Confidence Classic: Win the Inner Game and Rise Stronger with Ben Newman

I know I'm not the only one that has faced challenge and adversity. You have, and so is every single one of your listeners. In a world that's constantly trying to tell us it's not our time or listen to your fears, doubts and uncertainties, I encourage people to keep writing their story amidst the challenge and adversity they face. When you give your best every single day and you encourage others to do that on their journey, winning will happen in your life at very high levels.

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I hope you love this one as much as I do. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to be with me this week. You are really going to love our guest, Ben Newman. He's a highly regarded performance coach, international speaker, bestselling author whose clients include Fortune 500 companies around the world, business executives, sales organizations, professional athletes in the NFL, pga, NBA, mlb, University, UFC and ncaa. He's the number one Wall Street Journal and US Today best selling author of Uncommon Leadership. Ben serves as a mental conditioning coach for the 18 time national champion Alabama Crimson Tide football team and he's worked with super bowl players. He's worked with professional athletes all over and he is named one of the top 50 world's best speakers for 2022. Ben, thank you so much for being here today.

Heather, thank you so much for having me. And you know, it's really awesome because number one, we have so many mutual friends which makes it easy for us to have a great connection. So many mutual friends that have had impacts on our lives. And also it was awesome to be included with you on that top 50 speaker so you could try to give me those accolades. But I'm going to give them back because you have so much passion and energy when you hit the stage and it was an honor to be listed with you.

Oh my gosh. And it was an honor. We both got to speak together at an event a week ago and I for the first time, I don't know how we had not been connected sooner, but I got the opportunity to hear your story and I was just hoping that you'd be Willing to share with everybody a little bit about your burn because it is such a powerful story.

I appreciate you wanting to go deep and emotional right away. You know, that's the kind of guy that I am. And I think for all of us, there's challenge, there's adversity, and that's typically where we find our greatest strength. And for some of us, it happens when we're adults, right? You look at the adversity and challenge that you went through as an adult, but also things that you went through as a child, right? So there's a range of time in which it happens. Some people, it's just when they're really young, but we all have these pivotal moments. And for me, I had to grow up very, very fast as a young boy. My parents were divorced at six months old. I never knew them together. A handful of years later, my mother, who's my greatest inspiration, the greatest champion of life I've ever known, I mean, she is my fight, my why, my purpose, that really fuels me to want to be my best for the individuals we work with, for my children, for my wife. My mom was diagnosed with a rare muscle disease called amyloidosis. Many people don't know what the disease is. Here in 2022, there's still no cure for the disease. And every single one of us, in our muscles, we have amyloids. And my mother met with a woman at the Boston Medical center. Her name was Dr. Martha Skinner. Told my mom she was only the second woman under 40 years old they'd ever seen or heard of having the disease. And they gave my mother two to four years to live. And I've learned from how my mother lived her life and from a very specific thing that she did that I'm going to share with all of you what it means to fight through life. And when we face challenge and adversity, that's when you have the opportunity to write your real story. And my mother took out an old journal, maybe Heather, like you used to have in school. It was actually an old notebook, an old blue mead notebook. Maybe yours was another color. And my mother wrote, beat the statistics, beat the odds. Live with a disease that is chronic and fatal. Believe in yourself. Combat anything purpose in life. And my mother taught me that your purpose overtakes your pain. When you. When you face challenge, that's when you can find your greatest strength. And my mother's strength brought her to the dinner table every single night to ask my brother and I how our days were at school when she actually walked from 24 hour nursing care in our house and had limited days to live. And so, Heather, I had to grow up fast. It's my challenge. It's my adversity. It's my fuel. It's my fire. And the reason why is because on November 2, 1986, my mother took the pen that she was writing with in that journal and she passed it on to my brother and I to continue to write her story. And it's something that I think about every single day. It's something that has a fire inside of me that causes me to battle adversity. And I know I'm not the only one that has faced challenge and adversity. You have, and so is every single one of your listeners. And in a world that's constantly trying to tell us it's not our time or listen to your fears, doubts, and uncertainties, I encourage people to keep writing their story amidst the challenge and adversity they face.

Ben, how is it possible that you have become the person you've become, given how hard things were for you at such a young age? So many people, and we know so many stories of people that lose parents at a young age and their life goes off the tracks. How did you stay on track?

I felt at the time, and I still feel incredibly blessed to have so many individuals who were there to really, really picked me up off that mat of life. And I mean, Heather, we could tell story after story after story. I mean, I was an emotional wreck, you know, so whether it was counselors that I had to go to, whether it was, you know, teachers at school who, even though I was a terror to deal with, for some reason, they loved on me and they supported me and they helped me get through it. To coaches who recognized, yeah, this. This young guy might have a short fuse, but, you know, there's something special about this young kid. And so they loved on me. So I've had these coaches and mentors and family members who were there to help me through it. And without those people who have been there and continued to be there to help support me through the tough times, I would not be the man that I am today.

Oh, such a blessing. And I know that you. You and I both share a mentor in common, and I was hoping you could share how he helped you as a mentor. John Gordon, of course, who I've had on the show before, you've all heard. If you haven't, go back and listen that. So he's truly the most positive and impactful guy out there. But, Ben, how he helped you make some changes in your life that really allowed you to become who you are today.

I would love to share it. I'm glad you asked the question, because some people shy away from those types of questions. But I have no problem talking about them, writing about them. And before I answer the question directly, I want to mention that a lot of times, I think people spend time or hear from individuals that do the type of work that we do, Heather. And they think that, oh, they figured it out, they're finished, they're content. It's not the truth. I still have two coaches. I read books every single day. Spending time with Heather and hearing her energy, her story, her passion that causes me to want to do more. So it's a. It's an iron sharpens, iron mentality that I always look for. And as I mentioned earlier, I've been blessed that there's been a lot of people who have come into my life who have helped me establish clarity and see things that at some point in time, I didn't have clarity on. And one of those was my faith. And John Gordon and I met in February of 2008. We were both speaking at a conference down in San Antonio. We had a mutual friend, and John and I spent 20 minutes together. Heather. 20 minutes. That's it. And the next week, I'm back in St. Louis, and I'll never forget. I'm pulling into a parking spot for a meeting, and. And my phone rings, and it was a random number. You know, most of the time, you don't answer the random numbers. You wait for the voicemail and call back. But something hit me. Answer the phone. So I answer the phone. It was John. Hey, it's John Gordon. He says, ben, I know we only met for 20 minutes, but I want to talk to you about your faith. He's like, you and I have a lot in common. I was born Jewish. You were born Jewish. You struggle in your faith. You struggle in your belief in God. Heather. I'm thinking to myself, I spent 20 minutes with this guy, like, who is he to call me and do. But something. Something in my heart said, ben, just listen. And he ended up sharing this daily prayer, which is now in uncommon leadership. So uncommon leadership. I wanted to honor 11 leaders that have impacted my life, and John is one of those leaders. So there's a chapter that's dedicated to John. This prayer that I'm about to share with you is in the book. And he says to me on that phone call, he said, ben, I want you to just say this daily prayer, and whatever you do with it, he goes, you can hang up this phone and say that I'm crazy. You can say this daily prayer every day and see what happens and call me as often as you want to and share the experiences, but I just want to share this daily prayer with you. It's on my heart and it's God, what is my use for your purpose and guide me towards that purpose. Jesus, if you are who you say you are, show me the signs. I'm open to receiving this if it is meant to be. Heather it hit my heart. I started saying it every day. I've now said it every single day for almost 14 years. And John ended up leading me to Christ. I accepted Christ In February of 2008, weeks after we met. And it's just provided amazing clarity for me in my life, in my journey, how I show up as a husband, how I show up as a father, and how I show up as a coach. But John has just said, has had and continues to have a profound impact on my life.

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I asked you to try to find your passion. So obviously something very powerful happened when you started reading this every single day in a short window of time for you to make that leap. What were some of the things that you started seeing show up for you?

Oh, I love that you are going here. Because most people don't. Right. They like, especially for us as speakers. Right. A lot of times we don't get to share our faith. We don't get to, you know, talk about things that might be in a contract. Like, hey, you have to stay away from those things. But I love talking about them because it defines who I am. And so here are some amazing things that I haven't really shared in many interviews. One of the first signs for me, Heather, and I don't know, you know, your spiritual journey. There's probably signs that, that you see every day or there's signs or things that have happened in life. So John has me say this daily prayer. My wife was pregnant, so Amy was pregnant with our first child, Isaac. He was not born yet. He was going to be due in March of that year, so about a month. So, you know, clarity of faith was an important thing for those reasons too. And so we had belonged to the Missouri Athletic Club, we call it the Mac here in St. Louis. And Amy and I had moved to a brand new house that we're still in. And we were moving from downtown St. Louis. So we were, we were going to end our Mac membership because it was downtown. And I go in to clear out my locker at the Mac and I walk out and I had this big overcoat on. I don't know if you know, but there's actually cold weather in the world, Heather. You're down in Miami and you get to enjoy your beautiful weather. Every day we get cold weather in the Midwest. So I have this big, I've got this big overcoat on and I reach into the pocket of the overcoat and I pull out and it was a brochure on what happens when Jesus shows up in your life, Heather. To this day I have no idea how this got into my overcoat. This overcoat was in my locker at the Mac. I have no idea to this day, almost 14 years later how that got into my overcoat. And I pulled it out and it stopped me in my tracks as I was walking to my car. And I just looked and I stared. And that was the first big sign that I said, okay, this daily prayer is causing something to happen. And so there's story after story I could tell you, but that is probably one to this day, I can't figure it out. I don't know if John knew the code to my locker somehow and had sent it and had somebody put that in my jacket, I have no idea. But things like that started to happen almost daily until I said, I surrender. I accept Christ. I know I've been through pain. I know I've been through struggle, but I have not been doing this alone. I definitely have had the influence of Christ and God in my life at a much stronger level than I had anticipated.

Wow. That is incredibly powerful. And I. I do agree with you. I do believe in signs. I believe that if we're open to receiving them, like you're saying in the prayer. Right. That you are open to this. And as you open up your mind, as you use those powerful words, you will begin to see something. And I. I so appreciate this reminder because it is something that I haven't been thinking about a lot lately. So I'm really grateful that you shared that story with us.

You know, try the. Try the daily prayer.

What's the worst that can happen? Right? There's nothing. There's no downside to it. So I will take that challenge.

Can I mention one thing? You know, you talk about it in your book, Overcome youe Villains, and I know you talk about it when you speak, and I know you talk about it here on your podcast. And I think it is so important that people recognize the power that they have to control their mindset and how they show up. And that prayer. If you could start your day reading that prayer, and it's just that reminder that there's a strong faith or there's influence and you have control over your mindset, that could be a powerful first step to get this year off to a great start.

Oh, that's such a great idea. And I love that challenge. Guys, everyone listening right now. This is a great challenge. There's no downside. Do it for one month and just let us know the impact that that has on you, because I guarantee there will be some major revelations or opportunities that you might realize. So thank you for sharing that, but.

Absolutely. And give the credit to John Gordon. Do not give the credit for me. Too oftentimes I say a quote of somebody and I give them credit, and then people try to give me the credit. Don't give me the credit. If you love that prayer, send it to John Gordon. Tag, John Gordon. Tag Heather, for asking these courageous questions. Don't give me the credit. Give it to them.

All right, so, Ben, tell me you've achieved massive success in sports. The opportunities that you have come into or put yourself into working with the highest level athletes in the world, how did you get to that Level. What does that look like?

Well, believe it or not, and if I could. If I could turn my screen right over here is a. Is a shelf that's dedicated to the Ledoux High School basketball team. And this is typically not the answer that people would expect to get when they see the jerseys and the super bowl champions I've worked with. And, you know, my opportunity that I've had to work as the mental conditioning coach for Alabama football for the last four years is people would never think that this all started with my high school basketball team. So my old high school coach, his name is Todd Basler, and his assistant was Edward Johnson. I have honored them as characters in books that I've written for years. In 2011, Coach Basler called me. The high school team was underperforming. I graduated 1997. That was the year, the last year that I played for Coach Basler. So I played from a long time ago. And he called me. To this day, he still calls me Benny Boy. And he said, benny Boy. He said, these boys are underperforming. I need you to come fire them up. And I was a captain of the team when I was in high school. I played with a few D1 guys. They didn't need me to do much other than yell and scream in the locker room and occasionally shoot a three pointer. But I remember he calls me Benny Boyd. Come fire them up. They were playing the number 10 team in the city of St. Louis. And I remember, I walk into that locker room, I deliver this speech. I had never done anything in sports, Heather. All of my work up until this point, from 2006 when I got hired to speak for the first time. For those five years, my coaching work, my speaking work, books, there was no work in sports. And so in 2011, I walk into this locker room, I deliver this speech. They end up beating the number 10 team in the city. I was hooked. They kept bringing me back. The team ended up just having some great, great success from our work together. And the next thing you know, the doors had opened up in Sports. And in 2013, I worked with the first ever NFL player, Will Compton, whose jersey is right over my left shoulder. I've been able to share the stage with Jerry Rice and do things with so many super bowl champions and hall of Famers and the Alabama Crimson Tide and Kansas State, North Dakota State. And, Heather, it's just been a blessing, and it has been so much fun. And what I would love to share is two quick lessons from this. Number one, you never know what will happen when you say yes. You know, I think a lot of people, they say, oh, I want to work with super bowl champions. I want to work with that. The number of people who have called me because they know, like, when you've been with Coach Saban for four years, like, that's pretty rare. Most people are there a year or two and then they're gone. And so, oh, I want to come and speak at Alabama. I've got this great met. They've never done anything in sports, and they don't realize, like, I said yes to my old high school basketball coach for no money in order to have the opportunity 10 years later to be doing the things that we're doing. So you never know what happens when you say yes and stop worrying about the money. Money winning. It's going to be a byproduct of giving your all by saying yes and taking it one day at a time. And the second thing is, it's the relationships. You know, Heather, people see, like those rings that are behind my head. And, you know, it's a blessing to win championships. It's a blessing to. To have confetti come down on you when you're holding trophies. But that's not why I do it. I do it for the relationships. And every single one of these jerseys and balls, they have a story, Heather, and it's a story with a relationship behind it. And that's why I do what. And I found that when you give your best every single day and you encourage others to do that on their journey, and you. You just. I mean, I'm talking about giving it your best, and many people say they give it their best, but they don't truly do it. But when you give it your best, winning will happen in your life at very high levels.

Meet a different guest each week. Confidence, creator confidence. I ask you to try to find your passion. Couple of things that I take away from everything that you just said. Number one, the best of the best in athletics are investing in themselves. They're hiring people to come in and help them get to that next level. So often, I'm sure people listening right now aren't investing in themselves. How important is that, Ben?

Well, I don't want this to turn into a commercial for our work and our entire coaching platform that we have, because it's not just me anymore. You know, the. The brand has grown to such a high level. We now have 16 coaches that work with people all over the world. It's run by a dear friend of mine, Jeremy Patti, down in. Down in Dallas, Texas. And, you know, I've found that coaching is critically important. And as I mentioned earlier, I still have two coaches. And the two coaches that I have, they tell me the real story. They tell me the real pain. They tell me what they see are my areas of opportunity to grow. And without them, I might stay stagnant in my behaviors. I might think that I've reached the pinnacle and I've got nothing left to achieve. But it's the constant reminders from my two coaches and mentors like John Gordon that help me understand we are never finished. And when you look at great champions in business as well as in sports, they're typically not doing it alone. And that's all I've ever known. I grew up playing sports. Never did I play a game where you ran out. You didn't have a coach. You always had coaches. And so for me, you know, it's just been an unbelievable blessing to be able to coach others now, to still be coached, but to encourage people to recognize the strength that comes from being coached and having that never finished mentality.

Oh, I love that. And I know for me, you know, the first time I made a big financial investment in myself was back when I was 42 years old. I was still in corporate America, taking that leap of faith in, oh, my gosh, should I do this? It's a risk. I don't know if there's going to be a return. I don't know what's going to happen from this. But just the act of doing it made me feel that I'm worthy, made me feel that I'm worth more, made me feel worthwhile. So not only is it important to hire coaches to invest in yourself for the things that you're going to learn and what you're going to access, but it's also, it's really powerful the way it makes you feel, don't you think?

Oh, without. Without question. And I think a lot of that. You know, you talk about creating confidence. That confidence often doesn't come from when you win. Oftentimes confidence comes from when you overcome when you are down and you realize the real strength that you have within you. And I've always had to have coaches and mentors in my life to help me see and feel and understand the strength that I did have in order to overcome the challenge and the pain that I was going through. And so coaching has been critically important for me. And I would even share because I think people become overwhelmed sometimes. Heather, there's a cost for coaching, and can I afford it? Start with an accountability partner. You know, if you right now are listening and you're like, okay, I'm in a place right now where financially I can't afford a coach, then find an accountability partner. Find somebody where you can coach each other, hold each other accountable to simple disciplines on a daily basis. Show up and do what you say you're going to do. And then once you start to grow and you start to have success, when you're ready, go hire that coach. Invest in yourself. But there's ways that you can do it before you start spending money to maybe reach that next level of success.

That also builds off of something that you said earlier, which I really relate to, which was you explaining that when you first started this whole process with sports, you showed up and spoke for free at your own high school. Then you started getting paid small amounts. Then five years later, six years old, seven years, and now here we are today, not only are you top 50 speaker in the world, but now you've built out teams of speakers that work on your platform. All of these things took time and they didn't happen overnight. And I know myself and I'm sure some people listening right now, we want to see results immediately. We want to have that return. We want to be at the top. But these things take time.

So many people will tell us how great they want to be. Yet when we go and have a conversation with their action, that's when we see the real story. That's when we see their real hunger. That's when we see their reality passion for how bad they want success. And I don't say that to discourage anybody, but this is a you versus you mentality. Here we are at the beginning of the year. Take a look in the mirror, and you don't need a coach for this. Take a look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. Ask yourself, what are the things I need to do personally every day? Because my definition of consistency is a little bit different. My definition of consistency is every damn day. It's not do it a couple days and then go wait a week because you felt great from doing it. It's every day. So ask yourself, what do I need to do personally every day in order to drive my confidence? What do I need to do every single day professionally to be the best that I can be? And what's something that I can do to serve others every day? And we actually call that a prize fighter day. That's in the book Uncommon Leadership as well. And so I break down those decisions and choices that you can make and that's how you build confidence. And you stack those days on top of each other, day after day after day after day. And when you focus on being your best with great discipline one day at a time, the byproduct is winning at very high levels.

Oh, it's so true. It's not sexy, right? It's not sexy being that disciplined person and putting that time and effort in and making time for it, because you have to prioritize and you're going to have to let other things go. But it does pay off in time. And I'll tell you for me, what I think about when you explain that is I remember starting out in the radio business. I was in my early 20s. I started out as an account executive, knocking on doors, cold calling businesses, not knowing anything about the business. But over two decades, putting in the time, you know, having the meetings, learning more, having more conversations, you know, getting mentored by people, I was able to make it to the highest level in that career. But it certainly did not come from sexy opportunities and big stages. It started from starting at the bottom and just not giving up, being disciplined and showing up every day. So thank you so much for that reminder.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for asking. Thank you for asking the question because I think it's so important, because people want the fast way. They want to skip the work. But nothing great happens without the willingness to put in the work every day.

So, Ben, share with everybody your book, Uncommon Leadership, and your plot to the burn that you just recently had me on.

Yeah, so, so exciting to be able to kick off our year season four with you as one of our first guests for that year. Just your energy, your passion, your story of overcoming adversity, which is really what the burn is all about. You know, we all have a fire that lies inside of us. And so whether it's the daily prayer that we talked about earlier, whether it's maybe you creating a prize fighter day like we just discussed, start it this way. Start when you wake up by connecting to that burn that lies inside of you. A lot of coaches and speakers that do the work that we do, they talk about why and purpose, but they forget to talk about that burn, that fire that actually ignites why and purpose that then causes you to show up and follow through with that great discipline every day. So our show is the burn. We get to hear amazing stories like yours of how important it is for people to connect to their burn, to reach their highest levels of performance. And then in the book, as I mentioned earlier, it's not an autobiography. It's not my story. I wanted to honor 11 people and their amazing stories that have impacted me and how I show up and how their influence continues to impact my pursuit of what it means to be your best one day at a time.

Well, I can personally say for everyone listening, check out the burn. Check out the book. Now is the time where you can make a difference. The big fail, the biggest fail we'll ever have is to be in the same place that we are today. A year from now, if you're ready to make some changes, you're ready to go to that next level. Check out the burn. Check out uncommon leadership and take those tactics that you're going to learn from Ben and start going to the next level. Ben, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Heather, thank you so much for having me. It's a fantastic way to start my year. I appreciate you, your energy, how you show up and just awesome to have this opportunity to be with you and your listeners.

You're the best. All right, guys, until next week, Keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. I decided to change that dynamic, their map. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

I'm on this journey with me.