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VoiceAmerica 0:04
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now here's your host Rick Morris
Rick A. Morris 0:26
and welcome to another edition of the work life balance so excited to have you guys on and you know if you guys know anything about me, you know that that that my world is chaos that you know I deal with significant amount of change. I've developed a new condition today called zoom ears because I like to have my headphones on and my microphone to you know, cut out the distractions and the double talk and all that stuff and and literally been on zoom calls all day and I was expecting someone to join us today in his life has it things happen But life is his as such as project managers we're going to roll on and I'm actually going to pivot so if you're expecting or if you happen to see any card coming actually, we're we're right here we're gonna grab him I think and just make sure he's good. Lem, come on Adam, you there.
Adam Mendler 1:19
Rick, how are you? All right, I was just
Rick A. Morris 1:21
about to pivot. We're live you're on so there's trial by fire but but so glad to have you aboard here. I'm excited to be here. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. So let me do a I'm switching gears yet again. But let me do a proper introduction. So the gentleman I have today is the chief executive officer of the in do you say bylaws via bl o z. It's the bellows group, the bellows group. And he is co founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries including Beverly Hills chairs, which is a leading office furniture he tailor custom tobacco which is a one of a kind cigar customization ecommerce platform. della solutions, technology consulting and software development practice, he remains active in each one of these companies provide strategic guidance and support. And he also provides business thought leadership as a speaker to businesses, universities, nonprofit organizations, as the host of the leadership and personal professional development podcasts, 30 minute mentors and that's what we're going to be talking about today. Let's welcome to the show Adam in there. How you doing, Adam? I'm great, Rick, how are you? doing? Fantastic. So talk to me a little bit about the inspiration for you know, I love the title 30 minute mentors. Talk to me what what inspired you to do that?
Adam Mendler 2:37
So, Rick, I can't
speak for you. But I've certainly been the beneficiary of mentorship in every phase of my life. From the time I was growing up, all the way through today. I've had mentors who have been instrumental in my personal and professional development and without mentors, who knows where I would be in my life. I'm also a big believer in a concept that I call mini mentors, in contrast to a traditional mentor who plays a more impactful and longer term role in your life, mini mentors are people who you might see once you might communicate with once, maybe you communicate with them once a year, or once every now and then. But that communication can be unbelievably impactful. And what I wanted to do with 30 minute mentors, was bring this concept of mini mentors to as broad an audience as possible, to essentially bring the best network of mentors, the most successful people in the country. founders and CEOs of household name companies, celebrities and athletes, generals and admirals, every week, I'm going one on one for 30 minutes with someone who has no made it to the top in whatever they have done, and they've done something highly significant. And, more importantly, their best advice for listeners on how they can get to the top as well.
So
that's really what inspired me to launch the show. I'm about 20 episodes in and it's just been an awesome experience.
Rick A. Morris 4:21
It's a it's it's a crazy experience, though, right? putting that out there on paper getting that stuff, not paper, but, but laying down the audio itself. And a lot of people though, you know, I think it's one of the things I hear often is, oh, I want to start a podcast and to me, I think I want to start a podcast is the new I want to read a book. You follow me out there is like, everybody, I want to read the book. Yeah, right. And now everybody just wants to jump right into the podcast. But how do you keep that content fresh? And how are you attracting these these guests, these wonderful mentors to your show? Yeah, Rick,
Adam Mendler 4:54
to your point. From what I last saw, we're either at the million podcast marker club to it. So I think it's important that if you do have a podcast, it's, in my view, no different than if you have a business, you need to be unique, you need to be fresh and you need to have good content. If you have a business, you need to have a good product or a good service. So, in my case, what I've tried to do from the get go and in anything that I've done, whether it's one of my companies or whether it's this podcast, 30 minute mentors, I've really believed in the importance of trying to build something that people want to be a part of, with my company, the bellows group. We started the company out of thin air, it was my brother and I and idea and we started out in my apartment in 2012. And when we started it, no one ever heard of it, but we had this vision for it and we wanted to create something that people wanted to be a part of. Within a couple of weeks, we were recruiting the best Students in the country, kids from literally top five colleges to come and work for us for free. And the reason why was because we were able to create something that people wanted to spend their time spend their summers being a part of. With 30 minute mentors, what I've been trying to do is create a platform, create a show, create a movement, really, that the most successful people in the country will want to be a part of. And why is that? Because what am I doing? What are these shows all about? They're really all about providing listeners with the best advice possible to excel in their lives. And if you're someone who's made it to the top, what do you really care about at this phase in your life, you largely care about giving back you largely care about helping share the lessons learned, that you can share that can help the people around you become better and Our lives, and the people who have come on my show really have that mantra, they believe very deeply in paying it forward. They believe very deeply in doing whatever they can to help the people around them. And it's been a great way for me to help amplify this message and help people tune in become their best selves by getting great advice from people who've made it to the top.
Rick A. Morris 7:28
And it's interesting that you talked about, you know, we're getting to the million podcast mark. So if you dive into those statistics, right, there's there's something that's very prevalent in this industry called pod fade. And so that's, you know, many podcasters don't make it past their seventh episode without experience some sort of decrease in motivation, either they thought, you know, the audience was going to explode or that they're running out of topics and they really don't have as much to say as they thought they did in so statistics aren't really easy to come by. Because a lot of podcasts just fade away, they just stopped producing new content in by best figures we get gather is about 75% of those million podcasts out there are really no longer in production. So really, you know, there's there's only a couple hundred thousand that are actually active podcasts that are producing new content and doing so consistently. So my question to you is, you say you're 20 episodes in? Did you? Did you feel that pod failed at any point? And what were some of your driving factors to, to keep the pedal down?
Adam Mendler 8:31
On the contrary, Rick, I've been fired up from day one, as fired up today as I was when I was starting this endeavor. For me, the biggest challenge was getting myself to a place where I said, I'm just going to do this. I had this idea, stewing in my mind for a long time. And it was something that I really wanted to do. But as an entrepreneur as someone who does a lot writing and speaking and anyone who's taken a look at my bio knows that I have a lot of things on my plate. It was a bit of a challenge for me to say, Okay, I'm just gonna go and do it. And what I did was I set a deadline for myself. And I essentially said by January of 2020, this show is going to be launched, no matter what, by January 2020.
There are going to be episodes up,
I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to figure out how it's gonna happen. And there were plenty of obstacles along the way. But if you're, if you're dedicated to making it happen, you're gonna make it happen. And pretty much from the point, the show launch until today, I've just been fired up and I have not experienced the pie fade. On the contrary, Rick, I am walking into every episode fired up and excited to engage with whoever it is that I'm interviewing and why wouldn't I be? I have that. opportunity to learn from unbelievably successful people, and to give my listeners the opportunity to learn from the most successful people out there. So I viewed as a privilege, and it's something that I'm really excited to do.
Rick A. Morris 10:13
When I love that you said that. So I really think that becomes the key. We're doing this for an audience. We're not doing for ourselves. Some of the council I've always, you know, said when when somebody says I want to write a book is say, well, who are you doing it for? Right, because it? Well, I just think I have a story to tell is great. We all have stories to tell. Right? But if you're writing it from the perspective of I have a great story, it's really not readable for the audience. What is it for them that you're going to do and the same goes for podcasts. The other thing I hear all the time, too, is is, well, somebody already said it, or somebody's already done a show like that, or there's something similar out there. But that doesn't mean you know, your audience is still waiting. Your audience still wants to hear from you. Just because a concept or topic or an idea has been covered before doesn't mean you can't cover it. I mean, there's that Thousands of motivational speakers and I'm close and follow, you know, one of the greatest communicators of all time and john Maxwell. And he's got hundreds of books spoken to millions of people, yet I still, you know, 75% of the people I meet on a daily basis don't know who he is. And so I think it's really important for us to focus on not only delivering something for the audience, but not being what you say things in our own authentic way. So what I want to do with this Adam, we're right up against a break, but I'd love to hear some of your favorite stories and moments so far within the podcast and just in general, you know, you're you're obviously all over national media, you've done a ton of writing a ton of speaking. So what are some of those favorite stories that that you go to or that you can tell from from your own endeavors? We're going to get to that right after this break and listening to Rick Morris on the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 11:52
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistent consistency and project delivery. r squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment, visit r squared consulting.com today
From the boardroom to you,
voice America Business Network,
you are tuned in to the work life balance. To reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790. If you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 13:37
And we're back on this Friday afternoon with the work life balance. Thanks for riding along with us. And thanks for always, always understanding how we do the show. When we do the show and what we're doing the show about. You guys have been phenomenal in your feedback to us and please keep that coming. Keep reaching out to us. We'd love to hear from you. So we're on with Adam Mendler and Adam. Just before we went into break, I was going to ask that question. have, you know, through your interviews and through all of your topics? What are some of your favorite stories, people that you've interviewed or things that they've said to you?
Adam Mendler 14:09
Rick, that's a great question. And I know that we have an hour blocked out today. I feel like we could probably spend 10 hours going through it because every guest has so many incredible stories. And it's hard to really just pick one or two. But if you
asked me to, I will.
And this week, I did an interview with Victor Rojas, who is the play by play announcer for the angels. I'm a huge angels fan. I'm not sure if we have a lot of sports fans in your audience or baseball fans. But one of the things that Victor told me that was really interesting is when Victor broke into baseball, he played for Joe Maddon, who is one of the top managers in baseball today, but john madden was The coach for the angels and the angels minor league system when Victor first broke into baseball, and Victor was a kid right out of school. And Joe mad I asked Victor, what are what were some of the experiences you learned playing minor league baseball, playing for Joe Maddon, and something that was interesting that he said to me was john madden had all of this wisdom.
And he had all these unbelievable lessons. And it didn't really get through to me. I didn't really fully grasp what he was teaching me. At that age. I didn't really last that long in the minor leagues. And now that I'm in my 50s, I kind of get what he was saying. those lessons resonate a lot more with me now than they did then. And he shared some of those lessons and he was talking about the power of communication and how Joe Maddon was able to to really connect with everyone in the room, how we treated the star players the same way that he treated the bench players and there was a lot of lessons there for me to unpack as someone who was on the other side of the conversation, one of them being that I can tell you in my life, I've had experiences that I wish, in my first job out of college, I had more wisdom going into that experience. I think we all wish that there are moments in our lives that we would have had more wisdom, but we can't live life that way. All we can do is look back on the experiences that we've had and learn from them. And the great thing about the show is that we have great leaders who are sharing experiences that they have, that listeners can learn from. Another one I did recently was with retired general general Reynold Hoover who will was talking about his experience in Fort Hood. He was leading battalion that was set to deploy to Afghanistan and he was in Fort Hood the day that the Fort Hood shooter went off and just hearing him talk about that was incredibly moving. I had Gary Michaelson on my show, Gary Michelson is a self made billionaire, not too many self made billionaires out there. There are people out there who have inherited a lot of money and say that they're billionaires. But Gary grew up without any money, put himself through school by working two jobs. And he shared the story of when he was in medical school, and was pretty close to graduating, was faced with having to do this series of medical procedures that he deemed unethical and The medical school administration essentially told him, Well, we don't care, you've got to do them. This is what everyone does. And he refused to do it. And they said, well, we're gonna kick you out. And it was a game of chicken between the medical school that he went to, and this was a guy with no money. And they had all the leverage. He had no leverage. But he stood by his guns and ultimately, the medical school backed down, and he didn't have to do the procedures. And they years later changed the procedures. And that was a pivotal moment in his life and in his career and help shape who he became. So with every guest, you hear lots of interesting stories you hear lots of not only interesting anecdotes, that as a listener, you take a step back and say, Wow, that's a great story. But each of these stories brings out a much broader point. In the case of Gary's story, the point was just how important It is to have a strong ethical foundation in how you shape the way that you act in your leadership. In the case of Victor, it was really the importance
of understanding
how to receive advice
from people who have been there, no matter what age you are, no matter where you are in your journey. And we can kind of go on and on about these, with every show, there's just so much to unpack.
Rick A. Morris 19:32
Has there been some prevailing themes, though, that, you know, one of the things that I've noticed some themes as I, as I interview a lot of these people that have overcome, you know, adversity, and they've had tons of failure, are you noticing those types of themes in meeting with these great leaders?
Adam Mendler 19:49
Definitely themes absolutely emerge. If you listen to a few episodes, you'll you'll hear some consistent themes. One thing that I always like to share with audiences when I'm asked this question
is
something that I've come to learn from interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders first through my interview series and thrive global. And now by doing this podcast
is
just how applicable the core principles of leadership are. So one thing that you can really take away is,
no matter what organization you're leading,
great leaders follow the same core fundamental principles. It is about you It is not about me. It's about taking one plus one and turning it into three. It is about caring for the people around you,
is about listening, rather than talking.
There are when we can go on and on about What it takes to be a great leader, but what it takes to be a great leader in the military, and what it takes to be a great leader of a baseball team and what it takes to be a great leader of a startup company and what it takes to be a great leader of Fortune 500 business aren't all that different. At the end of the day, you need to have those same set values, those same set of skills, those same set of principles. That's one big takeaway. Another thing that's interesting, Rick, that I, that I've come to learn, that I also really enjoy sharing is having interviewed so many of these unbelievably successful people. I'm continually blown away by how important great leaders believe in the value of learning, continually learning, no matter where You are on your leadership journey. And I have had guests come on my show who have impressed this point upon me in two ways. Number one is they'll talk about how important continual learning is to leadership. I just had General Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the highest ranking military officer in America on my show a couple weeks ago. And one of the things that he said, you know, was just how important it is for leaders not to be set in their ways not to get to a point where they don't feel like they need to learn anymore. But in addition to that, what I found that incredible is when I have guests who tell me, you know, I had no idea how much I had in common with some of these other guests on your show, but listening to your content and hearing from this CEO of Gold's Gym are hearing from
Suzanne Somers, you're hearing from
the founder of kayak. I'm taking notes and I'm learning new things. And these are people who are leaders in their industries and leaders in incredible ways, but they're continuing to learn.
Rick A. Morris 23:19
Yeah, leaders or readers is one of the things that we quote often. So in prevailing these themes, though, have there ever been, what about themes of the success? Meaning, you know, how many of them and I kind of know the answer this, but I think it's important for a lot of the entrepreneurs that are the audience now, how many of them were successful with their first idea?
Adam Mendler 23:45
Yeah, that's a that's a good one.
Not many. I think that, you know, something to clarify is, my show isn't specific to entrepreneurs. So I would say that a A subset of the people who I interview are entrepreneurs. I interview a lot of CEOs I interview, some celebrities, I interview some athletes, of the entrepreneurs that I've interviewed. And I've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs outside of my podcast of the entrepreneurs who I've interviewed, very few have the home run off of their first play to parents, let alone their first swing. It takes failure after failure to find that success. And if you open up a question, beyond entrepreneurs and beyond ideas, I'm a huge believer in failure as a gateway to success. You have to fail in order to succeed. You're never going to make it without learning the hard lessons.
Unless you have extraordinary luck, but not too many of us have that.
Rick A. Morris 24:58
But that's the that's the same thing. Though for those CEOs for those athletes for years, right, it's it's a lifetime of failure for the rare success. One of the misuse terms that I hear often is overnight success. Right. And I know I know many people that have worked for 20 years to get that overnight success, right? Been trial and error and push and pull in all of the different things. What's one of it? We've got about three minutes to break here. So give me an easy one. What's one of your your most favorite articles you ever wrote?
Adam Mendler 25:34
That's a good one. That's a good question.
That's actually a harder question than than you would think because of, I've written quite a few and I've enjoyed so many of them. But I will give you one, which is the first article that I wrote that got published, which was an article that I wrote that was renamed let's put it that way. So I the article that I submit Got watered down a little bit. So the article that I submit was called why I fired a Harvard Graduate after two weeks. And it got changed in after editorial kind of did their, we'll call it magic to it. It was turned into what I learned about my company culture from firing an employee. But the story was really about why I fired a Harvard Graduate after two weeks. And I enjoyed that article because I thought it was a really important message for readers and really important message for leaders, entrepreneurs and for employees, for anyone who's who's in any part of the process. And what the article was all about was we had someone who worked for us, who was great on paper. She went to the best school in the country. She had a great resume. But when she showed up, everything went wrong and I won't bore your, your listeners that I was gonna say the readers, but your listeners can read the article if they want to know, all of the nightmares that took place. But needless to say, he didn't work out. And what was really important, what were the lessons that that I learned from that experience? The importance of not looking so much at the traditional markers of one's pedigree. When you're hiring an employee, don't look at did they go to Harvard? Did they go to Yale? Did they go to Princeton? Does it really matter if they were 4.0? Does that stuff really count in life? What does matter? Your work ethic matters, your attitude matters. How do you approach problem solving? Are you comfortable? working outside of your comfort zone? Are you a team player? Are you the kind of person who has a can do attitude? These are the kinds of things that at the end of the day will determine whether you're going to be a winner in my culture and in virtually any other culture. So that that was a great article and I would encourage anyone who's interested in the topic to take a read and if not to at least, embody and really incorporate those core principles.
Rick A. Morris 28:34
And as a as an alumni of the University of Tennessee one could argue that Harvard is the best school. But we're gonna go ahead and take a break right here. We'll be right back without a Mendler you're listening to Rick Morris and the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 28:54
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack control Cincy and project delivery. r squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes in realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes, r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment visit r squared consulting dot com today.
When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 30:41
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon talking with Adam Mendler. In Adam. As we discussed podcast, I'm gonna pull up Maxwell on one of my favorite things I learned from john is the question you know, who do you know that I should know? And so having said that with your podcast who's somebody that you You're really hoping to be able to book on this podcast and why.
Adam Mendler 31:04
I'll tell you I actually sent out an email to Joe Biden's team last weekend. I don't know if they're going to respond, but he'll be someone I would love to have on the podcast. I would love to have President Obama on the podcast. The reason why I sent out an email to Joe Biden's team was, because why not? I'm interested in having interesting people with interesting perspectives. People have made it to the top. And President Obama will be a great guest too. So those are two people who I would love to have on. And so we're back in so Rick, I don't know if you can help make the connection. But
Rick A. Morris 31:48
yeah, I don't know. Okay. But you know what, that's how it works, right? It's Yeah, how you do that. And also just your microphone volume. If there's a way that you can turn that up just a little bit after the reset there. So, some of you, we've talked about kind of your favorite topics, the prevailing themes, one of your articles, what's one of the questions I'm missing from you right now?
Adam Mendler 32:15
Is my volume better now?
Rick A. Morris 32:18
Go ahead and talk and we'll pick it up from there. Okay.
Adam Mendler 32:23
So can you hear me a little bit better now? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So can you can you repeat that question?
Rick A. Morris 32:30
What what's a question? I'm missing? What's in all of this, in trying to dive further into your podcast and your publications? What's the question? I should be asking you right now that I haven't.
Adam Mendler 32:42
Well, I don't want to go into a topic that's too sensitive. But we could always talk college football. You mentioned that you're a Tennessee fan. I went to USC. And we can always discuss Lane Kiffin and Oh, yeah, yeah, that's I don't know if that's a topic that we're allowed to discuss. But this is my little talk. There's gonna be a lot of commonality if you and I talked about Lane Kiffin because he didn't do all too well in either of our programs. So
Rick A. Morris 33:12
yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, he left ours in the middle of the night in a campfire and didn't even tell if you've heard the story. He didn't even tell his brother in law. When he left. His brother in law found out that that he left on the news. And he's like, so I guess I'm not on that plane.
Adam Mendler 33:27
Wave. And you know, what happened to him at USC was kind of similar except the opposite, which was that he got fired in the middle of the night by the athletic director. He was sort of pulled off and you remember that story? Oh, yeah. Oh,
Rick A. Morris 33:45
but I think that dovetails nicely, because if really, we weren't as excited about laying as we were about Monty. Sure. Right. And that became that that package deal but from a leadership perspective here, you've got Rising Star who,
Adam Mendler 34:01
by the way, underly understandably because Monty was a great defensive coordinator, he was the man with the bucks. And talk about mentorship. I know that that was what we opened up the show with and obviously the theme of my podcast. Monty was Pete Carroll's mentor. So it really does go full circle. And it's a really good, valuable lesson to listeners, Monte Kiffin for listeners who aren't aware Monte Kiffin was the longtime defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And Pete Carroll was a protege of Monte Kiffin. So when Pete Carroll took the job at USC, one of his first hires was Lincoln, as an assistant coach, as sort of a way of paying it forward to Monte Kiffin and that's what started Lane Kiffin his coaching career. So really just goes to show that value of relationships the value of mentoring and Look at Pete Carroll's coaching tree and not everyone's been the greatest, most successful head coach. But he's had a lot of coaches out there. He's he's had, I would say as productive a tree in terms of guys who have become head coaches as anyone I mean, it's almost like the modern day go wash tree in terms of guys who have gotten head coding jobs.
Rick A. Morris 35:28
And but if you look at that, I think Lane's an interesting story. I mean, obviously, we were saying that and just to get going, but here's, here's somebody who has the benefit of that mentorship, and has early incredible success, and we're so ready to raise his arm to say he's successful, and he's the Second Coming. He's the next person. And then, you know, he gets programs like Tennessee and USC, and arguably, I mean, Tennessee, it was on the rebound, but arguably those are your top 10 coaching jobs. In the nation in terms of support and fan base and everything else that comes with it. And so they were so ready to grant him that access that that he failed miserably. I mean, he just went to all mess, right, coming out of FAA. Yeah. But, but still, I think that that success that you haven't earned or the I don't think he had the sweat equity, to be honest with you.
Adam Mendler 36:24
I can't argue I can't argue that Rick, I do think another lesson, perhaps a more uplifting lesson, which I totally get where you're coming from, and I can't truly can't argue that. But lane has had a lot of second chances. More second chances, then you can even call them second chances. And I think it's important lesson for listeners that when you fail, and we were talking about this before the break, when you fail, life's not over. When you fail, you can get back up and If anything, Layne has been failing up throughout his career, and there are a lot of examples of, of other coaches and other people in life who have failed up. And my guest actually this upcoming week talks a lot about failing up if anyone is interested tuning into the podcast. And Layne is back in the sec as a head coach. He was fired by USC and what did he do? He didn't sulk, he got back up and took a job coaching at Alabama and did well there he you know, by all measures performed well, as an assistant coach under Nick Saban, he went to a small school in Florida did fairly well there and now is back in the game. So if anyone is listening to this, and I know we're kind of teasing a little bit, but anyone who's listening to this there is a bit of an inspirational story. Lane Kiffin in that. Even if you had your dream job which he had, as the coach of USC, and it's taken away from you life's not over, you can bounce back and still live a great life. I'm sure Lane Kiffin is happier and doing a lot better than many, many other people out there and a lot of people out there who would be really happy to be a head coach of a college football program at an SEC school. So no matter how hard you failed, you get back up. I
Rick A. Morris 38:34
totally agree. Totally agree. I you know, I think it's another dovetail on that around corporate culture, and in some people learn leadership through mentoring of other people but failed to develop their authenticity of that and become that authentic leader of themselves. And I think that's what he had to learn when he came to Tennessee. He brought a lot of USC traditions, including like when you went to Field House, it was Rolling tapes of like Matt minor and Reggie Bush and he would point up and say those are champions. And, quite frankly, as a proud program, they had their own champions. And we had our own traditions that as a new coach, you need to learn to adopt and understand the culture of an organization and then change the culture to where you want it to be. You don't come in and tell them a culture is bad. And that was one of the things I took away as a leadership lesson, and watching how he kind of came in. And and clearly just trying to replicate the success that he that he felt underpaid, and thinking that that was going to work.
Adam Mendler 39:33
Rick, I think that's a great point. And I think that an adjacent point is the importance of listening, the importance of taking the time, and having the humility to absorb the perspectives of those around you. I mentioned that I had General Dempsey on my podcast a couple weeks ago. And one of the things that he said that was particularly interesting to me was when he was talking about his experience in advising President Obama. And it he was talking about, he said, getting a lot of really interesting things in there. One of the things he said was that when he briefed President Obama, he President Obama would say, Don't tell me. What's in the briefing books. I've already read the briefing books. Surprise me, tell me something new Give me something that's not already on paper. So I thought that was interesting. But what he also said is, President Obama made it a point to listen and allow those around him to voice their perspectives, even when they were perspectives that President Obama was not going to agree with was not going to go with to build trust in general Dempsey's words and I think that this is incredibly valuable for anyone listening. To build trust. You need to allow those around you to talk. You need to allow those around you to have their day. have their voices be heard. Even if you're not gonna go with what they say even if you're not gonna take their advice and act on it, let them be heard and let them talk and as and as a as a great leader you should listen doesn't necessarily mean that you should act on their advice that you should follow your gut you should follow what makes sense you should follow ultimately, the most sound judgment possible. But to get to that most sound judgment possible. It requires having great people around you and incorporating all data points including the data points. Have your most trusted advisors and going back to lane, walking into a situation that you've never been in before walking into a program that you've never worked out before walking into a culture that you've never been a part of before. And failing to listen, failing to bring in the stakeholders who need to be brought in who need to feel like they're a part of it is setting yourself up for failure before you even get started.
Rick A. Morris 42:33
Yeah, at the end of the day, you've got to value people. And so I think that's that's an important leadership lesson for most people. So we're going to take our final break right here. We'll be right back with Adam for our final segment where we hit him with a question we ask all of our guests, and we'll do some final wrap up so come back for the last segment. You're listening to the work life balance with Rick Moore's
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Rick A. Morris 45:20
And we're back to the final segment of the work life balance on this Friday afternoon visiting with Adam and learn Adam, you've done so much you've written you've, you've got this podcast. Can you tell people where to find the podcast and maybe some of your favorite articles as well?
Adam Mendler 45:34
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Rick. I really appreciate that. And thanks again for having me. This was a lot of fun. enjoyed all the things we've been talking about. I tried to make it really easy for anyone interested. So my podcast 30 minute mentors, you could find that 30 minute mentors calm. You could also find it on your favorite podcasting app. So whether it's iTunes or Spotify or Google Play or Stitcher and to learn More about me to find any of my articles, you can just go to my website, Adam Mendler, calm. And all of my content is on there.
Rick A. Morris 46:09
So Adam, we ask every one of our guests is, what's some of the best advice you've ever received?
Adam Mendler 46:16
It's a great question. I love it. And
I had great advice from my mom. Actually, not what what do I say Actually, we all get great advice from our parents. But advice I got from my mom was Don't try to please, other people. Don't try to please your parents. Don't try to please, people around you. You have one person who you have to please and that's yourself. And life is hard enough as it is. It's all that much harder when you're trying to live life for other people. So if you take that advice and take it to its natural extension, I think it's really important for anyone Listening, to follow your passion to do what you love, and not to be inhibited by the expectations around you. And just go with it. Go with your heart, follow your passion.
Rick A. Morris 47:14
So to be fair and be well rounded in our college football discussion, we discussed a lot about about lane. And but there was somebody who followed lane in a lot of these things who's actually broken out on his own and you wrote an article about three lessons that that entrepreneurs can learn from coach at OSHA route, you want to share any of those?
Adam Mendler 47:36
Yeah, so Coco is a great leader. And we spoke a little bit about Glenn's journey and the ups and downs that he had. And Coco is a beautiful illustration of a coach who was written off for dead and seemingly came out of nowhere. To become the most successful coach in college football. When I was a college student, I went to USC, my freshman year of college. All these guys were there. Pete Carroll was the head coach. It was his first year as the coach at USC. Lane. Kiffin was the wide receiver coach. Coach Oh was the defensive line coach. Sark was there. He was actually the quarterback coach, the Kennedy Polo was that he was an all star lineup of characters on that coaching staff. And when you study coach OHS journey, it's a great illustration of the fact that no matter where you are, you can always make it to the top. If you believe in yourself, if you persevere and if you don't give up and in the case of code Joe, it took some lucky he coached at Mississippi, he had to learn from that experience. It wasn't. We talked about how how in lane Kevin's first job. He didn't necessarily walk in having. Having had the experience needed to succeed as a head coach, with Coach Oh, it was those early failures that positioned him to succeed as the coach at LSU. And as an entrepreneur, bring it back. It's very hard to succeed right away. If you haven't failed, it takes failing. It takes making mistakes, to be able to learn the necessary lessons to ultimately succeed.
Rick A. Morris 49:50
And it's interesting because I have I have kind of the same story about an ad that I did is lane so I'm still very involved with with the programs there too. See and get it get a lot of chances to see some of these insights stuff. And one of the big gripes from the players and I think, above all else, you know, Ed's a player's coach, a lot of people don't understand them, or some people don't like certain ways that he approaches, you know, media, but I love how he always you know, you know, finishes with Go Tigers are very consistent at the end of every one of his interviews. But when he came to Tennessee from USC, you know, he was known for like getting into the locker room and rallying up people ripping his shirt off and doing that kind of stuff. But again, it lacked authenticity to our players. And so that was kind of a complaint of like, what, and they're already under this cloud of why you bring in all this USC stuff here. We're Tennessee and you know, we've got our own traditions. And I watched him learn from that. So he's adapted that as he goes, but I watched him feel that kind of that non connection or that lack of authenticity, and in derive that into just being authentically who he is and everything That has a tremendous impact on your players and to your success. Right at the end of the day, you can't copy something else, you have to be authentic to you. I
Adam Mendler 51:09
couldn't agree with you more, Rick on the point that to be a great leader, you need to be comfortable in your own skin. The first step of the leadership journey is really understanding who you are as a person. Before you can effectively lead others. You need to be able to lead your own life. You need to understand your strengths. You need to understand your weaknesses. And it's very hard to be this is kind of goes back to the theme of a lot of what we were talking about. As to why it's so hard to reach the mountaintop overnight. Why are people taking 20 years to become overnight successes, because it takes time to learn these lessons and you can read books you can listen to public caste, and you can understand things. But oftentimes, you have to go through the journey yourself to really internalize it. And Coco is a great example of that.
Rick A. Morris 52:12
Well, Adam, we certainly appreciate you being a part of the show. Is there any final words you'd like to leave the audience with?
Adam Mendler 52:17
Rick, just want to thank you again for having me on to your listeners. Thanks for taking the time to tune in. If anyone's interested in connecting, encourage you to tune in to the podcast or to check out my site out of Mendler comm You can also find me on social media at Adam Mendler on Instagram at Adam Mendler on Twitter, and wish everyone a great weekend and thanks again.
Rick A. Morris 52:42
Thank you so much, and we'd love to have you back on and I think you and I could just have a few college football episodes. I think that would be fantastic. I would love it and we could if you Rick, we didn't even get to other sports. Do you want to talk baseball, basketball, all NFL? I'm all about it. All of them. I mean, I'm in it in Unfortunately with with the the COVID going on I find myself watching I think ultimate tag was on just if whatever whatever I can do to fill the gap I think thank goodness for documentaries like the last day last dance
Adam Mendler 53:12
yeah that was fantastic
Rick A. Morris 53:15
fantastic but so next week we're gonna have Sheryl Puterman on she talks about how nutrition and stress and all of that really affects your well beings I think it's a fantastic show to have on we're going to have her on next Friday. And as always, we're going to be here for you for the work life balance every Friday for central five Eastern to Pacific right here on voice America business network. Please stay tuned to the network for another fantastic show and until next week, we hope that you live your own work life balance this has been recorded.
VoiceAmerica 53:49
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here, it's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on our next show.
