Don Yaeger: Lessons From Champions

Don Yaeger joins Coach Pete to discuss his books, speaking, and the lessons he has learned from champions. This December 2012 interview explores achievement, preparation, and the habits behind successful teams and individuals. Call 800-661-7383 or text PLAN to 600-700. Transcript Automatically transcribed from this episode; timestamps are approximate. 00:00 And welcome back in, folks, to the Financial Safari. This is the time of the show where I talk to an author who's made a difference in the world. And today we're joining from Tallahassee, Florida. That's his home base. He spends a lot of time in airports, though. He travels around speaking. He's the Speaker of Champions. His name is Don Yeager. Don, welcome in. Hey, thanks so much, Pete. Now, when people hear that name, maybe they don't quite put two and two together, but you write for Sports Illustrated. You've written several books. I mean, which one should I pick out? I've got your page here on your website. Play It Like You Mean It is one of your books. You wrote it together with Rex Ryan of the New York Jets. I'm a New England Patriot fan, so I hear about Rex Ryan all the time, but he's a great character. He'd be a great guy to play for. Yeah, I actually do a lot of work with a number of different teams. Rex and the Jets is one, but also with the Patriots. 00:45 I'm working on a project right now with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and Robert Kraft with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. So it's one of the great opportunities when you do sports writing and get a chance to do it at a good level. You end up not just with one team. You end up getting a chance to understand the inner workings of many. And the New England Patriots, of course, Robert Kraft, he's a classy individual. I don't know him individually, but what I see on TV and what I read about him, I mean, it's first class all the way. He really is. I tell you, talk about a man who understands how to lead, how to build a franchise, and allow the working parts to do their job. He gets it. He totally gets it. Now, what makes you tick, and how did you decide who you're going to write books with? Well, now, just my 22nd book came out this year with John Smoltz, 01:32 the baseball pitcher from the Atlanta Braves. The good fortune is I probably get more opportunities to do books than I have time to write them. So we try to make sure that the book that we're doing or the book that we're working on kind of really fits the mold right now. We're looking for stories that kind of inspire other people, and that is a neat place to be. I'm figuring if they can inspire me as I write it, then hopefully it will inspire you as you read it. Now, you've got a book called Greatness, The 16 Characteristics of True Champions, and that's very intriguing to me. I mean, what inspired you to write that one, and what are some of those characteristics of a true champion? Sure. So, Pete, you and I met at San Antonio at an event where I was speaking, and a big publisher saw the number of times I was speaking to audiences like yours 02:18 talking about this subject, about what it is that allows really high-achieving champions in my world, the world of sports, what are the things that allow them to get there and stay there? And interestingly, if you really pay attention to it, you ask that question of these high-achievers, you'll discover that the lessons and the characteristics that are important to them are the same ones that would be important in any other line of work. It doesn't matter if you're in education or investments or financial planning. Those same lessons that apply to a discipline of understanding, you know, that you have to be better prepared than your opponent, the importance of hating to lose more than you love to win. And the truth is that that's a byproduct of taking excuses off the table. You look at it and you understand what allows them to be successful, and those same stories allow us to be successful as well. 03:06 So a big publisher saw that I was speaking often and asked me to write a book about the same subject on which I speak. Folks, we're talking to Don Yeager. He's a best-selling author and speaker. And, Don, here's what I've seen, though, in our society these days, and maybe you see this when you're interviewing folks. Everyone cheers for the underdog until the underdog gets popular, and then they cheer against that person. The same person they were cheering for to be successful, they cheer against to fail. Sure. I mean, you look at it, gosh, you know, Boston Red Sox. Everybody wanted to vote for the Boston Red Sox until they started winning. Duke basketball. No, it's a truism that everybody wants to see an underdog. At least if you don't have a direct connection or a personal investment, you root for the underdog. But as you said, after a while, if an underdog is consistently overachieving, 03:55 it's interesting what happens to their fan base. Absolutely. And speaking of underdogs, one of your books is called Gold Medal Strategies, and it's Business Lessons from America's Miracle Team. And you wrote that with Jim Craig, goaltender of the U.S. hockey team. And who can forget? No one can forget that moment there with Al Michaels' call there when they won the gold medal. Do you believe in miracles? That's right. It doesn't get into it. There's not many more iconic lines than that in the world of sports broadcasting. And that seems like just yesterday. I mean, it's hard to believe it's so long ago when we won that gold in front of everybody like that. We shocked the world with that gold medal. Without question. That was now a group of 19, 20-year-old American amateurs against a truly professional Russian hockey team. And it was competing back in the days before the Olympics really acknowledged the need to have professional, 04:43 or the plan of having professionals compete. But the leadership lessons out of that were really intriguing to me. And Jim Craig, obviously, as goalie, was the guy that probably had this deepened understanding of many of those lessons taught by Herb Brooks, their coach, as anyone on that team. So it was a really great, you know, one of those neat places where business and sports intersect, and the lessons are universal. Have we gone back and traced the paths of a lot of these guys that were on that team? Sure. Yeah, we did. You know, a number of them played in professional hockey. Not any. There weren't any of them that were extraordinary in professional hockey. But in that process, they, you know, it is kind of crazy that your greatest game might have occurred 05:28 when you were 19 years old. But for some of them, that probably is true. Yeah, that's a good point. Now, we broadcast nationally, but we broadcast from right here in Raleigh, Durham, North Carolina. And I see one of your books is titled It's Not About the Truth. And it's the untold story of the Duke lacrosse scandal and the lives it shattered. And that's a New York Times bestseller. And, you know, we saw that firsthand right here in this area. But, I mean, I'm sure that was a very interesting book to do research on. It really was. When I was engaged, Simon & Schuster asked me to take on the project long before we knew what the outcome was going to be. I mean, many people will remember. I mean, as the Duke scandal there was unfolding with the lacrosse team, you know, everybody initially believed those young men were guilty. And that was just a popular opinion. And that was when I was hired to just try to break it down, assume nothing, and try to learn what really happened. 06:22 Over the course of reporting it, the story continued to unfold. But the upside for me is that I was kind of already on the inside by that stage. And I was working with, had a chance to work with the coach, Mike Pressler, who's also an extraordinary man. And to understand what it was like to have the world come down on you when the facts hadn't yet been really explained. And, you know, there were an awful lot of outside forces there that it taught me a great lesson about jumping to conclusions, that's for sure. Now, Duke coach Mike Pressler, the lacrosse coach, he lost his job over all this, didn't he? Before the outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's actually where the title of the book comes from. The athletic director at the time, who's now at LSU, Joe Oliva, called him in. And Coach Pressler said to him, but Joe, you know the truth. 07:12 You know that this didn't happen. And the athletic director looked at him and said, it's not about the truth. Wow. You know, which, unfortunately, it was damage control at that stage. And their best way of doing it was, they fought anyway, firing the coach. Well, Don, I was brought up, my dad always said, as long as you tell me the truth, the spanking is not going to be as bad as it would be if you lie about it. So we still got spanked every now and then, but it wasn't as bad if we told the truth, at least. So one final book, though, that you write. I want to call attention to this before we leave. You wrote a book called A Shark Never Sleeps, and that's wheeling and dealing with NFL's most ruthless agent. That's Drew Rosenhaus. How was that? You know, ironically, what had happened was I had done a story for Sports Illustrated, a cover story, in which Drew Rosenhaus was pictured. 08:00 And the cover story called him the most hated man in the NFL, that the league hated him, because his tactics always seemed to be a little on the edge. And so here we declare the guy the most hated man in the NFL. Well, right about the time the movie Jerry Maguire comes out, and it's partially based upon his way of doing business. So when Drew was offered a book opportunity, he said, why not get the guy from Sports Illustrated who wrote this article about me to do the book? And I thought, well, that's kind of crazy. You write a story kind of in some ways being critical of him allowing his critics a venue. And when he gets a book deal, the first person he wants to talk to is me. And I thought, you know, in some ways you look at that as a badge of honor. And then he said the story was critical. 08:45 He recognized its fairness, and that's always good. But, yeah, it was interesting because that occurred not just a couple years after I'd done probably the book I'm as proud of as anything, which is living with Walter Payton, the great running back from the Chicago Bears, over the last few weeks of his life and telling his life story. So, you know, I've had a chance to be all across the spectrum and get a chance to learn from some pretty amazing people. And it's been an amazing ride. Working with Sports Illustrated like you do, I mean, a lot of people perhaps probably envy your job because you do. I mean, you get a chance to write about some fascinating things and meet a lot of fascinating people. Yeah, yeah. And now I've retired from there, and I'm just out speaking. I do, as we talked about, I do about 80 speeches like I did that night in San Antonio. 09:32 I do about 80 of those a year for corporations and groups all over the country, and it's exciting. It's a lot of fun. Well, what we'll do is we're going to put a link to your website on our site as well as the whole interview here with you folks. If you're joining us later, if you want to listen to this again or share with your friends, financialsafari.com. We'll have a link to this interview as well as a link back to Don Yeager's page. Perhaps you might want to have him come speak to your group. He's a great speaker. Don, thanks for your time again. Hey, Pete. Thank you. It's always good to be with you. The pleasure is all on this side of the microphone. Folks, we'll be right back after this.