The Science of Momentum with Don Yaeger - [Glue Guys, EP. 59]

And the offense lost their mind when he came back to the huddle because Tom Brady had run for 8 yards only one other time that entire season. He had one other 8 yard run all season long. And he happened to do it in a moment where the team needed it. And it ended up that was the beginning of the greatest comeback in the history of the Super Bowl.

We have a very special guest with you today. He has been a friend of MIN for many, many years. Best selling author, Don Yeager, you may know him, 12:12 time New York Times best selling author. He's collaborated with Coach K, with John Wooden, with Michael Oher, with Walter Payton, with Primetime. He's written some amazing books and he was with Sports Illustrated where he served as associate editor until 2008. He actually wrote a book with this collaborator, Dr. Bernard Banks, called the New Science of Momentum. How the Best Coaches and Leaders Build a Fire from a Single Spark. That's a hot take. Don, welcome. Welcome to Glue Guys.

Thank you so much. Shane. Alex, what an honor to get a chance to spend some time talking with you.

You reached out a few weeks ago and talked about, hey, I've been on this journey about momentum. And as Alex and I and Ravi talked many times in Glue Guys, so many stories are about momentum. And so for athletes, you know, we love to have a conversation about just like what momentum is in our eyes, whether we believe in it, whether we don't. Obviously you've done some amazing research on it. So just give us a background of how you came to research the science of momentum, of all things.

Sure. So the backstory is a Super bowl that many of us will remember, where the Atlanta Falcons were up 28 to 3, right. And deep into the third quarter. The prognosticators gave Atlanta a 99.4% chance of beating the New England Patriots in that game. And Patriots are facing third and eight and. And suddenly Tom Brady gets trapped behind the the line of scrimmage and the least mobile quarterback in the history of the NFL. I will go ahead and give Tom that. Alex, you know, you can argue with me if you want, but I would say anytime you've got to ask him to scramble for 8 yards, you basically just give up the, give up the series of downs and you say, screw it, we'll punt. And. But Tom scrambled for 11 yards, got a first down, and suddenly people started thinking, if, you know, if Tom Brady can jump in and throw his body out there like that, well, maybe there's something going on. And three plays later, they score a touchdown. Missed the Extra point. Because that's the way things were going for the Patriots that night. But it ended up, that was the beginning of the greatest comeback in the history of the Super Bowl. And most people turned it off because it was, you know, it was so out of, you know, out of reach. Nobody had ever come back for more than 14 points down in a Super bowl before. And I'm that idiot that stayed up the entire night, watched it. And at the end, Joe Buck said this great line. The Patriots have redefined the word momentum tonight because you literally started watching how momentum changed jerseys. Right? I mean, if you will, it switched sidelines. And so the next morning I came to my office in Tallahassee. I've got a group of creative people that work for me, opened up the whiteboard and just wrote the words, how does a moment turn into momentum? And I said, we're going to figure this out. Like, how did what happened last night occurred? And is it something that just had to randomly occur, or is it something you can manufacture? Can you manufacture momentum?

Where do you even start to research that and come up with a thesis?

Well, a couple things. My good fortune is there's a fair number of neuroscientists who have actually dug into this idea of can we as an organization, you know, they call them mirror neurons, right? It's the ability for us to. Well, when I do something good, you believe it's good for you as well. And so we as an organization start moving in unison together with a belief system that's sometimes uncommon. Right. And sometimes even you might argue it's ill founded. Like, can you really believe that you have a chance? You're down 28 to 3. But Brady, you know, it requires good leadership. So one of the things that really stood out was we, we began the process of building a model of what momentum could look like and what it would take for an organization to actually capture it, be prepared for it first. Which is the thing I didn't really understand how the best teams actually, you've been there many times, Shane, for a practice where they said, down 7, 35 seconds left to go. What are we going to run for the next 35 seconds to try to get ourselves out of it. But how great businesses, I mean, this translates beyond sports. So the first thing we wanted to do is be thoughtful, right? Sports would be easy. I could do sports all day long on momentum, but I wanted to look at politics. How do you run political campaigns? And what is the role of momentum in a political campaign? I was lucky enough to get James Carville and Karl Rove, two of the great political minds of our time, to sit down with me to talk about how you build it into a campaign plan business. We got the leadership at Nvidia to sit down. One of the co founders of Nvidia opened up the door for us to work with their leadership team to talk about how they went from this middling little technology company to the most valuable company in the world, and what were the steps that allowed them to be ready for the spark when it occurred. And the spark was chatgpt, obviously, and then the military. My partner in the book who I was able to ultimately team up with, General Bernard Banks, his last duty station in the army was he was the chairman of the department of behavioral sciences and leadership at West Point. So he taught leaders how to build momentum into battle plans. And so we attacked it in four veins, looking at it not just as a sports thing, but as the entire idea of momentum for an organization. And how can you actually make it your friend and not something you have to wait on, huh?

Alex. What? There's a lot there.

There's a lot there. I got like.

There's a lot there.

Yeah. 12 questions in my head brewing. First off, let's just. In all fairness to Tom Brady, not, Not the swiftest of foot, but I. I think in his.

His 40 time, his 40 time at the combine is still the best tape of all time.

It is. But in fairness, him, I, I don't think he's the slowest quarterback ever in the NFL, but definitely, obviously not a guy that converted a lot of 38s with his feet. The Patriots obviously come back and win if it's not Tom Brady or somebody of his caliber. You know, I think so often that idea of belief, right, and you mentioned it's important, obviously, leadership and that, that there is belief in that leadership. And certainly at the quarterback position, you got to have a guy, right, like this is legendary, right? If you have a guy that can do this and has done that and there's that belief there in his team, then obviously these things are potentially capable. If it's, you know, Joe Schmo, you know, some, you know, washed up backup out there, right, Like, I don't know.

Joe Flacco look pretty good.

I'm not sure that, you know, you know, like the psychology of this, I guess, of the unit, the buying in and believing that this is even possible.

Which is why in the model that we built, the overarching element of the other model is leadership. Like, you have to. You have to have Leaders that. That believe that momentum is available to us and that have prepared you for it, and that is. That are willing to communicate. Brady ran up and down the sidelines right after they scored that touchdown and just asked the defense, give me the ball back. Come on, please. And they went three and out. They got the ball back, and then they marched down and scored again. And, you know, and it became symbiotic, right? They. They were believing in him. He was believing in them, and you got it. It's a belief system is what momentum really is.

Yeah. And then I guess a couple things that I'm thinking about. Like, obviously, in a sports realm, in a matter of three hours, I think we all can see and sense momentum because of the time horizon. So short, right? Like these ups and downs from one play to the next, like a muffed punt, you recover, right? Like, boom, you're right back in it. A third and eight conversion. These things that can help spark and do this, obviously, when you transfer to the business world, any other type of world, like, these are longer durations. It's hard to have that momentum. I'm interested on the take, like, I guess. Cause for me, even as I think about some of my own journey, and I really think this. And it's funny, it's almost like the inverse of momentum in some sense. But, like, the first step is the hardest. I've always thought that, right? Like, the first step of doing anything extremely challenging, like getting going, and it's because there is no momentum, right? Like, it's daunting. It's scary.

Talk about that, Alex, you know, you have. You know, you have a multitude of surgeries, right? I mean, forget playing again, all right? You just want to walk again. So talk about that first step when you. I mean, you lived it. You had, like, no momentum, and you're. You're sitting in a hospital, WALTER Reed in D.C. and, you know, talk about that first step. Where do you find the courage for that momentum?

I, you know, distinctly remember, like, the first time I verbalized again, like, I wanted to play football was this big, meaningful moment for me, right? Like, again, saying it, and. And the first time I put my foot down, right, like, again, it was just, like, standing on my leg. Like, as terrifying as it was, when I finally got to that point where I could, like, try to do that was this amazing thing. And then when I did it, right, like, there was this great momentum of like, okay, well, what's next? And it really fed. Like, okay, well, it's baby steps, right? Like, I got to do Baby steps and change my weight. And, and when I finally accomplished that after several weeks, right, like, it was like again, this celebration. It's like, okay, well what's next? And, and you, you obviously created that momentum. And for me it was over like a two year period, but absolutely going back to like the initial, the initial thing was the hardest. Right. Like saying it, thinking it, believing it. And I didn't really believe it at the start. Right. Like truly, you know, and again, it wasn't until that I did finally get some momentum that I, I started to have that.

But you had leadership, right? Your lead therapists. I mean, I did have amazing people.

Around me, the military folks. And obviously, yeah, my, I had 2 pts that like led the charge, obviously a whole team of doctors. You know, why the rest of the world like patronized me for, for thinking it, you know, kind of like, oh, that's so cute. You know, like you go try and do that, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, like those people there like really did think I could do more, you know what I'm saying? And like we're like, truly had my back and you know, obviously that was critical. There's no, you don't do this stuff on your own. Right. Like we've talked about. That's the whole point of the podcast. Like, but yeah, so I don't know, like, but for me, again, like there was real momentum in that once I got going. But you know, is that obviously you went into this Don, right. Like how do you create that? What's the science behind it? You know, again, transferring it to other people.

So leadership starts with leadership. What else needs to be present to create the magic of momentum?

So what fascinated me was I for many years believed that momentum started with that muffed punt or that interception or that moment where a spark was created. Right. It wasn't until I dug in and got the chance. I did two hundred and fifty interviews over the course of eight years, ended up going into the field doing polling of 4,000 adults who. And one of the things that stood out was that 91% of them believe in momentum. But if you narrowed that pool from that 91%, you narrowed the pool to just people who had played sports, led an organization or been part of the military. Take those three groups. The number was 100%. Everybody that was in any one of those three demographics, it was 100%. They believe in momentum.

I'm more interested who doesn't believe in momentum. Like what are the demographic of that person? I mean, interesting.

The people who believe in who didn't believe in momentum were these highly academic folks who want to consider all of these a series of random individual events that just you and just try to string them together is again, it's a good thing for an academic person to argue, right? And in fact, the group that actually most fought me on this was the ESPN analytics team. I went to them and said, you know, after every play, you tell me what the win percentage is. So series of plays in a row, percentages go up. That's got to be momentum, right? Now, each one of those are individual plays that have an individual impact on where it stands in that moment. You would string them together. You're making a complete mistake. And so I had people argue with me during the process of building this thing. But as I said, I started out thinking you had to have a spark. What I didn't realize is that the best leaders, those who actually understand that you can generate momentum, that it's actually have a whole series of things they do before the spark, right? It's the practice. It is building a culture where you're willing to be one of the great killers of momentum is if. If a big play happens and when you secure the ball, whatever it is, and I'm jealous that you're going to get all the credit for it at the end of the game if there's that. If I'm not willing to be a true teammate, you know, and really believe that your good and my good are the same thing, then. And we know that in any space of a dogs, any collection of a dogs, there are a group of people who, when you succeed, they consider it their failure, right? They're always those people. And when you have too many of those people on your team, you actually begin to erode your capacity to generate team momentum. And that's really the way we looked at it, was this was team momentum that we were really studying. And that's true in business, right? You watch sales teams where, you know, I'm leading the pack as the best salesperson in the organization, and suddenly you pass me. You know, I mean, there are some places where that becomes an open door for sabotage. Right. You know, how can I screw you out of. Out of. Out of something?

So you're saying certain teams have more proclivity or more likely to have momentum.

Occur based on the culture they build and the people they recruit to be part of that culture. Right?

Beforehand.

Beforehand.

This culture where selflessness, the team's bigger.

Everybody'S bigger than me, right? I'm happy because that's where this Neuroscience of these mirror neurons really begin to play, right? This is where like literally your success in, in my mind is my success. And when I can get. When we are that close. And the easiest way to think about mirror neurons is that these guys all talk about this. It's when you walk into a room and somebody yawns, what happens? Right? Other people yawn. If you're in a room of people that all kind of like have a sense of we're in the same room, yawning is one of those places where mirror neurons kick in. It also kicks in, in a belief that we're together on this journey and we're going to win together. And it doesn't matter if you get the credit or I do. It doesn't matter because collectively we've just done something. And when you can create that environment, you have the opportunity to be ready for this spark. More ready, let's put it this way, more ready than other people. And so that's a, that's, that's a, that was an element that I didn't really fully appreciate until doing this research. Go ahead, Alex.

No, no, I was going to say where does, where does resiliency and, or I think like an approach to failure because obviously to like gain momentum, clearly you were stagnant before and, or even failing, right? Like even you were in a trough, so to speak. Whether it be, you know, again, your team, your business and I think obviously to, again, to go back to that culture of being ready for the spark when it happens and to like really have it ignite to something. There has to be this team culture towards failure, I would think, and, or resiliency, right? Like that this will pass. Or indoor, you know what I'm saying? This isn't going to last forever. And if we keep showing up, you know, we can, we can change things.

Right? This, again, kind of leans into leadership too, though. It's a leadership role to say those words. It's a leader's role to say we've done all the hard work to be ready for this moment, even if the moment hasn't yet shown itself. Right? So good leaders actually continue to, to remind you that all because it's easy to, to get lost and say, ah, man, we did all that work and it's not, it's not showing up for us. Why are we doing this? Why am I up every morning 5am why? Why? Why? Why? And if a great leader can continue to remind you there will be a day when all of these dividends will pay, will pay for, will Pay you back. And, and then when it happens, when the spark occurs, the very first thing that has to happen is that leader that's been saying all those words has to jump right in and say, this is the moment, right? This is what you, what you, you did everything you needed to to have this moment occur for you. Now let's go take advantage of it. Right? So again, leader communications is an important part element of the model that we spent time creating.

Does there have to be a spark? Okay, so I'm thinking about the greatest comebacks in my time. You know, winning 27 games in a row in the NBA. Winning 22 games in a row in the NBA. I mean, I lived momentum, right? And you know, the, the spark of those things, they weren't apparent at the time. Literally it was like a made shot and like a defensive rebound, right? And so like, how are you defining spark? You know, after the Great Recession of 08, you know, there was a day where the market actually, you know, it was the inflection point. There was a bottom to it. But like, no one said, oh, here's the spark. Here comes here, here's the beginning. So, like, talk about like, like how you define the spark. Is a spark something that you only see in retrospection? What's special about the spark or that event?

There's two different ways to look at spark, and you've hit on both of them. Actually. Some are dramatic, right? They're the thing that you. In a business context, it could be a natural disaster, right? That suddenly throws everything either good or bad for you, right? I mean, if you happen to be in the home manufacturing business and a whole bunch of homes burn up, it could be a good spark for you, right? I mean, as nasty as that thought might be. But if you're. So there's the ones that become quite apparent quite quickly. And then, as you said, many sparks actually are only discovered in retrospect, right? It is that it becomes a moment where only when you really get a chance to look back on it, but that doesn't make it any less a spark. You could look at that game and you could argue Tom Brady running for. Running for a first down. Right on that. But. But I had a chance to interview many of the players who were on the field that night, and the offense lost their mind when he came back to the huddle because Tom Brady had run for 8 yards only one other time that entire season, right? He had one other 8 yard run all season long, and he happened to do it in a moment where the Team needed it, and it wasn't his skill set, but he leaned into something that wasn't expected of him. And it became for them just a tiny little moment, right. All it got him was a first down, but three plays later, they scored a touchdown. So, you know, it becomes that issue of, you're right, sometimes it's not recognizable, but sparks exist and most of us miss them. That's the challenge. The best actually see them embrace them, are able. Because again, it might have been, as you said, you're looking at a 22 game winning streak and you can probably point back to a made shot and a rebound, right? But you made the shot and you got the rebound. Yeah. You embrace. You were able to. To catch the momentum when it happened, when. And you were able then to take advantage of it, which gave you the opportunity to win the next game and the game after that, right? And pretty soon you begin to believe we're kind of meant to win, right?

This is.

These are. These are. And. And so for all of the beautiful science that's out there on this concept of momentum, at the end of the day, we've hit. We've said the word multiple times. It's. It's really a belief system. It's the ability to create an energy that we are all on board for. And again, all is a real key word. You know, when we. Because the third part of the opening wheel, you know, I mentioned culture and recruiting, is that idea of preparation. And one of the guys that totally fascinated me in this space, how they prepare their team to be ready for momentum, and there's a perfect business application is Buzz Williams, right. Basketball coach. He was at Texas A and M. And I heard that he was so fixated on momentum that he actually made practicing for momentum as important as shoot arounds, as important as time in the weight room. And so I went to visit him, I said, how do you do this? And he said, this is what we do. And one of his players walks by and he's like, alex, Alex, get in here. Right? And. And he opens up his laptop, and on the laptop is a game. This particular game was a women's volleyball game, right. That he had recorded. Had on the laptop. Alex, watch this game. And you're watching the game. And at some stage, at four or five minutes in, he closes the laptop and he says, how much time is left in the game? T? What's the score when I close the laptop? And who has momentum? And what he's trying to do is get his players to constantly be. Their mind is Constantly thinking about time, score, momentum, and how those three elements work together to give some team a competitive advantage. Right. One team or the other is going to have a competitive advantage in that moment. And what he said to me was, I'm so, you know, I'm so passionate about this subject that there are times in games where. Where even in the end of the game where I may not have my five best players on the. On the court, but I'm gonna have my five best players who understand time, score, momentum, because we may come down. And if I've got a player who just believes he should shoot every time it's open, even if he's my best player. And what we really need to do is run the clock for 20 seconds, and he might take a shot, you know, five seconds in, because he's open. That's good for him, bad for the team. Right. And so I'd rather have that guy on the bench and have players who understand, let's work the ball around, soak 15 seconds off, and then get a. Then get a shot. And so being thoughtful about how to be prepared for momentum is a big piece of it. And from a business standpoint, there's some companies I work with that actually do. What if sessions? Like, what if this were to happen? Like, what if. What if the CEO of our largest competitor were to get caught on a Coldplay video hugging up on his HR director? What if. I mean, that'll never happen. We know it. But if our competitor were to get stuck on a video, what would we do? How would we take advantage of that moment? What if the President of the United States decided to issue tariffs on everybody in the planet? Oh, that'll never happen.

But.

But if he did, what would we do if tariff suddenly started tearing up our business model? What would we have to do? And the teams that are prepared by thinking about those moments are ready when maybe not those moments, but any moment occurs, they're ready to pivot more quickly because their mind is adept at the idea of seeing a moment and being ready for it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. And so to go back to the Buzz Williams example, am I. Am I correct in thinking that? Like, so, then again, naturally, in a game and a season, there are going to be many chances again, almost, for. For waves. Right. Peaks and troughs. Peaks and troughs. Right. Like. And great leaders and great teams are better at identifying the spark when they're going to come. When they're coming out of a trough and going to, you know, obviously going to. To ride a wave and then better at sustaining those potentially for longer, right? Like, so that there are these things of obviously identifying when they're happening, right. And people that believe in them and that. So that you have this chance to sustain, right. This momentum for a longer period of time. But it's also this idea of being. Understanding that I guess, that ebb and flow a little bit, right? Like that there are going to be.

So Buzz works on just making it part of their mental conditioning, right. He wants them to mentally be thinking about momentum as a. As a process that can be manipulated. And if you believe that, right. You're able to believe that, then you're open for the moment when it occurs.

Obviously, momentum is this positive, but, like, obviously there's both sides of this and potentially when things aren't going well, even at that point, right. How do we stop that? Right. How do we reverse this? How do we get a stop on defense, right. Like Shane, from that perspective, like, yeah.

Talk about negative momentum. So we, you know, we all love positive momentum. We're making money, you know, we're winning the game. Let's talk about the, you know, is there a spark for negative momentum, right. And is it identified the same way? And do you need a leader for negative momentum?

So the bottom line is, because we understood that, we actually built an entire piece of the book on how do you reverse it if you're on the negative side of momentum, right. If it's actually working against you. And there basically were five elements that the best leaders we interviewed told us how. The first is you. You're. You're honest about the situation. Your leadership isn't trying to spin it and say, we're only one play away or, you know, yes, we've lost all these games by only less than a touchdown, right? Think about it. We're only six points, six yards further, and we're. We're undefeated, right? That can be the media spin, but a leader should never spin it that way internally because what are the. What are the players know? The players know you're full of crap, right? I mean, bottom line is we are what we are and our record is what it is, and you can. So a good leader to reverse momentum addresses it honestly and actually talks about the challenge we're up against. But then the second thing they have to do almost immediately is offer some kind of a vision forward, like. And that vision can be from their personal experience. It could be something, you know. You know, by the way, six years ago, I was leading the San Francisco 49ers and we were in the exact same situation. But let me tell you how we turned it around. And so they want to believe their leader can take them out of it, Right? Be honest as a leader. Offer them some kind of vision to try to look for an opportunity out. The third thing is the best leaders are always returning to fundamentals. In moments of Nick Saban, when I talked to him about this, he said, you know what? I never wasted a loss. If we lost, I used that as an opportunity to come back, get back to our fundamentals, because that's generally what cost us a game, and it's generally what allowed us to rebuild our momentum, was to get back to fundamentals. What are the things we have typically always done that we have stopped because we were winning, Right? And he said, so we never. So get back to your fundamentals. The fourth thing is amplify anything that's positive. So if you, you know, if you. If something happens and you're able to openly celebrate it, you know, I did an interview on this book with the CEO of Bose Headphones, right? The speaker headphone company. Amazing woman. She inherited the job, and they had lost money 21 straight months in a row. And so her job was to turn it around. And they get to the third month, and they barely become profitable. I mean, it's by, you know, like, it's the nickels they found in their couch that made them. That made them profitable. But she went on a campaign of celebration that we are profitable. Like, we are. No, we're. No, we're in the black. And in that opportunity, the team began to think, wow, this woman came in and three months in, look at this. I mean, she's got a plan. Let's go. And then they went On a run 19 straight months, they became profitable. And it's stacking small wins. We were joking about that earlier, right? What are the little things you can do? And when you start stacking wins, that's how you rebuild momentum. So those are the five steps that the great leaders I was talking to shared. How they turned momentum around when it was working against them. I hope that made sense.

No, it does, I guess. And I'm still just, like, again, fascinated by this. Obviously, for me, it's. It's always going back to the sports world. You hit it obviously on the fundamentals. But my question was, like, how do habits play in this? Right? Like, Shane and I talk about this all the time. Like, as an individual, you are your habits, and even as a team, you are your habits. And so oftentimes, I guess you hope that those things haven't changed, right? That even when things aren't going well, your habits are what are going to get you out of something, right?

Like, because I think that's, I think that's where Saban was going though is that sometimes when things are going well, you, you, you maybe start skipping what.

Is very popular right now. And Shane, you probably know, like, and again, even in prognosticating games, again, like I get asked this all the time on espn. I have to pick games and there is this, you have this yo yo effect, especially in the NFL of like one week, one team plays great, they drink the Kool Aid, right? They put on a lot of their own perfume and like they think they're sweet. And the next week, right, they lay an egg and get beat. And it's, it's a lot of teams, right, that do that. And so they literally, they obviously aren't capturing the momentum, you know, And I guess for me, what, what plays into that psychology, again, this is something that, that good happened. They won a big game, but obviously clearly it works against them, you know, the following week.

But you know, like, you know, Alex, thinking about like, you know, I'm the only player in NBA history to be part of two 22 game winning streaks. All right? No one else has. All right. In, in 2008 it was the Houston Rockets, which was very unexplainable because we, we, Y, Trace McGrady and the rest of us were just the seven dwarves. And we put together this 22 game winning streak. And in 2013 when 27 games with the Miami Heat, right, and people were asking us, are we going to beat the Lakers record? It was a crazy, crazy run that was much more explainable than the Houston Rockets won in the late 2000s. And you know, I was thinking about all the things that go into the, the momentum of that. And you know, we almost approached it like we didn't want to acknowledge it. Yeah, you felt it, you felt it. And you know, around game 12, you know, you get more media coverage and people started saying, oh, you know they're gonna win 13, are they gonna win 14? But we kept winning. But like we celebrated it, but like we didn't want to talk. It was like a pitcher throwing a no hitter, right? You don't, don't acknowledge it, don't acknowledge it. You just want to ride this crest for as long as you can, but at the same time like you're so excited to play. And that, that's the feeling that I got every single time with both Those teams, like, okay, we got the Lakers beat them. Who we got, who we got next? And you just wanted to keep it going because it was such a, you know, when you're winning in sports, you know this Alex, like, the locker room is great, that, you know, your wife is more beautiful, the food tastes better, the weather, you know, like, everything is so nice when you're winning. Everyone's happy, you know, and so when you're, when you have that winning streak, that momentum, you just want to keep it going forever. Forever. And when it, when it, that streak broke both those times, it was such an emotional letdown because that high of that momentum was like, man, that was so special. I don't know if we can ever get back to that level again. Like, like we were.

But that. Let me ask you, Shane. Sorry, Don, but like your attention to detail as a team in that 22 win streak, right, Like, I mean, you guys were on his own, right? Like your attention to detail, you guys were flow state, you know, kind of thing, right? Like it was working. But then again, you know, I've been on teams that. It's the opposite again, like Don says, like, you know, you. There's these teams that again, read their own press clippings and you know, turn around and they've lost focus somehow in that. Yeah, you know, same thing.

So, Don, so you said you can manufacture this. So I'm on, I'm on a losing streak, all right. I'm on tough luck. I'm looking for that spark. So talk about height. Like, how do we manufacture that out of, out of tough times when maybe belief is low?

Well, again, if you have credible leadership, right. And again, we're going back to. Tom Brady is a great example. Would a third string backup quarterback be that credible leadership? No, but maybe the head coach should be hopefully at that stage, right. Somebody in leadership should be able to step in, but when they do, you know, it's that following that little five steps we were talking about, right? The first one is that you just have to acknowledge where we are. Like, don't try to hide it. Don't try to, don't try to, you know, put sugar on top and, and just say it is where we are. But that, but, but let me tell you where I believe that we can go based upon some history that we have, right. Either organizationally or myself or maybe the, you know, some players on the team. And as you're painting this picture, right? And that was Brady running up and down that sideline, asking the defense, give me the ball back. Right. I will do something. If you'll do your part, I'll do mine, right? And this is after they were getting their butt kicked all game long. Brady shared with me that his ability to run up and down the sidelines, incredibly tap his players, his teammates on the back, and just say, this is what I need of you, and I promise you I'll deliver if you deliver. They believed him because he had done so previously. He had the credibility. So you need to, as a leader, be able to offer some credible evidence that there is a path forward. If you don't have credible evidence of a path forward, it's pretty tough to turn anything right. That's how you end up on the firing heap in college football. I want to get fired today just to make 50 million bucks. But the idea of, how do you. When you're turning it around, it does require some leadership, communication, and the ability to paint a picture and a path. And then, as I said, return to your fundamentals and then come back and as best you can, identify any victory, anything that you can consider a win and celebrate the hell out of it, right? And if you start working like that and then those victories start coming along, you stack a few of them, and pretty soon the belief system begins to shift.

This takes me right back to 2001. We're in the Metrodome Final Four against Maryland, and we're down 22 in the first half, okay? So imagine the biggest stage, like the Super Bowl. Just actually did a documentary on this very recently, talking about this game. We're down 22, getting waxed in front of a national audience, you know, 70,000 people in the Metronome. It's. We're embarrassed. It's embarrassing. It's not like we're losing. We're getting. We're getting wiped by. By our rival Maryland. And I'll never forget, you know, the timeout. Coach K. Cole, we're down 22. And say, guys, we can't play any worse, all right? So it doesn't matter if we lose by two or lose by 50. All right, let's go out, play our game, but just be Duke. Just be Duke. And I'll never forget that came out of that huddle. Nate James, as clear as day, our senior captain hits a corner from the three, and you can feel just. The entire team just exhale. And it was just like, oh, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we can do this. And Maryland was really good. They won the national championship next year. So, like, Coach K acknowledged it that, like, yeah, this is not good right now. All Right. This is not us, but like, let's go back and be Duke. Go back to the fundamentals. Be Duke. And. And then we started to get a little bit, a little bit of run. We cut it to 12. Dixon, you know, that dude was tough and he pushed it back to 13 and we got to 10. So we're down 10 at the halftime. As Coach K says, guys, just keep doing what you're doing. Fundamental, fundamental, fundamental. You know, and so like celebrating the fact that we cut this thing to 10, right? And so we go out in the second half and we go on a little 6, 0 run. Metronome's rocking. You know, you talk about momentum, I mean, we felt it. You know, we're down eight points and we're like, oh, we got them exactly where we want them. I mean, it's ridiculous.

You believe you're winning.

We're down eight points and we think we got them exactly where we wanted. And all of a sudden Maryland, you know, experiences the opposite of that and they start finger pointing and they start, you know, complaining to the referees and they start bickering and we are like just one unit and you just feel the belief and all of a sudden, you know, we take the lead and it was just like Marilyn's like, what. What just happened? And said, you know, we, we knew that we could beat them from the miracle mitt when we beat them from down, down 10 with 55 seconds left a few months earlier, like, they didn't really think they could beat us, but we win that game by 10 going away. And like the spark. Nate James, the messaging from Coach K, the celebration of small wins, like it's, it was textbook momentum and we did something truly historic and just like you said.

So, Shane, I will, I will jump in because when I interviewed Coach K on it, he told that exact same example. Example. It's in the book.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that. He, he. He believed in what that showed as well. Right? That idea that it was, you know, we can't play any worse, so let's just go out and be us. Be. Be. Be what we know we can be. And that's a, there's a, That's a really powerful messaging tool. Right? And then as you said, one shot and, and people, the belief system begins to shift.

So Don, let me and Shane, I, I'm curious your thought, like, even in the context of that game. So things aren't going well, right. I'm a leader of an organization or team. They're not going well. Again, this one play happens and I Identify again, because I'm looking for any source of optimism.

Right.

Again, I've acknowledged we're in a bad situation. I'm looking for a little anything, and I'm going to acknowledge it for the team. Right. Like. And again. And obviously, hopefully I have credibility and I've laid a path out, you know, where we can go. Do I continue to acknowledge, like. And again, this goes into the celebrating fact. Like when the next play happens, it's just as important for me to acknowledge that as well. Right. And the next one, and the next one. And I'm.

And that's when you start saying, this is what we did. This is what we prepared for this. This is who you are. You keep. This is not unusual. Remember that practice we did in November that you. That drove you crazy? It's because we wanted to be ready for today in March. Right.

And I guess I'm really thinking, and I love this idea, and I, I never understood it when I played, but this idea of celebrating those things, right, Even the small things or even celebrating wins, you see these teams that have great culture, I think, and you see, sometimes you see the parties in the locker room.

Right, Right.

And I do think that's part of this. Right. Because you, and if you're celebrating, you've obviously acknowledged it. And again. And I think this, again, this culture about being happy for one another is inherent in this.

In fact, that's the most important thing because. Because had Shane looked at Nate James and said, damn, I should hit that three. Right? Like, everybody's going to point to him as the guy that started this all. But truthfully, you know, I mean, I, I should have been the one that hit that three. If you had looked at him and said that. So this is the one place in the book where we actually show a negative example to make a point. Some of you might remember Shane, you probably will. Jordan wins three NBA titles. He retires to go play baseball. Dumbest decision ever in sports. And he still can't hit a curve. And, and, and when he does, Scotty Pippen, who had been, you know, Robin for all those years to Batman, suddenly steps in. I'm the man. Be ready. But that first year in the playoffs, they're playing the Knicks game, three games tied. Phil Jackson calls a timeout. Scottie Pippen comes to sidelines. I've waited my whole career to be the guy to hit this shot. And he draws up a play for Tony Kukoc. And Tony. And Scottie Pippen refused to enter the game. He actually caused the team they had to call a second timeout. He got into a cursing match on the bench because he said, I waited all that time and now you're not going to let me have the shot. From that moment on, nobody thought of Scottie Pippen in the Bulls organization the same way. He lost his credibility because it was about him, not about the team. And in that moment, that negative vibe, that negative mirror neurons, if you will, actually took control. And there was a sense of, we don't have a leader anymore because what we're stuck with is a guy who really is a lifetime number two. Right. Which would drive Pippin crazy. But for years, you know, it was a reference point in the NBA players I talked to when there was an ultimate selfish act occurred. They called it pulling a Pippin because it was, you know, well enough known that being selfish was. That was. Was. That was played out that way in a playoff game. So when we recruit people, we have to recruit people could cheer for each other. We have to recruit people who value and are glad to say. Nate James. Unbelievable. Thanks for making that shot. Like you. You, my life is better because you did what you did.

Oh, trust me, I was very happy because I wasn't playing very well.

Again, I guess I'm just thinking, like, it's. How do you identify that? That's an interesting concept, right? Like in an interview setting or if anybody obviously is out there making personnel decisions, like, how do you identify that quality? Right. Like.

Well, one of the ways you identify that quality, unfortunately, it's often when they're internal. Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's say there's a moment and I mean, I watched it last year. I live in Tallahassee, Florida State football. There's a big play that occurred, and, you know, half the team kind of ran out to celebrate it in the middle of the field. And. And several of the superstars, the team kind of didn't even go out there to celebrate. And that. That told you that they didn't, you know, it didn't mean anything to them that. And that team went 2 and 10, right. So they showed up. They. They showed themselves in that moment, but at the same time, it showed up regularly. So when you're. When you're in a sales meeting and you celebrate somebody who just had this big deal, where does your number one salesperson go? Does he go up to high five the guy, or does he stand the back of the room and go, this should be. This meeting should be about me. I'm the number one salesperson. Right.

So let's talk about the end of momentum. Okay? Sad, sad topic. Okay? You find it, you capture it, and man, if that felt good, all of a sudden the air is out of the balloon, okay? The band stops playing, all right? And life returns to normal. So, like, are there things you can do to like temper, temper that sadness or, or temper that longing for that momentum? That's all you want to do is get back to that where you're feeling invincible and, and like no one can beat you. Right.

I would tell you, I think that's the greatest. That if, if you didn't long for it, that would be a greater. That'd be a greater problem. Right? The idea is, yes, momentum comes and momentum, I mean, it's momentum for a reason, right? I mean, it goes and it doesn't run forever. And so what you have to understand is that if you're intellectually aware of that, and there does come a window in which it's no longer completely on your side. You've won 27 straight. But here we are, we just lost four in a row. Well, you know what? We know what we're capable of, and that's 27 straight. So we now are ready for that fifth game after the. And let's, let's start another run, right? I mean, it becomes, again, it's a communications tool. Are you willing to kind of talk again about what did we do before? Let's talk about it, right? Let's. What. What was it that. That allowed us to continuously build upon it? And as we begin those conversations, as we open them, really, you know, outcomes and feedback are extraordinarily important. And how do you bring. You know, one of the organizations I do a lot of work with is the Blue Angels. Blue Angels end every practice, every show with a after action conversation in which everybody takes their rank off their shoulders. Right. It is no longer about who's the one pilot and who's the sixth pilot. Everybody evaluates what they did to try to get better. And they, they have a phrase. I love it. I use it all the time. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. And so when you're using. When, when you are. When no matter what's going on, right. Are we open to feedback and are we open to. That's Alex, when you were talking about teams that, that win and lose, win and lose, it's because they're not actually using feedback even in the very pot. Feedback is just as important when you win. In fact, it might be more important as it is than when you lose. And so that willingness, that openness to be Able to do it. The best part is these conversations, 250 of them over the course of these eight years with everybody from Condoleezza Rice to, you know, to Coach K to the co founder of Nvidia and some of the best generals on the planet sat and talked to us. There were just these universal themes of how to, how to make momentum and that it, that it really can be your business partner, right? It can be. It doesn't have to be. Wait around, hope for, let's hope we get lucky. It's it. If you do the work, if you're willing to do the work, to be ready for the moment. When the moment comes, no matter how big or small, you're going to be more likely to take advantage of it than your competitor. And that gives you everything you need.

Losing versus learning, right? And that like, good, I think successful people, successful teams, right? Like when, when there has been a mistake or an error or a loss, right? Like this idea of like, can I, can I spin it to a learning experience again, like using the feedback as opposed to like in this idea of negative coaching versus positive coaching. Like, I talk about this all the time. Like I had so many negative coaches my career and most.

What are you doing?

You can't do this. You can't do that. We go, don't do this. Like, it just, you know, and again.

That throw, Throw the ball higher, Alex. Throw the ball high. You know, don't throw, don't, don't throw the ball behind the, behind the receiver, Alex.

Throw the ball to our guys. Yeah, thank you, coach.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And so again, and I talk about this about like Andy Reid all the time, is he has this great quality of like, again, not writing the, the emotional roller coaster, right? Like, even when things aren't going well or when they are going well again, it's still this, you still do this feedback thing, right? Like you, you do the same things. The habits, you don't, like, mask the warts when you win, right? Like, again, you gotta, you gotta deal with them and continue when you can.

Make a lot of ugliness go away, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I wish I'd interviewed you during the book, Shane, because I never thought about the fact that if you're on, if momentum is working your way, your wife is prettier. I hadn't heard of that ever.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Smoke show when you're winning.

Yeah, I agree. The food is better. Like, it just.

I'm better, I'm better looking. I'm better looking. When I went in More importantly, good Lord, I need all the help I could get. So, Don, so what's your advice to somebody who's listening to Glue Guy Nation out there, and they say, I'm not a leader. I can't impact momentum. So I'm just the middle manager. I'm just middle of the pack. I'm just the infantryman. How can I impact momentum on the teams that I'm on without the title of leadership?

Here's what I'll tell you is, again, talking to all these folks, if you are willing to step into that vacuum, if you're willing to actually speak in moments when everybody else is afraid to say something, if you're willing, you can become a leader. No matter what your position, you actually. Leadership is often most available when things are not going well, right? The vacuum is greater when things are not going well because people are afraid to say certain things. If you're willing to be that person who can step in, maybe even listen to some of these things we've talked about and some of the ways that you could do it, you can assume a mantle that your title may not typically give you. And so it doesn't matter where you are, there is an opportunity. If you're willing to say, hey, I think things aren't going well, let's address it, let's talk about it, let's figure it out. Let's look for a way to turn things. What are the fundamentals we're not doing these days that we used to do? Is there something that we can revert to? How can we find something small to win? What's. What. What can we chase right now that if we. That three days from now, we. We can declare a win and. And then begin the process, Right? Alex, you're smiling.

No, I'm just. I. Again, I think this is super interesting, and I'm thinking about this context, right? Like, obviously, our. Our podcast is called Glue Guys, right? And again, like, inherently in that is, like, maybe it's not a leadership role, but these are the culture carriers. And then I think when you think about. If you were to say what everybody thinks about. Blue guys is the epitome of the things you've said. It's funny. They're happy for their teammates, right? Like, they don't have to take the final shot. They're the ones that boxes. They box out hard, right? For rebounds, they.

They dive, right?

They're fundamental. Like, again, they're the culture carriers, right? I. I guess that's how they're viewed, is that they don't Necessarily, necessarily set the culture. But in some ways maybe by obviously them just going through their actions like that, that they do.

You know, Alex, can I jump on something you said there? Because you define, you use. So when I say it requires leadership, it's not a leadership role that's required. Right. It's leadership. Leadership and leadership role are two different things. Leadership can come from any of us. Leadership role is something that somebody gets and it's reflected in their paycheck. But, but leadership can come from any of us, especially a glue guy. Yeah, there were times, Shane, that I know. I mean part of the reason that people voted you as a, as teammate of the year, right, was because you stepped in and took offensive fouls when that hurts like hell. Right. And there wasn't anybody else that wanted to take that offensive foul and you took it, but in doing so, that was your contribution. And, and you assumed a role of leadership in that moment even though you weren't the captain of the team, you weren't the best player on the team team, you weren't the leading scorer, you took a, you, you did something that you uniquely possessed the capacity to do and in that moment you became a leader.

Well, I was always more happy for my teammates than my success. Right. I, I tried to walk the walk, the talk that I talked and you do that in your locker room. All right. They keep voting for you, they keep voting for you. There's no secret, Don, we're let you get out of here. Our traditional ask question on Glue Guys is, you know, you're not a successful best selling author by yourself. It's always a team effort. So who are the glue guys? The glue gal, the glue people in your life that you want to acknowledge or you want to thank for helping you get to where you are today.

Well, I'll tell you, we've got a good group of them, Jake and Alex. I've got a group of writer teammates who work with me, research, help me get the work done that allows me to do the projects, the number of projects that I get a chance to do. I've just written my 43rd book, which is crazy. And my son, although it became my 13th bestseller, my son points out that means I have 30 failures. But 17 year olds should always humble you that way. But the idea of like having Alex, you know, I've got Alex Halstead, not Alex Smith though if you want to write a book with me, Alex, I'm good. And you know, Jake Udy and I've got a whole group of folks, Mark Robson and they've been wonderful to me, so thank you for letting me mention their name.

Well, Don, this is such a fun conversation. It's something that I never really considered until you called me many months ago. And so please check out his new book with General Bernie Banks, the New Science of Momentum. I hope you enjoyed this conversation on how the best coaches and leaders build a fire from the single spark.