I think far too often we get in the
way of Jesus exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
That leads me to what is something that has surprised
you in the last ten or eleven seasons that you
didn't tell us at the men's retreat.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What has surprised me is the overwhelming support from families
of the football players. Overwhelming support of what what I
didn't tell everybody is that prior to every game, I
go and speak to close to one thousand people at
(07:14):
a tailgate and we all gather around and I'll scream
as loud as I can do a thousand of these people,
and then we'll all join hands for prayer. And these
are people from I mean, they're they're setting down their beers,
they're they're setting down all their stuff to grab someone's
hand and and and and pray. And then there's this
(07:34):
overwhelming just like I've been on Fox, you know, they've
they've come to display the game on Fox, you know,
and but they captured the end zone prayer prior to
us breaking before we start the game, and so the
there is just a surprise of like how receiving and
(07:55):
how awesome it is and not people want this.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, it's uh. I love that. Thank you for sharing
that during the During the men's retreat, you were giving
us an update on your son's baseball game.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And you don't know it, but that one really got
to us because we're also leaning in going what what
happened and what's dad gonna say? And I'm wondering how
you have grown as a man and as a dad
through your children's sports.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, I have grown to the awareness is that I
just I don't celebrate their their achievements on the field
in a way that maybe others will. You know, if
he hits a home run, or you know, he strikes
a kid out and then he's pitching, or just something
I just always tell him I really love watching you playball.
(08:54):
And it removes the It removes the expectations from them
and and allows them just to go out there and
have fun. Whether they do well or not. They know
that dad loves watching them play, that mom loves watching
them play. You know this one of the stories that
I shared at the men's retreat. If you don't if
you remember this, my son was younger, he played soccer
(09:16):
and I couldn't take him to a soccer game. My
dad did, and my son had a great game. He
scored two or three goals that game. And he came
home to tell me and I said, I said, well, budd,
you got another game next week. How many goals you're
going to score for Dad? I'm gonna score three or
four goals for you. Dad. We go out there and
he goes out and plays soccer and he doesn't doesn't
(09:38):
score a goal because he's the goalie the entire game,
and he didn't score any goals, but they won the game.
He didn't allow any goals. And he gets in the
car and he's defeated. He's upset. I said, what's wrong, man,
You won? And he says, I didn't score any goals
for you today. Dad, I put, you know, unfair expectations
on my own son to go out there and score
(09:59):
goals for me. And now I don't want to score
goals for me. I don't want him to go out
and perform for me. And that's how I've learned to
just lean into just who they are and just I
love watching you play.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Beautiful. One of the things that has happened since you
and I met was I've dug deeper into the number
of men, young men that have been raised by their
mother only or their grandmother. I had a chance to
(10:36):
interview Tom Osborne, who is really kind of took a
deep dive into how he could mentor young men without dads.
And I'm wondering if you could just advise, provide some
advice to young men, as if it were you had
(10:58):
all of the high school graduates about to enter college today,
to say, as you enter college and you think about
your core values, and you think about getting married someday,
why it's important for you to stick around and be
a present dad.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
That's a great point, and I think and a good question.
So what I would say is one is we know
that often culture's not taught, it's caught. You know, it's
what they're around, the environment they're around. And and I
would I would say, if you didn't have a godly
example of a good father, you didn't have that person
in your life, find somebody who is, whether that's a
(11:40):
coach or a mentor or somebody. Because we can say
all we want, rick, but really they need to they
need to immerse themselves in a positive culture where the
dad did stick it out, where the leader has stayed
faithful to his family and has been a present father.
And we have to take some of the restraints off
(12:02):
to where I lead fathers, I lead men, and often
because of the job that they're in, because of the
success of trying to provide for their family, that they
get caught up in quantity over quality, meaning I'm not
spending enough time or not doing all this stuff. I said, well,
how about you spend quality time with your kids. How
(12:24):
about you put the phone away when you can, how
about you close the how about you have a digital
sun set on your life that at five o'clock. There's
certain times I will leave my computer at my office
just so I don't bring it home, because I want
to be a present father, and so we have to
be very intentional about it. We have to remove the
distractions to be able to do that. And for the
young men who are jumping into there, I tell them
(12:47):
that discipline is the greatest gift you can give yourself,
and being a good leader, being a good husband, being
a good father takes discipline. It takes I didn't know
how selfish. I was until I got married. I didn't
know how selfish, so I still was until I had kids.
And because when you when your life is about other people,
there's no room for selfishness. And we live in a
(13:10):
world that's really selfish. We live in a world at that.
So I think going to the root of that is, Hey,
I'm gonna start here. We're gonna remove these selfish endeavors.
We're going to remove some of these bad habits. We're
gonna create some really good patterns in your life, and
ultimately that will end up being You'll end up being
the type of person that you need to be.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Thank you for that. Okay, Robbie, we're gonna go to
commercial and I'm gonna throw it to you first, tell
our listeners where they can by pick me a story
belonging and maybe even get an autograph copy.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Absolutely, you can go to Robbieemory dot com, r O
B B Y E M E R Y dot com.
You can order it right off there. If you do,
put in a little note and I'll be sure to
personalize that book to you. Or if you just wanted to,
you can go to Amazon get the book off there.
It is entire I'll pick me A story of Belonging
forward by Jim McCarthy and excuse me Jim Harball and
(14:06):
JJ McCarthy. Jim McCarthy's JJ's dad. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
You're most welcome. We will be right back after this
quick message.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
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Speaker 1 (16:00):
And we are back with Robbie Emery, the author of
Pick Me, A Story of Belonging, and he is the
director of Character Development at the University of Michigan. More
than that, he's a dad, husband, good teacher, inspirational speaker.
We were so moved here at Gateway of Austin by
(16:20):
what he had to say. In the back half of
this show, We're going to talk a little bit more
about what you said, but I'm going to probably take
things out of total context and put it into Ricky.
They always talk about truly significant people, and I'm wondering,
if you could start with through your lens, how would
you define success versus significance.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I guess it's very similar to me, is that what
you leave your children if you leave behind something, And
to me is is I can leave them behind an
inheritance and that's you know, that's that's insignificant to me,
(17:09):
significance is leaving behind a legacy. And it's not not
what I can leave for them, it's what I can
leave in them. And we always try to with our children.
We've always tried to We've not done it right, we've
not done it perfect, but we always try to insulate them,
not isolate them. And so that insulation we we do
(17:30):
over the years. Again, going back to culture, it's it's
often caught, not taught. Is what am I leaving in them?
What am I'm leaving inside of them? That is that
is to me, is a life of significance as opposed
to weekly successes.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Oh that's so good. Thank you for that. Now I
want you to take a few minutes to thank your
wife for the significance that she's meant to you, especially
in how she's helped shape you as a dad.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, that's great. You know, briefly, our two stories are
very different. In a month, my parents will be married
for fifty years. As a child, her mom left her
as a baby, and my wife grew up in a
single father home, but her dad had to work a
(18:25):
whole lot to provide for the family, and so she
ended up living with her grandparents and living with her
aunt and uncle, and there's this resilience that's been built
in her in a life where it seemingly people abandoned her.
She is so committed and true to our family, to me,
to our children. Where she's not had good examples of
(18:47):
sticking it out, she sticks it out as far as
making sure she's here. She's locked in to where she's at.
And the other part is that, you know, we've been
married for twenty five years and she's she's like wine, right,
she just gets better with time. A lot of people
are like milk. You guys just get sour and stinky
with time. My wife is like a good wine. She
(19:08):
just gets better and better and better. So I'm so
thankful for her and who she is. She prays over me,
she loves and leads me, and you need the people
like that in your life, and why not allow it
to be your spouse. There's a reason, for whatever reason,
you can't smell your own breath right below your nose
right and so you need people in your life to
point out some things that you're not able to see
(19:30):
or ultimately not even able to smell. And so she's
that for me. So thank you, babe. Thank you for
being the person that always makes sure I'm doing being
the best version of myself.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Whoof that's powerful, very powerful, best version of yourself. That's
that's why Carla's been so important to me. This is
our next month. We will have known each other for
fifty years as friends. It's like fifty years. What's up
with that? Why is time flying by faster? Robbie, I
(20:03):
don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I heard some a really smart person say this one
at one time that older you get, it seems like
it goes by faster, and it's like a It's like
a tether ball right going around the poll. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, it starts off.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
It seems like it's taken forever, but the closer it
gets to the poll, it seems like it's going it's
still going around the same length. But uh yeah, that's
what I feel like. Life just starts going a lot
faster the closer you get to the end.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I want to hear your heart about your concern and
optimism for the next generation of football players coming in,
all athletes coming to universities. What are you concerned about
and what are you optimistic about?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think we'll start with the optimism. Optimism is opportunity, right.
I think that's why we're always optimistic in life. There's
opportunities and as long as there's opportunities for these young
men and women stepping into these uh, these arenas, and
the reason why they're going into that is they want
to do something professionally. UH would what I would tell everybody,
(21:11):
there's opportunities any university you go to. And the opportunities
are not necessarily the ones on the field though that
will be whether you're playing baseball, you're playing you know,
field hockey, or whatever sport you get into. It's the
relationships that you really need to work on. It's the
relationships on the field, in the locker room, but ultimately
in the classroom. And I would encourage you to build
(21:32):
those relationships and then allow mentorship. There's so many well
most people don't realize there's so many professionals, so many leaders,
so many successful people on the campuses of these universities
that as a teenager find those people, connect with those people.
And we live in a world that there's a lot
of travel agents, right, they tell you where to go
(21:57):
as a young person finds some tour guides. Tour guides
are people that have been there. They take you where
they've been, they take you to places they've gone, They've
take you to the platform success, they show you things
that they've been themselves. So optimistic, there's always going to
be opportunity no matter what level you're stepping into. And concerns.
Concerns would be that in this world of that, we
(22:20):
do put a lot of emphasis on on things that
are flashy. We do try to put a lot of
emphasis on you know, how many commas do I have
in my bank account? As opposed to true connections with people.
I said something the other day, I believe that AI,
you know, artificial intelligence is too perfect. I believe what
(22:44):
people will I don't. AI will always be here now
that it's here, but I think people will move back
to a real AI, and that is authentic interaction mm hm.
Because if people are gonna want the human part of us,
the imperfection, the things that are flawed, that's what's going
to take that's what's going to bring about great significance.
(23:07):
You may be able to get success through AI, but
significance is going to come through authentic interaction. And so
when you go to the campuses, lean into that. You know,
concern would be is that we move away from these
authentic interactions. More to this, I'm going after the commas
and the bank account and not truly going after real relationships.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, easier said than done. I want to unpack the
one part about First of all, I agree with everything
you said, but it's easier said than done. On the
so many mentors in finding tour guides. I interviewed a
person a couple months ago and I said, tell me
about the mentors in your life, and they said, I
don't have any. I went, well, say more, I don't
(23:55):
need any mentors. I have Google on chat GPT. I went,
what what do we what can we do with that
statement to reverse it? And authentic interaction A that AI
is one way we do. But listen, you know that
the kids students are coming to your university and they
(24:17):
don't know how to ask somebody to be their mentor.
What give us a little navigational guide toward How do
you get that student to just engage and say, Professor Jones,
I'm really impressed with how you tell a story. Will
you be my storyteller mentor?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
And again, mentorship is never on the mentor, It's always
on the mentee. It's always on the one who wants mentorship.
And you know, and I tell these young men, I said,
you're never going to get you know, what you're looking
for the knowledge that someone else's has unless you ask
for it. I've never had a doctor call me. Never
(24:57):
had I got to call the doctor to get help
and support. The same thing for trying to find a mentor.
You have to call the mentor. You have to reach
out to him. He's not going to tap you on
the shoulder. He's not going to ask you for coffee.
He's not going to take you to lunch. You have
to be the one to initiate that. And what we
have to do is we have to show them the
value of that right, So we have to give them
(25:20):
results as mentors. We have to be able to give results.
When they go to the gym and they work out
for three weeks and they eat healthy and they're lifting heavy,
they're going to see results in their body. When they
put in the time and work and energy and effort
into studying and preparing for their classes, well, they're going
to see the result at the end of the semester
with a good grade. As mentors, I think too many
(25:42):
times we're just offering information, and we have to we
have to show these young men and women, we have
to give them results. This is what it's going to be.
This is going to be the turnaround because I think
too many times they just hear a lot of things
and they're not offering any type of results.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
That's terrific information and great guidance. All right, Robbie, I'm
gonna wrap up this show by telling you something that
dawned on me in the middle of that weekend, and
it's the real reason I wanted you to be on
today's show. I think that you have transcended from this
career path of wanting success and titles to significance.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I believe that I believe in and making sure that
these young men have a life of significance. And that's
what I want always wanted, you know, Oh, I just
I just want to help as many people as they can,
encourage them make a difference. However, however, God sees that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Do you know, thank you for that. Do you know
when it happened. When that happened to dawn on me
at the it's when you started just talking to us,
got a guy and you went off script and you
were speaking from the heart, and it's like, all of
a sudden, you're everything that was locked in here as
(27:07):
if you're a ted talk guy just started flowing from
your heart so naturally and intuitively. And I knew then
you you're your chase, your after significance, and you're about
legacy thinking, and you're about shaping the hearts of young people.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yes, sir, that's all I'm about. One harvecent.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
He is Robbie Ambery, and he is the author of
Pick Me, A Story of Belonging. Tell tell our listening
audience one more time how they can get a copy
of that book and even contact you if in case
they want to. The ten thousand people would love to
have you as their mentor today.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Absolutely Yeah. You can go to Robbiemory dot com to
order the book. There you can also email me Robbiemory
at me dot com and that is me. I'm I
will email you back, I'll hit you up. But you
can also find pick Me Story of Belonging on Amazon again.
The forward by Jim Harbaugh and JJ McCarthy, and the
(28:09):
book is a story of belonging. I really feel like
we live in a PICM culture where we're hoping that
chair turns around, you get picked to be coached by
someone on a singing show, or you hope to get
a rose at the end of the night. We all
live in this pigmy culture, but I truly believe that
we are the proverbial middle school student holding our tray,
(28:30):
walking around the lunch room hoping someone will invite us
to have us to sit down with them. And we
all want to belong. And I want you to know
that you're listening to if you're listening to this today,
that you belong. You belong to be a part of
something bigger than yourself, and I would love for you
to pick up that book and help you find that.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Thank you, Robbie, that was so inspirational, and thank you
folks for joining us today. We hope that you found
this as inspirational as we did. And as usual, we
wish you, We wish you success on your road, but
we really hope that you find your way to significance.
(29:09):
Have great
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