I like to say, you know, alignment does not equal agreement.
Welcome to builder nuggets hosted by Daune Johns and Dave young. Hey, our mission is simple. Build freedom, where a couple of entrepreneurs turn business coaches who have dedicated ourselves to helping our builder. Remodeler clients create the most rewarding businesses in the industry. My co host Duane has been a successful builder and remodeler for over 30 years. He's seen the highs and the lows from the beginning though. Daune has been on a quest to find a better way to run a contracting business in 2016, he found that better way. That's how I met Dave, a lifelong entrepreneur and visionary who measures his success by the success of those around them. He reached out one day with a formula on how to transform my business. And the rest is history. Since then, we've teamed up to help hundreds of contractors like you build better businesses and better lives. And now we've decided to open up our network and share our secrets. So we can start moving the needle with you. It's collaboration over competition. Each week we bring together industry peers and experts who share their stories so that we can all build freedom together.
(01:07): Today's guest is no stranger to winning. He has over three world series rings as a coach. He's the founder of leadership.com and courage coach LLC. Having spent his adult livelihood among top 3% producers and sports and business. Our expert is dedicated to empowering people to reach their goals and attain their dreams through measurable leadership and team development. He grew up striving to win and became known as a dream maker. It wasn't without challenges though, as a young athlete, he was told he wasn't big enough strong enough or fast enough, and yet he found a way to win today. He shares with the builder nuggets community. How winners find a way welcome coach Trent Clark. Hey, thanks guys. Thanks Dave. Thanks Duane. I'm thrilled to be on the show. It's awesome. Yeah. So Trent, you've got three world series rings. Tell us about the weight of the ring. Yeah.
(01:57): That's so funny. Right? So I do have three there's there's a championship one right there with the oh two angels mark and the 20 year anniversary of that this year. And yeah, it's, it's a common thing, right? People say, Hey, can I see the ring? And I'm like, oh, sure you wanna try it on and take a picture? You know? Like they're like, yeah, I've never seen one before and then they hold it and they go, oh my gosh, the weight of this ring. It's it's, it's crazy. How do you wear it? And, uh, got used to that because you know, lost a couple. So I had a couple of the starter rings that you get used to the weight cuz they're smaller. But uh, so I have a talk that we do called the weight of the ring and that weight that kind of comes in the responsibility, the sacrifices you're gonna make. It's a weighty responsibility. Um, it's a hard earned item, never given, but it's also the weight of the ring. Like doesn't come overnight. Right? Dave, everything, if you worked for Duane, I mean, we, we had to earn it and you gotta put in the time and go get it. And that takes a lot of time to be great. Right. We always talk about the 10,000 hours to be great and it's not easy. So there's a weight to it. There's a sacrifice to be made.
(03:02): Yeah. The, the stuff that, uh, that takes hard work, I mean, some players are fortunate that it happens early in their career. Other other players, or, um, coaches could wait their entire lifetime and never get one. So definitely a worthwhile investment in, in the pursuit of something that you love and that's meaningful for you. And I have to imagine there's a, there's even a weight after the fact, the responsibility that comes with wearing one of those. Oh yeah, you're right. You're right. That still carries with you. Right. And, and this is kind of coming back to our leader roles where, you know, people, I think that we're in leadership 30, 40 years ago, it was a different era. And you know, you gotta go and you gotta be on sometimes 12, sometimes 15 hours a day. And in the new media, right. That's social media, that weight and responsibility day 24 7 deal, cuz you're at the grocery store picking up diapers for your kid at 11:30 AM and getting a little tussle with the, with the, uh, you know, checkout person and are somebody filming you? Like, you know, oh, look at this jerk. Like, oh, that's the CEO of, wait, what? It's treating somebody like that at 1130 on a Saturday night. Like, what are they doing? Right. We are on as leaders all the time. And if you're gonna take in that role, I, I tell a lot of leaders like, Hey, careful, what you wish for you're coming in, taking all these responsibilities and it's significant. Right?
(04:22): Well a absolutely. And, and if you're gonna be a leader, you need to be a leader all the time. Um, you need to be a leader all time, time. Yeah. Without a doubt. Yeah. Win or lose. And it's funny with this, when you said the weight w AIT of the ring. I I'll say it out loud and I'm sure some people will, you know, knock me for it, but I've been a Yankees fan all my life. I mean, that's where I grew up a couple weeks ago. I started watching the ESPN special, uh, the captain, you know, with Jeter and one of the first episodes went on and talked about how a as him coming in, you know, looking right up to, uh, you know, Don madly. Now there's a guy that talk about leadership at every level. And wait, I mean, the guy put in and still acted as a leader all the way to his final is, but never won the ring, you know, but still showed that level of leadership that helped obviously take them in the next few years to a dynasty. So, um, yeah, the weight . Yeah, it is such a, he was the big example. I'm watching it as well. I'm a Michigan kid. So Derrick and I grew up 20 minutes apart, Kalamazoo
(05:21): And Kalamazoo central, where he went to high school was in my conference when I was in high school. We were, you know, Kalamazoo central. I played at battle Creek, Lakeview. My high school played in three state championships in a row. We played my sophomore, junior and senior year in the state finals. We won one of those. So I have, you know, like there's another one. I go to three, I win one. I don't know, I'm bad odds. Right. Don't be betting on me, but I'm gonna get us to the championship. All right. Um, but at the end of the day, uh, Derek's like four years younger than I am. So he's, um, you know, kinda watched him very closely. So when he got drafted, I was, I think, still playing at the university of Toledo. So we were actually starting that pro career. And you saw in the captain, he's on the bench, on the bench playing in that first round. And of course we played Seattle after they lost that game being up two, zero, and then lost three in a row. And then Seattle came to see us and, and Seattle had the best record in baseball that year. And the Yankees absolutely had them on the ropes and let it go. Right. And, and, and Mattingly, I just think what a great player and what a storied career. And probably people would think of the Yankees and Mattingly, oh, he's probably has five rings. Right. Like, and he has no rings. He has none like, It's crazy.
(06:38): Yeah. So anyways, it just funny, as soon as you said that it just instantly popped into my mind. So how did you, what led you to become a coach get involved in coaching? Well, that was easy actually. Uh, I played at the university of Toledo. I played both college baseball and tennis. I really wanted to continue a career as a player and play in the world series. That was my dream for sure. 100%. And my shoulder was pretty banged up coming outta college, probably, you know, not knowing how to train, uh, had a degree and, and exercise and health and physical education and was mentored by a strength coach. So I had a lot of knowledge in that area. Coach Saban was at Toledo when I was there, got to know him a little bit when I was there. And so I had these really nice, good references on my resume, but I was still trying to play. And the Detroit tigers gave me that, Hey, you'd make a good coach talk means you can't play anymore and you should come over and coach.
(07:32): So I was like, oh, it was a job. Transition is what was going on there. Whether I wanted to admit it or not. I was ready though, to really be done playing. I mean, it was, it was four or five hours a day in the training room just to play when it was bad. And I had my shoulder cut on after that time. Uh, and I don't think I could have continued playing and I don't know if I had the ability to make it to the top level, but I, I would've liked to have tried as a healthy guy a little longer, but I had a degree and could help athletes get better and stronger and prepare themselves for what was about to happen. So I became a trusted source and a dream maker for all these kids running around. And, and just as you said, that was, that was 1993.
(08:13): I was coming outta school. I went to work for Sparky Anderson with the tigers. And, uh, you know, he was a, he was an icon in Michigan growing up because of the 84 tigers. The bless you boys that won the championship and Kirk Gibson and worked with all those guys that were back with the tigers at the time, it was just a kind of a dream come true. So I was kind of having some dreams come true and then fast forward a year and a half later. And I'm in the world series with the Cleveland Indians in 95, watching 25 young men run around the field. And it wasn't, but you know, 10 or 12 years ago that we were running around our backyards going bottom of the ninth, Clark's up at the bat. I got a whiffle ball bat in my hand, you know, and just dreaming of the day that here you'd play in the world series. And these are people living their dream. And we say that all the time, right? Oh, you know, go out there, live your dream. These people are actually doing it. They're actually living the dream in this moment. And it hit me like a brick, like, wow, this is the middle of it. Like we're in it. And it's, you know, pinch yourself. Right. It's real. It was
(09:16): Awesome. You mentioned, uh, you mentioned Sparky Anderson and your leadership training has come from some of baseball's. Great. So there's Sparky and, uh, Tom IZO and you, and you mentioned Nick and, uh, but, but we know that you also worked with, uh, Mike Soha, Joe Madden, what was it like having mentors like that and what what's, what are some of the best leadership lessons you've learned from them? Yeah, well, it was, it was incredible, right? Just being a part of some of the best leaders that I've ever coached sports organizations, and it's been, you know, looking back what a blessing, right. And yet at the same time, we're all, um, looking at being United on a goal. How do we do that? That was one of my first lessons. Like, let's get everybody moving in the same direction. And that was so important in organizations, Cleveland in, in Cleveland. I really learned that early Nick Saban did that really well. And to is old Michigan state, which is a little easier on the college level, cuz you have more shaped minds and they're, they're more young and impressionable. It's harder at the professional level to get everybody moving and marching in the same direction. But it's so important that we have a unified goal. If I could say one thing to an organization that's lacking in a lot of organizations that I go into it's people really don't know what the goal and how we contribute to other people in our organization, like how we add value and your organization, just this, this podcast, like you add value to all these builders who are going out there, developers.
(10:53): And they're like, how do I get better? How do I get more efficient? You're you have this mission to create value for these folks. And that's a great mission. And everyone is involved with that, right from the people who do set up the production, the, the guests, YouTube, um, experiences that you're providing everybody, you know, the were all involved. And in Cleveland, you know, I knew the guys who, who cleaned the stadiums and the guys who worked on the fields and they were all unified to have a championship organization and be a part of that. And they had a role in that the experience of a championship organization is you come into Jacobs field and you are treated like the fan that they want there and they want to be, and if you're outta line, those fans aren't allowed. They, they remove them from the stadium.
(11:37): This is gonna be a family environment and they were committed to championship. And when you see good organizations, they're moving in that right direction. And it's a difficult thing. And I would say the other thing that I learned very early is that not everybody is in agreement. Uh, I like to say, you know, alignment does not equal agreement. I don't need your agreement, but I do need your alignment. So as a leader, we, we have to make a lot of tough decisions. And we're also armed with the most information as the top leader in an organization, you, you get all this input and data in and you're armed with probably 85, 90% of information. We never get to a hundred, right? I mean, how many things have we developed or done in our life and gone, man, if I knew that I knew they were gonna build a target a half a mile, I don't know if I have built this house here. Right? So we, we, we find things out later, but we, we get armed with as much information as we can. People that are at the frontline level may only know 20 to 25% of the organization's issues, their challenges, what the top leadership's dealing with yet. They don't agree with what the leaders or you know, decisions are. And I really respect and honor that if they had known more of the information, they may not know, but it's hard to communicate every single decision with the entire organization. So I equate it back to football. We work all week and we get ready for Saturday's big game and we're in practice. And Dave is our coach. You're telling us, Hey, this is what we're doing. We're working on going left. We're gonna be moving the ball cuz you know that their defensive end this weekend is gonna be playing limited.
(13:06): Their backup will be on the outside linebacker and they're gonna be playing a freshman. Who's never had any experience at that at that, uh, cover two position on, on the left side. And we're thinking they're gonna be weaker than we are over there. And then we get in the huddle on Saturday after working all week and I'm like, you know, Duane's our quarterback calls the place and I'm like, I think I'm going right. Well, you know, you know, Trump, we're gonna run the play left. I think we should go. Right. You know, now I'm talking Brian, another teammate and you know, we should go, right. So nine go left. I go, right. Brian goes, right. The play is a loss of seven yards. Of course, cuz we're not all moving the same direction, not doing our job. And then we go, Hey Clark, what, what are you doing out there?
(13:47): Uh, well I don't agree with the decision. Hey, I don't need your agreement. I need you to run the plays that Duane called, like Dave called it in. We've worked on this all week. This is the deal I don't wanna do that. We'll find someone else, right? Because if you can't get an alignment, that's an issue. And the influence on others is massive. And, and, and it costs the whole team very quickly. And we see it every week in different sports and different organizations happens all the time. So that, that, that alignment becomes really pretty important as we get into leadership. And I think the third thing probably is, is just how you treat people. You know, we talk about culture and culture is how we treat people and people can be tough on people, but if you're respectful, uh, and you're really working for people's potential and you're communicating that I've seen a lot of tough leaders that are maybe a little challenging to work for, but if their heart is in the right place to get people better and we are aligned in, in what the vision is for this organization and what we're going for. And we're very successful. Uh, I see a lot of people who don't always love it, but they sure are to say, you know, know, Hey, I'm pretty proud to be a world Champan Los Angeles angel. It was tough at the time, by the way, and hard to do. And there was a lot of responsibilities expectations and there were days I did not love it, but man, the work paid off and I looked back and think all worth it. And we wanna be a part of those championship organizations, even if they're hard.
(15:13): Well, there are hard decisions happen in every single business, but to your know, to your other points there, it has to start with a vision and a mission and getting buy-in from the team. And that's the alignment that you're talking about. Not every single decision or you're gonna have a total accord on, but it sure helps when a leader has sought the input from the rest of the group and, and all the other, you know, all the other areas that you talked about, where they're getting their stats or their information from, and they're creating an environment where other members of the team and, and the mission gets a, gets some say, uh, how do you coach this when you're going into a business like Duane and I, when we, when we go in and, and we use EOS an awful lot, love it. And it's almost a starting point with, with the new business to say, Hey, listen, what's your vision? What's your vision? What's your mission statement? Where are you going? What is your plan to get there? And then you start to bring in the who's and share with them. And, and you build that as your magnet to attract the type of organization, the type of company, the type of team that you wanna have. So what's, what's your starting point when you're going in and, and, and, uh, working with leaders in the, in a company.
(16:25): Well, I think that, uh, my starting point is with leadership. I think we go top down, right? So the first is the support that, Hey, something needs to change right? For the organization to be the best. It can be to create that sustainability and create an environment where we want it to be championship CPER. And we want teams of coachable champions. What I know about organizations is most of the leaders didn't go to school or university for leadership and they didn't go for coaching. And what all of 'em seem to need is leadership and coaching right. So like I'm looking at these things going, okay, how are we gonna do that? Well, so let's get the right people and get 'em in the right seats. I see a lot of people that have great people wrong seats. I also see a lot of people who are highly qualified and great assets, but maybe wrong person, wrong seat.
(17:17): And so we have to decide that first. And I think creating that unified, which EOS is so great creating that vision, that Val, that value, you know, genome Wagman's a friend of mine and the entrepreneur operating system is, is unbelievably effective. And when you get it, that is one of the first things like, what are our initiatives? What are our rocks? What are our goals? We break that down and it's all moving into some really key elements of focus of how we contribute as an organization. So that, that clarity, I think, is a great place to start. Um, for me, I want those coaches at the top to really understand how that message is gonna be passed and how we're leading that and developing a language of leadership. I really love coach Bella check's statement about teams, which he said, I know I have a great team. When everyone on the team knows what they need to do, and they're doing it. Most organizations I go in, I see people who still come in and go, Hey, Dave, what do you need me to do today? Hey, tr like you didn't hear it for years, man. Like, you don't know what you need to do. Like, I don't know. I don't how you don't understand your role, your responsibilities, how you contribute. And you'd need to come to ask me every day, how, what you might, I might need you to do. And I see that, and I see this a lot in the construction world too. If you're on a site, someone goes, so what do you need to do is say like, you know, we're dry walling, right? The frame is here. It's just where we're at today. Everyone goes, uh, get the drywall outta the truck.
(18:49): Like, like where we're gonna start. Like, I mean, we know this and yet people wanna play it out. Like, Hey, I'm not sure what my role here. And my responsibility is. The second one is, is, is organizations. Haven't defined that very well. And, um, that's an issue. So when people that is defined now you see team members who aren't actually doing their role and responsibility. I, I laugh and people laugh at me when I tell them. But you know, when a lot of people define, let's say 10 responsibilities and they set some goals around that. And this is what I own as a part of Duane's organization. He says, Hey, this is, this is, you are site. I am project management cleanup, this that. So I am site coordinator on this build. And so I have roles and responsibilities to that. And Duane comes back and says, Hey, after the quarter tr this is what you're really doing. Well, here's your 10 responsibilities of which here's a 10 out of 10 on seven of these, but here's these other three that aren't doing so well. Right. And so all of a sudden that's gonna add up to an 80 out of 100. Duane is paying me $100,000 a year to that's, that's his commitment to me to be that site manager and I'm giving 80%. So I ask the next question, like, if you're, if you're giving 80% trend, are you okay taking 80,000? No, no, no. I want it all. Well, I've noticed Duane's check comes for you every Friday. Right. And, and so he's made his commitment, but he wants 100% of the contribution. Right. Is that fair? Because I thought we had an agreement of what we would come in and do together, and I see organizations that can't get that. Right.
(20:30): Yeah. And, and that's one of the biggest things we see is that the proper expectations have not been set the proper tools aren't in place or the systems or processes and, and the, and the measurables are not set up in, in place either. Cuz it's one thing to walk in and say, oh, you got a, a 10 on a 10 on this or you got a seven outta 10. Well, why was it a seven? Like how is that measurable? How is it, uh, being tracked? So some of those keys are there. So it starts with the mission and a vision having buy-in from everyone else. And then it's your obligation as the leader to set in systems and processes, understand the expectations, provide training around it and leadership around it. And then everybody can execute. And uh, you know, we, we always say that the best leaders can also accept leadership. So when those top project managers are coming to you and saying, Hey, I think I may have found a better way to do this. Let's do you want to, what do you think about this idea that you're allowing then them personal impact to improve the status of the team? So, um, yeah, you're hitting on some, some really good points there.
(21:33): I really love that. I really love the fact, like we get that input and uh, a manager comes back and, and I come to Duane and say, Hey Duane, I I'll never be able to get my teams over 85 until we have some better equipment with higher efficiencies. You're asking us to hit goals for our efficiencies of team members that we can't hit given the current equipment that we have. So just in all fairness, I appreciate the goal, but because of this hindrance, like it's not gonna happen. So are we gonna limit bonuses or structures that we do all the time because we don't have the right gear. like, is that, is that fair? So can we talk about how we might come together? This is a partnership agreement, right? We're all in this together. And, and we gotta be providing that. I, I see one of the big things in this today is a lot of leaders are asking for adaptability.
(22:23): Things have changed. I mean, you think about the last four years and it's like, COVID pandemic economic crisis, you know, stimulus money, no one wants to stay on a job. Like , it's just crazy stuff. I, you know, a housing market like through the roof, right? Like its crazy building materials and supply chain are totally jacked up. And so you're like, whoa, how do we do this? There's a total moving target. We've had to be the best business people we've ever been in our lives getting through these last four years. And we say, boy, I really honor and value adaptability. And if I could get Dwayne with the adaptability, but this is like me taking Cecil fielder, good Yankee, by the way. And former tiger. And he was a great home run hitter. Right? And now you Cecil, hasn't actually, buned a ball since about April 20th or like March 20th, maybe in spring training, maybe February 20th.
(23:17): Right? And now it's game two of the playoffs. And first and second, and we need to move a runner over and we're gonna ask him to do something that we never ask him to do and go, you know, we need, we need adaptable athletes, like, wait a minute. Did I give him the tools and the measurement and the process and the confidence to be actually successful in that. And I see business owners all the time going well, you know, I don't, I don't think you have adaptability. And like, well, if, if I've been given the tools and the training to adjust to something, I think I can do it. But if we're not gonna practice at it, never work at it. The adaptability is probably gonna be pivot to something that's gonna worse to work even less effective. And so I see owners that have to own that, but they, but they often don't if that's fair. Yeah. Because if it's not properly trained, adaptability will turn into chaos. Ooh. Yeah. Cause you, you've given people the right to try stuff, but you don't, you didn't give any rails or guidelines for what they're gonna try, you know, to, to your point, no practice, no training on it. It's a very important thing. I mean, adaptable is actually part of my business. One of our core values. It's what we look for in people. But I think the point you just said has gotta be hammered home. If, if you're not providing the support on that in the training, it, it does it descends the chaos.
(24:31): When you look at like Derek Jeter, the, the, the, the captain, I mean, the confidence that he exhibits is just so impressive, but it's prep and reps, right? He's so prepared. He's worked so hard. He's got all these people that have come alongside him and coached him up. And he just goes, reps, reps, reps. And so, you know, we do it in driving. I always use the example of driving when it comes to confidence, because you, you talk to, I have teenagers, you know, we have five kids. So going through that, they're very unconfident, right. when it starts, they're like, oh, someone's gonna cross the road and hit me. And I'm like, probably not. There's self-preservation no one wants to die. Right? So like, they don't really do that on a two-lane road. And you're scared of things cause you're uncertain of what's gonna happen.
(25:14): But we do training. We do driver's education. We do testing, we do practice practice and you do hours with your parents. And, and we hit 35 years old and our significance is, Hey, can you run to the store? Like I don't think about, I wonder if I can remember where to, how do I start the car? I'm not sure how to get it outta gear. Like we get in there and we monitor 60, 70 items of speed traffic, things, eating a sandwich, making a phone call, like we're doing all that because we are fully confident in our ability to drive because we have tons of prep. We have tons of reps. And so if we're gonna have adaptability, you've gotta give 'em that confidence to give 'em something to adapt to. And if you haven't given 'em the prep and the reps for it, it's not gonna go well.
(26:00): Well, ultimately that's where you're trying to get them to is you want to let your winners find a way, because if you don't, if you don't have a culture where they can't bring their ideas to you, they can't bring their innovations. They can't bring these thoughts. The onus is always going to be on you to find the way, and we know that that's not sustainable. It doesn't work and it's devaluing to your team. So it, if you don't have that happening, if you don't have your top project managers coming to you and finding a way you need to ask yourself, am I letting them have I given them what they need? And the, uh, the counter to that, obviously winners will find a way, but non winners will find excuses. And that's really what it boils down to. So if you're finding somebody, that's got lots of excuses as a business owner, you need to figure out, Hey, are these legit, are these things that I've created? Do they exist in the business? Because we don't have the systems, tools, training, or structure. If that's a case, you need to work on that. But if you are providing those things in that culture and that environment, and the excuses are still coming and your team is not leading you on certain things, that's a pretty clear sign that you might have. You might, you have a staffing issue and you need to, and you need to work on that.
(27:14): I think we're, we're losing that, that key ity, right? We have the pyramid of leadership and one of those core foundational things, integrity and accountability, sit on those corners, right? Like that just is critical to everything. But spirituality, quality and stability are something we have to provide as a foundation in these organizations. And when we talk about our, our teams, um, we talk about, we always use the term card. I want some serious ACEs in my organization. Like I want the best cards. And you know, if I'm holding all the ACEs and we're playing cards, boys, I'm winning. right. Like I got all the ACEs, like I win. So I want them in my organization. And it's one of the biggest challenges to people saying, oh, I've got a great team, really? Cause I'm looking at your team going, that's not an ACE. That's about a 10 and this is a four.
(28:03): And then you got an intern three over here, like, and you're gonna say, tell me that you got a great team. Like, I don't even like your hand. So coachability acronym, card, coachability, adaptability, responsibility, if they do all those three times again and again, you have dependability. So those big four, its, so when we talk about, when you talk about winners, find a way, you know, winners when shown data that they are losing, find a way, find a way to win. Um, you know, we preach that constantly. It's right outta the four disciplines of execution that quote from Chris McChesney and uh, Sean Covey of the Covey international group, former QB BYU, by the way. And uh, but what's the for loser behaviors and, and we can cite 'em as leaders all the time. If you got people in your organization and the first thing they are is to start making excuses of why it didn't work. The second thing is, it's not me. It's Dave like Dave, Dave did it. Like I, not me. It's we blame. Right? And then the third losing behavior. Um, the third losing behavior that I see is the ostrich method. Right? Ignorance ignore.
(29:17): Yeah. We ignore the data, right? I mean, that's a huge one that I see all the time. Wanna level up, connect with us to share your stories, ideas, challenges, and successes. The builder nuggets community is built on your experiences. It takes less than a minute to connect with us@buildernuggets.com, Facebook or Instagram. Want access to the resources that can take you and your team to the next level. One call could change everything. Trent, I've got, I'm gonna throw out another Yankee reference here, but I wanted to ask you around cuz this is like, I look at this as a leadership thing and going all the way back to when, back in the early days of Jeter as well. And you know, there was transition at the Yankees and they, they brought in Joe Tory and, and in, in New York for anybody that was in New York and was a Yankee fan, he was laughed at, you know, and he was told this, he, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. He's getting involved. You've got Steinbrenner, you've got the legacy, the, all this he's O over his head, you know? And one of the things I remember him being interviewed, and I think his approach is what was totally different about it, was that he realized that at this level, and especially when you get to a level, you know, in New York, Yankee, you got a lot of egos.
(30:26): He realized his job was not to come in there and tell these guys, or to show these guys how to play baseball. He says, I'm working with the best of the best. His job was to, you know, control and manage these egos and personalities. You know? And I see that, especially when you think about whether it's construction workers or, you know, business owners, uh, and those folks are the professionals in their field. So they carry a certain amount of that as well. I mean, do you see that as, when you're looking at businesses, I guess that ability for, for really good leaders to be able to come in and manage the, the emotions of people, you know, that's something that I think we all underestimate, but it's, it's huge. Well, it's also putting an ability, emotional intelligence is probably one of the most underestimated abilities of a leader. Right. And we're looking for that in our teams. And we have to, you know, that can be coached up right. Of how we're gonna respond to things. Um, it can also be, you can also be managed a little bit with like rules of engagement. Like how do we do that? Well, and you, and you probably see this with youth sports, which is a 24 hour rule. Like if I'm, if I'm unhappy with coach Dave, cuz he's not playing my son enough, like, and he takes him out of the game and I'm not going over to the dugout in the sixth inning of the ball game, going coach young, you need to put Elijah back into the gate. Like, what are you doing? Like, Hey, sleep on it.
(31:45): Cooler heads prevail. Hey, coach young by son really wants to do well. It feels like he's doing great. Walk me through your thinking. Like, let's have a conversation about that. We're better at that. But really good leaders see the contribution in the strength of their superstars and they let him go do their job. And it's so important that we have that scale of like, Hey, letting people go and do that. And uh, in my former company, we had a company called leading with courage academy and my business partner had this great, uh, scale he had. And it was basically two questions, which was how skilled are you at this zero one or two? Like zero. You have no skill, one pretty decent, two highly skilled, right? How much do you really wanna be doing this? Do you have a desire to be working in this?
(32:38): If you have zeros, like why do you have these people in the role? Like that's crazy. Like they, they have no skill and they have no desire to do it. If they're a one you're in training 100 level, they're just hired. They've got a little desire. Don't have any skill yet. Gotta learn how to hang drywall. Gotta learn how to pound a nail. Gotta learn how to do some things, right? If they're a two, Hey, you gotta sit down with them. Direct them. It's still training. It's a higher level. These are the things I need from you. You've got some skills. Do you know what you need to do? A lot of check-ins along the way, a three. Now we sit down and we plan a, a, a plan together, a few check-ins along the way and go, if I've got someone's, who's highly skilled and highly driven to do this job. Guess what? They're way better at it than me. I need to step back and say, here's the end goal, Duane, take it away. like do your thing, man. Like, you're gonna make it better than any of us. You're the best skilled person out there we got
(33:33): That's not just the secret to winning though. That's a secret to scalability. And we find this in construction businesses all the time is that the, the, oftentimes the business owner is better than the project managers at managing a project. They could even be better as a trim carpenter because they grew up doing trim. But if they're still doing that, they're missing the point. Um, so it becomes on them to, again, we keep going back to this, the culture, the systems, the vision, the mission, all that stuff in place so that they can get the heck out of the way and give them the space to have an impact. Because if winners don't feel like their contribution is being valued, they leave. They could be hitting at the highest level. But if they're being micromanaged or they're not getting the opportunity to grow and thrive and take the team or the business to the next level, or there isn't another opportunity, maybe there's an ownership opportunity or a promotion opportunity, but they're being micromanaged and suppressed.
(34:33): They leave. So it goes back to your friend G Wickman. This all starts with the GWC. Do they get it? Do they want it? Do they have the capacity to do it? Once you identify that they've proven themselves, get out of the way and support them in their growth and give them more and more voice at the table, because that will be a, you want leadership. You want it at every level, you want them leading the other project managers showing them, it means so much more from a peer and you give them the autonomy to thrive with their own leadership capabilities as well. So you've probably seen that throughout sports, the senior guy taking the younger guy under his wing, even though he may be taking his job, but for the betterment in the team is saying, Hey, come on, I see what you're doing wrong. Let's go work on it together. And in other organizations, you see somebody who sees that other potential superstar as a threat to them, and they want to do everything they can to mitigate that risk. And that's when you know, you've got a cancer in your culture. So lots of moving parts here to dig into. What do you think makes a winner? I mean, you, you talk about winning a lot. What's the number one thing you see in a winning mindset?
(35:43): I mean, just don't, I mean, just perseverance, right? Like resolute that, that ability that I will outwork anybody else. If you look at the top players, like I like the grit formula, right? If you're familiar with the book, grit, love the book and there's a formula there, right? And that is that talent plus effort equals skill. And so we look in all and I'm just gonna throw out an easy name that everybody will understand. Uh, Tom Brady, Tom Brady comes outta college. He's a university of Michigan guy. He's a nice quality quarterback. He's decent at the NFL level. This guy has a six outta 10 talent, right? This is not the most talented quarterback they've ever seen in the draft. He's notoriously still holds two of the worst things outta the combine with a 40 and a vertical jump of any quarterback ever tested. Right?
(36:32): So he's currently the greatest of all time, right? Like, like, because his effort's a 10, so we go, six times 10 is 60. And then we carry that scale down and we go, 60 effort counts twice. We bring the 10 down 60 times, 10, 600. So on a grit formula scale, we're going one to 1000, right? So on this scale, he's a 600 going into the league, but his effort plays out each and every rep. And it's not long before his talents is seven, right? And then the effort still stays. And then his talents a few more years, he's an eight. And he gets surrounded with better players. And, and you know, here's the intangibles. Like his effort makes everybody else better around him and they wanna be part of a winner and he's a winner. And like, they love the attitude and his effort rubs off on everybody because a crappy low level of effort and bad attitude is just as contagious as the high quality effort winning and do everything we can attitude.
(37:38): Right. Especially out of your highly skilled position players. And so listen, is he a 10 today in talent? I don't know. I, I think he's a nine, I mean nine times tens 90, 90 times tens a 900. I tell people 90 to 1000. That's that's greatest of all time. You can put people in there who Jordan, LeBron, James like, think about the guys that just put it put the time in Steph Curry. I mean think about who they are like. And I tell anybody who will listen, do not hire under a 200 because they will absolutely come in and spread cancer and you will not be able to manage them. And people ask me all the time, Hey Trent, Hey Trent, who's the best player you ever coached? And I'm like, oh yeah, you don't know them. Cause you wanna talk talent. Talent is a nine or a 10. And they were a three effort.
Yeah. Nobody's ever sat down at a, at a, at a celebrity banquet and said, do you wanna wear my combine ring?
(38:33): right, right. Like that's exactly it. So you got these, these, these people that come in, this is any organization. We do it with all sorts of organization. I'll I'll, I'll weigh 'em out and it's a great exercise to go through people. Where do you use yourself? My talent. Oh, I'm a, I'm a 10 talent. Oh, I've got your, okay. What do you think your effort is? Oh, I'm a seven. I'm like, wait, are you like a seven? Like I got you with three. I mean 10 times three is 30, 30 times three is 90. This is one of the top talented people you've ever seen who can't crack 100. You'll go crazy. Trying to coach them because they're the people who aren't, where they're supposed to be. They're you're you're waiting on. Oh, I've got this best tile person in the world. They're gonna finish off this high end house. It's so great. And then they said, they'd be there Tuesday. And out there Tuesday, they're gone missing. Can't find them jobs now delayed three weeks. Can't get this person on the job. They come one day, got a little finishing work and all of a sudden disappear for another two weeks. Talent's great. But like, it's just not gonna get you to where you wanna go. And David, Stein's another great case of effort, right? Uh, Scottio another big effort guy and those guys climb into the seven, eight hundreds because of effort. And what do they got to show for? Eh, a few world series rings, uh, probably 30, 40 million in earnings. You know, I don't know. It adds up
(39:59): That 10 33 example, what that's gonna bring to the table is excuses, blame those other, the inverse of the cards, all behaviors. Yeah. The losing behaviors, escapism or like, uh, shirking of responsibility. And ultimately that behavior is gonna create resentment and it's going to be a tox in, in your team and you see it, you see talented guys come in that are not team players. They're not making the effort. They're either they either go or they get passed and washed up because at that level, if your team is working at the highest level and they're growing, doesn't matter if you're really good. If you're not doing the work and you're not keeping up and you're not staying with it, you're gonna get left in the dust. And that's in anything companies, anything that you're working on, there's always somebody else who's coming up. And if you can recognize that and elevate those people, they elevate your team. You get that stronger culture. I mean, that's, that's what it takes to win. It's not one person thinking that they're the be all and end all, nothing destroys culture and morale, especially of your really top performers. If your top performers are seeing you as a business owner or leader tolerate the incompetence by others, you're gonna, you're gonna lose 'em real quick.
(41:11): Yeah. And, and, and that's, that's a key thing right? First is like, I, I like to use it with people because if they wanna see an example of an 800, like, oh, I'll show you like, here's, here's Dave young. Like he's an eight talent and he's 10 workers. So you wanna know what the work looks like? Like, well, what do you mean? I gotta work as hard as eight. Like Dave comes in at 6 45 every morning, like right. you said six O' at night. Right? Right. Like, you know, willing to go the extra mile. We're right back to Roger Staubach, man. There's no traffic jams along the extra mile. If you're willing to go there, you know, I'll, I'm leaving Chicago at seven o'clock guess what? Traffic will be smooth if I leave at five o'clock I got a problem. Like I'm not getting anywhere anytime soon. Uh, a 40 mile trip is gonna take me about almost two hours at five o'clock. But that 40 miles at seven o'clock is about 45 Minutes. But coming in at 6 45 and leaving at 6 45 does no damn good. If when, if you're doing that just to be seen coming in at 6 45, leaving at 6 45. Yeah. You gotta produce the effort has to be there because you, you see that that's, it's a, it's a big known thing in the corporate world is like, Hey, I want everybody to know that I'm here, but are you really head down digging, making an impact with your time? That's there burning yourself out for false recognition.
(42:27): Well, and they gotta see. And that effort pointing to you is look at the production. Look what, what he accomplishes per day. Look at the meetings on his schedule, look at his, just look at his schedule. What's going on in that time and the amount of things. So we can point to people who, who show off that number and, and Duane, to your point, which I think is really important is if, if I'm, if I'm a poor employee for you, Duane, and you've been talking to me, you've been coaching me up and trying to be, get to that next level. But I'm just really not picking up what you're putting down or I'm not willing to continue to improve. Well, Dave and the rest of my team members know that now, uh, the other five people are gonna come in and do 20% more of the work to get our team's work done because each one of 'em has to pick up 20% of me cause I'm not getting it done. And at first there's gonna be some contempt for me, either my lack of effort or my lack of ability to learn, or, but they see me try or they don't see me try whatever, whatever happens. If it doesn't come along, it's over. Because if I'm still there six, seven months, do you think Dave blames me anymore? Or blames you Duane as the boss?
(43:34): That's exactly where I was going with that. Yep. You're the one who held on. You're the one who hasn't made the decision to help the team get better and carrying this dead weight. And really you don't have to carry the dead weight. It's all on Dave and the other team members. And they're like going, what about us? So the, so the contempt quickly shifts from Trent to Dwayne and you're like, whoa, Hey, we don't, we don't, we don't leave companies. We leave the boss. That's what everybody leaves Sparky Anderson or one of your other coaches, give us your favorite baseball moment or story or something that maybe other people don't know about that makes you laugh every single time you think, Oh wow. That's a, that's a pretty tough one right there, man. That's, that's pretty good. Um, there's been a lot of moments along the way that are probably pretty unique from a leadership standpoint. Probably the funniest one, I think I ever remember was sitting down and uh, you know, you sit down with coaches and you have evaluations and Don Wakamatsu who used to manage the Mariners. And Joe Madden was very highly into developing young talent. And I remember a catcher sitting down with Mike Soha, you know, Mike Soha won a world series as a catcher, probably one of the best catchers known like at it's a time as a player. And now he's a manager who's won a world championship. And the young man, who's probably like 21 years old coach. So's giving him some direction. The kids says, yeah. But my dad says I should be doing like, oh, and I'm like, so's like, what does your dad do?
(45:07): Well, you know, he owned the plumbing supply house. Well of course he should know like exactly what it takes to be a world championship catcher. I mean, so has high demands on his catchers, right? Like you have to know every pitch that you just called in an entire game and be able to recite it back. What did you do with Duane in the fifth? Well, set it up. Highing in, we missed, I went lo and away, hard, fast ball, got a strike. One, one, we set him up for a breaking ball. He fouled it off. Fortunately, cuz he hung it. Third one came back with a change up. He was looking, he, we struck him out. Like you gotta know what we're doing with everybody. What's the scouting report. And he requires that of everybody. It's it's detailed diligent coaching. Think about these top levels, right?
(45:46): These, these top levels. And, and you see this in, in the builders too, because they get the best people and they've been trained by other great people, right? So you get all these highly skilled trained people and they bring the best of tho they learn from these folks. And then these athletes come in, they've been trained by great coaches. And, and so you get in the best and where this very leak, it is like hyper learning 1 0 1. And these fractional things that change are absolutely insurmountable and, and they make some of the biggest differences and that's happening all the time in our organizations. If we're willing to take that, listen, give that advice from people. You know, one of the things I learned along the way was that as I trained people up in simply nothing more than running mechanics, right. A running mechanic is I can get down the line in 14 steps from home to first that's the average steps for a major league player. And if you watch it, you can time it up. See what guys you'll see. The long guys I'll get like 12. So we would work on steps. And if you get your actual running mechanics down properly, I don't change your turnover a ton. But what I do change is I change your stride length by about four or five inches to that work. So if you take that stride and you times it by 13, that's a step. How many times are you out by a step at first base or less watch a game tonight and count how many times at first base there's four to probably nine outs that are within one step at first base. And you change that all by just getting proper running mechanics, but you gotta do the work.
(47:24): The other thing is they had somebody on their team coaching them in you who knew this. And that's one of the things that we see with builders is they do not have access to the mastermind. You, you talked about that pinnacle of all of these people, with all of these experiences coming together, it is a real challenge for builders because they've had their head down and they have a team of five or six and they're not working on this stuff. So we constantly encourage people to get out and get into a proper mastermind network where they can get access to this, or if they have the ability to share services, um, ha be working on those things and get to that pinnacle. Because one thing that's clear from everything you've talked about, like you're, you're narrowing down to a specialty of stride length, but you don't create a winning team. You, you don't become a winning team on your own. It takes tons of people all coming together and you look at a baseball organization, what it takes you, right? Beginning of the show earlier on you were talking about even the staff in the park, they are part of a winning organization and a winning mindset, but you don't get there on your own. So this has been really cool. How do, uh, what's the best way for people who wanna learn more about you to get ahold of you online or, uh, or,
(48:37): Yeah, so, so I am, yeah, I'm the CEO of leadership at E you can reach me, uh, trent@leadership.com, very simple. Um, I'm also work with, uh, athletic influencer marketing. I'm a partner in that where we do a lot of ni L for athletes and that general is ready to aim. It's ready. Number two, aim@gmail.com and you can send something there. That's our kind of catchall there. And, uh, yeah, that's where they can find I'm on LinkedIn, everywhere under either leadership or TRM Clark. And lastly, what's something that you're excited about doing next. What's something you've got going on or an upcoming event or, uh, just anything at all that you're, that you're excited about. And we'll end on a high note here.
(49:15): Yeah. I'm really excited. As, as a former college athlete, I'm really excited about the change in this Niel space for athletes as a two sport division, one athlete, you know, and I, I went to the university of Toledo, you know, coach Saban was there and coach, uh, coach ever flus of the bull of the bears, right? The new head coach, the Chicago bears. And I were in classes together in school. He was the captain of the football team and we studied the same thing. So we were in a lot of classes PE around together. And I'm excited about the opportunity for young athletes to broaden their horizon in business, how to create a deal. This is name, image, likeness for them, and now they can get paid to do that. And I could never make a thousand dollars a month on a part-time job as an athlete.
(50:00): And we can show athletes how to do that all day long and, and it's, and it's woven into the fabric of what they're doing. People are interested in their lives about what's happening and what kind of coaching they're getting and the facilities that they have and educating people. And they learn how to treat people. They learn how to handle money. They learn how to be an entrepreneur, how, what post that you're on 24 7 and what you matter and how you carry yourself and why would brands wanna align with you? And, and I think they're learning earlier about how we're gonna carry ourselves with other people, how we're gonna treat them. And I think that earlier we can get that in our young folks, that's gonna be really valued. And I'm, I'm really, I'm really excited about that. Sounds very
(50:40): Exciting. Yeah. Well con congratulations, that, that really matters because the reality is, is learning those skills is gonna serve them really well if they make the big leagues, because the scrutiny and the pressure on that is huge, but it's gonna be even more important if they don't a, and they take those skill sets into a career. And the new team that they're working with is on a construction site or in a, in a company that they've learned how to conduct themselves these way. And it's this way. And it's one of the things that's missing from our traditional education system is how to conduct yourself, how to work as a team, how to be in, in, in business is there's so much focus on, no, this is the curriculum, do your work. And then now they have the chance to understand their own identity, where they can have impact and be known for it already a little bit, what a huge advantage to have that, to have that going in and for an employer who sees, Hey, here's somebody who's had success at this level, and we've watched how they conducted themselves. And this is somebody that we wanna have on our team. Gonna be a great springboard for them in business.
(51:40): What, what a big it too transferability, like those, those skills go on forever. Yeah. That you can transfer those skills for, for Dave Young's organization, for Duane's organization, for Bob's organization, for chills organization in the church, your whatever your passion is, you can transfer those skills everywhere. Trent, I can't let you, uh, I can't let you leave without asking you best baseball movie of all time. Ah, wow. That's a tough one. You know, for me, it's uh, it's field of drain field Of dreams. Okay. Yeah. That's solid. I'll go with that. I was gonna say slap shot which, by the way, maybe my all time favorite sports movie, but you know, we said, he said baseball specific. I'm a big Moneyball fan two Moneyball. I just watched it again. Yeah. The other night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I watched it, uh, just, uh, in the spring and caught it on a TVs on the weekend, up at the cabin. And I was like, man, I, I, I missed some things and I coached Dave justice in Cleveland. So there was a lot of folks there that kind of centered around that. And it's a good movie for leaders and, and I'll tell you another good sports movie right now for leaders watch Ted lasso. There is tons of leadership stuff ingrained in a lot of entertainment, but watch the leadership lessons cuz they're all throughout it.
(52:50): Yeah. It, it, it's amazing. It's fun. I wanna end with the, the weight of the, the weight of the ring. I thought that was pretty cool. The w a I T and I'm, I've been thinking about the weight of the cup. I'm a, I'm a Leafs fan. They haven't won it since 1967. So that's really sinking in and, and waiting on me. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of weight There. It starts weighing on you and you're just tired of waiting. It's like Exactly. And what a team this year. I can't believe it. Like, it's so tough to watch, you know, um, because they, they looked really special throughout the season. And of course you're blessed with the hall of fame right there in Toronto, which is so cool. But what, uh, the, the semi-final series this year, like probably some of the best hockey, I mean that Edmonton, Colorado series, I've never actually watched hockey that fast. Oh, that's unbelievable. Incredible. Right. Incredible. And some of the stars today are just fun to watch Trent, man. Thanks again for your time. It's been a lot of fun. Um, love what you're doing. You've done some great stuff and uh, yeah. Thanks again, man. Thanks guys for having me. This is awesome to all your network. Thank you for being a part and listening. I I'm. I'm blessed. Thanks so much.
Hey, thanks for listening, Duane and I love hearing from you. Your stories are inspiring and your challenges can be overcome. Got a cool tip idea for a show problem that you haven't been able to solve, or maybe just struggling to figure out what you need next and where to get it. We can help hit us up@buildernuggets.com and start building freedom.
