The New Science of Momentum | Don Yaeger & Gen. Bernie Banks on High-Performance Leadership from Locker Rooms, to Combat Units, to Boardrooms

Welcome to the Implementors podcast, where we study how exceptional leaders orchestrate momentum, strategy, and culture to drive sustained high performance. Discover how to build stronger teams, elevate culture, and lead with greater impact. Subscribe to grow as a leader.Join host Ted Wolf, Co-Founder and CEO of Guidewise, for a powerful conversation with Don Yaeger and Gen. Bernie Banks—two of the most respected voices in high-performance leadership and organizational culture. Don is a 13-time New York Times bestselling author, longtime Sports Illustrated journalist, and Hall of Fame speaker who has studied greatness alongside icons like Michael Jordan, John Wooden, Walter Payton, and Condoleezza Rice. Bernie is a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General, former leader of West Point’s Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership, and the current Director of Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders. Together, Don and Bernie spent eight years researching one of the most misunderstood forces in human performance: momentum. Drawing on more than 250 interviews with elite coaches, athletes, executives, and military leaders, their new book The New Science of Momentum uncovers how teams spark it, sustain it, and recover it when it slips away. In this episode, they break down the hidden mechanics of momentum—revealing why small wins compound, why emotional intelligence matters more than ever, and why trust is the bedrock of every high-performing culture. Whether you lead a company, coach a team, or simply want to understand how performance transforms from good to great, this conversation will reshape how you think about momentum, leadership, and the art of building cultures that last. Purchase their latest book, The New Science of Momentum, here: https://a.co/d/7TAloyL.ABOUT DON YAEGER: Don Yaeger is a 13-time New York Times bestselling author, Hall of Fame speaker, and one of the world’s leading storytellers on teamwork and high performance. A former Sports Illustrated journalist who interviewed more than 2,000 of the world’s greatest athletes and leaders, Don has distilled the patterns of excellence he observed into bestselling books, keynote programs, and leadership frameworks used by organizations across the globe. He hosts the widely acclaimed Corporate Competitor Podcast, teaches storytelling with Simon Sinek’s Optimism Company, and serves as storyteller-in-residence for National Geographic’s cruise line. Learn more: https://www.donyaeger.comABOUT GEN. BERNARD “BERNIE” BANKS: ABOUT GEN. BERNARD “BERNIE” BANKS:Gen. Bernie Banks is a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General and one of the nation’s leading experts on leadership and organizational change. He led West Point’s Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership before joining Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management as Associate Dean for Leadership Development. He now serves as Director of Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders. Bernie has advised more than 200 organizations across sectors, is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s elite “100 Coaches,” and holds advanced degrees from Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, and the U.S. Army War College.Learn more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-bernie-b-4458003/ABOUT GUIDEWISE: Guidewise is pioneering the future of human–agent collaboration at enterprise scale. Skytop, our unified control plane for AgentOps and PeopleOps, provides real-time observability across every agent and workflow — along with enterprise-grade evaluations, performance testing, behavioral analytics, policy enforcement, and continuous governance. Paired with our Changeworks methodology, we equip organizations with the intelligent systems, skills, and infrastructure required to orchestrate high-performance human–agent collaboration in the AI Era. Learn more: https://www.guidewise.ai/contact/