Welcome back to Inside personal growth. Brian, I never at this point know exactly which episode it's going to be, but I know we passed episode 1200 and over 17 and a half years on on the air, which is a milestone, when you hit the 1200 mark. For me, it was Yeah. So we have Brian Biro joining us. He's actually in Delaware right now being with his grandchildren, but he normally lives in North Carolina. He was just out here in California, and we were having some discussions. He was up taking care of his father before he had passed away. But we're going to be talking with Brian this morning about a really interesting topic. I'm going to hold up the book lessons from the legends. And this is a wonderful book because it's new applications from the timeless wiz wisdom of John Wooden and Pat Summitt. Again. Here's the book. Everybody out there, we know, and he also sent me because he's the author. Is it 18 books? Brian 1616, beyond success, the 15 secrets of effective leadership in life, based on coach John Wooden. We'll be getting into questions regarding leadership in general, but I will put a shout out just to all of my listeners right now. If you want to learn more, go to Brian. And that's Biro, and that's spelled B, I, R, O, and I think the common mistake Brian is that people probably want to spell it, b, r, i, o, that's

right, you've been you've read my mind. Yes, that happens all the time, Brian.

So what you want to do is make sure that you get it. B, I, R, o.com, there you're going to learn more about Brian. I'm going to tell the listeners just a tad bit about you, and then we're going to get into some of that, because your background really makes you the great speaker that you are and coach that you are. He basically is called the breakthrough speaker, and he's breakthrough because of his motivation after graduating from Stanford, Brian's first career was a swimming coach, and I always think of the great swimmers of our time, and it's people to coach them, and it's it's amazing when you think about swimming as a career, people that have made it as a career, because The dedication is just so much I received a prestigious United States swimming, national coaching, excellent Award in recognition of the top 10 national performance. He gained, he gained his MBA from UCLA. Subsequently rose to becoming the VP of planning for a major transportation company. And he was very transformational in that company. But what he learned there was, is it really he wanted to help transform lots of people's lives, just not the people. So he decided to become, I'm going to call a transformational leader in this field. His unrivaled clients are the top in the world, Lockheed, the US, Army, Navy, information warfare, center, Price Waterhouse, Coopers, ReMax, Southwest Airlines, the University of Notre Dame, Starbucks, Microsoft, Kaiser, Permanente, and the list goes on. Well, Brian, congrats to you for history, because history and wisdom speaks for itself. And I want to ask you, you know, knowing that you were at UCLA, and you and I had a little bit of a talk about this, what inspired you to write this particular book about John Wooden Well, he's one of the key figures, but he always has been in many people's lives. And was there any kind of particular moment as a coach yourself, as somebody who was coaching people in swimming, I'm trying to call recall in my mind Phelps. Because when I think, when I think of Phelps, I think of a guy that was so dedicated that he went so far to one side that it caused a lot of mental problems as well and challenges for him. And you know, then he got into some substance abuse as well, right? So speak with us a little bit about that, because literally, when you think about swimming, the dedication, it's got some of the same principles that you have to when you're a good leader. Absolutely,

swimming is a beautiful microcosm of life. It's, it's hard work. You're, you think so many people think of swimming as an individual sport, and in some ways it is when you're on the block, you're standing there alone, but it's a team sport, because every day what matters is what you're doing in practice. And I always felt this it was real, as when we worked together, when everybody was supporting each other in practice, it felt like we had a current pushing us faster, and whenever we kind of separated and got selfish and went to ego, it was as if we had to turn and swim into that current, slowing us down. So it has all those elements. You get up at 430 in the morning to swim for two hours before you go to school. When you're in high school, you count back after school. You know kid, I always joke that kids in swimming were always great students because they were just too tired to get into trouble. I tell the story in the book about Michael Phelps, to me a great example of taking responsibility, because when he had those troubles, and here's what really happened, this happens to a lot of people who are stars in a field, and then it's kind of over. Is that they've lost. What do I do now? Who am I? They put so much into what they've done that the only way they know themselves is in their role. So Michael Phelps knew himself as a great swimmer, but he didn't know who he was outside of that. But instead of blaming other people, instead of making excuses when he got in a little bit of trouble, he took responsibility. He put himself into a rehab program, and I don't know whether you've seen lately Greg, but he's doing beautifully in life. He's a great father. I think he has four kids now. Remember the pictures in the Olympics with his first child, putting those earphones on just like you've got because of the noise in the Olympic Olympic swimming pool center. He's really turned his life around when he stopped recognizing that he wasn't just a swimmer, he was a father, he was a husband, he was a human being. And that's so important to know that you're a human being before you do your role. You're a human being after you do your role. And for people right now, so many people, for example, in government, are losing their jobs right now, and when they have to recognize, guess what? You got something menu that allowed you to do well in your role. There, you can take that at other places. You're the CEO of your own life. So part of the reason I wrote this book, Greg is that, first of all, I'm a I John Wooden was my friend, and he was truly my mentor. But I wanted to write about not just Coach Wooden. I wanted to write about somebody else who had a totally different style, and that's Pat Summit, the great woman's coach from the University of Tennessee who sadly died from early onset Alzheimer's at too young of an age. But to create an incredible record, her style was so different. John Wooden would was kind of the consummate gentleman. He was kind of the consummate grandfather. Pat Summit could melt a computer screen with her stare. She was tough as nails. She used to say, toughen up buttercup. But on the inside, on their character, they were so similar. They had the foundations, and these are the foundations I feel more than ever in my life, and I'm 70 years old. Now Never have I felt it more important for us to get back to the foundations of good character, to be able to to really think about others more than we think about ourselves, to be unselfish, to be kind, to hold high standards for ourselves and others, to stop blaming other people to stop making other people who think differently than you to be enemies. They don't necessarily need to be enemies. They see the world differently. That can be a strength. And so I was, it wasn't one or two moments. It's kind of a gradual increase of I wanted to get back to substance versus hype. We have such a, you know, a flourish, flourishing in social media, in on regular media, of of kind of tooting our own horns. And I think it's time to get back to the things that make make us good people. And these two not only epitomize those qualities, but just as importantly, they were the hugest successes in the history of what of their field. So to prove that character, not only is it good, it works well,

I think too, you know, when you look at egos you were talking about that you know it, you have to have an ego drive to make it right. But John Wooden always impressed me as the kind of person, as you said, it's kind of calm. He was someone I think, when you pick up other books about John Wooden, or you always remember that pyramid, right, the whole pyramid that he had. What was it about Pat Summit and John Wooden and their leadership styles that you really believe having known John so well as a friend, was so transformational for the teams, right? It's, you know, there's been lots of coaches. I look at basketball coaches, and who is the like number one guy that used to do all the coaching. I remember many books been written about him, but there was always something spiritual about these people, right? Absolutely. And, and what was it that was so transformation and spiritual about John Wooden and Pat because they were just regular people, right? They were approachable.

They absolutely were. That's part of the part of the secret was their ability to be fully present with every person. We'll talk about that in a minute. The foundation, I think, that made that they shared was they focused as though they wanted to win win games, though they wanted to win championships, which they did, what they most wanted was to control the controllables, to focus on the things as a coach and for their athletes, for their assistant coaches, to focus on the things that they did control every single day. You know, so often we want results, but the way we get results is to focus on what we put in. And so they both shared kind of John Wooden put it into his at the foundation of his pyramid of success. And Pat Summitt has something she called the definite dozen, which is aligns beautifully with the pyramid. The starting place is that success comes from peace of mind, from knowing you've given the best of what you're capable. So in other words, we want results, but what we focus on are the things we control to get to those results. And that is a big shift for many people. That's the starting place. The next key thing of the two of them that I think really made them spectacular was they were incredibly humble. Now this is important to me, because another reason I wrote this book, many people in this world of hype that we have, and World of kind of tooting our own horns, have gotten to the idea that being humble is somehow weak, that you can't be confident and be humble and could not be farther from the truth you can be incredibly humble and incredibly confident. Because being humble doesn't mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less. But the reason why humility is so crucial, and why these two words, I think, reach the Zeniths that they did, only those who are humble are lifelong learners, because only those are humble would rather make a mistake and learn from it than to always pretend they're right. Neither one would say they were right all the time. They knew they made mistakes, but they learn from those mistakes because of that humility. And when you're humble, what happens is it's easier for you to give credit and take responsibility, all right, and that is a foundation that made them unique. One, focusing on controlling their controllables. Two, by being truly humble, meaning they were truly lifelong learners at the example. At the top of his game, John Wooden won 10 national championships in 12 years. At the very top of that, he was still going to high school coaches workshops to learn from a high school coach who had a particular skill he was always looking to learn from everybody every year. And Pat Summitt was exactly the same way when when the University of Connecticut blew University of Tennessee out of the water in a National Championship, she didn't get mad, she didn't get angry. I'm sure she was disappointed, but what she did was she learned how they did it, came back the next year with the same team and won the national championship over University of Connecticut. That is humility, and that's something that we can model and learn and teach our kids and teach in our classrooms and teach on our on our sports fields. And if we do that, we're going to start having a whole different level of character.

Well, I think humility, like you discuss, and being authentic, which they very much were, the other thing that comes to mind is just, and I say from a spiritual standpoint, is grace. You know, these people were the kind of people that had grace. They approached things that way. I remember seeing many interviews with John Wooden and all those people with the microphones up to him, and he was just so calm about everything, right? It was like you never saw him very frustrated. And I think that, to me, is an essence of grace. He felt in control, yet he didn't want to control. So it was really good. Now, you featured leaders in the book besides Pat and John, and it was like Oprah, Winfrey, LeBron, James Reese, Witherspoon, Warren Buffett, what are those figures have in common when it comes to leadership and success in your estimation? Well,

thanks for bringing those up, because I wanted to bring in this book a lot of more current stories to to kind of illuminate some of the key elements of the pyramid of success and the definite dozen. And I love this question because it really made me, makes me think about what did they have in common that were the most foundationally important, that really comes down to number one, every one of them had an extraordinary work ethic. So and John wouldn't call that industriousness. Pat Summit called working hard. They've all were extraordinarily hard workers, but they also had the other side of that coin. John Wooden called it enthusiasm. Pat Summit called when is that make hard work your passion, and that's what separated them. You know, so many people will work hard, but they work hard and it's kind of like they're pushing that rock uphill because they're not loving what they're doing. I can't tell you how many times a day I say Greg, how much I love what I do. I mean, it's what I've put on earth to do. I joke about it, but it's the truth. When I'm on stage, I am 25 years old since I get off stage often, I'm 70 again, but on stage, I'm 25 and that comes from having a passion about I work as hard as I can on that stage. These people epitomize the combination of those two. In fact, it's so important that John Wooden and his pyramid of success, he pictured a pyramid. Because if you pull a block out of pyramid, it all fall down. They're interdependent. But the foundational cornerstones are industriousness and enthusiasm hard work and making hard work your passion. So that, to me, is really what they though they're very different in personality, all these different stories. Every one of them love what they do, and they're and they do it with everything they've got.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting, you know, you look at that list of people that you had, obviously, Oprah Winfrey, you know, those years and years on television, interviewing people, and her passion for that, and I even sense, you know, people say that, you know, because I've been doing this before podcast was podcasting was even a big deal, right, that there's a bit of Oprah Winfrey in me. And I think that is true, because I really do have a passion for this, and I will keep doing it as long as I can, and am physically able, because I love learning, and I hope that all the listeners out there are learning from you this morning, Brian, because you have a lot, I want to encourage them again. Go get a copy of this book. This is an easy little book to read. You can read it on the plane, and you're going to get lots of great wisdom from it. Now I mentioned egos a minute a minute ago, but in transforming ego into we go right. So many of these high achievers struggle with balancing individual excellence with teamwork. And you understand that, and we just talked about it a second ago. How do great leaders, like the ones in your book, cultivate this we first mentality while still exceeding personally. In other words, helping other people out, helping the team out giving someone some advice that might help them with their swimming stroke or their free throw or whatever it might be.

Yeah, you know, I love that. I think, I think I coined the term move from ego to ego, but I'll find out it's, you know, somebody wrote about it 500 years ago. But I'm taking credit for, okay? And I love it, because, yes, you do have to have, you have to want to be your very best, all right, to be the absolute best you can. How does LeBron James, at 40 years old, still play like that? Because he wants to be the best he can. He wants to constantly learn any and to put the effort in that you don't see that you don't see that he puts in every day to take care of himself. There's a great example to move from ego to we go. My favorite quote, and it's in the book, was from somebody that maybe the younger generation doesn't know her name, but I love to kind of introduce you to her. Her name was Wilma Rudolph, and Wilma Rudolph, for those who don't know, was the greatest woman sprinter in 1960 in 1960 she won three gold medals in the Olympics. She won the 100 meters, the 200 meters and and anchored the 400 meter relay. Now, but you don't know that. So she think boy, she was born with incredible talent. Well, she had polio when she was a little girl. She couldn't walk from the time she was five until she was 10, her mother had to drive her 50 miles from a little town in a little area in Tennessee to Nashville to get treatments that were horrifically tough. She ran her first 200 sprint races and finished last in every one of them, and she went on to become the world's fastest female human. But what she said really hit home. She said, No matter what you accomplish, and keep in mind, this is a woman who most people would say, oh, man, that was all about her. She had that resilience, that determination. What she said was, no matter what you accomplish in life, somebody always helps you what and that perspective is at the foundation of moving from ego to we go Coach Wooden used to say that a great basketball team is just like a car. Says Kareem Abdul Jabbar or Bill Walton might be the engine, but guess what? That engine won't go get you anywhere without without tires, and your tires might be your third or fourth guy. Guess what? The tires will fall off without lug nuts. Your lug nut might be the 14th guy on your team. They all interrelate. And when you come from that perspective to recognize somebody always helps you come from that perspective that says that everyone's important in whatever role they have. And as a leader, you teach people through the power of being present, that they are important, that what they do matters, and that they count. And that was at the essence of the quality that John Wooden and Pat Summitt epitomized more than any as being fully present. And what that means is, when they were with you, they were 100% with you, mind, body and spirit. When I sat down in the living room and first met John Wooden and we talked for two hours. I was in awe, because at the end of it, I felt like he thought I was important, and I was in awe of him, because he was so he listened with every ounce of his ability to listen. He actually, he actually was interested in me. And as a leader, you build that we go versus ego by being in that position always get, looking to give credit. It's amazing what's accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit. Credit is something you give. Responsibility is something you take, but by being fully present, which is a choice. You know, we all have been around somebody when we know their bodies there, but the rest of them is some some other county. And every time somebody is not present with us, it says to us, I guess we're not that important. But by simply making that decision to be present with each person, you help that person feel like I matter, I count, I'm important. My own daughters taught me that better than anybody else when they were eight and three one night, when I should have been tucking them in and reading them a story and cuddling with them and let them and let them know they were most important being present with them. I was getting on my phone like every other night, and they looked at me and their eight and three year old innocent eyes and said, Daddy, we just want to know, Do you love your phone more than you love us? Wow, that was a big one. That was a big one that changed my life and made me recognize that my greatest goal in life, Greg to this day, is to be present as often as I can for each person that I come in contact with, because that's the only way we communicate to people that they're important. When we do that consistently, we'll move from ego to ego.

Yeah, I keep this little sign on my desk, and I'm sure you've seen it before, and I actually interviewed rom dos before he passed away. Be here now.

Remember, past is history. The future a mystery. The gift is now. That's why we call it the present. Yeah,

it my mom, who's God bless her, she's deceased like your father. She said, Yesterday is a canceled check, tomorrow is a promissory note. And she said, Really, all you've got is now, right? I love it. That's the cash right there. Yesterday is a canceled check, tomorrow is a promissory note, so

the highest, the highest appraise on that. I'm gonna steal that one. I like that.

It's a good one. That was my mom's thing. Now, you discuss the importance of resiliency and adaptability, and obviously, as as an athlete, you have to have this. As a leader, you have to have this. Can you share a powerful example from the book where a leader turned it that adversity into an opportunity for growth? Yeah,

I can. I can give you two, and they're the central, central themes of the book, Pat Summitt and John Wooden so we're sitting on the other side of their careers, and what everybody sees is Pat Summit, eight national championships. You know, really the foundation, probably the, the most important woman in the history of women's basketball, because she broke that, that whole mold, and created interest in the sport. It's taken off magnificently in the last few years, but it never would have been there without her back in 1972 and the other is John Wooden. We look at John Wooden go, oh, The Wizard of Westwood, the legend 10 national championships in 12 years. Well, both of them, before they started, won their first national championship, were known as sort of failures. They were they were known as good coaches, but John Wooden was the coach who couldn't win the big one, and Pat Summitt had gone to eight Final Fours and never won a championship. So right before, John Wooden took off in 1964 to win 10 championships in the next 12 years. Perspective, no other men's coach wins more than five in a career. Coach K at Duke won five in his career. At Duke, the year before, there was a lot of buzz in the press, in the LA Times, that maybe they were going to let John Wooden go. So talk about resilience, and how did they become so resilient to both of them? Number one, we've hit on one of them. They were both humble. They were always learning. They didn't feel they were failures. Coach Wooden would say that failure is never fatal, all right. Success is never final. Keep moving. All right. Number two, they focused on the things they control, their effort, their energy, their attitude. Then they stopped worrying about what everybody else thought. They stopped worrying about trying to control others. They focus on what they control, all right, and that was the foundation of their resilience. They they were what I call blame busters, in a way, blame kills teams, and blame helps you help makes people stop being resilient. And there's a reason why blame is so so wrong. Simply, yeah, think about the context of time. Is blame about the past, the present or the future? It's always about the past, all right? And Tom said, you know, that's the cancel check. Can you do anything about the past? No, it's over. All right? And so when you're a blame Buster, you don't pretend you didn't mess up. You don't pretend that mistakes weren't made. But what you do is you shift it to the now. You say, What can we learn about it? How do we do it? Because within every adversity is planted the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit. And when you build that belief inside of yourself, you'll be resilient, because what you'll do is you won't look at those things as failures. You look at is, what can I learn? How can I use this to get better next today? And that's what they both did, and all of us, if we really stop and step back and kind of create a perspective and think about it. Isn't it the toughest challenges we've ever made our way through that we grew the most from?

Always, it's always the biggest struggles you have that you learn from. And I think the key is not repeating them. Right? Exactly, exactly, hopefully, not repeating them. I know that sometimes people do repeat them. It doesn't matter if it's a divorce or a financial loss or whatever it might be. And you always wonder karmically, whoa, what? Why did I, why did they get stuck with that? And I think, you know, current world affairs aside, we've got a leader that likes to blame and and uses it a lot and isn't using it as a learning lesson. I hope, and I pray in this lifetime that he learns to use some of his, you know, awesome opportunities to actually move things forward, versus just continuing to blame and that comes to communication. You know, you mentioned that John, both John Wooden and Pat Summitt were initially shy because but they became master communicators, and always find this interesting, because I haven't spent near the amount of time on stage as you have. But you know, they talk about stage fright, or people who are afraid when they get up there. What are some of the key lessons that they taught about effective leadership, communication, and if you would throw in your own little thing here about communicating, because standing in front of an audience of 1000 2000 3000 people like you have, you have to do something quite miraculous to become a truly effective communicator. Well,

thank you for that. And you know, let's get to the start of where I when I first time I tried to talk in front of a room of people. I was probably 17 or 18 years old in high school. My hands were shaking so bad that my buddies in the front row were going like this to make fun of me. I felt like needed a crowbar to open my mouth after about two sentences, I was so dry, and that's really why. Why is it so tough to do that? Because we're we care too much about what other people think, and we're overcome with the need for their approval. So anyone who's going to be a great communicator, including John Wooden and past summit path Summit, in the beginning, was was terrified of communicating in front of a groups of people, because she felt she sounded to Tennessee, to country, that she was, you know, she grew up on a farm and in in Tennessee, and she felt she would just She sounded, she didn't sound elegant enough. In her own estimation, John Wooden was just terribly shy. In fact, it was his wife, yeah, he was who pushed, pushed him into a speech class. Yes, really forced him to do it so he would overcome that fear, because he wanted to be a coach. But he and he understood that being a coach meant you learn, had to learn to communicate. And so it was in both cases, it was again that work ethic, with make hard work your passion, they had such a purpose that he realized the importance of being able to communicate that they overcame their fear. Now, what they really ended up understanding about communication is, and this is the most important, I think, lesson anyone can learn about effective communication, whether you're in business, whether you're with your kids, and that is that the meaning of your communication is the response you generate. In other words, it doesn't matter if you sound wonderful if people don't get it, you gotta come from that place of authenticity on the inside. Let go of the need for approval. Love what you're talking about, all right. Love your content. Love your love your message. Work at it and practice it. Practice it. Practice it to where you're not thinking about it, it just flows out. And then make sure that isn't working. When I'm in front of a room, you know, I'm, I'm not thinking about necessarily what they're going to react, but I'm, I'm picking up if they're with me. If they're not, I gotta change. Me. If it's to be it's up to me. If things are to change, I must change. And they call

that, they they call that reading the audience. And I think, yeah, I'm certain you're a master at it. I can tell already, just by their interview, that you are, but the key is, is that you know you if you get into a certain state on a on a stage, you can actually feel the energy of an audience, and once you start to feel the energy, you can apply whatever stories or whatever things that you want to talk about, but you also have to be pliable. You have to be able to shift. You have to be flexible. You may have had this great speech, but you're not going to sit out there and just read the speech, right? Absolutely,

you got to be present, and something magnificent happens. Greg, I'm sure you've felt this before, but it comes back to being fully present, because if you're thinking about what you if you wrote a speech. Now, I've never written any speeches. I don't write them down. I want to live them. I want to be present. But it almost feels as if God grabs my head. I asked my my my meeting planners, to make my room more light than most rooms. A lot of times I want the room dark and the stage light. I want the room light so I can see people. It feels like that. God grabs my head, turns it to somebody in the 43rd row who I don't know at the exact moment that what I'm about to say is right for them. It happens over and over, but it only happens when you're present, when you've let go of the need for approval. You know, you come from that place of I'm not doing this for what I can get. I'm doing this because I love what I'm giving. And when that happens, that's the one of the best moments of all of communication, is that you somehow and you know it. You know I don't know you, but I know this is for you. And well, I

remember, and again, remember Brian, someone telling me, once speak Terry, your audience is if you were sitting next to your best friend having popcorn, watching your favorite movie, there you go. You know the reality is, and I'm sure you've heard that one as well, because people want to be listened to and heard, but at the same time, you want to pick up on the energy of that particular person. So like your audience is like they're all sitting next to you with popcorn watching the best movie they've ever watched, which is Brian on stage. So I think that's a great thing. And that brings me to the role of mentorship. You know, many of the legends you discussed had incredible mentors, as have you, and thank goodness, because you couldn't have written these great books without having those mentors. How do you identify and cultivate meaningful mentorship relationships in your life? As you say, in other words, who were some of your mentors, who were some of their mentors, and how have you actually cultivated those relationships?

Well, I the starting place is to recognize Everybody's got something to teach us. So look at everyone around you, whether it's in your family, whether it's your teachers, they teach us. They're teaching us all the time, and whether it's that mentor that you've chosen, look for what you can learn from every person. Instead of looking for what's wrong. I be someone who's looking for, what can I learn from you? What do you do? Well, what and and so our mentors are. We have much more than those, maybe most special mentors. As I said, two of my greatest mentors are my children and then when they were little children, because they taught me things that I'd forgotten or taught me or re taught me things that I needed to relearn. But I think that the starting place that really develop mentors is to look around at the people that you admire and what you admire them for, and don't be afraid. See you've done it incredibly well. Greg, you created 1700 and some odd mentors. You've had people come on who you interview, and that shows me that you have that perspective that I want to learn what makes you tick. I want to learn what you do well that I can maybe bring into my life to do better and myself so you you're a shining example of someone who's constantly looking for the mentorship that everyone can give you. In my case, the example I can give. I grew up admiring John Wooden I grew up in Southern California when I was a coach, he was coaching at the same time. I admired the way that he treated people. I admired that he could disagree without being disagreeable. I admired that he always gave credit and that he looked not only to to acknowledge people for their results, but he acknowledged people for what they put in before they got to the results. So these things just resonated with my own belief that these are the things that are important when working with other people, and then I want to develop that mentors, mentorship. So I called him up on the phone. I got his phone number. I called him up on the phone. I asked him if I could come and sit down and interview him. He did not know me at all. Gracious gentleman that he was, he said, Sure, and that's how we began our friendship. So it does take a little courage that once you identified the person that you want to be a mentor and the qualities they have, don't be afraid to go and see if you can connect with them. They may say no, and that's okay. There's other people out there to be your mentors. But in my case, he said yes, and it changed my life. Well,

thank goodness it did, because he gave you the inspiration to here to kind of carry on with his story, his and both pats and I look at you as a shining light for both of them who, yes, they have passed, but at the same time now, their story is continuing to move on for generation to generation to generation. And I think that's lovely tribute to you, Brian, for what you put here. And you know that that also brings down this question of loyalty. It played such a critical role in both of those people's lives, John and Pat and in their successes. How do you think leaders can build a culture in their organization? You speak to organizations all the time and their teams to actually build more loyalty within that

Oh, I am so glad you brought up that question, because that's another of the foundations why I wrote this book. Both of them generated tremendous loyalty among their assistant coaches, their players. And whenever I was with John Wooden and this was after he retired. He retired at 65 so from the time he was 80 till he was almost 199 and a half, if I was in his apartment, he would get at least five calls per hour from former coaches or players that kind of loyalty long after he had coached them and retired. And the reason he built it and Pat Summit every bit as much. They didn't think about loyalty as something that you're supposed to get. They thought loyalty was all about what you give. They that's the foundation of real loyalty. They they didn't ask for your loyalty. They didn't and they didn't want you to be neither one of them wanted assistant coaches, for example, who were yes people who would just do what they you know, whatever you say, bowing down to them. No, they wanted them, to challenge them, to question them, and they did something else. And this is a general, an absolute litmus test for true loyalty. When an assistant coach went off, and, you know, both of them had assistant coaches who became successful coaches elsewhere. Danny Crum became a great coach at Louisville under John and was John wooden's assistant coach in early years. Both of them applauded them when they left them. They were loyal to them, not only when you're with me, but when you move on and do your own thing. I'm every bit as loyal to you. That's real loyalty. They never thought about, you have to be loyal to me. They thought about, I'm going to be loyal to you. I'm going to hold you to a high standard. I'm going to be what I call a positive Pygmalion. And that means that my thoughts, expectations and beliefs are are magnetic, and I'm going to believe that you have more in you than you. Believe that you're not an overachiever, and with that Pygmalion spirit combined with as long as you come and do the things that I ask, which is, show up, work hard, acknowledge your teammates, you don't never have to question how loyal I'll be to you. I'll back you up. I'll support you. If you do something wrong, I'll expect that. We'll talk about it, and we'll have discipline about it, but I'm going to still be loyal to you afterwards. Their belief was upon it that that discipline was not to punish, discipline was to teach. And once you've once you've had your discipline, you got a fresh start, because I'm still loyal to who you are and to my belief, then your possibilities comes down to it be loyal. That's what loyalty is about, and it'll naturally come back to you. Well,

it's a gentle nudge in a course correction, disciplined and I think it's guiding someone to actually make different decisions. I mean, I know it comes around mindset. In other words, where are you? But the reality is, if you can help somebody make a course correction, and it improves their life. You've done good. And that comes down to this. I'm going to hold the book up again, lessons from the legends, and I want to ask you a question, if a business owner or entrepreneur today were to just take one lesson from your book and implement it immediately. Which one would you recommend? And I know this is always hard, because you're asking somebody to make a choice, but which one Brian would you recommend? And then the next part of that question is, why?

Well, I think that they The answer is simple for me, and that is, it's really who they were, even more than any one of the blocks of the pyramid or the or the one of the definite dozen, is be more fully present with the people in your team. That's the number one and most, I believe that's our job as leaders above all, because when it comes down to it, our job is to help the people that we lead, that we serve, that we love, that we care about, to know they're important, and when the there's no way you can do that. You cannot fake being present. You know when somebody's present or not. And it is a choice. That's one thing I want leaders to recognize. We make that choice, and by deciding I'm going to be more fully present, means put your cell phone away when you're talking to people, when you're ask more than tell, and then really listen, and you'll become a much you'll build so much more loyalty. You'll build so much more energy in your team. You'll find out, you'll learn so much more every day when you listen. You know most of us have been brought up to think that leadership is about answers. I believe that today, more than ever, leadership is much more about questions, because the quality, the quality of questions we ask each other, will determine the quality of our team. And the easiest way to develop the muscle of being present is to listen more. In fact, that's the key to being better a better communicator is just listen more so if I could wish one gift I never miss every single of one of my almost 2000 presentations, I always find a way to put in the lesson about being fully present. Don't let your children come up to you and say, Dad, do you love your phone more than you love us?

I love that one because when you listen Steve Jobs, I listened to the the the talk that he gave for the graduating class. I think it was at Stanford, yeah. And he said, you know, you can't learn anything by connecting the dots in the past. You can only learn by connecting the dots in the future. And I, and I love that, because what it is is it's really saying, listen to the people that are around you and utilize the data to help make really good decisions, right and I think the more you're informed by asking the right questions, the better prepared you are to make decisions that can have a positive impact on yourself and others. So that is really a key takeaway. So now, after writing this book, studying all these legendary leaders that you have, what's the biggest lesson you've applied to your own life and leadership? For Brian, you know it comes down to

two little words, a two word change. These two have taught me that what I want most in my life is to is to strive to be my best and to let go worrying about the best. In other words, my best focus is on the things I control, on shaping my future, on energizing, engaging myself and the people around me, and on building people, teams and relationships. The best is all about comparing yourself to others, and the two that these two were very strong about, comparison is not the way to go. Focus on that. Success comes from being the best of which you're capable. When I shifted, I grew up with a lot of dads. Like a lot of us have had a dad that was had a hard time saying, I'm proud of you son. In fact, he couldn't say it. And so I developed this, the only way I'm going to be good enough is to be the best at whatever I did. And it was a constant pressure. It was silly, because, you know, you know, what does that mean? And when you when you're striving to be the best you'll never be. You'll never be good enough in your own eyes. And I and so when they helped me see the power to shift from being the best to just being focusing on my best. Number one, I did better because I was focusing on what I did control. Number two, I was a lot more fun to be around because I wasn't always trying to beat you, because that was the only way I could prove myself. And finally I What is stop you started

loving yourself and stopped being angry at yourself. That's, that's a that's a big one. You know, self love is, is a really big one to be able to grow. You know,

I wrote in beyond success, no one can be loved until they let themselves be seen. No one can be seen until they learn to love themselves. So the foundation is, do you know, look at who you are and understand that you're human, you're not perfect. Then look at yourself in terms of, Am I doing the things I believe in? Am I trying constantly to learn and grow? Do I care about others? Am I Am I trying to be much more unselfish? And give yourself a pat on the back once in a while and say, yep, if I'm doing those things, I'm on the right track, and I'm going to keep moving on that track forward well.

And I think your best is the best you can do, not somebody else best. Absolutely. I want to thank you for delineating that because many people listening today. Have been brought up with parents that it was about your grades and what school you went to, and you were never enough. Right now, I'm not being negative on them. They wanted you to be better, right? That was the purpose for for that, but they also didn't realize the my best, and I think that that's really important, because they needed to love their children when it was their best, not meaning they're the parents, meaning they're the children. So that. And I know you're with your grandchildren today, and I know that for you as a grandfather, it's awful proud to watch them be their best. So you just enjoy the rest of your day. I want to thank you so much for being on inside personal growth. And for all my listeners, here's the copy of the book, again, lessons from the lesson legends. And it's Brian Biro, and that's spelled again, B, I, R, O and the first is Brian. That's where you'll find out more about him, at his website, about his talks. Please go out there. And if you want what I would call an inspirational leader to actually speak for one of your events, reach out to Brian. He would be an awesome guy to have speak to your team, no matter what size. He travels the whole country and loves to speak and also, as you can tell, this morning has left you with plenty of favorable lessons that you can take home from this So, Brian, Blessings to you. Thank you for being on inside personal growth, and thanks for taking the time to impart some of your wisdom and the wisdom of some really great legends. From your book to our listeners, Greg, you're

the you're the best. There's a reason why you've done 1700 of these. An honor, privilege, a joy, great questions. Keep being that, keep being that person who looks for the mentorship and everyone you come across.

Thank you for the compliment. I appreciate that so much.