In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews John Willkom, bestselling author of Walk‑On Warrior and Director of Consumer Packaged Goods at e‑commerce retailer Netrush. Willkom shares a pivotal college basketball story where his coach called him out at halftime, teaching him that every team member matters regardless of playing time. He then discusses Amazon’s unconventional innovation culture, citing a patent for underwater product distribution as an example of how the company entertains even the wildest ideas. Willkom offers a core business framework that separates ability from motivation, urging focus on skill development and sustained drive. He advises his younger self to maintain unwavering self‑confidence, emphasizing that many people underestimate their own capabilities. On happiness, he proposes measuring daily satisfaction with one’s effort rather than external success. His favorite book, Open by Andre Agassi, illustrates the power of raw, unfiltered storytelling, and his favorite quote—“Every day you’re either getting better or getting worse”—captures his growth mindset. The episode concludes with links to his social media and promotion of his book, which has topped Amazon’s basketball category for nine weeks.
Chapters
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner and today's sponsor is Flipboard. Flipboard curates the world's stories so you can be smarter in your work, life, and play. Choose from thousands of topics to personalize Flipboard and get the latest stories from the best publishers and experts delivered to you 24/7. So You can get started now at flipboard.com. And now, let's jump into the episode. All right, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. Today, I have John Welcom with us. He is the bestselling author of Walk On Warrior and the director of Consumer Packaged Goods at Netrush, an e-commerce retailer that helps brands succeed online. So welcome to the show, man.
Thanks for having me, Tyler. Really appreciate it.
Of course. Grateful to have you on. So, John, the first one I got for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
I'm going to go back to my days. I was a college basketball player at Marquette University. My college basketball coach, Tom Crean, walked into the locker room at halftime of a game that we were losing. And I hadn't made an appearance at all in the first half of the game. So he busts through the door. The first thing he says is, "John Wilkum, stand up." And at first I thought, "Me? Like I haven't played a second in the game." He then proceeded to call me out for my effort all week in practice and how it had hurt the team because I hadn't been focused during the week. At the time, I was really upset because I thought I can't contribute to the outcome of the game if I'm not playing. But years later, I realized that the message was pretty simple, which is simply, you matter to our team. And no matter if you're the best player in a team or an organization or the last guy on the bench, what you do every day matters. So I appreciated the fact that he held me accountable and everybody else on the team to the same to the same level.
And then what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
So I don't consider myself to be an expert by any means in the author space. So I'll kind of turn to my day job, but I work in e-commerce and obviously Amazon dominates a lot of that conversation on a weekly basis. Working closely with them, what I found to be valuable is just simply how they approach innovation. No idea is too big or too crazy. I'll give you an example of that. Amazon actually has a patent for underwater distribution where they will actually take containers of products, they put them into these inflatable pods, they have the ability to sink them to the bottom of a river or lake and then inflate them back up when they want to bring the product to the surface. When I first heard that they had even filed a patent for that, I thought, This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. But in a time where space is limited and the company's quest is obviously to sell everything under the sun, it's not the most far-fetched idea. I think it just points to the fact that they want every idea out on the table, no matter how big or crazy. And a lot of those ideas, I'm sure when people first pitched them, they never thought they'd see the light of day. And sure enough, now they're finding ways to put those into application.
And then what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
I thought about this one for a while, but for me, it's really breaking everything down into ability versus motivation. And I always think of those two things with, with my team, which is simply, if you lack ability, or you are short on certain skills or knowledge, you have to have a plan to improve. So I always tell people to pick something and work on improving that. If you try to do 100 things at once, you'll end up learning nothing. And the second part is you have to obviously be motivated to do what you do. And so even the best of the best sometimes have days when you just aren't pumped up to go to work or to maybe make that sales call. So same thing, if you're bored, what's it gonna take to make a change? Do you need a mentor to hold you accountable? Do you read or listen to things that pump you up? And why are you doing what you do, what you're doing? So sometimes just even thinking about whether it's the extra money maybe you wanna make or girlfriend you're trying to impress, family member that you're providing for, sometimes that'll get you out of bed and make sure you're doing your best. Mm-hmm.
And then if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I would definitely say that it's to believe in yourself at all times. It's simply, you're good enough. And I always think about if everyone actually had 100% confidence in their abilities, imagine what life would be like. I think most people go through most of their life seeking assurance or approval from the people around them. And some of us have great managers, mentors, people around us that help us get the most out of those abilities. But for a lot of us, you need to either seek those things out or you need to find ways to self-manufacture that confidence. Because again, I just think there's too many people that, that go through most of their life and just never think that they're they're good enough at whatever they do, and then they've done it for 50 years, and then they realized they were good enough the whole time.
Uh-huh. And then, um, in your opinion, kind of going down a different path, what is the key to happiness?
I would say simply asking yourself if you're satisfied with your effort at the end of each day. I think success is the outcome of that effort, um, and will come eventually. If your happiness is based on what success occurs or what exactly it looks like, I think you'll always be disappointed. So the key to happiness for me is simply, you know, are you satisfied with what you can control and which is the effort you put out there? And you can't lie to yourself. And so how many days do you truly go to bed at night and say to yourself, great job, I really worked hard and smart today to accomplish my goals? I think if you could say those things, you'd be a pretty happy person.
And then what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
My favorite book is called Open by Andre Agassi. Even if you're not a tennis fan, what I learned from the book was that the story was hardly edited. It's not filtered like every social media channel out there. And just that ability to be raw and real when you tell people exactly what went down, how you actually felt about it. I feel like it's often uncomfortable as a writer to do that. But at the same time, those are kind of the true gems because that's real life. And I feel like even as a reader, you respect authors who are able to go to that level of emotion and even the times when it may make them or the various individuals in the story not look their best.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
My favorite quote is, every day you're either getting better or getting worse. You never stay the same.
I love it, man. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last one I got for you is, where can our audience best find you online?
You can follow me on Twitter @johnwilcom or LinkedIn. And also I'd encourage everybody to check out my book, which is Walk On Warrior. It's been a best-selling book in the basketball category on Amazon for the previous 9 weeks.
