It was three weeks before the Christmas holidays in Australia and Matthew Pollard, author of The Introvert’s Edge, needed a job. He had told his parents he would find work after completing school and he wanted to be faithful to his promise…plus he had no money. The difficulty was very few companies were interested in hiring someone before the holidays; then stopped hiring at all during the holidays. The only job Matthew could find was in door-to-door sales.
After being briefed on the product, Matthew headed to the streets to start his career as a door-to-door salesperson. He found a nice long street with thousands of businesses on either side so he wouldn’t have to go very far to find his next client. As he approached the first door to pitch his product, he realized something important: he had no idea how to sell.
Matthew knocked on 93 businesses before getting his first sale, earning 70 dollars for all his hard work and trouble. He was ecstatic for a few seconds until he realized this rate of return wasn’t going to work in the long run. He chose to believe sales had to be a system, one he could learn and master and so turned to YouTube to discover the steps in that system.
Then he practiced. In a period of six weeks, he mastered each step of sales and dropped his number of attempts (and cold calls) from 93 to eventually just 3 businesses to find a sale. Then his manager pulled him into his office and told Matthew he was the number-one salesperson—not of the new people hired, but in the entire company—which was also the number-one sales company in the Southern hemisphere.
While there are many important aspects to selling, Matthew found telling stories was the best way to connect with customers for a sale. Stories helped connect to people emotionally, made it easier to remember important details, and left people with the key idea of how the product or service could benefit them. Moreover, he found people would spend a few minutes of their life to listen if it was a story and not a sales pitch. And a few minutes was all he needed to make a connection with someone. Then just a few minutes more to seal the deal.
To improve your sales, Matthew suggests you craft stories of how you helped clients in the past. Your story should have four parts: problem, analysis and implementation, outcome, and moral.
4 Steps to a Good Sales Story
1) The problem
The beginning of your story always starts with a past client. In this story, there is a client who is confused, upset, angry, frustrated with the current state of things at his business, place of work, or home life. They have problems but no solutions. Or solutions they’ve tried but which haven’t worked. Make sure you emphasize the client’s emotional state as well as how much it’s costing them or their business, and clearly describe the circumstances that brought the client to their tipping point.
2) Analysis and implementation
Next, introduce the hero. You. Briefly describe how you analyzed the client’s problem, the solution you suggested, and include the “aha” moment that shifted the client’s perspective. This story is meant to inspire, amaze, and motivate your current prospect to action. Your prospect should identify with your past client’s situation because it is similar to their current situation.
3) Outcome
Once you have your current prospect intrigued, fast forward in time. Share how your product or service helped the past client by highlighting the ROI and their emotional state: happy, ecstatic, overjoyed, etc. Draw a connection between where the client started (angry and looking for answers) to where they are today (happy and making money).
4) The moral
Your story should make clear to your current prospect why they need the same solution, without ever telling them they do. Summarize the customer’s learning in the story, highlighting why you’re the right person to deliver those results to them too.
After writing the four parts to your story, take time to work on your delivery. A good story takes time to craft and perfect. You won’t get the story right the first time. It might go on too long, have too much detail, or not enough information where it’s needed. After delivering it a few times, it will get better. You’ll know your story is really working when those sales start increasing.
If you would like to learn more about how to craft the perfect sales story, contact BigSpeak Speakers Bureau to book Matthew Pollard for your next sales event or conference.
Have you ever tried to shed an old and really annoying habit? Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution that you couldn’t keep? If so, welcome to the human race and welcome to your brain. The more we do something—eat chips while watching TV, ride a bike, play an instrument, study a new language—the more wired our brain is to support that habit.
If I continue my nightly TV-with-chips ritual, that habit will become wired into my brain. It literally changes the structure of my brain. This is a rather sobering thought because, in that sense, you are what you do … so be careful what you do!
The more you do something, the more likely you are to do it in the future. The habit-driven brain doesn’t distinguish between good and problematic behaviors; it just builds repeated behaviors, thoughts, and feelings and becomes wired to just continue with those routines. So what’s a person to do? Are we doomed to live on autopilot, driven by our lower brain and our habits?
While my chips-and-TV behavior affects only me, other habits can cause damage to relationships, both at home and at work. If I repetitively treat my husband with disrespect, that behavior becomes a part of who I am in the relationship. If I repetitively dismiss other team members work at my workplace, it becomes an ongoing part of the way I am wired to act over and over again in different situations, without always noticing the pattern of what I am doing.
We do have a choice: we can mindlessly carry out the same old behaviors over and over again, becoming essentially prisoners of our own habits; or we can step back, use our higher brains, and reflect on our actions. After more than enough nights of chips-in-front-of-the-TV habit, I realized that I was acting on autopilot, and I didn’t like it. So I made a choice, using my higher brain, the part of my brain that allows me to think about what I do.
In my relationship, I work hard not to act mindlessly or to get caught up in habits of reacting carelessly. I don’t have to be a prisoner of my autopilot responses. I have learned to pause, take a breath, and think. I have the power to choose, and the ability to change when I fall into thoughtless autopilot habits.
It turns out that despite being creatures of habit, humans are also creatures of change and adaptation. Our adaptability is the secret to our success as a species. The challenge is to use our already existing adaptability toward positive goals, to make conscious choices about who we want to be in our world.
Here are three tips that you can start using today, to create a lasting change. They are all based on one thing to focus on, to keep you clear and focused toward what you are targeting to change:
1. Change one thing in your environment
Your environment may manipulate your decision-making more than you think. Example: If you want to lose weight, decide on one change: pick a smaller plate so you consume less food. Keep missing gym sessions? Put your gym clothes right at the feet of your bed at night, sneakers and socks included. Do you see where I am going with this? Forget self-control and make your life easier. Manipulate one thing in your environment that will condition you to succeed. Once you change that one thing in your environment, you’ll retrain your brain and create new and healthier habits.
2. Change one bad habit that’s getting in the way. Just one.
Stop thinking like your whole world needs to be changed. Instead, focusing on fixing one thing at a time is the key to lasting change. You should think of change as a project where you spend a month to change something permanently. Give it a month, and move on to the next “project.” You’ll be reaping the benefits of this approach for years to come.
3. Pick one consistent way to reward yourself
You take on a new challenge or project, things seem exciting at first, and then the mundane start to set in. Before boredom strips all the joy away from your work, inject fun into your routine by rewarding yourself with one consistent reward when goals are met. Think right now, how can you reward yourself after a hard day’s work? Or when that quarterly project is finally over? What will you absolutely enjoy at the end of the road or when you reach the top of the mountain? A trip to some exotic place (the long-term reward)? Or a trip down to your favorite frozen yogurt shop (the short-term reward)?
Remember this always: you don’t have complete freedom to create yourself; you do come with genetic gifts and limitations, or temperament. But you have all the choice in the world to become the person that you want to be.
This article was originally published by Dr. Michelle Rozen July 8, 2019.
David Komlos and David Benjamin, Co-Founders of Syntegrity, want to make your life simpler. No matter what problem your company or team is facing, they can help you simplify it and move forward with speed and agility.
The Davids co-authored a business book, Cracking Complexity, that looks at how leadership can ease change and create more efficient processes through simplification. In their recent article published by Harvard Business Review, they divulge the trick to leading an effective meeting—tweaking the agenda process.
Read the original post to learn the 5 things you should do to get the most out of important meetings.
In the world of public speaking, the Golden Gavel by Toastmasters is one of the most prestigious awards, only given to one recipient a year since 1959. Throughout Toastmasters International’s 15,900 clubs in 142 countries, they choose the most deserving speaker from the 345,000 members—one who best exemplifies leadership and communication.
This year, Jia Jiang has been chosen to be 2019 Golden Gavel recipient for his powerful message about moving past rejection to better yourself. His speaking has reached millions of people, Toastmasters members and business teams throughout the corporate world through his popular TED talk and his keynote speaking, which is in high demand within Fortune 500 companies across the globe.
Jiang is famous for his 100 Days of Rejection Challenge that set him on a quest to overcome his fear of rejection. Over 100 days, he set himself unusual tasks like asking a stranger to borrow $100. He then transformed the lessons he learned into Rejection Therapy, a website, game, and app (DareMe) that challenges you to move out of your comfort zone, face rejection, and grow from it.
He will be sharing his keynote, which is one of the most-viewed TED talks, at the 88th Annual Toastmasters International Convention in Denver, Colorado on Friday, August 23 to honor his Golden Gavel Award.
If you are interested in booking him for your next event to learn how you can free yourself from the crippling effects of rejection, contact BigSpeak at info@bigspeak.com
The content writers at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau are Experts on the Experts. They hold doctoral, masters, and bachelors’ degrees in business, writing, literature, and education. Their business thought pieces are published regularly in leading business publications. Working in close association with the top business, entrepreneur, and motivational speakers, BigSpeak content writers are at the forefront of industry trends and research.
Changes in your business can make you mad. Whether the change was forced on you by the market or initiated by you as a way to improve, new processes and systems can leave you and your employees feeling anxious, insecure, and unhappy.
While we’ve yet to find a cure for change, there is something to help with these feelings. Organizational change expert Bob Sutton suggests leaders use “temporal distancing” to change the way we view change. Sutton refers to this mindset as mental time travel, but it’s really a way to push pause, stop focusing on the negative, and get perspective
In his article “Imaginary Time Travel as a Leadership Tool,” Sutton tells the story of the founder of IDEO, David Kelly, using this tool whenever his designers were getting upset about the current state of work.
To calm the designers down, Kelly guided them through three refocusing steps, shifting their perspective from the current problem to how they felt in the past and would feel in the future.
1) Look at the current moment from a future standpoint.
Kelly suggested to the designers that in a month or so when they looked back at the current situation, it would not seem as critical or as disturbing as it was in that moment. In fact, the current problem would be thought of as a small rough patch, if remembered at all.
2) Recall overcoming past difficulties.
Kelly then had his designers recall other troubling times in the past. He would remind them how they worked together, solved those issues, and even had fun while doing so.
3) Anticipate your promising future.
Kelly would get the designers to think about exciting new projects to come. Thinking about the future got them excited to finish the current projects.
Why this technique works.
This mental time travel technique or temporal distancing has a basis in science. In studies of human behavior, scientists have confirmed the “rosy view” phenomenon. People can be selective in how they view the future and the past, often forming rosy retrospections or anticipations.
In rosy anticipation, people form positive illusions of the future. People with positive mental health will look forward to future events, anticipating all the good things to come. They will look at lying on the beach on vacation, enjoying the raise from their promotion, or the freedom they will have after starting their own business.
In rosy retrospection, people reconstruct the past to remember the good parts. They put less weight on the bad elements. They edit their memories to justify their decisions and to protect their self-esteem.
So when working as a leader, change people’s mindsets to get through rough patches. Tapping into people’s tendency to maximize gains in the future and minimize the pain of the past is a great way to help employees handle the challenges in the present.
Nike’s middle name should be controversy. In the past few years, it has been at the heart of some of America’s biggest outrages and inspirations—queue montage of Kapernick ad, USNWT championship ad, and the ad where a woman athlete competes in a hijab.
With the recent recall of their latest and ‘racist’ Air Max shoe design, Nike managed to ruffle some feathers once again. Its brand ambassador, Colin Kapernick, recommended the company pull the Air Max shoes embellished with Betsy Ross’s 13-starred flag from the market. He claims white nationalist groups have adopted the colonial flag as an ode to a time when white people held all the power and slavery was commonplace.
Nike listened and recalled the shoe before Independence Day to prevent tainting the holiday for consumers. Since then, the shoe has been listed on StockX, an anonymous sneaker marketplace, for a resale value of $2,500.
Our top entrepreneurial and business speaker Kevin O’Leary cut through all the internet noise to bring us his take on the situation.
O’Leary says Nike “knows how to take controversy and blow it up into advertising.” He points out that, like clockwork, every six weeks Nike finds itself smack dab in the middle of the ongoing national turmoil. It runs ads or propagates a story for about two days, insanely boosting sales, and then fades away until the next go-around.
In this case, handling the controversy with a recall created an exclusivity that people go crazy for. O’Leary says Nike revolutionized the retail market with this idea years ago.
“Small drops of five or six thousand somethings and people go nuts for it for the collectability factory…[Nike] is an amazing marketing machine.”
O’Leary clarifies he believes Nike made a mistake and did not intentionally create controversy, but also thinks the company handled it in a profitable way that has the news cycle buzzing about its brand.
For more business insights, book Kevin O’Leary for your next event and see how his eye for opportunity can take your company to the next level.
Jessica Welch is the Content Marketing Associate at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, holding a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Anthropology from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her business thought articles often appear on Business 2 Community, Born 2 Invest, and YF Entrepreneurs.
After years of dominating the speaking industry together, respected investor and entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary has entered into an exclusive partnership with BigSpeak Speakers Bureau.
Kevin O’Leary is most notable for his commanding presence as “Mr. Wonderful” on ABC’s Shark Tank, as well as its Canadian counterpart Dragons Den. As an angel investor and entrepreneur, he has toppled giants and dominated industries and now he’s here to bring his knowledge to you.
O’Leary’s impressive reputation is built upon his entrepreneurial vision, investment smarts, and cut-throat ruthlessness. His expert opinion and guidance are seen through his hosting of BNN’s O’Leary Live and formerly host position of CBC News World’s business show, Lang & O’Leary Exchange, and BNN’s SqueezePlay.
Where it all began
In 1986, O’Leary co-founded SoftKey Software Products, and by the late 1990s, SoftKey had acquired numerous competitor companies including Compton’s New Media, The Learning Company, Mindscape, and Broderbund. The company’s growth was unparalleled.
After 10 years, O’Leary grew his startup into an industry leader, selling Softkey to Mattel Toy Company for $3.7 billion. To this day, this is one of the largest deals ever done in the consumer software industry. His first big business venture put him on the map and gave weight to his name as a powerful entrepreneur.
Extreme Eco-preneur and Entrepreneur
O’Leary became co-investor and a director in Storage Now, and in 2007, he joined the advisory board of Genstar Capital LLC. As a devoted “Eco-preneur,” O’Leary’s focuses on investments that make money, while helping protect our environment. He is the founding investor and director of Stream Global and he is currently working as the co-host for the Discovery Channel’s, Discovery Project Earth, a new program that explores innovative ways humans can reverse global warming.
As an investor and advisor, O’Leary has grown over 22 companies from startups to successful and prosperous businesses. His eye for opportunity and his straight talk can take any brand to the next level. He founded O’Leary Ventures, O’Leary Mortgages, O’Shares ETF, O’Leary Books, and O’Leary Fine Wines. He truly does it all.
His book series Cold Hard Truth and keynote speaking captures the no-nonsense philosophy he uses in business and teaches audiences how to spot a good idea and what to do with it.
O’Leary’s speaking topics include…
Cold Hard Truth
Lessons From a Dragon
An Evening with Kevin O’Leary
The content writers at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau are Experts on the Experts. They hold doctoral, masters, and bachelors’ degrees in business, writing, literature, and education. Their business thought pieces are published regularly in leading business publications. Working in close association with the top business, entrepreneur, and motivational speakers, BigSpeak content writers are at the forefront of industry trends and research.
Innovation expert, futurist, and New York Times bestselling author Peter Diamandis is always one step ahead of the technology curve. Between founding Celuarlity, a stem cell research organization, and serving as XPRIZE’s Chairman and CEO, Diamandis is trusted to be one of the most cutting-edge futurists in the world.
His upcoming book, The Future is Faster Than You Think, is the third in a line of futurist literature helping businesses predict and prepare for upcoming trends. His prior books, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World and Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, built the foundation for the newest book in his exponential technology series.
Diamandis’s highly-anticipated book is scheduled for release in January 2020. Half a year can feel like a long time, so to ease your anxiousness Diamandis shared a sneak peek.
Jessica Welch is the Content Marketing Associate at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, holding a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Anthropology from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her business thought articles often appear on Business 2 Community, Born 2 Invest, and YF Entrepreneurs.
When it comes to success in business, Peter Guber believes storytelling is key. With a resume spanning decades, Guber has found success using the power of story in every arena. He has turned around film studios, earned Academy Award nominations, co-founded record companies, written a New York Times bestseller, and become the co-owner of championship teams.
In this short speaker demo, see how Peter Guber can help your business using his life-long experience and expertise.
The New England Patriots. You might love them. You might hate them. Either way, as a business leader and or an entrepreneur this unyielding dynasty has something to teach you about business and life.
Dominating the NFL for an extraordinary 19 years, the Patriots’ list of accomplishments is awe-inspiring. Eleven Super Bowl berths, ten consecutive division titles and eight consecutive appearances in the conference championship. Also, with Sunday’s sixth Super Bowl win they have tied the Pittsburg Steelers for the most Lombardi Trophies of all time. It is the greatest run in the history of professional sports.
What makes this even more sensational is that they have done it under the challenges of free agency, the salary cap, the impact of social media, collective bargaining restrictions and a growing sense of entitlement among professional athletes.
As people who have dedicated our careers to watching and learning from legendary leaders, here are ten lessons every student of leadership can take away from Belichick and Brady:
1. Stay hungry
Belichick has won six Super Bowls as the Patriot’s head coach and two more as the New York Giants defensive coordinator. With a record of 6-3, Tom Brady has appeared in more Super Bowls than any player. Both Belichick and Brady love the hunt, the intensity and excitement of competition and winning. They haven’t succumbed to the boredom of grinding it out year after year.
Belichick and Brady subscribe to the “no one is paying us today for what we did yesterday” philosophy. The Patriots are always in the hunt. Win or lose in Super Bowl appearances; they always rebound strong. Over the past 14 seasons, the team has averaged 13 wins a season. Not once have they won fewer than ten games.
This begs the questions, “Are you as hungry to succeed as when you first started your career? Are you as hungry to win as when you first launched your company or started in your industry?”
After 19 years, Bill Belichick is still known for being relentless in the pursuit of making his teams better. One of the most tenured coaches in the NFL, he doesn’t get distracted. He doesn’t let the critics influence his strategy. His focus is maniacal. It’s all about the kind of execution that makes his teams better today than they were yesterday and not as good as they will be tomorrow.
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
What would happen in your business if everyone got one percent better every day? What would happen if you could execute like you were one tenth your size with goals that are ten times your size?
2. Don’t mortgage your future
Competence and credibility build trust, but that has to start somewhere. Robert Kraft bought the Patriots for $172 million in 1994, the same year the NFL’s salary cap (limiting the amount of money a team could spend on players’ salaries) went into effect. Since then, the Patriots have won more Super Bowls than any other team in the NFL.
Kraft needed a coach that understood the long-term economics of running a professional football team. Belichick needed an owner who trusted his grasp of operating a football team and then, gave him the freedom to do so.
Belichick and Kraft are on the same page concerning the business of football. They don’t want to win once or twice; they are in it for the long-haul. Building a steady pipeline of players who get The Patriots’ Wayand who are dedicated to playing in a high-performance culture is the key to winning. Winning is the key to expanding your fan base. Expanding your fan base is how you make money.
TOM CROKE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Before Belichick’s arrival, the Patriots were $10 million over the NFL salary cap. He quickly deployed a system that recruited more affordable players with a makeup—intelligent, tough, coachable, team-first mentality, and strong work ethic—that fit the culture he wanted to create.
3. Don’t be held hostage by talent
Perhaps the hardest, most unpopular thing for any coach to do is to walk the fine line between building relationships with players that enables him or her to know them inside and out and strategically looking at those very same players in financial terms. Few coaches do this well. Belichick does it masterfully.
It’s an almost impossible situation. A franchise wants to reward players who had a significant role in the organization’s success, often with contract extensions. But, those players get more expensive as time takes its toll on their athleticism. To recruit younger, more affordable and more adaptable players, the Patriots are willing to let go of major (but high-priced) veterans.
Patriots Julian Edelman #11 with the Lombardi trophy after winning MVP against the Los Angeles Rams during Super Bowl 53. AP Photo/Gregory Payan
Most bureaucratic organizations take what we call dead people workingand transfer them to another department in an effort to appease them. Yet, what happens is they infect more of the company. High-performance firms that care about keeping their cultures pure rigorously coach people to a higher level. However, if those people can’t cut it, the company is quick to say, “It’s time to move on. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person. It just means you are no longer a fit here.”
How about your organization? Are your leaders willing to make the tough calls with regard to accountability and performance, or do they shuffle the deck, transferring people from one place to another because they don’t want to do the hard work of replacing people who don’t match up?
4. Return on discipline
The New England Patriots might be the ultimate NFL meritocracy. Under Belichick’s no-nonsense approach players understand that accountability is a big deal. Many have said that playing for him isn’t easy. Belichick’s unwritten, but clear expectations: Don’t be late for meetings. Do your job. Don’t whine about practicing in adverse weather conditions. Be dependable. Keep your word. Prove that you have the desire and the discipline to make the team stronger.
Strong cultures honor, respect and enable people by celebrating their gifts and talents, and by giving them very clear roles and responsibilities. Then, they hold people accountable for improving, having a positive impact and doing their jobs.
5. No superstars
When you employ one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, you might think he would get preferential treatment. Not so. Belichick isn’t shy about calling out Brady and hammering him for making mistakes when the team is reviewing game films. Brady owns it. Never beyond reproach and always the team player, Brady acknowledges when he screws up.
In 2009, after marrying supermodel, Gisele Bundchen, Brady spent more time in the limelight. During the next two seasons, the Patriots failed to win a playoff game. Belichick grew concerned that his star quarterback was losing focus, so he called Brady into his office and delivered an ultimatum.
Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala. Photo: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Highly marketable to many other teams, Brady took the criticism and recommitted to digging deeper. After that, the Patriots went 11-15 in the playoffs and made four more trips to the super bowl, winning three more Lombardi Trophies.
Belichick and Brady have both said that their success is closely tied to each other. It is amazing that both men have swallowed their egos and been together for 19 years. The relationship between them sends a powerful message to the rest of the players, “It’s not about you. It’s not about me. No one is bigger than the team.”
6. Be agile and adaptive
Every coach coaches to win. But few do it with the fierce determination Belichick brings to the game. Unafraid to use players in unusual positions and unconventional formations, unconcerned about loyalty and undeterred about what the media, football experts and pundits say, Belichick is all about winning.
While some of his decisions are controversial, Belichick is not afraid to change. He has evolved offensively. He’s constantly adapting to the Patriots’ opponents.
The Patriots recruit players with athletic talent. However, they are also looking for players with the kind of intelligence to roll with Belichick’s constant game-by-game tweaking. If you are changing the game plan each week based on your opponent, you become more agile. If you are shaking it up every week, you get good at adapting.
This approach also keeps the game fresh for players. When your players’ interest is high they stay sharp. Mental stimulation counts, particularly when you’ve played an entire season and fatigue sets in. Also, no game goes precisely according to plan. This requires players who are agile enough to make the right decisions quickly.
Business, like football, is a rapidly changing environment, loaded with uncertainty. Talent wins ball games, but over time, being able to read your competition, shift accordingly and move with speed as a team wins championships.
7. Double down on preparation
What separates Bill Belichick from every other coach in the NFL? Relentless preparation. He treats every game like it is the Super Bowl.
Remember the great line from George C. Scott who played General George Patton in the movie Patton? The famous general read the writings and rigorously studied the strategies of his adversary, Marshal Erwin Rommel, and then used them to defeat him in the Tunisian tank battle. Patton said, “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”
That’s Bill Belichick.
Belichick uses game films to show his teams the greatest strengths of their opponents. What do their players do best? How does each player contribute to the success of the team? He expects the same level of preparation from his players. For example, he might ask a linebacker, “Can you name every tight end on the other team and tell me their strengths and weaknesses?”
Breaking it down with meticulous attention to every detail like this enables Belichick to tailor his approach and align his players to compete against the systems used by his opponents.
AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File
In business, everyone and everything around you is continually getting better. If you think you know your competition from intelligence gained last year, think again. They’ve changed.
Tom Brady’s knowledge of the game and ability to read defenses is deep and broad. He trusts Belichick’s tailor-made approach to each opponent. These two factors give him the latitude to change plays that have a low percentage of success at the line of scrimmage. This kind of autonomy also keeps the Patriots’ opponents guessing and puts them in a reactive posture.
PHOTO: KEITH ALLISON/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
While Belichick expects players to get in line with the Patriots’ way of doing things, he doesn’t encourage “yes-men.” Brady has been known to dissect game plans with a blistering critique and ask his offensive coaches to start over. Even though there is enormous mutual respect, a fiery, passionate Brady has been seen ripping into offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels on the sideline when McDaniels pointed out a huge offensive opportunity Brady missed.
9. Find your team’s unique identity
In the NFL, like MLB and the NBA, every year is different. Players and coaches come and go. This means that one size doesn’t fit all, one size fits one. Every year you have to find that team’s unique identity. What makes them tick? What will create chemistry among this particular group of guys? This is the holy grail of every professional sports team.
Belichick does this as well as anyone. He is a master evaluator of talent. He gets the most out of his players because he has a knack for putting them in positions and situations where they have the greatest chance of success.
10. Chemistry counts.
In our book entitled, Bochy Ball: The Chemistry of Winning and Losing in Baseball, Business and Life, we profiled another great leader, Bruce Bochy, manager of the three-time World Champion San Francisco Giants, who believes chemistry is a differentiator. We defined chemistry this way: “It is a unique bond between teammates, formed by unselfishness, trust and celebration that empowers them to play as one…a psychological and positive emotional bond that unites players who are invested in each other, play full throttle for shared goals, and who achieve more together than they can alone.”
Never one to boast about his incredible achievements, Belichick has created a culture with a selfless ethos. If you can’t choose service over self-interest, you won’t fit into the Patriots’ way. This means you have a team of guys who aren’t concerned about who gets the recognition. They understand that when you win championships, it raises the tide for everyone, everybody looks good.
Belichick also wants his players to strike a balance between taking their jobs seriously and keeping it light. After a game about halfway through the season, the head coach showed his team a video of them being solemn and heavy-hearted. Essentially, he said, “No more. You guys need to loosen up.” You can’t legislate chemistry, but you can hold a mirror up to your players, show them what might not be obvious and then expect them to change.
Chemistry starts with the veterans. At age 41, Brady is the oldest guy on the team by a long shot and one of the oldest in the league. He is 17 years older than Rams quarterback, Jared Goff.
Imagine being a low-round draft choice walking into the Patriots’ clubhouse for the first time. You are almost 20 years younger than your team’s superstar quarterback. A quarterback by the way, who has six Super Bowl wins, is a three-time most valuable player in the NFL and is a household name in the U.S. One of the world’s most recognizable athletes uses four simple words to disarm your nerves, make you feel welcome and close the gaps between age and fame, “Hi. I’m Tom Brady.”
Well, of course, you are. This unassuming introduction says a lot about the man. He considers himself an equal among peers, even though he isn’t. He wants you to be relaxed, knowing that when you feel welcomed, as a legitimate part of the team, the best is more likely to come out of you and your time with the Patriots will be more enjoyable.
New England Patriots’ David Andrews (60) picks up Tom Brady (12) after the Patriots scored a touchdown during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl 53. AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
It’s easy to agree with catchphrases like “choosing service over self-interest,” but it is harder to put your money where your mouth is. In the world of professional sports, contracts have a lot to do with ego. The more you make, the more you feel valued.
Scott Davis and Cork Gains calculated that Tom Brady has given up at least $60 million over the course of his career through contract extensions and restructured deals that have helped the Patriots make room for other players.
No one is feeling sorry for Tom Brady. He has made approximately $200 million in his NFL career. Had Brady not taken a pay cut to help out the Patriots, he might be the highest-paid player in NFL history. He also might not be wearing six Super Bowl rings.
Before Sunday’s win in Super Bowl LIII, many skeptics wondered if the Patriots’ best days were behind them.
Ever want to increase the power of your brain? Then there’s good news. Whether you’re looking to make up lost ground due to injury or illness or you want to augment and enhance your brain’s functions to control machines with your thoughts, the future is looking bright.
In her new book The NeuroGeneration, keynote speaker and brain expert Tan Le shares the exciting developments heading our way. Le has been innovating in the field of brain augmentation for years. As CEO of Emotiv, she has helped create patented brainwear that allows people to control objects with their thoughts alone—from using software to pouring water to driving Formula 1 racing cars.
What does the future hold? According to Le, we can look forward to cranial stimulation to help learn faster, an artificial hippocampus to help restore lost memories, and neural implants to keep pace with artificial intelligence. These are just a few of the tantalizing possibilities.
“You work in start-ups not because you like to eat oranges straight off the tree. You work in start-ups because you like planting saplings and helping them grow.” — Marc Randolph
Marc Randolph is a starter. As co-founder of Netflix, he got a taste of what it feels like to grow something from the ground up. Since he handed off the massive company Netflix, he’s been pursuing that passion.
Randolph has pivoted from big company executive to startup mentor. He takes everything he has learned, from the moment he and Reed Hastings thought of the DVD by mail service to handing it off and watching it continue on, and endows it upon the next generation of entrepreneurs.
He’s advised and mentored many startups since taking his seat on Netflix’s board, but Randolph says most of them end up right about where they started—just an idea in need of money. Startup success stories like Netflix are far and few between. Randolph has been a part of many that didn’t have the happy ending of Netflix, but he tells us he learned from every experience and loves the process all the same.
However, in the less than two decades since Netflix went public, Randolph has become involved in another industry changing idea. Randolph’s latest mentee company, Looker Data, a Santa-Cruz based data analytics company, recently sold to Google for $2.6 billion dollars.
Randolph mentored the founders of Looker Data, Lloyd Tabb and Ben Porterfield, acting as their ABC—Anything But Coding—man when it was nothing more than a promising idea and two determined entrepreneurs.
He recalls the day of the sale, looking at what he helped build with a fondness that reminded him of the day Netflix went public. The feeling of finally “making it” after years of struggle and uncertainty is why Randolph will always find himself dedicated to the beginning of a startup—the nurturing process that grows giants.
Jessica Welch is the Content Marketing Associate at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, holding a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Anthropology from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her business thought articles often appear on Business 2 Community, Born 2 Invest, and YF Entrepreneurs.
