The Four C’s of Athletic Leadership

Chris Hall (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Healthy Wealth Experience. My name is Chris Hall. I’m your host today and I’m excited to share with you a good friend of mine. I’ve known him for a really long time and his name is Eric Smith and he has the winning edge QB Academy. He has been in and out of football for so long and just has a really good story and I can’t wait to talk to him about it. So Eric, thank you so much for being here.

Eric Smith (00:22)
Always good to connect Chris. Appreciate the friendship.

Chris Hall (00:25)
Awesome. Same, So Eric, the reason that we have you on the show is you’ve done a lot of stuff in football, but you’ve also done a lot of stuff with leadership and the things that go along with that that can carry into both sports, but it also can be used in business as well. So just tell us a little bit about yourself. How’d you get to where you’re at right now? Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Eric Smith (00:44)
Sure, absolutely, Chris. And by the way, I love what you’re doing here. I’ve watched a few of your podcasts. They are really, really engaging. You have great guests, a variety of topics. And so I have enjoyed it. So it’s really cool to be on as a guest of yours. Yeah, so I grew up in Central Michigan, Chris, similar to you. was a multi-sport athlete. I love sports and started playing organized football in the eighth grade.

Chris Hall (00:53)
Thank you.

Eric Smith (01:09)
We didn’t really have all of the flag football stuff and all the youth football stuff where I grew up as a child in the early, late seventies, early eighties. But I kind of gravitated, even though I continued to play multiple sports through high school, which I think is important for athletes. I did really particularly like football and I really identified with the quarterback position. I think maybe.

because of my undeveloped brain at the time, I didn’t know why I liked the quarterback position, but looking back on it, I just think it was cool to really, you know, be, you’re in a position where you’re more as demanded of you. You have more responsibility. It’s kind of like a leadership position on the field. And I thought that was pretty, pretty cool. Developed myself as a quarterback through high school. I was

a big six foot four, pretty strong and athletic kid. could really throw. We didn’t throw the ball much — at my high school. We just didn’t have that kind of a passing scheme, but had a positive experience. And because of my physical attributes, getting noticed at camps, I had an opportunity to go on and play at the division one level. played at Bowling Green State University.

Uh, from 1984 through 1988. So I was there for five years. I’ve res redshirted and my journey there, Chris was, uh, typical of many athletes, college athletes were filled with all kinds of adversity and challenges and had to learn what perseverance, uh, hard work, um, uh, mental toughness, resilience, all that stuff was all about, which really, really, uh, I think looking back on my life really set me up, uh, for a career in business.

And that’s where I met you, is we were both in pharmaceutical sales back in the day in Reading. But I think those lessons learned through sport were invaluable to me in shaping me into the person I became as an adult. And I kind of got away from football and sports as I just started career and raising family, kind of got reconnected into football when my son was going through it. When he was about in the eighth, ninth grade and started playing.

I went out and started helping out as an assistant coach. And, — you know, I just fell in love with working with the kids and helping the kids out. so it was a chance for me to reconnect with the sport and give back. And I think that the, the local high school coaches there and Redding, really valued having me out there, — having me help out. And I saw the way the kids responded to me and it became a little bit addicting as you can, as you can relate to, I know you’re doing the same thing right now.

Chris Hall (03:26)
Sure.

Eric Smith (03:27)
through

your son, which you and I have a lot of chance to talk and have phone conversations, is fun for me. It gives us a chance to reconnect. yeah, football is a, all sports, Chris, are great for developing people. I say great people make great athletes. — And I think, you know, the more we can build the foundation of the person,

Chris Hall (03:35)
Right.

Eric Smith (03:52)
in terms of overall person of character and integrity. The things that they’re going to learn, if they can take that work ethic and those character skills into their sport, that means they’re gonna be a harder worker. They’re gonna be more consistent in the off season with their work ethic and getting into the weight room and training. They’re gonna be…

better teammates, they’re gonna be better at connecting and building relationships with their teammates and coaches. And all that’s gonna translate on the field or on the court or in the arena for that athlete. So when my son graduated, just to finish kind of my 3000 foot view story, when my son graduated, I wanted to stay connected to coaching, but I didn’t really want to, as you know, it’s a big commitment to go out every day and help out with the high school program. I decided to start a quarterback academy.

I saw the lack of skill development, Chris, when I was working on one of the position groups I coached when I was coaching both at Shasta High School and at West Valley. I coached the receiver group and I was always amazed at why I had to teach a varsity receiver how to put their foot in the ground and cut properly, how to drop their hip, how to energy applied to the ground so they could change direction or how to basically just catch properly using their eyes and creating soft hands.

Chris Hall (05:08)
Okay, that’s not true.

Eric Smith (05:28)
thought that they would know those things when they got to the varsity level, but to my surprise, they didn’t. And so I saw the need for skill development. I saw the need for skill development. And so I started a quarterback academy. I started working with local quarterbacks there in the Reading area and started running some camps outside the Reading area. And eventually moved back to the Southeast, to North Carolina, and I’m now in Virginia, where I’ve continued to expand my quarterback academy.

And then to — kind of full circle on it, I had leadership positions that I held when I was in business. And I noticed that athletes, and I know you want to get into this today on the podcast. I noticed that athletes oftentimes are asked to be leaders by the coaches, whether they’re a senior or they’re a captain or they’re a quarterback or linebacker or leadership position, but they don’t necessarily know how to be leaders.

I was very intentional about taking some of that. I’ve always been a lifelong learner of leadership and a reader. And so I decided to teach leadership skills to the quarterbacks, no different than we teach physical skills to these athletes. So when they’re asked to lead, they actually know what leadership is, why it’s important, and then how to go about and execute it.

and then when I saw how my quarterbacks responded to those leadership lessons and how much they enjoyed it and how much they benefited from it. And parents love that aspect of it, that I would teach those things to the kids. Cause those, carry on to life. As you know, — I decided to write a book about it and, take this, this, these strategies and tactics to any athlete, not just quarterbacks, not just football players. So I wrote a book and, the name of the book is the winning edge way.

So, you know, we’ll talk about that through the course of the podcast. So that’s kind of where I’m at and how I got here, Chris.

Chris Hall (06:44)
Hey, that’s great. I appreciate you doing that. A couple of follow up questions on that. I know that we have a few younger people listening who are going through football right now. And so like, did you get recruited out of Bowling Green from Central Michigan? How did that work? Where is Bowling Green at, by the way? Isn’t it Kentucky?

Eric Smith (07:02)
Bowling Green is

on Northwest Ohio. just north. It’s just south of Toledo. It’s about probably 20, 20, 25 minutes south of the Michigan border, south of Detroit. Yeah, it’s.

Chris Hall (07:06)
Okay.

Did you get recruited out

of their camp or did you get recruited out of like one of these camps where you know a school host and a bunch of schools will show up? How did that work?

Eric Smith (07:19)
Yeah.

Great, great question. Let me tell you. And that’s exactly how I got recruited. I went to some quarterback camps, starting my freshman year, uh, to develop my skills, the learn proper footwork and proper drops. could always throw a ball, but I was able to learn some things to help refine my mechanics, learn some of the mental aspects of the game. Um, there weren’t really a lot of quarterback coaches back in that day, but there were some camps and there were some, some people that did it. Um,

In fact, I just noticed first quarterback camp I went to was there’s a really big school in the Detroit area called Birmingham Brother Rice. And the coach there for 53 years was Al Farkasa. And I just noticed he just passed away this week. He was the coach there Chris for 50 from 1971 to 2013. So whatever that is 45 years or something crazy. But I went to the Al Farkasa quarterback camp at Birmingham Brother Rice.

And they had a quarterback there that had just graduated. name was David Urema and he went to Michigan state. He was a quarterback at Michigan state. And I was a little freshman and he brought David Urema up to demonstrate a five step drop and to throw a football. And I thought I’d died and went to heaven. And, um, I was so inspired by watching him do that and looking how, how smooth his footwork was and how smooth his mechanics were. I was really inspired by that. Al just passed, but that was the

That was the first camp I went to. so I developed a skill, went to camps every summer. I would use some of my own money. My parents helped me a little bit as well. I think it’s really important for athletes to, sacrifice, to own their journey and to invest in themselves. I would encourage any parent out there listening that don’t just give your athletes the money, make them earn it.

because then they’re gonna go to that camp and they’re gonna value it more. They’re gonna engage more in it. They’re going to come home and work on it harder if they’ve got some skin in the game. So make sure your athletes are owning their journey. And we could have a whole conversation about that. So I continued to develop my skillset. By the time I got going into my senior year, I wasn’t being recruited at all, Chris. I went to the Michigan football school.

Chris Hall (09:21)
Okay.

Eric Smith (09:22)
And I was wondering if I had the trophy around me. I guess I don’t. I went to the Michigan football school and it was about a three or four day camp. And it was for all football players, high school football players. And the camp was put on by coaches from like Grand Valley State, Saginaw Valley State, Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, coaches from various programs, including the Michigan coaches. And I remember it was about the second or third day. I was, I was with the quarterback group.

We were walking off the field all together, maybe 30 of us, and I hear this from behind me, hey Smith. And I turn around, Chris, and I look and there’s about nine coaches standing there. And one of them says, come over here, will ya? It was a really awkward moment. I remember it was like it was yesterday. I walked over towards them and said, you, Eric, would you go over and just pick up that football? Give us a five step drop.

and just throw that ball down as far field as far as you can towards the corner of the end zone.

Sure. know, I was completely awkward and unexpected, but I walked over, I picked up the football and I executed a perfect five step drop, reset my feet and threw it down to the corner of the end zone. Just like I had watched David Urema do it four years earlier. And I turned around and looked at those coaches and the guy said, thanks. I was like,

Okay. And I shrug my shoulders and walk off the field, right? And, — and the next, the next day, the Michigan coaches came up to me they asked me if I wanted to go talk to Bo Schimbechler in his office. Now people watching this podcast won’t know who Bo Schimbechler is, but he was the God of college coaching at the time. Think of Dabo Sweeney. He was the Nick Saban, the Dabo Sweeney, — you know, of that, of that era.

Chris Hall (10:40)
Yeah.

No, he is.

Great.

Eric Smith (11:01)
So I got to go sit and talk to Bo in the office and he said they’d be watching me sending scouts to some of my games. And he asked about my family. He talked a lot about academics and it was the coolest experience of my life to that point. And, I got home from that camp and Chris literally within two weeks, my mailbox started filling up with letters. Okay. And that’s when my recruiting journey started, letters from all kinds of schools. but here’s what I tell the athletes is that.

Chris Hall (11:18)
So.

Eric Smith (11:25)
Success is at the intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Okay. That day I had an opportunity when they said, would you go pick up that football? Give me a five step drop and throw it down the field. That was an opportunity.

I was also prepared for that opportunity because I’d been going to quarterback camps and practicing my skillset during the summertime for the previous years. So when those two things intersect, that’s where success happens. And I tell athletes all the time, you’re going to have opportunities. The question is, will you be prepared for that opportunity? Because you can be prepared, no opportunity, no success. You can have an opportunity and not be prepared, no success.

You have to have both intersecting. So make sure you’re prepared for those opportunities when they arise. Even if you’re a backup at a position, whether it be a quarterback or anything else, make sure that you know, you know your scheme, make sure you’re taking mental reps. You’re watching the starter very closely in practice every day. You’re envisioning things you’re practicing so that when they say, Hey, Johnny, Susie, get in there your turn. You know what’s going on and you can execute. and if you do that,

I think that you’re going to find success eventually.

Chris Hall (12:32)
Do you feel like now with all that you know about football leadership, do you feel like at the time you were a good leader in high school and in college?

Eric Smith (12:40)
Yeah. Um, that’s a great question. Um, I had no idea what leadership was. I, um, leadership wasn’t taught. It’s not really taught that much today to kids. Very rare. Um, certainly wasn’t at the time, but Chris, I came from a good family. both my parents were educators. Um, I was raised with, uh, good Midwestern values and, and ethics. Um, I was respectful to coaches. I was, was.

you know, kind to my teammates. I was just looking back on myself. I was like, yeah, I was pretty good dude. Right. So I think I had the foundation of, of good leadership. Now, if I had been taught, if I had gotten ahold of somebody like me, you know, I could have 10 X that, right? I could have learned about how to deepen relationships with teammates. I could have learned about how to build more trust. I kind of learned about how to help other people get better, but I did things.

Chris Hall (13:22)
Bye.

Eric Smith (13:30)
I did things that, you know, I was a trustworthy person. think my teammates saw me as a trustworthy person. That certainly was, they saw me as a competent person. and I did take time to give my teammates an opportunity to get better. helped them get better simply by picking up the phone and calling them and saying, Hey, can you come out and run routes? We’re to meet up at the high school at nine 30 today. you know, so I think others around me and not just football basketball as well. I think others around me found themselves like, if I hang out with Eric.

I’m getting better. I’m becoming a better athlete just by my association with Eric. And so I think, you know, there was, you know, I may have not been intentional about it, but I think that looking back that, I think I was a pretty good leader. Now when you get, got to college, whole different story because now I’m, you know, now I’m nobody, right? I’m — way down on the depth chart. I don’t have credibility. I don’t have an opportunity to demonstrate my competency to the team.

And so, no, early on in college, I don’t think I was a very good leader. think later on, I became a better leader. Yeah. But leadership, Chris, it needs to be, these athletes, they need to be intentional about it. Because I say this, just because you’re in a leadership position,

doesn’t make you a leader, okay? If a coach names you a captain, a lot of times they name an athlete a captain just because they show up a lot in the off season and they work hard and they’re a good player, whatever their sport is. A lot of times that’ll earn you the right to be in a captain when you’re a senior. Doesn’t make you a leader, right? There’s coaches. Obviously a coach is in a leadership position. Doesn’t make you a great leader, okay? So the, you know, why is leadership important? Well,

One of the most, one of the most popular books ever written on leadership is by the John, John Maxwell. I have some certifications with his organization. I’m a certified John Maxwell coach. He’s written, I think over 80 books on leadership. He’s probably the number one leadership author in the world. But his book, the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is probably one of the best-selling leadership books ever written. 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. Anybody who wants to be a leader should have that book on their shelf.

And he contends that there’s laws of leadership, just like there’s laws of nature and gravity and, you laws of force. And, you know, he thinks there’s laws of actual leadership. He believes around him. The number one law of leadership that he has in first chapter of his book is called, and it’s my favorite law of the 21, it’s called the law of the lid, LID, the lid. You think of a lid on top of a saucer or something, right?

He contends, and I believe that the success of an organization will never surpass the level of its leadership. The leadership acts as a lid on how far the success can go, right? So if you want to increase the level of success in your organization, I don’t care if you’re a company, I don’t care if you’re an educational institution or a girl’s volleyball team, right? If you want to increase…

your effectiveness or your results, you wanna get better, you better be intentional about increasing the level of your leadership. You can’t have a level nine or 10 success without having a level nine or 10 leadership. Okay, so I think that law of the lid is really important. you know. —

Chris Hall (16:34)
That’s excellent. But that’s

a limiting factor for a lot of athletes, right? They’re good at what they do. They’re, you know, in their position or their position group there, you know, they’re like, looked upon as like, Hey, this guy’s really good at what he does. But, know, outside of his position group or, know, whatever, he may not have any, like, you know, clout at all, because he doesn’t act as a leader. just has a good player and there’s a huge difference for sure.

Eric Smith (16:56)
Huge difference, absolutely. Do you want to get into what athletes can do specifically, Chris, to be better leaders?

Chris Hall (17:02)
Yes, that would be excellent. know that now, I know that your book goes over the four C’s, correct? Let’s get into that. Let’s get into that. think that’s a really good thing for people to hear. And again, we’re specifically talking about, you know, high school quarterbacks or any sort of person, but this is very transferable to if you want to be a leader at your job, at your workplace, within your community.

Eric Smith (17:09)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Let’s get into the fourth season. Okay.

Chris Hall (17:27)
I feel like I’ve known Eric for a really long time. These are all very transferable things. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have him on the podcast was because not only does it speak to all the different athletes out there that trying to make their journey happen, but it’s going to transfer into what the athletes, when they become parts of our society that are not just athletics, but their business owners or their business workers or employees or whatever. that’s what I think is really cool is because I think a lot of people

It’s the same thing in business, right? You have a business and you’re good at what you do, whether you’re a roofer or a mechanic or whatever, but doesn’t make you a good leader. And so I think these are transferable traits. And that’s one of the reasons I thought those would be really valuable for the audience.

Eric Smith (18:06)
1000%. If you can, you know, I say a leader in sport will be a leader in life, Chris, because it’s the same skill set, right? Nothing changes, okay?

Chris Hall (18:12)
Yep.

Yeah.

I saw something just the other day that said like the person would, if they saw on the resume that they played college sports, that it was like, it was the done deal. They were already hired before they even met because they just knew that they, what they had to go through to be a college level athlete. So yeah, I agree with that. So yeah. So the four C’s, let’s start with the first one.

Eric Smith (18:36)
—

Yeah, okay. First of all, let’s talk about what leadership is and is not, okay? — Leadership is not a position held. It’s not a title given. We see all the time in the NFL, we’ve got a great offensive coordinator or a great defensive coordinator that is successful and they get hired by another organization as a head coach.

Chris Hall (18:44)
Okay, good.

Eric Smith (19:02)
Okay. They get hired into a leadership position and sometimes they’re not very successful. Oftentimes they’re not very successful. so they have excellent job skills, but a lot of times, you know, I say people get hired into leadership positions because of their job skills, but they get fired from leadership positions because of their behavioral skills or relational skills, their leadership skills.

We’ll see a successful heart surgeon at a hospital be named the head of the coronary artery unit or a successful emergency room physician be named the head of the ER group. Okay? Doesn’t make them effective in that leadership position. So it’s not a title or a position held. Rather, what leadership is, I believe, is its influence.

that is gained, influence on other people, that’s gained based on earning trust or character, having character, building connections with people. Obviously you have competency, but also helping make other people better. And those are really what the four Cs are. Character, connection, competence, and construction. And we can get into each one of those.

Um, spend a few, uh, spend more time on some of those seeds than others, but, um, um, you know, leadership, um, begins, uh, okay. Let’s, let’s back up even more now. A coach, I don’t know if for your athlete side, you may have a coach that, um, has not connected with you, hasn’t built trust, hasn’t built a relationship. You may not like the coach. Okay. But you also may follow that coach.

that coach be simply because you have to out of compliance. You have to comply because if you don’t, he’s gonna sit your butt on the bench. He’s gonna kick you off the team. He’s gonna make you do bear crawls around the field after practice. Okay. he has authority or she has authority over you. Okay. And that can work to a certain extent. Now that coach is not going to get the best out of their athletes.

Okay, because he’s not getting into their heart. But we’ll follow a coach like that as an athlete, but they’re not going to get our best.

— so that’s leadership, getting people to follow you based on compliance, right? Based on authority. rather, if you can get people to be compelled to follow you. instead of, say compliance versus being compelled, if you can get athletes or people to follow you because they’re compelled to, they want to follow you. Now you’re going to get their best. Okay. And you’re going to be much more successful as an organization.

Now, obviously as an athlete, if you’re a team captain, if you’re a senior, you can’t kick a kid off the team. You can’t make them run left. You can’t sit them on the bench. You have no authority over that person as a peer, right? So the only way to do it is to get people to want to follow you, to have influence over people and to help them, you know, lead them because they want to be led by you. And that has to be earned. Okay. Now that’s where we get into the four C’s of leadership.

— and I like to tell this story, Chris, that kind of encompasses these, a few of these four C’s by a, a special I heard on the Callan Cowherd show where he had, — he had Rich Ornberg on. Now, Rich was a travel, kind of a journeyman lineman in the NFL. And he had recently joined the Patriots and he was on the Callan Cowherd show. And I’m sitting there watching this. This is after I’d written my book. And then after I’ve talked about the four C’s and I’m watching this and.

I kind of sat up in my chair and I was like, hmm, this is fascinating because at this time Tom Brady had won multiple Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. Eisen, Rich Ornberg is on the show and Calvary says, wait, wait, wait, wait, what’s it like when you went to New England and you met Tom Brady? Tell us about that. And Rich says it was fascinating. was really, really interesting. Let me tell you about it. And he says, the first…

day I was in the facility. went into the weight room and Tom was in there and Tom walked over to me and he goes, Hey, Rich, welcome to New England. He held out his hand. He goes, my name is Tom. And Rich is like, dude, you’re a household name. I know who you are. He’s laughing, right? And, — but I’m sitting here watching this. like, okay. And listening. And then he says, man, Brady, Tomberts started asking me all about like where I’m from and where I went to college. I’d asked him about my wife and my family and where she was from.

She went to college and we’re just having this conversation. was all kind of centered around me. He’s just asking me questions. And the next day he comes in and sits down next to me in the cafeteria and says, mind if I join you? And Richard’s like, yeah, Tom, a seat. And he starts to ask me more questions about what my interests are in life. And the next thing I know, I’m talking hunting and fishing with Tom Brady. And we’re carrying on a conversation. And I’m just thinking, yeah. What he’s doing is he’s established a…

establishing a connection with him. Okay. He’s not just jumping into trying to lead him. He wants to get to know him first, right? He wants to build a relationship with him. So that goes back to the four C’s. now, if you think of these four C’s as like rungs on a ladder, you got to step on the first rung first before you go to the next C, before you get to the next. So it’s like climbing a ladder. Okay. And the first rung on the ladder of the four C’s is character. Okay.

character. You have to be a person of character. You have to be a trustworthy person. If you’re a low character person, people won’t trust you and therefore your leadership journey is over before it even began. Okay. If you’re a low character person, if you don’t have, if you can’t build trust with people, your leadership journey just ended. Okay. Now the only way to lead them is, is what we talked about the big through authority, which is not a very good way to lead people.

Okay. so, you know, developing trust and building trust and, and establishing character takes time. You know, it just takes time. it, you have to, you know, be the kind of person that does, you know, says, does what you say you’re going to do. And, and, and you make good decisions and people can observe those good decisions and, know, and kids can do that just by the way they treat teachers in school and the way they treat their coaches and administrators and the way they talk about their family or their friends.

Just being a good overall person can help you kind of build that trust with your teammates. And so, you know, that’s something you can always work on is that component of the leadership. And that can be lost very quickly if you do something stupid, you know, it takes a long time to build it, but it can be taken away very quickly, right? If you do something to lose trust with people. So be very intentional about building trust with teammates.

Chris Hall (25:12)
Sure.

Eric Smith (25:18)
— the next C is called connection. And that’s where we build a lot. That’s where we spend a lot of time with the, with the athletes. And that’s what Tom Brady was doing with Rich Ornberg is building that connection. And, — again, how do we do that? Well, you know, number one is you spend time with people. have to spend time with them and you have to be intentional about spending time with them. can’t go sit with the same teammates every day in the lunchroom. can’t run in clicks. Okay. As a leader, you’ve got to.

You’ve got to move around intentionally and get to know the different teammates. You know, it may sound something like just walking out to the practice field with a different teammate and saying, Hey man, let me grab, let me carry your shoulder pads. Let me carry your helmet. Let me carry your bag. If you’re a hockey player or whatever it is, right. And walk with them and say, just, Hey man, you know, I feel like I don’t know you like I want to know you. We’re teammates. Um, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to, you know, maybe ask you a few questions, you know, in your own way and just start asking questions about their family.

I use a technique I learned back in my sales career, Chris, called FORD, F-O-R-D, like the car company. And it’s basically an acronym, stands for family, occupation, recreation, dreams, and desires. Okay. And so just asking about a person’s family, you know, where you’re from, how long have you lived in Reading? What’s your mom and dad do? Tell me about your brothers and sisters. What are they into? Right. And not just shooting through those questions and, but, you know,

ask a question sincerely and you may have built a conversation around your, you know, this, your dad’s occupation. You may, you know, you don’t have to feel like you got to jump through and just let the conversation kind of flow, but ask questions about their family. Just try to get to know them and you know, where you’re from. we’re, know, we’re from Reno. How long have you lived in Redding? we just moved here last year. Really? What brought you to Redding? your dad’s job. What’s your dad do?

that’s fascinating. He’s a police officer. What city you’re reading or, or, or with the County Sheriff’s office or, you know what I mean? And try to keep that, that, that conversation authentic and take some practice. Cause kids would get Chris, what kids want to do is, know, well, where you’re from. I’m from Reno. — what’s your dad do? He’s a cop. what’s your mom do? — she works at the school. Right. And they don’t build a conversation around it. Right. So I, I, child, the athletes slow down.

Chris Hall (27:22)
Great. Great.

Eric Smith (27:24)
When he, when, when he says, dad’s a cop. Okay. Let’s pull on that thread. Right. Does he like his job? Who’s he worked for? How long has he been doing it? Has he ever had any interesting stories he’s told you about encounters? Right. You know, whatever, slow things down. Again, this is where practice comes in, but that makes it more of a natural and authentic type of conversation. So we ask about family. We asked now kids don’t have occupations.

So we ask about other activities, know, what do you, what other sports are you involved in or what do you like to do when you’re outside of school or outside of sports? And you know, what are you into hunting and fishing, video games, you know, what’s up? And we can have conversations about that. you know,

Chris Hall (28:01)
I noticed that,

like with our kids that I coach right now, like there’s a whole group of them that love to go fishing and they talk about it. You know what mean? And it’s like, it’s become sort of a common thread with a lot of kids. And I like that. I like that they have something they talk about outside of football. And I think it’s important for camaraderie to find common interests and explore them. So that’s, I like that. And then just so you know, I actually do this with my financial clients as well. This almost identical thing.

Eric Smith (28:22)
No doubt.

Chris Hall (28:26)
You know, it’s basically I want to know about your family kind of like where you’re from. How’d you got here? I want to know about your occupation if you’re retired like what did you do before you retired? I always ask him recreation like what do you do for fun? And then last but like for the where you have the D It’s actually could be similar but like for me, it’s like, you know, let’s talk about you know, let’s talk about your money and your goals so because it’s more specific to financial advising, but it’s funny I use the exact same thing when I meet prospects because

Eric Smith (28:34)
Yes.

Chris Hall (28:51)
Two reasons, one, it definitely builds rapport, no doubt, but also it lets me administer their accounts to their goals and their wants and their needs and their family upbringing and stuff like that. It lets me connect with them so that I can manage their account as if I’m part of their family. So I love this.

Eric Smith (28:57)
Sure. Sure.

The more you know about

them, the better decisions you’re help them make with their money. Absolutely, Chris. Yeah.

Chris Hall (29:11)
Yeah.

So I kind jumped in there, but so with R, for you.

Eric Smith (29:15)
No.

Yeah, so always other activities. Like what other sports do you play? Right? R is recreation. Now we’re talking about fishing. Right? D is dreams and desires. Maybe, you know, like what do you plan on doing past high school? You know, find out what their goals and ambitions in life are. It’s just a way to get to know someone and to deepen that relationship. Right? Keep it real. Keep it authentic. Chris, I met my wife that way. I totally did the Ford thing on her.

Chris Hall (29:24)
You say?

Eric Smith (29:41)
You know, and I married to her today, so it must’ve worked. I walked away with her phone number. But the thing is it was real. It was authentic. It was sincere. There was nothing fake about it, right? She didn’t ask me one single question. I’m in charge of the questions, right? I’m asking all the questions. She’s just answering them. You know, she didn’t ask me one single question. That came later, but it was a way to connect. And that was our starting point.

Chris Hall (29:41)
Yeah.

Eric Smith (30:06)
Hand to God, that’s how we met at a West Valley football auction fundraiser down at the Anderson Fairgrounds. And I totally walked up to her, held out my hand and introduced myself and went right into Ford with her. yeah. So it works, right? It’s a way to connect with people. And that’s exactly what Tom Brady was doing with Rich Ornberg. He was Fording him. He was Fording him, right? He was building the connection with him.

Chris Hall (30:14)
That’s awesome.

Great. Yeah.

Thank

Eric Smith (30:30)
But the observation I have with the high school, with the, with the young athletes is, well, my son, when he was playing ball at West Valley, he came home one day entering his senior year and he said, dad, Jeremy’s being a jerk, right? Except that was another four letter word that he used. And I laughed, you know, and I said, you know, Jeremy was a linebacker on our team, heck of an athlete.

He was a senior captain. said, Marcus, Jeremy’s trying to be a leader, right? Cut him some slack. But the way kids try to lead when they’re not trained to be leaders is, let’s go, right? Knock it off, know, pick, you know, and they yell at each other, right? They try to be verbal leaders when they skipped.

the character part, they skip the connection part and they just go right into trying to coach their teammates. You can’t go right into trying to coach your teammates. You have to earn the right to coach people. Just like Tom Brady was trying to earn. If anybody has the right to coach somebody as Tom Brady, my God, he’d won previous Super Bowls, right? He still didn’t jump into coaching. It was that third or fourth encounter with Rich Ornberg where he said, and then he sat down with me the next day in the cafeteria and we started talking about pass protection and he’s starting to coach me up.

Chris Hall (31:24)
Right?

Right?

Eric Smith (31:42)
Pass Pro and my responsibilities. He didn’t just jump into Pass Pro, right? He built the relationship first. And obviously he goes to Tampa Bay and within one year he’s done that again and they win a Super Bowl with him at Tampa Bay, but that’s leadership, right? That’s leadership. So kids can do this. There has to be intention about learning it. I have all the strategies in my book. So if you want to take the deep dive and really become a, you know, athletic leader,

Chris Hall (31:47)
Right.

Eric Smith (32:06)
— make sure, you know, you’re reading and studying leadership. Obviously I’m a, I’d recommend my book is a great place to get started, but there’s other books on leadership as well. I just kind of put it in a easy to understand executable way that’s related to sports. So it’s great for athletes and coaches. but, — yeah, the leadership part is fun. The next thing, the next step. we’ve now we’ve established trust or built character. We’ve connected with our teammates. The next step, Chris is.

competency, demonstrating your competency. Letting your teammates see you make plays on the practice field. Let them see you hustling, working hard. Let them see you, you know, your level of, your level, your ability, right? And for a lot of athletes, they’re not in a, maybe they’re a backup and they’re not getting those reps. Okay. Well, okay. Your leadership journey probably stopped after the first two rungs. You’re probably not going to progress too much as a leader.

Until you can demonstrate your competency you will have that opportunity in the future But there’s no reason that that athlete can’t be working on one and two but in those relationships with their teammates making those connections, right and and if you and so if you’re an underclassman and you haven’t become The man or the gal on your team you can still be working hard on your leadership and positioning yourself You know for for that next step when you get it, right?

Chris Hall (33:22)
That makes me think of Tom Brady again. You know, he was a backup behind Drew Bledsoe and Drew Bledsoe gets hurt and he goes in the game and never comes out again for 20 years. it’s like, but he, he had, he had to have the first two C’s so that he could walk in, demonstrate his competency and they were already on board because you know, if he went out there and just threw the rock around, I bet you just knowing who he

Eric Smith (33:26)
Mm-hmm.

Players responded to them, didn’t they? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Hall (33:45)
was, you from the story you’re telling, he probably had already built camaraderie with the linemen and the backs and the wide receivers. So when he came on the field, they were probably like, Tom’s here. We’re good. You know I mean? Like they probably were, I’m not saying that they didn’t like Drew Blitzo. I mean, he was a good quarterback and stuff like that. But I mean, they didn’t even skip a beat when he came out. And so to me, I think that probably lends to your story about Tom, but also lends to your story about building credibility, you know, with this position. He probably already had it when he walked on the field.

Eric Smith (33:55)
Yeah.

out all. —

Yep. A hundred percent. Cause that’s the kind of person he was. — now the final C Chris is construction. Construction. So we think of, building things, right? And in this case, in the case of sports, being an athletic leader, we’re building others. We’re helping those around us get better. And it’s like, well, I’m not a punter. I’m not a linebacker. I can’t help a defensive player get better.

Chris Hall (34:17)
Yeah.

Eric Smith (34:37)
I’m a quarterback or I’m a receiver, whatever your sport is, it doesn’t matter. Well, yes, you can. I say that, you know, love, you want to get your teammates to love you, right? Love is spelled T-I-M-E. Spend time with your teammates. Okay, what’s that look like? Okay, well, if I want to help the punter get better, I can volunteer to…

Shag balls, shag puns after practice, right? If I want to help my long snapper get better, I can stand back there and field snaps, right? I can rebound for my teammate in basketball after practice. I can maybe shadow them as a defender while they’re trying to work on their post moves, right? Whatever it is, we can spend time with that athlete, even though we don’t know the technical skills of what they’re necessarily trying to do.

you know, to help them get better. so you have to be intentional and look for opportunities. you know, leaders always the first ones to practice the last ones to leave. I remember in high school and basketball, football, I was always the last one to leave the field. I was always throwing some extra routes after practice. I was always shooting to getting some extra shots in after basketball practice. And, so just look for those opportunities to help those around you get better. And at a lot in the low hanging fruit, the easy way to do that.

is just spend time with them.

All right. So.

Chris Hall (35:47)
That’s great. really, you know, you can see it on the field. You know, there’s always, I wouldn’t say always, but usually there’s about, you know, five or six kids who stay after practice and, know, the kids run around quarterback throws them a ball, you know, something like that. You know, it’s not always the case, but I’ve seen it in a lot, a lot of programs. And when you do see it in the programs, you can almost say, I bet they do well. You know what I mean? I bet you that, you know, they’ve got a tradition for, for winning and stuff like that. And I do.

I do, I think like my son is a nap, was a long snapper, you know, if, a quarterback would ever walk up to him or even a, like a high profile wide receiver and be like, Hey, do you want me to take some snaps from you? You know, do you want to practice your snaps? They like, probably mean the world to him that somebody even cared enough to ask. — so, you know, just that’s, I don’t think people understand how much there’s a need for human connection inside of sports and also inside of business. you know, people.

Eric Smith (36:31)
Right. Right.

Chris Hall (36:42)
I always say like in business, you know, you want to treat people so well and cultivate them so that they can move on from life. You know, they can go on to like, they can open their own business, they can do their own thing. You want to cultivate them in that way. But yet you want to make it so nice for them that they don’t want to leave you. So that’s like kind of like a double edged sword there, you know, for the good, you know, and I think that’s the same when it comes to leadership on the field is that, you you want to help develop these kids out, but you know, they’ll

they won’t want to like leave because they’ll want to stay with their you know support group.

Eric Smith (37:12)
I wrote in my book to follow that point, Chris, about the four keys to greatness. I’m sitting around, I always like to watch the Hall of Fame induction speech, the pro football Hall of Fame induction speeches. And so often I’m disappointed in the speech, but once in a while I sit up on the end of my chair and I remember Jerome Bettis when he was inducted, the bus, the running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chris Hall (37:24)
Bye.

Eric Smith (37:35)
And man, he gave the best, if you get a chance, go watch it. Uh, he gave the best induction speech, but he talked about the, um, the four keys to greatness. And I, and I taught, wrote about it in my book, but just real quick, let’s go through them. The first thing he talks about is you have to be willing to sacrifice, right? We talked about sacrifice, what I did, you know, mowing lawns, umpiring little league baseball games, making some extra money so I could.

I forward to go to camps to develop my skillset when I was younger. Right. So I was sacrificing. We put time in, we put effort in, we sacrifice money to go see specialty coaches. You know, whatever it is, you got to be willing to sacrifice. And that also means saying no to other things. We have to say no to a lot of things, hanging out with our other buddies and doing things maybe we shouldn’t be doing so that we can focus on being great in our sport. — but the next one, the next.

Chris Hall (38:25)
All

Eric Smith (38:27)
So number two was we have to be willing and able to deal with pain, pain. Now we think of sports, we think of physical pain, right? Especially in contact sports like football, but any sport involves injury. But to me in sport, in my experience through college football was…

the emotional pain was far greater than any physical pain that I experienced, right? And so what you’re talking about is like…

being providing emotional support to your teammates. If you think of, you know, a car needs gas to run, to go, right? As athletes, our gas is emotional fuel. We need emotional fuel from our teammates. So we, as a leader, you need to be a tank filler. You need to look for opportunities to fill the emotional tanks of your teammates, right? And we…

I’m sure you’re going through and thinking of certain teammates from your past that were able to do that for you. And sometimes it’s a coach that can do you, you know, some, lot of times it’s a coach that’s a tank drainer that drains our emotional tanks, right? By being critical or being negative or yelling too much. and so we need a teammate to come along and replace that, that, negative emotion with positive emotion to fill back my tank back up. Right.

Chris Hall (39:33)
Okay.

Eric Smith (39:45)
And that’s all part of being a team leader. And so, okay, well, how do we fill our teammates’ emotional tanks? Well, I call it being a master observer. Okay. Now master observer, means kids are, as a coach, you’ll relate to this. Kids are so much internal. They’re so into their own issue, right? That they can’t see what’s going on around them, right?

And when you’re so internally invested, you know, your head, you got too much going on up here. You’re spinning, right? Mentally. And when you’re spinning mentally, you’re not going to play well. Okay. We need the game to slow down for us. Right. So we need to think about less, not more. Well, one of the ways to think about less is get outside of your dang head and look around and see what’s going on around you. Right. And catch your teammates doing good things.

Chris Hall (40:09)
and

Eric Smith (40:33)
A coach or society and oftentimes our teammates, we only want to acknowledge the guy who made the great catch or the girl who made the great spike in volleyball and the winning point or caught or ran for the touchdown or made the, made the, you know, pursued and made the tackle downfield. We only want to acknowledge results, right? But as, if you think about it, you know, reverse engineer what gets to results, what gets to results is effort.

Chris Hall (40:54)
Sure.

Eric Smith (41:01)
Right? So what if we just look for opportunities to acknowledge the efforts of our teammates? Right? What a great way to fill emotional tanks. Hey, Johnny, I see you, man. I see you working. Keep it up, man. I’m proud of you. Go baby. Right? Catch your teammates doing good things and acknowledge it publicly. Right? Acknowledge it. Let them know. I see you.

Chris Hall (41:19)
I’m Nick.

Eric Smith (41:24)
How easy is that to say, I see you, Brian, I see you working, right? He didn’t make the tackle, he didn’t make the catch, but he ran a great route, right? He pursued the ball carrier, didn’t get in on the tackle. I saw you working to get across field. I saw you taking an angle, right? You didn’t give up on that play. You got knocked down, you got back up. I see you, man, right? And if we can teach our athletes to do that, we can, heck, if we can teach our coaches to do that.

Chris Hall (41:28)
man.

Right.

Eric Smith (41:50)
Right? Let’s celebrate effort. And then one of the things I used to do as a coach when I was coaching high school ball is I’d always say, I’d stop the film and say, look, all right, I know he didn’t make the tackle. I know he didn’t catch the ball. Look at this route. Look at this block. Right? It’s way over here, not even involved in the play. Look at him block. Right? You keep doing that and that’s going to lead to great things for you. It’s going to lead to great things for our team.

Chris Hall (41:54)
night.

Right?

I mean, that’s the I mean, you nailed it. That is just absolutely gassing kids up when you say stuff like that. Hey, you did so good on this. It’s not going to make the highlight film. You’re not going be on the news tonight. But that was really cool when you did X, Y, Z. I remember I was in a film session when I was in junior college. I was in a film session and I was playing on the right side of the field and there was a run to the left side of the field. And the guy was like running down the field and I literally ran from like our their 20 yard line all the way to like our five yard line.

to stop and I made the tackle like on the five yard line. I had to hustle and I’m, you know, I’m a middle linebacker and this guy’s running back, but I had a good angle and I got there. And I remember, you know, you know, it just shows up as a tackle in the books, but they would like made a really big deal about it in film session. They were like, do you see where he started? And do you see where he literally was the furthest away from the ball when the guy, you know, got to the edge and like, I think the corner was further away, but still the whole point was, that, you know, like I gave those kinds of efforts all the time.

But when a guy gases you up like that, you’re never going to not do it now. You’re going to see a kid running on the sideline and near your brain. You think, I got to run. They gassed me up. They got me going. I got to get down there. And so now you’re running down the field all the time. So I really do feel like taking time to gas kids up is huge. And I’d love to see that to be part of every film session. I mean, it would be cool if you even had like a, I don’t know, like a.

recipe where you’re like, hey, these are the four things that we need to work on. And you maybe show some examples of like, hey, this is an example of that. And this was an example of that. And these, if we, if we can rectify these four things will be a better football team or better basketball team or, or a better business if we rectify these four things. But then I’m a huge fan of like this, it’s called the sandwich technique, which is where you start with something good. Then you tell them some correction stuff and then you end with something good. And I feel like this should be the same way in film. What’s that you wrote about sandwich technique?

Eric Smith (44:00)
I wrote about that in my book. Yeah. —

yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hall (44:05)
That’s cool. I love that.

But it was something good and with like and again, it doesn’t have to be like you. this is a great touchdown catch. Great. We all know that that guy’s really talented. He can catch the ball in the end zone. It’d be more about like show that same kid blocking for another kid. That’s that’s huge. Show that same show alignment. You know, running down the field when it’s a sweep right and he’s left tackle show him running down the field trying to take out a safety, you know, 20 yards down the field, like, you know, gas the kids up for the things that

that no one really does. I feel like that if you do that kind of thing, you’re ultimately going to mold your team into what you want anyway. And if not, like the specific X’s and O’s part of it, you’re going to gas them up for the effort part of it. think that recognizing effort is huge. And man, I just love that so much that you mentioned that.

Eric Smith (44:49)
I like your term.

I like your terminology gas gassing up your teammates. call it be an energizer, be an energizer. Right. But that’s what we’re talking about. Putting that emotional gas back in the tank. Right. And as a parent, you got to make sure you’re, you’re, you’re, you know, your, your children are, are gassed up, man. You can’t be coaching them in the car on the way home. You can’t be critical about their performance. have to let them know that you, you value their effort.

Chris Hall (44:56)
Yeah.

Eric Smith (45:17)
Let them know that you enjoy watching them. know, hey, I really enjoy watching you play whatever your sport is. You know, let’s go get some ice cream, right? Instead of coaching, because the studies prove it, Chris. Youth sports participation peaks at age 10. By the time those kids are 13, studies show that 70 % have dropped out in that three year period. Those are the national, that’s what national studies prove.

Why are kids, why do the 70 % quit? Well, I think it’s because there’s too much focus on results. There’s too much focus on winning. There’s, know, and when they, the Aspen Institute studied it, they did surveyed kids. Why do you play sport? Right? And the top answers, like to learn new things, to travel and see new places, to spend time with my friends, right? To,

Chris Hall (45:41)
Yeah.

Eric Smith (46:04)
um, challenge myself. Those are the top results. Winning was like number 41 with the kids on the surveys. Okay. Yet there’s so much emphasis on winning with youth sports that those kids end up having their energy drain, energy tanks drained, their emotional tanks drained. It’s not fun anymore. You know, why do they start playing the sport? Why did you start playing football? Cause it was fun. Right? Why do we lose?

sight of having fun in sport at all levels. It should be the primary focus because if we’re having fun, we’re going to be like going back to Jerome Bettis, we’re going to be willing to sacrifice. We’re going to be able to overcome the pain, right? The physical pain and the emotional pain, right? The third thing he said, three keys to greatness was the third one was you have to have the ability to recover from failure.

We could have a whole conversation about that. And then the final thing that he said, which I loved, he goes, and number four, you have to love your sport. Because, and he said, if you don’t love it, you’re not going to do one, two, and three. Right? And so that’s just becoming a more resilient, more mentally tough athlete. But it starts with love. You have to love what you do. So you’re willing to go through the pain, adversity, challenges that inevitably the negative coaches or negative teammates.

Chris Hall (47:18)
I think going

to your point of… so sorry. Go ahead, finish.

Eric Smith (47:21)
Yeah,

so you got to have to love it. And also if you love it, you’re to put more time in to it, right? guess what? If you put more time into something, you’re going to be better at it, right? And so, as my daughter, my son was a good high school athlete, but he never really took time to work on it at home in his spare time. Whereas my daughter, she’d come home for practice and she’d be out in the driveway, right? I call them driveway kids or backyard kids, right? If you see your kid as if you’re a parent listening, you see your kid.

out in the driveway working on their craft, then maybe you can, you know, begin to get excited about their future in that sport. And that’s what my daughter did. And she ended up being a college athlete, but she loved it. Right. So yeah.

Chris Hall (47:59)
I

wanted to touch on the 70 % part. I actually saw that in person with it was Little League Baseball. Little League Baseball was probably one of the, I don’t know,I want to say worst experiences, but it was definitely an eye opener for me to watch parents and coaches just absolutely getting livid at these kids who are playing baseball. I’m like, these kids are 10. Eric Smith (48:08) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chris Hall (48:25) They want to play Minecraft. They do not want to like hit home runs and they sure they want to hit a home run if they can. But I watched it. just watched, you know, kids just go into tanks so easy when they’re that young. I mean, even my high school kids, I feel like you give you give a kid in high school a couple good, real stern talking to moments and they just absolutely tank. I remember when when you and I are about the same age. Eric Smith (48:35) It’s almost criminal. Yeah. Chris Hall (48:49) You know, like we got yelled at all the time. So like we got yelled at by our parents We got yelled at by coaches like we just got yelled at all the time So like we didn’t really think much of it anymore, you know, I mean And of course I didn’t like it So one of the reasons that when I went into coaching, you know I had coaches that yelled and I had coaches that didn’t yell and so when I went into coaching I was like I’m gonna try not to yell and of course sure enough the software is running in the background and I’m yelling and I’m like Oh, I don’t want to do this So it took a lot of effort on my part to become a guy who doesn’t yell Often like I do sometimes, you know, get upset when I have to repeat myself over and over again or someone’s got a bad attitude or whatever. but in general, I’m not a yelling coach, but I, when I see the kids, these coaches who do yell. Eric Smith (49:26) But when you do, Chris, they know that it’s real, okay? Versus a coach who yells all the time. Kids are gonna hear you go again. They’re not gonna take you seriously. So if you save it for moments when you really need it, it’s gonna be more. Chris Hall (49:35) Right. Right. Right. I think it’s, I agree with that a lot. And, and it just, again, going back to Little League baseball, just watched these coaches just, you know, reamed these kids. And if it wasn’t the coaches, it was their dads and their moms. mean, I was amazed at how many moms would rip their kids. And I’m like, I mean, you know, in the world I grew up in, the mom was always the softer, gentler, like, you know, you’re being too hard on him, you know, You know, and like, no, I would watch moms just light kids up and sure enough, you know, two years later, you know, most of those kids aren’t even playing anymore. And I remember even when I was in high school. Yeah, exactly. I remember when I was in high school, we had this one kid, he was a giant. you know, he was, you know, six, five, probably 300 pounds was a wrestler, was a state champion wrestler. And he wouldn’t play football. And I remember one time I walked up to him and was like, Hey man. Eric Smith (50:10) Why? Why would they? Chris Hall (50:27) Why don’t you play football? You’re a monster. He’s like, oh, I hate football And I was like, I I never heard anybody say that out loud and I was like, how do you hate football? Like I get that maybe it’s not your favorite sport But how do you hate it and sure enough you can dig deeper and find out that when the kid was like, you know 10 or 11 he got a you know, pop Warner coach who just yelled and screamed at him all the time and He just connected that kind of coaching with the sport itself And so he hated football and he really didn’t hate football. He hated his experience in football. And I think that people don’t understand how much they have control over an experience when they’re in that role. You actually sent me a book, Inside Out Coaching, and that book talks about ⁓ replacing the word coach with mentor. And if you think you have a good coach, replace the word with mentor. and then ask yourself, do you have a good mentor? Which brings me to kind of one of the things I was going to say. Another thing that I was going to say is like, you know, we got the transfer portal, you know, and that’s, I think it’s a real eye opener to see like, because again, when we were playing, like you couldn’t just pick up and leave, it was pretty hard. Like you had to disenroll from school, you had to do all these different things. Like it wasn’t like something that people did very often. And if they did, they lost eligibility. But now with the transfer portal, these kids are moving around like crazy. how much of that transferring around back and forth has to do with the leadership of the team that they’re in, in your opinion. Eric Smith (51:51) I think it’s huge. I think it’s huge. know, if you, as a coach, if you build a great culture, that kids love to be a part of. Yeah. I think as a coach, if you, if you build a great culture, the kids love being a part of, if you’re a great leader, if you can, building a culture is one of the ways you’re to get into the hearts and minds of the kids that you coach. ⁓ I coached with Greg Grandel out at West Valley and he was a master. Chris Hall (51:57) A little bit closer to the mic, Eric. Thanks. Eric Smith (52:16) of creating an unbelievable culture, right? For the kids loved being a part of it. And therefore on Friday nights, they’re willing to run through a wall for this guy versus, you know, lot of coaches think called building culture is putting, you know, putting sayings up on their signs up on the wall or sayings or, but when times get tough, when the game is on the line and we’re exhausted, and we’re experiencing adversity and we’re in pain, will compromise the poster on the wall. or the concept in our head, but we won’t compromise a belief in our heart, right? We will battle for a belief in our heart. So as a coach, you have to build a culture such that it’s ingrained in the kids and the athletes DNA, right? The way we do things, what we believe in. And that has building trust with each other. That’s loving each other. That’s spending time with each other, building those relationships. Chris Hall (52:53) right. Eric Smith (53:13) ⁓ building trust, all that stuff, but, there comes a point in the contest and most contest is that if you’re in a competitive sport where, you know, those concepts or signs on the wall, they get, you know, they get compromised pretty, pretty, pretty easily with kids. ⁓ you know, yeah. Chris Hall (53:27) ⁓ Yeah. You mentioned Grandel. I was gonna say I think of Bob Reed and Bob Reed at Anderson High School. I didn’t even go to Anderson High School, but I knew who he was and I knew he cared about his team and I knew he cared about his players and he literally got every ounce out of those kids he could. mean, we were, know, people who are not from the area, you know, but people from the area don’t understand that, you know, Anderson High School is a tiny, tiny little school and every year they used to really give the bigger schools a run for their money. In fact, Eric Smith (53:33) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chris Hall (54:00) I mean, there were several, like I think it was my senior year, they won the section championship. I know they won the league. I think they won the league championship that, maybe they don’t, maybe they didn’t win section. Either way. My point is, is like, we’re talking about a school of like 400 kids competing with schools with a 1600 kids. And I mean, not competing, like beating them. And so, you know, they had, you know, obviously they’re way more success than a school that size should have had. But he got them to buy in and he got him to buy in and I know this because I actually knew Bob Reed outside of football. He is the guy you’re talking about. He connected with everybody. He would always walk up to me and he would see me out and about and he’d be like, Hey, Chris, how’s your family? What’s going on with your mom and dad? You know, your mom and your grandpa and stuff like that. Like he was always trying to figure out what was happening with my life. And then, you know, after that, he might say like house football going for you or something, but he was a master connector. I think that probably Grandel was just like that. I don’t know him personally, but I’ve heard a lot of really good things about him. Eric Smith (54:53) 100%. Let’s go back to, recommended the book Inside Out Coaching by Joe Erman. Let’s go back to that. What does he talk about there? He talks about in that book, he goes into extensive detail on being a transformational coach versus a transactional coach. And I would argue that most coaches, especially back in our day, but even still today, most coaches, so many coaches, way too many coaches are… Chris Hall (55:09) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Eric Smith (55:17) transactional coaches. Well, what’s a transactional coach? Well, transactional coach is one who says, you perform well for me on the field and I’ll treat you well off the field as a person. It’s a transaction, right? Versus a transformational coach. What’s a transformational coach say? Son, I love you, man. I don’t care what you do for me out on that field. Chris Hall (55:32) Yeah. Yeah. Eric Smith (55:41) or on the court, I still love you, man. And I’ll do anything I can do to help you in sport or in life. Okay? It’s not a transaction. I’m more interested in transforming you into a better person, a person of character, a leader in life, right? Now let’s go back and what’s the mindset of the kid? They’re like, they’re getting treated a certain way by this coach that man, it doesn’t matter what I do on the field. This guy, this dude, or this girl. This coach loves me. Man, I really wanna work harder. I really wanna please this coach. I really wanna go the extra mile today and practice for this coach. I really wanna get my workout in in the off season when no one’s watching. I wanna get my workout in because I don’t wanna show up when camp starts and be a disappointment to this coach, right? Think of the power in that, right? Chris Hall (56:24) Great. Great. Eric Smith (56:26) It’s easy to understand, but for some reason it’s so hard for coaches to become those transactional coaches. And I think as Joe Orman points out in the book, it’s because inside out, you have to do the inside work as a person. In his case, he was abused as a child. He was a former NFL defensive lineman back in the day for the Indianapolis Colts before they even moved to Baltimore and then the Detroit Lions. And he talks about it. His dad used to Pittsburgh town or Pennsylvania area town. His dad was a rough, you know, coal miner type person. would take them down in the basement. Joe was a big guy. He’s a giant. His dad would take them on down in the basement. And he had put him on boxing gloves and he’d box with them. And when Joe, as a child would start to cry, his dad would say, be a man. Don’t cry, be a man. And he’d learned that from his dad, that being a man. Meant being tough, being strong, physically strong, being king of the playground. Right. And we take that mindset later in life, you know, being successful in business, having a lot of money in the bank, having a big house, having a fancy car, right? Treating women in a bad way. We define those as masculine qualities and it doesn’t translate well to life. It gets us in trouble and we don’t learn how to process emotions. So we turn to, as men, we turn to alcohol. to process emotions or drugs or pornography or, you know, beating women or, you know what I mean? Physical things instead of emotions, learning how to process, how to express ourselves, how to express our emotions, right? And so he really gets into that stuff in the book, but some people have to go back and do that inner work like he had to. He had to go back in inner work and redefine what being a man of character is. What… Being a man means being willing to and able to cry and express your emotions and not being afraid of that, right? And so I think a lot of the reasons coaches don’t become transformational coaches is because they don’t do the dirty work, the hard work on themselves, okay? They gotta work on themselves, you know? That’s right. Chris Hall (58:17) Yeah, I think of. They don’t work on themselves. Yeah, you’re saying they don’t work on themselves. They can’t transform because they’re still lacking inside as well. See, I think of when you’re talking about this, can’t help but reflect on Dan Campbell with the Detroit Lions and how that guy, you know, like I never heard of him before. And the next thing you know, the Detroit Lions are just crushing people and winning games and having fun doing it. And then you watch this guy talk and he’s like, he’s very aggressive and he’s very… Eric Smith (58:34) You can’t do… There you go. Yeah. Chris Hall (58:53) you know, yelly kind of guy, but then two seconds later, he’s actually crying. You know, and he’s actually like crying and connecting with his emotions. I can just, and yeah, when you watch him work, you’re like, I get it. Like I get why, if he does what he’s doing in front of a camera full of strangers, like imagine what he does if he actually has a few moments of time with you as a player. Yeah, I totally get the Dan Campbell thing. Like I’m not a Detroit Lions fan by any stretch of the means, but. Eric Smith (58:57) He’s not afraid of it. He’s not afraid of it. Yeah. Well, I am. That is my team having grown up in Michigan, and I watch that program closely. And you’re right, Chris. You, yeah. Chris Hall (59:21) Is that right? What a joy. I mean, what a joy to watch a franchise that’s really struggled for so long just rally behind one guy. You know what mean? That’s the power of leadership too is that’s transformational program. You know what I mean? That program is huge. Eric Smith (59:28) Yeah. Yep. Yep. And by the way, game one was yesterday and they got hammered by the Packers yesterday. Game one, the time of this recording first. And, oh yeah, I know, but the Lions nation is losing their minds and I’m thinking, got Dan Campbell. Why are we worried? Right? Yeah. So that’s the law of the lid, leadership, right? Yeah. Right. Yep. Chris Hall (59:40) Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s just one game though. That’s one game. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, and that and especially like an NFL, like you’re saying it’s not always about winning. Sometimes sometimes, you know, just, you know, I feel like you I feel like Megan, we don’t touch on this enough as coaches, I think, but you really rarely learn through success. Like you you really learn through failure. And I think that so, you know, if you have a perfect season. Eric Smith (1:00:08) Correct. You have an opportunity to learn through failure. A lot of people don’t because they want to be victims, they want to point fingers. Kids are really good at this. It’s not their fault, it’s coach’s fault, it’s teammates’ fault. They don’t own their role in the failure, right? Because that’s where growth occurs is when you’re not a victim and you own your role in it and ask good questions. But yeah, you’re right. We have an opportunity to learn more through failure. Chris Hall (1:00:13) Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so. Well, sir, I appreciate your time. I’ve had a wonderful time talking to you. You know, I love to dig deeper into this stuff because it’s really important to me as a man, you know, as a man to try to raise good kids, to try to coach good kids, you know, to try to like, you know, be part of my community. I feel like, you know, being a good leader is super important to that. Before I let you go for the day. Eric Smith (1:00:45) Mm-hmm. Chris Hall (1:00:57) ⁓ is there anything that I haven’t talked about that you want to mention? Eric Smith (1:01:00) No, mean, Chris, I’ve enjoyed it. Always, always enjoy connecting with you. And I think you’re doing that, buddy. And I love this thing you’re doing with the podcast because you’re not just talking about money. You’re talking about all kinds of subjects that can help people be more successful in life. Therefore, you know, you’re executing as a transformational type of counselor to people. You’re not just, ⁓ you’re not just thinking about their money. You’re thinking about the total person, the family, the goals, you know, and, and, and you care. Chris Hall (1:01:20) Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Right. Eric Smith (1:01:27) And that’s why you’ve been successful. You were successful in the pharmaceutical industry when I knew you back then. I’ve watched you be successful as a coach. A lot of people probably don’t know, but you were a head coach of a semi-pro football team that used to be in Reading. And you guys were really good, if I remember correctly, back in the day. ⁓ So it’s good to see you out there sharing your wisdom and knowledge and now working with the kids is inspiring as well. So yeah. ⁓ Chris Hall (1:01:36) Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I love what you’re doing too. I think that it makes me want to model it too. Like I actually, I keep thinking about like maybe I should do a linebacker Academy or something like that. Cause I just, I just enjoy it. And again, I wouldn’t even like really want to do it as much as like watching you transform people on that individual level. They’re seeing the kids, the quarterbacks kind of like progress, not only as athletes, but as like individuals, that part is really attractive to me as well. So. I have thank you for the kind words. I appreciate it. You’re a great role model as well So so I’m gonna Eric Smith (1:02:22) Appreciate it, buddy. Yeah, go to 3D competitor, numeral3dcompetitor.com. You can pick up a copy of my book there. I have courses. If you go to the courses page, I have online courses. If you want to take a deep dive with your athlete, a parent maybe can go through these courses with an athlete or a coach can go through. You want a system that you can take to your team. I’ve got courses on being a more fierce competitor, on being a more resilient athlete, on leader. Chris Hall (1:02:28) Thank Eric Smith (1:02:48) team leadership. You can get involved in those. You could start by just, if you have Apple, just go to the app store and download my app. It’s free. It’s called the Winning Edge Academy. It’s a free app and there’s a course on there. There’s a free course you can take just to get a feel of how I work with athletes. But reach out to me. If I can help you as a coach or a parent, or if you’ve got a quarterback out there that needs developing, just know that I’m here to help. So yeah. Chris Hall (1:03:12) So your leadership course was that targeted at athletes or as a target at coaches, parents, kind of everybody? Who is the target for the leadership course on 3dcompetitor.com? Eric Smith (1:03:21) Yeah, it’s targeted towards athletes and coaches, right? So an athlete can go through my, in fact, Chris, let me just give you the visual. What it is, you’ll get my book, okay? And then you can get, with the course, can get a student guide and you can go through and take a deep dive, okay? The student guide. And as a coach, you can go through this, you can get these guides for your team. Chris Hall (1:03:24) Okay, good. Okay, good. Okay. Hmm. Yeah. Eric Smith (1:03:43) And then I’ll give you a coach’s guide or an instructor guide with all the answers and suggested answers so you can moderate the course. Okay. So if you’re looking for a proven system, something that you can take these strategies like we’ve talked about and a lot more to your team, then just go pick up the course. Chris Hall (1:03:52) I’d love that. Do you do one-on-one coaching with people? Eric Smith (1:04:03) Mm-hmm, do one-on-one coaching as well. Yep, sure do, with a lot of athletes. Chris Hall (1:04:06) Okay. So I think about like in business, you know, in business, the several, I’d say, you know, a few times in my career, you know, it like I plateaued, you know what I mean? I was doing well, but I kind of like didn’t seem like I was going to get, you know, you know, a little bit further along, you know, those kind of like where we’re at, you know, plateau, everybody knows what that means. And in those times, I always seek coaching. And so like, I know that people in, you know, people in my line of work, you know, were actually pretty Eric Smith (1:04:23) Yep. Yep. Chris Hall (1:04:34) I think the financial advisors do get a lot of coaching. think that there are certain job industries where coaching is just kind of like ingrained into it. Like, you get to a point, you’re going to have to get a coach. And then when you get to another point, you’ll get a new coach, and you’ll get a different coach, and you’ll go for this. But I don’t think that’s the case with coaches. Like, coaches are literally coaching all these people. But they very rarely, in my opinion, have a coach above them. And maybe they have a mentor. know what I mean? Maybe they have a mentor. they’re not like, they’re not. Eric Smith (1:04:59) true. Chris Hall (1:05:01) paying for coaching, they’re not like buying into coaching, they don’t spend like an hour every like I when I’m in coaching, I spend an hour every week talking to my coach and he’s giving me a list or she I’ve had female coaches as well. They’ll give me a list of things I’m supposed to be working on in my my off time when I’m not in the session. And then when I get to session, it’s like, hey, let’s revisit these things. Are you doing these things? How’s it going? And am I am I wrong? Is that is that it seems like that’s not Prolific in the coaching arena at all. Am I wrong? Is there a lot of guys out there doing it? Eric Smith (1:05:26) Yes, I totally agree. seems like ⁓ they want to go to a clinic. They want to read a book. They want to watch YouTube videos. But Urban Meyer said this, Chris. said, average coaches have quotes. Good coaches have a plan. Great coaches, championship level coaches, have a system. So you need a system for developing leaders on your team. And that’s what this course is. ⁓ So yes, coaching is huge. Having systems. Chris Hall (1:05:43) Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Great. Great. Okay. Eric Smith (1:05:53) Systems for your off season speed and strength. Systems for your scheme. Systems for your leadership development. Yep, absolutely. Chris Hall (1:05:57) Okay. Yeah, that’s good. I think a lot of times we worry so much about X’s and O’s. I would say like we probably should spend more time on the system and then the X’s and O’s will come. Maybe that’s what the off season is for, know, developing your system and really ingraining that. And again, checking in with yourself weekly or monthly. How am I doing with the things I’m supposed to be doing as a coach, a mentor? I love that. That’s great. So I will link to your website in the show notes in the description. I’m also going to link to the references we had by the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John Maxwell. I’m going to do inside out coaching. And I’ll even link to the Jerome Battis Hall of Fame speech if I can find it. So ⁓ thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. And I really just think this is such a huge topic. And if we can help business owners and coaches and players. Eric Smith (1:06:43) Yeah, you’ll find it. I’ll send it to you. Chris Hall (1:06:54) Just learn a little bit more about how their insides work I think that ultimately we’re all going to be more successful and that’s one of the reasons this is called the healthy wealth experience because you cannot be wealthy unless you’re also healthy So once again, Eric, thank you so much for your time again 3d competitor comm all of the notes will be in the description will have the links that I just talked about and If you have any comments or questions, please don’t hesitate to put them in the comment section and then either myself or Eric can answer those and then If you do like what I’m doing here, do ask that you like and subscribe. It helps us get out to more people. It helps the message get out. I really, if you believe in the message and you believe what I’m doing, I appreciate your support in advance.