Season 3 Halftime Show - How Ted Lasso Explains Leadership, Part 2

Phil: [00:00:00] Welcome back to How Soccer Explains Leadership. We have made it through another half of another great season, and I'm, I'm really excited for today because we have part two of How Ted Lasso Explains Leadership. If you didn't hear Part One of that, where Paul and I in the Season Two Post-Match Show talked about episodes one and two, go back and listen to that if you are a fan of Ted Lasso. If you aren't, I still think you should go back and listen to it, and you should become a fan of Ted Lasso because it is a great show with a lot of great lessons. But first half of this season, we had some great episodes, as well as with the last time we aren't going to necessarily go into those.

But yeah, generally, Paul, what'd you think of the first half of Season Three? 

Paul: [00:00:44] Once again, put together a great series of interviews crossing a lot of different conversations and different just a lot of different things in there. I mean, we were just talking before we jumped on here, just the different things that we're able to pull out of our different guests.

And some of it just great conversation and just dive in deeper into [00:01:00] how people are living life and how soccer just overlaps with so many things that I think even I don't really think much about until we get into other people's lives and how soccer really does overlap just about everything that, that.

We're doing at times and connecting those dots has been a lot of fun.

Phil: [00:01:15] Yeah. And even with you right now, how soccer explains leadership in life, you know, with COVID and issues. And then you were just telling me beforehand that you had to cancel a game this Saturday because the other team only had 10 players, and, you know, it's just, life happens sometimes and we just have to adjust and deal.

And how has that been just general? I mean, again, this isn't necessarily what this episode is about, but I know people are dealing with so many things with COVID. Pivoting. Life changes. Issues. How has that been in the context of a division one soccer program? As well as running a family and dealing with starting a new business and all this in the midst of, COVID just what what's that looking like?

Paul: [00:01:55] It's been crazy. And even this weekend, this will come out. I'm sure. After, the weekend for [00:02:00] sure, but just throughout the season, the way that we've navigated. Approaching the weekend, you know, just the communication between coaches and making sure that we're not putting our players in harm's way when it comes to where our numbers are, my team has been there.

a lot of teams that we've played have been there as far as they've got injuries or they've got COVID or lack of numbers has put their team in jeopardy of injury because of numbers or kids are having to return to play sooner than they normally would, because you're trying to meet the numbers that you need to play a match.

And, when does that become too much, you know, for the health and safety and the wellness of your players, and that's, I think every weekend or navigating that. And I think if anything, we've had a lot of great transparency between coaches just to navigate that where you are thinking, about your team, obviously, but you're thinking about the players on  the other side of the pitch and you know, so I think there's been some.

Uniting through a lot of this. But also it just kind of puts your focus where it needs to be. And I think we've talked about that from early on that if COVID has done anything, it's trimmed the fat in a lot of areas and really help you realize the things that are the most important when it comes to staff and team and, and, and friends and family, and really kind [00:03:00] of gets you to the heart of the matter.

So it is not been. Anything that I would love to go through again, but I think that it has sharpened us in a lot of ways. So it's hard to say that it's been an awful thing to go through, although there's been some tragedy for sure, but I think you can take it and realize that we're going to get sharper.

We're going to get better through a lot of these things.

Phil: [00:03:18] Absolutely. You know, as we're talking, I realized, I forgot to mention the fact that I'm Phil Darke. The host of this show with me is Paul Jobson the co-host. He's the women's soccer coach at Baylor University who, since we last talk has been crowned to the basketball national champion, you know, and at some point, hopefully there'll be the women's soccer, national champion as well.

So, you know, we'll see. So what was that party like?

Paul: [00:03:43] Oh, man. We just had the parade on Tuesday and T and downtown Waco and man, it was so cool. I mean, we've done it before with our women's basketball team and we're not, not that we haven't had national champions here on campus before we've had tennis.

We've had women's basketball, we've had Acrobatic tumbling we've had, so we're used to national championships. But that was a really [00:04:00] special one just in the 18 years that Scott Drew's been here and taking that team from kind of the death penalty to national champions and me personally, knowing that staff and the people that have come through that program just quality people.

And you just, couldn't be more excited for a program than I am for Scott Drew and his family. And you know, his basketball family, just great, great people. You know, great, great men of God and just really a cool, cool story. So it's been a lot of, been a lot of fun. So we're all enjoying the national championship this week.

Phil: [00:04:28] Yeah, no, that's, that's really cool. Hopefully a little break from the craziness of COVID too. And But you know, before we get into this Ted lasso conversation on episodes three and four, if you haven't watched those, or if you don't remember them, you might want to go back and we're going to talk about some of them.

You might go back and refresh your memory on them and nothing else gets good. Laughs. Or maybe a wait till after. So you can watch these leadership lessons after the fact and kind of do your own little post-mortem on these shows. But for again, before we get into that though, I want to re remind you that you can join this conference at a deeper level on the Facebook page that we [00:05:00] have for how soccer explains leadership connect with thus online too.

Can, you know, connect with me on an email, phil@howsoccerexplainsleadership.com. You can also go on to whether it's Facebook or any of the other social media outlets and connect with us via comments. Love to talk with you about people that you think would be good guests. Maybe you'd be a great guest, just quiet, you know, conversations more about how we can go deeper in our leadership through this beautiful game.

Also if you have any desire to go deeper with me on DISC personality stuff or other leadership principles with your clubs, with your teams, love to talk with you about that as well. So you know how to get ahold of us and go ahead and do that. You can look in the show notes if you forget, or you didn't didn't get that catch it.

You can also rewind. But now we are going to jump into. This fun conversation. Actually one more thing before we get back into that, I want to do re I do want to remind you if you haven't listened Phil Brown, he talked about how his adventure courses and the training he [00:06:00] does in adventure.

Sports relates to what we're talking about. Relates to leadership as well. We had Glenn Crooks who is a broadcaster. He also was the coach of Rutgers for years and years, claim to fame. He coached Carli Lloyd. He's got a lot more claim to fame than that, but that's what he told me. So I thought I'd throw it out there.

Actually I think that's probably one of the lesser things in his career. If you look back amazing things he has done I thought it was funny though, but it shows kind of man. He is, that's what he said. His claim to fame was. But he's also the voice of New York City FC part of the City Group.

That was a really fun conversation. We talked to a referee. And what's cool about that. You know, again, this is multi-disciplined stuff here. He wasn't even a soccer referee, field hockey, soccer, a softball, umpire, and basketball referee. Great conversation about angle perspective, you know, not, not compounding mistakes, talking about respecting authority, all kinds of cool, and we talked about VAR and, you know, if it's up to me, we scrap the thing.

But we talked about that. You can hear what what Del thought about that and that Del Jones interview, and then Max Rooke, who is the [00:07:00] Pepperdine assistant coach, who also is a leadership coach. Some great conversation there too. So go back and listen to those. But again, we're not going to go deep into those because we are talking about, we'll start with episode three of Ted Lasso that we'll get an episode four a little bit later, but the first thing I want to kick off this, this episode or this, this conversation with is this conversation that that Ted had in his coaches room with Roy Kent and Coach Beard.

And basically what this is about is if you remember in the show, Jamie Tartt's buddies, they're making fun of, and kind of bullying Nate, the great, you know, which, you know, as we find out later in the show, you don't want to bully Nate, the great, but they were right.

And so Roy is getting mad about it. He goes and talks to, to Ted about it. And, and and Roy is like, Ted, what are you going to do? He goes nothing. And he's like, what do you mean? He says, well, Roy, I learned two pretty big lessons on the rough and tumble playgrounds of Brook Ridge Elementary School. One if little Ronnie Fowch [00:08:00] offers you a candy bar, you immediately say no, and you get the hell out of there.

Cause there's a good chance that little son of a gun is just pooped inside of a Butterfinger wrapper. No one ever saw him do it, but a couple of people ate it. Number two, the teacher tells you, bully tells the bully not to pick on someone. It's just going to make it worse. So Roy said, so you're not going to do anything.

And Ted said, Nope. So Beard then says, why are you winding him up? Ted says, he's the one. If we're going to make an impact here, the first domino that needs to fall is right inside that man's heart. So that interchange, I wanted to go through it. First of all, because I thought it was pretty funny. I didn't nail it nearly as well as Ted.

But if you see in the show, you can imagine Sudeikis say it a lot better. It's why he makes millions of money doing comedy. And I don't, but what'd you think?

Paul: [00:08:48] Yeah. I mean, it's a great scene. I thought your rendition was fantastic. Phil, give yourself some credit there, man. But but yeah, I think that when, when he [00:09:00] goes into that office, you're not sure exactly what.

How Ted's going to approach that, but I think you handled it beautifully because we've said this before, whether it's been on, in our clubhouse conversations or on this podcast that, Ted is who he is, who he is, and he's, he's doing things in the short term that are going to be help him be successful in the long run.

He's not looking for short term gains because the easy thing would have been for him to run into that fire, try to put it out himself. But as he knew, if the one of the authority goes and addresses that with a bully, it's probably gonna make it worse. And so, his ability to identify the best way to get to his team in the locker room is great.

And he realizes it is if that situation can kind of take care of itself inside the locker room, They're going to be able to have a lot more success within the locker room. I say to our players all the time, I love you guys and I'm here to help and facilitate, but you guys live, eat, breathe together.

I'm kind of an outsider when it comes to the locker room. If it can be, if it can be controlled inside the [00:10:00] longevity of those decisions is gonna be much greater than if I step into a situation. So I love that from a coaching perspective and leadership perspective that, there are certain things that as a leader you have to handle, but if things can be handled kind of on the inside, so to speak that's the best way for it to be handled.

And, and it may not, it may be bumpy, right? I mean, it was bumpy. It wasn't it wasn't like he just walked in there and addressed it and everything was fine. But I love that scene and obviously the, the humor of it made it more fun, but it's realistic. I think.

Phil: [00:10:28] Absolutely.

Absolutely. I mean, I, I talk about it all the time, right? I mean, there's a great book too. I don't know if you've read it. It's called The Coddling of the American Mind and it's by Jonathan if you haven't read it, folks fantastic book. But, it goes to this, this principle, right? This idea of what he talks about.

And there's a few different things, but one of them was this idea of now safetyism in our world. Whereas parents it's like, don't go to the park kids. Cause you might get kidnapped. You might get hurt. You might get this. You might get that rather than, I don't know about you, Paul. But when I was a kid, I was just like, mom, I'm [00:11:00] going to ride my bike.

She's like, and she didn't even ask where I just, where we're going to ride bikes. Right. We went. And we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have stuff. We'd go to the park with friends, we'd get into a fight or we'd get into an argument. We had to deal with it. Right. We had to come up with a solution. I mean, I got in fist fights with people and that night we were hanging out.

Right. I didn't do that very often. Maybe once I could. Okay. I did it once, but I still did it. I can, I can wear that badge. Right. But I wasn't, you know, if you listen enough, you know, I I'm a lover, not a fighter, but let's, let's just be honest, whether there were a few but that's the point, right?

Like we could have these arguments, we could work through them. We could deal with them rather than today where it's like, they don't go to the park. And he says, what that leads to is you don't know how to deal with conflict. You don't know how to do time management. You don't know how to, you know, just deal with these issues that come up in life.

Right. Because we're getting where there's an argument. It's like, mom, Billy's calling me a name. And then the kid's mom goes and talks to Billy's mom, what's going on. And they, they work it out. [00:12:00] Right. And so that's kind of that point here, but also the leadership that he knows that Roy needs to be the leader of that locker room now, whether it's Roy or somebody else as a coach, we know as coaches, there are those people that if we say, if they get it, the team will get it because people want to follow that guy, but they got to get it first. Right? You got to understand self before you can lead in before you can be that true leader of others. Have you seen that play out? I mean, you talked a little bit about that, but from that leadership perspective, from that one, or maybe two or three people that if they get it.

As he said that domino that needs to fall is right inside that man's heart. Like if they get it, but they didn't necessarily get it at first. Have you ever had that

Paul: [00:12:47] even within our program, you know, we've been here 13 years and the ebb and flow of, of players as they, you know, filter in and filter out your leadership changes, from year to year for the most part.

And if, if the leadership isn't changing [00:13:00] from year to year, the people that are following change from year to year, so there's a lot of turnover in, and we're where we are. And so there is an ebb and flow of. I don't want to say it ebb and flow of commitment, but there is an ebb and flow of, how things are, are dictated in the locker room.

You know, I mean, my, my standards haven't changed as a coach. The way that I approach things hasn't really changed a whole lot as far as what our core values are as a program. But I do think that how it's communicated in the locker room changes from year to year. so you do see an ebb and flow of commitment to certain things.

Like, for example, let's just take fitness standards, and we've changed our fitness testing in different years, just based on, science and things that people are saying need to be done. But the buy in there is different from year to year and your leadership we've seen.

The sooner the leadership buys into what you're doing. The sooner the rest of the team kind of comes along, because what you can also see is, is what's considered a loud minority within your program where you've got the folks who maybe aren't on board, you find out they're really loud about what they think, but there's really only a few of them.

And then when you really kind of, you [00:14:00] start to dissect it, you realize like, man, like there's really only a couple of people who aren't on board with this, but they're really loud. So you've got your quiet majority that you're like, man, you guys have got to speak up because this is important to most of you for being drowned out by a couple of people.

So yeah, you see that ebb and flow in different things, but like Ted, did you identify that person that, that gets it and that can communicate it. And does, I mean, he had the majority of the locker room. there's only one guy he really didn't have. And, and of course he had a couple of little followers, but they turned very quickly when push came to shove.

So that was a fun dynamic to watch. Cause I think you do see that in, I've seen that in my own locker, not to that extreme, I don't deal with guys, you know, the bravado and all that stuff, but you do see a little bit of that.

Phil: [00:14:43] Well, of course it's hyperbole and I don't think it was push came to shove. I think it was headbutt came to headbutt, that's all right.

I've seen the show, you know, what I'm talking about. But yeah, so, so I think that that's one thing we can talk more about that, but I think we'll move on to the next thing. Cause we do have two episodes of Ted Lasso to get through the other is [00:15:00] the, we'll get to this, this idea of Ted gave all these players a book.

Right now that spoke volumes on different levels. Right? So it showed one. He wanted them to learn, which is a huge part of it. But also each book was different. It's not like he gave them all the same book. Right. So. Jamie Tartt I don't remember the book that he got. It's easier to remember the one that Roy got, because it was talked about a lot more, but Jamie got the book called The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

So if you've seen the show, you know, why he gave him that book, but then he gave the book to Roy and it goes to the same idea. This, he gave Roy A Wrinkle in Time. And if you remember a wrinkle in time, it had a reluctant leader had Meg she's a reluctant leader, great book and a kid's book.

But, you know, as we saw in the show, the adults can learn from it too. If you watched it, you see that Roy went through it, read it. And as I forgot to mention this beginning, you know it, by now, we already have spoilers. So this is an official spoiler alert that came after some [00:16:00] spoiled things.

but this reluctant leader idea, So what do you think about that? Cause this goes to personalities too. This goes to a lot of different things. This goes to understanding your players, things we've talked about on the show over and over. I think this is a great practical example. So I don't necessarily want to just focus on the books and whatnot, but what are some of those practical things we can do as coaches to be able to come into each player individually while not can, you know, you can't take the time every day to pour into them individually at that level, but how can we study our players help our players to develop individually in the context of the team? 

Paul: [00:16:41] You mean just the individual leadership, just on that principle that everybody has influenced, how are you pointing at each person to find their leadership through those things kind of like

Phil: [00:16:50] them, right.

How can, what did he do through that? Right. So to just talk a little bit about that, but then more just the idea of, you know, how can we help to develop each individual [00:17:00] player to help them to flourish, right? How are we cultivating that environment to help all of our players to flourish?

Paul: [00:17:08] Well, we've talked about this a lot on, on the podcast in different things is you've got first, you've got to know yourself as a leader, right.

Then you've got to know your players. And the only way to really get to know your players is by having a conversation. I think, and whether it's, you know, in the office or it's, it's on the pitch, I, in a training session you know, I have an assistant that the way he gets to know the players is through individual training.

That's where they connect, And for me, it might be more, you know, in the office or after a training session, but. If you don't really get to know your players and what makes them tick, I don't think you can really pour into them what it is that they need to, maximize their influence on the team.

And I think because it's television Ted was able to identify personalities very quickly to figure out which books to give people. But I thought that was an interesting, concept for sure to give those, those different books to different people, but just shows, you know, his intentionality and what he felt was important.

But I think just [00:18:00] intentionality pouring into each person individually to pull out what it is that gives them the most influence. And we talk about. Even within our, our leaders, you know, I think, you know, we had a senior group dinner last night. And one of the things that we talked through was like, Hey, tell, tell us something that you value about someone else in this room.

So it was our seniors. Hey, one senior year, you talk about another senior and talk about the things that, that you value about them as a person. And a lot of times that ends up being what their influence is on the team. And so even having your team pull out and identify places that people have influenced is important, because I think it's hard to identify for yourself sometimes what those things are.

So sometimes you need people to speak into you. So those are some things that we've done. To help do that. But I do think getting to know each person's personality is, is really important. What makes them tick? What, what fires them up? You know, it's not like just stepping on the pitch, fires everybody up.

It does to an extent, but what is it within those circumstances that [00:19:00] I've got a couple of girls love being organizers. They want to organize the team dinners. They want to organize the coffee talks. They want to organize the Bible studies. And I got others are like, I don't want anything to do with organizing, you know, there's other things.

Yeah. I want to do so, getting to know those personalities, I think has been, been really important and that's something that it's like, Ted. Ted has been able to do very quickly, obviously read the scripts. You know, he read the script, knew whatever his personality was.

Phil: [00:19:23] Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Obviously with with TV, it fast-forwards the process, but I think like you said, and there are three other things that can fast forward the process.

I mean, as we talked about you know, doing DISC assessments, having people be able to understand the personalities, but you got to understand what DISC is and how it works. And, and then you need to understand yourself and you need to understand others. So there's, there is work that goes into it. But what I loved about it was, yeah, it's not just the same book it's intentionality of this is what you need at this moment to be able to help to develop who you are.

Right. And that can be done a lot of different ways, but I think it's that the [00:20:00] point is that intentionality. And I think the other thing that, that it showed in there was you can't make anyone do anything. now there's consequences for not doing it. But Jamie took the book, tossed it in the trash. It said a lot about his teachability, his coachability. It said a lot about, what was his, you know, how can you get to him? It may not be as simple as some people you give them a book, they'll read it. Other people, you give them a book. They'll either pretend to read it. They won't read it or they'll throw it in the trash or they'll, intend to read it.

Not because they, whatever. Right. But how do you follow up? How are you able to have those conversations? You don't just give them the book and say, go. But I think the best part that I liked about it, it wasn't a book that said, this is going to just reinforce what you already think. It was books that address blind spots.

And so I think that's something as coaches, as leaders of our people, as leaders of our families, to be able to help [00:21:00] our children, help our employees, help our players, help our spouses see the blind spots so they can be sharpening who they are. And they can be flourishing at that highest level because for the people we love and the people we care about and the people we leading, we want them to be able to see their blind spots, not so they can, you know, not work on strengths and not do all that.

I mean, I'm, I'm a big fan of strength based leadership as well. But I also know that if we don't know our blind spots, at the very least, we're not able to flourish at the highest level within our strengths. So any thoughts on that before we move on to the next thing. Yeah, I

Paul: [00:21:38] think those things are really important.

I think sometimes, the reason that our group, yesterday spent so much time pouring into each other and with a positive words, because I think because of COVID and there's been so much negativity lately that I think our, our blind spots have been drawn out to a greater extent over the last year within our program.

So we've been trying to be very intentional on the other side of it [00:22:00] to pull out, Hey, here, here a lot of the positives. So, as we've learned on this podcast through one of our interviews a few weeks ago that our brain, you know, 80% of the thoughts are negative thoughts. We go there a lot and especially in times when times are tough, But finding those and identifying those blind spots is, is very important.

You talk about children you know, helping them navigate those things is so important, you know, as we're, I was talking to someone earlier this morning about just with COVID and just kind of the thing that everybody's been through, how important it is that we walk our children through this, because they need to know how to, to think through this, how to find their blind spots through this, how to grow through this, how to be spiritually stronger through this.

So, the partnerships and those things are very important. Whether you're guiding your team, you're guiding your business or you're guiding your family.

Phil: [00:22:48] Yeah, definitely. No, I think that that's it's so again, I, you said partnership. I mean, it's really seeing that we are a team and if we're truly a team, then we're going to care.

We're going to love, we're going to want to [00:23:00] be able to help them flourish or we want to, and we're going to trust them to challenge us, to be able to be the best we can be too. It's as iron sharpens, iron one, man, sharpens another, right? That, that proverb has been used in so many things for good reason, right?

I mean, it is truth. It is something that, but it hurts iron sharpening iron is not a process that is easy and simple and doesn't have issues. No, it's banging together and it's actually forging That iron, that steel, that whatever it is, a sword, whatever it is, it doesn't just happen. There is friction, there are times where we need to come into that fray and be able to really pour into that and really deal with these issues.

that's definitely something that like I said, I mean, if you saw in the, in the episode, Roy was, as he finished that book, he said a word that I'm not going to repeat on this podcast because it would go into the explicit category, but he realized it right. And that, that was a, not a thing he wanted to do.

It was friction. It caused that [00:24:00] uncomfortable part, as we've talked about on the show, most of the great things in life, come on, just the other side of comfortable. And so he was getting out of that comfort zone and realizing, no, I need to be this next person, which turned out to be, as we look in the show that next phase of life he's going to need a lot of those things.

So if we truly are developing human beings and not just players, for a soccer team, then, then that's something that's should be important to us.

Paul: [00:24:22] Yeah. I think you touched on something there Phil that I don't want just to float over, but I think it's so important that no matter what the situation is, whether it's a difficult situation, mainly the difficult situations for sure.

Cause those are the ones that stand out the most. But you know, I fully believe that, God puts you in situations that it may not be something that he's teaching you for the right now, but if you don't go through it right now, you won't be what you need to be for whatever it is that's coming next.

So I think they're all the struggles that so many people have gone through during this COVID season, in, God's preparing us for what's next, so that we can be more resilient or whatever it is, everybody's situation is different. But I think if we try to skip through it and [00:25:00] get past it, or, Cover it with something or pretend it doesn't happen or whatever.

I think we miss an opportunity to grow and develop to be what God wants us to be, especially in whatever that you mentioned the next phase of life for, for Roy. You know, I'd see that with my players. Like, Hey, there's some difficult things we're going to go through here while you're in college, but you're in a safe zone to go through those things and safe area to fail.

Where when you get out of here and real life hits ya. You're going to be more prepared. So I didn't want to just brush over what you say. I think it's so important Phil what you said there about, Hey, it's preparing for what's next the next phase of life, whatever, whatever that thing is.

Phil: [00:25:33] Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely glad that you, you reiterated it because yeah, if there's one thing we want to make sure we're talking about here, it's that it's that we are, it's more than it is more than soccer. You talked about, some of the different past episodes. It made me think of when I was talking with Eric Pfeiffer on emotional intelligence and James one, right.

Two through five, or where it talks about consider it pure joy. When you face trials of many kinds, That's not something the world teaches you. That's not [00:26:00] something that we normally say, Oh yeah. Consider it pure joy when you're suffering, when you're going through these issues, when you have problems.

But when you can see that other side, when you have that eternal perspective, when you have a perspective that is much greater than just this game or this day, or this week, or this year, and we can look beyond it and go, okay, COVID happened? What were we able to do? How did COVID grow us? How did these lockdowns grow us?

How did this common testing, how did not being able to have a, a game and dealing with that disappointment? How has that making a stronger for the future? I mean, I just complained before this call and I didn't do what I just talked about where I'm like, we just found out we have to do testing for the high school this year.

And it's just like, man, what a, what? A pain in the butt. Right. Which you're going Phil, it's nothing. Come on, man. I've dealt with a lot worse than that, but but still , these are. Little issues blips on the radar. But if we focus on them in the short term and we deal with them, I mean, we just like focus and focus and focus, then yeah, it could tear us up.

It could put us into depression, it could put [00:27:00] us on all these things. But if we have that, that view of we are getting sharpened, we are getting formed and our character is being developed in our integrity is being shaped and formed. Our identity is being formed. Then we have a whole different perspective on it.

Going back to perspective. As we talked about with that Del Jones interview. So the next thing I want to get into is, is really this idea of having a humble and learning posture. So there's one thing Ted lasso has. It's, it's a humble and learning posture in the context of, of soccer in the context of these other things that he's doing so that it comes into a few times in this episode.

And one is during the interview with Trent Crimm actually right before the interview kind of starts, but right when Trent comes up and he sees the play on the field and he goes, where'd this play come from? And it earlier in the episode, Ted had asked Nate the great for some advice and Nate gave it to him.

And so they tried this and it always cracks me up when they have the set plays like throughout the, the field. Like it's like we do that in soccer. But anyway, he, he tried a play of Nate's and it worked and Trent says, wait a sec, you got [00:28:00] advice on coaching from a kit, man. And Ted said to Trent, he said, Nate has forgotten more about this game than I'll ever know or something like that.

But it's this idea of. Who would go to the kit man for strategic advice. and obviously again, it's a little hyperbole, it's a little whatever, but that's such a great lesson from a, for us that we can learn really from anybody about life, about things that we can take. And if we truly have that posture of, no, tell me, what are your thoughts?

I could learn something from it and if not, well, we're building relationships, so that's a win, So what is, what do you think of that? How have you seen that in your life? As far as that humble posture, that learning posture, we've talked about it on the show before too, but I think it comes into play so often throughout this, this show, but I think in this episode, it really, and you could see how Trent was just like, this makes no sense, right?

This is such not the way of the world, especially the world of [00:29:00] football. So what do you think?

Paul: [00:29:02] Yeah. And I think when you get to the end of it and Trent kind of writes a story, I mean, that's part of the story is that,  I don't understand that, but he's just hard not to like the guy,  and I think in an organization, if you can recognize that first of all, as a leader, you can't have your eyes on all things but if you can trust the eyes of other people that are seeing things that you're not, you're going to go a lot further.

I talked a minute ago about our players, you know, I'm not, I'm not in it with them. I'm not a player. I'm not, you know, hanging out with them away from the soccer field. we're not living life together. But their eyes are important and what they see, you know, my athletic trainer, it's important, you know what she sees my strength coach, what she sees our dietician, what, what he sees, my director of operations, what she sees, because we're all seeing things differently.

And I think. Nate, the greats perspective is fantastic because, you know, you'll see it when, later on in the season when he gets to address the team, his perspective is spot on better than anything that, that Ted or beard are going to be able to say, because Nate, the great is [00:30:00] not only, and in the locker room, he's kind of been a fly on the wall in the locker room.

He's in there, no other if they want to pick on it, but he's walking through, putting out, uniforms and cleaning things and he's hearing things that they don't think you hear. So that perspective, when there's a trust there amongst, two people where he can go to Ted and, and share thoughts Ted being humble in those situations, Understanding that how important that is, is going to help him be a better leader.

So I don't think you can turn your eyes and ears off to other people in your organization without, maybe spiraling out of control because you really don't like you can't have your pulse on, on, on everything, but I'd love to hear kind of your perspective and the, organizations that you're running, how that plays out.

Phil: [00:30:42] Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's just, I know I can learn from anybody. You know, literally I've done work all around the world and I've talked to people in the slums of numerous countries. In fact, it was really cool yesterday, just yesterday or two days ago, I got a LinkedIn message from a friend of [00:31:00] mine in Brazil, from a trip I went on, it was a lawyer to Lubbock.

When I was a lawyer in my past life as a lawyer to lawyer ministry trip, I went down to Brazil, to San Paulo and, one of the attorneys that I had met during that trip reached out to me just out of the blue. He's like, Hey, how are you doing? Remember our trip? And he promised me so Gilberto, if you're listening to this, I do mean it.

I'm going to, I'm going to come back down there and make good on that offer to go to the Santos match with you someday. So, just be ready with that ticket. But that the point of that, it wasn't even so much with him, but there were people in the slums people in some of the ministries that I'm learning from them things to this day, from that trip in 2005, I'm still using.

There are other people, these kids that I'm learning from as I'm either watching them, or I'm seeing them to talk about hope. I see, watch a three or four year old or five. I mean, you see it regularly, but watch them enjoy life. The carefree, you know, you hear Jesus say, come to me with faith, like a child, [00:32:00] like a child, right.

Watch them and learn from them. Like you can, we can learn so much from that about not letting the little things bother us. But at some point, you know, you hear about that. You do studies with kindergarteners and they say, how many uses of a paperclip are there? And they have like 5,000 uses of a paperclip.

Then you ask a high school, senior, how many uses of a paperclip? And they come up with like three. And it's this idea of we are. It's interesting. The more we learn, it seems like the less we are creative, the less we can think outside the box, the less we can learn that, that we don't know or that we don't want to know.

Right. So when we go with people from different perspective, we go with people from different cultures. We go with people from different views on life. We go with different positions in our organization. So you see the best organizations of the world, that leadership books I've read. The best companies. [00:33:00] 3M is a great example.

3M gives each of their employees a set time every day to just dream about new products. You wonder how 3m got to be, where they are. It's because their employees came up with the post-it, came up with other things that we use every day and it wasn't just cause they were like, I wish I had something to stick on my computer where I can look or probably wasn't a computer.

It was like a, like, I wish I could just stick it on my notebook so I can remember something later. Oh, well I don't wanna do that. Right. Because when we think about that or they say, you know, the best time to learn and be creative is just going to walk. Cause you clear your mind. Right? so much more. I mean, we can spend five episodes talking about this and we will talk more with different people.

I have no doubt about this topic, but you say it, but how have I learned about it? Well, whether I'm a lawyer, again, as a lawyer, I've learned one thing as a lawyer. If I learned anything as a lawyer, I learned this one thing. If you don't know something, go get an expert witness. You can [00:34:00] know just enough to know what you don't know.

And then you go get somebody else who can help you learn. Right. So if you don't know something, yeah. You can go on Wikipedia. You can go on Google, you can go on whatever, but you don't know the credibility of that source. So you need to get to know people, you need to understand them. And then you need to be able to understand their heart, their views on things, their worldview.

Are you on the same page then? Okay. Let's have conversations. Right. So I think that in our organizations, if we're not going to everybody, literally everybody in the organization, there was a silly soccer movie I watched, I don't even want to admit what it was. But it had a, if you've seen it, you know, it there's this janitor who was.

This guy, who's just, you know, no one paid attention to. And he ended up being the coach of the team because he played in some South American country. I forget which one, but he played and he was a star and they found out that and he ended up coaching the team. But again, he would have been forgotten and he wouldn't have even been seen.

If you don't [00:35:00] ask the question and you don't enter into that relationship to find out what might, you know,

Paul: [00:35:06] Yeah. That's, that's great. Just being, being open to conversation with anybody, whether they're the janitor or the CEO or, whoever there's people who have great perspectives.

And I think, I think it's, Andy Andrews does a great job of talking about, you know, the older I get, the more I realized, I don't know.  When I was 20 something, they asked me, I knew everything, but now that,  I guess now he's probably in his sixties or seventies, like I realized how much I don't really know about the world.

Right. And being open to hearing what people have to say. And I think that's something that, that Ted does a really good job on the show of listening to. People around him to help navigate, the ins and outs of running that team to make it, to get the locker room where he needs to be to get their front office where he, he needs it to be not knowing that everything is being pushed against him in that time, but doing a great job of listening to so many different people and in doing that, it gets everybody you know, spoiler alert.

It's basically everybody on the, on the same page moving forward.

Phil: [00:35:58] Right. And as Glenn [00:36:00] Crooks talked about going back to the first episode of this half of this season John Wooden quote, the best things we learned or the things we learned after we know everything. So it's the same idea of that Andy Andrews quote.

And That's why we do the show. We have people that, I mean, who would think that a dude who I'll referee of a field hockey, which I've never watched a field hockey game, I'm not going to lie, but he can come on and teach us about soccer, leadership and stuff.

It guy who teaches adventure, sports, other people who, have never coached a game. But they can teach coaches. They can teach leaders. They can, people who haven't led, fortune 500 company can teach a fortune 500 exec, A soccer coach of a measly school in Waco. Texas can teach a CEO of these companies.

Right? Like that's the beauty of it. And so,

Paul: [00:36:45] Yeah. I mean, my, my dad was a fantastic soccer coach, but he never played soccer in his life. You know, he played football, he ran track, but he was a leader. He knew how to get people around him to get done what needed to be done. And we had some [00:37:00] great whereas youth soccer, but we had some great youth teams growing up.

He was one of the first, and I'm not saying that because of my dad, Clint Mathis became who he was, but it was one of Clint's first coaches. And he knew how to get people to do what they, to get the best out of people. And it was because he was a soccer coach is because he was a leader and he knew how to get the most out of people.

But he also knew what he didn't know and got people around him. To do those things. And I think by the end of his life, people were like, man, your dad was an amazing soccer coach. did he play? I'm like, Oh yeah. My, my mom introduced us to soccer at the YMCA. When we were, when my brother was like four, you know, my dad was like, what is this foreign thing?

But, but because he knew what he didn't know. He stepped in to be something really pretty special. And of course now that's trickled down to now. His son is basically a professional soccer coach, which is crazy, But because of his leadership and his, his ability to get the best out of people.

I think a lot of lives were changed from that perspective. So a cool example just in my own life of somebody that knew what he didn't know. But knew what he did know and put those things [00:38:00] together and was able  to have some success on and off the field.

Phil: [00:38:03] yeah, definitely my dad, same story.

I'm not going to rehash the entire story, but thanks dad.   it's, it's something now he didn't, he doesn't have the, I'm going to say it. Your dad was the reason Clint Mathis made the world cup team. So, um, but I don't know if we had any world cup players, but my dad, same story played football, never played soccer, but he was great coach for many years for me.

And, we won a State cup. We won these different things. So it's like, again, because he was willing to learn. He knew people. He knew how to get the best out of people. It goes to the next thing. The next question,

Paul: [00:38:37] wait though, our dads. That generation were the original Ted lasso, they were there, the

Phil: [00:38:43] original Ted lasso and you're in Texas.

Of course he was Kansas. Yeah. But still like that's yeah, you're

Paul: [00:38:48] great. That generation was a generation of people of, that were like, Hey, I don't know anything about this sport, but I see the benefits of it. they took, you know, I've changed the next [00:39:00] generation of soccer in our country really.

But if you take this like that, they were, the original Ted Lassos, you know? So thanks to our forefathers. Well,

Phil: [00:39:08] they, they should get royalties on the show. I dunno. I think, I think we need to work on that. So that goes really, I mean, what a great segue that wasn't even 10, we just, this just happens folks.

Like you think we, we, this thing, but the next quote and the next thing is when Trent basically talked to, to Ted about, he goes, Hey, did I hear right when I heard you, you guys had a party for a player after you guys lost to Crystal Palace? And Ted says, yeah, I've never concerned myself much with wins and losses.

And then later in the, in the episode Ted said to him, he said, success. Isn't about wins and losses. It's about helping these young men be the best versions of themselves on and off the field. And we talk about this all the time. We don't need to belabor the point, but I just want to see if you have anything else to say on that point before or we talk about it and then I just, you know, yes.

Talk about that. And then I'm gonna talk [00:40:00] about one more thing, and then we're going to go to episode four after you talk about this, but. You got to talk about the Indian food too, with Ollie. And you just got to talk about that.

Paul: [00:40:08] I think quickly, I mean, you know this about me, but I feel like if you get those pieces, right, and it's, it's about the people, then I think the wins take care of themselves.

You get the right people in place, you do it the right way. The wins take care of themselves. And we feel like that, for us, developing young people is extremely important. Our vehicle is soccer. But if done correctly, I think the wins will take care of themselves. I, you know, I fully agree that, I can't say that I don't concern myself with wins and losses because too many losses I won't be here.

But I think that is kind of something that's missed, especially at the professional level is that, you know, we've talked about how quick Ownership groups are to change people out. And we don't really need to rehash that probably, but if you are going to invest in people and it is about people, I think you need some time to be able to do that.

And I do think the wins the success on the field will take care of itself if done the right way.

[00:41:00] Phil: [00:40:59] I agree. And I I've said that many times that I do think that's kind of the dirty little secret of coaching in my, in my opinion is if you focus on the people and developing human beings, yeah. You need the talent, of course.

But at some level of talent, I think that the coaches that don't focus on the people will lose. Eventually, we've used Mourinho as an example of that. Look at Tottenham right now. I mean, it's, it's the same thing over and over. And then I don't know his style. I don't know how he does it, but I was just hearing some guys talk about Zinedane Zidane and seeing what he's doing at Real Madrid.

Quietly mind you, he's not bringing a lot of focus and attention to himself and at Real Madrid that's, that's kinda hard, but the silence from that club has actually been, you know, deafening really to wonder like what is going on there. And then all of a sudden there's the semi-finals of the champions league.

And by the time this airs that it may have another game with that, but they were talking about him saying, he's one of the kindest men, not withstanding the headbutt in the world cup, but we all [00:42:00] know the kind of guys, if, if you know that often get that

Paul: [00:42:03] Even Phil Darke got in a fight one time I heard.

So

Phil: [00:42:05] that is true. I heard that same thing. So, And so did everyone else earlier on? So, yeah, but I think that that's something that we, we, again, we talk about it all the time. If it's not, that's why this show exists. If it's not about helping the young men and women that are in our lives, seeing it as a privilege, seeing it as something that we get to train them up to be the best versions of themselves.

And it's not solely landing on us, but if we're having this much time with men and women, young girls and boys where it's two, three nights a week and, and Saturdays and Sundays potentially, and just time with them, that's more time than some parents get with the kids during the week. So if we're not taking that seriously, then I think we're missing the boat for sure.

Paul: [00:42:54] And I think getting deeper into the Ted and just kind of his. [00:43:00] Perspective on things, you know, it's not just about his soccer team. I mean, look at how he pours into the little girl in the street, playing soccer, and you want to talk about the hot spicy food. I mean, he's pouring into that dude. who serving the food is his dad's restaurant and he is killing himself, eating that because he is trying to build up,  that he's not a kid.

I mean, he's an adult as a restaurant, a restaurant with his dad basically. But like, he wants to, to build people up, you know, and he's not doing it. It's not like the food was bad. It probably was really good. He just wasn't used to the heat. Okay.

Phil: [00:43:31] I can appreciate that. I would not, I would have been Ted in the Indian restaurant, so I am not a spicy food guy, so I would have, yeah,

Paul: [00:43:38] I wouldn't have been Ted because I don't think I would have put it in my mouth.

He's a bad band. I wouldn't do you know what we're doing here? But you know, I, I think that's just his personality. Right. And it, it, it goes back to things we've talked about on this show before. Is it like. You got to know who you are, you are, who you are, no matter what the circumstances are. He's the same guy in the restaurant with Ted Crimm as he is in the locker room with, with [00:44:00] Beard and, and Roy and Jamie.

Phil: [00:44:02] Yeah. And that should be encouraging to all of us to again, know who you are, do thy own self be true. But you need to know thine own self before you can be true to thine own self. And if you don't, you know, that Shakespeare for folks out there, if you aren't cultured like, like Paul that that's Shakespeare.

I, of course, as I say that, I don't is that MacBeth? I forget. But anyway, so it's one of those, one of those plays if you know that and you, and you email me with that I'll find a prize for you. But let's move on to episode four, which goes to similar things where it's talking about These ideas of getting people together and helping people to flourish in it.

And they knowing that if you're in conflict and you're not able to work out and reconcile with others, that's only going to help. And that's only gonna make you weak or make you somebody who's struggling with something, as they say, what is it like? If you, if you don't forgive someone it's like taking poison and expecting the other person to die or something like that, Like this bitterness is eating you up. and it's [00:45:00] not only breaking down the team, but it's taking away from who you can be. Right. So, you know, they're fighting in the locker room and it's one of my, I love it. He goes, he goes, Hey, Beard. What's the number one rule of fight club is no fight club.

And then, and then when they're fighting on the field, he goes, you know what I'm thinking? And beard says, yep. West side story. He goes, you got it. Sharks and the jets. So again, this is just culture day. We got Shakespeare, we got musicals, you know, so what more do you want for, I mean, I'm trying here, I'm trying to, to help you out there to get developed in your culture.

But beyond that, so many good lessons from this. And if you go into that episode, I'm going to kind of bring a lot of it together and we can talk about it all at the same time. Cause we are kind of late in this, in this show, but this show, if you remember this episode, they go and they have the, the benefit.

And the really the most of the episode is centered around. I'll send around a couple of things. One is Rebecca finding her identity, but then also as, as he said to the guys, he said, you don't need to be best friends to be great teammates. It's talking to Roy and Jamie in particular, these two [00:46:00] guys who are leaders using different, you know, whether it's intentional or not, leadership is influence.

And Jamie's influencing and Roy's influencing. And then the, the quote, he said I like my locker rooms. Like I liked my mother's bathing suit. I only want to see that thing in one piece. So, then as they go and then Jamie, Jamie, and Roy end up at the bar reconciling as they do, it's not that they're best buddies, but they at least come to a, an agreement almost like a mutual respect in some way.

And then it goes on. So what, what did you think? I just want to hear your thoughts on that from a, from a whole and kind of a. 30,000 foot view. So to speak on that episode and anything else that you want to pull out of it as we kind of bring this episode to a close,

Paul: [00:46:46] well, I've, I've heard, other people comment on kind of that idea of you don't have to be best friends, but you've got to be teammates and, and, you know, folks that aren't in the locker room all the time, or don't run sports teams.

That it's kind of an interesting concept. But [00:47:00] for me, I feel like that's taken out of, out of every locker room. Like I think probably every coach has said that at some point in their career, like, Hey, you don't have to be best friends, but you have to be teammates and helping people navigate what that actually looks like is very important because I think especially at the youth level and probably the college level especially in the, in the women's game, I would say that they feel like they have to be best friends.

And while we want everyone to get along and be friends at the end of the day, when it comes to competition, they've just gotta be teammates and treating people with respect on the field and off the field know, just being teammates. You know, we work together. we have a common goal that we're trying to attain.

We have to be able to work together. We have to be coworkers, but it doesn't mean we have to have coffee every morning together or eat dinner together, or even talk off the field necessarily. But I do think that common respect is very important for them to be able to help the team accomplish their goals as a team.

And I think that, that kind of that scene at the bar with Jamie and Roy as they kind of worked through things during earlier on in that episode it [00:48:00] was important that you finally saw. The walls break down a little bit. Yeah. Egos. Well, the egos don't go away, but there's some cracks in the wall there where light comes through and  it's not just complete darkness and they're able to communicate to the point where there's some commonality there where they can say, okay, maybe we can make this work, you know, and a lot of it came to the point where realizing, Roy kind of admitting that he was a lot like Jamie, when he was younger, finding those commonalities between two people who maybe don't get along is usually the thing that kind of brings that light through the darkness a little bit.

Phil: [00:48:34] Yep. You know, I think I've talked about it on this show, but I know I've talked about it on the Think Orphan Podcast, a lot, one of my mentors, speaking of mentorship, because that's the thing, what happens on this show too, is seeing Roy as that older player, seeing himself as a mentor is what Roy is trying to get him.

I mean, Ted is trying to get Roy to understand, but one of my mentors said to me I was talking with him and he does mediation in the middle East. And I said to him, I said, how in the [00:49:00] world, you know, you're talking about Sunni versus Shia Muslim. Like you're talking about Palestine Jews. You're talking about like, people that literally hate each other and he's doing mediations with this.

And, and I said, how, how, like, w he goes, well, Phil, he goes, it's actually, it's quite simple. He says, we start with what we, what they agree on. We find what they agree on and if we can figure out, okay, what do we agree on? We agree that we want to win. We agree that you know, we're humans, right? We agree that we have this, we have hopes, dreams, fears.

We have loves. We have, we have issues. We're broken. We have problems. We have this, we have that. Right. So what do we agree on? Then you find out that most of the things we agree on, okay, then you can start dealing with the things you disagree on. And at the end of the day, like you don't have to walk away kumbaya.

This is amazing. No, you can just walk away going, okay. I'm not going to kill you. Right. I'm not going to try to destroy you. And if you can [00:50:00] get to that, like, that's a good start because these guys were actually trying to tear each other down. As he said, Roy said to Jamie, he said, even though I know I should pass to you, you're so selfish and arrogant.

Every time I do it makes me want to puke. Anybody who's coached a team? No, there are people on the team that that's what other people feel about them. But if you're going to be a great team, that person who is creating that feeling and others needs to understand that he can't do that, or she can't do that.

And the other people need to understand that, you know what? You can't have that feeling either. I mean, you cannot have a feeling, you can't act on it, right? Like you need to figure out how to get past that. You need to go figure out how to address that person and be able to come to terms. And as we talked about in the show, if it becomes where it's such a virus that is tearing down the team, and it's a huge negativity that just won't go away, then yeah.

You need to deal with that differently. But it's something that I think we, you know, we ended up benching Jamie for a little bit in that episode or not the next episode of thinkers, a couple of way. [00:51:00] And that's something that needs to happen sometimes. Right. But anyway, any other thoughts on that before I go to one last point before we close up the show?

Paul: [00:51:08] No, let's hit that. Let's hit that last point.

Phil: [00:51:11] So the last point is celebrity status is man-made and it's absurd. This is my Phil Darke deal here. And the reason I bring this up is you talk about Cam Cole. At the end of this episode, Cam Cole is the Troubadour who's in the, on the street, playing music, right?

and substance and talent and who you are, and your identity should be what we're talking about with people who you are, what you're made of, you know, what are your identity. But instead we focus on name, whatever, you know, you look at American idol. These are kids who are made fun of in classes and are hardly seen.

They're like invisible kids on their campuses in high school. And then they go and go on American idol. And then all of a sudden they come back and everyone wants to just touch them. as I talked with my kids early on, I'm like, isn't that ridiculous? [00:52:00] And they're like, yeah. And I said, they go, are you famous dad?

And I said, well, in certain subcultures of this world, I'm known now. It's not like that. But people have asked for my autograph, so, and I that's kind of ridiculous. Huh? And they go, yeah, yeah. That is dad. That's ridiculous. Right. And it is right because my name's on a book or because I do a podcast or because whatever you sing well, or you kick the ball well, or you throw a ball well, or whatever, then you're put on this pedestal.

Now I'm not saying you don't have people you look up to and you don't have role models, whatever. But what I love, what he said is he said, Rebecca is like, who in the world is this? What are you doing to me? And he and Ted says to him, he says, he's an undiscovered, mega talent. And he goes, Rebecca, you don't want to judge a book by the cover on this one.

And I think that's something for us. Two again, going back to that humility, going back to that humble posture, going back to that learning posture, to be able to say, don't judge a book by its cover, to be able to say, who are you [00:53:00] enter in? Whether it's a homeless person on the street, or whether it's the CEO enter in and get past that facade, get past that, that look, because if you look at Cam Cole, you're like, you probably smelled, he probably was, you know, he had like dreads, you had this one-man band thing.

He looked like whatever, but he starts playing and you're like, all right, this guy can do something here. and I imagine, you know, that's the case on the soccer field too. You to see a kid without shoes coming onto the field, what the heck? Well, it could be Pele right. And and beyond that. So w what do you think of that and how have you seen that play out?

Paul: [00:53:34] Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Pele. I mean, if you watch that the movie one of the Pele movies, that's kind of the way he's, Kind of played out there is that he's, you know, obviously they're the poor kids from Brazil trying to play the kids that have money without shoes and they fake, they steal some shoes or buy some shoes, whatever they're too big, and they've got them on a different show, but but yeah, judge a book by its cover and then they watch him play like, man, this, this kid's got it.

You know? But yeah, I, I don't want to get into names [00:54:00] of it, but there, there are players, even in the professional ranks of soccer that if they just walk out onto the field and I did not know who they were, I would look at them and go no way. Yeah. That person has got what it takes to play professionally.

But watching them play and seeing their talent and their ability, it's like, man, I totally would have missed the boat on that. And I think that's part of our job is evaluating talent. You have to break through some of those walls sometimes when you walk out to a field. And maybe somebody doesn't look the part necessarily, you know, or someone calls you about a player and they're not on the team.

So just being open-minded to those things. But I think even through, through leadership we talked earlier about getting to know what people's strengths are, what their influence can be. Don't count people out because I've seen many players just have come through my program that, you know, you're trying to figure out what is it that they're, what is their influence going to be?

And at one point when it hits, you're like, man, how did I not see that? That is just, they are amazing piece of what we're doing here. And but I do like your point about just the [00:55:00] celebrity. Peace in our world. And I think is in some of our talks we've had on clubhouse, just the differences between how football players are professional players and celebrities taken in Europe as it is to the U S some of those conversations would be very interesting how you know, our celebrities have bodyguards are professional players have bodyguards, and they have hidden meetings that aren't known in public because they can't be, they don't want to be disturbed by fandom basically.

And in Europe, maybe changing a little bit, but for the most part, kind of like, and Ted Lasso, he's sitting in the, he's sitting in the pub and know drinking with the, with the community, things like that. I think we are. Doing ourselves, a disservice by idolizing people, the way that we are the YouTube, you know, there's, there's some crazy stat, I don't know the number, but some crazy stat of young people that are aspiring to be YouTube is now like that, that their goal is no longer do we want to be firemen and policemen.

We want to be YouTube. Even in my own household, my kids want to start a YouTube channel. I'm like, okay, let's talk through that a little bit. You know? So I [00:56:00] think it's something definitely to step on here and it, you see it, you know, name, image, and likeness is taking over the college industry. And I can't really talk a lot about that, but what is that going to do for amateur athletics, which is college athletics and the celebrity that's being put into a lot of that.

Phil: [00:56:16] Yeah, my daughter had the dream after her. I'm not going to say what year, but to be that the new Tik Tok star. So that was, that was one summer in our home. that was fun to navigate. But, but exactly to your point. And I think that that is something that we have set up. It's what we've done.

It's, it's what our culture, what, whether it's social media or other things, you know, now you can just literally, I mean, heck we're on it, we're on podcast. So we can do this podcast and you can do a blog. You can do whatever you can create yourself and paint yourself as the quote unquote expert in something with literally no degree, no experience, no anything.

But if you get enough followers, then you are a quote, unquote influencer, which, you know, what do we say leadership is influence. So then you see yourself as a leader [00:57:00] when the fact is, you know, you're just, you're just spouting off stuff. Right. And if you get enough followers, then people say, Oh, they must know what they're talking about because they have 20,000 followers or 2 million followers or whatever followers.

So again, form over substance is dangerous thing in a lot of things in life. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, that there, then hopefully we'll get into that later on. But it's the idea of, you know, this judge, a book by its cover, right? Like you don't get in to see what the substance is. We see it in a lot of things that we do.

And I just want to really encourage you guys out there to really focus on substance. As you said, you talked about it in recruiting and that's in jobs as well. Don't just look and go, Oh, they were number one in their class. Therefore they're a great candidate. They may or may not be. They could be totally unethical.

They could have cheated their way to the top. They could have, you know, they could be a person who you have zero interest to work with. Right. Same thing with a player, you know, you look and go, Oh, they scored 300 goals. Okay. Well, who did they play for? [00:58:00] Was it was it where they plan the, you know, kids who can't play soccer and as their league, or were they playing against amazing.

You know? And so again, on paper is just that it's on paper. That's why they play the game, but it's also why you need to get to know the person.

Paul: [00:58:18] Totally. I think you take Ted's comment too, about not judging a book by its cover. I think you can twist that and say, Rebecca, don't judge me by my cover. You know, him walking in there, her setting him up for failure.

This guy's a kind of an idiot. He's a, you know, American football coach. I'm going to set him up for failure. And in that moment, he's not saying it to her, but I think I kind of read into that just the way the story is being written, that you're saying, Hey, don't judge a book by its cover. I'm talking about cam the musician, but I'm also talking about me because look what we're looking, what we're doing here.

With this goofy. American football coach and his assistant, [00:59:00] whose name is beard.

Phil: [00:59:02] And on that note, I mean, look at Rebecca, look, I mean, every, every character in the episode and the show, actually, you look at Rebecca, you look at Jamie, you look at Keeley, you look at Roy. I mean, the people who appear to have it all figured out are the ones who have identity issues, right?

Every one of those, except Ted he's the one that everyone thinks has no clue. And he's the one who gets himself. He's the one who understands. Now, he's going through issues in life too. And he hits crisis and he hits bottom and he hits all those things in the show. But the other people who appear to have it all together, You know, even the quote that Rebecca says, Keely, you know, talking about the relationship with Jamie's like, what about accountability?

And she's just, it, it hit her and she's like, what do you mean? Like, I gotta be accountable for something and Jamie has to be accountable for something. And you know, and then so as they're figuring out who they are, I mean, that's what, again, this, this show is brilliant. The writing is brilliant and the show for a lot of reasons.

And I think that character development, not [01:00:00] just because they're developing the characters, but because of the characters are developing. And that's something that I really appreciate about it. And that's, if that's something we can take our players, our employees, our kids, our spouses, ourselves on this journey of development and understanding who we are, then that is something that I think is a massive win.

That is something that I think is much more important than that wins and losses. As you said, you need to get those wins and losses, but I think those wins and losses will come. If you help people to understand that and you help the team to understand it's team identity too. So last thoughts from you before we wrap it up.

Paul: [01:00:38] Oh, you talk about, hopefully the wins and losses come. I hope hopefully more wins than losses, but the losses will come along with that. That's part of part of it. But no, I think just a fun conversation today. Just, just talk it through Ted lasso and just you said early on in the show if you're not a, not a fan of Ted Lasso I think that if you're not a fan of Ted lasso, you've probably not seen the show.

So I [01:01:00] encourage those that haven't seen it to watch it. I was a doubter But with peer pressure from family and friends, I watched it. And now I'm a super fan, not really super fan, but I am a fan. But I think it's some great lessons not just for soccer, but life and leadership, which is what we're talking about here, Phil.

I appreciate you helping us navigate the waters here. It's

Phil: [01:01:20] a blast. Absolutely loved doing it. Loved doing it with you. Love doing it with everyone out there. Thanks for being a part of this show. Thanks for downloading this episode. Other episodes again, go back, listen to not only this season, we have 20 something episodes at this point, and I've been blown away by the guests, by the people ever since that first interview I did with some dude at, at Baylor University.

This is you've

Paul: [01:01:44] gone. You've gone so far since then. It's amazing. I knew when we did that, you only, you can only go up from there brother. So you have done an amazing job doing that. So it sets you up pretty well. You can only go up from there. There's no going backwards,

Phil: [01:01:57] you know? There, there's a [01:02:00] leadership lesson in there somewhere.

So, anyway, but yeah, again, as, as Paul mentioned, we are on Clubhouse. If you're not on Clubhouse and you have an iPhone, hopefully it'll go to Android soon here pretty, pretty soon as well. But if you have an iPhone, get on Clubhouse, if you need an invite, shoot me an email and I can get you one. But get onto Clubhouse.

And we, every Friday morning we do a show called how soccer explains leadership, just the title of this podcast. We keep it simple for you. But join us there because then you can ask us questions. We can have, I'd love to dialogue with you. And so I know Paul would as well. We love those conversations that are a lot of fun.

There's been some pretty amazing people on that as well. That have again from high school coaches and youth coaches to, to premier league players and CEOs and chairman of, of, of clubs and all kinds of people from different walks of life. And that's what makes it great. And so I encourage you to hop on there too and join the conversation up on stage there.

If you, if you're in Clubhouse 9:30 AM Pacific time. Every Friday morning, we hop onto that [01:03:00] and we have a great conversation. So join us there. And again, you know, I hope that you're taking everything that you're learning from this show. You're taking what we're talking about here today, Ted lasso the different interviews that we're doing, the conversations that Paul and I are having, and you're using it to help you to develop yourself as a leader, you're helping to, to understand yourself better your players, better, your family's better the people around you and your lives better, and you are taking all that you're learning to help you understand how soccer really does explain life and leadership.

Thanks a lot. Have a great week.