bill belichick
episode 7
Broadcast date: September 1, 2017.
The Moonshots Podcast can't stop changing things up. We find inspiration from the world of NFL Football. Join us as we dig deep into the wisdom of the world's greatest NFL Coach Bill Belichick.
Bill Belichick Interviews
Bill Belichick On Leadership, Winning, Tom Brady Not A 'Great Natural Athlete’ (Exclusive) | CNBC
CNBC Contributor Suzy Welch sits down with New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick in an exclusive interview.
Coach K, Doc Rivers & Joe Torre weigh in on Bill Belichick's greatness
NFL360
NFL Network
Our guest next week
Simon is a Creativity & Innovation Expert, author, and Master Graphic Facilitator. Here's his brand new book: A Thousand Little Lightbulbs: How to Kickstart a Culture of Innovation in Your Organisation.
Chad's Book Recommendation
The Education of a Coach
by David Halberstam
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's August 28, 2017. And yes, we're at episode seven. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And as usual I'm joined by the one and only Chad Owen. Hey there, Mike. Good morning. And boy, Chad, do we have a show today? I am very excited, Mike and I have had a fun time. Trying to take us on a, on a kind of zigzag journey through innovators.
You know, we're, we're not going to just talk about the Elon Musks and the Jeff Bezos is of the world. We firmly jumped. I think it's safe to say we have jumped from Silicon Valley right across the gray country of America, right over there to the East coast, down to the land of the Patriots. Who are we going to focus on today?
Mr. Chad Owen. Patriots coach bill Belichick. I had mentioned last week to Mike that we should talk about a sports figure. And the first that came to my mind was Michael Jordan. But then Mike was like, no, no, no, no, no. We've got to do, bill will check. And I think too, to set this up a little bit for our listeners who, uh, who are not a mad keen NFL fans, let's just.
Put this in into perspective, we both jumped out of our skins. When, when we were talking about this bill Bellicheck is a lifelong American football coach. His father was an American football coach, and it's generally considered now I think it's fair to say, Chad, that he is the old time, greatest NFL coach with one of the greatest records.
And has produced just so many amazing plays over a long stretch of time. He, he stands above all when it comes to NFL coaches, designee. Yeah, well, and I don't think that you and I could really do him justice. So you were able to find a clip from three amazing coaches in three other sports that said that he was the best we have coach K of Duke.
Who's won five NCAA college basketball championships. He's also a hall of Famer doc rivers, great NBA player, and coach won a championship. And then Joe Torry of the New York Yankees, who I believe has four, four world series titles to his name. But here are here. Are these guys talking about bill? Where do you think bill Belichick lies in the Pantheon of great coaches?
Bill Bella check, I think stands alone. As far as grades he's right there with any coach of any sport. I think he's the greatest coach of all time sports and any sport. Tommy, you got an eight seconds now. No penalty, no penalties. We need another good week of practice. You need to keep getting better. We can do better.
All right, Mike, are you ready for some football? Oh my gosh. So before you all go, what an earth and these guys thinking where's where's my Silicon Valley gurus. Where's my media darlings. I just want to set up a few things here. First of all. Bill Belicheck is as, as straight as shooter as you can get, he is famous for when he doesn't like questions from the press, he just gives them the Destin.
Doesn't he, he kind of gets into this stead and he just goes quiet. And like, they just had him because he just doesn't get into any speculation. He doesn't get into any gossip is one stress shooting guy, and he's just dripping in wisdom. Yeah, it, it's funny to see his kind of coaching career with owners that were obsessed with the media, or came from media backgrounds versus owners that treat teens more like businesses.
And he certainly likes the ladder owners. You know, he's all about getting down to business, you know, which is his training and, uh, learning how to defeat your opponents, you know, on Sunday. Yeah, he, I would say that in, in, in terms of what his he's football acumen is unsurpassed, like he just knows more than anyone he's seen more plays than anyone he's forgotten, more plays than most people have ever learned.
He is quite remarkable. He's incredibly famous for picking obscure plays who are not generally considered to be great. And he makes them great. He has, uh, in terms of Dennis dentistry's. He's just been able to be part of and contribute to winning teams, both as an assistant coach and as a head coach. But I think Chad, without doubt, there is so much analogy between the way he coaches football and the way you would coach any other sport and how you would do how you would lead any team or any business.
Right. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there is a reason there's a whole of business books on sports leadership. The parallels are really enlightening and I, I I've thoroughly enjoyed. I don't, you know, I'm from Texas. So my team was America's team, you know, the Cowboys when I was growing up. Um, and I know you're a 40 Niners fan, so I was kinda surprised you were so into, uh, Belicheck.
Right. But, uh, I think there's just so much that we can learn about how to. Bring the best out of the people that you work with. I really feel that's what what's, you know, the great sports coaches do. They assemble the right people and they get the best out of them. And, um, I think we can learn a lot from just coaches in general, in certain certainly bill has some many great pieces of wisdom to share with us.
Yes. And, and so, so we have got a ton of great clips coming up for you. So as a quick overview of what's to come. We're going to say a theme. I think Chad is safe to say comes back in almost every single entrepreneur and innovator, which is this learning. Bill's big on that one. And you see a number of very functional worldview, the way he thinks about things that are, that are very compelling.
And again, and just like we've learned from other entrepreneurs and innovators essential. If you want to succeed and do something remarkable. And on the flip side, he has like an incredibly high emotional intelligence. He knows what it takes to get good players to become great. And I think before we get into the first couple, I think it's very important to mention that it is exceptionally rare that you will get what is considered the best ever coach and best ever player.
I quarterback in this case planning together. And that's what we have with Tom Brady. The quarterback. Of the new England Patriots and coach Belicheck. And what particularly poignant was that? Brady? Was drafted as all college players will be at the end of their college season, they college career, they get then drafted for the, for the, in this case, the NFL and, um, you know, the, the best place to be as a first round draft pick.
And, um, with that comes, I would say, I think it's safe to say Chad million dollar contracts are out of the gate, right? 10 tens of millions. Yeah. Yeah. So, so if you're a first round pick you're you're, you're a man and there's a big scrap every season for the exchanging of votes and positions and choices and selections and all that kind of thing.
Now, you know, you get down to third floor it's Ram peaks. You know, those guys might get a couple of Ryan ons during the season and any one fifth and below they're essentially water boys. And. You know, the backup of the backup, uh, is that, do you think that's fair to characterize a fifth and sixth round pick in the draft?
Yeah. I mean, when the Patriots took Tom Brady, he was the fourth quarterback on the roster quarterback sixth round pick. And, um, what's particularly important to know is that even Tom him self will say as will bill, that Tom is not the most talented quarterback ever. But because he embodies this concept of doing his job and working incredibly hard to become better.
He's managed to become the most successful quarterback in history. And this is why it is so special that we get to, to listen to bill talk about his views. He's philosophies, he's ideas for. Building a great team and building great plays and all of this can inspire us in creating products, creating new companies.
Dare I say, just to be better people overall. So we've got two particular clips that we've got here. Uh, we managed to find a CNBC interview from earlier this year. And the great thing is that was just after they won the most recent super bowl. Which before, before we get into these interview, Chad, take us through this, this most recent Superbowl victory for new England and coach Belichick.
Cause it was off the charts. Well, I'm not a huge NFL fan, but if you know, if you're in America, you kind of like have to at least have the super bowl on when it's, when it's playing. And to be honest, I. Just wasn't very interested in the ball game because I wanted the Patriots to win. I wanted Tom Brady to get another championship, but, um, they just weren't dominating the game.
Like, like most of the rest of the season, uh, that they had, they were, they were kind of there being manhandled a little bit. And Tom Brady just couldn't really connect with any of his receivers and their running game. Wasn't quite as good as. As they had needed. So they actually, you know, fell behind by quite a bit, quite a seemingly in sermon insurmountable amount of points.
You know, we're talking like three touchdowns, three scores. Yeah. Um, where, you know, when you're in the second half of, of, of a ball game, you don't think that they're going to be coming back from that and you know, at all, and boy, what was the turn? I mean, it was remarkable, wasn't it? Well, I'm having trouble remembering exactly what it was third quarter, and they just turned it around.
They pushed it to overtime and by the time over time was running, they had so completely changed. The game bill had brought in all these new moves. Brady just transformed. Like I've never seen an NFL player transform. And bye bye. By the extra time, it was so obvious that they were going to, and, and the, the, uh, Atlanta, the guys would just destroy that.
Cause couldn't believe they, they thought they had it. And once again, the package shit's turned it around and it's all embedded in this series of philosophies that he's coached the team. And we are, we've just got a ton of these, uh, clips to play you. So I feel like we're ready to getting to the next club.
What do you think Chad. Yeah. Uh, I also just want to mention that you had recommended a book too. I mean, it will speak about it a little bit later, but it was really interesting to me to just learn about bill bell checks, you know, upbringing and history. You know, he'd been coaching like as an unpaid assistant in the seventies.
And so, you know, it took 20, 25 years for him to find the right owner. In Robert Craft the right team in the new England Patriots. And then a couple more years after that, until he found his player, actually, his, I would say his best student, Tom Brady, the quarterback. And so again, for those of us that think that those overnight successes happen overnight, Oh, we are so wrong in both cases for both.
So, and bill. So let's, let's jump into this, this next clip. And this clip is. All about, about learning. And the gentlemen speaking is doc rivers. He's a great ex great NBA player. He's won the world champs 2008, Boston Celtics. So he's a big time dude in basketball. He's also his son. Also, if I remember right, also plays for the Clippers with him.
So, I mean, we're talking dentisty right there. So he's a big deal. And this is his story of what happens when he comes to speak. To the new England Patriots. You have me speak to the team, how I'm ready, walks in with a notepad. It sits in the front row and he's writing everything I'm saying. And it was unsettling for me because it was Tom Brady doing.
And so what does that tell you that trickles down? Because if you can coach your players and then they can coach each other, and if they buy into the coach, then they can police each other.
What's so great. Here is I just say you understand the context, the world's greatest quarterback who happens to be married to a supermodel who happens to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Here is the doc rivers is coming to speak. He comes with his notepad. He sits in the front row and he writes down everything.
Doc has to say, if this doesn't speak about this appetite for learning, for being a student, but also what speaks to me here is the humility. Despite all that success, people are still ready to learn. And I think that this is. This is by and far, you know, the most exciting thing is to hear that these guys who've accomplished everything, uh, still ready to learn.
Yeah, I actually have another clip that I'd like to add to that, Mike, which really just shows how bill instills this constant learning in, in the teams that he's coached over the years. Well, where I probably learned the most is my first year in 1975, because I took a job was given a job with the Colts.
And I didn't have any experience and they were very understaffed. I wasn't getting paid anything, but I had a lot of responsibility for, or that position. And so I was able to learn a lot. It was like having two or three graduate courses in one year after that year, when I went to. Detroit, we will. One in four, we were playing the Patriots who were 41.
They had a great team. And I went back back to an experience that I had in Baltimore. I kind of talked to our offensive coordinator at that time and said, look, I know we haven't ever used this formation, but. You know, I studied this formation while I was in Baltimore last year. Like, I think this is really going to give the Patriots a problem.
Can we take a look at this? So we went through it, we looked at it, we used it. And, you know, we won the game by three touchdowns. It was a huge upset. That was kind of one of those where I'm like, okay, I can, I can coach in this league. What did you take away from that? It's a good that don't be afraid to use a good idea just because it's unconventional, just because somebody else hasn't done it.
If you believe in it's a good idea, then, you know, don't be afraid to use. And there, there he is talking about his first, how in his first year he was essentially, you know, in multiple grad school courses learning how to coach. And it was interesting to me how he F he framed it that way. Like, you know, I'm not going to just like coach players and how to catch footballs or how to throw footballs.
He's like, no, I'm actually learning. As if I'm in college, you know how the game works and how to play the game. Yeah, to me, it's this embodiment of the, the, the greatest leaders are the greatest students. And I think we've seen that time and time again on the show. Haven't we, that these great innovators, great entrepreneurs, great sports coaches have the ability to learn.
Tom Brady sitting up the front desk, taking notes from the doc, but also the fact that in his first year in the pros, he was referring to plays that he had learned years and years before. And. Just he's a walking database of different place. He knows his subject. It's almost reminiscent of Elon Musk, you know, knowing in great detail, use cases and requirements and the capacity of given technologies to achieve certain outcomes.
This to me is a great reminder for us, that success we're seeing now is rooted in this idea. Of always learning of always being a student. And I think the way the thing I take out of this is the humility that both Brady and him demonstrated in these two stories to be ready to learn. They never think they're above it.
No, because I think, I think bill chose very early on that that was going to be his advantage because he was not. He wasn't an outstanding football player when he was young, you know, he was, he was a good football player because he knew how to play the game, but he wasn't, you know, going to physically or pass most of the players that he was, was playing against.
And so I think with the encouragement of his father who was a. A storied NFL scout and assistant coach at, um, at the Naval Academy. And we encouraged bill to just learn the game better than anyone else. And that will be your advantage. The, um, There's this concept of learning is such a strong theme. I would say this is one of the single strong strongest themes we're seeing in all of the shows, too.
Absolutely, absolutely. Everyone. Yeah. And, and I can tease this, the ones, the shows we've got company, we can really see this. The theme is comes back time and time again. But, um, learning is just the start for bill Bellacheck. Why don't you. Set up this next clip where we start to get into some of the other practices that he has for success.
It's really interesting to me in doing research in, in listening to bill understanding how it's, isn't it, the art of war talking about, you know, knowing your opponents moves before they do that's how you that's, how you can overcome or defeat them. It's absolutely right. Yeah. I'm I'm butchering. I mean, I know there's a quote somewhere out there that I'm butchering, but bill Belichick is certainly a, a student of, of Sunsuper in, in that regard.
But, um, the way that he prepares for games, like when he was an assistant coach, He would be preparing for two games ahead so that when they had played their game, the next day, he would already know more than even the head coach about their next opponent. So all of the players and all the coaches would come to him because he knew, you know, all the formations and the plays and the tendencies of those players.
And, um, that showed him really early on the value of preparation. But here's um, here's him just, just talking about. How, um, how valuable that is for him. There's a sign over there that says every battle is won before it is fought. You said that's one of the few signs you have in the Patriots headquarters, sun Tzu, art of war.
Um, it's all about preparation. You know what you're doing? And you have an idea what the opponents can do, what their strengths and weaknesses are. Um, then once you get into the game, then those adjustments will be, um, I won't say easy, but relatively easier, more manageable. Let me know when you're well, enough prepared when everybody knows what to do, because our game is so fast, things happen so quickly.
So you review the situations, review the communication. You try to make sure that everybody's on the same page. If it's too complicated, it's probably not going to work. If it's too simple, that might not work either because it's too obvious. So you try to find that, that, that fine line in the middle where it's challenging enough for your opponents, but something you can execute.
Again, it comes down to execution. Every battle is won before it is fought. That's what you're looking for from the art of war, man. It's and it's so true of the way he plays. And, and frankly, he knows so much, he's learned so much and he is prepared so much that, uh, what was really special, both in the book and in a lot of the preparation, you find that he's competitors talk about the fact that.
Even if, uh, someone competing it against Belichick. So the opposing team is playing and they come out with all these new moves in the first half. It's infamous in the NFL that those teams always end up losing in the second half because bill bell checks team, the new England Patriots, they adapt so quickly and that they, they return fire with fire so quickly that your advantage is only for the half.
And this is what we saw in the, in the super bowl. Atlanta was way up, way up, but they had to, they acted and it's because they're so prepared. So I have a question for you, Mike, how, how can you and I learn from an embody this idea of preparation and the things that we're doing either, you know, creating immersive stories or working with companies or, or our own companies to create new products and services.
Oh, okay. So this is a little bit tangential, so you have to forgive me a bit, but the first thing that comes to mind. Is when I'm, uh, giving a talk. And I remember giving him my time, a few bad talks and once or twice they've gone, they've gone. Okay. And the difference between a good and a bad talk for me is preparation.
Yeah. And, um, the way I embody this is that if I can, right. The narrative ounce, On the evening before the talk, without any prompts, completely unaided. If I can't write out the narrative, the story that I want to tell, maybe in five to 10 bullets. If I can, if it's not just coming out of me like that, if I don't know, no, the story that, well, then I know that I'm not prepared because the best talks are those that you give when you're not trying to remember what you wanted to say, that you know, the subject so well, that you are completely present in the telling of the story and the moment.
And this is my greatest lesson with preparation is, uh, with talks and it's just know your subject, you know, he talks about. You know, do your job. No, your job. I'll tell you what, uh, public speaking is a great metaphor for this does know it so well be out or ride it out a hundred times without any, you know, checking your notes.
That's when you know it. And then that's when you can tell the story. Great. That's for me, that's where preparation comes. What about for you? Like when you turn it into producing and you've got so many facets, such a big seem to make a, a story right. When you're making a film. Yeah. How do you, how do you embody preparation?
I actually think it's, it's quite similar. If I can boil it down onto a post it note or an index card and know it from that, like you said, the four or five bullet points, then I know that I'm prepared enough. You know, like you look at the, the coaching staff on the sidelines of a, of a NFL football game and they have just like one.
Eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper, that's laminated and it's printed on both sides and they have the entire game plan, all of the plays, all the situations, you know, we're up by a lot and we need two yards or we're down by a lot and we need 18 yards. All, everything is all just on that one sheet of paper.
And to me, that is like the embodiment of all of those weeks of preparation for. Or an entire week, I guess, really in the regular season, you know, for that ball game. And so, um, exercise that I like to do right beforehand. And, uh, so I guess like, whereas you are writing it out or kind of telling it from memory for me, if I can distill it down into that index card or that post it note.
Um, then I'm confident that I know kind of what the essence of what I'm doing is, and then I can be really confident going forward. Yeah. And then you can, I would imagine when you're shooting and you've got all, all the, you know, all the cogs moving at the same time, you can, you know what you're looking for and you can find that great piece of the story rather than scrambling around, looking at a shot list, thinking, Oh my gosh, have we got the shots?
You know, Exactly. Cause they know what's most important. Like I know it's most important to connect with this character or person emotionally. And so we just put ourselves in a situation to do that instead of like you said, it's like, Oh, well, did we get the drone shot? Did we get the shot? Did we get that shot?
No, just what's the most important parts of the story that we're trying to tell and just. Be sure that we, we get that. Yeah. And for our listeners, I would equate preparation a lot with thoroughness or being rigorous in the way you create new products or services. And one of the things that I know from experience is that what characterizes a great product is not only that the, the core.
Feature the core part of the experience or the service, uh, works, but it's the rigor, the thoroughness, the preparedness to make sure all the little things around the core experience of working. So the classic thing is the onboarding experience for an app. For example, a lot of people don't think that through, and we've all had those experiences where, because they have not done.
Proper user journeys, which is literally an a to Z every single step. The user's going to go through to use this product or service. You download an app and you're like, Oh my gosh, did anybody check this? This, this not feel normal or it just doesn't work. And the other thing is support. This is the classic one.
That's always left off. If onboarding is always, always forgotten on the front end on the back end of any digital product or app. It's like, okay. It doesn't work. What do I do now? And the support characteristics are always the one to look for the tail of an unprepared team. There's no FAQ. There's no way to get an instant chat.
There's no way to, to crank up a ticket. Those are all the tells of a team that wasn't prepared. And, you know, there's one thing to be MVP or move fast and break things, but there's also just not being prepared. And those are the tells are, I think you can look for, and that we experience all the time when we try out new new products and new services.
So we can take a lot from Bill's old school analog lessons, I think, uh, into our, into our digital world and, um, talking about our digital world. Um, I think, I think Chad, it's fair to say Bill's not a fan of social media. What do you reckon? No, I think he hates social media more than he dislikes, uh, having to talk to the media.
To like the, the stations. Yeah. So we had to just as a, as a little halfway marker, a little bit of context. So is this the same CNBC interview? And, um, bill is. Has prefaced these comments that he's about to give with, he tries to stop social media any way he can, because he just thinks it's an enormous distraction for his players.
But, uh, I mean, this would almost be our blooper reel, I think have a listen to this clip. This is a at there's two big bloopers in there from bill. Uh, I think he's just trying to demonstrate how much he doesn't like social media and. He he's attempt at, at referring to Snapchat and Facebook. Uh, well, I don't know if it's Facebook or Instagram, you work it out.
This is bill talking about he's hatred of social media. No, we have a rules that prohibit our player from, you know, posting things on, you know, instant face and all that we don't. And I think it's important for us to, as a team, to know each other, to know our teammates and our coaches to interact with them more than it is to be liked by, you know, whoever on chat room.
So we, we try to encourage are the interaction and the personal contact and experiences. Um, and not really pay attention to what people are saying out there who don't even know instant face, Mike, a haven't you heard of it? You don't, you haven't downloaded it. Well, yeah. You know what? The first thing I wanted to do is check in and see if instant face was still available.
The URL. I think this is a, I think this is so perfect. Instant face. And what is it? Chat book. Chat room. So there you go. Bill, bill Belicheck for all of his amazing talents on the football field. He, he's not, he's not too crash hot on that old internet social chat thing. You mean by busy? I loved hearing this from him.
I mean, I'm a bit of a social media Luddite myself. I don't have a Facebook account. I'm not active on Twitter, Instagram. He's like, I just want people to interact with each other, you know, talk to, and learn from the coaches and talk to him and learn from the players. You know, it's funny, but I, I do think that certainly in his environment, That personal interaction in that one on one time is so important.
And when you have that being mediated by all these social media platforms, it's difficult for him as a leader too, to kind of keep a handle on things. Yeah. And, um, he, I'm so focused on relationships and what you are here many times when great plays talk about being on the him was how much they enjoyed playing for him.
L under him with him there, there's a real, there's a real great. Affinity for him. And I think a lot of that comes from his, so he puts so much time into his player relationships. And in fact, we're going to get into that in, in the, in the second half of the show, we're going to get into a lot of how he manages team.
And I, I hope for, for the listeners you can, since here that we have. Somebody is once in a lifetime opportunity for someone who is such a great leader for us to learn from because he's a learner himself and he's more prepared than any other coach and other coaches know that as well. And for whatever hatred he has of social media.
He is up there with the likes of Fred Smith from FedEx looking totally devoted to learning. And, you know, he's dropped some zoo and he'll drop some other great historical greats as well. And the second half of the show, but I just found it a big affirmation of, of learning always being in student mode. I absolutely, I just think he's, he's remarkable.
And that was what was it for you in those the first half of those clips? Uh, Chad, what was it that really resonated for you? Yeah, I almost think we have to like dig deeper into some of our, our subjects to find something besides like this idea of being a lifelong learner, but there's absolutely something there, right there must be, because I think everyone we've profiled so far.
Has either outright called themselves a lifelong learner, or you can look and see their, their practices and their habits and, and understand that they in fact are a lifelong learner. And so I think for me, it's just affirmation that you and I need to keep investigating these people and learning more from them because they attribute a lot of their success and a lot of their, um, Just, they attribute a lot of what they do or how they, they do it to, to the things that they've, they've learned beforehand.
I think this is, is a good chance to mention the book that you had turned me on to Mike, because the title is the education of a coach. Bye David, however, STEM or Halberstam. And I was surprised at how far back into bill bell checks, uh, kind of history and childhood the book goes, but it's extremely important to understand kind of his history and heritage and why he was imprinted at such a young age, in the value of learning because his father was a.
Uh, a coach, uh, from a very young age, um, mostly in the college game. And, uh, but he kind of played around in the, in the NFL as well, but he, he brought up bill, you know, as his acolyte, you know, I think as early as nine years old, he was learning and memorizing plays and calling them back to his dad. Yeah. I, I think the, this book by David Halberstam, it's called the education of other coach.
He's quite a famous writer, help us them. But to me, the most powerful combination that I out of this was this dance knowledge and understanding of the game. So very functional. He knew he's a vocation. He knew his craft, but what the book also shows us is he knew people. Uh, now what's interesting is he's not.
A great orator and he's not a great speaker, so he's not a rara coach, but much more importantly, he seems to uncover great potential in players that others don't see. And he, he has an ability to mobilize teams in a remarkable way. Some things I took from the book is he generally has a smaller coaching staff than most other professional coaches.
He often doesn't have the biggest payroll. In the NFL, all these amazing things. It's just tells you, he knows the game better than anyone. And he knows football players better than anyone. Yeah. And I think because he grew up a coach's son, he was able to find other like-minded coaches. That he wanted to work for when he was first starting out and then that he wanted to hire to work with him when he finally became a head coach.
And so I think the M I really took away the importance of knowing your strength and then. Surrounding people surrounding yourself with people that can let you continue to focus and work on your, on your strength. Yeah, absolutely. It's a, it's a great read. Of course. We'll have it in the show notes for everyone.
And I would say this is one of those football books, coaching books that doesn't really require you to be a mad NFL fan to appreciate is that no, not at all. Yeah. I think, I think you can just appreciate it. It doesn't spend too much in the nitty gritty of NFL. And in fact, the only criticisms you can find on Amazon are from the hardcore NFL Patchett's lovers who want a lot more, you know, chunky, hardcore Kool-Aid football stuff.
And this is more the, the, the greatest story. So a great read it's called the education of a coach by David Halberstam. And we'll have that link for you in the show notes on moonshots.io. So let's move to the second half. And, you know, we did, as we mentioned, we did a lot of that, more functional, deep learning, knowing the game very well.
Um, before we get too much into the way he runs teams, creates leaders and so forth, let's jump into this next clip where he. It's quite short, but he encapsulates his core philosophy about coaching. So is bill Belicheck on his core tenants of coaching? Do your job, the antenna, um, pay attention to details and put the team first and football, um, to be successful as an individual player, you need your teammates and the better you connect with them, the better you interact as a team, the more successful you'll be individually.
And I'd say we try to do things to help the team building process. So he, he, he drops his very famous, I think, do your job. That's. I think probably he's most famous saying when you say Chad, do your job. Yeah. Yep. Do your job. Yep. Do your job. So, um, what you'll see in the research is many other jobs and many other coaches have actually stolen this.
And openly said, I got this from Belicheck. And a lot of people use that in American pro sports. This idea of doing your job. But what I want to call out on this is very analogist to, to work, which is good players contribute to the team and the team. And when they do do that, that sort of unselfish behavior.
And when they contribute to the good of the team, the team gives back to them. And it's almost this virtuous circle in that second half, he's really starting to explain. What you could equate to modern day collaboration, agile teams working together, building something where the sum of the parts is greater than the individual pieces.
This is where the compound. In fact, if you will, if his approach really starts to happen is you get a bunch of guys. Giving unselfishly to one another and it ends up making all of them individually, even better. And I think Tom Brady is the, is the greatest example of that. When you hear about this collaborative approach, what inspires you about, about his philosophy, Chad?
Well in the book, I found out that they're the Patriots headquarters. They don't have any trophies or banners or anything celebrating any of their past victories and, you know, glorious Superbowl wins because they. I think because they don't want to idolize, you know, one particular team or one particular player, because you know, the team that week is different, you know, different players are playing or injured or in or out.
And for, for bill, I think it's really important to keep that idea of team first and that you, as a player fit into the larger. Team and that no single effort, you know, is going to be able to get them, you know, those, those victories that they're, that they're looking for. And what I would characterize the, the new England Patriots is that they have star players without a doubt.
But one of the really interesting things, when you read. All the quotes. Um, many players will talk about their time at the party, Patrick, as the best time in their career, even if they move on after, and he's not scared to sell off much to the. Chagrin of his fans sometimes, but he, he always puts the team and the club first.
So he's never overly dependent on, on, you know, anyone, one player, so many lessons on the power of teamwork in, in his tenants, but he, he can riff as good as, uh, Fred Smith from FedEx when it comes to history. So, Chad, I think you'd better. You better hook us up with this next one, where he goes for a deep dive, into some lessons from history.
Yeah, he's talking about some zoo earlier. Here he is, you know, with an Eisenhower quote again like another, uh, business book genre on leadership, you know, there's all those great military books about leadership and kind of the parallels to business. But here he is talking about what he's picked up and learned from Eisenhower.
Generalizing how I put it pretty well. Um, a battle plan is great until you actually get into the bed, then it doesn't mean anything. So that's the way it is in football. You have a game plan, you go into the game. Now you start playing and you see what your opponent's doing, or they make an adjustment to what you're doing and then you have to change.
So my job as a coach is to make good decisions. It's just not, they go out there and block or tackle. Thank God. Uh, that wouldn't be very good. Yeah. Take information, calculate it. I'll put it through some kind of process and figure out what's the next thing to do. And so. That happens from really the first play of the game.
I think aside from bills preparation, all of the learning and preparation that he does, I think the kind of X factor for him, and this is. This is probably part of his personality, but his ability to adapt, given the situation, take all of his preparation and just use it against his opponents in ways that they are not expecting.
And you had alluded to this, you know, with this most recent super bowl that they played. The Falcons had the Patriots beat in the first half completely come plant. I mean, like, without a doubt, like people were turning off, their TVs, people were giving up on the Patriots. It's like heartbreaking, heartbreaking, heartbreaking.
If you're a Patriots fan, you were like, they'd gone. There's no way you come back from this. But bill knew there's two more quarters of football left. You know, we've got half an hour to work to, to, to win this game. And so he took all the preparation that he'd probably been doing all year. He probably suspected, you know, we might see the Falcons in the super bowl or maybe this other team and the two weeks of prep, you know, before the game with him and his coaches and the players.
Adapted their, their game plan. Like you said, they threw out formations in plays that they hadn't used, uh, all year long Falcons had never seen. And it took them by surprise and stunned, not only the Atlanta Falcons, but like. Everyone watching the super bowl because there, they were tying the ball game in the last second to go into overtime.
Right. And so a couple of quick thoughts here. Uh, you can find on YouTube interviews with bill Bellicheck, where he refers to. We had lost control of the scoreboard in the most recent super bowl, but not control of the game. He referred to that they were still making plays, even though they weren't.
Winning on the school board. So he wasn't stressed. He wasn't actually that stressed. He didn't, he knew all he had to do is find the trigger, uh, to, to, to get them to complete plays, to make the fourth downs, to get the points on the board. And I think he was probably the only one. Yeah. That's thought by this time, him and Tom probably.
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And one of the things to learn from here, and I think if everyone. Is looking for more bridges into the business world. If now there is just no better time in the world for businesses, for companies, for, for people making products, to be more adaptive, the rate of change in which we.
Operate our businesses and we create new products and services. You need to be adaptive and you need to be looking and listening and reading the feedback, looking for signal in the noise. And, uh, bill is the master at this. So he's so calm that he can see the patterns and cause he doesn't feel the stress.
He sees the patterns and I think, uh, being adaptive and changing mid-flight and not being. So dog-eared on the ID you had before, right? Walk into the stadium. I think this applies specifically to business. If you see customers moving a different way, if you see trends that are against your plan, change the plan.
Absolutely. And, and, and find those small things that you can do on a regular basis. You know, it doesn't have to be a dramatic shift. And, you know, if you look at the way, bill coaches football, it's not a very dramatic shift, but he knows the one or the two things that he can try and test and see how, how the other team reacts to.
And then when he finds out that that works, then he just doubles down on it. He's like, Oh, we can take away the run by doing this. Okay. That's what we're going to do. And then he takes that as a new piece of information and, you know, continues to learn and adapt, um, as he goes, yeah. It's I love the, this idea of being adaptable, adaptable in business, but sometimes I feel like I can get paralyzed and thinking, Oh, like I have to change the way I do this completely.
When in fact it's the small incremental changes that can actually. Make the bigger and easier change. Yeah. Yeah. And that reminds me just to go on a bit of a tangent here, the lessons from Tim Ferris, uh, sort of the, the body life hack a four hour workweek guru. He. When he studied failure and success. One of the things that really struck me when I, I read four hour work week in some of his earlier work, he says so many people fail because they set such ridiculously or dations goals that would take such a long time to achieve that.
Of course, you, you kind of. You lose momentum and I, and the great example, it gives us people who go to the gym and say, right, I'm going to lose 50 pounds. And he reverses that. And he says, just say that you're going to get to the, get to the gym three times this week, make it start with a very small goal and then build out from that.
And so what I, what I think we have to do a Tim Ferriss show, I would love to. And by the way, while we're talking about shows, we should do, we should totally do assignments, Sinek show. We talk about the power of why about a million times a show we need to, we need to do a scene and scenic one as well. And for all those listeners, you guys need to be telling us who we need to be interviewing.
We've had some good suggestions from some of our guests who will be coming on in the next few shows. So please do feel welcomed to send in your suggestions, just visit them site moonshots.io and tell us who you would like. To decode and learn from him. We'd happily do some shows on your nominated gurus of choice.
So we've done, we've done some Eisenhower. I think. Chad, are we, are we ready to get into some more teamwork? Absolutely. I think you have a clip here. About how bill likes to run as teams. Oh boy. Do we have a good clip? Now there's two parts to this. There's this idea of equity or equality throughout the team, but I want everybody to listen to the second half of this because it's actually another big idea just in the second half of this clip, which is equally as good.
So here's bill Belichick in how he thinks about managing all members of a team. Right. Well, there's a couple of elements to it. You know, one is coaching and just from a pure coaching standpoint, I try to coach all the players the same. Don't you have favorites like everyone else? I mean, honestly, I like all the players that we have.
I respect all of our players and if I favor one, that's not favor and 52. So, you know, the way I look at it is I give everybody what they earn. So to me, it's so common that in our work experiences, we've seen people prefer during the star of the show, the guy or girl who just has all the right moves and the right swagger or someone with the big reputation.
And, and he runs the other way from that kind of stuff. But what I really like to bound. The clip was that last thing he just finished on that he gives everybody what they, and how did you take that, Chad, when you, when you heard that he gives everybody what they earn to me, that is the true bill ism there, uh, that he kind of just slips in at the very end.
Like I saw that in, in this story, in the book. Education of a coach when they had picked Tom Brady in the draft, he was the fourth quarterback on the roster. He worked hard in training camp and became the backup to drew Bledsoe, the quarterback for the Patriots for the past 10 years, uh, drew Bledsoe got injured.
And so Brady got the starting job. And the next season, when Bledsoe came back from his injury, you know, bill Belicheck said, you know, you can compete for the job and. And Tom won that battle and, and he, he benched drew Bledsoe. And so of course the Patriot fans were up in arms. Here is their, their decade long star quarter who had, had broken most, if not all of the records there at new England, um, for, for, for passing as a, as a quarterback.
But Tom Brady just outworked him and earned, you know, that starting quarterback position. Yep. That's, uh, that's such a great story of he who works hardest, gets the most from the coach. And I have to say it's so important in sporting teams and work teams is to praise and hard work. There are so many people who put in hard work that might not be the fanciest or the glitziest or the noisiest about doing it.
But they pull a team across the finish line. They are the ones who create the sense of commitment because people see others working hard and it's pretty hard not to want to work hard yourself. So, uh, give everybody what they earn, um, as it, in terms of a leadership lesson. Oh my gosh. Can I use that on the rectory field and in the office?
It's, it's a, it's a, it's an absolutely Cracker. Yeah. And the, the subtle, the subtle thing that I noticed too, is that bill doesn't only, or really celebrate like the successes as much as he does the consistency of that work. And I think it's really important again, to know that. That consistent work is what we'll do.
Get you those big successes have you encourage and support the consistent work. Then you'll have the successes will come. But if you're only celebrating those successes, then you kind of are tricking yourself into thinking, Oh, well, like I'm, I'm just, or do this success when in fact you have to put in this work to do that.
Yeah. It's an interesting subtle distinction. Hmm, that I kind of felt that, that the bill really celebrates the work more than the successes. Yes. He celebrates work. He celebrates details. Um, rigor, and I would say the, the interesting build on top of that is one of the things that I found very powerful to bring into coaching.
Uh, when I coach rugby, is that you train with the same intensity at which you want to play the game. Because it's actually, unless you can do it in training, you will never miraculously produce it on the field when you're under all that pressure. This was an enormous, uh, breakthrough for me, a huge learning from this book that he, uh, and there's, there's, there's a great YouTube clip.
With the preseason like Patriots. This is just for context Patriots, big time in the U S that they get thousands of people. Well, and television crews come to their preseason trainings and, uh, they had an ex player there and they're interviewing him and he says like, what's the difference between the Patriots and all the other teams in preseason.
And then he just says, they're working so much harder. So they're already working them really hard on the game, like conditions in the preseason. And bill has a lot of thinking to say that like, unless you will only play as good as you train. And I think this is so great, like unless organizations are working hard on all areas all the time, unless they are teaching and mentoring and coaching their players there.
Employees to be better. You can't miraculously think that without that investment in the business equivalent of training, that they're just going to pop and be great. You've got to invest in them. And you see this companies that invest very heavily in their people. Take Airbnb, just one example. They have this massive program to invest in their people.
And then one of the highest valued startups in history, one of the most successful startups in the Valley, they're very profitable now and they're thriving. Okay. Yeah. And that comes from investing in their people. And I think that's, that's a huge lesson that we're seeing there. And investing in people training your people, but we've still got some more Belicheck wisdom.
Yeah, here here's just right along with what you're saying, Mike here's, here's a clip from bill, just talking about what it takes to run a team. Fast forward. I take the job with the Patriots in 2000, the first meeting we have in the spring, this was back in the old Foxborough stadium. So it's kind of a small room.
We're squeezing the whole team in there. And here comes in the guys first round draft pick, uh, from a prior year, walks into the front of the band, not into the back, walks into the front and kind of sits down and I'm ready. I've already started the meeting. I three, four minutes into it. And. You know, I just look at him like, what are you doing?
He said, uh, you know, sorry, coach, like, sorry, let's get outta here. We're not going to start this program off with you walking in whenever you feel like walking in. I don't care if it guys the number one draft choice and not a number one draft choice, you know, we're just not going to run a team like this.
Yeah. Again, him just having no patience for the drama, right? He's like, if you're not going to come to work and then I don't want you here, but also it's these first coach meeting at the Patriots. He ha he doesn't have five Superbowl rings. Like that's some kahunas just to say, Hey, first round shows get outta here.
Just get out. Yeah. But I mean, right. He set the tone. Yeah. Yeah. There's a new sheriff in town, a boy. So, so again, just. Standing up for the right thing and not making exceptions. It's great learning for us all. And I feel now we want to, we want to die into, to our last bill Belichick quote, and now just want to take a step back.
You know, we've heard how he is better prepared. He's learning more than anyone else he's adaptive. Um, he's got everyone's his, all of his learnings. Yeah. Yeah. Do your job, what else was there? Some of the big ones, um, that he did there, it's all about the team. Yeah. Team before the individual and so forth.
What is really interesting in this interview by CNBC? And again, this, the full interview you'll find in the show notes on moonshot.io. This last one is just the perfect way for us to wrap up. Now time with bill, and this is him talking about his deep motivation and passion for the game of football, right?
But none of us got into football to be a professional football player. None of us got in professional football to be a professional coach or to manage a cap or manage a team. All of us that got into football got into football because the game, because we love to go to practice. We love to play the game when we were eight, nine, 10 years old.
So to me, what's, what's really important here. And again, we saw this with a lot of our entrepreneurs and innovators. There's just no way you could study night after night, different plays. There's no way you can make the time to help. Support and take care of all of those players on your roster is no way you could do it just for the money or just for being the boss, I think is a clear call out.
He just loves the game and the fact that he can still as the world's best NFL coach ever, for sure. Perhaps. One of the greatest sporting coaches ever of any sport of any time, he can still take us right back to his love of the game as a kid. And it wasn't about even being a coach for him. He just loves the game and he has been able to marry his passion.
To his work and find the enjoyment and fulfillment in that, which I think is also another parallel to, to everyone else that we've profiled. I think there is a genuine interest, if not from a young age, you know, certainly kind of in their young adult lives in, in what they're doing, you know, Fred Smith kind of growing up in a, in a, in a transportation, you know, um, airplanes, uh, maintenance family.
Understanding, Hey, you know, we can use planes in a different way and I can build a whole new transportation company or someone like Ellen. Who's very, who's very kind of book smart or, you know, is able to grasp a lots of. Seemingly disparate disciplines and then weave them all together into kind of a very grand plan.
And I, and I would, I would call on a little bit of Oprah here and say, you know, she says like you can't change the world and what's outside of you. If you don't know what's going in inside of you and obviously build just. Felt his calling. And he just went all in the book details. Some of the crazy efforts he went to in his first years of coaching as like a, and when we say coaching, we mean like the assistant to the assistant, to the other assistant.
Right? Well, not even, not even a real title. I mean, essentially his first, he was an intern, right. He wasn't, he wasn't even, wasn't even an intern. He was not getting paid. And the coach said, well, If anyone willing to work for free isn't worth, you know, they're waiting bleep, you know, sort of like he was like, uh, and he was, he was sleeping in one of the rooms.
He was driving to the airport to pick up all the players. I mean, he was doing all of the jobs. No one else wanted to do, but it was because he loved it. And it's just that much easier when you love it. Right. That much easier. Yeah. Wow. Well, that's, this is like a once again, a spectrum from passion to, to doing couraging and fostering teamwork, to, to being a lifelong student and just being more prepared than anyone else.
Um, I have found bill to just be fantastic. And the funniest thing to share with you and the listeners is the whole reason I got into bill. Is that as I've started coaching rugby here in here in Sydney, in Australia, you know, I really wanted to read books about the best coaches in the world. And, you know, I read about bill Walsh, who was the famous 49, his coach and coached Montana.
Up until recently considered the best coaching yeah. Quarterback combo. Yeah. And then obviously, you know, the Patriots, you know, Tom and bill, and it is such a joy for me to bring one of my personal patchy, uh, personal passions, which is coaching rugby and, and coaching sports. And to bring that full circle into my, into my work and thinking about innovation and it's, it's been such a joy.
To share these clips with you, Chad. So I'm, I'm, I'm very interested in what you've taken from this time of diving into bill Pella check. Oh, I, I think for me, it's, um, His idea of elevating the team above individuals, and then just simply that, that preparedness in reading the book. Okay. I really got a sense that he absurd.
He just obsesses over knowing and learning more about his opponents and his, the capabilities of his, of his own team and what he actually does. I think it was completely unique when he first came onto the coaching stage was. He found out what their opponents strengths were. And then he figured out how to take away their strengths instead of finding their weaknesses and exploiting their weakness.
He took away their strengths, which was just a very different way of coaching a football team and, and playing football. Of course, all of the other coaches found out about this and they started to do the same thing, but I think that was really his true. That was his true innovation, um, that I had learned in doing all this research on him, was seeing how the game was being played up until that point and trying to figure out how he.
And the resources and the team that, you know, that he had, how he could influence that the most. And so this, this different strategy of actually taking away an opponent's strength would be, would be the thing that, that transformed his teams. And I, I, I think that, that, that is it, um, that that's kind of his, I guess, highest innovation.
I mean, amongst many other things that he's done. As, as a coach. So you're saying his ability to zero out huge strength to, to box in key players on the other team, restricting them from being themselves, making them uncomfortable, putting them under pressure, not being able to do what their signature approach was and putting them on the back foot.
Yeah. Yeah. And what I want to do now is because that is such a fascinating strategy to me. I want to figure out how it has been applied in, in the realm of business and startups and how I can apply it in what I'm doing as well, because. But I'm, I'm just, I'm very fascinated by that, that strategy that he kind of discovered and exploited to such amazing effect.
Um, and I think what, what went so hand in hand with that was just the way he got so much more out of players than anybody else could to serve that strategy. He just, he could have. Guys six round quarterback picks from the draft and he could transform them into the best. However, that's, that's pretty remarkable.
Yeah. You turn out a couple of names for people. We should a profile next. I would encourage all the listeners to go to moonshots.io and uh, let us know who you would like us to profile. I'm sure that we are leaving out. Many disruptors and innovators. That could be just as entertaining as bill. Yeah. Yeah, I think, and I challenge everyone.
Give us, give us some suggestions. Keep on this high rate of pivoting and zigging and zagging our plan for the, for the next episode, which we will record next week will be another big favorite of mine. That's ed Catmull from Disney and Pixar. A fantastic book, innovation inc. Uh, creativity, inc. And looking into the world of Pixar.
If you think I'm excited, Chad, you must be jumping out of your seat scan. I mean, this is right in your ballgame. Yeah. I mean, Pixar Disney. I, I am in love with what they are doing from a S from us. I mean, the fact that you can make a billion dollars on essentially, what is just a story? Like it's a cartoon.
Fascinating. Yeah, exactly. It really goes to show the power of story it does. And, um, I want you to remember that, uh, the economics of what they do as you mentioned, is, is phenomenal. Their average return per movie outperforms the industry way more than 10 X. I mean, they are head and shoulders above anyone, uh, when it comes to making.
Uh, not only animation, but just film and story period. And joining us, we will have our, our next, uh, special guests where you're going to have the Australian expert. If you will, in creative thinking, he's name is Simon banks. He is the, I have a new book, a thousand little light bulb, which is a great title.
Uh, I've actually, uh, I can confess, I got a preread of, of the book. It is fantastic. I mean, there's so many. Creative ideas in this book for anyone wishing to disrupt. And Simon is a fascinating guy. He's traveled all around the world. He started out as an illustrator, so he has both written and illustrated his own book.
And he's going to join us peek to come and talk about ed Catmull and, uh, The book that the, uh, that ed road created in case is an absolute, absolute Cracker. It's a great book, well worth reading as well. Simon's which launches very soon. So I'm, I'm really looking forward to this next show as well. It's also another pivot.
Isn't it? Yeah, I'm just excited to see where the show goes from here. Very good. So remember, send us your feedback through moonshots.io. Tell us who you'd like us to cover in future shows. Share the show. If you know someone that could benefit from a hearing. The wise words from Fred Smith or Oprah or Jeff, you know, we we'd love to expand our audience.
So we, uh, we thank you for singing the praises of the, of the show and sharing it with your friends. Yeah, we really, we really do appreciate it. So that's a wrap for, for another show from us in Sydney and, uh, from Brooklyn combined, it's been just a blast getting into, to build Bella check. Really enjoyed, uh, during the show today, uh, Chad, unlike me, you've just woken up.
So what's what remains for the rest of the Chad Owen day there in sunny, New York. Now why I'm packing my bags and I'm off on a, another two week production sprint across the United States. So when are you, when are you departing the, the, the, the East coast. And like two hours, Holy smoke. I always smoke. So, um, I will be stationed here in Sydney for a little bit, but, um, after that I'll also be doing a week or two on the road throughout Europe.
I'll be speaking at, uh, the design thinking forum at, uh, in Bucharest and also product camp in Bucharest. So for all the Romanian and European listeners, you can catch me there. And from my dear friends in Amsterdam, I will also be seeing you in mid September. I'm looking back to returning to the dam, lots, to look forward to lots of travel, lots of great shows from us.
So for me it's thank you, Chad. It has been fabulous. Good luck packing. Make sure you, uh, pack the socks that you'd be profaned. Don't forget your comb. What else is on the pack? My microphone, of course. Right. I'm going to be recording with you on the road. All right, right. Yeah. And it's, you know, the gear checklist, just to be sure that I got all the, uh, I've got all the memory cards and the batteries and gosh, you know, all of that, but I have a list, so it shouldn't be too hard.
All right, Chad, great catching out. Great talking about the world of the new England Patriots and bill Peloton. Yeah. And thank you for turning me on to the greatness that is bill Bellacheck. It was, uh, it was absolutely a pleasure to research and read about him and the team. And, uh, I definitely learned a lot.
Me too. Me too. Thanks again. And for all our listeners take care and you can chase us up at moonshots, the IO. Thanks. And we'll see you on the next show.