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Oct. 10, 2022 - Doug Collins Podcast
30:30
Leadership from Coach “Bear Bryant”
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Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
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The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, it's Doug Collins.
Welcome back.
Glad you're here.
And also, I've got some special, special stuff coming up.
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We've got a special, special trip coming up.
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I've got a lot of neat stuff coming up.
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Glad to have you with us, Trini.
Today's going to be a fun day.
You know, we've done a lot here in the last few weeks on the podcast, some in-depth stuff with, you know, some great guests, with policy.
We've also hit a lot of, you know, just the different things going on in Washington, D.C., and also football.
But I just want to take a few minutes to go back to something we've done in this podcast throughout, and that's talking about leadership.
And it's talking about leading, you know, people in your workplaces, in your family, in your environment.
Now, again, any leader that stands up or anybody who purports to write a book on leadership and says that they have every answer is just, frankly, just lying.
Okay, we don't have all the answers.
You know, you can read 75 books, you get 75 similar answers, and 75, you know, maybe I can, maybe not.
The reason we do this, and the reason I wanted to take another day and do this, is one, it's got a fun topic.
I found a book a number of years ago by Pat Williams, and if you're looking, if you're watching us on Rumble, you're watching on YouTube, you can see this here, and this is Bear Bryant on leadership.
Paul Bear Bryant, you know how much I love football, and you know how much I grew up in the state of Georgia.
I'm a Georgia fan, a University of Georgia fan.
My two boys went to the University of Georgia.
I live 40 miles from the campus.
We have season tickets.
I mean, I go, but But I have a story, and his name was Bo Copeland.
Not my Bo, but Bo Copeland, who was my granddaddy.
My granddaddy was a dairy farmer down in Greene County, Georgia, which is about 25 miles roughly from Sanford Stadium.
And from the earliest remembrances I have of going to my granddaddy's dairy farm, I remember him with a houndstooth hat.
I remember him talking about Bear Bryant.
And talking about how much he liked Bear Bryant.
Now, how he got to there, I was too young to really ask him the question, how did you get fond of Bear Bryant, University of Georgia?
He still loved the dogs.
I mean, he was there, but he's like me.
He grew up, from a football perspective or team perspective, University of Georgia and University of Alabama, and mainly because of Bear Bryant.
In fact, I almost went to Alabama.
I was accepted years and years and years ago to go to Alabama.
Didn't go.
My son was, and he chose to go to Georgia.
Again, Alabama runs deep, and it runs deep because of my granddaddy Copeland.
And it's something over the years that people have questioned me about, talked to me about.
And it really goes back to, for me, not only my grandfather, but also now as I've grown in my own adulthood and life and leadership.
Something about Bear Bryant just always attracted me, just like I guess it did my grandfather.
One of the funny stories that was told, anecdotal stories, is that a long time ago, Wally Butts, who was a coach at Georgia, Paul Bear Bryant was the coach at Alabama, and they were involved in a scandal.
They were sued.
Over, and I think it was a cheating scandal, and I have to go back and get the exact details, but the funny part of the whole story was they were on trial, literally, Bear Bryant in the stand, and the defense attorney, or the plaintiff attorney, knew they lost the case when Bear Bryant, something happened to his glasses, and the story goes that three people in the jury box offered to give them theirs.
You just see the power of Bear Bryant.
You just see the mystique of the bear, if you look at it.
So looking at this today and thinking about it, one of the things when I was in Washington in Congress, I had a plaque that sat on my desk.
It now sits on my desk in my other office, but it sits on my desk in Washington, D.C., and it said this.
If anything goes bad, I did it.
If anything seems to go good, semi-good, we did it.
If anything goes really good, you did it.
And that's a quote from Bear Bryant.
And if you look at it from the perspective of how that really takes it, it takes some sort of that leadership role.
And this was what I developed as really the mantra of my office.
If things went bad, I'll take the blame.
That's my dog, my name on the door.
If it didn't win, send me bad, okay, we all did it.
But if it went good, hey, you got to have a team around you to make it go and to make it roll.
And this was sort of the beginning of my understanding of not only watching Bear Bryant's leadership, but also incorporating leadership into our regular everyday lives.
How do you do that is so important.
One of the folks, and we're going to get into a few actual things.
If you want to read the book, I encourage you to.
It's got a lot of great anecdotal stories.
And we're going to read actually some of them.
And I want you to hear because they're so important.
But the focus, if you read the book, you read other autobiographies of Bear Bryant.
If you watch some of the movies is the simple fact that Bear Bryant had an intense, passionate drive.
He was passionate about what he did.
He was passionate about football.
He was passionate about his family.
He was just focused on what he did.
But he also had a focus on learning and growing from others.
He also had a focus on changing with the times.
I almost got into that today.
I may do it at another time.
Bear Bryant coached in some of the most radically changing times of society through the 50s through the 80s and had to roll with those punches and really, you know, adapt as he was coaching in a way that is really, you know, It would be powerful lessons for us today when we have a lot of problems with civility and people not wanting to talk to each other and how people come along.
This is something for you.
So if you're listening today, you're out there exercising, maybe you're riding, you're in the car, wherever you are, what I want to talk about in Barrett Bryant's focus on leadership and looking at that.
Now, you may not be an Alabama fan.
In fact, you may hate Alabama.
That's fine.
But what I have learned in life is you can pick up good things from wherever you can find them.
And when you pick up those good things and you use them, they can make your life better.
So in looking at this with Bear Bryant, this focus on hard work, perseverance, those kind of things that focused on the team around him.
And wherever he went, he was able to draw on this.
The first...
The thing that struck me from the book and it struck me from one of the things I want to talk about today was vision.
And this is one I'm going to be transparent here on because one of the great problems in leadership is quoted in the book is to be distracted.
You know, rabbit trails.
I will freely admit to you, and I bet you out there listening in podcast world today, if you're listening to this today and you're a leader, many of us have the opportunity to be distracted.
Distracted in a computer, distracted on our phone, distracted on somebody who makes a phone call in, somebody who says something, somebody that you just see, you know, if you're walking outside and all of a sudden the flowers look pretty and you get distracted on the fact that you're headed to the store.
These are the kind of things that I think are, in a big picture, we can talk and wax poetically about vision and where there's no vision, the people perish, you know, from the Bible, from all these perspectives.
And it is true.
People have to have a vision.
And notice here, it says the people, but the person giving that vision, the person who is leading that vision, the person who Who throws that vision out front is a two-fold vision.
Number one, it's a vision of the person.
It's a vision that that person sees what they want to be, what they want to accomplish, and how they want to accomplish it.
And then the second half of that vision, which must be communicated, and if it's not communicated, then really, frankly, it's not the vision of leadership.
It may be a personal vision.
It may be a personal goal, thought, however you want to put it.
But until it translates over into others capturing leadership, What you see maybe only in your head or only on your scribble pad or only when you're, you know, by yourself and you're trying to force a decision in your business, in your family, in your ball team, whatever it may be, until you're able to overcome and get it past what I see as a vision.
And then be able to communicate it to the group that you influence, that you are an influencer in, or lead, or by proxy, a position, or marital, family, connections with friends.
Again, we all have influences.
The question is what we influence and how we influence it.
Vision is something that has to be You know, focused on.
Now, I'm going to also admit here that I struggle with this.
And I'd love for you, if you want to go on to the DougCollinsPodcast.com, hit the email link, send me how you've struggled.
I bet you this one is one of the ones I've read a lot of leadership books.
Focus is one of the biggest issues because we get into the middle of something and we see something else we want to do.
Or maybe we're getting ready and it's just easy to look down at your phone and wow, that Instagram account, I want to just keep flipping here.
And the next thing you know, 15-20 minutes has passed and you're off track of what you're doing.
Bear Bryant, in his issue of vision, was an interesting point.
I want to read A statement here.
Because what Bear Bryant in his philosophy was, was basically starting from the end and working backwards.
And how many times do we know this is a way to focus your vision.
It's also a way to get an understanding of how you want to follow through.
Jack Smalley was a junior, was a linebacker in Alabama from 74 to 77. And he's talking about Coach Bryant's vision.
He said his vision was defined very clearly.
Win a national championship.
We didn't think about winning the first game.
We wanted to win the last game and the one before it.
And the one before it, we worked back from the overall goal.
You know, this is...
It's something important.
Because so many times we just think of vision as this overriding arch of where we're heading.
That at the end of the day, we're going to win a national championship.
Well, that's great.
How are you going to do it?
And I think what this player for Bryant said was, he said, he told us what the goal was.
It was going to be winning a national championship, but it was to win the last game.
And then to win the last game and to be in a position to win the last game, you had to win the game before it.
You had to win the game before it.
You had to win the game before it.
So it was never this understanding that, you know, what do I do now to hope I get to that end result?
Well, the end result in business, the end result in family relationships, the end result in politics, the end result is what are you wanting to accomplish?
What is the goal?
Now, I can take this a step further and move on it from my perspective.
It talks about passion and working backwards and having a passion for what you do.
How many times out there do you have the vision, sort of the end result that you will have in mind, and It's a great vision.
You say, this is, you know, for my company, I want to do sales goals of X. For my family, I want to have this much family time, this much growth time with our family.
For personally, I want to read this many books.
But you put the goal out there, and then the discussion is never, how do you get to the goal?
Because that's where we typically, that's where it becomes hard work.
That's where it becomes hard.
On a football team that Bear Bryant coached, if you're going to win the national championship, that means it starts back in recruiting.
It goes through summer practice.
It goes through the first game, the second game, the third game, the SEC schedule, all the way to the end of the year.
And back then, when he was coaching, it was basically you win them all, win the national championship, or there's no playoffs.
There was nothing.
You had to basically find the perfect realm.
One loss, maybe, in an interesting year.
But the question is, what are the steps that it takes?
First, you have to have the vision.
I see too many people, and I think what Coach Bryant was saying here, too many people focus on the first game.
You focus on the first step.
Okay, I've got to get up in the morning.
I've got to buy this.
I've got to hire these many people.
I've got to invest here.
Okay, that's great.
What does that get you?
The reason you look backwards at your end result, and campaigns are like this as well.
My campaign consultant who I've used for years, Chip Lake and I, have always on any of my campaigns, we started off saying, hey, here's where we gotta be at the end of the day.
Here's the numbers we wanna hit.
How do we get there?
So you work backwards.
So at the end of the day, you know where you're wanting to be and you work backwards on how to get there.
Bear Bryant in coaching football is no different.
You want to win a national title.
How do you win a national title?
Well, you actually have to put the things in place to get it to where it needs to go.
So, understanding vision is one thing.
Understanding vision in your personal life, understanding vision in your family life, understanding vision in your business career is all just hinged on the fact that, number one, you know what that end result looks like.
And you're willing to then work backwards from that goal to say, okay, if my business, I want to have it at sales goal of X at the end of this year, and let's just say it's a million dollar sales goal, and right now you're selling 500,000, well, you've got to figure out how do I then go back from there?
What has to be in place to get to that one million in sales goal?
You know, do I have to have more salespeople?
Do I have to have more product?
Do I have to change my pricing?
You know, all of this kind of stuff builds into the product.
So you go backwards one game at a time.
Just like the player for Coach Bear Bryant said, he said, we wanted to win a national title.
He said, but we had to win the last game.
Which meant we had to win the game before it.
Which meant we had to win the game before it.
And you see the progression.
Now, one of the interesting points of vision is being able to communicate.
And anybody who's ever watched any old clips or old video of Bear Bryant, I'd encourage you to go listen to it.
He was not the most...
Forceful or eloquent of speakers in the sense of understanding.
He had a very gruff voice.
He spoke very hushed tones.
Everybody, you know, when he spoke, it was the old, from those of us in my generation, the old E.F. Hutton advertisement.
When E.F. Hutton talks, everybody listens.
Well, when Bear Bryant spoke, everybody listened.
And it was just how his voice carried.
Now, communication of your vision, what we just talked about, was very important.
But there's a quote that was used in the book, and I think it's a fitting quote.
To look at now.
Because when you're communicating...
Sam Walton, who founded Walmart, made this statement once.
He said, communicate everything that you can with your partners, aka employees, in Walmart's vernacular.
Because the more you communicate with them, the more they'll understand.
And the more they understand, the more they'll care.
And once they care, there's no stopping them.
I think this is the key that fit Bear Bryant.
He goes on to tell the story of Bear Bryant used to take, you know, heads of English departments and others to games, you know, away games just to incorporate the whole school into the program itself.
And Bear Bryant was speaking one day and the kids, the guys on the team were leaning in because he used a very soft voice.
He wanted to make sure they were listening and heard.
The head of the English department was with him, and at the end of the day, he said, if I could get to keep a room's attention like he can, he said I would teach for free.
And when you see good communication, and it doesn't have to be a one stereotypical form.
It doesn't have to come in perfect English.
It doesn't have to come in a steady, monotone voice.
It doesn't have to come in a loud voice.
It's got to be authentic.
And for Bear Bryant, it was truly authentic.
And in looking at this, Communication is also knowing what motivates the team you're currently with.
Bear Bryant had a way of listening and answering questions, and we'll get to that in just a minute in an empowering way.
Folks, as we go.
But you've got to understand, he also cared about people and was sense enough to listen and communicating.
Sometimes it's not only verbal, sometimes it is not only an action idea, but it is a way that you can communicate for longer periods of time.
And you always don't know what you're planning when you plan it.
And I think this is one of the greatest stories about communicating, knowing what your team needs, and maybe not knowing it at the time, but always leaving an impression That may or may not end up helping you in the future.
I see so many people today in their communication skills that become curt or abrupt, and they end relationships that may not benefit them at that moment, but could benefit them down the road.
And there's a story in this book.
It's a little bit longer story, but I do want to read it to you or tell you about it, because it really makes this idea, and if I can emphasize this to younger folks listening to the podcast, and especially even some older folks as well as the podcast, Leading an impression will make a difference.
And we've got to remember, too many times in politics today, and I'll just say this from a concern, we've seen politics as a zero-sum game.
In other words, you win or you lose, that's it.
The reality is you can win and you can lose, but the question is, will you be there for the next battle?
And right now, I see too many of our politicians, I see too many people in business, I see too many people in media that simply go for the gut story, go for the one time, and never see it in a longer picture.
Bear Bryant saw treating people, looking at people, listening for people in a much different format.
When he was first coach, hired his coach at Alabama, he went to South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player, and he was having trouble finding a place to eat.
He says, getting hungry, and he spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said, restaurant.
He said, And
Bear Bryant said, he said, I looked him square in the eye and said, I'm from Arkansas and I've eaten a mile of them.
Sounds like I'm in the right place.
They all smiled and he left as he left to serve me up a big plate.
When he came back, he said, you ain't from around here then.
I explained I was a new football coach up at Tuscaloosa University and I'm here to find whatever that boy's name was and he says, yeah, I've heard of him.
He's supposed to be pretty good.
And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach.
As I was paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip.
Not too big to be flashy, but one good one.
And he told me lunch was on him.
But I told him that for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay.
The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show I'd been there.
And I was so new, I didn't even have any yet.
He said, I really wasn't that big a thing back then to be asked for.
So I took a napkin, wrote his name and address on it, and I told him I'd get him one.
I met the kid I was looking for later that afternoon, and I don't remember his name.
But I do remember that I didn't think much of him when I met him.
I had wasted a day or so, I thought.
When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took out the napkin from my shirt pocket and put it away under my key so I wouldn't forget it.
Back then, I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me.
The next day, we found a picture and I wrote it.
Thanks for the best lunch I ever had.
Now let's go a whole bunch of years down the road.
Now we have black players at Alabama, and I'm back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed.
Y'all remember, and I forgot his name, but it's not important anymore who it was.
He said, well, anyway, I was down there.
He said, I found two friends.
He's got two friends going to Auburn, and he tells me that he's got his heart set on Auburn, too.
So I leave empty-handed and go and see some of the others while I'm down there.
Two days later, I'm in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it's the kid who turned me down and he said, Coach, do you still want me at Alabama?
And I said, Yes, sure do.
He says, Okay, he'll come.
And I said, Well, son, what changed your mind?
He said, Well, I didn't know his granddaddy from Adam's house,
so I asked him who his granddaddy was, and he said, He said, Is his pride and joy, and he still tells everybody to this day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him.
My grandpa said that when you left there, he never expected you to remember him or send up that picture, but you kept your word and you gave grandpa to him.
That's everything.
He said you could teach me more than football, and I had to play for a man like you.
So I guess I'm going to.
I was floored, but I learned that the lessons my mama taught me were always right.
I don't do nothing to be nice.
I don't do nothing.
It don't cost nothing to do the right thing most of the time, and it cost a lot to lose your good name by breaking your word to someone.
You know, how true that is.
I mean, he could have forgot that picture.
He could have forgot that time.
He could have forgot that he had asked for that, but he didn't.
And it didn't solve anything for him in that short term.
He didn't get the prospect he was looking for.
But years later, it came back.
Vision and communicating and being the understanding to those around you and listening and answering questions are the thing that will set you apart.
You empower people.
By investing in them.
Bear Bryant had all these winning teams, and there's all these things in here from his humility.
I mean, he was, as we can say down here in the South, he pulled mouth better than anybody.
I mean, you know, there's a story in the book where he talks about where they go out to the bowl game and they're going to play UCLA, and he said, you know, I thought when I first heard it, we're going to play University of Central Louisiana.
He said, when I found out it was UCLA, he said, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go.
This was three days before they beat UCLA 30-6.
There's a lot that goes into a personality.
There's a lot that goes into leadership.
And in this fun little lesson today, I want you just to understand that when you think about, you know, who gets the credit, you focus on your passions, you do the things that you feel called to do.
You have to have a vision that...
It says, I'm going to stay focused on what I need to focus on.
I'm going to stay focused on the things that I do well.
I'm going to get others who do things better than I do, and I'm going to bring them on board with this plan.
I'm going to get this team together, and we're going to focus on what would be the end results as you go forward.
Because if you go to the end result and work your way back, then you'll hit the steps you need to get to that desired outcome.
But you've got to communicate it.
Communication comes in knowing your players, knowing your team, knowing your people around you, and knowing yourself and caring about them and actually investing in those people who you may not think can help you at the moment, whether you realize it or not, but may be there later for you in life.
How many times does that blown promise, that blown tip, that blown attitude actually in a meeting with others end up coming back around to something that could help you?
I've always believed When I was in the state legislature in Georgia, the U.S. Congress, I always got to know the people who cleaned my offices.
I always got to know the ones who was secured at the doors.
And it was amazing.
When you get to know them, you ask about them and you find out about them.
I mean, look, they're not lobbyists.
They weren't going to help craft legislation, but they were people.
And it was amazing how much you gained from just learning about people that had no real, maybe, influence in your life at that time.
But you know something?
It sure was important one night when I locked myself out of my office.
Nobody else was around, but I found the person at Klingsville and knew them, and they let me back in.
Or when I needed something else, it's amazing when you just do little things for people in your team and the people around you, and maybe for people you don't even think could ever help you.
That's what lays the groundwork for not only a vision and the communication, and then also listening and taking the opportunity to implement those dreams and vision.
A lot more I could go into here in the book with Bear Bryant.
If you want to know more about him, one, go get this book, Bear Bryant on Leadership.
But there's a lot of other materials out there.
This is one of those times for conservatives, especially for those who listen to this podcast, broaden your mind.
It's maybe time to learn something.
Bear Bryant has a lot of interesting time.
There'll be some who agree.
There'll be some who disagree.
There's always that kind of things in life when you talk about somebody and you lift up some of the things that they did.
But my question for you as we close out the podcast today is, do you have that vision?
I don't care what age you are.
I'm still looking at this even today in my own life.
What is the vision I have for the next few years of my life?
Where am I gonna be headed?
What can I do to help others?
How can I get other people to invest in that?
I gotta communicate that.
If I don't communicate it, Then nobody's gonna know.
And this is as much convicting on me right now as it may be for you listening to this.
I'm not one of those who give out leadership advice and tell you I get it right every time.
I'm one who gives you these leadership advices that I've learned and say, hey, apply this and it works.
When I've applied it, it works.
When I've not applied it, I found that it doesn't work.
I wish I could do it consistently, but that's how you get better at it.
Casting that vision, working backwards from that vision, communicating that idea to others around you, Investing in others by knowing them, asking them questions, and then listening to the answers and finding them.
When you do that, that's how we come out on the head.
Ahead in life, and ahead in our families, and ahead in our businesses.
Leadership lessons can be learned anywhere.
They don't have to be from the smartest people in the world.
They don't have to be from PhDs and ivory towers.
They may come from a football coach on the sidelines who's been gone for a long time now.
But leadership lessons that truly matter are eternal, I believe, and they can be applied in your situation.
Go out and have a great day.
Make yourself and others around you.
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Use the promo code Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S. Or you can go to MyPillow.com, click on the radio listener square and use the promo code Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S. Lisa and I sleep on these sheets every night.
You will want to have them as well.
They're a wonderful product.
Go right now, either 800-986-3994, code word Collins, or go to MyPillow.com.
Also use the code word Collins to get this discount.
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