The Basketball Game that Inspired Hollywood

This episode of beyond you'd why is brought to you by our why App. Head over to yinstitute.com to take the why app so you can discover your why today. Knowing your why is the essential first step in having the clarity to move forward faster and have a bigger impact.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and.

Then live your why.

And so if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then I bring on somebody with that why so we can see how their why has played out in their life. So if you've not yet discovered your why, go to whyinstitute.com Discover your why using the y the discovery and then come back and this will have much more meaning for you when you know your why. So today we're going to be talking about the why of trust to create relationships based upon trust. Now if you have this why, trust means everything to you. You believe that trust is the driving characteristic behind all you stand for and will work hard to create it. When the relationship is based upon trust, the sky is the limit. When when you will go to great lengths to demonstrate that you are trustworthy and do such thing as becoming an expert in a given field or with respect to a particular subject so that you can demonstrate your expertise and thereby establish you as a trusted source, you will look to do things properly and correctly because that is what a trusted person would do. You want others to know that you can be counted on and you will go the extra mile to demonstrate that with your actions, your words and your deeds. Many people with this why enjoy numbers because numbers don't lie and endeavors such as gardening or sculpting that are predictable. While people with other why may get annoyed by a violation of their trust to you, this is like a knife in the gut. Like those individuals with the why of contribute, you have a very noble why and work hard to be known as an individual who can be counted on you. Build loyal and lasting friendships and relationships. So today I've got a very fascinating guest for you. His name is Coach Jim Johnson.

Now Coach Johnson has developed winning high.

School basketball programs teams for 30 years, taking over three losing varsity programs and turning them into winners in short periods of time. Coach Johnson was named Coach of the year in 2006 by Rochester area organizations and was also presented with a National Sportsman Award. And in his many public speaking appearances, the Rochester, New York resident relates his role in a basketball game that got Hollywood calling. He also emphasizes the importance of teamwork and sportsmanship, delivering his talks with heartfelt style that has brought audiences to their feet. Coach Johnson, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Well, let's start right out by what you said here, which is basketball game that got Hollywood calling. Let's talk about that because I, I've seen that. I know it was on espn. I saw it when it first aired on espn and then I've watched it a couple times in the last few weeks. Let's tell our audience about what happened.

Sure. So I had been coaching for quite.

A while and I had a young.

Man come into our program and he was on the autism spectrum and it was back in 2003, so at that.

Point I didn't know a lot about autism.

He tried out for our JV team.

I was the varsity coach and he.

Didn'T make the team. But my JV coach came to me and said, coach Jason, his name was Jason McElwain. He Coach, he's not a very good.

Player and I know he's got some challenges, but man, he's got a big heart. He just loves basketball and he loves our program.

I'd like to keep him in our program. And I said, well, what do you got in mind? He says, I'm going to keep him.

As a team manager, but I'm going.

To let him practice with the team. And that's what he did. And at that point, Jason was very small in stature. He's probably 5, 6, 95 pounds.

I mean, he's a really little guy.

But he, he had this big heart. So he was our team manager for our JV team, but he would also.

Sit on the varsity bench.

And I had a problem pronouncing his last name, so I deemed him J.

Mac, which now everybody in the world.

Knows him as that because I couldn't pronounce his last name and the name.

Stuck because he liked it.

So that was kind of a good thing. And then he. The neat thing about Jason, which was unique, was the fact that he was probably the only young man that I.

Ever had in my program that actually tried out for our team three consecutive years and never made it yet.

He was so committed to our program. He didn't just come to our practices.

He came to all our off season workouts. He would go scouting with me and.

He became like a second son for me. And so his senior year, when I told him that he unfortunately was still.

Not quite good enough to make the team. I told him I was going to give him a gift for his loyalty and commitment to our program. And that was I was gonna give.

Him a uniform for our final home game, which we call senior night, and I did that. And we actually had a lot of trials and tribulations that year. We were expected to have a good.

Team, but we had a lot of strife. In fact, I write about it in my book, A Coach and a Miracle. It's a long story, so I won't delve into it.

So we actually started the season off two and, oh, Jason's senior. But then with the strife, we lost.

Three of our next five, and we were really struggling.

But Jason was kind of one of.

Our rocks through all this difficult time.

And fortunately, after having a Christmas tournament where the team kind of decided we were going to come back together, we.

Lost in a really close game to a very good team. And it's kind of spurred us, and.

We went and got some momentum, won.

Eight of our last nine games going into senior night.

And I gave him his uniform on February 13, and there was a rumor.

Going around school that he slept in it for two straight nights, so he was pretty excited.

So senior night, I had 30 of them as a head coach, and they're always a very special night. But this was profoundly touching to see.

Before the game when we did senior ceremonies, to see him embrace his parents instead of in his uniform, instead of in his white shirt and black tie, which he normally wore, was really special to me.

And then the game begins, and we actually, if we won the game, we had a chance to tie for the league championship.

So that was something I wanted to be able to do for the team.

But the other thing is, I really.

Wanted to get Jason with enough time so he could score a basket.

So after three quarters, I got everybody in but Jason.

So with just over four minutes to go, I thought the time was right. You know, I can get him in with enough time so he could score.

A basket, and he enters the game. And I was so profoundly touched, because.

What I didn't know is when he.

Entered the game, we had a good student body following.

You see it on the video, if you go to the ESPN video, and.

They were standing and gave him a.

Standing ovation, which was neat.

But what I and Jason didn't know.

Is one of our parents had made.

All these pictures, these placards of Jason's.

Face, and put them on paint sticks.

And when he entered the game, they.

Showed all these placards. And I got so overwhelmed with Emotion that I sat down, which I rarely did in games, and tears are just literally flowing down my face. I'm profoundly touched how he was greeted.

Well, the game begins, and the first.

Time Jason gets a ball in the varsity game, he lets a three pointer go. Crowd stands in anticipation, and it misses by like 6ft.

I kid people that I know you're.

Not supposed to pray in the public schools, but I was praying.

But it was a great lesson because one of the things I share with.

People is that how often in life.

When we fail and sometimes fail poorly.

Like Jason did with an air ball, that we quit.

And what was really neat about Jason is, you know, perseverance is something I talk about. One of his greatest traits, he just rubbed it off. Because one of the things we always.

Taught our players is, next play, you.

Know, you learn from it and move on. And so the next possession, he gets.

A much shorter shot. And I'm going to add a little.

Drama because it does actually hit the.

Backboard, hit the rim, and falls off.

And the people groan in the crowd.

But I'm like, all right, God's starting to listen. We're getting closer.

And then the third possession, he gets.

The ball, this time from the right wing, and he lets a three pointer go, and it goes in and the play place just explodes. And I'm thinking, God must be a basketball fan. Not only is Jason scored, he's got a three pointer. It can't get any better than this, right?

Well, for the next three minutes, and.

God rest his soul, because Jason's boyhood idol was Kobe Bryant.

And literally for the next three minutes.

He turned into Kobe Bryant. He starts making shot after shot, and the place is going crazier and crazier.

And the two things I'll never forget.

In the last minute of the game.

Is about a minute ago, I'm still sitting on the bench, tears still flowing.

Down my face, and I get a tap on my shoulder.

I look behind me.

I'm shocked because normally I don't get touched during a game. And it's Jason's mother, and she is bawling her eyes out, and she gives me a big hug and says, coach, this is the best gift you ever could have given my son. Of course I cried harder. I was so touched.

Then how the game ends is with about 10 seconds to go, our opponent, Spencer Port.

And I want to give kudos to the players and their coach. They were great sports that night.

They score and our player takes it.

Out, but instead of throwing it to.

Our point guard, he Throws it right into J. Mac. So literally, the clock's ticking down from.

10, and he's dribbling down the court. And I'm thinking to myself, all right, they're going to let him go and he'll go in and make a short layup. No, he stops like two feet behind the arc and he lets this rainbow go and it goes swish.

And I look over and our student.

Body runs on the floor, our players run on the floor. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm living the movie. Rudy. This is incredible.

That point, then Jason's mother, father have an interesting dynamic. His dad is 6 foot 6 and.

His mom is 5 foot 2.

And you see this little bitty lady.

Bobbing through the mass of people, and she gets to Jason, gives him a hug, and then our players put him up on their shoulders. At this point, I have no idea how many points he has. And our public address announcer comes on.

And says, the leading scorers for the.

Trojans tonight, J. Mac with 20 points. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, you play the whole game, you just scored 160. It was truly remarkable.

And what I felt good about was the two things that jump out immediately to me was that because we had.

Had a lot of strife during the.

Year, I wasn't exactly sure how the.

Players were going to react, although I knew they liked Jason.

But in those last four minutes, out.

Of their own hearts, he's the only one that shot. In fact, I still kid Jason all.

The time that he's them still looking.

For your first assist because you never passed it once.

And then the other thing that was really neat was that I felt they.

Did it for all the right reasons. We had no media there.

And the only thing that after the.

Game back then, my responsibility is I had to call into our local newspaper to report the score.

And I did tell him that our team manager got in to score 20.

Points and I thought he would get a headline.

And he did it just, in fact.

It said trojans tie for league title, our team nickname.

And so I didn't think it was that big of a deal. And the next day I went to school.

Although I got to admit I didn't do much teaching. I was a teacher back then. We watched that game film almost through every class.

But what I didn't know is Jason's.

Speech pathologist, that I did not know him very well.

He had never come to a game.

But he worked with Jason for four years.

The next day at school, he was.

So Touched by the game that he actually called one of our local TV stations, said, you've got to come in and borrow the video from the coach. It's the best thing we ever see in sports.

And they did. And from there they showed it that night and got a nice response.

We had three local TV stations come.

In the next day. And then one of our sports directors.

Called me and said, coach, do you mind if I send this out nationally? I said, no, if it can make an impact on the country, that would be neat.

And so it was a quiet weekend. We were actually going into our February break where our students are off from school, but our season, regular season had ended, but now we're starting our post season. So Monday morning, I didn't hear anything over the weekend, so I thought that's where it ends. Monday morning I get up and I'm.

Just about to leave for practice because we didn't have school.

And I get a call and I pick up the phone. It's CBS Evening News. And they normally don't call the house. And they said, coach, we've heard about the game. Want to come and do a story?

And when they showed the story on Thursday night, it just exploded. In fact, I kid people, on that Friday after they showed it, it was.

A pretty typical practice at Athena we had before practice, we were interviewed by Good Morning America, CNN and espn.

And then it just from there, it exploded like wildfire.

And kind of the neat cherry on top was at that point in my career, I had been fairly successful. We had a lot of winning season, but we had never won our sectional tournament, which is pretty big deal. And three weeks later, after Jason's game.

We were crowned Section 5 champs for the first time. So that was really special.

And then from there, the neat thing is I spent a lot of time in leadership and Jason actually came back. I coached for a decade after that.

In nine years of that, he actually came back and helped us as a volunteer assistant, and we actually won a number of championships together. So as I kid people, for a small fee, I will rent them out to you.

I don't know how you tell that story without tearing up, because me just listening, if you could hear in the. On my microphone, my nose is running, because, man, it just.

It's so touching.

And if you haven't seen this, if you're listening to this podcast and you've not seen that clip, go to ESPN and you. How do you find. You can search for what on ESPN to get that or what on YouTube.

You could go on YouTube or ESPN.

Just the JMac, you know, ESPN.

It's on my website, coachjimjohnson.com and so I think it's got over a million.

Hits on it now. Became pretty popular.

So it's an amazing. You know, I've watched it a few times here in my office with, with my team members here. And, you know, every time it brings tears to my eyes.

And I don't.

It's just so emotional to see the reaction of other people to him. I mean, the way the. The way the student section was just so behind him and the way the other players rallied behind him. I mean, what was that like for you?

You know, to me it was the essence, because, you know, as a coach of a team sport, I think your.

Ideal thing is when you can get every believing in a team mission, which is easier said than done.

And to me, that was the essence.

At night with the fact of, you know, the fact that the whole school rallied around him with the idea that our, you know, the team kept passing the ball to give him this special opportunity.

So it just really was a neat.

Thing to be part of, to see really what the essence of teamwork is all about.

What was the score when you put him into the game?

The score, actually, I don't remember exactly, you know, what we have, but we were up by approximately 20 points. The crazy thing is because Jason scored so many points that we actually ended up winning the game by 36 points.

So it looked like I ran up.

The score because he went crazy and.

Made all these baskets.

You know, what I couldn't tell from the video was what were the players on the other team doing? Were they giving him an open shot? Were they guarding him? You couldn't really tell. I couldn't from the video because I just kept seeing these shots raining in and I didn't.

I didn't get an opportunity to see.

What was happening in the game.

Did they just let him shoot or.

How did that happen? You know what, they were guarding them, but, you know, they were also sports, but like, they didn't try to block.

His shot or anything.

But the ironic thing is, you know, because people have talked about the fact that, you know, he scored six three pointers in just over three minutes, which, you know, you don't ever see. And so just the fact that he did that, but the kind of, the unknown, because it's not any of the videos that are out there, but actually the only time our opponent Spencerport let him go was he missed a three and there was a long rebound and.

His teammate got the rebound and just.

Turned and handed him the ball. And Spencerport let him go. And he went in, he had a wide open layup and he missed it. So that gives you an idea. His seven baskets, he had six threes and a two, and his two actually, his foot was on the line. He was literally three inches from having seven three pointers.

So.

Wow, that would have.

Even.

Even so, it was quite amazing. And I'm sure it has had a lasting impact on everybody who was there, including the other team and the other coach. What did the other coach say to you?

You know, he was a lot younger than me, so he had just been the head coach, I think, maybe just a couple years. But he's a really good guy. He's actually. He left the coaching profession before I did, but he's still a teacher and.

He'S a great guy. And, you know, we still have a really good relationship.

We. We actually got a chance to go.

To a national awards banquet for sportsmanship of the year that year. And he's a really nice guy.

And Jason actually has done some things with him because he still does some basketball training.

And Jason's gone out and done some work with him. So, yeah, he's a really good guy for sure.

So how did this day or this night affect Jason?

You know, I think the best thing is it really gave him confidence that he could do a lot more than.

He thought he could.

And the great thing about that is I'm certainly, you know, I called my game or my book a coach and.

A miracle, because I do believe I lived a miracle.

But the other side is what people don't realize is all the extra time.

Jason put in, you know, so not.

That I would ever expect that he would score. Anybody would score 20 points in three minutes, but the fact is he was.

One of the guys that always came early to practice to get extra shooting. Stay after practice, he was always shooting his driveway.

So it was neat to see that.

All his hard work paid off because.

One of the traits I talk about.

Is carpe diem, the ability to seize the day, and certainly Jason's preparation and.

His attitude towards things. As I mentioned earlier, when he missed that first shot, he literally missed by like six feet.

And I think a lot of people would have been like, I'm not going.

To do that again. That's embarrassing. But, you know, he just shrugged it.

Off, okay, that's part of the game. I missed the shot. And from there, as he said, he got hot as a pistol, and the rest was History.

Some amazing lessons can be learned from that one evening. Right. I'm sure in your. Now you speak around the country on that, and I'm sure you tell the story of that particular night. And what kinds of stories or what kinds of lessons do you talk about that have come from that one game?

You know, I do a few different presentations, but the one I started with was called Dreams Really Do Come True. And that's where I really just share.

The J. Mac story.

And I talk about six keys to.

Helping people make their dreams come true.

So I talk about, you know, discovering your passion in life.

Like Jason, you know, even though he. He didn't make the team, he was.

So passionate about basketball and he found a way to be successful in basketball.

Even though he wasn't a player.

The next one is discovering your purpose.

Or mission in life. And that's something we can talk a little bit more on the why.

The third thing I talk about is how to set goals.

We spent a lot of time teaching our players how to be effective goal setters.

The fourth one I mentioned briefly before.

That Jason to me was the essence, and that's perseverance, the ability that never give up mindset.

The fifth one I talk about is.

Carpe diem, which is seize the day.

And I talk about to be successful. One of the things I always tell.

Our team is for us to be.

Great as a team, we have to.

Be outstanding in things we control.

And I would always bring up their attitude. I used to give a quote every.

Day to my team, and, you know.

My favorite attitude quote is attitudes are contagious.

Is yours worth catching?

And that's one of the reasons I.

Think people on our team admired Jason so much is because his attitude was always positive, you know, for a guy that never made the team.

And then the last part is, you.

Know, the how to be effective team player. And, you know, Jason, I think that's why he was such the essence of teamwork and the fact that the other guys were willing to just pass him the ball out of their own hearts.

Because he had given so much to them. You know, he was always one of the guys, you know, after practice, he.

You know, take one of the other players and rebound for him, you know, and that kind of thing.

He was always giving back. I know before games, kids would go over his house and he'd bring him.

Snacks and, you know, so, I mean, he was a big part of our program, without a doubt.

So just to kind of finish that thought, what is Jason like today?

Well, I'll Start with a physical standpoint. Jason, that game was 5, 9, 120 pounds. He's now 6 foot 2 and 170 pounds. So he had a growth spurt after high school. He did not go to college. He was learning disabled, but he actually started. He's worked for over a decade at.

A restaurant, but a grocery store called.

Wegmans, which is big in our area.

It was started by a guy named Wegman in Rochester, and now it's, I think, in seven or eight states. And it's one of the best places in America to work. It's been in the top 10 for.

A number of years, and Jason's worked there. And actually recently, though, he was an aide in the school because he really wanted to get back. He also came back and helped me as a volunteer. And he's volunteered in a lot of.

Different coaching capacities, both at the school where I was at and other schools as well.

He just loves training kids and working with them. And the other sidelight is he was a runner in high school, but he got out of running. And then after working with me for about five or six years, he comes in the office one day and he says, coach, I love coaching. Thanks for having me in the program. I said, it's great to have you. And he says, well, I got to get back into being competitive myself. And I said, what's that?

He says, I'm going to go back and do some running.

I'm going to run a marathon. I said, really? I said, what kind of marathon? He goes, I'm going to run the Rochester Marathon. I said, well, you got a goal for that? He says, yeah, I want to qualify.

For the Boston Marathon.

Now, he's in his 20s. I said, now, I don't know how many are listeners, and I'm a runner.

Myself, although I've not run a marathon.

I said, jason, what's your goal for the Rochester Marathon?

He says, I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon. And I said, well, what's the qualifying time? He says, three hours and five minutes for my age group.

Now, I just want the listeners to appreciate the fact that three hours and.

Five minutes for a marathon is fast.

That is really moving. And I knew that, so I nearly fell on the floor when he told me. I go, jason, are you sure? He goes, yeah, I'm meeting with the coach, Coach Shoemaker.

He was our cross country coach. Well, this guy lays out an entire program for him. Would you believe, first marathon he runs, he breaks 305. He breaks. He runs 3:02:30.

The crazy part is, after the next day, I'm talking to him. He says, coach, I've decided I'm not.

Going to go to Boston next year.

I go, what do you mean you qualify? He goes, nope, I got to prove.

To myself I want to do it one more time. The ironic thing is, the next year when he could have gone was the year of the bombing. So it was crazy. That worked out well. How about he comes back the next year, runs Rochester again.

This time he does faster, does like.

3 hours and 46 seconds, qualifies for Boston. So he tells me, I'm going to do Boston.

I said, well, what's your goal for Boston?

He says, I'm going to break three hours.

I said, jason, Boston's course is much more difficult. He goes, I know I've upgraded my.

Training.

So wouldn't you believe it, Gary?

First marathon he runs at Boston, he runs it in 2 hours, 58 minutes and 46 seconds.

And he's run Boston three or four times.

He's running, think about a dozen marathons around the country. And he's just.

You know what? He's just a great example of that. You know, I would never tell anybody that, you know, you can do everything.

In life, because that's not true. But you can do a lot more than you think you can. And he's a great example of that coach.

It seems like he ought to be up on stage with you. And how is he at speaking?

You know what? He's pretty good. He usually puts a little agenda. His brother's helped him over the years. We have done events together, and it's.

Fun when we do that, so.

And he likes it. You know, it's not something that he promotes himself.

I mean, that's my business now. So I do a lot more promotion on speaking than he does.

But I love taking him when we.

You know, when we work out something like that.

It sure sounds like he's had quite an influence on you and on a lot of other people around him. Not that you hadn't coached many years before that, but that's an amazing story to hear about. And so as a coach, I know when you took the why discovery, it came up with the why of trust.

Right.

And how did that feel to you, and how has that played out in your life?

Well, it's very important. One of the things early in my career, I was named a head coach.

At a school close to me when.

I was 25 years old, which is pretty young in my profession, and I was pretty confident to the point where I was probably arrogant, thinking that I. And I took over a program that was bad. And I thought with my great coaching.

Ability, I was going to turn this program around.

And I did such a great job that I led that team to 17 consecutive losses. And my first position, because I was a head coach of four different high schools, the first one, they let me go after one year, and it really was a humbling experience, but it probably was the best experience I ever had.

In my professional care, because it really made me understand that I had a lot to learn.

And that's when I started to study leadership. And when I did that, I started to put together these components.

And I got a mentor that following year. Ironically, his name was Bill Van Gundy. He was a junior college coach in our area.

And interesting enough, at that point, I had no idea.

But later on in life, both of his sons, Jeff and Stan, ended up being head coaches in the NBA.

So Coach Van Gundy had a good background in coaching, and he helped me get back on my feet. But I really wanted to be a.

High school varsity coach. So I was fortunate to get back into high school.

But in going back to your question with trust, when I started to develop, the first thing with trust is I think you got to trust yourself. And that's why I think it's so.

Important that you develop clarity of who you are.

And one of the things I really push in my leadership talks is that develop your own personal mission statement. Your why I always tell people to start that. Why were you put on this earth? And then what do you value most?

And how do you put that?

And I'm very clear, and that was very helpful for me. And something I share with my team.

Was who I was. And my mission statement is to be.

An outstanding role model that makes a.

Positive difference in the world by helping others make their dreams come true.

And when I gained clarity and started to share that with my teams, they knew what I stood for. And I think that's something that's so essential, because the second thing that I talk about with my team is how to build trust. And trust to me, is the essence. If you're going to have a great team or a great organization or a great business, if you don't have trust.

It'S going to fail very quickly.

And the three things, when we took over programs, I would meet my staff and I said, gentlemen, we have to.

Build trust as quickly as we possibly can.

But here's the caveat. I believe it takes time to build trust, like building A bank account, but you can smash it with one poor decision. And so one of the things that. So the three components we focused on, the first thing was that we were going to say what we do and.

Do what we say and then give.

You an illustration of that. Like one of my non negotiables in.

Being a coach and teaching my players was that they were expected to be on time.

Time was very, very important to us. So if they came late, that would hurt the trust account. Now it wouldn't destroy it if they.

Came in five minutes late, but it would, you know, there'd be a consequence for that.

But the second thing that we really.

Wanted to build trust on was telling each other the truth. And we would really come down hard on our players if they lied to us.

But I give the illustration on the other side.

Going back to my mission statement that I wanted to be a great role.

Model is for my last 20 something.

Years in coaching, I would get in.

Front of my team and other parents.

After we'd chosen the team and I would tell them I would not drink alcohol during the season.

And that's something I didn't have to do because I was old enough. But again, I wanted to be the example. But I always give this illustration. If I said that in two weeks.

Later I got caught with a dwi.

What do you think that would have.

Done to the trust account?

Unfortunately, I never made that choice, but.

If I did, that would have crushed it.

So that would be a stronger illustration.

Of how you could hurt that account if you make a really bad choice.

And then the third thing that I always talk to, because we took over three programs after my initial bad experience where the programs have been losing. And I said that, you know, one of the things we have to do.

Is change the mindset from a negative to a positive.

So what we tried to do more.

Often than that is catch our players doing right and praising them in many different ways.

And, you know, certainly as a leader.

Part of that is you have to critique. And we understood that. But we always had to go back. The more that we could catch people doing right and building a culture of.

Positive reinforcement, the stronger that trust would become.

So you said you've, number one, you got to trust yourself, you got to have clarity, who you are. Number two, you got to learn how.

To build trust, right?

And there's those three steps in building trust, which is being on time, telling the truth and help and catching players doing things right. Is there a third thing in the.

Steps there or was that that was.

It Being on time, actually, what my statement was is we had to say what we do and do what we say.

So being on time was actually an illustration of that.

So being consistent with our words and actions.

So it sounds like trust has always been an important thing for you.

Absolutely.

No doubt.

How do you define. I want to think back because a lot of the people that are listening to this podcast are entrepreneurs, a lot of them are CEOs, and a lot of them are in leadership positions. And those steps are very helpful. What have you seen has been the most effective in creating winning teams?

Well, you know, a question that I get asked a lot by leaders is actually two questions. One is, how do you get to the top? And then I think the more difficult.

One is, how do you stay at the top? Top?

Because in my illustration, as I mentioned, you know, it took me quite a while. It was, I think, my 19th or.

20Th year as a head coach before we won our first championship.

But in my last 11 years, we.

Made the finals eight times and won six.

So what I found was that the huge things to build consistency is having a process that's consistent with people.

All right.

In developing a system where you're putting people first. I think building relationships, and that comes back to the trust is so essential in doing that. And one of the other keys I.

Talk about is effective communication.

And one of the things that I didn't do very well when I was young, as a leader, that I did much better as I progressed, is became a better listener. And I really. I was always on my coaching staff that I didn't want, yes people. I wanted them to tell me the truth, tell me what you feel. But I always would tell them, I'm not always going to agree with everything.

You say, but I'm going to listen to everything you say, and I'm going to contemplate it. And if I think it's better for.

Us, you know, and we would have some pretty strong debates. And the same thing with our players. I talked. We had team meetings a lot.

We had captains meetings.

We had individual meetings. And so I was really trying to get to know people more than basketball players. In fact, one of the best gifts I ever had is a couple years.

Ago, I was meeting with one of.

My friends, former players, with my assistant that now is the head coach when I retired. And he said to my assistant at lunch with me, he says, best thing.

I enjoyed about Coach Johnson is I knew he cared more about me as a person than he did as a basketball player.

And that really meant a Lot to.

Me, because that's something I took a lot of pride, that I cared more about my players as people than they were.

And that goes back to that trust account. And then to answer those two questions, I think, you know, developing a process, I think it's so important as a leader that you lead by example and you keep growing. I think that the huge thing is it's very easy in life. We all go through it when we have success, that we get satisfied and we don't keep getting better. And then the second part about this, which, you know, I've studied a lot the last 15 years on Servant leadership, is how do you continue to grow your people so you develop them as leaders? We really started to focus on not only my personal growth, but the team individual growth and team growth together. That's when we really developed this great consistency where we were good year in and year out, and we're competing for the highest level because we always had the mindset, you know, after the season, we had a great season. Ok, guys, what do we need to do? Get better.

And, you know, we.

We'd meet with our players, we'd ask them, we'd always ask for analysis of how do you rate us as a coach? What can we do to get better? You know, we needed a staff. What can we do to get better? Then, you know, our staff, we would.

You know, we did a lot of reading.

We'd go to clinics together. We really tried to focus on that.

We were not going to be satisfied from where we were.

So your two steps on. Well, your step on how to get to the top is to have a process that creates consistency and then effective communication. And then how do you stay at the top is by keep growing, keeping your team growing. Grow as a group.

Right, Grow as a group. And I think it starts with the leader, because if the leader doesn't continue to grow, then it's hard to grow the group.

So give me an example of a process that you had in place that created consistency.

Okay. Well, for us in my system is that we were very consistent with, first of all, that everything was run on time. When you came to our practice, everything was on the clock. Okay. Everything was organized in a systematic way so that we would teach whole part. Whole. Okay. We would do a lot of individual work as well as teamwork. We broke our practices up into eight segments of the game of basketball. And that was consistent day in and day out. We were consistent of our system of once a team was chosen, we would always have a team meeting on goals. Rules and consequences.

That was always done at my house.

And then we would set up individual meetings where we would talk about individual.

Goals and how they were going to work best and creating our team goals so that I was clear on what.

Their individual goals and how they were best going to fit their role to.

Help our team be successful.

And then the process of going through the season was very consistent. We always started our season at 6 o' clock in the morning. We took a lot of pride in that. I know the first few years I.

Did that, my guys weren't real happy about that.

And then it became like a badge of courage. It was interesting. I'll share three things about our system is when I retired four years ago, I figured my assistant, I had groomed him, he'd been my assistant for 16 years, going to take over. And he said to me, Jim, in my end of the year individual meetings, he asked about three things. He said, should we keep morning free throws? Because we used to shoot free throws at days of games. And there was two reasons for that. One, because I wanted to get some extra practice. And number two, I knew that everybody was at school on time that day.

Because if they came late, they didn't start. So that was a little side bonus.

The second thing he said is, should we keep mental imagery? And.

Every single kid in our program said we should keep imagery. So that was really powerful because when I first started that, my first couple teams thought it was kind of hocus pocus that this wasn't true. But when we started being consistent and then we started to build championship teams is like, no, this is really important. The mind is so essential to our success. And then the other thing he wanted to know is, should we continue with a strength coach?

And everyone said yes on that as well.

You know, when you're building systems in place, the huge thing as a leader is being consistent and consistently selling them and showing examples of why we do this and why is it going to.

Lead to our success.

So tell us about mental imagery.

What did you do?

What was that like?

So what we would do is we would have a team mental imagery session before every single game. Most of the time it was done the after practice, the day before the game, unless our game was during a.

Day off where we would actually bring our players in for what we call the one hour shoot around.

If we did that, then we did.

Our imagery at the end of the shoot around on the day of the game.

In that process, first time we got together, I would teach them about imagery and how they could do it also on their own. Because I would go bring up studies. Like there was a basketball study that was very interesting.

It was done by Ohio State where.

They had three groups. They had a group that did nothing for, I think it was like three or four weeks. So they all shot free throws. That was the first thing. Then they. One group did nothing. That was kind of the group that had no effect. The second group did practice free throws.

Every single day for like, I don't know, 15 minutes or something.

And then the third group didn't practice at all, but they did a mental imagery session on free throw shooting every single day. The results were staggering. The group that practiced didn't know any type of practice, mental or physical, did not improve at all, which makes sense. Second group that just did mental but did not practice physically improved. And I forgot the exact statistic, but it was something like 14%. The third group that practiced physically improved 1% more than the mental group did.

Wow.

And I was like, wow, that's pretty staggering. And so if you could put the physical and the mental together, to me that really augments what you're going to do.

So you would have them sit down and imagine making free throws.

So what we did as far as our team session is we would pick out one segment of the game that was pertinent to our opponent. So it might be free throws because we were shooting free throws poorly. It could be shooting in general, it could be defensive effort, it could be rebounding. And what I would do is then take them through a process, process where we relax ourselves. Then I would share some things for them to think about. And then we would have a three minute thought process where they would just sit quietly and see in their mind that particular topic.

Wow. So coach, it sounds like. Well, it is that you are more than just a basketball coach. And what you taught them was way more than basketball skills. And what I'd like to know is what changes did you see in these kids from day one to the end of the season that could also apply to bringing new team members into a business situation as you. As businesses grow.

Right.

We add players to our team. And what kinds of things did you see with these high school kids?

I think the huge thing is whether it's, you know, high school basketball teams or business or association, anything is what you're ideally trying to do is build.

A culture that people want to be a part of.

You know, I believe success attracts success. So a couple things is that we demanded a lot about our players, but.

We did it with love. That we really wanted to make sure.

That we shared that we cared deeply.

About them, we appreciated their efforts.

And I know every year we had a huge banquet at the end of.

The year where we showed, you know, to everybody, you know, because we invite parents and friends and all that.

But the other process is how do you, as a leader, consistently show that.

You appreciate your people?

And I think the one thing is, to me, servant leadership is not soft leadership. It's the ability to help people believe in themselves and to help grow them as leaders. I think that's the real essence. Because if you talk to my players, you know, we weren't easy on them.

We demanded a lot out of them.

Because to be excellent in anything, you're going to have to put a lot of time and effort into it. So I believe our players bought into that because they knew that we cared. And we also were getting great results.

Wow.

So what I'm hearing from knowing your why is that it feels like what you're really doing with your players, teaching them how to trust themselves so they can perform at a higher level when they need to, when they want to, when they're put into action.

Right.

And it really boils down to that first thing you said, which was, you've got to be able to trust yourself.

Yep.

And huge as a leader is to build trust and confidence and belief in your.

In the people you work with.

And how much of trust boils down to the conversation that you have in your head about you.

Well, I think that's huge.

And that's why that we spent a lot of time from the mental piece of it all.

You know, we would share examples. Like I would bring up people from our program that succeed.

I would bring up, you know, people.

You know, in our case, a lot.

Of times I'd use professional basketball players because, you know, we were basketball team.

But I would also give up, you know, and I'm not going to pick anybody, but I would try to point out to them pros that I thought were great examples that they should try to emulate. And I would pick out pros and go, you know what? There's a reason that guy never plays on a winning team.

And so I think that's something that as a coach, as a leader, you're trying to illustrate and give them great examples for them to follow. And then I think, you know, that I did a lot of research.

You know, as I said, I gave you that one study, Ohio State, I.

Tried to base the research of.

We did a lot of work on goal setting Because I thought it was so important.

Because I used to tell them, you can't hit a target you don't have.

We were big on writing out our.

Goals, and I taught them how to put them on index cards and read.

Them in front of a mirror.

J. Mac still does that.

He did that when he did the marathon. And it's something I've practiced for many, many years with myself and my team.

So I think it's really important that.

You help them with clarity of the.

Why, you know, why are we doing this? Exactly.

Yeah.

When you start with your why, the rest of what you do makes so much sense. And your why being trust, you know, it just comes through loud and clear. You're teaching people how to. You believe that trust is the essence.

Of what you need to have.

And so in order to build that, what are the steps I got to go through to be able to trust myself when I'm under pressure, when I'm standing at the foot free throw line.

With two seconds to go and we're.

Down two and I got a one on one, what are you going to do?

Right, you know what, I'll give you a great illustration, Gary, because you just.

Gave me something just perked my mind.

My last year in coaching, I had a really good player that he's actually.

Had a great career. University of Marat.

And we're down by three points with about 10 seconds to go and he comes down and they tried to foul him. He was smart enough that he actually went into the act of shooting when.

They fouled him behind the three point line.

So he gets fouled down three with six seconds to go in the game. He's got three shots. Doesn't he make all three?

And we win the game in overtime.

And so I talked to him afterwards, Anthony, because he was a good free throw shooter, but he wasn't great. And I said, anthony, what were you thinking on his free throws?

He goes, coach, it's all those imagery sessions. He goes, I just in my mind visualized every ball was going in and.

I was like, wow, that's pretty powerful.

That he had taken that and bought into that.

Wow, that is awesome. Well, I so appreciate you, Coach Johnson, taking the time today to be here on the podcast. And I know there's people that are listening to this. Well, I've got three pages of notes. If you could hear the paper rustling in the background. I've been taking notes here on everything you've said. I've got so much great stuff that.

You talked about and I love it.

So if somebody's listening to this and they want you to come and speak at their event or they want you to be part of their next retreat or whatever, how do people get ahold of you?

Yeah, so give me a couple things. My website is coachjimjohnson.com you know, I have. They can. And actually, when you release this, anybody that signs up for my newsletter will go into a drawing. I will do a free consulting call.

With anybody that signs up.

I'll put them in a drawing, I.

Should say, for a free consulting call, which is about $100 value, what I.

Charge normally for any participant that wants.

To sign up for my newsletter, I.

Do a weekly blog and a free.

Newsletter that are completely complimentary. I also do some video series on YouTube. I have a YouTube station, so there's.

A lot of different ways they can. And from presentations. I do a lot of talks on inspiration.

As I mentioned, I do a lot of leadership talks and I'm developing and.

Started another teamwork talk as well.

So again, coachjimjohnson.com I'd love to connect with your listeners and see if I can help them in some way.

I would love for your next book to be something like Systematizing Winning or something, because I hear it and I feel it. You know, you've put all these things in place to create a winner and a winning scenario, at least giving you the best chance to win.

Right?

Yeah, I appreciate that because I know my staff has been really on me.

To write a leadership book, and I think I'm going to pull the trigger and start putting my notes together.

Well, I love it.

When you have it done, let me know. We'll have you back on to talk about it.

Absolutely.

I'd love to.

Thank you so much for being here with us, and I look forward to staying in touch.

Sounds great, Gary. Appreciate it.

Look forward to meeting you in person someday.

You too. Have a great day.

All right.

You too.

Sa.