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John Wooden on success⚡
Tom Brady’s advice for young athletes, plus other mental fitness posts 🥇
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John Wooden on Success
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3 Things: Tom Brady’s Advice for Young Athletes, 5 Silent Culture Killers, and a Story on Excellence
1. Mindset: Tom Brady’s Advice for Young Athletes
Last week I wrote about hard being easier. Hard now, easy later. Easy now, hard later.
Tom Brady took it a step further. Just listen to him speak in this viral post because when he gets the chance to talk to college athletes, here's what he tells them:
"I hope this experience is hard for you. I hope it's not easy. I hope today in this game you're losing in the 4th quarter and you look at each other in the eye and you try to figure out solutions to how you're going to win the game. That's how you're going to find out what you're made of. Because life is hard. The challenges of life are hard. This program's hard. It's built on toughness. It's built on resilience and that's what I want to see from this team today."
Most people wish easy on the people they care about. Brady wishes hard.
And I think about that a lot. Because we've been conditioned to protect people from difficulty. To smooth the path. To make things more comfortable. But comfort doesn't reveal character. And it doesn’t allow you to prepare yourself for tough times.
Here's what I keep coming back to: when you're in the thick of it - when it's hard, when it's not working, when you're going through it - it feels permanent. It never is. You will get out of it. The difficulty has an end. But what you discover about yourself in that moment? That stays with you forever.
The tests in life are the ones we end up being most grateful for. The times where you had to dig. The ones where you had no idea how it was going to end.
Brady didn't win seven Super Bowls because things were easy. He won them because he'd already been in the hard moments enough times to know he could get through them.
Wish hard on the people you lead. It's the most generous thing you can do.
2: Teams: Silent Culture Killers
Culture doesn't die loudly. It erodes quietly. I was working with a team last month on a list of things they should be on the lookout for, and here were the 5 that we held them to. Let me know what you think:
Letting toxic people stay - Nothing poisons a culture faster than a person who doesn't buy in and gets to stay anyway. One person with the wrong attitude, unchecked, sends a message to everyone else: the standard doesn't actually apply. Talent is never worth the cultural cost of someone who undermines what you're building. You don't have a culture problem. You have a personnel decision you've been avoiding.
When you don't set expectations - "There are certain non-negotiables." Vague expectations lead to inconsistent behavior. People can't perform to a standard they don't know exists. Clear expectations aren't micromanagement - they're a gift. They tell people exactly what's required and give them the best possible chance to succeed. When expectations are unclear, people fill the gap with their own assumptions. And those assumptions are rarely aligned.
When you don't communicate - Pat Summitt said it best: "You should never have an off-night on lack of communication." Poor communication creates confusion, erodes trust, and breeds resentment. People don't need perfect information. They need consistent, honest dialogue. Open communication isn't just a leadership skill - it's the foundation that everything else is built on.
When you don't enable growth - Shaka Smart said: "As a coach, it's my job to help our guys be their best. If we could control the result every time, it'd be a win." Great leaders don't just chase outcomes. They invest in people. They give people hope. They focus on development. When people stop growing, they start disengaging, and disengaged people are the beginning of the end for any culture.
When you don't hold people accountable - This one might be the most common. And the most costly. Accountability isn't about being demeaning, it's about building ownership. When you look the other way, you don't protect the relationship. You erode the standard. Nick Saban said it plainly: "If you think that not confronting people who don't do the right things is helping your organization, you're absolutely wrong."
Culture is built in the moments you think don't matter. These five things? They matter every single day.
3. WHAT I’M CHEWING ON: The Mindset of Excellence
I heard the story of Pat LaFrieda recently and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.
His family started a butcher shop in Brooklyn in 1909. For generations they had one standard: whole muscle cuts only. No scrap, shortcuts, or hiding the bad parts in the grind.
His grandfather had a line that defined the entire business: "You can't hide your sins in the hamburger."
That was the philosophy. Everything they put out had to be exactly what it claimed to be. No fillers and no cutting corners because no one would notice.
Here's what's interesting. That standard - held for decades across three generations - is what eventually made Pat LaFrieda Jr. one of the most sought-after meat suppliers in New York. Shake Shack. Mario Batali. The best restaurants in the city. They all came to him. Not because he marketed himself loudly. Because the quality spoke for itself.
You can't hide your sins in the hamburger.
I keep thinking about how this applies to everything.
The work you put out
The effort you give when no one's watching
The corners you're tempted to cut because nobody will ever know
Quality compounds and so does cutting corners.
Excellence isn't a moment. It's a standard you hold every single day. It's the preparation before the game, the extra work, and the honest conversation you could have avoided. The work you do at full effort even when half effort would have been enough.
Everything you do matters. Even the things that go into the hamburger.
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