Matt Mayberry - Bestselling Author & Keynote Speaker | Peak Performance Lessons From The NFL

When I was 16 years old, you know, as a full-blown-out drug addict, you know, three-year death experiences, getting kicked off my baseball team, almost completely ruining my life. I even thought about suicide for hurting the people that I love most. That may vary as a former NFL player with the Chicago Bears. It suffered a broken ankle in the preseason career over, but then he became a successful motivational speaker and now spends those talks discussing how to make the most of your life for an athlete or anyone else. In the book, I kind of guide how to do that. What I call as a cultural purpose statement, it's internal defineness of our culture. Of what is that foundation that DNA, that core, that really unbreakable root? How do we build a culture? Most people use their people to build their business, but the best leaders that make the biggest difference, they use their business to build their people. So what's soft people from being successful? There's really three things. What was your biggest failure? How did you navigate that thing? Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. They've been with me for over two years now. They're one of my favorite tools and they are starting to roll out AI tools that will dramatically cut your working hours in half. Research shows employees that use AI are cutting time spent on manual tasks like pulling reports or summarizing data in half from five to 2.5 hours a day. That adds up to almost four weeks a year. HubSpots AI power tools can help you work smarter, not harder by streamlining how you do business from research and strategy to content creation and optimization. ChatSpot and content assistant are baked right into the HubSpots CRM so you can whip up reports, get copy inspiration, pull data summaries, and a ton more just with a simple chat command. So you want to tap into HubSpot, you want to get more free time back. Stop staring at your screen, start enjoying your summer PTO, learn more and get started today at HubSpot.com. Great question, I love it. I would say the biggest defining moment in my life came when I was 16 years old. You may not know this or not, but my very first book, Winning Place, which was published in 2016, kind of talked about my upbringing and really started from 13 to 16. I was a full-blown-out drug addict. Three near-death experiences, every drug you could possibly think of, I've done it besides heroin, wasn't terrified of needles. I probably would have done that too, but I was projected to go straight to the major leagues and skip college. But getting kicked off my baseball team almost completely ruining my life. The biggest defining moment in my life was basically nearly experiencing death or ending up in prison during that dark period of my life, which really kind of changed the whole trajectory of my life in my entire future. So to answer that question, I would say when I was 16, the full-blown-out drug addict just completely throwing away my life and hurting the people that I loved most was probably the biggest defining moment that really changed my life forever. And maybe walk through that a little bit if people that don't know your story. And I know your origin story is more focused in your first book and then you're just releasing a book now that's more focused on leadership and culture for organizations. And I think that people want to really capture who you are. I think it is good to go a little bit into your backstory because it's not like the, I guess the quote-unquote traditional story of somebody that's now teaching leaders and organizations, how to basically redo their culture, revamp it, get the best out of everyone. I mean, you had an interesting life. So I knew less about the drugs and the dark point in your life. I knew obviously you, a incredible athlete, had a career. Curious as to how that thread sort of permeated your life because I see a common thread with young athletes. I mean, the world is given to them and they don't necessarily know how to deal with it sometimes. And the money and the influence and like the putting this person on a pedestal is not always a good way to introduce somebody into the world of their professional career. So maybe just give some context to what happened. Really quick calls notes as to how your life sort of got to that point that was such a dark spot. And then you did turn it around before your, your version of yourself now. Absolutely. You know, I think, you know, it sounds very cliche, right? I think everybody hears about, you know, you are who you hang out with, show me your five closest friends. I'll show you where your futures had it. But for me, I mean, I've actually lived that, right? So when I hear, you know, that statement, you know, I say absolutely 100,000 percent because, you know, for me, I had all the town in the world. I came from a great, you know, family, two wonderful parents who cared for me and my younger brother more than life itself and really provided us with every resource that we need. But I ended up going down that dark path because kind of to what you hinted towards, you know, I was a young athlete. I had the future kind of, you know, I was ready to take over the future, particularly in baseball, even though I was good at football. I didn't love football, you know, baseball was my first love. And, you know, for me, I think that when I got kicked off of even that sport, that's what even I even went further down that whole of, you know, just hanging out with the wrong crowd. You know, I'm part of that, you know, in inner city of Chicago and kind of where I grew up, I was hanging around with, you know, gangbangers, people that were committing the worst of worst crimes. And part of that was they saw me as this athlete where they can get into, you know, different demographics and different, you know, areas that they weren't before. And, you know, I fell for that, right? Because at the time, that was the cool thing to do. You know, everybody was, was, was, you know, kind of highlighting me. And, you know, you're the best thing in the world, Matt. And, you know, we, just coming from all different directions in my ego, you know, I think Ryan Holiday wrote the book, ego is the enemy. It absolutely is, you know, the moment you start inflating that ego and kind of using that accolades from the sports arena and letting that kind of define you as a person, you know, your destined for turmoil, your destined for, you know, really heartbreak and heart ruin. So that, that's where the path that I went down and what started as a little bit, you know, of, of smoking marijuana and going down that path underage drinking came out into a full-blown-out drug addiction. You know, while the full-blown-out drug addiction, you know, stealing teammates' wallets, you know, that's what prompted me to get kicked off the baseball team. My whole team was out for practice. I stayed behind because while one of my teammates was getting dressed, I saw all this cash that was sitting in that wall and thought about all the drugs that I could buy with this money. And, you know, that's the path that I went down, you know, and it got so bad for me where my high school was like, hey, you know, you're the, you're a very talented athlete, but no more detentions or suspensions, we're going to expel you if you don't go to this drug treatment facility for a month. And I, 100% got more opportunities than the next person. Very aware of that, very thankful for that, but also it was because of my athletic ability. It wasn't because I was, you know, I think a lot of the, you know, advisors and coaches saw this young kid who was just throwing away his life and and it just, you know, whether it was the right thing to do or wrong thing to do as to what they did, I'm very thankful for that so many people didn't give up on me in that point in my life because I ended up dig going in that drug treatment facility, not because I wanted to get sober, but because one of my family members offered me $500 if I was to go to that drug facility to work on myself. But, you know, what is a drug addict wanting to do with $500? Buy more drugs. 100%. Yes. So, I mean, like, okay, so, so then the question and yes, you're 100% right. Like, because you had athletic ability, you were, you were given an opportunity. I think that's, you know, that kind of dovetail into what you're trying to do now. I mean, you do motivational speaking for businesses, but that's not the only person that you impact either. I mean, you're trying to get everyone to have like a better life and I think that your origin story is like a big part of that. Absolutely, right? Absolutely. I mean, you know, the fabric of who I am and kind of what I do now, it's much different than what I did, you know, 12 years ago, right? When I just started out kind of sharing my story and, you know, kind of really only speaking about what we're talking about now, you know, but absolutely. I mean, that is the core DNA of kind of what I learned about, you know, experiencing almost near death experiences, you know, almost throwing away my life and going to prison, you know, losing the sport that I was best at that was going to destined to give me a $10 million guarantee check, right? So, you know, for me, everything I am, you know, really comes from that point of my life and I'm very thankful for it, but I was able to turn it around because of the love of my parents and just like I almost ruined my life with who I was hanging out with, that's also who helped my life, you know, turn that around for the better, you know, of getting around the right people to also help steer me in a direction that was going to really create a bigger future for me. So, you come out of this really dark place and and like this is what will eventually, like we're not going to go into every nuance, but this is eventually to a pro career in the NFL and then you I'm always curious, I love business lessons derived from like athletes and coaches, like there's so much shit that just crosses over that I think a lot of people miss, but when you're finishing your career in, or how do you decide to finish a career in the NFL, when was it like you're calling it and then this is the next version of your life because that's a big jump too and I think I've spoken a lot of, man, the conversations with X pro players, even like financial, like financial advisors that talk about how people can't figure out a life after they play pro, but you did, so walk me through that transition. Yeah, so, you know, for a little bit of context while your listeners here is that, you know, after I was finally able to have that that moment of like, you know, I can't go down this path anymore, I can't put any more tears on my mother's, you know, face anymore, I can't, you know, I got to get and create this future. Football really became my outlet, you know, so even though I enjoyed the game, it wasn't my first love like baseball, but that really became my why, it became why I did what I did and why I didn't want to go down the path that I was going down. I had to create an instill a bigger future for Matt Mayberry, so football really became my, you know, backbone if you will, like I use that to escape not only the past, but also create that future for myself and for me, you know, I had a great career at Indiana, that's kind of where I learned everything that I talk about in the new book, this is which I'm sure we'll get to from my coach at the time, Terry Heppner, culture is the way, you know, everything about leadership and culture and changing behavior at scale and, you know, how do you take a struggling program in football and turn it around and one of the similarities in the business world, so I learned so many valuable lessons and then I finally had an opportunity to play for the hometown team, right, the Chicago Bears, you know, former drug addict turned around his life, now he gets an opportunity, you know, my career never really took off to be honest with you, you know, I got hurt in the preseason, you know, for me it was so devastating, it was such a traumatic experience for me that, you know, when I did get injured, I even thought about suicide for a brief time there because even though such a physical and violent sport, such as football, you know, you can't control getting injured or what happens throughout the course of a game, it's a very violent sport, right, so injuries happen all the time, but I view that as a failure because of everything, you know, a lot of the self-induced adversity I created throughout my life, I finally get to this stage and I did have an opportunity, I was moving up the deck chart, you know, my future was looking very promising and I get hurt my first game playing the San Diego Chargers, you know, like I tore a bone off my ankle and that was the end of my career, I wasn't able to come back from that injury and it was very devastating, but to answer your question specifically, how was able to make that pivot, you know, obviously I didn't end my life, I didn't, you know, kind of buy into those negative thoughts that I was having and really detrimental thoughts that I was having, I got asked to speak at a leadership event by Stem and Graham, you know, who was Oprah Winfrey's boyfriend for, you know, gosh, still, I think they're still together, but I met him at a charity event a month before I got injured and he asked me to speak when he found out that I was injured and long story short, just sharing 20 minutes of kind of not only my backstory, but also, you know, what about the game of football applies to business, right, leadership, teamwork, culture, you know, overcoming adversity, having a game plan, what does the strategic direction look like? And that's what's really started my career, I'm traveling the country giving speeches in the very beginning. Did you ever think of like any other options at all with your life, your career? Like, I know that was a, that was a significant injury, but you ever think about going back into football or, or was this like the, the, the persona that you have is if I'm, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to go all into it. This is how I change the world. Like, I'm curious about your thought process at that point because there was so much emotional energy tied up in football for you because that was your recovery vehicle. Yeah, that was huge. And I get, like, it's sad, but I understand why somebody would think about ending their life when all their life and all their progress was tied up in this thing that was like taken away from them. Yeah, I do, you know, psychologically get over that. You know, for me, so when I gave that first speech with, with Stadmin Graham, I still had in my mindset, you know, that like I was still going to get back to football at this point, like my, you know, I had the mindset that I was going to go back. Like, even though at that first speech went well, it was not terrific. My career was not set out, right? I wasn't ready to go out in the world and trying to start and create a business where I can go do this full time. You know, so for me, in the back of my mind, I always knew that I was going to come back or thought I was going to come back. But after that speech, you know, word of mouth started getting around, you know, and a lot of these big companies, you know, all state insurance and, you know, JP Morgan Chase and, you know, they would say, hey, Matt, we're having our sales conference in Vegas next month or leadership conference. We'd love to, you know, have you come share a message, you know, on teamwork or leadership, overcoming adversity. And during that whole time that I was injured, I still had on my mind that I was going to come back, but I was also giving speeches. You know, sometimes for free, you know, just, I had nothing else to do. I was in a walking boot head. Like I still, like I got to get my mind off of this long story short, even a year after that of giving that from the first time I did that first speech. I wasn't able to come back. That's when my head that talked in conversation with my agent that I'm going to have to look for something else, you know, my football career is not looking, you know, my ankles not getting better, it's not what didn't progress like they thought it would. At this point, that's where I said, okay, I need to go all in on this. I don't know how I'm going to do it, you know, but I'm going to figure out a way to get to a point where I can create a full-time business on kind of sharing this message, you know, of traveling the country and giving speeches. And I would ask, okay, so we're going to, we're going to talk about lessons that apply to business, but I'm actually more curious about, I'm curious about how you applied some lessons that you learned while playing football to your own career. So even the first time you stepped on stage, like nerves, overcoming adversity, like what were your biggest failures in your career that you learned a waste overcome while playing football or playing any professional sport could have been when you're playing, you know, yeah, I mean great based football all that. Great question Scott, you know, I think first and foremost, there's got to be context as to, you know, what I did to first start kind of jumpstart that, right? Because I didn't, you know, I wasn't at first on draft pick, I was an undrafted free agent, right? Like I didn't get the 2 million, 5 million guaranteed, right? So I didn't have all this, you know, the resources and financial, you know, kind of backing to say, hey, we're going to go kind of create this, right? So what I did was I first used my football kind of experience and skill set to, I got a sales job at a pharmaceutical company and in two short years, I was the top running salesperson at that company, you know, outperforming and outselling people with 30 years of experience, with me never doing sales in my entire life, but just being relentless, focusing on what helped me in football, the preparation process, you know, knowing doctors when their, you know, anniversaries were with their wife, you know, if their son overcame a health challenge, like just the preparation, the focus to detail, you know, outworking everybody and then also applying that to the daily grind of, you know, focusing on the process. For me, it was never about hitting a quarter or getting to a point. It was always about, you know, how can I really immerse myself in the process of just getting a little bit better every day? What's so much of football is about? I mean, that's what the best football teams do. I mean, the goal is to win a Super Bowl, but, you know, the day to day is, you know, how can we elevate our performance and mindset and capabilities for this day? You know, and I share that with you because that was the very first example of me proving to myself that what worked in football from a DNA perspective works in the business world, right? No sales experience, no idea what the hell I was doing, applied everything I learned in football, you know, to that sales job. And I took that sales job because even though I knew I wanted to share this message and speak and do all this, I needed that sales job to kind of put me in a place to kind of get a pull to get to a point to eventually do that full time. And that's exactly what I did. And then, okay, so now you're, you know, you're making money, you're speaking, you start to, I'm assuming, build a little bit of an audience, personal brand, you start to charge a little bit more. And I can see where that sort of progresses. And let's move on past, like I guess the origin story for now, but I actually am, I'm always curious and I always ask this, on your, on your personal business journey, what was your biggest failure or screw up or, you know, how did you navigate that thing? Oh, it was a one thing that you messed up major. That's a great question. You know, I think, you know, one of the things that I, I would say that, you know, I was a huge adversity early on in something I don't necessarily regret, right? Because I look at every adversity and kind of challenge. But I think for me, it was really understanding like, you know, as an athlete, right? You always have, you have teammates, you know, you have, you have people around your corner, you have coaches, you have advisors, you have trainers, you have therapists, you know, chiropractors. I mean, everything you do is functioned around having a team. And when I, you know, even in the sales job, right? Like, I think being so isolated and then when I did officially make that full jump to, you know, kind of start my own business, it was not getting the right people in my team, right? Even if it was my own trusted advisors, even if it was a group of four to five mentors, you know, I was always learning from people and kind of calling people and picking their brain. But I never formally started a process of having like my own internal trusted advisory board of, you know, gaining this wealth of knowledge from business owners and people that have been doing this for 35 years and kind of putting them strategically in my own life. That would really have jumpstarted the process. So I think for me, to some people that may not seem like a huge failure, but it lost me a lot of money. It set me back a lot of years of growth and kind of accelerating my execution from where I wanted to go from where I was. So for me, at that point in my time, that was a huge, I think, you know, mistake of not applying what I learned in the game of football and then in the business world, not strategically inserting the right people and mentors in my life to build my own team. No, very smart. And I mean, teach his own, like some people that that makes like it's common sense for other people, like you just save them a lot of money and time and energy, bro. Right. It's not that common sense is in common, right? So it's a good it's a good point. And it is again, it's another it's another sports analogy. I mean, I didn't play as much football as you. I played a lot of hockey, but it still still stands. I get it. Absolutely. I totally get it. All right. So let's talk about let's talk about why, you know, why we're here today. We're talking about culture. I mean, the book you wrote is culture is the way we're going to link all that stuff below so people can check it out. But let's talk about culture. Because culture is a buzzword and culture is set again and again and again and again. And I think to the point where people start to lose context of what it actually means. So I'm curious. How do you define culture? Yeah. I mean, great question. I mean, you know, in a nutshell, I mean, it's, you know, it's really behavior at scale. Right. Anytime you walk into a company, whether small, medium or large, it's really the behaviors, the mindset, the collective understandings of what's expected of every single employee when they walk into that company and they carry out the, you know, execute the mission or purpose of that single company, you know, particularly when the CEO or CEO or founder or business owners not around. Right. I mean, the best way to think about it is really behavior at scale. You know, what does that organization, that company believe at its core and how are the people within that company and organization? How are they behaving on a daily basis repetitively over and over and over again to carry out for the good, right? The execution of the purpose of that mission of that organization of that company. And that's why. Okay. So now that makes sense. So by that definition, that is, that is how you create success in an organization. And how do you, okay? So how do you learn things from football? What are the, what are the similarities between football and professional sports that are like the high level themes that are similar to business culture? So I mean, like there's the obvious ones like teamwork and stuff like that. But there's more to it than just I'm on a team we're trying to achieve a goal. Yes. I mean, so many. So many to the point where, you know, I think there, there was a natural pivot, I think, you know, because when I shared with you about my backstory and even when I started speaking, you know, kind of even when after I had the sales job, right, I was what you would call your traditional. I guess you could say inspirational, you know, keynote speaker. I was sharing more of my story and overcoming adversity. But what happened throughout that whole journey really from about three years is I started getting in front of more and more executive and business audiences. And, you know, from there, it wasn't just inspiration. Then it came down to, hey, Matt, we want you to take what you learned in the game of football. We want you to talk about that, like how to build a team culture and leadership. And, and the number one question that always came back is why I wrote this book is, you know, how do you build culture, right? Because what I saw, right, when I would go into a lot of these Fortune 100, even 500 organizations, the biggest companies in the world, there was a huge misconception of what culture was. I mean, they thought it was getting sleep pods on every floor at the headquarters, right? They thought it was having a manager or a leader that doesn't challenge you in a healthy and productive way. You know, they thought it was worrying shorts to work and getting off at 3.45 PM on a Friday. Those are perks, you know, and I think when you ask, what are the similarities of culture from football to business? I mean, first and foremost, you have to understand that some of the best culture builders in the entire world are football coaches. You know, and I talk about that in the book, right? Mel Tucker at Michigan State, PJ Fleck, Minnesota, Bill Belichack, New England Patriots. You know, there's, there's so many coaches that just do such an extraordinary job because even though it's so important and so such a difficult task of being a leader, especially at a big or even medium company or even small company, the scrutiny of your job and performance is not highlighted for the world to see every single week and every single day, like that of an NFL or college football coach. So you have to get people moving in the same direction, rolling the boat in a, you know, collective manner with a shared understanding, pretty quick. And the only way to really do that is to not set a goal of winning a national championship or a Super Bowl. That is every team's goal. You know, so it's, it's defining what is success internally for us as a team as an organization. So, you know, the biggest thing that I took away from the very beginning there of, of what is football, what is football teach about culture? It's a to look at all the lessons that great football coaches possess and kind of carry over, but then also it's defining, defining what that culture is for that team, that business, that organization. So, okay, so now you've defined the culture, which makes a ton of sense, but what is the, the secret sauce that a college or NFL football coach has that allows them to be so effective at this? Because I bet you that if you look at most NFL teams, not all, but most NFL teams or even college teams, you find that the culture is stronger than a similar sample size of just 20 businesses, right? Or 30 businesses or 40. So, why is that? Why does somebody that comes up in professional sports have a mastery on culture when technically it's not even part of their resume, when a CEO makes a business work, but the culture shit and yeah, they're maybe hitting their revenue targets, but ultimately like everybody hates working there in the turnover's high and like everyone's burning out and everyone just hates everyone else who's working with them. And that's, you know, it's not optimal, but that happens a lot too. So, what makes football coaches so great at this? I think, you know, not only their title, right? Like I think the word quote unquote coach, but I think that that can also be missed, can see the little bit of the reason why is because there's a lot of coaches that aren't actually good coaches, right? So, I think just having the title isn't enough, that's just like having a leadership title doesn't necessarily make you a leader, like leadership is influence and impact, but I think at the end of the day, you know, that the secret sauce is really understanding the people aspect of driving greatness, of driving influence and driving impact to a whole other level, right? Because when you get to the NFL or even in a lot of businesses, right? Everyone there's talented, right? Everyone there has a skill set, especially if people have been doing the job for 20, 30 years. So, you know, talent and competency can be coached and teached, right? But at the end of the day, it's understanding the people aspect that you really have to engage the hearts and minds of individuals of human beings first and foremost, if you really want to create that culture of greatness and drive out, you know, the execution in the marketplace in the business world or on the field in the athletic world. So, I think great sports coaches understand that, you know, it's not motivating strictly from a profit or dollar perspective or wins and losses. It's really driving the purpose of the individual, but also the greater good that I am connected to doing something that's much bigger than just myself. You know, football coaches do such an exceptional job at that. And if you look at the business claim that's got, I mean, for so long, right? I mean, never ever were we talking about your personal life in the workplace. Never ever were we talking about, does this make you uncomfortable, right? Never ever were we talking or asking employees to speak up about, you know, what pissed them off or what, you know, what they didn't feel was, you know, adding fuel to their life. So, I think the COVID-19 pandemic kind of made that shift a little bit or accelerated that shift where it's kind of redefining the workplace in America. You know, I think it's more involved with that, but that is what football coaches understand. They understand the people aspect and they do a great job of balancing the two. Like, how can we drive greatness on the field? But then also, how can I love you up, coach you up and care for you as an individual as a human being? You know, I'm thinking about this now and I'm thinking about a CEO that's like hitting his, hitting his or her revenue milestones and their culture is shit, but they can still hit their revenue milestones because they're aggressive, I'd sell like that selling and whatnot and okay, fine. But then you look at a football coach and I mean, if you don't have a good culture in your team, you're not winning the game. You can't, you can't run, you know, you can run an unprofitable business, you can go raise money and you can scale it and you can argue that there's different ways to scale a business. I'm like, you play a game on the field, you win or you lose and it's, there is no, there is no other option. There's no way to mask a loss. There's no way to hide it in the spreadsheets and make it like, oh, don't worry, we can, that'll benefit us next quarter or whatnot. We have some more customers. It's a winner lose. It's, it's all right. And I think that actually the, the, the, the focus on the people knowing that you can't mask the results, the people are what are going to give you the results versus I can maybe mask the results or maybe I can a P share holders, but ultimately I can, people are almost like commodities in my business. It's like a totally different perspective. A shitty, like business leader versus a shitty football coach, you're right, the scrutiny. You're going to see that shitty football coach right away. You're not going to see the shitty business leader right away. Right. They have more opportunities to, you know, like you said, like mask the, you know, the complexities are the challenges, right? I mean, you know, you can, you can pad a P and L sheet, right? You can, you can kind of, when you're around some of the complexities and kind of pad that, right? But, you know, sports center is going to play that losing coach, you know, sports center is going to play, you know, that brawl in the locker room, right? There, you know, and the whole media is going to talk about it. And a lot of football coaches, they find out they're fired before, you know, they find out via Twitter, right? You know, like, it is a cut throat world. So it's not comparing both jobs because being a leader in the workplace in corporate America is extremely difficult and demanding job. No way, shape or form, is it saying which one is harder? It's just that the, you know, really demand of driving, you know, a healthy organization in team is much greater from the very beginning, or in start as a football coach compared to a business leader. And I think that's why there's some of the best culture builders. As you all know, success story is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot network has incredible podcasts like the Goldigar podcast. If you are looking for a new podcast, you have to check it out. It's hosted by Jenna Kutcher. The Goldigar podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. I tune into them every single week. They just did an episode on a four day work week experiment that they actually conducted in their own office. A few other recent episodes I enjoyed were on how to hire a players in your organization in 14 days or less. Jenna Kutcher is an OG in the podcasting game. You got to go check out the Goldigar podcast at the HubSpot podcast network or wherever you get your podcast. I believe that 100%. So how do we build a culture so that people are elevated to the best versions of themselves and then they perform? What are the steps of the playbook? Yeah, so I have a five part framework and I'll touch on those, but I think a very high level answer, because this doesn't matter if you have a small, medium, or large size business for whoever's listening. Most people use their people to build their business. But the best leaders that make the biggest difference, not only in the marketplace and drive the greatest profit, but also build people, they use their business to build their people. And I think that understanding the differences between those two is really the answer of how do you build a great culture that actually produces for what we're doing in our particular sector, our particular industry. The product we sell, the service that we go to market with, it's really understanding that we need to utilize the people that we have and build our business, use our business to build our people, which is going to build and transform our business, rather than simply using your people as a commodity to build the business. There's a very big difference in distinction between the two. And I think after understanding that, it's really driving down to that five step framework, which number one is, we kind of touched on this already, but it's defining your culture. What I mean by that is, if you saw 20 employees that work at the same company, let's say at a conference, and you asked those 20 employees, what is your culture at XYZ company? You're most likely going to get 20 different answers. If you go and ask the New England Patriots, or whoever your favorite team organization is, chances are you're going to get pretty similar answers. Maybe not exactly to the to a tee, but you're going to get pretty similar answers about expectations. What is the work experience like as an employee there, and what is the overall mission and purpose of that particular company, that organization? You have to define your culture. The second aspect is what I put is discovering through collaboration and inspiration. What I mean by this is, it's really engaging the hearts and minds of every single people manager in the company. When you think of building culture, most senior leaders and executive teams, regardless of how big that organization is, they keep it at the top. And defining your culture starts at the top, but then after you get to that piece, then you have to go to the bottom and different levels of the organization and ask them for their input. What is it like working here? What are you happy with? What are you not happy with? What can we do? What makes this company, this organization unique and special? And then it's cascading from that. It's getting all that until that information. And then from there, set number three is all about launching cascading and embedding your culture. A lot of companies will just say, hey, this is our employee survey that we did. We're going to take the survey, get these results, we're going to talk about it for a month, we worked on culture. They checked the box. But the best teams, and this is what football teams do best than better than anybody, is the culture is not just launched and talked about. It's cascaded throughout the whole team, the whole organization, regardless of your role. And it is embedded daily in every function, offense, defense, quality control, video team, recruiting team staff. I mean, every function of that team, that organization, it's embedded deeply. And then the fourth step of that, the whole five step process is driving long-term impact. What you talk about how some business leaders, they may hit the P&L, they may have a positive year, they may get the investor money that they're looking for. But at the end of the day, if you're not building a business for sustainability, and really having a culture that drives that sustainability, somewhere along the line, it's going to collapse and fail. And not only is it going to collapse and fail, it's probably going to be worse off than it was from the very start. So then it's utilizing your culture to drive that sustainability. So it's all about the best practices of how do we not only embed our culture, but how do we make it the very fabric of our company. And then the fifth one is, you know, leaders blaze the trail. And this is simply that, you know, you can't change any organization until the leaders first model the behavior and lead the way forward. Right? The behavior of the leader is eventually the behavior of the rest of the company and organization. There's no way around it, you know, and I think you have a lot of leaders and organizations that are unhappy with maybe the results they're producing or, you know, they want to be more innovative or they want to be able to handle and deal with disruption and change better. But then when you, when you dig a little bit deeper, you start to realize that the leadership team is the one who actually massively and severely struggles with those same very things that they want to get better and improve on. Right? So you have the leadership team and as a leader, you first have to be living that 100% all-in fully committed before you ever can drive transformation and change throughout your organization. So those are the five steps. Got define your culture. You know, engage the hearts and minds of every people manager and the company to get them involved in the process. That gets them more excited about creating the future. The third step is launch cascade and embed the daily fabric of your culture in the organization. The fourth aspect is driving long-term impact for sustainability and the fifth is leaders lead the way forward. What's what's the number because I think that when everyone's listening to this podcast, everyone is not, I mean, there's some city people out there that don't care about this, but the majority of people want to do good by their team and by their company and they're saying, yes, I love a culture like this. I love a culture that uplifts the people that I work with every single day. What's stopping people? What some people are going to take this away and say they don't, you know, check out your book or whatever and they they've tried this before and it just has totally failed and they know that even though they've tried to implement culture, you still talk to 20 different people in the org and you still get 20 different answers to what the culture is. So what stops people from being successful when they try and do something like this with the organization? Yeah, I think there's really three things that, you know, the first thing is, you know, the leadership team is not committed, right? It's a check-the-box initiative. Maybe they had a bad survey result, so now HR or, you know, shareholders, you know, there's outside pressure if it's a public iterated company, they have to do some type of initiative to build a healthier culture. So from that standpoint, it's just a check-the-box, it's never going to move the needle, right? That's the first one. The second one is we kind of already touched on this, but I want to stress the importance of this enough of why it just derails so many efforts, the misconception of what culture is, right? I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter if you have a 10 person company or a 200,000 person company, you have to understand every business owner, every leader has a strategy, a strategic framework of how we're going to go to market, how we're going to win in the marketplace, how are we going to create our unique competitive advantage in the marketplace? You have to understand that strategy does not achieve itself on its own. That is the job of culture. It's behavior at scale. So after you create your strategy, you have to look at your culture and do we have the right behaviors in place? Rather than just having core values, we need to make sure that we have specific, defined behaviors, like what are the daily expectations to live these values that is going to help us succeed and win and execute in the marketplace. I think for any leader that doesn't want to build a better culture, they're basically saying that I don't want to win and build a thriving business. You know, because I mean, the two go hand in hand. Eventually, somewhere down the line, it's going to come back in backfire. Massively. You know, the third one would just be the consistency. You know, I think that there's a lot of leaders, especially you've seen with COVID and a lot of the statistics and you know, we heard about the great resignation and the big quit and all those kind of terms, you know, as far as just so many people leaving the workplace. You know, I think that when you have that type of dysfunction and people talking about the realities of the uncertainty of the future, leaders will start to initiate the process, but then somewhere down the line, they get busy, you know, there's customer fluctuations, there's, you know, dealing with supplier challenges, you know, the supply chain, just all these different complexities of the business structure. They let interfere with building the culture, but the best leaders that I've seen in some of the most prestigious dominant companies in the world, they literally view their culture as their greatest competitive advantage in the world. You know, not their ability to innovate, not their ability to market and have new product design. I mean, their greatest competitive advantage is the culture they build. So I think that those three things, God, is really, you know, why most leaders kind of fall short there. To your last point, it's about prioritization. Like if you want to make this a priority, it'll get done. That's really where it has to, that's really where it has to come from. Can you off the top of your head just speak to like the best culture that you've seen and why pick a company or some sort of case study and why is that culture so great? What does one look to when they're looking at a company and like shit, they're doing it right? Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of examples that I can use. You know, I think, you know, using the book and keeping that kind of in mind here, just because it's fresh on my mind. You know, there are different personal case studies that I utilize in the book. You know, and one of those is, you know, I think Southern Glacier's Wine and Spirits, you know, a company that I've personally worked with for quite a few years now, particularly, you know, they're Illinois and Indiana division. Those two, you know, organizations are, you know, even though they're a part of the same entity of a 19,000 person organization, you know, at the state level, the work that they've done, particularly Illinois, who I kind of take throughout the book like from when they started the process of building a better culture to where they are now, you know, it's been unbelievable, you know, as far as knocking down silos. They were never in a terrible or unhealthy position in the very beginning, but their culture was never the sole reason why they were going to market and why they were dominating. Their culture was never why they're, you know, retaining but also attracting top talent. And now, you know, so many of the internal employees and team members of Southern Glaciers, you know, particularly Illinois, you know, the domino effect that was created from that internal transformation of building a better culture has been phenomenal, you know, by defining that culture, but then also kind of embedding it throughout every function. You know, so that's an example that I've always used and I kind of highlight that in depth in the book. There's another, you know, company direct federal credit union, you know, they're, they're another company that I've, you know, kind of briefly highlight in the book. Joe Walsh is their CEO. You know, I spoke at an event for, for them at the end of 2021 and kind of growing a relationship with him and see the work that he's been able to do as far as, you know, it's important to me, right? This is not a check the box initiative. This is not just to, you know, kind of beef up our employee engagement surveys like we want to create an environment where we win in the market, but we also create something special internally, you know, that really stands the test of time, you know, that that's a great example. I think Disney's another great, you know, example, obviously they've been in the news for kind of not the so-right reasons. That's true, but you know, that's every great, that's every, every big company, especially over 100,000 employees, you know, you're always going to have, you know, those fluctuate and that was also a challenge of this book. It's got to be honest with you, you know, I was very kind of hesitant and cautious of using what I deem as world-class cultures because what may be a culture, great culture right now, if there's a change in leadership or one of the senior leaders for tires or, you know, if there's some type of turnover, you know, that can be completely a different story next year. To your point though, that's a, that's a good commentary on why culture is not a time-bound initiative where there's like a deadline on it. It's not right. You know, in the book, I clearly say there's a start date and that's it, you know, most, most change initiatives, there's a start and end date like, hey, for the next six months, we're going to be doing this and, you know, but really building culture. I mean, there's a start date and then that's it, you know, it's ongoing from there. It's continual, it's relentless, it's got to be rigorous. You know, in the book, I use the term being fanatical, like you literally have to be fanatical. And until a lot of people that may seem aggressive, but that's literally what the best leaders do. They're fanatical about their approach and how they think of culture. What would be the, there was the five steps that you listed out, but I think the one thing that stands out to me is the ability to get this culture that is maybe initiated at the top and maybe also built from the bottom up wherever it comes from, to permeate every single piece of the company. That's the thing that I have to solve for. So what would be the advice that you'd give to an entrepreneur, CEO, founder is one main takeaway for if you want to get this to really stick with every single person so that when you ask the 20 people what the culture is, you get one answer, what would be that thing? Yeah, you have to very clearly, you know, what we talked about, and I really talked about so much in this conversation here is, you know, after you define that culture, like getting very clear on what that is, like there's no, like getting very clear on what definition. It's like it's truly the definition that makes it okay. Exactly, like in the book I kind of guide, you know, the reader through a process of like how to do that, what I call as a cultural purpose statement, it's not the mission statement, it's not the purpose statement of the organization, it's not the experience you want to create for the customer, it's the internal defineness of our culture, of what is that foundation, that DNA, that core, that really unbreakable root, you know, after you do that, you know, it's really getting very clear on then transferring over to the clear expectations. And this may sound kind of overboard to a lot of people like, well, it's not micromanaging, this is what the best, you know, football coaches even do, you know, what are the non-negotiable standards? You know, what are your standards? I think, I'm just appalled at how many founders, leaders, managers, you know, owners don't think, when they bring team members on, they don't have a clear definition of five to six standards, you know, the standard is the standard, right? And I'm not talking about just core values, like what is the standard for every single person that enters in your company that is employed by your company? What is the standard? Like, it's a non-negotiable, you know, I think getting very clear on that, and then you're to my third point would be kind of what you hit on, you know, after you define that and do that as a business owner, founder, or leader, you know, define your culture and getting very clear on the standards and expectations, you then have to be on the front lines, you know, I mean, it's literally, I think Tom Peters used that book in search of excellence, you know, classic business book, you know, talking about management by wandering around, you know, I think there's still too many leaders and founders that stay in their cubicle, they stay, you know, isolated in their office, they don't spend enough time interacting with people and picking up the phone and asking Elizabeth how she's doing, you know, what can I do to help you, to serve you, to kind of help create that, you know, I think engaging the heart and mind aspect is all about getting out there, living that on the front lines with your people, walking side by side with them. The last thing that I really was curious about your opinion on, because I know in sports, in particular, there's high performance culture. Now, high performance culture has its place, but it can be taken to the extreme in business too, where people that are listening to this are, I don't want them to misconstrue building these behaviors at scale, meaning that you're trying to melt the life out of everybody who works for your organization so that they're soldized and you're getting maximum output, because there is a toxicity with ultra high performing culture. So I want you to help somebody understand what is that balance between performance and the mental health and well-being of that team. How do you straddle that line when you're building a holistic culture? Yeah, great question. I think number one, you always have to keep the balancing act in top of mind. You know, and what I mean by the balancing act is, you know, there's two focuses, right? We have to drive the performance of the entire organization, the entire company, right? We have to win in market, we have to execute and accelerate at a very much quicker, faster pace, but on the flip side of that, we also have to build a healthier organization. So our performance and results cannot come at the expense of the mental health or well-being of our employees, right? And that is done by simply a lot of the stuff that we talked about here. I think, you know, I can clearly make the argument that it's also unhealthy to have a company where there is no expectations. There is no one-on-one meetings. Your employees have no idea what's expected of them, and they don't even know how they're doing currently on the job because that leader, that founder, they never tell them they're doing a good job. They never coach them. They never spend time with them individually. You know, and I think we started this conversation by you asking me, what do football coaches do better than than a lot of business leaders? I mean, it is their ability without a doubt to build that high performance culture that we talked about, driving those expectations, defining the culture, but then reverse engineering that to actually loving and coaching and serving the people that are within that organization, that team, you know, that business. You know, it's literally taking, defining that, setting the standard, but then not just micromanaging. There's no command and control, right? It is all walking side-by-side and asking people and then coaching them and training them, making sure and ensuring they have the competencies and skill sets to do their job in an effective manner. And then you also build that vulnerability, that place of empathy, and build that open space where people feel comfortable enough to kind of speak up about the challenges that are really disrupting their work place. Yeah. You know, as somebody who's played with so many coaches, I'm curious, when you think back now to the coaches that you've been an athlete under, what was the personality like of your best coach in your life? You know, so I've had a lot of great coaches. You know, we don't have the time here to talk about every single one and, you know, it's not easy. I don't want, and also don't like, you know, very cautious of, you know, you don't have to name names. I'm just curious about the personality. That's more than that. Absolutely. But, you know, I mean, so Terry Hetner, without a doubt, is probably the coach that made the biggest, you know, profound difference in my life, my coach in college. You know, his personality was kind of what I hinted towards. You know, he was very high energy. He was a very passionate man. You know, he was very, very serious and committed to winning. But at the same time, he also cared about you as an individual. He never cared, you know, or thought of you as, you know, Matt is, you know, great at football. You know, he's going to make the university and me millions of dollars. You know, that's it. We're just going to win at X's and O's. You know, he, one of the very first meetings he had with me, was he sat me down and said, Matt, you're going to get an opportunity to play at the next level. You're going to have a great career in the end. But one day you are going to be more successful outside of the game of football than you ever were playing the game of football. And right then and there, I knew that I, that was a, that was the first experience I had with a coach that cared about me as a person at the individual soul human being level, rather than just me being Matt the football player. So I think, you know, their personality is, they're still a strong commitment to excellence, to win, to win at all costs. But then the flip side, it's not forgetting the bigger picture that we're also building and developing people for the game of life. And I think that when you have that balancing act of performance and health, you know, you start to learn how to navigate through the daily complexities, you know, as time goes on. But Terry Hetner was probably one of the very best leaders at doing that at a consistent level. Amazing. I love, I love the description of how he led and, and just like a, like an avatar for how people should lead with empathy and human first and all of those, but again, more buzzwords, but they, they truly do have meaning when you see it, when you see it, when you live it, it lives it. Yeah. Yeah. It's only a buzzword when you just say it and you don't back it up with your behavior. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Let's, anything that you wanted to leave the, I will get the socials and the links to the book and that in a second. But last lessons or insights that you wanted to leave leaders, entrepreneurs, founders, anything on culture, on performance, on just things that, you know, have been top of mind for you that you think would be a good lesson to teach over. Yeah. I mean, just that, you know, I think I really can't stress it enough, you know, that culture truly is the way. You know, I think that there's probably a lot of listeners, you know, that you may have some small business owners that they're, they're solo, right? They're, they're solely by themselves and you may have somewhere, it's a 5, 10 team members and you may have some bigger companies, even though at this particular book is, is probably written for more of the medium to large size organizations. I, I think regardless of the size of your company, because most of your listeners, I, I did my research and know that you have a committed and, and loyal fan base and audience that wants to continue to grow their business and go to the next level, you know, and, and most people are looking to scale. And once you do scale and have more of that help and those team members, it's not so much about, you know, getting your team to go do what they need to do. It's about how do you build that foundational core. And I think that, you know, my, my closing plea would be, you know, to, to learn on culture, to talk to other leaders about culture, who you see as Indima's great culture builders, and then find out what those best practices are of how you can integrate that into your business, because it truly does make the difference, you know, of, of not only getting the funding that you need to go to the next level, but also attracting top talent. You know, I think everybody's aware about how hard it is to get great talent, you know, in their company and their, and their organization. And, you know, I think it was Glassdoor, I mean, their study after study where, I mean, it's not pay anymore. I mean, pay is very important, you know, in compensation, that's what every employee is looking for, but at the end of the day, they want to go to an organization and company that makes them feel that they're a part of something bigger, you know, not just profit and loss statements and collecting a paycheck. Yeah, no, I agree. This is like super topical, super important, and everybody's struggling to figure it out. So good topic to dive into in a big way. If people are going to go get your book, what exactly are they going to get from that book? So they understand what, you know, before they buy it, what are you trying to teach over? What skills such are they going to pick up? Yeah, I think they're going to get, you know, kind of a lot of what we touched on here today, except at a much more in-depth, you know, practical level. I think what I tried to do, the really goal of this book, Scott, was, you know, is to take a very complex subject such as workplace culture, distill it down to a very application and implementable practical way of regardless of the size of your company, regardless of your past experience, let's define culture together. Let's get very clear that it's not perks and what those misconceptions are. And then here's a framework. Here's a process of what's worked for some of the most dominant companies in the world. And let's go tailor this to your company, to your organization. You know, I think that that the book does that in a very concise and practical way. You know, and I think that for me, it was a major, major goal to not just take a high level subject, and then just talk, and here's all the research and data, and there's a lot of that in there. But then it's also about the action. It's all about what can you do? Because it's not about reading another book. It's about what are you going to take from that book and then put into action. And I think that that's what this book, that was really the sole basis and really the focus of this book. Amazing. If you would want to reach out to you, where should they go, all the socials, website, all that? Yeah, website is matmayberryonline.com and, you know, Mat underscore Mayberry is my social handle on, you know, Instagram, Twitter, you know, I'm pretty active on most social channels. Need to get a little bit better at that. But, you know, matmayberryonline.com and then mat underscore Mayberry would probably be the best route. Awesome, dude. Okay, last question I ask everyone before we close this out. If that incredible career, different seasons to your career between baseball, to football, to now author, motivational speaker. After all of this, what does success mean to you? Who, success to me means that you're doing what you love with people that you love, and making an extraordinary difference with whatever you deem that difference to be. You know, for me, that's kind of how I define success in my own life that, you know, as much as we all like to, you know, maximize and increase our income and, you know, increase our success and year after year grow our percentages by xyz amount of percent. You know, for me, it's truly about driving that impact, making an extraordinary difference. But most importantly, it's living life on my terms. It's building a life that I'm proud of, that with people that I love and getting to do that every single waking moment every single day.