Transcript
You and me just get canceled for behavior like that, right? So like, oh, you're done, I'm beyond done. Like one day here to take my friends away. It should not be the budget for your bike across America running in front of the camera phone and drops. Welcome to the Let me save you 25 year podcast where we break down a new Shaun is each week, each one of these is a little lesson I've learned along the way in hopes that you can maybe learn from my mistakes and build great things even bigger, better and faster than I ever did. Perhaps shaving off a decade or two on your own journey. My book, let me save you 25 years where today's topic comes from is intentionally really short. So think of this as the long version of the book where we can go even deeper into the Shaun is that each chapter is based on just like our topic today. There is always a way please give the podcast a like a follow, share it out with your friends, wherever you listen to podcasts, please do it. Now, in the spirit of the number one Shaun is right. Get off the couch, just do something. Give this podcast a follow. There is always a way OK? The book writes it like this. No truer statement exists. It doesn't matter what the problem is, it doesn't matter what industry category, situation, subject matter, project or profession. There may be compromises, there may be tradeoffs required, there may be a price to pay, but there is always a way if it has been done, it can be done. If someone else has done it, then why not me? Oh man, this is a Shaun is for the ages. So in my case, the story I share in the book that leads into this is where we had this stuff. 12,000 little love sacks in time for Christmas and the technology that we were aware of at the time was the dumb little electric motor powered grain grinder shredder from the 19 seventies that we were borrowing from this furniture factory at the time. And I drove out to farm country to find more of these grain grinders. It's kind of like a wood chipper. Like when you feed sticks into a wood chipper in the backyard, it's like a machine kind of like that. But it had been converted with an electric motor so we could plug into the wall and turn the thing on and use it inside of a factory. Anyway, the farmer, I said to the farmer guy three hours outside of Salt Lake City. I said, do you have anything bigger? Because he showed me these little chippers they had, he said, oh, yeah. And he shows me this thing called the Hay Buster, which is like this giant hay shredder meant to shred those 2000 pound rolls of hay you'll see on a farm and you can, you can forklift the whole thing up into there and it'll shred this thing. This guy has seen it shred two by fours tables. Barnwood. So I drive three hours back home to get a big bag of foam. Three hours back to farm country the next day. Rock chips in the windshield, ah, from these long drives. Anyway, we throw this big bet he gets it going. Bear in mind it's powered by a tractor. So, so this guy pulls this thing around by a tractor. It has this power takeoff kind of like a drive line coming off the back of a tractor full size John Deere farm tractor, turning the guts of this shredder from its diesel motor. And we throw this bag of foam up into its bin. It's like a giant bowl on top of it spins around and as it spins, like it'll push whatever you have over the blades that are spinning in the bottom. And in this case, it just like killed the hay buster dead. And this farmer head was like, whoa. Well, that's a new one. He'd never seen this thing die. Like that, like stall the tractor out. And what had happened is the foam was stretchy and, you know, didn't break like, like two, a, two by four wood. And, um, so the shredder just didn't work, but, you know, he's scratching his head and crawled up in there and looked at it and un jammed it with a curl bar and, and pulled the thumb out and said, you know, I, I think we can make this work. We just gotta make some adjustments. So come back later with another bag of this thumb and we'll, we'll try again. So I, we drive three hours back to Salt Lake, get another bag of scrap foam. So these scraps, you know, they're anywhere from the size of a sofa cushion to just, you know, I don't know, football size strips of foam from leftover from when this couch company makes couches. We take another plastic bag, you know, the size of the bed of the truck all the way out into the farmland again, three hours back. And this time, you know, he's built a little adjustment into the blades. We're, we're gonna ramp the tractor up to like full throttle. We're gonna run it higher. RP MS. You know, he's taken out a few of the blades to space them a little differently and, and, uh, sure enough, this thing bag goes in shreds it, but it spits it all out of the top, like pop like a popcorn popper and it won't come out of the bottom and then out of the conveyor belt like it's supposed to. So once again, this is why I was like, what I've never seen this three hours back home, another bag, another load of foam in the back of the truck, come back up a couple days later. And this time, you know, as we discussed with this farmer, he's built a like a plywood lid on top of the hay buster that will keep the foam in, in from bouncing out because the foam is super light, unlike the hay or the wood chips that would just fall down to the blades after it's shredded this time. You know, the thing shakes around and, and uh shimmies and almost kills the tractor. But this time the phone comes just pouring out of the conveyor belt and we're like jumping up and down hugging you like, oh my gosh. And so, you know, this was our first uh heavy foray into the territory of the Shan is that this chapter is named after. There is always a way, listen, there is always a way like we could not afford a half a million dollar German trailer that was not even on the table like there was the idea of getting financing for proper factory equipment. Bear in mind we're in a factory that we're kind of borrowing where we leased it. But it's like 18 nineties. It was built wood for us, all we could afford is from a cash advance from the money borrowed on credit cards from the ATM to just afford to be in this factory. And so it's not just that there's, of course, there's always a machine that will shred foam. But is there a way to shred literally tons of foam for this big order on a budget we could afford? Yes. The answer is there is always a way and we found a way to afford through an agricultural loan from the US government. This 19 seventies hay buster powered by a 19 seventies tractor that we could buy from this farmer on monthly payments. And uh with the help of the US government for agricultural equipment, we brought this thing to downtown Salt Lake City, spun up a factory around it and I've got 100 other examples of insurmountable problems where our attitude was. There is always a way and uh we're gonna talk to a guest today who has faced insurmountable unwinnable situations and found a way to win because that is the attitude, that is his attitude. That is my attitude. There is always a way so excited, stick around. I am your host, Shandi Nelson, founder of love sacking with me. Today is one of the most iconic uncompromising, controversial, famous, infamous three time national champion and top three winningest football coaches of all time. Even while showing up as a role model leader, husband and father of two very successful daughters, a son. All these grandkids now fan and longtime user of love sack sectionals the whole bit. A good friend of mine and personal mentor, if only from a distance, Mr urban Mayer Shawn. Great to see you brother. What's up? Oh my gosh. So good to be with you. So grateful to have you here. And uh you get to wrap with me around my eighth on the list of 25. Sean iss one of my maybe my top favorite. There is always a way. There is always a way and I felt like, you know, we, I actually had another one in mind for you. And then I, I reviewed all my Shaun and I'm like, oh my gosh, man, if I got anyone on planet Earth to chat with me about this, Shaun is, it's Mr Urban Meyer. So, well, I read through your book and I, uh we were ready to talk about another topic, but there is always a way and that kind of hit home with me. I thought the previous one about, you know, we can sweep the floor. You know, you just basically you gotta do what you gotta do to get it done. But there's always a way as you know, I think when I think about your career and ours, it some mirror. It's, it's ironically, it's also started about, you know, 15 whenever that was 2000 and uh 4, 2003, 2004, you, some, some young guy creating this company. And I remember going, boy, is this really gonna work? And then I meet you. I go, it's gonna work because he'll make it work. And I took on a, uh, you know, big job at University of Utah. It was a great place. It's always been a great place, but it's never really took off like it had like it did when we were there. And that's, I think when you say there's always a way that's, that really hit home with me and it's, to me it's about, you're gonna win, you're gonna set a standard. And the one thing that I always always say and I actually added above my uh staff room door was I'm interested in solutions, not the problem. You know, don't, don't be the, the person on your staff. That's the problem guy. It's always gonna tell you come in and tell me how you solve the problem after you before you even have identified the problem. That's what a great associate does, you know, fix it. And then by the way, say, here's a little issue I was dealing with. Here's how I solved it. That, that makes, first of all, that's a, you got a heck of a team and a culture if you do that. Yeah, man. Well, that's, I mean, we're gonna, there's so much to unpack Urban is a culture builder. You know, it's, it's like that's one thing I love about doing this podcast, I get to talk to people from all sorts of different backgrounds, but in the end it's kind of all the same man. Business, you know, football, building a team, building a team and business, building a team in football, you know, these principles are sort of timeless and universal. So I want to get into that, I think, um, man, you know, as head coach a little bit like, you know, not so different than a CEO for sure, often even, you know, better pay. But as a head coach, you have to, you know, I, I talk about so many things. The book, one of these things I talk about is like people need to complain like it's something I learned when I was younger. It took me a while. I used to try and fix everything, you know, and people come in like you said to your office complaining about something or having some kind of problem and I kind of learned to eventually let that just roll off, stop trying to fix everything. But, but the real top teammates are the ones that like you said, don't just bring you a problem, but to your point of already, you know, this, they may say this is the problem and, and here's what we're going to do to fix it. I think like that ability is so rare actually. And I think Sean, what I did started doing in my, as my career progressed is you have people on your staff that are, I always rated everybody one through five and a one means, you know, you just, and we didn't have any ones, ones are, you know, below average twos, you know, just not quite good. No, three is average, four is good and then five is elite. And then every year I would meet with my athletic director and I would give him the fives and that means that whatever we have to do, we have to keep this person because, you know, not everybody's treated the same. And you know, that's capitalism, that's the American way. That's, you know, you got certain people on your staff that you cannot do without. And when I had struggles at times was when I would lose those fives because if you, it's like a great player, if you don't replace a great quarterback with another great quarterback, it's science, you're not gonna be as good if you lose that great staff member and you don't replace them with another great staff member that just wears you out as a leader. And so when you talk about a guy that or a guy, a gal that it makes you feel like a million dollars when that person walks in and that the problem that's already solved and they solve, but it's, you know, it's their responsibility. Let me know what, how it went down and how I can assist. But the person that comes in and says, you know, we got this problem. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. And you're like, wait a minute, I feel like those people, you know, they think they're being helpful and they are being helpful by identifying issues and being candid about things, not hiding it. I mean, I mean, in fairness, CEO S head coaches, what have you leaders, there's often that blindness that comes because people are afraid to share bad news. You know, it's, it's written about quite a bit. So that's useful. That's like a four, a three or a four behavior. But it's, that, that five behavior kicks in, right? When someone's willing to prepack, solve the solution, bring it to you or bring you two or three options. I mean, that's just so above average and it comes naturally to some people, but I think, uh, mostly it has to be developed and coached. How did you coach? So, how, how would you coach someone from a three or four to a five? Then? Did that? Did you ever have to kind of do that? Yeah. You know, Sean, I, I wasn't one of those people that fired people, you know, my 18 years as a head coach, I fired one person, you know, I just, when I tell people that they're, like, really nice. Yeah, I just, I don't know, there's something that, and, and I'm not saying that's the best decision, you know, there's some things I would like to redo in some situations maybe. But I just believe them, I wanted people to have, I wanted to be a tough environment. You, you've seen our environments, it's a very competitive environment. I treat everybody, you get the best of the best. Hopefully, you know, even including salary wise, I believe people should be taken care of in that regard. But I also want to make sure that there's a standard there. And then if they don't live up to that standard, I try to make it so they leave on their own. You know, I just, I wanna do, you know, a legacy is when you and I'm talking player and staff is when you, that person is much better when they leave than when they got there. And the University of Utah, the University of Florida, the University of Ohio State University. And the one before that bowling green, we had a very clear standard. And if you couldn't live up to the standard, we're going to give you every possible way to improve and get to that standard. We would call professional development Sean. That means I'd send you to go if it's leadership, you know, I'm gonna send you to a leadership workshop. If it's uh technical skills, I'm gonna send you there, you know, if it's a recruiting office. So we weren't quite where we need to be. I'm gonna just go send you somewhere that's doing it a little bit better than we are and you're gonna learn. So I would, I was constantly pushing. It wasn't this, you know, I just have always had a hard time. I worked in a situation where, you know, the head coach would just fire people a lot. It created fear, anxiety covering things up like you discussed earlier. And I didn't want that. I wanted, you know, I wanted people to strap it on and go to work every day. But I also did not want that the fear of, you know, my gosh is the guy gonna fire me. I, I've never really fired anyone now. I mean, there's gonna be accountability and we're gonna make it better. Uh And that's really the same thought I had with the, the most important people, the players. Wow. Lot of wisdom packed into that man. So to catch people up the way I met Urban. So in 2003, 45, that time period, when he found his way to the University of Utah, which was like a coup, a miracle to get to get, you know, a caliber of coach like you out there and there were like you said to me, low expectations, but, you know, plenty of potential and went undefeated and in that period of time, he's in Salt Lake blowing up doing big things at my university. You might, you, well, you know this now from reading it, Urban Love sack literally began on the lawn at the University of Utah, like we were selling sacks on the lawn when I was there a few years prior, we had become, you know, a medium size company or something. I don't know, we had 3040 locations when I, when I met you, we were blowing up, celebrities were buying our stuff and we had no saal. It was just the sack but it was all this fervor. And I don't know, our pr team of, of course big U view fans got us in with you guys, your team, you know, you put us in the locker room, you had sacks all throughout. It was so cool. We joked about your guys working out with shrunken love sacks and these 100 pound duffel bags. Like what can we do? We could do like make them rolling down the field like we, we had so much fun brainstorming and then, you know, you, you invited me to be on the field a couple of times for those games and it was just so cool to be around it. And so we, you know, we became loose friends, you know, I, I remember begging your wife from the stands, like, don't leave us toward the end, you know, because you, of course, had every offer in the world and you had to take them. But, um, anyway, so that's kind of how we cross paths. But there are so many things I want to unpack from the things you just said, but, uh, just to go to probably the most impactful impression you made on me, it stuck with me. Then when I took over as a coach of my kids' soccer teams, you know, hopefully, hopefully not totally insane, uh, dad coach, but I gave them two rules and, and honestly, I felt like the, even though these were not your rules, they were inspired by your behavior for me and it was maximum effort because these are little, you know, 789 year olds at the time and growing into 12 year olds, I coached them for a few years. Maximum effort and winning attitude, right? And no matter what we're doing, even if it's warming up, it's maximum effort all the time. I don't care how good you are. I don't care your skill level. I want maximum effort and winning attitude. And, and I taught these little kids the idea that I don't care how good you've heard that team is. I don't care how much they beat us by last or whatever it may be. We are going to win this game. In fact, we're going to win every game. And man, that was such an attitudinal mindset that I drew from you. And I don't, I don't even know whether you ever said words like that to your own teams and, and whatnot, but that's the vibe I got because when you left, you know, the coach that took over who's been amazing, one of the most winningest coaches as well, but in a different way, I remember the first speech he gave and this is where I saw the difference was sort of like, hey, we're gonna have a great year. We're gonna kind of, you know, we're gonna build a good program. We're moving into the PAC 12, we're gonna win some, we're gonna lose some. And for me, like that was it like, as great as the Utes have done even since your departure, you were undefeated man. And look, there's obviously always some who knows, luck involved and timing and, and all this other stuff that I think any humble person would, I'm sure, you know, but it doesn't matter, the attitude was right. We are gonna win every game, you know. Uh it's the word, maximum effort. I think that's God's gift to us. You know, he makes people big tall, short, sometimes overweight, sometimes, you know, not as fast sometimes, you know, everybody's got, I don't believe God makes mistakes. And the one thing he does give you is, he gives you freedom of choice and it's your choice and if you want to be great, be great. And I always wanted a team. One of the greatest compliments I ever got Sean was, we're playing John Robinson. He was a great coach, uh of the L A Rams won the Super Bowl of the US C Trojans won a national title and he's at UN LV. And we're playing him one day at UN LV and he looks at me, we go out and shake hands for the game and here's the leg. I'm, I'm a young coach, 30 whatever I am. Here's old, here's John Robinson and he looks right at me. He said coach, that's a because I don't know how you guys do it. That's the fastest team I've ever coached against. And I'm thinking to myself, we have maybe one player that runs in the four fives or we weren't physically that fast. But my dream has always been to have whatever, to be an organization, a business, a team, a church, whatever. I'm around my family. I want people to be fearless. I don't want, you know, or, and this has never been more true in this society where now about mistakes or just you just get crushed for mistakes. You know, a great team plays, fearless mistakes are gonna happen. You know what you do when you make a mistake, do your very best not to do it again. But you have to believe that effort overcomes the mistakes all the time. And I wanted that in my players' minds, just visualize Sean, you're playing middle linebacker for us and you hear the coaches out there saying watch the run, watch the pa*s. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do that. You are now paralyzed as a player, you are now not gonna twitch, you're not gonna play fast if you're a receiver and you're like, what I, what if I drop this pass? What if I run around? You know what if I go inside when I'm supposed to go outside? I would always say whatever you do, do it full speed and we'll fix it because effort overcomes mistakes. Not most of the time, it's an all the time you have. That's a culture and when you say maximum effort, what a great thing to teach a young kid. You know what you're gonna, you were gonna drop a pass, man. Don't worry about it. Come back and go harder. The question my dad, my dad would, and this is when I was a little kid, he would always ask me. He said this is a simple question. I know it's a complicated answer. Are you the hardest working person on your team? He never asked me if I'm the fastest. He never asked me if I'm the strongest because, you know, you know, that's, those are out of your hands a lot of times. And when he said, I and I, I've said this at least 10,000 times in the last 30 years, 38 years of coaching. Are you the hardest working person? And if not, I need to know why. Mm And that takes your breath away, especially if you're having an honest conversation. If it's someone that you're not real close with, they, you know, they babble and you move on. But if it's someone like my child, like my son, Nate. Nate, I got a simple question for you pal. Are you the hardest working guy there? And if not, I really didn't know why, how can we fix that? Because that's a beautiful thing about this country. Hard work gets rewarded, Sean. I'll fight anybody on that. If you work hard, you get rewarded. Oh, we'll come back to capitalism in a minute because you said something earlier, you know, that caught my attention. But um so tell me, I want to hit you a little bit. So you were a young, I mean, I, I remember it was like yesterday, I remember because I got bombarded with people. And I mean, you remember those days, I mean, coming through the University of Utah office was a rolodex and people just, they wanted, you know, and it's all good people, but something stuck with me about you. And I remember Shelley also and II I want to say it was John Clark was my administrative assistant. And Brian Voltolini. Do you remember those two names? And they came to me and they know they know me because we were together for a long time before Utah. And they said you need to meet with this guy, this guy's, you know, and he said you guys got a lot in common. You know, he's, he's taking no prisoners in a position and that's kind of what we do. We take no prison, you know, losing is not an option. So, get that out of the way. And I was really intrigued and then, you know, I, I went on to Florida from there but I followed you and, and Shelly, you know, she's a, you know, the love cack. No. So we just followed you when you decided to go from average or not average from medium to big. Did it take your breath away? Was it a big risk at all? Yeah. Wow. You know, I think one of the struggles for love sack and myself has always been, look, we, we started as a big bean bag company. Like, have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous or unassuming or silly in your life? Right. And so I don't think we've ever been taken totally seriously. I mean, our name is love but me as an individual, I feel connected to you for the same reason. Like the medium may be strange, you know, I'm not a football coach, you know, the epitome of like masculinity, whatever. I'm like the bean bag boy. But um my ambition was the same. It's like I fell into this thing. I didn't even mean to people ask me where's the first love sack? I don't even have it because I didn't keep it because I didn't even think this was going to become a thing. It was like a little side hustle. I kind of didn't cause it was funny but people kept liking it and liking it and you can't deny that. And so you just have to chase it and sometimes we fall into things we don't even necessarily mean to do. In fact, I'd be interested to hear, you know, whether it was always your direction to coach football, we'll come back to that. But I fell into this thing. But my ambition and my core was to be the biggest be, I mean, to win just to, to absolutely dominate. And that's one thing I just really admired about how you coached. It wasn't just, you know, hey, we're gonna do our best and look, you knew that you knew and you know, and the a players know losing can happen, losing will happen at some point. You lost a few games in your career, but the attitude is I am going to win. I am going to make this the biggest, best possible outcome and of course, it's gone places. Now, I couldn't have imagined like Saal, I, I didn't even have that idea, you know, and now what Love sack has become with this design for life company, we're essentially making things you could have the rest of your life, that whole vision and our point of view on sustainability. None of this could have happened, had my ambition not been there. And now I think we have a path to become a lifestyle brand that could become anything. I mean, as, as big as you can imagine actually. And, and it may suck in the rest of my life. I may not get to retire because it's like sucking me in. But my ambition is the same. And so I think, you know, there's the vehicle for you. It was football for me. It started with bean bags, but then there's the ambition and the desire and, and, and look, maybe it's innate. I don't know. But that's, that's how I've always felt. One thing, the reason I asked is because I think people listening to this, you know, when I was at Notre Dame, I was offered the head coaching job of Bowling Green. II, I didn't want to do it right. Fear overcame me, you know, like, what if, you know if I fail? I'm at Notre Dame. So I've reached the, you know, I, I get this, you know, the, the golden dome on my shirt. When I walk into the office, I go to the front of the line and then, but sometimes you gotta step backwards and step forward and sometimes you gotta take that risk. It has to be educated and, and when I see, you know, you could have lost it all. You're a beanbag guy that was killing it. Now all of a sudden you start going into some, you know, I've seen your saal and I've seen all that stuff and I mean, never really been done before, right? What if the market doesn't like it, you're out all this work that you put into. But, and I think that's where, and I've, I've mentored people in the coaching profession. Don't jump at anything but jump at the right one and don't let fear or scare, you know, once again, be educated about it. So don't just, you know, don't be frivolous about it, you know, go take a, someone offers you head to coaching position at some place that's not going to support you financially, that's not going to support you. You can't get players there. Don't do it. I don't care if you're New Rocky, it's not gonna make it, but I've had other people just get too fearful. Right? Not, not take that step. And I was curious about you. Well, how do you develop that fearless mindset? Like, like it's one thing to kind of have it and have instincts for it, but whether it's in yourself or others or when you feel it creeping up and you're tempted to take the easy path. How do you tamp it down? How do you develop a mindset against fear? The first thing is prayer. And I tried to get guidance from a, a greater source. I'm married to, uh an awesome person for 30. It's gonna be 34 years and never made a decision like that without her and look at her right in the eyes. And then I'm, I'm one of those people that I investigate really, really hard you know, in your world, I can't speak to. I, I kind of know the makings of a great culture and a great team, but the, the, you know, logistical, the finances and all that. So I don't understand that part of it, but I do understand the team building part. I took Utah and everybody got mad at me. I mean, it was even my closest friends, Lou Holtz and, uh, Earl Bruce was my mentors at the time. And you know, I remember they were, they were gonna try to get me lower level big 10 jobs. And, and I remember when I took Utah, they both my mentors were very angry with me and my athletic director at Bowling Green. I mean, we were like this and he was, he, I mean, like really pissed off explain that for people who aren't necessarily close to college football. Like why? Like what about that move? Frustrate them? Well, yeah, Utah was asleep, you know, was asleep, you know, they had a great coach Rob mcbride, but they were a 557 and five. They won eight games once in a while. They're in a Mount West conference, you know, not many, they weren't on TV, very much. They had the reputation of the L DS issue and, you know, you can get black players and, you know, all the above. And I had very two very successful years at Bowling Green. I started getting all these phone calls about jobs and Shelley loved the West. We spent uh six years in Fort Collins, Colorado and I knew about Utah, you know, and I knew about Ron mcbride that he was a good recruiter. So I knew there, there had to be good players there. I did some research, they had good players and then what really did it? Chris Hill invited me out dr match and the president and I went and looked around and Colorado State at the time was the number one program in that conference. They had a small stadium, they had no resources. They had a small recruiting budget and they had a very limited fan base because Colorado is a very uh the people, most people that move to Colorado. So it's not a fan base that really grew up watching them. So it's a very small and that was that they were the king of the hill. I fly out to Utah and I walk into a place called the Burbage Center, the academic center. It's one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. I look at the uh recruiting budget, I look at the money that's available. I look at the fans, the, you know, one thing about university Utah, there's a lot of loyal Utes. You know, those are people that grew up there that, that's their team. And then what finally got me, Sean is I rented a car, asked for a car from the ad on my trip and I drove up towards Sandy. I can't remember the name of that street that overlooks the, the valley. And I had to see the, the number 2 million stuck with me. There are 2 million people in the Salt Lake community. You know, not, not Salt Lake City, but just around Greater Salt Lake. And I looked out there and I said, now you tell me we can't sell tickets to this many people. You tell me that we can't fill that stadium. We did. You, did you tell me that we can't get this thing rocking and rolling. And I remember I prayed right there on the side of the road, looked down at all these lights and I took the job so we can fill that stadium and up to that point, I think that, you know, they are 22,000 people per game and then you can't get a ticket now. Well, so what I find so interesting about what you just shared is, you know, because I asked you the question, how do you overcome that fear? And you came back with, I did my research, which sounds like a really like, you know, it's not like you first, you start with prayer, which you know, is a shared uh is a shared habit. It's my rule, right? Begin my day on my knees and it's changed my life, of course, to live that way. But, but to go to preparation of all things and you know, let's get spiritual right? If you are prepared, you shall not fear, right? And so by doing all that research, you, it's interesting, you know, as opposed to just listening to only your mentors, which you did, as opposed to just, I don't know, soul searching, you went out, you did the research, you put yourself, you looked at the situation in detail and somehow it sounds like, you know, the confidence grew from that. So it's more than just mantras and it's more than just, you know, pep talks and it's more than just being, you know, super strong. You put in some work to get there. And I think that that's notable. That's interesting. Now, this is interesting too, Sean that I speak on this a little bit. That is that the ultimate work environment is low expectations, great talent and great people. The worst work environment is high expectations and bad work ethic. Wow. And I walked into an environment at Utah and I, I thought it would be this way, but Ron mcbride, there were really good people in that program, I should say not really good. I mean, great people. Um we, we pushed them. I don't know if you remember all the stories are true. We locked the doors in a weight room, we covered them with, you know, we, we, my attempt was to get people to leave if they don't want to put in the work ethic and what I found out is they were willing to put in the work and we were picked to finish last in that conference. Wow. Think about that. And I think we went 24 and two in the next two years. Think about that and no expectations. And then what happens is when you start to win Sean, like you're, you probably, when you started Love Sack, you had, you know, maybe you had high expectations but those around you were just ready to go to work. What happens is you gotta be careful because we won our first year, won the first time they won a conference I think 60 years. First year. What happened? What happens? Expectations, expectation levels change, you better match it with work ethic or you're gonna have what that bad work, that bad environment I told you about. So do let's do it again. So low expectations, great work ethic. That's the best environment you can ever have. Then what happens as you because you got great work ethic, you are gonna get better, everybody starts getting better and then you win something expectations to this. And here's where I've had troubles too. If that work ethic doesn't match your expectations. You are now in an environment that no one wanted high expectations, low work ethic. So I would always challenge. I mean, we we got to hear. So you got to keep your work ethic above the expectation level. So then as you stepped up as you made the choice to then jettison in a safe situation, you just crushed it. Utah, you can win, you can win that conference. You could probably do it again and again and again, you then throw yourself into the lion's den, man. You get into the gator pit and then further into, you know, the Central Ohio, I mean, come on. Oh my gosh. So then how do you navigate that? What's you, you said you have to start. If, if your work ethics does not match your expectations, you're gonna fail and it's not, maybe you will fail. Well, there's only 2000 years of research you can do on that once again, if your work ethic or your expectations are greater than your work ethic that is gonna fail and you, all you gotta do is watch businesses around this country, you gotta watch teams around this country. That's what they, they wanna blame the players, they wanna blame the coaches. No, what's happened is your, your expectations are higher than your work ethic. Well, your success. So the way you put it, your own success is, is what creates the situation that ultimately brings your downfall because expectations are driven by that. So here's my psychology degree working for you. So let's go back to the, the ultimate work environment, right? Low expectations, high work of it. How does people feel in the environment? It's their thrilled, they're excited about work. They know that they can do better than what people are saying about them. You know, you got great work ethic. People are just working and grinding and scratching and clawing and enjoying the foods of success. Ok? So that's the ultimate work environment. Here we go. Going. Ok. Now what happens? High expectations, low work ethic you're not gonna achieve. So that brings disappointment, frustration, anger people are really down, you know. So those, and I've witnessed it myself and it's you as a leader, you got to change it. You know, and, but if the leader is not willing to identify this, I mean, it's that simple. Isn't that amazing shot? Watch us. Ultimate work environment, absolute failure. It's gonna happen. Yeah. And it's all because of work ethic and it's tragic. I've witnessed these top programs, you know, they're undefeated all season and, and one game and it's destroys them. You know, you have, you have people in tears, you have like foaming at the, I mean, you have, it's like you just had a better experience than 99.9% of everyone involved in the sport, you know, but the expectations are so high. So how do you manage it when you're now at the top top echelon? Because you've been there, you've been there numerous times. You've tasted it more than almost anyone. How do you manage the psychology? And then when you do get to the top, you know, because I can tell you from my side. We, like I told you, we began on the lawn of the University of Utah selling to friends and family. And now we're a publicly traded company on NASDAQ and you know what the stakes are high and investors expect a lot. And it's not a joke. So how do you think of managing at the highest levels once you're there? You know, that I'm probably not the guy to talk to about that. Come on because that broke that, you know, in all serious that broke me down in Florida. Well, tell me about it. You know, I have health issues. I, I became, uh, addicted to sleeping medication. I lost weight. I was overwhelmed, you know, when we were scratching and clawing and fighting and building and I don't want to give you the names because it's not fair. But I went on a, a yearlong search. I talked to some of the great coaches that I knew. And what happens is you find out you're not the lone wolf and that a lot of high-end executives, a lot of high-end coaches went through that all of a sudden, you work, you scratch your claw and they hand you this crystal ball trophy and you win it and you're like, wait a minute, is that it? And then that's all that becomes acceptable. And so I, I would, I had some mental health issues. I, I stepped away from Florida at a young age because I, I was, I was scared, I was killing myself. You know, I was having chest pains. I was rushed to a hospital one time. I couldn't sleep. I lost 37 pounds. One year. I couldn't enjoy life. And I said I'm done. You know, we did it, we did it twice actually. So we in 22 out of three years, won a national championship. My third year after that, I said I'm done. A friend of mine died of a heart attack. I don't want to say his name either, but he was one of my dear friends in the coaching profession. And I thought I'm not gonna, just like my family is too important for me. I don't enjoy this anymore. So how do you manage that? You know, and then I went to Ohio State. I managed it better, you know, I, cause I, I was broken at Florida. I went through a, a time for about a six month period that Sean I, I never really talked too much about it, but I was, I was in a bad position. You know, Shelley is a psychiatric nurse and she tried to help me through it. I'm a psychology major and I knew it was happening. I just couldn't pull myself out of this feeling that I was, you know, I, I was living this unhealthy lifestyle. Something's gonna happen to me. For what? Well, we already did it. So Ohio State was much better. I, I, because I went through it, I did better, but I'm not one of those people that if I wrote a book, I, we wrote one book. But if I, I'll never write on a book, how to handle my expectation because I was not, I, I'm still searching for that. I think that's really, really hard, John and oh, very few people can do that. Well, well, I mean, that's, that's incredibly humbling to have someone, you know, again, top three winning as coaches of all time. And that's your response to how do you handle high expectations but, but look, I'm a big fan of humility, not always the best bastion, but I've, I've got my teeth kicked in, you know, not to compare my situation to yours, but you've read my book, you know, the story Love Sack cratered. Like after our highest highs, you know, we were forced into a chapter 11 reorg bankruptcy. I just, I mean, and I had just won a million bucks on TV. I'm Richard Branson's golden boy. You know, I'm kind of like crown this, you know, billionaires protege. And then like months later, I'm in bankruptcy in the state of Utah, which means you think everyone knew, you know, your football program because I had been on Fox National TV. I was, I was like a local little household name in the little state of Utah that, you know, whatever for a minute and right on the heels of that. So, I mean, the timing couldn't have been more ugly and embarrassing. And so I know a little bit about how that feels. Maybe not the same as you, but I had to do the same thing. Kind of just find my way and dig my way out and went through really dark times that I've never really been able to explain to anyone because it's hard to explain to someone, you know what that feels like and how difficult, what you find out Sean. And I'm gonna, you're gonna find out if you do ever get there again or when you talk to people, especially like minded people. I'm saying the majority of people have gone through, maybe not the extent that I went through. But the phone calls that I got from conversations I had with some of the most incredible people have gone through that once it all varies the level. But when you're chasing the dream and you get the dream, that's a really tough one. And, and, and you find out, I remember I real quickly, I told my father who was obviously very close with them and in the locker room after we won our first national championship, I looked at him and I said, you know what's really cool about this for the rest of my life? I, I'm gonna just have fun doing this. I'm not gonna get stressed out because we did it, you did it and that may be the most untrue statement ever to come out of my mouth because what happened, Sean is that's becomes the expectation that becomes anything less than championship level effort. And I was a mania, people who work with me said like that, what's happened to you? And so that's the great thing about chasing it. I much rather chase than catch. I like to chase. I know. And then you catch it. What do you do with it? Right. That's so crazy, man. And, and so to some degree, maybe I'm just reflecting as I'm listening to you, you know, perhaps that's where I've been lucky because in your world there really sort of is this end point, right? There's this thing called the championship and then the whole thing just repeats itself right? In my world in business, there really doesn't have to be an endpoint like we became the undisputed beanbag king. Yay. You know, and then we invented Saxons and that took us a decade to figure that out. But, but here we are now, probably believe it or not. Little loves with the best selling couch invention in the United States of America in real time by the numbers. And to me, what's weird? And I'm not, I'm not saying this to sound really cool. I feel like we're just getting started. I feel like it's going to suck another 25 years of my life to try to now achieve what we could achieve. And that's one of the neat things about, about what I'm doing and about, I think perhaps, you know, the playing field I get to play on is because I can just keep moving the goalposts further and further and further out. So I'm always chasing, I'm always the underdog. Like right now we are the tiniest of the kind of companies I want to build our, our big hairy audacious goal, the quote Jim Collins, I'm sure you probably read good to great, you know, all these books, but he claims every, every organization needs to have a big hairy audacious goal, like bigger than, you know, just let's say just winning the national championship. And our big hairy audacious goal lovesac is to build the most beloved lifestyle brand in the world, which from a kind of obscure beanbag company that makes furniture, like that's a wacky thing to salmon. You got Nike, you got Apple, you got, you know, the Lulu lemons, youve got lifestyle. And so, but I'm, I'm not joking around, I'm really not joking. I share it publicly because I know it sounds ridiculous today. But our ambitions are the highest and to my belief system, even though I don't know how we're gonna get there, there is always a way like someone else did it. Phil Knight did it. I mean, he's amazing, but like, if someone else has done it, why not me? That's my point of view. And I know that sounds super audacious and maybe, maybe bluster. I don't know, but that is a difference. That is interesting. Like you, you were stuck in this place where the high is actually kind of capped in a way is that all you can do now is win a national championship there, you know, and so it's kind of an interesting dynamic, like you, you probably didn't reflect on that until you got there in the sense that that was the playing field you chose to play on and it has different dynamics than other playing fields. I wonder if I'd still be coaching today if we didn't win at all. You know, Shelley's often asked me that, you know, where she, she saw the change, you know, uh we won the second national championship at the University of Florida and right after the game, I go in and lock that we're celebrating. I go in and actually lock the door because I didn't want to be bothered. Mm. And I started emailing and texting recruits because it was on to the next. It wasn't, it wasn't sit back and enjoy this and when we won the national championship at Ohio State, I remember, I mean, I had to train myself, enjoy this, you know, let the players don't, don't become that maniac that you were in Florida where I hate to say it like this, but I've, you know, I've kind of heard stories because it was like a time warp for me, but we really didn't enjoy those great rewards. The player, you know, some people did, but I was so obsessed. We're doing it again again again and again, because that's how you're gonna be measured. And not, not the fans me, you know, the way I was raised is that, that, that's why it just, I'll tell you someone listen to, this is gonna learn something. This could, I just learned a ton in your world? You can move, keep moving a goalpost. Yeah, my goalpost don't move. That never even occurred to me until like I'm sitting here listening to you. And I think how interesting is it the concept of, you know, often we get thrown into things or like in my case, in your case, we, we sort of like end up on a path that we didn't even necessarily mean to, but we're there. Did you even consider what path you're on and what the dynamics of that path are like? Sometimes I feel super, super lucky. Like let me give you an example. I started to make, you know, in our first store, we had a couch, people would ask about the couch, we had the couch there to look pretty next to loves sos. So then all of a sudden we're in the couch business and of course, being stupid, we invent like, why can't we make a washable changeable couch that could ship in a box like and all the couch experts told us no, blah, blah. It's all in the book. But my point is, again, it wasn't strategy that I ended up in the couch category. But now in, you know, 2015 16, I'm seeing Warby Parker Casper, the whole direct consumer movement. And I realized holy crap, I am sitting on a mushroom cloud. I'm sitting on a huge ticket product. You know, someone spends 5, 10, 15,000 with us a whack. I have the only one that ships in a box like the direct consumer movement. The internets are right. Like, and so in a way, like I just got super lucky, but my point is, is the couch category turned out to be a really great place to compete. And by the way, I've got tons of copycats, whatever now. So I've got to do the next thing and I've got to win at the next thing because that's the expectation to your point. But at least I get to keep finding the next thing and there's no end. There is no national championship for me. I mean, unless I, unless I just, unless my ambition ends at being the couch guy, but my point is, does any idiot at 20 something years old even take the time to stop and think about what is the field I'm playing on and what are the dynamics because maybe accidentally you chose a path that took all of your leadership capacity, which is tremendous and all of your natural ability and funneled it into a bright spotlight, amazing accolades. Sure. But imagine what you could have done in business or imagine what you could have done, you know, where, where the dynamics were different. It's interesting to contemplate. Really isn't. I mean, I learned a lot right now today and I, I mean, I've actually dipped my toe of business. I just never really had that interest. I've always been, uh, you know, I was always about that player, you know, somehow trying to make that player great, but I, I mean, I have great respect for that. And I tell you Sean that what's interesting too and it would be interesting to, we do a Q and A with anybody who watches this. I knew just the way my makeup, I had a shelf life, you know, I, I have Great Nick Saban is a great friend of mine. He's seven years old. I know what the heck. I mean, he's a vampire. I had 55 back when I was in my thirties because of the way I worked. And I'm not saying that everybody works hard. I don't wanna get to say what he says. He works hard. I didn't say that the way I was a maniac about everything I did when I was recruiting. If we lost a recruit, it's like we lost a game. And I want, I mean, it was like, you probably heard about and you saw that time. I mean, we were and I had people around me a lot like that and then it just makes you think what would, you know, when 55 years old was the target for me? Because I love my family. I love my Children. I, you know, I felt like I, I did do the best, you know, I thought I did the best I can to be around and we have a great family, but I want to get back to them. Now. It's their time. My time's got now it's my name. I'm buddy. I'm not even coach anymore. Buddy is my name for my grandkids for me. So I I'm, it's funny everybody, you know, my former coaches will come over to my house and they're like coach, coach. Yeah, they're like, they call you what? And I said, I'm buddy, I'm the grandfather of four Children and I'm loving every second of it. So, well, you probably have saw this in the book. But you know, another one of my little realization, Shaun is everything else is dust. And, you know, talking to a guy who's held the crystal trophy, talking to a guy who's, you know, had the biggest spotlight and the greatest accolades. You know, I know it's not our topic for today, but I'd be interested to just hear your thoughts on that phrase because to me at some point, I came to the same realization and it's why I'm living in San Diego right now. Like this probably will suck in the next 25 years of my life. I'll probably end up like Nick Saban, some, you know, in, in my world. But recognizing that I only have a minute with my kids where they're actually with me and I don't want to miss it. And so I'm trying to balance that, you know, it's something I celebrate everything out, everything, even love sack as hard as that is to say, leaving my mouth is dust, it's dust, you know, like call like college football is as much as you, right? And that's where I think you made. I mean, I don't think you made the right decisions for you and they're different for you and for Nick, except for everyone, they are different decisions. But like, how could you argue with that? You know, like you're still alive, you still have, you know, all of your capacities to build a culture with your family now and your grandkids like, thankfully, you know, you made the right call there. I believe once again, a lot of prayer reflection. But I know I made the right call and when I see the joy of my family, which is like you said it, stuff. I, I go back to, we lost the game in 2003 to New Mexico. I didn't think the song was gonna come up the next day. Oh, I remember, I remember and I remember Kyle waiting to him calling me on the phone on the way home in my car and we both just try to wrap a reminder on what happened. You know, that was the last game we lost. We didn't lose another one after that. So cool. But I look back now and I have Utah fans and you know, I remember back that new me gamer is like, what are you talking about? It really is dust, it goes away. It's, you know, your family does it. But I loved how you said that, you know, I love sacks tremendous but stuff. I know man. And it like, like I said, it's like painful because I'm, I'm also, I care deeply about the people and my team and the wealth and that we're creating and our all of it, you know, and I care about our mission, all that stuff. But every human man in the end, you know, every human has the opportunity to build true gold, you know, around them in the ways that really, really matter. And so it's so fascinating to see someone that got to experience, you know, those types of highest highs, the types that, you know, millions celebrate if you had to trade it. I I'd love to hear it if you had to trade one for the other and those kids and grandkids. Now, how do you uh there's no trade, there's not and it's dust. I got three wonderful kids. I have I mean, think about this too. We went three for three on spouses for our kids. It, and I think, you know, you, you talk about your perfect soulmate, Shelly, you know, I missed a lot of stuff and that broke my down. That broke me down when I would miss a softball game, a volleyball game, a graduation because I had to. But that's like you said, it's all dust. But the good thing is I'm at the age where I'm pouring it into, you know, pouring into it now and I'm still like, I'm not 84 years old, you know, not all 84 years old, but reality is your life changes. So you could have, you know, just to maybe wrap up on a personal note. Although I did want to kind of, there's some other things I want to ask you. But, um, there is always a way now on the personal side, right? You, like we've talked about being a motivational coach, a leader, all these types of comments. What about on the, on the personal side? Like there is always a way like you survived, you physically survived. How do you think about that? You gotta give me that again. So the topic right there is always a way and you faced, you faced times in your life where your life was on the line, your physical life and therefore your ability to enjoy the parts of your life that aren't dust was at stake on the brink. But there is always a way and perhaps I don't want to speak for you, but the way for you was to walk away, I mean, that's pretty abrupt. I mean, how do you think about the idea of there is always a way and not losing sight of the things that really matter? I reached a very serious point, like you said, it wasn't a financial point. It wasn't a, I've never been driven by that at all. You know, it's always, you know, trying to build these, turn young people into very successful people and then build a, a program the school can be proud of. And when you reach that point where you really believe in your heart that you're and you're damaging yourself and therefore gonna damage your family. I know I made the right decision to Florida in two thou I mean, as bad as it was that I left, I mean, we, we won the 13 and one, I believe 13 and one and I stepped away because I, I really physically thought I was done. I thought there was something and I was getting enough medical teams around me that were, that I kind of knew that I was in a serious spot. So I did the decision that was best for myself and my family. See, but I think that's critical to highlight like there is always a way doesn't just mean I will run through brick walls. It also means, you know, to quote Kenny Logan, right? You know, when to fold them and you still came back and had another shot and of course, did amazing things. And my, my point is there is always a way it may not just be achievement. Well, you got a list here. You gotta be a person that has priorities in your mind. If your priority is to make, you know, was it 20 million, 30 million, whatever that number is, that was not mine. But when you reach that point where and this is where this is really interesting, Sean, when I got to Ohio State, same thing I knew. And I told the athletic girl, I'm not, I'm not built to do this for 20 years. I just can't, I just accept it. And, you know, before he hired me, we had that conversation, I was gonna go fulfill my contract, which ironically was a seven year contract. I did fulfill my seven years. And, but the difference that I did it, Utah had a successor. His name was Kyle Whittingham. Yeah. At Florida. I did not, you know, Florida because it happened so fast and I felt like I'd left that place and left a lot of my colleagues that I worked with and they did such a good job and some lost their jobs that destroyed me. So when I got to Ohio State every year, I would meet with my boss, the ad and I would, I would have a succession plan in place. I had it for several years and then when I found the right guy by Kyle Whitney Hammer, a guy named Ryan Day who's there now? No one lost the job. Everybody continued. The program is still thriving a school that I love. And where I'm from, you know, having that succession plan is another topic probably down the road. But I didn't have that at Florida. I did have that Ohio State and the difference between the two programs, you know, it's, I just had a plan at Ohio State because of what I went through at Florida and it was, you know, and I feel so much better about the way I left Ohio State because everybody's there and they're still thriving. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, you know, again, I think it's easy to conflate, you know, a statement like there is always a way with sort of like a last minute, you know, physical, you know, hard effort to achieve something. But the way can, of course, include plans and long term painstaking efforts to, like, as you describe to put in place, the apparatus beyond just we're going to win the next game no matter what, you know, I could think. Like, that's also, of course, under celebrated because it's so less sexy, you know, but let's go to the sexy part for one second. You know, you're down, you're behind its fourth quarter. How do you as a leader in those moments where it's do or die? How do you rally the troops around? The idea that there is always a way because you, you live those so many times. So how does that happen? Is it just bluster? Is it just like energy? Is it just like positivity? Is there any secret you have to creating a there is always a way attitude across the whole team that actually results in success, any secrets there? Yeah. It's something that I believe it's a militaristic model. It's if you are what your training is, you know, when we always would say when contact is made and what's contact, you know, contact in football is this contact is also when you're down by seven with two minutes left, but you're, when contact is made, everybody reverts back to their training, everybody when you're in your board meetings. And so you're faced with some situation that you've never covered. However, if you've been trained the right way, you know how to maneuver it. And I would always, you know, our, our practices were legendarily hard. I mean, I took the Michael Jordan approach. One of the greatest quotes of all time is I'm gonna paraphrase Michael Jordan and we had it all around the facility. The reason I practiced so hard, I want the game to be easy. I knew in 2006 my safety. We, we ironically played Ohio State when I was in Florida. The score is 4114. We beat them for a national title in the middle of third quarter where the player came up to me screaming at me and said practices are harder than this game. And I thought to myself that's what I wanted. Then we won. You are when contact is made in business, in life, in football, you revert back to not, not what you want it to be, but you're training. I love that. So it has to be muscle memory. It's not just everyone stuck up. We're gonna, we're gonna push even harder. We're gonna go. No, no, it's not. We're gonna go. No, I would always go around. I said you've been trained for this moment. You've been trained since January. This is, this is a eight month investment, uh, for a freshman, for a varsity, for a third year guy for three years. You've been trained for this moment, I'll finish your job. You've done this. We've done this over and over and over again. You've been trained mentally and physically for. And that's when you, you hear that, you see almost a change of look in her face like you're damn right. We've been trained for this. So it's calmer. There's some good stuff going to happen here in a minute because we've all been trained and I would hear them talk amongst each other. We've been here, we can do this. We, we've been trained to do this. Wow, that's amazing. So, it's calmer. It's power and muscle memory. It's not just a dramatic outpouring of effort. Hey, Sean, I got something else for you. So, real quick, confidence is a funny word. I mean, it's some, I think it's one of the most misunder words in the English language. It's something that you can achieve nothing without confidence. But there's only one thing worse than lack of confidence. There's only one thing worse. Any idea, overconfidence, false confidence, false confidence, a coach, a parent or someone telling you you can do it but you haven't trained them to do it. Mm Think about that for a minute. You talk about destructive mentality, false confidence is destructive, lack of confidence. You just, you fail and you gotta, you gotta build them back up and confidence usually not all the time but you high percentage is gonna succeed. So you got confidence, you got lack of confidence. That's ok. We got everybody's got lack of, that's our job as leaders, we have build you up however, false confidence, that's gonna be a bad ending and that's the leader's fault. So true confidence then. So you know, there's this phrase that I don't hate, you know, confidence is free. But but if I were to, if I were to actually articulate it more correctly, I disagree with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So projecting confidence is free, true confidence, however, comes from like you said, preparation, I think confidence is use the term free. I think it's, it's incredibly expensive. Confidence is built, confidence takes time, confidence is, is effort, time, blood sweat, tears, fatigue, pain, you know, all the things that go in to get you to that point. So I think confidence, man, once you, I'll tell you, you give me a confident, I mean, a truly confident team, I'll go play anybody anywhere. You give me a team that lacks confidence. I'm OK with that. We got to build them up. You give me a team that's overconfident. I don't want any. I mean, that's one of these because we're about to get our doors blown off. Amazing. OK. Last, last bit, I promise, I just, I've got so many things, so many ways I could uh learn from you. But um you brought up, you know, this idea kind of, of, of capitalism, you know, survival of the fittest, maybe merit. I feel like this, this whole realm of discussion is uh somehow been sidelined and, and, and even vilified a little bit in our current state of affairs. I'm so glad you brought it up because, you know, uh some of these cop topics now are strangely controversial even so, tell me about that. And maybe as it relates to the idea of there is always a way, you know, but you know, this idea of, well, the, the roots of capitalism, you, you brought it up, tell me how you feel about that. I, I equate capitalism to meritocracy. And that was basically everything I believed that I was raised and I believe that this country was founded on that. And there is a thing that a leader, Tim Kite, my leadership consultant, we would share this with our players and we would say that genetics shape you, circumstances influence you but decisions define it. So let's go backwards again. So genetics shape you. I mean, reality is God has a plan for every one of us. He makes lebron James 6 ft 10 and runs like a, you know, a, a great athlete. He has other kids that they're in wheelchairs and you know, their genetic shape, you, you have no decision about your genetics. You can't pick your parents, you can't pick your size, he weight speed, you can't. So genetics are they important? Absolutely. They shape you c this is the, this is where I think there's a conflict, circumstances influence you, you know, circumstances. Uh I'm very fortunate. I was raised by a mom and a dad in a very tough environment where education was everything. And I got ac one time in English my sophomore year and I'm glad I was in that circumstance because I didn't get to see again because I just, I was trained that way. So circumstances, genetics define you, circumstances influence you. However circumstances don't define you. If you come from a tough background, that's of course that matters. There may be a little tougher road along the way, you know? But it doesn't define you. What defines you are the decisions you make. There's people that come from great backgrounds, make some bad decisions and they, they struggle the rest of their life you come from. Yeah. I, I've coached people that maybe didn't have the greatest family structure growing up. Maybe they had a tough environment. But along the way, what they do, good decision, good decision, good decision, work ethic. I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna work harder and they're doing great. I'm very biased and I feel very strong about this. I don't think there's any other place in the world that has the same opportunity for people. If you do that, there's certain countries around here that doesn't matter how hard you work, you're, you're stuck. I don't believe that happens here. I've witnessed it over the years and that was something I tried to train our players over and over again is that, you know, we were get that degree and then we did this thing called Real Life Wednesdays where we get them internships, we get them shadow opportunities because I believe if you go in there and you make an impression on my work ethic, you're set and then final thought on capitalism. And uh I believe this with my heart that there's only in my mind, two things that solves every problem and that's education and experience and you can't take that away from people. Everything else you can take from them. Everything else is dust. I'd say education is not dust. You take that, that's part of your DNA. And you give every person a great education and you get them some experience. They have what helps it's called a job and they can provide for their families. You take away education and experience and that's why I get very angry when they, you know, like some of you see some of the stuff on television when you, you know, all these bad people in Chicago, I'm like, wait a minute, I don't think they're bad people. You know what? They're lacking education experience. That's if you want to be a great coach, great teacher, great politician, get, don't give stuff away, get people educated, get people experience. There has to be a way, Sean, there has to be a way, there is always a way. That's the point, right? There's always a way. And I, and I love, I'd love to just rap on this idea that you brought up around decisions because we are a lot of things like you said, our genetics, our circumstances, but of all those things, there's only one of those things that we actually have any control over and it's our decisions. That's all we are. That's all our businesses, you know, you may be thrown into whatever category, whatever industry, what you know, in your case, in your case, football, which has its dynamics as we talked about in my case, I don't know the furniture industry like what you know, brands that has its dynamics, I can't control any of it. My competitions out there, the dynamics are the dynamics. The only thing I have any control over is my decisions and our decisions. And when people start owning up to that in the meritocracy that's provided in the opportunity that's provided by capitalism, to build wealth, to lift people out of poverty, to create all driven by your decisions. And for that reason alone, I am a firm believer that there is always a way, no matter what it is, no matter how hard it is, there everything is possible. And if someone has done it, you can do it. That's my point of view. And I feel like you took me to school. Holy cow. I've written so many notes. I feel like IIIs still got the Utes hat. We got to do it again, Sean. I really enjoyed it, man. I learned a ton today. I'm so grateful that was uh I feel better about myself today. I I uh I am gonna share my thoughts with my family after our discussion today. That was awesome. I'm so grateful to call you a friend. I'm so grateful to learn from you. You can follow Urban as I do on social media and Instagram at Urban Meyer coach on the home for my favorite of all television programming of any kind college football on Fox and you can get his book above the line lessons. Leadership from a championship program. Thank you to the coach of coaches, the whisperer of winners, the king of culture and a generally good guy who was generous and humble enough to spend the last hour with you and me. Thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, your energy, grateful to be with you. Thanks my friend. Once a year to take my friends away. Should not be the budget for your bike across America. It is not right now as well. When I won that million, I was 2 million in debt. Barely hanging on the Arsenic camera drops his pants, pants, drops his pants. This is a sweetish production. Become your market's favorite corner of the internet.
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