Peace of Mind: How Jim Bloch Defines Success

Luke: 0:00

This is episode 25 of the podcast.

Jim: 0:03

We had to write our definition of success and it could be, you know, 500 words, a thousand words. I wrote one sentence. I turned it in peace of mind.

Luke: 0:28

Hello everyone. And welcome to another edition of The "I" in Win really excited to welcome on today's guest, Mr. Jim Bloch, former AD former teacher, still a difference maker in so many kids' lives. Jim, thanks for joining the show today.

Jim: 0:42

Luke got to tell you it's a real pleasure to be invited. It's a wonderful opportunity. I sincerely appreciate it. And before we dig too deep into whatever topics you want to talk about. Let me take a moment. And for all your listeners share a hearty, congratulations to you. I'm sure everyone as heard, read, seen that you're headed back into the coaching world. You're the head football coach at St. Pat's your Alma mater. And I wish there was an audience cause I'd make them stand and give you one clap on three. You have always been a difference maker. We talked a little bit about that. Pre-show. And I just think it's wonderful that you're going to be back doing something that you love so much. You're so passionate about, but let me ask you a question. We're going to flip the microphone, so to speak here.

Luke: 1:32

Okay.

Jim: 1:33

Why Luke tell everybody why.

Luke: 1:36

Well, first of all, like thank you for flipping the mic. I'm going to be a little awkward. Now. I kept to talk about myself, which sometimes it makes me a little uncomfortable to be honest with you, but, I love what I do. And when you love something, you're going to be great. And here was an opportunity that I wasn't even looking for. And as human beings, we love to be control freaks, and we love to control our journey in life. And sometimes something larger than us is going to pick our destination for us. And sometimes that destination is staring right at you, but you're just too blind to see it. And my destination was. I got this call from St. Pats. A former student player of mine is now the president there. And he called me. He said, I was one of the first calls he made, which I don't believe, but I'll, I'll take it for my ego. And he's like, we want you back. You, you need to come back home. And I did a lot of soul searching and I felt like this was an opportunity to go back to a place I love and to. Do something that I truly love, which is helping young people discover the best versions of themselves. And I prayed on it and talked with my family on it, and it just seemed like a perfect fit. So here I am.

Jim: 3:01

And the reason I, I led with that three letter word one. I think in so much in what we do, uh, we focus on the, what we should we focus on the how, of course, I think whether it's teaching coaching relationships, leadership, we have to get to the why. And that's why I asked you, sorry to be redundant. Why? To peel those layers away. And basically, I think what you said is I'm so passionate about helping people. In this case, kids, and I know it extends beyond just the kids cause you impact the parents, the entire St Pat's community. You want to help them be the best version of themselves. You want to help them, you know, your, your podcast model, the eye, be the best eyes that come together to form the best wheat. Is that, is that a fair summation? Is that a fair summation?

Luke: 3:58

Bulls-eye you hit it right in the head gym.

Jim: 4:00

Kudos to you and kudos to your former player. Now, the president of the, uh, the school that he was intuitive, smart enough and heartfelt enough to reach out to you and to get you back there. You know, the sphere of influence that we all have as teachers and coaches. Yeah, it's very large with you. And I think about the ripple effects that you're going to have on every person that you come into contact with. This is why we get into teaching. Isn't it to make a positive difference.

Luke: 4:28

Absolutely.

Jim: 4:29

And not that we can't do that in other professions, a great get for St. Pats.

Luke: 4:35

Well, Hey, I, I definitely appreciate your kind words. I don't know if all that is true, but I definitely appreciate your kind words. I appreciate. You mentioned the president, his name is Dan Santos. I appreciate his faith in me. And I don't take this lightly. This is, this is not a job to use your word. This is a passion. And I firmly believe that if I could make better people, the outcomes will take care of themselves. I mean, I believe that to my core, And I was so fortunate to be impacted by so many awesome teachers and coaches, unfortunately many whom are not with us anymore. And I made sure to name all of them to my current players, because I wanted them to hear those names, because they're part of my, why to gym. They impacted me and they dedicate your lives to St. Pats. And now it's time for me to pay it full. And to build upon that great tradition that they have already established at an amazing place. And I just hope I could live up to the job that they did.

Jim: 5:37

Yeah. Again, hats off to you and the phrase painted forward. A lot of people use. A lot of people say it. And then there are people that actually do it, right? Words, as we know in this business are indicators, but our actions become here's a makeup word. I have, plenty of them become are verifiable. They're the way that, uh, that the tongue in our mouth ends up matching the tongue in our. And that again, that's part of who you are, you know, for you to stand in front of your players and bring up those names from the past, because you believe in the St. Patrick tradition, you believe in the difference that those people made in your life. They helped you in some small and together an amalgam and an amalgam sort of way become who you are. And now you're trying to take that Baton, your left hand, move it to your right hand and pass it on to. So kudos to you. That's what excellent teachers and coaches do, correct. It's not so much about us. It's about making them better human beings.

Luke: 6:37

Absolutely. And, I know one thing we're going to talk about is definition of success and a lot of those teachers and coaches. Did it impact me? They probably questioned if what they were doing made a difference, but my decision should be the vindication to them should be the proof to their families, that all that time and all of that investment in the same paths they were successful because they're the reason why I'm doing this. So that's where you have to understand that success piece and what success really looks like.

Jim: 7:11

Isn't that one of the hardest things in our business loop of the lack, maybe of the immediate return. The investments that we make in young people, the MES investments that we make in each other. Um, unlike some other professions where the return on investment is immediate, you can see that the profit, if you. Sometimes it takes months in this case may be years for those differences to be made. I just had dinner right before Thanksgiving with some, uh, ballplayers that I coached in high school as a, at 26, 27 year old had baseball coach at park. These are our grown successful man and they called coach, we're in town. Could we go to dinner? And we sit around and tell stories and they, they talk to you a little bit about the difference that you made in their life. And on my way home, I'm thinking, wow, you know, how blessed am I, that they would take the time to call them. Now, want to have this get together and then share in their own words, the difference than I made in them, as they struggled through adolescents became young man. And now are, are middle aged, man, I guess I just gave my age away. Didn't I? Um, and that's, that's what I mean, look about the return on investment. We don't see the bloom on the rose sometimes for months or years afterwards. And I know that's hard on all of us, but I think we just have to know in our hearts and souls that if we do things right, if we do. As you are process oriented and we create through our teaching and our coaching, the true template for life. Then it's more about whether you're coaching, baseball, football, volleyball, gymnastics, it's truly something they can take and they can use the rest of their life.

Luke: 9:03

Well, let's continue on this idea of defining success because you were a leader of an athletic department, and I'm sure you had to talk to your coaches because especially head coaches, we tend to be our harshest critic and we're so driven to be successful. And I'm assuming just from what I know of it, you probably had to pull some of your coaches aside and kind of put them back in your lane. Don't be so hard on yourself. Don't let that scoreboard, even though it didn't go your way at this time, distort your vision. So how would you define success in this business? What is the definition?

Jim: 9:36

That's a, that's a great question. Look, I, I remember, this is related. I remember in college. Our education classes. We had to write our definition of success and it could be, you know, 500 words, a thousand words. I wrote one sentence. I turned it in peace of mind. When I think about that. Look, when you think about that after a game, After a holiday after a wedding, after a business meeting, after anything, Luke, when you put your head on the pillow, if you can honestly say that I gave my best effort. I did things right. I followed my moral compass. We did everything as well as we could. Could we really ask for anything more? To me it's it's of like a definition of success falls in line with this chasm between people chasing perfection and which I, I oppose. Because it's, it's an impossible goal. You might have a perfect play. You might have a perfect quarter. You might have a perfect event, but you're not gonna have a perfect season. You're not gonna have a perfect life. It doesn't happen that way. And people that chase excellence or excuse me, that chase perfection and just end up facing so many unsolvable situations. What can we chase Luke and I, how is it tied to definite success? We can chase excellence. Let me define it and think about your own children. Now think about your teams. You're going to coach at paths, the ones you had at lakes and the ones you to it like Zurich. If you get kids, if we get people to do the right thing, The right way at the right time and to do with max effort. Let me say that again, do the right thing the right way at the right time and do it with max effort. Haven't we just increased our probability for success. What's the answer to that? Yes or no.

Luke: 11:34

Absolutely true. Yes.

Jim: 11:35

Okay. So if we can get kids in our classroom, friends of ours, the kids we raised. The people we coach to do those four things to live by those four things. Is that in and of itself, not a definition of success. Does that give us, I'm going back to head on the pillow. Peace of mind if I go, and when we get done with this podcast, if we say to ourselves, we did the right thing the right way, the right time. And we gave ourselves as max effort to share some thoughts that we hold in a paying it forward sort of way people think. I think about, um, maybe learn a little bit, cause them to reflect is that, did we have a successful podcast? I would say Yes. the scoreboard is just one indicator loop. You know, you could play a great game. You've probably had games where you would say Jim, the kids did so many things well, but we just came out on the short end, right on the scoreboard. But final score is just one indicator. When you gather all the athletes. That you've ever, when you're done coaching and you gather them all in a circle, they're going to remember some wins, but what are they going to remember? Aren't they going to remember the lessons of life that you try to impart with them. And isn't that your definition of success, you know, is it, how many rings are you holding up? Look, I do coaches workshops. I'm very fortunate people that asked me to come in and, and work, whether it's leadership sessions with kids or talk to parents or talk to their coaches and I'll do an exercise with coaches and I'll ask them to think of a coach that had the greatest impact in their life. You could do that. Now, Luke, think of a coach that had the greatest impact in your life. Okay.

Luke: 13:21

Yeah.

Jim: 13:22

Do you have them? Look, you don't even have to give me the name. The name is important, but for this point it's not. And I say, look, why, why did you pick that person? Just like I say, to a hundred coaches, you know why? And give me the reasons why, and I'll take my magic marker and go to the board. So Luke, not to put you on the spot, but to put you on the spot on your own podcast. And you can call me on my cell later and chew me out for doing that. Give me one, two or three reasons why that person had the greatest influence on you.

Luke: 13:51

First and foremost, they let me be me, which is really. Secondly, I had no doubt that although this person was tough on me and had high standards for me, it's because he ultimately cared for me as a human being. Those are definitely the two things that stick out.

Jim: 14:09

Okay. And let's, let's be the masters of the obvious loop in our world. We're judged by the scoreboard. Right? What did you not mention?

Luke: 14:19

I didn't mention how many games we want to do.

Jim: 14:21

exactly. Exactly. You didn't mention whether there was a state championship or we went to the quarterfinals or he's got this ring. You didn't mention any of that. If I said to you, look this person at your head and mind, how many career wins did they have? My guess is your first thought would be Jim. I don't really know

Luke: 14:41

a hundred percent. You have no idea.

Jim: 14:43

There you go. Your first thought was those two very powerful statements that you. So both when we talk about success, winning this unimportant to a degree, it's one indicator, but Luke, that's not what guys like us got into this business for. Does it feel good? Yeah. Is it a reminder maybe if we take it the right way, that's a process that we've built. That we use that at times we tweak and we find as groups change, as years go by and kids become a little different, right. That our process works. To me, Luke, that's peace of mind to me, Luke that's success. You know, Luke, I was so fortunate. I got to be the athletic director at a very young age. At 29. I went from being a head baseball coach and an associate Dean at Glenbrook south, where I started my teaching career as a special ed teacher. And at 29, I got, I got the opportunity to be the athletic director at Glenbrook north. Too young, you know, the old didn't know what, I didn't know, kind of deal. And then after 18 wonderful years there, I got the opportunity to be the athletic director at New Trier. People would say new cheer, my gosh, you know, look at all the winning, all the success that they had. And you asked me a question about 10 minutes ago in front of all those coaches, 200 of them at Nutrere and we have conversations about our success. Yes, but the beautiful thing that we got to with those coaches at nutria is the Y. We talked about the, what we do. We talked about the how, but we talked about the why and the vast majority of them got it, that it was a process. And if we could get kids to do the right thing the right way, the right time with max effort, and maybe we had this fifth one, cause I think it's important. Manage the outcome. In a, in a, in a sportsman, like mature fashion. Right. Because we, we, we come out on the short end of the stick sometimes, right. Call it, dealing with adversity and people choose their behavior. So they choose how to handle that. And if we can handle it with DNR, with dignity and respect. Wow. What a great template, huh? Look, I guess is that's what you're going to do with the kids at St. Pats.

Luke: 17:08

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I agree with what you're saying. And I think the problem is what you referred to as the F word and people make it a little uncomfortable, think where I'm going with this, but it's failure. And I could look myself in the mirror and admit that one of my flaws is I am afraid to fail. I am. And I think you have an interesting approach to failure, even just what you call it so much. You speak to the.

Jim: 17:35

Yeah. well, I'm with, uh, you know, I am poor the, The F word, like, like, like you said, in this case, it's not only that one that some people might be thinking about. But it is the failure word and I, and all of the speaking engagements that I'm honored to have in the groups that I get to work with. I don't want, I don't want to use the word failure. In fact, I wish we could strike that from a vocabulary and substitute the word setback if we went to the whiteboard picture, a big square on the board and we'd went from the lower left-hand. The base, if you will. And we drew a line to the upper right-hand corner and we drew a straight line straight as an arrow, and then in a parallel fashion, lower left-hand to upper, right. We drew a line that was squiggly Securitas, some peaks and values back and forth. And I said to you or whomever, which one is a clearer picture depiction of life, you would say.

Luke: 18:38

The second one, the one that's all messy.

Jim: 18:40

No one that's messy. Exactly. It goes left. It goes right. It goes forward. It comes back. In essence, it's got peaks and valleys and bumps and twists and turns. Okay. So we, if we agree, life and success is not a straight path and we agree that there's a whole lot of meanderings. Then we agree that those are setbacks. They're going to happen. It's never a question that we're going to have setbacks loop. What isn't question is fill in the blank, how we key keyword. Yes. How we choose to Handle their, a choice, how we handle them. as a choice. Right.

Luke: 19:16

absolutely. Really all like all life has a choice.

Jim: 19:19

Okay. So if we're working with kids and we have to teach them and model them, because again, it's teachers and coaches, words are indicators. Actions are verified. We need to model for them the best way to handle setbacks. I have to call the mind, you know, the story of Thomas Edison, Right. I mean, look around your room. The lights are on this. Microphone's working right electricity, not a bad invention. Right? Look, it's

Luke: 19:45

Right.

Jim: 19:46

Okay. And if you read the story of Thomas Edison, he had any idea. Look how many attempts approximately until literally the lights went on.

Luke: 19:56

I know I, well, I do know the story I have read it. I don't know the exact number. I know it's crazy. Like 10,000 failures, or I know it's monumental, but go ahead.

Jim: 20:07

It is monumental. It is monumental. It's just short of a thing. Okay. Just sort of thousand out. Let, let me ask you Luke and ask all your coaching buddies. If any, one of us tried something close to a thousand times till we got it, who among us has that kind of perseverance. If that's not a lesson alone in perseverance. So Thomas Edison's working on this thing, right? And it goes, poof, it goes, poof. It goes poof. And somewhere between 900,000 attempts, literally and figuratively, the light goes on. One of the first questions that somebody asked him is how does it feel to fail? Almost a thousand times, he looks a person in the eye and he says, I didn't fail. This process just took that many steps. So Luke setbacks, how we through teaching and coaching and modeling, help kids to manage effectively. Setbacks. Learn from the past don't live in the past, right? You don't drive in your car by staring in the rear view mirror. Cause if you do right, boom, bad things are going to happen. What do we do? We Clance in the mirror. We learned. By glancing back. Well, can we teach that to our kids? Can we slow things down and say, ask open-ended questions with our kids and we can do them in a soft fashion. And yeah, we can do them in a tough enough from fashion, but we don't have to be bombastic. We don't have to berate because there's teachers and coaches, our job is to get kids to think and to feel and to. And then to learn and grow from it. Can we get them to ask themselves some questions? You know, if you had that situation that play over again, what would you do differently? What could you do better? What did you learn from that? Right. That's dealing with setbacks. That's learning from setbacks. Our behavior is a choice. I haven't always handled it well, uh, as a young man, a middle-aged man is an assistant coach, a head coach And athletic director. I've certainly had my family. What I've tried to do though, is learn from those and not repeat them.

Luke: 22:21

Right. And the idea of managing we'll use the word setback. I think that's a crucial life skill to impart upon kids, especially in today's world where our setbacks tend to get broadcast for everyone to see. Right. And, I don't know if you ever read the famous book, rich dad, poor dad. If you haven't, I recommend it and he takes an interesting perspective. With the educational system. And he talks about how sometimes in life develop Victorian ends up not being really successful past their educational life, because they don't know how to experience a setback. They think it is failure. Because they've never dealt with it before. Right. And the first time they don't get that job that they applied for. It might've been the first time they ever dealt with it and they think that the world is coming down upon them and really don't know how to respond to that. So in your wealth of experience, you have a lot of years working with kids and you're still doing it. Do you still see that fear of failure and is it better or worse and where do you think Rez is society with handling.

Jim: 23:30

I think it's, I think as worse, boy growing up and I know you're younger than I am. Maybe you've heard the same, right? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right. I think it's more, nothing ventured, nothing lost. If I don't raise my hand, if I don't read. Aye.. Insulate myself from being mocked, being berated, being laughed at. The third grade kid in the math class, when the teacher puts the problem on the. And, Johnny in the back thinks they have the answer and They bought tear the rotator cuff off, you know, raising their hand. And, and the teacher says, Johnny, what's the answer? And Johnny says, oh, it's 5,952. And the answer was like six. I mean, he couldn't, he missed it by three miles. Right? What generally what happens, Luke? The kids in the class do what?

Luke: 24:20

They laugh.

Jim: 24:21

Yes. And here's the question or they're laughing with or they laugh and hat And depending on how well prepared Johnny is to deal with setbacks, if they're not well-prepared right, the longer the teabag is in hot water, the stronger the team. You know, that's that phrase goes to what you're saying. Are we doing a good job, helping kids prepare for these setbacks and learning how to handle them so that Johnny can recover and not just put his hand down for the rest of his life, but he's willing to think, what did I get wrong? What could I have done better? How can I get that problem right? The next time? And we can help teach coach that kid. Yeah. Um, social media is not helping us at all, nor on. No offense to any parents who might be listening to this, uh, parents that spend more time. What do I want to say? Repairing the path for the kid, as opposed to preparing the kid for the path? Think about that. If we spend more time. Preparing the path for our kids, the ones we coach our own and less time preparing the kid for the path. Aren't we working against ourselves, you know, Luke, you and I are big guys on ERO, right. Event response outcome. If we try to solve the R for them all the time, are we helping? Are we enabling? I would lobby that we're enabling if you, and I believe. Life is, you know, 10% call it 20%, 30%. What happens to you and 90, 80, 70, how we, how we react and deal with it. If we don't spend time teaching and cultivating and coaching kids on how best to deal with the setbacks, the downsides to tough loss, but fumble the bad play the 5,682. When the answer's really six, then we're not preparing them. We leaving them short, Luke and we're leaning more vulnerable and social media, Luke, maybe you could probably spend three of your podcasts talking about the pluses and minuses of that. Now I often wonder, Luke, you tell me, are kids afraid with this fear of failure, are they afraid so much about the specific outcome or are they more afraid of the response?

Luke: 26:45

There is no question. All of us in today's society. I would say even beyond kids, I think adults. We are all afraid of the response and it's why we're afraid to put ourselves out there. And again, we're speaking now I'm speaking, even beyond athletics and I would argue, it's why we're kind of in the society we're in right now. We are so afraid to put ourselves out there because of the response it may get from outsiders. And. The consequences of that is we have lost our ability to talk through things and we have lost our ability to think rationally through things. And, hopefully we can bring it back. You know, I've always heard about this pendulum swing and society. And personally, I feel like it's only been swinging one way for about 30 years now. So I'm really hoping it starts to swing back, but it it's absolutely to respect.

Jim: 27:36

let's poke, let's poke around a little bit with that. H, how do we, in our small slice of this world, me as a retired athletic director who gets called to go speak to groups and work with right now, seven different high schools and with, with, uh, groups of kids on leadership and you now going right back into the wonderful world of coaching, how can we in our little slice of our life, Help reverse that loop. How can we get kids to feel a little more confident in expressing themselves and trying so that it's not nothing ventured, nothing lost. Gee, if I don't try that, I don't have to worry about quote failing. How do we get them to believe? And this process of. Proper planning prevents poor performance, right? Hey guys, let's pour everything into the five PS. And if we do that, we've put ourselves in the position of doing the best we can. And that's all we can ask for Luke. Is it tied to maybe it is how people respond to those moments of disappointment in that FA and those failures. So to speak those setbacks, if we beat people, If we're too harsh, if we berate, well, then we reap what we sow. But if we can, in a to F words are like firm, but friendly way, stick with our teaching and coaching hats and talk kids through how they can become better. Right. And to avoid the repeating of the same mistakes, if you will. I'm a big believer. Look in the first five seconds to five minutes after somebody booboos. If I can say that how the coach, teacher, parent, or group responds, if we might, if we put down, if we were in their grill, big time, cussing them up, excuse me. But raise your hand. If you can't wait to get some more of that doesn't mean that we have to soft pedal things. It doesn't mean that. It means we can still be firm, but we can be friendly. We can be strong, but we can be a teacher and we can put our arm around them. We can squeeze their shoulder a little bit and say, look, I don't like that. And I know you don't like that. So let's together. Figure out how we can do that better. What's the relationship between reinforcement and motivation. And your mind think about that for a second. What's the relationship. If I want Luke to be more motivated is an incumbent upon me to provide some sort of reinforcement. The answer to that in your mind is what.

Luke: 30:17

Absolutely positivity wins out.

Jim: 30:21

Okay, agree. A hundred percent so in, and this is the hard part of coaching, right? In the heat of the battle in those tough moments, you know, fumble, strike out, miss sign, whatever the case may be. We all have those moments where maybe we're, we're getting close to that red line. That's incumbent upon us to maintain as best we can. Our cool, because as we know. Modeling is the purest And simplest form of teaching. We can't say one thing and do another, we can't talk about keeping our cool and then we act like lunatics doesn't work that way. Right. They look at us and they say, whoa, well, I guess, I guess those words don't mean very much. Are we going to go? We're all going to goof at times. It's really hard to coach. It's really, really hard. You know that I know that, um, I and I, for 26 years, as an athletic director, my job was to help grow coaches. You're getting back into it, those tough moments, right? That's when we have to be at our best loop when they're at their worst is when we have to be at our best. Isn't that part of leadership. When your team needs you the most, when the country needs you the most, you have to be at your best, not at your worst.

Luke: 31:39

And I want to go back to one of your rhetorical questions and I'm going to break the rules and answer it anyway. I think if we want kids to learn to embrace setbacks and kind of teach them that. That's not the right word, but the philosophy, I think as leaders, we have to be authentic and vulnerable ourself and we have to put ourselves out there and be okay with the setback, the failure and embrace it. And there's no doubt in my mind, regardless of the profession, that if you do that as a leader and you let your people see you be vulnerable and just be authentic to you in the process. They will learn from it and they will welcome it and they will do just that exact same thing. And when any organization operates from a place of authenticity and vulnerability at the same time, I personally think that's been great in this happens.

Jim: 32:36

Too many people in my take, uh the word vulnerable and think that's a sign of what weakness, right. You and I would say vulnerability is a sign of what?

Luke: 32:47

Strength,

Jim: 32:48

Yes. Yes. Because you're authentic. You're real. Do you have more or less respect for somebody who can own up and say, that was my fault.

Luke: 32:58

definitely someone who owns their mistakes. That's really important.

Jim: 33:02

Versus someone who is a finger pointer, a blame or an excuse maker, good friend of mine says, be a thumb pointer, not a finger pointer. You and I both get that. I agree with you, Luke, the head coach, the teacher, the parent, the athletic director who can say my fault that one's on me. That's not a sign of weakness. No one person has all the answers. If a person says they're the smartest and X, like they have all the answers. I think you, and I would say that's probably not the case. That's probably a way people cover up for that or their weakness in their ego. Right. So I agree with you. For the head coach to say that one's on me, that I, my fault, if we want kids to accept responsibility and we believe that teaching and coaching is modeling, then we have to accept responsibility. We have to model that as a parent, as a teacher, as a coach, we're not perfect. And if we try to, come across that, we're perfect. I think we risk losing any respect that we may have built. So, Yeah. We gotta be able to say my fault so that kids are comfortable saying my fault. No different than the leader who reports herself or himself to be a great listener and then sits in a meeting and does all the, what? All the talk. Yeah, yeah. Right. And who comes across as being the smartest person in the room, right. You know who the smartest person in the room is low, room. So w w we're in agreement, but we have to be vulnerable. We have to be real. We have to be that person that can say, yeah, I was wrong on that. That wasn't a good choice. And then we have to go and ask ourselves why and model that. It's kind of like when we started talking some 40 minutes or 45 minutes ago, why you're getting back into it, but what people do and the how people do are tend to be fairly obvious, but we have to get to why. And this is the beauty of you getting back. Cause you're so passionate. You want to build better people and part of building better people is yes. Being a FUM pointer and helping kids to understand. It's not the worst thing in the world to say my fault. I goofed that one's on. But that's not enough though, because I see too much of that with the athletes, you know, patting the chest, right. Saying, oh, that's on me, my bad, my bad, my bad. Well, we are teachers and coaches, you know, my bad once, maybe my bad twice, my bad three times maybe that says, I'm really not doing that reflective piece. I'm not glancing in the rear view mirror. I'm trying to be better, but we have to help with that. We just can't tolerate an endless supply of my bed. Right Learn from the past. Don't live in the past, but the key is learned from

Luke: 35:57

I'm absolutely passionate about helping people discover their best selves. And I would argue that the only way I'm going to be successful in doing that is if I find my own version of my best self. And that's the challenge, and it's really hard to tell kids, Hey, I, you know, I want, I want you to become the best version of you if you don't believe you're the best version of yourself because kids see through that. I'll say that selfishly, that's also part of what I love about this is because it challenges me to be my best. And it's okay. As a leader to be selfish that sometimes I know we all believe in servant leadership. At least I would hope anyone in this business does because that's how you're successful, but it's okay to be selfish in this process as well. And to do things for yourself, it's kind of like giving a present at Christmas. Part of what the fun is, is selfishly watching your child open that present and his, or her response to getting something that they asked for. I mean, that's a little selfish, but that's okay. Right. Just like, I love this challenge that I'm on to find the best version of myself and just being on this journey with the kids. And I think they'll respect me for my honesty in that process.

Jim: 37:12

We're not above or below the kids were right next to them. When you say on the journey. We're moving in a pack with them. And I think that whole vulnerability piece is kids. You know what? I may have some answers kids. Yes. I have a great work ethic kids. I have some experience, but I don't know. I don't have every answer all the time. I also think that's a mark of a great leader. Any leader that tells you they have all the answers. I'm not buying it leaders in my mind, coaches in my mind, they have to find right. They don't have to be right. There's a big difference. If you're trying to always be right to me, that's more equal. But if you are vulnerable, selfless, then you are trying to find what is right for the greater good. You're going to find what's right. For the vast majority of kids at St. Pats, if it turns out that you were right, your idea was the best fine, but your idea isn't going to work all the time. You've been an assistant coach. You're going to have a number of assistant coaches. If it's always top down, I talk, you listen, right? I say, jump you say how. I micromanage. Wow. That's not helping people grow. If you micromanage the kids and we micromanage the coaches, that's not gonna help people around you grow. It was a it's analogist, Luke, too. Um, but we. But go to the whiteboard and put draws big circle, put a.in the middle, make it a hub and start drawing spokes. Right? The best the strongest wheels have the greatest number of spokes. Those are relationships. We could talk about culture. If you want. Those are relationships. I know you're big on relationships. If you don't grow the band. Of those relationships you have with your coaches and the coaches with the kids and you with the kids that wheel, isn't going to be real strong. If you only have two kids that you have a great relationship with, or you only have one assistant coach, you have a great relationship with that wheel. Isn't going to be strong and wheel is strongest with the strongest number of spokes and metaphorically. Those spokes represent relationships.

Luke: 39:19

Well, I'm going to ask you a rhetorical question now, and what's the sign of a good lesson plan. What's a sign of a good practice. And that's the fact that the time just flies by because you're completely immersed in the moment because it has engaged you. And I say that because we're kind of at the end already, Jim, believe it or not. I know there's a lot of other things that we could talk about. it's been awesome which is a sign of a, of a great conversation, like you said before we start recording, you said fireside chat. That's what we had. And I think those are the ones that are best. So,

Jim: 39:51

There's one thing that I, and, and you can cut it out or you can cut something else out, or maybe the podcast runs a little longer because you bring up a great point and we didn't really touch on culture. And I know from private conversations with you, you and I both know culture's not a noun, it's a verb and bumper stickers and saying, you know, biking nation or Spartan nation or trebian nation, that's all fine and good, but that in itself isn't culture. And if coach. Truly want to develop culture then in their practice plant, they better figure out where they're going to do that. But one of the best examples, Vanderbilt baseball, I know you're probably familiar with it at least several times per week. Coach Gordon is spending 15 to 20 minutes. All it dugout time where we're, we're talking about an article. We had everybody read, read, or we're talking about a current event, always talking about relationships. He's doing something about Vanderbilt, baseball, that screams culture, that screams relationships. If we want to build a program that has a strong culture, there has to be time in a practice plan. Like you just so eloquently said it flies by. In a two hour and 20 minute football practice. How much time is devoted to the spokes on the wheel to culture, to getting to know each other, versus we'll say X's and O's, we can leave it there. You don't need to respond. I know where your heart is and where you are on that. If you want to have a program that has a strong culture, you've got to plant the seed. You got to water it. You just can't say it. It's not going to happen by osmosis. It's gotta be called culture from the word cultivate. It's gotta be cultivated.

Luke: 41:45

There's no doubt that it's a verb. And unfortunately, because it's become almost trite in society. It's turned into a slogan and people really confuse culture with slogans. So point while received Gemini I'm in complete alignment with your thought process. We have to make it a verb So for example, you tell me that, Hey, we have a culture of caring for every individual on his team as if he or she is the most important. I should be able to walk into your practice. I should be able to walk into your classroom and I should see it. It should just scream at me that that really exists. And if it doesn't, then it's not a culture, it's just a slogan. And I think that's something that people need to wrap their minds around because especially in the world of hashtags, we're really confusing. What culture really is.

Jim: 42:34

You said it really well, Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt baseball, my one of the top programs and he works on it episodically every single week. You know, he takes time from bunting and hitting and running, et cetera, et cetera, and bed and batting practice. Right. Um, to, to actually make again, you said it. Culture of verb. We can't just say it. We have to do it. Otherwise. It is just a bumper sticker. St. Pat's is fortunate to have you. They are very fortunate to have you. You are, you know, one of the greatest compliments I think I could give anybody in this business is you're not just a difference maker. You're a positive difference maker. That's who you are, Luke. Don't cut that out of this episode. If you cut this out, we're coming back and we're redoing the whole thing. I want the people who listened to your podcast, know someone like you, who has passed. Different than emotion has passion for making kids become the best version of themselves first, and then putting all the eyes together to make we bring in all those folks together. This is what you need to be doing. You're going to be a difference maker for them in such a positive way that community. Is blessed to have you, if you're going to make better people, that's what we do in this business. It's not about baseball players, football players. It's not about making widgets. We make better people. And you're one of the people that does that. Congratulations to you, smart by St. Pat's to hire you do not cut this out of the podcast. Talk to you.

Luke: 44:12

Well, Jim, thank you so much for your kind words. It means a lot to me more than any victory ever would. Thank you. Um, I'm just humbled by that. So really appreciate it and really appreciate you spending the time on the podcast. I know that you have a passion for helping kids, but also helping kids. So if there are teachers and coaches out there that would like to reach out to you, would you be willing to share an email address, phone numbers, social media handles, however you would prefer for people to get in contact.

Jim: 44:39

If you want me to do that right now, I'm going to give them two ways. The first is my personal email. It's also my business email because as you know, we have a small speaking business called the team and we use the following email verse three are letters, C H B, like cat, Harry boy, three, one. At aol.com. Don't laugh at the AOL. Still works for us and people are welcome to get ahold of me on myself. 3 1 2 3 3 0 6 5 6 3. I can help anybody. I'm more than happy to do that. Okay.

Luke: 45:22

Outstanding. Well, you help so many people throughout your career and you continue to help people. You help the listeners of this podcast and you help me just talking through the pieces of culture and setbacks and this idea of what success really looks like. Thank you so much for being a part of this podcast. And for the listeners, I will share a Jim's contact information in the show notes and recommend you reach out to him because he's a very positive person and you will feel better just talking to him. So, Jim, thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

Jim: 45:52

My honor to be a guest. Thank you, Luke, for the opportunity.