Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Bonus Episode: The Road to Joy with Scott Drew

Mark Cole:

Hey podcast listeners, Mark Cole back with you on the Maxwell Leadership podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders, who multiply value to others. I’m Mark Cole, CEO of the Maxwell Leadership Organization. But today I’m one of the luckiest guys alive, because today joining me on this podcast is not only John Maxwell live and that’s such a treat, John, we’re so glad you’re here. Thank you for constantly bringing leadership and your friends to talk leadership. But I’m also joined in the podcast by Don Yaeger. Now you know, Don incredible writer. He has this incredible podcast that you need to be a part of, but he’s also a Maxwell Leadership thought leader. And he is really helping us expand and grow our legacy to bigger, better, more influential impact. But today he has brought a longtime friend of John’s, a longtime household name to the studio with us today.

And we are joined by head coach of the Baylor Bears men’s basketball team, Scott Drew. Now, you know Scott, because he’s 2021 National Championship Coach. You know him because he has truly been a turnaround coach of transition and transformation, but let me tell you what else you know, or may not know about Scott, he just released in partnership with Don Yaeger, he released the book, The Road to J.O.Y.: How Leading with Faith, Playing with Purpose and Leaving a Legacy, can shape how you lead and interact on a daily basis.

And so today I’m excited. You’re going to love this podcast. If you would like to download the bonus resource for this episode, it’s a fill in the blank worksheet and you can accompany the conversation with Fill in the Blanks, go to maxwellpodcast.com/scottdrew. That’s Scott with two Ts, click the bonus resource button. But again, enough about me. My role today is to get out of the way, because Don first to you, how cool, how incredible was it to work on a project with the Scott Drew, making his story come to life about The Road to J.O.Y. Tell us a little bit about that and launch us for the first question.

Don Yaeger:

I have to tell, Mark, John, we’ve, we’ve all worked around books and book projects. Every once in a while, you get that opportunity where you just know that not only are you going to get honored to work on someone’s book, you’re going to grow in the process. And I knew from day one that Scott Drew was going to help me as a man, as a father, as a leader, as a Christian. He was going to help me grow, just by the way he conducted himself. And so Scott, I want to jump in because I want to value every second we have on this podcast. You came to Baylor, as we detail in the book, when basically no one in the world had any interest in the job. You had one year of head coaching experience. The program was in trouble. Everyone in the sport knew that NCAA investigations were going to lead to hefty penalties. Why did you believe it was the place for you? And how did you have vision that you could be successful there?

Scott Drew:

Well, first and foremost, this is an honor and privilege being with you and John and Mark today. And I had no idea. John actually had helped my dad when he was at Bethel college, gave him some great coaching advice, talked to the team back in the day and helped my dad become the coach that he’s become. Obviously, your relationship with Dale Brown had an impact on my dad. My dad gets in the hall of fame. I actually learn a couple things from him and we’re able to be successful. So I owe you guys a lot. Thank you very much.

With that, whenever you have made your life decisions, when you have any decisions, hopefully you’re prayerful. And one thing I’ve always God put on my heart was to coach at the highest level, to have a chance to win National Championships, and to do it honoring him and giving him the honor and glory. Baylor University, largest Baptist school in the nation, the last time they had had a tournament win was 1950. Valparaiso University was the largest Lutheran school at the nation and theirs tournament success was about the same.

My dad went to Valpo when I remember Digger Phelps was like, “Homer, you can’t go there because it’s a dead end job. You’ll never win there.” Five years later, they start to turn it around, have the first winning season and Valpo becomes a household name during the ’90s. And that blueprint, I thought we could do just that at Baylor. The big reason why you go, God says go. I prayed about it. I felt led to go there and where people thought we weren’t going to be successful at Valpo, we had done that with God’s blessing and I thought we could do the same at Baylor.

John Maxwell:

Wow. Now I got to jump on this for a moment because you had several probation things on your back. You hadn’t had a successful winning program for many, many years, and yet you turned it around. And one of the things I’ve always said about leadership is, if you really want to know a great leader, they need to be what I call a U-turn leader. And a U-turn leader is somebody that gets into an organization when it’s going down, it’s going down. It’s not going up at all. And then they turn it and they flatten it out and stabilize it, and then they bring it back up. That’s a U-turn. You caught it here. And you brought it back over to here.

To me, that describes you, Scott. You really caught it at the bottom and you turned it around. Help all of our listeners, give me one thought, when you think of taking something that’s not doing well and turn it around, what’s the one thing when you look at Baylor that you could just say to me, this is what we did that began to give us hope, began to give us a glimpse of what we could become.

Scott Drew:

Great question. First, there’s no shortcuts. I mean, you can’t put a piece of duct tape over a week and expect it to last. And what we did at Baylor is just what we did at Valpo, and that is, we recruited to our niche. People that we thought would represent our university in the way that would make our alumni proud, our school proud and people that would fit in with our school. So you’re taking character over talent. And at that point, you bring in enough high character people, and then they start to get more and more talent. And now you have an organization that’s successful.

So with that, so often people take over a job, take over a business, take over a sports team and they just try to accumulate talent, but it doesn’t fit their culture. And it’s not about what’s going to make their program successful over the long haul. We knew early on, when you have five to seven scholarship players and half the team are walk-ons, you’re probably not going to win a lot of games, but you know what, we had great quality walk-ons and the scholarship players we tried to bring in and recruit were ones that we could build on and lay that foundation, because a house has to be built on a solid foundation. And then from there, the talent level increases, and then the success starts to come.

John Maxwell:

Wow, that’s so good.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Scott, in your book, you tell the story of how you recruited the selection committee when they came to interview you. Tell us a little bit about that story.

Scott Drew:

Well, first everybody likes to be recruited. And I like Dr. Pepper and Jim Turner, the CEO of Dr. Pepper’s come, and so first you got to have Dr. Pepper in the room, and then we’ve got to have a decorated green and golden. You got to have fun in life. I mean, life is short and you want to be around people that make you feel better. And at the end of the day, I’ve felt God was calling me to go to Baylor, so my job was to win the interview. And so often people go into interviews and they don’t try to win the interview. And then after the interview’s over, they’re like, “I really want that job, but it’s too late.” So always win the interview, and then you can figure out if you want the job. And that’s the one thing that we tried to do.

Mark Cole:

John, it reminds me of you. Everyday you pray for winners. And I know coach right before you came on today, you’re recruiting, always recruiting. I love that statement that you say everyone in life wants to be recruited. They want to be won. John, you’ve made a practice of praying for winners every single day.

John Maxwell:

Yeah, since 1981, when I really felt that God began to give me a vision of what I was to do in the world of leadership. I realized immediately Scott and Don, I was over my head. I realized it. I was not able to do that. And so I basically said, “Okay, God, if that’s what I’m to do, I’m going to pray that you’ll send winners to me.” And since 1981, so you may think about that, I’ve been doing this for 40 plus years, and we’ve developed incredible companies, but it’s because the people that God has sent to me and I have, because I’m a person of faith, there are times when I meet them, and when I meet them, I can sense my heart God’s saying, “I just brought you another one.”

So about any time I wanted to say, “Boy, we’re really doing amazing.” I think, well, really God set me the players and once you have the players, you could do something with it. You know as well as I. You can’t substitute for talent. If you’re a track coach and you need a high jumper, you don’t need seven guys that could jump one foot. I didn’t want to make it. You got to get some talent. What I like Scott is you put talent with character, and basically said, I’m going to go get some character kids. They’re just good kids, represent us well. We’re not going to win a lot in the beginning, but it’s all right, we’re going to get a foundation. And then you started attracting the talent. And I think you did it right.

Scott Drew:

Well, like you said, God blessed us with a great staff, with great players, because you don’t accomplish anything on your own and it’s his glory. And that’s why we wrote the book, right, Don?

Don Yaeger:

Amen brother. Amen. Scott, one of the best videos your wonderful wife found in the run up to the 2021 championship, she found the video, the old time of the VHS, that’s how old this was, of your press conference when they were introducing you as the head coach at Baylor. We already explained it was a horrible job. Nobody wanted it. But you walk in, there’s a handful of players, all the good ones had already left. And I interviewed the ones who were there. So I’m not insulting anybody. But you’re there, and you walk in and you declare, I came here to win a National Championship. And I’ve talked to several of those players who said the eye roll in the room was like, you could hear the eye roll. That’s how dramatic it was. Now, they’re all thinking you’re nuts. Where does the positivity come from first? I’d love to know that. But secondly, how important is it to declare something big when you’re stepping into a new environment?

Scott Drew:

Well, we know without a vision, the people perish. And as far as the vision, I’m blessed, my dad is one of the most positive people that I’ve come across. And the other most positive is Dale Brown, and then you two jump in the mix. So, I mean, I got a bunch of positive people around me and the glass is half full with me. So, I definitely knew that this is why I was interested in being at Baylor, and hopefully God was calling me for that purpose. And at the same time, I knew that, I mean, we went to the Sweet 16 at Valpo, and literally we’re two wins away from a final four, and now you’re going to a better conference, in a bigger school. Why can’t you win a championship here? And we all know who God calls. I mean, he calls the Davids, he calls the Gideons. He calls Moses that’s a stutter. I mean, I know I’m not Goliath. So anyway, I know it’s God, and to him be the glory, and I’m here for the ride.

John Maxwell:

Scott, when Don’s talking about you went there and you set up, we want to win a National Championship, leaders always go first, always go first. And when you made that statement, a couple things happened. One is you declared yourself. You set your standards of expectation higher than the people. But when you did that, you began to raise the expectation of the people. Somebody’s got to raise that level. And when you made that statement, you allow people to begin to believe again.

The second thing you did when you did that is you validated the importance of leadership. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Always has been, always will be. And to me that day, what the people found is they probably got a great coach, but what they also got was a great leader. And I’ve known people that can coach that really aren’t great leaders. I’ve known people that are leaders that really aren’t so good coaches. And I would say that you are a leader coach. And that set the bar for who you were, what you expected of yourself, nobody else set that bar for you.

And that’s another thing. I think great leaders, they always set their own bar. I never expect anybody to set my bar higher than I set it for myself. My expectations of who I am and what I need to be, I set for myself. In fact, I think you’re in trouble when somebody else is setting the bar for you, and they’re raising it, and you’re trying to get there. And obviously you did that when you arrived at Baylor.

Scott Drew:

See, that’s why I wanted to be on this podcast. You got me motivated. See. You got to have someone motivate the motivator.

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Mark Cole:

I wish all of you were visually tuning in today. We’re so thankful for all of you, but if you’re tuning in, you see our guest today is coach Scott Drew. And you see right behind his right shoulder, the National Championship trophy from 2021, you see right in front of that, the new book, The Road to J.O.Y., which by the way, you can all all pick it up, I’m going to tell you how at the end of the show here today. But you see, there you go, John. John’s holding it up. Vanna White is right there holding up the book. And look at Don. There you go.

John Maxwell:

Don’s holding it up. I’m holding it up.

Mark Cole:

You got to tune in.

John Maxwell:

If he’s Vanna White who’s Don?

Mark Cole:

No comment, no comment.

Don Yaeger:

Betty White.

Mark Cole:

You see the big Baylor university logo behind you coach, and then every once in a while, you just throw that right hand up and we see some significant bling on that finger.

Don Yaeger:

That’s how he works his bicep.

John Maxwell:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

[inaudible 00:17:12]. Let’s go back and talk about the road to that ring. Let’s go back and talk about The Road to J.O.Y., because you had a lot of chances to choose something other than joy. In fact, in 2020, it looked like you had every chance in the world to win the National Championship, and then COVID cancels the championship tournament. Then you find yourself in 2022 putting the players in the bubble. This is where they locked them down in Indianapolis. And the only way the team could win was to enjoy one another, was to eat with one another, live with one another, practice in an airtight bubble. Talk a little bit about how you built comradery in the group and how you maintained that high morale.

Scott Drew:

Well, before we get to that great question, you asked about the size of the ring. It is the largest ring that this company’s ever made. Toronto Raptors made the largest and we’re in the winning. So this one is larger than theirs. Now, the difference is in the NBA, those diamonds are a little bit bigger and real. These are college ones, they’re not so, but it is a big, big ring. It’s something that the players can show off and be proud of. As far as in the bubble, one thing great leaders do from listening to Don and John often talk is, you got to get advice. The smart take from the strong. And one of the people I talked to was Dabo Swinney. And I said, “When you go to the college football playoff, what do you do with your players for that week?”

And very similar to a bubble when you’re secluded, and the biggest takeaway was having fun with them. And we did a lot of things from UNO tournaments, to karaoke, to connect four, you name it, movie night. We just had a blast. You could tell teams were ready to leave the bubble when they’re like, I just can’t wait to get out of here. And then when we would win, we’re like, “Yes, we get to stay in the bubble.” Now being the number one seed, we had a big team room, so that was a little different. We had a lot of area to have fun. And at that point, if you ever wanted to be a number one seed, that was the year to do it. But again, if you’re having fun, you’re enjoying one another, you’ll love one another, you’re going to fight harder for each other. And I thought that was great advice from Dabo.

Mark Cole:

You Don, you got to tell you more of that story as you wrote it in the book. What was your takeaway that would apply to a business team as it relates to creating a bubble?

Don Yaeger:

I think the thing that really struck strikes me, Mark and John is that this idea that most of us in business we are not in a bubble. We live our lives, and the five o’clock happens, everybody takes off. So what you find is that there are special organizations that enjoy their time together. They enjoy the presence of each other and in those organizations, just that opportunity to do something special is real. I think when you find it corporately, that if there are some catalysts, some corporate culture carriers within your team who are able to inspire folks, let’s all go to lunch or let’s all go to the spaghetti factory, whatever it might be, something that will allow you to have a little time together is a corporate takeaway from what Scott did, and what they were able to do.

He’s right. There were a number of teams. And I interviewed folks who were in that tournament for other pieces that I did, who their team could not wait, it sounds silly to say, could not wait to lose because they didn’t want to be trapped all there together. They didn’t want that much together time. And then there were teams that thrived in it. That’s what our goal should be as we build our organizations, how do we learn to love and enjoy each other so much that we travel in our own bubble.

John Maxwell:

And as you talk about that bubbled adversity in that situation, what’s so incredible about adversity is it separates the players from the pretenders. Always does. And what happens is you form in that culture, in that bubble culture, which you did coach, is you had a family. You had a family. And by the way, this family played basketball, but you had a family, you had a family. And so when they went out on the basketball floor, their care and love for each other shows up. It shows up. Teammates help each other a lot more if they love them than they do if they don’t care for them, and you developed that. And I think that, again, for all of our podcast listeners and viewers, Mark, I think it’s a beautiful example of, regardless of what the situation is, you can develop a culture that can take the very best out of the very worst and do well in it.

Scott Drew:

To chime in and add to that, we’ve all been at restaurants in places. One comes to mind, breakfast place this morning, that everybody loves to go to because the employees are always smiling, they’re always happy. It’s a good vibe. They’ll go the extra mile for you. And as a business leader, as a head coach, you got to create that environment for your workplace. If it’s a place people can’t wait to get out of, then when you step in there, you pick that up. You feel that energy. You know if it’s dysfunctional versus family and love.

Mark Cole:

Well, it is true. And staying on this bubble, coach, one of my favorite antidotes in the book is this window that you created. You talked about phase 10 UNO and all that. But one exercise you led your team in as a part of this bubble building, bubble team building was a discussion about fear. You ask everyone in the room to open up about a fear they had, and then guess what you did, you did what leaders do. You started with an omission that really truly stunned everybody in the room. Tell us a little bit about that story.

Scott Drew:

Well, first and foremost, I was smart enough to go to one of our past players who’s a very successful coach, who gave me that advice of the thing that’s helped them the most, because they’ve won, I think three national titles. And he talked about just what he’s done with this team. And one of the most things is, when people feel most stressed and pressured, that’s when we know, for God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, power sound mind, we want to be fearless. And one of those ways is to talk about a fear. And with me, I talked about, to be honest, you’re always worried about things you can’t control. One thing you can’t control as officials and not being a recognized a four-time National Champion hall of famer, somebody that gets a lot of calls in my mind, I was worried with, and I don’t curse out officials, would that hurt our team in a close game, in a close situation.

I didn’t want that to hurt our team or cause us to lose. And that was a fear. And you know what, when you have a family member and you see another family member say they have a fear, what do you do if you love someone, you want to help them. Right away, the players speak truth and into fear, like coach, it’s not going to cost us a game, and we going to be up so big, it ain’t going to matter.

John Maxwell:

And you were.

Don Yaeger:

But Mark, what I love about that, is he shared that story with me and we’re writing the book. I mean, think about what it takes, and John, I can’t wait for you to speak into this, as a leader to open up and tell the team, my greatest fear is that I’m not big enough for you. That my name isn’t so big that the official will make the call on our behalf. And by saying that, like saying, “I’m afraid that I’m not big enough for you,” as he said, they all shared with me how much they rallied around him because they were like, “No, coach it’s not going to get to that place.” But the strength to say that really opened up some amazing doors in that meeting.

John Maxwell:

What coach Scott showed us right there was the fact that he wanted to have friends, not fans. If you want to have fans, you create a large gap between you and the people, and you act perfect, and you make people think you’re bigger and better than you really are. But when you want friends, you close that gap. And what coach, what you did is you just said, look, I have fears too, and let me tell you what it is. And immediately when you told them that, every one of them, that all of them had fear of some kind toward [inaudible 00:26:06], what you did is you became approachable, and then all of a sudden they began to identify with you. And then the next thing is you’ve got allies from all your players. They said, “We’re not going to let that happen to coach. We’re going to get so far and ahead in the game. Hey, if he does something stupid, it’s going to cost us the game.”

But what you did, coach is you closed the gap. You closed the gap. And that’s what makes it work all greatly. If you’re a step ahead of your players, you’re a leader. If you’re a mile ahead of your players, you’re a martyr. And there’s a lot of difference between that. And you stay close enough to connect with them so that they can identify with you. And so now all of a sudden, it’s everybody helping everybody because we’re all together in this. And you did a great job with that, coach. That’s a great story. I love that story.

Mark Cole:

Well, and so we’re coming to a close here, but coach, I’ve met championship basketball coaches. I’ve met even some coaches that’s done a turnaround as you’ve done, but the fact that you want to get this story out in the book, The Road to J.O.Y., I want to thank you. I appreciate it. The book is impacting. Tell me, what is it that you’re hoping people will get out of this book? If there’s an underlying thought, what are you wanting them to capture from this book?

Scott Drew:

Well, as coaches you always try to improve the way that you coach or you instruct or you lead. And we’ve always had a Christ centered program, but really taking it from Dan Gee, and Dabo, an easier way to keep priorities is just play with a culture of joy that’s Jesus, others, yourself. And in everything you do, if you can remember that priority list, you’re doing things for Jesus, you’re doing things for others, you’re going to accomplish so much more if that why is third. And the reason the book was written was to talk about just how God’s blessed our program, and also share just what the players, administration, the coaches have helped achieve. Hopefully, we grow a Baylor nation from it, but at the end of the day, God’s given us a great platform, and we want to give the honor and glory back to Him.

Mark Cole:

Don, your biggest takeaway in writing this book, and what do you think readers are going to get from it?

Don Yaeger:

I think my biggest takeaway was that a lot of times we look at situations and we think they’re just impossible. And we think that those people who, as we’ve already described in this interview, who make declarations are just a little nuts. But if you do incrementally, Scott, didn’t try to turn this thing around overnight. I mean, it’s the greatest turnaround story in sports, but it took 19 years. So it’s not like this happened overnight. Every year they were just chipping away at this challenge. And there were moments that it didn’t work, so that’s the real key here, is that very little of the greatest things we hope to achieve will happen quickly. Almost all of them will take us time. If you’re willing to invest it, invest it properly. Man, amazing things are ahead.

John Maxwell:

Beautiful.

Mark Cole:

And John, I didn’t know this until we were doing some preliminary conversations before we started recording, but you’ve been a part of Coach Drew’s dad taking him and his team out to dinner. Coach Drew, he’s going to research. He might have been there as an 11 year old boy. John, I hope that doesn’t make you feel old there.

John Maxwell:

It does. It does.

Scott Drew:

Move on quickly.

Mark Cole:

But just any final closing comments about Coach Drew and getting to meet him here and hopefully going to watch him and his team play soon.

John Maxwell:

Coach, the thing that I pull from our conversation today and knowing you is that you’re developing a culture that is going to be a place that good ball players want to come to. I think the secret is the fact that it’s not diagramming plays, it’s creating a home, a home where people can feel loved and cared for and can give love. And I think, I’m reading the book, I haven’t finished it, but I’m reading the book right now. And let me tell you what I think, I think there’re going to be a whole bunch of high school, good basketball players read this book, and they’re going to say, “That’s where I want to go.”

I want to get in this culture of fun, enjoyment, loving your life, caring for one another, getting right priorities in your life, a place where I can have faith and where I can reach my potential. So I look at you, I think you’re going to have many, many years of being in the NCAA. I think you’re going to see another trophy over your left hand shoulder. And then we’ll put one up behind your head.

Scott Drew:

I like how you think.

John Maxwell:

Yeah, and it’s because you’re developing a culture. That’s going to be conducive for success, because success is you take your players from success, which it’s all about me, and you take them to significance, which is all about others. And you are developing a significant culture and hey, I’m a fan. I’m a fan.

Mark Cole:

Well, and again, thank you, John, for holding up the hankie right this time. Here at the Maxwell Leadership podcast, we really do feel challenged to train leaders, to develop leaders that will bring about powerful, positive change. And we do this because we believe everyone deserves to be led well. And coach, I watch what you’ve done in your program, and you’ve shown us that boys basketball, boys need to be led well, not just by you, but by each other. And we admire you from afar, now we admire you close up. I’m going to challenge all of our listeners, all of our viewers today, go to the show notes, Maxwellpodcast.com/ScottDrew, Scott with two Ts.

We’ll put the link in there of how to order the book. You can go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever you like to buy your books. You can get this book and hey, do me a favor, get this book for yourself, but get this for a teammate too. Maybe it’s an up and coming basketball player. Maybe it’s somebody that just needs to understand the power of teams and building a team bubble. Whatever the situation is, I can tell you the book’s going to impact you. Don Yeager, you’re a champ. John Maxwell, you are a champ. You impact us every single week. And now Coach Scott Drew, thank you. Let’s go get another championship together.

Don Yaeger:

Absolutely.

Scott Drew:

Thank you for having me, and it’s a blessing learning from you guys. Thank you.