SITDE #125: What I Learned From Tony Dungy
What I Learned from Tony Dungy
(no. 125)
👋🏾 Welcome to 59 new Deep Enders who joined us since last Wednesday.
🙏🏾 If you like this lifeletter, would you please send it to a friend and encourage them to join the Deep End?
Last week l walked through the science of regrets. Today, I'm sharing some takeaways from time spent with Tony Dungy.
Let's get to it.
One Day in Tampa
Last month, I get a somewhat cryptic text from a good friend:
My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary in Miami, and after reading the intiial text, I almost dropped my phone in the Atlantic Ocean.
I turned to Hilary.
"There's a chance I get to moderate a talk with Tony Dungy."
Hilary: "That's your spirit coach."
Me:
Hilary: "What if you have a date conflict?"
Me:
Hilary was right: Tony Dungy is my favorite living coach.
And for me, the affection has nothing to do with the championship rings (as a player and coach) or yellow jacket.
His books on coaching were the first texts that I read as I prepared for my internship with the Kansas City Chiefs.
My eventual head coach (Herm Edwards) learned under Dungy and so his books were my introductory lessons on the profession.
On the plane ride back to Austin last week, I wrote five pages of notes from our conversation.
Here are four takeaways.
Takeaways
Metrics Diminish Over Time: After the conversation, I asked Coach about how many games he won in his third year with the Bucs and he couldn't remember. But you know what he started talking about? He talked about the players who morphed from athlete to leader. That's the stuff that ages well.
Elite Humans Want to be Coached: Every time I get an opportunity to talk with an elite performer - Brené Brown, Mia Hamm, Kevin Durant - I ask them a question related to nature/nurture.
All of them seem to land in the same place: Nature gives you a starting point, but the greatest distance is created through a form of maniacal effort.
Coach Dungy told the story of how Peyton Manning would sit in his office and constantly tell him how badly he wanted to be coached.
Manning even went so far as to make daily car rides to Columbus, Ohio in 2007 to meet with a newly drafted Anthony Gonzalez. The Colts had selected Gonzales in that year's draft. Because he was finishing his senior year at Ohio State, he stayed on campus. Manning drive to Columbus every day for a month to review the playbook with his future receiver. That ain't genetics.
First Words Matter: Coach tells the story of his first team speech. It lasted 45 minutes. Dungy spent the first five minutes talking about winning. The balance of his time centered on character. It's easy to lead with strategy. Lead with values.
Last Words Matter Too: The same coach who cut him as a player invited him to coach on his staff three years later. Coach Chuck Noll remembered that Dungy thanked him on the same day that Noll cut him. Relationships matter.
I love you.
Stay In The Deep End.
If you have a topic I should write about, please click this button.
If you're reading this lifeletter for the first time, and can't believe you were able to survive this long without it, sign up here.
