What It Takes To Be A Good Coach: On Leadership And Culture With Jamy Bechler

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. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so we can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we are going to be talking about the why of make sense. So if this is your why, you are driven to solve problems and and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information, observe situations and circumstances around you and sort through them in order to create order. You consider factors, problems and concepts and organize them into solutions that are sensible and easy to implement. It is not even that you enjoy problem solving necessarily. You simply can't help yourself. It is the lens through which you view the world.

You.

Interestingly, it is not necessary for you to share your solutions on a continuous basis. It is sufficient that you yourself have solved the problem or resolved the complexity of the situation. Often you are viewed as an expert because of your unique ability to find solutions quickly. You also have a gift for articulating a solution and summarizing it clearly in understandable language for your own benefit and the benefit of others. You believe that many people are stuck and if they could just make sense out of their situation, they could find a simple solution and move forward. You help them understand and see their way through. So I've got a great guest for you today. His name is Jamie Beckler. He is an author, motivational speaker, leadership consultant, and host of the popular Success is a Choice podcast. With a background as a championship athletic director, award winning college basketball coach and business consultant, he works with high level sports teams and businesses, helping them maximize results. He is recognized as an expert in leadership, culture and teamwork. Jamie, welcome to the podcast.

Wow, that was a mouthful. I appreciate the great introduction, Gary, and thanks for having me. And you know, I listened to that why and I'm like, holy cow, that's a lot to live up to. You know, someone that's, that's solving stuff or makes sense of the world that we live in sometimes. But it's also like you said, motivational speaker. I'm not sure I motivate all the time. So saying a motivational speaker, that's like someone introducing you as a comedian. Say something funny. Funny guy. Really? That's right.

Well, Jamie, take us through your life. How did you get into coaching? Were you an athlete yourself? Did you play sports? Give us a little bit of a tour of your life right now.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah. I grew up. I played. I was the stereotypical kid, you know, athlete that played every sport. I went to camps, did every sport possible because, you know, we didn't have iPhones and we didn't have. We had a black and white TV till probably I was in high school, which is crazy, you know, with the three channels and then pbs. The younger people don't even know what I'm talking about right now. But we had to stay outside, so we played sports all the time.

Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Michigan.

Okay.

And so even in the wintertime, you know, we're shoveling snow off the cement in front of our house to shoot hoops. And then eventually my dad built this pole barn, and he actually put this basketball rim in there, and it was actually a little bit shorter. It was only 9ft, 6 inches. A lot of us were able to dunk on that. And so we. All winter long, we'd be inside with this little space heater. But it was great. We would shoot and, you know, you had to know the right angle to shoot the ball so it didn't get stuck in the rafters. You know, it wasn't a big enough barn where you just could put a lot of arc on it. But the point is, I mean, we were always playing sports. We were always doing something. And as I got into high school and stuff, I read this book in seventh grade. So that wasn't high school, but before getting into high school, seventh grade, I'm in English class, and my dreaded English teacher, Mrs. Shannon, who I thought was the devil, she at least did one good thing in my life. She had this library in the corner of her room, and we could, like, check out books. And. And so there was a John Wooden book, the Great Legendary basketball coach from ucla. And there was this book, they call me Coach. And I read this book as a seventh grader, and I would love to say that I was this mature seventh grader that said, one day, I want to be a coach like John Wooden. I want to be the guy that helps people. And it doesn't matter if you're a bench warmer or you're a star player, I'm going to be the coach that loves you. I wasn't that mature, but I read it and I was like, man, I want to have a coach like that. I recognize that there's good coaches and there's bad coaches, and I want a coach like John Wooden that Loves me even if I make a turnover, if I make a shot. And that was kind of the first time I really thought that there was a difference between coaching or coaches, and that there was good coaches and bad coaches and good qualities and bad qualities. And so as I got a little bit older and as I realized I probably wasn't going to go to the NBA, I thought I started thinking more about coaching. And as I got into college, you know, I went from being a star athlete in high school to my best friend was now the water cooler and the athletic trainer. And so I started to look at basketball a little bit differently. I started to look at the whole forest and not just my tree, because I wasn't playing very much. And a lot of people will be like, you know, they'll be bitter or they'll be mad or, you know, be a victim. And I started looking at it from the perspective of, okay, I'm not playing much, but I want to be a coach. I know my career is not to play, so I want to be a coach, so I want to soak in as much of this as possible. And so, yeah, I was a good athlete, a bad athlete at times. And then I became a coach for about 20 years and I was coach of the year. I was a good coach. I was also fired. I also had losing seasons. I also have some players that hate my guts. I also have players that we still keep in touch with. So I had some ups and downs as coaches, and we'll get into what I'm doing now a little bit here in a few minutes. But, you know, I think that that's helped me because I've traveled by plane, I've traveled first class. I've had programs with big budgets, I've coached at all different levels. But I've also driven 15 passenger vans after losses where you eat sack lunches from the cafeteria. You know, you put your own peanut butter and jelly on, you put your own ham and mustard on. So I've kind of seen all these different perspectives, which has kind of helped me in my consulting with sports teams, because I've been where they've been at, whether they've been successful or whether they've been terrible. You know, knowing what it's like to struggle through a season, whether it's your fault or not, you've struggled through that season. And so I've kind of lived it all and been an athletic director as well. And then the last four years, I've been on my own. I've been self employed or unemployed, depending on the day as an entrepreneur.

So question for now. Where did you play basketball and then where did you coach basketball?

Yeah, I played basketball in college at a place called Hiram College in Ohio. And I was the epitome of mediocrity because not only did I play basketball, I went to play basketball there, but I also played some football and I also ran track. So there's only two types of people that play multiple sports in college. One is the absolute maniac people that are just amazing, the Bo Jacksons, the Deion Sanders. The other is the people that aren't any good at any of the sports. And so the coaches are okay with sharing you because you don't help them out anyways. So I was definitely fell in that category where the coaches didn't care about me as much as.

And then where did you coach?

I coached at a lot of schools, mainly in the south, but I did start off at Kent State University in Ohio as a graduate assistant. I coached. Then I went to Anderson University in Indiana, LeTourneau University in Texas, Newberry College in South Carolina, Tennessee Temple in Chattanooga, Bryan College in Tennessee, and then Martin Methodist College in Tennessee was my last coaching stop. And then I was an athletic director at Marion High school in Indiana. 5th largest gym in the world for high school. Nobody's won more boys basketball state titles than that school had. So that was a fun place to go be an athletic director since I was a basketball guy.

Wow, that is a lot of interesting experience that you had. You know, you didn't just stay at one system, saw one thing. You got to see a whole lot of different organizations, leadership styles. What did you see was the difference between the winning programs and the losing programs?

Almost always. Now, certainly there's always a baseline talent. No matter what we're talking about, there's always a baseline of competence and talent. But putting that to the side, the number one thing was the buy in, the ownership of the players and the coaches for a common goal. Like, are we bought in to what we're trying to accomplish? So I mean, we can call this culture. I mean, culture is a buzzword culture, something I talk about all the time. But ultimately that culture is a buy in toward going to where, you know, we're all going to try to get to the same place together and in the same way. You know, sometimes we want to get to the same place, but we don't all want to go the same way or the same route. And so it's having buy in from, if not everybody, most of the people that's coaches and staff or coaches and players. Sometimes the players and the coaches are on different. They're on different pages. Sometimes they're not even on the same page in the same book. You know, they have completely different agendas. They have completely selfish motives. And you see this in businesses, too. A lot of, you know, when I've consulted with a lot of businesses, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, sometimes it's the upper management, CEO level, supervisory level, they'll be like, hey, fix these people. Come in and fix these guys. You know, well, we're all the part of the problem and we're all part of the solution. You know, at the same time, it's not us versus them. And I get that a lot with coaching. Coaches think it's. It's. Well, it's not my fault. It's not my fault. So it's not my fault Jamie's doing this, or Jamie missed that shot, or Jamie didn't know what he was doing. Well, it might not be your fault, but it's 100% your responsibility to help Jamie to know what he's supposed to do or to help make Jamie the best he's possible, best he possibly can be, or to help make Jamie have Jamie be inspired. You know, that's a big thing. You know, we see this all the time with coaches. Well, these players are this. These players are that. They're bored in practice or they don't pay attention. It's like you don't give them a reason because you don't engage with them. You don't inspire them, you know, same with businesses, you know. Well, our employees don't want to be here. Well, yeah, because you don't make it fun. Why pay them a lot? Well, that doesn't matter how much you pay them. Doesn't matter when they're actually in that job, doing it like that only matters on Saturday and Sunday or the days off or on their vacation. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter how much you're paying them. You have to inspire them in other ways if you want more out of them. So, yeah, everybody being on the same page, going together, and it's our team, it's our goals. It's not, well, Gary's the boss, so it's Gary's team, it's Gary's goals. We're trying to accomplish what Gary wants. It's not that. It's. We're all going together and we're all going to celebrate success together. We're all going to overcome challenges together. We're Going to win and lose together.

So how do you teach somebody to get buy in?

Well, you almost, it's a two prong approach. You almost have to work with, in my case I work primarily with sports teams, I certainly work with businesses, but sports is my, you know, bread and butter. That's my lane for the most part. And so you're working with students but you're also working with the coaches at the same time with the students. You're trying to find out what makes them tick. You're trying to find out what their hopes and dreams are, what some of their challenges are and understanding them and then also trying to get them to understand the coaches and what the coaches are going through and what the coaches are trying to get at. And all of this comes back to we're trying to get everybody to see the whole forest and not just see their own tree. We're trying to get them to understand as much as possible not to be understood. Like Stephen covey, great book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of those habits is seek first understand, then to be understood. And a lot of us don't ever do that. We just want to be understood. Well, you're not seeing where I'm coming from. Well that might be true, but you haven't even seen where I'm coming from. You know, it's one of these things. And so as coaches we don't understand what a 16 year old is going through or what a sophomore in college is going through. We can't understand that as a 40 year old, as a 50 year old we don't understand them and they certainly don't understand us. And the thing is nowadays we, we don't even understand our 16 year old self. Probably wouldn't understand the 16 year olds of today in a lot of ways. And so we don't step out of ourselves sometimes and see where other people are coming from and see their perspectives and and so that's one of the very first things we will do when we work with any team is get them to see other perspectives. And we have a lot of little activities we'll do that are fun. You know, that just blows people's minds and different things like that of understanding and perspective. We just talk a lot about seeing things from a different viewpoint, from a different lens because you're never going to get common ground, you're never going to be able to, it can't be, well Gary disagrees with me on this or Gary has this opinion, I have my opinion and so we're done. Well you Got to work with each other. We've got to figure out a way to how can I can do what Gary can't do. Gary can do what I can't do. And so together we're going to fill in gaps. Together we're going to complement one another and we're going to play our roles to the best of our ability. You know, one of the things I talk about a lot is cars. I don't know much about cars, but with teamwork and with filling gaps and stuff, will talk to kids, you know, what's your favorite kind of car? And they'll give you this expensive hundred thousand dollar car or whatever and then I'll show them like this little $5 spark plug and be like, first of all, most kids don't even know what this is, but I'll show them this spark plug and I'll be like this Spark Plug, $5, $10 Spark Plug can keep your hundred thousand dollar car from driving. It can sideline your car. This $5 Spark Plug can also make your car be $100,000 and be cool and work effectively. Roles are important. Everybody, every role has value, Every person has value. And we need to see the value and see what other people can bring to the table, whatever that is. And so yeah, understanding and perspective is one of the very first things needed in order for everybody to come together.

You know what popped into my mind when you were saying that is tell us how you felt about that kind of a conversation when you were sitting on the bench as the player in college, wanting to be the star but finding yourself next to the water cooler.

Most players that are in my situation would have hated it. I hated it. Because you're embarrassed or your whole life, you know, you spent as a college athlete, maybe you spent 18, 19 years of your life, depending on what the sport is, preparing to be a college athlete. And now you're a failure. You know, your whole life you've been successful or your whole life you've gotten up at 4 o' clock in the morning, you've grinded, rise and grind, you know, type stuff, you sacrifice, you know, how many tens of thousands of dollars have you paid out, you know, or your parents have paid out to go to travel ball and stuff and so you don't expect to sit. And it's embarrassing. And especially in a team sport. Team sport is a little bit different than individual because team sport, there's difference of opinion, there's interpretation. It's not just that I'm better than Gary. We can't prove that because maybe I'm better than Gary at one on one or a better shooter, but the team needs what Gary can offer more. Like in track, if I'm not on that four person relay, it's because I'm slower than those other four people. There's some objective, and not that that makes it easier, but it's less blame. You know, there's more things that I can do personally to make myself better or to change the situation. So in a team sport, most people sitting at the end of the bench or most people that don't have a role that they don't like, well, they're not going to act the right way about that. They're going to sometimes make the problem worse. I love a quote from one of the greatest literary scholars of all time, Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. You know, he talks about the problem's not the problem. The problem is your attitude toward the problem. The problem is not that I'm sitting on the bench, the problem is my attitude towards sitting on the bench. And so coming back around to answering your question specifically, what you have to do with a young person or with anyone, an employee, is you have to connect with them and you have to develop such a strong connection, such a strong bond that you can have some difficult conversations with them. We try to have tough love. We try to, you know, I'm keeping it real with you, Jamie. I'm telling you, you know, what you need to improve on. And we have these tough conversations, but we don't have a strong bond. So I don't trust that person. I don't trust Coach Sanchez when he's trying to tell me something because we haven't developed this bond. I don't trust him that he has my best interest. You know, I don't care if he has the other people's best interests. I want him to have my best interest. And so if he's looking at me as a commodity or this is just a transactional relationship, I'm not going to believe in what he's saying. And so we do that all the time as managers, as leaders, you know, anyone in a position of leadership, we do that all the time. We try to have a conversation with someone without, you know, having a bond, having any kind of connection. And so you have to have that so you can figure out what makes me, as the athlete, tick, what's important to me. But you also have to ask a lot of questions. Ask me questions, find out where I'm at, find out what's important to me, find out Just as much as you can about me as the person so that you know what buttons to push as well. You know. But then also, there's also some. Just one major thing that leaders don't do very well is they just don't find a way to utilize me as an employee or to utilize my strengths or to add value to me or to catch me being good. However that is, they don't utilize me. You know, and going back to the basketball analogy, you know, how many times is there a blowout in a game and maybe you leave the starters in an extra five minutes longer than maybe you should have? You know, you could have utilized me in that game a little bit more. Maybe I'm a great shooter and the team was playing a zone. You could have used me to shoot the ball a little bit more.

Have you always been a good problem solver?

I would say I'm not sure I am a problem. I would say I don't know. Like, I've always. I understand that. Why. And I understand I do like making things better.

Yeah.

Now saying I'm a good problem solver, I don't know that my wife might say I'm not a very good problem solver. Sometimes.

I like making things better, whatever that is. But yes, like, I, I will go into a fast food restaurant. I can't help it. I will see ways that they could be better at things. Yeah. Especially if I've gone into a Chick Fil a the night before and then I go somewhere else the next day, I'm like, why can't everybody just copy the way Chick Fil a does, you know, their drive through or whatever it is. Or I'll fly a different airline than Southwest. I tend to be a Southwest snob. I'll fly Southwest Airlines all the time. And it's really only a problem when there's a problem. You know, if there's a problem with your airline or with your flight, Southwest will try to work with you a lot more than another airline will. Like when you have a customer support issue or customer service, you really see the culture of an organization. But anyways, yeah, I do see things like that. And how can we make things better? Because you always want to be improving. So probably the answer would be yes, I've always tried to make. Make things better. I've always tried to make myself better in whatever way I can. Whether you call it, you call problem solving. And I think that's great. You know, my wife talks about my wife. That's one of her strengths in terms of she Always. Like when she's interviewed for jobs and stuff, she says, I love to solve problems. And she comes at it from more of a puzzle standpoint. She's also a person on her Kindle or on her tablet will do puzzles. She loves to solve those kind of problems. I never do any of those things. I think life has enough issues and problems to solve. But she likes it from almost like a game standpoint. I see it as, how can we just always get better?

So that's a good thing to look at. So when you're coaching, you're now the head coach, you've got a lot of pieces moving. You've got a lot of challenges that you're looking at. Are you somebody that enjoys having a lot of things coming at you at once and trying to figure out what to do?

I wouldn't say I enjoy it, but it doesn't intimidate me. It's not something that I get stressed about. It's just, I understand I'm juggling. I'm juggling a lot of balls now. Some of those balls are. If something's going to mess up and I'm going to lose those three balls or four or five balls, I'm going to make sure I catch one or two of those balls because one or two of those is more important than the others. Like, you're always going to focus a little bit more on a couple things. But I wouldn't say I enjoy it, but I certainly don't have a problem with it. It's something that I can take in multiple information. I can take in a lot of different. Let's see, a lot of different perspectives. But one of the problems with that is sometimes I would be a little slower with making a decision sometimes. I have an athletic director that. That I worked for who is one of the best athletic directors I've ever worked for. But he would be somebody that says, we may not make the best decision, but we're going to make a good decision. We're going to make a quick, good decision. And I'm not saying that was good or bad, but it worked for him. And I thought he was a great athletic director. I tend to not necessarily be paralyzed paralysis by analysis, but I do tend to, hey, can we find a better solution? All right, we come up with this one, but. All right, can we come up with just a little bit better? So it's one of those tinkering type things where maybe I tinker a little bit too much sometimes or I not necessarily drag my feet, though that could be Looked at, I'm definitely not a procrastinator, but sometimes I will wait a little bit longer to make a decision because I want to get just a little bit. Can we see this perspective a little bit differently? Or how can we look at this problem just a little bit more so that we're making the right decision as opposed to just a good decision?

So when you walk into a sandwich shop that you've never been in before and there's 30 choices of sandwiches on the menu, is it easy for you to figure out which one you want to order, or does it take you a while to make a decision? And if it does, how do you then make a decision?

Wow. My wife tell you to ask me that? Yeah. I tend to go last, all under the disguise of I've got to pay for it. So I'll go last. Everyone can go before me. But, yeah, if I'm going in, like, typically, if I go into a new sandwich shop, it would be because I've heard that they make this good sandwich or they have this reputation for something, but if it's one of those, Gary, you're like, hey, let's go to this shop. I'm going to ask you, first of all, what are they known for? I'm probably going to look for, do they have that little icon or that little logo next to one of their sandwiches that's the chef special, or this thing that they're known for? Because I do want to get especially little hole in the wall sandwich shops. And I know I'm going too deep into the details, but a hole in the wall sandwich shop, I want to. They're known for something like that. Grandpa started that shop 50 years ago, probably because he made one sandwich really good for the family, and then it became something else and something else and something else. But I want to. They're known for. I want to experience that. If that's not the issue, then I'm going to go with, all right, I love Reuben's. Do they have a Reuben or, you know, something like that. I'm going to try to find what do they have and then compare it to other sandwiches that I've had in the past. If none of that works, I'm probably going with, I'll take the club.

So here's a question I have for you.

Are you.

Do you feel more successful, Jamie, when you're able to solve a problem or when you're able to find a better way? Well, let me change that. Do you feel more successful when you're able to make things Understandable or when you're able to find a better way.

That's a great question. That's why you're doing the interviews. You know, I love the process part of it. I love working through the process. That's not a hundred percent answering your question. I would rather be have a good process. And the result wasn't quite what we wanted then the result be there, but the process wasn't good. It's not repeatable. It's not something that we can rely on. I love process type stuff. I love knowing that what we did was probably the right thing. So I don't know if that answers your question.

Well, here's why I'm asking you this. And I'm sure the listeners that listen a lot will know because as you're answering questions, it sounds like your why actually might be to find a better way versus to make sense of the complex and challenging. However, what I'm thinking is your why is to make sense out of make sense of the complex and challenging. And how you do that is by looking for better ways. Your process is about finding better ways. But your ultimate result is to get something that makes sense and is useful and usable and we can actually do something with it.

That would be true. I want actionable. I want things. How is this practical? What can we actually do with this information? I am not. I wouldn't call myself the best student ever. I was a good student, but not great student. But I don't want just academic stuff or theory. What can we actually do with this? The practicalness of it. And yeah, so I think what you say makes sense. But then again, isn't that the why part of it makes sense? So, you know, we're back to that.

Yeah, that's what I think. Your why is make sense and you're. But your how is better way. How you do it is you're in search of a better way. And then ultimately what you bring is something we can still explore so that we know what is that thing that Jamie brings every time he speaks, every time he coaches, every time he interacts with people? There's something that you bring that you deliver. And we can continue to work on that. But while we're thinking about that. So, Jamie, what is culture? How do you define culture?

Yeah, great question. I think culture is the identity that your group takes on, to put it in the most simplest way. But I also think that identity is intentional. Now, a lot of people will argue with that or they'll debate that or they'll disagree with that, saying, well, no, the culture that we have isn't what I wanted. Well, that might be true, but you were very intentional about getting, allowing your culture to be what it is right now. Well, no, I didn't want it to be like this. Yeah, but we make choices every day. And you made choices maybe as a leader or your group made choices along the way to choose to do or to prioritize something over here as opposed to something here. And this got you to where you are today. So we're always intentional about I'm choosing something over something else. Those choices don't just happen accidentally, but what happens is the result ends up being something that we didn't want sometimes. And so the culture is the identity of your group. I do believe it's intentional because the choices we make every day leads into that our actions, our behaviors, our thoughts that become actions, the standards, the things that we allow or emphasize will end up being our culture. And sometimes leaders, we don't like that. And sometimes we'll say, well, we don't really have a culture. And it's like, well, actually you do have a culture. You just might not like it. And if you don't know what your culture is, then it's probably not a healthy, strong culture. So everything that you do should be geared toward where do you want to end up? And then almost reverse engineer it backwards. How are we going to get there? What are the day to day things that we can do to help in that culture? And like when I was an athletic director, let's say I was tasked with changing the culture, which, gosh, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said change the culture, you know, we'd be rich. Everybody talks about changing the culture and they don't even know what they're talking about half the time. But I was tasked with changing the culture. Well, one of the first things I did, not necessarily to change the culture, but we redid our whole athletic department offices, we put on fresh new paint, put new posters up, did all this stuff. We also changed stationary, all this trivial skin deep type stuff. And none of that came close to mattering as much as how I treated my secretary. Our secretary. I could put out the best emails, put up the best posters on the wall, have the best staff meetings. But if I treated my secretary poorly in our interactions and that caused her to maybe not be happy or inspired, now she's going to interact with hundreds of people that one day, either on the phone or the people that come into the office, she's going to be the first face that they see. And I can do more for our culture, good or bad, just based on one interaction with my secretary each morning, with your salesman, or with your HR people or your billing people. You can do more for your culture than any memo you're going to send out. And your culture isn't your posters on the wall or your fancy slogans or your billboards or your website. Your culture is what's going on around the water cooler when Gary and Jamie are talking at the water cooler or when Jamie and Gary are in the break room, you know, at that 9:15 break in the morning or whatever. That's your culture. If you want to know what your culture is, it's what those employees or your team members are doing when you're not around. That's your true culture. And that's either by what you emphasize, what you reinforce, or what you allow. I love that.

Well, today's businesses are so different, aren't they? Like for example, our company, we're spread out all over the, you know, we've got team members in Austin and Denver and New York and India and just, you know, all. All over the place. It's. How do you build a culture with more of the virtual type companies?

Well, I would say it's even more intentional at that point. You know, the COVID has taught us, you know, it's introduced us to zoom. It's introduced us to virtual type stuff. Not working at the office, not having touch points, not being in person. That means that you have to be even more intentional about how I'm going to reinforce and emphasize the certain culture that we want because I don't see Gary every day. We can't high five each other. We can't hang out and watch the game together as easily or whatever it is. We can't have casual Fridays. You know, every Friday could be casual because we're at home. But we have to be more intentional about it. And some businesses have fallen way behind in their culture because they haven't been intentional. They haven't been proactive, they've been reactive. They've just been reacting to everything that happens. And they've almost been shaking their head saying, well, we can't do this, we can't do this, we can't do this. Instead of saying, what can we do? Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do. And some of the best companies, best teams, even, you know, obviously I work with sports teams a lot. I've had a lot of sports teams that I've been consulting with, you know, that have been in quarantine. So I'll give you one example, and there's countless of these that I've dealt with. But all right, you're in quarantine, you know, whatever that reason is. One of your kids tested positive, or you played a team that tested positive, you're in 14 day quarantine, your basketball team, and the coach says, you know, what do I do? I don't know what to do. And I'm like, well, you know, have you had Zoom meetings? Oh, no, they're all zoomed out. They're all zoomed out. I'm like, okay, well, what would you be doing every day with practice? Well, we'd be having practice. Okay, what time would you be having practice? Three o'. Clock. Okay, great. You don't think they're all practiced out? You don't think they hate practice? They don't like practice. You still do it though. So you need to do Zoom meetings. I know, but they're just so boring. What do we do? I say, oh, you don't have to do it for your two hours, but every day at 3 o' clock you need to touch base with them on Zoom or whatever platform you use. But don't call it a Zoom meeting. Put lipstick on a pig. Call it something different. Motivational Monday. We're going to have Monday motivation at 3 o' clock and we're going to have a guest speaker or we're going to talk about something inspirational. Maybe on Wednesday we're going to have Wacky Wednesday and we're just going to have fun. We're going to have Tuesday chalk talk or whatever. I know that's not alliteration Tuesday talk. It's going to be X's and O's. So every single day of your 14 weeks, you're still going to have practice, but you're gonna have it for 30 minutes at the normal time so you can touch base with them. But you're gonna do something different every single day and you're never gonna call it a zoom. Now you're getting on Zoom, but you're never gonna call it a Zoom meeting. You're gonna call it something different. You've got three assistant coaches. They can come up with stuff, they can come up with an idea, but you're gonna do something every day and just you're gonna touch base with them and then you're gonna touch base with some of your athletes, some of your team members, and you're going to have them come up with some ideas as well. Because it's not going to be all Jamie Beckler, because Jamie Beckler is not smart enough and it's not going to be all Gary Sanchez. Even though we're smart as coaches, we're not smart enough to come up with something creative every day for 16 year olds or for 21 year olds. And so we're going to talk to some of our key leaders and get them to come up with some ideas and have them have ownership in what we're going to do. And so that's just one specific example. And then we walk through a lot of ways that, you know, they could execute that effectively. But essentially what it's doing is not looking at what you can't do. But what can we do? You can have karaoke night. All right? Wacky Wednesday karaoke. They're all there, they're all singing the same song on Zoom, being stupid. And they can all have their phones going and making social media of that. So we're all seeing the screen, we're all having fun. You can watch a movie together. There's so many things that you can do. You know, the Internet's full of just Google what you can do during COVID on Zoom calls. And then as a coach or as an employer, you know, maybe you're not going to do quite that much as an employer, but you're going to figure out, all right, what can we do to make it a little bit more creative? What can I do to now bring, you know, Gary, you as the leader, the leader. What can I do to bring Jamie into this, where Jamie's all the way across country. You know, we can connect on Zoom, but how can I make him want to be more engaged and want to make sure that he's not checking his phone so often or not disengaged from this Zoom call? And it's no different than when we have in person meetings. You know, if you have a boring in person meeting, then your people are going to be disengaged and you're not going to inspire them and you're not going to have the culture that you want ultimately. So it's just finding solutions. We're back to that. But finding solutions. How can you make something? How can you put lipstick on a pig?

Love it. So, last question I got for you, Jamie. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

The best piece of advice I've ever received. I wish that I had always lived up to that, but it's take care of People the way they want to be taken care of, you know, and I mean, we can get into nuances about different things, but we talk sometimes about treat people the way you want to be treated. But sometimes we project sometimes, you know, like, I don't like birthdays at all. I'm not a birthday guy whatsoever. If nobody wished me a happy birthday ever, I would be fine with that. Well, sometimes I project that onto others and I forget people's birthdays or I don't make it a big deal, but it might be a huge deal to you, Gary. Well, we project that sometimes. So saying take care of people the way you want to be taken care of or treat people the way you want to be treated sometimes doesn't go far enough. Like I hundred percent get the sentiment and it's better than treating people just terrible. But ultimately, you want to treat people the way they want to be treated. You want to find a way to inspire them. It's about them. You need to understand them. No matter what business we're in, we're in the people business, you know, ultimately. And we need to treat people the way that they want to be treated whenever possible. Obviously, obviously there are some nuances to that and there's some Dynamics. You can't 100% do that in every situation. But if you just follow that road, it's going to get you to a good place eventually.

Love it. Well, Jamie, thank you so much for taking time out today to be here. I really appreciate it. Now, if people are listening and they say, I would love to have Jamie come talk to our group. I'd love to meet with him. How can people get a hold of you?

Yeah, probably the best way is if they're a twit. If they're on Twitter, they can follow me and my direct messages are open. That's at Coach Beckler. And Bechler is spelled a little bit differently. Bech L E R. But at Coach Beckler, but also my website, they can get a hold of me or see my books, the podcast, all the free stuff that we have. But that's@coachbeckler.com so Coach Beckler.com is my website and those are the two best places. I'm on the other social media platforms as well, but Twitter is the best place to get me if you're on social media.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here today. I really, really appreciate it.

Awesome. I appreciate the work you're doing as well. Great podcast. Keep it up. And thanks for having me.

Thank you. And now it's Time again for our new segment, which is guess the why. And so we're going to look at the why of Kanye West. What do you think his why is? If you had to take a stab at it, knowing the nine whys, what do you think Kanye's why is? I think his why is to challenge the status quo and think differently, to think outside the box, to do things differently, to not follow a traditional path, to do it his own way. He's done that in the way he does his music, that's he's done that in now the way that he's changed the direction of his life. I know as of today he's still married. I don't know if that's going to be the same thing when this podcast comes out, but I would guess that his why is to challenge the status quo. What do you think it is? Put it in the comments, put it in wherever you're on your social media. What do you think Kanye West's why is? So thank you so much for listening. If you have not yet discovered your why, you can do so@yinstitute.com you can use the code PODCAST50 and you'll get it at half price. If you love the beyond, you'd why podcast, please don't forget to subscribe and rate us because it really helps for us to gain more listeners so that we can bring the why to the world and reach our goal of helping 1 billion people discover, make choices, and live based on their why. Have a great week. We'll talk to you next week.