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Ross Romano: Welcome in, everybody. It is really thrilling today to bring you a simulcast of Sideline Sessions and the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Really pleased to have a great guest here with me that can speak to the audience of both of these shows so we can get into a variety of topics about His background coaching work, he's doing more recently in leadership as well as some topics covered in his book.
I guess today is Matt Doherty. That is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, best selling author, media personality and executive coach. He was a starter on the 1982 national championship team. North Carolina, you might know that team as Michael Jordan was a [00:01:00] freshman, I believe, on that team and he began his leadership journey under legendary coach, Dean Smith, then went on to later be head coach at Notre Dame and North Carolina.
And in 2001 led the team to the ACC regular season championship and was named AP national coach of the year. And actually, as I was prepping this bio today, I realized I probably need to specify that was North Carolina. That was the ACC regular season champs because all of a sudden Notre Dame is. Is in that conference, I realized which they probably could be part of the ACC for 40 years, and I'll never quite wrap my head around.
It's a little different, right? Coach Doherty was also head coach at Florida Atlantic and SMU. He worked at ESPN with the Indiana Pacers and with the Atlantic 10 Conference and is the author of a book called Rebound from Pain to Passion. Coach Matt Doherty, it's a pleasure to have you here.
Matt Doherty: Thanks for having me on the show.
Ross Romano: Let's start. I mean I [00:02:00] call it a condensed version, although there's a lot packed in there, right, into that bio and I'm sure a lot of our listeners have have known of your work at some of those stops, and then have some familiarity. Of course, we have folks involved in sports, so they're pretty plugged in, but is there anything as we're kind of introducing the conversation, as we're talking about The perspective from the work you're doing now reflecting on all the things I listed off there That you would kind of add to that to kind of what that journey has looked like or the different roles you've moved through
Matt Doherty: It's not linear. I give a lot of talks and one of the slides I put up is a slide, it's a graph and it shows a steady ascent and then a sharp decline. And I asked people. What does that look like? And most of them say a market crash. And then the next slide, I put the title up [00:03:00] top and it's my coaching career.
So I started my coaching career at Davidson college in 1989 under Bob McKillop, the legendary coach at Davidson best known for, I like to say my being my high school coach, but he's best known for coaching Steph Curry and then. I went to Kansas as one and was an assistant coach for Roy Williams for seven years.
And then my first head coaching job was at Notre Dame. I started there in 1999 and for an Irish Catholic kid from New York, New York, it was, it was pretty surreal. I thought I'd be there forever. And then a year later, North Carolina came calling after Bill Guthridge resigned. Everyone, including myself thought Roy Williams was going to take the job.
He decided to stay at Kansas. So Dean Smith and Michael Jordan recruited me to come home. That first year you noted we had a great season. We were ranked number one in the country, beat Duke [00:04:00] at Duke, and I was voted, I'd like to say my staff and I were voted coaches of the year and then the next year had the worst record in Carolina basketball history, which was eight and 20.
And then my third year, we were rebuilding, starting three freshmen and two sophomores. My starting center, Sean May broke his foot and we won 19 games, but didn't make the NCAA tournament. My leadership came under question and I was asked to leave and they replaced me with Roy Williams. I took a couple of years off, a little bit of a sabbatical.
Studied leadership, did some TV and then wanted to get back to coaching. And that's when I took the job down at FAU. I was there only a year and then took the job at SMU, which I was there for six years and then got fired. And so you know, college athletics is it's my drug. It's, it's high highs, low lows, and as [00:05:00] much as coaches like to be in control, we're often not.
And so after that, I look to get into the NBA. I worked for the Indiana Pacers for about four years. Went back to college as a administrator in the Atlantic 10 conference, and then ended up being an executive coach. And that's what I do now. So I work with small to mid sized business owners on leadership Developing systems, driving culture, and been doing that for almost five years, and it's really fulfilling work.
It is teaching and coaching and that is my purpose. It's just not coaching basketball players. (ad here)
Ross Romano: I'd love to talk about We're obviously going to talk a lot about The things you've learned and the wisdom you're going to share with our listeners here I'd love to start it by talking about The people you learn from and some of the things you learn from them, and we've named some of them so far, Bob [00:06:00] McKillop, Dean Smith, Roy Williams coaches that you played for and coached with some of your teammates, Michael Jordan, James Worthy Penny Smith, Hall of Famers and champions at every level and I'm sure some of the players you coached, right, really high caliber people themselves Who are some of the people you learned the most from and some of the lessons that have really you've taken with you throughout the years,
Matt Doherty: well, I think when I played for Bob McKillop in high school and I looked back and Bob was 24 years old when I was playing for him. And then the lessons I learned, I was really blessed Ross growing up on Long Island to Mary and Walter Doherty and three older sisters, younger brother, and the neat thing about growing up there is, you got exposed to a lot of different things. And as a young athlete, I played the sport every season for every season. We played football, we played hockey, street [00:07:00] hockey, we played basketball, we played baseball. And you had all these great coaches. We were blessed. They lot of first generation Long Island.
So my dad was from Brooklyn. My mom's from the Bronx and we had a lot of great coaches. The Coleman brothers coached me in seventh and eighth grade. And the discipline, the lessons, the fundamentals that were instilled in me the camps I went to on Long Island had some great coaches there was really blessed.
And I got a chance to dream. To be able to see the Knicks playing on TV, going to a lot of net games back. The nets were on Long Island at Nassau Coliseum. That was five miles from my house. I got to see Dr. J play. I got to see Dr. J give us a clinic and camp. You know, so I just had so many opportunities to dream and then chase my dreams.
There was a park three blocks from my house. I call it the park. And [00:08:00] Bob McKillop was playing a lot of the guys, NBA, ABA players, college players, and as a skinny sixth grader, I was trying to get in these games with the college players and the NBA and ABA players and just really. That, that was my life.
I wanted to be a basketball player and was afforded the opportunity to, I talk about learn and grow all the time, learn and grow from these players, from these coaches. And I was blessed with height. You know, God gave me I was six, seven. And I really loved the game. I quit baseball in sixth grade because I read a book by Bill Bradley, who was a legendary Nick and the book was entitled life on the run.
And I tell people now that your life's impacted by three things. The people you meet mentioned all these coaches, right? The books you read and the trauma in your life. And you know, the trauma [00:09:00] came to me in 2003 when I lost my job at North Carolina. But that book in, in Bill Bradley's book, he stated that if somebody else is working on their game more than you, when you two meet that person would have the advantage.
And my dad was a minor league baseball player and I quit baseball. Instantly because I wanted to focus on basketball. I'm all about control. What you can control, you can control your attitude. You can control your work ethic. You can control being in shape. I, I, I use this term a lot, double knot, like double not your shoes, because I hate when.
I see a game and somebody's shoe laces come undone and they have to, their shoe comes out and the other team goes down and scores like control what you can control. And so I wanted to control my destiny and be a hard worker, fundamentally sound player. Be able to do all the things on the [00:10:00] basketball court, pass, handle, and shoot the ball, defend, play hard be a good teammate and and win.
And that's why I we won in grammar school, eighth grade, Nassau County champs. We won in high school, state championships, and we won at college at North Carolina where we won a national championship in 1982.
Ross Romano: How did you, I think and I'm sure a lot of the folks listening maybe in an assistant coach role, right? And they are working their way up. They're looking for when their opportunity is potentially to be a head coach. And I'm sure one of the things that might cause. Friction, right, that to work through in that case is how to be where you are in a sense, right, how to learn as much as you can in the role where you are, learn from the person who has the job you might want, and especially to work through whatever your I [00:11:00] guess whatever your feelings are about whether or not that person should be in that job, right, or sometimes, The feeling that I should have, I should be there, I should have that role or and sometimes that means either one, just looking for what are the things that, that they know that I don't know yet, or what are the things they're able to do that they need to learn how to do.
Sometimes it might be learning things that you. Don't want to do when you're in the position to have that role right when you're in that position of authority to say, you know what, I don't like this. I don't and I'm going to really hold on to that. But what did you learn through the different roles you work through or even wish that you had paid attention to sooner?
Right? Things that that those great opportunities to learn when you're in those different assistant roles, working for others and kind of evaluating what are the things you want to. Yeah. Take for yourself. What are the things that you want to change?
Matt Doherty: No, I think there's a lot to unpack there. I think you have to be curious. Be a [00:12:00] lifelong learner. You can learn from anybody. You know, you can be scouting a player, high school player, and you see a good out of bounds play or good drill that a high school coach is running. I got to recruit Bob, Mr Hurley, we called him Bob Hurley.
The legendary high school coach at St Anthony's in Jersey City. And so I was really fortunate to go around and watch a lot of good high school coaches. Some of the best teachers in the game are high school coaches. Bob McKillop was a high school coach. And so really trying to learn and be curious and always.
Asked the question. Why? Why are you doing that? What? What's the carry over from this drill to the game? Scouting. I love to scout, learned a lot scouting opponents. And so I love watching Bobby Knight's team. When at Indiana, when I was at Kansas, I think we played them six times. Maybe four. I played against Bobby [00:13:00] Knight's teams.
And so what is he doing? I watched video clinics that he, where he taught. And so really trying to understand the game. The area that I probably missed out on there's the art of coaching and the science of coaching. I felt like I was really good with the science of coaching. I, I think I understood the game.
I understood strategy. I understood how to take away the opponent's strengths, attack their strengths on, on the offensive end. And the thing that I wish I was better at as a younger coach was the art of coaching. And what is that? That's the emotional intelligence. I, I talk about it today. I was doing a workshop with 2311 the NASCAR team that Michael Jordan owns.
And the. Art of coaching, the emotional intelligence part is more important than the X's and the O's you could have, I call it the [00:14:00] organizational triangle. Every organization has talent at the top systems and culture. And I had great systems. I felt I had some great talent. The culture piece, I drove a culture that was intense competitive, hardworking.
But I think that the emotional connection to the player and understanding that not everyone is wired like me. And when I lost my job, I went on this leadership journey. And one of the first meetings I had was with an executive coach at UVA named Carol Weber. I talk about it in my book rebound from pain to passion.
And she had me do an assessment called the Myers Briggs assessment. And she gave me the results and told me that. I was an ENTJ and I remember kind of laughing that I've been called a lot of four letter words before at places like Cameron indoor stadium, but never an ENTJ [00:15:00] as you described me, what to me, what that was, and that only 2 percent of the population were ENTJs.
And at the time I thought, that's pretty elite, you're 2 percent of the population. And she quickly noted that, well, that means 98 percent of the population doesn't think like you think. And so that was a real aha moment for me. I wish I understood that better. Before I lost my job, I might still be coaching in North Carolina.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a great point. Right. And and I think what you reference is perhaps more true now than ever around the importance of coaches really tuning into how they are relating to the people around them, how they're relating to like athletes or athletes of any age. And the same thing goes all the way up.
To corporate environments as well, right? That when you are working with people who have options, [00:16:00] right? You need to really pay attention to how you are presenting them with the best option, right? How is playing for me? How is working for me? Advantageous to you. How am I making you better? How am I? And and that's and I'm, of course, in the college sports landscape.
That's something that I think a lot of people are navigating through right now with the freedom around transferring and those kind of things. And whatever is a better or worse system is kind of a whole separate debate. But the reality is, You have to really think of it in those terms and think, look, if, why should somebody want to be here and be part of this program if they're not getting better, if they're not learning anything, if they don't see a future for themselves, and if they're not, if I'm not articulating to them a vision of where we're going and why it's compelling, right?
And that's something that is just good leadership in any scenario.[00:17:00]
Matt Doherty: Well, I talk about the model that I've developed called the six KNOWS K. N. O. W. S. of leadership. And I made up this acronym called steve it. I tell a story that steve. It was an eastern european kid that I try to recruit. Just so it hopefully sticks, right? Stories stick. I think most good communicators are able to tell stories and that resonates with people.
So stevit is the acronym S. Is you got to know yourself because if you don't know yourself, you can't lead others. And then the T is you got to know your team and not everybody is the same not only in talent, but how they retain information, how they, how they receive coaching. You can't coach everybody the same.
And I think that was a mistake that I. Probably made. And then you got to know your environment. Like every job is a political [00:18:00] web. You know, you have hierarchy, you have athletic directors, you have presidents, you have board of trustees, you have boosters, you have former players. You got to know your environment.
And then you touched on the V is vision. Where are you going? Because if you don't know where you're going, how can you expect people to follow you? And then the eye is is the industry. You've got to know the industry. People are going to follow people that have competence in their industry. And so and then the last thing, and it's probably the most important is the truth.
You got to know the truth. You got to mine for the truth. And that is an art form in itself, right? How can you get players to give you honest feedback? How can you give your assistance? to give you honest feedback. And I wasn't probably great at that. So you know, if you don't manage the truth, the truth will manage you right out the door.
So those are the six no's of leadership. [00:19:00] And it's something that I try to teach to corporate America.
Ross Romano: Yeah, that last one stands out. Not only as far as managing the truth and determining how to communicate that, but just as far as the importance of proactive communication, I think, and talk a lot about and do a lot around and. That it's the perspective taking piece, the piece of tuning into those around you, those who are part of the organization thinking about what are the things they'd be interested in knowing what is going to.
Enable them to feel a higher level of trust about what we're doing here to understand our vision better so they can make better decisions in the work they're doing and they get better. What are the gaps in awareness that they're going to fill with some other narrative, right? And then you lose control of perhaps what the truth is because, okay, there's nothing to hide [00:20:00] here.
We're doing the right thing, but I haven't engaged people in that. And now they're thinking they must be hiding something or. They're making a different assumption, right? And that's it's a pretty quick way to lose control of an organization.
Matt Doherty: Yeah. I think every organization needs to have core values. At North Carolina we, we had three, we play hard, play smart, play together, right? Those were our core values. You recruit to that, you train to that, and you discipline to that. And my core values are RTCP, respect, trust, commitment, positivity.
And I think that, To develop a trust, you've got to show people respect first and foremost. And then the trust is, are you consistent? Are you going to do what you say? Even when it's, it's hard. And then commitment, the commitment to getting better, the commitment to your players, the commitment to your staff, a servant leader, which Dean Smith [00:21:00] was the epitome of servant leader.
And then positivity, I added positivity a few years ago because I don't like being around negative people. Kevin Stallings, who was a great coach at Vanderbilt and a good friend of mine said there's two kind of players. There's energy givers and energy suckers, right? And there's two kind of staff members, energy givers and energy suckers.
And so you want to be, I want to be around energy givers.
Ross Romano: Yeah. How do you, I mean, what's the reflective process around that? I think that, I mean, cause it's a great way to divide it up. Right. And I think any of us who have been around people who fit into one or the other bucket can recognize it pretty quickly, but I think sometimes people don't recognize it in themselves.
Especially if they're being kind of an energy sucker, not necessarily in the sense of being overly negative in an over the top way, but in the ways where they are [00:22:00] missing those opportunities to give energy and where they're sort of almost magnetically pulling energy out of the equation.
Matt Doherty: yeah, it's one thing I learned from an executive coach I worked with when I was coaching in North Carolina, dr jerry bell he talked about communication is 50 percent body language, 35 percent tone and only 15 percent content. So basically it's what my mother used to say. It's, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
Right. And so and we control that. As a leader, as a coach, as a head coach I, I used the phrase I bring the weather. Okay. So players don't have bad practices. Coaches do. Right? So how do you show up when you hit the floor? Are you bringing energy to the practice floor? And if you are, then that permeates through the team, right?
So I think that's, that's so [00:23:00] important. Jack Welch in his book straight from the gut. Jack Welch was the legendary ceo of G. E. Said that he looks for four things in employees. One, do they bring energy to, can they energize others? Three can they execute and then four, can they do it with an edge?
And when I read that the first person I thought of was Michael Jordan. So I use that in my evaluation of players when I was a scout for the pacers. What is energy? Well, when I look at the great players. Michael Jordan. And then I had the pleasure when I was coaching at SMU, we had a great practice facility.
So a lot of teams, including the Mavericks and other teams coming in to play the Mavericks would, would practice in our facility. So I get to watch, I got to watch LeBron James. I got to watch Jason kid. I got to watch Dirk Novitsky and they. Love the game. They love practice. They, they, [00:24:00] the practice would be over.
They'd be in the, still in the gym playing horse. They had great energy. They engaged with their teammates. They engage with their coaches. You could see it in their eyes. And I think that that's such an important ingredient that is probably undervalued when I was working for the Pacers. And I'd go I, I covered the Southeast, but every.
Quarter. I'd probably go to Indianapolis and watch the Pacers play. We'd have meetings and I'd go down to the court during the early warmups. Like an hour and a half before the game. And I'd sit with the legendary NBA executive, Donnie Walsh Donnie and I sit next to each other. And I just wanted to soak up his wisdom and Donnie's from the Bronx.
Donnie played at North Carolina and he One day he said you know, it sounds like he's, he sounded like he smoked 10 packs of camels a day. He had this [00:25:00] gruff New York accent and people from New York call me Maddie. Right? So I'm sitting next to him on the bench, watching guys warm up. And he said Maddie, the most important ingredient in an NBA player.
And he, he paused and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I looked around. I'm like, I'm getting ready to get a nugget here that no one else has. And he said, the most important ingredient in a player is energy. And I'm like, wow, energy. They're playing 82 games a year. They're playing. Four games in a week, they're playing a game the next day.
They're getting on a plane that night. They're getting on a plane to go to another city to play another game the next day. And so to get through that season, they need to have energy,
Ross Romano: Yeah. It strikes me as I'm putting together an idea as you're talking, but a lot of the, there's a consistent through line and some of these seemingly disparate elements servant leadership and having [00:26:00] that energy, having that being an energy giver, that positivity, all those things that there's this necessity of confidence, self confidence and.
You know, I guess the pull another basketball related term into it, having the confidence to trust the process in that sense of saying, like, I am going to really pay close attention to the things that I need to bring to this team or this organization. I'm going to execute on that. I'm going to see it through.
I'm going to have the confidence to know that if I'm doing the right thing, the results will come. And I'm not going to be afraid of in the sense of, like, servant leadership, there's a humility to that. Right. And it's, I have to have the confidence to do that and not to try to have to act important.
You know, I need to just serve bringing energy to a team is another way of serving. Right. I can't, I'm not going to be afraid to look dumb or to right. Be the one who's positive [00:27:00] when things aren't going well, or who's going to do the dirty work and the little things. And the things that don't look cool so to speak.
Right. I'm going to just, Do the right thing that needs to be done and be confident that will the results will show So even though those are totally different kind of things. I think there's a commonality there in Knowing who you are knowing what's the right way to approach your work and being confident to see it through
Matt Doherty: Yeah. And that confidence you know, as a college player I tell young people that you have to fill up a bag with half. Half the bag of with confidence and the coach fills it up with the other half. I think in the NBA, it's probably the player has to fill it up like 90 percent and the coach fills it up 10%.
And so that's where we all need encouragers in our lives. And so we need to have a, I call it a personal board of directors. I stole that from a [00:28:00] guy named Bob Bodine. And you know, who are your personal board of directors and on our personal board of directors, we need. Encouragers, we need cheerleaders.
We need people that are support you, but we also need truth tellers. Right. So someone says, Oh yeah, I think you could play in the NBA, but maybe you're not capable of it. So, you know I think that that's the, the balance, right. I want to encourage you to chase your dreams, but also you're, you're five foot two non athletic post player, probably not going to make it in the NBA.
So how can you encourage people doesn't mean you can't enjoy the game and be the best you can become. The other thing you touched on is confidence you know, you talk about the people you surround yourself with the person that you're around the most is yourself. And one thing that I think is the positive self talk that we need to give ourselves.
I do a podcast myself [00:29:00] and I interview people and I say, I asked a lot of the times I asked, what's your morning routine? And a lot of successful people do three things. They pray, they journal and they exercise. And I jokingly say, I'll do two of the three. I don't exercise in the morning. But. I was never a good journaler.
I think partly because I probably have some ADD where I'd look at a blank piece of paper and try to write my thoughts and I get distracted. So I, I've used this journal called the five minute journal and it prompts you with questions every morning and I do it at night. And and so what would make today a great day?
You know, what, what. You know, what affirmations, what are you telling yourself? And and then again, I'll talk about books. I read more now than I ever did in college. And this one book called soundtracks, it's about this public speaker and he [00:30:00] did a morning anthem. And it was basically 10 affirmations that I do every morning.
And one of them is I'm the CEO of me. Another one is everything always works out. Another one is momentum is messy. And I said that to myself during the day today. Momentum is messy because success isn't linear. You, if you're, if you're trying to do something special, you will face adversity. You will face setbacks.
You will face failure. Again, I was talking to the race team at 23 11, and you could have a great year and not win a race. You know, and if you, you may win one or two races it's like a baseball player, you, you bet three 33 and you go to the hall of fame, but that means you're striking out over six times or not getting on base over six times a game.
You know, so can you deal with that kind of adversity and that kind of failure? And [00:31:00] you can improve that. Some people aren't naturally wired to that. And, and so I think, but you can improve it. And you can prove that resiliency, you can prove that mental toughness. And a lot of it is what you're saying to yourself.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I mean it's People are going to have to listen. They're going to have to visualize this in their own head. But as far as success not being linear in one sense, it is quite literally a curve. It's kind of a bell curve, right? Then at the one end, if you're really not good at something, you're going to fail a lot.
But at the other end, the better you are, the more you're going to fail because you're going to be operating at a higher level, going against better competition. Pursuing more harder to attain jobs, right? Operating in a lot of pressure and a lot of failures going to come with that, right? You mentioned the baseball player.
Okay, if you have no ability at all, and you're playing at a low level, you're going to struggle. As you move up, maybe you're a really good high school player you're [00:32:00] succeeding all the time. If you're good enough to go professional, then you could still be one of the best pros, but you're going to lose more than you win.
Same thing with coaching. And that takes us to another great teacher adversity, right? And it's unavoidable and rebound is the name of your book. It's not just a basketball term. It also refers to bouncing back from struggles and totally applies. It doesn't make it any easier. In the moment, it doesn't mean that you necessarily welcome the tough times as they are happening.
But there's opportunities to learn later and there's like the few questions I think that are helpful to frame this around. It's like the what went wrong, why did this happen, how do you prepare for your next opportunity, which I think are core to the book. But what I guess. Yeah, like, I mean, you've written the book about it, right, so what how, what have, I guess, how have you developed your perspective around what adversity [00:33:00] means and should mean and what people should learn to make it mean in their lives?
Matt Doherty: Ah, I think perspective is a good word. When I was coaching, I had a friend who was a lieutenant colonel in the army and he gave me a challenge coin and I carry it with me every day. And when I was coaching at North Carolina, we were playing at Maryland my last year, we were, we lost by 50 points on the road, worst loss in Carolina basketball history.
And I remember reaching in my pocket and flipping the coin around and saying, you know what, it could be worse. I could be in Afghanistan. Today you know, a couple of things didn't go my way. And I said to myself, it could be worse. I could be caught in the fires in LA. I have a dear friend who's struggling with cancer and may not.
You know, live very long. It can always be worse. And one of my clients one time told me we have a [00:34:00] tendency to compare up and with social media makes it that much easier. You see these people living this life that we Want to live or feel we deserve to live, but we very rarely compare down to the people that are struggling, the people that are begging for food, the people that have it worse off than us.
And I think we need perspective in our lives to have a healthier. Mindset.
Ross Romano: Yeah, the kind of Some of the coaching like performance coaching work that I've done we refer to that as judging circumstances. And there's judging yourself, which is typically people who are really hard on themselves and they think they're not good enough. There's judging others, which is having harsh perspectives toward others and then judging circumstances, which is that comparison and that.
Taking a partial story of something that seems this person's doing better than I am, they seem to be succeeding, [00:35:00] whatever the case may be, and now it's making me feel differently about myself, instead of focusing on what are my actual goals, and a lot of times, like you mentioned with social media, the internet, the media in general, looking at Trying to interpret other people.
Matt Doherty: Yeah, I think that's one of the hardest
Ross Romano: succeeding in a way that you don't even care about, right? It's, they're doing well at something that I don't even want to do. And yet because I'm paying attention to them instead of me, it's changing my attitude.
Matt Doherty: and they might not even be succeeding. It just looks that way. Like I like to say, don't compare your everyday to someone's highlight film. And so a lot of people that look successful. route, probably living, maybe living in turmoil inner turmoil. So I think that that perspective is healthy.
And I also think that when you deal with adversity you know, God doesn't promise us a smooth path. He promises us hardship and you know, it, it forces us to lean on him. You know, you, [00:36:00] you get brought to your knees. Well, what do you, should you do when you're on your knees? You should pray. And so I think that one thing that helped me was bring me closer to God to realize, okay, God, why all right, how do you want to use me?
How do you want to use my talents? And so you talked earlier about vision and mission. Well, my mission statement is to make a positive impact on the people I meet and the groups I work with while dropping breadcrumbs to the Lord. Okay. So I feel like, all right, God, you put me in this situation.
I'm not coaching basketball, but I still have an impact on people and maybe more so as an executive coach, because if I'm doing a good job that flows from them through their organization. And and so, and then doing shows like this and writing a book hopefully that's, When I get to heaven, God will say well done my son.
Right. And so that that's my bigger goal. And, but we [00:37:00] can all lose sight of it because we get caught up in, Oh, look at that guy. He has a nice car. Look at that guy is a big house. Look at that guy. He's a member of this country club. So again, comparing down and running your own race, putting blinders on it's hard to do because we're humans.
Right. And we're flawed. We're all flawed.
Ross Romano: Yeah and I'm curious to, because I think this relates to things that you can learn about yourself and about your life in reflecting on adversity also can relate to things that are happening in your circumstances. As, as far as you reference leadership positions, coaching positions in large institutions, there's inherently the.
a political element to them and it's there's people who are Your biggest supporters and they're the ones who want to do in the role there's always going to be other people who disagree here [00:38:00] and there's parts of determining What is the playing field? What's the knowledge that I can act on and do something about and what are the other things?
That if there's nothing for me to do about it. I need to Let it go. Right. And I think there's part of that in the reflection on adversity that I'm sure there are things that you look back on and say, I would have done that differently. I would have made a different decision. I would have been better at this or that.
And there's probably other things that you know what, to the best of my reckoning with This thing went poorly because of a decision somebody else made or something that I disagree with in some other circumstance and the best thing I can do is just accept that and move on and I can't do anything about it.
Right. And I can't change. But there's an element of needing to be able to understand the difference. I would think,
Matt Doherty: You just described the serenity prayer, right? [00:39:00] God, give me the serenity to accept the things. I can't change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference,
Ross Romano: Right.
Matt Doherty: right? I pray that every morning. And so I think that you know, hopefully that gives me some peace. You know, I tried to get back to coaching a few times and wasn't.
Granted the opportunities. And I remember one time I got a text from an athletic director at a lower level school in the state of North Carolina that I thought I should have gotten. And he told me in a text that he's going in a different direction and I wheeled around out of my bed, got on my knees and.
you know, basically thank God that you know, for closing a door. Like sometimes you got to trust the closed door. And that's hard, especially for someone that's driven competitive wants to win. And sometimes God's closing a door and you don't know [00:40:00] why. But maybe come to a realization later on in life that, you know what, I'm glad I didn't get that opportunity.
So dealing with those setbacks you know, we are not as in control as we think we are. And so I think that again, giving that and, and, and accepting some of that gives us an inner peace that I know I, Can struggle with at times. And so again, that's why I like to think I'm drawn closer to God.
And then when we have some success, what happens is we kind of forget, right. That maybe that wasn't all us maybe our higher power had something to do. With that, and I believe that.
Ross Romano: (ad here) Yeah. Yeah, it's right. The challenge of continuously being mindful, reflecting and saying whether I'm having success or not you know, it's never all me. It's never not me at all. And I need to know what's my [00:41:00] role in this and what are the things that I need to appreciate and to your point. almost if you don't get a job you want or whatever the case may be. It's like having the mentality of I, I really wanted it. So I wish that they wanted me, but if they didn't want me, then I don't, then I shouldn't be there. Right? Like
Matt Doherty: well, you look as you talk, as you talk, it makes me think of Steph Curry. Steph Curry's dad played at Virginia Tech. Steph Curry, I remember seeing him in high school. He was small, slight was in a high flyer and he goes to Davidson. If he went to an ACC school, he may never have gotten the opportunity.
His first game, I think he had 13 turnovers. And Bob McKillop kept encouraging them. And so through that, he was able to work through some. Poor play and still had the confidence and the opportunity to play through those mistakes, whereas he was at a bigger school and he had those [00:42:00] mistakes. He might've been buried on the bench.
So the fact that he didn't get the opportunity to play in the ACC. Gave him an opportunity to flourish at Davidson. So you know, God works in mysterious ways.
Ross Romano: yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's full circle, right? Because it's, you have to, you Once you have the opportunity that you do have, whether it's the one that you thought you wanted, then it's, you have to make that a good opportunity and
Matt Doherty: Yeah. You got to make the most of where you are. And that goes back to your comments earlier for assistant coaches. They may not be in the job they have, but make that the best. Better opportunity, make that a better situation and people will recognize that again, I look back at Mr Hurley at St.
Anthony's. He had opportunities to go to different you know, take some college jobs and he stayed at St. Anthony's and ended up in the Hall of Fame. Bob McKillop had opportunities to leave Davidson, stayed at Davidson. One [00:43:00] over 500 games Hall of Fame coach. So if he would have gone somewhere else, would he've had that kind of success, who knows?
And, and so make the situation you're in better and, and don't always have your eye on another job because if you do your job, then you'll get rewarded in some way, shape or form.
Ross Romano: Yeah. What do you think makes that hard? Is it human nature? Is it society? Because it is true and it's also difficult.
Matt Doherty: Yeah, I think I think it's human nature. We always want more the disease of more, we want bigger, we want better. But I think if you have a piece about your confidence and knowing who you are, go back to the self awareness, you know the grass isn't always greener. And if you know who you are and fit is so important.
So I go back to Bob McKillop at Davidson that fit that fit him. And you know, I've seen coaches go to another job and maybe [00:44:00] it's a bigger job, but it's not a fit for who they are. And I think that you really have to know who you are and then find a match and then you'll have fulfillment, you know you know, Bob was never the highest paid coach in the country.
He wasn't even the highest paid coach in the Atlantic 10. But he had a lot of fulfillment. He worked with great kids at a great institution lived across the street, got to coach his two boys. His daughter went to school at Davidson and you know, he's been in the same house for about 35 years.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting how in, I mean, in some parts of life I think the concepts can feel a little easier and other times challenging, but it relates to, I mean, it certainly relates to leadership in organizations and something that I. Talk to people about around hiring in particular, right?
And to me, it's like. Choosing the right person for the job. If you're going to be [00:45:00] their supervisor.
Matt Doherty: Yeah. Choosing, choosing the right,
Ross Romano: of the job I mean, that might be an underestimate, but the biggest part of it is, what are you going to do? Once you hire them, how are you going to prepare them for success?
How are you going to support them? If you just have the mentality of. All right, I picked you now you'll either succeed or fail, then you're going to see a lot of failure. The same thing I noticed this when I was. Especially as I was coming of age to. Get married and and a lot of friends and peers were not super close to it.
And the thing I thought that I noticed about the anxieties around it, and this is like, particular to men, right, was the reason you're afraid of this. Is because you're just removing all of your own agency and responsibility, and you're just worried get married to this person, and I don't know if they're going to make me happy.[00:46:00]
I don't know if they're going to make this and it's not instead of thinking, what are you going to do to make it a great relationship? Right? What are you going to bring to it? How are you going to be responsible for it? And I'm like, again and again, it was that piece of, what am I doing to Turn my circumstances and my opportunities into great outcomes.
And am I just worried about what somebody else is going to do or thinking that it's all about what's done to me versus what I can do about it.
Matt Doherty: right. That's right. You take the initiative so a lot of that is about fit, right? Whether it's a spouse, a job it's about fit and aligning with again, your values and the values of that other person or that other institution.
Ross Romano: Amazing. Well, we're getting close to the end of the conversation and I guess I wanted to tie it together by revisiting I think this is a good final kind of thought for our listeners. This concept of [00:47:00] leadership is a learned behavior, right? And you write about, I believe kind of having an introduction into a lot of this, even after your coaching career.
And I think 1 of the things that illustrated was your interest in continuing to learn more and learn about leadership, even after you would have. I'm sure you very easily could have continued to get professional opportunities and get into executive coaching and denoting in the various things you've done by just coasting off of everything you had already done.
Right. But you had an interest in continuing to learn more. And I guess that's the thing that I would be interested in leaving our listeners with is. How would you advise or encourage them regardless of where they are right now how much they're succeeding to continue pursuing more and this point of leadership as a learned behavior that there's always more to learn about being a great leader, being a leader in different environments.
Matt Doherty: Yeah. Well, when I was got let go at North [00:48:00] Carolina my leadership was questioned. And at that point I felt like you're either born leader or you're not. And with my leadership coming under scrutiny, I was told I wasn't a good leader. And so I went on a leadership journey to learn more. It's like after, I think as a coach or a player, I think you have, there's so many transferable skills to life and business and, and having a background in sports and one of the things that you do after game win or lose is watch the film and learn from it.
Right. So I wanted to watch the film of my coaching career. And what could I have done better? And so I went on this leadership journey and I remember taking a class at Wharton and it was just an executive class. And the first day the instructor, Fran Johnston was teaching out of the book. Primal leadership, the art of emotional intelligence.
And in the book was a sentence that leadership is a learned behavior. And it was the most exciting thing I ever read. Why? Because [00:49:00] I was told that I wasn't a good leader. And now I realized I can become a good leader. And so and, and, and that was really powerful for me. And so again, I wanted to look back and say, all right, I lost the game.
I lost my job. What could I have done differently? And it's just like you lose a basketball game. You're like, okay, we should have played more zone. Okay. We should have sub more. Okay. We need to work on our foul shooting. What can we fix to get better? And that's what I did. And now I wrote that book rebound and I want to help people avoid the landmines I stepped on.
And I think that's my purpose. My purpose is to teach and coach again. It's just you know, I think we all need to find our purpose. What is our purpose in life? And when you find that and you can sync it up with a career. That's very fulfilling. And so I think to remain curious, [00:50:00] always ask why, why, why.
And again, I go back to your life's impacted by three things. The people you meet, who are you, who are you hanging out with? Who are you, who are you learning from? And then what books are you reading? What podcasts are you listening to? And then the trauma the trauma is coming, whether you like it or not.
And I recommend some self induced trauma. What is that? How do you get that through assessments? I give my clients 360 degree assessments. I had it done after I lost my job at North Carolina and I learned some things where it's confidential input from people you work with. when you read something in an assessment that states that you handled situations in a certain manner that wasn't so flattering, that sticks with you.
That's trauma, that's self induced trauma, and that's mining for the truth. Again, if you don't mine for the truth, the truth will if you don't manage the truth, the truth will manage you right out the door. So I want to get ahead of that [00:51:00] and ride it like a wave, as opposed to being on the. Shore and getting crushed by the wave.
So continually to learn. My motto is to learn and grow continuous learning and growing. And leadership is a practice. And what do I mean by that? I didn't understand until about three or four years ago, when I started as an executive coach that you know, doctors would say, I have a medical practice lawyers would have a legal practice.
Dennis would have a dental practice. And I used to joke saying doc, I don't want you working, practicing on me when you get good enough to operate on me, you can operate on me. But why is it a practice? Because it's skills. Those are skills. Doctors have skills. They have to cut people open.
They have to find things in your body. Dentists have to extract teeth, create teeth. Bridge your teeth lawyers, there's constant new [00:52:00] laws. There's, there's, there's things coming out, new cases, and they have to stay up to date and practice. Well, leadership's a practice. You are not going to have be perfect.
You're going to make a mistake. And I use an analogy of it's like getting in the red zone of football. You're in the side, the 20 getting ready to score. And then somebody pushes a button and extends the field a hundred yards. That's leadership. And so you got to practice and you will fumble. And when you do watch the film and get better and try to avoid that fumble in the future.
Ross Romano: Amazing. Well, we will, I will put the links below listeners to website to you can learn about his work is book there. Anything in particular you'd like people to check out.
Matt Doherty: Yeah, they'd go to my website. It's a dohertycoaching. com that's D O H E R T Y coaching. com. And they can get I do keynote talks, executive coaching. And workshops. [00:53:00] So yeah, go, go there and you can get all the information you need.
Ross Romano: Wonderful. Well, yeah, this episode as it will be appearing in a couple of different places, whether you're out there coming from the sports world or in school leadership or leadership in other organizations will make the links easy to find. So you can follow through on the resources and information that are helpful to you.
Please also do subscribe to. Sideline sessions in the authority, depending on where you're listening. If you find this conversation valuable, I'm sure you'll find more episodes that are helpful to you, or you can visit the podcast dot network to learn about more shows in the education field. Coach Matt Daugherty, thanks so much for being here.
Matt Doherty: Thanks for having me on the show.
