Coaching Coaches

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My guest today is Dana Cavalea, who spent 12 years with the New York Yankees, many of which were as the Director of Strength and Conditioning & Performance Enhancement. He won the 2009 World Series and was named the top strength coach voted by his peers during the same season. He is also the author of Habits of A Champion.

During the episode, we discuss what it was like to be called by Yankees GM Brian Cashman at the age of 23 to be promoted to the Head Strength Coach, why certain players have the right mental make-up and routine to succeed over time, how he helped young players work through failure, and what Mariano Rivera said the secret was to his success. He also touches on how GM Brian Cashman handled the team meeting during the 2009 season after they lost 10 straight games, which turned the season around, and what other lessons he learned from guys like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Andy Pettite.

Show Notes

(1:40) —Episode begins with how he was hired to be the head strength coach for the New York Yankees when he was 23 years old

(3:00) — How he built trust with the players at such a young age

(4:30) — How players handle failure in baseball

(6:15) — Lessons from Joe Torre

(7:45) — How he helped young players handling failure for the first time in their lives

(9:55) — Lessons learned from Andy Pettite

(11:00) — Why some players were driven because of their rough upbringing

(13:05) — Why Derek Jeter didn’t think everyone deserved equal treatment

(15:50) — Mariano Rivera’s routine

(22:10) — How Yankees GM Brian Cashman handled a meeting during 2009 when the team was in the middle of a 10-game losing streak

(24:45) — End of episode questions

End of Episode Questions:

1. What’s 1 book every coach should read?

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? John Calipari

3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? Take his health and fitness to another level

4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong? You can’t be great at everything; you have to figure out what you’re great at and excel in that area.

5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this? Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you don’t know anything, but just because you’re young and you think you know everything doesn’t mean you do.

6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it? He and Joe Girardi had philosophical differences on training and his contract wasn’t renewed after his final season as a result but he knew there would be something else for him afterwards.

Favorite Quotes:

“What makes him (Mariano Rivera) tick is he isn’t worrying about public applause and he’s not worried about public opinion. He just focuses on what it is that he was hired to do. And that was to pitch and get hitters out.”

“When you work under a guy like Joe Torre, it’s like having a grandfather /mob-boss as your manager.”

“You can have a difficult conversation with a player, but you always have to make that player leave feeling good about themselves, and that’s what Joe (Torre) did a great job of.”

“If you show up with the intent of being successful and being competitive, you have a great chance of being successful because you’re competitive.”

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My guest today is Nancy Lieberman, who is one of the most decorated basketball players of all time. Nancy was a two-time national player of the year at Old Dominion, where she also won two national championships. She was also both a WNBA coach & general manager before being hired as the coach of the Texas Legends in the NBA D-League, making her the first woman to coach a men’s basketball team. She later became the second woman to be an NBA assistant coach when the Sacramento Kings hired her in 2015. She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996.

In this episode, we discuss what led her to take the train from Queens to Rucker Park to play basketball at 11 years old, what it was like to be the youngest male or female to ever make the U.S. Olympic basketball team, the impact of her life-long friendship with Muhammad Ali, and why Pat Riley said she changed the way he viewed players. Most importantly, we discuss what she is doing with her foundation to help young people who are less fortunate.

Click here to learn more about Nancy Lieberman Charities, and you can donate here to help children in a variety of ways, including providing backpacks with school supplies for one year, a tablet, basketball camp scholarship, contribute to a college scholarship and more.

Show Notes:

(1:30) – Episode begins with Nancy playing at Rucker Park at the age of 11

(6:35) – How she and Muhammad Ali developed a life-long relationship

(18:10) – How she goes through life with no fear

(20:25) – How she changed Pat Riley’s perspective on players

(26:35) – Background on her foundation

Favorite Quotes:

“I don’t know any other way but to grind and to give the best of who I am. I may not do everything perfectly correct, but I’m going to give you the best of who I am and I’m not going to be afraid.”

“To be a winner, you have to make other people around you better.”

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Click HERE to watch the video referenced in the intro.

My guest today is Dr. Michele Gelfand, a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Gelfand is a cultural psychologist and uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture--as well as its multilevel consequences for human groups. She’s also the author of Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World, which is the focus of our conversation today.

Coaches at all levels talk about building and creating the kind of culture that can produce wins, but what does that really mean? There is no one better to talk to about that than Michele. In this episode, she explains the framework she uses in the book to understand the difference between tight and loose cultures. She covers how social norms dictate whether a culture leans either tight or loose and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The episode is full of examples of companies and how they fit along this spectrum, including United Airlines, Uber, and her current work with the U.S. Navy.

Where to contact her: Twitter | LinkedIn | Website

Her Harvard Business Review paper on the Amazon/Whole Foods acquisition

(2:21) - How she became a cultural psychologist

(3:38) - What led her to write Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World

(7:00) - How social norms help define cultures

(9:00) - The strengths and weaknesses of both tight and loose cultures

(12:20) - Advice for coaches on self-diagnosing where they fit on the tight-loose spectrum

(17:10) - Examples of organizations and where they fit within this framework

(24:30) - How to use this framework when hiring or looking to decide what organization is the best fit for you

(27:00) - How to handle your culture leaning too far to either end of the tight-loose spectrum

(29:30) - Her work with the U.S. Navy and how they are trying to implement some looseness within their culture

(37:30) - Parenting advice based on the tight-loose framework

(41:30) - End of episode questions

1. What’s 1 book every coach should read?

• You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting

2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast?

• Carol Dweck

3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year?

• Meditation

4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong?

• Get to the task when negotiating. Her research shows that you actually need to get to know the person first so you signal that you respect them and gain their trust.

5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this?

• Continue to search for your passion

6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it?

• Trying to get her paper on this topic published in Science. She got through it by having fun and saying she’d wear a costume if the paper was approved to be published

“All cultures have both tight and loose elements, but we could think about cultures in terms of their default. Do they lean tight or loose on this continuum?”

“What we know from our research is that groups that get too extreme, either too tight or too loose, actually are really dysfunctional and that applies to nations, to organizations, and I would imagine also to sports teams. And for different reasons. When you have a lot of super tight rules, people feel uncomfortable questioning them. They feel like they’re walking on eggshells. Then we have less chance for catching mistakes and being willing to express them. And on the flip side, when you have too much looseness, it’s total chaos. I think back to the definition of social norms. Then we have no ability to coordinate and it’s a mess, and...we need some degree of both in any social system.”

“So I think that’s a really important thing, this kind of tension between freedom and rules and constraints. And I think that the best, most healthy systems are ab...

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My guest today is Anson Dorrance, UNC Women’s Soccer Head Coach. He has won 22 National Championships and is the first coach in NCAA history to win 20 championships coaching a single sport. That is correct - 22 national titles. And as impressive as that is, his approach to coaching, competitiveness, and character development of his girls is even more impressive.

In this episode, we discuss why he doesn’t think you can teach leadership, why he thinks it’s so important to take personal ownership of your own outcome and learn to handle adversity, and how recruiting has evolved over the years. He also talks about his relationship with coaches outside of women’s soccer, including Dean Smith, Pete Carroll, and Terry Liskevych.

(1:25) - Why he doesn’t believe you can teach leadership

(10:40) - The impact the helicopter parent has on children now

(15:20) - How recruiting has been effected by this change

(22:55) - His core values for his program

(24:25) - His focus on competitiveness and the competitive cauldron

(31:25) - How he became good friends with Pete Carroll

(40:39) - The importance of personal development

(46:30) - The core values he has for the program and how he’s matured as a coach over his career

(56:50) - How he approaches character development and winning

(1:01:25) - End of episode questions

1. What’s 1 book every coach should read?

• The Man Watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina Women's Soccer Dynasty
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• This is Water by David Foster Wallace

2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast?

• Marcelo Bielsa - Manager of Leeds United

3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year?

• Construct a strategy to fit his roster this coming year, which has no seniors left

4. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this?

• Be a continuous learner and pick a mentor that is in an environment similar to yours

5. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it?

• He was sued by a former player and her parent and was really criticized by the media.

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My guest today is Travis Wyckoff, founder of Kingdom Coaching, a consulting business for coaches to help provide the tools, strategies, and skills you need to transform how you lead yourself, lead others, and win in all areas. He also hosts the podcast called Coaching DNA, which I was recently a guest on. Previously, he coached college baseball for 11 years and spent six years leading on a church staff.

In this episode, we discuss the transition from coaching college baseball to starting Kingdom Coaching. He explains the different ways he works with coaches, whether it is one-on-one coaching, staff coaching, Tribe Membership, or cohorts. We spend a lot of time around leadership, a topic he is incredibly passionate about. After his time spent working with some of the top coaches, like Tim Corbin and Anson Dorrance, he distills a great leader down to character, emotional intelligence, clarity, psychological makeup.

Where to connect with Travis: Website | Twitter | Podcast or email him at [email protected]

Coaching DNA Podcast with Rodney Hobbs

1. What’s 1 book every coach should read?

• InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives by Joe Ehrmann
• Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches by Craig Custance
• Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann

2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast?

• Dabo Swinney

3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year?

• Be more present with others

4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong?

• Be yourself – no, be the best version of yourself

5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this?

• Be a continuous learner

6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it?

• One season while coaching was really hard with poor pitching and tough to handle as the team went through it. He overcame it via grit.

“John Maxwell talks a ton about: your leadership ability will determine the lid on, in my case the people I'm working with, it'll determine the lid of your program. So if your leadership is growing, if you're a really excellent leader, your program is going to rise. If not, you will put the lid on your program based on what your leadership capacity is.”