Speaker 1: When your old career gives you lemons throwing some ice
mix in some vodka colored A podcast from the Mac
of All Trade Studio in Fairport and driven by Victor
Chrysler Dots jeep Ram. It's Billified the Bill Moran Podcast.
Speaker 2: Well, hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pot on.
Thanks for telling a friend. That's how we spread the
word about the pirate ship. I'm so excited today. I
wasn't sure this was actually gonna happen. But a guy
who I have always here's the thing about this person
I'm about to introduce. I knew about this person before
I met this person. Come on that. Yeah, I went
to Saint John Fisher. I had transferred in. I had
come in the August, you had graduated the previous May,
and I had heard the name Kevin lecgrett, like several times.
I had heard about Kevin mcgrett, and I think you
were still going and using the gym, and so people
would see you. Yeah it's Ligrett, man, he was and
I heard all that like they you. So you were
the guy I knew who you were before I knew you.
And then when I wound up needing a job, so
I did one year. Then I took a year off
and I did overnights on a rock station in Poughkeepsie
because my father told me I had I needed needed
to mature myself before of WPDH. I did WPDH. So
I did that midnight to six. And then when I
came back, he said to me he used to send
me money to party, and he goes, I'm not doing
that now. You got to figure this out on your own.
So I'm like, all right, I waited tables in the
summer in Utah in Park City. Do I do that
or radio? So I sent a tape to the program
director at CMF and he hired me. And then I
go in and there's Kevin Lecgrett and I'm like, oh
my god, this is the guy that everybody talked about
on Fisher It was basketball like you were the BMOC.
It was a long time ago. Well, sorry, have you
been over to see the campus?
Speaker 3: I haven't been over there. I give money, but I
haven't been over there in quite some time.
Speaker 2: Oh, your money's going doing well because the place looks
I mean it's tight, you know, it's kind of nice
the way Nazareth is more space, but it's tight over there.
It's a university. Now it's it's doing well. I'm friends
with the guys who run the psychology or more the
I guess they're more of a counseling what they're they're
doing over there.
Speaker 3: But they run that and his friends code word for
that you use them.
Speaker 2: No, I don't, I don't. I actually when I decided
that I needed to go back to therapy, I did
call them and they recommend it to somebody. So you're
absolutely true. I did. I had to do it. But
one of the things that I always found very, very
admirable about you was the ability to just I don't
want to say plow through, but achieve at a high
level consistently, and when you even go back even to college,
Like there was a knee injury that I think would
have ended a lot of people's careers from what I
heard from other people, I never really spoke to you
about the knee injury and how you came back from that.
And you know, when we think about these things, it
was Division three basketball. I'm not knocking that at all
because it's but it wasn't as though you were you
were a scholarship player or anything. You were paying right,
they couldn't offer anything exactly. You got financial aid and
things like that. Yeah, even during that time, I still
thought I was going to play for the New York
next That's the attitude you have to have. I mean,
I really think so. And it's funny because now I
have my fourteen year old son who is six to
one and one hundred and ninety pounds, and he loves basketball.
But there are days where it's like I don't want
to go to practice or I'm sick, or so I
make him call the coach. But he couldn't play last night.
They wouldn't let him suit up, and I'm like, buddy,
this is the stuff. So it's slowly right. Trying to
change those things with him. My thing now as a parent,
I try to be a matador and get you to
come over here without screaming and yelling and stopping and
doing all the things. I made a mistake with the
experiment that were before him, But I think that that's
part of it. But motivation is such a thing, and
I thought, boy, you could be a motivational speaker. I'm
sure you have been at some point in your life,
or write a motivational book on really how to just
get through because I stay to my sons all the time.
Life never stops coming at you. It's how you handle it,
and the only thing you can control your emotions, and
most adults can't well well. First and foremost, I'm blushing,
even though I've got this dark skin. I'm blushing.
Speaker 3: But what I would say to this is you never
forget the trauma that you had growing up. Sure, and
I always remember, you know, growing up in an apartment complex,
not having any money, always being concerned. I was very
fortunate that I was a pretty good athlete. I definitely
blossomed young, which means everyone thought I was going to
be great, and then I stopped growing and different things
like that. So what's always fueled me is the fact
that I always know that there's somebody else who wants
whatever I have achieved. So I never sit back.
Speaker 2: And go ooh, I've made it.
Speaker 3: Who I'm doing a really good job. It's like, Okay,
I got to keep grinding because whatever I did today
is not going to be good enough for tomorrow, and
it fatigues a lot of people, like, yes, it does.
I also know that as kind as you were about
the success and things that I've had, I also know
that I've burned people out because people have tried to
keep up with me, and it's hard to keep up
with me. I want to keep moving. I want to
be the energizer bunny. And I wake up in the
morning and the first thing I do is thank God
that I'm live. And then it's like boom, feet on
the ground. Let's start going. Let no breakfast, Let no breakfast,
let's go, let's go to go, get the work out in,
let's get some stuff done, Let's move, and let's start
being productive every single day. And even when I was
in Los Angeles for the last ten years, the big
thing I always talked about was the fact that I'm
just a kid from Rochester.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: So you guys can get caught up in all this
glitz and glamour.
Speaker 2: Now you realize that your friends make fun of you
for the kid from Rochester, a kid from the streets.
I hear from you from your best friends, that whole family,
and you know what I'm talking about. They will always go, oh, yeah,
yeah kid, and they really yeah, but he went to mcquad.
But I think you earned your way into mcquad. Laguad
is having had a son that went there. I think
it is one of the best schools I've ever seen.
Uh And I think I love that it's just guys
because it allows guys to be guys. Having I've talked
openly about substitute teaching. I think we teach young boys
almost wrong. It's schools not designed for them. You have
to sit for a long time and all this, And
there was a way in McQuay that they figured it
out for guys. And I had a kid that was
in and out of trouble, but man, he went there
and then onto college, transformed his body and ended up
on the Division one team as a thrower in Saint Louis,
and then unfortunately had surgery towards labor and that kind
of ended things for him. But here's here's what I
would say. I think it was all driven by mcway.
Speaker 3: I could do an entire hour on how great MCUAD
is and how much MCAD changed my life, how much
today the things that are my foundation are still from mccaid.
To me, it's the most amazing institute. I enjoyed it
more than I did college. I enjoyed it more than
some of the experiences that I've had in the business world.
And all the things I've learned, just because no matter what,
no matter how shit you won.
Speaker 2: You guys, you had Van Gundy as your coach in
nineteen eighty six, Yeah, didn't you win States?
Speaker 3: No, in nineteen eighty seven, we won.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: We were the first ever Section five champions and that
was under Jill Marques. Vangundy was only there for a year,
but he had ye, you know, an unbelievable impact on
sure that four year window of students. And then we
won in eighty seven. And the following year eighty eight
with Greg Woodard and Drew Henderson and JKM Jemmy they
won the States. First time they won the States. But yeah,
it was a.
Speaker 2: Pretty special time.
Speaker 3: But McQuaid, I mean, the great thing about mccread is
it teaches you about being competitive, but you know, understanding
that each and every day you've got to be the
best you can be so you can be part of
the team. And I'm not just talking about sports. I'm
talking about the team. I mean, you know what it's like.
You got all those honor rolls, you got all those
you know, when you're in class, you can't be the
dumbest kuy in class. You got to make sure you're
doing the work and digging in and different things like that.
And I learned from McQuaid, like the things that I
don't want to do, you do first in the day,
because if you just keep putting stuff off, all you
do is push it down, push it down, push it down.
You got to do the hard things first. So whether
it's you don't like reading, whether it's like you don't
like math, whether it's you don't like science, you got
to get that homework done right away.
Speaker 2: And I was very.
Speaker 3: Fortunate because I played a lot of sports, so I
was always in study halls. And the great thing about
mc as those study halls had a lot of teachers
that would help you and give you that one on
one time if you were falling behind or quite frankly,
just weren't getting anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that with my son, that the amount
of work. I don't know that it was just any harder,
but it was more demanding, right because people go out
so harder. I'm like, I'm not sure that you can
make trigonometry any harder than it already is. Just they
move it at pay move at a faster pace. He
was in an ap English class and I think they
in the first semester they were reading three books, discussing
one in class and needed a paper on all three.
And it was almost like, that's just the expectation, you know.
And I wanted it for him to tighten up the
margins because he was a really bright kid in Pittsford,
getting ninety fives and stuff. But it was all of
a sudden, you know, you get into around February March.
It's like, yeah, I don't worry about it. Jordan Handen
at the end of the week and I'm be like, no,
that that no. And mccuaiby be like, yeah, handed at
the end of the week, twenty points off. You know what
I mean. You know what I'm saying, And I like that,
and it was part of that motivation. I'm like, man,
I would have loved something like this, And I just
think it teaches you such things as you're saying. And
talk to anybody who sent kids there. The kids will
tell you college was easy because you had the discipline.
And I think that's the biggest thing is discipline. You
know that.
Speaker 3: My basketball team at Saint John Fisher used to always
think I was like a brainiac because I got great grades.
At Fisher, I always turned in my stuff on time.
I had no problem writing. You know, being at Fisher,
there's kids that came from let's say Albany, or came
from Syracuse. They didn't really know how to write. McQuay
teaches you how to read, write, and become disciplined. And
the great thing about that is if you stay on
a schedule, you never fall behind. So at Fisher, to
your point, I love Saint John Fisher, but let me
tell you something. It was a lot easier than mcuayy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that. I totally believe that. I didn't
go to a McQuay and I found it easier and
more enjoyable. I loved it. But that's interesting. But all
that focus in discipline, as you've gone through various parts
of your career and things, what is it when you're
trying then to motivate someone else, As you said, you
burn people out trying to keep up with you. That's
on them, I would say, But in a way, how
do you motivate people when they're hitting roadblocks or they're
having things in their lives and being able to read
people I think as a leader is really important.
Speaker 3: Well, part of it is you learn as you go,
and you learn from mistakes, and I probably have learned
more from the mistakes than the successes I've had. And
you also begin to think about moments that you had
in your life and people who you interacted with and
the way they worked with you. And I'll give you
an example. As I've gotten older, to me, it's all
about one on one relationships. I spent a lot of time,
like when I went to Los Angeles, I sat down
with every employee we had. They're over three hundred and
seventy employees, and wanted to know what made each one
tick those meetings. As you know, I always had my book,
I'm just taking notes on each person, and afterwards I
wrote my handwritten note, hey man, great meeting, referenced a
couple of things we talked about. But now I'm starting
to build a bond. Early in my career, I made
a huge mistake of managing and coaching everyone the same way.
And you have to understand that everybody looks at things
a little bit differently. I talked earlier about you know,
we're defined a lot by the traumas that we had
in adolescens and when we were growing up. Sure and
sometimes we don't even know those are trauma. Sometimes we've
even you know, suppressed them and things like that. But
the one thing I always remember, and I was talking
earlier today with Jim Johnson used to coach at Grease
the Theater. We were talking about Jeffan Gundy and jeff
Aangundy coached me from the summer of eighty five to
the summer of the summer of eighty five to the
summer of eighty seven, forty years ago.
Speaker 2: Forty years Thanks for minding me of that.
Speaker 3: But he could rip you in practice, like literally rip
you and make you feel like you were about as
big as an aunt. But he would come in the
locker room afterwards, and we had a locker room that
was just for basketball at McQuaid, and you know, the
guys would be done showering and we'd be getting ready
and he would sit next to you on the bench
and just start talking to you about life or talking
to you about current events and things like that, and
he was building a bond with you and letting you
know he cared and that what happened on the court
isn't necessarily the way he feels about you as a person.
And I always remembered that. So there are times when
I've got to be tough with an entire staff, but
I find the time to go to people individually, especially
the thought leaders on the team, and let them know that, yeah,
I'm not happy with what's going on right now, but
I still believe in you. We're still on the team.
Right We're going to make mistakes, We're going to solve
those mistakes very quickly, and we're going to continue the
momentum that we've had in the past when it comes
to being successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that you don't want to lose. You know,
you'll hear it in sports a lot. He lost the
locker room, right and the coaches in there, and you
don't want to lose anybody. And going to the thought leaders,
the gossip people. It's a nice way to say it,
thought leaders, but the people that would talk shit in
a way or say, you know, I've been here a
long time, this is a new guy. I think that
that's really really smart sometimes and empowering. Sometimes you have.
Speaker 3: To also with those thought leaders. You have to explain
why you did something or why you're doing something and
let them in and you'd be surprised that when you
let people in through the back door. Sometimes how much
they think that they're in the boat with you.
Speaker 2: You know. PJ.
Speaker 3: Flak, the head football coach at the University of Minnesota,
has a great saying and he actually wrote a book
about it called Row the Boat, and it's about being
on the boat. If we're not all not rowing in Unison,
the boat's probably going to flip over. And you got
to think about that, like really really hard. The other
thing I think that is really important as a leader
is you have to define who your glue people are.
And sometimes those glue people are not the leading scorer
on the basketball team or the number one biller, or
they're not the person that gets the accolades, but they're
the ones in the trenches that everybody that everyone recognizes
contributes in ways that don't necessarily show up on a
dashboard or a spreadshit. You know, think about the Chicago Bulls.
Denis Rodman was a glue guy. He was a distraction,
but he was a glue guy. He did a little
bit of everything. When you define who those glue guys are,
it can make a big difference. You think about the
current Buffalo Bills team, it's a guy like Dawson Knox.
You know, everyone talks about Kincaid's going to be the
next great one, but Dawson Knox is somebody who helps
control that locker room a little bit. Matt Mullane controls
that locker room a little bit, and there are going
to be times that they're upset with coach Sean and
you're going to need a leader to step up and
figure out how all that interacts. And that's why as
you build your team, you also have to build it
with other leaders, leaders that you trust, whether it's individual
players or employees, or its individual managers that can explain
sometimes the rationale behind why a coach did this or
did that. It's easy to lose the locker room. Nick
Sirianni lost locker room with the Eagles. You've got to
figure out how to bring that back around. And I
think it all comes down to having being in unison
with your thought leaders and also being in unison with
your glue people, because it makes a big, big difference.
If you look at a lot of really successful teams,
and I think pat Riley started this years and years
ago with the Los Angeles Lakers. They have an executive
committee and it's made up of seven or eight players
that meet with the head coach once a week. Mike
Tomlin does it with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and that's where
you solicit feedback.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So I always had what I called an AE council
because in our business and audio and streaming, we had
you know, the biggest part of the facility was the sellers.
Whether you had forty or one hundred sellers, you would
grab eight to ten of them and you'd have their
peers say who should be on the AEC council and
you talked to them once a month and ask what's
going on? And I always ask simple questions I learned
a long time ago. Ask open into questions because you'll
get people to respond freely.
Speaker 2: So my questions used.
Speaker 3: To always be what's going well, what's not going well?
And what's keeping you up at night? And you'd be
amazed that I'd have five people in the room and
myself so six total, and we could get through sixty
to ninety minutes with those three questions.
Speaker 2: Really, I think that's great. Would you never thought of
going into coaching. I don't mean coaching in terms of
life coaching, but I mean in terms of.
Speaker 3: Sports I absolutely did. Yes, And I'll be honest with you.
I just again, I had breakfast earlier this morning with
Jim Johnson, and one of the things he said is,
why did you never go into coaching? With all the
connections you have with the big Van Gundhi name Jeff
would do anything for you. I was scared of than
the nomadic lifestyle. Oh didn't want to go and one
year be an assistant at Wisconsin and the next year
be an assistant in Florida and then go to Division
two and be a head coach and work my way
up to Division one. It was just it was intimidating
to me. And again, as a kid who grew up
with nothing, I want to start making some money.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 3: I wanted to make money. And do I regret that?
I don't think I regret really that much. But do
I think about what might have been?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I absolutely do. I mean it would it be great
to be on the bench with the New York Knicks.
One yes, saying gunn he was the head coach. Absolutely,
I mean you know how much I love the Nicks
and that it's just it's just different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could have been there for what was in
Alonzo Morning that he the fight on the ground. He's
got he's being dragged around like a month. He's got
him by the ankle.
Speaker 3: Because Alonzo Morning and h and Larry Johnson didn't get
along and they faced off. They square it up with
this up and Ben Gunny.
Speaker 2: Was why was Van Gunny gonna throw at me? He's
like half through side.
Speaker 3: And Gunny was getting in between. And because he was
so small and Lonzo Morning was so strong, he literally
just flicked them off a fly. As he's going down,
he grabs a bunch of money. Well it was, it
got worse. I don't know if you if you remember,
I think it was nineteen ninety nine. Martin Luther King day,
Marcus can Be and Danny Ferry in the middle of
the day squared off and Bengundi run on the court,
ran on the court. Marcus Canby square punch his coach
Ban Gundhi in the temple and Bengunny went down. You
got a Google litter, Oh my god too. But it's
pretty funny. He never learned his lesson. Oh well, you're
trying to, you know, keep the guys. You don't want
them eating each other, so to speak. And you don't
want your players to get hurt.
Speaker 2: That that's interesting. I love the idea of the council. Yeah, yeah,
it matters. Did you did other people do that in
the business? U? Yeah, oh they did. They started doing it.
It became something, but you started it.
Speaker 3: I started. I started. I never called it initially an
AE council called it. I called it my executive insight Team.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know me, I always had those like little
little saying you know, fluty and things like that, because
I loved Flutie when he was at the Bills. I
always had like little names for things. But I just
think it means a lot. I learned a lot from
watching great coaches, and I was very fortunate. Again we've
used his name a couple of times, but with Jef
van Gundy. When myself and another McCoy graduate, Greg Whitter,
would go watch the Knicks practice, one of the things
I always noticed is that after practice, pat Riley would
always be in this little stairway talking to Patrick Ewing.
And one day we were at lunch afterwards and I asked, Coach,
I go, how come Coach Riley always talks to Patrick
in the in the stairwell, And he said, one of
the things you learn as a leader is how to
be able to effectively communicate with all of your players.
And Patrick is a guy that has huge pride, and
if you correct Patrick in front of the group, he
goes into a shell and he's not happy about it,
and he feels like you've attacked him.
Speaker 2: So Coach Riley.
Speaker 3: Spends time with him out to practice and tells him
areas that he thinks that either he needs to work
on or areas where he may not be giving the
best effort, and that message is better delivered one on one.
And I always it was one of those moments because
at the time I was working, I think I was
running one sales org and I was getting promoted to
run an entire group of like four or five sales orgs,
and all I kept thinking about the entire time was
I got to make sure everyone gets on my plan. Yeah,
And it wasn't that way. It was like, how can
we create a strategy, get everybody to understand the strategy,
and then individually build tactics to be able to achieve
the overall goal.
Speaker 2: So what I'm hearing you say is meet the person
where they are.
Speaker 3: Not necessarily where they are but at least halfway.
Speaker 2: Okay, because if.
Speaker 3: Someone's in a dark, dark corner and they can't be saved,
you can't go into that corner because you'll end up
going on a spiral with them.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. But sometimes you have people who
are working and motivating, but they don't want to be
shamed so to speak, or disciplined or whatever the term
would be in front of people. But you can kind
of see that modify. Yeah, that's interesting because.
Speaker 3: Some of the biggest wins of my life, Bill are
when I have had someone who initially was one of
my biggest critics who becomes my biggest fan by the
time our time together is over. Because all of our
time together is limited. I mean, you and I've had relationships,
We've been as thick as thieves, and then we go
five years without really working together, and then we're back
together again, and then it disappears. That happens in life.
That's why those moments are so important, and you can
never not register like did I make an impact?
Speaker 2: Did I do what I needed to do to Let
me just tell you the impact you made. I walked
into a basketball game last night and I notice a
kid on the other team who is really little like go.
I can't believe this kid's in ninth grade and he's
got his shirt practically comes down to his knees. A
couple minutes later, his parents walk in and it's an
old friend of ours, heath who that says to me, Hey,
do you hear who's in town? He said that he
works with the in law of yours and you were
there and you and you call or they called whatever
it was my wife's cousins. Okay, But the thing that's
so funny to me is it's the same thing you have.
You've done exactly what you wanted to do. If there
are raving fans, there are raving fans. People get excited
when you come to town. I'm not one of them,
but but they do. I know. But the it's an
interesting isn't it. I mean, it's got to make you
because I'm sure when you're the new guy coming in somewhere,
you're gonna have enemies and how do you get people
to come over? And you're demanding and I don't mean
it as like, but you have standards, right, so let's
meet those standards and getting people to come aboard. Sometimes
you're you you lose some people along the way, right,
and and yeah, others who stick around I think start
to see the benefit of that.
Speaker 3: I've kept any negative exit interview I've ever had with
an employee that has been about my leadership, I've kept
that file just because I always want to make sure
that I learned from it. You know, sometimes getting harsh
criticisms can be the best thing for you because it
can level set things. But yeah, at the end of
the day, Bill, I've always wanted to bring people together
to do things as a team that they couldn't do
as individuals, right, And my whole goal was how do
we motivate a team, have the right strategy and push
them so that we can achieve things they never thought
they could do. We were able to do that, I mean,
it was amazing what we did years and years ago
at WCMFE. Then we took the same blueprint, customize it
a little bit. Then we did the same thing at
ninety eight PX. Well, I remember coming back from an
event with you at w CMF when we were driving
and we were making a left hand turn into the
went and Road facility and coolioh was on the air.
It was when that Coolio song with Michelle whatever it
was that movie that.
Speaker 2: She was in. Yeah, it was a Gangster's Paradise, my man,
you know it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I turned to you and I said, if somebody
gave me p X wider run, I would I would
just desroy. He did say that, and six months later
Bob Morgan gave that to me and we I mean
nineteen ninety six, nineteen ninety seven, it was record record building,
like they couldn't believe the numbers we were putting up with.
And that's what got me on people like Don Blucas
and Steve Dodgers' radar screen right. And then we took
that and moved into the director. Where does the confidence
come from? Because you have to I'll take it to
more of.
Speaker 2: A metaphysical idea, which I know it's pope a little
weird for you, but well, I don't mean but it is.
But a belief is a thought that you think over
and over whatever that is right, And I'm one who wonders, now,
do you have to grind as hard or do you
have to really just believe and know the way. So
my question for you is, you did say that, give
me p X Y and I will do this and
it's the top forty station in Rochester, New York. And
at the time, I mean, I guess if you were
to show it was underserved or underserving under delivering, let's
say that way in revenue. And where does that confidence
come from? Because lots of people start out with you know,
I'll call that bluster, but they can't deliver, and I
bluster's not the right word, but they can't deliver. And
so to have that belief in yourself, where does that
come from?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if it was confidence or if it
was or belief in myself. I think it was always
I looked at situations for the potential. I never looked
at job opportunities for the money. I looked first and foremost,
can I win? Can I make a difference?
Speaker 2: And can I.
Speaker 3: Build this team or recruit people who can put me
in a position so I can be successful. That was
always my filter at a young age, and it's kind
of expanded since then. Sure, I never felt like it
was just confidence. I think that my secret sauce has
always been that. And you'll laugh, but it's just a
phrase that everybody uses. Is no one is going to
outwork me at my job. So, and I mean that
because they're going to be people in the office that
actually work harder than me, people who are on the air,
or people in promotions or whatever it may be. But
when it came to anyone that was in the Rochester
market that was leading the market, let's say they were
the market president like I was, they weren't going to
outwork me, and no one in the company was going
to outwork me on that. And at the end of
the day, I still believe that hard work and disciplined
hard work that is focused is always going to win.
There are people that are in jobs for twelve fifteen
hours a day and they're failing because they're not disciplined.
They're not doing the things that need to get done.
Speaker 2: Well. I was always focused on doing the things I
needed to do. That's interesting because I believe more now
and having gone through this experience and keeping this podcast
going for two years. I mean, I always say, and
the guys make fun of me, the barrier to entry
for anything is gone, so you don't necessarily need the
middleman as much anymore. Or you know, like a delivery system,
it's there, you can find it. You can do the structure,
but the idea of like, you know, you did outwork
out work that can become mentally exhausting for some people,
and I often think that, but I say, now we
have to do hard things. And the reason we have
to do hard things, in my opinion, is the satisfaction.
When I was on radio, I didn't know how I did.
I could leave a studio and feel like I did
a great fucking show man. I let the world on
fire that day, and I wouldn't know the results for
three months, four months. And that's why I liked working
with my hands and hanging a door, because I could
look at that and go, I did that today, and
there was some tangible thing. But I really think by
doing hard things, you start to get that satisfaction. And
part of the reason that I think the grind, as
people will say, is important, is that you start to
see the progress. And when you start winning, you feel
better and you can push further and you can do that.
And I've had my youngest son probably you know, I
think it has been a traumatic experience for him with parents,
you know, splitch. His mom was in Alabama. He's in
and out of different schools, and I can see it.
But that's where My thing with him is let's do
hard things. Let's do hard things. And that's why, like
I try to get up and I haven't been as
consistent about it over the probably since I started the podcast,
but I am now is I'll get up and I
jump in a freezing cold shower. I have the tabata
timer and I do it for like a minute and
a half, and I try to make sure I get
just because it wakes up. But I like the hard
things and I feel good I get out of there,
and sometimes I'm laughing. It's like, oh my god, I
did it a minute a half. Can I go a
minute thirty five? Those are the things that then the
rest of the day you can push yourself through other
obstacles that are going to come at you. They just are.
And if also, I always talk about the zone. You
can get in that zone, and it's kind of to
me it's a higher frequency in your mind. It just is.
Speaker 3: I had a phrase that I started using probably my
last five or six years in Los Angeles to my team,
and it was always embraced the suck. Yeah, matter what, sure,
you're going to have things that really suck that you
don't want to do. You've got to embrace the suck,
and in many cases, you've got to do what sucks.
Going back to my McQuaid training, yep, right away, right,
you know, it's like, believe it or not, I don't
really like working out, but I know, based upon my
family's history with long devity, based upon you know, heart
disease in my family saying I gotta get up first
thing in the morning, I could get that workout. It, man,
I got to go. And many days I don't want
to do it. It's it's embraced the suck. And when
it's over, to your point about working hard, you feel great.
Speaker 2: I feel great, I.
Speaker 3: Accomplished something, it's done, et cetera. I watched I'm sure
you watched it because I know you do a lot
of research for all the shows that you've bet on.
But I watched an admiral give as commencement speech, and
one of the things he said was the number one
thing you do is make your bed. Like I'm staying
at my sister in laws right now, the first thing
I do every morning is make my bet. That bet
is made and it's as tight as it looks like
in a hotel.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't do it that well. But my kid
will always say, you make your bed every day, Yes,
every day, make your bet because at the end of
the day, you're coming home to a made bed and
it feels better. And it's all about feeling good. That's
the main thing. Is like I feel like our whole
job on the planet. There's no meaning to life other
than the meaning you apply to it. That's it, you know.
Speaker 3: You and I had talked off the air about the
fact that I've kind of gotten really into Ryan Holiday
in the Stoic Away and Marcus Aurelius and things that
he wrote about. But he wrote a lot about how
tough the world is and how tough life is, and
this is going back to the Roman times. Sure nothing
has changed today. What has changed is we've gotten softer
as society. We've lowered our standard. One of the reasons
I like Mike Tomlin with the Pittsburgh Steelers is the
standard is the standard. You know, let's not ever lower
our standards to make other people feel good. And it's
one of the criticisms that I would say when you
look at school districts and you look at how school
districts grade out, well, the benchmark for all the school
districts was what is the graduation rate and what is
the suspension rate? And then we'll say whether the school
is doing good or not. Well, it's really easy to
trick that. Oh, sure, increase the graduation rate by lowering
suspension rate, right, simple, keep those kids in school, and
we wonder why school systems are starting to fall. We're
to your point, you know twenty minutes ago about McQuaid.
McQuaid never lowers the standard of anything. They're increasing the
standard of what needs to be done. When I was
at mccaid, there's no ap classes out of the same classes. Well,
they're challenging themselves and it's going to continue to get
better and better. With a guy like you know, Steve
Saluzza as the president there, they're going to keep pushing
that place and try to make sure that they continually
are educating and developing men for others, but at the
same time developing people who can be real contributors to society,
whether that's here in Rochester, whether that's in Los Angeles,
whether it's in Atlanta, wherever it may be.
Speaker 2: Let's transition a little bit to ego and I follow
me on this one though, because as a leader, you've
got to have ego, and ego is something they can
often be talked about, even in metaphysically, like you'll hear
people say put the ego aside, put the egoside as
a leader who's going to be successfu And you mentioned
a book off air called Good to Great and it
was a great read. I loved it. I read it
and I don't even know why because I was just
doing radio talking, but I found it really beneficial. And
one of the things that I saw companies and it
was all about combaties that were good, they were doing fine,
they were holding their own and how they transitioned into
being great companies. And one of the ones at the time,
and I don't know if it's still the case or not,
was Walgreen's. But what the CEO talked about was hiring
people that were smarter than him. Now that's putting your
ego aside, and that's very hard for a lot of
people because they don't want to be challenged in a way.
As the leader. It's their thing. They have worked so
hard to get where they are right, there's a lot
of personal investment. Sometimes it's their whole identity. And now
you're going to come in and do this and this,
and I forget who was the head of Walgreen at
the time, but they would hire people who who could
be CEOs anywhere, and somehow we're able to retain those people,
make them feel valued, and they grew into an amazing company.
How do you that's hard to do. It's hard to
retain those people because they too have rite a life,
as you said, and all that stuff, and then it's
hard for I think anybody who's achieved to sort of
step back and put the ego aside a little bit
and listen to people who you may say, that guy's
really smart, but you know way to be before you
come blasting me in here and what. There's like a
couple of things.
Speaker 3: First, I would say you always have to challenge yourself
that it's not because of you, it's because of the team.
And when you begin to think it's all because of you,
that's when your ego gets out of control.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: I mentioned Ryan Holiday, the author a while ago. He
has another book called Ego Is the Enemy, and it's
one of the it's a it's a book that really
will change it. It's based upon the writings during the
Roman Empire, but it also if you talk to a
coach like old miss Lane Kiffen, and I'm not trying
to pigeonhole myself is just a jock or a football guy.
But Lane Kiffen talks about the fact that when he
was a successful offensive coordinator for Pete Carroll at USC
and they won national championships, and then all of a
sudden he became the whiz kid head coach of the
Oakland Raiders right in the middle of the night, went
to Tennessee, then left Tennessee in the middle of night,
went to USC. His ego was massive, and then he
got fired in the tarmac after getting blown out and
didn't know where he was going to go, and he
was humbled, and he read egos in the Enemy. And
the one thing it talked about is that you're only
as strong as the team you.
Speaker 2: Build and own.
Speaker 3: Your legacy is going to be based upon your ability
to be successful with that team, not about you. And
one of the things I've always tried to do in
my career is understand that when things are going great,
I probably had a really small part of it, and
when things are going bad, I probably had a huge
part of it because I took my eye off the ball,
and I think that's that's humility, and that's what ego
is the enemy really really talks about. I'll use Jeff
Aan Gundy again as an example, and Jeff Van Gundy
finally got the head coach job. At the head coaching
job after Don Nelson was blown out with the Knicks,
I was in his office with the Knicks and it
was a desk and on the desk he had all,
you know, all of his files everywhere, but around the
room were just boxes. And I go, hey, coach, are
you going to unpack these boxes? Like you've had this
job for a little while this and that I want
you get your assistant to do it. And he goes,
this really isn't my office. I'm renting this. There were
coaches in here before me, and there'll be a lot
of coaches in here after me. What I need to
do is to focus on what's going to happen on
that court tonight. And that laser focus was something that
I always thought about, like, no matter how high I
got at whatever media company I was working for or
running at the time, it was all about the fact
that this is a temporary job because things are always fluid.
Those people who think that they actually made it and
sit down and are like, I'm ready now.
Speaker 2: When you lose, and I mean, believe me, I've I've
learned that more than once. And I think that there
were times where I would be so motivated, you know,
every once in a while. I don't know why, but
I rewatched The Last Dance and it's the whole story
of the Bulls and Michael Jordan, and there's a lot
of focus on Jordan, other players as well, but mostly
on him, and that whole idea of making something up
in your head, uh, to have a chip on your
shoulder and go out there. And I often go, that
sounds so like mentally crazy. Whenever I had a chip
on my shoulder and I had a whole fuck you,
a whole canon of fuck you, I did much better,
you know what I mean. And I don't know what
that is because I go, boy, that sounds again like exhausting.
I don't want to have people you know, you're just
so rigid and you hate it. But yeah, it's not
doesn't seem like a good life.
Speaker 3: The older I've gotten, the softer okay me on this stuff,
because I used to always use every snub, Yes, motivation, y,
I did too, But I think you learn over time.
Some of that stuff is really good. I mean, the
last dance phenomenal. You know, when Michael gets emotional talking
about the fact that I did everything I did to
win championship and if people he knows people enjoyed that,
if they want to look back at it now and
say it was a horrible experience this and then in
the moment, everybody enjoyed being a world champion.
Speaker 2: Sure they did.
Speaker 3: And what I always used to say to people is,
no matter how hard it is, do me a favor
and tell me you didn't get better, And tell me
your bank account didn't get higher. Yeah, sure, And I
would drop the mic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Because one of the things I was always very focused on,
where are people making more money working for me because
they're taking part in the six And the second thing
is am I constantly making people better? Am I making
them more well rounded as employees or as individuals?
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's good. How do you keep yourself from
getting stale and keep evolving, you know what I'm saying,
Trying and change the thinking the culture of something. You
can go so far and then you've got to keep going.
So how do you do that with yourself? Is if
the books that you're reading is there. Obviously you've mentioned
a couple of books. There's an investment in yourself to
be that leader.
Speaker 3: I think I think it's it's it's minifold. I think
the first is you've got to be a passionate reader.
Read how people did things, both in the past but
how they're currently looking at things and evolving. I think
number two is you got to have a great cabinet
of people you respect and you've got to constantly be
talking to them. And those are people that are inside
but mostly outside the industry, because they give you a
different perspective. I got a friend now who runs a
big optical company, a glass company, and it's international, and
to hearing him talk about the challenges he faces today
versus what it was like when he was managing radio
stations on the East Coast, it's night and day, and
it really gives me a different perspective, and it challenges
you to promote, to approach your business a little differently.
And the last thing, and as you know, I'm a
sport nut, I think that one of the greatest things
you can do to always constantly reignite yourself is to
watch sports. It's the greatest reality show going and the
lead up to it, when you hear how people actually
approach things, is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: I'm excited.
Speaker 3: I learned today that Peacock has been doing a behind
the scenes on the Notre Dame football They extended it
by six episodes because they obviously are in the National Championship.
I can't wait to see how Marcus Freeman motivates his team.
Because if you're constantly being a student in life and
picking up little tidbits from other people, you then can
woven into your own approach. Yeah, and you constantly have
got to be changing it. None of us are a
finished product. We're all still.
Speaker 2: Being molded into the sculpture that I always think, like,
you're not the same person you were five years ago.
You're not. And that was always sort of my problem
with the idea of a cancel culture in that if society,
if the pendulum is moved and this is no longer acceptable,
let the person learn the lesson then move forward. But
we instead it was this whole we're going to shut
you out and cut you out, and I go, boy,
that doesn't move things forward. That to me is a
terrible way to do things. But remember human nature, and
mostly human nature in America, loves a comeback. So there's
no question you can be canceled, but you can come back.
You're just so strong, if not stronger. If that isn't
like the one of the truest things that has ever
been said, it's absolutely we love a comeback, love it,
we do. And you love a comeback story. And I
think that the Vice president in a week or so,
you know his whole Netflix story. I mean it's a comeback, right,
you watch that guy be a comeback.
Speaker 3: But not only him, I mean you, but you got
to look at what the president has done. I mean, yes,
he was disgraced and to be able to energize and
win the popular vote, it is pretty staggering. As somebody
who is knee deep in this political cycle, I ran
political for a media company for the last fourteen months.
It is it's a pretty remarkable story. Like dislike whatever
it is.
Speaker 2: It's like, wow, yeah, right, I have to agree with that.
I do. And I don't know that things will be
as bad as some people fear or worry or whatever
the thing is. I think that it's an outsider. We
often say the country needs to be running a business,
and then we don't put a business guy in there.
Now you do, and you get scared because he's not
meeting the standard of the office, by which I don't
know that there really is. But we would say, ether
there's this idea that you have to be presidentially, you
have to be this, and you have to do that,
and some of the things certainly weren't that, you know,
I mean, the fact that you turn it into a
w I think, like I remember watching the first debates
of the first time and he's calling names. I'm like,
holy shit, you can do that. I didn't know you
could do that. And it was a different way. But
it might be the way in like business, right, you
might call somebody that and that's your motivating thing. I
don't know, whatever it is. As long as I'm upbraiding
and breathing and think I'm fine. At the end of
the day.
Speaker 3: We still need to be able to communicate across the
as and we need to be in ab to have
disagreements and learn from the disagreements. It's it's when everyone
becomes my enemy and I'm going to kill well, that's
when there's a problem. But I mean, I think that
there are the best Some of the best relationships I've
had in my life are are born out of disagreements
or arguments with people. I mean, you remember back in
the day, some of the brawls I used to have
with brother We's yeah, yeah, and the love that the
two of us have for each other. It's even today.
You grow tighter through conflict, you grow tighter through disagreement
because now you start to understand how the other people
person's wired and how they think exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think that a lot of times there are
people who will acquiesce or back off or whatever, and
I'll always say, stand your ground and have your points
and bring them forth. You don't have to come with
a lot of fire, but you need to be steady
and you need to be strong, and that does give
you then I know what this person is right, and
you don't want to be wishy. What beage is the
worst color in the world to me, And it's the
color of the walls here, but it's the worst color
in the world because I can't identify it as anything
I want to know. I know what red is, I
know what black is, I know what the yellow is?
I got that bege, I'm not sure, and I think
as a person you don't want that either.
Speaker 3: I had a manager one time that used to push
the managers when we would do breakout sessions really really,
really hard and used to say, why are you being
so difficult? We're crushing it. He said, I want to
understand where this person breaks, because then I'll understand how
far I can actually lead them in the.
Speaker 2: Organization, how high they can go in the organization.
Speaker 3: And it was a unique approach. I'm not sure it's
an approach that would work today, but he would push
them hard, hard, hard. I also had, you know, a
female boss at another media company, and she, you know,
constantly would challenge, challenge, challenge, challenge, many times on basic things.
She just wanted to make sure that you thought it
through and she wanted to make sure that you were
going to stand by your conviction. Just looking for those
people who didn't want conflict that said, you know what,
you're right, this doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get bill this raise. He doesn't
really deserve it. You're right, yeah, And that was and
those are not the people that you really want standing
by it, right, Those are not the ones Kevin. This
has been great. I think that I don't know what
plans are for Kevin LEA Grett, but I see Kevin
LEC Gret consult thing concernedly thrive or is there a book?
Is there a book coming? I think I'm going to
you know a lot of authors and things. I mean,
I know you know people.
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to be the executive producer of
BILLI five oh, are put together some sales org here
to that would be amazing and maybe gets you some
help so you're not doing the video, the audio and
lighting up the guests.
Speaker 2: It is. It has been a one man band and
labor of love. Though you can see that you love it.
I do love it. Uh. It's what I've always enjoyed.
And the podcast has been better than I I didn't
know what to expect, right, So you don't really know, uh,
and it's been It's been successful in the podcast world.
When you look at what podcasts get on numbers on
nationally and go outside the Rogans and the you know
other people call her daddy and things like that or whatever,
it is. Uh, is it good? Yeah? Ex camera, Yeah,
those podcasts do huge, huge numbers. But they're far and
few between, and you look and once did you get
a niche? And then it's just growing it. And I
would love to at some point have an entire production company.
I would love to have my own building that I own.
I'd love to have edit sweets for video. I'd love
to be doing some docuseries and continue on. That is
kind of my goal with that.
Speaker 3: Just remember Dave port and only started off doing blogs.
You can do whatever you put your mind too, well,
I believe that build it out, Yeah, and seriously, it's
about passion. It's about having people who believe in you,
and it's about building out something that's sustainable well at
the same time being able to energize your audience, and
that audience will follow you anywhere. I mean, I was
reading an article this morning about Pat McAfee and how
high those numbers grew for college game Day this year,
and they're attributing all of them to Pat McAfee because
all of those numbers are eighteen, twenty four, twenty one,
thirty four, and they're coming from They're not coming for
Nick Sabe. But even though Nick Saban's been unbelievably yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Agree with but it's also great that Saban. Uh. I
don't know if Saban was aware of his face and
low reaction to things like he just doesn't really react right.
Everybody else jumped around and that was highlighted by McAfee,
which just you know what I'm saying, And but Saban
embraced that and it kind of had made him more
an endearing character. Question. I think the commercial for Airbnb
with him where he's mowing the lawn and you know,
no one won't showers more than five minutes is kind
of the guy we expect him to be great and
to put that guy, I mean, all comedy is is
taking that guy and putting him in a situation that's uncomfortable, right,
I mean, you know, a hot chicken. There's a yoga
studio down here. Some of the guys on the podcast
we have to pause because they all have to watch
the yoga girls leave. Right when you had Jimmy in
here a couple of weeks, he paused, Yeah, So the uh,
what I'll always say to these guys if you pointed
out one of them and said, oh, and this is terrible,
what a slut? Nobody thinks anything. But if all of
a sudden, somebody who's coming to the chiropractor that's also
down there, and they're old and they got a cane
and they're hunched over and go, man, want to slut
that woman? Is that's funny because it's the diconomy. And
I think that's really what McAfee has brought. I mean,
that's without even knowing it's just his personality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very proud of the fact that in I
think it was twenty ten or twenty eleven, I was
overseeing the Indianapolis market and a gentleman named Rick Green
and I were approached by a morning show Bob and
Tom and Tom.
Speaker 2: Griswold, who really was.
Speaker 3: Leading that show when it came to adding things, came
to us and he said, Hey, I really want to
put this guy in the air with us. We need
about twelve thousand dollars during the football season, and we're like, well,
who's the person he's aid the punter for the Indiapolis Colts.
Can I go, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: Like a punter? You gotta be kidding me?
Speaker 3: Like I ran the Buffalo Bills Radio network had Doug Flutie.
I'm brother, you know, I had Drew Black, So I'm
like the punter. What are you talking this guy's character? Man,
He had just gotten arrested for jumping in the river
and he was intoxicated. And so Rick and I went
back and forth, and Tom kept kept being really passionate.
He came in the next day, so I said, let's
give it a try. And that's how Pat McVay started.
Speaker 2: You're kidding me, he I would never ever give the
credit for it, but it started with the Bob and
Tom Show, and as the executive what was the division
president of Indianapolis at the time, I signed off on
the deal and we did Pat McVay. Wow. Ye.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm sure that if I if I saw Pat
and I talked to him, he would remember that because
I didn't meet him several times when he would come
in and be on Bob and Tom. But what he's
been able to do is been it's been truly amazing.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And you know the best part about it, he was
really really smart that he did it as his own business. Yes,
it was almost like years ago. We used to talk
with that program director. I forget what his name was,
but he used to always talk about Charles Locodera and
the Big Mattress Show. And yeah, Charles owned that entire
so that guy's name.
Speaker 2: Was like you do, Harry, wasn't it Jacobs?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, dark dark time.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I was so positive this whole thing. You
might cut that out. No, there was a time where
I talked about him and I made fun of him
on when I was doing mornings on CMF and they
got a call. I think we tried to call him
and he didn't want to come on or whatever it was.
He threatened. He threatened something like some lawsuit or something,
and I was like, that's not what this was. I
only said dark dark period, and well I did. I
just said that. Well, thank you for giving me some time.
I know that. It's great. It's great seeing you as well.
And uh, I got to tell you. You know, I've
been making a lot of changes for myself right in here,
and they for me, uh, probably started at the end
of October. And uh, it's been a it's been it's
been kind of I guess a grind. I don't know
what it's been, but it's been interesting. It's been fun,
and I've seen progress. And then talking to guys like you,
it just makes it so much better.
Speaker 3: Life only life only throws obstacles at you that they're
sure that you can handle if you're willing to accept
the challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would believe that, Absolutely believe that. For Kevin Legret,
let's go. Oh, I can't believe I got him on
the podcast, who once called me and said, you've had Charlie,
you've had Greg, You've had when's my turn?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: I am getting When am I getting on? Right? Greg
Connors doesn't know as much about the bills as I do.
Come on, well, I don't know Greg. Greg. I always
say he's going to be the future owner, but I'm
not sure that would be awesome he is, So watching
a game with Greg is an interesting Uh, that's a task.
I'll come on anytime. You would do it for my life?
All right, that'd be great for Kevin Lagret. I'm Bill Moran.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Califonia down Worth is the land up opportunity?
Speaker 2: For me? Is just a cursey tell that you don't
makers Field. I don't have to wa